THE Feisty Irish Wench

Birthdaying

2012-01-20T01:22:00.003-05:00

It's a record, I've posted more than one blog in 8 weeks' time.
Oh. Sorry. I guess that floor came up and smacked you. Stupid chair, why didn't you keep my reader from falling?

In any case, my birthday is this weekend, and since last year demonstrated that I can't be taken out in public, I decided to do a birthday party for myself at home. And in usual fashion, I am making at least a weekend out of it. The kids are out of school Friday for planning day. I worked doggedly Thursday, long into the evening, with multiple interruptions to get all my work done so I can stay in bed longer and enjoy my coffee on Friday. I get to skip having to wake up at the butt crack-o-dawn and zero dark thirty to take people to meet their educational facilities. So, Thursday was my Friday. My Thursday-Friday means, I enjoyed some Irish Cream. My Friday-Friday may be for the Rum & Dr Pepper after the party preparations are done (or during them, who knows). Devildog must go to bed early Friday, because HE must get up at the crack of zero-dark-really-asinine on Saturday morning, to fulfill a commitment he made. I'll have to tell you about the commitment later. That commitment cemented my decision to stay at home to celebrate my birthday.

And there is no theme, no planning of minutiae, no type A anything with any of my gatherings at my awesome-for-entertaining house. Literally, it seems like all my parties here are "show up, put random food on the counter, pour drinks, and visit with people". It's what works for us. Now, for Christmas dinner there was a chow line but that was out of sheer necessity. With that many people and that much food, there was no way formality would have worked AT ALL here. Plus there's nothing formal about us or our house. Which is completely right up our alley because we're not plan to the nth anything people. I announced loose plans for a birthday the week prior, not sure if Friday or Saturday would be the better party day. I finally decided at the crux of Sunday/Monday that Saturday was best because we could start earlier in the day, and I needed Friday to get stuff ready. And seeing as how my husband has to go to bed early Friday, that would put a cramp in the debauchery my friends and I can create for ourselves. Not exactly conducive to birthdaying when you have to shush your friends because "the ~~baby~~ husband is trying to sleep"

Elusive Solitude

2012-01-17T07:10:00.002-05:00

It is 7:10 in the morning, the sun's first rays are crafting themselves behind the trees. As I look out my kitchen window, I see dark tree shadows against a multi-hued sunrise. This is the quietest my house ever is, and even then there is always noise. The refrigerator is humming, and at any random minute the icemaker will drop frozen cubes into its bin with a groan, creak and a crash, then water to refill and repeat. The HVAC unit just stopped. I hear cargo ships a couple miles away on the river. The water heater is doing something. And my husband is snoring. I've joked he snores to the point that the ceiling over our bed is concaved, risking collapse. I've just returned from the high school bus run to take my junior and senior to be collected by some guy they all call Freelove. They hate the bus, because the other kids on it are, to be polite - obnoxious. But it's a given in life that we all have things we disdain and deal with anyway. My Clone is asleep when she should be awake, because she stayed up way too late last night watching tv with Devildog. Blur is, very thankfully, still asleep so Devildog gets to keep snoring a little while longer. And here I sit, when I should be moving about to get the day going. The coffee in my FSU Tervis Tumbler, the appliances going about their business, and the sky behind the trees changing from the pretty colors of sunrise to the ones seen the rest of the day. I have knitting I want to be doing, but that means I'd have to turn on a light and risk waking Blur who sleeps on the couch most nights because we're overly permissive and let this ginger midget run the show more than she should. But like her sister who at that age also slept on the couch and with us for way too long, at least she is asleep. With a toddler, just like during that time affectionately called "baby jail", if that child sleeps ANY where at all, so that parents can sleep, then that child can sleep where ever they cease to fidget. Because when you have children, solitude is ever sought after on a regular basis. When you have 4 who run the gamut of ages and stages, you make a point to seek out any ounce of solace you can when ever you can. And then you get off the computer to go wake that 4th grader who is going to be even crankier the 3rd & 4th time you go in there to wake her because it's now 7:30 and she needs to be ready to walk out the door in 1/10th of the minutes she usually has because she wakes up by 7:00. And you pray her complaints don't wake the toddler, ever thankful she's on the couch so she doesn't pick up her head with that grunt that makes mommy want to curse because you just *know* you better bolster the coffee pot for Devildog because she's not going to go back to sleep.
Ah, there's the icemaker now. And looking around, I better put away the yarn because I know someone will want to "koh-shay" because mommy does too.

Exhaustion

2012-01-12T00:16:00.003-05:00

I've been quite busy and when I get home, I just want downtime and I don't want to have to think or do. It's royally catching up to me and it's creating chaos for me. I'm also not getting enough sleep. So, as a result, my usual verbosity is not making its appearance here.
This broad is going to bed in about 2.8 seconds...well 129.9 because I have to click a couple things for you to see it, and then get my tush out of the chair and set up the coffee pot for the morning (or there will be even MORE chaos for me)

Blogdeath

2011-12-27T10:17:00.002-05:00

Yea, I've long suffered this whole blogdeath thing. In my ADD-laden brain, it's just easier to keep up with stuff on crackbook. I get instant grantification because of that feed on my page. Oh, and the stalker-feed too. I often miss blogging. My status updates get to a certain level of verbosity and my son comes to me and tells me I type too much on crackbook.

In the last few months, my workload has increased. Retail is busy this time of year, and retail merchandising is as well. I haven't seen much of my husband and kids because I've been busy, and then subsequently tired. I haven't even done my Christmas baking because the one weekend it was low profile, it was 80 degrees outside, and I was NOT about to crank up the oven in THAT weather. So, my supplies sit in the bin where I placed them so that my family would avoid eating my ingredients. Maybe I can bake for my birthday.

Right before Thanksgiving, my husband's grandfather finally gave out on us. He'd been sent home from the hospital to hospice care at the end of July because his remaining kidney was failing, and then it rebounded. He'd been waning steadily, and he finally ended the fight the Saturday before Thanksgiving. We went to Charleston for Thanksgiving with Devildog's sister.

Then work got real crazy.

But in all this, I was able to spend time with my family at Christmas. My Father-in-law came down to visit for a couple days with his dog. She's an awesome dog too, and if we had her as a pet, we would be spoiled at how well behaved she is. My dad preferred to eat at my house for dinner because my older sibling annoys him. The oldest sister had enough of her own going on, she didn't even have stuff at her house. More on that later. My youngest sister lives with dad, and had to drive him to my house because he can't find it on his own. He's 84 and relatively independent, but even 9 years ago when my youngest sister lived in this exact same neighborhood, he couldn't find his way over here. My youngest brother brought his daughter, his girlfriend and her son. They got called at 9am to cook her grandmother's dinner because they'd caught a cold and were too unwell to cook. Brother & company hadn't even gotten out of bed, nor opened gifts yet. They were all too happy to come here to eat food that had flavor. Everyone loved it. Good, because I busted chops for several hours to make it. And on about 4 hours of sleep (don't ask, I won't even go there).

My oldest sister has been dealing her own health issues, compounded with the year-plus long cancer struggles of her husband of 25+ years. They've been together since she was 15 or 16, and they got married when I was 8 years old. We celebrated her 50th birthday a couple years ago. I could go search the clerk of court website and pinpoint that detail but honestly, it doesn't matter. When the man you've spent your entire life with is wasting away, you basically just circle the wagons and go into survival mode. I can relate, except my stuff was work-related, not majorly-change-your-entire-f'ing-life stuff. Johnny had been in hospice care a few weeks and was sent home because he'd improved. I found out he was on his deathbed with a matter of time before the inevitable happens via my dad arriving for dinner and telling me.

So, really, in the grand scheme of things, my life is busy, but my sister's world is crashing down around her, and I was clueless. It really puts things into perspective.

Crazy?

2011-12-01T22:33:00.004-05:00

I was crazy once.
They sent me to live on Sunny Hill

It has been just that. The pace we're keeping isn't bad, but at times it feels overwhelming. We spent Thanksgiving at my sister-in-law's and went to a Festival of Lights that the park does every year there. Clone wanted to climb the rock wall, and scaled it in less than 2 minutes, and got 2 feet from the top on her second try in the same amount of time. Her arms wore out and she didn't ring the bell a second time. However, seeing some little girl outdo them, set the numerous boys into a tizzy of "I can't be shown up by a girl!"

I am proud of her for doing it. Not only the actual DOING part of it, but the fact that she wasn't a chicken about it at all. She has her father's sense of adventure in many ways. And whoooo is she competitive! But that rock wall will probably be the highlight of the trip for her. I took as many pictures as I could, but they were mostly blurry. Unfortunately, my camera has taken too many hits and is no longer thinking as fast as it could. I need to get the battery door fixed so I don't have the jerry-rigged rubber band around it. But that is low priority, and I have bigger fish to fry at the moment.

So, does anyone know where Sunny Hill is?

236

2011-11-10T00:35:00.005-05:00

Happy 236th Birthday United States Marine Corps!

OOHRAH Devildogs! Go eat some cake.

WHOOSH

2011-10-19T11:40:00.002-04:00

That is how I feel some days. It's been a rather chronic state of busy around here for the last few months. The last several weeks have been more so than typical. I keep looking for the "short work week" and it hasn't appeared on my work dashboard yet. I want to whine, but I can't. I don't have time during the day, and I don't have the energy in the evening for it. Plus, I'm the one with a job, so I'll take the extra hours. Unfortunately, it comes at the cost of study time for Devildog. While this one day a week of school works for my work schedule, it doesn't work well for him. I hate that I leave him with the Blur all day, but it was the other way around when he was working. Except, I was home with all the kids while he worked overnights, so there was the juggle of schedules, trying to keep the kids quiet so he can sleep during the day, and be a geographical single parent in the evenings to 4 kids with a broad space between ages. But he manages as best as he can. He does a lot more than some guys I know. I am one of those that firmly believe that every father should spend time as a stay-at-home dad so he understands that moms are not all sitting on the blessed assurance all day.
This level of busy brings about some neglecting of friendships. I see posts on Crackbook of a group of people I know that do stuff, and wonder why I wasn't included. Oh yea, I am not in contact with them as much. It's a brief passing online as I read their updates, and wave as I pass them in the parking lot.
I am having a Pampered Chef party on Friday. I have invited friends I haven't seen in a while. If they don't buy any kitchen stuff then I at least hope I will have an opportunity to catch up with some of them. I've contemplated having a movie night or game night at my house just so I can do something fun with friends. I think a game night would be more fun since movie tastes vary so much among my friends.
Now, pardon me, I have to WHOOSH myself off to get more stuff done today.

Estimating

2011-09-17T00:17:00.004-04:00

Clone has been struggling with estimating in her math class. She's overthinking it. I have to admit, that when I was her age, I did too. It's a genetic mishap. I've gotten much better with my estimating skills as I've become an adult. I learned to underestimate my paycheck, and overestimate the bills being paid. It might only leave a $.50 difference, but that's two quarters in my favor, and not the other way.
Estimation plays into so many things in our daily life. As a mom, each subsequent child often picks up quirks, skills, and milestones a little earlier than their older siblings did. There are more examples from which to glean ideas, and more people to influence them. And of course, Blur is a toddler who is already in my eyes a 2 year old, and has been for a while. I'm not trying to rush things. But realistically, she's doing things that a lot of kids don't do at this age. I still wish she was unable to simply stand on her tippy toes and reach the stuff on the counter in the kitchen. Reality is that she's a crafty bugger who is on the go (hence the alias), and you can almost see the gears turning in her brain. She watches what we do, then she simply does it - on a 2 year old's skill level.
Recently, we encountered the parish school's girls' basketball team practicing one day. A ball got loose, and Blur ran after it saying "I get it!" And then she started dribbling the ball just like the big kids were doing. This honestly didn't surprise me so much as entertain me. I overestimate my kids' abilities, and adjust according to performance. It's part of my slacker-mom philosophy to make the kids independent of me.
Eventually, they surprise you in a way that takes a share of the load of your shoulders. Imagine my joy as a parent, to be able to head back to the kitchen to clean up after dinner, while one of my boys sat down at the table to help Clone understand how to estimate some numbers Devildog had given her, as he excused himself, a few minutes prior. And she seemed to understand it. She and I didn't end up cranky and frustrated with it and each other either. That's really important during what I call "mind your manners week".
Don't underestimate the ability of a 9 year old girl to have an epic tantrum over math because she's frustrated and mom's patience for teaching it to her is fading faster than the sunset the first day of that Fall time change.

Soon & very soon, we shall see the three

2011-09-13T23:01:00.001-04:00

Update on PreggoX3. She's 31 weeks (I think) and went for her OB appt today. Last week they scheduled the cesarean for October 3rd, but today's appointment revealed one of the boys is having difficulty. At this point he should be practicing breathing but he isn't. PreggoX3 thinks it's because he's smushed at the bottom of the barrel and he has zero room to move. It was concluded that since she's got another appointment on Friday, that they'll look at him again and determine if they need to deliver the babies or not. If it looks like he's still struggling, then Mama will get a round of steroids and check the kiddos again the next day, and if that hasn't helped then she'll get another round and they'll deliver early next week.

You need more than a nose

2011-09-09T08:24:00.002-04:00

To the brunette chick driving the dark blue Jeep Liberty on Beach Boulevard:

Dumbass. You were in the RIGHT hand lane for how long before you needed to turn LEFT? Then you decided that you could cut behind the guy on a motorcycle, and then cut me off to get to that left turn lane. Yes, people. far right hand lane, ALL the way across 2 other lanes of traffic to get to the left lane. The light turned red and I rolled down my window to yell at her about cutting too close behind the guy on the motorcycle. He was not on a crotch rocket, he was on a Harley cruiser. It's a TOTALLY different personality of bike, and either way, neither motorcycle can just stop like a car can. She said she "missed him by a nose". Get real you dink, all he had to do was simply ease off the accelerator and you would've been PARKING on him.

I am so sorry your mama didn't teach you to use the common sense God gave a dog, and I hope and pray you aren't the reason someone is seriously injured or becomes a traffic fatality. I imagine you cutting off someone like Devildog driving a Bronco and you get encouraged onto the shoulder or median. Or better yet, a cop catches you doing that stupid crap and you have to go take a motorcycle class as punishment.

I have always been aware of motorcyclists on the road, as I've always known they lack the same type of stability of a vehicle with more than 2 wheels. My attention was mostly on the jackasses on crotch rockets zipping in and out of traffic and being douchbags on the road. I would also leave room behind a motorcycle in front of me, and then get road rage with people who assume I left that space for their ricer to occupy. However, since Devildog bought the neighbor's bike to save $120 a week in gas in the Bronco, I've been even more aware of all of them.

It's appalling to know that so many people in this city are selfish jerks who won't let you get over when you have your signal blinking for half a mile, and then get pissed when you finally can't wait any longer for them to stop being a lane hog and you have to cut them off because everyone behind them is failing to leave enough space to toss a tuna can between them and the next guy. I don't know if it's because I drive a minivan, but I'm going with that theory. If I'm driving the Bronco, I'm given the chance to move over to the next lane. But I have to get evil in the mom-bus. If mini-van drivers are stereotyped as drivers that will cut you off, then perhaps it's because everyone around us assumes that we're driving a hearse and we'll slow them down, so nobody lets the mini-van drivers change lanes. Likewise, not all motorcyclists drive like the unsunny side of a mule either.

And no matter what, EVERY vehicle needs a lot more space than given, so that colliding with any other vehicle is "missed by a nose", when in fact you need to be missing them by a whole vehicle's length.

All of this makes me even more grateful that my merchandising job allows some flexibility. I don't always have to be on the road at peak traffic times. It means I don't have to be in traffic full of selfish, distracted, me-first-forget-what-I-learned-about-taking-turns-in-Kindergarten drivers who fail to see beyond their own dang noses.

Bacon Hot Sauce

2011-09-06T21:02:00.002-04:00

They'll put anything in hot sauce anymore.

The males in my house like things spicy. The 16 year old puts hot sauce on almost everything, short of deserts. I mean almost everything. So, when the opportunity presented itself to try a free bottle of Bacon Hot Sauce, in exchange for my review, I jumped on it.

When it arrived, the guys were excited to see it. My husband saw it and said "keep it out of reach of the children". He wanted it all for himself. The boys were anxious to try it. Enchiladas were on the menu for dinner, so it just made sense to try it with hot sauce. Plus we had some leftover pizza in the fridge, and apparently my son who puts hot sauce on everything but dessert liked it.

Since I spend a lot of time on Crackbook, I tagged my son and asked what he thought of it. His answer? " It was da bomb diggity :D
But could have been a little more spicy, but I like the smokey flavor it has to it"

I tasted a bit of it, and first thing I noticed was a smoke flavor, then my tongue said "oh HAI!" to the hot stuff. Or maybe it was something other than "hai". My tongue is not fond of spicy things. However, for a chick that isn't into spicy stuff, I'll tell you this stuff has interesting flavor and enough spice that you know it's there, but you still have flesh on your tongue when you're done eating.

So, if you want to try a different kind of hot sauce, then perhaps Bacon Hot Sauce should be on your repertoire. And as a belated Labor Day Sale (hey, they were busy celebrating) enter the code "labor" when you checkout, for 10% off your order. I don't know how long this code will work, and I will update the post as soon as I know one way or another.

Telling it like it is

2011-09-03T00:52:00.006-04:00

I was talking to my neighbor, K, earlier and our conversation came around to Thursday's adventures. At the last minute, I landed some tickets to a football game, and took Clone, Beast & Devildog, while the oldest sat on the youngest at home. He was a good sport about it, despite his displeasure at the short notice. Of course we got home late, and being a school day, Clone still had to get up and get to school. K was surprised I sent Clone to school after being out late the night before. I'm not raising slackers, these spawn are being taught a work ethic early. Well, K said that it was a good way to raise them, and went on to say that the last time Clone was at K's house, K was folding hers and her 23 year old son's laundry.

Clone: What are you doing?
K: Folding mine and J's laundry.
Clone: ooh, he's LAZYYY! Heck, I'm nine and I do my own laundry! You should make him do his own clothes, he's a big boy.
K's son, J: Shut up, [Clone].
Clone: welllll, it's truuuue.

And you know she had that smarmy, know-it-all, nine year old tone and attitude when she said it too. She's becoming another one that doesn't mince words either.

He dresses better now

2011-08-28T17:34:00.005-04:00

And so do I. When we met, I was wearing white shorts and we'll just say my undergarments were not suitable for white shorts, ok? Fast forward a couple weeks. When I first really laid eyes on him, he was sweaty, mismatched, and bouncing a basketball. I'm a sucker for nice eyes.

Our first date was with his dad and then-stepmother at Famous Amos & then we went to a downtown venue on the river. I'm not interested in re-creating that date, any more than I am interested in digging up what we wore that day either.

So today we're taking a much needed leisurely pace, dinner is in the crockpot (ham & potatoes with a packet of onion soup mix and some water if you're curious) and we're making a dent in the Clone's excessive laundry. Devildog left a short time ago to go play softball. I am thankful that his outlet is softball, as there are worse things he could be doing.
Unfortunately, I haven't been able to go to any of his games in a long while. It's rather difficult to enjoy watching the game when I have to constantly herd a cat (Blur). She's a busy bugger and containing her is virtually impossible. She, like her siblings, must run and play and explore when ever the opportunity arises. Plus it's been hotter than hades itself here, and when I went outside a bit ago, I could have simply cooked my dinner on my doorstep. If I'm going to miss seeing him play ball, I can be comfortable indoors with air conditioning, and not get bleacher butt. That's not pretty either.

Random Wet T-shirt contest

2011-08-26T14:16:00.002-04:00

As I drove home from taking Clone to school, my travel path got gloomier and gloomier looking. The outer bands of Hurricane Irene were swiping the coast and bringing unpleasant weather. I got out of the mom-bus just in time for things to get really intense. I decided I needed to bring in the flag that Devildog posted on the fence since it was going to get ugly today. Well that got me, and my shirt doused with rain even more. The bottom edge of the flag pole gets hung up in the bracket because it's curling up a bit. Then the garage door didn't like the correct code and I had to re-enter it. Meanwhile I'm getting pummeled with rain and that garage door couldn't open fast enough. I got in the house and it looked like I got hosed down for a wet t-shirt contest that I didn't want to enter.
And it's supposed to rain like that again when I go back to get Clone from school. The rainy day dismissal should be realllllly interesting. We'll see if the new principal has changed that too.

Just nod and smile

2011-08-22T09:04:00.003-04:00

You probably already know this. My husband and I have 4 kids. They range in age from 2 to 18. The first two are 15 months apart, and having had them at such a young age, I was fine with being the only girl in the house, and not having any more children. God laughed at my Grand Plan of Marvelous Theory. So, 7 years later my Clone arrived, and 7 years after that, the Blur landed on scene - quite literally. Blur exited so fast the doctor almost didn't get gloves on, and she certainly did no catching of the human torpedo.
I can't tell you how many times someone has been amazed that I have four, or that I look old enough to have an EIGHTEEN year old. I'm quick to tell them about the various friends who have more kids than we have. Seriously people, four kids isn't all that large a family, but it's not without advantages. Long term, I have a larger pool of elderly tush wipers, or people willing to share the cost of nursing home care for me if none of them kill me before then. I unintentionally spaced them apart and ended up with built-in babysitters. There's the side benefit of those babysitters realizing how much work kids are, and do everything possible to avoid making any of their own. I am soooo not ready to be a grandma before I'm ~~fifty~~ 65.

And your comments? UNoriginal. How about saying "LOVE IT!" or "awesome!" instead of the trite junk? If you have more than 1.5 kids, I'm sure you've heard it all too.

Don't you know what causes that? why yes, Devildog & I have had a good 20 years practice. Or my favorite response that makes the guys blush? ::serious face:: "no. did you want to show me?"

Getting fixed? well it's very CLEARLY OBVIOUS that nothing is broken and all systems work as intended. Why does no one ask if stupid people are going to get fixed? Oh wait, they're the ones asking us if we're getting fixed.

Done? yes, I was done with the last 3. (Instead of saying "crap happens", I should probably start saying "sex happens when you're married")

Hands full: yes, so is my brain, and right now it's about to explode for being overworked. I've lost 28% of my cognitive function just growing these humans. I don't know if it will ever return, and I hope coffee hasn't killed the remaining brain cells.

Busy: duh. Can you imagine if I was one of those moms that scheduled my kids for activities? oy!

Catholic? Yes, as a matter of fact, I am. But my husband is not. So really, that doesn't have as much to do with it as you might assume.

"I don't know how you do it" - I don't. I try, but a lot gets past me, and I pray it's not a big mess. I attempt to delegate. It has mixed results.

"I barely handle one, I don't know how you handle four"
I don't handle it, I just live it. And if you're constantly entertaining your only child, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG! Stop living FOR your kids and live WITH them. And by that, I mean "in conjunction with" your kids. I can't tell you how many times I've said that every mother must establish an identity outside of being someone's spouse or mom. Give those kids the tools to function independently of you so you can have a life of your own. Don't coddle them, constantly entertain them, or do everything for them. It's your job as a mother to put yourself out of work. Don't freak out when it happens, just get your own life and enjoy it.

Now, pardon me, but Blur has gained possession of the remote and that is NOT a good thing. And my coffee got cold while I typed this.

Last Hurrah

2011-08-21T23:48:00.004-04:00

We hit the beach one last time this summer before school starts tomorrow. My husband and his friend like to go to the beach on the north side of the city where you can still drive on the beach. It's an ordeal and a drive, nevermind that we live 5 or so miles from other beaches that you have to park and schlep. I don't need to camp out at the beach, but they like it. So does Blur. Today's visit brought us to the beach when the tide was coming in, so parking was limited. We ventured to a spot on the other side of the jetty as that was the only available place for our crowd. Four households converged, and we took up a chunk of real estate. As it turned out, being on that side of the jetty was great for Blur, especially since we forgot her life jacket. She could play within our eyesight and we didn't have to worry about her getting knocked around like she had previously. And like every place this little beauty goes, she made friends there.
Now, getting there is not a hurrah. It's more like an aw, hell. Devildog is good about loading up the Bronco with the stuff we need, but there is a lot of packing involved to have the luxury of grilling on the beach. Blur has moments that she fights with us to get IN the vehicle to go somewhere. Then there are times, she's tired of being in the car and she's had her fill. Tell her she's going to the beach, and she's willing to walk there if that's what it takes. The drive takes about 30 minutes, and about 15 minutes into it, she was asking to unbuckle. When we left, she was tired and cranky, and told her brother she wanted him to get out of the truck. She's a demanding little thing, isn't she?

It will be interesting when the kids are off at their first day of school, and how she handles it with all 3 of her siblings gone from the house all day.

~~~~
side note: I went wandering my blogroll after posting this, and wouldn't you know it.. a few days ago, someone else said they went to the beach for a last hurrah before school started. I swear to you, I heard Hitchcock music for a second. That, and I really did NOT plagiarize. I mean, I have clearly neglected my blog for real life and that other vortex that shall not be named. So honestly, I didn't steal that phrase, and the beach idea was totally the gang of husbands' idea. I would've gladly sat at home clipping coupons or playing with my yarn.

fiber funny

2011-07-12T23:19:00.004-04:00

One of my yarn shop pals brought this to my attention. Not everyone understands the appeal of knitting and crocheting and what it does for people like me. Yes, it's just string and a hook or some pointy sticks. Yes, I could go pay $5 for some sweater that everybody else got from the big box super-retailer. But, I do enjoy taking a length of string and making it into something else. I'm trying to use up my current yarn stash to get rid of the cheap stuff I bought as a newb who didn't know better. I couldn't imagine paying $5 for a ball or skein of yarn, much less a sweater's worth of it at that price. Now - I get it. I understand the pull of nicer yarn, and want to upgrade my stash. So, I found myself involved with a blanket project group, and now have several squares crafted of acrylic yarn awaiting my next trip to the post office. It's a win-win, in that I deplete the stash and the yarn gets put to good use and blesses some other folks. Yes, I got the yarn with the intention of making things for specific people out of it. However, if in the time since 2005 when I figured out the crochet hook, and 2007 when someone helped me learn the knitting needles, I have not found the first end of those skeins and made those intended projects - it is time for the yarn to be elsewhere.
Which leads me to this: the nicer yarn is apparently addicting. Someone related the addiction to something non-knitters could probably understand a little better. So here you go, The Yarn/Drug Compendium.

ABC's of Feisty

2011-07-04T20:46:00.000-04:00

Age: 35

Bed size: queen

Chore I dislike: cleaning the fridge

Dogs: none

Essential start to your day: No talking till I've had my coffee - cream & sugar.

Favorite color: blue

Gold or silver: gold

Height: 5’ 4"

Instruments that you can play: none - former Euphonium/Baritone horn player

Job title: wife, mom, & book slinger

Kids: Oldest, 18. Beast, 16. Clone, 9. Blur, 1

Live: North Florida. And no, it is NOT Georgia.

Mom’s name: Mom

Nicknames: Several, including some unprintable words.

Overnight hospital stays: four - something about spawning.

Pet peeve: I'm deathly allergic to B.S. & stupidity.
Quote from a movie: Hakuna Matata? Heck, I don't watch many movies, much less remember them enough to quote them.
Righty or lefty: Righty
Sibling: #4 of 6 for dad. #1 of 3 for mom.
Time you wake up: at the last possible minute.
Urban or Rural: somewhere in between.
Vegetables: I don't eat enough of them.
What makes you run late: anything and everything. Kids, my own A.D.D., I'm better about being on time.
X-rays: dental, wrist, full spinal
Yummy food you make: cookies, pork chops in sour cream, rubber chicken
Zoo favorite animal: the ones behind the safety of walls and gates.

Parenting PSA

2011-07-04T15:32:00.002-04:00

Do not act as a helicopter hovering, or a lawnmower to plow down obstacles for your children. You will assuredly end up with full sized ninnies who can't handle the simplest of things when they get remotely unpleasant. If the worst you can handle is a frown, the failure rests with those who did not raise you to learn how to put on the big pants and deal with it.

A few people who criticized my parenting in the past can suck dirt off my shoes. Because the approach I took with my kids is reflecting as such that my kids can handle life in general, and function independently of me and even go so far as to help other people. So my insistence that the boys learn to cook and do laundry is not selfish and lazy on my part. True, I may have had selfish and lazy intentions because I was tired of doing so much for so many capable beings, but at the same time, I've long held that it's a life skill they must learn anyway. I have other interests that I want to develop. I don't want my daughter-in-law to hate me because I failed to teach her husband the basics. I needed to have my own hobbies and life away from my children so that when they grow up, move out into the world and have lives and families of their own, I am not that meddlesome MIL who drives a wedge somewhere it doesn't belong. I don't want my grandchildren living across the country because I'm a pest. If they're that far away, at least it ought to be due to jobs or something else more worthwhile than evading an intruding old woman. If I must invade their territory, I at least hope to be helpful, and maybe entertaining while there.

It always starts at home.

2011-06-30T09:32:00.002-04:00

It's a sure sign Devildog watches too much wrestling and UFC fights, oh and boxing. The Blur was laying on the couch last night, slapping the cushion saying "One! Two! Deeng Deeng Deeng!" repeatedly.

This makes me glad I have managed to control my colorful language. She's already saying "oh dang it!" so "motherless goat" is next I'm sure.

Happy Birthday Dad!

2011-06-26T13:43:00.003-04:00

It's my dad's 84th birthday. It's his brother's 88th birthday. It is also the 92nd anniversary of their parents' wedding.
He'll tell you Grandpa was a mathematician, but I'll tell you that Grandma had a very regular cycle.

Hanging On

2011-06-24T16:57:00.007-04:00

Some days, I feel just like this apple looks. Hanging on by the end of my small stem, clinging to the very net that holds me together. My net is not nylon and red though. It's blonde, brown, red, tan, Hispanic, Irish, Philipino, or who knows what. I have survived this long in my life with the help of many people around me, total strangers, and people I know solely online. I've not gotten where I am alone, and I'm sure I won't get where I'm heading without a few flight attendants to help me.

You know it's busy when my oldest sister calls the house to tell me about our Dad's birthday dinner on Sunday, and tells my 16 year old that I need to call her more often. This from the sister that just doesn't do talking on the phone. Somehow, I channel that Jewish mother voice when I hear her in my head, saying "You should call me more often".

My job takes me to a few stores each week. Then for 2 weeks out of the month, I squeeze in a bunch more stores that we visit monthly. Those 2 weeks are the ones that usually have me looking like this apple. The kids and husband are tired of "Fridge Fiesta" extending beyond the pre-trash-day Thursday. I tire of food I didn't cook. Yes, I'm weird like that. I enjoy cooking dinner for my family. I just don't enjoy forcing my brain to think farther ahead than the next 3 minutes and plan meals, because I'm constantly trying to stay ahead of the Blur's antics.

She's been in extraordinary form lately because it's been either too smoky from the vast number of wildfires surrounding us, or the heat index is high enough to simply put food outside to cook - thereby sparing the expense of using a stove and the associated cost of the air conditioner trying to negate that extra heat. So she's got cabin fever and she's making me and everyone else crazy. Devildog has homework to do, and I have work to submit, and now Beast has summer school work to do daily. The day to day stuff of family life still must be done. And my brain reaches shut-down point and all I can muster is vegging out, with the occasional brainless bit of crocheting a blanket square. You know it's bad when you go get the mail and she's very excited to go with you. If she'd sit still long enough, I might be able to teach her to knit so she can fidget productively.

What? She's gotta get a break from her Ph.D. thesis at some point.

How to deal with a teenager: send him packing.

2011-06-23T14:21:00.003-04:00

I'm down a child, and my house is quieter for it. Of course the Blur makes up a lot of the Oldest Child's noise deficit created by his absence. She's taken to shrieking and squealing at every opportunity. She's proven very well that her vocal cords work, as well as the lungs, and that the decibel tolerance of my ear drums is significantly gone. She's also proven that her brother the Beast shouldn't breed any time soon, as he's got a short attention span and is long on impatience with her. My oldest is now currently spending his summer before his senior year of high school in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He turns 18 in a couple weeks, which makes me feel like I am old, but then again, it feels like "hey wait, I just turned 18 last week myself" too. Oh and it may surprise you to know this: He also has his learner's permit.

Yes, I violated my own rule for my kids to drive. Yes, I allowed a looophole in the one that requires them to get a job to pay their insurance when the bill comes due. The PreggoX3 is on bedrest and since she blacked out a few weeks ago, she's not allowed to drive herself to the multitude of doctor appointments a high risk pregnancy entails, and the stuff involved with the BabiesX3 big sister. DadX3 is trying to finish his PhD stuff at U-Mich and GTFO of that forsaken place. So the Oldest child is up there serving as what amounts to a wife for H.D. because she can't be the kind of wife she's accustomed to being, minus any sexual favors of any party aforementioned. This is not the boy scouts here ok? So far he's learning to drive from a person who is an excellent teacher of anything she teaches. And she's probably going to teach him all the other things he refuses to act like he's learned from us. Because she's not his mother and kids don't listen to their own parents. They will listen to anyone not related to them by blood, and the child free siblings of their parents.
That's ok though, because PreggoX3 and I are doing our part to overpopulate the world so that our siblings don't have to do it.

Zumba & Midway Island

2011-06-05T11:28:00.001-04:00

My Saturday was totally exhausting. For starters, my friend Jackie teaches Zumba at a gym near her house across the big ditch from me. I've been interested in this fitness thing, but just haven't gone to a class. So, Jackie talked to Father H and worked it out so that whatever is collected at the door for class fees, would get donated to the church for something. Today's class was to help fund VBS. Jackie took it easy on us, and it kicked my gringa butt. But it works all the areas I need to reshape after the Blur-baking flabbed it out for me. Plus the chiropractor has been after me to rebuild my core muscles. So this would make him happy too. I can see why it's so popular.
Then I rested, cleaned my kitchen, and next thing I knew, it was time to get dressed for the Midway Dinner. The local Navy League branch puts on this big dinner to commemorate the Victory at Midway Island. There was even a record set as having the largest in attendance, totaling 624.
Dress was formal or business, and I debated what to wear. I didn't have time or budget to go shopping, and my luck nothing would've suited my preferences to leave cash and prizes to the imagination. I remembered the formals in my closet. Yes, I have dresses from high school. One was too big because I was pregnant with the oldest when I wore it, and one is quite honestly very dated looking. It either needs to meet a tailor or my daughter's dress up bin. There's the bridesmaid dress from SIL's wedding, but Devildog didn't want to see me in that again after I wore it for the wedding, and then Easter. (Yes, I went there. I wore the dress for Easter with a short sleeved sweater to cover my bare shoulders. I don't wear spaghetti straps to church either. I'm old school like that, just not at the point of veiling.) I didn't want to wear a black and red dress that I wore for Christmas that Devildog said he preferred. Do you see me rolling my eyes? Oh dang, will you catch my left one please before it rolls into traffic? Thanks.
Then, I remembered "oh wait! the one I wore to the Marine Corps Birthday ball!" The last time I tried it on, was several months after the Blur was born, and I still hadn't shed the hips enough to wear it. I nearly ripped seams. I never got around to consigning that one either. I am glad I kept it. It was open back though, which was a ballsy move for me 12 years ago when I wore it last. Having classic tastes pays dividends in the long term, and for cost-per-wear. I got the dress off season and dirt cheap. I think I paid $40 for it in October, because it was still in the store after the Spring prom season. It has a side split in the skirt, when at that point, everything had a split up the front of one leg. I remember that detail because I was mildly annoyed when I bought it that it didn't have a front split. But it was blue, and I look good in anything blue. This time, I tried it on, and it fit. I'd had 2 more babies since wearing it so I needed some help in the northern end of things. I didn't have time to take it to the seamstress for the sewn in boobs because I was trying to find shoes and a wrap for it, so I bought some sew in boobs at JoAnn and did it myself. It's far from a professional job. At least I wasn't directing traffic or looking like I'd had a mastectomy. I did do some power, mission-mode shopping to find shoes and a shawl - to no avail for either. I'm thankful for other big-footed friends with silver shoes, and my nearby JoAnn store having just enough navy chiffon & ample supply of steam-a-seam.
We had a good time, debaucherous group that we were. The friend that gave us tickets seated us with Dick Stratton. Most of the tables had a significant designee such as a POW, wounded warrier, or VIP of some sort. Ours had the most debaucherous POW, who spent almost the longest amount of time as a POW. When forced to make a propaganda video telling how well they were being treated, Mr. Stratton, out of sight of his captors and between his knees, extended both middle fingers on camera. At that point in the ceremonies, we understood why the softball goons got seated with that particular POW. We had a good time with Dick, and his wife Alice. Interestingly enough to me, Alice & I both wore long, navy blue dresses. Hers had way more sparkle to it though. I should've gotten pictures of that stuff, but didn't. I didn't think to get someone to take pictures of me and the Devildog, before he had enough alcohol to make his liver spasm. We did get a bartender to take a picture of us before we left.

Birthdays and brains

2011-06-02T01:50:00.004-04:00

Clone turned 9 Tuesday. NINE. That's like - half grown already. I kind of feel old, but then I realize I'm apparently not allowed to do that yet. She has a sister behind her that is running headlong to age 2 later this year. But to have 2 teenage boys, and now an official pre-teen girl...I think I'll just feel a little old. She asked for makeup for her birthday.

I've been raptured by Facebook apparently, because my ADD, instant-gratification self seems to be addicted to the stuff. That, and I've been crocheting. I tried a new pattern, which means I have a new mindless project that I can do when I need to unwind but can't muster the cognitive function to follow another pattern. I have too many things on my knitting needles and crochet hooks. I have let myself get unfocused again. School is out for the summer next week. I have mixed thoughts about this given Devildog's class schedule and homework load in conjunction with my varying workload, and the propensity for the kids to get bored easily. I've been trying to figure out how to meld it all this summer and my brain shuts down before I start.
I've been dealing with frequent visits to the pediatrician with the youngest. Her nickname has been changed to The Blur. For the sake of fewer keystrokes, it's just Blur. I took her for 18 month shots and at that point she weighed 21 pounds, at 32 inches tall. She was "on target" according to the CDC growth chart for height, but less than the 5th percentile for weight. There was bloodwork to check thyroid levels, and some other basics. Everything came back negative or normal. Then we had to do another round of labs to verify more clearly the thyroid levels, as well as collect exit samples to rule out parasitic causes for such a peanut. I was willing to entertain the thyroid concerns because there is a family history of thyroid stuff. Outside of finding anything in the labwork, I think she simply hit the genetic lottery. My dad weighed 155 pounds till he was 70. Then he gained 5 pounds. I weigh 10 pounds more than I did in high school, and I'm sitting on that leftover 10 from growing the Blur. It's slowly leaving, but I'm out of shape and that's another issue altogether - albeit related. My brother is a skinny rail. My kids eat way better than my siblings and I did as children. I offer the Blur everything we eat for dinner. She loves fruits, and don't you dare try to avoid a choking hazard by cutting her grapes. She will not eat them if you do.

She's an independent-minded toddler who is constantly moving from the time her eyes open till we can finally get her to stop moving to go to sleep. I can't get any knitting or crocheting done without setting down the work to keep her off the monkey bars, or she's trying to "hep" me. Her vocabulary is growing exponentially, and she's putting words together in sentences. We can have little conversations with her. She's starting to articulate her needs, either with words or a few of the signs we've taught her. She's learning Spanish words. She climbs, jumps, runs, rides scooter toys, puts on her own shoes, dresses, undresses, brushes her hair and teeth, washes her hands, and rips off her diapers and prefers to be naked. Till she wants to get dressed. She's interested in using the big potty. That has occurred twice in the last 2 days, but I'm not holding hope she'll be the youngest and easiest trained. I'm still convinced that she'll be like her sister and pee on the floors for the next 2 years.

In short, she's hitting or exceeding every other developmental milestone for children her age.
And by the time she's 9, I think Persnickety will have a nice long Ph.D. thesis to edit for her.

It's the end of the world as we know it but I feel fine

2011-05-22T01:32:00.003-04:00

So, all this hype about a vaporizing human race got some people hungry, and several parties were held on what was supposed to be the final moments of the world. Someone misread the manual again.

Foray into Gourmet

2011-05-01T15:26:00.006-04:00

Devildog and I were watching Food Network on our afternoon off recently. We found this episode 5 Ingredient Fix and it was so awesome and yummy looking that I HAD to try these recipes. Except there was little interest in the tomatoes & blue cheese, therefore I wasn't going to try it. So I set out to find the round bakeware for the chocolate souffle, and added the steak, shallots, russet potatoes, heavy cream, and chocolate to my grocery list. I found an appropriate souffle baking dish in my friend Bridget's cabinets, sparing me the exhausting search to find one that my wallet was willing to buy at the moment.

I started dinner late on Saturday, so of course it was consumed late too. It's nothing new for us to eat at other people's bedtime. I've been told by my latina friends that I am the whitest hispanic they know. Yet, none of them have taught me to make empanadas - go figure. It was 9 PM before I was finished following the steak au poivre (oh pwahv) instructions, while concurrently working on the mashed potatoes and fried shallot instructions. This A.D.D. brain was in overdrive like a redneck's 4x4 in the mud. It took me 2 hours total to navigate this unfamiliar culinary territory, and I was thankful the steak went into the oven to finish cooking while I worked on the other stuff. And if I'd gotten thinner steaks, they would've cooked long before the potatoes finished boiling. Get the big boys, you won't regret it.
I later figured out that I should fry the shallots first, because it's ok if they get cold, plus they require a little more attention than I gave them. So, next time I make them, I will delegate the potato peeling, cutting and initial boiling to a capable teenager. For the sake of time and the fact that I cooked an entire 5 pound bag of russets, I used the multi chopper my sister in law gave me for my birthday. I peeled them, ran them through the wedger, then cut the wedges into smaller boilable pieces. It is so much faster for me that way. I don't have a ricer like the TV chef used, so I was able to just use my hand masher after boiling them sufficiently. Fork tender essentially means you stick a fork in a potato piece and it falls apart. When you cook it that long, hand mashing means you don't make glue of the potatoes. And the fried shallots? oh. em. gee. Even Devildog who doesn't eat onions, ate the shallots. I think it's because they were fried. The steak sauce was not terribly difficult to make, and I substituted rice vinegar for the sherry vinegar because that's what I had on hand. And the sauce works wonderfully with both the steak and the potatoes. This will make a wonderful Sunday dinner, or anniversary/first date/special occasion cooked at home. Heck, it will make a Tuesday dinner incredible. The leftovers in that picture are what I ate while I composed the post and baked. Somehow I managed that bit of multitasking by some miracle. I fed the kids, then waited for Devildog to join me for dinner. We had a nice conversation, and a lot of it was raving about the food, the flavors and my ability to cook this meal without burning something. He mentioned how I used to screw up food really badly when we were first married. Considering my mother could mangle a box of mac & cheese with the instructions printed on the back of it, and never having been taught to cook - it's a miracle my siblings and I can make edible food. Actually, my mom put a couple people in my path that shared their knowledge with me. As an adult, I sought out the advice and instruction of others so I could stand to eat my own cooking. And I know I stink at sharing what I know with my kids, but I'm working to improve that.

I wanted to make the chocolate souffle for dessert, but by that point in the day I was exhausted and my legs and feet were really ticked at me. I set out to do that on Sunday when I got home from church. So that's how this post is getting written. The souffle is in the oven. I started taking pictures but got a phone call in the middle of everything. My pregnant-with-triplets friend was needing to moan to someone. Call it returning a favor for the times I moaned while pregnant with the mini-human who has become known as The Blur. So there are not as many pictures as I wanted to have here. The instructions for the souffle on the website leave a lot to be desired. It's not idiot-proof, and the instructions are written like every fool has made a souffle and knows what they're doing. If I hadn't seen the show to get an idea of what to do, I wouldn't have even attempted this dessert. This same logic applies to some knitting patterns, but that's a different post for another day.

In any case, the recipe calls for 8 ounces of good quality dark chocolate. Because I'm heathen and I don't know my dark chocolates, I went with what I know - Hershey's. Eight ounces equates to about five and a half bars of the 6 pack. Yes, I did use my postal scale to weigh my chocolate. I chopped it up with a piece of wax paper over the cutting board, to keep the chocolate from getting stuck to it. I almost forgot to put the butter in with the chocolate in the double boiler setup. Then I set out to beat the egg whites to stiff peaks, and oy, that takes a while even with a mixer. I had the 16 year old beat the egg yolks while I was working on getting the egg whites to poof. At that point the phone rang, and photography stopped. Then there is the matter of folding the egg whites gently, and still mixing it with the other stuff. I had help from the Clone to do that. I then poured (probably should have scooped with the spoonula instead) into the buttered & sugared baking dish. It went into a casserole dish to catch any drips and into the oven. It's in need of cleaning as it is, why make it worse. I cooked it 30 minutes but it wasn't done, so I had to put it back in the oven a while longer. I didn't think lava cake middle was what I should have gotten for a souffle, right?

When it finally came out of the oven, I cut a wedge of it, and scooped a dollop of coffee flavored ice cream on it. It's what I had already and it was YUMMY that way. I still need to find my own souffle dish, and the PreggoX3 suggested a copper mixing bowl for the egg whites. I think next time I make the souffle, I will use a wider dish, and I've seen other instructions/comments that there should be a water bath in the oven for it. All I know is this is tasty, but requires a little work and care. And the instructions on the Food Network website could stand some clarification and enhancement.

PreggoX3 said she wanted a picture sent to her. So, how about an entire blog post? Is that better?

generating buzz

2011-04-28T10:05:00.003-04:00

A couple years ago, I joined a site to be what is called a Bzz Agent. When I sign up for a campaign, I usually get samples, and coupons from the company. I have tried some new things that impressed me. I joined a campaign that I ended up not liking once. The coffee mug I got broke a couple months later too.
How it works is you sign up, get your kit, and then try whatever it is. If you like it, great. If you don't, ok too. However, it is asked that we spread the word about things to others, with the requirement that we are to disclose that we are a Bzz Agent and we received coupons or samples. If we get coupons we are asked to share them with friends. Then we go back to the website and submit a Bzz Report, noting our conversations, and the feedback we get from the person with whom we shared the information.
I'm currently involved in a CoverGirl campaign for their NatureLuxe products, that use cucumber, jojoba & rosehip in the foundation and mango & shea butter in the gloss. So far, I like the foundation, but it's a sheerer finish than my regular foundation. I think when I picked Oak as my foundation color, I probably did get the right shade for my summer skin color. I haven't submitted an official review of it yet because I'm waiting to use it for a few days to see if I have any reactions to it. So far it's nice, feels very very light, but with a question mark. I need to up my water intake to make sure this microscopic itch is my own dehydration, or if it's a reaction to an ingredient in the foundation. I suspect the former actually. Ever since I lost my Flylady water bottle, my water intake went to nil because the other water bottles we own are not that great. This Bzz kit also came with a sheer lip gloss. I like how it feels, smells and the level of color. I'm not a gloss wearing kind of girl, so I am not sure if frequent reapplication is common, or if I am a freak of nature. (And no, you may not answer that one for me.) The Little (aka The Blur) came up to me yesterday when she saw me applying the lip gloss. She pointed to her mouth, saying "pee-yee baby!" (pretty baby). She wanted lip gloss too.
I will have to post again later to update my thoughts once I've concluded whether the problem was me or the makeup. But so far, I do like this, and may consider switching my foundation to this one. I was happy to see that both the lip gloss and foundation contain SPF 10 and 15 respectively. For me, that's a nice selling point, because I'm fair skinned (that whole Irish thing) and I don't tan easily. Plus I'm in my mom-bus a lot, and the windows only do so much. I like this SPF inclusion because the sunscreens I've tried previously make my face greasy, which in Florida heat (blast furnace really), that makes my face sweat more and feels gross.
If you've tried this, what do you think? Did it work for you? If not, would you give it a try?

funny kid stuff

2011-04-23T23:46:00.004-04:00

The Little has been dubbed "The Blur" by Devildog. It's fitting. Shopping at Target with her yesterday was a prime example.

The Little Blur is also coming along with an increasing vocabulary. Her recent cuteness is mealtime prayer. Since I'm such a bad Catholic, we use the one I learned in 2nd grade, instead of the standard "Bless us, O Lord...":
God is good.
God is great.
Let us thank him for our food.
By His hands we are fed.
Thank you Lord for daily bread.
Amen.
The Little Blur folds her hands, bows her head, and says "God is good. Amen"

It didn't sit well with The Clone for this one to go in today's post, but then again, she never likes when anyone talks about her - good or bad. Oh well, it's staying anyway. She was coloring eggs, and used her white crayon to write on the eggs before dyeing them. She lifted an egg, sucked her teeth, and said "aw man. I spelled 'happy' wrong. That's sad."

Happy Easter.

Balancing Act

2011-04-22T12:09:00.005-04:00

One of my high school classmates posted a blog link on Facebook from a frazzled mom trying to balance everything. I can understand that one. I started my family at a young age. I was inordinately fortunate that the guy who was unrelenting in his pursuit of me was raised right, and didn't shirk his responsibilities. This summer will mark 18 years ago that we met. Not everyone can say some or any of that about the person who is their child's other parent. It hasn't been all easy, but that's how life works. It took me a long time to learn how to do for myself. I long neglected the woman who was behind the roles of wife and mother, etc. It made things a big mess of resentment, frustration and unkindness. I don't ever want to find myself there again. There is value in a woman that takes care of herself in the same way she cares for her family. So, yes, I do keep my closet with clothes that make me look good and fit me well. And I can't bring myself to pay full retail for anything, so I look good on a budget too. My husband deserves to see his wife looking nice, and not looking like a schlub. It serves to remind him that he needs to tell me how much he's attracted to me and loves me. Which then reminds me that I need to pay attention to him individually, and not just collectively as if he were one of the children. It's also kind of nice to see the envious look my husband gets from his peers. You can read their faces and almost know what they're thinking. He is indeed a lucky Devildog. His wife still looks good after 4 babies escaped her person, and we're still together this long to boot.

A big part of my parenting philosophy is that I should put myself out of work as a mother. It will allow me to be other things to my children and their children later. I also can't fathom the thought of being a helicopter mommy. Some kids require that, but not mine. I wouldn't dream of being a lawnmower mommy, knocking down the obstacles in front of my children. Lord knows, I grew up having to be my own lawnmower, and that was difficult enough. I can't imagine doing either mowing or hovering for four kids. I'm tired as it is being a slacker mom, I'd be dead if I hovered or mowed. So, I have been teaching my kids those things I call life skills. They are learning to cook, tend house, handle money, and deal with other people. I get looks ranging from impressed amazement to having 12 heads on my shoulders when others hear that my kids do their own laundry from a certain age. I certainly don't want visits home from college to be spent with me doing 3 months' of their laundry. I also don't want to wear those blue gloves to do their laundry, because as teens, they are walking biohazards. So, basically, I equip them to do for themselves, and function independently of me. I don't live my life FOR my children. I live my life WITH them. I pursue my interests, and what makes me happy. Number one, they need to see my example of doing that. Number two, quite simply, I need the break from my kids. Number 3, and quite important - keeping my own self busy will prevent me from being that Mother-in-Law. You know, the meddling, needling, intrusive one that behaves in such a way that the kids move far away because I drive them nuts. In an attempt to get the kids closer, the cajoling, the backhandedness, the everything of a Mother-in-hell, it all backfires. I don't want my grandchildren to see their parents visibly sigh in relief that I left this earth, and them in peace from no longer dealing with my antics.

So, the juggle and struggle becomes worth it in the end, because eventually, I will have put myself out of work as their mother. I will then get the opportunity to learn how to be their friend, and watch what I taught them play out in their own lives. I just pray that my children find mates that are worthy, capable, and balance my children - much like my husband and I are for each other.

Busy birthday weekend

2011-04-18T00:37:00.003-04:00

My husband just thinks of his birthday as another ordinary day. I grew up with this mindset in my parents' house, and I didn't like it one bit. Ok, so you don't have to spend your annual salary on a bash to commemorate the day you were born. But just a little sumpthin' to say "woohoo" should be standard. I am thankful for his friends who put out the call to say "hey, lets get together." R & C have been renovating their house, and they had a bit of a house re-warming, plus a few cupcakes since it was Devildog's birthday. Of course, this circle of friends follows the principle "any excuse to drink". While we were there, C & S called him to say "Hey, since we're hosting an oyster roast next weekend, we should watch the race at your house tomorrow. I mean, it is your birthday and all." They brought pretty much all the side dishes. Cleanup was easier than if I'd cooked.
Thankfully I vacuumed Saturday before we left the house. This morning I sorted through the papers on the peninsula in the kitchen before leaving for church.
Thank you FLYLady for your wisdom, that we could host friends without a lot of angst and stress to get the house ready for company. The girls enjoyed the playset Devildog built. The boys fished in the pond and came up empty handed. The guys watched the race. And when they left, I rescued my kitchen and took a nap.

Final Words

2011-04-15T02:48:00.005-04:00

Yes, I'm briefly awake in the middle of the night. My brain is weird.

So, the thought came to mind after N.S.'s funeral:
When I die, they're probably going to put something like "Finally got the smartass shut up" on my gravestone.

What epitaph is going on your gravestone?

The power of a shower

2011-04-13T23:36:00.003-04:00

Wednesdays are my long days, whether I am home that day or working. The 2 middle kids have religious education classes (aka CCD or PREP) on Wednesday nights. We are gone for part of what I call 'witching hours', but that just means it's a condensed witching hour when we get home. As a busy mom with the kind of life we have here, I'll admit it for the world to see: I don't get a shower every day. The story I stick to is that I'm doing my part to help spare the environment and cut my utility costs. Now, does anyone care to remind my 17 year old this please, since I am always wrong and just a haranguing nag?

Today was one of those days that felt derailed from the time my feet met the floor. About all I got accomplished at home this morning was tidying the laundry room and a long-overdue vacuuming of the air filter. And I washed a load of towels. They're finally in the dryer 14 hours after they started their journey to clean.
A friend of ours died on Sunday-- the terminating, long-coming result of living the hard life of partying and not taking care of the personal temple loaned to us. You can't get on a transplant list when you were already a decidedly non-compliant patient after your oncologist tells you to stop drinking and smoking (everything). I feel most sorry for N.S.'s mother and son. No parent ever in their life imagines the final act of their job as parent to their child is to bury that child. Every child fully expects that at some point they'll say the final goodbye to their parent, but no one expects that before you are of legal age to vote or just barely driving age, you are left half-orphaned. But here it has happened. No matter the timing, circumstances, or quality of relationship you have, losing a parent just plain sucks.

And in all of this, and the lack of planning by N.S. or his family, we then see a friend, T.K. pick up the slack, take Mama by the hand and help her with the legwork of burying her only son. Devildog got home from school this morning, and as I was getting ready to leave, T.K. came over to tell us the funeral arrangements. It ended up with them on the patio, watching the geese fight over the pond territory as they relayed their lamentations over this situation. Finally I realized the time, and stuck my head out there to tell my husband he needed to take over as Mini-Human's monitor, lest she bake some cookies and reprogram the computer while no one is watching. I really had to get to work. I got such a late start to my day, that I didn't get all the service calls on my schedule done. The allotted times are longer than normal, and that last one was likely to take the full time allowed, which I didn't have in my day after the 2nd store visit. The kids had classes and Devildog had homework to do (which I doubt he did.) When we got home, I had a kitchen to clean up since Devildog cooked dinner, and my reports to submit.

I just felt reallllly blegh, and my razor was failing from being used every time I shower (duh, it's DULL, so change it). I sat with Devildog to watch some tv together, but was restless. So I took that shower, shaving with a fresh razor, and shampooing my hair. I think I probably washed about 10 pounds of the blegh, emotional clutter, and my derailed workday. It sort of reset my self, and the gloom swirled down the drain. I emerged gently recharged and without the blegh. By the way, that is a rather inarticulate word, but at this point in my day, be thankful that's what I muster and not something worse.

Final thought that just entered my head as I was proofreading this post: Since my husband is a veteran, he and I qualify for burial next to each other in the National Cemetery. Whoever goes first better pick a good seat.

The things Daddies do for their kids

2011-04-03T22:26:00.002-04:00

This weekend we embarked on the brilliant idea that we'd been hatching for quite a while.

That idea? A big giant wooden playset for the younger 2 kids. We had a BIG metal swingset for Clone for her 2nd birthday and kept till we left the hovel. It wasn't worth moving to the new house. She essentially outgrew it about the time she went to elementary school. So we knew with the Mini-Human (aka The Little), we'd need one that would last a few years plus still entertain the Clone too while she's still young.

We found one at Academy Sports & Outdoor for $499, versus the model at the big box home store, or the membership warehouse store, which were more expensive - all models were D.I.Y. unless we paid for someone else to do the dirty work. The box says it takes 2 people 10 hours. I think they based this on the time it takes hired professionals who do such things for a living, not your average joe electrician who has become handy over the years.

If you should ever decide to buy one of these things, there are some parts of the instructions that should be IGNORED. For instance, the slide has 2 preformed plastic sides with a groove for the sheet of long plexiglas. The instructions and schematics say to measure, then drill holes and attach the wooden support with the included bolts etc. Don't drill first, don't even measure. Lay the plexiglass in the sun to soften it a smidge (cuz that's all you'll get unless you're doing this in 100 degree weather in July in Florida), prebend the ends a little, and have an extra set of arms to help you snap the plexiglass into the sides. Then put the wooden supports in behind it where they're supposed to go. Pop the parts back that came out a little when the wooden slats got snapped into the sides of the slide. THEN drill things and use the screws to attach stuff, while your extra set of arms uses counter pressure to keep things from sliding around as you're trying to use power tools. Our slide got drilled 3 times total. Devildog's 1st attempt using the instructions. The 2nd attempt remeasuring, and then the 3rd attempt after I looked at things and said "Let's just put it together first, then use the screws, otherwise who knows how many times you'll be drilling it." He agreed with me and had we done that first, the extra 30 minutes of assembly x3 would have been spent assembling something else. The girls then set out playing on the slide as it laid on the sloped ground in our back yard. They were glad to have something other than the giant box from the playset to slide on finally.

We probably should have just asked some other sucker who bought a giant play set for their box and we could have saved the money, and Devildog could have saved about 20 hours of his Spring Break. It's still not finished, and school resumes in the morning.

When they still come around

2011-02-19T11:27:00.002-05:00

Today's Facebook status:
morning coffee: check. beautiful weather: check. Kids & friends plotting to visit each other: check. For some reason, mistreating their friends like I mistreat my own makes them want to return. I have told a few of them "I will beat you like I beat my own", and it still doesn't deter them.

We also have ample mental scarring. We're really good at it. Just ask my kids.
Their friends love it. I fuss at my kids and their friends in the same manner. I have yet to hear one of their parents complain. If they didn't like how I talk to the kids, then they will just have to forbid their kids from coming to my house. I am not running the show any differently just because their speshul snowflayke baybee's feelings might get hurt.
When you have your first child, it's an adjustment. The second wears on the adjustment nerves and poses a lot of challenges. The third one just kind of slides into the mix. After 3 kids, what's one more? I have a lot of help from the older kids, and I don't do it on my own. When the kids have friends over to visit, it's just like the "what's one more" line. Not my own, but meh, they're along for the ride. We were at the library one day and Beast had a friend with us. Said friend was poking me in the shoulder at the counter as I was checking out books, and he didn't stop when I said stop. So I looked at him and said "I. will. beat. YOU. like I beat my own". The librarian visibly stifled a smirk. I told her I have too many kids to treat their friends differently, I don't have energy for it. I'll feed you but you are likely to get asked to do some sort of housework in exchange. Sleep here? Yeah, but you're going to help mow the yard dude. Total your car and wrap it around a tree because you were drinking underage? Oh, yea, you're totally getting a few snarky remarks and getting asked "did you hit your head really hard before you drank that beer?"
A few of the kids call me "mom" or "mommy" or "mommy Trish". I don't think any of them use my last name. In kid-world that's a formality reserved for the moms who wouldn't beat you like you're one of theirs.
So the phone rang this morning, one of Beast's friends asking to come visit, and stay the night. "I don't care, but the leaves need to be raked and we're going to church tomorrow." That is another thing, if you're here on a Sunday morning, we'll take you with us to Mass. And it's ok if you don't have dress clothes. It's come-as-you-are, but keep the view of your cash & prizes covered.
I fully expect that sometime this long 3 day Presidents' Day weekend will garner the oldest child's friends rolling through here too. Meanwhile, my 8 year old wants to escape and visit her friends. She doesn't want anyone here because as she puts it "all they want to do is play with the baby!" That may change as the baby becomes an annoying little sister who horns in on her friends' visits and "steals" her friends.

I'm thankful they pick friends worthy of stealing, because it means they were a good choice.

students

2011-02-14T01:18:00.004-05:00

I have 4 students in my household. One is in elementary school, 2 are in high school and Devildog is in college. And it's amusing sometimes when he and the boys get into conversations about math and correct each other.
The schedules however, are not so amusing. Devildog started a 3rd class last week that is a 4 hour class, once a week. The juggling and shuffling are part of the challenge and at the moment my work schedule is making it impossible for him to get homework done. The kids have to be in their rooms and not distracting him before he can focus. He hates my laptop, so he refuses to take it to the library or some other quiet, wi-fi equipped location and do homework there.

Let's add that the oldest son also moved to a different school, in conjunction with my husband going to school. Both places have new germs. As a result they brought new germs home from school, plus Clone picked up a stomach bug from a classmate that she shared with the little sister. This undoubtedly threw a huge wrench in my schedule. And by Saturday afternoon, I was coming down with something. I slept a lot Saturday afternoon and evening, and spared my fellow parishoners the germs by staying home from Mass. I hate missing church. Sunday's weather was lovely, and I aired out the house and sent the girls out to play. Mini-Human was so beside herself with excitement she was rather spastic. So, this last week of reset season is hopefully going to see the kids healthy so I can send the little to a sitter on the shorter of his schooldays (which happens to be my longest day of the week in general), so I can shorten my workdays and get back home at a humane hour so he can get started on his homework earlier.

And we haven't reached mid-terms and finals yet.

Eloping is a wonderful option

2011-02-03T00:12:00.002-05:00

I say this with all the love in my heart for my sister-in-law and her fiance. She asked us to be in her wedding, so we could walk down the aisle together like we would have if we'd gone with the traditional fiesta instead of the courthouse jaunt we took on a Friday afternoon, as the fans for a certain major football rivalry rolled into town. It's become a bit challenging for me to make things work and scheduling has become an issue for me personally. The bachelorette weekend is next weekend and I am not sure that I can make the trip, or the best way to get there and back. I could take the mom-bus but it's not exactly fuel efficient. I considered flying but it's cheaper to drive the mom-bus. The cheapest flight is still 2-3 times more expensive than dragging the entire household in the mom-bus. Then there's the issue of 3 tanks of gas. One to get there, one to return, and one to replenish so I can get to work the next week. $3x24= $72/tank of gas. Times 3=$216. I can take a train for half that. The issue then becomes someone picking me up and dropping me off at both ends of the trip. Devildog doesn't want me taking the train because the stations are in crummy neighborhoods. But, if I took the train, I could knit on this sweater that I cast on back in May of last year. And it would be less expensive than driving the mom-bus. And I wouldn't have to uninstall and reinstall the car seat.
I realize this may seem minor to many but for me, the part time employed wife of an unemployed student with four kids - this is a big deal. I would like to get to know these other ladies a bit. I just feel like all my options are less than ideal. It's complicated by my workload that has a specific window to be completed. Reset season is often a bane to my sanity. Even still I love my job. I don't envy my boss.

All of THIS stuff further cements my gratitude that we just eloped and skipped the hassle, not to mention the familial drama. And I think we are better for the simplicity of it. I think having an audience would have detracted from the us of it. Our simple start is all we needed and anything grander would have been wasteful and problematic.

babies and bowling

2011-01-23T02:18:00.004-05:00

The reader's digest version:
We went bowling. It was busy. A little boy was rolling bowling balls. Those bowling balls hit a couple people. I assume he was bored and mama was not watching him, so he was out to entertain himself. After he did that 3 times, I went up to him and told him to stop. I talked to him like I'd talk to my kids. I was stern but polite. His mama got mad at me for talking to her baby. She tried to start something. A very tall guy, the Devildog and someone else squelched it. She left, slinging unoriginal epithets. We ranted then joked about it.

Moral of the story: mind your child in a busy bowling alley or someone else will. And if you don't mind your child and someone else does, shut up about it and do your dang job and be a parent. Your 3 year old is big enough to be learning right from wrong.

or as my sister would say "beechokeeds!"

A little birthday present for myself

2011-01-17T15:12:00.003-05:00

We had to get the guys measured for tuxedos for SIL's wedding. Devildog and I are part of the gang of people at the front of the church in monkey suits and fancy dresses. The Clone is a flower girl. The boys are ushers. I had Devildog drop the girls and me off at DSW while they got measured. Clone was quickly bored because there are no little girl size shoes there. I made my way back to the clearance corner and searched the big-foot sizes to see if something suited my fancy. As usual, most of what I tried on was too narrow in the toes and quickly went back to the racks. Shoe shopping is frustrating, possibly more so than shopping for pants or undergarments. First of all, there aren't enough size 9 and 10 wide width on the market at a price point this mom of 4 is willing to pay. I refuse to sacrifice fit and comfort for cute alone. It has to look good, fit well, and feel comfortable to come home with me. I have mildly high standards when we're talking about my feet - the one place my body relies on to carry me where I have to go. These would normally not even show up on my radar because they're fuschia. But, shopping to replenish my wardrobe this year has prompted me to consider colors and styles I wouldn't have looked at before. I tried them on and they're comfortable little shoes. I am figuring I can wear them with a variety of other things in my closet, so they wouldn't be one outfit wonders. They weren't too narrow in the toes, didn't have 4 inch heels that would make me fall on my face with the first step, and upon further investigation, they had a pretty clearance sticker.
So, here's my question for you - knowing my cheapskate tendencies, how much did I pay for these shoes?
It made for an even happier "Happy Birthday To Me!" moment.

Ham & Potato Soup

2011-01-10T01:53:00.002-05:00

Pardon me for getting all domestic on ya here. But I made a bomb diggity soup for dinner.
I had New Year's ham languishing in the fridge and no sandwiches were created of its carcass. Pieces had been sliced and picked off, and I failed to remember to send a hunk of the pork with the FIL when he went back to the other home he occupies. I also had potatoes that needed to get turned into something other than a counter adornment. I contemplated soup or casserole, and went with soup.

I peeled and cut up the potatoes in a standard quartered & sliced method. the slices were about 3/4 of an inch thick. I cubed up the ham, removing the gristle and fat etc (the gross stuff nobody but the dog would eat). My sister was coming to visit, and I was planning on sending the scraps with her, but forgot. Oops. Anyway, I did use a hunk of fat to be rendered for flavor. I tossed it in the bottom of my favorite stock pot (the one Devildog bought many moons ago for a chili cook-off at work) on low heat to render out the fat. I had the heat too high and ended up frying one side of that chunk of fat. I simply turned down the heat, and poured some water in the pot to deglaze it and lidded it. I stirred around the little bit of water that was left and scraped the brown bits off the bottom that hadn't gotten shocked loose already. I poured more water in the pot, covered it, and turned the heat back up to high. As the water got hot, I turned it back down a bit and dumped in the potatoes and ham. When the potatoes were boiled till fork-tender, I poured off probably half the water. I should've poured off less, but oh well. I then poured in milk, the rest of the sour cream we had in the container, and a block of softened cut up cream cheese. I was determined not to use any canned soup, as the ham had enough salt in it, and quite honestly, I put in zero salt because of that, and it was nearing my salt threshold. Plus those soups really aren't all that great for you. Your mileage may vary. I folded it a lot to get the cream cheese to blend, and potatoes being what they are, they got mushed a bunch too. I ended up scooping out the stuff into a casserole dish, leaving the cream cheese chunks, and debated turning it into a casserole, but I lacked sufficient cheese. Plus my sister said it was fine as soup. So I dumped it back in the pot when I got the cream cheese to play nicely. About this time, I'd already turned on the oven to make a casserole, so I told the kids to check the fridge for biscuits. The oldest produced a thing of French Bread, and I called it good enough. Crusty bread with soup is lovely anyhow. I turned the heat down to low and kept the pot lid on it while the bread baked for 25 minutes. We then went to open belated Christmas gifts (because that's how we roll here). And when the timer beeped, we had bread, and soup, and Oldest decided to make some collard greens - sautee'd not drowned. He leaves his crunchier than I would have, so there was some leftover. I need to add kale and/or spinach to my list, now that I remind myself of this.
I only had to twist my sister's arm once to eat with us. I guess she thought she was taking food from the family's mouths. She has a husband and they have custody of a grandson after his mom died 12 years ago. I have 4 kids, a husband and myself and we're all big eaters. I learned how to cook for an army, and heaven help me as the nest empties and I have to learn to cook smaller again. There was enough for the kids, me, sis, and Devildog later crammed a bunch of it into a container and had some for himself. There's probably 3 portions left, if not more. And the longer it sat, the thicker it got. So it ended up being like a casserole anyway.

So I learned from this concoction that 1/2 a block of cream cheese will do. And that I probably could've left more if not all the water I started cooking with and it would have been fine. Plus with my stove, turning OFF the heat would probably be wiser, as there's plenty of residual heat when you have a thick clad bottom pot, and a ceramic cooktop, combined with the oven below it on 350 to bake dairy case packaged bread. The pot is soaking in the sink now for scraping the bottom later.
The Clone suggested I add this to the "Favorites" - meaning the binder of absolute Full Of Win recipes that are my family's favorite dishes.
And the inspiration for this meal came from a recent issue of a Taste of Home digest Slow Cooker recipe magazine. I was flipping through it at work and came across a potato & ham casserole that sounded good. However, I think I like my ham & potato soup much better. And I concocted it.

Not bad for the daughter of a woman who could screw up a box of macaroni and cheese.

The view across my mug

2011-01-01T23:32:00.000-05:00

This is sometimes my view as I sip coffee from the bench on the front porch.
It was warm today. I was surprised since just a week ago it was most definitely NOT warm. So I took my coffee outside. I thought it was a little ironic of sorts to be 70 degrees by 10 a.m. yet, the tree was definitely dropping leaves.

Last week I was NOT wearing these, even while inside the house. Last week we were shivering with the freezing temperatures, wishing we had carpet instead of cold-retaining tile. Persnickety Ticker told me tile is brutal in the winter. Of course someone should slip Mother Nature some HRT. This menopausal weather is annoying at best.

Mmmm. Coffee. Devildog snagged the cup I used for the first round of coffee when I was away from the kitchen. So this mug is round 2's vessel. It was a housewarming gift, along with 3 others with similar phrasing and different colors. This is my favorite because it's purple.

And this view - would be the bane of many neighborhoods. But here, it's a bit of a welcome view. My FIL is visiting and has his dog Ashley with him. She was rescued from the Ashley River and as I understand things, she rescued him too. A few years ago, he was in a very dark place in his life. Ashley was apparently abused, and is a tender, sensitive & empathetic dog. Mini-Human loves Ashley, even though the dog has limited tolerance and hides after a while. So when this camper is in my driveway, there is dog hair on my floors. And we get to visit with the FIL I knew was there all along. It was hidden for so many years by those dark clouds.

Tis the something

2010-12-02T00:00:00.003-05:00

I have beeen off in la-la land a lot lately. I have zero excuse or explanation. I just don't find myself with the words to compose a blog post easily like I used to do. I'm currently sitting here in the quiet of my house, with a fire in the fireplace dying down to barely a hint of an ember in the back, and a few cracks at random. It's been nice not to have the central heater kick on since the house is insulated better than our old dwelling was.
I keep seeing on Crackbook posts from people about their Christmas decorations going up already. Totally not a grinch here, but if I put it up now, I'll be tired of it in 2 weeks. And I leave my tree up till the Epiphany, so we're talking it's already up a while as it is. Plus I need to get my duff in gear and clear the stuff from in front of the front window for the tree. I just thought about putting it in the family room, because come Christmas morning, if it's cold enough for a fire, I surely do not want to be opening gifts farther away from the warmth of the fireplace than the couch.
So there ya go people. I just talked myself into not sharing my tree with the neighbors. They'll get to see some other lights in the window or something.
Now, if you'll excuse me...there is a load of laundry containing clothes for work that I need to move to the dryer...

Fishes & Loaves

2010-11-26T22:13:00.004-05:00

I hosted Thanksgiving. My brother brought his girlfriend along. I love cooking, and even more so for holiday or special occasions. I have never had a dry bird because I cooked it upside down (self basting, cooks faster since you're not opening the oven and losing heat). This year I followed Leanne Ely's instructions for roasting the bird and making gravy. Visit www.savingdinner.com for the Holiday Meal instructions. Saving Dinner is one of my favorite cookbooks. I think next time, I'll use her method, but I will go back to upside down bird and/or leave it in the oven less time. I also had a large pan of sweet potato casserole. Sis gave me the recipe several years ago, and it ended up being the same recipe Pioneer Woman posted. My brother and I have fond memories of special meals at the neighbor's with her broccoli casserole recipe. My husband required collard greens, and macaroni & cheese. I put the mashed potatoes in the crockpot to keep warm. Note to self: check to make sure the crock pot is set to "warm" and not "high" (which are right next to each other). Everyone commented that it was good stuff. I didn't sleep well because Mini-Human is having issues. So today the pace of cooking a feast and sleep deprivation caught up to me. Thankfully, there are enough leftovers in my fridge that I don't have to cook for a few days. Even after making plates for my dad, brother, and brother's girlfriend, I still have a TON of leftover food. Apparently I can't cook small portions. We're all big eaters, so I make extras without batting an eyelash. I may have to run some more leftovers to my dad. The leftover turkey practically filled a Tupperware Thatsa Bowl Mega Bowl (42 cup capacity). As I packed up the food, the story of the fishes and loaves came to mind.

The ample leftovers mean that I can do some baking. I have grand plans of marvelous theory to bake stuff every year. It might actually happen this year. For now, I'm recovering from the cooking, and hanging out with my family watching Jeff Dunham's Very Special Christmas Special.
And I just remembered...I need to find my advent wreath for the table. I don't know if it will stay on the table since the Little climbs up on the table frequently.

You still love me?

2010-11-24T14:18:00.002-05:00

I've neglected my blog a good while. I see I still have the same number of followers. I'm currently cooking a couple things in preparation for Thanksgiving dinner. As I type, the Broccoli Casserole is in the oven, and the sweet potatoes are on the counter cooling so I can get them out of their skins and turn them into Sweet Potato Casserole. I got the Broccoli Casserole recipe from the neighbor who lived 2 doors down from my childhood home. I'm sure Joann got it from the fine folks at Campbells or something. It specifies using Pepperidge Farms stuffing mix. Nonetheless, I always loved it when we ate a holiday meal at her house. When I got married, moved to Camp Lejune, and came back for a visit, I asked her for the recipe because I wanted it to make for my first Thanksgiving meal that I cooked. I've made it numerous times, and over the years, my kids have decided they don't like it. Devildog has never eaten it except the first try. Oh well, more for me and anyone else who does want it. I may have to run to the store to get more sweet potatoes though. That is one dish that goes fast and gets piled on the plate. My sister gave me the recipe probably 8 or 10 years ago. Then Pioneer Woman posted about her sweet potato casserole that she grew up eating. It's the same recipe my sister gave me. I'll do the regular mashed potatoes tomorrow morning and throw them in the crockpot to keep them warm. I'll probably use my electric skillet to keep stuff warm too, kind of like a chafing dish type thing. I'll likely use my small crockpot (the little dipper sized one) for gravy.
And now I must stop yapping at the keyboard and go make the next casserole. The sweet potatoes have cooled enough to handle. In the time I was waiting for the potatoes to cool and the broccoli concoction to bake, I went in search of my older daughter. I found her in my father-in-law's camper, watching tv. Apparently the tv is better there - because it's Papa's. I have no idea how long he'll be parked in the driveway or if he's going to use an RV park or how long he'll even be here. As he says "Whenever A.I.S. occurs"

Sorry for such a boring blog now...it used to be fun to post, so I'm sure remotely interesting to read. I swear, home ownership has not made me boring. Life just grabbed me by the horns and swung vigorously.

Fire

2010-10-09T00:01:00.002-04:00

I've had too many coals in my fire for many months. I still have a few more than I would like to be keeping there. My t0-do list keeps growing. And it all came to a boiling over on Thursday. Sis came over to sit on the kids so Devildog could work and I could continue working these resets that I was beginning to loathe. I was handed 3 extra to do because someone else decided to shirk that responsibility. And 2 hours later, Devildog was back home.
He got fired for something someone else up the chain of command failed to follow up on, and when it came to the hot seat, that person threw my husband under the bus to save their hide.
I hope they remember the faces they stepped on to get where they are. I hope they are haunted by them. I have my suspicions of what may have happened in the situation. As angry and hurt as we are by this, Devildog is also relieved of the stress of that job. I do find it a tad funny that the manager tried to frustrate Devildog into quitting and still couldn't get him to quit after 10 months of the foolishness. Silly manager - Marines are tough, disciplined, and will work hard. Never underestimate the determination of a Marine. Never underestimate the strength of that Marine, his wife or their kids. What this individual fails to realize is that he did not win. What he did was set in motion a chain of events that any "numbers guy" worth his salt would know is bad. Turnover. It costs more to search for hire and train replacements. In the long run, remember the phrase "it's cheaper to keep her".
I wish this individual luck finding a replacement who can fill some big shoes. My husband's departure stung all the other employees. These are people that asked to transfer to whatever department he was in, because he took care of his people.
He was taught that you take care of your customer, you take care of your people, and in turn they'll take care of you and the job in general. If your customers and employees are not satisfied or happy, they'll both go elsewhere, and badmouth you on the way out the door. I strongly believe that everyone should read It's Your Ship by Michael Abrashoff, and Put Ribbons on Your Pigtails by Barbara Corcoran. These are not just lessons for managers, but for the underlings too because eventually some of them are going to be put in charge of something, and they ought to do it well when they get there. So when you have a Devildog in charge of something, things get done, and done well. Nothing is going to be "unsat".

And in this instance, taking care of his people, has come back around to several others keeping eyes open and ears to the ground to help us find a better opportunity for him. An example from Barbara Corcoran's book cites a situation where a bid was out for something, and the person in charge of securing the bid hired Barbara's company because in a previous job, Barbara was nice to that person. It was a very lucrative contract - all because she was nice to someone several years prior. Michael Abrashoff inherited the worst ship in the Navy, in every possible way. Literally zero retention/reenlistment, failed every inspection and mission. Simple things like waiting his turn for meals instead of taking advantage of "Head of Line" privilege as an officer, garnered respect from his crew, and they became willing to work for him.

So here we sit facing uncertainty, and trying very hard to quiet our inner control-freaks. (at least mine anyway, don't know about his). Apparently, I still needed to learn that whole trust thing, and "Let go and Let God". I have to keep telling myself to get in the wheelbarrow.

Hackles and Chickens

2010-09-28T23:50:00.002-04:00

My grandma Mac was one of many in the family with a 6th sense. My siblings and I have some form of it, and there have been many times it made an appearance in our lives. My dad told me a few times how his mom would say "Something's gonna get to the chickens", and a couple days later, the remnants of a fox's lunch would be discovered.
This past week has been a series of otherwise innocuous events, but when you add them up, something's rotten in Denmark. My hackles are up, and I don't like being one of the chickens either. In the last week, we've had no fewer than THREE different solicitors for alarm companies at our door, wanting our business. Saturday, I saw the electric company technician slow and park next door. He then knocked on the door across the street, and waited for an answer. Lather, rinse, repeat a couple times. Then he went to the hose and it looked like he took a drink from the hose. Odd, and I'm sure against the company policies. I was trying to use my camera zoom to get a truck number in case it was needed. Then in the middle of that, two young guys pull up in a black Ford Focus and the passenger takes a picture of my house. I tried to get a picture of them, but my angle and timing missed their faces and the tag number. Then tonight, the doorbell rings and my oldest child answered the door without looking through the peephole, asking who it was, or just plain old ignoring the door. To top it off, the person asked if the parents were home and my son answered with "no". The urge to smack him (and then some) came to mind.
So all these scenarios keep playing in my head, and these are the kinds of things that I've had playing in my head for many years. One of them involves me telling an intruder to bleed on a non-carpeted floor because I am not trying to replace carpet.
And yes, we've told the children not to answer the door to anyone they don't know. While the new house is in a nicer neighborhood, it's not a secure compound either. It just all makes me suspicious of a lot of people and things and I don't like that feeling.

Grace in unusual places

2010-08-31T11:15:00.003-04:00

I am sitting at my table, with a teething 11 month old close at hand (er...my hind end really) who wants to be on my hip at the same time I need to be working busily to get things done. This would be one example of God telling me to "slow down, it'll get done." The new house is almost completely painted, and what isn't painted can be done later. The master bedroom has been primed and that's the one room left to paint that needs to be done before we move in that room. The carpet in the kids' rooms will be installed Friday. So that leaves me back at the dinky rental to once again focus on getting things done there. I've been so focused at the new house and then when we get back to the rental my brain is in "get kids to bed" mode, that I did not notice that there were lots of messes that weren't here last week. Or if they were, they were contained enough that it didn't assault my senses. So this morning as I waited on my sister to get here to sit on the baby for me so I can work a couple hours, I found myself starting to get cranky and sniping about my family. Then for some reason one of the ladies in the MOMS group I facilitated came to mind. Thinking about MOMS sent my brain to the week we covered finding every day graces - including in your laundry. That Grace is hidden somewhere amid piles of papers for the shredder that got kicked around when the shredder overheated and the task abandoned. It's buried under the clothes and socks my loved ones removed and cast aside where they stopped moving. It's hidden by empty plastic bottles that were set on the side table and knocked over by the rambunctious monkey baby.
I'm just thankful I bit my tongue the other day when my oldest made comments about how he hopes the new house doesn't get messy etc. I just leered at him and waited for him to walk away. There's some grace for you - knowing which brick wall on which you should avoid smashing your head.

painting is work

2010-08-29T00:16:00.004-04:00

I know it's work, but with a baby underfoot, it's an adventure too. We have a lot of painting to do, and it's mostly because I don't want to have to paint after we move into it. I want to get it done and over with and move in and enjoy the house. Sadly I am not an octopus, nor am I Superwoman. Progress is slow, but if it were not for the help of my Father-in-Law, it would be even slower. Teenagers are only so helpful. We (I) want to have a housewarming party before the next round of birthdays at the end of September and beginning of October. After that you've got Devildog and my anniversary, a major rivalry football weekend that takes place here, then Halloween, Thanksgiving, another household rivalry football game, and Christmas, New Year's, and my birthday. So the timing is key. We are excited, our friends are excited for us, and we just want to get this work done so we can live in the house before the baby finishes her doctoral thesis.

Eyeballs and Elbows

2010-08-24T00:57:00.004-04:00

That's where Devildog and I are in debt - albeit secured debt, it's debt nonetheless. We signed our lives away Monday morning.

On this:

And my wrist and hand still hurt from the closing. Then you add the first day of school and the million forms (asking for duplicate info on all of them ::eyeroll::), and I think my hand will fall off before I can start painting the new place.

Eleventh Hour

2010-08-22T23:42:00.002-04:00

I'm notorious for eleventh hour things. But in just under eleven hours, Devildog and I will be signing our lives away on a mortgage for a house. None of those usual "we are buying a house" emotions are striking my chords. There's not a lot of squee. It's more of a "it's about time" feeling.
Right now there's a lot of tension in the house since the two teen boys are a bit at odds at the moment, yes at 11:44 pm. School starts tomorrow. One is going to a different school and displeased about it. The other can't find his ID and is packing things in a box in an attempt to find it. It's not where he left it, and he didn't think to look for it earlier in the day before his brother was trying to sleep. There are a couple slammed doors, a slinging of a trash bag into the yard, and I'm sure words exchanged. I'm trying to stay out of it, but I also need to keep them from waking their sister in the next room, or Devildog at the other end of the house. Add to this, the baby has now been kick-started and wound back up with the excitement, at a point when I am usually laying her in the bed for the night. Those two polar-opposite boys are long overdue for their own rooms. Now that they're almost grown, we're finally getting a house with separate rooms for them. Talk about an eleventh hour move right?

Ugh. It's all I have to say on the subject at this point. I'm tired but unable to go to sleep. Tomorrow should be interesting.

Greetings and Gallon

2010-08-20T13:58:00.005-04:00

Today is the last weekday before school starts. Clone and I went to greet her teacher who "ramped up" with my daughter this year. Last year there were 2 teachers, then they ramped up, taking half the class with each of them. This eliminates the get-to-know-you stuff going on the first couple weeks, and the teachers can jump right into teaching because they know most everyone's learning style. Everyone was excited to see each other and Clone was met with some quizzical looks of "I know you somehow". She cut her hair off a couple weeks ago when she was in Charleston with the relatives, so she looks rather different from the last day of school. From there, I went to the blood bank to donate blood, but had to go back home because I forgot my ID. Mind you, I forgot it 2 days ago, and it was in THAT pair of shorts, not the ones I wore yesterday. Back again, those vampires were happy to see me. Why? Because I'm the universal donor.

However, not only did I come away with a snack and a soda, but I got a nifty flower made out of the bandage material. I've not encountered this particular guy at the blood bank before. But one of the other girls that works there is in treatment for breast cancer, working with exposed peach fuzz and all, determined that she was going to get up and live her life, because sitting around the house watching traffic gets old quickly. She said she normally wears a scarf, but it's just been too dang HOTTTT for that. You could fry some chicken on the sidewalk around here, forget just the egg.

Since we're moving, I may not be visiting that location for the vampires to get me. Sis tells me the location out at the beach is closer to the new house. I didn't have the heart to tell them. I also know the staff rotate locations, so it's entirely possible we'll see each other at the other donor center. AND, to top it all off, today was a bit of a milestone for me too. I donated what amounted to the top of my first gallon of blood!

So, I got a license plate with a 1 gallon sticker.I'm not sure where it's getting installed, or if it will be indoors or on the mom-bus.

Sunny Beaudelaire

2010-08-16T23:30:00.003-04:00

She's a character in the Lemony Snicket movie. The baby sister, who my own baby daughter resembles in some ways. Mini-Human is teething at a constant daily rate and has bouts of misery every. single. day. She occasionally chews on the furniture too. Tonight, she climbed up in the chair next to where I sit at the table, and as she stood in that chair, began to chew on the back of mine. It looked a bit like Kilroy, but it makes me shudder a bit. I would not be surprised to enter the room and find my MiniHuman hanging from the table like Sunny Beaudelaire, leaving teeth marks in the wood, babbling incoherently.

Dead Roses

2010-08-14T12:42:00.003-04:00

I am sitting here, trying to process some things, so bear with me a moment or few. I've been in this small 1100 square foot house for a little more than 6 years. We've grown to have a love/hate relationship with this house. There is always new hope in moving to a new place, and dread of schlepping your worldly belongings somewhere. Today's adventures took me to the laundry room, which equates to the "dungeon" of this house. It serves as a closet of sorts for Devildog and me, because our bedroom has no closet. It serves as extra storage for the stuff most people house in their garage. Well technically it IS the garage, except it's been enclosed and we now sleep in part of it. Anyway, I came across some roses from my mom's funeral, that had been wrapped in newspaper. I know I need to part with them. They're dead flowers. Dead flowers carry negative chi, according to the tenets of feng shui. Dead flowers kill a mood too. I was in what I call 'mission mode' pecking away at sorting through things on the shelf over the machines when I found them. I knew they were up there, but ignored them.

As I unwrapped them, with the intention of rewrapping them for some reason, I looked at them and knew I had to release them. They're dead flowers for pete's sake. They serve no purpose for me, they don't make me smile, they have no home here or will they in the new house. No problem right? Well for some reason I started getting emotional over some dead roses from my mother's funeral. Five year old dead flowers wrapped in newspaper shouldn't strum heartstrings. But they did just that to me. I looked at them a minute, and then took them outside and laid them under the loquat tree by the road. I couldn't just throw them in the trash, and we don't have a yard waste bin since the trash guys took our other garbage can (if they didn't leave it in the road it wouldn't get hit by cars). It was a logical step for me.

Except, doing that just did not feel right. I keep thinking I should take them to the new house and set them under a tree there. It keeps feeling like I'm leaving part of my mother at a house where I have no roots, nor ever intended to plant roots. And it just feels wrong. I sat down here and started blathering about it in my cleaning chat room (yes, question me later on that one), and in an IM to another person.

Then I had a bit of a revelation. When Mom died, she did not want Dad in the room with her. After 35 years together, you know a person, and Mom knew Dad would not handle watching her die very well, despite his iron-stomached stint at Walter Reed as an orderly tending the sickest of sick. She figured there would be the puddle of Dad goo that we would have to clean up and take home to the house they shared in all that. But it felt so very wrong for me to leave my mother alone, septic, smelling of horrid infection that is the "smell of death", but still present enough to know Dad was out of the room and actually try to leave before he and my brother got back. As soon as he returned, she perked back up. I think if they'd stayed downstairs five more minutes she would have accomplished her mission to leave without him there to see it. In my gut I knew I should stay, but I was driving Dad home. I could have sent him with my sister, but didn't. When I got home, I sat down and the phone rang. I knew it was the hospital calling. "Your mother has expired. I'm sorry for your loss." Perfunctory but polite. I asked what time she died. "11:16." She knew when Dad was safely at home again and held out long enough till she let go. They both were "home" at the same time, one last time.

Somehow I equated leaving those flowers from my mother's funeral to leaving my mother. Logically I know those flowers are not my mother. It still feels so very wrong to leave those dead roses by the tree at the roadside, like I felt it was wrong to leave her in the hospital alone to die. So, I've decided to take them to the new house and leave them by a tree there. I ultimately will release them, but it won't feel like I'm abandoning them - or my mother by the side of the road here.

Updates and progress

2010-08-12T18:45:00.002-04:00

Well here we sit, still in the rental, but the loan package is knocking on the door to the underwriter's desk. I need to get some things together and sent to the lender (preferably before it gets in the underwriter's hands so it will expedite things), and lack the energy and MoJo right now. I should be doing some form of packing, cleaning and decluttering. I'm blogging instead. If things move along, we could close on the house next week. The little 5x10 storage unit I got to stash things temporarily is filled - and not as much of stuff I intended to store in there, but things that were given to us for the new place. Blessings nonetheless and I'm just going to smile and keep going. We could feasibly be able to move out of the storage unit before the end of the month, and put that money elsewhere.
I told the landlord we are moving, and actually advised them back in July when we put in an offer. They'll need to budget for carrying costs and repairs from 6 years of us living here. It's not rode hard and put up wet, but it's not pretty either. My goal is to clean and paint the new place, and correct a couple things ("amateur workmanship" as the inspector called it) the first week, move the next week, and then once we're in the new house, come back here and help get this placed squared away so the landlords can rent it back out as soon as possible.
I'm tossing a bunch, but could still stand to toss more. I've offered stuff on freecycle, and there's going to be a big bunch going to the thrift shop.
And then there's the whole school starting in a week and and a couple days and I have not really done any supply shopping. We're going to need notebook paper for sure. Three kids (two in high school) use a lot of it. I think I have the other basics covered so if nothing else, they won't show up empty-handed come first day of school.
Ever have a day where you feel like you've made no progress, even though you probably have?

Progress on several fronts

2010-08-05T18:28:00.002-04:00

Well it's been like a month since my last blog, mostly because I feel like I'm chasing my head as it rolls down my street.
In any case, we put in an offer on the 2nd, we got word the sellers' bank approved the short sale contract on the 23rd - the day we started our vacation. Devildog's friend called the next day saying "hey, I'm moving to Denver, come tell me bye". Devildog said "dude we're in Charleston visiting family", asked when friend was leaving, and then hung up to talk to me about our departure date. We cut the trip short by 2 days, the first day so Devildog could visit the friend before they left, the 2nd day was just so we'd have some quiet at home before kicking back into gear at work. I did get some packing done last week, but not as much as I wanted to do. I got some packing done this week, but not as much as I wanted to do. Last week, we did the inspection on the house and the VA appraiser was there. We are still waiting on the appraiser's report to go to our lender. I've been keeping everything in a binder and each set of paperwork has its own sheet protector. This makes fast turn-around from me to the lender and realtor and closing attorneys. Plus if Devildog needs information, it's all right there. He can answer a question just as easily. In terms of VA loans and short sales (individually, much less combined), this transaction is progressing at an amazing rate of speed. However, at this very moment, we are currently awaiting the appraiser's report before we can proceed to getting in line at the underwriter's desk. The lender sent us the other documents a little early because we are confident the appraisal is on par with the asking price. I decided to get a storage unit temporarily so we could make some elbow room in this house while we wait on the new one. As I type, there is a stack waiting by the door to get loaded in the mom-bus and taken over there.

The older 3 kids are still on vacation. The boys are hanging with Father in Law, Sister in Law and future Brother in Law. The Clone is at camp. The pictures they post online show some very happy girls enjoying themselves immensely. Next week the two boys have orientation at their respective schools. We are hoping to be closed on the new house by the time school starts so we can just fill out forms once with the new address and not have to redo them after the move. Plus, 8 miles difference means a different high school for at least one of them. If Beast doesn't get his summer credit recovery work done with a quickness, he can not return to the magnet school, and has to go to the neighborhood school.

Mini-Human is up and running (literally), climbing and eating most everything you put in front of her. There's the language development, and stuff like patty-cake, waving, and other means of communicating - mostly shrieks and grunts and other caveman noises. She does make sounds resembling words like "up", what sounds like a deaf person saying pattycake, pattycake etc.

Me? I'm trying to cull as much as I possibly can before schlepping it to a new place. I keep reminding myself that the clutter costs $1 per pound to move it. I've tossed a LOT already and I could certainly stand to cull a LOT more. I keep thinking about the people on Clean House being asked to put something in a yard sale, and seeing a co-host sidebar saying "well if she isn't going to part with X, then I'm not going to give her Y in the redo" or "If she's not going to part with the entire collection of A, then I'll be forced to include it in the redesign and it simply won't be as nice as it could be". I am having a difficult time wrapping my brain around that concept. I somehow have difficulty releasing the clutter into the wild. I strongly suspect it's that side effect of being raised by a parent raised during the 30s and the Depression. While my cheapskate tendencies come in handy plenty of times, I need to trust the process and know that it will be ok if I don't have half the stuff I currently possess. Talking it, typing it, and reading it do not always translate into automatically accepting it. I kept thinking about the prime example: pre-baby clothes. I still kept a lot of them because I have myself somewhat convinced that I will be able to wear them again. I have told myself that if I don't fit into them next summer, they have to leave my house. In addition, the size I was before had fewer options for me because the manufacturers figure females that size apparently have no curves.
Now if you'll pardon me, a little person is at my feet demanding my attention, and boxes at the door await transport. I'd so rather be shopping for a bridesmaid dress at the moment.

Unexpected findings

2010-07-08T16:54:00.006-04:00

We looked at a bunch of houses a couple weeks ago. We'd planned on looking for 2 days in a row, but the 2nd day, something came up. There was a round of bad moods, with a long conversation. I was going to resume the search with the rest of the list I forwarded to the realtor. Then a phone call with a question was met with "Let's just put in an offer on the house on B. Lane"
::blink blink:: "wha? .... ok" So we did that Friday. Given the circumstances we expected the sellers to accept our offer. We picked up our copies of the sale contract today. We are waiting on approval from the sellers' lender for the short sale.
I was not expect to find something in the neighborhood we found. We're cautiously optimistic. I've gone from praying to find the right house to praying that we can pay the bills and keep up the house if the bank approves the deal.
We apparently liked the place, because we were there looking around for like an hour, and the realtor was able to talk at length with his son, and take about 10 other calls. I talked to the next door neighbor who happened to be outside, and asked about the house. She seemed nice enough and said most of the kids in the vicinity grew up and it was a lot of older folks and empty nesters or people with early adulthood kids still at home. Lord, just don't let us be the bane of the neighborhood with 4 busy (aka loud) kids, and the Devildog with his friends.

I'd hoped to not tell the kids till after we got the contract back, but Devildog told them about it already, so we're getting a lot of questions about the new place.
Who's sharing a room?
Can we get a cat? (no pets, I just don't want any animals, regardless of "whose" it is etc)
What school is it assigned? (Oldest, b/c the other 2 are in magnet programs)
What is near it? (Publix, McDonald's, and named off several friends nearby, the PAL, the Fort, it's a quick ride to the beach via the WW, and my sister is moving out across from the state park at the beach, so she'll be nearby too.)
Can I use Aunt C's addy to go to the other high school out there? (::shrug:: that depends on a couple other factors, as well as the aunt and roomies' permission.) I think that school may have German, which would alleviate the need for him to take 2 years of a foreign language, instead of the 2nd year of German. I think. This other issue has to be addressed and he has to comply with all rules otherwise it's not gonna work or happen. I think he's attempting to do things different, but I remain cautious to my expectations and his delivery.
Who knows, maybe an extra 900 square feet with some elbow room and less chaos/clutter will help his mindset. It will likely help mine. Living 6 people deep in a dinky 1100 square foot hovel as I've come to call this place, makes everyone in it a little cranky for lack of turning space.
Again, the phrase "cautious optimism" is the prevailing theme on many fronts. We'll see how it goes, however long it goes for waiting on the bank approval. I was fully not expecting to find something this early in July. I was expecting that I'd have my paper clutter sorted and disposed of before we found a house. Which reminds me, I need to finish that bin of stash-n-dash paper, and my goal is to be done by the week's end. Oh and in that bin, I found my power of attorney paperwork...go figure.

This is what I have left to do:

And this is the stuff pulled from that bin that needs to get filed.

Burdens & Birthdays

2010-07-07T18:41:00.006-04:00

Today is my 17th BirthING Day. He's survived this long without me killing him, and that alone is a miracle. He's literally half my age, and acts it. We'll see if he survives to age 18. He's made some unwise choices, and carries a lot of perfectionism. If he can't do it right, he just rather assume to not bother. It's causing him problems. It no longer causes me problems so much as him, because I no longer assume responsibility for his choices. Besides he's long become outside the influence of his parents. We're just a couple hard-nosed old people who know nothing. So we left him to his decisions and the accompanying consequences. In turn, he no longer gets anything beyond basic food and shelter from us. It wouldn't surprise me if he has characterized us in an unpleasant manner, but I actually expect that. I figure eventually he'll own his choices and behave accordingly. Till then, I just follow St. Monica's example.

This morning was also the recommittal of my mother's remains in a new resting place. The ground for a new National Cemetery had not yet been broken when Mom left Dad behind. The next closest National Cemetery with space available in 2005 was down in Bushnell - quite the drive from where we are. With the promise of moving her as soon as we could, that's where Mom went. Finally in 2007, the new one opened and Dad was antsy every day, trying to save as much money as he could to get Mom moved. We couldn't just get a moving van and bring Mom to the new place, it had to be done by a funeral home. The exhumation and reburial was at no cost to Dad, but transport was. For his 83rd birthday, my oldest sister got the paperwork going and helped Dad get it done. So today, 2 weeks later, and on my son's birthday, Mom was reburied in the cemetery closer to home. Dad can finally relax and stop fretting about it, worried that he would leave us burdened with moving her.

We met Eileen, one of the volunteer auxilliary women who attend each burial, as a silent witness so no one is ever buried alone. My mother's reburial was not unlike her deathbed and funeral - a mix of every thing we are. Lots of bantering, some ribbing and some solemn moments. I'm sure Eileen did not expect us to be, well..., US. In her beautiful line of work, she sees those left here, suffering in their darkest of days, and probably rarely gets a family that has ample levity to share. We all met at the main building and drove my sister's car to the grave, and I left my camera in the mom-bus. I did have my phone with me though. It's very interesting to see how they do such a job. As they filled in the grave, tamping the dirt, my brother said something about tossing a box of Imitrex in there with her. I had to ask him to explain. He said that she had headaches all the time and was always taking Imitrex, and here they are pounding on her head with a tamper.

Dad didn't fall apart as much as we expected that he would. I think he's just relieved that he has mom closer to home. When we met members of the staff there or the guy from the funeral home, Dad kept referring to us as "her children" like he had no part in creating or raising us. I beg to differ, as I find myself repeating stuff my Dad used to say all the time. He is the reason we all have a sense of humor in the first place. I am thankful that for his birthday a couple weeks ago, the beginning of an unburdening began for him.

To market, To market

2010-06-27T01:56:00.003-04:00

That's the song I'm singing to the house I know Divine Intervention is sending our way. The houses I am looking at in our budget and neighborhoods we're willing to live in are not jumping out and biting me. It's a bit annoying because I would like to find something soon. Of course I'm not seeing it because a) it's not there, not being on the market yet, b) this current house is not ready enough to vacate, nor have I decluttered enough (doesn't look like I did anything at all, because essentially I haven't), and c) I'm known for 11th hour everything. I was even born at 10:28 pm. My best papers in high school and the little bit of college classes that I took ages ago were written at 1 in the morning. I guess it's part of my wiring.

I'm being patient. I don't have much choice really since work is busy right now. I have a feeling work will be busy for a while. The boss asked me to cover some recently vacated stores, adding to my 12 store list, making it 13 on my assignment list, plus another 5 to fill in till a replacement is hired. Then Clone is going to camp next month. I think I have a slow week next week, because this week is already jam full. I think that's when I'll be able to squeeze in the Mini-Human's 9 month checkup and a camp physical for the Clone.

Yet, I'm up beyond the 11th hour, blogging. In my defense that's only because the Mini-Human was up till 2. You read that correctly. UP. TILL. 2. She fights sleep like a trooper, and I need some time to decompress. Unfortunately for my knitting, I can't pay attention enough to knit at this hour. That sweater pattern requires note-taking and attention. That's not possible when I'm not brain-cooperative.
But wait! There's more! For the low low... oh wait, wrong market. No I'm just tired and feeling overwhelmed by a lot of things. My shoulders reside in my ears almost permanently and my back dislikes me often enough. Anything more that I say on it, would be whining, and per FLYLady, I'm not allowed to do that. So I'm going to just crawl in my bed.

A new house needs a few things

2010-06-14T15:25:00.004-04:00

You may recall me saying we are restarting our home search. The timing is stellar, since work is gearing up for resets too. Devildog works a crazy shift schedule that makes it inconducive for anything. So I am feeling very overwhelmed by all this, even before it starts full swing. I'm wired to be that way. Right now I am working on 15 minute blocks, and this one consists of feeding the baby while I blog. She's almost asleep and I think my timer's about to buzz anyway. I need this kind of structure today, as I'm working myself up over all of this work around me and that's just foolish. But I am dreaming too. I'm mentally thinking of the stuff I simply want for the new house, not even the needs. Among them for anyplace we live is a Kitchenaid mixer. I've tried to win one from The Pioneer Woman several times. My chances are slim because she has so many readers. The author of one of my favorite cookbooks is giving away a red one. While you're there check out what else is Saving Dinner and how you can save yours. Some of my favorites to cook come out of Leanne Ely's recipes. I have found a few things that I now love that I wouldn't have thought to eat before. Kale is one of them. Food can be an adventure, and on a smaller scale and budget then this adventure we're on right now with buying a house.

Now if you'll pardon me, my timer buzzed a few minutes ago. The baby is now out of my arms, and the rest of my list beckons. I'd still just much rather knit though.

Sit down, Mommy's tired

2010-06-12T23:24:00.000-04:00

Well we've hit more milestones. There are 2 bottom teeth. If she is going to escape, I'd rather she do it safely. So I taught her how to climb off things feet first. She will now also arch back when she's on my hip to indicate she wants down, and NOW. She's been standing on her own for a couple weeks, and I knew it was inevitable - and soon. It's now. The mini-human is walking. She and her 3 older siblings all were early walkers, Beast started at the end of 7 mos, Oldest and Mini-Human 8 mos and Clone was my "late" walker at 9 mos. With each of them, everyone was amazed that they walked so early.
She loves being outside. The other day Beast & his friend went outside to play with the basketball, and Clone was immediately out the door with them. Mini-Human was near the door and the last one out didn't make sure the storm door latched. I was knitting and counting stitches and heard no noise, then a click. I called her name and got no answer. I grabbed my camera and went to the door because in my gut I knew she was up to something. Sure enough she was on the doorstep reaching for the dirt and leaves just beyond the concrete. The next day I was outside and opened the door for her. She demonstrated how she got out the door, hanging on to the door and the frame till she could get off the first 3 inch step, then plopped to her bottom and crawled away from the door. Here we go again....

Doing a "Dora dance"

2010-06-11T22:34:00.005-04:00

I just got done replacing the fill valve (aka float valve) on the toilet. It's been running for ages and I've told Devildog it needs to be fixed. I changed out the flapper and that helped but moons later it started running a lot again. Well this past week I've noticed a lot of running water sound in there and lifted the tank lid this morning to find the water running straight into the overflow drain. I lifted on the float part and it didn't shut off the water, so I turned off the supply and wrote a note on the mirror in dry erase marker. It asked my crew to please turn off the water supply to the toilet. In my travels today I stopped to get the fill valve that Devildog forgot to bring home from work. I was unwilling to wait for him to do it, risk him forgetting again, plus I knew I had enough skill to master that.
It would have been much much much faster if the baby was asleep or just not in my unsunny regions. Eventually I did get it done. It's one less thing Devildog has to do, and one more thing I now CAN do.

Restarting an adventure

2010-06-03T21:07:00.002-04:00

I had a blog post all typed up and damn if Blogger didn't eat it.

Reader's Digest: We got a preapproval for a mortgage again. We're now looking for a house. There's a debate between a 3 bedroom or a 4 bedroom. We have 4 children and the age differences between the younger 3 spans enough that a 4 bedroom is merited. The Devildog thinks we can handle living in a 3 bedroom. I know the limits of my sanity, and Devildog forgets those limits.

We'll see what the market has available for us and I'll get back to you.

keep trying baby

2010-05-31T11:15:00.006-04:00

I was looking through post titles, and found the one about the baby getting mobile back in January. Then 4 months later she's started another level of mobility. She's not walking on her own yet, but she's been thinking about it, and attempting it. She takes half a step and loses her balance. She's been rising to stand by herself without having to pull up on something else for support for a week or so. It's kind of interesting to watch her and you can just see the gears turning as she attempts these new developments. She keeps getting back up and trying again till something shiny distracts her for a minute. I keep hearing Dori in Finding Nemo, except it relates to my baby walking, not fish swimming the deep blue sea trying to find a lost offspring.
However, I'm also in a deep dark sea trying to find a lost offspring in my oldest son. But it's at that point in a parent's and a child's life when the parent can not convince the child of anything on a map being correct, so that child must swim the ocean and hopefully win against the currents and riptides. I think I may be in the territory that is familiar to St. Monica with regards to her son St. Augustine.
To say the least it's a bit stressful, and I've got so much going on that my ability to sit down and knit on that sweater I started is limited. Sadly even my mundane project I can work in the dark is needing repairs before I can proceed with it. I'm bound by the activities and naptimes of a certain little person who sees fit to only sleep in short spurts of time resembling a joke for a nap. I wear my shoulders in my ears more often than I should, and that is also compounded by a co-sleeping-to-nurse-baby-at-night-and-get-some-sleep-too arrangement. The chiropractor asked me how long we planned to nurse. My answer "as long as it takes, I have no idea" was not enthusiastically received, but the chiro is there to realign me and his concern is that I keep UNaligning myself. Prime example is right now as I type, I'm sitting with my legs crossed (hello vericose veins!) leaning back on my tailbone that was broken 9 years ago, with said baby on my chest - asleep for a power nap. Nevermind, she just squirmed and fussed till I put her tummy down on my lap...not that it's much better. I can't reach my knitting. And my coffee needs to be warmed.
And also as I type this my birthday girl is now awake after fighting sleep to stay up till midnight of her birthday. I got "first wishes" as the new tradition in my family goes. It's a little contest we all have to see who gets to wish the birthday person a Happy Birthday first, as in - stroke of midnight 12:00:00 birthday wishes. And now that the baby is up (5 mins later, I tell you it's a power nap for this girl. She fights sleep!), I can go warm up my own coffee since the older spawn haven't gotten that for me.
I have no idea what we're doing this Memorial Day/Clone birthday. I did make California Caviar and a tomato-cucumber salad just in case we do something. Now that I have replenished the mayo supply, I can also make potato salad among other things. Devildog was trying to get something thrown together with a friend. Any excuse to hang with a long missed friend right? We did take Clone to see the new Shrek movie in 3D with a friend yesterday. The girls absolutely loved it, as did we. The baby was a little restless and fussy, but we timed it around Devildog's work schedule, which happened to coincide with Mini-Human's naptime. It's a good story line, and I enjoyed the movie. I don't go to movies often, and I definitely didn't feel like it was a waste of money. I forsee buying this when it comes out on DVD. At least that way, I can pause the show when someone gets fussy.

And I read this before posting, wow what ADOS I have. It's probably due to interrupted insufficient sleep, lack of adequate coffee this morning, and my shoulders trying to get to my ears out of habit. I think I'll go make a french toast brunch for the Clone. I bought a loaf of Texas toast bread just for the occasion.

Blue Sleeves, a beginning

2010-05-28T00:24:00.004-04:00

You can't tell because the stitches make it roll, but there's about 2 inches of knitting. And I'm on row 8, of sleeve #2. I'm doing two at a time. The general premise is that if I screw up, at least I'd be consistent, and the sleeves should come out to be the same length.

The yarn is smooshy and nuzzle-worthy. The needles are sharp and just zippy enough with some grip. I may be a convert to wooden needles now. Ah, how I would absolutely love to go shopping on the KnitPicks website again soon.
I may need to wait so that I can get the FLYLady Calendar before school starts in August.

Sorry for not being more talkative.

An attempt at DE-stressing

2010-05-24T23:36:00.002-04:00

I realized earlier this week that I have not been knitting in ...um, well a while because I think it was the last midnight knit in at my LYS (local yarn shop) that I attended. And even then, because Mini-Human was demanding much of my attention, and I was distracted untangling someone's yarn for them, and talking to Persnickety, and tending the baby, and deciding on a sweater pattern (AGAIN, after someone sold the yarn I was going to buy from them to make a different pattern that others went through some effort to get me), and playing with the yarn winder (want one of those for as many times I frog projects), and stuffing my face - I didn't really do any knitting. Well since knitting helps me alleviate stress, my lack of knitting may be contributing to it since I'm not doing anything to unstress myself. I was bored with the 3 mundane projects already started. I was waiting to cast on the sweater till I got my KnitPicks interchangeables. I have a set of Boye interchangeables and decided that since I like knitting and enjoy it more than crocheting, I was going to invest in a nicer set of interchangeables. I used part of the tax return to indulge my craft with good tools. It was time to start that sweater.
So, I stopped at the yarn shop Friday so a friend could meet the yarny folks after I gave her a preliminary lesson of a knit-on cast on. Once there, she decided a private lesson would be wise. I also took Clone who didn't knit anything and Mini-Human who got a hold of 3 balls of Cascade that I quickly saved from her fast fingers, and wound two skeins of my sweater yarn into nice flat cakes so I could do two sleeves at once on my new tools. I was spending so much time rewinding yarn, I once again, knit nothing.
Mini-Human is changing her sleep pattern, and I'm hoping to get longer snippets of time to knit again. Last night I swatched, this afternoon I cast on.
Let me just say that simply swatching for this sweater and the initial casting on for sleeves has been enjoyable, and so far I'm really liking my KnitPicks Harmonies. Plus they're pretty. And the cable is flexible. I'm trying to get my brain to wrap around this 2 at a time idea but it's fighting with me. I can't find my stitch markers so I can designate a color to each sleeve and keep track on paper. Not only am I moving on from squares and rectangles and into a sweater, but I'm modifying the pattern. This requires math, and me to write down what I am doing with each row and sleeve. I did say I was ATTEMPTING to de-stress. I pray this sweater does not add to it.

Busy, Noisy Baby.

2010-05-20T00:26:00.007-04:00

I know it's been a month since my last post. It's been crazy, head-rolling-down-the-street busy.

The mini-human shrieks, growls, grunts, crawls, pulls up, lets go,and stands for a few seconds on her own. And like her mother, SHE EATS. She's still a mama-milk monkey, but holy mackerel, don't let her see you moving food to your face. She wants it. I got the kids a barrel of pretzel snaps (the square grids) last week and while it's almost gone already, MiniHuman has had her share of them. As my kids are, someone dropped one and missed that fact. The baby being mobile, jumped on the opportunity. I was in another room, so I missed the whole episode. I returned to the room to find the baby leering at her sister as Clone was eating pretzels. I picked up the baby and told her the pretzels were not hers, but she could have some puffs. It's a Gerber Graduate puffed grain snacky treat thing that makes many babies squee. Mine just wants to eat. In any case when I picked her up, I asked why she smelled like pretzels. Clone said "oh. I gave her one" ::facepalm:: I guess it's good these are not overly salted like a lot of others I've acquired. I told the kids she can't have them because of the salt. Nobody listens to me. Nor do they pick up after themselves. She still manages to get pretzels.
Well tonight was no exception. She was shrieking at me - either to be fed or her pants were full. She goes from zero to sixty quickly and it all sounds alike. She had been whacking stuff behind me on the floor and she was there a while. I smelled something foul and assumed it was cleanup time. I soon discovered that she had sounded an alarm, but there was no content to match. I did find this when I went to change her though.
I don't ask. After the first one, you figure those buggers will manage to get almost anything in their diapers by the sheer fact that there's just enough gap and they've got the dropsies at the correct angle. Given the not so soft edges, I guess I'd be complaining too.

moving onward and upward

2010-04-21T00:35:00.003-04:00

Well it's been a busy couple weeks since my last post. I'm feeling in over my head on a lot of things. I am feeling like a failure on many fronts. I'm not sure what crawled up a few unsunny places but it needs to find its way to the septic tank or sewer lines. I am not naming names, pointing fingers or giving examples. It's multi-faceted and multi-pronged. No one thing is stirring my pot, but sure as the night sky is dark, the devil's making me use my broom. A LOT.

My stinkin' thinkin' is not helping the situation. I've taken to saying "urg" in place of some choice words, or something directed at an individual.

But the bright spots in my days include those times when my oldest isn't being a jerk, and actually being cooperative and reasonable. He's more often surly than not, and has a completely different way of thinking than I have. He's a sweet child, with incredible brains. We're not seeing eye to eye with some of his choices. It's when Beast takes the baby to play with her, just because, or more impressively when I'm at my wits end with her (and she with me). It's when Clone comes up and hugs me, and writes stories with accompanying pictures. It's when she asks to read stories to her little sister, even though her sister can't sit still long enough for me to change her diaper, much less hear a story. It's this little baby who I argued with God that it was perimenopause and that He was not entrusting another child to my care, because look at what we did with the first one - eesh. She's exploring her world, and we're learning to communicate in our own way. Let me just say, she's very vocal - and it's more apt to say that she's training me to recognize her language. She's been pulling up on things, and has occasionally let go for a second before plopping on the floor. More recently, she's using more leg power than arms to get upright. This week, she's making the next move towards cruising. She's occasionally transferring from one place to a place next to it without sitting down first. She's doing well with food - and prefers what WE are eating, not the stuff in jars. She goes nuts trying to get our food. We're working on pincer grasp, waving, drinking from a cup, and answering to her name. She gets baby puffs to snack on, a sippy cup of very diluted juice to learn how to drink from it, and she's doing well with both. Her laugh is infectious, and her smile gives me a 'mommy melt'. My favorite is the squinty-eyed, wide-mouth belly laugh. It's even better if she's kicking her legs. To laugh with full abandon is an awesome gift. I love that she can incite laughter from each of the older 3 kids with her cuteness.

Oldest was going around tonight naming colors in Spanish - a language he dislikes to the point he took German when he was in SC. I was a tad puzzled by this, but we live in Florida, so if he learns multiple languages - go for it. However, Mini-Human was looking at her big brother like "dude what the heck are you doing?" I suspect she's going to perfect this look and use it on her siblings for years to come. It will most likely be well deserved.

Easter - come and gone

2010-04-04T23:54:00.003-04:00

I went to Mass as usual. I hope you're in a chair. Oldest voluntarily came with us. No lightening struck him as he entered either. Lots of my friends were genuinely surprised and happy to see him. As usual the baby got passed back and forth. My friend MS usually ends up holding the baby. Today Mini-Human was also with Oldest and his friend that accompanied us. The lady behind them asked if it was their baby. She was obviously a visitor or she attends a different Mass time. It seems that almost everyone knows who my baby is. Anyway, MS takes Mini-Human up to Communion with her, and today ended up walking all the way back around after Communion because the other end of our pew was full of people who didn't go up to receive Communion. Beast is an usher, and was last in line. He nabbed Mini-Human from MS, and finished his "route", with his baby sister tucked into the crook of his arm. I could hear "aww" in whispered waves as he walked past the pews. Then he took her with him to the back of the church and the other female ushers were gushing over the baby.

We then went to the store for a few things and I came home and started the side dishes. The ham was in the crockpot. I <3 my crockpot, and I don't use it enough - even though I have 3 of differing sizes.
I decided that instead of making the Dr Pepper ham recipe I got from an old board buddy a few years ago, I would try this one instead. I was lacking the brown sugar, but it was good nonetheless. It would definitely be better with the brown sugar. Devildog requested black eye peas, cornbread and pan roasted potatoes. Nah, he's not a starch-lovin' kind of guy at all.
As a last minute addition while I was in the store today, I decided to get a couple cucumbers and tomatoes. My friend BL made this cucumber-tomato salad last week for her dinner the day she "borrowed" the Mini-Human. I got the recipe from her and there might be half a cup of it left in my fridge now. I'm sure Oldest will finish it in the next 18 hours.
We dyed eggs using food coloring, and I much prefer that method to the tablet kits. I already have the very handy & versatile food coloring, and I only need about 5 or 6 colors. It appears that my crew prefers blue and green with a little pink and orange for variety. Clone broke out her white crayon for drawing pictures on the eggs. Just a tip...if you want to over-dye something, wait for the blue to dry first before you dunk it in the yellow. The yellow doesn't recover from being assaulted by the blue.
The kids' Easter baskets were not what I would have liked, but they were better than they could have been. Mini-Human's had a book and a bath duck. The older 3 got the bunny, some jelly beans, gum, Reese's, Twizzlers, trail mix and lollipops. The boys got travel hygiene kits and the Clone got a set of headbands. She wasn't happy with that. I told her not to be ungrateful. She thinks she's a big kid, and expects that when the boys get grown-up things, she should too. Mom & Dad's basket had new coffee cups with intact handles and free of chips on the rim. She would have been happy with a new coffee cup too I think.

Like this Easter, having come and gone, so move my children too.

Milestones

2010-03-25T23:19:00.005-04:00

Clone is just a tad more than a month away from receiving First Communion. This special occasion calls for a white dress, white shoes, and white veil. A couple friends offered to loan me their daughters' dresses. I would have done that if I couldn't swing the money for it. Thankfully I was thinking ahead and started looking early. We have the requisite white dress. It's a lightweight, slightly adorned number with a layered skirt. She needs a veil too, and I decided that I can make one a lot cheaper than buying one. It could just as easily get more expensive though too. However the least expensive I've seen is $10 for just the veil - no means to affix it to her head. The clips, headbands, combs & crowns add up. For some reason the price triples because it's "bridal" supplies. She wants 2 layers (so she can pull one layer over her face - she watches too much "Say Yes to the Dress"), a tiara, and a decorative edging. We scoped out some trim today. We found one trim that is adorned with something similar to what's on the dress. I will also look in a couple other places to see if there is anything else that strikes our fancy. I'm not overly fond of the tiara idea, but I did see a hair comb with a small tiara somewhere recently. She's a bit of a peanut and I don't want to go overboard with the whole princess getup either, so the smaller the tiara the better. I happened across the dress in a second-hand store while still waddling pregnant with the Mini-Human. I found the shoes (heels - the Clone swooned!) in another second hand store. I told her the ONLY reason she was getting them was because she needs white shoes for this, they're dressy, and she is ONLY going to be permitted to wear them to church. I don't let her wear heels for a number of reasons. First of all I don't believe little kids have any business wearing heels outside of very special occasions, and I'd bet I have a thousand podiatrists ready to back me up on that one. Second, she has my feet. I won't even explain my feet here. Neither of us have time for that right now. So, heels are special occasion shoes only. This special occasion, all the girls dress up like little princess brides. My tomboy diva princess wants a tiara on her veil. I'm just glad I lack the skills to knit lace, because I was briefly (and I do mean BRIEFLY) tempted to knit a veil for Clone. Perusing Ravelry's projects pages of veils revealed that I can not spend 6 hours each day for the next month knitting a veil. It might have worked if I started it last year or even the year before. But some tulle, a decorative hair comb, some lace trim, needle, thread, possibly beading wire and/or hot glue - that I can do. And I can squeeze it in while Mini-Human takes naps.

Mini-Human is getting so big and I'm like "WAIT, SLOW DOWN!" She'll be 6 months old this weekend, and she's crawling, pulling up on things, trying to walk (she REALLY REALLY wants to GO and she just hasn't developed the physical skills fully yet, but the desire is there), and trying to sit up on her own. Tonight I left her in the den on her tummy, went to another room, and immediately came back to find her sitting up all by herself. Beast was 4 feet away watching tv, so he totally missed it. She was very proud of herself as she played with the office supply mini catalog that fell on the floor. There was no repeat performance so I could send a picture message to a certain list of people. A watched pot never boils, and a watched baby never performs on demand either.

While these milestones are awesome to watch and make me smile....I am so not ready for them.

More Mobility

2010-03-20T00:25:00.002-04:00

She's pulling up on stuff. She's been scooting with AUTHORITY, and started pulling herself up on things. First it was the FisherPrice rocking chair thingy. Then there's the Exersaucer. Then Thursday it was the toybox. Tonight (Friday) I laid her in the crib for bed. She was fine for a few minutes and complained. Beast checked on her and she was standing up facing the wall. He laid her back down, put the mobile on for her, and so far I haven't heard anything else.
She's crawling. I witnessed it with my own eyes - legs moving with the knees on the floor and the 90 degree angle, with coordinated movement of actual crawling.
She's sitting decently on her own if planted somewhere, but she's too busy and nosy to stay there usually. She is trying to push herself up into a sitting position on her own, but still only gets to 45 degrees usually.
She's kicking both legs at the same time. She'll do this while laying on the floor or in the crib, WHILE nursing, and even while sitting in your lap. But she hasn't made the correlation that if she's in the rocking chair and does this, she can entertain herself and rock as long as she wants. She's more inclined to flipping over in the chair to scoot down out of it and play with the seatbelts. She tries to do this while the seatbelt is fastened with her behind it.
She was unfastened in the baby bucket on the floor and crawled up to the top of it and flipped it over. She apparently expected that because she was not even the least bit surprised. She looked annoyed that I was picking her up off the carseat. I got the scowl.

She's moving too fast. They all moved too fast. Here I was thinking she'd be held so much she wouldn't walk till she was a year old. I was dead wrong there. She's held plenty, but she loves exploring - at least till she gets caught under the futon or dining room chair and can't figure out how to escape. I don't know why I expected anything different from this baby that I didn't get from the older 3 kids. Nope, this one decided to be uber competitive and Devildog thinks she'll be walking before 7 months. Beast walked at 7 months, Oldest at 8, and Clone at 9 months.

You can bet future blog posts will include me saying "Sit down please, Mommy's tired!"

Perspectives

2010-03-19T01:06:00.003-04:00

I have one, and it's colored by my experiences. I can't say I've always had stellar experiences, but I can say some of those experiences make me dig in my heels even more - and sometimes to my own detriment. I'm a hard-headed Irish woman, I doubt anyone would expect any less of me.
My own perspective got reeled in really quick today. Devildog's phone rang while he was asleep. As I sometimes do, I answered his phone. It was our friend C. I commented that he sounded thrilled to be alive...um, oops. Yeah, I got a big shock from him, saying his son J. was in the hospital. As it turns out, J has Type 1 diabetes, and his blood sugar had been over 500 this past weekend when he was at his grandparents' house. GP, as he's called, has Type 2 diabetes and sometimes the other members of the family will spot check their blood sugar levels. Gma told C & S about the high reading and said "get him to a doctor". That was Sunday. J already had an appointment on Wednesday for a camp physical, so C&S decided to ask about it at the appointment. The nurse took the reading, and promptly said "Take him to the hospital. NOW." They did, and J was admitted Wednesay evening with a blood glucose reading of 540. By Thursday, they'd gotten it down to 243. Normal for J is 120.

The silver-ish lining in all this is that C has struggled with weight for ages, but his diet always reverts back to what it was previously. With the diet that J needs, the family will all be following it, and C hopes to gain control of his weight and avoid the fate his dad has met, and now his son must tend.
The real ass-kicker for J? Thursday was his 13th birthday. It was spent in the hospital with a life changing diagnosis. Happy Birthday, welcome to adolescence, and oh yea, you're diabetic. Enjoy the hospital stay. (and I say that with all the dripping sarcasm my regular readers know I possess.)

Springing

2010-03-13T23:42:00.002-05:00

It's been a challenging week to say the least. The oldest has decided that he's old enough to do his own thing, regardless of what his parents (or the law for that matter) have to say on it. He's become a gadabout. It got nasty Monday night. I have not seen him since Monday, except briefly Wednesday night - and only because I had a police officer round him up, and even more briefly Thursday night. He's got his side of the story that he tells his friends and their parents, garnering him a place to sleep for that night. I'll spare everyone the details of the latest drama, because really, do we need to feed THAT llama any extra fodder? It's something else Satan is doing to throw heaps of sand on my sidewalk, in hopes of me slipping and falling. I've got a broom, and friends with brooms. He can survive without us (paraphrasing his words here), and that much is plausible. But survival is less heinous when one avoids burning one's own bridges. My oldest sister taught me that 20 years ago. (GAH, I feel old writing that!)

The bright spots in my week involve the younger 3 kids.

I had to tend the baby a second while on the phone with a friend. I handed the phone to Beast for a minute, who shared thoughts with that person. When I got the phone back, the friend was duly impressed by the location of Beast's head on his shoulders.

Clone went to the yarn shop with me today so I could read over a pattern there for a sweater I want to make for myself. When we got home, I was talking to my friend (the one who taught me to knit) about the pattern. After I hung up the phone, Clone asked me to make a sweater for her please. (She keeps stealing my blanket and it was only a matter of time before she asked me.) I'll sit with her soon and we'll go through Ravelry first, and then other sources if need be to find one for her that I can manage. I need to stash-bust anyway right?

Mini-human...well she's very interested in whatever we're eating. She makes chomping motions with her mouth, and it's funny to hear her smacking her lips while she's playing on the floor, scooting around with authority like she does. She's trying to sit up on her own, pull to standing, and figure out that whole moving the feet thing - SIMULTANEOUSLY. She's got opinions already and is rather vocal. She's not unlike any of the other kids were as babies, and I wouldn't expect anything else from her either. She's got 2 new-to-us pieces of equipment, and loves them. The Fisher Price Infant-to-Toddler rocker is her favorite at B's house. Clone loved sitting in one at C's house as a baby. Mini-Human turned herself over in the rocking chair, slid down till her feet hit the floor, and then stood in front of the chair playing with it. Devildog walked into the living room tonight and was somewhat dumbfounded by her antics.
And the Evenflo Jump & Go - entertained the older 3 for hours. The older kids had the Graco Bumper Jumper actually. Beast used to walk his way as far forward or backward as his legs allowed. Then he'd pick up his feet and swing back and forth till the momentum slowed. And he'd repeat. We'd see him playing in the doorway and a couple seconds later we'd see him flying. We'll see how Mini-Human does with it, but so far she's enjoying that too. I wouldn't be surprised if she followed Beast's springing running start.

another yarny WIN

2010-03-10T01:42:00.004-05:00

WOOT WOOT FREAKIN WOOT!
I goofed, but left it because I'm not frogging back. I'm so excited it's rediculous. I was getting annoyed because I couldn't get this pattern wrapped together with my brain. Finally it clicked and I was sailing from there. I figured out what I needed to do to mark stitches.
Because I was making too many knit vs purl/purl vs knit mistakes, I needed to pick back freqently till I could visualize the stitch patterns. So I had to mark not only the point in the pattern as instructed, but I also had to mark my slipped stitch too in case I had to pick back the entire row.

Yes, I'm excited about a yarn pattern. At almost 2 am. Because I finally figured it out and have now cast off the item from my needles.
I'll post pictures later. You muggles probably will never understand my excitement. The project defied me, and I ripped it back to cast-on 3 times. The 4th time was my charm. I am so gonna make this in smaller sizes for my girls now too. Well not now-now...I need sleep. Later-now. Clone will be so excited for me when she sees it in the morning.

just WOOT! It's all I can say.
I did my own version of THIS.

At last, it's FINISHED

2010-03-08T02:03:00.001-05:00

I have been knitting this since June 2008. I cast off February 23, 2010. In my defense, during that year and a half, it did hibernate a LOOONNNNNG time since I was working on that Neverending-baby-towel for Heather D & her daughter. Then it was just plain too freaking hot and I was too freaking pregnant to touch it. Then I had a new baby and she took all my time and energy. If I didn't have 3 older kids to entertain her and tend her I may not have finished it till June of NEXT year. So last month, I got down to the last skein of the Baby Clouds yarn in my possession. I could see light at the end of the tunnel.
The yarn was freecycled to me and I don't expect to ever use this yarn again. When I got it, I was only crocheting, not knitting. I didn't know how and hadn't found a friend to teach me. This yarn is horrid for crocheting, and works up easier in knitting. So said Heather herself, but it was another year before I was able to get a lesson out of her, and it was only because she was moving halfway across the world to an Upper Midwestern State that I squeezed that lesson out of her even. It's extraordinarily forgiving of errors, but that's just because the yarn has ulterior motives. It was out to get me. I refused to be defeated by this yarn in 2006 when I acquired it. No way in hades I was going to concede defeat after this much time either.
Now to remind the children that this is MOM'S blanket and of all the others they've stolen from me, this one has personal investment and I'm not interested in sharing too much. I was so very excited to find that I had reached a point in the project that I could call it done and be happy to have a fuzzy string of scrap yarn leftover.

My text message to Heather at 1 in the morning?
"WOOOHOOO!!!! CASTING OFF THE BABY CLOUDS WRAP! i refused to be defeated by this yarn 4 years ago and damn it i win."

Fowl Play on words

2010-03-06T22:00:00.005-05:00

I got a phone call from Heather D, who taught me to knit and taught the oldest to play violin. She was sitting on the couch with her 1 year old daughter, working on a knitting project she designed (LOTR Tree of Gandor). Her PhD Student husband came home to find some BBQ chicken in the works. He turned to Heather, and asked "Is the chicken done knitting yet?"
So I had to tell her about a funny from Beast. He was making brownies and needed eggs for it. He held one egg up and said "Look Mom, it has eggzema"

New Schedules

2010-03-01T09:02:00.003-05:00

I'm making an effort here to NOT whine about this new schedule that is starting this week for both Devildog and myself. He gets new hours, I get a new service schedule. Instead of working my big stores weekly and being assigned the little stores on the service schedule, I'm now given the little stores in one lump group and get to schedule them however I want as long as it's done in the first 2 weeks of the month. I'm trying to keep an open mind about it, but this is coming exactly the same week Devildog's shift changes too. Thankfully I've got menus planned for the week to get us through it. I do believe the crockpot will be my best friend in all this, as much as Devildog dislikes my frequent use of it. I'm not his stepmom, and I have an arsenal of recipes that I know work, and others that I have been really wanting to try making. I don't quite understand his disdain, and I make no apologies to him for my adventures with food. I'm not fearless, but I loathe boring food after growing up with a mother who could screw up a box of mac & cheese. There's a difference between comfort food and same-old-same-old. Usually you WANT the comfort food, and you ask for a peanut butter sandwich when same-old is served.
Plus, the KP duty between the boys changes hands today too, as it's the first of the month. I'm not sure where Devildog is going with this method he's devised, but I am going along with it. There are very distinct personalities between the boys and it's an exercise in tongue-biting and rosary-reciting with these two.
Recalling the advice my sister gave me at the start of 8th grade when I whined about the way they worked our class schedules...

The only constant in life is change.

And she's right.

Universal Donor 2

2010-02-22T00:46:00.005-05:00

I am what you could call a Universal Donor. My husband, the Devildog, has some dominant genes, and all four kids have his blood type. Not one of these suckers have mine. Story of my life, it seems like I've got what everyone (in my house at least) else wants or needs.
However, last year when I donated blood in January, little did I know I was going to need to keep that blood. OOOPS. No wonder I had a stronger than usual reaction to the donation. It was December when I finally donated again. So, that meant it would be February when I could donate blood. I dragged 3 of the 4 kids with me. It's a long story why, and I won't bore you with it. MaNiC MoMMy does a virtual blood drive and her deadline looms, which is the only reason I'm getting around to posting this. I live by flying by the skin of my blessed assurance apparently.

In any case, I went to donate and the vampires - they love me. I have good veins that behave and don't roll. I had the Oldest Boy take the picture. It was difficult for him because he wasn't on the front side of the camera this time. He followed instructions better than Devildog did last year though. He got more than just my arm in the picture. However, he caught me looking down at something, and I look like I've got my eyes closed. And then when I was done, we got freezer pizzas from the grocery store even though I really wanted the kind from a pizza place (name withheld), and I went home and had to have a nap. This is why I schedule my donations for Fridays. I can go home and slack around and not do anything the rest of the day. And I'm incredibly thankful that even though I have FOUR spawn, they are spread apart in age and they entertained the mini-human till she needed feeding...because I've got the good stuff somebody else inevitably wants or needs.

sippy cup rant

2010-02-16T12:57:00.002-05:00

I just have to vent and maybe someone in a marketing department will do a search for sippy cup and my blog post will appear in their findings.

WHY THE HECK DO ALL THE DANG SIPPY CUPS HAVE TO BE SPILL PROOF??????

I don't want valves and mechanisms that prevent the liquid from spilling. There is a time and place in this world for such inventions, just not when I am teaching my baby to drink from a cup. On the other hand, the only other non-spill-proof models I've found have an air hole in the top which allows physics to work as it should and the entire contents of the cup flow freely out of it. All three older kids had a Tommee Tippee cup that had two handles and a weighted bottom and slanted spout in the twist on lid. They were very readily available in the mid-90s for the boys, and it was a miracle that I even found one by the time Clone arrived in the early 2000s. I thought I was done having babies (God keeps laughing at me), so I gave away that prized sippy cup. Now with Miss Must-Be-Upright, they're NON-EXISTENT! I've been looking on ebay, amazon, etc to find one and haven't started scouring the second-hand stores yet to find just one. I can't even find a picture of it online. And no, I don't want one that is so vintage, I'm hesitant to give it to my child. I'm one of those weirdo parents that insist on teaching their baby to drink from a cup with the added lesson of cause-effect-consequence. As in, tipping the cup causes the liquid to move out of it, and that effect in excess causes the consequence of junior getting to clean up their mess. I've done similar things with nursing. Fall asleep or play at your workstation and it is removed. Yes, she's nearing 5 months old and maybe it is early to start this stuff by some standards. Honestly, those opinions can fall by the wayside and I'm going to do what is tried and true for my household. If the baby is grabbing for my cup and trying to drink from it, I give the baby a drinking test. Using a small regular plastic cup and a small amount of water, I see how the baby handles drinking from it. So far the attempts are going well and she's actually swallowing water as often as it it's dribbling down her chin.
I do have some other options in this adventure of cup-training that I didn't want to have to use. I may explore those ideas while I continue my search for this dinosauric contraption.

And just so you know, I am absolutely biting my keys on the rest of my rant involving parental choices and manufacturers' responses to those choices. I may be a slacker mom, but there are some things my kids have learned that their peers should have been taught.

baby yammering

2010-02-16T00:20:00.004-05:00

It's a baby post. Just thought I'd give fair warning in advance.

My cousin J had baby #2 very late Valentine's Day. It was almost the day after, it was so late. They have a little girl who is just shy of a year old, and now she has a little brother. My friend Kristin had her long-awaited baby boy last week. All these babies.

My own is moving forward with leaps and bounds in her developments. I have long forgotten where her siblings were at this age. I just know that I am not ready for all this mobility. She's been rolling a lot, and she does so with authority. She's sort of scooting, and trying to get up on all fours. She gets rice cereal, and has come to expect it daily. I've long held the practice of putting baby in the high chair at the table with us at dinnertime. Baby gets toys if not old enough to eat what we're eating. Thankfully tonight I made her bowl of cereal at the same time I got my own bowl of chicken & dumplings dished. She saw us spooning food into our mouths and started making fishfaces to tell me she wanted some. The rapid open-close-open-close was funny. She does well with spoon feeding. Like the older 3, if you don't keep that spoon shoveling, she gets vocal. Varying noises are emitted from high pitch shrieks and low 'aaahhh' to things like "nin-gah!", and "na na na na". Clone's word for food was num-num and well, I'm guilty of reusing it. Apparently I'm being mimicked by Miss-Must-Be-Upright.
She later went to sleep a few hours and got back up - you guessed it - hungry. Snacktime was more like it. She spent as much time eating as she did excitedly telling her guardian angel all about her day. She wasn't talking to ME, I can tell you that much.
She's makes no bones about declining an offered pacifier or toy. It gets thrown, her head turns away and she makes a "nuh" noise. In turn, if she wants something, she'll do everything she can to clearly indicate as much, including kamikaze nosedives. She and I are learning our "language", and I think this is happening much earlier than it did with the older 3 kids. Of course by this point, with 4 kids, my brain and memory fail me often, I'm lucky my bra is under my clothes and not on top of them when I leave the house.
She chews on most anything she can get in her hands, or get her mouth onto. It's almost like having a puppy, minus the splintered table legs. And I can't tell you how many times I've reread this post to correct the baby's "help". I'll need a new desk soon. Baby drool is pretty potent stuff and I'm sure the veneer on my sawdust & glue furniture will give out in no time. As I type this, I'm sure my keyboard is at risk for shorting out from drool. She's standing on my lap, smacking the keyboard, chewing my fingers, and knocking things to the floor. Cats do that...come to think of it, she DOES sound just like a cat sometimes when she's talking or crying. I tell people who offer me a pet, "Um, no thanks I have 4 kids that do the exact same things as a pet, but at least I can make an attempt to get slave labor out of the kids, minus the shedding."

A new member of the "mommy club"

2010-02-10T22:27:00.005-05:00

My friend Kristin just had a baby boy today. He was a week late, and not nestling into mom's pelvis. The doctors induced, and after a 24 hour process that was not going anywhere, the decision was made to do a cesarean birth. Once they got in there, they found the reason he didn't move down was that he danced so much his cord was wrapped around him. I sent her a text to tell her I'd been thinking about her and praying for her today, and she responded that she needed it. I then said that I told the baby to send her guardian angel to watch over the baby and help him get outta there, and that I was sending mine to help her get the baby out too. I'd hoped that maybe my speedy delivery vibes would help her somehow, since there was some Buddah-belleh rubbing going on earlier last year. Oh well, I'm only *so* helpful at any given point. At least she now has her heart's desire finally. It's been a tumultuous journey for her to get here, and she made it.
Congratulations, Kristen and Jere.

brain = fail

2010-02-10T00:56:00.003-05:00

I got logged out of my blog dashboard by one of the kids hijacking the computer a few minutes when I wasn't parked at the desk. Subsequently the site wants you to remember your password in order to get back where you want to be. It took a week to figure it out, and I have GOT to go in and change my security question. WTH was I thinking...nevermind.
I recall mentioning the multitude of passwords I have.

Earlier I whined about my body saying "get a new job". I heart my chiropractor. I'm feeling much better after an adjustment, a session with the TENS on steroids, and a weekend of resting my back. I was told to make use of my sister's birthday gift - an exercise ball and rebuild my core muscles.
In other news, I have managed to get some more knitting done recently. Not that anything is even close to finished. Two projects were started in the Summer of 2008, and neither is finished. So what do I do? Pick up another project. Clone took a "learn to knit" class at the library and the yarn that was donated for the class is Paton's Soy Wool Stripes and very splitty. I traded some cotton yarn for her SWS and swapped the project she started onto my size 10s from her beginner sticks (one red, one blue) and while she tried to figure out a knit-on cast on (it's all I know how to do - long tail scares me for some reason, but so do yarn overs right now), I looped away with it. It's a self striping yarn if the project is narrow enough. Once again dropped a stitch, thought I rescued it, and later realized that I bungled that one too. The Yarntender might consider offering a class on rescuing stitches, for people like me.
Of course, knitting while doing other things that involve the mini human makes for mistakes. Not only has she started to go mobile, she's now found her feet. The ped thinks she'll walk early, but the others did too.

I think a large portion of my broad and long term brain failure (aside from the copious number of kids) was my lack of the FLYLady calendar. It is worth every single penny spent on it, and so am I. I finally got the money to buy it and some other stuff, and that arrived Monday afternoon. But nonetheless, I've been at a loss of cognitive function quite a bit lately. Sleep deprivation, work, 4 spawn, funky shifts, and general ADD all get thrown in one of those industrial "Will it blend?" machines.

My running joke this week (or any other time really):
brain = pile of yarn barf - yarn

Then amid all this my friend Persnickety had another birthday, further proving to the doctors that all they really do is merely PRACTICE medicine, they can't call themselves a medical super league. I still have her Christmas gift in my den.
And my other friend Chrissy (who never bothers to blog anything anymore, or ever) had another birthday too. She's older than I am, about the same age as my two older sisters. Her husband bought a new honkin hube boob toob ... and was smart enough NOT to say it was her birthday gift.
And then later this week, I have an appointment with the vampires to donate blood now that I am eligible again, for MaNiC MoMMy's virtual blood drive.

What I ought to be doing

2010-02-02T00:43:00.003-05:00

I'm sitting here in the quiet of my house, Howard Miller clock chiming the quarter hour, listening to the rain. I should be sleeping, but I'm playing online. I could at least be knitting to finish up that fuzzy turquoise wrap, or crocheting the last of that market bag - both started in the summer of 2008. In my defense, they got set aside while I worked on a neverending baby towel for my friend Heather. I did use up some green varigated cotton yarn I disliked but got because it was on clearance for $2 for that huge skein. It was originally like $8. But ALL that yarn for the same price as a little ball you could get a only potholder from? oooohhhh...yarn bargain! Ya, I'm more selective now. In any case, I destashed yarn I didn't like on a project I wouldn't dare repeat the same way, if ever again. The recipient is Heather's daughter and the little girl LOVES it. If only Devildog's Aunt Donna had taught me continental knitting while I was working on that thing...I threw every single one of those stitches. I may have shaved a few months off that project too. It took me a year because it hibernated during the green-and-freshly-planted phase of growing a human. Then I was too tired and miserable most days to do much after work. Plus it was just to blazing hot in this house to touch yarn. But I got it done just shy of the one year mark. This is why I don't start more than one project at a time. I work slowly, sporadically and it takes forever to finish something. Meanwhile my project list grows lol. But I suppose I will back away from the keyboard a while and do something that is actually PRODUCTIVE instead for a little while, even if it's a mere 15 minutes.

Back again

2010-01-31T20:50:00.004-05:00

When I was pregnant, I had some excruciating pain, often resulting in my inability to even move the slightest bit without stifling a scream. My OB referred me to physical therapy but I knew in my heart that was not what I needed. It was an alignment issue and physical therapy wasn't going to correct that. I needed a chiropractor, but very few are willing to manipulate a pregnant woman, and even fewer (if any) are willing to do so if she's never had prior chiropractic care.
So when I had the baby, I waited a couple weeks to see if delivery improved things or made anything worse. There were improvements but I felt very grossly out of whack. So I went to the chiropractor, and that first adjustment was a shock to my physical person, and at the same time a huge relief because all those nerves weren't being mushed and pinched. X-rays revealed a partially sacralized L5 vertabrae, and the disk between L5 & S1 having some issues. It isn't clear if it's genetic or an injury. The side that had the extra bone growth was the side with sciatic pain during pregnancy as well as other times-usually when I was out of line. I was going for adjustments twice a week for a month, then once a week for a couple months, and now I'm down to every other week.
The past couple weeks or so has been very difficult in terms of mobility. Bending forward to do things like pick up stuff or put the baby in the crib have brought back the excruciating winces. My aunt was a nursing assistant and injured herself during a team lift of a super-obese patient. I called to pick her brain and ask what it felt like when she injured her back. Similar stuff it seems. I am not sure what will follow but it's a bit unnerving to say the least.
I'm hoping and praying it can heal with time and a new job. I told my dad that I was having problems and he said not to have pins and rods put in my back, going on to say "Look at what happened to your sister". She got hurt on the job nearly 20 years ago, and opted to have a fusion with metal rods. Short story of it all, lack of mobility (not sure if it's injury induced, surgically induced or patient non-movement) and she's now majorly obese, diabetic, and has congestive heart failure.
If I ever have to have surgery, I will certainly be exploring the option of using my own bone marrow like my aunt did. She's allergic to every metal there is. Her replacement knee is ceramic coated. Her fusion was done with her own bone matter. But for now, I truck along carefully and use the TENS unit to keep the muscle spasms at bay. I'm going to the chiropractor later this week, and will definitely mention this development to him.

There are some other medical issues in the household needing attention but due to some other factors (no names, situations or fingers being pointed), I doubt attention will be sought anytime soon. So keep us in your prayers.

Cheese and wine - no H

2010-01-29T23:26:00.006-05:00

I often tell the kids when they're being whiny that I have no cheese to go with their WHINE. It makes them roll their eyes and say it's a stupid old line and I shouldn't use it anymore. But it gives me reprieve of the whining.
I ran away from home for a while tonight. Why? Because sometimes real life is stranger than fiction. My friend Fran Pitre wrote a book about her experiences having 3 sets of fraternal twins, and there was a book signing party. I almost didn't go because it was from 5 to 8 and I was not moving fast thanks to some pulled back muscles. I really needed a shower, the children smelled the pork tenderloin in the crockpot and there needed to be something else to go with it. So I made some pan fried potatoes. Some things I just can't bring myself to leave to the teen boys yet. It was 7 by the time I finally left. The mini-human was asleep, but supposedly woke up right after I made my exit. She apparently has mommy-radar and knows when I'm more than ten feet outside the perimeter of the house. Nobody called me, so I was none the wiser, and enjoyed the company of friends.
Wine, fruit, cheese, crackers, cookies and a lot of conversation. I'm not generally a wine drinker, but I do have a couple favorites. I got to sip some wine, eat some cubes of cheese, and met some new friends. (And as I typed "cube of cheese" my ADD brain went immediately to "The Devil Wears Prada" ooh shiny! sorry...moving along).
In any case, Fran was talking about the potential plans for promoting the book. I have no concrete details so I'm not about to misinform anyone here. But I told her I'd do my part.
Twins X3 is available now for your perusal and purchase.
Our pastor read the book, and commented later about knowing details of his parishoner's body. Fran said he wrote a review of the book, so I'm now in search of that bit of text to see what he has to say about it.
And before you start whining, yes Mrs Amiot, you're next. ;)

Annnnd we are mobile!

2010-01-28T00:14:00.003-05:00

It's official. We now have a quasi-mobile mini-human. She's been rolling a bit here and there, and has been able to roll front to back more so than back to front. She's been trying to roll back to front by herself and literally gets ticked if I try to help her. But the last day or so she's been rolling and relishing her new trick. Today, she rolled from tummy to back to tummy to back and almost to tummy again till she was stopped by the toy box in the living room. This in addition to her kamikaze nose dives off my lap or out of my arms. I remember the boys would launch themselves off my lap, but I don't remember them jumping out of my arms. There were many many many times I had to move fast and keep Clone from self induced bain dramage from flipping backwards while I was holding her. It was very fun apparently - only guessing by the number of times I had to hold tight to her legs. Tonight I went to the grocery store while the middle 2 kids were in religious ed class. I was walking down an aisle with the baby on my arm, facing back over my shoulder. Nothing unusual about holding a baby that way. Good thing there were two hands on her. She bounced, jumped and nearly launched herself out of my arms. This is way sooner than I remember and I'm sooo not ready for mobility. I don't think the older 3 kids are fully aware of what lies ahead. She's reaching for stuff, grabbing her toys, and working those gross motor skills like a champ. Tonight she leaned over and reached for the big brother. Apparently his aloof, "I don't like babies" charisma doesn't work on her. It was either that or she's a crafty bugger and figured he was next to the kitchen counter, and she could get closer to stuff up there and play with it, if he held her instead. I am just going to go with the delusion that she missed her big brother and just wanted to visit with him for a bit instead of hanging onto me like usual.
In other news, I am not so mobile. I already have bad posture and this new round of antics from my hips, spine and back are making it difficult to bend over or sometimes move. I've been using the TENS unit a fair amount, but I know something is way out of alignment. Plus my muscles are staging a revolt. I need to stretch my back and legs so my chiro adjustments aren't undone so quickly. These copays are taking away from my ability to save up for the trip to Rome. I'd like to go more than a week before needing a readjustment. And right now, I'd just love a massage.

Birthday Loot

2010-01-22T16:53:00.005-05:00

I have a load of awesome friends. I suppose it kind of makes up for a crummy childhood perhaps? Birthdays as a kid sucked about as much as an industrial strength shop vac. Then I grew up and expected my husband to have a different approach to my birthday than my parents had. That was erroneous of me. My sister suggested at the time that I lower my expectations. I responded with something along the lines of "*F* that! I'll just give MYSELF a good birthday." That was 11 years ago, and my birthdays don't suck anymore. I make a full week of it, or a weekend of it - depending on when my birthday falls during the week. Yes, I milk it as much as I can, and I don't hide my birthday. Of course the caveat to that as I get further into my 30s is that I reveal my age. I don't mind it but I've noticed I'm growing self-conscious about the number for some reason. But I love my birthday now, regardless of the number, and I especially love gifts.
I really wasn't expecting to be given so much for my birthday. It was better than Christmas for me lol. I'm breathing better for one thing. And for another I got a bunch of neat stuff.

I belong to the Ministry Of Mothers Sharing (MOMS) at church and we had a general meeting on my birthday. I was figuring someone would bring cake since I not so subtly hinted what day it was. But I was given my favorite shower gel from Bath & Body Works, and a pretty Yankee Candle tart warmer - plus cake.
My sister baked me a cake involving cocoa, hazelnut creamer, buttercream, and a bunch of yum. She did laundry and hung with the teenagers while I was gone to the meeting. She also gave me a big exercise ball like the one she loaned me when I was trying to get the baby to move closer to the exit.
My son's friend gave me a cupcake from Publix - which anyone in the southeast knows Publix bakery is awesome.
The friend that taught me to knit, sent a care package. It arrived from the upper Midwest on my rain-drenched birthday, just as she'd hoped it would. She's trying to destash yarn. So am I, but the big projects in my queue don't have enough of the appropriate yarn in my stash, and I need to avoid buying yarn. Yarn money and space in general are lacking here. But I have enough yarn now to finish a couple of the big projects I have on my list. In that loot was 3 hanks of wool yarn she's allergic to and can't even touch. She sent the rest of what will be the baby's christening outfit, a knitted drawstring bag (in her attempt to destash lol), some table food feeders and some Whoppers candy. She sent those because the Dirty Santa exchange at the holiday party resulted in me coming home with a double feature chick flick dvd, accompanied by some stale candy. The card she sent made me laugh. The front had a cartoon woman doing those "finger quotes" and it said 'Happy "29th" Birthday'. Inside it said 'From your "110" pound friend'. I laughed, opened the gift, and cracked up even more. Not only were they fresh Whoppers, it was a bigger box than the original.
I'm going to the Midnight Knit In (crochet too) as part of my birthday weekend. I don't get a chance to visit the yarn shop all that often, but I make a point to do the Midnight events if I can.
I also will be making use of those birthday freebies I registered for with Moe's and Sticky Fingers. Burrito and ribs make a birthday yummy. So do three different varieties of cake. And friends who are awesome - even the ones I play tag with so much lately. I much prefer my friend-filled birthday now than those as a kid.

It's my birthday

2010-01-21T02:15:00.004-05:00

A year ago, I was in cahootz with Persnickety to go tool around Disney. We did that but with a stowaway. I couldn't imbibe on the beer I procured a couple weeks earlier. I could barely get through an hour without feeling green or eating something. I was still busy arguing with God that I was not pregnant, that it was perimenopause.

I very obviously LOST that argument.

I used to call my mom at the stroke of midnight and wish her a Happy BirthING Day. I'm not driving the hours to Bushnell to tell her gravestone. Her neighbors might not like the excitement anyway.

My younger brother, sister and I have a little game we play on birthdays. We try to call the birthday person first, just so we can claim "first birthday wishes". This year, the oldest son stayed up just to be the first one to wish me Happy Birthday at the stroke of midnight.

For my birthday, I have planned: waking up to take the boys to school because Beast has tutoring at 7:30. (::checks clock::) meh, sleep is apparently overrated. A chiropractor appointment - 2 long weeks since the last one and I am in sooo need of an adjustment. I'm back to walking like I did when I was bursting at the seams pregnant with the mini-human. I feel old. Devildog so much as called me old. He likes to rub it in that I'm older than he is, like 3 months means all that much in the grand scheme of things here. I have some school-related junk to tend to, and I plan on mooching Moe's for my birthday burrito. Sometime soon I need to hit up Sticky Fingers for my free birthday entree. Perhaps a date with my Devildog? Or maybe one of my birthday-neighbor friends wants to plan something.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm overdue for sleep. The older I get the more difficult it is to stay cute on just a few hours' nap.

Since I can't do much

2010-01-15T22:30:00.005-05:00

I may as well blog.

Miss Mini-Human, Clone2, Piglet, Must-Be-Upright-and-Moving, MUST-yell-for-food, or perhaps also known simply as "the baby", is out of sorts. She's got gum pain from those phantom teeth that aren't making an appearance yet, but we all know they're hiding in the wings, waiting for the most ~opportune~ time to erupt. She's got gas because I can't seem to figure out what I'm eating that disagrees with her gastric functions. I try to knit even a row on this wrap I've been working on since June 2008, and she wakes up screaming. If I try to pump, she'll get mad and accuse the machine of stealing her food. I feed her and she still yells even more at me and at the food sources. I got a Bumbo seat for her because she insists on sitting up, and I can't always hold her, and her siblings have other things to do sometimes. She hates it. She turns in it with one leg sticking out further than the other, leans over the side bites the side and yells. She stiffens her legs and back and tries to pop out of it. She loves the Maya wrap most of the time, but my back injuries don't like that too much.

I'm trying to clean stuff. My house is a disaster. It looks like it puked all over itself, and it kind of actually did that. I won't list the messes, but it's like ADD gone awry to say the least. Between the actual ADD in my brain and the baby, it's a bumpy ride on a personal watercraft in pre-hurricane conditions. I managed to get one big box of clothes sorted. Somehow while still baking the mini-human, a bunch of different sized clothes got lumped together in one box. I found 3s, 4s, 5s, a couple 2s and even a 12-18 months item in there. I re-sorted the box and started to put them away when the cute bundle of screaming tantrum sounded the alarm - again.

So, I sat down to feed her and she refused to be put down, acted sleepy but fought it...and here I am. I grabbed the My Brest Friend cushion and hooked her up so I could type with 2 hands, because I'd be here 5 hours trying to type this post one handed. She yelled at me some more. I gave her teething tablets, Tylenol and snuggles. I looked at her a few minutes ago and said "You're not going to let me do anything are you?" and I was met with a playful-eyed grin from behind a pacifier. That means no. She's cute. She's funny. She's sweet. And my 16 year old said she's evil. Pot meet kettle? Now that she's asleep again, I'm going to try to lay her down and finish these tasks I started several hours ago around my house. At least I was able to make dinner.
(And don't mind the timestamp on the picture. That's entirely incorrect and I am not sure how that happened.)

All I want for my birthday

2010-01-11T10:09:00.003-05:00

Suburban Correspondent inspired today's blog post.
Last year, Persnickety and I tooled around Disney for my birthday. I was freshly planted with the mini-human, but wasn't 100% sure at that point. I was still arguing with God that it was perimenopause, NOT another baby. I lost that argument big time. She's cute and smart and funny (because I haven't made babies any other way), and I think I'll keep her. This year, Disney changed their freebie to "do something for someone else, ya schmuck" and quite honestly, I've got lots calling my name, and the Mouse isn't loud enough. I did have fun with what we thought was a child-free trip. Hence that's how the baby was tagged as "The Stowaway" on my blog, and the pregnancy ticker.
So here we are rounding the corner to another birthday and I'm trying to figure out what I want to do for it. I grew up with crummy birthdays. I can count on ONE hand how many childhood birthdays were any fun, had some kind of commemoration even. ONE hand. My parents treated birthdays as just any other day. I didn't even get cake. Occasionally I got cupcakes to share with classmates, but not every year. Birthdays sucked like an industrial strength shop vac. My sister suggested I just lower my expectations so I wasn't disappointed. I did one better. I decided that I was not going to rely on those around me to do something for my birthday. Devildog looks at it as just another day too, and that's just annoying. He just doesn't particularly care, even saying "Why am I going to point out that I'm OLD?"
The first year I gave myself a good birthday, I made a weekend of it. My birthday was on a Thursday or Friday that year. I did a monthly girls night out on the 3rd Thursday with some board buddies, and it started with that - and I ordered what I wanted, not what was least expensive. Friday, I came home from work and did NOTHING. The kids ate PB&J sandwiches that they made themselves. Saturday and Sunday, I went shopping for new underwear at Victoria Secret's Semi-Annual Clearance sale. YAY for wedgie-free drawers! That has become a yearly part of my birthday ritual now. I go in June, just because I can.
That year, I enjoyed my birthday for a change. It didn't suck. And since then, I've made a point to do something for my own darn birthday because my kids are only so capable and resourceful, and my husband has no interest. I will say that last year, I got a call from the oldest while I was at Disney, asking if he could bake a cake for me for my birthday. SURE! So I got home really late, and the kids left the cake on the stove for me. I took pictures of it (not sure which memory card at this point) and waited till they were all home from school the next day to eat any of it.
This year? not sure entirely but it will involve a round of the usual Birthday freebies from those places I signed up for, and visit to my favorite local yarn shop for the Midnight Knit In. The Yarntender does them every couple months in addition to the weekly Wednesday & Friday extended hours for yarnies to gather. One of the other girls at the shop shares my birthday, and Persnickety's is a couple weeks after mine - maybe we can plan ahead and Persnickety can join us finally (hint hint?!?!) She's a couple weeks younger than I am. But, I - nevermind, I'll be nice. On one trip 'Snick and FCB took, she got me a plaque that says "It's great to have a friend to grow old with. YOU GO FIRST!" Just what I wanted for my birthday - to be told that I'm OLD.

Twins, Twins, Twins

2010-01-10T02:04:00.003-05:00

I have a friend who wrote a recently released book. It started as journaling, and turned into a book.

It's called Twins X3 (Twins Times Three).

Yes, she honestly has THREE sets of fraternal twins, one set of each combination. Two girls, boy/girl, two boys. I know some of her story, and I first met her when she was newly pregnant with the 3rd set of twins. I haven't gotten my hands on a copy of the book yet, but it's on my reading list. http://www.twinsx3.com/index.html

Well digger's what?

2010-01-05T02:12:00.002-05:00

Ever heard the phrase "colder than a well digger's butt"? My mother used to say that every time it got cold enough to chill her bones. Since there wasn't a lot of meat on her bones, anything 40 or below was such a temperature. I live in Florida, and have Floridian blood and not much meat on my bones. So, what would this cold Floridian be doing at 2 in the morning besides blogging and waiting for the mini-human to demand milk? Knitting herself another scarf because she can't find the black one she knitted herself over a year ago-maybe two years. I know it was at least that long ago, because I had it on my birthday trip to Disney, and that was in January of last year. I recently got a random skein of yarn from someone, and since it's soft and not a horrid color, and a single 50 gram ball of yarn only goes so far - I decided I needed a new scarf. Plus it's freaking cold here. It's not getting any higher than mid 40s this week during the day, and down into the 20s at night.
I'm very grateful this weather held off till after the Gator Bowl. Someone gave Beast tickets but he decided he didn't want to go, so he offered them to me and my brother. He's a Gator fan like Devildog, and my brother and I are Seminole fans. I don't know that I would have gone if the temperatures were this miserable-for-Florida low. I'm wondering what it's going to be like on my birthday. Last year was *supposed* to be in the 60s, but the cold front got stalled over us and my freshly impregnated self was miserably cold at Disney.

Side note about the game...my brother was in awe of it all, as it was his first FSU game ever. The shuttle bus had 80% FSU fans and 20% WVU fans. My brother and his goofy self came up with a little ditty he kept singing all afternoon.

"Hush, hush, what's the fuss?
Mountaineers to the back of the bus"

With these temperatures, the Mountaineers would feel right at home, and probably wouldn't call it well digger's butt cold. Plus mines get colder than wells anyway.

Dreams of Rome

2010-01-01T01:58:00.002-05:00

I have a friend who does yearly trips to Rome and she takes friends with her. I've known her almost 3 years and ever since she mentioned these trips, I've wanted to go. Rome has always been part of my bucket list. That and a bunch of other places with huge cathedrals and history. There was no way I could've gone this past year, even if the money was there for me to go. I was freshly planted and growing a human. That plane trip would have been difficult to say the least. Walking on land was a challenge for me. But she recently mentioned on Crackbook that she was going to Rome in 6 weeks, and had names for the 2011 trip already. I want to be on that list, to the point I can almost taste it. It's about $1500 and I have 12 months or less to get that money plus spending cash together, or I'll be on the 2012 trip. I'm thinking I could trade getting a laptop for that money being set aside for Roman travel. Yes, I'm *this* close to getting a laptop and I'm actually thinking about putting that money elsewhere. There is the pesky goal of buying a house that is in my face as well. We really need 2 bathrooms. Devildog is supportive of my desire to travel, which is helpful. I'm grateful for that because he knows Rome is on my list and travel was something I've always wanted to do. I'm also grateful he's not an insolent jerk that feels it's his duty to squash my dreams. We also want to visit his birthplace with gorgeous sunrises and sunsets. We can do that almost anytime though. Rome requires planning, investment and this friend only goes once a year. This coming trip will also include another friend whose husband died recently. One of his dying wishes was for his wife to go to Rome. Some people pitched together and last I heard, they were sending her - expenses paid. While I don't expect that level of generosity, I certainly have my work cut out for me. The good dreams don't come cheap.

oh boy and egads

2009-12-27T01:08:00.003-05:00

the oh boy? I was given a TENS unit...ohhhhh the joy and near squeeee I had when the gift bearer said it was mine. Devildog just doesn't get it. His inability to walk properly 11 years ago was a joint injury. Mine was a huge misalignment of the hips added together with pregnancy and a physical job. He is no stranger to pain, having been severely injured as a child and enduring multiple surgeries from it. The person who gave it to me has endured their own share of pain and injuries. They understand my joy as recipient of this gift.

I love my chiropractor. I got him from my sister. I can walk more like a normal human now. My chiropractor has given me TENS therapy several times and I looooove it. Apparently I mentioned it in conversation to the gift bearer and they decided I needed one. So wooot! I got a portable, battery operated TENS unit and have already put it to use. I kinda think this is cooler than my sister's breathalyzer thing.

the egads? Shopping takes energy when you're difficult to fit in the first place plus 3 months postpartum and still shrinking. I did score a pair of khakis and grey pants to expand my wardrobe beyond the jeans and the one pair of black pants. I have a sneaking suspicion that I will be in this size longer than I want to admit and my prepregnancy pants will be out of style by the time I fit back into them. Four babies does things like that to a mother's body.

the other egads? I-and everyone else- forgot the diaper bag when we went shopping. Thankfully I had a contingency plan for that and put a diaper in the van. That got full and had to be changed while shopping. Then between stops the baby filled the diaper with vileness. Poor thing, Mommy's antibiotics get shared and as a result her diapers are big messes. The one diaper in the van was all I had in there too. Devildog ran home to get the diaper bag and a change of clothes because she oozed. I had to wash the carseat cover when we got home. Yuk.

I'm still hacking and coughing because my lungs are still compromised. But that fever that slowed me down broke last night. What a Christmas gift! I awakened at 5 am fully drenched and smelling so abhorrent that it rivaled Beast's football funk. That aspect wasn't such a pleasant one. I do feel a bit better, but certainly won't complain about a return of my pulmonary function.

"Oh wow she really must be sick"

2009-12-26T01:00:00.003-05:00

This is what my MIL said to Beast on the phone Christmas morning. I was not well enough to go to church Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. She called and the phone got passed around and when Beast had the phone, MIL asked to talk to me, and he told her I couldn't talk and had no voice. I heard her ask if I went to Midnight Mass (always went when we visited her for Christmas, but my parish has 10:30 Mass the latest), and he told her no, nor did we go this morning. I woke up when we should have been at the church already. She then said "Oh wow! She really must be sick then if she didn't go to church"

Yes I am. Augmentin = horse pills. Constant coughing due to lung spasms for lack of sufficient oxygen = raw throat. Devildog hates the "psst" I have to use to get someone's attention, despite the fact that's how I call my kids when we're in public. The number of "psst" is the number child I'm calling, and it's more fun to see what kind of looks I get from people than a game of Marco Polo. Everyone's becoming more proficient at figuring out the mix of charades and handful of sign language signs that I remember. And when all else fails I get pen and paper or use my cellphone text screen to get the message across.

Merry Christmas family, you got a wife & mother that can't nag you because she can't talk. Now I just have to figure out which one of these yayhoos put in that request to Santa. Next year they're getting a huge pile of coal.

Too busy for sick, too sick for busy.

2009-12-24T00:32:00.004-05:00

I have bronchitis. For asthmatics it's one of the biggies we try to avoid because of the compromised lungs. I worked 4 service calls each on Monday and Tuesday so I could get last minute things finished Wednesday and Thursday. Well last week's menopausal weather stirred my allergies and having 4 kids who create mommy-brain, and the increased workload draining my cranial function further, I forgot that we even had allergy meds in the hall closet. I could've avoided the copays for this bronchitis if I'd taken a few allergy meds a week ago. I'm thankful that I had enough in the bank to cover those copays. The Augmentin wasn't too expensive, but the inhaler was not exactly cheap. Thankfully I told them I'd come back for it. In the 20 minutes between doc and pharmacy, I totally forgot the doc gave me a coupon for the inhaler. DUH. So I went back later to get it, and between 2 doses of the antibiotic and a shot of the inhaler, I'm feeling a bit better. And I heart my chiropractor. He helped release the tension in my chest and upper back from all the coughing. A few naps and a few rounds of crisis cleaning per FLYLady's instructions, with help of course, and the hovel should be decent enough. I'm verrrrrry thankful for Beast though. He's been primary babysitter though my extended work hours, and today's adventures. It's a good thing the baby likes him.
I may have to rethink my primary care provider though. Mine is a walk in clinic, but it is NOT a doc-in-a-box. So the caveat to that is waiting. And waiting. And waiting. Thankfully I brought my knitting with me and got a good bit done. Thanks to Devildog's aunt for teaching me to knit Continental. It goes SO much faster. I might actually finish this project in time for next Christmas. In the meantime, I am just too busy to be sick, but alas, my body said "HAH!" and now I'm too sick for busy. When you don't get enough oxygen, it makes things just a weeee challenging.
I really am trying to keep my focus on gratitude in all my challenges. No point in making things worse by whining like I so often do right? I'm too busy to whine about being sick or busy anyway.

oooops...

2009-12-21T01:46:00.005-05:00

Pardon the pregnancy ticker...I need to take that off here with a quickness. But it's way past bedtime and I need to pry myself from the desk and go to bed. In the slight offhand chance you missed me...lemme 'splain. I got sidetracked by crackbook, a baby, 2 teenagers, a clone and a husband. My poor father has started resorting to that age old custom typically reserved for Irish mothers. He lays on a slathering of guilt when I finally get around to calling him. Between a teenager that heists the phone (which is why I refuse to buy new batteries for any of them or replace them as they die - we're down to one and a half cordless phones out of four), another teenager working his way into phone hog status, a baby that for all intents and purposes is exclusively a nursling, and the increased workload, plus Devildog's funky shift, and you've got one Wench who is not well balanced with time expenditure these days. I also have been coughing up weekly copays to my chiropractor because I am still not back in alignment enough nor regained strength after having a very cute, funny and smart little piglet nursling.

To quote my crackbook status update for Sunday
Feisty went to Mass, fed baby, took a nap, fed baby, made dinner, fed baby, and now needs to clean and declutter SOMETHING in the den. Meanwhile everyone asks "which Christmas Mass are you attending?" ::shrug:: late vigil maybe? Depends on dh's work schedule & what happens at Dad's. Oldest sis has called a gathering at his house Christmas Eve.

I didn't clean anything because Devildog dragged out the Christmas tree and I gave him authority over the lights this year. I didn't have the energy, plus my lower back was screaming at me again by that point. We gave Clone full reign over where the ornaments went. Yet, all of that and I'm still awake, forgetting to order my FLYlady calendar so I can get it by the end of the current year. THAT and scheduling my work for the week were the whole reason I got online so late.
Meanwhile an old friend from a message board has been keeping things current on her blog. She's one of those overachieving, busy, suzy-homemaker types that works Catholic homeschooling waaaaaay better than I work my slacker mode. Feel free to peruse her blog, and perhaps send me some of the rum balls she's got posted somewhere in one of her recipes.
http://saintsfaithhopechairty.blogspot.com/

kids are tasty

2009-10-27T20:57:00.003-04:00

I was playing tic-tac-toe with Clone today. We always seem to end up in a draw, except the very rare occasion one of us misses something and gets taken by surprise. Between games I said "I'm hungry, how 'bout you?"
Without missing a single beat, breath, or blink the child said "No, you can not eat me"

I promise nothing exciting

2009-10-26T23:06:00.004-04:00

Yea, don't mind the pregnancy ticker at the top of the page either. I still lack sufficient mental energy to tweak layouts, even if that includes a simple deletion of something like a ticker. I'm sure you'll forgive me, and if not I am already over it.
I'm still busy tending the mini-human and her 3 older siblings, plus working (yes already) and going to the chiropractor twice a week for adjustments. I missed Friday's appointment because I was running behind the 8-ball and then there was an accident RIGHT in front of me. Then the mini-human screamed for my help with a yucky diaper, but I couldn't get out of the mom-bus to tend her because the rubberneckers are morons and would have clobbered me as they gawked at the vehicular carnage. I really needed an adjustment Friday, so I was upset with myself for being late, and really frustrated that I missed my appointment. That in conjunction with the postpartum hormones, I wanted to cry actually. Love the hormones. Really.

Today's adjustment consisted of a few additional manipulations than previous visits involved. I was really trying NOT to undo the chiropractor's handiwork. So I honestly did very little today in hopes of achieving that particular goal. Two of the kids were home from school today for planning day, and it was fairly quiet for the most part. Except, the Clone and her hormones were out of whack and PMSing today. I offered her chocolate and she said she didn't like it. ::quizzical look::

I'd be rambling with a bunch more of the mommy-blather at this point but I will spare you the boredom-induced drooling. I'm sure you would much rather use that salivary function for baked goods or that hidden Halloween candy you've been trying not to eat - but just can't seem to ignore its call.

TOTAL mommy-brain

2009-10-21T16:18:00.003-04:00

I have so many stinking passwords to remember. I haven't been able to access my blog to post because I haven't been able to remember my password. It's bad enough to be short on sleep because of your own doing. However when another miniature human is dependent on you, and wakes you at screwy times and then proceeds to STAY awake for hours....mommy-brain inevitably amounts to:
Thinking = epic FAIL

New baby means no time for anything

2009-10-13T12:35:00.003-04:00

And I don't miss that aspect of it. I love her immensely, she's a sweet baby and very alert when she's awake. Well she does have two speeds - hungry and asleep. That will change eventually but I'm struggling to adjust. And she's a gassy lil bugger. She is definitely her father's child in that regard. She's still a NASCAR baby in that she goes from zero to sixty in no time flat.
She was born a week and a half before big brother's birthday. A board buddy on another site was due the first week of October, and because of some health related issues, she was induced the same day I was. So Thumper has a birthday buddy born a short time after she arrived.

Because I'm rather tied up with tending a baby, the other kids are a mixed bag of helpfulness and annoyance. The teenagers are taking advantage of things and I won't go into detail but I am hopping mad about one particular instance involving someone snooping in my drawers. I should hide other things in there that would shock that person, or require brain bleach. Later, karma will come back and say hi, they can rest assured about that. Then there are times when my time doesn't equal a child's timeframe...and THAT is enough to make lumps on heads a reality. Meanwhile Clone is having a hard time with my time and attention being directed at the baby. She's only getting slightly less attention than when she was the only girl and the baby of the household, but now my attention is directed at someone very loud and demanding and isn't easily quieted...well except via constant attachment to my person. We're getting more attitude and defiance from Clone and it's not typical for her unless she's overly tired. She's not overly tired so much as mad that someone has invaded her territory as the baby, and let's just add insult to injury and include that this someone has moved into her bedroom to boot.

I'm thankful Thumper has developed some semblance of a routine. It's not a concrete routine but more what you could call "guidelines". Eventually that pregnancy ticker at the top of the blog will get removed or changed to something else.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

On a funny note: Last week, as I was driving Beast home from his football game, Thumper was squawking full force the entire drive home. Thankfully it was all of 5 minutes away but she still vehemently protested the delay of a meal. We got into the driveway and as we were getting out of the mom-bus, Beast said "ohh stick a boob in it!"
He's weirded out by my nursing Thumper, but he still maintains his sense of humor about it.

Now, if I could get him to maintain a sense of time.....