A Year in the Life

My work is closed tomorrow for the New Year's holiday. That means I get a rare and well-deserved three-day weekend. Even more rare and even more deserved is the fact that I have absolutely nothing planned for this weekend. Nothing. No parties to attend. No parties to host. No turkeys to get into the oven at 5:00am. No meals to cook at all. We may just have popcorn and frozen waffles all weekend long! Or better yet....cereal!

So what does one do with three days of nothing? Ruanita and I are planning on spending New Year's Eve alone at home. We have Chinese take-out on speed-dial (and the menu memorized)and not one, but TWO, Netflix movies we have yet to watch. We have A Single Man....if we feel like thinking deep thoughts and perhaps crying a bit. And we have Get Him to the Greek....if we feel like staring blankly at the screen without a single productive thought in our heads and giggling like little school girls. We may just watch them both tomorrow night.

This year has certainly provided us with many reasons to cry and to giggle. I have written about the cringe-worthy moments ad nauseum. Therefore, I thought I would focus today on the moments that made me laugh this year. After all, laughter is the best medicine, right? Because I am feeling rather lazy with the impending three-day weekend, I decided to look back at a year's worth of Facebook statuses rather than actually try to recreate the moments that made me laugh out loud. I am not feeling entirely creative today, so I am going to plagiarize myself. As usual, most of my funniest moments involve my darling children. So here they are...the moments of 2010 that made me laugh out loud. A snapshot of my year in Facebook statuses.....

I would like to extend a personal apology to Ruanita that she had to change the cat little AGAIN today. I will mend my slacker ways...I promise. (This is funny because I have not changed the cat litter since this day waaaayyyy back at the beginning of 2010. It is now officially Ruanita's chore.)

The Easter Bunny...in his infinite wisdom...brought the twins Play-Doh. Stupid rabbit!!

Sophie got Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs from her grandma for her birthday. When we were watching it this afternoon, she asked me which of the dwarfs was named Sleazy. Ummm...that's a different movie altogether, honey.

I never in a million years thought I would have to utter the phrase, "If you are going to play air guitar with your penis, please close the door so the rest of us do not have to watch." Boys!

Sophie is sitting on the toilet screaming because I refuse to come in there and hand her toilet paper which is literally three inches from her knee. Am I mean?

I am SO over Sophie's refusal to go to bed. She's laying in bed right now repeatedly yelling, "I'm not comfy!" Is she trying to kill me today? She is going to be the cause of my head exploding one day soon.

Lucas joined that most prestigious of associations today....those of us who peed in our pants at school in first grade.

Lucas came home from school today with the following words of wisdom from his friend Joe: "Never trust a girl." Nice.

All of the good Easter candy is gone. I am left with Nerds and cheap chocolate. Ugh.

Why oh why did I have to marry a therapist? I love you Ruanita, but couldn't you be a mail carrier, or a dog groomer, or a florist...anything but a therapist...

Listening to my daughter scream like a howler monkey in time out. Apparently, she is opposed to bedtime today.

Eating cheesecake because there is no hard liquor in my house. The howler monkey wore herself out and is now asleep. Mommy needs a sedative.

Sitting at work eating Bugles. Fighting the desire to put one on each finger and call myself Elvira.

New entry under the category Phrases I Never Thought I Would Utter: Nicholas, you better get down here right now and find that booger you lost because I DO NOT want to step on it!

The boy refused to wear briefs. The boy refused to wear boxers. I never even considered boxer briefs. His grandmother is brilliant! We have an underwear success story here, people!

Lucas just yelled "Son of a bitch!" while playing the Wii with Ruanita. Guess who said it shortly before him...that's right. Ruanita has a potty mouth.

Got a call from Lucas' school this morning after Ruanita dropped him off. Apparently, there is no school this morning. Oops!

Chuck E Cheese was worse than I had even imagined! From the patrons who looked like they had just stepped out of the movie Deliverance...to their delinquent and unsupervised offspring...to the food that tasted like Styrofoam...to the crappy little mini tootsie rolls my kids "won" for their hard-earned 20 tickets. It was utter hell. Pure and simple.

The hills are alive with the sounds of Sophie complaining....

Lucas was describing something to me today and said that it was as big as "the Vampire State Building."

Dear Mom: Constipation is not a valid excuse for being demolished at Scrabble...yet again. Love, Shannon

Two observations/complaints this evening: 1.) Soccer is the VERY LAST thing I want to do tonight and 2.) If ONE MORE graham cracker gets trampled into my carpet, I am going to lose it and go all ninja on their skinny little asses.

So I am sitting here coloring my hair at home...fun times on a Friday night...and Lucas looks at me and says, "Are you coloring your hair so people do not know that you're an old lady?" Ouch! That one stung.

Help! There is a freaking squirrel in my fireplace!! The doors are shut, but it is sitting there staring at me and flailing around. What the hell do I do?? I am NOT opening the doors and letting a possibly rabid squirrel loose in my house. Actually, I duct taped the doors shut to be safe. My cat is freaking out. Can it... climb back up? What do I do? Why do these things always happen when Ruanita is at work??

Just heard Nicky yell from the bathroom, "Mom I pooped! (pause) And it was a blow-out!" Nice.

Watching a National Geographic documentary on submarine wreckage with Lucas. When did my Friday nights come to this?

Spent the morning making Sophie's My Little Ponies look like they just got back from a Jamaican vacation. My poor arthritic hands are having braid cramps.

Against my better judgement and after a lot of whiny begging, I tried to teach Sophie to play checkers tonight. Oy vey. She kept yelling, "Team, attack!" What the....?

Yet another phrase I never expected to utter: "We do not lick our armpits at the dinner table." Come on people! Seriously?

Having a movie night with the kids. We are watching Sophie's current favorite, The Care Bears: A New Generation. It's all about love and happiness and caring and sweetness. And best if all, it's a musical. I am trying really hard to resist the urge to beat myself in the head with a hammer right now.

For weeks, my daughter has talked about how she can't wait until her hair is long enough to pull it all back in one pony tail. Just this afternoon, we tried and it was almost there. So you can imagine my surprise when...in a stroke of pure genius this evening...Sophie decided to cut her own hair. An inch off one side...a couple off the other. Lovely.

Just heard Nicholas yell from the bathroom, "Mom, I peed...............and it's your favorite color. Yellow!"