6 Months....Really?!?!

Hello there! It has been more than 6 months since I have posted on this blog. I have written about 100 stories in my head, usually while driving home from work. Why is it that when I am alone driving in my car is when my best ideas come to life? I figure it is because I am ALONE! The only time I am alone is in my car driving to work and driving home. I usually have the radio blasting listening to anything but the pop stations my kids love. I don't hate it but it is just nice to listen to something else for a change. Although I think it is the cutest thing listen to Lilah butcher the words to her favorite songs.

It is Saturday morning. Usually by this time we are at bowling, Kaleb bowls in a kids Saturday morning league. He is pretty good and getting better every week. Today was supposed to be awards and cosmic bowling but he has been with grandma since Thursday night and is having a good time and wasn't ready to come home yet. The new season starts next Saturday. No break! Seriously? So when he said he didn't care if he missed today I was totally ok with it. I never get to just hang out on Saturday mornings in my jammies. Josh is still sleeping and Lilah is playing with all her Christmas presents and watching Enchanted at my feet. She doesn't like to be very far away from me when we are home. It is sweet and after seeing my Kaleb grow up so fast I know that as irritating as having a child be your shadow that it is so sad when that time they think you are their everything is over. Kaleb is 10 and he will no longer kiss me on the lips and gives me the head first hug as not to get to close to him. He is busy with learning and exerting his independence. He is so smart and handsome and I can see him and changing and maturing right before my eyes. It is amazing and heartbreaking at the same time. No way can my sweet little baby boy be growing up so fast!

And Lilah. I am so in love with her. Her sweetness and beauty just crushes me. Her love is so sincere and so intense. She is not afraid to express her feelings. She makes me so happy and everyone else around her so happy. I wish she could stay 3 forever.

This year like the last few flew by. It is true what they say about time flying. Time seems to be a short commodity in my life right now. It is the working mothers plight. Never enough time. I work, I commute, I corral my children to their many activities, I try in vain most times to keep my home in good working order. I wish I could quit caring about the state of my house. But I can't. It drives me batshit crazy. It is a perpetual disaster, always seems to be low on groceries and there are piles upon piles of laundry that need done at all times. Who needs clean towels? Who wants Taco Bell for dinner? Here...use a paper plate. I, on many occasions try to plan and organize my life to run more efficiently. It is always in good faith that I do this. In my head I am a machine. A person capable of doing it all and doing it well. In reality I am a machine....just one that is usually a bit short on oil and gas and in desperate need of  tune up. I amaze myself sometimes at the amount of shit I am able to get done. And that my sanity is still mostly intact at the end of everyday. But I am also my own worst critic. My house needs to be cleaner, my kids need to eat better, I need to lose weight, my hair needs colored, I need to quit biting my nails and get some better clothes. I could save so much money if I would just go the store and find some time to cook on that one night in the week I am not carting my kids to basketball, dance and karate........blah blah blah. My inner self is always fighting with itself. "You need to get it together"....."Bitch re-laaaax!". I am really hoping to find a happy medium soon! :)

As the year come to a close I have been thinking about what a great year it has been. My family has been happy and healthy, I got a new awesome job and FINALLY have permanently cut ties with the company that caused me so much misery. We got to go on a real family vacation to 2 places I didn't think we would ever afford to go to, Disneyworld and the beach. I am really pissed at myself for not taking the time to write about our trip after we got home. It was a great vacation and a huge event in our family. Maybe I should still write about it before it becomes just a distant memory. We have the photos but how nice would it be for us to be able to go back years from now and hear the little details in my voice. I think about this blog and how years from now we can all go back and read it and remember things about our life that we might have forgotten. For my kids to know how I felt and get a glimpse of who I was when I was younger. It really is just a great way to document our life together.

So of course because I am neurotic I have a million resolutions for the 2014. Most of them are the same ones I have every year but in summary they are all the same....just to keep improving and growing and doing things a little bit better. And to write more!!! Once in 6 months is just not acceptable. See you in 2014!!!! To it being a fabulous year for all! Cheers!

 

I Got Nothing

I really want to write something funny or interesting but I got nothing. I am pretty sure that I write the best posts ever in my head on my drive home from work. It's a long drive. I find myself here tonight with some of that rare stuff called "time" on my hands. Not because I have just done all that I need to do and find myself bored but more like......fuck all that shit, ain't doing it.

I just sent Kaleb for 5 days with his grandpa. They are driving up to Chicago tomorrow to visit family and have some fun. Wish I was going. I didn't want to let him go. He wanted to go so bad and I didn't want to crush him. It's the first time I have let him go anywhere like that without me or Josh. I trust grandpa explicitly but he's my baby! And I am a nervous, anxiety filled crazy who spends a great part of each day thinking of all of the worst possible things that can happen in any given situation. I am a psycho. I told him I was going to clean his room while he was gone and throw away all of his crap. I know...mean. I really am going to go in there and clean out a bunch of shit. It's hard to do when they are there. Why do they always seem to grow an attachment to something they haven't seen or touched in 2 years? "But Mom, I love that thing!".  I won't get rid of anything he cares about. I guess. He will be back Monday and then starts school on Wednesday. Is it me or did this summer fly by? I guess they all do.

Lilah is crazy as ever. And cuter than ever. She counted in Japanese tonight. I was seriously amazed. I was loading the dishwasher (glamorous I know) and she twirling around in the kitchen just counting away. She picked it up in Kaleb's karate class. Kaleb can't do it and he is the one who is supposed to be learning it. It drives me crazy because when you try to quiz her about things you know she knows or think she should know she always says "I don't know". She knows. She just refuses to do anything on demand. She is so obstinate. If she doesn't want to do something she isn't gonna do it. But if she wants something be prepared to see her go into psycho Lilah mode until she gets what she wants or cries so long she forgot what she wanted. She cried and whined for 40 minutes one night because I wouldn't stop on the way home from daycare to get her a drink at the gas station. Somebody had a drink that night and it wasn't her!

Well, I must go for now but I leave you with some random little bits that if I was genius enough I would have written myself.

 

Chicken nuggets are a food group.....Right?

So I have been busy lately. Like stupid busy. The kind of busy that I loathe. The kind of busy that makes my couch a distant memory. And I love my couch! This new job is demanding. It is demanding mentally, by workload and by time. I am working longer and I am working later. It is stressing me out! I am finding that going from being a big fish in a little pond to being a minnow in a vast ocean to be taxing, overwhelming, pushing me closer to that Xanax prescription I am always talking about getting. It's tough being the new kid on the block. I found 2 gray hairs today. W.T.F!? At the same time......and I know I am gonna sound like a mental patient after all the bitching I just did......but I LOVE my job. I love my boss and my new co-workers. I love that I am treated like an adult and given freedom and flexibility. I love that there is no D-R-A-M-A. I love that when I walk out for lunch I am not verbally assaulted by a bum or in fear of being shanked by a mental patient (yeah that was an issue at the old place)! I know that I will get the hang of it. I know that I will be awesome at the job. Just having some growing pains.

Lilah had dance tonight at 5:30. I was supposed to leave work at 4:00 but could not get out of there earlier than 4:30. I really needed to stay later but I had to get her to dance. I drove 30 minutes to daycare (traffic sucks), get both the kids in the car by 5:10. Drive through Mc'ds' since both kids are "starving to death", get to dance, get Lilah's dance clothes on in the back of the car and get her in class just in time. Class is an hour long. By the time we get home it is close to 7. Thank god we have already had Mc'd's. I swear I have not served a proper meal in my house in a month! I really need to get it together. Last night I did serve some baked chicken (cooked last Tuesday to save my thawed chicken from rotting) and some cooked carrots and applesauce. That felt like quite an accomplishment since Spaghettios, hot dogs, chicken nuggets, pop tarts and fast food have been on the menu of late. If they put you in parenting jail for feeding your kids nothing but non nutritious food I would be serving life. I am not proud of that one. I have got to get my head out of my ass. This sure is the total opposite of last summer. I cooked everyday and spent every waking minute with my kids. That was the life. Really. It definitely beats feeling like a hamster in a never stopping spinning wheel.

I have dishes in the sink, laundry to fold, bills to pay, and everywhere I look is a disaster. But wait a minute....Lilah NEEDS her nails painted. She actually holds her hands up and says to me, "Mom, look at these nails. They are driving me craaaaazy!" This child. Such a little diva. I don't want to paint her nails. I have shit to do...like sit on the couch and enjoy the hour of evening I have left. But the look on her face when I told her no. I don't like to break my baby's heart. So I painted her nails.... and her toenails. See you can't do one without the other right? She actually refused to put on the shoes I told her to wear the other day because they didn't match her purse. What? Who's kid is this? Certainly not mine. I could care less about shit like that. She was born high maintenance. Instead of a college fund I am going to start a "But Mommy I NEEEEEEED this fund". She's gonna break me.

Well I gotta go for now. It is past 9 and the little one needs to go to bed. She won't go to bed without me. That's right. I am a bedtime prisoner.

But I do love the snuggles. :)

Look how great these look! Bahahahaha! She said that the colors go together like 'best friends'. How freaking cute is that?

What Whats and Haircuts

What's up people? Not much in my world except that I GOT A NEW JOB! Holla...whoopty woop....what what!! LOL. Seriously though......YES! I am really excited it. Today was my last day at my current job and I wasn't even a little sad to leave. There is just something about the place that oozes bad juju for me. I went through a lot of BS and heartbreak in that building and if it wasn't for the fact that I was breaking in new shoes and my feet hurt like a bitch I might have actually ran out of the building. Now I am sad that I won't be seeing some of my work friends daily but I know that this isn't the end of the friendships we have. Now we will just have more of a reason to get together outside of work.  So now on to bigger and better things! I hate the saying that "Everything happens for a reason" because when you hear it is usually after something shitty happens in your life. However, my life has been a testament to that. Sometimes it is just hard to see when you are waiting for the good to come from the bad.

I am really excited about my new job, the company, the position, the benefits all of it! One tiny drawback is that it is in Overland Park and I will now have to battle traffic and never ending road construction. What is it about Johnson County traffic? I have hated it my whole life and now for the first time in my life I have to drive in it daily. I think I am just spoiled as traffic in the Dotte is non existent. One complaint though...what the hell is up with the construction on State Avenue. At any given time there are a total of 3 people working on it in a 5 mile stretch. At this rate it will be done somewhere around the time Kaleb graduates high school!

Speaking of my handsome ass kid did you see his hair?!?!? He cut it ALL off. It was becoming quite an issue with the two of us. He was not washing it or combing it properly and I was so sick of it. Trying to brush it out was a disaster and either one or the both of us ended up in tears. So I demanded a hair cut. I told him he didn't have to cut it all off but that it needed a "trim" at least. ;) After much deliberation and a look at some haircut books HE decided to go super short. I was shocked and really a little sad. His hair has been long for so long that I was scared that he would regret it and be sad. I was pretty emotional when it was being cut but once I saw that I would be able to see 100% of his beautiful face again I was thrilled. He now reminds me of the little boy I used to have all those years ago except in a way too big body. I am not at all happy with the rate in which he is growing up on me. He just finished the 3rd grade last week. Damn it. BTW I swear his personality changed instantly with the haircut. He seemed more outgoing, more confident. He was eating up all of the attention he was getting too! I put a picture of him on FB that night and he was very pleased that it got over 30 comments. His teacher told me that it was a really big deal the next day at school too and caused quite a ruckus that morning in class.  (Ruckus...what am I...90?) Love this kid! So damn much. 

Before 

Getting ready to chop it off!

Our hair for Locks of Love (that I forgot at the salon :()

We're getting there

Holy Crap...he is a new kid!

Losing It

I have seriously become one of those people who cannot function without a large cup of coffee every morning. It doesn't matter how much sleep I have had or if it is Sunday and my main objective is to lay on the couch and watch TV all day. I need coffee! Josh bought me Keurig for Christmas and it very quickly became my favorite and most used small kitchen appliance. I am currently hooked on the Dunkin Donuts Coconut coffee with Coffeemate Coconut Cream creamer. It is seriously the tits. Anything coconut makes me think of some tropical paradise with white sandy beaches, crystal clear water and hot cabana boys who bring a never ending supply of cocktails and give free shoulder massages. I wish. I so fucking wish.

I have been super stressing about my job situation. I don't know why. It is what it is. I have to find a new job. Sucks. I started working on my resume and found a few jobs that I want to apply for. The thought of going through interviews and starting somewhere new and going through training and working different hours and spending half my life commuting just sounds like hell. My current job is a short drive, offers fantastic hours and I seriously rock my position. Losing all of that makes me sad. And mad. There is a possibility that a job will open there in a different department but I am not holding my breath, nor am I sure that I want to go that route. I am thinking that this is my sign telling me to get out and get out now. I got out before and was never happier. I had some serious second thoughts about going back to the madness and turns out my instincts were pretty right on. Why prolong the inevitable?

The stress is really messing with my brain. I am always a bit scatterbrained but this week was out of control. On Monday nights Lilah has dance at 5:30. I get home about 4:15 with the kids and have to get  everyone fed and her ready and us out the door by 5:15. It is totally manageable if I have the sense to be prepared for it. This Monday I was unprepared. I had nothing planned for dinner, nothing quick and easy to make. Shit. Who wants Wendy's? I get everyones order, get Lilah in the car (she has to go EVERYWHERE I go) and head to Wendy's. I get to the drive thru, order our food and pull up to the window. OMFG I don't have my purse! How the hell did I forget my damn purse? Sorry Wendy's dude but I forgot my purse and have NO money. So I have to go back home and tell Josh I forgot my purse. This is embarrassing for me. He gives me a lot of shit when I do one of my scatterbrained things. So I leave Lilah in the car and go back in for Burger King orders. I am not going back to Wendy's. I was embarrassed and I was afraid they would try to give me the food they already made for me and it would be gross by the time I got it home. Josh shakes his head, gives me his order and back out the door I go. By this time it is about 4:40. Lilah and I are not going to have much time to eat but oh well. I get to Burger King, hit the drive thru, place my order and drive forward. there are 2 cars ahead of me. I reach over to the passenger seat to grab the wallet out of my purse only to discover that I DON"T HAVE MY FUCKING PURSE! Seriously!?!?!?!?! I went home to get my purse and well.....didn't get my purse. Now embarrassment has turned to shame. What the fuck is wrong with me? Do I have early onset Alzheimer's Disease? Is the dementia setting in early? I am out of time. There is no way I can get home, get my purse, get some food, get Lilah fed and ready and get to dance on time. Fuck it I am done.

The worse part you ask? I had to go back home empty handed and tell Josh that I forgot my purse again. Of course he thinks I am crazier than a bag of wet cats. I walk in the front door and he says, "Where's the food?". I say "There is no food. If you want some food get up and get it yourself!". Because you know it is totally his fault that I forgot my purse twice. And how dare you think that I am solely responsible for providing food for the entire family at every single meal time and don't you know how much fucking stress I am under? I have to work and do laundry and buy groceries and make dinner and pay bills and clean this house and find a new job and be a mother to two kids. "Eat a fucking corndog!". :) I wasn't nice. It wasn't his fault. Kids ate a corndog and I took Lilah to dance. I eventually calmed down and got over it. We even finally got some food. 3rd times a charm!

Dear Amy

The past few days have been pretty shittastic. First I get a bomb dropped on me Friday and the next day get taken down hard by strep. That fucking strep loves me. I hardly ever get sick, but when I do it's strep. (Did you just picture Richard Branson holding a Dos Equis?) 

Let's start with Friday's bomb shall we? Scene: A roomful of non-suspecting employees that think they are going to have an innocent little team meeting. Ha. Dummies. Enter the Boss, The Big Boss and the HR lady. Um.......WTF?!?!?! Now in all seriousness people my heart dropped to my stomach at this very moment. I knew this was not gonna be good news. And it wasn't. You know that new job that I JUST FUCKING STARTED 7 MONTHS AGO? Well.......it is going to be ending at the end of this year. Now I knew that my time with this company was likely temporary as my employment was a result of a 5 year contract to provide services for a "client". But I thought I had at least 5 years. We did get the  "It is not a reflection of your abilities or performance" speech. Damn right. I worked in the department for 4 years (3 of them with the previous operating company) and I have NEVER saw the place operating with such efficiency. It is amazing how well things can be done when D-R-A-M-A isn't running shit. 

So yep, that happened. I am back again on the hunt for new employment. I was looking through a listing of my old posts before starting to write this one and ran across one I never posted titled "Job Hunting Blows". This was my opening paragraph:

"Do you know what is really soul crushing? Submitting your resume to a million places for jobs you know you are qualified to do and not getting even a bite or a nibble on any of them!! Now I will be the first to admit that my job experience is all over the place. I have been a waitress, bartender, office manager in a dental office, and worked with union retirement benefits. Not necessary a clear path to a career in anything. Now I know for certain that I can do just about any job set before me that has even the tiniest bit of training. Too bad these resume screeners do not know that. I keep saying that if I could just get a damn interview that I would be so hired. Have you met me? I have a brilliant personality! :)"

So I get to venture back out into the land of the soul crushed. And I am so damned pissed off about it. And a lot sad. I work with a bunch of really great people and we really all do make a great team. And I like my job.....so much. I am really just pissed and sad for all of us. But it's business right? 

So Friday after work a couple of us went to drown our sorrows together. But you know what happened? We had fun instead. I have never been one to dwell on my problems because well, dwelling doesn't do anything but cause you more heartache. And dwell we did not. We drank, we laughed, we danced, we just had a good time with each other. We closed the mother down. 

At 6:45 Saturday morning I was very rudely awoken by my alarm clock. W.T.H. Oh shit. I have to pick up the kids at grandmas and have Kaleb to his Saturday morning bowling league by 7:30. Noooooooooooooooooo!!!!! Why did I stay out so late? Why did I drink so much? Why does my head feel like it is stuck inside of a gonging bell? OMG. I have to do this. I can't put this off on the grandparents. These are my kids. Let me just say that the bowling alley is on the list of the top worst places to be with a raging hangover. For shizzle. 

Bowling is over pretty early (apparently I am an overachiever since half the other kids didn't show up for the early ass start time). I go home, eat something and snuggle up with my baby girl for what I want to be the rest of the day. But nope. Lilah has a birthday party invite for 2:00. This is her first "kid party" and she is looking so forward to it. And I happen to know that Princess Ariel is making an appearance at the party and how much that she is going to love it. So I muster up the energy to get us ready to go and we go. She had so much fun. The party was really awesome and I really enjoyed watching her play with the other kids and participate in all of the party fun. Pretty early into the start of the party I start to feel really crappy. I chalk it up to hangover hell and just get through it. The party is over and we are driving home. I start to feel worse. Like horrible, not normal hangover shit. I get home and I go down. I have body aches and chills so bad I can't stop shaking. My throat is on fire and my head is pounding. What.the.hell. I am sick. Like sick sick. I was so miserable all night. I woke up Sunday and was worse. Josh and the kids took me to Urgent Care. It was so crowded in the waiting room. I told them to go home and I would call when I was done. Instead they went to McDonalds. Poor Josh. Had he known I was going to be there for 2 hours he might have just went home. He was unsuspecting of the misery that is the McDonalds PlayPlace for parents. You see, he has NEVER been there before. I guess this was his payback for all the times I went there alone. :)

Urgent Care is full of all kinds of people. None of which were as sick as I was. At least that is what I am thinking as I lay there dying while these seemingly healthy people are all getting called before me. So what if you were here first. I AM FUCKING DYING!!!!! When I finally get called I get my 2 minutes with the Dr. and sure as shit I have strep. I have had the shit enough times I already knew that though. Just gimme the damn prescription so I can go home. I get some Penicillin. He tells me I can go back to work in 24 hours. So Monday's out. Shucks. I was so wanting to get right back to that place I know I will only be working at for a few more short months. Maybe having strep isn't so bad. 

But now it is Monday. I didn't go to work. I was feeling better. No body aches, no headaches. But my throat still hurts like a bitch and there is some serious puss oozing out of my tonsils. Kaleb has been complaining of a sore throat and headache since last night. Take him to the Dr. today and sure as shit he has strep. We must have caught it early because you can't tell by looking at him that he is sick at all. Well at least we got him some meds too and he can go back to school on Weds. Josh is on vacation starting tomorrow so I don't have a good reason to stay home from work again. Damn it. 

Queen Pin

Yesterday a grown woman, a mother, was smack talking my Lilah. She is the mother of another little girl that bowls in the same league as Lilah. This is a bumper league that consists of 3-5 year old children. They bowl one game and it is not at all competitive. I look it at as a fun way for her to participate in a little group activity with other kids her age, learn something and gain some confidence.

I take the run and drop the ball approach since she is not strong enough to throw the ball on her own. 80% of the kids in the league do it this way. The parents cheer and the kids get excited if they knock down some pins. It's a good time. 

Yesterday we were having a problem getting the ball down the lane. We were on about the 4th time of them having to go retrieve the ball for us so she could try again and were only on the 4th or 5th frame. This is a common occurrence with kids this age.  I was getting frustrated and feeling bad that we were taking so long. I turned around to give out a 'sorry you guys' look to all of the other parents when I see this bitch running her mouth and glaring us down. Um....what?!?!? I can't hear what she is saying but I know she is saying it about us. We finally get the frame finished and my friend Sandy whose son bowls on the same team as Lilah comes up to me and tells me that she was saying very loudly that kids who are not ready to bowl shouldn't be bowling and talking about how late it was getting and that she had shit to do. WTF. I am seriously ready to slap this bitch. Since we had taken so long it was Lilah's turn again on the other lane. Damn it. I didn't want to have a repeat of the last frame so I gave the ball a little push to make sure it made it to the pins. While we were finishing the frame my blood was boiling. I was trying to decide what to say to this woman as to not cause a scene with all of these kids around. I pretty much decided, f it. Not gonna say anything. She is just a white trash bitch. However....when I turn around Sandy was having a bit of a confrontation with her. So I went over. She was in full denial...."I didn't say anything. All I said was that is was noon already". Lying skank. Sandy told her that she was talking about a 3 year old child loudly and that if she could hear it so could the other kids and that she was setting a shitty example. I put my 2 cents in and said something like "Sorry my kid isn't a bowling genius like yours" or something stupid like that. Why do I always come up with the awesome comebacks when it is too late? Long story short, she shut up. She had been called out for her bad behavior and hopefully she was feeling like a total asshole. Who does that? A 3 year old. A freaking 3 year old. Her daughter on the league is also 3 by the way. I wonder what she would have done if someone did the same to her daughter?

Later when I thanked Sandy for standing up for Lilah she said something that I loved. She teaches her kids that we should not tolerate mean people and that standing up for others is just as important as standing up for ourselves. This is a great lesson for our children and it is too bad that all parents don't practice this teaching. This lady was teaching her kids the exact opposite. 

And how on earth could you be mad at this face?????

And by the way....later in the game her daughter threw her ball and got it stuck between the bumper and the gutter. I couldn't help but smirk. :) 

Tomorrow?

I just spent 20 minutes on two really boring paragraphs. Then I spent 10 seconds deleting them. It has been 2 1/2 months since I wrote. You would think I would have something interesting to say. All day long I think of things I want to write about, things that I think are entertaining or funny. But right now I ain't got shit. I think my brain is tired. I know the rest of me is. Maybe tomorrow.

I took this picture tonight. Lilah and I had been playing in her room when Bubba decided to join in. They are so crazy. I love them more than words. And yes...that is a Christmas tree...on January 24th. I know.