Where Are All The Italian Women When You Need Them?

Over the next week, our temperatures are supposed to rise to 105 degrees, which means my tomatoes are all going to get ripe at the same time.

This is the year guys. Between my garden and my share basket, I should get enough tomatoes to can. I want to can chopped tomatoes, whole tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, salsa, and spaghetti sauce. My goal is to give up cans entirely, because BPA levels are the highest in cans of tomatoes. They are the absolutely worst thing you can eat when it comes to BPA.

Since BPA is an endocrine disruptor and can cause tumors to grow, I just want it out of Austin's diet. Period.

So, yesterday, I was driving to a Farmer's Market with my two Italian friends, Joselle and Laura, and I said, "Okay, you Italian women, how do you make spaghetti sauce from fresh tomatoes?"



These are the typical Italian Women responses when I ask this question.

"I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you."

"I promised my grandmother I would take her gravy recipe with me to my grave."

"It's a family secret and we're not related."

Okay. Call me crazy, but I think all of this is just code for "We use Prego."

I am beginning to wonder if there are any Italian Women still making spaghetti sauce from actual tomatoes?

How do I do it? There are so many different ways on the internet. Some say to quarter them, cook them, then put them through a food mill. Others say to skin and seed them, crush them, then boil them down.

I really have NO IDEA. I'm German-Irish and the only gravy we used to make went on mashed potatoes.

C'mon, guys. I know you are out there. I won't give away your grandmother's secrets. It will just between me, you, and the couple people who read this blog. SHOW ME THE GRAVY.

Preparing For The Battle

I haven't mentioned it, but Greg got back on Wednesday, and I have been trying to catch up on my life since then, which was no easy task.

I have also been plotting out our summer.

Since we are leaving for Michigan at the end of June, instead of our normal mid-July, I could not register the kids for any classes. We would have missed half the session.



Although they can all swim like fish, I did get them in a stroke development swim class which starts in a week. This facility also has a swim team, which I have made a mental note for next year.

This year Greg put up an 18ft pool. He got if for $75 during the winter last year. I hope this gives us a month before they are complaining again that they don't have a built-in pool.



Did I mention Greg was back? He built them a deck yesterday. I'm sure they won't be doing backflips off that.

Other than formal swim lessons, my summer is wide open. I have perused everything available at the library and put that on our calendar. I plan on having a ton of run-ins with Psycho Security Sally.

Since they can all swim now, I know we can go to Desert Breeze's swim park now and the Green Valley one.

I plan on going to the free movies at Regal on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Does anyone want to join me?

Then there is hiking on Mt Charleston. They are old enough this year to add a few more trails to our circuit.

I have also bought some school lessons to keep them mentally active and figured we could do an hour of homeschooling in the hot afternoons, as well as keeping up on reading. I also bought a crafting activity book and need to stock up on all our art supplies.

I am heading into summer battle, where the days are long and HOT and long and HOT and HOT and long. It's me against them all summer and I am outnumbered. I've got my game face on.

What am I missing?

This Child NEEDS A Dog

The kids brought home their journals from all year and Sarah's journal was almost entirely about dogs.

She has never waivered once in stating she wants to be a veteranarian when she grows up. She ADORES dogs. She begs me for a dog no less than three times a day.

Should I risk divorce and just get this child a dog? I'm sure I'll get the dog in the custody fight anyway.

Pomp And Circumstance

I am so glad I badgered my friend Laura into putting her triplets in the afternoon preschool class.



When the kids grow up, they want to be a policeman, a dentist, a pirate, and a Guy Who Goes To Work. Austin wants to be the policeman.



Austin got to graduate twice. Once yesterday with his preschool class and then again today with his kindergarten prep class.



There has been a tremendous amount of diploma handing out and festivities.




He was so darn adorable. I don't expect this post will be that interesting to anyone except Greg's mom and my sister. Right, Nancy?

Then they sung all Ms. Pat's songs today. If you remember, she was their preschool teacher who passed away last year due to breast cancer.



I was bawling.

I am going to miss those teachers so much.



I would laugh every time I saw Ms Colette's van with the 13 stick figures on it. Will he ever have a teacher with 11 kids again?

I am so proud of Austin. Every one of his teachers told me he was a delight to have in class. He really is a delight. He's going to make a great policeman someday. :)

The Fairy Tale Is Over

With all our shoe drama, I finally broke down and bought the kids Adidas flip flops. Everyone agreed to them and they make great pool shoes.

But I won't let them wear them to school. I think they would be a distraction.

Austin said, "Everyone wears flip flops to school, Mom."

I told him they absolutely do NOT, because they are against the rules. Then I picked up his preschool graduation picture.



He said, "I told you that everyone wears flip flops."

Ugh.

He graduates from preschool today. I am so so so so sad. I cannot believe this stage of our lives is over. I have loved preschool. I have loved the crafts. I have loved the songs. I am so happy that I sent them, because God only knows they don't get crafts, art, or music in kindergarten here.

Amanda recently told me, "I really miss preschool, Mom. It was so much fun."

Gosh, it was. SOB.

I feel like we got to live in a fairy tale world at the community center too. All the kids were loved and wanted and clean and praised and cherised and HAPPY.

In stark contrast is a conversation I had with their kindergarten teacher yesterday.

She asked to talk to me again after school. She told me she had tested Sarah's reading ability. She said they like them to score a three to be ready for first grade. Sarah scored a twelve.

She hasn't tested Gregory or Amanda yet, so I told her that it was quite a learning experience for me to see that different children get to different levels at their own pace. So it only makes sense that Sarah would be a level 12 now. She started reading when she was four. I am just hoping Amanda will be a 3, to be honest. She knows her sight words, but struggles to read phonetically.

I asked the teacher if parents ever get angry with her if their kids don't score well?

"I don't think half the parents even look at their kid's scores.", she answered.

I can't imagine.

Then she told me about a new boy that started in the morning class. She has never seen his parents because he comes on the bus. His entire body is covered from head to toe with bedbug bites. He told her that he doesn't have a bed, and he sleeps on the carpeting where the bugs are.

So she explained to me that he is by far the lowest scoring child she has, yet she knows that scoring on reading is this child's family's least concern. He told her he would be moving soon.

I am sure he is the child of an illegal immigrant. When they changed our zoning and included the dilapitated housing projects that should be condemned, I KNEW we were going to get a lot of immigrant's children. I KNEW our school did not have the resources to help those kids. I KNEW they were being pulled from Title One schools that had federal money in place to address their basic needs.

I sent letters to EVERYONE, did I not?

So what happens to this child in five days when school is out? It makes me sick to my stomach. I want to steal him.

With all the illegal immigration stuff going on lately, I cannot find it in my heart to feel any hatred for these poor innocent kids, even though their very existence brings down my school and my children's education. I keep thinking that they didn't ask to come here, or even be born. It's such a complex situation, isn't it? And I feel like I sort of got dropped off right in the middle of it, seeing both sides and not being able to comprehend it.

I don't want to know that there are children going home hungry and sleeping in bugs. Yet, I want to know.

Does anyone know a grant writer? How hard is it? We have a bunch of money we could get if someone took the time to write the grants.

So every single day, I am reminded of how lucky we are and how lucky all those kids are that Austin goes to preschool with. I am going to remember today forever.

The fairy tale is over and they all did not live happily ever after.

The End.

That's How We Talk At Home

On Friday night when I was tucking the girls into bed, Amanda said, "Roman was saying bad words in centers today."

So I asked where the teacher was when Roman was saying bad words? They told me she was doing reading tests and they had been instructed not to interrupt her.

"Roman says 'freaking', Mom. He said that's how he talks at his house."

"No, no, no.", Sarah corrected her, "It was fucking, not freaking. Roman says fucking. He also says the S word, but not stupid. The other S word. He says that's how they talk at home."

I was totally caught off guard. I just wanted to put the kids to bed and get a break. We had ONE WEEK of kindergarten left and couldn't make it through without learning the F word?

Roman missed the cut-off to start kindergarten last year by three days. So he is an entire year older than some of the kids in class. He is also two heads taller than the smallest child. He went to three years of preschool at the Big Fancy Christian School by our house. (They did a stellar job, didn't they?)

He started kindergarten reading chapter books. This kid is so smart, it is ridiculous that they don't move him up a grade. My kids all look up to him.

So my knee-jerk reaction was to say, "Well, we don't use those words in OUR house. The next time Roman says something like that, you tell him that using those words makes you sound really, really DUMB. And you let him know that we don't have playdates with people who use those words at home."

So that kid is off my short list of suitable playmates. We only play with Mormon children and other multiples now. I am not even kidding. What the heck? Are all the people in Las Vegas a bunch of weirdos, when Mormons and triplets are the NORMAL ONES?

Who would have thunk it.

It's obvious to me that this issue is going to crop up over and over given the general weirdo population here. If you have dealt with this issue, what weapons do you have in your arsenal?

Help me out. I'm just wingin' it.

I'll Just Stay Here And Hold Down The American Fort

Today is Day Thirteen since Greg left and I've been taking care of the kids on my own.

When I opened the mailbox last night, there was a postcard from Auntie Jodie Of Disneyland.



It was from Paris! Fred and Jodie and their daughter, Stephanie, are spending three weeks driving around Europe.



I have been getting sporadic emails that say, "We are outside of Paris and I haven't had any internet or phone. We are driving around in a little car where I sit up in the back with a window, like the Popemobile. We are calling it the Jodymobile. I wave to people when we go by. We are on a steady diet of bread, fruit, and cheese, but we wash it all down with wine, so it's healthy."

If you've read my blog for awhile, you'll remember that Fred was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer last Fall. I am happy to report that he has responded extremely well to chemo, has barely gotten sick or slowed down, and he and Jodie are enjoying the heck out of life. When I got that postcard yesterday, I just laughed with happiness.

Then I got an email last week from my other Lucy friend, Erika.

"Oh, gosh, you guys. Should I go to Africa next week by myself? My girlfriend just had a baby and I want to fly over. What should I do? Should I go to
AFRICA?"

And we were all, DUH. Of course you should fly to Africa.

So there you have it. All my friends are hobnobbing around the globe, but I'll just stay here and hold down the fort in AMERICA.

On the bright side, Greg called yesterday. He was working in downtown Chicago with his friend Scott. You know how Greg is. He never goes on vacation without scheming a way to make enough money to pay for it.

"You do not even understand, Michele. It's like 100 degrees with a 100 percent humidity. I have lost all the moisture in my body. I've sweated through two shirts and I feel like I'm going to pass out. And you should see this building. OMG, it's so old. I have no idea how people live in this old shit. It's so hot, I can't even sleep at night."

"Can you hold on a second? I have to zip my coat up.", I interrupted.

It's been that cool here!!!! What is going on?

Greg better hurry up and get back to the desert where it's cool.

To make his day better, I told him he better get back quick, because the kids did something to the folding door on their toy closet, and it fell off, smashing into the sofa table and now has a giant hole in the front panel. Then they took the removable shower head off and swung on it and water is just pouring out of the cord. The reverse osmosis is leaking and water is just pouring out into the sink and I had to shut off the cold water. And our dryer has a bearing going out.

Okay, Gregory and Austin just woke up and are FIGHTING OVER THE POSTCARD.

And so begins Day Thirteen.

Do They Have This In Your X Box?

My sister drove in on Saturday night with her 14 year old son. You guys could not believe how much fun 14 year olds are. They love hanging out with children and their mothers. He was at my house for almost 57 seconds before his X Box was plugged in and hogging up my internet.

But given the option to ditch school on Monday and come here, Hale decided he would dig really deep and try to enjoy himself.

Fourteen year olds don't like to do ANYTHING. See the hands shoved in the pockets? That's a fourteen year olds way of saying, "I am cool, even if I am forced to go to lame, uncool Red Rock Canyon, with a couple lame, old ladies and kids."

They were having a scavenger hunt at the visitor center, so the kids had to mark off each animal they saw to get a prize.

Gila monster. Check.

Hale was so thrilled when he found the tortoise.

Can't we just marked off all the animals and leave? How will they know?

Red Rock was packed on a Sunday. I never go there on the weekends, because I don't have to. It was so packed I could barely see all the motorcyclists.

There were a lot of people rock climbing there. See if you can spot two people on this rock face.

People are very serious about their rockclimbing. We overheard a lot rockclimbing talk.

"I just completed a slab dab, one niner, technical 5.0."

Gregory was like, "Big deal. I do that before breakfast every day."

Hale finally got into Red Rock when they started rockclimbing.

Do you have this in your X Box, sonny?

Then the most bizarre snow shower started near Keystone Thrust. It was only 53 degrees in Red Rock yesterday. This is really, really peculiar weather for us. We are supposed to be in Hotter Than Hell already.

Does it snow in your X Box, Cousin Hale?

I have no idea what Hale is going to do when he's in Traverse City for a week in July with no internet. My sister has decided to drive out and spend a week with us. I am SO EXCITED.

Fourteen year olds make great free babysitters!!!!!!

We Made It To The Best Stage!!!

It's hard to believe, but we had another triplet birthday party, at another park I have never been to before yesterday! My friend Laura's boys turned FIVE.



Wyatt told his mom, "Miss Michele is always taking my picture."

"That's because you are so darned cute.", I told him.



Laura, Andi, and I have 10 kids, five girls and five boys. It was a good thing I went ahead and had one more boy to even this up. If they all got married to each other we could have all the same grandchildren.



My friend Laraine's boys will be seven in July and all of a sudden, they are all legs and arms. WOW. I hardly recognized them, they got so tall. When did our kids stop being toddlers?



Cathy was there with her five year old trio too. Doesn't she look fantastic? Now that her kids are older, she has taken up running in her "spare time". She also does these cleanses and recently got back into her wedding dress, she's lost so much weight.

Greg called me from Michigan and said his friend Scott did a cleanse and lost 17 pounds and he bought it and he's going to do it when he gets home and become a vegetarian.

Oh, I'm sure.

All I can say about that, is I am outta here if Greg is going to CLEANSE 17 pounds of anything out of his intestines.

THAT IS SO GROSS.



Joselle was there with her trio, wearing level 1 clothing.

Joselle is a Gymboree addict. We are talking, she needs an intervention. She has different levels for the kids clothing.

Level 1: Cannot be worn while eating and is worn in public.

Level 2: Okay for eating bland foods in the house.

Level 3: Never seen in outside.



So when Ryan dropped a big old sausage on his shoulder in his Level 1 shirt, sirens started blaring, RED ALERT, RED ALERT, RED ALERT, then Joselle whipped out her Tide Stain Stick.

How'd that work out for you, girlfriend? Did you get it out? Inquiring minds want to know if that is a Level 3 shirt!!!!

You should see the stuff I got her kids for their birthday last month. Paint. Markers. Play-doh. Muhahahahhahahahhahahhaha.



Austin learned to go all the way across the monkey bars by himself yesterday for the first time.

"I can do it because I'm almost five!", he told me.

Which caused Amanda to have a hissy fit,

"If you were FIVE, you would eat SALAD!!! YOU AREN'T FIVE YET!"

I called Greg and told him he missed his son's first monkey bar crossing. He wasn't here when Austin learned to ride a bike either.

Cue in the song: Cats In The Cradle.



When ya coming home, Dad, I don't know when......

Greg has been reading my blog on his vacation.

In all seriousness, it seems like you blink and the kids grow up.

I wish it would slow down now. All our kids are in the best stage now. We made it, you guys.

Back On The Urban Farm

On the urban farm front, the chickens I got 4 months ago from the Crazy Chicken Lady ended up being 2 roosters and 2 hens. This is one of them.



Shudder.

She's a complete mutt chicken, but I think she has Ameracauna in her. It will be interesting to see what her eggs look like, you know, if I ever get any.



This is a rooster. Don't tell him that though. He thinks he's a dog. He follows me around and rubs against my legs. He wants to be wherever I am. We've decided we are keeping him.



This rooster is gigantic. I can't even imagine how big he will be full grown. He's starting to get his vocal cords, so I'm afraid he doesn't have a long life span. We've ended up with three roosters, including Brownie/Usedtobeaguinea/FlavorFlav. We don't need ANY roosters, so that is a problem.



The turkeys are three weeks old now.



You know what? They aren't hard to take care of at all. Compared to the meat chickens, these guys are a cake walk. They are nice birds so far too. I cannot express how disgusting those meat chickens were. Normal chickens are only mildly disgusting by comparison.

I've decided not to renew my share in the farm I joined. I'm not unhappy with the farm or the produce. I think it's really awesome for people who don't garden, but I've got entirely too much produce growing in my garden to pay for more.



There is no way we will be able to eat all these tomatoes.



I am thinking I might have to start my OWN sharebaskets.



I've been spraying kelp on the plants and they are so unbelievably healthy this year.



I cannot wait for fresh salsa!




The last thing I want to do is renew my share and get a bunch of squash. I only put one zucchini is this year and we already have more than we can eat. You can't even GIVE zucchini away either.



Finally, Amanda's first adult tooth is coming in. If we could all join hands and start a prayer circle and maybe sing "Cumbayah" that it comes in straight, that would be super. If I end up with four kids in braces, Greg might take off and leave us.

Then I won't have time to continue farming in the middle of Las Vegas.

I Was Going To Call It The Joy Lunch Club

The kids and I met a couple other triplet moms and their kids at the park yesterday. This is yet another park in Las Vegas that I have never seen before, which is startling if you added up the sheer number of hours, days, and weeks I have spent park hopping.



Matching children, be still my heart.



I have to tell you that it is hard to look around Las Vegas and see "recession". I listen to the news and read the paper, but if you are out and about, it's hard to compute. I am telling you guys that the casinos are PACKED. Greg was at them a few weeks ago and he said there wasn't an empty table. When we were at the Flamingo, the pool was absolutely packed as well and there were a ton of people in the hotel.

People are coming here.



Watch the mom bolt in this video to save her baby from the rabid triplets.

The stores are busy too. When I go pick up my share basket on Thursdays, I can barely find a parking space in the high end retail parking lot.



So even though I see what I'm seeing with my eyes, I know that our schools are in a horrible, horrible crisis.

I found out a couple days ago that our school has already registered 35 students for the afternoon kindergarten class next year. This is not good news for Austin.

Nor is it good news for me, as I was really looking forward to my 12 kid-free hours off a week.

I was going to start a lunch club and lunch with my friends, where we would talk about important things like lunching. I was going to call it the Joy Lunch Club. I was going to finally work out and catch up on my reading and live in a spotless, organized house. I was going to get a milk goat in the fall and expand my garden. I was dreaming BIG.

But, instead, I will be working in the classroom to help one teacher with 35 students, while trying to make up for the huge budget deficit, so we can spend the money watering all that damn grass in the park.

That sounds like way more fun than my Joy Lunch Club.

Thank You For Having A Baby, So I Could Have A Break

I was fornutate enough to get a 2 hour break from the kids yesterday evening to attend a baby shower. Which was really fun for me, since all my friends are too old, infertile, or had all their children at once, so I have no babies in my life.

I have never in the children's lives dropped them off somewhere in the evenings for someone else to watch them. My neighbor who is having the baby told me her husband would be more than happy to watch them for me.

OKAY!

I told him before I left, "Thank you for getting your wife pregnant again, so I could have a mental health break."

Anyway, it was fun and I won the most prizes, then the kids went to bed an hour after their bedtime and I had Gregory AND Austin in bed with me half the night.

Austin peed the bed and came in naked and crawled in. An hour later, Gregory came in because Austin was gone. Then they both woke up today at 6am, where I ordered them back in their own room. Whether they go back to sleep determines if my day is going to be good, or really, really, really bad.

My only other excitement yesterday was online.

Remember the post I wrote about the pregnant triplet mom who refused to stop cleaning her house because she said, having triplets is no excuse to let your house or looks go in the shitter?

She ended up cleaning her house right to the very end and gave birth to her trio at 36.5 weeks. Which is wonderful, given her level of stupidity to put herself and babies at such high risk. But sometimes people have dumb luck and since it's really only about the babies, thank goodness for them that dumb luck exists.

The night before her csection, she posted a parting shot to all of us that warned her to slow it down.

"You lovely bitter ladies, go ahead and eat some kaka. I made it! We made it! Our babies are not only being delivered on the date that we set with our doctor, but the smallest one weighs 4 lbs and 9 ounces.

Looks like we were doing something right hmm?"

Then she gave advice for pregnant triplet moms on how to do it RIGHT like she did to make it so far.

"Do your research, talk to your doctors, and don't be afraid to question certain practices if they don't sound or feel right. Listen to your instincts, and to your body. Surround yourself with positive people who radiate love, and peace. If you are spiritual, then pray, meditate, do whatever you need to do to keep yourself in the light. But don't be afraid to let your nails come out when others try to put you down.

I am grateful to my God, to my family, and friends who have been amazing, and supportive in this journey. I know that when my babies come home with me, there will be new challenges to face, but this first hump has been passed.
My babies are healthy, and being born right on time."

Touche.

The only thing is, she deeply, deeply, deeply offended and hurt all the mothers who did all those things AND MORE, yet didn't make it to 36 weeks, or lost one or more of their babies, or had babies born with health problems or severely premature. They prayed. They tried to stay positive. They had supportive husbands and families. Does God only answer HER prayers?

Anyway, it was tough to read through the pain the other moms expressed in their replies to her and made me emotional all day yesterday. I know so many MOMs that have had so much shit thrown at them along the way, many who seemingly had perfectly healthy babies at birth, then BAM!!!!

You just never know when God will pull the rug out from under you. I sure got a doozy when Austin was first diagnosed. I would have never seen that one coming!!!

Anyway, I wish I could be a fly in that woman's house and watch her try to keep up her standards when those babies come home. That's a trainwreck heading for some serious post partum depression when she figures out you really CAN'T do it all and do it all well.

On that note, 6.5 years later, I am sitting here typing this and I can barely see through the sliding glass door for all the fingerprints.

I wouldn't change that for the world. I love those little fingerprinting monkeys.

You Killed My Father. Prepare To Die.

Greg has been gone for 6 days and I still have 8 days to go.

I'm not going to make it. The kids aren't going to make it.

I was emptying the dishwasher yesterday when I heard someone walking around on the roof. At first it didn't even register in my brain, because Greg walks around on the roof. He checks the heat vents, the air conditioning unit, or sweeps the pine needles off.

Then I remembered Greg isn't home.



"GET OFF THE ROOF, GREGORY!!!"

He and Austin had drug the pool ladder over to the porch, where he thought it was perfectly fine to retrieve his frisbee.

In my fit of rage, I was yelling at him, "Are you crazy? You can't get up there! You could fall down and split your skull open and become paralyzed and in a wheelchair. Do you want to be a vegetable?"

"What kind of vegetable? A squash?", he asked.

My friend Leslie told me 5 years ago that someday I would be screaming at them, "I did not lay on my back for 5 months to bring into this world healthy, just so you could jump off the roof into the pool and kill yourselves!!!!!"

Little did I know I would reach this point in my parenting career so soon.

I'm not going to make it. They are working me and I don't have back-up. Greg's mom left yesterday. The further behind I get in the housework, the more they are taking advantage.

Then two days ago, their teacher requested I speak with her after school. They have been doing testing for two weeks now and Amanda decided she was done with that, so she just circled any answer she felt like, so she could go PLAY.

It never occurred to her that taking tests was actually important.

So I had to actually explain to her that the most important thing she does in school is answer her tests correctly.



I can see a short bus in her future. Or, gosh, a POLE. We have to move. We can't stay here.

We were standing in line at Trader's yesterday, when the lady behind us told me how cute they all were, just as Austin turned to Gregory and said, "You killed my father. Prepare to die."

WHAT?

Is that Star Wars? Where did that come from?

I don't even know whose children these are. They're definitely Greg's kids, but I don't think they're mine at all.

Someone get me out of here.