This man deserves to be heckled.  Heckle in the comments.  Heckle on facebook or twitter.  I will make sure he sees them all….If I do not die of heat exhaustion first.

It has been in the 90′s lately. Our upstairs air conditioning broke last week and we have been living and sleeping, all 5 of us, in the downstairs. The kids are all sharing the pull out couch and my hot blooded hubby and I are sharing the full bed that I cannot believe we ever slept in together. Still, we knew we could make it to Thursday, when for the bargain price of almost $1000, the air conditioning will be fixed.

Today, it was 93 degrees.  I have been working my ass of spring cleaning my house and when I came inside to stand on top of the vent and blow freezing cold air up my shorts, I knew something was wrong.  Sweat was dripping down my legs and all I felt was warm air.  The downstairs A/C was out.  I ran to the thermostat.  It was noon.  The temperature was set to 72 and it was 78 degrees in the house.  By 2 o’clock it was 82 degrees.  When my husband came home from work at 6 o’clock the coolest place in our house was 85 degrees.

We put the kids to bed and after a few minutes laying on the couch, he informed me that he would have to bail.  He could not make it in this heat.  He kissed me goodbye and went to a friend’s house for the night.

He went to a lake house with air conditioning.

So, while my fingers stick to the keys of my keyboard, he is sitting comfortably in an air conditioned house on the lake.  That probably means there is a breeze too.  My only reprieve is to shove as much of my body as possible into the freezer every few minutes.  While that last of our children just fell asleep (at 10:30 p.m.) he is fast asleep in child free silence.  I am calling him out.  He is being a wimp here.  I mean, we have fans and if you don’t move things aren’t that bad.  The freezer is quite refreshing and I am told that by 2 a.m. the temperature outside may drop to a lovely 70 degrees.  I can make it.

Why did I not go to the lake house?  Well, it is 20 minutes away and I will not risk missing my last pre-school morning.  Tomorrow is the last day before the long hot summer and I WILL have my full 3 hours of freedom.  Also, the thought of packing us up was worse than this heat.  Going anywhere with 3 kids 4 and under is quite a process.  I know how to handle the heat and I am a Yankee.  He was born and raised in North Carolina…he should be able to handle a little sweat.

Since he has abandoned ship, let the heckling of this man I love begin.  Bring your best.  He always tells me I should be better at laughing at myself.  Well, here’s his chance to prove a point and finally my chance to poke fun.  I am like a mother warrior over here.  I am dripping with sweat and ready for battle.

Who can take more heat in your marriage?

Bring it!

The big day was the easy part.  All that planning was nothing compared to real life marriage.  From there it gets complicated doesn’t it?    Two people sharing their lives is never simple.  Then you add children and it’s hard to find time to focus on your marriage or yourself.  At least, for me it has been hard.  I am just starting to get the hang of it. I plan on getting really good at it some day.

I cried watching the royal wedding because I remembered my own wedding day almost 8 years ago.  I thought back.  There have been some very tough times.  I would love to say they are nothing compared to the joy we have together, but I believe that making it through the hard stuff makes our marriage stronger.  Our blessings are bountiful and the trials are making us tough.  I want my marriage to be tough.

While we all drooled over her gorgeous dress and tweeted about her hair and wondered what it would be like to be a Princess (or Duchess), she was getting married.  Just like the rest of us, marrying the man she loves.  Love is the first part, then comes the marriage.  She is a royal now, and a celebrity.  She will be watched by the world in this capacity.  But as a wife, she is a woman, just like us, who is beginning a journey that takes love, compassion, compromise patience and determination.

I love weddings because it is amazing that people love each other enough to take this journey.  We all know, it doesn’t always work, making those vows that much more scary.  Yet we still pledge ourselves to one another.  We still take that leap.  Weddings remind me that taking a risk for love is worth it.

I am going to focus on my marriage just a little bit more each day.  I am going to tell my kids how important it is for Ross and I to have a strong marriage.  I want to look back at that picture of us walking away after our ceremony and always think…I would marry him again in a heartbeat.  I would do it all over for this love.

Congratulations to their Royal Highness’s William and Kate and to all the other people out there who have taken this leap for love.

p.s.  My husband keeps making jokes about marrying a Princess.  I totally did not get the joke until last night.  Guess what his ex-girlfriend’s name is?  Kate Middleton.  Crazy isn’t it?  If I were her I just might want to be called Duchess just for fun now.

As a mother, I am keenly aware of her little shoes as they fly from her little hands.  As a woman who likes shoes, I will admit it may be that I am just very aware of shoes in general.  Her dad, well, not so much.   He loves taking her for walks and over the past few weeks she tossed the left shoe from all 3 of her pairs.  He did not notice.  I mock him for his inability to keep track of her shoes.

So I bought her a pair of Keens.  A purple pair of Keens.  They are so flipping cute.  I am determined to keep the pair united.  I would not live it down if I lost a brand new shoe just days after I bought them.

This morning she freed one of her Keens as we were leaving the hotel.  I scooped it off the ground and put it on top of the car while I finished buckling kids and getting DVD players set up.  My brain is a bit fried from this road trip and I forgot the shoe.  I pulled out and as I exited onto the highway…I remembered.  I knew that shoe was on the highway somewhere.  The next exit was 5 miles away.  I decided I would make my way back and find that shoe.

And I did.  On the highway exit ramp.

I saw it on the opposite side of the road.  I told you, I have an eye for these things.  So I turned around and threw my hazards on and made a little dash for the shoe.  I got it.  And I got a pic. 

Because I need to prove to my husband what I expect when it comes to shoes.  Absolute devotion.

This date was the bomb.  We switched it up in so many ways.

We left at 4 p.m. in the broad daylight.   That’s right.  Maximum babysitter use.  That chick would be with the kids awake for 4 long hours.  This time she worked hard for her money.  No us leaving after doing the hard part.  We left dinner, books, teeth, stories and wrangling 3 kids into bed all to the sitter.

Check it out.  My shirt is silk people, with little jewels on it.  No boogers and no drool! I cautiously kissed the children goodbye without any *little* hands on my boobs for once and thus began my ultra date!

We went shopping at a very fancy little outdoor mall.  We never get to go shopping together.  And I actually looked presentable.   If you ever find yourself out of your daily mom wear, this is the time to hit some shops other than the grocery store and Starbucks.  We wandered for 2 hours in and out of stores we can’t afford and then I saw it.  The sunglass store was going out of business.  Yeah, I hate to see stores not make it but this was a #wahoo moment for me.  50% off.  We went in.  I saw, I tried on, I flirted and I walked out of there with a shiny new pair of shades!

Then we walked in a giant store devoted to paper called Paper Source.  Ross knew that I was in heaven.  This is the kind of store you could never take small children in.  The walls are filled with gorgeous sheets of Japanese paper the children could (and would) rip.  There are journals and notebooks and calendars that are more lovely than the art on my walls.  I am going to frame some of these papers because they are THAT beautiful.  Then I noticed a bookshelf full of books on typography and graphic design and paper art.  It felt like it was a store made for me.  I could have plopped down right there with a glass of wine and been in heaven.  Ross knew how happy this place made me bought me Graphic Design for Non-Designers and a little journal to record my own memories for my children.

It was great to think a little outside the traditional date box and do something quite normal but so rare with small children.  Before kids this little trip could have been a regular Saturday afternoon, but it was special for us.

We wandered into the Dean & Deluca Wine Bar for a drink and my favorite food, cheese.  We did not talk about the kids.  We did talk about how cool it was that there was a driver waiting outside and that we could have 2 glasses of wine if we so chose.  What luxury eh?  We also talked about toilet paper…a lot.  More on the state of our tushies in a bit.

We joined our driver for the ride to dinner.  We have not been alone in a car with a chauffeur since after our wedding.  It’s just too bad there was no divider in the town car.  Let’s be honest though, it might still take more than a glass of wine for me to get busy in a car while moving.  Just saying.  I tried to get a pic of us in the car but  Ross fancies himself somewhat of a celebrity and sometimes gets annoyed by my sometimes paparazzi like camera wielding.  Sheesh I’m a blogger honey…this is what I do.

We had dinner inside Charlotte’s new Mint Museum at a new restaurant called Halcyon.  It is a lovely restaurant that features local artisinal farms, dairies and wineries.  Their ingredients are so fresh that when I asked if they had sorbet (my favorite dessert) they responded that they would but they do not have a freezer.  That is how fresh everything is!  The restaurant was just my style, with tree branches on the ceiling and dining tables made out of full lacquered rings of trees.  It is truly exquisite and yet very simple.

We talked about our life together.  We laughed.  We reminisced.  We had fun with just each other.  We rarely get out when it is not for a birthday or an anniversary or some other party so this was just about us.  We need to do this more often.

After dinner walked outside to find a blacksmith artist demonstrating her trade on the balcony of the museum.  I am always impressed by artists and love anything made with our hands and our skills.  And this time Ross was relieved because usually when I see things like this I want to rush out and try it.  Hot smoldering iron…not so much.

Finally we made our way to the bar in the bottom of the bank we used to work in.  Hey – we had a driver!  It was nice to be in a quiet place and for me, it had been a long time since I had been there.  It brought me right back to my new life, my marriage, and my kids.  I said goodbye to banking and hello to motherhood and blogging years ago.  I still miss it, but I would not trade what I have for the world.

After a little footsie we got back in the car to head home.  Home to our kids and our bed and the most fantastic toilet paper ever.

You see, Cottonelle sent us on this Ultra Date as part of their Ultra Switch Campaign.  They sent us on a date and they sent us a huge pack of Ultra Toilet Paper.  Cottonelle has partnered with Patti Stanger, star of Millionaire Matchmaker, to share her top tips on making little switches that can make a big difference in a relationship.  I loved all the tips and this Ultra Date falls into the “Get Out” category.  We needed to get away from the house and kids and really, this little big date made a big difference.

However…I giggled when I read that Cottonelle wants us to make the Ultra Switch to their Ultra bath tissue.  Does toilet paper matter that much?   I laughed until I put the toilet paper in our bathrooms.  Just over a year ago, I thought I saw this great deal on Amazon and bought a butt load (hehe) of really chap toilet paper.  I was in a hurry and was due to have baby Violet and the reviews were great.  It had 4 stars.  Unfortunately most of the reviews were from people with RV’s looking for the easiest flushing toilet paper around.  I didn’t see that part.  I swear to you for a year we have been wiping with the worst stuff out there.    When the Cottonelle package came, I put the rolls in all 3 bathrooms and we all noticed the difference.  Sophia said it was fluffy.  Miles said it didn’t hurt his nose or his bottom.  Ross mumbled something about “finally” and “it’s about time”.  I suppose that with a man and children in the house we spend more time than most in the loo.  Well, this toilet paper makes it better.  This may be T.M.I. but it’s the truth.  This toilet paper rocks.

Ross came home the next day with a huge package of Cottonelle Ultra.  It is the thickest double roll in the aisle and he (so we) are now committed.

So, we tried something new with date night and we tried something new in the bathroom and both turned out to be hugely successful!  So you see, I love my husband but the chauffeur and the toilet paper, well, I love them too.

Cottonelle is giving away a prize every day for 90 days to help you make little switches.  The average value of each prize is over $200!  Check out packages of Cottonelle Ultra or go to Cottonelle Ultra Switch to enter.  You can also find bonus entries on the Cottonelle Facebook Page.

Giveaway

You can also win a 3 month (4 – 12 Packs) supply of the Cottonelle Toilet Paper we all love!  That’s right – pamper your posterior right here!  Just leave a comment telling me one switch you want to make and hey – if you want to make me laugh, tell me a toilet paper story.  That’s not mandatory but I would just love it.  Good luck!  I will randomly choose a winner on April 13, 2011.

Disclaimer:  Cottonelle sent me and the hub on this fabulous date and provided both a driver and the moolah to do it.  We are so grateful.  My opinions on the toilet paper are all my own…and those of the tushes in my family.

It’s hilarious to watch Miles and Sophia play.  The mix of girls and boys toys makes for some rowdy encounters between figures.  Those brawny muscled knights and those beautiful buxom princesses have a much hotter life than I do, that’s for sure.

Miles:  Belle, I’m going to bang you!  Get ready.  (Miles attacks the princess with his knight.)

Sophia:  No, don’t bang me I’m a princess.  You will wreck my dress. (Sophia backs Belle away.)

Miles:  I want to bang you Belle.  And Cinderella I will bang you too.  Bang!  Bang! (Miles crushes the princesses with his knights.  The knights also bangs a girl in roller skates, Snow White, and Iridessa the fairy.)

Sophia:  No, no!

Miles:  I will bank you and stick you with my sword! (Seriously, I can’t make this crap up.)

Sophia:  Oh knight No! You need to save me from the dragon. (Waving princess in the air towards Rex, who is standing outside the castle.)

Miles:  Belle, I will bang the dragon and I will save you.  Dragon, I am banging you and sticking you.  (Miles attacks the dragon with his knight…and clearly is getting a little kinky.)

Sophia:  Oh thank you knight, do you want to get married and sleep in my bed? (Sophia lays belle down in the bed…she has a fascination lately with the fact that Ross and I sleep together.)

Miles:  I love married.  I will get in your bed, Belle. (The knight lays down in the bed with Belle.)

This goes on and on.  I cannot help but laugh hysterically as the kids do not understand at all what they are saying.  Miles tells me when he is going potty that he is going to bang me with his penis.  I kid you not.  I tell him that is not nice, but I have to choke back a giggle as my slightly inappropriate sense of humor rears its head.

So, ’round here knights bang princesses and then they get married.  How’s that for breaking class barriers?

p.s.  The Beast stood on the tower the whole time and never came to Belle’s aid.  Both of the kids still think he is bad.  But he always is placed in the tower first.

p.p.s.  The poor girl in the roller skates just got banged and not married.

p.p.p.s.  Sophia said the pretty pony was supposed to be guarding the castle.  I told her that pony did a pretty poopy job.  She just laughed.

We do not use condoms.

My husband had left minutes earlier for a work meeting. 

I trust Ross completely but standing by the door with an open pack of Trojan’s in my hand I wondered…is this how women find out?  Is there an immediate feeling of knowledge?   Do husband’s leave their wives and children in a hotel room and go find some action on the side?  Are there women who wouldn’t say anything, afraid to rock the marriage boat?  Just thinking about these questions made me sick.  I know women who have had that fear be real.  I know women who married cheaters.  I hate cheaters. 

I spent time pondering these questions and then I snapped back to my own reality.  Whose condoms was I holding? Where is the missing condom?  How the hell did it get in my grocery bag?  Was I being naive to trust my husband without hesitation?

The facts:

We are in Orlando because my husband has a conference.  When we found out the conference was here we jumped on the Disney opportunity.  The free hotel called us to the mouse.   Happy family vacation.

Ross travels a lot and never before have we accompanied him. 

Ross has a bunch of meetings and shmoozing to do so my in-laws came down to help.  You know, three kids in a park and one gets lost…I needed help.

My in-laws brought some groceries in for us since they have a car.  I did not see if anyone touched the grocery bag  after they dropped it off.

Having  3 kids so close together does affect the sex life.  We have a lot of little people to juggle at all hours of the night.  I’m just saying, sometimes it is hard to be alone.  And we don’t do it in front of the kids you know?

My in-laws think they are funny, but they would never think to buy condoms as a joke.

There is no way my in-laws still need condoms.

Basically we are so in love but overly busy and underly sexed and we don’t get to see each other a lot of the time.

So the minute he came in I asked him.  He thought I was kidding.  I told him to look in the bag.  He asked why his parents brought condoms.  I decided to just tell him I wondered a lot more than that and see what happened.  It was all very much less dramatic than I imagined as he laughed hysterically.  I laughed too.  After a little talk we went to bed.  I am so glad I can trust my husband.

The case of the missing condom (and the two that remained) was still open.

Today Ross went to his conference and I went to Animal Kingdom with the kids and the in-laws.

After a very long day I was sitting at dinner with my father in law and my kids and I thought about the missing condom again.  So, exhausted and no longer thinking straight I said…

“Jo, did you put a partially used package of condoms in our grocery bag?”

He laughed and asked if I liked them.  Yes, my father-in-law found it funny to plant the condoms in our grocery bag.  Yes, I talked to my father-in-law about condoms for the first time (and may it be the last).  We laughed and I asked where he got the condoms.

He told me he found them in the hotel room drawer and thought it would be funny to give them to us.  Yuck.

All that deep thought and the mystery was all some horny couple at Disney who found themselves too tired at the end of the day to use the whole pack.  Now that I can totally relate to.  I’m impressed they used one at all.

7:30 p.m. Nurse Violet and put the kids to bed.

8:30 p.m. Miles begins screaming and has gotten his arm stuck in his Batman house when he should have been sleeping.

9:00 p.m. Sophia wakes up saying her hoo ha itches.  We discuss, we clean, we go potty, she goes back to bed after 5 songs.

10:00 p.m. Violet wakes up screaming and being that I am a woos and cannot bear the whole CIO thing and she is teething, I nurse her again.

11:45 p.m. Violet again.  See above.

12:15 a.m. I throw in the towel and hit the hay.  Sophia is sleeping with me because Ross is in Switzerland for the week.

1:15 a.m.  Sophia is snoring so loudly so I try to gently kick her like I do Ross when he snores like a beast.  She starts to wiggle a bit and the snoring stops.  But then she has some sort of spasm and kicks me in the stomach.  Hard.  I am tired and annoyed.

2: 45 a.m. Violet the baby who does not sleep is awake again and there is no way anyone could do the CIO with this child.  She is like a banshee.  I give her my boob again and she bites me.  I am starting to feel beat up.

3:15 a.m. Sophia falls out of bed and we do the songs again.  For the third time.  I am sick of singing.

5:00 a.m.  Violet.  Fit of rage.  Enough said.

5: 45 a.m. Miles is awake.  I hear him turn on the TV and I do not care.  Thank God for Nick. Jr.

6: 15 a.m. Finally sleeping and the phone rings.  Ross is calling from one of the most gorgeous places in the world and the phone wakes up me and Sophia.  He thought it was later.  Miles comes running in.  Miles’ crazy run wakes up Violet.  The day has begun.

6:30 a.m. Change 2 of the nastiest diapers ever.  Miles has some sort of poop issue that is supposed to get better with potty training but he cannot potty train with his bottom so sore and poop like this.  Lose-Lose.  Violet is better on the potty than he is.

6:45 a.m. Knock down drag out fight with Sophia over her clothes.  She has ripped them out of the closet I spent more than an hour organizing and my short fuse is almost shot.  Her refusal to put on socks in 30 degree weather is the last straw.  I yell.  Immediate mommy guilt on top of exhaustion.

7:30 a.m. I have a sore spot on my face in the place where I get my twice a year pimple.   This just pisses me off.  The lump grows by the second and I can’t stop touching it.

7: 45 a.m. Miles spills his entire cup of juice while “drinking” it with a spoon.  My mood is black people…black.

8:00 a.m. Violet wants her own spoon and while eating her bananas throws a fit and grabs my spoon and then spreads all the banana in her hair.  Lovely.

9:00 a.m. I get to school and have forgotten Violet’s backpack.  I must go home and come back.

9:45-12:30 I get nothing done fielding calls from family, dealing with an email issue and being too cranky to do anything.

1:00 p.m. While feeding Violet Miles wanted to show me something.  When I am done feeding her I follow him to the back room where he has dumped out 2 whole boxes of cereal and is proud to show me his “cereal room”.  He said he decorated it.  I was proud of myself for laughing instead of screaming.  I got out the vacuum.  I simply was not going to crawl on my hands and knees again or pick up one more cheerio right then.  (I spend a lot of time picking up Cheerios.)

2:00 p.m. It seems that there will be no quiet time.  No naps.  The kids fought.  Sophia insists on picking up Violet all the time and she always gets hurt.  I asked Miles what he wanted to do and he actually said “I’m busy fighting with Sophia”.    I kid you not.

3:00 p.m. I look at the clock and think I might cry.  I thought it had to be 5 at least.

3:30 p.m. I tried to make the kids play a cleaning game to rectify the chaos of their rooms.  Sophia gleefully announced how funny it was that they were messing up while I was cleaning up.  I was defeated.  They would not listen.  They were possessed.  I swear.  Time outs did not work.  Threats of lost privileges did not work (they never do).  They won.  They jumped off their beds and tore out all the dress up and laughed at how tired I was.  My kids made fun of me.

4:30 p.m. I make a pizza.  We are eating early and going to bed.  

5:30 p.m. I open the gate for Sophia to go to the bathroom and totally forget that Violet is out of her high chair.  She clearly went immediately for the stairs and by the thumps I would say she fell down 5.  I was terrified and she was screaming and when I picked her up she scratched the pimple off my face.  It hurt so badly.  Now it looks terrible.

6:30 p.m. Frazzled and exhausted, we are in our jammies and reading books while Violet climbs all over us trying to open my shirt.   After 2 books I give up to nurse her and let the kids watch a show.  Again, thank you Dora, you little pint sized peace maker you…thank you.

7:15 p.m. We have sung our songs and given our kisses.  I have nursed Violet and put her down.

24 hours of agony.  This was my day from hell.

Now you want sunshine?  Well, we are all healthy and blessed and yada yada yada…but get this.  I missed this email from my husband early in the morning during this hot mess.

“I’m exhausted but have to say that the view of the alps from 35,000 feet as the sun rises is amazing, but still doesn’t compare to seeing your smiling face next to me in the morning”

Stop the clock.  What?  My husband is amazing but this is WAY out of the norm and above the awesome scale.  I am so glad I found it late so it could soothe the day away.  Had I seen it in the morning, I may not have had the time to think about how lucky I am to have him and to go to sleep dreaming about seeing that view with him one day.

Such a small thing…and it almost made me forget the whole awful day.  It certainly helped me forgive.

What’s your worst 24 hours of a normal day?  Come on – bring it.

I do have online backup so at some point I will be able to recover what is lost, but it can take time.  Yes, I have lost a computer and all of it’s contents before.

The only pictures I have on this computer are old…and they brought me back.

There are years of pictures – all before I had kids.

There are pictures of me and Ross gallivanting around the globe, thinking only about each other and our itinerary for the day.  I must say, as much as I totally adore my kids and my life, I could so go back for just a few days and re-live that not a care in the world feeling.

We honeymooned in Bermuda at a lovely resort that does not allow children.  Here we are, childless DINKS (Dual Income No Kids), enjoying the nightly pre-dinner cocktail hour where they served Rum  Swizzles.   Yum.  Again, there were no children.  We didn’t even know what a luxury this was.

If you are wondering, I never used to smile with my mouth open (unless very drunk – see below) because I hated my teeth before invisalign.  Believe me though, I am really happy.  And really sun-burnt.  I read 10 books in 8 days sitting under an umbrella and it was absolute bliss. None of those books were about Dora or dinosaurs or Fancy Nancy.  They were grown up books.  Some of them had sex and romance in them…and maybe one from the airport had both those and a pirate.  Yum.

We really need another honeymoon.  We need a break for us.  It would be good for our marriage and for ourselves and really, good for the kids. 

I don’t know when this vacation will be but I think I am going to print out a couple of old pictures and tack them up in my office to remind myself to make time for myself and my husband.

It may not be Bermuda but maybe a big date night or a night in a hotel or just a couple of hours away.  It’s too easy for me to let myself and my marriage come after the kids.  That is not right.  I have to be okay and we have to be okay for our family to be okay.

These pictures will also make me start planning our next real vacation – without the kids.

It will be tough though.  Planning to be away from 3 kids is no easy feat.

No longer can we jet off with 2 days notice on an e-saver to Belgium and get completely tanked with a bunch of Scots who yelled “Kilt’s Up” and then showed the world their man parts in the freezing cold and then we all wandered the streets singing.  It’s too bad too – that trip was so.much.fun.

Please tell me you can get away?  With Violet attached to my boob it will be awhile for me.  Can I live vicariously through you? Tell me how you make time after kids!

Every great magician has a snazzy costume right? She has hers. It will fit her until she is in high school.  No, she has not yet figured out that the girls sometimes wear little sparkly things and don’t actually do the magic.  I fear she would leap to be the assistant and show her beauty and not her magician’s brain at the mere mention of sequins.  Here’s hoping she doesn’t figure it out.

So, I had a dream last night that Sophia was an actual magician and in my dream she was MY magician.  I called the tricks.  I was a generous master and allowed her to continue to make things change places or be stuck in my nose but I wanted the magic for one thing.  Housework.

With that wand she could abracadabra away laundry, dishes, messes and all other household annoyances.  It was like a wet dream for moms everywhere.  Seriously – I hate to be nasty but come on.  Nothing Better.  I’m sure I was grinning in my sleep like some lunatic.  Then I had a sexy dream about Ross and that was great too.  Man was it a good night.

Too bad magic isn’t real.  I woke up from my sex dream to say goodbye to my husband as he left for the airport.  No actual sex had taken place.  I then came downstairs and was faced with this pile of housewife evil.

Honestly, I think I would give more lovin’ if I wasn’t constantly overwhelmed with the joys of motherhood and the painful activies of domesticity.

Great sex and a clean house?  I don’t need magic.  I need a miracle.

All Clean Mom!

 I asked if she could show me her kitchen and she told me I did not need to see the kitchen, just the floor in front of the doors.  I knew something was awry.  I asked how she cleaned the kitchen and she informed me with pride that it was “Just the way Daddy showed me”.  Houston, we have a problem.  Daddy has no idea how to pick up.  His mantra is out of sight, out of mind.  I give you Exhibit A.  No further exhibits are needed.

Daddy Showed Me How!

My husband showed her how to shove all her crap into whatever closet or bucket or niche was nearby and shut the doors.  He showed her how to hide the mess, not clean it up.  This is why he never knows where his stuff is.  I asked her why she did not clean her kitchen the way I do.   I was really curious.

A Clean Kitchen

She said cleaning that way is boring and takes too long.

Yeah babe – but my way actually puts things back where they belong so you don’t lose pieces or have things fly out of the closet when you open it.  My way is the mommy way and my way is the way we clean up around here.  Daddy is not so good at cleaning.  He fakes it.  This is like telling a lie.  You don’t want to tell a lie, do you?

Sophia said “No, but I like fun things and that is not very fun.”

Really?  Shocker.  Welcome to my world.  Wait until you have kids.  I am so going to say “I told you so.”

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