Just a small glimpse...

...into my world. Last Thursday afternoon me and the kids took our kid-mobile to the car wash to be...washed, and detailed. When the guy got one look at the inside of our van, not only did he take back his offer to give us a discount on the detailing, he said it would take at least an hour to accomplish the level of cleanliness that I'd ordered. So we left it in his able hands and walked across the parking lot to spend an hour wandering around Walmart. It was fun because we had absolutely nothing to buy, but when we left we'd spent about $92.

I was feeling generous while in the toy section and when the girls asked to buy these little, bitty, tiny baby dolls with all of the little, bitty, tiny accessories to go with them for only $5.76 each, I caved. Mary TuTu picked out a blue one and Brooke chose pink. I convinced them to wait to open them until we got home because I didn't want to chase the little, bitty bottle and bottle-warmer all over my nice clean car.

After we arrived home, it took about 8 minutes for Mary TuTu to discover that she could completely dismember her baby doll and then bring me the body and pieces like they were some kind of jig-saw puzzle. After I put her doll back together, I convinced them both to leave their babies in one piece and to snuggle them and rock them instead of pulling their heads off.

This lasted until the next afternoon. While we were sitting in the van at the airport, waiting for the first member of Prayer Group to arrive, unbeknownst to me, the girls made sure that the heads, arms, and legs of their new baby dolls were again detached from the little bodies.

They kept their little secret until our passenger arrived and we were unloading her luggage at home. When I pulled her suitcase out of the back of the van, we were greeted with a pile of chubby baby legs and arms and bodies. I groaned, wondering if I was turning them in to serial killers, and Crys giggled. I asked Mary TuTu to carry the body parts in so I could put the babies back together. She replied, "No, it's OK, Grampy can do it later." I assumed that "later" meant later that evening when they were spending the night with my mom and dad. So I told her to go put all of the pieces of baby in the pink bag I'd packed for them earlier. It would be shameful if we lost an arm or a leg en route to the grandparents house.

I knew she had done as I asked because when we got in the house, I happened to glance at the bag sitting on the floor just inside the door. She'd left it un-zipped and wide open, making it possible for anyone who happened to walk by to see inside her duffel bag, full of chubby baby appendages. Feeling like a member of the maffia, I zipped the bag and counted the minutes until my mom got off work, knowing that she would come pick up the kids.

Mom did come, and it takes about 9 minutes to drive from my house to hers. About 13 minutes after they left the phone rang. It was Mom. Apparently they could only find one baby head, and could I please look for the other one at my house or in my car? And if I found it, could I please put it on the front porch so they wouldn't have to come in the house and disturb Prayer Group to retrieve it? Feeling more like a sick-o by the minute, I agreed to look for the lost baby head and wondered if there were any other missing parts. No, all the rest of the parts were there, only the head was missing.

About the time I found my shoes so I could go outside and check the van, the phone rang again. This time it was Bubba. He greeted me with, "Don't look for the head, we found it in the bag burried under some clothes." By this time I am pretty sure that Homeland Security has a tap on our house, but I am relieved that I don't have to spend 20 minutes looking for a little baby head.

So, last night, we went to Mom and Dad's to give Mom her firecracker plate, because I'm not allowed to paint myself one without painting her one, too. While we were there, Mom filled in the details that were happening at their house during the whole "headless baby" thing.

When they discovered that one of the heads was missing, Mary TuTu immediately started crying, and wailing, and gnashing her teeth. So, in an effort appease her, my dad took a sharpie marker and drew a smiley face on the nub that was meant to attach the head to the rest of the body.

Oh...yes...I have pictures. Because I need proof that I don't make this stuff up. And that Grampys will try anything to make their Mary TuTus stop crying.