An angel, a queen, a fireman, and a monster-mouth... I mean, cowboy...

Last night was hilarious. We were laughing the whole night. Mostly after the appropriate allotted time following a time out (of having to "sit out" on a couple of houses) that our son had to go through. He was ON FIRE last night with his mouth - and we were... humbled by his behavior.

First house we went to (which happened to be our neighbors who we really like) Carter (along with his sister, brother, and cousin) gets his candy and before they had even shut the door we hear Carter yelling to us (on the sidewalk), "Hey! That guy lost his tooth! Can you believe it!? AN ADULT!!!" He is missing one of his front teeth. So very nice of Carter to point it out to anyone who might not have seen if for themselves.

We sulk away on our walk of shame to the next house as we are trying desperately to coach Carter (as usual) on not just saying the first thing that comes to his mind. Which, I might add is so very hard to do when both his Mom and his Dad are people who are generally putting their own feet in their mouths more often than not. This is also why our sister thought this whole episode was the funniest thing ever. Seeing her "little" brother get a taste of his own medicine. Let me tell ya, it doesn't taste too good.

Later we approached a house with a "support our schools!" sign in their yard. As the kids were walking up to the door, us adults were jokingly wondering (out loud) if kids would get more candy if they said their parents voted to support the schools.

Next house - Carter rings the door bell and, "Trick-Or-Treat! We vote to support local schools!!!" Apparently he heard us.

After a pep-talk about only saying "trick-or-treat" and "thank you!" Carter was thrown off by receiving a popsicle (really) instead of candy and shouts to us as he's walking away from the house, "What!?! This thing'll melt before we even get home!"

And then later as we were leaving a house that got bombarded with a bunch of kids all at once he says, "Wow! Bet we cleaned that guy out of candy!"

It will take a long year of recovery to be convinced that the whole trick-or-treating gig is a good enough idea to do again...

One Liners

Here are a few examples of my mad parenting skills via brain-candy-one-liners for your Monday morning reading pleasure. Don't judge.

"Seriously - you did not just eat that! That came out of the dog's mouth!"

"Do you see what parts of your body are completely under? Yeah, that's why we don't drink bath water."

"What exactly did you think would happen if you licked the floor when it had dog hair on it?"

"Nail polish is never an acceptable substitute for lip stuff. Ever."

"The grout between the tiles is not a maze for your markers."

"I know it smells funny, but standing in front of the muffler when the car is running is not a good idea."

"Just because you have the ability to fit that into your nose doesn't mean you should."

"Because there's no nutritional value in Play-Doh - that's why."

"Please don't use your brother as a jump for your bike. He said yes because he doesn't know what it means."

"The dog's water dish is not an acceptable place to wash your hands."

"This, THIS!, is why we can't own nice things!"

Paint, Pee and Post-Dramatic-Stress

I swear there are parenting classes that someone who has it out for me hid the information to. Classes that are meant to help helpless parents prepare for, prevent, and post-drama deal with afternoons like the one I had today. It wasn't even an afternoon per se - more like... 2 1/2 minutes. How could I go so very wrong in just 2 1/2 minutes?

I'll start here.

About 3 months ago I bought paint. Red paint. I want a red front door because our house is barely off-white with stark white trim and a white door. I needed something that would pop (HGTV lingo) without putting a huge dent in the pocket-book or require too much work. Anyway, I've been waiting - like forever - for 3 nice days in a row because apparently you aren't supposed to paint an exterior door when it rains because the humidity will damage the paint job - I try to learn something new every few weeks or so. When the nice days started (finally!) I was out of town and this week was really the first streak of nice days I've seen since purchasing my red paint. So, yesterday Jeff and I sanded the door (and by "Jeff and I" I mean Jeff) and prepped the area for paint and I decided today was the day my door would be red! He went off to work and I began to set up shop. It all started uneventfully enough. The first coat made me cry (as usual) and wonder why I'd even ventured a curious thought towards such a drastic change - just like the first coat always does. I let it be for a while to dry (and pray) while I got lunch ready for the kids (who were happily playing in the backyard).

While I'm slapping some peanut butter on some bread and slicing cheese and broccoli onto plates Natalie comes running in the house screeching, "He PEED on me!!!"

I look down and her shoes and shins are all wet (note: she's standing in the middle of my kitchen). "Get in here, Carter!"

While I am interrogating, uh - I mean, talking to Carter I find out that he was peeing in the backyard behind a tree and Natalie was riding her bike past and pretty much he just aimed at her to get her away - what do you do in an instance like this? I mean, really? Time out? Go to your room? Just say you're sorry and don't pee on your sister anymore?

Before I can even process a thought as to what to do with these two, Natalie comes running in the kitchen (again - and yes, still peed on) shouting, "Mom! He tried to help you paint the door!!"

While I was breaking up pee-fights Jack slipped out of the room and went to the open front door (which was drying) and decided to try a hand at slapping some paint around.

I now mostly despise red.

I'm not kidding guys - someone is seriously holding out on me here. There has to be a way to prepare people for days (or as in my case, 2 1/2 minutes) like this. So, here's my disclaimer: When you have a bunch of kids, stuff like this happens. (And yet, still it's all worth it... and I'm talking about the kids - not the red door. Although I do love my red door.)