Do Not Enter. Coyote Working.

This is the newest sign #2 has designed for her door. Just so you know ...he will be out working tonight. That information is also on the sign along with a picture of the coyote howling. I believe that is his job. Howling.

The coyotes have been working like mad here at Chez Us. The basement and garage have been cleaned out and look migh-T fine. We have found some time for fun, and soon will be off to KC for a little jaunt to Dave and Buster's with the grandparents.

So many famous deaths this week. So if Sadaam is to be executed tomorrow and the rule is that deaths of famous people happen in threes, does his count as #3? I didn't know if it really counted since it is a planned event. According to my ever accurate internet news sources the TV networks plan "tasteful coverage" of the event.

Now maybe I am just being picky here, but to me the mere fact that there will actually be TV coverage of the event automatically cancels the idea of tasteful. Tasteful and watching an execution on TV just don't go together in my book.

The only other musing I have is WHERE THE HELL IS THE SNOW?

Call me crazy but I could really go for a serious snow event the likes of what is happening west of here. I need it just to affirm that winter is a season that still exists. I am having my doubts these days. If I could request that the giant snowstorm happen just in time for me to get a few more days off work at the agency's expense. So it could hit Monday...that should work well.

That's all I'm asking.

I AM ON

VACATION BABY!!!

First time I have taken more than a day or two off in a year and a half.

My plans you may wonder.


Uhhh...

clean the basement and garage.

Also at some point hang out with some cool friends who are home for the holidays.

I would like to print a retraction please

Today I said something that in retrospect I can not believe the words came out of my mouth.

I don't even have any kind of excuse either.

I am sure many of you will likely feel that I am over reacting once I finally get around to telling you what I said that I want to retract. That is ok. You are more than willing to think what you will because I can not stop you.

So on with the story.

My mother called as she was out Christmas shopping for our two little darlings, and had some questions about gifts for them. As we conversed we both commented on the fact that their lists were pretty short this year. About 3 or 4 things each. After that these words came out of my mouth, "You know they don't watch a lot of TV and what they do watch is for the most part commercial free, so they don't have the exposure that leads to a long list of wants. I guess this time of year that is kind of a disadvantage."

Good. God.

You know what is worse? I repeated this conversation to my husband and it was shortly after I told him that it dawned on me what I had really said. I took it back while I was talking to him, immediately after I pulled my head out of my ass. The crazy in me nearly called my mother back and retracted the statement with her. I did manage to hold myself in check.

I can't believe I said that! One big part of our strict TV rules is totally due to the blatant targeting of young children by advertisers. The fact that my kids do not have a raging case of the "I want that's" should be celebrated, not apologized for.

Therefore let it be known that I do not find it a disadvantage that my children do not have a huge Christmas List, and have not been exposed to the constant barrage of ads for all things toys and whatnot on TV. I am proud to say that their lists were small and relatively simple.

I vow from here on out to check my ass for the presence of my head prior to making any such observations in the future.

I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

I figure at some point I would need to comment on the holidays, so let's get it out of the way.

I am one gift and a couple of stocking stuffers away from being done with shopping. As I have done in the past couple of years I did almost all of my shopping online. This year I did my shopping a bit earlier after my close call last Christmas. I guess Amazon was having some issues last year. I did my shopping within the first few days of December and was sweating Christmas Eve morning until the last of the gifts arrived.

This is looking to be a pretty boring Christmas under the tree for Beloved and I.

Why I am sure you are asking?

Well let me tell you.

It all started with a silent auction. My in-laws and I attended a fundraiser for my job and there was a silent auction. There was an item I very much wanted to bid on, but ran out of time to go do it. My in-laws decided they would give it a go and give the item to us for Christmas if they won, and in all honesty they did not expect to win.

Well they did. The item was a large gift certificate to a local store that sells Oriental Rugs. What we did not know is that the store is closing and the certificate had to be claimed by December 31. Not wanting us to be rushed or have a poor selection to choose from my in-laws gave us the certificate at Thanksgiving.

It was a large certificate, but not large enough to get the rug we really wanted and truly needed. So we ended up paying a large amount out of our own pocket and decided that was Christmas and Anniversary gift for us this year. We got a gorgeous rug at a really good price, and I am quite happy with it. Just means that there won't be much happening around the tree.

However we do have a purty rug to admire while the girlies open their gifts.

Not sure how we will incorporate it into celebrating our anniversary, but hey we are creative people so I am sure we will think of something.

I am really looking foward to holiday baking which I plan to commence with next week. I am really hungry for frosted sugar cookies. I am going to try and be fancy and detailed with my icing this year.

Yum!

A Jinx of an update

I know this is gonna kill it but I am gonna do it anyway.

We are on day 5 of no waking at night due to bad dreams. Woo Hoo!

I am the only one in the house who has not fallen victim to the barfing bug.

So in other news....

I was thinking about music this morning while I was drying my hair. I have some of my best thinks whilst drying my curly locks.

Moving on...I was thinking about how growing up here in T-town I was not exactly exposed to a lot of different types of music. Top 40 or (gag, yak, ergh) country music were about the only options around here. We had MTV I guess, but I wasn't allowed to stay up late enough to watch the shows that featured more alternative-type bands.

These thoughts led me to think about what was my initial foray in to music that was not Top-40 and at least around here you had to dig a little to find. I think my answer to this question is that my first foray was the Violent Femmes. If I recall correctly my good friend Kayla had a tape of a tape that we listened to on a very small tape player that she had in her car as I don't think it had a working radio. My friend Jennifer also had a copy that we listened to on a boom box while driving around in her parent's ancient and gargantuan station wagon that she could paralell park without blinking an eye. I was always jealous of that skill.....but I digress. Upon my first listen I was not overly impressed. But in a remarkably short time I had to go find my own personal copy.

(Saw 'em live too in the Ballroom at KU during my VERY brief stint as a student there. GOOD TIMES.)

That took me to recall how very little my parents censored what I listened to. There was profanity on that particular Violent Femmes recording. I turned it down around my mom at first but that didn't last long, especially since I cursed around them with fair regularity it seemed kinda silly. When I was in the fifth grade I believe it was, I recall my family listening to the soundtrack from Purple Rain with it's wholesome ditty Darling Nikki on a pretty regular basis. It was one of my favorites to listen to while doing the dishes for a long time. I think my parents were just banking on my not getting the sexual references in the song. (They were right. I was 11 for God's sake.) You can bet your sweet bippy that won't be happening with my kids. I run a tight ship when it comes to the inappropriate material for children.

So these are the thoughts I had today 'bout music. All that thought took about 10 minutes. I do run on a slow clock in the morning.

Crap

We seem to have a barfing virus making it's way through our family.

Beloved was the first to fall...this morning it was #2.

So I am home today, running wee ones to the bathroom at lightning speed, holding back hair, and generally trying to soothe barfing beasts.

I HATE the barfing illnesses. HATE THEM. Hate sitting around wondering when the next victim will succumb, being afraid to eat due to the certainty that sometime over the next few days it will be me making the vomit sprint.

At least the kids are old enough now to actually make it to the toilet.

Damn flu season.

Hopefully this will mean we get to have an illness free Christmas Break for once.

I gotta go find some wood to knock.

Nightmarish Experiences

We are having some bad dream issues here at Chez Us.

#2 is on a bad dream tear these days.

Common themes: Bad guys, dinsoaurs, harm to loved ones, and our favorite lovey being torn apart.

There are a lot of theories about dreams out there ranging from dreams have absolutely no meaning/significance to every single thing in a dream being significant and having deep subconscious meaning.

I think the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle.

She almost always gets up and lets us know she has had a bad dream, and rarely does she seem overly upset. She will usually come in and tell us, and then we send her back to bed. We used to let her get in to bed with us, but that is more disturbing to everyone's sleep so we have stopped that in the past year or so.

As she seems to go through little episodes from time to time where the dreams are frequent we have at times out of sleepiness been less nurturing than we could have been. I particuarly struggle with the middle of the night nurturing as I have always been very slow to wake up and am at my least pleasant when first awakened.

Right now as we work are trying to work through the latest episodes we are trying a few new things. First instead of just sending her back to bed one of us goes in and reassures her and stays with her a few minutes until she feels better. My research has shown that we were right not to continue letting her get in to bed with us. We did that for a long time and it is biting us on the butt now I think.

Today I had her draw pictures of her dreams, and then we talked about what we could do to "fix" the dream and then draw that. We talked about real life application to, (i.e. if "bad guys" are around we call the police and things of that sort.) This really seemed to be empowering to #2 and she totally got in to it. When she was done with her drawings she tore up the pictures, threw them away and said, "take that you bad dreams!" She made plans about what she would say to those bad guys if they showed up in her dreams again.

Then came the epiphany for me as a parent. I got to thinking about things as I watched her draw one dream involving dinosaurs and her lovey being torn apart, which has been in nearly every dream recently. I explained to her that sometimes people have bad dreams because they are worried about things and those things come up when they dreamed. So I asked if she was worried about her lovey. She said yes that she worried he would be lost forever. I was totally awash in guilt as I thought about how many times we have made comments that to us seemed harmless about how fragile and tattered her lovey has become and joking about not wanting to wash it because we are afraid it will fall apart and things of that nature. To us...comments that are just us joking around and trying to be funny and not meant seriously at all, but to her....awful and anxiety provoking. I reassured her that her lovey will in all likelihood be around until she is a grownup and that we will keep fixing it as long as it needs repaired. I promised to do the repairs I have put off for so long, and that she has asked for more times that I really want to admit this very night. She was willing to give him up at bedtime to allow me the chance to complete repairs, and seemed reassured that we would make every effort to keep the lovey around for a very long time to come.

She is also having to learn to cope with things without using her lovey and that is hard to do, but she is trying hard.

Will all of this take care of the nightmare problems we are having? Weellll...probably not right away.

I hope that at the very least it will help our child know that we value her feelings and take them seriously.

I also hope that I will be more thoughtful of my child's feelings before I make comments about things that are important to her. It is too easy to always look at things like a grownup and forget how the wee ones view the world. Sometimes "small stuff" is a big deal to little people. I guess I needed a boot to the head to remember that.

So I guess we can chalk up one more lesson in this journey that is parenthood. Hard as you try...there are always screw ups made and damage control to be done.

Pleasant Dreams!

Baaad Combination

I am currently suffering from what Beloved and I have decided to call "The Winter Hungries."

Our definition of "The Winter Hungries" is: An onset of cold and winter-like weather coupled with a strong desire to consume larger amounts of food than normal. Desired foods are generally from the category of food commonly known as "crap-ass bad for you." A secondary symptom may be a compulsion to make phrases seem more clever by the over use of quotation marks.

The other side effects of "The Winter Hungries" (I can NOT stop with the quotation marks I only wish you could hear the musical sting that offers further punctuation as I type "The Winter Hungries.") Anyway the other side effect seems to be a general lack of desire to exercise. So there you see where the bad combination comes in.

Truthfully my lack of desire to exercise actually came about two weeks ago after my team kicked some ass and won the office exercise challenge. Yours truly logged the most work outs in said office.

Can you guess what the prize was for each member of the team who had the most workouts during the competition?

Why a $35 gift certificate to Johnny Carino's of course!

I guess I am going to have to come up with some kind of challenge for myself at home.

It will involve prizes you can be sure!

Maybe I should make it a cross country blog wide thing...just to up the anty.

Who's in?

Meemmmoorrriiiiiieessss

9 years ago at this time I was running (well maybe not exactly running) around the house we had just moved in to three days before trying to find all the gear I needed to go to the hospital and have a baby, since my water had conveniently broken a few minutes before.

What were YOU doing December 1, 1997 shortly before 9:00 PM?

Fresh Air

I have been trying to think of fresh new and exciting posting ideas for this blog. I have been inspired by a blog that I secretly read. (Definition of secretly read: I read the blog on a regular basis but never comment because I don't know the person. I have only recently started very tentatively to post comments on blogs of people I don't actually know. Just one of my many nerouses.)

So I think today I will post a fairly easy and somewhat common question then of course answer the question myself. Then if you are so inclined post your very own answer in comments.

So here is the fairly easy and somewhat common question.......(ooh aren't you excited?)

What is your earliest childhood memory?

Mine happened on the way to my parent's wedding when I was about 2 1/2. On the way to the church my Aunt slammed my fingers in the car door. I don't remember the actual slamming, but I remember the pain, and my refusal to let anyone look at my fingers because in my two and half year old mind squeezing them with my good hand made them feel much better. My aunt still has some residual guilt over it too.

Now share yours while I go watch the season premiere of Scrubs that I have been looking forward to for sooooo loooonnnggg. Ah ZB...it has been too TOO long since you have made me belly laugh out loud.

Stuff I Don't Believe

I don't believe:

That we are going to get tons of snow today.

Greg has left the Wiggles.

More than a couple of my clients will show up for appoinments today.

That I have to leave for work in 15 minutes and my husband gets to stay home all day.

I shoulda been a teacha.

She can not speak so she writes

Day 3 with little to no voice.

I do not feel bad atall.

I do not even have a sore throat.

I DEFINITELY do not have a voice.

Over the weekend it has been annoying,but not terribly problematic. Tomorrow however I must return to work. There it could be a problem.

Y'see I am a therapist and I kinda need my voice to do my work.

Here's hoping for the best!

Enuff 'bout 'dat.

We DID NOT have 46 people here for Thanksgiving thankyoujesusmaryandjospeh.

We DID have more than thirty. A good time was had by all and thank the abovementioned bible dwellers for good weather so the kids could run and play outside til it got too dark.

Now we must prepare for our next event....#1's birthday party. 'Twill be a tame event just family and a few friends of the family. It is 6 days until her birthday. We get the count down first thing every morning. She has also prepared a list of things she would like to do that day. Apples don't fall too far from the tree as they say.

In other news:

Movie you shouldn't see: Deck the Halls. Truthfully I did not want to see it, but it was one of those family in town pressure things. I am still upset that I spent 8.25 for that waste of film. I am a bit grumpy because I can not remember the last time I went to the movies to see a film that I was interested in seeing. It may have very well been Capote. So I have stated clearly to Beloved that the next time I set foot in a movie theater it will be to see something I am interested in. So there.

Speaking of Beloved. Go to his blog. He has posted after a VEEERRRRYYY long absence. In my opinion it was worth the wait. I laughed. Or rather I shook and odd squeaking noises erupted from my throat.

Alrighty then. I am gonna go. Perhaps adequate sleep will help heal my vocal issues.

TA!

William wants a doll!

I VOWED that I was going to go to bed on time tonight if not early.

So here it is 11:41 and I ain't even taken out the contacts yet.

I have developed a very bad habit of going to bed really late recently, and sooner or later it is really going to knock me on my ass I am sure.

Until then...

Had our little mini-vacation this weekend. It got off to a bit of a rocky beginning but we had a good time despite the less than stellar start.

Long story made short:

#2's Dr. appointment took far longer than we expected and we were not fully released from restricitons. We hit the road as soon as the appointment ended and decided to stop for gas outside Lawrence. Filled her up..turned the key. No go. Tried in vain a few more times and spotted a tow truck behind us. Tow truck guy offered to give a jump, it was successful but we decided we had better go back home and switch cars. No other major mishaps after that thankfully, we got there later than planned but all was well.

We watched Free to be You and Me tonight with the kiddies. I used to love it when we got to watch it every year in grade school. It stands the test of time..the girls loved it. I think the soundtrack will be my next itunes purchase. I did have some funny grownup thoughts about some parts. Especially the scene near the end where Marlo Thomas and all of her "friends" were sitting around a fire with guitars singing a song. I imagined what really went on with Marlo and her friends.

It had nothing to do with guitars and singing.

So I can not get enthusiastic about the upcoming Thanksgiving Holliday. Let me clarify I am enthusiastic about the 5 days off, I am NOT enthusiastic about the actual day, dinner, and upcoming preparations. The festivities are at my house again this year and at last count if everyone shows up who has said that they intend to come we should have about 46 people at the house.

That number could have something to do with my lack of enthusiasm.

I am worried that there won't be enough chairs.

My beloved suggested that we pretend we are at Sonic and just deliver food to people and let them eat in their cars.

My mother did not find that idea amusing.

I thought it was funny as hell.

Thought I prolly oughta check in

Hi!

It's me!

Been awhile hasn't it?

So what's new?

With me?

Not much..things have been busy. Beloved's high school musical performed last weekend so I have been busy being a single mother for the past two weeks. The show was a fantastic success and we couldn't be more proud of him and his students. We are glad to have him back at home more. The girls have been busy catching up on rowdy playing with Dadoo, although #2 can't have the full effect yet as she is not totally released for full contact activity yet. I have to say if you are going to break your arm do it at age 5 because healing is quick. She has been out of the splint for almost three weeks now, and pretty much gave up the sling altogether last week. Our (hopefully) final orthopedic appointment is scheduled for Friday. As soon as we get the good word from the Doc we are off to Great Wolf Lodge for the weekend. We are so darn excited about it you would think we were headed to Europe or something. It has been a long while since this family has had anything that resembles a vacation, and we need to celebrate the healing of #2's first major injury. My tiny ones are so excited about the room we are staying in. They are thrilled about the fact that their sleeping area has it's own TV. I am sure this will prompt much begging for their own TVs, but we WILL stand firm on our no TV in the bedroom policy. We ain't got one and they ain't gonna get one. #1 and #2 have already determined that grownups can only come in to their den if they know the secret password which of course has already been decided upon. We have also deterimined that bedtimes will be extended for this weekend to 10:00, a concession we may very well regret by Sunday if I know my children at all. I am sure we will have a lovely time and if all goes really well Mama will come home with some new fancy shoes because someone has said he will take the children to a humongous arcade while I browse the shoe store. What a man I have.

In other random thoughts....Tom and Katie getting hitched...don't really care. We still have two years before the presidential election and I am already tired of hearing about it as I need to recover from mid-terms....there is an intriguing headline on the left side of my screen that I am feeling compelled to check out..something about a wax wedding of Brad and Angelina...and NOW I am creating in my head my own special version of a Billy Idol tune....when is it a nice day for a wax wedding I want to know!

For once it is fun to be a Democrat in Kansas

Well I think I have O-ficially burned myself out on election results.

Good news here:

We are saying buh-BYE to Phill Kline.

Hooray!

Looks like the same will be said for Mr. Ryan as well.


Hee! HEE!

Kirstie Alley Dons Bikini....

Yeah, once again this post title comes to you from the first thing I saw on my sidebar.

I won't lie and say that I didn't check out the article.

I did.

Really was not worth the time it took.

SO..

Tomorrow is election day!

Please get out and take care of your civic duty.

There is actually a tiny bit of hope here in Kansas that we will see some conservative losses. I am by no means holding my breath...but this is the most hope we lone liberals out here have had well...I think just about since I was old enough to vote.

So I likely will turn on the ol' boob toob tomorrow evening to watch the results.

I will be watching the results in the comfort of my freshly cleaned house courtosey of some people I lovingly refer to as the cleaning fairies.

Yes dear readers I have bitten the bullet (it was sweet and rich my friends like a bar of Ghiradelli Dark Chocoloate) and hired a cleaning service to come and spread their magic over our abode once a month.

Y'see having a house that is not clean causes me UNDUE stress. I blame my mother who never allowed our house to be dirty when I was growing. Now my standards are no where near hers (as I am sure she would be glad to tell you) but I gots to have it clean 'round here or mama gets cranky. Since I often forgo cleaning so as to actually try and spend quality time with the kiddos or just to get other things done. Hence Mama was getting cranky a lot.

My house is not small, and it takes Beloved, the kids, and I a couple o'days to get it cleaned IF we have kept things straightened up. If we have to straighten it'll take a week.

Speaking of...we have lived in this house about 4 years and man have we acquired some CRAP. Massive loads of it that must go soon. I dunno how we did it. We moved here from a MUCH MUCH tinier house, our belongings no where near filled out this place. That ain't so now. We need a garage sale and big ass trip to the dump soon.

So now the fairies come and do the tough work once a month and we do maintenance in between. Mama is less cranky now. Although it has not afforded me the massive amounts of extra time that were so sweetly present in my fantasies about the cleaning fairies. Oh well....I ain't complaining mind you...merely........noticing.

Now I must end my blogging. I have two more rooms to make cleaning fairy ready (it is hard for the fairies to work their magic when all surfaces and floors are covered with stuff), 20 minutes of exercise time to get to yet tonight and YIKES! It's already 9:30. Crap.

Don't forget to vote!!

A very interesting combination

Perhaps you have already seen or heard this, but JUST in case you haven't..

Check this out!

File Under Things We Already Knew

This bit of information hasn't been known for years?

Really Doogie.

Korea and the Daisies

Well my readership continues to expand to.....the Republic of Korea.

Via a link from someone in Indiana apparently.

Not sure how that came about.

In other news...

We held our first Daisy Scout meeting tonight and there was a whopping three girls there. Which was fine really, seeing as how much of this seems to have had to come together very quickly and with little notice.

I don't think it will go down as the greatest meeting in the history of Girl Scouts, but #2 reported that she had a good time.

By the way...according to #1......... I think of everything.

Pretty high praise for an overbooked and stressed out working mama.

Happy Halloween!

From me and my cuties!