Mistakes in Motherhood

It has been nearly a week since I left my house. Saturday the older kids and I took down the Christmas tree while the little three napped. Let me tell you, pine water does NOT clean like pine-sol. We tossed the tree over the back deck and the plan was to take it to the dump the next day. I ended up not going because I had someone coming to buy some furniture from Craig’s List. When Liam woke up from his nap, the moment he saw the tree was gone, he burst into tears, poor little sweetie was so sad his tree was gone. That night we got some snow, not a lot, but enough that I didn’t want to leave the house, as I need new tires.

By Monday it was a huge mess, we kept getting more and more snow. They canceled school on Tuesday, and the kids were so happy to have a four day weekend. Wednesday we got a huge storm and had over a foot of snow. For this area, that is a lot. I had the boys shovel the walk, in case it iced over, and it did. Thursday morning I heard my sleep number bed clicking, which told me we had lost power. And indeed we did. I knew we were running low on staples, and the only gas in my home is a gas fireplace that we did not have the gas key too, and that has never worked. We had enough cereal for that day, and we had stuff for sandwiches, but none of my meat was thawed, so I BBQed some potatoes in foil and we topped them with cheese, sour cream, and bacon chunks. The sun had set, so we were enjoying dinner by candle light, with plans of all the kids and I sleeping close in proximity, when the lights came on.

Now, we were excited, but not convinced they would STAY on, because they had been flickering on and off all day. One time Austin said “I hope we have lights by bedtime” and I said “I hope we have lights right. now.” raising my hands to my ceiling… and just then the lights turned on! But were off almost immediately. As soon as it was clear the lights were on to stay, we sprang into action. One kid heated up leftover meatloaf and green beans to go with our dinner. Another kid plugged in all portable electronics, cell phones and the space heater. I turned up the furnace and made sure the pilot was on. We did not have high hopes it would last. 200,000 people in this area were without power, and could be for up to a week, so I did not think we would be one of the lucky ones to get lights within 12 hours. The new housing development behind us was not as lucky. A full 24 hours later, their windows are still dark.

In the night we lost most of our tree branches on our shade tree in the front yard, all barely missing my car. My neighbor was also fortunate that her large tree, that lost its largest branches, also missed her cars. Our enormous tree in the back yard was leaning, and it was clear it would probably come down. There were concerns it would take the fence with it, but my neighbor and I watched as it tipped, and then broke off, landing a few inches from the fences. Until the ice melts and we can move the branches, I will be stuck in my driveway. The kids have had a full week without school. Power flickered off again this afternoon, and I let out a string of profanity, but thankfully it came on before I could add a 6th word to my diatribe.

I also got a nice long nap this afternoon which was MUCH needed as I have been sick since earlier this week with a cold that has now settled deeply into my lungs. Christopher and Matthew have also been sick. Between the three of us, I think I have lost half a bottle of Tylenol, and most of a box of Kleenex.

No Comments | In: This is how I roll | tags: Domestic Diva, Family, Health, House Stuff, Insanity, Lame-o. | #

Earlier this week I had a busy busy day. My new bed was delivered (which I LOVE) and the carpet my daughter ruined 6 months ago was replaced with vinyl. Sophie was SO up the rear end of the repairman it was hilarious. Any time the door opened she would chine “IT’S CHRIS!” and he would mirror back to her “yes, it is Chris!” and she would run check in on him every 2-3 minutes. I was in the other room with Liam and I hear Sophie talking to Chris. She’s got that know-it-all tone going on and I just know her hand is on her hip. She says “That is my mommy. I like her. She’s nice. She’s my girl.” At this point both Chris and I are cracking up. She is such a sweet little pixie. I like her. She’s my girl.

No Comments | In: People, Places & Things | tags: Family, House Stuff, Parenting, Silliness, Sophia. | #

For the last three days, I have been haunted by a dream. Not the events in the dream, but the house in the dream. It is not a house I recognize, it is not even a house I can picture myself in (it appears older, and run down). But for the last several years, I see this same house. Only the back yard, and very specific details. A converted unattached garage at the back left corner of the property, the garage has been converted to a mother in law apartment with access to an alley in the back, and into the yard on the side. It is a small studio with a bathroom, and kitchenette. On the very back of the property is a chain link fence, and a garden that spans the entire back of the property, but is only about 8 feet wide with a small rock path from the garage to the back yard. In front of the garden is another fenced in area, this one not as long, just as wide with a worn out wire fence. Half the yard is flat, then it inclines leading into a walk-out basement. On the main floor of the house there is a large deck, and one more floor above that. The house is blue, or green, and barren of any sort of foliage. I cannot tell what area this house is in, although it has green grass, so we can rule out Texas or Colorado. LOL

The dreams itself vary, and usually don’t stick with me, as much as this house. I have very briefly seen the inside, but it seems that the back yard is the most significant element. The last dream I had involved finding out the mother in law apartment had been broken into, and a mother, father, and toddler were living in there unbeknownst to us. We ended up finding out they were legal immigrants who could not make ends meet and had recently lost their home. We agreed to let them stay and furnished the home with stuff we had in the house, allowing them to stay rent free and feeding them meals, in exchange for help around the house in the evenings. I babysat the little boy for a few hours while they worked to get some money saved to get a place of their own. This part of the dream seemed sort of injected into a dream that focused mainly on the back yard. I just wish I knew what it meant.

1 Comment | In: A lot about nothing | tags: House Stuff, Me, Ramblings, Sleep Deprivation. | #

With the oldest 3 kids in school I have been struggling a bit trying to keep the princess from being bored without her entertainment. She did not care for my ideas; coloring turned her into a sobbing puddle of goo, reading to her just annoyed her, and car rides to do stuff just ended in us both being frustrated. About the only thing she enjoyed doing was taking out every toy she owned, and digging through her dresser and discarding clean clothes onto the floor mixed with dirty clothes. Flustered, I had had enough. I reached out to my friends on Facebook who recommended toy rotation. And so the planning process started. I made a difficult decision to finally allow the 6 year old and 3 year old share a room, they had been asking for a year, but when I let them sleep in the room with the bunk beds, sleepovers were always cut short because of climbing accidents.

So instead of moving the kids into the room with the bunk beds, I left the loft portion of the bed in the playroom and removed the latter, and put the bottom bed into Sophie’s room. We got two large bags of clothes out of dressers to go to Goodwill, and packed up NINE totes of toys, each tote holding 11 gallons, which will be stored in our storage room until we rotate them in, and move other toys out. It was hard to let go of a lot of the clothes. In the process I also donated the last of my scrub sets. It was a hard decision, I always thought about going back to nursing school, or working as a nurse aide again, but it just does not make sense to store them any longer, especially when I can easily get more at places like http://www.blueskyscrubs.com/ so easily.

I am tickled at how well the two rooms look, and it will be very easy to move Liam’s crib into the play room once he is ready to leave our room. Bedtime has not been as seamless, 6 days later we are still struggling with them falling asleep in a timely matter. We are still dealing with fighting and tattling, but either in time I will grow immune, or they will chill it out. Another perk, I now have a “guest room”, so as long as you don’t mind literally climbing into bed, or sleeping in a room filled with toys.

Next on the agenda, is going to be going through my kitchen to get rid of dishes, and appliances I no longer need. Taking a trip to the dump, and getting my storage room back in control.

No Comments | In: This is how I roll | tags: Domestic Diva, House Stuff, Insanity, Liam, Matthew, Parenting, Sophia, Sponsored. | #

Back in 2004, before the housing market went all topsy-turvy, we purchased our first home with a VA Home Loan, the process itself was easy and pretty fast and I would do it again, in fact I house hunt weekly and drool over where we *could* live. Problem is, the value of my house has dipped so much, I can’t even do a FHA Streamline Refinance. However, I view this as a blessing. It means we can’t jump into a new home without taking the proper steps first. That means 20% down, and a 15 year mortgage with payments plus insurance being no more than 25% of our take home pay. Until then, we will be happy renters and be thankful we found a house that we can fit into, with a good school district, GREAT neighbors, and allowed us to keep our pets. So, if we can’t sell our house in Colorado, and we can’t but a house in Washington in a while, I guess it’s not all bad. We will call it a 5 year plan.

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Today I ran into my front snag. Liam fell asleep in my arms while I was talking with a neighbor after taking Matt to the bus stop. Since he rarely does this, I figured I would ray him in his crib and get some nice baby free time. He rarely naps out of my arms, so it was awesome when I was able to lay him down and get some chores done. Unfortunately I forgot to change him before the trip to the bus stop. I also forgot that I was testing a single flat in a pad fold. I also had him in a larger cover that I normally use for night time, so it was not as snug. When he woke up he had this first leak. Not bad I guess considering it was probably the 40th flat. I blame this on user error, not diaper failure.

Last night, it looked like we might be clearing up, so I decided not to wash diapers and to wash and hang them in the morning, so I can sun them in the afternoon and dry them in a couple hours vs. overnight, and naturally bleach them. Mistake #2. I KNEW the forecast wasn’t calling for sun this week. I had one clean cover left, and he had already had a big poop earlier, I would be fine. I washed and hung his diapers and I noticed him turning red. I guess the poop earlier was just a warm up, and this was the main attraction. I cleaned him, got him nice and doubled up, went to grab a cover and none was to be found! I looked on the rack and four were hanging and I just put the 5th into my soapy bucket so I could wash it too. So if I really was without a washer and dryer, today I think I would have run screaming to the laundromat or to a friends house. Since this was an emergency, I decided to think of a way to rapidly dry the diaper that the average family home and the only thing I could think of was the hair dryer. I may have been cheating, but while the baby happily chewing on his feet in a diaper sans cover, I was washing the newly pooped in diaper and had the hair dryer angled to blow on the dryest of my 4 covers. It got done just in time too, after he nursed, Liam was exhausted and went to bed.

Overall though, I still wish I had known about flats when I was a new mama. My hubby had just joined the Army and we were struggling and living paycheck to paycheck. I remember letting him wear his diapers an extra hour or so because I knew how expensive they were. I remember counting change and hoping we could scrape together enough for a small bag of generics because we were a few days from payday. Even if I had cloth diapered part time, it would have really stretched our budget. However, in 1997, I didn’t know anything about cloth back then outside of the diapers my mother used one me. Even back then, I would have had options outside of the rubber pants my mom used on me. That is a picture of my mom and I in 1980. I was 15 months old.

2 Comments | In: A lot about nothing | tags: Cloth Diapers, Domestic Diva, House Stuff, Lame-o, Liam, Me, Parenting, Photography. | #

When I was a kid, we frequented a lot of home and garden shows, or attended the displays at the state fair. I didn’t really care for the rides at the fair, my two favorite things were the livestock (I loved the cows, llamas, and sheep) and the home & garden areas. Not because I was planning my future home or anything, but because I adore swag. I loved the pens and pencils displaying whatever window company, or the personalized notepads with the name of the fencing company. My dad let me put the stickers on his file cabinet, and I would joyfully color the coloring pages advertising hot tubs, or landscaping companies. My mom still has my tiny promo mugs from A&W that are my kids’ favorite for tea parties or treats when they visit grandma. It is easy to see why I would enjoy browsing GOPromos promotional items, I bet my professional friends could find some pretty neat personalized items to hand out as swag at their next child & baby fair!

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I have been so very busy. On May 7th, the day before Mother’s Day, I declared I was going to proclaim today as my mother’s day. My oldest son presented me with a card he bought and he and all his siblings filled out. He traced Sophie and Liam’s hand on it. He also had gone to three different different store looking for a specific candy I like without luck, and settled on three of my favorite candy bars. Our sweet neighbor gave him a pretty gift box. Matthew planted me a plant in a flower pot he decorated, and made me a card. My husband told me if I didn’t go buy myself a Keurig, he would buy one for me, spend a lot more, and have to mail it to me.

I was also feeling sentimental, so I sent Austin’s birth mom a text message thanking her for allowing me to be his mommy. She called me right back and we talked for about 30 minutes. It was nice to hear that she had no regrets, I have always worried she consented to the adoption out of desperation, and not because she truly wanted the best for him.

On Sunday, Austin turned 15. This is why I did Mother’s Day early. I knew he would make a fuss about it, and I didn’t want anything to distract him from his birthday. The little stinker still did, he made me breakfast in bed, and made eggs and bacon for the little ones. For his birthday dinner, he wanted me to make him BBQ Ribs on the grill. I also made corn bread and green beans. It was delicious. He played with his friends most of the day, he literally came home when the street lights came on. It was glorious. Our gift was delivered on Monday, a trampoline! The “t” was partially obscured on the package, so now the kids call it “the rampoline”.

For three days Austin and I built the rampoline together. Christopher helped keep the little three busy. I may or may not have taught Austin some new words as we stretched springs, and pulled safety nets tight. On the first day, I took a break for dinner, and just when I was about to put the last 5 of 8 safety net poles up, I asked Austin “do you smell something chemically??” He looked downstairs, and I looked in my bathroom, and I do believe my head exploded. That is a full bottle of deep purple nail polish, and some bare minerals face powder. I scrubbed on that thing for probably 6 hours (I was up until 3am) and I managed to lighten it to a lilac color, but it didn’t come out. I will need to replace the carpet in my bathroom. Right now it is half vinyl, half carpet, and I am hoping our landlord will let us rip out all the flooring in the bathroom and replace it with coordinating vinyl.
Liam is growing so fast, too fast. His new name is Mr. Grabbyhands. He has learned how to play with the toys on his bouncer to activate music. He has also learned how to make mama yelp in pain by grabbing onto a huge handful of hair and yanking really hard. He also can roll from his belly to his back, and most recently his back to his belly.

No Comments | In: A lot about nothing, People, Places & Things | tags: Adoption, Austin, Christopher, Domestic Diva, Family, House Stuff, Liam, Milestones, Parenting, Updates. | #

What a joyful day! While our nation collectively celebrated, I had a ton of mini triumphs. I met a woman on Craig’s List last week who was buying diapers, I had some I had bought, picked out a few and decided to pay them forward along with a couple dozen other cloth diapers I either decided not to use or that Liam outgrew. I refused payment for them, so she thanked me by making these really amazing carrot cupcakes. They were fantastic!

After her visit, my MacBook died mid sentence again. The battery was almost fully charged, and it wasn’t just sleeping, it just shut off for no reason at all. One call to AppleCare and it was decided I would drive to the closest Apple Store, 40 minutes away, and they would take a look at it. My battery was swapped out, the inside was cleaned and I was sent home. I am letting it drain the battery after a full charge and it is down to 85%, dipped into sleep a few times, and seems to be working better than ever.

My third victory is that my maintenance guy stopped by this evening to install my new water heater. I had been having a leaking issue for months now and a couple weeks ago I decided to get to the bottom of it. A quick release of the pressure release valve convinced me the water was from the tank. Maintenance replaced the PRV, and my back patio was still suffering from Chinese water torture. He suggested that maybe my 23 year old water heater was dying, but we would need to wait for approval for it to get fixed, etc. New one is in and I have hot water. However I didn’t know that when you replaced the water tank, the pipes would drain, and water would need to be pushed out. If you want to simultaneously convince the toddler, baby, and cats that the Apocalypses is here, run air through pipes. My daughter ran to her room screaming, the cats had to be peeled off the ceiling, and the baby’s eyes about popped out of his head and he screamed bloody murder.

Cherry on top was Skyping with my husband. I love him.

No Comments | In: This is how I roll | tags: A lot about nothing, Bobby, House Stuff, Liam. | #

When we switched hats from homeowner to landlord, we had some new issues to think about. Before we moved out of our home, we had a guy come in and stretch, repair, and replace some carpet. I could not believe how much difference it made in the appearance of our floors, I would compare it to a face lift, for well-worn carpet. However, short of replacing it all for thousands of dollars, stretching was a practical compromise. My central Texas friends, if you have carpet repair needs, I invite you to try out The Steam Team, for your carpet repair services in Austin. The steam team also offers carpet pet odor removal Austin, which is so important if you have ever had pets in your home, even if they have never had an accident, because you may not notice pet smells and odors from the oil in their coat, or waste tracked in from outside or litter boxes on their feet, but your guests will. However, if you have ever had a cat, you know that cat pee odor removal Austin is so important if you want to prevent future soiling. I have a cat who will pee on towels if they are left on the ground, so getting those odors out is essential, because cat urine is one of the most pungent smells ever.

Hopefully you never know the feeling of wondering why your shower is not hot anymore, checking on the pilot of the water heater, and finding that it has failed. We have had that happen twice on us, but luckily it only burst the one time, and we lived in a house without carpet. However, if you are not so lucky, it is important to have someone you can count on for cleaning up water damage Austin, it is especially important that they offer around the clock service, 24 hours, 7 days a week, because the longer you let the water sit, the bigger the problem, and then you would need carpet mildew odor removal Austin.

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