My cat is currently outside hanging off the window screen and meowing to be let in. Rather than remove myself from underneath my laptop and let the poor frozen kitty inside, I decided to blog. It’s been awhile, yo.

I think the reason for the blogging is partially Cleatus’s fault. Remember when I used to bitch and complain about him all the effing time? Man, those were the days. He truly has been like some kind of Super Husband lately. HE EVEN BOUGHT ME A NIKON D90 FOR CHRISTMAS. And let me have it two weeks ago because the sound of my whining was about to puncture his ear drum because he loves me so much. Seriously. Super Husband.

However! This morning I woke up on the grumpy side and DO YOU KNOW WHAT, INTERNET? I feel like bitching about Cleatus. Do you know what he did? He came home from work after a 12 hour shift and opened the little cubby/drawer thing where he keeps his keys and wallet and other crap and he put his wallet inside BUT LEFT HIS KEYS SITTING ON TOP OF THE SHELF and! HE LEFT THE CUBBY/DRAWER OPEN. Clearly he doesn’t deserve to live. If he weren’t in bed sleeping right this minute, I’d go in there and fart on his pillow. I guess I’ll just have to settle for farting on his toothbrush.

(Notice how the things I am bitching about now are really only minor inconveniences and I even go ahead and give him credit for the 12 hour work shift? What the hell happened to me? Where did my anger go? I want it back.)

Oh! One more rant (not about Cleatus though, something is wrong with meeeeee!). I listed my old camera on Craigslist, because you know, Cleatus is awesome and super and he bought me a new one. So, some guy was interested in one of the lenses that I had listed and he asked me to come to his tattoo shop(!) to show it to him. Now, I have nothing against tattoos. You go ahead and cover your entire face with a big tweety bird tattoo, see if I care. It’s just…tattoo shops (parlors? Are they called tattoo parlors?) are not my place. I don’t belong, is what I’m saying. I’m a 27-going-on-80 year old frumpy mom who writes a blog, for fuck’s sake. I was feeling out of place before I even got out of the safety of my car.

Anyway, long story short, I stood in there while he bashed my lens around and generally acted like he had never seen a camera lens before in his life (newsflash: you should be GENTLE with them. They are fragile and made of glass and oh my fuck, dude, quit trying to jam it on your camera the wrong way.) and soaked up the smell of incense and biker dude into my clothing. I really hope that smell comes out, because like I said before: frumpy mom with a blog. I do not need to smell like I ride a Harley and smoke dope, thank you.

(I apologize for all the stereotyping in the above paragraph. He just FIT THE STEREOTYPE, OKAY?)

And, all that to say, he didn’t even buy the lens, WHICH I KNEW HE WOULDN’T, because he needed a lens for taking pictures of tattoos, which would be difficult with the 70-300 lens I had for sale. DUH.

Oh, and did I mention that I got the Nikon D90 yet? Squeeeee!

And also:

Y’all sick of pictures of my kids yet?

If you ask Cindy-Lu who her best friend is you’ll get one of two answers. It’s either Bubba (also known as Eeyore, her big brother) or it’s Nephew (my nephew, her cousin…and no, she doesn’t actually call him Nephew, but I need a blog name for him and there it is).

Lately Cindy-Lu and Nephew haven’t been getting along that great. She’s about six months older than him and has always enjoyed being older and able to boss him around. As Nephew gets older, he doesn’t take as much shit from her as he used to and he doesn’t seem to like playing hairdresser or dress up anymore either. Cindy-Lu is struggling with this a bit and lately she hasn’t been exactly loving towards him.

The other night at a family dinner with the in-laws (and not just the “regular” in-laws, but extended in-law family as well) my dear, sweet, darling daughter said a prayer before we began eating.

“Dear Jesus, Thank you for Cinderella. And thank you for my family except for Nephew. Amen.”

Aw. What a sweetheart.

Nephew, who is the most affectionate and tender-hearted little boy ever, piped up with a “Hey! That’s not very nice!”

Kids. As much as they annoy me, they sure do crack me up.

(Also, yes, I know I need to slowly step away from the photoshop, because I take it a bit far, but I loooove the look of these overly processed pictures and there is nothing you can say to make me change my mind. So there. I vow to go a little easier on the processing in the future. Maybe.)

Before bed tonight I scooped Cindy-Lu up into the chair with me where she lay across my lap and jabbered at me. She was so adorable and I couldn’t keep my hands or kisses off of her.

I kissed her cheeks and nose while I marveled over how beautiful she was. I grabbed her hand in mine and played with her fingers and tickled the palm of her hand. I scooped her feet into my hands and bit at her delicious little girl toes. And, finally, I pet her shiny, brown hair.

“You have such pretty hair, Cindy-Lu,” I said to her.

“Oh. There beens a booger in it, but I tooked it out.”

Ah, yes. How lovely.

I’m back from BlogHer and, yes, I had a great time. I’m still trying to process it all and as soon as I do, I will write up a post for those of you who are interested. For those of you that are not interested, I’ll include a link to some free porn.

In the meantime I thought I would share this little story about my daughter and what an absolute asshole she is.

While I was at BlogHer the kids stayed with my parents for a few nights. One of those nights Cindy-Lu was playing the Wii and, when Eeyore asked her for a turn, she refused to share. My mom, having really never had to discipline my kids much before (they’re usually actually very well-behaved), repeatedly asked Cindy-Lu to give up the controller. Cindy-Lu knows that her Granny is just a sweet old lady (okay, minus the old part) that pretty much lets her get away with anything from eating cookies for breakfast to picking all the flowers in her garden, so she refused to hand over the controller. Finally my mom got down and tried to physically remove the controller from Cindy-Lu’s hand, and, well, Cindy-Lu kicked her in the boob.

My daugther kicked her grandmother in the boob.

I have obviously instilled a deep respect for their elders in my children and I win at parenting.

When I got home today I started lecturing Cindy-Lu about hitting and kicking and being kind to our family. Cindy-Lu responded by lying and saying that she never kicked her Granny. I told her that Granny had called and told me about it.

“Well, Granny wasn’t mad that I kicked her. She thought it was funny.”

I told her that Granny was very mad that she had kicked her and that was why she had gotten a time out.

Then I had a brilliant parenting idea and decided to lay on the guilt. I went on to say that not only was Granny very angry that Cindy-Lu had kicked her but her feelings were hurt too. I told Cindy-Lu that Granny called me and she was so sad that it was quite possible she was crying because family should never hit or kick each other and we should always treat each other with love and respect, and how was Granny supposed to know that Cindy-Lu loved her if she was kicking her in the boobs?

“You don’t want to make the people you love sad, do you?” I asked.

“But, I don’t love Granny,” she replied. “I only love my one girl, Cinderella.”

And, yes, I totally told her that Cinderella doesn’t like little assholes so she better start at least PRETENDING to love her Granny. Like I said, I win at parenting.

Wrapped.Around.Her.Finger.

My daughter, my dear sweet daughter, is trying her hardest to kill me.

Her moods are all over the place. This morning I told her to go pee while I poured her a bowl of cereal and do you know what she did? She threw herself to the floor and screamed for as long and as loud as she could. She kicked, she hit, she thrashed, she LOST HER SHIT.

She didn’t want cereal. She wanted oatmeal. God knows why she couldn’t just say “Mother, dear, I would really prefer oatmeal this morning.” No, instead she went from sleepy little girl to demonic asshole in .3 seconds.

I have no idea how she is going to act from one minute to the next. Will she laugh, will she cry, will she try to stab me with a pointy object? No one knows. I don’t think even she knows.

I’ve ended everyday for the past two or three weeks by sobbing into my pillow and wondering what the hell I was thinking when I decided to have children. I have SERIOUSLY wanted to just leave. It takes an ENORMOUS amount of self control to not just get in my car and go away. I don’t know where I would go, I don’t know how I would make it happen, I just want to do it. And, honestly, I don’t want to come back. Imagine what life could be like without a whiny little jerk hanging off my legs all day. It would be HEAVENLY.

This child, this beautiful little four year old girl, is making me lose the will to live.

This is just a phase, right? She’s going to outgrow this soon. She has to.

Yes. It is true. I am entering Leslie’s Haiku Buckaroo contest with a haiku about SNOT. For fuck’s sake, where is my dignity? Where is my pride? WHAT HAS MY LIFE COME TO?

Life is simpler
since Cindy-Lu Hoo realized
she can wipe up her own snot.

Maybe it is time
For me to change the blog’s name?
Nah. I don’t think so.

It doesn’t matter
If its on a shirt or nose.
I’m Wiping Up Snot.

And yeah, I totally realize that my only chance of winning this contest is if everyone else in the contest dies of some mysterious disease and I’m the only living haiku buckaroo contestant left on the face of the earth. I’m okay with being a haiku failure. At least I’m good at SOME things! (You: WHAT things? Me: Teaching my children life skills! Such as what to do in the event of a kleenex shortage!)

Cindy-Lu’s most prized possession, the cupcake maker.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, there are many tiny pieces and parts that I need to go scrub “cupcake” and “frosting” from. (Cupcake and frosting are in quotes, because seriously, that shit ain’t right.)

Christmas. It is killing me. Or maybe not. I don’t even know. I’m just feeling very MEH. And BLAH. And quite grumpy as well. I don’t know if I’m stressed out (I don’t FEEL stressed out, but maybe I am stressed out and don’t even know it. Is that possible?) with all the Holiday Cheer.

I am not dealing with the grumpiness very well. I find myself screeching at Cindy-Lu to PLEASE, FOR THE LOVE OF THE BABY JESUS, JUST STOP TOUCHING ME. She touches me a lot. Just little touches, walking by me, standing next to me, sitting on me, climbing on me. My touch quota is FULL. Quit with the god damned touching, mkay, sweet pea? Cuz if you don’t, Mama just might break all your little fingers. Oh, and Merry Christmas.

Eeyore wants to TALK to me. Talk, talk, talk. About video games and bears and bears in video games and Star Wars and video games with bears with cannons on their backs and ENOUGH WITH THE INCESSANT TALKING, OH MY GOD, I JUST NEED SOME PEACE!

Seriously, between all the touching and the talking, I am just a great big ball of festive cheer.

And while I am on the subject of, you know, BITCHING ABOUT STUFF, I might as well mention that Cleatus is probably going to be shot soon. Do you know what he said to me the other day? DO YOU?

First I should remind you of the story of my blinker. Long story short, back in April or March my left blinker went out and Cleatus HAS STILL NOT FIXED THE FUCKING THING.

Anyway, on Sunday we took the kids to Target to let them buy a gift for each other and for us. On our way there, we pulled up to a stoplight and were waiting to turn left.

“With my luck a cop will pull up at the other light and ticket me for not using my turn signal,” he had the nerve to say.

“WELCOME TO MY LIFE! EVERY DAY! EVERY GOD DAMN DAY THAT I DRIVE I HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THAT! AAAAAIIIIIEEEEEE!” I screeched at him. (That last little “aaaaaiiiiieeeee” bit was the sound of steam coming out of my ears.)

“Well, I TOLD YOU that I don’t know how to fix it. I tried. I can’t. What do you expect me to do?” Yes. He really said that.

“What do I expect you to do? WHAT DO I EXPECT YOU TO DO? I expect you to TAKE IT SOMEWHERE to SOMEONE who KNOWS how to FIX IT! What do I expect you to do. Are you fucking kidding me?”

Seriously. Sometimes Cleatus is such a DOUCHE BAG.

So, all this to say MERRY CHRISTMAS! HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Also? Enjoy the pictures of my talkative, touchy-feely children. Hopefully they’ll be enough to tide you over until I have regained my normal cheerful disposition (ha!) and return to the internets to write of happiness and love and joy. (I will, of course, post the winner of the Amazon gift card sometime on Tuesday. Promise. But, other than that, I probably won’t be back for a few days. Enjoy the holidays!)

So, awhile back I was doing a bit of blog reading when I came across this post about light painting. I, being the moron that LOVES to take pictures but HATES to use a flash (and therefore has almost ZERO picture taking opportunities in the dark, dreary winter) immediately grabbed my camera and started trying to make my very own light painted Christmas tree picture.

(All of the following pictures are straight out of the camera. I haven’t edited them at all.)

As you can see, I didn’t really master the technique. It was fun trying though.

I showed Cleatus the pictures and then googled light painting and then demanded that Cleatus turn off all the lights and play with me. He was pretty excited until I explained to him that we were going to be taking pictures and not, well, doing what he was hoping we were going to be doing.

We flipped off most of the lights, but left the lights on the tree and the lights in the other room on. I put my camera on the tripod, set my exposure time to six seconds and handed Cleatus a flashlight.

Here is what he came up with:

“Mom.” I tell ya, I am always amazed at my husband’s lack of creativity.

The room was too bright, so you can really see Cleatus standing there. After a few more tries, we realized our mistake and turned off every light we could find. I dug up an old glow stick that I had gotten the kids for Halloween and forgotten to give them and we had a bit more luck.

Not too bad!

From there we moved on to using a lighter and that was what we had the most success with. Cleatus really enjoyed using the lighter to light up himself for the picture. I’m not sure if that’s still light painting or not, but the pictures turned out pretty awesome.

Here Cleatus was trying to give himself a crown. The three lights are the points of the crown. It didn’t turn out great, but it’s still pretty cool.

And, yeah. Ok. So we had to get dirty. We took quite a few pictures of Cleatus making out with himself. This was by far the best shot we got. In most of them his lips were nowhere near the right spot. But this one? This one was good enough to gross me out. Other men making out? Not gross. My husband making out with a man (even if it is himself)? Gross.

It got more gross from there, but Cleatus has PUT HIS FOOT DOWN. I am not allowed to share the dirty pictures of him with himself that ensued, but just trust me when I say EW. I even got a little jealous at one point. Of Cleatus and, well, Cleatus. The cheating bastard.

Moving on from the guy on guy action, here is a picture of Cleatus worshipping himself. Just like he does every other day. Because he is JUST THAT COOL. (Or so he thinks.)

And there he is again. Just look at the awe and love and TOTAL ADORATION with which he is looking at HIMSELF! Imagine trying to live with this man. It’s hard, I tell you.

And this one we call “The Many Faces of Cleatus.”

There are a couple more shots on flickr, if you’re interested.