Bad Mommy Moment

Tonight after dinner I noticed that there was a slice of green pepper left on the kitchen table. Any normal person would pick it up and put it in the garbage. I picked it up and flung it at my 14 year-old daughter. When she asked, "What was that?!" I answered, "assault with a pepper!" and broke out laughing. Needless to say, she was not amused at my pun. What kind of mother flings vegetables at her daughter just to be able to make a play on words? At least she'll have something interesting to tell her therapist some day!

Dirty Thoughts

Floors swept? Check. Sheets washed? Check. Laundry done? Check. Bathrooms clean? Check. Upstairs, downstairs, AND basement vacuumed? Check. Fridge cleaned out? Check. Recycling done? Check. Sink clean? Check. Dishes clean? Check. Miscellaneous detritus of life removed from counters, coffee tables, end tables, and floors? Almost....

Guess who's going on vacation soon? Guess who's REALLY going to need one after this frantic flurry of fanatical cleaning? A major pet peeve of mine is coming home from a trip to a dirty, disorganized house. It's depressing and makes me want to cry. So, I go all OCD before trips making sure EVERYTHING is clean and tidy. It's so clean by the time departure rolls around that I hate to leave! My house is NEVER as clean as it is before trips, and I will be the first to admit that I may drive my family a tad crazy to get it that way. Oh well, I'm the Mom. Want dinner? Deal with my neuroses!http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/this-is-why-ill-never-be-adult.html

Undie Dog!

My dog is a pervert. Last week I had to buy 3 new pairs of undies because my poodle chewed several pairs of mine to shreds! At first I thought that our washer had gone on the fritz and was ripping up our clothes but kept wondering why only my unmentionables kept getting destroyed. Then I realized the horrifying truth; our dog has a thing for my undies. YUCK. Several telltale clues plus my Encyclopedia Brownish powers of deduction led to this unnerving discovery. First, there was a pair of undies on the floor that I had taken off the night before (I know, I should've put them in the hamper. I'm a slob.) When I put them back on the following morning to quickly walk my daughter to the bus stop for school, they were wet. Hmmm...I don't have a bladder control issue. They were dry the previous night. Very suspicious..... Second, there were several instances when my undies popped up in various odd places around the house-in the hallway, in the bathroom, on my floor, when I knew that I had put them in the hamper. Furthermore, some of these undies were shredded! Undies don't typically locomote of their own accord. Very suspicious.... Lastly, as my husband and I were in bed the other evening, our dog proceeded to jump off the bed (yes, he sleeps with us, and I don't want to hear anything about it!) and run to our closet where we keep the hamper. We looked over at him, and he had his nose buried in the hamper. Soon enough had pulled out....a pair of my undies!!! Well, I cracked the case right then and there! I couldn't have trained him to perform this feat if I had spent 2 years working on it, but it seems that he has learned to find my underwear from a pile of clothes, pull it out, slobber all over it, and then chew it to pieces. Maybe I could get him on "Amazing Pet Tricks." BAD DOG!!!

Please Join Me in Honoring....Uh, What's Your Name?

Well, it's school awards assembly time! That time of year when parents are unjustly punished for bearing and rearing intelligent offspring. Ah, the feel of hard, metal folding chairs beneath my ever aging bones, the closeness of fellow parents as we're crammed into the undersized gymnasium like wads of stuffing into the cavity of a turkey, the warmth of the stagnant air as the one, overworked rotary fan attempts to cool a room full of sweaty, squirmy adolescents. And, of course, that one grandparent who invariably sits near me and drones on and on and on and on throughout the entire assembly with facts, stories, jokes, comments, and other fascinating anecdotes I DON'T CARE ABOUT! It's like having a mosquito buzzing nonstop in your ear, and you just want to stick a pencil into your brain to kill it and end the noise! But I digress. Awards. It is nice to see the kids who actually do what they are supposed to do in school acknowledged for once. Usually, it's the kids who are wreaking havoc who get the attention. So, awards are good. Acknowledgment is good. Recognition is good. You know what else is good? Not butchering the name of the kid that's getting the award! There's something phony and hypocritical about blathering on about how special someone is and how proud you are to honor him or her and then mispronouncing the kid's name. This happened many times throughout the middle school awards ceremony. How hard would it have been to look over the list of winners and learn how to pronounce the names correctly? We're not talking about some multicultural mecca school with lots of foreign names here; it's Southern Maryland for goodness sakes! Note to school administators: DO YOUR HOMEWORK!!!