Picket Fence Post

The Picket Fence Post Family Christmas/Hanukkah Card Photos: Recent photo session with the three Picket Fence Post children was a disaster. Said session was punctuated by tears, parental threats, puffy eyes (still red from previous bouts of crying which delayed the taking of photos until children’s eyes were less red), forced awkward smiles (called to mind the web site Awkward Family Photos), an energetic (and slightly vicious) pediatric pillow fight and the labeling of yours truly as, and I quote, “the worst person in the world.” (No, the kid who said that does not watch Keith Olbermann’s declarations of who the “Worst Person in the World” is for each particular weekday. However the mere fact that I asked the children to put on nice clothing and brush their hair is clearly grounds for human rights violations. I should start planning for my trial at the Hague.) I’m contemplating actually using some of the odder, weirder shots and chronicling the photographic debacle for a bit of holiday humor, greetings for those with a sense of humor.

Mentos/Diet Coke: This summer I bought a six-pack of 16.9 ounce Diet Coke bottles and a six-pack of Mentos packets with the intent of reenacting the Diet Coke/Mentos explosion — the one you’ve likely seen on the internet – in our backyard. Long story short, I just — FINALLY — got the chance to do it this afternoon after weeks upon weeks of The Youngest Boy whining, “When are doin’ the Diet Coke-Mentos thing?”. What a bust. Maybe we did it wrong because it didn’t look anything like we thought it should. Maybe we should’ve used a two-liter bottle instead of those small ones. Completely anti-climatic.

Soccer’s Over. Hello Basketball: The final soccer games of the season for The Girl and The Eldest Boy were rained out on Saturday. (The Girl’s game was re-scheduled for Sunday, but we were at my niece and nephew’s combined birthday party. The Eldest Boy’s game has yet to be re-scheduled.) And just as I was starting to enjoy the fact that I didn’t have to race around delivering them to various fields for practices and trying to remember who had the game where and whose practice ended when, we’ve started receiving e-mails to alert us to the fact that basketball season starts in two weeks. (The Spouse is The Girl’s head coach and is assisting The Eldest Boy’s team so things’ll be insane around here in short order. Not many family meals together during the week I expect.) Meanwhile, The Youngest Boy just started a once weekly hockey scrimmage thing on Sunday mornings before church. (That doesn’t include his Saturday morning hockey skills sessions.) How is it that I was naively thinking about getting a break?

Going on Month Four of Working at the Kitchen Table: The Picket Fence Post family puppy Max, now 6 months old, is still not completely housebroken yet. Whenever he sets his paws on a carpet, he acts as though it’s the grass outside and he pees. So that means he spends his days in our kitchen on its hard wood floors (on which *knock wood* he hasn’t had an accident in a very long time). But since he’s a puppy who’s still teething, Max needs to be monitored or else he’ll gnaw on the furniture and get into stuff. (That’s when he’s not in his crate whining about the fact that I had the nerve to leave the room.) Guess who’s been doing the monitoring? That’s right. I’ve been working on my laptop at the kitchen table or the kitchen counter for almost four months so that I can allow Max to run around when the Picket Fence Post kids are in school. (Once they get home and heap their stuff atop mine, the kitchen looks like a Superfund site.) We recently had our backyard fenced in and that’s taken some of the pressure off because I can let Max out to romp around (and tire out) like the little maniac he is, but the world starts feeling mighty small when you spend most of your days confined to one room. Kind of feels like I’ve been grounded. Then again, maybe I deserve to be grounded, what with being the worst person in the world and all.