Singing in the car

When I sing Just Give Me a Reason I sound so good. SOOOOO GOOOOD. I mean, Pink and the guy from Fun(.) are amazing at it, but I feel like if they were to hear me sing it their hearts would sink because they would realize they will never be able to sing with all the depth I do. I sing the song with hurting passion. With the last drop of my hope. With a bent soul. With 90 percent of the notes in the right key. All while driving my 2001 Honda Accord. 

I know this is hard to believe--I can hardly believe it myself--but not one single person who rides in my car has ever commented on how well I sing that song. 

I've got your back, Google.

I just noticed that my last three posts all say something about making sure people get results when they google certain phrases.

No one can say my life lacks direction.

The Hippopotamus

by Steve "Pappo" Joplin
(my grandpa)
(who wrote this in high school)
(and got an F because the teacher was sure he plagiarized it)
(but I'm pretty sure he didn't because I googled a line from it and got nothing)
(but now if you google a line from it you'll get something.)


THE HIPPOPOTAMUS

Lumbering Hippo to the mud
Sixteen toes in the narrow deep sink.
O fat barrell on love's brown tub
How terrible the hug...
                            like a warship's wound.

Tonsilled, black yawning for tremulous roar
Nostrilled steamings to help near shore.
Two black fires and mud-blubbered lips
Beckon helps dawning to whore's death pit.


Like great tonned logs
In bottomless bogs...


Lumbering Hippos to the mud.

Things my kids say

Jonah:

"I have a question for ya!... COOKIES!"
"Dinosaurs are coming in my room. Better shut the door!"
"Remember I cried at the bowling station?"





Andy:

"Dah!"
"Gah!"
"Bah!"

Other times

There are times when I realize that in that particular moment, being a mom is exactly what I pictured. Like today, when my baby (almost a toddler!) was sleeping in his room and my 2.5-year-old was entertaining himself quietly at my feet while I shelled peas in the kitchen. (Yup, I SHELLED PEAS. First time.) Or any time one of my sons gives me a hug. Or when they're splashing in the bath. And even sometimes when I'm changing a diaper--I knew that would be part of the equation.

BUT. Then there are other times.  Moments and minutes and hours that should NEVER BE A PART OF ANYONE'S EQUATION. Not even Hitler's.*

What follows is not for the faint of stomach. I told my friend Melissa that this was way too gross to be posted on the internet, but she felt my blog would be a misrepresentation of my life as a mom if this momming moment weren't included. So with fair warning, here it is. I'm going to try to put everything delicately.

On the fourth of July, we set up a tent in my in-laws' backyard so we could give camping with babies a low-risk trial. When our kids started to get sick of fireworks, we retreated to the tent to go to sleep. Sleep didn't happen for hours. Jonah was too excited from the best day ever (at least within the scope of his goldfish memory). Then Andy woke up a few hours after we'd fallen asleep and we couldn't get him to go back down. But that's not the bad part.

The bad part is that as we were trying to calm Andy, Jonah woke up and climbed in the big sleeping bag with Seth and then vomited all over himself and Seth and the sleeping bag. ("Vomited" is a delicate word, right?) The other bad part is that while Seth was bathing Jonah (in a house full of theretofore sleeping people) and I was holding Andy and trying to help and figure out what to do with the sleeping bag, we looked down into the bath water to find it had turned murky and brown. Jonah had made a large deposit from his other end, and now there was a bathtub to drain, scoop out and disinfect and a crying toddler who still needed to be cleaned. The other bad part is that after we had showered Jonah and grabbed what we needed and were ready to speed home to lick our wounds, Seth put Jonah down on the bath mat to change his diaper, and its disgusting contents spilled out all over Jonah and the bathroom. The OTHER bad part is that after Jonah's second shower, when we were in the car and almost home, we heard a gross noise from the backseat. When I opened the door to get Andy out at home, I found him sitting in a 4-inch deep pile of nastiness that his diaper could not handle. (I'm giving myself a pat on the back for "pile of nastiness." Way more delicate than the other options.)

So. Bang, bang, bang, bang. One bullet wasn't enough. My sons wanted to make sure the holiday was good and dead.

I'm sorry you read this, but honestly I'm more sorry for our family and the memories that can never be erased.**

---
*Just doing my part to make sure when someone googles "Hitler" and "diapers" something shows up.
**But still. LOOK AT THESE BOYS:

What Seth has been up to

It occurred to me recently that +Seth hasn't made an appearance on my blog in a while (though he showed up on my old blog all the time), and that is a TRAVESTY. In case you were thinking he must be up to nothing, let me disabuse you of that notion:

1. Not too long ago Seth and I went to Red Robin together, and as we waited for our food Seth spilled some water.



Just a little bit. Nothing embarrassing. He didn't want to wet his own napkin cleaning it up, so he leaned over to the recently vacated table next to us to help himself to one of THEIR napkins. (He swears he was going for an unused one, but he has no proof.) Right before he could make the grab, though, the waiter popped up from around a corner and laid his eyes on Seth Grigg, scavenging.



But DON'T YOU WORRY. Seth is smooth.

He pulled himself out of his giant lean and swerved back around to his own table. He picked up the first thing his eyes fell on, which happened to be my water bottle (it accompanies me everywhere), and casually took a sip.



SO casually.

Here's what the waiter said to him:

 "Can I get you anything, sir?"

Here's what Seth said to the waiter:



"Uh, yeah. Napkins."

I hope this story pops up when professional contacts google him. They will be impressed with his recovery. You want to have this guy on your team.

2. Seth just told me a story about Rusty the Red Panda who escaped from the National Zoo and then was saved by an explosive outpouring of concerned Twitterers.

3. I mentioned to Seth that I was going to write a blog post about him to give him the chance to say what he wants to say to the internet, and here's what he wants to say: "Absolutely not. I forbid it."

4. Seth has been analyzing policy. His title is Policy Analyst, which--if you asked someone what his job was and he said Policy Analyst, would that mean anything to you? NOPE! So we like to throw that title around as if it really does mean something.

Examples:

"Which one of us is the Policy Analyst in this family??"
"Did you tell her you are a Policy Analyst?"
"That guy only WISHES he could be a Policy Analyst."

You get the idea.

So you see, Seth has a rich, full life and he has been up to many things. Please consider yourself up to speed.

Here's what Jonah yelled at me (unconvincingly) through his sobs as we aborted our morning walk:

"I'M HAPPY!"

Poor Jonah

Here's a conversation I have with +Jonah frequently:

Him: I'm hungry.
Me: Okay, what do you want to eat?
Him: I'm hungry.
Me: Do you want an apple?
Him: No, I'm hungry!
Me: Do you want a cheese stick?
Him: (starting to cry a little) No, I'm hungry!!
Me: Do you want a granola bar?
Him: (sobbing) NO, I'M HUNGRY!!

I have a feeling the only correct answer is "fruit snacks" or "chocolate," but come on. What does he think hungry means?

The brothers Grigg, on a sad day.

I KNOW what he thinks "body" means, but that is not mentionable on this blog. Lets just say it gave a whole new, weird meaning to the family home evening lesson "I can take care of my body."

Daily dose of pathetic

Today I sat in the library parking lot knowing I'd left my nice water bottle inside but feeling like weeping at the thought of extracting both boys from their car seats, lugging or tugging them both back inside, finding the bottle, hauling everyone back out, and re-strapping them into their seats. I had to call and beg my helpful husband to ride his bike to the library on his lunch break and find it for me.

Bah.

Culture gap

When I read this 

and this

about THIS woman,

I have just one question:

Her?