The Lumberjack's Wife

What if we forget our passports?

What if they don’t recognize us?

What if we look like suspicious persons?

Do we look like suspicious persons?

What if there is something wrong with the plane?

Was I supposed to get shots?

I didn’t.

What if we sleep in and miss our flight?

What if our car breaks down on the way to the airport?

What if I forget something important?

I have to bring my own shampoo.

Otherwise my hair will get too greasy.

Gross.

What if I am the only girl on the beach who is not wearing a bikini?

Fact:  I do not, I repeat, I do not need to be revealing my tummy regions.

What if I am the only girl on the beach who has to worry about tummy regions?

What if I get lost?

It looks big:

What if we lose our room key?

What if I eat too much?

How much weight will I gain?

There are like 10 restaurants there.

And I greatly enjoy food.

What if the Lumberjack is always falling asleep?

Who will I talk to?

What if the kids are naughty for my mom and dad?

What if my mom forgets to do head counts while at the grocery store?

What if my mom tries to take all of them to the grocery store?

Will she ever forgive me?

What if our dog runs away?

What if our house floods while we are gone?

Interruption:  My sister-in-law, Lisa’s, house flooded once while she was on vacation. 

She is one of those “thorough” house-cleaning people and was mopping behind her fridge, or something lame like that, the day before she left.

When she pushed the fridge back, she did something to a water line and water started pouring into the kitchen for the ENTIRE WEEK THEY WERE GONE.

What is the lesson to be learned here?

Do not be an overachiever and clean pointless areas like the flooring behind your fridge.

Who cares?

This concludes our interruption.

What if I cry and miss the kids and then my husband gets annoyed at me?

Fact:  The Lumberjack does, upon occasion, get annoyed at me.

What?!

I know.

Hard to believe.

What if we run out of things to talk about?

7 days.

7 whole days.

7  whole days without kids.

It’s been about 10 years . . .

What more is there to say?

Fact:  The Lumberjack is not chatty.

Fact:  The Lumberjack’s Wife is quite chatty.

Quite.

500 (meaningless) points to anyone who can come up with things we can talk about.

What if I get a sunburn?

What if I don’t get tan.

What a waste.

What if it rains the whole time?

What if I forgot something important?

What if I miss my kids?

What if, just what if, I even miss . . .

this Handsome Dude and his glasses.

Speaking of which . . . .

where are his glasses?

I have been looking EVERYWHERE for the past couple of days.

1 million (meaningless) points to anyone who know where his stupid glasses are!!!!!

 Happy Thursday!

Want to see what my girls made me for Valentine’s Day?

“To Mom.  I love you.  You are just right for me.”

This one was a little bit trickier.

I cannot be certain . . . due to the excessive amount of unnecessary letters, but I believe it says something to the effect of:

“Mom.  I love you.  You are the best mom ever.”

Homemade by Sweet Pea.

Homemade by Daisy Mae.

Look at what else Daisy Mae made at school:

I sincerely hope with all my heart that this drawing is not to scale.

Otherwise, I am huge.

And if I am indeed that much bigger than the Lumberjack, then why, pray tell, do I not wear the pants?

Answer me that.

How do I know I don’t wear the pants?

Ummm . . . .

Well . . . .

Hmmm . . . . I can’t quite put my finger on it, but . . .

Hmmm . . . it definitely seems like things don’t always go  . . .

 . . . the way . . .

I might . . .

envision.

And, on a completely unrelated note, my boys are sick. 

Like fevers, coughing, vomiting, crying, whining, not sleeping, ear aches, and

snotty kind of sick.

And, in keeping with the tradition of random topics . . .

3 MORE DAYS!!!!!

Yes.

We are leaving for Cancun in 3 days.

If we don’t die from the stress of all the things we have to do to get out of here first.

Happy Wednesday!

He makes better chocolate chip cookies than I do.

But I make better mashed potatoes.

He always lets me have the most comfortable pillows.

He has received not one, but two new down pillows in the course of our marriage, and he has let me have not one, but both of them.

Because he just wants me to be quiet and go to sleep.

He bought a camp trailer with a shower for me.

Because he knew there was absolutely no way I would go a day without a shower.

For that is just wrong.

After I had my last knee surgery, I was sick from the anesthesia.  He quickly dumped out his soda and let me vomit into his cup.

And it was at that moment that I knew I would marry him.

He is the official dog-poo picker-upper.

And the official taker-of-the-garbage-can-to the-alley-person.

And it is for those two reasons alone that I keep him around.

Kidding!

He works long days to provide for us.

He has an unusal amount of belly-button lint.

He knows how to fix leaky faucets, change the oil, replace brakes, build a house, fall a tree, and clean out a chimney.

He does not, I repeat, does not know how to properly do a load of laundry.

But, by golly, at least he tries.

He is the fun dad who lets kids climb on his back, he twirls them around until they are sick, and he turns on his ridiculous old country songs and dances with them.

Yes.

You heard me correctly.

He dances.

He rarely ever comes home in a bad mood . . . even if he had a bad day at work.

Yet, I am in a bad mood if I haven’t had my afternoon cup of coffee.

He’s a good sport about all the teasing I do of him in this blog.

And I hope you all know that even though I do tease him, I love him to pieces.

He is a good dad to our four kids.

And yes, he regularly asks me why I wanted so many kids.

As if they were completely my own decision.

He is fun and makes sure our kids experience lots of dangerous and new adventures.

Yes, I constantly worry about safety.

Yes, it annoys him thoroughly when I inform him that he cannot do certain “unsafe” activities with our children.

Yes, he does it all anyways.

And I love him.

He loves getting his picture taken.

He chases our children with fish.

He tells our kids to kiss fish.

He loves, loves, loves it when I take pictures like this of him.

In fact, I am quite certain I remember him saying, “Taylor!  Take some pictures of me and Sweet Pea smooching!  Yes! And then, start a blog in a few months!  Yes! And put this picture in it for all your 10 followers to view!”

Yes.

That’s how it went down.

He was smitten with me from the moment he met me.

Smitten, I tell you.

Which is why he married me when I was 12.

Yes.

I am that fantastic.

He did not want me to get away.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Tell me what you love about your main squeeze.

On Thursday, I wrote a post called, “Last Valentine’s Day.”

You remember.

The one where I learned my husband has taken several animal bodies to the dump?

Well, in the aforementioned post, I included a picture of my parents.

And I told you that the story behind that picture was a story for another day.

Guess what?

Today is that day.

So, my parent’s were on this cruise for their 30th wedding anniversary.

Yikes!

They are old.

Anyways, as some of you might be aware, when you are on a cruise, you have the option to do little excursions.

Now, I was obviously not there.

No.

They left me and my man behind so we (and when I say we, I mean he) could throw away the carcass of their dog.

What are kids for?

So, of course, I will be taking liberties with this story.

I would guess that about 42% of is factual.

Enjoy.

*********

(My parents names are Grant and Connie)

Grant: We should pick out an excursion.

Connie:  Yes! We should definitely do that, pal.

Interruption:  I am certain that my parents are never romantic with one another. 

They are just super good friends. 

 Because that is simply too weird to think about.

And wrong.

Do not inform me otherwise.

I do not wish to know.

Thank you.

Grant:  Well, what sounds good to you, buddy?

They looked through the catalog.

Scuba diving?  No.

Parasailing? No.

Rock climbing.?  Definitely not.

Jeep ride through the country side?  Now we’re talkin’.

Connie:  Dear friend, we should try this Jeep ride through the country side!

Grant:  Great idea!

Connie:  It is perfect.  I mean, you own a Jeep.  We like Jeeps!  And it is probably air-conditioned!

Grant:  Yes.  I am sure it has air-conditioning and hopefully satellite radio.  Just like my Jeep.

Connie:  Let’s just hope it has leather interior.

Grant:  Of course, buddy ol’ pal!  Great idea!  Let’s do it!

And then they high-fived.

The next day, they showed up for their exciting adventure.

And much to their surprise, this was the kind of Jeep they were given:

And this is the kind of Jeep my dad owns:

Now, you must know a few things about my parents before we continue:

1)  They do NOT like to get dirty.  Ever.  My dad sometimes showers 2-3 times a day.

2)  My mom does NOT like her hair to get messed up.

3)  My mom does NOT like her makeup to get messed up.

4)  Both of them loathe wrinkles in their clothes.

Wrinkles are the devil.

Starch spray is their friend.

5)  My mom blow dries her hair while camping.

6)  She probably irons her undies

7)  They both greatly dislike being hot.

8)  They are not ever daring or adventuresome.

9)  Anyone who is daring or adventuresome is a “clown”

10)  They always high-five each other before bed.  They never kiss.

Because they are my parents.

And that would be gross.

So, they show up for their excursion, freshly showered, make-up’d, blow-dried, and ironed.

Ready for their air-conditioned ride through the country side.

Instead they are shown this Jeep:

They are paired up with another young couple.

Who, as you may have guessed, would later be dubbed “clowns.”

And they are given bandanas to keep the dust out of their mouths.

Oh, perfect!

And they paid for this!

So, they get in the Jeep.

My dad volunteers to drive . . . as to avoid any “clownish-ness.”

There is no, I repeat, there is no air conditioning.

Or Satellite radio.

Or any radio.

They get covered in dust.

They get drenched in mud.

They visit a tequila factory.

They have a lovely picnic at the beach.

Then they turn around.

They get drenched in mud again.

They get covered in dust.

They removed their bandanas

And went back to their rooms and took showers.

After which, I am sure they blow-dried, flat-ironed, make-up’d, and clothes-ironed.

And then they high-fived and went to dinner.

The End.

Only a mother would think to take a temperature when a child is sick.

Even when daddy insists the child is fine.

Only a mother would drive to the only open grocery store at 11:30 pm to buy her child ibuprofen to help his fever go down.

Even after already washing her makeup off.

And not sure if she actually got all that eye makeup off really well.

Only a mother wouldn’t care about the funny looks from the 20-year-old cashier.

Only a mother would constantly get up with her child as he cried off and on through the night.

Even if daddy doesn’t hear the cries.

Only a mother would still be able to wake up at 6am with the other children.

Only a mother would be able to put off drinking coffee until the sick child was okay to not be held.

Only a mother would think of tricky things like putting ibuprofen in chocolate milk to get the child to take the medicine.

Only a mother would remain calm after seeing the sick baby put his fingers inside of his poopy diaper.

Only a mother would lovingly clean the poop of the child’s hands.

And off the floor.

And get the child a new shirt.

(Gross)

Only a mother would sit inside on a gorgeous, sunny day and cancel all plans she had with friends.

Only a mother would still attempt to blog while the baby insists on being held.

All.

Morning.

Long.

Only a mother would sacrifice the quality of a blog post by making a quick, short, sorta dumb, and pictureless post for the sake of her sick child.

100 (meaningless) points to whoever can guess which child is sick.

200 (meaningless) points to whoever can come up with a worse Valentine’s Day story than the one I posted about yesterday.

In other words . . . talk to me.

I am home.

All day.

With snot.

And crying.

And fevers.

Happy Friday!