Happy FIRST Birthday BS!!!!

You're amazing and beautiful. Before you were born I couldn't imagine you in my life and now I can't remember what my life was like without you in it. You grow each day and you make me want to stop the world so I won't miss any of the amazing things you do. I love the way you squeal and surprise everyone with you very loud self (from such a little pixie). And how you bust out with a word (or phrase) all at once "good doggie", "kitty cat", "mommy", "daddy".

Don't ever let anyone hold you back from your full potential baby, because you're small people are blown away by the things you do, but I know that you're first year is a glimpse of the ways in you will astound everyone around you for the rest of your life.

You have brought all of us so much joy; especially mommy, daddy and Big Sis. We love you so very much. May today be so much fun for you. Happy Birthday Baby!

Family Matters

The stomach flu has hit our house and it’s been awful! DS was sick Monday night and stayed home on Tuesday. I got sick Tuesday night and stayed in bed all day Wednesday. I have however, lost several pounds, and my clothes are fitting awesome, so there’s your silver lining. I’m hopeful that the kids won’t get it, but I know that’s not likely. I was sharing water bottles with TS Tuesday afternoon. Bah!

BS’s actual first b-day is tomorrow, and as usual there’s lots of drama from the family surrounding it. It’s also my brother’s b-day (he’ll be 36). My parents were on vacation all last week and I called my brother (2x) to talk to them about what the plan was for the actual birth date, (I’m having a big shindig for her in May when the outlaws are here) but no one was returning my calls, so I set up an evite for dinner & cake. I’m in the doghouse because I didn’t mention his b-day, only BS’s on the evite. Apparently his feelings were hurt because I didn’t acknowledge him. But I spoke with him/my SIL 2x after this was posted and no one said anything. I even asked my SIL about plans, etc… and was told he wanted to talk to my parents, etc…. So my parents come home from vacation and my mom tells me he’s upset with me about it. Yesterday when I’m totally sick she comes over to get the kids and informs me we’ve (meaning her and my brother) changed the plans; we’re now at her house for a BBQ (
"she didn’t like the menu I’d posted anyway"). I was given all the details about his hurt feelings, along with the fact that he doesn’t want gifts on Friday night. On Sunday we’re all supposed to go to Chinese for his b-day & we can do his gifts then. I was totally out of it, so I said whatever & went to bed. But once I started recovering I started to get mad. So this morning when my mom asked if I wanted A or B for dinner tomorrow night I told her I didn’t care cause it didn’t matter, “if I didn’t choose what she or my brother wanted she’d change it anyway.”
First, she couldn’t understand what I was mad about. Then she informed me that she’s tired of being in the middle of my brother and me (I told her she put herself there). Then she tried to turn on the tears and told me how I ruined two days of her vacation because once she saw it posted she knew there’d be trouble. She’s so big on the guilt trip.

I informed her that 1) I made efforts to contact them and in fact when I did make contact I was brushed off. 2) They choose to be passive aggressive about the whole deal and go through her (rather then deal with me, i.e.-put her in the middle) because they knew she’d guilt trip me into whatever they wanted. And 3) it’s my daughter’s FIRST b-day, he’s turning 36! Grow up for crying out loud! I know BS doesn’t know the difference, but I do and what I was doing was going to be easier on her schedule. Dinner was something everyone would eat and likes: even his kids who don’t eat anything!
I told her I’m tired of accommodating him all the damn time. She wanted to know what I meant by that and I told her, “No matter what the occasion the consideration is always about their schedule, their kid’s eating habits, etc…and that I’m sick of it.!" We mess with our kids sleeping schedules, but not thiers. My kids will eat pretty much anything, so they aren’t a consideration when it comes to food, but we make special meals for their kids. We try to be easy about it, so we become the doormat! I’m tired of feeling like I’m being taken advantage of!” She didn’t say anything and then asked if we were still coming (DS said she might as well as have said, “did I win anyway”) . I paused for a while and then said I guess so.

I called DS to vent & he told me that the problem is that until I’m willing to say forget it then we won’t come, they’ll continue to do this to me. They know I won’t pull the “fine, my kids aren’t coming then, but my brother will, so I’m the one who plays the doormat every time.” If I push back and they say they aren’t coming, they don’t get the guilt trip, I do. I feel like if I do say we aren’t coming, I’m using the kids as ammunition to get what I want & I don’t want to come down to that level. He told me that it’s what it’s going to have to come down to if I ever want it to change. I know he’s right, I just hate it. If you have any other solution let me know, I'd love to hear it. The thing is that regardless the guilt trip, etc... will continue, this has been the pattern for years so I'll be the bad guy no matter what I do. I can't win. I think the answer is that I need to move.

I’m sure I’m more in the dog house after posting this cause my SIL reads this sometimes. I’m damned it I do, and I’m damned if I don’t.

I know it’s supposed to be a Love Thursday, but I’m just not feeling it today. Maybe I can pull out a Love Friday for you, but most likely not.

Still here.

I know I haven’t posted in a week. The awful thing at Virginia Tech has really thrown me for a loop. I told you stuff like that screws with me. Every time I go to write something it just seems so trivial. But I’m moving on.

Home with sick baby today, she just has a rotten cold (so do I and so does DS). She had very yellow snot (your welcome for the visual,) and daycare wouldn’t have accepted her. My mom & Dad are on their last day of vacation (welcome home to your snotty grandkids) and since she tends not to clue us in when she does have an ear infection I figured I take her in since I was going to be home with her. She’s all good, of course. And this afternoon, her snot is all clear—you know right as we headed to the doctor’s office. She didn’t sleep much last night, meaning; neither did I, so at least I was able to get a nap out of it.

I re-injured my back Saturday morning.

On Friday, I had a follow up appointment with the orthopedic surgeon and he was super impressed with how well I responded to the shots. Said that if I wanted to do a 4th they don’t usually do more then 3, but since I had “a pretty significant hernia and I responded so well to the shots” he’d let me do one more since it probably would give me additional relief. So Saturday I bent over to pick up BS’s bink while holding her and pulled something. It was pretty bad. That night I ended taking 3 vicodins and had 3 cocktails (I know, bad, bad, bad) to try and deal with the pain (not all at once, over the period of the evening! Nothing was helping.) I finally got some relief at 3 AM. I’m doing better now, so hopefully it was fluke. I go back for another follow up appointment in 3 weeks so if I did really screw it up again at least I know I can get another shot.

BS’s b-day is Friday and my parent’s celebrated their 40th anniversary yesterday. So that’s about all around here. Working on a scrapbook for my folks (shhh, it’s a surprise) and working on the party invites for BS’s party.

Oh, and here’s a pix of the AWESOME present BS & TS are getting for their b-days. (It's so big I'm afraid we're going to have to pay property taxes on it. Obviously we can’t exactly hide it from them. DS worked his arce off last weekend, and a friend, A came and helped build it. IN. THE. RAIN. A is a better friend then we deserve. That’s ok, I have a feeling we’ll be reciprocating in a big way pretty soon.

Alright, I need to run the vacuum downstairs before BS wakes up and WANTS. TO. BE. HELD. CONTINUOUSLY. (I’m not really complaining—soon she’ll be walking all over the place & won’t want me to hold her hand, much less pick her up. Sigh.)

Happy {HUGS}

I was watching a TiVO'd Ophrah show last night, it was about happiness. She had a "happiness test" and a group of audience members who she had the rest of the audience rank how happy they thought they were. One of the people was this guy who'd been married for 20+ years, two teenage sons, and had owned a funeral parlor business for the last 30 or so years. He was one of the happiest, which Oprah thought was weird cause he "looks at dead people all day." He said he viewed as helping families though a hard time in their lives. Then he said something that I think is really important, I may add it as my tag line (if I can get my act together and update my template.) He said,

"Happiness in life is not measured by your success, it's measured by how significant you are."

So very true.

Here's to being significant in someone's life today and a cyberhug from us to you!

Happy Love Thursday!

just plodding along

So guess who has pink eye again!!! No, no guess!

I'm sure work has got to be like, "she is so getting fired". Who the hell gets two cases of pink eye in one month, w/out their kids getting it???? I do. I'm a freak of nature that's for sure.

So the last couple days; less then stellar. I'll spare you the details otherwise you may never come back, and lately I've noticed that my traffic has been more active, so I don't want to ruin a good thing. You know, it's the funniest thing, ever since I left a post entitled "my boobs hurt" my traffic has gone up tenfold. Go figure. The answer is p0rn folks, when in doubt the answer to anything web related is p0rn.

Yes, this means I'm watching you. I have a stat counter, don't be fooled my my mediocre blog I know how to "lift" other people's code as well as the next guy. Other interesting thing, (at least to me) half of my regular readers; outside of the US. And not Canada either, although there are a few of you from up there that visit regularly, "Hi! Yes, you! Yes, I see you, HI, yeah, thanks for coming by I really appreciate it." I find that tidbit really interesting. Quite a few of you are from Europe and quite a few from the land of OZ. As a marketing person it just makes me wonder it that's typical of blogs in my demographic or if there's something about mine that specifically appeals to you guys. I know, you could care less. But I still wonder. I also have to say there are a few of you reading that are very near by and that makes me sort of nervous. I wish there was a way I could know more specifics about an IP address. I'd really like to know if a few of you do work with me (cause it sure looks like it). (No, it's not me I'm looking at, I know the IP addresses I'm logging from) although it could be the IT dept at my work, which would be interesting. Things that make you go, hmmmmm. Well, they make me go hmmmm!

Ok, so just to give you an idea of how my day as been; the cherry on top of today's sundae is that right now I'm listening to BS SCREAMING herself to sleep. So fun. DS is on a business trip so I'm tired (and a little sick), the girls are going stir crazy and I still have a ton of stuff to do tonight so I can go to work tomorrow. Sorry so boring tonight, but hey several day of gratuitous pix of the girls, I can't be beautiful every day.

Easter Angels

Forget the bunny, we had angels visit us this Easter. I know, I know, cheeeeeze-eeee! But I can't stand how cute they look in this pix. So. Damn. Cute!

Happy Easter!!!

On being a Mom

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about this topic. As I’ve mentioned, things at work have been less then stellar. They aren’t horrible. In fact, all things considered, it’s still running pretty smoothly. The reality is that I’m not really into being here at work. And I’m honest enough with myself to know it’s not the job, it’s me. I’d rather be someplace else; at home. Not just at home, but at home with my babies. I also think I mentioned that DS said I could make this move if I wanted to. That sounds like such an odd way to put it. If you know me IRL you know that asking my husband for permission in a job related topic is way out of the norm for me. Once upon a time, in a former life, I was career minded! I was making the big bucks (relatively), traveling the world, making decisions regarding hundreds of thousands of dollars. I was a platinum member of United’s frequent flyers. Truth be told I got burned out on all of this way before any babies came along. But the choice to leave my job; aka—my paycheck, is something that affects us as a family. Our lifestyle would have to change, so to a degree I am asking him permission. There was a time in my life when working full time and being a mom would’ve been necessary. I would not have been as good of a mom if I felt I wasn’t being fulfilled in the areas related to my career. That’s part of how I know I had my kids at the right time in my life. I’ve had the opportunity to “accomplish” many of those career goals. I realized that some of them were very short-lived and hollow. I’m not disregarding them. Those goals were important for me. For my self-esteem, I needed to go that route to grow as a person and have a better sense of myself. My “career-minded” self accomplished a lot in a very short period of time. I’m proud of her; she’s smart, hard-working, well-traveled. All those things helped shape the person I am now. They help define the kind of mom I am to my girls and the way in which I hope to raise them. I’m a huge proponent of mom’s who work outside the home (all mom’s work). I think it’s really important for our daughters to have strong role models, both inside and outside the home. But I also realize that jobs are just that, jobs. A company will lay you off at a moments notice if that’s what they have to do to make the bottom line. Twenty years of service to a company (ha, who works anywhere for more then 2 years anymore?) will get a (fake) gold watch, and that’s about it. Twenty years of raising my daughters, will get me…I’m not sure how to put it into words. Memories.

The bottom line is this; I am going to quit my job. We need to sit down with a financial planner and put together a solid budget. Something realistic. hahahahahhaha. We may need to refinance or pay off our rental property or something, I’m not sure, but we have the means to make this happen and we will make it happen. I realized recently that while this last year has been hard at times, I’m not going to get it back. TS and BS will only be this size once and they need me. I want this. I will never put this on my girls as some sacrifice I made for them, it’s entirely for me. I can’t get this time back, and God forbid, if I found out tomorrow that my time on this earth was more limited then I originally thought the first thought in my head would not be “I wish I’d worked more”. I know it will be I need more time with my family, especially those girls.

Catch Up Monday

Hey, I think you’re mostly caught up. Amazing, no? This weekend was (obviously) fairly low key. Spring has sprung (more or less) around here and the weather has been so very nice, this is the time of year when I remember why we pay so much to live here. It’s been about 70-75 degrees every day. We spent the weekend doing things like cleaning and baby proofing the house and drinking cocktails while watching the kids play in the wadding pool or sprinklers.

Mommy has sangria in one hand, camera in the other! :)


I have been extra klutzy as of late. I know, I know, how can that be, I’m pretty klutzy in my normal routine. On Thursday I managed to fall on the concrete steps outside out building (at work). It was very random, my ankle just turned on me. But I didn’t spill a drop of coffee, and I did land flat on my arce. Well, not quite flat, I managed to land squarely on the right side of my arce and hip—to undo any good those epidural shots are doing for me. On Friday, I some how landed on the corner of a file drawer that was sitting in front of the closet of our study at home. I caught the corner w/my left calf and have a very gnarly bruise (purple, green, yellow, red). Pretty, pretty.

Don’t ask why the file drawer was sitting in the middle of the room, it’s long story.

So I'm still having pain issues, but normal ones, that get better and (hopefully) go away.

We also had an incident with our dryer and a crayon this weekend. A black crayon. I have managed to get the crayon out of most of the affected clothing (3 wash loads and a lot of Oxyclean later), but the inside of my dryer is metallically looking and I’m afraid to put anything in it now. Anyone with any advice on that front (my mother’s suggestion: buy a new dryer) would be much appreciated. (My mother, also the one who seems to have forgotten to check all pockets of aforementioned clothing. She, of course, denies all knowledge/responsibility. The wash apparently walked itself into the washer & dryer that day.)

So I guess it wasn’t quite as boring as I indicated, huh?

Now, I’m off to plan a b-day party for a one-year-old (sob).