Cringe!

Right now I'm listening to one of the defining albums of my youth.

Live Through This-Hole

I wanted to be Courtney Love SO BAD when I was 16. We had a "band" in high school (in which all 4 of us played the guitar...) and I had visions of myself onstage in a ratted out baby doll with one foot perched on my speaker, screaming into the mic.

One day my best friend and I sang a song for her uncle and asked him which of our voices sounded the most like Love's voice. Way to put him on the spot huh? He told me my voice was too nice. I vowed that day to chainsmoke until I had that same rasp. Duh, alcoholic and heroin addiction? Anyway.

I had a teaser the other day about finding my diary from 15+ years ago. As embarrassing as it is, and it's TRULY EMBARRASSING, I'm feeling a tad nostalgic. So I'm going to post an excerpt. I had to dig for one that didn't make me want to hit myself in the head too hard. I was such a....teenager.

Kids today think they're emo. They gots nothing on a 16 year old from the 90's. For example:

June 11, 1995

Dear Diary,
I'm trying to be calm and cool but I'm SOOO HAPPY (even as a
teenager I wrote in all caps)!!!
Kay, Steve & Alana broke up. I guess it was a while ago, but that's
beside the point. Do you think I'm obsessed? Ya? Oh well. I can remember when I
thought I was over Steve-hah! I just like him so much. I wonder what kind of
kisser he is. I think I could make a relationship with him better than that
bitch Alana. On Friday I did 10 gravol tabs and tripped so bad. God, it was
freaky. I don't know if I'm ever gonna do that again. I hear that Steve does
prescription drugs. I don't know about that guy. Oh well, he can't influence me.
Right? I have a feeling (and it better happen) that he's gonna talk to me this
week. I'll tell you when he does.

Luv Chan

June 12, 1995

Dear Diary,
I'm in a really bitchy mood right now, and I don't know why. So I'm
trying to keep to myself as much as possible. My dear sweet old parents aren't
getting the drift that I like being in my room. "Come outside". Fuck that!
Maybe I'll write more later. FUCK

Lovely hey? Ahhhh to be 16 again. And for the record, Steve never did notice me and yes, I WAS obsessed with him all through high school. I wrote a song about how much I hated Alana. I defaced her picture in my yearbook.

Enjoy!

Motherhood is a thankless job.

I gave Liam the benefit of the doubt and let him pack his own duffel bag for a 7 day snowboarding trip:

-6 pairs of jeans.
-1 pair of sweats.
-3 pajama pants.
-4 short sleeved shirt (for the MOUNTAINS!!)
-3 pairs of underwear.
-1 pair of socks.

Oh ya, and 6 X-Box games.

....

Um. Toothbrush and toothpaste? Enough socks and underwear? Maybe a long sleeve shirt or two, and at LEAST one sweater?

Looks like some 11 year olds still need their mommies. Not that there will be even a whisper of appreciation when he gets home.

Shenanigans.

I will be the first one to admit that my younger two children are hooligans. I try to deny it and prefer to pretend that other people think they're as cute as we do. In my more lucid moments the reality up and hits me upside the head. They're quite monster-ish.

Case in point, and this illustrates my point so precisely that it makes me want to weep;

Josh was hungry, it wasn't quite lunchtime yet so I set a bowl of cottage cheese on the table for him to eat. I tried to make him sit in his chair so I could strap him in but he was being so damn whiney that I decided to let him sit (stand) on the bench to eat it.

Jeff and I were chatting about stuff. The grocery list I think. I was keeping an eye on Josh but he's a wily one and knows that if he's good then my attention wanders and he has a small window of time where he can create mayhem.

Sure enough a couple minutes pass and then Nicky comes into the kitchen. "Oh my Gawd, my sock is messy".

Jeff takes a quick look and wonders out loud how he got cottage cheese, of all things, on his sock.

SHIT. Yup Josh isn't at the table. I run for paper towels and a wet cloth to clean up whatever disaster has occurred in the living room. Jeff runs to the living room to assess the damage.

The scene: a bowlful of cottage cheese dumped in the corner of the couch with a nice pile dripping down the back of the couch into a puddle at the bottom of one of the wicker baskets that hold toys. They like to turn the baskets on their side and shove them up to the couch so they can climb up and over the couch. Ya.

Josh is happily smooshing the mess around on the floor and Nicky is yelling "bad boy Josh, oh my Gawd you're so messy", while helping smoosh the cottage cheese around.

Kids-1/parents-0.

To all the people to whom we've subjected our children, we apologize. We know they're unruly, but it's cute. Right?

Damage control.

I broke down the other day and signed up for Weight Watchers again. It irks me to have to do it because I know what I can and can not be eating. What's high in calories and blah blah blah.

Me: I really want some halloween candy.

My Conscience: you know, you've been eating quite a bit of that stuff in the past few weeks.

Me: It tastes so good. I hardly ever indulge in chocolate.

My Conscience: but instead of 10 snack size chocolates, how about just 2?

Me: shut up. I'm PMSing.

My Conscience: for 2 weeks huh? Whatever you say.

Me: nom nom nom.

If you didn't guess, that's an example of my internal dialogue. It gotten a little out of hand. And while I realise a 6 pound weight gain over the course of 14 days can't just be attributed to smarties and coffee crisps, it was the catalyst.

I need a visual reminder of where I'm standing on a daily basis. An easy, user-friendly program. So as much as it killed me to spend $85 for 3 months just to reinforce something I already know, it had to be done.

So we're back on the bandwagon at 137 pounds as of this past Monday.

However, I have a coffee addiction. Specifically a coffee creamer addiction. So I decided to not count my creamer in my points. I am breaking the rules. I'm such a rebel.

Neener neener.

By no means are my kids good sleepers. Wait, that's not entirely true. Liam is a good sleeper. Then again he's 11 and doesn't need me to hold his hand anymore. So as much as he counts, he doesn't count in this instance.

No, the needy toddlers are not good sleepers. In a 24 hour period I can count on only a solid 3 hours of not having at least one of them hanging off some part of my body. That would be between when they're put to bed for the night and when Josh wakes up for the first time.

And then the second time. And the third time. And oh wait, lets thrown in just one more, fun times!

I digress.

Time change does weird things to kids and none of those weird things are good. Most of them have to do with sleeping patterns getting jacked up and crankiness and much hair pulling of parents. Or so I hear.

For 11 years I've dreaded time change because of the potential for disaster. All of my kids have naturally put themselves on pretty strict schedules, so a whole hour of change? Lord, there's just no way they should be able to deal with that easily.

Except mine do, with a minimum of fuss. It's not like they didn't have meltdowns or get really tired. They did, but it's so par for the course here that I barely noticed it.

Do you want to hit me for escaping time change relatively unscathed? That's okay, I want to hit you for having good sleepers.

Unless you don't have good sleepers and STILL got shafted by time change. In that case you have my permission to call me a smug bitch.

Watch, since I dared open my mouth about my good fortune I will never have a decent time change experience again. Karma's like that.

Sometimes the coffee just can't brew fast enough.

I was expecting a difficult night of sleeping last night. Indeed, if any parent doesn't expect some sort of fall-out from Halloween then they're just naive.

My sleepless night didn't come from toddlers hopped up on sugar though. I know, it shocked me too.

We headed to bed around midnight, as we usually do. I thought my luck had already run out with getting all the kids in to their beds at respectable times without too many tantrums or pouty faces about candy, and was expecting Josh to wake up within the next 30 seconds. So I didn't go to sleep right away and decided to read until he woke up.

45 minutes later he was still sleeping so I decided that I would just go to sleep too. That's when the snoring started. It wasn't too awful at first, just enough to keep me from actually falling all the way asleep.

Along came 1:30. A couple things happened at this point; Josh woke up and I grabbed him and brought him into our bed. And the snoring escalated.

I started out small. A couple kicks to his shins to get him to shut the hell up. Each kick interrupted the snoring for only about 5 seconds, so I moved on to the gentle shoulder shake. No more success there.

Okay, we'll try the combination shoulder shake/whisper to roll over. Keep in mind that I have a restless toddler attached to my boob so I'm trying to not make more noise than necessary. But still no success.

By this point I'm getting pissy. Josh would be almost fully asleep and then a particularily loud choking/gurgling/snort would wake him up. Is it just me, or is snoring the most disgusting and annoying sound another person can make? It makes my skin crawl.

I stopped holding back. A couple shoves to the chest, a few jabs to the side and nothing. Finally a loud command to roll over paired with me physically helping him do so, and he was facing the other way. This usually makes the snoring stop at least long enough for me to fall sleep but not this time. And there was no waking up the man either, he was dead to the world.

So at 2:15 am, after getting pretty much no sleep yet, I finally gave in and moved to the couch. With the baby. Who is a wiggler. Needless to say, the amount of sleep I got on that couch was not signifigantly more than I would have gotten in bed with my snoring husband, but at least he's still alive today.

Hanging on to my good mood.

All over the place today. There's too much bitchiness in this house to concentrate on just one thing. I have about 30 seconds in between running interference on these children.

Snow. It's so beautiful and white and pretty. It also causes my 2 year old to go nuts and whine and cry at the window because he wants to go outsiiiiide. So far I've fetched 6 snowballs just to shut him up.

Nothing is working to shut up the youngest one. I'm in the process of cutting out the morning nap in the hopes that the afternoon nap and bedtime goes more smoothly. You can only imagine his state right now. Tired and cranky doesn't even begin to describe. Right now he's got his head buried in my back and is crying.

Also, did you know that it's always your fault if your child forgets to set his alarm clock and wakes up 15 minutes before he's supposed to be out the door to school? I was reminded of that fact this morning. The atmosphere around here was eerily similar to every morning for the first 7 years of his life, a time that I never ever ever want to go back to. Horrors.

Me? I'm doing pretty good! These kids can't get me down, no matter how hard they try. I lost 3 pounds in the last week and so I'm well on my way to getting rid of that last 13 pounds that I mentioned a couple posts ago. Go Me!

No excuses not to get all my chores done now...damn.

I'm always on the lookout for ways to try and organize my life. For this reason, checklists really appeal to me. They also speak to the rule follower in me. Because deep down I'm a huge prissy rule follower. And checklists make me feel like I've broken the rules if I haven't done everything on them.

As I was surfing around on the net a couple nights ago, I stumbled on a site called Motivated Moms. I would link to it but I don't know how to. Feel free to educate me on how to do this.

Moving on, I came across this site. It has a downloadable calendar that spells it all out for you. Hell ya! Here's my $2, thanks PayPal!

It's pretty plain jane though, so I decided to fancy it up with some paper and whatnot, glued some magnets onto the back and voila:



And since this is a crafty kinda post, I also wanted to share the page I made last night of my little bundle of awesomeness, Josh.



I'd just like to tell Jess, I tried to make it bigger but it just ended up cutting off half the picture. Sorry dude.

Anyway, thanks for looking at my craftiness!

Wowzers.

Time to talk about laundry. My life revolves around laundry for the first couple days of every week. I wake up on Monday mornings resolved to do better! and get it all done! in one day!

I've got a pretty good system down but there's just so damn much of it. For a family of 5 we've got: whites, reds/oranges, greens/blues, darks, jeans, towels, and two complete loads of miniature humans clothes.

That's a lot, but that's not it. Add in the bedding: our king size set takes two seperate loads, then Liam's bedding, and then those darn mini humans again in one more load.

1 2 3....8 9...11...12. Wait. Did I count that right? Yup. 12 loads of laundry every week.

Maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself when it's not all completed in one day. I never realised just how many loads there were.

I was going to expand upon this post about how proud I was that I took my moms advice and ironed my sheets and pillowcases this time around. But maybe I should just stop here and go downstairs and switch over the load.

Good plan.

Turning over another new leaf.

It's time to get back in the saddle. From January to June-ish I dropped a total of 31 pounds which is awesome. Go Me!

From June-ish to now I've managed to gain back 5 of those pounds. That may not seem too bad but dudes, let's do the math. If I can gain 5 pounds in 4 months then in a year I will have gained 15 pounds. In 5 years that's 75 pounds.

Kill me now.

It's those damn chips. I'm not picky, I'll eat any kind. I do prefer some tasty salt & vinegar but if all that's left is bbq well frick, pass 'em on over this way.

If I've got a hankering for some nacho's with cheese melted all over them and a couple of sides of salsa and sour cream, bring it on.

I've sent Jeff to the store at 10 pm to pick me up some chips and a slurpee. Without even the excuse of being pregnant.

The difference between my eating habits now and my eating habits 9 months ago is, when I put a single chip in my mouth I know exactly how bad it is and I have to ask myself "is this really worth it?"

So far, yes. Yes, yes, 1000 times yes. Literally.

Not any more though, I just have to find the willpower somewhere.

Today, 133 pounds. Here we go!

Hippies are really just lazy people.

Josh just celebrated his 1st birthday and he's still 150% attached to the boob. It's the longest I've been able to nurse any of my babies and there's no end in sight. It doesn't stress me out anymore though.

I joked this weekend at his party that he'd be 4 and still nursing. My sister freaked out even though she knows I'm JOKING. And then she called me a hippie.

Her reasoning? And keep in mind that this is gathered over the course of many daily conversations during which we discuss our completely opposite methods of parenting.

I breastfeed, happily! It's taken me a mother effing long time to accept it though.

I (used to) use cloth diapers. But then I got lazy about washing diapers for 2 kids and just bought disposables.

I guage my youngins health by inspecting their bowel movements. That one I'll admit is kinda gross.

I co-sleep. Another example of laziness, I can't imagine waking up in the middle night and trying to stay awake during a feeding in order to lay the sweet little bambino back in his crib.

I don't run to the doctor's office every time they get a sniffle, instead letting their body's fight infection on their own if at all possible. This one is mostly because I have a big fat mental block on taking any kind of medicine. I make an exception for Tylenol during teething however. I'm not a martyr.

I'm about as relaxed as if I HAD actually just smoked a big fatty when it comes to them licking juice off the sidewalk or eating sand from the backyard. ...again, could be the laziness kicking in. I brush it off by saying I'm allowing them to build up their immune systems.

So, while I admit I do approach parenting in a more earthy and casual manner it's probably just laziness.

"Aw fuckit"

My 2 year old uses potty language appropriately. Oh dear lord. He uses it to express his anger or frustration.

I'll admit, it's kinda cute to witness.

I'll also admit, Jeff and I don't really censor our language around here. In my case, a quick "oh for FUCK sake" releases some of the tension of a situation and allows me to gain some patience.

Trust me, I have learned patience over the years of being a parent and it definitely did NOT come naturally. I'm not patient by nature. Impatience is a key personality trait of mine. Anyone close to me will confirm this truth.

I suspect that in Jeff's case it's much the same, except the explosion would be a little more like this:

My reaction x 1 billion = the world falling of it's axis and getting sucked into a black hole and now the world has come to an end.

...

Okay, perhaps a little dramatic. And I digress.

So we swear here. Some more than others. We've tried policing our language but it's hard and we haven't been too successful.

So here's the new plan. We're just ignoring it until he's a bit older, then soap in the mouth if he hasn't outgrown this phase. If that doesn't work, last resort is duct tape over the mouth. That'll learn 'im.

Liam tested me only once with the soap and never again. Heck, the kid even broke down in tears one time when I asked him to repeat something another child had said, and it turned out the other kid had taken the lord's name in vain.

Seriously Liam? Over that?

Anyway, it's not PC, and that's okay. I'm not trying to win any parenting awards. And I'm pretty okay with admitting to my hypocrisy.

Major eye rolling situation.

I don't understand the mental block most men have against buying feminine products for their spouses. Or maybe it's just mine.

Are they embarrassed about it? Is it because all men are 13 year old girls at heart? That's about the last time I blushed when buying a personal item like TAMPONS. That's right, I said it out loud.

It would have been so easy. He was already at Safeway. The feminine hygiene isle is on the way to the (SELF) checkout. I was on the phone with him and could have walked him through it.

Nope. Now I have to either a) load the kids into the stroller and head to the store myself, or b) wait until tomorrow night when we can load the kids into the truck and make a family adventure out of it.

Welp, it's kind of a situation that's not going to wait till tomorrow night so...

Thanks honey ;)

The fall-out.

Yesterday, 2:00 p.m., via phone:

Me: so how are the boys?
Mom: Great! They're both sleeping right now.
Me: What?! Mom, Nicky doesn't nap anymore.
Mom: Ohhhhh. Okay, he's only been sleeping for an hour. I'll go wake him up.
Me: *head/desk*
---------------------

The consequences of that teeny tiny little nap have been epic. Last night, delayed bedtime, repeated turning on of lights in his room, climbing into his brother's crib as he's sleeping.

Today, more of the same. Whining. Clinging. And a meltdown to rival those of his big brother in his heyday. It was a doozy that lasted approximately 1 hour, topped off with 4 consecutive time outs until he got the message.

**Ironically, during his tantrum I decided to get him dressed since he was already freaking out. That was the only time during the whole hour that he shut up**

Now, I could've sworn that sometime in the past week it has come up in conversation with my mom that we've cut out naps. I mean, we talk daily. I'm sure I've bitched about how hard it is now going the whole day without a break. She played it off pretty well though, that this was the first she'd heard of this 'no-nap' business.

I don't really blame her though. Seriously? I think this is one of those grandparent perks you hear of. You don't have to deal with the fall-out and get to send them back to the parents.

And my kids are a handful. I'd nap them too if I wasn't their parent.

My day in pictures.

Should've known by this face, what direction this day was going to take.



He turns the basket on it's side so he can reach up onto the higher shelves.



They're just wild.



10 minutes on his own in my craft area. Free reign of the house privileges have been rescinded.



What do I even say to this. He's worse than a puppy.



Please, please, PLEASE, let these teeth come through soon.



This should be me at this point, not him. Stick a fork in me.



Thank God not every day is like today.

Pass me the coffee .

We're on day 3 of no naps for Nicky. Let me tell you, I've never been so exhausted in my life. Not even right after Josh was born and I was wrangling a toddler and newborn.

I miss my ME time. It was the time of day that I didn't have to talk to or take care of anyone. My lunch hour, if you will.

It is worth it though. If I can just get through the witching hours of 4-7, of which I count down every.single.minute., then he has gone to sleep like a charm. KNOCK ON WOOD. None of this getting out of bed and playing with his toys or taking off his pj's and diaper and wrapping himself in the blanket and then peeing on his carpet.

Oh, and he's actually slept on his bed the past 2 nights as well. Seems like a no-brainer, except every single night he takes his pillow and blanket and lays down on the floor. And then we have to move him before we go to bed. Which I guess isn't that big of a deal but it's annoying.

No, after 3 months of Nicholas taking on average of an hour and a half to fall asleep, it now takes him 2 minutes.

Next up, training the boys to sleep in the same room. I haven't figured out which one I'm going to put to bed first at night. Josh is pretty good at putting himself to sleep although once he wakes up during the night he will not go back down on his own. Nicky now goes to sleep easily too. We'll see, whichever order I pick I'm sure it will backfire on me and it'll have to go the other way.

In the meantime I'm still pretty damn tired. I suppose I'll get used to it.

Birthday mini-albums.

I got this idea from the Dear Lizzy website (I'm blog challenged and don't know how to link) so I rushed out to buy some adhesive fabric paper and sat down with scrap paper and embellies and these were the result!

The first one is what I made for my sister Kathleen, and has photo's of her kids Khyler and Kinlee, and her nephew Jacob.



This one was what I made for my mom. It's got my 3 kiddo's in there.



And the last one was what I made for Diane, my mother-in-law. Special appearance by Jeff.



Looks like Picasa decided to crop my photo's as I was making the collages. Ah well.

Phew!

It's official, my new haircut truly is kick ass. I washed it last night and this morning I wet it down again and attempted to style it.

We all know that it's impossible to re-create the style you left the salon with. That's why, as much as I loved the cut, I was a little nervous. And I don't own a round brush, which apparently you need to give your hair volume.

I muddled through it with my trusty little Goody brush and I'm happy to report that it looks as close as possible to how it looked on Monday. Meaning, it looks awesome!

Which is a good thing because this is definitely not a wash-and-go cut. In fact, this is a put-on-makeup-and-get-out-of-those-sweats cut.

Dammit.

Excuse me, I'm a little sleepy.

Sleep is supposed to restful, no?

I have gotten used to nursing a child through the night, I can even manage the one-eyed stumble over to the crib to grab his screaming body at 1 am without too much interruption to my sleeping state.

What is not so easy to manage is a 6 foot male, an 11 month old that likes to sleep sideways, a toddler that neeeeeds to sleep next to me, and myself...all on a double bed.

Four years ago when we bought our new mattress set I was absolutely not thinking long term and since I already had a double bed frame it only followed that we would buy a double mattress and boxspring. I wasn't thinking babies or co-sleeping or anything beyond the fact that I was making my very first grown up purchase.

We know we need to buy a king size set. A couple of things make me hesitant to do it though: our room is not large. A king size would eat up all available space and force us to move the crib into Nicky's room, where Josh's nighttime screaming would likely wake him up before I could dash in there and grab him.

Although...Nicky is already waking up and coming into our bed about 50% of the time. Okay, next argument.

I'm thinking about what potential buyers would see when they're looking at our home. No, we don't plan on listing soon but it's going to happen sometime in the next 1.5 years and a king would make our small room look even smaller. Is this even a valid concern? It's not like we have little man syndrome, we know our home is small. I'm just trying to see it through a buyer's perspective.

And speaking of new homes, I kind of wanted a new bedroom set to be part of us making the next move into our next place. Something shiny and pretty and new.

But. My aching back and shoulders. Jeff's aching back and shoulders. Nicky falling on the floor repeatedly because he insists on sleeping next to me instead of next to his dad in the middle. Josh being a crazy sideways-sleeping monster.

And Liam would be thrilled to inherit our old set.

Decisions.

Some lessons aren't worth it.

I had an a-ha! moment a couple months ago and called our local free paper to sign Liam up to do a paper route. Once a week he'd have to stuff flyers into a newspaper and deliver them to about 90 houses.

This is perfect, I thought. It's maybe 3-4 hours of work a week and will teach him a valuable lesson about earning money. He's 11, he's more than capable.

I was the one who ended up learning a lesson: don't do anything so damn stupid again.

It was a headache from the get go. It was reminiscent of me sitting him down to do his homework with him. The huffing and puffing and slamming things around when he's forced to do something he doesn't want to do.

They never got done on the day they were supposed to.

It took him 4 hours just to stuff the papers if I didn't help him.

A couple times I ended up delivering them myself (or putting them in the recycle but shhh).

Yesterday after fighting with him for the umpteenth time to just get it done and by-god-if-you-huff-one-more-time-I-swear-you'll-regret-it, I decided that the lesson wasn't worth it.

I fired off an email to the coordinator telling her effective immediately we wouldn't be delivering the flyers anymore. She called me and suckered me into doing it just one more week.

After that, though, we're free. I haven't told him yet but something tells me he won't be heartbroken.

Some craftiness.

In my 'about me' it says that I'm a scrapbooker. And it's true, I love to do it. My mojo has taken a vacation lately though, and while I have tried to force myself to work through it I really haven't been satisfied with much that I've turned out in the past 6 months or so.

It started to come back when I made some mini albums for my mom, mother in law, and sister. I got really exited to share them, they turned out SO nicely. I'll share the pictures from that little project another day since there's lots of 'em.

Then I sat down with a picture of our wedding. I don't get to use pink very often, being the mother of all boys, so I went a little crazy.



And then last night I was looking at a challenge for Mission Create and inspiration struck again. I used 4 out of the 5 prompts only because I don't have any bingo cards. I sanded the photo on the right, made a couple flowers out of tissue paper (2 birds with 1 stone baby!) and stamped it up with ink. This is one of my favorite LO's to date!




Whenever I make a page that has a lot of white space Jeff makes sure to comment on it, asking if I'm "done". For a long time it made me think that maybe I needed to do more to my pages and so I would struggle and try to fill it up. But it's just not me, not always. And another scrapper finally put into words what I never could: white space is itself a design element. So there Jeff!

And finally, I am also working on Josh's birth announcement. It's done in crosstitch and will probably take me a year but it's super cute and I'm very exited to finally start it.



So there's where I am with stuff. I'm glad that my energy levels are picking up so I can spend more time in my craft room!

Random ramblings.

Why is there such a thing as a sticky floor? I hate mopping. I wish I could put my kids in bubbles until they're old enough to learn table manners.

Why does my house seem to throw up laundry? I've done 2 loads a day for the last week and I've still got 3 loads sitting downstairs waiting their turn to get cleaned.

Does it count if I planned to iron all of Jeff's clothes? Even if I didn't actually get around to it for whatever reason (ie. laziness).

Are ALL 11 year old boys so loud and messy? And wtf is up with wanting to stay inside and play all day, get yer butts outside and ride to the park! Granted it's not that nice today but...

That's all I've got for now. My youngest demon has woken up and saved me from an afternoon of cleaning. Think I'll go give him a big smooch!

The novelty has completely worn off.

How do you explain consequences to a 10 month old?

Like, if they manage to climb up onto their brothers toddler bed they have to climb back down properly or else they will end up with a face full of floor.

Yep. It was cute a couple days ago when he started showing off his newly discovered skill of climbing. It quickly became a nightmare in which I envision trips to the ER because my baby has a broken nose.

I've been so proud of the little guy being so advanced with his major motor skills (I think that's what they're called, or maybe I just made that up) that this possibility never entered my mind. Yes, Nicky did walk pretty early too but we didn't have such a low surface for him to master. He tried the stairs but those are easily managed with a baby gate.

I'm at a loss on how to fix this "problem". I thought I could flip Nicky's bed around so the opening is facing the wall.

There is an opening on the other side too.

Okay. How about teach him how to get down properly so that he escapes injury.

1059 times later of flipping him on his belly and dragging his feet until they touch the floor, it's just not getting through to him.

Hmph. Let's just shut the door to the bedroom and put a child lock on it so that big brother can't open it.

SCREAMING. Oh the horror of not being able to freely access the toys in the bedroom.

As a last resort I have dragged the (thin) rug over to the bed and laid a pillow beside the bed to cushion his nosedives. I have to go in every 30 seconds to make sure Nicky hasn't run away with it. It would be nice if I didn't have anything else to do and could just watch over him. Unrealistic however.

For the first time ever, I'm wishing he couldn't even crawl yet. This is exasperating.

Highlights from my night out.

-the DJ totally catering to the cougar crowd (us) and playing music from my early 20's. It got us in the mood for dancing and by the time he was playing current songs that I didn't know, I was drunk enough to not care.

-finding out that for a mere 50 cents more, I could turn my double vodka paralyzer into a triple. Score!

-turning around every 5 minutes and seeing good friends that I wasn't expecting to run into.

-my awesome friends who understand that Chantel + a couple drinks = one lippy chick.

** To the Fred Durst look-alike that came up to us while we were waiting for a cab, I was a super bitch, sorry. It's just...I have a low tolerance for BS and you weren't gonna get any action from any of us.

-the old Indie dude that kept dancing with Jessica. Hilarious!

-putting $5 in the VLT and cashing out with $40. Paid for my night out besides the cab home!

-my awesome husband who didn't act annoyed as I stumbled around in the dark, stepping on toys and almost killing myself.

It was totally worth the sluggish feeling and headache I have right now!

Words cannot even describe how excited I am!!

Happy early Birthday to me! I'd take a picture of my new baby but I don't think I'll ever use another camera again. A picture of my new camera bag will have to suffice.

The hubs blew my socks of yesterday when he came home with a Canon EOS Rebel XS all for me. It's what I've wanted for almost as long as he's known me but with this, that, and the other, it just has never been an option.

But because he loves me and wanted to finally one-up me on a gift, he made the sacrifice of going into some personal debt to get me my dream present. Aw.

Now, some may say this is the ultimate suck up gift after he blew it big time last week. Flowers pfffft. Now, a camera. That is a genuine sorry, with a couple hundred cherry's thrown on top.

Actually the thought never even crossed either of our minds until a friend pointed it out. Alas, no. That incident has already been forgotten and truly wasn't THAT big of a deal that it would need to be smoothed over with such an expensive present.

I'm pretty sure that I'll get some kind of flowers next time though. Just sayin.

This is the Best. Present. Ever. In the history of all my presents. I'm in love.

I promise this time it's different.

I'm well aware that I'm chock-full of good intentions. Generally, though, I lack the motivation to actually follow through on these things I come up with. Really it seeps into all areas of my life.

Flylady-did it for about 2 weeks then got bored and stopped. My house is no cleaner, I'm just more aware of my 'hot spots'.

30 Day Shred-did it once, just once. Used a lack of good support in the bosom area as an excuse to not continue.

Weight Watchers-well, this one I actually did well on. But I didn't renew my subscription, instead choosing to rely on an iphone app that just isn't as user friendly and therefore more of a pain in the ass.

So let me introduce you to my latest good intention: the C25K program. I'm well aware of my track record. Jeff is probably shaking his head right now, but that's why I haven't actually said it out loud to him.

The goal is to start next Monday. That gives me a week to flip back and forth over doing this, and also enough time for me to get some running shoes and the afore-mentioned bosom support. And hopefully that'll be enough time to recruit a running buddy. JESS.

*oh ya, and I finally checked my weight again. Now at 129. New goal, since I've met my original one (130) is 120 AND a flat tummy.

I'm lazy. There, I said it.

As I'm sitting here looking at the toys strewn about my living room, I like to ponder the incredible guilt I feel at not being as accomplished a housewife as I somehow think I should be. I've got some mighty big shoes to fill when it comes to keeping a tidy house, namely Jeff's mom and my dad. Oh, and Jeff too.

But wait. Does it really count towards being a clean person if you don't actually clean? Jeff? Cuz honey, you may put things back where they belong right away so that there's no clutter...but can you remember the last time you took a dust rag to the furniture, turned on a vaccum, or filled a pail with soapy water? How 'bout the toilet downstairs, hmm?

I only point these things out so that I can try to feel less guilty for being a lazy ass. One could say that since he goes out to work and earns the money for our family, that it is then my duty to keep house and raise our kids. And I would agree to a certain extent.

Only...when we were both working full-time I still did it all. Ponder that.

Oh, and in addition to being a mediocre housewife, I'm also a master procrastinator.

I was supposed to go for a walk to Londonderry after the boys ate lunch, except Nicky made a huge mess that requires some mopping to clean up. So I decided to put off the walk till tomorrow so that I could clean while the boys were sleeping.

Then I poured myself a coffee (because I'm tired as f*** lately) and sat down to check my facebook and blog a little. It's now 45 minutes later and all I want to do is lay down on the couch and have a nap. And put off the cleaning that I put off the walk for.

Except if I do that, then it won't get done until the boys are in bed. And it won't actually happen then because I haven't got an ounce of energy by that point of the day. So then we'll start the whole cycle again tomorrow and blah blah blah. Except instead of dealing with easy to clean up oatmeal all over the place I'll have to get down on my hands and knees and scrape off crusty hardened up crap from the floor.

Huh. Maybe I'll just go and get it done now.

One can dream.

I sincerely wish I had inherited my mom's green thumb. That woman could spend her whole life outside, tending to her garden and flower beds, ignoring the phone, and she would die happy. Severe seasonal allergies? She laughs in the face of pollen!

However, it's just not the case. The bugs! The dirt! The sore knees! Oh ya, and the bugs! As I was pulling weeds out of my low-maintenance rock beds today I had the heebie-jeebies so bad that all I wanted to do was run inside and away from those nasty centipedes.

Did you know that peonys (peonies?) attract ants? I've got two of these monsters in my front yard and I forgot to put the rings around them when they were smaller. I decided to do it today, took one look at the army of ants swarming on them, and walked away. Whatever, they can droop. I'm not touching the ants, frig that.

I've tried manipulating my mom into coming over here and doing my gardening for me. She humors me and tells me she'll do it...but it hasn't happened yet. Don't think I haven't noticed MOM.

I guess I'll just have to accept the fact that I'll never have one of those yards with the riots of beautiful colors. I've tried before, even gone so far as to buy flowers with full intentions of planting them but they just sat in their little container thingys until they died. Pathetic.

This makes me far more depressed than you'll ever know. I want to have a green thumb!

Totally realistic.

I installed an app on my phone that tracks my walks for me. Route, time, distance, etc.. I also have it set up to publish straight to my facebook status exactly when I've started and when I've ended my walk. If you click on the link from my facebook page it takes you to google where you can actually view my route with real pictures of my neighborhood.

Because I'm generally trusting and oblivious by nature, the obvious never occured to me. I mean, really, how could I be so naive to not think of every possible scenerio. This next thing is probably going to happen to me the next time I go for a walk.

One of Jeff's psycho ex's will stalk me out on facebook because I don't have my privacy settings high enough, and will see that I've started a walk.

She'll jump in her car and track me down to where I'm walking with my 2 children in a stroller.

She'll murder me and kidnap the kids.

She'll blackmail Jeff into being with her by threatening the kids.

...okay, I made up the blackmailing part but I guarantee, given enough time, Jeff would have gotten that far when he was thinking this shit up.

This is the same man who thinks it's a reasonable idea to put GPS trackers in our kids pockets when they're at school-sitting in their classrooms, mind you-because one time a couple years ago, there was this one girl who was snatched from the bathroom at school. By her uncle, he thinks. But if our kids are GPS chip-enabled, WHEN they're kidnapped we can avoid the Amber Alerts and know exactly where to find them.

I think this is why fate brought us together, so I could tone down the crazy.

Two more days, I can make it!

Today has been kicking my ass so far. Between the younger boys getting over colds, the older boys in the midst of colds, teething, and the bank messing up our account AGAIN, I just want to close my eyes and make it all dissappear.

Okay that's a bit dramatic, I realise. Things are going okay now, but if you'd asked me 2 hours ago how I was doing it would have been a different story. It's amazing what bitching out a bank can accomplish and how quickly it can turn your attitude around. Add sleeping children, and I no longer want to commit suicide.

Which is a good thing since I don't know what my family would do without me!

And, I get a break this weekend! I'm going out to a birthday party and then dancing with some good friends. Jeff and I have agreed that short of an emergency where he has to take the kids to the hospital, he's not calling me. There will be tears, to be sure, but they won't be MY tears. Unless they're tears of happiness because I'll have a couple hours of freedom.

*and for those still interested, I've been holding steady between 130-132 for the past 3 weeks or so. Once the weather starts co-operating I plan on walking with the kids in the mornings. I say that..but I say many things that don't actually happen. We'll see.

Sleep training sucks. And works.

I have a weird relationship with the concept of sleep training. With each child I've started out completely opposed to the idea, and then reality gave a swift kick in the rear. It's essential, at least for my kids.

Liam had it the hardest, I think. On the one hand he was the best sleeper as an infant. He ended up sttn on his own at around 7 months. On the other hand, I had to sleep train him as a toddler when he started the bad habit of insisting I fall asleep with him nightly on his little, tiny, uncomfortable toddler bed.

Sleep training a toddler sucks balls. There was about a week there, where I'd put him to bed, read a story, kiss him...and then book it like hell out of his room to the hallway where I had a book waiting for me. I'd sit down on the floor with one hand on the doorknob and hang on for dear life. The sound of a toddler throwing the tantrum to end all tantrums was heartbreaking to hear.

I was young and was pretty much going by instinct. This method, while it feels crude and cruel now, was all I had. I had nothing else. But I told myself I'd never use CIO out again.

Along came Nicky. While Liam was easy as an infant, Nicky was stubborn. That kid hated to sleep from the get go. And eventually sleep training entered the picture again. This time I tried a modified version where I checked on him at intervals. That just pissed him off though, so I settled for peeking in his room to make sure he was safe. While the huge tantrums of the first few days tapered off, he continued to put up a token fight for months. None of this magical "3 days and they're good to go" crap I'd been hearing. We started when he was around 9 months and he was successfully sleeping through the night by 15 months. 3 days my ASS.

Now with my sweet little Josh. He'll fall asleep okay....sometimes. He'll sleep a good chunk of time....sometimes. He's not consistent and by the end of the day if he's not falling asleep I'm just about ready to lose it. He's very clingy, so clingy baby + daredevil toddler + lippy pre-teen = mom who's absolutely done by the end of the day.

As I sat on the phone with my mom the other night and was all but crying to her about how frustrated I am, she tried to comfort me by telling me that it's not the end of the world and he'd grow out of this stage. That's when it hit me. My child not sleeping IS the end of my world. When my whole world is my children, then the universe needs to give me a flipping break. Let them develop good sleeping habits so that I can continue to be the fun, patient mom that I need to be. The mom that I AM most of the day, until 8 o'clock hits and Josh is still awake.

So ya, all that to say...we've started sleep training for the 3rd and final time. Thank the good dear Lord.

Dirty feet and peanut butter.

I had the half-hearted intention of conducting an experiment. It involved mopping my floors every day for the week to see if that would get Jeff to stfu about my dirty feet.

I concluded after day 2 that it's just not a reasonable expectation.

Seriously, it would involve mopping ALL my floors daily. Bedrooms, living room, kitchen, bathroom, entire basement. Because I am all over the house throughout the day, outside too, and I never ever wear socks or shoes.

Call me Brittney Spears, but I'll never have clean feet. Jeff can just accept it.

In other news, after at least a year of trying, I have finally been successful in convincing Nicky that peanut butter is delicious.

We have a trick to get him to try new food. Hold whatever the food is on your finger in front of his face. Wait for him to start screaming because you're obviously trying to KILL him. Quickly stick finger with food on it inside his mouth and directly on the tongue. Pull finger out as fast as possible to avoid being bitten.

Now wait for the reaction.

Nine times out of ten he'll wipe his tongue while shrieking because AHH we're POISONING HIM. Every so often though, he'll shock us and actually like what we're trying to introduce. And that's what happened with the peanut butter today.

Plus it's funny as hell watching him freak out. I gotta get it on video.

Oh my.

Before I tell you a story about my very interesting trip to the park today, let me just get something out of the way. If I'm not on the ball about updating on my weight loss chances are it was not a good week.

I'm up 2 pounds.

I went a little overboard with the Mothers Day brunch that my father-in-law made for us. Lesson learned, turkey sausages are NOT good for a diet.

On to my park experience.

There's a lady that I see quite often at the park, at Liam's school, and I've even run into her at Safeway. She's one of those very social people and so we've become friendly, calling out hello to each other or chatting if we're both standing around with our kids. We've all got acquaintances like that. Park friends.

Well, she crossed the line from park-friend to over-sharer-friend today. I sat down at the picnic table and commented that her daughter was playing today and she's usually at school during the week. Hooo boy did I get an explanation I wasn't expecting.

She's leaving her husband of almost 20 years because he's been verbally, emotionally, and, occasionally, physically abusive to her. She decided to keep her daughter home because it's been a bit of a rough day. I then got a recap of this (really very nice) lady's life.

Dudes, this really tests one's social skills. I mean, what do you say?! So I listened, which is what I think she was really after. I offered my sympathy but she didn't seem sad at all, more focused.

And as she was leaving I said "have a great day!" I went red and tried to backtrack, and she laughed. Foot in mouth moment!

Oi!

It's All My Fault

So...we had a bit of a "situation" in the Panchuk household last night. It started Tuesday when I noticed that the dishwasher wasn't draining all the way. I spent my precious 30 minute break when both kids were napping at the same time with a turkey baster and coffee mug, sucking out the water from the bottom of the dishwasher. Fun. Try it.

Last night Jeff decided to take apart the dishwasher to clean the clogs. I knew, I JUST KNEW, that in the back of his head he's bitching away about how I'm not a dish-rinsing nazi like he is. That might have had something to do with how he kept calling me into the kitchen to see this long string of ___ (insert foodstuff) that he pulled out. Not very subtle, dear.

Here's my stand on the rinsing of dishes. I absolutely, whole-heartedly, 110% agree that dishes need to be rinsed before being placed in the dishwasher, IF they have obvious large clumps of food left on them. What they DON'T need is to be rinsed to within an inch of their lives, to the point where they're clean anyway and should actually just be dried off and put back in the cabinet. Because...WHAT'S THE POINT??? I purchased a damn dishwasher to clean my dishes for me, not to sit there and look pretty. And for those small crumbs of food that are left on the dishes, there is a mulching option in the drain for those, is there not? It's not like I'm stuffing potatoes and pancakes in there and expecting it to work perfectly forever.

(I actually could have written a whole lot more of that paragraph in caps. I practiced restraint.)

Anyway. Jeff got it all cleaned up and went to go screw on some part to some other part...and it snapped. Then he snapped. Then I snapped. Haha just kidding, I'm the voice of reason in this house. No, I put Nicky to bed and went and sat on the couch and nursed Josh while Jeff got it all out. And HOOOOOO boy did he get it all out. I'm pretty sure I heard some more blame coming my way, but not really my way, if you know what I mean. Lots of "if people just rinsed...." and "people think I'm nuts for rinsing...". Well, people DO rinse dishes.

People just forget sometimes to take the paper labels off of jars when they stick them in the dishwasher.

So okay, FINE, it's ALL MY FAULT.

Here's my punishment:

Bitch, whine, and complain.

Today, it seems like everyone is trying to outdo my bad mood. I woke up cranky and it's gone downhill from there.

Baby...alternating between crying and chewing on everything in sight. That one's easy, he's teething. But due to the DAMN Tylenol recall and the runaround trying to figure out if what I have on hand is good or not, he's got no relief coming his way. And neither do I.

Toddler...so spoiled from a weekend of sugar and attention, all he wants to do is go outside. It's a rainy damp mess out there and I'm not inclined to taking the baby out. Cue the alternating crying and writhing around on the floor.

Pre-teen...he's moody because I'm forcing him to participate in a round table discussion on the environment tonight so he's making sure I know he's not doing this willingly. He's actually the easiest to deal with because one threat of taking away his x-box and he's retreated to the basement until we have to head out.

Husband...he's overwhelmed at work right now with virus's and whatnot, and is just in a bad mood. He's used to me being his sounding board but...today...I can't be that person. Just get what needs to be done, done, and then soon enough it will be bedtime, we can all go to sleep, and hopefully tomorrow will be better.

This mama has reached her patience quota for the day. I need to breathe.

Oh ya, down to 130 pounds. Woo. Hoo.

Another milestone reached!

Well lookie here. At 7 months and 1 day, Joshua is now able to pull himself up into a standing position!



From what I can remember, he's right on track with where Nicky was at this age. I'm expecting him to be full on walking in about 3 months. Holy Crap that's not far away. Liam was my lazy baby, he was totally content to be carried around by all of us women and didn't bother walking until he was 16 or 17 months old. Now you can't stop the kid!

I actually can't wait till he starts walking. I love the independence that he's learning!!

Please let this not become a habit

You know that time of the day, when all your children are in bed? You know, when it's quiet? It feels so nice to know that everyone is taken care of and that another successful day is done. Even if the dishwasher is only half emptied because of grabby-handed toddlers trying to "help" and there's an abadoned broom in the living room because a certain demanding infant needed tending. And the pre-teen went to bed in a snit because you didn't scratch his back long enough.

That's my favorite part of the day.

You know that time of night, when 2/3 of your children are in your bed? In your double-sized bed? It doesn't feel nice knowing that your toddler can now get out of his bed and run to yours when he wakes up at night, when you already have two adults and an infant in the bed. Especially if said toddler is a mover and a shaker in the sack and there's barely enough room as it is.

That's not my favorite time of the night.

He must not have gotten much sleep either because as he was taking his poop this morning he fell asleep draped over his toy aquarium. WISH I had gotten a picture of that!!

I'm giving in to the inevitable.

My baby likes boobies. That's it, that's all, don't even bother with anything else.

Trust me, we've been trying for the past almost 7 months to get this boy to tolerate a bottle and it's SO not happening. Sure, I guess in a couple emergency situations he's reluctantly taken a few sips here and there but for the most part he'd rather scream his head off until the boob shows up. Just ask my husband or sister, they've both experienced the hell that is a screaming hungry infant.

Man, we thought Nicky had inherited a combo of our stubbornness. Then we had Josh who took it to a whole 'nother level.

My response to this frustrating fact depends on the day...heck, even the time of day! A lot of the time I love to nurse him, it gives me a chance to sit down and relax and stare at him. He's cute! I could stare at that kid for hours!

Other times, like while travelling or when I want to get out for a couple hours, I just wish he would allow us to stick a bottle (of breastmilk) in his mouth. It would make things ever so much easier. It would make me feel like I have some sort of life outside of being a milking cow. It would make Jeff feel like he can comfort him and have that special time with him too.

Then there's the whole formula/breastmilk aspect of this. I admit I'm being stubborn about wanting him to have only breastmilk but he's my last baby and...ya, sure, whatever. I'm being stubborn about it. Oh well.

I plan on letting him breastfeed until *gasp* he decides he's done. I think that scares Jeff. I think he has visions of Josh walking around and pulling my shirt down and talking in complete sentences asking for milk. Hell, that kinda scares me too!

The way I see it, I don't have much choice in this matter. The kid has us over a barrel and I, for one, surrender.

Legal driver am I!

I *did* weigh myself on Monday and I'm holding steady at 134 pounds. Time to do something to get this back on track. But...didn't I say that last time? I need some motivation!

ANYway. I've got some momentous news. After...ummm...how old am I? Oh yes, 31 this August. Okay, after almost 17 years I have finally, FINALLY gotten a learners license. Yes, close your jaws folks, it's true. I walked my ass down to the registry and did it. I had to update my ID since it expired last August and still had my maiden name on it along with my moms address, since Ford needed something *legal* as identification for our contract for the Flex. (If that doesn't indicate my level of procrastination, I don't know what will. I've been married almost 3 years). I figured, since I was there, I may as well take the test.

Initially I didn't study at all. I took the practice tests online, aced those, and decided I'd just wing it. Well the time came to go, I took one look at my bitchy kids, and decided a better idea would be to put them down for naps and read the manual. The test was only $17 but I figured it was probably the only time I'd actually do it, procrastinator that I am, so I should make every effort to pass.

And pass I did! I didn't even have to complete the test! I got to question #27 and since I had only gotten 2 questions wrong so far I got to stop there since even if I got the next 3 wrong I would still pass. Sweetness!

Okay, so when I'll get behind a wheel I couldn't begin to tell you. But this is definitely a step in the right direction!

Holy Crap!

It's Monday and we all know what that means! It's weekly weigh in time!

Today: 134 pounds.

I lost 4 pounds in the last week!!! I kid you not, and I have no idea how. I think my metabolism must be speeding up because I'm not putting as much crap into my body as I used to. Don't get me wrong, I'm still eating treats but nowhere near as much as I did before. Now it's time to start the crunches because I've still got the jiggly tummy...but my butt looks FANTASTIC if I do say so myself!!

I got my stroller on Saturday, and I ended up buying used because all the stores in the city were sold out. I'm excited about it, but a little bummed too. It's a tad bit more banged up than I would like, and the previous owner did not take as much care with it as she should have, knowing the resale value on these puppies. I'll be able to clean it up pretty good, get the juice stains out of the fabric and use some tire cleaner on the tires and frame. It also smells like it lived in her trunk for the past 2 years. ICK. So I'm hoping cleaning the fabric takes care of that little issue. She threw in about $80 worth of accessories too so it makes it a little better :) Now I'm wondering if I should shell out the $35 for a car seat adaptor so I can still have Josh in his bucket. It's probably worth it...

When something goes well, it only follows that something else will go wrong. Right? Well for us it would be our van. We bought it used almost 2 years ago and we've shelled out far too much on it than what it's worth for us. We've been looking around and we're likely going to trade it in for a Flex. My brother in law is a manager at Ford so he's been keeping an eye out and found one that should work for us. It's got the captain chairs in the middle row just like the minivan so it's perfect. Our payments will go up a bit but we have wiggle room with Jeff at his new job, and we'll be in a vehicle that is a whole 5 years newer than our van. It's worth it.

I need to start updating more than once a week, then I wouldn't be all over the place with 5 different things I'm talking about!

Bunches and bunches of randomness

-Weigh in: 138 pounds!! Still workin it!

-Liam split his lip goofing off on the ice at school on Friday. 3 stitches later and he's been very VERY careful about how he moves around now. Which is a welcome change from the accident-prone child he's always been. And, it's good to know that they stitch things up at the MediCenter. That's only a 10 minute walk from our house.

-We've started time-out's with Nicholas. Or Shreaky, as I like to call him. He does quite well in time-out, sits there still as a stone and looks down at his hand for the full 2 minutes and then listens attentively while I explain why he had one. Then he gives me a hug. And then he goes back to doing whatever it was that put him in time-out. Usually it's shreaking at the snack cabinet and throwing himself on the floor while I ignore him.

-We had our banking info stolen sometime over the weekend and spent a stressful 24 hours getting it figured out. The bank actually put the money back into account right when Jeff went in to get a new bank card. RELIEF. We were expecting to have to wait at least a few weeks for them to do it and we have a mortgage payment coming out next Thursday. Damn criminals.

-Hm, what else...we're getting a sweet tax return this year so I'm going to be able to get my Phil & Teds stroller that I've been drooling over! Jeff is going to get a laptop and this works to my advantage too. He'll be able to turf the monstrosity that is sitting on the desk downstairs and then I get that space to do my crafting. Love it when things work out in my favor!

-Speaking of crafting, I've been spending far too much time on deal-a-day sites. There's one in particular that has bajillions of deals per day and the ability to put product in your shopping cart that can sit there for up to 2 months while you accumulate more stuff, in order to get free shipping. I haven't actually bought anything yet but I have LOTS of stuff in my cart. We'll see if Jeff will let me spend that much on scrap stuff. Fingers crossed.

-Josh is thisclose to crawling. He's getting up on all fours and the other day he got one knee forward, didn't know what to do with the rest of his body, and then face-planted into the carpet. He'll be a much happier baby once he can get around himself, I just know it.

-We are over the worst of this cold. Nicky only has a lingering bit of cough and Josh has the cough and a runny nose. This kid's nose is like a faucet that just keeps going. His poor little nosie is getting pretty chapped and red from getting wiped and the minute he sees me with the kleenex he starts freaking. I try to let it just sit and then do one big one but it's no better for the poor little dude.

Guess that's it for now!

He's ba-aack. Sorta.

I think Nicky is on his way to feeling better. He's not quite so droopy today and is much more active and, well, Nicky. These are the perfect pictures to illustrate:



I had it sitting next to me on the end table, full, and he grabbed it and tried to shove it under his shirt. GAHH that's liquid gold kid! Once I dumped it into a bottle and rinsed out the horn and bottle I gave it back to him. He knew how to put the tube back in and turn it on himself so I just let him. Poor little gaffer needs a little fun, even if it is pumping his "beebies".

Sickness in the house.

Weekly weigh in: still 140 pounds. Actually, I did lose 3.5 ounces but that hardly counts. Damn hot wings and Subway.

In other exciting news, both of my younger children have colds. It's been a tough weekend to be sure, but nothing compared to last night from 1-7 am when I finally got up for the day.

First off, Josh took for-freaking-ever to settle down. Tried laying in bed with him and he thought it was party time, so I came out to the living room to feed him and then rock him to sleep. About 11-ish he was out but that only lasted till 1 and then he was up and crying. He couldn't eat because he was so congested, and he couldn't lay down because he was just miserable. I set up the pillows so I could sit up and have him on my chest but that only kinda worked and I was paranoid about him falling out of my arms and off the bed.

So we moved out to the couch at 3 and it was no better, but at least Jeff could get rest. I know he would have moved had I asked him to but he's the one going to work and he's gotta be more on the ball there than I have to be. I think I slept for a max of 15-20 minutes at a time but more often 10 minutes. It really sucked.

In between trying to comfort Josh I had to tend to Nicky a couple times too. Nothing dramatic, just reassuring him he was okay and laying him back down and turning on his fishies. Thank God.

This morning I had an awful outlook for the day. Nicky was whiney as all heck and Josh was coughing up a storm. Poor kiddo's, it's not their fault they feel like crap, but I was really discouraged from the lack of sleep and having snotty children hanging off of me for the past 2 days. I was starting to get a headache and had no faith in the magical powers of coffee.

Then, as if the skies opened up and a ray of light started shining down, they decided that life wasn't so awful after all. They gobbled up their tylenol, their fevers went down, they had a chill-out period watching Cars, and all was good. They're still sick, yes, but Nicky at least is on the mend and playing. He doesn't have that drugged up glassy look in his eyes anymore, and Josh is smiling and laughing between his coughing fits. I'm sure tonight will suck balls again but I'm much more prepared for it.

I have a problem

That is, besides using grammer check to make sure my sentences make sense. Especially my post titles.

No, this particular problem involves me rearranging rooms. Yesterday I started with cleaning under my couches and 2 hours later had a new living room layout. Granted it opened up the space 150%, but come on! Jeff just shook his head when he came home last night. He must be used to me by now.

I'm diggin it though, having the sectional really limits how we can set up the room so I decided to split up the two couches so they're facing each other. Now I don't have to move the coffee table around to accomodate small children being able to play. Ahhhhhh.

Yay!!!

Well after my cranky post this morning I thought I'd share my latest weigh-in:

140 POUNDS!!!!!!!

So far I've lost 19 pounds on this journey. I'm well on my way to the ideal 125 that I want to be and it's the best news I've gotten all day. What with cranky teething babies, toddlers that insist on climbing out of their cribs, and pre-teens who are over dramatic.

I think that when I reach 130 pounds I deserve to go shopping! GOOOO Chantel!

Getting a little ticked off here.

To preface, my oldest son is a bit of a hypochondriac. Always has been.

Last week, Tuesday to be exact, I got a call in the afternoon from Liam's school secretary saying that she had him in the office and that he was saying he felt sick. Ugh. So I talked to him, he said he really didn't think he could stay at school, and I grudgingly gave the permission for him to come home. During the next 15 minutes waiting for him to walk in the door I was ranting and raving about children who will do anything to get out of school and schools that have no hesitation about picking up the phone and calling parents at the drop of a hat. Trust me, I have dealt and dealt and dealt and DEALT with this issue for years.

Well, God got me back on that one. Not to offend anyone who believes in God, I believe in him too....and I believe he did get me back for not believing my son. 10 minutes after he got home he puked all over the bathroom door trying to get there in time, and spent the next 12 hours alternating between puking and sleeping. Seriously though, it's probably the first time in ALL the times that I've been called to give permission for him to come home that he's been honest-to-betsy sick.

Cut to today. I get a call 15 minutes after school starts from Marianne (ya we're on a first name basis) and Liam was monkeying around on the playground and fell off a platform. He winded himself and his back was sore. OF COURSE his back was sore, but it would wear off in no time at all and he had already missed a day and a half last week. He needed to stay at school. If the pain got uncontrollable then they could call me back and we'd go from there.

So...I of course got a call and he couldn't breathe easily and at this point in order to keep my status as a 'good mother' I had to give the okay for him to come home. Wouldn't want anyone to think I didn't care about any injuries my children might sustain from being...um...children? Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't every single person on the face of this earth wind themselves as a child AT LEAST once if not many more times?! Did you get to go home if that happened? Or did you get up, catch your breath, dust your pants off, and go back to playing and tell yourself you really hoped that never happened again because MAN that sucked? When did children become such pansies?

He's NOT seriously hurt, I checked him over. He told me his upper back hurt and in the next moment windmilled his arms as he was taking of his sweater. No grimace of pain. Of course, he wouldn't know that windmilling your arms should hurt if you really really hurt your upper back.

And the schools!!! They just perpetuate this in my opinion. I GET it that there are rules and policies in place for a reason. But come ON. All a situation like this is teaching them is that there is no accountability for behaving like a jackass and hurting yourself. You get to go home, just tell the teacher that you can't breath. Not serious enough to call an ambulance because nooooo you didn't break a bone or puncture a lung, but ya it's no big deal to miss another day of school. Where, tell me, is the logic in that?

He seemed pretty disappointed when I told him he could rest for the morning but he was headed back to school after lunch. It's not a free day buddy.

Bit of this, bit of that.

Oh ya, yesterday's weigh in was 143. Take that bitches!!

And I'm going to be putting it all back on tonight at Tony Roma's while celebrating my besties 30th birthday. Granted, in an effort to save my weight watchers points for the yummy delicious ribs meal I'm anticipating, I've eaten next to nothing today. But that'll only take me so far...guess I better squeeze in some extra exercising this week.

I've discovered another way to lose weight too! It's called the 'Get Fucked Over On Your Last Paycheck' plan. Basically, you quit your job, start a new one, and on your last paycheck at your old job make sure they combine 3 weeks of pay into one paycheck. This insures that you get bumped up to the next tax level and then you'll make a whopping $100 for that last week of work. Woo! So, you won't have any extra money left over to buy groceries, so you won't be able to eat, so you'll lose even more weight!

*I kid, I kid. I was raised mormon so I've got canned food coming out the ying-yang. We won't starve. We'll just be very bitchy. Or, I will be, because I'll have to give up my creamer till next month. Stupid mother-effing Gescan.

**And in light of the recent money problems I tried to back out of dinner tonight. The dinner that I planned. Thankfully I have a wonderful friend who is taking me along as the poor relation. But I'd do the same for her in a heartbeat :))

38 minutes, 35 seconds.

That's how long it took me to:

-fold 2 loads of laundry
-switch a load to the dryer and put another one in the washer.
(while being super extra quiet since there was a sleeping baby in the same room)
-dust the living room
-pick up toys scattered all around the house
-unload and reload the dishwasher
-sweep and spot mop the kitchen
-tackle a couple of the messier, stickier, toddler hand sized spots on various walls, cabinets, windowsills, and doors.

Thanks to the stopwatch on my new iphone I can now officially be called a loser. I wonder how long it'll take me to clean the bathroom...

More space for MY stuff now.

Yesterday was a great day! Back when we found out we were expecting Josh we decided to move Nicky into the bigger bedroom and we took the smaller one. Our theory was that 2 kids and their toys needed more space. Well. More space = more toys to make a mess and I was getting heartily sick of banging into things in our crowded room. A couple months ago I put the bug in Jeff's ear that I wanted to switch rooms back but he kept putting me off with excuse after excuse not to do it. Just wait till after the vasectomy. Oh, he needs to finish the closet door. He just started a new job. Blah blah blah.

Then comes Friday. I had decided that I wanted to do it this weekend but when I talked to Jeff he of course put it off again so I dropped it. We're hanging out at home and he gets a text from a friend to go watch the Olympic hockey game and I saw my chance! I told him I was cool with him going as long as we could do the old switcheroo on Saturday and he really wanted to go so he agreed. We dropped the younger boys off at my moms and got it all done in about 3 hours.

The OTHER great thing that happened yesterday was I got my iPhone!!!! I must say, it's pretty fun to play around with and texting is no longer a pain in the ass. Liam is all over it like a dirty shirt and is begging begging begging for one. And it's so so so not going to happen. An 11 year old with his own cell phone? I gotta say, I just don't agree. We have the other phone on our plan (since Jeff has a work one now) and he is allowed to take that one when he goes to the park, friends houses, etc., but otherwise it stays in the microwave cabinet.

So all around a great weekend :) Now I just have to go make a birthday card for a little princess that's turning 2 today. Happy Birthday Hailey!!

I think she was looking for a booty call.

Text conversation copied from my phone last night:

some number I've never seen before: hey have you watched Survivor yet?

me: who is this?

weird random number: it's Nicole.

me: lol okay sorry, didn't recognize the number.

me: no I haven't watched it yet, it's on my PVR.

Nicole: Oh. How was your day?

me: well I'm not feeling too hot but otherwise the day was good.

Nicole: Oh eww, are you sick?

me: prob just a little bug no big deal.

Nicole: well, i'd rather be sick than in pain.

Nicole: I went shopping today and now I hurt.

me: Oh, jealous!

Nicole: don't be, just grocery shopping and to South Common. I got 2 seasons of Full House.

me: well still.

*at this point I got tired of texting and started watching my show with Jeff and Liam. About a half hour passed.

Nicole: So are you watching your show?

Nicole: Oh ewww my ex-boyfriend just called me :(

Nicole: so are you going out tonight?

me: Ummmm....no. Why would I go out?

Nicole: oh I was just wondering. I'm staying in, I have to work first thing in the morning.

*it was here that I realised that whoever this Nicole is, she's not the same Nichole that I know. The Nichole I know would know that I do NOT go out and party on a Thursday night. So I just turned off my phone and figured whoever this chick was, she'd realise eventually that she had the wrong number whenever she talked to whoever she thought she was talking to.

But she texted me this morning. AT 7 AM.

Nicole: so, who got voted off Survivor?

me: okay, I think you have the wrong number. I didn't realise at first because I do know a Nichole.

Nicole: So this isn't Radford?

me: no this is Chantel.

me: but, Randy got voted off last night since you're wondering.

Nicole: Nice.

And that's where we left it.

Ha!

Jeff and I co-sleep with Josh, it works and allows us to get as much sleep as possible. Well, that is until Nicky decided that waking up randomly in the wee hours of the morning was a great idea. You never know when it's going to strike, it could be 4 or 5 or even 3 am-or not at all-but this child will wake up and be almost impossible to put back down. On those mornings one of us will take him onto the couch and fall asleep with him. Usually this job falls to Jeff since Josh is attached to the boob all night.

This morning at 5:30 the sleepless wonder struck so I stumbled to his room, tried my sleepy best to convince him to fall asleep, and ultimately ended up on the couch with him. Maybe 15 minutes later Josh realised that I (my boobs) were no longer there and started fussing. Jeff scooped him up against him, Josh latched onto his shirt, and everyone was back to sleep within 2 minutes.

That's a first!

Quick update

This weeks weigh in: 145 pounds. Not bad but not good either. Staying the same is disappointing and I hope I'm not hitting a plateau but I'm pretty sure it's because I was getting a little lax in my eating habits. You know, eating just a little bit extra than I should have and not counting it towards my points. Not drinking enough water. Drinking too much coffee with my delicious hazelnut creamer. That sort of thing. So it's back on the bandwagon for moi.

I did the shred as well and it DID kick my ass but it was also pretty awesome. I'm putting it on hold for now though because I need to invest in a good sports bra and they're expensive. We'll be back on track financially in the next month but with Jeff starting his new job last week it's just been a little rocky. I do have the wii and it still gives me quite the workout so I'll be doing that again.

As for the before pic, I didn't have a full body shot from where I started in January so here is one of me sitting down at Christmas. You can still see how fat I am so it works.

How hard can it be?

Today I'm going to start the 30 Day Shred. I downloaded it yesterday and took a look at it and I'm really excited to be able to fit a good workout into a small window of time. I'm just kidding about it not being hard...it's going to kick my ass. And I can't wait!

It also occurred to me that I should post a before picture, so I'll get on that at some point today and post it with my next blog post. That's a lot of 'post' in one sentence.

And, it also occurred to me that this blog is missing some scrappy happiness, so I'll be posting my latest creations soon here too. Just for you Jess :) I'm also starting to work on some very ambitious projects for the boys for Christmas. I'll tell y'all about that later too!

3 things.

I'm having a moment. A covetous moment. I want, I want, I want.

These moments always seem to come at the precise time when you barely have enough money to cover your bills, let alone have anything left to play with.

ANYWAY. Here are the 3 things I want badly right now:

A Phil & Ted's stroller. These things are SO COOL and I'm jealous of all my friends that have one.

A DSLR. I get so frustrated with the amount of work I have to put into my camera to take a picture that at least doesn't look like crap, but still is nowhere near what it could be.

An iphone. This is actually more attainable than the other things I want, but I have to wait for it. And I'm an Instant Gratification kind of gal.

All right, I guess it's time to go and make lunch, somebody is whining in the kitchen like I've been starving him for the last 4 days.

Every girl's gotta have a goal.

One of the things I wanted to pay more attention to in the new year was this blog. It has suffered greatly! It's not as though I don't have the time since we're on a pretty good schedule here and I'm not quite as sleep deprived as I was for the first few months after Josh was born. But when I sit down at the computer I have responsibilities; I've got a couple farms that I need to harvest, and an adorable pet that I need to keep fed and clean. I swear they're more a pain in the ass to keep up than they are fun but I just can't stop. Is that what they call an addiction? Someone needs to take Facebook away from me!

Another issue I wanted to address in the new year (I refuse to call them resolutions) is my weight. It's something I never really gave any serious thought to although I sure did bitch and moan about it. I imagine this is true of many people. Slowly, so slowly, that scale crept up and up and up until I actually felt comfortable (lazy) at 160 pounds. That may be a healthy weight for somebody at least a half foot taller than me, but I'm only 5'2". I should be in the 120-130 pound range. And I haven't read those numbers on a scale in a good 8 years. Holy heck that's a long time.

After I had Liam almost 11 years ago, the weight just kind of melted off. I did a lot of walking since I didn't drive and my age probably had something to do with it. At 19 the metabolism works a hell of a lot better than it does at 30. I guess I just naively believed that the same thing would happen after Nicky was born. Except it didn't. And then I got pregnant again. So now instead of waiting for a miracle I'm taking matters into my own hands.

I joined Weight Watchers on January 4 and I started out at 160 pounds. What a huge reality check. I vaguely knew I wasn't eating healthy but I loved snacking more than I cared about that so I didn't examine my eating habits too closely. It has taken quite a while to get used to not being able to eat chips or cheese toast or nutella straight from the jar. In fact, I can't even keep those kinds of things in the house because I just don't trust my willpower. I have caved a few times and cheated, so I know it's in me lol.

But there has been success! In 6 weeks I have managed to lose 15 pounds, putting me at 145 pounds as of yesterday. I do my weigh in every Monday and so far I've lost at least 1 pound but more often between 2 and 3 per week. I'm fitting in clothes I haven't been able to wear in years. It's so encouraging and if I didn't have this kind of visual success I would probably be tempted to throw in throw in the towel. Ultimately my goal is to reach 125 pounds by July 4. 35 pounds in 6 months. I'm almost halfway there!

So to those of you that are reading I have a request. Leave a comment so that I can see who I'm being accountable to. It helps me to know that other people are rooting for me and the more people who know about this, the more likely I'll be to not want to disappoint anyone. So I'm recruiting you to be my personal cheerleader :)

My kids are so damn cute.

Even Liam is cute. Sure, he's a cranky pre-teen most of the time but when you catch him unawares and he's just being himself I am reminded of that sweet little boy he used to be.





Nicholas is dramatic. When he's happy, he's really really happy. But when he's mad...




And Joshua is just about the cutest little thing with his dimples. He's growing so quickly that I can barely even stand it.





I'm the luckiest mom in the world and most days I know it! I may not be sure I'm doing things right most of the time but they're happy so I'm probably not far off the mark :)

Thinking

C-sections used to be an issue that didn't affect me personally. And I suppose they still don't, but having come so close to one I find myself getting angry on behalf of people who have them. Even if those people, women, aren't angry themselves. I just think in most cases they are so absolutely unneccesary...and yet I experienced firsthand how in the heat of labor a woman can be coerced into thinking she or her baby is going to die without one. DIE. Of course you're going to say yes.

Despite my anger on behalf of others, and general disgust at the way woman are manipulated into accepting these procedures, all I do is silently stew over it. Just a random thought for the day.

I inadvertantly...

...did a scrap page that works for a mission create challenge! I had already planned on using most of the prompts, and added in the strip journaling. Even though I didn't "have to". And even though I almost never journal on my pages. It was nice to be able to use pink on a boys page, it was subtle enough, I think, to work :)