Every summer Boo and I invite his entire family over to our acreage to kick back, sit around our fire pit, get smoke in their eyes, eat my bad cooking, get stung by wasps and step in what ever animal droppings lay around. If the weather is nice, the kids splash around in the pool while the adults nurse their alcoholic beverages and try to ignore the children’s squeals.
It’s good times really. I enjoy having them over. Shaddup. I really do. There is nothing better than a dozen children (aged 11 and under) littering your lawn with popsicle wrappers, juice boxes and plastic toys. While us adults sit around and try to do as little as possible with the exception of bending our elbows and swallowing back sweet nectar of the gods.
All under the watchful eye of the mother-in-law. Who doesn’t drink.
Good times. (Picture a passel of grownups hiding their beers behind lawn chairs, planters, or shrubs whenever the MIL wanders by. Until we get liquored up of course. Then we just prance around nekked and revel in our wicked ways.)
I jest. Kinda.
Because Boo’s sisters and husbands, brother and wife, nieces and nephews, (not to mention the MIL and her hubby) will be on site sometime Friday afternoon, I decided to get off my duff and make my house resemble something other than a pig pen.
Not that I generally live like that. The majority of the house just needs some floor washing and a good dusting, but my bedroom, well that was a different story.
I still had paraphernalia strewn about from my trip to Chicago. Not to mention mounds of folded and once neatly stacked laundry that had flopped over and strewn itself all over my bedroom floor.
In other words, my bedroom looked as though a bomb went off in it. Much like when I was a wee lass living at home and my dad would barge into my room, bellowing “Clean this damn mess up before I do it for you. Anything on that floor or not put away will be burned in 30 minutes!!”
Not that he said that often or anything. I was the model of perfection. Snicker.
After making the bed (pointless if you ask me, I’m just gonna mess it up again), putting away my clean laundry and gathering my dirty laundry, I eyeballed the large stack of papers I had piled on my dresser. With a big sigh, I flopped on my bed and started sorting through the mess.
Just as I was almost done, I noticed a large orange paper. It was the schedule for the upcoming school year. The school year which I am highly eager to start because my children have stepped on my last frazzled nerve and I have run out of duct tape to tape them to the wall.
As I was reading the schedule I noticed the start date of the school year. A date which is a week later than I had thought and pinned my giddy school girl dreams on all summer. A date seven days later than the day I have circled in red marker on our calendar, marked with a happy face and exclamation points.
My daughter walked in and noticed I was frowning at the orange paper.
“What’s the matter Mom?” she politely inquired.
“Nothing.” I was pouting.
She bent over to pick up the paper I had just wadded up and chucked across my room like the stable, loving adult I am.
“Oh Mom!! You were wrong! School doesn’t start until after the long weekend! This is great! I’m gonna go tell Frac!”
Oh yeah, I muttered as she excitedly left to find her brother and tell her the wondrous fucking news. It’s just great. Made my day. Life couldn’t be any more sweeter, I thought sourly.
I picked up my car keys and walked to my car, when Fric and Frac noticed I was about to leave.
“Where are you going Mom?” they asked in unison.
“I need more duct tape. I’ll be back shortly.”
I’d better get more booze too. Something tells me this last week before school starts is going to be excruciatingly slow.
40 Comments
Have fun this weekend. You might want to save a little of the booze for that extra week before school starts.
vodka doesn’t have an odor. it’s valuable to keep that in mind.
i’ll just sit back and picture you as the gorgeous hostess you are.
I’m counting the days too - till the library clears out. Ours always starts the day after labour day here. But I have next week off! Yay! I am so smart.
(And yeah, I don’t see the point in making a bed, either. Never have, really.)
You too, huh? I keep shaving a week off of summer and thinking that the boys go back to school next Tuesday. But it’s in fact not until the following Tuesday that school starts.
Sigh.
Damn. I’m firmly in denial about school starting - ever - but man, I’m bummed for you.
Did you know they make clear duct tape now? You could say, tape them to a chair and no one would know.
Haw haw haw. Woops.
I wll cry you a river as soon as I figure out how your children were still in school while ours had already been out for a month and a half.
Suck it up, wussy.
My darling little nerve stomper is going to school in T-minus 4 days. Boo-Yah!!!
Although, I will be stuck with the toddler and a friend’s newborn. Can you use duct tape on that supple baby skin?
Slow? You don’t know the meaning of the word darlin’.
But, I want to know when you’re going to adopt me and Mr. Hot as family members. Not a single
fuckingperson in my entire family drinks. And Mr. Hot’s family is too far away. I want drunken family nekkid romps too!May I recommend a good red?
Back to school is ALWAYS after labor day, silly.
It’s okay, I’ll walk you through it.
We are in year round school here. 9 weeks on, 3 weeks off. It’s really quite nice. The kiddo is ever home long enough to get bored or annoying.
I would still like a stiff drink though. Any drink. I would take pink wine at this point.
Our kids went back yesterday! WOOHOO!
Wow. What a let-down.
Console yourself with wine.
May I suggest a good tequlia? You are going to need it! Some days I count down the months until my 14 month old can start pre-school. Bad. I. Know.
I second vodka for the stealthy properties already mentioned. Hey - don’t forget an extra bottle of the Irish for your coffee while you’re out there!
Can I come over? There’s never enough booze at my family functions!
And the kids’ll be back to school soon enough. I’m counting the days too, but I’ll still have a little one at home with me to make sure I don’t get any free time. Hmmm…do you think you could spare some duct tape? I think I have a solution to that problem.
Personally, I HATE the idea of skule starting. True, they are making me crazy today. True I can’t get a thing done with them around.
But I hate skule. hate it with a passion. Can you get that I hate it.
ya. anyway. Thats how I feel.
I’m still confused as to how kids are going to school BEFORE Labour Day. Does that really happen??
My kids aren’t school age yet, but I have friends that had the date circled and underlined also…. and we too don’t start until after Labor Day (labour? just for you in case you don’t understand “american”) **snort** .
But worse yet… that date my friends have come to terms with on the calendar? Yeah, it just got pushed back another week and a half because they haven’t finished the renovations on the school.
OMG… I pity them. Not really.
You got me with the duct tape part at the end. My tummy hurts from laughing so much!!!
Out daughter starts on 4 Sept and our son starts on 9 Sept. But their summer breaks are so short now, I’m kinda glad to have the extra time. Especially on days they don’t fight and torture my nerve.
Chin up woman — it’ll pass quickly enough and then you’ll be pining for them to be home on a break again;). That’s kinda how it goes with me, lol.
WB doesn’t go back till the 4th either. I read about other people’s kids already back and I wish I lived there.
Have fun this week end and think Smirnoff Raspberry vodka. Clear, odourless and ohhh so tasty
Hehehehehehe!! Um.. sorry…
Well…
You got one more week of blaming the mess in the house on the kids
“I swear I vacuumed hun… the kids have been tearin through here all day”
Yeah…
I’m screwed when they go back
May the last week fly swiftly
May your dust bunnies flight
May you enjoy your company
And keep those beers out of sight.
Amen.
You should just pop ecstasy when the MIL is around. No bottles to hide.
I kid.
And? I type this as my kids shout “geronimo” and jump from the kitchen onto every damn pillow I own lying on the family room floor. I can’t wait for the civilized, school-the-next-day bed time. *That* will be ecstasy.
what is the bed making you speak of? And so sorry about the start date mix up - I’ll be send alcohol post haste.
My kids started school the 16th of August but they get out of school mid to the end of May (depending on snow days). I also send them to the “Summer Adventure Camp” aka Summer school for five weeks so I only deal with them from the first of July to mid August. The other mommies and I have our return to school breakfast and jump for joy, some of the mom’s think we are nuts. Enjoy your family party, I am partial to the melon bicardi.
Jen
ps I live around St. Louis, MO
We must be related somehow. My dad used to say the same thing.
Thanks for the duct tape tip.
I gotta learn some duct tape techniques from the Queen. You put out a pamphlet of any sort?
WOW … in SC kids start back next monday … they go to school for 1 week and then they have off Labor day that way the teach gets a break when they all come back … haha
hope they had enough tape!
wow! i’ve been on blogspot for just two weeks and you are my new blogger hero. i enjoyed this blog. i can sooo relate to you on counting down days til the kids get the boot. and vodka is my parenting pal. thanks for a good read!
SecondHand
I’m in the middle of moving to a house half a block from a jr high school. I’m going to be the old guy yelling at the kids to get off the lawn! hehe
Hmm, maybe a garden hose would be more fun…
Yeah, I drop my little one off at daycare every morning. And I pick her up every night. Sometimes, her stubborn streak (which could have only come from her mother) gets the best of me.
I try to take her back to the daycare some nights, but it’s too late. They’re already closed…
I’ll have to try your duct tape trick.
You KNOW you don’t mean that.
(snigger….)
I’ve come to count on you for my daily laughs. Keep up the good work.
giggle. enjoy the booze and the MIL, in decent intervals.
You would SO fit in in my neighborhood! We party in people’s garages…several of which actually have names….”The Cantina”, “The Vortex”, etc. We drink beer around bonfires. The only non-rednecky thing we do is golf…obsessively. But we even manage to make that a redneck activity…we say that we don’t belong to a country club…it’s a club in the country!
well, that would suck for us except we homeschool..
so they NEVER leave.
lol
Hey, I tagged you - I hope you’ll play
I was just thinking how this is the ONLY time in my life, perhaps, that I won’t be looking forward to the start of school. It means in a few weeks the end of maternity leave and the beginning of the growing season. I can’t put books on their heads to keep em small.
But in a few years I will be stocking the liquor cabinet.