Mothering Mayhem: Life with the Wild Boys

I am a firm believer in a village raising children.  And I rely heavily on my sisters to be a a big part of the village.  Lucky ladies, right?  Memorial Day weekend.  For me this equated to four days out of the office in the company of my lovely little gentlemen.  On Friday we tagged in Auntie Jess to go hang out with us at Funderland, followed by some necessary shopping.  She is our Girl Friday, and a standing date for us.  She gets included in all sorts of fun things like the zoo, the art studio we hang and produce at, haircuts, grocery shopping, doctor appointments...but focus on the fun things folks.  And this Friday was no different.  After Mommy treated Auntie to loads of junk food Gavin informed her she would only be doing "fast rides" with him.  Lucky girl, I've never seen anyone conquer a kid roller coaster that many times so quickly on the heels of chili cheese fries. Rock on, Auntie. And then, to avoid any extra traffic go...

I like to think I'm a pretty brave mom.  I was a tomboy, and somehow this computed in my mind to conquering all shenanigans the hooligans dished out with ease and style. Total fallacy folks.  My kids fear absolutely nothing, it appears.  And conversely since having them I have a whole new crop of parental type fears.  Some that are even more crippling then my fear of clowns... One recently acquired fear is reaching into kid pockets.  This should seem obvious to everyone.  Ever since my kids discovered these little treasure havens they have been jamming them full of increasingly bizarre objects.  My kids used to just catch me unaware with the innocent "Mom, can you hold this for me?" That lasted until after the first live millipede, at which point I started demanding to see what was being thrust at me.  Enter the pockets.  Several weeks ago a smell started emitting from our washing machine. A bad smell. The smell of belt death.  ...

And so it begins.  Once upon a time I wanted to be an author, but had no material. Story of everyone's life, right? Then I married a cop with kids, and eventually we had two of our own. And while my older children will avoid landing in this blog for the most part, the five children have given me enough material to rival War and Peace, minus the actual literary content of Tolstoy. My friends have followed my kids exploits on Facebook in snippet form. And at the request of many, and the prodding of my one brave blogger friend Brittani, I am embarking on the blog journey. So as an introduction for anyone joining us now, liberal meets and marries conservative and takes on his three amazing kids.  Encouraged by the family fun she decides they can handle one, yes ONE more.  After two years of fertility treatments along comes Gavin.  But the doctor fails to mention that post childbirth people are extremely fertile. Extremely. Like sneeze in my vicinity and apparently I'm ...