Ahh, Sweat Pants

Ahh, sweat pants. Such an addictive fashion nightmare. Since I currently own more than 2% body fat, sweat pants are a hideous fashion move, and I know it. However, I often put them on and spend the entire day wearing them. I sometimes even put them on knowing full well that I will be encountering the public and revealing my subpar fashion sense to the wide world. I admit that I smile as I do so. It is not that I really desire to be known as the woman who looks horrible, I'm just addicted to my sweat pants.

So, as I was hunting and gathering at Wal-Mart for this holiday season, the sweatpants called to me, hypnotized me, and forced themselves into my cart. As I bought them I realized how smart I was because this season is really the perfect time of year to own a super soft pair of comfy pants. When I took them out of the bag I noticed that they were wearing a sticker. Because I haven't yet grown up and find childish things amusing, I secretly placed it on my daughter's back as she walked past me. That is how it began.

I spent the rest of Thanksgiving taking pictures as the sticker mysteriously appeared in unexpected places. I honestly can't say who moved it around since it is all cricket chirps when I ask about it, but I found myself thoroughly entertained. Maybe too entertained. It is just a sticker. A sticker that makes me laugh!

Furious Mad

I rarely ever see my husband furious mad. He gets frustrated, out-of-sorts, and sometimes, upset. But it takes an awful lot of really get him furious mad. Or just one puppy.

My dog is beautiful. That is really the problem. Even we who are used to his beauty have a hard time being anything other than mesmerized by him. He wields his stunning blue eyes like an invisibility cloak in the hands of Harry Potter.

But, inside that gorgeous, fluffy body lives a naughty, naughty puppy. It was inconsiderate of him to eat a steak right off of Josiah's plate, and shredding my glasses was just uncalled for. But the first time Mike was furious mad was when Arrow ate Mike's top of the line, no expense spared, 30 below, down filled, sleeping bag. He managed to scoot, while safely locked inside a secure dog crate, across the room to the stored camping supplies. Then he pawed at the sleeping bag until a bit of the fabric slid between the bars of his crate. The rest was easy. When I found him he was so covered with soft, fluffy feathers that I thought a polar bear was sitting in the dog crate. He had feathers in his ears, all over his tongue, and blowing out of his nose. The wind from his wagging tail kept the feathers dancing in the air, and my laundry room was transformed into a winter wonderland.

Mike was mad. I called him at work, and I was unsure of what he was saying but it went something like, "stupid dog...to the pound...why...box his ears...get rid of...so mad...throddle...bad...".

Then that cute puppy was even naughtier. I looked out my back window as I was making supper and saw him standing on top of the hot tub. I noticed right away that he had ripped the vinyl cover open and was eating the styrofoam that keeps the water nice and warm. Did I mention that the cover was new? I would just pop out and get a new one but the starting price is $400.

That did it. Mike was furious mad. He went out and got an electric fence. He put the collar on the dog and erected a barrier of warning flags around the hot tub. The idea is that the dog will not cross the flags due to a high pitched, annoying beep with an electric shock the collar produces when the dog approaches the off limits area. It beeps first to warn the dog, but, if the dog persists, the collar delivers a fur sizzling jolt. Ok, it is not that bad. The dog gets a small zap. But it is still annoying.

Mike worked with the dog training him to not go near the flags. Arrow did very well and learned quickly to avoid the flags. We thought.

Just after the training session, as Mike was returning to the house, Arrow walked nonchalantly to the flags. The collar began beeping, but Arrow kept walking. The collar beeped piercingly and relentlessly, but Arrow kept walking. Then it began zapping. Arrow kept walking. With the collar on full zap and utter beep, Arrow strutted to the hot tub, laid down right on top of it, and YAWNED! Yes yawned.

The electric fence device is now packed up in our closet and we know who is boss.

Bedtime Alligator

My husband and I aren't that strange. I chant that to myself over and over. We do a lot of normal stuff, so I am pretty sure it is true. We're just regular people going about life in a regular sort of way. But sometimes...

It happened in the dead of night while I was sleeping soundly, happily enjoying my dream world. My husband rudely awoke me with shouting. He shouted over and over, and, when that was clearly not enough panic, he began clawing at the mattress, throwing pillows, blankets, and the pried off sheet.

It takes a lot to wake me up, but this method was effective. I was ripped from my peaceful dream into an instant panic induced terror. Because I am a caring, comforting wife and human being, I compassionately rose to my knees and yelled, "WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?"

He had an unexpected response to my caring inquiry, and it terrified me.
"An alligator!" He shouted, eyes wide open. "A giant alligator! It is almost here!!"

There is nothing like the threat of an imminent alligator attack to get the blood pumping. I had no desire to be consumed by an alligator in the middle of the night, so I grabbed my pillow and began beating, well, anything. I beat the headboard; I beat the mattress. You can never be sure where the alligator will strike from, so I also beat the foot of the bed, and, just to be safe, I pillow-beat my husband.

Suddenly it struck me that alligators are not common in Iowa. Or in bedrooms. And a pillow is not the most effective weapon against an alligator. And my husband might not deserve the beating he was receiving. So, gasping for breath, I began to reassemble the bed. Mike must have felt satisfied by our alligator attack skills, because he had snuggled down into a peaceful coma and could not be budged no matter how badly I desired to put the sheet back on.

"I think I had some bad dreams last night," Mike said the next morning. "Something about being beat up. I think I was being hit over and over."
"Oh, really?" I answered him calmly. "I didn't notice anything."

Don't Like It

I'm the kind of person who likes to laugh. I like to find the funny in unexpected places and draw amusement from it. I usually take all the feelings and thoughts that don't bring a smile or a laugh and shove them into the back corner of a closet in my mind. Then I like to throw hoodies and towels on all those darker thoughts to keep them covered up. Yes, I have a closet in my mind.

Sometimes, though, the thoughts I shoved into the shadowy corner bust out and boss me around. This usually happens at strange and inconvenient times. Like in the middle of the night when I wake up and my pillow is wet with tears. Or when I see a picture. Or hear an old church hymn. Or type these words.

I know I am unusually blessed to have enjoyed all of my grandparents until I reached the ancient age of 40. But, now I am sad. I lost my grandma in March, and two weeks ago I lost my grandpa. I know that it is incredibly rare that I am experiencing the first death of a grandparent this late in life. Still, I have lost my grandma and my grandpa in the last eight months. I am not pleased.

My grandpa was 91, and he was special. I never needed to call ahead - no matter when I stopped by Grandma and Grandpa would be home and Grandpa would pop popcorn. Even if it was 9 A.M. It made me feel like my arrival at their home constituted throwing a party. It seems impossible that all my memories of them are now the past. I want to go into the past and pull these memories with me into the future. It seems impossible that if I stop by their house these two people who I have known all my life will not be doing their normal activities. It seems impossible that they won't be there at all. That they won't be anywhere.

It feels vacant. Empty. Wrong.

They were, and now they're not. They're just not.

It makes my breath clog in my throat. I don't like it.

Fluffy Nap

When it is a cold, rainy, gray day, I look at my fluffy Husky and think only one thought. Nap. So I decided to teach my puppy to keep me warm with his massive amounts of fur while I snuggled myself into a zombie-coma. I put him in my bedroom and closed the door anticipating cozy, drifting, dreams.

I'm not sure why I thought this would work. He is not the kind of dog who sleeps in beds, mostly due to his humongousness.

I laid on my bed and assumed he would jump up there with me. But what he did was double pounce me in the face with both of his massive front paws, one lickity split after the other. Immediately after that move, he ninja jumped onto my chest and sat down. This seriously hampered my inhaling, a part of my routine I usually take quite for granted.

Then I thought that if I could get him to lay on the bed with his warm fur pressed against my back, it would feel wonderful. After a fair bit of tugging and shouting commands he has never heard before, I finally managed to arrange him into an ideal position with his back against mine. With a smile on my face, I snuggled down for a blissful slumber, when he owled his neck completely backwards and bit my hair. Hair has no nerves and should not hurt. Turns out, however, that there is nothing less restful than when your hair becomes a dog's chew toy.

I flailed my arms in protest of the hair move he was pulling on me, but, since they were still under a blanket, he must have thought a homeless squirrel lived under that blanket. I think he was determined to smash that homeless squirrel to the thickness of a pancake and then swallow it whole. Apparently screaming only intensifies a dog's determination to succeed in his project.

So, I am still tired. But not really very cold.

Lessons From The River

My boys recently went on a camping trip with some other boys. When I say my boys, I mean my husband and my two sons. When I say some other boys, I mean another father and his sons. They took canoes down a river in Arkansas to a sand bar on which they camped.

It was the perfect boy trip. There were no showers. No girls. Lots of wildlife. Lots of burping. They were in heaven.

The first fun-filled day left the two grown up boys a bit tired, so my husband decided it was time to douse the fire and go to sleep.

"I can put out the fire," one of the boys offered. "I'll just pee on it."
What my husband said to that was, "No, that smells awful. You should only do that if you are about to leave a place immediately afterwards." What four adolescent boys heard was, "You SHOULD TOTALLY do that in the morning right before we leave this camp site!"

The first alarming thing is that my husband seems to be an expert on peeing on fires. A skill I had no knowledge of.

The second alarming thing was what happened that next morning. Since I am a girl, I am not allowed into the confidences of the happenings on the river, but I have it from a good source that these four boys woke up in the morning and reminded each other not to relieve themselves but to save it up for the fire. Then they encouraged each other to drink as much as possible so that the dousing of the fire might be all the more spectacular.

The fathers may or may not have noticed four boys groaning from the pain of full bladders. They may or may not have wondered why these normally restless and active boys sat barely moving, scrunched faces turning all shades of red.

Finally, the magic words were said. "Time to go."

Before either father knew what was happening, four boys stood in a circle around the fire and doused it. The problem these poor boys soon encountered was that it did, indeed, smell horrid. But, their bladders were mighty full, and there was no way to stop what had begun.

"I can't breathe!" one of the boys shouted.
"It's horrible!" another boy declared.
"I can't run away," someone else announced. "I have so much peeing left to do!"
"Me too," they all agreed.

"The river taught me a lesson," one boy summed up the experience. "Sometimes you are stuck smelling your own stink."

Well done, River.

Candy Scaries

We put my two sons in charge of handing out the candy this Halloween. That is when things began to go awry.

We filled a large bowl with tiny bags of Skittles and Reeces Pieces, but that just seemed too predictable to Drake. "Hey," he suggested, "What if we put a raw potato in there? Do you think anybody would take it?" Josiah thought Drake's question was absolutely brilliant, so the potato led to lime juice which led to an outlet cover which led to a bottle of mustard. You see the pattern.

They barely contained their laughter as they opened the door to a large group of kids expecting the small innocents to screech in disgust and disappointment. Instead the first one politely took the lime juice and said thank you in a very sweet baby voice. This unexpected event brought on all kinds of high fiving between my boys, and some canned lasagna was added to the bowl. Where did they even get canned lasagna? Do they even make lasagna in a can? Who does the grocery shopping around here anyway?

When boys behave in such a way, what is a mom to do but sit laughing at the kitchen table taking pictures?

Makenna saved the day by coming home from work with four dozen warm Krispy Kreme donuts and we went from being the scourge of the neighborhood to Most Loved Halloween Neighbor.

And that, my friends, is the difference between boys and girls.