I'm leeeeeaaaaaaviiiinnnn' on a jet plane!

I am leaving for a mini-vaca to Colorado tomorrow and I am sooooo excited! And while I am very, very excited to see my best friend, I am also very, very excited to get the hell out of dodge. It's almost like my kids can sense that I'm getting ready for three days of rest and relaxation, and are ramping up all the wonderful three-year-old behaviors to make me appreciate my break even more. Here's what I'm going to do in Colorado-

- Sit and not get up unless my bladder is going to burst or I need a drink refill
- Read in my head. I will read nothing aloud- NOTHING. And all my books will have a minimum of 100 words on a page and absolutely no pictures. And lots of cuss words and sex scenes. Basically, the opposite of Lets Count Goats! which I have read 16 times today.
- Not count to five aloud. My 'Oh shit, mom's serious' strategy is counting to five, which means I count to at least three about 478,982 times a day. So I'm going to take a break from counting for a while. So no jumping out of airplanes or starting up the band for me on this trip. =(
- Not touch an oven, stove, or microwave. Not make one meal. DEFINITELY not make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Actually sit for the entire duration of my meal unless I need more wine.
-Give my 'hostage-taking situation' level of negotiation a break. This can happen anytime, but mostly at meal time. Take today for instance, P wanted gummy fruit snacks. I told her she had to eat two dinosaur chicken nuggets (we are way into health food at our house) and then she could have them.
P- How about six bites?
Me- Two whole nuggets.
P- Two bites?
Me- Two whole nuggets.
P- One fifteenth? (She was hoping I'd be impressed by her accidental use of a fraction)
Me- Two whole nuggets.
She eventually ate the two whole nuggets and got her 100% all-natural (or was it 100% all-high fructose corn syrup, I can't remember?) gummy fruit snacks, but god dammit if she didn't annoy the shit out of me the entire time about it. When will she learn that I don't negotiate with terrorists? So eating without someone bitching at me the whole time is going to be like eating in France where I don't understand the language. Maybe I'll turn on Judge Judy in the background so I don't get lonely.
-Get out of the car and walk immediately to my destination without fear of the police surrounding my car while I'm gone and breaking out my windows.
-Wipe only myself.
-Not be called mom. If someone calls me mom in Colorado, it is an automatic punch in the face. 
-Wake up when I want to.
- Not watch Paw Patrol and not listen to any song associated with the movie Frozen.

And if I were a better person, I'd have one last point like 'try to not cry myself to sleep every night because I miss my kids so much' or 'gain a new appreciation for the unique qualities of my children and how I miss them when they're not there' or 'exercise and eat healthy and miss my kids', but that's just not me. And if this trip is about anything at all, it is about me. Oh and I guess my best friend. What's her name again?

The Big Lie

First let me start by saying that I love the mysteriously free Satellite radio in my car. I don't know who is paying for it, but I have my suspicions (I'm pretty sure it's John Corbett's way of reaching out to me, to try to woo me into loving him even more, which is not possible.) Anyway, it's awesome. And today was super awesome, because November Rain by Guns and Roses was on and I haven't heard that entire song in forever. And I LOVE that song. Then it was followed up by Good Vibrations by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, which I also LOVE (but not as much), and I really want to put the idea of a Guns and (N'?) Roses/Marky Mark co-headlining world tour into the universe. But only if they play November Rain and Good Vibrations. Because did Marky Mark even put out any other song?

So before I was distracted by the best two songs ever made, I was thinking about Easter and how I guess I need to start talking about the Easter Bunny because this is the first year that the kids would question why there were random baskets with candy and toys in the living room when they came downstairs to eat breakfast (the Easter Bunny cannot maneuver the stairs). And man, I really do not want to do it. The whole concept of the Easter Bunny is so messed up for so many different reasons. Not that the concept of Santa Claus is not equally messed up, but Santa is at least easier to explain. More tied to reality if you will.

	Santa Claus	Easter Bunny
Origin Story?	Yes	None. Who in the hell thought this up and what were they on?
Connection to religious part of holiday?	Yes? Saint Nick I think? I’m not catholic. Or quite possibly the three wise men.	None. Except maybe eggs? I feel like eggs are connected to Jesus somehow but I can’t put my finger on it. But another way eggs make no sense is that bunnies don’t lay eggs. So where do the eggs come from?
Normal size body?	Yes	No. How did the bunny get so big? Does he/she have a bunny family that is equally big? I feel like there should be some superheroesque background story, but see above.
Transportation?	Sleigh	Hopping? Running (do bunnies run?) How? How does he/she carry all the baskets? Where does he/she store them?
Helpers?	Elves	None- totally unbelievable that he/she could do it all his/herself. Where does he/she go to make all the baskets? Underground? Underground= possible devil connection?
What do they bring?	Whatever the child asked for on their mailed list or in person during a visit.	Seemingly random, store bought candy and toys that can all fit in a basket. How does he/she know what the kids like/need? Does he/she have to buy the plastic eggs or does he/she make them?
Other burning questions	None whatsoever	If it’s a bunny, then is it a baby? Wouldn’t this be a better job for a fully grown rabbit? Another thing that bugs me is that they sell premade baskets at Walgreens and if you bought your kids one of those, and they had been to Walgreens recently, wouldn’t they put two and two together?  Way to ruin the Easter spirit Walgreens. Also, where does the Easter Bunny go during the rest of the year? Where does he/she live?

And don't even get me started on the Tooth Fairy. Seriously. If anyone tells my kids about the Tooth Fairy, I will cut you.

Assignment Consignment

So I know you have all been anxiously awaiting my next blog post, but I have been super busy with really, top-level important stuff. And by that I mean getting things ready for the annual consignment sale the Mothers of Twins Club puts on twice a year. I love the twins sale. I seriously get super excited the week before, and the morning of is like Christmas. It is the two times a year that I can shop, shop, shop with no guilt because:
a- my kids need clothes (actually just Harrison, Penny can still wear everything she wore last summer. Her smallness is paying off in one area.)
b- the clothes and toys are inexpensive, I've been to many consignment sales and MOTC has the cheapest prices by far.
c- I am not only buying, I am selling, and most sales I end up with a zero balance at the end. So I can spend, spend, spend! And Jamie can't say anything! Not that he ever would because he knows better then to mess with me. I will tear. him. up.

Other things:
- We had our first experience with the stomach flu this weekend and while it was terrible, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Except Penny did puke at a birthday party, but at least her first time will be memorable (and we were on tile, not carpet). And it made me really, really glad that we still have little potties so that Penny could experience all the pleasures of simultaneous vomiting/diarrhea while being hypnotized Despicable Me on TV. It made everything 200% better. I think we'll keep the little potties around until the kids leave for college, just for stomach flu purposes.

- We took the kids to see Frozen today, and I didn't hate it! As far as cartoons go, I will rank it somewhere between bearable and pleasurable. The kids loved it, and Harrison asked one million questions in an hour and a half time period, and literally jumped out of his seat during one of the snow monster scenes, which was hee-haw larious. But it cost us $30. So this means we'll see about one movie in the theater a year. Because I'm way too cheap for any more than that.

- My birthday is in one month and ten days.

- I went to a get together with my old doctoral cohort classmates and while I was really, really nervous about it and feeling like a huge loser and losing sleep over it, it was fine. Fun actually. Although I was told that my six year gap in employment is not going to be good for me when I try to go back to work. And having to paid on a doctorate schedule with said gap in employment is even worse. So maybe I'll never get a job again. Oh darn.

- I have been going to a chiropractor and am a total chiropractor convert now. Like I feel like I should go door- to- door evangelizing about it. Which makes me think of my old friend, the unfortunate Jehovah's Witness that came to my house every two weeks for about three years, which would make an awesome blog post because man was she a hot mess. Stay tuned...

Monday musings

HA! Monday musings, see what I did there? Like this will be something I will do every Monday. And no joke, while I was typing this I had to think to myself, 'Is today really Monday?' The joys of unemployment.

Basically, I'm calling this Monday musings because I really want to write a whole post about the biggest betrayal of my life but still want to maintain the light-heartedness of this family-friendly blog. Did I mention it is the BIGGEST. BETRAYAL. ofmylife  And the worst part is who the betrayer is. My very first husband. Shake My Damn Head.

See, Jamie got called to jury duty. Again. For the THIRD TIME! (There are going to be a lot of all caps in this blog post to help demonstrate my rage and betrayal.) Do you want to know how many times I've been called to jury duty?

This picture not only represents the blackness of my heart when Jamie gets called to jury duty and I don't, but also the number of times I've been called to jury duty.

Zero. Zero times. ZERO.

So today was Jamie's day to serve his civic duty. The last two times he just sat in some awesome room with all these flat screen TV's, massage tables, pedicure chairs, puppies, soft serve machines, and fountain soda dispensers that only have Coke Zero. He claims that none of this is actually there, that it's 'boring' and 'no Coke Zero machines' but I know he's full of shit. I'm pretty sure this picture I found when googling relaxation man is an accurate representation of Jamie's last two jury duty stints.

Don't be fooled by the laptop, he's looking at porn.

Well.WELL. The last two times, Jamie sat on the beach for a couple hours, drank some free craft beer, got a hand massage and got dismissed. But today.

TODAY...

He got picked as a juror. A real, honest-to-God juror. A little known fact about me is that my dream job has always been to be a juror. On career day in kindergarten, I came in a little dress with a number clipped to me with a notepad and pen to take all my important notes. Because of course I will be the forewoman of the jury, because of course. In any situation I've ever been in, I've always ended up the boss. I am a bossy person by nature, most say it is my best quality and what they love most about me. Jamie actually is always telling me to be more bossy, that he doesn't think I tell him what to do enough. It's something I'm working on. So of course I'm the forewoman.

Anyway, Jamie got picked to be a freaking juror, living MY dream, and he dares to act like it's some kind of burden. AND, AND!, the biggest slap in the face of all is that he has already said repeatedly that he will not tell me every single detail of the trial, and that he will not take copious notes and then take the notepad into the bathroom and take pictures of it with his phone and send me photos throughout the day so that I can give him my valuable input on how he should convict/not convict. How dare he. I thought we took vows, VOWS, but apparently this stupid oath he had to take today means more to him then our marriage. And he's not going to start manipulating and backstabbing jurors first thing in the morning to make sure he gets foreman. What a disappointment.

And then to pour salt in my open wound, I heard a little snippet on NPR today about jury selection beginning for Osama Bin Laden's something-in-law and I know my friend Brian got called to jury duty in New York City (because he rubbed it in my face like a jerk), and so I put on his facebook wall that I heard about this ultimate jury opportunity and turns out he got called to go TOMORROW which means I'm 99% positive Brian will be on the jury for Osama Bin Laden's something-in-law. And he would definitely be the foreman. The universe just keeps kicking me while I'm down.

To dreeeeeeammmm, the impossible dreeeeeeaaammmmm...

Jury Duty.