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So would you mind going to http://www.momwich.com and subscribing so we stay in contact? I miss you already.

 

B

Thursday Morning

We’re running late this morning.
Of course, we just started running late, we’re always on time until one of the kids announce that they forgot they had to be at school early for archery, or Spanish club, or study group… or anything else that could throw our morning into a pile of screws.
“mom are the red bowls microwave safe?” I hear Grace call out. “Yes” I say and then wonder to myself if they really make bowls that are not microwave safe these days? What a waste that would be. “Good” she calls back, “all the other bowls are dirty”.
Whats the point in loading the dishwasher if you’re not going to run it? I lecture myself.
I hear the buttons on the microwave beep, 1 minute 30 seconds, it’s what is required for the perfect bowl of oatmeal, I silently wish I would have had oatmeal this morning.

The microwave begins to whir when Gabby says “Oh Mom, I do have archery this morning”
Grace and I look at each other and then look at the clock on the oven.

It’s 7:37. Grace has to be at school by 7:50 if Gabby is to be at archery by 8. No time to eat your oatmeal at the table like a good American family now.

I tell the girls to grab their jackets, school bags and Gabby’s lunch as I plop the hot oatmeal into a mug with a handle for Grace to eat on the way to school – whip open the silverware drawer just to give myself the second fat reminder in five minutes that I didn’t run the dishwasher, so her choices are a fork or a serving spoon. I select the serving spoon and run and start the Beemer so it can be warming while the kids continue to gather their belongings.

On the ride to school Grace calls her dad to tell him good morning using her sisters phone, texts her boyfriend back a “good morning” from her phone and takes a bite of her oatmeal at the same time. I smile, cause if there’s one thing I’ve taught her, it’s multitasking.

Gabby reminds me from the back seat that she needs an excuse letter to miss the Archery tournament tomorrow – so I lean over to the floor board to rip a sheet of notebook paper out of Grace’s spiral just as she gathers it up to jump out of the car and begin her school day. She’s fumbling the door open as I’m going down the list in usual morning routine .

“you do have money for lunch?” “yes mom”
“and your school ID?” “around my neck”
“and your phone?” “love you, bye mom”
“bye”

We come to the worlds longest stop light and I began to write Gabby’s cop out letter. After 16 years of parenting, I’m skilled at cop out letters, but this one is truthful, and unfortunately, something I have to write often.

“Gabby will not be able to attend the archery tournament on Friday…” I begin just as the light turns green. I throw the pen and paper into the seat next to me. I might juggle a lot but there is no way I’m going to try to write and drive. Being at a complete stop is one thing.

Between three long stop lights I finally manage to get the words out in blue ink:

“Gabby will not be able to attend the archery tournament on Friday as she has visitation with her dad in Tulsa”

Gabby pops out of the car while I’m running down the usual morning list with her:

“got your lunch box” “yep”
“and your backpack” “uh huh”
“did you turn your cell phone off?” “bye mom, love you”
“bye baby, be sweet.”

I slip into the driveway five minutes later and gather the wrappers and oatmeal cup from the car.

Step into the house and immediately begin to load the dishwasher with the dishes of the morning so I can finally run it. Oh God, please don’t let me forget to run it again. I’ve been beating myself up over it all morning. I wipe down the counters and the table and notice that the place mats are crusty. I use that word lightly. “sick” I say out loud while scraping what may have been a lucky charms marshmallow off with my fingernail.

I gather all the place mats and the throw-blankets from the living room for the washer, but when I go to put them in, I see that Gabby has left her laundry wet in the washing machine from last night. I want to be mad, but I left the dishes in the dishwasher, so I’m really not a good example.

As I am digging through the washer to separate what can be dried from what will shrink if I even exhale on it, I fish out her swim suit. It’s January. I’m not even going to ask.

The load isn’t full so I go into her bedroom to see if there is anything that needs washing, and on her bed lay 4 shirts. She did laundry last night, so these surely can’t be dirty – but I learned a long time ago that the sniff test is just self inflicted punishment, so I scoop them up too and throw them into the most jumbled load of laundry that ever was.

Rerun is whining at my feet, so I lean into the pantry and scoop out a cup of dog food for his bowl, with an equal sized cup of water to drink, he’s so excited I think his 10 pound body might knock me over. I pour the pebbles into his ceramic dish and think “that’s the last mouth I have to feed for 6 hours”

Feed. Yes. Thank God I remembered. I shuffle to the fridge to lay something out for dinner tonight.

I look through my appointment book, satisfied that there are no conference calls today, I locate my laptop and sit down on the couch, it’s finally time to write.

But first, I really need to run the dishwasher.

Linking up with Bees With Honey on Let’s Bee Friends Friday

and also with: http://melomomma.com/2012/01/blog-hop-19/

Wordless Wednesday – A bond like I’ve never had

I wasn’t raised with my sister. In fact, the first memory I have of her was when I was 5 or 6.

I get so frustrated when the girls scream at each other, I try to tell them that not everyone is as lucky as them, and that someday, when mom and dad are gone, they will be each others strongest and closest link to their past.

But they continue to bicker.

And I swear they’ll never get it.

But clearly I am the one that doesn’t get it. They have a bond I’ve never experienced.

I am so glad they have each other.

My Linky has been broke for weeks but this week it works! It works! So Click and link up!

As Long As I’m Living….

I was flipping through photos we took last weekend when I ran across this one of Grace on my back. I quickly recalled that I had another photo like that just a year old so back, so I scurried through my facebook photos in hopes of finding it. I was right about having a similar picture. I was wrong about it being a year or so old. When my eyes fell on it, I realized with one breath how much has changed since the earlier photo was taken.

• 30 total pounds between the two of us
• just over a foot in height (all her)
• 5 school years
• two different homes
• two different cities
• two different marriages
• nearly 5 birthdays
• 3 boyfriends (her, plead the 5th on mine)

Only a couple of things stayed the same.

• I still love the color turquoise
• She’s still my baby

Linking up with BitsofBee today
in what might be my favorite link up!
Grab your favorite quote, say something
about it and link up!

PS. Gabby, never fear, the next one is about you 🙂

My husband? Oh – he makes magical meatloaf

I’m just going to take a few minutes here and brag on my husband, because not every post here has to be some emotional uncovering from the depths of my…wherever. When I started keeping a blog in 2006 it was seriously to chronical my life. Now it’s for that and because I’m an attention wh**e as my blogosphere bestie calls it.

Sunday we were all freaking stressed. Between Baldy’s pending neuro appointment, my pending cardiology appointment and the week of hell stemming from my 16 year old tornado, our house was just d.o.n.e being a family. No one was on speaking terms. And I really didn’t care for a minute.

Anyway, we hadn’t set down to a meal together without a fight in a good week and somehow the God’s spoke to Baldy and convinced him to be Martin Stewart and pull our family back together.

So I started smelling something in the kitchen but ignored it except for the occasional “when will dinner be ready?”

I think once I said “need me to help” – which I always say while sinking into the comfy couch begging inside that he say “no” because me in the kitchen? Mess.

I finally rounded the corner to catch this kind of kitchen action that made me giggle and think of the cafeteria lady back in Elementary school.

And while I know you can’t tell what the heck is going on in this picture, the man is seriously stacking my potatoes on top of my meatloaf. Because we are so damn spoiled by his cooking that we can’t, you know, eat our food in separate bites.
When he was finished assembling the meal we were presented with Meatloaf, mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy layered goodness, with a side of fresh green beans and told to sit, and eat.

And we did. It caused us to shake our head at him together, and giggle a little, and within a few minutes, we were all enjoying our dinner without worrying, without fighting, without the awkward silence that has fallen on us a few times over the past week.
Of course the tower of goodness eventually falls to a million pieces while you eat it, but for some reason it was the perfect thing to get our family re-connected.
The girls even mostly ate their mushrooms without a whole lot of begging, twisting of their faces or complaining.

And ever since? There has been no fighting, no tears, and very minor health related stress. I’m calling it the magic meatloaf.
Oh, and just to brag a little more on my husband? He didn’t leave me a mess to clean up, he cleaned it, and then I caught him CLEANING THE HOOD VENT. Not even kidding.

The Mid-Parenting Crisis

I’m brainstorming here. I’d like this to be well thought out resonating post of parenting rationalization but the truth is that I’m sitting at my desk shocked by interactions that have taken place between myself and my teenage daughter in the past week, things that have come out of nowhere.

I know that over the past year I’ve come to a sort of mid-life-crisis in parenting similar to that of the 40 year old man that is mid-life minus the new Porsche and Viagra. My daughter is turning 16 in a few weeks and with two years left before the world sees her as an adult (which is WTF for another time, because really calling them adults at 18 makes my brain asplode). But in the past year while dealing with the thought of her spreading her wings I’ve realized that there was so much left to teach her, and so many things I did wrong over parenting that I wish I could delete. While she turned out miraculously amazing, especially for being raised by a teenage mom, I effed up on my part in more ways than I can count. There just isn’t enough time to correct those errors, not enough time to teach her to cook and mow the lawn and fix the car and change air filters and apply for jobs and interview and … and I’m in a panic. It’s almost over and I didn’t do these things. So I’m scurrying to correct, show, train – all the while she’s in a mid-teen-crisis of realizing that she’s nearly 16 and old enough to make her own decisions. She’s ready to have her own ideas and do what she wants to do, she knows everything, I’m stupid.  Suddenly she feels as big as a bear, inferior, and full of teenage sarcasm and attitude. The way she has spoken to me in the past week has caused me to show great restrain because if she were an adult, I might just lay her on her ass.

But she’s my kid. My baby. The one that I have done everything that I can for, for almost 16 years, the one that I cried for,prayed for and worked for.

I have to remind myself of this because when I look at her with that teenage rage, I can’t seem to find my baby anywhere in her face.

With this great combination of my mid-parenting crisis and her new found mid-teenage-crisis spinning in to a whirlwind of chaos and arguments and tears and disappointment our life has been turmoil the past year but man, it’s been sheer hell for the past week.

A whole week. A week out of being under the same roof, as mommy and daughter that we will never get back, because the days aren’t stopping.

And I can’t figure out where her anger is coming from, the same that I can’t find the “soft side” of me that I’ve always had in parenting that would put an end to all of this, pull her into my lap and fix this, like I used to be able to.

For the first time in all of my parenting, I don’t like being a mom right now. It’s harder than I thought, but at the very same time, I love being a mom and I wish it weren’t almost over.

I’m a complete and total mess.

And in 4 more years, I’ll have another 16 year old. Someone hold me.

All I do is Pinterest

I know my family has to be going nuts at my lack of – living? There’s no time for cleaning, there’s no time for scrabble, or visiting, there’s only time for Pinterest. Notice how I didn’t say anything about there not being time for eating? Yeah, because fat girl always makes time for food, especially while I Pinterest. Pinterest is now a verb.
This month I’ve gone slightly nuts with my Pinterest.

I started with making this painting from Pinterest to match the girls vibrant colored bathroom. I for some reason can’t find it on my pinterest, so if you have it on your board, holler so I can give appropriate credit?

So it didn't turn out perfectly but in the dark cubby of the bathroom, it works.

But I didn’t stop at that with their bathroom. I found this cute saying on Pinterest and decided to type it out in Photoshop and match it to the color of the bathroom, I framed it for their bathroom counter, hoping it would start their day off awesome every morning, instead it collects a lot of toothpaste splatter. I sorta buffed the toothpaste and spit off with my boob. You’re welcome.

Pretend it doesn't have their names on there. In fact, I have no idea whose names those are.

This post has been brought to you by the letter B

And here’s my B for my office. Represent, yo!

Then, I found this technique on Pinterest and this saying. It totally reflects who I am when I’m not being perfect, so I made it for my office. Then I realized I really don’t want my clients to see it, so it’s sort of in the corner.

I never finish anyth

Then, because apparently I’m a fan of paper balls? The purple one was made out of post it notes. Each petal is one post it note. The turquoise one was made out of streamers. I have no idea why I thought I needed to make these.

I attempted to make this. And I hate it. HATE it. So, I guess I’ll throw it away as soon as my hubby drinks another 6 pack of rootbeer and gives me the cardboard.

blah

I finger crocheted this last night and actually spent time with my kids by teaching them how to finger crochet too. Go me and all my super mom antics.

Proof of the Super Mom

And finally tonight, I made this cute clutch that we decided was a funny shape/size and was only good for holding a banana, but it’s a banana clutch, not to be confused with a banana hammock. I obviously made a slight detour from the pattern.

If it's a banana hammock, its the best damn banana hammock

Banana Hammock

SO anyway, I have a whole list of thingsI absolutely can not wait to make, so if you don’t see me on Facebook or Twitter for a while, and if the kids look unfed, don’t act all surprised.

Follow me on Pinterest here so I can follow you back and steal all your great finds
Also, I totally put my website on all the pictures to flatter myself. Whatever.

Christmas 2011 – A Photo Journal

So. Christmas was here. And in the whirlwind of everything else going on, I kinda over looked it here. So this post is for me. For my “files” for the “things I kinda did right” archive. Because otherwise, like these pictures, the memories will go to the bottom of a pile in some box and be forgotten.

We started off our Christmas Eve making Peanut Butter Pie. I showed you how to make it here if you’re interested.

Now mom and dad brought their new Christmas toys — laptops, to use while they were down. So While we made Peanut Butter Pie, Dad did this:

Then we made Andes Mint Cookies that I found on Pinterest. Holy Moly. These are so much better than the ones that we make with the Andes Mint Chips that take forever.

They were absolutely delicious. I had to force my daddy to eat one because he was busy doing this:

Notice how dark it has gotten outside? 😛

Then it was time to Chill and do your own thing while I laid out everything for dinner the next day. I like to work in advance because I never know how I will feel from one day to the next, so I say while the heart is beating good, might as well get as much pre-done as I can. Meanwhile…

There was TV Watching, Nail Painting, Doll Outfit Sewing and Dog Sleeping

While I did some heavy stressing and some “DO NOT TAKE MY PHOTO” moves

Then we made reindeer food, wrote letters and did some tracking. I do not care how old they get I will always force them to do this no.matter.what.because.mom.said.and if we stop one tradition we stop them all and I KNOW YOU WANT TO EAT FOOD ON CHRISTMAS.

You know where daddy was and at this point, my mom had joined him in a harmonious side-by-side surf of the web, or solitare or whatever.

Anyway at some point we slept and then I got a phone call at 6 in the morning from Grace who was begging me to wake up already. I groggily walked in to Gabby’s room to find them both waiting on me. They never hang out, so this was awesomesauce.

Then it was time to open the heck outta some presents, for two hours of happiness and bliss.

Of course, my two favorite pictures are of the girls unwrapping two of their favorites —
Grace opened something COACH brand and Gabby opened up the Sock Monkey she’s coveted. Of all the hundreds of presents it took a sock monkey to get this face out of her.

Afterwards we played “Find The Pickle” with the pickle ornament. Grace won this year, which is good because Gabby won last year. The prize is always scratch tickets. Whatever, you let your kids gamble too, don’t lie. Law Breaking on Christmas is what this world is about. Ahem.

The guys decided to sneak out for a nice cigar. Disregard our funky unkept patio, it’s freaking winter time.

Then I cooked for nine-million hours and we ate for all of 30 minutes

But as soon as that was all over, can you guess where my Daddy was?

It was an amazing Christmas.

Brain Surgery…

I have to remember that he gave me permission to blog about this in hopes that someone, ANYONE would have experience with this type of surgery and would come forward and help us to make this hollowing decision. I have to remember that this is for his benefit, not his pity. That this is for advice, and information – that this isn’t about me, or about me telling you how bad it effking sucks.

Of all the awesome people in the world, he’s the number one awesome.

And I’m used to being sick.

I’m used to dealing with this shit. He is not. He shouldn’t have to. And this is too much. It’s just too damn much.

Brain surgery.

Arachnoid cyst in the pineal region – 2.1 cm. We’re in consultation with the Skull Base Institute in California, because It’s hard to trust any of the surgeons in OK to touch my sweet bald husband. Surgeons who admit to their lack of skill in this area. The doctor called him today to discuss his case. And sure, this doc has been on Ellen, Doctors, NBC, and a million other shows for his talent.

SO WHAT?

I know this is something we can deal with. I know he will come out the other side of this if we proceed with the removal. IF we proceed with the removal? The pain he’s in makes it impossible not to in so many ways.

They say where his is will be a difficult proceedure, they call it rare and “interesting” and “quite large”.

I just wish they’d shut up. And that it would all go away. And we could go on happily ever after without this “interesting” road bump of a life altering event.

I’m ready to wake up.

But I’ve been waiting to wake up from this nightmare for weeks, and he has for years. WHY WONT IT GO THE HELL AWAY?

So if you have experience with brain surgery, with arachnoid cysts or pineal cysts. Well. We could use it.

And prayers. Oh so many of those.

 

 

Wordless Wednesday – the last one for 2011!

It’s Wordless Wednesday – which is a good thing because I am too damn tired to string words together here.

Wanna see me in my PJs? Too bad. Here I am.

I go to all that trouble to rename people on my blog as “Gabby” and “Grace” and then I post a picture of us in robes with our names on it. Whatever.

The Bald Lover always gets us matching something with our name on it. This year he got me my very favorite. I’d tell you more about it, but again, Wordless Wednesday. Will I ever learn?

In other news, my daughter is tall when she wears my heels.

If you’re too tired to write, link up your pics here 🙂