How Was School?

I picked Clay up from kindergarten yesterday like I always do. He hopped in the car and I asked him, "How was school, Monkey?"

He gave me his standard answer, "Good!"

Out the corner of my eye, I saw Clay's teacher approaching my car. "You had a good day? Then why is your teacher coming out to the car?"

Clay quickly said, "I dunno. Go! Drive! DRIVE! DRIVE!!!"

Oh yeah, that sounds completely innocent. Like I was going to floor it out of the kiss and drive before his teacher could reach my van. Clay flipped himself over the seat and into the back of my van as his teacher reached my car. "So, he didn't have such a good day, did he?"

"Notsomuch," she replied.

I guess he spent the afternoon running around like a cheetah chasing wildebeests a la National Geographic. Although I don't think he bit anyone's butt or ripped flesh from any classmates, so we've got that going for us.

Honestly, Clayton's been good at school and I haven't had any visits from his teacher in a long time, so I just talked to him and took his video games away for the day. I guess I should be happy that he seems to have gotten over his "If you bug me, I'm going to punch you" M.O. at least.

Naked Mole Rats Escape!

First, I want to thank all of you who took the time to leave me a comment yesterday and today. You guys are the best! You made me cry. In a good way! THANK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is what Clay and Brooklyn did this morning....they dragged out all their blankets, pillows, and bean bag chairs and piled them up by the front door. It was 11:00 in this picture. Yep, they're still in their jammies, just hanging out in a pile of "squishy stuff".

It's fine though. I didn't have any plans to leave today. They were playing nicely and getting along just fine and I was able to get some of my stuff done while they were burying themselves like Naked Mole Rats in their giant pile of blankets.

A couple minutes later, Brooklyn came and sat next to me on the couch. Within seconds, she fell asleep.

Looks comfy, no? I picked her up off the couch to lay her down in bed when I heard someone at the front door. "Oh great! I'm never going to be able to open the door with all that stuff in front of it." No one comes to our house for months and today, when I can't make my way to the door, someone shows up. I put Brooklyn down and waded through the sea of slumber things to the door. I managed to open it a crack and peeked outside. There stood Clay in his pajamas at the front door!

"How did you.... Where did you.... Wait, aren't you in these blankets? What the...???"

I swear, I had no idea how he got outside. I never heard the back door open. He couldn't have opened the front door. I was sitting right there next to Brooklyn and Clay had been in the blankets just a minute before...

I told Clay to walk around to the back door, but he couldn't get into the backyard because the gate was locked.

"Then how on earth did you get outside?" I began wondering if time travel was possible. Or maybe in all his "experimenting" with household items, he'd actually built a teleportation device with some Tupperware, a AA battery, a plastic shark, and a granola bar wrapper. That must be it! He'd beamed himself outside!

I saw him run to the window in my bedroom. The window which was open. The little stinkerbutt had opened the window, climbed outside and walked to the front door in a matter of 5 minutes. And I was RIGHT THERE! Ugh.

After I'd lectured him on the rule of NEVER opening the windows unless he had permission, I crawled into the pile of blankets and took a nap. What? It could happen!

OK, I didn't really take a nap. I took pictures, of course!

I haven't been reviewing products, but Angie's still working to find the latest and greatest from WAHMs. She's always got a giveaway running on Mamaslike. Check it out!
And you can read more about my trip to New Jersey here. I'll be posting about that for the next week or so.

Cooking 101

Well, it just wouldn't be a normal day if Clay didn't get into something.

I was lying in bed this morning, not asleep, yet not quite awake yet either. I cracked one eye open and glanced at the clock. Ugh. Ten more minutes. I'll get up in ten more minutes, I thought. I smelled something cooking. Who was cooking? Joe's at work. The kids are asleep. Ohhh, I know! Joe must have put the chicken in the crock pot before he left for work. Wow, that chicken is going to fall off the bones and be mush if it cooks that long. I wonder why Joe put the chicken in before he left for work at 4:00 this morning? It smells like it's burning too. I wonder if he put any liquid in with it?

I decided to get up and check on the chicken and pour some water over it. I got up, walked into the kitchen, and my feet stuck to the floor. Huh? I looked down and saw what appeared to be egg smeared all over the floor. A peek at the egg shells in the sink and the yolk covered paper towels in the garbage confirmed my thoughts.

Before cleaning up the sticky egg mess, I checked on the crock pot. The crock pot that didn't have a chicken in it. It wasn't plugged in. It was empty.

Wait. How can that be? I smell something cooking. What on earth is that smell? I look around the kitchen. I look in the oven. I walk through the house sniffing, saying, "What IS that smell?"
Clay, who is awake and sitting in the family room answers me.
"It's eggs, Mom!"
"What do you mean, 'It's eggs'?"
"I wanted eggs for breakfast."
"Did you try to cook eggs?" I asked horrified.
"Yes!" Clay answers proudly.
He ran to the microwave, opened the door, and pulled out a coffee cup with what was once an egg, but is now a hard, yellow/brown, sponge looking, hockey puck.

This is the part where I freaked out. We can skip the details.

Then I cleaned up the sticky egg goo that had been smeared all over the floor while thanking God that Clay didn't burn the house down or hurt himself. On the bright side, it's been almost a year since his last cooking escapade (where he put a package of microwave popcorn, still encased in cellophane, in the microwave for 55 minutes and 55 seconds) so at least it's not a regular thing.

Look at this egg. See all that white stuff? He put a handful of kosher salt on it first. No plain ole, unseasoned eggs for this guy.

Looks a little like a natural sea sponge, no? Who knew an egg could look quite like this.

After the cooking eggstravaganza, I took my middle daughter to the doctor because she's been sick for a couple days and started running a fever today. When I got home, I walked to the kitchen to make the kids lunch. I heard someone run to the bathroom. I heard the door close and the toilet seat slam open. I heard all these things yet they didn't totally register. Do you know what I mean? Even though I was concentrating on making lunch, I was picking up little bits and pieces of what was going on in the rest of the house. Even though I was in another part of the house, concentrating on something else, I knew that Clay was going to the bathroom.

I asked the kids if they wanted celery or apples and heard Lexi's and Clay's replies from the family room. What? The family room? But he's in the bathroom. Isn't he? I walk to the bathroom only to find Brooklyn there. Standing IN the toilet. Yep, there she was, socks on, standing in the water.

Then at dinner, I was delighted to learn that the kids had taught Brooklyn a new word. Chickenbutt. This should be part of every one year old's vocabulary, no? Ugh.

Hooray for bedtime.

This is How I Get a Cookie

In keeping with the theme of crooks....
I discovered how Clay was getting cookies and candy from the top of the refrigerator. He's a monkey. (Sorry, this starts out with the camera sideways until I realize what I'm doing.)

Dumb Crook Caught on Tape

My oldest son got home from school today, walked into his room, and immediately reemerged, ranting that Clayton had been in his room and had touched his things. Being ever sensitive to his concerns, I said, "Did you see him in your room? No? Why do you always automatically assume that Clay has gone in your room. Clay was with me all day. He didn't go in your room!"

My son, ticked off that I didn't listen to his daily rant, stomped back into his room. About half an hour later, he came out and thrust his video camera at me.
"Yes, he was in my room! And he's so stupid he stole my video camera and then filmed himself walking around with it! You can see his feet and pajamas in the video! Here! Look!"

Lo and behold, it is indeed a video of Clay walking around with Austin's video camera. It's like one of those "dumbest crooks caught on tape" videos.



In case anyone's interested, those new Flip cameras are easy enough for a three year old to use.

Sorry Austin. You were right. Your brother's a punk.

Then this evening, he told Joe, "Can I call someone?" (on the phone)
My husband asked, "Who do you want to call?"
"Sally," came his matter-of-fact reply.
Confused, my husband asked, "Do you know anyone named Sally?" (we don't, for the record)
"No!" came my son's indignant reply.
"I see," said Joe.
Makes perfect sense, doesn't it?
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Say an extra prayer for the Averys tonight. Julian is on oxygen and was only taking 9 breaths a minute last night. :( And as Mimi says, "Always kiss your kids goodnight. Even if they're asleep. They know."

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I forgot to put this in my original post and had to come back and add it. Does anyone here donate blood? If not, consider it. It's a great little break from the kiddos ;) among all the obvious benefits! Manic Mom is doing a contest on her blog to encourage people to donate blood. Check it out here!

And finally, we're back to posting on Mamaslike. Check out the cute dog beds and Etsy finds here!

Bert?

Fun use #64 for mascara .

Stay tuned next week when I cover fun use #65 - using mascara to decorate the television.

I thought he was paying an awful lot of attention to Bert when we were in Florida. It all makes sense now.