**I must note that in researching and writing this piece, I found a newspaper article from a reputable source that suggested that video games are a good way for children to explore the world around them. Ummmmmm....I have a good suggestion for a way children can explore the world around them. How about going outside and (dramatic pause) exploring. Weird huh?**

I apologize for the lack of post last week, but I ran into a snag while trying to publish my rantings. The irony is that the reason for the snag was the exact offense that I was railing against. I completed the typing and cursory editing of my textual tantrum and when I tried to post it for the consumption of the entire world wide web, my computer had a electronic brain fart and began vomiting error messages about “invisible” somethings and “unable to display” thats. The culprit was clear, my minions' glassy-eyed and insatiable addiction to an evil and seductive medium.....

As a homeschooling family of the modern age, we inevitably spend a great deal of our time huddled around computerized curriculum. Before committing to a life of perpetual parenting insanity, I precluded starvation through employment at a news desk AND doing desktop publishing, so I am no slouch when it comes to navigating my electronics, BUT I have been thwarted from innumerable tasks by bizarre alterations that my preschooler has proudly inflicted on my computer. Last week he changed my instant messaging program from Italian (which I read) to Korean (which I don't). It took two hours of random guesswork to locate the correct toolbar and revert the settings to a legible language. I do apologize profusely to those that received video calls of my pajama-clad and cursing visage, and if you used to be my friend and notice that you are no longer, please don't take it personally.

I am not one to subscribe to conspiracy theories. I do not believe that any one politican is the Anti-Christ (I have adopted a more two-party and three-branch composite theory, but....), I do not believe that food coloring is a mind control agent or that public schools are trying to brainwash our children, at least not all at once. I do however believe that Voldemort, Satan, Maleficent, Doctor Octopus, The Galactic Alliance, Daleks, Death Eaters, and The Legion of Doom have teamed up to puree the gray matter of our young and remove their ability to resist the siren calls of (duh, duh, duh) VIDEO GAMES.

Indeed, my superpowers of bladder control have become superhuman because I know that the moment my heinie leaves the chair, which perches in front of my computer desk, another tiny minion bottom will be there to make sure it is good and warm. I always emerge from any task to see a child with their little button nose nearly pressed to the screen in the avid and frantic attempt to sneak to the next level before mom can finish peeing. (My daughter wants it noted that she doesn't do any of these sneaky video game techniques, which is miraculous since her Spa Day makeover website was the one that imbibed my hard drive with parasites LAST time we had to reformat. It was kind of a sick game actually that had me reacting with a combination of humor and horror. In this “game” there is an animated face and a very obvious unibrow that required plucking or pimples that required exfoliating. I really couldn't make this stuff up.)

The sad thing is that literally every moment that I am not glued to the chair or hovering like a vulture over their shoulders, my minions are playing video games. Note that I said games in the plural sense, it doesn't seem to matter what game it is as long as they have a vague sense that they are controlling something and there is a goal at the end. Oh, and it has to be completely void of social value. I have already tried introducing educational games to hopefully satisfy this arbitrary need to play superfluous electronics. But alas, unless it is completely mind melting, the appeal is limited or non-existent.

 

As I complained about before, I recently dragged my six maniacal minions on a trip to California. In an attempt to maximize our time and resources, we downloaded maps, apps., and GPS directions on our fruit-related telephone. Each day we inexplicably only made it two hours or so before the phone sighed in exhaustion and collapsed into a black-screened coma. We were beginning to wonder if there were flaws with the battery when I started observing the quiet absence of my six-year-old minion during the lag time between activities. Employing my inner bloodhound, I sniffed him out in his little Fortress of Solitude hidden behind the veil of tablecloths in the dining room. He might as well have had a hot plate and a coffee maker, because he had squirreled away snacks and there he sat unblinkingly playing any random free application that he could sneak in before anybody noticed his absence. This truly has me gasping in horror. We had PACKED this excursion with roller coasters, ghost towns, museums, surfing, fuzzy woodland creatures singing Zippety Doo Dah; what possible NEED was there to fill the vacant seconds with superfluous time-wasters? I mean, there wasn't that much time to waste. The only answer I could pluck from the chaos was plain old fashioned addiction. The heroine that they lace those fruit-labeled consoles with is inescapable.

What is worse than the constant barrage of IQ-sucking time-wasters is the vile phrase, “What else am I going to do? I am bored.” I tell my children constantly that, “Only boring people are bored.” I am horrified to say that by this criteria, I have spawned six of the most bland people in existence. What else are they going to do? Read, draw, sing, play an instrument, go outside, socialize with friends, build something, invent something, color a picture, play with play dough, knit, sew, crochet, sing, listen to music, bake, plot world domination....or heaven forbid we actually dig the floor out from the carpet of toys and debris that give our entire home a protective coating.

I would like to conclude with some finality in purpose or some resolution for change, but frankly I am nearly reaching the point of complete resignation. I have embraced my position in this world as the weird Amish lady at the end of the street who sits on her porch and slurps lemonade intermittently while spinning yarn on my spinning wheel. (Truly my favorite summer afternoon relaxation activity) Apparently my minions are in denial of their inevitable eccentric status. Either way, I am afraid that mind-melting video games are here to stay, I just hope that I am not the unwitting observer of a gruesome scene alla Indiana Jones where I watch my six little investments of love and time, melt into a puddle of liquid stupidity.

Negotiating with My Terrorists
MoM warning: rants recorded while under the influence of medication may result in nonsensical tyrades that only make the author giggle and are generally packed full of grammatical and spelling atrocities. If this post is not entertaining, call a prescribing physician, or check in next week when MoM is sober.

I am debating a name change for this collection of published rantings. I chose the title of my blog with great care and heed to the fact that when properly abbreviated, Mistress of Mayhem spelled MoM. (A fact that I am sure is not lost on my brilliant and growing readership.) I have decided however, that a change to be the Mistress of Mayhem and her Maniacal Mercenaries would be a more accurate reflection of my daily struggles since the word “minion” implies a certain degree of obedience and cooperation toward a common goal, and my offspring in no way exude that commonality in purpose.

I will preface this prolonged parental whine with the confession that I am a diagnosed sufferer of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Many people believe that this affliction has to do with humorous situations involving alphabetizing and light switches, but it is truly the nagging discomfort of realizing that my world is absolute chaos and I am helpless to abate the confusion.

This being said, I have voluntarily accepted about three weeks of situationally-inherent chaos. I am not one of those people who inflicts their mental disorders on the people around them. My expectations are modest and require only the most minimal of participation from my family. I merely expect to be able to conceive, plan, and execute my vision with the utmost organization and minimum of forgetfulness. These perfectly executed plans generally involve several alphabetized, laminated, and color-coded lists that sit smilingly atop neatly stacked piles. See...completely modest, if you stay the HECK out of my WAY! The past three weeks I have subjected myself to packing six kids for a major vacation, only to be topped with major surgery.

I often read my friends' social statuses about being sick or injured and the sudden outpouring of assistance from their charitable offspring that brings a tear to a grateful mother's eye. As I sit here this unearthly hour of the morn, I realize that the concept of charity is completely lost on my band of cutthroats. Wrestling my children into doing altruistic housework is like hustling at a poker table in Vegas. My eldest minion is the mob-boss of disciplinary hustling. Our conversations of late have progressed like this:

Eldest minion:I will see your selflessly doing dishes and raise you an hour of video games.

Me (moaning incoherently through pain and pain killers): Haaaalf hour and wiiiiiipe the counters.

Eldest Minion (menacingly handling a lead pipe): Listen to me, old lady. The video games are not up for negotiation, the question is whether or not I pretend to do the dishes as a show of good faith. (Cracking his knuckles and practicing his Pacino impression.)

Okay, so maybe some of this is fictionalized or an exaggeration of the pain meds, but still. The result of my weak powers of negotiation or my negligible skill at Jedi mind tricks, has resulted in a much celebrated four days of mind-melting video games, peppered with inane and non-socially redemptive television programming. The whole week of gluttony has been nutritionally void except for the random traces of calcium in the milk that made the cheese on their pizza or that washed down their cookies. The house is still erect, so I am going to count this as one in my win column.

I am finding that this same mercenary sensibility has resulted in the odd infestation of Migrating
Minutia. In an attempt to pre-empt the complete psychological meltdown that my husband knew was evident post-surgery, he purchased a gigantic push broom. His brainstorm was that he would push the chaos into one concentrated pile of insanity in the middle of the room and the minions/mercenaries would then pluck the salvageable items from the pile and the rest would be round filed, a phrase I have found to mean heedlessly thrown in the general area of the trash can with some acceptable spillage. What has resulted is that salvageable items migrate an approximate two feet away from the original pile and mysteriously hide. As work on the pile continues, the concentrated clutter is subject to the scientific process of diffusion and migrates to new locations, still not the correct ones might I note, throughout the house. The process begins anew, like some sort of hoarding circle of life without the inspiring Elton John crooning. I am trying to adopt the “out of sight out of mind” philosophy, but being that I am bed-ridden, it is completely IN SIGHT and therefore the peanut butter and jelly sandwich grinning stickily from inside the school desk is nagging at me.

Sponges

I apologize to the faithful readers of my superfluous rants (apparently I have some because my statistics say that some of you have checked in for my installment. THANK YOU!). I have been delayed in posting my weekly outburst. I arrived on my own doorstep at about 7 this brisk morning after a 22-hour scenic tour of each bathroom along the corridor of the interstate highway. This week's rantings will be short, due to the brain fog from driving-in-the-car-with-six-minions lag (akin to jet lag with much more symptomatic swearing).

Have you ever heard the phrase about children being sponges and absorbing information whether or not we want them to? I have decided that the absorption rate is disproportionately quick when the behavior or information is of a negative nature. This week, my children have discovered a few behaviors that I will probably spend the next month wringing from their little minds and others that have been absorbed and are being used for evil purposes. Perhaps these are the circumstances that my husband refers to that require, "Brain Bleach."

My youngest minion is nearing his 18-month benchmark. Due to the overwhelming voluntary assistance in communicating, his speech is limited to a primitive language of clicks and grunts. As if the clicks and grunts were not difficult enough to interpret, he has found the art of glass-breakingly-shrill screeching as an effective form of communication. He sponged this delightful behavior by watching another toddler and observing the favorable results. So, my nearly full day of vehicular travel was peppered with ear-splitting serenades. I am going to have to wring the dreadful behavior out of the spongy mind of my minion before I have to build him a sound-proof room.

In an attempt to circumvent the squealing, I told him that he would receive immediate assistance if he simply made the request, “Help me.” I have made this plea before and it fell on deaf toddler ears, but apparently the absorption was merely delayed. The part that I ceased to mention to him was the “help me” didn't need to be repeated innumerable times in succession and ad nauseum. In addition, he has chosen another choice phrase to absorb from one of is new friends, “I'm stuck!” Anytime he is restrained from full range of motion, he again repeats ad nauseum, “I tuck, I tuck!” He has combined this with the high-decibel and high-pitched skills described in the previous paragraph. I finally resigned myself to a lack of audible entertainment on our trek and listened to “Elp me! Elp me! Elp me! I tuck, I tuck, I tuck, I tuck!” Being screamed like a barn owl. On my to do list for this week is to wring this headache-inducing behavior from his spongy little gray matter.

We have also collectively adopted several British adages from watching Harry Potter continuously on our vehicular entertainment system. Being rather innately comical by nature, my minions have become followers of Ronald Weasley complete with colorful words and phrases. These exchanges between myself and my children progress somewhat like this: (this is a true story, all characters are not fictional and have been quoted for maximum application of humor. All of this of course uttered in polite company for the ultimate in embarrassment.)

4-year-old minion to toddler: What the bloody hell is that? (Complete with inflection and consonant dropping)

Me: 4-year-old minion, that is not polite to say.

4-year-old-minion: Mom, I shouldn't say, 'What the bloody hell is that?'

Me: No, dear!

4-year-old minion to toddler: Hey, did you know that you shouldn't say, 'What the bloo.....'. Hey Mom, I stopped myself and didn't say, 'What the bloody hell is that?'

Me with a heaving sigh: Good job, 4-year-old minion.

4-year-old-minion to toddler: Because saying, 'What the bloody hell is that' is naughty.

We have had similar exchanges about not calling your brother a “git,” not teasing a sibling about the desire to “snog” someone or something, not sticking things in nostrils to retrieve “bogeys,” most especially the nasal cavities of other individuals. If they want to lobotomize themselves while we drive, I guess I am remiss to stop them. The list of sponged menacing British colloquialisms continues to expand.

 

I am amazed at the sudden absorption of information that has been lovingly crammed into their little craniums for weeks and miraculously surfaces at inopportune times. My 4-year-old minion has been learning to subtract with limited success and profuse distractability until he has the desire to complain about the disproportionate number of amusement park attractions that he has ridden in comparison to his older siblings. (With arms folded, lower lip protruding, and brows knit together in disgust) “Moooooom, Grumpy Minion has ridden 15 roller coasters today and I have only ridden on 11. That means that he has ridden 4 more times than I have and that isn't fair.” My eyelids flew open at the correct application of a concept that I figured was lost to this child. I was convinced that he was going to be a successful millionaire who still didn't know how many children remained on a school bus when three walked away. He couldn't have absorbed this special skill when discussing apples or schoolbooks in his textbook, he had to use it as empirical evidence to support a temper tantrum?

During our vacation, we had the opportunity of meeting a friend's delightful daughter. She was sweet, kind, brilliant, fun, and beautiful. What did my little spongy minions absorb from their interactions? The correct and most painful application of “the noogy”...oh, and how to escape a headlock. I am hoping to wring the noogies out of their porous recollections so we can go back to sporting fashionable hairstyles.

Lastly, my youngest minion has absorbed the desire of using the toilet. This information would normally bring celebration, but he chose to absorb this useful skill DURING our ride home from our vacation. The drive that started at 9:30 a.m., Sunday progressed at an excruciating pace to be finally concluded at 7 a.m. the following day. I have decided that perhaps my writing career has gone astray and I should invest time in writing a lucrative restroom guide, having visited every single facility for research on what should have been a 14-hour journey.

Road Trip Ranting

I am a bit tardy in publishing my weekly literary temper tantrum, but I have had a rough week and have a rougher few to come. Most of the turbulence is of my own design, but that in fact is a morbidly bad thing rather than good. You see, when someone else is imposing impossible standards on you, once you meet them, the demands, in theory, will end. (The exception being your mother or your children whose demands are neverending.) When the standards are self-imposed there is no escaping the demons in your brain, at least not without medication and this seems imminent with the insanity invading my every waking moment.

This coming weekend, I am headed on my first vacation since my eight-year-old princess was learning to walk. I used to believe that this lack of recreational escape was entirely economically-based, but I have actually concluded that by spending all of our recreation money on other things, my subconscious mind was reminding me that I hate packing and I especially hate changes in routine. This disgust for the minor hiccups in the mindless monotony of everyday has apparently been passed to my minions and it makes for several weeks of purgatory.

My past month or so, since the revelation that we were dragging all six children on an epic road trip, has been fraught with continuous fighting. I am going to use this moment to educate the populous that there is a difference between the words continuous and continual. Continual means that the activity lasts for a long duration with occasional lapse or pause. Continuous means that it continues for an indescribable and eternal duration with only minor decreases in the intensity of the anger-inducing mania. I quite purposefully used the latter. I am about ready to request refunds for all the tickets we have already purchased and invest in a half dozen straight jackets and ball gags. THEN we can worry about a road trip.

My husband was scandalized that I insisted on investing in an in-car DVD player. “We will just listen to audio books like we planned a month ago, we don't need to watch television the whole vacation.” His two hours of frustration between work and bedtime do not give him the adequate scope of hysteria that has gripped our normally difficult, but now IMPOSSIBLE offspring. I am sure that in our twelve-hour pilgrimage to his homeland, we are going to kneel and praise a higher being several times along the way for the blessed invention of the boob tube, which admitted dumbs the minions down, but puts temporary ceasing to the hostilities.

Additionally, the thought of leaving my home and packing (hopefully) has me trembling with crippling terror. I have a hard enough time getting six kids out the door with the correct ensemble and equipment to go to the gas station, let alone several hundred miles from home.

My girl-minion is the height of femininity. I would have to concentrate quite intensely to achieve the level of sheer glittering, prim divaness that oozes from her very pores. So, I have on several occasions taken her to have her fingernails professionally painted. On this particular occasion, she arrived at the technician's home studio and being so overcome with girly delight threw herself on the couch and flung her legs over her head. Her ruffly skirt gracefully flitted around her hips and revealed a shocking sight. My daughter was as naked as the day she emerged screaming into this world. If I cannot even clad my daughter in quintessential foundation garments for a trip around the block, I feel fairly defeated at the hope that all six minions will be adequately prepared for the jungles of a road trip.

The other thing that terrifies me is that we are visiting my in-laws. Many women have mother-in-laws that resemble villainesses from ancient fairy tales. I have a wonderful mother-in-law that is logical, organized, kind, pleasant, and completely quiet about my shortcomings. This kind of mother-in-law is infinitely worse because it leaves the wife (me) with an unexplained desire to appear infallible and confident, neither of which are adjectives that adequately describe me. When I brought home my first little bundle of joy, my physique and my brain quickly rebounded, but with each subsequent spawn, I have become a drooling, mouth-breathing mound of flab. I just struggle to hide it when in public. But, something about meeting with my dear hubby's parents, leaves me an insecure mess, who can't even dress herself competently in the morning, let alone a flock of little people.

Perhaps this anxiety also stems from the fact that my normally brilliant husband suddenly turns into a four-year-old when we are preparing to leave for something exciting and regresses several more years if his mother is involved. He only packs his most disgusting clothes, his under clothing with the biggest holes directly in the rump, T-shirts with the most offensive sayings that are seconds away from abandoning structural integrity entirely. Then his mother, did I mention she is a really kind and charitable woman, sees fit to shower him with gifts because he is so neglected. It is almost Oliver Twist/Dickensian in it's craftiness. I am not sure if it manipulatively orchestrated, or just a product of my own spousal insecurities, but still.

The cherry on top to our familial trek of terror sundae is going to be a trip to a Disney theme park. Now, being the mother of six HORRIFYINGLY active children comes with a paralyzing fear of going...well, anywhere public. So, knowing that we were scheduled to visit “The Happiest Place on Earth,” I issued a challenge to my young minions, who somehow become sugar-crazed fiends in the face of a retail institution. “This is practice for Disneyland so we can stay together and be safe.” Apparently, in pre-schooler language this means, “We are going to play a sadistic game of hide and seek in every clothing rack, empty shelf, large container, in every institution for the next month and only emerge when mother starts gasping for air and grabbing the left side of her chest while shouting obscenities.” In pre-teen/adolescent speak, the practice for Disneyland translates to, “Find offense in every time that a sibling touches you and then rather than use the diplomacy that has been instilled in you since you began speaking, SHOUT everything emphatically with several ridiculous insults and then grunt like wild swine and fold your arms with a great HARUMPH.” (Insert a high-decibel excuse to justify your behavior here).

Well, motherly whining vented in an anonymous venue. Hopefully, I will emerge rested and refreshed, but I fully anticipate that I am going to return with PTSD and a slight ocular twitch.

Magic Spray

I miss the days of boo boos and owies. I have found recently that I cannot truly be friends with someone whose children possess the self-preservation gene, because as a defect, all five of mine are noticeably without it. Being a mother of children with a complete disregard for life and limb means that I spend more of my days applying direct pressure than I do sweeping and mopping.

My second child is quite often the culprit, he is desperate to diffuse tense situations with humor and has little regard for the consequences. Additionally, I believe that the veil of understanding between what is reality and what is fiction is a little thin with this one. One afternoon a few years back, after watching his favorite superhero movie, he decided that if Spiderman could traverse a tensile thread, HE could scale a garden rake balanced precariously between two kitchen chairs. Two tentative steps from the launch pad, his feet slid to either side of his balance beam and he painfully straddled the wooden handle, his head punching through the drywall like it was tissue paper. (Did I mention that my children have freakishly large craniums also?) Careful application of a “poor baby” here and a kiss on the swollen lump attempting conquer his forehead, and he was back to blissfully playing.

My four-year old, who has as much courage as he lacks in grace, is the most wonderful example. At least two dozen times during my day, he approaches me whimpering or wailing with a battle wound. Countless times during the week I wonder if it is going to leave permanent physical damage. So, in answer to this, I developed my “magic spray.” I found a pocket perfume bottle and filled it with water. Each time he approaches me with an invisible wound, I give the affected area a little spray, and a kiss and he is miraculously cured, even down to the complete cessation of tears.

I am constantly amazed what the knowledgeable practice of Mommy Medicine can do, but as my children get older my magic spray is becoming less effective and in the case of my more cynical eldest son, he doubts its medicinal properties altogether. So, I am going to increase my arsenal of Magic Mommy supplies, for those moments when magic spray just isn't going to work.

Nair, is going to be the first addition. As the age of my children increases, the number of children who are popular by intimidation have also. Most of these kids have the intellectual equivalent of the contents of their lunchbox and base their entire self-worth on the fact that they are physically attractive. My oldest son has patiently faced such a child, her hair is thick and silky, her eyes are a captivating blue, her mother has dressed her directly from some name-brand catalog, and her over-sized-pre-teen teeth are nearly straight, which is a marked improvement over her like-minded peer group. Therefore she has become the self-appointed queen of the pre-pimple people. Being confronted with this sweet-faced she-troll on a fairly regular basis, I have pondered the medicinal benefits to my oldest child of just slipping a small amount of the hair-dissolving syrum in her shampoo and observing how quickly she is dethroned.

Bubble wrap will also be joining my fix-all arsenal. The same oldest son recently decided to abandon his use of peripheral vision, which is a very important God-given gift to people who intend to live past their teens. While kindly pushing a neighbor child on a swing set, he took one misjudged step backward into the path of my daughter's oncoming swing. The heel of her shoe connected with the bridge of his nose and he plummeted to the grass like a rag doll. (I must enter a side note here, that when I embarked on this mission of motherhood, I would faint when my children were given immunizations. I was marveled three years ago when I merely vomited after stitches at an ER visit, and am pleased to announce that I was only severely nauseated during this latest saga.) While we sat patiently and waited for his x-rays, I noticed several yellowing photographs of children engaged in different activities wearing protective gear, framed on their wall. One child was holding his baseball bat, poised in anticipation and covered with pillows which were duct taped to his limbs. Another child was running a relay race clad in full-plate armor. Yet another was playing soccer shrouded in bubble wrap. Since armor would be prohibitively heavy and pillows would just look paranoid and ridiculous, I have decided that bubble wrap is the way to go. His five stitches, eight nasal fractures and need for complete reconstructive surgery may not have been solved with a kiss on his boo boo, but would have been entirely prevented by a fashionable bubble wrap bavaclava.

Lastly, in the non-conventional motherhood first-aid kit would be chloroform, for those moments that no amount of hugging, soothing, comforting, talking or ice-cream can help. I have mentioned that a mere 20 percent of my offspring are female and though that brings me great longing it also brings me great comfort because no trip to the emergency room is going to mend her broken feelings. I have tried every psychological trick that I have garnered from my years of therapy, complaining about my mother the way that my children will undoubtedly grossly overpay someone else to complain about me. As the years compound, the number of hours spent soothing a broken heart increase and the conclusion to the session is more frequently a sobbing, “Mom, you just don't understand.” Therefore, since the conclusion will be the same defeatist declaration, wouldn't we all feel better with a good nap? You have heard the saying, “Get some sleep, you'll feel better in the morning.” I am just applying good old-fashioned wisdom that has minimally worked for centuries.

I combat my helplessness with sarcasm and humor, but I guess I am having a hard time acknowledging the passage of time. My eldest turns twelve this week, and I miss the days that Mom could solve anything with a kiss and a pat on the head. I really cannot pinpoint when life got so much more complicated for my little minions. My husband teases that I am “a mama bear on steroids,” but I have decided that the best medicine that I can employ is to be their coach--standing ringside with a towel, a box of tissues and a tub of ice-cream and ready to tag-team and fight the good fight when the situation arises.

Rhinovirus Rantings

I am oozing and post-nasal-dripping my way through this week's post. Last Thursday, every child in my house collapsed with a fever within the space of four hours and by Saturday afternoon, I realized that I had either been unknowingly hit by an invisible truck, or I was doomed also. So, I am going to briefly babble incoherently about being sick with minions and then...be sick with my minions.

So my aspirations as an amateur neo-classical interior designer are being overthrown by a strange combination of vapo-spewing, meets lotion-tissue, meets white sale vomited on the floor, meets essential oil bottles, accented with the occasional sticky squirty syringe and topped with a fashionable colorful thermomenter chic. I am renaming it Phlegm Eclectic.

This particularly violent virus came with an unrelenting fever that has had to be vigilantly monitored day and night. This means that my normally cluttered living room became carpeted in a mine field of little bodies. What is worse is that each little body is enshrouded in the complete camouflage of character-adorned bedding, so with each step comes the threat of causing serious bodily injury. Currently, crossing my living room is more perilous than crossing Death Valley. It is like some sort of sadistic game of Twister to walk across my living room this weekend. Right foot on Batman blanket (SQUEAL), nope lose 10 points. Left foot on Tinker Bell pillow, (OUCH!) advance immediately to right hand on yellow bean bag and left hand on treasured square of clear floor in a maneuver closely resembling a game of London Bridges, complete with the falling down part.

The worst part is that I inadvertently shared this viral gift from the gods with my charitable friends, who so kindly invited my disease-ridden offspring to play while I did the mandatory three-hour pilgrimage to ballet class. When I was a young mother with only two minions to train in world domination, I agreed to kindly watch the son of a family in our neighborhood who were in desperate need of a babysitter for their toddler son. At least every other week, the lady would deposit her son at my house with a flimsy excuse as to why his nose was bejeweled in green crust, or why he was covered in little blistery spots, or why he was bleeding from his eyeballs. Having not yet grown the spine and bitch switch that comes with the birth of a third of fourth minion, I would smile and take the infant into my home, not knowing that he was actually a means of biological warfare. My husband one day proposed that perhaps this child wasn't a child at all, but instead a little “Ebola monkey.” I scolded him through my pink-eye, while I slathered lotions on the kids' chickenpox. The nomenclature stuck however, and I swore that I would never be the mother of little carrier monkeys. So imagine my dismay when I retrieve four little boys all docile and snuggling in blankets on my friends' couch. It sounds benign, but if you know my kids, it is eery and ominous.

When my children are sick, the mass occupation of my sleeping space accelerates rapidly. I tried to set up a make-shift hospital ward in my living room. Each child assigned to their own color of bean bag and hidden under their own blanket, and me perched on the couch to oversee the administration of treatments. It sounded like a good idea at the time and saved a fortune on buying humidifiers for each room of the house, but what has ended up happening is EIGHT people puppy-piled on ONE couch. Add the radiating fevers, and I was ready to turn on the air conditioning in the middle of snow-crusted January. When the virus finally hit me, I wasn't sure if the muscle aches were from two nights of sleeping under approximately 300 lbs of children, or if it was actually the microscopic organisms succeeding in their attack.

I have also noticed through years of mucousy observations, that the minions get better approximately 12 to 24 hours before I am completely down for the count. (My afflictions also lasted a minimum of three times longer than theirs also, but that may be in inverse proportion to the amount of time I get to moan and sleep it off.) My four-year-old is the master of creating mischief—it glimmers in his lavender/blue eyes. Some people mistake his dimpled grin for a congenial and innocent smile, but it is truly just him imagining your face when he has achieved his planned level of chaos. Today alone while Daddy slumbered and I snorted and dripped through the basic routines of normalcy, he finger painted in numerous bathroom substances, he used the lotion-filled tissue as confetti, he robbed two piggy banks, unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper, raided the fridge and pantry, changed the password for the school laptop, stole two MP3 players and one set of earbuds, tied one of my balls of yarn to the cat, and systematically poured an entire pitcher of water on the kitchen floor through a series of tunnels and straws that managed to dampen every dining room chair. All the while, I am wiping my cherry nose, begging in a voice that is reminiscent of Droopy Dog, and chasing him in what seemed to be slow motion.

Which begs the question: what idiot decided that it was GOOD thing to make children's cold medicine NON-drowsy? I am completely flummoxed by a human being that thought that oozy, ornery, little mucous factories who are alert and running around touching and licking everything was a prime marketing point. I think that the ideal and most intelligent thing would have been to advertise that a medicine was EXTRA-drowsy. With all six monsters down at the same time, I want a medicine that has Snow-White-mythical-deathlike-coma-inducing cough medicine. Somehow, I don't think that is on the market, but it should be.

The worst part of being sick as a mother isn't nursing the children, it is nursing a husband. My husband is a burly and brooding sort anyway. A good friend calls him one of the “burnt marshmallows” of the matrimonial world. He is bitter, black and crispy on the outside, but that masks a creamy sweet inner layer. But that sticky layer sweetness is nearly non-existent when the slightest amount of prolonged viral discomfort is involved. My husband has an amazing immune system in that it only allows invaders exactly 24 hours after I am afflicted. Literally, when I get sick, I am on a tight schedule. I have ONE day to get from the onset of aches and pains to bright-eyed and bushy-tailed again. Right now it is 7 p.m., and I am trying to smile and breathe through my gritted teeth, (the breathing part is because it is an impossible feat to accomplish through my nasal passages) because the children (being slightly recovered from their afflictions, therefore not sick enough to be immobile, but not well enough to be congenial, self-controlled, and/or diplomatic) are doing some sort of combination of climbing the walls and arguing at obscene decibel levels. And where is the hubby? Snoring in the middle of the mayhem, while I try to direct traffic around his slumbering corpse.

Well, my moments of semi-lucidity have passed. I am going to go seek out the medicines with the highest advertised possibility of drowsiness and collapse under a pile of minions.

Don't Panic!

A long time ago in an alternate reality where I actually got to sit and listen attentively to speakers instead of repeatedly scouting the potty or drinking fountains, I was at a business conference where the keynote speaker encouraged his audience to find a written declaration of their resolve and to post visual reminders of that goal for them and their guests.

When my hubby and I bought our house we sought such a mission statement. We settled on a phrase from Shakespeare (to reflect our shared love of the written word) and a small saying posted invitingly above our entryway which reads,

“Home is where best friends live.”

Although the sentiment is charming, I have concluded that it may be overreaching and slightly saccharin. This month, my children have been about as friendly as a badger wearing sandpaper underpants. We should have settled for “Home is where we pull our punches,” (most of the time) or even more attainable “Home is where my key fits in the lock.”

So, these are the candidates for my new mission statements. I think these more accurately reflect the issues and resolutions of our household of bristling minions and defeated parents.

“People will accept your ideas much more readily if you tell them Benjamin Franklin said it first.” David H. Comins

I know that I am not the only person whose children have selective and sudden attacks of explosive hearing loss. I think that adding the words “Benjamin Franklin says,” to the beginning of any request, might lend a air of expertise that may prompt action. (My eldest minion would move with superhuman stealth if I borrowed the credibility of Nikola Tesla instead.) “Benjamin Franklin says, 'Always lift the toilet seat.'” Perhaps I should be more clever, “Benjamin Franklin says, 'A washed dish gathers no flies.'” Although we are Christians, we will stray from the prescribed WWJD adage and adopt WWBFS (What Would Benjamin Franklin Say?) **Since composing this post, my children have adopted the habit of attributing everything of any import to them to Benjamin Franklin. My four-year-old even said, "Mom, Benjamin Franklin says, you need to let us play video games."**

Perhaps I should just get all cinematic and quote from Cameron's Titanic (suggested by a reader),

“And all the while I feel like I'm standing in the middle of a crowded room, screaming at the top of my lungs, and no one even looks up.” This quote, though written in a dramatic scene, garners a giggle when put in a parental context. Sometimes I wonder if I am suffering from a Patrick Swayze/Ghost moment and somehow unknowlingly slipped this mortal realm. Perhaps it is more philosophical than Hollywood and my minions have ignored me long enough, therefore I cease to exist.

 

“Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.” Dr Seuss 

I am sure that my interpretation was not the one he intended, but anybody who has had to answer the nagging pleas of a child has a complete understanding of this principle.

 

Complicated question from Minion #5: (Please read with a breathless rapidity due to the fist fight that had ensued previously and a sing songing lilt of a tattling child.)“Mom, mom, mom, mom MAWWWW-OM! Minion #4 says that photon torpedoes are more deadly than a plasma cannon, is he wrong?” (Actual question posed by my preschooler in regards to a declaration by my six-year-old.)

My simple answer: “Dunno. Go ask your father.”

"When my love swears that she is made of truth, I do believe her, though I know she lies." Shakespeare

Again, I am sure that the inspiration behind The Bard's words is much more romantic and lyric that my parental interpretation, but parents everywhere are nodding their heads in agreement. I especially love playing detective with toddlers and preschoolers. Every parent knows the puzzling mixture of anger welling up in the heart while stifling a giggle in the throat when the lie is so incredibly evident, but the denial emphatic.
Me: Asking the question as a mere technicality. “Minion #5, do you know what happened to the envelopes of hot chocolate mix I brought home from the store this afternoon?”
Minion #5: (The important aspect of this conversation is the appearance of Minion #5 much more than what he actually utters.) With two magnificent blue eyes, twinkling with a combination of hope of escape and fear of discovery. He is also donning a smile ringed in a powdery, sweet, brown halo. His lips part, unsheathing chocolate stained teeth, and he shrugs revealing dimpled fingers creased in sticky brown rivers of sugar. “No, Mom. Maybe the cats ate them.”
My older minions invent lies of more import, but equal in their lack of creativity.

“You are a perfect example of the inverse ratio between the size of the mouth and the size of the brain." Doctor Who (the fourth Doctor)  

 

I include this not only for the exquisite quote, but for the geek-cred with my hubby and eldest minions. I am the harried mother of a pre-teen boy and for this reason, this quote is intensely applicable. Yesterday, in the throws of trying to derail a pre-teen tantrum (complete with foot stomping and flying limbs that allude to the grace and presence of an angry gorilla), I growled, “Not one more word or I am going to have to **insert applicable punishment for his one hour of ranting maniacally here**” With a sour pucker on his face and blind determination for victory in his heart, he looked me in the eye and contemptuously said, “Hi!” REALLY!?! I know that I am raising intellectually brilliant children, but in this situation, the televised Time Lord is right. The portion of the brain that regulates self-preservation is obviously miniscule in proportion to the mouth that muttered that ill-conceived one-word salutation! I know with surety that there were so many moments where my mother fought the urge to lace her fingers around my wildly ranting throat because my brain temporarily shrunk to the size of a peanut, but my mouth continued spewing venom like a faucet. (So sorry, Mom.)

“All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others,” George Orwell

I know academically that this is a symbolic literary evaluation of communism, but for every parent who worries about buying an equal number of presents at each birthday or refereeing fist fights and games of keep away over a millimeter more of cheese in a slice, this quote takes on an entirely new meaning. This weekend, my singular daughter minion had a sleepover with a dear friend's daughter. This sweet child is friends with ALL of my children regardless of age or gender, so the benefit was fairly mutual, but ONE of the boy minions skulked around the house mumbling about the injustice of it all. This same minion complains about being bored when he has chosen seasonal sports and rejects offers because they are, “not his thing.” I would love for my minions to have a gentle visual reminder that I could treat them all equally, but a preteen boy with painted fingernails, tights and a makeover might not be the equality that he anticipated.

 

“Roses are red, violets are blue I'm schizophrenic and so am I.” Bill Murray

I know that my children are not true sufferers, but being the mother of an eight-year-old girl sometimes makes me wonder how many little girls are living in that one little body. Her moods swing like a pendulum, only more erratic. At least you can predict the path of a pendulum. One minute she is giggling and spinning around the house and the next she is writhing on the floor like a worm on a hot sidewalk and screaming as if she should be vomiting split pea soup alla Linda Blair. Then, in a flash, she is weeping as though I had just murdered a unicorn. An inkling of predictability would be a worthy goal, even though I understand from firsthand accounts that it may be more fruitless the closer she gets to her teen years. **My daughter wants it noted that this paragraph is not funny**

"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." Mark Twain

 I have explained to all of my neighbors and friends that they should not approach my house during school hours. I add now that they should not grace my doorstep during the hours of getting ready for the morning, fixing breakfast, trying to leave for an outing, bathing for bed, cleaning the house, trying to get into bed. In other words, as much as I value your friendship, unless you want an education in colorful expletives loudly shrieked, my house is pretty much out of bounds. I will come to you and your blissful ignorance of my foul language can continue. I have faith and confidence in the power of prayer, but when I am facing a child who is dragging their feet about doing algebra, the artful use of profanity has been shown much more satisfying than an uttered prayer. (Ducking and searching the skies for signs of targeted lightning.)

“Don't Panic!” Douglas Adams

This is a fairly universal rule to those entering the chaos and mayhem that comprise my life. The overwhelming sense of dread and anxiety that wash over you when you step through my door...dance over three or four school books...politely ignore several crumpled homework assignments...stagger through the wading pool of laundry guarding the top of my stairs... or fluff the blankets that overshadow the surfaces of my couch...These feelings of anxiousness are completely normal. I have it every time I enter a room. Adams offers a great and simple piece of advice that should be posted as a visual reminder on every surface of my home. Actually, in thinking about it, his suggestion of the constant companionship of a towel wouldn't be ill-advised in my chaos either.