Partner in Crime

Throughout my time as being a parent there is one thing for certain, I am not alone in this war. I have back up to this crazy battle. He is my partner in crime. Many times as a woman you tend to forget you are not alone in the craziness. Many times when our children have done something silly or inappropriate, my husband is my rational side. He is the one I yell, complain, and cry to when the kids lose their mind. In fact sometimes, I think my husband is the most rational person in the house.  Parenting many times is about partnership and that is what he is to me, my partner in crime, my accomplise, and my witness. I am so excited that my husband will never legally have to testify against me, one of the benefits of marriage.

Single moms should be elevated to star quality, because to deal with those people alone and remain sane is amazing.

Many times I forget to tell him how much I value his partnership. So I want him to know, that I know I am not alone. He is my General, my number 2, and my therapist in many cases. The best thing about him most times is that he sits and lets me rant and rave about the kids inability to turn off the lights,being suspended for breaking into vending machine with plastic utensils, or the constant bickering. 

I realize how much I loved my husband the other day when one incident happened. 

I was in the restroom getting ready for the gym. 

I went to grab my hair brush and I knocked his brand new deodorant into the toilet.

I pulled the deodorant out of the toilet, threw it in the garbage, and washed my hands. I walked into the living room....."Hey we need to go to the store tonight, I dropped your Old Spice deodorant in the toilet."

He just looked at me with THAT LOOK on his face. The one that said, WOW I married this woman. The one I get every time I lose my keys or leave my credit card in the ATM. 

 

"Baby, that is a testament on how much I love you. I could have just rinsed it off and put it back on the counter. Less
you forget, our children do silly things all the time and I am pretty sure it is genetic."

He has to deal with me and my tanturms and the kids nutty things they do. My children come by their tendency to do crazy things from my side of the gene pool. The least I could do was buy him new deordrant that was not full of toilet water.

I turned and walked out of my room thinking, wow I really do love this man. Deodorant is expensive and in the past I may have just washed it off, so for me to just throw it away is a good demonstration of my love. You know it is the little things that make a marriage work. 

Dinner Conversations

So due to the fact we somewhat like the kids sometimes, we always sit down for dinner every night. The television is out sight so we can focus on family time. Each child has an opportunity to talk about their day. The first round usually goes pretty smooth with little argument. 

Tonight the two oldest decided to discuss their constant irritations with each other. Taylor informed us Logan he did not change his clothes for a couple of days and he informed us that she did not brush her hair and her tooth brush. 

My husband, in his infinite wisdom, reminded both of them that both of them are guilty of various things. Logan of course had improved and made his case about how clean he was now that school started. 

  This is lead the conversation led to shaving. We started talking about Logan first experiences shaving. Any one that has read my blog or seen my facebook status might remember Joey's attempt to shave his face on his 7th birthday. 

Logan would not be outdone. 

Recently Logan shaved one armpit. He reminded us of this at the dinner table. I knew he had done it  but for whatever reason I never got a straight answer out of him on why. 

So while we were all sharing at the table, I asked him why he had shaved his arm pit. 

He told me he only shaved one because he wanted to know what would happen. I am guessing he wanted to compare.

Staring at the child that I carried in my body for 9 months, I had to ask him if noticed a difference. 

"Yeah, one itched and the other didn't. I won't do that again."

Taylor: The Bee Incident

My daughter is pretty much the quiet rational child. I think it is in large part because she is the middle child. She has witnessed the boys' stellar decision making skills and has pretty much done the opposite. In fact, when she was little I use to tell her that I was going to put a cow bell on her because I could never find firgure out where she was because she was so quiet.

In fact, I used to tell call her my little Ninja because I was constantly freaking out when we were out in public. Most of the time I would look for her and call out and she would say, "I am right behind you mommy."

But this praticular night she demonstrated that she was truly my child. Here level-headed behavior went right out the window with one little insect.

It was late Saturday afternoon and all three of the my kids wanted to go to the park to play. Since there is a playground in the complex I had no objections. I planned to start dinner and work on some school work.

Not even five minutes later, my oldest child charged in the house and proclaimed that Taylor was stung by a bee and she is on her way upstairs.

So I hunkered down in the living room waiting for the child like I was waiting for a hurricane to make land fall. She flew in the door with hystericial fury.

"MMMMMOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM, it hurts," she exclaimed with tears in her eyes.

Logan just looked at her and walked out the door as if to say, "yeah I am not sticking around for the drama."

"What happened?" I questioned.

Well I would try to give the full conversation but it was pretty much incomprehensible. The jist of it was she was on the playground and bee stung her finger.

I took her into the kitchen and washed the area while simtaniously trying to convince her that it was okay for me to examine it. I had to promise I would not touch it. 

I have never been stung by a bee but I have been stung by a wasp when I was pregnant with Taylor. I was at my OB/GYN's office when it happened. My doctor put tobacco on it. All the modern medicine in the world and he gave me tobacco.

  We had no tobacco in the house at the time. So I posted on my facebook status I needed help and started  to google.

Taylor who was now holding her finger and making wierd whimpering noise began making sense again.

"Mom, why would a bee do this to me. I never hurt animals, in fact I am nice to all of them. I never hurt bees mom," she inquired with these huge horse tears in her eyes.

"Baby, the bee has no way of knowing that you are a good person, it is just their instinct," I said and pulled her close to me.

Balancing her and my computer, I continued to google bee stings. At that time, my mom called on my cell. She apparently had seen my facebook status and had a solution. She wanted to put bleach it. The moment I asked her what bleach would do, Taylor had looked at me as if to see.......you are NOT putting bleach on my wound.

I was not putting bleach on the sting because I did not have bleach and the idea of doing that seemed wrong. So I put ice on her sting and that seemed to help her for a while. It calmed her down until daddy came in the room, then suddenly she was hysterics again.

I would love to tell you the conversation she had with my husband, but once again it was incomprehensible.  But it ended with........."AND grandma wants me to put bleach on it."

Joe looked at me and said, "Your not putting bleach on it."

I rolled my eyes, of course I was not putting bleach on it.

Taylor and I snuggled on the couch for an hour and she was finally calm enough to eat dinner. Then one of my FB friends told me to put a penny on it. Taylor loved that idea. So we took a penny and put it on her finger and covered it with a bandaid. She was happy for the rest of the night. The next morning she informed me that it worked but her fingered had changed colors.

So am not sure if it worked or helped her pshycologically, but it calmed her down.

  My mom to this day insists bleach was a better alternative.