I knew you were trouble when you walked in...

So some families spend their good quality time together playing board games or doing a sport or craft. What do we do? Make fun of Taylor Swift.

http://www.youtube.com/watch/?v=n4BMmVh7h5w

The Adventures of Captain Underpants

Flashback Time- As a mother of two boys, there's really nothing much cuter than your two year old son in brand spanking new Superman Underoos.  You lovingly buy these to entice your adorable baby boy to get excited for potty training. Armed with loads of internet advice, a bag of reward M&M's, and naivety you embark on what is sure to be a piece of cake.

.......And then......you actually potty train.

Now fortunately for me, my Mom (AKA-Bubbles) had blessed us with the sage advice that when potty training boys, you can start at two and they'll be done by three or you can start at 2 years 11 months, and they'll still be done by three. I'm sure that some of you have sons that were aiming and firing right off the bat with the precision of snipers. To you people, I applaud your superior pee teaching skills and secretly pray that you will one day have horrible teenagers. Anywho, for both boys it was a laborious task that thank the heavens is a blur years later. I'm also proud to report that neither child will be shipping off to college in pull-ups (believe me, you will be convinced otherwise when they're toddlers). We are out of the world of diapers, Amen-Halleluiah! At this point, one would think that there would be no more blog worthy incidents concerning undergarments. That was the case until one decided to start having opinions about style.

Spazz the elder, is by far the most laid back of our two about clothing. In years past,  he would have happily trotted to school in scuba gear if that's what we laid out for him. This year we've seen a bit of a shift, particularly in the fruit of the loom of it all. We've always been a briefs by the pack kind of family. It's cheaper and really no one should see one's pants so what does it matter. Apparently it matters when you're nine and there are discussions around the lunch table of boxers vs. briefs. Spazz actually asked Santa for boxers this year, that's how dire this fashion crisis was. So thanks to his new Santa gifted boxers, his coolness factor was once again restored and all was right with the world.

Everything was groovy, until we hit one of those normal rare weeks, when the laundry gets behind and we're all down to the last pair of draws'. In poor Spazz's case, this meant either returning to the very un-chic last pair of way too small briefs, pulling a college kid and turning them inside out (ew, seriously, ew), or wearing the pair of boxers that his best friend had left from a sleepover. These had been washed and bleached repeatedly as they kept getting thrown into the dirty clothes. So statistically speaking, these were probably the best option he had going. What followed was a very heated debate about the pros and cons of each choice. Surely, the entire student body would be instantly aware of his underwear choice for the day. His whole 4th grade career rested on this one monumental decision.

Just as he was reaching for the one size too small Borat skivvies, Dad came to the rescue by finding a lone pair of clean boxers stuck in the pants leg of his jeans fresh from the dryer. Order had once more been restored, the crisis was averted.

So why you may ask, have I aired our family's literal dirty laundry? What's the moral of this whole story? Underwear is and always will merit a giggle, and next year Santa needs to splurge on two packs.

There is no Mommy..only Zuul

This is a common phrase heard around these parts. In case you're not familiar with Zuul, it's a character from the 1984 classic Ghostbusters. And really, if you're not familiar with Ghostbusters I highly doubt you will guffaw, chuckle or even LOL at this blog, so head over to TLC and learn about Sister Wives. Anyway, Sigourney Weaver's character Dana is possessed by otherworldly and overall bad ass Zuul. She goes from mild mannered Cellist to this.... Adorable, no? So why do you ask, do I frequently liken myself to a possessed Cellist. Well that can occur for one or all of the following reasons;

1) I've not had my coffee. The boys learned from an early age, don't talk to Mommy pre-coffee. Danger, danger Will Robinson!

2) I've just cleaned a room only to have the boys declare it a Nerf Gun War Zone. Or that they need to make their own tea. Or that the really need to wear the clothes that are neatly at the top of the closet. OCD + House full of boys=Zuul.

3) Pot holder battle- Consists of chasing each other around the kitchen smacking with pot holders. What, you guys don't do this?

4) PMS-Psychotic Mood Shift. Hate to live up to the stereotype, but there it is. Fortunately I have a brilliant husband who tracks things like this like a weather pattern. He then brings me chocolate and tells the boys I'm grounded and have to stay in my room. Smart man, just sayin'

5) Plethora of other random things they do that never occurred on the Donna Reed show.

I would love to say that I'm the perfect mom, who never loses her cool but sadly that's just not the case. I hope that when the boys look back on their childhoods they'll remember more of my other personality's-Bill and Ted (I say "Dude" a lot), My Mom-(For all of the things that I do right, and also the gasping panic I get whenever someone makes a choking sound), and Molly Weasley (because who doesn't want to be Molly Weasley). Funny enough I'm also an accountant by trade, so my work version of Zuul also exists :)

Generally speaking, having more than one kid can be kind of a pain in the ass. It's double the work, double the pregnancies, twice as long before you can sleep through the night. But then there are nights like tonight. When my boys, 9 and 5 years old are playing in the front yard where I'm watching them from the kitchen window. They don't know I'm watching, as Spazz (our oldest) just made a chalk drawn hopscotch board for Rage (the littlest). They don't know that I saw the high-five for winning their bike race in the driveway. Do these idyllic moments happen often? Not hardly. These two couldn't more different. More often than not they are fighting over the x-box, or the last ice cream sandwich or blaming each other for the sugar spilled on the kitchen floor. It took us four years to get "brave" enough to make this family of ours more than the three amigos. Sometimes, I wonder what it's like to only be responsible for raising one little person. Would I be a better Mom to just one? Would that child do better in school with more attention? I've come to realize though, that you really don't get the full experience with just one. With an only child you never have to break up a fight or give your damndest to keep things fair. There isn't a democracy, but a dictatorship. We're still at the early phases at parenting. My mom has told me that the roughest years are soon upon us. I for damn sure don't feel prepared for that and I can only pray that we make it to the other side in tact albeit with a bit more grey hair. Our boys will probably be at each others throats again in the next fifteen minutes. But for now, I'm at peace with our decision to have two simply for the fact that they will always have each other. And even when they're being little shit teenagers, and coordinating lies to sneak out of the house I'm thankful that they have someone to conspire with. I know this isn't much in the way of introducing a blog, but the backstory will surely tumble out in time. The best way to capture the now, is to write in the now. I hope to chronicle our adventures raising Rage and Spazz (names changed to protect future political careers) to remember all of these little thoughts and days that slip by far too quickly. Stay tuned for more adventures of the "Rage and Spazz Show"!