Hi, my name is Kim and I am dysfunctional.

Ugh.

I have had to take so much time out of my weekend to be enraged about this Chik-Fil-A thing. It's causing me flashbacks to a few month ago with that whole Kirk Cameron thing. Why is the liberal media so surprised when they hear traditional Christian views spoken out loud? Are they that stupid?

We're being fed to the wolves by liberals who preach freedom of speech and beliefs and religion just to trick us into feeling safe enough in our own country to have an opinion or faith or values.

Horrible, rude liberals.

So, I spent today suppressing my rage at America and Americans in general and trying not to be dizzy. I woke up so, so dizzy.

I have a theory.

Last night was my first night back in my room since our last flood (I spent two nights on the couch) and it was very rough. The water seems to have re-energized the stench of the all-natural bug killer I sprayed down there last time. It reeks, but it's subtle and I didn't notice until this morning that that's what I was smelling.

The last time I slept down there in those fumes I had the WEIRDEST dreams involving bugs trying to sneak up on me where I slept. The same occurred last night, and I spent the first four hours of the night waking repeatedly and thinking that I saw thin, black spiders retreating from just over my face, withdrawing to the dark ceiling and then disintegrating before my eyes.

I believed it was real the first two times and had so much trouble falling asleep again. Around the third time I started to suspect I might be hallucinating. By the fourth time, I was so sick of waking up and not being able to trust myself, I just gathered by bedding and went upstairs to the couch. I slept the rest of the night just fine.

My bug-hallucinations stem from my child hood.

I grew up in a house in the woods on a mountain near a creek.

Think bugs.

We also had cats. Indoor/outdoor cats. Trillions of them.

Think more bugs.

I remember waking up one night when I must have been seven or eight and my dream about fleas eating me alive just sort of continued and for some reason I thought if I moved out of my room they would stop so I went to my mom's room.

And there were a hundred other times I dreamt about mosquitoes, spiders and those freaky jumping spider things and relocated to the couch. My whole life I have been convinced that the solution to my dream problems is to move my bedroll.

This morning because of my flawless system for ridding myself of ridiculous dreams, I was awakened an hour before I needed to be by the elephant stomps of the kids on the floor above me. I gathered all my stuff and ran back downstairs.

Unfortunately, I became aware of the spray smell then and sleep was out. I dressed and washed up in my completely functional bathroom and put breakfast on. Then I returned to the couch and got another hour of snooze in before the kids came to eat.

We didn't do much today, but E and T are fasting for a holiday I don't understand and I had the kids most of the day.

Last night I successfully chopped the ring finger on my left hand open and bled for a good thirty minutes before I got the skin closed enough to bandage it again. Gross, right?

So then today, shortly after I had the thought that at least it was my left hand and I am a righty, I sliced open the tip of my right pointer finger just exactly deep enough to make it horribly painful. Another pile of bloody paper towels later and I got that one closed up, too.

T just shook her head and it was R who suggested I go to the doctor, but I've never had stitches and I am not going to break that record now. I might not have insurance but I have super glue and medical tape. I think I've got this covered.

As for my center of balance, I think it's a direct result of not sleeping last night. I squeezed a nap in this afternoon when E's mom recruited the two big kids to wash her car and the two little ones were asleep. E was on the living room couch, trying not be let his hunger-driven rage get the better of him. T was in bed, sleeping through her fast. So, I got on board with the silence and snuggled up in a pile of clean sheets on the play room couch.

When I woke up I "folded" them and put them away.

While I was feeding the kids dinner, E came into the room to torture himself a little bit. While he was talking with the kids and watching them eat (and drooling a little bit) J asked him a question about fingerpainting. I had told the kids no to fingerpainting today because it was pre-nap and I just didn't have it in me. E nodded in repsonse to J's question and said, "That sounds like fun. If I was your nanny, we would do that." And then he laughed. I told the kids that sounded fine to me and they should hire Daddy as their nanny and I am going on vacation.

Monkey was personally offended, as he was by the fact that I went on my mission's trip last week. He shook his monkey head and said, "Kimmy, why you go on vacation?!" all accusingly like I was a terrible person. So, I'm never leaving him again. Heart = broken.

Somehow the rest of the evening passed and I don't even know what I was doing. The kids have been in their parents' care for an hour now and I have still not eaten dinner. Neither have they, and their fast ended 25 minutes ago.

I wonder if they died.

That would be sad.

I guess I should go check.

The follow up flood.

It is such a shame that this whole day will now be summed up in the flooding.

It started off kind of rocky, with E in a bad mood and yelling at the kids and me silently judging him all day. T got home from the city shortly after dinner (leftovers!) and told me she spoke with him and asked him to back off a bit in the mornings. I've talked with her before about how I am not going to interfere when he's present so as not to undermine him. So she talked him into stepping back so that I can take over without doing exactly that.

Tomorrow is our trial run.

The evening seemed to stretch on forever in the most peaceful manner.

Monkey is getting his two year molars and true to his history, he is not teething well. He's got another monster of a diaper rash and spent the entire morning home from camp, crying and following me around when I tried to sneak off into another room. I had nothing much to do because our wonderful, beautiful, amazing cleaning lady came yesterday and did EVERYTHING.

The floors are so clean I keep almost falling and dying. T's mom stopped by this afternoon to tell me how dangerous that is.

Anyway, Monkey ate some plain pasta and some white rice for dinner to help rid him of teething diarrhea and the other two kids were hungry so early I just went ahead and fed them before T got home. When she did, we bathed all the kids for like an hour, and by that I mean, we put the three big ones in the tub and talked for forty minutes before taking them out and washing the small one.

Then we sat around until E got home and had a dance party with the whole pack of them upstairs.

The party was just winding down when T got a call from the county about a tornado watch.

I called Nanny K to cancel our plans and went to prepare all my flashlights. I love being without power but I am pretty terrified of the dark. I had three working flashlights and went downstairs to find one more. Instead, I found the first inch of rainwater creeping across the basement.

Problem.

I yelled "No!" at it like it would just stop and retreat. It didn't, so I ran across the basement to my room, flashing back to that morning when I had left my last pair of good slippers on the floor.

You might recall that before the last flood my computer charger fell to the floor and I had been to lazy to pick it up.

Well.

I went upstairs without putting my slippers into the shoe organizer this morning. Same thought process about should I, shouldn't I and in the end I just forgot all about them.

Another pair in the trash. These were a three dollar pair in an especially old lady pink color.

So sad.

T is planning to replace them.

She and E went down to start clean up and I took over bedtime. Monkey is in his new big boy bed and he is exceptionally easy to put to bed now. His vacant crib lingers across the room, an ever-present threat to his freedom if he dares to set foot out of bed.

With him down, I tucked J in and told him I loved him. Even though he's been SO BAD lately. I didn't say that. But I thought it. And he has. Been so bad. SO. BAD.

The last three days with him have been all crying and whining and not eating. I've wanted to spank him more than once. Fortunately, so has T so I just pass him over and he gets what's coming to him. He's usually so sweet and so good that we are positive this is a cry for attention. Middle child syndrome times infinity.

So exhausting.

Two down. I told R to wait for me while I fed the munchkin. He nodded off after an ounce and my work was done.

Once R was settled I went to check on the happy couple in the basement.

The trap had been full and they had pumped all the water outside. Most of the puddles on the floor were gone and on my way down the stairs E informed me that T was obsessing over getting my room clean and dry.

I had to go down there and help her and promise her that nothing of mine was ruined except my crappy slippers and that my stuff was so waterproof it isn't even funny. I mean, it's funny, but it's not.

She still felt guilty and kept apologizing.

But I promise you all, she has done everything possible to get this basement-fixing process moving.

They are waiting on insurance money from the last flood. That basement is supposed to be waterproof already. This isn't supposed to be happening. And the cess trap has a six month guarantee every time they pump it and unclog it. Things just aren't right and it's not anyone's fault on this end.

I assured her I understood all that and that sleeping on the couch and taking a two minute shower while E pumps the trap isn't the worst thing I've ever experience.

Unfortunately for E, it was probably close to the worst thing he ever experienced.

After judging him all day and then during clean up while he walked around angry and frustrated, the poor guy was bent over the trap, helping the pump along after my shower when I went downstairs to ask how it was going. T had gone to take her two minute shower.

I had no sooner opened my mouth to ask my question when something from the depths of the cess trap bubbled up and pushed the pump above water, spewing trap water DIRECTLY into E's face.

Ladies and gentlemen, I witnessed the reaction of a true man here tonight.

He's short tempered and irritable in a tight spot, but the fact that he didn't puke all over that trap and run for the shower impressed me greatly.

I have a brother-in-law (I won't mention any names) who gags at hairballs. Gags like he's never going to be able to eat again.

I've seen my own brothers grossed out by lesser things.

I dated a guy once who, after stepping in a puddle of questionable origin in an Allentown park, trashed his sneakers. I mean, it's just water. Probably.

E spit a few times, went back to work and after a long, long minute passed, looked at me with the first hint of humor I'd seen in him all day and asked, "Am I going to die?"

I told him I thought not and then went to tell T to go pity her husband. She did.

He threw away everything he had been wearing and then said, and I quote, "It's just a little sh**." And went to take his military regulated shower.

So, we can't let any water go down the drains here. The kids will be happy because none of them like flushing anyway. And tomorrow is predicted to be a day full of hail storms and thunder storms and perhaps a tornado.

I'm sure it will be awful, and I'm sure it will be hard, but the good news is, everything in my upbringing prepared me for this job, for this family and for this septic system.

I can't express enough gratitude toward God for making me resilient and easygoing. If I wasn't flexible, I might be crazy. As it is, I spent five minutes on break with T during clean up, dancing in the rain barefoot because it was the only way to clean our feet and organize our thoughts.

I also don't know how to communicate the depths of perspective I have been given in the last 24 hours.

Nanny K got the bad family; she's leaving. She's sad and heartbroken and lost and confused and feeling depressed and betrayed and let down and a million other things she didn't say so much as I picked up on it. She's going. And I feel so sad for her, but I can't help but smile inwardly at my abundant blessings in having my family.

I had one conversation with T about getting back to church like I should and bam, no problem. Anything I need to be happy here. She spent an hour drying my flooded room frantically. Not a lot of bosses do that. Even fewer will stay up half the night talking and laughing with you on a week night (not tonight) while their husband sits idly by with the TV paused, waiting to finish a show.

And above all, no matter how bad things get or how frantic tomorrow may be, I can take comfort in the fact that a cess trap didn't spew crap, literally, CRAP, into my face. I feel as though I can take anything this job can dish as long as that never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever happens to me.

R.I.P E's facial skin cells. R. I. P.

Taggerit.

Ahhhh routine.

Is there any better cure for back-from-vacay restlessness like getting back on a schedule?

Last night, I attempted to go to bed at a decent hour but something like inspiration happened and when I finished writing, it was midnight. I shut off my light, thought about how much I missed breathing through my nose without the rattle of water inside it, and tried to get comfortable without upsetting my still tender fourth-time pierced ears.

I had just managed to drift into one of those unsettling half-sleeps where everything you think about is troubling and you are awake enough to know that but not awake enough to make it stop, when I was startled fully awake by a serious thought.

For some reason, I felt that I had left the baby unattended upstairs and without bringing a monitor to bed with my. I panicked, thinking that I was awake because I had heard E and T coming in through the garage and that the baby was screaming.

I was almost in my slippers when I realized my mistake.

I was off last night.

This morning, blissful routine got us all back in gear. The boys and R went off to camp and T went off to work and I spent my time cleaning sinks and changing sheets and telling my little snuggle bunny how cute he is.

I also watched enough TV on my phone while folding laundry to kill the battery pretty early on in the day.

This afternoon, I took wee baby out in the stroller and we picked up Monkey from camp. He greeted me with a big hug and happily climbed into his seat.

Outside, we were stalked by E's sister, but fortunately, the one I like. She caught up to us, said some hellos and kissed both babies a few times before letting us go on our way.

J came home with a play date and told me about a game he had learned at camp that day called Taggerit.

"Taggerit?" I was holding the baby on the living room couch and trying to watch The Middle on my dying phone.

"Yeah!" He was all excited and I had no idea what he was saying. "Taggerit!"

His little friend seemed just as happy. I was still confused, so I sent them to play again.

A few minutes later they returned, telling me they couldn't find the toy ambulance they were looking for.

"We don't have one." I informed them.

"Oh." From J, and then from his little friend in a very accomplished and proud voice;

"We took every toy out of every drawer to look for it."

I have to admit, I was impressed. I have never seen any male life form, ever search for something with such diligence. J's father is the king of not finding things he's "looking" for. Then I saw the play room.

"Alright, clean up time! Let's go!"

They asked again to play Taggerit and stumped me again. Finally, I asked them how to play.

"You run around and catch meach other!" J illustrated with a fake jog and the family pronunciation of "each other." "And then yell taggerit!"

"Tag, you're it?" I clarified.

"Yeah!" The friend exclaimed and now J looked immensely confused.

Thankfully, the play date ended shortly after that and we entered into a very peaceful and orderly dinner.

The kids finished early and went upstairs with T while I sat around for a while. When I went up to see if she needed me anymore tonight she was playing Taggerit with the kids in her room.

Adorable.

You missed me, didn't you?

I was busy having a blast.

I went to Montauk with my family. We spent a long weekend, Thursday through Sunday, at a hotel on the beach for a Persian family reunion. T's side. I spent my days in the hotel with the tiny one while the rest of the family was at the beach. In the evenings I was told to go about doing whatever I wanted, so naturally I tagged along to the family reunion and ate their food and drank their wine. It was just like being with my Puerto Rican family. I could only understand two-thirds of what was being said, people kept asking me if I needed more food or drink and their were kids and music everywhere.

So. Much. Fun.

And I was being paid for it.

We returned home on Sunday night to our wet rugs and thankfully, still dry basement.

I unpacked all of our bags and began washing EVERYTHING.

Thanks to our freshly emptied and unclogged cess trap, I breezed through five loads and left the family with all clean laundry.

I packed my bags long into the night and then tried to sleep until it was time for Taryn to pick me up.

I think I did, but then I woke up too early with my brain still trying to think of things I needed to shove into my already stuffed bags. I had to sit on my suitcase for a good ten minutes to get it to zip. I made it out of the house a bit early; Taryn had already arrived.

We spent the week in Wildwood, New Jersey with our youth group from church. We worked at the chapel on the boardwalk there, spent afternoons at the beach and shopping and topped off the week with a trip to a water park that was both wonderfully fun and ridiculously cheap.

Everything was golden sunshine and rainbows except for that one thunderstorm and then coming home.

I got here and it was back to the old grind, but with ten gallons, or at least, what feels like ten gallons, of water from that water park in my head. While at the water park I remember feeling the water rushing up my nose and getting stuck in my ears and sinuses. And I knew I should do my best to clear it all up ASAP.

Instead, I didn't even shower afterward. I hit the boardwalk for more fun.

Now, I am sitting here going on day three with a stuffed, swollen, itchy head. I sound like I have a cold and my center of balance is all off. I spent today with the baby while the family was out, trying to dry my ear canals and sinuses, moisturize my eyes and figure out how exactly, I was going to stop all the allergic reactions happening inside my head and across my skin.

I cleared my ears and one nostril.

I'll let you know how the rest pans out.

In the mean time, I can tell you about how coming back here to Monkey's hugs and love and Little Baby's snuggles was so nice. Baby D started rolling over in my absence. He also started having stranger anxiety towards E's mom, which T and I are thoroughly enjoying. She said he cries when she holds him and then we both laughed and laughed.

The other two kids missed me too and gave me a nice homecoming. Rumor is they didn't eat all week.

I believe it. I spent yesterday trying to get them back into routine.

I also spent yesterday unpacking my bags and washing sand out of everything I own. I almost washed my sheets after placing my bags on the bed made it all sandy, but as I was pulling one side of the fitted sheet up I realized I could shake it clean. So I did, and then I put it back on and went to bed.

And I'm about to go do that last thing again.

Water, water.

Today's blog is brought to you by the letter W.

For wet.
And water.
And when will we ever be finished?

The morning started normally enough. Breakfast, children arguing, the phone ringing.

There was talk of me getting to morning service. That didn't happen. At ten, when it was too late to make it, I decided to instead throw a load of towels in the wash and then celebrate my Sabbath with some down time in the playroom the moment the kids vacated it.

That never happened.

They were still gathered when R's bug bitten face swelled up and T whisked her off to the doctor. E thought he would be clever and he snuck away for a nap.

With the three boys in my care, I sat down to think. No sooner had I done so than the doorbell rang and the baby started to cry. I held him and tried to ignore E's mom, who was driving me bat-poop crazy this morning. E had to miss his nap (HAHAHAHA) and deal with her as well.

When she finally left, peace ensued for all of twenty minutes. Lunch was in there, Monkey went to bed and then I went to change the laundry.

I descended the basement steps and approached the cess trap to gage where we stood on water use and see if I could run any water in the next hour. The answer was a firm NO.

I had to blink a couple of times and I'm sure I stuttered some before I finally called up to E in the kitchen, "We have a huge problem."

The trap was full, overflowing, and so was the small trap in the back of the basement. There was a good three inches of water covering the entire floor and water and bubbles were still gushing out of the trap. The only dry spot in the basement was from the bottom of the stairs to the right wall, where the craft table and the only thing that is readily water-ready, stands.

All three rugs in the kids' playroom were under water. The toys, the electric guitar, the chairs...all in water. My room floated far off in the corner of the basement.

I couldn't even tell where the water had come from because it was running down the wall near my room and it surrounded the washers and dryers as well. I stuttered and stammered some more when E asked me what I thought it was.

Then I got it together and made him go into my room to get my sneakers.

"They're in the orange box, four shelves down." I called from the dry spot as he splashed to my room. I wondered how my other babies were doing. Were they dry? Did they know that I love them? "Also my computer charger hit the floor this morning and I was too lazy to pick it up. Can you pick that up?"

He did and he wasn't electrocuted, even though it was plugged into the wall.

Cut to fifteen minutes later. T was there, baby on arm, gaping at the basement. The kids trying to get down the stairs for a look. E with a shop vac trying to get the water out of my room first, which is where it was deepest, me moving anything dry to the craft table and everything salvageable to the dry floor around it.

That's when we realized that the water was clean. The trap hadn't backed up. This water was clear. It smelled like...rain.

A huge storm hit here last night, hit close and rained hard.

But we haven't had any major trouble since the hurricane last year. And NEVER like this.

If I hadn't backed up that washing machine a few months ago and subsequently water-proofed my entire living space, this day could have been really sad for me.

As it was, all of my clothes are in plastic. I recently invested in some space saver bags. Everything of mine sits at least six inches off the floor. Everything.

I made out fairly well. I lost a pair of slippers and a pair of dollar store flip flops.

The water was clean but there are some things you don't trust after being submerged in flood water.

The cess pool people were called because we still weren't sure if the rain was purely to blame for our new swamp. With everything out of the way but the rugs, we continued vacuuming water out while the trap was pumped by the truck. The man running it said we had a clog in the trap, which is why it fills up all the time. It's also why there was no trace of fecal matter in our flood. Thank God for clogs!

As I lugged a big, wooden trunk that normally held toys up the stairs and out to the yard to dry I heard something. Something awful.

The toilet in my bathroom was running. Running hard. No one was in there. Or had been in ages. Since the discovery of the flood we had herded all the kids into the playroom once again. Swollen-face and her brother hadn't been in the potty in a while she said.

The toilet running was why the bubbles were still coming up from the trap. The toilet running for two hours was why the rainwater had so much help covering the entire floor so deeply.

Still, clean toilet water.

Four hours later E and the happily bribed man from the truck had hauled out the three soaked rugs. They smelled of water and dirt. They left them on the driveway to be cleaned at a later time by someone else.

E took the huge broom we use to sweep the garage and began using it to push the water into the freshly emptied trap.

Good idea, I said. That looks like it's working I said.

Little did I know I would have a turn at this later.

E cleared the playroom. He went with the truck guy to haul some more crap from inside the house that I won't help with because I hate carrying things. Seriously, anything. I hate carrying all things.

I took up the broom and started on my room.

The trouble was that my room is the lowest point in the basement. All the water I shoved out with the broom came rushing back in. I had to work fast. So I did. And ten minutes later I had huge blisters.

At this point the day was over. T took the kids to the pool for an hour to get them out of the way so we could wash the floors upstairs where water had been tracked everywhere. Then E went to get barbecue for dinner because the women folk were not going to cook. Period.

I dug in deep and got the water out of my room, across the basement and deposited it in the trap. It drained promptly. The floor gleamed.

I towel dried my room, killed the only two silverfish left in existence in this house, took out the trash and went to eat barbecue.

You should also know that during the wait for the truck to arrive, I pushed the last remaining spiders into the trap water, drowning them and ending their family line forever.

Before I could enjoy my dinner, I accidentally answered the phone when Mom E called. I saw her number, almost ignored it, felt mean and picked up. MY BAD. She was calling with advice, very detailed and redundant and heavily accented advice, on how to save our rugs. I tuned out no less than four times and bent over myself in defeated frustration. My employers mocked me for answering the phone, laughing silently and pointing at me in my distressed state.

I yessed her until tears and blood ran from my eyes (slightly exaggerated) and then finally hung up.

"Whatever, you're related to her. Think about that."

Tonight I am crashing on the couch, typing quickly because I can't charge my computer until the charger is really, really, dry and reassuring T that she doesn't need to buy me new slippers as I own back up slippers and back up back up slippers.

The only thing I lost that needs replacing is a train schedule that had blown onto the floor.

The kids lost four hula hoops. Shhh. They don't know. We didn't want to upset the puffy-faced girl.

Teach me Hawaiian!

I thought about telling you all about Shabbat tonight. And then I was going to mention a conversation I had with T this afternoon that was interesting and a little bit none of my business.

But I am lazy and tired so I decided to copy and paste an email I wrote tonight for my brother and his wife in Hawaii.

Subject: Teach me Hawaiian!

So, are you guys racist against the mainland yet?

I hope so. I am.

Soooooo I thought about calling you a couple of times but the general rule around here is that as soon as I make a call everyone starts crying and/or the doorbell rings and the dog starts barking and THEN everyone starts crying. Mostly I'm the one crying because the only place I can get some solitude during the day is the bathroom so I do a lot of texting whilst huddled in the corner of my shower, sobbing. And even that is iffy because the kids know I am in there and they bang on the door and ask me stupid questions like, "What are you doing?" and "Don't you love us anymore?"

Are you getting a nice mental image here?

Really, my days are quite nice. The kids are all done with school and they are in summer day camp, so I have a few hours every morning to get some cleaning and laundry done. I used to cook or bake then but it has been in the high 90s so instead I crank up the AC and mop the sweat off my face with 30 paper towels. That part is true.

I may have just been in New York too long, but Kristen once said something to me about Botox closing sweat glands and I am seriously considering having my head Botoxed because there is nothing ladylike about a girl whose hair looks like it is wet because it is sweaty.
I repulse myself in the summer time.

Anyway, then all the kids get home from camp and happy time is over and it's just chaos from then until dinner. We go to the pool a lot. The other day the dad of the kids came with us to the pool and I was hanging out in the deep end and he was in the shallow end and no one was watching the kids and the dad found a mysterious brown substance in the pool. So, naturally, he scooped it up with his BARE HANDS and it was, yes, you guessed it, a huge POOH.

So they evacuated the pool and we found the kids in the kiddie pool, which is good, because I guess if we lose them we'll probably get yelled at when we get home.

Our little one is a little over three months old now and his adorable. He talks and coos a lot and he is wearing six and nine month clothes. He also wears a few 12 month outfits because the higher end baby clothes are all sized really stupidly. Ralph Lauren clothes run like eight sizes too small so by the time your baby is born they already are too big for the newborn clothes, unless you have given birth to an actual peanut. And they cost three times as much as any other baby clothing and that's what all the snooty women buy around here for every baby shower. All the kids here have the same four Ralph Lauren outfits. Except my kids. They have handmedowns. And that is why I love this family.

My boss returns everything people give her kids.

I had a church picnic last weekend and I led the games for the kids. It was on a Saturday and the five OPC churches on Long Island were invited so it was huge and there was tons of food from like ten different ethnicities. It was so awesome. And someone made homemade ice cream and someone else brought stuff for smores. And I had the most awesome games ever planned. And, David will remember this, I did a lollipop hunt like Mrs. Cuomo used to do at her house at our church picnics. But the ground was too hard and it was so hot in the sun my "assistants" didn't want to try to "plant" the lollipops like Deanna Cuomo did, so we just threw them all over a field and told the kids to go collect.

But it was a great day.

For the fourth of July I worked and we went to two barbecues. The second one was at a mansion that belongs to a family that is friends with my family here. It was BEAUTIFUL but way too empty. One family is not enough to fill a mansion so I am calling Africa and having some kids sent over. I hope they don't mind. I wrote about it here:  http://snobbynanny.blogspot.com/2012/07/let-me-just-tell-you.html

If you're interested.

So, I got you a baby shower gift, but I didn't do it in time to send with anyone else's package so I have to send it myself and HOPEFULLY I will get it done soon. I am so bad at mailing stuff, but I am super excited for you to get it (for purely selfish reasons you will understand when you get it) and so that is my motivation to send it on Wednesday, before I go to Stroudsburg to visit those people. Then Thursday I am going on a trip with my family here and I get back from that the following Sunday and then that Monday I leave for a missions' trip with my youth group at church. We're going to the Boardwalk Chapel in New Jersey. It's going to be wonderful.

So, how is my little sweet baby niece? Has she said my name yet? What grade is she in again? Andrew got an iTouch and he texts me now. It is SO WEIRD. Why is he so big? I can't believe all these kids just keep growing and then more are born and then they grow too. It's so sad.

How's work David? How's work and home Cami? Are you working? I know you were doing something but I can't remember what because my hair is pulled back too tight and it has cut off all the power in my brain. My clock says it's 9:53 but it has taken over three hours to finish this email because my mother-in-law (my boss's m-i-l has become mine) keeps saying stupid things to me and then she made me help her carry some hideous lamps in from her car and then she bothered me while I was trying to put the kids to bed and then I ate dinner for the second time and also cleaned up some of the dishes and took a shower. It's been a busy email.

I guess I am finally done. I want to know everything! Tell me all of it! If it takes you any less than three hours to write your email back to me, you haven't told me enough. Kisses to my little Catalina! Love you guys!

I hope you enjoyed that. Now stop reading my emails. They're really none of your business.

Let me just tell you.

Let me just tell you about the way I spent the Fourth of July.

I was asked if I wanted off for the holiday, but since I am going to be away on a church trip for five days, I opted instead to work through a few Wednesdays and keep my full pay. Because I like money.

That being said, let me just tell you how I spent the Fourth of July.

We had a leisurely breakfast at home, somewhere between nine and eleven o'clock. At noon we headed over to T's mom's house for a barbecue. She had invited the usual Persian crowd and had even turned the air conditioning on low for the occasion. Whilst sweating myself thin, I followed my kids around with four of their cousins. We laid on the floor of the den moaning. We laid on the floor of the bedroom moaning. We went out into the sunshine and openly wept. And then some kind soul brought us spray bottles and Nanny K and I spent the rest of that barbecue telling the kids to spray us with cold water while we are peach cobbler and NO ONE ELSE DID.

Peach cobbler is one of the only American things I enjoy doing. Besides watching baseball and singing patriotic songs at the top of my lungs to the annoyance and dismay of everyone around me.

After the cobbler, my family headed out for barbecue number two.

We stopped at home to drop Willie off, who was dog-sweating out the mouth in large quantities. We got our bathing suits and were on our way.

We were visiting a family that is good friends with E and T. A very successful family with tons of saved money and a very good budget plan. As blown away as I was by the fact that this couple and their four kids lived in a TEN BATHROOM house, I had to respect the fact that they had saved and purchased the house just recently, and not living on some inherited old money and doing nothing with their lives like the rest of this town.

Four floors, ten bathrooms, beautiful porch, pool, tennis court, yard, screened in porch, eat in kitchen with adjacent living room, another living room, another living room, wet bar...

It was a mansion built to perfection. But their kids are super normal and so are the parents.

While the men swam the women sat around talking about best values for laundry detergent. We all listened in on a good-natured spat about the electric bill "in this place." Few of the rooms were actually furnished.

To sum it all up, I loved this family.

The only thing that would make me love them more would be if they became Christians and opened up a foster home in that house.

After our swim, we used a three-person shower to wash the kids off. Monkey stood in the corner screaming, "I don't want to shower!" until I dragged him out into the water. We are barbecue and then went outside to set off fireworks in the backyard. They weren't professional, but they were pretty huge.

When it got late, we washed up the kids and I took a load of bags out to the car. R followed me and pulled the door shut, locking us both out. I buzzed and the father of the family who lived there, looking at me through the window, said, "Who is it?"

"I'd like to talk to you about Jesus." I answered.

He let me in anyway, and I said I really would and he said some other time.

It was worth a shot.

We loaded the kids up and headed home.

Thursday was like a nightmare out of a Lifetime movie where a mentally compromised woman cares for too many kids and gets overwhelmed and goes screaming out into the wilderness.

We coped with all the tantrums and crying until around six o'clock, when T and I tossed all the kids into bed and tried to regain some sanity.

This morning was perfect.

Tonight we have big plans to stay home, but as for right now, I really should wrap this up and go feed the baby who is yelling at me with little infant curse words.

This is why I'm tired.

The kids have started day camp! Hallelujah!

Monkey is attending this year and he had his first half day today. T said he left her in the first minute and didn't care a hoot when she left. Sounds about right.

Yesterday we had some major water problems involving the water trap in the basement and the gripping fear that it would overflow. It's actually been a growing problem for some time now, resulting in massive piles of laundry all over the house and no clean clothes for anyone.

So, today, while the munchkins were at camp, I did some laundry and washed all the dishes and bottles that have been backing up too.

Going back a little further in history, let me just tell you that on Saturday I went to the best church picnic ever. I don't want to slight the church picnics of my youth, but this one lasted an entire Saturday and there were s'mores. That's hard to beat.

Plus, I was in charge of games and that is just plain unbeatable.

I had a flock of followers asking for water balloons or what the next game would be. I also had Flo's Famous Homemade Ice Cream and it was totally worth the dairy and the calories.

Speaking of which, I have fallen off the wagon big time and I have done nothing remotely healthy in more than two weeks. Except swim. But even that has its downside, since my face is burnt to the point that I can't comfortable wrinkle my nose anymore.

On our last visit to the pool, I finally thought to wear my old lady straw hat. It's adorable and I don't care if nobody else likes it. Unfortunately, the wind kept blowing it off so I spent half the day chasing it around.

Then, and THEN, the kids ran off to the kiddy pool and I went to swim around the deep end and E was just hanging out in the shallow end and he found a HUGE load of FECES in the pool and scooped it out with his HANDS. He then told Ed, the overseer and they made everyone get out of the pool.

Then Ed the overseer crushed my dreams by informing us that the lady who works for the community who had previously informed us that the pool was mainly saltwater was wrong. He re-informed us that there was still a large amount of chemical usage, but that chlorine was not their main sanitizer. Until then.

He did his informing and then had enough chlorine put into the pool to ruin my day.

I went to hang out with the kids at the little, horrible pool while they ran their filters on light speed. I was sitting in the one foot of bathwater sprinkled with grass when some random little boy with a death wish grabbed my hat off my head and tossed it into the pool.

While I chanted "serenity now" R retrieved my hat and told the boy off a little bit. She knew him from school. He went and caused some other trouble and then every adult in the vicinity yelled at him and his mother came running and threatened his very life in front of everyone. I looked on with a approval while the American Mom of the Year in the chair beside mine (I left the pool after the hat incident) looked on with disdain.

When her little delight started arguing with her about something she was told to do, the mother just sat back in her chair and said, "You know what? I gave you all the information. Make your own decision." Because every good mom knows that six year olds make the best choices.

When the big pool was reopened thirty minutes later we opted not to jump back into the feces and chemicals. We went home.

This afternoon T's sister took the two big kids to the pool and I stayed home with Monkey and Tiny while T was in the city and E was at work. They got home in time for a bath, which put the plight of the basement trap back on my mind. I get tired just thinking about the potential mess that could cause.

I laid off running any water and made dinner. And by made, I mean heated frozen chicken. And by dinner, I mean frozen chicken and cucumbers with hummus because that was all I had the energy for.

I sat the kids down to eat and was putting the finishing touches on my own dinner, when R readied her first bite and took over my role.

For the last few years, wherever I am, whoever's house I am living in, when we sit down to dinner I rally up my best Lifetime-movie star voice and ask, "So, how was your day?"

Since only Monkey gets my humor, I have often tailored it here to "So, how was school?" Or "So, how was bothering me all day?"

At home my rude mother usually would tell me to stop being weird or obnoxious. At my brother's house, he is as weird and obxonious as I, so he would answer and do his own annoying question asking. Here, the kids usually laugh or roll their eyes and sometimes they actually talk about their day. Most often they talk about how much they hate eating dinner, but whatever, it's a conversation starter, regardless of what the conversation is about.

Tonight, before I had my change, R sat there, fork midair before her first bite and went, "So, how was camp?" And then when no one answered right away she plunged right ahead in my voice, "J, how was camp? What did you do?"

I have been replaced, but don't tell T. I think I can milk this job for another year or so. After all, R can't quite reach the toaster oven to cook her own frozen chicken yet.