the inquisition

My friend over at www.everydayMOMlife.blogspot.com must think that I copy all of her posts. I really don't. We just seem to be on the same wave length a lot.

Anyway, I was just looking at a statcounter that I haven't checked in a very LONG time. Months even, honestly. I came to realize that I have a lot more readers than I thought. I only know this because I have readers from all over the country and a few other countries actually. I thought they were mostly all in one or two towns close to home. Who are you, my dear followers? Are you regular followers or just happen to stumble on to this shockingly boring blog?

I decided I would try to find out who has taught Ava "damn". Here is the interview.

M- You know the bad word you said yesterday?

A- Damn?

M- Yes, that bad word. We don't say that word, by the way, so lets not say that word anymore. Who said that word?

A- I did.

M- No, where did you hear it?

A- In my ears.

M- Who else have you heard say that word?

A- You did, when you asked me if I said damn.


I got no where. If you are the teacher of potty language, your secret is still safe. She is like a vault.

I never shared, but we got a new kitten. This kitten was found trying to cross a busy street in the dark. He was sick and gross and covered in fleas. He is now ours, and after being quadrupole de-wormed, de-flead,loaded up with antibiotics, and a week of constant eating, he is back to health and is a maniac. We have named him Pepe'. He speaks with a spanish accent. Tequi spent the last week in a closet. He was not happy with the new addition to the family. There was lots of hissing and running away. The last couple of nights we have heard lots of running around, which would make us think that they were getting along, since we didn't hear any sounds of death and battle at the same time, but we had no proof. Tonight, Tequi was downstairs finally, and he and Pepe' were playing! Pepe was attacking his tail and they chased each other around, up and down the stairs. Who would think two cats running would make so much noise.

I got a feelin' woo hooooooooo

Ramdom thoughts by me:

Wouldn't it be weird if you were cracking up at an online conversation and the other person is saying, "lol" repeatedly. You think you are sharing an actual hilarious moment and they are really just sitting at their computer just staring blankly and typing "lol" out of habit and online etiquette?

I am on 2 fantasy football league teams this year. I have never played before or watched any other team other than the Bears. This will be a new experience for me. I had to choose a team name. I was going to go with Team Bitch Child, after an incident at work that amused me. I decided it probably won't be as funny when it isn't 2 in the morning and changed it to Jabba the Hut Hut Hike. I am choosing to learn from a previous error in sleepless judgment, changing my email address to skankyemily@something because it was part of a really funny joke in college at 4am. I don't remember the joke at all now.

Not having a printer hooked up to a computer at home sucks and makes my life somewhat difficult. Grrr.

Ava was asking for a song in the car. She usually will decide to call a song by some random lyric mid-sentence, and usually the words aren't right. (sweetly broken = really brokened) Last night she wanted to hear "skip the world". I had no idea what song she was talking about so I asked her how it went. She said, "waaah waaaaaah waaaaaaaah reeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrr reerrr skip the world reeeeeeeeer waaaah" Apparently she decided to sing the guitar part to me too, and I still don't know what skip the world is.

Why am I annoyed at caulk separating on the counter in my house but want to buy a house that had a kitchen cabinet door fall off when I touched it?

On the way home last night Ava was in a horrible mood and throwing a fit about everything. She ended up saying, "damn! damn! damn! damn!" We asked what she was saying and she said, "I'm saying a bad word." This led to us talking about not saying bad words and all that. Then she said, "I'm just singing the song that Mommy likes." For one, I don't know of any song with those particular lyrics. For two, what a way for her to try to sell me out! I am not sure who she is picking up this particular word from because I don't say it. I am much more likely to drop the F bomb, thank you very much.

I am in the middle of reading Julie and Julia and I saw the movie last night. So far I have enjoyed both. The book makes me want to try to cook artichokes.

I think I am abandoning the weight watchers ship again right now. I think I will try to maintain and focus on eating healthy meals as a family. I am sure that just like any addict, me trying to do it on my own is a recipe for failure, I just don't think I can focus on it right now.

I am pretty sure me regularly having a lack of sleep has made my brain decide to stop functioning...or I have Alzheimer's. I will go with the first choice.

Ava keeps asking to hear "disco stick" on the radio. I am not sure where she has heard this song enough to decide she likes it or to pick up on the words because I find the song obnoxious and offensive so I always turn it off. Justin likes to say that I am teaching Ava to have terrible taste in music but I am thinking this one is all him. I am pretty sure Justin has a secret penchant for Lady GaGa.

humbled

Once a week I work overnight while everyone else is sleeping. Usually around 4 or 5am I try to sleep a little bit, just so I am somewhat functional when the clients wake up and to drive home. There used to be a love seat in the office to sleep on. We used to call it the couch of death because it was pretty dirty and not quite long or wide enough to be that comfortable while sleeping. The office has recently been rearranged so there is no longer a love seat at all. So in order for me to get my one or two hours of sleep, I am either dozing in the chair at the desk or making myself a little bed on the floor of the office, which is covered in some pretty dirty and stained carpet. I have had conversations about how much it must suck for one to work overnight, not get sleep and all that. Recently it has been having little pity parties that I am stuck trying to sleep on the ground of a dirty office. While I get paid.

The other night while I got my two hours of sleep on the floor, with my head on a pillow and a blanket to cover myself with, a woman and her three children slept on the ground between a set of doors to try to stay warm and dry, less than 200 feet away from me. I honestly didn't know they were there and their mom had been asked to leave earlier that night due to her own actions. But what gets to me is that her children did nothing to cause the situation. They are just along for the ride. At work I often talk to women who say they have no place to go and X children under the age of 9. Sometimes they are staying on a friend's couch and can't stay there anymore. Sometimes they are living in a car, if the mom is lucky enough to have a car. Most of the women I talk to don't have a car, family, or resources. At least once a shift I tell someone that I can't help them and I try to give them names of other places to go, which is often pointless since they have no car or money, therefor no way to get there.

This time it was different. These weren't random kids , just concepts, ideas of people. These were three young, loving, affectionate children that I had already spent time with. I could name something special and unique about each one of them. I only met the one little girl once but when I did, she nearly knocked me over with a hug. I can picture their faces and voices when I think about the fact that they were sleeping on the ground, probably using their mom as a pillow, with no blankets or anything.

I can't get them out of my head. I feel like my soul is writhing. Every part of my inside is constantly trying to cry out to God to protect them, comfort them, help them, keep them warm and safe. I beg God to provide a place for them to sleep, to guide their mother in making good decisions, to just make it better. I don't know what else to do because there is nothing else that I personally can do. I just need to figure out why I feel so strongly moved to action and what that action is.

Meanwhile, while we look at houses to move into, being tempted to buy bigger and better. When I get PAID to sleep on the floor, with bed to come home to, I will think of them. I will keep my pride in check and be grateful for what I have and be happy for enough.

battles

I have been wondering why lately I have been very focused on trying to finish things. I have been wanting a hobby/skill activity that I am good at and actually doing things with. I think about it and my day to day life is pretty thankless as a whole and there are a lot of battles that I am losing. I can't say that this is because I stay home, because I have never had a really rewarding job, in fact the roles I have now are way more rewarding than when I worked full time, which doesn't say a whole lot about my former job.

On a daily basis I am generally waging and losing the following battles:

Keeping up with laundry and cleaning.
Selling the house.
Keeping the house show ready.
Cooking healthy meals for my kids.
Losing the last 5 pounds and not gaining back the first 15.
Ending the ant invasion.
Keeping crumbs off the floor (see above).
Potty training Ava.
Keeping the screaming/yelling to a minimum.
Having some sort of a schedule during the day.
Getting Rhys to sleep through the night.
doing my hair everyday.
Staying within our budget.
Having an actual conversation with an adult once a day.

Then I go to work and even though I love what I do, it isn't always rewarding. A lot of the time it is frustrating, sad, and exhausting.

I think I need to feel good at something instead of always not quite getting there. Therefore I must learn to knit amazingly beautiful sweaters, and obtain large amounts of knowledge, and make plans to be more organized.

This really isn't meant to be a woe is me post. Just sometimes it sucks to not hear a single thank you all day long. Blah.

I also just cleaned up spilled berry smoothie and chocolate ice cream out of the carpet. And I swept the floor for the 3rd time today. And I killed ants crawling over the ant trap. But I am totally within my points for the day!

dive right in

So for about the last, oh two to three years, I have been lamenting to myself and various others that I want to learn how to knit. I want to learn how to knit because there are things that I can make, looks to achieve, that just can't be done with crocheting. Namely, clothing items. I don't enjoy the big bulky look of crocheted clothing. I want it to be smooth and stretchy, which means I must learn to knit. So just like crocheting, I have taught myself. I have successfully mastered both the knit and purl and accidentally even increasing and decreasing. I keep saying I want to take classes, which I still do, but I don't really have time for that. Plus I would be annoying if I had to start all over with just the whole knit and purl thing. So I think I will take classes later on for special projects. I think there are just little things you can learn by people who actually know what they are doing. I know, that is a big shock, but it is true! I have taught myself how to crochet. I still don't know what some of the terms mean, but I can do more than just the basics.

So I want to make a sweater. I have learned the basics and have found a very basic looking sweater pattern, so I am just going to dive right in. My first crocheting project was a giant afghan so I figure why not a sweater? Justin will be the owner if this sweater. He will love and cherish it and wear it around the house all the time. At least that is what I am hoping for. You see, Justin has had this one sweater for about 10+ years. It has holes in it. Giant holes. It is now shapeless and kind of blah looking but it is his version of a robe. He wears it all the time. I am hoping to replace this blah sweater with a new and improved blah sweater. See, I am not really setting high standards for myself. My goal is to complete it and make it functional to wear around the house. Comfortable would be nice too. So I hope he will be looking forward to getting this sweater sometime in 2012 since knitting takes FOREVER!

Other things in the works: pumpkin hats, cupcake hats, and children's cardigans. Maybe if I am feeling crazy, I will finish my niece's blanket.

We have a showing tomorrow so that is excellent. At least people are looking which not everybody can say.

In big news, twice in the last week Ava has decided on her own to go potty. She just goes in the bathroom, pees, and dumps her pee herself and comes back out. I think there is one other time she did this, but I only had pee on the seat to tip me off. She is really going to potty train herself, like I thought. She has a laser treatment on Monday so that means time in the house. I am hoping if I just put her in the pants she will just decide to go on her own. I am kind of afraid of ruining her own method though.

the day Rhys cried through Indiana

We successfully made it home from Ohio Thursday evening. It was a fun 48 hour little trip. The general point of the trip was to see my grandparents and cousins that were in town. The trip out there could not have gone better, minus about 2 hours of heavy rain in Indiana. Ava stayed awake the entire time. I think towards the end she was half awake and half asleep but her eyes were open. She does this really funny thing where she says things outloud that she really just meant to be thinking, usually when she is extremely tired. That night's confession, "I have a lot of bobos hiding under my pillow on my bed." Sarah laughed and Ava got extremely upset. I am not sure if she was embarressed or just mad that she ratted herself out. I checked when I got home and there were 4 under her pillow.

She ended up going to sleep a little before 2am. I was a little worried about how this was going to go over since we had lost an hour with the time change and naps weren't going to probably happen. She did pretty well though for the most part. Wednesday we just hung out at my Grandma B's house and talked babies and family after my cousin, her husband, and baby arrived. My Grandma and Grandpa H had us all over for a cook out and my cousin from that side and his girlfriend were also in town. I had only met this cousin once a few years ago, mostly in passing. It is interesting to meet someone that you are related to that you know nothing about.

Ava fell asleep on the way over there, so she was her normal post-nap self for the first half an hour or so. We had to wait for the food to kick in and then she was fine. Rhys was generally happy the entire time. There were lots of new things to explore. Ava helped bring out Grandpa's birthday cupcake and sing. She was very excited about a special cupcake plate that Grandma H gave her.

We stayed in a hotel while we were there. Rhys was in the pack-n-play, Ava was in a double bed with me, with the pack-n-play up against the bed as her "railing" and Sarah was in the other double bed, far far away from the rest of us. So in the middle of the night I hear Ava start crying and she was no longer in the bed. Rhys has also started crying so I actually think she has managed to fall into the pack-n-play. I am reaching around in the dark and only feeling Rhys. I finally find her on the floor on the side of the bed. She had fallen in between the pack-n-play and the bed and was kind of wedged in there. Everybody calmed down quickly after she was back in bed. I did spend the rest of the night holding on to an arm, leg, whatever, so she wouldn't fall off the bed again. She really does still flip all over the place when she sleeps. She says she sleeps on her Cars couch at home, but in reality, it is where she keeps her stuff because she just ends up on the floor near the couch.

The next day we went with Grandma B. to Youngs Jersey Cow Dairy. There is a place where you can feed goats and whatnot. Ava was really only interested in feeding the baby goats, one little pellet at a time. I think she was actually only willing to feed them because they were sticking their head through a fence, not roaming around her freely. There was a calf that was very interested in Rhys. Rhys and the stroller were licked quiet a few times, which Rhys enjoyed. I remembered half way through that Rhys had spilled a bottle all over the tray of the stroller and the calf wanted that milk. Rhys did pet/bang on a baby goat. He thought it was very exciting and funny. Sarah took a video of him so hopefully she will get around to actually sending it to me.

We ended our trip with more hanging out at Grandma's and then dinner out before we left to head back. Rhys slept for the first hour of the drive back and then woke up very unhappy. He proceeded to cry for 2 hours. Pretty much through most of Indiana. We had a really bad storm that we had to drive through but it only lasted about ten minutes. People were calling me telling me to be careful because of the storm, but compared to the 2 hours of rain on the way to Ohio, it didn't seem that bad at all.

Now that you have been bored to death by my play by play of our little trip, I will end it by saying sometimes short trips are good, as are hotels. I was worn out by the time we got back and am looking forward to actually sleeping sometime in the near future. I am not sure when that will really happen, but a girl can hope.

housekeeping

Since I copy/pasted some of the older posts, I have noticed a password section pops up. I just hit cancel and it goes away. I am not at all sure what that is about, but ignore it.

While in Ohio, I was talking with my grandpa. He said he has been doing an adult Sunday school class at church. He said he was surprised at how well read and versed in Bible stuff people in his class are. I told him I often feel the same way. So what do you do to feel well read or versed or on top of things theologically? How do you take yourself deeper? Have I asked this before? I am sorry, I have memory problems.

Please stalk my husband with html requests for a cooler looking blog.

I used strawberry scented soap to wash my hands. I now smell like I bathed in strawberry pop.

road trip

Tomorrow we are going on an adventure. It will be intense and crazy. We are going on a road trip to Ohio. By "we" I mean me, the two kids, and my sister. We are planning to leave right after dinner and plan to stop once in Indiana, and then hopefully they will sleep in the car for the rest of the trip. We are staying in a hotel and will be seeing both sets of my grandparents and various cousins. I am going to try combine seeing family and relaxing. Leaving to go back to the hotel for nap time and all that. There is a pool at the hotel and I am sure we will swim at some point. Watch a movie in our room at some point, and hopefully just sleep in. We are really only there for two days, so I should probably keep the plans small. Justin has more plans for what he is doing in his alone time than I do while we are gone.

Bonus of being gone: they could do showings all day long for 2 days and we won't be in the way. Let's hope that the "right" person comes by when we are gone.

1st tooth

Rhys finally has a tooth. You can't see it in his mouth yet, but it is there. When he opens his mouth to yell or something you can see the little whitish line. You can also feel it when you put your finger in his mouth. He has been biting tables and knees and whatnot for days now. Sometimes the only way to make him happy is to give him something hard to chew on. Yesterday a corner of it finally broke through but today there was the full line of the tooth. He will be 8 months old in less than a week and we finally have a tooth.

At the rate he is going with standing up and whatnot he might be walking before he gets a 2nd tooth. If you are sitting on the ground, he will use you to climb up on, pretty much all day long. He gets mad if you don't sit on the ground to be used as a climbing wall. He really just wants to pull himself up so he can then stand and let go and practice standing more and more. He has started to scootch around furniture. I got a video of it today, but I need to edit out the 20 seconds of him doing nothing at the beginning before I post it.

Ava has a new friend. A family started going to our church a few weeks ago and they have a little girl a couple months younger than Ava. She just recently had a baby brother (Ava calls him Edbird)so they have a lot in common. The new friend says hi to her all the time and so far Ava hasn't shown much interest. She talks about her at home, but doesn't interact with her when they are together. Today at the park they actually played. All of the boys that were there left and the girls just got together and played nicely for a good half hour. I don't think Ava knows what to do when there isn't a clear age hierarchy. She does really well if there is an older girl to lead the way, come up with plans, etc. She also doesn't seem to do bad when she is the older girl. This has been one of the first times that she has been evenly matched with someone, physically and verbally. It is pretty interesting to watch them both kind of stop and not know what to do.

excerpts

Conversation today with a co-worker:

Amanda: You have a dog? I didn't know that. What kind of dog is it?
Me: She's a rat terrier.
Amanda: I've never heard of it. Is she mixed with a rat?
Me: ....(blink, blink)
Amanda: (hides her face) just pretend I didn't actually say that.

After laughing, she says: I mean, can you picture it? Like I pictured a rat having sex with a dog and knew it wasn't true.


Ava's crazy run around the room chant:

"I am a superhero and I can save the day and I'm a big sister and everything is my job."

Rhys crawled a tiny bit today on his hands and toes. He also found the cat's water bowl for the first time. I went into his room this morning and he was actually just sitting there in bed. I think he is growing a neck and is starting to look older.

We had our first showing today. That sucked. If we are going to end up having a lot of these I am either going to have to compromise on the state of the house or we need a better plan to have it ready to go at all times. I look forward to getting feedback, sort of. I would like to hear what they thought but I am dreading hearing negative stuff.

Tomorrow night is our 3rd annual Relay for Life. It is a good time and for a good cause. I really do look forward to it every year. My personal goal from last year was to sign up to be a bone marrow donor. I apparently now need to make it my goal to save up to be a bone marrow donor since it costs $50 to register.

I am going to back myself silly this weekend and get stuff all ready to go for a care package to send to Iraq. I found a website that hooks us up with soldiers and addresses so we can send stuff out. The guy we are sending stuff to is going to distribute it all amongst his squad or whatever his unit he is in charge of is called.

my birthday girl

Today was Ava's 3rd birthday. Last night we gave her a couple little presents right at bedtime, since I had to work today and we wouldn't all be together on her actual birthday. She had fun with her little toys and played herself to sleep in her bed.

She got in my bed sometime very early this morning. She actually wanted to cuddle with me. Usually she just wants to wedge herself in between us and essentially try to take over the bed. Nope, this morning she wanted me to hug right up to her and snuggle. I think that was her birthday present to me. Hours of cuddle time with my baby.

We had a our park playdate today and we were bringing donut holes. She wanted a vanilla sprinkled donut for breakfast so that is what I ordered. This particular store seemed to be having issues and when we finally got our food she got a chocolate sprinkled donut. This was cause for many tears. She just doesn't care that much for the chocolate sprinkled donut. She honestly just ate a couple donut holes and gave me her sprinkled one.

I made it to the park only 7 minutes late (which is a record so far this summer) and was the first one there. The park was being painted so it was closed. A few phone calls later and it was decided that we will go to another park. Meanwhile I would hang out to tell anybody who shows up the plan. I had turned on the battery power to roll down the windows and Ava liked the song on the radio so I left it on. 10 minutes later it was time to head out to the other park and the car wouldn't start. A friend gave me a jump and we headed off to the park.

Ava actually went to play with the kids, which is about time since the summer is almost over. I think this happened last year too. She finally went off to play alone during the last week of the group. All the moms and kids sang happy birthday to her and she was even presented with a homemade card and a gift from a couple of the other little girls. I think it was a pretty fun birthday for her.

She continues to struggle with whether or not she will be a big girl or a baby. She still steals Rhys' pacificer and wants to get into the baby carrier in the stroller. Other times she referrs to Justin as Justin, talks back like no other and doesn't like to be grouped with the babies. She is funny and loving. So petite and tiny, yet clumsy and bumbling. I tried to tell her today how great my life became when she was born and I couldn't figure out how to say it so a 3 year old could understand. I apparently can't figure out how to put it so an adult could understand it. Night and day, that is all I can say.

back on the wagon

So I signed back up for weight watchers yesterday. I didn't actually start weight watchers because...well I didn't stay in my points at all and didn't count anything past lunch so I can't even count my flex points. So I choose to start today. Now that Rhys is on solid food and I am only nursing part time my points of dropped since last go round. A lot. I used to get 34 points a day, now I get 25. That is a difference of pretty much getting to eat whatever I wanted within reason and actually having to pay attention. That explains why I haven't lost anything in the last month and have actually started to creep back up. I want to finish what I started. I have gotten so close that I must keep going. I am not sure what my ultimate weight goal is, but I know it is at least 6 pounds less than now. I can't believe that I have even gotten to the point where I only need to lose 6! That is shocking to me. It used to be a fairly intimidating number.

Yesterday didn't do much for us with furthering the house cleaning project. I think we maintained well, but it was also a babysitting giant baby day which pretty much negates me being able to do anything in the room that we need cleaned. Today it is finally supposed to be hot and I don't have Giant Baby, so we will be going to the pool. This should make for a tired Ava and a good nap time so I can get things done! My new phone is coming today! Blackberry here I come. Maybe I will test out the picture posting ability and post pictures of Ava's birthday cupcakes that we will be making later this evening. 3! She is going to be 3. That is such a not a baby anymore age. She is old enough to be in all sorts of little classes, go to preschool (even though she isn't) and all sorts of things. Whew. Not too shabby for a spontanious post.

Part-ay

We had Ava's party today. It was so nice having a party when the house was already clean. Just thought I would mention that. We stopped on our way home from church, bought some snacky food and Tinkerbell cupcakes and it was a party. Ava had fun opening her presents and singing happy birthday to herself. I think she just liked being the center of attention. It has been hard to go from the first and only grandchild to one of a bunch all at once. We gave her a DVD of The Corpse Bride. She knew exactly what it was from the cover. It is in the previews on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, her favorite movie. The kid likes pretty dark things, what can I say.

She is supposed to be having a friend party in a candy store, but the stupid store has decided to change locations and they aren't answering their phone yet so I can schedule it. Will she notice if her 3rd birthday passes without it? Probably not but I will feel bad since I have a really cool party planned in my head.

A friend's house is also on the market, now for 5 days. She hasn't gotten any calls for showings yet so that is sort of disheartening. The earliest we could get one would be tomorrow, but I am not ready for that yet. I need just one more day to get the den together. I did quite a bit of crap removal today after the party, so tomorrow is getting more toys out, the game shelves and then vacuuming. I am thinking I will walk the fine line of being home enough to clean and gone enough to keep it clean. Tomorrow we will try to go to the pool at least for a little while. It will be warm but possibly rainy. We will take our chances.

and we're off

Justin and I cleaned a lot today. Still have one room left to tackle. Pictures were taken and things are good to go. Papers were signed and the house is definitely on the market. I think I am actually having a hard time with this. I don't like to be judged. When people are coming in to look at our house, they will essentially be making tons of little judgments about us. They will judge our furniture, our upkeep, our cleanliness, our pictures, our decorating, not to mention our HOME! Luckily for me, I don't really think of this as our home. It is a house. It is a building in which we live. I don't take it personally that they don't want to live here. I don't want to live here, which is why I am moving. Though I do need to say that I am enjoying it a lot more with a bunch of our stuff in the garage.

I am now feeling really bad about Ava's birthday. We are having her family party tomorrow. Aside from our house being spotless, we aren't at all ready. Ava wanted to make a cake and I am thinking we aren't going to have very much time to do it so I am hoping that when we stop at the store for pop and snacks and stuff I can sell her on picking out a nice over priced store cake with a cool cartoon thingy on it. Her actual birthday is Wednesday and we are making cupcakes and stuff to bring the park for our play group so she won't miss her whole plan of making cake stuff. Who knows, maybe I will just go ahead and let her make the cake tomorrow. She can decorate it when people are over right?