Let's get ready to rumble!!!!!!!

I almost pity The Man's job.
They really made our attorney mad.
Very mad.
Spitting, swearing, "Oh my God I'm an attorney and I love this part of my job mad!"
And I'm just going to sit here and eat my popcorn and watch the show.

From the bowels of . . . my babies

My children love bodily functions. (Okay, so do their dad and I, but my kids are raising it to an art form!)
Bug is a champion burper. Give him a drink, he'll belch it for you. Repeatedly and with increasing fervor. And he'll say excuse me every time. Every time he does it in your face.
Boo is my stanky child. His poops will not only clear the room but burn your nose hairs off.
It's one of those moments where I yell, "What has your mother been feeding you?" and then I realize I am his mother, I know what he's been eating, and somewhere, in the depths of that small body, it has become toxic goo.
Oh Punk! My sweet baby girl is gas machine. She'll toot when she rolls, hiccups, sleeps, or grins. She lives her leg to let the aroma flow. She even freaked her poor dad out by tooting on his finger when he applied diaper cream.
My children are well versed in their bodily functions.
Bug has to announce every bathroom trip, and, if he does number 2, he yells loudly for us to come see what he's done.
And he describes the size and number of floating nuggets with obvious love and joy.
And if they are really big, he brags.
Boo is currently starting the road to potty trained success. Which means we're in love with an Elmo potty seat and he giggles with glee at the mention of *gasp* underwear!
Punk is hopeless. She laughs at all manner or noises emitted by her body and everyone else's. She thinks the bubble sin the bathtub are cause for celebration and squeals of joy. She doesn't seem to mind the stench her brothers regularly emit.
She thinks it funny.
She's a sick, sick child.
It's times like this where I shake my head and very devoutly place the blame squarely on their father's shoulders.

Sleep. . .the final frontier

I haven't had a good night sleep in over a week.
No, scratch that. I haven't had a good night sleep since I got married thirteen years ago.
And its partially my husband's fault.
The Man snores. Loudly.
He has a rather prominent nose--okay, we'll be kind and called in Romanesque-- and the amount of air needed to pass through it passages is staggering.
That amount of suction creates a lot of noise.
Think about sleeping next to a wind tunnel and you're a fraction of the way there.
I don't blame him. Much. Not everyone can be blessed with cute button noses that don't require their own zip code.
But, with so little sleep, I'm fussy, and looking for someplace to place the blame.
Tha Man's nose can handle it. Believe me.

Whay oh why do they want to go there so badly?

Have you ever noticed your children seem to want to visit the emergency room?
I don't remember it being much fun myself, but my kids all seem determined to go there.
They furniture dive, run amok and into furniture, fall off of beds, hit their heads, you name it, I think they've tried it.
This weekend, Boo decided it would be fun to spin in my office chair.
Until he fell over in it, hitting his head on a metal floor furnace grate and splitting it open.
Out comes Dr. Mom. Looking at it, it may have needed one suture.
So I weigh the options of taking him in, shelling out the copay for them to shave his head, lidocaine him (which burns) and put one suture in his head.
After much deliberation and debate (with myself--The Man left it up to me, feigning faint heartedness at the sight of blood) I opted not to take him in. Then had a sleepless night checking on him.
Why are kids so rough and tumble? Why does common sense kick in so late in life, if at all?
What in God's name is so much fun at the emergency room that my kids all want to go there quickly, not passing go and not collecting the $200 bucks, which would certainly help with the bill?

The mother/daughter dynamite . . er, dynamic?

I've always been on the receiving end of the mother/daughter relationship. You know, the good side--the daughter side.

But I find myself standing on the wrong side of the winners circle staring at my female heathen in awe and horror.

Awe: She's really cute, a great snuggler, and is a genuinely happy baby.

Horror: She's playing me like an old, well tuned violin.

Punk has recently learned to crawl. Or so I've been told by my husband, who has actually seen her crawl. But when I'm around, she lays there, flapping her arms and legs and shrieking until I finally (twenty minutes later) break down and pick her up.

She'll have eaten just a few minutes before I get home, but when I walk in the door, the boobs better be out and in the nursing position or the child is frantic and inconsolable.

When Punk sees me, she must have me. She will lunge out of her daddy's arms, grab handfuls of my hair, and then shimmy over and up any obstacle to reach me, where she will plan full, open mouthed, tongued kissed on my face until she finally finds my mouth. (I hoped we'd be close, but not that close!)

If I'm eating it, she wants it. If I have it, it must be interesting, so she wants it. If I'm doing it, I must stop it because nothing is as important and devoting my entire undivided attention my my own Baby Bin Laden.

I'm not exactly a mama novice. My boys weren't like this. They were happy to see me, but not obsessive, clingy, "oh my God child let me breathe" kind of babies.

I'm being held hostage by a twenty pound chunk of baby flesh that will brook no arguments, will not barter for my release, and refuses all offers of ransom.

If this is the mother/daughter dynamic, I'm in big trouble.

Just when you think life can't drop another steamy pile on your shoulders, it surprises you with more nuggets of joy. (Sense the sarcasm in that statement?)
The Man's injuries are getting better, but more complications are arising that need to be dealt with. Possibly six more weeks of complications.
Due to the response from his work, we hired an attorney. This was not something we wanted to do, but when its a choice between a crippled, not just maimed, husband and potentially getting a good portion of usage back, we do what we have to.
Now his job wants to play hard ball.
Now I'm mad. The Man is mad. Our kids are even mad, and our attorney's mad. (He's an attorney and he loves his job)
They haven't seen hard balls yet.

Future exotic dancer

My daughter, albeit a bit young for it, has decided to become a stripper.
At only 7 1/2 months.
Twice today, she has confounded and bewildered her father (which, admittedly, isn't hard to do) by stripping out of her diaper and lounging around naked as the day she was born. (Although distinctly less slimey and much less bloody.)
She has an accomplice in Bug, who carries away the offending diaper each time.
When The Man sees her, she just lays back and grins at him. She knows he won't do anything except fuss and bluster a bit--then call me for help.
I think there is a pole and four inch heels in her future.
I guess a girl's gotta make a living somehow.