The wedding that was.....

So we made it back from the wedding up in North Dakota relatively unscathed.  And by that I mean we're all alive.  We made it back home and I was never so glad to be back in our house.  Not to say we didn't have fun, we did.  There is just a unique sort of hell that goes along with being trapped in your own car upwards of eleven hours, two times, that makes you want to crawl out of your own skin.

Things that may, or may not, have happened:

• We had a flat tire smack in the middle of Iowa.  I take that back, I really don't know where we were.  All I know is, we had to drive back to get to a Toyota dealership to replace our Dunlop no-flat tire.  The irony didn't get past me on that one.

"MOM!  They have rules at the rest area!"

• We may have trashed the waiting room of a certain Toyota Dealership.  I tried to clean up as best as I could but they had a popcorn machine.  It was a no-win situation. 
• The kids may have felt-up all the taxidermy bears, deer, turkey and ducks at my friends house.  Her husband may have started a new nervous twitch when he saw Lizzy stroking a fur backwards and named a duck Sparkle.
• I may have had a drink too many after we lost the baby at the rehearsal party and it may have happened about the same time Alex was puking off the side of the pool and it may have happened the exact same time Lizzy got her toe stuck in the base of a table. 
• I may, or may not, have said, "Lizzy stay here while I go find your sister.  Wait, you can't move, your toe's stuck.  Well, small blessings."  
• Lizzy may or may not have screamed so loud you could hear her in Canada.
• When we found the baby she was out in front, with the smokers, trying to borrow a lighter.  Alex may, or may not have, proceeded to question them about their choice to smoke and he may, or may not have, pulled up an image of a  "smokers lung" from his i -Touch...
• Lizzy may have sat through part of the wedding sobbing because her, "vagina hurt."  Turns out it was not her vagina, it was her underpants crimping her style.  

These make me giggle every time we pass one
and if you don't get it, I'm not telling

• Alex may have read off every single exit on the map and we may have stopped at every rest area so he could get a new map and not miss a thing.  I may have stopped listening somewhere outside of Kansas City.   
• We may have had approximately fourteen fast food meals in a little under four days.  The teenagers at Long John Silver's may have wanted to kill our kids for ringing their bell over 3,000 times.  
• And we may, or may not, have had Juano's Mexican food over three times while in Fargo because it's Alex's favorite.  I may, or may not have, spent more time than I would care to admit on the toilet. 
• We may, or may not, have had a great time seeing old friends and thinking about old times.

Kids saying goodbye. 

Don't get me wrong, we had a blast.  The kids had fun, we were exhausted and I swear I think I aged several years when the baby went missing.  So that was our weekend that was, up in North Dakota.

While it's good to be home, I miss my old friends.

I don't have a daughter. I have a mule or a llama, whatever.

We were getting the kids ready for bed last night and the next thing I knew, Gracie bitch-slapped Alex across the back.  I guess he was doing something she didn't want him to do.  I think it had something to do with not wanting him to ride her giraffe or some such nonsense.  Either way, bitch-slapping is not allowed in our house.

"Gracie, go say your sorry to your brother right now,"  I asked.  I promptly received the classic "up yours" look from the two year old.  She shakes her head and very clearly says, "No."

"Say your sorry to your brother, right now.  You slapped him and that's not nice, you apologize right now."

Another shake of the head, another "up yours" and another, "No."

"That's it.  You're in trouble.  If you don't say you're sorry but the time I count to thr--," before I could finish Alex chimes in excitedly and says, "I'm waiting, Gracie....still waiting over here for my apology...  Hey Mom, can you spank her now?  I wanna watch you spank her.  Make sure you hit her good and hard where there's no diaper.  That'll teach her the best lesson."

Seriously???

"Go on mom.  You just told me at homework-time to finish what I started.  You said you were going to spank her, so now you have to finish it.  Go on mom, finish it."

So this is where I say a mental., "fuck me" for telling my son to finish his homework and beating it into his brain that we don't give up and we try as hard as we can.  At homework I think I said something along the lines of, "You really have to finish what you started and if you don't there will be no ice cream or i-thing after dinner."  Since that got a luke warm reception I said, "I'm going to email your teacher you're not finishing.  Would you like me to do that?"

He holds his teacher right up there next to God, and the creators of his favorite app Spice War's, so he gave me a huff and the, "Sweet Jesus whatever you do, don't tell my teacher," look and got cracking.  

I knew when I said it, he was going to use my words against me at some point.  I just wasn't ready to hear them back at me so soon.

But really, he was Jonesing for me to spank the shit out of his sister?  I hadn't even gotten to three.  I didn't even think of what was next.  My exact thoughts were more along the lines of, "Gaw, you little turdball, you blew it with ten minutes left in bedtime.  Shit, now we have to play a round of dodge ball and you're as stubborn as a Tennessee mule. I'm going to be really, really pissed-off if you puke on me."  That, right there, was pretty much what was going through my mind.

For the sake of argument, this llama will now be called a mule.
It's late, I'm tired.
Work with me people, work with me.   

I'm a deep thinker.  

Sure, it had flashed across my mind to spank her but I was thinking more along the lines of just chucking her in bed without saying goodnight.  We really don't spank in this house.

"No Alex I'm not going to spank her. This is not really a spanking situation."  And with that I set the bar pretty low and chucked her in bed.

She never did say she was sorry.

Fricking Tennessee mule, I'm raising a mule.

I have no idea where she gets it from.

It must be her father.