Stuff my Mama taught me and other serious thoughts.

Did you know, when you make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to pack in a lunch box, if you put peanut butter on both pieces of bread, with jelly in the middle, your bread will never get soggy? My Mama taught me that. It's true. I've tried it.

You know a few posts ago, when I said I missed my kids after they left for school? Yeah. That's over. Don't get me wrong. I'm totally happy to go and pick them up in the afternoon, but seriously. Do you KNOW how quiet one kid is? Do you know how CLEAN one kid is? Do you know how easy it is to go places with only one kid? I can't even begin to quantify how peaceful and NOT mentally exhausting the past three days have been. The best part? I know my kids are loving school. They are entertained, they are learning, they are happy. So we all win.

Sam's teacher called me this afternoon. Just to check in. Seriously. I've decided she might just be the best teacher ever. She just wanted to let me know that Sam had done well on his reading assessment and that she was starting him on an accelerated reading program, and, if I had any suggestions, she'd love to hear from me. I love it when teachers are on the ball. I mean, it's the third day of school. It's not like she hasn't been busy the past few days.

Someone please tell me my children aren't the only ones that fight in the car on the way home from school. Seriously. They've been away from each other all day. Four days ago, they were together ALL day and they didn't fight as much as they do in the twenty minutes it takes to get home. I'm thinking about duct taping them to their respective windows. Because if I have to hear that one hit the other with their lunch box/tennis shoe/hair band/back pack one more time? I might just leave them at school.

Speaking of tennis shoes... why must they always come off in the car? Are they so anxious to disrobe, the shoes have to come off in the car, five seconds after the van door closes, before I've even pulled out of the school parking lot? Seriously. We do not live in the desert. Your feet are not that hot. It reminds me of church clothes on Sunday afternoons... my kids leave a trail of socks, ties, belts, sweaters, and shoes all the way up the stairs because they are SO uncomfortable, they could never stand waiting the 15.4 seconds it would take to simply walk to their bedroom, and then change clothes. Children are so patient.

I just bought a new broom. I think brooms should have expiration dates. After two years of use, they should just self destruct so that we have to buy new ones. Because we won't do it on our own. We will keep using an old broom, having no idea that if we would just cough up 8 dollars to buy a new one, our sweeping experiences would be much more pleasurable. I had NO idea how sad my old broom really was until the children broke it in half, making it impossible for me to sweep without bending over, or standing on my knees. (I have no idea how they broke it. I wasn't here when it happened.)I remember being annoyed that my broom was broken, but really, they were doing me a favor. My new one is awesome.

And now I will stop talking about something as inconsequential as a broom. (Seriously though. Go buy a new one. You won't be disappointed.)

All the cucumbers are gone. I ended up throwing most of them off the back deck. Seriously. There were simply too many for reasonable consumption. To mock my wastefullness, the dog keeps finding them and bringing them onto the front porch. Thanks for that, Carmen. Stupid cucumbers.

When she isn't retrieving unwanted cucumbers, I can't get my dog to stop eating chapstick. She's a weird, weird dog. A very greasy, weird, weird dog.

In case you think I'm not serious, I used the word seriously five times in just this post. Seriously (make that 6). I think I need to expand my vocabulary.