Party of Five » Marriage

The difference between Mom & Dad

Sarah — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 17:45:42 +0000

I always hoped I would meet a man who really loved his kids. One who wanted to play with them, who read them stories and one who hugged them when they were sad. When I met my husband I KNEW I had hit the jackpot on all of these things. For that reason I snatched him up quickly. Sure enough I was right. He turned out to be all of the above and more.

Now, here comes the “and more” part. We happen to have a spoiled princess in our home and one in training. These girls have “daddy” wrapped so tightly around their tiny little fingers that if the eldest princess says jump, daddy literally jumps. Case in point. Last week the littlest one wanted a “red” from her dad (red being fruit punch that dad has made super sweet). After it was made, she changed her mind requesting soda instead. So being the responsive father he is, down the drain went the red to be traded in for Coke. Needless to say, the sight of the red being poured down the drain sent the princess into distress resulting in a rather loud shriek. I imagine most moms wouldn’t have made it this far, however our endearing dad calmly poured out the Coke to make another red which her highness now demanded, only to get yet another curdling screech for losing the last one. As mom is rolling her eyes and laughing at dad for the situation he has gotten himself into, she notices that he has now poured BOTH drinks into separate cups for her highness. Problem solved, right? Personally I would have stopped with the first drink and said if you don’t like it you can have nothing, but she didn’t become a princess because of mom, as I suspect is the case in many homes

Note: the above mentioned scene is not a rare one. In fact just this morning the princess woke up on the wrong side of the bed. Of course mom can rarely fix the problem without a full intervention when daddy is requested, so she just sits back and giggles while observing the hoops he is jumping through. Within a five minute interval this morning dad prepared cereal, a banana, a book, and finally, wouldn’t you know it…cake icing to please the princess.

Once dad was off to work order was restored and the cake icing was replaced with a reading of Miss Spider’s Tea Party, but for the record, mom wouldn’t want it any other way then all of the kids flocking around for dads attention.

Another day in paradise

Sarah — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 02:35:08 +0000

Do you ever feel like you are on a practical joke show? You know, one where so many things are going wrong in such an exaggerated manner that you have to wonder if it could possibly occur outside of rigged television? Well today I had a moment where I wondered as much. See, my van looks as though our entire party of five actually lives in it. Complete with back up outfits that are dirty because they have already been swapped in a crunch, stacks of ads that never made it in from the mailbox, toys for long road trips kept in case of tantrums on the road, and crumbs everywhere. In fact, I even had shelving, a tv, and dvd player that were given to me which had never made it in the house. So I decided it was well past the deadline to clean this mess out. The first step was to bribe the 9 year old with a trip to the movies in an effort to get help. Next I pulled out the center set of seats and removed all unrecognizable fragments of candy stuck to the carpet and drug the vacuum out to finish the task. This is where it went awry.

Bouncing back two weeks ago, the 9 year old was cleaning his room and busted the vacuum. Luckily the next week I was fortunate enough to pick up a used one off of my local freecycler. Unfortunately it was free because it gets clogged and can’t seem to maintain suction. So after dragging it out and rigging it to stretch, it was off to option number two, the free vacuums at the local car wash. Leaving the middle seats in the front yard planning on rushing home, and hoping the sprinklers were not set to turn on, I pull up ready to finish the job. Well the first vacuum was out of order, so I moved to a different stall, where the next one was missing the tip and wouldn’t pick up fuzz, on to the next one which excitedly had the tip and turned on, but wouldn’t work either. Hmmm. Beginning to wonder if someone was out to sabotage my attempt at driving a clean vehicle, and determined not to be taken down, I headed back home.

At this point I am thinking that even though our original vacuum is squealing really loud from what would seem to be a busted fan, it at least still has decent suction, so I drag er’ out to get it all done and wouldn’t you know it, I start smelling a really foul scent similar to burning rubber, or rather burning plastic. Which is precisely what it was. As I turn back to see why it is so strong, I find that the 5th vacuum I have attempted to use to clean out the car, is now on fire. This has got to be bloopers practical jokes right?

When did Saturday night turn into just another night?

Sarah — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 05:22:57 +0000

Tonight when dh and I went for our evening walk we passed two parties, and I suddenly realized it was a Saturday night. It started me wondering just when I stopped noticing the difference between Monday and weekends. Though I was never the life of the party, there was a time when Friday and Saturday night plans were booked by Wednesday. And it made no difference if you were working a late shift, because nobody planned to start their night until after eleven anyways. Oh and for the weekends when you had no plans but just winged it going out for a movie, or hanging out with your friends at the local pool hall; no pre-planning or major wardrobe concerns, just hanging out at a dive where everyone was smoking cloves and playing songs off the juke box? The night generally ended up at an In N Out or Denny’s, where everyone split one combo because funds were lacking, but these were definitely good times.