~They Were Adorable Five Years Ago~

  I realize that nine days away from home, you are missing the kids, and you are probably thinking of them as really cute and sweet and intelligent and funny--like the precious kids in this video.

Ooooh--!  The last fifteen seconds of that video, when Jake is talking and he has that sweet little voice--!  Precious.  And Ike crashing on his bike, so funny.  And all the fish and the sweet sweet faces.

Man they were cute kids.

The Reality of life around the Manor is that none of those cute children live here.
 Jake's sweet voice has turned into a man/child voice and he likes to practice with it by talking loud (The louder he is, the deeper his voice) and he is a pretty lippy kid.

Between you and me, he is very funny--but he spends a lot of time testing my patience.

And your daughter?  She is quite the smart ass herself, and the two of them are tag teaming me with the Mom jokes.  You know the, "Remember when mom said, Stop doing that in my eyes" kind of thing.  Only their new thing is making up ridiculous things like, "Do it right now, or I am going to shove my foot so far up your butt you are going to have to travel to the moon to eat lunch."

I have never said that last part--but I have started my sentences with "DO it right now or..." and perhaps I sometimes mention violence--but not cartoon violence.  More devious violence, like when I change the password on the computer and tell them they can have it back, after they get the (insert chore here) done.

Now Ike--he is still pretty sweet, unfortunately he is starting to practice being lippy and he isn't very good at it.  When he tries to say something funny at the dinner table, Kate and Jake are on him like hyena's on a guinea pig.  He is also trying that thing where he puts off doing what I tell him to do--fortunately, he doesn't have as much stamina as either of his siblings and he gets things done by the third time I ask.

The house is it's typical disarray with the added surprise of Blue sleeping in the laundry room.  Did you see him in that video---oooh!  Protecting the kids and all that...
There ae dishes in the sink and left over tuna casserole in the refrigerator.  We may have eaten some meals in the livingroom and Lindsay Lou left a ring in the jet tub.  Sam and Maddy and Josh have been over (we are going to rip out the carpet anyway, so there is no need to mention exactly what happened there).
resigned from my job today. The Durango went down again--Kate and I decided that it was the progressive meter that is sucking the battery dead.  Who knew that giving the insurance company access to my driving habits would be such a bad idea?   Mindy is about to realize that I am home for the day so I anticipate that they telephone will ring at 9:00am and she will be wanting to come hang out with me so that we can talk about  how much we hate it when Jarrod calls us trouble.  I see a 'heh-ache' in both of our immediate future.

Basically, things are about par for the course around here.