Wordless Wednesday: Teeth Before and After

Oh My Gourd (and Other Veggie Tales)

The last week has been, in a word, pretty sucktastic. (that's a word right?) I've been writing this blog post in my head for the last 24 hours and still haven't gotten it quite right yet...so bear with me if this post is awkward.

In the last week, we have seen our pediatrician three times, the dentist twice, my chiropractor twice, I've been to the pediatrician with my nephew twice, the hospital with my nephew once, and we're headed to the dentist again tomorrow.

Katie tripped down our stairs and took Aubrey with her, Bitsy got a black eye playing soccer yesterday, and Gabriel has developed a rather naughty potty mouth. I hit myself in the mouth with a heavy zipper pull and thought I knocked my tooth out. Geo's dad is in the hospital because of a bad reaction to some meds he's on.


This week has sucked...however a lot of other good stuff HAS happened, so the week hasn't been a total wash; we had friends over for a bbq, we had overnight guests and a trip to the flea market, we ate gourmet gelato, we slept in, we took naps, and we watched plenty of movies. We had a surprise dinner guest one night, we went to grandma's house for a bbq, and we spent time with friends and family. HH has been off for five days-and coherent and well rested for ALL of them and that right there is enough to make the week amazing.

At this point, all I can do is laugh about everything that's happened because it's beyond ridiculous; it's beyond believable to most people and yet...here we are, fifty two doctor's visits later...keep Bits in your thoughts if you will-she is having a tooth pulled tomorrow..and also HH's dad (Grampsey Johnny) who's still in the hospital trying to get things figured out.

Wordless Wednesday: Little Lady

Okay! Toast It Is!

I keep hearing from people that these are the best days of our lives and that we're gonna miss the "good old days" when our children were young and keeping us busy. I don't doubt that they're right but in the moment it's hard to see it as such. How about an excerpt from a typical day in our house:

I wake up at seven and spend two and a half hours (approximately) getting Gabriel up for school. At 7:22 or thereabouts, he groggily walks out of the bedroom to the bathroom where he splashes his face with four drops of water and looks at his toothbrush and calls it good. We spend fifteen minutes having this conversation over and over and over and over:

Mom: What would you like for breakfast?
Groggy Gabriel: werkoc8a9
Mom: What?
GG: wr823usfsdk
Mom: okay toast it is

If we happen to make it through breakfast without a major catastrophe we call it good. If we make it to the bus stop ON time with a fully packed backpack and lunchbox I paste a gold star on my mom board when I get back.

The feeling of elation at being the best mother in the world (trademark pending) pretty much ends one and a half minutes after Bits gets up.

Mom: Good morning Bitsy, how are you?
Bitsy: (read this in high pitched voice really really fast) HIMOMMMAHOWAREYOUIHADREALLYGOODDREAMSLASTNIGHTBLAHBLAH
Mom: Mhmm, what would you like for breakfast?
Bitsy: (screaming) AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHIHATEBREAKFASTWHYAREYOUOFFERINGMEBREAKFASTWHENYOU KNOWIHATEITDOYOUHATEME?!
Mom: Okay, toast it is.

Breakfast is done and it's time to get on with the business of the day...but not before cat one and cat two get in on the act. I don't speak cat, but I can try and translate what they're saying:
Cat one: meow meow you should probably feed me today
Mom: what would you like
Cat one: filet mignon, caviar, and whole milk fresh from the cow
Mom: okay! toast it is!

Cat two: meow meow, I'm dumb, you could feed me cardboard and I'd be happy
Mom: Okay! Toast it is!

If during the course of the day nothing manages to catch fire, fall out the window, get stuck in the toilet, or end up all over the wall, I call it good. In fact, if I can brag for a minute, I call it an AWESOME day and strut till it's time to miss bus pick up in the afternoon.

Dinner time is utter chaos, in fact if you could hear the noises coming from the apartment, you'd probably think it was either a) a zoo at feeding time or depending on the day b) a wrestling match complete with grunting sweaty wrestlers, I mean, children.

The best part of the night is bedtime. Oh who am I kidding? No it's not. It's worse than the morning. It's loud and awful and stressful and I want MY mom to read me a story by the time it's over.

Mom: anyone need anything before I shut the door?
Gabe: yes, can we talk about jets? what kind of jets do you like? do you like big jets or little jets...blah blah jets jets jets..blah blah
Bitsy: (at this point sobbing) MOMIHATEGOINGTOBEDINMYOWNBEDIHAVENIGHTMARESANDTHECATSDON'TLIKEMEANDIWANT
TOSLEEPWITHYOUPLEASEPLEASEIDONTHAVEABESTFRIENDTOCALLONTHEPHONEIHATEBEINGFOUR

Mom: okay, toast it is!

At this point cat one and cat two get in on the act;
cat one: meow meow get those damn kids to sleep so you can pet me, brush me, and attend to my every need in the manner I've become accustomed (he's rather articulate for a cat, let me tell you)
cat two: meow meow, yeah what he said...oooh what is that shiny thing?oh hooray a moth. oh look over there....*crash* cat two has run into the wall and knocked himself out...at least someone is sleeping in the house.

Obviously this is a *slight* exaggeration, though at one point in our lives all of these things HAVE happened (other than the cats speaking, man that would just be too weird)

I love my kids, but as Geo and I were talking about last night, sometimes when you're in the thick of it, it's hard to see the humor in what's happening, it's hard to see the memories we're making. He said that after two days of us being gone on vacation, he was so bored and lonely, he could barely stand it. As he said "at first it was wonderful. No one making messes, no constant laundry or vacuuming, I could listen to whatever I wanted, watch whatever I wanted and no one cared! WOOHOO it was wonderful until the third day and I realized that the kids are what keep things interesting around here" (the cats don't speak to him, apparently) and he's right, the kids DO keep it interesting, our lives would be incredibly dull without them. I mean, I would NEVER have to listen to an explanation of the screen being knocked out on accident at six am (that was this morning, I was woken up to Bitsy crying, quietly saying "momma, I knocked out the screen in our window accidentally getting my pig out of the window" and oddly enough, I knew what she was talking about because I'm mom and mom knows these things! there WAS a pig in the window last night, he needed some air!) I wouldn't ever get to hear jokes from Gabriel like "what did the zero say to the eight? Nice belt!" and then hear him laugh hysterically about it.

I think this quote says it all:
While we try to teach our children all about life,
Our children teach us what life is all about.
~Angela Schwindt

Okay! Toast it is!

What Does This Say??

Today Bits and I had to go to the jewelry store; my poor engagement ring needs to be fixed; the prongs are worn and the diamond is loose-not a good thing. So as I'm standing there ordering the new head for my ring (and honestly, when the woman asked "would you rather have a new head?" the 12 year old boy in me wanted to answer "no, I'd rather have a new butt, this one has a crack in it!" but I restrained myself...barely) and Bits comes up to me with a flyer for a resetting event. She asked, "what does this say momma?" I told her it said they were resetting rings. She asked what that meant. I told her it meant if you had a loose stone or a ring that you didn't like anymore you could get it redone so you could wear it again. She thought about it for a minute and said "hmmm"

Jokingly I asked her "what, lady, do you have a diamond I don't know about that you need to put in a new ring??" and started to laugh. She looked at me and said VERY matter of factly "yes, I do momma. My big diamond heart fell out last week and you haven't fixed it yet, maybe they can fix it here" I had to think about it for a minute and then it hit me. A while ago someone gave Bits this obnoxious gaudy ridiculous DELIGHTFUL thoughtful gift of a huge honkin' ring that has a HUGE heart shaped "diamond" in the center. It was literally glued in place with rubber cement or some such thing, it didn't take long for the heart to fall completely out...and now, apparently, we need to take it to a jeweler and have it reset, probably in platinum because this girl has expensive tastes already. *shakes head* I guess I'll never ask her something like that again, will I? That'll teach me!

(also, I'm still giggling over the new head thing for my ring...mostly because it reminds me of the joke about having a new butt instead of a million dollars he he. I'm such a 12 year old boy)

The First Week of 2nd Grade

The first week (WHAT?!) of second grade is nearly over. I'm not even sure how that happened. It's been an eventful week to say the least, full of epic momma failings he he. We had supply drop off and Gabe's teacher handed me his name tag and said "please be sure he wears this on the first day" No worries, I stuck it in my wallet where all important things go and then promptly forgot to stick it to his shirt before he got on the bus. Whoops.

How do you follow that up? Oh let's see, how about mixing up bus times so that your kid misses the bus on the second day of school? Yup, that was what I did for an encore. As Gabe and I were walking to the car so I could drop him off at school he said to me "Jeez Mom, way to go, it's my second day of school and I'm already missing the bus"

So today is day three and what will I mess up? NOTHING! His lunch is packed (and double checked!) he has an appropriate snack in his bag for breakfast, a full water bottle, his gym shoes AND his art shirt. The bus leaves in a half an hour and I'll be down there in 20 minutes! I'm guessing, though, given my luck, I'll probably forget to get him off the bus and he'll wander up here scowling, wondering to himself how he got such a negligent mother. I suppose at least, he'll have something to talk about in therapy when he gets older, right?

As an aside, it's recently come to my attention that people seem to think that I'm singling them out when I blog, that my blogs are an attempt to brag about how *amazing* and *wonderful* I am. Let me say this, I started this blog to chronicle my children growing up for family who doesn't live nearby to see what they're doing on a regular basis. Oddly enough if you go back to my first few entries (and you can't right now because I have to fix my url and I'm not quite internet savvy enough to fix it at the moment) it's nothing but "bitsy can say these words: blah blah blah" or "Today Gabe helped me plant our herbs. Look at all the cute pictures" In recent months, I've become more vocal about politics and things I observe. I am going to have to put a disclaimer on my blog, much like the ones in the front of books, "this is a work of (mostly) fiction, identifying names, events, and places have been changed to protect people. Any resemble to people, past or present, is purely coincidental." Because while I may blog about seeing my family or throwing my niece in the pool with Gabe and Bits, when I blog about feminist issues, parenting issues, social issues, etc I'm not blogging about anyone in particular. I'm a reader, an AVID reader. I often see articles on line that spark my interest and this blog is my outlet to say what I have to say about the things I wonder about. Oddly enough, yesterday Geo came across my "potential blog ideas" list and said "what in the world are these? These don't make any sense together" well of course they don't, they weren't meant to be read in order or as a list of things that make sense!

If for some reason, you come across a blog and immediately think "that Chrissi is such a b*tch, here she is blogging about ME and what I'm dealing with" please take a second and ask yourself WHY I would chose to single you out on MY blog. Take a second and think to yourself "Gee, do I maybe have some issues that I need to work out and it's being vocalized here?" I blog about current events, I blog about things that bother me, I blog about whatever the heck I feel like blogging about, without any regard to what other people may say or do or think about what I am blogging. So here it is: My blog is not a direct reflection of any one thing or anyone person in particular; I write to get things out of my system, I write because it gives me a little bit of spending money every once in a while, and I write because I enjoy it...and with all that being said, if you're so insecure that you think every single thing ever written on this blog is about you, perhaps you ought to look a little more closely at yourself-you're projecting your own insecurities on to me and I simply do not have the time, patience, or desire to deal with it. I deal with more than enough in my own life that I don't need you projecting on to me too.

Now back to your regular scheduled blogging about cute kids, annoying rants on feminism, annnnnd whatever the hell ELSE I feel like talking about :)

Thankful Thursday

I know I say it all the time, but I'm so thankful for my hunky hubby Geo. He's such a hard worker and takes such good care of us. By the time he's done working on Sunday at 3 p.m., he will have put in 76 hours this week-his long weekend for Labor Day will be well deserved, that's for sure. I envision a weekend full of grilling, cold beer, and catching up on True Blood together. I'm a lucky girl indeed, to have married such a great man. Love you HH.