Twas Three Days Before Christmas..

I love Christmastime. I get all sentimental and warm and fuzzy and goose-bumpy when I hear Bing Crosby singing and see the twinkling lights on the tree...wrapping presents...walking out in the fresh snow...frosting sugar cookies...

Aaahh yes. Frosting sugar cookies with my children.



I was having so much fun yesterday, watching as our little girl happily decorated cookies with colorful frosting and sprinkles...I was thinking about how she'll look back on these days when she's all grown up and smile as her own children help her bake cookies at Christmas. Along came PJ...the ever-growing, size 13 footed first born of mine with a voice so deep that he sounds like his father...and he saw the Tupperware container full of flour. I saw a familiar look of mischief in his eye...that same look I used to see when he was two years old, as he climbed onto the dining room table, knowing full well Mommy was busy with baby brother and couldn't get him down for at least 30 seconds...The same look he had at age 6 after receiving the big bean bag chair for Christmas when he dragged it to the top of the stairway and rode it all the way back down like a sled...So I braced myself slightly, thinking really, how much damage could he do with a tub of flour at 14 years old.

Before I could say anything, he drove his big, young manly hands into the flour and cackled. He played in the flour like beach sand, and flour dust went everywhere. Flour on the counters, the floor, the boy. And he laughed. Normally, something like this might make a mother crazy, but I was somehow able to just enjoy it, holding on to this time--after all, they are only kids once and if my 14 year old would rather hang with his mom and play in flour than text some girl on a phone or want to be constantly gone at other kids' houses, so be it. He is so witty and so funny and I really enjoy spending time with this big kid of mine. There are moments when I come across a photo of him from when he was really little and I wish that for just one minute or an hour or a day, I could have that little boy back to hold on my lap...Then I remember how he dove into the wooden bunkbeds at five years old and gashed open his head and had to get staples and as the blood was flowing, I chased him around the hospital waiting room trying to keep pressure on his head but he was having too much fun crawling under the chairs....I'll take the big kid with the flour, thank you.



When we finally got the flour cleaned up, more cookies were ready to be frosted. I was painting stars a golden yellow and adding green sugar to the little dogs. Jillian was painting windows on the houses and adding "snow" with chocolate sprinkles...PJ was killing gingerbread men, painting Xs for eyes and painting red bullet holes in their chests. A dog ended up with bloody spots and poop stains. Santa lost a leg in a crash stemming from a failed jet pack that ran on magic reindeer dust. I was thanking God that I didn't make any candy cane cutouts because surely they would've ended up being AK-47s.



Part of me was totally disturbed at these warped Christmas cookies. I imagined what on earth my grandmother would've said about a kid doing stuff like that! My sentimental Christmas bubble was bursting. These moments were nothing like those I had as a child, baking cookies with my mom and my sister.

But this wasn't MY childhood. This is THEIR time. These are their own Christmas memories in the making. I knew better than to spoil it by trying to become Martha Stewart. Besides, I was outnumbered.

We cracked up over these cookies. Jillian started adding "blood" frosting to her little dogs. PJ was really taking time with the frosting, using little paint brushes and toothpicks to get just the texture he wanted to see. It was truly creative on his part. Warped, but truly creative.

Not long after the cookie blood bath, Jillian announced that we needed more cookies. "Reset the dough, Mom, so we can punch out some more cookies!"

Reset the dough? **Sigh...** Modern aged kids with computer lingo. I went to roll out the dough, but couldn't find my rolling pin. PJ was running around with it using it as a machine gun.

I think Mommy needed a long winter's nap...

Be Careful What You Wish For

You'd THINK I'd have learned my lesson several years ago, when I prayed for PATIENCE. I met and married my husband. 'Nuf said.

THEN...in another momentary loss of sanity, when I was pregnant, I prayed for PASSIONATE CHILDREN. I didn't want children who just sat there...I wanted children who loved life, found excitement in the little things, appreciated nature. Loved BIG. Well, I got passionate, all right---passionate, HYPER-ACTIVE children. No, they never just SIT anywhere. The first one never slept for more than 20 minutes at a time, around the clock, for three whole years. The 2nd baby woke up every time the first one did (and they were in diapers together, so you get the picture..) The third one came much later, slept great, but sports an EXTREMELY dramatic personality. (And yes, they do love big...and do everything else big, too: Big accidents, big messes, big arguments...)

Last Friday, after a more chaotic than normal morning, I jokingly prayed (and publicly on Facebook, mind you) "Dear Lord, Please don't let me do anything irrational today, like pack my bag and move to Barbados."

Dumb. Dumb dumb DUMB. I never even got CLOSE to Barbados. In fact, I never even got close to packing a bag.

Actually, by noon, I was feeling more in control of my day---I had recovered from the morning and forgotten all about Barbados. I had managed to get all the food and gifts and treats to the appropriate kids/classes/school buildings for their Christmas parties. I had decided to soak up the last few hours of 'kids still in school, mom can finish Christmas shopping' time before they were off for two weeks. I had JUST started filling a cart in a store when my phone rang, it was Jillian's teacher.

Oh no.

Jillian was complaining of a stomachache, and even though the teacher had tried to hold her off, thinking it would pass, by now Jillian was near tears. I raced through the checkout and back to the school where I found Jillian sitting with secretary. Miss Glenda told me quietly that Jillian told her she had hurt her knee in gym class and that's why she had a belly ache. "Here we go again," I thought to myself. It really surprised me that Jillian would voluntarily miss her Christmas party, though (with the three packs of expensive cupcakes I'd purchased because the school only allows packaged treats, nothing homemade.) I loaded her up in the car and headed home. As much as I assumed she was making this up, she truly didn't look real well.

We arrived home and she went straight to the couch. I was hoping she'd nap and feel better. Before I even could warm up my coffee, she was barfing. And barfing. And barfing. Every 20 minutes, all day long.

Oh sweet Barbados. What was I thinking!!?? I should have prayed for world peace. Cure for Cancer. A more peaceful afternoon than the morning had been. But no. I prayed about the good Lord stopping me from flying away. And here I found myself, cleaning up bowls of barf. Who ever said the Lord doesn't answer prayer?? Tell them to phone me.

And so, the shopping never got finished, I missed a Christmas party, and I have no idea how on earth I will have everything done in time for the holiday. The good news is, Jillian recovered, everyone in the house is healthy, we DID make it to the annual Santa Train at Husband's work....And, I managed to ALMOST finish shopping yesterday.

I will spend my prayer time this week thanking God for the good stuff. Lesson learned.

There's Nuttin' Like a Frozen Mattress

Way back in the day when we were young and mindless, we traded a bag of Tupperware for a little dog. Sidney was a Maltese who thought he was a bouncing cat. He was teeny, but he could jump almost as high as my chest. And he also "perched" on pillows on the sofa and just sat around gazing at everyone as if he were royalty. (Well, except for when he was into that licking himself thing.) (Come to think of it, he also had a weird addiction to peeing on plastic shopping bags, but this story isn't really about Sidney, it's about beds.)

We soon figured out that a double bed was not big enough for three of us. Husband, Wife and Little Dog. Now, we had managed in a double bed just fine without the dog. Husband who is 6'1", wife who is 5'8.5", and even an occasional breastfeeding baby in the middle. But when the little dog came into the picture, we just HAD to get a king size bed. Sidney would lay at the end of the bed in between us, and end up a blanket hog. So off we went to buy a BIG bed. Compared to a double, a king size bed felt like a football field when we got it home! If we had to, we could manage two adults, two squirmy kids AND a blanket hogging little dog. (Until Daddy kicked everyone (but me) out of the bed so we could sleep...but room-wise, we had enough to go around.)

That bed lasted us through six houses. Well, a year in the sixth house. Moving a king size extra thick pillow top mattress set is a feat to perform. King size inner spring mattresses have some hinge system built in, so if need be, they can be folded. But since we moved here, we realized that you can only fold a mattress so many times before it gets a hill in the middle of it that won't go away. We have lived a year like that and the back problems we both have been feeling among other aches and pains have just forced us to consider a new mattress set. Husband insisted on Tempur-Pedic. I waited for one of his days off from work, but his schedule has been overloaded lately, and he just told me he trusted me to pick out a good one. So I dropped kids off with my dad and stole my mom, and off we went to the furniture store.

We first were greeted by two young girls sitting in front of a pile of plush throw blankets. "Would you like a free blanket? All you have to do is sign the paper with your phone number. Someone will phone you the next time we are having a give-away." So we chose two blankets after much discussion over colors and headed further into the store. The salespeople stand there like kids in a Red-Rover playground game, nearly arm-in-arm so you can't actually get very far into the store until you have a salesperson with you. I'm sure they do Rock-Paper-Scissors to figure out who gets the next customer coming through the door (they work on commission, afterall.) We got a sober looking middle aged man, who had NO idea what he was getting himself into with my mom and I: Two housewives who had escaped from... a) a retired man who is obsessed with telling everyone about Armageddon and... b) a household where 2/5 of the family have Attention Deficit Disorder. Both of which rely on shopping for psychotherapy.

I told him I was in the market for a new mattress, and he led us to the bedding area. We stopped off at some display that you're supposed to lay on -- it looked like some kind of science project -- somehow it figures out if you need a firm or soft mattress by how you lay on the test mattress or something. I don't know, I didn't want to go through all that. I told him all I wanted was a Tempur-Pedic. So we avoided the bed test and headed off to the Tempur-Pedic section. I wanted to start at the cheap end because the top of the line set would require me to sell off two children and my mom's gold fillings. The very first one I laid on was wonderful! I sunk right into it. It's called "Cloud" and the name fit it perfectly. Mom laid on one side and I on the other and I told her, "I'm going to flip around. Tell me if you feel it." So I flipped and tossed and turned and she said, "Nope, I didn't feel a thing!" It really surprised me that I could be that instantly comfortable on a bed without a pillow, even! We did test a few other mattresses by other brands that have a tempur material built in, but nothing came close to comparing to that snuggly, sinking feeling of the Tempur-Pedic.

We got up, and I told the salesman that I wanted to order that set. He asked me when I wanted it delivered, and I told him "Yesterday?" As it turned out, the first available day was four days away and I happily agreed. (I know I managed to get a full size refrigerator in my van for transport, but I wasn't about to try a king size mattress set.) As we were discussing the delivery options, I noticed that hanging off of the side of the bed was a little pocket holding a remote control. I asked what it was. The salesman dryly answered, "It has an optional, adjustable foundation. Lay back down and press some buttons."

That was the wrong thing to tell me.

I laid back down and pressed a button. My feet started to go up. Then I hit another button and the whole bed vibrated. Another button and my head raised up. After that, I was a goner. By the time I selected head down, feet up and Swedish rolling massage, I was oooohing and aaaahing like something out of a naughty movie! My mom was laughing hysterically and the salesman looked as if he realized he played the wrong hand in "Rock-Paper-Scissors."

Oh my. If that optional foundation wasn't ANOTHER $1500 on top of the already-expensive mattress set, I would've sprinted for it in a heartbeat!! That was the cat's meow! Of course, it didn't escape me that my husband ALREADY is a pain in the rear to oust from the bed or sofa, and if I added Swedish Rolling Massage to the bed, I could very well move in a house full of monkeys swinging from branches or jump on our daughter's trampoline stark naked and he wouldn't notice a thing.

Finally I gave up the remote control and headed over to stand in line at the cashier area. That was another show all together. Two salesmen were ahead of us holding spots, their customers were milling around the Clearance Center. One salesman said to the other, "Wow, that tie of yours sure is festive." (The tie had Chinese writing all over it.)

"Thanks. It's real Chinese." he beamed.

"Do you know what it says?" I asked, not sure if I really wanted to know.

"I don't think it's appropriate." he answered.

I laughed. "Oh, I thought it was something like 'I love my mother,'"

"No. I really don't know what it says but on a man's tie, probably not 'I love my mother'!" he laughed.

Somehow he got from the tie topic to his divorce case. I'm really clueless about how that happened, but this complete stranger, who I'm certain must've made an appearance on the Jerry Springer show, told us that he's paying on his lawyer's fees of $17,000. And that his lawyer should've given him a discount since he'd already hired him to do the prenup. Prenup? Ok, and he's working for commission in a small town furniture store, sporting a tie Made in China. The money MUST have been on his ex-wife's side. Then he said, "Yup. That was the worst six months of my life. At least I can say I tried marriage. Now I can get on with my life. Oh, and I love my kid. At least she SAID he's mine."

Wow. All this entertainment just for a new mattress set!

After awhile, Mom and I noticed two overstuffed matching green chairs not too far away from where were standing in the Clearance Center. Mom sat in one, and I plopped down in the other. I looked at her and asked, "Do these recline?" and on cue, we both thrust ourselves backwards, trying to make the chairs recline.

Nothing happened. We burst out laughing. And tried it again. And again. As if body thrusting six times will really make the chairs decide to recline. Oh it was hilarious. We were not only being eyed by the salespeople, but by the other shoppers testing out chairs. Finally our salesman came over and pressed a button on the side of our chairs (which we hadn't noticed because the darn things were so close to eachother) to make them recline! They were actually really comfortable. Ugly, but comfortable. I tried to talk the guy into taking half for them but he couldn't budge on the price. (Should've thrown them in in exchange for the show he got with me on the mattress with the remote control--but I didn't want to suggest that in front of other shoppers.) My turn finally came up in line and I cashed out and left. Not sure why the salesman didn't offer to walk us to the door like the others were doing with their customers..but I think he may have been tipping a bottle by then in the break room, trying to force two crazy women out of his head.

Flash forward to Wednesday. What would have been an easy delivery through the front door and straight up the stairs to our room wasn't possible at all. We had had a blizzard and the entire front steps and porch area of our house was blocked off by hardened, drifted snow. The king size mattress set would have to come through the back slider door and through the house and then up the stairs into the bedroom. I met the delivery guys at the door and the one said, "Uh, did you tell your salesperson that you have a second story?"

"No, he didn't ask. Why?" I got worried.

"Well, it's freezing outside, and foam mattresses freeze like popsicles. Your set has been on the truck since last night and all day today in below freezing temps. It's hard as a rock. If we try to bend it at all, it will crack," he answered.

"OH NOOOOO," I stammered. "What can we do now?" They wanted to see the stairwell, which is wide open, so they figured they wouldn't have to bend it at all. But how would we sleep on a frozen mattress??

They carried out our old set and carried in the new. When they brought the new mattress in, they told me it wasn't as frozen as they thought, there was still some give in it, but that it would be several hours before it was soft again. After they left, I lovingly made up the bed with the special Tempur-Pedic, mindblowingly expensive mattress pad/protector and a clean set of sheets. It was REALLY cold to the touch. I didn't want to even attempt to lay on it, for fear of cracking it.

A couple hours later, Husband awoke from a couch nap and ran upstairs to try the new bed. Remember how he entrusted me with choosing a new mattress? Well, he jumped under the covers and sort of winced. "I'm not feeling that famous sinking in thing," he grumbled. I told him the story about the frozen foam and promised him the mattress I chose was divinely comfy. We just had to give it some time.

So we rolled around the bed, two kids jumped off and on the bed, and a dog jumped at the bed for attention. We spent an hour trying to warm up the bed. Jillian was busily playing with her new hair stuff at the end of the bed and announced, "Yup, I feel it getting smooshy."

I didn't feel it getting smooshy. I was thanking God I had clothes on, because laying in this giant ice cream sandwich of a bed in anything less than jeans and a sweater would've put me in a coma.

I finally gave up and got out of the bed to get warm. Husband fell asleep. I figured at least his side of the bed would be thawed by the time I went to bed, and as big as a king size is, I could borrow some of his real estate and he'd still have room to snooze.

I was wrong.

The bed still felt cold and hard. It had SOME give to it, but NOTHING like in the store. Somehow after much shifting around, I managed to fall asleep, but for only short amounts of time. I wasn't so much cold as uncomfortable. It felt very firm. And my head felt like it was lower than my body, which is odd, because it was the same pillow I've been happily sleeping on for years. Off and on during the night, I was having Tempur-Pedic commercial flashbacks. The newest one features half a dozen so-called owners chanting "Ask me how I like my Tempur-Pedic" over and over. By 4:30am, I was wondering why they didn't bother posting their phone numbers on TV so I could actually call them and tell them how I like MY Tempur-Pedic.

Surely there is a reason why our new mattress isn't heavenly. Either it has to do with it having been SO cold, or they accidentally delivered a firm version instead of the one I picked out, or it has to just be broken in a little. I guess that latter makes sense, -- the one in the store has been rolled on a at least a thousand times (not to mention the countless people who lost their minds using the remote control on that sucker like I did!) We actually have 30-45 days to make sure we really like it, or we can exchange it for something different. I'm hoping we really like it. I LOVED the one in the store. LOVED it to near death. I think I should just invite the entire family over to spend Christmas on our bed, maybe that would break it in faster.

Too bad we don't have Sidney anymore to help us break in the frozen Tempur-Pedic. He's gone to the Great Mattress in the Sky. (Betcha it's softer and warmer than in OUR bed...)

"We Have Your Daughter In the Office...."

When I was growing up, I caught every little virus or bug that went through. I had the stomach flu at least once every six weeks. And that came right outta no where. I'd be sitting in the classroom feeling just fine when all of a sudden, watch out world, I'm going to barf. I'd go flying for the door and nine times out of ten, I wouldn't make it, and I'd throw up right in the door way as all the students watched in horror and the teacher's eyeballs rolled back in her head for the millionth time. Then of course, the custodian would come in and have to clean it up as I sat there completely wanting to die, and that powder stuff they use on the floor to, well, solidify what wasn't already solidified, smelled worse than the non-solidified puddle. Until my mother came to get me, I had to endure the whispers of my classmates about how I made the whole room stink. Then I'd go home and spend the rest of the night and the next morning vomiting 25+ times...in fact my mother used to say it was nearly violent, what would happen to me.

Another time, I had a slumber party with 19 girls. I turned 9 that year. Not only didn't we sleep, but we had cake frosting fights in the middle of the night after playing truth or dare..And then I had the bright idea to show my friends the next morning how I had learned to cook in our brand new microwave oven. I made everyone scrambled eggs. Only they didn't cook all the way through, but I told my friends, that's what microwave eggs always look like and they ate it up. Literally. By the time their parents came, they were near sick, overtired and some in tears from overstimulation. After everyone went home, I sat on the couch in sort of a daze. I must've started to look green, because my mom walked over to me and kept asking me what was wrong. I didn't answer. She started talking with her hands, you know--with her palm up in front of me, in that international sign language for "tell me right now" ... Well, I did. I barfed right in her open palm.

Then there was the time I got Scarlet Fever. I had raging fevers and my mom tried to put me in the bathtub to reduce the high temps and even warm water felt freezing to me. I was like a cat trying to escape the water. My legs got so weak, that I had to sleep in a bed on the main floor in the den because I couldn't go up and down the stairs. I think I was seven. I was given children's chewable Tylenol every few hours, but I got so sick of the taste that I started pretending to take them and when my parents weren't looking, I shoved them between the bed and wall. No wonder it took so long to get better--it's really a miracle that I lived through it. It was around Christmas, too, and I had to be carried into the living room to open presents. Truly not an illness I'd wish on my worst enemy. (The next summer, the furniture got moved out of that room, and we found a dozen little Tylenol tablets in the carpet.)

Flu, Mono, Scarlet Fever, Chicken Pox---OH yes, the Chicken Pox. That was when I started itching all over and when my mom told me I had Chicken Pox, I insisted that they were only mosquito bites. In February. Pneumonia was fun, too. I had to visit with my friends through the window by waving and drawing pictures and notes to hold up to the glass.

So yeah, I was just one of those sick kids. Thankfully that all stopped about the time I started to experience PMS migraines. Nowadays, other than the migraines, I get sick about once a year. I figure I paid my dues enough as a kid. I don't deserve to be sick any more than once a year.

My children have been fairly healthy. They all went through the cold-catching when they started school, and if the stomach flu goes around, they sometimes catch it. Nothing like when I was a kid though, thank God. So you'd think they would feel lucky that they are so rarely sick! However, two of the three often seem to invent illnesses.

The oldest one has spent a good portion of middle school calling home with headaches. I never want my children to suffer and I always would go right to school and bring him home. But I started to notice how quickly he'd recover once he was in the car. Often, he would complain about being hungry and want McDonald's and by the time we were home, he was back to his old self (even though I'd send him with huge lunches,... I swear these were NOT hunger headaches!) Then he developed retinal migraines after a sledding accident left him with seizure activity showing up on MRIs--he doesn't have pain, he just has momentary loss of vision--it all goes black, for two seconds. So of course, when he called home with vision issues, I flew to the school as if he was on his death bed. Didn't take me long to realize he was often milking it for all it was worth. Now that he's in 9th grade, he doesn't seem to be calling home at all (knock on wood).

So, imagine my surprise today when the school secretary called and said they had my "beautiful daughter, Jillian Lucrecia" in the office with a sore throat and tummy ache. The secretary told me she was brought down by a classmate and while she was on the phone with me, the two girls were giggling and that honestly, Jillian did not appear to be sick. I asked to talk to her on the phone. "Hi Mom, it's me Jillian."

"HI Jillian, how are you?" I asked.

"Well, I have a sore throat and a tummy ache ...and, um, just a minute." Then she asked the secretary, "Miss Glenda? What else is wrong with me?" to which was replied, "Jillian, you told me a sore throat and a tummy ache." Jillian continued with me, "Yeah, that's all that's wrong with me. But I think I feel sick because I don't like crust and you left the crust on my sandwich and I ate it and now I have a sore throat and tummy ache and you have to come get me."

"Jillian, remember how far out in the country we live? It will take me a good hour to come get you. Why don't you go back to your class and if you don't feel good again, Miss Glenda will give you the phone to call me." I said,

"No Mom, I want to stay right here in the office. Where the comfy chairs are. I like it in the office!"

"Jillian, please put Miss Glenda back on the phone. I love you."

"Bye Mom! Love you!" and off she went. Miss Glenda told me the friend that brought her to the office just then grabbed her arm and they ran off back to Art class. I never heard back from the school again.

When I went to pick her up, I asked her teacher how she was doing. Her teacher related that the Art instructor said Jillian had asked to go to the office because she had an earache. ??? That's funny, she never complained of an earache to me or to the secretary! By now it was surely apparent that Jillian was pulling symptoms off the top of her head. When she came out of class, I told her I thought with all these sicknesses she was suffering that it was time we went to the hospital to get some shots to make it all go away. She said NO WAY, she just needs me to take care of her because she's FAMILY. (ha what a girl.) I stopped by the office on my way out of the building and told Glenda about the earache, which made her chuckle. She pulled me aside and told me it was just kid stuff. She whispered, "It's ok. Last week we had a five year old girl come out of kindergarten to call her mom, because she thought she had ANGINA!"

So, by the time we got home, Jillian told me she was all better (big surprise) and that there was no need for the hospital. All has been well ever since.

I wonder what the kids would do if I called MY mom to come get me because I wasn't feeling well. Hmmm....I just might have to try that. Somehow I think the kids would survive it. My husband? Not so much.

Just Another Crazy Saturday Morning

I just realized why 99% of women's robes have shorter sleeves. I have always been irritated by that. I am tall and I have longer arms, I've always figured, so I have spent a lot of my clothes shopping in men's departments, because I like the feeling of a sleeve hanging over part of my hand. It's probably just a subconscious way of making me feel smaller than I really am. I am 37 years old and have been married almost 16 years and it just now occurred to me that it is not that I am some gargantuan female, it's that women are not given the opportunity to actually LOUNGE in their robes. They may wear them, but they still have to WORK around the house, and long sleeves get in the way.

It is just another Saturday...Another morning before dawn when I really would've rather stayed in bed. But the little girl gets up before dawn and she comes in our room and wakes up the dogs who start panting and pacing because they have to go outside. Now, I could roll over and ignore this little circus and try to catch a few more Zs, but as hard as I try, my own anxiety also has been awakened, and so starts the voices in my head. "The dogs are large and they will pee in your bedroom. Do you really want to smell pee in your bedroom? On that nice, new frieze carpet that cost so much money? No probably you don't want to deal with that before 7am on Saturday morning. Coffee will help. Let the dogs out, warm up yesterday's fresh pot of coffee, sit by your computer, and have a lazy morning..." About then, the husband growls like a Papa Bear because the little girl is shaking the bed and lighting up the room with her hand-held video game, and that is a sure sign she and I should make a run for it (before Daddy tries to eat us alive.)

Well, before I left the room, I donned the new robe that came in the mail yesterday...it is red and cozy and goes almost to the floor and it even has a hood (for what, I don't know.) Uniform for a lazy Saturday morning, I call it. Upon coming downstairs and letting out dogs, I am quickly reminded of how I ignored the dishes in the sink last night because I was too tired to care, and how the oldest son who is responsible for the trash was supposed to get the turkey breast carcass out of the crock pot when he took out the kitchen garbage, but "there wasn't enough room in the bag" so he just left it. About that time, the middle son comes down and announces that the upstairs toilet is clogged again and it needs to be 'fixed' as he heads into the main floor bathroom.

Well Lord knows who has to plunge the toilet, ME. In my nice new smooshy red robe. With the sleeves that are just short enough to work in.

You'd THINK that plunging a toilet might make it to the list of chores that the male species would handle. But in this house, there isn't a divided list of chores. Pretty much everything comes down to me. Doesn't matter how hard I've tried to get help. When the man of the house sets the tone, there isn't much you can do to change it. (Except eat chocolate and take Xanax, which doesn't change the circumstances; it just gives you break from caring.)

Sure, Papa Bear is still sleeping. I COULD ask one of the boys to do it. But the oldest one is engrossed with killing Nazis this morning (on Xbox, of course,) and the middle son can barely turn off a light switch let alone understand the science behind plunging a toilet. It's just not worth the war, I've decided. So, I went and plunged the toilet and nearly upchucked last night's stuffing, quickly inhaled some cinnamon room spray, and all was well with the world.

Except the dishes and the turkey carcass were still chanting my name like something on Ghost Hunters.

I came back to the kitchen and eyed the coffee pot with yesterday's fresh coffee in it...But I knew if I sat down with coffee at my computer, those voices from the kitchen sink would just irritate me and I wouldn't be able to enjoy the darn coffee anyway. So I made a deal with myself. I'd take care of the dishes before the coffee and that way, I wouldn't have anything to give myself a guilt trip over (for at least two hours, which is when the laundry pile starts sending that annoying little chant to my brain.)

That's when I discovered how convenient it is that this new robe has shorter sleeves. I stood over the sink, rinsing out a mashed potato pot, thinking about the old robe I had from the men's department with the sleeves that hang over my hands and make me feel small. Doing dishes in it is a pain in the rear, because no matter how many times I roll those sleeves up and shove them over my elbows, they still fall down and end up just wet enough to drive me crazy. I started cursing at my soundly sleeping husband inside my head right about then. I can do dishes in all of ten minutes, but there is a part of me that truly begs to just sit around. Like everyone else in the house.

Do you know what the brutal honesty is? I tend to be a nearly obsessive house cleaner and decorator, and I truly enjoy keeping house and I feel blessed that I have been able to stay at home to raise our children and take care of things instead of having to juggle a full time job, daycare AND the housekeeping. BUT....I also am plagued by the fact that I am married to someone who just does not believe in helping out around the house. I know I should just accept things the way they are and concentrate on the blessing part, but the voices in my head JUST WON'T SHUT UP.

I was born in 1973 on the heels of the bra-burning party time. I grew up with a dad who did dishes and folded laundry and carried in groceries. So to be married to someone whose main concern after his shift at work is to make sure the couch is weighted down and the remote control feels the warmth of his hand, makes for a bumpy ride.

Come to think of it, he's kind of a younger, better looking version of Archie Bunker.

Truly, if it wasn't for that darn marching all those women did back in the '60s, demanding help around the house and gender equality, I'd be just fine. I'd be my husband's happy beck-and-call girl in a cute little dress with high heels asking how high he wants me to jump, making sure his slippers were lined up neatly next to his chair, and training one of the dogs to bring him the newspaper. I'd go to bed every night thankful that he graced me with his presence and how lucky I am to be his dutiful wife.

Instead, I am my husband's often-irritated beck-and-call girl, in a long, red smooshy robe, plunging toilets and cursing at the pile of dishes, and trying to remember when my next counseling appointment is and when to pick up my antidepressant prescription from the drug store. I am still thankful that I'm his wife and I still love him very much, and I do feel blessed...that I don't have to worry about slippers and newspapers. (He reads the newspaper on his iPhone.)

I don't think things have changed entirely. I think everyone still tries to put up that shiny, happy facade: The perfect house with the perfect children and that bright white picket fence and everyone gets along and everyone has money and can afford big Disney vacations and isn't it wonderful how my life turned out exactly (or better than) how we planned it. The only people who have problems are the ones on the Jerry Springer show and the couples who live in Hollywood.

Give me a break!

I have found it SO liberating, when I meet other women online or at the school, who open up about their not-so-perfect lives. What's wrong with admitting that our dreams didn't come true? Doesn't it make us stronger, to say that we're learning to make the best of what we have? And if we can't make the best of it, we can at least talk about it and have a chocolate eating, Xanax popping coffee hour before we go back home and start dealing with it all over again.

Speaking of coffee, yesterday's fresh pot of coffee that I was going to reheat after the dishes, was empty. I had to make a fresh pot. And so, here I sit, in front of my computer, with my fresh coffee, in my new robe, squeezing an hour or two to myself out of this just-another-Saturday.

Did you say something? Oh no...it wasn't you. It was that dang laundry pile.