Numbers from our new normal

1. Corey thinks it's funny when I ask Murphy what he's doing, like he's going to answer me. "Well, you see Mom, there's this stump out here...."
2. Parenting is not for sissies. On Wednesdays, the boys bring their tests home from the last week so you can see their grades. Landen has brought home a D or an F the last three weeks, so he's been without Xbox. This punishment is obviously not working, because he had a D last night, so Corey and I started talking about what else we could take away from him to motivate him to do better. Jake also had a bad grade in his stack of grades, so we took the computer games away from him. What we're trying to figure out is how to exercise a punishment when one child is grounded at level A and one child is grounded at level B.
3. Murphy needs a haircut. He smells like what comes out of the vacuum cleaner.
4. The Target wine cube is my life. It's very delicious. It keeps well. It's not the kind of wine you feel like once you've gone to all the trouble to open the bottle, you have to use the good crystal, but it fakes expensive enough in taste to merit the crystal. If you feel like washing something by hand tonight. I have to teach Corey that there is a step beyond tipping the box to get the rest of the wine out - you also have to open the box, remove the bag and squeeze it out. You'll throw away at least one glass of wine if you don't follow these steps.
5. Oprah did a great show today about the families of active/wounded/deceased/deployed soldiers. The Allbrittons should have been on the show, and I am kind of bitter about it. Michelle Obama was on. It was probably my shot to make Oprah know who I am, and I missed it. Sumbitch.
6. If you live in our house, you wipe your plate into the garbage and put it with your utensils and glass in the sink when you're done eating. Or done not eating, whichever the case may be. We have one child who performs this chore dutifully every evening, without prompt. He announces he's done and if his dad and I agree he's eaten enough, we nod at him and he shoves the food in the garbage and puts the plate and stuff in the sink before skooting his tiny hiney (there's your hint on his identity) up the stairs. Somehow, two-thirds of the time, the other one escapes the table before Corey and I look down and notice his crap is still there. And yes, we call him downstairs and when he arrives at the table, Corey says "Did you forget something?" And this boy looks his dad dead in the face, his full place setting directly to his left, and says "What?"
7. We're applying to a new school for next fall. The boys don't know this yet, so please don't tell them if you see them. St. Theresa is wonderful to them and to us, but it's in Gonzales, and we live in Baton Rouge. And work in Baton Rouge, or west of it. On Tuesday we went to the open house for the boys' new school, to which applications are due next Tuesday, along with 844 supporting documents about their school, health, faith and political activity. Part of the application is writing a statement about why you want your child to attend that school. Here I am, married, parent of two...hating my kids' homework...cussing my sister out every time she asks me for help with a school project. I absolutely emailed my dad to get him to tell me what my statement should say. I'm thirty. I fear I may never outgrow this.
8. Corey goes back to work on Tuesday. For the first part of January, he was rather unfriendly because he was bored sitting around the house all the time. Now he has a tendency to be unfriendly because his days of sitting around doing nothing but talking to Murphy and playing computer games are almost over. He'll also have to shave his face, which he has not done since December 18.
9. I'm kind of excited for Corey to go back to work. I remember in college, I would forget how to write between semesters. When I was off work for two weeks to get married and to go Mexico, I did not remember what I was responsible for when I got back to work. You know, if you don't use it, you lose it. I'm not sure I can share this without oh-fending. Sitting husbands are nice, but husbands who are used to moving and shaking all day are better. Working Corey is a taskmaster at work and at home. Vacation Corey is a reluctant chore-sharer.
10. Speaking of chores, last weekend we were going to paint our bedroom. It's a lovely color, but since there is no direct sunlight in the room, it's dark and it gives me the Seasonal Affective Disorder. I stomped my feet and threw myself face down on the bed enough to get his attention and he recruited a soldier-friend who know how to do that to come do it for us. We were going to pay him and we were going to help. Then we woke up that morning and I got all nervous and overwhelmed about it - the bedroom is huge and all the trim and doors had to be repainted and we are doing the ceiling a different color - and I chickened out and pleaded that we just pay our contractor to do it later. One day, after $1 million in registration fees are paid to the parochial school of our choice and the couch gets covered or replaced, the bedroom walls will be Irish Mist and the ceiling will be Cumulous Cloud with clean white trim and doors.
11. I have two laundry baskets of clean and folded clothes sitting by my side of the bed waiting for me to put them up. They are all mine. Both baskets. They've been there since Sunday.
12. Jake has a picture of a girl by his bed. She's not his girlfriend, he's quick to correct us. I do believe she is where the sun rises and sets in the heart of my beloved fourth-grader.
13. I love watching American Idol with Landen. When he likes what is happening, his little foot dances. When he does not care for the auditioner, his entire face wrinkles in horror.
14. I leave you with this footage of how Corey and Murphy pass those non-napping, non-computer game-playing moments together. The lovely little ditty you hear at the end is how our washer and dryer (a.k.a. Ricky and Lucy) tell you to come get your shit. They sing it!