Super Nanny is coming to town

I have a few blogging pet peeves. One of them is people who only blog to complain about how crazy busy they are and the other is people who only ever blog about how they are so behind on blogging. I am about to commit both of these blogging sins. I am going to complain about my crazy busy life as an explaination of why I haven’t been blogging lately. I know, annoying, right? If you share my pet peeves, you should click away right now.

First of all the whole family has been sick. By whole family I mean my kids and Kristen’s kids, so that’s 6 pair of constantly runny eyes and snotty noses. Yesterday Jack and Abe were diagnosed with pink eye and ear infections and of course they refuse to take the medicine or let us put drops in their eyes so we have to literally sit on their chests and hold their heads between our knees and restrain their arms while the other parent tries to pry open their eyelids and drop in the antibiotics. This must go on every three hours for the next seven days. Its pretty awesome. I haven’t caught the cold yet but my joint stuff is flared up so bad right now I can barely function. I was supposed to go in for a third biopsy this week but I haven’t been able to make myself go. They take a little scoop of skin out and then cauterize the wound. They numb the area while they do it but the problem is the gaping festering wound that lingers for weeks and weeks afterwards. I need to just suck it up and go in.

I have also taken on the job of liquidating hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of spa equipment for my brother after he closed his spas down. When I agreed to do it, I guess I had forgotten how hard it is to actually accomplish a grown-up task (like a phone call) without being interrupted by screaming children. It has all come back to me now. If you are interested in a microdermabrasion machine of your very own or a storage unit full of really nice furniture, I’m the one to call.

Speaking of working, I have an opportunity to go back to work doing commercial leasing. I would be renting office space to businesses. This is what I did for years and years. I have enough experience in this exact niche that I could do it in my sleep. It pays on commission and the money is ridiculously good but it is time consuming and I’d have to figure out childcare two days a week. Its not something I can do half way and I am struggling to decide if I want to commit to this. It’s an amazing opportunity in an economy where jobs are hard to come by, and the whole thing just fell into my lap. I do miss working sometimes and we do need the money. John works weekends and Jack is in school all day so all I would need is care for Ham two days a week, maybe even just one day. I am sure my in-laws would help. I would hire a cleaning lady to pick up the slack in the household and I could do a lot of the work by phone and computer. I would have to drive a lot and I hate thinking about being away from home for long. Can you tell I’m agonizing over the decision?

We had houseguests this week. A good friend from my mission, Elder Steve Smith and his wife and three kids came into town for a wedding and stayed with us for a few days. It was so much fun to get caught up with him and his family is absolutely delightful. They have boys similar in age to my boys and then a tiny three month old baby who was born two months premature so she is the size of a tiny newborn. They drove all the way from Texas and we had so much fun with them. There is a bond that you get with mission buddies that you just can’t get anywhere else. They know you on a certain level that no one else can and you share a common experience that is impossible to explain to a person who wasn’t there experiencing it. Steve and I served together in Metz, France at the beginning of our missions and then again in Brussels at the end of our missions. He was a great missionary and one of only a handful that I keep in touch with. It is so fun to see how everyone’s lives have turned out so far.

Have you ever watched the show Super Nanny? In our house Super Nanny is a verb. As in: These crazy kids need to be Super Nannied, or My friend has a hard time disciplining her son, she needs to be Super Nannied. (Incidentally, we are also always threatening to “Ceasar” our dogs) My point is, we are being Supernannied. Yes, you read that right. Super Nanny is coming to our house on Thursday to film our family and see if Nanny Jo can help us with our parenting challenges.

It’s a long long story. One that I may eventually take the time to write, but right now I don’t have time because I would rather die than have my house look messy on national television. The yard is not done and for that we may be doomed to look like white trash, but until this whole thing is over, I am obsessed with cleaning. The producer was very adamant about “acting normal” and just letting the house look like it always does on any given day… Yeah right. I am more than willing to exploit my children for five grand and fifteen minutes of fame, but look like a crappy housekeeper on TV? No. Freaking. Way. It’s a good excuse to do some spring cleaning.

I have never even watched SuperNanny. They were looking for families who lived close by one another to feature and when they heard that Kristen and I are sisters who are right next door with connected yards they were all over it. Between the two families and six kids, I’m sure we will provide plenty of material. I’m hoping the whole thing will be good fun and family memories. Years from now I picture us saying, “Hey remember when we were on Super Nanny! That was so funny! Lets watch the DVD.” And not “Remember when we went on prime time television and they showed me pooping my pants? My therapist says I need to forgive you for that.” We are far too committed to the whole thing to turn back at this point so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that we don’t end up looking like total idiots and my kids don't end up scarred for life.

Alrighty…If you got this far reading then you are a true friend. Either that or really really bored. Now you have heard my excuses for not blogging more regularly. I swear I will never blog about not blogging ever again. Thank you for listening to my long rant. I am open to any advice, suggestions, criticism or comments so lay ‘em on me.