Warning: Marie Callender's WILL Actually Kill You

02/07/10-02/27/10 RIP Bird With No Name

He only lived 20 days, but I do believe he was happy. He ate himself to death. He died suddenly of cardiac arrest, also known in the bird world as flip-over disease or sudden death syndrome.

Turns out that Marie Callender's will in fact kill you.

OHMYGOSH, what a horrific scene we encountered as the children skipped ahead of me with handfuls of grass.

"MOM! MOM! There's a dead chicken in here and the other ones are EATING IT!!!"

I almost had a case of flip-over disease myself when I looked in there. Where were Bob and Jerry? NOWHERE TO BE FOUND!!!! I had to take a broom and the dustpan and scoop the dead chicken out of there.

The kids and I are going to need therapy for the rest of our lives.

As will you, because I am taking you with me.

So here is what I have learned. You absolutely CANNOT demand feed 24/7 with this breed. You absolutely HAVE to cut off their food supply. They absolutely will eat until they have a stroke or heart attack.

You will see a similar breed in humans at the buffet at Excalibur.

So I SHOULD have restricted their feed and growth at two weeks. I am a week behind here. It's quite possible I am going to have more fatalities because of this error.

I'm an overfeeder. I am actually too nurturing. Is this what I'm doing to Greg?

The chickens are on a diet starting today. I am afraid to go look in there today.

Now they can be miserable and hungry like the rest of us.

I'm Going To Give My Chickens A Heart Attack

My chickens are three weeks old today and are teenagers. They don't have all their feathers yet and they have definitely lost the cute chick appeal.

They've also lived in a shed for half of their lives so far. It's too cold still to let them out without feathers. Interestingly, I leave the door open to the shed every single day we are over 65, and they have zero desire to go outside. We have a board across the bottom that is 16 inches high. All of them could easily get out, but make no move to do so.

We were really warm a couple days ago, so I put three in the coop for the afternoon and they didn't even walk around. They laid on the ground next to the wall until I picked them up and put them back in the shed.

I've been reading a lot about this breed, the Cornish Jumbo X Rocks, and while they are NOT genetically engineered, they have been selectively bred for 60 years by university and industry personnel to produce a lot of meat in a short period of time, with a good feed/meat conversion.

They aren't bred for brains. They aren't like the other chickens at all. I'm feeling less and less sorry for the ones that are grown by commercial producers.



Did you know the "free range, organic" chickens in the supermarket are the same breed? In order to be called "free range", the chickens must have ACCESS to leave the shed. Yet, the chickens are too dumb to go outside even when they have a door, so most "free range" birds have never seen the light of day either. I believe that now because I've seen it with my own eyes.

I've read that these chickens will eat so much, they will actually give themselves a heart attack, and it's important to feed them 12 hours on and 12 hours off to prevent losses towards the end of their life cycle. Holy cow, humans will eat until they give themselves a heart attack too. Does this mean we are only as SMART AS A CHICKEN?

The four "laying hens" I got from the Crazy Chicken Woman have turned out to be two roosters so far. They started growing crowns on their heads a couple days ago. Looks like turning them upside down to sex them got us exactly a 50/50 ratio. Could I JUST DIE? The other two MIGHT end up being hens, but WHO KNOWS? I certainly don't.

I have designated Chicken Shed Shoes now. I put them on to go in and take them off as soon as I get out. I would have never believed it, but I no longer feel sick when I step on big giant piles of oozing shit. I can muck that shed out and not even gag once. I have to take a shovel and actually dig up the crap that is flattened down under the warming light and it doesn't even bother me anymore.

Do you even understand?

I throw down the diatanaceous earth on top of all the crap once a day, then layer fresh pine shaving over that, so I am only shoveling out every few days, yet keeping the chickens relatively clean. They've had no sores or problems at all. I read about the number of losses other people experience and I've had NONE.

All I know is that I went into this with the idealistic notion that I would do such a better job than Tyson, and minus antibiotics, I'm pretty much raising them the exact same way.



Except I feed mine all our table food, so they dine on ham, baked potatoes, salad, asparagus, squash, baked beans, oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar, big bunches of fresh grass, and Marie Callender's Double Cream Blueberry Pie for dessert. You should see them run around, fighting over raisins. They LOVE raisins and blueberries and grass. The kids pick giant mounds of grass and throw it in the shed every day and they go nuts over it.

If these chickens don't have a heart attack, I will be extremely surprised.

Time For The Superior Moms To Weigh In

The most amazing thing happened this week. We went to the library and Sarah and Gregory picked out their own books from the Early Readers area, then they came home and read them independently.

Wow. It only took two solid years of reading phonics books with them to get to this point. They were so excited. And I told them that now that they could read on their own, they could discover whole different worlds through reading, and how I spent my whole childhood with my nose in a book. We were positively giddy over here from the excitement of it.

Amanda was a little upset that she isn't to that point yet, but it really got her interested in her phonics books again. You gotta love competition.

I have to tell you that so far, they are having an extremely positive kindergarten experience. I had absolutely the lowest expectations possible for the Clark County School District, but this new teacher has really thrown in some actual curriculum and they are coming home every day now with new concepts that I didn't teach them.

A couple days ago, they came home and told me what a syllable was, then demonstrated their knowledge by clapping out the number of syllables in every word they knew. It was absolutely adorable for the first hour.

The second hour of clapping made me want to say, "SHUT-UP." Clap. Clap. Two syllables.

Even though I was warned at how dreadful homework would be, I have to say that it has not been at all terrible. The kids have no memory of NOT doing schoolwork with me. We've been homeschooling since 2.5. I have a totally trashed kitchen table to prove it.



The homework they get right now does not even begin to encompass the amount of time they spend at the kitchen table working on "projects".



They are constantly, constantly, constantly making something. All. Day. Long. They are gluing, beading, drawing, stapling, and hole-punching almost non-stop. You would have to see it in action to believe it. My friend Jodie went home and slept 11 hours the next day after spending just one day at my house.

So, anyway, when some other moms with kids in kindergarten started griping about homework, I totally couldn't relate. I print out extra worksheets several times a week to supplement their homework, so I totally didn't get it. I had another triplet mom rip me a new one. She has triplets in sixth grade and she told me I have no idea what's coming and she spends hours helping her kids with their homework.

Of course, I couldn't let that one slide. Should you be helping a child in SIXTH GRADE for HOURS with their homework? Whose homework is it exactly? Will she go to work with her kids too someday? Or will they still live at home when they are 40 and be named JERRY?

So when I questioned her philosophy of micromanaging her sixth graders, this is the response I got.

"If by meaning I feel superior to someone that has virtually NO experience with older school aged children than yes, I guess my manner came off as condescending. So what. I'm a "seasoned" mom and proud of it. I've earned the privilege of feeling superior to those with less experience. And not afraid to admit that I am."

Whoa. Wouldn't you want her for a mom?

I guess I'm completely unseasoned, because the way I saw the homework thing going is that it would get harder for a period of time, until the kids could read directions and start working independently. Then it would get easier FOR ME. Sure it will continue to get harder. But not FOR ME.

Perhaps some of you more seasoned parents can weigh in on that.

At any rate, on the day I went to the dentist, I left Greg in charge of homework and reading. He has NEVER once done their homework with them. He NEVER helped me homeschool them. NOT. ONE. TIME.

When I got home, everyone was crying and Greg was yelling at everyone. I had just switched up the phonics books to harder sets for each child, so they were being introduced to completely new sound blends. Of course they aren't going to get it immediately. I go over the rules for new sound blends and we go over the words before we read the books.

"These kids can't read AT ALL.", Greg was bellowing.

"Daddy's mean and I never want to do homework with him again.", Gregory told me.

So it dawned on me. Homework is hard for people who have never worked with their kids. Homework is hard if you don't get the concept of how children learn or how to convey your message. Homework is hard if you get frustrated and YELL AT YOUR CHILDREN during the whole process. I enjoy teaching the kids.

But don't get me wrong, I have every intention of weaning them off my help as soon as humanely possible. My only goal in pottytraining was to get them to wipe their own butts as soon as possible so I would no longer have any part of the process. So while I cannot imagine not being interested in what they are doing in school, I absolutely do not want to be involved in all the busywork.

What say you about all this, seasoned moms? Should I expect to spend hours and hours of my life doing homework with my middle-schoolers? This is your chance to feel superior.

How about you other kindergarten moms? Are you having my experience or Greg's experience with homework?

I'm looking for seasoned moms that taste like garlic and thyme only though. If you taste like ASS, or have triplets in sixth grade, you can skip this one.

Thank God For My Pretend Internet Friends

We do not have dental insurance. We have a discounted dental plan, which is barely better than taking your chances and getting fillings in Mexico.

A year ago, which is the last time I had my teeth cleaned, my Used-Car-Salesman-Turned-Dentist told me I needed a crown. I didn't believe him, so I ignored his advice. But then I took a good look in my mouth a few weeks ago and thought it was looking pretty bad and called my dentist to make an appointment.

His number was disconnected.

So I picked Austin up from school and drove to his office. The door was locked and all the furniture and equipment was gone. But I had my list of discount dental providers, so Austin and I started driving around to check them out.

They were ALL out of business. I am not even kidding. GONE. People are not taking care of their teeth in Las Vegas during this recession!

At the third office, I had to coax Austin out of the car with the promise of a sweet treat at home if he would just PLEASE go into one more place with me. We walked in and were immediately engulfed in a thick smoke. They SMOKED in the OFFICE.



Austin started choking and fell down on the shag carpeting, while holding his nose.

"Get off the floor. NOW!", I started scream-hissing.

If you don't live in Las Vegas, you are probably shocked that someone would smoke in a dental office, but Las Vegas is the last hold-out for smokers. We are like the Smoking Bastillion. We only just banned smoking in the grocery store a couple years ago, and who can forget when I went to check out a preschool a few years ago and they were smoking in it?




People love them some cigarettes here. They'll give up their cigarettes when you pry them out of their cold, dead fingers. This isn't just Nevada, THIS IS AMERICA, gosh darn it. Don't you dare turn us into California where all the fruits and nuts live.

So, finally, the receptionist/dental assistant came to the counter with her heavily sprayed and back-combed hair. I didn't see a computer in the place. We started chatting about how long the dentist had been in practice, and how all the young whippersnappers were out of business, when I mentioned to her I had triplets, and they all needed their teeth cleaned. I tell people I have triplets even when they aren't with me so I can feel important.

She pointed to Austin, who was on the ground rolling around on the shag carpet, and asked if he was one of the triplets? Then she whipped out a photo from the 1950s and told me her mother had two sets of identical twins. She was part of an identical girl set, and then her mother had identical twin boys after her and her sister. Do you guys read Heather's blog at Itstwinsanity?

I don't know Heather. I've just been reading her blog for three years.

So I said to the receptionist/dental hygenist, "NO WAY. I KNOW someone with two sets of identical twins, first girls then boys!!! Get out of here!"

Then I started telling this lady, who sounded like Homer Simpson's sister, Marge, all about Heather. And we laughed about it.

"Did your mother breastfeed all four of you at the same time? My friend did."

Oh, she didn't? What a wimp!

Do you guys do that too? Talk about people you don't know like you know them? I know my friend Jodie does.

She once went into a lengthy conversation at the State Fair about her "friend who raises goats".

"Uh, Jodie, who do we know that raises goats?", Fred asked.

"You know, uh....... my friend."

"Jodie, who do we know that raises goats?", Fred demanded.

"You don't know her."

"Jodie..... we've been married for 25 years. Who do we know that raises goats?"

"Ohmygosh, MOM! It's a blog! It's a BLOG!", Jodie's daughter exclaimed.

"Do you leave comments on her blog?", Fred asked.

"Well.....no."

"Do you email her?"

"No."

"Jodie, she's not your friend."

"But she could be!"

I do that with Greg all the time. He often asks me if I am talking about a "real" friend or one of my "pretend internet friends"?

So I made an appointment against my better judgement since the receptionist/dental assistant and I had so much in common. She was a multiple. I had multiples. We were practically cousins.



Then I got home and immediately started freaking out. What if he dripped ashes in my eyes when he was working on my teeth? He was in his seventies. Was his hand still steady? Would he drill out my brain? Was his equipment as clean as his flooring?

So I got on Facebook and posted, "Would you go to a dentist who smokes in his office?"

Then all my pretend internet friends are like, "Nooooooooo. Helllll, no."

Then my friend, Joselle, who used to be my "pretend internet friend" and then became my "real friend" responds and tells me to go to her her doctor, Dr. Phan. Shout out to Dr. Phan Nguyen, the best dentist in Las Vegas.

And I did. He was on my plan! And guess what? I didn't need a crown! My tooth, while heavily coffee-stained, is not decayed. I went in there telling him I needed a crown and he was like, "No ya don't." This dentist is the best dentist I've been to since my neighbor Andy retired. I am thrilled to have a REAL dentist.

That saved me $600!!!!!

So the moral to this story?

You just never know when your "pretend internet friends" will become your "real friends" and watch out for you.

Or become stalkers.

So if I read your blog, I know you and I've totally got your back.

The Republican Garden

I used to drop Austin off at preschool and then quickly make the store circuit to fill up the 2 hours of freedom.

Target
Trader's
Dollar Tree
Big Lots

Not particularly in that order.

Now I drop off Austin and jump on the freeway and fly to the feed store, where you can see my minivan in between 15 Ford F350 pickups, with bumper stickers similar to this one.



Do Democrats not have farm animals? What the heck? I have to lay low in the feed store.

When I ran back to pick up Austin, my friend Laura and her husband Don gave me a bunch of seedlings for my summer garden.



As Don handed me the tomatoes, cantaloupes, peppers, jalapenos, beans, peas, and watermelons, he said, "This is a Republican garden, Michele. You don't have to give it any money, and it will grow all on its own."

Do you see what I put up with? I am surrounded by Republicans. Surrounded. I am like my own island in a sea of Republicans.

So if those seedlings fail to grow, I know who to blame.

Even though I dislike chickens, I am starting to get a little apprehensive about killing them. I just want Jerry and Bob to do it humanely, so I have started researching the best ways to go about the task.

Jerry told me that you turn them upside down and stick their heads under your boot and then yank real hard and rip their heads clean off. That totally does not sound right to me. He was completely drunk when he said it, so it's hard to tell if he was being stupid or if that is their actual plan.

I would prefer to use a killing cone and slit their throats. I read that you can use an orange safety cone and you turn it upside down, stick their head through, and cut their jugular, then you keep them upside down until they bleed out.

If not that way, I would prefer to use a hatchet.

All I know is that my other neighbor, Bobbie, said she used to hang hers on her clothesline to bleed out, and to please let her know when we are slaughtering because she would love to help out. She's a Democrat and enjoys helping others in need.

I really didn't completely think this whole chicken thing through from beginning to end and now I am going to force you to live through this with me.

HELP!

I should have stuck with Republican gardening.

IVF Is No Longer A Crapshoot

"In the United States, the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology reported that the use of single-embryo transfers is increasing, and the frequency of triplet births is down to below 2 percent."

This was in an article I read in the paper yesterday. Did I call this a couple weeks ago when I said that the number of new triplet moms had plummeted and we just weren't seeing any new multiple moms joining our group?

Someday we'll all sit around and laugh about it.

"Remember back when IVF was like sooooooooo caveman, and people had triplets?"

BAHAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHA!

Give me another martini.

Can you believe that much can change in 6.5 years?

The other good news in that article is that the vast majority of the 3 million children born through IVF are healthy and normal. Count my three. They are all extremely healthy. Whew.

Give me another martini.

The article did, however, say they found a 5 to 10 percent difference in chromosomes in IVF children versus other kids. Nobody knows what that means yet since the oldest person born via IVF is only 32, and nobody has lived to middle age who was conceived using assisted reproduction.

I'm not going to worry about that though. I conceived Austin the good old-fashioned way, and he has a brain tumor the size of a golf ball in the middle of his brain. Who would have ever thought that my IVF, premature triplets would be completely healthy, and my natural, full term singleton would have the health problem?

I DIDN'T. I still wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats from that whole ordeal.

Life is a complete crap shoot.

Apparently IVF is no longer a crapshoot though. So now my friends with just triplets, when are you going back to try for number four?

I Don't Love Stuff As Much As Other People

I belong to a lot of online support forums, because I have a lot of issues. And if there is anything I have learned from belonging to support forums, it's that I don't love stuff as much as other people.

I don't. I just don't.

If you have been part of an online support forum, then you know that each one has its own atmosphere and social rules. The majority opinion rules.

I learned by being part of the Triplet Connection that it does not matter how many children you have or have at once, if you need help, YOU ARE A WIMP. You can have 37 children, and someone else has 38 children and has done it all alone for 25 years. If you are completely out of your mind and ready to drown your children in a bathtub, SUCK IT UP.

I learned I don't love my children as much as other people, because I hired a mother's helper and had help for 2 years in the afternoon. I accept it. I did not love them as much as other people, because I couldn't stand them in the afternoons for the first three years of their lives. I gave birth to four children in 16 months. I feel I was ENTITLED to help.

You will still find me on the Triplet Connection, telling people to hire someone for their own sake. I tell people to stay in their old Scooby Doo vans and hire a college girl instead. I accept that other people love being with their kids 24/7, 365 days a year though. Rock on, you bunch of sadists!!!

When I discovered Amanda could not handle food dye and preservatives, I turned to Mothering.com to learn more about natural living.

I learned on that forum that I don't love gardening as much as other people, because I won't use my menstrual blood to fertilize my tomatoes. Seriously. Get me a big bag of Miracle Grow. I accept that you love your garden more than me, and if you have salad at my house, it won't be because I had my period all over it.

I learned that I don't love the Earth as much as other people, because I won't use cloth toilet paper. You can open another landfill before I will soak and wash a cloth Greg has used to wipe his ass. I accept I will never be an environmentalist. I buy toilet paper in a box the size of my grocery cart at Sam's Club. I am okay with just liking the Earth. It's just okay.

I also learned on their parenting forums, the term "Nighttime Parenting", and that if my children ever slept alone or through the night before they are ten, they will grow up to be sociopaths and likely kill me in my sleep someday.



I accept that I love my sleep more than my children's future stability. I actually locked mine up in crib tents until they were three. Oops?! I don't "parent" at night. I'm ASLEEP.

I have now turned to BackyardChickens.com to get chicken support. I need chicken support.

I have learned a lot.

I have already learned that I don't love my chickens as much as other people, because I don't KISS my chickens. These chicken people got in a flamewar over kissing chickens. The vast majority of people on that forum kiss their chickens. Some people kiss their chickens on their beaks and let their chickens peck their teeth in their MOUTHS.



Here is the thread. Check it out yourself.

My chickens have poop that comes out of their butts like chocolate soft-serve ice cream. Then they peck it off of each other and lay in it. They are the most DISGUSTING THINGS I HAVE EVER SEEN.



I cleaned this shed yesterday morning and every square inch of the floor is covered in chicken poop.

I would put a pile of dog crap on a stick and call it a Popsicle before I would MAKE OUT WITH A CHICKEN.

I started emailing my friend Leslie almost immediately upon finding that thread.

"Do you kiss your chickens?", I emailed.


"I like them, but that is a little excessive.", she replied.

"Thank God, or I would have flown there and smacked you with a flyswatter."

"Let's make that rule number three. Lucy can smack another Lucy with a flyswatter if they act stupid.", Leslie emailed back.

I second that motion.

So for now, I will take the expert chicken advice knowing I just don't love my chickens as much as other people. I will continue getting support online because I have a lot of issues.

I'm just not passionate about ANYTHING.

Does anyone know if there is a support forum for people who don't love stuff as much as others?

Sign me up! I need help.

Can Humans Make Chickens Sick?

Greg took his first trip ever to Urgent Care last night.

No. He did not wreck his dirt bike.

He has an ear infection from this horrible illness we've had for 10 days. Greg got the regular flu shot and I got the H1N1 and we both got this awful illness. So whatever this is, mark my words, in 2 or 3 months the media will be declaring another national emergency, and I will say, "We had it."

You have never seen anyone in as much pain as Greg was in last night. He tried to drill his eardrum out with a q-tip. I finally whipped out the Ear Check Monitor, which I HIGHLY recommend if you have little ones.



You can get this at Walmart now. It uses sound waves to measure the amount of fluid in the inner ear and determine if your child (or husband) has an ear infection. Greg was way up in the red. I tried putting ear numbing drops in his ear to ease the pain and he started moaning.

This is the same guy who sutured his own arm in college, with a fifth of Jack Daniels and a needle and thread so he wouldn't have to pay a co-payment. He used to be RAMBO.

Maybe he does need that dirt bike to get back a piece of the magic.

So now he's on antibiotics. He can't figure out why all five of us didn't get as sick as him. Uh, hello, SAMBUCOL and ENGYSTOL. We've eaten four bottles of sambucol tablets and one entire bottle of 100 tablets of engystol, and that's still only a fraction of the cost of five co-pays and five or more prescriptions.

It's well worth the money. Our kids have not been in for a sick visit since December 2008. But he thinks it's all witchcraft. I actually feel bad for him. He is miserable and I am so glad I didn't go skiing.

On the chicken front, I have started giving the chickens all our table scraps. They eat EVERYTHING.



Look at the difference in size between the meat chicken and the rare exotic chick. They were hatched on the same day!!!!!

The chickens eat broccoli, rice, green beans, lettuce, french toast, turkey sandwiches, and cabbage so far. I fed them nearly 4 pounds of leftovers yesterday and they ate all of it. Putting chickens on table food has been so much easier than putting children on table food.

They sound like they have colds today though. They are making this weird sound like they are congested. Can chickens get sick from humans? Could they have gotten sick eating our leftovers because they had our germs on them? Do chickens have ears? Do I need to use my Ear Check Monitor on them?

If they are sick, we'll be eating some really tiny drumsticks because I will not take them in. I won't. There is no way I will take a chicken to the vet.

The Payback For The Cruise

For all of you that said my husband was SO GREAT because he was letting me go on a cruise, I say you don't know my husband. I KNEW he was up to something when that came so easily. I knew there was no way I was going to just get to go on a cruise.



He came home with a dirt bike yesterday. He didn't even tell me he was buying it!!!!!

This would be great, except he's not in his twenties. He's going to be 47 years old next week. He played football in college and has aches and pains.

So am I thrilled to think of him taking that Death Machine out in the desert?

NO!

I was so mad yesterday, I thought I was going to have an aneurysm. I was FURIOUS. When I saw him pull into the driveway, I was mopping the floor with my Shark Steam mop, and I started jamming on it so hard, I BROKE IT.

I told him if he falls off that thing and gets paralyzed, I AM NOT GOING TO TAKE CARE OF HIM. I told him if he does it to himself on that and he's on life support, I WILL PULL THE PLUG.

OMG. Is this a mid life crisis? Remember when he wouldn't cut his hair all last year? He did, finally, thank God.

My friend Helene told me he's going to buy a Corvette and grow a goatee next. You women with older husbands, do they all go through this phase?

Biking: It's So Retro

There are 475 students at my children's elementary school and these are the bike racks. Most days, there are no bikes in there at all. But yesterday, there were two. The gate is locked when we get there for afternoon kindergarten. I guess to keep the bike racks from getting stolen?

It's a ghost town.



We have more than doubled the bike riding population to school. Then you know what happened? Another boy started riding his bike too. Then ANOTHER boy started riding his bike. I'm causing a rebellion. FIVE kids are riding their bikes to kindergarten now.

GASP!

The kids and I either walk, bike, (or I drive the electric Razor), every single day now because Greg has been driving Austin to preschool.

I have actually watched neighbors pull out of their driveway, drive 2 blocks, then drop their child off at school. 2 BLOCKS. Then drive back home. 2 BLOCKS.

Do your kids ride their bikes to school? (Not you people with 20 feet of snow, but you know, the rest of you.)

I bought them all new helmets last week, and while we were standing in line to pay for them, they told the lady in front of us that they were riding their bikes to school.

"Is that safe?", she asked me, like the thought of it was too shocking for her.

People ride BIKES?

So even though Greg let me have it for spending too much money lately, when the kids got home from school yesterday, he took Gregory and Sarah to Walmart and bought them new 20 inch bikes. They had outgrown their 16 inch ones. I cannot believe they are on 20 inch bikes already. These are their third set of bikes!!!! Please, please, please tell me these will last longer than two years.

We are going bankrupt for sure. But think of how much gas I'm saving with the biking. Like two GALLONS a year!

I'm Going To Be Living In A Pop-Up Trailer

Okay. I am going. I worked on my passport application all morning yesterday.

I don't have a PASSPORT. I have only ever been in Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean and that was all before 9/11 and you didn't need anything.

I didn't even have a birth certificate until a few years ago. I lost my original one in Mexico on Spring Break, when I lied to my mother and drove my brand new car there when I was 18.



I am NOT the one in the shell bikini, but wasn't our hair awesome?

So, anyway, there are probably 75 Mexicans living in America right now with my maiden name. I hope they are also paying into my social security fund, because I sure as heck haven't been and I will probably end up living in a pop-up trailer at the rate I'm going.

I am really, really, really sick. Greg is really, really, really sick. He got into such a coughing fit last night that he thought he was having a heart attack. I woke up soaking wet in a pool of sweat. I can't even talk today. Greg can't either.

I am going to have to cancel my ski trip, I'm afraid. There is NO WAY I am going to be able to ski with this. I can barely ski when I'm healthy. I am the worst skier you have ever seen and you would laugh if you saw me.

Greg taught me how to ski. He took me to the very top of Lee Canyon and said, "Okay. Go. SNOW PLOW."

And I fell all the way down the mountain, while cussing at him.

I am only slightly better than a three year old at skiing now. Those little bitty kids go flying by me.

So I am going to Europe and not going skiing.

I'll just stay here and feed the Shit Blobs, I mean chickens. They've eaten almost a 20 pound bag of feed and are the size of a quail already.

They are going to be the most expensive chickens ever grown. When I'm living in a pop-up trailer someday because I've spent all my money, I'm going to get more.

What Would Lucy Do?

People call me out of the blue and ask me to go on vacation all the time.

Whenever someone doesn't want to do something alone, they call me.

That's how I ended up in Manhattan three years ago. My friend Kathleen called and told me she had a condo for 5 days and did I want to join her?

When I went to South Beach, my friend Melanie called me and said she was going anyway and already had a hotel room, and did I want to join her?

The trip I'm going on this weekend? My friend Laurie already has the timeshare in Tahoe, so she invited me and all I have to do is pay my plane ticket to get there.

I am open to travel. If you are going somewhere, I will join you.

1. Never turn down a trip.

My friend Leslie, who is controlling my life right now, said that was her grandmother's number one rule.

My friend Laurie called me again a few days ago and invited me on a 12 day Mediterranean cruise.



I would fly to London, spend the afternoon and night, and then fly to Barcelona, where we would depart, go to Nice, Florence, Rome, Croatia, Venice, and Naples.

Greg told me that if I ever want to see Europe, I should go, because he will NEVER go to Europe. He has ZERO desire to travel abroad. His mother won't travel abroad either. I don't know why. I tried to tell Greg the world is not flat and he won't fall off if he crosses the sea, but he is NOT interested.



So he is giving me his full blessing to go.

Yet, I cannot decide if I should. When I think about going, I am overwhelmed with anxiety. I would be away for over 2 weeks. Far, far, far away. What if the kids got sick. Or what if there was an emergency?

I don't have any clothes for Europe. I buy my clothes at Target on the 75 percent off clearance racks. Can you go to Europe in a shirt that cost $1.99 and has been washed 75 times?

What if I hate being on a ship? I have cruised before when I was 22 and I am not crazy about ships. They're just okay.

Then there is the airfare. I've got my eye on a pop-up trailer, gosh darn it. My plan was to go on the Griswold National Park extravaganza this summer. I want to go to Yellowstone and Glacier National Park and Mt Rushmore. And somehow fit in Yosemite. I can't do both. I can't go on a cruise AND take the family all over America this summer.

Sooooooooooooo, if you had to make a choice between cruising Europe or camping in a pop-up trailer with four kids, what would you do?

What would Lucy do?

I'm Going To End Up With Mormon Grandchildren

My friends are all on the verge of becoming Mormon.

If you would have told me that three years ago, I would have said, "No way. I can't imagine it."

But three years is a long time and it's hard to explain, but if you live in Las Vegas and you have a lot of children, the Mormon culture is very attractive from an outsider's point of view.

Especially if your kids are going to public school here. The Mormon kids are so nice, and respectful, and clean cut.

In my circle of friends, we are all stay-at-home moms due to the large number of children we have. Mormon women are stay-at-home moms for the most part too. When you stay at home, you get crafty. Mormon women are the craftiest women I have ever met. Your world circles around cooking and feeding your family when you stay at home and have a gaggle of children. Mormon women bake a lot. When you stay at home, your world revolves around entertaining your kids. Mormon women know where every event is going on. Where do you think I get all my ideas?

I knew I had crossed over to a different universe when I was sitting on the bench outside of gym at the Community Center, and a Mormon mom said to me, "Did you see that Big Lots has all the Martha Stewart crafts on sale for a $1.99?"

And I was like, "Ohmygosh, I KNOW. I just bought TEN."

There is just a tremendous amount of common interest. So when two of my friends in the last month said that their kids were going to Sunday School at the Mormon church, or going to social events at the Mormon church, it didn't even freak me out. I totally GET IT.

And I haven't mentioned it, but their classmate invited Gregory to church a few weeks ago.

And before you freak out and say, "I told you, Michele. They are recruiting you.", I have to tell you that we live in an old ward and there are no children in it. So Gregory's classmate goes to Primary and is the ONLY boy his age in his Sunday School class. So he invited Gregory so he would have a FRIEND.

And I would have let him go, but Greg wouldn't let him. He said Gregory wasn't going anywhere without us. He might get molested.

"Isn't your church the church that molests people?", I asked him.

Greg wouldn't let him go. Period. I thought it would be fun for him, like a playdate without his sisters. I told Greg about there not being any children in our ward.

"It sounds like a dying religion then.", he said before saying NO again.

And you know me, the non-believer. I am in no danger of suddenly seeing the light. I just like the Mormon culture. It's not just a religion. It is truly a culture if you live in a place where there is enough people.

I like the kids. I like the women. I don't really know any men, except our Super Creepy Mormon neighbor. So the jury is still out on the men. Remind me to write about him someday. He is a freak and probably drove off all the young people with children in this ward.

So I've heard the Reader's Digest version of what Mormons believe, and while I don't believe it, it sounded plausible. It actually made more sense to me than my own religion. Although if the version I got was correct and Greg is going to be my God in the next universe, I would have chosen my mate more wisely.

Anyway, at the rate of conversion going on around me, if we stay in Las Vegas, I can bet you a hundred bucks that someone I know will get married in the temple, and I'll be standing outside with a flask of coffee hidden in my jacket, waiting for the reception.

And it will probably be one of my kids. You watch. Mark it on your calendar. I called it.

You're FIRED!

The plague of 2010 has hit us hard.

Since I've been in the classroom, I can tell you that everyone has it. The teacher is sick. The kids are all hacking like it's a hospital ward.



I have it. The only person who doesn't appear to have it yet is the aide. That's because she's so lazy, the germs probably don't even want to bother getting on her. I know how to plug the huge school deficit. I'm going to just get a clipboard and walk around firing lazy people.

"You? You have to go work at DMV now. You're FIRED!!!!"

Seriously. She sits in a chair and tries to interact as little as possible with anyone, while watching the clock.

If for any reason she has to actually do something as vigorous as STANDING UP, she sighs like she might actually DIE.

"You're FIRED!"



Meanwhile, I'm running around from center to center helping people. Which is fine with me, because I love those kids. I really, really love them all.

I was working in the sorting center yesterday, where they were supposed to be sorting pictures in categories. So one category was stuff that would belong on a farm.

One little boy grabbed a lion and put it in the farm category.

"Would a lion live on a farm or a zoo?", I asked him, while watching Lazy Linda brace herself from falling out of the chair she was parked in.

He didn't know.

"Have you ever been to the zoo?", I asked him.

"No."

"Have you ever been to a farm?"

"No."



Isn't that SAD?

I might have to schedule a field trip to MY farm. Or bring the chickens in for Show And Tell.

"What do we get from chickens?", I asked another group when we did the farm category again.

They shrugged.

"Do you know what a Chicken McNugget is??

YES! YES!

"That used to be a chicken."

I'm telling you. This is advanced stuff we are working on. Too advanced for Lazy Linda though.

If she had to get through the night I had last night, she would likely be in a coma this morning.

Gregory has the croup. He started seal barking around 11pm. I was up with him nearly ever hour the entire night, until I took him to bed with me so I could nudge him to breathe when he started gurgling for air.

When I drifted back to sleep, Austin came in to say he wet his bed.

Around 4:30, both girls woke up hacking and crying. So I ran to them and took care of them and got them back to sleep, only to have Gregory back up at 5am.

Life with multiples is so glamorous, I can see why people want to FAKE HAVING THEM.

Too Bad For You Guys

What a difference a year makes! Last year getting the kids to sign 120 Valentine's Day cards was torture.

This year it took Amanda 10 minutes to sign her name to 30 cards.

She even taped all her own lollipops on. Then she did Austin's cards for him.

Awesome!

Austin had his first of two Valentine's Day parties and I volunteered to bring the Ranch dressing. I don't think it's fair of me to hog up all the fun from the mothers with younger kids. They should have their chance to BAKE ALL DAY too. I'm a giver like that.

I didn't realize it when I took this picture, but Austin was eating a fruit roll-up with the plastic on it. He ATE plastic. I didn't even know what he was eating because I have never bought those before.

GAH!

Austin has another Valentine's Day party today. I'm bringing carrots. Then the kids have their Valentine's Day party in the afternoon. I am volunteering to do the craft. I can't get out of everything.

Because of my friend Leslie ALL THE WAY IN HAWAII, I ended up calling a woman on Craigslist that had baby chicks for sale. Then I ended up driving out to her house.

And let me tell you right now, you would not have believed it.

She had turned every square inch of her backyard into a zoo. She had like 100 chickens, and a 100 quail, and five goats, and 30 turkeys. She had tilapia and bass growing IN HER POOL. Then everywhere there wasn't animals or piles of shoveled up poop, she had rows and rows of vegetables growing.

Let me stress here that this was not a FARM. This was a house on a street with other houses.

She was a riot! She told me she only works when she runs out of money.

"Do you have to buy any food?", I asked her.

So she went on and on and on about chickens and I tried to retain a fraction of what she told me, and all I can remember is if my chickens start coughing, feed them mint.

Then I bought four chickens from her. They're just mutts. She did her own scientific test to sex them for me.

She grabbed them by their legs and held them upside down. If they went limp, she said they were boys. If they curled up, they were girls.

So I got the curled up ones. Two brown ones and two black ones.

Let's take bets on whether they are hens. If they are hens, they lay brown and green eggs. If they are roosters, I am predicting a short lifespan.

Someone left me a comment yesterday that poultry prices are going to go up due to the record snowfall collapsing chicken barns.

That's really too bad for YOU GUYS.

Introducing The Nonuplets

Remember the fourteen year old triplet mom faker last month?

SHE'S BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCKKKKKK!!!!

She has a new fake blog. Only this time, she isn't messing around with triplets. This time she has NONUPLETS. That would be nine. She had them at 22 weeks, so only five lived. The other four are buried in her garden, according to her new blog. Nevermind that the absolute earliest a baby can survive is 23 weeks. She is shattering records all over the place. Heck, according to Wikepedia, there has only been three cases EVER of nonuplets born.

This is her surviving nonuplet's picture. You know what's really cool? How the second baby from the left is part Giant. Pretty piss poor Photoshop job, eh?

But not bad for a fourteen year old, I guess. Probably better than I could do, actually.

So when she isn't pretending to have surviving nonuplets, she is impersonating Kate Gosselin on Twitter too. I don't think you can get in trouble for pretending to be a nonuplet mom, but you might get in trouble for impersonating a celebrity.

Can you believe it? You have no idea how many emails I got saying I was going to get SUED for slandering this POOR GIRL. Yet, here she is a month later, back to her old tricks.

One of the officers in MOST, the organization of Mothers Of Supertwins, said that fakers rarely can stay away. Even when they get caught, they reinvent themselves and start over. I thought for sure that Marley's parents would pull the plug on her computer time. But I guess nobody really cares about this kid.

Meanwhile, I can't wait to see what's next. I didn't even know that nine babies were nonuplets. Did you? What would 25 chickens be? Quartuplets?

I'm the mother of quartuplets. And I'm still mean.

I've Found A Vortex

s

Gregory's new night light. He picked it out himself at Target. He slept in his own bed all night. However, he did get up and come and tell me that he wasn't scared and didn't need me.

I cannot tell you how relieved I was to be woken up and told that. Whew.



It's just so strange that he developed a fear of the dark. I've kept their rooms pitch black since birth. I put tin foil on the windows, behind the blinds, then I nailed blankets on top of all that to keep even one ray of sunshine from getting in.

My sister accused me of raisng three Helen Kellers.

But there was no confusing when it was time to sleep. You can't play if it is pitch black and discouraging playing when you have three in a room is a pretty big deal. They have always been great sleepers. I don't know for sure if it was because they were in a tomb, but I traveled with tin foil just in case.

I took all that stuff down when they turned three. By then, they already had their sleep patterns solidified and it no longer seemed to matter.

So I am writing this at night and I don't know how night number 2 is going to go yet. Check in the comments and I will update. I spent an enormous amount of time telling Gregory the lantern night light wards off bad dreams and bad luck and he believed me.

My sister told me to do this and if it really works, I won't hear the end of it until I'm 92.



The chickens are feeders and growers. They all still look incredibly healthy. Bob and Jerry seemed surprised that none of them have died yet. I read all the reviews and blogs about McMurray's before I ordered and I couldn't find a single bad experience with their chickens.

The kids and I were standing in the chicken shed yesterday with Bob and Jerry and their friend, Mr. Conspiracy Theorist/Old Hippie Guy.

We were all in a trance, just watching the chickens, when Mr. Conspiracy Theorist/Old Hippie Guy said, "This is spiritual, man. If more people raised chickens, Vietnam would have never happened."

Then he told me for the next 27 minutes why that theory was sound. I couldn't possibly connect the dots to repeat what he said, but I found myself saying, "Yeah. Yeah."

Then he told me if I want to add some good omegas to my diet, I should eat hemp seeds. Then he went on and on about indoor gardening. That's when I realized he was stoned out of his gourd.

But I felt the energy, man. I did. I really, really did.

The chicken shed has become a vortex, man.

If you don't know what a vortex is, you aren't from Arizona. :)

Would You Like A Leg Or A Breast?

The kids and I pulled into the driveway yesterday from Target and our mailman was there. I've written about him before. He has Elvis hair.

"Your chickens are angry.", he laughed.

They were all shook up.

He had come all the way to the house with them. I was supposed to go to the station to get them. They were supposed to call when they came in. I wasn't READY.



So we immediately ditched karate and I did what any suburban housewife would do.



I put them in laundry baskets. They were all alive!!!! They made it from Iowa from McMurray's Hatchery alive!!! They even threw in one extra rare exotic breed chick for free.



And he didn't look so good. He couldn't walk and I thought, "Oh, no. Oh, no. Is his leg mangled?"



So we got them across the street and Bob taught us how to teach them how to drink.



The boys even did it!



The kids are so excited, I cannot even begin to tell you. If you are wondering, they know that we are going to eat them. We've talked about it a lot. We probably won't eat the rare breed exotic chick. They have named him Brownie.


Keep me warm, brother.

The chicks are all extraordinarily healthy. They all took to eating and drinking right away. In fact, they've eaten so much, they already ate two trays of food. Can they overeat like goldfish?



Does this one look like a Chicken And Dumplings? That's his name.



This is Kung Pao Chicken.



This one is Rotisserie.



You don't look like us! Stay away from our food, you impostor!

Brownie is doing great. I don't think he knew how to walk yet. Now he's up and running and eating and he's skittish. He pecks his way right in with the Big Boys though.

The only problem we might run into is Bob and Jerry's dog named Bitch.



The kids think her name is Isabelle. She's a bird killer. Bob and Jerry ran electricity the length of the fence to keep her out. She killed the last chickens they had. If Bitch kills my chickens before I do, I am going to be very upset.

I cannot tell you how exciting yesterday was. I was nearly swooning.

I got a message for you, Mr. Big Food Corporation Executive. You can spend billions and billions of dollars telling people what to eat, how to eat it, and how much to eat. You can spend billions on your deceptive advertising that dupes our nation into becoming sick and fat, while you become richer and richer by putting the small guy out of business, all the while feeding us hormones and antibiotics and chemicals and telling us it's good for us. But guess what?

You don't OWN ME.

I can make my own food. SO THERE!

Is Six Too Late To Cry It Out?

We went for our first real family bike ride yesterday.



By real family bike ride, I mean all the kids are on bikes without training wheels and I was on a bike, too, rather than running behind them trying to keep them from getting run over.



At 4.5 years old, Austin has graduated from the little 12 inch bike he learned to ride on a few weeks ago, and is now on a 16 inch bike, which means he can go as fast as all of them.



He accepts ZERO help from me. I am telling you that he learned how to ride a bike 100 percent on his own. He truly has NO IDEA that he is not six years old. Shhhhhh. Don't tell him.

So that's the good news. The good news is all the kids can ride bikes on their own. The bad news today is all the kids cannot sleep by themselves anymore.

It pains me, the sleep guru, to admit that I have a problem. But I do. Gregory WILL NOT sleep by himself anymore. He absolutely WILL NOT. And if I make him stay in his bed, he crawls in bed with Austin, keeps him up ALL NIGHT, then Austin cries the whole next day from being overtired.

Who has ever heard of a child making it all the way to six years old and suddenly refusing to sleep alone?

Where is that in the Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, or whatever the heck that book was called because I can't even remember anymore?

Greg doesn't even care, but it's annoying the hell out of me.

I've even bribed him, which is something I've never done. I never even bribed them when I was potty training. But I told him he would get a gift if he stayed in bed all night. So he did. And he got his gift. Then the other kids were all, "Where's OUR gift? We sleep alone every night! Should we all come in now so we can get a gift too?"

So that lasted one night and then he was back to his old habit. He told me he has better dreams when he isn't alone.

Now I have to tiptoe out of bed in the morning because that child is up at the crack of dawn. I have no idea where he gets that from.

So I alternate from being mildy annoyed to pissed off. I've read way too many attachment parenting blogs (you know who you are) and then I think, "Oh the poor baby is feeling insecure and he NEEDS me." Then I look at myself in the mirror and think, "That kid is WORKING YOU. Snap out of it! It's become a habit for him."

I never even had to make my kids "cry it out" either. They just all SLEPT in their beds by themselves from DAY ONE, despite what you read on certain forums that predict that all children who have slept alone MUST have been left crying for hours and hours, until they gave up hope that their parents would be there for them, and would require years of therapy to forget the tragedy of the CRIB.

Is six too late to CRY IT OUT? See? I should have abandoned him earlier.

So what would you do? Let's brainstorm this one. How do I get him to stay in his bed?

Or do I pour him a cup of coffee in the morning and hand him the funny pages at 5am? That's what my Aunt Ellie did with me and look how I turned out. I haven't slept past 6am since I was eight.