CLICK HERE FOR THOUSANDS OF FREE BLOGGER TEMPLATES »

Saturday, November 29, 2008

No Personal Space For You!

There is something every person thinking about having children needs to know. Well, there are lots of things that people thinking about having children need to know, but I don't have time to talk about them all right now. Right now, I want to let you know that once you have children, your body is no longer your own, and it belongs to your child to use and abuse as they see fit.

Of course, women find that out right away. Well before the birth of the child, they start changing your body drastically. You might think that their hold on your body would change after they are born, but this isn't so.

Breast feeding extends the child's possession of your body, certainly. However, even that isn't the last strong hold a child has.

You see, kids think you belong to them. You are their play place, their pillow, and often their entire bed. Anything they need, you become.

Tonight, for example, I was putting my daughter to sleep, or at least trying. She was laying between my husband and I (I'm not here for a discussion on co-sleeping, either. I just wanted her to go to sleep.). My daughter flops and flips, rolls and returns for I don't know how long.

She sort of reminds me of a dog. I know that sounds mean, but stay with me. You know how a dog has to circle it's bed over and over again until it finds just the right place to lay? Well, my little one does that too. She has to move all over and around the bed again and again until she finds "her spot" as my husband calls it.

Now, in this process, she flops all over us. She lays her head on our stomachs, our legs, and of course, my chest. My big soft, squishy boobs apparently make fantastic pillows. So, she lays there for a while. It doesn't matter that they are part of me, or that I would like her to lay on real pillows, she thinks it is comfy. That is where she wants to lay. She doesn't understand personal space.

This is only one example. It happens all the time, in may ways.

Often, my girls want to snuggle up as close as possible. They even want to get up under my clothes with me, and think it is hilarious. Now, while I do draw the line at sharing clothes, I have to so that in all honestly, I don't mind the lack of personal space most of the time.

I think it is neat that my little one doesn't just want me to hold her, but that she likes to sort of smoosh her cheek against mine while we walk around, and be as close as possible. I love that they love us so much, they want to be close to us, and it is rarely really a bad thing.

Though, it would have been nice, had someone told me before hand that I would never have personal space, not when dressing, or showering, even, again, and that my body would for quite some time, belong to this little bitty person who would be attached to me in some very funny places.

So, for those of you getting ready to have kids, please don't worry, just know that your boobs will become cuddly pillows, or that your penis might be stepped on the way to climb up your body to hang on your neck. Know that your kids will absolutely want to sleep on top of you, and sometimes you have to let them. Most importantly, know that they will love you, and all this lack of personal space, modesty, and what not just brings your closer together. I swear they are worth it. = )

Monday, November 24, 2008

Shaving Moratorium

Last night, I decided that to place a temporary moratorium on shaving.

First, let me stress that this is temporary.

Second, I should add that this is not a full ban on all shaving, but only on shaving my legs.

You see, I am currently in Tennessee visiting family. It is cold here. It has gotten down into the teens. I actually mean that we have temperatures reaching into the teens, as in it was 13 degrees the other night!! That is far, far too cold for me. That is far, far too cold for most people who live in Southern California.

So, in an effort to keep myself from freezing to death, I have decided that I must immediately cease shaving my legs, and allow whatever hair that can grow in the short amount of time we will be here to try and help keep me warm.

Now I realize that this is both a little wimpy and gross, but it is all about survival here, people. I will do what I have must in order to survive until we return to the nice warm climate of California.

And, while I know that I could also use my reasoning to stop shaving my underarms, that is just plain old gross, and I won't stoop to that.

I plan on promptly ending the moratorium the moment we get back to California. Until then, I will be in pants, praying to survive this freezing weather that would bring any one acclimated to the So Cal weather to their cleanly shaven knees.

Saturday, November 15, 2008

I Love My Husband

I may not say it enough to other people, or sometimes even to him, but make no mistake, I love my husband, and appreciate what a wonderful man he is. I am lucky to have such a caring and committed partner in my life.

I can't tell you the number of times he has come to my rescue, and been willing to go way beyond any call of duty to help me out.

Today, he volunteered to drive for my daughter's Girl Scout Troop. I was short driver's for tomorrow's trip. I got really stressed out today trying to beg and plead with parents to take their own kids on a field trip. We won't get into how sad it is that I can't get any parents to participate, but let me say that it absolutely upsets me. So, my husband stepped up and said that if it would make things better for me, he would drive our other car, and take a load of girls by himself. I can't imagine how horrifying the thought of driving a group of young girls by himself would be to a man like my husband, but he would do it for me if I needed him.

I tell you he is incredible. In so many ways. I won't go into it all tonight, but rest assured, I appreciate him.

I was able to finagle a way to get him out of driving girls. I still need him to help out, but this time he only has to go pickup the goods that we sold as a fundraiser and hold onto them until we get back from our other field trip. All the same, we wouldn't be able to get it all done tomorrow if it weren't for my hero.

Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. I love you, always.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Inglés, Por Favor.

I got a great phone call that I need to share.

Someone from my daughter's school called me yesterday.

Once he had established who he was, of course I can't remember his name now, and that he was from the school, he said that he needed to ask me a few questions.

"Does Lilly speak Spanish in your home."

"No." I wasn't sure what kind of test this was and if I should tell him that she still watched Dora, and has occasionally called her grandmother her abuela. So, I just opted for the no on that one.

"Was Spanish her first language?"

"No." I knew that one for sure.

"Well, we have in our records that she speaks primarily Spanish at home and so I have printed her report card for the parent teacher conference next week in Spanish."

"......." There was silence. I had no idea what I was supposed to say to that. I hadn't seen that one coming at all.

Finally, he started to speak again.
"I'll just reprint it in English."

"Yeah. That would be a good idea."

And we got off the phone.

Now, I don't know about you, but I found this both hilarious and very disturbing.

First, In conversation that I left out, he had actually indicated that we marked that she spoke Spanish when we enrolled her. I'm not about to say we absolutely didn't, because we can make mistakes, but I think I would be pretty clear on the fact that my daughter isn't an ESL learner.

Second, I'm not really sure what the long silence was for. Was he actually waiting for me to tell him that it would be fine to just leave it in Spanish? Were we supposed to say we could just muddle though? Was the school going to leave the report card and provide the teacher and I a translator just to go over the report card? Or, was I suddenly supposed to fess up and admit that I really did speak Spanish. No matter, it didn't happen.

This school has issues, and while most of them I find upsetting, at least finally they gave me one that made me laugh.

My husband says that from now on, every time the school calls, I should answer the phone in Spanish, which I could do. I might just try it one day. If I do, I will let you know.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

I Helped with Homework.

Actually, I help with homework almost every day that there is homework. It is part of my job. Yesterday, however, I didn't so much as actively help with homework, as become part of the homework.

My daughter is just starting to learn math. Her class started to work with the concepts of more and less this week. We have all kinds of worksheets featuring more and less. Some add one more. Some have one less. This is all building the foundation of math, addition and subtraction.

Lilly and I were hanging out, playing on the computer last night. She started to look at my earrings again. Suddenly, she noted something that has always been there, but only now could she grasp it.

"Mom, you have one more hole in this ear, than you do in that one."

She said this with some sort of surprise and with conviction that I must not have known I was unevenly holed.

"I know."

"Why?"

"I wanted it that way."

"But you have one more in this ear than you do in that ear."

"I know."

"You need to get your ears pierced again."

"Well, if I get my ears pierced again, I would have 4 in this ear, and 3 in that one, and I still wouldn't have the same number."

Her face twisted into a grimace. She hadn't been expecting that.

"You should only get this ear pierced."

"Why? Do my ears need to have the same number of holes?"

"Yes!"

"Why?

"You just have to."

"No, I don't. See, I like it this way, Lilly, and I can have my own ears pierced any way I like. I don't have to make them even if I don't want to."

"Oh. Ok."

I don't think she was completely convinced, but she accepted it.

Math an Individuality. I would say it is rare that you get to teach the two together, but this time it worked nicely.

Now I just have to hope that the line about piercing my own ears any way I want to doesn't come back to bite me on the but later on.

My House Smells like Garlic.

My house smells like garlic.

I am normally a freak about house smells. I have scented things everywhere. Before I have people come over, I turn on my special hand made tart warmer to make the whole house smell like fresh apple pie, orange blossom, or whatever my current scent is. I have reed diffusers in my bathrooms. I actually do place dryer sheets under my couch cushions to make the house smell cleaner.

It isn't that my house doesn't smell good, its just a thing. Ya know. I want you to walk in and feel welcome by the scent.

Right now, you wouldn't so much walk in and be welcome by the scent as much as knocked over by the stench.

My oldest daughter has developed a fear of Dracula since Halloween. Its a big time fear that is giving her nightmares and really hindering her. She doesn't even want to go up to her bedroom without me out of fear.

Now, she isn't usually like this. We have talked to her, and tried to comfort her. We tried about every rational, normal thing we could think of.

I had a few friends suggest monster spray. You know, special scented water in a bottle that she could keep by her bed. I thought she would be a little old to buy into that whole thing.

Then, tonight when I was cooking, it hit me. I was about out of garlic powder. I used most of it in her special favorite soup that I made for the girls tonight. Setting down the empty bottle was an "Ah HA!" moment. You know, one of those where you feel like you should have a light bulb in a bubble over your head. General monster spray might not work, but everyone knows garlic keeps vampires away.

I called my daughter over to the kitchen counter, and showed her the garlic. We talked about what it does to vampires.

"Vampires are allergic to garlic, right?"
Since she has an allergy, she put it in terms that she could understand.

"Sure. It is something like an allergy, and they can't be anywhere near it." I confirmed.

So, we filled the nearly empty bottle of garlic powder with water. I told her to we would take it up to her room, and sprinkle some around. Then, we would sit the bottle on her bed. Nothing could come near it, I assured her again.

From that moment on, the bottle was like a life line. She started carrying it up and down the stairs. Now, normally, I wouldn't encourage these things, but when my 5 year old has refused to sleep alone for a over a week, at some point, we have to start working on this from one angle or another.

After bath time, we went to the girls' room. I took the lid off, and tried to pretend to sprinkle water around the room. Let me also say that while the bottle was nearly empty, it wasn't empty enough. That bottle reeked of garlic. That water was saturated with it. Ugg. Lilly was watching me closely. In the closet, I could pretend. When I moved into her bedroom, though, she started watching too closely. If she didn't see the water coming out, it wasn't enough. Needless to say, I had to really sprinkle her whole room with garlic water.

Just to put the whole thing over the top, I reminded her that I had fed her the rest of the garlic. So, it was all inside her too.

"Oh! So no vampire can even come near me now!" She said triumphantly. I would suppose no one had ever been so glad for garlic body oder, but hey, if that was what it took, so be it.

Well, all that garlic took its toll on my wonderfully smell;y house. My house is still smelly, just not the same way. You can smell the garlic the moment you hit the second floor. It is a little rough up there.

I warned my husband before he even came home not to question the garlic bottle. Let it stay with her until she has a little time to get over this. We can shampoo her carpets in a few weeks.
Until then, I just have to remind everyone that that I know to simply ignore any garlic smell from either my home,or my child. Just consider it a reminder that we are still vampire free.

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Bad Boys, Bad Boys...

Have I mentioned that I live in the hood part of my neighborhood?

Actually, I live in military housing, and not to the credit of the military, the police are here all the time. I swear there isn't a day that goes by without at least some form of vehicle with lights and a siren are rolling through my subdivision.

My husband just did a loud "Oh! Hey!"

"What?"

"Cops!"

I look toward the front of the house, and you can see red and blue lights coming in from outside though the small windows above our door. They are really close. In fact, after opening the door (him, not me. I'm less brazen and I look through the blinds) we see that they are right in front of the house.

Surprisingly enough, they aren't here on a domestic call, or a noise complaint, which is generally the case. They actually pulled someone over right in front of my house!!

Not sure who the driver is. I couldn't look long enough to tell without the police being able to see me. I did notice the police all up in the driver's window. My guess, on this national holiday night, is that someone just got pulled over for DUI. I wouldn't be surprised. Which makes me sad.

As long as it isn't one of the neighbors that I have come to really like here. Though, I like them because they wouldn't do that kind of crap.

You know, if it is a DUI thing, that would really piss me off. Especially right in front of my house! There are way too many kids around here for anyone to be pulling crap like that. We may not have an official neighborhood watch, but believe me, we have a neighborhood watch. (Of which, you might have guessed by the blinds thing that I would be considered a member.) I'll have to speak to the other members, aka moms on my street, at school drop of tomorrow am and see if anyone knows the deal.

Should there be someone who was dumb enough to drive drunk down our street who lives on this street, there will be words. We don't play like that in this part of the hood.

Monday, November 10, 2008

Poor Bleeding Heart Baby

My daughter got her emotional side from me. I know she did. She had to come to me a few minutes ago for some comforting. Daddy just wouldn't do. Apparently Air Bud, the Disney movie, was just too sad for her. She couldn't even hang out through the end to see if things worked out ok. I had to reassure her, and basically force her to watch it through to make sure she knew it came out well.

I feel for her. It is tough being an emotional person. I cry at everything. Little things, big things, meaningless things, and certainly the meaningful things.

Its ok, baby, Mom will always be here with a shirt that you can wipe your tears on, and a some arms to wrap around you. Just use a tissue for the snot, if you will, please.

Love you Pook.

Just Stirring the Chili!

When I get up, I am just stirring the chili. This by no means indicates that I am done on the computer or that I won't be getting directly back on. This does not mean that you should run from the living room, jump into the big comfy seat where I left it, and slid/roll it over to the computer in some sort of maneuver that for whatever reason makes me think of Tom Cruise in Risky Business. It may just be because you are in your underwear. I'm not sure.

None the less, please don't do this repeatedly. I am trying to multitask. No. M-U-L-T-I-T-A-S-K. I know this is a foreign concept for many out there. It means that i am doing more than one thing at a time. Currently, I am trying to make your dinner and work from our only home computer at the same time.

As an aside, this is my second computer post in 2 days. There seems to be a reoccurring problem here that needs to be addressed. Hmmm.....

Anyway, I will give you time to play on the computer. I know you tell me that your aren't playing, but honestly, checking Slickdeals really isn't honest work. Not for you anyway. If Slickdeals sold military issue helicopter parts, that might be a different story.

So, please, I don't want to nag and ask repeatedly if I can get back to my work. I will tell you when it is time to eat, and I am going to take a break for a while so that you can see if your 1,000 piece Sears Tool kit, or whatever it may be that you are looking for, is on sale at the moment. I promise. Until then, please note that I am just stirring the chili. That siring will will be done before you finish your some what cute slide move and get in position leaning back in the chair.

Sunday, November 9, 2008

Computers are meant to torment me.

I moderate a message board. It is a job. An unpaid job. Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I loathe it. The election has made me often have feelings of the later.

Well, the election is over, but still the discussions go on.

We have an Election thread going on. I have stepped in twice to remind our members that the debate is not to get personal, yada yada.

Well, low and behold, someone posted that post. You know. The one that had me looking at my screen yelling "No. No. No!! Do you all hate me? Do you want to give me a heart attack at a tender young age?"

Okay. Maybe the tender young age part was a bit of an over or under statement, but non the less, I have to wonder why people post these things, and if they never consider what the moderators must go through by ways of gnashing teeth and blood pressure issues when they do so.

Well, I knew I had to jump into action immediately. I went to delete the post, and in another window, email the poster about why I had to remove it. As I clicked delete, my computer froze momentarily. I panicked. It took about 20 seconds, and the computer came back. Twenty seconds is more than enough to cause a riot, and i know that. I hit delete. It deleted.

So, I replied to the thread, in order to let everyone know that we will no longer be discussing this particular issue. The computer froze. My panic doubled. It took another 20 seconds to get the computer back.

I started my email to the member who had posted the item meant to cause me harm. The computer decided at that time that each key stroke would take a few second to appear. Each time I hit enter to move to another line, it was another 20 seconds.

I couldn't even check the board to see if the rioting had begun. It would have caused the computer to checkout completely. I had to be nice to it. I had to beg and plead with it. The computer knew it had me over a barrel.

It took nearly 9 minutes to get the entire thing sorted out, and have everyone involved in the process email, explained to, and all the other loose ends, hopefully tied up. Those nine minutes probably took 5 years off my life. Of course, had it gone to 10 minutes, I would have would up in a full panic attack on my way to the E.R. with not only 5 years of my life but a bill for at least $1,000 for the less than 2 mile ride to the hospital.

I think computers are smarter than we give them credit for. Some artificial intelligence is certainly to be found with in mine. How else could it have know to have problems at just the moment I was the most vulnerable?

So, I could certainly forgo all computers, and move back to the much safer pen and paper age. I could also go shopping for a new family computer and hope for one that hasn't developed such an intelligence yet.

However, I think I will try to work my way into a new laptop for myself as a Christmas gift this year, give my husband and kids the current possessed computer, and form a new, loving relationship with the new computer. I will promise to dust it often, and never eat or drink while I am using it, if only it will promise never to fail me at such a scary time again. Ok. I will also promise to give it anything it wants, because I'm sure that it, too, will soon realize that it really has me over a barrel, and can do anything it wants. The computer will just be waiting for the moment that someone else posts something that is bound to cause some sort of all out online war, and the moment it does, even my new love will freeze on me, as a reminder that it always has the power, and it would like a little appreciation for all of its work, and maybe some new memory while I am at it.

Friday, November 7, 2008

First Look

My husband just saw my blog for the first time.

His only comment was "Well, the title fits."

Love you too, hon.

I lost my authority this morning.

Well, I lost my voice. When you have 2 small children, verbal commands are essential, and losing your voice, seems to take away all of your authority as well.

My oldest is already quite advance in her "I can't hear you" non-listening skills. So, adding into that mix a weak and nearly non existent voice only furthers her amazing abilities.

My youngest is taking after her sibling quite well, and is doing an excellent job realizing that if my voice sounds different, she can really pretend that I just haven't said anything.

The word no doesn't mean much when you sound like some sort of animated character as you say it, I suppose.

Also, my youngest has actually taken it a step further today. She perceives my voice as a sign of weakness. She is correct, but her intelligence is shocking. Not only does she realize that I am weaker, and not as willing to fight, but I think she even realizes that if I am actually showing a sign of weakness, I must be even weaker because she is testing my limits.

I had thought that because she is feeling a little under the weather, too, that she would want to lay around with me, and veg all day. Not that I would want her to feel worse, and mope around, but I had thought there would be snuggling today, not struggling today.

Ahh...it is just all kinds of crappy.

At the very least, I was able to make my husband happy and give him what he really wanted for Christmas this year already: Me to love my voice. That would be one less person to shop for, making me happy.

Monday, November 3, 2008

I admit it. I am the meany.

It is true. I am a mean person. Yet again, I blame this election cycle. It has really taken a toll on my ability to be nice.

The other day, I called someone ignorant. And I meant it. My thought process is this:
If you don't have a well informed opinion, don't interject into a conversation that requires one with nothing more than a sophomoric attempt to slander the other side. Your opinion won't be welcome. Furthermore, if you choose to call someone who does have a well thought out opinion foolish, you should be prepared to be called out, and perhaps, or even certainly, called ignorant.

Now, that doesn't mean that you are stupid. Nor does it mean that you are in general ignorant, but it does mean that when it comes to the political realm, you have not taken the time to truly educate yourself on what has and is happening in the world around you.

What's even worse is that I have to keep telling people I called someone ignorant. It's like I have to offend people before the conversation even starts. Why you all need to know, I don't know. What I do know is that this has really affected my ability to speak to people.

So, please, before I end up getting kicked off some of my favorite message boards, I urge everyone out there to take the time to educate yourself. Don't just do it for me and my Internet addiction, though. Do it for yourself, so that you can really participate in being a part of this great process.

Our Little Paddict

My husband and I did a bad thing today, but we couldn't help ourselves.

We fed an addiction.

A pa addiction to be more precise.

Pa is what my youngest, and everyone else in the house, calls her pacifier. She is an addict. She is in the throes of a real, and hard core addiction. It is scary.

Today, she lost the last pa we had. She lost it on the way home from picking up our oldest daughter from school. We walk everyday. So, somewhere out there, between our home and the school, lies a little green pa with tons of teeth marks, and probably tons more germs.

We should have let hat be that, and ended it there and now cold turkey. We aren't strong enough, though.

She is 19 months old, and it is high time that she gave that thing up. The problem is, though, that we aren't committed to working through the addiction at this point. There would be several withdrawal symptoms. Those would lead to a sever withdrawal of the amount of sleep that my husband and I get, and we just aren't completely committed to that.

We are also stuck in a very difficult position. My husband is preparing to deploy for an extended period of time. We can either force her to give up the pa now, when she really isn't ready, and deal with the long hard struggle in the short amount of time that he has left, or we can allow her to have it, and wait it out until her gets back. The second option would leave her with the pa until she was 2 and 1/2 at least. That isn't really something we believe in, but as of right now, it is the choice we are making. The lesser of the two situations, and the one we feel we can deal with better.

I know, I know. We should just do it, but we just can't. On top of all the stress it would bring right now, she is probably our last baby. It hurts my heart to force her to grow up faster than she is ready to do.

So, for now, we feed the addiction. My husband ran frantically to the store to get a new pack of pas for us. As soon as she saw them, she squealed with delight. "Blue Pa!" She said. So, now, she walks around with a fresh new and much less germy blue pa hanging from her mouth. I know it isn't great, but at least it is quiet around here.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

When is scary too much?

My daughter and I were walking with a group of friends on Halloween around the hood. We somehow ended up on the other side of our subdivision (I think that somehow was the kids following the blinking lights from one shiny house to another with out slowing enough for us to catch or stop them).

As we were walking across one street, I heard this crazy noise. It sounded like metal being drug behind a car. Like, maybe a piece of a car was dragging. It got louder and louder.

Then, I saw him.

There was some guy dressed up as what had to be the best/scariest Michael Myers ever outside of a movie house. The man looked scary. To me. A grown woman who likes vampires and used to be goth. He was scary. Anyway, he was dragging a shovel behind him. He walked down the road, not the sidewalk, dragging it, looking straight ahead, like he didn't even notice the people going by. Then, when he got close enough to a group, he would suddenly jump and scream at them. I am telling you that man was freaky.

When he did that to our group, one of the moms jumped about 3 feet backwards and nearly peed on herself. Three of the girls started crying. One got over it. One had to stay with her dad after that. One couldn't stop crying. Scary. He jumped at another group and a little girl literally threw her bucket of candy at him and ran. (As an aside, I was proud of her. If this had been a horror movie, she would have made it because she actually did the right thing!) She didn't get far before an adult made her stop. The man in the mask did take it off, and go over and help her pick it all up. He waited until he got a little further away before from that girl before he put the shovel back down, and started all over again.

As my daughter and I walked toward our house, I heard people start screaming behind us, before I heard the shovel. She heard it and took off. She wanted to get home before he could get near us again. Now, She knew he was fake. She knew it was a man. I think she enjoyed the drama more than she was really scared when she ran home.

In hindsight, some of what was transpiring around him was funny. The mom that nearly peed on herself. That was funny. The little girl who threw her candy, could have been funny, if she hadn't been so scared. Though, she probably would laugh if anyone had caught that on camera and they had won 10,000, but I digress.

The thing is, he was genuinely scaring people. Is that wrong, though? Isn't that what Halloween is about? At what point in time do you cross the line from being an enthusiast to an asshole?

I'm not sure if this guy crossed the line. I think he walked it. If he hadn't helped the little girl pick up her candy, he would have been way over it. Provided there are no nightmares, for me or my daughter, that arise from his escapade, I will forgive him.

I think this may be one of those things that live with her, in a good, memorable way. I hope she never forgets what an exciting night she spent with friends, getting candy, running, screaming like crazy and running from a madman in a mask, with a shovel. I hope that in years to come, she tells her own kids the story, and that they won't get nightmares from it either.

Dr. Seuss' Political Side



Did anyone else know that Dr Seuss wrote very political children's books?

I just finished reading The Butter Battle Book to my oldest. Silly me, I just assumed that if it was Dr Seuss, I didn't need to pre-read it. We took it home before I ever opened the cover. Low and behold, we get into it, and boom; big political themes that are far too complicated for a children's book.

This one seems to be all about the cold war, with the book ending in both sides hold a nuclear bomb over their wall, wondering who would drop it first. No happy ending. The book was written in 1984, and the cold war hadn't ended yet. Wow. Talk about a discussion to have right before bed time.

"That wasn't very nice, was it, Lilly?"

"No, that was mean. They want to blow each other up."

At least we can discuss it, but still, I need to learn my lesson for sure this time, and always check everything we bring home.