Terrible Two's My Ass!

Whoever said "terrible twos" must have never had a child.  With both of my children, two was my favorite.  I mean, they were still talking with lisps, still very soft, cuddly, and cute. Sure, they said no and had a few minor meltdowns, but in the scheme of things, were still of the opinion that Mommy and Daddy make the rules and I am supposed to follow them.  I swear, when each of them turned 3, it was like an internal lightswitch was automatically flipped from off to on.  I have no idea how this happened; all that I know is that my children went from being loving, sweet-hearted, even-tempered little humans into whiny, meltdown every 15 minutes, "NO WAY!", crazy, hitting, angry little monsters. 

Has this happened in your house? 

What the hell happened?  This kid is 3.  Just so that you know.  He is challenging his mother, and winning!

I know it's not natural to actually beat your children, but I'm telling you, I've Ally McBealed some serious ass whoopings in my head.  I firmly believe that all mothers have this happen to them.  I think we're fine as long as we don't actually go through with the images. 

My little angels know just how to push Mommy's buttons.  And this tattle-taleing shit has got to stop as well.  "Mommy, Sissy won't let me play with her lion."  "Mommy, Bubba just got into the Play-Doh."  "Mommy, Bubba just bit me"  That one was my favorite.  Because they were playing "The Fox and the Hound"  and he was pretending to be a dog who bites.  I tell my kids that if someone is bleeding or otherwise seriously injured, come let me know.  Other than that, I expect you to be able to work things out between yourselves. 

Damn.  I love my kids.  They are the most wonderful, amazing, beautiful, funny, creative, genius things in my life.  They are all the most terrible, life-damaging, insanity challenging, time crunching, hair-pulling, vodka-drinking (oh wait, that's me), self-questioning, well, you get the point.  Unless you count their father.  That's a whole different blog.  :)

Twists and turns

My life is complicated.  No, not my marriage or my kids or anything.  Just the path that I am walking down.  I have a tendency to plan out these large, complicated goals for myself, and then find a reason why I can't actually accomplish them.  I graduate in December, which is awesome.  What's the problem you ask?  Well, what the hell am I going to do with myself after that?  Does anyone else out there find themselves in this situation?  I had a plan last year.  I was going to go to law school and fight for justice for those who can't fight for it themselves.  Then I realized just how much time that was going to take away from my kids.  Ya'll know I can't miss that much T-Ball!!  Plus there's the cost.  Where on earth was I going to come up with that money?  The idea of missing out on so much of my kids' lives and not being able to provide for them for three more years...well, that was just too much for me. 

So I changed my plan.  I decided that I would go and work for a government agency that would pay for me to get my Master's of Social Work, get my clinical hours in, and then be able to do private practice therapy, which is still a pretty darn good living.  Now I'm questioning that too.  I interned at this agency for a short period of time, and realized that I just can't do that kind of work.  It is too heart breaking and doesn't do enough problem solving for me.  I still want to do the Master's thing, and I know that I'll do it, but now I'm concerned about how I'm going to get there.  It's a scary thing, uncertainty.  I'm used to it, but it doesn't make life any less scary. 

I hope I pick the right path this time...I'm tired of running into walls.  Although the climbing over is good for my thighs. 

Money matters....

Money means a lot.  It can mean the difference between healthcare or no healthcare.  (For me its a no healthcare, lol).  It can mean McDonald's or Olive Garden.  It can mean electricity on or off.  It also means a lot of fights and heartache.  A world without money would not turn round very well, but sometimes I wonder if all the headache about money is truly worth the headache.  I have gotten pretty good at controlling our money outflow in our household.  It's that input that keeps getting to me.  My hubby works extra hard to get his ass out there and bring us in the dollars, but it just seems that those dollars are getting shorter and shorter these days. 

I've been blessed enough to not have to work for the last 5 months or so, but I recently picked up a new bartending job because we are stretched beyond our input, once again.  I've even become one of those crazy coupon ladies that you see on TLC.  And the kids don't get it.  Hell, Emily thinks that we're rich!  She even told me so!  Apparently money is of no consequence to them, and why should it be?  They shouldn't have to worry about Mom and Dad not being able to pay for the fun stuff.  Most of the time they don't...they're just happy to be loved by everyone in our house.  They have what they need, and a lot of what they want. 

So why can't I get over it?  I know that I'm blessed, beyond measure, but is it really so wrong to not want to have to worry about the dollars in the bank?  I know that our future is right around the corner, and I know in my heart that we will not have to live like this forever. I know that we have a plan, and we're going to get there.  Right now I think I need to spend a little more time volunteering, because seeing the lives that I do when I volunteer helps me remember that I am SOOOOO beyond blessed.  Life could be much worse, in so many ways.  So many people are out there struggling even more than I am, so I need to just get over myself, give my family a big kiss, and keep on walking.  :)

I'm BAAACK!!

It's been awhile my friends.  I am sorry, life has been crazy!  As if you didn't understand.  :)  I've been catching up with my kids and husband, school, work, all the things that keep me from writing this blog.  I've had to take two trips home to California, which shook me to my core.  But here I am, back in all my mommy glory!

The kids are doing well...crazy as ever, but well.  Emily just finished up her Pre-K and Ethan is finally potty trained!  YEA!!!  We are trying to figure out daycare for the summer, because daddy is busy busy busy, and mommy is working as well as doing my internship and two summer classes.  This next month is going to be C-R-A-Z-Y.  But it should be well worth it.  Once summer is done, one more semester and I will be officially a college graduate.  Who knows where life will go from there, but I will have a bachelor's degree.  The plan is to go to work and get my Master's at the same time, but really, does life ever go as planned?  Maybe that's just me. 

My kids are playing Brother Bear right now, which consists of them yelling at each other over who is which bear.  They crack me up.  I'm going to meet a friend and take them out of the house to the kids museum here in town.  Gonna wear them out good, so that they'll go to bed early tonight.  Ha~yeah right.  I have to say, life is a crazy train that I jumped on board and I'm just riding until I reach whatever destination God takes me.  We're still struggling, but I think that the struggle is the part that makes it all worthwhile.  One of these days we will look back and say, "Look what we made it through.  Wasn't that crazy?  You remember the time...." 

Live it!  Love it!  Have a blast everyone! 

Time out time!

I am sitting at my computer, looking around my house and thinking that I'd rather be at the bar right now.  Ha!  Yeah, right.  Like I have time for the bar.  My list of things to do today is rather long and intimidating, although I have already done a 20 minute presentation in class as well as meet with my advisor.  Not to mention the fact that I took my dad to pick up coffee and grabbed some protein shakes at GNC.  I do still have to clean my house and run some errands today, plus the T-Ball game this evening.  Oh yeah, and I have to get creative with some penises.  (I'm having a passion party tomorrow night  yea!)

Have you ever had to argue with someone about something that you know is right, but they refuse to even entertain the option?  I did that this morning.  No, it wasn't my children, although Ethan and I have that same argument about green vegetables every evening.  You all know that I am in college, and that I graduate in December.  I was all prepared for my final semester to be a relaxing 12 hour, easy semester.  But lo and behold, Texas Tech will not accept my Speech transfer credit as the communication hours that I need.  That's what the meeting with the advisor was about.  I sat in the office, tears threatening to spill over onto her desk, and yet she unwaverinly tells me that it's just not going to happen.  C'mon!!!  I have a 4.0 GPA and waaaaaaay too many credit hours to number.  Let me have this one!  I'm so frustrated that I have to spend another $800 for a class that, in my opinion, will no better prepare me for my career. 

And so I lose.  Which sucks for me.  But I suppose I will take the stupid class, get my A, graduate, and wave goodbye to Lubbock and Texas Tech as I drive into the sunset toward California.  Ugh.  I mean, it sounds great, really, just not the whole take that extra class part. 

I'm gonna go put on some music and dance with my mop now.  Lady Gaga therapy, here I come!!

Spring break equals spring cleaning!!

Wow.  Spring break is over.  I can't believe how fast time goes by anymore.  It seems that my elders were correct when they told me that the older I got, the faster it would fly.  I try to tell my kids that, but they react with the same nonchalance that I had when I was a kid.  Plus, I'm Mom.  What do I know? 

We had a great spring break this year.  I spent time with both kids, together and one on one.  We also made some new friends who happen to live extremely close.  Married, with three kids, so we've got lots of commonalities.  Love it!  We've been visiting a lot over spring break.  Oh, and my daughter is totally in love with her son.  It's hilarious.  She told me yesterday that he is her boyfriend.  HA!  I threatened to tell him what she said and she turned red as she begged me to keep my mouth shut.  Hilarious!

Because it was spring break I though that I would get my house cleaned.  You know, all nice and tidy and such.  I even had the great idea of having a yard sale.  I pulled everything out of the shed and the house that I could, bought some doughnuts and lemonade for the kids to sell to customers, and woke up early on the morning of the sale.  As I was getting everything ready I realized that there were ominous looking clouds looming above my head.  I decided not to worry about it, as I had already gotten everything out of the house.  I mean, it hasn't really rained all season, so why would this day be any different?  I continued arranging all of our old crap that we were trying to push off onto unsuspecting customers, I realized that I had not had one customer. 

Usually by around 9 there are plenty of earlybirds at a yard sale.  This Saturday though, nothing.  What was going on????  Where was everyone?  I felt a drop of rain on my cheek.  Oh hell no.  But yes, it sure was. 

The rain started coming down for about 1-2 minutes.  It left fat water droplets on everything, including the electronics.  I looked at my yard sale in dismay and made a decision.  Fuck this.  I started grabbing TV's and stomped into the house.  Shit!~  I was cussing out the world as I carried everything back inside.  This is what I get for trying to clean my house.  Now my house looks like an episode of Hoarders rather than the sparkling clean image from a Betty Crocker magazine.  The Salvation Army is coming to pick up most of it tomorrrow.

I did manage to sell a bunch of the old crap on craigslist later on that day, which made me feel a tad bit better about spending my spring break on a useless task.  I still plan to get this house cleaned, but as I look around at my life and all of the stuff that's in it, I realize that even if I get rid of everything, my husband will surely come home with a truckload of stuff to replace it.  And so it goes.

Information station...no thanks!

I have realized that most of my readers do not like the informational articles that I post.  What's the matter?  Already bombarded by the torrent of terrible news each day?  I suppose I'll keep ya'll happy and stick with the stuff you like...humor about myself and my kiddos.  :)

So yesterday was crazy.  That's right, crazy.  It was a mommy day that equals bitter-sweet.  We had a packed day, so we got started early.  We woke up at around 9 (hey, that's early for the first day of spring break), and got ready to go to the gym.  I did some paperwork when I realized that my class wasn't until 11:30 and the kids finished up with tooth brushing and hair getting did.  We jumped in the car at about 10:30 when I realized that we hadn't gotten a present for the birthday party we were attending later. 

ZOOM!  I start to back the car out of the driveway when Ethan says," MOMMY!!!  You haf to buckle me up!!" 

Oops!  I stop the car and reach into the backseat to get him safely tucked into his booster.  I continue to back down the driveway and make it to the mall in record time.  We run (literally) through the mall in a mad search for Claire's.  My daughter picks out some overpriced little girl goodies and we run (literally again) back out to the car, after a quick stop into Victoria's Secret of course.   

We get back into the car and hit it down the road toward the gym.  I get the kids into their little classroom, which is awesome by the way.  I even want to play in there!  Anyway, I go into the workout room and start up an hour and a half FIESTA! workout.  It was pretty amazing, just so that you know.  If you have a chance to do it, do it.  Once the workout is over I smell and look terrible, so I go into the ladies room to refresh myself a bit, which doesn't really work.  I go and grab the kids and we rush home.

At home, I jump into the shower after throwing a crappy lunch together for the kids.  I wash the stank off of myself and thrown some clothes on. 

"EMILY!!  Are you dressed for T-Ball????"

Of course not.  So we rush to find a red shirt, because of course their uniforms STILL aren't in.  She's been borrowing Ethan's shirts, because we seem to have a shortage in her closet. Yup, my 5 year old can wear my 2 year old's clothing.  He is huge.  I grab some snacks for Ethan during the game, throw Emily's hair into some messy pigtails and off we go.

We get to the game and my husband is already there.  He's been at work all morning, but made time to come watch Em play.  :)  He and I take turns chasing our 2 year old around and trying to coach our little catcher, who played pretty damn well, I'll have you know.  We watch the Rangers play their little hearts out, struggling to catch up with the other team, which seems to have a neverending lineup of star hitters.  The game is over and we didn't win, but the team is upbeat, nevertheless.  We walk away from the tournament and drive home to get ready for the birthday party. 

Emily whines about wanting to wear her T-Ball uniform to show her friend, and then we argue about why it's not really very good birthday party attire.  Plus she was staying the night with her friend and I needed to throw the red shirt and pants into the washer.  I finally get her to put on a cute striped green shirt with some blue jeans, fix her hair yet again, and once again we make our way toward another destination. 

We get to the birthday party, filled with kids, most around 7 and under, who are eager to bowl, eat, and play the assortment of games that lights an entire section of the building we are in.  The kids get their bowling shoes on and play a couple of rounds of awful bowling.  Remember, these are little kids, so they can barely make the ball all the way down the aisle.  My son even got one stuck at one point.  Oh, and did I mention that he ran down the aisle a couple of times, busting his head at least once?  That kid is a walking concussion.  Once we got a ramp for them the games finally got moving.  They had a blast, and all of the adults, who outnumbered the kids by about 3:1, had fun watching them. 

Well, mostly.  Ethan was entertained for about 10 minutes.  After that, he decided that my workout at the gym that morning had not been enough.  He proceeds to run away at every available chance, and I have to chase him down and bring him back.  This continues throughout the party...birthday cake, presents, everything.  I even had to enlist the help of the staff at one point in order to locate my little delinquint.  By the end of the party, Ethan is so tired that he probably won't go to sleep later, if you know what I mean.  We gave Emily her kisses goodbye (this is her first real sleepover), and I walk away wondering if she will miss us tonight. 

Did I tell you that Ethan is PISSED?  He is so mad that he doesn't get to go with his sister.  In his mind, this is complete bullshit.  He ALWAYS goes with sissy!!  "Why can't I go??????? I want to go with my sissy!!"

We calm him down by way of rock music and the gentle sway of the car as we drive toward our house.  We decided that since Emily was gone, what a great night to have a date night!  My dad agrees that if Ethan is asleep, he'll have no problem keeping an eye on him for a couple of hours.  So we try to get Ethan to fall asleep.  Alas, no.  It is not to be.  The child who has not slept in a full day is STILL pissed off that Emily is not home and he is.  So he cries.  And he whines.  And he fights.  And finally...wait, is he.....fast asleep. 

By this point, I don't know if I want to go on a date; I am so ready to fall on my pillow.  My husband convinces me that it will be fun, so I get dressed and we head out.  We go to our favorite restaurant and eat some delicious Iron Chef looking food (I'm telling you, this place is phenomenal).  I am stuffed and tell him that I want to go home and put myself into a food coma.  He says, "No!  We're going OUT!"  Sweet man.  He takes me to an indoor mini putt putt golf course and we have a blast playing.  We haven't been out on a real date like this in SOOOO long.  We even took those goofy pictures together.  You know, the 4 pictures on strip with goofy faces?  Yeah, it was fun.  We play a game of table hockey and I smash my finger hard enough for it to go numb, and so we end the night. 

As my head hit the pillow I realized just how worn out I am.  And yet, I feel happily fulfilled.  What a day, what a day.