There is nothing I find more delicious than the sweet taste of revenge. Even chocolate takes a back seat when I get that rare opportunity to slice a piece of humble pie and hand feed it to a deserving individual. And no revenge is better than husband revenge!

Any woman who has given birth knows that somewhere between labor and delivery theres this little part of you that forms a grudge toward the man who did this thing to you. And until your thirst for revenge has been satisfied, that little grudge you hold will only get bigger and more a part of every interaction you have with your husband from there on out. Most women find ways to get their revenge in small doses. A simple, "not tonight dear, I'm tired," will go a long way toward major satisfaction. I like to make my husband take care of the dirty jobs, like changing diapers or unclogging a toilet. Recently, I have found the greatest revenge is leaving the husband alone with all the children and watching from afar as he struggles to keep his head above water.

When it comes to the care taking of children, generally speaking, men are no good. There are those rare exceptions, but even then if you talk to that man's wife you'll discover that he's overlooked a few of the details. Now, my husband, while being a great father and supportive husband, doesn't do so well with the constant demands of children. Sundays are Nate's hardest day.

Sundays I work a twelve hour shift at the clinic. Nate stays home with the children for that entire time and I have to admit,that from what I hear has happened,while I was away can be very revenge-satisfying.

Last week, when I returned home after my nice long shift, I found Nate to be in complete disaray. Apparently, at one point during the day he decided to take a fifteen minute break from the children and retreat to our bedroom to play a little PS2. Assuming he was allowed breaks in this job was his first mistake. His second mistake would be leaving the crawling- age baby in the care of the eight-year-old sister. The third, biggest and most crucial mistake was assuming the before mentioned baby was incapable of removing his own diaper whenever the mood struck. Needless to say, fifteen minutes later Nate returned from his little break to find three children rolling with laughter as their baby brother roamed happily through the living room buck naked, leaving a trail of poopies in his wake.

This isn't all fun and easy for me either however. I love my husband. I hate to see him struggle so with the smallest details of parenting. But we all have to learn sometime. But I'm merciful. from time to time I throw him a little rope. I send him and the kids to my mother's house for sunday dinner so that the children get something besides pizza and candy that evening. I've given him some helpful tips to keep the children from getting into bordom-induced mischief.

All in all I'd say he's done quite well. Sure the girls' hair is full of knots and tangles come monday morning, my baby's wearing backwards clothing, and most every child has snot all over their face, but those are just unimportant details. I've also discovered that Matthew's had a great wrestling match with dad and the girls have done their reading. Most of all, the children get to have one whole day of their dad's undivided attention, his love. And that is worth all the detangler in the store.

Plus, I'm now full to the brim with sweet, sweet revenge gratification.

My son the frog

My beautiful son, my prince, Matthew is a frog. Yep thats right. He's a frog. Matthew has been a frog for about five days now and this is all Evonne's fault!

Evonne, who works with my husband at Willey's sent the most adorable frog costume home for Matthew. I never dreamed it would be such a hit. He's literally only shed his froggy skin a couple of times in order to take a bath. I washed it once after a trip to the icecream parlor resulted in a chocolate covered frog. Even then, the boy whined and cried the entire wash cycle. I think he pulled it out of the dryer a little early too, so he was probably slightly damp inside that frog for a while.

Its cute, but a little alarming when a giant frog comes to wake you in the morning. Sliding up next to you in bed and flopping his little froggy limbs over your back.

Matthew is a singing frog too. He imagines he's the frog from Shrek the third singing, as the little froggys in that show do, "Live and let die."

Matthew is always some character. Spider man, bat man, peter pan, iron man, super man, power ranger, teenage mutant ninja turtle, a regular ninja, or a knight in shining armor. Sometimes he even throws on his old chicken costume from a couple of years ago. Its much too small, but he doesn't mind.

If he doesn't own a the costume, as with iron man and peter pan, it doesn't matter, he just makes it himself. Matthew's version of a peter pan costume consists of his underwear, his sister's sparkly purple slippers, a vest, and a green and blue beanie. Iron man is his knight and shining armor helmet, snow boots and underwear. My little Matt lost his spider man mask some time ago and has since been wearing a pair of undies on his head to serve as a mask.

What am I doing about this? Well I did wrestle him out of it on Saturday, but only because I didn't think his coach would appreciate a frog playing in the soccer game. But as soon as we were home, Matthew turned back into a frog and has been one ever since. I don't discourage it. I just play along. I go to the grocery store with my frog, the library, for walks, you name it. I've heard its healthy, this imaginative thinking. Perhaps if I allow my son to be a frog now he'll grow into a very creative, and successful prince later.

Free the Bunnies!

We used to take our rabbit for walks. I bought an adorable little harness that was special made just for rabbits. It looked more like a little mesh vest and was absolutely precious on our little grey bunny. At first I was going to buy a pink and brown vest because I thought it was cute but Brooke insisted we get the blue and brown one because "Dusty" is a boy and might feel dumb wearing pink. We also bought a very expensive leash with a bungy feature so that if Dusty decided to hop he wouldne't be hindered. We were ready. We loaded our new finds into the van and drove home to present them to the rabbit.

It took me and the girls a good forty-five minutes to get the harness securely fastened onto the rabbit without securing half his fur with it. Then we were off. We made it to the front yard before Dusty made a mad dash for the nearest bush, pulling as hard as he could on the bungy leash. It reminded me of a cartoon rabbit kicking up dust behind him, but going absolutely nowhere. We forced him to get back on track and started down the sidewalk again. The next time I looked back Brooke was dragging the poor thing like a stuffed toy. His bum was firmly planted, large back paws stretched out in front, it was a sight to behold.

We ended up carrying him down the street. When we came to our neighbors yard we let him go explore. He loves their pine tree. Then I got another brilliant idea. I thought maybe our bunny would like to have a play date with the neighbor's bunny. I had the girls knock on the Coate's door and ask if "Super Bon Bon" could come out and play.

Super Bon Bon is a giant white rabbit, bigger than some small dogs, with eerie red eyes. But he's the most gentle and sweetest of creatures. At easter time they had him hop down the street and "lay" candy-filled eggs on the sidewalks for the neighborhood kids.

The Coate's oldest daughter hauled the rabbit up from the basement and plopped him down next to ours. We figured they would play well, because as far as we all knew both of them were boys and Bon Bon was neutered. It wasn't the best of play dates. Dusty cautiously inched toward the huge rabbit, sniffing at its twitching nose. Then recognition set in, he realized this was one of his own kind. Before we knew it our little rabbit was mounted on the giant buck, humping with all his might. We pulled him off and within seconds he had launched himself back onto him, this time getting the wrong end of poor Super Bon Bon, so that he was now vigourously humping his face! Super Bon Bon struggled to free himself, but Dusty held fast, sinking his teeth into the other rabbit, White fur was flying in all directions."I'm sorry!" I shreiked, "I had no idea our rabbit was gay!"

Dusty was banned from any future play dates with Super Bon Bon. And his vest-harness is now non-existant since we left it on him when we returned him to his hutch and he ate it. Because I'm a softy and can't stand seeing an animal caged up for twenty-four hours a day, I got into the habit of letting him run rogue in our back yard.

For the first couple times I did it, he stayed in the big blue spruce we have out back. Then the next time, we didn't check on him for a while and he had run to the neighbors yard, where he was fed carrots by the children. Each time we had to catch him, he got a little bit trickier, until the last time we let him go we couldn't even find him for three days and when we finally did round him up it took three people and a fishing net before he was safely back in his hutch.

The last expedition Dusty went out on was, I thought, his last. We saw no sign of him at all for five days. When he was let out he ran as fast as he could toward the neighboring trees, then disappeared. I washed my hands of him. Then, after being wild and free for five whole days, a family who lives a couple of blocks up came to our door with a slightly dishevled grey rabbit tucked under his arm.

Brooke has laid down the law. I am not under any circumstance to let Dusty run free
agian. But so, he doesn't get too restless, she will start taking him for daily walks!

continuing the fall down the rabbit hole (my crazy brother Kirt)

Without my crazy brother's letters coming in the mail every couple of weeks my life was far less interesting. I went back to my daily routine;fixing meals, wiping bums and cleaning peanut butter finger-paint off the kitchen table. It felt good to be free from the mega drama and back to focusing on my family. Then, I got another call from my mother.

"I got a visit from Kirt's in-laws today." She announced. "Kirt packed up his family and moved. No body knows where. I guess he told his in-laws that they'd never see their grandson again and took off." Her words and tone draw me in like a moth going toward the flame.

"Well I guess you had to know that was coming. It was obvious from his first novel-sized letter he'd gone completely nuts and mental illness doesn't usually get better when left untreated. He's probably finally found a cult that would accept him and ran off to buy some 'Nikes' and join." My mother stifles a laugh, then scolds me unconvincingly. I don't know what answers she was looking for with me. I didn't know where Kirt ran off to anymore than the next person. Kirt's in-laws seemed to know the most, and that wasn't much, they just kept talking about how terrified they were that my brother was going to shoot up their house or something.

Weeks past and my mother was absolutely beside herself not knowing where crazy Kirt was. I tried to point out that since he had already been living in a different state and had vowed to never see any of us in person again that things weren't really any different. But of course, being the anxiety-ridden drama queen that she is she just couldn't handle not knowing his exact location.

Then one day my mother received an interesting phone-call. A routine back-ground check traced my brother back to my parents. Instead of getting information on Kirt's character however, the poor investigator got a frantic mother begging for information, any information. Unable to stand my mother's plea, the lady divulged my brother's new address in Oregon. My mother saw this as an answer to her prayer and a second chance.

She called me right after getting off the phone with the investigator. She was ranting about her plans to contact Kirt in a "non-threatening" manner. As if there is anything thats considered non-threatening to a sckitzo. A person that crazy would be suspicious over a pony and bunny card. Here we go again. I thought.

Kirt was absolutely furious he'd been found. He called my mother immediately after receiving her card, demanding to know how she'd found him. He figured he'd covered every track. He'd studied diligently, his TV crime dramas, he left no internet trail. He'd done everything except change his name, all so the evil Mormons couldn't track them down and kill them. And yet, his sixty-something year-old mother who doesn't even know how to run her DVD player had found him within a matter of weeks. How humiliating. Well, in short my mother assured him she would not give out her information and she would not contact him again.

A few short months later, my father was in the hospital with stomach cancer. My mother figured Kirt should know...or rather she wanted him to know. that's when she received the six-page single-spaced letter.

Kirt was sure that she'd made up my father's illness in order to get him to come home and get him back under her control. Then he sends his advice to my father just in case he really was sick, then he lashes out at my mother again for making this crap up. After that, he talks of his wife's illnesses, which are never diagnosed or even described in any way that makes sense. He lets us all know that when he made the decision to disappear he made his peace with the fact that he'd never even know when someone in the family passed away. He justifies his leaving and not returning under any circumstance because he was faced with death and he chose to protect his family. The letter goes on to chastise my mother for knowing that they were sick and in danger and not even "giving a damn about it". He comes up with some crazy story about Mormons drowning a lady on his mission because she didn't pay a debt. He accuses me of stalking him and says that if he sees anyone that even remotly looks like me near his house he'll call the police. Then he closes the letter with some nice blasphemy, wishes my mother and me to burn in hell for our terrible crimes against him, and says goodbye. For good. This time. And promises to disappear better.

In all honesty, I wish there was something we could do to get my brother some professional help. Unfortunately unless he breaks the law, I think there's nothing that can be done. We laugh about it because it releases the emotion without drowning us in the sorrow. I pray that some day, Kirt and his family, especially his young son get the help they need.

My Crazy Brother Kirt

Understanding that my brother is insane doesn't make him any less of an asshole in my opinion. Is that cold? Is that calloused? I honestly don't think I care anymore. He's pulled my last string, got on my last nerve and now I'm done. But...my family saga does make for entertaining reading!

The story of my nutty brother started about four years ago. It was mothers day, the whole family with the exception of one of my brothers were gathered at my parents home to have dinner and celebrate. Kirt, my brother who wasn't present was living in Mesa at the time. During our visit he called to wish my mother a happy mothers' day, and I happened to be the one who answered the phone call. We had always had a close relationship so we got to talking and eventually it came out that he and his family left the LDS religion.

Kirt and his wife had always been very religious, even overly zealous about it at times, so to hear that he had denounced the religion and further-more, that he was no longer Christian, came as quite a shock. My stunned silence spoke volumes, in his mind it was my disapproval. But I assured him that his beliefs had nothing to do with our relationship and that I didn't think any less of him. He seemed to appreciate the words of comfort. He asked me to relate the news to the rest of the family and I agreed. Then with a positive note, our chat ended. That's where I thought the discussion of religion would end, but I was wrong.

It was about a week later that my mother recieved a letter from Kirt. She called me to tell me she now knew what had happened to him, "He's gone insane." She said, matter-of-factly. I didn't quite understand until she let me read the letter for myself.

The letter was four or five pages, typed and single spaced. At first he went on about all the historical evidence that "proves" our church to be wrong. (stuff I've heard a lot before, from others who had left the church). But then Kirt began to say things about his inlaws trying to poison him and his wife with aluminum poisoning in order to control their minds. When they "figured out" what these people were up to, the poisonings became attempts to murder Kirt. Everything he said was very strange, like a scene straight from A beautiful mind.

I was dumbfounded. I didn't really know how to take all of this. My first inclination was to book a seat on the next flight down to Phoenix to talk some sense into my brother, or at least persuade him to seek professional help. It was obvious from the letter, however, that his suspicions had begun to spread to our family too. He mentioned several times how he supposed we would now try to "love" them back into the church, or hold some kind of intervention. Any drastic action would only heighten his paranoia. In the end I decided that writing a letter would be the best course of action. I wanted him to know that I cared about him and his wife and son, that I would be there for them if there is anything they need.

A little over a week after sending him my letter of sisterly love and concern, I recieved my own long-winded angry letter attacking my beliefs, my character, even my intellegence. He also added some new interesting accusations against his former ward members, stating that he believed many of them to be in on the plot to poison him and his family. He claimed he discovered neighbors following him in the grocery store, people breaking into his home while he was out, just to slip some mercury into his food, he even claimed there was an organized commitee of neighbors and former friends all working for the same common goal: get Kirt.

I couldn't leave well enough alone. I had to talk to him. I wrote again, figuring a letter was a lot less threatning. I asked him to explain why he would be a target. I thought that by challenging his belief system, it would eventually break down. Boy was I wrong.

The next time I heard from my brother, he called me obscene names and drudged up my past in order to throw it in my face. I couldn't take it any longer. I wrote him one more time, this time writing him off completely. What can a girl do? After all, I'm no shrink I'm from the same disfunctional family he's from.

My next post is going to be the second part to this story. I lost contact with my brother for about a year and a half. Then, out of the blue, our paths crossed yet again. And the story gets even stranger the second time around.