Around Here

What's been going on around here....

Sam continues to be obsessed with animals and informs me regularly that he desperately needs a yak, lynx, okapi, bobcat and water buffalo to complete his animal collection.  And for his birthday he really, really wants a black bear standing up, looking through a garbage can, just like he saw on a bear special on Animal Planet.  Needless to say, I haven't had much luck finding that request.  Jack has begun calling me "Do Do God." Terrible, I know.  I have no clue what it means, where it comes from, or why he chooses to say it all the time.  The past couple of days he has added a twist and I am now "Apple Do Do God."  My goodness. Landry stayed with us the other morning while Allyson was at Bible study.  She is a sweetie but I found myself breaking up more than my share of fights between her and Jack.  She takes zero junk off him and he loves to aggravate her.  She belts out a deafening scream and they lock up.  I think Jack should take a look at the chick's calf muscles and reconsider making her mad.  I'm not into reality television, but the Bachelor has me extremely stressed out.  I've never really watched this show before and I can't peel myself away from the television on Monday nights.  If he chooses Vienna, I'll probably go into labor.  I am pimping the mini van with great pride.  My boys and Ally's kids act like they are getting on Space Mountain when I pop the doors open.  Forget Disney World, we spin the seats around, roll the windows down and ride to Target.  Sam was showing me how he "exercises" yesterday and I told him he should try a push-up.  I explained to him how to do it and he tried his best.  After almost doing it, he proudly yelled, "Hey, Mama!  Did you see it?  Did you see it?  I did a popsicle!"  The bunk beds are being slept in every night.  Sam and Jody man the bottom bunk every night and Jack still sleeps on top of my head in the king size bed.  And I'm not the least bit bitter that I gave Allyson my beautiful, fluffy, soft, Pottery Barn duvet and ordered a quilt for our bed because Jody had begged for one for over a year and he has yet to pull the flat, itchy thing over his sleeping body.  Enough on that.  I am scheduled to be induced on the third.  I went for my final doctor's visit today and I am dilated two centimeters.  And I think everyone should have the experience of taking two boys, age three and two, to your final appointment.  You know, where you have to undress from the waist down and be examined.  With those two boys sitting in the chair for thirty minutes while you sit on the table, half covered by a thin sheet of paper as your youngest continually yells in his deepest voice, "Mama took her pants off.  Mama took her pants off!"  And every woman should then have that same youngest boy crawl up in her lap, using the stirrups for leverage, and rip your thin sheet in half so that you are now naked from the waist down and uncovered.  And every woman should then have to send her oldest son into the small dressing room to retrieve his humiliated Mama a new sheet.  To pass the time in the examining room, we talked about Sam's birthday party...the theme, what he wanted to eat and who we should invite.  The doctor came in before we finished the guest list.  So after my exam, as we walked through the very crowded nurses area to the check out, I resumed the conversation, asking Sam if there was anyone else he wanted to invite to his party.  He quickly and very, very loudly yelled, "Yeah, Mama.  How about Michael Jackson?"  I felt all eyes in the room piercing the back of my head and the receptionist nicely said, "Well, okay then."  Yes he did.  Wow.  Michael Jackson.  Really, Sam?  Life around here.  Boy do I love it.