does your husband do it right?

this will probably be my last post for the year.

we're heading 'over the river & thru the woods' to iowa. we plan on leaving monday night and arriving there wednesday afternoon. the plan is to drive all monday night while the kids sleep and keep driving til around 4 in the afternoon tuesday. then get a hotel for the night in indiana or western ohio and get the kids some exercise and a good night's sleep. then on the road again on wednesday morning and in grandma & grandpa's driveway before dark. hope the kids decide to cooperate with the plan. if not, we have lots of dvds to play. i think i counted 13...enough to play nonstop the whole way.

presents are all bought and mostly wrapped. hope they get to iowa in good enough condition to put under the tree. we have the mini van and the car top carrier. rob is insistent on leaving the rear seat up so that whoever isn't driving can sleep. personally i think we're really going to need the space. i also think it would have taken less space to just wrap our gifts in iowa. but they're wrapped now, so we'll have to make do.

tomorrow i have to:
--do ass tons of laundry, the kids have to wear some decent clothes
--pack
--do more laundry
--check on rob's packing of the car b/c he just doesn't do it right (everything that i might need to have handy while the car is in motion gets put in back. all of his stuff gets a lovely place on top and all of our stuff is on the bottom getting smushed.)

speaking of laundry...i bought cade some flannel shirts that i'm thinking about letting him wear for xmas eve. on that night we have a soup supper with my mom's side of the family and we exchange presents. it's totally out of control & i love it. kids running everywhere, sneaking food off the table, old farts bitching about the kids running everywhere...you know how family get-togethers are. this side of the family are pretty much rednecks. they live for 'coon-hunting', in fact my uncle raises coon dogs. the hot gift last year at the exchange was the million candlelight hand-held spotlight. ??? rob got one and he didn't know what the hell to do with that. who knew you could get one at walmart for under $10. so anyway, cade will fit right in with his new short hair and his flannel shirt.

i really hope rob & i survive this trip. just down the road to petco today i wanted to murder him. i get so flippin' tired of the damn coffee cup he has to carry everywhere he goes. he's a coffeeaholic who wants frequent kisses but hasn't figured out why i go for a peck on the cheek. this coffee cup has a flip top that he never flips shut. the cup doesn't fit in the cupholder very well (it's too narrow at the bottom) but he refuses to flip it shut. i've told him IN VERY PLAIN TERMS that if he spills coffee in our new van that i will hurt him. the best is when i ask him to help out by carrying something to the car and he looks at his hands...his right one has the car keys and the left one has that damn coffee cup. then he looks at me like i'm asking him to donate his last kidney and says, *sigh* 'hang on, let me' maneuvers both items into one hand, 'try and get a free hand.' UGH. i can carry 1 kid, a purse, my keys, sunglasses, a sippy cup, hat for the youngest, and my list. with my gloves ON. i wish sometimes that men would just try. just try to put themselves in someone else's seat and realize that they could help out more. honestly, can they help out less? physically impossible, in rob's case.

and now, i must go to bed. i need to have energy so i can do my mountains of laundry in the morning. rob volunteered to help and i just laughed. laundry is another thing he just doesn't do right. (things are matched by color but not by texture. he'd throw towels in with the kids gentle stuff if they are close enough in color...funny, that's how they do laundry on the sub.)

good night.
merry christmas.

oh and we still don't have a definite answer yet on the whole iraq thing.