don't believe everything you read [on blogs]

look how well my kids play together.

look at the beautiful summer day that we spent playing outside, splashing and frolicking and the like.

look at the homemade, 4-ingredient chocolate pudding i made my children as a special treat.

look how well they share.  they're such darling little angels.

look.  unrestrained bliss.  i am such a good mother.




now here's what you're not looking at.

don't look at the floor. it's got chocolate smeared on it and it's decorated artfully with crumbs and dog hair.  if i have to sweep and mop it one more time i am going to go insane.

don't look at desmond's toothbrush.  it's dry because i forgot to brush his teeth before bed.

what you don't know is that i had fed the boys dinner and had them in their pajamas before 5 pm.  (2 hours early...)  incidentally, my eagerness for bedtime to come did not actually speed up the passage of time.

you're not seeing the pile of clothes on the bed that were sitting in the dryer all day and are now crumpled and wrinkled.

don't look for an iron.  i don't own one.

what i didn't tell you is that during naptime, instead of sleeping, the boys chose to play.  which means they were kicking the doors and occassionally our neighbor's wall.  (dear neighbor, i'm so sorry and i promise we'll move out in a couple months.)

don't look at the outlet cover in the boys' room.  they cracked it in half.

and, while you're at it, leave the blinds alone.  i keep them up so you don't see that several are missing.

pictures don't show you how exhausted i was today, and how tired i was of hearing the same question repeated fifty times, and how i was (guiltily) counting the hours until bedtime.

by the way, i gave the boys pudding even after i told tesla he couldn't have anything else until tomorrow if he didn't want his dinner.  (consistency what?)

don't look at my leggings.  they have a hole in the knee and have been worn for 4 days (and counting...)

what pictures will never show you is how many times a day i have to break up an ownership battle.  ("IS A MIIIIIINE BIKE, DEDO!!!!!!!!!!!")

and don't look at the empty box of ghirardelli brownie mix from costco.

oh, and please don't ask me how long it took to get through the whole thing (6 bags of brownie nirvana).

[just over a week.]

i have serious issues with blog envy.  maybe some of you are the same.

so the next time you're scrolling through pages and pages of artfully placed and perfectly edited snapshots of someone's squeaky-clean life, remember:

that's not the whole story.




now if you'll excuse me, i believe i hear some shrieks of pain emanating from the boys' room.  time to go lay down the law.  again.