Memorial Day, not Labor Day!

How do I get myself into these things. After living in this house 6 years without landscaping my husband has decided it's time to remedy the situation. Now?

If it is not apparent from the a fore mentioned time frame, it has only taken 6 years to bother him, now I'm finally over it. But here we are on the eve of Memorial Day weekend planning the great landscape. I'm now thinking I should be planning to just escape.

Have I also mentioned in past blogs how well my husband and I work together? (Note to Microsoft: insert sarcasm font here) And for my "Windows 7" commercial I think Cameron Diaz should play me.

Considering neither of us know what the fern we're doing and my husband is now having a tight ass fit and doesn't want to - splurge - his words on mulch or annuals I don't think this is going to turn out any better than what we have right now.

Perhaps I can figure out how to put up a picture or two of the before, during, and after. If there are no after pictures, one of us didn't make it. Stay Tuned!

Why bother with beauty?

So after almost a year, it was time for a hair cut. I'm not always antsy, depending on how bad last years haircut was, I may wait another 6-12 months. But I was antsy, I have some length so in case they screwed up I could still manage my standard ponytail. My hair was so dry and split at the ends it didn't even feel like hair anymore. It felt like I was tying up a straw bale.

I know women who have had the same haircut for years, go to the same place, the same person. What a gig! Where do I sign-up? I bop around more than a 16 year-old volleyball player without her bra. Finding someone who does a good job is hard enough. Finding one who is still there a year later is impossible.

I've decided that I am going to get a Cosmetologist licence. Why not? Where else could I get paid and tipped to screw up. No where. But yet we do all the time with hairdressers. Please, can we do away with the Kate Gosselin thing - IT'S AWFUL!!!! No one looks good with their hair cut short in the back and long in the front, you look like my four-year-old cut it. My real pet peeve, cutting bangs, that fall in your eyes. Really?

Maybe my expectations are too high. I would just like to pull my hair up when I am working out, or playing with the boys, but be able to let my hair down when I go to the store and not feel like a 40 something wrinkled pasty white mess. Is that too much to ask?

Control Freak + Aniexty Disorder = Bad Parenting

My husband and I were married almost ten years before we had children. Many of those years I was not ready, all of those years my husband was not ready. I once told a very good friend of ours that I thought it was illegal for us to reproduce because we were too much alike-crazy. Knowing us both very well they laughed until beer shot out of their nose and agreed a little too wholeheartedly.

Well, we did it anyway - twice. And there are times when I go to bed thinking, my poor children. My husband is a total control freak and I have suffered with an anxiety disorder ever since I can remember.

Case in point, this weekend. I'm PMS'ing and my husband, oh hell we're both on the rag. Is that too offensive? Sorry, deal with it! Consequently nothing the children have done is right. I tell them to get out of the kitchen and he tells them to go help mom. I send them outside to play and he yells at them to get in the house and clean up.

By now you may be giggling, or calling child protective services. But anywho you are probably assuming that we are, in general, in two separate places when these miscommunication happen. Wrong!

Today while sitting next to my husband I told the kids they could put their suit on and go play in the hose. Which the 7 year-old did immediately. Laughing, giggling, soaking himself not only with water but pure joy. At which time my husband stands up and yells, "We are wasting water, turn off the hose. The ground is over saturated you can fill up a bucket that's enough water."

I asked him to back off, and not very kindly. My mother would have been appalled at the language I chose. Then asked him if his own childhood was really that bad that we had to ruin theirs completely. He shut-up, for awhile. My poor kids!!

Since having children of my own, I have decided that children can not do two things at once - in particular: grow and listen.

Maybe it is just my children? Maybe it is just boys? But it has been my experience that we go through times of peace and times of war. Peace never lasts long enough though let me tell you.

When the kids are growing, physically or mentally, they can not hear me. Stay in the house until I get supper ready then we will go outside. BANG! the front door slams - they are outside. Stop yelling at your brother that hurts my heart, I DIDN'T YELL AT HIM!!!!!!! I wouldn't put that bath toy on my pee-pee if I were you because you may not - HELP, HELP, HELP!! Hello, McFly! You see where I am going with this.

Parenting books advice giving them room to grow. How much room do they need? Would an 8x8 ft cell be sufficient, just until this growing thing passes.

The power of ice cream

Blame it on the rain! yeah, yeah.....OK I don't even remember the rest of that song, but the chorus was brilliant. Blame it on the Rain!

We really had a beautiful April, not the showers that you are suppose to have so now we are paying for it. It feels like 40 days an 40 nights. When will the madness end. Usually I like a rainy day, just like a snow day it give you an excuse to kick back, slow down, watch a movie in the middle of the day. But when it goes on and on it starts to affect my mood.

Problems seem bigger, tasks seem harder, the world a little darker. Time for ice cream! Not just any ice cream will do, it has to be the $2.50 a scoop, high fat, French recipe that could just be applied to my hips. I'm not just making this up either - I've read it. There is a scientific reason for craving high fat foods that has to do with your endorphins. That's good enough for me so let me say...

I scream, you scream, we all scream for Ice Cream!

What the Heck!

To quote my nephew, What the Heck! I just looked at this website and realized that I have only posted 3 blogs in May - What the heck have I been doing?

Being a stay-at-home-Mom is so hard I can't get a load of laundry and a load a crap finished in a day! Jeez - maybe I did work with a union too long, I've gone soft.

Actually what I think I've gone is comfy. Isn't that what we all want. Comfort in our clothes, that's why we wear cotton, some of us WAY more than others. We want comfort in our news, which is why it is more fluff than substance. Comfort in our food, that's why we eat out. Comfort in our relationships, which is why we stop interscting and watch TV.

Well folks it is time for me to get a lot less comfortable!! Starting tomorrow ;-))
Promise.

Reality versus Illusions

I am very lucky to have this fabulous produce store very close and I am usually there three times a week. I have gotten to know all the staff, not by name (isn't that awful!) but everyone is friendly and we laugh, chat, even cry together from time to time.

The youngest staff member who recently married has had her first baby, a Boy! So were chatting and looking at pictures and of course - doing what ALL mothers do until their child turns 21 - telling the birth story. I am a firm believer that it is one of the coping mechanisms we use in order to even consider doing it again.

As she was telling me the story, and saying that what she thought she would feel and what she did feel where so out of line. She said I really thought that I would be so full of love and joy, that I would weep and smile, that the moment would be tender and beautiful. While she did describe all those feelings, she said they didn't happen until later - is that weird?

I don't think so. I remember being terrified, and fear started to give way to anxiety, and anxiety to relief. Literally! Because the baby was out, the labor was done, he was healthy and pink, and now what? It's not at all the Hollywood moment you expect it to be, it's more like, Miller time! and I don't really drink.

There is so much to absorb in those moments, hours, first few days. The things happening with your body alone - holy shitake mushrooms. Then there is this beautiful fragile creature expecting nothing and everything from you all at the same time.

I think about it like watching the corn grow. I grew up in farm country and funny thing about corn, it grows faster than you think. One day you notice them tilling the field and getting ready to plant, then you see sprouts, and by 4Th of July it's already knee high (usually way taller actually).

I guess it's a generic metaphor for life, used so often - children and seeds. But I think sometimes we forget, that everything starts with a seed and needs time to grow. Somethings will take a lifetime,and some take no time at all.

Where do they get this stuff?

As a mom, there are times when you look at your children flabbergasted and think, "Where in the world did that come from?". And then there are times when you look at your children in utter horror and think, "I didn't know that was genetic!"

Our seven-year-old went on a field trip today to a farm. We talked about it when he got home, he told us all about the goats, donkeys, and baby chicks. It was all very wholesome. Then I opened an email, his teacher sent. It's a picture from the field trip of his group and a text that said he just announced to everyone, "I love the smell of manure!"

Our four-year-old at Easter came out of pre-school all excited about the book they read. I asked what it was about, and what they did, and who he played with today. Usually very tight lipped, my son proceeds to tell me everything he learned about Jesus and Easter. He said, "We made a cwross." "You did!" I said feeling a sudden maternal rush at our new found connection. "What did you learn about the cross?" "That Jesus woves me very much" he said, then added "I told my teachers, Micheal Jackson woves me too."

I plead the fifth and stick to my original statement, Where in the heck do they get this stuff?

Trendy, from the dreaded "W"

It wasn't until I was a little older that I could appreciate my big sister. She had a tough job. Not only paving the way with the parents, but navigating the world without a big sister. She did an amazing job.

When I think of my sister, I think of the well dressed, hip, social butterfly. It was my sister who would say to me, "You are not going to wear that!" It was my sister who introduced me to Chinos, Docksides, Izods (collar up), penny loafers, tight perms, and bangs. Yes - I am showing my age, and NO I will not post the pictures.

Why is she the fashionista? Who knows, no one else in the family seems real concerned with being hip. But it is nice to have the inside scoop. Recently she mentioned that she spent way too much on a pair of skinny jeans. OK, so they are not just for junior high girls? Damn, not what I wanted to hear. But the fashoinista has spoken.

So the other night I was running to the dreaded "W" at 9:00 p.m. to get birthday party supplies for the soon-to-be 7 year old's party when what do I spy on the clearance rack? You guessed it - Skinny jeans - for $3.00. I figured that's a fashion statement worth a try.

Just don't tell my sister where they came from, I know what she'll say, "You are not going to wear that!"