Counting down

We're slogging through the mud here, trying to get everything in order before the kids and I leave in 2 1/2 weeks.  I do NOT recommend Club Pet for shipping your animal. They just stopped returning calls and emails, so we switched to another dog shipper. Fingers crossed they can get it together in time. Otherwise, I'm going to have to fashion Seamus into a furry hat and sneak him onto the plane. Apparently, we have housing now, and soon will have passports. If I have to fill out one more form, though, I'm going to, um, fill out one more form and wine some more. Whoops, see what I did there? Is that what you call a Freudian slip? I meant fill out one more form and whine some more. Or both. Yes, definitely both.

I'm trying to keep my mental sh*t together by doing yoga with the kids every time I'm about to lose it.  Watching one child in particular attempting the Downward Facing Dog can keep me giggling to myself for hours. I've also started playing a dancing game on the Wii with the girls. We can all three play at once, and it scores you on how well you did on your moves. I felt so bad for Grace yesterday, who had a score of 70 to Olivia's 4,388 and my 3, 950, but I was pretty impressed with myself for keeping up with the Dance Master of the house. Until it was discovered that I was using Grace's controller and she had mine.  Dang.

I finally found a cure for my insomnia, and it even beats Ambien. It's a new non-drug therapy. Maybe you've already heard of it. It's called Rosetta Stone. About five minutes of selecting if the three little boys are drinking water of if the woman is driving, and Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. 

Mitch is down in Brazil, so I'm single-parenting it at Henry's school music concert tonight. He informed me a few days ago that his trumpet hasn't worked for weeks, "but don't worry mom, I never play loud enough for the teacher to hear me anyway, so she doesn't correct me."  To show how frazzled I am right now, rather than taking the trumpet to the music store and giving him a lecture on striving for excellence, I just patted him on the head and said, "well, keep it up, just a few more days of music to get through".  What I'm really anticipating is that Henry was picked to sing a song with two other kids in the school, "INFRONTOFTHEWHOLEWORLD!" When he came home and told me that, he writhed in agony on the floor, convulsing and begging me to let him be "sick" for the concert.  Meanwhile, Jack, who was enjoying the spectacle said, "I was going to pretend I had too much homework to go, but I wouldn't miss this for the world." Cue the convulsions and agonized cries.

I can't begin to tell you what my house looks like, and the kids have decided that since it's a wreck, they might as well add to it by throwing their junk everywhere.  The other night, as I was angrily cleaning up after them, I said out loud, "Why on earth (okay, I said 'why the hell'-yes, I'm that mom) am I cleaning up after you guys?" and my darling teenager responded, "Because you love us and don't want us to run away?"

Send wine and Ambien Rosetta Stone.