Things We Lost In The Fire

I killed the family grill today.  In true Mother Cardinal misadventure fashion, it happened at my very hands.  The hose somehow caught fire and from there it was a goner.  Thankfully I caught it in time so that it didn't have to suffer for very long.  


So for todays installment, I would like to take this moment to remember a fine summer aide to our familial nest.  


R.I.P. Cardinal family grill.  You have served us well.  You were put together my Father Cardinal 1 a.k.a  my father in-law with his own 2 hands.  You have provided us with burgers, and brats for many a birthday and created some great chops, steaks and chicken on warm late spring and summer nights.  You have been gone above and beyond your usual call of duty making great roasted marshmallows for  s'mores.  You will be missed old friend but you will never be forgotten.....(excuse me while I grab a tissue!) 


And of course I wouldn't be me without pictures of the carnage...  Oh and by the way, does anyone know where I can get a grill for dirt cheap?

The carnage I left behind

One of the knobs that melted off

A miscellaneous plastic piece from the grill

And of course the other knob fell off and melted to the bottom.  It was apparently not ready to let go

Where It Started And Giving Thanks

They say one never forgets their roots and I have always prided myself on living that statement to the fullest, but recently it was brought to my attention that I have forgotten my roots so to speak.  I'm not talking about my African American or Mexican heritage.  What I had forgotten is the roots of what made my incredible misadventures so incredible.  I would like to take this time to remember this mother birds roots and in doing so also give thanks because its through the support of others especially one woman in particular that made this bird and my misadventures so incredible.  You might even say my misadventures are Fabbylous!


My misadventures got their start on facebook of all places.  It was shortly after one of my oldest and dearest friends made the bravest decision of her life.  It meant her children would not have the life all mothers dream of with the mother and father living harmoniously in the same dwelling, but her choice also meant her children would have the kind of mother they deserved to have.  Like the karen White song goes "I don't want to be a fool for love.  I'd rather be alone than be unhappy"  She would have rather been alone and been a strong mother to her children than remain with their father and be an unhappy shell of a person.  Not that her ex is a bad person.  In fact apart they are very good friends but sometimes good friends don't make a good couple.  They got two beautiful and unique wonder kids out of there attempt at taking their friendship to another level.


As I was saying after her life changing decision, she flew on over to my nest to rest her weary life wings for a spell and in doing so the misadventures started.  It began with our comical take on  daily life taking care of her clan of two misfits as well as mine in the same household.  Each night one of us would post an evening installment of our misadventures.  It was thoughts of those status installments that motivated me to create this blog.


To my best friend since the 3rd life time the ever Fabbylous Tanita, I thank you for inspiring this and hope to one day soon see your posts about Fabby and the Wonder kids.

Mom's Say She Darnedest Things

This misadventure is brought to by my children.  Ah those wonder kids they bring such hilarity to my life and they are the inspiration for a lot of the motherly sayings I have in life.  I have comprised a list of those that have brought great humor to me and have really helped me to navigate some pretty interesting misadventures thus far.  I will also give a brief explanation as to how the saying came to fruition so as not to create a misadventure in reading this blog entry.

1. "Ask me no requests and I'll give you no denied's!"  This one came up just tonight after Little Miss requested an iPhone and Mr. Man requested and Ipod Touch.  When I suggested they start saving their money, Mr. Man whined that he wanted to use our(mine and cowboys) money because waiting to use his would take to long
2. "Don't go digging in your nose unless you expect to find gold so you can help with the mortgage!"  This one came about during the nose picking phase I had to endure with Mr. Man. There aint nothing pretty about a 7 year olds boogers!
3. "I'll give you a round of applause on your behind if you don't stop whining!"  This was said on a day Mr. Man was more ornery than usual.  I had reached my breaking point when I said this. The straw that broke the camels back for me to declare this was him whining that his sister didn't cheer and clap for him when he did well on the nintendo Wii.
4. "It's illegal for minors to have whine in their system so knock it off or I'll have you arrested!"  This was said after this mom had had enough of the whining.
5. "That which does not kill me better run pretty damn fast"  This is a phrase for when mom has reached her limit.  It gives the kids a nice warning to run and run real fast because mom is a coming.
6. "I'm gonna pretend I didn't just see that because if I acknowledge it, you father is gonna come home to discover he doesn't have children anymore"  You don't know how many times I have said this after catching the wonder kids doing exactly what they know they are not supposed to.

Finally my favorite which I felt didn't need to be on any list.  I call it the mom answering service.  For those times when your kids have driven past crazy and you just don't want to be bothered anymore.  Simply recite this phrase...   

"Hi you have reached mom

I am not able to take your whine, complaint or request at this time

Please leave a message after the beep

BEEEEEEEEP!!!!!!!!!

This works perfectly because your kids will be so annoyed they will growl and angry sigh and walk away and not talk to you for the rest of the day giving you a nice afternoon of peace and quiet!

Just Another Day Living In The Hood

*disclaimer* in this misadventure I make mention of my mom.  Because of her love of frogs I have aptly given her the blog nickname of Mother Frog


As I type this latest misadventure the theme song to the Mister Rogers show is playing in my head.  As I continue on you the irony in this will have you in stitches!  


As a city girl born and raised the lights, sounds, and overall chaos of city is something that I miss since being out in the quiet of the suburbs.  So I would like to take this opportunity to thank the neighbors that live in that duplex two doors down, for bringing the city to me.  Nothing makes me tear up with nostalgia like the tale Mother Frog told me, of the the cops being at your home at 1 in the morning because of the fight that ensued on your property,  I love how loudly your adolescent children use every foul word in the dictionary.  I can't wait for my kids to experience knowing those words at such a young age as I did when I lived in the rough neighborhoods of the city.  The burning smell that isn't cigarettes or a bonfire that emanate from your front stoop as I walk by gives me that feeling of city home that I love.


Yes folks in this installment it was just another day living in the hood of the suburbs for Mother Cardinal.


In tribute to my neighbors that live in the duplex I present this song...

The Misadventures of a Photo Shoot

*Disclaimer* I will be mentioning others in this blog.  To protect their identity I will refer to my niece and nephew as Red and Bubba and the photographers son as Mini Muffin.  Her fiance I will simply call her Handsome Assistant.

On this installment of my misadventures, Little Miss and Mr. Man A.K.A. the wonder kids, get their photo taken.  I should first inform you all that from time to time, my misadventures will include a shameless plug.  Hey if a service or in this case a photographer is that damn good, I'm gonna open my loud mouth and tell the world about it!

For years my best friend, and Godmother to my daughter, Lou and I have been talking about getting our kids photos done together.  My kids call her auntie and her kids call me auntie and they call cowboy uncle.  So getting a photo of all of the "cousins" is something we have always wanted to do.  Life however, as it always seems to do(damn that no good thing called life!) often pops up when you don't want it too and either she or I were not in a financial situation to afford photos or we just couldn't find the time to schedule a session.  This is where my new personal photographer comes in.  I shouldn't really call her my personal photographer since anyone can hire her services once she gets everything in order and officially goes into business in June.  However if I didn't have to share her services and could keep her talent all to myself I surly would and I'm not just saying that because I happen to have known her since Kindergarten with our first meeting in life involving her informing me that a bee stung her on the butt.  She truly is that talented and took the time to nurture her talent and perfecting it before sharing it.

Her business name and slogan reads "LIFEography by Brandie, capturing the magic of life's everyday moments"  and boy does she ever!  I already knew I had some good looking children but those photos she took of them make the wonder kids look nothing less than beautiful.  I imagine the only other time I will see my kids look as handsome and beautiful is on each of their wedding days, though I am sure having her take their picture every year they will always look spectacular!   When she says the best and favorite photos she likes to take are the unposed ones, she means it and she captures those unposed opportunities perfectly!  You know a photographer is good when the sneak preview she posts on Facebook drums up a new client.  When I met with her this past weekend to view the photo, we discussed her doing a photo shoot of Cowboy and I seeing as we only have one photo of us as a couple.  She may not have noticed it but their was a look of ease on his face when she described how the session would simply involve her with her camera observing us in a location of our choosing(she gave the scenario of Cowboy and I sitting on a park bench talking)and capturing us just being us.  Those of you reading this that know me have seen the one couple photo of us and know that Cowboy does not do well in posed photo's.  

The location for the shoot was perfect.  A place called The Dutch Oven, where Lou and I used to hang out in high school, had recently been rebuilt and we thought what better way to bring life full circle than to have the kids photo's done there.  In true preteen manor, Little Miss and my niece Red acted as if having their photo taken would plummet their popularity stock, while Mr. Man and Bubba kept wanting to pose wielding sticks in samurai sword style.  My photographers Handsome assistant was kept on his toes by their son Mini Muffin who kept trying to run towards the woods.  There was lots of chaos and our photographer had to do plenty of coaxing to get some sibling photos  but all in all it went great.  Knowing us for so long meant she wouldn't run screaming from the location after being frightened by our wild bunch.  I could go type forever about this misadventure but instead I would rather show you just how much fun we had!

Little Miss

Mr. Man

Sibling love Cardinal Clan style!

Bubba

Red

Sibling love Red Bubba style

BFF's and Cousins for life

All the kids together

BFF's for life!

Ode To The Preteen and everyones favorite "The Mom Song"!!

I would like share with you all if I may, a small I have written dedicated to the preteen in my life.  Some of you may be also suffering from this affliction known as the preteen so I am sure these words will ring true for you also.  This song will be sung in 4 part anger, 5 part annoyance and 6 part frustration.  Throughout the song I would like you to note how the anger's section is very similar to the annoyances section.  Also take note at how much stronger the volume of the frustration section is compared to the other sections.


First a brief warm up... "Grr, Ugh, AAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!


O loverly preteen
you are the light of my soul
now please please tell me
Why must you frustrate me so?
I beg and I plead but no completed homework or chores do I see
I beg of you to release my sanity
You defiance is great
and your attitude much severe
If you don't cut it out you are going to force me to runaway from here!
Thank you


I hope you all like that little song.  I try to make life as a mom as creative as I can.  

Now I would like to share with you all, a little something that I had the pleasure of viewing when it was posted on my online mom's group. This comedian who also happens to be a mom decided to take everything a mom would say to her children and put it to the music of the William Tell Overture.  I hope you all get a kick out of it as much as I did the first time I heard it!

A Tale Of False Advertisement

In todays misadventures, the Cardinal house was in true Monday form.  Children and parents alike coming down from the weekend.  Monday night bedtime is particularly a fun time.  That is when the epic battles of trying to get a 7 year old and a preteen to take a bath occur.  A word to the wise, never tell a preteen girl that she needs to take a bath because she stinks.  Trust be you don't want to know what the outcome of that will be! 


In typical Cardinal children fashion, Little Miss and Mr. Man were playing ruler of the bathroom sink also known as fighting over who would get to brush their teeth first.  I tried to do what any normal stay at home mom whose husband works nights does.  I promptly turned up the volume on the TV and ignored the chaos going.  I figure they were both still alive so I didn't need to intervene.  Besides all the "experts" say it's good for kids to work things out amongst themselves and being the good mom that I am, I chose to follow the "experts".  


Let me tell you there is nothing the like sound of a crash and a screaming child to make you wanna smack the "experts" with very books they have written!  It was very apparent that it was kung fu mama time and I needed to whip some young grasshoppers into bedtime shape!  Why is it that when the kids see mom approaching they both need to speak all at once or on the rare occasions they do let each other get a word in, they speak faster than an auctioneer?  Parents of only children will know all about this last one.  I being an only child for all of my childhood and most of my adult life, remember speaking that fast when trouble was amiss.


Children were screeching at me and of course the dog picks that moment to need to go outside and the two fatty cats start yowling for more water.  So I closed my eyes, clicked my heels 3 times for good measure and cried out rather loudly as only I could, that one simple phrase that mom's have been calling out for years.  Not "Lord Jesus Help Me!"  though looking back, calling for him would have been more reliable.  "CALGON TAKE ME AWAY"  amazingly a brief moment of stillness came over me.  I opened my eyes and realized that I had merely yelled loud enough to drown out the sounds of my children's tirade.


After promptly marching Frick and Frack up to bed I sat down at my computer I wanted to find the creators of Calgon and berate them for the false hope they bring to mothers daily.  I watched an old Calgon commercial on Youtube.  I saw how the tired and frazzled housewife  found herself in a luxurious bath after Crying out for Calgon to rescue her from the chaos.  I am sure when that first commercial hit, mother across the nation were cheering in delight that there was finally an instant escape to the pressures of life that are bestowed upon us daily.  What a let down it must have been for those mothers that viewed those first commercials.


So now here I sit blogging to you all in blog reader land with a letter ready to send to Calgon saved on my computer.  Do I dare send it and create another misadventure for myself?


What do you think?