Things that must go

There is a local radio station that has a popular morning show. Although I don't regularly listen to them (because I think they try to hard to prove they're liberal and not mormon and it drives me insane) they do have some funny segments. One of my favorite segments is titled things that must go. It is basically a list of pet peeves that either the DJs or listeners have compiled. But, it is pretty funny.

So, in honor of them, here's my thing that must go: politically motivated emails. I'm not talking about funny ones, because I like a good laugh. Things like a turkey trying to take a bit out of President Bush's "'lil friend" = funny. That is ok to send.

A comparison of the 2 canidates' methods of catching a football = funny. Obviously I didn't make my decision of who to vote for over his athletic prowess (or lack thereof).
*I specifically used examples from the last presidential election so as not to seem like a hypocrite.

What I'm talking about are the emails intended to direclty influence how I'm going to vote in the upcoming election. I made the mistake of telling a coworker how I intended to vote (I should have taken the advice given to me years ago about working in the public sector: when asked who I intended to vote for, I should always respond by saying "the winner"). Now, said coworker is "hell-bent on bringing me back from the darkside" (his exact words) to which I responded, "you're implying that I was ever not on the darkside." I think he took those as "fighting words" and has sent me every ounce of political diatribe, every stupid picture, every red-neck account that he can get his grubby little finger to hit send on.

Frankly, I'm sick of it.

Does he seriously think that by sending me a picture of a certain canidate without his hand over his heart that I'm going to suddently change my vote? And does he think that by sending me a bunch of crap about how someone's name may or may not sound Muslim that a light-bulb is going to suddenly go off for me? Seriously people, give me a bit of credit.

In the immortal words of John Mayer:

Is there anyone who ever recalls changing their mind from the pain on a sign? Is there anyone who ever recalls breaking rank from something someone yelled real loud one time?

John gets it. Is it really that difficult?

Flip flops: friend or foe

Hands down, flip flops are my favorite footwear. I have roughly 15 pairs - one in every color for every occasion. I can hardly wait for the (nearly) warm weather every spring so I can don my favorite footwear - I've even been known to wear flip flops in the snow. I just don't know what I'd do without them.

Lately though, it seems like we're being bombarded with articles warning us of the evils of this footwear. Just this weekend, Yahoo had a news article about flip flops (or thongs as the reporter kept referring to them), and how horrible they are for your feet. One particular article included the following quotes:

Lori Geller broke her ankle wearing flip-flops. "The ground was wet, so my foot slipped off and turned."

Geller is certainly not alone.

"I was at the supermarket, and I slipped in my flip-flops on cottage cheese and really hurt myself," said Tiffany Andreade of an embarrassing fall.

Ok - I'm sorry, but I seriously doubt the flip flops had anything to do with their injuries. If you're clumsy enough to slip on cottage cheese at the grocery store, then you've got issues far beyond your choice in footwear.

The article goes on to state:

These women and others may be heading feet first into a world of short- and long-term foot problems. Positano (some foot expert guy) sees about five to 10 flip-flop related injuries a week -- injuries he believes are a direct result of women wearing flip-flops in place of normal walking shoes.

I'd like to offer my theory: that perhaps because more women are wearing flip flops, there are a greater incidence of people getting injured wearing flip flops. Its common sense, and doesn't take a highfilutin podiatrist to figure it out.

I'm sure they cause car accidents too - "I'm sorry officer, I couldn't stop because my flip flop got in the way." And they probably cause obesity too - "I simply cannot work out in my flip flops." Maybe even global warming, because more heat is escaping from our feet.

They can also be toxic.

Sheesh people. Until I hear a valid arguement, I'm keeping my flip flops.

**I've given up trying to fix the spacing on this post. Not sure what is wrong . . .

I'm in a really bad mood

Wow – who knew that so many people loved ghost stories? I’ve always had a fascination with all things other-worldly, and stuff like that doesn’t scare me. I have had a couple of other encounters that I’ll have to post sometime soon. I really love reading other’s stories on their blogs – like PW’s stories. I like too how she posts them in segments (Black Heels to Tractor Wheels anyone??) to keep the suspense. Maybe I’ll start posting stories in segments like she does. But not today – today I would like to whine and complain for a bit. And let me apologize in advance for venting a bit – but I really need to get some stuff off of my chest.

I am typically an easy-going person, and tend to take life in stride. But lately, I’ve been feeling rather blasé about life. I hesitate to term my feelings as “depression” but I’m definitely feeling blue, and I’m not sure why. I just have a general lack of caring about things. It’s even affected my blogging – I just don’t feel like keeping up like I normally do. And I’m even ashamed to admit that it has carried over into my parenting. Yesterday I lost my temper with the girls about 100 times, and really they were just being typical kids. Their behavior definitely didn’t warrant being yelled at by mommy.

I think it has a lot to do with my husband and his job(s). Last week he worked about 80 hours, and when he wasn’t working, he was either asleep or out with friends. And really, his going out with friends doesn’t bother me all that much – some days I think I’d rather have him gone than home. But I am tired of feeling like I do everything by myself. I’m tired too of hearing him complain about his job, but being unwilling to do something about it. He’s gotten several leads lately on great jobs, but he never acts on them – and then he gets annoyed at me for asking him about them.

Now that I start thinking about it, I think a lot of my feelings are my general unhappiness with our current family situation. I really want to pull my kids out of daycare, and I don’t see a way. Bryn has been crying when I drop her off almost every day. Then, last night Gracie woke up crying – she’d had a nightmare about daycare. I almost had her calmed down and back asleep, when she suddenly realized the next day was a daycare day. She started crying again, verging on hysterical, because she didn’t want to go to daycare. I guess I’ve always taken comfort in the fact that my kids seem to like daycare. But lately they don’t like it at all. I just keep thinking that if we’d stayed in our house in Lehi, that Ben could be a stay at home dad, and my kids wouldn’t have to go somewhere they don’t want to be. (our mortgage payment was like $700 there). I don’t know if that would be a better solution or not, but since hindsight is 20/20, it seems now like what we should have done.

I would like my neighbors better too if we hadn’t moved. I’ve been in my new house for over 2 years now, and I cannot say that I have one friend in my neighborhood. And because we’ve been sick or snowed-in every Sunday for the past month, I haven’t been to church since January. And not one person has called or come by to check on us. If I thought before that I was being snubbed, there is no denying it now.

I really would put my house up for sale tomorrow if I thought it would sell, and I suppose that would serve two purposes: I could move to a new neighborhood, and I could buy something dirt cheap so that maybe we could live on one income. Maybe I should try. It wouldn’t hurt to put it up FSBO to just see what type of interest we have.

I just need to find something to pull myself out of this funk. Even running isn’t doing the trick. Ever since being sick last weekend, I just feel lethargic. I went for a long run on Saturday, and it hurt. Of course, it was the first time I’ve run outside in 4 months, and a huge storm hit while I was out (I think the temp dropped from 58 to 38 in the course of an hour). But the whole time I kept asking myself why it is that I enjoy running so much.

Maybe I need a vacation. I have a conference for work at the end of the month in Moab. Its 4 days, all expenses paid. Before I even told my work that I could go, I made sure that Ben cleared the time off at his job so that we could go as a family. His boss cleared the time off, so I went ahead and had my work pay for my registration. Well, today he called and said that his boss changed her mind – he no longer can have those days off. So now I’m stressed – my job has paid for me, so I can’t back out now. But what do I do with the girls? UGH! Why does life have to be so stressful?

Audrey* is a little girl who goes to my kids’ daycare. She is about 8 years old, but cannot speak a word and still wears a diaper. She is a baby in a big girl’s body. The other kids refer to her as “special”.

A few weeks ago I was reading and cuddling with G before bed, when I kissed her and called her my special little girl. She looked up at me, seemingly offended, and stated, “Mom, I’m not special. Special is just another word for mean.” She told me that Audrey was so mean to the other kids, and that no one wanted to play with her. It made me sad to think my daughter was being mean to a “special” child, so we spent the next few minutes talking about how Audrey couldn’t help herself and that G should be her friend. Being the naïve mommy that I am, I thought that our discussions of Audrey were over – that G was suddenly going to be friends with this poor disadvantaged girl and everything was going to be ok. But then, a few days later, as I was dropping the girls off for the day, Audrey attacked.

Every daycare morning, I take the girls in, sit them down at a chair, and give them something to eat for breakfast. I had just sat Brynlee down and gone to hang up their coats, when out of no where Audrey attacked poor Brynlee. She came at her from behind, and pulled her right off of the chair. Poor Bryn flew off backwards, hitting her head. Of course she screamed, and I felt awful, but I comforted her and explained that Audrey didn’t know what she was doing. Still being naïve, I assumed it was an isolated incident – that maybe Audrey just wanted to eat some of Bryn’s food.

Over the course of the next few days though, I casually observed other issues with this girl. I saw that she seemed to pick on the toddler-aged kids when they were all together in the morning. I would also hear stories from G about how mean Audrey is, and what she has done to the other children. Each time I explained to G that she needs to be patient with Audrey. I still wasn’t overly concerned because the classes are only combined a few minutes in the morning and at night – the girls aren’t around Audrey for most of the day.

Yesterday when I showed up at the end of the day, the classes were combined. As I came up the stairs I could hear Bryn crying. I saw Audrey attacking Bryn. She was pulling on her clothing and her hair – and poor Bryn was terrified. All this was going on while a man, who I assumed to be Audrey's father was watching. I broke up the fight, and decided that it was time to talk to someone. I was starting to worry that my sweet, not-quite-two-year-old was the target of attack on a regular basis.

So, I pulled aside the afternoon teacher. She’s a lady I know fairly well, as she has a child in both Bryn and G’s classes and we’ve gone her daughter’s birthday party a few months ago. I felt like I could be frank with her, and get an honest response. I expressed to her my concern, that Audrey was too rough to be combined with the little kids. She agreed with me, and then confided in me that she can’t handle Audrey, who suffers from both Down’s syndrome and severe autism. Audrey picks on the toddlers, and is pretty much out of control. She also went on to tell me the sad story of how Audrey has no parents. Her dad has never been around, and recently her mom left her with a mentally-challenged uncle as her guardian.

And now my heart is breaking. On one hand, I feel so sorry for this little girl who obviously has no chance in life. On the other hand, I’m worried about the safety of my own, sweet girl who is the target of Audrey’s rage. I just don’t know what to do. The obvious answer is that Audrey needs to be in a special facility that can care for someone with her disabilities. But I’m pretty sure the best her uncle can do is the daycare center. So, I need to propose something to the center so that my little girl is protected. It would just kill me if she did something bad to Bryn.

Since yesterday, I've racked my brain for a solution. I barely slept last night, because I couldn't shut my mind off. I just don't know how to handle this. I really don't want to move my kids - this is the only daycare in town, and its only 6 blocks from work. My kids love their teachers and have lots of friends there. It would be devistating to them if they had to move. I also don't think the center is equipped or staffed to handle a child with Audrey's needs, and I'm sure her uncle cannot afford somewhere that is. So, what do I do?

*Names have been changed

Discouragement

I know, I know. Two posts in one day. I just went back and re-read my post about poor Brynlee. I can tell I was frustrated when I posted that. She really isn't the monster that I portrayed. Yes, she has her "moments". But she can also be a sweet and wonderful girl - and she is most of the time. Right now she and her sissy are having a post-nap popsicle. When I handed her the popsicle, she gratefully said "thank you" and offered me the first lick. She is great at sharing. And she loves to hug and snuggle. I appreciate all of the wonderful advice y'all offered. I think the biggest thing I took from all of it is that I need to remain positive, and to use positive reinforcement to control behavior. As I re-read my post, I was embarassed by how negative it sounded - like all I did was yell and punish. Really, its not like that at my house all the time (sometimes, yes. I'll admit to that). Usually things are happy and calm. I think I've just been extra frustrated lately. Ben's been working about 70 hours per week, and its taking its toll on me.

Anyway - to my intended post. My discouragement regarding my weight loss (or lack thereof). Friday was the week 3 weigh-in for my Biggest Loser contest. The first week I lost 4 pounds - probably due to sugar and soda detox. The second week I lost 2 more pounds, so I was feeling really good about myself. But this past week was really rough. After skiing all day Monday and then shovelling snow for 45 minutes afterwards, I was up 2 pounds that day. Thankfully by Friday I had lost those 2 pounds, but I didn't lose anything else. Thats ok - a week of no weight loss happens every now and then - right?

I allowed myself to cheat a bit on Friday, and I had a really good run. In fact, I ran for 55 minutes without stopping (my personal best thankyouverymuch - I've run much longer before, but never without walking breaks). Saturday I only ate 1500 calories, and ran another 3.5 miles. This morning when I weighed, I was up 2 pounds again. What the heck? This is getting ridiculous.

I feel like I try so hard to eat well and exercise. I haven't cheated on my diet, except my scheduled weekend cheats. And I'm averaging 15 miles per week running. In fact, I think I'm "healthier" (diet and fitness wise) than about 90% of anyone I know. I guess I can chalk it up to genetics, but its still not fair. I guess I just need to vent a bit, because I'm really feeling fat and frumpy lately despite my best efforts to be otherwise.

I need to go intervene - popsicles are gone, and now the girls are fighting in G's room. Time to use some positive reinforcement.

Mister Sandman . . .

I don’t think that I truly appreciated sleep until I became a parent. Back when I was “without child” I could sleep-in whenever I wanted, and staying up late was no big deal. Sadly, those sleep-filled days are gone, and I fear I’m in such a sleep deficit that I’ll never recover.

Last night I stayed up way too late. But, I had so much to do. After the girls were in bed I ran for an hour (trying to make up for all the toffee I ate at work yesterday, and I had the season finale of Dexter to watch from the DVR). By the time I got upstairs from the “dreadmill” and hit the shower, it was almost 9:30. I wanted to work on finishing the beaded bracelets for my coworkers, but Ben wanted to hang out with me too. Needless to say, I didn’t get to bed until 11pm, and I had to be up for work at 5am.

Unfortunately the girls didn’t care that their mommy was tired. In the 6 hours I had to sleep, they were up 5 times. I had barely laid down when Bryn started crying. I went into her room, where she was crying “owie, owie”. I asked her what was wrong, and she told me, “Binny need a kiss, right here” and pointed to her forehead. I kissed her, and fortunately she laid right down and was quiet – for another 90 minutes. She woke 2 more times in the night – both times asking for milk (we’d eaten Café Rio for dinner, and she ate over ½ of my salad – and I’m always thirsty after eating that). G was up twice herself – once for milk and once because she said she was finished sleeping. I’m afraid I lost my patience with her that second time. I know I only had about an hour more of sleep, and I wanted every minute of it. I threatened her that Santa would be called if she didn’t go back to sleep. Luckily that did the trick.

But mommy is dragging today. Its insanely slow at work today (obviously slow enough to post a blog entry), and I’m struggling to keep myself from napping on the couch in the breakroom.

Its been a busy week. On Tuesday the girls had their daycare Christmas concert. G was super excited, and was so cute. She belted out every word to every song with a smile on her face (unfortunately I forgot my camera) – it was a big change from last where, where she just stood there stone-faced. Bryn wanted to be a part of the action too. She went up to the front and stood by her sister for a few minutes. But then she got bored – she wandered around jabbering to random people in the audience, and even asked a few of them to hold her. Then she tired of that, and decided to beat up the inflatable snowman in the corner of the room. She ended up knocking him to the ground (of course that would be my child). After the concert, Santa came. G excitedly sat on his lap and asked for a baby (we’re hoping this is a doll, and not an actual baby). Bryn was scared of Santa, and preferred to try and steal his candy canes.

And to add to the disjointed nature of this post, I wanted to add something else completely unrelated to the title. It does however relate back to a post from a few days ago, where I was complaining about my neighborhood. As it turns out, I may not be crazy – I think people may be snubbing us. Ben’s coworker also lives in our neighborhood, but on another street. We sat with them at the work Christmas party the other night, and now they feel more comfortable with us. He asked Ben yesterday at work how we like living where we do. Ben was honest, and said that we were so unhappy that we had considered putting our house up for sale. His coworker admitted to Ben that when they moved in, they were warned to stay away from the “Wildcat Court Clique” (we live on Wildcat Court). Apparently people at church think everyone who lives on Wildcat is a snob and won’t associate with them. I feel like I’m back in junior high school – how petty can adults be? At least I know I’m not crazy – but I still do want to move.

Has it really been over a week

Wow - I've really neglected my blog lately. I haven't even been stalking blogs like normal - so if you haven't seen a comment from me lately, don't fret. I've just been taking a break. Life has been flying by a break-neck speed, and I've not had time to keep up with my blogging responsiblities. I hope to remedy that soon.

With the holidays fast approaching and a grant application to put out at work, I've had actual work to keep me busy. And at home, I've been trying to stay away from the computer. My husband was feeling neglected, or something like that. I think I've also been in a bit of a funk. I've actually started about 10 different blog entries in the past week, but have deleted them all instead of posting. Maybe I should just try and put some snippits of each in now. Hopefully my random ramblings will be coherant enough to follow along.
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Bryn is growing up! She's graduated the baby room at daycare this week, which I suppose means that she is a full-fledged toddler now - as much as I hate to admit it. Although her birthday isn't until February, she's now in the 2 year old room - full time! She even takes her nap on one of those cute little cots. She is so big and bright, and 95% of the time she's such a joy. (you can see my earlier post about her being Satan's spawn to find out what the other 5% is) She is talking so much now. Although much of what she says is still unintelligible, she's speaking in full sentences and she can count to 10. She can also sing several songs. The words may not all be right, but she's gotten the gist. She also loves her big sister, and wanted to have and do whatever G's into at the moment. Funny girl.
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I want another baby. As completely impractical as it would be for us, I want one. I'm not sure why I'm so baby hungry right now. I've almost lost all of the 75 pounds that I gained with Bryn. And really, being pregnant sucks! With both girls, I suffered from hyperemesis, and threw up almost every single day (and still gained 75 pounds!!!) Financially, we could not afford daycare for a 3rd (we can barely afford 2 right now). And 2 kids to 2 parents is perfect odds - one more kid and the parents would be completely outnumbered.

But somehow I feel like there is still one more baby out there somewhere to call me Mommy. I want to be done having babies - really I do. But I know in my heart that I'm not. (At least I think I know. Maybe there is something about having a fully functioning uterus that makes a woman never truly feel "done"). I've actually been considering having my IUD removed and just taking my chances. Odds are, we can't even get pregnant on our own anyway. But somehow, I'd feel like I was putting things into God's hands that way.

UGH - if only I could get Ben on board. What if my IUD just "accidentally" came out (is that even possible?)
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We're thinking of putting our house up for sale. I know - we've not even lived there 2 years. But there are so many reasons why I want to move:

1. The most important reason: money. We're paying so much for our house. I'm almost embarassed to admit how much, especially to anyone who has seen it, but our mortgage is about as much as Ben's paycheck (for the entire month) Of course this is post layoff, because his job sucks right now. But its still difficult to hand that amount over every month. I would like to use our equity to get into something much cheaper to lower our monthly payment. This is assuming we could actually sell our house right now.

2. I don't like my neighborhood very much. It is very cliquish (is that a word?) and I've never felt like I fit in. And in Utah, the people in your neighborhood are also the same people you go to church with. So I feel out of place there as well. So does my entire family. Ben even feels snubbed. And poor G came home from nursery on Sunday complaining that no one would play with her. Its like there's a black cloud around our family, and no one wants to associate with us. I've never had a difficult time making friends before, and G has lots of friends at school. I don't know what has happened here.

3. Our house is really nice, and for the most part I like it. But since we had it built and never walked through a house with our same floor plan, there are some aspects that I really don't like. The worst part, is that the kids bedrooms are right by the front door. Its really noisy up there. I wish their rooms were more secluded and quiet. I think I want a 2 story again.
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I didn't get any of the 3 jobs I applied for last month. At least I don't think I did - I haven't actually heard back, which I'm pretty sure by now means I didn't get them. Oh well. I'm sure if I'm meant to change jobs, it will happen. Besides, I don't know that I want to give up my Fridays off. I would have to get one good job offer to even consider moving.

I just wish that either Ben or I could make more $$$$. We're so strapped right now. I keep waiting for something to happen for us to make more money, but I'm not seeing it. And all sorts of unexpected bills keep piling up: our property taxes went up by $1100 last year, our car got hit by some unknown person, and now our basement has water in it (our shower is leaking). Nice. Some days I want to just give up. It is so frustrating to feel like I'm working so hard, but we keep falling further and further behind (this goes back to why I want to sell our house).

UGH. See why I haven't been posting? It just turns into a pity-me party. I'd better get back to work. Maybe tonight I'll post the picks of our annual gingerbread house making party.

Puke:1 poop:2 boogers: 4

That was the official tally last night of how much of each I'd had on my hands in the past 24 hours. Needless to say, it hadn't been a good day for my kids. (or their mommy)

G's really sick. She's got some weird gastro thing. Yesterday she woke from her nap saying she was sick. We were on our way to my mom's house, when she puked all over herself - which isn't necessarily weird in itself, other than the fact that her vomit contained undigested food from the night before. And it smelled like sulfury poo. We continued onto G'mas, and cleaned her up there. She seemed fine: no fever, ate 2 pieces of toast, and ran around for hours. Then she woke at 1am puking and pooping at the same time - and the weird part about it is that her vomit and diahrrea look and smell exactly the same. And she has no fever. After her 1am incident, she felt fine. Daddy held her while I ran to the C-store for some soda. As I drove over there, the radio was playing that stupid Hawaiian Christmas song, and all I could think on the way over was how I'd just uped my tally: poop and vomit may just edge out the boogers before the night was over. She and I wat up, watched a movie, drank some Sprite and went to bed. Then the entire incident repeated itself again at 5am. The part that is so concerning to me, is that she has no fever and that her excretions smell so strange. Have any of you ever experienced similar symptoms?

At any rate, I'm one tired mommy. Bryn also woke twice in the night. UGH

Sorry for the disjointed post. Bryn's awake in her bed now, singing "la la la". Hope she's not sick today.

Life isn't fair

Some woman have been blessed with great genes. Not me - I'm inclined to be fat. Despite my best efforts (and believe me, I do try) I think that I'm destined to be a big girl. Don't get me wrong - I'm not fat by any stretch. But I'll never be thin. And I contantly have to worry about my weight.

I do work out quite a bit. Since the marathon, my typical routine is to run 4 times a week, for a total of about 15 miles. Then, I try to either swim or walk 2 other days during the week, with one rest day. I've also been trying to get to the gym to lift weights twice a week. In fact today, I went for 30 minutes before I picked up the girls. My arm are killing me as I try to type.

I am in good shape. In fact, I refer to myself as "fat but fit". I do think I'm in better physical shape than my exterior would lead one to believe.

The problem is food. Its my nemesis. I love to eat. Luckily, I do love healthy foods (for the most part - I do have weaknesses). But even too many healthy foods is a bad thing. I think that I'm destined for a life of always feeling like I'm missing out on foods and always worried about skipping a workout. Life isn't fair.

Rotten, no-good, very bad day

I am in such a bad mood today. I'm not sure why. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Bryn was up no less than 10 times last night, and that finally at 4am G woke up from her sister's cries and never went back to sleep. Or it could have been the fact that today is election day, and some of the canidates have stooped to new heights of slander and lies. It may even have had something to do with the fact that I had problem after problem at work.

I did have some good things happen today. I actually got a call back on one of the jobs I applied for, and I have an interview scheduled. I also got really good news from my brother who has been dealing with a bad situation, that something good has finally happened to him. But somehow those good things were overshadowed by my foul mood.

Then I picked the girls up at daycare. Bryn has another diaper rash. G lost her new bracelet that she made at our beading party over the weekend. And she'd peed her pants (for the first time in months). Her wet clothes were nowhere to be found. Great. The last thing I need is to find wet clothes in a bag somewhere 2 weeks from now.

We decided to go out to dinner, since I had no desire to try and create something edible. We went to Wingers, a local place that is so terrible. Every time we go there, we vow not to go back. Yet somehow we find ourselves there again and again. And tonight, our experience was no different than usual. I wanted to complain to the manager, and Ben didn't. So we left without saying anything.

I think I should just call this day a wash and go to bed, so that I could at least salvage a good night of sleep out of it all. But first I think I'll hit the dreadmill. A little exercise always lifts my spirits.

Pet peeves

I think I’m a fairly easygoing person. I don’t tend to get bent out of shape too often. But even so, there are a few things that drive me absolutely batty. One such example is when people “ask” as question without really asking. My darling 3 year old does this all of the time. For instance, every night before bed she wants a drink of cold milk. Instead of just asking, “Mommy, can I please have a glass of cold milk” she’ll say to me “mommy, I’m thirsty”. I used to just get her the milk. But I decided a few weeks ago that she is going to learn to ask for what she needs. So now, instead of getting her the milk, I’ll respond with a smart-aleky retort such as “are you making a statement or asking for a drink”. To which she’ll answer “I want a drink”, and then I’ll make her actually ask me for a drink. And she has to say please for it to count. I’m probably instilling in her a whole different set of peeves she’ll deal with some time, but at least she is learning how to ask a question. Yesterday on the way home from daycare, I had turned down the Barbie princess movie to talk on my phone. G asked from the back seat: “mommy, can you please turn up the movie? I can’t hear it”. She’s learning.

Just for fun, here are a few of my other pet peeves. Just because I have nothing else to blog about (y’all know that is completely untrue).

1. Slow people. I have come to realize that there are two types of people in the world: slow people and fast people. Slow people are the ones in front of you in the grocery line who are still putting their wallet away while you’re ready to pay. Slow people are the ones in front of you in line who just can’t seem to make a decision. Slow people are the ones walking 3 abrest in the mall, completely oblivious to the fact that there is someone behind them trying to pass. I am naturally a fast person. I’m habitually on time to everything. I don’t procrastinate. I even walk quickly. And I don’t have a lot of patience for people who have no consideration for those of us who may just be in a hurry (i.e. ME).
2. Grammar mistakes. Ok, I know that not everyone was an English major – but come on people! How difficult is it to remember the difference between their, there, and they’re? Or even more annoying: your and you’re. I went to Elementary school in Kentucky, and even I can tell the difference. The worst mistake of all, is the “errant apostrophe” – when people use ‘s when it really should just be plural. This also applies when using an acronym. It really isn't difficult, but when in doubt, Google it!
3. Redundancy of acronyms. (While we’re on the subject of acronyms) I’m not sure of a great way to say this, but I hate when people say things like ATM machine or PIN number. Don’t they know that the “M” stands for machine and the “N” stands for number? Why bother to even use the acronym if you’re going to say part of the phrase anyway? It’s so redundant.
4. “Not my job” syndrome. I can’t stand people at work who constantly pass the buck because they think something is not their job – or it’s beneath them to do a task. We’re all getting paid to work here. It’s a job. It is supposed to be work. Just do it and quit complaining!
5. Misspelling and mispronunciation of words. I see stuff like this a lot at work, and it drives me bonkers. Its barbed wire, not bob wire. And wrought iron, not rod iron. Gist, not just. Moot, not mute. (OK mom – I love you to death, but I cannot stand the way you pronounce the word PUMPKIN. It is pump-kin, not punkin. Just in case you actually read this, I still love you!)

Dear "anonymous"

In response to the blog entry I wrote last week about taking a day off, someone left the following comment:

You're always talking about wanting to be a stay at home mom, and how you want more time with your kids. But you sure jumped at the chance to send them off to daycare and stay home alone!

This comment bothered me so much, that I feel compelled to defend myself. First and foremost, I do love my children. And, given the choice I would want to be a stay at home mom. They are definitely the most important thing to me. I do feel guilty though that my kids have to go to daycare. In fact, when I'm not at work I'm with them about 99% of the time. They have never had a babysitter, other than the occasional time that Grandma watches them. But those times are not very often.

I also try and spend as quality one-on-one time with my kids as much as possible. I read to them every day. I also try to teach them something new every day. My girls love to color, so we also try to have creative time. We sing and dance while we make dinner and do chores so that they are having fun. I feed my kids healthy meals, and make sure they're getting physical activity on a daily basis. I actually think I'm a great mom, and my children are very kind, well-behaved (as much as a 1 and 3-year old can be), intelligent, and well-adjusted.

That being said, I am human. And right now, I am under an inordinate amount of stress. There's so much to do that I'm averaging 5 hours of sleep per night. I'm the primary bread-winner right now, which is a huge burden. I'm also the only one who does any cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. around the house. I am the primary care-giver. My husband does help out with the kids, but a good portion of their care also falls upon me. I do all of the budgeting and finances. I do all of the grocery shopping and meal planning. And I'm sure I could add about 20 other things to this list, but I think you get the point. There just isn't enough time in the day to get done all the things that I need to do.

I'm not trying to create a pity-party for myself, nor am I trying to say that I'm any busier or any better than the next person. What I am trying to say is that I am just about stretched as far as I can go, and some days the stress is almost more than I can handle.

I suppose I have been selfish lately though, because I do try to run or do some other form of physical exercise every day. I see this as "my time", and its something I cherish. Usually it means either working out on my lunch break from work, exercising after everyone else has gone to bed, or getting up at 4:15 am to fit it all in. The only real sacrifice has been my own sleep, although daddy has helped out occasionally when I've needed to fit a long run in.

But I'm exhausted - physically and emotionally. So, last week when I took my kids to daycare so I could have a "me" day, it really was something I needed. I needed to have some alone time, and not have to focus on the 1 million things that needed my attention. I needed to take a bath and a nap. I just needed a break from my life for a few hours. Is that too much to ask?

I don't feel guilty. Not one bit. This is the first time in my life that I have ever taken my kids to daycare to just go home and do something by myself. Before you judge me, please take the time to understand who I am. I do not work because I want to - I work because I have to. Maybe sometimes I act like I want to work (and honestly I do like my job so it isn't all bad). But I do not have the luxury of being married to a man who can support his family. In the 6 years that I've been married to him, he's held 9 different jobs. Sometimes I focus on the positive (like thinking that I choose to work) instead of wallowing in my own self-pity for the fact that I simply cannot be what I truly want to be - a stay at home mommy.

Can I just complain about my crappy life for a minute?

UGH! When it rains, it pours. For the longest time, I've been feeling like my life was going along fairly status quo. Pretty boring and uneventful. I guess everything was waiting to happen to us all at once.

This post is pretty negative - I'll have to warn everyone right up front. The last week of my life has pretty much sucked, but writing about it is cathartic. So I'm feeling compelled to write it all down for posterity. I just don't know where to begin. . .

maybe with my kids. The last entry I wrote was about my poor sick Bryn, who I assumed was suffering from a bad reaction to her vaccination. Well, that changed. After 2 straight weeks of diarrhea, vomiting and high fevers I finally took her to the doctor - who diagnosed her with cryptosporidiosis. From the CDC website:

Cryptosporidiosis is a diarrheal disease caused by microscopic parasites of the genus Cryptosporidium. Once an animal or person is infected, the parasite lives in the intestine and passes in the stool. The parasite is protected by an outer shell that allows it to survive outside the body for long periods of time and makes it very resistant to chlorine- based disinfectants. Both the disease and the parasite are commonly known as "crypto."
Cryptosporidium lives in the intestine of infected humans or animals. Millions of crypto germs can be released in a bowel movement from an infected human or animal. Consequently, Cryptosporidium is found in soil, food, water, or surfaces that have been contaminated with infected human or animal feces. If a person swallows the parasite they become infected.
The most common symptom of cryptosporidiosis is watery diarrhea. Other symptoms include:

• Dehydration
• Weight loss
• Stomach cramps or pain
• Fever
• Nausea
• Vomiting

Some people with crypto will have no symptoms at all. While the small intestine is the site most commonly affected , Cryptosporidium infections could possibly affect other areas of the digestive or the respiratory tract .

There's been such a huge crypto outbreak this year, that all public pools are closed to children under 5 until the end of the summer. I've been home with sick kids for almost 2 full weeks. Gracelin hasn't had it too bad - just the occasional run to the bathroom and a couple of puke sessions. Poor Bryn though has been miserable: multiple messy diapers a day, no appetite, lots of puke, and she's gotten so skinny. Bryn's been a bear too - she's become such a mommy's girl that not even daddy can't help her. She cries almost constantly and wakes multiple times in the night. Last night she cried for almost an hour before she fell asleep, and then was up about 3 times. She hasn't had diarrhea in 3 days, so I took her to daycare today. I HAVE to work (more on that in a minute). She cried and cried when I left her. I actually think I'm going to call in a few minutes and make sure that she is ok. It broke my heart to leave her because she obviously isn't feeling well still.

And of course I got sick too. I've had symptoms more akin to what G's experienced, so its been manageable. But the fever and aches have been enough to make me miserable.

In the midst of all this horrible sickness, Ben lost his job. He'd been working for a real estate investment company. Obviously its not a good time for real estate, and several employees (including Ben) were "let go" last week - with no warning and no severance. (I could type a whole post about how low and dirty I think that is, but I'll refrain) So, the poor guy has been networking his butt off, trying to find something. We're seriously considering having him stay at home with the girls, and do some type of job at nights. I've even found a job that pays almost $2000 a month more than I'm making now. I've got my resume ready, and Ben is going to drop it off for me. I know we'll be ok. After the whole shock and horror of it all, I've had a calm peace about things. But it sure does suck!

Then yesterday I got a call that my 6 year old nephew was in ICU. The poor kid and his brothers have been through so much lately. (I haven't felt right about posting their plight on the web, but its bad) Over the weekend, he had a bad asthma attack that couldn't be controlled at home. So he went to the ER. The medication opened his airways and created something called respiratory mis-match. He went into respiratory arrest and nearly died. If he hadn't already been at the hospital he probably would have died.

Oh - and my mom also dropped the bombshell that she an my dad are talking about getting divorced. My father-in-law has cancer. The grass in my front yard is dying. A huge rock hit my windshield and it needs to be replaced. Blah. Blah. Blah.

I do feel though that we're all going to be ok. The stress is draining me, and I'm exhausted. But I am confident that we'll be ok.

Thanks for letting me complain!

It is true what they say about redheads

What a "fun" weekend we've had with my sweet little Bryn. Notice that I put "fun" in quotes. Well, that is because its been an interesting weekend with my little girl. She's become quite assertive in expressing her strong will. At even the slightest inkling that she's about to not get her way, she dissolves into a fit of rage and fury that you'd have to see to believe. She's not afraid to assert her will by kicking, screaming, holding her breath until she's blue, biting, and making herself vomit - if she thinks that it will help her to ultimately get her way.

It came as quite a shock to me. G has never had a temper - she's been the easiest-going girl there is. I think she's had maybe 2 tantrums ever - and those could be chalked up to her being tired and/or hungry. I just don't know how to deal with this.

Yesterday I caught her playing in the water. She'd moved G's potty stool over to the sink, climbed up, and was sitting at the sink. When she saw me, she proudly exclaimed "hands!" and showed me that she was washing her hands. I helped her finish, dried things up, and lifted her down - which pissed her off. She flopped herself onto the floor and starting crying, and screaming, and wailing, and rolling around on the floor like she was dying a terrible, painful death.

I tried to reason with her, and quickly saw that she was in no mood to reason. So I picked her up to carry her to her room. On the way there, she arched her back, pinched my cheeks, pulled my hair, and tried to head-butt me. She was doing anything she could to express to me that she was unhappy with the situation - and read that message loud and clear - literally. I laid her on a blanket on the floor of her room (I don't want her to associate her crib with negative feelings, so I avoid it as a punishment). I again tried to calm her on the floor. She briefly settled as I wiped her face, but she started screaming. G came in, as did Ben. All three of us tried to cajole her by patting her back, singing songs, etc. She simply rolled under her crib, and pulled down the ruffle so she was hidden.

So, we left the room.

She continued screaming for about 10 minutes, but then eventually she came down the hall carrying her blanket. I picked her up, and she buried her face into me. She cuddled for a very long time, and the was perfectly fine the rest of the day.

I just don't know what to do with my baby. She's barely 18 months old - what will this be like when she's in the "terrible two's"? I may just have to sell her to the gypsies.