At home with the 'rents and little bro

I'm up home staying with my parents for the next three weeks so I don't know if I'll be able to update that often. My Goth teenage brother hogs the computer all the time playing all his Goth iTunes (Soundtrack to Constantine? Check. Nine Inch Nails? Check. The Bravery? Check. Communcating with all his Goth friends on that cyberhaven for high schoolers (a.k.a. MySpace)? Check, Check, Check. He dresses totally Abercrombie on the outside so you would never know deep inside he likes Goth music. He's funny though, I really love him. The craziest stuff happens to him all the time and he keeps our family life interesting. Like the time a bat got into his room (our house backs to the woods and all sorts of deer, bats, and beavers live there). It was 2:00 am and a bat got inside his room. It must have come into the house when we opened the garage door at some point earlier in the day and it came in and hid in my brother's closet. At night, after he was done with his iTunes and MySpace session, he went to sleep. The bat came out of the closet and started flying around the room. My brother freaked out and tried to hit it with his pillow. That made the bat mad and it started charging at my brother. He didn't want to open his bedroom door for fear the bat might come into the room where I was sleeping with the kids, so he opened his window and jumped out of it. The bat did not follow. It liked my brother's room. Now my brother was outside at 3 AM, freezing cold, wearing only his t-shirt and boxers. But, he did have his cell phone with him (must have rememberd to take it before he jumped out the window.) He called my parents who were like "Where are you calling from? Outside the house?" and he's like "Yeah look out the window, I'm outside". By this time I woke up from the commotion too. My brother is yelling "There's a bat in my room, it tried to kill me. Don't let him out of my room and into the house, it will get the kids." My Dad is experienced in bat removal from living here (even though by profession he's a Psychiatrist) and proceeded to find the bat. He went into my brother's room and grabbed it into a towel and set it free outside. What a night!

If you ever experience a bat in your home, here's tip. If you're having trouble luring a bat out of it's hiding place take a tennis racket and wave it up and down in the air. The high pitched noise this creates drives bat crazy and they will come out, flying with poor coordination and agility. Once it's out, try to capture it by holding a towel in front and grabbing it inside. Then set it free outside. Try not to whack the bat. This will knock the bat out and cause it to suffer serious bodily damage, although once when a bat really bothered my brother he whacked it and it seemed to go into some kind of painful convulsion. He had to kill it by taking it outside and running over it with his car to put it out of its misery. Again, resist the urge to whack the bat.

However, if you are a mom and are home alone, forget everything I just said and get out of the house with your kids and cell phone and call 911. They will get the SPCA or some kind of pest removal out to your home to get the bat out safely. Don't take chances, especially with kids around. Getting rid of rodents is a man's job, not ours.

Mama Bigfoot

I was looking at my closet the other day and realized that I have very few shoes that fit me. I used to be a 7 1/2 and now I'm a 8 or 8 1/2, depending on the style or make. Each time I got pregnant, my shoe size grew a half inch. Although I don't need another reason to tell myself to stop having kids (three already exhaust me, four would kill me), I think preventing myself from growing another shoe size should be a good enough deterrent. Not that I don't mind going shoe shopping after each delivery, it's just that the more kids you have, the less time you have to do things like shoe shopping. Last time I went to Aerosoles, the twins cried the entire time and my son threw a tantrum because he wanted to go to the Disney store. I got the shoes, but had to endure their whining the whole time.

Up Shit Creek

My life may not be as titillating as a celeb's, but I do need to vent about these god damn stomach flu viruses that plague our children. I didn't know there were so many different strains of it. Last time my kids got the stomach flu, they were vomiting for 3-4 days. This time, they had diarrhea for a week. Did I say 24 hour stomach bug earlier? It was more like seven days of hell. My poor three year old had it the worst, he was literally on the toilet 20 times a day, not including the five times he had to get up in the middle of the night (I had to revert him to wearing pull-ups at night to keep the clean-up from the "accidents" easier). The girls were leaking out of their diapers and the mess creeped up halfway up their backs. I swear they got this from the Curious George event we went to at Barnes and Nobles last Saturday. There had to be at least 50 kids there and everyone was touching the trains, books, arts and crafts, each other, you name it. I didn't wash their hands after we came home and before they ate their lunch. I think that's what did it. It was really bad. Finally, today they are feeling better and the frequency of stools has lessened considerably. I hope it doesn't come back again. Ever.

Da-Nile ain't just a river...

Da-yum. While I've been on shit duty for the past week, so much has happened in the juicy world of gossip. Katie Holmes has been walking all over town in her onesie getting her little alien jacked up with yet more caffeine, Paris Hilton's secret stash is on sale, and Lindsay Lohan's pathetic life has been revealed in her diary. Horse pills, that's how she and all the other skeletons like Duff and Richie lost all that weight, it was freaking horse pills (better known as Clenbuterol to the doctors that prescribe this crap for humans). And thanks to Lindsay, we all know that Jared Leto is very well endowed and having sex with him is "suffering". Damn. So many secrets revealed. Maybe it would be better if celebrities didn't document their secrets in writing or on video, then they could actually remain secrets. They should know by now that once a record has been made of your nasty thoughts (or deeds in Paris's situation) it's most definitely going to get out and spread like wildfire all over the internet. Fame can be a real bitch. [photo source: dirtyflower]

Accessories Matter

Jessica Simpson knows that if you're going to get photographed walking around town the morning after, you better look chic doing it. Jessica carries the new Marc Jacobs Perforated Leather Brigitte handbag. Odd as it is, I really like it. It can be purchased for $1,295 at eLuxury.com.

photo source: Green Straw

Reprehensible

Like I've said before, I don't like to dabble in politics, but articles like this make my blood boil. According to the latest news from the AP, one of the tactics the U.S. army uses to get "information" is to seize a "suspect's" wife. One of them was a 28 year old nursing mother of three young children, the youngest being 6 months old. They detained her for two days before an intelligence officer with a heart complained about it and let her go home. Think about it, that could be us if we were ever so unfortunate to live in a country like Iraq. Punishing women and children like this is barbaric, I especially feel for the mother and child. I nursed all my children and they never took well to a bottle. If I were to be kidnapped because the army thought my husband was an insurgent (which he is NOT!) my babies would starve because my husband would be incapable of feeding them. I can't even imagine the hell that family must have gone through at the hands of the U.S. Army. It is the height of cruelty to do this to women and children. I don't know how Bush sleeps at night.

Playdates, it's a good thing

After scrutinizing several episodes of Caillou, I've realized how Caillou's mother stays so calm: it's playdates. My friend out in California tells me she has playdates all the time where moms get together and drink tea while their children play. The playdate "host" changes from week to week so no one gets stuck hosting and having to clean up all the time. Moms get a chance to talk to other adults and the kids have fun, it's a win-win overall. I wish I could have playdates with my kids but in my neighborhood either the moms work or the mothers are just not interested in playdates. It's pretty sad. So to compensate, I have turned my local Barnes and Nobles into my playdate heaven. I get to drink fresh Starbuck coffee and my kids get to play with the train set and look at all the picture books. I pick up after my kids if they've made a huge mess so the saleswomen won't be like "Oh God, here she comes again with her platoon of messy kids", and so far we are very welcome there. I sometimes chat with other moms visiting the store but usually I'm engrossed with a magazine and my cup of coffee (while keeping an eye on the kids, it's a shame but there are alot of weirdos out there who snatch kids, we parents can never truly relax in a public place). It's the multi-tasking playdate, but it's better than nothing.