09.07.02

seven years ago today, i was at the BEST.PARTY.EVER. so we're quite a few of you readers out there, too (c'mon...you know it totally rocked). i got married on september 7, 2002 in wildwood, nj (i know, right?! wildwood is for drunken hook ups, not marriage, but meh, i like to live on the wild side) and proceeded to cape may, nj for the reception (with at pit stop at the beach for some of the BEST.WEDDING.PICTURES.EVER.) i don't think the staff at the hotel alcott really knew what they were up against. regardless, it was a perfectly beautiful day, with a totally killer party to finish it out (if you don't believe me, check out the picture of grandmom breaking it down, daddy getting trapped during a rendition of "paradise in the dashboard lights" or patrick opening the breakdancing competition). in short, a totally awesome day. i would do it again in a heartbeat (and trust me, i could totally use the money that was spent on it, but i don't care, i would do it again anyway). i've included some pictures of the day for everyone else to relive the day, too. now i am off to pack the five kids in the car for a barbecue at my mom's. romantic, no?

i want glitter and candy

so, it's been established that my house is crazy and i am privy to some ridiculous conversations. this is what i am listening to/talking about right now:
amazingly, all five kids are sitting in the living room coloring lightning mc queen papers from a kit that dennis received as a present yesterday.
i look over the crowd and say "those are cool. who got those for you, dennis?" dennis ignores me. thomas answers "someone." thanks for that informative answer, tom.
ps - i don't know who it's from, because the boys took it upon themselves to open the gifts at some random point in out little party last night, with no adults around. thanks to all who give him gifts, but i have no idea who gave what.
while thomas and i have this conversation, dennis is saying "this is my masterpiece," cara is saying "i got puple (which is purple, and no shit, cara, it's the ONLY color you EVER use. ever.)" and jack is saying "i want glitter and candy!" for real. that is what my five year old boy is saying.
i thought i would share another amusing little anecdote from this weekend. saturday, our car (the only car available that seats all of our family at one time) broke down. something about the transmission. needless to say, with daddy not working, mommy had a little breakdown. thankfully my mom (who has previously been mentioned as the best mom ever) came through for me again and i was able to relax somewhat and enjoy myself at the baby shower for my cousin lisa (woo hoo! shout out!) that we had on sunday.
while sitting at a table with family outside, i feel something buzzing around the fake flower on the headband i am wearing. i swat at it, and with my impeccable aim, flick a bee down the front of my shirt (damn cleavage!!!). i shake out the shirt, and mistakenly think i get rid of the bee. a few minutes later, i feel something tickling my side and go to scratch it. as i put my hand on my side, i am thinking in my head "STOP! IT'S THE BEE! STOP NOW!" but apparently, my hand didn't care. yup. i squeal because i get stung by the bee and then start crying laughing because it's so ridiculous. meanwhile, no one knows why i yelled or why i am laughing, because no one knows about the bee in the first place. by the time i am able to get the whole story out, everyone was pretty much laughing, 'cause really, who flicks a bee down their shirt?!?! now, i have a big itchy welt that spans my side from the back of my hip around to my stomach. did i mention i'm allergic to bee stings?
good times, good times...

ADDENDUM
8pm in the rafter household on the longest day of my life...
dennis has been crying and saying "play doh" for about 45 minutes but he is not allowed to play with it again tonight, since i have already vacuumed up the day's mess and fed everyone dinner and dessert and cleaned that up, too. in his tear-induced delirium, he decides to haul off and throw a full red "little hug" drink at thomas, who is sitting on the living room floor. i am in the process of waking the girl's up while changing their pull-ups to put them to bed (ps - tommy has been doing two different side jobs since about 7am. yay for work. boo for my day of single motherhood). i send jack up to go to the bathroom and get pajamas on. this is the conversation that takes place (while i clean the red juice off the floor, change the girls as they cry and try to block out dennis' screaming):
me: put some jammies on while you are up there
jack (who is 5): can you help me? (see above for why that was not on my list of things to do at this moment)
me: jack, come on, just put pajamas on
jack: what if i do it wrong again and get two pants?
me: look at the pajamas and if you have two pants, put one back and get a shirt
jack: it's hard to tell
me: pants have two holes for legs. shirts have two hole for arms. laughter (because, really, what else is there? this was a dead-serious conversation i had to participate in)
around 10 minutes later, jack comes down in a pair of underwear, carrying christmas striped pj pants and one of thomas' t-ball shirts. meh...he got a shirt and a pair of pants. it counts.
now, i'm off to yell at the boys to "be quiet and not wake the girls" and take a nice, big helping of benadryl and go to bed.

happy 4th birthday, dennis!

today is dennis' 4th birthday. my memory of his actual birth is pretty foggy (poor middle child. i'm sorry, baby). i do know that my mom and sister were at my house and we were getting ready to leave to go on a crate and barrel shopping expedition when my water broke. so, instead of crate and barrel, tommy and i went to the hospital where i was hooked up to my antibiotics (i was group b strep for my last three pregnancies). i know that was probably about 7pm and that we were there all night, but i have no real clear recollections, otherwise. meghan (who was there in the delivery room with us for both thomas and dennis) says that at some point the next day, i started bleeding, which was pretty freaky and then he was born (very vague, i know). i didn't get to hold dennis immediately. he was whisked to the nicu because he was a "mellow fellow." in the meantime, i had a reaction to the anesthesia so they put benadryl in my iv, which pretty much turned me into a non-comprehending mass of sleepiness. i vaguely remember them wheeling me past him in the nicu to see him and just praying that they would put me in a bed so i could sleep. not a very romantic or noteworthy story. sorry, baby.

dennis was actually born on a wednesday at 2:45 pm weighing 6 pounds, 7 ounces (peanut!). he was, and still is, one of the honest-to-god prettiest boys i have ever seen (when i was pregnant with the girls i had serious fears that they wouldn't be as pretty as him. shallow, i know). he was also one of the calmest, most content, easiest to live with babies in the history of babies. he LIVED in his baby papasan swing. so easy going and pleasant (which was a GIGANTIC contrast to his brother jack. GIGANTIC).

dennis has grown into the wildest of my boys. and the toughest. i'm pretty sure that as they get older, thomas and jack will be running to get dennis to beat someone up for them (i should also note here that dennis is way, way littler than thomas and jack. they have always ranked in the 95+ percentile on height and weight charts. dennis tops out around 50%). dennis also had one of the first real emergency room visits requiring ketamine (for real...special k!!! wtf?!?!) and 10 stitches in his face by a plastic surgeon (proof of the "wildest" and "toughest" designations). he's also way more independent than his brothers, getting dressed by himself, going to school/camp with no tears, etc.

dennis is also convinced that he's the coolest of my boys (he may be right, there, too). the other day i was telling katie that someone said she was the sweetest girl they ever met and dennis, with no hesitation, said "did she tell you i was the coolest guy she ever met?" as if there was no question about it, he just wanted to know if the person passed along the info. dennis is also my tattoo kid. the other boys NEVER wear fake tattoos (which is a little weird as i have three real ones of my own). dennis ALWAYS has one. if we don't have the rub-on kind, he draws one on himself. cool. on tuesday, i had to take jack and dennis for school physicals and i was listening to the radio. "knock you down" by keri hilson, kanye and ne-yo was on and i was singing my heart out (it's my ring tone, right now, after all). when it ended, dennis said "i want to hear a song with a guitar." i started switching stations and a commercial with a nirvana song came on. when the clip ended, he said "that song had a guitar! you missed it!" i explained it was a commercial and kept looking. i found "doa" by the foo fighters and before i even settled on it, dennis yelled "that's it! that's the guitar song i want to hear!" see...cool. what other 4 year has such tremendous taste in music? my final dennis story involves his personal grooming (and his similarity to his father). tommy was taking the boys to game stop the other day and dennis went up to go to the bathroom before they left. he came downstairs and sat next to me and i smelled something vaguely familiar. sniffing, i asked him what he did. "nothing" was his reply. i sniffed again and realized what i smelled. i asked "did you put daddy's gel in your hair?" (tommy uses lots of gel. lots. he's pretty particular about it, too.) his response was "we are going out!" as if it is totally normal for a not-quite-four-year-old to gel his hair to go to game stop!!! see...again...cool. love this kid!

in short...he is a pleasure and a joy to have around here. he makes us laugh with his funny humor (and funnier pronunciation) and makes life easier with his independence (and consistent "help" doing the laundry). i would not trade my "baby boy" for anything in the world! happy 4th birthay, dennis! we love you!

self preservation

so, i am thinking about self preservation, or more specifically, why my children do not have any kind of instinct for it. you know how, if you see a really crazy person yelling and cursing on the street, you try to avoid that person, maybe even cross to the other side to stay out of their way? i don't think my kids would do that. they may even walk up to that person and hit them in the head with a balloon and ask the crazy person to get them a drink. at least, if that crazy person looks anything like me, they will. yesterday was not.a.good.day. sigh.
i don't think they have developed that instinct over night, either. as i sit here typing with a black rain cloud over my head, dennis stands next to me (he's already been put in his room for fighting and come back down. it's not yet 10am) saying "chocolatemilkchocolatemilkchocolatemilk" while holding a bottle of hershey's syrup. sigh.
on with a new day...

rambling thoughts from a befuddled mind

dude, it's friday. what.the.eff? i really, truly can't believe it's friday. i started to clue in to the fact that it was friday when a few of my favorite blogs posted something about it being friday (alicia, valentine, jennifer juniper and hit 40). i still wasn't positive, so i looked at my phone and sure enough, it said "fri, aug whatever." obviously, i stopped paying attention after seeing "fri" because i still don't know what the date is. i'm not sure which day that i lost, but one of them went missing. for reals.
i totally don't love my new nail polish. i was all set to be ubercool for the fall with my "gunmetal" polish, too. meh. it's alright. now i'm too lazy to take it off and start over though. also. it is sally hansen polish so i thought it would be half decent (i should let you know that i am a freak about doing my nails. usually use opi polish. two coats of ridge filler, two coats of color, good top coat. freak...like i said). but it is from the "Xtreme color" line which must be for hip little teeny boppers or cheesy girls that don't care or something cause it sucked. the brush sucked and was totally cheapy and the bottle was plastic! i think the last time i had a plastic nail polish bottle it was tinkerbell. cripes.
i watched "mad men" for the first time the other night and i think christina hendricks is my new hero. she's hot. she has gorgeous red hair. and she is not skinny. i want to be her when i grow up. plus, let's face it the style of the early 60's rocks (and i know that christina hendricks does not wear 60's era clothing on a regular basis, but i already mentioned that i am a little befuddled these days). they were totally made for my body type. i would have been a total hottie. plus, having 5 kids then was somewhat more common.
did you know kristen davis has a sex tape? i know. crazy, right? prissy charlotte in a sex tape...no way (tommy also said "hey. she's one of jerry's girlfriends. i didn't figure her for that)! what's even weirder is that i discovered this yesterday (while googling images of christina hendricks in killer clothes, both for the 60's and from today) on some random website...while my kids were watching "miss spider's sunny patch whatever. ohmygod! right?!?! ms. spider is in a porno! weird!
that seems to be all of the coherent thoughts that i can string together at the moment. i do have some funny dennis stories, but as monday is his birthday and i have no recollection whatsoever of his actual birth, i am saving the dennis stories for his birthday post. have a good weekend (since it is friday, after all)!

ps - i reached 50 followers on blogger! woo hoo! how cool am i?!?!

togetherness

so, tommy is currently not working. he got laid off on monday and tuesday was his last day.
[for anyone that does not know us personally, i am totally freaked out about this, but it is not as truly as horrifying as it seems. tommy is a union electrician, so he does have lots of leads and the backing of a union. thank god. however, the idea that neither one of us has a legitimate income right now is quite overwhelming. somewhat comparable to finding out you are having twins at 20 weeks when you currently have a 6 year old, 2 year old and 9 month old.]
if you do the math, you will see that tommy has been home for two days. so far, his half empty coffee cup which has been left on the counter in front of the coffee pot has been knocked over twice. mine has never been knocked over because i...a) finish my coffee and b) put the empty coffee in the sink.
now i am off to try school uniforms on thomas and jack to see what we need to buy for this year.
good times...good times...

and reality comes crashing back...

so, as some of you may have noticed, i have not been around for awhile. that is because i was on the best.vacation.ever. and surprisingly, this vacation involved both my children and my in-laws. i know, right?!?! my husband's family and i spent last week in nags head, north carolina and it is a vacation i HIGHLY recommend. we started out last saturday at 6am (for real, yo) by loading all five children and way too much clothing into the car. we made great time until we reached north carolina where we hit mad shore traffic. however, everything worked out perfectly (we're good like that, haha) because, as we pulled up to the realtor, they handed us the key. even though we were half an hour early (it was 3:30 pm...you can do your own math figuring how long we were in the car) and even though most of the other people staying with us had been at the house since, like, noon (fools. they should take punctuality lessons from tommy and i). tommy (my wonderful husband who is the real life eddie haskell) was able to schmooze the key out of the dragon lady a little early.

from there we drove the seven miles to our house at mile post 11 (i sound like a real obx'er, now, don't i?). we had a seven bedroom (there were 13 adults and 9 kids in the house for the duration), oceanfront house with a pool and hot tub. it was the best set-up ever! we did not leave the grounds for the entire week. we woke up everyday and had a big breakfast (lucky for them, they had a "classically trained french chef" with them. me.), then suited up and went out to the pool or beach. at some point, someone would do something for lunch, even delivering it to those sitting on the beach). after a while, i would start dinner and when it was ready, everyone would come up and eat. sometimes, the kids would get baths and put on their jammies. a couple of nights, the guys lit a bonfire on the beach and we just went back down there. i think, there was maybe two days total that anyone in my family actually wore anything other than a bathing suit or pajamas (note to self...do not pack outfits for everyday in the outerbanks). it was a totally relaxing vacation, which is REALLY saying a lot with that many children in one house.

and because tommy and i can never do anything easily, we left nags head at 4am friday morning so he could come home and dj a wedding. friday night, my parents 9i have the best.mom.EVER.) picked up the kids and took them to the shore for "family day" on the beach (this is a day when all of my mom's cousins and their families go to the same beach to hang out and party...games for the kiddies...prizes...etc.). the theme this year was "rock stars" and my kids went as the jackson 5. they all had a t-shirt that said "we're the jacksons and we're bad!" along with glittery microphones and the mandatory sparkly white glove. apparently, they loved it (tommy and i had a wedding saturday night, so we missed this year)! hopefully, someone will send me some pictures soon (HINT, HINT). needless to say, saturday was a wonderful/crazy fun day for tommy and i. sunday, the children were delivered home.

this is where reality pokes her nasty head in. tommy got up and went to work this morning. at 8am, the rest of the family woke up and converged in my bedroom. in case you were wondering, 6 people in a queen size bed is too many. just sayin'. i have broken up more fights and screaming matches today than ever before. dennis has been carried up to bed twice in the middle of a crazy screaming fit and thomas and jack have been banished from my sight. i have been on hold with school for 15 minutes to see why my school loans have not been applied yet (if everything is not paid by tomorrow, they'll drop my classes). oh, and tommy got laid off. tomorrow will be his last day. welcome home, right? sigh. sometimes reality is a nasty bitch, ain't she?

anywho...vacation rocked and i am so glad we were able to go. as stated previously, i highly recommend a trip to the outerbanks. i even more highly recommend coming home from your vacation and having someone take your kids away for two days. haha. i kid. sorta. hopefully, i will soon have pictures of vacation to post (my camera is broken again, so i used a disposable. i took like 6 pictures or something. i know...rotten mother). so, in conclusion...no worries, folks, i have not abandoned you and now i am back to spread my joy and hilarity to all. ha.

ps - the picture is actually of the beach deck on the back of our rental home. how great is that view?