Test

Test email connection

Things My Kids Taught Me

‘Oh no! The scary Graveyard of Dooom!’ Angel Cakes piped in from the back seat as we drove past the tiny cemetery in town. In case you are wondering like I was, it is the ‘Graveyard of Dooom’ because they might come back as ghosts. Yes, it can happen at any cemetery, not just ours.


This prompted a whole discussion about people dying and how they are buried. I’m sure it is because she heard me tell Daycare Lady that I am going to the wake today and funeral on Friday. It was just so sweet when she asked if she could go to the funeral with me because I was going to be sad and she wanted to be there to give me hugs to make me feel better. It took all my will power not to pull the car over and snuggle her close.

Buckaroo asked if he got to say goodbye to Great Grandpa when he died. Of course he didn’t because I was pregnant with him at the time. He got the saddest look on his face. Great Grandpa was hurting because he is dead, and that makes him sad is what he told me

Lesson learned? Don’t talk about death and funerals in the car. You can’t reach over and hug your kids until they scream they can’t breathe if you do.

Firing Mr Easter Bunny

I was all set. I don't like to fill the kids baskets with candy. I put
a little candy in, but put other stuff and let them fill their basket
with the candy from the eggs they find instead. We still have candy
from their Christmas stockings so they really don't need a whole lot
of candy that will eventually get thrown out.

When I went to Target on lunch a couple weeks ago to buy my swimsuit I
stopped by the dollar section, because how can you not? I bought two
coloring books, two buckets of chalk and two little journal notebooks.
I ordered the kids Pokiman sleeping bags when they had them on
Kids.woot.com for $5 each, just add $5 for the shipping. I was feeling
pretty proud of myself. Three weeks before Easter and the Bunny was
set for the budget price of $21. No, that didn't include candy for the
eggs, but that would come closer to Easter.

Two days ago I got home and Mr Easter Bunny told me that Angel Cakes
saw the sleeping bags. He had taken the box out of my car and left it
in the middle of the garage. Thinking quick he said that they were for
their two boy cousins, but it meant there was no big present from the
Easter Bunny. I was not amused!

Back to Target on lunch on Thursday. I got the candy for the eggs, and
new baskets because their old ones are well old. I spent a few minutes
in the toy section before heading over to the craft section. They got
little buckets of play doh with 4 colors and animal shapes cutters,
packs of 12 additional colors, giant coloring books (Hello Kitty and
Transformers) and little pots of washable paints. Total bill? $84. Ok
$40 was for candy and baskets, but the other $40 was needless. And I
don't think the paints, coloring books, and play doh will have quite
the same reaction the sleeping bags would have.
So yep, I was not amused and almost ready to fire Mr Easter Bunny at
that point. Almost, but not quite. Then I found out that since he has
a show with the National Band that he won't be home until about 4Am.
So Mrs Easter Bunny will be up till all hours of the morning getting
things ready, filling and hiding eggs, and then have to be up at year
crack of dawn when the kids get up to start the hunt. Then I get the
pleasure of cooking and getting everything we might need ready to go
to Bloggy SIL and Shutterbug's house for Easter lunch. Thrown in
bathing the kids and myself, while rousing him out of bed, so we can
be out the door by 12:30, and you have an unhappy Mrs Easter Bunny and
a FIRED Mr Easter Bunny.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Black Hole Of Time

Facebook. Need I say more.

I swear when you log in to Facebook you are really logging into a
black hole of time. You log in thinking I have five minutes to kill,
blink your eyes to clear the glassy haze and realize you have been on
for hours. You didn't do much, checked in with a few friends, waded
through your requests, and maybe checked the status of your farm,
zoo, mafia, fish, or whatever. How can that take so many hours?
I logged on this weekend to check the status of people I know and care
about, some of them I don't talk to on a daily basis, others I just
want to see what funny shit they were talking about today. I scrolled
through the page to see everyone's updates and realized that I didn't
see one update from the people I logged in to check. What I did see is
a bunch of people I haven't talked to see middle school, game updates,
and people I don't know, but added to get a better score on a game.

I did what I have done for the last year, went up to the top and
searched for them in my list 500+ friends. After searching for the
third person I realized how ridiculous it truly was. I don't play the
games anymore, why am I still friends with all these people? I don't
care about what they are doing, we haven't formed a lasting
friendship, we just used each other to get better at a game. I should
just delete them.

So began the over two hour process. No, I am not kidding, I only wish
I were. It took me that long to weed out all the game people, friends
of a friend, etc. I know I ended deleting a few people I will have to
add back because I deleted them in the frenzy, but I am down to a nice
reasonable 47.

While I had a little time yesterday, I logged into the site on my
laptop instead of using my phone. I was tickled to see my main page
full of information from my edited list of friends. I saw in the right
corner I had over 87 gifts and requests. I used to play a couple of
games that generate lots of gifts or requests for gifts. I open it and
click ignore on almost all of them and respond to a few others. I
returned to the main page and refreshed the main page because it took
me 45 minutes to wade through the requests. I didn't have my mouse,
just the stupid touch pad, and got distracted a couple of times. Don't
judge me. Look in the corner to see how many requests I left to deal
with later, there were over 87 more! Thinking that the page just
didn't update correctly, I refreshed it again. Nope there are really
more. Same process three more times and there are still 87 new items.
All new items each time. Yes, I blocked the apps that are generating
all these items, they are the back log of requests.

I had the app on my phone for the longest time, but I wasn't using it
so I removed it. After this week, I decided to just download it again
so I never have to log onto the full site again to see the requests
taunting me and can't suck me into the black hole of time.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Time to Sing

You can tell spring is coming to my Midwest state. It seems like
everyone is writing about it. Why? Why yesterday and today over any
other day? The snow is gone! Seriously, this is a big deal. Yes, the
snow has melted off before but this is different.

This time there isn't a threat of it coming back within a week. There
are still dirty piles of snow in parking lots, but we can see the
grass that has been hiding underneath. And just not tiny patches
between the mountains of dirty ice covering snow, it is full fields in
all its brown muddy glory. The weather has been getting to a more
reasonable temperature also. We have had a few days of rain that
herald the start of the rainy season.

We pride ourselves, hell, we wear our ability to survive the cold,
snow, fog, wind, traffic, and snow plows on our sleeves like a badge
of honor. But even the most seasoned veterans and die hard fanatics
have their limits and we have reached it. It got up to a balmy 58
degrees today with low 50's predicted for tomorrow. It is a damn heat
wave as witnessed by people walking around without coats, just short
sleeved shirts today.

Yes, the days are getting longer. It is barely light when I leave the
house instead of pitch black. Even staying almost 2 hours late it is
still light when I leave. Sunday brings the time change and while
losing an hour of sleep is not something I am ever excited about, I am
looking forward to it.

The kids are filled with energy just looking for an outlet. Last night
I got home even later then usual after working two hours late,
stopping at the grocery store, and finally Subway for dinner. They
only managed to get halfway through their sandwiches and apples before
subcumbing to sleep a full two hours earlier then usual. Oh, the magic
of spending a few hours out in the fresh air.

Even I who was never a fan of spring, I have always greeted it with
indifference as I am more of a fall girl, am not immune to it's charm.
I walked into my gas station this morning to be greeted by bouquets of
fresh flowers. I forgot how much I missed having fresh flowers
everyday like I had in the days before moving to a cornfield. There
was a fabulous florist right down the street from my apartment where I
would get flowers from at least once a week. I couldn't resist
spending $15 dollars on six roses and some daisies. Did it gall me to
spend that much? Of course it did, but I had to have them! I even shed
my winter coat and opted instead for just my camisole and blazer
today.

Driving into work I saw a flash of red out of the corner of my eye. I
turned to look and saw an old Dodge Charger in mint condition behind
me. Nothing makes me go all gooey like old muscle cars. I may live in
a cornfield now, but I am not a country girl. I have a soft spot for
Hubby's old big red truck, but don't go gaga over trucks. I grew up
within spitting distance from an amateur race track. Buying a old
rusted out muscle car and fixing it was a right of passage for all the
guys. Girls were judged by what type of car their boyfriend had.

Turning out of my parking lot tonight I saw one sports car after
another followed closely by motorcycles. Yes, spring is most
definitely on it's way and today was too glorious a day not to revel
in it. Rain be damned.

Hope you enjoyed a wonderful prespring day! Smooches

--
Sent from my mobile device

What Do You Mean They Don't Come With Manual!?

I was prepared to never have a night sleep again. Dirty diaper? Kids
puking? I can handle that without batting an eye. Trips to the
emergency room? Yep, I got the tee shirt. I got through the first five
years without asking for a manual. I got cocky. I thought I could
handle anything. So my kids decided to take me down a peg.

Last night as I was sorting through Buckaroo's clothes and Angel Cakes
asked me, 'Mommy, what does early mean?' Easy question to anwser
right? If you said yes, you have never tried to explain it to a five
year old with no sense of time. It took me three tries to come up with
an example she could understand. She finally got it when I said that
if I say she will get a bath after dinner, then give her a bath before
dinner, that she got her bath early.

This morning I was putting on my socks and shoes before putting on
Buckaroo's jammies when he woke up. He looked over at me and said,
'Mommy, my pee pee grew!' And pulled down his underpants to show me
his morning friend. I was at a loss. What do you say to a three year
old? He understands that is private, and that we don't show it off,
but he was just being three and trying to understand the wonder of
this.

He has also reached the why phase. I think Angel Cakes handled it best
this morning when he asked why for the fifth time.

AC: Hey! It's foggy today.

Me: Yes, it is.

Buck: Why is it froggy out?

AC: Not froggy, it's foggy.

Buck: Why is it foggy? Sissy, why do you like the fog?

AC: Because it makes it look pretty.

Buck: But why? You can't see the moon. I like the moon. Why do you
like the frog?

AC: *exasperated* Because I just do.

Buck: But why is it froggy?

Me: Well it is getting warmer and the snow melting causes the fog.

Buck: The fog causes the snow to melt?

Me: No, the snow melting causes the fog.

AC: I saw a movie and it had fog in it.

Me: You did? What happened in the fog?

AC: Well, it was a scooby movie. And it was about the legend of a
pirate called Red Beard.

Me: Really? What happened?

AC: They caught him, but he really wasn't Red Beard's ghost.

Me: Oh? Who was it?

AC: Just a guy who liked to dress up and scare kids.

Me: That's not very nice.

AC: No, it wasn't. He was a bad man. He went to jail.

At this point we pulled up to Daycare and I sighed in relief. That
was a lot of talking for a two minute drive at 6 AM with not even a
sip of coffee.

--
Sent from my mobile device

Chronicle Of My Night

9:00 PM: Angel Cakes joins Dream land

11:30 PM: Buckaroo finally settles down for the night. And so do I.

2:00 AMish: Hubby comes home and I briefly wake up when he kisses me.

2:30 AM: Buckaroo wakes up and tries to snuggle with me but first we
have to find his under pants so he can put them back on.

3:.00 AM: Angel Cakes wakes up and needs somethings to drink. Normally
I would say no, but I know she has the same cold I do that makes your
throat feel like sand paper. Snuggle her and we go back to sleep.

6:00 AM: The kids are fighting over who gets to sleep on my tummy. I
move and we all settle down again.

6:15 AM: They are up and ready to play. I lay dozing.

6:45 AM: I hear them both in the bathroom. They are arguing over who
goes potty first. I hear 'Go get Mommy!' I was already up and at the
bathroom before Angel Cakes clears the doorway. Buckaroo had an
accident on the floor waiting for Angel Cakes.

7:20 AM: Yell at Buckaroo for crushing cereal on the floor and Angel
Cakes for trying to a head stand on the couch.

7:25 AM: Cradle my cup lovingly in my hands. Stare into it's sweet and
creamy depths willing it to cool down enough to take my first sip.

It's going to be a wonderful day. :D

--
Sent from my mobile device