Faux dogs and guns

I am no longer concerned about the kids begging pathetically and incessantly to get a real dog. Without even having to involve real dog messes, Anna has grown tired of her dog or at least tired of taking care of it because yesterday she was badgering Megan to do it for her. I'm not sure if this is like other animal game things where the dog will actually die if you don't play it for a while because I have other things to worry about, like toast guns. I have heard other people talk about their kids eating their toast into the shape of a gun but I figured they learned it from another boy. Patrick has no one to teach him that yet he has done that the past two mornings, complete with shooting noises obviously. Sean caught him with a silencer on his finger gun this morning, pointing it at Anna when she was verbally abusing him. He stood in the doorway and with a subtle trigger movement and a quiet "phew phew" took care of her. She was not a cheerful child this morning to say the least so maybe I am okay with the gun sometimes.

Interior Design Tip

Always have a table near every seating area to set down your drink.





(These chairs are a temporary compromise until the new furniture arrives. Now the living room is half empty. I thought I might lose my mind if I didn't have a place to sit in the hearth room any longer though. And I most certainly was going to lose my mind if I didn't have a glass of wine that night.)

Wild Times

Having no sitter on New Year's Eve tends to put a cramp in our plans so we just celebrated family style with a few other friends. Just so you don't think we are totally pathetic, check out the cake. We could barely make our way through half of it with 8 adults and 8 kids so Sean took the rest to work today. I'm sure his staff was thrilled to see that on their third day of New Year's resolutions.

Pat My Back

Yes, I just ordered the last photo book.... up to date as of 3 days ago. This is a huge, huge victory considering the fact that I was 2 years behind and have a camera obsession and have 4 kids who LOVE having their photos taken. "More pics" was one of Patrick's first commands. I had over 3500 photos to sift through just for this last year alone. I know, other people save lives or fight for justice, blah, blah, blah, but I am still feeling a rare sense of accomplishment. I have to admit that the auto fill function on kodak.com actually works now-- and works well so that is why I kept making them. I suppose I should attend to the children or clean the house now...

Dog Drama

So Anna accidentally "donated" her dog to the dog hotel, no doubt because she didn't know what the donate button meant, so she was very upset and hid her game. Megan found it under the rug and tried to figure out what was going on. So then Anna takes the rest of her money and buys another dog to replace Lucky, which means she has no money to feed or buy a brush to take care of her remaining dogs. I am making Megan go into "bark mode" (don't worry, I don't understand any of this either) to give Anna a brush and something to sell so she can feed her dogs. Seriously? I do not need these bleeping games to be stressing the kids out.

What is stressing me out is that my kitchen is littered with Cheerios and Patrick won't let me sweep them up. He is insisting that he will do it but he is easily distracted and thus has started and stopped this task about 6 times this morning. I need to sneak and do it really fast while he is upstairs interfering with bark mode. I don't dare turn on the central vac and alert him to that plan. He ALWAYS has to do the vacuuming, it's just not fair. Maybe I can do it next Tuesday while he is at CDO... If only I had a real dog who could just eat the Cheerios off the ground, although Emily does a decent job.

Concerning?

I feel that Patrick's new talent would be more socially acceptable in Texas.... he has started taking church songs and changing the lyrics to be about guns. Go shoot it on the mountain, over the hills and everywhere! Just that one line, over and over and over. So charming. I did cave in and tell Santa to put the gun back on the sleigh after Patrick was "good" in church on Christmas eve. A veteran mom told me it was normal to put the gun to his baby sister's head while I was holding her, so I relaxed a little. I am more vigilant about monitoring gun use now, plus he is down to one bullet, this won't last long.

Resort Wear

Is it wrong to order sandals on January 1st when you are apparently the only one not going on a tropical vacation anytime soon? What is with all the catalogs showcasing their resort wear? Why must they taunt those with school age children and no babysitters who can last more than 3 hours? I am going to go sit by the fire and remind myself that my feet are in no shape for sandals...