Parenting quote from The Middle

I have a new favorite T.V. show. It's called The Middle, on ABC, and I finally got around to watching it today. I don't really watch sitcoms anymore and I almost never laugh out loud watching any show these days, but I laughed, OUT LOUD, all through this show. I recorded it because I love Patricia Heaton, though I rarely watched Everybody Loves Raymond when she played the wife. Just not a big sitcom fan.

Maybe it was especially timely considering what I came home to this afternoon. My husband (remember the reference to perpetual motion in my first post? No? Well, he is it) decided to clean the "room" that our 20-year-old lives in. Mark had a short list of things I really needed done, like a sink faucet that randomly sprays me in the face, but this is what he did instead. And he found stuff. Incriminating stuff. I tried to keep my eyes from rolling, I really did, but there were four piles of Nick's clothing in the garage to wash because, though they were technically clean, they stank. Many missing household items were retrieved (thermometer, serving dishes, our socks) and Febreeze was applied liberally.

We will probably not see our rebellious son for a few days. His bedroom is a pre-fab piney shack in the back yard and he goes to work while we will be at church. But it will be an interesting exchange the next time I stay up late to hang with him. Really late, like midnight. I had nothing to do with the ninja room cleaning; I get to be the good guy these days. But because we are living in the same house with two twenty-somethings and two teenagers (the teens are practically angels), The Middle was more than relate-able. It was downright cathartic.

Favorite quote: "Parenting is like being a cop in a bad neighborhood sometimes." If your children are not yet sixteen or seventeen, you will not think that is very funny. But watch the show on Hulu while it is still free! And laugh your head off or just get ready for things to come.

Oh boy, Nick just drove up. His new (first) car sounds like a lawn mower on steroids. Here we go. . . .