I decided to be a good mom today and offer the kids the option of playing with Play-doh. They enthusiastically shouted with a "Yeah!" Then Bradley informed me that Daddy had some Play-doh and that he kept it in his closet.

There are moments when I roll my eyes at my own life, my life as a pregnant stay-at-home-mom of 5 small children. Our home is for sale and we could get a phone call at any moment with the perfect buyer waiting to check out our house. Today I decided to clean out the family room cupboards and toss anything that was unnecessary. Of course most of it was necessary such as diapers, Pull-ups, wipes, hair bows, empty Plug-ins, Bed, Bath, Beyond coupons, etc. I think I managed to toss an old Pottery Barn Kids catalog and a couple old business cards. As my stomach started to growl and the hunger headache set in, I looked at the clock and noticed it was indeed 12:00pm and time to start the pot of water for some store brand macaroni and cheese. Then Emily asked me, "What are we going to do today?" So I satisfied her with some shopping in my closet to find a gift for the birthday party we were going to attend for a 4 year old girlfriend. We managed to find a Kelly Doll game and some Disney Princess stuff and we wrapped it as the macaroni boiled on the stove. The kids ate lunch, I made the baby a bottle and put him in his crib with only a pajama top and diaper and arrived downstairs to discover a confused, potty-training two year old pointing to the nicely formed fresh poop on the seat of her high chair. I took her to the potty and we performed the flushing and washing of hands ceremony. As we returned to the living area, I salivated as I walked past the red Silo cup of strawberry smoothie that I blended minutes ago to supplement and wash down the remnants of macaroni and cheese that I scavenged from each of the kids bowls. Finally the two year is down for her nap and now I can relax as I sip my smoothie, record the day and listen to the the three remaining children argue over what DVD to watch. In a moment I will unpack the suitcase of clothes that has been sitting in my van since our return home from vacation two weeks ago.

Bradley is a smart kid, but he refuses to believe that pulling stuff from behind his ears is just a trick. Tonight he was looking for a particular Duplo block so he went up to Daddy and asked for it and requested that Daddy check behind his ear. Sure enough it was there and Bradley graciously accepted it and sat back down in his spot to continue playing. The kid can read, the kid can do math, but he fails the test of simple logic.

Bradley came up to me with a heart shaped box turned upside down and said to me, "Mommy, what shape is this?" I gave the obvious response and said, "A butt." He cracked up and went running to Emily and said, "Emily, Mommy said this shape looks like a butt." A bit surprised at their response of hysterics, I asked, "What shape would you call it?" Then Emily responded, "I would call it a spade." I suppose she is right.

Baby #6 has a heartbeat and appears to resemble a baby. The days of husband attending ultrasound appointment and ooing and ahhing over the alien-like fetus are over. I have to go it alone with 5 young 'uns at home for husband to watch. The technician handed me the flimsy "first picture of baby" and I carefully placed it in my People magazine as if I was going right home to paste it in the scrapbook that I have been preparing for the precious new arrival. I have finally gotten real with my child documentation and faced the truth that there will be no more baby books beyond child 4. This is it kids. My blog is your baby book and you will even have to accept the stock image ultrasound photo that I found online because I am too lazy to walk out to the the car to get my magazine. (like you could even tell the difference.) I still love you like crazy!

The kids took a long time to settle down in bed tonight. We put them to bed at about 9:00pm and they were still going strong till 11:00pm. I walked upstairs and eavesdropped at the door. Emily was asleep, but Sarah was pestering Bradley with Super Mickey and shouting "I go pee pee on you!" It would crack Bradley up, but he was trying hard to be obedient and go to sleep as his Daddy warned him. He said, "Sarah, we need to go to sleep before the sun comes up or we will be grumpy." She kept pestering him with her pee pee Mickey. Then he threatened her with, "Sarah, stop the noise or I will sleep on your pillow." She didn't stop. Although he kept cracking up at the pretend urinating Mickey, he finally warned, "Sarah, if you make one more noise, I am going to throw a hard thing at your face." The room became silent and they quickly fell asleep.

We're back!

Ever since we arrived in California, the kids have been anticipating our trip to Disneyland. Everyday they ask, "When are we going to Disneyland?" The first two weekends we have done a couple of kid-friendly activities, but at the end of the day they have been quick to remind us that the activities weren't quite up to par to Disneyland fun. Today, the third Saturday of our trip, we had a fun day planned taking a two hour train ride on an old fashioned restored train. I was telling Bradley how we were going to a town called Fillmore to ride a really cool train. He absorbed the information and then said to me with a concerned expression, "Mommy, does the place where we are going look like Disneyland?" I suppose we've let him down too many times the past 2 1/2 weeks that he simply would be happy with a look-alike Disneyland.

Our house will enter the market on Thursday. As I sit back and relax, sipping pink lemonade in the moderate climate of sunny Southern California supervising my children on the Little Tike slide, David is slaving away decluttering, dusting, vacuuming, moving furniture, sealing porches, setting up appointments for repairs, pressure washing, and painting. He told me he's gaining a new respect for the housewife who normally takes care of these concerns. Ok, I'm glad. Now add five screaming kids in background of all the phone calls and a couple of naked toddlers to answer the door when the contractors arrive, and a screaming tired infant prematurely woken from his nap when the roofer nails the replaced shingles on the roof above his bedroom.

My husband accepted a new and less demanding position at his current employer for a lower salary. We are going to sell our home and move to a less expensive, but growing area of the city. We are looking forward to the change.

How is that for looking on the bright side of our situation where the poophead attorneys that David works for decided to eliminate his position because the "internet is useless" and cut his salary by 30% effective 30 days and place him in "a different position" where he will probably end up doing the same stuff as he did before?

Anyhow, it is forcing us to follow through with our already scheduled plan of downgrading to a new kid-friendly home where our kids can beat up the veneer cupboards, puke on the base grade carpet, and nick and scuff the baseboards while we work towards wealth (passive income = living expenses.) Thanks attorneys! We appreciate the opportunity.

Happy 8 months, Jason!

Finally we are starting to feel better. And no, I did not write these posts while I was sick. Are you kidding me? I am retro writing.

Puke, puke, and more puke. We are all sick.

Bradley is sick.

We made it safe and sound to California, puking baby and all. We stayed the night in a low budget hotel in Charlotte so we didn't have to leave at 2:30 in the morning. After a restless night in a king sized bed with a 23 month old toddler and 7 month old infant (the rest of the kids were in a room with my mom) we awoke at 5:30am and quickly got ready for our early arrival at the aiport for our 8:05am departure. Jason awoke a little stuffed up and I saw him gagging on the bed. I assumed it to be a gag reflex of post nasal drip. But as our family van pulled up curbside at the airport my mom witnessed a small puking espisode and we again attributed it to post nasal thick snot. We survived the trecherous security checkpoint with five children, shoes off, strollers folded, infant formula inspected, 5 kid backbacks, 2 adult backpacks and an infant carrier. We passed and proceeded to our gate with a pitstop for muffins, english muffin and egg sandwiches and juice. We were surprised to learn that Delta does not board small children first so we patiently waited for our zone to be called. As we walked down the jetway, Jason's sweet little baby face turned bright red and he began heaving. I knew it wasn't post nasal drip. The entire flight I remained concerned for his comfort. He soaked an entire bib with puke. By the end of the flight he seemed to feel better and was drinking his formula. We arrived at our layover and hiked to our new gate and I sat down to two unfriendly people. When everyone finished their bathroom duties, I suggested Burger King for lunch. At the conclusion of our meal, Jason sickly projected his entire bottle of formula onto the attractive brown tile floor. I reached for my backpack to get a wipe and noticed my backpack was nowhere to be seen. I panicked. I rushed to the gate with the unfriendly people to find out that the unfriendly lady had turned it in to the authorities "because that is what you are supposed to do when you see unattended baggage." I must have looked pretty threating. Finally after tracking down the correct authority, Matt, from aiport police kindly brought it to me at Burger King. We survived the second flight, Jason recovered from his illness, and we are now in Calfornia to enjoy a nice relaxing trip in Sunny California.

My kids have no problem creating mini tornadoes of Barbies, matchbox cars, blocks, Little People, and colored pencils throughout the house. But for some reason they insist on eating Rice Krispy treats with a fork so they don't get their fingers sticky.

Pregnant Hypochondriac

Slap my hand for skipping a whole week! But you see the problem was that I was suffering an acute case of hypochondria. This past week I have had lymphoma, tonsillitis or tonsil cancer (one or the other), bumps on my tongue (circumvallate papillae), kidney disease, and an ectopic pregnancy. But seriously, the last one I was really worried about that I actually called my doctor. Last night in bed at about 4:00 am I had a sharp pain in my lower left abdomen and I couldn't think it to be anything else but an egg burrowed in my fallopian tube. I saw the doctor at 2:30PM, the ultrasound looked normal with a cute little yolk sac and my urine was normal. He said perhaps a cyst burst in my ovary. I looked at him and said, "Uh, that's not bad? Can you explain what that means?" Apparently we develop these so called cysts each month during our cycle and this one supposedly might have been larger than normal which was causing my discomfort when it burst instead of atrophied. I also mentioned to my doctor that I had been experiencing some anxiety and asked if there was anything I could take to calm myself during my first trimester. He regrettably said, "Not safely." But later after the exam when I asked for reassurance that everything was normal and told him I was diagnosing myself with a different disease every day , he commented, "I really wish there was something I could give you for that anxiety." I assured him that I would be fine and that it was probably the preparations for my cross country airplane trip with my five kids that was triggering my anxiety. He bid me farewell with words of comfort and now I seem to be a healthy, but nauseaus 30 year old pregnant female anxious for her trip. Tonight I am going to go straight to bed and doze off to sleep while reading my People magazine. I'm not going to stay up watching viewer discretioned Discovery Health Channel trauma shows until four in the morning or I might wake up believing I have a perforated instestine, shattered spine and a bullet in my jaw.

The kids and I watched Leave it to Beaver this afternoon. Unaccustomed to black and white television, Bradley asked, "Mommy, why is it gray?" I told him that it's called black and white and that's how they used to watch TV a long time ago. After the commercial break he asked, "Mommy, where did all the colors go?"

Bradley asked me when we were going to go to the pool again. I told him maybe this weekend. After a moment of thought he said, "After two tomorrows?"