Whining as an Olympic event....

Whhhhhhyyyyy does everyone haaaaaaaaaaave to whiiiiiiiiine so much around here???? Seriously, they wake up in perfect whining form. If there were an Olympic event for whining, my kids would be fighting one another for gold. Seriously.

I used to consider myself a fairly patient and laid back person. I had fun at parties, could tell a funny joke, had a good sense of humor and was all around easy going. Cue the dramatic music. Then I had kids. A lot of kids. Whom I love. With all of my heart. So much it hurts sometimes. But, they also whine. ALOT.

Now, I am able to admit that when I was younger and less wise (and before I knew what the day in and day out of parenting REALLY looked like, not what they paint in books about crafting and tummy time and all peaches and cream), I used to wonder why these often overtired frumpy looking moms could not keep their kids quiet or tell them no and that be the end of the story.
Cue the dramatic music. Then I had kids. A lot of kids. Whom I love. With all of my heart. So much it hurts sometimes. But now I get it. It is hard, really hard, to be patient all of the time with little beings who can tweak your nerves in a way you never knew possible until you had them.

So, my kids whine and lately, I find myself whining back. Which makes me laugh a little inside because it is so stupid. I am trying to get my spawn to stop whining and here I am whining back at them. No parenting book would approve. No child psychologist would approve. And I know, no twenty something, size zero with a nose ring chick, would even remotely have a clue as to how hard this whole mommy thing really is. But one day she will learn....oh yes, indeed she will learn.

Dreaming of a whine free zone-
Mommy Dearest

Two, Four, Six, Eight...

who do we appreciate??...blah blah blah. No. This is not part of a sweaty gym cheer routine. Instead, this is an all out rant on my ever growing self. I am a growing girl indeed.

Today I decided to tackle my bedroom closet since it has been bursting at the seams with clothes, junk, shoes, kids' miscellaneous projects and papers, and a whole lot of other crap. Let me start by telling you that I got rid of four bags of stuff in this cleanout and I feel quite accomplished with that. However, what I did not like was the array of sizes in my closet and the fact that the size that now fits me is the biggest size in my closet. I just seem to be expanding. Now, I am all about being a real woman...I truly despise the bony shoulders and the sunken rib cage. That repulses me. On the flip side, I also despise the muffin top and the flappy arms. Why has it suddenly become so hard to maintain a steady weight?

When I was 17, a size 2 was no problem. I had no hips, tiny boobs, a flat stomach, and rockin legs if I may say so myself because I walked or ran five miles every day. When I was in college, I put on the freshman 15 with all the beer guzzling I did, but I still managed to stay a size 4 and was quite content with that. Then I graduated into the real world, kept drinking a lot of beer and now had money to buy pizzas and wings, so I went up to a six. Fine, no problem. I will be a six forever. Then I got married and settled into a couch potato routine with my better half. Love is great, but I hate eight....and an eight I then was. And then, cue the drum roll, I decided to have kids, and decided to have them two at a time no less, and well, with that, and with now 6 years of parenting and grilled cheeses and chicken nuggets and mac and cheese and little motivation to get off my ass when I actually do have free time, I am now embracing the double digit size ten.

I am attempting to start climbing back down the ladder, but as I now know, it gets harder to take off as the years keep adding up. I never believed that when I was 17. Wish I had listened!

So, for now, I am learning to embrace the ten....until I have to get into a bathing suit and then you will hear me screaming profanities all while trying to remain calm and zenlike. Then in my anger, I will go get a coke and fries....damn dirve thrus, they are not helping my cause.

Love yourself and all that it has to offer!

Valentine's Day

So, with a show of hands, how many parents out there really could do without the "must do crafts" part of your job description? C'mon....I KNOW I am not the only one, I promise this is anonymous...ok, I see a few hands, but I know some of you are closet craft haters. I, for one, am officially out of the closet.

Well, Valentine's Day with four kids meant that on the one hand, I received some cute crafts (but I must add, the cuteness factor goes up several notches because I DID NOT HAVE TO BE INVOLVED in any of the gluing, cutting, pasting, coloring, painting, sticking, and so on). On the other hand, it also meant helping all of them prepare their Valentine's cards for school. First of all, who was the brainiac behind the tiny Valentine cards when kids who are just learning to write tend to write unusually large letters and cry when they cannot fit their whole name on the card. Next up is stickers, because that same brainiac felt the need to add a second step to the process. And let us not forget the ones where you are to insert a lollipop or a pencil through a precariously small little hole, one that no child can feed the lolly or pencil into....EVER.

Now, I do not want to come off as a party pooper or a Valentine's Day hater, but I will say that I prefer the innocent kiss, the I love you scribbled on a scrap piece of paper, or any other gesture expressing love that does not involve the preparation and craftiness involved in the classroom Valentine card.

With Love
Cupid

Potty Pooper...or not

OK, so the little guy is now 4 and was only potty trained a few months prior to turning 4, but we were finally living in a house in which everyone peed and pooped in the potty....until Sunday. For some reason, he has regressed, he is on strike, he is plain old lazy---one thing is for sure, there have been far too many wet pants the past three days.

So, I am calling on you--oh medical experts, psychoanalysts, perfect parents, potty boot camp instructors, peers who poop in the pot, and so on and so forth. Please share your wisdom, come into my home, exorcise the demons, do what you must and I will turn my eyes. Please, bring us back to the crapper once and for all.

Thanks in advance!

Double trouble....bathroom style

So, I am on the phone today (with a doctor, not a personal call people!), and I hear those words that I really have learned to loathe: "Mooooooooooooom, we neeeeeeeeeeeeeed you". As I am trying to listen to what the assistant is telling me in one ear, I hear more words, words that I now loathe even more than those first words: "we're in the baaaaaaathroom". Oh shit. This cannot be good.

I complete my call, take a deep breath and climb the stairs, like a dead man walking. Please no mess, please no mess, please no mess. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

OK, I walk in to see the following: one child, the only one armed with a penis, standing in front of the toilet with a dumbfounded look, hanging on to said penis. The other child, who shall remain anonymous, is sitting on the little potty like she owns the thing. She says: "I was just sitting here minding my own business and then HE came in and started peeing and sprayed all over me and everything. My clothes are soaking wet. Can I still wear them? Will they stink? And look, I did a huge poop in here!!! Wipe my butt."

Well now, if that isn't a nice "how do you do", I do not know what is! Let the weekend begin!

Birthday Parties

So, with four kids, it seems that we will be attending many a birthday party over the next few years. And it seems, that this year, we have hit the January jackpot. Over the course of the last month, we have attended eight borthday parties.
So, last Sunday we attended a party at a local paint your own pottery type of venue. The birthday girl's parents were kind enough to extend the invitation to our younger two since their younger daughter is in class with them. So, off we all went, as a family, to attend an hour and a half of controlled mayhem.
First, let me just say that the party was well done, the parents are so kind and generous and nothing about this post is about them. It is about me and my lack of tolerance for that level of mayhem.
The venue: small. The number of parties going on at once: two (Plus general public allowed in any time as well in the front area of the room). The number of children being instructed, painting, etc: at least 35 between the two parties. The number of times the kids were instructed to say Happy Birthday to the birthday girl "as loud as they could": twice. Wow, once was enough.
In any event, the kids all came away with a fun painted item that they did themselves and all had smiles on their faces...at least til we loaded them back up into the car and the fighting over balloon color ensued.
Just another relaxing Sunday afternoon.