Where Did I Put That Kid?

Do you ever feel like you're losing your mind?  Because most days I feel a little nuts.  Let me explain.  I was over at the school the other day fitting band kids for uniforms and while I can create a super organized system for outfitting 130 marchers I can't seem to keep track of my pen.  Or my measuring tape.  Or my lists.  What the heck?  And the sad thing is this isn't unusual for me.  A couple weeks ago I spent an hour looking for the can of spray paint I had in my hand literally 2 minutes prior to losing it.  Luckily I found it--two weeks later.  In my bathroom...

I was telling this to some friends the other day and I mentioned that it was a wonder I can keep track of 6 kids--and then I realized that I can't because we've lost all of them at some time.  Here's just a few of the many examples:

Church frenzy:  Every Sunday it's kind of an olympic dash to get six kids up, showered, fed (ok--who am I kidding, they don't get fed.  Just this Sunday Kennedy was sneaking peanut butter crackers during the opening hymn) dressed, loaded in the car and to church by 9:00 am.  One Sunday we arrived at church, slid into our pew and I looked over and we were missing one suit with a boy inside it.  Mr. Davis was not there.  So back home I went and proceeded to find him under a pile of blankets asleep.  In his suit.

Disneyland:  I have a whole series of experiences losing kids here but two stick out in my mind and they both involve McKay.  The first was when he was about 18 months old.  This was back in the day when Disneyland had these old rickety strollers with a canopy that prevented you from actually seeing your child once they were in the stroller--what genius invented that?  Clearly not a parent of six kids.  We were at the park with a bunch of Dave's family and I had McKay in the stroller and was headed from Tomorrowland over to the castle to meet some friends.  I got to the castle at which point our friends asked me why I was pushing an empty stroller.  I said, I wasn't, I had Mckay in there.  Only he wasn't in there--he'd hopped out somewhere between Space Mountain and the Castle.  After a few minutes of frantic searching he showed up at the Star Trader hanging out with a cast member.  Then several years later we lost him again.  One minute we were all together and the next we boarded Heimlich's Choo Choo and we only had 5 kids with us.  Mild panic set in and security was called.  I used to dress all the kids the same back then (they won't go for that so much anymore, dang it) and when they asked for a description I just said, "he looks like that one."  About 20 minutes later he turned up in the lost child center no worse for the wear.

I'd like to say I have some great insight into why I'm like this--or at least an idea of how to cure it.  But I don't because I just spent the last 7 minutes trying to remember this great idea I had for this paragraph of the blog.  I'm being serious--I just spent 7 minutes staring at the screen, wracking my brain for this clever idea I had not 10 minutes ago and it's gone.  So frustrating!  I've read about systems that are supposed to help me overcome this problem and they probably work--except I can't remember where I read that or what they are.  This is hopeless...

"I think goldfish crackers might be the staff of life..."

The cooking situation has gotten bad around here.  Like, I hadn't cooked an "actual" meal in a week.  And the week before that was not much better.  And the week before that.  It's not that we eat out every night but with kids coming and going, picky eaters, my laziness, etc the nights I cook a real meal are few and far between.

Now some of you know that I work for Weight Watchers--it's like teaching Relief Society for weight loss--and every week I challenge my members to try one little change for the upcoming week.  I decided it was time for my "one little change" to be cooking for the whole week.  (Except not the weekend because that doesn't count.)  Some of you may recall that at the beginning of the summer I had ambitious plans to get my children to cook as well.  Those plans were ambitious all right because this has not happened so much. Like not at all.  Mostly because I'm not cooking.  (See the pattern?)  I figured I've got to conquer my own deficiencies before I can hard target the kids.

I mentioned in a previous post how much I dislike all aspects of cooking.  But after this week I've narrowed it down a bit.  In the past I've always really hated the planning of the menu.  This is because my kids are so dang picky!  (If you recall, some of them don't eat fruit.)  It would make me crazy to spend all this time looking for recipes that would suit the picky eaters,  spend forever making the meal, have a kid take two bites and then tell me they weren't hungry only to find them consuming a half box of goldfish crackers an hour later.  (We seriously go through a LOAD of goldfish over here.  I think they might be the staff of life for the Morgans.  That and Nesquick.  If all we had was goldfish crackers, milk and Nesquick my kids could survive quite happily for months.) But I digress...What was I talking about?  Right--cooking.   Dave has been trying for years to get me to just cook what I want and disregard if anyone else wants it--because chances are they aren't going to eat it anyway.

So that's what I did last week!  And you know what?  It was liberating!  I decided to cook what I wanted, how I wanted and not worry about who else ate it.  And for once, I enjoyed cooking.  Or at least I enjoyed the sense of accomplishment that came from planning a whole week's worth of meals and cooking them.  Some of the kids ate all of them, some of them ate some of them and some didn't eat at all due to scheduling but that's ok.  So, here's to another week of cooking real meals!  Who knows, maybe the kids will actually eat all of them.  But if not, there's always goldfish crackers.

"Wipe Out Winco Style" and other morning adventures.

It's been a pretty crazy week at our house as Wednesday we sent Carter off on his mission.  It's a strange feeling leading up to sending a missionary off--or a college student I suppose.  You feel like the clock is ticking down and you should be making the most of your time left but you can't quite figure out what you should be doing.  So in lieu of something grand we did what we usually do when we can't think of anything--Target and Red Robin.

Carter had to be at the airport by 4:30 am so after a tearful goodbye--I'm gonna miss that kid--we headed home.  I was too keyed up to go back to bed so I decided to do my grocery shopping for the week and I have to say, grocery shopping at 5:30 am is about a million times better than grocery shopping at 5:30 pm.  There aren't any lines (but you have to dodge all of the boxes piled up in the aisles--kind of like "Wipe Out Winco Style"). So while I was jumping over cases of mac and cheese I had an epiphany of sorts.  You see, I've always been pretty much a night owl.  I've never liked getting up early and I found that I was way more productive after 8:00 pm than I ever was before 8:00 am.  Until about a year ago when I discovered I still don't like getting up early and yet by the time 8:00 pm rolls around I pretty much don't want to do anything--except sit on the couch and watch  "Ghost Hunters."  (I don't care what any of you think--it's all real!) Yet as I was cruising through Winco I thought that perhaps now I would become a lark!  I felt so good having my shopping for the week done by 6:00 am that I went home, put all the groceries away, unloaded the dishes, cleaned the kitchen and started the laundry!  I was so productive!  And then 7:00 am came at which point I crawled back in bed and didn't emerge until 10:00 am sluggish as ever.

I think I would be much more productive if I got up early.  The day has a way of getting away from me and before I know it it's dinner time, I still haven't decided on anything to cook, my errands are halfway done and I'm wondering where all my time has gone.  It's not that I haven't attempted to change my ways before.  I've tried turning on my bedroom lights first thing in the morning and breathing grapefruit essential oils which are supposed to make me more awake but instead now I have a Pavlov's dog reaction to the smell of grapefruit and I just want to hit a snooze button and roll over whenever someone cracks open a grapefruit.  But I really think that I could be more productive and help my children be more productive if I can switch this internal clock somehow.  If anyone has any great solutions I'm all ears.  As long as they don't include grapefruit.  Just the thought of it is making me tiredzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

Criminal Minds--Morgan style

I hate moles.  Almost as much as I hate hot dogs which is saying quite a lot.  Without fail every spring/summer some nefarious mole decides that the Morgan lawn offers up some tasty treats and he reeks havoc on our lawn.  It pretty much makes me crazy.   We did a bunch of research on it and tried various things like mole "repellant", flushing them out, chewing gum down the holes, etc.  Epic fails.  So about 4 years ago I got fed up with this annual infestation and called up the mole dude to come and eliminate the problem.  (Those of you who don't condone animal/rodent violence may want to stop reading at this point--because by "eliminate" I mean kill those little suckers.)  So Mole Man shows up, sets his traps and a few days later, voila--dead mole!  The only problem with this is that it's like $200 for the guy to do it so I talked him into teaching me how to catch them and now I'm pretty much a pro.

Now, at this point you are asking, why in the heck is she writing about moles?  Good question!  Because it's been a good example this year in how I am turning things over to the kids and teaching them responsibility!  The thing is--setting the traps is a little bit tricky--you have to have some muscles (which I do but they're lady muscles that are good for like lifting cute weights and rearranging furniture.) You also have to have a little patience in finding a good spot and getting the trap positioned the best way.  But I figured that it might be a good learning experience for my kids.  Plus, I don't do dead rodents.  Disgusting.  So I figured that if I offered a mole bounty this could be a win-win situation:  my kids earn some money and learn a valuable skill and I don't have to mess with a mole carcass.  (Seriously disgusting.)

And so about two weeks ago one of the boys and I went out to set the traps.  We figured out the best place (we thought) to put them and my manly son (he prefers to remain anonymous because mom blogs are sort of embarrassing I guess) dug the holes and set the traps.  At this point I think he thought this was going to be a pretty easy $20.  He was wrong.  Because moles are smarter than they look--and if you've ever seen one you know they look pretty stupid.  And ugly.  So the next day, the kid goes out there and sees the trap is sprung--excellent!  Except, no mole.  At this point, he pretty much decides to give up but I figure this is a great lesson in resilience and seeing something through to the end right?  So I instruct him to move the traps and he sets them again.  Now, here is where the mystery begins.  I know--you're dying from anticipation...

At this point, my son heads out to camp for a week.  (Dang it--now I've narrowed down the suspect list for you!)  So a few days later I go out to check the traps and one is missing.  Like there's a big ol' hole in the ground and no trap.  So I'm thinking maybe it went off again and my camper noticed it before he left and maybe pulled it out or something.  Except I can't find it anywhere.  And I looked a mediocre amount.  Which is a lot for me.  So it started making me crazy.  Where is the stinking trap?  Because they aren't super cheap and I still want that mole caught.  Anyway, we wait the whole week, my son comes home and tells me he didn't do anything to the trap.  At this point I'm thinking somebody-like some mole lover-- stole it.  And here is where the detective work came in--and thanks to watching Criminal Minds way too much McKay cracked the case.

Kennedy comes in and tells me that there is a mole trap in the back yard--yet the trap was set in the front yard.  We go out and check and sure enough--there's the trap--with a decomposing mole in it.  SICK!  Using his great sleuthing abilities McKay deduces that the trap went off, killed the mole, an animal happened upon it, dug it up and drug it to the back yard!  Case solved and mole caught!

So what did I learn from this about my children?  First, my kids are capable of doing hard things.  Second, this was a great lesson for my son in seeing a job through to the end and it was a great lesson for me in letting him do that.  My natural tendency would have been to reset the traps myself after the first misfire but I let/made him do it.  And finally (and more terrifying) , I learned that apparently I have larger animal problems in my yard than moles...

Are we handing out dollar bills like candy now?

I fear that I may have gotten sidetracked in my journey to get a clean house.  I blame pinterest of course.  As you may recall I  think it's inspired by the devil and I fell into his trap this last week.  Dave was away at scout camp and so I embarked on the quest to make over my bedroom with a number of pinterest inspired ideas.  I'm actually pretty pleased with the results--which is shocking for those of you who know my creative capabilities.  It only took me 6 tries to pick out a wall color--"White Asparagus."  The kids are convinced it's just a fancy way of saying "white" but we all know better...

Anyway, what this all means is that while I was busy picking out paint, scouring Goodwill for bargain furniture and creating roman shades from ugly green mini blinds (seriously--pinterest has ideas for EVERYTHING) my house looks like a bomb went off.  (Except my bedroom--my bedroom looks SPECATCULAR!) I was lamenting the state of affairs to the fam when Dave made the comment, "so we're pretty much just handing out dollar bills like candy now right?"  One of the boys argued that the metaphor (or is it a simile?) makes no sense because there aren't any people just giving out candy.  Unless it's Halloween.  Which it isn't most of the time.  But Dave was on to something--it's still way too easy for these kids to get their dollar bills.  But not anymore!  Not only do they have to have their rooms clean by 10:00 am but they have to have anything else of theirs picked up as well.  We'll see how it goes.  (Personally I predict a couple of kid funded trips to Baja Fresh this week.)

Remember how I posted a while back that I was going to have the kids start cooking dinner three nights a week?  I'll let you in on a little secret:  that hasn't happened.  At. All.  I don't even cook three nights a week.  There, I said it.  I am a TERRIBLE mother--most nights our dinners consist of quesadillas, ramen, cereal, or a variation thereof.  So how the heck am I going to get my kids to cook when I don't even do it?  Seriously, how?  So that's my new goal--to actually cook dinner.  It's not that I've always been this way--for years I cooked dinner every night (every night but Friday because that's our sacred date night and date night MUST involve me getting to eat out.)  It's just that as the kid's schedules have gotten crazier I've become more of the short order cook--plus they are all so dang picky.  Some of them won't eat fruit.  Fruit. I am not making that up.  So I figure that if I put this out in the blogosphere (is that a hip word or what?) maybe I'll actually see it through.  Maybe.  Don't hold your breath.