Silly

I'm really thankful for humor in marriage today.  On occasion I will reveal what I call Team Pardy rules for our marriage.  Maybe "rules" is too harsh of a word - but I also like the double meaning of Team Pardy RULES as if we are conquering the world, and since they are guidelines that we do our best to live by, I suppose "rules" is just as good a word as any to describe them.   Well, here's one for you:  Keep it silly.  That is, Marriage and the Art of Silliness, if you will, truly go hand in hand in the Pardy home.  And let me tell you, between a crazy flu-stricken Mother's Day and the great flea infestation fiasco of 2012...if we didn't have humor, we would have probably strangled each other by now.

Being funny is not only an art form in our home, it is a constant competition.  Both Josh and I value humor and rate it extremely highly on our list of necessary traits for deep friendship - at least, if you aren't funny then you'd better think we are funny - that is, laugh near us if you can't laugh at us in the very least. And it has made our friendship deepen through the years while we are maintaining and growing in our love for each other.  Having humor in common is not only healthy for our relationship, however, it is also just loads of fun.  And you know, above all, I love that we don't even care if other people find us funny or not (yes, that would be you I'm talking about) - as long as we find each other funny, with all our inside jokes and songs and voices and quips - if we laugh at each other...mission accomplished.  With each and every chuckle, my heart is reminded:  He gets me.

So, we do our best to keep the silly in our marriage.  What do we find silly?  Well, a while back, before Josh left for work, I stole his phone.  We had just seen the Hunger Games movie, and so I changed my contact information in his phone to Katniss Everdeen (the lead character in the movie, in case you've been living under a rock for the last several months)...so, when I texted him (all day long) he received messages from "Katniss Everdeen", complimenting him, flirting with him, and keeping him updated on all things Capitol and what was happening in the arena and so on.  Silly.  What's better?  The next morning I started receiving messages from Mad Men's "Don Draper" (the lead character in that series in case you've been living under a rock for the last few years) all day long.  Pure silliness.

What else is silly in the Pardy home?  Our Chipotle fridge.

We love Chipotle.  I could honestly eat from Chipotle like every other night if I could afford it.  We almost always order the same thing again and again, and thanks to the iPhone app, we can place our order ahead of time and then just run by and pick it up without having to wait in line (genius!)  When you place your order in the app, you "name" and place "special instructions" within each order.  I'm not sure when it all started, but one night instead of "Josh - steak burrito no cheese" and "Emily - carnitas tacos no hot sauce" I decided to put "Han Solo - steak burrito and a high five" and "Princess Leia - carnitas tacos and have yourself a fine evening" in the order.  And so -  we got a huge kick out of it when they obliged the order, and we kept the labels off our food, and stuck them to our fridge.  And voila!  The Chipotle-famous-couples-name-sticker-fridge was born.  (I have a feeling that our local Chipotle may get a surge of suspicious monikers coming through their app in the next week now?  Haha.)

Hmm, I'm spotting a trend here as I write this.  But, before you start wondering if all our silliness requires us to rename ourselves and trick the general public, let me list you some more silly stunts:  making up songs about each other (usually which involve free style rapping and a chorus involving our cat Dutch or anything that rhymes with Matilda), emailing each other ridiculous articles or YouTube videos that simply make us laugh (yes, this could potentially involve cats playing pianos), making fun of anything on tv at any time - there is constant commentary circulating our home of whatever happens to be on the tube at the time.  Even if we are stuck watching yet another episode of Olivia (the pig) or The Berenstain Bears because that is all that will calm Matilda at the moment - we humor ourselves by making up our own dialogue (i.e. Why yes, Brother Bear, it is unusual that there are no humans around, but remember - we ate all the humans and turned it into Bear Country long ago before the robot wars began and the planet relied on an energy source of honey to sustain its existence!)  And it helps us maintain our sanity a little longer.

How do you keep humor in your marriage?  What do you find funny?  When is the last time you pulled a prank on your hubster and got laughing so hard that diet Coke nearly shot out your nose?

I'm so thankful to be married to a funny guy.  Our humor thrives on being competitive with each other, always trying to one-up the last prank or joke or play on words.  We challenge each other and respect each other and do what we can to keep ourselves in tune with what each other finds clever or witty.  I once told Josh that it doesn't necessarily bother me so much if a pretty woman walked by and was noticeably more attractive than me (I'm secure enough to know that I will never look like Catherine Zeta Jones in this lifetime) but that he'd better never ever (ever) tell me that he thinks another woman is funnier than me.  Haha.  It's true!

And, if we can keep the silliness in our marriage going, the inside jokes and the billows of laughter that seep out the seams of our home and contagiously find their ways into our extended friendships and communities....then, I think we'll be laughing all the way to our graves...in love.  Don't underestimate the power of humor in your marriage.  A good joke can diffuse an ugly situation.  A kind smile or little smirk can break the tension of any unreasonable argument.  An ounce of hilarity can mend a week of frustrations.  It's free and fuels happiness.  It's healthy and promotes compromise.  When you are laughing, and always looking for new reasons to laugh, you will be amazed at how vulnerable and pleasant your home can become.

I'm thankful God gave us humor in this life.  It is certainly an optional component when it comes to survival - but, it makes life turn from bearable to enjoyable with a single giggle.  I'd love to hear how you keep things silly in your own home - maybe we can laugh ourselves silly into the weekend.  Maybe we can start a giggle revolution.  :)

Ordeal

Alrighty - I'm back! Whew.  And I have missed an entire week of writing and sharing and catching up with all of you since "the-week-from-you-know-where" struck our house.  Just coming off the heels of having the stomach flu over Mother's Day, both my girls and Josh caught horrible colds.  The kind of cold  that, even if you aren't sick with it, keeps you up all night because everyone is hacking away every hour anyway.  So, yeah, none of us were really getting any rest.

Well, when it rains, it pours...cats and dogs...with fleas.  (Can I get a collective groan from the audience, please? Thank you.)  Wednesday morning started like any other...the usual chaos over choosing toast or cereal, the manic pouring of coffee, the anxious scramble to find socks that match and more baby wipes and where did I put my glasses?  You know, the usual gig.  Until...Josh sends me a little text that changes the entire course of the week:  I just found two fleas.  Check the cats.


Oh. No.

Dutch...the lazy culprit.

Two nights prior, the culprit - er, I mean, our cat, Dutch, had escaped outside for about half an hour.  We didn't think anything of it really, besides his usual naughty/mischievous behavior.  He had escaped before, and for longer amounts of time, but he is such a lazy bones that whenever we would call him in for kitty food he would be swift to return to his life of luxury.  So, reluctantly and with much chagrin, I find the cat and search his belly, only to find...fleas.  Ugh of all UGHS.

Panic set in.  I grew up on a farm, so I wasn't entirely unfamiliar with fleas.  We had pets growing up, and suddenly I was having flashbacks of stinky fog bombs and sprays and pet baths and then the sinking realization of all the things Dutch and our other cat, Zuzu, could have come in contact with over the last 48 hours...and just how much laundry that entailed.  (I had JUST done 5 loads of laundry that were clean and sitting out...and I had caught both cats sleeping on the giant pile last night. Oh no!)

My worst memory of fleas came to mind as well.  I was 16, and had found a kitten sitting on top of my car in the garage.  I had swooned over this adorable little furball we quickly adopted and named Gizmo.  I snuggled her and bathed her and she became a new member of our family by the end of that week...but, not before she had given me fleas!  What's worse?  It was 3 weeks  before PROM.  Here I was, picking out shoes, hair accessories, perfectly matching nail polish...and flea treatment for a horrible rash that had ravaged my forearm!  Ugh to the nth degree!  I quickly decided that long satin gloves were going to be in fashion that year, and all crisis was averted.  (Still, if you can imagine yourself 16 again and think about the horror it brought on to even consider telling any one of your friends that you got fleas right before PROM...you can imagine the drama that created!)

I was thinking about all these memories as the crushing reality set in about how this day needed to already be over before it began.  What do I do?  Well, first things first, I did what any normal, grown woman does when a crisis arises and you feel like you might start hyperventilating before anything even gets decided about what to do first....I called my mother.

Mom!  What do I do????


Three phone calls later between my mother, my sister and again with Josh, we decided that we would just have to burn the place down and join witness protection.  Oh no...wait, that's what I wanted to do.  Sigh.  Instead, the daunting task of fog bombs, pet baths and laundry out the wazoo clearly became our only option in defeating these pesky bugs.  This meant not only washing things that potentially had fleas on them...but, then, once everything had been fogged and killed the pests, it would have been exposed to toxic fumes and needed to be washed as well.  Since I have a 10 month old who is apt to put anything and everything in her mouth, this meant that every little thing (plastic toys, books, remotes, anything fabric whatsoever, all things two feet off the ground and under) needed to be wiped down and cleaned after being bombed.  Ugh to infinity!

Folks, this is what emergency funds are for.  This is why you save back a little money here and there or at least have a credit card you are diligent to pay off.  Days like these are why you try and position yourself to be prepared.  All that to say - I couldn't take it anymore and as soon as I set the fog bombs off...I checked us into a nice hotel just a few miles away.  Hooray!  Clean carpet!  Cable television!  Little soaps!

Thought these tiny, minuscule, little buggers were quickly becoming the smallest-but-most-expensive-by-ratio item I had ever spent money on, it was worth every penny. The girls were enthralled by the novelty of the hotel.  New beds to jump on, fountains of fish in the lobby that Matilda got to feed, new nooks and crannies to investigate and potentially climb.  Since both girls were still snotty-nosed and coughing, I couldn't drop them off at any friend's home or daycare, so it was all I could do to just care for them and pray for help.

Asking for help is highly underrated.  I'm all for independence and self-motivated ambition...but, when you need help, don't hesitate, just ask for help.  So, I did.  I put out the white flag, and my dearest friends came to my rescue.  By that night, as my girls and I ate pizza and visited the lobby fish one  more time for the night...my husband and two of our most gracious friends were at our apartment, scrubbing flea bomb scum off baby toys, stripping beds and wiping off pillows, doing dishes and loading laundry.  I am still so grateful for their hearts of servanthood.  Good friends are salve to the flea-flustered soul (isn't that a Proverb? It should be.)

By morning, I had called in the big guns.  I've never hired a cleaning service before, so I took a chance on Molly Maids of Fullerton.  I'm telling you the name of the company so that you don't use them.  I hate to say it, but I would not recommend them.  While the girls and I were able to return to a flea-free home (can we get a PRAISE JESUS!?) we didn't exactly return to a clean home.  All I'm saying is, when I pay for a service, I expect the work to be up to par with at least the quality that I would do myself, right?  I talked to their manager, and the cleaners had to return the next morning to finish the job (which sort of got completed) but, whatever...the carpet was vacuumed and nothing wreaked of flea bomb and there were no fleas in sight....so it was fine.  At this point, as long as I didn't itch all over with the thought of just standing in my own home, I was going to be happy.

Deeeeep sigh of relief.  We survived.  The great flea fiasco of 2012 had passed.  Now, evidently, we have to keep spraying the carpet and vacuuming religiously to avoid potential flea eggs from hatching in the next two weeks...and we'll be treating our cats with Advantage flea treatment from now until forever...and I still have about three loads of laundry left to do and about eight more to fold and put away....but, we made it.  Good golly, what an ordeal.

Thanks for hanging with me, friends, we'll try to keep things interesting around here for you!

Reality Bites

This will be a short post.  And, getting a Thankful Thursday post in just under the wire here, I'm determined to find something redeemable about the day.  So, here it is:  we survived. 

This was one of those days where you are brutally awoken much too early, and as the morning creeps on and you start to think "Okay, that was fun, that had to have killed half the day, right?" and then you look at the clock only to realize it is a mere 8am in the morning, you just know you are in for one of those days.  [Insert dramatic music here].

So, bear with me.  Here is a mega dose of reality.  Here is a nasty glimpse into the mundane, the necessary, the reality of how a "normal" day shakes down around here.  And here is why I am so freaking thankful it is closing in on 8PM and the house is finally silent for at least (fingers crossed) the next several hours (that's quite optimistic, mind you).

The baby woke up, hacking up half a lung.  The poor thing, just barely over the stomach flu now has a horrible cold.  Of course she can't complain about it or tell me anything or take a cough drop or Mucinex...so she just stares at you with those giant doe eyes blinking helplessly for you to do something about the frog in her throat that won't go away.  She's miserable and sad.  Sad enough to cry out and wake her sister up as well.  Alrighty, here we go.

We make it through breakfast and for some reason (why oh why) I decide that today would be a brilliant day to start potty training again (why?).  I have introduced and reintroduced this to Matilda multiple times now.  She has been in pull-ups since the beginning of the year and will go on the potty if I take her, but has yet to jump the hurdle of actually telling me before she goes (sort of an important component in the whole "making it to the potty in time" scenario).  Regardless, I get her chattering about panties and potties and poo poos and the proverbial ball is rolling faster than I can teach her the "potty dance".  So, okay, so we are just going for it!

This, then, of course, starts an ongoing, all-day battle of constantly questioning her about her (lack of) bladder control.  I'm putting her under fierce interrogation all day long:  How do you feel?  Are you getting that feeling?  Do you need to go pee pee?  Should we go to the potty?  and so forth.  It's relentless and a couple hours into it we are both sick of hearing me talk about it.  Still, she is super excited about the panty options and decides she does want to take part in today's activity (I can only hope she understands this particular activity will hopefully last from here on out!)

The baby takes an all-too-short morning nap.  Lunch is a disaster.  I spill banana goo all over my jeans and I'm pretty sure there is still some trapped in between the cushions of the couch (or is that from last week's incident?) and Matilda refuses to eat anything but eggs.  Whatever, sure, I'll cook you scrambled eggs for lunch, what do I care.  She gobbles them up and pleads for more.  Having just done all the dishes, I'm in no rush to dirty the pan yet again for second helpings that she will most likely not finish.  I try to entice her with another food, but this only leads to tantrums and screaming indicating that we are already past the magical window of nap time.

About an hour later (and a zillion readings of "Berenstain Bear's Weekend at Grandma's") she goes down for a nap.  Not two minutes later (just long enough for me to inhale a deep breath, but not yet exhale) an entourage of blaring sirens go screaming down our street.  Of course Matilda wakes up.  I put Daphne in her bouncer and go get Matilda back down.  Magically, this occurs.  Not five minutes later, there is a knock at the door (are you kidding me?) and the UPS guy wonders if I can take a package for my neighbor?!  (Not even a fun package for me!?)  Fine, sure, of course.  I check on Matilda again and she stays asleep (hallelujah).

I finally get a chance to sit while Daphne plays on the floor.  She romps around happily, until...SMACK!  Daphne slips and goes face first into our jaggedy edged coffee table.  WHAT!?  She screams at the top of her lungs, wakes Matilda, and I'm scrambling to just look her over and make sure she is okay.  Then I see blood.  BLOOD!  Blood is gushing out her mouth and this is when all the worst case scenarios start racing through my head and I start thinking how am I the only person here to figure this out!?  She's fine.  Teeth, fine.  Gums, find.  Lip is fat and bloody, but fine.  I get her sucking on an ice pack and she is settled down, meanwhile Matilda is beating down her door like a wild rhinoceros.

Welp, nap time is over.  That was it.  Done.  And now I have the entire afternoon to still kill and then on into the evening since Josh has to work extra late tonight.  Argh.  Matilda is insisting on more eggs for a snack.  Really?  Eggs?  Okay, fine, maybe I'll just nuke them so as to save myself a pan to not have to clean.  I ready the bowl, fix the eggs, and toss it in the microwave.  I kid you not, the scrambled eggs literally exploded in the microwave.  Exploded.  Now...I don't know about you, but scrambled eggs are definitely at the top of my list of things that I wish never to explode in my microwave...right above "bean burrito" and just under "cat food".  Gross.  It is so gross.  So, there was a pleasant little clean up that was unexpected.  Bah!

The afternoon is all a blur.  We played dress up and reviewed shapes and letters.  There were a couple potty accidents and at least a few times I had to yank Matilda up by her arm and move her where she was supposed to go (since I was also holding the baby, this is my polite way of not a) leaving her wherever she is or b) not barrel-rolling her body across the ground by my foot).  At one point Matilda found her pancake plate from breakfast and decided to give her feet a maple syrup bath, and then walked all over the carpet (which actually picked up quite a bit of cat hair that our vacuum can never seem too, so there's a plus!)

Luckily, we ran into some friends out front and were able to get through the last couple hours before dinner time with some playmates.  Thank goodness!

Now, bed time.  There is still macaroni and green beans in my carpet from dinner.  There are clothes and toys strewn alllll over the living room.  There are shoes and blankets in nooks and crannies where I will never find them.  The remote to the TV is no where to be found.  My phone has sticky syrup finger prints on it.  I haven't peed since like 3 this afternoon.  I am too tired to fix dinner for myself and will probably just stick my hand in a box of cereal while I watch a Frasier rerun until my husband comes home and wonders what I've done with his wife.

And there you have it.  I've spent my last brain cell pouring out my soul to all you other tired moms out there so we can all just relax and low-five each other (high fives just take too much energy, am I right?) and say THANK GOD, today is over.

Good work, mamas.  Good night.

Hallmark

I couldn't not post about this weekend.  I hope you all had fabulous Mother's Days, filled with fun and appreciation and gifts and love.  As you may have heard, my Mother's Day went a little less wonderfully than expected.  I suppose there are just certain times when God throws a curve ball at you to make sure you stop and take notice of the small things that are truly important.  And, let me tell you, there is nothing that will make you stop faster in your tracks than vomit.

Ugh.  Yes, this Mother's Day weekend, instead of receiving the usual cards and flowers, my daughter caught a horrible stomach flu and passed it on (every-so-generously) to me and her baby sister.  The Pardy girls were DOWN for the count to say the least.  Don't worry, I'll leave out the gory details.  I'm a recovering Emetophobic (fear of vomiting) myself, and if there is anything that can cure you quicker than lightning...it's having a toddler.

We've had the stomach flu three times in the last six months.  Now, I don't know about you, but to me that is a LOT of vomit.  I mean, just too many germs to even fathom.  And it's not like we're out at the clubs every night licking hand rails or picking gum up off the street.  We are NORMAL people who have NORMAL friends.  Where are these germs coming from?  Are we manifesting them ourselves?  Are toddlers simply a breeding ground for new super-germs to test out their limits on?  Ugh!  It makes me want to hook up to a Clorox IV, drink Listerine straight from the bottle and bathe in a tub of Purell!  Okay, maybe not...but, c'mon.  G-R-O-S-S.

Yes, so the weekend was...er...messy to say the least.  To top it off, my sweet husband had to work on Saturday morning, so I was left mid-fever to fend for myself and just try to survive for a few hours.  I barely made it and had to call him home early.  He returned to a post-apocalyptic version of our previous home...something hardly livable and now taken over by blankets, buckets and new piles of laundry that could easily be mistaken for that giant "trash-island" floating out in the middle of the sea.  Scaryville.

But, then, a new day dawned.  And it was Mother's Day.  Living through the couple days prior, I had exceedingly lowered my expectations for the day.  I knew we weren't going anywhere.  I knew there would be no smorgasbord (um, gag).  I knew there had been no time for my sweet husband to leave the house or surprise me with anything grand.  So, I took some time to just try and count my blessings.


Health.  Wow, is health underrated or what!?  I mean, I know you always hear the expression "At least you have your health"...but, man, is it true!  That is a huge one that I am in constant need of being reminded how important it is and how fragile it can be.  And we just had the stomach flu!  Inconvenient at most!  Nothing truly debilitating or life-altering.  So, thank you Jesus for our health - especially being on the mend.

Husband.  Major!  My love (who we all thought was doomed to get the nasty virus but still has yet to show signs of it, so Praise God!) may not have brought me breakfast in bed, but he did turn into "Harry Poppins" and magically cleaned the whole house.  I mean, mopped and everything!  So, the massacre of an abode has now remarkably transformed into a livable home again - fit for enjoyment and habitation.  His servanthood blesses me daily, but this went above and beyond as a wonderful gift, and I'm so thankful for his non-complaining attitude in tackling the nasty tasks that just needed to get done.  Kudos, Josh!

Hijas.  (Okay, okay, I don't speak Spanish...in fact, I murder the beautiful language with every attempt...but, see how I have this lovely H alliteration happening here...so, just let me roll with it this once!)  My daughters.  Certainly, Mother's Day wouldn't even be possible, let alone celebrated, without my beautiful daughters.  They bring me simple joys and complex challenges and blessings that exceed any greeting card sentiment imaginable.  They are too young to tell me what I mean to them...and even if they were old enough, I don't know if there are words for it anyway.  Parental bond is truly indescribable.  But, if there was something that would come close, something that could nearly encompass the feeling of bliss that my heart holds for these little beings, it would be in the feeling I get when they rest on me and take complete comfort in my just being there.  Just.  Being.  There.

And that's exactly what they gave me for Mother's Day.  Maybe it was the Tylenol.  Maybe it was the nap schedule gone awry.  Maybe it was the utter exhaustion from not having eaten in two days.  But, on Mother's Day...BOTH of my girls took their naps on me.  Completely fell asleep laying on top of me.  This is a rarity these days.  Sure, the baby will sometimes still doze off after a feeding sometimes, but it doesn't last very long anymore.  And Matilda hasn't slept on me on purpose since she was a baby herself.  This was a little slice of heaven for me to just sit and enjoy.

When you hold your baby, no matter how old they are, and they rest against you with complete comfort and total trust, it is the most humbling and amazing feeling in the world.  I hope every soul in the universe gets to experience this feeling at some point.  Time stops.  Peace triumphs.  And nothing else in the entire world matters.  That is love.

I'm not saying that I'll be wishing for a bout of the flu in our house again anytime soon.  I don't know if the stars will align just right where I'll get a day like that again for a while (or ever).  But, I'm so glad that this year God gave me a moment to just stop and take in the beauty of my precious little babes.

Try to find that in a greeting card!  Thanks, God.  Way to, once again, take my human disappointment and show me that I'm not forgotten.  I may not have had the beautiful brunch or the basket of beauty products (and don't feel too sorry for me...my husband has already planned ahead some escape time for me next weekend - woohoo!) but, I think I scored big time this Mother's Day.  (Plus...I lost like four pounds! Ha!)

I dare you to ask God to turn your "lemons into lemonade"...or, in this case, a post-apocalyptic-laundry-trash-island into a paradise of peace.  If even for a moment, it gave me a blissful reminder...and a Mother's Day I'll never forget.