Sunday, September 23, 2007

Excuse me, But You Seem to Have a Scorpion on Your Head

After church, since it was a beautiful day here, my husband took the kids out for a walk at a nearby state park. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous the past several days. I could take this kind of weather year round. I've come to detest winter more and more every year. I think bundling a bunch of kids in snow pants and boots, searching for missing mittens, trying to convince the older kids that they need more than a sweatshirt when it's 2 degrees outside, has seriously affected my opinion of winter. I joke around that I'm moving someplace warm. Someplace south of IL, but not as far south as Florida or Texas. Let's face it, Florida has bugs the size of Volkswagons and I have a friend in Texas who just told me that she had scorpions (yes, scorpionS, plural!) drop on her head while she was in the bathroom! Scorpions! On her head! While peeing! I don't think I'd ever go to the bathroom again! Needless to say, those two states are definitely out of the running for me.

Anyway, I digress again. So, my husband took the kids out for a walk so I could do a little writing in peace and quiet. I sat down and stared at the blank screen for awhile. Then I played one many games of solitaire. Then I stared at the screen for a few more minutes. After that, I remembered that I HAD to call my sister and thank her for inviting us to her house for dinner yesterday. After the call, I decided I'd spent enough time goofing off and I sat back down to write for real. I typed out four pages sentences. Whew! I made another phone call to catch up with an old friend , um make sure my phone was working properly , I mean, exercise my voice because I've been coughing a lot and I wanted to make sure I wasn't getting too hoarse , ok, so I was stalling.

Somehow, in between changing loads of laundry and eating not one, not two, but THREE donuts, I managed to write four pages. I was just finishing up when the kids all come storming in the house from their walk. My oldest son thrusts this in my face....


It's a snake skin! A SNAKE SKIN! From a real live SNAKE! He put it in my face! I fell off my chair.


Then my daughter showed me the jawbreaker that dear old dad got my son. Yes, I know it looks like a racquetball. My son insisted he could put this whole thing in his mouth at once because (and I quote) "They did it on Ed, Edd and Eddy." Oh, well if a CARTOON character on quite possibly the dumbest cartoon ever made, did it, then by all means, shove that racquetball sized jawbreaker in your mouth. I'll start dialing 9-1-1.


To finish off my evening, my little Princess girl tried taking the tiny braids out of her hair by herself. This one didn't fare so well. I couldn't undo the knot, so she got an impromptu haircut tonight.

Thus ends my weekend of fun.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
P.S. Trish asked me to pick out one more winner for a copy of her book because we were so close to 900 comments. So......(closing my eyes and scrolling away) Brea in Texas, you're the ninth recipient of Trish's book! An email will be sent to you shortly. Congratulations!
And thank you to Trish for answering questions and offering 9 books to my readers! :)

100 comments:

Suburban Correspondent said...

Is this a contest? I guess molted snake skin.

datatech57 said...

Okay, so we have a snakeskin (without the snake, thankfully), an orange ball, and somebody's hair tied around a . . . er . . . something?

And how was your day?

Michelle Kemper Brownlow said...

OK...looks like a riddle in the making! Maybe I caught you mid-post...but this is where I think you are going with this...

What do a snakeskin, an orange ball and a piece of my 6 year old's braid have in common?

or

What do you get when you cross a snake, a pool table and my 6 year old? A naked snake, a incomplete set of balls and a lop-sided hair-do!

HAHA
Waiting with baited breath for the explanation of this post! Where did you find these?

God bless ya sista!!

V said...

1. shed snakeskin (from a pet snake????)
2. ball from a jacks set?
3. hair caught in the vacuum cleaner, presumably from the feminine members of the house????

V said...

Scrap my #3--that hair has to be from Barbie or a Groovy Girl.

Anonymous said...

Snake skin=Ahhhhh.
Orange ball=CONFUSED?
Hair wrapped around something=Ouch!

Explain these pics please!! LoL

Anonymous said...

Maybe you need the chaos to write :) It helps you think! I doubt it BUT maybe! Keep it up please and I still cannot wait to read the book!

Anonymous said...

967,490
That is the number as I read this. I hope you do something special when you hit one million. That has to be overwhelming, and exciting.

Dawn said...

Ok, so I assume the captions under the pictures aren't showing up for some reason. I'm not sure why because I see them on my end. Hmmm? I'm sorry for the confusion. I know by Sunday night, no one's in the mood to figure out a riddle about a snakeskin, a jawbreaker, and my daughter's tangled hair!

Matchbox Mom said...

Dawn,
hahaha! I love impromtu haircuts. And here in Utah, we have rats in the toilet...yes that's right. You didn't read that wrong...we had a rat come up through our sewer in the toilet and scared the holy crap out of my 5 year old. I don't want anything IN my toilet or on my head when I sit down at the porcelein.sp....

Tami

Anonymous said...

A few years ago, I went to a softball tournament with my oldest daughter and my husband went to Cape Cod with my younger two kids. I got there a coulple of days later. My then 4 year old had a knot in her hair that was bigger than her ear, right on the side of her head, like a beacon. Daddy thought it was perfectly fine to "just leave it" because it hurts when you brush/comb hair! Shocking, I know. They went to the beach, market, and McDonalds...no big deal till mean mean Mommy shows up and "makes a big deal" out of it (a direct quote from the 4 yr old). Alway a good time; 3 day old hair knot with salt water, sand and who knows what else in it.

The man who invented the everlasting gobstopper that size should be punished, you know it was a man who did it.

Becky said...

Ewwwww...snakeskin. I'd have fallen off my chair, too, LOL!

I just saw those jawbreakers at ToysRUs the other night. We simply MUST see a picture if he is able to fit that entire thing in his mouth. ;o) Of course it's probably already gone by now, lol.

Loved your blog, as usual!

Anonymous said...

Dawn,
I have two children under 2yrs., and just took on a third from CPS that is 2 months. When I really think I'm going crazy, and that I can't handle it......I think of you, and then I laugh, and then I keep going. I really have nothing to complain about, with adorable angels, and a wonderful husband, but you know it can be hard sometimes!
Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that I LOVE your blog, and it's something I look forward to every night after I get all my babies to sleep! I share the stories with all of my friends and have told them all to read it themselves!
Keep on writing!!
-J. Johnson, TX

Oh yeah, by the way! We do have scorpions here! One fell from the ceiling into my bed one time! SCARY!!

Anonymous said...

967,490 it took you less time to get that many hits, than it did riders on the Navy Pier ferris wheel. Will there be a prize?

Anonymous said...

oops, that was TEN MILLION riders on the ferris wheel, but your hits are still impressive

Anonymous said...

I can't stand Ed, Edd and Eddy. Why are the kids drawn to it. It's almost as if it has in a caption for kids eyes only that says, "watch this show, it will drive your parents NUTZ!!!"

River said...

I don't get why your first 6 commenters thought this was a contest. I read the whole blog and nothing shouted "contest" at me. I once had to cut a similar knot out of my daughter's hair when she was about 8. Her hair was waist length at the time and the knot was fairly close to the end so we decided to just crop the hair at shoulder length.

luann said...

Okay, I love to hear about your life! It makes mine feel a little less hectic! Last week I had one doozie of a day and had to put up a post about it to see if anyone else has had similar days. Just thinking about it now makes me smell smoke, poop and lysol. I'm sure you have had days just as crazy if not crazier, but I think that tops my list... so far. Thanks for helping me realize what a JOY life with kids can be!

Unknown said...

Hmm... I've lived in Texas for 31 years and have never had a scorpion land on my head. I'm trying to get out of here because of the summer weather. I'm tired of hot. Here in southeast texas we have 2 seasons. The first season is called "SUPER FREAKIN HOT!!!" or (SFH!!!) Other people call this Spring, Summer, and Fall. The second season is called "Just not as hot as it was earlier" or (JNAHAIWE) This season lasts from 1 to 2 weeks sometime in December or January, but sometimes we hold it off till February for good measure. The temperature of (SFH!!!) starts at 87 and goes up to super triple digit madness! Of course anything below 87 is considered (JNAHAIWE). And to make it even more confusing anytime between October and Febuary of next year the 2 seasons can switch back and forth weekly and sometimes daily. AND THEN it really sucks when you have (SFH!!!) during the day and (JNAHAIWE) at night. Heater on at night and AC on during the day.

There is a third season that is very rare when the temp falls below 40 and it snows. I call that one "What the hell am I doing in Alaska?!?"

The hot weather doesn't bother me too much, it's nothing I can't handle. I would just rather live somewhere that has all 4 seasons so I'm moving to Tennessee as soon as possible.

Stacey said...

Scorpions?? On her head??? I think I would pee..which would be great if I was sitting on a toilet like your friend.

WendyK said...

Aw, you can still move to Texas, just stay south of Georgetown and north of San Antonio, oh yea, and don't go west. That still leaves a very big chunk of Texas. We live in Central Texas, and yes, we have scorpions, but they don't hurt as bad as bee stings. Winter would be too hard for me up north. I don't go out when the temp gets below 50 here, which is about 2 weeks a year during the day.

Anonymous said...

This is a little late, but I wanted to say CONGRATULATIONS on your book deal!

Anonymous said...

Fine. If you refuse to move to Florida, I'll refuse to move to Illinois.
We may have spiders the size of my hand that have babies that crawl out of them when you squish them, but we don't have snow.
I'll take no snow over no spiders any day.
So there.
Humph.
(That's me sulking b/c you won't move to Florida.)

Anonymous said...

i live in TX and if a scorpion ever falls on my head i will have to be sedated! we have had a couple in the house, and i am very grateful that my 10 year old daughter has no problems squashing them!!

i have had to break one of those little toy cars that you pull backwards and let go to zoom forward because my youngest daughter's hair was wrapped around the axle!! i figured better to break the car than cut her hair! my oldest (scorpion squasher) has also managed to get one of those little personal fans stuck in her hair in the wal-mart check out line. sigh.

Anonymous said...

I live in Houston. I've never had a scorpion fall on my head, but I did discover one in a pair of my jeans one morning at a friend's ranch.

That being said, we were eating outside at Willie's Ice House one time and a bird flying by dropped a raw crawdad on my head.

I guess strange things happen down here.

V said...

Hey River, when I checked in at 9 pm or so, the only thing showing up were the photos--no text at all. And I refreshed the page several times too! (I assume that happened to the other 5 folks.)

So I thought that Dawn was using photos to show what her kids had found around the house today, but was being, maybe, zen about it? Or trying to see what the internet would throw back at her?

(There's no way the rest of the internet could've come up with funnier captions for those photos.)

KamiMari said...

In April, I was visiting my parents in Phoenix and on the last night there I knew the desert is not for me. I had already thought I smelled a fire at midnight and after waking my dad up and making him check everywhere I finally fell asleep. At 2am I woke up slowly and thought my hair was annoyingly brushing my face until something creepy crawled on my hand. I kinda threw my hand to get off whatever was there. The light from the tv was glowing on the bed and in the dark it looked like there was a small scorpion on my bed. Shadows do funny things. Needless to say, I screamed bloody murder. Eventually (and I do mean eventually- like after 5 minutes) my parents woke up to "rescue" me. When they turned on the light and we all found what I was screaming about... Well, my dad wasn't so thrilled to be woken up again to see a cricket on my bed. But in the dark the shadow/glow made that thing look like a scorpion. And I was hysterical for nearly one hour.
Yep, no desert, mountainous areas for me.....

Anonymous said...

Hi Dawn!
First, I would like to compliment you on your great work. It's very real, but very entertaining.
Second, I wish you much success raising your children and your new ventures.
Third, as a professional proofreader for 30 years (which is incredible, since I'm only 29!), I would like to explain that the suffix "-ly" is used for adverbs. So, as I learned in my training, there is no "firstly, secondly, thirdly", etc. Did you ever hear of a "fifthly"? ;-)
Good luck and all the best!
Marcia, a fellow (gal?) Chicagoan
dodamalka@yahoo.com

vicki said...

dawn ihad to laugh when i saw this post, my kids are all grown now but their child hood was filled with the same fun filled things it sounds like your kids do, ewww to the snake skin although my fur babies often leave the real thing on the porch for me to step on barefoot EWWWWWWWWWWWW i agree that cartoon is awful why they make these things for our kids and grandkids to watch is beyond me. the girl i feel so sorry for, nothing hurts like a whadded up snarl, my dd when she was young never cut her hair until it was as long as krystal gales(floor length) then she got to close to the fan, ouch ouch ouch we ended up whacking it off because it was so tangled so of course i had to even it a bit we went from floor length to chin length was not a pretty site i can tell you,

i just wanted to tell you i love reading your blog, i have alot of health problems and let me tell you, when i read your blog it makes it all better and i can laugh outloud. please keep up the good work and remember laughter is the best medicine and i laugh every time i read you. hope you do publish a book i would buy it in a heart beat. one thing i don't envy ya my sistah is taking the little ones grocery store. all kids are alike in this manner i swear. thanks for giving me my morning laugh and helping me to focus on something besides my pain. thanks and keep writing and sharing your life with us:)


ps i hope your son really didn't put that entire jaw breaker in his little mouth!!!!!

nutralady2001 said...

Contest? Did you come back and fill in the gaps Dawn?? Don't confuse me you told us was a snake skin, what we call a gobstopper and your daughters hair....I think

I grew up where you had to check for frogs in the toilet before you sat down..........eeewwwwww

I remember when I was little I went to put on my gumboots and THERE WAS A FROG IN THE TOE..I've never recovered really...........

As of now readers are 969,464

Crazymamaof6 said...

Az has scorpions and snakes but fabulous weather all winter long, maybe you should become a snowbird, and move to a hot place in the winter and a cold place in the summer, and get the best of both places. old people generally do that. but yeah, we have scorpions in our state but not everywhere, i don't have them at my house, but other people do. cool snakes skin! last year our pet snake had babies. they were tiny and the kids thought they were the coolest thing ever, but still our Snake had babies in my house when she happened to be lost, after escaping from it's cage. needless to say soon after she was returned to the wild.

Anonymous said...

Wow! I thought my kids were the only ones that thought Ed, Edd and Eddy were the perfect role models! And I don't even let them watch that show... :s

Laura Neal said...

I live in Texas and we don't have scorpions. It depends on which part of the state you live in. The dryer parts of the state have them, the moister parts, nope, not a one!

Suburban Correspondent said...

Move to Hawaii - all the military moms I know love it. Low humidity, but warm enough for T-shirts, shorts and sandals year-round - imagine how little laundry! And no figuring out whose socks are whose...

Oh, and to write a book, I recommend sneaking up on it. A few minutes here, a few minutes there - otherwise it sees you coming and runs away.

Anonymous said...

snakes/ scorpions - its a toss up for me.

maggiebsmocks said...

Arizona is out for you too. One of those nasty scorpions came out of the drain while I was washing my face one morning. ~~shudder~~
They have bugs the size of houses there.
And snakes. Bad snakes.

I think Indianapolis is looking good. I can deal with corn. Even if there are field mice.

Kudos to DH for the afternoon of entertainment. He's a keeper.

Enjoy the day!
maggieb!

Nicki said...

You do have an exciting life! I would have had nightmares for a week if my son had done that to me with a snake skin. But it's Monday now and they're back to school.

StampingJoan said...

lol...........reading some of the other comments I was really confused! I saw your descriptions for the photos and wondered why everyone was making guesses! Cant' they read????? Maybe by the time I got here it was fixed!

Hubby needs to have his head examined.......what was he thinking......hee hee! Looking at the size of that jawbreaker makes me gag.....yuck!

And for future reference in picking winners, go to

www.random.org and they will do it for you!

Hugs,
Joan

Courtney said...

No scorpions along the coast- Houston is safe!

Anonymous said...

Well, I must not be in the right part of Texas for scorpions, cause I've only seen them at the zoo (Thank the Lord).

Oh, and if you think Ed, Edd & Eddy is the worst cartoon ever made, then you obviously don't remember I. M. Weasel. Wish I didn't.

Melody, TX

Anonymous said...

SCORPIONS!?!?!?!?
That is so gross! I would never want to go to the bathroom anymore, witch would be really bad considering the average human goes to the bathroom about 5 times a day. I'd just wear diapers hehe LOL!!!!!!!!!

stephanie said...

You definitely don't want to move to texas, I definitely would'nt want to. You probably wouldent want to move to southurn utah either. Know why? we had wait no we HAVE cockroaches all over the place! They'll crawl up sinks and bathtubs. it is soo gross!!
quite a few times i've been woken up to the pleasant sensation of cockroaches climbing up my arm,leg,oh and once one was evan trying to crawl into my underwear!!! of course there is a simple way to take care of the roaches{shiver} just scream as loud as you can then throw him off and in the morning... CALL THE EXTERMINATER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

stephanie said...

HI it's me again, i just wanna say that utah[ northarn and southurn] is very butifful and that its a very... great place!!!!! I LOVE IT i grew up here and still live here!!!! I LOVE IT AS MUCH AS I LOVE YOUR BLOG!!!

Anonymous said...

Dawn, I read your blog every day and this post really made me smile more than ever. I have a hair twisting 4 year old and a corkscrew-curly top 3 year old, so you can imagine hair combing is a big deal at our house - has to happen or we're in big trouble. If I am not home, or on mornings where my husband takes the girls to daycare, it does not happen. It leads to much crying.

I had a cat that discovered a nest of baby garter snakes one spring, and insisted on bringing each and every one back to the house. As soon as I'd intervene and put one back in the woods, here she'd come with another. She carried them as gently as any golden retriever - not a mark on 'em - but I was not amused.

Can't wait for your book.

Anonymous said...

There is a neat site that will randomly "draw" numbers for you in case you get tired of the scrolling system .... assuming at sometime in the future you might have another giveaway of some sort.
Here's the link: http://www.random.org/integers/

Unknown said...

Dawn,
The jaw breaker will fit in his mouth and you know it will dissolve enough to come out sooner or later. I have a story about a door knob in someones mouth that would have you in stitches.

Katherine said...

My son once went to sleep with silly putty--did you know that stuff just melted into his hair and glued his head to his pillow. Much screaming because the harder he struggled the tighter it got!

And it could not be combed out, I had to cut off a huge swatch of his hair!

Anonymous said...

Hilarious!! Thanks for cracking me up again. By the way, I moved to FL (near Orlando) 3 years ago from VA, and bugs are not a big deal. We have a screened-in pool/patio and it's amazing here in the winter time!! We get mobbed by love-bugs twice a year, and there are sometimes a few gnats on our evening walks, but it's not bad at all. On the other hand, there are armadillos, snakes, bears, and alligators EVERYWHERE (j/k). :-)

Anonymous said...

Hi Dawn,

Being from TEXAS, I must comment! We moved to San Antonio just 1 1/2 years ago. We formerly lived in Dallas for over 13 years. We moved into our house just 3 months ago into an area called Hollywood Park. San Antonio is part of the "hill country" of Texas so I am learning that means critters! I have encountered more "critters" in 3 months than I have ever encountered in my whole life. Yes, we have scorpions. They are definitely "Texas - size" and I think they have serious attitude too... like I am invading THEIR space..so they generally are the pissed off kind. (just great!) My favorite critter encounter so far... my 6 year old told me she kept hearing "plopping sounds" in the bathroom area. Upon further investigations, I found a frog the size of my HUSBAND'S hand (keeping with the Texas-size theme)in the toilet with 100 or so tadpoles just swimming happily in the toilet water:::high ick factor::: This was on the heels of watching a 3 foot snake slither through my back yard toward my 4 year old who was playing happily on the back porch. Hint: Grab a shovel and start swinging except fireplace shovels don't work... my 9 year old's idea of a good shovel... Let's not forget the daily Mexican standoff between our puppy and the deer that have tagged our yard as their gathering ground. Oh yeah...We have tarantulas as well and yes they are "Texas-size"! We have made peace with the giant lizards living in our attic because hey, they eat the other critters that I do not want to even think about! The skunk boroughing under our porch takes the cake though. We are in the process of attempting to trap Scooter the skunk through a company called..."Critter Control".

All this critter activity does get me a little "itchy" but I am learning how to deal with it... it's called a Pest control company.

--Lisa, San Antonio, Texas
mom to 5 of my own critters
lisa.satx.ftm@sbcglobal.net

houseofdanes said...

Funny story, I remember my boys coming home with live snakes to show me and gum or suckers stuck in their hair and then it's buzz time.
I used to live in New Mexico and I woke up one morning, went to take a shower and there was a trantula in it!!!!!
also in Arizona my grandma showed me a dead scorpion in a baggie and said watch out for these they are in the house! So there are many states not safe!

Karen said...

Thanks for keeping it real. :) My blog post today shows what a day in my life is like. And we had a post earlier about the snake our kids found. I invented the fact that you can definitely get poisoned from prying open a dead snake's mouth. Why is it that disgusting and messy instantly attract kids?

ANY said...

Had to chuckle today, not just at the blog but at the original comments. I think you should do a day of "Name that photo" because it would be too funny for all of us... and kind of a day off for you!

Don't do Texas. My best friend lives down there and while walking innocently I encountered a spider the size of my fully spread hand! I ran like heck while my dumb husband stopped and admired it. Men have no sense of "Oh my god that thing is gonna eat me" do they?

Thanks for posting my daily break and giggle :) It always puts a smile on my face!

TheDana said...

Just for future reference: if you soak those lovely braided knots in a little baby oil, they'll slide apart. :D

Anonymous said...

Hi, Dawn! I love your blog! We've been Tivoing and scanning through World News every night looking for you but haven't seen you yet. When will your segment air? Did I miss you? I hope not!!

I only have one little one so far (17 months old) but we definitely thought of your crew the other day when she reached up on her tippy-toes and pulled my favorite houseplant over onto her head (and ALL OVER the kitchen floor). As her stay-at-home dad was on the phone lamenting the mess to me and scrubbing potting soil out of her hair, she nicely pooped in the tub for him!

Waitingonyou2 said...

Dawn,

Thank you another mother who willingly admits, Ed, Edd and Eddy is the..."dumbest cartoon" ever. Notice how I cropped that for MY benefit!

;)

Love your blog, please keep posting.

Lady Loony said...

As always your post has me crying with laughter! How much fun is it when Dad has the kids? Well at least in my house, it DOES usually men I get some quiet time, but spend the next week teaching my kids NOT to say fart, crap, or worse...and that chocolate candy is NOT a meal. I am so proud that "one of us" REAL Mom's has found a way to makelight of everyday life and super congrats on the bookm deal. Though we've never met in person, I think it couldn't have happened to a better or more deserving person!

Anonymous said...

I"m sure your daughter also prefers to have had an impromptu hair cut due to de-braiding by herself, over having a scorpion land there!

Neat snake skin, in one piece! Excellent find:) (Yeah, I'm serious, lol.)

Anonymous said...

Someone said to move to hawii. BAD IDEA!! {if you dont like roaches}
They have cockroaches the size of your fist{or bigger}

Anonymous said...

Hry Dawn,
Maybe I did'nt catch the sarcasam, But do you really teach your kids to read in the bathtub? Please answer me via your blog or leave a comment on my blog.


smileysms.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for taking the time to make me (and so many more) laugh~ you have no idea how badly it was needed today...after the van - which we just paid to have repaired from the projectile piece of wood from the car in front of me smashed through the grill, the headlight, and the a/c condensor - died - bad transmission - again...on the way to karate with the kids, so we missed the class ...and the sump pump flooded our basement after being replaced twice in the last 2 days...yah...you get the idea. So, thanks, from the bottom of my soaking wet basement floor. ;)

Anonymous said...

1.Just wait until you hit menopause, you'll be so happy for those 2 degree days. I think at this point I'd happily lay naked in the snow. 2.Wish I'd named by second son Austin. He'd have to have those shirts! 3.Banana peels in your car prove your kids are eating healthy. 4.I've paid so many library fines, I now tell them what authors I want them to order with my money.

All moments remembered said...

Just when I start feeling overwhelmed with my life!! Ahhhhh you always know how to make me feel better!!!

Hope all is going wonderful for you and the family!!

Stacey

stephanie said...

Hey Dawn, please show us a picture of your little girls haircut!

My Studio 13 by Carrie said...

Wow, soooo funny. I first saw your Ebay auction for Pokemon cards, and have been following. Can I link you to my favorites on my blog? http://mystudio13.blogspot.com

You Rock, can't wait for the book

Nancy said...

I'm sure we have some wimpy scorpions here, but I had one crawl out of my brand new Bissell carpet sweeper one morning when I was home alone with my sleeping infant. I used the new sweeper as a bat and smashed it repeatedly, all the while telling myself it was only a tiny lil lobster. The dang thing wouldn't die...but I won in the end and ejected it out the front door atop a copy of Better Homes and Gardens.

Anonymous said...

About a month ago, my 6 yr old grandson was eating dinner with us and was wearing his crown (Yes, he is the "King of Oklahoma"). A scorpion dropped from the A/C vent that was above his head, hit his crown and fell onto the dinner table. It only took about a week to sit under a vent again. We figured it was a one time event. Fingers are crossed.

Anonymous said...

Ahhh the good ole' days of a scorpion toddling across the living room floor. I miss Texas, Washington is too cold and wet. A random pet scorpion makes the place homey.

Robyn Angel said...

Ok, the first few comments show that you people just don't get it. None of these things are related except as one long string of non-sequiters that appear when one has children. They have the attention span of a gnat and until everyone in the house is over the age of 4, Mama must be the Mistress of Unfinished Thoughts.

Now what I really wanted to say was, Holy Moly Dawn, you are close to 1,000,000 hits!

Alto2 said...

We do NOT have bugs the size of VWs here in Florida. We have gators the size of VWs here in Florida. Our bugs are minute, but there are 500 billion of them. And, there is only one can of Deep Woods Off at Walmart.

Sam Currie said...

whaaaaaaaat Scorpions in Texas?????(gulp) I am a Brit, but my hubby worked in TX for 2 years and I went to visit, jeepers, if I had known about those yucky critters i'd have steered clear.........

Hmmm writing, I get published in a mag in the UK, it's all fab till you gotta do a commission then you run out of ideas\do laundry\tidy up\make calls, been there done that got the T- Shirt. You'll be great though "go Dawn, go Dawn, go Dawn..."

mamaofsix said...

A friend led me to your blog and I can't help but "laugh with you" As a mother of five boys and one girl, I can't help but be insane, right? See all your pix on this post made me realize that if I remembered to photograph everytime "something happened" in this house I could very well document my day just like you:-)

Anonymous said...

Currently viewed 978123 times - getting close to the 1 million Dawn :-)

Sorry but I have to disagree - Ed Edd and Eddy is not quite the dumbest cartoon on tv, neither is I M Weasel. Cow and Chicken takes that title for me lol

Techie said...

I'm not sure if you've seen this video yet, but I'm thinking that you can appreciate its' message: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uISuvTiTYJA

Good luck!

Jenn -- said...

Dawn, thanks for all the great stories. I found 2 huge black widows just outside our back door in the garage the day before yesterday. They had built a lovely home behind a box. I smashed them to pieces with a very big broom.

Keep up the great writing!

Unknown said...

I'll be the first one to admit that I like Ed Edd, and Eddy I think its hilarious and I'm 31. My dad who is 65 likes Cow and Chicken, and so do I.

Mamarazzi said...

creepy crawly things and all things that live in the mud...that's what my 12 yr old daughter loves....don't get me wrong the girl always has her hair done just right and nails and toes painted perfectly OH and she never forgets to gloss her lips before she goes frog hunting...its a kid thing...and i think i will enjoy it while it lasts...next she will make sure she is all dolled up for the boys...i like frogs muuuuch better! (video of her hunting just posted on my blog...take a peek)

HolleeAnn

Anonymous said...

Hey...just so you know, my son COLLECTS!!! snake skins!!(i can thank his daddy for that) oh and also bubble bath lids...LOL
Havin' fun with my three here in Missouri!!
Shawn

Anonymous said...

Aw come on Dawn.....a snake skin (be glad the snake didn't want it back) is no biggie.

A large tennis size hard candy ... poof! Wait until he tries to get his fist or foot in his mouth.

Now, that rat's nest hairdo qualifies for a "Lordy, Lordy, Lordy!!

Korkie

Anonymous said...

Dear Dawn,

MY good friend John showed me the article Chicago Tribune had of you. I am grateful for your humor and for the fact that you actually make mothering fun. Thank you. I have eight of them in my house and the laundry is always a problem. I have a saint for a husband and i can totally relate.

Anonymous said...

Well Dawn I just have to say I have lived in NY, TX, VA, NY, AL, SC, AL and SC in that order and I just have to say there are scorpians in TX and FL, where my sister lives! but here in SC where we are now I think the bugs are the biggest I've ever seen. we have Palmetto bugs well I guess because we are the palmetto state. But if you've never seen one they are just like a cockroach only bigger. much much much bigger. so big I'm not ever sure if I will be able to step on it or if it will just pick me up by the foot! I hate bugs so of course they find their way into my house usually every nite just one though who has come looking for his friend who came last night! Yuck. BTW I just love your blog it's such a blessing to read every day! can't wait to see you on the today show.

Anonymous said...

For those of you having trouble reading the text under the captions and are using Firefox: you may be experiencing long page loads that is darkening the background to make part of the text disappear. Give the page time to load, or try switching to Internet Explorer. I have found using IE will lock up my pc while I'm waiting for the page to load, but if I use Firefox, the pages load enough so I can scroll down but takes time to fully format. *sigh* That's what I get for using a 3 yr old computer...lol

Alexia said...

I'm with you on this one...TX and FL are definitely OUT *EEK* I still have a hard time sitting on the pot because of the show I saw YEARS ago about an apartment building that ended up with a SNAKE in the sewer system! (it was a pet though...not that that made me feel any better about it!)

The tangled hair makes me forever grateful that I only have two boys!

Anonymous said...

Well... I have never left you a comment but I do enjoy reading your blog.

I do have a tip about the hair issue, if you even read this many comments in a given day!

Take and put conditioner right on the hair... then comb it out... it works! My little princess has fine curly hair and loves doing it... I have learned many tricks!

Good luck and thanks for all the laughs!

Anna

Anonymous said...

Hi Dawn!

I'll see your scorpions and snake skins and raise you a tarantula. I live in Central Texas and was working at a local fire/ems station a few years back. I was sitting outside around sunset and though a really big leaf was fluttering across the parking lot. Come to find out, it was not a leaf. I also found out that when you go running to tell 6 firemen that there is a tarantula in the parking lot they turn into 6 10 year old boys.

They immediately began a myriad of experiments to tests the spiders wits and tenacity, all of which just made the darn thing mad. Then, when they were through playing with it, did they finish it off like I expected them to? No. They said, "It won't hurt anything," and let it just kind of hang out in the tall grass next to our station. So that night I took every towel, sheet, and blanket I could find and shoved them in every crack in the doors of my bunk room to keep said hairy eight-legged freak out.

The next day the poor girl who relieved me was in the ambulance bay talking on her cell phone with her hubby, when said husband said, "All I heard was a shriek and a cell phone shattering into a thousand pieces." The tarantula had made its way into the bay and had dropped down onto her shoulder. They would have had to put me on worker's compensation for extreme emotional injury if I had been her, because I would have never, ever come back to work. To her credit she did manage to get the beast off of her and send it to arachnid heaven with her cell phone all in one fell swoop.

I'll smash scorpions if I have to, but please, please, no big spiders! Keep up the great writing, it always makes my day!

Oh Boy! Oh Boy! Oh Boy! Oh Boy! said...

I've lived in Texas for 28 years (all parts - north, east and south) and I've never even seen a scorpion! I've never had to worry about lost mittens or bundling up my kids. Thanks for a new perspective on a place that can be as hot as....umm...errr...really hot.

Anonymous said...

I've been quietly reading your blog for almost a month now. Ok, some nights not so quietly...sometimes I've got tears streaming down my face, I laugh so hard. I wanted to say THANK YOU for sharing your real-life adventures with us, making us all feel like while life hands us lemons, it is still possible to make lemonade from them. And, your poor Princess!!

Anonymous said...

I've lived in Texas all my life, and I've NEVER had a scorpion land on my head or any other body part. That said, Texas is still better than any other state, scorpions included!

Kila said...

What became of the "jawbreaker"? It probably would break someone's jaw if thrown at them.

Ed, Edd and Eddy is the show I despise THE MOST, ugh.

Cool snake skin. That would be quite a trophy find for my guys.

Anonymous said...

Oh please tell me they have on shorts with that sweatshirt to go out in the 2 degree weather. At least that is what my boys do! Whaaaaat ... I got a sweatshirt on!

Keep on blogging Dawn, you make my day.

Marsha

CACKEL said...

wow, i never realized that you were in chicago. if you ever feel like the only one living your life, my SIL lives in Oswego and is expecting her sixth child (LDS). My SIL's next door neighbor also has six kids (Catholic). Can you imagine how lucky they must feel to have someone next door going through the same things at the same time? So if you ever want to visit Oswego, I'm sure they'd love to have you over to swap battle stories and laugh about them with you. Because I know that you have plenty of time to go visiting strangers that live in nearby suburbs. But they do have ponies and a little pond. Come on. Free pony rides.

Anonymous said...

We do have lots o bugs here in Florida, but imagine sitting on he potty and when you get up you see a salamander in the toilet that is 6 inches long and you have just peeied on it and it's now tring to escape.... Well that one didn't live through the bleach that was poured on top. That has happened twice in the same month. Now I always look into the toilet before I go!!! Thanks for all the comments. My favorite one is about the squirrel at lunch! My daughters would do that.
Keep up the good work.
God bless,
April

Tokyo Biker Mommy said...

Speaking of salamanders and things falling on heads:

I used to live in Japan and, not that Japan is over-run with lizardy critters but I resided in a creaky old boarding house surrounded by a very over-grown garden which apparently had some wildlife, so anyway, one day I was in the bathroom using the squat toilet and I felt something plunk onto my head. I quickly raised my hand and brushed it off and Lo, it was a wee salamander! Forever after I looked UP upon entering the bathroom!

Thanks for the laughs.

Anonymous said...

Closing in on 1,000,000 already! I bet you hit it today! Congratulations!!! I'm sure even the blog has taken off more than you ever expected, never mind the interviews and upcoming book. Your family must be so proud of you!! I look forward to reading you every day.

The person who said there was no way that could be your daughter's real hair but a Barbie doll or something hasn't HAD knots like that in a kid's hair. They're crazy to get out huh???

My daughter would get knots like that, shove jawbreakers the size of a raquetball in her mouth AND bring home snake skins. She'd beat her 3 brothers to any of it.

Ain't life grand? LOL

~Amy~ said...

I just wanted to commit on the Scorpions and snakes in Texas. I live in East Texas. First I have had both a live snake and snake skin in my house. Freak out! I mean I really have no clue as to how they got there. I live back in the woods. Also my daughter was camping with her Dad in Austin and in the middle of the night she had to "PoP a Squat" and a Scorpion got her on her butt. You just never know what is out there.

Anonymous said...

Grin,

Just a few scorpions. Lol. No really though, they really don't come into the house too often. Just every now and then. And North Texas doesn't seen to have as many as south Texas does.... But it still gets cold up there. Lol. Just hope your not like my hubby... he's always talking about moveing from here because he's too cold!

Anonymous said...

Hi, it's me with the beloved husband that likes to wash tobacco products in the laundry. This gem of a man once took our sons into the backyeard to play while I was able to take a shower and blow dry my hair (I know! And we weren't even going somewhere!). So, after my shower, as I am blowing my hair dry (it was really long, so I had the wet stuff piled on my head and was drying it in sections), he comes into the bathroom, touches my hair, steps back and smiles at me like a maniac. I smile back, weakly, turn to the mirror and see that he has placed a small NEWT IN MY CLEAN DRY HAIR! EWWWW, doesn't quite cover it.

*sigh* Stand back, Ladies, he's aallll mine.

J.S. said...

The creators of Ed, Edd, and Eddy must be truly evil. Or teenagers. (Was that redundant?)

We haven't had many scorpions here in NW GA (three, I think), but here those are fairly harmless, like a bee sting (unless you're allergic). What I'm loving here in the woods are my darling brown recluse spiders. Yeah, baby, the highly poisonous ones without an antidote whose bites take many months to heal and leave gi-normous scars. I've smashed something like ten or more this summer. Lurvly. And when my almost-fiver touched his first spider this year? A black widow! I can only guess that it was already dead, as he didn't get bitten. TOUCHED A FRIGGIN BLACK WIDOW!!! I must have some crazy spider karma, that's all I know.

I'm so glad your kids snuck those Pokemon cards into your buggy that day. Look at what that did for you, and for the rest of us who get to enjoy your writing! May we all have that much wonderful and delightfully surprising success! LOVE your blog!

Unknown said...

Honey, Erma Bombeck has NOTHING on you. You're a hoot! Judy in Minnesota

The Adorables! said...

Hi there -- long time reader, first time commenter. (I've always wanted to say something like that.) Anyway, a friend told me about your blog and I can't read it when the girls are sleeping because I'll laugh too loud and wake them up.

But I wanted to tell you that I've lived in Florida my whole life and I've never had a scorpion land on my head while going to the bathroom. A flying cockroach dive bomb me while in the shower, yes, but never a scorpion.

You are HILARIOUS! You've got a gift!

Vanessa
Bug City, Florida

Anonymous said...

LOL! I can't think of anywhere BETTER to be than on a toilet if a scorpion lands on my head!

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