Nothing, Really

I'm Out!

2010-06-28T08:46:00.001-07:00

I'm going on vacation!

My sister and I, her 11-year old son and my two children (ages 2 and 8) are taking a grand road trip up the east coast. 11 days of shenanigans! Lots of time in a car with a toddler! Ack! We will visit family, an aquarium, we will watch fireworks and go to amusement parks and art festivals and amish country and a civil war reenactment and an Indian museum and we'll even see Rock City!

We have decided to blog about our trip - we figured out that we can e-mail blog posts (with pictures attached, even!) from our smartphones, so it is ON. Should you desire, you can visit the blog: The Tucker Girls' Great Northern Adventure. We can be sarcastic from time to time, be warned. Rest assured any statement regarding abandoning our children at rest stops or adopting them out to Bigfoot are only jokes.

We have been planning this trip for over a year, thus we had lots of time to contemplate. That contemplation led to the establishment of rules via the Constitution (rules for car behavior) and the Bill of Responsibilities (rules for being a houseguest).

We also created a scavenger hunt for the two older kids in the car to complete. And it's no regular car scavenger hunt - it's special. Check the list out here. It's epic. And trip-wide - it lasts until the kids complete all the items and/or we get home. And what do the kids get for their troubles, you might ask? Trophies! With their names engraved on them! (I recommend Crown Awards if you find yourself in need of a trophy - our trophies were $3.95 each, including the engraving)

Yay for vacation!

Wordless Wednesday

2010-06-23T08:40:00.001-07:00

(photos courtesy of Katie King, pnj.com)

From my neck of the woods:

2010-06-10T13:30:00.000-07:00

Contract workers cleaning oil off the beach (photo by Tony Giberson, pnj.com)

Oil clump on beach (photo by Tony Giberson, pnj.com)

The boats in the background are shrimp trawlers skimming for oil

Tarballs

A health department notice. This particular beach was the one I practically grew up on.

(unless noted, all photos by Bruce Graner, from pnj.com)

Say what?

2009-11-08T20:35:00.000-08:00

We are preparing for a hurricane in November. Not fair!

Right now my lovely hometown is right in the center of Ida's projected path cone. School has been canceled through Thursday (Bella's teacher was almost jubilant when she called to tell me). There's a run on ice and bottled water at the grocery stores, gas stations are mobbed, and insanity reigns. The good thing about hurricanes is that you do have the notice, but you have a lot of tough decisions to make, like whether or not to evacuate.

I'm not planning on leaving, although after Hurricane Ivan in 2004 I decided I would leave for a strong category 2 or higher. I was genuinely scared going through Ivan. We were in good spirits at first, but as the night progressed things got bad - there were leaks that turned into downpours, ceilings started collapsing, and the huge oak tree in the front year developed an ominous lean. I remember huddling in the hallway with my then two-year old little girl, praying, and being distracted by droplets of water on my face from yet another roof leak. We were running around pulling pictures off the wall, dragging furniture out of rooms whose ceilings had fallen, putting pots and pans under the contained leaks...it was really scary. And we were lucky compared to some, compared to many, really.

Evacuating is a mixed bag - you can get out of town, but traffic can be horrible and, unless you're headed north, there's always the chance that the storm will change direction and you'll be driving into the bad weather. A neighbor of mine told me a horror story about getting stuck on the interstate trying to evacuate during Hurricane Opal, and trying to dodge tornadoes, drive with zero visibility, etc.

There's also the choice about battening down the hatches. How far do you go? For this storm, I'm going to take in the items on the patio and move things away from windows and doors (in case of wind-driven rain). You have to decide whether or not to board up windows, among other things. I am employed by a small business that sells high-end grand pianos and church organs, among other things. Preparing for a hurricane there is no fun. Lots of heavy things to put up on blocks, lots of moving and shifting and hoping for the best.

This will be a tense night. Things can change overnight, maybe for the better. Or maybe not. I'm thinking that we will get rain and blustery wind and hopefully that will be the end of it. I have to decide where to stay tomorrow night. Depending on how things look, we might go stay at my in-law's house. I don't really trust the construction of our apartments - if noise passes so freely between the walls, I can't help but wonder about wind and rain. Plus, at my in-law's house, I can be there to help should more roof issues arise. I don't know what my grandparents are planning to do, and I'm worried about that.

And I just saw that the weather channel is sending Jim Cantore here, which anyone who lives in a hurricane zone knows means that YOU ARE GOING TO GET HIT. Jim Cantore is like a hurricane magnet - where he goes, storms follow. Dang it.

I was going to start pulling things off the patio earlier and I encountered a snake. A small-ish snake, but still a snake, so I hastily retreated inside the house and decided the clearing the porch is my husband's job.

You just never know. But, having the notice is vastly preferable to just being slammed, so I shouldn't complain. Sigh. A hurricane in November. Boo! The upside: if we lose power, it won't be as hot. There we go. I'll cling to that while I'm watching the tropical update on the weather channel all night. If you pray, I know whoever is in the path of this hurricane would appreciate a word or two, so keep us (or whomever!) in mind.

I'm Silly

2009-10-19T19:30:00.000-07:00

I have trouble sleeping. Well, that's not entirely true, I don't have problems sleeping, but I have problems getting to sleep. I can't just lie down and drift off, I have to do something to quiet my mind. Usually I read, but it has to be something I've read before. New books can't be bedtime books, because I end up devouring a new book in one sitting and then go to bed way too late.

So I read, and usually fall asleep with a book on my face. I was finding myself waking up in the wee hours of the morning, contorted in awkward positions on the bed or sofa, lights blazing, sometimes with the TV still on. So I decided I would try an audio book. I downloaded "The Hobbit" (because I love that book) and my sister was kind enough to share the seventh Harry Potter novel and a few David Sedaris books with me. So I tried it: I turned out the lights, laid down with my MP3 player, and...ten minutes later I was out like a light. This has been my nightly routine since this, and it has been wonderful.

Saturday night I settled into my routine: lights out, player at the ready. I decided to listen to Harry Potter, since I had listened to the Sedaris novels already. I fell into a blissful sleep, but was rudely awakened and utterly aurally overwhelmed by a huge and horrible onslaught of noise. The first thing I could hear was a long, piercing scream, occurring simultaneously with a spooky sounding male voice in my ear. Completely out of it and beginning to panic, I started flailing around on the sofa where I had fallen asleep, trying to get my bearings and completely unable to do so. My flailing caused an avalanche - the cordless phone, cell phone, TV remote and my hair clip that I had earlier placed on the back of the sofa all fell, of course directly onto my head.

Deluged by electronics and hair accessories, I fell to the floor, still baffled by what was going on. I was literally in a panic, and shrieked a little when I hit the ground. The screaming intensified, and the spooky voice in my ear was suddenly joined by swells of ominous music. After a moment on the floor, I realized that 1.) Bubba had awakened and was screaming his displeasure at finding himself in his bed, and 2.) Harry Potter was still playing in my ear and was at a particularly scary and dramatic point in the story. I yanked the earbuds out and went to rescue Bubba, my heart still pounding. There was a good two-minute period there in which I had absolutely no clue what was happening in my house. I'm silly.

And now for this little gem, which involves the loss of dignity that occurs in pregnancy (consider yourself forewarned):

When I was pregnant with Bella, I was taking Lamaze classes with my sister-in-law, because of my husband's work schedule. We had a routine: meet for the classes, and then out to dinner afterwards. We went to class one night, where the instructor was showing the class massage techniques for labor. We had been working on the floor, and she instructed us all to get up for standing positions.

My SIL and I rose from the mat we were seated on, and there was a noise that sounded distinctly like someone passing gas. I immediately thought it was her; she immediately thought it was me. This gave us both a terrible case of the giggles, which we were trying to keep to ourselves. The lights were low, there was relaxing music playing, and there were four other couples in the class trying to learn. Giggles quickly gave way to something close to hysteria, and tears were streaming down both of our faces as we tried to control ourselves. The instructor tactfully suggested that we take a moment outside, and we agreed, snorting with mirth as we left the room.

Once in the hallway, we faced each other and said, at the same time, "Did you fart?". This caused us to laugh even harder. In between our gales of laughter we ascertained that neither of us had farted. We laughed even harder, and then I had something happen to me that can be somewhat common in pregnancy, especially when laughing or coughing: "I just peed on myself a little!", I informed my sister-in-law. This did not help matters, and only caused us to laugh even harder. After a few minutes we settled down, and were getting ready to go back into the classroom when I asked where she wanted to go for dinner. "Dinner? But you just said you peed on yourself, you really want to go to dinner?". "Oh," I replied, waving my hand airily, "I pee on myself all the time, it's nothing." Our shaky composure lost once more with this comment, we gave up on ever getting back into relaxation mode, grabbed our purses and headed to TGI Friday's.

We still laugh when we tell that story. The noise ended up being caused by someones shoe on the mat we were sitting on, by the way. And the Lamaze techniques were completely forgotten half an hour into my labor. My husband offered to rub my back with tennis balls in a sock, and there was nothing soothing about that idea. Hitting someone with tennis balls in a sock, that idea appealed to me, but even in pain I realized it wasn't very appropriate.

So those are my silly stories. Instead of complaining about how busy I am, or the things that I am worried about, I thought I would make myself feel better by offering the world of blogging a little more mindless blather. And I do feel better!

UPDATE: After writing this, I called my sister-in-law to ask if she remembered this and she and I laughed ourselves to tears again. Nothing like a good (gross) story.

I had a moment

2009-09-23T18:23:00.000-07:00

We have recently transitioned Bubba to a twin bed, since he insisted on taking spectacular dives out of his crib, landing in awkward positions and screaming like he was mortally wounded. I considered the various schools of thought on this topic - you have the "get him out of the crib now before he hurts himself" side, then you have the "he probably won't hurt himself falling out" side. I found myself coming in on the not "hurting himself side". I'm not willing to risk a broken arm. Not to mention the fact that the boy has an iron will, and the one time I played the "just put him back in bed" game I lost. I relented after literally the fifteenth time he intentionally fell out of bed.

How is the transition going, you ask? Oh, very poorly, I answer! He has screamed himself hoarse over the last couple of days. But let me take you back in time, to the place my stress started building: Sunday morning, at Mass. We were in the crying room, and I was trying to keep Bubba in line. He did OK for a while, but the he started to melt down. I was holding Bubba, who was protesting mightily, and trying to reign in Bella, who was making faces through the glass at a school friend sitting a few pews away. I was standing close to the glass, my hand on Bella's shoulder to pull her away, when Bubba broke into loud, high-pitched shrieks and started hitting and kicking the glass. I immediately backed away from the window, but not before getting some rather...unamused glares from people sitting in the back pews.

I had also made the mistake of putting poor Bubba in a collared shirt for church. I know better - he can't stand collared shirts, but in my haste I didn't think about it. As I backed away my poor baby just lost it. He started flailing around uncontrollably, yanking at his shirt and screaming at the top of his lungs and hitting me. I sat down and started trying to soothe him and he headbutted me in the nose (it was an accident), so hard that I started bleeding. I had to put him down because I couldn't see for a moment. So he thrashed around on the crying room floor, banging his head so hard I could see the parents next to me wince. I gathered our things and we left. Bubba has a major meltdown every Sunday at church. Stress!

When we get home he refused to take a nap. He was in his room, throwing a fit, when I encountered a neighbor who informed me that, should she hear me letting my baby cry like that again, she was going to call the department of children and families and have me investigated. Stress. Now I feel trapped in my own home, like I can't do what I need to do because, should he cry too long, and who knows what this person's idea of too long could be, I'm going to have to deal with CFS. Not that I'm worried they would find anything undue, understand, but that's a headache I don't need in my life.

Now we are into nightly screaming fits. He doesn't want to be in the crib, he refuses to stay in bed, and bedtime has become a battle that I dread. Nothing gets done around the house, because by the time he finally gets settled he sleeps for a little while and wakes back up again. We are both getting fragmented sleep, and neither of us are the better for it. And I feel like I constantly have the spector of my neighbor reporting me to CFS hanging over my head, even though I know I haven't done anything wrong. Stress!

I'm having a little work stress, and a little money stress, and Bella's school is, in all honesty, driving me absolutely crazy. I am sick of policy changes and important memos and the constant complaints that parents aren't doing enough. It's just been one thing after another (like the day she got an out of uniform notice because her belt was tan and not brown), and it's piling up and adding to my worry. Bella is having trouble in a couple of subjects at school - worry. My car is acting up - worry.

So all that to say that it culminated tonight, when I was trying to get Bubba to sleep. I was putting him back in his bed for the fifth time, when I stood up my chest got tight, and my heart started racing, and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I had to go sit down and take some deep breaths and eventually felt better, but it was a wake-up call I needed. I need to calm down. Or, as a friend of mine would say, I need to settle my butt down.

I can't control everything. And I feel so guilty about poor Bubba, and about Bella having issues at school...I am awash with guilt. So my answer is: I can't fix everything at once. Progress takes time. I'll just have to take it slow. I just wish I had more time. More time to spend with Bubba, to help him with his issues and enjoy the bubbly boy that he is. More time to spend with Bella, to help her with schoolwork and just appreciate her for the joy that she is. But, since I can't make more time, I'll just have to adjust. I'm trying too hard to do everything. To work and take care of my kids and my house and my husband, to make sure that there are groceries and hot meals and a clean house and time to enjoy each other. I'm failing. What's the answer here?

Well, for starters, we are going to try going to an earlier Mass. Hopefully that will help with the meltdowns. I am going to do some reading and try and come up with some creative ideas for bubba's new sleeping situation. It might take a few nights and be hard work, but we will figure something out. As for the work and the money stress? Part of life, and will all work out. Bella's school? I'll just chalk all the irritating changes up to a new-ish administation settling in (although this is the last year I'll give them that credit) and hope that things get better. And I won't send her to school in a tan belt. Bella's classroom issues? We'll just work on that together. Nothing is happening that can't be handled through compromise or hard work. Maybe instead of complaining of how put-upon I am, I should be grateful that my problems are so easily solved. They might be stressful in the here and now, but looking long term, they're really just little issues. Humility is what I need. Humility and grace. And some sleep. I'm going to go pray for the first two and attempt the third. Good night!

Can't learn how to learn

2009-09-06T20:16:00.000-07:00

Last year, Bella had fabulous religion grades. I could always count on her to have an 'E' (equivalent of an 'A') in religion. This year, she has been having some problems, and I was trying to get to the root of them the other day.

We were studying for her religion test last week, and I knew that it was all material that had been covered last year, so I was fairly confident. Things like the Holy Family, etc. While I was quizzing her from the study guide her teacher sent home, I noticed she was agitated, and the agitated turned into being flat-out freaked out. She didn't know any of the answers, and she was getting very, very upset. So we took a breather, and I asked her what was wrong. This was her answer:

"Last year, we learned the answers in order and the test was in the same order and as long as we knew the order that was how we passed the test! But this year the answers aren't in order and I don't know how to learn them!".

Say whaaaaaat?

I had encountered this last year - we were studying for her religion test and I asked a question out of order and she recognized it immediately. "That's not in the right order! I only know them in the right order!" Panic ensued. I calmed her down and just asked her the questions in the right order and everything was fine. I didn't think about it at the time, but I now know I wasn't doing her any favors.

So I told her last week that it was no big deal, we would work on them together. And we studied over the week, and I thought she had the material down (it was only about seven questions) and then when the test came home, she got a 'D'. I'm not too worried about it at the moment, because it's early yet and we have time to work on it, but this concerns me.

She also freaked out about her math homework. They are doing fast math facts, where they have to just look at a problem and know the answer immediately. The other night we were working on numbers 1-9 plus 0 and 0-9 plus 1. I started asking her questions out of order again, and she lost it again. "I can't do it that way! That's not how we learned it last year!" I tried explaining that she is in second grade now, and that things will be different this year, but it was to no avail.

When I say she gets upset, she gets really upset. She cries, her breathing speeds up, and she is terribly agitated. It seems to really stress her out. And I'm not pressuring her, yelling at her or anything like that. Just a casual, "What does the word 'divine' mean?" and she falls to pieces. She doesn't do that with spelling words. I am at a loss.

My question is: how do I help her actually learn the material, not just memorize the answers?

What to do

2009-08-21T23:27:00.000-07:00

Look at that smile. That beautiful little face, those chubby little cheeks, those bright eyes. My darling boy. I love him with all my heart.

But he vexes me. This is normal, you say, and yes, it is, but Bubba is a master vex-er. He has vexing down to an art form.

It's funny, when Bella was a toddler, I never purchased a parenting book. I didn't need one, really, because she was an easygoing baby. And I had the maternal-know-it-all that comes with a first baby (sometimes). The second time around, I should be even more sure of myself, but I am at a loss. I am currently reading four parenting books, all by different authors, all with different ideas. I've learned the secret to reading parenting books is to always have a backup. Because with almost every parenting book I've read (with the exception of 'Raising Your Spirited Child' - I recommend!), I have encountered SOMETHING that made me say, "Oh, no way would I ever do that, that is ridiculous" and then I put the book down in disgust and move on to something else. Then later, when Bubba has done something that has particularly bamboozled me, I decide to overlook whatever part disgusted me so and read further, hoping for an idea or just anything, anything that might help me to help my boy.

My concern is that I am not entirely certain whether he is exhibiting normal toddler behavior, just slightly amplified, or is there is something else afoot. He does exhibit plenty of normal toddler behavior, we have toddler behavior coming out of our ears over here, but some things he takes to an extreme. Examples? Well, let's see...he is a head banger (and I don't mean in a 80's hair band kind of way). And he's not just a headbanger in a mild way, he is a full-on, almost violent and somewhat distressing to myself and other people head banger. We actually had to leave the crying room Sunday because his headbanging was freaking out the other parents. One mother asked me if he was ok, and I just wanted to scream "I DON'T KNOW! AND I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!". Not out of anger, but out of frustration. Because I think he's doing it out of frustration and I can't help him.

And temper tantrums? Oh, my sweet boy has raised the temper tantrum to an art form. He does not deal with with transitions, my Bubba. I have been trying to get him outside in the mornings, for some fresh air and running around. According to my myriad of parenting books, you can ease transitions with warnings about how much longer you have to be involved in a particular activity, which is a great idea if an 18-month old had any concept of time. "Five more minutes and we have to go inside" or "We will have to go inside soon" means nothing to him - but I still say it, possibly just to make myself feel better. So two mornings in a row, once we went back inside the house, there was a temper tantrum of epic proportions. The first one lasted for an hour. An hour of screaming and throwing himself around the living room, flopping from place to place, hitting his head on the furniture. I feel so helpless. He can't be soothed when these big tantrums happen - he doesn't want to be held (although I still try, sometimes), he can't be distracted. The second morning he went for about twenty minutes, and then I just scooped him up and took him to my mother-in-law's house. Once we got to maw-maw's house he was better (because maw-maw makes everything better). We haven't tried going outside since. And if I leave the room to shower, he will lay outside the bedroom door and scream the entire time. THE ENTIRE TIME. And it's not like he's by himself - this is with my husband there in the same room and he is. This is why I try to shower at night, to avoid such scenes.

He doesn't like going to stores or restaurants, either. Restaurants are better than stores, possibly because there is food involved. But stores? Forget it. He does pretty well for about ten or fifteen minutes, and then he is done. And it is full on tantrum mode again, and he is inconsolable. He doesn't want to sit in the buggy, doesn't want to be held, doesn't want to walk. He just flings himself around, yelling and coughing and sputtering. When it first started happening I thought maybe it was because he wasn't getting out enough, so I tried taking him out more. FAIL. Then I thought maybe he would do better in the mornings. FAIL. So I thought maybe evenings would be better. MISERABLE FAIL. Afternoons? STILL FAIL. Regardless of the time of day or how well rested he is, he melts down every time (EVERY TIME!) we go to a store. Bookstore, toy store, Wal-Mart, it doesn't matter - he freaks out. But as soon as we are outside? He is fine. He stops crying immediately, he'll happily let you carry him or ride in the shopping cart, and the only remnants of his meltdown from mere minutes before is his tear stained face and snotty nose. I joined a 'parents of spirited children' e-group, and I posted something about this to the group, and the consensus seemed to be that this is a phase that he will outgrow. I sure hope so, but it's been literally months now and it only seems to be getting worse.

He has some other peculiar habits - he has a very sensitive gag reflex at the SIGHT of food, and will gag while he is eating, but he hasn't thrown up and doesn't seem to be bothered by it, he just gags and then continues eating. He chews on everything, almost like a puppy - he actually chewed his crib rail down to bare wood. His toy golf clubs - his favorite things in the world - are all chewed up on the club heads. He eats things that should taste bad - and I don't mean he just tastes things, I mean tastes and then keeps eating - thus far he ate three bites from a bar of ivory soap and about the same amount of my husband's deodorant. And I'm not a bad parent, letting him run around and sample the personal hygiene products or anything, I promise. He's just quick. And he's stealthy. He has some other odd little habits, too, that I can't remember now. I keep a list in my purse, actually, so the next time we visit his doctor I can mention it. Which is all I can do at this point. And I'm pretty sure I'll feel silly, but my maternal instinct tells me I need to bring it up, even if the doctor poo-poos it and says he's just being a toddler.

I'm not entirely certain why I shared all this, except maybe that I needed to get it out of my system. I've been talking to my sister and my Aunt about this, so they are probably sick of it, but maybe I needed to put it in writing. I feel so bad for him, really, because even though he is a happy baby when things are going his way, his lows are so terribly low and upsetting, to him and to the people around him, that I feel like maybe...I don't know what. Like he's not enjoying life like he could, I guess. And then I feel guilty, too, like maybe something I'm doing or something I'm not doing is the key to all this, and once I figure out what that is then things will be better for him. Kids get upset, I get that, it's a part of life and I get that, too. But he gets so upset, and it becomes such a huge scene and ordeal, and I just wish I could help him to cope. Part of that is selfish, yes, because when he gets worked up it's very stressful, especially if we are out somewhere, but that's not the heart of the matter - the heart of it is that I want him to be able to handle things better so he can enjoy more.

As it is, he can handle going to homes without issue. My in-laws, my sister, my aunt, my dad, he will happily spend time in their homes without having a major meltdown. He seems to reserve the really big blowups for home or while we are out somewhere. And he loves to be outside, but the only problem with being outside is that eventually, you have to go back inside, and you've already read about how that works out. He doesn't mind being in the car - he is a fairly decent car rider. I just can't figure it all out. But I want to help him. I just have to figure out how.

Tropical School Daze

2009-08-16T10:32:00.000-07:00

Well, tomorrow is the big day: Bella goes back to school. My big second grader. She is excited, and while I am excited for her, the start of school always stresses me out. The getting up earlier than we have been for months, the traffic, the insanity of carpool line, I could go on but I won't, because it's nothing I have any control over so there's no point in fretting. I just need to get over it.

Are we ready? We are ready-ish. Bella still needs to put the finishing touches on her summer reading book reports, for one, but she's planning on doing that this evening. We still need to write her name on her bookbag, but that will take two minutes. Her supplies are already at school, so that's taken care of. Her first two days are half days, so I won't have to address lunches until the middle of the week. This year I have a new lunch policy - Bella will be making her own lunch, the night before school. Theoretically, this should make lunch problems moot - she will hopefully eat whatever she brings, since she made it, and it will lessen the post-school lunch criticisms. We shall see how that goes.

We have uniforms, although we don't have many uniforms, and the ones we do have need some attention - a hem there, a dried-in mustard stain there, a faded logo. The mustard stain is causing me much distress, because I have been working on it all summer and have yet to get it out. I've faded it, but you can still see it. I was actually praying about it last night, praying for assistance with a mustard stain, of all the silly things. I wished that I might have more time to get it out, although if I haven't managed it in three months I don't know what any more time could do for me. So I wake up this morning and find out...we are under a tropical storm warning! Does that fall under the "be-careful-what-you-wish-for" category? I had hoped for some more time, but not due to a tropical weather system slamming into us. I went to bed last night aware there was something churning in the Gulf, woke up to a tropical depression and came home from the grocery store to Tropical Storm Claudette.

I don't even know if school is going to be canceled - if we do get hit, it is supposed to be in the early AM hours Monday. I don't think I would like to attempt morning carpool during a tropical storm, but I will if I have to. We are on the western fringe of the projected path cone (ah, the projected path cone - how we love it or hate it, depending on where we are in relation to it), so we might just get some breezy rain. Either way, I think we are prepared. We have some bottled water and batteries (I always try to keep both around, anyway, so I had them on hand), and later I'm going to stash the things on the porch somewhere, and that's about all I can do. That and hope the power stays on, but hopefully my proximity to the naval hospital will ensure that any outages, should they occur at all, will be brief. So I'm going to go batten down the hatches, in a casual sort of way, and then it's back to business as usual. Which for me, today, will be prayerful last minute attempts at stain removal, the ironing in of hems (because I cheat because I can barely sew) and the safety pinning of waistlines.

Claudette, stay away!

**UPDATE!!** With some elbow grease and possibly some divine intervention (hey, I don't know but I'm not ruling it out, after all, I did pray for it) the mustard stain came out! My jubilation quickly turned to dismay, however, when Bella ripped a hole in the armpit of the shirt putting in on this morning. Literally months of hard work on stain removal reduced to moot. Gives me a little perspective, though, I suppose.

Bad Haiku Friday: Pimento cheese and Marines in their underpants

2009-08-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

My Godfather makes

the best pimento cheese spread

Thank you, Mr. Mike

My marine neighbor

walks his dog in his boxers

A sight to behold

Go and visit Laura at Catholic Teacher Musings for more bad haikus.

Teen translator

2009-07-31T18:54:00.000-07:00

I met a sweet young girl who might babysit for me every once in a while! Exciting, yes? I'm excited. I asked her the other day is she was old enough to babysit, and she said yes, so I told her I would hire her. Then she 'friended' me on Facebook, so I sent her a message that said "Hey, future babysitter!". This was what I received in reply:

"hey...i wud actually lurv to babysit fer u and my mom said shed take me anywhere if i wanted to babysit someones kids to make some money and stuff...but i lurv (Bella) and (bubba) so theres no prob..."

I was a bit stymied, so I forwarded the e-mail to my sister, who also knows the girl. My e-mail to my sister said this:

"Does this mean yes? I'm confused..."

To which my sister hilariously replied:

"Don't worry, I speak teenager...allow me to translate:
"Yes, I would love to babysit for you! My mother is willing to provide transportation. She is excited for me to have such an opportunity! I do so enjoy your children!""

And THAT is one of the many reasons why my sister is so awesome.

Stink

2009-07-31T08:46:00.000-07:00

My car is smelly

Diaper fell under the seat

Air freshener, please

Bad Haiku Friday

2009-07-23T20:33:00.000-07:00

I was up for trying Laura's bad Haiku challenge today, so here is my meager contribution to the world of bad haiku. This particular Haiku was inspired by my fondness for (and recent excessive downloading of) Beastie Boys music:

The Beastie Boys should

write haiku because that would

be really awesome

This is also intended as a tribute (poor as it might be) to MCA (Adam Yauch), since he recently announced he has cancer. Get well soon MCA!

If you don't have anything nice to say...

2009-07-23T17:54:00.000-07:00

...don't say anything at all. I haven't had many nice things to say, lately. Good things have been happening, I'm sure they have. Good things and funny things have happened. I've been eating well and working out and physically, I feel better than I have in years. I've been stressed, though, and I was afraid I would just complain endlessly if I blogged, so I didn't blog. I will blog now, though, and try and get all of the complaining out of the way:

My husband's schedule has changed, which completely throws off our childcare. Now I will need childcare different days of the week, every week. Some weeks I might need childcare three days, some weeks I won't need it at all. Not a lot of affordable childcare providers who are willing to put up with such nonsense. That's stressful.

I need to add more hours at work, both for financial and workload reasons. I'll see less of my kids, have less time to do all the things I need to do, and also adds to my childcare issues. Stressful.

There's all sorts of other reasons why I'm stressed - my in-laws, my grandparents, girl scouts, church stuff, school stuff. But also, and I'm going to lay down some brutal bloggy honesty here: I'm having some problems in my marriage. Some pretty heavy stuff is going down, and I'm...well, I don't know what I'm doing. Trying to hold it all together? I guess. Every relationship has ups and downs, and right now we are pretty down. But we're working on it.

That's my confession for the day. I haven't been blogging, but I have been reading other blogs. Lurking, really, since I haven't been commenting as much as I would like. I miss my blog friends! I'm going to try and get back into the swing of things, and maybe it will help me to focus on the positive. I will try to be more positive. I will be more positive.

On a somewhat cheerier note, I had posted previously about my suspicion that I was sinking into depression. Since I made the changes to my diet and started exercising regularly and taking my vitamins like a good girl, things are much, much better now. Not to say that I don't get a little melancholy now and then, but I don't feel bad all the time like I did before. So there's something positive, something to be thankful for. I have many blessings in my life, and all my problems are relatively short-term problems that will work out. It's just hard to remember that sometimes.

In search of some ink

2009-06-13T10:55:00.000-07:00

I have a tattoo. Just one, on my shoulder, so I can easily cover it up. It was actually a birthday gift. My sister-in-law suggested it, and offered to pay, so we took a ride up to see a friend of ours who was working in a tattoo shop. I didn't know what I wanted, so I put my foot down on having anything done immediately - if I was going to have something etched permanently onto my body, I wanted it to be something of great meaning to me, not just a ladybug or a butterfly or anything like that. After some internet searching and the help of a talented and artistic friend, I ended up with this (please excuse my raggedy hair - it's not quite long enough for locks of love just yet, and forgive my messy bathroom, poor photography skills and ugly pajamas):

Mother and child, a tribute to my love of my vocation, my love for my children. A few months before I got the tattoo I had endured a miscarriage, so it had even more meaning for me. And I lost my mom while I was pregnant with Bella, so it could stand for my mother, her mother, anybody who is a mother or a child. I like it. And Bella likes it - she calls it 'our heart', since it's sort of heart shaped.

I have been feeling a hankering for a new tattoo for a while now. I'm not an ink addict - far from it, actually - I got the first tattoo about four years ago. I'd like to get another, so I'm trying to decide what I want to include in the design.

Disclaimer: I realize that some people dislike tattoos, and that some people dislike religious imagery in tattoo form. If so, you might be bothered by this post. The last thing I want to do is offend, so please consider this fair warning. I don't want any nasty e-mails, so please keep in mind that people can have differing opinions while still being respectful. If you would like an interesting perspective on the subject, browse over to this site: Religious Tattoos. The site is run by a Catholic father of four who happens to appreciate body art. Check out the tattoo pictures page, sorted by subject - it's fascinating, and if you visit the links page, you will find tattoo shops that tailor specifically to Christians.

My younger sister is one of the best Christians I know, and she has multiple tattoos. Some of which he had done while she was going through a bible college. She now has a bachelor's degree in theology.

My conversion to Catholicism was huge for me (as it is to everyone who does it, I'm sure). It was a big step, something I never thought I would do, and I discovered how much it meant to me and how much I wanted to do it when I was on the verge of not being allowed to move forward. I made it, though, and I want my tattoo to signify my faith, among other things. For starters:

I want a triquetra because it has all sorts of meaning - the Holy Trinity, obviously and mainly. Two sisters plus me equals three. I have two children with me and one I lost, for a total of three. I do realize that the triquetra can also be considered a pagan symbol, but that's not a problem for me because I look at it this way: it is going to be on my body, so what matters is what the symbol means to me. Both my sisters have triquetra tattoos, and we have long talked about all three of us having one, so I'm pretty sure my next inking will be of a triquetra in some way, shape or form:

BUT - I don't know if I want a thin line, a thicker line (like the one above), a double, or if I want the circled version. That's one decision to make.

Throughout my conversion to Catholicism I found myself drawn to the Holy Spirit, for a myriad of reasons, a lot of which are rather private. I wear a Holy Spirit medallion, all the time. So I would like to include a dove. I know, I know, the trinity symbol includes the Holy Spirit, but I'm giving an extra little shout-out. Maybe like one of the doves below:

So I have to decide which dove, and then where to put the dove. Inside the symbol? Outside? Above, below? Another decision. I'm thinking, though, that I would like the dove inside the lower left side of the triquetra.

I would also like to have something that represents the Blessed Mother and all that she represents. I can't decide on that one - maybe a fleur-de-lis, or the initials and crown, one of the two, as seen below:
I don't know which. Or where. Another decision. But I'm leaning towards a fleur-de-lis in the lower right hand section of the design - I like the blue and white one, above.

In the top section of the triquetra, I would like something for my kids - maybe little stars, maybe circles - one in pink (for Bella), one in blue (Bubba), and one in white (for the baby I lost).

And that leaves the center. Hmm...what's a girl to do? I could leave it blank. I was thinking I would like to do something for my mother, but I'm just not sure. And this is all up in the air, of course, because I could get this sketched out and it could look busy and terrible, or it would have to be huge to fit all that stuff inside of it and I'm not looking for a huge tattoo. Who knows, I might end up just doing the triquetra. So that's what I've been up to lately, mulling over tattoo options. You know, because I just don't have enough to do already. :-)

Happy weekend to all!

Come Tuesday...

2009-06-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

So I'm at work today, working with a customer on the phone, when I see a gentleman strolling to the back of the store with my boss. He looks familiar, but I can't place him, and I was trying to both help the customer on the phone AND wrack my brain to try and figure out who he was, when my boss says, "Hey, you guys, it's Jimmy Buffett!". Ahh, THAT would be why he was familiar.

He shook hands with everybody, and was looking at guitar tuners - you know, since he needed a tuner for his stratocaster because he's going to start working on an album tomorrow, and stuff. He talked with everyone, while I was still stuck on the phone with the same customer. I wanted to say, "Jimmy Buffett is here! Can I call you back?" but I didn't. He was getting ready to leave when I finally got off the phone, and he was shaking hands one last time so I snuck in. Everyone else was talking about where or when they had seen him play live, but I had never seen him play live, so when he shook my hand all I could say was, "I've read your books". It's true, I have.

He was busy contributing to the local economy, apparently, because he had a huge shopping bag from the jewelry store across the street (I mean huge - I wouldn't think a jewelry store would have a bag that big - I mean, it's jewelry). He had to leave in a hurry because he was meeting his sister for lunch and didn't want to be late. So there you go!

That was my brush with fame today. Well, that and speaking with Mrs. Fetterman (widow of Admiral Fetterman, and somewhat famous locally), who was telling a charming story about her friend Tom Benson, who just happens to own the New Orleans Saints.

I love this town sometimes, I really do.

It's been a while

2009-06-04T20:08:00.000-07:00

Hasn't it? I apologize to my few readers. I haven't been all that busy, but I have been enjoying the lack of school and girl scouts. Bella has been enjoying it, as well, and has been staying up far too late. She seems to have a knack for knowing just when I'm about to tell her to go to bed, and when she senses that coming she'll come up to me, give me a big hug and say, "Mom, I think we need to have some girl time right now". How can I argue with that? So we play Wii - usually Cooking Mama, and some Lego Star Wars, but the player perspective on Lego Star Wars makes me queasy after ten or fifteen minutes. Sometimes she reads to me, sometimes we just snuggle on the couch and watch TV, or we will do some needlepointing or some crafts. Lots of fun.

I am feeling a little blue, my friends. I think I'm a bit depressed. I've been trying to address it myself before I seek medical intervention - changing my diet around a little, trying to make sure I get more/enough sleep, get some exercise, things like that. I'm hoping those steps work.

I took Bella to the bookstore yesterday with her summer reading assignment and let her pick out books. We picked a few books off her assigned list, and then I told her she could pick out one other book of her choosing, as long as it was a chapter book. She browsed through the beginning chapter readers, and after a moment exclaimed, "Everything is fairies and princesses! I have lots of those already!". She didn't want more Junie B. Jones books or Magic Tree House books, so I was helping her try to find something and we came across the Franny K. Stein series, about a little girl mad scientist. Much to my amusement, she opted for one of those books. And she loved it! She is planning on 'reviewing' it on her website tonight, since she finished it in the car on the way home. She laughed out loud more than once while reading it, and actually read a couple of the more amusing passages out loud to us. I read it, too, after we got home, and I liked it. It had a great message about staying true to yourself, even if you're a little different. And parts of it made me laugh out loud, like this:

She was just about to tell the girls how Chompalina could bite the heads
off their dolls when she noticed something. Their dolls were all kind of...sweet
and pretty. They all had long hair and flowery dresses. Not a single one of them
oozed uck. They didn't ooze anything. Franny made a note to herself: Pretty,
non-head biting dolls, it said. And less oozing.

Or this one, possibly Bella's favorite passage in the whole book:

The kids just stood there. They didn't know how to help. A few tried
crying. A few tried screaming. One tried wetting his pants, although later on he
admitted he had no idea why he thought that might help.

That's funny stuff, especially if you're seven.

Summer is in full force here in rainy Florida, where the temperature is in the nineties by 9am and the humidity makes you feel like you're stepping into a hot tub everytime you step outside. You can't go outside during the afternoon because it's too hot, and you can't go outside in the evenings because you get eaten alive by mosquitos. My little stretch of porch is alive with nature, and by nature I mean angry stinging insects that chase you back inside the second you step out. I sprayed a couple of wasps' nests a couple of weeks ago, and we already have four more. The joy of swamp living. All this and hurricanes, too! I should write ads for the department of tourism.

I hope everyone has a lovely summer weekend!

Thoughts and prayers

2009-05-25T19:06:00.001-07:00

I've been visiting a blog written by the mother of a little girl named Faith Hope, who was born with an anencephaly. Most anencephalic babies die a within minutes of birth, if they survive the birth process at all. Her little girl just recently passed away, at the age of three months. If you pray, maybe you could say a prayer for them.

Uniformly Crazy

2009-05-21T20:42:00.000-07:00

Bella's school has gone insane over uniforms. They have flip-flopped multiple times over logos and styles and some parents who went ahead and ordered based on the initial requirements are ticked. Below are the notices we have received, just regarding sweatshirts (which are fairly inconsequential around here, since they wear them for about two months):

Notice: Regular or zippered sweatshirts are allowed but they cannot have a hood and must have the embroidered school logo.

Notice: Sweatshirts can have a hood but they must not have a zipper and must have the embroidered school logo.

Notice: Only plain sweatshirts without hoods or zippers will be permitted and must have the embroidered school logo.

Notice: Any sweatshirt style will be allowed but it must have the embroidered school logo.

And finally, coming in AFTER the uniform session at the school where many people purchased an official sweatshirt bearing the embroidered school logo:

Notice: The embroidered logo sweatshirts will only be allowed for 09/10 school year. After that all sweatshirts must have the silk-screened school logo. Anyone not wearing this style after the 09/10 school year will be considered out of uniform.

I'm not kidding! I am thinking about starting a polite stink about the uniform situation. You are only allowed to purchase uniforms from one source, and they do not have a store in town. You have to drive an hour into Alabama to purchase uniforms (it's 47 miles away from my house - I just checked), or pay a shipping rate that starts at $12 and goes up from there. And the real kick in the teeth comes when you realize that the jumper you are driving an hour to buy (or paying $12 to ship) costs $34.95 at the shop the school uses, but you can buy it on frenchtoast.com for $14.95. Seriously. But you are not allowed to purchase it from french toast - all over the uniform page it is specified that uniforms MUST be purchased at the specific retailer. I wonder if they go around checking tags during the school year, to make certain. Surely not.

I understand the logo issue, make me buy anything with a logo from the 'local' store, but jumpers and shorts and pants? Let me get them for more than half off somewhere else. At least give us one other option. It's hard enough to come up with tuition, much less driving for an hour to buy overpriced uniform pieces. I understand the point of uniforms is to be, well, uniform, but adding one more option that is more affordable and is selling the exact same items...I don't see what the problem is.

However, I am not good at starting a stink. I am too afraid of offending, and the parish priest and the sisters running the school have too much to worry about without me getting up in their business about uniforms. I don't want to start an offensive stink, understand, but I would like for them to honestly consider the idea. I think I'm going to check out the other Catholic schools in the area and see what they do, and then talk to a few parents to see if they agree with me, and then come up with some facts and a thoughtfully worded presentation. It might all come to nothing, but it's worth a try. Look out - woman on a mission!

Look out internet!

2009-05-20T19:56:00.000-07:00

Bella's grades have dropped a little this term - not a whole lot, and not so much that I am very concerned, but I would rather nip issues in the bud before we have a big problem. We had a serious discussion in the car this evening about how important it is to do well in school, and to do the very best job you can, even if it seems hard, and so on and so forth.

I have been wracking my brain lately, trying to come up with ideas to make her summer reading more enjoyable for her and other ways to keep her reading and writing skills fresh over the summer. I was working on a blog post earlier and she came over to the computer and started asking questions about what I was doing and why, etc. Then she said, "I wish I could have a blog." I had an aha moment (don't sue me, Mutual of Omaha!) and told her that she could -thus, Bella on Books was born.

She was so excited about the idea that she hurried up and finished the book she was reading so she could write her first 'review'. I told her that she needs to write out her posts longhand first, so she will know what to type. So she will read (hooray!), she will write (awesome!) and she will type (woohoo!). All skills she can use when school starts again.

She helped me with the setup - she chose the template, and she ever-so-slowly pecked out the wording for her greeting. She even wrote her first review tonight. I am very interested to see how her writing will progress over the summer - if you look at the blog, her first post is perfunctory at best. But it was also a rush job, since she wanted to get it done before showering and bed.

She seems really excited about it, and if that is what it takes for her to get excited about reading and writing, then fine by me.

Speaking of school, Bella found the new year's tuition notice from her school. It was in her homework folder, and she thought it was for her and opened it. She asked me to explain it, so I did, telling her the number at the bottom was how much we paid per month for her to go to school. She was aghast, and then she said, "I can't believe you pay that much, mom! That is so much money!" (It's not THAT expensive, but any dollar amount greater than $5 is a lot of money to her). She then said, "Well, I wouldn't pay that much money". I told her she gets a very good education, and that combined with the religious education she is receiving makes it very much worth it to her father and I. She still wasn't convinced, but I told her she was worth every penny. Her reply? "That's an awful lot of pennies."

What's eating you?

2009-05-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

Because something is eating Bubba. Mosquitoes, specifically. We live in swamp, so we are used to mosquitoes, but these are persistent mosquitoes who snuck into the house somehow. We don't leave the door open, but they sneak in on our clothing, or hurriedly fly in while we are coming or going. I should check our phone bill - I bet while we're out of the house they're making long distance phone calls and eating all of our Easter candy. Stupid bugs.

Bubba seems to be getting the worst of the bites, and they have been bad:

You can't really tell from this angle, but he has a bug bite on his eyelid that made his eye swell almost shut. You can see it better in the photo below:

It was HORRIBLE. He won't keep ice or a cold compress on it (which is really the only thing we can do at this point). Please ignore my messy fridge and my husband's overgrown goatee.

He has about six bites on the back of his neck. They seem to be going down rather quickly, giving me hope that the bite over his eye will settle down just as fast. And yes, he does need a haircut. But it will hurt me a little bit to cut off those curls.

He has another 5 or 6 bites on his torso, and one on each arm. This has all happened inside my house. That makes me feel terrible.

I made a desperate trip to Wal-Mart last night and picked up a couple of indoor pest repellent things that plug into the wall. I'm hoping those will work. And I have become very strict about the opening and closing of the front door or our sliding door. We open the door, dash out and close it quickly again, or vice versa. This morning Bella wanted to check the weather, and she was headed to the door when I said, "That's why we have the internet and the weather channel! Don't open the door!".

This, too, shall pass, I'm sure. As long as I stay vigilant about the doors we should be OK. This is just another reason to add the the already long list of reasons that I can't wait to get out of this apartment. In the meantime, if anyone can offer any advice for...

keeping mosquitoes out of your home
doing something about mosquitoes once they get inside your home
natural anti-itch remedies
a way to keep an ice pack or cold compress on a wriggly, stubborn 15-month old

...I would appreciate it. In the meantime we will make do. In an itchy kind of way.

Duly Noted

2009-05-14T19:35:00.001-07:00

I had to go to the girl scout store the other day to get a few last minute items for the girls. And by a few last minute items I mean all the things I was supposed to be accumulating over the course of the year but didn't - I can procrastinate with the best of them, as long as I can do it tomorrow. They actually had everything I needed, so I happily went to the checkout counter and started digging in my purse for the troop checkbook. And I dug, and I dug, until I started to feel slightly panicky.

I excused myself to the woman behind the counter and went out to the car, frantically digging through all the trash in the floorboards and all the random stuff in the seats, until I remembered that I had put the checkbook in one of the bags I bring to meetings. I heaved a sigh of relief and went back inside, arranging to have my purchases held until the next day.

After work and dinner with my in-laws, I went home, got the kids settled in bed and went to get the checkbook from the bag. I encountered a slight problem when it was not there. So I did a little more digging, and a little more rifling, and every time I searched through something I would be absolutely certain that the checkbook had to be there, and then it wasn't. Anxiety building, I went back out to the car and did a cursory search, but still nothing.

I spent the rest of the evening, until 1AM, searching through various, assorted and very random places in my apartment ("Maybe it's in the vanity drawer in the master bathroom!"), and turned up nothing. I finally forced myself to go to bed, trying to reassure myself that it would turn up the next day. But I didn't manage to fall asleep, because I spent the next two hours doing this: "Ok, sleep, sleep, go to sleep....wait, maybe it's in the laundry room!" and then I would get up and search the laundry room, to no avail. Then I would lay back down and do it all over again: "Alright, going to sleep now....wait, what if I put it in my household binder? I bet that's where it is!" and so on and so on, until it was after 3AM and I was driving myself absolutely insane.

This morning dawned long before I was prepared for it, and after shuttling Bella off to school I settled back into my random searching of places-it-couldn't-possibly-be-but-I-hoped-beyond-hope it might be. After getting frustrated with the house, I decided to search the car again, so I grabbed Bubba and a lawn-sized garbage bag (my car was really filthy) and started cleaning out the car. Roughly a half hour and a stuffed full lawn-sized bag of trash later, I still couldn't find the checkbook. I had felt panicky before, but at that point I was officially panicking.

Losing my personal checkbook would have been stressful, but losing the scouts checkbook made me feel absolutely terrible. It's one thing to be irresponsible with your own things, but to be irresponsible with something that belongs to a bunch of little girls...that hurts. Those girls and their parents worked hard for that money, and it is entrusted to my care, and...well, I felt like I had let them down. I was also worried that I had dropped the checks somewhere and some less than honest person had found them. I wouldn't want to explain to sixteen young girls that they can't have a Build-A-Bear party because I lost their checks and someone stole their money. That would be disastrous.

I sat down on the sofa and decided to declare it officially lost. At that point I had been on the hunt for over twelve hours, and I saw no point in continuing. Small apartment, small car, only so many places to look. I had to 'fess up, and not only did I feel horribly guilty I felt kind of embarrassed. "Yeah, I know you trusted me with this hard earned money and stuff, and I'm a grown woman who should be able to manage such things, but I lost the checkbook. Some criminal probably picked it up somewhere and is at Rent-A-Center right now, writing a troop check for a big screen TV and a micro-suede couch. My bad."

I sat down at the computer and sent an e-mail to the leader in charge of finances, letting her know what I had managed to do and asking her to call me. I called one of the other leaders and told her about it, feeling utterly horrible about myself. While I was talking to her I realized that my cell phone was about to die, so I walked over to the charger and plugged it in. I was yammering about how bad I felt when I looked down at a box of girl scout stuff in front of me, a box of girl scout stuff I had emptied and searched through twice in the course of my search, and there was the missing checkbook. Not only right in front of my face, but even sticking out a half inch or so.

I think I was taught a lesson in humility today. I didn't find what I was missing until after I had to shamefacedly admit to others what I had done. Others whom I had been criticizing just the day before for (of all things!) their lack of organizational skills. I'm not suggesting divine intervention here or anything, I'm certain God is much too busy to come down, hide, and then later replace an item in an attempt to stop me from gossiping, but no matter why it happened, I'm picking up what was laid down.

Lesson learned.

Makes My Monday: Grandparents Rock

2009-05-11T12:04:00.001-07:00

Since I'm posting this so late I won't make it an official 'Makes My Monday' complete with logo - I think I'm coming in a little under the wire for that, but I wanted to share anyway:

I picked up the kids from my sister's house Saturday evening after getting off work. Normally we stay at my sister's house for a while, have dinner and hang out but since my nephew had a date (seriously!) that my sister was going to accompany him on we made other plans. When I first saw Bubba after work he had a drippy nose and was acting rather grumpy.

We decided to head over to my in-law's house, since my father-in-law had been out of town for the week and the kids wanted to see him. Paw-paw, as he is known to my kids, is a big deal to them - especially Bubba. My poor father-in-law has to sneak out of the house if he has to leave while we're there, otherwise Bubba is just utterly devastated.

We pulled up into the driveway and Paw-Paw was standing outside, watering plants. I got Bubba out of the car and let him walk over to my FIL, who stooped down and help his arms out. Bubba toddled up to him and climbed into his arms. "Bubba, you're not smiling!" my FIL commented, tickling him and spinning him around and doing whatever he could to try and coax a smile out of him, but poor Bubba was not in a smiling mood.

My FIL followed us inside the house, calling to my MIL, "Bubba won't smile!". She was alarmed - "Ooh, what's wrong with Maw-Maw's baby doll?" she cooed at him, making faces, trying anything to get him to smile, but he still would not. Bubba just laid back against his Paw-Paw, not looking around or getting down to play, just laying there and blankly watching television.

When I mentioned that my sister had told me he hadn't eaten much that day, they were horrified. Bubba is a voracious eater. My MIL promptly got up and warmed up some jambalaya for him - Bubba loves his rice. He ate a few bites and turned his nose up at it, sniffling and clinging to his Paw-Paw and just looking all-around pitiful.

We had not planned to stay long, because my in-laws were planning on going to dinner and then the grocery store. I tried to tell them that I would get him to eat at home so they could go and do what they had planned to do, but they would have none of it. My MIL started rifling through her kitchen, trying to figure out what Bubba might eat. While she was in there Bella asked if she could have some pancakes and bacon. I was horrified, and quickly told Bella that she could eat at home, but again, they would have none of it. My MIL promptly whipped up some pancakes and cooked some bacon.

Bella sat down to eat and Bubba was looking pretty interested in her pancakes, so my MIL fixed a plate for him. She sat down on the couch, put him on her knee and speared pancake pieces on her fork, giving it to him to feed himself. And he did! And ate two pancakes. He got my MIL all sticky from the syrup, but she didn't care. She fed him, wiped him down, gave him a cookie, and before too much longer he was back to his normal self, running around the house and making a mess. My FIL took him out on the front porch (that he built just so Bubba would have a place outside to run around) and they played with a ball out there until I could get all of our stuff together and get ready to leave.

It was amazing - they hadn't eaten dinner themselves, they had things they needed to do, my FIL had been on a plane all day, and yet they were more worried about making sure my kids were happy than their own situation. I love my in-laws, and we are all very fortunate to have them in our lives. And THAT is why grandparents make my Monday.

Happy Friday

2009-05-08T06:35:00.000-07:00

I don't have much to say - I'm tired and worn out, so instead of being negative and grumping about all that I am going to suggest that you go and visit Aimee's blog and read her post about her son. I dare you not to be moved. After reading that, there is nothing I could possibly write that would seem even remotely adequate.

Bummer

2009-05-03T21:24:00.000-07:00

'The Hyper Homemaker', a recent discovery of mine, has deleted her blog. She didn't leave it up and stop posting to it, she flat out deleted it. She mentioned something about a book offer, so I suppose you can't really write a book about homemaking and expect people to buy it when you have all the info up on the web for free. That whole 'no one will buy the cow' thing, I suppose. My first thought was - she totally sold out. And my second thought was, ah, but so would I. So there you go, then.

I've got a lot of personal irons in the fire, lately. A lot of little projects around the house that are waiting for just a little more attention so they can take off. I'm finally making a household binder, for one. Which, once completed, will be a lovely resource for my household, but right now it's just not good enough. I'm so weird like that - "No, I can't use this until I center that title" or "Oh, I misspelled that sub-heading, so I'll have to wait and reprint it" or other such nonsense.

I've been thinking a lot about my health and my diet, and also the kids' diets. Heart disease is rampant in my family, along with diabetes and high blood pressure and all sorts of other things. I actually have PVC's, generally harmless heart palpitations that, while harmless when unaccompanied by other problems, can signal trouble ahead. I know I need to eat better and take better care of myself. I've been doing a lot of reading, both books and information online, and I'm thinking about going vegetarian, then eventually vegan. I am not saying I will never eat meat again - I just don't think I could do that, but I do plan on eating it very infrequently. I've been sort of sneakily introducing meatless meals for a while now, and while the kids and I don't have an issue with it, I can't make too many in a row before Brian and my grandfather start to complain.

Bella has long been sort of a vegetarian - the only meat she eats is in cheeseburger or nugget form, and Bubba is a vegetarian at this time because he considers himself above baby food and will only eat table food, and most meats are a little too much for his chewing/swallowing skills at this point in time. I have done a lot of reading about children's nutritional needs, as well. I'm not forcing this on the kids, and if at any point they want to eat meat that is fine with me, but they aren't eating meat now anyway, so it makes sense to try and make the changes necessary to ensure they are getting the nutrients they need. I'm going to talk all this over with their doctors at their next check-up, of course, but I feel better knowing more about what their bodies need and how to get it into them.

This week I am embarking on my adventures in herbivorism. Is that a word? I am planning on doing all this slowly - phasing out certain things, phasing in certain things. I am excited about it, actually, because I'm really hoping it will make a difference and make me feel better. I bought groceries tonight and I did buy some meat that I can add into my menu for whomever wants it, so I'm hoping that I'll be able to make everyone happy. I might blog about my dietary changes ocassionally, more for a record for myself than anything else. Ooo, and then maybe I can get a book deal! Awesome! And one day you will attempt to stop by my blog and it will say "This blog has been deleted because the user totally sold out".

My Favorite

2009-05-03T10:32:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Laura from Catholic Teacher Musings for hosting this today, in honor of World Prayer for Vocations.

I have only been Catholic for a couple of years now, so my experience with priests is rather limited, but there is one priest who had an enormous impact on me.

I encountered some issues over the course of my RCIA classes and at one point it actually looked like I wouldn't be able to be confirmed and welcomed into the Church. Msgr. Reed, the priest at the parish my sponsor attends, helped me with these issues and it is because of him that I was able (and chose!) to move ahead with the process. I was discouraged and dejected and he stepped in and helped me.

I had always been fond of him even before he came to my rescue, so to speak. He is an incredible speaker, and when I look back on my time in RCIA a lot of the words that stuck with me came from him. He can inject a little hellfire and brimstone into his homilies from time to time, and as a convert from the baptist faith I appreciate that - it makes me nostalgic. :-)

I have seen Msgr. Reed since then, and he always recognizes me and greets me warmly. I don't attend his parish but I have seen and heard enough about his actions to know that he is a good, kind and generous man who lives as a model of his faith. And he kept me from losing mine. So thank you and God bless, Msgr. Reed!

Not sure what to think

2009-04-29T18:17:00.000-07:00

Bella came home with a behavior report today - a bad one. She was talking too much (we get reports of that once every couple of weeks or so) and that she wouldn't stay in her seat (that one was new). We discussed it with Bella at length, and told her that she would be punished at home, to which she replied that she had been punished at school. I told her that was only fair, and she said: "My teacher told the class to give me and (another student) a round of applause since, because of us, the whole class lost recess for 13 days".

I don't really like that she is doling out a group punishment with the blame placed on two children that she named to the class. It isn't fair to the other students, for one. I agree that Bella needed to be punished, go ahead and use her as an example, certainly - if you want to tell the class that because of the way she acted Bella lost recess for 13 days, that's fine with me. But to name her and another student specifically and point out that it is their fault that the entire class lost recess - and for 13 days, which seems like a long time - well, I don't think that is appropriate. I would guess that the point of a group punishment would be the hope that other class members would try and encourage the students to stop misbehaving, but I think that is a little over the head of first graders. For older children, I could see how that could work - with older children, peer pressure is a huge incentive, so risking the displeasure of fellow students is anathema.

I also know that self-preservation is a strong instinct, especially among children, so there is always the possibility that Bella is not telling the truth. However, I don't think she could make up the phrases that she used - 'round of applause' is not in Bella's vocabulary. And I asked her the one question that is guaranteed to eke the truth out of her - "If I go ask (teacher's name) whether that happened, will she tell me the same thing you just told me?". Bella normally crumbles under such logic, but when I said that tonight she just said, "Yes, that's what she said - you can ask her". Hmm.

My first thought was to send an e-mail to the teacher, thanking her for letting us know about Bella's behavior and letting her know that we are working to correct it, and then nicely asking the teacher about the situation. I'm not going to CC the principal or anything, and I'm not expecting anything to come of it, but I would like her to know that I think there is possibly a more appropriate way to handle that situation. But I am going to wait until tomorrow - I'm going to sleep on it.

I must add that, while this would bother me slightly under normal circumstances, I wouldn't be so troubled by it if my husband had not mentioned it to his parents. They were immensely bothered by it, thus making my position a little more awkward. My FIL even asked if I wanted him to handle it - I quickly assured him that would not be necessary, and that I would take care of it. Don't mess with their grandbabies!

Sigh. It will all work out - I'm sure of it. Small potatoes, as my Grandma would say. Don't sweat the small stuff. I'm going to lay on the sofa and read and forget about all of this. Good night!

**UPDATE: I didn't do anything. Sending an e-mail would have accomplished nothing. I could express to her that I felt her actions to be innappropriate, and it would change nothing. It's almost the end of the year, anyway - Bella has another month or so in this teacher's class, so there doesn't seem to be much of a point in stirring the pot. No hard feelings, just glad that this school year is drawing to a close. It's almost over!

In need of thoughts, input and advice

2009-04-25T09:01:00.000-07:00

I would greatly appreciate some input from anyone who has experience with Catholic schools, in whatever capacity. Specifically I am wondering about band and/or orchestra programs in Catholic schools. Heck, in any private school (except PCA). If you know the answers (and I fully realize you may not, and that's OK), I would love to hear from you. What I am wondering is:

Does your Catholic school have a band or orchestra program?

If so, does it operate strictly within the school, or is it parish or diocese-wide?

Is there a charge for participating?

Do the classes take place during the school day or is it an after school program?

I am asking all of this because Bella's music teacher left the school, leaving a small band class high and dry and with no other options. She also forced the cancellation of the school's spring musical. Bella has been at this school for three years. In those three years she has had 5 different music teachers. Two of those teachers left during the school year, both of them abandoning a band program that the teacher who followed them could not teach.

In my opinion, it would be beneficial for both the students and the school(s) to offer a band program. So I am doing some reading and research right now to try and look into other options for offering band classes. I would greatly appreciate any information anyone could give me - if you don't feel like commenting feel free to send me an e-mail. Thanks!

And we're back!

2009-04-19T08:06:00.000-07:00

I miss the family being all together, and I miss my gorgeous, sweet little niece, but I am glad to be home. I have edited this post multiple times throughout the course of the day, but keep ending up being waaaay too wordy, so I decided to break it down:

The trip up: Loooong. We got on the road around 5:30pm on a Friday night, and got there around 12pm Saturday. Bella and I were crammed into two tiny seats in the back of the SUV we rented, but we enjoyed ourselves despite being surrounded by all the stuff that didn't fit into the roof rack. I did not sleep at all, because I was worried about Brian driving, since he only had bout 5 hours of sleep under his belt. But we made it!

My niece: Absolutely gorgeous, adorably cute, captured my heart at first sight.

Bubba felt the same way, apparently, because he smooched all over the baby. Everytime he walked by her he had to stop and give her some spitty kisses:

Our sleeping arrangements: My in-laws slept in the master bedroom; my sister-in-law, her husband and their baby slept in the baby's room, and my little family slept on the living room floor or on the couch or loveseat. It was difficult because Bubba would just wander around playing until he collapased from exhaustion, then he would be out of sorts. And stayed out of sorts for the better part of the trip. But all of the family was together, and that is what mattered.

Easter Sunday: A good day. We went to the base church for mass. The service was lovely. Bubba slept through it, but Bella dissolved into tears halfway through, I think because she was tired. The music director accidentally turned her microphone on about ten minutes before the service started, so we got to listen to her correct some intonation issues, ask the piano player if she was playing the same song the choir was singing, and then, possibly as a grand finale, burp. Bless her heart. Anyway, it was a good day, all around.

Children's Museum: Fun. Educational. Some of the better exhibits were broken, but I think you have to take into consideration that, being a children's museum, things are bound to break or be broken on fairly regular basis. Bella was fascinated by most of the displays. Bubba was bored until we got to the under-3 play area and then he ran around like a fiend before staking out the top of a climbing toy as his spot.

Virginia Aquarium: Lovely. I was smitten with the sea turtles, Bella loved the seahorses, and Bubba was very, very grumpy. I actually bought him a crab stuffed animal as a souvenir, because it fit his personality that day. Bella discovered a love of spiders, which was interesting. She was actually afraid of the sea turtles - I asked her to stand in front of the tank to take a picture, because there was a turtle slightly bigger than her floating right beside her, but she said she didn't like turning her back on it. I don't know what she thought it might do, but we did get the picture - Bella looks scared, and the sea turtle is swimming off, probably disgusted at the implication.

Colonial Williamsburg: Just as wonderful as I remember it. I could have spent days there, days and days, but Bubba was unhappy and Bella's feet were tired after an hour of walking. We did stay for a few hours, though, and Bella learned quite a bit. I just can't say enough good things about it - I would go back tomorrow, if I could. If it wasn't 16 hours away.

The dress is a period costume rented from the visitor's center, the jeans and Hanna Montana shoes are NOT period dress but it was too cold to roll them up and I wasn't buying new shoes. Despite the odd mix of old and new AND the fact that there were tons of other children roaming around in costume, we were stopped multiple times by people who wanted to take Bella's picture.

The trip home: Long and agonizing. I was able to sleep, which helped. Bella and I, once again crammed into the back of the truck, were close enough to each other to have the following conversation:

Bella: "Mom, you have a hair growing out of your chin"

Me: "Yeah, that happens sometimes when you get older"

Bella: "I'll get it" and then leaned over and yanked the hair out. "Mom, are you growing a mustache?"

Me: "It's not a mustache, Bella, it's just fuzz. Why don't you read? Where's your Junie B Jones book?"

Bella: "But I'm just wondering, why would you want to grow a mustache?"

Me: "Where's your gameboy?"

Bella: "Are you going to grow it out like Dad's, in a goat?" (meaning goatee)

Me: "Find something to do other than look at me, Bella"

She eventually did read, and finished off the novelization of 'Barbie and the Diamond Castle'. She is a zippy reader!

We left Virginia around 12PM on Friday afternoon and arrived back home around 4:30am Saturday morning. After unloading the car, I ran to the store to get groceries, then came back home and attempted to sort suitcases and other things out, then dropped the kids off at my sister's house and was at work by 10Am. Whew!

Some other random thoughts:

I am sooo glad we had the GPS unit my sister gave us for Christmas. Even with the GPS, we still got lost a few times, but it would have been much worse, otherwise. On that note, does anyone remember AAA triptiks? I remember when I was a kid we would get a triptik to go anywhere. It was a little comb bound book that showed your route via multiple pages of maps, and construction areas were stamped on in red, and rest stops, etc. Old school!

Bubba threw horrible tantrums the whole time we were gone. Hitting, kicking, throwing himself to the ground, screaming. An amplified version of his normal behavior. I'm really, really hoping it was because he was so tired and off his schedule, because otherwise I will never be able to take him anywhere. I haven't really taken him anywhere since we got home, actually, because I'm sort of scared. Bella never threw tantrums, so this is very new to me. I just don't know what to do when he does that. My instinct is to remove him from the situation, which is usually inconvenient or rude if not both, but that's the best I can come up with for now.

Before we left for this trip I was mulling over some changes that I need to make in my life, for my own good and for the good of my family. I am going to steal a page from Jennifer over at the Conversion Diary and make this time after Easter like a mini-new year, a time to re-evaluate, assess and make changes. I have a lot of ideas, of course, but one concern I have had for a while now is the amount of television that Bella watches. And not only does she watch a lot, she is a TV zombie - when she is engrossed in a show you can't talk to her or tell her anything, because she won't hear it.

For that reason, and since the timing worked out so well, we are going to participate in TV Turnoff Week. And since I'm ripping off other bloggers' ideas, I'm going to borrow the idea (and the image) from Unplug Your Kids to take that one step further and include ALL screen time in that turnoff. So I am going to try and avoid the computer during the times I am at home. I probably won't be posting until the week is over, but lately I haven't been posting that frequently anyway. I'll still be able to check and comment on blogs from work, though, which makes me feel better. Wish me luck!

I'm (almost) out

2009-04-08T19:51:00.000-07:00

My head is spinning with preparations for our upcoming trip. We are actually setting out Friday evening, in the hopes that we can put a few hundred miles behind us under the cover of darkness while Bubba snoozes. Eventually he will wake up, and then he will protest, vigorously and loudly, his entrapment in the car seat, so we want to avoid as much of that as we can. Alas, Bubba is not a car seat baby. Five minute trips to WalMart make him quite unhappy, so I can just imagine how he will feel about a sixteen hour jaunt up the east coast. I think Bella will do well - she has been on long car trips before, and we will be loaded up on the entertainment options - lots of chapter books and puzzle books, and her gameboy and the portable DVD player - so she will be busy and happy. Bubba, however - different story. My in-laws, who are making the trip with us, are considerably more stressed by listening to Bubba yowl from the backseat, so I'm certain they will insist on stopping more frequently. Which is fine by me, but my husband is one of those people who hates stopping on long trips, so this should be interesting.

I jokingly - well, half jokingly - asked my husband if someone could just do a 'Mr. T' (hopefully someone will get the A-Team reference) for myself and Bubba - you know, just give us something to knock us out until we get where we are going, but he did not seem to think that was the best idea. I'm betting somewhere around South Carolina he might change his mind. I don't sleep well in cars, and I tend to get a bit queasy riding in the backseat of a car - not full on, bring-me-a-bucket car sick, just uncomfortable-and-slightly-grumpy-nausea.

I am packing and frantically cleaning the house, so that when we arrive home exhausted and bearing multiple loads of dirty laundry, the house won't already be a mess. And also so that my sister and nephew, who will be feeding our fish while we are gone, won't think that we are disgusting people who live like animals. My problem is that I am packing and frantically cleaning while also working, so I have been up until at least 1AM every night this week. Maybe I will accumulate such sleep debt that I will conk out in the car anyway. Hey, there's the upside to this whole lack-of-sleep thing!

I am getting excited about this trip - I get to meet my new niece, whom I plan to spoil relentlessly - as much as you can spoil a 2-month old infant, anyway. I get to hang out with my SIL and her husband, and take the kids to new places....it will be fun. It will all be worth 16 hours in a car with my children and my MIL and FIL. It will all be worth it. :-)

My sister-in-law does not have a computer nor we will really be anywhere with access to one, so I will be away from the internet for (gasp!) the entirety of our trip - roughly eight days or so. That has crossed my mind more than I would like to admit, so maybe I need a break. More than once I have felt a little concerned about my e-mail languishing unread, both work and personal, and about the blog posts I would miss reading and all the other little things I count on to ~~waste time instead of doing housework~~ keep me entertained, amused and in touch. But, it will all be there when I get back, and it will do me some good to get away.

I want to wish everyone a happy and blessed Easter! I will be in church on Sunday with the whole family, together again. Exciting!

Trouble, with a capital 'T'

2009-04-04T20:37:00.000-07:00

Tonight I was cleaning up once the kids were in bed, and I was so amused by the mess Bubba left behind that I had to document it. The picture below was taken earlier this week, but I think that smile says it all:

I must disclaimer: my floor is messy from Bubba and the random little things he picks up and then drops. I promise we aren't living in squalor over here, despite how it might appear.

Little known fact: like a good white wine, some toys are better if chilled slightly - the bottom shelf of the fridge is the perfect place.

Shoes can double as storage! Who knew!

Hate the nasal aspirator? Then sneak it out of the diaper bag when mom isn't looking and hide it under the sofa cushions! (I was looking for the cordless phone when I encountered these)

Is it a golf club or a toilet tissue holder? It's both!

I can honestly say that is rarely a dull moment with Bubba around. Every day is an adventure.

When you don't have anything nice to say.....

2009-03-31T19:55:00.000-07:00

We had to finish up our taxes yesterday - my hubby had them started but didn't have all the documents he needed, so once he picked Bella up from school he headed over to the tax preparers office with the understanding that I would follow along once I got off work.

Brian had both kids with him, and as I made the half-hour drive to meet up with them I remember wondering to myself - how on earth is he going to keep them busy? My question was answered when I arrived and saw Bella happily slurping from a 20-oz. orange soda and eating doritos and M&Ms. Bubba had a bottle half full of orange soda (yes, I was horrified) and was eating M&Ms that Brian was crushing for him, apparently so he wouldn't choke. How very thoughtful.

I got there just as the kids were finishing the snacks that their father had so thoughtfully provided for them. I sat down at the other chair in the little cubicle and the children proceeded to go absolutely insane - they were all hopped up on candy and soda, and apparently the excitement of seeing old mom after a day away was just to much to bear.

They started pushing and shoving each other to get to me, and then there was a fight over who got to sit in my lap. Bubba won, eventually, and proceeded to alternately shove his approaching sister in the face and yank on the cord of the printer that was beside us. I was trying to keep him contained when Bella grabbed a pair of scissors off the desk and started waving them around like some sort of scissor-armed swashbuckler. I took the scissors away and while I was distracted with that Bubba knocked down a pen caddy, sending roughly two dozen pens clattering to the floor. I was trying to pick up the pens and keep Bubba from them, so he started screaming and kicked his sister in the face, who started whining. When I sat back up to put the pens back on the desk our tax preparer said, "Wow, your kids were so much better behaved before you got here. I guess Daddy is the disciplinarian in this family".

I couldn't even say anything to respond to that. At first I wanted to defend myself ("They were good for him because he was giving them soda and candy!"), then I decided to ignore it, then I wanted to say something snide, but in the end I said nothing at all. I felt utterly defeated. Eventually I just let it go, but not before sulking about it for a little while. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think that is the kind of thing you should say to someone. Especially not someone who is about to write you a check for a rather large sum of money for your services.

I seem to fall back on my 'say nothing' strategy quite often. It doesn't make me feel any better, but I don't always trust myself to have a kind reply.

Brian did get his comeuppance, however, for allowing the rampant sugar intake: halfway through his bottle of orange soda, Bubba threw up all over him. And orange soda baby throw-up is smelly, let me assure you.

We are getting ready for our vacation - we leave a week from Friday! This is our first family vacation ever - not just our first with Bubba. We have gone to visit family either in southern Florida or over in Louisiana, but for some reason it was always Bella and myself or Bella and Brian, never all of us together. And not only will it be my little family, but my mother-in-law and father-in-law are going, too. My sister-in-law moved to Virginia Beach last year, so we will be visiting with her, her husband and my new niece, who I just can't wait to meet and spoil. And we will all be together for Easter, which will be nice.

We are planning on visiting Colonial Williamsburg (we are going to rent a costume for Bella so she can walk around in period dress), checking out the VA Beach Aquarium and hitting up a really cool children's museum that is nearby. It should be lots of fun. I loved Williamsburg, so I'm excited to go back. It's going to be a big trip and a fun trip.

I bought a new book the other day to read in the car, and it's killing me to have a new book that I can't read. I actually made Brian hide it from me today, just so I can't get to it. And on that note, I'm off to find something to read. If only I knew where he hid that book....

Stormy Weather

2009-03-26T19:28:00.000-07:00

This picture was taken by my sister (on her blackberry, as it so smugly and insistently reminds you) right outside where we work. The rain has been crazy. On my way to work this morning I had to change my route three times due to flooded streets.

The location where we currently work used to be a five and dime store called J.J. Newberry's, and back in the day my grandmother worked there, at the grill. And now my sister and I work there - I think that's kind of neat. The grill is long gone but the exhaust vent is still there, along with some original flooring in places and the pay toilet doors. A little history for you. :)

Baby, I'm back (sort of)

2009-03-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

Boy, was I sick. Sicker than I have been in a long, long time, and sick for what felt like a long, long time - two weeks exactly. I still have a little rattle in my chest and some sinus pressure/pain, but other than that I finally feel human again. But I'm still so tired! It's like I just can't get enough sleep. No matter how tired I might be, though, I thank God that I am functioning again.

My apartment, though....it has seen some better days. Most nights I just tried to pick up enough to ensure we wouldn't develop an infestation of roaches or rodents in the house, declared it good enough and collapsed into bed. It's not dirty, in other words, there is just stuff everywhere - it's cluttered.

My husband did help out around the house - one night, after he had left for work, I went into our master bathroom to brush my teeth and was pleasantly surprised to notice that he had cleaned. I decided to call him and thank him, while brushing my teeth - that's a bad habit of mine, talking on the phone and brushing. I thanked him for cleaning the bathroom, and we were talking about the kids and Bella's day at school when I suddenly noticed an icky taste in my mouth. This is the conversation that followed:

Me: "My toothbrush tastes funny..."
Hubby: "Uh-oh, like what?"
Me: "I don't know what it tastes like, but it doesn't taste right."
Hubby: "Oh, wait, I might have accidentally sprayed it with bathroom cleaner."
Me: "WHAT? Are you serious? I'm brushing my teeth with bathroom cleaner?"
Hubby: "Probably, yeah, I thought I might have sprayed it."
Me: "Why didn't you throw it away? Or better yet move the toothbrushes when you're cleaning?"
Hubby: "I don't know! I thought you would be mad if I threw your toothbrush away!"
Me: "Madder than I would be for you letting my brush my teeth with Tilex?"
Hubby: "Well, I wasn't really sure which would be worse. And then I forgot."

I rinsed thoroughly, threw away my toothbrush, got another one out of the hall closet and just let the subject drop - I was so grateful to have just one room in the house that was clean that I didn't care about a little Tilex in my toothpaste. So now my mouth is disinfected and lemony fresh, and maybe the bleach will have some whitening effects (but hopefully no other effects). But hey, at least my bathroom is clean!

Oops, I did it again

2009-03-17T18:31:00.000-07:00

Bella's school must think I am a horrible parent. I expect a knock on the door from child protective services any minute now because, between my own ineptitude and Bella's stories, I must come across as some sort of neglectful, mean mom.

One fine example: I put Bella's hot lunch money in her folder, telling her that I was doing so in the process. When I did that I took her lunch box from the day before out of her backpack but didn't have time to put it away, because her brother was busy falling off the sofa. I promptly forgot about the lunchbox, she didn't hear me mention the lunch money and put the lunchbox (from the day before, remember) back into her backpack. She gets to school, never finds the lunch money, takes her lunchbox to the cafeteria and.....nothing but an empty sandwich box, a warm cold-pack and a used napkin. The school gave her a PB&J sandwich, so it isn't like she went hungry, but man, I felt terrible. BUT - she should have been listening when I told her about her lunch money (I thought she was listening - I made her verify that she heard me, and even had her repeat it back to me) and she should have seen it in her folder - it was right there. It was still in her folder when she came home that day.

Another example: Bella came home from school one day and had supplies in her backpack. I was curious and asked why she had the scissors, glue and markers. She answered: "I told my teacher that we don't have any of that at home, and if I was going to finish illustrating my story I needed to borrow them from school". I could just see her teacher feeling very sorry for poor Bella, who has no supplies at home, but that little tale of woe, my friends, is completely untrue. Bella has a ton of school/art/craft supplies, and even if she didn't, I have girl scout supplies coming out of my wazoo. We could open our own store, we have so much of the stuff lying around. Bella is just too lazy to find them, despite the fact that they are everywhere. I keep a stash in the living room, in case we need them, and her room is crawling in markers and other supplies - they are everywhere. I even keep sets in the car, in case I need them for scouts. And yet she bats her big eyes and claims to not own a marker or a glue stick. Whatever.

We had another episode today - today was school pride day, and they didn't have to wear their uniforms. This morning Bella wasn't exactly certain of the rules, and neither was I, so I went to the school website and pulled up the handbook to make sure. Feeling safe in what she ultimately ended up wearing (after going through about 6 different outfits) I sent her off. So this evening, after working all day and going grocery shopping, I come home and the first thing Bella says is, "I didn't have a collar on my shirt and I was supposed to and so I had to wear a sweatshirt all day and it was hot and it was somebody else's sweatshirt from Lost and Found and it was kind of smelly". Well, then.

I was a little cheesed, at first. It was warm today - around 80 degrees. She wasn't in danger of a heat stroke or anything, but it had to be uncomfortable running around all day in a sweatshirt. Then Bella showed me a printout her teacher had put into her folder from the class web page - not the school, the class web page - that did indeed say everyone had to wear collared shirts, which was contrary to what was on the school web page in the school handbook. I did not check the class page, I admit, and maybe I should have, but frankly I don't have the time or the energy to compare the two sites on a daily basis.

I wrote a note to her teacher, then threw it away. Then I wrote another note to her teacher, and threw it away. Then I went to the store to get stuff for girl scouts, came home, thought about writing another note, and haven't. It's not the teacher's fault, I'm not mad at her, but I think someone should know that there is an error. What about parents who don't have internet access and are going exclusively by the handbook? Although it would be very difficult to send a child to this school without having internet access, since everything is online - newsletters, homework, forms - even report cards, now, are exclusively online. Anyway, all that to say, I was kind of miffed, but I just need to get over it. Although I still want to write that note.

I feel bad - I feel inattentive, lazy, and bad. I sent her to school Friday with lunch money, and the school called me to tell me it was a half day and there was no hot lunch. I thanked her profusely (that was in the thick of my illness - I was running almost a 102-degree fever that morning) for reminding me, and then the secretary said, "So you are going to come get her, right? Otherwise she won't have anything to eat". I understand that she was just doing her job by asking that and she didn't mean anything by it, and I'm glad someone is looking out to make sure that Bella eats, but it made me feel so guilty. Like I was planning on leaving her there anyway and hoping maybe someone would feel sorry for her and throw some goldfish crackers on the floor or something.

Accidents happen, though, right? No one is perfect. I am trying to stay on top of all these details. It doesn't always work out for me, but at least I'm trying.

Happy Saint Patrick's day!

Oy

2009-03-13T18:37:00.000-07:00

I thought I might be on the mend, but I was terribly, terribly wrong. And I thought my kids were on the mend, but I was terribly wrong there, too. Bella has an earache and poor Bubba has the snuffliest nose in the world, possibly. For right now everyone is in their own beds but iif I was a betting woman I would say around 3Am we'll all be snuggled up together in my bed coughing and sneezing and whining all over each other. Ah, family togetherness.

I'm having a pity party

2009-03-12T23:20:00.000-07:00

It's 1:20am and I can't sleep. I've tried sleeping, and I've tried everything I can think of to get to sleep, and it's just not working out for me. I'm sick as a dog, and tomorrow I have to get Bella up and off to school, then get myself ready for work, drop Bubba off at my MIL's, and then go to work until 5. And that process starts in about five hours.

I'm trying to look at things positively - if I had to get sick, I got sick on Wednesday, just before my Thursday off day. And I didn't have girl scouts this Thursday, yet another thing to be grateful for. And I am grateful things worked out that way - don't get me wrong - but man, tomorrow is just going to be a rough day.

Sorry I haven't posted this week - Brian has been off work until tonight, so that was keeping me busy. Maybe once I feel better I'll have more and better things to talk about than how sick and tired I am.

I'm going to go attempt sleep and hopefully a more positive attitude. And if that doesn't work out, I'm going to lay around and read with tissues shoved up my nose. Because I'm sexy like that. :-)

A reluctant volunteer

2009-03-05T19:37:00.000-08:00

I signed on to post tonight in lieu of doing productive household things, you know, cleaning the bathroom, laundry, anything, really. The garbage desperately needs to go out, too - it's been in the house so long that I wouldn't be surprised if it suddenly stood up and took itself out, glaring at me with disgust as it went. And I would say, "What? I can't get up right now because I'm busy sending shamrocks back to people on Facebook. I was going to take you out eventually!"

Today was a busy day. This week has been a busy week. Bubba has spent his time cutting canine teeth, being miserable and sleeping as little as possible, and when baby don't sleep, well....guess who else hasn't been getting her beauty sleep. My under-eye circles are so dark that someone actually thought I had a black eye.

The weekend isn't offering any relief, either. There was a miscommunication between myself and my beloved cookie mom, and I found out today I am expected at a cookie booth sale at 3:15 tomorrow. This promises to be somewhat difficult, logistically, since I don't get off work until 4:00. I did manage to shift some things around (with the aid of some helpful relatives- love ya, Jen!) and I'll be able to accommodate the booth sale.

I have to admit that I really, really didn't want to take the high road with this issue. I had e-mailed cookie mom weeks ago and told her that I could probably, with notice, rearrange my schedule to make one of the two Friday booth sales she had scheduled, if she let me know which one she wanted me to work. I saw her at church on Ash Wednesday and verified that she had, in fact, received my e-mail, and she said that she had and would be replying shortly, and then never did. I had no idea that she had penciled me in. When she said she would see me tomorrow I just sort of blankly said, "Wha?" (because I have a way with words, you know) and she said she had me on the schedule for tomorrow. I wanted to stomp my feet and whine, "But you said said you would e-mail me and let me know where I was needed and you never did that and I am busy and I don't want to do it and I'm not gonna!". But I didn't, I just sort of gulped it all down and said fine, I would be there.

We are selling at the naval commissary, though, which is hard to get to without a military ID. If the gate guys search my car I will die of embarrassment, because it is dirty. That has happened to me before - after 9/11, there was a huge (and understandable) increase in security measures to board any military property in the area. Everyone was subject to search, and one day, going onto NAS to visit the museum with Bella when she was but a wee little lass, I was selected for a more extensive search. The guard had to open all my doors, and stuff fell out every time he did it. And when I opened my trunk for the man he literally laughed out loud, because it was chock full of random stuff. I felt horribly embarrassed and asked him if he wanted me to take the stuff out so he could look around, and he said no, he didn't think we had that kind of time. You would think I would have learned a lesson from that, but no. I spend a lot of time in my car, ferrying children around, going to and from work, whatever else you can think of, and my car looks like what it is: a roving storage unit/office/pantry/insert anything else you can imagine here,because it's probably in my car. I'm working on it. Just like I'm cleaning the bathroom right now.

Bella was invited to stay the night at a friend's house tomorrow night, too. My co-leader has two daughters, one a year older than Bella and one a year younger, so she can play with either or both, and they invited her to stay over. They have a fabulously huge piece of property, with lots of land. They have a horse, they have a chicken coop, they have a heated pool and they have a hot tub. Heck, I would spend the night there. Bella eagerly agreed, which is fine, but they live waaaay out in the country, so the drive to their house is a long one. And I'll have to pick her up before work Saturday, slicing an hour from my time that morning. But that's OK, I'm sure Bella will enjoy herself, and that makes it worth it.

Tomorrow is going to be a even busier day than today, so I probably need to clean the house before the garbage does come to life. It would probably form an alliance with the dishwasher and attempt to mount some sort of household coup, so I must vanquish them both before they have the opportunity. To the kitchen!

I apologize in advance

2009-03-01T19:43:00.000-08:00

This paragraph involves some tummy trouble - no details, certainly, but a couple of anecdotes that have amused me. Just a warning! There were some troubling stomach issues happening in my house today. In the midst of the gastric distress the internal flush mechanism on Bella's commode broke off, something I determined to be a matter of replacement and not repair. Since we have to let maintenance handle that and they are not around on Sundays, when flushing has been needed - and it's been needed a lot around here today, I'm sorry to say - I just lift the lid off the toilet tank and pull up the little valve thingy (like my technical plumbing terms?) myself. This distresses Bella greatly, and every time I have done it she shrieks and runs away and then won't come near me for the better part of a half hour or so. If I actually touch her, for some reason, she is completely grossed out - "Mom, you just put toilet water in my hair, that is sooooo nasty". I have explained that the water in the tank is actually clean water, and that I am washing my hands thoroughly after each manual flush, but she just can't see past the fact that I am putting my hands in the toilet.

I wanted to remind her of a time, when she was about four years old, that she came out of the bathroom looking very smug, walked over to me and said, "Mom, I couldn't reach the sink to wash my hands, but it's OK because I washed them in the toilet. And then I flushed it, because it saves water that way". Horrors!

I will segue from there to one more story: a few years ago Brian bought me a nice watch for Mother's Day. A few days later I was in the bathroom, cleaning, and took it off and put it up on a shelf with the towels so it didn't get wet. I cleaned the tub, scrubbed the commode and flushed it, then turned to start cleaning the sink, but when I turned I bumped the shelves with my elbow and jostled the watch, knocking it off the shelf. I tried to grab it while it was falling (towards the toilet bowl), doing this awkward, catching-dropping-bumping thing that felt like it was going in slow motion - I could actually hear myself saying, "NOOOOOOOO....." - and the watch dropped right into the last little bit of water and swirled away, never to be seen again. I had literally flushed my gift down the toilet.

I 'fessed up to Brian when he got home from work, hating it the whole time, knowing full well he would never let me live it down. And he hasn't - to this day, when I say I want something, he teases me about it, in a good-natured way, of course - "If I get you those earrings, do you promise not to flush them down the toilet?". I am exceptional at doing silly little clumsy, awkward things like that, but that is all part of my magical appeal. And that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

I'm busy....

2009-02-27T10:08:00.000-08:00

....but I'm blogging. Go figure.

I am feeling frazzled at work right now, so I am taking a moment. It's been a crazy day.

Yesterday evening I dropped an ice cube tray that was full of frozen avacado and banana cubes. I picked up all the pieces, or what I thought was all the pieces, and threw them away (no five-second rule for baby food). Then last night I encountered two little melted piles of green mush. Then this morning I opened the laundry room door (which is right off the kitchen) and slipped in another little pile of green mush, falling and brusing my pride, terribly. Bubba was amused and thought it was playtime since I was down on the floor, so he hurried over and dropped a big elbow on my stomach. Ooof.

In more Bubba news, he found a single serving baggie of cookies in his diaper bag this morning, and he promptly threw it on the floor and hit it with a toy golf club until it exploded. He then tried to eat as many cookie pieces as he could before I could get there from the kitchen. It's a small apartment, but by the time I reached him he had his chubby little cheeks stuffed full of cookie and was trying to scurry away.

While I was showering this morning he apparently decided he wanted to join me so he clambered into the tub (a new skill for him, or at least one that he has not shown me yet), fully clothed. I was mid-shampoo when he started climbing, and in my haste to keep him from killing himself by falling into or out of the tub I got shampoo in my eyes. So my eyes were watering and I couldn't open one of them all the way, and I am trying to catch him while attempting to to rinse my hands and get the soap out of my eyes. He made it into the tub and got soaking wet, then he slipped and fell down and had to be comforted. By that point I needed to be comforted, because I was pretty much done.

My sister believes that his antics are all related somehow to testosterone. Oh well; at least there is never a dull moment with Bubba around!

At least it's Friday, that's something. Back to work!

Quick Takes Friday

2009-02-26T20:48:00.000-08:00

1. Tonight Bella asked, completely of her own accord, if she could bring her lunch tomorrow and put the $3 she would have spent buying her lunch into her Operation Rice Bowl box. And Fridays are pizza days, people, so that's a big deal. She's a good girl.

2. Bubba is teething, and he is having a terrible time of it. He got his two bottom incisors, then a month or so ago he popped one of his canines up top. It is really terribly amusing, because it's waaaay off to the side. I've been calling it his hillbilly tooth. He started gearing up into the teething process (extreme fussiness, low-grade fever, restlessness, diaper rash, did I mention the fussiness? ) and I started checking to see what was emerging next. A full two weeks in, I finally noticed a tooth coming in and it is the other canine up top. So he's missing a good four teeth in between the two. Bless his little heart, it's a funny looking mouth. It's so strange, too, because the canines aren't supposed to come in until 16-22 months. I guess he's just an overachiever.

3. When I attended the Ash Wednesday service at Bella's school, that is actually the first service I have attended with all the school kids there. For one reason or another I have never been able to make it. I have since decided that I want to be there as often as possible, because it is on my level. Before anything takes place (communion, distribution of ashes, etc) Father explains what is going to happen, what he will say and what (if anything) you are supposed to say and/or do in reply. Awesome! That is right up my alley! They are having Stations of the Cross tomorrow at 10:15, and I'm going to try and make it for that, Bubba permitting.

4. I finally decided tonight that yes, I really do hate Golden Corral. I had suspected it, last time I was there, but this evening's visit confirmed it - I just can't stand it. It stresses me out, in a weird way - all those people, jostling for position in the steak line, cutting in front of you and taking the last piece of cheese pizza, dropping the tongs on the floor. Yeesh. The food is usually terrible, too - my uncle worked there briefly and said that there is very little that is served there that doesn't come out of a can, even adding that you would be amazed at the things that come in cans that you would think really shouldn't. He didn't elaborate on the last remark and I didn't ask him to. Sometimes ignorance really is bliss.

5. I did not have girl scouts today, since our new policy of meeting every other week was put into place this month. It was lovely to not spend my Wednesday night prepping craft stuff, and it was lovely to have my Thursday entirely to myself. I think the breaks will be very good for me, providing me with just enough of a break to prevent me from absolutely hating it. I have been talking to one of the mothers about next year - she thinks it would be a shame for the troop to fizzle out, and I agree. She is willing to take a main leadership role if I agree to help her, and I think I am going to do it. I know I have said multiple times that this was it, I was never going to do this again, but Bella really wants to continue on, and I know how good the troop could be if done correctly (i.e, not what we are doing now). I'm such a sucker. I also agreed to help staff the book fair at Bella's school in a few weeks. The school librarian, whose twin daughters are in my scout troop, commented the other day that she knew we didn't have a meeting on a certain date, and that she could really use some help. After mulling it over for a couple of days, I sent her an e-mail offering to assist. I love books, though, and I loved books fairs when I was a kid, so I think this will be cool.

6. I took a nap today! And all because the television was turned off. Usually, if I lay down and snuggle with Bubba on the sofa and he falls asleep, I will lay there with him and watch TV for a while. Today we laid down and snuggled, he fell asleep, and I started wondering what I was going to do to while away his nap time, and then I promptly fell asleep, too. We napped on the sofa together for a good hour and a half. It was heavenly. Hooray for naps! I honestly can't remember that last time I took a good nap like that, and the baby snuggles were just a bonus.

7. I ordered a few new books and am anxiously awaiting their arrival. I purchased some books by Michael Dubriel - he passed away unexpectedly the other day, and I am a fan of his wife (I own one of her books and read her blog), and she mentioned in a post that, if people wanted to do something to help, they could buy his books. I headed over to Amazon and ended up ordering three of his books, and I am looking forward to getting them in my hot little hands, putting the kids to bed and doing some reading (especially since I'm without television). I love getting new books. I love books and reading in general, but I love getting something new to read.

For more quick takes that are probably far less blathery than my own, check out Jennifer over at the Conversion Diary.

Whew

2009-02-25T20:10:00.001-08:00

Bella's school had a 9:30AM Liturgy of the Word this morning that included the school kids, so I opted for that instead of attempting the 8:15 Mass. I got to church and got settled in, and a few moments later Bella's class entered. They lined up along the first three rows and the teacher had them genuflect all at once, on her signal, which was cute. She settled them into their seats and then proceeded to do what anyone in charge of 18 first graders in church would do - a lot of shushing, a lot of shuffling around to separate the talkers, so on and so forth. I was in a back corner, so Bella was not aware of my presence.

I watched her for a while - she started out well, but then started talking and just would not stop. Her teacher shushed her three times, at least, and then moved her. She had just started talking to her new neighbor when she glanced over at me (I had been giving her the mommy glare for the better part of five solid minutes) and jumped a little bit, then promptly hushed, folded her hands and became the very picture of contrition. I snickered a little bit to myself as I watched her alternately stare lovingly up at the crucifix and then glance over at me to make sure I was watching - at one point even mouthing to me, "I'm looking at Jesus". Mm-hmm.

It was a wonderful service, and the priest in charge of the parish and the school is just wonderful. He is so good with the kids, and you can tell that he loves what he does. He said something that was for the benefit of the school kids that I realized I needed to consider, too.....he said that when you give something up for Lent, you should find something worthy to replace it. He used TV as an example, saying if you give up an hour of TV a day (you can give up just an hour? why didn't I think of that?!) you should replace it with prayer or good works or something that makes your sacrifice even more meaningful. I hadn't really gone any further in my thought processes than to give up television, but that made me think about what I would be (or SHOULD be) doing instead. I'm still working on that one.

I am starting to see why people love Lent.

On a lighter note, I haven't watched television since late Tuesday night - I went right up to the wire, shutting it off at midnight. :) I was fine with it this morning, since I was busy getting ready for church and work. This afternoon was a whole different story, though - I missed it, terribly.

I have since had time to mull over why the television is on so much in my house, and have experienced some dawning realizations. Namely that:

Bella watches too much TV - and I am guilty of letting her do so. And I count on the TV too often - it's like a good friend that comes over and watches your kids while you make dinner or fold a load of laundry, only it's not a good friend, it's television, and I depend on it too much to keep the kids busy. Bubba ignores TV, for the most part, but Bella is hooked.

I am lazy! I realized tonight that collapsing on the couch to rest when the TV is on feels ok, feels somehow permissible, because I am 'doing something'. I'm actually doing nothing, but somehow I am able to reason it away. Tonight, with Bella in the shower, the supper dishes mostly done and the television off, I plopped down on the sofa and....just felt lazy. Not to say there is anything wrong with plopping down on the sofa for no good reason - but when there are other things to be done, that's a different story. So I have to wonder how often I did that in front of the TV and then just zoned out, either completely forgetting what I was supposed to be doing or putting it off until later.
I really thought that the logistics of giving up television would be harder than the act - you know, what do I do when I go to someone's house, do I let Bella watch cartoons, am I going to have to hide in a back room somewhere when Brian is home, things like that - I thought that was going to be the difficult part. I really thought that I wasn't watching television that much, that I was just using it for background noise, but I was wrong.

If anyone feels like offering up an extra prayer, my dear sponsor/Godfather is going through a tough time right now - his dad is in hospice care, and he is looking after his mother, taking care of all the details with his father, and that's in addition to the already sizable duties of his daily life. And despite all that he still makes sure that I go to mass. :) So this one's for Misser Mike, as Bella fondly calls him: we are praying for you and your family, that you will have peace, love and grace. And call me if you need anything. Like the good southern girl I was raised to be, help often comes in the form of a casserole, but I can do other things, too - just say the word! And I leave you with the last verse of 'Lead, Kindly Light' (this verse by Edward H. Bickersteth):

"Meantime, along the narrow rugged path, Thyself hast trod,

Lead, Savior, lead me home in childlike faith, home to my God.

To rest forever after earthly strife

In the calm light of everlasting life."

Lent

2009-02-24T07:55:00.001-08:00

I am hurriedly doing my part to polish off the last of the king cake before Lent begins. I was staring at it this morning, in all of it's colorful iced glory, and when my husband walked in I informed him it had to be gone by tomorrow. So we did our part, and breakfasted on king cake. The breakfast of champions, don't you know!

I think I'm ready for Lent. I still feel like a brand-new catholic, even though it's been two years since I became official, so I always wonder: am I doing this right? Can I be doing a better job trying to impart the meaning to Bella? But I'm trying, so that has to count for something.

Bella has decided she is going to give up gum, something she sees as an enormous sacrifice on her part (and I don't doubt that it is). And as for myself, I still had not decided until this morning. I had been mulling over a couple of things and was still unsure and then I read this post by Aimee over at The Mother Load, which made a lot of sense. And I hope she doesn't mind if I quote her, briefly -

"If there was something I thought I could NEVER do -- for GOD -- then I was
too attached to that thing."

That completely blew me away. What an incredibly good point! Because I have been thinking the exact same thing. My first thought, when I was trying to decide what to give up for Lent, was to give up TV. And then I was aghast - there's no way I could give up TV! I could come up with a reason after reason why giving up TV would never work - I spend time at other's peoples homes who watch TV, I like having the TV on for background noise when I'm home by myself at night, I would miss 'The Office' and the new season of 'Ghost Hunters', and so on and so forth. As the saying goes, I had a million excuses but no good reason. So TV it is, then. Yikes.

We also have a couple of other little things going on around the house, and our biggest project is attempting to raise, entirely within our household, enough money to 'adopt' a retired Salesian Sister. The Salesian Sisters are in charge of Bella's school, and they are so wonderful that we thought maybe this could be a very small way for us to do a little something to return the favor.

I will close by once again stealing Aimee's words, hoping that Aimee keeps in mind that imitation (or blatant thievery without permission, as in this instance) is the highest form of flattery:

"But I do know that if I don't do this, I will regret it at a very deep
level because it is ultimately not about something as small as blogging (*or, in
my case, TV*). It is about something as big as what God wants from me."

That Aimee, she's one smart cookie. But if you want to tell her, do it quickly before she closes the com box!

A royal visit

2009-02-19T21:18:00.000-08:00

The king and queen of Spain were here in town today, in honor of the 450th anniversary of the founding of our fair city. They made quite a few stops, the last of which was to the Naval Aviation Museum on the base. Bella's school is mere blocks from the base entrance, so the royal motorcade passed right in front of the school. The entire student body gathered out front with Spanish flags and a banner that read, "God bless your majesties". I think that's so cool, that they had the opportunity to do and see that.

Bella is actually in this picture - a view of the banner and some of the children waiting for the motorcade to pass

They were an enthusiastic bunch, that's for certain.

This is actually Bella's second motorcade wave - when then-President Bush was in town a couple of years ago her school did the same thing. So she has seen a president and a king (or at least waved at them as they whizzed by). Lucky girl!

An offer you can't refuse

2009-02-19T18:27:00.000-08:00

After scouts were over today, I was discussing a few things with our cookie mom (whom I would smother with grateful kisses, if that wouldn't be weird, which it totally would be) when Sister Betty Ann walked by. She stopped and listened to us talk, and then during a pause in the conversation asked, "Who is in charge of the Daisies?". I volunteered that I am in charge, although I use that term loosely. Then she said, "Jesus wants me to talk to you about helping out at vacation bible school", and then smiled her sweet smile. We all chuckled a bit, and then she lifted the hem of her habit a couple of inches and literally danced away, saying, "I know you're busy, so I'll talk to you more seriously another time. But remember, Jesus wants you to follow him! And right now he's leading you to VBS!".

I love Sister Betty Ann - she is so full of joy and sweetness. How can I resist? Well, depending on the schedule, I might have to resist, but it will be awfully hard to. Especially since it was Jesus' idea. :)

Photo Meme

2009-02-19T06:02:00.000-08:00

Aimee over at The Mother Load posted this meme this morning, and I thought that, since I finally managed to get my computer and my camera to communicate, I would follow suit. You have to have to post the fourth picture in the fourth folder on your computer. This is mine:

Ignore the date, as it is obviously incorrect. Meet Bubba's girlfriend and Bella's cabbage patch doll. He loved to snuggle with the doll when he was little bitty like this. Now he carries her around by her hair. Ah, young love.

Fair Warning

2009-02-18T21:21:00.000-08:00

We will soon be getting a new upstairs neighbor, or neighbors - I don't know yet, since the cleaning crew is doing some final touch-ups on the apartment before the new tenants move in. I can't help but feel a little nervous about the idea of having someone live upstairs again - our last upstairs neighbors were not the people you wanted to share a thin-walled living space with. Between the late night ping-pong tournaments and the parties, the cigarette butts they threw everywhere and the constant, ceaseless bass from their stereo, they were not the most pleasant people to live below. I'm praying for maybe a nice, really, really busy military guy (but just one!) or maybe even a family, that would be awesome.

I was fretting about it earlier and realized that I just can't do anything about, and regardless of who might move in, we're just going to have to live with them. On the other side of that coin, they will also have to live with us. We might not be the most pleasant people to live above. I was thinking that they deserved a warning as to what they could expect, and thought maybe a nice welcoming introductory letter would be in order. Maybe it would read like this:

Dear New Neighbor,

Welcome to our building! I hope that we can be friends, and if we can't be
friends, then at least we can co-exist peacefully as neighbors. It is in that
spirit that I would like to honestly apprise you of daily life here in building
20. I don't know much about the rest of the neighbors here, but I can tell
you what you might encounter from our neck of the woods.

The walls and floors in our apartments are pitifully and painfully thin. I
have heard far more conversations and *ahem* other things than I ever cared to,
certainly without trying to hear them, and I'm sure you will experience the
same. Having said that, we make every effort to be courteous to our neighbors.

We are a kind family, mother, father and two children. However, with
children there will inevitably be noise. We certainly do our best to curtail
anything extremely loud, but with a family such as ours there are some noises
and noise-making activities that can't always be avoided. We can sometimes be a
loud family. Voices are occasionally raised, either mine or my husband's
or the children's.

We do have a baby, a lovely, bubbly, bouncing baby boy. He
asserts himself by raising his voice, usually in complaint but occasionally in victory
as well. He does what all babies do - cry. Sometimes for no good reason,
and sometimes for what can seem like a very long time. This is normal for
children his age - he is not being abused, or neglected - he is very well cared
for, as a matter of fact - but you can expect to hear him howling from his bed
or from some other room in the house when things aren't going his way. We also
have a daughter. She sings in the shower, which you will also hear if you are in
the bathroom directly above hers. It is quite charming and amusing, if you ever
care to listen in. She likes balls and bouncing them against things - walls,
doors and the like. This can also be loud. I do make her stop when I notice
it.

I discourage door slamming, screaming for no good reason, and
ridiculously loud volumes on any of the various and assorted electronic devices
we have in our home. We don't have loud parties (did I mention we have kids?
that kind of cancels out the wild partying), don't smoke or drink to excess, and
we don't argue in the hallway or the parking lot. We don't curse at the top
of our lungs and don't have any pets, although if we did we would make sure we
picked up after them.

Oh, and I use dryer balls, so expect some noise in your laundry room at the
very random times that I do laundry, which can really be any time, day or night.
I apologize in advance but you should see how much they cut down on
dryer time - I highly recommend them.

We don't bother anyone and we keep to ourselves, although we are friendly
if approached. We will not try and proselytize you or anyone in your home. We do not
judge, and we offer up every common courtesy. All we ask is that you do the same
- we will respect you, we just ask that you respect us in return. I encourage
face-to-face communication if there is ever an issue between us - while banging
on the floor with a broomstick gets our attention, it can be difficult to
decipher your meaning.

I look forward to living peacefully below you. Until November, when we are
out of here faster than you can say, "Why can't they make that baby stop
crying?!".

Welcome to the neighborhood,
Your downstairs neighbors

It's a nice thought, but it would never work. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. Oh, and I have one more letter to write that I will never send:

To my dear husband,

I appreciate the kind thoughts behind the beautiful flowers you brought me
for Valentine's day. They are absolutely lovely, and I am very thankful.

I simply can't put into words how grateful I am, but I do have one
observation to make: the particular variety of lily included in that bouquet of
flowers stink. They smell, honey, I'm sorry but it's true. The day you
came home and found them on the patio, and I said I thought they needed some sun
and you looked at me like I was crazy or possibly stupid? I know that cut
flowers don't need sunlight - I just couldn't handle the smell anymore. And
the day I mentioned that their scent was bothering my allergies? That was a lie,
too. I'm spiraling downward into a pit of untruths and have to come clean. I
tried to tell you, that one day, when I thanked you for buying them and then
admitted the scent bothered me, but you p'shawed me and said they smelled fine.

I walk by them, catch a whiff of them and start searching the
house, thinking Bubba must have peed somewhere. I once thought the neighbor's cat had somehow managed to get inside our house and spray. They are gorgeous to look at and have opened up beautifully, but they smell like pee or cat or maybe even cat pee and, quite frankly, and please know I say this with all the love in the world, I
just can't wait to have them out of the house.

Thanks again, from your loving wife,
Val

It's just a personal thing, my aversion to the scent of this particular lily. In a stroke of irony, though, the roses are drooping in a most pitiful manner, but those lilies are magnificent and holding up like some sort of mutant cut flower. Oh well - at least they look nice, even though they stink (to me).

Duly noted

2009-02-18T19:27:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, as the wedding rehearsal was wrapping up, the bride's great-aunt came over to talk to me. She complimented Bella for being so well-behaved and said that Bubba is adorable. Then she said something that has resonated with me ever since. She said, "Just treasure and enjoy your children, because they grow up so fast. It might seem like forever, but in reality it won't be too long before you find yourself not sitting in the third row for the flower girl, but sitting in the second row as the mother of the bride". Then she pointed one row ahead of me to my friend's mother, who was dabbing at her tears with a tissue and nodding in agreement.

I know they grow fast - time has zipped by as Bella has gotten older, and it feels like it goes by twice as fast with Bubba. But that really made me think, about a lot of things. About how I maybe need to change some habits relating to my own health, so hopefully I can be around to be that teary-eyed mother of the bride. And about how I need to worry less about the small details and pay more attention to enjoying my kids, and to spending time doing fun things with them.

Instead of hanging around the house in our free time so I can get the laundry finished, maybe I need to let the laundry wait. Laundry will keep (albeit probably in a smelly way), but children won't - they just insist on getting older and bigger. So I need to strike while the iron is hot, and spend some quality time with my children while they still want to spend time with me, before they get to be too cool to hang out with dorky old mom.

It's not like this is some new, earth-shattering revelation - everyone knows kids grow-up fast, but I guess every now and then I need a gentle reminder - to slow down, to smell the roses, and let my kids be kids and enjoy them. Gotcha.

Wedding: The big day!

2009-02-16T18:12:00.000-08:00

I was limited in the shots I could get because the professional photographers had some very strict rules as to when people could take pictures. These aren't the best shots, and I never actually got one of her in the dress alone (there is one on the phone, but the resolution is so crappy it's not worth the trouble of figuring out how to transfer pictures out of the phone anyway). Anyway, here are a few shots:

Bella getting her hair done.

The results, from the front....

.....and from the back. Beautiful!

The wedding party, after the ceremony. I was trying to be quick and sneaky so the photographers didn't catch me and yell at me. That is why this photo and the one below it are so bad. It's certainly not my lack of photography skills or anything, noooooo.

A poor quality close-up of Bella. Right after this the photographers caught me and kicked me to the back of the church.

Bella hanging on to her Uncle Shaun after the ring bearer asked her to dance.

Bella and myself dancing and crying and slowly unraveling - this photo was courtesy of Uncle Shaun. I didn't know he had taken it - thanks, Uncle Shaun.

A random shot of the reception that Bella took for me.

Bella dancing to the 'Train' song. Not the same pouty child from above, not at all. I'm glad she had a good time.

Hopefully, since the photographers banned the rest of us from getting good shots, their photos will be good and my friend the blushing bride will share with me. I'm sure she will - she is a lovely, generous and kind lady whom I wish all the happiness in the world!

Wedding Pictures: Pampering

2009-02-16T18:04:00.000-08:00

My dear friend and the beautiful bride was kind enough to arrange for all of her wedding party to get manicures and pedicures, Bella included. And although spending two hours in a nail salon with two children wasn't my cup of tea, Bella had a blast:

Bella getting her first pedicure. They turned on the massage chair but she had to sit so far forward that she couldn't feel it.

Bella's post-pedicure pampered tootsies.

Bella getting her manicure. I didn't remember to take a photo of her finished fingernails with the digital camera, but rest assures they were a gorgeous glittery red. I took one with my phone to send to Brian and my SIL but forgot to get a shot with the real camera. And I was juggling Bubba the whole time, so frankly I am glad that I even remembered the camera. A one-year old in a nail salon is a dangerous thing.

Some photos: School Dance

2009-02-16T17:52:00.001-08:00

I'm splitting these entries into different posts, because blogger's photo formatting drives me nuts. Anyway:

Bella's school turned 135 on February 4th. The following Friday they had a dinner and a dance, and these are some pictures I took there:

Bella (in the black dress) cutting a rug - in the foreground you can also see Sister Betty Ann throwing down some dance moves.

Bella again, and in the background you can see Sister Isabel showing off her moves. Note Bella's choice of footwear - pretty ruffled dress, black boots with chains. Sigh.

Whew!

2009-02-15T10:30:00.001-08:00

The wedding was beautiful. We went to the bride's house at 8AM yesterday morning (in the pouring rain, no less - it rained almost all day) for hair and make-up. We all got dressed over there - the photographers got a couple of pictures of me helping Bella with her dress and her necklace, so maybe those will turn out nicely. They were also quite taken with Bubba, who fell asleep in his car seat half dressed. He was lying there with his dress pants and a white onesie on, and his button-up shirt and tie were hanging off the handle of his seat. They took some photos and some video, so it will be interesting to see those.

We headed over to the church around 11AM for pictures, which I think will turn out beautifully. The bride was gorgeous, her wedding party looked beautiful.....it really was very lovely. Bella was well-behaved and looked breathtaking. The wedding actually started on time, which was nice. It was a full wedding mass, so instead of walking all the way down the aisle to stand with the bride Bella just walked down to where we were sitting (in the third row - we had great seats) and then sat down with us. I cried, of course, when she walked down. But when she sat down, she leaned over to me and said, "I'm not sure, but I might need to throw up". I was alarmed, to say the least, but she said she was OK for the moment and didn't want to go to the bathroom. I think it was a combination of nerves and hunger, but she made it through.

Brian was able to make it to the wedding, but couldn't stay because he had to get some sleep. He held Bubba for most of the ceremony, which was a nice break for me. He also took Bubba to the reception while I waited with Bella for them to finish the post-ceremony pictures. When I finally got over to the reception Brian was looking a little glum. He had put on some pinstriped finery for the wedding - a pinstripe suit with a striped gray and white shirt and tie that I jokingly call his pimp suit. When I found him and Bubba at the reception he showed me a damp spot on his suit jacket. "Bubba peed all over me". So I responded: "Bubba put the 'P' in your Pimp suit, then?". He was mildly amused.

He left, I cleaned up Bubba and we ate. Bella was doing pretty well until the wedding party dance - the ring bearer (who was a couple years older and a head or so taller than her) sort of begrudgingly asked her to dance (because his mom made him) and she started crying and flung herself into the arms of her Godfather, who was sitting right in front of the dance floor. I went up and tried to calm her down, and a very nice lady who knows Brian but whom I don't know at all offered to hold Bubba so I could dance with Bella. I agreed, and Bella agreed to dance with me but only if I picked her up. So I danced with my baby, who was tired and nervous and a little frayed, and who clung to me like a baby. I stood there and swayed with her to the music and cried. Tears of joy, tears of exhaustion, tears with all sorts of meanings behind them. Sigh. I'm close to crying just thinking about it, so I'll move on.

Bella wanted to go home after that, but I had to stop and talk to someone before we left. While I was talking Bella started dancing to the music and then decided she wanted to stay. So we did the chicken dance, and we did the YMCA, and she rode the train, and at that point Bubba was a screaming ball of exhaustion so we opted to come home. If we had hung out another ten minutes or so we would have been able to see the bride and groom leave, but I don't think Bubba could have lasted another ten minutes. And I don't think I could have lasted another ten minutes with Bubba.

We got home and got settled and were glad to be there. Bubba happily went to bed and to sleep, and I was settling Bella down for the night when I noticed that she felt awfully warm - she was running a fever. And she is still running a fever off and on today. And, maybe to make her feel better and sympathize with her, I am now running a fever, too. So I'm going to lay on the couch some more. But I do have a few pictures that I will put up once we feel better!

Works for me.....Thursday?

2009-02-12T06:18:00.000-08:00

Things have been crazy around these parts, so I apologize for my lack of posts. The wedding that Bella is going to be in is this Saturday, and that has been keeping us hopping. And work, and other things keeping me busy. Speaking of busy.......(what a segue!)

I was looking for a cookbook on Amazon the other day, mostly to reach their evil $25 free shipping minimum (oh, Amazon, how I love and hate your free shipping), and I stumbled across this one: The Six O'Clock Scramble

It looked intriguing, so I purchased it, and....I absolutely love it! The meals are organized seasonally, so you are buying and cooking produce that is fresh and readily available (and usually affordable). They are all quick and fairly easy. And the kicker? BOTH of my kids have eaten and enjoyed everything I have made from this cookbook. Do you realize how utterly insane that is? I made a baked spaghetti from this book the other day - one of the meatless recipes, and it includes broccoli - and my husband ate and enjoyed it, both my kids ate and enjoyed it, and I took some to my grandparents, who loved it. That's three generations of approval!

AND - on their website, you can print out grocery lists for each week. Awesome! They do have an e-mail newsletter you can purchase, that includes a week's menu and grocery list, but I haven't gone through the cookbook yet, so I don't really need the newsletter.

A few of the recipes are meatless, which suits me and the kids fine. I was a little worried about my husband, but he was fine with the meatless recipes I have made. And you can easily add meat to them, which I have done a couple of times as well. There are suggestions for easy side dishes and healthy desserts....this is a busy mom's lifesaver.

Things are only going to get busier for us as we get closer to Saturday, so I will probably be scarce again, but I just had to recommend this book. After working all day, I have been able to put hot, healthy meals in front of my family that they actually eat and like. Check it out, if you get a chance - it is very much worth it.

It's my birthday, and we're gonna party like.....

2009-02-04T13:26:00.000-08:00

.....we have a sick baby at home and a husband who has to work and family members that are busy with work and school and other things. In other words, we aren't really celebrating, but that's OK - we have a lot going on around here. Bubba (whose birthday is also today - the best birthday gift I have ever received!) already had his party, and that's what matters.

I've got a lot on my plate, anyway - after work I have to rush home and relieve Brian of his childcare duties so he can grab some sleep before work, then it's dinner and cleanup and a quick trip to the store to pick up snacks for girl scouts tomorrow, then once baths are done and the kids are in bed I have about 350 little paper hearts to cut out to go with the 350 lollipops currently in the trunk of my car (we're making lollipop heart flowers for each other). I need a good movie to watch or a marathon of something on TV. Maybe I'll start with the first Harry Potter movie and guage how long I spend cutting out paper by what sequel I'm watching when I'm done. I'm guessing I would probably finish up halfway through the Prisoner of Azkaban.

When Brian asked Bella what she wanted to get me for my birthday, she told him I need an eye exam (I guess I complain about that more than I thought). So this morning she gave me a lovely birthday card with a gift card and she wrote: "This is for your eye exam". Thoughtful girl! I think my other favorite gift is the huge bag of Splenda my sister brought up to work for me. I can't drink sugar in my coffee, and I never remember to bring any kind of artificial sweetener to work. And now I have a big bag of it! Hooray!

Poor Bubba is not feeling well. He has a snotty nose, a low-grade fever and a baaaaad attitude. But who can blame him? I knew he wasn't feeling well when he didn't eat his grits for breakfast. That child loves his grits - when I start the microwave in the morning he rushes into the kitchen and stares up at it, waiting expectantly for his morning nom-noms to be ready. Nom-nom is my new favorite thing, by the way - as in, "Om-nom-nom", like you're eating something tasty. You'll find pictures on the internet of everyday things or animals with an 'Om-nom-nom' caption. Like this one:

or this one:

In honor of my newfound love, the fridge at my sister's house even has "Nom Noms Inside" written on it with magentic letters. Awesome.

Hope everyone is doing well and no one is freezing, or in AU Jen's case, burning up. Bye!

Just what I needed

2009-02-02T20:24:00.000-08:00

I have had a lovely evening! Our friend that is getting married on Valentine's Day asked if I would mind helping her put her wedding programs together tonight, and I agreed. She asked if I thought Brian would mind watching the kids, and I agreed on his behalf. A small break from the kids? Sure, I'll take it!

She asked me to come by her house around 6:00. I get off work at 4:00. I was already close to her house from work and didn't feel like driving home, which would add twenty minutes and traffic to my drive, so I just decided to stay close to her house. And what's also close to her house? The mall. So I got off work and went to the mall. By myself. I didn't have to worry about stroller or a diaper bag or who went to the bathroom and when - I just grabbed my purse and walked inside. I hadn't found something to wear for the wedding, so I decided to shop for myself, and I found an outfit for the wedding AND it was on sale AND I can wear it for work AND it fit perfectly. Hooray!

I decided to vacate the mall and I headed to Target to walk around for a bit. It was so nice. I didn't have to buy an icee and popcorn, didn't have to get a shopping cart, didn't have to look at toys (although I did).... I had a very nice time. I didn't even buy anything at Target, I just meandered around because I could.

I headed over to my friend's house and we got down to the business of assembling 350 wedding programs that had to be tied with ribbon. When I first saw them I thought they were lovely. After the first 150 or so I was wondering why anyone in their right mind would voluntarily take something like that on. But I had a fabulous time there, too! It was relaxing to just sit and chat and laugh. My friend's future mother-in-law was also there helping, and she was absolutely hilarious. She spent two years in a convent as a novice nun before discerning that her calling was elsewhere, but she is still deeply involved in the church - she attends daily mass, adoration, the whole nine yards. She told stories that had me laughing until I was crying. About convent life, about life in general, about some of the priests in the area - she was a hoot.

There's really no point to this story - I just had a very lovely and relaxing evening. And I love my kids, please don't think otherwise, but it was nice to have a little time away. I think having such an easygoing day today will help me keep a little perspective when I'm rushing around with the kids in tow and no free time for the next two weeks. With the exception of tomorrow, I have at least one item on my calendar every day - school stuff and girl scout stuff, mostly, but there's also some work stuff and then next week there's wedding stuff. I'm going to be a busy girl, so I deserved today. I deserved to try on clothes by myself, without an audience. Without a little voice saying, "Mommy, do you have stretch marks because you stretched too much?" and without having to prevent Bubba from chewing the security tags off the clothes. Ahhh. Now, on to tomorrow!

Quick Takes Friday

2009-01-29T09:12:00.001-08:00

-1-

Things have been hopping around here lately, so I apologize for my lack of posting. I've been working a lot, and on my days off I've been busy as well. We threw Manning a quick birthday party this past Sunday, so my mother-in-law could be there to celebrate with us. It went well, I think - just family at our house for a couple of hours, hamburgers and hot dogs, cake and ice cream. Brian bought Bubba his own little cake, and Bubba just poked holes in it with his finger. The same child who eats dryer lint and throws an enormous fit when I take it out of his mouth, the same child who will eat anything that isn't moving and will chase down things that are, that child did not put cake in his mouth. In his ear, yes, and in his hair and all over the rest of him, but very little cake or icing actually made it into his mouth. I was amazed. But it was a nice party and we all had fun, which is what matters.

-2-

The wedding that Bella is going to be in is coming up - Valentine's Day. My own wedding was very informal and low key, so even though I knew some people go all out for their weddings, all the things we have to do have caught me by surprise. There's the bachelorette party (which I really want to attend but dont know if I'll be able to) on Wednesday night, the bridesmaid luncheon on Thursday (which we will not be able to attend - Bella's in school and I will be working), and then a early morning appointment on Friday for a mani and a pedi (for Bella), then off to work with me, then the rehearsal dinner that evening (to which Bubba is not invited - the bride made that very clear, so I have to find someone to watch him). And I found out yesterday that the rehearsal is semi-formal, so I have to find something for Bella and myself to wear to that. And that's not even mentioning the fact that I have no idea what I will wear to the wedding. Thank heavens I still have some money left on the Kohl's gift card. Saturday Bella has a hair appointment in the morning before the wedding. Early. And then I have to try and keep her hair in that pristine condition until the wedding at 2PM. Yikes!

The woman doing hair wants me to put Bella's hair in curlers Friday night since she won't have time to do it Saturday morning. Which is fine, but I don't really know how to do that properly. We've played around with it, but as soon as we took the curlers out her hair fell straight again - not even a wave, much less a curl. Anyone have any suggestions? Know of a helpful website? Because I'm not good at stuff like that.

-3-

Bubba has taken a shine to one of my books, a dover thrift edition of Melville's Bartleby and Benito Cereno. No matter what I do, if he wants to carry that book around, there is no distracting him. I've offered him his own Sandra Boyton books (Moo, Ba, La-la-la - almost as good as the hippo book), which he will refuse. I have yet to find a toy or snack or anything that will distract him when he's in the mood for some Melville. And he goes back to that same book, every time. I have put it in different places on the bookshelf, and he will root around until he finds that same book. Fascinating.

-4-

I was worried about the meeting plan I had concocted for yesterday's scout meeting - I figured the girls would hate it, or they would finish it quickly and then I'd have to try and come up with some busy ideas on the fly, or something. The idea was to teach them about community and what makes up a community, so I made a house (a cardboard box house with pink paper shingles, no less - that idea is courtesy of T With Honey's mom, who is awesome) and then my idea was to pair them up and have them make the rest of the buildings that are in a community using a bunch of boxes I had brought along. And possibly to prove that my instincts are generally completely wrong, they absolutely loved it! I think part of it was because they had free reign, and unlimited access to materials and whatever else they wanted to put on their building, so the sky was the limit. One girl who constantly has a terrible attitude and refuses to participate in pretty much everything was one of the most enthusiastic about the whole thing, and kept calling me over to look at what she had done. She was a different child - kind, polite, she shared materials, she actually worked with her partner.....I was amazed. At the end of the meeting she asked me what my favorite color was, so she could make me a cross out of popsicle sticks. I was at a loss for words - the most I've ever heard this child say to me was, "I'm not coming over there because I don't do circle", and she was so sweet!

Possibly the thing that surprised me the most was that the girls wanted to take the buildings home, something I had not anticipated. Even the bigger girls - the second and third graders - wanted to bring home their boxes, they were actually the first to ask! I had actually brought along a big garbage bag so I could throw away the boxes, and then I found myself in a pickle because there were two girls to each project, and in a lot of instances both girls wanted to bring it home. I solved the dilemna by having one girl take home the finished 'building', and then sending the second girl home with another box and whatever materials she wanted to make her own building at home. Meetings like that one remind me why I do scouts, and of how good the program can be. Over the past couple of days I have actually mulled over doing it again next year, but who knows - ask me again after next week's meeting.

-5-

Bella announced this morning that she loves science and either wants to be a scientist or the president when she grows up. The love of science is new, and I believe could be genuine, for two reaons: 1.) she told me entirely on her own and out of the blue, and 2.) it wasn't bedtime or any other time where she was looking to stall by making conversation. So I am going to do what I can to encourage her. I think it's cool - I loved science as a kid, so I'm actually looking forward to finding activities and other things to support her newfound interest. And it is also remarkable because she rarely expresses a preference for anything. She has never had a favorite toy, and only recently selected a favorite color and cartoon character - she likes Tinkerbell, and that is the first time she has actively sought out anything specific like that. So for her to come out and say that she likes something.....well, that means that she really does like it.

- 6 -

I'm trying to encourage Bubba to use a sippy cup instead of a bottle for his milk, but he is not having it. He's been drinking out of a sippy cup since he had his first meal - he'll drink water out of a sippy cup all day long, but give him milk in a sippy cup? Forget it. I usually make the effort once a day or so, and he just refuses it. I'm out of ideas. Bella nursed up until she hit a year, and then she went straight to a cup, so the bottle was never an issue. This is new to me, and I'm not quite sure how to handle it. I gave him a cup earlier today, and he sipped it twice, realized what it was and tossed it down onto the floor. Should I adopt the position that he will drink when he is thirsty enough? I need some voices of experience. Help!

- 7 -

I was talking to my co-worker today and mentioned the fact that Bella has not really been sick lately. I was attributing it to the fact that she eats a cup of mandarin oranges almost every day with her lunch, but I was still amazed. And of course, what happens when I pick her up from school? She has the sniffles and a sore throat. Me and my big mouth.

Happy weekend to all, and if you want to peruse some more quick takes stop by the Converstion Diary.

Doing this so I don't have to do what I should be doing

2009-01-24T21:41:00.001-08:00

I was surfing around the internet, looking up some information for my sister-in-law on how to properly time contractions (something I haven't ever had to do, since I never went into labor without medical intervention), and I swung by Bella's school website. And there it was - the notice that I've been dreading:

"The next PTO meeting will be held on Thursday, February 5th. The
purpose is to present the new procedures for registration, including the
registration deadline for all returning families, the announcement for the fee
schedule for 2009-2010, uniform upgrades, family volunteer requirements for
2009-2010, and 2009-2010 required fundraising. This will be the only meeting
where these items will be presented. Every returning family is required to have
at least one parent present."

Well, there you go. The parking lot rumors and panicky phone calls (that I have, up to this point, tried to ignore as not being based in fact) have all had an element of truth to them - there are some new requirements for volunteering and fundraising. And of course, the annual tuition increase, that's just a given.

I want to go to this meeting, I will have to find a way to go, since it is required, but I don't know how I'm going to be able to manage to go. Brian has to work, my mother-in-law is out of town, my sister is in school, and the other people that I could possibly call on to babysit are all parents at the same school. I can bring the kids with me, but Bubba turns into a grumpy, squalling pumpkin around the same time the meeting starts (and his bedtime is a half hour after the meeting starts), and I'm not going to learn much if I'm standing outside the cafeteria trying to get him to settle down.

I'm trying not to be too pessimistic here - I don't know exactly what the new requirements are, so before I freak out about being able to afford an entire new uniform wardrobe (when one piece averages about $25 and you have to drive 45 minutes into Alabama to get the silly things) or trying to sell $250 worth of overpriced gift wrap in the middle of a recession or trying to come up with some extra time to volunteer when I have a job and another child and a husband and a house that I like to try and clean from time to time, well, I shouldn't freak out about those things before I know exactly what the school will be expecting of us. Wow, that was a heck of a run-on sentence!

It's hard, you know? It's hard when you are struggling just to meet tuition, much less factoring in whatever new requirements, fees and responsibilities they are going to add in. I wouldn't have to work nearly as many hours, if at all, if we sent her to a public school, but I believe in a good catholic education and want Bella to have one. I really like Bella's school and I think she does well there, and I don't want to have to look elsewhere.

I actually got a phone call from a middle school parent (whom I have never even met) the other day who was talking about rumored changes to school policy - there is apparently a grassroots campaign going on amongst some parents to try and spread the word. What she said was:

there will be a required minimum sales amount for the annual gift wrap fundraiser - the number she threw out was $250. If Bella did not sell this amount, I as her parent would be required to pay the difference out of my pocket. But, as I said earlier, there aren't a lot of people interested in paying $12 for a roll of gift wrap in August in the middle of a recession. And you can put as many festive chili peppers as you want on a set of plastic nesting measuring spoons, but that still does not make them worth $10. Not when people can't afford to buy groceries. So what happens if, despite our best efforts, we can't meet the quota and I can't afford to pay the difference? Is Bella booted out of school? I need to check my bible and see if Jesus said anything about that - "Thou shalt sell overpriced candy and gift wrap or else thou shalt take the bus to public school". Oooo-I'm bitter!
Required scrip card purchases, most likely also in the $250 range. I could probably live with that - they have Wal-Mart cards now, so I could do that one.
I'm willing to do whatever I can to help the school, so I don't really have a problem with volunteer hours, but I just hope that working parents are taken into consideration. I can't afford to take time off work regularly because I have to work so I can pay tuition. It's as simple as that. I wouldn't mind taking time off occasionally, but I work for a small business and I don't get paid time off. I will do whatever I can, however I can. But, I can't cut back too much on the time I spend with my kids, I just can't. I only get to spend about 3 hours a day with them because of work.

The woman I spoke with mentioned a couple of other things about box top requirements and some other things, but those seemed kind of small potatoes so I promptly forgot.

I'm not going to fret about it - I can't. Well, I will but I shouldn't. I'll just wait and see what happens at the meeting. And surely, if there is an issue, they would work with me. I hope so. Private school enrollment is down in our area (so much so that the local paper did a story about it recently), and I'm sure it's not just our area. Bella's school had a boost in numbers because another school in the area closed at the end of the last school year, but that has peaked.

So I'm going to put this little concern in the "don't know, can't change, no point in worrying" file, and I'll cross that bridge when I come to it. Ugh.

Aaaaaaarrrrgggghhh

2009-01-24T08:56:00.000-08:00

Things have been a bit nutsy around here lately. I am the proud recipient of two thoughtfully given awards I need to acknowledge but will have to do that another time. Thanks, by the way!

My sister-in-law has been under the care of a less-than-stellar navy doctor since her move to the north. I have thought all along that she wasn't really getting the best care, but aside from some small suggestions have tried to keep my big bazoo shut. They were only seeing her every six weeks instead of every four, they lost her sugar test results and then, after re-testing, determined that she had a ferocious case of gestational diabetes but didn't really do anything about it...it all seemed like very casual care. Her last visit to her OB lasted all of five minutes, they didn't check her, didn't even measure her fundal height, I'm not entirely positive the doctor even read her chart. This doctor told her everything looked good, her sugar numbers looked fine, and that she could go past her due date, which was February 13th.

She went yesterday to see a high-risk specialist, a routine visit since she has the GD, and the specialist was horrified - by the sporadic visits, and by the fact that at one visit she actually only saw a nurse and not a doctor. Her fasting sugar numbers were actually so bad that she was prescribed insulin shots to be started that very night. Then they checked her cervix and she was 50% effaced and 3cm dilated (I must confess to feeling a pang of envy - since I have a cervix of steel, and all). They did an ultrasound and the baby already weighs 7 1/2 pounds. So they said she could deliver any day now. The specialist called the other OB my sister-in-law had been seeing and canceled her appointments and notified them that she was taking over her care. Hooray!

They also set an induction date, just in case she doesn't go into labor on her own. And what date did they select? Why, February 4th, of course! Which also happens to Bubba's birthday. And my birthday. I jokingly told them that sharing my birthday with one cute kid was bad enough, I didn't want to share it with two. But I think that will be neat, to have three birthdays on the same day. Makes them easier to remember!

So that means that things around here have kicked into overdrive. My mother-in-law is flying out Tuesday to stay with them, so I'm looking for a babysitter. And in order for her to be able to celebrate Bubba's birthday, we had to schedule an impromptu family birthday party for Sunday. As in tomorrow. So I've been busy cleaning and trying to work out the logistics of party planning over a two-day period. It's nothing big, just family, but that doesn't make it any less stressful.

So that's what I've been up to.

And I will leave you with this story: my husband was just driving me absolutely bonkers yesterday before he left for work. He couldn't find anything he needed, and he was tired and grumpy to boot, and was just rather unpleasant to be around. When he finally left I dialed my sister-in-law's number and, after I heard an answering 'hello', I said, "I am so glad your brother finally left for work, he was driving me bananas". And then I heard Brian reply, "You called me, genius". Oops! We both laughed about it, but I felt rather silly. Hee-hee.

It ain't bragging if you really done it

2009-01-19T18:58:00.000-08:00

I took the above quote from Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt, although I'm sure Mr. Berendt didn't originate it and that it has been used in many other places. The book is a nice, easy read, though, if you haven't read it. I like books about the eccentricities of southerners, being a rather eccentric southerner myself, not to mention coming from a whole long line of them. I didn't really love the movie, though. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't the best. As with most books, the translation into film left much to be desired. That's why I'm a little worried about Harry Potter 7. I re-read it the other night and was on that last, long battle scene, and I actually took a moment to worry about how it would look on film. It has the potential to be riveting, but.....you know how that goes. Anyway, back to not bragging - I have to tell this story, even though it took place a couple of weeks ago:

The tub drain in our master bathroom had been clogged for about a week when all this happened. I would notice it when I was in the shower and then would promptly forget about it, at least until the next time I was lathering up my hair and standing in three inches of water. I would usually take a moment to note the inconvenience, and the minute I was out of the shower, poof, it was gone. My husband is not as forgetful as I, and had spent roughly $40 on various and assorted drain cleaners and clog removers and all sorts of other toxic goo. I mentioned something about getting it out with good old fashioned elbow grease, and he took me up on my offer. And again, I promptly forgot about it until he emerged from the shower one day and said, "I thought you said you could unclog that drain". I told him that I could, I had just let it slip my mind, and he was dubious - if his overpriced chemicals could not unclog the drain, I certainly couldn't.

Of course I had to rise to the challenge, stalking my prey armed only with baking soda, vinegar, and a plunger. And what do you know, after about ten minutes....voila! Clear drain! I stood over the tub, smelling like pickles and triumphantly raising the plunger over my head in victory. And then I realized that I need a hobby. The drain is still clear, by the way - my husband commented on it tonight, that's what reminded me. It's the small victories you have to celebrate, because the big ones can be few and far between.

Alas, there is no rest for the weary, because my superpowers are needed elsewhere. To the garbage disposal! Keep a bucket of ice handy (in case of any detached digits) and 911 on speed dial, friends, this one is going to be tricky.

GNI: Girl's night in

2009-01-18T09:10:00.000-08:00

Bella doesn't have school tomorrow. I have to work Monday, but Bella is out of school, so we are having a slumber party. We are banishing her daddy to bed (which won't be a problem anyway, since he worked all night and is out playing golf now), and once Bubba is asleep it's party time. Woo-hoo! We are going to go to the store in a little while to pick up supplies - popcorn, the Tinkerbell movie, things like that. And some curlers - she wants to put curlers in her hair. She also wants to paint her toenails and put on some of my mint julip face mask. I'm actually excited, too.

It's king cake season! I love king cake:

In New Orleans' revelry and religious tradition are the ties that bind
during Mardi Gras. Thus, it's not surprising that the origin of the modern King
Cake can be traced back to the Middle Ages, when popular devotion during
Christmas turned to the Three Wise Men, or Kings, who had followed a star and
paid homage to Christ. Epiphany, the end of the Christmas celebration and the
12th night after the birth of Christ, came to be known as "Twelfth Night," a
time for pageants and giving special "King" presents to children.
Today in New Orleans, the King Cake is an oval-shaped braided coffee cake which is
decorated with cinnamon sugar in the official Mardi Gras colors – gold (for
power), green (faith), and purple (justice) – and contains a tiny plastic baby
that has replaced the coin used in medieval times. The person who gets the slice
of cake with the baby in it must host the next party; at some parties, they are
crowned king or queen. The cake, a gift shared by family, friends and
revelers alike, is eaten between the Twelfth Night and Fat Tuesday, the
beginning of Lent. However, the cake often begins appearing during
Christmas.

It's basically a big huge cinnamon roll with mardi-gras colored icing, but what's not to love about that? I had my first piece of the season yesterday, and it made me terribly happy. I used to work at a condo office on the beach, and quite a few of the condo owners were New Orleans residents who used their condos to escape the general madness of Mardi Gras. And they would bring us real, New Orleans style king cakes, from Randazzo's or Haydel's or Gambino's in the city, and they would have either a gold bead baby or, in one case, a porcelain baby inside. As opposed to the king cakes you can buy at, say, a grocery store, that come with a little plastic baby that you are supposed to stuff inside yourself - probably for liability reasons. The picture below shows a filled king cake; I prefer mine a little more traditional, with no filling. Maybe we can have some king cake at our slumber party tonight.....

We are going to do some reading on Dr. Martin Luther King, as well. I have a book that I've been saving, so I figure that can be her nightly reading tonight while we are not-slumbering at our slumber party. Hope everyone is having a lovely weekend!

Who's on first....

2009-01-15T19:53:00.002-08:00

Well, I had a heck of a day and I am glad that it is over. And I have to give a shoutout to Aimee, whose timely posting put my grumpy mood in perspective. That St. Elizabeth Ann Seton was one smart cookie, to say the least.

The scout meeting went OK, as OK as it could go considering that I basically phoned it in. We sang songs and played relay games, and the girls seemed to enjoy it. And I have to give one more shoutout to the lovely and glowing T With Honey, for sending her mom to my rescue. Word to your mother, T! Tell her I said thank you! Internet friends are awesome.

After the meeting this afternoon we went back to my mother-in-law's house to pick up Bubba and my dear mother-in-law had made dinner. She cooked a bean soup and made us all grilled cheese sandwiches, and it made my day/night. There's nothing like being mothered a little every now and then, especially when you don't have your mother around anymore.

On the way home from my mother-in-law's, Bella and I were talking and I was instructing her as to what I wanted her to do when we got home. I have to share how the conversation went:

Me: When we get home, I want you to get your pajamas and panties and get in the shower right away.

Bella: OK.

Me: And socks, get some socks, too, to keep your feet warm.

Bella: But I don't want to wear socks, I hate wearing socks.

Me: Well, then wear socks for me, because I want you to be warm.

Bella: (puzzled)......you want me to wear your socks?

Me: No, no, I want you to wear your socks.

Bella: What?

Me: Wear your socks, not mine.

Bella: But I really hate wearing socks.

Me: Then wear them for me, because I want you to.

Bella: You want to wear my socks? I don't think they'll fit you.

Me: No, no, I want you to wear your socks, for my benefit, so I'll feel good knowing that you are warm.

Bella: So you want to trade socks, or something? I don't understand.

Me: Just wear socks, Bella, that's all I'm saying.

Bella: OK, but whose socks should I wear?

Sigh. And, when I went in to check on her after she had fallen asleep, she didn't have any socks on. Some days you just don't win. And on those days, you just take it on the chin and go and open the wine you got for Christmas. So if you'll excuse me, I need to find my wine tool and a plastic mardi gras cup, because that's how I drink my wine when I don't have comp'ny. Cheers!

Desperation

2009-01-14T21:49:00.000-08:00

Alas, it is 11:49PM. I started searching the web for girl scout ideas at 8PM and haven't found anything that will work. I have 19 girls between the ages of four and 8. If I find something to keep the older girls engaged, it is generally too complicated for the younger girls. And if I find something that appeals to the younger girls, the older girls will be bored out of their minds. Our space is limited, so outdoor games are difficult to find, and there is never a guarantee that we will be able to go inside, so that makes things difficult.

I am really frustrated here. So frustrated that I just had to give up for a while. I don't know what to do about scouts - it is quickly becoming the bane of my existence. My co-leader and I did finally make the decision to change our meeting schedule from weekly meetings to an every other week basis, but the planning thing has just become a nightmare. And I feel terrible about it. I try to make the meetings entertaining while slightly educational and my ideas have been tanking lately. The girls just want to go home (or they'll ask, "Will you sign me into after-care now? I'm bored"). They don't all hate it, but I feel guilty because I feel like I'm not doing the best job that I can, even though I'm trying.

It doesn't help that tomorrow is going to be a crazy busy day for me. I have to get up and get Bella off to school (in the honda of the tundra - it doesn't have any heat, and when I went to the car to get something earlier there was already ice forming on it, so it will be a cold ride), then come back home and get Bubba and myself dressed. Then I drop Bubba off at my MIL's, go in to work for a couple of hours, on my way home from work I need to stop at the store to get scout supplies and formula, go back to my MIL's and take her to lunch, then go to school for scouts (did I mention that there are 19 girls? this is not a relaxing activity). Then back to my MIL's to pick up Bubba, then home to rustle up something for dinner and get everyone into bed to start all over again. Sigh.

I am just at my wit's end. I am in all honesty almost in tears, because I feel hurried and harried and because I don't feel like I'm doing these girls any favors. I did put this off to the last minute this week, but I've been busy with other things and haven't had a chance. And now that I've vented a little, I'm going to resume my search for an activity that will not make the kids prefer quietly doing their homework under the supervision of a nun.

10 Things I like about "S"

2009-01-13T20:26:00.000-08:00

Aimee over at The Mother Load has assigned me to come up with ten things I am fond of that start with the letter "S". I will reach deep into my vocabulary and see what I can muster up:

Sisters: Man, I am one lucky chick. My sisters are witty, hilarious, thoughtful, kind and generous. I appreciate and look forward to every moment I get to spend with them, either in person, on the phone or via Wii Speak.

Silence: is truly golden and requires no elaboration.

Sentimentality: I am a sentimental fool, but I enjoy it. And I enjoy looking back over the trinkets and treasures and other odd little things that sentimental fools like myself keep. I do not enjoy having to get rid of things that I have attached sentimental value to (which is most things), but I will. If I have to. Eventually.

Serenity: I don't need to add much of anything to that one. And of course there is the sense of peace you have when you are by yourself, without children, but there is also the peace you feel when your family is around you and all is right with the world. The little moments of serenity you find when you least expect it, like a car ride or waiting in line at the grocery store. When Bella slips her little hand into mind while we're walking somewhere, moments like that.

Straightforward: as I get older, I truly appreciate people who don't pussyfoot around. If you can't do something, say that you can't, and vice-versa. I know that I don't have time to waste, and I know most other people don't, either. Be honest and upfront about your abilities and availability. And no games; I hate games, and I hate drama for the sake of drama.

Son: Bubba has brought such joy to my life, and I am utterly smitten with him. I am grateful for him and his presence in our lives every day.

Sunshine: This is the term of endearment that Bella picked out for herself. But she had a very good point when she came up with it. I used to call Bella my little flashlight - we were going through a lot of stuff, and I was working a lot and couldn't be with her as much as I would have liked, and I always told her that she was my little light, a beam of light that keeps me going when things just seem too dark. And she said that she would be my sunshine and the dark couldn't get anywhere near me. She is too sweet.

Sunday: because it's family day, and I love family day.

Strength: This is something I hope for in myself and respect the heck out of in other people.

Sandwiches: Oh, do I love a good sandwich. I would eat one at every meal, if I could. And not only can a sandwich be absolutely delicious, but there is the convenience factor as well - it's a whole meal slapped between two pieces of bread. You can carry it around with you, eat it while driving (but I would never eat and drive, nooooooooooo), load the dishwasher with one hand and munch with the other......what's not to like?

I think that was 10 items, but you'll have to forgive me if it wasn't. I'm sleepy and working and blogging and, since multitasking is not my forte, I am going to trim it back to just working. Good day!

Grati-Tuesday: I heart Bella

2009-01-12T21:25:00.000-08:00

I completely and utterly stole the graphic and the idea from Laura at Catholic teacher musings.

I'm incredibly thankful for my gal Bella. She is my sunshine, my little light. She is generous, and kind, and thoughtful, and loving and caring and would bend over backwards just to get me to smile if she thinks I'm feeling sad.

We've been playing Animal Crossing on the Wii - her after school, while I'm at work, and I play in the evenings, once she is in bed. She started a sweet little game-within-the-game where she and I been sending each other love notes in the mail in our imaginary little town. Her first note said, "I love you mom, this much" and attached was a pirate's eye patch. So I return: "I love you, too" and I will attach an outfit that makes her look like a grape. I made a heart-shaped constellation in the sky called "I love Bella". And last night while I was playing, after she had gone to bed, I saw an enormous heart shaped constellation, one that was not mine. So I investigated further and it was called "I love Mom". Aww. In the process of all this techno-affection, I realized that I could and should be doing things like this in real life. Well, with the exception of making a constellation - I would move the stars for her, if I could, but that's not really an option. So that is one I will resolve to do - to send love notes, and to find the time for her.

Thank you, God, for the gift of my daughter. And thanks to all the people in my life who have contributed to help make her the charming, loving and lovely little girl that she is. And now I'm all sniffly, so I'm going to sign off.

Thanks-for-nothing Thursday

2009-01-08T21:11:00.000-08:00

I apologize for the grumpy and bitter title, but it's been a heck of a day and I just needed to get that out of my system. Well, that and this:

Where is the laundry fairy when you need her? I just realized, around 11PM, that Bella still has some large and mysterious stain on her PE shirt that I have yet to make any more attempts to remove. And stained PE shirts are a hot-button issue for the PE teacher at Bella's school. Any correspondance you receive from her will always contain something about making sure that the shirts are free from stains. Which I could totally get behind, in an ideal world, but the PE shirts are white. And worn for PE, which takes place outside. And yes, I could buy a new one, but it's awfully hard for me to stomach shelling out $30 for a t-shirt. So I will perservere into the night, attempting whatever I must to remove the offensive stain.

Scouts today was a nightmare, and I think I have an all-time record low morale in regards to every aspect of it. One of the girls smeared glue all over her upper eyelids, effectively gluing her eyes open, but after taking a moment to appreciate what a monumentally amazing thing she had done, I took after her with a baby wipe and solved the problem.

Another girl spent the whole meeting being bored and hating everything, which I know because she voiced those opinions frequently and loudly. And she kept roaming off, trying to get to the school playground. I was chasing after her on one of her many forays to the playground area but Sister Rufina caught her first. My first thought was, 'Oh crap, I'm in trouble', but Sister Rufina bent down, took her by the arm, told her something that I couldn't hear, and amazingly enough, the little explorer stayed in her seat after that. I just wish that Sister Rufina had caught her earlier, it would have made the whole experience much easier on me. Nuns rule, to put it lightly.

So I have a question for the teachers, mothers, anyone out there who could help - what do you with a kid who literally zips through every task she is assigned, then is done and bored? I just don't know what to do with this girl. She hurries through everything - snacks, crafts, activities, you name it, putting in a minimum of effort and finishing as quickly as she possibly can, then huffs about how bored she is and wanders around, distracting the other kids and causing havoc and revolt. I've tried having her help other people, and that doesn't work out - she says doesn't want to help, or she tries to take over whatever they are working on. I've tried telling her to sit patiently and wait until the other girls and finished and we move on, but she just ignores me and runs back and forth between her seat and her mother, which drives me bonkers. It would be lovely if her mother would encourage her to sit down and stay with the group, but that ain't happening and I am at my wit's end. It's not safe for her to be wandering off, and with as many girls as we have I don't have the luxury of enough time to be constantly and closely monitoring her whereabouts every second of the meeting, which is what I had to do today. I just don't know what to do with the girl. Any ideas?

I actually shouted so much at the meeting today that I am hoarse. Not shouting in anger, just having to speak loudly to get and/or keep attention and to be heard over the din of that many young girls in one place. And I just don't think the girls are enjoying it, which is a bummer because I really am trying. Oh well, tomorrow is another day.

Bella got in trouble today for apparently excusing herself to go to the restroom without permission. And she brought a friend with her (who I know for a fact is a very well-behaved little girl, because she is one of my scouts) on this illicit bathroom break, and the two of them just sort of hung out in the bathroom until they were missed and then got cold-hard busted. And how do I know this? Bella 'fessed up to it all. Well, she says that she asked permission to go to the restroom and her teacher forgot, but I'm dubious. She also said they stayed in the bathroom so long because they wanted to make sure their hands were extra clean, but I didn't fall for that one. Not from a child who I have to send back to the bathroom after almost every visit she makes to wash her hands. I just wonder why the teacher didn't send a note home or anything - I would think wandering out of class would be a pretty big offense, but I suppose the teacher has her reasons, and I trust her. So Bella is on Wii restriction for the rest of the week and weekend, which crushed her. I would say something about her learning her lesson, but I know she won't.

She's a good kid, though, and she has a great heart, so I can't complain too much about her. But I must confess to wondering about her thought process when I went into the bathroom to check on her showering progress this evening. I found her naked as a jaybird, dancing in front of the mirror with two enormous buttons shoved into her mouth. And when I started questioning her about what exactly she thought she was doing, she tried to play it off, like she didn't have these two enormous and colorful buttons in her mouth. She answered every question I asked her with a "Hhrrmmpphh?" question sound, as though maybe she hadn't heard me. Finally, when one button was literally hanging halfway out of her mouth, I said, "Bella, just take the buttons out, I can see them". She spit them out into her hand and then said, "What buttons?". Sigh. At least there is never a dull moment with her around.

I'm going to go check the PE shirt and hope for the best. Wish me luck!

Quick Takes Friday - Bubba's big, smelly day

2009-01-02T18:53:00.000-08:00

1
The kids tapped deep into my mothering reservoirs today, and I must confess that when I closed the door on both of them asleep in their beds (well, at least in their beds) I heaved a grateful sigh of relief. I love seeing the two of them play together, and Bella can make Bubba almost howl with laughter, but my gracious. I thought because of the age difference there wouldn't be a lot of bickering, but they find a way to make it work. Bella annoys the snot out of Bubba until he's literally screaming, and I am forced to intervene and impose a 'don't touch your brother' policy. This works until Bubba gets bored and decides he wants to play again, at which point he proceeds to annoy the snot out of Bella. This is amusing for a short while, because she's been driving him crazy since birth and he is just now able to give it back to her, but quickly loses any humor whatsoever when the two of them them start rolling around on the floor screeching at the top of their lungs. I know this is nothing new to people who have more than one child, but it's new to me. Holy moly.

2
Bubba had a banner day today. He has a new tooth coming out - the two center teeth on bottom came out, and then out of nowhere up pops a canine on his top jaw. And it's all sharp and pointy - his Maw-Maw, who loves him dearly and thinks he can do little to no wrong, laughed at him and called him a vampire baby. He was in rare form, all day long. If I stood up and attempted anything - dishes, laundry, anything, he would cling to my pants and moan. If I sat down he was content to roam about, but the second I stood up he was all over me. I think it's separation anxiety - he's really kicked that up a notch, lately. He doesn't seem to have stranger anxiety, though. He'll go to anyone. Strangers in the supermarket, older ladies in the doctor's office waiting room, the cable guy. He spent most of mass the other day struggling to get into the lap of a kindly Filipino gentleman sitting beside us. But he is just as upset when these people leave him as he is when Brian or I leave. So I could guess you could say he has stranger separation anxiety?

3
Bubba's lovely new Christmas toys are scattered about, forgotten, while he partakes of the kitchen utensils. Mixed in amongst the Blues Clues toys and the Tonka trucks are serving spoons and nesting measuring cups. His (current) favorite toy is a pair of enormous plastic salad tongs. You can separate him from the salad tongs, but at the cost of great emotional distress on his part. He wanted to bring them to Wal-Mart earlier, but I had to draw the line somewhere. I could just see myself trying to explain to a dubious door greeter that no, we had brought those salad tongs in with us, we weren't stealing anything. When we got home he actually hugged them, like some long lost friend. The boy makes me laugh.

4
He also embarked on a poop-a-thon today the likes of which I have not seen since his infant days. It was remarkable, really. I would change him, get up and walk to the garbage to throw the dirty diaper away, and by the time I got back to wherever he was there would be little stink waves emanating up off of him, like Pigpen from Charlie Brown. So I would repeat the process: change, throw away, return, and lo and behold, mere minutes later, he would toddle by, clutching his beloved salad tongs and leaving a cloud of stink in his wake. Bella actually commented on it: "Bubba stinks a lot today". Yes, yes he does.

5
My sisters and I could be a commercial for the Nintendo Wii and it's wireless functions. We have spent the last two days doing very little else but playing Mario Kart and Animal Crossing with/against each other, and having a wonderful time doing it. Yesterday my younger sister and her husband (located in Jacksonville), my nephew Mac (located two miles or so from us) and Bella and myself logged a good solid hour (and it was probably closer to two hours) racing each other on Mario Kart. And it was actually very, very fun. Bella started calling my sister' s husband 'Milkshake' (because she read his screen name incorrectly and then it stuck), and would say things like, "Call Aunt Sa and tell her to tell Milkshake that I'm coming for him".

And Animal Crossing has been a blast. We have attempted to hit each other with shovels (doesn't work), watered each other (doesn't do anything, but is mildly amusing), shown each other fish (funnier than it sounds, especially if you take a picture), and, in a feat heretofore unmatched, my younger sister and I dug about three dozen holes in front of my nephew's house. It was merely a mild inconvenience for him, but it was funny. The Wii speak is amazing, too - especially now that all three of our households have it equipped. Bella and Mac take advantage of it to bicker, and my sisters and I and the others in our households use it to strategize and laugh ourselves silly. Good wholesome family fun. Well, except for the 'hitting each other with shovels' part, but we had to try it. Nothing says family like your cartoonish avatar chasing your nine year old nephew's avatar around imaginary countryside trying to hit each other with a shovel. That's a millennial Normal Rockwell moment, right there.

6
I think that's all the quick takes I can muster, especially since I haven't taken the trash out yet and there is a double-digit quantity of dirty diapers in there. Blerg. Happy weekend to all!

Music that will change your life.....

2009-01-01T20:46:00.000-08:00

.....or at least sounds good in the background while you are doing other things. Aimee did a meme about her iPod and since I don't own an iPod, I thought I would just share some of what I'm listening to.

My musical tastes run the gamut, please understand, and there is really no excusing my taste. The CDs in my visor are the most telling (my visor Cds are on heavy rotation, understand) - I will share you with them now, the ones I can remember without actually walking out to my car, anyway, and you can furrow your brow and wonder what is wrong with me:

Medeski, Martin and Wood - Let's Go Everywhere - a friend of mine let me borrow this quite a while ago and I have not returned it yet. It's a fun, upbeat, downright funky album for kids. Bella loves it and begs for me to play it the moment she gets into the car.
Best of Mozart - I would link to it, but I'm sure there are a billion Cds with this title, so I'm not going to bother. Pretty self-explanatory.
Mexico and Mariachis: Music From and Inspired by Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi Trilogy See, told you it was a diverse collection
Best of Lynyrd Skynyrd Oh, yeah, I've got it. You know you're jealous.
And this got some heavy play until the stroller dislodged my car's speaker cables, forcing me to drive around with only my own thoughts for company (scary!): Songs for Christmas, Sufjan Stevens Some good, light, folk-y Christmas tunes, and was a total surprise gift from a good friend, which I think makes the music even better in its' own way.

Geez, without going out there, I can't remember them all. There are always two or three Harry Connick, Jr. albums hanging around in the visor - depending on my mood and the season. There's usually a Beck CD floating around, too. I also have a couple of CDs that people have burned for me, one of them collection of horribly cliche yet utterly enjoyable bad pop songs from the last twenty years or so, and the other is a collection of rap/hip-hop songs from the last twenty years or so. I do enjoy some rap and/or hip-hop music from time to time. I even own a few CDs - Jay-Z, Tupac, Ludacris, and a few others. Dr. Dre, of course. But anyway --- rounding out my wacky music collection is Mr. Ray Lamontagne.

I love......love love love Ray Lamontagne. If you like some light, easy on the ears, singer-songwriter type of stuff, please check him out. You will not be sorry. If you have to spend a lot of time in the car, his music is good driving around music. I own these two:

Trouble - The first three tracks on this album - Trouble, Shelter, and Hold You In My Arms, are worth the price of the CD, if you even buy CDs anymore.

Till the Sun Turns Black - I love almost every song on this album.

And I discovered, when poking around on Amazon this evening, that Mr. Lamontagne released a new CD in October of last year. So. Ahem. Any family members reading this and thinking to themselves, "whatever can I get Val for her birthday this year?", well, there you go.

So now that I have forced my musical tastes on you all and made a pathetic plea for a birthday gift, I will leave you with this funny/embarrassing story that really gives away how terribly un-hip I really am: waaaaaay back in the day, when Brian and I were dating, he bought a CD one night while we were out - I can't remember who exactly it was - Ice Cube, or Dr. Dre, or someone similar. I was reading the back of the jewel case and saw an artist I was unfamiliar with, so I asked a question. The conversation went something like this:

Me: "Who's McRen?"

Brian: "Who?"

Me: "McRen, it says the name right here" and I showed him the name. He just looked at me for a moment, and then exploded with laughter - the kind where you have to wipe your eyes and your nose and you can't talk.

When he had finally settled down, I asked what was so funny, and he said: "It's not McRen, it's M.C. Ren" and then went off into gales of laughter again. So there you go then.

Happy weekend to all.

I made it!

2008-12-31T22:07:00.000-08:00

I'm blogging with droopy eyelids, but I made it past midnight! Hooray! Happy 2009 to you all!

I actually have the next TWO DAYS off. Two days off, together. In a row. I'm marveling here, folks. My normal days off are Thursdays and Sundays. Thursdays I have scouts, so most of that day is blown prepping stuff and buying snacks or whatever. But now, I have two consecutive days off and.....oh, wait for it, because it is glorious......nothing to do. That's right, no plans. There's a vague notion about going to my sister's house tomorrow to watch Looney Tunes cartoons and play Wii, but there's nothing stressful about that. Nope, not a thing. My goal is to have no goals - to do as little as possible. To stay in my pajamas until I start to smell funny, maybe. Or maybe not, but you get the idea.

I don't really have any resolutions. I have a few ideas, but nothing so firm that I would attatch the word 'resolve' to it. 'Hope', maybe, or 'possibility', but not resolve. Except for this one thing: for right now, I resolve to get my butt into bed and get some sleep. Happy new year, everybody!

Peeping in

2008-12-27T09:54:00.000-08:00

Good morning, all. I just made my daily blog lurk-through and figured I would give a quick post-Christmas shout out. We had a lovely Christmas, and now I am tasked with finding room for even more stuff in our closet of an apartment. I'm not complaining, though, I just don't know quite how I'm going to manage it. But if that's my only problem, then I am doing OK, I think.

Hope everyone is doing well and had a lovely Christmas. For an amusing creative feat, check out Laura's recent post over at Catholic Teacher Musings. Hope everyone is doing well!

Merry Christmas to all!

2008-12-24T08:20:00.000-08:00

Howdy, folks. Just wanted to stop in and wish you all the very happiest of holidays. For my few readers and those whose blogs I read regularly, I want to say thank you - thank you for making me laugh, making me cry, for sometimes making me do both simultaneously, and for sharing your life.

My plan for the day is work until 3pm, then rush home, change and get to some Mass somewhere at some time, then coffee at my mother-in-law's. Then home to wait for Santa.

The weather sucks. It's humid, cloudy, occasionally rainy and over 70 degrees out, so it doesn't exactly feel like Christmas, but we will do the best that we can.

Merry Christmas, Happy Yule, whatever you celebrate, I hope it's everything you hoped for and more. I am looking forward to the three (three!) new Wii games we are getting for Christmas. Hooray!

Quick takes.....Thursday

2008-12-18T05:10:00.000-08:00

I'm quick taking on Thursday since I won't have time to do it on Friday. I'm doing inventory at work, and hand-counting roughly 11,000 items is no small task, my friends. Not at all.

1
Sunday night a friend of mine called me around 5PM in tears - she had been having contractions every five minutes for a couple of hours and thought she needed to go to the hospital, but couldn't get in touch with anyone who had agreed to help her with her three kids, ages 7, 4 and almost-2. I told her just to bring all three of them over to the house, and she said she didn't want to but didn't really have a choice. I assured her it was fine, and she and her husband dropped them off around 6pm. And it was utterly insane. Her three kids plus my two equaled insanity. I don't know how people do it. At one point, everyone in the house was crying except for the 4-year old and myself, and I was on the verge or tears. It ended up being a false alarm, and they picked the kids up around 9pm, but man. I don't mind doing it, though. I figure it's my karmic duty. I have a lot of family around to help me, and it's the least I can do to help others who aren't as lucky. And there are a lot of people in that situation, with all the military familes around here.

2
I am blogging from my aunt's house, where I stayed overnight with her three boys, ages 5, 5, and 4. Her daughter is in the hospital, and the bus comes for the boys at the unGodly hour of 6:15AM, so since my husband happened to be off work last night I was able to stay over and not have to drag my kids along with me. And holy moly! My sister was here for bedtime (we were putting together photo collages to give as gifts, and that was an adventure in itself, although we did manage to complete them without cutting ourselves with the scissors or taping ourselves to anything), and I'm glad she was because it literally took hours for them to fall asleep, with the youngest holding out the longest. And he was also the first one up, shaking me around 4:30AM and asking for candy. Um, no. Getting the three of them ready for school was an interesting experience, and I must confess that I was so relieved to see the headlights of the school bus that I performed a Tiger Woods-esque fist pump right there in the driveway.

3
Bella stayed the night with a friend a couple of weeks ago, and that friend is absolutely dying to stay the night with Bella, but the logistics just aren't working out. I work on Saturdays, so if she stayed the night on a Friday I would have to take her home super early Saturday morning. Saturday nights are out, because of church on Sunday. Since it's a school holiday we could do a weeknight, but my day off during the week is Thursday and both upcoming holidays fall on Thursdays, so that is out. But I'm trying to figure it out, because it's all this little girl talks about. She even mailed Bella a Christmas card and hand-wrote inside: "I hope I get to come to your house soon". I'm working on it!

4
Today is the last day of school before the Christmas break starts. There is a half day today, and then no school until January 5th. I have mixed emotions about this - it means no more getting up early for school (but I'm up with Bubba anyway), but it also means Bella will be home all day. And since there are really no kids around us for her to play with, she gets a little lonely. And bored. And cantankerous. So I am looking forward to it for now, but ask me in about a week.

5
I am done with my Christmas shopping. I am waiting for a few things I ordered online to arrive, and I have to ship a couple of packages still, but other than that I am FINISHED. Hooray! Everything is wrapped and ready. Awesome.

6
I have to go home now, to relieve my husband of Bubba duty and to undo the damage that my two children and husband wreaked on the house without me there nagging them to pick up after themselves. So I am limiting my quick takes to six. So farewell, friends - I hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season!

Still kickin'

2008-12-17T09:55:00.000-08:00

I am still alive and well (sort of well, anyway) but just very, very busy, like everyone else on the planet this time of year.

If you have a moment and would like a laugh, stop by AU Jen's blog and read about where she has to pick up her Crisco shortening.

I am lurking around and reading other people's blogs, I just haven't had time to post on my own. There's not a whole lot to report, anyway . Hope everyone is well!

Too good not to share

2008-12-08T10:12:00.000-08:00

I'm not trying to make this a photo blog about my kids, but....I just had to put some of these up. We walked around downtown yesterday, finding nooks and crannies to shove the kids into and take pictures, and some of them came out very well. Take a look!

These first ones are Bella and her cousin Mac:

I don't think I realized how many cannon we have here in town. And apparently, cannon are magnets for kids. Notice my pretty-pretty princess, always the lady, straddling the cannon at the front. Lovely.

In front of our local history museum.

I love this shot. The flowers, the big oaks and palm trees, the bay and the bridge in the background, and the gorgeous sky. And my smug-looking daughter.

The upside to Florida living - you can't beat the views.

I LOOOOOOOOOOOVE this picture. LOOOOOOOVE it.

Mad props to Maw-Maw for the pretty dress. Thanks Maw-Maw!

Bubba did make it into some of the photos, although not nearly as many as Bella and Mac:

Bubba, Bella and Mac. I can't help but wonder if the stuck-out tongue is Bubba's commentary on having to wear that suit and sit up in trees.

Good enough for grandparents. I have learned that, when taking a picture involving more than one child, the key to success is low expectations. High hopes, but low expectations.

This was the better of the swinging pictures. Some of the other ones gave my mother-in-law a heart attack because it looks like Bubba is about to fall out. So I will say: no Bubbas were harmed in the taking of these pictures (or, as Phyllis would say, 'pixtures').

I gave up on trying to take away the binky. It just wasn't worth it.

I loved this picture and hoped for some more like it, but then.....(see below)

Oops, pushed my luck. THAT is what happens if you take the binky away for the sake of a photograph. See what I mean? Just not worth it.

You want me to what?

2008-12-06T13:45:00.001-08:00

Bella's school is threatening to start mandatory parent volunteer hours, and while I understand why, I'm kind of bummed. I am one of the school's girl scout leaders, so hopefully that counts for something, but the thought of trying to eke out more time to spend somewhere other than with my kids just wears me out. How do people do it?

So, out of guilt....oops, I mean, a burning desire to help, I agreed to sell scrip cards to parishioners after mass. Sigh. I was very up-front about the whole thing, though - I said that I am on my own with the two kids (one of whom is a ten-month old boy), so I will have to be selling with both kids (did I mention one of them is a ten-month old boy?), and that there might be days where I am late or sick, and that I would like to be able to re-consider at some point if it seems like it isn't working out (probably because of the ten-month old boy). That might sound terrible, but I have learned the hard way that I have to be completely upfront, open and honest about things like this, otherwise people's expectations exceed my abilities, not to mention my availability. I'm sorry, I want to do what I can for Bella's school, I think it is a great school, but there is only so much time I'm willing to dedicate away from my family.

Last year I was asked to help out with the annual school fun run, and when I told the woman that I was only available after 5PM because of my job, she actually bristled and said, "Help can't always be on your terms". Hmm, that's true, but help doesn't pay my bills, and my job does. And if I don't have a job, I can't pay what I pay (including the annual tuition increases!) to send my daughter to school here. Sigh. I'm so bitter. It's not that I don't want to help, it's that I can't think of a way I can help that doesn't involve me missing out on time with my kids, time that is rare already because of my job. I guess I'm searching for that elusive balance everyone seems to be looking for. If anyone finds that, let me know.

Have a good weekend!

Irrational rationalization - and a meme!

2008-12-05T10:38:00.000-08:00

This morning my husband came home from work with a rented copy of 'Wanted'. I told him I wasn't interested in watching it, and he said he just wanted to watch it for Morgan Freeman (I'm sure it was him and not Angelina Jolie, I'm sure she had nooooothing to do with his interest in the film). The mention of Mr. Freeman got me to thinking, and I was brushing my teeth and mulling a few things over when a thought occurred to me that I had to share. I walked into the living room and said: "Hey, if Morgan Freeman and Samuel L. Jackson got into a fistfight, who do you think would win?". My husband just looked at me for a minute, then shook his head and said, "I will never understand the way you think.".

So, in my defense, I would like to lay out the stream-of-consciousness thinking I was doing to get there. Please join me for a quick ride on my train of thought (keep all arms and legs inside the train at all times, please and thank you):

--Morgan Freeman
--Morgan Freeman was in 'Bruce Almighty', which I watched last night
--Morgan Freeman has been in a lot of movies
--Samuel L. Jackson has been in a lot of movies
--I wonder if they know each other
--I wonder if they like each other
--If they don't like each other, would they fight?
--If they fought, who would win?

See, that's logical! Isn't it? I thought so, anyway.

Oh, and Aimee tagged me for this meme, which was perfect timing since I was feeling a little glum this morning. Here we are: six things that make me happy. In no particular order, of course - while I do love my coffee I don't love it more than my children.

1. Community-brand coffee: IT--IS--SO--GOOD. Rich and hot and it smells heavenly and I just can't get enough of the stuff. On the mornings that I take Bella to school I set the coffee pot to brew while I'm on the road, so by the time Bubba and I get home and get out of our Popsicle car (I have no heat) and into the house it smells delicious and warm and welcoming. And I learned, when my SIL and her husband moved to Virginia, that it is not a nationwide thing. Gasp! Every time we send a package to them it has to include a pound or two of this coffee. For those of you not in the Community Coffee distribution area, I am sorry.

2. Mornings with Bubba. There is a small window of time between when Bella is dropped off at school and when my husband gets home from work that Bubba and I have the house to ourselves, and we make the most of it. I let the dishes sit in the sink while we crawl and roll around on the floor, or Bubba gets airplane rides, or we play in a blanket. I love it.

3. Evenings with Bella. After Bubba goes to bed at night, Bella and I have a half-hour to an hour of time just to ourselves. We will read, or play something on the Wii, or paint our toenails, or sometimes say a rosary (at her urging! my daughter actually asks if we can say the rosary together!), or sometimes we will just sit and watch cartoons.

4. Flavor-Ice or Pop-Ice popsicles. When I have a sore throat (or if I don't), I love these popsicles. 15 calories each. Just don't touch my pink popsicles - that's fork in the arm territory, right there.

5. Our house, all decorated for Christmas. Our tree is pretty, our decorations rock, and the house is all cheerful and cozy. It makes me happy just sitting there, looking at the tree. It makes me feel very fortunate.

6. All the family we have around us. My sister, specifically, who continues to watch my children on Saturdays despite all the better things she could be doing. My dad and stepmother, for helping out my Aunt, even if it is a kind of begrudging help. My sister, again, for helping out my Aunt. It's touching to see how people who can't always stand to be in each others' company will stand up and help out when the going gets tough.

I tag Jen, and Teresa, and AU Jen. Speaking of AU Jen: where are you, woman? Did your roof leak on your laptop? Post already!

Here comes the flower girl

2008-12-03T12:20:00.000-08:00

We took Bella to a bridal store last night to get her flower girl dress for a friend's wedding.

She walked into the store and my little tomboy of a daughter was instantly smitten with all the girly stuff to be had there. "Mom, it's like a store for princesses! It's all so beautiful!".

The store staff made her feel like a queen, an experience I think she really needed and appreciated. They took her over to the rack of flower girl dresses, showed her a couple of different sizes in the style she needed, asked for her opinion and took her advice, then walked her over to a dressing room. I helped her change into her little gown, and then she walked out into the fitting area so the sales staff could give her the once over. This is the dress (but not her, obviously):

And my little girl was beautiful. I had tears in my eyes, I kid you not - bedraggled recess hair and all, she was breathtaking. And she knew it. She couldn't take her eyes off her reflection in the wall-sized mirror, and could hardly talk. And if my child is speechless, you know she has been deeply affected. They put her up on a pedestal (literally), the entire sales staff was quite taken with her and came over to compliment her, someone brought her a headpiece and a basket....she was fussed over for the better part of 20 minutes and she loved every second of it.

I will tell you all right now - when I see her at that wedding, in full flower girl regalia, smiling her little smile and with her cheeks all rosy pink, I am going to weep. She's just so pretty, and so sweet, and really such a good girl (she just has bad moments) and I am so lucky to be her mom. I forget that sometimes, or at least lose sight of it. She was just so happy, and it made me so happy to see her so happy, and it was a beautiful moment that I want to hold on to.

Now we just have to wait for Valentine's Day 2009, and hope that she grows a little - just enough - in the places we need her to grow to make the dress fit perfectly. But not so much that the dress doesn't fit at all, that would be bad.

And in the meantime Bella is practicing for her flower girl duties by scattering anything she can find in multiple quantities all over the floor, a habit that was cute the first time it happened but now is irritating and slightly dangerous. Legos and hot wheels do not possess the same charm as flower petals, and they convey an air of clutter rather than one of romance. We're working on it.

7 Quick Takes Friday, late once again

2008-11-29T08:54:00.000-08:00

1
We are praying for the family of one my husband's co-workers. The man was driving home from work on the 3-mile bridge (a bridge my husband travels twice daily) when he was struck head on by a drunk driver going the wrong way. He leaves behind a wife and three boys under the age of 10, the oldest of whom is autistic. I'm sure they could use all the prayers they can get, if you think about it.

2
People love a fat baby. People love to feed a fat baby. My mother-in-law says all the time, in her lyrical southern-cajun accent, "I love a good eatin' baby". And Bubba is, to say the least, a very good eatin' baby. And does not know when to say enough - can't say enough, so he just eats and eats. And I'm sure everyone knows where this is going - Bubba ate and ate and ate yesterday. Everybody snuck him food before we ate, he ate while the rest of us ate, then people snuck him food after we ate. Then we went to my mother-in-law's house and he ate again there. And last night he had a bellyache and diapers that were breathtaking in a myriad of ways. He couldn't sleep, was doubled over with gas pains...it was a horribly long night, for both of us. And I have to say, when he passed gas, it was horrible. I'm talking eye-watering bad. I know it's very juvenile to talk about, but I was literally astonished, more than once, by how very bad he smelled.

3
Alas, Bubba has fallen ill. And nothing is worse than a baby who can't breathe through their nose and doesn't yet realize that it is possible to breath through his mouth. I was awake for the better part of last night. He would sleep in 20-30 minute bursts, sitting up in his car seat with the vaporizer right beside him. Then he would wake up, wiggle around, cry, and require immediate picking up. Then he would sleep on me (while I was sitting up) until I would try and put him down, where he would sleep for a little while before waking up and starting the whole process again. The only break in this routine took place when I had to use the restroom, and Bubba was mightily offended. Looooooooong night.

4
If anyone is looking for service project ideas, we are making cards and little gifts for some children on the Make a Child Smile list. This is a great organization on a wonderful mission - they post information about children of all ages, from babies to teenagers, who are ill in one way or another and could use some cheering up. You can get the child's address and a list of their interests (and even their siblings interests) and can send them cards, gifts, whatever. Bella likes sending things to girls her age. We also do this with my scout troop - this year we found a girl who is also a scout, so that should be neat.

5
Thanksgiving went well. It was nice to spend time with my family, even if we are a large, loud and rowdy bunch. My stepmother was even on her best behavior, for the most part, so that was a pleasant surprise. The food was good, and the company was even better. On to Advent and Christmas! I still have not managed to get candles for our advent wreath yet, and our Jesse tree is still nothing but an untouched piece of poster board. But hopefully I can take care of all that tonight. Hopefully. I'm not going to stress about it, though, because that would be completely contrary to what those things are all about.

6
My older sister got a pretty cool new tattoo, which means that now all three of us sisters are tattooed and pierced in various and assorted places. Who would have thought that I would turn out to be the mild one, with my single tattoo that is usually not visible and no piercings (except my ears). Maybe now I can pass on that title of the worst behaved child to one of them.

7
I can't come up with a seventh right now, so I'll just say that I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and to wish you all a safe a wonderful weekend!

I'm having a bad day

2008-11-24T11:14:00.000-08:00

This morning I woke up, looked at the clock and realized three things: 1.) The alarm was set for 6:30PM, not AM, and therefore did not go off, 2.) It is now almost 7AM and I normally leave for school in 20 minutes, and 3.) my nine-month old alarm clock, who is normally up by 5AM every day, chose THIS VERY DAY to sleep in. Crap.

I went into the kid's room to rouse my sleeping angels. Bella was grouchy and wouldn't get out of bed, and Bubba and everything around him was soaked in pee. Lovely.

I changed Bubba and made breakfast for Bella. I took that moment to attempt to make a pot of coffee, and in my hurry I somehow managed to fling a heaping tablespoon of coffee grounds all over the kitchen. It was so bad that I actually had to pause and marvel at how very aerodynamic coffee grounds are, because they went everywhere. Even though I knew it was only a tablespoon, it looked like more like a good solid cup. And of course, in the thirty seconds it took me to get the broom, Bubba found them and wallowed in them, so I had to sweep the floor and dust him off.

While Bella was finishing her breakfast I went to the dryer to get her uniform out and discovered that the clothes were still damp. It was now 7:10. Crap. I turned the dryer on and hoped for the best. We got everything else done that we could (tooth brushing, hair-fixing, backpack packing) so that all she would have to do is hop into her clothes and we could leave.

While we were waiting for the clothes to dry, I was instructing Bella on her lunch money. Lunch is $3, and there was a $1 fee due this morning for glow sticks for the Christmas program finale (I know, I can't wait). All I had was a $10 bill. So I said, "I'm giving you $10. When you get your change back from lunch, put $1 in this envelope and give it to your teacher, and bring the rest of the change home". Bella paused for a moment and then said, "Why am I giving my teacher a dollar?". Sigh. "I'm giving you a $10 bill for lunch. Hot lunch costs $3. How much change will you get back?". Bella considered this for a moment. "Three dollars?" She guessed. Sigh again. Me: "What is ten minus three?". Bella: "Three, I just told you". Great. "When you get your change back, just put a dollar in this envelope and give it to your teacher". She agreed, but reluctantly.

Her uniform was dry by about 7:30, so she hastily dressed and we ran to the car. I was weaving my way through our narrow little apartment complex road when in front of me, there were three ducks crossing the road. Slowly. Painfully slowly. And a car was parked in front of the building in front of them, blocking me from veering around them. So I had to stop and wait, and I tell you: in my impatience, it was agony. Time was ticking away, and these ducks were leisurely sauntering across the road. One stopped and sniffed at something, the other two paused for some other reason, maybe conversation, who knows. After what seemed like an eternity, they were finally out of harm's way and I zipped past them. Stupid ducks.

Bella's school is about 3-1/2 miles from our house. There are eight traffic lights in those 3-1/2 miles, and without exaggeration, every single one of those lights was red when we got to it. Bella even noticed and commented on that fact, in between bemoaning our lateness. "I'll bet they're saying morning prayer right now, mom, and I'm missing it". And this jewel from about two miles away: "I think I just heard the bell from here, mom". No, I don't think so.

I got Bella safely to school (on time, too, so ha!) and was navigating traffic on my way home when I noticed an odd smell. A glance at my dash told me why: the car was overheating. Looooovely. We made it home without exploding - well, the car didn't explode, but my temper was on the verge. I decided to let the car (and my attitude) cool down before messing with it.

We got inside and I started trying to get everything together to get Bubba ready to go to my MIL's and myself ready to go to work. And nothing was going my way - I knocked a half gallon of milk onto the floor, and the dishwasher leaked everywhere (it was a bad day for my kitchen floor), a fact I discovered when I slipped and fell in the puddle it left. It was not my morning.

I managed to shower and get ready for work, and bustled myself and Bubba out to the car when I remembered the whole overheating situation. I put Bubba in his seat, rolled the window down a bit and popped the hood so I could add some more coolant (I have a leak). I gathered up my coolant and my water and looked down at the engine and.....couldn't immediately recognize where the coolant went. And I got very mad at myself.

In my defense, it is a new (to me) car, and I had not monkeyed around with the engine at all up to this point. I had a basic idea of where the coolant would go, but I wasn't 100% positive, and I don't play around with stuff like engine fluid. With my luck I would have added coolant to the brake fluid reservoir and slammed into a tree later when I tried to stop. So I tried calling my husband, who is in Panama City Beach visiting and playing golf with his old roommate, and of course he didn't answer his phone.

I ended up calling a friend who, after a brief description of where I thought it might go, assured me that I was most likely putting the coolant in the right place. The whole time I was dealing with that, Bubba was in the car screaming his head off, which made me rush, which caused me to spill coolant everywhere (including on myself), which made my mood even darker than it was before. So I was pretty irritated by the time I dropped Bubba off. I was bringing him in to my MIL at 9AM, which is the very time I was supposed to be at work for a meeting.

So I take off from my MIL's house and head for work and get stuck behind a school bus that is stopping EVERY SINGLE BLOCK for roughly eight blocks. And at each stop about 8 kids had to file onto the bus then sit down. It was like the duck situation, only it took longer. I actually developed a little bit of heartburn sitting behind that stupid school bus.

BUT....despite all that, we all got where we needed to go, mostly on time, and we were safe (except that one little slip and fall in the kitchen), so it could have been worse. And if I keep telling myself that, maybe I can get out of the funky mood I've been in.

Here's hoping.

**POST-POST UPDATE**

I stopped by Jennifer's blog - The Conversion Diary - and after reading the post there, I feel really small and petty. I whined incessantly for paragraphs and paragraphs about what a rough morning I had, and then you have someone dealing with something like this mother dealt with. I have been thoroughly chastened.

7 Quick Takes - with photos!

2008-11-18T11:54:00.000-08:00

A day late, and a week after I started the post, here are my 7 quick takes, a brilliant idea from Jennifer at the Conversion Diary. So here we go:

-1-

Bubba took his first steps last week, and has been taking more and more steps since then. People without children are excited. People with children say things like, "Well, it's all over now, isn't it?". Yes, yes it is. It's terribly cute to watch, though, even though I know the math - increased Bubba mobility equals increased chances of Bubba trouble and/or trauma of some sort. Big days!

-2-

Two words: Greek festival. Here is a picture of my dad's dessert plate:

That delectable looking chocolate dessert at the top of the picture is called a kok, specifically a chocolate kok, and let me just tell you, people: it was delicious. If you don't believe me, here's Bella to back me up:

That is pure, unbridled chocolate feasting right there. We couldn't finish it, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Yum. Bubba ate his fill, too, between sharing a kok with my dad and then his lunch of yogurt and bananas. He was very, very full. Bella wanted him to dance with her, but I discouraged any jostling of Bubba as the results could be disastrous, in a pukey-chocolate-yogurt-banana kind of way. Good food, good company, lots of fun.

-3-

After the Greek Festival, we loaded up and headed to the navy base for a visit to Fort Barrancas. That was also very enjoyable. Some pictures:

Bella and her cousin Mac astride a very old cannon.

And the view from the fort:

Bubba, Bella and Mac behind bars:

Bella and Mac inside the fort, apparently posing as two of Charlie's underage angels:

Sunday was a very good day. I feel very fortunate to live in the same town as so much of my family.

-4-

Last Friday I was driving Bella to school when I found myself being tailgated by a very aggressive driver. I mean very aggressive - not only was he following dangerously close to my back bumper, he was doing that thing where he would accelerate and get really really close before backing off for a second, then doing it all over again. And this guy was driving a HUGE Lincoln SUV - no match for my little Honda, that's for sure. He made all these dramatic arm gestures at me, and I was a little nervous about the whole situation. I was boxed in - cars in front of me and to my left, so I couldn't go anywhere, short of pulling over onto the shoulder so the guy could move up one whole car length to where I was, but I had somewhere to be, too, so I wasn't going to pull over.

We finally reached the light, and the guy pulled up beside me, rolled his passenger side window down and started shouting at me. I rolled my window down a little bit (I shouldn't have, but I was mad and not thinking clearly) and before I could say anything in response Bella shouted out from the backseat, "There are CHILDREN in this car!". Ha! I laughed (again, not thinking clearly) and rolled my window up, then explained to Bella how inappropriate the whole situation was, including my response to it, and how you should never provoke anyone like that, or take yourself down to someone's level when being provoked. But boy, that was funny. She told him.

- 5 -

I drove Bella to school this morning. The older classes are assigned to dropoff duty, opening doors for other kids, helping the smaller kids out, holding their hands and walking them to the cafeteria, etc. When we pulled into the dropoff lane and stopped, a little blond boy rushed over to the car and opened the door. "Hey, Bella!" he literally exclaimed. "Hi, Carson" Bella replied, holding her hand out for him to help her out. And this wasn't just a casual "Hi", this was a flirty "Hiiiiiiii". The tone of her voice actually made me turn around and look at her funny, but she was already halfway out of the car. As she was climbing out another little boy rushed over and said, "I knew Carson wanted to open your door but I wanted to walk with you, too". The second boy closed the car door and the three of them walked towards the cafeteria.

Carson was holding Bella's hand, and the second little boy had his arm around her. And I swear to you, as a mother who can recognize motive and meaning in even the most subtle of body language, Bella was flirting. She was tilting her head, and had her shoulders scrunched up, and I could hear her laughing. I was watching them walk away, slightly slack-jawed at the sight of my daughter simpering and batting her eyes for these older boys, when I heard laughing. I looked to my left and there was the school librarian, who had watched the whole thing (and my reaction to it) and was doubled over, pointing at me and laughing (in a nice way - she's a friend).

I get that this was just friendly conversation between kids who see each other on the playground. Her school encourages interaction between older grades and younger in a myriad of ways, so it's not surprising that they knew her and vice versa. But the way she was acting! I immediately called my husband and told him about it, and his response was that she must have inherited his animal magnetism. Yeah, that must be it.

- 6 -

Bella is, as we speak, on her first non-family sleepover. Her friend from school, whom I shall call E, invited her over to stay the night, and I dropped her off there after I picked her up from school yesterday. And I have not heard a peep from her. I slept by the house phone and the cell phone, just in case I got the late night, "Mommy, come pick me up" call, but it never came. They are going to keep her until I get off work at 5PM, unless she gets bored before then, in which case they will drop her off at my sister's house. I hope it's going well and she's behaving.

Bella is notoriously picky eater - she thinks that the food groups are pizza (pizza rolls and pizza flavored snacks fall into this category, as well), sandwiches (peanut butter & jelly, bologna and grilled cheese) and anything from McDonald's. She will eat food outside of those food groups, but those are definitely her favorite. Last night before I left her friend's house, the mom asked if Bella eats rice (E's mom is from Japan). Ha! Bella does eat rice, but Bella was hoping for pizza. All the moms who do lunch duty at school are always talking about the amazing lunches that E's mom prepares for her - sushi, and so on, so I have been just dying to know what they served for dinner and Bella's response to it. I guess I'll find out later.

- 7-

We are decorating the house for Christmas this weekend. I have to help my MIL next weekend, and if I wait until after that I'll never get it done. And I have vowed to enjoy this year's Advent and Christmas more, since last year I was so very Scrooge-y about the whole season. In my defense I was pregnant, moving into a new place, working full time and doing scouts, so I was exhausted the whole time, but I felt bad that I couldn't enjoy it more for Bella's sake. This year is going to be different. For one, we have a new and lovely 7' tree to put up. Last year we had a Charlie Brown-ish 3' tree that was downright pitiful.

Last year, because of everything that was going on, we couldn't really afford gifts for a lot of people. I know that isn't what it's all about, but I still felt bad, because I enjoy giving gifts. This year, I have almost all of the Christmas shopping finished already. Hooray!

And this year I'm going to do more for Advent. This whole Advent thing is still new to me, since this is only my second one as an official Catholic. We are going to attempt an Advent wreath and a Jesse tree. And we are going to do a couple of service-type projects. I'm planning on attempting those things but I'm not going to beat myself up if we don't get them done. I want to really enjoy this time of year, and just spend time with my kids and my family.

Happy weekend to all!

The conference and the rule

2008-11-14T12:02:00.001-08:00

I wrote a terribly angry post yesterday (that had nothing to do with the topic of this post and could be another post entirely but I don't need to go there). I did not get to finish it, so when I pulled it up this morning and read it over I decided to delete it. Time and sleep (not a lot of sleep, but apparently enough) will do wonders for attitude and outlook.

I had a conference with Bella's teacher Wednesday afternoon. These were the major points:

Bella was good as gold when the school year started, and then out of nowhere became the biggest talker in the class (although this week has been much better, she noted).

When I asked who she was talking to, the teacher answered that she is mostly talking to herself. She is seated between two non-talkers, so she just sits and chatters to herself, hums and sings and apparently doesn't internalize anything - the girl has no inner monologue, it's all out there.

When I noted that Bella went on a destructive bent at home, the teacher noted that she has been breaking pencils. Intentionally breaking pencils, but they have all been her pencils so it wasn't a huge problem. I asked if we could arrange for her to speak with the guidance counselor, to see if there's something bigger going on.

So there you go. And when I mentioned the issues I have with homework - how every night there is homework confusion and mix-ups, she said that starting that very day she was having them copy their homework from the board and into homework journals (up to this point the homework has only been available on the classroom web page). And the difference has been just amazing. Instead of being completely removed from the process and never having any idea of what she is supposed to do, she sits down and follows the instructions in her notebook and gets her homework done pretty much on her own. It's wonderful. Homework time has literally been cut in half, and neither Bella or myself are complaining nearly as much. Hooray!

The talking problem seems to be getting better, too. We have tried everything over the last month or so. There was a two-week stretch in which Bella couldn't really do anything fun - she couldn't play outside or watch TV or play video games and had to go to bed early and that did nothing, had no impact on her behavior at all. So what did we find that worked? We made Bella's rule, a rule that is based on the idea that there are times at school in which it is OK to talk (recess, lunch, etc.) and then there are times that you are not supposed to talk.

So now every morning before school she recites her rule for me: "If it is not time to talk, I will not talk to anyone except the teacher if she calls on me, and I will always raise my hand before I talk to the teacher." After the conference we amended the rule to include talking to herself. And since we started the rule and its' recitation, incredibly enough her talking issues have improved considerably. Her teacher actually started sending home a daily behavior reports when things got really bad, and the first couple of weeks she alternated between "I had an OK day" and "I had a bad day but will do better tomorrow". This week she has received all "Excellent Day!" notices. I'm amazed.

It just goes to show me that, in the world of parenting, what you think will work doesn't necessarily do so, and what seems to be the long shot is worth a try. Lesson learned. I'm proud of Bella and very relieved that it worked out. Whew.

A story that must be told

2008-11-07T11:09:00.001-08:00

The story below is quite sad, in a pathetic kind of way.

Last night, while shopping at the 6th retail establishment I had been to with my MIL all in the same day, I picked up some Mission-brand tortilla strips. I love those things. Soooo good.

I was driving home with the kids when I had a light bulb moment, and several facts occurred to me simultaneously.

My husband was about to wake up to get ready for work and would be hungry and ready for dinner, of which there was none immediately available.

When he saw the yummy chips, he would want to eat them and the little bit of salsa left in the fridge, (here's the important part people) leaving no salsa for me to munch on with said yummy chips later.

That would not do. So how did I solve the problem? I rushed into the house, hustled into the kitchen and started looking around for a hiding place for the chips, thinking to myself, where can I put these where Brian won't find them?

The dishwasher. Yes, I opened the mostly-empty dishwasher, tucked the chips in and quickly closed and locked the door, thinking as I did it that he would never look there for dishes, much less chips. And I was right - the chips went unseen, the precious salsa was safe, and I happily munched on them after I finished my housework for the night.

Hey, I'm not proud. Obviously.

Post-post note:

My older sister asked, upon hearing this story, why I hid the chips and not the salsa, since the salsa is what I was so concerned about. That is a fine point that I never even considered. Duh.

Stuff I like (and of course, some stuff I don't)

2008-11-07T09:08:00.000-08:00

Yesterday my MIL bought this outfit for Bubba for Christmas (at Sears, on sale for like $20). The tie is about 4 inches long. It is possibly one of the cutest things I have ever seen. He will hate wearing it, and will somehow damage it while wearing it, but that's OK, I'll just be quick to take pictures.

I love my dryer balls. I was highly dubious when Brian first brought them home, but now I can't imagine running clothes through the dryer without them in there, banging around (for the first few minutes it does sound a bit like rocks, but then they soften up a little). It is AMAZING how well they can work - I can dry an inappropriately huge load of towels in 35-40 minutes. I highly recommend them.

Butterball now makes a sliced deep-fried turkey breast lunch meat that is THE BOMB. I got the Thanksgiving style, but the other flavors sound yummy as well. I love fried turkey. Maybe it's just a Southerner's appreciation of fried food, but that's good eating right there. And it's 97% fat free. Hooray!

I love this website for online shopping. You type in what you need, and it comes up with a ton of options, pictures, and prices, all on one page. The best shopping page I've found.

Stuff I don't like:

There was a PTA meeting last night, a meeting that was being billed as HUGELY IMPORTANT and YOU REALLY, REALLY WANT TO ATTEND. The did an automated phone reminder on Wednesday night, and all the teachers in morning dropoff were holding posters that said, "VERY IMPORTANT PTA MEETING TONIGHT - 7:00PM". I was considering going, but then I had a crazy, non-stop day yesterday between ferrying my MIL around town and girl scouts and then ferrying my MIL around some more. And Brian had to work and I didn't have a babysitter, so the thought of having to bring both kids to the meeting sealed it for me and I did not go.

I got the kids in bed and was puttering around the house when the phone started ringing at about 8:45PM. It was Bella's teacher, calling to re-schedule our conference that was scheduled for this afternoon. One of the first things out of her mouth was, "I thought you were going to be at the PTA meeting.". Oops. While I was wrapping up with her my cell phone started ringing, so I ended the call with the teacher and answered the cell phone. It was the first grade room mom, calling to say something about needing to give me something and how she had really been hoping I would be at the meeting and was disappointed that I wasn't. I didn't even try to offer an explanation - I just told her to send the item home in Bella's backpack. Geez. As soon as I hung up with her the house phone rang again, and it was yet another person asking why I wasn't at the meeting.

Now, prior to Bubba's arrival on the scene, I attended PTA meetings pretty faithfully, and I know for a fact that no matter the hype or buildup for one of these meetings, you might get about one-third of the parents attending. So surely I cannot be the only person who did not go. But you would have thought so, from the reactions. And the worst thing is, none of the people who called mentioned anything about these huge announcements that were supposed to be made. So I got all of the chiding with none of the pertinent information. Great, just great. I still have no idea what went down. I'm sure it wasn't the 'we are raising tuition meeting' - they usually save that for after Christmas, so I'm not sure what happened.

I could go on and on in the 'don't like' section, but I think the PTA grumbling is enough for one day. We shall see. Happy weekend to all!

What's goin' on

2008-11-04T13:39:00.000-08:00

Halloween went OK. Bella was an enthusiastic Barbie Mariposa, Bubba a reluctant and petulant monkey. I went as a grumpy mother who hung back at the curb and let my husband do all the door knocking with the kids. We were out waaaay too late - Bubba has a self-imposed 7:30 bedtime that he likes to stick to, and by the time I pulled up to the house at 9:30 he was a screaming, snotty mess. However, the mini Hershey bar that my husband had given Bubba kicked in around 2Am, when Bubba decided to wake up and play for three hours. He fell back asleep around 5AM, and I was miserable.

I worked all day Saturday on minimal sleep, then after work I took the kids and my MIL to the hayride where my FIL works. I was sick, tired, and very, very grumpy. The games and food were open for 15 minutes after we got there then promptly closed down. We got in line for the hayride and waited for an hour for our turn. And after the hour wait, with a fussy eight-month old, the kids hated it. Bella spent the time time with her head buried in my MIL's sweater, and Bubba screamed almost the whole time (the other people yelling and screaming scared him) and buried his face in my neck. I had done a wonderful job of not complaining up to that point - I did not want to be there but kept that to myself. However, when Bella was cowering under the sweater and Bubba was screaming into my neck I could take no more, and looked over at my MIL and said, "Boy, this was worth the hour wait, wasn't it?" She just kind of laughed and nodded.

Bella has seemingly lost her mind. I am completely at a loss. She has not only kicked the general bad behavior into high gear, but she's also suddenly on a destructive binge - just over the last few days she has started breaking things. And she has never done anything like that before. She cut the pre-measured yarn for a needlepoint thing she is making into teeny-tiny pieces that are not usable for sewing, despite being told not to do it. And when I told her she wouldn't be able to use the yarn she just kind of shrugged and said, "Throw it away, I don't care". Yikes! She has broken multiple toys, the towel rack in her bathroom, the plastic kitchen colander.....I could go on, but I don't want to relive it.

I am alarmed. Something is brewing. I and don't know what is up. Her teacher sent home a note Monday with a circled frowny face and a note that said, "WILL NOT STOP TALKING". Yikes. I e-mailed her and asked her for a conference, because something is going on. Every bit of my maternal instinct is screaming with alarm. I don't know what is happening, but something is awry. I can't get Bella to talk to me, so I'm thinking at the conference Friday afternoon I might see if the guidance counselor at school will meet with her, and see if she can discern anything about what might be at the root of this sudden 360-degree behavior change.

Bella has never been an angel, understand, nor do I expect her to be. I don't expect perfection, but for the last month or so things have just gotten really, really bad. I have come up with a plan for around the house, I think - here are a few ideas that I have been kicking around:

To get into a routine that we will attempt to stick to as much as possible
Make rules for the house, that will be somewhere in plain sight and that everyone will have to follow - grown-ups included
Establish set consequences for rule-breaking
Make Bella more responsible for her own day-to-day care - making sure her bookbag is packed, making her own lunch, laying out her uniforms, etc
Actually make her do the chores on her chore list (gee, what a novel idea)
If we are home together, we eat dinner together - and no television
We are going to move ahead with the TV coupon idea - I think it's kind of lame but I also think it is necessary - the child has toys and games and anything else you could imagine to play with but all she wants to do is watch television
Sunday is going to be family day - it generally has been, unofficially, but now it's official
Bella is going to start getting an allowance, but bad behavior at home or at school and/or not completing her assigned tasks can cause the amount to drop

Those are just a few notions I've been considering. We'll see, but at this point I am willing to try anything. My sweet little girl has been replaced by this sullen, angry, belligerent, destructive child that I feel like I don't know, and I didn't expect that to happen at least until she was a pre-teen or so.

I think, in my heart of hearts, the place where you know the truth but don't want to admit it, that it is a matter of attention, or rather what she is perceiving as a lack of attention. The whole 'negative attention is still attention' school of thought, on her part. I don't think we are paying her enough attention, and I think she is acting out because of it. And my reaction to that thought is mixed - on the one hand, I feel horrible and guilty, but then on the other hand I just think, that's life. People have siblings, you have to share the attention, that's just how it is. I think I need to find balance between the two.

If anyone has a suggestion - teacher, parent, whom or whatever, I'm open to it. And eager to hear it, because I'm baffled and fresh out of ideas.

Oh, crap

2008-11-01T15:05:00.000-07:00

I called my mother-in-law just now and said, in the least enthusiastic voice possible, "Did you still want to go to this Halloween thing tonight?". (My FIL works for a military MWR site, and they do a Halloween hayride for the kids). She was kind of hesitant in her answer, so I told her, "Well, I won't get off work until probably 5:30, and then I'll have to go pick up the kids from my sister's house, then go to my house and change clothes and pick up stuff I need for Bubba, then finally come to your house and then drive out to the hayride. Plus, Bubba doesn't need to be out late since he was out so late last night, and I think I'm getting a cold".

Then I paused, hoping she would change her mind, and waited anxiously for her reply.

And then she said: "Yeah, I still want to go. See you when you get here."

Sigh.

Bah-Humbug Halloween

2008-10-31T12:12:00.000-07:00

I am not feeling the spirit of Halloween, if there is such a thing. Frankly, I just want to sit in front of the TV with some almond amaretto coffee and watch the live GhostHunters episode (my guilty pleasure TV show) and get some laundry done. There is so much dirty laundry in my house right now - I was pondering it this morning (not washing it, merely pondering it) and I just had to wonder if there are maybe some people who are living in the apartment when we aren't home, leaving their dirty clothes behind for me to wash and using all the towels. Two adults, a six-year old and a baby just can't produce that much dirty laundry, they just can't. Or maybe they can and I've just fallen behind. Either way, I have a marathon laundry session coming my way.

So since I am such a Halloween grinch, I thought I would share this delicious selection of clever baby costumes. There you go. I dig the walrus, but the flamingo is pretty darned cute, too.

I hate Florida weather. Two nights ago we had a frost, and for a couple of days the weather was cooler during the day, but it seems we are right back to our normal autumn, or at least what passes for it here in FL. At night the temperature drops into the low forties. I have been wandering around the house at night doing my chores in a sweatshirt, and have actually turned the heater on a couple of mornings. So you have low forties at night, but yesterday afternoon while running errands the temperature was 77. Ridiculous. You can't dress for that kind of temperature change, unless you layer to the extreme. And it's impossible to dress Bella for school, too. If I put her in tights, a long sleeved shirt and a sweater she gets a heat stroke during recess, but if I send her in socks and a short-sleeved shirt she freezes all morning long. And on PE days it's just ridiculous, but I'm not alone in my weather frustration - all the children in Bella's class look like little blue Grimaces because they have on their PE shorts and short sleeved PE shirts underneath their winter sweatpants and sweatshirts. Bulky little things.

I had a brief Bubba-related scare this afternoon. My husband works overnights, from 8PM to 8AM. When he came home from work this morning (it's his birthday today) he said he wanted to spend some time with Bubba, and that he would watch him for a while instead of me taking him to my MIL's house like I usually do before work. I agreed, but reluctantly - Brian is almost a narcoleptic (understandably so) when he has worked all night, and can fall into a deep and heavy sleep without warning from which he is very difficult to rouse. On the drive to work I had a nagging feeling that I shouldn't have left Bubba, but I pushed it aside.

So around 1PM I called my MIL's house (since that is where my husband said he was going to go shortly after I left for work) and not only were they not there, she had not heard from them. Hmm. I felt uncomfortable - all I could picture was Brian snoozing on the couch while Bubba explored the contents of the cabinet where I keep all my toxic chemical cleaning supplies. I called the house, and there was no answer. I called Brian's cell phone, and there was no answer. I was feeling rather panicky. And it isn't because I don't trust Brian, that's not the case at all, but I didn't trust the circumstances.

So the lovely people I work with agreed to hold it down so I could drive the fifteen minutes home. And it was an anguished drive, I have to tell you. In typical maternal style, all I could think about and picture was all the things that could have gone wrong if Brian was asleep and Bubba was wandering around the house. I drove too fast, made a few rude gestures, and used some very bad words, but after what seemed an eternally long drive I made it to the house, pulled sideways into a (handicap!) parking spot and was out of the car before the engine had shut off completely.

I unlocked the door and burst into the house, and there was....nothing. No one. No sign of Bubba of Brian. So I explored a little further and heard the shower running. And there they were, in the master bathroom. Brian was showering, and Bubba was standing on his tippy-toes and sucking on, of all things, the toilet flush handle. When I walked around the corner Bubba froze, then removed the handle from his mouth and smiled. Then he flushed the toilet, and kept flushing the toilet. After about four flushes, Brian (who was not aware of my presence at this point) said, "Hey buddy, the water is getting cold, stop it" which, as you all know, makes any eight-month old baby stop doing something as fun as flushing a toilet. Riiiiight. So Bubba kept flushing, and Brian kept saying, "Hey!".

I finally spoke up, and Brian stuck his head out of the shower and asked what I was doing there. How do you answer that? Because I couldn't just wave it off and airily reply, "Oh, I didn't trust you to not fall asleep while you were watching the baby so I rushed over here at top speed because I was fairly certain Bubba was drinking Lysol or maybe the bathroom cleaner". No, that is not a good thing to say. So I just said I was on my lunch break and thought I would swing by. Whew. I felt bad, but Bubba is just at that age where he gets into everything, and he's starting to climb now, and you just can't leave him alone for a second, much less fall asleep and leave him to his own devices for an extended period of time.

Today is going to be crazy. I get off work at 4PM, and then I have to:

Pick up Bella from after school care
Stop by the store and pick up Brian's cake
Run to my house and pick up the kids' costumes and Brian's present
Go to my MIL's house for dinner and trick or treating

Sigh. Ghost Hunters, coffee and laundry are still pretty appealing, but alas, such is life and motherhood. Happy Halloween!

Be careful what you wish for: Bubba speaks! and speaks and speaks and speaks

2008-10-25T08:44:00.000-07:00

Bubba has said "da-da" twice now. Both times he was not prompted, he just sort of blurted it out and then promptly forgot about it and no amount of encouragement can make him say it again. I had actually been a little concerned lately because Bubba hasn't really been a vocal baby. Crying, yes, he can cry like a crying machine, but he didn't coo, or gurgle or make any of those noises that babies make. He will grunt at you, if you have food that he wants (which is pretty much anything), but the grunting has been it so far. I wasn't dwelling on the idea that he wasn't vocalizing, but it was in the back of my mind.

Then two days ago, while eating dinner at my mother-in-law's house, Bubba said "Ma-ma". My heart leapt. I was thrilled. And he hasn't stopped saying it, either. My concerns were for naught, because the boy won't stop chattering now. He crawls around the house chanting, "Ma-ma, ma-ma, ma-ma". When he's not actually saying it, he's mouthing it. He also added his own name to the mix: "Bu-ba".

Yes, we really do call him Bubba. I have felt the need to defend myself for that since a woman at school asked me if I thought I was perpetuating or encouraging the stereotype of the dumb southerner by calling my son Bubba. Um, no, it's just his nickname. But I digress:

So now he crawls around saying, "Ma-ma, Bu-ba, Ma-ma, Bu-ba" over and over. He has started yelling (mostly at his sister), shrieking from the sheer joy of playing with barbecue tongs (his favorite toy, currently), and doing all the giggling and cooing and such. It's charming.

Yesterday he was following me around the kitchen while I was trying to prepare a bottle. He was, as he usually is when he's waiting for a bottle, absolutely certain of the fact that he will never be fed again. The theatrics he lays on are impressive - moaning, and big tears, and laying on his stomach and rubbing his face into the floor from sheer agonizing hunger. Now he has added to his repertoire the forlorn and pitiful "ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma....." on and on into perpetuity. Constantly, until he has what he wants. Not quite as charming. But still good to hear.

Bella has also added to her vocabulary and has been busy peppering her conversations with some lovely new expletives. The other day she asked her brother: "What the hell do you want?". Not charming at all, I have to say. We are working on it. She's really been pushing her limits at home lately. I don't know what is going on. She is regularly being belligerent, and blatantly not listening, she is talking back.....I am rapidly approaching my wit's end (which is not a long trip). Last night I asked her to do something to which she replied, "No, I'm not doing that". I was astonished and replied with a well-thought "What?", at which point she fled the room. I tracked her down - she ran away from me again and into another room, and I asked her what was going on and she laughed, she laughed and said, "Nothing, why? What? Geez." I had to take a moment to regroup. This is not my well-behaved daughter.

So now I'm having to rethink my parenting policies. Not that I have them listed - there's no parenting mission statement in my house, although maybe there should be. I have really been thinking about this a lot lately and I think I know what I need to do.

I feel so overwhelmed, a lot of the time. And there are so many people who have so much more going on than I do. The librarian at Bella's school? She has 9 children, the youngest of whom (twins!) are in kindergarten. She is the school librarian, and she used to be parish education coordinator until the Salesian Sisters came into the parish. And did I mention that she has 9 kids? I have two children, a part-time job (30 hours a week) and an apartment the size of a closet and I am having trouble coping? I bet she would just laugh. Well, probably not, because she is too nice to laugh, but I bet she would want to laugh.

I'm just in a rough patch. Things will smooth over. They have to! Tomorrow is another day, and all that. And if I say it enough, I might just believe it. Happy weekend, all!

Am I Wrong? (Because I usually am)

2008-10-24T12:17:00.000-07:00

I e-mailed my cousin in Pennsylvania the other day, mentioning that we were going to be visiting family in Virginia around Easter and that I wanted to try and get together with her and her family. I mentioned that we were planning on trying to hit up an amusement park during our visit, and she kindly reminded me that amusement parks aren't open year-round up there. I was shocked.

I am such a Florida girl - the only thing that closes for the winter down here are water parks. And lo and behold, I checked the web and both big parks are closed while we are there. And the amusement park was the only thing we had really planned to do while we were up there, so I decided to scope out a plan 'B' and discovered that there is an aquarium right there in town, and a really cool children's museum nearby. And of course colonial Williamsburg (which I love), and we could go to Washington, DC. I am so excited now! I have requested visitor's guides from Williamsburg and Washington, so we can look through them and Bella can get excited.

I really want Bella to enjoy this trip. I am ashamed to say she has never been on a real vacation like this, ever, in her entire life. This will be our first real vacation as a family. She has taken little weekend trips here and there, to Tampa to visit family and to Louisiana to visit family and so on, but never with my husband and I - always with her Auntie or Maw-Maw & Paw-Paw. She has never done anything like this, and I am very excited for her, and for us. She has been to the museums and little attractions here in town, and that's really about it, as far as all that goes. This is a chance for her to see things she has never seen before, things that will be new and exciting and educational and a chance to make memories that she can hold on to for the rest of her life. Bubba, too, of course, but at 14 months he won't remember much of the trip.

There is a slight problem, though. My sister-in-law, who is currently pregnant and due to give birth around Valentine's Day, feels a little out of sorts about us making plans for these day trips (except DC - we would probably stay overnight there, for one night). When I mentioned to her the places we are interested in going while we are up there she reminded me that we will be up there to see her and her husband and their new baby.

I get that, I do, but I don't think she has anything to worry about - we will all be spending plenty of time together. I'm actually thinking of her and her husband, too, and the fact that they might appreciate having some time without all of us in their house, especially since they will have a (roughly) six week old baby. There will be six adults and three children aged 6 and under all in the same house. And those nine people will be crammed into a two bedroom, one bathroom apartment. For eight days. So yes, I think getting out and about and doing something fun will be necessary to stay sane.

When I mentioned the above to her she said that there is all kinds of shopping in the area that we could do. I'm sorry, I'm not going to ride in a car for fifteen hours with my kids, my husband, and my in-laws to go to a mall (unless it's the National Mall in DC). I can shop at home. I said something about them coming with us on one, or more, or all of these day trips - after all, 6-week old babies are portable. But my in-laws are old-school catholics that don't believe in taking the baby out (further than the mall, apparently) before it's been baptized and they aren't certain if the baby will be baptized by that point.

This is her first baby, though, so I don't think she gets it yet. How your life is completely and utterly turned upside-down, no matter how much you think you know what to expect. How your hormones are still supercharged even six weeks after giving birth. How difficult daily life will be with a new baby and six extra people, making noise and making messes. How after two days she will be ready for us to leave, possibly almost desperate for us to leave. Wasn't it Benjamin Franklin that said something about "guests, like fish, smell after three days"? That Ben Franklin was a smart guy, he knew what he was talking about. I'm shooting for a nice blend of activity and leisure. Enough time spent around the house to relax, and enough time spent out of the house to see the sights, burn off some energy and hopefully avoid killing each other.

So am I wrong? I mean, seriously, am I? I'm not looking for validation here, I genuinely want to know if I'm possibly overlooking my SIL's feelings and selfishly forging ahead with a plan that makes them feel like we don't want to spend time with them, or that we won't spend time with them. My goodness, we will be getting there on Friday afternoon and will be together all of Easter weekend, with no plans but church, so that is a great start right there. And by the time Monday rolls around I have a feeling she will agree that we all need to get out. But I don't want to make her feel bad. We'll see.

Hooray for the fair!

2008-10-21T10:03:00.000-07:00

The fair is in town, and my sister was kind enough to take the kids on Saturday. A good time was had by all. Except for my poor nephew, whom I shall call 'Mac' for internet purposes. Bless his heart, he is an only child and has been for all of his nine years, so he is having to adjust to having Bella around. They could be mistaken for siblings, the way they argue and pick at each other. Anyway, here are a couple of pictures thanks to my generous and thoughful big sister:

Bella and Mac waiting for the elephant ride to start. He's such a good cousin, however reluctantly.

Bella in the 'Ag-Venture' area making a jack-o-lantern out of radish seeds and mulch.

Bubba making a move for the mountain dew (that's actually diet pepsi). Nice try, fella.

Need some advice

2008-10-17T10:56:00.000-07:00

I was a little early for my teacher conference yesterday, and while I was standing in the hall waiting a little head poked up into the glass window of the room door - one of my girl scouts was inside while her parents were doing their conference. So I checked the hallway to make sure there was no else around, and then proceeded to engage in a lively bob-and-weave peekaboo game with her and her younger brother. We were making faces at each other and giggling when I realized I was busted - not only were the adults in the classroom laughing at us, there was a woman who had quietly emerged from the office and into the hallway and was standing near me, amused. "Are you encouraging them?" She asked me, laughing. "I'm keeping them busy." I answered defensively. Oops.

So Bella's teacher and I sat down, and once settled in (she said a pleasant hello, I returned her greeting and apologized for the copious amounts of smelly baby spit-up on my shirt that I didn't have time to change) she got right to the point. She said that Bella is academically strong, indeed there are no areas that she is having problems in. She said the Bella talks too much, and she does need to work on that, but her talking is almost charming because she's generally so excited about what they are learning that she just wants to talk about it. She said Bella finds so much joy in everything that she is one of those children that reminds her why she got into teaching in the first place. Bella is well behaved, well mannered, works well with others, and has a good heart and a sweet disposition. We talked about the items I was concerned with - some homework issues and whatnot. My mind was put at ease, and I feel better about the whole situation now. However....

There is still a problem, and that problem is at home. Specifically, with me, and how she behaves with me. It's funny - I have had a nagging feeling lately that there was some sort of problem, and there was, but not at school. And a very good friend of mine had the courage and the honesty to tell me that Bella doesn't take me seriously, doesn't listen to me, and doesn't do what I tell her to do. It was hard to hear but at the same time was good to hear, in fact I think it was what I needed to hear because it made me acknowledge what has been a growing problem. So we will just have to buckle down and tighten up at home. I think I've been a little adrift and over my head from a combination of things - managing an increasingly mobile Bubba, my increase in hours at work, losing my sister-in-law, my husband's schedule change....and I have let things get away from me. I've been taking the path of least resistance, and it shows in her behavior at home. Now, at school she's apparently great. And when we were out at dinner the other night, a couple stopped us to tell us how well-behaved our children are (I actually had to look around to make sure they were talking to us). So at least I know she can be good, she just chooses not to be at home.

So I need some advice. I don't care what you are - a parent, a teacher, a cat lover, whatever, chime in: I need to know how I can curb her talking at school. Earlier this year we tried a long-term plan, telling her we would check back in with her teacher in two weeks and if she had not stopped talking too much that she would lose her Wii privileges. It apparently worked - when we checked back in with her teacher, her teacher said that Bella had made an improvement. Should I just do the same thing again? Any other suggestions? Because I will drive her teacher crazy writing her notes every two weeks asking about her talking. I'm out of ideas. Any thoughts?

They do exist! A picture of the kids

2008-10-15T07:57:00.001-07:00

My sister took this on her fancy-schmancy new blackberry, and while it's not the best picture of Bella, it is photographic evidence that my children are real and not just a figment of my imagination:

Because if I was going to make up some imaginary children, they would be far better behaved. I.E, they wouldn't lick everything, they would shower, they would listen, they wouldn't pick the first choice on multiple choice questions just to be done with homework. But despite all that, I wouldn't trade them for anything in the world.

Monday nattering

2008-10-13T12:04:00.000-07:00

I got gas Friday for $3.14 a gallon. On Sunday, gas at the very same gas station was $2.85 a gallon. I have to confess I felt a little glimmer of hope, a little bit of, "ok, maybe things are going to be alright". And I'll take hope wherever I can get it these days.

Wednesday of last week was a big day for us, in a dental sense: Bella lost her first tooth (first tooth excluding the one that was surgically removed while under anaesthesia at the age of 3), and Bubba's first tooth triumphantly emerged. It's the circle of teeth in my house - lose one, gain one. I had to leave the house at 11PM because *ahem* I had to make change for the Tooth Fairy, who seemed to think, and I agreed, that $10 was a bit excessive. So the tooth fairy left her $2, which I thought was a good amount but did not impress Bella. The Tooth Fairy did redeem him/herself, however, by also leaving her money at her Maw-Maw's house.

If you ask Bella, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Clause are pretty tight, and apparently Santa told the Tooth Fairy that she also gets gifts at Maw-Maw's house, and that's why the tooth fairy left her $5 there. She also said the Tooth Fairy left more money at Maw-Maw's house because she knew that we would make Bella use the money to buy her own hot lunch at school. Which we do sometimes, but come on, I don't need the Tooth Fairy busting my chops. Hot lunch at school costs $3/day, and there are two days of the week that we always plan on her buying hot lunch (because she tells us: "I only want hot lunch on cheeseburger day and pizza day"), but there are days in between that she just decides she wants it. If, on those days, I do not have cash, then I will tell her that she can use her own money, or she can bring lunch. I think that's fair.

Saturday night I was determined to enjoy and make the best of my evening. I got Brian off to work, Bubba off to bed, got Bella settled, and then started preparations for my own evening. I made myself a nice, strong cup of coffee and polished the whole thing off while sitting outside and enjoying the mild weather. Once I was finished with my entire, large cup of coffee, I headed inside and started a load of laundry. My plans for the evening were laundry and reading, because I have a new book (hooray!). I settled in on the soda with my new book, and then the next thing I knew, I woke up, looked at the clock and it was 4:30AM. The lights were still on, the TV was on (I like and need the background noise), and I was still in a seated position. bleary and half-awake. And then I had a horrible realization: the caffeine didn't work. What do you do when caffeine doesn't work anymore? Yikes.

Bella and her father are both sick this morning, and they are running neck and neck for whiniest sick person, ever. I think my husband should be given special consideration for the award, due to his his age and his ability to quickly revert to an incredibly rotten and whiny child. Last night I made a quick run to the store, and was gone for about forty minutes. When I got back I could hear him in bed, hacking and coughing. After about ten minutes of listening to him, I walked back to the bedroom and asked if he wanted some medicine. I got a very weak and wan, "Ye---cough, cough cough--s. Yes. cough cough". After I got him the medicine he said, "I've been coughing and coughing the whole time you've been gone". So you didn't get up and get yourself medicine? You just laid in bed, "coughing and coughing" and not doing anything about it? Even Bella will get up and come get me to tell me she doesn't feel well. And then today, when I called to check on them from work, I got in trouble because I finished off the last of the ice cream and ice cream really helps his throat. Then he ventured that, since I pass by multiple grocery stores on my way home, maybe I could stop and get him some more throat-soothing ice cream before I come home and make dinner. I suggested that a nice cough drop or throat spray, items which are already in the house, might I add, would be vastly superior for the job, but he was certain that nothing but ice cream would do. Hmmph. I'm thinking I might go home, make dinner, clean up and then go to the store for ice cream, so I can get out of the house and away from all the teething (Bubba) and the coughing (Bella) and the whining (my husband).

Happy Monday!

I've got the first grade blues

2008-10-08T10:24:00.001-07:00

Last night it took Bella a full hour to finish her homework. And that was just to finish it; she had actually completed a worksheet and a half at after school care. At one point I actually said out loud, "This is taking forever!" - (not in an angry way, just kind of not believing that her homework was taking so long) to which Bella responded, "Well I'm the one actually doing it!". Point made and taken.

My homework policy is as follows: I am available at homework time. I don't hover, but I make sure to be nearby. I am available for questions that help her to arrive at an answer herself, but I refuse to provide the answer to the actual homework questions themselves.

I do check her homework to make sure that she has completed it, and I also check it to see what is right or what is wrong so I can gauge how she is doing, but I don't correct it for her. If I correct all her mistakes at home, how is her teacher supposed to know what areas she is having problems with? I will say things like, "Do you want to look this over one last time before you put it away?", and then I will discuss things with her - for instance, she has a problem with capitalization and punctuation (hmm, wherever does she get those pesky grammar problems? It must be from her father). When she writes sentences at home I will talk about capital letters and periods and whatnot with her, and she still forgets and leaves them off. So I send them back to school that way. I could be wrong, though - I'm open to thoughts on the subject.

I do my best to support her. I know education doesn't stop when school ends, so I try to make our home life as educational (yet fun) as possible. We read all the time, do science experiments together, we cook together (and I make her measure and read), we do workbooks and we write stories. I'm doing my part, or at least trying to.

I have been really, really bad about doing an the additional activities that are on her worksheets. Her math worksheets sometimes have this little section at the bottom with a suggested 'Parent Activity', and a box beside it to check if you actually did the activity. The first time I noticed it, the instructions were to take out forks and have the student count them. I confess that I did not bother. Right now, per her teacher's instructions, we are learning to count to 100 by 3's. So the same kid who is learning to count to 100 by 3's is going to somehow learn something by counting our 8 forks? Well, I guess with the salad forks that would be 16, but that's still not going to do much.

Then the next time I noticed the 'Parent Activity' the suggestion was to take down cans and other dry goods and have the student sort them. I see the educational value in that, I really do, but on that particular evening we didn't get home until after 6PM, so we had to eat dinner first, and then we got to homework. By the time I noticed the suggested activity it was going on 7:30m and the last thing I felt like doing was pulling cans and boxes out of the cabinets for her to sort. I have a tiny apartment, no pantry, and cabinets that were built to accommodate the height of NBA players - I have to get on a chair to reach them, seriously. I did have her play with some wooden blocks and instructed her to sort them by shape, then by size, then by color, but since I was busy trying to get Bubba to bed I think she just built stuff - a castle, a bed, then a chair. When I was finally able to offer her my undivided attention she had made a road and was driving hot wheels around on it.

So I didn't check either box to say that we had completed them - the first time because we didn't even bother, and the second time because we sort of attempted it but didn't really get it done. And when the homework came back home, the teacher had circled the little boxes in red pen. D'oh! I felt like a terrible mother. Last night when I was looking over her homework I noticed another parent activity, and I swear to you this is what it said:

Find somewhere one, two or three pictures of someone or something or someone using or doing something that can be used or done at sometime - morning, afternoon, evening, or night. Bring them to school with you tomorrow.

Say what? I had to re-read it three or four times before I actually sort of understood what they wanted. The irony in this was that just the other day I threw away about six magazines that I had been saving for cutting purposes but got sick of them just sitting around. So we were left with my husband's old magazines to look through, and we ended up (thanks to Florida Saltwater Fisherman) with a picture of someone driving a boat, someone fishing from a boat, and someone on a boat holding a fish. Not a lot of variety, but it fit the requirements. Anything would have fit the requirements.

Report cards come out next week, and Bella's school always does teacher conferences for the first report card of the year. I'm looking forward to talking to her teacher - there are some issues that I'm slightly concerned about. My slightly concerned is much more mellow than some of the other parents, who seem to be on the verge of some kind of classroom mutiny. I personally think the problems are mostly organizational and will work themselves out - at least, I hope so. I've heard from people that she is very good at actual teaching, but she isn't the best with details. And neither am I, so I can sympathize.

My conference is Thursday at 3:15, so I guess all will be revealed then. Hopefully. But in the meantime, I hate first grade and it is hard.

A Post That Is Way Too Long

2008-10-04T15:03:00.000-07:00

Last night Bella asked me if she could take her baby rosary home from her Maw-Maw's house (it was a gift for her baptism). I said no, but told her she could take her purple rosary home (a gift for her 4th birthday, and bigger and far less delicate). She was so excited, and when we were in the car she said, "Mom, can I say the rosary in the car?". I told her if she waited until we got home we would say the rosary together, and she got even more excited. She then explained to me which prayer was said on each bead (awww), and went on to say that if you say the whole thing together you are praying to God in a beautiful way (awwwwwwwwwwwww). Then she added that she wanted to say the rosary for her great-grandma from the farm (who passed away years before she was even born) and that she said a prayer to great-grandma just the other night to tell her that she loves her and she hopes that she is OK.

So after we got home and got Bubba settled into his bed, we sat down on the loveseat and said the Rosary together. I must confess to being dubious that she would finish a whole rosary - I thought for sure that two decades in (at the most) she would get bored and would run off to do something else, but she did the whole thing. I was astonished - she's 6, she's in the first grade, and her attention falters at the best of times, but despite being tired and up past her bedtime, usually a recipe for disaster, she said an entire rosary with me. It was lovely, and made me love her even more. What a good girl! I'm telling you, those sisters of St. John Bosco know what they are doing.

And from heavenly matters to more earthly things: Bella asked about her brother's boy parts the other night, wanting some specific details. I'm honestly surprised that she hasn't asked before now. I was at the sink washing dishes when she started inquiring about the differences between boys and girls, and I spent the entire conversation holding firmly onto the counter top in an attempt to counteract my overwhelming urge to just slide down and hide behind the counter until she found something else to do. I know, I know, it's normal, bla-bla, and I was actually somewhat prepared for what I thought of as standard questions along those lines, but she was asking some whoppers, one of them particularly funny....but I am hesitant to share - someone, somewhere could be offended by it, even though I later laughed until I almost cried. We made it through unscathed, though. I handled it decently. Whew.

Scouting is not going well at all. Well, it's not going that badly, but it's no walk in the park (13 girls between the ages of 4 and 6 - enough said). I had some parents who were rather upset at the amount of time it took me to get meetings started up again, and engaged in some behind-my-back complaining - whatever. I let it go (but not before saying, multiple times, "If they think they can do it better then let them do it!"). And then the same parents who were so demanding of my time are the same parents who suddenly have a million excuses as to why they can't help. I got a lot of "I'll be there, but I can't really help in any official capacity....". Again, whatever. There are all these new training requirements that I am having trouble meeting. And then there was the real morale breaker - some field supervisor at a meeting the other night was apparently not in the best of moods, and said a few things that just absolutely killed me. She complained about how the area our cluster of troops operate in is economically depressed (what area isn't economically depressed right now?) and that there is no growth or future in it. So the organization should just give up on the area? I'm sorry, to me that seems completely contrary to what Girl Scouts is all about. Scouting doesn't necessarily cost a lot of money to participate in (depending on age and activities, of course), and in a time where money is tight and not everyone has the cash flow to shell out $80 bucks a month for dance lessons or tae-kwon-do, the $8 a month (give or take) for meeting dues is a very affordable option.

The woman is question is an actual paid employee of the scouts, as opposed to the rest of us who are volunteering our time out of the goodness of our hearts. I don't have anything against the woman being paid - good for her, but she really killed me when she complained about her quota, that she gets paid by the girl and our area doesn't have enough girls and we aren't recruiting and doing enough to make sure she gets paid. There are women in this group running troops of 30-40 girls. They aren't turning anyone away, they are taking on as many girls as they can and are at their wit's end because of it. Especially some of the troops in lower income areas - they are operating virtually without any kind of dues because some of their members can't afford to pay. It's a challenge for me to come up with activities and ideas with 13 dues paying members, but these women are heroes. They are coming up with creative activities and ideas that relate to and/or teach the values of girl scouting in a fun way with virtually no money. I know I have dipped into my own pocket for girl scouts several times over the course of the last year or so, and I can only imagine that they are doing the same.

Her comments and attitude really made me wonder again why I'm going through so much trouble and spending so much time doing this. I could easily quit and spend the time I spent working on scout projects (shopping, prep work, planning meetings, details, running meetings, cleaning up after meetings) with my children, but I really don't think anyone else would step up and do it. I wanted to do this to spend some time with Bella, and over the course of last year really came to know and love the other girls, and for that reason I won't give up and quit, but it is awfully tempting. It's disheartening to spend so much time and effort to have it all reduced to cash and quotas. Cash and quotas are an fact of life, I get it, but what about the girls? Whatever. I will keep on keepin' on. I will muddle through this, trying to stay below the radar and try and show these girls a good, sneakily-educational time.

On another less-than-cheery note: I didn't realize how scared I was that my hours at work are going to be reduced again until I found myself doing some early Christmas shopping for the kids. After some thought, I realized that I am getting the shopping done early to ensure that the kids will have a thing or two under the tree to open. And that is if my hours are reduced, that's not even thinking about being laid off. Which is a possibility we have to consider, in all honesty. Times are tough, and when the going gets tough the tough don't go and buy pianos. Which effects me in a kind of trickling, crap-rolling downhill kind of way.

I am going to try and be optimistic, though. I don't know how successful I will be at optimism, but I've got to try. The holidays are coming up, maybe business will pick up, I'm a lucky woman, and I know it. I just need to look at the bright spots more than I look at the bad spots.

I'm looking forward to the rest of the weekend - I have some new pothead neighbors who look promising. I don't mind stoners - they are, for the most part, pretty calm people. Our other neighbors are all young, blustery military punks or young, drama-fraught college students - the weekends are soap operas around the building. There is a lot of drinking, a lot of shouting, a lot of fighting - I don't seek any of this crap out, either, and I'm not standing with my ear to the door listening - these people will stand in the outdoor breezeway and scream at each other, or in the parking lot right outside my patio and scream at each other. They never seem to be able to fight in their own apartments. Stoners are mellow (again, with some exceptions), and we need some mellow. They seem like nice guys, and they offered to bring me doughnuts back from a munchie run, which was thoughtful. I politely declined, but it was a nice thought.

Bella is spending the night at my MIL's house tonight, and tomorrow my FIL is taking them to eat breakfast at Cracker Barrel and then shopping at Kohl's. I get to spend the evening doing the chores that I haven't done over the past week or so. There's laundry piling up, the kitchen floor is crying out for help, in a dirty, sticky kind of way, and the carpet is so filthy I'm thinking we should just tear it out and start over. And now there's a strange drunk man in the store accosting us, so I'm gonna go. Happy weekend to all!