Sometimes My Life Is A Drama, Today Its A Comedy

Looking back on this here little blog, I am kind of shocked at how morbidly serious I've become. Back in Ye Olden Days I was just The Good Time Girl, always ready with a quip and a perpetual laugh that bubbled over and spilled out of my soul. And then...DUN DUN DUN (

aww, you missed that didn't you

) I don't quite know what happened. I suppose I've spent far too much time alone and reading the instruction manuals of children's products which include about fifty pages each of warnings that all ultimately end with:

COULD RESULT IN IMMINENT DEATH!!!

Yeah, I actually read the booklet when I installed Ari's toddler car seat and was shocked to discover that for about two years I have been driving around with Ellie's seat fastened improperly which...

COULD RESULT IN IMMINENT DEATH!!!

So freaked out was I after reading this manual with picture after picture of the crude outline of a baby with it's neck snapped and those lightning bolt symbols implying

IMMINENT DEATH!!!

that I drove first to the police station to see if they could help me make sure I had it installed properly, they could not because they all happened to be at Dunkin Donuts when I showed up. TRUE STORY. So then I went to the Fire Department. God bless those firemen! Even though they weren't certified to inspect car seats, they came out (in the rain I might add) and checked and pulled and pushed and fastened until we were all pretty sure that even

IMMINENT DEATH!!!

wouldn't mean imminent death.

Oh, but look, I got distracted. That seems to happen a lot lately. I make myself a cup of coffee, someone wakes up, I start their breakfast, someone else needs me to wipe their butt, the phone rings, someone needs me to email them right away, second person wants milk, but not THAT milk, different milk, the bird needs food, first person needs to be wiped down because she has smeared blackberries all over herself, her hair AND the wall, and all in the midst of all this I have started and abandoned about five cups of coffee. WHEW! Wait a minute, where did I leave my brain? I think it's somewhere next to that first cup of coffee.

Anyone that knows me will tell you I'm a clown...most of the time. Except when I'm warning you about

IMMINENT DEATH!!!

In light of all my seriousness over the past year or so, I wanted to lighten things up a bit and tell you some of the humorous things that have happened around here lately.

While waiting for our cars oil to be changed, Ellie and I went to Dunkin Donuts for some breakfast (TRUE STORY). The girl behind the counter, who happened to be very nice and accommodating, also happened to have the teeth of GOLLUM. As we were waiting for our order, Ellie, who had been staring at this woman's mouth, said something about how her teeth hurt. I begin silently praying that she would not say anything about it. I wisked her away to the bathroom where I explained that while the lady's teeth were very unusual, it was not polite to point them out to her because it may embarrass her. Ellie said that she should just see a dentist at which point I explained that dentists can be very expensive and not everyone can afford to have one fix their teeth. We left it at that and went back out to claim our food. After we sat down, I could see that Ellie was thinking intensely and before I could even do anything, she stood up on her chair, yelled: EXCUSE ME, MISS, BUT DID YOU KNOW THAT MY DADDY IS A DENTIST AND HE IS A VERY NICE MAN AND HE CAN FIX YOUR TEETH BECAUSE HE IS A VERY NICE MAN!

Oh. My. God.

What do you do? Smile? Apologize? Leave as quickly as possible, never to return? All of the above? That, and then when you're alone with your family (sans kids) you laugh because this was just one of many moments of verbal toddler diarrhea in your life. You laugh and wonder at their innocence and gall and deep down vow to be more like them...only with more grace.

And then there's Jeremy. Oh, Jeremy! I married my opposite, have I ever mentioned that? I love it, to be sure, but there are those moments when I just stand back and go...what the???

This guy is a numbers guy. He makes handwritten calculations of how he would divide hisPowerball winnings and what his return would be on a 6.73444444% investment over 30 years.

Yeah, fun stuff like tha

t

. He can fix anything, knows more about cars and bicycles than I would EVER care to. And his life philosophy is more along the lines of let's check all the rules first and then if we still aren't sure, we should call ahead and ask about the rules so we can make sure we're following them. Mine is more: it's better to ask forgiveness than permission.

So, a few days ago while attempting to feed her turtle, Ellie accidentally poured THE WHOLE CAN of turtle food into the tank. It was a brand new can mind you. We fished out as much as we could and bought some new filters to help clean the water out. It wasn't working. When I walked into Ari and Ellie's room yesterday to get Ari up from her nap, I thought she had had one of those colossal poops that make even the parent of said child want to heave into a bucket. And then I realized it was the fish tank. We ended up losing all but one fish and the turtle, and when Jeremy came home from work, he took everything out including the rocks and cleaned it all thoroughly.

Later, after dinner, I was speculating why it had killed everything and smelled so bad. IT WAS JUST NASTINESS, I said.

"Actually, Jill, it was the bacteria in there that after feeding on the food depleted the oxygen levels and suffocated the fish."

"DAY-UM, BILL NYE! I was just going to settle with the conclusion that the sheer nastiness killed them and then you had to get all science-y on me!" He then chuckled in way that seemed to say: HAHAHA fool, you are a mere troglodyte! Stand in awe of my math and science prowess! At which point I used some words that have more than four syllables which caused his eyes to glaze over and smoke to come out of his ears. Yeah, that's how we roll.

Tomato, tomah-to.

And then there was last night. We both laid in bed and giggled, about what, I don't even remember, for over an hour. Silly things, old things,

us

things. And it felt really good to just laugh like a kid again. I vow to do it more often...even in the face of:

IMMINENT DEATH!!!

WHAT!?!? You laughed without ME!!! I am BEYOND insulted! If I could properly articulate my great umbridge at this heinous offense, I would declare the both of you negligent and grossly unfit parents, while promptly informing the proper authorities. Since you people can obviously not decipher my attempts at communication with you because it's complexities are far beyond the grasp of your insufficient and age addled minds, I shall have to, instead, inform you of my great displeasure by relieving myself on one or both of you at the next opportunity!