Ours was nearly 30 years old. He kept saying he would just buy a new engine and upgrade some parts and fix it up, but he finally reached his limit this weekend after it died for the umpteenth time.

That night he began researching. Monday morning he went to the local John Deere dealership. That afternoon our new lawn tractor was delivered to the house. He finished mowing the lawn and announced his undying love for his new tractor.

Fastforward to today, just four days later. I’ve been cleaning the house, getting it ready for family to arrive tomorrow to celebrate Independence Day. I’m nearly finished, I just have to clean the carpets. After dinner, my husband—or the man claiming to be my husband—announces he is going to go out and mow the lawn again, smooth it out, because it has a few blades of grass popping out.

Seriously? Is this the same man who only mowed the lawn twice a summer for the last nine years? (I did it the rest of the time.) Is this the same man who makes fun of the guy across the road for mowing his lawn a minimum of once a week and sometimes twice?

WHO THE HELL IS THIS MAN, BECAUSE IT IS NOT THE MAN I’VE BEEN MARRIED TO FOR NEARLY NINE YEARS.

Dear John Deere,

While I suspect that this man may indeed be my husband simply because he also bought a new weedeater and proclaimed it mine while the tractor is his (notice who gets the more difficult, dirty, manual work?), I just wanted to let you know that if you still have my husband locked in a back room to buy a new mower because it costs too much, you can keep him. I like this model that you sent back to me, better.

Sincerely,
An extremely bewildered—but happy!—wife.

Of course this would be the day that the city water company shut off the water feed to our rural water supplier to do some repairs. It was supposed to be turned back on by noon. HA! Then we were told it would be on by midafternoon. Well I call 2:00 pm midafternoon and still the water is at a trickle.

I have at least five loads of laundry, a load of dishes, and all that scrubbling of counters, basins, tubs, and tile and NO WATER.

It’s a conspiracy. Somebody wants my house to be dirty on Friday, the 4th of July, when all of my in-laws are here for the day and well into the night. Somebody wants my carpets to remain stained and my sinks and tubs and toilets grungy so that I can be humiliated in front of all our guests. I hate having people over to a messy or dirty house. At this rate it will be tomorrow before I can do the bulk of the work.

In the mean time, I’ll have to address some other chores and projects while I wait for the water to come back on. But it seems like everything I want to do today requires water–lots of water.

Maybe that’s the universe’s way of telling me to go take a nap? Or maybe it’s a sign to tend to my neglected blog. . . .

Okay! Okay! I’m listening. I posted.

Now please turn the water back on?

TripFLIX is an interactive DVD featuring kid-friendly places to travel all across the United States. The video is hosted by two teenagers, Emily and Alex and they provide trivia and facts about each of the 50 states and focus on 25 specific locations including a boat building school in Maine, Coney Island, the boardwalk in Atlantic City, New Jersey, Spacecamp, the Four Corners, Aztec ruins in Aztec, New Mexico and Black Mesa State Park out in the Oklahoma panhandle.

It’s designed to help families choose their travel destinations and if your kids enjoy Nickelodeon style teenaged banter they will enjoy this DVD. Unfortunately I didn’t enjoy that aspect of the DVD but I totally see the appeal for young people and if nothing else it might stimulate some coversation from your kids’ end when it comes time to decide on your family’s vacation desitanation. It might even keep them quiet for a while if you have an in car dvd player they can watch it on.

You can purchase TripFLIX at Amazon for $19.99.

I received an extra DVD and am happy to offer it for free here. Just comment and leave me your email address in the appropriate comment box, then let me know what your favorite family friendly vacation destination is. Next Monday I’ll close comments and pick the winner at random.

Team Mom sent this DVD out, asking that I share my opinion.

There is a discount store in town called Walls. My kids like to call it “Waaaaaaah-ulls.” As in, “Are we going to Waaaaaaah-ulls?” Only they put just a little bit of a gargle in it so that they sound like Chewbaca from Star Wars.

Then there are some of the pretend games they play. One of the most popular is where they pretend that they are “part dog” or “part cat” or even “part robot” or “part transformer”. They announce to anyone and everyone they meet—stranger or not—that, “Hey, I’m part-dog. WOOF WOOF!”

My three year old climbed up into a kitchen cabinet and found the Elmo toddler harness (the one we tried to use with him when he was 18 months old ONCE and only ONCE because—uh yeah—that was a total nightmare). Then he had his five year old sister help him put it on and he got down on all fours to pretend he was a dog and she led him around the house, occasionally hooking the end of the leash to a door knob while she went to do something. He just sat there and panted.

They also have a secret hand shake they have worked out with their cousin. It involves bumping their booties together. But I think that one can safely be credited to the cousin.

Then there’s their absolute refusal to get rid of anything. If a toy is broken it cannot be thrown away. The amount of paper my oldest is hoarding is getting out of hand. He keeps every single scrap of school paper, restaurant coloring sheets, or anything else he has ever written or drawn or glued on.

If something goes missing, I am looked at with suspicion and accused of throwing it in the trash. So what if I have been guilty of that from time to time? (Read: Every chance I get.) Their attachment to all these things, even if they don’t work or are totally trashed evokes the fear that I’m raising three future pack rats. Not the normal run of the mill pack rat, I’m talking about the pack rat disorder where people have houses full of boxes of newspaper and plastic bags and thousands and thousands of broken dishes or toys because they cannot bear to throw anything away and drive cars crammed full of things scavenged from dumpsters. Dude. That’s a fire hazard.

Speaking of fire hazards, the three year old has been walking around the house turning out all the lights because “they will start a fire.”

Whenever visitors come to our house they run around like fools, showing off and yelling at the top of their lungs, acting like they’ve never seen another human being before let alone had one over to their house. Serioulsy, it’s as if I’m raising three very hyper rat terriers. Either that or three future attention-hound comedians.

Finally, my five year old daughter reminds me of Amy Poehler’s “Caitlin” character. She does the voice and when she’s bouncing off the walls she does an amazing impersonation of this character for someone who has never seen the sketch:

These are only a small sample of the oddities going on around here every single day. And they wonder why mommy needs some alone time?

“I GOTTA GO POOP!”

“Hurry up, then. Don’t play while you are sitting there and don’t get up until you tell me you are finished so I can help you wipe.”

“OKAY MOMMY!”

He runs into the downstairs bathroom and begins slamming things around.

“POTTY SEAT! WHERE. IS. THE. POTTY. SEAT!!!”

I hear more banging as he gets the seat situated and climbs up on it.

“FIRE IN THE HOLE!”

No. I am not kidding. I swear on all that I hold dear, that is what I heard him say. So I quickly text Snoring Daddy, telling him what I heard. He responds with “SHUTUP. That is funny!”

I know it is. And that is why I’m blogging it.