Our house and the moose and the muffin

There is usually a song streaming in my head.  Sometimes it is just plain annoying, other times it is a rockin' dance party, and other times it just plain speaks the truth.

Recently, Gangnam Style and Surfer Girl have been having a throw down in my head - and in the car.  Oliver has been demanding Gangnam Style and The Badger has been demanding Surfer Girl - both like the volume turned up all the way.  The other afternoon we rolled down our street, parked in the driveway and my phone buzzed: "Gangnam Style...really?"  A quick glance back and I realized the kids had put their windows down and we had announced our arrival home - to the entire North Shore.

But then the snow melted.  The snow melted and I could get a visual on the destruction Charlie has done over the winter (anyone need clear-cutting done?).  The snow melted and the mud appeared.  The snow melted and the amount of mud on the walls of the house (inside mind you) increased a million fold.  And the washer and dryer...constant.  And the muddy liquid being pouring out of boots and children every day... Need I expand?  Anyway, the song rolling in my head now is Our House by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young.  Mind you, the lyrics in my head are a bit different.  They go something like this:

Our House was a very, very fine house
With poop and mud in the yard
Life is now so hard
Now everything is dirty
'Cause of you
And our la,la,la, la,la, la, la, la, la, la, la..... 

I few rounds of this as I clean the walls and pick up the poop.  And then Rick Charrett's song about mud (Mud, mud, I love mud...) pops in as I see the joy in Oliver and Henni's dirty little faces as they race trucks through the mud.  And the joy in Charlie's face as he rips another branch off a tree.

And then, one of the dirty, clear cutting creatures decides to come inside and they announce they are  cold.  How about a bath.  A bath?!  If we are doing a bath, can we have our baking powder powdered submarines?  Sure.  If we have those, can we have bubbles?  Wait, if we have bubbles, can we have jets (the jacuzzi things on the tub)?  Jets!  Can we wear our masks and snorkels to see how they work in the bubbles?  Now we need to take a shower so we can rinse the bubbles off.  If we take a shower, can we fly our sea planes through the monsoon rains?...And so it continues.  That Laura Numeroff (author of If You Give a Moose a Muffin and other similar tales) is damn smart.

And yeah... this is happening....

And this...first experience with Jiffy Pop.