kids.

i am fiercely in love with my kids. i find myself wanting to spend more and more time with them lately. yeah, sometimes they annoy the hell out of me, make me want to rip my face apart, or better yet, their's, or dare i say? send them back. but there has been no greater joy in my life than having my 3 gorgeous children. well, except for the day i got to have sex with my husband for the first time, which was in fact, our wedding day, which was in fact a beautiful & glorious day.


yesterday scarlett and i were trying to play SORRY while atticus crawled around all over the floor, destroying anything that got in his way. he came over to us and started pulling on the table cloth, where the game was sitting, almost pulling the entire thing off. scarlett got up, picked him up and said, "here. i'm just going to give him to the toys."


later, we were all just lying on the floor being silly, normal stuff. you know, like addy trying to regurgitate his graham crackers into my mouth, slobbering everywhere. so we got out the camera and recorded this. (important note for the end of the video: he's just learning to nod when you ask him a question.)







i love that his head practially falls off his neck.
we then proceeded to play with some mustache i found hidden in lee's pocket. i guess he wanted to surprise me for role play night? he likes to dress all good cop/bad cop sometimes.

speaking of "does this make my ass look big"?

the past few days i've been unfortunate enough to catch a glimpse of my love handles, muffin top, or what have you, that just won't quit. when this happens i want to shout at lee or the kids, "who left the cottage cheese out again?!" only to smack myself with reality that, hey! that's me there. this throws me into an obsessive frenzy. we're talking like, amy-fisher-shot-joey-buttafuoco's-wife-in-the-face obsessive. and then it makes me go all lorena bobbit.

and when this happens i usually beat myself up about it, vowing to try harder to be a little better ;) only to treat myself with not one, but two, bowls of cocoa krispies for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. or all three, if i'm feeling really awesome about myself. it's one continuously vicious cycle.

i'm going on a cruise in like 4 months. if i get all healthy & do it the right way, that's only a 24-lb loss. then that thought just throws me back into the frenzy and i get all orangey-birdy in a factory cuckoo for coco puffs.

but i'm willing to try. cause that is like losing 2 dress sizes, which is like losing two whole nicole richies. cause we all know she is scrawny as hell. and we all know how. sometimes i wish i could lack morals like her.

but my mama taught me better.

ingenius liars.

"does this make my ass look big?" and instead of just throwing up on me with "no, your ass makes your ass look big", he says, "i think you look hot."

he thinks total genius. i think total avoiding the question here. and he thinks, dodged that one. and i think, if you had said yes i would have drop-kicked then b*tch-slapped you faster than you could say just kidding and if you had said no, you have a nice one well, then i still would have drop-kicked you. repeatedly.

then i think, total genius. i'm a total. genius.

visions of sugarplums

lee & i are planning on going on a cruise for our ten year anniversary in may. now, i have never been on one before so i'm super thrilled. for real. like, pee-my-pants excited. like, punch-someone-random-in-the-face cause i'm so excited. like when my husband was a kid riddled with ADD, probably even ADHD, & he'd be so excited about something he'd just hit people.

however, everytime i envision myself on said cruise this is what i see: i'm dancing around, wildly, in a little bikini, holding a huge bottle of some sort of alcohol that is almost empty, being all loud. well, more like obnoxious and eating a butt-load of food. and hanging all over strangers. probably even the strange strangers.

then i do a reality check and say to myself:

self, you've had 3 kids. 3. kids. liposuction & boob lift first, then bikini. no one wants to have nightmares of a giant, gurgling hamburger tummy chasing them.

and second, self, if you'll remember, you don't know what alcohol is, let alone even drink alcohol.

when i take a step back & look at this scenario, i'm reminded that it is very similar to the last ten years of tara reid's existence.

so then i grab my oversized robe. and tie that b*tch tight.

i heart babies.

isn't it a pisser when

you think you got enough wipes

for the baby's wretched diaper,

only to find you have gotten

poop on the fingers anyway?

welcome to my world.

playmate of the year

my kids love beautiful people. they stare incessantly, almost uncomfortably, when they see someone exotic or beautiful. wait, i take that back; they just stare in general; drop-dead gorgeous, drop-dead-cause-you're-ugly. it doesn't even really matter.

yesterday i was at target & up ahead of us there was a girl standing in line; long, bleach-blonde hair, heavy make-up, tiny body, boobs the size of texas and california. oh hell, boobs the size of the united states, hawaii & alaska included. she was cute. total playmate wanna-be. as soon as i saw this girl i watched scarlett to see what she would do.

sure enough, like a fly on poop, she spotted her right away and did not let this girl out of her sight. sensing i was about to say something about her lack of proper manners, scarlett spoke first saying, mostly to herself but out loud & slowly, "wait. i think... yeah... i know that girl" (as though she were giving herself an excuse to stare). snickering at the fact that she is 5 and this girl was probably in her twenties, i quickly shot her down and said, "no you don't. where would you know her from?"

then i'm thinking, is your dad taking you to clubs again?

(*i would like to say, in my defense, that i teach my children that beauty is on the inside & that it doesn't matter what a person looks like, everyone is unique. and that that's just something ugly people say. just kidding. but no matter how many times i express this to them, they just can't help their fascination. kids are intrigued by people. and it's ok. no one ever died from being stared at too much.)

sinner.

so, it's considered naughty when your daughter starts singing Beyonce's, "a diva is a female version of a hustler, of a hustler", right?

but...

it's worse when she sings it incorrectly & says, "i'm a hustler. i'm a hustler", right?

oopsies.

toenail update

lee and i were talking about the previous blog post and i said to him,

"did i even tell you that story of when london & i were reading in our bed?" getting super excited and disgusted all at once.

"yeah, you did. did i tell you i found it?"

"found what?"

"the toenail."

"what?! where?!"

"under my pillow. the other night."

"sick, lee. what did you do with it?"

"well, i got it from under the pillow and tossed it behind the bed."

look of disdain crossing my face. "you did not. that is so effing gross."

"raina, i was sleeping. i wasn't going to get out of bed."

well gee, i mean, why would you?

this is coming from a man who feels it should be my wifely duty to clip his toenails. it would be a service.

wrong and wrong.

quirky quirksters

i'm just going to get right into it. my kids are quirky. besides nose-picking. because everyone does that. well, almost everyone. scarlett enjoys smells. she can smell a piece of paper and say, "mmmmm, that smells just like so-and-so". i guess you could say she has a true talent, if you wanted. london, on the other hand, is bit more strange. let me explain.

last night scarlett, after having been tucked in tightly not just two hours earlier, came upstairs to my room & interrupted my magazine reading with this:

"my toe hurts." i'm thinking to myself, wow. that's a new excuse. so being the compassionate mother that i usually am not, i ask, "your toe? why?" she proceeds, "london bit off my toenail." she then thinks it necessary to show me.

"sick!" (told you, not very compassionate.) "um, what happened?!" (it was bitten down to the part where it begins to hurt & gets a tinge of blood. yeah, i know. what. the. hell, right?)

"well, she said i could sleep in her bed if i let her bite it." (did i ever mention my kids are master manipulators?)

laughing, mostly out loud & a titch to myself i say, "well, why'd you let her do it?"

"i wanted to sleep with her. do you have a band-aid?"

and there is nothing more to say concerning that.

the other day london and i were reading together in my bed. as she was reading, i noticed her voice sounded a bit off. i looked over and noticed a whitish, transparent piece of something hanging over her lip and then pop into her mouth.

i interrupted with, "what is that on your lip?"

giggling, she replies, "my toenail." (yeah, really effing hilarious)

i get this look of utter disgust on my face; i can feel it. and say, "your toenail? and you're chewing on it? in mybed? that is sick. don't drop it in my bed, london. i'm not kidding."

read, read, read some more. then,

"uh-oh. i dropped it." swiftly pull back the covers, rummage, rummage, rummage.

nothing. nothing.

"i can't find it."

"reading time is over. out of my bed."

funny thing is, lee does the exact same thing: reads & talks with a toenail hanging from his lip. i have no one to blame but the man i married.