A word of advice

Let's just say you are in your mudroom, putting in a new load of laundry. You have just finished working out, and are still wearing your exercise clothes. You notice they would fit nicely in the load you are putting in the washer. You then realize that you have nothing else to put on at the moment, but figure you can make a mad dash upstairs. After all, your daughter is in the basement happily singing along to Disney's latest brainwashing tool High School Musical, and your boys are at school. Plus, you were just about to jump in the shower anyway.

DO NOT, under any circumstances, listen to the voice in your head that tells you this is a good thing to do.

It's not.

For as your jiggly, white, naked body is sprinting up the stairs, the doorbell will ring. And you will notice the goofy smile of the UPS man, peeking through the glass on the side of your front door.

And he has just seen you in all your naked glory.

I mean this advice generally, of course. It's not as though anything like this has ever happened to me in real life.

Definitely not today.

And definitely not, say, about an hour ago.

Blaming Grandpa

This morning, at the unholy hour of five-thirty a.m., the phone next to my bed rings. It startles me from a deep and peaceful sleep. My heart jumps, knowing if the phone rings that early, the news can only be bad.

I stumble for the phone to see who is calling.

Without my contacts or glasses, I am essentially blind, and the most I can make out is our last name.

In a panic, I answer the phone, praying that the Husband (who is traveling as usual this week) is not in some dire situation requiring either bail money or an E.R. visit.

The squeaky, giggling voice of my oldest son says, "APRIL FOOL'S, MOM!"

Then I hear him fall down in a fit of hysterical laughter.

He had used my cell phone to call our house.

At five-freaking-thirty in the morning.

I lay my head back on the pillow, exasperated, and try to find a reason not to take him out of this world (after all, I did bring him into it, or so the saying goes). Unable to go back to sleep, and struggling for patience, I head downstairs and begin the breakfast preparations for my early risers.

It turns out that I was not the only victim of McKay's pranks. He had switched everyone's coats and backpacks around in the mudroom lockers. He filled a squirt bottle with water and secretly squirted his sister in the back of the head. He left crazy notes. He slipped contraband items into his brother's school backpack.

He was a troll. And all before the sun was even up.

Watching him run around pulling all these stunts, I realized something. He is a miniature version of his Grandpa.
My Dad is the king of April Fool's Day. All through my childhood, he was the master prankster. Every year, you never knew what to expect. He knew just how to catch you by surprise and do something you could not have imagined.

Like the time he nailed all my shoes to the floor.

Yes, to the carpet. In our house.

Or when he woke me up in the middle of the night and told me I had missed the bus and was late for school, but waited until I was showered and getting ready to mention his little joke.

And his pranks were not merely reserved for April Fool's Day. Ice cold water was routinely dumped over the top of the shower curtain. Waking up to colored milk was a disturbingly-common occurrence in my youth. And I will never forget the time my Mom put hair dye in my Dad's hair and shut off all the water in the house so he would be unable to wash it out.

Let's just say that I learned at a very early age to never be surprised at anything.

And so I will humor the little boy in this house. I will smile, and laugh, and tell him that he got me good. But he should know this:

REVENGE WILL BE MINE.

That five-thirty wake-up call will one day return to haunt him, probably about the time he turns 16, and longs to sleep until noon.

And if he gets mad?

Well, I'll just tell him to blame it all on Grandpa.

Adopting sisters just for the weekend

We are back.

Sigh. There is just nothing like a weekend in New York (or Yew Nork, as my kids like to call it). It is truly my favorite city in the entire world. Had a great time with my sisters-and-mother-in-law. Made some great memories. Ate some truly sinful food. Slept very little.

Some of the highlights were:

• Cold lemon chicken and a black and white polka dot dinner at Gabi's.
• Gabi's choreographed (and costumed) dance number during dinner.
• Heidi's lost luggage saga (never trust anyone named Doogan at the Delta Luggage Counter. He is lying when he says he will wait all night for your lost suitcase).
• Shopping for hours at H&M.
• Giving Marta the "what no one will tell you" speech about child birth at 2 a.m. (and hoping she's now not too terrified to deliver baby Bruce).
• Never getting more than four hours of sleep at a time.
• The Dali Lama cab driver waxing philosophical on gay men and people that need medication in the city (like himself, maybe? Nah).
• Burgers at the Burger Joint in Le Parker Meridian.
• H&M some more.
• Books of Wonder and the Cupcake Bakery inside.
• Talking Oma into returning the $500 worth of exfoliation skin care products she didn't need from Bloomies.
• Laughing at the giant bra Gabi did buy at Bloomies.
• Pashminas on the street.
• Oma's crinkling cookie wrappers during the middle of A Chorus Line.
• More H&M (because clearly, if you don't buy everything in the store the first and second time, then a third trip is in order).
• Sweet potato fries with maple syrup dipping sauce.
• Dinner at Carnegie Deli at 10 p.m., where the sandwiches were the size of our heads.
• Getting dessert after eating sandwiches the size of our heads at 10 p.m.
• Running for the train at Penn Station and hoping Oma doesn't have a heart attack.
• Laughing until we cried.
• Crying until we laughed.
• Having fun, being together, and returning home safe and happy to our families (although some were still without luggage).

Thanks for the memories, girls. It was great to pretend to have sisters for a few days. Let's do it again soon.

Oh, and nothing says 'welcome home, mom' like a child vomiting in the car on the way home from the airport. Remember my last trip to New York when I came home to a vomiting child?

Seriously.

Why can't they throw up on the husband's watch? WHY?!

My brush with fame and a weekend away

So you know the little thing in New York called Broadway?

And have some of you ever heard of the little play they call, "Grease?"

[Only like my favorite show EVER.]

Well, thanks to a Garden Swap that I participated in, I got a little package in the mail from an actual, real-live star on Broadway.

I feel very famous now.

And very special.

Miss Natalie Hill, currently starring in Grease on Broadway, was my swap partner. How I got so lucky, I will never know. She sent me the coolest package in the mail, and it was full of beautiful treasures.

A springtime mix CD with happy-go-lucky songs that I love, a book (that I have not read yet, Miss N., but am very excited to), a gorgeous card, and an egg plant [a real plant that will grow in an egg shell. It's very cool.] Hannah wanted to adopt the egg as her own, but I am only allowing her to look at it occasionally, lest I find a pile of dirt and broken egg shells in her doll house and her baffled look that says, "What, I didn't do it?"

So this will become my closest brush with fame (unless you count that time I saw Air Force One and got stuck waiting on the runway until it landed and de-planed the First Lady. Which I don't count as anything but annoying).

I love everything, Natalie. Thank you so much!

In other news, my blogging may be sporadic for a few days. I'm headed out to spend some time with my sistas-in-law, Gabi, Marta, Oma, and Heidi (who does not yet blog but is still beautiful and funny anyway). We'll be in the Big Apple for a few days without our husbands or kidlets. I wish we were seeing Natalie on stage, but we'll be catching this show instead. Looks to be a great weekend.

Now I just have to finish the laundry, cleaning, grocery shopping, lists for the Husband, and packing.

See you next week, interpeeps.

Don't have too much fun without me.

Vacation Survival Guide

Oh, the pains of crawling out from under a sugar hangover this morning. Why must the Reeses Peanut Butter eggs tempt me so?

And why must I see the need to eat my weight in them, year after year?

But the headache and sugar withdrawals were miraculously cured the minute that I saw this beautiful sight lumbering down the street, carrying my children:

So our little mini-spring break vacation.

What to say?

Well, we took the kids up to Chicago Wednesday night. Left behind the five-day rainstorms that had plagued our town, hoping for sunshine and blue skies.

Which we got.

Until the six inches of snow blew in. And suddenly we found ourselves pining for the wet rains of St. Louis. My life is absolute living proof that the grass IS NOT GREENER. Punch anyone in the kidneys who tries to tell you that it is. It's not.

We did have a great time, but I learned a few things on this trip. Thought I'd share my them with you, my interpeeps, in case you ever find yourself trapped in a tiny hotel room with three children over spring break.

Stie's Spring Break Survival Guide: What Not to Do Edition

When passing through a town with this sign, know immediately that you do not now, nor will you ever, belong here. Accept the fact that everyone you know would immediately laugh at your return address because they know you.

And you are anything but normal.

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When staying at a hotel with your children, never assume there is going to be a pool. Sometimes at big, fancy, downtown hotels, they don't have pools.

But they do have gyms, and you will gladly remember your sudden, extreme need to exercise for the chance of a few minutes to yourself. Even if that means you actually will have to, you know, exercise.

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Hotel beds are perfect for doing things that are not allowed at home. Like jumping or simultaneously falling flat on your face to see who gets there first.


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The Children's Museum at Navy Pier is the absolute coolest museum ever. Plan on opening and closing the place down, with only a brief intermission for lunch. Your kids will not want to leave thanks to the endless hours of learning, entertainment, and play.

And the best part? There are benches and chairs everywhere so you can sit and watch the learning, entertainment, and play. Without having to learn, entertain, or play.


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Standing in front of a fun house mirror will give you insecurities all day that you really might look like this:

Or worse, this:

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Sharpay is fully to blame for the slightly awkward, very diva-like pose that your daughter will strike every time a camera is near. When asked about it, she will proudly say that she looks like Sharpay, but sings like Gabriella.

WhatEVER.

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And when returning eagerly to your non-snowy state, try not to drown yourself in a bowl of cereal when you look outside to see snow falling in droves on Easter morning.


Monday WILL come, and they WILL return to school.

And you might just find that you miss them a little.

Recovering from a facelift and time with the children

Do you like my new face lift? Do you?

I love it.

Credit goes to Jo Lynne at DCR Designs. She's just begun her new bloggy design business and you should really go check out some of her work. On top of her very funny, well-written everyday blog, she has a beauty product review blog, Chic Critique, and now this. As you can see, girlfriend knows how to work the html so it has nice, pretty shapes to it. I am so excited about my new look. I just love it. And I just love her.

In other news, we just got home from a little spring break vacay with the kids. Pictures and details coming [hopefully] soon.

Providing I do not get lost in the gorging of the Easter candy tomorrow.

Which is entirely possible since the Easter Bunny always brings Cryptonite Reeses Peanut Butter Eggs.

I'm just saying.