Get Ready, Set, Go!

Okay. So first of all... blogging. I've never done it before. And up until a few months ago, I didn't even really read blogs either. But I had to keep up with my friend E in Texas through her blog, and I re-found my friend L in Washington on her blog. Then I got on Facebook and some people were blogging there too!

Suddenly, people I know have blogs that they actually update fairly regularly. And now I'm finding that their links to other blogs are interesting. Then those interesting blogs have more links to other interesting blogs... I'm pretty sure you get the picture.

So, here I was... lurking on a bunch of people's blogs, thinking "Where do they get all this material?" Life isn't really that crazy, busy, odd, wonderful, sad, <insert more adjectives here>, is it? And then I thought about my mundane life.

Well, let me clarify: I love my life. But, in my eyes, it's mundane... I work. I take care of my three boys (four if you count my husband). I make dinner. I shop. I sleep. Mundane, see?

And then I remembered my sister's face the other night when she actually came over for dinner. My sister is single, by the way, and she hardly ever comes over to my house (well, she's "talking" to someone... in my day that was called boyfriend/girlfriend, but these are apparently modern times and that is sooo eighties). She loves to have me over or to get together with me and the hubs, but she never really physically spends time at my home. I think it's the noise.

Italo, 13, is just that: a newly minted teenager, complete with all the eye-rolling, passive-aggressive conversation, pay-attention-to-me-but-don't-watch-me-like-a-hawk issues that all hormonal boys his age have while trying to text at the same time. Add to the mix our Little Joe, 3, who I'm sure will be sent home with a note on his first day of kindergarten requesting that we please heavily medicate him before sending him back to school and baby Nestor, 10 months, who is already showing his daredevil tendencies by trying to do everything Little Joe does without the benefit of walking or balance... well, I'm sure you can imagine the three-ring circus that our living room is in the evenings.

Now to me, the controlled chaos make my heart feel like the Grinch on Christmas when his heart grew two sizes bigger... I love it. I love the noise, the running around, the "Mom, where is my ?" whiny chanting, the remote control tug-of-war over Yo Gabba Gabba vs the Deadliest Warrior, the dog trying to sneak his eating of the baby's slobbered on Honeycomb cereal bits. Most of the time, the noise doesn't really penetrate... it's my mundane life.

But my sister's face! You could tell she was waaay past counting to 10. A glass of wine wasn't going to help. Not even a LARGE glass of wine... She teaches high school all day long to a bunch of upper middle class to simply upper class teenagers, but she can't handle my three kids, the hubs, and the dog. I swear I could see a new gray hair or two pop up in her newest cute hairstyle.

Earlier in the evening, I had been cooking dinner: all-meat/cheese version for the hubby's diet, adding veggies and rice for the kids' nutritional needs, and then starting an alphabet soup for the aforementioned sister that was in the mood for soup. My kitchen stove shares the counter top with the bar area, so my sister was sitting on a stool chatting with me as I did my kitchen thing. For a short while, I ended up holding the baby sideways on my left hip and then Little Joe on my right because he was getting a little jealous - all the while continuing keeping an eye on dinner and trying to keep up my end of the conversation with my sister. Little Joe's attention span is short, to say the least, so he was off in a flash to play Bat Batman up and down the stairs (no, I didn't repeat the word accidentally or miss a typo. Little Joe calls his superhero BAT Batman... you figure out the mind of a 3-year-old). My sister did not find the child carrying amusing. A few minutes after Little Joe took off, she proceeded to very sarcastically come up, hang her arms around my neck, and whine loudly that she wanted to be carried too.

Yep. This from a 30-year-old. I guess I know why she doesn't come around that much.

So, thinking about this one episode... my sister's face, Little Joe as Bat Batman, Nestor always wanting to be on my left hip, the husband needing Atkins diet food when the kids need nutrition, Italo trying desperately to grow up but still be my baby, the dog being... well, a dog... it's my mundane life. And I love it.