Leanna Kay

I love reality television. Not because it’s any form of great entertainment, but because these shows make me feel so much better about myself.

When I watch the kids on Supernanny hitting each other, screaming at their parents and shoving fine china up the chimney, I look on in superiority. I can watch and think “well at least we don’t have a fireplace or fine china. So, ha. We’re the better parents.”

Recently I watched in superiority as a home organizer helped a couple battle clutter on a show called CLEAN SWEEP. Before I go on, let me admit that my house is less than pristine. If you need a broken Lego tower, I probably have that…somewhere. And I know for a fact that we’re storing broken Christmas tree ornaments in an old box in the basement. I admit that an organizational guru would get chills walking into my house. That said, I’m not as bad as those people on tv. So ha!

The couple on the tv program lived in a small ranch house without children. I emphasis the “without children” part because the “with children” part explains ninety percent of our clutter. These people couldn’t use their children as an excuse for their garage filled with collectibles.

Let me define what this couple considered to be collectibles. The “could not part with” items were boxes filled with animal bones, feathers and leaves collected from nature. These people had animal bones in their house. Animal bones!

At least I don’t have anything dead amongst my clutter…. At least not that I know of. But I do have boys so anything’s possible. As a matter of fact, I do believe Chris found a “must keep” deer bone this summer. Okay, so now I’m not feeling so smug.

Gotta run. I think the kids are playing frisbee golf with the plastic dishware and the chandelier. But at least they’re not shoving fine china up someone’s fireplace. So ha.

We had an early family Christmas party this weekend. (Planned by my Aunt Ginger who reads this blog and who did an AWESOME job putting on this party as usual).

We always have the party right after Thanksgiving. Probably because you have to book early if you want the big guy to come. By the “big guy”, I’m obviously referring to Santa. Midway through the party, the guest of honor arrived. The kids clustered around Santa, lining up for a chance to get their twenty-page Christmas lists on the elves’ to do chart. Oh, wait. Maybe that was just my daughter with the twenty page list.

But where were my boys? I looked around and they were missing. First, I checked the most obvious spot. Santa’s toy bag had been left unattended on the floor. Luckily the presents were still wrapped and the boys hadn’t let their curiosity drive them onto Santa’s naughty list.

Next, I checked the dessert table. Earlier, they boys had their eyes on a fifth/sixth/seventh or maybe it was eighth, piece of pie. I was guessing that’s where they’d go during the distraction. But they weren’t passed out by the desserts in a sugar induced coma.

Then I went outside. Which is where I caught up with my sons….jumping up and down like little Energizer bunnies.

“Did you have more pie?” I asked the obvious question as their whole bodies vibrated with more energy than I use in a year.

“Nope,” Chris answered in mid air.

“Santa’s inside,” I said. “What are you doing out here?”

“Trying to see on the roof,” Drew responded.

“Whatever for?” I asked.

The boys both stopped bouncing and gave me “the stare.” “The Stare” is that special look kids reserve for their parents when we’re acting really stupid. “The Stare” is meant to convey many things. But mainly it’s meant to say, “Mom, are you really smart enough to be procreating and adding your numbers to the world?”

Drew sighed dramatically. “We want to see the reindeer. Santa parks them on the roof, Mom.”

Well, obviously. Except there were no reindeer on the roof. Nor were there any reindeer grazing in the grass by the parking lot. So the boys marched back into the building to demand answers from the big guy.

“Where are your reindeer?” Chris asked Santa the first chance he got.

“They only work on Christmas Eve. Union rules,” Santa told them.

Well obviously. Now it made perfect sense.

Bob and I were listening to the news the other night when we had a stroke of brilliance. The newscaster was talking about the use of cell phones while driving. Apparently when you drive and talk on your cell phone simultaneously, you have the driving skills of a seventy-one year old.

We both looked at each other and came to the same conclusion at the same time. Everyone over the age of seventy-one should be forced to talk on a cell phone while driving. For a ninety-one year old driver, that would take twenty years of age-related driving problems right off the top.

I hate to brag, but I think Bob and I just solved the elderly driving problem. No need to thank us. We’re just happy to help.

My children are so empathetic, it just makes my heart swell. I made Drew his favorite dinner last night (quiche - because he is a weird kid). After I dished it up, I commented that I didn’t feel well so I thought I’d skip the dinner.

My firstborn son, the one who I’ve nourished since he was a zygote, looked up at me with an intense expression and said, “That’s okay Mom.”

From his kind tone, I expected a “hope you feel better” to soon follow.

Nope. He smiled and said, “That means more quiche for ME!”

Bob was reading the paper the other day and commented, “Don’t we have some Totinos three meat pizzas?”

“Nope, the kids and I ate them last night,” I replied. “Why?”

Then he told me they’d been recalled for e-coli!!!! I dug the box out of the trash and looked. Yep, it’s the one. The deadly pizza that they’ve pulled off the store shelves is the exact same one that’s ALREADY IN OUR DIGESTIVE SYSTEMS!

I’m not one to panic but I say we RUN FOR THE HILLS!! Is this rumbling in my stomach just hunger pangs or is it an army of destructive bacteria preparing an onslaught to my GI system? Is that nauseous feeling just indigestion from sneaking too much of my kids’ Halloween candy or am I about to be puking up my spleen?

And what about the kids? Should I be worried that Chris didn’t want dessert last night?

All of this random paranoia was spewing forth when Bob calmly reminded me, “The kid ate two platefuls of turkey, a pile of mashed potatoes, and a pound of green beans. He doesn’t want dessert because he’s full.”

I snuck into my office to get on the internet just so I could ramp up my paranoia with some action shots of sick people who’d eaten the deadly pizza. But I didn’t find that. What I did find is that you can kill e-coli by cooking food thoroughly. Not only had I cooked these pizzas, but I’d actually burned the cheese on the top.

So my kids can thank their lucky stars that their mom is a bad cook. Thanks to me burning supper, our digestive tracts are safe.

But I’m going to save the leftover pizza just in case. We might need it as evidence for the trial.

I always thought I was a “hip and happening” Mom. Yeah, I’m delusional, but that’s a subject for another blog. My image of myself as a hip Mom was destroyed last night when I was shopping with the kids.

We had to make an emergency trip to the store because as the temperatures dipped into the thirties, we suddenly realized that Chris was too big for last year’s winter coat. Apparently all that Halloween candy the kid has been eating is making him grow.

Unfortunately for Chris, I failed to have the foresight to purchase him a winter coat in July when the temperatures hit a hundred degrees and we were under heat advisories. Silly me. Now that it’s November and it’s actually cold, the coats are pretty much gone to make room for swim wear.

I dragged the kids to three stores before we finally found a coat in Chris’s size. I say “dragged” because these children had better things to do than trail after Mom in search of coats. All the stores had the Halloween stuff up front, deeply discounted. Need I say more?

“Mom, can we have this?” one of the kids would ask, pointing at a shopping cart filled with dismembered body parts.

I was trying to hurry up this expedition so I kept saying “no” after barely even looking.

“But what about this, Mom? It’s so cool.”

The words “so cool” will make you stop in your tracks, especially when the so is bolded and underlined. I stopped long enough for a peek. My darling son, the one who used to so lovingly sing the lyrics to Barney’s “I Love You” song, was holding a skull with a snake sticking out of the eye sockets.

“That is not cool.” Actually, it was so freaky I almost whipped out my hand sanitizer so I could wipe the child’s hands. “Come on we need a coat,” I said in my not so hip Mom voice.

Then I heard the boys’ muttering. Something about how Mom’s old and can’t appreciate the good stuff. That’s okay. I’d rather be un-hip and not so happening than to be the owner of a snake infested skull.

Drew is my cuddle guy. He likes to snuggle in my arms. But of all my kids, he’s the biggest wiggle worm. This morning he climbed in bed with me and flipped and flopped, kicked me a few times in the chest and used my stomach as a launching pad to propel himself across the bed.

As I got up to take a shower, he turned to me and said, “I like struggling with you, Mom.”

I like “struggling” with you too, Drew.

Halloween is officially over and we now have enough candy to single-handedly start a childhood obesity epidemic in a third world country. Hey, we all have to do our part for the good of society, right?

Pound per pound, I believe the candy haul outweighs the children. This is in no small part because we live in a rural area and go house to house only to family members and close friends. We are the only trick or treaters who visit these other rural homes so they are expecting us and greet us at the door with the Mother Lode of candy.

My kids don’t just get one small treat. They get bags of candy. From each house.

I could use this blog to complain about the excesses in our society. But I’m afraid I’d get chocolate on my keyboard from my sticky fingers. Plus it’s hard to type while simultaneously holding a Reece’s cup AND a Snickers bar.