Oh, Easter March 23, 2008

Easter weekend is usually a big deal for my family, probably because they’re all super-religious.  We usually spend the days before coloring endless amounts of eggs.  On Easter Sunday we eat a huge feast, then hide eggs for all of the kids to find.  It’s always so much fun and I look forward to it every year (except Easter 3 years ago when I was pregnant and kept running from the table to puke, but that’s the only exception).  Well this year, a big kink got thrown into our plans.

I spent yesterday at Urgent Care with Squeaks.  She had been running a fever of 105 degrees since the night before, and that was after taking Motrin.  She was miserable, we didn’t sleep at all Friday night and every time she coughed she cried.  She spent the night in my arms, whining “Mama”.  So I bundled her up and off to the doctor we went.  I just knew she had the flu.  The amazing doctor at Urgent Care was very gentle with her, checking her lovey, “Ted”, over before her.  They did a strep test and a flu test, both of which came back negative.  I was so thankful for that, and the fact that her lungs were clear, as this was very much reminding me of a year ago when she had RSV and pneumonia.  The doctor determined that she’s just got some very bad infection so he put her on some antibiotics and a cough syrup/antihistamine.  I was scared to give her the cough syrup, as I was told it could cause excitability in young kids and we didn’t need any more reasons to lose sleep.  Thankfully Squeaks is like her mama and if a medicine says it might make you sleepy, it knocks you out cold.  She took her medicine and then slept through the night.  At one point I got up to check on her, just to make sure she hadn’t OD’d on the meds and something bad had happened.  But she was fine, just resting up.

I was really hoping she would feel good enough today to go to the Easter festivities at my parents’ house.  While she’s doing much better, she’s still not feeling up to her normal self.  I made the decision to keep her home today.  Since The Hubby was stuck working today, we decided to celebrate Easter next Sunday.  We’ll color and hunt eggs then and Squeaks will never know the difference since she’s only two.  So for today we’re cuddling up in our pj’s on the couch, playing with the new toys in her Easter basket, and watching Happy Feet.

I hope everyone else has a better Easter (or just plain old Sunday, for that matter, if you don’t celebrate Easter).

So Long, 2007 December 31, 2007

It’s late and I should be in bed.  But I’m all off on my schedule, so I can’t seem to sleep at the correct times anymore.  Since it is now technically New Year’s Eve, I figured I would write a bit about my resolutions.  Normally I don’t make resolutions because they’re so hard to keep.  But I also usually set goals that are unreasonable.  So I’ve really thought about what I want to change.  2007 was a year that was unremarkable all around and I want to be able to say differently for the next year.  So here goes:

1.  I will try my hardest to get us out of debt.  This means spending less on petty things (eating out all the time), getting rid of the evil credit cards, paying off things that should have long ago been paid off.  Since we bought this house, we’ve accumlated quite a bit of debt.  We’re not horribly in over our heads, but I want to head it off before it gets there.  So I’m going to watch our spending, hopefully allowing us to pay more things off.  I’ll quit charging things.  And I’ll take on more odd jobs (extra bows, perhaps?) to help us gain some extra income.

2.  I will try to better myself in domestic areas.  I will be the first to admit that I’m a terrible homemaker.  I’ve got the stay at home mom thing down, but I can’t seem to balance it with all of the other household duties.  I’m already well on my way to fixing this, but I want 2008 to be better.  I’ll actually put the clothes away after washing them, rather than moving stacks around until we don’t know what’s clean anymore and we have to rewash them.  I’ll quit letting dishes piles up.  I’ll sweep and mop more often.  Don’t get me wrong — we aren’t filthy people, but I’m a long way from where I want to be.  And mostly I need to work on my cooking skills.  Baking I can do, but I’m not a great cook.  I’ve been trying a little bit, but I’m going to do whatever it takes to have a good meal for my hubby when he gets home from work.

3.  Ah, the weight loss issue.  I’m not vowing to get in perfect shape or to diet the whole year.  Instead I’m committing to 6 weeks on the Abs Diet.  Six weeks is not long at all.  I started doing this diet in September and lost quite a bit of weight (that I’ve since put back on) in only the first week or two.  But I quit doing it once I started seeing results.  I now see the downfalls to that, so I’m working on it.

4.  I’m going to try to have more patience with Squeaks.  Notice I said TRY.  She’s in that talking phase where sometimes I can understand her perfectly and sometimes I have no damn clue.  Lately she will say “Mama” about 30 times, until I’m yelling “WHAT????”.  Then she jabbers something I can’t understand and this turns into me losing it.  I find myself yelling a lot when I get frustrated and I don’t want to be that kind of mom.  This resolution is the one that means the most to me.  I know I won’t suddenly have great patience, but it’s something I want to work on throughout the year.

5.  I need to take time to find “me”.  I know it sounds so cliche, but I really lost myself this year.  I don’t have a lot of friends anymore because I’m doing the mom thing and neglecting my other relationships.  I don’t put myself in situations to meet new people.  I don’t try hard enough.  I think I just need to define myself as a person, other than as a mom.  I know that’s who I am now and I wouldn’t change it for anything, but I’d like to find something I enjoy doing — a new hobby or something.

 So these are my goals.  I’m sure I won’t keep them all, but I think I’ve set things to be pretty attainable.  They’re not outrageous or anything, so I’ve just got to keep my mind set on these things.  They are all things I’ve been wanting to do anyway, the timing of it all just happened to coincide with the new year.  So I’m counting all you all to check up on me from time to time. 

Now tell me…what are your resolutions?

Merry (Late) Christmas December 29, 2007

Christmas is over and for once I’m relieved.  Things have been too crazy around here lately and I’m ready for things to settle down.  Don’t get me wrong — we had an amazing Christmas, I just wasn’t ever in the spirit of things.  My sweet husband spoiled me, though.  I got a bunch of new pajama pants (I’ve been wanting some new ones ever since I set my last ones on fire), an iPod Shuffle, and a nice high-end karaoke machine because I like to break it down in the comfort of my own home.  I’ve been wanting a karaoke machine for years now, but The Hubby would never get me one because he gets tired of my relentless singing.  I guess he finally caved (probably because he didn’t know what else to get).  He put some sexy new panties in my stocking, which cracks me up because I can totally see him buying panties.  I got a new peacoat that’s incredibly too small, but is in the process of being exchanged.  I got new hot rollers.  I got a ton of candy.  He spoils me and I can admit it.

But I took care of him as well and Squeaks is the one that really made out.  Not only did we shower her with things, but The Hubby’s grandfather spent $1000 on savings bonds for Squeaks to go towards her college education when they (and she!) mature.  I was speechless, but he wanted to give her something now since he won’t be around much longer.  But despite all of the gift-giving, I was just glad to be back in my warm home in time for the holidays.

I hope you all had a great time at whatever holiday you celebrate.  I’m dying to hear what gifts you received and hear your wacky stories.  I don’t have any great pictures to post as I misplaced my camera sometime during the shuffling of houses while our power was out.  So you’ll have to send me yours so that I can have some sort of holiday photo to look at!

Only the Beginning November 29, 2007

We went today to get our Christmas tree.  The last few days have been in the lower 60’s (much warmer than it has been) so we decided to go today before the cold front hit.  Well, we managed to get to the tree farm WHEN the cold front hit.  It was very windy and poor Squeaks’ fingernails were blue.  But it was fun.  We took a ride in a hay-filled wagon through all the lots of trees.  When we found one we liked, we cut it down (the first time I’ve ever cut down my own tree!) and they hauled it back for us.  After our hay ride, we went inside their little gift shop for cider and candy canes, then we all picked out a new ornamnet and we were on our way home.  And then the fun started.

We got the tree in the house, only to find that it is too tall for our living room.  We squished it into the room, but the top was all bowed over, pressing into the ceiling.  Oops.  At this point, Squeaks was freaking out because Oh. My. Gawd. there is a tree in the house!  She melted into the floor, whimpering “No tree”.  As she wailed, we laid the tree on the floor in order to saw some more off the bottom.  The noise of the saw only further freaked out the fragile Squeaks, who hid under the kitchen table for the duration of the festivities.  Once we got the trunk sawed down, we put the tree back in the stand and stood it up, only to find it was crooked with a capital C.  We had cut it wrong.  Instead of re-cutting, I came up with a genius plan.  Our tree is now level, thanks to some jumbo Legos shoved under one side of the stand! 

Happy 4th! July 4, 2007

We usually have a big blowout party on the 4th, but we decided to do it last night instead. It just makes more sense. We always stay up too late and drink too much and then everyone is hurting at work the next day. So we did it last night so that everyone could spend their holiday recovering!

I was really excited for Squeaks. I knew she would miss the big stuff, but we bought her some smoke bombs and other kiddie stuff. However, the poor kid was so tired from playing all. day. long. that she was conked out by 7:30. Oh well, we can always do her stuff today.

As for the rest of us, we had an adult-version slip and slide, the pool, a lot of booze, and some big fireworks. It was a smaller crowd than usual, but somehow they made a bigger mess than all of the huge parties we’ve hosted in the past. It was a great time, but I’m still in that limbo between sane and insane, so I couldn’t really cut loose. I sipped a glass of wine and just kind of watched everyone else. Thankfully my pregnant friend was there so she and I enjoyed sobriety while watching the others make idiots of themselves.

Tonight we will be doing more fireworks with my family. As the majority of them are anti-booze, it will be no problem for anyone to get to work tomorrow! We just have the perfect land for shooting off fireworks, so I figure we will be hosting multiple parties from here on out. I’m excited because this will be a much more mellow night and I can enjoy watching the kids play. And to top it off, I’m the idiot who promised all of the kids that they can spend the night with us. That’s 5 kids (including my own), ages 12, 11, 10, 5, and 19 months. I think I really am insane!