My puh puh puh poker face.

The last few days have been riddled with dancing and music. Ever since I received my new fancy phone and T learned how to use hers there has been music throughout the house almost all the time. We have an iHome in the kitchen and there is an ancient stereo system built into the playroom (part of the 'estate') and T keeps iHomes in the bedrooms too so we can drown out our loud parties at night.

Or something.

I'm introducing the kids to quality music like Reba McEntire from the nineties and John Michael Montgomery and They Might Be Giants.

Unfortunately, they have already been poisoned by today's garbage and they request things like "I'm sexy and I know it" by the stupidest person on Earth and Rihanna, the runner up. Yesterday J followed me around asking if I could put on Lady Gaga.

I cringed inwardly.

And then outwardly.

I have been listening to (and I am pretty ashamed of this) a lot of Pink lately. Or is it P!nk? You know, I have no respect for people who have punctuation in their names.

But she has one or two songs that I don't find disturbing or nasty and they are catchy and she does have a good voice, so I sought her out on the iPod upstairs today while I was organizing closets.

I was singing and working when Monkey dropped his toys and stood next to the desk where the iHome is that he can't reach and started yelling, "turn it off! turn it off!" He apparently hates Pink (P!nk).

I would admire that, except what he wanted me to put on was worse.

He really likes LMFAO. Acronym bands are only a step up from punctuated names, but the music of this particular group I liken to actual garbage. Stinking, rotten, leaking, strange, brownish green colored juices garbage.

Don't worry, I'm not holding anything back.

We compromised in that I turned on a song he liked for thirty seconds until he was distracted with a book and then I turned on whatever I wanted again.

I spent this morning and yesterday morning reorganizing all the clothes that I organized when I first moved here. The bags and bags of off-season and other sized clothes for the kids have gotten jumbled around every time a kid grows an inch or somebody gives T another donation.

Plus, I had to prepare all the baby stuff and get it moved to the top because I AM READY.

AND IT BETTER BE A GIRL because I found so many adorable dresses up there. I'm really hoping for a girl with J's temperament and my sense of humor.

Wait.

Yesterday was a normal Thursday all day, until the evening when T had made fake dinner plans to get E to his surprise birthday party. The party was going to be an adult affair and it was late, not scheduled to start until 9, so T and I had our work cut out for us. She knew he would never believe his sister would make a 9 o'clock dinner plan so they told him eight. We were counting on T's perpetual tardiness to save us.

I did my part by not doing anything. T and I agreed beforehand to make it a bath night and then just to slow things down even more we'd suggest that they shower the kids so that it would be "faster." Showering them actually takes ten times as long, but he doesn't know that.

They have to shower in the master bathroom because theirs has no curtain.

So first, there's the ordeal of getting them in there, remembering you need their soaps and shampoos, getting them back in there, remembering you need towels and washcloths, you see where I'm going with this?

The best part was that after they were showered, T and I just checked out.

She sat down, had a drink, struck up a conversation, didn't know what to wear.

I put away some laundry and then disappeared. I never do that. Even on the nights when I am not technically working, it's easier on me to help get the kids ready for bed than to deal with them coming downstairs to talk to me while I am watching TV.

But E didn't notice either one of us slacking off.

The kids asked him to read to them and he obliged. Whatever the vibe we were sending out, it worked and after four or five failed attempts to get T to hurry up he just gave up and began taking his sweet time too.

It was nearly nine when they left and I think when he realized it had gotten late, he was annoyed. But he didn't say anything.

This morning we were halfway through the breakfast routine when T said something about last night and I said, "Oh yeah, how was last night?"

To which he replied in a mocking voice, "Oh yeah, how was last night?" Then, "YOU knew? Did everyone know?"

I guess he was piecing together how the whole world had been against him the evening before.


Today, both T and E had to go into the city and whenever that happens the chances of them making it back by dinner time go from slim to absolutely none.

And it's Shabbat.

So after the kids were all ready to go and I fed them first dinner, we sat down to watch youtube videos until Mommy and Daddy got home. We were just getting bored when T's sister called to say she was going to pick us up to go to her mom's for dinner and E and T would meet us there.

We ran to let the dog out, get our coats and get out the door. While the two bigger kids ran out to the waiting van, I held the 150 ton baby in one arm, the diaper bag in the other and tried to set the alarm.

It didn't beep reassuringly and so I had to do it twice and then when I was all set I found the dumb dog in the garage. REALLY WILLIE?

We made it to dinner though, and I fed the rascals right away so that I could enjoy my weekly half a pound of guacamole. T's mom makes the BEST guacamole I have ever tasted. T's sister's husband was asleep on the couch in the room where the kids usually play so we had to entertain them elsewhere until he got up.

E and T made it and after dinner, during the late night scramble to get the kids into pajamas and washed up before heading out, I had the pleasure of watching my kids listen obediently to me, T and E, while their cousins ran around like little monsters.

I was beside myself with joy when I finally stepped in, barked orders, and the unruly little terrors listened right away.

When Kimmy speaks, children listen.

T's been telling me lately how unfair it is. Last night she put Monkey to bed and he stood up five minutes later and began chanting, "I don't want to bed, I don't want to bed." When she went in to his room to lay him down, where she would normally take him out and hold him and try to make him feel better she instead said, "Do you want me to go get Kimmy?" And he threw himself onto his pillow and didn't say anything for the rest of the night.

You know why children fear me?

They can't read my poker face, my puh puh puh poker face.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy3DumbiL54&feature=share