Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Happy Wednesday!

I'm not sure how you kicked off your day but mine started with a psychotic screaming 4 year old that didn't want to go to school. When I asked why he didn't want to go, his response was that it was stupid.     He said he wanted me to go away so he could sleep!  He screamed like I boiled him in acid and ran around the house. I wrestled him into his shirt and shorts. He promptly removed them. I finally got his shirt back on but he refused pants, socks, and shoes. I gave up and had Fred carry the little lunatic to the car. He had to fight him into the car seat and that took about 5 minutes of blood curdling screams. I'm sure my neighbors loved us this morning!      Finally, about halfway down the street my half dressed kid calmed down and admitted defeat.   Once we got to school he was a happy guy and we could finish getting dressed!  He went into school like nothing had happened. Seriously this kid hates mornings. 

I thought, wow my day can only get better from here.  Right?  Well my work day was pretty uneventful. Which in my line of work is unusual and a welcomed change. Time passesd quickly until it was time  to pick up captain grumpy pants from school. I headed out to pick him up and my normal 5 minute drive turned into 25 minutes each way. I really don't know what they're doing on St. Andrew's Church Road but it needs to get done quickly because this detour is ridiculous!   When I picked Jax up he wanted to go to GG's house. When I informed him I had other plans the banshee returned. He screamed, cried, and yelled most of the way home. Yay!  

In a wonderful turn of events GG got home earlier than expected and invited grumpy over so he didn't have to endure another one of Emma's taekwondo classes.   This gave me some welcomed one on one time with my #1 girl. We had a dinner date to McAllister's (where kids eat free M-Th after 4pm) before heading to TKD.   As we were leaving we walked out the front door and headed to the car. Hold on, where's the car?  Oh crap, someone's stolen my car!  Emma taps me on the side just before my panic really kicks in and reminds me that we parked on the side of the building and went in the side door. Ooohh, duh, I knew that!  False alarm!  Who misplaces their car?  Apparently, this girl!  

After TKD I got to my mom's to pick up Jaxon. When I get there he is firing on all cylinders.  He's bouncing off the walls and super loud. I notice he's drinking some sort of red liquid. My mom says, in a very serious voice, "I just gave him Hawaiian Punch. There's no caffeine in that.  I don't know why he's so wired."  Ummmm because one cup of Hawaiian Punch contains about 57 cups of sugar!  Ok maybe not 57 cups, but a lot of sugar!    Oh boy this should be fun to settle down!  

We get home and the kids do their usual fighting routine until I send Emma to bed and take Jax to the bathroom to brush his teeth.   As I am brushing the 57 cups of sugar off of his teeth he attempts to tell me something. I didn't understand much of what came out of his toothpaste filled mouth but it must have been funny because he started to laugh. In his hilariousness he managed to spit toothpaste right in my eye. Have you ever had toothpaste in your eye?  Let me tell you that it BURNS!  It burns like nothing I've ever felt.   Water doesn't help, it just spreads the burning out. Eventually after water, rubbing, some tears, more rubbing and more water the burning subsides. If I'm blind in the AM we can blame the sensodyne.   

FINALLY,  I get the sugared up little monster to bed and can find a few minutes of peace. I actually have some work from today left to do BUT I'd rather share my day with you. I hope this made you smile and now I'm going to bed. Looking forward to what craziness tomorrow will bring. 

Sunday, June 26, 2016


Warning:  This is partially your standard mushy, lovey dovey, over the top anniversary post. It may contain some things that you didn't know and hopefully you'll find it a little funny 

     Once upon a time I was a 19 year old college girl.  I worked,  went to class, and took care of my daughter. I really didn't need a lot of distraction in my life because my life was already complicated enough.   I had a friend named Hamit that insisted he knew a guy that would be perfect for me. He suggested that I go out with him and a group of friends one night to meet this guy. Finally after a little persuasion I caved and agreed to go.  I was the youngest of the group and the only one still under 21 at the time. Everyone wanted to go to a bar where they could drink, dance, and hang out, but since I was underage our choices were limited.  They decided the best option, was a gay club. What better place for a straight girl to meet her future husband right?    I went and met the mystery guy. We hit it off instantly. We started dating shortly after and I eventually fell in love with this guy. He was kind, caring, fun loving, and the most stubborn man I've ever encountered. I thought he'd be a worthy adversary and a fierce ally for life. Thankfully he fell in love with me too!  He not only fell in love with me he fell in love with my daughter as well.  He jumped into the role of dad without hesitation and that made me love him more.  
    Our relationship was never perfect and it had many ups and downs but eventually he asked me to marry him. I had one condition on this request:  we had to wait until I graduated from college to get married.   He agreed to this condition and I agreed to marry him. I was barely 21 at the time and he was 26.  Someone should have probably called is crazy. Some people probably did behind our backs. I mean, let's be real, you really don't know crap about yourself at 21.   
    We got married in a little country church about a month and a half after I graduated from college.  I put on a fancy white dress,  took my daddy's arm and headed up an aisle to marry this guy that I met at 19 years old, at a gay club, on a blind date.  Even saying that sounds crazy!  He was at the end of the aisle wearing a tux, smiling, and nervous. His dad was there with him waiting to walk us through our wedding vows. We smiled, repeated words, held hands, exchanged rings, were pronounced husband and wife.  We sealed our new union with a kiss. We had no idea at the time where life would take us but we were young, dumb, and blissfully in love. I don't think we really considered that all the rich/poor, sickness/health,  good/bad times things would ever actually happen.   
    Our journey definitely has had all of those things. We've fought. We've cried. We've laughed. We have experienced the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. We've traveled together to awesome places. We've made so many memories together. We've some how managed to grow into productive adults. We've experienced the birth of two amazing children and sadly endured the loss of another. We've held on to each through it all. There are days when I would like to strangle him in his sleep and I'm sure there are days when he'd like to pull out my tongue. He frustrates me more than anyone I've ever known but I can't imagine doing life without him by my side. 
   So on this day please know that I'm thankful and blessed to be his wife.  I love this crazy beautiful ride we're on and wouldn't change it for the world. Thank God for blind dates and poor choices because this one really worked out!  

Happy Anniversary my love. Here's to many more.


Monday, June 20, 2016

Have you ever had one of those days?  A day that seems like no matter how hard you try or how organized you think that you EVERYTHING goes wrong.   A day that you just need. "Do over" for. Well...today was that day. Today,  I had a colossal mommy meltdown.

Fred has been working his new job now for about a month. He likes it a lot. He feels both appreciated and challenged. This is something he has missed in last two jobs. The downside is that he now works second shift.  This was not a surprise, and it's something we discussed at length before he took the job. I just didn't anticipate how much "quality time".  I would have ALONE with my kids.  I wake up in the morning, get Jax ready for school, and drop him off.  Fred sleeps. Emma wakes up and I feed her breakfast, argue with her about iPad usage, reading time, and chores. Fred sleeps.   I attempt to do some household chores,  on most days I find time to shower, and I do all of this while working my full time job.   Fred wakes up gives me my list of things that he needs me to do and interrupts me at least 20 times while I attempt to work. At some point Emma will ask for lunch and since for some odd reason my kids never ask their father for anything she comes to me!  I will fix her something or give her permission to fix it herself. If I pick the latter then I have to take time to clean up her mess. Fred leaves for work mid afternoon and then it's all me. I have to finish my work day, pick Jax up,  probably still work some, drive to whatever activity Emma has,  keep the house from falling into squalor,  fight both kids to go to bed, and who knows what else.   I do everything single thing I need to do each day with at least one kid,  even use the bathroom. Trust me, in this house someone is always coming in the bathroom.  On most days I make it to bed about 30 minutes before Fred comes home.

I tell you all of this because today I failed at life.   Today,  nothing went right.    Today, started for me on the couch where I woke up  with a sore neck because I gave up my bed to snorey-mcsnorer and Jax the 4 year old bed hog.  I followed my usual routine and managed to get Jax ready for school except I put his shoes in the wrong feet.   The poor guy suffered like that until we got to school and I thankfully realized my mistake before taking him inside!  I came home and attempted to feed myself.   I carefully cut up some fruit, then added some vanilla Greek yogurt. I was going to eat a healthy breakfast. I took  one bite and realized the yogurt was bad. Yay for disgusting spoiled yogurt!  I was super disappointed because I cut up the last of the strawberries and bananas only to cover them in nasty yogurt. Who needs breakfast anyway?   I decided to just pour myself into work only to discover that today I failed miserably at that too!  That story is too long to tell but nothing I did or said seemed right today. Emma had a friend over today and they played so much I forgot to feed them lunch. Seriously, who forgets to feed two kids?  I made myself feel better by blaming them because they never asked for food.  They did snack so I guess that wasn't a total fail.         I went to pick up Jax at school and managed to shut my own finger in the car door.  It's only a little bruised and probably not broken.   I refrained from saying any bad words so I'm actually going to call that a win!   I planned my day so carefully. I moved calls with students and finished up things early to take Emma to taekwondo today since I can't take her tomorrow. I got her ready and rushed both kids out of the house. I somehow managed  to rip off one of my nails while getting everyone in the car. I drove like a crazy person to get there on time. I got there with 5 minutes to spare!  Then I looked at my calendar to discover that I had mixed up the Monday and Wednesday class times and her class wasn't for another hour and 10 minutes!   As I sat in the parking lot, Emma talked non stop about how goofy I had been to mix up the class times. She also decided to let Jax out of his car seat. It was like someone freed a rabid monkey and he bounced around the car like  wacko!  This is when all the stress of the day hit me.   All the balls that I constantly juggle came crashing down on my still throbbing finger.   I sucked at work today. I forgot to feed children. I mixed up the schedule.  I yelled at the kids for no reason.   As I sat in the car getting hit in the head with a flip flop from my rabid monkey I started to cry.   I was just frazzled and tired and overworked. I was spent and I had no more to give;  but it was only 5:30 and I still needed to survive until bedtime.   I closed my eyes and said a little prayer.  I really needed a little heavenly support at this point. Miraculously,  my monkey got back in his seat and strapped himself in and Emma stopped her constant criticism of my parenting today and for once was quiet.   I pulled myself together and took the kids for some food.  We had an uneventful dinner and the kids were actually well behaved.    We finished taekwondo and headed home. When we got home both kids begged to snuggle me.

No matter my shortcomings as an employee, a wife, a mom, or an adult in general; my kiddos still love me. No matter how tired and weary my day, week, month, or year have made me,  I'm still their momma and the center of their world right now. No matter how crazy they make me. The best way to end my day is with them by my side.  

Now they are finally asleep and I've spent an hour typing this blog post on my cell phone I hope that you find it encouraging and possibly entertaining. I'm going to bed now and hoping for a better day tomorrow.