Game On, Ladies

When my my friend Laura's trio turned two, I bought them bats for their birthday.

So the next year, she got my kids 10,000 beads and finger paints.

When her boys turned three, I bought them scissors and glitter.

Then because I love to share the fun, when my friend Joselle's trio turned four, I bought them paint and paintbrushes and markers and playdough.

So this year, Joselle bought my kids this to show her appreciation.

Doesn't that look like hours of FUN?

Since Uncle Mark is still here, I made sure he got to join in on the crafting fun.   Uncle Mark has been here for a month.  When is he no longer a guest?  Are there rules for that?  I'm thinking part-time resident now.

You just wait, Joselle.

I've got something really, really, really SPECIAL in mind for your precious trio on their fifth birthday.

As if stepping on Pixos wasn't enough of a pleasure all day yesterday, while the volcano was setting up, we made Hello Kitty fortune cookies.

Aren't those cookies a work of art?

Notice how I'm wearing my lovely Christmas present from Greg?  That's because I'm an appreciative sort of person.

We literally spent the entire afternoon making crafts yesterday.   I just want all my triplet mom friends to know that paybacks are a bitch!

Speaking of paybacks, I recently discovered that a great number of people I know in my age range (40-42) have been getting some maintenance on their faces and not telling me about it.  I kept telling everyone how proud I am that they are getting more sleep and eating healthier, because they all looked so YOUNG and HEALTHY and RESTED to me.

I kept saying, "Wow, your new diet is really working for you.  You look great!"

"What skin care products are you using?  You just look fantastic."

And they would agree with me and chuckle.  You know who you are.

I should have known because the people I know look like this when they are happy.

This is how they look when they are sad.

And this is how they look when they are angry.

I'm not sure how I missed this.  I am unglued.

How am I going to fit in with everyone now?

Game on, ladies.  I'll go get so much Botox, you guys will think I'm practicing to become a ventriloquist.

Or I won't, and I'll just be the oldest hen in the henhouse.  Damn it.

Depression Is An Illness, Not A Disease

When you live in the same house for 16 years and have the same neighbors for 16 years, they become a part of your extended family.  You help each other during home crisis, like water leaks and windstorms wreaking havoc on tree limbs.  You borrow a cup of sugar or a teaspoon of nutmeg.  You eat their garden fruit and vegetables.  You lean a shoulder to cry on and you are there to rejoice with them in times of happiness.   They listen to your problems, and in turn, you lend your ear to hear their problems.

We had a neighborhood crisis over the last week.  Our dear, dear neighbors lost their daughter, tragically, to an extended bout of depression, when she made the ultimate decision to end her life.  I spent yesterday at her memorial.  This has been a very emotional week  My heart has broken a thousand times.

I'm going to share a passage with you that was read at her memorial, because it touched me so deeply.

Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the winds to help the flowers grow.  If you must bury something, let it be my faults, my weaknesses, and all prejudice against my fellow man.  Give my soul to God. If by chance you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you.  If you do all I've asked, I will live forever. 

If someone you know is suffering from depression, please reach out to them.  If they turn you away, reach out again...... and again..... and again.  

As my neighbor said at the memorial, depression is not a disease, it is an illness.  You cannot catch it.  It isn't contagious.  Even if the person is not receptive to your help, you can only try and try again to be there for them.  

To honor my neighbor's daughter's memory by doing a kind deed for someone who needs me, I ran home from the memorial, baked a ham, gathered together some things people are dropping off at my house for the babies, and ran by Kindra's yesterday.  

I going to try my best to keep my neighbor's daughter's memory alive forever.  

That Would Never Happen

Three days ago, I started merging the baby chickens in with my current flock.  Even though they have had the run of the entire yard for several weeks, the baby chickens will not voluntarily go into the coop with the other chickens.   Each time we get new babies, it takes a lot of time and effort for us to get them fully integrated into the flock.  Even now, my two Leghorns, who were raised with my turkeys, still do not completely recognize themselves as part of the flock.  They tend to hang out with the turkey and even sleep with her outside of the coop.  They must think she's their big-boned sister.

The baby chickens keep sleeping outside the shed, so every night after dinner, the kids and I run over to Bob's and carry the baby chickens from one side of the yard to the other and lock them into the coop with the big birds for the night.

The kids have become expert chicken wranglers.  They have gotten better than me!  They snatch those chickens up and go booking across the yard with them.

The older hens are not happy about having all these young whippersnappers in their coop.  They chase them and peck at them and make sure they know who is boss.  It absolutely cracks me up to see the old hens teaching the young ones the pecking order.  They get a good scolding and a swift peck if they try to eat before they are supposed to.  We've been making sure to put extra food in so the babies get the leftovers.

Matrix, our rooster, has been strangely okay with the new arrangement.  They don't seem to bother him at all.  In about three weeks that is all going to change as the four roosters reach maturity.  Bob and I have agreed to not let things get out of hand this time and as soon as they have enough meat on them, we are eating them.  I don't need a bunch of cock fights and roosters tearing up my hens again.

To show me their deep displeasure with the new sleeping arrangements though, my hens have halved their egg production.

In other news, I am experimenting with natural cleaning products.  Greg is a Clorox Cleanup addict, so I never pushed the issue, since I drive him crazy with all my other stuff.

But I think over the last 20 years, I have developed a severe allergy to bleach or chlorine, because if I even touch a dishcloth or sponge that has had Clorox Cleanup on it, I get achey.  I kept thinking I was getting gluten and here it was the bleach!  Which is interesting to me, because when I ate unbleached flour in Europe, I didn't have nearly the reaction I get when I eat it here.  I was actually beginning to think I was allergic to my HOUSE when I finally pinpointed the Clorox Cleanup.

So here is what I am trying.  If you feel inclined, click on the picture to enlarge the photo.  Greg, the minimalist, is not happy to find all this stuff under his sink.  The Seventh Generation antibacterial stuff that is made with sage stinks to high hell.  I cleaned one day with that and vinegar and Greg came in and wanted to know if I was making salad dressing.

If you use natural cleaning products, let me know what you use.  I open to all suggestions.  I tipped over a glass of red wine on my beige counter and then I didn't know what to do.  Greg took care of it and then I was sick for a day.

I am dropping Austin off at my neighbor's house today and then I'm heading to Kindra's house to help her with the babies.  They have a doctor's appointment at 11:30.  She needs help getting them fed and to the doctor's and then home and fed again.  I can only imagine!  I used to panic days before I took my babies to the doctor's.

I just had this horrible flashback to our second doctor's appointment, when the doctor had security escort us out of the building after Greg told her she was disgusting and had dandruff, when she refused to see all three babies because we were ten minutes late to our appointment.



She was only going to see two babies due to our tardiness, even though we were standing there with all three of our four pound babies.

Ohmygosh, what if Kindra has that same doctor?

That would never happen though, would it?  WOULD IT????

Don't Make Me Go All Exorcist On You

A few days before the kids' birthday last week, Greg came home and told me he was buying the kids an Xbox for their birthday.

I was like, WHAT???!!!

Did I not write a post that I wasn't buying them video games at Christmas?  Too bad Greg doesn't read my blog.

They don't game.  Their friends don't game.  They have zero peer pressure to game right now.  They don't even have a gaming system at all.  They've never asked for one.  I consider it the one upside of being in the top rung of the socioeconomic ladder at the school they go to.  Half the kids they bus in to our neighborhood school don't even have food, so their parents sure as heck aren't spending money on gaming equipment.  YEAH!

And to be honest, I really don't see how they would have time to game anyway.  By the time we get home from school, it is almost 4pm.  Since it is warm and still light out, I let them play outside until we eat dinner, between 5 and 5:30.  And, yes, I still have dinner on the table every single night between 5 and 5:30.  You can set your watch by it.  I'm a robot.  I'm sure you already know that if you wonder how I blog every day.  By the time dinner is cleaned up, we start homework and reading, which lasts until 7 or 7:30.  Then they all get showers and go to bed at 8pm.  Remember?  Robot.

I'm really not seeing how gaming would fit into our schedule.

So I was unglued.  Like crazy woman unglued when he said he was going to go buy an Xbox.  Who does that?  Who goes from having no gaming system, right to an Xbox?  Wouldn't you start with something more age appropriate and not quite so advanced?

Greg's brother is still here from Michigan, so he tried to tell me that the Xbox will help them with their motor skills.

REALLY????

Did you guys see our driveway in the birthday pictures?  Did you see our backyard?  We have a trampoline, swingsets, a basketball net, basketballs, soccer balls, footballs, skateboards, kneeboards, regular scooters, electric scooters, bats, frisbees, jumpropes, an electric quad, and bikes.  In the summer, we have a pool.  They all can swim. It's sunny here 350 days a year.  Do my kids look to anyone like they need more work on their MOTOR SKILLS???  Austin could swing himself when he was 16 months old.  My kids were riding bikes when they were TWO.

I can remember people asking me if we were going to get them tricycles when they were two?  Tricycles?  What?   They still had pacifiers, but they were riding two-wheelers.  Gosh, I was so European and I didn't even know it!

"They can practice their motor skills outside!", I screeched at Uncle Mark, while my head spun around and I spewed pea green vomit.

We have maybe two years, at most, before those kids are on gadgets nonstop.  Right?  Why speed up the process.

And let me state, for the record,  that I don't care if your seven year old has an Xbox.  You can do whatever you want with your own kid.  Feed them Hamburger Helper and Lunchables, for all I care.  Gag, just kidding.  Don't do that.  Ewwwwwwwwww.    I just don't feel it is necessary for us at this point in our lives.  We are busy people.

Not to mention, they are at such a crucial time in their reading development.  Sarah got lost in a Junie B Jones book two days ago and cried when she had to stop reading it to go to bed, then got up and finished it before she went to school.  I really don't want to take time away from reading for them to learn how to crash cars and kill people.  I didn't start stealing my mother's car until I was twelve.  That gives me five years before I need to start padlocking our gate.

So on the very day of this blowout, there was an article on the front page of our newspaper stating the average child in 3rd grade plays video games 20.5 to 22 hours per week.  WOW!  Talk about robots!!!
NINE percent of the kids in the study published by Pediatrics are considered pathological gamers, with more than 30 hours a week of gaming, which resulted in much higher incidences of depression and anxiety, poor school performance, and social incompetence.

Call me crazy, but setting your child's mind up for addiction when you live in LAS VEGAS is probably not a good idea.  You can feed the monster of addiction here, 24/7.  We are like an addiction utopia.  Pick you vice.

Suffice it to say, the kids didn't get an Xbox for their birthday.  They got jumpropes.  Thanks, Aunt Nancy and Uncle Mark!!!

Austin is on the jumprope team now with his older siblings too.  He is beyond happy about it.



I know I am totally depriving my kids, but they will have to suck it up and learn motor skills in real life.  They can thank me later.

Now can anyone tell me if this fifth grader is just freakishly large, or am I going to go into bankruptcy feeding my kids?  Maybe burning less calories in front of an Xbox is a good idea and I'm totally wrong?

What Happens In Vegas, Stays In Vegas, Unless I Blog About It: Part 2

If you haven't read my blog for long, then you probably don't know who Finnskimo is.  But I met her online in the blogging world and I read her blog.  If you want to know how real Eskimos survive and you don't mind hunting and skinning and sewing stuff with animal pelts, then you should check out her blog.  You could throw Maija into a snowbank and she would know how to survive off the land.

I had the pleasure of joining her for dinner at the Hard Rock last night in fabulous Las Vegas.  I took my posse, Misti and Joselle, just in case Maija was some crazy Eskimo from above the Arctic Circle.

Maija lives on a small, 1 mile by 1/2 mile peninsula in North Western Alaska.

You can actually see Russia from her backyard!!!!

So Maija is in Vegas at a training seminar, which for reasons that are completely unknown to any logical person, was booked at the Hard Rock, a true den of debauchery even by Vegas standards.

If you aren't careful, you will get hit on by a bunch of young, tan foxes.

Drunken fools are bound to paw you there too.

It's best to bring a weapon to keep the hungry wolves at bay.

You should have seen our waitress and bus boy.  We had the whole table full of animal pelts.  Maija brought fox heads, rabbit, sheep, wolf, and seal skins and tails.  Her husband made that knife, called an ulu, from a moose antler.  Can you imagine how jealous Bob and Jerry are going to be?

We had a blast hearing all the Eskimo stories.  You should have seen Joselle's face.  She was FREAKING.

Maija's friend, Cathy, who blogs here at Tundra Tantrum, was absolutely hysterical.  The stories she was telling us about living in camp had Joselle covering her face and cringing.

"It was 80 degrees once in Kotzebue!", Cathy was reminding Maija, "Don't you remember we were slaughtering seals that day and we were covered with stinky seal oil.?"

Then Maija was telling us how she approached her 80 year old grandfather one day to talk to him about a problem she was having with her ex-husband.

"Kill him.", her elderly grandfather advised.

"You can't kill people anymore, Grandfather."

"Why?", he wanted to know.

"Because it's against the law.", she said.

"Dog pot.  Chop up body.  Boil in dog pot. Feed to dogs.  Dogs eat bones and meat.", he said.

Maija said they had a 42 dog team when she was growing up and then she had to wonder just what the heck they were feeding those dogs???!!!   People disappeared all the time and everyone said, "Must have froze."

In the next breath, our dinner guests were inviting us to Kotzebue to visit.

I looked at Misti and mouthed, "Dog pot."

Before I left home, Greg gave me $850 in sports bets that Mr. S from Chicago had made at the Hard Rock last weekend when he was here vacationing.  Greg told me to go see if any of them won.

So the six of us, our animal pelts, and my SHANK, went traipsing into the sport's book to see if we were winners.  We were not.  FAIL, Mr S from Chicago.

I have so many crazy stories from the Hard Rock before I had kids, but now I get to include this one.

"Remember that time we were at the Hard Rock and I was walking around with a shank and wolf paws?"

And people think I make shit up.

The kids were beside themselves today with the animal pelts.  Gregory wants to take them to school for Show And Tell.  I am thinking of getting books on Arctic animals and doing a presentation.

It's not often you get to see real wolf paws and feel seal skin in Las Vegas.

Unless you are related to me.  Then it is just completely normal.

Friends Is Plural In BFF

The girls came home from school yesterday with bracelets that their BFF made them.  Joy's bracelet says Best and Amanda's says Friends and Sarah's says Forever.  This little girl was supposed to move 2 weeks ago, but she keeps showing up every day, prolonging the last day for two solid weeks of anguish.

All of this would be delightful and heartbreaking, except the girls have been fighting over her non-stop.

So I will mark this day as the beginning of the Girl Drama Era.  I know girl drama.  I get girl drama.  I'm sure most of you will find this hard to believe (HA!), but I used to make, manipulate, and solve girl drama.  Whatever was going on at school, you can guarantee, I was in it.  My friends were MY LIFE.

In fact, several months ago, I found a box of notes from high school and this is pretty much what all of them said:

"Dear Michele,

I don't know how you could do this to me.  I just want you to know that the best times of my entire life have been with you.  Guys are going to come and go, and he may like you now, but I LOVE you.  You just remember that when he dumps you, I will still be there for you because friends are forever and ever and ever and ever and friends mean everything and I will always, always love you, even when he forgets about you, I loved you FIRST and MOST.  And I don't know how you could leave me at school because I LOVE you and you totally hurt me and I just feel like my soul has died from your meanness.  I want to forgive you, but I don't know if I can ever trust you again because you have hurt me so terribly by ditching me in the parking lot for HIM.  He will never love you like I love you.  I am going to try and forgive you if you let me drive you home from school all next week and you don't go with HIM.

Love,

Your BESTEST BEST FRIEND EVER"

So I was reading all those notes and thinking, "Was I gay and I forgot?"

Man, I was involved in some drama and I barely even remember the person who loved me and who I was going to be friends with FOREVER AND FOREVER.

I can feel years and years of Girl Drama coming on.  .

So here is how it started with my girls.

Amanda made friends with Joy first, making Joy Amanda's friend, not Sarah's.  Sarah wasn't even interested in Joy.  Sarah's bestfriend was Asteffany.  Then Asteffany got moved to the new first grade classroom, which made Sarah turn her attention on Joy, which was when Sarah STOLE Joy from Amanda, according to Amanda.

Then Sarah got Joy to be her chess partner, instead of Amanda, which made Amanda quit chess.

Amanda and Joy used to play basketball at lunch recess, while Sarah had Girl Club with her friends. I am not exactly sure what Girl Club is, but it consists of boys chasing you and you running away from them.  Amanda hates Girl Club.

Can you imagine having to listen to all this when you are trying to make dinner?  Ugh.

I even talked to their teacher about it yesterday.  She said it is hard because two of the girls in their classroom speak so little English, they have a hard time relating to my girls at all.  So with the bad boy/girl ratio and two of the girls having trouble communicating, there are not a lot of girls to choose from.

Anyway, this whole new Girl Drama will almost certainly be the main basis for splitting them up next year.  They get along fine academically, but I can see how socially, it isn't going to work for my girls.  Although I can foresee putting them in different classrooms and having their BFF get in the opposite class with their sister and not them.  People's souls will be dying from the meanness and unfairness of it.  .

Maybe I can convince them that friends is plural in BFF.  Probably not, eh?

I Hit The Jackpot: 777

I can't believe I had all three of these kids in my body at the same time.  

We love you, Grammy.  Where are our presents?

Do I have to stop jumping?

My sister and niece were rocking the Moped.  

Aunt Pammy, my sister, Sarah, and Jerry's big stupid truck in the background

My friend Mist and her seven year old trio

Joselle and Drew and their four year old trio

Jen and Andi and their four year old trio, The Girls

Laura and Don and The Boys

Cathy and her trio, for a grand total of six sets of triplets, plus one!

My Uncle Frankie said he never saw so many kids all get along so well.  These kids know how to share!

Whose your husband?  I forgot.  A, B,C, D......

Happy Birthday, kiddos!

If anyone sends these pictures to Cake Wrecks, I will hunt you down.  Happy Birthday, Gregory!

Happy Birthday, Amanda!

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

Don't fall out of the tree, Daddo!

Can we get through the party without an ER visit?

Check out the chair barricade!  Best idea yet!

There goes his foot!

Feeding time at the zoo!

This was the best day EVER according to all the kids.

Wake me up when the toys are organized and put away!  I'm going for mid-February!

Thanks, everyone, for making the day such a fabulous success.  We are so lucky and fortunate to have this amazing circle of friends.

In other news, I got an email from Finniskmo.  She's at the Hard Rock and she said she didn't know how I lived in Vegas, because it is CRAZY here.  She said there were naked women in the registration area.

DUH!  It's the HARD ROCK.  Didn't she know to pack her Hoochie Mama clothing?  I'm going to run by the stripper store and pick her up something to wear to dinner.