Stroddys: By the Numbers

It looks like this:


3 – Total number of children in the Stroddy household
4 – Total number of children John was convinced he’d want someday, long before he was married and found out what having kids was REALLY like…(who knew???)

1 – Total number of pets in the Stroddy household (down from 2 in ’07)
2 – Number of white lies we told our kids to convince them getting rid of the cat was really a good thing (“the Humane Society will find a new home for him”; “someone will adopt a 9-year old, overweight white cat that sheds and has bladder control issues”)

3 – Number of vehicles currently in the Stroddy driveway
0 – Number of vehicles currently in the Stroddy driveway that don’t have at least 1 major part broken

4 – Number of replacement mailboxes we’ve purchased over the course of our marriage
8 – Number of months between the time our last mailbox was initially damaged, leaving it without a door, and the time we decided we couldn’t deal with wet mail any longer and finally bought yet another one (condolences to our mailman – but, hey, better late than never, right?)

6 – Average number of months that LISSA thinks any given event occurred in the past
4 – Average number of months that JOHN is convinced any given event occurred in the past (um, is one of us remembering in Metric measurements or something???)

12 – The actual age our oldest is turning in April
17 – His adjusted age according to the Keynes-Rademacher emotional/hormone drama quotient pre-teen scale (which John is going to invent and win the Nobel prize for, someday)

9 – The age our middle child turns in April
0 – The number of times our middle child is convinced he wants to get married; also, the number of children he wants to have (he has stated, quite confidently, that he’s NEVER moving out, that he will live with us forever, that he would miss us if he moved out – how cute is that, right?)

2 – The age our youngest child turned in January
10 – The age it FEELS like she should surely have turned by now (seriously, how long do the ‘terrible twos’ last, anyway?)

42 – According to ‘Wii Fit’, John’s age (hey, come on now, I’m only 40 for crying out loud!)
0 – Number of times, since ‘Wii Fit’ gave John this unwelcome information, that John stepped back onto the Wii Fit Balance Board. (Fricker. I thought you were my friend, Tammy the Yoga Instructor! That’s why I picked YOU over the GUY!!!)

33 ½ - John’s current waist size
32 – John’s waist size in high school (hey -- not bad!)
60 – The age John feels when he tries to buy clothes at Abercrombie & Fitch. When did I turn into my father? (Why is this place so dark? Seriously, I can’t even read the labels, the strobes are flashing so much. Oh my word, did they make these clothes out of old rags? Why don’t I just -- $65??? For a flannel shirt??? What are you people, Communists???)

$5 – Record, in the Stroddy household, for highest amount paid out to date by the Tooth Fairy (there were extenuating circumstances, though, as our oldest had to have a tooth pulled at age 5, and my wife, under a wave of guilt because we’d waited so long to take him to the dentist, felt compelled to do SOMETHING to make him feel better.)
2 – Number of years after the tooth was pulled that Ethan held the moniker “snaggletooth”

66 – Number of friends John had, at last count, on Facebook
52 – Number of friends John has on Facebook that he actually knows (who are these people, seriously? Marcus who? And who is giving you all my name???)