Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Tuesday is the New Monday.

My morning. By K.J.B.

I have not eaten breakfast. I have not gotten dressed. It’s now noon. It’s one of those days.

Some things just need to be documented. It helps on days when you think it's a bad day, so upon looking back, see it could be much worse, or vice versa - that this day can only get better. We had been up 3 1/2 hrs when I decided it was time for a blog. (By the time I get this posted, it probably will be another hour later than that, but just for drama, imagine with me that this all occurred within the first 3 1/2 hrs of our day. Ok? Because it did.) (Post note: it's now 4 hrs later. Just goes to show... And no, dear, I did not spend all that time online.)

Let's start with a little background.

Last night (and the whole of yesterday) I had an infant who wanted mama, and no one but mama, and to be held by mama, every lovin’ minute that passed. He was not his usual smiley, contented self. So I cooked dinner, set the table, served and cleared while wearing this chubby sad child. I did manage to set him in his Bumbo, facing me, while I ate, where he lasted 15 min without crying. Halleluja! I got to eat.

I'm not sure what was the cause of his discomfort. It could be a myriad of things, from teething, constipation/hard stools (I love formula), no nap (because he wouldn't, not because I didn't try). And to add another fun variable, I had watched my nephews on Saturday. Sunday morning my brother calls to tell me their littlest has Hand Foot Mouth. No big deal. We've had it before, multiple times. Nothing you can do, not life threatening, I just shrug and say "ok." (Mind you, I was thinking only Cheeks would be at risk.) But, when a mother has a sick baby, the plague is an option, so now HFM is an option for Lil’D.

At about 7pm, I go to give him a bottle, but the blanket I lay him on has been carried off by wolves, so I just lay him on the rug. A few minutes later, after he has ingested almost the entire bottle, I hear him choking, and look over to see he has barfed up the entire thing, on the rug, and his head is swimming in a pool of formerly eaten formula. Swoop him up, bathe him, change clothes, try and scoop up as much of the puddle as possible with whatever is laying closest (one of many shirts cast aside in the 1000 wardrobe changes of the diva princess KJ). I search for mouth sores. No avail. But he is still hungry and screaming. I give him 2-3 oz., watching carefully, as he lays in my arms, and he falls asleep with that sweet look of utter satisfaction and comfort babies get. You know the one. Limp noodle ahhh.

Bed time comes. Struggles abound. B-boy is still up at 10:30 (and later I find out he was tickling his sleeping father's feet at 10pm. Humor was not found.) Cheeks is still up at 11. Hubby needs sandwiches made and laundry done. Lil'D vomits again, this time in his crib. Change sheets, bathe, change clothes. Hubba Hubba wakes up less than happy. Vomit mess on rug goes unattended.

Thankfully, the night was much less eventful. Cheeks finally goes to sleep. Lil'D sleeps soundly, hardly waking, and is satisfied with half-bottles thru the night. I took a Sominex since the night before left me sleepless (a whole other story). I slept great! I didn’t even wake up when Hubba left for work at 2am.

Wake up. Baby the sick baby. Breakfast. Everyone eats except for B-boy. He gets dressed instead. Cartoons come on. B-boy decides now he wants to eat. Eats soggy cereal while sitting on a ladder. (Why is a ladder left in our kitchen, you might ask? I am wondering the same thing, since I do raise MONKEYS and they climb EVERYTHING!!!!!!) But 5 yr olds are not the most graceful or steady. I am oblivious to the fact that ladder-eating is going on, since I’m attending to a sick baby in another room. Suddenly… ah yes. Bada crash boom bang. Waaaaaaa! Yes, B-boy falls off the ladder. With cereal. And where do you think this bowl of sticky milk and cereal went? Why, everywhere, of course. The boy was uninjured. He did, however, learn about bad choices and consequences, as I spent the next 45 minutes giving him a tutorial on how to clean up your own mess when you make a bad choice. (I'm a firm believer in the "take responsibility for your actions" thing.) Hmmm. Many tears later, lesson learned. (I hope.)

Babies cry, toddlers want to be in on the action, mommy tortures 5 yr old. Only KJ was entertained. Thank heavens for Super Why.

Cheeks is very sort of potty training, and is running around without a diaper. Without anything on, actually. So I’m trying to get her on the pot as much as possible, to avoid more puddles. Or piles. We have snacks, then B-boy gets a bath because he’s wearing Crunch-N-Berries in his hair. It's a good excuse. He doesn't like to bath.

Meanwhile…. Well, of coarse there’s a meanwhile.

As I run the bathwater and get B-boy new clothes, Cheeks finds a missing dinner roll, now hard as a rock, and proceeds to smash it all over my living room.



Are you kidding me? It’s only 11! What ELSE is this day gonna bring?

And my husband wonders why the house is always a mess? Well, that's because I sit around eating bonbons and polishing my nails, darling.

So now, I have to not only do the dishes, laundry and general cleanup, I have to remove bread crumbs from furniture, wash down my entire kitchen (he did a good job for a 5yr old, but it’s far from clean), scrub the rug, and whatever else comes my way. Because the babysitter is coming tonight. Hopefully my sweet diva won’t spit on her this time. No. That's not a typo.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Monday, bloody Monday


My Not Me’s will be very short today. Because I need to accentuate the positive. And just not go there. No need to unleash the beast. So I’m having a backwards Not Me Monday. Does that work?

  1. I did NOT cry my poor little eyes out, upon arriving at the ECFE play center, only to find it closed “due to weather.” “What weather?” I asked. “Its blue skies and sunny.
  2. I did NOT “relent” and go to the mall play area, which I hate, only to be pleasantly surprised and utterly blessed that we were the Only. Ones. There. (besides the friend we were meeting) for ONE AND A HALF HOURS. That doesn’t happen. Ever. Really.
  3. I did NOT eat an entire batch of no-bake cookies by myself, minus the 6 I fed my children. I am neither selfish nor gluttonous.

Have ya ever had one of those “days” (weeks, months, years, etc.) where you just had a hard time finding the sun? Wait, could it be that we aren’t seeing much sun? That’s GOT to be IT! It’s been a week trapped at home, prisoner to a jailer of bitterly cold weather. This does wonders for how children behave and get along. Or how you and your spouse behave and get along. And though it’s just a passing phase, it seems to drag on forever. Well, it’s been one of those. Where complaints are high, praises are low. I think I need a fresh attitude. Someone needs a fresh attitude. I guess I’ll have to be the one to start. What’s that saying? “Be the change you want to see.” So here are my backwards Not Me’s.

  1. I got to go on a date with my husband. This is, sadly, a rare occurrence. And we definitely need more practice.
  2. We go to go for a movie AND dinner. AND paid a babysitter, instead of lugging the kids to and fro. Don’t get me wrong. I LOOOOVE free babysitting, aka grandparents. Sometimes it’s nice not to have to have that extra step though.
  3. I spent some serious calories laughing my butt off reading a website about “cake wrecks.” (Ironically, it’s called cakewrecks.blogspot.com). It is so hilarious, though you have to be able to enjoy a little off color humor sometimes. I have a corny (and sometimes perverted) sense of humor sometimes. This was right up my alley.
  4. I am looking forward to “having school” with B-Boy (if we can ever get started, that is. We are having snow day delays.)
  5. I got to go to lunch with my mom, just the girls, adults only. We went somewhere I hadn’t been to before, and had a nice enjoyable, quiet meal, complete with a post-lunch lounge on a leather sofa in front of a fireplace, glass of wine in hand. Oo la la.

Hopefully the week to come will be full of sunshine and much less glum ho hum. And I’ll have some funny pics to show, amazing stories to tell. Maybe, just maybe, I'll even put away my Christmas tree. Or not. :D For now, I’ll just be a little quiet. You understand.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Superman!

Here are my goals for the month of January: On top of raising my 4 young children ...
  • Start homeschooling my 5yo son to finish out his second year of preschool. (Not going well at school. More on that later maybe.) I have no idea what I'm doing.
  • Potty train my nearly 2yo daughter.
  • Keep my house somewhat clean (since we did a big pre-company clean last week.)(This one's not lookin' so good right now.)

Anyone want to start laughing their culo off right now??? Cuz I think I'm probably nuts. I know I'm nuts. I'm at least going there, closer and closer, day by day.

So did ya wanna know what my sweet B-Boy was attempting to dress up as....

That's right. Batman.

Points for creativity. Do you see how he tied the bandana to have antennae or fins or whatever they are? I did. not. do this for him.

Now check out this one. I don't even know. Once it was a firefighter. I didn't ask this time. The even funnier thing was that he sat down and played on the computer for about 1/2 an hour dressed like this. I just can't stop laughing. It probably should embarrass me. I think I'm just beyond that at this point.

Monday, January 12, 2009

Monday's Perfection

Today, I write about how I am the image of perfection in all things domestic, motherly, and wife-ly. I am even tempered, slow to anger, highly organized and motivated, never erring in judgement, and always with a clean house, clean children, and a happy husband. So with that in mind, I will write about things I absolutely DID NOT do this past week, things that DID NOT take place in my household. Feel free to join MckMama's frenzy.




  1. I DID NOT kick Hubba Hubba off the computer to write this post. He had NOT been on the computer for 4 hours already. This did not bother me, in thinking that I would be far down on MckMama's Mr. Linky list. (Update: I'm like #205. That doesn't bug me at all. I am not disappointed, since I was not #8 last week which earned me 400 hits in 2 days. I was not TOTALLY stoked about that, bragging to my "women's group" that I was now "cool.")
  2. I AM NOT still wearing my "pajamas", which would most certainly be a lovely silk set, instead of the underwear and tank top I was wearing yesterday.
  3. I DID NOT see Cheeks come out of the bathroom last week, attempting to put a pad in her pants. She DID NOT have the biggest grin on her face. She would NOT have learned about putting pads in your "pants" from watching me. Especially considering that privacy is NOT an issue in our household.
  4. I DO NOT seem to have an issue with KJ burping in people's faces, including strangers. Or burping out loud in general. She did NOT do this to some poor gal while getting the oil changed at Jiffy Lube. She is our little Miss Manners princess.
  5. I DID NOT have a 2-day argument with Hubba Hubba about cleaning the house. I then did NOT get mad when I woke up to find he had come home exhausted after a 24-hour run (trucker) and had cleaned the bathroom and living room, including cobweb removal. I was not angry thinking he did it as a guilt trip, only to find out later that day that he in fact did it to be nice and helpful.
  6. I DID NOT get really stressed out from the above argument and take my frustrations out on my children. They were not the recipients of a 2-hr screaming jag, instigated by the fact that there were not toys on the floor, every inch of every room. They did NOT finally start to listen to me when I started chucking toys outside picked up and nicely put away their toys.
  7. I was NOT pushed to the brink of sanity by having my children constantly under my feet and constantly fighting. My children always are content to play nicely in another room, not getting under foot. This NEVER happens when company is coming and the race is on for "extreme cleaning".
  8. I DID NOT further the questioning of my sanity by deciding to pull B-Boy out of preschool and "home school" him myself. I don't have enough to do and thought this would be a good project. He loves school and never complains (every school day, before and after) that he doesn't want to go to school, or that he doesn't like being put in Time Out at school.
  9. I an NOT most disappointed that school was canceled today (snow day), not because of school, but because it means that Gym and Pizza Night is cancelled. Which means we are not going to be forced to eat pizza, which we hate, and the kids are not going to have to run around in a gym burning off energy. I also am very excited to have the opportunity to make supper instead of having it prepared for us.
  10. I am NOT considering dressing up my 2 oldest and sending them outside, despite blizzard conditions and near-zero temps, just so they'll leave me alone for 5 minutes, and hopefully expend some of their very bottled energy.

Well, that's enough Monday for right now. I have things to do. Ya know, to keep up my image of perfection.... riiiiiiight. L.O.L

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Name that photo, anyone?

I have been a neglectful blogger due to cleaning and preparing for guests. Does anyone else have problems with piles? You know, the ones that form, seemingly overnight. All that stuff you don't know what to do with, or do but use it so frequently it just stays out... until company comes.

But I did catch this. My boy, B-Boy, seems to have taken a silly pill lately. There are lots of goofy things to be documented, but this is the one I have for you today. Name that photo, anyone? Sometimes there are no words.

I couldn't help but laugh. Who could! I asked him who he was. He told me. Who do you think he looks like? The resemblance is striking, in retrospect. You'll see. I was impressed. But my initial thought was "LORD HAVE MERCY!" coupled with a good hearty chuckle. I'll let you ponder awhile.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Random thoughts

Why does everyone feel this guilt in not having taken down their Christmas tree the day after Christmas, or by New Years, for sure? I don't. (Though, to note, nor do I put it up the day after Thanksgiving.) It's a thing of beauty, adding ambiance and softness to your room / home. It's magical, with it's lights, the decorations glimmering, casting sweet shadows on the walls surrounding. What's the rush?


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Year in review. A good thing to do sometimes. (I saw someone else do it.) Take stock of all the important or momentous occasions in your life. Wonder what mine would look like.

January:

  • Still in shock of being preggo... again.
  • someone got sick
  • we all got sick
  • prenatal checkup
  • it snowed
  • Cheeks had a birthday. Cleaned house for a party.
February
  • Got the tires rotated
  • someone got sick
  • it snowed
  • prenatal checkup
  • KJ had a birthday. Cleaned house for a party.
March
  • Bro and SIL have bdays. No one celebrates (partypoopers!)
  • it snowed
  • someone got sick
  • prenatal checkup
April ..... blah blah blah

You get the point. Exciting things? well, uh, Bombshell, we'll call her, moved to FL. Had nothing to do with me, really, except that I was sad. Oh, I guess that it was exciting that I became the proud new owner of all her mother's furnishings (table/chairs, couches, rug, end tables, snowblower).

We did not go on vacation. At all. Unless you count a trip to a free zoo for 2 hrs, by myself with the kids. Where I screamed my head off upon arrival, and then thought... "this is doomed." It wasn't. We recovered. And even had fun. Regardless of the fact that there were NO ANIMALS there. Well, hardly.


I did have a baby, though for the last few yrs that's become a common occurrence. Not to be happening again, mind you.


I got a dishwasher! Monumental to me. Not to anyone else. (And also a matching stove and refrigerator. Ok. I guess that's cool. How many ppl can say that? Not many in my socio-economic bracket. Thaaaank yooouuu, stimulus check!)(Sorry. No pics.)

I took a vvveeeerrrrrrryyyyy long time to like my dishwasher. Having to do with the dishes coming out spotty and filmy and not clean. Thanks to Pioneer Woman's suggestion of LemonShine, and some trial and error with detergents, 6 months later I love it. :D Really, it was the LemonShine that did it. Also, it's VERY important to clean your dishwasher. Once. A. Month. Especially if you have hard water. It's very simple, really. They make a bottle of stuff called "Dishwasher Cleaner" and you just put the bottle in there, open, no dishes, and run a cycle. Viola! Much cleaner dishes. Which reminds me...

Oh, Oh. I can't forget the sandbox. That was huge, actually. We built one in the backyard, between our house and the neighbors. 8'x8'. Big enough to fit ALL the neighbor kids. Life outside is a much better place for it. Minus the bee attacks.
Ok. I guess that's something. Furniture. Appliances. Sandbox. Baby. And in that order, actually.


Plus there was the Christmas visit from the Bombshell. A very pleasant experience overall. Also a learning experience, as we are new to "life with a teenager." Now we know a little better what will come this summer. Or at least what we have to work on.





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My arm smells like butt. Literally. That comes from a naked girl sitting on my arm. Then she went into the bathtub. Directly to the tub. Did not pass Go. Did not collect $200. Now she is all clean, covered in sleepytime lotion, and napping. Yay!
I did say random.
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Now, I have to go clean house for the babysitter. Because, let's face it. We don't really want people to know how we reeaally live. Not even teenagers not our own.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Seemingly Monday.

Not me Monday. Hmmm... Can I call it that even though it is Sunday as I'm starting to write this (since I usually never remember until about 10pm Monday night)? I always start out this theraputic and cathartic process of cleansing my perfection tablet thinking, no, I don't really think I have much to write about. HA. HA. HA. HA. HA. Then I start writing and all the stuff that just absolutely didn't happen at my house comes rushing back to mind. Hmmm... and just what was I thinking that this mother of 4 would have nothing to share... Laughable.

Today, however, instead of pondering on all the mistakes I have made or the thousand ways my kids drive me nuts are total blessings, I am reminded how abundantly blessed I am, to have four beautiful children who are happy and healthy and essentially well cared for, in a home, where there is food, heat, and two parents who are also healthy and alive, who love them, love each other, and love God. Not everyone is so fortunate. Thank you, Lord Jesus. I am not worthy. I am humbled.

And without further ado...
  1. I did not just google to make sure I spelled 'ado' correctly, because I am not a person who is 1. that anal, and 2. that much of a freak about grammar/spelling. (I LOVE Google. Google is our friend.) I do not have a problem being wrong.
  2. I do not get highly incensed about people who fail to use at least a MINIMUM of punctuation or grammar in their writing. I do not resort to namecalling regarding such person's intelligence because they can't even use a period. Not even one!
  3. I did not hear my not quite 4 yr old daughter tell me she was wearing her "skinny jeans" (when actually they were red leggings). I did not BUST. OUT. LAUGHING. at this statement, then have to pretend I was laughing at something else. She would not be saying that to mimic her 13 yr old sister who was just here for Christmas vacation, and much a slave to the "skinny jean" revolution.
  4. I did not hear my 5 yr old son call his almost 2 yr old sister his "henchman." Again, I did not bust out laughing. (Ok, really I didn't. But I did in my mind. Laugh, that is.)
  5. I was not told by my 3 yr old daughter "Please make Dillon a bottle, already." She has not been playing "little mother" all day, and copping some funny little motherly, um, shall we say, attitude today, even asking me "what's your choice, huh?" Where does she get this stuff?
  6. I am not posting pics of the gingerbread house we made 2 weeks ago because I was too lazy busy to get to it during the holidays. And let those pics go to waste? No, I posted everyday to keep you all abreast of out festive goings-on. I have that much time.


  7. This is not my gorgeous step-daughter. Her father (especially) and I were not slightly take aback by her grown-up-ness and maturation, upon seeing her get off the airplane, with lots of black eyeliner, straightened, black-dyed hair, and pink zebra striped purse. Oh, and I shan't forget the "skinny jeans" and low-cut tank tops more filled out than mine.

    Picture editing hers, not mine. BeccaBombshell is not her MySpace "name" (for a 13yo)

  8. This is not my infant child playing with a plastic bag. He was not so incredibly happy to have "captured" the bread, that I just couldn't take it away. He is also not sitting in his Bumbo seat on the table. That's not safe. I'm a very safety conscious mother.


  9. This is not an example of what my 3 oldest children can do to my living room in 20 minutes. This motivates me to clean, even more than I already am. The sense of accomplishment is OVERWHELMING.


  10. Oh, this one outta gross ya out.... I did not find out my daughter had some sort of sore / infection behind her ear by smelling its' foul odor. Blech! No, I am much more attentive to my children's hygiene than to have allowed something to get so totally grody, like that. Uffda!


And on that note... I think I shall end for this session. Now... Who do I pay? Oh, that's right. It's free therapy, courtesy of it's creator, MckMama. Check her out!

oh, MAN!


Dontcha just wanna eat this?
And yes, he's that cute all the time.