"Remember, as far as anyone knows we are a nice normal family."

That was printed on a little wall hanging gift a couple at our church gave us a few months ago and it almost applies to our family.

I say 'almost' because it takes less than 15 mins for us to completely shatter any illusions of normalcy. Even our cats seem determined to guarantee we make prime candidates for a Jerry Springer show.  But they're no competition for my offspring.

Let's see. Sarah's in 7th grade now. She's acutely aware of boys and of the fact that they look at her. This, of course, means that the natural course of teen evolution known as 'puberty' had to choose this point in her life to attack in all its oily, patchy skin tone glory. She, predictably, thinks the world has officially ended because her complexion is no longer clear and it's up to me to snap my fingers and fix things.

Sorry kid. If I was able to survive my freshman year of high school looking like Mother Nature had slapped me across the face with a terminal case of chicken pox and a side of the facial measles, you'll manage to get through one grade of middle school with a minor constellation tucked safely under your bangs.

My advice to her has always been "scrub your face twice a day with these facial cleansers and let your skin breathe for awhile." Apparently, when this is entered into the Parent to Teen translator, it comes out as "Slather three inches of makeup over every pore in your face and suffocate the breakouts to death."

"Mom! It's not working! I just found four more zits! OMG!! Kill me now!"

*twitch*



The other day my two little ones started arguing over what to watch that evening. Sarah suggested "Bambi 2" and was met with "Yeah! Let's watch that!" Okay, normal enough right?

A few minutes later, Heather and Sarah were parked on the couch snuffling back tears as the movie rehashed why Bambi suddenly finds himself raised by his father instead of his mother. Hunter was rather agitated as well.

Hunter: "I don't want to watch THIS. I wanna watch 'Bambi'!"
Me: "This is 'Bambi', it's just the second movie."
Hunter: "No! Not cartoon! 'BAMBI'!! Daaaaaaaaad!!!"

Not a cartoon? There's a live action 'Bambi' movie? When did this happen?

Steve came into the room to investigate the ruckus and listened for a minute before this devious little grin snuck across his face and he reached for Hunter's hand.

Steve: "You want to watch 'Bambi', huh? Alright, Buddy. Let's go watch 'Bambi'."

Then they headed toward our bedroom. Ermm... We don't have a DVD player in our room. Confused, I followed along behind them and watched as they settled comfortably on the bed and turned on the TV.

The DVR fired up.
Steve flipped through a myriad of shows that had been recorded while I was lost in my homework these past few weeks.

TV: "Welcome to the latest adventure of Whitetail Hunters of America! Join us as we go in search of our biggest trophy since we started filming our hunting trips!"
Hunter: "Yay! BAMBI!!!"

*faint*