Cactus love...

I love it when my cactus blooms! They are gorgeous flowers! It reminds me of the prickly parts of life and how they suddenly will bloom just like the cactus! I count my blessings when I see the beauty these typically ugly plants produce!

My house has the flu...

Yeah, we sorta bathed the living contents of the room each day and then put them back in to keep them sane during the week in the house! I don't know which was worse, the kids feeling terrible with the flu or the girls' room looking terrible while they had the flu. Anyway! Nothing a lot of laundry detergent, a good sweeping and mopping, and lots of clorox spray couldn't restore! Those rugrats, I swear!

College Woes....

Ann Cherie calmly looked over at me today after helping me do some things and said, "Mom, how are you ever going to remember things after I go off to college?" Oh, Lordy! I laughed so hard and then got to thinking that was only 10 years away. So I suppose I can count on her for that long and then I will use the excuse of her leaving for college to check myself into the nearest nursing home, where others can remember everything for me, including how to do my laundry and clean up after my children. Too bad Ann Cherie can't remember how to do that on her own!

For my bestie...

This video is an awesome inside joke!  I know it's not about the rugrats, so sorry to disappoint!  But, to those that get it, CHEERS!  To others, it's a funny song on the movie!  Enjoy!  To John Oszajca, you are totally "on the list"!  You rock! 

The Funnies...

As I drove off today, Laura (home with the flu) looked at Frankie and said, "I really like her.  She's funny!"  I have not quit laughing about that one. 
As Maggie and I are driving to the bus this morning with her incessant talking and my singing to the radio to drown her out, she says, "Mom, you are SO not listening to me, are you?!"  To which I did not reply!  Lol
As I talked to Melody today, Liam says, "Mom, You crack me up!"  That's so funny, because as those who know and love me know that is MY line!

Special menu for children with the flu....

As my children are sick, I have had a few days off.  I had visions of reading while curled up with my little, quiet, sickly children getting up only to medicate and feed at appropriate time intervals, oh, and watching the occasional movie.  Ahhh, the lazy dreams of mothers of sick babies....  DREAMS being the operative word seeing as none of the above has come to fruition.  My home could rightly be declared a National Disaster zone and the food is not nutritionally capable of sustaining life, but does rightfully sustain the whine that emits from fussy children.  Play-dough is now ground into my kitchen floor. Cheddar cheese and pizza sauce from extra cheese pizza Lunchables are ground into the dining room floor.  Chips and another yet unknown and quite sticky substance (possibly is a fruit chiller popsicle- melting of course, but yet unfound) is ground into the cup holders of the couch in the living room.  Maggie and Laura's floor is littered with corn dog peelings (They prefer the weenie to the bun!) and Cherry-Oh game pieces (which as you probably know are tiny and enter your feet similarly to tacks when stepped upon-yes, from experience...).  My bedroom floor hosts a trail of oreo cakester crumbs, which feel eerily like moon sand, and quite possibly could contain a mixture.  Ann Cherie's room is the only room oddly unscathed, but I must admit a few punching noises and minor screaming matches with words like, "Mom, she's in my room AGAIN. I just want to knock her out." with replies from me of, "She's three and sick.  I'm coming!" did their best to aid in this cleanliness factor. So literally, you cannot walk through my home without slipping or dodging or saying, "Ugh, gross.  What is on the floor this time, girls?"  I dare not walk around without my dearfoams!  I have subsequently spent all day with the broom and a wet rag in hand.  In with cleaning floors, cleaning tables, cleaning babies.... out with the movie watching, reading, and cuddling with kids.  I know what you were thinking... What is she feeding these sick babies?  Corn dogs, Lunchables, popsicles, oreo cakesters, mac-n-cheese....?  What a terrible mother!!  Well, I might have had more time to actually cook if I wasn't spending so much time cleaning up what I managed to put on the table, or what I at least began by putting on the table.  So much for mother of the year!  But I have found that these cabinet staples have aided in the fussy, whiny department!  So who's the smart one now?  Right?  OK, I know. Not me.  Already went there...I know...  Those rugrats, I swear!

Flu Blues

Oh, the joys of wiping up poopy bottoms, feeding little ones special food and lots of bottles, and rocking babies to sleep!  How I wish I was talking about little babies and not flu ridden kids! Laura and Ann Cherie both tested positive for the flu today.  Ann Cherie came over whining last night about how bad she felt and how she really needed to stay home from school today, etc.  I laughed and told her to get over those Monday morning blues because she was going to school the next morning!  Then I started to hug her and give her the attention I knew she must need.  OMG, she was BURNING UP!  I said, "Oh my, Ann Cherie, I think you have fever!"  So we checked it.  102.  Lord, mother of the year here!  I was giving her some bubble gum flavored Tylenol when Laura came around the corner and seeing pink said, "my toat hurwhats too!"  Thinking she just wanted some "pink drink", I told her, "You aren't sick, silly.  This is medicine!"  And I leaned over to kiss her instead.  Her cheek was ON FIRE!  She was running fever, too! OMG!  So I dosed them both and called a sub for my class!  I took them both to the doctor this morning to be given the fateful news!  When we got home, Laura was standing in front of the cabinet when she suddenly said, "Momma, I was looking for the pot."  I look down and there is poo on the floor behind her.  Ann Cherie starts to walk through the door and steps right in it and drags it about three feet while I'm hollering, "Stop!!  Stop!!"  She looks down and starts gagging.  Nice.  So I strip them both down and, well, nothing a bath, a roll of paper towels, and a bottle of Clorox Clean-up can't handle!  We've been pooping, drinking "bottles" of juice, eating bread, and rocking ever since.  As for the little babies thing, I was reminded today about how sweet some of that time was, but how I am SOOO glad they have grown out of everything but the rocking stage!

Miss Mississippi...

We began our Sunday morning with the usual ruckus to get to church and actually made it there ON TIME without killing anybody or at least threatening any more than the usual!  I was elated!  We sat in our usual pew on the top row in the balcony as to not disturb the ENTIRE church with my children's racket!  Everything was going along so well!  We even agreed as the girls begged after church to go to the Chinese food restaurant to eat out with the rest of the population of Vivian...  Yep!  I know!  That should have been the first clue!  But as my ADD brain is not mandatory to function on Sundays, it was turned off and off to lunch we proceed!  When we arrived, as I said the entire town had made the same decision, there was only one table left and we grabbed it up!  Yes!  I can relax now!  Wrong!  We ordered drinks and proceeded to the buffet.  As we were preparing our meal, a little, sweet, "older" pentecostal couple was seated at the end of our table.  (The table sat 8 and seeing as we were only 5 the Chinese felt it was OK for us to share a table as that is probably their cramped little culture over there, but not when children are involved here.)  So needless to say, the girls were on their MOST GRACIOUS behavior for this couple now forcibly sharing Sunday lunch with us.  Maggie said the blessing- which thankfully was appropriate and of a decent time interval for once!  She thanked the Lord for her whole family by simply stating "whole family"!  As that would be the end of world peace during the lunch hour, take a breath before proceeding with reading!  First fight began over the transition from cups with no tops to cups with tops as per parental request to the serving staff.  Lord, start the alarms, tsunami coming in!  Laura WAS NOT drinking out of a "baby cup".  "I NOT A BABY!" she screamed at her best.  "Well, then go thirsty, because we must use tops to keep everyone and everything as clean as possible!" I calmly replied.  Well, the DEVIL himself created rice and that awful sweet red STICKY sauce.  As I had placed myself (wisely) between the couple and Laura, my outfit, which, as we all do- I was hoping to wear to school tomorrow as it was pressed and I only planned to wear it for a short time, was now COVERED in red sticky sauce and rice as she flicked the rice and then tried repeatedly to climb in my lap as we tried to eat.  When I wouldn't let her climb on me- to maintain distance between said couple and Laura- she went crazy and threw her head in my lap, which of course was now covered in the same red sauce and chicken grease as her mouth was and inconspicuously now looked as if I had started my period without protection.  Lovely!  So grabbing her, I notice Ann Cherie has been allowed to go to the buffet line ON HER OWN!  She returns with 8 cookies and 6 donuts!  Then proceeds to argue with Maggie that they are HERS!  Really, 8 cookies and 6 donuts and you CAN'T SHARE!  Heaven forbid!  Frankie calms the storm and I look back to Laura.  She is pushing her chicken piece with that same devil sauce around the edges of her plate and the plates around her so that no matter where you try to pick up the plate it is now dripping with sticky goo!  Awesome!  Nevertheless, I pick up the plate and take it way from her.  Yep, you guessed it!  She started kicking and screaming and whining... Nice!  By now, the little "older" couple was rushing through their plate and talking of how seconds were overrated and how they felt they would just skip dessert and hurry home today!  Wonderful!  About that time Maggie returns with her own cookies and proceeds to, not eat them like normal people, NO, that would have made sense, she starts breaking them into a million pieces on her plate causing crumbs to go everywhere.  She starts to eat her little donut things with the sugar on them but first licks all the sugar off the outside and puts the donuts over onto another plate as she picks up the donut plate, and, I kid you not, LICKS the plate.  Frankie looks at her and says, "Hey, Miss Mississippi, put down that plate!"  I am by this time laughing so as not to cry and telling Frankie how my 17 year old sister licked her plate last weekend and that must be where she learned it from because I was a Sub Deb and a cotillion!  Totally thankful for that bladder lift as hard as I was laughing which caused half the restaurant to laugh as well!  Well, we got on out of there after that!  There is just no salvaging plate licking!  Luckily it is a small town, so I won't even have to tell everyone at school tomorrow to read this blog as they will have already heard about the Reger's eating at the Chinese food place at the local church tonight!  For all of the rest of you, I hope and pray that the devil was not involved in your own family Sunday dinners!  I mostly just pray for my rugrats!  Those rugrats, I swear!

My new VOKI!

I am so proud of my new voki! Although, I look familiarly alien, I loved setting it up! I can't wait to create one for my teacher web site! Go to voki.com to create one for your blog or website! Just "You Tube" instructions on how to add it to your site! I love Lisa's added to W.T. Lewis Elementary's website! Thanks for the idea, Lisa!

Not so hot stuff...

I figured after the last post, I could tell you about other things that get hot, or should I say not so hot in my home! My girls were making corn dogs earlier and the microwave quit on them. Frankie has been "getting a part for it" now for about a month or so. It will only heat for 3 mins consecutively or otherwise before shutting down- therefore lots of food ends up not so hot. Now, I don't know about average microwave usage in 21 century homes or anything, but I know that my family uses WAY ABOVE average usage time and without that one appliance, life has seemingly caved in! Anyway, I hear my girls trying to make corn dogs in front of the microwave saying, "Next year we are so asking Santa for a new microwave." Seriously, that made me laugh so hard until I realized how sad it sounded! Needless to say, it was the extra push Frankie needed to say, "Time to pick up a microwave when we go out tonight!" "But what about fixing it?" I asked with a sarcastic grin. "Yeah, well, no. We are just going to go buy another one today." Which in husband speak means "I couldn't find the part or figure out how to fix it, so I'm using the girls as an excuse!" Well, no matter how it worked out, I will finally be back in business! Corn dogs and chicken nuggets- will be some hot stuff cookin' this evening! Those rugrats, I swear!

Hot Stuff...

Yeah, had to look after seeing that title, huh! Of course, I'm talking about me! I haven't felt good all day and running fever tonight. So I'm hot now! It's confirmed! lol If only my jeans and my age would conform to the knowledge!

Magic Marker Fairy Alert

High Alert! High Alert! There is a magic marker fairy stopping by houses and writing on bed sheets in the middle of the night. Said fairy is also known to leave marks on the hands of bed sheet owner victims. When questioned, my children adamently denied knowledge of her visit. Beware! Confiscate all markers and lock them in safes to maintain the security of your rugrats and bed sheets immediately! (Really not so funny at 6a.m.....)

As if...

Don't you just hate Mondays? Well, today was a Tuesday- Monday! We had the long holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and didn't have to return until Tuesday! Golly, it sure felt like a Monday, though! Enough with naming the days! My children woke up with the usual aches and and pains and coughs and excuses as to why they needed to stay home from school just ONE MORE DAY! As if I didn't want to stay home myself... When they realized that I was not giving in, I suppose they felt it my due recourse for them to argue, cry, hit, scream, etc. all the way to school! Lovely, I said as I caught a flying foot letting the girls out at the bus stop. "But she DESERVES it, Mom!" as if that is going to make me release said foot to bash sister....as if I like bloody noses to add to the fuss. Whine is just not enough...well, that kind of wine might would have been but seeing as it is really frowned upon at school... Anyway, I go to get Laura out of the van and as if the bigger kids' fits weren't enough, she starts crying- like the high pitched, red-faced, super-loud, call CPS on my mother immediately cry! "What?" I cried, and she simply continued to look at me and scream as if I should just KNOW how I was devastating her... Anyway, turns out she wanted her boots, but we had her tennie's, and she simply would not stand for having her hair brushed either, as in "the hair brush was going to turn her hair deep purple with red stripes and make it all fall out by the end of the day" kind of not wanting her hair brushed. Then- God Forbid- I had to take her into the daycare! Oh my word! She went insane! I left her sobbing in the sweet lady's arms after she peeled her off of me, waving bye as I walked out the door, and sat in my van just for a moment upon entry to catch my breath! Off to school, which was just as interesting, yet unfortunately confidential, as if those mommas don't know what their kids are doing at school anyway... Although, I know mine are perfect angels! For real, what could they possibly have left in them to rouse at the teacher! Those rugrats, I swear!