At first glance, a stranger might think that I have well-behaved children who do not spoil the carpet and swing from the rafters of our publicly tidy (privately trashed) home. This is a grave misconception. Allow me to take you on a virtual tour of the slight and oh-so subtle ways my children seek to destroy this house. 

Look closely. This is what happens after your children have knocked the lamp off the end table 147 times.

Just another victim.

Wow, what a lovely shelf...

With such lovely artwork.

There was a time this tree was lush with leaves. Then Rex made it into his treehouse and gave his animals free reign to pillage it of all things green.

This is why I shop at Ikea. It's cheap enough that when they destroy it, I don't feel too horrible.

Apparently, the ottoman did it.

Just another reason why we don't have any ceiling fans. After the kids ripped this one from the ceiling while in motion, we've decided a gaping hole with exposed wires is way more safe.

We clean. We decorate. We seek to create a home. They mess. They break. They persist in destructing a home. All in a day’s work. I guess it all depends on which side of the counter you sit on.

Is there anything in the world more irritating than red Crystal Light on your carpet?

The scale was up on Monday. Blame it on our weekend family get together (complete with the best stinking bread pudding you’ve ever tasted IN YOUR LIFE), or my current evening ice cream indulgence, but I’ve settled into a nice three pound raise. By Tuesday, I realized enough was enough and started counting my calories.

This means that for the past three days my lunch has consisted of one green pepper, sliced in quarters and stuffed with tunafish. Do not get me wrong, it’s rather delicious and completely guilt-free (minus the hefty tablespoon of mayo I mix in to make the stuff palpable). But by day three, this kind of treat becomes kind of torturous. Yes, eating thusly equals results, but by noon today my sweet cravings were screaming for Paula Dean.

Enter the Crystal Light.

Crystal Light is the perfect thing for my sweet tooth. Not only does it stain it red, it settles most sugar cravings. My kids think Red Crystal Light is the greatest beverage known to underage drinkers.

I quietly made my selfish self a big 32 ounce jug of the stuff and tried to smuggle it out of the kitchen. They followed me like it was like a beacon of light attracting thirsty lost souls. Rex was the worst. When he wants a drink of something, telling him no is nearly impossible.

So I shared. Soon the tank was down to 16 ounces and had hardly taken a sip for myself.

“Okay guys, you’re done. The rest is Mommy’s.” I settled back on the couch.

“No!!” Rex yells, just as I tip the heavy ruby jug and take a big, sweet swallow–

SMACK! Rex hits the bottom and the lid smashes into my top lip, red juice flying all over my beautiful carpet and couch and (not so beautiful and previously stained) shirt.

It was one of those moments that will haunt me for Mommy-ever. I saw red. Everywhere. My lip was bleeding, my house was ruined (RUINED!), and without even stopping to question myself I reacted.

I popped Rex on the side of the head.

I can’t decide who was more horrified and upset by this move, he or I. It hurt his feelings more than anything, and I felt like the biggest, meanest mommy in the universe. Not only was I stained, I was suddenly tainted. Here he was, just being excited about the taboo fruit punch, and what does Mommy do? She smacks him. In anger.

I feel like I deserve lashes for this one, my conscience is eating away at my brain, all the while wondering if he’ll remember it and someday report me. “I swear officer, it was the blasted red food coloring I was mad about, I just reacted! Haven’t you ever spilled fruit punch on your carpet? There’s a reason it’s called fruit punch, it makes cleaning ladies want to hit something!”

Not that getting reported is my biggest concern (I am publicly declaring this right here and now), but I don’t want him to remember the time when Mommy hauled off and popped him one.

Today, I hate myself.

Tell me there are other people in cyberspace who just got around to watching this week’s Bachelorette episode, because I think I need a support group.

When Wes duped then dumped Jillian, I kind of wanted to cheer (even though she didn’t seem to get the fact that he was ditching her hard core for his “girlfriend…uh, ex-girlfriend”). Wes is good TV. He’s a perfect example of why you should never mix alcohol and lies. When drunk people try to lie, they end up telling you all about how smart they were for fooling you. Unfortunately for him, the cameras caught everything.

And no offense to famous bad people, but the country western community isn’t usually very susceptible to slimeballs who go on national record as first-class butt heads. His band? Lame. His voice? Pitchy, twangy, and overdone to the point that I can believe that all his fans reside in another country and probably don’t get very good reception (which is why they’re his fans).

To heck with the finale, I can’t wait to watch the Tell All in two weeks. Now that’s a show I don’t want to miss. Do you think Wes’s manager will instruct him to attend? Or maybe his manager has already given him the cowboy boot and sent him and his so-called album pitch-hiking.

I kind of hope he never gets more famous than he is at this moment.

To the four people who read yesterday’s post and didn’t comment, here’s the follow-up. Sometimes you can do everything right to have a nice day and a nice house and a nice calm demeanor, then break into a rage because your picky little children won’t even try the taco soup you made for dinner. With Doritos crushed into it, I might add. Do you have any idea how often my kids have seen Doritos in this house? Try never.

But would they eat it? My six year old had the gall to make rude faces for five minutes, whining about how he hates soup. He wouldn’t even try it. When the June Bug (who initially loved it) pushed hers away and started copying her brothers, something inside me snapped.

I grabbed those boys, dragged them to their room (at 5:30) and sent them to bed. And since no one is reading this, I’ll even confess to yelling very scary and loud like about hungry children in Africa, and how I kind of want to ship my kids there so they’ll learn to eat beans. It was loud enough that all of our surrounding neighbors, including the bishop, probably heard me.

Don’t worry, I apologized. I even gave them a chance to come out and try again. Rex decided he’d rather stay in bed (food anxiety) and Harrison came out once to see if he could barter his way down to four bites instead of six. When I flared my nostrils he stomped back to his room and locked me out. Because we all know I was just dying to go hang out in there with him and his new Super Mario wallpaper. (He’s been making me print off coloring pages all day and has managed to plaster them all around his bed.)

I’ve decided Hell will consist of slaving away all day long in a house that never gets clean, making food that nobody eats.

Okay, so we know there is no recipe for a perfect day (I take that back. A book, the beach, no kids–perfecto), but I have noticed a pattern around here that is worth considering.

On the days we forget to study our scriptures and do our homework and turn off the television, the Devil himself likes to come and party. The difference is so incredibly drastic that I’m starting to wonder if we have group split personality disorder. Harrison backtalks, Rex hits, June starts sorting trash (literally sorting through all the household trashcans and leaving trails behind her)–and I react with spitting and yelling and uncharacteristic bursts of anger (because I’m really very nice on the inside).

So if you are finding yourself knee deep in summer discontent, I would suggest this very old (possibly older than the hills) pattern for semi-peace. Eat. Pray. Read scriptures. Turn off the television/computer/Wii. Make them build forts and clean the house. (Harrison earned himself an extra thirty minutes of computer games by scouring my basement.)

Hey, it works for us. Kind of.

Once again, my vanity leaves me in pain. This one is still sensitive, I’m not really ready to talk about it so I vented to the paper, because that’s so much healthier. If you get The Standard Examiner, be sure to check my column out online in their Currents section and email the editor to tell him what a great addition I make to the paper. You know, if you’re feeling it. Click here for another miserable chapter in my life.

So Jason let me escape over the weekend and it was just what my mourning soul needed. I went with Tricia to her cabin at Bear Lake (for the record, it really pays to be friends with people who casually own cabins on or near water. It especially pays if you’re willing to watch their kids pro-bono on a regular basis).

And what do you think we did? No-thing. (Okay, we did eat out two nights in a row, and stopped in Logan and saw The Proposal which is almost really cute, minus the really naked scene and lame ending.) We sat around on the deck in our swimsuits, collecing cancer cells and reading 1970 self-help books plucked from a used book store. One of them was extremely…enlightening. It’s amazing what people in the 60’s and 70’s knew about , “ahem”, stuff–to think I was under the impression that our generation was part of some female awareness revolution. Not so.

Anyway, I think my man needs some serious recognition. Not only did he watch the kids until Sunday afternoon, he was about the merriest little maid you’ve ever seen. I left him a load of laundry to wash and fold. He did three. When I came home the house was in decent condition and there were piles and piles of washed and folded laundry publicly displayed all over the dining room.

And to think all these years I’ve been putting them away before he could appreciate my efforts. Lesson learned, my friend.

Here’s this week’s column, the sentimental side of Hayley’s bachelorette party.

Rex is a funny kid.

Veronica Reeve Photography

Anyone who knows me knows that there is nothing I like more than adventure. Make me move, throw me in a roomful of new people, ask me to visit the prison–I’m all over it. Change is exciting and fun, I live for change.

But Rex? Not so much.

Veronica Reeve Photography

Today my beautiful blond boy is turning four. We’ve decided that it’s a good thing Heavenly Father made him so beautiful because it’s the only thing that keeps people from kicking his panicked little self out of stores and restaurants and circus tents.

Rex has serious anxiety. For instance, getting him to church without a panic attack means dressing him a few hours before and talking A LOT about primary. If we wait until the last minute, he’s a wreck.

Watching him approach the pool at his first swim lesson was kind of like watching an innocent man approach the electric chair. In her twenty years of preschool and swim experience, his teacher had never seen anything like him.

His one redeeming quality is that he is NOT afraid of new people, only new places. And things. And food. And coloring books. I bought him a pre-school book to do in the mornings this summer. He freaked out so badly when I tried to give it to him, I had to double check to make sure it wasn’t covered with poisonous spikes.

Don’t get me wrong, he always comes around (except with broccoli) if we give him time and love. But life as my child is not an easy experience for our little home-body.

And he is a home-body. The flip side to his public display of slightly OCD, anxiety-riddled behavior is the easiest child in the world–when he’s in a safe environment ( i.e. any place he’s been to a minimum of twenty times, and has been thoroughly checked for monsters). Other than politely asking for food and beverages, we rarely have to discipline him for anything, and he’ll happily play with his siblings or his herd of animals all day long (the animals are his best friends, he told me that they’re all turning four today).

Veronica Reeve Photography

And so, on this fourth birthday of your life, I love you, my beautiful little Rex Henry. May your life be stable, despite all our moves, and all the schools, and living overseas, and traveling a lot…wow. Did you pick us on purpose?

Yesterday was epic. My baby sis-in-law got married on the day Michael Jackson died.

I am so overwhelmed by all these earth-rocking events that I kind of need to sit down. No, that’s not good enough. I need a vacation. A weekend escape from the melee of personal and universal news that will forever change my life.

Congratulations, Hayley and Jake, may your forever be as good as mine (and that’s really saying something). But let’s face it, there are other things to talk about here. We’ve got a wedding and a funeral all tied up in one big monumental knot.

I mean, I never even saw him in concert. It would have been a Thriller, I don’t care if he’s Black or White (or both). I mean, I know some people thought he was Bad (and you should never listen to a word that Billie Jean says about anyone), but I can’t help it. I always liked him. Even when he got uncomfortable with The Man in the Mirror and had all that freaky Peter Pan/Elizabeth Taylor plastic surgery, I still liked him.

(BTW, I have a theory that he was not a pedophile, he just wanted to be Peter Pan in real life. Creepy? Yes. Sexually creepy? I don’t think so.)

There are only three people on the planet I want to see in concert and he was one of them. I’ve already seen Neil Diamond, and I’m just waiting for Garth to make his Big Comeback Concert Tour, but a little part of my rhythm died when I realized that I’ll never see Michael live on stage. The kids and I listen to his music regularly; talk about not being able to make your pelvis behave. His beats are worthy of my kitchen tape player.

So on this day of national mourning (and family celebration), I add my voice to the millions of fans out there. Michael, may you moon walk your way through those pearly gates and forever find your spot in that big Heavenly chorus in the sky.

Oh, and yay Hayley and Jake!