I'm onto you. So are the "Freakonomics" people. (Read more about it here.)

Look, I consider myself an experienced parent. I have three kids, been installing car seats for 5 years, worked at Babies R Us, (discounts, hooray!) and even took a few car seat safety classes. No other kid gear intimidates me more than the car seat. I'm still never fully certain if I have ours installed correctly.

Would it be too much to ask if you could simplify things? I can break down a Pack N Play in my sleep, can strip down any highchair on the market...I can even walk and chew gum at the same time. What I am trying to say is that I am an educated, quasi-intelligent consumer, and I struggle with the seats. Surely there must be a better way.

I understand where y'all are coming from. Any changes made must be thoroughly tested before introduced to the general populace, especially in our litigious society. I get it. I am willing to pay more if I can rest well knowing that damn thing is in right. Yes, I know there are car seat inspectors. It's about the convenience factor. I am a mom to three....do you have any idea what it takes to get them loaded up and ready to go? Furthermore, do you have any idea what it takes to get your product installed in my vehicle? Again, willing to pay BIG money for an easy to install correctly seat. Big, BIG money.

LATCH was an improvement. But like a hot-to-trot frat boy on a Saturday night, I need more. I need a seat that buys me dinner first. Hell, I'd even settle for one that didn't act like a recalcitrant two year old constantly refusing to do what you expect it to do.....get in the car like a good little seat. It is completely appalling that I need a shower every time I install one. Y'all are just trying to get me naked like that frat boy. Well, I got news for you....the show ain't all the great anymore, so the joke is on you.

Please, I beg of you. Make a seat that's easy to install correctly. Or I may have to resort to drastic measures.....

You really don't want to see pics of me naked installing the seat. Trust me.

I always swore that I would never do it. My mom did it to me, and to this day I can't look at anything with a ruffle or flounce. I am just now starting to wear shirts with ruching, and I'm 34.

Nope, I was not going to make my daughter a girly-girl.

Well, this morning LMD woke up and asked if the Easter Bunny brought her a "Princess Basket". (Yep, he did.) She then gleefully went outside and collected all the pink eggs in the yard, telling me the other colored eggs were Cman's.

She was resplendent in pink pjs, pink dress-up shoes, and pink earrings. I had a fully coordinated diva workin' it at 7 am.

I wonder if she can give me some fashion coaching?

Today the Chaos family spent a perfect afternoon. The two older kids played on a Slip N Slide while Youngling napped. The hubby and I soaked up some sun and drank some brew. The scent of Hawaiian Tropic was in the air (yes, it's bad for you, but I am sorely lacking in Vitamin D). Flashback songs were cranking......"Radio Free Europe" reminded me of college, "Good" reminded me of an ex I was glad to be rid of, and then on came "Island in the Sun" by Weezer. No song could better describe the Chaos family Saturday afternoon. The kids' kites were gently aloft in a warm spring breeze. I realized yet again all the reasons I madly fell in love with Mr. Chaos, and for brief moments I felt like I did before kids.....carefree, young and vital.

Mr Chaos and the kids came back to the house to play on the Slip N Slide. We were all trying to get Mr. Chaos to slide, since he never had before. (Can you believe it? And what's up with that, anyway?) Cman was lifting his daddy's shirt when I heard:

Cman: Whoa, daddy. That's a LOT of back hair. (It's not, really.)
Mr. Chaos: Thanks, bud. (Meanwhile I am giggling hysterically)
Cman: And ear hair.
Mr Chaos: *grunt*
Cman: And NOSE hair. Does that mean you are old?
Mr Chaos: Yeah, bud, guess it does.

I am rolling in my seat, people. Do you have any idea how funny it was to listen to Mr. Chaos get dressed down? Then I hear......

Cman: But not as old as mommy.

*insert sound of record scratching across lp here* Wha? Me? But I am young! Vibrant! Playing on Slip N Slide! And only 6 months older than daddy. What gives?

Cman: Yep, mommy is WAY old. (Et tu, Brute?)

Shit. I am fairly certain Weezer never wrote about this.

There is a reason I haven't written in just about forever. I had a truly horrific nightmare about a month ago, and every time I sit down to write, all I can do is flashback. I have tried unsuccessfully to shove this evil dream into a padlocked box, but it keeps leaking out the keyhole in a blackened, acidic cloud. In a desperate attempt to feed my muse, I'm finally going to write about it.

The Chaos family was at a cabin in the Wisconsin northwoods with Grandma and Grampa Chaos. It was early evening. The fireflies were just starting to flicker in the darkening sky. I could hear the waves gently lapping the shore over the quiet crackle of the campfire. Pines towered over us, blotting out all but a few stars beginning to flicker in the sky. The night air was heavy with the scent of dew. Life couldn't have been more idyllic as the kids ran around the campfire. I remember I breathed a deep sigh of contentment.

Then LMD tripped. I watched as time stretched, twisted and melted. My fair haired beauty had fallen headfirst into the campfire. It roared with a ferocious hunger, lapping at her hair, devouring her pale, tender flesh. She twitched a few times, screamed briefly, and fell still. My darling peanut, a source of neverending frustration and joy, was now nothing more than a shrinking, blackened hull. Not only did my mind and body go numb, but I felt part of my very soul wither and die as I watched.

I don't think that part has come back upon waking. I'm horrified that part of my maternal mind has become defective.....to think I had dreamt such a vivid demise for one of my own! Surely someone must need to revoke my mom license. Isn't the uterus supposed to kick out hormones that make mothers fiercely protective? Are mine going haywire?

After much soul searching, google searches on dream analysis, and talks with friends both online and off, I am relieved to discover dreaming of the death of a child is symbolic of death of a childhood dream. This nightmare took place the night of my storm post. It fits. Scarily, eerily so.

Now if I could get the image out of my mind and the smell of putrid smoke out of my nose, I may be free to write. Muses? If you please.

The Antagonista herself tagged me. Wants me to list six weird things about myself. Here they are, in no particular order....

1. I have a hangup with numbers adding up to three or multiples of three. I will look at the time, for example, and if the numbers don't add up to three or a multiple of three, I will look around me to find other numbers to add until it happens. Yes, it's a sign of OCD, but I swear, it's the only symptom of it I have, and I think it makes me unique. Plus, I can hide it rather well.

2. I can reach and scratch anywhere on my back with ease. I can also grasp my hands behind my back and bring them around to my front without letting go. This makes applying self-tanner a snap, but has very few other practical uses.

3. When bored, I will break words down in my head, and the longer the better. For example, the word antagonist is a 10 letter word, so I will break it out as an-ta-go-ni-st or antag-onist. Twelve letter words become quite fun with all the permutations. In this case, I am completely ok with the words not having letters that are multiples of three. I do it to entertain myself when I am waiting in line at the store.

4. I must sleep with something covering me. I don't care how hot or humid it is, I must have at least a sheet covering me, or I can't sleep. It drives Mr. Chaos, the human furnace crazy, and it was extremely uncomfortable while nine months pregnant with LMD in the depths of Arizona summer.

5. I rarely use recipes. I will for baking, but for dinner.........fuhgeddaboudit. I use them for ideas, or for a springboard, but I tweak them relentlessly to make them my own. I don't know how weird that is, though.

6. This probably only qualifies as annoying, but I end sentences with prepositions all the time. And, I like it.

Now then........let's continue the weirdness factor. I tag MB and Het. How weird are you sickos?

Anything productive. Seems I am having one of those weeks (months, lives?) where I just can't pull it all together. Cman is back at school after Spring Break, so I should be clicking on all cylinders again, but I just can't. Everytime I turn around there is a new mess, a new problem, a new wrinkle in my perfectly planned day that makes it all go haywire.

Example? I go in the bathroom because LMD has flushed a whole roll of paper down the toilet (again). While mopping up bits of what appears to be a paper mache project gone horribly awry, I realize it's too quiet. Go in living room to find LMD has given Youngling oreo cookies. Proceed to clean drooly cookie shmoo off baby, which requires a complete change of clothes. While in Youngling's room realize I don't see LMD. Find her in living room dripping melted popsicle on the oatmeal couch. Curse self for believing the saleswoman who promised stains would blot right off the microsuede. Send LMD to room while mopping up the couch mess. Find Youngling trying to eat remaining cookie goo off the carpet. Put LMD in time out and Youngling down for nap. Go to bathroom to get 5 minutes to regroup and find......

the paper mache gone horribly awry.

Is it any wonder I haven't been blogging?

Tomorrow I promise I will lock myself in here and let them run amuck. Well, more than usual anyway. In the meantime, any donations of maid or nanny services will be quite welcome.