Leanna Kay

DREW: Mom this is the best hot chocolate.

ME: It’s not too hot?

DREW: No, Mom. It’s like a warm chocolate train running into my belly.

I’ve been offline for almost a week now because I’ve been down and out with some sort of virus which gave me a stomach ache, headache and delusions that I was the Queen of France. Okay, I made up that last part, but it sounds less boring this way, doesn’t it?

Most of my week was spent on the couch reading magazines or watching sitcom reruns. Thanks to the Ladies Home Journal, I now know everything about having a happy marriage. Apparently ordering take out pizza three nights in a row didn’t make the list, but these magazine editors are probably lesbians so what do they know about happy marriage anyhow? I also now know who Jesse was dating in the 35^th episode of Full House and why Rudy got grounded in the Cosby house. I’d parlay this newfound knowledge into fame and fortune if I needed to, which I don’t because I’m already the Queen of France.

During my stint on the couch, I was reading the Newsweek article about those boys who were kidnaped then found alive in Missouri. Drew came up to me and saw the young boys on the cover. When he asked me what I was reading, I made the mistake of actually telling him.

“The man kept that boy for all those years?” Drew’s eyes got wide just as Chris and Lauren came into the living room to see what we were talking about. I swear my kids have radar and can tell from miles away when I’ve started in a subject I’d rather not be discussing.

Drew told them about the Missouri boys and I could see all three of my kids becoming afraid of evil men who take children and don’t let them go home to eat ice cream sundaes and watch Spongebob for three consecutive days while their mother lays on the couch in a fog as she drafts royal edicts and polishes her crown. Not that the aforementioned really happened because that would be horribly neglectful and might result in said mother being forced out of the soccer mom club.

“It’s okay,” I said in my calming mother voice. “The kids got to play Gameboy.”

“It’s not okay,” Chris said. And he was right. So we talked about strangers and avoiding situations where they might get snatched. The more I talked, the wider their little innocent eyes got. I just kept digging myself in deeper until I inadvertently had all three kids terrified of leaving the house.

Just then Bob came home and they threw themselves into Daddy’s arms begging him not to let the mean men take them. Bob gave me THE LOOK. It was similar to the one I got when I was trying to teach the boys to play basketball. How was I to know Michael Jordon doesn’t favor the granny shot?

So Bob de-programmed the kids by explaining how they were more likely to be hit by a plane waiting for the school bus than to be kidnaped. At first, it seemed to help. But then the next day I caught them scanning the skies as they got on the bus. I now have this sneaking suspicion that they’re terrified of planes too. We are such the bad parents.

Fellow parents, listen up. I have a surefire way to get your kids to retain the stuff they’re supposed to be learning in school. Just feed the information to them in the form of a commercial.

After all, you don’t remember all the state capitals, do you? But I’ll bet good money, you can sing the whole Oscar Meyer wiener song. Right?

My kids will never forget the word “erectile dysfunction” merely because it’s a word they heard on tv. (They don’t know what it means, but they’ve learned it’s fun to say really loud in public.)

And Lauren can recite basics about any product if she’s seen it on tv. For instance, we were shopping recently when we came to the beauty aisle. Lauren saw a face soap and launched into a spiel about how I needed that soap because “it’ll make your skin really soft, Mom. I saw it on tv!”

Just last year, Lauren came up with the most perfect Christmas gift for me from something she saw advertised. She came running into the living room yelling, “Daddy, Daddy. I know what you can get Mommy for Christmas.”

“What, Lauren?”

“It’s this Summer stuff, Daddy. I saw it on tv. It makes you feel fresh and you get to walk on the beach. Mom would like that. You should buy her some of that fresh stuff for Christmas!”

So if the ad makers could just make multiplication as exciting as feminine hygiene, we’d have a much smarter generation of youngsters.

A while back I talked about a book I received for Christmas about what people have learned about life. It snowed three inches last night and now it’s sleeting. This brings to mind some things I’ve learned about snow.

**When you’re three, it’s the perfect stuff for making a fort. When you’re no longer three, it’s the perfect stuff for making a car wreck.

**Shoveling is not much fun.

**Snowballs are fun. Especially when thrown at super warp speed at an unsuspecting husband.

**Retaliation in the form of snow down the back of your shirt - not so much fun.

**Hot chocolate tastes best after playing in the snow with your kids.

What have YOU learned about snow?

LAUREN: Hey, Mom. I know what a husband and wife do when they get married.

ME: (Thinking - oh crap, what DID you learn at school today?)

Yes, Lauren?

LAUREN: They kiss and then they…

ME: (Dear Lord I’m going to have to home school her…)

Then they what, sweetheart?

(Homeschool?! I can barely correct the boys’s second grade math homework. My kids are going to grow up stupid.)

LAUREN: Then they have cake and dance. Right, Mom?

ME: That’s it?

LAUREN: Well, yeah. That’s it.

Whew - dodged that bullet….

My grandmother lives at home with the assistance of care givers.

ME: I need to go up to see great-grandma and talk to her caregivers.

LAUREN: Who?

ME: You know, the people who help care for great-grandma.

LAUREN: Great-grandma has CAREBEARS taking care of her?!

Wishful thinking on the part of a five-year-old, huh?!

We were having a nice sit down family dinner on Sunday. By nice, I mean the leftovers were plenty hot. And by ‘sit down’, I mean the boys only got up for necessary dining items - such as ketchup, napkins and a light saber. (The light saber was needed to retrieve the milk from the other side of the table. Feel free to add a “duh, Mom” here as I’m sure you knew exactly why a seven year old boy would need a light saber at the dinner table).

All was well until Lauren needed more milk. We have this rule in our house. Bob and I only get treated like underappreciated servants at our jobs. At home, we like to be treated with respect while our children run all over us.

Sunday, Lauren looked at me and demanded in her best princess tone, “Milk, Mom.”

“Excuse me?”

“I need more milk.” She handed me her glass. When I didn’t immediately act, she added, “Now” as if I was just having trouble understanding the urgency. She would have snapped her fingers had she known how.

“That’s not how we ask for stuff in this house,” I said it calmly. “We ask the nice way.”

“I don’t know the nice way. I need milk noooooowwwwwww.”

This is a child who tells everyone she meets that she is turning six in February and is a big girl, thank you very much. Yet for some reason, the word ‘please’ was suddenly missing from her vocabulary.

“No milk until you ask the nice way.”

“Fine,” she said. I’d like to write that she then asked me in her nicest voice and apologized for treating her mom like a servant. I’d also like to write that I just won the lottery and will be blogging from now on from my European villa.

Yeah, right.

This is what really happened.

“I’ll just get it myself then.” She uses a voice I’d hoped not to hear until her teenage years as she gets on the table and starts to crawl to the milk.

That’s when I sent her to her room until she could find her manners. It took twenty minutes and when she returned to the table, the leftovers were no longer hot.

“Can I have some milk, puuuulllllllllleeeaaassssseeeeeee??!!” It was like the please had to be surgically pulled from her lungs.

So Lauren got her milk. Then she told me about how it wasn’t really her who was being mouthy at the dinner table. It was her evil twin Lori. That girl never says please.

DREW: Mom, what are we having for supper?

ME: Beef and vegetables. Wanna see?

DREW: Sure. (Looking). Hey, Mom that doesn’t look too disgusting.

That’s the kind of compliments I get for my cooking.

A friend sent me this link to a test which is supposed to reveal secrets about your personality. I’ve attached the link if you want to discover things about yourself which I promise will trouble you greatly in the future.http://memoriter.net/flash/test.html

Go ahead and check it out so you can compare notes with me when you come back. I’ll just go look at my emails while I wait. But don’t be too long or I might end up ordering stuff to enhance body parts I don’t even have…

…..

Ready? Before I reveal my answers, let me just add that I had my husband take the test as well. In the first part, you rate animals from your favorite to least favorite then this translates to how you feel about money, career, family, etc… Bob ranked the animals relating to money and career the highest. Why? Because he was using a culinary rating system. He listed the animals from most tasty to least tasty. Does this sound like a man, or what?

Bacon won out over steak. Tiger he rated last because “I’ve never eaten a tiger before so I’m not really sure how one tastes.” He didn’t make the same comment about horses. I don’t even want to know.

I rated the animals using a cuteness scale. I mean really, what’s not to love about a horse?! So according to the test, I value family over money.

Then there was the part about different animals’ characteristics. Apparently how you feel about cats is supposed to describe your thoughts about your spouse. Bob is stubborn. (Sorry honey, but it’s true.) I felt bad about that until he ranked me as “stupid.”

“Stupid?” I had to call him out on this. When he found out that this trait was meant to describe me, he started back pedaling for fear he’d never have sex again.

“Not YOU. The cat.”

In his defense, we do have a really stupid cat. This animal has a hard time differentiating between food and the pebbles in our landscaping. So I guess I won’t be too mad that my stubborn husband thinks I’m stupid.

Now the landmine. Before I go here, let me just add that both Bob and I hate coffee. Never liked it. Never will. But according to this test, our views on coffee translate to how we feel about sex.

My response? “Bitter”

Bob said - “Wet.”

“Wet?” I asked him after we looked up the answers. “Wet?!” (I repeated it a second time because I’m stupid.)

“Yeah,” he said. “If you do it right.” Then since we were on the subject, he back pedaled some more. “And I really don’t think you’re stupid. I was just talking about the CAT! Really.”

Spoken like a man who doesn’t want “coffee” forever banned from his menu.

So how did the rest of you rate, uh hum, “coffee”?

I kept Lauren home from kindergarten today because she had a low grade fever.  Here’s what she said:

LAUREN: Mom, you’re lucky I’m sick today.

ME: Why is that?

LAUREN: Because you don’t have to work.   You get to spend all day watching Dora and playing Candyland with me.