And So It Begins

So that really pretty, thin friend that I have……you know the one…..whose house is probably always immaculate and who is sickeningly attractive without ever really trying to be and you just want to, like, scratch her somewhere because that would make you feel better?

Or am I the only one who feels that way about certain friends?

So now I’ll step away from the Oprah-watching and the salt-and-vinegar-chip-eating and actually DO something with my life because it’s all been so boring and inactive lately.

The movers pulled out of our driveway last night at about 9:30 after a long day of me trying to entertain nine children who kept begging me to take them back to the hotel so they could go to sleep.

Which is really weird, especially for the 2-year-old who lives only to shoot pretend guns at furniture and hork down more food in one sitting than I eat in an entire week.  Sleeping is not really his thing.

So we’ve been staying in a hotel for the past 4 days while Yummy Man observes the packers at the house while also vacuuming the vents and baseboards and washing windows and just basically being REALLY Yummy Man, although I’ll spare you having to read that title after this post ever again.  Unless he’s REALLY yummy again, which I don’t doubt because that’s just the way he is.

Most of the time.

And while I realize that “staying in a hotel” sounds all luxurious and vacation-y, just consider the fact that I have to remind the little kids 846 times a minute NOT to jump on the floors, pretending to be a kangaroo, and NOT to scream bloody-murder when your sister’s sleeve accidentally brushes against your arm hairs while 7 children try to crowd onto a 2-person couch while watching Little House on the Prairie for the millionth time because the cable here stinks because there is no PBS or Animal Planet because it’s southern Arizona and they just don’t cater to people down here who want to, like, NOT be assaulted by vulgarity whenever they turn on the TV once a stinkin’ year at a hotel, for crying out loud.

And now I will apologize for NOT editing the longest run-on sentence in history.  I’m trying to find a way that my writing is different than other mom-blogs and I think that I will have to be happy with being known for run-on sentences and the occasional bad grammar.

We do our best to please, here.

There is a pool and there is free breakfast and that REALLY should be enough to keep everyone happy and it IS.

Until lunchtime.

And then it gets a little panicky around here.  Because when you’ve stretched the limits of a hotel’s rules about how many people can be in a room because you’re a mom with nine children, most of them small, and you don’t want to have non-adjoining rooms and you don’t want to be made to feel guilty about that, you HAVE to find things to do to keep your children quiet and occupied so that the lone businesswoman across the hall who has never been married and doesn’t think children should be allowed to exist and certainly not TALK if they DO dare to be born…..you don’t want her wondering aloud to the front desk clerk how many children can actually FIT into a suite like we have without being a safety hazard or violating fire codes or whatever her little brain might think up.

So it’s been a little tricky.

But yesterday I told the children how proud I was of them and how well they had all been doing.  Then I told them that they just had to keep up the good behavior for another 2 weeks or so for the trip and then another month after that while we hang out in temporary lodging, waiting for our household goods to arrive.

And they just sat there, blinking, considering how excruciating it was going to be to keep that good behavior going for that long.

There was no verbal response whatsoever.  From any one of the children.

And that scared me to death.

We officially leave Arizona on Friday morning.  That’s when our Adventure to Alaska begins.  (remember to do the echoing, deep voice, announcer thing)

So keep checking back for more posts!

And if you’re like my pretty, skinny, intelligent friend Kim M., be irritating if you don’t hear from me for awhile, and post a comment designed to make me feel guilty for neglecting you all.

That’ll help things along.