Welcome to our city!

Meltdown City.  That's where I was.  Smackdab in the middle of Meltdown City.  I am at a loss for how to control this city.  I couldn't tell you how we arrived here, but I know that I am supposed to be the ruler, and be able to apply logic and reason and order to an otherwise chaotic existence in Meltdown City.  I am, after all, the mother.  So why can't I find a logical reason for my little girl to clean her room without tears and foot stomping and door slamming and screaming (her, not me this time)?  I just can't seem to get a grasp on this.  Tell me why I am I trying to be logical and calm with my child.  I am being patient, understanding, providing answers, explaining consequences...I am supposed to be trained in dealing with illogical thought processes, so how in the world am I supposed so deal with my job if I can't even convince my own child of how to come to a conclusion that will satisfy her need to understand?

So there I sit, at the dinner table, trying to decide what to do next.  I have spent literally 3 or more hours calmly explaining to my child the what, why, how, and when of cleaning her room.  I gave her a choice, I gave her direction, I gave her the consequences of whatever choice she decided to make, and yet none of this was getting through to her. She is in her room, throwing things, hating me, hating the world, hating everything about it.  She even told me that her feet, legs, and arms hurt in order to provide an excuse for why she couldn't possibly clean her room.  Amazing.

I finally tell her calmly that she can clean her room or not clean her room.  If she made the decision to clean it up then she could come out, eat dinner with the family, and play a game of Candyland with all of us.  If she decided not to clean, the consequence would be that she had to remain in her room for the rest of the evening, including eating dinner alone in her room.
 
Apparently this was the key.  Isolation during dinner was the most awful thing that she could think of at that time, and so after freaking out a bit more she decided to hurry up and get those books on the shelf so that she wouldn't have to eat her dinner all alone.  It's amazing what makes our children tick.  You hope and pray that the choices that you make with them and for them are the correct ones, but it's times like these that you realize you are putting their values in the right place.  All of these family dinners at the table ARE important to them.  I am doing a good thing by making sure we spend at least some time together each night, because otherwise she wouldn't have cared to miss out!

Hooray for Meltdown City!!

Clearance

My husband and I were doing some late night shopping at, you guessed it, Wal-Mart.  We went for a few groceries and necessities, so please tell me how we ended up in the clearance aisle.  I am definitely a bargain shopper, but yesterday I can't believe I got sucked into it.  It was late, and we both had to be up early this morning, and yet, still it took me an entire 20 minutes just to get over these AMAZING discounts (haha).  Isn't it crazy how good a few placemats look when they're on sale?  Even if you don't use placemats?  Or those sheets...Star Wars is good, right?  For the right price I suppose anything can look good.

We even got our kiddos a few things from the discount toy aisle, and my son was a viking this morning when he woke up to discover his new gear.  He was pillaging some poor village when I walked into the living room. 

We also rediscovered why buying toys when it's not a birthday or Christmas can be a big no-no.  Emily walked into the living room at around the same time and demanded to know where her stuff was too.  Fortunately we had enough presence of mind in our clearance rack stupor to purchase a Tinkerbell puzzle also, so we saved ourselves at least one meltdown today. 

My words of wisdom to you....STAY AWAY FROM THE CLEARANCE RACK!!!  Unless you have something extremely specific in mind, it's probably a good practice.  If not, you might just waste that extra $20 on something as silly as paperclips (yes, I bought designer paperclips last night), for the only reason of saving a few cents.  And let's face it, Wal-Mart's clearance isn't even that great.  If you want some good deals, look at The Rack.  Well, that's if this town had one...guess until them I'm stuck shopping at TJ Maxx.

The List

Step 1. 

Do the laundry.  Wait, stop, that barrette doesn't go there.  Stop into the bathroom.  Shit!  How did all of these clothes get on the floor?  Ok.  Breathe.  Leave barrette; move on to the laundry room with added clothing to put into wash.  Now why the hell is the washing mashine squeaking?  It is extremely distracting.  Oh, well.  Put fix washing machine onto to do list for husband, never to actually be accomplished. 

Step 2. 

Wash the dishes.  Really?  Why the hell didn't anyone tell me that we're out of dish soap!!!  And they wonder why I am at Wal Mart every day.

Step 3.

Sweep and mop the floor.  Oh, wait, Emily can mop it when she gets home from school.  Scratch that.  Sweep the floor.

Step 4 3. 

Pick everything up and put it where it really goes before you sweep the floor.  Probably should have made this one step 3.

Step 4.

Sweep the floor.

Step 5.

Create list for Wal Mart.  (Add dishsoap)

Step 6.

What's for dinner?  Figure it out.

Step 7.

Toilets.  My favorite.  I especially love when all the men in my house still can't seem to aim their urine into the toilet bowl.

Step 8.

Call hairdresser.  I seriously need some attention.

Step 9.

Call Cyndi and set up photography session for the family.  I've been putting it off til I lost the weight, but it doesn't seem to be coming off, so I better just suck it up (literally).

Step 10.

Fuck it.  Call masseuse.

I'm an asshole...

I don't like some people.  That's just a fact.  I'm certain that there are people out there who don't like me.  And that's okay too.  But most of the time, you have to truly be a dick to make me not want you as a friend.  Such is the case with this douchbag that I met in class last week.  He seems to have this issue with his head being crammed waaaaaay to far up his own ass, and I'd really like to help him out with that, but I don't have a crowbar that long.  I simply don't have the patience for grownups who think that the world still revolves around them.  Didn't your mommy explain to you that you are no longer the epicenter of anyone's world?  If she didn't, allow me. 

Don't get me wrong, I like to think of myself as exceptional also.  The difference between you and I is that I realize that we are all exceptional in one way or another.  I have some great points, but I've got some serious downfalls too.  As does EVERYBODY!!  Including YOU! 

Let me give you one example of what a dick this guy is, for absolutely no reason.  We got our first assignment, which was extremely short and simple.  This guy hands it to the teacher, who tells him that she can't really read it.  He laughs out loud and says, yeah, I wanted to mess with you so I wrote it with my right hand (he is a lefty).  He is one of those obnoxious people who says something out loud and he is the only person in a 10,000 person crowd who thinks it is funny, and yet he just keeps on laughing.  He is also one of those people who talks just to hear himself talk.  And he does it in the tone of "I am a dick."  You sir, should be placed on a stretcher like Mel Gibson in Braveheart.  At least then the whole crowd will be paying attention to you.

This guy has nothing that makes up for his inability to be nice.  He isn't good looking, which is what one would think.  No, not a pretty frat boy trying to make up for his own insecurities.  This guy is truly an ugly fuck.  He has zilch in the way of redeeming qualities.  At least if you're pretty and an asshole I still have something nice to look at.  But noooo...this guy is about six feet tall, mousy poorly cut brown hair, mismatched face, pot belly, you get the idea.  Didn't you get the memo that if you're ugly you should at least try to have a personality to make up for it?

I found out that this guy is married, with a kid.  That poor kid is set up for some serious ass kickings in school if he acts like his dad at any point in his life.  And the poor wife...she must truly be a walking doormat.  If this guy treats his professors with this much disrespect, how do you think he treats his wife?  She must truly be ugly, or seriously emotionally damaged.  Either way, she still deserves better than him, and I don't even know the lady.

But seriously, readers, don't be an asshole.  It's one of my professors rules, and I really like it.  We can touch on certain issues and debate them and be passionate without being disrespectful of other people intentionally.  Isn't that the point of going to school?  To learn about other opinions and points of view in order to expand our own knowledge of the world and the people in it?  PUT YOUR BIG GIRL PANTIES ON AND HAVE AN ADULT CONVERSATION!!!!!!!!!

Well, obviously

It is cold as a winter's day outside, which is weird, because it's actually winter right now.  Do you ever get tired of people stating the obvious?  It makes me want to regurgitate some piece of obvious information right back at them. 

Like today, when it was about 20 degrees outside and this chick tells me, "It's cold outside!"  I really wanted to look at her and say, really?  I didn't notice that as I was wrapping myself in 12 layers of shirts, jackets, sweaters, gloves, and scarves.  What I did notice is that you have a gigantic pimple on your cheek that needs to be dealt with...I'm sure you had no idea when you looked in the mirror this morning. Yes, I'm a smart ass.  I don't always say what I'm thinking, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know.

This whole noting the obvious thing is something that happens a lot in my house.  My dad has a terrible memory, which means that we all get to be blessed with him repeating himself over and over again.  He'll forget things like coffee in the microwave, left there to get stale and greet me when I go to heat up my lunch leftovers.  Sometimes he goes running three times in a day because he forgot he already went.  He is forever putting my dishes into random places in my kitchen, probably because he enjoys watching me have to scavenger hunt for them.  All of these things aside, there is one thing that he does that I have zero patience for, which is his tendency to bark out random OBVIOUS facts during either television or a movie.  It drives me fucking crazy.  I mean, I truly want to punch him in the face sometimes.  I love my dad, but you have no idea how irritating it can be when you're in the middle of watching a car in some fast paced action movie jump over a side rail and still be able to drive away from the cops who were chasing it, and then your dad says in an overtly obnoxious voice, "There is no way that would really happen."  Then he goes off about how the tires would have blown out, the axles would have been destroyed, and the shocks would be useless.  HE DOES THIS CRAP DURING CARTOON MOVIES!!!!

He's like my 3rd child, which sometimes is great, because I can get him to do chores, plus he's an amazing distraction for my kiddos, who are absolutely in love with their grandpa.  But some days...truly I just need to get out of the house, or quiet my mental breakdown with a nice big jack and coke.  Which sometimes works, but this sometimes backfires, because I don't like making Dad mad, but it's so easy when you've got a bit of liquid courage in you.  You see how aggressive I am in my daily speech; imagine what I could do when I've had the edge completely eliminated.

 Oh well...we piss each other off, but better pissed off than pissed on!  Have a great day!

Two roads diverged

Well, it's back to school time, and I don't mean for the kids.  They've been back for over a week now.  Nope, it's time for Mom and Dad to go back to school.  I can't say that I'm incredibly disappointed...I mean, all this rest has been great, but I really do better when I am under a crap-ton of pressure.  I fully enjoy being stressed out most of the time, and my life typically functions better when I am.  Now my pressure is getting to be a little bit different though.  I'm still in school, to be sure, but I am not sure what I am going to do with myself after this year is over.  I will graduate this December and either have to go for a Master's, law school, med school (yeah right), or put my big girl panties on and get a real job.  I just don't know which one of these things I really want to do.  I'm looking at a couple of different programs, but I'm still not 100% certain which road I want to travel down. 

The kids are no help.  They don't seem to care what Mommy does, as long as I cook them something palatable for dinner.  My husband is still in the middle of trying to figure out what he wants to do which basically renders him useless.  So I don't really know exactly what to do.  For now I suppose I'll stick with staying suma cum laude and working on dropping some of this winter warmth.  Am I supposed to technically call this stuff blubber? 

Baby balooga....oh baby balooga! 

Perhaps my distractability is one of the issues that I haven't dealt with.  I mean, I want to do everything.  I can't really narrow it down.  You should see my resume.  And although I usually excel at whatever I do, it doesn't exactly make me prime material for new companies. 

What I'm really considering is getting a Master's in teaching, which would enable me to mold young minds in my likeness, not just with my own kiddos, but also with YOURS!!  Looking forward to that, are you?  Perhaps I'll be seeing you sometime down the road at a parent teacher conference, where we can put the blame of your child's stupidity onto each other in order to make ourselves feel better about not having a fucking manual to drive one of these things.  Oh, and when we do meet, don't send your kid to school with an apple.  A martini mixer would be just fine, thanks.

When did I get old??

It's official.  I've officially crossed the line into aged territory.  I realized that last night, when I got to leave work early, planning to go out with a girlfriend, and yet never managed to make it back out of the house after I got home.  And why did I stay home?  Well, the prospect of my pajamas and some late night nookie sounded too good to pass up.  But we were going to go out!! We were going to have some young, single (hey, I can play pretend) fun!  But I swear, those pajamas looked at me and called my name and I just couldn't pass it up.  My first Saturday night off since I started this job, and I spend it at home eating and snuggling.  I woke up this morning realizing that this is the official descent into old lady land.  My kids are right.  Mom, you're old.  I'm so old that I couldn't even sleep in this morning.  Here I am, 8:00 am and I'm sitting here, still in my pj's, drinking a cup of delicious coffee writing to you rather than laying in bed after a late, swanky night out.  What the fuck is wrong with me??

These pajamas might be the issue.  They are the fuzzy, warm generic pajamas that they now sell in every single store.  Perhaps if I didn't have such comfy pj's I wouldn't be so tempted to slip them on and relax.  But maybe relaxation isn't the problem.  Maybe I'm just being confronted with my own change, and I'm not sure if I like it...or maybe I do, and that's another problem entirely.  Maybe I'll go hit up some yard sales this morning, surely another sign of aging.  Isn't it beautiful people?