Over Labor Day weekend, we took our annual trip to Lake Dillon. I have mad love for this part of Colorado, so much so that I want to pack up and move to this tiny town and become mayor. Well, maybe not mayor, but I bet I could get elected at least to the city council. Jeff is all, “Um, where would we work?” because, you know, the town probably has absolutely no need for someone that delivers packages and someone that is a bartender.

Truth? The only thing that holds me back from renting a u-haul and packing that bad boy up are my squirrels.  I’m being serious.  They need me.

That and Lake Dillon doesn’t have a Target. And it averages like 416 feet of snow in the winter.

So we go and we play on the lake and we eat. All weekend long.  We stayed in a condo that overlooked the marina and I don’t think we will do that again because the condo had a kitchen, which means I was granted the privilege of cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner. Just like at home! The only thing that was missing was a washer and dryer, toss in a few loads, it’s like we never left the house.

I decided to take the night off from my cooking duties and we went out to dinner at a brewery. We eat there every summer and it was within walking distance from the place we were staying. Please note that we have been slowly potty training Troy all summer, making teeny tiny amounts of progress and him showing very little interest in it at all. I mean, why go to all that trouble of using the toilet when you can piss your diaper and not even get up off the couch! And people rush around to get you a new diaper. It’s a genius set-up and it makes me wish I wasn’t potty trained either.

Dinner goes off without a hitch meaning nobody stood up in their high chair and knocked over a bowl of noodles and nobody cried over the blue crayon not being “sharp enough” and everyone ate their meal seated in a chair without screaming/crying/fighting. I chalk it up to running their guts out at the lake, they were pretty much too tired to make a scene.

Almost.

The check comes and I hand over my debit card. Jeff is boxing up the leftovers and the waiter comes back with the check and my card. He tries to hand it to Jeff and says, “Here’s your card, sir…”

I tell him it’s my card and that I will take it since Jeff is trying unsuccessfully to close a styrofoam to go container and the waiter glances at the card and says, “Oh, I’m sorry, I just saw Zakary and assumed it was a man”.

At this point, Troy chimes in and with his very loud outside voice says, “MOMMA HAZ WEE-NER?!”

On one hand, good for Troy, he’s been listening during the potty training instructions. You know, boys make pee pee come out their wee-ners on the toilet, not in their diapers.

And on the other hand, every table around us and our waiter heard Troy announce his mother has a weiner.

Oh look, my blog. Sorry you guys, I took a time-out this week. I did spend some valuable internet one on one time last night making a facebook page, so you should go check that out. And don’t tell me you aren’t on f-book, my mother is on there. I don’t really understand why I need one, but I’m here for you.

Here are some randoms that I’ve been filing away, it’s all I’ve got.

1. Fourth graders are exhausting. Zoe’s favorite new phrase, “It’s a fact, not crap.”

2. When said fourth grader brings home spelling tests and has received 100% on every.single.one and I tell her how proud I am of her, she informs me, “Yeah, that kind of stuff usually skips a generation”. It takes me 20 minutes to realize that was an insult.

3. Also, pinkie swears are totally out. Apparently ankle swears are the rage for 2010.

4. We took Grandma P out to dinner, she requested Red Lobster. Troy calls it “Red Hob-Ster”.

5. He actually tried to order hob-ster for dinner. We told him his popcorn shrimp was indeed hob-ster and he gobbled it up. He’s quite the man about town.

6. Grandma P is one of Troy’s all-time favorites. She was the first person he kissed on the cheek without being prompted.

7. Our rental house should be on the market next week, we just have 117 more hours of work to do this weekend.

8. Riesling + black cherry mike’s hard lemonade = surprisingly refreshing.

9. Operation Potty Training Toddler is in full effect up in here. Troy is enjoying “underdares”, but only on a part-time basis.

10. A man in Britain makes squirrel pastries. A MAN IN BRITAIN MAKES SQUIRREL PASTRIES. FOR PEOPLE TO EAT. ZOMG.

It’s a squirrel hot pocket and he claims they are delicious, like people snatch them up and the meat is “moist and sweet because its diet has been berries and nuts”. I can’t even right now. Let’s all light a candle for the poor, innocent squirrels of Britain.

Catch you on the flip, stay fresh.

ZDub

I’m teetering on the edge, dangerously close to slipping and falling into a deep, dark space of scary. I want to run out the front door, out into the night and breathe the cool air in and exhale the dread and the terror. I picture myself running down the driveway and through the trees, barefoot and in my yoga pants that I wear for everything but yoga, with my ponytail stretching behind me as I pick up speed along the asphalt, the pine trees lining the road point me in the right direction.

Any direction is the right direction as long as it isn’t my effing house at bedtime.

Because god forbid we try to put people that are not adults to bed at a “decent” hour.

A “decent” hour at this house is eleven p.m. if you are Zoe. And one a.m. if you are Troy.

Zoe is pretty chill about the whole situation, she’s had nine years to come up with a fail proof plan on how to manipulate her way into staying up at least an hour past the original mention of “Get in bed“.

1. Accomplish all steps you were instructed to do, i.e. brush teeth, jammies, etc.
2. Go to room and read.
3. Read is code for “wait for your mother to activate DVR+laptop+wine because she thinks she’s victorious in executing a successful parenting mission”.
4. Turn off light, sneak into hallway and watch tv along with your mother until she catches you.

Troy has flat out decided that bedtime is for suckas. He is having none of it, unless we all go to bed at the same time in the big bed. Most of the time, I do not feel like going to bed at eight o’clock in the evening, so we have tried to convince Troy that his bedroom is the where it’s at, it being get-the-hell-out-of-our-room. We have tried to establish a soothing routine, you know, a relaxing bath, warm jammies, bedtime stories. OH GOD WITH THE BEDTIME STORIES. I’m talking board books out the face, we cover everything. From shapes and numbers, to goodnight moon, to that eff-hole Biscuit puppy ruining perfectly good birthday parties and hippos and their bee-bos, Troy is well read. Like probably the most well read toddler I know, I’m not kidding. Meanwhile, if I have to spend on more evening on a toddler mattress reading about the lady with the alligator purse I am going to need sedation. And a straight jacket. At least that way I won’t have to turn the pages of the same eighteen board books.

Dont’ get me wrong, it’s not all the reading that’s getting me down. It’s what comes after I try to stop reading, when I put the brakes on Midnight Story Time starring ZDub and Troy.

HE FREAKS.

He needs to brush his teeth, which we did two hours ago when I originally decided he should go to bed. He requests to “look at Zoe”, who I am sure at this point is probably just sitting on the couch with the remote watching SATC reruns because she went to “bed” three hours ago and since I’m in Troy’s room having Bed Wars Showdown Part 65049, she doesn’t have to sit in the hallway. He absolutely cannot rest until he has *insert name of some random hot wheel car*. I have no idea what he’s talking about, so I have to go find Jeff and he has to search through the car bin. At this point, he’s peed in his diaper (stall tactic, Zoe probably coached him) and I have to change him. He insists on a red diaper, only red, and then you must put his regular underwear on over it. After this debacle that happens nightly, he falls asleep while I sit on the floor beside his bed and stare at him like Clarice from Silence of The Lambs.

When it’s over, I feel defeated. And tired because by the time Troy and I finish up the going to bed standoff, it’s one a.m. After this last go around, I might have gone in the kitchen and eaten an entire row of seasonal oreos to ease my pain.

Clearly there are no winners.

I have a terrible cold/flu courtesy of planet earth. I’m the only one sick in my household, so I might have gotten it from ninjas. With germs.  I received twenty whole blessed minutes of sleep last night because I couldn’t breathe out my nose and my head was hurty. I tried to go to sleep, I honestly did, but every time I would drift off, I would medium panic because like what if I forgot how to breathe? You know, like I couldn’t use my nose and if my body was all, “Pass on the mouth breathing, too much work”. I also kept getting up to make sure the front door was locked and I swear at one point I heard Troy’s tricycle being ridden down the driveway. (Probably by Napoleon.) Note to self: Do not mix ny to the quil and nighttime cold pills and wash it down with thera-flu. I swear I was not trying to end up on Lifetime, I didn’t take it all at once, it was a staggered over the counter treatment plan. Shit doesn’t work. Well, it does work but only if you are trying to make yourself not sleep and have paranoia.

Being sick really isn’t in my game plan right now.  I have 821 things on my to do list that need to attention.  It’s not really an actual list because that would require me to possess a pen in my home that isn’t dried out and writes.  If you call me to give me an important number, I will tell you to hold on because no one ever puts a lid back on anything here and I will end up writing your number down with my Clinique lip gloss.

We are scrambling to get our rental house back into shape and I have no time for illness.  Our goal is to have it ready to list for sale by next week and this means I better work.  I need to take down a wallpaper border, paint two bedrooms, putty and touch up the godforsaken gazillion nail holes left behind by the last renter who hung 19 african masks in the half bath and other jungle artifacts throughout the house, fix the gate, mow and edge the lawn (this isn’t really my area, but I have to tell Jeff to do it), have the mailbox keys replaced because mask hanger never returned the keys, have the garage door opener replaced because mask hanger also kept the opener, find out about mud-jacking because my real estate guy said it needs to be done to the walkway on the side of the house and find a way to still go to work because we are paying a mortgage and our rent.

I thought I was pretty on top of it and while I was over at the house this weekend throwing seven bills at the carpet installer man, I noticed there was a note taped to my truck with masking tape.  It was a note written on a sheet printed from the city’s website about trees and was from my lovely old as dirt neighbors informing me that my aspen tree hangs more than eight feet above the sidewalk and that my grass seeds we planted are growing in their rocks and to call them.  They have been after me to cut the tree down for five years because every fall, without fail, leaves blow in their yard.  In Colorado.  I wish with all my heart this was all I had to worry about, I do.  And for the record, the tree probably does need to be trimmed over the sidewalk, I know this.  But can you still walk down the sidewalk without ducking?  Yes.  I marched back inside and called them, even though I really wanted to go over there and eat the note in front of them so they would know just how absolutely concerned I was over their concerns.

The conversation went like this.

Me:  I got your note, what’s up?

Old as dirt:  When you got those “boys” to plant your grass, the wind blew it three inches and now it is sprouting in that strip of gravel in between our houses that doesn’t really belong to anyone and you better come poison it.

Me:  That boy was my husband, he’s 31.  And what about the tree?

Old as dirt:  It needs to be trimmed, blah blah blah. I WILL COME OVER AND CUT IT DOWN FOR YOU.

Me (furious rage): We will handle it.  Stay off my lawn.  *Hangs Up With Force But It Was A Cell Phone So I Just Touched The Off Button*

We were planning on trimming the tree ourselves, but our chainsaw is being a diva and decides to run when it feels like it.  I called around to get some estimates from professional tree people and one stopped by yesterday while I was working.  He called me this morning and as I was writing down the pricing information in crayon for Jeff and Jeff’s bank account, the tree guy informed me that old as dirt guy came out and started telling him what to cut off and where and that he should just take the whole tree down.  I became so livid I almost fainted.  But that’s probably just my over the counter overdose wearing off.

The tree guy then said, “Pardon my language, but he’s a real jerkwad”.

For that statement alone,  I will hire him to trim that tree despite the fact that what he is charging me is exactly the price of a new chainsaw.

Hugs, kleenex and STAY OFF MY LAWN,

ZDub

P.S.  And because I am a firm believer that a post needs a photo, at least mine do to distract you from my grammar, here’s one that has absolutely nothing to do with what you just read.

Troy shoved $2.14 in loose change into my CD player while I was carrying in our groceries.  He does not ride in the front seat, I let him sit in the driver’s seat in the driveway and play “Jimmie Johnson” while I unload the car because this is better than him playing in the street.  Jimmie Johnson is a very successful nascar driver and probably does not put change in his mother’s CD player.  Maybe.  If he did, he would probably pay to have it fixed.  *side eye to Troy*