Final Countdown…

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It’s almost here! Check back tonight and then tell me what you think of the new website! You can be my personal debuggers.

Until then, here are some Dalai highlights from the past week:

* Swear Jar is up to $23

* I made the most amazing raw brussel sprout and kale salad that you are going to die over – I’ll post after Spring Break!

* Dalai T asked how a baby comes out of the tummy and I told him “doctors cut them out.” I’m not proud of myself.

* Dalai Dan went shopping Sunday: Captain Crunch, Oreos, Pringles, Fruity Snacks, Trix Yogurt, and Lunchables. It’s no wonder they prefer him.

* I just bought the exact pair of white jeans with ankle zippers that I owned in 8th grade.

* I just started reading The Passion Test and I’m loving it!

* I somehow got roped into doing a karaoke dance performance for charity that requires me to memorize 87 moves, including the clock, the jerk and jazz squares.

* My legs saw their first sunlight in 6 months yesterday…until my daughter had to ask me why “marks” (aka veins) all over them.

* In 4 days we leave for Disney World! Kids are out of their minds with excitement. I am frightened to put on a bathing suit…with my marks and all…

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Quintessential Dalai Dan

In the spirit of gratitude, brought on by the many emotional things that have occurred recently, I decided to take a moment and tell Dalai Dan what I loved about him the most:

His patience
His laughter
His naturally centered emotional state
His positive outlook
His loyalty to our family
His deep love for our children
His flexibility

I could go on…he is truly a remarkable person. How many men could deal with a wife like me that airs every thought on a international platform? And not only deals with it, loves me more for it?

Seriously, friends, I am lucky.

As the one-sided conversation came to an end, and he was quietly listening to the story of his greatness, I paused and asked him,

“So, what would you say is the part of me that you appreciate the most?”

He thought for a moment (hating to be put on the spot to express his feelings. I didn’t say he was perfect) and then said,

“You will always make me something to eat. You make dinner and make me smoothies…I like not having to worry about food.”

So, there you have it. The Dalai Lina distilled down to her basic function in this family: food management.

The bottom line, ladies, is when it comes to men, don’t underestimate the power of their stomach! They are still boys wanting to be taken care of.

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Women’s Liberation?

My newest obsession is Downton Abby. How did I not know this show existed until 2 weeks ago? You know my preoccupation with all things English and historical…why didn’t you tell me? I’ve been watching the old episodes from Netflix, absorbing every minute like chamois. Then, hovering over the mailbox for the next disc.

I want to be Lady Mary Crawley. Ok, it kind of sucks that she can’t inherit her father’s estate because she is a girl. But she has a personal assistant and a beautiful wardrobe.

What strikes me about this show is how far women have come in 100 years. So many amazing achievements that are due to the sacrifices of women before us.

In Downton Abby, women who do things for themselves and don’t have a staff are looked down on. However, the funny thing is, I think we may have gotten ourselves in the opposite situation! Thanks to Women’s Lib, we are not only allowed to do anything we want, we are expected to be Superwomen and do it all. WITHOUT ANY HELP. I feel like it is often “looked down on” if a women has assistance.

Nanny picking the kids up from school? Hummm…
Housecleaner? Oh, how lucky for her.
A cook to help with meals? Seems indulgent if you ask me.
Personal Assistant? And she doesn’t even have a job!

Remember, ladies, women’s liberation was a movement to ensure our equal place in society. Now we CAN chose to do anything we want, just like men. But, this does’t mean we have to do it all. And it definitely doesn’t mean we have to do all it without help.

Women should support each other and our capacities. If we want to work, great. If we want to stay home, great. If we want a nanny, great.

We have not failed our feminist foremothers if we chose to raise a family and find out that it is so damn hard we need help.

Ok, now for Master Matthew Crawley…the dishes can wait 🙂

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Foto Friday Take 2: The Reveal

I got some hilarious emails & comments from readers and friends about my Friday’s post that prompted me to take some snap shots from a different perspective.

It is easy to zoom in, filter out the noise, and see beauty in everyday objects around you. Zoom out, however, and I live in the heart of the Chaos Theory.

Let’s start with my desk, which looks like this every day. I have an organizational rhythm beneath the exterior mayhem which Dalai Dan cannot appreciate. This desk is possibly our biggest threat to our marriage, second only to his milk expiration date phobia.

My bathroom is not much better. If I know I’m going to use all of this stuff the next day, why bother?

Let move onto the animals, who try their very best to add a unique imprint on our home. Remember my favorite chair? It is right next to this mess created the same day by our bladder-challenged dog.

Moving onto our cat, who poops no less than 12 times a day. And every time she does, she digs a whole big enough to conceal a dead body, enthusiastically flinging her litter all over the floor.

Notice the towel under her litter box? It is there because she constantly underestimated the size of her butt. I can’t tell you how many times I have watched Mia squat her bum over the edge and pee all over the floor.

There is the dirty girl…

Our children are no better than the animals. Their destructive force is immeasurable. I have commiserated about it with you here.

Dalai Daniel’s lego obsession has not been thwarted. His lego men, heads, arms, and pieces are still all over the house. And in the vacuum cleaner bag. I bet there are 3 dozen severed lego hands in there.

This is a light day for the air hockey table. Only home to 3 coats, 2 pairs of socks, 1 plate with cemented quesadilla cheese, 2 granola bar wrappers, 1 backpack, 1 guitar, 1 tennis racquet, and 27 school worksheets.

I have my limits. I refuse to show you what I found INSIDE the toilet, which could be anywhere from 8 hours to 3 days old. We are still working on flushing in the Dalai household.

All-in-all, an accurate reflection of a typical Sunday mess.

I hope this makes you feel better about your stained carpet, overstuffed drawers, and out-of-control clutter. You are in good company 😉

I’m off to clean! Have a fantastic, clean day!

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25 Things I Learned About My Family Over Dinner

How quickly dinner at the Dalai household can deteriorate…

1.  If we could time travel, Dalai Dan would want to go into the future 200 years.

2. Thomas would want to go back to the 1600s.

3. Pissy Missy is dying to go a whole year into the future.

4. Dalai Lina would rather lose a leg than an arm.

5. The rest cheated and opted for pinkie toes. Max a shaft of hair.

6. If they could do any job, Max would want to be an NFL quarterback.

7. Thomas a scientist.

8. Annabelle wants to work at a donut shop.

9. If she had to marry someone to save the world, Annabelle would pick Addison.

10. Dalai Daniel would marry his chair or let the world explode.

11. If she could live any city, Annabelle choose South Carolina (although she has never been there).

12. If we could re-live any vacation, Dalai D would go back to Mexico.

13. I would go to France.

14. If we had to pick any skin color that doesn’t already exist, Dalai T and Dalai Dad would pick light blue. Max wants red, Annabelle yellow, Daniel orange and me, purple.

15. All the kids opted for a viral video of themselves picking and eating their buggers over going to school naked.

16. Surprisingly, Max would rather drink Thomas’s pee over our dog’s poo.

17. Annabelle would choose our cat’s poo over our dogs. (So would I)

18. There were various poo/pee combinations, and 90% of the time, pee won.

19. Thomas would rather have an epic fart in front of the President over peeing in his pants.

20. All were unanimous that they would rather have uncuttable, shoulder length ear hair over nose hair.

21. The boys chose losing their outer ears over having no nose and looking like Voldemort.

22. Dalai Dan would rather have hair down to his butt over being bald.

23. Pissy Missy would rather lose her teeth over having a big, pointy nose like her mom.

24. I told her I would start praying for her to have a big pointy nose.

25. Finally, when asked what other parent would have an inappropriate conversation like this one with their kids, without hesitation they all yelled “Mr. Bolin!”

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Foto Friday

The Two Annabelles

Do you think she knows how lucky she is to know her great-grandma?

She met her great-great-grandma too….at age 100.  She finally left us at 103.

Time to call your grandma?

Have a great weekend!

 

 

 

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What Happened to Those Chunky Legs?

I was at the kids’ school today for Annabelle’s fall program. I love watching these kids. They are so freaking hilarious, it really makes my day.

While I was sitting in my chair, waiting for the show to begin, I spied something irresistable. A baby butt of such amazing proportions, I couldn’t help myself.

This is a time in one’s life when the bigger the better. It was all I could do to restrain myself from stealing him.

Jiggalicious.

What does he have on his legs?

Awesomeness in the form of leg warmers.

I was so enamored with this baby hunk it was the first time in a LONG TIME that I morned the loss of my baby fat. I will never have my own again. What happened and how did it go away so fast?

I went to bed one night and she looked like this.

And when I woke up, there she was.

Did I feed her too many carrots and green smoothies?

Because the baby fat is gone. No more Jiggalicous.

Just a beautiful girl that the boys can’t keep their hands off of.

Good thing she has three older brothers.

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Girl Gone Bad

I’m sorry I went MIA. If I was a blogger worth a bag of beans I would have prepared better for my absence – maybe a guest blog? What do you guys think about those?

So, here is what went down: a four-day Pissy Missy and Dalai Mom ultimate weekend of girl bonding. You see, Dalai Dan and the two middle boys went on a boy’s trip to Southern California, leaving us girls behind. When Dalai D was planning this trip, I had just returned from my epic Brazil adventure and couldn’t fathom getting on another airplane for at least 6 months, so I opted to stay home. Little did I know the Midwest was going to get stuck in a high pressure weather pattern and experience three massive heat waves. Stupid Dalai Lina. Never give up a trip to California.

The nice thing was Pissy Missy and I had an entire weekend together. While her left hand was already beginning to fuse to my thigh after 5 years of skin-to-skin contact, this girl intensive weekend made us certifiably conjoined.

Let me bore you with the details (you can stop reading now)

On the first day we both got massages, went out to lunch, went shopping for a Ken to get married to Barbie, got ice cream, watched Bed Knobs and Broomsticks until 10:30 and had a sleepover in my bed where she spent most of the night perpendicular to me, kneading my butt with her feet.

The second day was filled with the new Winnie the Poo movie, shopping for soccer cleats, looking at Pet Smart animals, playing with the treasures we unearthed in the basement revival, swimming at the pool, and having a slumber party with our only girl cousin.

Saturday was the pinnacle of girl entertainment: the American Girl Store. Pissy Missy’s grandma “Annie” took her, her cousin, and me (lucky) to lunch, mall shopping, and finally the American Girl store where my appendage acted like an entitled brat who had warrant for emancipation on the grounds we would not buy her the new Kanani doll. Annie would ONLY buy her a $30 tennis outfit for her Rebecca doll. Oh the horrors.

It was at that moment I realized she may be spoiled. And I may be responsible. Maybe I went a little overboard. Was it the massage? The trip to three toys stores searching for the perfect Ken doll?

What, dear God, have I created?

A Pissy Missy, doggonit.

A funny, silly, beautiful, kind, smart, loving HOLY TERROR. And I thank heaven every day for that little imp.

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This is Why You Don’t Run at the Pool

What do you do with out-of-town guests when the third heat wave has arrived and the heat index is over 105 degrees?

You go to Oceans of Fun. Kansas City’s very own public water park.

I was already dreading the excursion seeing as I find walking around in a bathing suit in 105 degree weather with masses of civilians and children – well – rather unpleasant. Especially since I couldn’t even go on the rides. Dalai Daniel and his side kick Pissy Missy are not tall enough to do anything except splash around in Paradise Cove, which is basically a gigantic playground of annoying water torture devices. Within 30 seconds of approaching the edge of the structure I was pelted in the eye with a stream of water controlled by a 6-year-old sociopath and subsequently violated by a large surge aimed by some perverted teen age boys at my bathing suit bottoms. I hope they have nightmares of my white, fleshy, almost 40-year-old butt.

The fun was really starting in the wave pool, were the kids and I decided to chill out, until my uncle (in town from Seattle) came running over to tell me that Thomas was being taken by the lifeguards to the First Aid office and he was going to need stitches.

We had been there a total of 45 minutes.

The chin gash, deep enough to make a veteran mother-of-four want to vomit, was the result of, you guessed it, running on wet, slippery concrete.

So when your children think you or the lifeguards are stupid for making them walk, just show them this picture of Dalai T’s seven stitches, courtesy of Children’s Mercy Urgent Care.

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Dear Max,

Well, things must be going well at camp as your letters keep getting shorter and more uninformative. I believe I have gotten six  letters  sentences from you in total and have learned nothing of any consequence, unless you count the riveting description of your broken pen:

“Pen Broke have to hold button while writting bad handwritting I’m haveing fun Im waking up at 5 and its light so i think its 7 Please send me a watch love you miss you”

I feel I won’t be a good mother if I didn’t point out your spelling errors, lack of punctuation or apostrophes, and inappropriate upper/lower case choices.  You leave me no choice but to request a partial refund on your private school tuition and use it to fund your new tutor.

I should warn you that there has been a game of musical beds since you have been gone.  But all the beds have been in your room.  Don’t freak out because it really is your fault.  You have effectively guarded your room like Fort Knox making it so impenetrable it had become an urban legend in our own house.  As if they have been told they only have 30 days to live, they are committing every orifice of your room to memory.  There is nothing of yours they have not fondled or caressed with profound reverence.

All three of them sleep in your room every night.  How, do you ask, since there are only two beds?  Daniel ingeniously solved this problem by making his very own “dog bed” out of your pillows.  Not only does he call it is “dog bed,” he refuses to use anything but a towel for a blanket.  At one point he and Annabelle had two dog beds going in your room in lieu of the perfectly good mattresses available to them.  You will be happy to know that I have put a moratorium on all dog beds because I couldn’t handle having every pillow in our house on your bedroom floor.

I am sure the sight of Dalai T, your arch enemy, in your precious bed is horrifying. Especially seeing your unfaithful cat laying next to him.  You may even refuse to sleep in the bed in fear that some revolting drool or rogue Dalai T booger has defiled your pillow.  I promise I will wash everything thoroughly before you come home, so don’t worry.  And if that isn’t good enough, I know someone who can teach you how to make a damn good dog beg.

Love,

Mom

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