mommy2him

Deployment EFF to the Y O U!

2010-08-13T16:32:00.003-04:00

It's been crazy, he's been home less than a month now and it's hard to readjust our lives again. He's not used to being near small children whose attention needs suck the lifeblood out of you (he's asked me at least six times if we can't just send them to school, lol). I'm not used to having to run my decisions by anyone else before acting on them. Plus I have to share my car with him, gone are the days where I woke up and decided we'd be going to the beach or lake right then and there. The kids are not used to him anymore and it shows. Ducky is afraid of his daddy and will only go to him/allow him to touch him under very VERY controlled situations. The Kid is very afraid that daddy is going to leave again. Every time that The Hubby leaves to the store or to work, The Kid starts crying because daddy left again and he won't see him again. He has been going to work (on a modified schedule) while they finish all the redeployment paperwork. Thankfully though, his leave starts tomorrow and we'll be going on a family vacation. Hopefully spending a month traveling in Cali and Tijuana with daddy 24/7 will be enough to get the boys to become more comfortable with the fact that daddy is here to stay.

The plan is for us to leave on the first plane that goes to Cali (free flights, but it can be a pain to get there) and then hitting up a few of the touristy attractions. Since Tijuana is just a short drive away we'll be going there for the day as well. Never been to Mexico before so I'm excited and looking forward to it. Although we won't be staying in Mexico overnight due to The Hubby's unnatural fear of being stabbed to death by a Mexican gang member (stems from his having gone on a missions trip to a part of Mexico that has more gangs and murderers than normal people).

The smurf creator sold his soul to the devil to make his show a success

2010-05-14T22:35:00.002-04:00

and that's the reason my grandma wouldn't let us watch that show. That, plus apparently some kids that were alone watching the show said that the smurfs came out and scratched them. Never mind the fact that the entire show revolved around an old guy trying to commit genocide and a town with only one female and a surprisingly large number of children and babies with no visible parents.

But that got me talking to a few people and then everyone started spouting off their favorite eighties cartoon shows which brought back a lot of memories. Rainbow Brite, Strawberry Shortcake (the original, not the weird version they came up with recently), She-Ra (or She-Man as she was called in our country), He-Man, Thundercats, Voltron, Transformers, and who could forget Jem and the Holograms. Man, I wish I was back in the eighties. At least then you knew what to expect from cartoons and it wasn't wondering whether or not this picture is true:

A pedophile's wet dream

2010-05-13T10:00:00.002-04:00

Honestly, who the heck lets their seven year old girl child dress like a slut and dance like that in public? And then posts it on youtube so that anyone and everyone can copy it on their hard drive? Last time I checked, that song "Single Ladies" has a sexual undertone to it. Burlesque wear and pre PREpubescent girls should not be used in the same sentence. And the dancing, holy toledo the dancing. Yes, the girls do have talent and can do moves that would be hard for a lot of older girls taking professional dance lessons. But that does not excuse the fact that they're shaking things that they don't even have and dancing suggestively. I would like to know what was going on through the parents heads when they saw their girls practicing to that song and then saw the outfits.

The outfits kill it, I mean if they were wearing loose jeans and fitted tops the dance would look halfway normal. And I say halfway because there are a few parts of the dance that are suggestive no matter what way you look at it. But other parts of the dance are okay and would look much better on a child who was wearing a bit more clothing.

They gave me the midget room

2010-05-12T22:10:00.004-04:00

This stuff is fun. I get to be sent to a five star hotel to spend a few days lounging around, get free books, money for food, win prizes, and get free daycare. All I have to do? Send my husband to a warzone for a measly year. Not too shabby (yeah, right). We had fun, we did the five love languages, the five love languages for children, and even watched (and got the book for) the laugh your way into a better marriage seminar. Too too funny, I definitely recommend it to all married couples. And to top it all off, I got two copies of the Love Dare book (the one that the movie Fireproof is based on). All signs and rumors are pointing to The Hubby's unit coming back a month early but like I told him, until he's on a plane home I'm not believing anything. After all, this is the same Army that moved up his deployment date via text message. The kidlets and I spent quite a few hours at the kiddie pool. I'm happy to report that The Kid is almost swimming. I'm even sadder to report that that child swims better than I do.

But back to the midget room. They gave us a darn midget room, literally. The bathroom counters were about two inches higher than my kneecaps. The bathtub was ye high (about eight inches tall) so there was no danger or fear of Ducky drowning in the tub accidentally. That's seriously one of my biggest fears, that and being chased by zombies. The toilet, oh my God the toilet. Let's just say that when I sat down on it, my knees were touching my ears. But my two year old was able to stand next to the toilet and pee comfortably. And when we were jumping on the beds my head kept hitting the ceiling. Darn midget room.

But since the kids were having so much fun with a room that was just their size, I didn't call the front desk to get a different room. Darn motherly instincts, I suffer for three days so that they can have fun.

Holy schmoly this thing is till up

2010-05-06T03:10:00.002-04:00

I keep coming back to this blog trying to type something and then stop. Facebook has been getting all my love lately. So many things have happened these past few months so I'll give you the Reader's Digest Condensed version of it. The Kid started karate, soccer, and HeadStart. The kidlets got new carseats. The kids and I got to stay at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel for free thanks to a nifty deployed spouses conference. Heck, just for sitting in a room listening to some chaplains talk about the love languages I got to have full daycare for three days, a luxury hotel room, free food, vouchers for more free food, and even won a couple's massage certificate which is good for another two years. Will be waiting for The Hubby to get here to cash in the certificate. I started teaching The Kid how to read, write, and simple math (have nothing else better to do with my day, lol). I started school. We had R&R. I spent way too much money in two new wardrobes for The Kid and myself (thankfully Ducky still fits in his 6-12 month sized clothes so I don't have to buy him anything for a while). I had an experience traveling through the Space A program. Oh yeah, and The Kid broke the truck. And not like, omg you broke my truck. More like Sweet GOD IN HEAVEN WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY TRUCK CHILD! It was bad. Very, very bad. I put him in the car and told him to get in his seat, turned the car on so they could have a/c and turned around while L asked me a question. In those .03 seconds he got into the driver's seat and put one foot on the gas and the other on the break. And pushed, hard. While I reached into the car to pull him off the car made a noise that sounded like a dozen spoons were thrown into the garbage disposal. Needless to say, the engine was kaput and I was carless. Of course, this did had to happen three months after we finished paying off the truck (early, might I add).

Gone were the karate lessons, soccer practice. Heck, even the visits to the dentist were gone. The only reason we didn't die of starvation was that the supermarket happens to be within walking distance of the house. So I would put Ducky in the carrier, The Kid would walk, and I would push the umbrella stroller so that I could use it to carry the groceries home.

And then we had R&R, we decided to go back home for it so the kidlets and I loaded up and hopped on the Space A flights so we could make it back home in time for The Hubby to get there as well. Can't go into too many details of that as it would take a week and I'm trying to make things snappy. But we did get a car, a minivan actually. I threw a temper tantrum at The Hubby so that I could get something that fit more than two carseats in the back. Of course, we had to ship the car back here so we only drove it for two weeks while back home before we left again. It came here in Feb. And then I decided that there was no way in God's green earth that I was going to allow the red iron dirt of Hawaii stain the cream carpeting. So off I went to the store to buy a black outdoor rug and I spent an afternoon cutting and measuring the rug to make it fit in the car. It's worked great might I add. Especially when it rains and all that oxidized dirt becomes mud. And the texture helps wipe the shoes and might I add also hides dirt and cookie crumbs. Win/win all around. I do like the new car. It's a Nissan Quest and it's quite lovely inside and out.

With the new car coming in I was able to get the kidlets back to the dentist for a way overdue visit (car broke in October and didn't get the minivan here until Feb) only to discover that despite my using a dentist's pick on his mouth daily and having him use mouthwash daily as well, The Kid had two cavities. Of course, our crappy insurance meant that the only fillings they'd partially pay for are the metal ones and I didn't want my poor boy walking around with tons of metal in his mouth. So off I went to find a pediatric dentist that did composite fillings. Thank goodness I found one since he is ten times better than the other dentist who conveniently "forgot" English when he pleased. He got the first filling done yesterday* (they're on opposite sides of his mouth) and the poor thing looks like he got infected. The gums look white around the tooth and he says they hurt. So off we will go to the dentist again tomorrow to get it checked out. Poor boy, I feel so sad for him. But the new dentist inferred that the old one was incompetent and inept since The Kid is so easy to work with.

The Kid started swimming lessons. Sadly though, even though he has a long way to go before anyone can say that he knows how to swim; he knows more than I. Soccer season is over so I couldn't get him back into it but next month is sign ups for pee wee baseball. I shall enroll him in it the very first day. I've been wanting to enroll him in baseball since he was swimming around in his daddy's undies. The Hubby gave me the go ahead to homeschool the boys (yay! Party in my mouth!) so I have set up the extra bedroom to look like a classroom. I have pictures on my facebook but I'll have to post some here as well. Since The Kid knew basically 99% of the kindergarten curriculum from the company I decided on (My Father's World), I ended up getting the 1st grade curriculum. I don't have to submit anything until the year he turns six and I can spend two years on the 1st grade stuff if I have to so it won't be so hard on him or me.

But this is a bittersweet weekend, this is my sixth anniversary and mother's day weekend (Sat and Sun respectively). I am a bit sad about that although The Hubby told me to buy myself whatever I wanted as my mother's day/anniversary present. So I chose a sewing machine since I've been wanting to learn how to sew. But I do get to go on another conference this weekend. This time we'll go to SWEET MONKEYS ALIVE! I just googled the name of the hotel (Marriot Ihilani Resort) and this came up "One of Conde Nast's Top-Five Spa Resorts in the world." How cool is that? Somehow, I don't feel so sad about this weekend anymore. The Hubby being gone is what's getting me to spend the weekend at this resort so I'll be happy for that.

*by yesterday I mean Tuesday but I did start writing this on Weds.

Dear Husband

2009-06-07T01:11:00.003-04:00

When you see me using the bathroom with the lights off, do not turn them on for me. Understand that I'm not doing it because I'm some sort of closet vampire. I'm actually trying to hide from your spawn, er children. You see, the lights of the bathroom are connected to the fan and if I turn them on they will realize that I've escaped their grasp and will come and find me. Rather than having two screaming crying children disturbing the only 10 minutes of me time that I have, I'd rather do my necessities in the dark.

Please understand that and respect my choices. Or next time that I catch you going to the bathroom I will wait until you're too busy, open the door, throw a small child or two in there and close the door. Trust me, you do not want to be reading Hansel and Gretel while trying to do number two.

Dear BIL

2009-06-03T20:27:00.000-04:00

If I hear The Hubby gripe about one more mail order/catalog/pyramid scheme thing that you're trying to sell to him, I'm going to go postal. If you value your life and that of your brother, please stop selling him candles/cookware/tupperwear/etc. We don't need it. Dude, it took me like six month's worth of research to choose our pots/pans, what makes you think that we're going to go gaga over your olympia pots or whatever the heck they're called.

STOP TRYING TO CON US INTO GIVING YOU OUR HARD EARNED MONEY!

Dear SIL

2009-06-02T20:17:00.001-04:00

I appreciate that you're thinking of me, I really do. But STOP SENDING ME STUPID FORWARD TEXTS! Seriously! Stop saying how:

God spoke to me and said that you're blessed. If you want this to be true, send to 10 friends or have bad luck for a year.

Or that

Thank God that you woke up alive today. To continue being alive, send to ten friends.

I can't stand stupid forwarded messages. First of all, you're using up all of my allotted texts for the month (doesn't matter that I have an unlimited plan, that's beside the point). But second, and this is a biggie If God were to want me dead, he wouldn't let me know through a text from a friend of a friend. Last I checked, The Bible does not say: thou shall forward all holy text messages or die. And doesn't The Bible say that we're blessed already? Why do I have to forward it to 10 friends? What if I don't have that many friends, can I send to 10 relatives? Does it count if I send it back to the sender? What if my battery is dead or I'm camping somewhere with no signal and don't send the text out in time, will God kill me then?

You see the pandora's box that you put God in when you start putting his name in these things? I think they'll have to open up a new department in heaven just to deal with all the repercussions of these kinds of texts.

Sweet! (Almost)free money! Field traing and deployments

2009-05-15T04:13:00.004-04:00

So I got my first unemployment check this week. Turns out that when you quit because your spouse is relocating bc of the army you qualify for it. Sad part? Even though I'm *technically* getting less than half of my weekly paycheck, I'm actually seeing much more of it since I don't have to pay daycare and gas to work. Seriously, before after I paid daycare, gas, tithe, and bought groceries I had less than $50 left over per week. And that was after we dropped the health insurance through my job, my leftover money was even less than that.

The Hubby's been gone all week for field training. Sucks to be him, I've had unbridled access to both the car and the bank account. I spent about $500, probably more than that. But I did get enough groceries for the next two weeks (minus fruits, they go too fast here to keep for long) and bought some things that I wanted and was told by The Hubby that "when you're working and bringing home a paycheck you can buy it."

He's gonna go to war. Of course mr. dumbo listens to everything others tell him no matter how laughable it is thinks that he's not going to be gone for a full year because the president said that the troops were coming home. He doesn't listen to the news and can't see what I see, that if they're finished in Iraq before the year's out, they'll just be sent over to Afghanistan or maybe even Pakistan (who knows what's gonna happen with them in six or eight months?). The clock is ticking down and before the year's out he will be sleeping under strange stars and looking at an unfamiliar moon. It's a good thing that his stint at AIT turned me into a darn monk. Otherwise I would've never survived a year without nookie.

Me Gustan las vaca vacas decapitadas

2009-05-11T13:33:00.002-04:00

For some odd reason that only Katie can understand, I find myself wanting to say that to my children. Somehow, deep down, I have this need for them to know that phrase and would love for them to randomly say it alongside their "that's bigger than your head!"' and "Holy poop on a stick!"

Our Adolescent culture

2009-04-29T19:17:00.000-04:00

“There was a time, literally, when there were no teenagers.” This is the opening line of a recent book by columnist and author Dianna West. Her thesis is given away in the title: The Death of the Grownup: How America’s Arrested Development Threatens Western Civilization (St. Martin’s Press, 2007).

Adolescence didn’t always exist. In fact, it is a rather recent phenomenon. This is the point of West’s opening line. In fact, the word “teenager” wasn’t really used until 1941. Not because there weren’t people who were teen aged, but because those years were not considered any more remarkable than any others.

In virtually every other culture in the history of the world prior to late 20th century Western culture, kids became adults. Not so anymore. They now become teenagers or, to put it in more sociologically acceptable terms, they become adolescents.

What happened to bring about this new stage in human development? The sexual revolution and political upheavals of the 60’s are, of course, the most obvious suspects. However, West suggests a number of other things, some earlier than the 60’s: a generation of disconnected fathers trying to deal with what they experienced during WWII, factories no longer producing necessities for war begin producing non-necessities for consumption, new marketing engines to sell these goods to people who didn’t realize they wanted them, Chubby Checker’s Twist, Elvis’ hips, the Beatles’ hair, automobiles-perhaps more than one-in every home, the growth of Hollywood, and the recognition by the marketing engines of the fortune to be made from this brand new segment of the population.

Of course, adolescence is now considered a fixed stage of development. It is now expected that students will lose their minds from ages 13-18. “Kids will be kids,” we say. Only, we aren’t referring to kids anymore, we are talking about 15 year olds.

There is another complication with adolescence. Its grip has forcefully expanded beyond teenagers, and in both directions. On the front end, we went from teens to “pre-teens,” and the marketing engines quickly spotted more financial potential. On the back end, whereas eighteen was once considered the end of adolescence, it is now considered the middle. Psychologists and sociologists now refer to adolescence as the stage from age 11 to age 30.

But, there’s more. The reach of adolescence is even greater than this. Adolescence is now, and this must not be missed, the goal of our culture. Somewhere along the way, we ceased to be a culture where kids aspire to be adults and became a culture where adults aspire to be kids.

What are the marks of a culture with a dominant adolescent mindset? Not surprisingly, they are precisely what we have come to expect from adolescents themselves.

Demand for immediate gratification. We want what we want now, and we will not wait or work for it. Spiraling credit card debt, addiction to new technologies, bouncing from church to church till we find the one we like, abandoning marriages – this list could go on and on.

Absence of long-term thinking about life and the world. Hand-in-hand with a demand for immediate gratification is a distraction from the real issues that actually matter. For example, on a recent 20/20 John Stossel showed pictures of major political figures and a few celebrities. 100% recognized TV personality Judge Judy, while no one recognized Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. A generation who is unaware of what is important in life will certainly misdirect their time and energy.

Motivated by feeling rather than truth. This is a key indicator of a volatile person, and an even more significant indicator of a failing culture. Truth is murdered by pooled, and polled, ignorance. Other casualties include families, churches, masculinity, femininity, art, words, justice, charity, love, education, psychological stability, any coherent sense of identity, theology, mission, wisdom, beauty, and human sexuality.

Wanting grown-up things without growing up. Ironically, despite our addiction to all things adolescent, we still expect to be treated like adults. “Don’t tell me what to do,” we say. “Every opinion matters” and “Treat me with respect,” we add. Of course, fools actually do not deserve respect and their opinions are, at best, a thorough waste of time and, at worst, dangerous.

Expecting bailouts rather than accepting consequences. Not thinking before acting is a trait of adolescence, as is making excuses for it. In our acceptance of adolescence accepts we label this thinking as merely immature. “They’ll grow out of it,” we suggest. A quick look around reveals that “they” are not. Bad mortgage decision? The government should help. Sexual immorality? Birth control, abortion, and HPV vaccines. Falling grades? Tests are to blame. Poor behavior? They’re just kids.

Focusing on appearance rather than depth. Seen in everything from fascination with celebrity to the way presidents and churches are chosen, cultures that choose style over substance are easily deceived and destined for tyranny. Few things are more historically verifiable than this.

More could be added here, but the point is that sometimes what is normal, well, shouldn’t be. Adolescence is a recent, and foolish, invention. And, ideas have consequences. Good ideas have good consequences; bad ideas have bad consequences; foolish ideas have foolish consequences.

Still, there is good news. Cultures like ours have a leadership vacuum. So, there is a terrific opportunity for influence for those who produce the leaders, especially if they produce who can think beyond the current cultural shallowness. Home school parents are in a unique position to raise leaders who will rise above the adolescent abyss.

How can we do this?

Challenge students, instead of coddle them. We aim too low with teenagers. Students do not need more entertainment, whether it is from the television, the IPod, or the youth group. They need, and want, to be challenged. We see this every year at our Summit student leadership conferences – student endure 70+ hours of lecture and instruction on worldviews, apologetics, culture, and character. Then they call home and ask for more money, so they can buy books!
Give them a thorough education in worldviews and apologetics. First, students need to know what they believe. Too many see Christianity as merely a private faith rather than as a robust view of reality that offers a tried and true map for life. Second, students need to know what others believe. There are non-Biblical worldviews that are battling for their hearts and minds, and for our culture. We contend that, at minimum, students need to have a handle on these six worldviews before going to college: secular humanism, Marxism/Leninism, postmodernism, Islam, New Age, and Biblical Christianity. Third, Christians must know why they believe what they believe. Too many Christians cannot answer, and are even afraid of, the challenging questions about God, Jesus, the Bible, morality, or truth that come at them.
Show them that Christianity is not just about what we are against, but what we are about. Proverbs says that without vision, the people “cast off restraint.” One of the main reasons that students are casualties of immorality is that they lack vision. While they may know what they are not supposed to do, they fail to understand the life of meaning, purpose, and impact Christ calls them to. Christian students often get the impression that we are merely saved from, and not to. They miss the “re” part of the salvation words that sprinkle the Scriptures: renew, regenerate, reconcile, redeem, etc. They miss that Christ not only came to save us from death, he came to save us to life - and abundant life at that!
Confront with them, rather than isolate them from, the major cultural battles of our day. Historically, Christians have sought to understand, and respond to cultural crises. They understood that these crises were the site of the battle of worldviews. Unfortunately, many Christians today are unaware of, disinterested in, or avoiding of issues like embryo-destructive research, euthanasia, emerging technologies, the arts, film, fashion, legislation, human trafficking, politics, and international relations. In the Garden on the evening before His death, Christ prayed these astounding words for his followers: “Father, do not take them from the world, but protect them from the evil one” (John 17:15). Our prayer, and preparation, for our children should be no different.

Worshipping the porcelain gods

2009-04-24T15:58:00.002-04:00

I swear to God, I'd never been so glad to see a bathroom in my life. You see, we had to take the rental car back to the airport. I was driving one car with the kidlets and The Hubby was driving the other car. Five minutes into the forty minute trip it hit me. I had to go, and badly. I think I prayed to God more fervently than in those scary minutes when I thought Ducky was going to die at birth. We finally stopped at a gas station but it had no bathroom. I then went to a store behind it but it too, was bathroomless. I had to run across a large highway and down the block before I found a bathroom and it was just in the nick of time. I was thisclose to going behind a bush, that's how bad it was.

Sorry for the TMI peeps.

We're here, well, sorta

2009-04-14T16:49:00.004-04:00

Geez, where do I start. Well, the plane ride's a good place as any. Imagine: a stroller, two carseats(kiddos sat on these in the flight, NOT checked in), six suitcases, two backpacks, a huge diaperbag/purse, a three year old, a one year old, two planes, 14 hours travel time.

Oh, and did I mention that I did this all by myself? Yeah, it was a wild ride. But thankfully the kidlets were on their semi best behavior and things went along without a hitch. Except when The Kid got a weird rash all of a sudden from one of the plane's blankets. He got so weirdly hivey that the flight attendants considered having EMTs meet us at the airport. Thankfully we still had over eight hours flight time to go and the hives went down before we landed. I def needed to get myself into a bed and sleep. The second biggest problem we've had is the time change. We're six hours behind and these kid's body clocks are not behaving. They've been waking up between 2-4am (hawaii time) every day and going to bed at eight pm with no naps in between. And someone forgot to tell Ducky that it is NOT okay to stop eating anything at all and only nurse. He's worse than a newborn lately.

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Ducky, amma gonna shake my fist at you

2009-04-14T11:05:00.000-04:00

I feel so sorry for that boy. He has had the worst three weeks evah. In no particular order he has had: a cold, ear infection, diarrhea, cut two upper molars, cut one lower tooth, chipped a front tooth, traveled back in time, and is stuck in a hotel room staring at us. I do hope he gets better soon although I doubt it. I think I saw the beginnings of another lower molar pushing through.

Mommy!!! Daddy run away!! and EWWWWWW

2009-03-31T16:58:00.005-04:00

Ewwww!
I was cooking and was slicing some garlic cloves when wouldn't you know it, Ducky reached in my plate and grabbed one of them and ate it!! ewww. He ate the entire thing. I thought for sure he'd spit it out as soon as he tasted the frozen clove but not. Like a true Sourpatch child, he would not allow himself to waste anything edible. I was icked out and proud at the same time.

on runing away.

The Kid woke up two nights ago and came running into my room as usual. He didn't find his daddy on the bed and was surprised. He screamed out Mommy! Daddy run away!! The Hubby was in the living room at the time. It was super funny the way he said it.

I'm quitting and not looking back, baby!

2009-03-26T08:54:00.004-04:00

This is it! My very last day of working here. I leave with a bittersweet heart. On one part, there are some awesome people that I've gotten to know (M, A, J, M, E, R) and there are also those whose name shall go unmentioned. I will miss seeing and talking to my girls here but I won't miss the office mama drama and all that it entails (and I'm mostly looking at the local crazies, i.e. S). This is also my very last day with real internet access. Probably by the time I get home, the pc AND tv will have been unhooked in anticipation of the movers. I still have SO MUCH to do it's not even funny. I have about two loads of laundry left (mostly diapers) and have to buy more almond milk for Ducky since his princess tummy won't tolerate anything but.

Speaking of him, he got whatever it is that I have. Poor baby woke up eleventeen times last night and nursed nonstop. Woke up with a face crusted with snot (looked like those children you see in walmart). The poor The Kid also is getting whatever it is that I have as well, I heard him coughing several times during the night. He slept in the air mattress in his room since their beds have already been dismantled. Poor thing, he tried crawling to my room sometime during the night. I found him asleep on the floor. Half his body was in my room and the other half in the hallway. And the little snitch also pulled the stopper on the air mattress. When I went to wake him up this morning (I'd put him back on the bed when I found him), the mattress was completely squoshed and the stopper had been taken off.

cross your fingers for me, The Hubby finally got the amended orders and will be trying to get our tickets on the same flight as his. Hopefully they'll still have seats available. And I'm going to go all out and not use 'sposies during the transition. I'd briefly considering using disposable diapers until we're in our own house in HI, but I'm going to try and not do it. I will use the laundromat in town until we leave, making sure all the dipes are nice and clean the day before. I don't think I'll have a problem using cloth on the plane. FBs are very good at holding things in, but just in case I will put a fleece cover over them. I will, however, make The Kid wear a pullup on at least the first leg of the trip. Last thing I want is to find out the altitude gives this child the runs. Until I can post again:

Hele me kahau 'oli

I got kicked out of work the day before I quit

2009-03-25T20:52:00.000-04:00

lol. Tomorrow's my last day and I woke up feeling sick like a dog. Vomiting, nausea, cough, etc. I got a bad, bad cold. I still showed up for work since I didn't think it'd be fair to call in my second to last day, but as soon as the managers caught me puking into the trashcan I was sent home. I got to nap half the day so that was kinda nice.

So long suckers!! (at least for now)

2009-03-25T09:00:00.002-04:00

Monday the movers came to pick up the small shipment. I was at work and The Hubby supervised. According to him, these guys were slower than a caravan of one legged men. And then the moving truck wouldn't start so he had to jumpstart their battery. Talk about efficiency, lol. Today I'm nursing a terrible head cold. Hopefully it'll go away soon. Tomorrow's my last day at work (cake day yay!) and I know they're planning some sort of surprise thing.

Onto serious things now, my pc will be disconnected tomorrow and unless I go to the airport or the mall, I won't have 'net access. Still don't have my tickets though, it's been one snag after another. The Hubby leaves next Friday (that's one entire week 'net less here) and I'm hoping we leave either that day, or the day after. And then we have to wait until our stuff gets to us before having regular internet.

MooOOOmmy, we have a problem!

2009-03-20T13:03:00.003-04:00

I'm phirsty

That's what The Kid told me yesterday with such a straight face I couldn't help but laughing.

Last week I was on the PC and hear:

MoOOOm! Come on let's help me clean my bum. Me first and you second.

Kids do say the darndest things.

Grf!@!

2009-03-20T13:00:00.002-04:00

The Hubby was supposed to get our tickets yesterday but couldn't. There was a mixup with the paperwork and they may fix it today. If it doesn't get fixed in the next couple of days, it might be a month or two before the kidlets and I join him in paradise. Which wouldn't upset me that much, except that my MIL already told her apt complex she'd be moving out 4/1 and I'd have to live with her for a month. Did I mention that I'd have no furniture the entire month? Not cool..

Schedules 101

2009-03-18T12:38:00.003-04:00

So, this is the tentative schedule for now.
Thursday, The Hubby gets my and the kidlet's tickets
Friday, The Hubby will come home for two weeks
Saturday, he goes and buys me some suitcases
Sunday, I pack said suitcases
Monday, the movers come pick up the smaller shipment
Thursday, I wash all dirty clothes and diapers. Last day of work
Friday, movers come in for the big move. I follow them around making sure they pack everything they're supposed to and don't go into the locked bedroom.

From Friday until we leave (hopefully next Friday, 4/3), we live out of a suitcase and sleep on an air mattress. Then it's off to Hawaii where we'll live in a hotel unitl we get a house. Oh, and my internet will be shut off as of 3/31. I'll have intermittent access to the 'net while we're enroute. Basically, where we can get free WiFI we'll use the laptop. Then it'll just be a matter of time between getting a house and getting the net installed. Hopefully I'll be back in full net acess by 4/30 as I don't know what I'll do with my time.

Sitting before a medical screening board to test for crazy...

2009-03-11T12:27:00.002-04:00

Is how I spent half my day yesterday. Apparently, they're supposed to clear me and the kidlets from having any and all sorts of diseases/mental issues before allowing us to travel. I loved the question from the social worker:

Do you have any undiagnosed mental health issues?

Now let's take a minute here and think. How would I know if I have a mental health issue if it's undiagnosed? Was I supposed to ask Dr. Google? Are mentally ill people supposed to admit that they're ill if they don't know? I know that I'm different and semy crunchy and that I have an issue with pixie sticks, but other than that, no. I got a bit freaked out when they mentioned vaccines. The Dr. lady said: I see here that Ducky is up to date in his vaxes and that The Kid is the same as well. I just nodded and smiled. It was more than obvious that she'd never even looked at their files (which were in front of her) because if she had, she'd know that Ducky's never gotten a vax and that The Kid is lacking some too. Either way, I got out of having to explain to people why I chose to keep my children chemical free. I'd rather have my children's insides chicken embryo free, not to mention phermaldehyde and aluminum. Crazy people, the good thing is that we passed the screening

ALOHA everyone!!!!

2009-03-10T09:12:00.003-04:00

That's right, We're going to HAWAIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Everything is happening pretty fast now. Suffice it to say that we will be there before mid April. I put in my notice at work yesterday (how awesome was that?!), my last day will be the 27th. My internet and cable will cut off the 31st which will leave me with about a week of no 'net while still in FL and it will be several weeks while we set up housing and have our furniture and pc delivered. Who knows how long that will take. For now, nyanya nyanya nya nya, I'm going to Hawaii to LIVE and you get to freeze your tushies. The Hubby wants me to find a job once we're settled but with the way the economy is and the high costs of daycare, I'm going to try and convince him to let me stay home with the kidlets. They're growing up so fast and I'm missing out on so much...

Go ahead, hate me.

And to top it all off, I got a brand new (Charlotte Russe) two piece business suit at a garage sale for two dollars. Fits me like a dream.

ALL Blog Tools

2009-03-05T13:39:00.000-05:00

If you needs to get your blog all nifty spiffy, you should check these guys out at allblogtools.com. You can get just about anything for your site and they will answer any and all of your questions. 'cept they won't give you their phone number. Something about a girl calling them at three am repeatedly asking what the heck a rss feed was..

oh wait, that was me last week. Sorry guys, I messed things up for the internets again.

I have SUCH great news but can't share (vent) update on Ducky humongous nogging

2009-02-27T13:12:00.004-05:00

I'm dying to tell you guys the news. I'm dying to tell you guys how absolutely amazing it's going to feel doing it. But I can't. In case my job knows about the internet. The good thing is that I'll be able to tell you guys either on the eight or the ninth. But it's awesome news!

In other less private matters, my mother is coming over to visit next weekend. Not sure if I'm glad or drearing the time. Thankfully it's going to be short so I won't have time to kill her if the urge comes.

Ducky has finally decided that he's going to walk (only like 80% of the time). I swear, this child does these things to drive me crazy. He's known how to walk for months now. We've seen him do it, he's seen us seeing him do it, he's done alone. But he still chooses to crawl. GR! It's not that he is afraid of falling or can only do a few steps at a time. This child will be sitting on the middle of the floor with nothing near him and is able to get up, walk, stop, turn around, take corners, in short he KNOWS how to do it. He's not doing it because he wants to be held either, that's the part that confuses me. Unless we are out (like shopping or something), he's on the floor. He doesn't like to be held for extended periods either....

The doctor found a hernia on his tummy last checkup. He says it's benign and that nothing needs to be done. Great, more things for me to freak out about. He also told me that he's monitoring his growth and brain development. Not because the kid is not meeting his milestones on time or has a problem, but (and get this) because someone messed up when they measured his head at an apt. They said that his head was smaller than normal. Now, granted, they remeasured his head right away and it was normal sized but apparently it's an automatic red flag and my kid will forever remind me of a shrunken head.

Do NOT answer the phone in the bathroom!!

2009-02-27T13:10:00.001-05:00

Seriously! Geez, I called the auto repair shop to get the estimate on The Hubby's truck. The guy answers the phone and when I tell him what I want he goes: can I call you back in 15 minutes? I'm in the bathroom.

EEEEEWWWWWW!

Three foot tongues and cigar smoke

2009-01-12T12:44:00.002-05:00

Yesterday we went to the zoo (or zoom! As The Kid says) and had a blast. We got to feed the giraffe! How cute are they? What with their big ol' eyes and huge eyelashes. The Kid was not afraid at all when it came his turn to extend his arm for the giraffe to eat. He actually fed it three times and loved it. I fed it once and have to say that the sandpaperish feel of its tongue pressed against the back of my arm was not entirely what I expected. But it's tongue was purple which made everything much better. I did notice however that there were a ton of people in the designated smoking areas (which are partially hidden) that chose to put their children inside it as well while they smoked up.

I wanted to hurt those people. It's bad enough that they're willing to put cancerous fumes on their bodies, they were forcing their children to fill up their lungs with strangers' smoke as well. I'm not talking about one parent with a child in the smoking area, I'm talking about upwards of ten+ adults and one or two children (one of them was in the infant baby stroller with the carseat on top). How can one as a parent force their child to ruin their lungs like that? I get breathless and start coughing everytime I'm near smoke (it didn't happen when I was younger) to the point where I think I'm having some sort of allergic reaction. I can't imagine what these poor children are going through.

Circus freaks and lollipops

2009-01-09T12:53:00.001-05:00

Last night we went to the circus. It was a spur of the moment decision, they were only going to be in until Sunday and I would only have two short windows of opportunity to go. It was amazing! I've never been to the circus before unless you count that one time when I was twelve where I arrived like 10 minutes before it ended. The Kid was so excited that he actually went to the bathroom 5 times in the three hours we were there. He almost did pee his pants. And Ducky, wow. His eyes were like two frying pans they got so big. He sat and looked at the show barely making a peep the entire time. The Kid wasn't afraid of the clowns and absolutely loved the elephants and dancing tigers. Of course, the magician was his favorite part. Now he's walking around the house waving his fingers "mysteriously" like the magician in the show. Definitely if you can take your kidlets there go, it's well worth it.

The Kid calls lollipops-ladypobs. For the life of me I can't get him to pronounce it right. But then again, this is the child that thinks maracas are "my racas" as in "these are racas that are mine." Silly child. Silly indeed.

Separations are never easy

2009-01-05T13:00:00.001-05:00

I dropped off The Hubby at the airport on Saturday. Sorry I hadn't come visiting in a while. There was a ton of hubub around when he came and with the holidays and all, life got to me. I was so down to see him go. At least it's only for three months tops this time. And soon we will get together again. BTW, guess where we'll be living?? Go ahead, guess.

Here's a clue, "there's no ice in paradise"

Whoever guesses wins a prize.

Whatever you do, DON'T hogtie the baby

2008-12-09T12:17:00.002-05:00

Yesterday I was playing cowboys with The Kid (we even had our own make believe lasso) when I had the strongest memory flashback. It's amazing the kind of things that can happen to a person and one can put so far out of their minds that the person can't even remember it happening anymore.

It was horrible and I started crying inconsolably. My "father" and I use the term loosely, tied my hands together and my feet together and then tied them to each other in such a way that I had to be laying down on the ground because I couldn't sit up or stand up straight. He did the same to my sister, he also gave us a beating beforehand. Our crime? I can't remember, but if it's anything like previous times that we got beat, it was probably because my mom didn't western union him all the money that she got from her paycheck. I can't remember the exact age I was at the time, all I know is that we lived in that apartment from when I was around six until I was eight. God, if I ever think of doing something like that to one of my children; please smite me. I don't ever want to inflict that kind of pain on a child, any child.

runs off to cry...

CVS Black friday deals

2008-11-26T10:03:00.004-05:00

I normally don't do black friday. What with the hassle of lugging two kids through a madhouse and all. But I've been doing CVS for awhile now and have saved up a ton of money. So much so, that I've decided to take the plunge and go to CVS for black friday. The best part? Their ads start on thurs and the 24hr CVS start at 12:01am. So, my plan is to show up to my CVS at 10:30-10:45pm tonite. I will bring some sort of goody for the cashiers and warn them of what's coming. I shall then load up my cart and will check out promptly at 12:01am. Then I shall go home and sleep. FYI: ECB stands for Extra Care Bucks. These print out at the bottom of the receipt and can be used as cash in any purchases. Everything else is coupons that I've collected from either the sunday paper, email, or snail mail. The bolded is my total before coupons and ECB, the red is my total Out Of Pocket expense. This is what my three transactions will look like:

Start with 15ECB, 5ECB and 8.99ECB and 3.49ECB

Tran#1
2.99 Colgate toothpaste
2.99 Aussie shampoo
6.99 L’Oreal lipgloss
5.99 Cover Girl Powder foundation
5.99 Bic Soleil razor
3.57 Buddies soap bars x3
3.49 Crest toothpaste
=32.01
-1.50/1 Colgate Q
-1/1 Aussie Q
-1/1 L’oreal Q
-1/1 CG Q
-3/1 Bic Q
-3/3 JJ Q
-1/1 Crest Q
-5/30 CVS
-15ECB
=.51 +tax OOP, earn 2.99ECB, 2.99ECB, 6.99ECB, 5.99ECB, 5.99ECB, 3.49ECB

Tran#2
8.99 Maybelline Liquid foundation
3.57 Buddies soap bars
7.99 Cover Girl Liquid foundation
2.99 Colgate toothpaste
2.00 Hersheys x2
5.99 Garnier facial cleansing cloths
6.99 L’Oreal lipgloss
5.99 Bic Soleil razor
2.99 Aussie shampoo
3.49 Crest toothpaste
=50.99
-3/1 Maybelline Q
-3/3 JJ Q
-1/1 CG Q
-1.50/1 Colgate Q
-1 BOGO Hersheys Q
-1/1 Garnier Q
-1/1 L’oreal Q
-3/1 Bic Q
-1/1 Aussie Q
-3/1 Crest (got this through mail) Q
-10/50 CVS
-5.99ECB, 5.99ECB, 6.99ECB, 3.49ECB
=.03 +tax OOP, earn 8.99ECB, 7.99ECB,
2.99ECB, 1ECB, 5.99ECB, 6.99ECB, 5.99ECB, 2.99ECB, 3.49ECB

Tran #3
6.99 L’Oreal lipgloss
8.99 Maybelline foundation
5.99 Cover Girl Powder foundation
3.57 Buddies soap bar x3
=25.54
-1/1 L’oreal Q
-3/1 Maybelline Q
-1/1 CG Q
-3/3 JJ Q
-4/20 CVS Beauty
-8.99ECB, 3.49ECB
=1.06 +tax OOP, earn 6.99ECB, 8.99ECB, 5.99ECB

Win a Free embroidered Ergo

2008-11-24T09:58:00.001-05:00

Win a Free Organic Embroidered Ergo Baby Carrier Hands Free System from Along for the Ride

These are absolutely cute carriers. Even if you don't currently have a little baby to wear, you should enter anyways. It would make a great christmas present.

He's coming home!

2008-11-13T12:57:00.002-05:00

The Hubby is coming home on R&R on dec 19th~~~!!!!!! I'm going to buy his plane ticket this weekend. I'm so excited, we have a lot to catch up on. I hope the kidlets don't get scared of him since it's been so long and kids have short memories. Of course, he says that he doesn't want anyone meeting him at the airport when he comes which means that I am so going to have a group of people there waiting for him. I'm going to make signs, and get balloons, and all that happy crappy stuff. It will have been six months from the last time that we saw him, of course people want to see him. He'll be here until just after new year's which will give him some time to get a relationship going with the kidlets again. Especially Ducky. The poor thing barely remembers him (I think)I hope that he doesn't take offense if Ducky doesn't run to him right away. After all, he's been gone half of Ducky's life. And of course we have to catch up on six month's worth of conjugal visits if you know what I mean, hehe. It's too bad that I don't have any vacation time left, or I'd take some time then to spend with him. Oh well, he can have a nice hot meal ready for me when I get home from work.

Yo.

2008-11-13T12:51:00.003-05:00

We went to the aquarium on tuesday. It was fun. Made especially so because it was free thanks to my awesome military discount. There was a fish there. I'm pretty sure it was a grouper. It was bigger than katie's head. And before you start with your "but SPB, you're always comparing things to people's heads. How are we supposed to know any difference?" think on this, all we could see of the fish was it's tail which was bigger than a fan. It was huge. I had to wipe the drool off my mouth just thinking of that fish on a plate before me. Of course, kids being kids, The Kid only cared about the play area outside. Had I known that he'd rush me through everything just so he can go down a slide I would've just taken him to the park down the street and saved me some gas.

The Kid got a pair of rollerskates. He looks so adorable in them. They're the old fashioned kind that adjust at the bottom and you put over your shoes. Of course, he doesn't skate, he walks on the skates but thinks he is skating. It's cute, actually. Ducky's tooth finally cut through, and I have the bitemarks to prove it. The Kid never did bite this much when he was nursing. Need to think of way to make him stop, otherwise I'll be nippleless by the time he turns one.

Go on, vote

2008-11-04T10:12:00.002-05:00

Unless you vote today, you cannot complain about the results. Any violation of that will result in someone's foot (mine) to be dropkicked into your eye. And don't you come whining to me about how "the spleen goes inside!"

Hate and depression on the single military mom

2008-10-13T16:50:00.004-04:00

This whole single mothering thing is getting to me. I keep toggling between bouts of hate/depression. Hate for The Hubby for abandoning me (I know he didn't, but try telling my heart that) combined with a yearning for him. A need for his touch, his voice, heck even his snoring.

The depression part. If it weren't for the kidlets, I wouldn't even get out of bed most days. There's no point. I'm barely cooking and cleaning. I'm basically doing the bare minimum needed to survive. There's no point. I'm not going to cook a pot of rice and chicken for one. Dishes pile up in the sink for days at a time. Why clean? There's no point. No one's coming to visit, no one's home to look at it. It's just the boys and me. I haven't even been going to church as often either. Don't want to have to talk to people and deal with reality. I know it's not good, it's unhealthy and even toxic for the kidlets to be in this kind of environment but I just don't care anymore. I have gotten better though, I actually fired up the stove and cooked twice in three days. That's a record for me nowadays.

Awww moment

2008-09-10T12:44:00.002-04:00

We've been battling a nasty bug that keeps passing from kid to kid to mom like a bad joke. But I think that we're finally overcoming it. It's what The Kid did last night that made my heart skip a beat. He asked to sleep on my bed when it was bedtime and since he wasn't fully well I let him. Imagine my surprise when I went to bed myself about three hours later to find him still awake. He gave me a big hug and said "mamma, you're the best!" and fell asleep on my arms.

Doesn't that melt your heart?

Beat the cat to death with a stick

2008-08-21T09:58:00.004-04:00

But the cat was already dead. Not really, but yeah. See, in my random caribbean island of birth there exists no such thing as spaying or neutering pets. For that matter, pet food is nonexistent and vets are only there to provide forms when someone wants to take an animal out of the country. So most people's forms of pet natality control is laying out a bunch of traps and killing them. Mean, sad, but true. And the butcher on the corner was most interested in keeping the cat population in the neighborhood under control.

That said, one beautiful spring morning we woke up to a dead cat in our garden. We being curious kids with nothing else to do started poking and prodding the cat. You know, for fun. It was a beautiful orange sherbet tabby and it's eyes were wide open and staring off into space. Or so I thought. Apparently the cat must've been only paralyzed because it started to stare at me. No one else saw it, but it kept on looking at me and freaking the heck out of me. Not sure what happened to the carcass of the cat. I'm sure that it eventually died off and was stuck in a garbage bag by one of the adults and then thrown in the trash.

I can never kiss his sweet cherry lips again

2008-08-13T12:35:00.001-04:00

So.....This morning I was changing The Kid for skool and I'd left Duckie in the bathroom. I'd expected Duckie to follow us out of the bathroom like he always does when I realized that not only had he not followed us, but that there was a weird noise going on....I rush to the bathroom to find....

My sweet baby boy pretending to brush his gums with the toilet bowl cleaner!!!!!!!!!! ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (major overreaction emoticon)

I scrubbed his mouth and hands as best I could but I could not bring myself to kiss him when I dropped him off at the sitter's. I'm hoping that they'll kiss the nastiness out of him by the time I pick him up after work.

Skool

2008-08-07T12:48:00.002-04:00

The Kid, you have started skool and you have a love/hate relationship with it. On Monday, your first day, you cried on and off for the entire two hours that you were there. Tuesday, you didn't cry as much. Only in the morning but were extremely happy when I picked you up. You had a very good day that day. Yesterday you had a good day too. Although when I told you that you were going to skool you started to cry and said "no shhkowl mommy, no shhkowl". But when I told you that skool was fun you started to laugh and tell me all about their puzzles, and slides, and your friends.

You're an odd kid, but I love you.

Happy two and a half unbirthday, The Kid!

2008-08-01T14:07:00.002-04:00

So, here it is, either late or early, The Kid's update. I hope that he doesn't get mad at me when he's older and sees all the updates that Duckie has and the few that he has.

The Kid, you are two and a half and a wonder to be around. You can:
dress yourself (for the most part. You still need a bit of help but you're getting there)
are an expert in putting your shoes on in the wrong foot, lol.
Know your ABC's in both english and spanish as well as your numbers in both languages.
Know your shapes, colors, numbers (some numbers, depending on the font that they're printed).
Are about to start skool, you are very excited about this one.
Your vocabulary is expanding more and more each day.
You can do a flip and almost a cartwheel. You're working on both a headstand and walking on your hands. Either of the two is giving me more gray hairs than I can manage.
You love creating with your hands.
You miss daddy a lot, but we look at your book everyday which is filled with pictures of daddy.
If it's high up/dangerous/toxic, you want to do it. I've resigned myself to the fact that you're a daredevil and nothing I do will change it.
You absolutely love to draw, and your drawings are too cute.

Have turned into such a polite little boy. I have no idea where my baby went to, you say please, thank you, sorry, and expect the same courtesy to be given to you. Although I'm getting tired of apologizing to you for your getting hit on the table/floor/chair. It's not my fault you fell, not sure why I have to say I'm sorry.

you know what? we haven't really had a tantrum episode. The few times that we've been out and about and you've misbehaved it could be directly traced back to being overdue for a nap or just woke up from a nap. Either I've been doing a good job disciplining you or I've been getting better in scheduling outings at the best of times for you. I'm leaning towards the latter, you know, in case it comes back to bite me in the butt.

7 months

2008-08-01T13:59:00.002-04:00

Duckie, today (well, a couple of days ago) you turned 7 months. In this time, you've learned to do many more things:

you can pull yourself up to a standing position. You can't bring yourself down yet and it frustrates you.
You have done a teensy bit of cruising but are still skeptical of it.
You have finally mastered the weird stepthing from the TV room into the kitchen. This used to have sliding glass doors and were removed but the track is still there. You used to be afraid of it and would get stuck over it crying. You have managed to do it and will happily go for it.
You have busted your nose, thankfully it's better now. Please try to hold off on the jumping.
You are definitely becoming more and more mobile by the day. You love chasing your big brother around the house.

And what's more important, you are teaching yourself to fall asleep on your own. A definite plus, you may not stay asleep for long during the night, but it helps a bit.

My little boy is growing up!

2008-07-28T09:47:00.004-04:00

I just finished most of the paperwork to enroll The Kid in skool. He starts on 8/4 and is just so excited! He's going to this montessori academy. I took a tour of the skool on Friday and saw the different classrooms. Their four year olds are already doing long division! And reading! Although I'm sure that The Kid's favorite thing will be a toss up between the slides, gymnastics class, and lunch/snack time. Pretty sure that naptime will be his most hated subject. I'm so proud of him! He's going to do great in skool and the fact that we can now afford(not really, it'll be a tight fit but it's a sacrifice worth making) to send him to this great place makes me happy. If I can't stay home with my kiddos and teach them stuff, I might as well find a skool that will teach them the same way that I would. He's going to be having math, science, social studies, practical life, and reading classes in addition to gymnnastics (not sure about dance) and whatever else they throw in.

It's going to work out great. He'll be there from 9-3pm, I'll drop him off and pick him up at the sitter's and she'll take him to and from skool. I don't have to switch my schedule around, the sitter gets rid of him for 6 hours a day, and Duckie gets to have personal one on one time with the sitter and her family. See, everybody wins.

It will hopefully serve as a distraction for him what with daddy being gone and all. Maybe then he'll stop picking on his baby brother.

I'm the worst mother in the world and I have the papers to prove it

2008-07-24T09:32:00.000-04:00

On weds as I was getting ready to go to work, tragedy struck. I'd been in the kitchen getting some things prepared for The Kid when I heard a gutwrenching bloodcurling scream.

Duckie had falled out of bed. This wasn't your normal day to day kid fell out of bed. He'd somehow fallen at an angle and was actually balancing his body on his nose.

Poor thing, he had blood coming out of his nose like it was nobody's business. Several phone calls later to the pedi's office found me on my way to the ER to get x-rays done to make sure his nose wasn't broken. Thank God it wasn't, but holding him down while they took the xray was almost as bad as holding him down while that inept nurse that drew his blood poked him several times and shook the needle back and forth and to and fro because she couldn't find his vein. I wanted to hurt her like she hurt my baby.

He's on the mend now, all he has to show for it is a scrape on the tip of his nose but now that I'm doubly sure that he can get out of his crib and land on the bed and then land on the floor; I think that I'll put his mattress on the floor.

sweet and savory popcorn recipe

2008-07-18T10:25:00.003-04:00

or my sister traumatized the heck out of me.

1 jiffy pop popcorn container with english instructions
1 child that doesn't speak english
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups sugar
3 guinea pigs

Instructions:
When I was about 6 years old my mom went from lonuevayores (new york) to our random caribbean island to visit us. In her bag was one of these Now, if you've seen these you will note that the instructions are in english and that it has three distinct pictures. First picture has the container on the stove, second picture has the top lid thing raised up high, and the third pic is opened up with the popcorn coming out. Keep that in mind for future reference it'll explain a lot.

So, my two cousins, my sister, and I were alone in the house and we(as in my sister) wanted some popcorn. We/she decided that even though we only spoke and read spanish that we wouldn't need an adult to help. Nevermind the fact that we had a gas stove that didn't have a pilot light. She decided that she was big enough and old enough to work the stove and read directions. She went by the pictures and sure enough, put the pan on the heat (picture one). After a few minutes the popcorn started to raise up the lid part(picture two) and we were happy that the popcorn was almost ours but we had to wait until the lid opened up (picture three). We waited, and waited, and waited. The popcorn was burning (we could smell something was off) but she refused to take it off the stove because the picture said that when it was done it would open up. She finally relented and took it off the heat.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the popcorn inside was black. And it stunk to high heaven. My sister, being the good loving sister that she is, decided that it could not be put to waste but that we should eat it. ....She served it in several cups, added salt to the popcorn because that's what you eat it with. And then she decided to add sugar to it to offset the burn taste. She accidentally put in a lot of sugar, it was like 1/2 full of sugar and had a few kernels floating in it. So she put in more salt to offset some of that sugar.

Because she was two years older than us she made us eat it. To this day I can't stand not even the smell of popcorn, much less the taste.

2008-07-15T15:12:00.000-04:00

As a 1930s wife, I am
Superior

Take the test!

She almost crashed into me!

2008-07-11T12:57:00.002-04:00

I pulled into my sitter's driveway yesterday to drop off The Kid. She has a long driveway that fits three and a half cars in it and her car was parked (and off) in its usual spot. I stopped about 1 car lenght away from her car, turned it off and was about to get out when her car turned on, break lights came on and she started to back up. I honked at her and she saw me and stopped literally inches from my car. She didn't see me..... Thankfully the car was okay.

Still, had me wondering just how much attention she pays when she backs up. I mean, she lives in a residential neighborhood and there are tons of little children around.

The cure for the gas price hike

2008-07-09T23:08:00.002-04:00

If gas prices continue to rise

He fought the watermelon and he won

2008-07-09T22:36:00.001-04:00

Aint he cute?

That only a mother

2008-07-03T19:53:00.000-04:00

could love a poopy face like this.

As promised, handy dandy woman pics

2008-07-03T19:19:00.004-04:00

before

after

ain't it a beaut? You must forgive the dirty floor, it's been rainy outside and everytime we come in, we drag stuff through the entryway.

And don't even mention anything about the dozens of bent nails. YOU try to hammer in some flimsy nails to concrete.

He's lucky that he's away and stuck in the army right now

2008-07-03T11:41:00.003-04:00

Or I'd have tore him a new one. You see, one of the biggest arguments that we have is regarding money. Not how much I spend or he spends, but the actual paying of the bills, budgeting kind of fights. The problem was that he wouldn't let me see the bills and he would pay them himself. I'm not kidding you when I say that we've had several talks with the pastors regarding this. They were always on my side because as his wife and a bringer of money, I should know what the money is being spent on.

Well, the past few days I've been going over the finances and let me just tell you that angry does not even begin to cover what I'm feeling. Let's just say that our take home income is about 1/4 of our monthly bills. Where was the rest of the money coming from you may ask? From an equity line of credit that we have. Said equity is emptied out and mr. sourpatch decided to run away instead of getting a real job and doing his part.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that he hasn't been working. It's just that since The Kid was born and he quit his job so that he could study and then start his own business things had been going downhill. Especially since the construction business is slow. Especially since he'd been getting work from a good for nothing "christian" and I use that term loosely. I'd been telling that man to get a job, any job but the man had his sight set on that he could only work at a Lowe's or a Home Depot. Not sure why, since he used to work in the corporate world and made good money. He also didn't want a job that would pay less than 15/hr. because we wouldn't be able to live otherwise. But yet it was okay for him to stay home and wait on his good for nothing boss that owes us several thousand dollars for back pay to call him up and give him more work. I tell you, I'm seriously thinking of suing that good for nothing. And he called himself a christian. Any christian worth their salt would borrow money if need be so that they could pay their employees NOT take the money that they received and pay their own bills totally forgetting the employees.

Right now, I have to come up with several thousand dollars to pay all the late bills and hopefully stop some things from getting cut. Keep in mind that after health insurance is paid, my paycheck only covers gas, daycare, and groceries. That's it. I guess it's time to break out the stripper clothes and go hang out in the corner.

New Blog

2008-07-03T10:53:00.001-04:00

You guys should run over and check out my other blog, baby led weaning for dummies. In it, I'll chronicle my journey of weaning Duckie into straight up adult food. No baby food for him. There will be plenty of messy baby pictures in there as well.

He didn't call

2008-07-01T14:13:00.001-04:00

He was supposed to call on Sunday. It's the only day of the week when they're allowed to make phone calls and he didn't call. Now I'm worried that something's happened...

I miss him so.

Duckie

2008-06-30T14:34:00.002-04:00

You're six months old now. You weight in at 17lbs but feel more like 30. What you have accomplished so far this month:

You can so totally sit for a long time alone. You're working on getting off of that position now. You only manage to fall flat on your face when you try though.
You have started to eat solids. Granted I didn't wait until you were six months, but I don't think they're going to care much that I started feeding you two days before your half birthday. Your first food was bowtie pasta and you loved it. You also loved the steamed broccoli and carrots that mama gave you as well.
You're my guinea pig, and I'm Baby Led Weaning you. Here's to hoping you don't choke, lol. You're doing great though and it helps me keep you occupied when The Kid and I eat dinner.
You can stand for a long time if someone is holding your hands and you can even take a few steps that way too.
Did I mention the cellulite? Cuz your thighs are full of that deelishus baby cellulite. I love it.

Silly Duckie!

2008-06-26T21:59:00.002-04:00

Last night around 4am I woke up to Duckie trying to crawl over me. He was trying to reach the alarm clock so that he could play with it. I mean, isn't that what all the kewl kids are doing these days? Waking up at 4am wanting to play?

He was totally wide awake and didn't want to sleep, so I put him on his crib and fell asleep myself. I was kinda woken up when I heard someone knocking on the door. I was about to fall asleep again when the knocking started again but this time it was accompanied by Duckie grunting. That woke me up fully and I got up right away to check on him. Little bugger that he is, he managed to do a complete 180 degree turn in the crib and was crawling. Except that he ran out of crib space and just kept banging his head against the rails of the crib. That was the knocking noise I heard. Surprisingly, he wasn't grunting cuz it hurt; he was grunting cuz he was crawling but going nowhere. Go figure :) It was hilarious though.

As if that wasn't bad enough

2008-06-24T08:24:00.002-04:00

The Kid is also cutting one of his molars.

How much longer will it be until all their teeth are in? I seriously thought that he'd been finished teething, gr. At least he can tell me when/where it hurts. The Hubbster called, they only allow them to call for a maximum of three minutes on Sundays so we couldn't talk much. Also, The Kid is majorly missing his daddy. Since The Hubby has insomnia, he'll sometimes sleep in the couch and I've caught the poor The Kid sneaking off to the couch in the middle of the night looking for daddy. :(

He's gone

2008-06-19T12:30:00.003-04:00

He's gone and am all alone in the house with the kidlets. Keep trying to make myself be busy so that I don't have to miss him. It sucks big fat monkey butt cuz I already got used to him being around all the time and now I have to get unused to it. I won't hear from him for the next few weeks cuz they like to keep their newbies sequestered for awhile. After that, we'll be able to talk to him on Sundays until he finishes up Basic. I so wish that we could pack up and move with him to his class after that but it's not financially feasible.

I am making a list of all the things that I want to get done around the house to keep me busy:
rug- the edge where it ends and the tile starts was ripped by the previous tenants and because The Hubby was going to retile the entire area he never got around to fixing it. I know exactly how to fix that problem and will be heading over to Home Depot this weekend to fix it. Wish me luck cuz I've never drilled through concrete nor sawed metal before. Am planning on using womanly wiles to get the Home Depot workers to cut the metal for me.

kidlets room have to figure some sort of storage space in there. Plus have to fit Ducky's crib in there as well

backyard since The Hubby used to do all his work in the backyard and was dumb enough to throw nails and broken glass all over it, The Kid could never play in it. Am going to separate an area just for him, comb through it for any nails/glass/sharp object, and then will throw one of those plastickey outdoor rug thingies on it in case I missed something. Will be second on list as I will then be able to let him out to play while I cook/clean/sleep.

laundry room he has a million things in here that he will never use. I will go over everything and throw away what's not needed. Get some organization in there as well.

computer/rumpus room Since he's gone, I can move things around and put them where they should be and gasp! get an actual computer table instead of a big long table that takes up half the room. Seriously, this has caused more fights than leaving the toilet seat up. Concurrent to that, I will be installing Microsoft Word AND Excel in the computer. He is mortal enemies with these two programs and forced me to go to the library and do my homework because he wouldn't install it. He thinks that WordPerfect is just fine and that "teachers have to understand it." Umn.. no, they fail you if you don't submit your work in the format required.

Am sure the list will get bigger as I think of more things that have not gotten done around the house.

In other news, Ducky would.not.sleep last night. I'm sure that he caught wind of Diana's sleepless teething night and decided that it was high time he did that as well. He was screaming horribly and was so tired and sleepy but just couldn't stop crying. I could see why some people shake their babies, because it was so bad that all I wanted was for him to stop crying. If I'd been told at that point that shaking him would've made him stop, I would've done it too. The desperation, sadness, tiredness, all combined with the fact that now am all alone with the kidlets kinda got to me. Thankfully the most harmful thing I did to him was give him Tylenol but even that didn't work. He finally fell asleep exhausted around 5:30am. Just in time for the alarm to ring.

The news....

2008-06-13T11:59:00.003-04:00

Mr. Sourpatch is joining the army. It came on just as suddenly for me as it's for you. He leaves on Tuesday for Basic Training and from there will go straight to his class. He won't graduate there until sometime in Jan or Feb. So I will be a single mom until then.....

It sucks. I made a pro and con list of his going and the only things in the pro list are: less laundry and not as much cooking.

There's something rotten in Denmark

2008-06-09T09:29:00.002-04:00

There's a big decision to be made in the sour household. Something that will affect the lives of ourselves and those who we hold near and dear to us. It's not divorce, so don't worry about that. I can't say anything concrete to you internets yet, but as soon as I have clearance, I will.

In the other hand, The Kid has been dressing himself of late. It's kinda cute to see all the funky combinations that he comes up with (green and blue shirt with red pants. one black, one elmo shoe) but he has to learn somehow.

EEEEKKKK! He's scared out of his mind!

2008-06-02T13:38:00.002-04:00

Saturday Ducky decided that he'd roll over from his back to his tummy for the first time. No biggie, it's supposed to be a milestone and all. he did it a total of 4 different times and each time it scared the poop out of him. Poor baby, it took me over an hour each time to calm him down long enough to be able to put him down again and he had to go on and turn.

Kids are so silly. In other news, this morning I found The Kid sleeping on top of a pillow in the living room(top half was on pillow, bum in the air) clutching a cup. When I touched him to pick him up, he turned to me smiling and said: I's stuck mommy!

5 month update

2008-05-29T12:45:00.004-04:00

Ducky, today you're five months old so let's recap on what you've done this past month.
You no longer scoot around the house in your tummy (although you were quite able to get what you wanted that way), you now rock back and forth in your hands and knees and projectile yourself forwards. It gets the job done and you've got the bruises in your face to prove it. It's not as fast as scooting, but you'll get the hang of it.
You discovered that you have toes, and that you can grab them. This is now your second favorite thing to do besides eating. You love grabbing both feet and rolling to the side.
You're in love with your big brother but wish that he didn't squeeze you so hard. At least he stopped poking your eyes. Now we just have to work on him not sticking his fingers in your mouth.
you talk. A lot. It's all gibbergarble now, but you totally think that we understand you.
Even though that tooth is right there it's still not fully coming out and it's frustrating the heck out of both of us.
You think the world is your chew toy. It's not.

users and abusers

2008-05-20T12:57:00.002-04:00

how come it's okay for people to take advantage of you and expect you to roll over and jump when they say but it's not okay to do the same to them?

I was at home eating dinner when my phone rang. I didn't pick up the phone because I was eating. As soon as my phone stopped ringing, The Hubby's phone rang. And then they called my phone right after again. Now I got home at 6:40pm yesterday and we were eating dinner around 7:30pm. Who was it? Once I finished eating I checked my messages. It was a person telling me that their child had to do a project and that they needed to come to my house and use the computer and since I didn't pick up the phone, they were on the way to my house. It was already past 8:30pm and I had a very cranky baby to deal with and now this person. Now, I'd already spoken to this person about their child's assignment two saturdays ago and he was supposed to come over that day to do the assigment. But once he found out that I didn't have a color printer he said he'd go to kinko's (we do, but it's not hooked up to the pc)so I didn't pay any mind to his message. Especially since this person had spent this saturday at my home from about 8pm until 2am. whatever.

So the person comes over and yup, you guessed it, the assignment is due on 5/20 (today) and the child needs the info asap (they have a pc at their house but they have dial up and don't like to use it a lot). What does this person do? Plops the child in front of the pc and expects me and hubby to help the child do the homework. Because it's easier to sit in the couch and let someone else do it. I was tired, cranky, pukey (ate too much), had a ton of dishes to do and wanted to clean my floors that day but no, I have to entertain this person. I went and sat in the living room with Ducky after I put The Kid to bed and was constantly being pulled away from watching House (did you see it?) to play hostess. blah, blah, blah, blah, I guess what really irked me was that I couldn't spend alone time with The Kid before he went to bed last night and the fact that the other child of this person had been playing with a flashlight of The Hubby's and when they were going to leave, he threw it in the couch. I had to ask him twice if that was the spot where he found the flashlight until the parent caught on and made their kid go and put it back. This after this child kept on putting his shoes on the couch and asking for food (he wasn't hungry, he just wanted junk food. I offered him rice and beans and he looked at me like I'd grown three heads. It aint my fault that your parents feed you junk, don't expect me to feed it to you)

He was riding the peanut of liberty

2008-05-15T13:06:00.003-04:00

I was preparing dinner last night and had the chillums chillin' in the living room. There's a partial wall that separates the kitchen from the living room and the pantry is in the hallway across the kitchen. Ducky was practicing his crawling (He kinda regressed a bit there because the sitter would leave him all day in either the bassinet or the vibrating chair. and he kinda forgot what he was doing. thankfully I put a stop to that and she's now letting him chill in the floor to do his baby stuff)

I heard Ducky grunting and thought that maybe he'd pushed the toy that I gave him away from him and was trying to get it. I went to the pantry to get something and heard The Kid say "look mommy, look!" I kinda saw what he was doing out of the corner of my eye and turned back to the kitchen. About .2 seconds later a lightbulb turned on in my head and I doubled back to the living room. What do you think I saw internets? Guess, just go ahead and guess......

THE KID WAS SITTING ON TOP OF DUCKY that's what. Not pretending, full on sitting on top of the baby. and bouncing. sitting and bouncing like my baby was some sort of horse of some sort. Ducky was looking up at me with a what's going on up there type of look. the Of course I ~~calmly removed~~ janked The Kid off his brother ~~screaming~~ telling him that we do not ride on the baby. Ducky was fine. At least, I hope he's fine.

All I wanted for christmas was my two front teeth.....

2008-05-13T12:39:00.003-04:00

Yeah that. When I was a wee baby and only had my top two front teeth; they had me on a baby swing of some sort and a cousin of mine that was about a year older than me decided to push me to play with me. Of course, I ended up flying out of the swing and breaking the only two teeth that I had. I wasn't that mad at the loss of my teeth once I got older cuz I used to suck my thumb and I had a perfect slit for my thumb there. Of course, once all my other baby teeth fell out and were replaced by adult teeth, I thought I'd get my other two teeth back as well. No such luck.

In the past, whenever we'd had a loose tooth that needed to come out, father would send us to get his pliers and he'd pul the tooth out. Once, he had me to bring the pliers outside where he was playing dominoes and drinking beer with his buddies. He then had me lean over on his lap while he pulled the tooth out. I don't think that he ever thought of even wiping clean them pliers before pulling our teeth. And those were his work pliers. You could scrape your nail across it and it'd come out rusty and dirty.

When I was 11 almost 12 my father took me to the dentist (the very first time anyone in my family had ever gone to the dentist) to see why my teeth weren't coming in. Of course, in true random caribbean island fashion there was no electricity over at the dentist's when we got there. We waited a couple of hours and the electricity came back on. Once it did, they took some xrays of my mouth and declared that my adult teeth were there, they just didn't want to come out at this point. Dentist said that they would come out when they darn well pleased and that'll be 200 pesos thank you very much.

They came in about two or three months later. And then you all wonder why I'm weird. I had pliers in my mouth that's why.

Vampire babies

2008-05-07T12:36:00.002-04:00

So, Ducky's first tooth is poking through. Any guess as to where it's at? Anyone? Katie?

It's one of the vampire teeth at the bottom. I'm kinda hoping that he'll get all his canines before anything else so that he can look like this boy. Now that would be kewl. don't you think?

btw, I don't go around searching for goth twin preemie vampire demon babies but someone in my board posted it yesterday. which, coincidentally was the day that we saw ducky's tooth coming through. Coincidence? Casuality? Causality? You choose.

What I'd do with a time machine

2008-05-07T12:30:00.000-04:00

Is sleep for 58 straight hours and then travel back to the time when I started. I'm exhausted and sleepy. Not to mention hungry.

Of course, Duckie sucking his thumb at night helps a lot since he doesn't wake up as often to feed. But for some reason I just can't rest when I sleep. I've already had two nightmares about work. There's nothing like showing up for work already feeling like you just got off an 8 hour shift. Or even worse, having a nightmare on the night that you're taking off, making you feel as if you never left work in the first place.

Moms of boys that have potty trained

2008-05-06T12:47:00.002-04:00

Did you have to fight your husband to get him to show your boy how to pee like a man? Cuz seriously, I'm thisclose to growing my own manparts and showing The Kid how it's done. Somehow, after four years of marriage The Hubby has grown prude and doesn't want to show his manparts to The Kid.

is all I'm saying....

I hate brushing my teeth

2008-05-05T12:26:00.002-04:00

after I take a shower. I have to choose to either freeze my buns off while I brush them teeths, or wait forever until I get dressed to brush my teeth. And if you know me, you know that it's impossible for me to stay quiet for more than a minute unless I'm sleeping.

Did you do this?

2008-05-02T11:50:00.000-04:00

Katie, is this you?

Just checking.

4 month update- a day late

2008-04-30T09:33:00.002-04:00

I really, really wanted to do this every month for ducky but I kept forgetting so here it goes:

At 4 months you now
laugh out loud
sleep through most of the night
suck your thumb, finger, and whatever gets near your mouth
are teething, as evidenced by the fact that you drool a mile a minute and are cranky as heck (we can see something there, but you won't let us get a good look)
roll over front to back
do the helicopter move. Right now you will crawl forwards only when you're extremely annoyed and to the point of crying. Any other time you'll just go backwards.
are a boobman
give the biggest smiles evah and have the cutest dimple in your face when you do.
have lost a bunch of hair, you still need a haircut but you've thinned out

You are such an easygoing baby it's not even funny. I haven't even thought of taking you back to the hospital once which is totally the opposite of your brother (but don't tell him I told you)

I used to pee on the bed and how they got me to stop

2008-04-29T11:34:00.004-04:00

There I was, I couldn't have been more than 5 maybe six and was still peeing on the bed. My sister also did it but she's older than me by two years. She was seven maybe eight. Some crazy neighbor lady told my father that she knew a surefire way to get us to stop peeing the bed. So he decided to give it a go. So that night before bed that lady, some random man, my father, sister, and I all piled up in our one bedroom apt. The lady brought over a 5 gallon can of crisol (kindof like crisco). Then my dad took the caldero (cast iron pot, hispanic people make their rice here) and put it on the stove and heated it. Once the caldero was very very hot, they took some rags and placed it inside the can of crisol. They then placed the crisol in the middle of the room. Then the crazyness happened.

Pee on it.
say what?
You heard me, pee on it. It'll make you stop peeing the bed.
Uh, no thanks. I'm fine, really. I don't fly like that.
Pee.On.It.Now. And make sure that you pee inside the caldero.
------
so, there I am, in my innocent childlike innocence and I have to pull my pants down in front of these people so that I can pee in a hot caldero? I'm pretty sure that if The Hubby knew how eager I was to please others when I was younger, he'd want a refund of some sort.

So.... I hovered over the can and peed. I'm pretty sure you all know what happens when you put an empty pot on the stove and then add water to it after it gets hot. There was steam EVERYWHERE. And it hit me. there. Gosh, that was a lot of steam generated. Cuz you know, they wouldn't let me go to the bathroom beforehand and I had a lot to empty.

There was no neosporin for my burned insides, just a: take it like a man and stop crying.
And then it was my sister's turn. Oh boy, that was not fun. Correction, it was fun for me. She was smart, she did a drive by type of thing and wouldn't stay over the caldero long enough to feel the burniness of the steam. Not even when the adults threatened her with the big mama belt.

I did stop peeing the bed, I'm not sure that it was definitely that incident that caused it to happen although if they threatened to burn my bits again I would've probably never peed again. My sister went on to have a successful bed peeing career. I think she stopped when she was about 12. To this day, they still credit the caldero recipe for my stopping peeing on the bed. They say that because my sister didn't do it right, is the reason she kept on peeing.

I'm not so sure. Anyone know the number for international CPS? I'm pretty sure that incident would qualify my father to get his parental rights terminated. Or at least get him sterilized or something. And then katie wonders why I'm this messed up.

Putting sand in a gas tank and other oddities....

2008-04-28T14:12:00.002-04:00

So, I'm watching judge judy and in the case the woman's complaining how the ex put lawnmower oil in her gas tank resulting in expensive repairs and such. All of a sudden, The Hubby, who was folding laundry while I sat on my butt and watched TV blurts out:

I did that once and continues to fold laundry.
whoa, back up here. you did what?
I put something in a lady's gas tank. except that it was sand that I put in there.
when? why? tell me! at this point am teethering on the edge of my seat. Judge Judy aside, my goody two shoes husband did criminal mischief. I've gotta get the details.
Oh, it was nothing. It was a lady that my dad used to date. She treated him badly and I put sand in her gas tank to get even. I was a teenager at the time.
did you tell anyone?
no. over in (insert the name of the island town he used to live in), if anyone'd learned I'd gotted beat up badly. So don't tell anyone.

point taken husband. The words: my husband commited random acts of criminal violence will not cross my lips. I pwomish that I won't blog about it either. I pwomish

No one stole my soul, this time at least

2008-04-25T12:17:00.002-04:00

What I had, was actually a sudden drop in body temperature. By the time I got home, I was running a high fever. So, doctor mom prescribed some much needed sleep and on weds the kids were shipped off to the sitter's while I slept the ills away. It was just what I needed and am feeling back to my normal self.

Whoever sucked my soul out, please return to owner.

2008-04-22T15:21:00.001-04:00

I'm sooo cold in the office that my fingers are literally turning blue. I've drunk like 3 cups of hot cocoa already to try and warm up to no avail.

the kicker? It's beach weather outside my window...Wish I could play hookie :)

I'm one diseased person

2008-04-21T09:08:00.003-04:00

and I dragged the boys with me. puking, coughing, fever. It sucks big time because all I felt like doing is crawl under a rock and die, I mean sleep but I had take care of the boys too. All The Kid wanted to eat was sweet peas, blueberries and juice. Three days of that, I don't even have to go into what his output was.

But, we're on the mend now. In fact, The Kid is feeling so much better now that saturday he finally managed to do a full on front flip. It's a little project he's been working on for a few months now. You know, in the edge of the bed or on top of the couch. Just enough danger to give me a mild heart attack. Well, saturday he graduated from doing just a tumble, to a full on flip. At two point five years old. What the heck??!

at least he's feeling better; although I do fear that I will end up with a full heart attack next.

and the rim went flying down the road

2008-04-08T12:49:00.002-04:00

Picture this:

friday night around 10:30pm, I'm coming home from church and am driving in a dark bumpy road.

I'm approaching a red light. It is the only source of light in the whole intersection. I'm slowing down but just before the car comes to a complete stop, I hit a manhole. But not just any manhole, this one is raised above the ground and it is so dark that it's not visible. And I didn't just hit it with the car, only the rim of the car hit it. So, what happened? The rim came off the wheel and went rolling down the intersection and stopped in the middle of the road. Did I stop to pick it up? Heck no! The light turned green and I had sleeping to do.

Creepy baby

2008-04-02T08:16:00.004-04:00

Here's the short video of duckie. Unfortunately, photobucket is being a pain in the arse and won't let me put the actual video feed in the post. So here's the link. Also, the whole thing is almost three minutes long. You get the same effect if you fast forward it, plus he looks funny that way :)

Please forgive the darkness, for some reason everything I record with the camera comes out extremely dark. Also, from about 1:44 until around :50 seconds, he's stuck on top of the remote and can't get off it.

Oh yes, the chickens died too do not read if you're sensitive or like baby animals

2008-04-01T12:54:00.005-04:00

I don't know if you've ever held a baby chick, but they're such fragile animals that they will practically die on you if you sneeze. Why do I tell you this? Because when I was around two and my sister around four, we were given a dozen baby chicks as pets. Needless to say, they died. The way they died is today's topic.

**I do warn you that death is described in a cold hearted manner. As you read this remember that I did this as a toddler and that any responsibility for their death, if any, should be given to the dummies that decided chicks would make a perfect gift for a toddler.**

I can only remember the deaths of a few of them since I was so young, but I've been told by the adults that the rest of them met similar fates. One of them simply would.not.eat. I tried feeding it. I remember my hand around the chick's body pushing it into it's feed bowl trying to make it eat. Not sure exactly how it died, but it must've either choked or been choked by me. Another one would not drink it's water. That one I believe drowned in my attempt to make it do that cute little pick up the water and lift the head up maneuver that they do. Another one of them was playing horsie with me (or the other way around, I don't want to be too graphic). The last chickie, I vaguely remember grabbing it's little leg and swinging it round and round in a wide circle. I seem to remember that I wanted it to know what a merry go round felt like. I must have dropped it at some point or hit a wall with it, because I distinctly remember that I had just a chicken leg in my hand. The darn thing just wasn't made like they used to. Thankfully I didn't go on to continue aiding on the demise of chickens everywhere when I got older. I do believe that my actions scarred/traumatized the adults in my family because no matter how hard I begged, they never bought me a baby chicken again. Not even when I was 10 and the lady had several dozen of them spray painted with easter and neon colors. And I so wanted that neon purple chick too.

Katie, if you tell the internets anything else regarding this, I shall spray you with something. I don't know what, but I promise it will be sticky and hard to clean.

I do have to mention that I'm a much better pet owner now that I have the full use of my faculties, and that my hand eye coordination is much better.

Houston, we have a problem

2008-03-27T12:54:00.002-04:00

Umn.... can someone tell my not quite three month old that he's not supposed to be crawling?

Yeah, he's moving. It's not full on crawling, it takes him awhile to get from point A to point B but he is going in a straight line. It's too funny though, I have to post a video of it. He looks like a lobster cuz he will put his feet under him and snap them out to move.

Oh no

2008-03-27T08:29:00.003-04:00

So, The Kid came up to me Tuesday night while I was cooking looking very concerned and holding his butt. kaka! kaka! And he had the sorryest looking face that I've ever seen. So much so, that I didn't even get mad at him for pooping his underwear. You would be proud of me katie :) When I took him to the bathroom to asses the situation, diarrhea. Yep, he'd done what he thought was a fart and pooped himself. And there was way more where that came from. Hopefully it was a onetime fluke and not a repeat of last year's poop frenzy.

'Till ham do us part

2008-03-25T12:20:00.003-04:00

The setting:
Saturday afternoon. I'm cooking in the kitchen, The Hubby is watching TV and the offspring is playing in the living room.

All of a sudden, I hear a huge wail. I look at the baby and it's not him, it's the other one. He's pointing to his mouth and crying. I ask The Hubby to take care of it as I'm up to my elbows in assorted raw chicken parts. He goes over to him and stares at him. Then I hear: stop crying what's going on? sourpatch I don't know what's going, on he won't tell me. And then he goes and sits back down. I call to The Kid while cleaning my hands. He gets to me and first thing I do is notice that he has a piece of ham in his hand. I open his mouth and there's another piece of ham in there (don't ask how or where he got it, it's still a mystery). It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that he'd gotten some ham stuck between his teeth and didn't know how to get it out. As soon as I pushed the bit of ham from between his two front teeth he went happily over to his toys to play some more.

Now if someone can assure me that he won't get salmonella again, I'll be fine. :P

Lookie here!

2008-03-24T12:30:00.001-04:00

th_stuff295
Originally uploaded by sourpatchbabe

It seems like mr. duckie has found his thumb! As of thursday night, he has been sucking away like there's no tomorrow. It's no surprise, he was sucking it in the ultrasound and he has been trying to get at it for the past few weeks. It's just that the whole hand/eye coordination thing was getting in his way. But no more. I do think he looks cute sucking his little thumb though.

btw, this isn't a pic from this weekend. This one was taken on one of those rare occasions that he managed to put his thumb in his mouth. The shirt that he's wearing in this pic no longer fits him.

What the heck?!!!

2008-03-21T12:41:00.004-04:00

What is the problem with all these stupid teachers doing it with their students? Is there no dignity anymore? I just heard on the news that yet another pervert was caught. She rented a hotel room with FIVE of her underage students, bought them beer and stuff, and then took a "shower" with the 17 year old. If this woman starts saying that she's too pretty to go to prison I think I'm gonna hurt someone. Parents are supposed to send their children to skool to learn to read and write, not learn how to do it. Especially not from their teachers. Am I going crazy or are all these pedophile teachers only in florida?

This is enough to make me seriously consider homeskooling. Before I was just toying with the idea but now it looks like it's the only choice unless I want my kids to be violated by their teachers. Can't these women find a man their own age? Why do they have to go off and rape these boys (it seems all the cases in the news are female teachers and male students). It's sickening the way things are going now. If things keep going this way, five years from now we'll be hearing this:

mom: so, honey how was skool today?

daughter: good, I learned all about amoebas, practiced the periodic tables. And mom, nobody touched my vagina today!

mom: oh good, I was a bit worried there.

What are they teaching these sickos over in teacher skool??? Last I checked, I thought that the teachers are supposed to be like a second set of parents towards the children and help bring them up to be productive members of society. Skools are supposed to be a place for education, not a flesh market. And what kind of pervert would find a child sexually appealing? EW! Gross!

I'm hotter than YOU!

2008-03-21T12:37:00.002-04:00

I am so hot, I'm on fire. You see, my internal body temperature is higher than the average person's. So high in fact, that if you didn't know beforehand and checked my temperature you'd think I was running a fever. That was great in skool cuz I'd pretend I was sick and get sent home (until the nurse caught on, darn smart woman I shake my fist at thee).

So there, now you know that I truly am hotter than you.

How to stop baby from crying

2008-03-18T12:15:00.002-04:00

Hit him in the head with a clock...

Seriously, last night duckie woke up unconsolably crying and wouldn't stop. I tried nursing him and he was so desperate that he couldn't latch on. He was acting like he does when he sleeps too long and wakes up starvin' like marvin. Since The Hubby moved the furniture around and unplugged my nightlight, I had the alarm clock in bed with me so I moved it to the pillow to give me some light as I tried to calm down duckie. He throws his arm up in the air and hits the clock. The clock falls on his head with a loud smack, I get up out of bed quickly thinking that he's going to cry up a storm....he burps, latches on, and falls asleep in a matter of seconds.

The moral of the story, remember to burp your baby after feeding him no matter the time.

The exorcist

2008-03-11T12:31:00.003-04:00

So, I was all ready to leave for work this morning. All I had left to do was change the baby's diaper. In the process of doing so, duckie decided that he wanted to poop and fart at the same time. Well, for those of you that don't know breastfed babies' poop is liquidy. He got my arm, shirt, the bed, and THE WALL!!! How the heck does one get a wall poopy??@!! I'm screamming at the husband to help me and he's calmly getting up out of bed. He approaches me ever so slowly and asks what do I need....grr! first of all turn on the light and get me about a thousand more wipes stat!

he walks with all the calm in the world to get the wipes and comes back about 5 minutes later, hands them to me and then proceeds to go back to bed. Umn, no you clean this kid while I clean me up. When I came back from cleaning me up and finding another shirt, what do I find but him next to duckie and the baby face down naked. that's right folks, he couldn't even put a diaper on the baby. I get him changed and start feeding him and what does he do next but spit up everything all over me and voila' another clothes change for mommy. When it was all over I turned to The Hubby and said: you have the slowest response time EVER!

poor duckie though, we're all sick and diseased at the house and he's getting it now. Hopefully it won't be as bad as the colds that we have. Poor poor baby.

He manhandled himself...

2008-03-10T12:34:00.003-04:00

So, there he was all cute and all laying on the floor. Next thing I know, a soundbarrier breaking shriek blasts through the house and I go flying to his side to see what went on. I originally thought that he'd grabbed a fistful of hair and kept pulling at it not knowing why his head was hurting so much. I mean, the boy has a mean grip. Instead I found him grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling at it with so much force that had his shirt been made of a flimsy material, he would've most likely broken it.

Now I understand, he was confused and scared as to why someone was shaking him and grabbing at his shirt like that. Poor kid, you really have to feel sorry for him what with his not even realizing that he even has hands. I do look forward to the day when I no longer have to rescue him from himself (yes, I know that I'm just trading in one kind of rescuing for another, but still) even if only from premature baldness.

The fish

2008-03-05T11:59:00.002-05:00

So, wondering how the rest of the fish died?

Well we had this girl that watched my sister and I after we came home from skool. She also had to do some cleaning and cooking for us until our parents got home later that day. Well, once she mopped the floor and we didn't think anything off it until later that evening when she was gone that we went to play with the fish. The fish were all dead. Turns out that she put the mop water in the tank "thinking" that it was just a dump tank and not thinking that fish lived in it........I don't think I saw her after that.

On pets and other things

2008-03-04T12:15:00.001-05:00

I used to have pets. lots of them. Lets see, there was a dozen baby chicks, two turtles, two baby crabs (the edible kind, not the nasty kind; katie get your mind out of the gutter), a gazillion fish, three or four dogs, a chicken, two cats. And all of them met untimely deaths (with the exception of the dogs which were given away).

Today, I'll talk about the turtles and fish. See, we had two green turtles my sister and I. And they looked so very lonely and unhappy. The fish on the other hand, looked so very happy swimming away in their tank. We had so many fish that they were in a 25 gallon tank and you could stick your hand in there and randomly grab a couple of fish without even trying. It was fun, slimy but fun. So my sister and I decided that we'd do little overnight trips for the turtles so that the fish could tell them how fun life was.

We didn't know that turtles ate fish. Of course we noticed how the next day the turtles didn't seem to like it when we took them out of the tank. And of course we noticed that some fish were half eaten. But somehow we never quite put two and two together. I have no idea what happened to my sister's turtle. My turtle on the other hand met its maker one sunny weekend that my cousin came to visit. You see, he wanted to play with the turtle but he was a bit rough. So rough in fact that he ended up poking the turtle's eye out. As you can imagine, the eyeless turtle bit the naughty boy quite hard. The boy threw the turtle out the window never to be seen again. Did I mention that we lived in a two story building?

The fish didn't all die thanks to our turtles but that's a tale for another day.

I think he got slapped with a dumb pole

2008-02-29T12:49:00.005-05:00

Seriously, he's so goshdarndeddumb it's not even funny. The day started innocently enough, I went to pick up the kids at the sitter yesterday and bent down to say hello to duckie (that's gonna be The Child's new name from now on on account of how he scrunches up his lips). He was sitting in his little chair. He turned and looked at me, then turned right back to laugh and smile at the sitter and her granddaughter. He didn't glance back at me. Even after I picked him up and put him in the carseat, it was as if he'd rather be somewhere else than with me. Just like his older brother. It hurt, but I didn't let them know that it did.

When I went home, I told The Hubby what happened and instead of a little sympathy or even a there, there; all I got was:

Well, now you know that you're not duckie's god.

WTH does that even mean and what does it have to do with the fact that as a mom it hurt that my child would prefer someone else over me???!?!?!?! Seriously, what the heck is his head filled with, eucalyptus leaves? I couldn't talk to him, just ignored him the rest of the evening. Thankfully he had to leave to do some work and I didn't have to be plagued with looking at his sorry behind. He did try to call me later on, probably to tell me to record some stupid construction tv show but I didn't pick up. He knows that I haven't been in my right state of mind and he goes and throws this at me? It's like he's telling me to go completely crazy. It's things like this that make me wonder if I wouldn't be better off just being a single mom.

If someone can shed some light as to what the heck he meant by that, by all means please do.

The Other Woman

2008-02-29T12:00:00.002-05:00

He loves her more. I don't blame him, she's there for him more than I am. She's a better listener, better company. Heck, I'd rather be with her than with me. Everytime that he's with me, he is thinking about her and about the next time he'll see her again. He doesn't really care that he's hurting my feelings as long as he gets to hold and be held by her. If something were to happen to him he'd go to her and tell her way before even thinking about telling me. She gives him a level of comfort that I can't compete with.

I know about her, been knowing for a while now and there's nothing I can do. She's good for and with him. I just wish that it could've been me, ya know? I can't stop him from seeing her because he needs her and frankly, I need her too.

Tell me, how do you handle having your kids love their sitters more than they love you?

Holey Moley!

2008-02-28T13:00:00.005-05:00

Katie, why didn't you tell me that cajun meant hot as in spicy?

I'm sitting here eating my cajun chicken ramen noodles (that's how us broke people do) and it's burning a hole in my mouth it's so hot!
It feels weird being back at work after being gone for awhile. I feel like it's a new job that I've started only that I know the people here. And to top it all off, they have made so many changes around that it's really confusing. My replacement is teaching me how to do my job, lol.

Katie, can I be an obama mama? I like the sound of that. We all know that no republican candidate will win this election thanks to our c average nucular president so it's going to be a democrat in the whitehouse. Hillary is too manly for my taste and we already had her ruling the country for eight years, why should she get another chance since she botched it the first time? Obama on the other hand is not bad lookin', you know if you like the skinny type. He's gonna win. Oh heck, the voters will choose an illegal martian alien as the president as long as it was a man before they chose a woman. And I mean this in the nicest way possible, seeing as how the biggest voters are really really really old. Do you realize that if you put some meat on him, a nice fedora, a long coat with feathers/fluffy stuff on the collar, and a walking stick that there's no difference between him and the pimp next door? Obama is gonna pimp our country up to the highest bidder, yeah!

He'll pimp the country out but we as the people will be like his little crackbabies, pimps take care of their crackbabies right? Or do they just take them and sell them for more crack? I can't remember. Either way, it's a win win situation with him

flashback

2008-02-27T14:18:00.002-05:00

I didn't tell you guys about the last time I almost died. Well, here it is:

It was a beautiful sunny saturday morning and the other women from church and myself were going to a conference in Orlando. We were going to drive there and I was in the car of lady B, along with two other ladies and The Kid. I was about seven months pregnant at the time. Lady A was to lead the group of cars and she wasn't doing a very good job about it. Let's just say that for about 45 minutes, she had us lost withing 15 miles of church. Yes, that means we were driving around in circles in the same general area. Then, once we finally made it to the 75mph minimum highway, she kept on switching lanes like it was going out of style or something; completely forgetting that there were other cars following her. We had to pull over in the middle of the highway because someone got a flat tire. After getting some confusing signals, lady B pulled out of the grassy area and went into the right lane of the highway and stopped.

Yes, she came to a complete stop in the 75mph highway waiting for lady A to pull out. Lady A didn't pull out cuz she was fixing her makeup or talking. Meanwhile, I get this funny feeling and look behind me (did I mention that I was riding in the backseat along with The Kid? Well, I was) and lo and behold there's the biggest 18 wheeler truck in our lane that we are totally stopped in and he's honking his horn, hitting his brakes, and I could see the man's terrified face as he realized that he was going to plummet into our car. Two things I did at once, yell at lady B to move your car woman git! git! git! And realize that I was probably going to die alongside foetus mccletus and The Kid since we were in the backseat and would get hit first. My life flashed before my eyes. The Kid happily munched on some cheerios and blueberries.

Thankfully lady B moved the car back into the grassy area and we survived. The truck driver's tires did not. There was so.much.smoke coming from his tires from when he was slamming on his breaks that I think they may have caught on fire, remember it was a 75+mph highway and he was going pretty fast. Little foetus mccletus did not move at all for the rest of the drive. It was pretty scarey. We made it to the conference and on the way back they had someone else be the leader of the cars. That ride was so satisfyingly boring that I almost peed my pants. Oh lets face it, I was pregnant, it didn't take much to make me pee my pants.

And that my friends, is the tale of how I almost died.

baby, it's the hardest thing I'll ever have to do pt 2

2008-02-26T12:37:00.002-05:00

so.. my poor The Kid, he's the one that's borne the brunt of my monster. It's as if a switch was hit inside of me where the baby could do no wrong and The Kid could do nothing right. And then I'd blow up, big time. I'll even admit it, I hit him in anger a couple of times before I got help. It was that which made me realize how wrong I was and how much help I truly needed. I smacked his butt and leg so hard because he had a small accident (we'd been potty training him before the baby was born) that when I sat him in the potty immediately after I noticed that I'd left a red welt on his leg. Oh God how I lost it then. But the worse was yet to come. He started telling me that he was sorry for what he did. Do you know how horrible it is to hear your child apologize to you for something that YOU did wrong? I just dropped down on my knees and started hugging my poor confused boy; kissing him and apologizing to him. I just thank God that it didn't get worse than that and that I'm getting the help I need. One day at a time is the most anyone can ask of me and that's how am doing it.

I've been making sure that The Kid gets the appreciation that he deserves and paying lots of attention to him. I just hope that I didn't scar him for life or that I jeopardized his relationship with his baby brother because of it seeing as how I turned into a monster after the baby came.

baby, it's the hardest thing I'll ever have to do.....

2008-02-25T12:49:00.004-05:00

Today I went back to work. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I cried like a banshee. I'd really thought that this time I'd be able to stay at home and take care of my baby, see his first step, give him his first foods. But no, bills have to be paid and I have to go back to work. The only thing that's keeping me sane is the knowledge that I'm over and done with skool and I won't be coming home at 11pm every night this time around. I'm not going to be coming home just to put my baby to sleep for the night. God, it was so tough last time. I believe now that I had undiagnosed PDD that time. Had to fight the almost daily urge to drive the car into the river just so that I could stop the pain and hurt. The only thing that kept me from doing so is that if I did, The Hubby would have to feed the baby formula and my sheer stubbornness to not have a formula fed baby stopped me. That's what saved my life that time.

This time around, I felt the monster way before I even went back to work. Didn't want to talk to anyone, barely left the house, couldn't eat, barely slept, didn't even want to bathe, horrible uncontrolable mood swings (mostly directed at the poor The Kid who didn't recognized the monster that replaced his momma), fighting the urge to hurt The Kid. Seriously, this is not something to play with. Thankfully I've been given some good herbs by the midwife (totally bf friendly) that are helping me a little. I pray to God that it doesn't get worse now that I'm working again since that's when things got out of control last time. If you ever feel like something is not right, get help before it's too late. And don't try to talk to my husband about it, he's no help. When I told him about how I'd get these uncontrolable anger spells and I'd start yelling at the poor The Kid for no reason and how I couldn't stop myself, his words were: well then, stop doing it.

Husband of mine, I have one thing to say to you:

rubber, glue, back to you.

The scariest day of my life

2008-01-25T21:01:00.000-05:00

It's been terribly hard to even get on the internet since well, sleeping is more needed and wanted at this point. It's not that The Child wakes up 75,33,4356456 times during the night; it's that in between the 75,33,4356456 times that he wakes up he's making the weirdest noises (think the horse from Mr. Ed) when he's asleep. He's so loud when he shouldn't be that it's keeping me up. Plus he has the most horrible habit of waking up at quarter to six and staying up until around 8:30am ish. But I digress. My point for posting was this: there was something that I neglected to tell you guys about the birth story. Something that I've just now been able to deal with.

When The Child was born, the cord was wrapped around his neck and he wasn't breathing. His apgar was only 2 when it should've been much higher. They had to use a breathing mask on him and stimulate him for the longest minutes of my life before he started to cry and breathe well. He was so purple and mewey before that happened that I really thought I'd lose him. It's the worse feeling in the world and I don't wish that on anyone at all. I don't know what I would've done had I lost him, I would've seriously considered killing myself most likely. I don't think I would've been able to cope. Seeing his teeny little body being taken from me so that they could help him breathe ripped my heart into shreds. Thank God that he was okay and was able to come back into my arms soon after since I would've probably lost it if he would've had to go to be taken to the hospital. But now my little boy is sleeping soundly by my side and thriving and I can't be more thankful to God. The Lord has truly blessed my life with this little boy and I can't begin to say how much better my life is now that he is here.

2007-12-30T23:39:00.000-05:00

Daniel! (or The Child as he will be reffered to from now on)

Friday morning I woke up with some braxton hicks and went in for my 38 week apt and was told by the midwife that I was 2-3 centimeters dilated, 90% effaced and baby was engaged. Of course, I hadn't bought a car seat, the prefolds had not been dyed, bags haven't been packed and I hadn't even bought the stuff I needed for postpartum. Fortunately I was able to get out of work early and swing by the store to pick up the car seat. I continued to have more braxton hicks through the day but around 8pm they became real labor pains (took me talking to the mw for awhile to realize that they'd become real labor pains). I guess I should back up a bit and say that on Weds nite I felt a "shift" in my body but wasn't sure what it meant. I tried to get some sleep friday nite but the contractions wouldn't let me sleep. They were 15 mins apart and at 2am I told The Hubby to take me to the birth center because I was sure that this kid was coming this weekend. By the time that my MIL came over to watch The Kid (we didn't want to wake him to take him with us), we swung about 15 mins the opposite way to find an open pharmacy so that The Hubby could get some antacids, and made it to the birth center, it was 3am.

When we got there she checked me and I was dilated to a 6-7 but the cervix was still at 90%. By the time that the tub was filled the contractions were coming in around every 5 mins. Dear lord it was sooo good getting in that tub. Of course, I stalled my own labor by relaxing so much I fell asleep in the tub twice so The Hubby made me stand up and walk a bit in the tub between contractions. The last little bit of the cervix just would not give and it was still a bit too thick for her to be able to slip it under the head so at 8:30am we decided to break my water. Stubborn cervix still wouldn't give way until just past 9am. Near the end, the pain was so great that I'm pretty sure had I been at the hospital I would've begged for a csect. It was only the encouragement from the mw and The Hubby that kept me from being transferred to the hospital even though I kept telling them that I couldn't do it and they needed to figure out a way to get that baby out NOW! At 9:15 I got the go ahead to start pushing and he came at 9:26am. The cord was wrapped around his neck once and it took a bit of help to get him breathing properly. Turned out that he was a bit earlier than expected. The mw said that going by his feet, ears, and the amount of vernix covering him; that he'd JUST turned 37 weeks. Figures that my due dates were off.

The only good thing about having him early was that he weighed 8 lbs 1 oz and his head measured 14 inches. I can't even fathom how much bigger his head would've been had he been full term. AND I had no tearing! I was so relieved by that! Even though he was born at 9:26, they couldn't get him weighted or measured until 11:30am because the boy would not come off the boob Everytime that I thought he'd finished and would remove him from the breast, he'd complain. He's been nursing so well that my milk's almost fully in and he's had four bowel movements already. Hope all that meconium is fully out cuz I forgot to put a liner in the first couple of diapers and they got dirty with meconium. He needs a haircut in the worse possible way too

We got discharged at 1pm but I had to wait a while while The Hubby went and got the carseat installed and took The Kid to the sitter's. Of course, when MIL came over the house to visit the first thing out of her mouth was "I thought you were having twins, they left one inside you." If looks could kill, I would be in jail right now. Her only saving grace was that the pastor's wife was present and she steered the conversation away. But the whole time I was giving MIL the deathlook and didn't speak to her directly for the rest of their visit. I doubt that I'll be as cordial to her next time I see her. Here he is with big bro

I'm here

2007-12-27T12:13:00.000-05:00

It's been hecka crazy busy around here between work and home. Plus, I've been trying to get to 1000 posts on the mothering board I belong to so I've been neglecting you guys in the process. sowwey.:( Still working, still pregnant, am huuge. Am so big, if I went to seaworld dressed in black right now, they wouldn't let me out. Katie, where the heck are you? You better be hooked up to a murder machine or be repeatedly stabbed in the eye with a spork or I'll go over to where you are and do it myself. Geez woman, you act as though JTHM has you in his basement or something. Although knowing you, you probably went to find Johnen and discovered that JTHM does exist. No fair, I wanted to be there when you went to his house. Hopefully this bean will come out before the 10th of Jan so that I can go on maternity leave already. It's getting to be ridiculous to walk/bounce up and down the four flights of stairs every single day.

In The Kid news, we're starting potty training. yay(can you tell am extremely excited? snort) easier said than done with someone that will purposefully NOT do anything in the potty when sat on it for two hours and wait for the moment you get him up to poop on himself and hide. I swear he must like the squishy feeling....

And we have some sort of beetle infestation in the house. We have no idea what the heck they are except that they:
a)look like teeny beetles (smaller than a grain of rice)
b)are brown
c)fly
d)seem to like the food pantry
e)the bomb thingie doesn't do anything for them
f)are NOT fleas

we think that they came in the house through some non refridgerable produce bought at the farmer's market and we don't know how the heck to get them out of the house.

The "Middle Wife" by an Anonymous 2nd grade teacher

2007-11-29T15:47:00.000-05:00

Whether you have had children, taught children or just observed children in the grocery store,

you're gonna love this one:

I've been teaching now for about fifteen years. I have two kids myself, but the best birth story I know is the one I saw in my own second grade classroom a few years back.

When I was a kid, I loved show-and-tell. So I always have a few sessions with my students. It helps them get over shyness and usually, show-and-tell is pretty tame. Kids bring in pet turtles, model airplanes, pictures of fish they catch, stuff like that. And I never, ever place any boundaries or limitations on them. If they want to lug it in to school and talk about it, they're welcome.

Well, one day this little girl, Erica, a very bright, very outgoing kid, takes her turn and waddles up to the front of the class with a pillow stuffed under her sweater.

She holds up a snapshot of an infant. "This is Luke, my baby brothe r, and I'm going to tell you about his birthday."

"First, Mom and Dad made him as a symbol of their love, and then Dad put a seed in my Mom's stomach, and Luke grew in there. He ate for nine months through an umbrella cord."

She's standing there with her hands on the pillow, and I'm trying not to laugh and wishing I had my camcorder with me. The kids are watching her in amazement.

"Then, about two Saturdays ago, my Mom starts saying and going, 'Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh!' Erica puts a hand behind her back a nd groans. "She walked around the house for, like an hour, 'Oh, oh, oh!' (Now this kid is doing a hysterical duck walk and groaning.)

"My Dad called the middle wife. She delivers babies, but she doesn't have a sign on the car like the Domino's man. They got my Mom to lie down in bed like this." (Then Erica lies down wi th her back against the wall.)

"And then, pop! My Mom had this bag of water she kept in there in case he got thirsty, and it just blew up and spilled all over the bed, like psshhheew!" (This kid has her legs spread with her little hands miming water flowing away. It was too much!)

"Then the middle wife starts saying 'push, push,' and 'breathe, breathe. They started counting, but never even got past ten. Then, all of a sudden , out comes my brother. He was covered in yucky stuff that they all said it was f rom Mom's play-center, so there must be a lot of toys inside there."

got this off my board.

Then Erica stood up, took a big theatrical bow and returned to her seat. I'm sure I applauded the loudest. Ever since then, when it's show-and-tell day, I bring my camcorder, just in case another "Middle Wife" comes along.