Creeping closer to that corner

Knowing that I have a tough week going on I decided Sunday that I was going to be proactive and do things to help promote personal well being during a stressful time.

My Plan:

Eat Healthy Meals
Drink Plenty of Water
Take my vitamins every day
Go to sleep at 10:30 every night
Try to get in some exercise every day

Stats so far:
Eat Healthy Meals: 0 for 2
Drink Plenty of Water: 0 for 2
Take my vitamins every day: 1 for 2
Go to sleep at 10:30 every night: 0 for 2
Try to get in some exercise every day: 0 for 2

Yeah I am rockin' the plan!

Now for news that is sending me closer to that corner to rock and talk to myself:

Sunday my leg starts to itch. As I scratch I notice reddish swellings appearing where I am scratching. There appear to be three bug bites of some kind there. Which was odd seeing as how I have not spent significant amounts of time engaged in activities that could lead to bug bites. Later in the shower I notice several other similar spots on my leg, hip, and stomach. Curiouser and curiouser. I have not taken any medications, nor tried any new foods or anything like that. So I put some benadryl cream on them and figure they will go away. Yesterday they were still there. A little itchy, but no new ones. Today, about 10 new spots pop up on my back. I decide it is time to seek medical advice. To shorten this up. I am having some kind of allergic reaction to...something. May be an insect bite. We don't know! So I am given Prednisone and some samples of an antihistamine that won't make me drowsy. The doc then tells me about the big side effects of Predinsone being irritability and insomnia. Hmmmm.......these are two things that I DO NOT NEED THIS WEEK. So for now the prednisone sits on the counter untouched and we will just see what this antihistamine does for me.

Also...
It would appear that BH is coming down with something that involves a fever. Worse for him than for me obviously, but just one more thing to add to the list.

Is it next week yet?

News on the cute front:

#2 has had her magnifying glass, notebooks, and pencils out this evening trying to solve the great mystery about my red itchy bumps. She has scoured the house with her magnifying glass, made notes, and come to the following conclusion:
The red itchy bumps are caused by a bug. This bug is only biting me because I smell so sweet and good all the time, and it likes things that smell good and sweet.

This is why I keep her.

Do you think they are getting overtime?

Glad I am not a foster care case manager in Texas right now.

That is some freaky stuff.

A thought that has percolated for a while

For those who don't know I live in a town that is home to a certain "religious" group that enjoys carrying signs around that have hate messages about homosexuals as well as a few other things.

Last week a march was held here in protest of the above mentioned individuals.

Now please be VERY CLEAR that I in no way appreciate, agree with, condone, and any other similar word you can think of the message shared by the so called "religious" group. I have seen their signs at least once a week for more years than I care to count.

However......

I was in no way really excited about nor did I plan to go out and participate in the march last week.

The reason being is that I believe the only way to shut this group down is to ignore them.

I mean IGNORE THEM COMPLETELY. As in pretend they do not exist, pretend you do not see them, make them invisible.

I know that people say this all the time. I have also read it or heard it said somewhere that ignoring them doesn't work. To this I say, we do not know that ignoring them does not work because they have never TRULY been ignored. Some one somewhere gives them attention constantly, which they openly admit to thriving on regardless of the type of attention it is.

Admittedly this is a hard group to ignore, particularly if you are resident of this fair city. Their signs are bold in color and in statement. There are a lot of them. They are amazingly faithful to their cause. They are fanatical, and I think more than one of them are likely mentally ill. They will yell hateful and disgusting things at you merely because you walk past them on your way in to a venue they have decided is worthy of picketing.These are things that are difficult to ignore because for many of us the above mentioned behaviors fan such a huge roaring fire of anger and outrage that it feels absolutely impossible not to respond in some way, because surely SURELY this time, this report, this comment will put an end to the hate.

Unfortunately your response to them fans their huge hate-filled fire too, and keeps it burning long after your comments and or actions have faded in to the wind.

I know that my hopes for total lack of response are futile at best. Maybe I am wrong and they would continue on anyway. But if at least.. AT LEAST if the local and national media ignored them a few less people would be exposed to their ugly words and not see their sad misguided messages.

For me...I will just continue my own IGNORE! campaign, and pray that someday I no longer have to.

Hang on, it's going to be a bumpy ride

I am not much of one for fantasy or sci-fi, but right now I would gladly offer up (enter something really appealing here) to have a magic remote control that would allow me skip over the next week.

I have been dreading next week for quite some time now. Unfortunately the closer I get to the week's arrival it seems I have more and more reason to increase my dread.

I first was dreading the week because it is what is known to theater folk as production week for BH. As most of you know he is the drama guy at a local high school and the spring play opens next week. I refer to this week as Single Parent Week. During Single Parent Week BH leaves the house before 7 AM and does not return until after 10 PM. That in and of itself is never much fun for the girls and I. We really like having BH/Daddy around, and we are all a little bummed out when he isn't.

A couple of months ago, my dread of this week increased when I realized my 4 day Theraplay Class is this week. That means a two plus hour commute each day, and the training is fairly intense from what I hear. The four days are from Thursday-Sunday. Which means essentially no weekend for me. That always makes for a happy Missy.

Two weeks ago my dread went off the charts when I found out that date for moving in to the brand new building at work was moved from today to next Friday. That means I have to have my office totally packed, labeled, and ready for the movers before I leave work on Wednesday. I also have to make sure all of my paperwork and phone calls are caught up as well. As I am only working in the office three days next week, I did not feel that I could switch around my clients anymore to have packing time and thus will not be able to begin packing until 5:00 Wednesday evening. It is important that a play therapist have toys available for clients, and of course the bulk of what needs to be packed is toys. Moving is stressful no matter what kind or how beneficial. I had really wanted to move all of my toys myself, but given the circumstances I just can't do that without causing myself more stress, so I am letting go and hoping for the best. This is not easy for a person with my...control challenges to do. It all feels very rushed now, and I am concerned about important things getting lost in this rather large move.

I think that is it. Hopefully nothing else will rear it's ugly head. If so you can find me in the nearest corner rocking back and forth and mumbling to myself.

If anyone has a line on magic future jumping remotes, drop me a line.

The Bird

Today my children had dental check-ups. At the end of these appointments the dentist always makes a balloon for each child out of a latex glove and ties it off with dental floss.

As BH was driving the girls home from my parents house this evening they were playing with thier latex glove balloons. He hears one of the girls say, "Let's make it stick up it's middle finger!" and then they worked together oh so nicely to make this happen. If only we always had such cooperation and togetherness!

Now we are perplexed about where they have learned about this gesture, because I make damn sure the kids are no where in sight when I flip the bird to their dad. I have that much control over my impulses at least.

They tell us that apparently on a recent trip with their Poppie to Walgreens, someone apparently disagreed with Poppie's driving, honked their horn and gave him the finger.

Nice.

So they had a discussion about what it meant and how it is just as bad to do that as it is to say a bad word, because it is like sign language for a bad word. He then asked what they thought they should do about the choice they made.

#2 wanted to hunt down the man who flipped Poppie the bird and tell him about how it is wrong to do that.

#1 wanted to pop the balloon.

BH decided they just needed to tell me about what happened.

So they did when I got home. I reiterated what had already been said, and added that it was a sign for a really bad word.

AND thus began the questions.

"Is it worse than the SH word? " asks #2.

"Where did you hear about the SH word?" I exclaim in a remarkably calm tone of voice.

"You know...the Shut Up word." answers #2

"Oh....well....ummm...yes it is worse than the SH word." I stammer.

"Is it worse than the A word?" from #1

"Yes it is worse than the A word." says I fighting back the giggles.

"How about the CR or maybe it is KR word?" again from #2.

"?"

PAUSE

"Oh you mean crap?" I state.

"OOOOOOOOHHHHHhhhhhhh! You said a bad woooooorrrrddddd Mommy!" Chorus #1 and #2.

"It is time for bed now children." I declare.

Good to see that they are still fairly innocent.

Oh yeah, apparently when they got home they popped the balloon AND cut off it's middle finger too, just for good measure.

When is it time to say Uncle?

#2 has been coughing a very wet, nasty, sounds like she needs to hork up a giant lugie (loogie? how in the heck do you spell that anyway?) cough for about 2 weeks now.

Today she has added on congestion that involves constant sniffling and slurping sounds, the slurping I assume is due in part to the mouth breathing she has to do.

I have put off calling the doctor until today because while her cough sounds yucky, it has not seemed to be too bothersome. It hasn't slowed her down, kept her up at night or anything like that. I just assumed it would run it's course. It has not gotten worse, but still has not shown any improvement either.

The problem is the course is feeling a bit long to me. Now we have new symptoms on top of it.

It is hard to know when to cry Uncle! or Doctor! I guess if I want to be more accurate.

I try hard to wait things out, because 9 times out of 10 when I do take the child in, I hear that it is a virus that has to run it's course. However I keep a tenuous grasp on anxiety when my kids are sick. My mother unfortunately unwittingly feeds that anxiety with her constant comments anytime one of them sniffles, and seeing as they are in her care two days a week after school, that can be a lot of comments. I should probably address that with her.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a mom who needs to leave every appointment with some kind of prescription, but I do get tired of wishing I had left well enough alone, especially with a 50% co-pay for each visit.

I wish that they could give me some kind of chart or flow sheet for these types of situations. You know.... if A B C occurs for X amount of time then bring 'em on in. I try calling the nurse to see if I am over reacting or not, but she is not going to make the decision for me no matter how hard I try to make her do so. In fact I end those calls feeling more undecided than I did to start.

So tomorrow it is off to the doctor to see what if anything is wrong. At the very least I hope that she will answer my questions about whether we have just been unlucky this winter with #2 regarding illness, or is it time to take a closer look at her and see if something is going on. Cause this kid has really gone over her illness quota for the year.

Here's hoping my time and money are not wasted.

But most importantly let's get this kid healthy.

#2 is 7

My baby is officially 7 years old as of 10:04 PM yesterday.

I like to make them wait until the actual time of their birth before I will admit that my children are a year older.

We had a lovely breakfast of Chocolate Pop Tarts in bed for breakfast, followed by opening gifts from parents and sibling.

She was very pleased with her presents. An i-pod shuffle from mom and dad, and Littlest Petshop toys from big sister.

I hope the i-pod is not lost or damaged any time soon. That thing is tiny. I am taking a chance giving one of those to a 7 year old....luckily since I do all the syncing, I can arrange the settings to control how loud the volume goes, so little ears are protected.

The afternoon included a party with the family and friends of the family, complete with cookies (no birthday cake this year for #2 she wanted frosted sugar cookies instead. So instead of cursing over a cake, I was zooming to finish the detail work on cookies a half hour before the festivities began. Let's hear it for procrastination!) ice cream, and more presents!

#2's new obsession

Webkinz.

Because 300 stuffed animals aren't enough. (I wish to God I was kidding about that number, but sadly I am not.)

It's Crunch Time! (and I ain't talkin' 'bout Nestle!)

It has been a looooong, coooold, and snowy winter.

Not the kind of set up for hitting the exercise equipment, but definitely the perfect arrangement for mowing down some serious comfort foods.

During this winter I have been a big ass slacker when it comes to exercise and healthy eating, and that has led to well..er...a big ass, and expansion in other areas as well.

After taking inventory (read: squeezing and praying that I will be able to zip and snap my jeans) I have decided that it is time to take serious action.

The serious action I have taken is to sign up for a free online challenge that has an exercise and eating plan set up just for me, and er..well the other bazillion people who have signed up for it as well.

I figure it can't hurt to state my challenge here on my blog to help keep me motivated and honest.

So in that spirit here are my starting stats:

Weight: Step away from the cheese fries!
Bust: Smokin' Rack Baby!!
Waist: Just how long is that statute of limitations on calling my "pooch" (I refer to her as Babette, because it makes it sound more worldly and elegant) post partum weight? Surely it is longer than 7 years.... right?
Hips: Hmmm...I am thinking that there should be a bigger discrepancy between this number and the one above
Thighs: Are we supposed to have thunderstorms tonight?

Now come on....you didn't REALLY think I was going to post my numbers for all the world to see did you?

Let the games begin!

Tomorrow!!!!

The Power of IGNORE-ance

As both of you know, I have me some children. Two to be exact. One who is 10 and another who will be 7 in a few days.

If you have read this blog for more than two days you also know that while I believe my children to be exceptional, sometimes their behavior is not so much ranking up there with the exceptional, unless you are counting exceptionally annoying.

Given a my chosen profession I admittedly feel a lot of pressure to present to the world well adjusted and well behaved children. That pressure unfortunately can lead to me making some decisions that are not what I would call...stellar and are counterproductive towards my goal. Sometimes I jump to quickly and too forcefully on things that are not worth it, in my zeal for well adjusted and behaved children.

Also those little darlings can play me like a calculator.

RE-Heally push my buttons that is.

So recently I have been actively trying to ignore many of the behaviors I would have previously jumped on like I was on a trampoline. You know what? It is working a good portion of the time.

I was a champion at ignoring tantrums when the children were toddlers. I didn't want to experience them, so it was very easy to ignore. I think each of them tried once or twice to throw long tantrums (15-20 minutes) and quickly discovered this was not effective with me and stopped.

School age behaviors are more verbal, smarter, provoking, and MUCH more difficult to ignore in my experience.

An example of successful ignoring:

#2 was in a mood and pretty much being oppositional to every thing said to her one morning a few weeks ago. She was particularly oppositional about breakfast. I generally let the children choose what they would like for breakfast. This particular day #2 was not making choices. After I had twice asked her what she would like, she refused to answer. I let her know that I would ask one last time, and if she did not answer I would be making the decision. I also let her know what time the kitchen was closing and that there would be no further opportunities to eat after that time before we left for school. #2 continued to tell me all about what she was not going to do, and I went on about my business, refusing to pay attention to or acknowledge her. I put the breakfast on the table, let her know it was time to sit at the table and took myself back to the kitchen. She protested a few more times, I continued to act as if I were deaf and in a few minutes she ate her breakfast, and we had no further problems that morning. I made a conscious effort NOT to comment on the fact that she had eaten, and hadn't expired, exploded or anything else. We just went on about our morning ablutions. I did not wish to remind her of what she had done that was displeasing. She already knew, and re-hashing it even through praise would have been pointless.

I find the power of ignore to be most effective when I remove myself from the general area of the child. It makes it easier because the annoying behavior is not right in my face.

Oppositional, whiny, and tattle tale behaviors are my main targets for ignoring right now.

In addition to ignoring behavior, I am also working on phrasing comments regarding behavior corrections using positive terms.

An example:
#1 replies to her sister in a very rude tone, with additional rude words. I respond to that with a calm, "Speak to your sister using kind words and a pleasant tone of voice." Number one then rephrases her comment to her sister appropriately. My usual annoyed response to this would be to snap at the child and tell her to stop being rude to her sister. That would be ignored and we would go through at least two (on a good day) tries of me prompting #1 in what to say and how to say it. Which leaves both of us irritated. (A day or so later I overheard #1 telling her sister that we are supposed to talk to each other using kind words and a kind tone of voice. So hard not to say something!! But I kept quiet. Not going back and rubbing my kid's nose in things by over talking is really reeeeaalllyy hard for me. Cause I have a lot to say generally.)

The positive statements regarding not so positive behaviors has been hard. Tremendously hard. I still fail at that a lot. But successes like the one above keep me motivated to keep trying.

The positive statements also help me remember to pay attention to the behavior I want as opposed to giving attention to the behaviors I don't want. That is a lot of Becky Bailey teaching. I have been reading a lot of her stuff, and I think it is really good. Check her out.

These are the things that have been rolling around in my head lately, so I felt compelled to share.

'Cause that's what we do here at Babble On. Babble about the thoughts that roll around like marbles in my head.

Number One...the practical child.

In the car a few days ago, my darling daughters and I somehow got in to a conversation about whether or not they planned to have children.

Number One said that she does not plan to have children. Of course I was compelled to ask her what has led to this decision. The reason she plans to lead a childless life is because she hopes to have a farm with lots of animals, and taking care of a lot of animals will take up most of her time.

However, she may at some point decide to adopt a child. One who is about 10 years old.

Why? Because then the kid is old enough to help out.

I decided it was time to change the subject.

Easter Bunny Retraction

My children would like to make a retraction to the statements made about the Easter Bunny on Easter Sunday 2007.

They would like to inform all of you that the Easter Bunny is alive and well, and NOT their parents as previously stated.

They would also like to take back their comments regarding the existence of the Tooth Fairy. Although #2 would like it to be known that she will no longer be leaving her teeth under her pillow as she wishes to keep them for next year's science fair project. She considers the loss in revenue a worthy sacrafice in the pursuit of the scientific process.

Her mother however can not bear to ask what the project will entail. She is hopeful that the Great Tooth Project will be abandoned by the time the next science fair rolls around in favor of more worthy and less disgusting projects. Like mold growing or something.

#1 and #2 would like to apologize for any confusion their misguided comments may have caused.

Beach House

I should have posted about this a couple of weeks ago, but...you know how things are.

As of March 5 BH and I have been together for 15 years, as that is the anniversary of our first date.

Actually, that is not entirely true. That is the anniversary of our second date. The first one happened about six months earlier. It did not go so well. In fact it went so poorly that we studiously ignored each other as much as possible for about 4 months following that date. That was tough to do, as we shared many of the same friends.

So 15 years since our first successful date.

On the second anniversary of our first successful date (are you confused yet?) My BB (Beloved Boyfriend) decided that it was time to make things official and asked me to marry him. We had been living together for a few months (Yes we are big sinners. There is some story to that sinners remark, but that is a shorter post for another day.) I guess he felt it was time to make an honest woman out of me.

The marriage proposal I received was nothing short of spectacular. Sit back, and get a snack because this story is not short.

I have to provide a little back story here. The previous summer my husband spent a couple of months traveling around Europe with a friend of ours from high school, and two of that friend's college comrades. Ever the anxious one, I gave vehement instructions that no money was to be spent on bringing me back a souvenir from his trip, as I thought eating and lodging were far more important. Also all I really wanted was BB back home. It was a long summer for me.

When BB returned home he said that he had brought me something from the trip. It was a picture of him on a beach in a silly pose in front of I LOVE YOU spelled out in rocks. Little did I know this was a red herring of sorts. (That means remember this part later on as it will be important.) When he gave me that picture I was talking about how much I loved the beach and shared a bit about my jealousy regarding all of the beaches he had visited during his travels. BB then proclaimed that he would take me to the beach within the next year, absolutely count on that fact. I laughed him off and said that I was certain he would as the "beach area" at our local lake was open May-August and a mere 15 minute drive from my house. We continued to "argue" about his ability to follow through with the beach promise, and he finally had me list all of my requirements that were necessary for a "real beach." He wrote all of them down and I had no clue that he kept that list.

Fast forward several months. BB and I have moved into our first apartment together and things are going just swimmingly. We are happy and content. We are approaching the two year anniversary of our first successful date. At the time we were both involved in the play being performed at the college we attended, and we had a performance the night of our anniversary. As is typical during production time we were busy and very tired. Keeping our fatigue and hectic schedule in mind we decided to keep our anniversary celebration low key, and planned on going home, uncorking a bottle of wine...you know the drill. Well I thought I did. BB had other plans in mind that I was not privy to.

We arrive at our apartment after the show and there is a note taped to the door, informing me that under no circumstances am I to enter the apartment without BH right next to me. I am of course a bit confused. Luckily for me, BH was right next to me so I could go right in.

So what did I find when I opened the door? First I was greeted by a rush of very warm air, and that air was scented with?? Was that the ocean????

As soon as I walked through the door I saw on the floor a large tarp that was covered with about 50 lbs. of sand, seashells, and two beach towels. Next to that was a cooler filled with wine, bread, and cheese. Scattered around the house were tropical plants, a huge vase of long stemmed red roses, ocean scented incense, and a trail of towels that led to the ocean, which was our bathtub filled with very warm water that had those fizzy tablets dissolved in it that turn the water a pretty blue and make it smell good. Around the tub edge were soaps shaped like seashells and starfish, as well as a funny lego pirate ship. Playing over the stereo was the sound of ocean waves. BB had painstakingly recorded three hours of waves sound effects. He also made a mix tape of lovey dovey songs we liked to play in the background as well. (BB arranged for two dear friends of ours to come over and set up the whole scene while we were gone doing the show. His instructions were based on that Beach List he wrote down months before.)

So we had wine and cheese, lounged on the beach, took a swim in the ocean, and then I was getting a lovely massage. During that lovely massage a song came on that I was particularly fond of and I commented on how much I loved that song. BB stopped my massage and said that he had something he wanted to give me. Now I am so overwhelmed by everything else at this point, I am pretty sure that anything else is going to be anticlimactic. BB hands me a flat package that is wrapped in newspaper. (He was always fond of the newspaper wrapping paper.) I opened the package and it was an 8x10 framed picture of BB on a beach on bended knee behind the words Will You Marry Me? spelled out in large rocks. (Remember that I Love You picture? Taken at the same time. He and our dear friend Dan got up at the ass crack of dawn to set up those pictures before BH headed back to the states. That is a true friend who will get up at dawn to haul large heavy rocks so that someone can propose.)When I look up from the picture, BH is on his knees in front of me holding out a seashell with a ring inside of it. (More back story. A few weeks before we had been at the mall and were discussing gifts for valentine's day, our anniversary, and my birthday all which fall in the space of a few weeks of each other. During this discussion we passed by a jewelry store that had a sign out front advertising diamond tennis bracelets. I jokingly said that he could just buy me a diamond tennis bracelet and that should cover all three. He claimed ignorance about this piece of jewelry, and steered me in to the jewelery store to show him. He then steered me over to rings and insisted that I choose some to try on. He starts asking me about which ones I like and I play along. He then starts to ask the sales person very specific questions about the ring I liked, and I am horrified, because the ring ain't cheap, to my knowledge at this point we have no plans on becoming engaged any time soon, and this poor woman thinks she is about to score a big commission the way he is acting. I pull him out of the store and proceed to get on his case about leading that poor salesperson on. I of course have no idea that he went back the next day to buy the ring I said I liked the best.)

Of course I say, "yes!" immediately. There is hugging and crying and all of that.

10 months later we got hitched.

Our honeymoon? At the beach of course!

15 years, two kids, a master's degree, teaching certification, two houses, and all that other grown up stuff later?

I still love him, laugh with him, and have just as much fun as we did on that first successful date.

So I guess it goes to show you that sometimes you can find great success with a second chance.

If it is goldfish don't let it mellow....

If your children are in the 7-10 year old age range you may recall a show called Bear in the Big Blue House. I don't know if it is still on Disney or not. At any rate when #1 was about 1 she loved that show and we bought a tape with music from the show. We then proceeded to listen to it

EVERY SINGLE TIME WE WERE IN THE CAR FOR AN ENTIRE YEAR. (This is not hyperbole either. I am tell the straight up God's honest truth.)

I can still sing every song in order word for word.

On that tape was a happy little song called What's that Smell? Bear goes on to talk about all the pleasant smells he is encountering, pancakes, clean clothes, flowers and the like.

Unfortunately a few weeks ago we had our own What's that smell predicament and it wasn't about flowers and clean clothes.

There was an odor in our mudroom, that made me want to vomit upon entering. I assumed that we had missed a mouse in the mouse trap. (I bought a trap that electrocutes the mouse and they have to go in far enough that you don't see the carcass. It has a light that will flash 24 hours post kill to let you know a body is in there) We have not had any mice for months, and don't always remember to check for the light. I put BH on trap check, because that is our deal. He deals with dead mice, I do..other things. No dead mouse. So we just wrote it off, figuring something had gone unrinsed into the recyling bins or something.

A couple of days ago BH comes and whispers in my ear, "Do you remember a few weeks ago when you asked me to check for a dead mouse because of a bad smell in the mud room?"

"Yes." I whisper back. I am really curious about why we are whispering. Usually whispering is reserved for flirty occasions. I am worried that BH is trying out some weird way to get me turned on here. Perhaps trying to woo me with memories of him fulfilling husbandly duties. Which would be my own fault for talking about how him cleaning the house really turns me on..

"I think I found the source of the smell." Says BH.

"Yes??" I am on the edge of my seat now!

"Remember a month or so ago when #2's fish died? I put it in a plastic bag and then put it in a paper bag and set it in the mudroom. I just found that bag behind some chairs." BH informs me.

"Ewwwww!" says I.

The moral of the story: Always flush the fish.

Signs of Spring

Shameless avoidance of productive activities

We started off the week with such a bang, getting all kinds of errands completed, and boy have we (ok ME) fizzled out. BH is off as we speak trying to finally finish up the bathroom remodel we started more years ago than I want to admit here.

I am supposed to be cleaning the scary thing that is our "art room." Very little art happens in there, unless you count the huge pile of children's art that I must tackle today.

Speaking of, hows about I share a little "children's art management" tip?

We came up with the idea last year as we were going through a ginormous pile of art the children had created over the past ? months.

We sorted out the things we wanted to keep to put in the "portfolios" (read: three ring binders with sheet protectors) then we had the kids go through the rest and sort it in to piles to send to friends and family members. We had each of the children write a letter about what they have been up to over the past year and then mailed the letter out with the art. I was really surprised by all of the positive feedback we got.

That is my handy tip for controlling all the precious artwork your babies produce!

Now I must go and carry out my cleaning duties. Call out the troops if I am not back by tomorrow. I could get lost in the chasm that is our art room.

I don't think they cover this in the owner's manual

Me to my Beloved Husband: Could you bring me the thermometer please so that I can take #2's temperature?

(BH comes over and notices that the temperature I am about to check is that of our lovely #2)

BH to #2: If you have a fever you are grounded.

AND...........................

Scene.

Luckily she has no temp and is not grounded. She does have a really gross sounding cough though. I will totally ground her tiny little booty if she gets sick while I am off work this week.

I am about to lose my voice from all the singing

Oh my my my my my my MY!

This nobody going to work gig is the S-H-I-T.

Do you know how much I can get done when I don't have to work? If we add BH staying home from work too? Oh my lovelies the possibilities are boundless..... I tell you BOUNDLESS!

I am weepy already at the thought of leaving this blissful state.

In other news....

Huh...

I was sure there was some other news....

Welllllll.......

I could tell you what I got for my birthday.

A really cool i-pod dock that has speakers and a CD player and it can play the radio too! It will be going to my office. I also got a new big girl food processor. Now...I KNOW you are thinking, a FOOD PROCESSOR? How boring is that? Well I found it to be very exciting. For the past 13 years I have been processing my food in a teeeenny tiiiinnnyy little food processor that only held about 1 cup worth of ingredients. This one holds several cups and it makes me happy. Come over some time and I will make you salsa, or a pie crust, or something that requires food processing.

So I am thirty-six years old now. If we are rounding up that is close to forty. I am not sure that I am ready for that so perhaps it is time to change the subject.

What I really think is that it is time for me to go to bed. I have been up way late for the past several days. If the loopiness that is evident in this post is any indication, mama needs some sleep.

I am a superstar!

Once again I will leave both of my readers with a short apologetic post. I have been busy over the past few days catching up with old friends, having a birthday, staying up until 2 AM, and working on becoming a Rock Star.


These things take up a lot of a girl's time doncha know.


However I am off work for the EN-tire week, so there should be little excuse for posting lapses.


Except for the fact that I have to work on honing my drumming skills.


Drums are hard.

MMMMMmmm

I would post something interesting but I am too full and tired after a delicious dinner of Hibachi Steak, Fried Rice, Veggies, Noodles, and Soup. My husband rocks.

Maybe tomorrow.

Tell me who to call or write I am DESPERATE

We gotta put an end to this time changing crap.

Seriously, before I kill someone.

Like with my car because I fell asleep while driving.

If we are doing this to conserve energy resources, then explain to me why we can't just keep it this way all the time? What is so special about March-October? Don't the other months deserve to be energy efficient too?

Come ON November-February. Grow a pair! Stand up for yourself and DEMAND that you get extra daylight to0!

Let us end this discrimination now.

And stop messing with my $%#@ sleeping patterns.

A refined palate

So I am thinking about letting #2 go hungry.

In case I haven't mentioned this before, #2 has about two things she will eat. Those two things being cereal and macaroni and cheese, but only if it is the nasty crap out of a cardboard box. Oh yeah and peanut butter. As long as it is NOT on the bread with the nuts in it. (Read: all natural whole wheat bread) I might have gotten in to a ridiculous arugment over dinner with the child about whether or not there are actually nuts in that bread, but I think I have determined that was just a VERY BAD DREAM because reasonable women of a certain age DO NOT get in to arguments over nuts in bread with 6 year olds.

Neither of her preferred foods translate well in her lunchbox. The school janitor and her classmates tend to frown at the milk trail left by the cereal, and cold kraft macaroni and cheese? I think that there is no further comment needed.

After we emptied a nearly full lunchbox for the I don't know 99999999999999999999999999999999999th time, I made one of my infamous Mommy Proclamations:

Henceforth all young girls by the name of #2 who fail to eat a reasonable portion of the contents in their lunchbox shall forfeit the right to take a lunch from their place of residence, and will be required to purchase and consume a lunch provided by the school until said school year ends. It is so declared by HRH Mommy the Irritated and Sick to Damn Near Death of Making Lunches That No One Eats. (There is more to that name, but I try to run a somewhat clean blog here!)

I will give you three guesses as to how my Tiny Royal Subject responded to the proclamation. The first two don't count.

Now I would love to regale you with more Tales of the Terminally Picky, but unfortunately I must go make tomorrow's lunches.

Since I don't have enough things to be freaked out about

I am sure glad that I read this article.

Go on over to....

Flabbypants and wish my good friend Ali a

Happy Birthday!!!!!!

Hope you have a good and RESTFUL day!

Vacation is all I ever wanted....

Break out the Bermuda shorts, hiking boots, and fanny packs 'cause we're goin' on vacation!

Yup, the last week of July all of us here at the House of Babble will board a plane and cruise on over to Ohio, where we will spend two fun filled days celebrating BH grandparent's 60th Wedding Anniversary. Then we will load up the truck and drive 6.5 hours to Tennessee where we plan to spend time in the Smoky Mountains. My honey said he needed some mountains and some mountains he shall get! We will be travelling with Grandma and Grandpa Babble which is always a treat, since they put us all up in one of their fancy time share resort places. It also means that if BH and I want some time alone to uh..you know "explore the many varieties of flora and fauna" found in the area, we have built in babysitters!

Admittedly I am a bit more of a beach gal when it comes to preferred vacation spots, but I am pretty darn excited about our first true vacation in about 5 years, and also thrilled to go someplace I have never been before.

Yay for vay-cay!

They're Heeeerrrreee!!!!!

Not a poltergeist but.......(rockin' drumroll please!).......


MY TICKETS TO SEE THE POLICE!!!!!!!!


Hoooooraaaayyyyy!!!


I don't think I mentioned this here before, but the day I bought the tickets we had my in-laws over for dinner. #2 informed the in-laws that her Daddy and I were going to the police station to see Elvis.

I think they were relieved to find out that instead we were going to see The Police with Elvis Costello.


Did I mention that I CAN NOT WAIT???????????????????


Oh Sting my love.....soon we can be together! Look for me in the first balcony. Don't worry about the handsome bearded man beside me. We have an understanding about such things. Be sure to wear something without sleeves and if you don't mind..it would please me greatly if you could manage to turn your back to the audience on a fairly regular basis.

Because I need a new topic

I am so tired of illness.

There are many good things about being a parent. Illness is not one of them. It is awful seeing your child suffer and know that there is precious little you can do about it. That definitely sucks. I'll tell you what else sucks, and that is when you become a parent you forfeit the ability to be sick yourownself. Even if I decide to stay home to nurse my own illness, usually at the very least I have to get the kids up, dressed, and fed. On a good day I may be able to pass them off to a grandparent for school transportation. On a not so good day, I may have to provide that as well.

If we have back to back illness like we have recently, and I am required to stay home say 2.5 days with a sick child, I have automatically forfeited my ability to stay home to nurse my own illness. In all fairness this has as much to do with the type of work to do and my personal ethics as it does with being a parent.

So I have to power through two more days and then I can pass out for one before the work week starts up again.

You may all feel sorry for me now.

Thanks.

So let's talk about something else.....say FOOD.

I made a couple of kick ass meals over the last week.

The first was a new recipe for us. Chili Rubbed Steak Tacos. Yu-HUM! They were made up of skirt steak rubbed with a concoction of chili powder, salt, cinnamon, and cayenne pepper, and grilled for a few minutes. Then you roll up the steak in a warm corn tortilla topped with lettuce, cheese, cilantro, and whatever else your heart desires. The recipe included an avacado salsa, but we are not so fond of the avacado around here, so we skipped that part. Tasty stuff.

The second meal was one that I make often, but I did one small thing differently this time and it made it SO much better. One of my favorite pasta dishes is angel hair pasta with aglio e olio.

I make it using whole wheat angel hair pasta. I have been on the whole wheat pasta train for many years now. I know a lot of people don't seem to care for the whole wheat pastas, but I love them. I think the flavor is better, and it is much more filling. Also the health benefits are good! This dish is very quick and easy! Boil your pasta. Then saute one tsp minced garlic in one half cup olive oil, until the garlic is golden brown. Then add 1 tbsp. chopped parsley, 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (less if you don't want the spicy kick) and salt. Saute a little and then remove from heat. Drain the pasta and toss it in the pan with the olive oil sauce. The recipe I use calls for a pound of pasta. I halved the amount of pasta this time and it really made it much more flavorful. Add some paremesan and if you are feeling plucky, slice up some marinated chicken breast to add to the pasts. Even more yum!

Ahhh....feels good to talk about something else!

Not sure why.....

This makes me kind of sad.

Maybe it was because he was a former Hottie of the Week, and it stirs my nostalgia machine.

Hey, maybe I should reinstate the Hottie of the Week. I kind of miss that. Only I am feeling short on hotties to honor.

As always the suggestion box is open!

Dagnabbit!

(Thought it might be fun to try channeling the crusty prospector side of my personality today)


I was really hoping that Obama would have swept those primaries yesterday. Not because I am a great big Obama supporter. Electile dysfunction is still troubling me, but I think I am getting some stirrings with Obama.


The main reason I am disappointed is because I hoped we would have a definite candidate and they could start talking about something else on my beloved NPR. Maybe it is because the majority of the time I get to listen is at the top of the hour, but I am seriously beginning to doubt that there is any other topic covered on All Things Considered anymore.


Maybe it is time to switch to some books on CD for awhile and give myself a break.


Any suggestions?


I could see if I can get the second half of the Bill Clinton biography, which I have never finished but that seems as if it would kind of defeat the purpose.

I would like to lodge a complaint

Some times you have a day that can be described no other way except to say that it sucked ass.

I would have to say that the majority of this day for me fit that description.

Apparently I need to tell all three or four of you about it.

Let me see....

First off it was #2's first day back at school after her bout with the flu. She was not quite as excited as the rest of us. I believe the first words out of her mouth today were, "I don't want to go to school today." Not exactly the reply I was looking for to my cheery, "Good Morning Beautiful Girl!" From there we moved on to her informing that she was not putting on her clothes, which was followed by, "I am not eating breakfast.", which led to "I am not coming downstairs," to which I followed up with placing her on the curb with a little hobo sack and a sign that said "For Sale...Cheap."

We finally get in the car 10 minutes later than we needed to leave in order for me to make it to work on time only to discover that #1 has left her violin in the house. I managed not to curse in front of the child, but waited until she was back in the house out of earshot. I hope that you are appropriately impressed with my self-restraint.

To school we go without further incident or whining.

I am breaking all kinds of speed limits to make it to work no more than a couple of minutes late for my 8:30 appointment. After throwing my things in the desk drawer and sprinting to the lobby to see that no....one....is....there.

I check my schedule in the computer to see that EVERY.APPOINTMENT. I. HAD. SCHEDULED.IS.CANCELLED.

Again I will impress you with my restraint as I walk calmly to the front office to ask the recetionist the kind version of..."What the fuck is going on here? What the hell happened to all of my appointments?????????"

Y'see we had a substitute receptionist today. There is one other person in our office who shares my name. Apparently that person left a message this morning stating that they were not feeling well and would not be in today. Apparently the person who shares my name forgot to give her last name thereby identifying which one of us would not be there. Subrecept did not know there were two people with the same name in our office, recalled my absence from yesterday and assumed it was me and proceeded to cancel all of my appointments today.

I politely, YES it was polite! Requested that she call them all back and let them know that I would be there today.

Then I went back to my office and held a tantrum in my head.

The rest of my morning was somewhat uneventful if you don't count the fact that I had to run for the kleenex box every two seconds, and the other seconds were spent trying to and/or successfully sneezing. Because apparently I needed to come down with a cold today.

My afternoon...I am still trying to forget the hell that was my play group.

My head continues to fill with more snot.

I have to run to Sonic (Bleargh!!) to grab dinner on my way home as we have #2's music concert to get to at 6:45. I leave the office at 6, stupid Sonic gets my order wrong twice, I get home at the time we need to leave, and so we get to eat in the car on the way, and my burger was wrong!

My head fills with even more snot.

The concert was cute and lovely.

There have been no further crap incidents since we got home.

Unless you count the increase in snot volume in my head.

I am trying to forget about that.

So in the words of Scarlett O'Hara.....tomorrow is another day...and it better be shitloads better than this one.

Or something like that.

Day 5

I remember having the flu as a child, I think there were three years in a row I came down with it on my birthday. That really sucks. At any rate, I would always be down for at least a week and at some point about halfway through I would start to think that I wouldn't know when I was well because I couldn't remember what it felt like to be well.

I think #2 may have reached that point. Unfortunately for her (and me) it struck at about 2:00 this morning.

Her fever spiked again and she came crying in to my room saying, "I don't feel well at allllllll!!!!" So we take her temp and I get out the ibuprofen. While I am doing this she begins to cry harder, which was a bit surprising. After 5 days I would think that she was used to this routine.

Suddenly she blurts out, "I don't want to diieeeee!!!"

"Huh?" is my nuturing and well spoken reply. (It is 2 AM, I am not at my most articulate at this time.)

"I doooonnn'ttt waaannnt toooooo diieeeeeee.....I am afraid I am never going to get better and I am afraid I am going to DIIIIIIEEEEEEEE!" BIG TEARS now from #2.

Well THAT kind of statement woke me up, and infused me with a whopping surge of sympathy for this poor kid who has no recall for any time that she has been ill for this long.

We had a good snuggle and some reassurance that she was not going to die, this is just a sickness that hangs around for a long time, and back to sleep she went.

Here's hoping that today is the last day. No fever so far this morning, which happened yesterday too, only for things to really rock-n-roll in the afternoon.

But surely today is the day.....surely.

Really... I think this has gone on long enough

We are now on Day 4 of the Flu Show here at Chez Us. Our primary issue continues to be a high fever. We topped out at 103 today. We added a new symptom today...cranky (no not me, #2!) She is officially tired of being sick, and let it be known several times this afternoon. I went ahead and took her to the weekend emergency clinic just to make sure we didn't have strep or something going on. We don't. So there is two hours and somewhere around $75 I won't ever see again. Oh well. Desperate times...looks like Mommy and #2 will be home again tomorrow. I am also looking forward to quit evaluating every twinge I feel for fear that I am going to be the next one to sucumb to the vile virus. It is crazy making.

On to other topics. In a couple of weeks there is a reunion/celebration thing being held for my high school theater teacher. So all the old theater geeks from the past 25 years will gather to do whatever it is theater geeks do when they get together after a long time. When I first heard of it I was really excited. Then my excitement waned a bit because I was not really hearing about anyone I knew besides my hubby and myself who were going to be there. Now however, my bald and eternally effective friend Dan has announced that he will be going, and seems to have the good gossip on some other folks who plan to make an appearance. My interest is much higher now and I look forward to seeing some people that I have lost touch with over the years.
Because while I manage to do a fair job keeping up with this blog, I really am a terrible, crap correspondant.

Which probably helps explain my rather dull social calendar.

Maybe I should just hand out my blog address and come clean with my sucky correspondance record.

OK it is ROL time. Gotta go watch the mess that is this TV show.

More Pitchurs!

Everyone loves pictures of kitties... right?

I think ours are particularly cute. Especially when they are not attacking each other. (OK especially when baby kitty is not attacking senior citizen kitty.)

A very rare moment of peaceful togetherness.

Perhaps we should have named her E.T......

Pitchurs!

Last Sunday as I was folding laundry, I hear a ruckus coming from the room of #2. I open the door to find #1 and #2 engaged in a game of volleyball in her room. I ain't talkin' about the balloon kind either.

So I made an executive decision that 41 degrees was warm enough for a trip to the park!

So that we could climb and,

run away from parents.

Even though it was a little (ok ALOT) wet and soggy....

It was still fun!

NOT FAIR NOT FAIR NOT FAIR!!!

(Please excuse the following VERY WHINY statement)

Today it is well above 50 degrees.

Tomorrow it is forecast to be in the mid 60's!

This is the first decent weather we have seen since December and all signs are pointing to us being stuck in the house with flu-ridden child.

AND I don't feel so hot today either. Although I have decided it is all in my head because I have been around so damn many sick children the past two weeks. My office may NEVER be rid of the smell of Lysol I have sprayed so much.

Aaarrggghhhh!!! It's not fair!!! NOT FAIR!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Housekeeping Tip #1

Here is my Hilda Housekeeper tip for the day:


If your flu-ridden child horks up a tummy full of Hawaiian Punch on to your blue hallway carpet, a good dose of Nature's Miracle will take that stain out right away!

We have been using it on pet accidents for years, and obviously it works on stains of the more human variety too.


Yes dear friends it appears the flu has reared it's ugly head at Chez Us.


Childhood illness is amazing. You send to bed a child who seems to be perfectly healthy, and wake up to a coughing, high-fevered mess. This bug seems to hit hard and fast.


Let's hope it leaves as quickly as it arrived.

Oh.My.God.

I just watched the entire broadcast of the 80th Annual Academy Awards.

The entire thing.

It was long.

I believe I have seen exactly one movie that was up for an award tonight.

I need to get out more.

And go to bed.

But I can't because I am waiting for BH to put me over in to Utopia.

Unfortunatley that isn't as dirty as it sounds.

He will send me in to Utopia by putting away the piles of his laundry that currently rest on my side of the bed.

Once he does that, all laundry will be clean, folded, and put away before Monday.

That is my Utopia.

WOOOOO HOOOOO!

BH AND I ARE GOING TO SEE THE POLICE AND ELVIS COSTELLO IN MAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CAN'T WAIT!! CAN'T WAIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the CUTEST.VIDEO.EVER.

Oh my God. This breaks all kinds of levels of cute. I can't hardly stand it.



I finally figured out how to embed these damn things!

Hopefully

Tickets to see The Police AND Elvis Costello and the Imposters are in my immediate future.

Tune in tomorrow to find out!

YAAAAYYYY!!!!!!!

Some Days....

My job is really hard and really sad.

Today was one of those days.

Wish I could bounce back like that

We had Mittens the Wonder Kitten spayed and declawed on Monday.

We brought her home late in the afternoon the same day and by the evening she was trying unsuccessfully to jump on to our bed. She did it more than once even though it was obviously painful for her. Perhaps she is just not that bright. That thought has occurred to me a few times over the two months we have had her.

She got the bandages taken off of her paws today, and I still don't think she realizes that the claws are gone. She was madly scratching at the scratching post and she just tried to jump on my lap only to fall off and land on her neck. She is ok, and I shouldn't but I laughed at her. Then picked her up and gave her some love. Which to Mittens is an open invitation to play bite my fingers.

She has a lot of play in her that is for sure.

I have been having some guilt about the declawing and I am sure there are those out there who are thinking that I absolutely should feel guilty.

Then I remember finding her swinging from the top of the canopy in #2's room, and the multiple times she decided to climb all the way up the back of my body to sit on my head, and I think...no, we made the right decision.

We did not have the senior citizen kitty declawed. The SPCA where we adopted her and the vet in California made us feel so guilty for even entertaining the idea that we didn't do it. We don't really have a scratching problem with her either. However, 13 years ago when she was a tiny kitten I was in grad school, working only part time, living in a city where we knew no one and had little social life, and of course NO CHILDREN. So there was ample time to teach kitty where scratching was acceptable.

That ain't gonna happen with this one, no way no how. I barely have time to teach the children what they can and can't do. She is a total house cat, and that figured in to the decision. Also our vet suggested it. It is a laser procedure now and the recovery for kittens Mittens age is quick. As we have discovered. She is pretty much back to normal.

My cats growing up were all declawed and they were indoor/outdoor cats. It did not seem to hamper their kitty freedom and abilities at all. One cat climbed trees, caught SQUIRRELS, and fish from the creek in our back yard. He was an amazing cat and EVERYONE loved him. Even people who did not like cats were quickly brought under Morris's spell. He was the shit. I still miss him. He went off one day and never came back while I was living in California. My mom was so upset by it that she called us in California when she knew I would be in class and made BH tell me. He was old and we think he just went off to die. He was a HUGE orange tabby cat. I could not even consider an orange tabby when we were looking for the most recent cat, because I knew they could never live up to good ol' Morris, and that is what I would want.

I am a total loser when it comes to taking pictures of things and I failed to get one of Mittens in her boxing gloves. I think it was partially out of guilt really. She kept shaking her paws at us, as if to say, "Why?? Why??" Then she would try to eat them.

Gotta love the kitties.

End of the reprieve

This week marks the return to life even more hectic as we know it.

BH is holding auditions for the spring play this week and we are already feeling the difference in schedule around here.

Y'see since the musical ended right before Thanksgiving, BH has been picking the kids up as soon as they are out of school and coming home to accomplish things like chores, homework, and having dinner on the table when I get home. Sometimes children were even bathed by the time I got home. It makes a big difference 'round here let me tell ya.

Now we are back to some nights not even walking through the door until 6, or almost 7 on my late nights at work. Then it is a mad scene of whip cracking, nagging, whining, and crying to get everything done and everyone in bed before 8:30. Something gets left out almost every evening despite our efforts. When you live in The Land of Those Who Must be in Bed With Lights Out at 8:30, walking in the door to start your evening at 6:30 is really late. I can say that even in this first week our eating out count has raised significantly, and the house is trashed. My level of cranky is creeping up the charts too. Don't even ask about my level of tired. It makes me too sad.

So to cope I am trying to break this period of craziness in to pieces. We just have to make it 3.5 weeks and then a week off for spring break! (I'm off the whole week too! Yippee!!) Then only three weeks more until the show is O-V-E-R!! So see it is really only two three week stints. We can handle that right???

We gotta figure out a way out of this eating out thing. It kills my waistline and my bank account. I wish I could remember those things more readily when I am pulling into that drive-thru, or dialing the phone for pizza delivery, but I am afraid fatigue and feeling as if there is no way I can face cooking and cleaning up a meal wins out waaaayyy too often.

I think I need some superpowers.

Must resist urge to staple child's mouth shut

A skill that #2 posesses is the ability to come up with multiple solutions to a problem. Usually this is a skill that is to be encouraged.

Tonight however I would gladly trade that skill in for a new model.

This evening #2 has been using that skill repeatedly in an attempt to get her way.

The issue at hand? Valentines.

Of course she came home with a million of them yesterday, and of course I have no intention of keeping a million tiny cards around the house for months to come. I informed both children that they could choose two Valentines to keep. #2 was not happy but did go off to make her choices without TOO much complaint. That of course was because she was stockpiling her resources so that she could sustain the issue for the remainder of the evening. As I am sure it will come to no suprise to those of you out there with children, she just COULD NOT decide on just two because there were five she wanted to keep and she was prepared with detailed reasons why she should keep them. I of course stuck to my original decision that 2 was the maximum to keep. This of course set off repeated "ideas" about how she could keep more. This goes on for awhile, as I naively think that my continued response of, "you may only keep 2 Valentines" would shut down the old idea factory. Obviously it did not work and I had to resort to one of my favorite parental mantras, "The decision has been made, I love you too much to argue and I will not discuss this topic anymore this evening." This of course meant tears and more attempts, even a threat that if I did not want to listen to her idea tonight then I would never get to hear it. I was able to keep myself from shouting Hallelujah, banging a tambourine, and dancing like I was at a come to Jesus meeting after hearing that threat, because I WANT NOTHING MORE THAN TO NEVER HEAR THIS IDEA. In fact at this point I am completely anti-idea, I want to hear no ideas from anyone ever again.

Because you see the Valentine Idea Project couldn't be left to just Valentines. Oh no. That would be a waste. We had to argue other ideas that had been ixnayed as well on other non-valentine related topics.

Thankfully my idea girl is now in bed. I have addressed the issue without any raising of the voice, and I even kept the grouchy voice away. That was impressive. I have had a MASSIVE UGLY case of being irritable the past two days, and really have had to exert strict control over myself to keep from yelling at everyone simply because they talked to me. It is hard to win friends and influence people that way I tell ya.

A Rant

I think that eventually my calling may be to help educate people on what therapy can and can not do for people.


I have joked for a long time that I was going to put on a conference for clients with break out sessions titled:


Your Therapist is not a Magician.


It is not your child who needs to change....it is YOU.


I can't fix stupid. (Yes I know that one is mean, but sometimes I am driven to go to that mean place in my head.


Why parenting your small child from the couch is not working.


There are others but I can't think of them right now.


I have found that a surprising number of people seem to have the belief that therapists have all of these magical things that we do that will make their child behave the way they want them to. What is even more amazing is why people can not understand why nothing is changing when they fail to follow through with anything discussed in the course of a therapy session. To go along with that, it is stunning how people can tell you 10 different ways an idea will not work, prior to actually putting said idea in to practice. Let me tell you that one has made my head explode so many times it is a wonder I am not sporting a tiny shrunken head on top of my neck. Even though it is frustrating and makes me want to bang my head against the concrete walls outside my office, that stuff is par for the course of therapy. If the people were dealing they wouldn't be there.

I think one problem is that people in our country have become so used to everything being fast and gratification being instant that they expect everything and I mean everything to happen quickly. Therapy just doesn't work that way and it is VERY difficult to get people to understand that. Insurance companies do NOTHING to dispell this notion and in fact perpetuate it in my opinion, with their willingness to pay for only 6 sessions, and only certain diagnoses meeting criteria for payment. How lucky we are that people who have no education or background in anything that even remotely resembles mental health know EXACTLY how long it takes to help a person resolve mental health issues, and to top it off they also are privy to which diagnoses are worthy of reimbursable treatment. My personal favorite is when said people from insurance companies tell me how to proceed with treatment of a client THEY HAVE NEVER MET.

I don't know that I have the energy tonight to further this rant about availability and affordability of mental health care. Or the rant about the pittance providers are reimbursed for their services. That one will have to wait for another day.

So to turn this back to where I started I give you my wishes/tips for parents seeking mental health treatment for their children:

• Understand that you as a parent will likely have to do things differently if lasting change is going to happen.
• Your child's behavioral problems did not develop overnight, and they will not be resolved overnight, so please be patient. Therapy is a process.
• Try suggestions before saying they will not work.
• Try suggestions more than once before saying they will not work.
• You must get up off the couch, get down on your child's level to get them to listen to you. Hollering directives from across the room is the best way I know of to get your child to ignore you.
• Listen when I talk about what is developmentally appropriate for your child. A three year old can not clean his room by himself. A 6 year old is not going to come into my office, sit nicely in a chair and tell me all about her problems. The toys are there for a reason, please let me use them as they are intended.
• Bring your child to appointments on a regular basis. I can not help them if they go three months between each session.
• Please remember that I have no magic wands, potions, or spells to magically turn your child into a perfect little angel. Mainly because magic is not real and neither are children who are perfect angels.

I think that is all I have to say about that.

2 YEARS!!!!

Woo Hoo! I made it to the two year mark at my job as of today.

Know what? I am not even looking for anyplace else to work. This is a first for me. The agency sent a beautiful peace lily to me today to honor the occasion. That kind of made me laugh as that is a plant typically sent as a gesture of sympathy. Next paycheck they will also begin giving me 12 hours a month vacation time. Yeah!!

In other news...I can not remember when I last had a stretch of evenings that have been as unproductive as the last four have been. It is critical. I have felt really worn down and tired this week. My eating habits have been terrible and exercise is not happening. All of which leads to more lethargy. Not sure what is up with me. I think part of my problem is a new laptop to play with and a game on it called Mahjong Titans that I am pretty damn addicted to.

I may have to have BH hide the computer until I get myself back on track. I got laundry in baskets that hasn't been put away. (Truth time: this is not exactly an uncommon occurrance. I once told BH that my Utopia would be for the laundry to be clean, folded, AND put away before I go to bed Sunday evening. Needless to say I am not living in a Utopian society most weeks.) A house that is horribly dirty, still haven't finished transferring the old to the new computer...oh there are lots of other things but I think I have bored you enough.

On a positive note I DID bake about a million (read 2.5 dozen) miniature heart shaped chocolate chip muffins for #2's Valentine party tomorrow. From scratch! Using primarily organic products!
All is not lost yet!!

Now since it is nearly 11:00 PM CST I guess I should put this baby to bed and make lunches for tomorrow.

Bleah!

Attention TWHS theater geeks (and you know who you are!)

Anyone going to this reunion thing in March?

Anyone???

BH and I will be there.

It is on my birthday so I am excited just to have plans for the first time in ..... in.....

Now that is just sad.

The Hard Way

So I got a new laptop yesterday, since my old one is dying a slow death and this new fancy to me model was on sale for a darn good price. I am thoroughly enjoying my new purchase and no longer question whether or not I am going blind as this screen is bright and light, whereas my old one was getting darker by the day, and flickering and all kinds of fun stuff. The battery would go MAYBE 20 minutes, with the duration getting shorter every day. New batteries for these babies are outrageously expensive I found out, I truly was shocked and dismayed.

Now I am going through the oh so fun process of transferring and weeding out of crap from the old one on to the new. At the rate I am going, I should be done just in time for the new one to be too old to function.

I have spent the better part of this evening transferring my itunes library to the new computer. Much of that time was spent looking for what I was pretty damn sure had to be the easier way to do it. Turns out there is no easy way, or I am too tired to figure it out. I love my itunes I do, but this is ridiculous. The recommended method is to put everything on your iPod, then do a transfer to your new computer. The issue is that the bulk of my itunes material is TV shows which of course take up assloads of memory. I have a Nano, and while it suits my needs just fine, for this project it is taking multiple synchs because I ain't got the memory to to do it all at once.

I have yet to decide what to do with the old laptop. Maybe I will just keep it around and let the kids use it to play games until it finally dies.

Any other ideas for a still functioning, old, tired laptop?

I think I have this...

I think I have finally found a word to define my state of mind this election season.

In my eagerness for a new administration I really thought that I would be more excited about the upcoming election, however I just find myself to be unimpressed and uninspired.

I am somewhat embarassed to admit that I skipped the caucus this week for several reasons, but mainly due to my lack of enthusiasm for this race so far.

I first thought it was due to a gross overload of discussion regarding the campaigns. I am not sure that they even give air time to any other subject on NPR anymore.

As is my usual way, after taking time to let my thoughts and feelings percolate I have come to the conclusion that my lack of enthusiasm and indecision has to do with my likely somewhat ridiculous belief that no matter who wins in the end I will be disappointed by them.

I do think that I am having at least a leaning towards one candidate now which is progress I guess.

Anyone else suffer from this disorder?

How does this picture frigthen me? Let me count the ways..

And it ain't just because he's a Republican, or Pube as my good friend Dan would say. I have decided I like Pube much better than Republican so I have decided to make use. Hopefully Dan won't mind. He looks completely evil to me in this picture and I fear for the baby held ever so awkwardly in his arms.

On the Democratic end of things...
Apparently our fabulous and certainly World Famous Topeka Capital Journal seems to be running a contest to see who can capture the most disturbing photo of political figures. Now this picture is not so much disturbing as it is misleading..

If you happened to see video footage of this moment you would know that instead of getting ready for some heavy duty making out, Governor Sebelius and Senator Obama were merely giving each other a quick peck on the cheek. This however was the photo chosen for the front page the day after he visited Kansas.

Nice.

I don't know this Devon, but apparently Devon knows things

Devon Knows How They Make Melissa So Creamy.

Enter a word for your own slogan:

Generated by the Advertising Slogan Generator, for all your slogan needs. Get more Melissa slogans.

Something I love

Dark Chocolate Peanut M&M's.

Still I wonder why that number on the scale fails to change.....

I am a dumb-a@$

So I am trying to score a photo printer off of e-bay. You know one that will print without being hooked up to a computer? I need it for work so of course I don't want to pay a lot for it.

I bid on one in the last few seconds of an auction and won.

So why am I a dumbass?

Because I was hurrying, and did not read the specs carefully enough and I am now stuck with a plain ol' printer that needs a computer.

Anyone want a new in the box Canon Pixma iP1800?

I'll sell it to ya for what I paid for it, and kick in shipping and handling.

Because that's how this dumbass rolls.

Sometimes it's Hard to be a First Grader

Oh peer pressure.

It rears it's ugly head in first grade now apparently.

In the form of games where you and your friends are pretending to be a vampires or werewolves, a game which apparently involves pretending to bite victims and at least once leads to real biting and feeling REAL bad about it. Even if you weren't ever caught by the teacher, and no one was physically hurt by what you did.

Good to know that while #2 may not always make the right choices in the moment, she does hear what we say about what is ok and what is not and has true remorse for actions that she knows are not OK. Even better still that she feels safe enough to confess her less than stellar choices to her parents.

Maybe we are doing something right after all.

Because I try to be accomodating...

Since Ali asked here is the recipe for the Double Chocolate Cookies I referred to in my post a few days ago.

Double Chocolate Cookies
Recipe courtesy of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook

1 1/4 C. Butter, softenend
2 C. Sugar
2 Eggs
1 TB pure vanilla extract
2 C. Flour
1 1/4 C. Unsweetened Cocoa
1 tsp Baking Powder
2 C. Ghirardelli Classic White Chips

Preheat oven to 300

In a large mixing bowl cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the egs one at a time, beating well after each addition, and the vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, and baking powder. Gradually fold the dry ingredients into the creamed mixture. Fold in the white chips.

Drop the mixture onto baking sheets in 1-inch balls, 3 inches apart. Bake for 16-18 minutes, let cool 10 minutes on the baking sheet, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Let stand 30 minutes before serving. HA!

The cooling directions above are only useful if the cookies ACTUALLY MAKE IT IN TO THE OVEN. The dough is so damn tasty that it is hard to wait for them to bake.

Now we used semi-sweet chocolate chips instead of white chocolate chips, because here at Chez Us we firmly believe there is no such thing as too much chocolate.

I recommend a big ol' glass of milk to wash those babies down.

Enjoy!

This may be TMI/Please send good and patient thoughts my way

Stats:

#1 and friend sleep time: Between 10-11 PM

#1 typical sleep time: 9:00

#1 and friend wake up time: 5:40 AM! FRICK!

#2 typical wake up time: 7:00

#2 and friend sleep time: As yet undetermined, but likely it was late.

#2 and friend wake up time: As yet undetermined, but again likely it was early.

Mother Stats

One raging case of PMS and Cramps.

Forecast for today:

Mostly Grumpy with a 50/50 chance of Heavy Meltdowns.

I bet BH stays at that Heroclix Tournament a Loooong Time today.

Portion Control

Uff!

Tonight we are the hosts of a sleepover for #1 and her best friend. So I thawed out some DELICIOUS double chocolate chip cookie dough that I made a couple of weeks ago and baked a pan of cookies for a bed time snack.

These cookies are very rich as I am sure you can imagine. One should and really does suffice. But you see when it comes to things in the sugary food group I can not seem to stop at one. I must have three cookies with a milk chaser. Then of course my stomach is uncomfortably full, and I berate myself because I knew that this would happen. Apparently I don't learn from previous mistakes in this area. I probably need rehab or something.

#2 is experiencing a milestone today...her first time to sleep over at a friend's house. We have been planning this for at least two weeks and endured the daily countdown (I would talk about #2's method of counting down days to anticipated events that somehow manages to shave 2-3 days off the actual number, but it is complicated and I am not sure I understand it. Perhaps she can guest blog for me and discuss.) We have also endured the back and forth between being very excited to the very apprehensive. #2 has some anxious leanings. I don't know WHERE she gets that from!

Hmmm...other news. #1 was selected to participate in the spelling bee today at school. She made it through the first round and then was downed by the word federal. Left out that 2nd e. Bummer. They ran it like a real spelling bee too. Up in front of a crowd with microphones. A little nerve wracking for #1 who is not fond of anything that resembles a performance in front of a crowd. She said that she only did it for the "fun of spelling." Can't argue with that.

Well, I should probably go through the long and arduous process of getting two 10 year olds settled down to sleep. Although I must say that I doubt that it will seem as long and arduous as my afternoon is likely to be tomorrow when I have to deal with the post sleep over hangover ALL BY MYSELF WHILE SOME PEOPLE GO AND PLAY HEROCLIX AT A LOCATION THAT IS NOT THE HOUSE WHERE OVER TIRED AND GRUMPY CHILDREN RULE THE EARTH.

Not that I am bothered by it or anything.

I can't believe I missed it!

Today was National Pie Day!

I consumed no pie! I didn't know! No one told me!

This is an outrage.

I will definitely be making up for this lapse tomorrow.

MMMMmmmmm.....pie.

Now available in Arabic, Hebrew and Persian!

Apparently those are the three new languages that can be found on blogger now.

As I speak none of them, you won't find me using them here. I am glad to know they are available should I suddenly become fluent.

Unfortunately for me the only language I speak fluently is English. Sort of.

If I could choose another language to speak fluently it would have to be Spanish.

Man.... in my field I could just about name my salary if I could speak Spanish.

But I don't, so other people must name my salary for me which is really too bad because who better than I knows what me am worth?

Speaking of my field I have been at my current job for just shy of TWO WHOLE YEARS.

That is almost a record. I believe my record at a job to date is two and a half years.

I am pretty content with what I am doing right now, and not really looking to change. This is a very new experience for me. It might surprise you to hear that I have had some difficulty achieving job satisfaction. I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that I spent a hell of a lot of time doing things that were not what I spent two point five years of blood, sweat, tears, and a shitload of money at graduate school to become.

This particular job happens to be just what I envisioned when I was in graduate school. It only took me 8 years post graduate school to get there. That 8 year journey is a long story to be sure.

Maybe I will tell it tomorrow.

So...the way I figure it, if you look at my time at this job in terms of what I have called Missy Job Time (MJT) I have actually been working there what would be the equivalent of 10 years of regular non job jumping person time. (NJJPT).

I think that means I am entitled to all the perks of someone who has been employed at agency for 10 years don't you? The vacation accrual increase and back pay for raises that I would have been entitled to will suffice. OR I would settle for being paid at my current rate, if they will allow me to work 30 hours a week instead of 40. I am reasonable and flexible.

What I will get definitely once I reach the 2 year mark? I will accrue more vacation time (three and half weeks a year) AND....AND....a plant.

I have never gotten a plant from my job before. Yet another new experience!

Longevity Rocks!

Hmmm I should write something

Thanks to those who commented on my last sad poor pitiful me post. It was appreciated.

I have come to the conclusion that we have far too many animals in this house.

Love the new kitty. Love her. She is cute and it is a good thing she is cute or she may have been dropped out of the third story window recently. Or thrown against the wall in the middle of the night when she decides that my face is a good plaything. Now that she is well we are seeing what a little ball of fire she is. No object is safe from play. Finally she is snoozing or it would take me 5 days to write this post for all of the stopping to get the cat off the keyboard. Because she must conquer the evil cursor. It must be stopped!

The dog could squash the kitty with one paw and has attempted to do just that. Apparently she is not amused by Mittens attempts to subdue her tail and ears. (She is a bassett hound if I haven't mentioned that before, and tiny kitty can NOT resist trying to get those long floppy ears.) So unless we want to play security guard, the kitten and the dog can not be out together at the same time without constant supervision. Can you guess how much fun that is? Since Kansas has recently adopted an artic climate we can not leave the dog out for long so it becomes a game of figuring out which animal deserves freedom.

Senior citizen kitty has hissed, growled, and slapped tiny kitty on numerous occasions and tiny kitty does not give a shit. She just stands there and goes for the tail again and again. Not sure if it is bravery or stupidity but she is not the least intimidated by Kalypso. And she can be one mean cat. She subdues and corners our dog that outweighs her by 36 pounds. She is a badass our senior lady.

Went to see Juno over the weekend. I give it high marks and strongly suggest you go see it if you can find the opportunity. Fun music too.

Hmm I think that is it. I am going to go lie down in my now complete Tempur-pedic bed. We got the base FINALLY on Friday. It is AMAZING. It adjusts at the head and foot. My personal favorite setting is zero gravity. So comfy. It has a massage feature. It is nice. However...our bedroom is on the second floor and we have wood floors. The mechanism that makes the whole bed massage is huge and it kind of sounds like a freight train. We put a rug and carpet pad under the bed and it has helped but it is still loud. BH can not stay awake in the bed any longer. He falls asleep within minutes of lying down. I think he has napped no less than twice a day since we got the base in. It is that comfy. So my official recommendation is get a tempur pedic mattress if you have the means. Totally worth the bend-over required to pay for it.

Validation

I once again seem to have hit a posting slump.

My creative juices such as they are have really slowed to a barely perceptible trickle. I have felt the drought coming on for some time now, and I think I have just about reached a critical stage. Cracks in the earth are visible. Vegetation has shriveled up.

I think the reasons are pretty clear when I really take the time to do some self analysis. Not much is happening for me outside of working and taking care of my family. My social life is pretty much at a standstill, and I haven't engaged in a creatively stimulating activity in......I truly cannot recall the last time.

The fault lies completely with me. Working full time at a job that is somewhat demanding, and everything that comes with taking care of two school age children, seems to take an awful lot out of me at the end of the day, and I just don't seem to have the wherewithall to do much else but numbly peruse the internet, read a non-thought provoking book, or mindlessly flip through TV channels once the children are in bed and taken care of for the day. I have some good intentions, but my follow through sucks. Then it becomes a matter of it having been so long since I have initiated a social and/or creative activity that it seems too daunting...as if I have forgotten how and can't figure out where to begin.

Anyway enough of that morose crap. Since the well is dry I am totally stealing from a fellow blogger Woman With a Hatchet and giving you a link that she had up on her blog today that (rather appropriately in relation to this post) gauges how tired you are.

My outcome. Not too surprising. I need to, "Wake Up Sleepyhead."

So therefore according to this little test, which surely is an acurate measure and totally believable I am officially tired.

Good night!

13 years and counting....

BH and I have o-ficially been hitched for 13 years as of today.

Wow. That seems like a big number when I see it in writing.

Now we are in the adolescence of our marriage.

So that means naughtiness and rebellion..right?

The good kind of naughtiness and rebellion of course!