Quotes from the Backseat

If you’ve never driven around with a couple of boys in the backseat and just listened to the things they say, you are missing out on some funny stuff!

“Eww, Mom!  Trip ate some of my hair!”  (Giggling and a quick denial followed.)

“Here!  Eat my boogers!”  (One boy to the other.  I’m not sure which.  There are things you don’t really want to remember as a mother.)

“Did you poop in your pants?”  (There wasn’t even a fart that preceded the question.  This was just a procession of sillier and sillier questions.)

“Mom, I get a car in a couple of years and then I’ll be able to drive you around.”  (No he doesn’t!  He’s 9 years old!)

“I have thirty degree butt burns!”  (Brothers shouldn’t be able to access each others seat warmers.  Also, thirty degree burns?  I was aware of third degree burns…)

“Mom, he’s going to push the ejector button and throw me out of the car!”  (I wasn’t aware my car had ejector buttons, but maybe the boys did some after market upgrades on my car while I was sleeping one night.)

Cherry Pie Filling

That’s an extreme close up of my little brother, Jacob.  You’re welcome.  I’ve said for years that I was lucky he wasn’t born a girl.  He would have been much more popular than I was.  He had blonde hair, blue eyes, and a magnetic personality.  And that damned tan.  Couldn’t the pigment have been shared a little??  He got every single melanocyte there was to be shared.  It’s not fair!!!  (I’m fine with it now.)

His hair turned brown and still the girls flocked to him.  His hair has since started to turn gray and fall out and they still flock to him.  I am finally ok with that though because I have Ed the Awesome and I am the winner now!

Jacob is also my sibling closest in age to me.  We had many funny stories growing up and this is one of my favorites!  🙂

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Jacob was 15 years old and a sophomore in high school.  He hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet, so he had to compete for potential dates with lots of handsome boys who had already hit their growth spurts.  Tiny, little, skinny Jacob had to rely on his personality for dates.  Somewhere in the middle of his sophomore year, he landed a date with a fairly popular girl from high school.

I didn’t like her.  I didn’t have a reason for not liking her other than the stories I had heard about her and she sounded vapid.  I’m sure plenty of people thought the same of me at the same time.

The dinner conversations for a couple of weeks consisted of Mom asking Jacob for details about his romance and he hadn’t yet figured out how to evade such an interrogation.

The last conversation we had about this girl involved the two of them eating lunch together.  Jacob had gotten the school cafeteria version of nachos in which a bag of chips is dumped unceremoniously onto a styrofoam plate and liquid cheese product is poured on top of it.  Definitely not haute cuisine or even remotely healthy, but still a little less disgusting than the cherry pie filling that Jacob’s girlfriend had for lunch.

Yes, she had a can of cherry pie filling and ate it out of the can with a spoon.

She finished her “lunch” before Jacob did and since there was no protein in that can, she was still hungry.  She asked Jacob for some of his nachos.  Jacob, always good with words, told her, “I think you’ve had enough to eat for one day.”

Their relationship ended that day.  Mom and I had a great time telling him all of the alternative things he could have said.

I Am The Butt Of All Their Jokes, Part Deux

The boys were ecstatic after a win for their little league baseball team a couple of weeks ago.  It was after 7:00 in the evening.  We headed to Target because we needed a few things before we called it an evening.  We drove up the access road of the highway to get to Target with the windows open when a certain little boy farted in the Tahoe and it stunk so bad that the rest of us were gagging.

It was that moment that set the tone for the rest of the evening.

We got to Target, parked, went inside, and got a shopping cart.  Trip drove the cart for the first part of the excursion.  We had made our first turn through the store and had made it to the cosmetics aisle when I felt a child sized foot kick my butt.

(I’ve got to preface the rest of this story with this.  We play hard.  We love fiercely.  We rarely hurt each others feelings.)

I whipped around and exclaimed, “Logan!”

He grinned and pointed at Ed.

“Daddy did it,” he said with a grin.

“Boy!  I know what a little boy foot feels like on my butt!  Quit that!”  I told him.  He grinned like he hadn’t heard me.

We continued around the store gathering our needed supplies whilst jumping out of each others way and continuing our banter.  Logan and Ed were on one side.  Trip was on my side, telling the other two to leave me alone and blocking impending blows.  There were not any other actual blows that landed, but there was  a lot of jumping out of the way and feigned blows throughout the trip around the store.

Now, I’m fine with all of the banter and rough housing while we’re shopping, but when I’m at the check out line, I am done with all of the rough housing.  Not finished.  Done.  My mother will probably spin in her chair when she reads this, but there’s a time to use finished and a time to use done.  For this instance, I was DONE!

So we all loaded the items we were buying on the check out belt and I told Logan and Ed several times to behave themselves.  They pretended like they were going to behave themselves.  I should have known it was a ruse.

It was finally our turn with the cashier.  She started checking our items and I took my place beside the register so I could watch the monitor as the items were checked.  You never know when an item will ring up with the wrong price and this is true at any store.  You might have to wait for 20 minutes while a someone else goes to check the advertised price and comes back to verify the price you’ve quoted the cashier, but do you really want to pay the wrong price?  I don’t.

It was during this careful watching of the register that I felt another boy-sized foot kick my butt.

I lost my cool.  I whipped around and grabbed Logan by the face.  I threatened life and limb and video game privileges and movement outside of his bedroom for the rest of his life.

He got a little worried and refused to look me in the eye.  That’s his go to move when he’s in trouble- refusing to look his accuser in the eye when he’s in trouble.

And then it happened.

Tap, tap, tap.

Ed was tapping me on the shoulder.

“She wants you to pay,” he said.  He meant the cashier.

I rolled my eyes at him and returned to the register.  I set  my purse on the counter and swiped my credit card across the credit machine.  When the signature line popped up, I heard my little boy, Logan, say to me, “Mommy, you know your parole officer said you couldn’t do that anymore.”

What?  What did he just say?  Did my baby really just say that to me???  In public, no less???

(I need to preface the rest of this story with the fact that I have no parole officer.  I have never been to prison.  I have never been to jail.  I have never been arrested or spent a single night in jail.  I did recently learn though that when you are arrested, you are given an orange jumpsuit to wear and your underwear and bra are taken from you.  That means that if you need to use the restroom, you have to strip down to nothingness and go in front of an audience.  Totally not my cup of tea, thank you very much!)

Before Logan, the demon child, even had that completely out of his mouth, his father started speaking.  “Honey, you know the CPS officer said you couldn’t do that in public anymore.”

Really?  Really???  It’s a conspiracy!!!  They’re all evil!  At least, two of them are.  Demons!!

I’m sure the look on my face was one of shock.  The cashier was giggling.  I’m pretty sure I was blushing from head to toe.  There was nothing for me to do but laugh.  Sometimes, there’s nothing to do but admit defeat.

They may have won this round, but I’m good for many more rounds.

It’s game on, boys!!

What Girlfriends Are For

Every great once in a while, the boys have a conversation so outlandish with Ed that it simply must be preserved for posterity on the internet.  This is one such story. 🙂

Ed had picked the boys up from their last day of school.  On the drive back to the office, they were looking at their little yearbooks and talking about all of their old girlfriends.  Trip’s little girlfriend moved away this year, so Ed asked Trip if he missed her.

Trip said, “Not really.  It’s good to be a bachelor.”

Ed asked,”You don’t miss having a girlfriend?”

Trip replied, “No, I got bossed around a lot.”

Logan then piped up with, “You dummy!  That’s the point of having a girlfriend!”

Ed blames me for the skewed views on relationships.  I’m pretty sure it’s just because he’s evil.

I Am the Butt of Every Joke

I’ve tried all manner of diets over the years and now, I’m trying the paleo diet.  It’s working for me and I feel good.  I haven’t made a big deal out of it with Ed or the boys, but it is obvious when I don’t eat some of the same things they eat.  I have told the men in my house about the finer details of my diet and they have run with it!

A couple of weeks ago, we were eating a big weekend breakfast at one of our favorite restaurants and I ordered coffee.  Here’s the thing though:  I don’t like cream in my coffee.  I like milk.  Cream is too thick for me.  So naturally, I asked for milk instead of cream.  My milk versus cream issue has absolutely nothing to do with my current diet, but my guys had to add in a few details for my request.

Ed started, “The milk should be whole milk from a cow that has only eaten organically grown grass.  It should also be a white cow with three large black spots.”

“The cow should be one born only in the month of October and not more than four years old,” said Logan.

Trip couldn’t be left out.  “And the cow should only have lived in Texas or in an adjoining state.”

I just smiled and asked if they could meet all of those requirements.  The server laughed and said, “Of course!”

Last weekend, we ate at the same restaurant.  I ordered an omelet and asked for a couple of things to be left out.  My requests were not unreasonable and the server said it would be easy to accommodate my requests.

Trip piped up first.  “The chicken which laid the eggs should be a white chicken.”

“It should have black spots, but the spots should only be on the chicken’s face,” supplied Ed.

Logan finished, “The chicken needs to have been born in the summer time of the last year.”

Our server was the same one who had heard their routine about the cow a couple of weeks prior and she was giggling at the onset of it.

My omelet was delicious!

My Boys. They’re Demons.

Last week we had tickets to go to the Rangers and Red Sox game.  It’s one of the games I absolutely insist upon every year.  Ed forgot when we had baseball tickets, so he ended up doing an all-day continuing education class less than a mile from the Ballpark at Arlington.  Because of that, I ended up with a long drive ahead of me with a couple of little munchkins in the backseat after working all day.

After driving for a full fifteen minutes, I was getting a little tired so I decided that I’d get the boys talking.  What better time and way to have a sweet evening with my little cherubs?  The sky was a beautiful shade of blue and the clouds looked like cotton candy in the sky.  To get a sweet conversation started, I asked the boys to tell me what the clouds looked like to them, if they saw any shapes in the sky.

Boy #2 started with his description first.  “I see an elephant.”

Aww!!  My sweet boy!!  He saw an elephant in the clouds!

He wasn’t finished.

“And the elephant has his trunk pointed at a hawk’s butt and the hawk is farting so the elephant can sniff up the fart!”

They both erupted in laughter.  My sweet parenting moment was ruined!

I groaned and they took my groan as an invitation to continue.

“There’s an alien’s head in the sky!”

“There’s a letter T and a bear.  It stands for teddy bear!”

“There’s a dinosaur on your side, Mommy.  It’s just opening it’s mouth.  No, he’s eating the crown of a king!”

“Three horses being shot at the same time by a number 3!”

“I see a Megalodon eating a queen conch!”

What’s a mother of boys to do?  I laughed with them.  It’s not like I was shocked by their imaginations.

Later during the drive, I asked them what they wanted to eat at the game.  Boy #1 spoke up first,  “I’m going to eat garlic flies and a hot cat and a hambooger!”

“That’s a lot of food, boy!” I said.

“Well Mom, I’m a hungry boy!” he replied.  Then he shrieked in disgust, “Eww, Mom!  He ate some of my hair!”

I should’ve expected this.  It’s not like I’ve never met my boys before.

I’m Published!!!

OMG!!!!!  I’m a published author now!!  I’ve been writing short stories now for a while and I went through a rigorous editing process.   

(Which means that I had my mom and my mother in law read them and then I had my father in law read them because he would tell me if he thought they were crap or not.)

(He said it wasn’t crap!)

So, I got it copyrighted.  I waited on pins and needles waiting for the copyright to come in.  It took FOREVER!!!

(Two and a half months.)

And then I published it on kindle!

It’s called The Consummate Family Betrayal and other stories! Here’s the href=”http://www.amazon.com/Consummate-Family-Betrayal-stories-ebook/dp/B008AKTJJU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341763699&sr=8-1&keywords=amanda+richardson” title=”link”>

🙂

Logan the Story Teller

I worked my usual shift at the hospital the other night and came home to a husband and children who had not eaten and were in agreement that we needed eggrolls for dinner.  Luckily, such a feast was available at the Chinese buffet, so we hopped into Ed’s Tahoe and he sped down the highway.  It was almost 8:00 in the evening, so it had just gotten dark.  Ed passed a UPS truck on the highway and then exited at the necessary exit.  The UPS truck followed us.  It followed us onto the access road and then down a really dark and quiet road that would eventually take us to the Chinese buffet.  While we were on that road, Logan started talking about the van following us.

  Oh my gosh!  There’s a robber following us.  Dad, here’s the plan:  first, you’re going to pull over.  Then, you and mom are going to pretend that you’re dead.

I turned to look at Ed, trying to hold in the laughter.  “What?” I asked.

 Then Trip and I are going to get out of the car when the robber stops behind us.  Trip, you are going to punch him in the stomach.  When he’s down, I’m going to punch him in the head and make his eyeball pop out.

(I was beaming with pride at my munchkin’s imagination.)

  When it’s safe again, Trip and I will let y’all know that it’s okay and you can stop pretending to be dead.

Me:  Hey Logan, don’t you think that since Daddy is bigger than you guys that maybe we should let him handle all of the bad guys?

Logan:  Dad’s not bigger than we are!  Besides, we are way tougher than he is!

Me:  Oh that’s right!  Dad is on 6’4″ and together, you boys are 8’2″! 

Logan: See Mom,  I told you so!

 

And I am one proud Momma!  One day, he might be selling his bad guy stomping services out to the highest bidders!

Oatmeal Dreams

Growing up, Mom would cook breakfast for us every weekend.  Cereal with milk was the norm for the week, but once Saturday rolled around, Mom would break out her Betty Crocker cookbook and open it to the breakfast section.  She didn’t really need the cookbook, but I think she opened it out of habit.  Mom would make pancakes and french toast and lots and lots of bacon.  Her repertoire also included some fantastic cinnamon toast, peanut butter and honey toast and oatmeal.  She would only ever cook one thing for breakfast, but whatever she cooked was bound to be delicious.  And what got me thinking about Mom’s Saturday morning breakfasts?  Well, I’ve been on a cleanse in an attempt to lose the holiday weight I have gained and I get to eat almost nothing.  In my food deprived state, I saw a breakfast tray for a patient in the hospital and it had oatmeal on it and the oatmeal seemed  absolutely decadent.  After drooling over hospital oatmeal (and not stealing a nibble from my patient!), I decided that the next weekend I was off, the boys were going to have hot off the stove oatmeal, made with butter and sugar.

That happened to be today.  I got out of bed at the perfectly reasonable time of 10:30 a.m. because the boys were begging for chicken nuggets and I told them they would be trying oatmeal today.  They moaned and groaned and made faces.  They whined and said they just wanted chicken nuggets.  I told them Oma used to make oatmeal for me with lots of butter and sugar.  Their ears perked up a little after I said sugar and butter, but only slightly.

So we all tromped down the stairs and I turned on cartoons for them and filled a pan with a bit of milk.  I then promptly forgot about the milk as I was getting the oatmeal and got distracted by my phone and the milk may have scorched a little bit.  I added in the oatmeal as the boys started whining again about starving to death.  I told them the oatmeal only had six more hours to cook and that I’d get it right to them.  They may have rolled their eyes at me, but i ignored them.  I stirred and stirred and then added more oatmeal because my concoction didn’t have the right consistency.  After it reached perfection, I divided the oatmeal into three bowls, added butter and sugar and brought breakfast to the table. 

And even I was a bit disappointed and I think I’d have been happier if I had just taken a bite of my patients oatmeal.  I don’t think she would have cared.  The oatmeal was good, it just didn’t live up to my expectations.  And my demon children hated it.  Logan absolutely refused to take a bite until I threatened him with housework.  Trip, who is a people pleaser and doesn’t like to hurt anyone’s feelings, ate as much as he thought was necessary to make me happy.

And Logan stopped after this bite.

Yoga and Flipped Eyeballs

Ed said to me a few months ago that he wanted to start doing yoga and he wondered if a local gym where many of our friends exercised had a yoga program.  He asked around and I asked around and we were each told by quite a few people that the gym did indeed have a yoga class.  And then, we did nothing about it for weeks.  We’re proactive like that.  Gym memberships spontaneously appear in your wallet if you wait long enough.  So in November, the memberships still hadn’t spontaneously appeared in my wallet and Ed was begging me to take care of the membership situation, so I went up to the gym and signed up.  The guy who did the initial paperwork with me was a bit of an ass, but I figured he wouldn’t be in any of the yoga classes so I wouldn’t have to put up with his arrogance very often and I was right.  We attended our first yoga class the very next day.   The Yoga instructor, a blonde, new age-ish kind of girl,  arrived wearing stilettos and a dress.  She thanked everyone for coming, turned on the yoga music, and started us on the difficult Indian Style Sitting Pose while we breathed deeply in and out through our noses.  We were told many times throughout the class to practice each pose with our eyes closed, but it’s really hard to follow in a new yoga class while feeling like an absolute moron with your eyes closed.  You want to look at the instructor as she changes positions.  You want to look at your husband and make sure you are more flexible than he is.  You want to make sure the entire class hasn’t gotten up to encircle you  and point and laugh as you try a new pose.  Or that they haven’t all gotten up to encircle you with machetes.  Or Machine guns.  And how do you really know that a ninja intent on killing you hasn’t slipped down through the ceiling tiles if you have your eyes closed??  So I kept my eyes open the entire time, as did Ed.  And really, if you don’t keep your eyes open, how can you look at your husband’s cute butt?  So it was in this very first yoga class with Ed and the weird, new age music and my open eyes that I first did the Downward Dog.  For those of you who have never done a Downward Dog,  you bend over at the waist and lean forward until you get your hands to the floor, basically making yourself an inverted V.  We stayed in the Downward Dog position for eight of the yoga instructor’s breaths, or about ten minutes.  It was during the Downward Dog that my eyeballs flipped.  Yes, flipped. 

And now it’s time for the physiology portion of this story.  You have neurons, aka nerve cells, in your eyeballs that send any image you see to your brain, but somewhere along the way, the image has to be flipped in order for us to see the image with the right side up.  Researchers who were having quite a bit of fun with some college kids put their subjects in special goggles that flipped the image they were seeing and then waited for the subjects brains to flip the image right side up again.  Once they removed the goggles, the subjects had to wait a certain amount of time before their brains were able to flip the image again.  I think every student in an Anatomy and Physiology class has heard of this study and probably never actually read the case study and such is the case with me.

Now, back to the cool part of my story.  There I was in the Downward Dog position, eyes open, trying in vain to breath deeply in and out through my nose, giving up and breathing deeply through my mouth, watching the instructor as she told us to inhale deeply about every seventy seconds, watching Ed’s backside and checking his form when I realized that my arms and legs looked like they were connected firmly to the ceiling.  I watched my trembling arms and thought that I could just straighten out my legs   and stand where I was.  The whole experience was a bit surreal.  I looked forwards and backwards just to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing and sure enough, the floor had changed to my ceiling.  And then, too much blood finally rushed to my head and I got dizzy and the trembling in my arms reached its limit and I had to pull out of the pose and went down to all fours.  I was finally able to sit quietly in the class for a few minutes with my eyes closed, but it was only because I needed a break from my upside down world.  My flipped eyeballs (very technical term, I know) flipped back very quickly as they hadn’t been flipped the wrong way for more than a few minutes.

Now that you know you can flip your eyeballs, are you going to try it?