Ten Things That Have Made Me Laugh Lately

1. Last Sunday night I had tucked the boys into bed at 8 and was sitting in my office voraciously finishing the last Harry Potter book. They both got up at 8:30 and walked into my office for absolutely no reason at all. Then my 6 year old points to the book, points to my laptop and asks, "Mom, shouldn't you be working to make us more money?"

2. On a related note, my kids never go to bed on the first (five) tries. Last week several awesome readers sent me a link to this book for parents. It's HILARIOUS...

3. DH was supposed to chaperone my daughter's class field trip. He had to be at the school no later than 8:10. At 7:55 he was still in the bathroom and from the sound of it - he wasn't going to be done any time soon. I'm not being gross, I could hear the Angry Birds themesong from outside the door. ;) I called in to him, "You need to be at school in 15 minutes." "Thanks" he called out. "No problem," I called back. "I know how time gets away from you in there!"

4. On Thursday morning my 4year old does not have school. Since I usually work from home, she and my husband and I try to spend some time together. Last week she walked up to him, wrapped her arms around him and said, "Daddy, I'm going to make you have sap in you." (i.e. make him sappy)

5. "Can we watch a movie tomorrow night?" my 8yo asked on Saturday. "No" I told him. "Why?" he asked. "Because you have SHchool on Monday." I answered slurring the word school. (I may or may not have been drunk. I don't actually remember. Which is probably a good indication.)

As he walked away from me, he turned around so he was almost walking backwards, "SHCHOOL?" he asked. He raised his eyebrows. "Really? That's what you're going with?"

Question: He's 8. Can I still legally strap him into a chair?

6. Last week I took a look at some of the search terms that people have used to find my blog and I noticed that one of the top 10 was "Last Shreds of Sanity." At first I was panicked. I can barely find MY last shred of sanity. There's no way I could help all of you find yours. And then I realized that it actually referred to MY LAST SHRED OF SANITY my friend Shan's blog. Which makes much more sense.

7. I'm not the only one in the house with Harry Potter fever lately. Both of my sons are at least deep into Book 4 and the girls have seen the first 3 movies. The other day they were running around the first floor casting spells at each other. I was trying to get them to brush their teeth and all you could hear was "EXPELLIARMUS!" (disarm) or "EXPECTO PATRONUM!" (a protection spell.) Finally I couldn't take it any more and I yelled, "EXPECTO A SPANKING IF YOU DON'T BRUSH YOUR TEETH!" They laughed - but they brushed.

8. The air temperature warmed and the clouds parted long enough on Sunday for my daughter's birthday party. 21 Children under the age of 8 and for 90 minutes they decorated t-shirts, played tag, rested in a hammock, chewed on grass and ate cake. I HAD planned to set up a soccer game but sometimes you just have to realize that unstructured play is the best kind.

9. I ran in a 5k on Sunday morning. I hoped to finish in under 40 minutes. I finished in 33 something. That's the good news. The bad news? The 8 and 9 year old boys who live around the corner from me beat me - HANDILY. (By FIVE minutes.) Their 5 year old brother also ran the race. THANK GOD for me he took a wrong turn when the 5k and 10k race went separate ways (they found him at the 6k mark) or I may have been REALLY humiliated!

10. One day I was out running and it was INSANELY foggy. I was running up the street and could barely see the houses on either side of me. As I was passing the aforementioned neighbor boys' house I glanced over to see the 9 year old dressed in FULL hockey gear standing in front of a goal in his driveway. There was NO ONE else in sight. All I could picture was him waiting for some invisible lineman to come skating out of the fog. It was funny and creepy at the same time.