So tell me this... By the time your youngest child is in High School, they should be sleeping through the night, yes?  I mean most kids master this in the first year of life. Am I wrong? Even kids who have a little something extra?  I'll just go ahead and answer that stupid question for myself.... Nope, not always so. I mean really, this is my third child. I've already survived two teenagers. Teenager #1 was "The Strong Willed Child"
who delighted in postulating hypothesis' based on the limits of my sanity and then using her natural born skills to test them out. Daily.  She had an infuriating knack for arguing about things. Everything. Even things that I agreed with her on, she would change her mind just so she could argue about it. But I survived her tests, and arguments and she survived my sanity lapses. Teenager #2 was such a mellow kid until he turned 13. Then he had a wee transformation. This kid fabricated so many wild stories that he could come into the house soaking wet and tell me in was raining and I'd have to go look myself. This same child decided that his calling in life would be troublesome, edgy humor and he endeavored to make sure he truly was Olympian quality at it. I'm certain the principals and the district superintendent had my cell number on speed dial and his photo on a dart board on the back of their office doors.  But again, I survived this child's particular brand of nerve killing mischief as well. But teenager # 3, this child may be the one to snap the camel's back, the one who makes the fat lady sing, the one to pick that final straw. He who must not be named just might be that kid who pulls that fateful Jenga block from the very bottom of my sanity tower and brings it all tumbling down. Why you ask? Because he gets up at night. I'm sure you're thinking that the Jenga tower must have already fallen because that doesn't sound like such a big whoop. But oh, he doesn't just get up at night, no....  He gets up and gets into things. For example, Halloween night, I took My Precious trick or treating, he got tons of candy (fabulous) and I doled out a small amount for him to have that evening and explained to him that we would have a little each day but we couldn't eat it all at once because "it'll make ya 'green apple nasty' sick".  Oh, but he understood. Fervently nodding his head and saying "Well... Isuredontwannagetsick".  That's right, my dear, so I'll just put this here purple pumpkin full of sugary treats right up here on top of the fridge and we'll hit em' up again tomorrow. Little did I know, in his head, tomorrow was in three hours. So we went through the the nightly routine, and he quickly drifted off to dreamland. Yippee. I quickly did my own sleepy time routine and hit the hay as well. It felt like ten minutes had gone by when I heard a giggle and a rustling noise. Oh fantastic, what the hell was that?  My first thought was Oh please let it be a psychotic clown playing an accordion in my living room because if its not then that means my darling wee beastie is out there, obviously getting into something he shouldn't. Rustling and giggling continue along with an occasional "oh man!"  Unfortunately, daddy is in Spain and it's unlikely I can find a way for him to handle this from halfway around the planet. Although I do at least take a moment to run through some mental scenarios to avoid having to get out of bed at 1 am...again.  None of them have a desirable outcome and a few of them might call for some bail money. Sigh. Yup, I'm gonna have to get up. I flop one leg over the side of the bed with the hopes of it dragging the other leg with it. I was banking on the scientific principal of inertia. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. Apparently that doesn't work at 1 am because my one leg just dangled over the side of the bed while leg # 2 stayed firmly planted on the mattress. I dredged up from the bowels of my brain, a tiny sliver of willpower and managed to get both feet on the floor. That little part of psyche that worries about the safety of said giggling manical clown, managed propel myself to a sitting position and get me standing on two feet, which just happened to be partially numb from the tense position that I apparently sleep in. Both feet tucked up and my arms wrapped around my knees. Obviously this is not a fabulously circulatory position choice for the forty something crowd because said numb feet we're definitely not in the cooperating mood. I staggered to the door and bumped into the wall twice on my trek down the hallway. When I crested the living room door, what do I spy but my precious angel, tucked up on the couch, headphone on, blasting P!nk's Funhouse at a volume that makes the fillings in my molars vibrate, and lo and behold, there in his lap is the purple pumpkin bucket with at least a dozen mutilated candy wrappers scattered all around him. Fortunately for him, and not so fortunate for me, there were also several half eaten pieces of candy laying about where he had obviously been taste testing instead of wholly consuming. Maybe that would minimize the stomach horror that would surely follow a kid with Colitis who had just fully consumed more than 12 pieces of pure sugar, caffeine and God only knows what else. I zombie walked up to him (feet still numb), pulled out one ear of his headphones and said "For the love of all things sane, what the Sam Hill are you doing"?  He looked up at me with his chocolate infested toothy smile and said "Oh, hi mom. Good morning. Want some candy?   I saved you some."  This is where I heard the dangerous creak of the Jenga blocks. Oh how they sway and jiggle. I pulled his headphones all the way off, informed him of the unholy time of night that it was, cleaned up the candy mess and dragged him back off to bed. Once he was tucked back in I hid the purple pumpkin in my closet and crawled back into bed, where my feet could comfortably fall back asleep until real morning time. I hadn't had my head on the pillow for more than a minute when I heard teenager #3 flopping around on his mattress, which has many old and stiff springs. As I lay in bed for the next hour I was serenaded by a symphony of squeaking, creaking and popping bed springs with a melodious farting accompaniment, as my angelic son apparently was suffering sugar spasms, caffeine seizures and Colitis quakes. Again I'm going to mention that I'm forty something and though I haven't quite topped the hill and slid over it, I can surely see the top. And someone my age who has flown too close to Insanity Bermuda Triangle and somehow miraculously  managed to escape every time, this new lack of sleep is weakening my jet engines. I fear one of these days the Disturbed Dimension is going to drag me in. I do take some comfort in knowing that I probably won't be lonely in there because I'm quite sure the three teenagers parallel exist in there too.

Payback is a Sinuses Infected Psycho

A few nights ago, my allergies kicked into Super Nova action, causing my sinuses to become Super Inflamed and Agitated, joined by their good friends,  Sore Throat and Head Pressure.  Both nostrils are completely swollen shut and only peek open to let a flood of mucus come rushing out of my nose like Niagara Falls and then they slam shut again.  Major red itchy eyes and the sweet cough and pressure join in, and make my eyes feel like they are going to burst out of my face and implant themselves in the drywall across from where I am sitting.  Yeah, that’s the stuff.

Two nights ago I woke up and thought “How awesome, my nose was running like a purse snatcher in my sleep”.  So I staggered out of bed and went to the bathroom, flipping on the closet light as I passed to prevent a midnight trip to the ER.  I put the lid down on the toilet, plopped myself down and began unrolling paper to blow my nose.  It was pretty dark in the bathroom, and I am a zombie at night, so I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary until I was thumping my way back to bed when I happened to glance in the mirror next to the closet door and gasped so hard I swallowed some of my hair, gag.  My nose wasn’t running, it was bleeding.  Sweet!  I looked like an extra from Freddy vs. Jason!  I had blown my nose so much that I was probably lucky to have not bled to death!  

Okay, so that was unpleasant to behold and I haven’t had a nose bleed since I gave up on Flonase many years ago, so it was just mostly inconvenient and unsettling, not really a huge deal.  I washed my face and hands and the bleeding stopped on its own.  I’m sure it helped that I stopped trying to leach myself to death by blowing my nose unmercifully.   I went back to bed and there were no more bleeds. 

Fast forward to today.  Sinuses have been more than dissatisfactory over the last two days, to put it mildly.  Irritated, swollen, burning and just plain miserable.  I have sniffled and blown my nose so much I’m positive my co-workers, family and any complete strangers I have come into contact with in the last week, wish me serious harm.

So…. Here comes the fun part where my Super Helpie Helperson Husband comes to my rescue.  He’s special like that.  I’m sitting in bed this evening and I lean over to him and say “Mark, could you be a dear and go to the kitchen and get me a mixing bowl to hold under my nose while I sleep”.   Well, I am OF COURSE being facetious, duh, but my dear spouse says “Okay”.  Sigh.  So after assuring him that I was not serious, he says in his super helpie way “Hey, why don’t you try some of this stuff I use to unclog my sinuses”?    I see Mark use this nose spray all the time so I know he’s not giving me something he wouldn’t use, and after all, it’s been a pretty terrible sinus week so what the heck do I have to lose, right?  WRONG.  I’m pretty stinking sure that Mark must have bought this stuff from some black market stall in Thailand from the guy who wouldn’t sell Gizmo to Billy Peltzer’s dad, because when I squirted a tiny bit of this mystery substance up my unsuspecting clogged nostril,

 I was certain that it actually contained battery acid.  I immediately dropped the bottle back into my darling husband’s hand and declined to spray the second nostril.  By this time I was seeing stars, but I thought surely this is only a temporary burning and it will subside soon and then I’ll be feeling aces in no time.  So I sat on the bed with tears streaming down my face, waiting as patiently as I possibly could for the pain to subside.  After about two minutes I burst out “OH MY DEAR BABY JESUS, WHAT THE HELL WAS IN THAT STUFF? Bleach?  Ammonia?  Ground up Habanero seeds and Hydrochloric Acid????  What’s the freaking VOC count of that stuff???  Is it legal in the US?  Is it secret military experimental waste?  What black market stall in hell did you get that stuff from?????”  

Mark looked at me like I was sprouting a tiny extra arm from my forehead and said “Is it burning?  It doesn’t burn me”.  Oh well that’s just freaking super. 

“NO DEAR, I’M JUST BEING DRAMATIC!  I DON’T FEEL LIKE MY NOSE IS MELTING OFF MY FACE!  MY LIPS ARE NOT NUMB!  I ALWAYS SEE STARS SWIRLING IN FRONT OF MY EYES AT BED TIME AND THESE TEARS?  THEY ARE TEARS OF UTTER JOY THAT I CAN  BREATHE THROUGH ONE SIDE OF MY NOSE!  I JUST DON’T FREAKING WANT TO NOW!!!!  BECAUSE BREATHING FEELS LIKE SOMEONE PUMPED GASOLINE UP THERE AND LIT A BARBEQUE LIGHTER UNDER IT!   OF COURSE IT’S BURNING!!!!”

I leapt out of bed and ran to the kitchen medicine cabinet where I dug around frantically for my Neti Pot, in hopes I could rinse this inferno out of my sinus cavity.  I finally found it buried behind a ton of SINUS and ALLERGY MEDICINE.  I ran the water until it got hot and filled the pot and added the salt solution as quickly as I could with my shaky hands, and began to rinse the side that I didn’t use the spray in first.  It didn’t help.  In fact, the salt seemed to give the lava spray a little boost of super unnecessary energy.  I dumped the water out and filled it with plain water, but in my tear soaked, addlebrained hurry I turned the water all the way to the hot side and filled it.  I’m not even going to go into what I said when I poured scalding hot water into my nostril, where the flames of hell could not even hope to compete, but I’m sure somewhere in Rome, a cloister of nuns fainted.  I dumped that water out and refilled with warm water.  This time I began on the side that I didn’t spray.  Why?  That is a very good question, because that decision led to the remnants of the death spray trickling into the so far, spray free nostril and if you’ve ever used a Neti Pot, you know that some of the water trickles out of your mouth as well…..  yeah.  So now, my entire face and throat has all the heat and power of Mount Vesuvius flowing through it.  I continued to rinse my nose and mouth with warm water for another 15 minutes.  Finally, I had gotten enough of the vile chemical out of my nose that I was somewhat calm.  I blew my nose for another 5 minutes which, surprise surprise, caused another nose bleed. I was actually very surprised that melted and blackened bits of my brain didn’t come out, so I was okay with the nose bleed at this point.  Happy Happy, Joy Joy. 

I made it back to the bedroom and crawled weakly into bed, only to roll over and see my darling helpful spouse, sleeping like a peaceful baby, next to my tear stained and bloody face. 

Then he suddenly jumped out of bed and said he was leaving forever, he wasn’t taking any of his stuff, tools, motorcycle, truck, nothing.   He also said no one should ever go looking for his body, I mean him,  and to never ever dig up the rose garden in the backyard.  Seriously.  That’s exactly what he said.  Oh, but you can bet he took that damn nose spray with him.  

Karma needs a day off ....

There are some days when as soon as you get up, there should be a giant flashing Karma warning directly in front of your bed. Mine would have gone off today. Got up and got a shower, woke James, got him in the shower. Everything was going well so far. Got both of us ready (including blow drying a ridiculous amount of hair, stick straight, which only took 20 minutes. Don't know why I bother, but I do it anyway. ) then headed to the kitchen to pack James's lunch and back pack. His lunch box and backpack are both sitting on the floor so I popped them up on top of the counter and stove top. I packed the lunchbox and shoved it down into the backpack. It's 6:35 in the morning so the fact that his backpack was hot just didn't get past my AM fog at that point but by the time I put his folder into his back pack, it was hot enough to get my attention. The stove burner was on and the backpack was resting on top of it. It burned the zipper pull right off and melted the plastic to my glass top burner. Isn't that awesome. I didn't really have time to properly analyze the OMG factor of my stove top being on at 6:35 am so I turned it off and continued about our morning routine, making a mental note to properly freak out about the fact that it could have been on all night at a more reasonable time of day.  We finished up our pre-work/school routine and headed out to the car.  Oh lookie lookie. Pea soup fog!  Why didn't I just leave my hair in the bride of Frankenstein style this morning instead of wasting precious pre dawn minutes styling it in a way that would take Mother Nature 12 seconds to completely rearrange into a light socket perm?  Oh well. Whatever. It's just hair. At least the house didn't burn down over night with us in it, right?  Right.  Priority check complete. Get in the car and James can't find his cell phone. Holy Crisis Hotline, Batman!  James can't go to school without his cell phone!  The earth with stop turning and gravity will cease to exist and all matter on earth with float off into the galaxy including us. So I call his cell phone from my phone and race back into the house to find it, narrowly escaping a devastating fall on uber smooth, now wet garage floor because fog happened. Im staggering around the dark  bumping into everything in the entire house, listening for his cell phone to ring. Nothing. I go back out to the garage and shout "is the ringer off on your phone"?  James is sitting in the car with the windows up protecting his do from Alfred Hitchcock quality fog so his response through the windshield is "huh"?  So I scream a little louder "is your dang ringer turned off"? Again through the windshield "what"?  I stomp back out to the car,  executing a perfect banana peel worthy slide on the wet garage floor, saving myself by grabbing at the motorcycle (knocking the side mirror cover off, gosh dang it ), and knock on the window hard enough to hurt my knuckles. James.... Opens the door (should have seen that coming) knocking into me and soaking my shirt with the wet door. "Oops, my bad". 

Ten, nine, eight, seven....  I don't have time to finish or we'll be late for school. "Where. Is. Your. Phone"?  "I found it in my pocket".  Six. Five. Four. Three two. One. We're all better off if I just finished the count down.  I finally get in the car, start it up and pull out of the driveway. I'm barely past my driveway when I hear ding ding ding. Crap on a cracker. I forgot I needed gas this morning. I had intended to leave early and stop on the way to school. Well, no time for that. I'll just have to run on fumes and prayers and I'll go get gas on my lunch break. We drive past Java Joe's and I decide that a nice Hot Chocolate will sooth my raw attitude this morning and if I hurry there is just enough to time to squeak through the drive thru and grab one. Except there are four people in line. I decided it was worth it and Java J is pretty quick anyhow.  I actually got my chocolate and somehow managed to get to work without running out of gas and with two whole minutes to spare. Score!  Things were looking up. Oh, well except for the fact that I was juggling too much stuff going into the school and spilled 1/2 of my scalding hot chocolate down my shirt and  directly between my tatas, soaking into my solid red shirt. First degree boob burns and dark brown stains running down my shirt, for the win please Alex. I managed to clock in and get James to his bus waiting for him in front of my school only for him to turn around just before boarding and saying in his best Tippy Hedren panic voice "Mom!!!!  I can't go to school!!!  I left my cell phone in the car".  I can't even be a psycho about this because both of my direct bosses (Principal and Asst. principal) are not just standing within ear shot, but are watching this exchange go down. As James stands in front of the school, I break all the rules by running in the hallways, past numerous students, to my car and retrieve his blasted phone. Phone delivered, kid on bus, bus gone. Breathe in, breathe out. I turn to head back to the teacher lounge to get my half a hot chocolate and purse and water.  The school day actually didn't go too badly except I tripped over a student and almost wiped out hard in the cafeteria at lunch, in front of 100 students and staff. Thank you Karma for sparing me that one humiliating fall, and I totally forgot to get gas at lunch. After school I went to the YMCA (on fumes and prayers again) to work out and wait for James. I had been wearing leggings all day. Nice stretchy comfy leggings. At the gym I changed into my nylon running shorts and hit the treadmill. It only took about 25 seconds to realize that the elastic waist band on my very old undies had long since given up the stretch. Apparently the only thing holding them up all day was my leggings. I spent 55 minutes on the treadmill (I'm no quitter) and I reached inside my running shorts no less that 42 times to pull my underwear back up over my rump.  I am certain that I provided a hefty amount of entertainment to the crowd of folks working out on the machines behind me.  

I'm seriously hoping Karma is exhausted tomorrow from all her stellar work today and stays home, in bed, all day!!!!

Bisquick Shake and Explode.

Bottle of Bisquick brand 'Shake and Pour' pancakes mix - $1.99. 12 oz. Bag of Nestles Toll-House Semi sweet Chocolate Chips - $3.99.  Calphalon 14" non-stick fry pan - $59.99. 36 oz. bottle of Clorox Clean-up - $4.89. Fitbit Charge HR -  $249.99.  Second bottle of Bisquick mix - $1.99. Letting James pour in the water, put on the lid and shake the mix..... PRICELESS!!!     And now for the rest of the story. Obviously the lid was not on the bottle properly. As James was vigorously shaking the bottle, the lid let loose and the bottle practically exploded.  Not a drop of it got on him but the entire circumference of my kitchen and part of my dining room, not to mention myself,  looked like a preschool paper mâché disaster.  It dropped off my eyelashes, the tip of my nose, the left portion of my glasses had a glob that complexly obscured my vision, but the majority of the mix had splattered directly under my chin and was slowly making its way down my neck and into my shirt. The stove, upper and lower cabinets, ceiling, floor, sink, window above sink, fridge and kitchen table were hit. I started to clean up the stove first but I was dripping more mix from my body than I was actually getting cleaned up. I had no choice but to go slopping into the shower and peel off my quickly hardening breakfast project and wash the mix off of every inch of my body. I still don't know how it ended up in my belly button. Then back to the kitchen to begin the clean up project. Well....  While I was in the shower my precious Jamie decided he would start the clean up process by putting 6 towels in the sink and filling it with soap and water. Then he found the bottle of Clorox Clean-up bleach cleaner under the sink. His first order of cleaning business was my Fitbit, which I had peeled off and left on the gooey counter.  So he soaked it down really well with bleach cleanser and proceeded to wash it with one of the sopping wet towels. So as I return from the shower and walk into the kitchen, I find that my darling has taken out the pancakey rug, wiped down the stove and some of the floor and counter with the drippy towels and the bottle of Clorox. I'm so proud.... But then I reach over to get my Fitbit to wipe down and I realize it's floating in a puddle of Clorox, water and Bisquick... Siiigh. So now the kitchen is cleaned back up and second batch of chocolate chip pancakes are made and consumed.  I wonder if the Fitbit warranty people would like to hear a story about pancakes and bleach???

Drawing blood from a man cub.....

All in all James's appt. at USA went well. The doctor was very thorough and had lots of questions. He listened to my concerns and responded to each one. And he had great bedside manner with James. You would be surprised how many specialists do not.

Now, the blood draw was a whole nother story......  It really does come in threes. I just hope it doesn't start back at one too soon.

As always, I don't lie to James about medical stuff because he has to be able to trust me. So I told him after the doc left that we had to go to the lab for another blood draw. I reminded him of the draw he had last month and how he freaked out over it and all for naught, because after he said it really didn't hurt. He said "I knows, I knows, mom. We got this." (Sometimes I swear he is channelling Smeagal from Lord of the Rings.)  We went over it a few more times on the way to the lab. "Now, you aren't going to freak out about this, right James?  After all you aren't a little kid anymore. You're almost a man."  Each time he would say "We got this, Mom. Wheelie,  we can do it."  So we go sign in at the lab and about ten minutes go by before they call us up to the window. I give the Phlebotomist behind the counter James's military ID and she promptly engaged James about what a big deal it was that he had his own military ID. He blushed a little and said "yeah". I told her that when he first got his ID he said it was his drivers license and he planned to drive home.  We both had a little chuckle about it to which James replied "Mom!  Stop it". And he slapped my hand. Weeellllll......  Phlebotomist lady did not take that well and immediately said "James!  You better be good to your Mama, or I'll come out there"!  Ha!  Hahahahahahahaha!  James gave her his 'yeah right' look and said (hold onto your seats) "Yeah, right". Oh, I already decided that I really, really likes this lady, but she slapped her hands down on the counter and said "Oh no you didn't!  You think I won't come out there. Well!  You just wait right there".  She proceeded to hop up out of her chair, sending it spinning off into the wall, and marched herself right on out to the waiting room where smarty pants James had already spilt for Vegas!  There were at least ten other people in the waiting room but that did not stop James and the Phlebotomist from having a rousing games of 'You can't catch me' around the chairs and tables. So.... Being the Mom and the one who had to pretend to be responsible, I snagged James by the collar as he darted by and put an end to the game. The Chaser led me and the chasee back to the lab and I put the chasee into the blood draw chair. At this point he was still cooperating with the whole 'We got this attitude'. That lasted through the alcohol swabbing, the tourniquet tying, and to the point where Phlebotomist lady produced her Butterfly needle. Then the real fun began. After I got James in the WWE Sleeper hold, I 'Mom whispered' in his ear, "If you hold still, it won't hurt and you get a milkshake on the way home. If you move, it WILL hurt and I'll drink your milkshake in the car". I have no doubt it was the threat of my confiscation of his beloved milkshake that made him suddenly freeze. Needless to say, when it was all said and done, he said "Told you we had this, it didn't even hurt".

Wakey Wakey, eggs and Bakey......or hot dogs.

People may wonder sometimes why I only have two personality emotions : grouchy or crazy. Well, this may enlighten you a bit. I had a little trouble sleeping last night, which isn't that unusual. This restless night can be attributed, in no small part, to James's very loud 11:26pm conversation with his dream time companions. I hear "Hey!" .....  "Give me that back"..... "Help me!  He's got my shoe!"  Sigh. These middle of the night convos are also not unusual. But they are sometimes so vehement that I'm forced to get out of bed and make sure no one is actually in James's room 'taking his shoe'. After settling James back down, I probably fell asleep around midnightthirtyish. Here it is the last week of summer break, I've had just a few measly hours of real sleep, and my precious son gets out of bed at 4:50.  And I'm not talking PM. But he doesn't get up and make it obvious that it's him.... No, he slowly creaks out of bed, making all sorts of strangest noises. Creeping around the hallway outside my room. Scraping things along the floor. Breathing heavily. I, being at least half crazy, can't figure out if it is James, a burglar, a murdered or a zombie making those noises. I'm far too tired to care enough to get up and check so I just open one eye and wait to see if I'm about to be murdered or have my brains eaten, or just be really aggravated. James finally shuffles into my room trying to be quiet. I've never understood why he tries to be quiet when we both know he's going to shuffle to the side of my bed, pry open one of my eyes, lean down and talk into it like a Sonic speaker and ask me a question that will cause the pried open eyeball to roll back far enough in my head to get a good look at my brain. As he reaches the side of my bed, he indeed pulls my eyelid up and whispers, into my eyeball...."Mom... I need to eat my leftovers now. Is it lunchtime yet?"  Seriously?   I never answer right away because I'm digging deep into my psyche to pull up a tiny bit of patience and restraint to prevent me from saying out loud the response that has immediately popped into my brain. Of course, this just means James needs to repeat himself a bit louder and with a smudge more spittle in my eyeball when he says "lefToverS".  Mm mm. Thanks son, my eye was feeling a wee bit dry.  So after a moment to collect myself I respond by letting him know that it IS NOT time for lunch. It's not even time for breakfast. It is, in fact, time to SLEEP.  I instructed him to look out the window, where he could confirm that it is, indeed, still night time. I also let him know that it would be in the best interest of his health and emotional well being to return himself to his bed where he was welcome to play with his iPhone or sleep. I didn't really care which, but he was not to leave his room again until he could look out the window and see the sun. He reluctantly acquiesced and returned to his room. I listened to him climb into his bed and heard the telltale click of his iPhone coming on. Good. That would keep him busy for an hour or so. I settled back in to try and get back in good with the Sandman and just as I was beginning to drift into oblivion, my darling child, who had obviously put on his head phones, chose that very moment to start belting out his own personal cover, complete with his very own version of lyrics, of Dance Dance by Fallout Boy. "Dance! Dance! Pulling a tart to bash time. What er you licking at powderpuff?"  I shouted for him to be quiet, which was pure stupidity on my part because, hello...he's wearing headphones and listening to Fallout Boy at 75 decibels. So I flailed out of bed and stomped into his room, yanked off his headphone and said "MOMMY. NEEDS. SLEEP."  He gave me a disgusted huff and said  "You said play with my iPhone."  I clarified with James that he was to play extremely quietly with his iPhone until the sun came up and I stomped back to bed. Finally I was able to drift back to sleep and thankfully James was being quiet. I had just floating around the perimeter of happy dreamland when James yanked my blinds all the way to the top and said "Ha!  Look mom, there's the sun. I'm going to go get a leftover hotdog."  It's now 11:05 am and guess where my angel is?  Yep. He's laying across my bed, asleep. I'm currently devising unpleasant ways to wake him that don't qualify for a call to DHS.....  So far ice water is my best plan. I'm kidding, of course. I would never dump ice water on my sleeping 15 year old. No. Instead I'm going to go pry open his left eye, lean in real close, and order a Sonic burger with pickles and bacon, a large order of mozzarella sticks, a small tater tot and a route 44 Mountain Dew to keep me awake for the day.

The Magpie Strikes Again (also titled "Down syndrome, The Teenage Years")

It's been awhile since James has pilfered anything from my room because the last time I made a very dramatic (long and loud) point about him keeping his little winged claws off my stuff.  He seemed to have gotten the message.... until today.  Today I decided to take the boys to see Guardians of the Galaxy.  So I sent James to shower and I hopped in my shower.  When I got out I dressed, toweled off my hair and headed to my bathroom counter to fetch my brush. 

Now a little background.  I have been dying my hair blonde for a few years now ... and it's pretty dry and damaged.  Think scarecrow meets porcupine.  So I have a regimen that I follow to help me get my hair detangled and brushed out.  When it's wet I use a generous dap (handful) of very expensive leave in conditioner (don't tell my husband) and rub throughout my hair (straw).  I have a special brush that has very wide bristles so as to gently detangle my hair without yanking me bald.  I've had this brush for many years.   It's well worn.  The handle has been broken so many times I could easily shank an intruder with it.  I don't even need to keep a gun in the house.  I've already got the sharpest, most jagged shiv in town.   Most of the paint has flecked off, there are many missing bristles and I'm pretty sure there is hair trapped in it that is so old, it didn't have any grey in it!

AND I should also note that you cannot find a brush like this one anymore... trust me.  I've looked.  And looked.  And looked some more.  So to say this brush is off limits is phenomenal understatement. 

Now back to my after shower routine....  I looked in the basket on my counter where I keep my hair brush when it's not in use and guess what.... go ahead.  I'll wait while you wrack your brains to try and figure out where this is going.  I'll just hum the Jeopardy theme song.  Do do do .... oh wow.  You are quick.  Yep, my hair brush was gone.   Siiiiiiiigh.  After a search of the general area I quickly came to the conclusion that the "Marauding Magpie" had arisen from the temporary coma he was placed in and was flying again.  Oh thank God.  (Sarcasm)

Of course I immediately call James to the scene of the crime.  He comes in with that ridiculously innocent look on his face that makes me want to Mirandize and cuff him on the spot.  "James my dear, did you take mommy's hair brush.  You know,  the one that NO ONE is suppose to touch".  James gives me that Spongebob toothy smile and says, "Uh....  nawp".  And then he nonchalantly  turns to leave!!  Uh, I don't flippin think so mister.  I said "Hold up there, Cowboy".   He slowly turned back to me, pivoting on his toes with his arms spread out like he doing some sarcastic drunk ballet move and replies with  "Whhhhattt"?   OH NO HE DIDN'T!  "Yeah, you wanna take that long drawn out 'what' with me when "The Hairbrush" has gone missing, Bucco?   No, I don't think you do".
So I gave him the 'Mom Eye'.  If you are a mom, you know exactly what I'm talking about. One of your eyebrows raises up a bit, while the other one comes down and one of your eyes gets all squinty while you are kind of looking a bit maniacal ....

He just rolled his eyes and sighed. 

Well, that used to work.


So then, I, being experienced in Magpie recovery tactics, took a different course of questioning.  Ya know, mix it up, keep him on his toes.  "James, where is my hairbrush".  He just stands looking at me.  I swear his poker face is ridiculous.  He MUST have been John Wayne, a lawyer or a politician in a previous life.  "I dunno, mom".  Maybe he was all three.  At this point he sighed deep enough that I'm sure his last three pulmonologists all felt a warm fuzzy, where ever they were at that moment.  I feel my blood pressure rising, so in the interest of staying out of prison (especially since my hair brush shiv is missing), I decide to leave James and go searching for my brush.  I do a cursory search from the door of James's room, because if you have read my last blog post, you know I have to be desperate to actually enter the Pit of Despair.  I would consider shaving my head first.  I walk through the rest of the house just to see if it's sitting anywhere obvious.  Nope.  Still missing.  By this time, my hair is beginning to dry.  That can't happen!  If my hair dries, I won't be able to brush it at all.  It would dry in a tangled mass that looked like Medusa used a weed whacker to style her hair and then fashioned a bonnet out of an elderly vulture's nest. In desperation I go to the kids bathroom and find Ryan's hairbrush.  Oh mama, this brush has so many tightly clustered bristles that my eyes start watering before I even raise my hand to take the first stroke.  It takes some doing, but I manage to get my hair combed out.  I will, however;  have to stagger to the medicine cabinet for a surgery grade pain pill or two.  I walk back to my room, sit down on my bed and drop my head in my hands while I take a few deep calming breaths and gather patience from deep within my psyche.  After I called on the 'Patron Saint of Not Going to Prison' to grant me some extra restraint, I called James back to my room.  He comes in, with his iPhone, dancing to Party Rock Anthem, which I can hear blasting from out of his head phones.  After we battled at length about the volume of his music, how rude it is to have a conversation with Mom while wearing headphone, his right to twerk, whether or not he could grow an afro like the lead singer of LMFAO, the unfairness of the fact that he could not grow an afro like the lead singer of LMFAO, if he can't grown and afro like the lead singer of LMFAO,  then why he can't at least have a pair of skin tight red shiny pants to dance in, and we rounded it up with a knock knock joke, which James did not actually have a punch line for.  He just wanted to find out how many times he could say "Knock knock, who's there", before Mommy's eye started twitching and she got loud. (Seven, the answer is seven, but only because the 'Patron Saint of Staying out of Prison' was perched on my shoulder)  After we wrapped up the "This is why mommy drinks" portion of the conversation, I finally managed to get him quiet again.  "James, honey.  Look at mommy.  Right here.  In my face".  Meanwhile he is looking anywhere BUT my face.  At my hair, at the floor, behind me, closing his eyes altogether and at one point, turns his head in my direction, to give the illusion of looking at me, but he crossed his eyes so I knew he wasn't actually focusing on me.  Sometimes I'm certain my blood pressure could cause my eyeballs to dislodge from my face, but they never seem to.  Really glad of that. 

I take his face in my hands and direct him to look at me.  Then, as calmly as I am capable of, I quietly ask him again. "James, can YOU find Mom's brush....... please"?  Without a word, James does the drunk ballerina pivot again, walks three steps toward my bathroom, pivots again and pulls a few of the dirty clothes from the hamper, reaches in, grabs my hairbrush, replaces the dirty clothes, ballerina twirls again and walks to me, places the brush in my hand and then takes a low bow and turns to leave.  "Wait just a lemon sucking minute, Maynard, I thought you said you didn't take it".  He sighs again, looks over his shoulder at me and says "I didn't take it".   I then asked him that if he didn't take it, then just how did he know where to find it.  He gets that John Wayne look on his face again and makes a show of inhaling and exhaling very slowly, closes his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose and says " Gosh mom, does everything have to be a battle with you? Sometimes you are so hard to get along with".  And with that he sauntered out of my room singing 'Let it Go'. 



Dear Lord,

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I cannot accept,
And the willpower to not put Tabasco in my
son's morning applesauce cup,
or thumbtacks in his underwear drawer,
or tarter sauce in his toothpaste tube. 

Amen.