Barbecue sauce, a breakdown and a bike ride.

How was your day? Sit down and I’ll tell you about mine. 

Mine started at 2 am. I had a dream that Jack and I were in a war. There were bombs flying and I was panicking because I knew Jack thought they weren’t real and I knew we were going to die if we didn’t run. He was play dodging bullets and I was screaming for him to stop and come with me. Relaxing eh? I guess that’s what you get when you pick up a Marine on Parris Island. Sheesh.

I had just shaken off the dream and dozed off when I heard Jack calling me. All the lights were on upstairs. Seems he had a bad dream too but couldn’t remember it. Weird!

So we went back to bed and naturally overslept! I woke up and immediately started racing around to get ready and make breakfast. So what do you think happens? My arm bumps the shelf on the fridge door as I’m closing it, and the shelf flips off the door and dumps all the bottles of condiments onto the floor. One extremely large bottle of BBQ sauce literally explodes and sprays the entire kitchen and the inside of my BRAND NEW FRIDGE! My fridge is so new that I still use a wet paper towel to clean the little milk stain on the top shelf when I see it forming. I mean I was being diligent!

And yeah, you know what BBQ sauce smells like when you’re not hungry right? You know it contains a lot of sugar that’s  really sticky, RIGHT?? And let me tell you, the splatter would have made Dexter drool! I mean it was beautifully sprayed into and across every surface. It was even under and inside cabinets. Crime scene worthy.

It was so bad I didn’t even want a photo to remember it by. I’m in denial that it ever happened as I’m writing this. Hee Hee…Of course my fridge still has that new fridge smell. Of course…It’s pristine! (Sob)

The fridge had to be entirely emptied. Every single thing had to be washed. I was so late. I was sobbing internally, just thanking the lord that it was a plastic bottle that exploded. Imagine a glass bottle? (Shudder)

Jack: Woah that’s a mess.

me: Ya think? (I was on my knees with wet paper towels sopping up the river.)

Jack: Can you get me the ketchup? 

me: Are you serious. Here. Geez.

Jack: I kind of didn’t want eggs. (He was looking down at his breakfast, ketchup bottle paused in mid air)

me: Now is not the time to give me any sort of grief about anything Jack. Got it? Look at me down here!

Jack: (I think he got the message) Good job cleaning Mom! Boy it really stinks in here.

BBQ smell never goes away. Ever. The floor will never not be sticky. The cats paws are even still sticky. Sigh.

The best part was that after I cleaned it all up I realized that I hadn’t looked at my own legs. Any guesses what they looked like? Bleh.

So I got us out the door and had a fun story to tell for the rest of the day. UGH!

After work I had to get Jack to do the last page of his summer math packet. Make that the “last problem”. Only one left. Just one! Hahahahahaha! How do you think that went.

Jack: And you better help me!

me: I’m right here Jack.of course I’ll help you. Be nice.  Just figure out how many pounds are needed for 20 people if this amount is for 8 people.

He did furious math for about 5 minutes. Then we went to check the math. Oops. Crap.

me: Oh…uh Jack …?

Jack: Wait, the sheet days for 28 PEOPLE AND YOU SAID FOR 20!!!!!! AAARRRGGGHHH!

me: Well geez I’m sorry I thought it said…

Jack: AAAAAHHHHHHHHGGGGHHGGRRRGGH!!!!!!!!

me: HEY QUIET DOWN AND STOP SCREAMING!

Jack: YOU’RE A HYPOCRITE FOR SCREAMING AT ME!! Now I have to do it all over WWWWAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!

me: Oh my gosh Jack it took you 5 minutes. Just do the same thing but put 28 as the…

Jack:I’LL NEVER FINISH THIS AND I WANTED TO GO OUTSIDE WWAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

So instead I went outside. Even the birds flew away in a fearful panic. Geez can that kid scream. Is this what 7th grade math homework is going to be like??

Jack: I need your help.

me: Are you done yelling?

Jack: Yes

And then he whipped out the answer in 2 minutes. Sighhhhh. I really thought it said 20. Time for contacts.

Later today Jack went to a friends house while I rode my bike to my taekwondo class AND did the class AND rode home. Oh yeah. I’m a badass. Actually I’m a sore ass. :). I rode to Jack’s friend’s house to pick him up.

Jack: Where’s the car?

me: You can’t see it? (My bike was laying in the road.)

Jack: You RODE your bike to class? You’re so weird!!

me: Thanks. Sheesh.

And that was my fun day. At least I wasn’t sitting on a bus all day riding BACK to the Marines after a very short break, eh Jonathan? 😁👍❤️

9-year-old Minecraft Birthday Party! Finally…

Well…we waited long enough for the actual “friends” party! Two weeks!! That’s like forever when you’re turning 9. Lazer tag was just all booked up…so we had no choice. The party finally happened yesterday. I can assure you that in typical fashion, almost everything went wrong, but we still had an awesome time. Why do we always have so much drama?? Want to hear the story? I hope you’re sitting, it might take awhile.

It was a cold and stormy night. I mean dark. Well, actually it was a cold and sunny morning. Very freaken cold. Cold enough that my mountain of a driveway which NEVER has seen the sun due to its position on the earth was a sheet of ice. That didn’t stop our cake lady from trying to drive up in her new car. Nope. She was determined to get that Minecraft cake in our hands in time for the party. The only problem was that her car turned sideways and lodged itself partway up the driveway and wouldn’t move. Well, rather it would move, but just not in the way that she was prepared to have it move…sideways, very fast, down my driveway and into a snowbank, and then possibly down my neighbor’s driveway which is the opposite of mine, and heads down into the woods into a frozen stream. So she waited while I threw some sand down, almost broke my neck, and hoped her son would show up to move her car. (psst, I could have moved it but she was too nervous to let me try).

I put down 200 lbs of sand in my sweats, in non-regulation ice-walking shoes and bare hands. I was filthy, cold, and my sort of good hair day had long blown out the window. But, it looked like we would be able to move her car and get the show on the road, as they say.

Jack’s friend showed up while we were waiting for the cake lady’s son to get here. His mom called my cell. It was too icy for them to walk up. Of course. So they were trapped in the street. This was getting “funner” by the minute. 🙂

Meanwhile…

Oh wait, first look at the cake…

Cool eh? It’s all blocky and Minecrafty. Loved it.

So, back on the driveway, the son shows up (Really cute too! Though, probably 20 something…phooey. And he was late because he stopped to get SAND! LOL! I have 500 lbs of the stuff right here, point-point..) and says that we better take the cake out of the car first. So I grab this huge cake on a board and start walking up my driveway in a tiny path of dry tar surrounded by a skating pond, wearing slip on Sketcher booties. HAHAHAHA. I wouldn’t trust myself to carry the cake across the kitchen. But it HAD to be done! Inch by inch I walked up the driveway, and though it was freezing, I poured sweat right through my shirt out of sheer nervousness. It was heavy too.

me: Jack get out of the way.

Jack: Look! I’ll kick the snow out of your way so you can see! (he almost slips and leg swipes me)

me: Get OUT of the WAY!

Jack: Sheesh what a grouch. (he starts walking slowly on purpose)

me: MOVE! (he runs to the top of the driveway wearing crocs and almost breaking his face). Now you have to open my hatch and I’ll slide this into the back of the car okay?

(I look down the driveway and they are inching the car down into the street)

Jack: Wait, is that block thing my CAKE? It’s just a block!!

me: Jack, get the hatch open. Go.

Jack: WHERE’S the STUFF? It’s just a block!! That is the worst cake ever!

(I’m ashamed at this next part, and if you’re not someone who cares for swears, please click off this page and move onto some other nicer blog with a nicer mom. Sorry.)

me: Jack! Shut the F up and get into the F’ing house right now. That is the rudest thing I ever heard!

(yeah I said it…It’s the first F bomb I’ve dropped to Jack in 9 years I think. I said Freaken once, and Shit a bunch of times, so really I’m not too too bad, right? heh heh…)

Sigh…

So Jack has this open-mouthed look of Holy Crap on his face and goes in the house. Now I feel guilty and don’t really care about the cake, but I get it into the car and go down to walk his friend up the driveway holding his hand. Stupid F-ing driveway. I pay the cake lady and say thanks and Bye. We walk about halfway up the driveway and the cake lady comes back down the street. She had forgotten to leave me all of the Minecraft cake topper stuff. That’s why the cake looked like a block. That’s why Jack was upset. That’s why I swore at him. Sigh. She leaves it in the snowbank because my mailbox got PLOWED OVER in the last storm and lay frozen under two feet of solid ice.

I think there are bills in there. 😦

She yells up at me “Don’t forget these when you leave!!!” Ohhh of COURSE I won’t forget them. HAHAHAHA! That’s foreshadowing btw.

Anyone else see that I’m getting all “funned” out by this time? So I run in the house and see that we have to leave NOW! I yell to Jack and his friend to put back ON all of the shoes and sweatshirts and coats and turn OFF all of the games that they were able to turn on and start playing in 5 minutes, and GET IN THE CAR! I run and throw on any stupid thing I can find, and don’t even fix my hair. Who cares what I look like, right?

We all get in the car, I make sure we have the favors, the balloons, the cake cutter, the lighter, the candle and secure the cake. Off we go. My car is absolutely fine going down the driveway. Well of course now it’s like the Sahara Desert with all that sand. We are SOOO going to be late. I get about 2 miles away and suddenly think of the little cake toppers sitting in my snow bank. Are you F-ing kidding me. This time I do yell SHIT, but make it sound like SHOOT (or SHIIII-OOOTTT), and screech to a halt in an intersection. I hope Jack’s friend’s mom isn’t reading this.

I kept him safe at ALL TIMES! Really!

I reversed about 2 miles back through 2 streets and then turned around to get the toppers in my snow bank.

me: Jack unbuckle now and get ready to jump out.

Jack: Why?

me: You have to grab that little baggie of stuff in the snow.

Jack: Why are you so lazy?

me: Lazy? I’m driving! Jump out!

So he picks up the baggie and now off we go for realz. We get to the party in pretty good time, and I pull up right in front in the rotary and jump out leaving my car double parked with the hatch up. I carry the cake and Jack carries the bag.

Jack: Are you moving your car?

me: Nope. It can rot there. Those people shouldn’t have parked in the unloading zone anyway.

Jack: Uhhh… Ok.

We get checked in and get ushered into the party room. All is well. The cake made it in one piece, some people were a few minutes late so we had some breathing time, and the kids started to get excited to play lazer tag. Whew. I had a massive headache, was dehydrated and hadn’t eaten anything yet. My friend walked in with his son. “Hey, you should see some crazy person that parked there car out front and just left it! All the doors are open and everything!”.

Heh Heh…

Well that’s the story. Here’s the epilogue, of sorts:

1. The candle was broken, so instead of being 9, Jack was 0. The little stump fell off.

2. Half of the kids didn’t show up. Some didn’t even RSVP. We’re living in a “society” people! We have rules! 🙂

3. I videotaped everyone singing Happy Birthday and it was really funny because all of the kids sang their own version of it. But then when I went to watch it, I had somehow only taped 4 seconds of it. And the photos I thought I took after that were nowhere to be found.

4. I ate 3 slices of pizza, had a piece of cake, finished Jack’s mountain dew that he swore he wanted and then swore he hated, then finished his piece of cake. Awesome. Bleh.

5. After the party we had to rush up to Massachusetts to visit my mom in the hospital. Literally. Zoom!

6. And last but not least, let’s look below at the photo of how the entire day started. 🙂

How does Jack think that “dumb butt” and “jerk face” will get him anywhere in life??

Here are some more photos from the party and from Jack’s actual birthday 2 weeks ago. And thanks for listening. It really does feel like therapy! And I don’t have to bore any of you with this story again! Because I know there are a few of you that heard this entire story and suddenly “had to go” off the phone. You know who you are. 😦 Sigh…

For a minute there I forgot who I was talking to

Sometimes I have to really look at Jack to make sure he’s still 6. Like I’ve said before, there’s an older man inside that boy.

me: How was school?

Jack: Same as always. I had a good day, but then it went down to a bit bad.

me: What happened?

Jack: It totally wasn’t my fault, because as you know I try my very hardest and sometimes it’s the substitute teacher’s fault because she really doesn’t know me very well.

me: You still have to behave you know, even for a substitute.

Jack: But I got in trouble in the lunch room, not in my class.

me: Then why are you talking about your substitute teacher?

Jack: You asked.

me: (pause, thinking) Huh? What happened in the lunch room?

Jack: It was just a water bottle incident. I totally like did not want to mess around and get in trouble so I GENTLY rolled my water bottle to my friend and it fell off the table and rolled across the floor. I did everything I could to stop that from happening. It was really too bad that it happened like that. (Eddie Haskel anyone?)

me: Well, either way, please stop rolling your water bottle. Now let’s get ready for your Tae Kwon Do class.

Jack: I was thinking, because of this whole “incident” and the fact that I’m so stressed out, I just…sigh…have to rest today and I think I would like to make up the class tomorrow. (Bambi eyes).

me: Uh, well, okay, but you’re making up the class for sure. I’m not messing around with hearing you complain tomorrow about how you don’t want to go. I’m giving you a break today, remember that.

Jack: That’s because you’re the best mom in the world. (kisses my hand until I yell at him to knock it off).

me: Okay okay, I get it. Now you can go read and relax.

Jack: Yes, another stressful day is over and I just need to sit and read for awhile.

me: Sheesh… Who are you?