Did I Just Say That?

10 Things I hear myself say the most often on any given day

1. Eat OVER your PLATE!

2. Did you wipe your hands?

3. Close the door!!

4. Did you wipe your butt?

5. Did you wash your hands? (Usually accompanied by, 'Did you flush the toilet?')

6. Don't lie to me...

7. I'll be there IN. A. MINUTE!

8. Can I please have some privacy!?!?!?!?!? (Usually said while trying to get in the shower/get dressed/go to the bathroom).

9. Gross. (Can also be substituted with, 'What *IS* that?')

10. INDOOR VOICE!!! (Ironically, I am usually not using my Indoor Voice when I make this command).

I'm sure there are more... but these are the ones I know I've said like eleven hundred times recently. What are your most repeated phrases? Leave them for me in the comments!

Weird Week-Rambling Post

A new year...we got back from our travels to see family and friends, and we've been trying to get back in to a routine and back to normal. I'm ready to have a new start with this new year. Only, I'm having a rough time getting off the ground. The girl has been sick since we got home and I've been feeling a little house-bound. (Can't drop her off at the gym daycare if she has a runny nose and a fever!). All last week was just....weird. I can't really describe it but weird things just kept happening and I've been walking around with this sense of unease. We have a lot of paperwork and stuff we need to fill out regarding our house back in California (ugh) and it is just this big stress-inducing monkey on my back. I really feel like I need my husband's help (both practical and morale) to get through it. But by the time he gets home in the evening I'm usually too brain dead to tackle it. So it sits there...menacing.

I had a doctor's appointment for Handsome to review his meds and the doctor wrote me the wrong prescription (which I didn't notice until AFTER I filled it). I got attitude at the pharmacy...which I think sometimes happens when you are filling lots of prescriptions for a controlled substance...for a 4 year old. Most of the time I brush these things off because I know I am doing the right thing for my son and our family, and how could they possibly know our situation, and hey, I am not selling these things on the street...but like I said, last week was just one thing after another and I let it get to me. Then when I realized I had the WRONG prescription, I had to go back and talk to the pharmacist, and now I have to go back to the doctor and get a new prescription (it's not something they can just call in or fax in to the pharmacy, I have to physically bring in a written prescription). So, back to the doctor we will go....sometimes I just feel like my whole entire existence revolves around Handsome Man's condition: medications, doctor's appointments, dispensing meds, filling meds, managing meds, watching for side effects, deciding when he needs to increase, making sure we don't run out of meds, back and forth to the doctor-pharmacy-doctor. Meetings at school. Making sure he eats on schedule and the right things and not too many of the wrong things so that his blood sugar stays level. Sleep problems. Getting up in the middle of the night with him when he can't sleep.

And, as I say all of this I know I shouldn't complain. He is healthy and improving and we are lucky and blessed to have two healthy kids.

But some weeks it's just a lot. Grace (my little one) was clingy all week...I've been house-bound...and I was really ready for a break come the weekend, but Friday night my husband came home after work and announced he needed to work all day Saturday. So much for getting to that yoga class. And, well, by Sunday, something just unhinged. My husband left in the morning to go watch football at a friend's house. I was going to meet up with them later with the kids. Left home alone again with the kids....I lost my temper with Handsome... then I felt absolutely horrible. I started crying....and then, it was like, the seal was broken. That was it. I couldn't stop. I think I cried off and on for the rest of the day. I ended up dropping the kids off eventually at the party (there were lots of other families and kids there) and I came back home and drank 2 glasses of wine and watched bad t.v. and just sat alone in a quiet house.

I think that was exactly what I needed. And now, I also need to get back to the gym. Maybe today will be the day. Grace no longer has a runny nose but she is developing a cough. Maybe if it's not too bad by this afternoon we'll all be able to go after Handsome gets home from school. Maybe....maybe...if luck holds out.

Now I have to go call the doctor and let them know they wrote me the wrong prescription and make an appointment to go pick up a new one. *sigh*

Anyway, rambling. I know. The next post will be more intelligible. I hope.

Meltdown Monday

So the boy got into some serious mischief today. The girl was taking her nap, and the boy went upstairs to "play". I was cleaning downstairs. After a while, I decided it was too quiet....and...any parents out there know where this is going? Yes. He'd gotten into my bathroom, gotten a bottle of shampoo, one of my cosmetic brushes and my husband's shaving cream brush, and decided to "wash" his model plane and some of his other trains. The model airplane was a gift from his uncle Matt (that he had made) and the black paint was coming off (thanks to all the frothy shampoo). Yeah. So, you can imagine the scene I walked into. Not to mention the shampoo wasn't the cheap variety. Well, I'm proud to say, I kept my cool. I wasn't happy, but I didn't lose it. I made him take a shower (he was covered in shampoo) then "help" me clean up the mess. So I took a detour on my afternoon plans, but, oh well. I guess that bathroom needed some cleaning anyway.

Move forward an hour or so. The girl is awake now, and I'm back to my original cleaning I was trying to do downstairs. The boy has decided he wants to play trains downstairs, but doesn't want the girl to touch any of his toys. He has also started freaking out (and I mean really flipping his lid--crying, whinging, hitting himself) because he doesn't like the "trains with faces" (his Th.omas trains). Now this might sound really freaky (and it is, it's disturbing when he gets like this) but again, I kept my cool. I remembered that he had really, really, really wanted some generic wooden trains we had seen at Tar.get the other day. He's also really into watching The P.olar Ex.press right now, and, as you KNOW (if you are a mom of a boy who is obsessed with trains) that the Polar Express train does NOT have a face. After one time out to calm down after pushing his sister (to get her away from his assorted tracks, etc.) and some more crying, I was able to get him onto my lap....where I was able to get him to talk through his thoughts. (Do you like the trains with no faces because they are more like Polar Express?) He kept asking if we could go get some RIGHT NOW, to which I kept saying, "we are not buying any new toys right now, but we can ask Santa" (cue more crying). Eventually, after calmly taking all the trains "with faces" and putting them in a paper bag, where he couldn't see them, and talking through the scenario of Christmas, and gifts, and potential for new trains, and WHY he liked the trains "with no faces" right now (Pol.ar Ex.press) and that we could go find all his no-face trains and make a train together, etc.,etc., he eventually calmed down. And, a little diversion later (making some cookies together, er, sort of) well, he was calm and back to playing nicely and being sweet to his sister.

We have not had a major freak-out like this in a while--they used to be an almost daily occurrence, and I admit, it shook me a little. However, I kept my cool (yay me!) which I can also tell you is not always the case, I'm just going to admit it. Sometimes he just goes on and on and on--he gets so STUCK on some weird thing that I just don't get--and he won't let it go, and he gets so furious, and....pretty soon there is steam coming out of the top of my head, and...well, it doesn't make anything better when I have my own tantrum. But today, I kept my cool, and everyone seems happy. Now, it is officially after five and I opening some wine. Yeeesssssss.

Oh, and Santa? I need some new cosmetic brushes for Christmas. Thanks.

Babysitter Blues

My KINGDOM for a freaking babysitter!

Why is it so hard to find a good babysitter? I have been through the whole Ca.re. dot com thing several times. It is kind of a run around. We went through a couple of 'hopefuls' and then I finally found a wonderful young lady who was so great with the kids. She had super availability because she was doing on-line college classes, so she had a very flexible schedule, which worked out for me perfectly because I don't have set days or times when I need someone but, like, here or there, sporadically, like when I take a small floral gig or need to schedule a doctor's appointment. So, she was (almost) always available which was awesome! And my kids absolutely adored her.

So what happened? After she'd sat for us a few times, she asked if I could post a positive review for her on Ca.re dot com, because she was trying to get more babysitting gigs. Which I happily did. And after I wrote my fabulous review, she was immediately hired pretty much full time by some moderately famous/rich family and now she's always working for them, even traveling with them on their fancy-ass vacations or whatever and never available for meeeeee!

Ugh. Why do I have to be so nice?