Two Days

Two days until we leave for the beach. 

Have I packed? 

No.

Have I started to pack?

No.

Do I even have a list of things to bring?

No.

Have I done all the laundry?

No.

Have I cleaned the house?  (Because the house needs to be clean and fresh when we return).

No.

Have I stopped the mail?

No.

I did get Kate a new prescription for her anti-barf medicine for the car ride down.  Because you know, some things just have a tendency to be foremost on my mind.  And barf — or rather the lack thereof — is one of them.

But back to my failures…Will I do any of this stuff tomorrow?

It’s doubtful.  Highly unlikely.

What am I doing right now?

Writing this.

Why?

I enjoy the “freak-out.”

I can imagine it now…Friday evening between me and The Man.  It will be rather similar, I suppose, to the last hour before any type of deadline I am trying to meet.  Where I’m in freak-out mode.  Running around in a flurry as though the very world may come to an end.  And The Man is trying to not kill me. 

And Saturday morning will be double the fun.

But then all of that will melt away once we get in the car and settle down for our drive.  Our really.long.drive.  (Please pray for me to arrive with a shred of my faculties left intact).

But until then, why do today what I can put off because I’m lazy?

My Kate

I don’t have any words for this picture. 

Just — I love her so much.

 Vistit 5 minutes for mom for more Wordless Wednesday photos.

Sticky Vanilla Mess

She sits, grass tickling her feet…red curls tickling her cheeks…chubby hands clutching a melting treasure.

Ice cream dripping,

dripping,

d

r

i

p

p

i

n

g

right down to her elbow.

Sticky, vanilla cheeks.  

Sticky, vanilla nose.

Sticky, vanilla chin.  And hair.  And fingers.  And toes. 

A beautiful, sticky, vanilla mess.

Six More Days, and a Lot More Poop Than Normal

1.  So I signed the kids up for bible camp this year.  I figured that would be fun.  And then in a move which I can only say was not-the-brightest, I decided to volunteer for the nursery all week.  I honestly don’t know what came over me.  I am having a hard time accepting the fact that instead of spending three hours every morning with just little Ella, I will be spending three hours each morning with little Ella and 15 (fif.teen, people) other zero-3 year olds.  Okay, yes, there will be two other adults there.  And possibly some teenagers.  Who may or may not be helpful.  But the noise…  And the diapers…  We are going to have to change other people’s babies’ poopies.  Really Kristen?  Really?  I know.  I know.  And honestly, I think Ella is going to love it.         

 

2.  The other day I had the following conversation with The Man:

The Man:  I found you a pilates class.

Me:  I’ll try not to take that as an insult.

The Man:  What?  Why? 

Me:  I wasn’t looking for a pilates class.

The Man:  It could help with your back, you know, strengthen your core, tone your muscles.  Don’t you want to feel better?

Me:  You’re digging yourself a whole here, pal.

 

3.  I’m actually thinking about signing up for the class now.  Somebody please stop me. 

 

4.  Does this confirm my idiocy? 

 

5.  Remember the marbles that I ordered from AllChildrensFurniture.com?  Well, they came. (It was a long time ago.  A looooooong time ago.  I. am. so. sorry. for. being. SooooOOOOOoooo. lame).  Back to the marbles…  They.are.awesome.  And the customer service was awesome.  Once I had them in my possession, I wanted something to show them off in…I wanted something unique…so I found this wasp catcher and loaded it up with marbles.  It sits on a little shelf near the entrance of the house under my favorite picture of the kids.  It’s just perfect.  The marbles are childhood and memories and happiness.       

6.  Just FYI, I did give each of the children their own set of marbles.  They were as tickled as I was.

7.  Six more days until I feel the sand on my feet.  Six more days until the sun shines on my face.  Six more days, until I hear the roar of the ocean crashing into the shore.  And smell the salty air.  And feel the ocean breeze.  And hear the shrill squeals of four little children as they frolic without a care in the world.  Six more days.

s.

i.

x.

Sneaking Around

I only have a moment…I have snuck off with The Man’s computer.  He shall be back from a meeting at any moment and I must not give the impression that I have missed my computer. 

Let me back up…I have no computer.  I have not had a computer since Tuesday morning.  Horror of all horrors, it just stopped working.  The hard drive is intact.  It is the motherboard that is fried.  Or whatever.  I feign intelligence in this area.  I have no idea what any of those things are.  I just know that my pictures are safe.  My files are safe.  And even that little sound file of Ella’s heartbeat at 12 weeks is safe.

But anyway, I do not want to give off the impression that I am freaking out without my computer.  So I must act swiftly so as not to be caught.  Of course he’s probably going to read this and know.  Whatever.

Also, I have no stove.  Because I am an idiot.  I know I have mentioned how very clever I am.  I am also an idiot.  I am, clearly, an enigma.  (I had to look that word up.)  So I called the gas company because I wanted to set up auto-bill-pay, and the auto-bill-pay setup wasn’t working online.  The auto-bill-pay guy wouldn’t talk to me because my name is not on the account.  Seriously guy?  I just want to arrange to pay the thing.  So anyway, The Man had to call.  So to The Man I said, “oh, why don’t you ask them who we need to call to get that very-super-slight gas smell that has emanated from the stove for the last five years fixed.”  Well that just set in motion a chain of events that I am still paying for. 

Because, you see, now that we have informed the gas company that “we smell gas,” they are obligated to come out and turn off the gas.  Which they did.  Even though that smell has been there for five years.  And even though for five years, it has only ever been very-super-slight.  And even though I have a candle burning directly above where that very-super-slight smell is emanating from.  (Which now that I’m thinking about it, may not have been the brightest idea…)  So the shut-off was back on Thursday.  THURSDAY.  I have had no stove for 7 days y’all. 

Oh, what to do without a stove… 

Last night, we had banana splits for supper.  And I didn’t care.  And guess what?  No one complained and they all went to bed with full bellies.

When the guy comes to fix our stove tomorrow, I may shed a tear…

I was one smelly chic

Just fyi, Toms of Maine deoderant is not terribly helpful in the b.o. department.  At least not for me.  I do like their toothpaste, though.

You’re welcome.

The Sprinkler

 

Summer. 

For more Wordless Wednesday photos, click here.

Her Hero

I spend most days happily going about my work, whether it be laundry, or cleaning or cooking or whatever.  I am generally happy.  I do not like cleaning the bathrooms, though.  And I’m not a big fan of the dusting.  Nor do I like to clean the floors.  Actually, I pretty much don’t like doing any cleaning-ish type of stuff.  But that said, I do it, and I’m generally happy when I do.  I look around and smile when something sparkles.  And that tends to be enough for me. 

But sprinkled in among those happy days is an “other” type of day, in which I feel like the only person in this house that appreciates all that cooking and laundry and cleaning-ish type of stuff.  And the cleaning feels pointless.  Because as soon as it sparkles, someone comes over with sticky fingers and smears it all up.  Which is rather annoying, frankly.  I think to myself that I should just stop cleaning, and see how long it takes them to notice how disgusting it would get.  And then I wonder if they would even notice at all.  (Which could mean that I may need to step up the cleaning a notch, if they can’t notice the difference.  Or that my family is gross.) 

Anyhoo.  A couple of months ago, Kate told me she wrote about her hero in her daily journal.  And her hero was me.  Hallelujah, someone has finally seen the light!  I couldn’t wait to see what she had written about me.  And here is what she wrote…

My mom’s a hero!  She takes care of me.  She loves me.  I love her back.  My mom takes me to the bus stop.  She makes me dinner.  My mom makes cookies and hot chocolate for snack.  She puts me to bed too.  She puts my sheets on my bed.  My mom is a hero because she does nice things to me.  I picked her because she’s the best!    When I get mad, she’s still my hero.  Sometimes my dad is a hero too.  But my mom is even better!  She is the best hero ever!

Oh, I sat there all smug and puffy on my pedestal.  I even re-read it a time or two–I liked the part about the sheets.  And then I pretty much wilted as a smattering of memories of all the times I’ve let her down nipped in.  The times I could have been a better mom, but wasn’t for one reason or another.  Like telling her we needed to paint our toenails red for the fourth of July (and really intending to do so), but not finding the two hours it would take to enjoy that with her.  Really?  I really couldn’t find just two hours within a five day span to do that?   My life with her is peppered with instances like this.  Peppered with guilt for the times I should have done more, should have been better.  Sometimes I feel like such a disappointment. 

And still, I am her hero. 

I am her hero even though I sometimes have one of those “other” types of days where I go about my business not happily, but grumbling the entire time about how nobody appreciates me, and how I could drop off the face of the earth and no one would notice until they figured out that their clothes didn’t magically wash themselves and the dinner didn’t just appear out of thin air, fully-cooked in a pot on the stove, and no one was there to kiss the booboos or wipe the noses.

(I’m pretty sure the world would continue turning even without me, but it’s fun to pretend that it might just spin off it’s axle if I ceased to exist.)

And then after telling them exactly how much they would miss me, I flip that on it’s head and grumble about how much happier they might be without me because no one would gripe at them to put their dirty socks in the hamper, and they could be with the other “fun” parent all day long. 

(And also none of their clothes would match because the “fun” parent thinks that because they’re both pink, they must go together.  Which is annoying.)

So what stands out in my mind after reading Kate’s journal entry is that those moods of mine are just dumb.  And also, I need to stop the grumbling.  Because when my children grow up, I want them to remember their mom the way I always dreamed I would be, and that is not grumbling.  I always dreamed I’d be happily busy, and I always dreamed I would look pretty (that ship has pretty much sailed…).  I always dreamed that I would have a spotless home, and a refrigerator full of the most wonderful food that I prepared all by myself.  Mostly, I dreamed that I would be their soft place to fall.  I never dreamed that I would be a grump, not even now and then.  I never dreamed I would be so hell-bent on being appreciated, and making sure everyone knew exactly how hard I work. 

They do notice the things that I do.  But even if they don’t notice everything, who really cares?  I am her hero.  And that is pretty much all I need to remember. 

I am her hero.

The Thesaurus Is Not Terribly Useful.

So yesterday was s.t.i.n.k.o. pretty much.  I think it started off with the coffee. 

We’re out of cream, so I had to drink it black.  Which I can do, but I don’t prefer it.  In fact, I don’t really like it at all unless it’s paired with a bowl of ice cream.  Or chocolate.  But I’ll drink it just to avoid the certain headache that I will get if I don’t drink it.  (And yes, I know I’m an addict.  Leave it.)  Now that Ella drinks skim milk along with the rest of us, I can’t even use whole milk as a back-up to cream.  And I ate all the ice cream, so there’s none of that, either.  (Once I used cool whip as a substitute for cream…not good, just fyi.  I do not believe there is anything dairy about cool whip.  ((Which would explain the “nondairy topping” label I guess.))  Anyway, the cool whip melted into an oily looking substance which floated atop my coffee.  So instead of black coffee, I had black coffee with oil.  Which imho is decidedly worse than just plain ol’ black coffee.  So I won’t be doing that again.) 

After the bad coffee, we did a science experiment where I was an idiot and took a piping hot glass out of the dishwasher and put ice into it and actually said (yes I did) “I hope it doesn’t crack.”  And then it cracked.  So I said “wow kids, look at that, bla bla bla.”  I taught them all about how to crack a glass.  Enriching their lives, that’s what I do.

And then one of the children, who shall remain nameless, was a complete pill for pretty much the entire afternoon.  The source of frustration?  A duplo lego window.  After several hours of fretting over this duplo (I do not even want to elaborate on the ridiculous nature of the problem) we tried to sit and do some enrichment activities.  I told you, I am all about the enriching.   

Anyway, for one of the activities, we were working with colors.  Two colors to be specific, garnet and fuchsia.  Which incidentally, fuchsia was misspelled as fuchisa.  (I find it ironic that “enrichment activities” sent home from school for summertime fun would have misspellings in them.  But anyway…)  Fuchisa was humorous.  For the rest of the activity, I called it fuchisa (foocheezuh).  And Kate thought I was just terribly funny.  But the other, aforementioned child did not.  Moving right along…)

So the aforementioned child didn’t know what garnet and fuchisa were, and I wanted him to figure that out–I didn’t want to give him the answer.  So being the very clever person that I am, I decided to teach them how to look a word up in the thesaurus.  Oh yes, Roget’s thesaurus!  I love the thesaurus, seriously.  I use it nearly daily, to be honest.  (I’m actually not kidding).  So anyway, we couldn’t find garnet in the thesaurus, so I figured we would try fuchisa.  So I go to the index.  And I’m looking up fuchsia…and I get to the fu words and lo and behold what do we have but no fuchsia. 

Let me tell you what they DO have, in lieu of fuchsia.  They have “f*ck.”  They have “a f*ck.”  They have “f*cked up.”  They have “f*ck off.”  They have gathered together what seems to be every single variation and expression you could come up with that includes the f dash dash dash word for our reading pleasure.  (Really Roget?  Seriously?) 

I tried to strategically place my hand over the queen mother of all cuss words, but Kate was standing there with her nose about three inches from the page all engrossed in how you look up a word (she is so much like me) and I couldn’t cover them all and I quick closed the book and said “well this thesaurus is useless.”  And that was pretty much a big fat “F” in the Good Mom Department for me.

Then Ella woke up screaming which is always fun.  So I drank some wine.

The end.

Just FYI

My day is going really lousy. 

L O. U. S. Y.

You’re welcome.