It's My Birthday, Shake My Booty

In 1976 (the year you were born)

Gerald Ford is president of the US The US celebrates its bicentennial, marking the 200th anniversary of its independence The Viking II sets down on Mars' Utopia Plains Promising, "I will never lie to you," Jimmy Carter is elected president of the United States Israeli commandos rescue hostages from Entebbe, Uganda The Concorde begins flights from New York to Europe Cray-1, the first commercially developed supercomputer, is invented by Seymour Cray Freddie Prinze Jr., Reese Witherspoon, Colin Farrell, 50 Cent, Fred Savage, and Shannon Elizabeth are born Cincinnati Reds win the World Series Pittsburgh Steelers win Superbowl X Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup Rocky is the top grossing film Filming begins on George Lucas' Star Wars The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins is published The Eagles Their Greatest Hits compilation becomes the first album in history to be certified platinum "Tonight's The Night" by Rod Stewart spends the most time at the top of the US chart Charlie's Angels and The Muppet Show premiere

What Happened the Year You Were Born?
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Girls Night Out

Last night, I went out. WITHOUT MY CHILDREN! My "local best friend" and I got to escape our little angels for two and a half whole hours and have adult conversation, wear any kind of clothing we wanted (read: no worries about little fingers 'decorating' it, pulling it, wiping noses on it, etc), focus on no one but ourselves and do what we wanted to do. It. Was. Great. We went to Chipotle for a quick bite. I'd never been there before but I think I have a new favorite place to eat! Taco Bell has nothing on this place. Afterwards we mosied on over to Barnes and Noble to browse. Browsing has become a luxury. We looked at books and talked and walked slowly and didn't have to have a wandering eye to keep tabs on little blonde people who like to hide and think it's great fun to run away from mom, especially while together. These two have been compared to Simba and Nala. They're little best friends/escape artists. So do you want to guess where we ended up spending the most time at Barnes and Noble? Do you? Bestsellers? Home Decor? HTML for Dummies? Nope. The children's section. We are just sad.

Two hours flies by when you're having fun. When we came back to my place where all the children were hanging out, the house was dark. Paula, Saint of all that is good, had the kids in the family room watching a video, trying to get them to wind down in order for them to relax enough to go to bed. It worked. I didn't even get through Trey's bedtime story before he closed his eyes. Good friends + good tv + Paula = Exhaustion = Happy Mommy. An hour later my hubby was on the computer so we were able to actually chat before I went to bed...at 1am. Yeah, so the kids were up at seven but that's ok because I got to talk to Bill and coffee is my friend.

Today my to do list includes:
*laundry
*pack a care package to send to Bill
*go to the post office to mail said package
*head out to Costco (woohoo!) for some vitals
*pay bills
*hopefully catch a nap while my little ones are down
*and church in the evening which not only fills my soul spiritually but socially as well

It's going to be a good day.

Goodbye

I just got my alumni magazine from my university and found out that one of my favorite professors, Dr. Baldwin, passed away after a long battle with cancer. He was my philosophy prof. and made us laugh every day. He made philosophy understandable, interesting and fun. Daily, he would tell us funny little stories about his family, how his wife would roll her eyes at his sense of humor or tell us about one of the funny things one of his grandkids said. He was quite liberal for a Christian and even called one of the local malls "Fascist Island". He was definitely a splash of color on campus. God Bless You, Professor Baldwin.

I Don't Understand

I'm in line at the grocery store. A woman pulls her cart up behind me as I'm loading my groceries onto the belt. She then says to me, "Is it a girl or a boy?"

Leah doesn't have long hair, she didn't have a headband on, she didn't have "girl" tattooed on her forehead. But she was wearing a shirt with pink and purple flowers, pink pants and had on socks with pink flowers on the ankle. "She's a girl", I replied.

The lady responds, "Oh, I couldn't tell. She doesn't have on any earrings."

You know, if you drive two hours north you'll see plenty of little boys with their ears pierced. Sometimes the baby's daddy sports more bling than the mommy. If that's the only way you can decipher gender, you've got problems.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Get Back Into the Water

Unfortunately, I have to pull Trey out of preschool. They just went through a change of ownership and a lot of strange things have been happening. He hasn't even been there a full month and already they've lost two of his sheets and his blanket, all which had his name on them. He is the only 'Trey' in the whole school. They suggested to the parents to keep sunscreen in the child's cubby for when they play on the playground. It hasn't been used once and he's come home sunburned twice now. Trey is very fair, blonde and blue eyed. I've never received any reports on curriculum and there's never been any project of any sort for him to bring home. Every time I pick him up I ask what he did that day. Now of course, a three year old isn't going to tell me the ins and outs of school but I expect something. He can't tell me anything new. No new songs. No painting. No new crafts. Nothing. Yesterday my friend was there picking up her son and she told me that she found Jacob in the foyer with some other kids, alone! The only thing separating the foyer from the parking lot is a set of glass double doors. Anyone could have come in and grabbed them, or the kids could have run outside and into the parking lot. What is going on? One of the directors is moving to Colorado and the other one, whom I really like, is soon going on maternity leave. I've made an appointment for another preschool to tour their facility early May. Unfortunately, the earliest I could get him in is July 5th and he'd be there 3 half days instead of 2 full days. And that's not even a definite. The good part is, if Trey's in their summer program, he's guaranteed a spot of the fall and this is a highly recommended school. I want to put him there for K-8 and one of the ladies at our church is the 1st grade teacher there. Numerous kids from our church attend school there, so I'm a little more confident about this place. I'm sad that I have to pull Trey out of school but Lord knows what could happen to him with the lack of supervision going on. Out of all the new teachers that have been hired I doubt any of them actually have certifiable educational credits. It seems like it's turned into a giant daycare, and that's not why I put him in school.

So, we will have two months of our old routine and then start a new one. Another benefit of switching is that Trey's girlfriend (hee hee) is probably going to be attending the same preschool. Her parents and my husband and I joke that they will go to the prom as friends and when telling their own friends about it say something like, "Yeah, I'm going with this person I've known since I was two. S/He's such a dork!"

Who knew that the social calendar of a three year old could entail so much?

ABC's

Accent - Dude, None. Do, like, Californian's have accents and stuff?
Bra size - Varies depending on how recently the baby ate
Chore I hate - Dishes!
Dad's name - John
Essential make-up - mascara and lipgloss
Favorite perfume - Estee Lauder, Pleasures
Gold or Silver - Either
Hometown - Vista, CA
Interesting fact - I'm a decendent of the Hershey family
Job title - Stay at Home Mom
Kids - 2
Living arrangements - Blessed to be living in a four bedroom house with my husband (when he's not deployed) two kids and two cats with wild rabbits who think our back yard is their buffet.
Mom's Birthplace - Fontana, CA Don't go there, they'll cut you.
Number of apples eaten in last week - None
Overnight hospital stays - 2, when my kids were born
Phobia - spiders
Question you ask yourself a lot - Why can't I get anything done?
Religious affiliation - Baptist
Siblings - none
Time I wake up - anywhere between 6 and 7
Unnatural hair color - blonde and red highlights
Vegetable I refuse to eat - Lima beans
Worst habit - procrastination (See letter "Q")
X-rays - I vaguely remember having one when I was a kid but don't know what it was for
Yummy food I make - Brownies
Zodiac sign - Taurus

One eye open

Dear Trey and Leah,

Let me tell you how it works. When one of you naps, the other one naps. None of this falling asleep stuff just as the other one wakes up. Also, let's get on the same page with the early morning wake-ups here. Is there an unspoken tag team rule between you two that I wasn't aware of? You know, it's okay if both of you sleep past 6am on any given day. I won't tell! I thought I was tired in college. I thought I was tired when I was in college, working and pregnant with you, Trey. I even thought I was tired when I was pregnant with Leah and chasing a two year old around. But there was one factor in those equations that gave me a break now and then who isn't here now: Daddy. Go to sleep! I'm tired!

Rambling

I am currently dining on the finer things in life: Two Buck Chuck from Trader Joe's and Ruffles Sea Salted Natural potato chips. Ahhh, this is the life. I had to cut my phone conversation short with one of my best friends since my gabbing woke the princess. I'm not loud, honest. Leah happens to have supernatural ears when I want her to sleep and when I'm trying to do things around the house to rouse her indirectly, she completely blocks them out. For example, this morning I had to be at church at 8:30 since I was part of a group singing in the beginning of the service. This shouldn't have posed a problem as Leah has developed the bad habit of waking at 6:30am or so. Seven o'clock comes and goes. Then 7:30. I put a load of clothes in the dryer. Nothing. I don't nag Trey about keeping quiet when he's singing and dancing with The Wiggles. Nothing. The cats have one of their psychotic, wide eyed rips through the house. Nothing. I have to go in and wake her at 8:15! My low key phone conversation in the office an hour after she finally falls asleep wakes her up. Ugh!

I figured I'd be productive while chatting with my friend and prepare the dish I'm taking to my MOPs meeting tomorrow. Grate two different types of cheese. Check. Wisk the eggs. Check. Add the milk...uh...how much milk? Oh man! I forgot to write down how much milk I need for this dumb dish! My mom is the owner of the recipe. My mom isn't someone I can call at 10:30 at night. She will think that my husband has been shot or that I finally followed through on my threat of launching one or both of my children out the window. The ingredients sit in my fridge until the early morning when I can call my mom and respond to her concerned "hello?" when she sees my number on the caller ID with, "hi mom, eveything's ok, I forgot how much milk to put in that dish." Then she'll sigh at me like she does when I forget something I should have remembered. I'll throw everything together and pop it in the oven hoping that everything is completed in time for me to make it to my meeting at nine. Oh yeah, I still have to wrap two secret sister gifts and make my coffee for the morning. Bill always made my coffee for me, now it's one of the many tasks I've added to my forever-long todo list. Laundry, dishes, vacuum, laundry again, take out the trash and recycle bins, play with the kids, drive here and there and get gas on the way, pay bills, balance the checkbook, wash the cars, make the beds (stop laughing all you people who know me personally!), clean the cat box. Wow, I'm even boring myself. This gourmet wine certainly cures insomnia. Not that I suffer from insomnia but I'm sure if I did, it would cure it.

Goodnight.

Glutton for Punishment

Why do I watch Extreme Makeover? When the best show in the world was still on (Friends) everything was fine and I'd watch the lineup on NBC. Now that I had to find something new to fill the Thursday night lineup (no mom, I couldn't turn off the tv) Extreme Makeover was the only thing of interest. True, it makes me feel a lot better about myself after looking at these poor souls with deformed jaws, missing teeth, four noses and three chins, but then again, it just poses all of the options to make oneself that much better! Have tiny lines in your skin? Get Botox! Have a slightly crooked nose? Let us chisel it straight for you! Teeth don't resemble Barbie's? We can fix that, but we'll have to remove the ones God gave you first. Don't wear a size 0? What's wrong with you, fatty? Diet and move your butt!! Now that's good tv. I think I'll grab some peanut M&M's next Thursday as I sit down to watch it again.

You Talkin' Tuh Me?

Yesterday while Trey was in school I had some errands to run, one of which was to run out to the hospital to have some paperwork filled out for said school. While I waited and waited and waited in the pediatrics office, one of the employees of the hospital came up to the reception desk to gab with the ladies behind the counter. There was a small vase with three or four sticks of bamboo sitting there to bring some life to the area. The lady who walked up started saying something about having some bamboo at home and putting it in a bowl to which she added a goldfish. When I heard goldfish, I really started listening. I thought, you don't put goldfish in with bamboo you crazy woman! but didn't say anything...yet. This woman had such a southern twang that I found it quite entertaining to listen to her speak. She obviously wasn't shy since she decided almost everyone in the waiting room needed to hear what she had to say and turned around to look at my daughter. After commenting on how cute Leah is (she's so right!) she then asked me about the fish, "do yew know anythang about whut kinda fi-ish to puht in thar?"
"Um, I think you're supposed to put a beta in but I'm not sure."
"Oh raht! A beyta fish! Haw haw haw. Here Ah wuz puttin a goldfi-ush in thar and Ah jest couldn't understayand why it wuz dye-yun. Hey! This girl really knows about fi-ush!"
"Um, no not really. I've just seen some of them at the store. You could always go to Wal-Mart or something and ask what you should put in with the betas."
"Have yew seeeen the peepul who work at Wul-Mart? They ain't the brahtest crayon in thu box if ya know whut I mean."

Um, yeah. Well said.

What Does This Mean?

I had a dream last night that I was making my way through a very crowded airport or hospital. So crowded that I had to keep stopping so parents could tell their kids to move out of my way, since I was dragging a rather large bag behind me while carrying another one on my shoulder. It took all of my energy just to drag these pieces of luggage with me and the frequent stops and starts were making them that much heavier. Out of nowhere and completely unexpected, I see Bill, standing there with his arms out. I dropped everything and ran over to him and fell into his arms in a big heap.

I can tell you what it means. My children are the luggage. Trey is the one I'm dragging behind me and I'm carrying Leah. They're not baggage in the sense that I need to dump them, but I'm constantly having to care for them and carry them around. My help mate is gone and I'm subconsciously finding this job overwhelming. There's a reason God intended parenting to be a two person job!

Here's the things we've dealt with on our own these past six weeks:

• Completion of potty training
• Crawling
• The beginning of pre-school
• Stomach flu
• Pulling up on any piece of furniture, stable or not, & thinking she can stand on her own
• Maintenance of a 2300 square foot home on my own
• Maintenance of two cars and trying to figure out when I can get them to the mechanic for routine oil changes and such with two little ones...and oh yeah, the truck needs a new clutch.
• Trying to plan my daughter's first birthday party which will be here before I'm ready and figuring out how I can capture it so her daddy can see her special day when he returns.
• Filing fed taxes, to include a schedule C which is a total pain since I have this little home based business and tons of write-offs
• Trying to fill out state taxes (his, not mine!) before the deadline this Friday
• Dealing with a particular department store who we've been battling with for almost two years since the outsourced employees in India have no idea what the store manager actually said in Carlsbad, CA and they can't get their facts straight
• Acting out and testing boundaries since we're three and our best friend is on the other side of the world
• Listening to the news and reading said news about IED's and shots fired, bombs, children being killed and how everyone hates our President while my husband is over there and his job is to try to get these guys to reenlist for four more when all he wants to do is be home with his family, play the bass at church on Sunday and grill some burgers in the back yard.

If it sounds like I'm complaining, I am. It's my blog and I'm allowed to have a woe as me kind of post every now and then.

Here's some things I have to look forward to experiencing on my own while Bill is deployed:

• My birthday
• Mother's Day
• Leah's birthday
• Leah walking
• Leah talking
• Fourth of July, ironic since it's almost like a celebration for him
• Our ninth wedding anniversary

I completely support our President. I'm not happy that we as a country are still in Iraq, but talking to one who is there and sees the truth and not just what CNN says is the truth, the Iraqi's want us there. They are getting closer to being able to do this on our own but there's still a lot of deception among the different groups of people. We are paving their roads, we are reaching out to the local people helping them to become autonomous, we are training their military so that they can stand up for themselves, we are helping. Not everything that has happened there has been ideal. There's been mistakes. There's been tragedies. The people you don't see on the news are grateful for our presence. Saddam is gone.

Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely -Animal Farm

(stepping off soap box now)

Flutter By

These are EVERYWHERE!

I Can't Believe this is Still an Issue

Montana Drinking & Driving Laws

What's Up With That?

Why are my comments not showing up on other people's blogs? I've commented this week on Beth's blog, CurlyTrouble, and Judy's blog and they're not showing up!!

It's a conspiracy I tell ya! A C-O-N...spiracy!

I am up too stinkin' early today because we have a playdate and I have to finish cleaning my house. Did you know that company is great for housekeeping as it makes you look at your living situation through new eyes? I am a perfectionist when it comes to others seeing my house. When it's just us, I'll get to it later. It's been so beautiful and sunny and the temperatures have been unseasonably warm. Today...when there are to be five children in my home...and the plans were to scooch them out into the backyard...scattered showers. This is also the day my gardener should show up. Don't look at me that way. We only have a gardener because my beloved Manly man is gone and I cannot possibly do everything by myself. It's definitely a luxury I could get used to, though. Maybe I'll show a picture of our back yard and you can see why I need someone else to mow the back forty. In all honesty, my new blog friends will probably laugh at my version of a large yard seeing as how they are not from California where a "yard" these days is about the size of a postage stamp...but I digress.

We survived our first week of preschool. I made sure to keep my cell phone with me at all times on Tuesday because I was sure the school would call me to pick up my crying baby. The phone never rang. I drove over a bit early to get him and all the kids were on the playground. Trey was happily driving a red and yellow plastic car, you know the one, and when he saw me he got out and ran the other direction. He did better than I thought he would. The first thing out of his mouth was, "I don't wanna go back to Trey's house!" Good sign? I think so. My only beef so far is that he's fallen down and scraped up either his elbow or knee both Tuesday and Thursday. If we keep going at this rate I'm going to need to wrap him in bubble wrap. Do they sell that at Costco? The really good thing is that he doesn't nap nearly as well at school as he does at home which means he's not fighting me at his 9pm bedtime. Sometimes I even get him to bed and am back downstairs by 9 which is especially important Sunday evenings for the simple fact that my guilty pleasure, Desperate Housewives is on and it's just not as good the following day viewed on VHS.

What did I do these Trey-free hours you ask? I'm currently in a class at our church called Experiencing God on Tuesday mornings (awesome, by the way) so that takes up my a.m. time and then it's all about the princess. She is a different baby when the spotlight isn't shared. I've never seen this girl flirt and show off as much as she did Tuesday! She was waiting for her time in the sun, I suppose. Next time, I'll have to break out the video camera. Thursday I went to Costco. LOVE Costco. I wish they sold more stuff...honestly! I got to cruise up and down every aisle at my own pace, not having to warn fellow shoppers that a little Tazmanian Devil was on his way to attack. I could look at the kids books without suggestions to look at "this one! and this one! Wow! What's thaaat? Mommy!!!" Thrilling! I know I know...you wish your life could be so glamorous. I'm sure there are many more exciting adventures that the little lady and I will take on our Tuesday/Thursday girls' day outtings. You'll just have to wait patiently for me to post them! Now I am off to empty the dishwasher and pick up all the cheerios that have migrated from Leah's saucer to the floor.

Au revoir!

This is the view from our bedroom window and shows about 1/4 of the back yard.

Hee hee hee

Doin' the Happy Dance

Tomorrow starts our new life. Trey. Starts. Pre-school. WOOOHOOOOO!!! I don't know which one of us is more excited. We have been talking about school for almost a year now. It's what I used as leverage in potty-training. I searched all over North County for the *perfect* place to send him, finally found one, paid the deposit, turned in the forms and he will be there bright and early tomorrow morning.

I love my son dearly. He's a bright, inquisitive little guy with a good heart and he loves to learn new things. I'm tired. I'm happy that someone else can stimulate his little sponge-of-a-brain for two full, yes FULL days a week. He gets to socialize with other little kids and do things that he can't do at home either because we a) don't have the materials b) didn't think to try it at home c) mommy has to take care of the baby or d) I'm just too plain tired to do much of anything. Every single morning after he wakes up he asks if we're going bye-bye today. The kid is bored. He has a library of books, Play-Doh, toys, a swingset, board games, puzzles, crayons and the list goes on. He doesn't want any of it. He wants to be with people. I'm not a people person. If I could spend the whole day alone and not speak to anyone I would be in heaven. Trey is just like his daddy and wants to be on the go and out with his buds. Now we'll both get to do what we want. Or at least I'll get to do what I want on Tuesdays and Thursdays while the baby's asleep.

Monday is MOPs, Tuesday is school, Wednesday is park day in the morning and church in the evening, Thursday is school and Friday is our play date day. The social calendar is full. This really does make the week go by faster and every Sunday is one Sunday closer to Bill coming home.

Isn't it sad when your dreams go from exotic vacations with fruity drinks and glamorous dinners to being able to grocery shop without having to say, "stop touching that!" every five seconds or going to the postoffice and not losing your place in line in order to keep your child from pulling all the stamps off the display wall? In two years both kids will be in school. What will I do then? I think I may implode from the excitement of the possibilities and then fall to the floor in a heap from the guilt of wanting my kids to be gone a few hours a week.

Trey and Leah: I will always love you dearly and you will always be my babies. Please don't put me in a home.

The Squeeky Wheel

Wow! Just as I went to view my new post about Blogger eating my post that I tried to put in on the 1st, it showed up! I guess I should have complained earlier. Guess Blogger doesn't like to be viewed as eating primate hindquarters.

Technology Sucks Monkey Butt

Stupid Blogger ate my stupid post and it's not stupid showing up, STUPID! This isn't the first time this has happened, but it will usually show up within a day. I guess it's lost forever! Since I changed my template, you can't even see who posts comments unless you try to post as well! Anyone have any suggestions on how I can change this?

I'm a FOOL, a Painting Fool

One of the ladies at our church offered to take the kids off my hands once a week while Bill's gone. I didn't have that luxury while he was home but you can bet that I'm smart enough not to pass up that offer. Usually she and her son come to my house and I go off to do some errands or browse the bookstore or some other task that's usually impossible with the presense of little people. On Wednesday, I dropped the kids off at her place. The possibilities were endless. Three whole hours to do whatever I pleased. A nap? A bath? Read something longer than half a paragraph in a magazine? No. I painted the entryway to our house. Complete glamour. It's amazing what a fresh coat of paint does for your living quarters. Hmmm, this paint sure is a lot whiter than I remember. Paint dries darker than it goes on, right? It doesn't look like it's going to darken up much. This IS the paint for the entryway....right? Where's the rest of the paint we bought? I checked all over the garage with all the other paint supplies. This was the only can of Behr that I saw. Weird. Now if I were Bill, where would I have put this stuff? Uh oh. Hey, look at that. It's in the laundry room. Of COURSE! It makes perfect sense to store your paint in the laundry room instead of in the garage with the rollers, pans, drop cloths and brushes. *Sigh* There's the correct white paint that I needed. I'd painted the entryway Ultra Brite White. The high gloss white we used to paint the table and chair set that Trey got for his birthday. Well, at least I didn't use red or blue or some other dark shade and I was able to correct it immediately. Did you know that painting causes you to notice all the other flaws on the rest of the walls in the house and if you're like me you want to fix them NOW? I took my little brush and went all around the hallway, up the stairs and into the hallway on the second floor to correct all of the neglected spots. It looked great!...until I looked at it from a different angle. The Behr paint we purchased had a low gloss on it. The original paint sprayed on by the builders is flat. Man. Why do home projects always turn out to be bigger than intended and way more work than what HGTV shows? Now I have shiny spots on the walls. At least it's not the dirty looking marks that sat there before, right? Right? Oh, come on! I'll fix it when I have another free day, or at least by the time the kids are in school.