Earlier this summer I did that thing that I’m prone to doing.  I opened up my big, fat mouth while in the company of others.  The result of this particular uncontrolled thought thread is what is being called “The First Annual Bizarre Bazaar”.  See, I have a lot of REALLY talented friends.  And I love my really talented friends, so I want others to realize how awesome and talented they are too.

So I said something about how great it would be if all the really artistic and talented people had a venue to sell al their handmade awesome handmade stuff to others, without having to stockpile enough product to fill a storefront.  Apparently, Ms. Kiki was paying attention when I said this, and she took that ball and ran.  We got ALL KINDS of cool stuff showing up at the bazaar.

My contribution?  Psychedelic hobby horses, and their little known red headed stepchildren, psychedelic hobby seahorses.  And bibs.  Many, many very cool bibs.  All hand made with care and love and great attention to detail.

What other hand made lovelies will be there, you ask?  Soap, water color cards, purses and bags, knives, jewelry, wooden santas, felted baby booties and wine bags.  Plus more, but I can’t remember off the top of my head.

A little something for everyone!

If you’re in town, won’t you join us?

The Bizarre Bazaar

Saturday, November 7, 20009

9 AM – 6 PM

The Mercantile

Hidden Springs, ID

You know when you have an infant, and you’re getting up during the night more times than you can count?  How you feel like crap, everything is overwhelming, long distance phone company commercials make you cry, and you’re just so very sure that if you could just get a decent night of sleep you’d be OK?  Well, my kids are now 8,9,11, and 12 and I’ve had a week like that.

This morning I received an email that went like this:  “what’s new and how are you?”.

Here’s my answer.

“Last night I went to bed at 11PM, only to be woken up at 2AM by Davie O’s snoring.  He  was snoring because he took not one but two Ambien and was so dead to the world that I couldn’t even get him to roll over.  I was woken up again at 3AM because Bowman somehow lost all his covers and although he wasn’t able to locate them, he was able to walk down a flight of stairs, wake me up, and ask to sleep in my bed. I was then woken up at 4 AM when Bowman, who apparently didn’t really appreciate what had already happened to me, smashed me in the face with his elbow. At 5AM when he did an instant replay with the elbow, and Davie-O was still snoring on both the inhale and exhale, I removed the snoring, farting bulldog that was sleeping between my legs and went down stairs to get my remaining 45 minutes of sleep in the recliner. The kitchen timer went off at 6AM and I started the whole clown show again.”

Not to be a downer, but if you have little kids and you’re hanging onto a thread, and that thread just happens to be the idea that someday, in the near future, you’ll be able to sleep through the night uninterrupted, I’m here to trample on your dream.

So, I have this thing.  You may have heard me talk about it before.  It’s this little thing, called my family.  It includes a bunch of weird pets and 5 people other than myself.  The family sort of prohibits certain things in my life, like opulent travel to exotic locales.  And vacations with my husband.

Long ago Davie-O and I just sort of gave up ever going anywhere together.  At one point we had 4 kids under the age of 5, and just in case you’ve never been in a room with that, it’s not easy and can be extremely unpleasant.  So, we started taking separate vacations.  Davie-O would get on his motorcycle and drive to Canada.  I would find a concert somewhere other than the state I live in, and that was good enough.

And now the kids are a bit older, and ever slightly more independent.  We came up with this crazy notion that maybe, just maybe,  we could vacation  together.  I decided to tag along to a conference in Chicago.  I actually helped write the paper for the conference, and was billed as a co-presenter.  We booked a great hotel, Davie-O was looking forward to attending the conference, and I had a list of cool things I wanted to do, see and eat.

Last Sunday I got up and packed 4 kids for a week at grandma’s, I packed Davie-O (because he’s 39 and can’t put stuff into a suitcase so it comes out looking like it’s been laundered in the last decade) and I packed myself.  I then packed all that stuff into the car.  And then I drove, all 11 hours, to Seattle.  Davie-O was in the car, but he worked the entire way.  We arrived at the grandparent’s house at 8pm.

We got up and left for the airport at 4:15am on Monday.  We made it through security by 5am.  I started throwing up in the airport at about 5:20am.  Did that twice, just for good measure.  Then I boarded 2 different airplanes, where I proceeded to vomit 6 more times.  And due to the turbulence, I got to vomit in my seat.

To his credit, Davie-O was awesome.  He took care of my luggage, he loaded me into a taxi, and he got me to the hotel as quickly as possible.  He even upgraded to a room with a view when we checked in, since he wanted me to have something to look at while I was lying in bed.

Never, ever in my entire life have I been so glad to be inside of a hotel room as I was that afternoon.

And then I spent my ENTIRE vacation there, in that hotel room.

Just me, the lovely white sheets, and the nice clean bathroom.  Oh, and ice from the hotel ice machine.

On Friday, just in time for the big flight home, I started feeling better.  Davie-O complains of headache.

About an hour before we started driving home on Saturday, Davie-O started throwing up.  That trip was super fun for him, and entertaining for everyone else in the car as well.  Nothing says “we’re a family” like teasing the person who is stuck vomiting in the car.  It’s all about the love….

Sunday, 8PM, found Cutter sitting on the commode, losing bodily fluids from both ends.  Poor kid.

Monday, 1AM, found Bowman in same situation as Cutter.  Both boys missed the first day of school.

Tuesday, 6 AM, Mason wakes up complaining of a headache, but he looks pretty good.  This goes south quickly, as I watching him turn green about half way through his bowl of yogurt and bananas.  I’m so nice I gave him a breakfast that I thought wouldn’t be horrible to barf up.  And right I was about that, starting at about 11AM.

Isabelle announced that her head hurt when she went to bed on Tuesday.  I put her in bed, lined the floor between the bed and bathroom with blankets, and gave her a bucket.  Davie-O pulled night duty with her when she started throwing up at midnight.

And there you have it:  a crappy ass vacation, and all 4 kids absent at least once by the 3rd day of school.

I’m choosing to believe this is not an omen.

I CANNOT stop laughing about this.

Now, I am not a totally heartless bastard, and do wonder what happened to the guy.  But, damn, it’s funny.

Have a look:

Sadly, it gets funnier the more you watch it.

The other day I was helping Isabelle clean up her room.  That child has a myriad of pillows, stuffed animals and blankets that she sleeps with every night.  And let’s just say it’s been a good long while since I’ve seen any of that stuff come through the laundry.  She also has this thing called her “Ama silky” that she’s had since she was 3;  it’s a green polyester nightgown that she wraps around her neck and sleeps with (and slobbers on) every single night.  I haven’t seen that come through the laundry in a while either.

So I picked up the Ama silky and after getting a whiff of it, I suggested that perhaps she may want to throw that in the wash as well.

My lovely daughter’s response?

“No Mom, I can’t wash it right now.  It’s just getting the way I like it.”

Yesterday I MADE Mason accompany me while I was purchasing the items on his revised and updated school supply list.  I know.  I am the meanest, worst mother in the history of all mean and terrible mothers.  We made this trip while on the way to one of his two schools to pick up his schedule and practice opening his locker*.

I must say, that while Mason  can sometimes be a very trying teenagery type person, he can also be quite charming and fun to spend time with.  He decided to be charming at the store.  And helpful.  So when he requested an “only slightly unhealthy” treat at the store, I said OK.

He returned to the cart with a box of Twinkies.

I told him that I shudder to think what his version of totally unhealthy was.

And then I piled him back into the car, and drove the 8 blocks over to his school.  Where I discovered he had eaten 8 of the 10 Twinkies in the box.  He suffered no notable affect.

* I am happy to report that of the 5 of us standing in the hallway, ONLY I had the knowledge it took to open said locker.  AND even though it’s been 22 years since I have opened a locker, I was able to do it on the first try.  All others were flummoxed by the R-allthewaytotheLpastthe#-R.

There is a master list of  “What Is Wrong With Our Country” .  I’m not sure who holds this list, but I’m pretty sure I know two of the top five.

Somewhere in the top five falls Las Vegas.  If you have ever been there, you know why this falls within the top five.  If you have never been there, don’t go!  Do yourself a favor, and just stay put.

Also in the top five is children receiving trophies for simply being a member of a team.

I received a very upbeat email from the kids’ swim coach, detailing the following facts:  1) swim season is over and it was awesome, 2) many people were missed at the awards banquet, and 3) everyone needs to pick up their trophies, EVEN THE KIDS WHO DIDN’T COMPETE IN THE MEETS.

Now, I ask you why my kids, who only went to practice (and missed two weeks of that due to camps and vacations) deserve a  trophy?

My kids did nothing exceptional.  They showed up, mostly on time, and did what the coach told them to do.  They simply participated at a basic, minimum level.

Want to know what also chaps my ass?  The last day of swim practice was a swim-a-thon to raise money for the team.  Maybe if they weren’t handing out trophies to every child that showed up and chummed the waters (mine included), and saved those for the few kids that were really outstanding, they wouldn’t need to raise so much damn money.

An actual conversation that took place at my house:

Mason:  What’s that thing on your arm?

Me:  Where?

Mason:  Oh.  It’s your elbow.

The kids here at Chez Star are always asking me questions about what I refer to as my “secret mom life”.  Yesterday, I thought I would include them in my secret mom life, just to let them know it’s not all lunch dates and matinees.  So I loaded them up in the car, and we drove WAY over to the east side of town to pick up the actual paper prescriptions, drove those over to the far west side of town to sit for an hour while having them filled, bought school shoes and did a Costco run. 

Early in the endeavor I heard “why did I have to come, this has nothing to do with me”.  Yeah, except that wasn’t my doctor’s office that I picked up the prescriptions at, those aren’t my prescriptions, I don’t need school shoes and most of the Costco stuff won’t pass my lips.  It was edifying for them.

And while we were in the car, we tried to decided what sort of instrument we would play if we were professional musicians.  I think the list exposes a lot of what is awesome about the Stars.  Here’s what we wanted to be/play:

Mom:  Professional Tambourinist

Isabelle:  Trick Violin (what is that?)

Mason:  The Spoons

Cutter:  The Upright Bass

Bowman:  A Penny Whistle

Then it was decided that we would indeed make a fabulous marching band, and the universe let out a sigh of great anticipation.

I made all the kids be on swim team this summer.  I told them that they didn’t have to swim in the meets, but they were going to go practice every day.  Two reasons for this:  1) the kids get exercise ever day, before it’s blazing hot and 2) I do not have to yell at children to put books down and go get some exercise.  It has, actually, worked out very well.  For me at least.

Every time a meet rolled around I’d ask if anyone wanted to participate.  The answer was always the same:  nope.

Yesterday I asked the kids if they wanted to participate in the swim-a-thon at the end of the week.  Three kids said nope, and Mason said:

“Why can’t I have a Mason-a-thon?  It’s always reading, or swimming, or jumping.  Why can’t I have a Mason-a-thon and have people pledge a dollar for every burrito I can eat?”

Why, indeed?