Want to see some gnarly feet?

I'm not going to write about boogers today.
Not going to, not going to, not going to....

I love having children. I realize that what I wrote last week may have been construed as "My children have ruined me," because that is almost what I wrote verbatim, but I do love them.

I taught Chancho to ride his bike without training wheels a few days ago. Here was my logic: Let's take a four-year-old who is already fascinated with speed and destruction and various combinations of the two and put wheels under him. Mother of the year right here.

I don't think I've ever seen him as happy as he is pedalling around the cul de sac. When I took the above photo I asked him to make his "toughest dirt bike face." That's what I got. Pretty gnarly, I think.

By the end of the day these were his "feet":

Also quite gnarly. There are feet under all of that street grime, right?

For the record, I love my children. I love explaining the meaning of the words to Beatles songs to Macey and having her get it. I love Olivia's lisp. I love Chancho's crazy dirt bike feet. I love watching Tess work her dad's iPad. My kids are all right.

I think I'll keep them.

P.S. Here's what I wrote this week. Are you guys on Facebook? You can "like" St. George News on there and then my stories will immediately come up on your wall, along with lots of other local news that you would've otherwise had no idea about. You should try it, it's a good time.

I don't want to be gross.

This week I wrote about spring cleaning over at St. George News. What you won't see in this article is my somewhat immature booger wisecrack because it was edited out. 

I think my kids have ruined me. 

I used to be disgusted by things like boogers and toilet contents and vomit. Now it's just a part of my day, like high heels and manicures are for fancy people. For example, I took Chancho and Tess to the park in Little Valley today. A while into it I noticed that Tess was chewing a piece of gum - a piece of gum that she must have discovered on the ground or stuck under the slide or something. Disgusting? Absolutely, but what can you do? I pulled the gum out of her mouth and threw it in the trash immediately, of course, but it didn't freak me out like I know that it should have. Maybe because she's done it before - the gum thing, I mean - and later that day she was doing this:

She is obviously a healthy, well-adjusted child.

This morning I babysat these legs:

  

They are attached to my nephew Nathan. They're not so much legs as they are flailing balls of baby flesh, but I digress. Nathan is a barfer. Some babies do that - they vomit more than others. I don't hold it against them, it's just one of the many defects in their tiny, undeveloped bodies. Anyway, this morning Nathan threw up on my shoulder. A nice thick, white, slimy baby spit up. But I didn't hustle to clean myself off like I would have a few years ago. In fact, I half-heartedly wiped it off of my shoulder and kept playing with him for a while before I finally got in the shower.

What this really is is a cry for help. I don't want to be gross. My fear is that one day I'm going to look in the mirror and find that I've turned into one of those girls who eat ants just to shock the other campers. I knew a girl who did this when I worked at Beaver High Adventure Base that one summer. Her name was Erin and she ate ants. Not the little ants, either - she ate the fleshy, horse-sized ones. She claimed that they tasted like green apple Jolly Ranchers. I wonder if she's still alive.

I don't want to be an ant eater, guys. Will you remind me of this when I post pictures of my own zits and tell stories about boogers? Thanks.

seven posts for the price of one!

Has anyone else noticed the Erasure revival that's been happening on the radio? Do I listen to too much George FM? I'm hearing an unusually high volume of Erasure lately, particularly songs from their album The Innocents, which I listened to on cassette tape ad nauseum in my old Honda. It wasn't even my tape. It was Monna's. I wore that tape out.

Almost everything I pin on Pinterest is food. What can I say? I'm passionate about collecting recipes that I'll never try.

Chancho is currently sitting on the toilet yelling, "MOM! I'm out of toilet paper!" and I'm letting him sweat it out. The kid knows it's under the sink.

Would you guys like to hear something gross but that might make you feel better about yourselves? I gained 7 pounds in California. SEVEN. I didn't know that was physically possible. If a pound is 3500 calories, then I ate an excess 24,500 calories. That's a lot of churros.

Here's what I wrote this week. I dunno...like I've said before, I feel like I have someone shooting at my feet yelling, "BE FUNNY!" Ugh.

Calories in a churro: 240. I Googled it. I sure as heck did not eat 102.08 churros. Perhaps it was the gummy bears, M&Ms, turkey legs, Belgian waffles, or the soda.

Chancho just got out of the loo, where miraculously he found the toilet paper. It's a miracle.

one more day

So...we packed up our luggage. Checked out of the hotel. Got on the freeway. And then got back off of the freeway and went to back to Disneyland again because we couldn't help ourselves.

My kids made me take this picture:

Or did I take it because I'm secretly a Star Wars nerd? You'll never know for sure. Everyone loves these things:

Obviously.

We waited in line for an hour for what I though was a ride, but only turned out to be these ladies:

Tess crashed...

...so we came home.

Back to reality.

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I'm never coming home.

The time changes tonight, right? I'm in California, which is already an hour behind. So I'll be moving my clock forward an hour to Utah time. And then on Monday when we come home I'll move forward another hour. My head is going to explode.

We've been here:

Doing this stuff:

And this stuff:

And this stuff:

And today, some of this:

I love this kid:

This kid's got some chafage:

This little guy is one of my favorite DJs:

And this one loves when her food comes in a car:

This was my humongous chicken bacon avocado sammie. It was all right.

Finally, these are the Siamese gummy bears that have been providing my children with endless entertainment:

I never want to go home.

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My special friend

Lately, after I put my kids in bed I rummage through the cupboards for comfort food. I'm usually cranky -  grumbling internally about my zits, the cost of gas, Democrats who voted in the Michigan Republican primaries, the cost of gas, etc. I'm a real treat. And then suddenly I find what I'm looking for. My worries melt away and I can hear Neil Diamond singing softly in the background...

Helloooo, my friend, hello...

Just called to let you know


I think about you every night


And I know it's late


But I couldn't wait


Hello...
Interestingly, the Nutella sings a Lionel Richie song back to me...
 
Hellooo!


Is it me you're looking for?


I can see it in your eyes


I can see it in your smile


You're all I've ever wanted


And my arms are open wide


'cause you know just what to say


And you know just what to do


And I want to tell you so much


I love you...

We have a unique relationship - Nutella and I. You can tell by the 80s music. Sometimes my friend Nutella is the only thing that gets me through the day.

I love you, my friend. See you tonight.

And really, this is worth watching...
(So many questions...do blind people really use lamps to read Braille? How does the ballet thing work? Just how creepy is Lionel in this video on a scale from one to five? Discuss.)


(Oh yeah, I wrote another humor thingie this week. Read it. Maybe I quoted you.)

Allow me to introduce my friends...

I've always named my blemishes, of course, but I've never envisioned myself displaying them on the World Wide Web for all to see. I haven't had a chin like this since Bill Clinton's first presidential term. In fact, that's what inspired their names. Ron - he's the little guy. He's just hanging in there. Newt - he won't go away, no matter how I try. Rick - he's a contender. He's right up there with Mitt. Speaking of Mitt, he's our top pick. Things are really coming to a head now for Mitt.

I think it's the stress. I was discussing this with my sister this morning. I think I'm a stress sponge lately. I've been stressing out about everything from genetically modified produce to the Republican primaries to Dr. Seuss Week. Usually I hear stressful things and I either think about them for a minute or I immediately deflect them. Not now. Now I internalize them and allow them to affect my blood pressure and manifest themselves on my own personal face. My chin looks like the handle of the big dipper.

Sorry to be gross. I hope you weren't eating. I will be ladylike again tomorrow.

This garbage brought to you by: Elise, with the assistance of Editor Lady Joyce

Because I promised: a link to this week's column.

I am warning you - even I didn't like what I wrote this week, and I'm usually my own best friend. The saying usually goes "you're your own worst critic." Not me. I'm way too nice to myself in this department. I am shocked that Editor Lady Joyce (that's her official title) even published this trash. She's too nice to me.

Enjoy?

I want to kill my dog.

Did you guys know that Winston Churchill suffered from depression? He called it his "black dog." It followed him around. If he was having a particularly down day he would say he "had a black dog on his back."

Guys, I think I have a black dog following me around. It's not a big dog - kind of a yippy little Scottish terrier. In the morning, it follows me around barking: "You can't do this anymore!" "You're failing as a mother!" "Your pants wouldn't be so tight if you would stop eating chocolate chip cookies!" And when I collapse into bed at the end of the day and close my eyes, I can hear him yipping at the foot of my bed: "You didn't do enough today!" "You are ruining your kids!" "You are thirty-one and you still have zits?!"

I hate this freaking dog.

He has been a particular nuisance of late. During the day I can drown him out with friends and children and running and housework and cracking jokes. But when the house is quiet in the morning or when I'm falling asleep he's still there, barking away.

I don't know why my metaphorical depression dog is male, but there it is.

I'm not trying to get sympathy from you guys. We both know that there are plenty of people in the world who are much more deserving of your sympathy. I'm just trying to figure out a way to kill this dog once and for all so that I can spend less time focused on myself and more time focused on other people.

I'm reminded of the time that DJ threw a frozen block of elk meat at our barking neighbor dog one night a few years back. He hit it in the head, the dog ate the meat (freezer paper and all), and we finally got to sleep. I guess what I need is a metaphorical frozen chunk of elk meat.

Memory of Warmer Times Lane

Raise your hand if you love St. George. 

Say what you will about St. George not having a Chick-fil-A, but I don't want to hear any complaints about the weather. 

That little warm spell we enjoyed last week reminded me of a trip that DJ and I took a few years back.  We went to Hawaii when it was January on the mainland.  I think it's perpetually June in Hawaii.  I was in the throes of pregnancy, dealing with Seasonal Affective Disorder, and overall feeling crappy.  The trip was heavenly.  Care to join me for a stroll down Memory Lane, where we can all live vicariously through myself five years ago only without the morning sickness?

 

Words cannot describe how much I love this picture.  But I will try anyway.  This was taken at the Polynesian Cultural Center, where I began my career as a semi-professional hula dancer.  This was my first lesson.  The best part of the picture?  The old other people in the picture with me.  They are so happy.  And their outfits are so festive.  Most people scuba dive or sky dive or some other form of diving when they vacation.  Not me.  I kick it with the AARP.

Speaking of the AARP, feast your eyes on this fellow:

I love that guy. Besides the obvious satisfaction he derives from photobombing unsuspecting tourists, I just appreciate his overall attitude. You know, "Screw it, I'm retired. You don't like my back hair, that's your problem." 

One more comment on this picture. If you will, please take a moment to compare my hairdo in the hula dancing photo to my hairdon't in the photobombed picture.  Are you guys like me--do you make really bad decisions when you're pregnant?  And very ill-thought-out decisions when you're on vacation?  We all knew going into this trip that something bad was going to happen to my hair.  That hairdon't is both the worst and most expensive haircut I've ever received.

Thanks for joining me on my trip down Memory of Warmer Times Lane.  Only three months until summer!

P.S.  Like I threatened last week, here is a link to what I wrote for St. George News this week.  I didn't really care for it, but I didn't have anything else to write about and I didn't think they'd appreciate vacation pictures from five years ago.  Not like you guys.  En. Joy.