That's some mighty fine parenting

Breakfast



Hopefully it was mostly empty when his dad gave it to him.

Inwardly raving psychotic lunatic

Today was flowing along like any other day. The Big Guy and I ran errands in the morning and came home at noon after picking up Spunky Girl at preschool. So far so good. I make the kids lunch and start cleaning. I clean and clean and clean and a hour later, you can't even tell that I've made an effort. I've got the laundry folded and put away, but the rest of the houss is still a disaster.

Hubby calls and asks me if I'd rather him come home for a quick lunch or pick something up at a fast food place on the way to the hardware store. I encouraged him to come home and I'd make him lunch. I start to work on his turkey sandwich and iced mocha. He gets home while I'm still making his lunch and sits down to play a computer games while he eats.

Meanwhile, it is time for the Big Guy's nap. The Big Guy has been resistant to nap time lately. The "scream-my-bloody-head-off" kind of resistant. Today was no different. I tried rocking and singing to him before bed, but he continued to scream and pitch a fit so I just dropped him in his crib and shut (okay, I slammed) the door. So my frustration meter has climbed a little...

Hubby has finished his sandwich and helps himself to chips. He makes a joke to Spunky Girl that his crunching will probably annoy me, but sits down to eat them anyway. I look around and the dishes are piled up to the ceiling and the Big Guy is still screaming...and now Hubby is crunching on chips. Frustration meter climbs...a lot.

I start working on the dishes, but the sound of chip crunching coming from the other room is echoing around, bouncing off the walls and driving straight into my ear drums. "Come On", I think to myself "get a grip...the guy can eat a few chips without you getting annoyed". Somehow, that fails to stop the irritating noise. Hubby invites Spunky Girl to have some chips with him. I'm sure at this point he can hear my slamming around grumpily in the kitchen and it just trying to keep her out of my way, but it doubles the chip crunching. I soooooo badly want to tell him to STOP CRUNCHING, but I can't because it simply isn't reasonable.

My mind scrambles. I realize that I shouldn't be mad at him for the chip crunching, but surely I can be mad that he's playing computer games and I never get a break from the endless workload. Ah, yes, something else to fixate on. The frustration meter rises even higher. Mentally I know I'm not mad about the computer games, I'm really mad about the chip crunching. But I can't be mad about the man coming home for lunch, saving us cash, and eating chips IN THE OTHER ROOM. What is my problem?

The Big Guy screams on in his crib. I'm gonna lose it. I bark at Spunky Girl to come help me clear the table. Apparently I know it is okay not to yell at hubby for crunching chips, but think it is okay to bark at my kids to make them stop the irritating behavior. Hmmm. She drops a plate, making a bigger mess. It is just pushing me over the edge.

A bolt of lightening to my brain. A solution appears. "Honey, could you go pick up our daughter from the busstop?". Spunky girl asks to go with him.

< quiet >

3 blessed minutes of quiet. No chip crunching. No children talking. Even the Big Guy takes a momentary break from screaming.

My breathing starts to return to normal.

I eat a piece of cake. A 450 calorie hit to my day (which will be glaring on my new calorie counting exercise), but so worth it. Sanity returns.

Calorie Counting and My trip to Costco

At first glance, it seems like there ought to be a connection between the two items in my title "Calorie Counting" and "My trip to Costco"...but there isn't.

1) Hubby, a few friends, and me are starting a new calorie counting effort today on my-calorie-counter.com. Anyone else interested? Come join our group. My profile name is LisaSanford (tricky, I know). The site is free and we'll probably be dedicated to it for at least a couple of weeks. =)

2) Today I took my kids on a Costco run. Lucky for us, there were food samples spread throughout the store. Lucky for us, that is, until we ran into the Otis Spunkmeyer cookie sample lady. We stopped by to get our samples and gave her our best smiles (after all, she has the power to give us big or small cookies). She struck up a conversation with the kids, asking which child was the oldest. Suddenly she locks eyes with Spunky Girl, my middle child. The lady launches into a spiel about how being the middle child is the most special. She told Spunky Girl, in front of her younger brother and older sister, that the other kids get all the attention in life but the middle child is really the one that turns out a success. The middle child, in her long-winded opinion, learns so much about how to interact with people in her "special" role as middle child that she instantly becomes a successful and highly-loved person in life. She tells her that middle children turn out to be lawyers and other highly successful adults. (It was clear that cookie lady was also a middle child and I found it a tad ironic that she was describing the successful career jobs that magically exist for middle children while she was serving choco-chip cookie displays at Costco. I've got *no* issues with being a display person as a way to earn money, but it does kind of water down the "middle children end up highly successful" argument.)

I think at some point she realized that she was being really rude to my other children and tried to redirect some of her attention to them. Her attempt was something like "you kids know what I mean, right? You (pointing to my eldest) get all the attention for being the oldest and you (pointing to my young son) get all the attention for being the baby." And then she went right back to my Spunky Girl and told her the rest of her life would be her turn to shine.

The lady talked so long that I kept edging farther and farther away and had to turn around to keep her from talking to my back.

Really, I think Spunky Girl was the most confused of all. I don't think she ever gave her middle child status any thought. My eldest, in her sweet way, said as we finally broke free "Well, she was certainly bragging". I thought it was a funny way to end the moment.

An acurate reflection

Hubby and I watched Marley & Me last night. Overall, we gave the movie a B. While the story was neither fascinating nor surprising, it was fun to watch and had the expected tear-jerker moment at the end. We've found ourselves bringing up little parts of the movie today, remembering specific scenes and commenting on them. The movie reminds us of ourselves and our marriage.

I think what we liked the most about the movie is that it validates what we've got going on. Yes, we love each other. Yes, life can be CHAOTIC and STRESSFUL with three kids (and no dog) and yes, sometimes we take it out on each other. But we love each other and are thankful to be together. We're thankful for each child that God gave us to love and raise.

There is one scene in the movie where Jennifer Aniston's character is overwrought and says "I know I chose this, but I didn't expect it to be this hard. Nobody told me it would be this hard." I can totally relate to feeling that way. There is just times when you feel like there is no way one person can possibly manage all that is coming at her and yet this is what you chose for your life and you don't want to give it up for someone else to do.

She has another line that says something about "I've given up all the things that made me me" and that line resonates too. Especially in the baby years, I found it challenging to maintain any part of my life that wasn't related to child-rearing. It is comforting at that time to think that it is only a temporary suspension of those things...that you can add some of those things back in when the kids get a little older and you can carve out more time for yourself. Sometimes I think that and then I catch myself just looking forward to when my kids are older and I have more freedoms. I don't want to miss out on what is good about this time in their lives because I'm focusing on what's coming next.

I like that the story ends with both the husband and the wife looking back and realizing that what they thought they needed (i.e. the things that made them "them") was not what made them happy and what makes them happy is the things that perhaps they thought were burdens. I love the love they shared between them and the love they had for their family and that stupid-but-adorable dog.

BTW, anyone who things that someone should have actually warned them about how hard marriage and child-raising can be is on crack. What do they really expect us to say? "Oh congrats on your engagement...you know that both good times and tough times are coming...right?" or "Oh, a new baby is coming, I hope you enjoy what time you have left before you give up life as you know it for your child". Yeah, that's just not going to happen.

Punk Kids

While in the car yesterday, Hot Daddy was telling me about some punk kids that were fooling around on the road. They were passing each other on curves, racing up and then slowing down, and generally trying to kill them selves and any other unlucky people in cars. At the end of his story he got quiet for a second and then said, mostly to himself, "I wonder when they became punk kids".

I know he wasn't wondering at what age those boys became miscreants, but rather at what age he began to see them as miscreants instead of his compatriots.

I laughed a little bit at him, but I think the answer is "when he got smart enough to really see the possible outcome to their antics." When we got married, it was definitely the back of the bus kid marrying the front of the bus kid. He liked to misbehave, I liked to behave. He and his friends suped up cars, skipped school, and misappropriated their parent's alcohol. I think I glorified his pre-me lifestyle. I thought his antics made great stories. Now...not so much.

Now defacing park benches seems like a waste of taxpayer money and a financial burden on parks that are already facing closure. Now reving engines on the street seems like noise pollution and makes me fear for the little children that might dart out. Now wrecking a restored 914 by taking a corner too fast and driving it into the rail seems like a ridiculous waste of time, money, and behavior that doesn't take into account the suffering one's family will endure if you are hurt.

Now the quippy little sayings, like "you can look but you can't touch" and "it doesn't hurt to get your appetite out as long as you remember to eat in", aren't funny in the face of the never-ending stream of broken marriages. I'm so tired of telling hubby that "so and so is getting a divorce".

I guess the good news is that Hot Daddy shares my perspective and gave up all his bad-boy behavior while he was dating me (with the exception of the motorcycle). Hmm. Now that I think of it, perhaps those teenagers became "punk kids" when he began to see them through my eyes.

Now it is time to go do the dishes. Ughhh.

He's got the whole world in His hands

Today I had 'Toddler Tunes' playing on the TV. With our Comcast digital cable, there are a set of music channels and Toddler Tunes is one I turn on for the Big Guy. I was singing along, of course, and I realized that they had changed the words to the song. The song was "He's got the whole world in His hands". They took all the He references to God out and put We in its place.

I felt a flicker of annoyance that the channel felt the need to strip God out of the song, but I understand that they are trying to appeal to a large audience of people that may not believe in the Creator. The more I thought about the song, though, the more I hated it.

"We've got the whole world in our hands"??? Why that is just simply not true. "He's got the whole world in his hands" means that God is in control. We don't have to let the world's problems (AIDS in Africa, the sex trade, the violence seen world-wide) overwhelm us. We can trust that our loving God loves every person around the world and is in control of their situation. That is what is comforting about "He's got the little bitty baby in His Hands, He's got the brothers and the sisters in his Hands, He's got the Mommy's and the Daddy's in His hands, He's got the whole world in His hands".

I think even those who don't have a faith in the loving God would still agree that we don't have control of every situation that occurs around the world. We don't have the ability to stop the drug trade, or stop violence, or stop diseases. We do our best to change the world, but we certainly are not in control. I can't sing "we've got the whole world in our hands" without being reminded that I don't have the ability to fix the world's wrongs.

I think they either need to play the song as it was intended or not play it at all.

A Shopping BLITZ

I don't think I ever got around to blogging about my shopping challenge. Perhaps that is because I think most people couldn't care less...but when has that stopped me from blogging about something?

The gist of the shopping challenge was this:
For 7 months, I committed to not shop for myself. No clothes, no shoes, no accessories, no jewely, no extraneous facial products, no fancy shampoos. I joined this challenge with 6 of my friends. We all committed to a number of months by paying in advance $20 for each month. Any person failing the challenge, by purchasing something they shouldn't have, forfeited all of their cash. The winners at the end of the challenge not only got their cash back, but they got to split amongst themselves the cash of those who didn't make it.

In addition to these rules, I had a special rule. Since I'm not the type to spend "too" much (whatever that is defined by) shopping, I had the extra rule that at the end of the challenge I needed to go on a shopping blitz and buy the things I liked WITHOUT worrying about the price tags. Since I am a budget-freak, I have been putting aside a little money each month during the challenge to add to my winnings so that I could afford the little blitz.

The challenge ended March 31st and I think it surprised no one that I was successful. I won $200 bucks from my friends (thank you very much for your contributions). I also have budgetted $40 per month for shopping in my household budget, so $40 x 7 is $280 more. I think I set aside another $100 during those 7 months, so my total available cash for my blitz was $580.

My first act of shopping after winning my challenge was to look through my friend Melissa's clothes that were headed for the consignment store. She was willing to sell me her designer clothes at a third of their original prices. I spent a total of $270 on her clothes, but I purchased around 15 items and she threw a few things in for free. I got several pair of designer jeans (Jeans for all Mankind, Big Star, David Kahn, Kut), several pairs of slacks, a few pairs of capris, 4 blouses, 3 dinner jackets, 3 skirts and a long dress jacket. When I started the challenge, I was wearing size 10/12 and now I am wearing a size 8 so the new clothes really helped my wardrobe.

I spent some of my blitz money on shoes. I purchased three pairs. The first is a pair of brown heeled sandals from Union Bay. Those cost me $35. My husband took me down to the Famous Brands "buy one get a second pair half off" sale and bought me a pair of Rocket Dog sneakers and a pair of wedge sandals from Sketchers. I'm including that in my shopping blitz totals, even though it was a gift from hubby. I think the bill there was $109 for both pairs.

Last night I went on the last part of my shopping blitz and blew the rest of my money. I went to the mall with Keri and Melissa for Melissa's birthday and bought some makeup at Sephora and Clinique. 3 eyeliners at Sephora was about $35 and powder and lipstick at Clinique was about $40 (but I got a bonus gift too!).

Then the girls went their seperate ways and hubby joined me at the mall where we did a little more shopping. We went to Hollister, Abercrombie & Fitch, and then to American Eagle. Of those 3, AE was a clear winner. Hollister and Abercrombie have the music up way too loud and their clothes are way too small for my body... and their prices were too high too. American Eagle has enjoyable music playing in the background, but not too loud that you have to yell at each other to converse. They actually have the size XL (unlike Hollister and Ambercrombie) but the Large size fits me fine. I picked up a pair of knee length shorts, 2 polo shirts, and a hoodie that will match my new Rocket Dog sneakers. It is so fun to shop with the hubby. He's great at handing me new things to try and he encourages me to get what I like (who wouldn't like that in a shopping partner!). We signed up for the AE store card to get another %15 percent off, so our total there was $109.

My last purchase was at the juniors department at Macy's. I know I'm not a "juniors" and haven't been for a decade or two...but the prices are so much better in the Juniors dept. I got a DKNY white sweater for $15 on sale...no way I could have bought anything DKNY upstairs in the ladies dept for $15. I also got a blue/green blouse for $20. I got an extra %20 off for charging the purchase to my Macy's card, so I think my total there was only $30.

So, drum roll please...it is time for me to add up my spree:
$270 for Mel's clothes (a great deal!)
$144 for 3 pairs of shoes
$75 for makeup
$109 for AE
$30 for Macy's
Total of $628 (as usual, nearly 15% over my budget. It is funny how it always seems to be 15%)

That feels like a really, really large amount of money to spend on oneself, but the shopping challenge was an extraordinary event and so the post-challenge blitz will not be something I make a habit of. Now I'm back to watching my $$ and trying to stay in my monthly budget. Hopefully no shopping for me for awhile!

Hope I haven't bored you too badly. Lisa OUT.