I understand tired. Really. I do. By the time my kids are all teenagers, my calculations indicate I will have missed 11,700 hours of well-deserved and much-needed rest my husband will enjoy in his sound-sleeping, snoring goodness. That's an average 3 hours a day, 5 days a week, 52 weeks a year for 15 years LESS than I really need to be the funny, witty, fabulous and thoroughly fantastic wife and mother Joe THOUGHT he was getting when he married me nearly 9 years ago. (Chalk it up to 4 years on the morning shift, 3 children -- one who didn't sleep through the night for a full year -- and Joe's aforementioned snore-feestering... yes... I'll never sleep again...).

Ryan thinks he knows tired.

He acts the part, sure.

Check out these glimpses of a real life meltdown of truly epic proportion. Here's a cranky 15 month old in two phases of utter collapse on my bedroom floor. I'm laughing hysterically as I take these pictures, but without sound, you really can't enjoy the full Dolby experience.

I find laughing at a screaming child makes them madder.

Now THAT'S funny.

I forgot to share this awesome pic with you all. This is Michael and Jack with Pens goalie Jocelyn Thibault at the Cystic Fibrosis fund raiser called "At Your Service." Joe and I got a table for the jam-packed dinner and took the boys in all their wide-eyed glory. Jocelyn and I were their "waiters" for the night -- and he couldn't have been any sweeter or any more accomodating.

Of course, if you know anything about me, you know I love the Pens. Anything Pens. Some people are all Steelers. Thanks to Joe and his family (and their season tix) I'm all Pens. And it's class acts like this young man who seal the deal.

Great pic, huh? Can a sister get a little help with the red eye?

For the four of you out there who still think I live a "celebrity's" life, I thought I would share this little snapshot with you -- proof of my Bobblicious morning. Yes. I cleaned these stupid bobble head dolls... all 75 of them... that've been stuffed on the top of Michael's armoire where dust can ravage them and I can't reach and haven't, quite frankly, in nearly 4 years. The dust was so fierce, the chunk of it on the nasty sponge I used to scoop it all up clogged the boys' bathroom sink. Lovely. Now, I ask you. Do I really need these silly trinkets that Jack can break with a glance? Course not. But the moment I even considered stuffing a duplicate doll in the trash, Jacko's eyes brimmed with tears. Great. I decided that scrubbing the pee-stained grout around their toilet would make the perfect one-two punch. Mmmm.

I don't know what it is about boys and spit, either. I tell them every time they brush their teeth, please wash the chunks of toothpaste and assorted food niblets you've dislodged from your head down the drain. I know that might sound like a lot to expect of a 5 and 7 year old, but I'm about a year away from making them do their own laundry... so follow my reasoning here. Still, day after day, I find myself chiseling this caked on goo off their sink (a lovely 70s shade of sky blue) and muttering to myself about being the only one in the household to find their food remnants utterly disgusting. A least they were never poo smearers.


I'm also posting a picture of Ryan today. Smiling like a lark -- flirting with certain death on the cob-webbed step ladder I used to reach those beautiful bobbles. What you can't see is the toothbrush he's rubbed all over the dusty step of that ladder and then put back in his mouth. No wonder he has a smoker's cough. Child eats dirt. Can't wait till spring. He'll love eating our yard. I caught Ryan walking around yesterday with a purple superball in his mouth. Seriously. That our kids make it through the day alive is really quite a mystery to me sometimes. I'll let you know when he figures out those outlet covers and approaches one with a knife.

And a brief update on Michael. He turned 7 yesterday. Wow. I have a SEVEN YEAR OLD CHILD. It seems like it was last year that I got the news he was breech and needed to come out via C-section. Little crapper. Hurt like the devil. I walked around like a question mark for 2 weeks. But now I look at him. A beautiful little man. Funny. Smart. Eyes that take my breath away. I wake him up every morning at 7 and we sit together in front of the fireplace. Sometimes he'll crawl onto my lap and close his eyes for a few minutes. Now that's peace, friends. Not TV. Not makeup or hair or lights or cameras or pee, spit, barf, dust or diapers. Sitting in front of a fireplace with one of your favorite people...who's barely little enough anymore to fit on your lap, and having them touch your face and smile. Can you beat it?

I just gotta share this little nugget with you before the weekend. No fancy pics to accompany my tale. Just total horror.

I live about 2 miles from a high-scale, over-priced, nature-loving grocery store. (I've learned that I get in trouble if I'm too brand specific, so help a sister out here.) I like the place because I take sick pleasure in seeing how much a pint of "organic" blueberries or a pound of macadamia-encrusted tilapia goes for in the true blue nature world. I like the displays. Neat. Organized. Colorful. I like colorful. And while I gotta admit you have to sell an ovary to afford your bill, the fruits and vegetables last way longer than the stuff you find in "run of the mill" stores. And the cheese and pates are to die for.

I digress.

So I drag my youngest two with me today, trying to kill just the right amount of time before Jack's afternoon preschool class and Ryan melts down and oozes out of the shopping cart. We march in, take a deep breath (scanning the area for a quick people-watching fix) and off we go. $5 for a pint of organic strawberries? Bring it. I'll take 2. $12.49 for the assorted fruit platter? Sure. Why not. I draw the line at organic toothpaste. I mean, come on. If I want to brush with tasteless chalk I'd grab a tube of my son's Desitin, for God's sake. But I AM a sucker for the "deli" counter. Jack talks me into some sesame pea pods and Greek olives and we head for the check out lane.

Jack picks up the plastic divider thing separating the mink-wearing woman's stuff in front of us and starts pretending it's a sword. Stabbing the air. Gasping for breath. Great. I love pirates. Honey, put it down. It's not a toy, I say. What's it for? he asks. See that lady behind the counter? She sees that and knows the things in front of us are someone else's, I answer. How does she know what's ours? he asks. Because she's smart, I say. (Of course, she and the grizzly adams bagger guy are listening now.) Jack looks at her. Looks at me and says, Is she smarter than you, Mommy? Maybe, I quickly say back. And NOT MISSING A FREAKING BEAT, my kids says loudly, If she's so smart, why's she working HERE? (This is where the checker-outer lady's face turns red and she quickly scans my $12 fruit tray, no doubt double charging me.

Of course, right on cue, some lady in another aisle recognizes me and loudly comes over to tell me how much she likes the 11 o'clock news.

Great.

Shoot me now.

I try. I really do.

My kids know how to low ball a woman's age. How to not tell someone who's fat that they're fat. How to not toot in public and roar with laughter as they fan their butts. How to stand aside and let people OFF an elevator before they tackle each other racing to get ON.

But I just don't know if I can go back to that store.

You wanna watch Jack so I can shop in peace next time?

I really should have grabbed the camera.

There are, after all, certain life moments that need to be captured.

Very specific life-altering episodes of time and space one must hold on to... tightly...secretly...in order to bribe another person years later.

Honestly?

I almost hurled when I saw it. The whole camera thing escaped me.

Came home from work Monday for a quick dinner. It was a long day. A winter storm was approaching (I know, I know. Do you want me to report MORE on the ice and wind chills?) So I raced home for an hour with the boys and stumbled into a zone this mother never needs to see again.

Mike and Jack were at each other's throats. They were Tired Fighting. You know what I mean. A stupid argument between two dead-tired boys quickly leads to blows, whining, cheap shots and someone crumbling into a sweaty heap on the floor and moaning my name in a pathetic whimper. So I walk in. "Hi guys." Nothing. I step over their writhing bodies and flying legs and walk upstairs in an exhausted haze. No Joe. Hmmm. No Ryan. HMMMMM. Then I heard it.

Splashing.

Not tub splashing.

Naughty splish sploshing that can only mean one thing.

Toilet.

Yep. There he was. Full snaggle-toothed glory. Elbows deep in the boys' toilet. Slapping his hands around. Creating waves. Water flying all over the place. Wet curls. Wet face. Soaked fake tile floor. A perfect drop of toilet water perched on his nose.

"AAAAGGGH! Ryan! NO!!" I yell. Race over to yank him away from the Danger Zone... only to find... yes, friends... it was pee water.

The urinating duo had done it again, but this time, with utterly vile consequences. (I harp ALL THE TIME about the whole seat down/lid closed/flush thing... it's sure working well.) My toddler was covered in pee. And as he made the slow and steady move to suck on his urine-soaked hand...

Nooooooooooo! came out of my mouth as I moved in that 6 Million Dollar Man slo-mo mode far too slowly to stop the hand-to-mouth-victory. I swallowed the barf that was bubbling from deep within and had the kid stripped and planted squarely in a warm tub full of girly-smelling bubbles.

Gross.

So if you have sons... and they think it's hilarious to stand on either side of the pot and have their dualing pee streams make an "X" into the water... do me a favor. 1. Feel my pain. 2. Drink a beer. (out of the bottle) And 3. Calmly close the lid and flush. I'll be tucked in the fetal position in my bed, trying not to throw up.

I sure wish I had my camera.

I'm boring you with lame snapshots of my living room to, 1) show off the ridiculous amount of time and money it took to change it from a 60s spread to something moderately comfortable, and, 2) shamelessly ask for help. Have you ever bought something on vacation that was REALLY COOL wherever you found it, but just didn't fit in once you got it home? That's the deal with the two wacky glass mask things on the mantle there. Look at the long shot. You can't even see them. They just totally blend in with the stones. Great.

Joe and I found the big mask at this great art store in Banff in the Canadian Rockies (Jack named it Pierogi. He's a little flighty.) My folks bought the little one for us about a year later when they stumbled into the exact same store. I really like the masks! But... how do I light them? There's got to be a way without some over-priced electrician ripping apart my ceiling. Right?

Here it is. Proof that Joe and I have a social life (sort of.) We got all snazzed up Saturday night for the American Heart Association Heart Ball -- a really lovely fund raiser where the people watching is totally insane. I love it! The food is decidedly average, the music's always too loud for conversation and the items up for bid are wild. So I gotta tell you how it all shook out...

The ball was at the Hilton downtown. Easy to get to. No problem. We had to be there by 5:30 for this "pre-ball" cocktail party honoring a cardiologist who's been next door neighbors with Joe's parents for 30 odd years. That being said, we needed to leave around 5 to make it to the Hilton by 5:30. Clear? Clear. Now ladies, answer this question honestly. When you KNOW you have one of these black tie jobbies to attend, you're know the laundry list that comes with it. Gown. Shoes. Bag. Wrap (I hate that word almost as much as "panties") and jewelry. Even if you shop last minute, you're ready to go, mentally and physically, a good 30 to 60 minutes before you have to leave. Capiche? Not guys. Nope. At least not my guy.

It's seriously 4:30 and Joe realizes he doesn't have any nice black socks to go with his tux. You kidding me? You're just figuring this out? NOW? So he has to race out --go to a store... has car trouble.. has to turn around and take MY car... clock is ticking... tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. I'm seriously dressed and ready as he's getting in the shower. Why does this sort of thing happen every time we have somewhere to be at a specific time? GRRRR.

So we finally get to the Hilton and I have to valet park to make up some time. Don't get me wrong. I'm no priss. I don't mind walking from a garage. But there's no time. We pull up to the valet, the guy opens JOE'S DOOR (hello? I'm driving...) walks around and tells me it's $18. Loudly I say -- ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? 18 BUCKS? FOR WHAT? YOU GONNA WASH IT, TOO? This is followed by roars of laughter from the valet corps that recognizes me, an embarassed Joe lugging me away from them, and into the hotel we stumble. At which point...Joe spots my shoes.

If you're one of those women who matches to a tee... you don't want to hang out with me. I'm all about comfort. So when Joe spotted my brown strappy heels (nice and cushy) and my black velvet purse with matching black "fur" coat -- he nearly choked. Brown with black? Are you INSANE? Hey. Who's looking at my feet?

I'd later find out... Jean Horne.

The "Fanfare" writer from the Trib spotted me as fast as mosquitoes nail me in the summer. This lady was on my green dress in a flash, pulling me over to a corner so her photographer could snap a few pics. Okay. No sweat. But I had no idea I was supposed to know who MADE the thing. Who actually knows this stuff? So Jeans whips me around and seriously unzips me down to my waist, uncinches all the hook-and-eye closures, finds the label and writes down the designer's name. Hello? Can you help a sister out and get me dressed again? Thanks. That's nice. I have to say that Jean, to her credit, knows what she wants and does the socialite beat better than any person out there. She asked me what color my dress was (baffled -- I did a shoulder "I don't know" move and she jotted down "seafoam" -- go figure) and she left me after the flash cube stopped when some lady dripping in diamonds walked in. Ah. I can dress the part, but that "fanfare" page just ain't my style.

After the pre-dinner cocktail shindig, Joe and I were milling around, looking at some of the silent auction things when Jean whisked me away again and dragged me into the ballroom for a few snapshots with a better backdrop. She floofed up my hair, posed me, and picked up the hem of my dress to LOOK AT MY FREAKING SHOES. Thank God I had actually polished my nails. Who does this? Do people actually look at feet in this world? You gotta be kidding me.

After Jean let me go... Joe and I got a cocktail and started to mingle. Sure. I could have been classy. Coulda gone for a chardonnay. Maybe a martini. But I would have gagged. I wanted a beer. A budweiser. A bud in a bottle. Seafoam dress and all, drinking a bottle of bud. That's my kind of night. But not Jean's. She whisked by me in her sparkling pantsuit and scolded me under her breath. "Never out of the bottle in a GOWN!!!" Jean doesn't know me very well...

So, there it is, friends. My Heart Ball extravaganza. I told you in a previous post that no one would much notice me in my green dress. But I learned a valuable lesson. If you want to be invisible, wear black. Want to be traditional at a cardiologist's function around Valentine's Day? Go for red. Want to be the ONLY PERSON AT THE BALL IN GREEN? Don't drink out of the bottle.

I'm here, friends... but I'm getting swamped. I have Heart Ball stories, gross boy tales (came home from work for dinner the other night to find Ryan splashing his hands in an open toilet... yes... it hadn't been flushed...) I even had a ridiculous run-in with a newspaper reporter who unzipped my dress at the ball. This one you gotta hear. Good stuff, plus pictures from last night's At Your Service dinner with the Penguins (Joe and I took the boys...) and it's all coming your way. I promise. Today it's ALL SNOW, all the time, and with school cancelled, you know I'm freaking tearing my hair out at home...

That said... this is important.

I hope you all tune in Wednesday night for Channel 4 Action News at 5. I have a very important story for all parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and care takers of children out there. Do you know infant/child CPR? This is a real eye-opener. We'll show you in TWO minutes the steps you need to save a child's life, especially in a near-drowning situation. The ABCs of infant CPR, how to do it and do it right, the step-by-step instructions to save the most precious thing in the world. A child's life. Please program your VCR or DVR if you can't watch, because I in all seriousness that I now know what to do in a choking or drowning situation. I feel confident I could do it. I want you to learn the same skills. Can you really afford to miss it?

I'll see you tomorrow -- and I promise pictures soon. This site has been a bit fouled up as of late and it's not let me download pictures. We'll work it aht!

It's Saturday afternoon and my house should be way quieter than it is. My boys are all sleeping. They're not the problem. It's the howling wind moaning through the skylights in the hallway outside my bedroom, keeping my mind annoyingly awake. My mind keeps flirting with two frustrating thoughts. How much it's gonna cost me to replace those dumb skylights that clearly aren't air tight anymore... and how on earth I'm going to pull off the stunt of the year in the next seven days.

Every year around Valentine's Day, it's a guaranteed date for Joe and me. The Heart Ball. A bunch of cardiologists out for a night of schmoozing and socializing. I like the Heart Ball. I do. I'm just not sure I fit in. The men are dressed up in tuxes, the women -- dripping in jewels and squeezed into gowns so glamorous, you know your purple velvet number from 1982 ain't really cutting it. I decided this year would be different.

Okay.

So I should have decided that a few months ago.

You know as well as I that it's impossible to shop with children. Mike and Jack are good for about 45 minutes before Jack gets lost in a circular sales rack and Michael startswhining for food. Ryan's toast the minute we get somewhere, slobbering all over the clothes and throwing his head back to see how quickly he can get a cranial fracture and secure a hasty retreat.

Shopping WITHOUT the boys but WITH Joe is no easier. There's this imaginary clock ticking in my mind... and I can hear it more loudly with each fitting room disaster. I admit it now. Clothes in stores weren't made for my body. Small shoulders, flat chest, thin waist, regular hips, and long legs. (Great.) You should see the clips and tape yanking my clothes on TV every night to create the illusion that my clothes fit. (I used to yank out shoulder pads and put them in my bra for a little help, for heaven's sake.)

So I decided to spend a whole TWO HOURS the other afternoon and go to a fancy schmancy store. You know. Where the rich girls go to shop low-end. There surely has to be sales there, too, right? Yeah.

I walk in and the owner of the place recognizes me at once. Very nice lady... shows me around, pulls some stuff out for me... ushers me into a dressing room... and stands there. Okay. Hi? I can get undressed by myself, thanks. No. Apparently at nice stores, one needs assistance. I think she'd probably like to rethink that move now.

Lest there be any confusion, I'm all about comfort. If I'm going to a ball, and I HAVE to wear a dress, I don't want to be a stuffed sausage, squeezed into some slinky number that forces me to suck in my gut all night and pick at my dinner. And I certainly don't mess around with shoes. Are they ugly? Hmmm. Ugly AND comfortable? Sold. We women torture ourselves too much, for heaven's sake. Why should I walk around like a stick figure on uncomfortable stilts, afraid to take a breath so it looks like my stomach is rock solid? Who am I trying to impress? My husband KNOWS I HAVE THREE KIDS. That stomach stuff ain't going away just for the Heart Ball.

That being said, I'm also not big into fancy undergarments. I'll keep these thoughts simple. No lace. Satin. Ribbons. Beads. Strings. And certainly, never, ever do my garments match. Why should they?

So with the OOTS (the owner of the store) foostering with gown number one, waiting for me to undress so she can slip it over my arms and head, I figure, okay, that's what you want. I step out of my slacks to reveal some lovely knee-high pantyhose (black, no less) and my underwear with a tear in it. I have on my favorite bra -- washed at least a million times -- faded and sad looking... and I stand there in full frontal glory. Ta da. Yeah. She let me try on the rest of the gowns alone.

Suffice to say, I didn't go for the -- g-a-s-p -- $1,200 option (the equivalent of two and half months of school for Mike and Jack.) And certainly not the $900 one (roughly three trips to Sam's Club if Joe's doing the shopping.) I chose a beautiful green strapless jobby (cleavage to be inserted by the OOTS's seamstress) and proudly walked out of the store.

I got a letter from her yesterday, thanking me for shopping there.

So I got to thinking. It's easy to get sucked into a situation where you feel pressured to buy something that's way over your budget. Or to make a decision that might make you LOOK good, but not FEEL good. But at the end of the day, you have to be comfortable. Financially and physically.

I'm sure the Heart Ball will be fun. And I doubt any one will much notice me or my new green gown. But I'll feel special in it. And I'll enjoy every morsel of my dinner (thanks to the life-sucking bodysuit I'll be wearing beneath it to smooth out the wonders of cellulite). My new dress is sweet, and simple, and totally me.

It should have been me writing the letter to the OOTS.

Apologizing.

I really need some new underwear.

I do hope many of you saw and enjoyed the story we ran last night on Tricia Cunningham, the beautiful young woman who lost more than 150 pounds in less than a year and a half by totally reversing the way she eats. Can you believe it's been two years since our first meeting with her? Two years since I went to her house and watched her cook a monstrous dinner-time meal for breakfast. (My personal favorite still is how she eats oatmeal and shredded wheat with orange juice for dinner. If you've never tried it, don't scoff until you do.... mmmm...) I wanted to re-introduce you to Tricia because she's come so far since her Channel 4 Action News debut. Her story was picked up by television stations from coast to coast, some even in other countries, and she quickly became a magazine darling... featured in a dozen publications, all sorts of TV shows, and now has her own book, The Reverse Diet. Thanks to YOU... Tricia's story is being told world-wide.

If you missed the segment that ran Thursday night at 5, just click here to watch it. We also have so many of Tricia's delicious recipes to get you started -- and some quick and easy Super Bowl snacks you can make this coming weekend without porking up your guests.

The thing I like most about Tricia is how true she's been to herself. The things she says in her book are the same things she told me in her kitchen back in 2005. Her diet is a total lifestyle change, but don't let that scare you. How many times have you yo-yoed up and down the scale? I can tell you, Tricia may put on 10 or 15 pounds here or there, but her diet gives her the tools to take it off. I think so many of us would feel better about the whole weight situation if we knew we were going to pack it on over the holidays... only to get back on track in January and lose it just as quickly. This diet can help you do that.

I hope you enjoy, and if you'd like to, support Tricia by checking out her book. She is a proud Pittsburgher, proof that if you want to do something, you can.