I live my life in sheer amazement at the ability of my children to transform a clean area into complete wreckage in mere moments. My kids have super powers. As in Saturday-morning-cartoons-a-la-Captain-Planet-mega-powers. They simultaneously punch their little fists into the air and some random voice from the great beyond emits itself (sometimes with giant cartoon sound waves.) I don’t usually have a chance to listen, because I’m chasing them about the house attempting to subdue the chaos, but its some key phrase about letting their powers combine to destroy our home. Neatness=down to zero. These kids are little disaster inducing phenoms with individual tickers…waiting to go off on impact. 

Aiden embodies the characteristics of an octopus in a hurricane. We’ll call him Octorricane boy. A mammoth Octopus with a ridic plethora of arms combined with his intense speed and omnipresent ability to be everywhere at once. No room, surface, or area is considered safe. The noise. The speed. The intensity of it all...give him five seconds and anyone left in the wake of Octorricane boy’s path will rue the day.

Emerson is an exceptional force of nature. She possesses the lifelong ability to cause extreme amounts of sleep deprivation for her parents. When their guard is down, this uncanny strength is paired with violent Richter scale seismic quakes caused by extreme amounts of a not so delicate balance of whining and all out screams when denied any request. I’m quite surprised she hasn’t broken the glass in our home with her unreal achievements in octaves. Seizemo girl is quite the force to be reckoned with when she does not get her way. She can be quite exhausting.

A Tsunami with his special spittle powers and major horrid diapers a-la volcano of bodily fluids is Malone. He’s alternately known as Explosa-boy. You’re enjoying his presence like a nice pretty day on the beach, basking in his smile and his alluring, irresistible face when WHAMO! You’re totally sprayed with this sudden eruption of crap and regurgitated breast milk. The kid remains immobile yet maintains the ability to produce more laundry than Octorricane and Seizemo combined. The constant breastfeeding is a weapon of choice for Explosa boy, weakening his mother by yet another form of exhaustion, and furthering his cause for chaos. He has some mad projectile skills and sometimes intentionally aims for different areas of the room…exorcist style. His forcibly eliminated bodily fluids cannot be matched.

Our home has been declared a national disaster area. The coffee table is now a launching pad of Olympic high jump proportions. The piles of clutter and dust bunnies apparently mate at night, managing to multiply on their own even after they’ve been cleared for the fifth time in a row. The laundry is at its all time pinnacle of ridiculous proportions, growing daily. And yet here I am, once again, trying to keep my head above the diapers.

Hi. My name is Ashley. I quit. I am a reformed OCD clean freak, cured by time and the natural resources that are my own children. It’s a good day if I brush my teeth. I can’t seem to get my “act” together (whatever THAT’S supposed to be) I’m perpetually EXHAUSTED and for now, there are more important things in life than tending to laundry, repeatedly picking up toys and making the beds every SINGLE morning.

With a tag team super human triple threat on the loose, I just can’t beat them.

So, in celebratory surrender, I’m putting up my feet and joining their ranks with some stereotypical stay at home mom bon bons action, while I enjoy the forces of natural disaster with my latest DVR acquirement. All praises to mass chaos and Oprah.

I have the best husband in the whole entire star sprinkled galaxy. Yeah. I know. Everyone says that. (About their husbands, that is.) Right before they write about something fabulous that they did. I am writing about my wonderful husband as a preface. An introduction to the unmentionable:

I could have killed the best husband in the star sprinkled galaxy on Saturday.

I’m not sure how I would have gone about executing said murder. I’m sure a few options would have presented themselves so that I may off him ever so successfully. Bonus points for making it look like an accident so I could keep my current lifestyle through the support of life insurance. The best husband in the world was going about his extra husbandry duties, and cleaning out the fridge on Saturday after lunch. Such things are not exactly outlined in our marital agreement. Extra efforts are simply filed away under brownie points for the W.H. (wonderful husband). Changing the diapers, bathing the kids, beating the children so I don’t have to…he’s an excellent brownie-point earner. People often marvel at what a wonderful helper he is. I probably take him for granted sometimes, since this is just his nature. He is quite fabulous. And I love him very much. But all b.p’s aside, I could have killed him.

Back to the cleaning out of the fridge part: He cleaned out the fridge. Yeah. I mentioned that. And at least two to three hours after alleged cleaning, I happened to walk into the kitchen. I stopped dead in my tracks. There, sitting innocently on top of the GE were two breast pump parts. Filled to the brim with my breast milk. Let’s take a moment to pause, shall we? Any breastfeeding mother has now stopped to gasp a little. Perhaps to clutch at her throbbing heart and her aching milk producing woman parts, out of sheer empathy for this very situation. But for those of you who may not understand, let me clarify. I am nothing more than a milking cow. And pumping milk…is the exact equivalent to human gold. I measured it. On a magical human value scale I keep in my house. I was going to place said milk in freezer bags, to store away for later. Only we had run out of bags. So they were stored in the fridge until I got around to it. Once human milk is removed from the fridge, it is no longer safe to re cool. These bottles had been out for at least two hours. These bottles held nearly 12 ounces of precious, once-viable, nutrition enriched human milk. For my baby. And that took a lot of work.

I stopped for a moment as the room began to spin. Clutching the walls for support, to fight the overwhelming urge to scream (the children were sleeping) The raging hormones threatening to take over my body and with a violent shudder, morph me into a chainsaw welding banshee. “Is that my MILK on top of the fridge?” I asked. Keeping my voice calm and unwavering.

“Oh.” He replied. “Oops. Sorry.”

“Sorry? Sorry?! SORRY!???? You have no idea, DO YOU?” I think at this point, literal red beams began to shoot from my eyeballs and to his throatal area. Threatening to penetrate his jugular. I have mad super powers like that when I’m amped on some serious woman juice and sleep deprivation.

It pained me to pour out my human gold. PAINED me. I could have cried while I did it. I watched each drop descend the drain to their final resting place, and then I held a small funeral procession in its honor at the sink. I invited the neighbors. (They said they had plans.) I know he’s not perfect. But I could have KILLED him. Have I mentioned that? I almost did. It took me nearly an hour to recover from the loss. I’m still, quite honestly, reeling from it. We may travel to the beach this next spring sans kids, and I’ll still be rambling about how I had to pump an extra bag because we were ONE SHORT. But hey…at least the fridge is clean.

While we’re discussing faults, he also abandoned me yesterday with the children so he could go to work. I mean who does that? (Don’t answer that one. I know. Everyone.) Abandoned me without a drop of caffeine in the house. But that story includes me calling him at work and threatening to gouge his eyeballs out with an ice pick. Yeah. We’ll blame that one on the hormones, too. He was gracious enough to come to my rescue shortly after lunch with a diet dr. P.

Bless him. He has redeemed himself.

As usual:

backpack, backpack...

b.a.b.i.

did I mention...

It's been one of those weeks. I won't lie. One of those woe-is-me-what-the-crap-was-I-thinking-having-kids-type of weeks. One of those completely mislead I-could-be-an-up-and-coming-designer-in-NYC-but-I-went-for-my-MRS-degree, I chose desperate housewives suburbia heaven and I'm-freaking-lousy-at-it-kind-of-weeks. {Hey, I said mislead. Let me dream!}

Then, after that realization, another wave of Oh-my-lord-please-save-me-I'm-about-to-have-another-baby-I-will probably-leave-attached-to-the-car-Griswald-style-because-I-now-officially-have-more-than-I-know-what-to-do-with, kind of panic attack. Because you know. It totally compliments that kind of week.

I've cleaned up vomit, atrociously dirty diapers, lysoled the house continually from a strep throat infestation, and then cried/laughed like a lunatic when I realized today I haven't left the house since SUNDAY, and my poor husband who I have snapped at repeatedly, mentioned "You've been little moody lately."

"It's SOOO HARD!" I wailed in a classic guilt laden response. REALLY? YA THINK!??? {It's a miracle he's still married to me-BLESS him.}

I've bargained with Emerson who currenly has a death grip on my arm to let me put her down. For a second. Without a high pitched scream. A REPEATEDLY high pitched scream. The kid's a banshee.

I've perused the Martha Stewart site for new craft ideas in my short breaks. My version of letting lose and keeping my finger firm on the pulse of society.

My perspective on reality, to say the least, is a bit skewed.

SUNDAY, people!

I gave Aiden five spankings alone, in a row yesterday (my strong willed child-yes, we spank when warranted-lets get past it, shall we?) he had an option to sit on the couch for time out for shoving his sister (twice) and he said no. So I spanked him. He had a choice. He says no a bit much. (read: all the time)

He then said NO again. Spank. NO! spank. NO! spank. SERIOUSLY? I'm not talking about little spanks here. I was going for the gusto to make my point, and my hand was hurting. Skin to skin. Red bootay. I then gave up, because of course I started to feel bad. It obviously wasn't working. I picked him up off the floor (still screaming NOOOO!) and PITCHED HIM onto the couch (non child abuse with a neck fracture style). He stayed until I had a peaceful conversation with him later regarding the use of the word no and shoving his sister.

When all was calm, I heard munching coming from the laundry room. Munching. Emerson. Dog food. Multiple peices. Chewing. I let her, until she decided she was ready to spit it out.

It's been one of those weeks.

And then today I got a flyer in the mail from Piper Lime, to top it all off. You know Piper Lime. That cute lil optimistically overpriced shoe company the owners of Gap/BR/& Old Navy have launched. And I realized, while looking at said flyer and therefore plummeting deeper into my own woe-is-me-I-suck-at-life-state, that I couldn't tell you what shoes were in style if you PAID me a million on the spot. The only reason I saw was because they sent a FLYER in the mail. To my house.

I used to shop for shoes. A-la-Carrie style. All the time. I was a shoe museum. And I can't tell you the last pair I bought. Maybe a pair of boots last fall? I don't care who you are. That's pretty bad. And I find myself resenting people who still shop Carrie style. Guess you can say my priorities have changed. Ever so resentfully.

So I'm writing on my usual blogging day to let you know I have nothing to write about, other than how out of touch with the real world I am. Sometimes {read: MOST OF THE TIME} being a mom sucks. {kidding} Sometimes being a wife does too. And life. Did I mention life can suck? But that doesn't mean I don't love it. It just means I'm a little overwhelmed with hormones, lack of Zoloft in my system, and surges of disparity at my dwindling supply of dusty shoes shoved in my closet because I am once again having a who the heck is going to don THOSE heels while balancing THREE CHILDREN kind of moment. And what that symbolically means I have become. Am I a dusty old shoe?

It's been the kind of week to send the most stable of women into yet another identity crisis, just when I thought I had it all figured out.

I usually regard myself as stable.

I'm not very eloquent today. {when am I ever?} This is the part where you chime in and make me feel better. Love you all. Have a great weekend. I'm going to soup up on some caffeine so I can get my nasty house clean, AFTER I put the crying babes to bed.

{No. I won't throw them in there...}