Partway through this morning, W~ walked up to me out of the blue.
“Mom, if you kill your parents you don’t get anything for Christmas.”
Um, yeah, that’s true.
Given how our morning had been going up to that point, I probably don’t want to know what internal conversation occurred to lead him to that final, somewhat disturbing, conclusion.
Filed under just plain bizarre, Kids
First–thank you all for your congratulations and well-wishes. I feel guilty about not responding to all of the comments, but I haven’t been around my computer much the past few days. I’m afraid to even look at my Google reader and see how many blog posts are waiting for me to catch up on reading. But I have been checking your comments from my phone, and they have been awesome to see.
You know what I was saying the other day about perfect days?
Monday, we got up, got ready, and headed to the beach. The kids played in the sand and the (little) waves. We had boogie boards, so they paddled themselves around. They dug in the sand, building ponds and dams. C~ and I walked up and down the shore, watching for the abundant hermit crabs scuttling around in the water. He would get down on hands and knees, watching them move. He went back and forth between asking me to pick them up, and begging to pick them up himself (which he did very carefully, and always put them back gently). We ate leftover pizza on the beach and just had a fabulous time soaking in the sunlight that is so scarce in our area this time of year.
That night, we headed to a local park where the kids ran through fountains and tossed footballs while the adults grilled steaks with mushrooms and baked potatoes. We all ate them and some awesome fruit together before heading home for the evening.
It was a wonderful day.
Too bad it’s all gone to crap since then.
I woke up in the middle of the night Monday to the sound of Sean shivering next too me. When we got up yesterday morning, he couldn’t even stand up straight due to a backache. He’s been congested, had a sore throat, and has been running a fever. In short, he has the flu, and he’s worthless. He has spent much of the past two days passed out, which has left me trying to deal with kids mostly alone (although today was not nearly as bad as yesterday).
Of course, yesterday was also the day that we had committed to go to his great-aunt’s house. There was no way we could bow out since we knew she had been killing herself to make a whole turkey dinner. We drug his sorry butt the 45 minutes to her place, where she tried repeatedly to pump him full of her prescription medication and, I’m certain, thought I was a horrible person when I told her that a fever of 102.4 was not cause for a visit to the emergency room. We ended up leaving early, so we will make another trip down there this week to make up for it.
This morning, when E~ woke up at 5:30 and wouldn’t go back to sleep, and it was obvious that Sean still wasn’t in any mood to contribute to the parenting, I cried. Literally. And I’m not a crier. But, dang it, I haven’t been getting enough sleep, I have overstimulated kids who are off of their normal schedule, and I’m in my first trimester. That last one alone is enough to justify the constant, bone-numbing exhaustion. This morning, though, it was just too much. I had me a mini-breakdown.
Thankfully, my mother-in-law decided to step in and play angel of mercy. She and her husband took all four kids to a local children’s museum that recently opened. During the few hours that they were gone, I was able to get a shower and take a nap. Life was tolerable again after that–especially since she and I went shopping later while the kids took naps.
Which brings me to yet another reason why I wish I could spend two or three months a year down here (that would be the time between Christmas and Spring). We visited the most amazing produce stand today. Honestly, traffic around it was screwed up from all of the people trying to pull in and out. I couldn’t help grabbing pineapple, coconut, blueberries, plums and sugar snap peas to snack on (in addition to the stuff we actually went there for).
Ahhh…This is the life.
Sean will be better tomorrow. He doesn’t have a choice. I’ll have to beat the snot out of him if he isn’t.
…and it has nothing to do with eggnog.
I promised you all that I would take the password off of my “secret” posts after Christmas.
And now you know.
Filed under pregnancy
There have been several times in the past–in memes and games–what my “perfect” day would be. I’ve never really had a good answer for it. I’m a lot closer to that, now.
At this moment, I am in Florida visiting my mother-in-law and her husband. Today was a great day, but not quite perfect. We got up this morning, got everyone ready, headed to the marina, and set off on their boat. After about an hour, we docked by an island.
The kids went down the water slide off the back of the boat. After awhile, we headed onto the island. The kids played in the water. They used buckets and shovels to dig in the sand. They blew bubbles. We combed the beach picking up shells (there were so many that it sounded like wind chimes as the waves went in and out). We grilled hot dogs on the boat and ate them with cheese, olives, chips and guacamole. We saw a manatee in the water. W~ and C~ napped as we drove the boat back to the marina.
It was a wonderful day (even if I am sunburned from it).
This week, though, I’ve had a day that was even better.
To drive from my house to my current location, about 2/3 of the way down Florida, takes about 17 hours (not counting stops). We drive it in two day, but we try to make the second day really short. We left home Friday at about six in the morning. We didn’t stop at a hotel until about 11:30 at night.
And that, my friends, was just about a perfect day.
I had seventeen hours where all four kids were strapped in and, amazingly, pretty well behaved. Seventeen hours where I got to sit very, very still. Seventeen hours where I didn’t have anything else that I needed to be doing.
After weeks of preparing for Christmas and packing for our trip, it was glorious.
OK, so it has been no big secret that I really don’t get all of the hullabaloo over the Twilight series. I mean, they were kind of a fun read, if you ignore the dysfunctional relationships, repeated use of the same three words, and cheesy ending to the series.
But the obsession? The twitterpating? Just. Don’t. Get it.
And, of course, up until now, my older sister has been about the worst of the Twi-hards. She thinks I’m dead inside. I think that she’s going through a mid-life crisis. Whatever–we just have to agree to disagree on the merits of the series.
The point of all of this, though, is that she’s no longer the queen of the vampire freaks. Oh no, she has definitely been dethroned.
Yesterday, we had a big Christmas party with Sean’s family. I walked in the front door and his twenty-year-old cousin came running up to me.
“You have to see my new tattoo!” she gushed (although, if she were a character in the books, she would have been glaring while she smoldered it).
Now, this cousin already has a couple of tattoos. The first one was a tiny flower on the side of her foot. Nothing horrible. The second one is a huge, heart-shaped Celtic knot thingy with her son’s name under it. But at least it is on her rib cage and, therefore, usually hidden.
She held out her arm. On her wrist, in thick, black lettering, is the word “Twilight.” She just took the book with her, pointed to the title, and said, “Do that.”
You know, some day she really isn’t going to care about those books. And there is no covering this thing, unless she wants to wear really long sleeves for the rest of her life.
When you can live forever, what do you permanently scrawl on your body?
Yikes.
Filed under Books, just plain bizarre
So far, I have showered, eaten breakfast, and thrown dinner in the crock pot.
Is it too late to go back to bed?
Filed under Daily Life, Holidays, I think my head might explode
Tonight was our annual youth activity where we went Christmas caroling at a nursing home.
Before we left the church, there was a brief discussion wherein the kids were asked the difference between being light-hearted and light-minded (basically, the difference between having fun and acting stupid). The kids were encouraged to enjoy the caroling, but take the experience seriously.
We got to the nursing home and walked in the front door. Several of the young (and adult) men started making quiet comments about the strange “old people” smell.
They had no idea.
And they will never have a clue, because they will never have a uterus. Or a tiny inhabitant therein. I tiny inhabitant that made EVERY SINGLE THING, including the twelve-year-old boys, smell like the WORST SMELL EVER.
While everyone else spent the next hour enjoying the truly wonderful experience, I cough/gagged my way through the songs as each new hallway brought a different odor. The cough/gag was my only defense because, while I don’t think it would have qualified as acting light-minded, I doubt that puking in the middle of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen would have made me popular.
At one point, we passed a nurse’s aide with one of those little trolley carts. It took every ounce of self-control to not beat her up for her pitcher of ice water.
Ah, the joys of the first trimester.
Thanks to the morning sickness, my parents now know the news. I woke up yesterday morning to find out that all of my Fresca was gone. Clueless husband–that was my best defense against the green nasties. I called my mom and asked her if she had any soda since I had “a bit of an upset stomach.”
“Sure. Are you coming down with something?”
I tried to play it cool and told her that I was just feeling a little off. Nothing big.
“Morning sickness?” she joked.
What am I supposed to say at that point?
“Um, yeah.”
Her response?
“How the heck did that happen? I mean, I know how it happens, but…”
I sure hope she knows how it happens. Because she was pregnant six times. And, for those of you keeping track at home, that still beats me by two.
‘Twas the night before shipping deadlines,
And all through the house,
Not a creature was stirring
Except me and my mouse.The pictures uploaded
And laid out with care,
In hopes that by Christmas
The in-laws presents will be here.
How many years now have I made photo albums for Sean’s family? Four? Five? You would think by now that I would decide to pass on the holiday tradition of waiting until the last possible second to order them. With the family Christmas party this weekend, there is no way that I will have them in time for the official celebration. They should arrive by Christmas, though. That’s the most important thing to me, since we leave for Florida the next day, and I know that we need to deliver his great aunt’s by hand while we are there. She just finally got last year’s less than a month ago (not our fault, by the way).
The whole Christmas holiday is wearing me out. I went and did most of my Christmas shopping this past Saturday. While I was fighting the onset of a migraine. Good times. I all but struck out at Target and WalMart, given my unwillingness to buy meaningless crap just to be done with the shopping.
In desperation, I headed over to the Toys R Us by our local mall. At dinnertime. Talk about the belly of the beast. I think I know how Jonah felt. The place swallowed me up and puked me back out. But, I did finally find gifts for my kids there, so it was worth the excruciating experience.
So, at this point, I have bought presents for my kids and husband and have ordered the photo albums for Sean’s family. That just leaves my parents. I was thinking about getting them these:
Maybe not.
Seriously, who would be that tacky??? Or cheap and curmudgeonly?
And I’m no closer to a gift for my parents, who are notoriously difficult to shop for. If they want something, they just go out and buy it.
Sucks to be them.
Filed under Holidays, I think my head might explode
In case you have been wondering–no, I’m not dead. My absence this week (if you even noticed at all), was only due to me feeling like I was dying.
Colds suck.
You know that you are sick when you start believing that the five-year-old might be mature enough to watch the baby. Or when you stop doing superfluous things like showering and brushing your teeth. Or when you call your husband half an hour into the work day to ask him to come home early, then spend the rest of the day essentially catatonic on the couch.
And the worst part? That would be when our satellite decided to go out for no good reason. Do you know how awful it is to be stuck on the couch and only have stuff that you forgot to erase off of the DVR to watch over and over?
Thank heavens I’m feeling like a person again.
I recovered in time for our Young Women in Excellence program last night. The girls did a beautiful program with lots of songs and narration that focused on stars and being a light to the world. I think that everyone was touched by the Spirit during the program.
Of course, for me, the theme of the stars brought up a lot of old memories. That used to be a theme/running joke in my life.
When I was a teenager, I became friends with a young man that I went to church with. He and I really started becoming friends right around the time that he was having a crisis of faith. Or an explosion of social life. He had gone from being a somewhat chubby trombone player in the high school band to a weight lifting, football playing, “Greek god” (my mother came up with that one) over the course of one summer. That fast and drastic of a change got him a lot of attention–not the kind that necessarily would make a teenage boy feel like clinging to religion.
Still, he and I became very good friends. We would talk a lot about life. He was a couple of years old than I was, and left for college. During that time, when I was insecure about not having a boyfriend, he would come home from college and ask me who I was dating. When I would tell him that I wasn’t, he would insist that it had to do with a choice I was making because any guy would want to date me. He did more for my self esteem at that point in my life than he would ever know.
One summer, when he was home from school and we were hanging out a lot, the stars became a regular topic of conversation for us. It started when I said how much a loved them. He asked why, and I smiled and said it was because I planned to have my own someday.
After that, he would tease me whenever I commented about the lack of stars some evening.
“They’re right there,” he would tell me.
“Where?” I would ask, looking up into the sky.
“Right there…behind the clouds.”
We had several conversations after that about his relationship with religion. I firmly believed that his testimony was like the stars–right there, behind the clouds.
It has been seven years since I’ve talked to my friend. Every so often, something reminds me of him, and I wonder how he is doing. I’ve always regretted that I wasn’t able to be the change in his life that I felt he was in mine.
I still hope that, someday, he’ll see the stars.
I’ve got too much on my plate. I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. (Isn’t it interesting that we describe stress with food terms? Then we stuff our faces to deal with the stress. She says while eating a bowl of ice cream.) So, instead of being productive, I’m blogging.
So, what all is on my figurative plate? Hmmm…Christmas shopping, making photo albums for Sean’s family for Christmas (they ask that I do it every year), make decorations for a big program we are doing for our teenage girls this Wednesday and, oh yeah, try to run a household with four little kids, three dogs, a husband…you get the idea.
To top it all off, the kids are sick. Oh yeah, and so am I. Yay.
C~ had a nasty fever all yesterday afternoon and evening. It didn’t break until half-way through the night. He was miserable. And E~ has one of those lovely coughs where, every time I lay him down, he sounds like a barking seal. Obviously, I kept them both home from church today. They both seem to be feeling ok at this point (thank heavens), but sleeping is still going to be an issue. I’m just praying that E~ doesn’t get the fever, too.
I was bad while home today. Instead of trying to create a fun, impromptu spiritual experience for us all, I turned on Mythbusters and tidied my living room. The Mythbusters gods must have known I would be watching. How else can you explain the fact that they were testing whether or not you can get hurt by peeing on an electric fence? (Answer: Yes, you can get shocked, but it isn’t incapacitating. One of the guys actually did it.)
In other news…
E~ has broken through a second tooth. Hooray! Someday, he may actually be able to chew something.
We have had more breakthroughs on the potty training front with C~. Every child has his currency…apparently, C’s is Twizzlers. I bought a pack yesterday, and told him he could have one once he pooped in the potty. Later, he told me he needed to. I hurried him back, where he quickly changed his mind. After much cheerleading (and a few tears from him), he earned that Twizzler.
Apparently, the experience provided him with a measure of comfort about the whole issue. He pooped on the potty three times today–twice completely on his own. WooHoo! In addition to his Twizzlers, Grandma came over this evening to bring him brown M&M’s.
Yes, just brown.
Isn’t that how everyone celebrates a pooping victory?
Random Kid Funnies…
The other day, N~ had to read the word “hip” in his phonics lesson.
“Mommy, what is a hip?” he asked me.
“Well, it’s where your leg hooks into your body. Right here,” I said as I pointed to my side.
“Oh, next to your love handle?”
Nice.
****************************
C~ loves to vacuum. As I was straightening up today, I gave him the chance to do so. Now, a lot of little kids enjoy vacuuming. What is strange to me, though, is that he is also very insistent about putting it away.
I let him push it over to the closet and opened the door for him. He seemed to be struggling with getting it in right, so I started to push it in for him.
“No, Mommy, I do it. How ’bout you go get me a drink?” Said as a command, not a question. Thankyouverymuch.
****************************
We finally decorated the Christmas tree tonight (we cut it down over a week ago). In the past, I have let the kids help put up the non-breakable ornaments, then the “elves” came to decorate with the glass bulbs after they went to bed. This year, I let them do the whole thing with me (as my husband pointed the camera at me and called out, “Say ‘Full frontal lobotomy!'”).
N~ and W~ lost interest about half-way through–about the time that Sean took pity on me and made hot chocolate to distract them. C~, however, was not to be seduced by the cocoa. That child shows true Christmas decorating potential. He would contemplate the placement of each ornament. As we got more and more done, he started to get excited and tell me, “Look, Mommy! It’s my special tree!”
And that about wraps up my rambling, disjointed post for today. Just think, I’m not even taking any cold medication. This is all snot and lack of sleep.
Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day. I still have a lot of stars to cut out for Wednesday’s decorations. With any luck, I’ll be ready for the task by tomorrow. Because, apparently, I am so out of shape at this point that hovering over the poster board to trace them all was taxing enough to give me sore butt muscles.
I’m so proud.
Filed under Daily Life, I think my head might explode, Kids, Potty Training
Mixed Nuts 