Exercise

Bossy’s being bossy again! She said it’s time to write another blog and I’m just wasting time exercising! Actually I hate exercise for exercise sake. I’ve never been a runner but I can run back and forth down the basketball court if other people are willing to run with me while we bounce a little orange ball and try to throw it into a way-too-small hoop. My best friend ran a 5K today and actually survived! Maybe if I could dribble a basketball the whole way I could do that…

This time I wasn’t playing basketball, I was playing DDR (or Dance Dance Revolution) with my 17-year-old son. He is an amazing player who can survive a whole song on EXPERT without failing. I have finally graduated from BEGINNER to BASIC and even then I often come up with an E when he has a AA. (E is the lowest grade you can get.) 

The game consists of a square pad that sits on the floor. It looks like a tic-tac-toe board and YOU get to be the playing pieces. You put the game in your game console (mine is for the PS2 but you can get it for the XBOX or the WII.) Then while little arrows scroll up your TV screen you try to step in the corresponding boxes on your tic-tac-toe board. And to make it even more confusing they play music and videos in the background. The kids love to watch me make a fool of myself trying to figure out which jump or step comes next. And to make matters worse, when I screw up, the game makes fun of me too.  If I wanted that kind of abuse, I’d take up running! (…with a basketball, of course.)

Mom's bed

As you can imagine, we have a rather large table in our kitchen. It has chairs at the head and the foot and long benches on each side. Those benches can accommodate 4 large people or 5 small ones. My kids sometimes feel a bit crowded at meals, but occasionally some will be missing and there will be empty seats. The kids have come up with a little song that they love to sing called "I’ve got the whole bench to myself…" It usually ends with someone rounding the table and joining them on the bench so the song is no longer applicable. 

So last night my sweetie and I were getting ready for bed. My little two-year-old Curly bursts through the door and climbs up in the middle of our bed. "I wanna sleep with you!" he says excitedly. His dad grumbles a bit but moves over. Within two minutes, that small body is thrashing back and forth, taking the blankets with him. This was enough for Dad. He climbed out of bed and started putting on his robe. That’s when I heard that sweet little voice singing, "I got the whole Mom’s bed to myself…"

RSV

I told you the other day I had sick babies. Baby Doll kept getting sicker and sicker so I made her an appointment at the doctor’s office. It turned out that she has RSV, but not bad enough to be hospitalized or anything. Breathing treatments were recommended as was something we had never experienced before…the giant booger sucker! 

This snot vacuum was a tiny tube about 12 inches long attached to a canister that pulled all the boogers (and at least half the brains) right out of her head! They inserted that tube, at least 8 inches of it, into her tiny nostril and down the back of her throat. She coughed and gagged and cried. It was awful! As I headed out the door, somewhat dazed, they invited me back for another session the next day if she was still having trouble. "Not on your life!" I promised her. But I couldn’t argue with the results. They vacuumed her boogers so well that she slept for 5 straight hours! 

By the following afternoon she was so congested again that I broke down and took her back. While we were waiting to visit the nurse, another couple about my age came up to the desk. Of course my little one is so cute she quickly became the center of attention. "I remember when ours were little, don’t you, Honey?" the man gushed. "They were so cute then! Just you wait until she’s a teenager," the woman warned. The receptionist smirked; she knew I had a bunch of kids. "Don’t you have a few of those?" she asked. "Just a few," I said. "How many kids do you have?" inquired my new friend curiously. "Oh, about twelve," I said. She took a step back. "Oh, she stammered, I thought I had it bad with eight…I don’t need to tell you anything!" But she was wrong. There are so many things I don’t know! Like the booger sucker…that was a new one for me.

Think spreadshirt.com will make me a custom shirt?

I would love to hear your comments on child rearing in big or small families. Feel free to leave me a comment or question on any post.  Or e-mail me if you prefer twelvemakesadozen@gmail.com.