Stop screaming! Stop fighting! Clean your room! I'm going to put you in the corner! Stop teasing your brother! I can't take the yelling anymore! Stop it, now! *sigh* Save me, Jebus.

BY Orian (4 year old son of Texas Wahine) This time it stopped snowing. And den I wooked out the window and the snow was gone. And den there was no snow and no presents. And I wooked out the window and I saw the snow gone. And den we opened our presents. And there was dark clouds. I had Power Ranger toothpaste in my stocking and it wasn't nasty and it wasn't dumped. And den the earth was dark. And den there was evil guys and they were on the roof. And the Power Rangers were in ...

I never thought this would happen. I played rough and took spills my entire childhood and never broke a bone. Adrian did the same...no broken bones. Xavier's seven, and while he has had stitches, he's never had a broken bone. Orian has always been the tough guy. He'd fall and scrape a knee and look up and say, "I'm fine." It was always "I'm fine." But not tonight. We took the kids bowling, and were having a great time. If you've never watched children bowl, you are really...

My youngest child is pretty handy. He can run the vacuum cleaner. He can dress himself. He can run the DVD player. He can make his own ham and cheese sandwich. And today he has learned (well, taught himself) a new skill. I heard him scurrying around in the kitchen . . . rummaging through the pantry . . . I could even hear the sound of his flabby little belly pressed up against the counter. I wasn't sure what he was doing, but I suspected he was busy making himself as sandwich, ...

Every morning I nudge the sleeping boys curled up in my bed and tap their Star Wars underweared butts and say, "It's time to get up boys. C'mon. Let's go get dressed and get some breakfast." I pick the little one up and snuggle him in my arms as the big one runs off to the bathroom. "I'm still sweeping," the little one mutters as he flutters his long dark lashes and opens up his eyes. I rummage through their drawers, or sometimes through the dryer, and find a clean pair of undies and...

I don't have a daughter. Evidently God feels I am the sort of mom who needs only rowdy, grimy little boys. No matter what anyone tries to tell you, boys and girls are inherently different. Give boys dolls and they will tear off the arms and use them as guns. This is just the way it is. Give little girls GI Joes, and suddenly Barbie has a new love interest (shhh . . . don't tell Ken!). This is just the way it is. Some things can't be helped, but some things can. Your second grade...

I am a list-maker. I enjoy making lists, and I accomplish more when I have concrete direction. Lately, though, since my oldest child takes all the pens and loses them and takes all the notebooks and fills them up with comic book ideas and toy inventions, I have started keeping my lists internal. My husband tells me that I have the memory of a goldfish. Hehe. So I usually forget a lot of what I set out to do. Here's my To Do List for the rest of today (we'll see how much of it I actual...

Apparently not all soaps are created equal. Laundry detergent goes in the washing machine. Hand soap goes on your hands. Dishwasher soap (in liquid, gel pack, or powder form!) goes in the dishwasher. And dish soap goes in the sink. I am the reason there are warning labels on household products. I had a lot of post-Christmas dishes to wash. Some, unfortunately, had been in the sink (rinsed!) since Christmas day. And then there was yesterday's dishes that I hadn't yet wa...

My youngest is home from school today, sick with a fever and a yucky nose. He felt rotten this morning, but is feeling nice and spunky now. He's been all over the house and played with and relocated everything that's not been nailed down (and consumed an alarming amount of apples and bananas). Little monkey. I've been busy with a lot of chores, and absent-mindedly put a pair of scissors away in the kids' crayon bucket. The kids are allowed to use scissors, but they have to ask, so th...

This year's Thanksgiving is going to be terrific. The boys have been asking "how many days until Thanksgiving?" for a couple of weeks now, so today I was pleased to confirm to them that tomorrow is the day! This afternoon I'll start cleaning and cooking. Most of the decorations are out, including the leaf rubbings Xavier did last year that we cut out. That kid loves leaves. He has a bag full of different leaves he's collected and it's always on the floor, begging to be stepped on. ...

I got my first haircut in months this morning. Nothing major...3 inches trimmed off, some layering, and some new side swept bangs. Adrian was tickled (he'd warned me not to come home with a purple mohawk, hehe), and I'm pretty happy with it. Especially for 15 bucks (plus tip). So, the kids are home from school now. I let them know, while we were working on their homework, that I had bought groceries this morning (which makes them very, very happy!). Orian finished up his work, and was...

Doesn't it feel so satisfying to beat a child's buttocks raw when they've done something awful and angered you? The old saying, "This is going to hurt me a lot more than it hurts you" just simply isn't true. Hitting is great stress relief. It's a way to excise aggression. And when it's used to punish a child who has embarrassed or otherwise angered you, it can be considered a parental duty. Discipline. We can't pull our belts off and beat the ass of the snooty lady in the Ford Explo...

Only in my family would something like this happen... Xavier has been learning about recycling in school, and was given a really fun, creative assignment. The assignment was to come up with an invention that would help others or make tasks easier using recycled materials around the house. He had a packet to fill out with brainstorming on possible inventions, a description of his invention, and how his invention would be useful. When we first noticed him scrounging around the house, ...

Yesterday Adrian shined up his black boots in preparation for work today. He spent a good amount of time on them, and when he was finished they were a perfect glossy black. He was proud of his work, so he pulled on his black Army socks and laced his boots on and wore them around the house...with his khaki shorts and t-shirt. Later we were all snuggled up on the couch watching Teen Titans and Adrian began playing around, saying, "Oh, baby...mmm...look at my boots...oh, yeah...look how s...

I had an NST and u/s on January 22nd, at 41 weeks, and while everything looked healthy, the staff really pressured me to schedule an induction right away since they don't like for pregnancies to go past 41 weeks. It was a difficult decision, but we chose to decline the induction and schedule another NST and u/s for 4 days later, even though we were informed that our baby could DIE within hours of our leaving without a SCHEDULED INDUCTION APPOINTMENT. I was so frustrated and ready to go into l...