i'm late...i'm late...for a very important...meme?

Seems that Jennifer, the sweetie pie that she is (and she really is!), tagged me with a meme a little while ago. How I missed that is beyond me, since it's right there on the comments page. Can I blame the never-ending stream of children running through and around Lemony Villa? I mean, I have three kids, you know? And they all have, like, friends and stuff. We're, um, busy.

That and it's bloody hot these days, which sucks most of the motivation to do anything other than sip iced coffee and slurp Richie's Italian ice right out of me and makes me crankier than I have any right to be.

Better late than never?

What were you doing 10 years ago?
~In June of 1997, Lemony Brother was a 7 month old cherub of a boy, Lemony Teen was newly 5, and they both had a raging case of chicken pox. We spent our days painting calamine lotion on Lemony Teen's legs and arms with Crayola paint brushes while poor Lemony brother, who had to be miserable, sat in his bouncy seat and laughed at his pink-spotted sister. We were still living in our itty-bitty little first house then, and we walked to the slush stand every afternoon...watermelon for the baby, bubble gum for the big sister, and, of course, lemon for me. It was a good summer.

What were you doing 1 year ago?
~getting into the swing of summer camp, summer sports schedules, and thinking about sending the youngest Lemon off to Kindergarten. She's reading and tying her own shoes now, so I'd say Kindergarten was a smashing success.

Five snacks you enjoy:

• iced chai lattes
• Richie's Italian ice
• yogurt with granola and fruit
• popcorn
• soda crackers with raspberry jam

Five songs that you know all the lyrics to:

• In God's Country - U2
• Addicted - Kelly Clarkson
• Buy U a Drank - T-Pain featuring Yung Joc
• Hey There Delilah - Plain White T's
• A Sorta Fairytale - Tori Amos

Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
In order!

• stop worrying about paying for 3 kids worth of college
• buy my mother a house at the Cape
• give money to my favorite charities
• give more money to other charities
• get a new puppy
  

Five bad habits:

• picking at my fingernails when I'm nervous or upset
• forgetting to see the forest for the trees
• stressing too much over the state of my kitchen floor
• forgetting to return phone calls
• cracking my knuckles

Five things you like doing:

• listening to music
• reading
• hanging out with girlfriends for hours and hours
• tossing the family into the boat and disappearing for a day
• shopping

Five things you would never wear again:

• pegged jeans
• neon pink anything
• white shoes
• white socks (i have big feet...white makes them look bigger!)
• banana clips

Five favorite toys:

• my iPod
• my laptop
• XM radio in the Lemony Mobile (aka The Mumma Bus)
• the blender (frozen mojitos...mmmmmmm)
• our new digital camera

I'm not gonna tag anybody specific because I'm so stinkin' late doing it myself, but anybody who's needing something, anything, to just get something posted to the blog (ahem), should go on and tag themselves.

Time for a Dunkin' run...who wants iced coffee??

summer bliss

Today was the first day of school vacation. No more daily grind starting at 6:10. No more "Hurry! You'll miss the bus!" No more scrambling to find lunch money. No more morning chaos.

Ahhhhhhhhhhh.

Except.

The two youngest Lemons had a screaming argument over a waffle. They had a screaming argument over who Lemony Mutt loves most. They fought over Monopoly and Lego Star Wars. They followed me around the house whining about how bored they were. They protested when I suggested they go outside to play. They really protested when I suggested they do a few chores, like getting the laundry that's been sitting around for a few days actually put away.

"I thought you were bored," I said.

"We're not that bored," they replied.

They did eventually get the laundry put away (I can be very persuasive) but it involved a lot of whinging and moaning (theirs) and threats of NO POOL! (mine).

All this before 10:30 a.m.

By lunchtime, when none of my offerings were "good enough" or "what I want" and "gross!", something very frightening happened. I turned into my grandmother.

"When I was your age, I went outside right after breakfast and only went home for five minutes to eat the peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich my grandmother flung out the door at me...and I was happy to HAVE IT! I mean, it's not like I had a CHOICE! I ate what I was TOLD! And then, after lunch, I went back outside and stayed outside until the streetlights came on! And I didn't have a pool, or a swingset, or a even a backyard! I rollerskated on the SIDEWALK that had giant BUMPS in it and I had to stop at the corner lest I get flattened by TRAFFIC! Do you even know what traffic is? Living here in idyllic Quiet Village with the wild turkeys? Huh? Do ya? No? So eat your gourmet cheese and herb sandwich and then get out of my kitchen! Go outside and swing, or kick the ball, or ride your bike, or rollerblade, or WHATEVER it is you DO out there, and don't come home until the streetlights come on!"

They stared at me. They blinked a few times. They frowned. They looked at each other. They looked back at me. Then, without another word, they picked up their sandwiches and started eating.

I didn't care that they thought I was crazy. I didn't care that they were probably right. It was quiet.

Then Lemony Brother put down his sandwich, frowned, and said, "But, Mum. We don't have streetlights."

And Lemony Child nearly killed herself choking on her soy cheese, fresh tomato, and basil sandwich on dairy-free bread when she started laughing like a loon.

We're off to a swimmingly good start.

so that's what she meant

Lemony Child is an independent kind of kid. She doesn't NEED HELP! thankyouverymuch, because she can DO IT HERSELF!! This particular personality trait displayed itself quite early, when she stubbornly refused to be spoon-fed anything by the age of 8 months. I'm not kidding...she would clamp her mouth shut, turn her head, and slap at my hand (which, coincidentally, almost always held a spoon) until there were custard and strained plums sprayed across the kitchen in a lovely, sticky, purple and custard-colored arc.

I finally gave up and let her do it herself. I figured it was easier to scrape the dried-up plums from her eyebrows and ears than it would be to scrape them from the ceiling plaster.

As you can see, my logic wasn't really sound, but scraping the child clean was infinitely easier than listening to her shriek like she was being murdered whenever I tried to spoon some oatmeal into her mouth.

Anyway, all this to say, Lemony Child is a very independent kind of kid.

Which brings me to baths. You know, baths. Water, tub, toys. Most kids enjoy them. Not my kid. She HATES 'em. Why? Because she can't rinse her own hair efficiently and heaven forbid she let me actually help her get the shampoo out of her eyeballs. No, she'd rather sit there and shriek like she's being murdered. Or like her eyes are burning out of their sockets even though the shampoo bottle says "Tear-free and Kid-friendly."

So she takes showers. All by herself. She gets her own pajamas and puts them on the vanity counter and she gets her own towel from the linen closet. She turns the water on all by herself, washes and conditions her hair all by herself, and lathers herself up with her very favorite Burt's Bees soap. About the only thing she doesn't do by herself is put her dirty clothes in the hamper and hang up her wet towel.

(she claims this is because she can't reach the towel hook on the back of the door and because the hamper is "overflowy" but personally I think she's full of it)

Now, my house has two showers...one in the kids' bathroom and one in the master bathroom. The kids' bathroom has your standard tub/shower combo, but the master bath has a giant tub -it's supposed to be some kind of "spa" thing, but really all it is is a waste of space and a pain in the ass to clean - and a separate shower stall. The shower stall has zero space to keep things like shampoo and my Venus razor, so we (okay *I*) purchased one of those shelf things that hangs from the shower spout. Voila. A place for shampoo and the Venus.

I should mention here that the shower also does not have any suitable place for me to prop my leg when I am using the above-mentioned Venus. No top of a tub, no nothing. I bet you're wondering how I shave my legs. Let me tell you...I wedge my ever-expanding ass into the corner of the shower, lift the leg I want to shave as high as I can, and then jam my foot into the opposite corner of the shower. Sounds precarious, doesn't it? It is. The shower is wet. And slippery. And I don't have the best balance when I'm standing on two feet on dry land, so in order not to kill myself while shaving, I make sure I don't have any soap on my, um, backside or feet before I wedge myself in.

A soapy ass and feet is just asking for trouble.

Lemony Child usually showers in the kids' bathroom because she can't really reach the shelf thing, but the other night she wanted a turn in the master shower because IT'S NOT FAIR!!! that Lemony Brother gets to have all the fun.

Alrighty.

I put the soap where she could reach it and the shampoo on the floor. She hopped in, hopped out, and that was that. Later, when I was reading to her at bedtime, she said:

"I washed your shower, Mumma."

Which, obviously, I knew she'd washed in my shower. Duh, kid.

This morning, I realized I had to shave my legs if I wanted to wear my cute green capri pants that don't make my ass look enormous. So, I assumed the position. And promptly slid straight to the floor, one leg jamming itself under the shelf thing that hangs from the shower spout and the other leg folding itself in a way no leg was meant to be folded.

So there I was, bent in half and sideways with one leg up in the air and the other impossibly stuck behind me, blood pouring out of the wound the razor opened up on my ankle, and it hit me. She didn't wash herself in the shower. She washed the shower.

With soap.

She must have been trying to make up for not putting her socks in the hamper.