Sublime Bedlam

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and so many others have not been doing this week!

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*I did not run away scared from an already dead teensy little spider. COME ON. I killed the MOTHER of all spiders, the Spider KING. A teensy weensy little DEAD ONE can’t scare me.

*I did not forgo cleaning the bathrooms (that really, really needed it) AGAIN in favor of napping. That is lazy. And I am never lazy.

*I did not have a conniption and completely LOSE IT when Jeff dropped all the raw chicken I had just spent HOURS (when I’m forced to deal with raw meat, time moves very slowly) cutting up into the sink. I mean, it’s not like he dropped them on the floor, or the ground, even. It was just the sink. A little rinsey-rinse and they’re fine, right? No, I didn’t overreact and yell and get angry over such a little thing. Also: I am not at all hormonal right now.

*I did not eat 3/4 of the bag of candy a neighbor brought over for Ethan. And it was not yummy. I wouldn’t know, since I, ya know, didn’t eat any of it.

*I did not feed my children dinner in the car a few nights ago. This did not prompt Ethan to ask if we were going to sleep in the car, too. I did not then respond, “Yes. We are going to sleep in the car. In fact, we are going to live in the car from now on!” just to see if he’d believe me. Heh heh heh he did. I mean, didn’t.

*I did not witness my younger son practicing his Amazing Feat (balancing atop a tiny, overturned snack bowl) in preparation to join the circus someday. I did not take pictures, either, instead of immediately removing him and placing him safely on the ground. A good mother would not condone such reckless behavior, not even if my little circus freak very adorably sang out, “Ta daaaaa, boom! Ta daaaaa, boom!” over and over again the whole time.

Here’s a helpful little tip for you: Next time you want to wish for the magical disappearance of your toddler’s yucky rash overnight, DON’T, because instead what you will get is your 4-year-old waking up in the middle of the night with a fever and crazy dreams. And the rashy one? Will still be rashy.

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Speaking of tips, I discovered something yesterday that you probably knew already (which would make complete sense, as I seem to be 2 steps behind the entire world when it comes to… everything): a way to trick myself into working out. I’ve been doing the 30 Day Shred again, after a brief really long hiatus, for about two weeks now. Yesterday I had zero motivation to do it, but I didn’t really want to admit it to myself, so I thought maybe I’d just pretend like I was going to do it, and then later on, when I still hadn’t done it, I could just make up some excuses (“I didn’t have time” is a favorite of mine, since I really usually don’t have time, what with children, housework, studying, and often single-parent status) (which could be true, except that I’m really good by now at making this sound believable, and so who knows?) and move on. I even went so far with my facade as to put on my “workout clothes” (which consist of capri sweats (which are one of the comfiest things ever and I would wear them at all times, dead of winter, even, if I could) and (surprise surprise) a beater (I told you I like beaters)).

But then, as luck had it, I randomly found myself with a little free time: Oliver was napping and Ethan was watching Sesame Street… I’d already cleaned up from breakfast… I’d already posted, even… and here I was, already in my workout clothes… well, all I had to do was turn it on. I couldn’t NOT not Shred. It turns out that I am really good at pretending. So good that I end up actually doing what I was pretending I would do. And I’m thinking that if I just immediately put workout clothes on when I get up in the morning, this might happen more often. We’ll see.

Or not. Because if you think my only excuse is the time one, well, you’d be wrong. I’ve got a whole rolling suitcase full of them.

I’m taking a little break (from Googling “my baby itches what can I do for him that won’t make him worse”) (um, sorry, Ollie; mama promises to get right back on that in just a mi- stop scratching! stop scratching!). My break involves a cup of reheated coffee that I somehow managed to spill down my front on the second sip (luckily, I was wearing a t-shirt of Jeff’s* (um, sorry, Jeff), so it’s fine), the cleaning up of said coffee, and feeding Oliver some banana bread. Because my solution to stop him from itching so far has been to keep feeding him. As long as I keep the food coming, he doesn’t itch. I slip up, though, and he has his chunky little baby arm, pointing at the bumps, using all the words he knows to describe it to me (“satch” = scratch; “buh”= bump; “huur” = hurt; “oww”= OW THIS IS OW FIX IT MOMMY), before he begins to hack at away at all the little bumps with his tiny fingernails.

*I don’t normally wear my husband’s clothes, but I was getting ready for bed last night and couldn’t find a beater. I did, however, come across one of Jeff’s t-shirts as I searched the laundry basket of clean (unfolded- I am lazy) clothes. Is it weird that I wear beaters to bed? Is it weird that I started doing this when I was pregnant with Ethan? It is, isn’t it? You haven’t seen classy till you’ve seen a lady’s 9-months-pregnant belly hanging out of her husband’s wife beater, LET ME TELL YOU.

Oliver has acute something-something dermatitis of childhood. I know this because I took him to his doctor yesterday (not to the ER, as I’d tweeted I would, in case you caught that tweet; I ended up waiting (3 hours!) for a triage nurse to call me back, with whom I discussed the rash, leading to the decision to keep calling the appointment line in the event that someone had cancelled their appointment for that day; no one ever did, but by some stroke of luck, I was able to snag one for the following day). She at first thought it was chicken pox, decided it was not that, was perplexed for a little while, and then began calling other doctors in to have a look and discuss with her. Eventually they came to a consensus, and everyone was relieved: it wasn’t contagious! it should clear up in about a week! Awesome. But, um, there’s nothing we can do for him. (It’s viral.) ‘Cept watch him scratch, I guess.

The visit wasn’t entirely unproductive– I left Oliver’s appointment with a prescription for Ethan for Zyrtec (they have the same doctor). Ethan’s allergies and eczema have been RAGING the past week or so, thanks due largely to the 90 degree weather we’ve been “enjoying.” Oh, yes, AND we got to wait for that prescription in the pharmacy at the hospital with loads of other sickies for ALMOST TWO HOURS. It was GREAT.

So, Ethan is feeling much better today- less itchy and sneezy, rash clearing up- but Oliver is feeling AND looking worse. Google had better tell me something good, because that poor boy’s entire body has been overtaken by angry red, leaky sores (the picture below doesn’t capture their angriness, nor their leakiness, fortunately for you) (seriously, you can’t even see the ones on his eyelid, or his neck… wait, did I accidentally buy a magical camera? Going to take a picture of myself right now and see if I’m thin and pretty, brb) (NOPE, not magical; harsh, in fact) and he is pretty much miserable, and… aw, he’s dancing! He can’t feel THAT awful if he’s dance-partying with the Dixie Chicks, who are singing about the letter B on Sesame Street, right? He is swaying along to the song in his high chair. How cu… Oh. Nevermind. He’s grinding on the high chair so as to scratch at the unreachable parts of his back, neck and head. Hm… I recall Monica taping oven mitts to Pheobe’s and Charlie Sheen’s hands, to keep them from scratching at their chicken pox, on an episode of Friends once. Perhaps I shall give that a try?

In the meantime, I’ve banished clothes for the day in hopes that letting his skin… um… air out, or something… without the irritation of clothes constantly rubbing against it will somehow help. He’ll get a cool bath later, and tomorrow we’ll wake up and it’ll be all gone, right? Right. And I’ll never find another bug in this house again, either.

Yucky rash? No clothes? SO WHAT? Clearly, it is business as usual for Oliver.

I’ll be brief here, because honestly, an entire post related to bugs, an entire comments section related to bugs, and DUDE I’ve had enough! I’m going to be feeling all creepy-crawly and shuddery for the next week. *shudder*

(AGH something just flew by my head! WHAT is going ON?)

Ahem.

So the uh, update. I put the baby gate up in the doorway this morning to keep the boys from knocking my Swiffer/Lipton-stand-in down, and they hardly even noticed it, so there were no problems there. But then after reading parkingathome’s comment about how she had a friend who used to trap bugs with overturned cups, and then went back to check AND THE BUG WAS GONE… Well. I couldn’t NOT go look after that, right? I mean, if it WAS gone, I had a very important decision to make: do I go on a spider hunt, or grab my boys and my nearly-completed disaster preparedness rolling suitcase (which will henceforth be known as my DPRS, pronounced “diapers,” because that title is 4 words too long, yo) and get the heck outta the house?*

Oh my goodness, people. I WILLINGLY crept up to the Swiffer, and I WILLINGLY very very very very slowly started to lift the handle, promising myself I’d stop IMMEDIATELY at the site of a leg… But it never came to that. Before I could see any evidence of it’s carcass, I heard the evidence. And if I wasn’t completely grossed out before, the combination crackly-stickyness sound it made did me in FO SHO.

So huuuuuge sigh of relief, it was still there. This was not only a good thing because it meant I didn’t have to make that important stay-or-go decision, but also because there was a pretty big part of me that wanted Jeff to see this thing. He is used to me going all girly over bugs and describing even the little ant-sized things as “enormous.” So me just saying to him that this one was big wasn’t enough. Its body, NO JOKE, was probably the size of a half dollar coin, but that did not even account for what the legs added. Including those, we are talking A BUG THE SIZE OF THE PALM OF MY HAND. That goes crackly-splooooshy-crack when you try to move it’s dead body EW.

Jeff got home around dinner time tonight, but due to some neighborhood drama (which I’ll tell you all about later), he did not get to see the body until he’d been home for awhile. I will remember his reaction always: “Holy cow. That’s freaking huge. Like tarantula size.”

I KNOW, right?

Also, I should totally be on the lookout for his brothers now, huh? Eeeeeeeeuck.

*Can I just say, how convenient is it that I started putting together my DPRS a mere day before this particular disaster struck? And also, I have to admit, in those 30 minutes I stood frozen in the face of “danger” trying to figure out what to do, I seriously considered grabbing the boys (who were asleep in bed, for goodness’ sake!) and grabbing my DPRS (hehehehe) and leaving. Even if it meant sleeping in the car with the two of them. Why stop there? Honestly, I actually entertained the thought that we’d have to move out. I wish I could say I was exaggerating, but no, for a solid 5 minutes, I was convinced that leaving the house was my only option. They were a chaotic, irrational 30 minutes, they were.

There are numerous things I don’t like about being the solo parent so often: being the only “bad guy” when it comes to discipline, having no one to hand the THIRD PAIR OF POOPY UNDERPANTS IN A ROW off to, and going to sleep alone all come to mind. But even worse than all those things is a certain situation that involves creepy crawly things and NO ONE AROUND TO DEFEND MY HONOR. I’ve been fortunate to have escaped any of these situations in the whole 5 months we’ve lived in this house and Jeff’s been off traveling the world.

Until tonight.

I was on my way outside to bring the recycling bin back up from the curb, and I don’t even remember why anymore but for some reason I turned around instead and came back in AND THAT IS WHEN I SAW IT. A spider, the very biggest spider I have ever seen in real life. I’ve only ever seen spiders bigger than this in movies or on tv. And it was sitting in the doorway that led from the room I was in (laundry room) to the rest of the house. Blocking my path. Daring me to make a move. Laughing evilly at me, no doubt. And I literally FROZE where I was standing. I’m not joking, I stood there, completely unmoving, for NEARLY 30 MINUTES while desperately trying to figure out what to do, officially putting my reaction in the Seriously Phobic category and not just the Wussy category. Although, to be fair, I am still most definitely a wuss.

I knew I couldn’t just run out of the room; there was stuff in the laundry room that I needed (my other laptop to get some studying done, for example), and besides, THEN WHAT? Then I’d have an enormous arachnid on the hunt for some human snack roaming my house, THAT’S WHAT. And, uh, no thanks. I’d like to be able to go to sleep at some point tonight.

So the only option was death (his, not mine; though it was sketchy in those first few moments). I knew I couldn’t throw something at the thing; I’d need to find something both big/heavy enough as well as disposable, because there’s no way I’d keep something that had the remains of this mutant on it. And there was nothing within my reach that met these requirements. Not to mention the fact that I’d have to actually aim well enough to hit him, which we all know is just not possible.

I looked around and saw a bottle of LimeAway sitting near the utility sink, and briefly though I’d found my answer; the warnings on the label sounded fatal enough for my purposes. But then I realized it wouldn’t kill it fast enough, and that in the process of dying he’d be able to scurry away. And hide somewhere. THEN die. And then at some point in the near future I would come across his carcass and then I WOULD DIE TOO at the sight of the giant dead spider.

I looked around again, wishing DESPERATELY that I could do what I always USED to do whenever there was a bug in the house: stick a cup or a jar on top of it and leave it there until someone else arrived and took care of it for me. In college, we had one particularly ladybug-infested Spring, and I LOATHE winged things, including ladybugs, and I was constantly finding them in my dorm room. So, too chicken to kill them, I’d stick a glass Lipton Iced Tea bottle on top of them and leave them there till the next time my mom came over and could dispose of them for me. LAME, I know. There were upside down Lipton bottles all over the place!

I’ve employed this technique a few times since then, one of them documented on my blog, in fact (the link to which I searched for unsuccessfully, but did succeed in getting sidetracked for an hour looking at Ethan’s and Oliver’s baby photos). But that was when I had only one child, so keeping him away from the upside down cup for a few hours until Daddy got home from work was not that difficult. But keeping two of them away from an upside down container (it’d have to be something big; a Lipton bottle wouldn’t cut it this time) for nearly 24 hours? Was not going to work.

AndreAnna suggested vacuuming the sucker up, and that’s a good idea. That’s exactly how my mom disposes of all her creepy crawlies, too. No killing necessary, right? But the thought of him crawling around in my vacuum cleaner… searching for a way out… so that he could come find me and EAT MY BRAINS IN THE NIGHT… No. No, that would not do.

And then I saw it, my savior: my Swiffer dry mop. It was only inches from me, hanging out next to a roll of paper towels. And I knew that I’d be able to do it. My Swiffer has come in handy on more than one occasion; more, in fact, than 20 occasions. It’s a very convenient way to kill something yucky while being able to remain a safe distance away from the yuckiness.

It only took me another 20 (twenty!) minutes to inch my way closer to the thing and talk myself up to the act. I’ll spare you those details, but suffice it to say, I’m fairly certain that he is now dead. However. I am still so thoroughly grossed out that I can’t bring myself to move the Swiffer and dispose of him. And that is why the doorway leading from the kitchen to the laundry room looks like this, and will continue to look like this until Jeff comes home tomorrow and can make it all better:

(You can’t tell from the picture, but I have the Swiffer wedged in there; the door is pushed open as far as it will go, and the handle is shoved into the grooves in the door frame. He might still be alive under there, but ain’t no way he’s getting out.)

(Also, I plan to try to get the baby gate up on this doorway without disturbing the crime scene, in order to keep the boys away from it all day tomorrow. I will most likely be bribing them away with candy and money, but WHATEVER IT TAKES, I say.)

Ethan made up an inappropriate song about his pen*s and thinks it’s HILARIOUS to bust it out (the song, that is) in the, of course, most inappropriate places at the, OF COURSE, most inappropriate times.

The reason I’m telling you this is because I tried and rejected 70 other different openers, all of which mentioned my extended, unintentional absence from my blog for 2 1/2 weeks, and all of which were boring and dumb. Ethan’s little song, while having nothing whatsoever to do with that extended, unintentional absence, is, while inappropriate, actually quite funny (although I would never admit this to him, not while hissing through clenched teeth at him to STOPITRIGHTNOW), and so I thought I’d share that with you instead.

And with that, I have returned to my neglected blog. And to talk about what I’d do if disaster/crisis/the unthinkable were to strike, no less. Whitney of the Rookie Moms posed the question, “What would you do if you had to evacuate the house in 10 minutes?” And while I’d like to say that I’d grab my children, my already (thoroughly) packed disaster preparedness backpack, and a few (easy to find) precious mementos and then get the heck out of there, well… I can’t. Only one of those things would actually happen at this point in time. (I’m referring to the children-grabbing here.)

I don’t have a disaster preparedness backpack. I don’t even have a disaster preparedness tote bag. And my precious mementos? Like, the boys’ hospital bracelets from when they were born, my marriage certificate (I don’t think this is something we’d be able to replace, as we got married in Denmark… it’s possible, but I’m very lazy and I don’t travel, nor do I like making phone calls to people I know, people I like, let alone strangers in other countries) and the video of us saying our I do’s, and the box full of notes Jeff wrote to me in high school and in the years following…? All those things? (As well as a few others, if I sat here and thought about it much longer…) Are not exactly locate-able at the moment. My marriage certificate would probably be the easiest to find (filing cabinet, I think.. which filing cabinet, which file even, is unknown), followed by the boys’ birth bracelets (which are in separate boxes, along with all their other pregnancy/birth/babyhood-related unreplaceables) that are… somewhere. In the laundry room/office, I think. The video and the notes… unknown. It would take me days to find them, probably.

I need some sort of disaster preparedness kit. Whether it be in a backpack, a tote bag, a freaking grocery bag, for Pete’s sake. Pete would certainly be ashamed of me if he were to find out that I am completely unprepared for what could EASILY happen. I do live minutes outside our nation’s capital, you know. Which is not to say that bad things only happen in big and/or important cities, I know that’s not true. But here in NoVA, we don’t really have to worry about things like floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. What would be more likely to happen, I suspect, would be a crisis of the national security variety. And given that such an event is realistically possible, I have no excuse to be as unprepared as I am.

Which is why I plan to start putting one together immediately. Things to put in this kit include a hand-crank-powered flash light, cash in small bills, a change of clothes for each person, some diapers for those of who are still in diapers (AHEM youknowwhoyouare AHEM), medications and general medicines, a few general toiletries, as well as high protein snacks and plenty of water. I really liked Wendolonia‘s suggestion that you keep this all in a rolling suitcase, making it that much more portable. I tend to overpack for a two-night stay in a hotel, so you can bet that in packing for CRISIS I will not pack lightly, in which case the easier mobility will be appreciated.

In addition to packing my disaster preparedness rolling suitcase, I will also locate all my most important documents/mementos, and store them together in the same file cabinet, clearly marked. I must say, though, that if I lost any of those things I mentioned (the marriage certificate, hospital bracelets, etc.), I wouldn’t freak out. They are just things, after all. I wouldn’t shed a tear over them, I don’t think. But having the option of being able to quickly locate them should the need arise is nice.

Which finally brings me to my answer to Whitney’s question (sheesh, only 80 paragraphs later, what a TALKER). In 10 minutes, I would grab my children, shove them in their car seats and strap them in, and I think I could do this in less than 3 minutes (that’s big talk, isn’t it? I really think I could though; perhaps I will time myself and see if I really could) (if I were to go through the whole process of getting them bundled up, shoes on, favorite toy, etc., then it’d take closer to 15 minutes, as it normally does, which is why I would simply grab them as they are, whether they be fully clothed or just in their underpants, socks, and pirate eye patch, as it is not unusual to find Ethan some days, and stick them in the car as is). Then add another 30 seconds for me to snatch up any items of clothing/shoes they might be lacking.

I would then toss my thoroughly and well-stocked disaster preparedness rolling suitcase into the trunk- another 7 seconds? (I’ll keep it in the laundry room, the door to which opens a mere 2 feet from where I park my car, so I think this is reasonable.) Then a minute to pull out that file containing the previously mentioned documents/mementos. Now I’ve got 5 minutes 23 seconds to go back in the house and grab my cell phone, my purse, my Mac, my glasses and my camera. This could take me up to 3 or 4 minutes to do, since I’m notorious for losing all of these things, all of the time (with the exception of my Mac, I don’t think I’ve ever lost that. Yet.). With my last minute or so, I would run frantically through the house picking things up and tossing them back down in a state of UTTER PANIC and CONFUSION and ultimately return to the car empty-handed because I already have the kit and the boys and really, that’s all I’ll need.

How about you? What would YOU grab in a 10-minute evacuation?

Edited to add: I just discussed this with Jeff (who is away AGAIN) on the phone, and he brought up some good points: if I were evacuating the house in the night because of something like a fire, would I stop and find clothes for myself? And also, what about evacuation due to zombies, which would actually be more of a running-for-our-lives-to-escape-the-flesh-eaters situation than a simple evacuation? In that case, I said I’d also want to have a gun. Jeff told me that no, a gun is not what I would want. Zombies would require a machete, he says. He is so wise, my husband.

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Here’s what I haven’t been doing:

*I did not leave a fork inside a 13″x9″ pan of brownies just so that it’d be easier to sneak a bite whenever I walked by the pan. I also did not eat the entire outside edge. Edges are not the most yummy things ever. In fact, I find them kind of gross.

*I did not pick someone’s escaped poop up off the floor of the mall. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeck no. Not only would that be disgusting, but it would also mean that someone pooped his pants (from whence the poo escaped) and I don’t know ANYONE who does that.

*I did not feed my children cereal for dinner the other night. We only ever eat completely balanced, organic meals in this house. We also always eat together as a family. (And therefore it goes without saying that I never eat my meals standing up at the stove, straight out of the pan/pot/dish/whathaveyou.)

*I did not screech at tell Ethan to “enjoy it while you can, young man!” as I watched him kick Oliver for the 12th time today, because “someday he’s gonna be bigger than you and he’ll beat the boogers out of you for the way you tortured him when he was little!” And I certainly did not add anything about my not feeling sorry for him when he gets what’s comin’ to him. Uh uh.

*I am not currently planning on making the drive up to my mom’s in PA (that’s pronounced, “pee-ay”), ALL BY MYSELF, just me and the boys, on Wednesday. That’s a 7ish-hour drive in a car with the two monsters, simultaneously driving and referee-ing and snack-handing-outing and keeping entertained-ing. No no. That would be madness. That would be asking for It. I am not doing this.

*Edited to add: MckMama’s little Stellan is currently fighting to get better, and he, as well as the whole MckFamily, are in my thoughts and prayers. Check out her blog for more info, and to offer up your own thoughts/prayers.*

Oh, people. PEOPLE. Do you remember the other day when I was, all “Ohhh, no, I opened the door to a stranger, a stranger with the word “ex” in his self-description, wah wah wah how can I be so dumb?” IT GETS WORSE.

Yesterday another strange person showed up at our house. This person was unlike Strange Person #1 in two ways: one, he was not as nicely dressed as #1; and two, he did not, as logical visiting rules dictate, knock on the door. In fact, he did not indicate his presence and desire to converse with me, the home-dweller, in any way. THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN MY FIRST CLUE.

No, instead he kind of meandered about on our walkway, in the general vicinity of our front door. Directly in front of the huge windows in our living room which look out onto the front yard and walkway. I happened to be in the living room, which is how I was able to witness his meandering. He all of a sudden noticed me noticing him, and kind of gave a little nod, and moved slightly in the direction of the front of door. I took this to mean that he was, in fact, going to make his way to my front door, and stupidly got up to answer it. (‘It’ being the front door he still had not knocked on.) (Hi, I’m Caley and I’M A MORON.)

So, with a baby on my hip and a rowdy rapscallion of a 3 year old at my side, I opened the door. To some dude. Some dude who was currently still in front of my house meandering. I looked at him, and he looked around a bit before squinting his eyes and staring up at the top of the house. “Uh, hey, do you need a paint job?”

What?

“Um, I’m not the owner, sorry.” I figured that would make him leave. I don’t own the house, therefore I won’t be making any decisions/purchases regarding the painting of the house. “Oh, you just the babysitter?” he asked. Sure, I thought; why not? “Yep, just the sitter,” I replied. HA. Now you have even LESS reason to talk to me.

(…or MORE, if you’re THAT KIND of meandering stranger, ohgodwhathaveIdone???)

At this point, he started meandering again. Not down the walkway back to the sidewalk. No no, right across our lawn. Through our yard into the next door neighbors’ yard. And now he was adding mumbling to his meandering, because was saying something that I had to ask him to repeat 3 times before understanding: “Do you want me to leave my number with you?” “No thanks, that’s alright,” I answered.

Once he asked the paint job question, I naturally assumed he was in the business of painting homes, and going door-to-door trying to get some work. It’s not the first time we’ve had painters or lawn care people or even the local butcher doing just that. But let’s take a look at the difference between those Credible People and my Meandering Stranger, shall we? The Credible People are, if not in a uniform, then at least dressed in business-casual attire. My Meandering Stranger was dressed in jeans and a filthy sweater. Credible People use the walkway; they do not trample through your grass. Meandering Stranger both meandered and trampled through the grass. Credible People come armed with info: pamphlets, flyers, door-hangy-things, business cards, etc. Meandering Stranger held nothin’ but a disposable paper coffee cup. Hmm…

All I can say is THANK GOD he meandered his way on outta my life. I shut the door and promptly cocked my head to one side, running through what had just happened, seeing 5 minutes too late all the warning signs I should have seen in the beginning, going, “What the… what just… what?”

Jeff got home from work about 10 or 15 minutes after all that went down. I told him about it as soon as he walked in the door, and immediately he asked, “Did he look like…” and described to a T my Meandering Stranger. How did he know this? Because as he’d turned onto our street, he’d seen two police cars stopped and questioning the very same man at the end of our boulevard.

Here is where I get a little sick feeling.

Is there like, a cure for this kind of moronosy? A class I can take, a pill I can swallow, a door I can NOT open, OMG DO I HAVE TO OPEN THE DOOR TO EVERY LUNATIC I SEE? Seriously. I’ve been very lucky so far. Luck does not last forever.

I can’t even start stories with, “You will not believe what just happened!” with Jeff anymore, because he knows me, and therefore he will totally believe in a heartbeat whatever new nutcasey thing I’ve done, no questions asked.

What is it about that monkey? You know the one I’m talking about. My 15-month-old has a vocabulary of only 40ish words, and “George” is one of them. I suspect he might be such a fan mostly because his older brother is. Ethan LOVES Curious George on PBS, and amazingly, so do I; it is one of VERY FEW kids shows I can sit through, and even enjoy. There are no annoying characters (ZOE (from Sesame Street) I AM TALKING TO YOU) and no annoying voices (now I’m talking to you, Baby Bear, Wheezie, CAILLOU, and a bazillion others). And it’s actually quite funny. Not to mention the math and science concepts little kids are introduced to in very age-appropriate and effective ways. We are kind of a whole family of George fans.

Which is why when I was given this new game, Curious George- Hide and Seek Zoo, to try out with Ethan and review, I knew not only would we have a hit on our hands, but also a big fat brawl. One game plus two boys equals CHAOS, you know. Thankfully, Ethan was IN LOVE with the walkie talkie (it comes with a walkie talkie! and The Man with the Yellow Hat uses it to talk to you! TO YOU! Not in Ethan’s wildest dreams, I tell you!) and busied himself with that while Oliver happily threw the cards around and tried to lose them (under the couch! nice one, little baby, well played! but I found it, so HA!). We made Ethan wait until after Ollie had gone down for a nap to play, and hoo boy, there’s nothing like finding your spouse crouched underneath the dining room table wearing a pig mask to brighten your day, lemmetellya.

The game is all about problem solving- there’s some kind of problem at the zoo, and you have to help George and The Man solve it. The Man uses the walkie talkie to give you instructions, and sometimes you’re problem solving and sometimes you’re moving the game piece, but SOMETIMES you get to put on animal masks (we are at a zoo, remember?) and hide and the person with the walkie talkie has to find you. It was great fun… so much fun, in fact, that Ethan BEGGED to sleep with that walkie talkie. And he also likes to randomly ask me throughout the day to put on the different masks, a request which I always oblige, OF COURSE. Why would I NOT want to imitate a giraffe while making lunch, I ask you? However: There might be nothing like hiding from/seeking your spouse and finding them in an animal mask, but there’s NO COMPARING to answering your door, forgetting you’re wearing the pig mask. (Not that I came close to actually doing that once or anything.)

I know that this is a game we’ll play again and again. If it were just a board game, where the only physical action came from spinning a spinner and moving a game piece, I don’t think I could say that. But the hide and seek aspect of the game had us all really into it. And honestly, it was cool to see my almost-4-year-old using his problem-solving skills to figure out how to solve the various dilemmas George had gotten himself into. And I could tell he felt pretty good about himself, too.

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

*I did not practically invite a shady stranger into my home (when my husband was not even here; just me and the kids)… a stranger who had shown up with a sad story about his life on the streets, turned prisoner, turned newly-released ex-con…a stranger who was selling MAGAZINE SUBSCRIPTIONS… I totally did not do this. I mean, I give him props for being able to add the “ex” part to his “con” status. But it was still scary. (The whole situation was very reminiscent of the hitch hiker I did not pick up a year and a half ago.)

*I did not suggest through clenched teeth that HEY, maybe we should have shoved one of our children (I don’t want to name names here or anything) (but I will say that he is the naughtier of the two and his name rhymes with Feethan) into one of the drawers of the dresser we’d just sold on Craigslist, because they’d just hauled it away moments before, and I’m SURE they would not have heard the yelling coming from inside the dresser, right? No, I never said any such thing. That would make me an AWFUL mother. (Oh, come on, I would have gotten him back the next day. Honestly.)

*During an episode of Dollhouse that we watched last night, I DID NOT see Eliza Dushku’s portrayal of a blind person and then remark, “I wonder if blind people are offended by how actors who can see play blind people?” (Someone remind me to think before I say things out loud, please?)

*I did not just eat a big bowl of pistachios and call it lunch. That’s not healthy, and I eat healthily all the time. So no, I did not do that.

*Nor did I wash them all down with a brownie. Never.

*I was not the mother at the grocery store this morning with the two children who were screaming their heads off, frantically bribing them with gum (for the eldest; just the wrapper for the baby to play with) to just please be quiet. Nor was I the mother of the little boy who opened the bin of coffee beans and let them all spill out onto the floor. That wasn’t me. That was some other poor, exhausted chump.

*I did not let Ethan watch an extra hour of tv just so I could write this and read other people’s blogs. I never do that. It’s hands-on, arts & crafts type stuff all day, every day in our house.

*I was not mistaken for my kids’ babysitter twice in one week. OH NO WAIT YES I TOTALLY WAS. That one was not not me. Score!