Unraveling…

Well, it has happened. I truly have nothing to say. If I hit Publish now, then I will be saving both your time and mine. But those who know me best know that I just can’t do that. I’m a verbose longwinded Wordy Wordenkiller.  I can kill almost anything simple by describing it to death.

So let’s talk about yesterday. You want to? Sure. Let’s do that.

It was a nice day over all. The weather was so completely perfectly perfect that it was almost like God carefully laid the perfect day down in the Tampa bay area and allowed me to walk around inside it. I daydreamed all day about the beaches of the Florida Panhandle, where I spent my childhood. It was the kind of day that needed a lounge chair, a beach umbrella, a good book, a cooler of Diet Mtn. Dews, a friend, and no cell phone.  I took SnuggleMonkey on a walk in a stroller. By the end of that walk, she was waking me. Pushing the stroller, shoving my hand off the handle if I tried to keep her from wandering into traffic.  I played a friendly little game of Monopoly with the kids while SnuggleMonkey was napping. I was surprisingly shrewd in my real estate dealings. I don’t think the kids knew who they were dealing with.  I enjoyed listening to Mamasboy constantly spelling out the things that he wanted, as we played the game. He had snacks on the brain.

J-U-I-C-E-B-O-X?  Yeah, ok. Sure.

G-O-L-D-E F-I-S-H?  Well, nice use of the silent e…there isn’t one, but okay. Yes on the goldfish. He figures if he cocks his head to the side and spells it, he has a greater chance of obtaining it. Mostly he is right.

As that game ended, I looked at my watch and realized that I had one hour to accomplish dinner, baths, room cleanings, and a shower for myself. Last night was date night for us, so I needed to at least feel like I tried. If I were to now type “To Be Continued” and then allowed you all to guess in the comments section how I resolved most of the to-do list in that amount of time, I bet at least a few of you would come close. Here’s how it went:

• I sent the kids up to clean their rooms. This is always a stupid thing to attempt, because only the boys can even come close. So I followed them up and dashed madly around to put away about 32 dresses and all of the clean clothes.
• The boys went out to play frisbee while I cleaned up the girls’ rooms.
• Frisbee went bad. Really, really bad.
• I called Todd as he was making his way home from the office and said, “Um, hey. I played a rousing game of Monopoly with your kids and completely lost track of time. Do you mind stopping through McDonalds for 4 happy meals?” Happy Meals are $1.99 on Tuesday and Thursday. This means you still get unhealthy, non-biodegradable meals and worthless toys that cost 14 cents to produce, but you pay less. On Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• The kids’ baths got skipped. All of them. Skipped. Dirty kids. This is really going well for my Good Housekeeping portfolio.
• I washed my hair and was VERY clean.  You know, because it’s all about me.
• And frisbee was still going bad. So bad, that I could hear Mamasboy screaming from inside the house with my door closed.

Screaming is a hard, fast rule around here. We may skip the occasional Tuesday bath and we may eat kangaroo burgers from McDs, but screaming at your brother in the front yard is a definite  “nope”  and I had to go out and nip that one. So I did. I made them come in and gave them a stern speech that I expect they didn’t hear a word of.  And I went off to do something that wasn’t on my to-do list but that somehow had garnered my attention.

And then the doorbell rang.  Before I knew what was happening, Jackson (again, names are changed because I’m pretty sure his mom wouldn’t appreciate me putting him on the internet) was standing in our foyer.

“Oh, hello, Jackson,” I said. As I came around the corner to greet him, I saw that Mamasboy was crumpled on the bottom stair in semi-fetal position. He looked like he had post-traumatic stress disorder. That frisbee thing must have REALLY gone bad.  “We’re inside for a few minutes because people were screaming out in the yard.”

“Uh, yeah,” he said rather sheepishly, “I heard the whole thing from my garage.”

“Ahh,” I said, “You see, guys? When we scream, people hear us and think we are crazy. And though we are crazy, we need to keep our crazies on the inside of the house.”

Jackson proceeded to replay the entire frisbee fiasco like he was a Sports Center commentator. Some of it I tuned out, but I tuned back in on the phrase, “And then he was going all Rampage Mode on him…”

“Who? Mamasboy?” Jackson nodded. Rampage Mode. Yeah, that’s about what it was, all right.

So I lost the Good Housekeeping interview, but I’ve since been to the store to remedy some of the above. And I had a nice date out with Todd and a squeaky loom.

Today I am meeting with The Informinator.
That sounds promising, doesn’t it?
Don’t worry. Whatever she imparts to me, I will pass along.
Now you know. And knowing is half the battle.