My husband is a good man. He takes good care of me. I am not hard to take care of though, I don't smoke (unless I do what the Parenting magazine's tell me and then I am smokin' in bed) I don't drink (at least not right now at this very moment) and I don't do drugs (unless you count the happy gas the dentist gave me as a child-I would stop brushing just to get a cavity to merit a ride on the Dentist's chair of flying high). I stay home, raise our children, keep the house, balance the checkbook, make the meals, do the grocery shopping, wash all dirty clothes, bathe the dog, put gas in the van and I even will mow the yard on occasion just to surprise him when he comes home. I am a pretty good catch. I don't shop excessively-honestly. I do not even enjoy shopping really because I prefer my money to stay in the checkbook that I balance. I have not pulled out a credit card in over 5 years... I don't see the point of them, AND, I let him have most of the control of the remote! He is a lucky lucky man.
The only negative point is my college debt. I do not have my own income. This job that I have does not pay all that much, and we cannot live off of the ad revenues that this blog collects (last month I earned a total of $0.01!) So my debt is being paid by my husband. I hate that thought-I really do but... it is partly HIS fault that I have this debt. Let me explain~
I met my husband when I was fresh out of high school and working for the summer at a restaurant and lounge in our hometown. The restaurant was very nice, the lounge was very "not nice." The place was owned by a Greek named Tony who wore his button down shirts half open with his chest hair popping out and gold chains around his neck. He was greasy-he was an "oily bohunk" but leave out the bohunk part. He was about 4'9'' and he thought he was God's gift to women. Between him, the cooks in the back and the bartenders, my guardian angel was working overtime that summer.
My husband and his twin brother started frequenting the lounge. Why you ask? Well, they didn't fit the normal cast of players at the bar-the high school teacher who was there every day grading summer school papers, the group of older women with frizzed and teased hair and blue eye shadow, or the leather vested biker guys that came in on Thursdays-my husband and his brother did not fit in at all! They came to listen to the Talking Head's cover band (who did a great rendition of "And She Was")... or at least that is what I assumed. Maybe they came in because in our hometown, there was not much to do unless you wanted to cruise up and down the Boulevard and park at the Burger King or the Dairy Queen and drink Boones' Farm Strawberry Hill Wine in your backseat. Maybe they could get cheap beer and watered down Rum and Cokes there, or maybe they just thought they were too sophisticated for Burger King but too poor to drive downtown Chicago. I don't know, all I do know is that I instantly noticed them from my hostess-with-the-mostest station.
One night they came in with a girl I knew. When she walked past me to go to the restroom I said "Hey Suzie, which one you got, because I'll take the other!" Well, the other was my future husband, my future debt payer.
We started dating. Now, it should be said that I was only 18 and my husband was 23 at the time. 18 and 23!!! What were my parents thinking??? I mean, if my daughter came home and said that she had met a guy at a lounge who was 23 and she really liked him and wanted to date him... I would lock her away in her room and make her say the rosary over and over. I guess there was some divine intervention happening here-either that or my parents didn't think he would be hanging out long because I never kept a boyfriend long. I was too free... too ready to see what the world had in store for me to be tied down to a boy. Oh my poor parents.
August came and I headed away to a small Catholic (read: enormous tuition) college in Southern Indiana, and my husband headed back to University in Arizona. (He had enlisted in the Army right out of high school and after 4 years decided to go to school. So while I was taking Geometry class and planning homecoming, he was carrying a machine gun and wearing camouflage in field exercises. We had a lot in common). We vowed to stay in our relationship and to try it out long distance.
That worked for 18 months and by Christmas break of my Sophomore year, my husband dressed up at Santa and placed a ring on my finger. I was 19 and he was 24... HOLY COW! My poor parents.
I quit school because how could I possibly be separated from the man I loved and moved out to Arizona to be close to him and to plan our life together. Again, my poor parents. We were married when I was 21 and he was 25... we were babies-but we were a match!
Years passed and we had two children. My husband was working on his Master's degree when I got the notion to go back and finish my college education. It was all fine and dandy until I was a semester or two in and realized that it was really hard to care for a family and go to school-so I wanted to quit. I figured I was doing fine without a degree... I mean, I was a mom, not a lawyer-I was happy with that. My husband would not hear of it. He was my cheerleader throughout and I finally FINALLY graduated. I now have a piece of paper that is worth $50,000! My husband HATES when I say that.
Anyway, we have been happily saving money and paying off this loan with no bumps and no set-backs until recently. We have met up with just about the dumbest bank in the free world and this post is too long today to go into it, so I will continue with Part II of this exciting tale of adventure, intrigue, romance and pitfalls tomorrow. Be sure to tune in as I will be examining the mind of a senior citizen banker who should have retired in 1984 and the crazy cost of Private Education! It is sure to be a page-turner~
4.09.2007
The Great Egg Debate
This was the first year that I hid plastic eggs. Traditionally, I would do what my mother did and hide the hard-boiled eggs that we had colored. Well, it seems that I should be locked up... because I could have given my children salmonella. Who knew?
I recently read in a parenting magazine-you know the kind-the ones that don't really HELP you through this maze of parenting but rather make you feel like a complete and utter failure by the time you get to the "work at home" ads in the back. I am obviously not sterilizing enough, making crafts enough, reading the best children's books enough and having enough sex with my husband after childbirth... but they will tell me how to lose that extra 5 pounds (as if 5 lbs. would make a dent!) and they will tell me how to spice up date night at home with just some tissue paper and a push up bra! The editors of these magazines should be fired-these magazines have become as bad as Cosmo is for a single woman... they just stress me out.
Anyway, I was reading about egg-etiquette and it said that hard boiled eggs should not be left out any longer than 2 hours... even if you are having a party and you see that the eggs have been on the buffet table for 2 hours, you should quickly remove them from the buffet and put them in a fridge (or swap them out with the "extra" eggs you have prepared in the fridge already--that just cracks me up... extra eggs prepared! HAHAHAHA!)
I called my mother and asked her what she thought. I have to say that I am amazed that my sisters and I survived the living conditions that we were subjected to on Easter morning. Every Holy Saturday evening, we would color eggs. We would color what seemed to be a ton of eggs. We would color them with toxic crayons first-not the one "invisible" crayon that came with the dye, but the toxic $.99 for a box of 500 crayons. My mom would then let them set on the counter to dry-never putting them in the fridge for fear of the color running when she would take them out to hide. I am sure an etiquette book somewhere states that little dots of Easter egg dye on the living room carpet is not appropriate... it said nothing about poisoning your children back then. After we would go to bed, my mom would then take the warm, hard boiled, toxic eggs and hide them around the house. We would all sleep through the night and wake to find the killer eggs and we would even enjoy one or two before we started putting on our Easter outfits for Church. The eggs STILL did not make it into the fridge, because my mom would then make either egg salad, or deviled eggs (maybe the name deviled eggs is appropriate, I mean, if the eggs are laden with deadly bacteria I am willing to bet the devil had something to do with it.) We would then take the eggs that we had colored for the Priest to Church, putting him in grave danger as well, and then continue to dine on the warm eggs for a week. I must have internal organs of steel I tell you to survive such an obvious attempt on my mother's part to poison us all.
The above had been my Easter tradition as well until I read that stupid magazine. Our beautiful colored eggs have been safely tucked away in the fridge for no one to oohhh and ahhh over and the 48 plastic eggs that were stuffed with jelly beans, whoppers, and sweet tarts are all but empty now and piled in a basket on the counter. My children all went to bed with upset stomachs because of all of the sugar they inhaled yesterday and I was wide awake watching a CSI marathon for hours last night because I was so doped up on sugar. Next year I am going back to the warm salmonella eggs. I think the health and well-being of my children insists upon it!
I recently read in a parenting magazine-you know the kind-the ones that don't really HELP you through this maze of parenting but rather make you feel like a complete and utter failure by the time you get to the "work at home" ads in the back. I am obviously not sterilizing enough, making crafts enough, reading the best children's books enough and having enough sex with my husband after childbirth... but they will tell me how to lose that extra 5 pounds (as if 5 lbs. would make a dent!) and they will tell me how to spice up date night at home with just some tissue paper and a push up bra! The editors of these magazines should be fired-these magazines have become as bad as Cosmo is for a single woman... they just stress me out.
Anyway, I was reading about egg-etiquette and it said that hard boiled eggs should not be left out any longer than 2 hours... even if you are having a party and you see that the eggs have been on the buffet table for 2 hours, you should quickly remove them from the buffet and put them in a fridge (or swap them out with the "extra" eggs you have prepared in the fridge already--that just cracks me up... extra eggs prepared! HAHAHAHA!)
I called my mother and asked her what she thought. I have to say that I am amazed that my sisters and I survived the living conditions that we were subjected to on Easter morning. Every Holy Saturday evening, we would color eggs. We would color what seemed to be a ton of eggs. We would color them with toxic crayons first-not the one "invisible" crayon that came with the dye, but the toxic $.99 for a box of 500 crayons. My mom would then let them set on the counter to dry-never putting them in the fridge for fear of the color running when she would take them out to hide. I am sure an etiquette book somewhere states that little dots of Easter egg dye on the living room carpet is not appropriate... it said nothing about poisoning your children back then. After we would go to bed, my mom would then take the warm, hard boiled, toxic eggs and hide them around the house. We would all sleep through the night and wake to find the killer eggs and we would even enjoy one or two before we started putting on our Easter outfits for Church. The eggs STILL did not make it into the fridge, because my mom would then make either egg salad, or deviled eggs (maybe the name deviled eggs is appropriate, I mean, if the eggs are laden with deadly bacteria I am willing to bet the devil had something to do with it.) We would then take the eggs that we had colored for the Priest to Church, putting him in grave danger as well, and then continue to dine on the warm eggs for a week. I must have internal organs of steel I tell you to survive such an obvious attempt on my mother's part to poison us all.
The above had been my Easter tradition as well until I read that stupid magazine. Our beautiful colored eggs have been safely tucked away in the fridge for no one to oohhh and ahhh over and the 48 plastic eggs that were stuffed with jelly beans, whoppers, and sweet tarts are all but empty now and piled in a basket on the counter. My children all went to bed with upset stomachs because of all of the sugar they inhaled yesterday and I was wide awake watching a CSI marathon for hours last night because I was so doped up on sugar. Next year I am going back to the warm salmonella eggs. I think the health and well-being of my children insists upon it!
4.08.2007
How Dare You Be HONEST With Your Children!
I have never been a big fan of the Easter Bunny. Even when I was a youngster I didn't like him... to be honest, he scared the crap out of me. A big overgrown bunny dressed in overalls and a bow tie sneaking into my house at night and hiding eggs? How bizarre!
My husband and I have been able to celebrate the Easter Holiday in the way God intended... religiously. We have also included the other parts of Easter as well, the candy, the baskets, the gifts, the egg coloring and egg hiding. We have always told our children that Mommy and Daddy do the gift basket giving and we also do the hiding of eggs. The Easter Bunny is the little guy out in the backyard that emerges from his winter hiding this time of year to eat my tulip sprouts.
We have never encountered a problem with this until this year. I have discovered that when you have older children mixed in with a toddler-the toddler is a lot more street smart than the older ones were when they were little. My toddler has an older brother saying "The Easter Bunny is a fraud!" only to be repeated by her at a less desirable time.
This year my little one has been asked many times if she is excited about the Easter Bunny coming to her house, to which she replies "We don't believe in the Easter Bunny" or my favorite, "The Easter Bunny only eats Mama's flowers, he doesn't hide eggs." This gets me a confused look from the little senior citizen who has posed this question to my daughter only to have me smile and shrug. She is only being honest-brutally honest, the way her brother has obviously taught her to be.
Today after Easter Mass the people in the pew in front of us turned around and asked my daughter if the Easter Bunny came to visit her last night. Their 5 year old daughter looked on excitedly clutching the ballerina Barbie that the Easter Bunny obviously left her in her basket. My daughter, in all of her three-year-old gumption said, "The Easter Bunny is a FAKE! FAKE! FAKE! My Mama is hiding the eggs when we get home from Church!" Each time she said "fake" she grew more and more animated, like she was saying "My Mom just lost 20 POUNDS POUNDS POUNDS!" (that is the only example that I could think of that would merit more and more animation and excitement.)
The poor little 5 year old looked like she had just been told there would be no Christmas this year. The mother clutched her hands over her daughter's ears and gave me a look that I am willing to bet should send her back to confession this week.
Lord help me when the times comes for my daughter to lose her front teeth and some poor unsuspecting person poses the question "Is the Tooth Fairy going to visit you tonight?" I pray that I am at least at the grocery store and not at Sunday Mass.
My husband and I have been able to celebrate the Easter Holiday in the way God intended... religiously. We have also included the other parts of Easter as well, the candy, the baskets, the gifts, the egg coloring and egg hiding. We have always told our children that Mommy and Daddy do the gift basket giving and we also do the hiding of eggs. The Easter Bunny is the little guy out in the backyard that emerges from his winter hiding this time of year to eat my tulip sprouts.
We have never encountered a problem with this until this year. I have discovered that when you have older children mixed in with a toddler-the toddler is a lot more street smart than the older ones were when they were little. My toddler has an older brother saying "The Easter Bunny is a fraud!" only to be repeated by her at a less desirable time.
This year my little one has been asked many times if she is excited about the Easter Bunny coming to her house, to which she replies "We don't believe in the Easter Bunny" or my favorite, "The Easter Bunny only eats Mama's flowers, he doesn't hide eggs." This gets me a confused look from the little senior citizen who has posed this question to my daughter only to have me smile and shrug. She is only being honest-brutally honest, the way her brother has obviously taught her to be.
Today after Easter Mass the people in the pew in front of us turned around and asked my daughter if the Easter Bunny came to visit her last night. Their 5 year old daughter looked on excitedly clutching the ballerina Barbie that the Easter Bunny obviously left her in her basket. My daughter, in all of her three-year-old gumption said, "The Easter Bunny is a FAKE! FAKE! FAKE! My Mama is hiding the eggs when we get home from Church!" Each time she said "fake" she grew more and more animated, like she was saying "My Mom just lost 20 POUNDS POUNDS POUNDS!" (that is the only example that I could think of that would merit more and more animation and excitement.)
The poor little 5 year old looked like she had just been told there would be no Christmas this year. The mother clutched her hands over her daughter's ears and gave me a look that I am willing to bet should send her back to confession this week.
Lord help me when the times comes for my daughter to lose her front teeth and some poor unsuspecting person poses the question "Is the Tooth Fairy going to visit you tonight?" I pray that I am at least at the grocery store and not at Sunday Mass.
4.06.2007
4.05.2007
America! What Are You Thinking?
Sanjaya? I mean... c'mon! SANJAYA?
I put my hands up in disgust. I can no longer take the weeping and the moaning that comes from my daughter every Wednesday night after the American Idol results show. She has professed her love for Chris Richardson and will respectively vote for him her allotted 10 times each Tuesday night... but something is amiss when SANJAYA is still hanging in there!
I thought for sure he would have been booted with last week's faux mohawk hair but I was wrong.
I put my hands up in disgust. I can no longer take the weeping and the moaning that comes from my daughter every Wednesday night after the American Idol results show. She has professed her love for Chris Richardson and will respectively vote for him her allotted 10 times each Tuesday night... but something is amiss when SANJAYA is still hanging in there!
I thought for sure he would have been booted with last week's faux mohawk hair but I was wrong.
I have figured out what is going on. Middle aged men have nothing better to do at work than devise plans to flood the phone lines voting for Sanjaya because they are so sick of their daughters and wives watching American Idol that they want to put a wrench in the works. You may be asking, "Why do you think this Cris?" Well... because that is what my husband and his cronies at work are doing!One of his fellow workmates has even taken to sleeping on the couch every Tuesday night because after he hides the phone from his wife, he runs into the bathroom and votes for Sanjaya as many times as he can. When he emerges, he is locked out of his bedroom and so he does the sleep of shame on the couch. Somehow they think this is all hilarious!
My own husband has been physically tackled by my daughter and had the phone wrestled from his hands when he was trying to vote for Sanjaya. I am telling you-there is a war going on in our house and I do not see as calm a resolution as the British soldiers coming home from Iran happening here. I see more of a stand off that will include a clown suit and a water tower in my husband's future.
Men are weird. There, I said it. It is like they cannot handle the fact that for a couple of hours a week, something else is getting their wife and children's attention. For years now they have secretly been plotting the ruin of this show and finally, with the arrival of Sanjaya, they have figured out how to do it.
My daughter and I will have our revenge though... when the American Idol Tour comes along you can bet that we will be the first in line to buy tickets. We will buy enough tickets for our ENTIRE family to go-especially my husband, so that he can sit in the audience amid screaming girls and watch Sanjaya LIVE and IN PERSON! If that does not do him in, the fact that his hard earned money was used to buy the tickets to see Sanjaya will surely make him regret his evil plan. So, go ahead and keep plotting my darling husband... you have no idea what you are up against.
4.04.2007
Pick ME! Pick ME!
OK, so I love to watch the Bachelor. I am not sure why because I get so pissed off every stinking time I view an episode, but I keep coming back to it-I just HAVE to know who will get proposed to in the end... I then open up a betting pool to see how long they will actually stay together-it pays for our mortgage every year, seriously!
I am always amazed at the people they chose to be on the Bachelor. I mean seriously... there has to be some kind of dysfunctional baggage that they are hiding if the Bachelor is good looking, physically fit, educated, a millionaire and knits baby booties in his spare time for little orphans in Nepal, yet he somehow has not managed to snag himself a wife on his own. Hmmmm-he probably has a horror for a mother and a drunk for a father and a brother like George Clinton who is in and out of jail-but they just hide that part of his life behind door number 3.
I always like the first episode. I sit and yell at the TV "LIFE IF NOT LIKE THIS!" I have never walked into a room and had up to 25 people wanting all of my attentions. As far as I know, this has never happened to my husband either-so the size of the ego that Mr. Bachelor must develop in this show is being studied by all reputable psychologists around the world I am sure. Personally, I believe that if he was not a jerk before the first episode... my guess is that his male jerk-gene will rear it's ugly head very soon, and they display this by letting him reject 10 of the lovely ladies who have dolled themselves up swearing their love and devotion to him.
Like the cigarette ad says "You've Come a Long Way Baby!" but apparently not long enough! The producers of this show do a fabulous job at searching the earth for beautiful women who have also found the cure for cancer-but have no self-esteem. Again I say that there must be some dysfunctional "my ex-boyfriend made me wear a french maid outfit" baggage happening there. Basically we are watching two beautiful people with emotional baggage try to fall in love on the television and survive. Not gonna happen people.
If I had met my husband and he said to me, "Look, I think you are great and I would love to kiss and hug you and take you on dates to exotic places... but I have these 24 other women who I am seeing as well." I would have been out of there faster than a speeding bullet! They have got it all wrong here... men are the competitive ones, not women. Women like to be the center of a man's universe (or at least made to feel that way) not jumping up and down trying to get his attention. This is why there are so many cat-fights on the Bachelor. They make these women revert back to junior high behavior.
As far as I know, the only couple to have survived a Bachelor show is Trista and Ryan-and that was the Bachelorette. This is because Trista had all attentions placed on her and Ryan was able to be the victor in the competition for her heart. He can probably care less about the other guys-because he won! He was able to mark his territory and felt like the hero. Women are different. We remember the other girls and that pisses us off. I admit it, I still will see red at the slightest mention of the girl my husband was seeing before he met me. Women do not want to be in competition-it is not a fun game to fight over a man. We want the man to come to the mill that we are working at in his full Military Dress Whites and sweep us off of our feet-making a spectacle of his admiration for us and us alone for all the other women to witness. We want to say "nah nah nah nah nah--he loves ME and only ME!" We do not want the other women thinking "sure, he picked you, but he kissed me, and her, and that girl, and even that girl over there... so big deal if he chose you-you can have those sloppy seconds!"
So, my prediction is that this Bachelor will kiss all the girls, make many of them cry at his rejection, make even more of them pull each other's hair and call each other names and he may even send a few to the psychiatric ward for evaluation. He will propose to someone in the end... and they will announce their split after all of the morning talk shows have them on as guests. It is what good TV is made of!
I am always amazed at the people they chose to be on the Bachelor. I mean seriously... there has to be some kind of dysfunctional baggage that they are hiding if the Bachelor is good looking, physically fit, educated, a millionaire and knits baby booties in his spare time for little orphans in Nepal, yet he somehow has not managed to snag himself a wife on his own. Hmmmm-he probably has a horror for a mother and a drunk for a father and a brother like George Clinton who is in and out of jail-but they just hide that part of his life behind door number 3.
I always like the first episode. I sit and yell at the TV "LIFE IF NOT LIKE THIS!" I have never walked into a room and had up to 25 people wanting all of my attentions. As far as I know, this has never happened to my husband either-so the size of the ego that Mr. Bachelor must develop in this show is being studied by all reputable psychologists around the world I am sure. Personally, I believe that if he was not a jerk before the first episode... my guess is that his male jerk-gene will rear it's ugly head very soon, and they display this by letting him reject 10 of the lovely ladies who have dolled themselves up swearing their love and devotion to him.
Like the cigarette ad says "You've Come a Long Way Baby!" but apparently not long enough! The producers of this show do a fabulous job at searching the earth for beautiful women who have also found the cure for cancer-but have no self-esteem. Again I say that there must be some dysfunctional "my ex-boyfriend made me wear a french maid outfit" baggage happening there. Basically we are watching two beautiful people with emotional baggage try to fall in love on the television and survive. Not gonna happen people.
If I had met my husband and he said to me, "Look, I think you are great and I would love to kiss and hug you and take you on dates to exotic places... but I have these 24 other women who I am seeing as well." I would have been out of there faster than a speeding bullet! They have got it all wrong here... men are the competitive ones, not women. Women like to be the center of a man's universe (or at least made to feel that way) not jumping up and down trying to get his attention. This is why there are so many cat-fights on the Bachelor. They make these women revert back to junior high behavior.
As far as I know, the only couple to have survived a Bachelor show is Trista and Ryan-and that was the Bachelorette. This is because Trista had all attentions placed on her and Ryan was able to be the victor in the competition for her heart. He can probably care less about the other guys-because he won! He was able to mark his territory and felt like the hero. Women are different. We remember the other girls and that pisses us off. I admit it, I still will see red at the slightest mention of the girl my husband was seeing before he met me. Women do not want to be in competition-it is not a fun game to fight over a man. We want the man to come to the mill that we are working at in his full Military Dress Whites and sweep us off of our feet-making a spectacle of his admiration for us and us alone for all the other women to witness. We want to say "nah nah nah nah nah--he loves ME and only ME!" We do not want the other women thinking "sure, he picked you, but he kissed me, and her, and that girl, and even that girl over there... so big deal if he chose you-you can have those sloppy seconds!"
So, my prediction is that this Bachelor will kiss all the girls, make many of them cry at his rejection, make even more of them pull each other's hair and call each other names and he may even send a few to the psychiatric ward for evaluation. He will propose to someone in the end... and they will announce their split after all of the morning talk shows have them on as guests. It is what good TV is made of!
4.03.2007
When Puberty Attacks!
My daughter is stuck... stuck somewhere between being a little girl and being a young woman. She has the men in this house completely confused let me tell you. Her poor brother does not know when it is safe to talk to her-some moments he may get his usual happy-go-lucky sister, and in the next breath he may get the girl from the Exorcist movie spinning her head completely around and vomiting on him. Her dad does not know when it is safe to go into her room anymore and has decided that it is best if he just waits her out.
I on the other hand, know exactly what she is going through and I have decided to wage this battle head on. I probably get most of the attitude thrown at me, and now I know what my mom felt like when I did it to her. The eye rolling, the arms crossed, the heavy sighs... those of you with tween daughters know exactly what I am talking about.
My daughter would rather have her fingernails pulled out by an ancient tribe than do any of the activities that I think of for our family. This week is the Cherry Blossom festival in DC. The trees are peaking TODAY! I asked her if she wanted to go downtown and stroll along the Basin and take in the beauty of it. Her reply (which is her reply to everything these days) "Do I have to? Can I just stay home? It sounds really boring. You mean, we just walk around and look at flowers? Please tell me that you have not made a definite decision that we are going. PLEASE!"
I will admit that I depend on her a lot. She helps out constantly in the house and rarely complains when her little sister tags along behind her outside. Some days I look at her and my heart is torn between allowing her the space to fly and holding on to her so that she does not get hurt by the evils in this world.
Heck... I am still in that attitude phase. Do women every grow out of it? The moods that creep up on you like a mugger and just morph you into a crazy person at the drop of a dime? I experienced this last night... I had a full day of Dr. visits and house cleaning and a three-year-old that decided that she did not want to wear shoes at all-or underpants. My son gives me the "I KNOW" response to everything I say and my oldest was already in her "OH no you didn't" head twirling mood when I blew a gasket. I was alone-except for the dog, who seems to always get the brunt of my bad moods (and she still loves me-amazing) My husband came home from work with the sniffles and retreated to bed at 6:45. That was the last straw I am sure. So I finished the dishes and instructed all children to stay as far away from me and they would a nuclear test site and settled down to watch the Bachelor. (Which I will post on tomorrow because I have far too many opinions on THAT to go into right now).
So today I am going to become my daughters worst nightmare and take them to see the Cherry Blossoms. I am going to take my camera and make her pose 756 times with her brother and sister and I may just make her hold my hand from time to time. Oh the HORROR! I am going to waddle my pregnant self all over rubbing my belly and moaning from time to time just to embarrass her (because there is nothing more embarrassing for her right now than my bursting belly) and I am even going to pack a lunch and bring a blanket so she has to sit and have a picnic with us. I am not sure which daughter I will get... the one who calls me "Mommy" still, or the one who calls me "@#$%@$" behind my back. I have my money on the one who calls me "Mommy" but with a slight eye roll.
I on the other hand, know exactly what she is going through and I have decided to wage this battle head on. I probably get most of the attitude thrown at me, and now I know what my mom felt like when I did it to her. The eye rolling, the arms crossed, the heavy sighs... those of you with tween daughters know exactly what I am talking about.
My daughter would rather have her fingernails pulled out by an ancient tribe than do any of the activities that I think of for our family. This week is the Cherry Blossom festival in DC. The trees are peaking TODAY! I asked her if she wanted to go downtown and stroll along the Basin and take in the beauty of it. Her reply (which is her reply to everything these days) "Do I have to? Can I just stay home? It sounds really boring. You mean, we just walk around and look at flowers? Please tell me that you have not made a definite decision that we are going. PLEASE!"
I will admit that I depend on her a lot. She helps out constantly in the house and rarely complains when her little sister tags along behind her outside. Some days I look at her and my heart is torn between allowing her the space to fly and holding on to her so that she does not get hurt by the evils in this world.
Heck... I am still in that attitude phase. Do women every grow out of it? The moods that creep up on you like a mugger and just morph you into a crazy person at the drop of a dime? I experienced this last night... I had a full day of Dr. visits and house cleaning and a three-year-old that decided that she did not want to wear shoes at all-or underpants. My son gives me the "I KNOW" response to everything I say and my oldest was already in her "OH no you didn't" head twirling mood when I blew a gasket. I was alone-except for the dog, who seems to always get the brunt of my bad moods (and she still loves me-amazing) My husband came home from work with the sniffles and retreated to bed at 6:45. That was the last straw I am sure. So I finished the dishes and instructed all children to stay as far away from me and they would a nuclear test site and settled down to watch the Bachelor. (Which I will post on tomorrow because I have far too many opinions on THAT to go into right now).
So today I am going to become my daughters worst nightmare and take them to see the Cherry Blossoms. I am going to take my camera and make her pose 756 times with her brother and sister and I may just make her hold my hand from time to time. Oh the HORROR! I am going to waddle my pregnant self all over rubbing my belly and moaning from time to time just to embarrass her (because there is nothing more embarrassing for her right now than my bursting belly) and I am even going to pack a lunch and bring a blanket so she has to sit and have a picnic with us. I am not sure which daughter I will get... the one who calls me "Mommy" still, or the one who calls me "@#$%@$" behind my back. I have my money on the one who calls me "Mommy" but with a slight eye roll.
4.02.2007
Lenten Penance
All I have to say is:
Lent is really rough for Russians! I can't explain these pictures, but I had to share so that we realize that eating frozen fish sticks and tater tots isn't so bad afterall.
Honest You Honor, I Was Sleepwalking!
My son is a sleepwalker. He gets it from me. My parents tell me stories of them sleeping soundly in bed and hearing the basement door slam, only to find me walking down the driveway or the sidewalk.
Sleepwalking is an interesting thing. We have all heard the saying "Never wake a sleepwalker." This is because when you are the person doing the sleepwalking-what you are doing is making perfect sense to you, and if you are woken up it could cause confusion and even anger. I guess I always wanted to leave the house when I slept walked. I do recall one night when I was in high school going to the front door to open it and walk out. My dad was snoozing on the couch and heard me and yelled "What are you doing?!" Now, this woke me up-and I was really ticked off that he did not understand that I was simply walking out of the house... because in my sleep induced state, all of my actions (walking out of the house at 2am in the middle of winter) seemed logical to me.
Interestingly enough, the last time I slept walked (that I can remember, I guess I can be sleepwalking every night and heading out to the bars and leading a double sleep life full of beer nuts and cold drafts... but I doubt it.) Anyway, the last time that I slept walked was when I was in fact pregnant with my son.
He is a big-time sleepwalker... but he is the zombie type of walker. The kind that will walk into my room and hover over me until I jump out of my skin when I wake up with a person standing over me with their eyes wide open. It is the stuff that great horror movies are made of, and the reason why stores sell waterproof pee pads for beds. When this happens, I just simply guide him back to his room and tuck him back in bed.
One thing I have learned is that his sleepwalking episodes come after a vivid dream. In the past few weeks he has had a reoccurring dream that has sent him walking often. He dreams that the planet earth is forcing it's way into his room and it starts to fall apart and he has to work hard at putting it back together. It is very distressing to him-and very frightening. I figure this dream is either telling him that he will grow up to be a missionary and try and save the world, or a politician... one of the other.
Last night he was standing in our doorway when I woke up. He then walked around our bed a few times looking for a hammer. This is the second episode in a week. I think I may need to tie a bell around his big toe or something every night so that I hear him long before he hovers over me and puts me into labor. I do have one question... why does he always hover over my side of the bed and not his fathers?!
Sleepwalking is an interesting thing. We have all heard the saying "Never wake a sleepwalker." This is because when you are the person doing the sleepwalking-what you are doing is making perfect sense to you, and if you are woken up it could cause confusion and even anger. I guess I always wanted to leave the house when I slept walked. I do recall one night when I was in high school going to the front door to open it and walk out. My dad was snoozing on the couch and heard me and yelled "What are you doing?!" Now, this woke me up-and I was really ticked off that he did not understand that I was simply walking out of the house... because in my sleep induced state, all of my actions (walking out of the house at 2am in the middle of winter) seemed logical to me.
Interestingly enough, the last time I slept walked (that I can remember, I guess I can be sleepwalking every night and heading out to the bars and leading a double sleep life full of beer nuts and cold drafts... but I doubt it.) Anyway, the last time that I slept walked was when I was in fact pregnant with my son.
He is a big-time sleepwalker... but he is the zombie type of walker. The kind that will walk into my room and hover over me until I jump out of my skin when I wake up with a person standing over me with their eyes wide open. It is the stuff that great horror movies are made of, and the reason why stores sell waterproof pee pads for beds. When this happens, I just simply guide him back to his room and tuck him back in bed.
One thing I have learned is that his sleepwalking episodes come after a vivid dream. In the past few weeks he has had a reoccurring dream that has sent him walking often. He dreams that the planet earth is forcing it's way into his room and it starts to fall apart and he has to work hard at putting it back together. It is very distressing to him-and very frightening. I figure this dream is either telling him that he will grow up to be a missionary and try and save the world, or a politician... one of the other.
Last night he was standing in our doorway when I woke up. He then walked around our bed a few times looking for a hammer. This is the second episode in a week. I think I may need to tie a bell around his big toe or something every night so that I hear him long before he hovers over me and puts me into labor. I do have one question... why does he always hover over my side of the bed and not his fathers?!
4.01.2007
Grandpa, Tell Me About the Good Ol' Days
This morning as I was walking out of Mass, I was behind a little boy holding hands with his grey-haired Grandpa.
The little boy looked up at his Grandpa and said: "When you were a parent, what kind of hair did you have?"
The Grandpa replied: "I had brown hair."
He turned to me and saw that I was smiling at the little exchange and said to me "I'm not just a parent anymore, I'm a Grandpa."
It was all very sweet~to know that although we will always be a parent, one day we will be holding the hand of our little grandchild and we will be blessed again by God and become a Grandparent.
The little boy looked up at his Grandpa and said: "When you were a parent, what kind of hair did you have?"
The Grandpa replied: "I had brown hair."
He turned to me and saw that I was smiling at the little exchange and said to me "I'm not just a parent anymore, I'm a Grandpa."
It was all very sweet~to know that although we will always be a parent, one day we will be holding the hand of our little grandchild and we will be blessed again by God and become a Grandparent.
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