The Office - Hot in Here

I didn't think it could get any better than last years "sexy back"... but I was wrong! Enjoy!

i just don't get it part 2

Why are there buttons on pants for anyone of the age of 5 or under?

There is NO need for buttons on shorts or pants for anyone that age.... babies don't care between buttons and snaps. Toddlers/preschoolers can't operated buttons very well (if at all and certainly not quickly)... why put an obstacle course down the front of kids pants... they can hardly make it to the potty naked, let alone faced with a button.

I just don't understand. Is there some fashion thing that I am missing? Are buttons so much cooler than snaps that no one will by kids pants without them?

Are there NO parents on ANY design team for kids clothing?

WTF - Buttons? I mean....COME ON!

i just don't get it

Why is it that only men whistle? Why do they whistle in public? So loud that you can hear them 4 aisles away in the grocery store. Or they whistle right in your ear while you are standing in line at the post office.



Would it be acceptable if I just started singing LOUDLY in line, or at a bus stop.... How about if I just hummed a non recognizable tune over and over again... people wouldn't stand for it.

But yet... any man can walk around whistling as loud as he wants and we all just pretend that it is not happening...

WTF?

Road Trip

We just spent our entire spring break week on a road trip to Dallas. We left on Tuesday because Tristan had some doctor appointments in the city. We decided to take our time and try to not rush there and back. During the whole trip I kept coming up with really insightful (or at least at the time they felt insightful) things to blog about, but was too lazy to go down to the business center in the hotel. So now that we've been back a few days and Easter has come and gone I can't remember what I wanted to write about. But since 40 years from now this blog will only be interesting to me I will have decided to leave myself a few notes:

I love my mini van - Mason does not. And after 4 hours driving in pouring down rain I will not ever forget his opinion on the matter.

Embassy Suites Market Center Dallas is seriously the dumpy-ist place I have ever stayed. On the surface it looks great but upon closer inspection the illusion falls a part... but hey, they've got a free hot breakfast!

Bathrooms make great bedrooms for a toddler in a pack n' play.

Children's hospitals are a sobering reminder that no matter how bad you think you may have it, someone has got it worse.

Nana's are essential to a 4 1/2 year olds happiness.

The California Pizza Kitchen in Grapevine had the best song play list I had heard in years.

Baby's that toddle around a restaurant are cute, big babies that crawl around on a restaurant floor get disapproving looks.

No trip out into Dallas from the hotel is complete without having to go at least a mile out of your way then turn back around because your exit was either A) not marked B) snuck up too quickly C) didn’t even exist.

I hate access roads!

Private doctor’s offices are fancier beyond belief, the people are kind, patient and attentive. The disparity of our country’s health care system blows my mind.

No matter how easy going I am trying to be, I still can’t stand being late for a movie. It just doesn’t feel right not to have previews. Plus the first minute of a movie can be the most crucial. It took us over 15 minutes to figure out that “The Bank Job” was a period piece. Never again.

Riding on the bell carts is fun, even for a 33 year old mom!

You can waste a whole hour at a subway station that has elevators and escalators (provided that you have a 4 ½ year old too).

The street cars in Dallas are in horrible shape, even before Katrina the ones in New Orleans blew them out of the water.

I like maps. Not really into GPSs. People who don’t know North South East or West in their own town really annoy me.

Kids pretty much have a great time anywhere that there is a park with a playgound.

Tristan Scott

March 20th 2008

Grapevine Texas

17 months old

Happy Easter from the boys!

time to fess up

Since the inception of this blog I have bitched and moaned about Day Light Savings Time. And once again that time is upon us but this go around I have a confession to make.

This year I was looking forward to it.

Tristan FINALLY dropped his morning nap, but would sleep from 11-2. Which left him really fussy by dinner, and got in the way of lunch and messed up a whole bunch of stuff.

Now that 11 is 12, his body gets to do what it wants, and I get a baby that sleeps from 12-3!

Right On!

education

I have been thinking a lot about education, school, homeschool, public/private school, and learning more about the concept unschooling. I have a friend who home/unschools her kiddos for the time being (she is not yet sure what her long term plan is) She blogs about their life and their school, breaking up the 'report' about every two months. Here is (pretty much) her list for what her 6 and 5 year old are doing for January/February.

I am in awe of what she does with her kids. I wish I could be that disciplined. After reading this list I really feel like I need to get my REAR in GEAR (as we say).

Sledding: backyard, friends’ houses, large hills
Design and sew felt flower
Learning Cards :sequence, assembling words, rhyming, pattern, sight words
Read out loud: Little Bear, Green Eggs & Ham, Go Dog Go, Foot Book Hop on Pop, Race Cars
Watch women’s and men’s college hockey games
Make bead necklaces
Cut vegetables for dinner 3 times
Ice skating: back deck, college ice rink, outdoor town rink, frozen lake
Play Flower Power and Animal Rummy card games
Bake cakes, frosting, waffles, & pancakes
Listen to 50+ story books
Drawing, cutting, coloring
Sort laundry (colors)
See a show of the Peking Acrobats
Workbooks pages
Puzzles: 30-300 pieces
Listen to Charlotte’s Web & Where the Sidewalk Ends
Visit a sheep farm to get wool; see sheep, chickens, and a guard llama
Build with legos, Duplo, wooden blocks, wooden train set, & couch cushions
Verbal subtraction: 0 through 5
Color animal masks
First lost tooth and letter to tooth fairy
Cross country skiing
Ballet: 1 class & 3 sessions of home instruction
Make and play with playdough
Talk about seatbelts, car safety, & car accidents
Visit the science center
Pretend waiter and restaurant
Talk about the mechanics of baby-making & look at the book: It’s So Amazing!: A Book About Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families
Dance/Diabolo yo-yo/song/music/dress-up show, with ‘food’, seats, & costumes
Kids’ Yoga DVD
Talk about vowels, and vowel and consonant sounds
Talk about animal shelters
Shovel snow
Write a poem with invented spelling
Build snow people
Write numbers 1-100
Create and play own ‘pin the tail on the donkey’ game
Talk about what ‘food’ is to your body, including how it is used and what happens after you eat
Write and illustrate 3 letters to grandparents
Work on sign language finger alphabet
Talk about college, including dorms and medical school
Talk about college majors, and what jobs/careers do and do not usually require a college degree
Talk about sleepover camp
Get a library card
Town Figure Skating show, with skaters ages 4-22
Count out loud from 1- 109
Talk about Muslim head scarves, and full cover
Write full alphabet, capital and lower case letters
Make recycled block crayons
Talk about day & night, earth spinning on its axis and circling the moon, & the illusion of the sun ‘rising’ and ‘setting’

Did you know this?

• 40% of the bottled water sold in the United States is tap water anyway.
  
• The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires hundreds of tests each month on municipal water supplies, but the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which regulates bottled water, requires only one test a week on bottled water.
  
• Only 40% of bottled water--that which is sold across state lines--is regulated by the FDA in the first place.

I don't know why we have all bought into the thought that drinking fountains are so "icky". Well, that is a lie... I know why....fountains just look icky!

I have totally scrapped plastic water bottles anyway in favor of SIGGs because of the fact that there are chemicals that leach from the plastic into the water that may affect our health.

Braden LOVES his and I just got a small one for T. He can drink out of it just fine. But needs our help to pop off the cap and twist it open (which his big brother is happy to do).

for more information about tap vs bottled water

Consensual Living

I just stumbled onto this phrase/idea/philosophy. At first I agreed with a lot of what the author was saying about respecting our children not manipulating them with 'false' choices and focusing on the positive of our everyday experiences instead of dwelling on the negative. As I read more though I started to find I was disagreeing with a core concept.

The 'have tos'. The article states that we limit ourselves and our children when we succumb to the 'have tos'. Kids 'have to' eat at dinner, share that toy with their friend, or go to bed at 8 etc etc.

Now I am all about allowing Braden to have choices when it comes to eating, or if he is cold and doesn't want to wear a jacket... I will even bend on the sharing part - because he will learn quite quickly the consequence of not sharing with friends.... BUT (and this is a big but) I take HUGE exception to the argument that kids can sleep when they are tired and choose when to brush their teeth.

I know that may sound silly - and I know that Braden can choose if he brushes he teeth or not... BUT their will be consequences.

I guess technically none of us humans "have to" brush our teeth... but good golly we certainly know that it a very very very smart idea. Besides the cosmetic and hygiene issues - we know so much more about oral health and how it can adversely effect our heart and other areas of our body.

Do I like brushing my teeth... not really - did I do it as much as I should of when I was a kid? NO... did I get lucky that I didn't get any cavities or have any other issues ... HELL YES!

I hate to disagree with such an enlighten way of thinking and I may just be putting my ignorance on display here (so please correct me if I am wrong) .... but I think there are at least a FEW have tos in this world - maybe not everyday or twice a day... but there are somethings things that whether you like it or not just have to be done.......

1. clean up puke poop or pee if it is in on or around a living space
2. don't poop where you eat
3. wash your hands at least once a day or after dealing with sickness or poop or puke
4. don't stand in the sun unless you want to burn.
5. don't stand barefoot in the snow - you 'have to wear shoes'
6. you can't walk through glass without any sort of protection either....
7. you can't drive blind
8. two men can't create a baby - you 'have to' have a woman involved somewhere
9. you can't walk into traffic and not get hit by a bus - you 'have to' watch where you are going
10. YOU HAVE TO BRUSH YOUR TEETH

if I have missed something here... please let me know.... and if anyone has a really enlighten AP unschooled consensual living way of getting their kids to brush their teeth without have tos or manipulation or force I am ALL EARS!

Animal School

As we fast approach Braden's first year in "real school" this video really hit home.

the new system

We have a new privilege system around the house most recently. The old responsibly chart that I stole from Annie, although had the best of intentions - it didn't really work well at our house. So after a year of it hanging on the wall collecting dust I decided something had to be done.


I loved the top part of the board. 7 different responsibilities can be listed, there are a whole host to choose from, plus a couple of blank bars to write in what you need. For each task that he completes on his own, WITHOUT multiple reminders or whining, he receives a "smile".
Each night before bed with go through the chart and "put up our smiles" for that day.

If he gets all 7 smiles (meaning he did all the tasks on his board) he receives 3 tokens. (wooden circles with a magnet glued on the back that I decorated) Each token represents a privilege. They include: TV, Movie, Computer Time, Video Game Time, Electric Car Time, moderately junky Snack (gold fish, Cheetos etc), Extra Book at bedtime (he already gets 2) and a Green Heart.

The hearts are green because green is his favorite color. The heart tokens cannot be earned from anything on the board. They are reserved for me and Mason to give out when we see something that we feel should be rewarded. For example: yesterday we (meaning I) woke up very late and had to hustle Braden around so we could get out the door on time. I when I mean we were late...I mean LATE!!! We rushed through everything. I was calling out orders to him from other rooms.... that kind of late. He obey everything single task that was asked of him. He didn't stall, whine or argue. THAT deserved a green heart.

Note: he can only earn two green hearts per month - one from me and one from Mason. Green hearts are redeemable for a special treat. A trip to Taco Bell - a movie at Blockbuster - a piece of candy or ice cream whatever... This way Mason and I can limit ourselves too. With only one a piece to give out a month we really have to deem something pretty worthy.

Tokens (or coins as he calls them) are awarded nightly. After he puts up the 'smiles' I get out the token box (not pictured) and put up 3 tokens (if he got all 7 smiles). 6=2 tokens 5=1token and 4 or less receives no tokens.

There are 3 tv movie computer video game electric car tokens each. Which equals out to 2 units of screen time each day. Once a token is used up it goes into the "redeemed" box and waits there until a new week starts. That way there is no repeats or overlaps. If he uses all his computer tokens up - then he has to wait until next week to earn more.

This systems eliminates 2 problems that we were having around the house.

1) me repeating myself over and over , Braden whining and stalling, then me coming over and doing it for him (teeth brushing, cleaning up his toys, getting dressed)

and

2) Everyday he would ask me too: watch TV or a movie or have a snack or use the computer etc etc. Some days I would say yes. Some days it was a no. I didn't feel Braden was learning anything about managing time and privileges

Now he can physically see what he has 'earned' and what he can 'spend'. Once it is used up he has to wait.

When he sits down to the computer or picks up his video game the timer is set and the activity has a beginning and an end (which before it could be dragged on and on - there really isn't ever a stopping point when it comes to computer/video games).

No longer am I hounded day in and day out for chips, cheddar bunnies or granola bars or Cheetos.

Braden took to the new system immediately. He lights up when he puts his smiles up and then when I dole out the tokens. This is week 3 on the system and it has reduced whining, stalling and fighting down to almost zero. When he starts balking at a task that I have asked of him (liking cleaning up his toys) I respond " Okay, you can make the choice not to clean up, but then we can't put a smile up on the board." Usually that is all I have to say to get him to change his mind about his decision.

There also was one time where he didn't want to brush his teeth. Okay, no smile, one less token. No fighting, or yelling. Just simple a simple choice and the consequence of the choice was learned. I have learned that you really can't MAKE a kid do something they don't want to do. Well, I guess you can if you resort to bribes or spanking. But I felt neither were good habits to get into.

I am sure the responsibilities and tokens will change over time. I am also not sure how this will be used when it comes to allowance next year. I haven't decided if I want to reward chores with money or not....

But Amanda asked me to post about it - so here it is in all its glory :-)

Steve Update

Almost 2 months ago we retired Steve, Braden's lovey. But this past week Braden has been asking for him a bedtime. Each time I was able to talk him out of it by saying that now was not the time to bring Steve out, not to stall going to bed and I promised him that I would show Steve to him in the morning.

For a few mornings I got lucky. Braden had totally forgotten all about it. But just yesterday he didn't. He asked " Can I see Steve now?"

I went to go get him out of his hiding place. He was in my closet tucked away in a small box with a lid that lifts up. (if I had time I probably would have decorated the outside)

I presented the box to Braden. He lifted the lid and smiled. He gingerly touched Steve, picking up his favorite corner and running his fingers over all the silky edge.

I reminded him that Steve was tired and needed a break. "Why?" - "Because he has worked real hard." - "He needs a nap" Braden proclaimed as he closed the box. "Would you like me to put him away in YOUR closet?" - "Yeah!"

Braden watched carefully as I put the box up in the highest part of the closet (way in the back).

So far, so good..... no news is good news :-)

only in the military

The last time Mason was gone was in September. That was about 8 months ago. I am STILL pulling these off of his clothes. Socks, undies, t-shirts - you name it. They hide in the most inconspicuous place so that when you think that you have them all then BAMM! there is one more.

They are quite annoying. First off, they are tiny and very hard to pull off of the clothes. But if you leave them on you can feel them scratching at you. If you get them wet and then try to pull them off the ink on rubs off onto your clothes. And really I just can't leave them on. Mason could care less, which is the reason that they are still on there. He just keeps them on... so each piece of clothing has a whole smattering of them.

babysitting

My neighbors are out of town for the weekend. They asked if I could let their dog in and out while they were gone. "i would be happy too" I reply - which is true. I owe them more favors than I would ever be able to pay back, so anything I can do for them I jump at the chance.

But there is one slight problem. Molly - their dog. She hates me.

She does, it's true. I am not exaggerating. She FREAKS out when I come anywhere near her. Usually Mason is the one to let her in and out. If I go over she will just hide under a sofa or in one of the kids rooms.

And the shift couldn't have started out in a worse way. She was inside!!!! For me it is damn near impossible to get her to go outside if she is already inside. I can do the other way around and that's pretty much it.

This time I had no choice. Mason is gone and so are the neighbors. So I suited up.

I put on Mason's hunting jacket, my snow boots, dish gloves with oven mitts over them.

As I stood there facing Molly - all 3 pounds of her (yeah, that's right 3 pounds) she barked and growled and snapped viciously. I stood frozen in my tracks with all my gear on. I tried figuring out how to best get her outside. And no matter how long I stood there (sweating now) I could not summon the courage to pick her up.

I felt completely ridiculous. THREE POUNDS for crying out loud, and still I just stood there.

Finally a thought came to me... BROOM! I could just gently nudge her out the door.

So off I go traipsing around my neighbors house trying to find a broom. Laundry room - no - kitchen - no - hallway no DAMN!!!

Ah ha! Garage.

Now let me tell you that trying to grasp a broom that is hanging by a clasp on the wall with dish gloves AND oven mitts on proves to be a futile undertaking.

So off come the gloves, the mitts - down comes the broom - back on with the glove and the mitts.

Drench in sweat now from the heat of Mason's jacket and my own nerves I walk back into the kitchen to the dog bed.

She's gone! What!? Oh no.... I bet she ran under a bed... now I will never get her out.

Just then I notice her.... almost waiting for me to see her. She pauses looks up and then without another growl or bark she walks right out the back door - tail wagging.

speachless

While we were at the grocery store this afternoon I parked the cart (with B and T in it) next to a couple of Grampa-aged men while I picked out some movie candy (for me and Beth for tonight).

Braden proudly shows off his Lightning McQueen tattoo on his cheek. One of the men replies "Wow look at that! That's really fun! But don't you go getting a real one when you grow up."

By this time I am done picking out candy and I join the conversation. I say "Well, both my husband and I have tattoos ourselves, so we won't be in any position to enforce anything like that." I smiled and tried to make the men see the humor. They did not see the humor.

They began telling me and the boys that people who get tattoos are stupid and how it is a horrible choice. We start to walk away heading for the cashier. They were done with whatever they were doing too and started to walk with us. " Now, you don't want a tattoo. You're too pretty to be a freak" He says to Braden " Excuse me" I say "Do I look like a freak?" He looks me up and down, mutters something about 'to each their own' and plods off to the checkout stand.

At first it didn't bother me. I chalked it up to people just being people.... but as I drove home - it started to eat away at me. I started to get more and more mad.

Freak! Really? What does that word mean anyway? I don't think they even really knew what they were saying. I think they found an easy target and just got to being grumpy about it.

I felt like saying; "how dare you judge me and my family - you don't know me or my kids - what makes you think you can just feel free to burden us with your opinion! how much about the tattoo industry do you really know? Have you walked into a parlor lately - do you know how many law abiding Christian clean cut people have tattoos? and even if they aren't clean cut Christians it doesn't matter - Jesus loves everyone FUCKER!

Here's the other thing that gets me: what is so stupid about getting a tattoo? is it because that some people don't think their decision out fully before they get something permanently drawn on their body? maybe - but there are a lot of people out there who do a lot of stuff without thinking of it first... and it can cause major changes/problems in their life. (drunk driving, unprotected sex etc etc etc).

How judgemental - not everyone gets a tattoo in a drunken stupor (which is not even allowed anymore anyway). I thought very long and hard about what kind of tattoo I wanted. I knew fully what I was doing when I signed on the dotted line. Just because some people are careless doesn't mean I am.

A lot of people talk about privilege. I understand that I am privilege in a lot of ways. But I have never felt so second class than I have living here in Texas. This is just one of the examples. There are others that I may get around to sharing.

Those men made me feel small and stupid in front of my children and in a public place. They probably didn't think a thing about it. I am sure they are not sitting at home telling their family about the lady they met in the grocery store today. They did it because they could. Because they believe that they can say anything and still be right.

Well they are not right.

I am not sure why I took it so personally. Maybe because my children were involved, maybe because of William. I don't know....

on the lighter side....

Dinner is cooked and eaten. I stand in the kitchen staring at the leftovers trying to gage what size container to use. Back and forth my eyes dart, from the food to the cabinet where the glass containers sit.... waiting.....

Should I use the medium round, or the small rectangle?

It drives me nuts when I can't gage what size to use... if it is too small then I have to move up a size AND I've dirtied an extra bowl. If it is too big, then I just feel like it is a very inefficient use of the space.

Oh! but when it's just right! The angels sing, fireworks explode and as I place the perfectly filled container in the fridge I feel satisfaction of the perfect moment!

a quote from Richard Hall (2002)

our simple human level is so tiny compared to the vastness of the universe that we should never think that our personal beliefs are universal or objectively true....


this spoke to me today.....it is always good for me to be reminded that I don't know everything... I forget sometimes

Dead on the Surface, but Screaming Underneath

Lied to
Only small things
You don’t like that song
You don’t like that meal

You hate my shoes
You shake in yours
Leaving me standing on the side of the road
Its my fault
Everything is my fault

You asked twice
And both times I answered yes
What if you asked now?

My foundation is gone
I have been your therapy your rehab
Pay your bill, turn in your key

All my resources have been used up
Gone
Drained from me
You took all you could

You are blind to your riches
Mine is a fools gold, an illusion
that I tricked myself to believe

Too busy, too tired, too angry
but un-willing to quit

I have lost myself
Lost my mind

You didn’t know yours was gone
Your search has just begun

Too busy, too tired, too angry
No lessons have been learned

The curtain has been pulled back
The magician revealed his trick
I can't believe any more

In Trouble

Do you remember hearing those words as a child? "Oooooh.... you're in TROUBLE!" Your heart would sink and you would get that horrible feeling in the pit of your stomach. It was the worst thing you could hear. and NOT getting in trouble was the BEST thing in the world.

I have one question.... What does that phrase even mean? "in trouble"

I know what it meant back then - it meant that someone (parent, teacher, police) regarded a certain action (or inaction) of yours to be "bad" or "wrong" and now that they know about it you will receive punishment.

Punishment - a spanking, loss of TV or phone - cancelled party or trip - sentences - cleaning scrubbing polishing - a fine ....

Lesson learned? - whatever you do - you DON'T want to get in trouble!

Okay - that is probably not the lesson our elders were trying to impart. I am sure they all had the "right" motives involved.

The lessons that they really wanted to teach us were much more complicated/abstract: to love ourselves, to respect others, to value hard work etc etc etc.

Sometimes we got the point.

But the problem with this system is that you need to be caught for the lesson to be learned. And when we are little it is easy to be caught. As we get older we learn the art of concealing and lying. We hide things from the very people who should be helping us with our problems. And so the lessons are lost and the behavior is not changed.

When I was a teenager I knew that if I was drunk at a party and everyone else was drunk too that I could call my dad and he would (no matter the time) come and pick me up and take me home. I also knew that he would have been MAD as HELL that I had put myself in that situation in the first place. Instead of teaching me "why" I shouldn't be at a party at 2am when I was 17 (what that says about my self worth)... he taught me - whatever I do.... don't call Dad.

That was my attitude when I was a teen... and I made stupid choices, and had a few really bad things happen to me, but not so bad as to ruin my future or my body permanently. I got lucky.

I didn't turn away from my Dad based on one incident. I didn't stop trusting teachers just because of one jerk. It came from years upon years of being taught, conditioned, trained that if I did something wrong I was certain that two things were going to happen. I would get punished and I would be told that I was BAD. And those two things felt awful.

There is a huge difference between being bad and having people think that you are bad. Conversely it is just as dangerous to have people think you are good, but really you just have everyone fooled.

If my son is lying, hitting, breaking, hurting there is a reason why. Either it's because he doesn't know any better (ie a 2 year old who hits) or because there is something wrong on the inside - emotionally.

In each case I have the opportunity to address the action and the reason behind it. I want to take a holistic approach, not just deal in a cause and effect resolution.

It's my job to help my children understand why the action is "wrong/bad" and to aid them in understanding themselves enough so that they can curb that behavior. Are they bored, angry, jealous, scared? Those issues need to be addressed. Yes, consequences of one’s actions is a lesson that also must be learned and limiting privileges and writing apology letters etc etc all play their part.

I know that I am standing at the starting line, waiting for the gun to go off. Right now at almost 5 years of age this is just the beginning for Braden and me on this journey. I know that a whole host of undesirable behaviors is around the corner ready to rear their ugly little heads. I know self doubt and fear will start to be a part of Braden’s life as he enters kindergarten and we move to an unfamiliar city and new house. I know he will be influenced by his peers. He will ‘try out’ different types of behavior and ways of relating to people based on what he sees others do.

And I stand ready to help him (the best I can) navigate those rough waters of uncertainty and emotion without fear or anger on my part. With open ears and a willingness to learn who my son is as an individual and hopefully NEVER uttering the words “Oh, well now you’re IN TROUBLE!”

I spoke too soon....

Tonight as I was putting Braden to bed he asked me where Steve was, and before I could answer he said he knew. "Down there" Braden said pointing to the space between the bed and the wall.
"No baby Steve isn't down there." I showed him. We pulled the bed out to check. That didn't stop the questions. He didn't understand what happened to his friend. I decided not to lie. I told him that I had him in my room, in my closet. He seemed to calm down once he realized that Steve was in an identifiable location. But he persisted, wanting to know why he couldn't have him. I told him that he was a big boy now and that he didn't need a lovey. That Steve was taking a rest. Tears weld up in his eyes. The thought that he may never seen his friend again was too much. (truthfully there was no proper goodbye). "We can see him in the morning, how does that sound?" Braden nodded his head in agreement.

I had not anticipated this... I thought we were free and clear. But as I looked into Braden's teary eyes tonight I realized that he does need to say good-bye... have closure and greive the loss of Steve and embrace moving on.

Any suggestions on how to go about that?

sounds about right

This was Braden yesterday March 2nd at 1pm central standard time

Just a mere 24 hours later - Braden in Abilene at 3:28pm March 3rd

NO JOKE!

hush hush

As Braden was getting his mitten's on and we were just about to leave Megan's house I heard my son utter the words "fuckin' handy".

Both Beth and I looked at each other.... "What did you say Braden?" I asked

"Fuckin' Handy" he replies with a HUGE smile

While trying not to laugh I inquire "Where did you hear that?"

Silence....

"well it is a very disrespectful word.... we should not use it, it's trashy" and with that we thanked our host and left.



Okay - first - let me say I have NO idea what that means... and second.... although I am a potty mouth (I beileve that is how one friend put it) I really try not to swear in front of Braden - or others for that matter.

As Deanna said: Abilene has been good for me.

To that I replied (under my breath) "fuckin' right!"

voices carry

I have so much to say - and no energy to type. Once I was 'on fire' about my blog, but as of late I feel so busy that by the time I have spare time I feel worn out and have no energy for sharing anything.

I think I am most overwhelmed regarding the things I am NOT writing about. It may seem hard to believe, but there is a lot that goes on privately in my life that I do not mention. I guess because I write so openly about so much stuff, that it seems like I hold nothing back.

But I do. There is a lot going on that I just don't feel comfortable writing about.

But it takes up a lot of energy and emotion and brain power. I guess having Mason gone has just exacerbated things. Braden's mood is a bit darker and less cooperative since daddy is not home. It's hard because Braden has a hard time identifying his emotions and articulating them. So if I am not paying attention I can miss the subtle change in his mood...which if not dealt with can get worse over time.

I feel really stressed out about the move, or the lack of moving. All of the sudden our once beautiful home looks like crap (to me) and I start picking over all the things that need to be done to sell it. I have multiple time lines in my head.... "if we have to move in a few months then we'll just do A B and C... if we are here another year I would really like to tackle XYZ" you get the picture.

People are dying all around me. My friends grandfather passed, Mr. Pence passed, Mason's second cousin passed away. Every time I go to Hallmark it is for a sympathy card.

Death not only depresses me (duh!) but scares the S#!T out of me.... it is one of the reasons I can't ever fall asleep.... I don't like being unconscious in any shape or form.

The past two months have seen many a blogger write about how much they hate January or February.... well...I hate March. I have hated March ever since my first year out of college. I had visited Mason in February and we were planning on seeing each other in April.... I had to wait through March.... which felt like forever.... with all its 31 days....even now I can still remember my office, with the March calendar page staring at me. Everyday I would cross another day off, one line in the morning and the finishing X line as I left at night.

March also signifies spring, and that April is just around the corner. While I was pregnant with William it felt like March would never end and that April would never come. Now April creeps up faster and faster each year.

March's weather is crappy too, no matter where you live. It teases you with warm spring air and buds of green grass.... then it snows :-(

I feel like that little circle on the tv commercial for anti-depressant... it slugs around with a rain cloud over its head.

I always said that I would have been a great alcoholic if I had only enjoyed drinking.....

Oh well.... the beat goes on.... and all the crap that I am dealing with right now will either get better or worse.... so really although it seems like a really low point right now... it may be the calm before the storm.... I will look back a year from now and say "wow! I didn't realize I had it that good"

Hopefully not....