Embracing the slob from within

So I'm slowly figuring out I really can't be good at everything, even take wife out of the picture (only for the week) and I still pretty much suck. I've had a great time with Alex this weekend, we slept in, ate pancakes in bed while watching 'Cars', went to the mall, went to target, ate out three times (yeah, I've yet to cook since jason left unless you count the banana nut bread Alex insisted I make b/c the bananas were so brown), went to Walmart, hung out with Amy and Jack, played school, played babies, cut and glued, did a load of laundry, experienced Build-a-Bear for the first time, tried on new clothes (alex, not me), read stories, took a bath, made up stories with each other and the list goes on. Notice I said very little about household chores, unless you count the one load of laundry. So here I am, 11 pm on a Sunday with a huge mess of a house, dust bunnies everywhere, clean clothes everywhere, dirty clothes everywhere, milk spilled on the counters, floor, and table, toys in the tub, toys in my bed, toys in the living room...you get the point. I'm taking tonight to embrace my slobbiness and be so thankful for the wonderful memories I made with Alex this weekend. I'll never forget the look on her face when she told me a story about her 'oder famiwee in georgia', I won't forget the Eskimo kisses and fancy kisses she gave me when I got her an ice cream cone at the Chinese buffet, I hope to god I never forget her sweet voice whispering 'i lub you mommy' right before she drifted off to sleep. So she may have only taken a 15 minute nap, destroyed the house, colored all over her cabbage patch doll's face...she's still my little angel baby for whom I vow to make as much time for as I can.

So listen here house...you will remain messy, sticky and dusty for at least another day and if she happens to fall asleep a little early tomorrow I may find time to wash a dish or two or put some clothes away but until then I'm off to cuddle with my baby!

Daddy's Out of Town...

So Jason left this morning with his brother for a week long golf vacation. It's kind of bittersweet. When he's gone, I can do things at my own pace which probably means the house will be absolutely atrocious until next Saturday, his planned return. I will miss him and probably even more, Alex is already missing him fiercely. I don't even have to add that he's staying with my parent's hanging out with them daily, the things I'm dying to do because I miss them and my sister so much!! But, it's made me think a lot about my friend, Tree. Her husband has been stationed in Texas since January and is heading over seas next week. She has a daughter who is one month younger than alex and a 10 month old. The kids have been away from their dad since January and saw him for the first time this past week. She said it was pretty awkward because it took them both a while to warm up to him. I can't imagine having to help Alex warm up to her Daddy, guess we're so lucky that way. Well, as soon as they were warmed up to him and having a good time, it was time for him to leave again. I know this is so hard for Tree! My thoughts on the war and the soldiers and all they are giving up and doing has changed so much for me. Thanks to all of you who are putting your lives on the line, leaving your families behind, and protecting our country. I have such mixed feelings about the war and rarely talk about it and sadly often forget it's going on but seeing what Tree's going through I try to think about it everyday and put all my wishes and hopes out to these young men and women that they will safely return to their own sons and daughters. I'm so thankful our Daddy is only out of town for a week.

This wasn't going to be a post of this nature, I had actually planned to talk about all the neat things Alex and I did together today but that'll wait for another day, including our trip to Build-A-Bear.

Story Teller

Jason managed to capture Alex telling a story a few weeks back. This is our drama queen hard at work. Too bad we don't have video because she was hilarious!!

check out more wordless wednesdays here!

I've been tagged (twice)

By Heather and Jen

Thanks guys! Didn't you read my post about being overwhelmed `wink,wink`. I could actually use some time thinking about off-the-wall things...

The rules:
1) Link to the person who tagged you.
2) Post the rules.
3) Share six non-important things / habits / quirks about yourself.
4) Tag at least three people.
5) Be sure the people you tagged KNOW you tagged them by commenting what you did.

1. I too am a diet soda junkie! Love fountain the best and don't want to think about how much I spend on it! I prefer diet pepsi. Oh, and it has nothing really to do with being lower calorie, just LOVE the taste.

2. I must sleep with the TV on (which Jason despises) and will often lay awake waiting for him to fall asleep so that I can turn it on. I usually only watch 5 minutes and then am out cold.

3. I have to use the same kind of pen at all times. It's an addiction of mine, and my day is thrown off if I can't find one. I have to write ALOT at work so it matters much more there than at home. And it HAS to be fine point.

4. I've yet to share my blog with anyone except online friends. I'm really not sure why, nothing to be embarrassed about just makes it feel more like a diary and if I ever have to let out a huge secret or issue I don't have to worry about my mom or someone reading it. I know, weird.

5. Sometimes if I call in sick to work, I don't tell my husband (usually only if I'm not really sick). It doesn't happen much but I don't want him to know I stayed home b/c then he'd expect something to get done. (Maybe this is why I don't share my blog, I don't want him to find out about my hookey days).

6. I have a secret crush on the maintenance man at my old place of employment. Guess it's not a secret anymore. He's a real tool and pretty much a male slut but for some reason I have a crush on him (would never act on it though).

That's the best I can do.

I'm tagging Sara, Cara, and Jen.

Sorry if you've already been tagged, I'm new at this and don't have many blogging friends!!

OVERWHELMED

That's the only word that can describe how I'm feeling. I'm always feeling this way but lately it's so much greater than normal. This is how this a.m. went. Dog barking at 5, take him out, feed him and set my alarm for 6:45. Alarm goes off, I will it to go away and beg in my head for more sleep, I snooze it for as long as possible...knowing the longer I snooze it, the more stressful the morning will be. Finally drag my ass out of bed at 2 til 7 and grab a few cookies to give to Jason. I'm sorry but I'm sick and tired of bringing him breakfast in bed every morning. Even though it only consists of little debbies, cookies, or cake it's still served to him in bed every morning by me. This is something I started when we first married and was so happy to do it...now I loathe it! I lay down next to Alex, who has run over to our bed in the middle of the night and again steal a few more minutes of shut eye. Dreading what is to come once she wakes up. She's so grumpy and whiny in the morning and it's like walking on nails around her. Heaven forbid I do anything wrong to set her off. Give her cookies for breakfast too, after she's thrown every other option across the room because it's not what she want. Hey, at least they're organic and actually semi-healthy. I notice her teeth desperately need brushed (not going to attempt it this morning) so note to self to brush teeth this evening. Bribe, wrestle, threaten, and beg her while getting her dressed. Threats of throwing away her new easter dress, telling the easter bunny how bad she is, bribing her with her favorite activity (writing on a paper on a clipboard) and nearly losing my cool...I finally have her clothed (never mind I've been letting her sleep in shirts that are suitable to wear the next day because it shaves a step off of our routine. Finally dressed and fed and the big hair fight comes next. It was actually relatively easy this morning because I parked her in front of PBS while I navigated all of the tangles. Her pony tail was far from perfect but at least most of the tangles were out. Find her clipboard that she's incessantly asking for along with her 'white pen'. Heaven forbid we lose that pen--I think there is a little OCD there. Put her spring coat on, even though she really should wear her winter coat but she insists on her 'pat coat' (a crummy coat given to her from a neighbor last year). Load her in the car, plant a kiss firmly on her cheeks which she grimaces from and wipes off. Run back inside to get her blanket and milk (absolutely cannot forget those). And she's finally ready. By the way, Jason takes her to daycare in the a.m.

All the while, during what feels like WWIII, Jason is asking about clean towels, a shirt that's been in the laundry for well over two weeks, the smell in the kitchen, where he might find clean underwear. I turn into royal bitch to him. Everything he asks for or comments about feels like a direct hit toward my lack of ability to be a good housewife and mom. He's not really being mean but I take it so personally when he says...'have you found my white belt?'. I mean yeah, I saw it in the basement last week, was too lazy to take it out of the pants that have been waiting to go in the washer for a week, so I'm sure it's still down there where I last saw it. I'm thinking, 'walk your lazy ass down stairs and look for it yourself'. I mean give me a break, if I were looking for my belt I'd never ask him about it!!!

Well, I'm rambling. I'm just overwhelmed. Working, being a mom, being a wife, and being a housekeeper is just too much. I'm failing at pretty much all of those above mentioned jobs. I half ass it at work worrying about what I should do at home, I'm usually a pretty good mom (i'd call it my strength) but still Alex is in daycare 8 plus hours a day so really I'm paying someone to be mom for me part of the time. I'm sucking it up as wife, I've let myself go, haven't shaved my legs in well over a month, have chin hair, grey hair, about 50 extra pounds...you know all those things husbands just love. And house keeping, that's another story. Gone are the days of a nice neat house where everything has it's place. Instead, I've got 3 day old dishes in the sink, clean laundry that's been in baskets since the beginning of February, dirty laundry that's been sorted but not washed for 2 or more weeks (it's easier to just buy new underwear and socks), bills that need paid, floors that need washed, dog hair everywhere... Oh when will it end??? I guess maybe in 16 years when Alex heads off to college but really I'd rather be with her everyday and live like I am than fathom her leaving the nest.

Wow my thoughts are everywhere...I think maybe I forgot to take my meds! That would explain ALOT!

Bug Smacker

She has become quite the conversationalist and may I add a little bit of drama queen in there as well. On Sunday evening, after shopping for an Easter dress, she both delighted and entertained me in the back seat as her and I headed home after our shopping adventure. With a little prompting, her imagination just runs wild! It went a little something like this:

Alex: (Out of nowhere)"I have a purple car."

Me: Oh, you do?

Alex: Yeah, it's a big one.

Me: Where do you drive your purple car?

Alex: To work.

Me: Where do you work?

Alex: In Day-ton (imagine emphasis on the /t/ in dayton)

Me: Wow, I work in Dayton too.

Alex: Yeah, you drive mommy's truck to work.

Me: I do. What do you do at work?

Alex: Theres bugs there. Big ones.

Me: Oh yeah? Big bugs?

Alex: Yeah, purple bugs. I fmack (smack) 'em. (Voice louder and more excited while
demonstrating a smacking motion with hands)

Me: (Takes a minute to figure out what she was saying). You smack them?

Alex: Yeah, I 'fmack' 'em. At work. They're BIG bugs.

Me: Do you smack them with your hands?

Alex: Ew, yucky...No!

Me: What do you smack them with?

Alex: (Thinks really hard) I just fmack 'em.

Me: Do you use a bug smacker?

Alex: (very excited) Yeah!

Alex: I wear my running shoes.

Me: You do? Why?

Alex: So I can run fast at work in Dayton.

Me: That's a good idea, you need to be able to run to smack the bugs.

Alex: Yeah, they're yucky, purple bugs.

Alex: Mommy, whatta you do at work?

Me: I work with old people.

Alex: Me too, and bugs.

Alex: I wuv fmacking bugs!

This isn't word for word but it went a lot like that. I'm just so entertained everyday by her animation, vocabulary growth and imagination. She is very into pretending and her conversations are really taking off talking about this pretending. I'm not sure about the obsession with bugs. She doesn't seem scared of them, just a little obsessed. Who knows, maybe she'll be an entomologist?? You can be whatever you want to be baby girl! In the meantime, keep me entertained with that imagination!

Dora, Dora, and more Dora

Alex LOVES Dora and here is one of my favorite videos of her dancing to the theme song. The quality is not great but I just love it!

Christoper Jacob 3.15.08

I had the pleasure of becoming an aunt again this weekend. My sister in law Sarah and her husband Nic welcomed a beautiful new baby boy to the world on Saturday. This is their first child. She had a pretty quick and fairly easy labor and delivery and Christopher arrived at 5:15 pm weighing in at 5 pounds 9 ounces. He was two weeks early and mom had a few issues with blood pressure but nothing major.

Welcome Christopher, I'm so excited to watch you grow up and watch your mom and dad step into this thing we call parenthood!

Let the Big Melt Begin

Well we survived the blizzard of '08. It did get pretty bad here for awhile, they even closed the roads but I made the most of things and became a domestic godess for a day! Well, I'm pretty far from a godess but I did enjoy baking a few things from scratch. Let's see, I started with Banana Nut bread which turned out pretty yummy and now is A's favorite snack. She calls it 'nana butter bread' and actually took a piece with her to daycare this morning to eat for her morning snack. I made a chocolate cake (from scratch) which turned out well but I goofed with the icing! I ran out of powdered sugar and my icing was too thin. So it was more like a thick glaze and we now have to keep the cake in the fridge...still tastes good. To round out the day I made a casserole from a cookbook we have from Jason's grandma's side of the family. You know those cookbooks that everyone submits a few recipes. I scoured through it until I found something we had all of the indegredients for and came up with Chicken Breast Supreme...Let me say 'aunt dottie' this is not really supreme at all. It kindof tuned out like a gooey chicken/cheesey mess. It tasted alright I guess but it's noting I'd submit to a cookbook and that's not saying much because I suck at cooking. The rest of the weekend was spent doing dishes from the cooking marathon (the worst part about cooking), playing in the snow and trying to keep the house cleaned up (fat chance). I'm actually kinda glad to be heading back to work this morning...it was a long weekend, we all got a little bored and testy with each other and really Mommy just needs a break it's hard work being a godess!!!

A foot of snow, you've got to be kidding me!!

This is what I sent around to my family last night. I moved to Ohio about 7 years ago after living in South Georgia for about 3 years...it's days like this I kick myself and ask why?????

Well, I'm off to race the snow, hoping to finish my day at work and return to my warm and cozy home to watch the snow fall from my window. All the while secrectly wishing my retired neighbor decides to continue to be generous and snow blow our driveway (even though I'm at least 25 years younger than her) Unfortunately, I think I'll be fighting the accumulating snow most of the day as I drive around the state working with grumpy old people.

I swear that damn groundhog said only six more weeks of winter...that seemed like ages ago!