Happy Mother's Day 2013

I'm going to be very honest. Motherhood is not all rainbows and butterflies.  No, I did not enjoy every moment.  There are those times that shine through and over power all the less than stellar times.   Like when your child says,"I love you" for the first time.   That wonderful rush you get pushes the memories of walking into their bedroom at 6AM to them completely covered in poo from head to toe as well as the bed and wall.

Motherhood has brought me some of the most wonderful moments of my life. It has also brought me some of the most disgusting experiences of my life as well.  I had managed to make it until motherhood without ever getting pee, poo or puke of another human on me.  Within weeks of the birth of my oldest I was already desensitized to the feel of it hitting my bare skin.  Only when pregnant again can I not handle a puking person.

I hope that as you read this I am sitting in my bed surrounded by blankets and pillows being served breakfast in bed.  Some delicious Belgian waffles( from my new waffle maker I got from my parents for Mother's Day) topped with strawberries and whipped topping.

30 Days of Thankful (Day 25)

My 30 Days of Thankful

Day 25

I am thankful for those days when I wake up 2 hours before everyone else.  I used to look at those days as my "I must be crazy" day.  Who in their right mind gets up earlier than they absolutely have to?  I now know.. Mom's that want to enjoy some silence do.

Some days I use that time for yoga or meditation.  Most days I use it to read emails and check with my business.

I love that time of day when I can get myself fully dressed without interruption.  No one asking where their pants are or can i find them a certain pair of socks.

Sitting in front of our mismatched sock basket I feel like I am staring into the River Lethe.  Why am I here?  Was it socks for myself.. the baby...Is that my t-shirt.. I like this shirt.  Why was I at the sock basket again?  It could be an issue with my selective attention span.  I'll sit an read a book for hours if left alone.  (I read The Hunger Games Trilogy over Mother's Day) Leaving me to stare into that sock basket.. and I can barely focus long enough to find 2 pairs.

If you Give a Mom a Muffin

IF YOU GIVE A MOM A MUFFIN
 by Kathy Fictorie

If you give a mom a muffin, she'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.  


She'll pour herself some.  Her three-year old will spill the coffee. 


She'll wipe it up.  


Wiping the floor, she will find dirty socks.  She'll remember she has to do laundry.  


When she puts the laundry in the washer, she'll trip over some boots and bump into the freezer.  


Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper.  


She will get out a pound of hamburger.  She'll look for her cookbook. (101 Things to Make with a Pound of Hamburger)  


The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.  


She will see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow.  


She will look for her checkbook.  The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two-year-old. 


She'll smell something funny.  She'll change the two-year-old.  


While changing the two-year-old the phone will ring.  Her five-year-old will answer and hang up.  


She'll remember she wants to phone a friend to come for coffee.  


Thinking of coffee will remind her she was going to have a cup.  She will pour herself some.  


And chances are, if she has a cup of coffee, her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.

I love this poem, partly due to my own children being obsessed with the whole mouse a cookie series and also the fact that this is my life.  You would just need to add a few more kid's (preteens and a baby no less) and the nonstop noise machine parrot.  In fact I made cookies recently and didn't get a single one.  It's the mommy diet..  When do you get a full meal? The answer is never when you have a toddler that believes food tastes better when it is off your food not their own.

No sick days and no naps!

Motherhood is one of the most rewarding endeavours of my life, but the most challenging too.


As a chef I've done 26+ hours on my feet in various banquets and thought that was difficult.  That still does not compare to the complete exhaustion felt during a feeding frenzy/breastfeeding marathon.  Or caring for a sick child who stays up all night only to wake early and cranky the next morning.


The lack of sleep is something you can never prepare yourself for.  Even now that my youngest is 1 year old he still does not sleep through the night.  Small children are so adept at the use of sleep deprivation that they must be trained by the CIA or maybe it is the CIA that took their training from a small child... 


It's been months since I have gotten more than 4 hours of sleep at night.  I am reaching the point where my body and mind are beyond exhaustion.  I cannot sit in a comfortable chair (any solid surface) for too long or find myself nodding off, only to startle awake in horror at the possibility of what my children could have done in the minutes I dared to allow my exhaustion to take over.


When morning sickness strikes, as I curl around the porcelain throne trying to keep my toes from coming up I don't get a break.  As a mom I get children at the door asking what's for lunch or shoving random things under the door. If am am lucky enough to have been able to lock the door before retching that is.  When I do not get the door locked I get two small children either making gagging noises behind my back as they tell me I am gross or get to experience the joy of fighting little hands away from playing in the toilet as I continue to dry heave.  To add insult to injury they sometimes just stand there. Their little fingers pointing at me as they laugh at the gross noises and faces I make as I expel what was the only meal I was naive enough to think I would be able to keep down.


With that wonderful puking episode that hit both my youngest kids now passed on to the oldest, I am praying these outbreak monkeys of mine don't get me sick.  I am the last person in this house that can be sick.  I get no sick days.  There is no one that will step in and do everything that needs to be done if I am too sick to move.  Sure the family wont starve and I'm mostly sure the house wont burn down.  I can guarantee that if I don't do it then it wont get done.  Laundry would be left to sit in the washing machine molding away because I didn't tell someone to do something about it.  The feral animals that I call my family would eat from every random container they could find rather than run the dishwasher.


Yes, I know how lucky I am to be a stay at home mom.  I get to spend time with my children.  Just know that all that time is not all kisses and unicorns.  I get never taking a moment off from being mom.  Being always on shift.   When someone calls out I have to answer the call. If left to dad (sorry hun I love you but this is true) shit just doesn't get handled unless distinct directions are left.  There are days I would happily switch lives with my spouse. To leave the house for up to 12 hours a day and not have to be the one to do homework, diapers, and constant death watch.  (is it just my kids or do all kids try to find new and dumber ways to attempt to kill or maim themselves?)

Mother's Day the Aftermath

Yesterday I had the most relaxing and enjoyable Mother's Day in all the 12+ years of being a mommy.  I did not receive gold and jewels, because they would mean so little to me.  Instead I got a much needed day off from being mommy.

Instead of waking with Monster Maxx at 6am he actually slept until 8 am.  I would have slept in later like was my original plan, but being pregnant my bladder capacity is sad joke.   I woke before anyone else and snuck some quiet time catching up on emails and reading some of my favorite blogs.

For breakfast I didn't get the fantasy breakfast in bed.  Mostly my own fault since I am the early riser in the house.  Instead of lounging in bed trying to ignore the crumbs settling around me as I ate my breakfast that was thoroughly enjoyed because it was not something I had to cook myself for a change. My missed breakfast in bed reminded me of all the years I brought my parents breakfast in bed on these special days.

I spent the remainder of the day guiltily ignoring any and all standard mommy duties.  Watched movies from the comfort of my bed (yup a whole movie ALL the way through!), being brought ice cream and grilled cheese sandwiches and reading an entire book (my first in months).  My mother's day gift from my family was the gift of laziness.  I didn't change a single diaper, wash a  dish, or referee a single argument.   It was glorious!

Even with yesterday being the best mother's day to date.. The aftermath of that day spent lounging is beyond imaginable.  There was clothing scattered from bedrooms, down the stairs and into the couch cushions.  Toys were everywhere but in the actual toy bins and boxes. The remote for our DVR is no where to be found.  I still have not gotten up the nerve to check under the couches for the mess that awaits me there.  I think that was a piece of broccoli stuck to the TV screen.

I think for next year I will ask for a day off and no undeclared disaster zone left for me to clean on the day after mother's day.  Who am I kidding though?  This time next year we will have baby #5 in the house tearing things up as well. Two kids will be in diapers, a five year old that changes outfits more than any diva in concert and two teenage girls with hormones on full blast.  I will be glad to get a bath undisturbed and alone.

I hope all your mother's day were amazing, no matter if you are mother's of birth, adoption, fostering, step- moms or single dads who have to be both roles.  

Mama Needs a Break

All weekend I was ready to lock myself in the bathroom and just marinate in a bubble bath with a long book until after bedtime has passed.  Have you ever had one of those weeks when everything hits you at once?  This is that time for me.  The week before last just set the stage for the crappy week that was this week with the seemingly never ending sickness with my two youngest.  Nothing like having to play nurse for two outbreak monkeys with a chest cold that don't have the social graces not to cough directly in your face.  I'm shocked I didn't come down with a worse cold than I did. It must be the minor immunity I acquired from having been through this unhygienic stage with my oldest two.

Just as Maxx's cold went away teething hit him full force and he's been taking it out on me ever since.  I've lost count how many times he's attempted to bite my shoulder through my clothing while in the middle of a meltdown.  (even with baby sign language they still happen)  He is drooling non stop so every shirt I wear is covered in slobber.  I've gotten to the point I've considered donning a bib or smock to protect myself.  He's been so clingy that I haven't used the restroom alone in over a month. (I'm beginning to forget what the bathroom looks like with the door closed.)

My older girls come home every week with another school project due.   Not just normal projects but ones that are under a short deadline thanks to their lack of planning and poor communication with their teachers.  I may offend someone with this but I hope you'll accept this apology now.  Male teachers at a elementary level suck at communication with parents.  When projects are assigned in a female teacher's classroom you get a packet of paper sent home describing in detail their requirements and even examples of work that is acceptable. With the male teachers you get a piece of paper that your child dictated from the teacher verbally explaining what they expect. (good luck, understanding it if you have a child like mine that doesn't learn well only verbally) Since they rotate classes (to prepare them for middle school) the students only have 1 hour to get their daily classwork done and take notes for any projects.  Another pet peeve of mine is that male teachers are less imaginative on project ideas as well.  My 5th grader did the same exact reading project that she did in fourth grade and that her fourth grader sister did not even a month before.

If only that was all that was swirling on my mind I could handle this like every other day.  Add to the fact that we will be moving soon and I feel like a complete nut job.  It's not that my husband isn't helpful, he just doesn't understand the full aspect of what needs to be accomplished.  He is under the false belief that we can just toss everything in a few boxes and be ready.  After living here for over 3 years and adding another person to the family we have so many things to sort out. We don't need to drag broken kid toys, clothing that doesn't fit or random papers along with us.  Then there is the matter of actually finding a place for us to live.  I've been the one to choose where we live with almost every single move we have ever done in the history of our marriage.  It wouldn't be so overwhelming if he didn't expect us to move closer to his work, but at the same time it is important to be close to the kid's schools, shopping, and doctor's office. (We live less than a mile from all this right now, minus being close to his work. Which is the main reasons I loved living where we live now. )

I wish I could fast-forward time to when we are moved in to our new place.   I hate this in between feeling.  I can't even place any orders online to have anything shipped since we are so close to moving and I would risk it not making it here in time due to horrible weather everywhere but here.

Medicate that Mama!

I no longer wonder why my hair is streaked with so many strands of silvery grey.  After any kind of experience with my kids I am always left with that feeling of panic brewing in the pit of my belly.  As I sit and cuddle up in a comfy chair to feed Maxx I can't help but worry about Nadia now.  Are her sisters being too rough with her?  I guess Nadia has already become used to my paranoia because she has begun calling out, " I'm alright Mama!".  Even with her reassurance I feel the dread and sick feeling bubbling back up soon after she falls silent again.

This isn't the first traumatic experience I've had with my kids.  Let's revisit some of my lowest moment of motherhood.  There was the time I was sitting on the bathroom floor getting ready for church on Easter Sunday.  Dan had already gone to church to help set up for the special services.  I was home alone with Lauryn and 7 months pregnant with Morgan at the time.  Lauryn was sitting next to me in full Easter dress as I was finishing putting my makeup on.  She had found my stash of tearjerker candy and stuffed one into her mouth and was choking on it before I could get it away from her.  I could even panic I went into auto pilot and plopped her into what little lap I had left and gave her a mini Heimlich maneuver.  The candy went shooting out of her mouth and skittered across the area rug.  I didn't even get a relieved sigh out, when she lunges for the still bouncing candy, and I am left wrestling her little grasping hands for the candy she had just choked on.   I finally pry it from her sticky fingers and flush it down the toilet as she watches me indignantly.

There was also the scare during my pregnancy with Maxx. To start there was the early belief that his pregnancy was actually twins since I was measuring so much larger than for a single pregnancy.  (I wanted to scream it's not twins I'm just fat!!)  An early ultrasound proved that false.  At a later appointment I agreed to the quad screen blood test to test for genetic problems. That choice added another 2 weeks to the most stressful times of my life list.  (it's a mental list.. my list making obsession isn't that bad.. yet)  My doctor called me to tell me that the results were positive for Trisomy 21 or in more common words Down Syndrome.  It wasn't even the selfish thoughts that raced through my mind of how my life would be changed by this.  The worries that haunted me were the common health problems that occur with down syndrome.  The scariest for me was heart abnormalities.  With a long family history of heart disease this broke my heart anytime I let myself dwell on it.  We had to attend a counseling session with a genetic counselor before they would even begin my scan.  I was on the edge of tears all morning after spending the previous two weeks praying and crying for the little being being carried inside my body.  I knew that no matter what the little one would be loved.  We just wanted to be prepared for what would come.  Sitting through the scan I couldn't even sit in awe of seeing him move and could barely muster a giggle when the baby stubbornly refused to stay in position for measuring, making the whole process take twice as long.  After a second check by the doctor we finally received the news that we not only had a healthy baby but it was a little boy.  I was told that it was just a false positive on the quad test.  My due date was off by a few short weeks which caused the timing of the blood test to be off. (there is only a short window when you can have the test and the results be even remotely accurate.)

That wasn't the worst of my trials.  There was the week before Morgan's 3rd birthday when she almost died.  I still have nightmares about this period in my life.  I feel my hands begin to shake and palms sweating just thinking about it.  I'll just leave it at, my children are not allowed to have any kind of jump rope or long ribbon or even any long strings.  There will also never be a set of bunk beds in our house ever again.  I'm left with the trauma that whenever a movie or TV show depicts a person hanging lifelessly I feel the bile rise into my throat and tears spring to my eyes.  Even though it happened over 7 years ago I still flash back to that moment of discovering my little girl not breathing with the strap tied around her neck.  Then the doctors repeatedly telling me over the next 5 days that I am lucky I found her when I did or she would not have survived or could have been left seriously harmed.

When people call me a paranoid parent or a helicopter mama for hovering nervously over my children, I just look at them with eyes glazed over with the horrors of my parenting experiences flashing behind them.  They will never understand what I have been through until they have walked a while in my shoes.  Call me a worrywart or whatever you will, but my kids will survive and thrive into adulthood.  Despite their best efforts to do themselves and each other serious injury.

Long into the future when I am a crazy old lady sitting on my porch rocking away in a chair that isn't a rocker and holding conversations with people who aren't there.  Just look at me kindly and remember the horrors that this mother has experienced on her road to raise her children to adulthood.

Already a Biter

My son Maxx got his first tooth at one week shy of being 8 months old. I am positive my daughters all had multiple teeth by 8 months. I'm not complaining. I was actually dreading the day his teeth would come, they always want to test their chompers out on human flesh like little zombies. It's usually my poor defenseless Mommy flesh that is on their menu. My husband believes that Maxx was holding back on growing them in because when teeth appeared was when I stopped breastfeeding with the Nadia.

It wasn't the teeth appearing that scared me off breastfeeding. I had stopped breastfeeding Nadia after getting repeatedly being bitten while nursing her. It was so bad on many occasions that I was left bleeding and dreading the next time I would need to bare my tender bits to her. At the time I didn't know any better that she wasn't nursing but instead messing around when she would hurt me with her chompers. I didn't know I had never breast-fed a child that had teeth. With each baby I have breastfed I have been able to nurse longer and longer with each one.

Appearance of the tooth

I was sitting around after dinner watching tv while the little man cruised around the front room in his regular super army crawl. He pulled himself up on our coffee table as he always does to see what he could throw to the ground or check for any papers he could attempt to eat. Instead he started chewing on the edge of the table, so I pull him away and began playing with him. He grabbed my hand and started gnawing on it as usual. I felt something scratching me, so I inspected his mouth thinking he had some contraband. I was in shock to see a tooth since not even minutes before he had no teeth at all.

I started yelling OMG a tooth! My oldest kids come running and ask if I had lost a tooth. (being stuck in the losing tooth mode) Which is understandable considering in the past two months my two oldest daughters have lost around 10 teeth combined. (leaving our 4 yr old jealous of the all tooth fairy earnings) Once they found out it was baby Maxx's first tooth, they instantly started cheering. This little man is gonna wonder why he feels the need to have lots of cheering and applause.

I was going to wait until daddy got home from work to tell him but I can't keep a secret/surprise. Daddy was on speaker phone when I told him about the new tooth. After crowing with pride about his little man becoming such a big boy, he then asks me if this means breastfeeding will soon be coming to an end. Before I could get a response out Maxx was vigorously shaking his head no. When hubby didn't get a response because I was giggling too hard, he repeated his question and Maxx shook his head no all over again when daddy mentioned breastfeeding ending. We have our answer and will continue to breastfeed hopefully to 1-year-old. Little man shows no signs of wanting to give it up. Hubby says it is the boobies addiction that most men have it's just starting early.

Abuse of tooth power

That little tooth was not even 24 hours old and Maxx had try it out on my poor defenseless nipple. This time I knew what to do though. I still said ow because it still freaking hurt. I immediately told him no bite and set him down away from me and ended the breastfeeding session. He startled at me screeching ow but then laughed. As soon as I told him no bite and set him away from the boob you would think it was him that had just been bitten. Maxx was howling down the moon, all while giving me the most pitiful looks. For the sake of my poor nipples I stuck to my guns and again told him no bite and handed him a toy to play with instead. Less than a minute later, he had given up the howling and had turned his pitiful looks to glares of indignation.

Have you had to handle a biter? How did you overcome it?

Tip: When breastfeeding and your child bites you, tell your child "No Bite" and end the nursing session.  Set them down away from you. (near toys to play with since they were not eating but playing when they bit)  Try again in 10 minutes. 

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• Breastfeeding tips - All Information (umm.edu)

Christmas Already?

The season of craziness begins earlier every year. It was only a few days before Halloween and my local stores were already stocking their shelves for Christmas. On the day of Halloween I ran out to grab some more candy to find the store taking all Halloween items off the shelves before it was even noon. Couldn't they at least wait a few more hours and then trick or treating would be in full swing? Maybe they get some sick joy watching people frantically trying to make last purchases as they whisk all the remaining Halloween stuff into mystery carts full of random items. With them ripping down the displays so early it just added to the already hectic feeling inside the store. Every year they clear those shelves earlier and earlier.

I'm not knocking starting early with you Christmas shopping, but I don't want to see fake Christmas tree's before we even get out of October. I started my christmas shopping months ago. Nothing crazy just one or two presents that I would come across in my usual shopping. I'd have no issue if they had started with stuff like wrapping paper and gifting stuff, but I still don't see any of those useful items. Instead they have christmas tree's and stockings.

Maybe I am more sensitive about this because I have a December birthday and we don't decorate for Christmas til the beginning of December or even the start of the 12 days of Christmas countdown.

Before we know it they will be going directly from school supplies to Christmas displays. Have we even given Santa a chance to check his list once let alone twice before we are having the season shoved down our throats?

When do you decorate for Christmas? How about Christmas shopping, have you not began yet or are you already finished? Are you like me and vow every year to start early and you make a point to get a few presents early but you finish most your shopping in the last month?

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Basket-case

I've been a bad blogger lately, I have been so busy with life that I didn't have the mental capacity at the end of the day to come up with coherent thoughts.  I've been waking up in time to walk my oldest girls to school for their early morning instrument ensemble and then having trouble falling asleep at night.  With being a stay at home mom I still feel like there is never enough hours in a day.  (even with insomnia)  I keep trying to remind myself that Halloween is just the warm-up act for the insanity that is the Holiday season.  I can't lose my grip on my sanity just yet.  There are still a few more months to go before we are safely through the season.

My husband has taken a few days off from work and you would think that having him home would make things easier. I have found it isn't true at all.  It may just be me but I can't seem to get that much of my housework done with him home.  We end up sitting around watching tv or joking around.  Not a bad alternative but my house needs serious cleaning daily with four kids, 2 adults, a parrot and two hamsters living in it.

To help make cleaning easier I use the basket method.  When cleaning my front room I take a small laundry basket and put everything in it that does not belong in that room. Tidying everything up as I clean.  When I get everything picked up in the room I put away all the items from the basket and then continue with another room.  I love using small laundry baskets to clean but laundry is one of my least favorite household chores to do.

I love small laundry baskets.  Everyone in my house has one with their name on them.  When doing laundry I gather the baskets I place the laundry in each basket as I fold.  Then I have my children put their laundry away.  Even my four-year old tornado puts away her laundry.  Sometimes it inspires her to have a full-blown outfit change, but it's one less basket of laundry I have to contend with.

Clicker Training Hamsters

I am a sucker for animals that need a home. Our African Grey parrot Mezmo is a rescue bird. (He came to us just last December) Mezmo had some behavior problems but after serious clicker training he has changed drastically. It took some work with great guidance from a set of Bird Tricks DVD's I purchased. My only regret was not buying the DVD's sooner.

My youngest sister is moving out-of-state soon and I guess her friend thought it would be the perfect chance to pawn some angry hamsters off on someone. (someone she may never see ever again.) After accepting them my sister realized that there was no way she could take the hamsters on the long move.

In turn our family recently acquired 2 dwarf hamsters with cage and supplies, from my little sister. They are two girl Dwarf hamsters, one is white with pink eyes and the other looks just like the picture. Her friend's kids had stopped handling them as often as they should due to other newer pets in the house, which was why their mom got rid of them. The hamsters are not very well socialized and they will bite. They are very aggressive when treats are given. I think they had also been teased. We are going to try to do clicker training with them. Clicker training is a great trust building activity. It has worked very well with our parrot.

I learned what I know about clicker training from the DVD's we purchased from Bird Tricks. After some research on the web I found someone using clicker training for hamsters as well. Rodents being a food reward type animal clicker training the hamsters will be very similar to the bird. I will just use what I learned from the DVD's and adapt the training for small animals and not a bird.

My goal is to get the hamsters to the point that my kid's can hold them without the hamsters attempting to bite them. As a family, we plan to go visit the nearby pet store this weekend and pick out some new accessories for the hamsters' cage. Our oldest two daughters want to name the hamsters as a family this weekend as well.

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Weight Loss Sabotage

I was doing great on my workouts. Julian Michaels was thoroughly kicking my sorry hide into shape. A shape I was beginning to really enjoy seeing. Then it happened...

Aunt Flo finally reared her ugly head after 6 months of no Postpartum visits. She arrived with all the evil excess baggage of migraines, bloating, cramping, sleeplessness, mood swings and feeling perpetually tired. I really did try to stick with working out, but after the first day I thought I was going to need some sort of hospitalization just to recover.

Then once I finally got Aunt flo and all her extra baggage out, I got sick. Not just a little sick either, no.. I am an overachiever and get a lingering chest cold that made me want to drag myself to the doctors for. Which was understandable since I ended up having my first asthma attack in years, but thankfully we still keep a rescue inhaler for that type of emergency. I hate the doctors though, they always want to poke me with needles and rarely do they only stab me once. All that poking and prodding would be for nothing, because I am breast-feeding and couldn't take most medications to help ease any of the symptoms without affecting my milk supply or flat-out being dangerous for my son. A visit to the doctors would be pointless and just be atrocious on top of me already feeling miserable. Instead I drank my orange juice, stayed hydrated, and tried to take it easy.

Back to the weight-loss saboteur sidekick, my dear sweet loving husband who isn't the most helpful when trying to lose weight. Sure he is a great workout buddy, but when it comes to healthy snacking it's a disaster. During this past month he has brought home ice cream sandwiches for me. (He's Lactose intolerant so none of them are for him.) Sure, they are the Skinny Cow ice cream sandwiches but that is a slippery sugary slope for me. Then next it was the Twix ice cream bar and more ice cream sandwiches. Which turned into a daily iced coffee instead of it being a weekly treat. Sweets are my weakness. Maybe he's being sneaky and vindictive after I silently giggled at him for never again attempting the 30 day shred after that first workout. Nah, he's not that spiteful and he is enjoying the results of my workouts too.

So, back to the 30 day shred I go. Maybe I'll switch it up a few days with the Zumba workout my mother's group has talked about. Back to the grind! Those goal jeans have been taunting me from the bottom of my dresser. No more self sabotage.

I love you honey, but no more ice cream sandwiches to say you love me, a hug and the real words are better for my waistline.

Babies Don't Keep

One of the women from my motherhood forum posted this and it really made me smile. This poem really is how I feel most days. Everything else can wait because my baby wont always be a willing cuddle bug.

Babies Don’t Keep
by Ruth Hulburt Hamilton

Mother, oh Mother,
come shake out your cloth,
empty the dustpan,
poison the moth,
hang out the washing
and butter the bread,
sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house
is so shocking?
She's up in the nursery,
blissfully rocking.
Oh, I've grown shiftless as Little
Boy Blue (lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek, peekaboo).
The shopping's not done
and there's nothing for stew
and out in the yard there's a hullabaloo
but I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.
Look! Aren't her eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo).
The cleaning and scrubbing
will wait till tomorrow,
for Children grow up,
as I've learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down, cobwebs.
Dust go to sleep.
I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep......

Hell Week ~ Motherhood version

This past week has been what could only be described as hell week the Motherhood version.  I feel like I unknowingly pledged to join some secret society and forced to pass some horrendous tasks.

With summer vacation coming to an end and the countdown to school starting my kids have, to put it in simple terms, lost their freaking minds.  They shredded my sanity in the process.

Little Mister is in a full-blown teething fit lately.  The teething tablet were lost. ::cry::  I tore the house apart looking for them since they are a $6 bottle of teething miracle.  The bottle was more than half way full, so I refused to buy another.  I stubbornly believed I would find that bottle.  After a 3 hour screaming jag on his part and a crying fit on mine did I buy a new bottle.  It was only after the last of my sanity slipped away I gave in and bought that new bottle. Why didn't I do this sooner?  I got an even bigger bottle, with almost twice the tablets for only 50 cents more.

My toddler tornado seems to believe that turning 4 means you double up the terrible twos.  She has been on a tantrum frenzy lately.  If she isn't having a meltdown she is having a pout fest.  With her older sister's back she spends a good part of her time doing everything in her power to annoy them.  Taking special things from their shelves. (she climbs on precarious self built structures to get to their precious collections)

She recently got extremely angry (picture a cute but very angry troll jumping up and down) because her older sister was holding little mister and wouldn't pass him to her.  She tried tattling that they weren't sharing brother. (like he is a toy) When that didn't work she screamed at her sister to go away she wanted her brother alone again.  The start of school can't come soon enough for the toddler tornado, then she will go back to crying when they go to class. (gotta love the drama that comes with 3 girls)

The tweens, Are experiencing nothing short of being possessed by some psychosis lately.  It leaves them bickering with each other over the smallest things. "That's my pet shop!" (out of the hundreds they own they fight over one.. worst part is it's one of the doubles.)  When they were toddlers they would tell anyone who listened that they were best friends.  Now, they spend more time as mortal enemies.

The tweens also recently got back from a month with their Nana who doesn't have the same type of household expectations as I do. Don't get me wrong I'm no clean freak or obsessive organizer. (I haven't arranged my movies in alphabetically order since having kids.) I do have some expectations though. I now get to spend my time turning them back into productive members of our household.  I get to re-teach them that their dirty clothes will not crawl their way to the laundry hamper themselves.  We limit TV times for a reason.  They should not sneak around and watch after being told to do a more enriching activity. (like practicing multiplication facts.)  Making your littlest sister cry is not an acceptable way to pass the time.

I ended up having a huge meltdown yesterday. Of course my brother shows up just in time to see it. ::embarrassed:: I was hormonal, tired, stressed and in desperate need of a break.    Four kids on summer break and no break in sight for mom makes for a very cranky mommy.  It's not that I don't ask for a break from the kids.  I do!  But for me to actually get one I have to go on strike or wait until everyone else is asleep to get some me time.  For a while now I have taken my me time in the early morning and using it to workout.  Unfortunately recently the kids have woken earlier and earlier leaving me for no personal time in the mornings to workout without an audience or kids badgering me about breakfast in the middle of my workout. Or even worse getting under foot.. (I hurt my leg due to a kid blanket that the kids left on the floor right behind me during a workout.)

I love my kids! Just because I vent about their meltdowns (ok so them causing my meltdowns) don't think I don't love them. Every parent needs a break.  More so for the ones that are the stay at home parent. My job's shift isn't over in 8 hours, I get no vacation time, no sick time, and no pay. (unless you count payment in hugs, but it's easy to forget those when the hug giver is standing in front of you in the midst of the biggest tantrum you have ever seen)

School will be starting again. Very soon I will be back in the middle homework battles, school projects and parent teacher conferences.  Before I know it I'll be looking forward to the first school break when we wont need to wake early or use a daily calendar for what to wear that day.  (No dresses for P.E. or favorite outfits worn on Art days)

Just don't get me started on what all these schedule changes are going to do to our parrots behavior.  It's like a having a bad toddler that doesn't handle change in their schedule AT ALL. Fun times.