Mama Blog

Finally, an update

Spring fever is in high gear around these parts. I've been planting geraniums and dianthus. Plucking the 10 million dandelions from the grass. Ok, so plucking is too dainty a word for what I have had to do to remove these tenacious boogers. But, they are for the most part coming up roots and all.

Puppy fever is erupting as well. Little Harley Mac comes home very very soon. We're all so excited. The excitement reminds me of when we were expecting a baby. In a few weeks we should be able to go up and pick him up.

I won't bore you to tears with a random mish mosh of updates for today. Suffice it to say, we're all present and accounted for, free of illness (unless you count the mental kind), and cruising through our days.

Filler

You ask for it, you got it, but it isn't a Toyota

(click for larger)

Please excuse the double chin, strange hair (I promise it looked better in the mirror) and well, you asked for a picture.

Checklist for Graduation Banquet

Ok, making a checklist for all the stuff I need for Steven's graduation banquet tomorrow night.

Dress - Check
(with jacket and without jacket)

View Shoes - Check

Painted toes to go in shoes - Check

Jewelry - Check

Am I forgetting anything?

Ugh

I am The.Worst.Mama.Ever.(tm)

Do you ever have days where you just dislike the little people you're raising? How can it be that all three of them are having rotten days at the same time? Why does one's behavior have to completely affect them all? Did I give birth to parrots??

Must go. Grumbling and arguing has ensued over cheese bagels.

Almost

Takes me almost as long to walk 1.6 miles with Lizzy in the stroller as it does to walk 3.2 miles alone. Didn't make it the whole way like I'd planned, but at least I got off my butt.

Trying to cool down now so I can shower. Must tackle the day ahead.

I'm trying hard not to get focused on "the move" again. Realizing that we could move as early as 11 months from now just gets me! We have no idea where we're going. Lots of ideas of where we'd like to go though. Here, or here, or even here. Any place near family. Georgia, Florida. But it could also be as late as next June. So, no use looking now. The jobs available now won't be available then most likely.

Nothing

Getting pounded by spam comments. Grrrr.

Feeling:
Fat
Bored
Cranky
Uninspiring
Dull as powder

Joys of Reality

When you were a little girl, "real life" play consisted of wearing a sequined evening gown, pearls and a tiara while attending a formal tea with Mrs. Bear and Mrs. Kitty. You performed all these things while happily cooing over and feeding your completely naked, unblinking newborn. Barbie soirees, formal balls, princesses and princes, magic and wonder. All of the fun. None of the mundane happenings of adulthood and momdom.

I watch my girls play out their fantasy lives and enjoy themselves. My girls, however, don't limit their pretend to simple girly things. They've become pirates on the open ocean, searching for buried treasure. Endless adventures of cowgirls and teachers, super heroes and divas.

Thinking over the day in the life of the pretend mom, I literally laughed out loud as I unceremoniously scooped cat litter. I've never worn a sequined dress and tiara while feeding a child. Maybe a baby barf stained t-shirt and a baseball cap, but that's about as dressed up as I got. No one has ever called me on the supermom phone and requested that I save the day by supplying each and every person in the world with a lollipop.

No, my daily superhero duties consist of things like climbing Mount Laundry and leveling it load by painstaking load. In light of this little "discovery" I thought I'd give a day in the life of a true superhero, the mama. Note: This is not today's happenings, but a random sampling of a day.

5:20am - Groggily kiss husband and say goodbye.

5:30am - Grumbling loudly you roll herself out of bed and stumbles into the bathroom for a quick shower. You hope that you'll be at least close to finished before one of the children wakes up.

6:00am - Jump from shower and dry off as quickly as you can. Hope that you are at least dry enough to be able to don your superundies without them sticking to your calves. Quickly assess clothing situation, settle for something comfortable.

6:10am - Dry hair as you contemplate who needs to bring lunch to school, who has a clean uniform, are you supposed to take anything anywhere else today, can you make it another day without trudging to the grocery store?

6:30am - Stand in front of fridge and pantry. Grumble to self about lack of planning on your part, grab cereal and milk for kids for breakfast. Set out bowls, cups of oj, spoons, milk and vitamin supplements for all three.

6:40:am - Pour self a soda, scarf down something edible while zipping back to youngest's bedroom to retrieve something wearable for her. Take youngest to potty only to find she's gone in her panties. Find replacement pants and panties.

7:00am - Rally troops for tooth brushing and torture, er I mean hair brushing. Spend next 10 minutes consoling each child as you try to deknot their hair without ripping it all from their scalp. Take deep breath and try to remain calm.

7:25am - Ask oldest if room is clean. Ask middle and youngest if beds are made. Begin the ever popular hunt for shoes and socks. Don own shoes and socks, locate lunchbox and bookbags.

7:45am - Take youngest to potty again. Success! Pile everyone into van, buckle carseats, endure the times table cassette or various and sundry Veggie Tales songs for trip to school.

8:00am - Remove all children from van, sign in middle to her class, give 5,432 hugs and kisses before the preschooler grip is loosened. Repeat with oldest (minus the sign in bit) and leave as youngest bemoans the fact that she has no class yet.

8:15am - Arrive home. Start first of many loads of laundry. Come back inside from garage, take trash out to can. Begin to make bed and straighten own room all while trying to keep youngest from painting bathroom with toothpaste.

8:45am - Read email, chat with friends, check blogs and message boards, all while entertaining the youngest. Fetching snacks, juice, toys, playing barbie, replacing boy barbie's head again, making tents, fighting off imaginary bad guys. Take youngest to potty.

9:45am - Realize almost all your morning is gone. Bemoan fact that computer is a life sucking black hole and that you seem addicted to it's blue glow and clicking keys.

10:00am - Clean kitchen and dining room. Wonder why the older two make a bigger mess than the younger one alone. Load 8,345,622 sippy cups and lids into dishwasher. Run washer.

10:55am - Contemplate lunch. Find something mostly nutritous and feed self and youngest. She takes herself to potty and then calls out in triumph.

11:30am - Repeat same procedure as 10:00am.

12:30pm - Take youngest to potty. Explain that rest time is upon us and exert herculean effort to get her to at least lay down and rest.

1:00pm - Persue laundry, cat litter scooping, house dejunking, sweeping, mopping, webpage updating, quilt finishing or some such as quickly as you can in an effort to use valuable alone time most effectively.

2:25pm - Wake youngest, take her to potty. Find her shoes and socks in bottom of toybox and head out to pick up middle and oldest from school.

2:50pm - Sign middle out of class, collect her belongings and go back to wait in van. Sit for the next 10 minutes and wait for older children to come out.

3:02pm - Head home as all three try to talk over one another about their day, about their plans for snack, their plans for play and oldest's homework.

3:30pm - Begin some sort of dinner prep and help oldest with homework while trying in vain to keep youngest and middle occupied elsewhere. Repeatedly ask youngest and middle to play in their bedroom so Katy can finish her work quickly and come play with them.

4:30pm - Oldest finally finishes all work, heads off to play. Continue dinner prep while refereeing fights, fusses and feuds. Husband comes home. Children attack, you breathe giant sigh of relief because you know that four hands and two mouths make for light(er) work.

5:00pm - Sit down at table to eat, try in vain to teach children to chew with thier mouths closed. Get up to get ketchup, take a few bites of dinner, send oldest to kitchen for napkins, hope to consume most of your meal while it's still hot.

5:30pm - Repeat 10:00am routine with help of hubby. Children laugh and cavort about.

6:00pm - Do as little actual work as possible in an effort to slow down for the evening.

6:30pm - Start bath water and fend off complaints from whoever's turn it isn't. Try to contain at least a few gallons of water in the tub while child plays in order to be able to wash mud, chocolate and goo from child when the time comes.

7:00pm - Each child now dressed for bed, oldest and middle take Melatonin, all brush teeth and goof off.

7:30pm - Oldest goes in room to read until 8:15. Allowed to read any chapter book and do so happily! Middle child is rocked to sleep while youngest cavorts with Daddy. Lay middle in her bed and pray that youngest doesn't wake her. Rock youngest all the while trying to get her to stop talking and fidgeting so she'll go to sleep.

8:00pm - Easily fooled by the supermojo of the youngest, you leave the room and head out to talk to the hubby.

8:15pm - Take youngest back to bed. Remind her to stay in bed and go to sleep.

8:30pm - Mid conversation take youngest back to bed, again.

9:00pm - All children finally asleep, you attempt to lay down and read a book and are then pounced by cat. Try to read around cat's head.

9:45pm - Husband wakes you, tells you to put book away and turn over so you don't snore in his ear. He climbs in bed and passes out.

Lather.

Rinse.

Repeat.

Most Boring Blog Award

Crickets chirp in the stillness. The sound of the heater groaning to life barely covers the audible sound of my own breathing. I think that I could probably win an award for most boring blog.

It's as though I've run out of wit and wisdom. As though the fun has been taken from my dysfunction. Oh well, back to the laundry list type posts for a while. Hope you can forgive me.

Girls are all at home today. Emily seems fine. Lizzy probably has rotovirus. Won't know for about 48 hours. Katy came home from school yesterday with a headache and a fever. Was somewhat controlled with Motrin until about 2am. Steven gave her some more Motrin and she went back to bed.

I've got Ladies Night Out tonight so I plan on going to that. Need to work on baby quilt, updating church page, working on a scrapbooking project. My projects list is humongous!

Snippets

Random snippets since I don't have time for anything else.

-Lizzy's sick. Appt. at 1:00 today. Thought it was just teething until she had a massive blow out in her overnight diaper and threw up in her sleep last night and never woke up.

-Signing up for photography courses!! Woot!

-Was complimented by Katy's teacher today on my photography.

-Almost finished with quilt I'm making for a shower gift.

-Lots to do over the next few days.

So Steven can see on phone

Super Bowl Sunday

Who's playin'? I have no idea. Steven went to a bowl party at a friend's house. The girls and I are going to eat pizza and watch TV. Probably Jimmy Neutron endlessly. We rented a dvd the other day and I think the girls know it word for word now. Don't get me wrong, Jimmy Neutron (and Sheen in particular) cracks me up. But a gal can only take that so many times without wanting to peel the freckles off her cheeks with a dull butter knife.

Finished my first quilt top today. Am going to work on putting the rest together over this week. I've been taking pictures to show you when I'm all done. I'm starting to get the tell tale signs of a migraine so I'd better get off here and take some meds. I'm sure if I plop my butt in the recliner within a few minutes either one or all of my children and cats will be in my lap. Once Harley comes home I won't have any lap left!

Park the Ark

The rain has finally stopped. Yesterday, there was only one road out of here that hadn't flooded over. The rivers were all at flood stage or past. Last night when I went for my walk the fog and mist were so thick that I had to look down most of the time,using the brim of my DAWGS hat to shield my face and eyes.

We're much colder today but at least we're drying out.

Things I'm thinking:
-Why do M&M's have to taste so good? Perhaps it's just the holiday pink ones that I'm so enamored with? Nahhh. It's the chocolate.
-I think this is too cute!
-This is wonderful!
-I'm walking this. Steven's running this.
-Would really like to know why people larger than size 5 can't get workout clothing?? The XL pants I tried on (several months ago) at Academy sports cannot even remotely be described as extra anything, much less large.

Can you believe it??

Lizzy is essentially daytime potty trained! She isn't even three yet. Katy and Em didn't want to try to use the potty until they were three. And just two short weeks of "pull ups are gone, Lizzy, and we can't teetee in the panties" she did it. We had accidents, don't get me wrong. But she wears the panties with the waterproof covers all day! Accidents are getting fewer and farther between. She's even pooped on the potty twice!

She's so proud of herself when she goes! She yells to the girls and Steven "clap guuuurls! clap daaady!" Ahhh! I can see the end of dipes/pull ups in sight. She'll wear a pull up or dipe to bed for a while still I think. I take her first thing after she wakes up and she does go but her pull up/dipe has only been dry after a full night's sleep a handful of times.

Can you believe there are only 4 months of school left?? I think I counted up 70something school days until the last day. CRAZY!

Can you believe that I've actually written more than a few lines today?