Worries and cows.

A bullet list of suggestions will bring you up to date with my week:

1) When your children are an hour late getting home from the creek, it does not always mean that they died trying to save one another from drowning…….even kids forget to update their watches to daylight savings time. Especially when they only wear them a couple times each year.

2) Kids and longhorn cattle do not mix.

3) When you call your husband at work and tell him your 9yo is at the creek surrounded by bulls, make sure you check under the cows tail first. Husband leaving work frantically=there damn well better be a good reason….especially since he left work the day before prepared to drag creek with net.

4) When you give your $200 cell phone to your 9yo, expect it to not work when you get it back….especially when they take it to the creek to fish.

5) Try not to panic when your 9yo whispers into the phone “mom, they have horns longer than my body, and they are all around us…help”.

6) Chianti wine is reeealllly gooood.

7) Little Lambs eat ivy…..and if you keep buying them obsessively because they look so cute on the baby, they also will eat up all the money you are saving from not buying disposables.
8) A dozen red roses from your husband of 14 years really does feel amazing.

9) He got sooooo lucky that night.

10) If your voice is calm and firm, you can usually get what you want…..especially if the sound of crying children drifts from the back of your loaner car, as you say through clenched teeth to the service repair manager “Bob, I can call you Bob, right? Bob, I have made 4, count them, 4 round trips of over 50 miles each way, to come pick up my van, and each time I find that the problem has not been fixed. This is the last one. I will do this one…more…time. Next time you will be delivering my van, washed and waxed, with a full tank of gas, to my driveway back home. Do you understand me???” Apparently he did, because not only was my van fixed, but it was washed and waxed and had a full tank of gas when I picked it up.

11) If you tell Bob, the service repair manager, to go ahead and lock the keys in the car because you will bring a spare set with you when you come to pick up the van after hours, 50 miles away……..don’t forget to bring them.

12) When you call home to ask your husband to load the three kids in the car and drive 50 miles to deliver the car keys that you forgot, remember to use your sweet voice.

13) Thank God you married the man, as he reminds you that you have Onstar.

14) Onstar is really cool and is worth every penny. How DO they do that!! Beam me up Scottie.

15) Babies of 5 months of age do not have object permanence yet. So. understand that as they sit, rear facing, as you drive, for the HUNDREDTH time, to go pick up your van, they feel alone and abandoned . They hear your voice, and THAT’S IT.

16) A cup of Chianti wine in marinara sauce is the next best thing to sex.

17) Next time the strange car salesman from Toyota leans all the way in your car window and, seeing that you have 4 kids, blurts out, “Thank God you finally had a girl, now you can stop!”, please remember that you have automatic windows at your fingertips.

18) As phase two of house restoration begins, keep several bottles of Chianti present.

19) Unsupervised children (not your own) and buffet style Chinese food do not mix.

and last but not least…..

20) When living in a house with 4 boys, always check the seat before sitting on it.