9 Completely Unrelated Thoughts

One week down, three to go in the Post a Day for a Month Challenge. Whatever doesn't kill you, may still hospitalize you.

Quick thoughts on a Saturday night:

--Days after trying to poop 10 times in one setting to quickly earn some toy trucks, the youngest has since soiled his drawers twice while only peeing on the toilet. This negative-two effort now means he must poop 12 times on the toilet before getting his toys. If he were smart, he'd take up prune juice. He also still finds ways to poop in his sleep at night, which may explain why his brother comes over in the middle of the night. You can practically see the little squiggly marks emanating from that room the next morning. I jump in the shower and pretend not to notice.

--Any time we eat out, the over/under on number of items that hit the floor is 8.5, the number of kids who spend time under the table is 2.5, and the number of trips to the bathroom we make is also 2.5.

--Sometimes it's not unreasonable to expect the fort to hold itself down.

--When I have to share a room with someone who snores all night, then hear them say the next morning that THEY didn't sleep well at all last night, I want to throw them off a balcony.

--We don't have a "house cleaner" because nobody else really wants to set foot in this house. We also don't have a Roomba because it would have suffered a concussion by now.

--Our oldest, the self-proclaimed "Boss of the Children" doesn't realize that, in her role as middle management, she gets blamed for all of her younger brothers' missteps, which includes the potty training fails. She may soon relinquish that role and resume just being a seven-year-old.

--We're raising our kids Catholic, and so minutes after having a frank discussion with our oldest about her First Reconciliation and the importance of asking God's forgiveness for her sins, we tell all our kids that the boxes the mailman brought to their door (containing some of their Xmas gifts) aren't for them. Later we'll tell them they were brought by a fat, jolly elf who operated a reindeer-powered sleigh.

--Nothing that has black olives on it should ever be called "Supreme."

--The iPad screen is quickly replacing the crack between the bed and the wall as the go-to place for kids to wipe their boogers.