Blog Exchange - Topic: New Beginnings

It is time for the April blog exchange. I will be here today. Please welcome V from Spells With...

There's not a day that goes by that I don't think about ending it, moving on, starting fresh. There are moments that it feels like it will never be enough. There are times that I feel we are completely and utterly incompatible. I want to scream at you, "Do you know anything about who I am??? Do you care about me?? Do you care about anything that I do??" But I know the response will be blank. The hurt and offense in your eyes will block out anything that is recognizable to me.

And then there are the other moments. Those times when I feel like we fit like favorite old slippers; when we laugh and talk for hours and completely understand each other; when our differences compliment each other to form something whole and complete. There are days when I feel like every day with you will be spent growing and loving. Because not a day goes by that I can't imagine being with you until the end.

And I wonder how these moments can co-exist in the same relationship. I feel like they are beating on me, each trying to win me over with its seductive ways. The allure of being free from the tension, the anxiety, the over-sensitivity....wouldn't it be nice? And the magnetism of security. Feeling safe and secure and knowing that this is it.

So I wake up each morning, look at you fresh out of your shower, and decide to go on and to start fresh. Everyday I will struggle to keep us alive as long as I can also keep holding onto myself. Everyday is the day that I can make one thing better, and that one thing that could change everything, for better or for worse. I'll try to make it better. And I hope you will too.

(V detests bios, but loves her daughter, knitting, and a guy named N. She likes to blather on about all of these things at Spells With...

This post is part of a monthly blog exchange, held on the first of every month. We all write on a topic (this month is New Beginnings) and post on another person's blog as a way to gain new readers and find new blogging friends. This month's participants include: Christina (www.amommystory.blogspot.com), Kristen (www.motherhooduncensored.typepad.com), TB (www.soulgardening.typepad.com), Chase (www.tastetheworld.org), Mel (www.mamamamamaternity.blogspot.com), stacy (www.anothermommymoment.blogspot.com), Julie (www.mothergoosemouse.blogspot.com), Laurie (www.divinecalm.com), Mabel (www.mabelsmuse.typepad.com), and Vicki (www.knittingspells.blogspot.com). If you would like to participate, please email Kristen at kmei at yahoo dot com.

Bring Out Yer Dead!

I'm not dead. I have been doing this.

Please stop in to check out April's blog exchange tomorrow. My guest writer is V from Spells With... Then we will be back to our regularly scheduled program - and I promise to update more frequently. Really.

Thursday Comes Around Quick, Doesn't It?

Thirteen things that have kept me from freaking out and my head imploding in this lovely stressful week.

1. God.

2. Strawberry Twizzlers. Not the crappy cherry flavor. Strawberry. And they had better be soft.

3. This

4. And this.Oh. My. (Very sad that he died, but man, look at him.)

5. A lovely dream featuring Patrick Dempsey.

6. Our T-shirts are in from the printer to start our new business.

7. Maureen. The only nice human being in all of Colorado's complex tax system. Bless you.

8. Only 13 days until we go to CA to visit. Woot!

9. This boy.

10. This girl.

11. This lovely man.



12. The fact that my son's parent teacher conference involved the words "M is doing well in all areas. We do have one issue, though. He bumps into things on purpose" and his teacher reading me his career report - about how awesome it would be to be a pizza delivery man. Weird little guy. I love him.

13. The fact that my daughter is carrying aroung a stuffed snake she named Lenny...and a stuffed polar bear she named Mr. Polar-Bear-Guy. Lenny the snake is married to Mr. Polar-Bear-Guy and they have an octopus daughter named Lila.

Sorry it is boring, but my brain cells are working on an entry involving the sexual orientation of a certain farm animal. Stay tuned for that.

And sorry my pictures are all jacked up. I am an incompetent blogger, I know.




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Odds 'n' Ends - Emphasis on the ODDS

As I was tucking my son in bed last night:
Son: "Mom, should I be a lawyer or a comedian when I grow up?"
Me: "Well, why don't you be both? A lawyer during the day and a comedian at night?"
Son: "Hmmm. Oh yeah.....or maybe I'll just be a lounge singer."
Me: Blink. Blink. BWAHAHAHA!

Talking on speakerphone to my MIL who just had liposuction:
MIL: "I have these little holes that fluid is coming out of."
Me: "Ewww. You're leaking!"
MIL: "Yes, and have to wear a girdle."
Me: ::Cringe:: "A girdle and leaking. Sounds lovely."
Daughter grabbing phone: "Grandma! Your turtle is leaking????"

Going through drive thru window with kids bickering in backseat:
Daughter: bouncing her brother's stuffed dog on lap.
Son: "Don't do that with my dog!"
Daughter: continues bouncing toy.
Son: "I said don't! It will hit you in the junk!"
Daughter just as 16yo drive thru guy hands me food: "I DON'T HAVE A JUNK! I. HAVE. A. BAH-GYNA!"
Me to drive thru guy: "Yes she does. Well, thanks. Bye."

To those sweet people who have asked - As of Friday, the company where my husband interviewed said they have not yet made a decision, but were still very interested in him for the position. They gave no new time frame, which means my head imploding from stress is imminent. Will keep you updated. And thank you for asking.

Suburban Bliss

I'm still here.

Have you ever had a day that you felt like you were living someone else's life and it creeped you out? The day I am speaking of happened to me last week. It was a day that was so Typical Suburban Mom it made me break out into a rash and start designing my next tattoo.
It went like this:
Get up. Get son's lunch packed (peanut butter and jelly with the crust cut off, cut in half diagonally).
Get son to school.
Take daughter to Dr.
Drive through McDonald's to feed my daughter.
Shoot over to drive through pharmacy to get her prescription.
Run home to get forgotten backpack.
Take daughter to preschool.
Go home eat lunch and answer email while doing laundry.
Pick up daughter - with snack.
Pick up son.
Go to crafty store to procure items to turn my son into Abe Lincoln for his report - DUE TOMORROW.
Go home. Get kids snack.
Make dinner.
Write son's...help son with report.
Showers, PJ's, bed.
Assemble Honest Abe costume out of styrofoam ring, black poster board, and some freakish black furry stuff (beard). Dig white button up shirt out of laundry pile for Mr. Lincoln. Sniff shirt. Good enough.
Fall into bed.
Cringe when I realize I did it all in a mommy track suit. You know the one.

How did I get here? Is a minivan inevitable? No. I'd rather die. Don't even start telling me how you didn't want a minivan either, but now you love yours. Nope. Ain't happening. I never envisioned myself in the role of suburban mom, but look. Look at my life. I'm not going down easy though. Oh no. My tattoo is not only designed, but my appointment scheduled. I gave the kids cookies for breakfast and candy before dinner. I can not be domesticated. Oops...there's the dryer buzzer. Gotta' go!

Blog Goulash

Thank you to all of you who have asked about my husband's job interview. He is supposed to hear back the beginning of this week....which I take to mean today or tomorrow, because Wednesday would be mid-week, right? Right? Right?

My kids are mostly over whatever disease they had this time. They both have a lingering cough that makes me wish I hadn't started them on Marlboro menthols so early. Should have stuck with the ultra lights, but they just don't go as well with the whiskey.*

*Disclaimer - of course I do not give my kids tobacco or alcohol. I wouldn't want it to impair their ability to help me make the meth.

Our house is completely torn to bits, as we are now playing the home version of "Sell This House". We are packing up boxes of unnecessary crap to be put into storage, so that when a potential buyer comes to see our house, they do not think "Wow! Look at all of this unnecessary crap!" We are hauling off enough noisy, multi-colored plastic to start our own toy store from my son's room alone. Eight year old packrat. We joke that someday he is going to be one of those people you see on TV. You know, the one with the house that is completely stuffed with newspapers from 1997 and bits of wrapping paper, so that there is only a narrow trail winding through the piles of clutter.

On a completely random note...My daughter, the play dough freak, is currently sculpting away at the table. "Mommy look," she exclaims, holding up a round blob with a little wormy thing sticking off of it, "I made M's [my son] junk!" Snort. I told you my children are not normal. Did I mention she also draws aliens? No, I did not use drugs while I was pregnant.

So that is all from here. Nothing fascinating, but thought I'd better update.

Thirteen things you need to know about Mel so you can die at peace with the world.

Thirteen things you need to know about Mel so you can die at peace with the world.
1. I am addicted to looking at Google Earth with my son. We look at everything. The Great Wall of China, Venice, Manhattan, our old neighborhood…way cool.

2. I gave birth to my daughter with no meds. With my oldest I had an epidural. The recovery from the birth with no meds was waaay better. Way. I’m not militant. It didn’t make me feel empowered…it made me feel a little proud and able to sit without feeling like there were fish hooks in my pants.

3. I hate the smell of Doritos unless I am the one eating them.

4. I am a Converse Chuck Taylor Allstar junkie. I have around 20 pairs. At the Converse website you can design your own. Oh yeah.


5. I am teaching myself web design out of necessity. I did my store's site…which sucks and still needs a ton of work. I am working on the site for our new t-shirts now. I know no HTML at all. None. I do almost all of it in Photoshop and drop it in. I have an awesome hosting service. If anyone would like to take over my webdesign for free, let me know. :)

6. I love football, boxing, and UFC fighting. I surprised my husband with tickets to a UFC event in Vegas last year. It was awesome. I HATE basketball and college football.

7. My cell phone plays “Sweet Home Alabama”

8. I Tivo old episodes of Dharma and Greg.

9. I love this site. I have an Insanity Prawnboy Shirt.

10. When I turn off the light at night I take a big leap into my bed so nothing scary grabs my ankles. Shut up.

11. I have been craving white chocolate ice cream with M&M’s from Coldstone for weeks. I haven’t gotten a chance to go. It is killing me.

12. I think feet are gross. I don’t like seeing feet on commercials. Man feet are the worst. Hairy toes. Ewwww.

13. I hate doing random lists like this because they lack closure. I like closure. The end.





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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. ItÂ’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Some Clarification

If you are here from Diary of the Nello, thanks for stopping in. How sweet is Kelly? The blog fodder tees are not available in my online store. They were a first for Kelly. If you would like one, I would be happy to make one for you. They range from $9.99 to $14.99 depending on the style you choose + shipping. You can leave me a comment with your email or email me at info@MamaMamaMaternity.com and I'll go from there. Thanks.

A Big, Heaping, Steaming Pile Of....

Kelly at Diary of the Nello does the Friday Wrap over at her blog, and I've loosely used that as the basis for this entry. Does it count as stealing if I mutilate it so badly it is unrecognizable? If it does, I'll have to live with myself, and extend my apologies to Kelly...wait, I think I'll apologize to her anyway for the warped representation of her good idea about to follow....

I present to you The Calgon-Take-Me-Away-Crappy-Happenings-Update. Catchy name, huh?

For those of you playing along at home, my husband is in CA for his big interview. It started at 9:00. It is 3:30 CA time and he is still interviewing. Good sign, right? But killer on my nerves.

My husband left for said interview Saturday afternoon, to spend a leisurely weekend visiting with family on someone else's dime. Good plan except for the fact that both kids came down with some hideous disease that involved a 104 degree fever, sore throat, cough, and upset stomach. My son has not left his room since Thursday night. No kidding. Well, there was the one very pitiful forced shower to wash the blue hair gel out of his hair (he dressed as Thing 1 from The Cat in the Hat for a Dr. Suess's birthday celebration at school.) But other than to use the bathroom, he has not budged since Thursday. I go in and roll him over every so often to prevent bedsores.

My daughter is dealing with her illness a little differently. As in...I can not leave her side for one tiny, millisecond to do anything, EVER. Fun times. After I got her all tucked in, fully doped up, she appeared in my room at 12:30 AM feeling rather awful. We were up nursing her fever and sick tummy until 7:30 AM. Yes, you read that right. We then took a catnap until 9:15 AM and got up to face the day. As you can imagine, we are both coping spectacularly.

My son finally made a request for some real food today: Taco Bell. Which he ate still laying prostrate in his bed. When I checked on him a bit later, he was laying practically on top of his remaining food...just as I knew he would be.
"Honey, why are you laying in the food. You could have cleaned it up, you know."
His reply "I didn't know what to do with it."
And recuperating on it seemed like the best plan. Oh my sweet, lazy, lazy boy.

I have also written and mailed my letter to straighten out a huge tax mess, started to work on financial statements to sell my store, and been insulted by the person doing the screenprinting for the T-shirt company we are starting. I don't enjoy being insulted by people I am paying. I don't enjoy being insulted on less than two hours of sleep.

Amidst all the fun I've been having my husband calls.
"Hey, well, we just got out of church and now we're off to get some lunch. Then we are going to go watch the Pay-per-View UFC fight my brother recorded. What are you up to?"
"Oh, you know, the usual. Haven't showered in two days or eaten since yesterday. Wearing a t-shirt that says 'Nothing Tips Like a Cow - Wisconsin' that is covered with the sticky purple Tylenol your daughter refused to swallow."
"Oh. Well, I'll give you a call after lunch."
"Maybe you better not."
"What?"
"Oh, I just mean go..uh..enjoy yourself." Forced chuckle.
"Oh. Alright. Bye."
"Bye."

So here I sit, with a house that looks like a mobile home park after a tornado, one semi-sick kid, one apparently bedridden kid, a needy dog, and still no interview news. I will update when the situation changes.

The Bah-gyna Monologues

Okay, so the day arrived where I was forced to share the proper terms for genitalia (cringe, hack) with my daughter.

"Mommy, I have a junk."

"No, honey, girls don't have junk. You have a Vah-Gi-Nah. Girls have a Vah-Gi-Nah. Boys have a Peee-Nis." (Call me a prude, but the technical terms just ...well, ewww is all.)

"I have a Bah-Gyna?"

"Yes, you have a vagina. Moving on then..."

"Mommy?

"Yes?"

"Daddy has a Bah-Gyna." Giggle. Giggle.

Snort. "Funny. Nope daddy has a penis."

"Bah-gyna. Bah-gyna. Bah-gyna."

"Right. Okay. Let's get the shampoo out of your hair."

"Mommy. Knock. Knock."

"Who's there?"

"Pony."

"Pony who?"

"Pony purple." (She is a knock, knock joke master, no?)

"Ah Haha Haha. Good one, hon."

"Mommy. Knock, knock"

Sigh. "Who's there?"

"Bah-Gyna." Giggle. Giggle.

"Vagina who?" Deep sigh.

"Bah-Gyna Peeenis!"

And so begins her career in stand up.

"Okay, mommy has a joke for you now."

"Okay."

"A vagina walks into a bar. Sits down next to a rabbi and a priest..."

"Hey!" My husband interjects from the other room. "Okay. Joke time is over. Time for bed."

"Daddy?"

"Yes?"

"You have a Bah-Gyna."

Thursday Already?

Thirteen reasons I'm ready to move back to CA.

1. I was in traffic school and the talk about road rage made me feel all sentimental.

2. The clean air here is killing me. I need air I can sink my teeth into.

3. I'm not a card carrying member of PETA or anything, but the amount of hunters around here makes me want to put some red paint on the Home Depot card and start throwing.

4. Flip flops year round baby.

5. In CA I can get a pizza delivered to my front door whenever I want it...not at 5:30, take it or leave it.

6. Without spending hours stuck in traffic, I am losing my mastery of the more colorful expressions in the English language.

7. The beach. Sure I never went, but if for some reason, I got a wild hair and decided I wanted to, it was there.

8. Disneyland. What? It is the happiest place on Earth you know.

9. I haven't seen anyone carrying a ridiculous purse dog dressed in an outfit that costs more than mine in 9 months.

10. Call me a bad neighbor, but I miss the 6 foot privacy fences. I do not need to chat while I stand outside in my PJ's watching the dog take a crap.

11. We'd be up one babysitting grandma. I forget what it's like to go out to dinner.

12. El Torito, Rubio's, Pick Up Stix, In "n" Out, Togo's...Ahhhh, the food. Beautiful food.

13. It's where I met my husband. It's where we dated. It's where he proposed. It's where my babies were born. It's where they took their first steps. It's where we had our first apartment. First house. First everything. Memories...from the corners of my mind....Sniff. Sniff.




Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1.


Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!


The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. ItÂ’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants