reason #432 why no one should have three boys...

so this is the scenario in my house this morning...i am in the kitchen making a large pot of saffron risotto for a party i am catering tonight and listening to pandora (i heart pandora) as jack and thomas play a game with a bouncy ball together (what, you say? thomas and jack are playing nicely together?!?!). as far as i can tell, the game should be called "thomas gets a point for everything jack does." but whatevs, they've only hit the stove and the china cabinet twice a piece and no one is crying. win, right? all of a sudden, i hear an argument break out because apparently, thomas no longer wants to play and is telling jack what he likes to play with (nintendo dsi). to which jack responds (brace yourself, here it comes): " i like balls!" at which point, all three boys start laughing hysterically, falling on the floor, screaming laughing while jack shouts, "not these balls! the bouncy kind! i swear!" the only thing that would make this situation worse (albeit, still funny) is the girls asking "what so funny?" as they fake laugh along with the boys. thanks, boys, but i think we will save that lesson for a little later in your sister's lives.

ps - no one got in trouble for this situation because i was laughing too hard and then calling tommy to tell him about it. i wasn't even able to break out mrs. brady's infamous "don't play with your balls in the house." damn.

ps again - so, i posted this 34 minutes again and the game has since deteriorated into jack continually losing points and resorting to whipping thomas in the face with indiana jones' whip hard enough to leave a mark. thomas is in tears. i'm guessing that means jack wins. i also am guessing that this is reason #433.

mean kids suck

ahh...summer...kids home all day with nothing to do but...fight with the neighbors, apparently. we had some drama here yesterday. the boys were playing out front (there are a whole mess of kids on my block, so there is usually at least one other kid for them to play with at any given time). yesterday was one of the first rain free days that we have had here since, i don't know, 1997 or something. needless to say, the kids were out in full force. most of the kids were neighbors that live on our block and i am familiar with, some weren't.
at one point, dennis comes in hysterical crying, but won't tell me what is wrong. he calms down while sitting on the couch and drinking some chocolate milk. later i see that his knees are all scraped and bloody. poor baby. two transformers band-aids later and he is a happy, napping camper. a little while later, as i am ironing and the girls are playing and dennis is sleeping, jack comes in hysterical crying and says someone punched him in the face. he has a big red mark where he was hit. i go to the door to find out what happened and from what i gather, a little boy was making fun of jack and hit him and then jack was hitting him back and then jack was crying (it was a little tough to figure out with 18 kids all talking at me at the exact same time). fine. my kids are told to stay away from this kid and keep their hands to themselves.
a small time later, jack comes back in crying again. he has been hit in the face another time, by the same child. now, i go out again and i say to the kid "if you can't play nice, then don't come over here" as he rides by in the street, on his bike, sticking his tongue out at my children and i. very annoying.
a little while later, i look out the door and this boy is on the pavement in front of my house, upset. i ask what happens and they say thomas knocked him off his bike. now i've had it and my boys are told to stay totally away from this kid and go out back (which is something of a punishment, since none of the other kids on the block are out there, they are still out front). a few minutes later, there is a knock on my front door. yup...you guessed it. it's the problem-causing punk and his parents. the mother wants to talk to thomas. WHAT?!?!!?! does she really think i am going to send my 9 year old out to her? umm...no sorry. i ask what the problem is and am told that my son keeps pushing her son off of his bike and her son is only 6. my response is that my children have been told to stay away from her little monster, um, i mean boy, and thomas was told to keep his hands to himself. however, her son punched my son in the face twice, and my son is only 5. she asks the boy "why are you punching him?" and his response, not surprisingly, was "he hit me first." then she says, "well, it's fine now. they are gone. you can play." this pissed me off the most i think. WE live on this block. not them! my kids were sent away so this kid wouldn't bother them and now he gets to stay and play with all of the other kids while my boys are banished out back! this is all supremely annoying to me.
sadly, my tale does not end here. i went up to get a shower and dressed (we were going to my in-laws for dinner to visit with family in from california) and tommy did also. when we came down and told the kids it was time to go, the boys were very nervous. apparently, this little creep brought his older cousin to our house...knocked on the door...and threatened my boys!!! TWICE!!! are you kidding me?!?! these kids are assholes! at this point, we all pile into the car to go to dinner and tommy makes a stop at the little creeps' house. he speaks to the older cousin's mother who is all smiles and says she will make sure it stops. the little punk's parents come stand at the door, but won't come up and say anything. hopefully, it will not carry through to today. it looks, however, like i will be spending a lot more time sitting on my front step than i originally planned. wish us luck!

how is your day?

just thought i'd drop a little note to let everyone know how my day is going. first, a little background...my house is a 14' wide row home. it is approximately 1000 square feet. this means it is.not.big. in fact, small is a good adjective for my home, very small. this means we are never far away from each other. never. however, today apparently my living room is not close enough to my kitchen (my first floor, by the way, is one big open space. i can see from my front door to the back. no walls obstructing views).

i was in the living room, putting away toys. the girls were in the yard (it is an approximately 8'x14' slab of fenced in concrete in the back of my house). the door to the yard is on the back wall of my kitchen and is glass. i can totally see what is going on there from all over my house. dennis was on the computer (which sits on a desk directly next to my back door).

as i walk into the kitchen, i notice that the back door is open. and dennis is standing at it. and katie is yelling. and. dennis. is. peeing. out. the. door...onto. katie. and. cara.

forget random thoughts tuesday. that is one of the most random (and grossest) things i have ever seen (i've included pictures of the crime scene so that you are able to see exactly how not far away i was).

how's your day?

ps - you can check out keely at the unmom for real randomness.

this is really the person i leave my children with when i leave the house?!

so last night, around 9:30 pm, when all of my children were still awake, katie decided that she wanted popcorn. tommy was taking care of it, so i continued the important work that i was doing on the computer (reading textsfromlast night and shopping for dresses). apparently, tommy "taking care" of it means he opened the popcorn, put it in the microwave for 5 minutes and went and laid on the couch. about 4 minutes and 55 seconds later, he says to me "is that popcorn still in the microwave?" at this point, i look over at the microwave and see the smoke absolutely POURING from it and blanketing the entire first floor of my house. nice. it was so smokey in here, that we had to put the children outside. when i took the bag from the microwave, there was actually some kind of black liquid leaking from it. eyes were watering, everyone coughing...it was crazy. the smoke alarm NEVER went off (did i mention that tommy is an electrician and my smoke detectors are hard wired in my house in EVERY SINGLE ROOM). that's pretty crazy, you see, because thomas takes a shower, the steam sets off the smoke detector.
this whole situation causes me some concern, as i realize that my children's father has an attention span of less than 5 minutes. who is paying attention when i'm not here? oh, right, no one (as proven HERE).
not to worry about the smoke detector though...as i heated up the oven to make lunch today, it started going off like a mother. so now, i am sitting here with the windows open and candles lit (to get rid of last night's burnt popcorn stench) and the hood fan on and back door open to make the smoke alarm go off now. what do you think my neighbors are thinking?

ps - jack said some of the funniest things i have ever heard last night...he told me he didn't want to eat dinner anymore because he didn't like the chicken nuggets. they were french fries. he then proceeded to say to dennis: "i got two peanut guns and i am a monkey." he then went up to change into pajamas and came down with dennis' christmas fleece mickey mouse pj shirt (jack outweighs dennis by about 25 pounds) inside out and a pair of red lightning mc queen pajama pants. but hey, he dressed himself so it's still a win, right?

when i wish upon a star...

i have found myself saying "i wish" quite often lately, so i thought i would write the list down and try to keep better track of all my wishes.

alright, i figure i'll get the big, obvious ones out of the way first...
i wish..i was thin (or that i was happy with my appearance. i'll take either), i had a bigger house, i could afford to send my kids to a better school, i had more money, etc.

i wish that i had lancome mascara here instead of maybelline

i wish that caroline could figure out how to eat popsicles so they didn't always fall of the stick which makes her cry

i wish that my kids would keep their shoes on their feet

i wish that when my kids take their shoes off, they would at least remember to put them on the steps instead of in the middle of the living room floor

i wish i had long hair

i wish that my mom lived closer to me

i wish that i could get in touch with meghan to tell her about the funniest website of all time (www.textsfromlastnight.com) [by the way, meg, this is what i was reading when i started leaving you a message the other day and was laughing so hard i couldn't speak]. i kinda also wish that my life was as funny as some of the posts on there

i wish i liked cleaning, exercise and getting up early

i wish i knew how to spell "exercise" without spellcheck (there's only 1 "c" you know)

i wish dennis and katie did not just fall asleep at 4:45pm

i wish i could get a job as a nurse without having to go back to school

i wish i had a shore house this summer and could take a younger cousin down for the summer with me to watch the kids while i got a job as a waitress or bartender at night

i think that is all that i am wishing for right now.

i would also like to thank noah's mommy for giving me the kreativ blogger award. thanks so much! i am glad that you enjoy what i have to say! i've done this one before, so if you would like to see my thoughts, just click on the link. thanks again!

honest scrap

yay for me! i got another award! this one is from alicia at it ain't easy being cheesy gave me the honest scrap award. the rules are that i am supposed to list ten things about myself that are true, but everyone may not know and then tag five other bloggers. hmm...here goes.

1. when i get my hair colored, i get my eyebrows dyed too. they match my hair better.

2. i have no idea what the true color of my hair is anymore. i have been dying it for so long and have changed the color so many times, i'm not sure what it would really look like if i let it go natural. i probably will never let it go natural.

3. i went to culinary school in new york and lived there for 1 1/2 year.

4. even though i went to culinary school, i still eat spaghettios, ragu sauce and kraft mac and cheese.

5. i only eat boiled hot dogs and i prefer that they have been in the water for a while, like from a street vendor or on the beach. when i go to barbecues, i NEVER make my kids eat barbecued hot dogs.

6. i can't stand for other people to fold my laundry, even tommy. if someone else folds it, i find myself refolding things as i put them away.

7. i like sleep more than almost anything else. if i was able to have my ideal day, it would be to be able to sleep for as long as i wanted in a really clean, really quiet room.

8. i used to HATE for anyone to touch my face. i have gotten better about it, but i still am not a huge fan.

9. the year i turned 21 i took accutane for acne (bad idea to start that the year you can start drinking legally) and have never had to do another thing for my skin since. i rarely even wash my face before i go to bed.

10. i have started doing the south beach diet and surprisingly, i find myself totally able to survive without white bread and mashed potatoes.

by the way...that was way tougher than i anticipated!

as far as passing it on to other bloggers, i am just going to name some of the blogs that i love to read ever day. i get stressed out about giving people these things because then i think "what if they don't want to list things about themselves?" or "what if they have already gotten this before?" so, i am just going to do some shout outs and let them deal with it as they like! i love when i see that amber, valentine, isabel princes and amanda, among many others, have posted something. they usually make me laugh out loud, which is a much needed break in my day. thank you again, alicia. your posts make me laugh out loud (and sometimes drool...see the cupcake post), too! thanks! enjoy checking out these other blogs!

life is good

it's a double shot tuesday!...

so, in my opinion, there is absolutely nothing better than a nice day on the beach. which is where i spent five hours on sunday. my grandparents live in north cape may, nj and we are very fortunate to live within driving distance. we can pop in whenever we feel like and spend the weekend at the shore. the best part about it is that my grandparents really seem to enjoy having us there. crazy, right? this past weekend, we had a surprise party for tommy's uncle, which tommy was not able to go to (he was dj'ing a party on saturday and another on sunday). therefore, i roped my mother in to going to the party with me with the promise of going to the shore directly from the party.

the trip to the shore was uneventful, everyone was pretty well behaved. when we got to my grandparents, it was extra fun for the kiddies as my aunt, who had 4 children ages 9 to 1 was there, too. (have i mentioned how very large my family is yet? my mother is the oldest of 8 and there are about 64 members of her immediate family now.) i know most normal people just read that and said: wait! is this girl saying that they had NINE kids 9 and under staying in ONE RANCH STYLE HOUSE for the weekend?!!? yes, that is what i am saying. i didn't say sleeping was fun, i just said it was fun for the kids, not necessarily the adults.

so anyway, on sunday we got up, had breakfast (which is a must at the shore) and got ready for the beach. after about a half hour of sunblocking (my children are literally the WHITEST children on the planet), off we went to the beach. we got there by 11:30 am! you are so super impressed, i know (i did mention that we had 9 kids we were taking with us, right?). when we got there we met up with: my aunt sue, aunt gail, aunt susan, eileen, joe, eileen (who had maddy and grace with her, 1 yo and 5 yo), aunt teresa, shannon, christine, lauren and two of her friends, plus my mom, grandmom, bernadette and her kids (there everyone...you got the blog mention!). the kids were awesome! i totally did not have to deal with one single tear for five hours! that is unheard of. it was a great day. i am so glad that my kids enjoy the beach as much as i do and that we've gotten past the rough years that involve cranky babies eating sand and needing naps while on the beach. i loved sunday.

i have posted some pictures of the kiddies on the beach, including those of jack's incredible find. he found a conch shell...WITH A LIVING CONCH! it was one of the craziest things i have ever seen on wildwood's beach (and trust me, the place is not called "wild"wood for nothing. some pretty crazy things can be seen there). my children are total city kids (as are their parents). they don't dig for bugs or touch frogs or pick up worms. they are afraid of bugs, for crissake. however, jack found this huge shell with the conch in it and decided it was his new pet. he carried it around all day. we did convince him to leave it on the beach when we were leaving (i don't think there is a big conch survival rate in fishtown, or in philadelphia for that matter). we are planning on visiting the conch next time we are down the shore. hopefully he has decided to stay on 16th street.

thank you everyone for all of your help on sunday. it really was a great day!