Last night I was watching my niece and nephew for my sister who had a late business meeting with out of town clients. My children and these children don’t usually get along very well, but my sister and I get along and I was trying to help her out. They complained when I told them that we were watching them for the evening, but I lectured them for all of 2 minutes and they promised me that they would be kind and treat them how they would like to be treated. I was geared up for an evening of fighting and slamming doors and ‘don’t touch my stuff!’ but was pleasantly surprised when all four of them got along pretty well.

Dinner time came around and seeing as my husband was out of pancakes and the buttermilk was about to go bad I decided that breakfast was on the menu. Kids were all kinds of okay with that. Sitting down at the table the kids starting talking about the remarkable things that happen to them at school. Logan started off by saying that there was this one boy who was mean and he was throwing woodchips at his back and Logan told him to stop. Boy did not- threw them again and smiled. Logan said to stop or he was going to tell. Boy smiled bigger and kept throwing them. Logan walked away. (I am a proud mama)

Then I hear this “oh, yeah…” coming from Cousin’s mouth. She proceeds to tell Logan about this boy at her school who chases her everyday and she always tells him to stop, but he never does. He was chasing all the girls around and Cousin got tired of it so she told on him and he got detention for being mean.

Hmmmm… Detention for chasing girls? Are they giving out detention for jumping rope too? I am just glad that Logan does not attend this school. (I may have left out a small part about Cousin having the most extensive imagination of any other child that I know- and I know a lot!)

Logan chimes in with his “OH, YEAH!” getting louder and more listen-to-this tone of voice. He tells of a story of the 2 bullies in his grade, one of them wanted to play with him and he was kind of nervous about playing with the bully, but he decided that he needed to be nice to everyone (again, proud mama) so he played with him for a minute. Then a few days later said bully got mad at one of the teachers and kicked the outside door so hard that it shattered the glass inside!!! (this actually did happen) He still isn’t allowed back at school.

“OOOOH, YEAHHHHHH!!!” Chimes in Cousin and goes on to say that one day her bully at school was chasing her friend around with a fake spider and kept on putting it on her friends shoulder and her friend would scream. Cousin would chase the boy and then go back to console her frazzled friend and then boy would do it again and again.

THEN… he found a real spider. IT WAS A TARANTULA!!!! And he was putting it on her friends, but Cousin wasn’t even scared, she was getting mad because he was teasing her friends. So she grabbed the spider and stomped on it and killed it. And the boy cried because the spider was his and he wanted to keep it. And so he told. But Cousin ran away and then recess was over so she didn’t get in trouble.

THEN… The next day he brought his snake and he hid it in his desk and was feeding it paper and pencil shavings to keep it in there and then at recess he took it outside. And Cousin saw it and IT WAS A RATTLE SNAKE AND IT HAD VENOM!!!!!!!!!  But Cousin still wasn’t scared, all the other girls were screaming and running around and hiding from the snake charming bully. Cousin knew she had to take action, and how! She said that she was going to chase him to death so he better run!! He was running, the snake was rattling, Cousin was chasing. Then the boy tripped and he fell and the snake went flying into the air and everyone around saw it and they were running and screaming- even the recess monitor!! Cousin had to be quick! She grabbed the snake with two hands and she ripped it in half and killed it! BUT not before it bit her on the hand! She had to suck out the venom with her mouth and it was gross!!! Then the boy cried again (this boy is turning out to be a really wimpy bully) and went and told the recess monitor. And Cousin tried to run, but she was weak from the sucking of the venom, so she got caught this time. The recess monitor said that she saw the whole thing.

And Cousin got a warning.

Then I turned from my pancake making and looked at Logan’s reaction to such a story. He was pretty pale and looking at Cousin with that kind of look that says “Holy cow!! You only got a warning!?!?!”  And then “WOOOOAAAAHH!!!!” Came out of the boys mouth.

“Oh, Yeah” contest done. Cousin wins.

After all, it was a totally true story according to the two of them.

What? You didn’t hear about it? It was on the news and everything.

 You should invite her over for your own “oh, yeah” contest; but I have to warn you she is pretty good. And she prefers French Toast over pancakes for said contests.

For the first time ever, we did all the commercialized Easter celebrations today, so that we could have a more peaceful and thoughtful day tomorrow. Here are my 3 lessons of the day:

1: (Nearly) nine year old boys like to combine all their’s and their brother’s candy together, then they will have twice as much! (Nearly) six year old boys think this is fair game to eat both of the Cadbury eggs and Reese’s bunnies. It is not okay by the (nearly) nine year old, and then daddy is forced to give up his to make the crying stop.

2: Edible Easter basket grass may be edible, but it is not palatable. It tastes like over cooked, dried out rice and sticks to your tongue like a magnet making young children gag and refund previously eaten Easter candy.  I do not recommend buying it. And in case you are wondering- kids thought that since it was edible they would try to feed it to the dog, so they threw it all over the living room and then we found out that it also sticks to feet and hands in the same manner as it does the tongue.

3: When making an Easter dinner, I do not recommend combining asparagus and strawberries- both natural aphrodisiacs- with turkey. You end up feeling randy but too tired from all the tryptophan in the turkey to do anything about it.  

Hopefully tomorrow will not be filled with as many sugar highs and crashes as it as today, And I swear, if one more piece of grass sticks to my feet….

I just counted, at the request of my children, how many days of school are left.

27

How did such a thing happen!?!?

I swear my baby boy just started kindergarten and the older one, third grade. Just days ago I met their teachers and helped them find their desk. Christmas could have very well been last night.

I feel so very unaccomplished for this school year. I usually go through their room a few times throwing out toys that drive me bonkers and organizing it the way that I like it to be. Haven’t done it once this year.  I usually take full advantage of the free time and scrapbook my brains out. Haven’t finished their last day of school pages from the last school year yet. (I have never been this far behind in scrapbooking- and I have 3 books to keep up on to boot!) I usually have some insane project that I try to accomplish while they are gone and I have not even thought of one yet.

I have 27 school days.

Then the torture of summer break will be at my door step.

The endless sand on my kitchen floor. Constant trips to the grocery store to re-stock cheese sticks, popsicles and juice boxes. ENTERTAINING BOYS!?!?!? The impossible task that I face every day of trying to convince them to leave the house. The complaining. The messes.  The tattle-telling. The fighting.  Yelling and waking up a napping baby. The eating me out of house and home. How is one expected to survive????

Okay. DEEP BREATH….

Maybe I need to look at this in a  ‘glass half full’ perspective.

I will have someone to entertain the bug each morning. There will be no more rushing the boys to get out the door in the morning. I can make yummy breakfast more often. The kids will more than likely stay in their PJ’s for 4 days of the week, cutting down on the laundry. The warm days will provide a perfect opportunity to kick the 2 outside- and while they are at it, take their sister, too. There are a lot of fun picture taking opportunities that come with warmer weather.

Maybe I can handle the approaching summer break.

I have 27 more days to come to terms with it.

Today I am feeling highly frustrated and irritable. And so I am going to take it out on the city workers that are ripping apart my road for  what I like to call ‘the handicap ramp to nowhere.’

Let me explain.

There is a little old lady who lives 2 doors down from me that had a stroke a few years back and is now confined to a wheelchair. We have no sidewalks at all on our side of the street. She called the city and told them that she needs to have them so she can get around and so the city made a plan to put in handicap ramps and sidewalks. The clincher? The homeowners are supposed to pay for it. Homeowners whose homes have been here since 1901 and have never had sidewalks. Homeowners who got wrangled  into having our homes rezoned about 3 years ago into commercial property which now makes us non-conforming residential properties and means that we cannot touch the structure of our houses. TOUCH. We cannot add on, up, or out in any way, shape, or form to the existing structure of our home. Can’t build a shed, garage, replace a porch roof. NOTTA. I was not at all happy about the decision of the city to do this. 

BUT NOW they want to change the structure around my house so all the rules change.  Plus there is this problem of years ago when the drains were put in, a storm drain was put where the sidewalk should go  (I know, it’s as if they never intended to put sidewalks there in the first place)and so now the city needs to move the storm drain, which involves moving it across the street and digging huge trenches all across the road to re-lay the piping.  

Back in the fall, I was made aware of the pending sidewalks when a city guy knocked on my door asking if we would pay for the concrete and they would pay for the labor…how generous. I said no, my husband had been out of work for over a year and we could not afford it. (Really, we choose not to be able to afford it- yes I have resentment issues about the city’s decision to rezone- and the city in general) Come spring the mass chaos of the road construction began. Same city guy came and knocked on my door one morning and told me that they were going to start on the sidewalks and would need all or our vehicles/trailers/equipment/RV moved to  the end of the road. We poo-pood the idea of moving EVERYTHING and told them that we would clear the front 1/3 of everything. You see, we could see through the need to have everything moved for the actual construction of the project and saw that they were going to use it a parking for their own vehicles/trailers/equipment. They also assured us that we would still have access to our house the entire time; we may have to wait a few minutes for them to move something, but we could park in our driveway and not have to park on the busy city street in front of our house, especially seeing as it was a no parking street and really we would be parking across the street in the Baptist Church parking lot.

So, come day one of construction, 8 am I need to bring 2 little boys to school. I get in my car, they ask if I can move my suburban before I leave so they can have a little more space (ahem, they meant to say parking) I obliged- making my 3 youngsters wait in a very cold car and making the school goers late. They also stuck their hand out before I drove away and asked that I park across the street when I came back- there would not be access to the road for a while. Ya. That’s what I said. No access when I was assured that I would have it the whole time. And this was day 1. I glared through them with the best  ‘if I could kill you right now as a freebie- I would’ look and said fine. The next day, same story.

Then came Wednesday. Oh, did I tell you that city workers only work 2 days out of the week? True story. They ripped my road all apart, sidewalks too, and then left  it to be a rained upon muddy mess until the next week.

THEN- this new guy showed up and was fashioning this very stylish ‘inmate work release program’ orange vest. So now that it was finally sunny, my children thought that they could go outside, but were quickly turned down when I saw Dude. I am stuck in the house. They are stuck in the house. My car is across the street. I feel that I now have to live under a locked everything. I am not happy. Not. At. All. 4 weeks now.  And I can imagine about $15,000 in costs.

Today they are starting to repave the craters that they dug in my road so that they can FINALY start to put in the handicap ramps. That lead to dirt and gravel, or nowhere as I call it.  These ramps that are pretty well useless to anyone. Especially the little lady who lived down the street but has since been put into a care facility and no longer resides there.

Today I am feeling  highly frustrated and irritated.

Yesterday I ate 1 piece of French toast, 1 glass of orange juice, a granola bar, a hot dog, small bowl of cottage cheese, some French bread,  some apple juice and ½ a chicken enchilada. This is pretty typical for what  I eat in a day.

 

Today I ate 5 pieces of French bread with peach jam on them, 2 glasses of orange juice, 1 large pack of fruit snacks, a peanut butter granola bar, a turkey sandwich, 2 smallish bags of chips, applesauce, pepsi, about ½ cup of cookie dough, 3 cookies, pepsi again, 2 candy bars, gummy bears, sweet and sour meatballs on rice, ice cream and more pepsi.

Would this count as binge eating? Stress eating? Or is this what normal people eat??

Also, I watched 3 reruns of Greys Anatomy. All today.

I am not stressed (more than usual) I am not depressed, I feel fine. Slightly irritated, but fine-ish.

Maybe it’s the 10 diesel trucks/machinery outside my house ripping out my road at 7 am. Maybe its Kenaley finding her inner urge to scream NONSTOP all day today. Maybe it is the sore neck/back I have had today. Could be the fact that I have an extra child here today and tomorrow.  Might be that laundry is taunting me and I feel that if I keep my hands busy with food I won’t be able to do laundry. Maybe it’s the cough that my boys woke up with, accompanied by their dad’s trade mark “I don’t feel good and so I am going to make you more miserable than I am” attitude.  

I dunno.

 One thing is for sure,I am feeling sluggish and weighed down by all the junk I have put in my mouth today.

I don’t think I like binge eating.

But there is some more French bread on my counter that is calling my name…and probably the ice cream too.

Somebody stop me.

I had 2 boys. I am well versed in the art of throwing a fit. I clearly remember the kicking on the ground, crying, jello body, the occasional hitting when I ignored their lovely display. The number of fits that I witnessed from those two keepers of my heart could be infinite.

Logan was a mellow fit thrower. I remember one time he and I sitting on the couch, he with his cup of juice and his blanket sitting as close as he could possibly get to me without sitting on my lap. He was watching some show on TV and I was waiting for the laundry to cycle through so I could switch the loads. I heard the buzzer go off which signaled to me that my relaxation on the couch with my cutest ever 2 year old was over for a while. I told him I needed to get up to switch the laundry and he calmly sais “no.” Simple. Quick. Like he had to give me permission to get up. I said I will be right back. “no” again came from that cute little mouth. Calm and decisive. “you’re silly.” I tell him, giggling at his ‘tude. “Mom, if you get up, I will broke your legs. Then you can never get up again.” Comes out of my baby boys mouth without any expression, or without missing one second from his show, as if he were thinking that all morning and now he had the opportunity to tell me. He was serious. I was hysterically laughing. I kiss-attacked him and we joked about his silliness and I then was given permission to leave my couchly prison  with the stipulation that I was to return in no more than 5 minutes. That was pretty well the fits that Logan threw. Calm and thought through. I was spoiled with that one.

Then there was my Jessie Bear. He was the most tranquil and relaxed baby. I could lay him on the floor and he would play with the toys that were selected for him until he fell asleep. We was a go with the flow kind of baby.  Which was really nice seeing as I had a busy-body 3 year old at this stage to chase after, too.  Anderson did not learn the art of a fit until about 2 years old. He was my kicker, screamer, jello body boy. (You see, at 2 he had a great example of a 5 year old brother who had since been introduced to the grocery store fitter, the nursery fitter, the cousin/friend fitter and had taken to the effects of the fit.) Anderson’s most memorable fit was in the aisle of Walmart’s toy section.  He had a thing for Backyardigans- a very cute show much involving music and dancing. We saw a toy of Pablo- one of the characters- on the shelf. “Mommy- Pablo!!” he said to me pointing his adorably chunky finger at the shelf that held his wanted treasure.  “Cool.” I replied. We paused for a second and got the toy down or a closer look (mistake #1) He played with it while I searched for what I needed and then I told him we need to put Pablo back. (mistake #2) “No. Mine.” “No he needs to go back with his other Pablo friends.” I said as I pried it from his clenched hug hold. Begin fit. The screaming, the kicking, the arms reached out trying to get hold of his Pablo. It continued on. I tried to lovingly calm him down with the ‘shhh’ and hugging him the best I could without unbuckling him from the grocery cart and patting his back. But as we walked away from his Pablo, his head began tossing back and forth,  then he  intentionally threw his head into the handle of the grocery cart, as to intensify his crying. He did not realize that such an action would hurt as badly as it did. And I did not realize that such an action would swell up and  bruise as quickly as it did. So there I was walking through Walmart with a screaming toddler who was now fashioning a huge, purple goose egg smack in the middle of his fore head. Everyone was staring and ripping through my very being with thoughts of what a horrible mother I was. I could see it in their eyes. Since that day, we avoid the toy aisle of every store that we go to.

Two, that is all. Just two polar opposite examples of fits that my boys threw.

Then I had Kenaley. Fit is such an understatement for the atrocity that my little princess displays upon disapproval of anything at all. Anything.

This. Girl. Can. FIT!! 

And over anything. She doesn’t get  a  treat. She doesn’t get the treat she wanted. She doesn’t get the treat that she wanted fast enough. She doesn’t get a toy. She doesn’t get the toy that she wanted. She doesn’t get the toy that she wanted fast enough.  She isn’t allowed to color on the walls with markers. She cannot sit on the dog.  She cannot play with her brothers Lego creations. She cannot eat her brothers Lego creations. Olivia is interrupted. She cannot hold a full glass of water. She cannot hold a bottle of water without the lid on. Someone shut the baby gate. She can not dip her brother’s tooth brushes into the toilet and then suck the water off. I washed her face. I washed her hands.  I put her bow back in her hair. Her shoe comes off. Someone took her toy. Someone took a toy that she may have been thinking of playing with at some point in her life. She cannot pull the keys off of my laptop. Someone disabled the remote and now it won’t do anything. I don’t let her hold my cell phone when I am talking on it.  It is bedtime. Its dinner time.  She needs her diaper changed.  She gets buckled in her carseat. I look at her when she doesn’t want me to. THE PLANETS ARE NOT ALIGNED!!!!!  ANNNNNYTHIIIIIIIIING!!!!!!!!!

PLUUUUUS…this is a fit like I have never experienced. Screaming would be welcomed in exchange for the ear piercing, spine curling screech that comes out of her tiny little mouth. You know that pitch that is so high that your ears seems to shut off for a minute, and you hear this echo of the pitch in the center of your brain. She can do that. Repeatedly.   Over and over again, until you feel like ripping into your ears and going for the center of your brain where the echo is generating, and stomping on it with soccer cleats. That pitch. That’s the squeal that baby girl is capable of.

And jello body is such an understatement.  Somehow she has the ability to make all her bones turn to mush, not only that but she can will the weight of said bones to go directly into her head, which she throws back and knocks off her balance. Feet that are attempted to be placed on the floor have a magnetic attraction to her chin; and the ability to stand, and for that matter even sit are completely gone.  There have been several times that I really thought I was going to drop her because of her ability to contort her body just so.

On top of that, when she is really mad she does this supremely funny thing. She will squat on the floor in a crawling position. Scream- I mean squeal- so that you will look at her and then carefully lower her head until it is about 1 inch from the floor then bang her head on the ground, carefully. Gently. Then she wails like she has just been very badly hurt and the only thing that will make the pain go away is to get that thing that she was after in the first place. It makes me laugh every time that I see her do it. That makes her more mad.

So, like I said: I am well versed in the art of the fit. But, what Kenaley does is not a fit. I more so like to call it a princess internal nuclear explosion.

You should experience it sometime. You won’t believe your eyes. I expect that sometime between the hours of dawn and dusk we will be having them. Probably a few an hour.

I have decided that Kenaley speaks to Tac (our black version of Marley- the loved/hated dog that they made a movie about…What you never watched it??!? Well stop reading and go! NOW! It’s a great movie.) I think that they have a pact.

She throws her food on the floor for her to eat and then Tac leaves small morsels of Kibble around her bowl for Kenaley to eat- I know we have tried to tell her its NASTY!!

In addition…

 Tac agrees to never fully drink all of the water that is in her bowl so that Kena can splash her fingers through it, The Bug’s diapered bottom will, in return, take the blame for any questionable odors that may appear.

 Tac begrudgingly  follows  Kenaley around to ‘watch over her’ while she is out and about on an adventure, and Kenaley follows Tac around while she is hot on the trail ‘so she won’t wander too far.’

Kenaley has the right to plant her bum on Tac for a quick seat, only if Tac can lie on Kena’s blankets she leaves around the house.

Tac has a no touching rule for her toys. Kenaley has a no chewing rule for her toys. The boys toys are up for grabs by both parties.

Tac will only bark if someone comes within a 50 foot radius of our property if she thinks that Kenaley might want to play/get hurt/want something from/be at all interested in that said person. Kenaley will only  pig squeal if someone within a  50 foot radius of her personal space irritates her and they may have to give her a treat for such an atrocity- remember the previous food agreement they have?

Any cat seen by either party will result in forfeit of whatever activity one is involved in and immediately chasing  of the feline.

If all of these things are mere coincidental, but I have had the time to notice all of these behaviors again and again, this just confirms that….that….that I really need to get out of my house more.

It must be a pact.

Since when did a bag of fermenting sugar, flour and milk say friendship!?!?

I was given this bag of goo by one of my very close friends and a recipe titled: Amish Friendship Bread.

FRIENDSHIP BREAD!?!What is this supposed to be? So I read the recipe.  Apparently I am to leave this bag of goo on my counter, allow it to ferment and get all smelly, irritate by squishing the bag, add more goo to the bag, irritate it even more- at least once a day, and then divide my goo and pass some along to my ‘friends’ and then use some to make bread.  

OKAY!?!?

I thought about the concept for a while.  I compared it to friendships that I have. I saw no similarities.

None of my friends smelled like fermenting milk. Well, there was that one…

If I were to irritate my friends every day, as the recipe calls for, I don’t think my friends would consider the friendship a two way street.

When my friends come upon a mess (goo) I think that the last thing that they would like me to do is to add more mess (goo) to theirs.

If I were to forget about my friends and just leave them to sit around, let’s say- like I am to leave this bag on my counter, do you think that the frustration of being left there would result in a buildup of pressure and finally exploding, like goo contained in a bag, all over the place (not that this happened, because I released the air build up like I was told to do.)

These Amish people must have very complicated friendships… I do not wish to engage in the ‘Amish Friendship.’

Furthermore, I like to be the kind of friend that lightens the load others have. I do not like to give my friends more things to do on top of the huge lists that, we moms, already have. Never would I wish this upon my friends:

And yet, a person who I thought was my very good friend has given it to me. What did I do to upset her, I ask myself?!?

So here is my solution: I have friends, I think.

Most- if not all of my friends enjoy a free loaf of bread. YES??

 I propose to do away with the bag of goo. I shall end this goo by taking all my collected goo and making endless amounts of bread to share with my friends. I do not wish to have friends that are smelly, irritated and messy. I wish to have friends who have big smiles on their faces from free loaves of (let’s hope yummy) bread.

If you respond to my blog, and you live relatively near to my house. Upon completion of my fermenting goo I will bring you a loaf of bread.

That’s the kind of friend that I am.

 

DISCLAIMER: I still very much like my friend who cursed me with this goo, and yes I have had this goo given to me before, and have thought these very same thoughts when given it, but I didn’t have a blog back then, so I am only now just sharing them.