Saturday Snapshots (10/30)

Deep conversations.

“Zach, do I really want to go to Heaven when I die?”

“Well, duh, everyone wants to go to Heaven.”

“Why?”

“Because God is in Heaven, and Jesus. And good people. Good people want to go to Heaven.”

“But I’m not always good.”

“Do you want to be good?"

(silence for a minute or two)

“No, sometimes it’s boring.”

“It’s not boring. Boring is being grounded to your room.”

(another moment or two of silence)

“Yeah, that’s boring. I guess I want to be good and go to Heaven then.”

(conversation from October 22, 2010 on the ride from school, picture from September 22, 2010)

Jedi or Sith?

“Bella, are you a Jedi?” (me)

“No Mommy, Bella’s on the dark side. She can’t be a Jedi.” (Ryan)

“Oh Bella, are you a Sith then?” (me)

*NO! I no dark side* (Bella is thinking)

“Sorry Bella, you have to, cause I’m the Jedi.” (Ryan)

*Mommy! Ryan I not dark side! I be Jedi too!* (Bella is thinking)

(pictures from October 15, 2010)

Well my blog readers

I’m going to miss you all.

For those that don’t know I’m going to be out of town for about the next two weeks. I leave in a few hours to go on to my grandmother’s, and in the morning we leave for Phoenix. It’s a three day drive from here to there, and once we get there we have to go to my cousin’s graduation and then help her pack and get her stuff loaded to bring her home.

I love to travel… but not with kids, so this will be a rare treat. Before having kids I often went on trips with my grandmother since we have a lot of the same interests and hobbies, and I’ve really missed that. It’ll be a little difficult for me since my grandmother is no fan of smoking, and I won’t be able to smoke in the rental car, but she’ll forgive my first day or two of testiness while my body gets used to a lower nicotine supply. Who knows, maybe it’ll make me finally end up quitting altogether.

I’m undoubtedly going to miss my brats like crazy. I already miss them and right now they’re only ten minutes away at my mom’s. I don’t even want to think about how it will be without John for that long a period of time. We haven’t been separated for any real length of time in the past seven and a half years we’ve been together. As some of my older readers know I have gone out of town for a week before without the kiddos, but never have I spent more than a day or two apart from John. I think that will be harder on me than the reduction of nicotine.

I’m really really missing the Belly right now. It hurts inside of me to know I’ll be away from her so long. When I was out of town for a week last year she was so little she wouldn’t really notice. And I’m sure for her, even now at a year and a half, she won’t notice too much, but she does have a hard time being away from me, and I from her.

I’m going to set up a few blog posts to run automatically during my absence. They won’t be an every day thing, more of an every other or every three days type. Just depends on how many I can get done.

I’ll be back sometime around the 4th or 5th, and should see you all again sometime around then!

Saturday Snapshots (10/23)

Report Cards and Conferences

Ryan’s Report Card:

Ryan’s Parent/Teacher Conference:
Ryan’s conference went really well! I was much more worried about his than Zach’s since Ryan had been getting into so much trouble at school, but his teachers said they’ve seen a real improvement in his behavior. They said he seems to be working very hard at remembering and following the rules of the classroom now, and that he’s turning into one of their better behaved students. He’s one of their quickest to pick up on what they’re going over, and he seems to really enjoy learning.

Zach’s Report Card:

Zach’s Parent/Teacher Conference:
Of course Zach’s conference went well, lol, it always does. His teacher says he’s a joy to teach. He pays attention when she’s going over things, and she said his level of concentration on his work is just astounding. She said he works so hard to do everything so perfectly and precisely that he does have to be prodded to hurry at times, but that she’d rather have a student so committed to learning than 5 students who just want to finish their work on time. She said he was the last person to finish his first 9 weeks reading unit test, but he was the only person to not only make an A, but he was her first student in three years to make a 100 on it. (You wouldn’t believe my huge proud mommy moment I had then. lol) She said he’s a very slow reader, but again, not because he has difficulties but because he wants to work out the words as perfectly as possible in his head before saying them aloud, and he’s generally working on two or three words at a time.

Sometimes I hate you.

Sometimes I hate you, body.

You’ve decided to have rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 23. Really, this is pretty unfair to me, who wants to enjoy my youth. Taking my medicines everyday has become a habit I’d rather have not ever had. True, it does help me remember to take my birth control everyday on time since I moved it to the same time as the Celebrex, which I will not forget to take, but I still hate it.

As I always do when it comes time to have to get a refill of the Celebrex I started wondering if I actually need it. Since I have to take it everyday, and take it at as close to the same time everyday, I don’t get to experience my body often without it. I mean, how do I know I still need it? Before recently these flairs of intense pain were very sporadic and not frequent. It could be I just had an unusually long flair and it has since passed, but since I take the medicine everyday I wouldn’t realize it. I mean, I just feel so good and normal. No pain, no helpless feeling of not wanting to do anything because my body is screaming in protest at the simplest tasks, even eating during those flairs seems like too much of a chore. And body, you need the food. Especially after you lost 15 pounds you couldn’t spare before we finally broke down and went to the doctor about the pain.

I let my refill lapse.

Not permanently, and not purposely. The doctor is kind enough to give me about 3 weeks worth of free samples since he knows we just can’t afford a running prescription. But the doctor was gone yesterday when I called, and he’s still gone today. Which means I didn’t take my medicine last night. Which means today the pain is back. The stiffness. The feeling like I can do nothing because just barely moving, even to type, hurts.

I do need this medicine. That’s a fact I just should stop questioning. I don’t want to stop questioning it though. I want you body to self-correct. To realize you are a 23 year old body, you should not feel so old. Now we get to be in the waiting game. Waiting for the doctor’s office to call you back about your medicine. Waiting the 1-2 days it’s going to take for the medicine to take full effect.

Waiting.

Sometimes body, I really, I do mean really, hate you.

Dear Zachary and Ryan,

Spending the past 30 minutes doing the following does not exactly qualify as cleaning your room.

I figured I’d clear that up since the two of you were both pretty adamant that I was wrong, and that this is cleaning. It is not. This is wasting 30 minutes arranging your men where they do not belong anyway. Cleaning would be putting the men in the drawer labeled “Men.” I sympathize and understand your confusion since knowing where to put your men is a very difficult concept, but this still isn’t cleaning.

The Concept of MONSTER POWDER

I’ve mentioned monster powder once before on my blog. 

Monster powder is this truly amazing stuff. It works on monsters, ghosts, monster-ghosts, aliens, zombies, wampas, velociraptors, witches, mummies, vampires, evil dolls, and bad men.

It’s invisible and self-replenishing and free.

When my younger brother was a toddler he developed an unhealthy fear of bedtime. This was very surprising and baffling since, like Ryan, my younger brother was never scared of anything. My mother didn’t know what to do. She ended up calling my step-grandmother and asking what she should do, and my step-grandmother gave her a simple solution that worked for her, monster powder. She said to take a small salt shaker (like the tiny party size ones), empty and wash it, and then to give it to Spencer (my younger brother). What you do is let the child “sprinkle” the monster powder under and on their pillow, then rub it in. Sometimes the special stuffed animals that they sleep with need it too. Also, sometimes monster powder needs to be slept with – under the pillow.

The monster powder pictured above was Spencer’s, and then was my little sister Hannah’s, then it was Zachary’s, and now it is Ryan’s. It’s just a cheap thick plastic salt shaker my mom bought all those years ago when my brother was little. It has worked wonderfully all these years for us, and Ryan will tell you there are many nights he has been saved from the monster ghosts, wampas, and velociraptors by holding tight to his monster powder and sprinkling it on his pillow.

Corn Maze with Cub Scouts

Saturday Snapshots (10/16) Plus…

(The force is strong in that^ little one)

I promise, I promise to update. It’s been a crazy week with the boys on Fall Break, plus I’ve been helping at my mom’s most days, and today I did major cleaning. Probably won’t update this weekend, but should next week. Plus, I got some awesome pictures from our last Cub Scouts outing to share. Have a great weekend readers, I’ll see you Monday.

:o)

What time is it?

(this was a conversation with Ryan from early this morning)

“Mommy! Look what time it is! It’s time to get up.”

“I can’t see what time it is Ryan, I’m not wearing my glasses. Why don’t you tell me what the clock says.”

“Um, it’s S, P, dot, dot, 1.”

“Huh? Ryan there aren’t letters on the clock.”

“Yes. Yes there is I see them.”

Using my superb powers of Ryan-logic reasoning I try to translate. So, S is obviously a 2 or 5, but since I know it’s not 2 or 5 in the morning I deduce he read it all backwards. The P is either a 9, 6, or 4, and the one is actually a 1 or 7 since those two still sometimes confuse him.

“OK Ryan, is the S pointing to our feet or our head?”

“Our heads.”

So that means the S is a 5.

“Is the P pointing to our feet or heads?”

“Our heads too.”

So that means the P is a 9 or 4.

“Is the P broken? Is it missing a line?”

“Yup, the top of its head is gone.

The P is a 4.

“Does the one have a head?”

“Yup.”

Thus the time is 7:45, it is indeed time to get up.

((oh and I know I’m seriously need to update some more – let me finish cleaning first lol))

The Ballad of the Dirty Socks

I’m a sock, a sock, a dirty ol’ sock.
I’m lost and I’ll never be found…
My boy, he did wear me,
He stained and he frayed me.
We had us some good times
while running around.
And then came the heartache,
that boy he did leave me,
I’ve been left under a chair on the ground.
His mom, she won’t find me,
she’ll curse me and hate me,
dooming my mate to the trash.
The good times, they are gone,
I’m left all alone in the dark.
My boy, he didn’t take care of me,
and now I’ll be forever dirty,
gathering dust on the ground.
I’m a sock, a sock, a dirty ol’ sock.
I’m lost and I’ll never be found…

(Where I found Zach’s socks from yesterday)

Bella and the Zoo

So the Belly and I went on our first two of us outing yesterday. We’ve done things like shopping and errands and such, but we haven’t just gone out and done fun stuff.

I wasn’t sure how going to the zoo with Bella would go. I wasn’t certain she was old enough to really enjoy it, so my motivation for us going was purely selfish, I love the zoo. Like uber love. Almost as much as Disney World love. My main hope was that she just wouldn’t be bored and fussy since we were going during her nap time.

Well, in a word, success.

She had lots of fun. She was pretty bored with the animals that were just laying there, but the ones up and moving she loved. Of course since she’s in her “NO! Mine!” stage she kept announcing to people who happened to stop at the exhibits that we were at that the animals were her’s. lol She didn’t start getting fussy until after lunch time. We enjoyed a lunch of peanut butter/apple butter sandwiches and bunny grahams sitting in front of the elephants. We stayed a much shorter time than I normally would’ve stayed if I had the boys, but it was good. She had fun and I got to enjoy myself.

Of course normally I take hundreds of photos at the zoo.

But I have not a one to share. lol

For once I remembered to charge my camera, but stupid me forgot to make sure I actually had a memory card in it.

You can’t be a mom and a monster ghost.

((background – because of Zach, Ryan is terrified that there is this horrible monster ghost in his room and is having lots of trouble going to bed at night))

“Ryan, would you like to sleep with this picture of Uncie Spencer under your pillow along with your monster powder?”

“Why?”

“Well, because if I was a monster ghost I wouldn’t go anywhere near your Uncie Spencer, he’s too obnoxious to scare.”

“Wait, so I don’t have a mommy?!”

“What?”

“If you’re a monster ghost then you can’t be my mommy, that means I don’t have a mommy.” (lip starts trembling face starts crumpling)

“Ryan, look in your hand and tell me what you’re holding.”

“My monster powder.”

“So… if you’re holding monster powder and I was a monster ghost, would I be able to snuggle next to you in your bed?”

“No.”

“Then I’m not a monster ghost, I’m your mommy.”

“OK, but next time don’t call yourself a monster ghost.”

It doesn’t get sweeter than this.