No Resolutions, Just Some Things I'd Like to Do

Well, some things I'd like to do and some things I'd like to stop doing. So I was thinking yesterday and today about resolutions and how they are such a good idea, but almost always get forgotten or broken within the first month. I think instead of making one or two resolutions, I'm gonna make a short list of things that I'd like to get accomplished this year, be it something new to try or something I'd like to change about myself. 2008 was fully about surviving the kids. I nearly had a mental breakdown during the Summer just from the sheer weight of the responsibility of THREE small children. But, thanks be to God, I did survive with the help of some good friends, one stronger mother than I and my dear husband. So in 2009 I really want to commit to getting outside of these four wall, outside of my label of "mother" and into the real world where I can enjoy life. My kids are growing and maturing so I can start to focus less on them and more on my marriage, my friends, myself, etc.

Okay, so here's my short list. I have fifteen things on this list so far (more may come along) and I figure that I can try to accomplish one a month. Some are harder than others and take planning and daily commitment, some are one time things, but ALL are doable this year.

• Go on a beach vacation with my hubby
• Run a 5K (or more?) and actually condition so I can have a respectable time
• Lose fifteen pounds
• Get a tattoo that has some personal meaning
• Climb the rockwall in Easton
• Finish the book I started writing a year and a half ago
• Pay ahead on our home loan
• Have lunch with Abby at school
• Volunteer to do something I have never done before, am uncomfortable with and will help someone else
• Have more awesome s*x (with my husband of course) more frequently (see the lose fifteen pounds)
• Cut down the pizzas and milkshakes (see the lose fifteen pounds)
• Actually see Zach fully potty-trained
• Drink more water and less coffee (starting today)
  
• Hike around the Hocking Hills with Scott and Abby
  
• Play tennis with Scott on a real hardcourt, not on the Wii.

Are you committing to change anythings this new year?? I'm curious, let me know!!

Five Minutes at the Circus by SonicMoo

While I'm still in a writer's funk and the merry holiday is just a mere 48 hours away...my dear husband has graciously allowed me access to his blog so that I can use him as a guest poster. And as usual, our kids provide a HUGE amount of material! Merry Christmas All!







So the other day my son takes a dump in his undies. Nothing new, besides, why would a 3 and a half year old ever want to actually use the toilet right? Even though his sister was fully potty trained by 2 1/2.

So I clean up and tell him to go upstairs to go get new underwear. Apparently he did not have any upstairs because 5 minutes later he was running around with a pair of my underwear on. No the undies were not too small for him, save those jokes for later...

A hour later with the Z-man running around having to hold up the undies around his waist, he decides it is time for dump #2 for the day. 2 Dumps in 1 day is rare for him, but hey, if you are wearing daddy's undies, why not let it rip right?

Well, daddy's fat a$$ undies were too loose to contain dump #2, so it ends up on the kitchen floor. Trust me, I couldn't be more excited about it myself!

So I scoop the poop and toss it into the toilet. But as I do that, Z-man and the baby manage to turn the dog food and water bowl upside down right behind me. So I immediately turn and clean it up, but I left the bathroom door open, that was a mistake. The baby can sense the door open from across the house let alone see it open 3 feet away from her.

So while I clean up the dog food and water I see them both scheming in the bathroom. I go in and find my electric razor in the toilet along with some of wifey's sanitary napkins. "F"... Luckily I flushed the toilet when I threw in the Z-man dump #2.

So as I fish for my belonging in our toilet, Z-man goes and gets the large Tupperware container of dog food, opens the lid, and starts to pour it on the floor in the puddle of dog food and water on the floor that I did not get to clean up yet. Luckily I stopped that mess before he hit the floor with any additional dog food.

These kids are crazy. And for anyone to say, "yeah, that's kids for you", I say "pfft"... The Z-man is more of a handful than anyone will ever know.

And I kid you not, he crapped himself while I typed this up. Glorious...

I have no idea what my problem has been lately, but I just haven't felt that anything is worthy of blogging about. Lots of stuff happening around here, but I either think it's unworthy or I look at the little Blogger icon and instead go over to Facebook. Yes, I've totally been cheating on you all over at Facebook.

Let me see...what HAS been going on lately? *crickets chirping*


Hmm...I know stuff has been happening here. *Jeopardy theme music humming*

Okay this sucks...here are some funny videos that crack me up. When my normal mind returns I'll be back.

THE BARKING CAT - you be the judge. Freaky but funny, if you ask me.





And this one ALWAYS makes me nearly pee my pants no matter how many times I watch it. I can't help it that I find other people's pain hil-friggin-larious.

Remember This?

I was watching VH1 this evening, while I slurped down a much too caffeinated chocolate chip milkshake (scratch that: M&M milkshake I mean) and this A-ha video came on. I was all "Oh, dude, I totally remember that" and started dancing around the living room like I was a teenager again. I can easily remember wanting to be that blonde chic in the video. How cool would it have been to be pulled into a #2 pencil drawing and run around with an 80's hunkie guy? *sigh* So here's the video. For all my friends who despise the 80's...look away. Those of you cool friends *wink* may pull on your layered scrunch socks, spray some Aqua Net in your hair and enjoy.

Ever feel like you've ceased to be interesting? Like there's nothing more to you than snotty snail trails on your shirt, endless chore lists, dinner menus and the most exciting thing in your life is when you get to put the kids to bed and scarf a bag of Oreos without anyone whining for one?

I'm especially wondering about my husband. Does he still find me interesting or am I completely predictable on a day to day basis? Honestly, how much mystery could I possibly hold for this guy after fourteen years of knowing each other. We've pretty much run out of new stories about who we use to be. Although, Scott did share a funny story last night about his first experience on a college campus. But I don't think I have any nuggets of nostalgia to share anymore and every day seems to run into the other. Wake up, go to work, do the dishes, make meals, clean up meals, play with the kids, put them to bed, go to bed ourselves, get woken up all night, wake up in the morning and repeat.

And we are kind of at a stalemate in our game as far as creating new moves for each other. Our kids have us trapped and IF we are able to try new things we have to do them separately b/c the other one has to stay with the kids. Scott has recently found Chess as a new hobby, but as much as I want to share this with him...ugh. I just can't find any spark of interest. He tries to pull me into it with his anecdotes of how he totally Knight-forked this dude who's better than him, but all I hear is "I moved my dude here and he moved his dude there and I totally blah, blah, blah, blah." Oops, sorry yo, I zoned out on ya.

We do have one area of interest that we BOTH are totally into. Any of my friends who know me well can probably guess what is and most likely want to stick their fingers own their throats. Ever since Scott and I met we've had an awesome intimate relationship and THANK GOD for that. It's never burned out for us, even three HUGE pregnancies later, that heat for each other is still there. In fact, I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've said "no thanks." Thank goodness for this Essure sterilization thing b/c I'd probably have another kid on the way if not. We can't seem to keep our hands off of each other.

So, I guess we are interesting enough to keep our relationship alive and healthy. I just long for more daily alone time with him. I want to be "friends" with him and have stuff to talk about outside of how many times the kids pooped and what's for dinner. Do you feel me out there? It'll come eventually, I know that. But you know how when you're really fighting a bad cold and it seems like you'll be that way forever and oh my goodness, what if you never had another healthy day again...that's kinda what it feels like. Like I'll never have another day where I won't be bogged down with kid stuff, laundry, etc and adventure is just something in books.

For the time being we'll relish in our stolen moments of quiet togetherness and look forward to when we can date each other again. In fact, we have a date tonight! I secured a new teen babysitter and have a Mystery Guest dinner job at The Cheesecake Factory, so maybe we'll cut out early, fold the seats down and do some "neckin'" in the ultra spacious minivan. *wink*

It's beginning to look like Christmas...

The shopping is nearly done, the Christmas cards are addressed and the tree is up completed with a homemade Star topper. We had to put the tree up in our family room in the basement due to the little people roaming our home, so unfortunately our tree topper wouldn't fit on top. Abby took one look at the tree, topperless, naked somehow and asked if she could make the topper this year. "Of course! Do it up, Abby Stewart!" And she did too! She came downstairs about half an hour later with a big red star taped to a circle that was JUST the right size to go around the top of that tree. I was impressed. The perfectionist in me says it doesn't match and now the wetness of the marker has dried and crunched the arms of the star into the center...but the Mommy in me looks at it with great appreciation and will leave it there. Hell, maybe I'll even keep the thing for next year? It was a very sweet blessing to her family Christmas tree and I appreciate it. Hm...I should make sure she knows just how much I love her for doing that.

So I took this pic of our Christmas tree and thought, dang, that thing is skin-ny. I much prefer a live tree, all fat and pine smelly, but my hubby (the worst case scenario guy) doesn't like having a fire hazard in the house with three small children. Plus I don't think he likes the whole let's go cut our own tree and spend an hour trying to get it to stand up straight tradition. *wink* In fact, if it were up to him all together, he'd have not put up a tree this year. But then again, I think if we left it all up to the guys there'd be a lot less of a lot of things. Not ragging on the guys here, they are just more simple.

And here is another tradition of Christmas season for us...the Advent calendar. My mother in law started this for me. We never did this growing up, but I sure do love it now. It's fun! My kids are really big about counting things down, do this is right up their alley.

Okay, Friends, tell me what this is. Is this a reindeer or a golden calf? I have had this guy for years and I put him out somewhere every year, like my counter or up on the entertainment center. For some reason this year, my husband walks in and says "What is that? Am I suppose to bow down to the golden calf this year?" And then my dear father in law comes over last night and says the same sort of thing. Dude, it's a reindeer! Yea, yea...he's a loner and they usually travel in packs or at least a duo. I should have a whole song of gold reindeer, but 1) they weren't cheap and
2) I don't have the counter space for a whole sleigh of deer. So now I'm all looking at my goldenly bright and cheery reindeer and wondering if I should be burning him on an alter and asking for forgiveness for having an idol. *chuckling* Just kidding. I like my reindeer dude and plan to keep him. I think I'll also hit Odd Lots and see if I can find a closeout sale for a friend or two for him. Hmm...or maybe he'll be kindling for us this year?

Merry Christmas, All!

The Monkey Test

Somewhere out there in the world, probably even right here in my neighborhood there is an adorable couple just trying their hearts out to have a baby. They'll spend thousands of dollars (all worth it, btw) to get pregnant. All over the U.S. there are teenage girls desperately wanting to have babies of their own just so they'll have someone to love them unconditionally. Scott and I were of the former people. We wanted so much to have a baby as soon as we could and welcomed our second one four years later with happy, open arms. Then we welcomed a third surprise baby two years after that. We have lots to be thankful for when there are so many people out there wanting to have ONE baby and simply cannot.

Well, I'm here today to challenge those people out there who think they want a whole house full of kids. Yesterday was one of those rough days here at the house. At many points in the day all three kids were screaming at one time and we parents were about to flip our lids. We even tried to coax a grandparent to come take them off our hands, but to our dismay came up empty. I just stood in the middle of the kitchen mentally separating myself from the chaos that surrounded me, and it dawned on me that yes, living in this house with three small children is EXACTLY like living with three small chimpanzees.

I'm not kidding one bit here, Friends. They're SO cute to look at. Oh, you just want to hold them and run your fingers through their cute chimpy hair, and then just as soon as they take their mental focus off of the lovey, cuddley moment they are off climbing all over the furniture, breaking stuff, pooping on the floor, screeching at ear piercing decibels, eating you out of house and home, picking at each other, etc. It's just like Wild Kingdom!!

I think that people who want to have children should be required to take the Monkey Test and be licensed by the city zoo to do so. Jack Hannah can drop off three little chimps for you to chimp-sit for a week and if you come out of the experience unscathed in your intentions to have one baby, THEN and ONLY THEN are you allowed to be a parent. I think if someone had given Scott and I the Monkey Test back before we started having babies, we'd have been sterilized. *wink*

And I hear that having a teenager in the house is quite like owning a Silverback Gorilla. Very touchy, almost ominous, likes to lounge and eat a lot, but if provoked can move swiftly and shred you into pieces. So maybe there should be a Part B to the Monkey Test to see if you could possibly be ready to parent a teenager. Unfortunately, I don't think that anything can ready you for that stage of parenthood except surviving the Chimp stage. If this is true, then the atmosphere at our house a few years from now should be enough to make Scott and I qualify for President and V.P of the Looney Bin.