I'm an aunt again!

My sister and her hubby have expanded their family to include one more.  Choosing to make Gramma look silly, Little Na waited until 3 a.m. local time on May 28th to make her entrance into the world.  (My sister tells me that she got the full epidural after Na was actually born.  Funny story there.)  Word is that her big brothers are already in love.  Or at least heavy into smooching their baby sister.  (Who, according to A, has "a boy haircut.")

Sis, Na, and BIL

Isn't she just the cutest?

T-minus 10 Days

I itch, I hurt, and I can't move.

I cannot wait for this cast to be GONE.

I have laundry that needs to be folded, and it's not exactly easy.

Gah.

How was my day?

About like that. Thanks for asking.

A New Milestone

"My toof is bleeding again!" Medium shouted as she came into the kitchen.

This is about the third time in the last week that Medium has come in to tell us that her loose tooth is bleeding.  This particular sucker was tethered especially well with well-fed tissues, so it bled when she bumped it with her toothbrush.  Or her spoon.  Or wiggled it hard.

About a week ago, I'd tried to pull it, but Medium yelped, even with orajel applied beforehand.

It was a lot looser this afternoon.

I figured it would come out easily.

I put more orajel on it when Medium asked me to.

"Do you think you can get it?" she asked me.

Ohhhhhhhh, I really wished Daddy was home instead of in the midst of a youth group event for the afternoon.  This makes me really squeamish.  It must be because it's been so long since I've yanked any of my own baby teeth.  Or something.

Either way, I confessed to Medium that I'm a wimp, and didn't want to do it...and that maybe she should wait and ask Daddy to do it.

"But it'll huhwrt if Daddy does it!"

Oooookay.  All right, I'd try it.

I grabbed a napkin, knowing that loose teeth are known to be a bit slippery and that the napkin would help me get a better grip.

But Medium wouldn't open her mouth.

I finally gave up on getting her to let me take a shot at pulling the tooth.  "I just want to look," I told her as she clamped her lips shut.

"You'wre gonna try to get it!" she squeezed out between clenched teeth.

I set the napkin down.  "See?  I'm not gonna pull it.  Let me see."

I looked again.  Yeah, that bad boy was ready to come out.

"I wanna try it."

I gave Medium a dubious expression.

"I wanna do it."

"Okay."  I handed her the napkin.

She fiddled with the napkin a little, and then grabbed hold of her tooth.

Not a peep of discomfort and two seconds later, the tooth was out of her mouth.

Yep, all by herself!

Holey moley.

Hubby puts the "fun" in "funeral"...

Hubby and PeeJay do not have a church secretary that works for them and the church.

No, Miss Wanda is so much more than that.

Her official title is "Ministerial Assistant," but that still glosses over all that she does.

So, when we heard that Miss Wanda's mom passed away earlier this week, it was a no-brainer. Hubby and I would be attending the funeral.

The Fries, who just looooooove Miss Wanda, made her a wonderful card before they went to school on Tuesday.

Hubby managed to get lost on the way to the funeral home. This is significant for two reasons. One, this may be the first time in nearly 17 years of marriage that Hubby has admitted to being lost. Two, we live in a town with a population of about 5300, not counting horses, sheep, llamas, and cows. And the funeral home is on the main drag right through town. Kinda hard to miss. And Hubby has a map in his head that would rival Rand McNally's.

So, once Hubby reoriented himself, we arrived at the funeral home.  The last time I'd been at this place, the officiating minister had interspersed over 60 "amens" in less than 12 minutes of homily. (Yes, Hubby counted.)

We went in and paid our respects to Miss Wanda and her family, and took our seats.

During the first hymn that was played, Hubby leaned over and whispered that he wanted a church funeral. I nodded, already having that one figured out.

The he whispered,  "And I want 'The Trumpet of Jesus' played...on bagpipes."

I tried desperately to contain my bubbling giggles.  And I poked and elbowed Hubby several times.  He sniggered at me.

I'm still chuckling as I think about it.

My dad is going to be either horrified (that's a favorite song of his) or entertained.

Nobody does indignance quite like Medium.

Last night...

I'm at the end of our tuck-in routine with the twins.  Hubby had board meeting last night, so he wasn't home for bedtime.

Me: I'll tell Daddy to come up and give you hugs and kisses when he gets home.

Medium:  Will you really?

Me: Yes.  I'll tell him.

Medium:  Before he starts talking?

Me: Yes.  But remember, he probably won't get home until after you're already asleep.

Medium: Okay.

I ended up telling Large Fry the same thing.

Large: Text!

Okay.  So I sent Hubby a text.  He got home from board meeting around 9:30, and went upstairs to peek in on the kids.  He was back downstairs within a minute.

Hubby: All three of 'em are out cold.


Tonight...

Once again, I'm at the end of tuck-in time.  Hubby was still at praise team practice (which always happens on Tuesday nights), so it was just me tonight, as well.

Me:  I'll tell Daddy to come up and give you hugs and kisses.

Medium [indignantly]: Like you did last time?  Daddy didn't come up!

Me [trying to hold back my amusement]:  Daddy did come up last night when he got home.  You were already asleep!

Medium [deflated]:  Oh.

Mother's Day

This is a holiday I have such mixed feelings about.

On the one hand, it festers deep in my soul.  A lot of times, I feel like a "fake" mom. I didn't give birth to my kids.  I didn't adopt them.  They're not even fosters.  "Children of my heart" sometimes seems like a catch-phrase that allows me to horn in a holiday I shouldn't have...no matter how true that phrase is.  There's nothing worse than being honored for something and, at the same time, feeling like a fraud.  (Yes, I'm well aware that I'm legit.  Feelings aren't bound by logic.)  So, sometimes Mother's Day makes me feel a little squirrelly.

On the other, I feel delight that goes clear down through my toes.  I love being mom to my three girls, and I love their unabashed expressions of love that come with Mother's Day.  This year, I got a tissue paper flower from Large Fry, which she made at school; two plastic plates lovingly and enthusiastically decorated for me by each twin, with "About My Mom" books they'd written in, also done at school; a styrofoam cup and gold glittery pipecleaner trophy that Large Fry made in Sunday School; and two small potted begonias that the twins picked out for me, along with big cards made in Sunday School.  And, of course, my mom made me a card, and I got a card from Hubby and one from the Fries.  No jewelry.  No expensive gift.  But what I got were priceless things, made by my children, and nothing you could find at the jewelry counter at Kohl's would be better than the gifts my girls made for me.

This year was special, because I had both my mom and my mother-in-law with me for Mother's Day.  That doesn't usually happen.  I do not have mother-in-law issues.  (I was smart, and prayed for good in-laws, and God chose to answer that prayer with a big ol' YES.)

Mom and Dad chose to come out for church at PSC for Mother's Day, so the whole bunch of us, plus Ultimate Babysitter (one of our youth group teens; she babysits for us and the girls love her), crowded into a pew.  Well, except for Hubby, since his dual role as pastor of both youth and worship ministries means he's on the platform for the first half of the service or so.


I was sitting on the end of the pew, with my mother-in-law on my right and my dad on my left.  To Dad's left was Small Fry, who was happily sitting between both Gramma and Poppa.


Hubby and PeeJay wanted to find a nice way to honor moms, and so, during the first half of the service, they showed this video:


As we walked outside to the cars after church, I strolled alongside Dad, who told me that he'd observed a couple of things during the video.

First, Small Fry and I had connected gazes right at the time the narrator spoke of how moms rubbing their kids' backs makes them feel safe.  She grinned impishly at me, I know, and I smiled back in return.  I do that a lot when they come up to me and want a hug or a snuggle, just gently stroke my hand up and down a few times.  Or when they're sick.  Or when they're crying and hurting.  The look on Small's face, while impish, also communicated quite obviously—to both me and Dad, apparently—I know that's why you do that, Mommy, and I like it.

Second, which I didn't know about, was at the end of the video, probably right around where the narrator paraphrases Proverbs 31.  Small looked directly at me again.  I was still looking at the screen, and thinking about my moms who were there with me, and about my kids.  Dad said it was once again obvious on Small's face that she knew I was the one who did all the stuff mentioned in the video, and I did it for them.  And that it was clear she knew I was really Mom.  "It was so precious," Dad said.

Yeah.

And I missed it!

I kinda want to kick myself for that, but then, Dad saw.  And he told me.

And I have it here, so that I can go back and remind myself...my girls know how much I love them, and they know I'm their mom.

That is a gift beyond compare.

Overheard

Hubby: What are you doing? Medium Fry: Snuggling! 'Cause you're the best. And the snuggliest. And so is Mommy.

Just now...

My cell phone just rang.  It's Hubby.

Hubby: Did you know my mother was coming?

Me: Um, noooo...

Hubby: Well, she's here!

Me: Cool!

And, honestly, it is cool.  I love my mother-in-law, and I'm delighted she decided to visit.

By show of hands...

Has this ever happened to you?



A friend on Facebook posted that picture, asking that same question.

Several folks responded, with their own stories or ones they'd overheard.  One even acknowledged that it was surprising it had never happened to them, given that they had 13 kids.  (I winced when I read that.  Ow.)

I've never been left behind by my folks.  However, Hubby wasn't so lucky.

Now, there's a few key things to be aware of here.  One, Hubby refers to himself as the "What do you mean, you're pregnant?" baby.  He freely admits he was trying to be prevented, and has also called himself the Defective Latex Poster Child for his year of birth.  He came along 9 years after his parents thought they were done.  His oldest sister is 12 years his senior, the next sister is 11 years his senior, and his only brother is 9 years older.

Two, the town Hubby grew up in can best be described as...well...HeeHaw would have saluted this towns 1017 residents.  (It's closer to 1200ish in population now, which is still only about a fifth the size of the town where we live now.)  There's ONE traffic light.  They got rid of the blinking yellow by the school years ago.  It didn't get a McDonald's until 1994.  It fulfilled the definition of a small town that I read in Reader's Digest moons ago: a place where everyone knows whose check is good and whose husband isn't.

Now, when Hubby was about five (which would make sister #2, Lou, about 16), his mom, Lou, and he went out to their church during the middle of the week for some reason.  I forget what, exactly.  While Mom and Lou worked or did whatever, Hubby happily played in the church nursery.  After awhile, he came out of the nursery to look for them.  They weren't there.  He found the pastor's wife instead, and asked if she'd seen his mom.  Mrs. H, the pastor's wife, told him that his mom and sister had left several minutes before.  She drove him home.

So, since I didn't have a story of my own to share, I shared Hubby's.

And then I told him about the post my friend Jan had made, shared some of the stories with him, and he proceeded to tell me that history had very nearly repeated itself.

Last Saturday, Hubby took the Fries with him to praise team practice, since I had come unglued at the thought of having to survive another morning on my own.  He'd only just gotten home Friday night.  And since I was shaking and crying at the thought of Saturday morning without him, he kindly took the girls (ages 7, 6, and 6) with him so that I didn't end up checked into a room with rubber wallpaper.

Let me explain a bit about our church.  It's been here in this town since...oh...well, around the turn of the century.  The 20th century.  It's been at its current location in town since some time in the early 1920s or '30s, I think.  The current sanctuary was built in 1959.  More space was just added on when it was needed.  It took most of the first year that we were there for me to figure out the layout of the church.  There's no real obvious "front entrance."  It's one really old building that's had more and more and more added onto it, so that now it seems to not have much rhyme or reason.  It's a great place to play Sardines.

And a great place for three little girls to whoop and holler and giggle and run around.

Which, naturally, is what they did after Hubby had wrapped up practice and was finishing a few final things before leaving for home.

Finally, when he was just about ready, and all the Fries were actually in the sanctuary, he hollered at them to go get into the van.

They scampered off.

Hubby was, he said, about sixty seconds behind them.  Plenty of time for them to get to the van, get in (bless those powered doors), get buckled, and be ready when he got to the van.

And that's exactly what he expected.  Since the Fries can operate the van's sliding doors themselves, he thought nothing of the fact that both doors were closed when he got in the van.  He buckled up, started the van, and shifted into drive before asking, "Is everybody buckled?"

Silence.

He looked in the back...and discovered he was alone.

I am happy to report that he did come home with the children, so it's not like they were actually left behind.

Almost, though.

Almost.

Yes, I'm still chuckling at him.

There Will Be Blood Tonight!

I suppose, more accurately, there's been blood tonight.

Hubby took Small Fry with him when he went to pick up Large Fry from ribbon dance tonight.

When they got home, Small Fry came up to me in tears.  "Mommy, look!"

She showed me her scraped-up elbow.

Hubby and Large Fry trailed into the den after her.  She stood there sniffling and shoving her elbow in my face.

I've been recovering from last night's killer migraine, and it's been raining and storming off and on for the last two days.  I still don't feel quite up to snuff, so I wasn't sure why Small was just standing near me and Hubby wasn't going to patch up her boo-boo.  I was really only downstairs because I had promised the twins I would watch Disney's Tarzan with them (which Medium and I had watched when she was home sick on Wednesday, and had been begging to watch again).

Hubby collapsed on the couch.

"What happened?" I asked him.

"She fell on her as...phalt," he said.

I gave him long-suffering look.

"The parking lot at the church was wet from the rain, and she was spinning around.  I think she slipped on one of the paint stripes.  She wanted you to fix it."

I stood up to take Small into the kitchen.

"I guess Mommy's better at fixing boo-boos."

"Can you come lift her onto the island?" I asked Hubby.

By the time I got to the kitchen, Small had already clambered up on the island.  I went looking for the hydrogen peroxide, which I knew was in the kitchen somewhere from our last bike escapade.  I found it on the counter (rather than in the pantry, where I thought it was).

I remember hating the "dancing bubbles," as my mom called them.  They stung.  And hurt.  No matter how much she told me it didn't hurt that bad, I cried every time Mom used them when I was Small's age.  I poured some peroxide into one of our many medicine cups and used one of our medicine syringes to dribble the peroxide over her scrape.

I wasn't surprised when Small started screaming and crying.  I called for Hubby to come hold Small's other hand, because she had started digging her fingers into her upper arm, and I was afraid she'd scratch herself up more.

"I got out most of the rocks," Hubby told me as he tried to soothe Small Fry.  "It's not so bad," he said to her.  "Here, put your hand under your bottom.  It doesn't hurt that much.  Calm down."

"I remember it hurting like that when I was her age."  I dribbled more peroxide, watching it continue to foam over her scrapes.

Hubby turned to the cupboard where we kept first aid stuff and pulled out a Disney princess bandaid.

And that's when Large burst into the kitchen, tears streaming down her face.  "Mooooooommy!"  I couldn't even get out a response before she wailed, "My tooth came out!"

Well, sure enough, there was blood all over her teeth and lips.  Hubby dropped the bandaid on the counter as I passed him a clean napkin for Large Fry.

"It's in here!"  Large held out a small bite of pizza.

I was so glad she handed that to Hubby while I squirted the remaining peroxide back in the bottle and got a clean napkin to blot Small's boo-boo dry.  Tears still streamed down her face.  Large had looked terrified when she came into the kitchen, but now she looked on the verge of giggling.  "I'm so happy!" she wailed.

"Which tooth did she lose?" I asked him, hoping it was one of the two baby teeth in her lower jaw that are still in there, despite the permanent teeth that have completely erupted behind them (the dentist said to "just work on them").

"I don't know yet."  Hubby folded up the napkin and had Large bite down, since she was still bleeding.

Large stood there, chomping down on the napkin, while Hubby turned back to me and handed me the bandaid.  "Ooooo, it's all the princesses!" Hubby told Small.

As it turned out, the tooth Large lost was one of the upper ones.  Seems the Tooth Fairy will be visiting tonight.  Which means I'd better find Hubby's change stash, since I'm all out of quarters, and he's not.

And, if you count Medium's scab that she scratched open earlier this afternoon, all three of the kids have shed blood today.

I figured it would be my best friend's boys who would have that kind of bleeding down to an art form, not my three girls.  :)

Just Now

Medium Fry: Mommy? Is it okay if I go to sleep? Me: Yes, honey. That's very okay. (The twins got sick within an hour of each other last night. Medium had picked Disney's Robin Hood as our first movie, and is already tired. The archery contest hasn't even happened yet.)

Into the Cap!

Medium Fry came home from school today, almost quivering in excitement.  Even from across the street, I could see that she held a special find in her hand.

My fine feathered friend.

Holy snot, that's a big feather.  That sucker must be 15" long.  At least.  I often see hawks and vultures circling around out here, but I've yet to get a picture of any of these raptors.  Not one good enough to satisfy me, anyway.

I am not sure what bird left that feather behind in the school yard for Medium to find, but I am sure it's a big ol' sucker.

We've found feathers before, but never ones like this.

Pretty cool.

In Which Mommy and Daddy are Mean and Evil

There are things taped to the walls all over one end of my kitchen.

They stretch down the hall towards the den and up the stairs towards the main level of the house.

Most of them are words on 3"x5" cards.  Some of them are the twins' "heart words," the ones they should be able to read, spell, and write by the end of kindergarten.  A few are the twins' shapes/words that they need to recognize.  The majority of the rest are Large Fry's spelling word lists.  There's a piece of paper with our address and phone number on it.

And there's a small piece of paper, ripped from a to-do list tablet, with the words "Today's Chores" written on it in Hubby's hand.

The chores rotate, based on what needs to be done, and they're all age-appropriate: Empty the dishwasher.  Pick up trash from the floor.  Gather trash from the small trash cans around the house.  Clean your room.  Pick up the toy room.  Feed the kitties.  Bring down your dirty laundry.

Nothing too earth-shattering, and usually just one or two a day, with Sundays off.

Today, there are three: pick up trash, gather trash from trash cans, and clean up the toy room.  Tomorrow is trash day, so the first two are self-explanatory.  The toy room is a disaster and one of the cats expressed its displeasure with the state and peed on some play clothes.  Those got pitched in a hurry last night, and I cleaned up the mess that was left from that and put out some more moth balls (the cats hate them and won't pee near them; you're welcome for that new fact).  Plus, the kids had completely annexed one of my laundry baskets and loaded it with toys.  There are five people in this house.  I need all my laundry baskets!  (Medium had no clue what I was talking about when I told them to empty out my laundry basket.  "I don't see one!" she said.  That big green thing, honey.  It's for clothes.  "Ohhhhh.")

Last Wednesday, when my folks were here, one of the Fries took it upon herself to show the chores list to Gramma and explain it's stuff that they have to do...and how evil and mean their parents are for making them do chores.

Wrooooooooong person to complain to!

Gramma launched into conversation.  How she made Mommy and Daddy S and Auntie JS all do chores.  How, when we were older, if our rooms were left messy when we went away for summer camp, she would clean them to her standards, bag up everything that wasn't put away, and we'd have to ransom the bags back for a price...and how we could only ransom one bag at a time (and not one of our choosing), and couldn't get another until we'd put away the stuff in the first bag.  And how Auntie JS managed to lose her church shoes to those bags...and each shoe was in a different bag, and she'd had to wear sneakers with her dress one Sunday (I think it cost her $6-7 to get her shoes back, at $1 a bag).

"Do you know why Mommy and Daddy are having you do chores?" Gramma asked.

Large Fry came up with an explanation—we have had this conversation—and it was close to what I said.  I had explained that they needed to know how to do these things; when they're adults, they'll have to, 'cause Mommy isn't coming over to clean their houses when they're grownups.  And they won't know how unless we teach them, and the best way to learn in this case is by doing.

Gramma went on to regale the Fries with the types of jobs we had to do as we got older.

I think they got the picture that we're not asking them to do too much.

When I told Hubby how they had cried to Gramma about their chores, he just laughed, and said the same thing I did here: wrong person to complain to!

Incidentally, two of the three chores are done.  The Fries are grumpily in the toy room, pretending to clean.

Twice I've been tattled to.

About par for the course here.

TSME Day 4: Recap

Monday:

• Rain.  Pain.  (They usually go together for me.)
• Second-grade math homework: brutal (for both me AND Large Fry).
• Small Fry willingly took a nap after school.  Unusual.
• Lots of tears and missing of Daddy/Hubby.  Most of them were mine.

Tuesday:

• More rain.
• Lots of whining about not being able to play outside in the cool, damp, and wet.
• I slip on the kitchen floor (which is out to get me...really), fall, and am in such pain that I really hope I haven't broken anything.  "Mommy, are you okay?" I hear, times 3.  No.  I'm hurting and nearly crying.  Breaking bones while Hubby is at Summit is not something I wanted to become a tradition (I broke my right pinky toe last year).  And last year, my misadventure was on the day Hubby returned...not three days before.  Tuesday, you should be better to me!  (Nothing broken.  Still a bit sore in places, though.)
• Medium's rather shattering revelation about why she thinks XSIL joined the Army.
• Bro calls and I don't even hear him leave a message on the machine.  (We suspect the sudden increase in his calls—usually, he gets the machine because we're nowhere near our house phone—has to do with the decided lack of child support in the last six weeks, despite employment since February.  He's not paying, so clearly, the next best thing is phone calls.  He must not have yet received the same paperwork from Domestic Relations that I received last Saturday.)
• We have the very exciting chicken cacciatore in the crockpot recipe that I finally decided to cook.  Two-thirds of a hit among the kids.
• I keep giggling to myself and wanting to rename the chicken cacciatore as Revolutionary Chicken, but I'm pretty sure most people wouldn't get the joke.
• Dad texts to see if he can come out on Wednesday.

Wednesday:

• I make a fast run to Walmart on the first uncloudy day of the week (I'm in desperate need of a wrist brace), between dropping the kids off at school and having to be back at the school an hour later for a Child Support Team meeting.  (Large Fry is continuing to struggle in school, and we're trying to see if we can show cause for learning disability testing, which is coming up iffy because Large is showing improvement...just inconsistently.  Innyhoo, the CST was formed to explore our options.)  This is a follow-up meeting, and we determine we're going to do a full reevaluation on her speech issues.  We all strongly suspect there's more going on there, and her last full eval was four and a half years ago.
• Still achy, still have a headache, so it's home to nap after the meeting, and a quick series of texts around noon with Dad.  Gramma got jealous when she heard he'd be coming out here and I'd invited him to stay for dinner, so his departure got delayed until Gramma got home from Wednesday stamping and could come too.
• What to do for dinner...erm...hey, I have chicken tenderloins.  I have taco seasoning.  I have lots of pepper strips in the freezer.  Chicken fajitas, in the crockpot!  I get that started and make a list of the things I'll need from the store in order to complete dinner: sour cream, tortillas, that sort of thing.
• Off to the church office—Hubby's paycheck is in, and we can usually get away with depositing it on Wednesday even though it won't really hit the account until the check goes live on Thursday.  Gabbed with Wanda, the ministerial assistant, for far too long (but it was so much fun), which put me behind schedule.
• Walmart again.  Dinner supplies.  Lady in line in front of me writes a check and has old home week with the cashier.  Argh.  I get home right at 3:30 and hobble to the corner to wave at the kids and tell 'em to come on down (we started this after my surgery, so that I wouldn't have to walk so far—I tired so easily—and we've kept it up).
• Homework.
• Mom and Dad arrive.  Mom has brought more stuff for the Flat Stanley scrapbook she made, and we discuss the CST meeting from this morning.  As a retired 1st-grade teacher, and one who was very good at diagnosing learning disabilities in children,  Mom wants to know all about this stuff.  And not just because it's her granddaughter.
• Dinner.  Medium and Large both have two fajitas before I can get through one myself.
• Much begging for ice cream.  We trundle off to Rita's, which had gotten ixnayed after Large Fry's spring school concert, since it was so cold.  However, there are many tears when the Fries discover that Doc McStuffins is over by the time we get home, and they have to go right to bed.  Tears abound.
• At quarter to ten, Large comes downstairs to tell me that the stinkbug crawling out in the hallway upstairs is keeping her awake...in her bedroom.  I go up and dispatch said stinkbug to Davy Jones' locker, tuck Large back in, and go back downstairs.

Today:

• Quash hopes and smiles and happiness at breakfast by announcing that, no, Daddy does not come back today.
• Decide that eating ice cream for breakfast is not a bad idea at all when I'm feeling like this, and so I do just that after the Fries get to school.
• Pick up kids from school.  Homework.  Medium apparently had a run-in with her nemesis, He-Man Woman-Hater King (who has since been moved to a different table away from Medium,

  

  Large's map.

  and told to stay away from her), and she misses Daddy, and this caused issues with homework.
• We went Scottish for dinner tonight, and I took the kids to McDonald's.  Large was supposed to have ribbon dance tonight, so I figured I would take her there, see if the twins could stay, and scoot out to the grocery store yet again (out of milk this time).  Get to the church...no ribbon dance.  Okay, everybody to the store.
• Get home in time to once again miss Doc McStuffins and I allow them to watch Little Einsteins before bed.
• Large tells me that she's drawn me a map so that I know how to get to the airport tomorrow to pick up Daddy.  She proudly shows me the map she drew, complete with parking lot, on the Etch-a-Sketch.
• Large suddenly wants to do bedtime prayers with the twins.  Oooookay.  So we do.
• And now she won't sleep in her own bed.  Because there's a house centipede under part of her bed frame.  It scooted under there to hide this morning when she went to get something out of her dresser.  Naturally, it's still there now.  I'm sure it's not, but I go downstairs to get the dustbuster (handy for catching house centipedes, which move faster than I can squish) and a flashlight.  I do not find the house centipede.  However, I do find two empty bags of semi-sweet chocolate chips, one empty carton that held a dozen Cadbury Creme mini-eggs, a wrapper from a small Hershey's chocolate bunny (leftover from what went in the kids' baskets for Easter, and hidden up in the

  

  Stash remnants.

  pantry for Hubby and I to have) and a whole bunch of Dove strawberry-chocolate candy wrappers.  We have a rule about candy in our house: you don't get to have any without Mommy and/or Daddy's permission.  And sneaking candy gets you in trouble.  (In fact, all three Fries had snuck candy right before Easter and lost the ability to have any Easter candy for a whole week.  They had to sit there and look at their full baskets and not be able to have any goodies.)  I collect all of the evidence, tuck Large in, and warn her that I'm going to have to talk with Daddy about this, because she's in a LOT of trouble. Thank goodness he comes home tomorrow...  Why, yes, I am counting hours.  T-minus 20 hours right about now.
  

Um...yeah.

Last night, Medium Fry was kinda helping me get things set up for dinner.  As I was working, she was talking about how she didn't like homework sometimes.

Quelle surprise.

 "Would I have homework in college?"

As previously stipulated here, Medium's subject changes are not entirely unexpected.

I chuckled.  "Oh, yes, honey.  You'll have homework in college."

"Then what will I do aftewr college?"

"Probably get a job, based on what you studied."

"Owr join the Awrmy."

Oy.  I should not have been surprised, but I was, since XSIL is so infrequently discussed.  But I knew immediately that this was the person who Medium was thinking of.

"Well, just because you don't get a job doesn't mean you have to join the Army."

My middle child should come with laser sights on her conversations, I'm telling you.

"Why did Mommy XSIL join the Awrmy?"

Gulp.

"I don't know, honey."  Not entirely true, but not entirely false either...I know why she said she joined, and I know why I suspect she joined, and those two things do not match up.

"I know!"

She does?  Um, we don't talk about why XSIL joined for obvious reasons.

"Because she wanted to get away fwrom us!"

Yeah.

We've never said that around ANY of the kids, again, for obvious reasons.  We really try not to bad-mouth the bios around the kids.  Really try.  We save our venting for our friends.  After the kids are asleep, or when they're not around.

Why is it these things always crop up when Daddy is gone?

You don't need any further proof that Medium is one smart cookie, do you?