Eh, Why Not?

So, I haven’t done a lot of blogging over the last few weeks, something which I should probably be better at but since I don’t care if people actually read this thing and like me, eh. But- I’m going to do this meme thingy that I got from Mommy Wants Vodka just for fun and  because yay! I feel like it!

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

i learned to sew things. yay!

2. Did you keep your New Year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

<insert maniacal laughter here>

<more laughter>

<snort, and trust me, I don’t snort when I laugh>

<yet more laughter>

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

nope, not that I know of.

4. Did anyone close to you die?

again- nope.

5. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?

free time.

6. What countries did you visit?

i’m so well traveled. I visited the Land of Corn and Soybeans otherwise known as my home state of Illinois.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why:

no date, specifically, but there was the week in august when my sister and bil came to visit, bringing the adorable sweetness that is my nephew with them.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

sadly, I think that you’re reading it…

9. What was your biggest failure?

again, i think that you’re reading it…

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

cody had stitches in his lip from when he landed on a cement bench *on his face*.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

a bag of rice and some heavy fabric, which I then sewed into a nifty heated rice bag, which just rawks.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Cody played baseball. Cody not only played baseball, he actually WANTED to play baseball. He WILLINGLY went to practices and games, and NOT ONE TIME did he say that playing baseball was too hard.

At the Christmas Parade last month, we saw a little 2-3 year old girl in tears over a broken candy cane. Evan, with no prompting from anyone, asked if she wanted his candy cane. He is such a sweetheart.

Dylan is just all around politeness.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

At multiple times during the year, I’m pretty sure that all three of the boys have had me appalled and depressed…

14. Where did most of your money go?

Food. Baseball. Christmas.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

jeremiah came to visit. Screw Jess and bil, it was all about Jeremiah (three year olds trump 29 year old sisters.)

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

um… the only song that is coming to mind is Tonight’s going to be a good night by Black Eyed Peas, but that just might be because I really like that song and should add it to my ipod.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder? Happier

ii. thinner or fatter? fatter

iii. richer or poorer? poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

sleeping.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

eating.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

ask me again in november, and then i’ll be able to tell you.

21. There was no #21. I don’t know why there was no 21.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?

Only if falling in loves with rice bags count.

23. How many one-night stands?

does it count if that one night stand if with the husband?

24. What was your favorite TV program?

Glee rocks.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

um, nope.

26. What was the best book you read?

The Other Boleyn Girl and Time Traveler’s Wife.

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Glee!

28. What did you want and get?

my orchid and video camera and a snuggie.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

Up.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

i turned 31 and I got a video camera and an orchid.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

less worry over money.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

is it comfortable?

34. What kept you sane?

internet.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Seth McFarlane.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Blago’s impeachment. It made me giggle. A lot.

37. Whom did you miss?

Nephew, some grandparents.

38. Who was the best new person you met?

Did I meet anyone new last year?

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:

You don’t want to know what the quiet is all about. Oh- and dogs will puke ungodly amounts if they eat chocolate.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

My brain is too fried to even think about this right now.

 

It’s That Time Of The Year

And no, I’m not talking about Christmas. Although, it is the Christmas season and we did see Santa Claus and go to our local Christmas parade last night.

No, what I’m talking about is that it’s time to clean the boys’ rooms in order to get ready for the holiday season. Now, we do clean their rooms throughout the year, but nothing compares to the cleaning that we do every December. Cody thinks he’s getting out of it by being at Gramma’s house today. But he’s wrong- rather than having two days to clean, he’ll have just one afternoon to get it done.

So far, I’ve had to bribe Evan and Dylan twice, break the room into smaller section to prevent whining, told them that Santa will not bring presents to boys who don’t clean their rooms, and remind Evan that Santa told him that he had three more weeks until Christmas and that Santa is watching.

And it’s only 130pm.

Last night, we froze our extremities off watching the parade and then waiting to see Santa. The boys were really very good the entire time, but Evan had me a little teary eyed.

There was a little girl, maybe 2 years old, who broke her candy cane. She was crying, and Evan, being the little sweetheart that he is, asked me if he could give her one of his candy canes.

Doesn’t it make your heart melt?

Gotta go bribe them again, they’ve found Moonsand and now I don’t hear cleaning.

 

Of Mice And Presents And Anniversaries

Tomorrow is my 10th anniversary, and no, we aren’t doing anything to celebrate tomorrow. We went out to eat Tuesday, though. Mike drank half a bottle of wine and then we went shopping… Not a good idea usually, but when you get something that you want for one of your kids, something that was rather expensive and Mike would have vetoed it had he been sober, you just have to run with it. So- yay! We started christmas shopping!

I had been telling him for a few days that Monkey hadn’t left me any ‘presents’ yet. Every other cat that we’ve owned growing up brought presents- dead (or, in the case of one cat, LIVING) mice and birds. Heck, we had a dog that would leave headless bunny corpses for us (not sure I want to know what happened to their heads… I’m perfectly fine imagining him lining them up as trophies in his doghouse rather than what is most likely the truth).

This morning, I woke up early to go shopping with Mom. I got what I wanted to get (yay!), Mom got what she wanted to get (yay!), and now it’s just filler for the boys. Then I came home to find…

A dead mouse in front of my kitchen sink, on the floor. First of all- it was Monkey’s first mouse. He was proud of himself, following me into that kitchen with a smug ‘look what I did’ look on his face. Now I know why he was hiding out in the lower cabinets and I had to let him out when I closed one of the doors. Second- I’ve found that I don’t like these presents, but I have to tell him that he’s a good kitty anyway, so he doesn’t leave them hidden behind the fridge or the stove for me to find when there’s a funny smell in the house. Third- I’m really glad that it was dead and Monkey wasn’t playing with it and that he had chosen the kitchen rather than the couch for the mouse’s ‘final’ resting place.

Yesterday, we had dinner with the inlaws and tomorrow we have dinner with my family. So far, I’ve made pumpkin dip and I’ll make crab rangoon for tomorrow, and then tomorrow morning, I’ll get up early and make cheesy ranch potatoes for dinner. I would have made crab rangoon for the inlaw’s, except that my Walmart apparently decided their shoppers don’t want egg roll or wonton wrappers. Or tofu, either. I even asked if they had tofu (because asking for ‘wonton wrappers’ requires me explaining that they’re usually by the tofu, and then I get the ‘eureka!’ light bulb moment when the employee says ‘tofu? why didn’t you say so?’), and was told that they don’t have tofu anymore. Oh-kay.

I did find egg roll wrappers at our local grocery, and they’ll work in a pinch. I’ll just have to cut them up and make slightly smaller crab rangoon.

 

Cody’s One Smelly Stinky Man

Last night, Mike and I were standing on the front porch when our neighbors got home. Our neighbors have two preteen girls. We weren’t really paying attention to them until we overheard one of the girls say ‘I call the shower first!’ Mike and I just looked at each other and said ‘gee, wouldn’t it be nice if that was a daily argument in our house?’

Instead, we get ‘Why can’t Evan go first?’ and ‘But I took a bath last week!’ and ‘Do I really have to wash all of my hair?’

We tried pointing out that girls like clean boys, but he pointed out that he has a girlfriend and she doesn’t seem to mind. Of course, ‘girlfriend’ right now doesn’t mean more than ‘her group of girl friends and my group of boy friends stand next to each other outside school in the mornings and sit at the same table at lunch and at recess I’ll chase her around the playground.’ At least this one isn’t a love note writing one, like a previous ‘girlfriend’.

Cody has started to sweat. Not little boy sweat- but stinky man sweat. He doesn’t sweat all the time, usually just when he’s playing, but the fact is- he’s growing up. He pointed out that he has toe hair (ew) and spent an hour plucking it out, because hairy feet are gross (hey, at least we agree on something). I asked him if he had hair anywhere else, thinking he’d tell me that he has pit hair (because while hairy feet are gross, hairy pits are cool), and he points to his chest and says ‘yes. Because I’m a MAN.’

*sigh*

Yesterday, he had a birthday party to go to. He had taken a bath the night before, but since the party wasn’t until 4pm, he was kinda sweaty and smelly. Rather than shove him in the shower (which wouldn’t work, because he’d turn it on, sit on the side of the tub, and pray that ‘clean’ would just suddenly appear on his body), we had him change the smelly stuff and then we brought out the deodorant.

Gramma and I had to tackle him to the ground to get it on him.

To his credit, it was cold. I bought him a stick, and he made sure to tell me that he put it on this morning. Mike thinks that Cody can just use his deodorant, but I’m thinking a- ew, that’s gross and b- it’s not that expensive so why not get him his own stick and c- what self respecting mother lets a 9 year old boy wear Axe deodorant? I got him Degree, because at least they don’t advertise ‘getting girls’. He’s not quite ready for that yet. With three boys, we have plenty of years for this.

 

His Shoes Aren’t To Blame

Meet Dylan.

He’s my stubborn, picky child. He’s also my dramatic Drama King. He’s also musical, silly, best friends with everybody in his class. He calls dolls ‘bobos’ because of his first bear, Bobo. Which he got when he was 5 and had pink eye. He hates ketchup and rice, won’t touch taco seasoning, and was the King of Temper Tantrums until he was 5 and Evan realized that temper tantrums are rather fun and if you scream loud enough, you may just get what you want (or at least get out of cleaning a room). Btw- Evan was four at the time.

He also can’t tie his shoes.

Every Monday, Dylan’s teacher sends home a folder with his work from the previous week. This week, there was a note in that folder. Yes, Dylan needs to work on his handwriting (what second grader doesn’t?), but the note also said that he needs to learn to tie his shoes (agreed) because it slows him down in the hallways (not agreed).

Uh, I live with the child. I’ve seen him run from one end of the house to the other in untied shoes. He can keep up with the class while walking with untied shoes. He does just fine when we’re walking home from school.

Dylan won’t learn to do something unless he’s forced to learn something. He’s not going to learn to tie those shoes because Mommy and Teacher wants him to learn to tie his shoes (and we do). He’s not going to get all excited and happy and sit down with me to learn how to tie his shoes, because he wants to be the one to come to you and say ‘teach me to tie my shoes’. Believe me- I’ve tried.

So now I’m kinda stuck here. I could continue leaving them as is, and reminding him that he has tied them before and he can try to tie them again (he claims that they won’t stay tied) or I could fix the laces so that he doesn’t have to tie them, which means that he won’t learn to tie his shoes.

 

Little Miss Homemaker Makes Lunch

Money is tight with payday two days away. We’re out of bread, and I still have to make the boys’ lunches for tomorrow, so I figured that today would be a good day to bake a loaf of bread.

I have a hard time keeping the stuff to bake cookies on hand (gee, wonder why that is), but I always seem to have the stuff to bake bread. My priorities are in the right place, obviously. I even got to feel like Suzie Homemaker, seeing as how the paddle for my bread machine is missing (I think I threw it away by accident, go me), I had to mix the stuff with my handy dandy candy red Kitchenaide stand mixer. I even used the dough hook to knead the dough. I mixed it all up, kneaded the dough, let it rise, kneaded it some more, then set about baking it in my handy dandy not candy red bread machine. I goofed there, though. I didn’t cook the bread long enough, and had to let the machine cool down before I could finish baking it. But for an hour and a half, the dining room smelled like fresh baked bread. Yummy.

After finishing it, and batting Mike’s hands away from it (sorry, but this bread wasn’t for him, since he’s the reason we are out of bread two days before pay day), I set it in the cabinet to cool.

In the meantime, I decided that I wasn’t done. I went from Suzie Homemaker to Maude The Perfect Mother Who Thinks She’s Better Than You. Not that I do. I don’t. But that is what I felt like. I grabbed three potatoes, and our Titan Peeler (which, btw, Mike bought because he saw it on TV and I have to say that it is the greatest thing ever made, even though we’ve both cut ourselves using it), and sat down to slice up some shoestring potatoes. Mike decided that he could do it better (he really just wanted to play with the peeler. Most kitchen gadgets he gets bored of, but the peeler? A ten dollar tool? He’s in love with it), and he peeled the potatoes. But, shhh. We won’t tell the boys’ that.

Then I deep fried the potatoes in vegetable oil, and salted them a touch, and put them in baggies. So my boys will have lunch made with homemade bread and homemade shoestring potatoes. And I’m envisioning that I’m just the coolest mom ever, and someday, the three of them will turn to their wives and say ‘Mom made us sandwiches with homemade bread and homemade shoestring potatoes for our lunches, you should do that for our kids’ and I’ll get the Daughter In Law Look Of Doom that tells me I did my job well and she can only hope to live up to my high standards (I kid… maybe).

We went out to Mom’s for the evening, and I didn’t get around to putting their lunches together until a little bit ago. And I realized one teeny tiny flaw in my evil plan.

Homemade bread is too big for my sandwich bags. Which means that while my kids will have the homemade stuff tomorrow, they’ll have the homemade stuff in the only bags that I had available.

Gallon sized freezer bags.

I really shouldn’t try to be Maude the Perfect Mother. I should just settle for Marge The Mediocre mother. At least then, I wouldn’t fret that my boys are going to be laughed out of the lunch room tomorrow.

 

Halloween

Saturday, October 31st, 2009.

7am: Boys are up. I’m up. Boys are happy. I’m not. It’s too early to be up on a Saturday, especially since we left the house at 10am the previous morning and didn’t get home until 11pm the night before. Tired? No. We were exhausted.

8am: Mike leaves for work, leaving me home alone with two cheerfully excited little boys and one sulky not quite a preteen.

9am: Cleaning. We need to clean. No clean, no Halloween. (hey, that rhymes.) Boys start off enthusiastic.

10am: Enthusiasm has worn off. They’re tired. Crabby. Want to watch Saturday morning tv. Don’t want to watch Hannah Montana. Realize that we’re still cleaning. Suddenly, Miley Cyrus is ‘cute’ and ‘we love Hannah Montana.’ Mommy sighs.

11am: Power Rangers. Seriously? POWER RANGERS? It’s still on the air? Three boys, who have never, ever, ever watched Power Rangers sit glued to the tv, piles of trash surrounding them. We’re still cleaning, ain’t much getting done, obviously. At this point, we’ve heard ‘it’s halloween’ forty thousand times.

12pm: lunch. Dylan begins putting his stuff together. Cleaning still not done.

1pm: Gramma will be here in an hour and a half, cleaning finally finished, boys fed, staring at costumes. Cody grumbles- wants to go off on his bike. Not happening, as I’m not sure if he’d return.

2pm: Costume time! Captain America- check. Optimus Prime- check. Cody’s mask- only if I want to lose a finger. I’d rather keep my finger, decide to try again later.

230pm: Pictures taken, Gramma and Grampa show up, Cody finally puts on mask without threatening any of my appendages. Allows two pictures, removes mask.

3pm: Driving around, not seeing many lights. Find some, let the kids out, Cody immediately takes off. See his back for the next few hours, except when we get in the car to head to another side of town.Evan and Dylan begin complaining about legs hurting, which translates into ‘let’s sit in the car and eat candy.’ They have yet to figure out that the longer they go, the more candy they get.

4pm: Finish one street, time to move to another. Hit the scary house, Evan and Cody go in, Dylan refuses. I spend another year on the other side of the fence, wondering if I’ll be able to go in next year (it’s that cool). Hit the ‘rich’ part of town- better candy. More kids. More lights. More complaints of being tired, but they’re getting quieter. They’re starting to see that they have a lot of candy, and are thinking that a little leg pain is worth it.

5pm: Mike gets home, we decide to take on one more street. Cody suddenly decides that trick or treating with Daddy is cool. I see more of him from the car than I did in the previous two hours. Complaints of leg pain non existant. Complaints of heavy buckets starting to pick up, but are easily remedied by dumping buckets into bags.

530pm: Decide to take the kids to another town. Say goodbye to Gramma and Grampa, the boys pile into our car, we make up a plan to see if Gramma Vicky recognizes the boys.

6pm: Arrive in other town, park around the corner, let the boys walk up. Cody removes his mask before Evan and Dylan get there. Sulky 9 year old ruins all the fun- again. Evan and Dylan see tons of lights, want to go trick or treating. Cody opts to stay and pass out candy with Gramma Judy.

Sugar highs are starting to kick in, E and D start chatting with every person they get candy from. Cody decides to go trick or treat by himself (apparently he decided that he didn’t want less candy than E and D).

7pm: We’re done. No more. Kids could go all night, but the grown ups are finito. We head back to Gramma’s house, boys start devouring candy. Adults start stealing sneaking pieces. Kids start getting wild.

8pm: Time to head home, Mommy cuts off the candy for the night. Doesn’t work.

9pm: Attempt to cut off the candy again. Doesn’t work.

915: another attempt. Guess what happened?

930: GET YOUR BUTTS IN BED NOW, OR YOUR CANDY IS BEING DONATED TOMORROW! That worked.

Sunday November 1st 2009, 7am: Three kids wake up. Three kids all still have sugar highs. Mommy makes an executive decision- no more candy until Monday.

It lasts until 5pm Sunday evening.

God help their teachers today.

 

Why Do We Do This Again?

Yesterday, we took Evan and Dylan to the health department for their vaccinations. I’ve been through this before- so I insisted that Mike come along for the ride.

Side note: why is it that I always make a wrong turn when going to the health department? It’s not like I’ve never been there before- multiple times, and for a month earlier this year, I was there at least once a week. Never fails- I always take at least one wrong turn, and realize that I’m headed the wrong direction as I’m making that turn. I really shouldn’t be surprised, it took me 10 years to remember who to get to Mike’s grandmother’s house…

Anyway. Got to the health department, and it was a mad house. They were giving out H1N1 vaccines and regular flu shots and it was the third Wednesday of the month, which is, of course, Vaccination Wednesday (hence- why we were there). In the past, I’ve gone in just as soon as they opened, and been in and out and done in less than five minutes. So this time, I waited a little bit. Surely, they wouldn’t be that busy.

Yeah, silly me. Should have remembered that it’s not just an flu season, it’s the flu season from hell. We got there shortly after 9am, and it was packed. Packed. People and kids everywhere. Standing room only. We had to take a number, which we’ve never had to do before.

While we were sitting there waiting, I was watching the kids go in with happy smiles on their faces and walk out with red rimmed eyes and cheeks still wet with tears. I had to remind myself why we do this, why we make our kids get shots. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it’s scary. But the fact is without those shots, kids could get sick. Kids could get really sick. And a few seconds of pain and maybe a small bruise is so much better than watching a kid suffer from a flu that is killing people or a disease that could leave you paralyzed.

I’m getting off my soap box now, I promise.

We waited for our turn, and when they called us back, I breathed a sigh of relief, because we had managed to make it through the waiting process without terrfying the kids in the waiting room with tears and screaming. Yes, it was a real fear. Remember, I had been through this before.

So- we go back to get our shots. We decide that Dylan can go first. Mike sits down, puts Dyl on his lap. Dyl starts shaking. Then he starts screaming. And I do mean SCREAMING, straight out of a slasher flick screaming. Evan starts to run. I grabbed him, he’s pulling on me, I pick him up and hold him, and he squeezes me tighter and tighter and tighter. This was all in the span of a few seconds, and as soon as Dyl was finished, he stood up, with tears in his eyes and said…

‘That didn’t hurt.’

*Sigh* Evan, of course, didn’t hear that. Evan had to be peeled off me and handed to Mike. Evan screamed through the first shot, and then asked with tears running down his face if the second shot was going to hurt, because the first one didn’t. His second shot did hurt, and he’s still milking it for all it’s worth today. He can’t walk today, because his ARM hurts.

At least we’re done with shots for a little while.

 

Happy Fun Time Sing Along

Dylan is my musical child. He loves his toy piano, he likes to sing (especially in the bath tub), and would be perfectly happy if he got nothing but musical instruments with Harry Potter toys for Christmas and birthdays (side rant here: why are there no Harry Potter toys?)

He is so enthusiastic about singing that he can get his brothers to sing along with him, even Cody, who doesn’t dare do anything that would make him look ‘uncool’. He managed to get both Evan and Cody to sing I Wear Short Shorts (from the Nair commercials) a few weeks back. Granted, he only sings the one line, but still.

The other day, the boys were in the dining room, singing. ‘I am an awesome God.’

Yes, ladies and gents, I have given birth to three Gods. (for the record, the correct lyric is Our God Is An Awesome God. It’s a Sunday School song that the boys like.) I find it oddly hilarious that they get that one wrong, but yet- they get I Wear Short Shorts right…

 

Don’t Mess With Karma

In August, right around the time that I started this little blog, while walking into my parents’ living room, I kicked the heavy thing that holds my parents’ DirectTV box and DVD collection and Wii things. I ended up breaking my right pinky toe, and limping around for a few weeks. The toe was swollen, and misshapen, and purple. It hurt like a mo fo, and I got plenty of gasps and oh-my-gosh-what-is-that-freaky-purple-blob-attached-to-your-foots.

But Mike scoffed. To him, it wasn’t broken. Sprained? Yes. But broken? No. Not broken, and therefore, not worthy of appropriate sympathetic looks and cuddles and as such, he did not wait on me hand and foot like he should have (because we all know that it’s all about me, people. all.about.me).

Last night, Mike calls me on his way home from work and he says ‘I broke my toe.’

Now, the appropriate sympathetic response to this is ‘omg! you poor thing! Can you walk? Here, put your foot up, let me grab you a Mike’s Hard Lemonade…’ My actual response?

‘It’s not broken.’

He told me that his first thought when it happened wasn’t ‘Fuck, that hurts’, but ‘Fuck, I’m not going to hear the end of this one.’ Because he’s right. It’s true. I broke my toe, he scoffed. He breaks his toe, and well- karma’s a bitch. Now, I’m not going to go off the deep end- I know that it hurts, and I know the pain he is in, but I’ll be damned if I’m going to baby him.

So far, this is the gift that keeps right on giving. This morning, we talked about how he’d have to file an incident report, because he can’t wear his dress shoes. He’s wearing his Cubs crocs. To work. With his shirt and tie and nice pants. Part of the incident report is a drug test.

So I got to spend some time this morning teasing him about his drug addictions (relax, he’s not on drugs). And laughing at him wearing crocs with his work clothes.

The lesson learned today? If your wife tells you that she has broken her toe, you should serve her breakfast, commiserate with her, and most definitely- don’t tell her that it’s not broken.

Because karma will come and bite you in the ass.