"I don't wanna be home."

Those were the first words my daughter uttered when we came back.  Promptly followed by bursting into tears, sobbing and running to her bedroom.  And I was right behind her. 

Why does coming back have to be so depressing?

So we made it back from vacation all in one piece.  I had to stop posting for a bit as the connection was so bad that it just wasn't worth trying and getting all worked up, angry and bent out of shape.  It was a vacation after all.  

That and to be brutally honest, I've not had the time to write and when I have, I've had absolutely nothing to say.  Nothing.  I mean, crazy stuff has been going on, I've just not felt like writing about it.  Guess coming back home has been a bit hard on all of us.  

In between coming home, unpacking, laundry, getting food, birthdays, doctors and dentist appointments for the kids, contractors and painters, I've been left with zero time.  During the school year, I had a two hour window where I could get things done with the baby hanging around at my feet.  Not that I really got anything done but it was my time.  My time to do, or not do, with as I pleased.  It's becoming painfully obvious that with all three of them home for the summer, my own time has shrunk down to nothing.  

Anyway, here is the fun we had on Father's day.

And our feet...

Don't look too closely at my toes.  That's what happens when you have a five year old paint your toes, feet, legs, upper arms...notice she has her shoes on?  That and you can see all my white spots.  Sexy.  Dead sexy. 

Note: In relation to my last post, my mom sooo does not read this blog.  If she did, I'd have this thing shut down faster than a cover-up for an for an OSHA violation.  I mentioned her tree hugging, granola, I've been in the wild with no razor for years look as it was the third time I had to correct that particular problem.  Maybe that's why I've not had much to say....  

Try getting that out of your mind.

A few things have happened between now and the last time I posted.  First things first.  It was my mom's birthday.  Did I mention she's here with us?  No??  Well she is.  That, in and of itself, has been a blessing and a bane.

Blind Pass, Sanibel

Funny thing is, her birthday comes around in June and I forget it every year.  Without fail.  And every year she gets pissed.  Without fail.

This year I actually remembered the day before while we were out getting groceries.  Let me rephrase that.  My husband got a FaceBook reminder that it was her birthday.

Shit.

There I was, scrounging for a birthday present at the general store.  They had nothing unless I was going to give her eggs, milk, sunscreen or bug spray.  I settled for a pre-made cake and called it a day.

I took the kids out and drew pretty things in the sand for her and she was happy.

Then I almost forgot Father's day.  Let me rephrase that.  I did forget Father's day.  Totally.  I remembered it, only after my husband dropped me off at Blind Pass to go shelling at 6:00AM.  About an hour later, I was knee deep in water going for a shell and the thought brought me from a full stoop to upright in less than one tenth of a second.

I called him and he said not to worry.  I married a good man.

Alphabet cone

Lace Murex

We took a boat out to explore and I tell you that little bit of information to tell you this.  I have never been so petrified in my entire life.  I don't know what it was, but having all three kids on a boat, in open water, scared the hell out of me.  The only way to describe it was I had this horrible feeling that if anything went wrong I couldn't save all my kids and I'd be forced to choose.  And I could not come up with an answer.

I was never so happy to have my feet touch solid ground, grab all my kids and get off that damn boat.

Anyway, back to the blessing and bane bit about my mom.  There we were out on the beach talking to I don't remember and she has Gracie at her legs.  You know where I'm going with this, right? Right?? 

I start to play with Gracie and since she's at my mom's nether regions.  I can help but see.  It's not like I was going in for a quick peek or anything, Gracie's about mid-rift height.  There, right in front of my face, and behind my little girl: Full Bush.

Full Bush.  People, my mom had not shaved her bits in years.

Years, people, years.  Uggghhhh.....

Who walks out of the house like that?!?  Before you answer that, I already know.  MY MOM.

I was mortified.  There she was, yammering on, Gracie's making a fuss and people are looking right at it.  She was clueless and just yammering away.

We're talking full bush.  Monkey's at the zoo have less hair.  Pube's Gone Wild.  Granola.  Tree hugging, save the planet a razor style.  

And that's the bad visual I'm leaving you with today.

Now try getting that seared out of the back of your retina's.

Vacation one, Lizbeth zero.

This is the fish tank where I got yelled at for pulling a sea star out of the holding tank for less than 0.0034 seconds and where everyone within earshot was told by Alex, "This was not my activity of choice.  I have no interest in sea life and I would be much happier with my I-touch but ohhhh nooooo, mom says it has to say at the condo."

This is the boat we went on where I lost Lizzy, Gracie threw her bottle out and screamed her head off for the duration and where Alex got a brain contusion from hitting the boat decking as the captain ran into the pier.  Read all about it here.

OK, there would be a picture of a boat here but this piece of shit computer I'm working on is a little mother and won't let me add a picture without first rotating it and then adding it sideways.

That and it's so God dammed slow I can't even get to a single one of your blogs without crashing the whole system.  I think I take out power to half this island when I try to comment.

And I have an I pad but that's not really an accurate statement.  I can see our I pad but can't use it.  I may be able to wrestle it out of my son's hands for twenty seconds only to have to barter later usage. 

Scratch that.  I figured things out.

Anyway, more pictures...

This is one of the sand castles Alex made and has announced to the free world and anyone who has the misfortune to walk by that, "This is my sandcastle and I would appreciate it if you would walk around.  Thank you.  Oh yeah, I'm not enjoying this activity at all.  I would like to be playing with my I-touch but my mom says it has to stay in the condo."

Since we're outside he's saying all of this in his Loudest Outside Voice Ever.  Technically I can not correct him since we are indeed outside. He has reminded me of this fact.

Repeatedly.

And this is a picture of our walk to the beach.  All you have to do is add three children, all screaming different things, getting chased by wasps and all sorts of big flying bugs, pushing and shoving to get to the water then the picture is complete.  Thank you condo association for putting flowering plants along every walkway.  By the end of the boardwalk I've been given all the beach toys, towels, sunscreen and drinks so I look like a camel on a desert trek.  

I've taken to stashing a bottle of alcohol in a beach towel.  It is my goal to have one bottle finished per day by the end of our trip.

Yes, you may judge me.  

And that is all I have for today.

Note: I have been desperately trying to get to your blogs but this system here is nothing but smoke and  mirrors with the ability to crash at a moments notice.   I may resort to posting some old crappy posts I've had hibernating till we get back as I've spent more time trying to keep this system running and my kids from getting electrocuted from the mess of wires under the writing desk....  

Vacations go better with alcohol.

It has come to my attention that I'm not very good at this vacation thing.  Thank you dear husband.  I love you, I really do.  Apparently I like to get up and do things and the rest of my family does not.  I've been told to, "relax, calm down, enjoy things and take it easy." Usually these comments are being said to me while an alcoholic beverage is being slid across the table.  If the drink does not get close enough to me it gets shoved over with a fork, plate or anything to move it within my reach.

And all of these comments have generally pissed me off.

I can't seem to sit down and do nothing.  The rest of my clan is perfectly happy slumming it out on the beach.  Don't get me wrong, I can do that.  I'm just having a hard time doing it all day long.  I'm pasty white with no skin pigment so I last about twenty minutes before I go from white to pink to magenta.

I went out for a run in the afternoon and damn near died.  I was hallucinating and thinking about a Star Trek episode where Jean Luke and Wesley were stuck on some desert planet and were dying themselves.  They were chewing on rocks to keep spit in their mouths.  All I kept thinking of was, "where'd they get those rocks?  That planet's a desert."  And then "where can I get me some of those rocks round here?  I think I'm dying myself.  I don't have any spit in my mouth.  Oh my God, I think my blood's congealing."  And I actually started to look down at the ground for rocks to stick in my mouth.  How fucked up is that?!?


While out on my run, I think I told a group of Japanese tourists to go off the island instead of going to Captivia which was their original destination.  In fairness, I don't know why they stopped and asked me.  Anyone who lives around here knows only stupid tourists are out in the heat of the day going for a run.  Even other tourists were looking at me like I was nuts.  In fairness, they're all right.

Anyway, I'm trying to give this a good shake.  I'm trying to relax.  I've started to drink heavily and it does seem to take the edge off.

So what if the kids get a little too loud at the beach?  We're never going to see these people again.

So what if Gracie pees on the carpet?  Twice.  It's not our house, my carpet.  That's what a security deposit's for, right?  Right??

So what if this creature crawled out from under the sofa?  It's not my bug.  Again, not my house.

Had I not had a glass or two or six under my belt, that would have had me pissing my own pants. Not to mention all the crap that would have been spewing out of my mouth.  But having had enough alcohol in my system to deaden all my nerve endings I just got a good giggle out of it.  

I actually put it in a glass on the ground and let the kids name it and keep it as a pet for a while.

See what happens when I relax?

I let my kids play with roaches.  

I think my husband is seriously concerned with this turn of events but hey, I'm starting to relax.

The eagle has landed.

So we made it to Sanibel. That means my house is up for the taking, partying and looting. Be advised that with the remodel we now have an upgraded security system equipped with indoor lasers and twenty four hour video monitoring I can see from here. If that doesn't deter you then have at it.

Now that I've got that out of the way, I'm happy to say we made it all in one piece. En route I may, or may not, have said:

• "I don't care if you don't have to pee, sit on that God dammed toilet and eek something out."
• "Please don't let me kill this TSA agent, please don't let me kill this TSA agent, please don't let me kill this TSA agent."
• "Really, it's soy milk. That's butt paste. And that's my birth control." There was no way I was risking that getting lost in the luggage to which Alex exclaims, "Mom brought her no more baby pills with her. Looks like we won't get a baby on this trip."
• "Sit down, shut up, and act like you are having fun."

With all the technology we brought down with us I still don't have the ability to download pictures. That is confounding me as our condo looks like a Radio Shack right now. I don't understand this at all.

Alex has decided to boycott the beach as I've not allowed the I-touch near the ocean, Lizzy went head first into the water and came out almost puking exclaiming, "it tastes awful!" and I looked over to see Gracie eating some cereal she dropped in the sand.  Right now all the kids are hypoglycemic and acting like ass holes.

Not to be outwitted by our little ass holes, we took them on a boat cruise of the nature preserve only to have Gracie throw her bottle overboard.  Since it's a nature preserve we had to go back and retrieve it.  By that I mean the boat was turned around four different times to fish the damned thing out of the water since we couldn't get it on the first three passes.  Alex banged his head on the guardrail when the captain over shot the pilings and ran into the pier and Lizzy, well Lizzy, I lost track of her five minutes into the tour.  After Gracie threw her bottle overboard she started a nonstop screaming marathon which scared off all the manatee and dolphin thus pissing off everyone on the boat that wasn't all ready pissed at us.  We almost got thrown out into the estuary.

Good times.

The forgotten week.

In my haste to get Alex out of school and down to Sanibel to start our vacation,  I completely forgot this teensy weensy little detail.  We have one full week before we go on vacation.  I was so busy trying to get him through the last few weeks, and then days, of school that I completely forgot we had a gap week.

One full week of nothing to do.

Shit.

Now I'm sitting here with three kids looking at me like I'm the food that just got tossed into the lion's den.  And these particular lions, well they're pissed off and really hungry.  Since I've not trained my lion cubs that it's not OK to gnaw on mommy's leg for sport, I'm afraid for my own survival.

On top of it, it got frigging hot here and I'm dying a thousand deaths trying to get used to the heat.  Add the humidity and my normally straight as a board hair has gone pa-ching and I don't know what to do with it.  My sweat glands are working overtime and I think I've died and the devil is having some fun with me.  My insides are boiling and I may spontaneously combust.

Add caption

My poor kids haven't really known "hot" and lets just say they're pissed that their summer's not chalked full of cool waters and summer time jackets.  See, we used to live in North Dakota.  My Cherubs don't know hot.  I mean, look at that picture down there.  I took that in late June, 2008.  Look at what she's wearing...mittens.  People, she's wearing MITTENS.  IN JUNE.  Along with fleece pants, a jacket, a shirt and some weird almost but not really a skirt thing.  IN LATE JUNE.  I'm surprised there is not ice on that puddle.

To top it all off, they want to go to the pool but I can't take all three of them and be guaranteed I'd come back with all of them still breathing.  We've spent an ass load of money on swim lessons but they're still not swim worthy due to our complete and utter lack of gross motor skills.  I don't trust them alone in the water and with an 18 month old I can't watch all three.  It's unsafe and a recipe for disaster.

So I've lowered my standards and turned on the TV.  We're going to be watching plenty of How its Made, those horrible little douche bags Phinneas and Ferb and that rodent Max and his sister Ruby. Where the hell is their mother???

Anyway, all I have to do is get through till Saturday and then we're off.  To the airport. On a plane.  To land in another airport.  To board another plane.  To land in Florida.

What could possible go wrong with that???


Don't worry, I'll be telling you all about it when we land.  You know, if I'm not detained in airport security when Alex has decided to have an in depth discussion with the TSA official about the "why's" and "how to's" concerning bombs and bringing them in to the airport and through security.... 

It's coming right at us...

For about the fifth day in a row we've been under the gun in relation to severe weather. Tornados.  We had the town of Reading taken out by a tornado and the next day Joplin was wiped off the map.  Last night Sedalia was hit.

We're on edge.

Anxious.

We had a another round of severe weather last night and today the sirens went off again.  At first I thought they were testing things but then realized it wasn't the first of the month.  I looked out the front windows and it was bright as day.  Then I went to the back of the house.

Oh My God.  Oh My God.  Oh My God.


Grey, almost black, clouds hanging low.  Swirling.  Churning. Mesmerizing.  So close I could reach out and touch them.  How they were even suspended in the sky I don't know.

I went outside, on the back porch.

Sirens blaring.  Thunder grumbling.  Winds lashing.

I ran back inside, grabbed the girls and took them to the lower level.  Put them in the back closet and let them play.  Turned on the TV and listened.  A tornado.  It was going up State Line, past such and such street.  Jumped over to Napier.  Going north.  I stood still.  That was us.

It was aiming for us.

I didn't believe it.  It wasn't computing.

I went back outside.

And looked up.

The clouds, so close.  So black.  Nebulous wisps.  Shifting.  Angry.  Moving.  Rotating. The sky rumbling, churning, full of life.  I could feel static in my toes, traveling through the ground and up my body.  Trees blowing and bending with such grace.  Such force. Groups of leaves being plucked off and sent flying.

It was rotating above me.  Sirens blaring, screaming this time, yelling at me to get inside.  The trees still bending only this time rotating with the blackness.  It was stunning.  Beautiful.  Dangerous. The wind was howling, taunting me, "Run.  Run now little girl or I'll get you. I don't discriminate."

I fled.  Scared.  Knowing that even the basement was no real protection.


And just like that it churned by.  As quickly as it came, it was gone.


The birds started chirping.  The sky went back to blue.

We were safe.

Like a ton of bricks it hit me: Alex. Oh My God, Alex.

He was at school.

I could do nothing.  Phone lines were down.  Internet was out.  I could do nothing but wait.

I was shaking.  For thirty five eternal minutes I waited.  Pacing,  Still shaking.

I received an e-mail notification.  The kids were safe.  They were evacuated downstairs and stayed under the lunch tables in the cafeteria for over an hour.  He did what he was told to do.

I brought him home and I had all my children with me.

Safe.

That's all I ever needed.

Then, and only then, did I stop shaking.


Note: At dinner that night when we were talking, I asked Alex how things went at school to see if I could elicit what exactly happened and if he was OK with things.  This is what he told me: "Mom, it was great!  I finally got under the tables to see how they work!"