Chocolate Chip Pancakes, Hold the Pancakes

Making pancakes is a true labor of love around here. Not because I hate cooking (which I do), nor because I'm lousy at it (also true), but because of the level of chaos involved. From the moment the griddle crash-lands onto the burner, Lil' Miss is on the move, heading for the kitchen with single-minded resolve. She could not be more determined to get somewhere if the Mothership had landed and was calling her home. She swiftly slides a chair across the floor and warns "Watch out, watch out, people!" so she can bunker down right in front of, not next to, but IN FRONT OF, the stove.

By the time I grab onto the chair, she's already standing on it, death-gripping a mixing spoon in her hand. She's in a trance-like state, her lazer beam eyes on lock-down with the batter bowl, ready to swoop down and knuckle-slap any trespassers with that spoon-yielding hand. She looks like a deranged pirate guarding precious buried treasure.

Shaking my head, I drag the chair over while she's still standing on it and commence the measuring and pouring of the batter. There's no question who will do the stirring. It's always better if I just back away and let her carry out this little charade on her own. Holding a spoon in the bowl, she aimlessly moves her hands around in half-hearted circles, a decoy for the shameless amount of batter she is simultaneously shoveling into her mouth.

I've decided to go for Mother of the Year and add chocolate chips. But just as I tip the bag into the batter bowl, Lil' Miss lunges towards it (I'm assuming to help me pour), knocking it out of my hand and dumping half of the bag's contents into the bowl. Now I'm staring at an enormous mound, a mountainous island of brown chips jutting out of a sea of pancake mix, a noticeably small sea in comparison to the Chocolate Mt. Everest that has just erupted. I shake the bowl to even things out and now I can't even see the batter anymore. The chips are so thick it takes both of my hands firmly clutching the spoon to stir them around.

A hungry Baby Dude starts scream-crying in the middle of the kitchen floor and I start making those "ughhhh-ing" sounds, the ones I make when I am clearly stressed. It's yet another breakfast disaster. Lil' Miss, always willing to comfort those she's just driven crazy, starts rubbing my back, in beautiful batter-worthy circles no less, and says, "It's okay, Mom. It's okay. He's not crying. He's just speaking Spanish." Strangely, this somehow makes me feel better.

I'd love nothing more than to toss this defective concoction into the trash and go back to doing what I do best for breakfast- filling the food trough with Cheerios. But, as you all know, I am green now, very eco-friendly, so this is not a viable option. Instead I reconcile myself to the fact that my kids will be eating chocolate cakes drizzled with batter for breakfast. And as I watch them devouring this Sugarfest, melted chocolate smeared across their cheeks (and forehead in the case of Baby Dude), a wicked smile spreads across my face as I realize they'll be smack dab in the middle of Sunday School by the time this glucose overdose hits their bloodstream. Of course, it is not until we are walking out the door for church that I remember WHO is scheduled to teach their Sunday School class this week.

If Mothers Wrote Math Textbooks

Now here's a few word problems to consider...

1. If a mother is moving east across the house, cleaning at a rate of fifteen toys per minute while her two-year-old boy is traveling west, knocking down books and chucking shoes at a rate of...so-many-she-can't-keep-track per second, at what time will mother call it quits and retire on the couch?

2. What is the probability of a mother who's already eaten ten peanut m&m's from the jumbo bag polishing off the rest of those precious morsels if BOTH kids are crying?

3. If a two-year-old has one poopy diaper and the mother only has two hands in which to wrestle down that little alligator on the changing table, how many books, toys, and goofy songs will she need to preoccupy him with until she's finished cleaning up that second viewing of yesterday's lunch at Rubio's?

4. 6. What is the ratio of time a mother spends thinking about sleep to the actual amount of time spent sleeping? Write your answer as a fraction and then go play while mother tests this one out for herself.

5. If a mother DESPERATELY needs a diet coke fix but doesn't want to get out of the car with the kids to go into the grocery store for just one measly item so instead opts for the nearby Del Taco drive-through where a silly little drink that is mostly ice anyways costs a buck fifty which is crazy when you think about how much a whole liter would cost, but, oh well, she's already there, and, oh just PERFECT, she only has a dollar forty-five and that's AFTER scrounging at the bottom of her purse, under her seat, and in the ashtray, what angle in degrees will the smile that she flashes the cashier need to be?

Michael Phelps Makes Me Itchy

For most of us, watching recaps of Mr. Phelps' gold winning races during the closing ceremonies was more than inspiring. Honk was especially moved. Moved enough to get off the couch and come back twenty minutes later with his entire chest shaved off. We'll see how "slender and sleek" he feels when that tuft starts making a comeback in a few hours...

A Mind-Body Connection

Why blog, you say? Because blogging is going to finally make an honest writing teacher out of me. For years, I've preached to my students about the welcoming arms of Writing, that Mother of Essay Exiles, who cries,

"Give me your frustrated, your literal-minded,
Your left-brained masses yearning to be creative,
The math-science kids of your classrooms.
Send these, the disorganized, writing test-tossed to me..."

I lecture all the live long day about how writing is just like anything else- a skill that must be practiced, worked at, and reworked. That some days it's pretty good and some days it's cat-spray-on-your-front-door bad. That it's really not as if authors walk around under a constant cloud of inspiration. (Settle down there, Stephen King. We all know you're the exception.) And that the point is to JUST DO IT, while wearing Nikes, if that helps. Too bad for me, I never believed a word I said, thought it was all just a load of... SENTENCE FRAGMENTS... when it came to my own writing.

BUT ME NOT HYP-O-CRITE A-NY-MORE. ME WRITE TOO. ME NE-AN-DER-THAL, BUT NOT HYP-O-CRITE. And now I'm a few months into this "blogging thing" and sometimes it feels good and other times feels like that stupid cat turned the handle on the front door, walked directly into our house, and peed right on my new Nikes. Tonight might be more smelly wet shoes. We'll have to see.

Now I'm just hoping that this writing muscle I've just started flexing will somehow be a positive influence on the rest of my body, preferably the muscles in my abdomen, arms, and legs... but especially my abdomen... and my upper back. If the exercised part of my mind that's writing this blog could just send a shout-out of encouragement to the rest of my body to get off it's lazy butt and go for a run, or even just a walk, at least to the end of the street FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, that would be cool. Then I would no longer have to control the urge to be violent every time Lil' Miss grabs my belly and asks, "When is the baby coming, Mom?" which makes my cells divide at a world record pace, not enough to burn any calories, but definitely enough to point in the direction of my stomach and answer her with, "YOU! YOU did this to me! You and your brother with your nine and ten pound bodies respectively that caused strangers to stop and stare in utter disbelief at the country fair's grand prize winning watermelons growing in my stomach!"

If only I could summon my Olympic hopeful eleven-year-old gymnast version of myself, the one with rock hard abs and rippling biceps who was too focused on training as if I was the second coming of Nadia Comaneci to appreciate how fit she was. Until then, it's back to Golden Spoon for another dish of consolatory yogurt to go with my three helpings of brownie topping while I rehearse the Every Monday Morning plan to get in shape.

Don't Judge a Picture by its... Picture.

I'm a total newbie to the world of Facebook and know my way around there about as well as I knew the difference between Norwalk and Norway on the 405 Freeway at the age of sixteen (a story for another time...). Seriously, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm still not exactly sure what purpose it serves. I just knew that if I ever wanted to see Nikki's pictures of Africa in this lifetime I was going to have to sign up on Facebook. So please do not expect me to send you flair or to play you a game of scrabble because I'm just getting comfortable with the idea that I'm actually allowed to write on my walls.

However, I was able to add a picture of myself last week, a technological achievement of cosmic proportions. Now, before you get all hot under the collar and pipe up about how it's not even a REMOTELY accurate depiction of the Me that you know (and have grown to love?) with its post-modern, overexposed, off-centered, mysterious three-quarter turned profile, and muted earthy color palette reminiscient of an Andrew Wyeth painting, I'd like you all to know that the fact that I even had a usable picture to upload is a miracle of nature.

As you may have guessed by now, I'm a little neurotic about protecting my children's identities on the internet. There are no shortage of lunatics out there and while I may not be able to shelter them from my frozen meal disasters or the angry female folk rock music of the 90's that I just can't seem to break free from, I can limit their exposure on the internet. (Never mind the obscene amount of embarrassing details I reveal about them in my blog that they will never forgive me for which is why I'm not pushing the whole "reading" thing with Lil' Miss.) The downside is that most family pictures, some really cute ones in Hawaii I might add, cannot be used. So, do you have any idea how hard it is to find a decent picture of myself, one that does NOT include braces or a pitiful version of the "Rachel" haircut, or the extra Freshman Fifteen that stayed with me way past my college graduation day?

Add to this the fact that I've been the designated family photographer since day one. So while we have eight million pictures of Baby Dude, Lil' Miss, Baby Dude and Lil' Miss, Baby Dude, Lil' Miss and Honk, there are a total of three, I repeat THREE pictures taken of me over the last four years. Two of the three pictures are non-options. They're the ones where I'm sprawled like a whale across a hospital bed in the maternity ward and I haven't slept in days or put on makeup and my body is still a mutant version of itself and I'm surrounded by machines and IV tubes hanging down around me like seaweed. It's fair to say that these photos would probably not bring about the confirmation of too many new friends. At least the types of friends I'm used to making.

So that left me with option number three, a family picture taken from a substantial distance by Nana six months ago at Disneyland. We were standing in front of the castle and right as we were all about to smile the heck out of ourselves, we heard the cries of a frantic mother looking for her lost daughter. My head snapped in her direction just as Nana snapped the picture. I was so caught up in that harrowing moment that I actually didn't even remember taking this picture until I found it on my camera much later. I immediately raced over to the mother, grabbed her by the shoulders, looked her square in the eyes and said, "Honey, nobody knows your daughter, so stop yelling her name. What is she WEARING?" After she tells me I cup my hands around my mouth and start bellowing right in the middle of the castle plaza like a squire announcing the king's orders, "Listen up! We've got a lost girl, about eight years old, blond hair, wearing a hot pink dress." Within three minutes, the little girl, albeit shaken and crying, was reunited with her mother. Now I realize that many people were looking for her, so I'm not going to take full credit for that Happily Ever After. Just partial credit, maybe seventy-five percent. Let's just say that I've never been more proud of my psychotic fear of child abduction, a gripping terror that led me to devise this remarkable (admit it, you're impressed) recovery plan.

And this, my skeptical neysayers, is why after blowing up my Facebook picture to its Greatest Magnified Capability (GMC? New photography term I've just coined, Nikki?) and steering it over as far away as possible from the head of my pure and innocent daughter who was sitting in my lap and whose image will not be shown on the internet until she is old enough to launch that WipGwoss line she's been trying out, you only see a hazy picture of my head in the corner looking away in another direction. Now don't you feel bad for calling me a pretentious avangardist?

So while my picture may very well be one of the greatest hoaxes of the twenty-first century, it's not without good reason. Besides, how many people can say that they bust a gut cracking up at themselves every time they open their Facebook profile? And one of these days I might be able to stop laughing long enough to figure out how to return that message you sent me three weeks ago.

A Miss Understanding

From the hallway, I hear Lil' Miss crying, SOBBING in the kitchen. But no sprinting, dashing, or gasping was done on my part. Experience has taught me that I'd be raising my heart rate for a dropped pencil or misplaced necklace rather than a severed hand. So as I make my way into the kitchen, I yell, "Are you okay?" which of course is code for "Are you almost finished crying?" When I finally appear, she bursts into another round of tears and says, "Mom, you just make me sad!"

I'm confused, seeing as how I was on the other side of the house. But hey, anything's possible around here. So I rub her back and ask her to tell me what I've done this time. She cries, "You just closed the bathroom door!"

Now I'm in a state of total bewilderment because I thought everyone in this family was in agreement that the bathroom door must stay closed, that an open bathroom door is like a formal letter-pressed invitation for Baby Dude to wade in the toilet water. So I say, "Why, dear child, does closing the bathroom door make you SAD?" To which she wraps her arms around my legs and responds, "Because I love you."

And now I'm scratching my head trying to follow my daughter's logic and feeling a strong affinity to Honk who countless times throughout our marriage has gaped at me in disbelief and said, "I just don't understand you."

The Takeover

This happens way more often than I'd like to admit. Lil' Miss asks for some lunch, some Banana Cream Pie yogurt, please. (Yes, she is slowly dipping her toes into the rest of the yogurt pool. Progress is being made.) She gobbles this down and then puts in a request for a fruit roll-up which I promptly agree to so that I can rush back onto the couch where I have been napping for the last half hour.

But re-entry into the sleeposphere is never achieved. The obnoxiously loud crinkling of the fruit roll-up wrapper has officially woken me up. Determined to hold onto some semblance of my slumber bliss, I choose the next best thing to sleep which, of course, is food. I decide on a sandwich to take advantage of the thinly-sliced smoked mesquite turkey I purchased from the deli a few days ago. After I finish making my plate, I yell out to Lil' Miss, "Do you want a turkey sandwich?" Now, I know she's going to say no , but every mother is fully aware that it's better to ask this question before you put everything away because the moment they see you sitting down at the table with your thickly-stacked turkey and cheese sandwich garnished with honey mustard pretzel nuggets and your tall glass of chilled lemonade and your excellent reading material (referred to as People Magazine by some common folk), and the big hunkin' smile plastered on your face, they're going to ask you for a sandwich.

I think I was four bites into my lunch when Lil' Miss "Whatcha Got There?" came strolling into the kitchen. I tried to play it cool, slowly chewing my sandwich and turning the pages of my magazine without ever making eye contact. But then it came. "Mom, can I have some?" I knew there was no way she would really eat a whole sandwich or even half of one so I offered, "How 'bout you just take a few bites off my plate?" And a few bites she did. And a few more. Until a small corner of crust was all that remained of my delicious sandwich. Now having worked her way through most of the pretzels, she was asking for more and while I was up getting HER more of MY pretzels, she climbed into my chair where she could have better access to the goods on my plate. I, apparently, will be sitting in the chair next to her now where my hand will be repeatedly slapped and swatted away as I reach for pretzels off my own plate.

Facing defeat, I realize there's not enough turkey left for another sandwich and anyways I'm too embarrassed now to show my face around the turkey and cheese who've both watched this entire humiliation unfold. So could you just do me a favor and tell me that I'm the one still in charge around here because I'm a little fuzzy on that point.

We Girls

It's the end of a very long day. I'm wrapping up a bedtime tuck-in with Lil' Miss when she pleads, "Mom, you yay down wiff me for a yiddow bit?"

"Okay, honey. For a minute." I scooch her over and lay down beside her. She has my neck in a choke-hug and is gently kissing my forehead the way she always does, the way that makes me feel like I'm the little girl and she's the mommy. I lean over and whisper, "I love you, my girl. Do you know you're my special girl?"

"Yeah. Mom? Are we girls, you and me?"

"Yeah."

"And Daddy and Baby Dude are boys?"

"Yeah."

"And you and me and Madie and Ella are girls?"

"Mmhmm..."

"And Daddy and Baby Dude and Andy and John and Larry are boys?"

"Mmhmmm."

"And you and me and Madie and Ella and Travis, no, not Travis, and Keeli and Mrs. B are girls?"

"Yep."

And Daddy and Baby Dude and Travis and Trevor and John Paul are boys?

"Uh-huh."

"Oh... Mom! Why don't YOU try? YOU say all the boys and girls in the whole world!"

"Hmmm, that's a tough one, Sweet Pea. No can do."

As I try a bedtime departure, she wraps her octopus tentacles around my body and cries, "No, Mommy! Don't leave! You CAN do it! I promise!"

She actually thinks this self-esteem building is going to work on me, and, in fact, it does. I lay back down on the edge of her bed and now she's squeezing me so tightly that her arm muscles are quivering. In that moment, I wonder if she feels the same way I used to feel hugging my mom: like there couldn't possibly be a safer place in the whole world. I sure hope so.

Plant Guy

me: Knock, knock! (You say, "Who's there?")
you: Who's there?
me: Palm Tree.
you: Palm Tree who?
me: Palm Tree who is dead because you forgot to water me while Plant Papa was gone on business.

What's that? Not funny, you say? Darn right it's not funny! What makes you think there's anything even remotely humorous about a dead palm tree? Trust me. I'm an expert in this area. No one knows more than I do what serious business plant watering is when you're left as Second in Command, not to mention what serious consequences lay in wait for those who don't take it seriously. Unless of course you'd enjoy being scorned by your husband who now only addresses you as "Murderess Madagascariensis".

I don't remember signing up for this on our wedding day, but back then he wasn't quite the palm enthusiast* he is today. Was there an exact moment that triggered this tropical fascination or did it grow slowly over time? (ha ha! a little plant humor for you...). Actually, no one is exactly sure when it all took root (baa haa! Help yourself to seconds!), but Honk's mom, Nana, seems to think it was the bonzai tree she gave him for eighth grade graduation. She said he was meticulous about his watering, pruning, and styling of that Japanese work of art. Never mind that she killed it months later, starving it to death while he was on an extended surf trip. Oh the wrath she must have endured! I feel your pain, Nana. He should have taken that as a definite foreshadowing of the type of care another woman in his life would one day provide (or not provide) his plants. Listen to the signs, people. The SIGNS!

Our own children, on the other hand, having been born into this gardening subculture, are very much at home with it. They completely understand that while they are Dad's favored children, they are by no means his only children. There are the "other kids" to attend to. Rather than begrudging this fact, Lil' Miss and even Baby Dude join in at the end of a long work day to help with the watering of the heliconias, flame throwers, ferns, purple royals, fox tails, gingers, crown shaft kings, elephant ears, triangle palms, giant fish tails, cannae lilies, and kentias with as much enthusiasm as their father. Occasionally, I sense a little jealous tension between Lil' Miss and the dypsis baronii or sometimes even the chamberonya macrocarpa when Dad pays them too much attention, but it usually blows over quickly. And one time, I did catch Baby Dude pulling and fondling the howea forsteriana fronds, but can you blame him? In the plant world, she's a hottie!

Plants and palms are as much a part of our kids' lives as goldfish crackers and Hide-and-Seek. Lil' Miss and Baby Dude are locals at Escondido plant sales where they munch on barbequed hamburgers and run up and down the aisles of ti plants and bromeliads. I swear they could probably even speak a broken form of Latin after listening to the plant chatter of Dad and other members of The Palm Society of Southern California who strut around nurseries talking like Roman senators and wearing t-shirts that say "Got Trunk?"

It's a strange, unexpected world I find myself in, but one I'm grateful for. Even though I whine and drag my feet when he steers me over to see new flowers on a plant, I'm thankful that he's "into" so many things in life. I like it that he has such interesting interests. It makes life, well, interesting. Besides, I love the smile that settles on his face when he's sitting out back on a bench staring out at his lush garden. A seriously impressive creation. And COME ON, didn't you see our house when we first moved in, the post nuclear wasteland we called a backyard? It's an exotic tropical paradise now, thanks to the fine work of Plant Papa.

So, to answer your question, yes, I am watering the kids, Honk. Love and miss you. By the way, Baby Dude is cleaning out your closet. At least that's what he's telling me he's doing...

*Is is me, or is that just a fancy word for "geek"?

Taking One for the Planet

For the most part, I'm not very "green", environmentally speaking. I'd probably be considered more of a lemon-lime or chartreuse, to be honest. I'm committed to the givens, throwing plastic and paper into the proper waste recepticles, turning off lights when I remember to (or at least dimming them), tailgating car bumpers for better fuel efficiency, and conserving water by drinking Diet Coke, but that's about it. It feels a bit overwhelming to think about saving the planet when I'm mostly digging around the bottom of my purse looking for spare change so I can pay for the cheaper, nonbiodegradable baby wipes in quarters and dimes.

What happened to the vegetarian high school hippie who gave away all her perfectly good leather shoes and wore puffy-painted shirts that preached "Recycle, Reuse, or Regret!"? Where is that tree-hugging, hemp-wearing girl now? I'll tell you where she is. She's in the kitchen serving up chicken nuggets on paper plates and wiping spilled milk with a wad of paper towels. When Gore called it an inconvenience, he wasn't kidding.

But since Honk left on his business trip, I'm proud to say I've been very good to Mother Earth. First of all, I'm pretty sure I never showered yesterday. That wasn't actually planned but a respectable step in the direction of water conservation nonetheless. I didn't bathe the kids either. In fact, Baby Dude just stayed in his pajamas all day which also saved me a load of laundry and water. I also didn't cook. We ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch and Lunchables for dinner. I'd say that's pretty energy efficient. Most importantly, I found Baby Dude sucking on an almost completely full container of contact lens solution and I didn't throw it away. What a waste of money and plastic! Now that I'm thinking about it, I might be eco-friendly after all! Now, where are those puffy paints...

A Note from Young Superman's Mother

Dear Mr. Luther,

We are so fortunate to have you as our new neighbor. Thank you for helping me with Baby Dude yesterday. He runs down the street SO FAST. We like to think of him as our Little Speeding Bullet. Lucky for me you grabbed him. I'm sure he didn't mean to squeeze your arm so hard as he pulled away from you.

And yes, it's official now. My sweet, loveable boy is a "handful". Whether he's climbing on the table to help himself to a banana, throwing loose bricks across the yard, standing on the counter to turn the light switch on-off, on-off, on-off, baptising books in the bathtub, flushing candles down the toilet, or leaping tall couch pillows in a single bound, this kid is into everything. Even his sister announces his arrival into the room with, "Uh-oh, here comes Trouble!" And he's SO STRONG! Last night he disappearred for a few minutes and this is what I found in his wake.

Seriously, how did he DO that? Anyways, thanks again for your help and for loaning the kids your rock collection. What kind did you say they were? Krypto-something or other? Well, whatever. That was nice of you. Have a great day!

Sincerely,

your neighbor Leilen

Let the Games Begin!

As we are just days away from the Olympics in Beijing, I realize I have begun running my own marathon of sorts. Honk* just left this morning for a ten-day business trip (Gasp! Gulp! whimper...). But we're okay here. Go home, now. Nothing to see, nothing to see... I might be ALL ALONE to singlehandedly feed, change, bathe, clothe, read to, sing for, pray with, tuck in, give milk to, tuck back in, sing AGAIN, retuck, threaten to torch every last princess dress if she gets out of that bed ONE MORE TIME, and pray with again for "Patience, Lord. PATIENCE!" while waiting for our planet to casually stroll around its axis ten more times, but don't you go frettin' over little ol' Leilen. You just stay right where you are with your feet up on the couch sipping that pink lemonade through a straw so the temperature of the clanking ice isn't too cold for your mouth. We'll be just fine. As my Bubby used to say, "Don't worry about me. I'll get a stranger to help." (Hey, you don't survive a Jewish upbringing without mastering some of the fine art of passive-aggressive guilt.)

*Honk is husband's nickname. It was Honey which was shortened to Hon but then became Honk in an email because the "K" and Comma keys are close neighbors and I think Comma was out of town that day and "K" was over feeding her cats.

A Well-Deserved Snooze

I'm all for Good Samaritan sacrificial love, but mornings are hardly the time to practice that kind of righteousness. Sleep is too rare a commodity these days to go playing Johnny Do-gooder in the manana. In my experience, that miserable time between asleep and awake when a thick layer of grogginess sits on my head like a soggy diaper is better spent squabbling with my husband about who should take the A.M. shift of Peewee Patrol.

"You do it."
"No, you."
"You."
"You."
"You."
"You."

This impressive meeting of the minds can go on for days.

Morning arbitration wouldn't even exist if not for the rising and shining of a certain perky little girl who insists on buzzing back and forth between both sides of our bed announcing her morning requests: cup of milk, commencement of cartoons, morning paper... "Is it me, or is she talking REALLY LOUD? Go away, Little Girl. We're asleep." But like a pesky fly, she grows more agitated the more I swat her away.

It won't be long now before her cries to "get up" are drowned out by a certain baby seagull squawking in his crib. And herein lies the dilemna. Baby Dude must be "gotten" which means someone has to slide out of three layers of 600 count Egyptian cotton, lift a fifty pound head from a hotel goosedown pillow, and slink down a long hallway on spaghetti noodle legs that definitely haven't gotten this memo yet.

Around here you have to earn the right to sleep in a few extra minutes. Like a couple of rebel cowboys in a showdown duel, we bring out all the big guns:

"I did it yesterday."
"I did it the three days before."
"I was up in the middle of the night with them."
"I have an important meeting today."
"I have to take them to Costco. Do you have any idea how much energy that requires?"

We are pathetic, I know. But occassionally, the comebacks reach a calibur of such genius proportions that the other must kowtow in an act of submissive, bootlicking reverence. Such was the case this morning after we had exhausted all the usual suspects.

Annoyed and clearly running out of ideas he fires back with a simple, "Rise!"

Shaking my head at his sad attempt I respond, "That's it? Oh, dear me. You're going to have to do A LOT better than that if you really want me to get up. If you'd been smart about it, you'd have said something more like, 'Rise, my beautiful butterfly, like the dawn on a clear blue day!'"

Without a moment's hesitation he quips, "Rise, my vampire of the coffin, like a bat out of a dark cave!"

No question, I would be getting Baby Dude this morning.

Livin' the Dream

A trail of clumpy wet sand meanders across our bathroom floor and blankets the bottom of our bathtub. To most, a disgusting word picture, but to me it's beauty personified.

It's the drop-of-a-hat decision to put on our swimsuits, lather on sunblock, and hop on our bikes to the beach. It's the smile taking up half of Baby Dude's face, the half that is not being eaten by the enormous helmet on his head. It's the giggly voice of Lil' Miss strapped in the kid's seat behind me yelling, "Move it, Sister! Daddy's way up there!" It's locking our bikes together, dropping our towels and flipflops in the sand, and making a bee line for the shore. It's Lil' Miss holding Daddy's hand as they leap and karate chop crashing waves. It's her arms squeezed tightly around his neck as he carries her past the shore break to the glassy swells where they slide up and over, up and over. It's stomping, splashing, and making footprints in the wet sand with Baby Dude. It's the look of sheer joy on his face as he scoops up a wad of mud and chucks it right at my head. It's the horrified looks of castle builders as Mr. Fee-Fie-Foe-Fum demolishes their fortresses with his tiny hands of doom. It is not, I repeat, NOT the slimy sandcrabs Daddy throws at Mommy, but it is the laughter, the smiles, and the "Isn't-this-the-best?" looks we share a hundred times. It's the perfect feeling of family completeness.

This, I confess, is either a tired mom's worst excuse for not cleaning a bathroom, or the best reason ever.