Subtitle of this blog post:

Choose Your Battles, Lady. Because Let’s Face It, You’re No Winston Churchill.

Today is Monday and my children are back in school after a long and glorious Spring Break where we did absolutely nothing of value whatsoever. It was the least exciting week in the history of weeks. Ever.

Some kids got to go to California. Yes, they did (friends of ours). Others went skiing. I know about these kids because I heard about it. All week. (Yes, more friends of ours. We have cool friends who utterly betray us by going on exciting excursions. How could they).

We traveled to the store. And to the couch, a lot.

Bear with me, here. I did have plans for spring break. These plans started germinating about a month or so ago, and I started to make lists, which are my happy place, of all the fabulous things we could do over break. Things like:

• Daytrips to see friends! Extroverted fun!
• All day excursion to SuperFun Children’s Museum that is both educational and pricey! Expensive fun!
• Hiking at the lake! Not as fun, but nature-ey!
• BABY GOATS! Cute fun!
• Memorizing the New Testament! 

(Okay that last one was just in there to see if you’re paying attention. But, the baby goats thing is for for real. We really do have friends who have baby goats. These friends are waaaaaaaay cooler than the skiers.)

Wanna know what happened instead?

THE FLIPPING STOMACH FLU. THAT’S WHAT.

Now, as a mom of two boys, I have, in fact, dealt with the flu before. I’ve written about it here. And here.

Oh, and my personal favorite, here. 

Come to think of it, the flu seems to be quite a thing with the Momsie. Wanna know why? Because CHILDREN ARE GERMY AND YOU CAN’T SPRAY THEM WITH LYSOL. That’s a no-no, evidently.

Let me also elaborate a bit more, without getting too graphic.

Momsie’s Version of the flu, Spring Break Strain: Take something you really really dislike and distrust… like North Korea, or hissing cockroaches, and multiply that by TEN HUNDRED, and that’s what was going on in my intestines. Yep, that’s right.

This guy was hanging out in my lower GI track.

By the way, if this seems very harsh towards Kim, I am sorry. I am all for being nice and kind and what not, but when I tried to visualize Things That I Really Don’t Like I came up with raisins and this guy. Sorry, raisins.

My children’s version of this Spring Break Flu: Stomach aches.

That’s it. The little preshus cherub darlings had achey tummies and I get stuck with vomiting so loudly I scared the dog. It takes a LOT to scare a DOG in terms of weird NOISES, people! Dogs are all ABOUT weird cringey noises!

Or at least mine is.

And now, I am sure, after establishing that we are the House of Sickness and I have a farting and belchy dog,  I bet no one will ever visit our house again. Introverts for the win!

Also, during spring break, this ACTUALLY HAPPENED:

This is an actual list of words that I have banned at my house under threat of death (read: no computer time) because my children are feral and obnoxious.

Notice that I did not even have the stomach to write out the fourth lovely little epithet, but then my sweet 8 year old was kind enough to fill in the blank for me, AND HE WAS PROUD OF HIMSELF. THOUGHT HE WAS RIGHT SMART, THAT ONE. LIKE THIS WAS THE FLIPPING NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD PUZZLE.

Yea, yea, I know I said “flipping.” Progress, not perfection.

Now, after making it nearly through this post, I am pretty sure that roughly half of you who are reading this are thinking this:

What! WHAT? How did she even let it get that bad in the first place! “Crap”? What’s next? Why don’t they just drop the F bomb in church? HOW COULD SHE/THEY/THEM? 

And… the other half?

*Chuckle* She said “turd.”

So, the list happened because… well because I am tired of the negative talk. And “turd” is just gross. And, as a writer, I just think there are more creative ways to express oneself (again, I know I said “flipping” earlier but, as is the way with parenting, SOMETIMES WE DON’T ALWAYS DO WHAT WE MAKE OUR OWN CHILDREN DO, OK? IT’S A THING. FILE IT UNDER SANITY OR IMPERFECTION. YOUR CHOICE. THEY’RE INTERCHANGEABLE.)

The list is already proving helpful. One kid has no screen time until mid May, so there’s that. Also, my boys are getting really skilled in the pantomime arts, and that’s so creative!

I’m choosing my battles, here. There are only four words on the list after all. What the Flerken do you want from me?

(If you don’t know what a Flerken is, go see Captain Marvel. This movie also has a few bad words in it, but I still opted to take the the boys. And we loved it. Again, choose your battles).

No this is not a sponsored post. Call me, Marvel Studios? I have a cat who wants a casting call.