Santa and the Economy

Life has been... Innnnttteeeerrrresting...

I won't go into detail, but, oh. my. heavens. Someone save me.

Here's a few things though:

The other night I got a sudden craving. Ran (Yes, ran. Big belly and all.) to the kitchen yelling, "Get out of my way dogs!! I'm makin' cookies!!!" Don't mess with me and my cravings or you might lose your life.

What I would like for my husband to say to me; "You've worked hard today. I can tell you are having painful contractions right now. Go sit down and I will finish putting the cookies in the oven."

What Roger actually does; Eats lots of cookie dough then says, "I'm tired... I'm going to sit down."(sigh) .... Men....

You know that horrible horror show music that plays in your mind when you open your toddlers bedroom door and smell a stinky diaper then realise the diaper is not on the toddler?? I do. I know that music all too well.

And nothing like looking at your checking account to find out one of your adorable children spent your entire family's Christmas budget on buying who knows what on their father's cell phone... How they got past having to type in our password we have no idea.

Now, to figure out how to explain Santa losing his budget for their Christmas gifts... Here's what I've come up with so far: 

1. Due to the economy, Santa had to cut down his 'nice list' to just the top 1000 nice kids... I'm sorry, but none of you made the cut... 

2. One of Santa's reindeer broke it's.... uh... wing?? and couldn't fly so they weren't able to make it out for Christmas this year... Sorry. 

3. Some of Santa's elves joined a union and went on strike... Santa had to close down his entire factory and Christmas had to be canceled. They are hoping by next year Willie Wonka and his Oompaa Loompaas will have bought the factory and saved Christmas. It would be a good decision on Wonka's part since they could get all the stocking candy from the chocolate factory...

One of Those Days

Ever have one of those days where you wonder why in the world God chose you to be a mother? I do. Lately all the time. You know those days when you are yelling so loud that you just know that anyone who passes by your house is hearing you and muttering, "That must be what Hell is like."
Yep. That's me! And if you have no idea what I'm talking about you either don't have children or you need to get off my blog. Tonight after the kids went to bed I was taking a bath trying to relax and it hit me. Vitamin D!

Let me explain. I was on antidepressants for about 7 years and they didn't help me much. I kept telling the doctors and they would either up my dosage or change brands. Finally a genius tested my vitamin D levels. They were extremely low. He put me on majorly high doses and voila! Problem solved. Naturally I can't be on high doses all the time, so I have to watch for my symptoms to show their ugly head and start taking higher doses for a while till my levels are back to normal.

Anyway. Vitamin D! I haven't been able to keep down my prenatal vitamins at all so it makes perfect sense that I'd be low again. Oh. Thank. Heavens. I was beginning to think I was possessed and expected my head to spin around in circles at any moment!

 

On a side note, Abby told my sister today, "You need to get married now so you can get pregnant."

 



Baby #4 Is A....

So this morning when my alarm clock went off, I noticed Abby was singing along with it. Apparently, since they have me up before it goes off every morning, so they hear it every morning, she has it memorized.

Abby was singing a Christmas song they have been practicing at school for her Christmas program and I heard her sing, "Down through the chimney with Satan Nick." I then explained what a SAINT is.

I woke up this morning to hear Kole saying, "Mommy is crazy! She drives me insane!" To which Abby replied, "(Gasp!) Don't say that! Mommy isn't... very... crazy..."

Thanksgiving morning Abby sat down to breakfast and started listing off things she was thankful for, without being  asked to. That's one of those moments you think that maybe you aren't completely screwing up your children.

Mine and Roger's conversation:
Roger: "That's not what I said."
Me: "It's what you meant."
Roger: "No. That's what you wanted to hear."
Me: "That's not what I wanted to hear. That's what you meant. Women hear what men mean, not what they say."

We found out we are having a baby girl!!! On the way home from the ultrasound Abby had heartburn and she was whining about it. After about an hour of whining she screamed, "NOW I CAN'T FEEL MY FEET!!! I CAN'T FEEL MY FEET!! MY TUMMY HURTS AND NOW I CAN'T FEEL MY FEET!" I told her they were in no way related and that she was fine, they had just fallen asleep. Drama queen. When we got home Roger told me he lost his job.

The kids wouldn't stop scooting the chairs around the kitchen and using them as stools to get into things. So, I taped the chair legs to the table legs. It's worked so far!

We got Ammon up from his nap and he was poopy... But his diaper was missing...

Kole, with his mouth, "PPPPPP! (a farting noise) Ammon farted!" Nice try dude, but you are going to have to do better than that when you try and get your brother in trouble.

Roger: "Sorry I was wrong."
Me: "you always are."
Roger: "I was right about one thing though..."
Me: "marrying me?"
Roger: "yup!"
Me: "yeah I know. I was the one who was wrong there." ;) good thing we both have the same sarcastic humor.

The Naughty List

Ammon is in the 'try on every one's shoes and wear them through the house' stage. His head has bruises on it's bruises because the big shoes cause him to face plant it all the time.

The couch and the boys are covered in Rice Crispy cereal.

Abby and Kole are playing with some stuffed animals and Abby's bird was crying saying how her "baby was killed by the bird catcher.". Kole then explained, "Don't worry. She will still be your baby in heaven."

Kole hasn't been listening to me, like, at all... So I sent him this thinking it might encourage him to listen:
http://www.portablenorthpole.com/watch/mYrqSEaj8lc6rglcIRktR2Q
He broke into tears when it told him he's not on the 'nice' list yet. BUT an hour after he watched it, he still wasn't listening to me so I put him in his room until he is ready to listen. He is now in there crying, "I'm on the naughty list! I'm on the naughty list!" Who gets the best mother of the year award? Not me!
I do believe, I am on the 'naughty list'.

Motherhood

Last Friday night after the kids went to bed Roger lit the fireplace and put a cushion on the rug in front of it and asked me to come sit in front of the fire with him.

Me: "Oh no you don't. I know what guys have in mind when they want a girl to sit by the fire with them."

Roger: "What do you mean?"

Me: "You know exactly what I mean. I know what guys are like."

Roger: "Oh you have experience, huh?"

Me: (Give him that 'shut up' look) "You know what I mean!"

Eventually I gave in and snuggled with him in front of the fire. He then started squeezing my head.

Me: "Why are you squeezing my head like that?"

Roger: "It makes me closer to you."

Me: (unable to control the urge, I burst into song) "AAAAHHHHHHHHH! CLOSE TO YOU!!!!! AHHHHHHHHH! CLOSE TO YOU!!!!"

It sounded a lot like Elliot (the boy deer) in this video (at 1:35 if you want to skip to it).

The weekend was great! I told Roger I needed the weekend "off" because it was exhausted. He agreed to that. So my weekend "off" included, a 2 hour grocery shopping trip with him and the kids at 6:30 am on Saturday morning. Then coming home and cooking lunch. Then baking and cooking and cooking some more with a bunch of cleaning on the side. Sunday included going to church, then coming home and cooking and baking and cooking some more, with a bit of cleaning on the side. Roger did some dishes, broke up some of the kids' fights, got them to bed, and helped with baths. It was actually, believe it or not, a huge break (even though I hate grocery shopping, cleaning, and cooking/baking).

Kole has continued his destructive streak. Yesterday while Roger was at work Kole went to the bathroom. After him being in there a while I went in to find he had drawn with crayon all over the toilet, garbage can, and floor. We sat in there for about 2 hours while he scrubbed that up, crying the whole time about how it wasn't coming off and how hard it was. Hopefully he learned his lesson, but since he has had to scrub permanent marker off the wall and crayon off the windows this month and obviously didn't learn a great lesson from having to do that....

Kole also gave Chance a hair cut! Some how Kole got a hold of the scissors and cut a chunk of hair off the top of Chance's head, off the back of his neck, out of his side, and off the tip of his tail.

Kole ran into the edge of the counter and split his forehead open. Abby was in a panic and cried as she went to get a band aid for me to put on him. Kole had surprisingly very little reaction about the blood. Hope he was in shock or something.

I turned on some Mickey Mouse songs on Pandora.com and the kids are being entertained by dancing and making shadows on the living room wall. It's rather fun to watch.

Got the kids to bed, after much fighting between Abby and Kole.

Chased a 1 year old yogurt monster (aka Ammon), who was running back and forth across the table to avoid being wiped up.

Took Abby to a birthday party and Kole was upset that he couldn't go too... So we came home and made rice crispy treats while listening to 'Scripture Scouts'.
(For those who might be wondering about Scripture Scouts, I highly recommend it! They are audio stories about a group of kids that act out scripture stories and my kids have learned more from them then they have from me telling them the scripture stories 3 million times. http://www.scripturescouts.com/)

While reading an email from Abby's Kindergarten teacher about her concern about Abby's fear of going to the bathroom by herself at school, Ammon came strolling into the room covered in white cream with a tube of diaper rash cream in his hand. I went and cleaned him up, then came back to the computer and started typing. I then noticed the back of my hand was covered in diaper rash cream.

Got Abby from her party. Sat down and talked to her about her bathroom fear. She told me there is a crack in the bathroom ceiling that she thinks spiders will come out of. I told her the school sprays for bugs so if any spiders were in there they would die. She accepted that answer and said she'd go by herself tomorrow. We'll see how that goes.

Abby shared her tootsie rolls from her party goodie bag and Kole was standing there chewing one of those huge ones and talking and suddenly I look over to see a string of slobber from his mouth all the way down to the floor. Those tootsie rolls sure make your mouth water don't they?

Abby and Kole are standing on the back porch throwing snowballs at the dogs and laughing wickedly. They are slightly twisted children. It's still a mystery to me where they get that from.

The kids had a race of who could get ready for bed the fastest. Abby won and came in and did a victory dance that reminded me a lot of this:

Abby told us that the other night she had a nightmare that a giant monster was chasing the bus. I pictured it and couldn't help but laugh.

I know I don't sugar coat things. I'm rather sarcastic. And I don't pretend motherhood is picture perfect. Motherhood is HARD! Motherhood is Frustrating! 98% of the time I want to scream and stomp and pull my hair out. Motherhood is even downright disgusting (there are a lot of bodily fluids). Motherhood pushes every patience button you didn't even know you had! Motherhood is painful! Motherhood is stinky! Motherhood is exhausting!
AND Motherhood is worth it.

Wild Things and Honey

Ammon's been rather good today. I guess he knew I had no extra patience.

Kole has been crying non-stop since he woke up. NOT. EVEN. EXAGGERATING.

He also got the honey out of the pantry. Sweet, ooey gooey, sticky, honey and dumped the entire bottle all over the pantry shelves and floor. He got a swat on the behind (He deserved it. He knows better.) and put in his room until dinnertime and he is presently in there crying about how I'm a bad mom.

 You know that book 'Where the Wild Things Are'?... Yeah, that's our house. Our house is where the wild things are.

Abby while cutting up some papers for her homework page, cut up little pieces of paper and spread them all over the bedrooms and living room. I was in the kitchen, hence the no paper in the kitchen.

Talked to my mom on the phone and mentioned our snow (about a foot deep now) and she thought it wise to tell me she was in her backyard, barefooted, watering her palm tree. I'm moving south for the winter. And I'm not taking my kids with me. I'm tempted to call child services on myself some days and tell them I'm not fit to be a mother, because lets face it, prison would be such a nice break.

During dinner I went to go lay down because "morning sickness" hangs onto me night and day, the whole 9 months. Then I discovered Kole had used his spoon to catapult his egg drop soup all over the kitchen. What a dear. That is why I have dogs. The floor was cleaned up for me.

Roger got home and asked why Ammon is always running around pants-less when he gets home. I explained that, " 'bout mid-day everyday he just decides he's done with 'em and drops 'em where he stands".

Sometimes I ask Roger how I got to be a mother because I feel like I'm terrible at it. He usually replies, "Well, when a man and a woman love each other...." then he gets whacked with the closest pillow I can grab.

Mutant Aliens and Klingon's

I told Abby to go get dressed for school. She replied, "I am dressed." No, Abby, just because you refused to get PJ's on last night so you wore your clothes from yesterday to bed, does NOT mean you are dressed for today.

I was laying down and Abby came up and started poking my belly and talking to the baby, "I love you, baby, but you better be a girl."

Why I love German Pancakes:
1. Kole will eat them!
2. I almost ALWAYS have the ingredients for them.
3. Who doesn't love eating food that looks like a deformed/ mutant alien forming in the oven?

Kole, our natural born vegetarian asked to try a bite of chicken today! I was so excited thinking maybe he was growing out of his non-meat taste. He took the bite, chewed for a while, then spit it in the garbage. We really question if he is our child sometimes.

Abby got home from school and I asked her what they did. She said they didn't do any letters or numbers, or even read anything, but they DID play on the playground twice and practiced the 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' song. Well, as long as she's learning the important stuff right?

Got my swimsuit on and gave the dogs a long overdue bath. Do you know how hard it is to wash a dog that is the size of a full grown human on all fours, in a shower that is 3'-3'? Roxy is pretty easy since she just moves and does what I tell her, but Chance hates water, lays down, and plays dead on the shower floor. After about 2 hours (with the kids watching through the shower door laughing, it's more entertaining than TV!) I had both dogs clean and mostly dry and let them out and went to shower the hair off of myself. I got out and found that the kids had let the dogs outside and Chance had rolled in the dirt. That whole ordeal was completely worth my time.

Roxy is the dark colored one, Chance is the light one.

It's stormy today, which means my joints ache. Don't know why, they just always have, although they got better for a while while we didn't live at high altitudes, so I think it might have something to do with that. My entire childhood my mom had to rub Bengay cream on my hips, knees, and ankles every night so I could get any sleep... Must have cost them a fortune in Bengay.

Ammon fell down the stairs today. Got a nice lump on his forehead. (Hard to see in the picture because of my cell's crappy flash.)

I don't know about you, but it kind of reminds me of one of those Klingon people from Star Trek with the weird foreheads... And no, I didn't know they were called Klingon's, Roger told me.