Switching Teams

On the phone with Jake just now:

J: Is that Twilight movie tonight?

K: Yes, remember when I told u that, last night?

J: Do you want me to go to the dollar store and get u a TEAM JACOB shirt?

K: No.

J: Why not?

K: I'm TEAM EDWARD.

J: Really?

K: Yes.

J: (LONG PAUSE.) That's very awkward, considering...

K: (ANOTHER LONG PAUSE.)

Oh.

I never thought of it that way.

Team Jacob, then.

So if you see a three-month-postpartum lady at the Chandler Mall Harkins tonight at the 7 pm showing of Eclipse, who has fabulously large Flashdance hair (got my hair cut short and now it is really curly, and who has time for straightening irons this summer?), is eating red velvet cupcakes her friend Shireen snuck in inside her purse, and is wearing an ill-fitting I HEART JACOB t-shirt stretched over her lactating breasts (Jake always gets me small or medium-sized clothing. I think this is a compliment. Like in his mind's eye, I am skinny? Or maybe in his mind's eye, I am wearing a tight t-shirt?), you should know she isn't really rooting for the wolf-boy.

You should also look for a straight-haired woman without a t-shirt, in case I get time for fancy hair and Jake doesn't have time for the dollar store.

Or maybe you should look for a lady wearing the gorilla mask that Jake bought to scare little kids coming to get candy on Halloween? Gorillas are like wolves, right? Then I wouldn't have to brush my hair at all.

Or I could wear those vampire teeth Tommy got at the Chuck E. Cheese?

You should say hi, when you see that lady.

The rest of you, who are judging me for going to see Twilight, can just remember that I am getting cupcakes, with cream cheese frosting, maybe, a new shirt, and three hours away from my kids on a Tuesday night. And I didn't even have to stay up til midnight.

Are you in? You got a shirt? A gorilla mask? Curly hair? Husband named Edward? Long incisors?

Witches, baby of wisdom, Juicy, and poor hygiene

Jane, poolside, yesterday, as I applied my SPF 70 sunscreen: Mom, you look like a white-faced witch. When she saw my horrified expression, she backpedaled: But you know, not in a bad way. It's the green-faced witches you want to avoid.

Kids like to play a pool game they have named "baby of wisdom." It involves one child holding another in a cradle hold, and then dunking the 'baby' for incorrect answers to trivia questions.

Whenever we get in the car, Tommy yells "Juicy!" and then everyone sings Better than Ezra at the top of their lungs.

At our fancy lunch over to the Peter Piper today, my genetically closest female relative (who will be unnamed, so I don't get beat up) said: See this dress I'm wearing? I slept in it last night. I was pretty impressed, cause she'd paired it with some three inch gold wedge sandals, and was looking pretty fresh. I replied: See this dress I'm wearing? I wore it as a bathing suit cover-up yesterday.

Yeah, she continued, unfazed by my admission. Summer hygiene can get kind of lax.

Which is so true. I find myself sniffing my kids and asking: have you had a bath this week?

What are you letting slide this month?

Hello Mudder, hello Fodder

So, it seems that five children is a lot. I'm just saying that so in case one of you decides to have five children because "Beeswax made it seem so cinchy on her blog," you can't sue me for something. Like having my pants on fire.

It is fun, though. If you remember that books and blogs and hairbrushing and the kind of vacation where you just sit on the beach and sip Coca Lites (and eat guacamole served by cute beach waiters to your cabana while you read embarrassing chick lit novels and stare at the ocean, and even sometimes get in it because there are no fish that you have an unreasonable fear of because of that lecture on poisonous creatures on the California coast at oceanography camp in the 5th grade) will still be going on in the year 2020 (unless that whole Mayan Calendar thing is for real, and everything will be over sometime next year).

And as we settle into summer, it is feeling less like a frat party and more like a not-very-good summer camp, in which I am the camp counselor who wishes she could sneak into the woods and eat cream puffs, instead of teaching children to make lanyards. Don't get me wrong. I am quite a skillful lanyard-maker. I made one out of green yarn, and hung the pool key from it.

My cousin Melanie had her fifth child last Monday. Baby Abby is fine, but Melanie is still in the hospital with all sorts of complications, so I've been hanging out there when I can.

I think she'd agree with me that five is a lot of kids.

(Who the heck said eight was enough?)

I'm fine with June. But not with scorpions.

This is my mantra: I'm fine with June.

(Totally stole it from my sister. I think is bad karma to steal mantras?)

Anyhow. It is working, I guess, cuz I am.

Fine.

With June.

Kids have been home a week now. And it feels like a party, all day, every day. Maybe like a frat party. Because there's fun and friends and lots of pool frivolities, certainly, but also fighting sometimes, and drinks flowing like water (because actually is water, and also some lemonade. Is 100 degrees.), and then the house gets really, really wrecked and nobody wants to clean it. Sometimes people pee in the bushes if they can't get to the toilet (most of these people are toddlers), somebody always throws up on me (the baby, mostly), and then we all try to sleep it off in the morning. That's my favorite part. The kids aren't wholly on board with the sleeping part, yet.

I'm super tired. And I never get a moment of peace. You can't normally expect to, at a frat party. Okay, fine, I don't really know anything about frat parties. I went to the University of Arizona for two years, and never attended one. But I heard some stories, people.

(Boy, I don't sound very cool right now. And I wasn't. Instead of the frat parties, I went to Institute dances where they played a lot of Footloose music. And it was the 90s.)

Tonight we went scorpion hunting. We bought a big black light at Walgreens, and sure enough, Jane found one of Hell's own arachnids out by the living room window, fluorescing green and creepy like a Halloween glow stick. She smashed it with Ross' shoe, and she collected her 50 cents. My Mom (who lives just a couple houses down the canal) got stung on Friday, and her finger is still numb, so we are all pretty jumpy. But so far we've been lucky, I guess.

If you think it is lucky that we had a three inch hairy spider on the front porch last night. It was big. And so hairy, he coulda used a haircut, or a side part. It looked like a tarantula. For all I know, it WAS a tarantula. Seriously, I'm not cut out for dealing with desert fauna. Jane squealed and told me I should spray it with hairspray, so I did. That just made it mad. (Perhaps he thought I was attempting to style his very long gray hairs on his enormous bulbous abdomen?) I'm getting the heeby-jeeby-shudders right now, reliving it.

Only thing worse than hairy spiders and scorpions? SNAKES.

My Dad ran into a rattlesnake last week while he was hiking. He was alone and listening to his ipod, so he didn't hear it rattling and striking at him 'til he was nearly upon it. Then he stopped to take photos. Brilliant. He's also seen a giant desert tortoise and a couple of mountain lions this spring. Not bobcats. Mountain lions. Huge. He's lived in Arizona most of his life and never seen one before. And two together is especially rare, cuz they are lone hunters and only seek each other out to mate. So, who knows what he interrupted?

Wink wink.

And that is all I have to say tonight. Just: I'm fine with June, but not with all these critters.

What are you doing this month? You got yourself a mantra?

What kinds of nasty insects/amphibians/reptiles/bugs that look eerily like tiny lobsters but not in a way that makes you want to dip them in clarified butter do you have at your house?