Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Karma
I tend not to have good material to work with when it comes to Maddie, because in reality, she is a fairly easy child. She whines more than the engine on the sweet Beretta I used to drive (Loretta the Beretta to be exact), but besides that she is generally helpful and easy to get along with. But, the more time I spend with her being home these last few weeks, the more I realize, she is a LOT like me and just might be my karmic retribution. Lately, when I catch her doing something wrong (take this morning: Ben, Maddie and Zach were eating breakfast and talking about Ben's sight words. Zach said, "I want to learn a sight list" and Maddie goes, "Ha, did you hear that Ben? Zach called your sight words a sight list" basically implying that Zach is a total idiot and no where near the intelligence level that she and Ben so obviously share. I said, "Maddie, don't make fun of your brother, he is just trying to have a conversation with you" and she said, "Mom, I wasn't laughing at Zach, I was saying that to myseeeeellllllfffff. Uhhhhh." I said, "Really, when you said Zach called your sight words a sight list" you were really taking to yourself." "Yeeeeeesssssss.") she starts crying because she knows she had been called out and I wasn't buying into her crap. I mean, growing up, I was pretty good at being the ol' wordsmith with my parents in order to get myself out of trouble. Who could doubt this angelic face, right? Maddie has that exact same attitude, I can tell. She thinks she already has the "in" as the only girl who helps mom with whatever she needs and whenever another kid is getting busted for doing something wrong, she is quick to chime in with "Mom, don't you just love how good I am being?" With time and a little determination, she will get much smoother at this deception and Matt and I are going to have our hands full.
Sunday, February 19, 2012
The Moral of the Story Is...
So, we celebrated Matt's 40th birthday this weekend. Let me start by saying what awesome friends and family we have that celebrated with us (either in person or in spirit) and how lucky we are for it. Let me also start by saying that I am too old to get drunk at a bowling alley on a Saturday night. But, I will go ahead and rehash some of the high points for everyone.
The popular gift for Matt was a "40" of beer. Get it? A 40? Pretty clever, people. Anyway, the evening started out with Zach asking what was in the bag that our babysitter brought over (yes, my friends, my babysitter arrives with beer - you can't have her!) and Matt told him "dad juice". Zach looks at him and goes, "sooooo, dad juice is beer!". Can't pull the wool over that ones eyes!
Then we were off - Matt didn't really want to celebrate his birthday, but I thought we had to do SOMETHING. Now, tell me what do you come up with in Cedar Falls, Iowa for a pretty random (but super fun) group of friends to celebrate your husband turning 40 on a Saturday night? We chose bowling. Classy, right? There is a small little 16-lane house (yep, I talked to the worker guy for quite a while and picked up some pretty sweet bowling lingo - if you need any pointers, let me know) that I figured wouldn't be too busy and had pretty cheap beer - so that is where we headed.
We had lots of fun, lots of laughs and lots of tall boys. We had not very many spares, even fewer strikes and about 8% of our bowlers possess the ability to score over 100. We called it a night pretty late by my standards - about midnight. And here is where reality begins to slap me in the face...
What is it about your kids that they can sense that you maybe aren't getting the requisite amount of sleep that you would like and that maybe, just maybe you aren't at your normal all-star self? Do they have some sort of built in beer-snifferouters? (Sidebar: one night a few weeks ago Maddie and I went to a great kid's birthday party that served beer. I had two well deserved, much needed, not too much to impair me to drive my four year old, beers. We were home in time to say good night to everyone else and when I went to say good night to Ben he goes to me - "huh, I don't know what you did at that party, but you sure smell funny." Thank you Mr. Bloodhound, next time I'll chew on some Tic Tacs on my way home so as not to offend you). Anyway, OF COURSE, Wesley had to get a terrible cold this weekend and isn't sleeping well and OF COURSE the only way to get him to sleep at all is to bring him into bed with us. I don't like doing this when I am stone sober, let alone when I have had a couple of beers. I don't sleep well, Matt doesn't sleep well and Wesley sleeps like a king while I am forced out to a meager 1/32nd of my fairly expensive king size bed while my 13-month old takes up a good 2/3rds and my husband gets whatever fraction is remaining (not a math scholar people, I have no idea what that fraction would actually be). So, add the beginnings of a hangover to this equation and you can guess how my night went.
Sometime around 5:45 I am awakened by someone shaking me, which I think in my stupor is Wesley falling out of bed and have a quick heart attack while showcasing my cat like reflexes and grabbing the offender before any bodily damage is done. Instead it is my six-year old wondering if he can watch Power Rangers. Having kids that respect our rules can sometimes be a double-edged sword. Ben learned to work the remote over the last month or so, which meant he was in a habit of grabbing it, switching it to 298 (Boomerang) and then negotiating the channels around there until he found something he liked to watch - regardless of whether or not Matt, myself or any of the kids were already watching something which led to many a discussion about asking permission to change the channel or watch TV. Which leads to a six year old by my bed at 5:45 asking if he can watch TV when in that moment all I want is to sleep for another sixteen hours and have a kid that just fires up the TV, no questions asked. Anyway, I mumble something about not until 7:00 (another rule, since Ben also went through a phase where he was getting up earlier and earlier when he found out that mom has little patience for visitors in the morning and will tell kids about anything they want to hear to get them out of her room, which meant free reign over the TV for awhile - I had to draw the line when he started getting up before 5 am to score some sweet TV time.) I really have no idea what he did from 5:45 until 7:00, but I'm sure it was educational and creative.
We finally had to get up at 7:00, because Ben was up and demanding some breakfast to go with his Power Rangers, Wesley had been squawking at us from about 6:30 on to get up and get moving from the Pack-n-Play he was moved into sometime after the 5:45 awakening and Zach was yelling from his gated room that he had to pee. None of these things are the way I like to start my morning stone sober, let alone slightly (okay maybe a little more than slightly) hungover. But we are troopers and made it through the morning. My final slap in the face was when I got in the shower to rinse off the grime, sweat (bowling is physical, people!) and powdered sugar (trying to cure my hangover with Powdered Donettes) and turned on the radio to the show, Retro Stars and listened to several songs that I enjoyed in college - on RETRO stars. Yep, too old and too many kids for this sort of night.
So, the moral of the story is...if you are going to go out and celebrate with your husband, spring for a hotel and an overnight babysitter. That way you get to sleep in, enjoy breakfast at noon and maybe squeeze in a nap before you have to go home.
The popular gift for Matt was a "40" of beer. Get it? A 40? Pretty clever, people. Anyway, the evening started out with Zach asking what was in the bag that our babysitter brought over (yes, my friends, my babysitter arrives with beer - you can't have her!) and Matt told him "dad juice". Zach looks at him and goes, "sooooo, dad juice is beer!". Can't pull the wool over that ones eyes!
Then we were off - Matt didn't really want to celebrate his birthday, but I thought we had to do SOMETHING. Now, tell me what do you come up with in Cedar Falls, Iowa for a pretty random (but super fun) group of friends to celebrate your husband turning 40 on a Saturday night? We chose bowling. Classy, right? There is a small little 16-lane house (yep, I talked to the worker guy for quite a while and picked up some pretty sweet bowling lingo - if you need any pointers, let me know) that I figured wouldn't be too busy and had pretty cheap beer - so that is where we headed.
We had lots of fun, lots of laughs and lots of tall boys. We had not very many spares, even fewer strikes and about 8% of our bowlers possess the ability to score over 100. We called it a night pretty late by my standards - about midnight. And here is where reality begins to slap me in the face...
What is it about your kids that they can sense that you maybe aren't getting the requisite amount of sleep that you would like and that maybe, just maybe you aren't at your normal all-star self? Do they have some sort of built in beer-snifferouters? (Sidebar: one night a few weeks ago Maddie and I went to a great kid's birthday party that served beer. I had two well deserved, much needed, not too much to impair me to drive my four year old, beers. We were home in time to say good night to everyone else and when I went to say good night to Ben he goes to me - "huh, I don't know what you did at that party, but you sure smell funny." Thank you Mr. Bloodhound, next time I'll chew on some Tic Tacs on my way home so as not to offend you). Anyway, OF COURSE, Wesley had to get a terrible cold this weekend and isn't sleeping well and OF COURSE the only way to get him to sleep at all is to bring him into bed with us. I don't like doing this when I am stone sober, let alone when I have had a couple of beers. I don't sleep well, Matt doesn't sleep well and Wesley sleeps like a king while I am forced out to a meager 1/32nd of my fairly expensive king size bed while my 13-month old takes up a good 2/3rds and my husband gets whatever fraction is remaining (not a math scholar people, I have no idea what that fraction would actually be). So, add the beginnings of a hangover to this equation and you can guess how my night went.
Sometime around 5:45 I am awakened by someone shaking me, which I think in my stupor is Wesley falling out of bed and have a quick heart attack while showcasing my cat like reflexes and grabbing the offender before any bodily damage is done. Instead it is my six-year old wondering if he can watch Power Rangers. Having kids that respect our rules can sometimes be a double-edged sword. Ben learned to work the remote over the last month or so, which meant he was in a habit of grabbing it, switching it to 298 (Boomerang) and then negotiating the channels around there until he found something he liked to watch - regardless of whether or not Matt, myself or any of the kids were already watching something which led to many a discussion about asking permission to change the channel or watch TV. Which leads to a six year old by my bed at 5:45 asking if he can watch TV when in that moment all I want is to sleep for another sixteen hours and have a kid that just fires up the TV, no questions asked. Anyway, I mumble something about not until 7:00 (another rule, since Ben also went through a phase where he was getting up earlier and earlier when he found out that mom has little patience for visitors in the morning and will tell kids about anything they want to hear to get them out of her room, which meant free reign over the TV for awhile - I had to draw the line when he started getting up before 5 am to score some sweet TV time.) I really have no idea what he did from 5:45 until 7:00, but I'm sure it was educational and creative.
We finally had to get up at 7:00, because Ben was up and demanding some breakfast to go with his Power Rangers, Wesley had been squawking at us from about 6:30 on to get up and get moving from the Pack-n-Play he was moved into sometime after the 5:45 awakening and Zach was yelling from his gated room that he had to pee. None of these things are the way I like to start my morning stone sober, let alone slightly (okay maybe a little more than slightly) hungover. But we are troopers and made it through the morning. My final slap in the face was when I got in the shower to rinse off the grime, sweat (bowling is physical, people!) and powdered sugar (trying to cure my hangover with Powdered Donettes) and turned on the radio to the show, Retro Stars and listened to several songs that I enjoyed in college - on RETRO stars. Yep, too old and too many kids for this sort of night.
So, the moral of the story is...if you are going to go out and celebrate with your husband, spring for a hotel and an overnight babysitter. That way you get to sleep in, enjoy breakfast at noon and maybe squeeze in a nap before you have to go home.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Ben! Eat More Sandwiches!
Okay, I have to get this topic out while it is burned fresh into my memory. Although, it might be one of those burns that I recall much longer than I wished I would. Let me preface this to tell you that this entry is about poop. However, because I know that discussing poop isn't everyone's (yes, I mostly mean Jeremy's) favorite topic, I am borrowing a trick from one of my favorite shows, How I Met Your Mother. If you don't watch the show, you should. Anyway, let's just say that I am borrowing a trick they use to discuss a topic you might not want to discuss in front of some people, so we will say that this entry is about "eating sandwiches".
We spent this Friday and part of Saturday at a great resort in Southern Iowa, Honey Creek Resort. Everyone was tired upon our return, so we decided to start our bedtime routine a little earlier (say, like two hours earlier). We had three kids in the bath tub and I was yelling at Ben to come up for his turn. Then I thought, hmmmm, Ben said he was going to eat a sandwich about 15 minutes ago. How long can it really take to eat a sandwich? I better go check on him. (We have had one other run in like this in the past - sometimes, Ben has a really hard time finishing his sandwich). As I get to the bottom of the steps, I can hear him yelling, screaming and crying about his sandwich. Uh oh.
The next hour was one of those hours that you don't ever picture when you think of all the not-so-pleasant parts of being a mommy. Sure, there are going to be fights, and spills, and maybe even some broken bones, but c'mon - a sandwich that is stuck? What am I supposed to do with that? I spend about a half an hour just being a cheerleader, lending moral support as best I can. I offer suggestions as to different positions, distractions, etc. and give him a new Kleenex every five seconds as he needs to wipe away the tears and snot he has compiled while trying to eat his sandwich. Then, he looks at me, crying, half screaming and goes "Mom, Jesus H. Chris it just hurts so much". I just shake my head, wondering where to go with that one (yes, he said "Chris" - I'm sure he heard one of us say this at sometime or another and thought he was repeating it correctly). I go to get him some water to help try to wash the sandwich down and honestly, I needed a break. Fifteen minutes (and a different bathroom - he thought maybe a change of scenery would help) later, I'm starting to reach my wits end. We have tried everything and Ben is literally begging me for mercy. Please...can I help him, can we go to the doctor, can he take a nap, can't I just catch the sandwich, can he just wait until we eat supper and he watches some TV, then we can finish the sandwich?? At this point, he can't even stand up so I try to tell him while these ideas may seem appealing to him, unfortunately they are non-viable options. So, then he says, please, let's just pray that God will take away my sandwich. I love kids. So, we prayed and he just kept saying "Hurry Up and Say Amen so God will take it away!" He kept telling me, "None of these options are working!!! I think I will just go to bed." I told him - that is what got us into this mess in the first place - you have to finish your sandwich when you have the urge, not deal with it at a later date.
Eventually, we finished the sandwich. He told me, "mom, I think I am at the level where I will not get sick from my sandwich. Thank you for coming up with that plan" (I will spare you the details of the plan). Again, not something they teach in the parenting books...at least none of the ones I have read. When I get around to writing mine, I think I will have a chapter dedicated to how to help kids finish sandwiches - complete with helpful cuss phrases and the correct prayers to say in order to get the help needed. I hope I haven't ruined sandwiches for anyone.
We spent this Friday and part of Saturday at a great resort in Southern Iowa, Honey Creek Resort. Everyone was tired upon our return, so we decided to start our bedtime routine a little earlier (say, like two hours earlier). We had three kids in the bath tub and I was yelling at Ben to come up for his turn. Then I thought, hmmmm, Ben said he was going to eat a sandwich about 15 minutes ago. How long can it really take to eat a sandwich? I better go check on him. (We have had one other run in like this in the past - sometimes, Ben has a really hard time finishing his sandwich). As I get to the bottom of the steps, I can hear him yelling, screaming and crying about his sandwich. Uh oh.
The next hour was one of those hours that you don't ever picture when you think of all the not-so-pleasant parts of being a mommy. Sure, there are going to be fights, and spills, and maybe even some broken bones, but c'mon - a sandwich that is stuck? What am I supposed to do with that? I spend about a half an hour just being a cheerleader, lending moral support as best I can. I offer suggestions as to different positions, distractions, etc. and give him a new Kleenex every five seconds as he needs to wipe away the tears and snot he has compiled while trying to eat his sandwich. Then, he looks at me, crying, half screaming and goes "Mom, Jesus H. Chris it just hurts so much". I just shake my head, wondering where to go with that one (yes, he said "Chris" - I'm sure he heard one of us say this at sometime or another and thought he was repeating it correctly). I go to get him some water to help try to wash the sandwich down and honestly, I needed a break. Fifteen minutes (and a different bathroom - he thought maybe a change of scenery would help) later, I'm starting to reach my wits end. We have tried everything and Ben is literally begging me for mercy. Please...can I help him, can we go to the doctor, can he take a nap, can't I just catch the sandwich, can he just wait until we eat supper and he watches some TV, then we can finish the sandwich?? At this point, he can't even stand up so I try to tell him while these ideas may seem appealing to him, unfortunately they are non-viable options. So, then he says, please, let's just pray that God will take away my sandwich. I love kids. So, we prayed and he just kept saying "Hurry Up and Say Amen so God will take it away!" He kept telling me, "None of these options are working!!! I think I will just go to bed." I told him - that is what got us into this mess in the first place - you have to finish your sandwich when you have the urge, not deal with it at a later date.
Eventually, we finished the sandwich. He told me, "mom, I think I am at the level where I will not get sick from my sandwich. Thank you for coming up with that plan" (I will spare you the details of the plan). Again, not something they teach in the parenting books...at least none of the ones I have read. When I get around to writing mine, I think I will have a chapter dedicated to how to help kids finish sandwiches - complete with helpful cuss phrases and the correct prayers to say in order to get the help needed. I hope I haven't ruined sandwiches for anyone.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Give it the College Try
http://mommyandmex3-jlbrogan.blogspot.com/
That is the link to my old blog. The blog I can't access. The blog I can't access because I can't remember the password and even if I could remember the password, it wouldn't do me any good, because I no longer have access to the email account it was set up under. So, alas, I must start new.
Maybe that is a good thing. Call it a fresh start and I am cool with fresh starts. I will try to update this blog a little more frequently, because I know, looking through my old one, I had a good time with it. Plus, everyone knows I'm pretty witty.
It is February 8th. Tomorrow Ben turns six and Friday my husband turns 40. Where does the time go? I plan on this blog being a repository for funny and embarrasing stories about my kids and my life. I'm sure there will be plenty. Maybe I will even share an insight or two from my own brand of off-kilter, politically-incorrect, fairly ridiculous, yet somehow working school of parenting. For example, today Zach was being such a turd that I have done all of the following with varied amounts of success: sat him in a corner, pretended to leave the house without him, actually leave the house without him (only to the garage, don't freak out), took away his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse watching rights, promised him extra Mickey Mouse Clubhouse watching rights and rewarded him with Cheetos. Who wouldn't want to parent like me? Anyway, Wesley is crying in his crib as I am trying to be creative, so I better sign off for now.
That is the link to my old blog. The blog I can't access. The blog I can't access because I can't remember the password and even if I could remember the password, it wouldn't do me any good, because I no longer have access to the email account it was set up under. So, alas, I must start new.
Maybe that is a good thing. Call it a fresh start and I am cool with fresh starts. I will try to update this blog a little more frequently, because I know, looking through my old one, I had a good time with it. Plus, everyone knows I'm pretty witty.
It is February 8th. Tomorrow Ben turns six and Friday my husband turns 40. Where does the time go? I plan on this blog being a repository for funny and embarrasing stories about my kids and my life. I'm sure there will be plenty. Maybe I will even share an insight or two from my own brand of off-kilter, politically-incorrect, fairly ridiculous, yet somehow working school of parenting. For example, today Zach was being such a turd that I have done all of the following with varied amounts of success: sat him in a corner, pretended to leave the house without him, actually leave the house without him (only to the garage, don't freak out), took away his Mickey Mouse Clubhouse watching rights, promised him extra Mickey Mouse Clubhouse watching rights and rewarded him with Cheetos. Who wouldn't want to parent like me? Anyway, Wesley is crying in his crib as I am trying to be creative, so I better sign off for now.
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