My ears want to jump off my head!

Thanksgiving will be here in just a few days, so I feel like now is a great time to contemplate the important things in my life...

Like how I'm going to get through Thanksgiving break trapped in my house with both of my children.

Listen, I love them. I absolutely adore them! But they're noisy. Soooooooo noisy!!! During the day when just my three year old is home, we keep it at around 107 decibels. When my eight year old comes home? Well, I'm not certain it's possible to measure the amount of sound pumped from those two little sets of lungs combined. According to the chart I just Googled (yes, I did that), pain begins at 125 decibels... I consider that our baseline when the whole family is here.

My children scream just for the pure joy of screaming. I honestly think my life would be complete if I could feel, just for a few moments, the pure jubilation they experience when they are screaming their little guts out. The looks on their faces as they, for no discernible reason, make random noises (Mmmmmm-oooom!!! Mommy! Mmmmm-ama!!!, oh wait, that's not random, that's my name) at top volume, are as close to nirvana as one could ever hope to be.

When you add the two loudest dogs in the universe, the tv, and someone who feels the need to listen to an ipod with the speaker on, it is a mixture even earplugs can't diminish.

Nobody ever tells you that the pitter patter of little feet is deafening.

I'm not gonna lie, there have been days when my ears are literally ringing by bedtime. Peaceful is not a term I would use to describe my household. However, in a weird way, I'm kind of looking forward to the chaos (even if my ears aren't). I have an hour and a half to myself every week when both of my kids are in school at the same time, and it gets kinda boring after about ten minutes. I like my crazy noisy kids and my super dumb dogs.

So, though I honestly believe that my children are negatively affecting my auditory processing for the long term, I think Thanksgiving break may possibly be survivable. Or I could end up in the corner covering my ears and rocking like a mental patient.

Either way, I am taking the cost of my hearing aids out of my children's inheritance.

5 Word Movie Reviews (Kid's Movie Edition)

I'm going to review 5 movies available on instant streaming on Netflix in 5 words or less. I am forced to watch an obscene amount of children's movies. At a certain point, each and every one of these movies becomes like fingernails on a chalkboard. I mean to save my fellow mothers and cinema lovers precious moments of their lives and brain cells. After my review, I will put an overall rating in parentheses on a scale from 1-5.

The rating system is as follows:

1. I would rather shove q-tips in my ears and glue my eyes shut than be forced to endure this for another second.
2. I can barely stand the glimpses of this I catch when I walk through the living room.
3. Uuuuuuug... I can probably stand sitting on the couch playing Bubble Shooter while this movie plays in the background. If I have to.
4. Eh, it's alright... The first 40 times you watch it.
5. Bearable.

Gnomeo and Juliet: Property damage isn't laughing matter. (3)
Astro Boy: Robot kid has horrible father. (1)
Tangled: Flynn Ryder = Nathan Fillion. (5)
Thumbelina: The 80's hair is unforgivable. (2)
Moonbeam Bear and His Friends: More like "Boring Bear." Heh. (1)

Alright, alright... I admit these aren't complete sentences at all. But you get the idea. Seriously guys, never ever make the mistake of letting your kids watch a "1." They will instantly fall in love with it and you will be forced to watch it approximately 51,000 times. And your kids will definitely not appreciate the snarky yet hilarious remarks you feel compelled to throw in every time you watch it, either.

Why do my children ask me to do things that are physically impossible?

My children come up to me about 3000 times a day asking me to do things. About 89% of the time, these things are simple things or mandatory Mom things ("Mom, can you wipe my butt?")... The other 11% of the time, the things are physically impossible to do.

I defy anyone to tie a pink plastic leash with clips all over it into a bow. Or squeeze an American Girl doll into Barbie clothes. Or make a little girl's hair look like a puppy paw. Or, against all laws of God and man, make a plastic horse stand on all four of its feet while being dragged around by a pink plastic leash with a giant knot in it. DEFY YOU.!!! Can't be done.

I can't say I understand why the pink leashes of this world need to be tied into bows, but when my babies are staring at me with their earnest blue eyes, I can't help but give it a whirl ("Girls, I don't think this is going to work." "Yeah it is. Yeah. It. Is.").

They stand there anxiously waiting as I crumple up the pink leash as best I can and wrap it around itself trying to make a sad facsimile of a bow. Or they impatiently wander back and forth while I try "stretching" the Barbie clothes and wedging an American Girl into them sideways, give up, and dangle the skirt off of a foot saying hopefully, "Maybe she can wear it as an anklet?". They laugh at me when I discover that after 20 freaking minutes of putting a severely damaged toy back together, I have done it backwards, and scream, "WHYYYYY?!?!? AAAARRRRRGH!!!" and shake my fist in rage at the sky. That's right, these children have the absolute gall to laugh at me after all I've done for them.

I'm sure you're imagining that, seeing as the requests being made of me are physically, mentally, and emotionally impossible, my daughters are really supportive and accepting when they realize I can't perform the task. Surely they see me struggling to appease their insane whims and show me some kindness and understanding...

Um... No...

When I hand them a wad of pink plastic leash and say, "Well, there ya go!" or a creatively accessorized doll or they look in the mirror and their hair looks more like a french braid than a puppy paw, they are very put out. They give me disdainful looks as they hand the things back to me and say, "Um, you didn't do this right." I say, "Sure. Um, it's great! See!" They reply, "NO. That is not a puppy paw." and wait grouchily as I try again. I'm not going to lie, it's super annoying. Okay, I know you all think that's mean, but don't pretend like it isn't. It's annoying.

I can't freaking do it, okay?!? I tried, and I can't do it! Nobody can!!! Go ask Daddy!!! Blaaaaaaaargh!!! I say it a lot nicer to them (really I do), but you get the idea. They never take me at my word. Never. They insist. They plead. They whine. So I try again, and hand back a slightly better but still horribly wrong thing. And they perk right up. "Thanks Mama!" and then they wander off into whatever alternate reality they just came from.

Only to return five minutes later because the sham of a thing I've concocted has unraveled or fallen apart (again.).

HELL!!!

So, if I wasn't annoyed before (unlikely), I am, like, double annoyed at this point. However, being the amazing lady I am, I take the thing and say, "Okay, but this is the last time. Seriously." And proceed to bungle my way through another repair job.

After the latest of these instances, I was sitting here asking myself what possessed my child to bring me that thing in the first place and I sorta realized, well, because she thinks I can do it. She honestly believes that somehow I can magically repair the unrepairable and fashion puppy paws out of kid hair. And she is infuriated when I (as any mortal), can't do it. And even though it's super annoying (it really is), it's sorta sweet, too. My kids will both look at a thing, a disfigured/dismantled/impossible thing, and think that I can fix it, no matter what it is. Which I never can. They honestly think that I can figure everything out. Nobody else in the world thinks that. It's pretty cool actually. And special, and humbling, and other mushy stuff.

And I am totally not looking forward to the day they realize, "Hey, this lady has never figured out a single thing! Ever!!!"


Was that cheesy??? Seriously guys, I am just a walking mammary gland... Oh man...