An Update in Pictures

I went on a girls' trip last week, the first time I've gone away from my kids for more than 24 hours in 4 1/2 years. It was looong overdue, and it was fabulous. Two friends, including "Cuz," and I took a road trip to New Orleans, I hadn't been in at least 10 years and I had missed it so. We skipped the college-ish drinking scenes and did some more grown-up stuff. Not to say that we didn't have a few cocktails or anything, we did, but thankfully we all agreed that downing hand grenades on Bourbon was a pastime best put behind us. :) We left on a Thursday morning and came back early Sunday afternoon, it was the perfect length away. It was enough time to relax and really start to miss my family and then it was time to come home. I took this picture when I arrived back home on Mother's Day, because I had just said in the car, "Maybe The Husband will have cleaned the house for me for mother's day."

Welcome home and Happy Mother's Day, lol!

The next picture can go under the heading of Why I'm Always Cleaning and Yet My House is a Mess. Meet "The Box." This box full of The Husband's winter clothes went into our storage room when we moved into our house 7 years ago. There it stayed for about 4 years, until one day we cleaned out the storage room and the box ended up being shuffled into the attic to be sorted through on a later date. Again, there it stayed for about 2 years until we cleaned out the attic and The Husband brought it downstairs to our bedroom, oh in November, he was going to go through it since it was full of winter clothes. Well, this box stayed by the wall of our bedroom until two weeks ago (end of April), when I finally had enough and The Husband moved it next to the stairs. Still full of winter clothes, and with a few newly bagged items on top. I am really chuckling as I write this, I'm not being snarky at all, but this picture truly says a thousand words.

Another addition to Why I'm Always Cleaning and Yet the House is Always a Mess.

The Pantry. I organize this pantry a little bit every day, and it gets a huge overhaul at least once a month, but this is what it looked like when I came back from my trip. Ignore all the junk food in there, I had been gone for a few days, remember? I see this and can only think that it's nice to know that my family needs me. :)

This next one I took after I made the bed for the third time that day. As you can see, making the bed around here is a HUGE waste of time. :)




I made yogurt! And it was easy, and it tasted good!! Baby Girl is eating us out of house and home with her yogurt consumption. Even when I buy the big tubs we are spending quite a bit of money on yogurt. So....I thought I would give making it myself a try. It worked, who knew you could make your own yogurt?!

Poor Little Man, his momma loves classic children's clothing, and classic children's shoes. So last year when he started asking for light-up tennis shoes, I balked - and said "No." Well, after nearly two years of asking, and when after completely growing out of the line of nice shoes I like to buy, I caved. He now owns light-up tennis shoes. He couldn't be happier with them, and that makes me love them, too.

MLK Says is So Well

Last night we heard the news that Osama bin Laden had been killed by U.S. forces. I personally am glad that this man can no longer spread evil and misery into the world, but I am also deeply upset by the public celebrations over the killing of another. I understand that we all have a sense of relief and even a sense of closure, but feeling overjoyed just seems crude. I feel like we have lost a bit of ourselves by our reaction to the news. It just seems wrong to party and cheer. I know, I know, he was a horrible man, and if anyone deserved death than it is he. But is it up to us to decide such things? And will this really solve anything? Aren't there others literally lined up to take his place? I am conflicted. My friend K.A. posted this on facebook, and I think it is a perfect response to the events of yesterday and last night -

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction...The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation. : - MLK, Jr.

Not a Good Day

Experiencing miscarriage number two. Excuse my French, but this f***ing sucks.

They Fight Sleep Like No Others

My kids, do, that is. Today Mama really wanted them to take a nap. It was one of those days that a mom counts down the minutes to a few minutes of freedom. I'm fighting some sort of bug, or allergy, or who knows what, all I know is I don't feel well. Also, I stayed up half the night because we were supposed to have really bad weather (when even the down to earth, nonchalant weather forecaster says it's going to be bad, I begin to worry, and he said things could get ugly.) So when I woke up at 2:30 a.m. and heard the winds picking up, I thought maybe I should check it out. So I went into the den to see what was going on, only to see - nothing. I was, however, wide awake. So I wait about an hour thinking I would get sleepy, but by that time weather was getting closer and the forecasters were on TV. Thankfully the tornado-producing thunderstorms petered out just as they were about to hit. I didn't even have to bring Baby Girl downstairs, all right! I was eternally grateful that I was climbing into my bed instead of the tornado closet but I was also oh so tired. Which brings me to nap time. Baby Girl wasn't having it. She fought from 12:30 until 2:00. Yep. And Little Man never did take a nap, although I somehow convinced him to stay in his room for an hour. All in all it was long enough to make a phone call to the school about next year and research and sign up for swim lessons for Little Man. Just as I was thinking about a catnap the beasts were awake. Oh well there's always an early bed time, right? Right. :)

Where Daddy Go?

The Husband went out of town earlier this week for a short trip. He left about 6 am on Tuesday and was back home around 10:30 pm last night (Tuesday). It seemed even shorter because I saw him on both Monday and Tuesday. It seemed like a long time to the kids, however, because Daddy was gone before they woke up Monday morning and didn't come home until after bed on Tuesday. They missed their Daddy. Monday night we were sitting at the dinner table and Baby Girl looks up at me with a questionable look and asks, "Where Daddy go?" I reply, "He's at work out of town. He'll be home tomorrow after you go to bed." Baby Girl scrunches up her face in that cute way she does and says, "I lost my Daddy." - pout Baby Girl loves her Daddy. And Daddy loves her back!

Brown Water Can Put A Crimp In Your Day

Wow, wow, wow. I'm having a really hard time with the kids today. I'm not sure what it is, but they have been so high-maintenance lately. They've been a bit needy, too, but I expect that and that's ok considering what happened last week. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about it that I set them up with crayons so I can do the dishes or start dinner and two minutes into it they want play-doh. Or I get Little Man set up with the wii and two minutes into it he's throwing a huge fit because he wants to go to a different level or play a different character and he needs my help to do that. And they do it again and again (and I don't mean that I ignore them while doing this, either, or that I do this after being busy all day). Seriously, kids, I used to get pushed out the door into the backyard and told, "Do something," when my parents needed a few minutes to accomplish something. I know this is a phase, but getting constantly interrupted is not something I handle very well. I'm working on it, I've improved so much, even The Husband says so, but having a few simple items on my to-do list (like make dinner so we can eat, swish the toilets so they aren't nasty, or load the dishwasher to we're not looking at piles of dishes - I know better than to expect to do something complicated like organize or paint a room) and not getting them done without ten (or twenty) interruptions drives me insane. Literally. I lose it. Literally, the doctor gave me a prescription for happy pills this week. Which I haven't filled and may not fill, but it's nice to know they're there if I need them. Today was one of those mornings, where nothing got done. I was handling it great, though, I really was. I managed to not sweat the small stuff, and was happy that I even started a load of dishes and managed to wash two loads of laundry. Then I decided to give the kids a bath before lunch, they both needed one last night but due to pooping issues one child didn't get one. I figured I'd put them both in the bath and they could play and have fun as they love the bath. So I go to run the water, and it's brown. Dark brown. Oh gross, what the heck is this? Ok, no bath for the kids. And oh crap the load of dishes and two loads of laundry that I just washed in dirty brown water. Nice. I think that kind of flipped a switch for me. I turned into grumpy mommy, not so nice mommy, please sit and watch a cartoon, or three, so mommy can have a small mental break and regroup. So I call the utility company to ask what might the problem be and they have no idea. They said to flush each toilet five times every fifteen minutes for an hour, and if that doesn't fix the problem to call back. Wow, as if I didn't have anything better to do than spend five minutes out of each 15 flushing toilets. Which I guess I didn't, as we need clean water instead of nasty brown stuff. So an hour and another phone call later I find out that the fire department was out flushing the hydrant down the street, and that can send dirt into the pipes for a few hours. Ok, no big deal, I get it. I'll wash the dishes and clothes again, take a shower and give baths this afternoon instead of this morning. No big deal. I just wish my heart would stop beating so fast, and that the panicky feeling would leave. It's 1:00 now, is it too early for a glass of wine? Just kidding, sort of. :)

24 Hours of Insanity

Wow, the past 24 hours have been intense. Mama could seriously use a Xanax. Seriously. Here's why - Last night Baby Girl went to the ER in an ambulance (a separate post to follow), and after we got home we had about three hours sleep, courtesy of several breathing treatments. I'm not knocking them, they probably saved Baby Girl's life, she was just a bundle of energy at midnight and beyond! We had a follow-up appointment with her regular pediatrician this morning, and on the way there she started wheezing again. It scared me to death, it sounded just like she did before her attack came full on last night. The receptionists and nurse rushed us back to the exam room and we saw a doctor about five minutes after we walked in the door. Her oxygen fluctuated between 92-97, which the doc thought was no big deal. I may be looking for a new pediatrician, I have loved him as a doctor so far, but his laid back attitude about Baby Girl's oxygen level didn't sit well with me. He reiterated what the ER docs said, only he said giving her a hit off the inhaler every 4-6 hours was unnecessary, and to only give it to her if the skin between her ribs started to pull in during inhalation. Again, I'm not doctor but I did grow up around asthma and that seems like that's waiting a little too long, especially for a two year old. I want to use the medicine to prevent her from getting to that point. Anyway, after the somewhat alarming doctor's appointment, we went home. .... and drove through the worst storm. It was no Hurricane Elvis, but it was very similar. Very scary to drive through, but by the time I realized we were in a bad storm we were just about five minutes from home. We got home and the sirens were going off, I couldn't tell that in the car because of the loud rain and marble-sized hailstones rapping on the roof, and the cable, internet, and phone were all out. I had no idea if the tornado warning was for my area of the county or not. Little Man was home with Grandma, he was terrified and still in his underwear. I do not handle bad storms and tornadoes well, I turn into a puddle of jello. However, I had to keep it together and be a responsible parent, so I scrambled for some clothes for Little Man while calling The Husband at work to see if I can get a weather report. I needed to know if I should empty out the tornado closet (no small task, it's our toy closet and packed solid), and thankfully, The Husband told us the storm had already gone through our part of town, although it still looked scary outside. We actually drove through the worst of it. Trees swaying, stop lights doing nearly 360s, looking out my car window reminded me of watching hurricane footage on the tv. We did have some minor damage, and I stress minor. A sizable limb fell on our fence and the side of the house, knocking loose a several boards and damaging two window screen frames. Could have been much worse. Little Man enjoyed the clean up with his daddy and our neighbor, Mr. Jimmy, who broke out the chain saw. Well, I say that's too much excitement for one day. Waaay too many adrenaline rushes for me to handle with grace. Now who has some xanax? (just kidding)