Mothering Mayhem: Life with the Wild Boys

Hola again, Wild Boy friends and family! Welcome back to another thrilling week in la Casa de Testosterone.  This week found me absent from la Casa. That's right, this week I was the parent that had training for work and had to leave the cop and wild boys alone, on what would prove to be the busiest week of the month of course. I had a training manager's seminar in Monterey, and the cop had work, the boys, the pets, soccer, scouts, a field trip, a school carnival and an awards assembly. You all think I'm awful, right? I felt awful, believe me. No, for real, I was raised Catholic so the guilt that an eight year old can instill when he gives you sad cartoon animal eyes and says something like "but...you ALWAYS go on my field trips with me..." with a little super sentimental lip quiver thrown in is almost enough to make me quit my job. Almost. Then I remember things like the mortgage, and my inability to spend a full day with both boys without actively seeking gyps...

Hola, Wild Boy friends and family, and welcome to an exciting Saturday night in La Casa de Testosterone. Once upon a time, when I was much, much, much, much (you get where this is going, right?) younger Saturday nights meant evenings out. Mind you, I was never really a wild party person, but there were times I went out to dinner and drinks and the like. Today, the cop and I got up at 5:30 a.m. so we could be at the Wild Boy's soccer games at the ass crack of dawn. We sat through two soccer games, had brunch, went grocery shopping and came home where we tried to nap but instead got up every 20 minutes to either pee or tell the boys to "KEEP IT DOWN - WE'RE NAPPING!!!" And now, while other people are prepping for late nights the cop is making homemade pizza sauce while I sit here typing, Gav crouches in what seems like a physically impossible yoga position on top of an exercise ball while telling me over his shoulder repeatedly how sad the ASPCA commercial on TV is, ...

Hola Wild Boy friends and family! Welcome back to La Casa, a wee bit early this week. This week the boys had fall break from school. Without school, I had the opportunity to switch over my schedule for the week and managed to get today off, which should have been great. Unfortunately, I had to take my car in for service. I was bound and determined, though, to make the most of my day with the boys (I owed them a fun outing for Gavin's report card), and decided we could totally do it all. I know, I know, you're thinking I'm a fool. The thing is, our car dealership takes FOREVER to do basic EVERYTHING. Like, drop the car off at 9, pick the car up at 6. So I knew there was time with a loaner car to do whatever we wanted. Our car dealership is also a little bit snooty. So I had to blackmail the Wild Boys a tiny bit - behave while I completed the ridiculously lengthy sign in process and got the loaner and THEN we could do fun stuff. Upon arrival, they were already snarky due to...

Hola, Wild Boy friends and family, and welcome back again to la Casa de Testosterone and the adventures therein. It's been a busy week here in la Casa, full of opportunities for experts to tell me I'm a parental screw up. How's that, you ask? Well, I somehow managed to schedule the boys physicals on the same week as their parent teacher conferences. NOTHING is as nerve-racking as a yearly trip to the doctor so he can assess within fifteen minutes if you're on track as a parent or if your child is doomed for all eternity because they have a television in their room and drink more than six ounces of juice a day. Add to that the twenty minute sit down with the teacher, who has carefully written down notes and held aside some of your kid's work as "examples" of what they're talking about...all in all it's a week I typically finish out needing some whiskey to say the least.  Oh, and on top of all of the extra appointments littered in the week it was als...

Hola Wild Boy friends and family, and welcome back to our weekly tour of chaos, mayhem, and shenanigans otherwise known as parenting. It's October 1, and I'm super stoked to be approaching something more like fall here in la Casa. Evening temperatures are cool, the days are nice enough I don't have to sell my soul to Satan to pay my PG&E bill for the air conditioner, and I can now get away with fall scents to cover up the constant underlying reek of body odor and disgusting shoes. It's delightful. The only glaring exception is soccer Saturdays, when regardless of the forecasted high it will be over 90 degrees (largely because the city we play in is roughly twenty feet above Hell itself) thus ensuring that I will sweat off all my sunscreen, be too engrossed yelling at the game to fix it, and will burn to a healthy shade of "my dermatologist is NOT going to be happy with this" every stinking week. But I digress. This week I actually took a day off work to ...

Hola Wild Boy friends and family! I'd welcome you to another week here, but in all actuality it was a week you'd really like to avoid. Specifically if you like sleep. But I have nobody to blame but myself on this one, so I'll fall on the sword this time. I created paranoid little monsters, and now I'm paying for it. See, I'm super duper terrified of clowns. I know, this seems like a bit of a tangent. I promise, it will all tie back in. Since I was little, just absolutely terrified. Yes, I've watched the clown related horror movies because I LOVE horror movies. But clowns themselves break me out in a cold sweat. Now, as a dutiful parent I've done all the things that are expected of you with small children. We went to the circus years ago. The cop was kind enough to accompany the wild boys down to the floor for the activities near the clowns, and was wise enough to buy me drinks before the show. It was a REALLY long show, and I literally held Gabe and used...

Hola Wild Boy friends and family, and welcome back to another fun filled week in la Casa.  This week was a demonstration of how remarkably busy a family can become when the parentals get separated and commit to different activities without talking to one another. Rookie mistake, right? My Lord, we know better but it happens to us a few times a year and it's ugly. See, we have soccer Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. Monday for Gabe, Wednesday for both, Thursday for Gav, games on Saturday. They practice in two different towns at exactly the same time, which on Wednesday involves me waiting at one practice until I know at least one parent there, then mentally invoking the invisibility shield on my car to speed to the next one, watching half there, reminding the coach of that team to drop my kid off at the other field when he's done, speeding back, watching half there...All while trying to walk laps and get a few minutes of exercise in (it's pretty sad...I'm pepp...