what's stressing me out today

WHAT IS STRESSING ME OUT TODAY:

(Fair warning, this old lady just learned how to do gifs in her blog!

THIS IS GONNA BE A THING, Y'ALL.)

- My phone memory is almost full.

- Am I enjoying this beer TOO much?

- Chicken told me that he made a promise to be best friends forever with the kid who taught him the expressions "Shut up," "Ex-ca-yuuuuse you," "I don't care," and "Oh wow cool story."

- The kids are watching another movie. That's okay, right? Guys?

- It's a good thing Chicken's boots are waterproof because they are full of muddy water and by tomorrow one of two things is going to have happened:

a) They will still be full of water like the little boot-shaped tupperwares they are and they will NEVER AGAIN have that new-boot smell of rubber and baby foot sweat;

b) We will have created the host site of the first reported epidemic of Pacific Northwest malaria.

- The take-and-bake pizza place gave me 2 meat pizzas instead of a meat and a veggie. I haven't eaten meat since I was 10. I called the pizza place back and they were like, "OK cool, just bring us the wrong one back and we'll get it sorted out," and I was like

- I dreamed a dream about the state of my kitchen in the new house...

... and THAT DREAM IS NOT COMING TRUE.

- The new house noises, you guys. These noises aren't like, "Oh! So THAT'S what the new oven timer sounds like! It's almost melodic!" No, dude, these noises are alarming.

Number one, the oven timer keeps beeping until you turn off the timer, like you can't just open the door and turn off the oven, it keeps beeping until you push the TIMER OFF button, so I'll be juggling a casserole in oven mitts, using my butt to block my kids from running into the open oven door and scalding half their faces like Harvey Two Face, and trying to prevent them from spending the rest of their lives speaking at middle school assemblies about the dangers of running into ovens like:

And the whole time the oven timer's like ME ME ME ME ME ME ME and I'm like YOU ARE SO SELFISH OVEN TIMER JUST WAIT YOUR DAMN TURN.

Also, when the heat kicks on, it sounds like someone is opening the front door. I am not handling it well. As soon as the house temp drops below 67 I'm like:

- I would like a slice of cake approximately 4% less than I would like my children to live long and herpes-free lives. If a genie came out of a lamp and was like "I can grant you one slice of cake right now, but in return your sons will have herpes," I would be like:

which kind of herpes?

and I mean they're boys

they'll probably

never even know

nobody has to know

- No matter

how many times I open the fridge there is no cake there. Wait, let me go check again.

nope

just

salad

- This conversation happened in my son's preschool class today:

Steve-O: I like soccer!

Pauly D: Me too! I'm gonna do soccer camp this summer.

Steve-O: Cool, I wanna do soccer camp!

Chicken: I wanna find an evolution class for kids!

Pan around the table like:

Chicken:

Steve-O:

Pauly D:

Chicken: Yeah! I wanna find a class about evolution so I can become an expert in how things change over long time, like how some of the dinosaurs evolved into birds?

I'm stressed because honestly that is fucking awesome that my kid asked me to find an evolution camp for kids. I can't help but blog about it like, "I have the coolest kid."

But the Venn diagram of "My mom thought I was cool" and "I barely survived high school," is a circle.

Also in that circle: "I attended evolution camp as a 5-year-old."

- Why is it "damn scared" but "damned excited." How do people even learn ENGLISH EVER?

- This "leader" doing what he calls:

- Every time I use white strips or whitening gel or any over-the-counter whitening aid I get huge sores on my gums a week later. Every time. And then I throw the $26 whitening gel away less a single dose and I say, "My teeth are white enough, I don't need this crap." And then three months later I see a photo of myself and I'm like GAH no wonder people have been asking if I'm dressing as Shrek for Halloween! How do people even look at me without developing an inexplicable craving for corn on the cob? And back to the pharmacy I go, and every time I'm like, "THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT," and a week later I'm talking like Joan Cusack and SAYING NO TO PIZZA and that's how you know IT WAS NOT DIFFERENT.

- I'm pretty sure that everything I care about in terms of my parenting is meaningless except for ONE THING, and if I could just stop doing all the other meaningless bullshit I'd have enough free time to get my teeth professionally whitened with lasers that don't cause mouth sores... but the problem is that I have no idea which ONE THING it is.

God, just tell me. Is it table manners? It's table manners, right?

Or, wait, is it "checking in" with a friend after you run over their toes with your balance bike?

It's one of those that's the THING, right?

Fuck it, I'm just gonna keep doing all of them and drinking too much coffee.