My body feels normal from the neck down. I just wish I could take my head off.

This begins my third day with a sore throat. All the glands, lymph nodes or whatever around my neck are swollen and tender. My head hurts. I’m tired.

Just decapitate me. I’ll feel much better.

There are some pretty funny stories here about real April Fool’s Day jokes played by the media on the unsuspecting population.

Thanks to Eric Scheske.

May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.

Missing you.

A few more pictures.

Billy kept telling me, “Look, Mom.” And I kept saying, “No! I’m looking at my daughter (who is about to fall into the tidal basin).” Bill’s picture shows me saying this (impatiently) for about the fifth time.

And Pete decided he’d be social this day. He made the day of an elderly man by practicing his new thing: nearly waving (whereby he raises his arm, but can’t do the motion part).

Cherry blossoms in full bloom this weekend.

We sat in stop and rarely go traffic for more than an hour and a half. No kidding. We ate our picnic lunch in the car.

And Moby was running at nearly full capacity – eleven of us piled in!

Here is Jenny-Of-The-Filthy-Face and Bill and his sister Margaret with most of the kids. Katie is a mini-Margaret. There is no doubt that she’s my husband’s child (not that there ever WAS a doubt…).

And here are our friends: Caleb and little Josh and mom Stacy. In the traffic, while we ate lunch, I HAD to pull Pete out of his seat and nurse him. I was sandwiched between the two rear-facing car seats in the row behind the driver. It was tight. Pete fell asleep, thankfully. But then Josh started to cry. Stacy and I somehow managed to switch seats (she was in the front passenger seat) and she pulled Josh out.

Meanwhile, Fritz said he had to go to the bathroom, so poor Margaret in the back row had to hold a cup for him. What fun.

I had considered taking the metro, but we really needed the strollers and that makes travel a bit more difficult. If it were just one kid in a small stroller, no problem…but double strollers are a bit unwieldy.

The great thing about having older children is that they can do this.

My old back is spared and two brothers have a great time.

And toddlers are handy for that game babies play where they throw something on the ground and have you pick it up and give it back to them…only to have them throw it on the ground again…repeat…repeat…repeat…

My internet provider is having trouble and so I can’t send outgoing emails without performing technical gymnastics. Since there are some emails that I HAVE to reply to in a timely manner, my energy and patience is sapped. So, something I normally enjoy becomes tedious. If you don’t hear from me (hey, Barb, thanks for that recipe), don’t take it personally.

For rent: very small Cape Cod single family home in Hamilton Square, NJ. Three bedrooms, 1 bath. Nice yard. Great neighborhood. Monthly rent: TBD. Available: June 1st.

Any takers?

…and how they come back to haunt me.

We moved into this house in March of last year. I was just entering my third trimester of pregnancy with Pete. I had to finish school with Fritz, and I learned that I had to do a standardized test to comply with Virginia law.

Those first 50 boxes or so that I unpacked were all put away in my new home in a neat and orderly fashion. But then…

Sin of Omission #1: I failed to finish unpacking. Somethings just simply didn’t have a good spot in the new house. My sewing machine got shoved into the back of a closet. Ditto with boxes and boxes of photos (a future project…for my old age, I guess). Some decorative items didn’t have shelves, and there are boxes and boxes of Bill’s stuff that I had (have) no idea what to do with and he hasn’t had time to deal with either.

This haunts me as, time and again over the last year, one particular thing is needed from a buried box and retrieving said item becomes an olympic sport requiring strength and stamina. For months I avoided sewing the patches on Fritz’s uniform because it meant digging in the worst closet in the home. I finally managed to get the machine out, but the items surrounding it have collapsed making a return impossible without serious work (think about a mine shaft overcoming its supports).

So, my sewing machine is now a doorstop.

Sin of Omission #2: I failed to prep well for this school year. Pete was born just weeks after I finished the last school year. I bought school supplies for the coming year shortly after he was born, because I knew it would take lots of time with a newborn around to get things ready for the next year. But over that summer, I failed to scan those reproducable workbooks and tests and failed to assemble little workstations for my preschooler who requires (demands) more of my attention during the school day than my school-age boys.

So all school year long, I’ve been scrambling to scan weekly assignments and tests which delays the school day and makes for a nice mess of my school supplies. And every day is a struggle to provide interesting, educational and, most importantly, time-consuming and independant work for Katie and, more and more, Jenny. I have the stuff, it’s just not in a presentable format.

Sin of Omission #3: I failed to properly clean for my annual Oktoberfest. I pride myself on a neat, orderly and clean home. Please note the deadly sin of pride, because I want to kill myself over this one. Since we were having a yardful of people (over 100 this past year, I believe), I wanted to present a nice home for them to traipse through. My home is usually neat, but at this time, Pete was only 3 months old, so the clutter-monster had begun to take over. So, to get ready for the party, I took tons of clutter and deposited it in closets.

The house looked great, but the closets reminded me (still remind me) of the closet on Zaboomafoo, if you know what that show is.

And finally, Sin of Omission #4: I failed to clean properly after the Oktoberfest, and after Christmas too. Since those closets were already a wreck, what would it matter if I shoved the decorations from the party in there as well? And instead of going out to the shed and findng the right box for those chocolate molds I used at Christmas time and had in a cupboard, why don’t I just shove them back in the cupboard and worry about it some other time?

Well, that time is now.

The end result of all these dirty deeds is that my closets and cupboards are all big big messes. And now it’s time to move, so I finally have to face those disaster areas.

It will be like a mini-purgatory. Getting the soul of my home in order, purging the trash, putting things where they belong, and emerging in perfection.

And trying to avoid these sins in my next house.

Well, yesterday I called housing and set our moving date for April 27th. I am not confident that this date will actually be our move date. I went to the house last Sunday – the door was open so I walked in to look around. The bathtubs were in and the bathroom tile done. Other than that, no bathroom or kitchen fixtures were installed. No paint on any walls. At least the walls were up.

According to housing, the house will be done by April 10th. We’ll be able to get our keys and move stuff in, if we want (we want). So, every Sunday (when very few workers are around), we’ll sneak over and see what the progress is. Housing has been notorious in waiting until the last second to tell people that their new house won’t be ready. One neighbor was supposed to get her keys on a Friday and move on the following Monday and was told that Friday, uh, no, you won’t be moving for 3 weeks. That delay affected every family in that 3 week period. More than a week later, another family scheduled during that period had still not been contacted and informed of the delay. My guess is that they were waiting for the most inconvenient moment to tell them.

Anyway, with a move date less than a month away, I’m beginning to sort and organize. I did the toys. I wish I could give more away, but…we have a big bin of Rescue Heroes that the boys don’t play with, but I know in a short time (6 months or so) Pete will be thrilled to have them. And so, I store stuff.