Food for thought...

By the time my youngest child leaves her teenage years, Mark and I will have been parenting teenagers for 18 years. 18 years! 3 down...15 to go...

Lazy Saturday...

I don't get a lot of lazy days, so this is appreciated! The kids and I got the house cleaned first thing this morning and then went to the movies after we took the teenager to work. We all stayed up way too late last night, but I got another quilt square done. I realize it is taking me forever, but the one I worked on last night, one square? had 37 pieces of fabric in it! In one square! Geesh! I only have two more kits left, but each of them has two squares in it. I'm hoping to work on one tonight.
I miss my husband. It's especially difficult that he's gone since the trip didn't turn out exactly the way he had planned. All the training he had done for months has been kind of wasted and I know he's very disappointed, so it makes it even harder for him to be gone. AND to top it off, it appears the reason the trip was modified was a mistake anyway. Very annoying. He is getting to spend time with his dad and brother though and that's a great thing. He often gets time with his dad, but never with his brother. And he really misses his brother. So I'm happy for him.

we have Generations tomorrow, or at least the teenager and I do. SB has Snow Queen rehearsal so my mom is taking her and the younger two to the rehearsal. I'm really lucky to have my mom. She helps me out a lot when the kids have activities at the same time or I have something when the kids do and Mark is gone or needs to work. She's a real blessing!

Hope you all are having a safe and fun weekend!

Out of the Mouths of Babes

So the princess is having difficulty processing that someone kissed her yesterday at school. I guess, in her world, only family or really close friends kiss you. (In my world too!lol!) We were discussing it last night and she was explaining to FE what had happened. FE informed her that wouldn't happen at his school.
"We're allowed to hug and hold hands, but no kissing. I mean, if they allowed kissing, we'd have people falling in love all over the place!"

Friends

I think that one of the things moms worry about a lot is how their child will interact with peers. Will they have friends, will other kids like them, will they get teased or made fun of, will they be shy, will they be too aggressive, etc. Luckily, my older three children have always made friends very easily, even if they were/are shy around adults. I like to think it's really because they are just nice kids. Kind, sensitive, etc.

I'll admit to having been a bit worried about the Princess. Not that she's not kind or sweet, because she is. She's just so exuberant about everything and she's the baby so she gets her way a little more often than is probably good for her. I really had no idea how she would do in a setting with a bunch of kids her own age. My worry was pointless. As we were walking in to school today, one of the little girls came running up screaming "Hi Princess!" and asked to hold her hand. When she got in to her classroom, two other girls made a beeline for her. "Hi Princess!" One of the moms stopped me and said "I'm so glad Princess is here because my daughter is having a hard time separating but she loves Princess so she gets engaged with her and I'm able to leave without the tears". On the way out of school, two girls ran up to hold her hands and one asked if she could hug and kiss her before they went home. When we got in the van Princess sighed in the way only she can and said "I've got soooo many friends. Did you know Daisy became my friend today too??!" I think I'll stop worrying now!

Can you guess??

The prize o' the day goes to the person who can guess how many barbies my girls own. We're talking whole barbies they are allowed to play with, not the still in the box Barbies or myriad barbie heads or other body parts floating around. (Can you believe I found a FOOTLESS barbie when I was cleaning???) The person closest to the actual retail price without going over the correct number wins an all expense paid trip to the destination of their choice all the extra barbie heads! Let's hear it!!

Busy Week

There's not been a lot on my schedule, well no more than the usual with 4 kiddos!, but I've been keeping myself busy getting some things done around the house. Since I've started exercising every morning I have a lot of energy and it drives me crazy to sit in this chair for too long!

SB received an award at assembly on Monday, the first awards of the year! She was recognized for "excellent attitude and academics"! She generally fits into this category anyway, but she is having so much fun this year. She really loves school and is enjoying everything so much. I love it! Now if I could only get her to keep her room clean!!! I told her no more allowance until her room was clean. That was 5 weeks ago. I don't think she cares much because she hoards money like crazy and has enough to get her through this financial difficulty. I can't stand it anymore though so I'm going in today!

The teenager is driving more and more and getting better and better at it. I only gasped once during the drive last night! I'm not a very good passenger for very many people though so he's not alone!

Wish me luck on the bedroom. If you never hear from me again, just assume I died miserable in a pile of Polly Pockets and Barbies.

Have a good day!

Random

The worst thing about having the teenager drive my car? He's 6'4" and I'm not! Since Mark and I are about the same height my seat doesn't get adjusted when he drives, but now that the teenager is driving it I'm constantly having to readjust my seat. Dang tall kid...

The weekend has been busy...For Mark. He's been gone all day the past two days, yesterday for school stuff and today at a football game. I miss him. He'll be gone next weekend as well. Bah humbug!

I've started a new blog that is only about my weight loss journey. Feel free to read or not! The design is blah right now, but I wanted to get it going.

I am still really tired. I can't seem to get over this tired feeling. I think my meds might not be working right anymore. My levels were on the verge of not normal when I was checked in August. I'm going to give it another week or so and see how I feel, but my next blood check isn't until November and I'm just feeling like something isn't right.

I hope you all have had a great weekend! Where does the time go so quickly??!

Woohoo!!!!

We got the awaited post card in the mail today. SB was cast in The Snow Queen!!! She's going to be sooo happy!!

Updated: I had to call SB to tell her since she went home with a friend and I'll be out when she gets home. She was so excited. That was exactly the part she wanted! She even gave a little scream. Very cute!!

I am...

So tired. I was really fine this morning. Took the kids to school, the Princess to preschool, went to Mike and Karin's to practice, then Target (where I got to spend $70 on medication!Woohoo!!!), went grocery shopping (which had to be done today as FE is going camping right after school tomorrow with Grandpa), picked up the Princess, came home, unloaded and put away the groceries and ate lunch. I sat on the couch to read my book and fell asleep! And now I am dragging! But, I still have to go get FE and one of my daycare kids, come home and wait for said kid to get picked up, take the teenager to work, take the other daycare kid home, pick up SB from cheer, make dinner and get everything ready to start all over again tomorrow. I need a real nap!

How Rude!

Cell phones are one of life's great dichotomies. They are useful and wonderful tools, but also can be vulgar and rude. How many times have you heard a phone ring in church or at the movies and just rolled your eyes or looked around to see who the offending party was (and prayed desperately it wasn't your phone ringing!)? Well today's bad cell phone etiquette takes the cake, in my humble opinion. I was listening on the radio to the President of the United States addressing the United Nations when I heard it. The unmistakable tinny sound of a ringing cell phone. There are times I forget to turn my phone off or to vibrate, but I'm thinking if I were in the audience of the leader of the free world I might have double checked that!

Promises

I was feeling a little blue last night for various reasons. And for about the third time this week I just started crying out of nowhere and couldn't seem to get control over my emotions. The fact that it happened during Mass was unfortunate!

I've identified several things that I'm having difficulty with, one of which is the audition SB went to yesterday. There were about a hundred girls and there are only 54 parts for that age group. So half of the girls will not get cast. We'll find out later this week if she made it. I'm all about teaching her to lose gracefully, but she's worried about other people she knows getting cast if she doesn't and them being mean or cruel about it. SB was in a similar position the last two years when she auditioned with friends and she got cast and they didn't, but the fact of the matter is that SB is one of the nicest girls you'll ever meet and she would never hurt anyone. The same can not be said for some of the other girls.

Another thing that's been bugging me lately is that I used to have a lot of friends. Mark has been transferring all of our VHS tapes to DVD and so we've been watching footage of old birthday parties and such. I know why I used to have a lot of friends. Because I would take on everyone else's problems, listen endlessly and take on the problems as my own. I was on the phone for hours almost every day listening to all the troubles of everyone around me and just sucking up whatever emotions I had and internalizing them. When I stopped being as sympathetic a listener because I got sick of people whining all the time and never doing anything to fix their circumstances, I lost many of those same friends. I guess I just can't relate to a lot of people anymore. I mean, I have a GREAT marriage. I have a husband who helps do everything he can. He gets up in the morning, he stays up til all hours doing what needs to be done. I have kids who are self-reliant. Yesterday I was talking to a friend who was rushing around like crazy because her 15 year old boy had to go somewhere and didn't have any clean clothes. She works outside the home full time. This Boy is 15. I'm thinking if he doesn't have any clean clothes, maybe he should do laundry. But people don't want to hear that there are things they could be doing differently . They just want you to say "oh, you poor thing. You have a terrible life with your lazy husband, lazy kids, etc." I'm sorry, but I find it difficult to say those things anymore. You are CHOOSING this life! If your kids are 15 and don't know how to do their own laundry? Either teach them or shut up about it! If your husband won't help out? Then you have some talking to do. You're letting these things happen in your life. You are making the choice. Sorry, I got off on a rant there, but my point was that I miss having a lot of friends, but I can't be someone I'm not anymore. I can't take on the problems of the world as my own.

The last thing that I know is that as my kids are getting older I'm feeling less useful. And it's really my own doing. I have a lot to do around here, I'm just not getting it done. When I was crying to Mark about it last night, he said that I just needed to make promises to myself and do what I want to do. He's a list maker, a goal setter and I've never been much of one. But I took his advice and set some goals for myself this morning. It's 10 Am and I've already cleaned out and washed the car and cleaned up and vacuumed my courtyard. I'm still going to fill my birdfeeders, go to the bank and Costco and then after lunch I plan to sew another quilt square. You know the quilt from last Christmas?lol! I also have 9 yards of pink shiny fabric waiting to be made into a princess costume that I don't want to start on until I finish at least the squares for the quilt. So I'm getting my butt in gear. I have control over at least one of the things making me unhappy and I'm really going to work on it.

It is

My one year blogiversary! Woohoo! And I did not die. Why do I mention this?
Not only did I spend three hours at Chuck E. Cheese today, BUT I let the teenager drive home from driver's ed. I figured if he could drive the driver's ed teacher on the freeway he could drive me home on the side streets. He did a great job. I did get a little nervous when he was pulling in to the garage though! Yikes!!!

Overheard

FE to Princess: "Princess, do you want me to hypnotize you?"

I don't want to know...

Smartass Kid

The teenager had his first day of behind the wheel driver's ed today. He's done the class part, now it's just driving. He had to be at school at 5:30 AM! (Have I mentioned how much I love my husband? Because he was the one who got up at 5 and got the teenager to school!) Now the kid has never driven at all (well, he has occasionally held the steering wheel for me for a second, but that's it!) so I was nervous, but excited for him. He called when he got back to school and I asked him how it went. This is what he said to me..."Well, I'm not dead, so I guess it went okay."
I'm thinking that when he has to be there at 6:30 AM tomorrow he's on his own!

Stay Off the Roads!

The teenager starts driving tomorrow. Don't say I didn't warn you!

5

The Princess-45 seconds old
Originally uploaded by mlm4.

5 years ago today my baby was born. She was an unexpected miracle. She has brought such joy to our family. She's a whirling, twirling ball of energy. She is precious and loving and stubborn and tempermental. She's turned much of my hair gray, but she has also given me many of my laugh lines. I can't remember life before she came along. She was a blessing in a time of deep sorrow in this country. A ray of light to hang on to. Hope in human form. Happy Happy 5th Birthday My Princess!!

It's Friday!!!!!

Woohoo! Even though it's Generations weekend, it's the first one of the year so I'm excited about it!lol!
Today one of SB's friends is coming home with us for a bit and then after dinner we're meeting the inlaws at The Cheesecake Factory for dessert to celebrate my mother-in-law's birthday! She's on a soft foods only diet or else we would be going out to dinner, but dessert is fine with me!
Tomorrow is rehearsal and college football (I LOVE football season!!! Go WILDCATS!!) and hanging out (well, for me and the kids. Mark will be working on Generations AFTER he hikes in the morning at some ungodly hour with his dad!). Sunday is Generations and church. I'm really ready for this weekend!


I know you all already know how brilliant my kiddos are, but did I tell you that the teenager was forced to switch math classes? His teacher offered him the choice last year to switch to honors and he said no(too much work you know!). He ended up with the same teacher this year who told him he had to switch to honors because he the regular class was far too easy. Truth be told, he should be in all honors classes as he's got a really deep thinking brilliant mind, but he's not interested and I'm not interested in arguing with him about it. Right now though he's got straight A's. His English teacher has nothing but praise for the papers he's writing. He's the defense attorney for a mock trail in History(and I know some of you think he never even talks! See, he does!) He's really working hard this year which is so interesting. It seems to me that getting a job has really changed how he applies himself at school. I might have thought that he would be worn out from working and not work as hard at school, but it's the opposite. He's working about 25 hours a week, saving 90% of the money, and doing great at school. Is this just him maturing? Whatever the cause I'm really grateful!

Hope all of you have a lovely wonderful weekend full of blessings!

Still Tired

The last two days have been like two weeks rolled into 2 days. I need a nap!

Tired!

I honestly worked or was running the entire day yesterday getting stuff done for the party last night. Mark did make me take a break to go have lunch with the kids since he took the day off, but we both were working all day. I don't get it. We had a gathering here last weekend, so the house wasn't a mess... Mark did mow both lawns and do the outside work and we did do all the laundry and I had a cake to bake and decorate, but I can't figure out the time... I honesty spent about 5 minutes on the computer and Mark never sat down at all...Crazy!

Anyway, the party was fun for FE, he had a great birthday. He had two friends stay to spend the night, but they went to bed around 11. They did get up at 6:30, but I was already up as I had a NIGHTMARE! Which I'll tell you about in a minute. Mark left about 5:20 to go pick up his dad and go hiking. He amazes me. He took the day off work yesterday, but still got up at 6, made breakfast for the kids, worked around the house and outside all day, was up until after 11, and still managed to get up and go hiking this morning. And we're going out for our Anniversary celebration tonight so it'll be another late night ;-)

Now, about my nightmare...We were at dance recital and the princess was dancing in two dances, but different shows. We hadn't seen the program and had her dressed in one of her outfits. For some reason Mark was backstage helping her get ready. I went back and someone had a program. I looked at it and realized she was wearing the wrong outfit and that her dance was next!! So, we got her dressed and ran out the dressing room door to try to get her backstage on time, but there was a huge wall I had to jump off of while holding her to get to the backstage area. I heard the beginning of her song as I was trying to get off the wall and I woke up completely frantic! Bizarre!! What does this mean oh interpreter of dreams???!!!

Anyway, hope you all have a lovely long weekend. I'm taking my girls and going shopping today!

FYI

Little boy slumber parties are infinitely quieter and more subdued than little girl slumber parties. And little boys go to sleep when they are told!