Career aspirations

Let's just pretend I haven't been gone for months, and carry on, k?

This morning in the car, after listening to John Tesh tell a story about a child who became a musician:

Mom: Cooper, do you want to be a musician when you grow up?
Cooper: NO.
Mom: What do you want to be?
Cooper: Mom, I just want to be a regular worker person.
Mom: Oh, ok.
Cooper: And then, I can do a really bad job and get fired so I can get another job.

Interesting what he's learning about career aspirations in this household?

- H

This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me.

Cooper had his surgery today. Surgery on the whole doesn't freak me out anymore, after spending a number of years working in anesthesiology. I understand the process, I know the drugs they're giving him and how he's going to feel (or not feel). I'm not scared about the actual process.

Still. It's my little boy, and he's little. And now he's missing his tonsils and adenoids and has two shiny new ear tubes to help him hear again. And he's hurting.

Not in pain, per se. No, for some reason he is in no pain, but he can't swallow. I literally saw him hold a sipful of water in his mouth for ten minutes so he wouldn't have to swallow it.


I am confident the new tubes will help him hear again. In fact, he's been holding his hands over his ears pretty regularly today, which tells me the real world is a whole lot louder than he was used to.

I'm sure he'll improve as the week moves on. I just wish there was more I could do for him than popsicles and Tylenol.

- H

I vote no more snow days

Let's see....rough weekend with children, followed by one day of work, followed by two snow days trapped with children, followed by two work days, followed by two weekend days with children....

You get the picture. I hate to be all child hating and whatnot, but my kids are OUT OF CONTROL with winter boredom right now, and having the fracking malls close for inclement weather doesn't help matters. No Chik-fil-A. No playzone stocked with new germs. No Nordstrom's for mommy.

We never did get the snowmageddon we were predicted to get. We did get an inch or so of freezing rain and ice followed by five or six inches of sleet. You know how I know it was sleet, even though it's white and you can sled on it? Because my irritating know-it-all oncologist neighbor's five-year-old son made SURE to tell my sons every single time they yelled SNOW IS FUN that it WASN'T SNOW, it was SLEET. There was a point when I, the adult, actually said "R, who cares? Snow, sleet, it's still fun to sled on!"

Yes, I'm not proud of that moment. Good thing he wasn't listening to me at all but was busy thinking about how brilliant he is. Brilliant, and yet oddly unfamiliar with such regular childhood things like The Outside.

Anyway, the day flew by, my kids rampaged the house, I kicked them out a few times to sled, I scraped ice and shoveled sleet (remarkably heavy, by the by), and I fielded a late afternoon phone call telling me that surprise! my boss is no longer with the company, which is corporate lingo for she is no longer with the company and it wasn't her choice. Aaaannnnnd scene.

You know what? A local career in real estate is looking mighty attractive right about now. No travel. No corporate dramas. No oversized egos. No income.

Hmmmm, this is going to be a tough one. Good thing I have one more snow day to ruminate on it all. Somebody call me late tomorrow afternoon, would you please? Just a courtesy check to be sure the inmates haven't overtaken the asylum. Thanks.

- H

Waiting for SNOWMAGGEDON

There's nothing like a bunch of amped up St. Louis weather reporters to get an entire region super nervous about some impending weather. Yes, we've had a crazy cold winter so far. Yes, we're probably going to have some snow this week.

But the thing that totally freaks me out is the excitement in the voices of the weather reporters. They're all totally psyched that we might get two inches of ice, followed by up to eighteen inches of snow. They like to pull out their historical video footage of way way back in nineteen-aught-eighty-two when our fair city got fourteen inches of snow in a two day period. HOLY COW. Fourteen inches?! How do you manage with that much snow?

Oh, that's right. All the other cities that aren't total wussies (which is NOT the word I wanted to use but my better judgment prevailed) manage just fine every other week in the winter when they regularly get fourteen inches of snow. Small, fairly nondescript cities such as Chicago. And Boston.

So, I sit here at my desk, working through work stuff and glancing out the window every now and then. Waiting. Waiting for the STORM TO END ALL STORMS to start. So far I see a little bit of rain and some of it has frozen. Pfft.

The worst part about it all is that no matter how much snow we'll get, the schools will be closed until Friday. That much I can guarantee you. I vaguely remember me saying something last night to the effect of sweet mother of God, please let Monday morning come quickly when these two Devil-children will be off on their merry way to play with friends and leave mommy in peace and quiet to interact with adults and her laptop, in silence. Or something like that. It was a rough weekend.

The older child, who had regained his hearing temporarily, caught another cold and has lost it again. Either that or he totally figured out the whole if-I'm-deaf-it-gets-me-out-of-trouble thing and is totally playing me. We go back to the doctor and the hearing lab on Thursday. Oh happy day.

Ok. I'm going to go back to glancing out the window and cursing at the weather reporters with their overnight bags and cots laid out in the weather room. I'll keep you posted on Snowmageddon's progress towards The City With No Snow Removal Equipment. Saint Louis.

- H

Check me out with all my positivity and junk.

I've been meaning to write a super thought-provoking New Year's post, full of insight into what went wrong in 2010 (and oh hell there was so much where would I start?) and my high hopes for 2011. But then I didn't. Because two weeks at home with two pre-schoolers and I finally decided a successful day was one where no one ended up in the ER with stitches, not one where mommy got to write her manifesto.

You may or may not have noticed, but I've brought my alter-ego back. It was there that I started to construct a "that what I made in 2010" post, and only got so far as April before chucking it. Holy crap, I made a lot of stuff last year, and much of it was crap. I am definitely adding a goal of do not make any more crap to my list this year. Heh. I'll be so full of the awesome by the end of this year you all won't know how to handle me.

In putting together that post, I got to read a lot of my old posts. A lot. And that's when I realized, that's what this blog is good for.

If you're a blogger, you've undoubtedly had one of Those Moments. The moment when you think "why am I doing this? What is this all about anyway?" You start to get bogged down in the popularity contest instead of just enjoying what you're doing, and why you started doing it in the first place. It starts to feel like a chore instead of a joy. I think it happens to everyone at some point. When it happens to me, I step away from the keyboard. Luckily, my mojo has always returned and my fingers start tapping away.


It was in reviewing old posts that I had this AHA moment (no, I will NOT pay Oprah royalties for using that phrase). This blog has been the best diary, the best journal of what's happening in my life that I ever could have imagined. I'm so glad I added the LinkWithin widget, because now when I go to read an old post, I see pictures from even older posts, and suddenly I'm carried away to two years ago, when Griffin was just a baby and still in love with his toilet brush.

I won't lie to you. There were many tears wept over this walk down memory lane and many memories I wish I didn't remember. I cried a little for all the bad memories that came flooding back, but also for the fact that WE SURVIVED! I kept the band together! It's a small miracle considering what we had to overcome, but so far we've managed to do it and that is something.


So. I have no grandiose resolutions for this year. I hope to not spend as much money on marital counseling as I did last year because we don't need it. I hope there aren't as many dragons to slay this year. And I hope I stop and look back and smile a little more often than I did last year.

- H

On ears and buns

This post will be an update of sorts. If you've been following along, you'll know that my car recently tried to kill me by setting the butt warmer on fire while I was sitting on it.

You'll also perhaps remember the one where I talked about my fears that my oldest son is deaf as a post.

Today, there was a small bit of forward movement on both fronts.

My car, she did indeed catch on fire. The service manager at the dealership said "yeah, it's fried." I said "so it burned up?" and he said "Oh, yeah. Torched. It's just an empty circuit now, though, so it's safe."

Hmmm. Safe. Interesting choice of words, as were "fried" and "torched." I feel so much better. New parts shall be installed in a fortnight, however long that is.

On to the bigger issue at hand, my deaf son. He is, indeed, temporarily deaf. If you were to stick both fingers in your ears, he would hear 20% less than that, according to the doctors who saw him today. His latest ear infection left him with pus behind his eardrum. Not "fluid," per se, but thick pus. Most people's bodies re-absorb fluid behind the eardrum, but sadly my son's is not doing that and hence the hearing loss.

I got to sit with him in the special room where they conduct hearing tests, and there was a point during the test when I had to stop myself from weeping. I could hear the lady from the control booth saying things like "say hotdog," and Cooper would say "popcorn." Or she would give him a command and he'd just stare blankly because he couldn't hear her. I could hear her, and I was in a soundproof room.

The good news is it's not permanent! His nerves that control permanent hearing are fine, it's everything in between that's messed up right now. We have to wait until February to see if the issue resolves itself (doc thinks it won't), and then he can have new tubes and his adenoids out at the same time.

The best part about all of it is I get to continue TALKING REALLY SLOW AND REALLY LOUD WITH HIM, and tapping him on the shoulder before even attempting to tell him anything, or gesturing with hand signals if I'm too far away to tap, for at least another six weeks. Yay!

So there. Thank you for your concern regarding both matters, and hopefully sometime in the spring both my son and my car will be fixed for good.

- H

Grandpa's gonna sue the pants off of Santa. But my pants aren't going to catch on fire.

Am I the only adult in the free world who has actually watched the cartoon movie "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer?" Cause I know I've had a margarita tonight and all, but it was a few hours ago and for some reason the freaky voluptuously sexy cartoon ladies singing "Grandpa's gonna sue the pants off of Santa, that's what Grandpa's gonna do..." just seriously makes me think maybe I drank more than I thought I drank.

You'll all be relieved to know that I did call my local dealership who services my Cheapuinox to schedule an appointment to have my flaming buns warmer fixed lest we all catch on fire while on the road. The lovely girl working the phone was super concerned about the risk of my car burning up with me in it and slotted me right in to their first available appointment, which is next Thursday. Hrmph. We shall be driving around in the Tahoe til then.

Next Thursday's going to be a big day. Right after dropping the flaming piece of crap at the car dealership, my oldest son and I will be headed to the hospital for a hearing test and then an appointment with his ENT doc.

Why? you ask.

Well, I'm sad to report that my child is stone cold deaf. He can hear very little. This happened a few years ago and it got better on its own, but at his age I'm just a little worried that if there is some sort of BIG PROBLEM and we let it go (much like the buns warmer) then we won't be able to catch it in time to fix it.

He had an ear infection a month or so ago. Antibiotics treated the infection, but he's since been left with no hearing. For a week or two I wasn't too concerned, but we're going on six weeks now, and it almost seems like it's getting worse.

"Cooper, let's get your shoes on."
Silence.
"COOPER. Let's get your SHOES ON."
"What?"
"COOPER, LET'S GET YOUR SHOES ON," which is accompanied by waving the shoes around so he knows what I'm talking about. By this point, Ruby knows what I'm talking about and has been known to fetch the flipping shoes and drop them at Cooper's feet as a hint.

It's actually quite disturbing. At first we thought it was selective hearing, right? So we started testing him. If you stand behind him and talk about Santa Clause or candy, he doesn't hear you. If you stand in front of him and talk about Santa Clause and candy, he can't hear that either. He has to be looking right at your face while you RAISE YOUR VOICE LIKE YOU'RE TALKING TO YOUR 80-YEAR-OLD GRANDPA. Or 60-year-old father-in-law, whatever.

He had chronic ear infections as a baby and right around his one year mark he got tubes in his ears. They've since stopped working and turned sideways, or maybe pulled out? I'm unclear on what exactly they're doing, but we do know they are still in his ear canal and they aren't helping a bit. So we're back to the ENT to figure out just exactly what is going on and what we can do to fix it. I hope it's something simple like water on the eardrum? Something that new tubes or removing the defective ones can solve.

Just pray it's not something more serious than that. I don't know sign language.

- H

I think my car is trying to kill me.

I am not overreacting. I really believe my car may be trying to off me. Case in point: how hot does my butt really need to be?

If you live in a climate with extremes of hot and cold, you really must run out and pay however much it costs for a remote starter on your keychain thingy. It's the best invention ever. I drive a company car (Chevy Equinox, thank you very much) and I danced a jig of joy when it came and I saw it has remote start. In the summer I can crank up the air and get it cooled before getting in. In the winter, the engine is already warm before we open the doors. You get the picture.

The second best feature of my otherwise fairly crappy car is the buns warmer. There is nothing more comforting than driving along with your back and buns being warmed from below. Well, there's maybe three more comforting things like afghans, your mom, wine, Facebook, but I digress.

Last week the weather here took a turn for the worse. Our high was in the teens, low near zero. This is brutal cold, the British would call it v. cold. In preparation for getting my brood out to the car in the morning, I cranked up the remote start. Yay for technology!

Ten minutes pass, then we load up. I hop in front, press the buns warmer button, and off we go.

Some few minutes down the road, I started to feel a touch hot. Not warm, but some serious heat, coming from my ass area. I actually had to wiggle a little bit and pressed the button on the buns warmer to reduce the heat a little. Thinking maybe I was just wearing thin pants or have a hot flash, I went about my merry way.

Next day, repeat routine from above. Remote start, load brood, buns warmer on.

As we're meandering down the road, my brain and my son's brain noticed something at the same time.

"Mom, do you smell something burning?"
"Yeah...yes, I do. I wonder what that is?"

But I knew what it was. My buns were warmer than they should be, warmer than they've ever been, and the warmer was about to catch fire. I turned it off.

I really should take the car in to the shop, lest I have to make an emergency stop and hop out of it with my butt on fire in the near future. It's just that, well, the buns warmer still works! And my butt is typically cold. So, there's that. Lo, the inconvenience. I'm trying to weigh my options. Hmmm....

- H

Overheard

9:00 p.m. last night. After I told my oldest son I was sick of his shit behavior, it was time for bed. Go say goodnight to your dad, he's in the office.

Dad: Cooper, do you want me to lay you down tonight?
Cooper: NO, I want mom to do it!
Dad: Well, good luck with that.

- H

24 hours

TUESDAY
8:30 p.m.: I laid down with Griffin, and he promptly fell asleep. Yay for a tired preschooler!

9:45: As I'm crawling into bed, I heard the tell-tale squeaking that turned into full-on cries for Mommy from Grif. I picked him up and he cried and cried, eventually managing to tell me his tummy hurt. He burped a lot. I prepared myself mentally to be puked on and took him downstairs to watch Elmo.

10:20: Elmo's twenty minutes of fame over, Griffin's eyelids very heavy and his tummy treated with Mylanta. No more burps, no pukes, back to bed.

10:30: Griffin crying for mommy again. Lay down with him until he's asleep.

12:30: New crying from Griffin, he wants to sleep in the Big Bed with daddy. I laid him in the middle, and climb back in.

12:35: Cooper comes to my side of the bed. "There's no room, honey, let's go back to your room." I put him to bed in his bed and I climb into Griffin's, which is the trundle. Wondering if I'll get any sleep tonight?

12:45: Cooper crawls down onto the trundle bed with me.

1:45: I wake up with sharp searing pain in my head and neck. Slowly turn my head to relieve the cramp and pain. Briefly consider whether I have a tumor.* I climb up onto Cooper's bed to sleep.

5:00: Hear my husband tromping around, going downstairs and letting the dogs out. Why so early? Want to shoot someone.

5:45: Hear Griffin crying for someone to join him in the Big Bed. I get up and bring him back into his room and his bed.

6:00: Both boys want to get up. Fine, let's start this crapbag day super early after getting no sleep, that's a great idea. Headache not helping any.

7:00: Griffin crying that his tummy hurts. Does he have to poop? No. More Mylanta.

8:00: Off to school.

10:00: Why did I sign myself up to help with the Christmas party in Cooper's room? I am not happy about this. 20 energetic four-year-olds and a craft assignment from the other mom who volunteered = Heather is not a happy camper.

10:15: Cut 12 sets of hands/reindeer antlers out with teeny tiny safety scissors. Hands cramping. Cooper sobbing because of lack of sleep (see above) and because I was there. Behavior would have been much better if I wasn't there.

10:30: While cleaning up the gluey mess, Cooper reaches up and grabs one of my boobs, giving it a good honk. WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? No answer.

10:45: Pick glue out of my hair. Go back to work. Note to self: do not volunteer for class party again.

11:00: Headache returns with vengeance. Must. Eat. Food.

4:00: Pick up offspring from school. Bribe them for good behavior with candy. This may serve to backfire on me later.

5:30: Hubs is back to work this week, after three months at home! Go pick up sushi in celebratory mood. Spend next twenty minutes preparing mac-n-cheese and nuggets for offspring that they don't eat, choosing to demolish the sushi platter instead. Choose to add wine to my dinner.

6:00: Finish sewing new work trousers. Cuss the idiots at Simplicity for making sewing patterns that are stupid and make people look dumb. Rip out all major seams, start over on the waistband assembly. Happy to hear the offspring playing quietly under my cutting table. Unhappy to find they've emptied my compressed air can.

7:00: Bathtime. Load them up, sit down on toilet with my needle and hook-and-eye closure to sew on the new pants. Brain telling me something smells fruity and familiar. Look up to find the bathtub filled with bubbles? I didn't add bubblebath? Find that Griffin has squeezed out my entire tube of new expensive shampoo into the tub. Regret not having had more wine.

8:00: Shriek with shock when Griffin spills an entire cup of ice water on my lap. When I ask him why, he said he was bringing it to me. And then he laid it down next to my leg.

9:00: Find myself telling Cooper "I am tired of your shit behavior today" after my whining valve filled up. March him off to bed.

10:00: Seeing spots from fatigue. Fading fast. Concerned I have a brain tumor (see notes from 1:45 a.m.)

Scratch that. It's horses and flash mobs.

There may be a slight chance that I might be slightly hormonally imbalanced this week. Maybe. I wouldn't really know because thanks to the modern miracles of science and those lovely people who make the Mirena IUD, I don't have the pesky bothersome visit from my pesky aunt every 28 days anymore. (Sorry, all you male readers out there. I should have warned you, eh?)

This is a wonderful thing, and yet! The heads up that emotions maybe running high would be nice every now and then.

First I found myself sobbing about a race horse that won despite the odds being stacked against her. Then my mom sent me a link to this YouTube video of a flash mob singing the Hallelujah chorus in a mall food court.



Good Lord. You'd have thought I was having one of those moments where I saw the Virgin Mary in a baked potato for the amount of tears I shed! My kids were sitting on my lap, happily punching holes in bills with my hole puncher and trying to staple their fingers together, and my weeping managed to interrupt their activity, which is a small miracle. Cooper asked me if I was ok.

Yes, honey. I'm ok. God was just speaking to me through YouTube again.

- H

The original Facebook

I know that Zucker-something-or-other kid claims to have invented Facebook and all, but I swear a small child probably had something to do with it.

My son is three. It's a cute age, right? Yeah, it's cute. He says really super sweet things like "Mom, you're my best friend." Which of course makes me give him some Juicy Fruit gum.

Sadly, this tactic also serves to backfire on me frequently.

"Mommy, can I have some gum?"

"No, honey, we're about to eat dinner."

"FINE! YOU ARE NOT MY BEST FRIEND ANYMORE."

Just today alone I've been friended and unfriended at least a dozen times.

Which might be why I laughed until I cried at this post. I can't wait to be unfriended in a letter on my pillow.

- H

Three

I remember the day you stuck into my belly. I was sitting at a meeting and felt a giant ouch! in my belly. That was you!

Sure enough, the next week I felt funny. A few days later I was in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and I stopped at a Walgreen's. I splurged on one of those digital pregnancy tests, and the magic word popped up on the screen... Griffin! Just kidding, it said PREGNANT.

I hoped you would be a girl. But I knew the second I knew you were in there, I knew in my heart that you were you. All boy. When I was just twelve weeks along, Daddy and I went to the doctor for our high-screen ultrasound. They do that for mommies who are a little long in the tooth. There you were, swimming around like a tiny little Polly Pocket dolly, doing backflips. The doctor said it was too soon to tell if you were a boy or a girl, but I saw you.

And sure enough, a few weeks later when we had our big ultrasound, there it was!

Your birth story is just like your life story - easy peasy lemon squeezy. You came out big (9 1/2 lbs and 22 inches long) and happy as a clam at 3:45 in the afternoon. You slept long and often, and I can't thank you enough for that.

You really loved being a baby. During this past year, I would call you my big boy and you'd say "no, I'm a baby." You hung on to your binkie as long as you could, and even now you'll ask for it if you're really upset. Too bad the Binkie Fairy had to give it to a teeny tiny baby who really needed it. You resisted potty-training for real until a few weeks ago. And now, when you go on the potty, you say "I'm going on the potty because I'm a big boy now." I can't tell you how sad that makes me.


Since you could walk, and maybe even before that, you've been chasing after your big brother, just dying to do what he's doing, to be where he is. Today you asked me "when is Cooper's birthday coming up? When I eat my birthday all gone, is it gonna be Cooper's birthday?" Cooper's so lucky to have you. I hope when you're both grown your friendship stays strong and positive.

You're the fresh air our family needs, Grif. You're rough and tumble and have a black eye roughly 50% of the time. Just today, in fact, you tumbled head over heels down the porch steps and then a half hour later took a line drive from a Frisbee to your cheek. Black eye? Check!


Today we had a little family get-together for your party. You opened your presents and played outside for a polite amount of time, then you came to me to be held. You said "I'm tired of playing, I need to rest." And you turned to your aunt and said "when are you guys going to leave?" Just like that, the party was over. I will laugh about that for years to come.

Thanks for being you, Griffin. We love you so much. Happy Birthday my big boy! You'll always be my baby.

- H

There is a slight possibility of high hormone levels

My kids love Johnny Cash. What can I say? They have good taste.

One day, while we were out gallivanting around (probably heading to or from Target), Cooper put in a song request.

"Mom, can you play the Firing song?"
"The what? What Firing song?"
"You know. The song with the fire ring!"
"The fire ring? Wha? Ohhhh, Ring of Fire? You want to hear Ring of Fire?"
"Yeah! Ring of Fire! Play Ring of Fire!"

So it began, their love affair with the Man in Black and his short but sweet songs about people whose lives go to hell in a handbasket, fast.

This morning both of my kids woke up ill. Griffin's eyes were glued shut and green goop was oozing out of his nose. Cooper's ears hurt and he had this persistent cough for the last few weeks. So we made the executive decision to leave Griffin home with dad and for me to take Cooper to the pediatrician.

On the way there, I got a request for the Fire Ring song again. Really, it's the perfect song for toddlers, what with it's talk about love being a burning flame and all. Kinda makes those kids from Kings of Leon look like idiots for trying to re-write a classic and say it was about venereal disease to throw everyone off. Oh, except the part where those clean-cut kids from the south didn't actually write any of their own music, they have this producer who 'found' them, much like the Jonas Brothers were 'found' and there are other questionable parts to their story, but I digress.

It's short, and right after that song is a real pick-me-upper song called The Ballad of Ira Hayes. About a Pima Indian who lost his farmland and then went to war as a Marine, surviving Iwo Jima to plant the American Flag on Japanese soil. Or something like that, I wasn't a history major.

So maybe, just maybe I am a little bit hormonal right now. Or maybe all the crackadoo BS of the last week (another boss fired abruptly on Tuesday) has gotten to me. Because we're motoring down the road, enjoying the tunes and the time together and I'm boo-hooing in the front seat over the poor guy, Ira Hayes.

There they battled up Iwo Jima's hill,
Two hundred and fifty men
But only twenty-seven lived to walk back down again

And when the fight was over
And when Old Glory raised
Among the men who held it high
Was the Indian, Ira Hayes

Ira returned a hero
Celebrated through the land
He was wined and speeched and honored; Everybody shook his hand

But he was just a Pima Indian
No water, no crops, no chance
At home nobody cared what Ira'd done
And when did the Indians dance

I mean, have you ever heard anything more sad? Poor Ira. What's even sadder is how he became an alcoholic and Johnny Cash wrote a song about him and calls him drunken Ira Hayes all the time.

Hang on, I will stop weeping soon.

Usually when life starts weighing heavy and my shoulders hurt from carrying it around, I tell myself this too shall pass. This is especially helpful when my kids are being jerks or my husband is, or I am, or life is. Then today, Chris wrote this on Notes from the Trenches: This too shall pass. I say that a lot. It is supposed to be a comfort. A reassurance that things will not always be the way they are right now. But along with the challenging stuff, so passes the good.

And oh my God, she's right. The bad stuff almost always moves on, but these times when my kids are little and want to listen to Johnny Cash in the car with me, they'll move on too. There will come a day when they're sick and away at college and I can't keep them home from school with me, I can't give them Tylenol and rub their backs, and even if I could they wouldn't want me to.

I know, I promised the weeping would stop. I'm sure it will. Like all things, it'll pass.

- H

toes

Hubs and I had our first parent-teacher conference this evening for Cooper. His teacher, Miss Jenni, assured us he was right on track for his age. Except of course that he can't identify most letters or any numbers except for the lettes in his name. Umm, I will take responsibility for that. I am not one of those moms who is constantly pointing out the alphabet.

Or numbers.

Not that it's held him back any. He still writes plenty, despite the strings of letters not literally spelling anything. Ok, ok, I have my work cut out for me. Sign me up.

While we were sitting in the hallway across from the Star Room, waiting for Miss Jenni, we giggled at these two posters. A different classroom had made them. Aiden has the beginnings of a career in footwear ahead of him.

Poor Josh. Called out for being different. I like Ella's answer. Sister, you have no idea.
- H

I need to teach my minions to do laundry

I am seriously irritated with the fact that I am the sole do-er of the laundry in this house. I am also currently the sole adult working outside of the home, and the sole person travelling for said work. If it weren't for me, entire children would be lost in the heaps of dirty laundry. Other children would resort to wearing Halloween costumes from years gone past to school in the morning.

And do one of these ungrateful males step up to help out with the piles?! NO. I wish I had the backbone to go on strike. That would totally rock, other than me not having any clean underwear but then of course I could go buy more so that would be ok.

Oh but hey, on another note I made a shirt tonight! I know, I know, I have a lot of laundry to do but instead I spent an hour with my serger (blasted thing of dangerous cutting knife that it is) and whipped up a knock-off to a Splendid top I bought this year that just doesn't fit me right.

The prototype didn't turn out so great. It was super tight in the belly area - MINUS - and the cowl neck thingy kind of stuck out from me, causing a big gaping hole-type thing in the front which is also just not a good look for me. But! I had a good idea for a second prototype by working on that one, so I'll scrap it and try again tomorrow night.

For now, there's laundry to fold.

- H

Shackers! Posting every day is hard.

Oops, so sorry that I fell down on my promise of daily posting a la NaBloMoPo or whatever the hell it's called. Yesterday, I simply did not write anything. Which is hard to believe, considering I thought of a lot of things.

Now on to today's frivolity. Such drama! I wore my favorite pink cowboy boots! I bought fabric!

That's right, you heard that right. I'm so irritated with the clothes that are available in stores right now that I've taken it upon myself to break my I'm-not-going-to-sew-anymore-for-myself-dammit pledge and I'm going to sew for myself again. You know why?

My butt does not need to see the light of day.

It's that simple. I want to wear leggings so I can wear my cute pink cowboy boots. But I can't find shirts that just COVER MY BUTT. Is that so much to ask? A cute shirt with cute details in a knit or otherwise fabric that is forgiving and also such that extends past my glorious glutes so that nobody has to actually look at them?

So. I'm taking it upon myself to make some. I stopped by Hancock's on my way to pick up the kids this afternoon, and whoa nelly. Their bargain fabrics in the back? The ones that have been discontinued? They are totally way better than the crap they sell up front. I bought way too much but at $1.95 it was almost like a travesty not to buy it, you know? Because I'll regret it when I want it and then it's gone.

Oh, and by the way patterns are on sale, too, so of course I bought six or nine of them. I couldn't help it!

Anyway, I've made a pledge to finish at least a few of these projects by Thanksgiving. I'm taking a week off work that week and with little else to fill my time like kids or work or a house to take care of, I should totally be able to sew eight or nine hours a day.

I can hardly wait for tomorrow's excitement.

- H

The longest day ever

When I was younger, without children, I used to love Fall Back. For those heathens in Indiana who are reading, that's when we in time zones who can't seem to leave well enough alone participate in daylight savings time and we change our clocks. Last night we rolled them back an hour, so instead of waking up at 7 in the morning, surprise! You wake up at 6.

When you're young and unencumbered, you just sleep more. It's lovely. When you're not? It totally sucks. My kid wanted to get up at 6:30, the sun was up and being obnoxious in the windows, all around it was tough. Although the upside was no line in the drive through at Dunkin Donuts, so that's cool.

Now it's only 4:30 and it feels like it must be bedtime already, right? Why won't these little people just fall asleep already! I've given up, and I'm hiding inside on the couch while they play outside. Now if I could only find a bottle of chilled wine, this would be an awesome moment.

- H

I made a cream sauce

I made my first white sauce tonight for dinner.

I'm not a great cook, I have to admit it. It's not that I have no skill, it's just that I have very little interest in it. Usually once a week I'll get a bug up my butt to cook my family a nice nutritious meal.

Then the part about it being nutritious kind of goes by the wayside and tonight I made a white sauce for our cheese tortellini. Homemade. Can you believe that?

So here's my recipe, and it was delicious if I do say so myself.

I took one of those small cartons of heavy whipping cream and a few tablespoons of butter and heated it on med-low (gas range) until it was just kind of warm. Then I took a few tablespoons of the cream out of the pot, mixed it with two teaspoons of corn starch, and added it back to the pot.

Added a lot of pepper, a little salt, and about three or four cloves of garlic, minced. Then I just let it simmer and thicken and simmer and thicken and by the time the rest of the food was ready the sauce was perfect.

I usually buy fresh pasta, ever since the time I bought fresh pasta and realized HOLY SHIT IT IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN DRIED PASTA. This time I bought the fresh pasta cheese tortellinis and they are awesome. Sooooo tasty. Tasty is a funny word.

I breaded some chicken and after cooking it in olive oil, I wrap it in tinfoil and bake it for 20 or 30 minutes.

Oh, and there was broccoli served, too, although my hubs and I were the only two who ate it.

The kids loved the tortellinis. And I ate so much I may take up jogging tomorrow.

- H

I was abducted by aliens. Hence my long absence.

Wouldn't it be awesome if I had some great reason why I haven't written anything in such a long time? Sadly, there were no aliens. Unless you count some of the interesting characters I came across in my recent travels.

No, I've just been super blah. After the drama and the scratching of the Lice Epidemic of 2010, regular life has just not seemed so regular. My scalp (and Griffin's) still smells like Listerine, thanks to the Listerine/shower cap trick I tried one day. I chased mine with a vinegar/shower cap treatment but spared my poor son the vinegar. Who knows if we even had lice at that point, but I'm not taking any chances.

A friend of mine has a daughter who came down with the dreaded creepy crawlies a few weeks ago. Apparently they're running amok in the parochial schools as well as the public ones. Maybe it's the time of year? Who knows. I even heard from a friend out of state (two, actually) whose kids got it right around the same time Griffin did. So there. I don't feel quite so disgusting.

Well, that's not really true. I still do feel gross, but I feel gross in good company.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some more contraband Halloween candy to eat so I can collapse into a sugar coma. I'm sure I'll be back to post adorable Halloween pictures of children in store-bought nylon costumes (the horror!) soon.

- H