WAIT! I forgot my helmet!!

Doesn't it sometimes feel like life is just one big game of dodgeball...except the balls are huge, made of rock and there's apparently 15 really big guys chucking them at you...and somehow your feet are stuck in one place?

Or is it just me?

Can I get a time-out?  Or maybe can we play t-ball rules...once you nail me 10 times you win?  At the very least let me get a darn helmet so we can avoid potential brain damage!!

And who's in charge here? Is there a ref somewhere?  Is there a time limit? Cause I got stuff to do and I don't want to play this game all day!  What are the rules here?  Surely I remember correctly...you only get to hit me ONCE and then I can go off to the sidelines and be safe from further painful pelting!  And who the heck put gum on the bottom of my shoes?!!!

Can I just be a quitter?  You can totally call me names, I don't care...but I don't wanna play anymore!

I didn't sign up for this...this isn't fun! Can I join the chess team instead?  Maybe play hopscotch?

....wait... I remember there being rocks involved there too... but they were little rocks and they're not thrown AT you....ok I think I can do hopscotch as long as every once in a while there's an emphasis on the scotch.

OH to go back to those days....where the worst part of your day was when the "it" girl called you a loser and you just punched her in the face and got on with your day! 

What?   You didn't do that?   that's just me? 

OK...when the "it" girl called you a loser and you sat around in the playground being sad...for like 5 minutes till you found something fun to do.

No...now there's hardly ever any recess time, the "it" people are MUCH worse and do much more horrible things than calling you a loser (although those jerks never do outgrow that and still call you that fairly often!) and you can't punch them in the face cause now it's a felony!

...man this life crap is hard!

kicking off the holiday "excitement"...

Well its 12 days before Christmas and 5 days before we load up the family vehicle and drive over 1200 miles to enjoy the holidays with our wacky California relatives.

Everything is just going according to plan...gifts are bought and shipped, kids are wrapping up their school stuff, dog sitter is arranged, car is tuned up and running smoothly and everyone is brimming with excitement!

Yeah....no, not really.  In a perfect world, I'm sure that's what today would look like for me...but this is my world, so if you take everything I said a minute ago and reverse it...that's today.

Over the next 2 days I have to help Dave make a Mayan "hat"...headdress sounds weird to him...for his school project, I have to help Angie put together a sampling of her favorite foods for Spanish class, and I have 2 holiday class parties to put together.  I'm starting to think teachers plan these projects to be due this week cause they figure "If I have to be here putting up with your kids the week before Christmas vacation...you should have to suffer too!"  Not to mention Al has finals this week which is sure to lead to a lot of wonderful head-butting, mumbling of rude things and eye rolling...and that's just me, there's no telling what he'll do! 

My 2 doggies are still a little up in the air.  I hate leaving them at the boarders...cause I worry they'll feel lonely and cooped up in the little room...but there's no way I'm ever taking 4 kids and 2 dogs in my car half way across the country EVER AGAIN!!!  So...I guess I'll pack them some extra toys!

And the car....oh my wonderful car!  We've had our suburban for a few years now...its been good! Its taken us to California and brought us back home several times...sucker's rolling on 120 thousand miles, with only regular tune-ups and the maintenance a car so well used would require.  And I had every expectation this year would be no different...oil change and tune up and off we go!  Until Saturday night....when I turned it on and it decided it didn't like sitting in neutral.  It wasn't sure whether it wanted to go anywhere, (not that I can blame it, its freaking COLD!) its would idle just fine...then putt putt putt putt like it was gonna turn off, then rev up to normal again, then putt putt putt putt....
Now I'm no car expert...but I drive often, and this is NOT good...especially when in 5 days we're planing on driving through miles and miles of nothing!

SO...as soon as that paycheck elf gets here, instead of gift shopping, I'll be heading over to our friendly mechanic to see what's up with my car.  And he will sadly take the blame if we have to cancel our vacation plans...cause it sure as heck wont be me!!!

And so...if we can eek out a little Christmas magic, and the car does not need some costly repair, I will be doing a 1 day online Christmas shopping marathon in the middle of all the other stuff to make sure everything gets shipped to grandma's house and delivered on time. 

The kids...yeah they're excited, cause all they've got to worry about is how many gifts they'll get. 

But me... I wouldn't exactly call what I'm feeling excitement...although the light-headed, shortness of breath symptoms inspired by a panic attack are somewhat similar feelings to extreme excitement I suppose.

you sure you weren't dropped on your head?

Geez...I didn't think I would make it.  Finally its relatively quiet, I'm sitting, and there are no situations in which parental intervention is required!

It was a looong night.  Five 14 year old boys is pretty much the equivalent of  a herd of baboons...do baboons come in a herd?...I don't know, but you understand what I mean.  Although, really...I've watched a lot of Animal Planet, and baboons might have more common sense!

First let me say that I should have known better and been prepared...when my son asked me if his friends could hang out after school at our house...well I should have asked how many friends...and for how long.  But I didn't.  Apparently, unless otherwise specified, hanging out after school has many definitions... technically after school on a Friday is really all the time between 3pm Friday and whenever mom finally looses it and sends everyone home.  
       So after a wonderful afternoon of yelling and xbox, I found myself cooking dinner for, not 6 people, but 11 people... 5 of which eat A LOT!!! So not something easily accomplished on the fly! 

The fun then moved (thankfully) to another room in the house so they could play pool.  At least that's what I thought they were doing.  When the boys came to ask me for super glue cause one of the ends had come off one of the pool cues...well once again some sort of warning sound should have gone off in my head, but no, I just handed the glue right over...like a big fat dummy!
  
       Not 10 minutes later my spidey senses are alerted to trouble by the loud, girl-like screaming coming from the pool room.  But did I go to investigate after the first round of screaming?  No, I said to myself "they're a bunch of boys...screaming is normal." and just told them to keep it down.  Did that bring the screaming to an end? NOPE! In fact, the screaming intensified to crazy, little girl shrieking levels.  Nothing to do then but go check.

    What wonderfulness did I find you ask?  Well apparently it seemed like a great idea to find out what would happen if one of the boys put super glue on his hand and, with the help of his 3 friends, held down the 4th friend and glued his hand the other boy's leg.  Now I know you and I would know this was not a good idea.  In fact I'd wager to say that this idea would probably never even occur to most of us. 

The loud, high-pitched screaming...well that is the natural consequence of tearing your super-glued hand from your friend's leg!


Apparently, hairy palms do not come from where we were told they come from...





...and waxing in an infinitely easier, not to mention more effective and less painful way, to remove unwanted leg hair!

So...half a bottle of nail polish remover and some very red skin later, hair and glue is gone from all affected limbs and I have gone to bed in sheer bafflement.

But was that the end of this adventure? NO, of course not!  They then played several games on the Kinect...which of course necessitates a lot of jumping and swinging of arms and legs.  So...back down the stairs I come after the lovely sounds of crashing and breaking of glass.  Yup...if you're jumping around and swinging your arms...as baboons are wont to do...make sure you remove all glasses full of soda from the near vicinity! 

Clean-up...further scolding...and I'm back to bed to get some sleep for my mental health.

But not for long....because, obviously, we are not in the library, and the concept of quiet voices is lost on baboons. 

Fortunately,  I have ear plugs and dad has VERY short fuse.  So around 2 am silence finally descended in our home.

This morning the boys all buckled down and completed their science projects...which by the way is the original reason I was given for why all 5 of them needed to be in one place (my house).  Projects complete they then sort of cleaned up after themselves.  They took my white tablecloth, which they failed to remove prior to the project making, outside to shake off all the... whatever that was all over it. 

Did you know its windy today?  And when 2 people shake out a large piece of fabric outside on a windy day...well it makes kind of a wind sail effect....

"HEY!! Let's take the tablecloth out front and go windsailing on our skateboards!!!"  Some large sticks and a few meters of duck tape later....and you have a windsail...and a no-longer-usable tablecloth.  I'll admit...it was pretty dang funny to watch! (once I got over the demise of my tablecloth.) 

  They ran in about 1/2 an hour ago...consumed almost a whole pot of chili...and are now back to xbox.  So that's why its quiet...when you're killing zombies all your limited concentration needs to be focused on your objective...no unnecessary talking!

  I hear that in a couple of hours some parents might be coming by to take some of them home....there's still hope that at the end of the day I will have some sanity left. 

A slight, but shining hope!!



you missed me...admit it!

So I've been blogless a couple of days...which is weird really cause I've been on my computer almost the entire time.  Spent the last 2 days pestering anybody I thought could help with my friend's adoption situation.  I was really expecting the Senators and congressman to block my number at some point! :)

Its been an unbelievable experience...at a time in our society when we constantly hear that we're all just in it for ourselves, that people are self-involved and that our government does little but drive us to drink...I've just experienced the exact opposite.  Hundreds of women and their families have paused their lives or spent every last available spare minute doing everything possible to help a family most have never met.  Even more unbelievable to me is the fact that this woman has been able to inspire this kind of friendship in so many women.  I mean really...would you spend virtually 2 entire days of your life helping someone you don't really know?  I don't know about you, but I might not spend that long on some of my family members.

....don't worry, I totally don't mean you! I'd help you out no matter what...I mean those other ones!

To be quite honest...enjoy this moment, it doesn't happen often...I'm pretty positive that I would not inspire that kind of support if I were in that situation.  I'm sure my inner circle of those who can still stand me would step up to the plate for me...but it sure as heck wouldn't be hundreds of people!!  Lets hope I never have to find out!!

I wish I could be more positive, more inspiring...but my sarcasm button seems to be stuck on high.  I guess its just part of my social ineptness...there's been very VERY rare instances where I manage to act appropriately in a a situation.  I mean it doesn't matter how serious the topic...I will at some point crack a joke about it or make some kind of inappropriate comment. 

  I don't do serious real well. My mind and heart might be in it...but my mouth just needs to break the tension.   I suppose its like a coping mechanism for me.  You know like those people who when they get real mad it makes them cry for some reason...by the way, when dealing with those people it doesn't help if you laugh.  Yeah...stress makes me inappropriate.

So you can imagine... in this economy, with 4 kids (2 of which are wallowing in adolescent angst), on a perpetual diet and during the holiday season...well its amazing one appropriate word exits my mouth at any point in the day!!!

Got a minute?

What would you do if you thought you might only have 2 days left to kiss your daughters goodnight? To hug them and tell them they are wonderful, beautiful and worthy?  To see their smiles and hear their laughter?  If you knew someone was coming to take them from you in 2 days how would you feel?
If you thought there was someone who could help you fix it, wouldn't you call them, email them, fax them...as many times as it took to get their attention?

That's what I've been doing today. 
 Let me tell you about my friend Pam and her family....better yet, I'll let her tell you in her own words.  This has been her plea all day, to anyone and everyone:

      Here's our Story: I am the proud mother of 3 children, Logan, Alexa and Paola. My husband, Lonnie and I had the wonderful pleasure of adopting Alexa and Paola from an orphanage in Juarez, Mexico in September 2006. While the past 4 years have been a little piece of Heaven to us as a family of 5, we have continually fought with the Mexican government to finalize the adoption that was supposed to only take 6 months. So here we are today begging for your help. Because Mexico took so long, the guidelines for international adoptions changed and we are caught in the middle. Now in order to adopt from Mexico you cannot know or have had contact with the children. Well obviously having our girls living in our home for the past 4 years would be an immediate dismissal. Mexico asked us to lie and pretend we never had the girls, however we would do this under penalty of perjury in the US and face imprisonment. We hit an official roadblock with Mexico this past summer and hired another attorney (our 4th one in fact) to help us try to finalize the adoption here in the US. Our adoption petition has been filed with the district courts and we simply await the review of a family court judge. But, we have run out of time. Mexico wants the girls back because we refused to travel to Mexico and sign a commitment letter. We were advised not to travel there because of the danger and also potential endangerment if we refused to sign this "commitment" jeopardizing our daughters, we would be detained in Mexico. Mexico has contact the US Child Protective Services and we have heard we have until this Friday, 12/10/10 to get all of this craziness stopped. We need a Texas Congressman or Senator to grant a "STOP ACTION" and not allow the US agencies to assist Mexico in deporting our girls.(Cause # 2010CM6553).  Please focus all efforts on Senator John Cornyn's office!  We need a STOP ACTION from Cornyn's office to prohibit Mexico from using a US agency like CPS or Border Patrol to take custody of our girls.
Online form http://cornyn....senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=ContactForm
Phone:972-239-1310  Fax:972-239-2110

 Loving Life and Trusting Fully,

 Pamela Crim

 

If it were my girls, there's nothing I wouldn't do.  For my friends I'll do everything I can.  So I've emailed, called and faxed the offices of  Senators and Congressmen in Texas and I've prayed.  And I'll do so again tomorrow and hope and pray that in 2 days when its bed time on Friday, Pam and Lonnie are kissing their girls goodnight and tucking them in bed, knowing they'll wake up on Saturday still together and stay that way!

 

I'm hoping you all will help as well...those who know me well, and those of you who hardly know me at all.  If it were you, your family...you'd ask for and be eternally grateful for any help, from family, friends and strangers.  I know they are!

Thanks!

Good freaking morning to you too!!

Picture this....

  Its 6:03 in the morning.  Its quiet and dark.  Everyone is snuggled asleep in bed.  (Except for Angela, who needs an hour to put on a pair of pants and a sweater and gets up before the rest of us.  She's very quiet about it though...so no one really hears her doing her thing.)  So Angie, having finished doing her hair in my bathroom turns out the light so she wont wake me and walks out of the bathroom into my dark room.  At just this precise moment David is kinda staggering into my room, still half asleep, to ask if he can watch cartoons. Angie walks out, sees someone standing in front of her in the dark and...of course...screams like a banshee! 
Which, needless to say, makes David scream. 
Which of course scares the crap out of me...being sound asleep prior to all the screaming...and I start screaming and thrashing around trying to unravel myself from the blankets.
Which makes Angie and Dave scream again!
Still irrational from the abrupt transition, they make me scream again.

So there we are...all three of us...taking turns screaming at each other. 

Reason finally peeped in when Al yelled from his room "WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!!!"

Normally I would frown upon the use of such language from my kids...but I couldn't really do much parenting when I was still trying to catch my breath and hoping my heart would get back into a normal rhythm! 

After all that Angie and I just started laughing...rather hysterically I might add.  Dave got mad at us, called us crazy and stomped off to his room. And I could hear Al mumbling "bunch of freaking weirdos don't let people sleep!" to himself in his room.

And that my friends is how my Wednesday began.

On the plus side, I didn't pee my pants!!

you don't say...

I just had to sit through an entire conversation with a delightful mother of a 5 month old who, in very clear and precise terms, explained to me why my parenting style was faulty.  She was just so sincere in her efforts to impart her wisdom. 

She shared with me that truly, if you must, at any point, resort to spanking your child, then you have obviously failed to parent that child properly!  Its tragic really how many parents just resort to the violence of spanking a child simply because they lack the will or ability to rationally solve any situation through talking, compromise and understanding.  She offered to help me find ways in which I could be a more constructive parent, like her.  Cause she understands how hard it is to overcome those bad habits you develop when you don't have good parenting skills.

Now I know what you're asking yourself right now....
"OH NO! Did Gina punch her right in the face?  Do we have to go bail Gina out?"

No my friends....no I didn't and no you don't. 
Sure I admit that at one point in my life...when I was less mature...that may have been a very likely choice for me.  Back then I might have either demonstrated the value of a physical expression of my displeasure or gifted her with a very expressive and lively monologue on my feelings about her opinion.

But that was then...today I sat there, very politely listening...well sorta listening, I was also going over my grocery list, my Christmas shopping list, my plans for out upcoming vacation, debating whether I should do the laundry today or not, considering the possible implications of travel at the speed of light...I nodded at all appropriate moments, quietly expressed my disagreement with her ideas, thanked her for her concern and her offer to assist me, wished her a good day and left.

And do you know why I was able to restrain my inner "oh no you di-int just say that to me!"?  Why, as I walked away, I had a smile on my face and a pep in my step?  Why, right at this moment as I'm typing this, I'm giggling just a little?

Cause I KNOW THINGS!  I know things she's never even considered! In her wonderful, rosy and clearly deluded...cause as a first-time mother of a 5month old she has NO idea ... little world she makes perfect sense to herself! She doesn't know what's coming.

 I, on the other hand, have lived this rodeo for 14 years.  That's why I was able to have this lovely conversation with her....secure in the knowledge that one day she WILL eat her words!  One day she too will be grinding her teeth, trying not to holler so loud the neighbors hear and spanking a cute, but naughty little butt.
Life has a way of making sure we learn those important lessons!
And as a mother, there is no more wonderful phrase than
" I told you so!"

    

Keep your coins...I want change!

So I stole the title of this here piece of literary shenanigans from my favorite website...smokinhotmamaclub.com. 
Its not what you think...or maybe it is....we're all hot! As in on fire for our lives, our families, our health and our faith! And we all want to talk to each other about it...cause that's what women do!

Anyway, this post was about...you guessed it, change! What do we want to change? Why do we want to change it? How are we gonna change it? And....really? Do you mean it this time? Are you really gonna change it?

Now there's TONS of stuff I want to change in my life.  There's significant interior design changes I desperately need to make around here.  There's the always needed "change your attitude!" going on in my house.  I'd like to change my eating habits so I'm not sitting here eating handfuls of frosted flakes while I type this.  There's a couple of surgical changes...or shall we say alterations...I'd like to make sometime in the near future.   Well, you get it...the list is pretty significant.
BUT...well they're all kinda namby-pamby changes.  Things I'd like...at some point.  It would be nice if I could...some day.  That would be really great...as soon as I can.
I realized my list of changes is more like a list of wishful thinking...all nice thoughts, but none really a concrete This is what I've been doing vs This is what I will do differently.

So I gave it some thought and decided for the health of my family, cause I don't do change well...it makes me cranky...I'm starting small.  I've come to the conclusion...ok after spending most of Friday and almost all of Saturday reading

                               Side note:  It was a hilarious 4 book series about a crazy family of private investigators.
                                 So once you start a series you can't just stop half way! You have to finish it!!!

and spending $20 on books 2 and 3 cause the library didn't have them  (Not the best use of my discretionary budget considering all the expenses this month will entail).... that maybe I may have a slight reading problem.  And I've always said as far as bad habits go...reading isn't so bad!  But when a mother of 4 lets her kids play X-Box all day and feeds them chicken nuggets and cereal so she can get back to her book quickly...its not good!  Not to mention that spending nearly 2 days sitting/laying around reading really isn't gonna do much for my fitness levels.  And going to sleep at 4AM really doesn't help my mood in the morning...which is already kinda ragged!

SO....you ready?  I've decided that for my first big change I need to give myself healthy reading parameters.  I will only read between the hours of 8 and 11PM.  And, should I be lucky enough to carve out some free time during daylight hours, the amount of reading time must be followed by an equal amount of time doing some kind of physical activity.  This, however, does not include the Monday of Book Club as I will generally forget to read our selection and will have to read it all that day!

I am committed to this change! I can do this!

Maybe I also need to commit to not having a box of frosted flakes sitting next to me while I'm on the computer....but dang they're good!!!

ok...really?

I just don't understand...what's so hard about not leaving your dirty underwear on the bathroom floor after your shower??  Or not leaving a glass with a 1/4 inch of milk in your room for 2 days? Or a banana peel in the same location?

I mean I love a mystery as much as the next guy...but I'd rather not play "where's that awful smell coming from?!" for 3 days!!

I don't think I'm asking for too much...I mean I don't pee on the back of the toilet, so why should I be the one having to clean that up!!

You don't see me spraying sparkly hair spray in my hair every day...so why am I the one scrubbing the bathroom floor and counter to get all the sticky shiny stuff off!!

And further more...its been a loooong time since I played with Play-Do. I shouldn't be responsible for picking it off the carpet!

I fully grasp that as the fulltime "domestic engineer" of my household, I am responsible for most of the maintenance around here.  And mostly I'm ok with that...I just remind myself (often) that its a blessing to have so much stuff to clean up daily and that I am blessed to be able to stay home and do it.

However...there HAS to be a line in there somewhere!  Sure I'll do your laundry and put it in a nice basket in your room, and I'll vacuum your room for you...maybe dust once in a while.  But I shouldn't have to go on an archaeological hunt through layers of detritus to find the awful smell!!!

An quite honestly...I love you, I do...but I don't want to pick up your dirty underwear/smelly socks!!

ALL my children know that if there's ONE thing I can't handle its any type of spoiled dairy product.  I mean that literally.  If at any point any cup/bowl/dish...anything contains anything dairy that seems even remotely spoiled to me I will gag all the way to the garbage and just throw it out.  I can't even begin to explain how many baby bottles we went through when the kids were babies...its hundreds...per kid!!!  Its one of my few OCD issues I've never felt compelled to overcome.
So why, then, can they not rinse out their cups/bowls/whatever before putting it in the sink?!! Worse yet...why would they leave a glass sitting around like that for God knows how long?!!! Literally threw up like 3 times before I could even get close enough to the glass to remove it! Then a couple of more times before I finally got the glass outside to the garbage can...there's NO WAY I was throwing that away inside my house!!  If this keeps up I'll have to find a part-time job just to pay for new cups!!

I know... I'm complaining a lot....and NO ONE wants to hear a big whiner!
I'll stop now....I'll come back later when I've finished cleaning around here and have sprayed down and put away my hazmat suit.  Its kinda hard to type with these biggo gloves anyway!