A Public Service Announcement

I’ve been sitting on this post for a while. Debating on whether I should even put it out there. It’s got some unflattering pictures (not referring to the baby) but the more difficult part to reconcile is the truth it contains. I don’t know if you’re ready for it, but I feel a tremendous sense of obligation to pass this on.

Here’s a picture of me looking amazed at a baby:

This is a CUTE baby. We didn’t even have to lie to her parents about that; it’s true. I think she’s awesome. She has tater-tot feet and she wears mittens.

I was surprised that when CC and I got married, people began asking me when we were going to have kids.

Me: We have five kids. I think we’re good.

Them: No, I mean your own kids.

Yeah. Because I’m so on top of everything, so incredibly organized and overloaded with resources such as money, time, and patience, that I think what’s truly missing in our lives, with our five kids and two dogs, is an infant.

Nevermind the best twelve bucks CC ever spent.

Nevermind the insult both to me and the kids.

I’m going to tell you something about babies. Something that no one is talking about. It’s the Big Secret About Babies that isn’t discussed in polite company. I already told Little O’s parents, so they knew from way back. My sister, who will be giving birth any second now, knows this truth because it’s already happened to her twice.

We’re talking way beyond narcolepsy, drooling and poop. Lots of people go into the baby thing not knowing this part and they’re shocked when it happens to them. There’s a conspiracy of silence around parenthood that prevents most people from talking about it. The advantage of being a stepmom and jumping in right in the middle is that you don’t have built-in fairy tale fantasies about your babies. You’re faced with stark reality from the very first day. I’m objective. That’s why ima tell you this now.

The best you can hope for, and this is only if you are very, very lucky, is this:

Folks, babies turn into teenagers.

I am not making this up.

You’re welcome.

Love Cat and Prayerboy

There’s a dollar store on the main drag in our town. We used to live pretty close to it; the kids could walk there and it was one of their favorite places to blow their allowances (when we finally paid them).

In addition to candy, they had. . . crap.

Or, if you view the world from #4’s eyes, Glorious Treasures. She’s a generous kid and sometimes would come back with something for us.

These are some of her gifts.

Love Cat, given to us just because:

This is a crappy picture, but it’s a girl bear talking on her cell phone. The caption reads “Girl on the Go!” and #4 gave it to CC for his birthday:

An excellent thing about these pictures is that you can check out my mad housekeeping skills.

This next one isn’t from the dollar store, but all these live on the dresser together. One of my favorite things ever: a Father’s Day gift that she made in Art. She was the only one in her class that needed two pots:

She is the little one in the first pot with CC and I, and says that the one with the split head in the other pot is #1.

I love this one because we share neither his ethnicity nor his level of devotion. Sometimes he’s inspiring. Other times he’s judging me:

This is another “just because” gift:

Seriously. Just Because.

We finally got to buy a house and when we moved, the dollar store was no longer an easy walk for the kids. I drove past the other day and noticed they’d gone out of business. I feel somewhat responsible.

Mine.

The kids hide food.

I swear we feed them.

I never hid food as a kid, but then, I have only one sister. If my mom brought a box of Zingers or Jello Pudding Pops home, we were guaranteed to get one. Hell, more than one. More often than not, exactly half the box for each of us.

Not so in my current family.

A regular-sized box of anything isn’t big enough for all the kids. We buy in bulk wherever possible, and buy multiples when it isn’t. Even if the numbers work out, no one is guaranteed an equal share.

We don’t run our house as a democracy, nor as a commune. It’s a benign dictatorship with a flourishing black market. Any treat we buy is immediately, surreptitiously pillaged and hidden.

#5, being little, likes to tell me his hiding places. Sometimes he asks if it’s okay. I haven’t figured out if he’s cute, or if he’s trying to distract me from his more sinister master plan. But occasionally, I hide things on his behalf, because what are the odds that an eight-year-old boy can come up with a hiding place that his four older sisters haven’t found before him, and won’t think of in the future?

I get mad when they hide things to the extent that one kid gets all of them. I also get pissed when they hide something successfully and forget about it, and I find it months later with a green/blue spray of mold across it or else fused to the inside of an appliance we rarely use. Sometimes one kid finds another kid’s stash, takes a bite and returns it to its hiding place. The pantry is a minefield of half-open wrappers with one bite missing. Likewise the freezer.

I come across hidden treats when I’m packing lunches or pretending to cook. What I do with them depends on my mood and where I find them. And if it was anything I wanted for myself to begin with.

This morning I found someone’s half-eaten bag of Sour Patch Kids. It’s now a three-quarters-eaten bag of Sour Patch Kids.

UPDATE: It is now a bag containing four Sour Patch Kids.

UPDATE: #1 just declared in a very loud and sarcastic voice while we were standing in the kitchen, “Oh no, I knew that was a bad place to hide my Sour Patch Kids.” I pretended not to hear her.

We pay allowance. Not much: 50 cents per year of age, per week. I don’t pay on time. I currently owe them about three hundred dollars. They spend most of their money on food: Ramen. Nutella. Marshmallow Fluff. Frozen chocolate chip waffles. Brownie mix. Donuts. Icing. Soda. Lemon Juice (yes, lemon juice). CC makes them share any and all candy, even if they buy it with their own money, but somehow there’s a loophole around everything else.

They’re not supposed to keep food in their rooms for the obvious reasons, so it’s all about how to make sure nobody else gets their treats. In addition to the hiding, there are threats, fair trades, bargaining, and diversion.

Still, they steal like mad. They steal from each other and then when they discover that their own treat, purchased with their own money, has been decimated, they are indignant. And I’m forced to point out the fallacy of their argument, namely that they can’t complain about the loss when they’re thieving themselves. This makes me incredibly popular, as you might imagine.

I personally get around this by just buying things for myself that they don’t like. Dark chocolate is the only treat they won’t eat. Beyond that, I’m safe with spinach and brussels sprouts, and crushed red pepper flakes on everything else. (I learned that last one from my Dad.)

A new development in protecting their loot has sprung up: messages written on containers. This is from a carton of Limeade that #4 bought: