Phoenix just mauled a Smurf.

No matter where he goes, he just can’t seem to get enough of that Babies R Us mailer.

The streets are safe again now that Wonder Woman, who is approaching a size 6, fit into her old, size 18 months-2T uniform.

For Sage’s recent 4th birthday, we bought her a bubble machine so I wouldn’t get stuck blowing bubbles until I pass out.  Yesterday’s post reflects how awesome this bubble machine was.  It shot out hundreds of bubbles a minute, and all I had to do was push the ‘on’ button.  Phoenix thought it was pretty awesome, too.  (Please note that this is all in the past tense.)

After this day of trying it out, I decided to leave it outside, next to the front door.  I didn’t clean out the bubble mix.  I figured I’d get to it later.  I forgot.  When I remembered, it was a week or so later.  We live in Virginia.  Virginia is infested with nasty bugs.  Tons of them.  Half of them made it inside this bubble machine.  By the time I got to it, none of the bubble mix was even left because these idiotic, suicidal bugs drank it all.

I tried to clean it.  Absolutely disgusting.  Bug carnage everywhere.  I got most of it cleaned up.  We tried to use it again.  It sucks now.  It shoots out a few bubbles at a time.  Sage doesn’t seem to really notice.  I’m pissed.  What a waste.

Last week, in all seriousness, Sage announces to me that she wants to work for Modern Bird Studios.  And she wants her own computer.  She also let me know that she has 40 followers on Twitter.  I wasn’t aware she had an account.  She wants money.  To buy a Jesse doll (from Toy Story II).

Anytime we go to the store, she always wants something, and 100% of the time, we walk away not getting her anything.  Sorry Sage, this is our reality.  Money is tight.  We didn’t launch Modern Bird Studios because we had boat loads of cash and thought it would be fun losing sleep and working our butts off trying to make it work.  We launched for our financial survival.  I feel bad that she is kinda picking up on that, however I’m impressed that she came up with a solution for her to get the things she wants.  Poor Sage doesn’t realize that coming to work for Modern Bird Studios means long hours including nights and weekends and the occasional all-nighter, no pay, no insurance, absolutely no benefits package, no cell phone, and no perks.  On the flip side, she’ll get to help build something completely exciting, something all her own, have fun with social media all day, collaborate on creating new products, and take some control in her destiny.

I let Sage know that she would need to go through a stringent interview process and that there are no guarantees that she will be hired.

Before kids, I always envisioned relaxing vacations with our kids where we happily played as a family.  Everyone is in good spirits.  The kids readily sleep the whole way during the drive.  We are so happy to spend time together.  We sprint to the sand to build sandcastles together.  The kids play peacefully with their cousins.  Everyone eagerly cooperates so we can take wonderful pictures to memorialize the whole week.  We are sad about leaving, but we come home refreshed and recharged.  Total euphoria.

Reality is quite different.  The drive is long.  Sage is awesome.  Phoenix is a disaster.  He refuses to sleep, and he screams, whines, and cries for 4 hours before he finally gives up and passes out for 20 minutes, and then wakes up…to start the whole process over for the last two hours.  We store the snack food between the two of them in the back, and he is constantly grabbing stuff and trying to rip it open.  I quickly scramble to get it out of his hands and stow it in my foot area so that, a couple hours in, I have no spots left for my feet to comfortably rest.  The best part is when he gets a hold of one of the BIG bags of M&M’s.  We do not realize it until we hear that characteristic sound of M&M’s spilling out all over him.  It is a race between me trying to grab the M&M’s away from while he stuffs them into his mouth.

It takes maybe a day or two before the kids are completely melting down from pure exhaustion.  Sage plays with her cousins, but she is constantly in tears because they won’t let her into ‘the club’.  I forbid them from forming clubs, but they don’t listen.

It is fun playing on the sand.  Sage is awesome outside.  No tears.  She happily plays…until Phoenix comes along and destroys anything that she or any of her cousins are trying to build, including the ‘poop bath’ that Sage is insistent on building.  What the heck is a ‘poop bath’ and what is the appeal to Sage???  Anyway, us adults sit in our seats, and Phoenix comes along and throws sand in such a way that the wind carries it to all of our eyes.  Nice timing, kid.

And the clean up.  It is such a pain trying to get them cleaned up to get them inside.  Sand everywhere.  It’s almost worth it to leave them inside to avoid the mess and the effort it takes to de-sand them.

We can’t forget about taking photos.  Sage is cooperative.  She does do some wonky poses, and I have to tell her to just be natural, but aside from that, she’s awesome.  Phoenix won’t cooperate.  We are able to fake it in a few shots!

We are happy to leave.  Happy to get back to our home with our beds with our schedules with our space without the need to hose off before going inside.  We are exhausted.  More exhausted than we were before we left.  May we recover quickly because we have to get back to work.  Ahh, the joys of small business ownership…

We were lucky enough this year to have the rare opportunity to watch a mass baby sea turtle exodus happen during daylight hours right outside the beach house we were staying in this week.  These sorts of things typically happen at night, and some people will camp out into the wee hours of the early morning to catch a glimpse of the babies as they make their way towards the water.  Not us.  We headed down to the quartered-off area, watched the sand move around, and witnessed the very first turtle make his way out of the sand and down the smoothed-over sand area.  He was a sprinter, too.  The kids were going crazy over it, including Phoenix who was screaming at them.  Gregg took some video and edited this little gem for us:

The Baby Turtle VLOG from The Lame Sauce on Vimeo.

I feel bad because the vast majority of the pictures I’ve taken this week have been of Phoenix.  It’s his first ‘real’ experience with the ocean as he was only 4 months old last year when we came, and really, how fun is the beach when you are barely getting around??  I did bring a cute sundress that I had full intentions of taken lots of photos of Sage wearing, and tonight was the night to get it done!  After they downloaded into my computer, my heart broke a little.  She’s only four years old, however, she doesn’t look like my little baby anymore, and before I know it, she is going to be a teenager and then she’ll be moving off to college and then getting married and then having her own babies…