Mommy Confessions

Ok, so we all have them. I have decided its time to stop keeping them to myself in hopes that other mommies will realize that none of us are perfect. Here are my dirty little secrets for the week in hopes it will encourage me to be better. What are yours?

~ Last Sunday, we cleaned out our garage to the point where we can actually fit the van in there and not risk injury or death by falling piles of debris. On Monday, I discovered another perk of having the car in the garage. Now, I can get the boys dressed and ready to go, buckle them into their carseats and then gather up the things we need and get myself ready! Its fabulous. Usually they had undressed or made messes on their clothes by the time I got myself ready to go and now, they can't. Best part is, the garage used to be sealed off to make a room so it is really well insulated so they don't get cold sitting there waiting. They just sit and talk to each other or play games or chill. (Don't freak out though, the house is a ranch and I can hear them from my room if they need me.)

~ I got schooled on manners by D this morning. We were sitting and eating breakfast together and after he had finished his second Ikea cinnamon roll, he started poking his fingers around on mine and picking the icing off. I told him to stop poking his fingers in my breakfast and he replied "Thats not nice Mama. You supposed to share with me!". Le sigh. What can I say, he was right.

~ My kids have way too many toys. Way too many. They have so many that they tend to just dump them all over the play room floor and then go bother my underwear drawer because they are overwhelmed. I need to go through them and get them ready for a garage sale but every time I do that, they find my box and put them back in the playroom. I'm going to have to find a better box hiding spot I suppose.

~ I lost my shit yesterday. To the point I had to lock myself in the closet and hide for a few minutes. Its been a stressful month and while I am not the overly emotion showing, cry when it hurts kind of person, I couldn't take it any more. So, I locked my self in and had a good, snot ridden sob while the boys banged on the door trying to get in. Eventually I let them in and they sat in the floor of my closet with me and we sang some songs and they snuggled in to my chest and I felt much better.


What are your confessions for the week?

Silly Monster

My little man loves to do two things. Dance and have his picture taken...


He also found himself a cool new hat!

Too Big

Last night, I went in to kiss my boys goodnight before I went to bed just like I always do. K first, then D. They never stir apart from the occasional returned kiss before flopping back down and going back to dreamland.

Today, we got up and were getting ready to leave to get some shopping done. We needed milk so bad I was willing to get out in the cold weather. When I went to button K's pants, they just wouldn't go. He was just too big. Then, D cried when I put his shoes on. Crying they were pinching his toes, which they were, but they didn't when he wore them last weekend.They have both been at that growing thing again.

At nap time, it hit me: My boys are getting big. Big sized and big mature. I just can't believe how much they have grown since their birthdays. It just seems so surreal. When did that happen guys? They were so little. So little and helpless. Just, what, last week? Its like I walked into some kind of twilight zone.

Not a bad twilight zone particularly, but the kind where you wake up and realize you haven't had to raise your voice at them in a few days. They play by themselves and with each other without fighting. Where, you tell them to stop once, and they do. Well, okay, for the most part on that second one.  

They have such strong personalities. D is the independent, free spirit that never lets anything get him down, learning as he plays. K is the attached at the hip kid, always watching what you are doing and always learning so he can copy it later.

They love to play with each other more and more every day too. They play cars together or they snuggle their "baby dolls" and then trade and snuggle each others. They snuggle each other on the couch while watching a movie. If the movie gets scary to D, he pulls K in and kisses the top of his head and tells him "Is okay K, don't be scared". They follow each other around at the playground and make up silly chase games at the house. Games that K always loses because he is short.

Of course they still love to snuggle in with their Mama. They both check in with me on a regular basis if I am not in the floor with them. One right after the other and if one comes, both come. Every time.

Still. Still.Too big. I am not ready for them to be big boys. They are supposed to stay babies forever. I guess they will though. Stay my babies forever that is. My Mama's boys. They are so dynamic. So smart. So big.

Slow down time, I need more of you with my babies!

Old Before My Time

That is me. I am feeling particularly old this past few weeks. Mostly because of my health. I am a relatively healthy person for the most part. I hardly ever get colds and the latest sickness usually pass right over me. I have an amazing immune system.

The problem lies in my bones. My very base. How cruel is that, right? When I was 18 years old, I started having pain in my knees. Just kind of random pain. Mostly soreness and popping. Usually only after running or standing for long periods. The doctors basically told me to take some Motrin and man up. I was "too young" to have any serious problems. I, of course, listened to them and figured it was something that I could fix on my own. I thought maybe I was weak, so I ran more. I thought it was nutrition, so I ate better. I thought I was too fat, so I lost 20 lbs. Only, nothing worked.

Over the next three years, despite my trying and the help of Dr. Google, my pain got worse. It was more constant in the evenings and almost unbearable during the coldest of winter months. I just kept taking my Mortin and hoping for the best. Eventually I started to feel it in my hips and my hands. That is when I realized something was up. They had to be wrong. It was getting worse, not better. So, back to the doctor I went.

This time, there were tests. Blood tests, xrays, and ultrasounds were all conclusive. I had osteoarthritis. The degenrative    All of the markers were there, the bones spurs, the weather affected pain, the snap crackle pop when I walk, the evelvated C reactive protien (CRP). It fit all too well.

Turned out some of the things that I had done to try to fix the "non- issue" had made my issue worse. Just about right for my luck. I was in total disbelief. I had always been told that any kind of arthritis was something you didn't have to worry about until you were old. At least older than 21. Don't let the pain pill commercials fool you, this shit is real.

So, here I am, eight years later with no real solution. I can hardly move some days. It is a million times worse during the winter and this one has been a doozy. The generalized, whole body pain is excruciating some days. There is no way to explain to someone how it feels for your bones to hurt. The things that most people don't really ever feel are there most of the time are on my mind all. the. time. I can wear myself out with the questions.

When is the pain going to come back? When is going to stop? How am I going to take care of the boys when I can hardly move? What happens when I can't move at all? Will it ever get better?

For now, I do what I can. I try to remember to take my supplements and I keep my sunny side up and out for the world to see. Nothing wrong here! The bad days, I hide in my bed and cry until the boys get up. Then I play hidey in the house with the boys and we play board games and snuggle on the couch. Some days, when it is at its worse, Tommy has to come home and help out. He has always been a trooper like that.

I need to be easier on myself. I need to not wear myself so thin. I need to be better about taking the pills that keep the bad days from showing up so often. I need to move to the beach. Heh. A girl can dream, right?

Proud

Ok, not something I normally do but allow me to brag on my kids for a minute. Well, more specifically, D. Right after Christmas, I took him to our pediatrician because I was fairly sure he had an ear infection or sinus infection. He just wasn't himself. Turned out he had a mild ear infection. We cleared it up with some colloidal silver and that was that. Not really news.

While we were there, she just went ahead and did his 3 year old "check- up" since we skipped it in September. Without vaccines the well checks amount to a weight check. Our pedi lets us call in his weight and any questions with out a visit. Much easier and no copay. Anyway, she was talking to him a little while we were there and did a mock up evaluation on him to make sure he was hitting his milestones and what not.

She said he seemed great but I told her I was a little worried about the way he pronounced a few words and that he seemed to talk differently to people he didn't know well. Plus, he is so very active. She told me about a program that would evaluate him for free and ease my mind. Or get him therapy if he needed it.

His appointment with them was yesterday and we were there forever! I am proud to report though, he is perfect. They tested his hearing and vision first and he passed with flying colors. There was one part where she whispered to him behind his back and was asking him questions and he was whispering the answers back to her. Then he turned around and whispered "Why are you whispering at my head?".

Then on to the speech/ behavioral consultation. She said that the one sound that doesn't sound quite right (she told me what it was but I can't remember) was something that is very common for his age and that he will outgrow it by age four. Something about tongue maturity?

She said that she couldn't get him to really open up to her and use his big sentences but as soon as I sat down to talk to her he started chattering off about the games they had played in big, long sentences. She said that he may be a little too shy to open up to strangers because people generally have a hard time understanding children that are not their own and that he has most likely picked up on it ad that is why he is hesitant to really let loose.

She tested his cognitive and social skills too. That one was a little bizarre. It was part him doing things she asked, part me answering questions. In the end, he scored above average in both. The social skills were on about a four year old level but it was the cognitive level that blew me away. He blew threw the three year old cognitive test like it was nothing. It was all stuff he has been doing for a long time. Then we moved on to the four year old test and he aced it! Then he had passed most of the 5 year milestones too. I knew the kid was slick but wow. The IEP lady was even quite impressed.

There were a few things he couldn't do like remember his address and phone number but its not something we really work on because he is only three. Oh, and we need to spend more time drawing (Blah. I am not a big drawing type either D.)

Oh, and his gross motor skills are above average too but his fine motor (hence the drawing) is right on target.

So, that is my brag on my D. Of course he is young enough that it can all average out in the blink of an eye but for now, I am super proud of my little manly man. Too smart for his own mama.

To Be A Servant

"If you want to be important — wonderful. If you want to be recognized — wonderful. If you want to be great — wonderful. But recognize that he who is greatest among you shall be your servant. That's a new definition of greatness.

And this morning, the thing that I like about it: by giving that definition of greatness, it means that everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love. And you can be that servant."

~Martin Luther King, from his "Drum major Instinct" sermon


This is one of my favorite Dr. King quotes. He was a man that aspired. He aspired not to greatness or to be recognized, but to be a servant. A servant for the people he loved so very much. He aspired to change the world. To make it fair and make it new.

I am not a religious person, most of you know that, but even still Dr. King was inspiration. He was passionate sometimes to a fault and disliked by millions but his messages were right on. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to be poor. You don't have to be rich. Everyone can be a servant. To a God or to their family or to the world. If only more people shared his passion.

Mommy Confessions

Ok, so we all have them. I have decided its time to stop keeping them to myself in hopes that other mommies will realize that none of us are perfect. Here are my dirty little secrets for the week in hopes it will encourage me to be better. What are yours?


~I laugh when I shouldn't. I do it all the time. I know that the boys don't take me seriously when I laugh while telling them not to do something. Even if its hilarious, they don't need to see that I think its funny. Mostly because if mommy laughs, they do it again and then they are double in trouble.

~ I have been hiding in the bathroom a lot this week. At least the last four days. My mother is staying with us through snowpocalypse and with T being home too, I just need a break sometimes. There are so many people in my house and it is really kind of freaking me out a bit. Not that I am not happy to have them here and not have to worry about them, its just exhausting. My mothering duties are doubled this week and so I have been taking double breaks. I think that is fair.

~ D slid on the ice between our cars yesterday. Full out flailing in the air, entire body off the ground slipped. Why? Because he was running from me. Why was he running? We were playing like dinosaurs and I pulled a "big, mommy dinosaur is going to snuggle attack baby dinosaur" maneuver and he took off running. I felt horrible. He didn't cry, in true D style, he just got up brushed himself off and wrapped himself around me for a minute but it had to have hurt. Yep, still feel horrible.

~ We have eaten a ton of crap this week. From homemade brownies to cookie to popcorn. Of course we have eaten meals too but this is just the in between stuff. Usually I limit their crap intake and steer them towards cheese or fruit or raw veg. this week, not so much. To the point that D was begging for some green peppers (his favorite right now) today. I had not realized how much junk we have eaten until then I guess. Tomorrow, we will get back on track. Mostly because we have eaten everything else.

~ D drank most of my Starbucks Frappuccino today. We made an outing to beat the cabin fever that was quickly taking hold and I used one of the gift cards I had gotten for Christmas to treat myself. When we got home, I put it on the kitchen table and went in to change K's stinky booty. By the time I got back, D had sucked almost half of it down and had that wild look in his eye. The look of this-tastes-so-good-but-i'm-not-supposed-to-have-it-so-i'd-better-hurry-up-and-drink-it. My, foolish self hoped that it would not affect him and make him more hyper than he could handle but I was wrong. So wrong.

Cabin Fever

Day three of being stuck at home. Not cool. I love snow, don't get me wrong. We have had a blast playing outside in the snow and goofing off around the house doing nothing.

For the last three days.

Now, we are getting restless. D is done with playing outside in the snow. He keeps begging us to go to Monkey Joe's but the roads are still covered with about 2 inches of solid ice. So, here we sit. We have run out of tricks and the toys are all boring. I have watched Dora and the Wonder Pets so many times I think my brain is melting. I feel like I am stuck in a bad Simpson's parody.



For now, we are hoping to wander out tomorrow. For reals. We took a short field trip this afternoon but it just wasn't the same. Tomorrow, we are leaving the house. I don't care where we go even. Just leaving the house.

Snowpocalypse 2011

It snowed! A lot! Here is muggy Georgia the most winter weather we usually get is ice. Makes things tricky but not usually very pretty. This winter though, we have had our token ice storm, a white Christmas and then yesterday we got 6 inches of snow! Plus ice!

It actually started Sunday night right before the boy's bedtime. We got an inch in fifteen minutes. Insanity I tell you. There was much jubilation around our house though. We were all very excited about the impending snow even though the weather people had been warning us about it for a week. They have lied to us before.

Sunday Evening. It begins.

Yesterday morning though, we woke up and it was so beautiful outside. Everything was coated in white. D couldn't wait to get out in it so we bundled all up and headed out for a bit.

D was in instant wonder mode. K.. not so much.

The snow had about a half inch sheet of ice over the top of it. Underneath that it was all fluffy. The kind where when you walk in it you crunch through and sink down in to the ground and the snow covers your feet over. It makes walking pretty interesting. D was tall enough to make it work for him. K.. not so much.




We ended up lighting up our fire bowl in the driveway so we could stay warm enough to play as long as we wanted to. Which ended up being almost three hours. We would go and play in the snow. Throw snowballs, attempt a snowman, see how big a chunk of ice we could pick up before it broke. Then go stand by the fire bowl for a bit and warm up. The only thing missing was marshmallows.

After that we hunkered in and took a nice long nap and played the evening away. It was a great, relaxing kind of day. Bedtime was easy and then we all watched a movie. All in all, a perfect winter day.

Those of you who live up Northerly probably scoff at our six inch snow shutting down the city but think about it this way: The city of Chicago and its surrounding areas have 200 salt trucks. The Atlanta area has 8. We have been loaned 3 trucks to take care of this mess by other cities but 11 isn't much better. Plus, with the inch and a half of hard ice on the road way, our salt trucks are doing little more than sliding around in circles on the roadways and it is freezing right back up. We are iced in with no hope in sight. It isn't supposed to get above freezing until Friday and the sun is tucked tightly away behind the clouds.

For now though, I am enjoying the break. It is nice to be able to just hang out with the boys and not have anywhere we feel like we need to be. I'm sure by tomorrow we will all be getting a little stir crazy but who knows what will happen between now and then. Right now, they are saying more ice and lower temps for tomorrow but that could all change at the drop of a hat.

How does your city handle snow? What is your favorite snow day activity?

Mommy Confessions

Ok, so we all have them. I have decided its time to stop keeping them to myself in hopes that other mommies will realize that none of us are perfect. Here are my dirty little secrets for the week in hopes it will encourage me to be better. What are yours?

~ D stayed the night with his Nana this past weekend. It was supposed to be for one night so Tommy and me could get some work done around the house the next morning with only one kiddo under foot. Thing is, we did nothing. T went to work and I sat around and spoiled my little monster all day. So much so, D ended up spending another night with his Nana. It was nice to have some time to just focus on K. Not that he doesn't demand his fair share of attention but he wasn't having to compete with his big brother. I missed D terribly at night but it was nice to spend some one on one time with K.

~ I have been overly paranoid about the boys being out of my sight lately. I get anxious when they are all tucked in bed and sleeping quietly. I feel like I have to have one hand on both of them all of the time when we are out. Driving is stressful! Honestly though, I chalk it up to watching too many Dexter reruns here lately. We have watched the first two seasons back to back in the last week or so and I think its getting to me.

~ I gave K a cinnamon roll. Not note worthy particularly if I don't mention that it was a huge one. Like, size of his head huge. I gave it to him figuring he would lick the tasty cinnamon paste off and then go on about his merry way. He ate it all, guys. Every last crumb. Then, he proceeded to completely run around yelling what I can only translate as "Oh my God this awesome" for two hours. It was toddler hilarity at its finest. I swear he did everything but climb the walls. Mental note: Next time, half is enough. Unless I need some entertainment. Or a new sofa.

~ We have a new morning rule. See, my kids like to come jump in bed with mommy for awhile first thing in the morning and snuggle and talk and nurse and whatnot. Which is great. I live for those quiet, snuggly moments. Or at least I did. Until it got cold outside and therefore colder in their bedrooms and they started waking me up with ice cold hands to my sleeping, warm torso. D in particular thinks this is great fun. It makes Mama jump and scream obscenities after all. Who wouldn't love that? Mama. That is who. So, now before he can start pawing all over me in the morning he has to warm himself up under my big blanket. Then we can snuggle all he wants.

Wordless Wednesday

Ow.

Yesterday was a long one. It started okay. D was at his Nana's house so T and I took the opportunity to sleep in with the monster and it was so. good. Once we got up, we started scrambling though. We had a lot planned. We were gonna get rent paid, pick up D and then hit Ikea for a little housewares touching. We like to go in there and sit in all their little premade houses and then debate about being able to live there while the kids touch everything. They love it when we come by.

Anyway, we didn't make it to Ikea but we did eventually get the first two done. The only snafu was on the way to pick up D, we ran out of gas. Oops. Actually, T has kind of a habit of doing that. Not cool. We could literally see my mother's apartment from where it stopped but we were separated by a huge field, deep ditch and barbed wire fence so we had to trek the long way around the neighborhood. I strapped K to my back and we took off.

We made it to the apartment just fine but there was an adult sized bicycle stretched across the breezeway so that no one could get around it. I tried to step around it carefully because I had K strapped to me but of course I ended up kicking it rather hard, getting tangled in the spokes and it got the better of me. Rather, it got the better of my toes.

Now, if you have never had a broken toe, you may not know what its like. I, on the other hand, am an old pro at broken toes. In fact they are a yearly occurrence to me. What can I say, I'm slick like that. For those of you that haven't it is excruciatingly painful and a royal pain in the ass. Err, foot. You never really realize how much your toes really do until you break one of them and every step makes you cringe. Even the useless little one on the end that you think you could do fine without. Its necessary people. Who knew?

I, however, was not only lucky enough to break a toe, I broke the toe. The big one. Right in the joint.

Ow.

That is really all I could say. It hurts so much. It hurts sitting, It hurts laying down. It hurts even thinking about walking. It even hurt when the sheets would brush against it last night. Probably because it was so swollen it felt like my skin was ripping. It was swollen all the way up into the pads on the bottom of my foot. It took it awhile to start to bruise but sure enough, it did.

I am really hoping it won't take this one as long to heal up as the little ones do. I need it to heal faster. I can't walk much less run, so that one is out the window and that was really all I had planned for the rest of the week. I guess my clumsy side had better plans for me.

2011 List

So, last year I got frustratingly close to completing the 2010 list. It seemed simple enough. 12 things, 12 months. Get it done. This year, I intend on getting them all done. Come Hell or high water. 


Here is the trick this year though, I intend on posting about all of them. Last year I didn't post about most of them because I was holding back. I used the excuse that they were too personal or boring. This year though, you guys are gonna hear about all of them. That is the bonus item on my list this year. I hope you are able to stick around and find out how it all turns out.

Here you have it, my official "Things I want to accomplish in 2011" list:


1. Spend some quality time with my mother. Its not going to be easy and it may not be for long but I need to see her without my kids. Since having D, we really haven't spent any time together, just the two of us. So its time to date my mother again. 

2. Have a garage sale and get rid of what we don't sell through donation. Or just donate it. What ever we have to do to declutter. We have so much stuff. It really is ridiculous the amount of just stuff we have stored in the garage and the attic. Its everywhere! So, we need to get rid of it.

3. Take the boys to Stone Mountain Park. If you are local, you know what I am talking about. If not, look here. It may seem hokey but its something that I know they would really enjoy. 


4. Plant (and not kill) some plants or flowers. Yeah, we rent but we are free to do what ever we want to the yard and house and its something I have never done. Even as a kid, we always just let grow what the people before us had planted. 

5. Complete the 30 Day No- Spend Challenge. This one is going to be hard for me. I am a self professed shopaholic so the idea of not spending any money except complete necessities is going to be a hard one for me. A good challenge for a good change though. 

6. Take a class, of some sort, to better myself. I'm not getting all ambitious and crap here. Just something like a knitting class or computer class of some sort. Maybe even Zumba! Something fun.


7. Give up soda (as in: carbonated beverages/ Coke/ Pepsi/ whatever you call it in your neck of the woods) for at least 3 months. I know it is bad for you for so many reasons but sometimes it is what I reach for. I want to see if the sodas I have really have that much of an effect on my health. I started today (1/1/11) let us see how far I get!

8.Learn to do the Electric Slide. Corny? Yes. Shut up, its not your list. Still, its something that I can't do and something that will be a challenge for me. I have two left feet and a really crappy memory. Should be interesting.


9. Visit my Nana. She only lives about an hour away and for some reason we have the hardest time getting up there to see her. In fact it has been over a year already. She is my only living Grandmother and has hardly met the boys so its time to get serious about getting up there.


10. Go see a movie or show with my husband. We were talking about it this evening and neither of us can remember the last time we actually went to a theater, without the boys, and saw a grown up movie together.


11. Visit Turner Field and watch the Braves play. D will love it and it means a lot to T to share it with his son. 

12. Hire a professional photographer to take some good pictures of us as a family. Its time for a family portrait of epic proportions.