Smiling Mom

This has been quite a year month for us.  Boy, what a year month!  Aside from a party, anni­ver­sary, and gene­ral sum­mer hoo­pla, we had to up and buy a bran span­kin’ new refri­ge­ra­tor. Ouch.

Um…Hello, unex­pec­ted cost!!  Didn’t see you coming!

The day our fridge died was the hot­test of the year thus far.

107 degrees in the shade.

And 65 degrees in our freezer.

Not a good thing.

Our past year has been much like our past month, Unex­pec­ted:  To date we’ve:

Repla­ced:

oven/stove, parts of our hea­ter, our water hea­ter, part of our fence, found a crack in the pipe under our house that must get repai­red (not done yet), a big com­pu­ter issue (read, would no lon­ger turn on)

Paid and need to pay for:

a new master’s pro­gram, a new year of preschool, an upco­ming vaca­tion, and a myriad of other small unex­pec­ted expenses

Wor­ked through:

a torn shoul­der, a repai­red shoul­der, an almost vasec­tomy, an actual vasec­tomy, and most recently my grandma’s imma­nent death of ova­rian cancer.

Wow.  Just typing makes me want to curl up in the fetal posi­tion and suck my thumb.

I’m tired.  And when I get tired, I retreat.  When I retreat, I become a bad mom.  When I’m a bad mom, I get angry.  When I’m angry, I become a bad wife.  And when I’m a bad wife, I become tired all. over. again.

On Thurs­day our family lea­ves for our first cam­ping trip of the sum­mer.  And it couldn’t come at a bet­ter time.  I hope to use my time to refo­cus on the impor­tant pie­ces of my life, (read: family and friends) and not sweat the huge gla­ring, pen­ding CRAZINESS going on back an home small stuff.  I hope to remind myself this to shall pass and some day we’ll look back on these years fondly as we remem­ber how we relied on love burri­tos and cheap wine and not much more to raise our kids to the best of our ability.

Some­day when my Master’s pro­gram is done, I’m back to work full time, and am armed with more know­ledge and matu­rity, I’ll pro­bably see that I didn’t have to have heart pal­pi­ta­tions, weeks of anxiety, and slee­pless nights worry as much as I did.

But for now, I’m in need of a few good vaca­tions.  And a whole lotta margarita!

First up: Our second annual cam­ping trip with our good friends.

Second up:  BlogHer BABY!!  Hey Roo­mies!!  So excited!

Third up: My dad’s con­fe­rence. Where I not only hope to enjoy the pool, but also learn more about being a good leader.

Fourth up: An adult Carib­bean vaca­tion WITHOUT KIDS. peo­ple.  without kids.  (Thank you air miles and nice sti­mu­lus check!)

Fifth up:  More cam­ping with Hubby’s family.

Ya.  So like I said, I’m in need of a vaca­tion, or five.

Today I got a mas­sage.  Oh man did it hurt!  But, you know, in a good way.

For Mother’s Day all I wan­ted was a chance to redeem both hour long mas­sage gift cer­ti­fi­ca­tes that’ve been sit­ting on my desk for well over a year.

And, if it wasn’t too expen­sive, I wan­ted to tack on an extra 1/2 hour.

Today was day one of two mas­sa­ges this sum­mer.  And boy did I need it.

Throughout the years I’ve had many dif­fe­rent mas­sage gifts given to me.  So I’ve expe­rien­ced expe­rien­ced a wide variety of mas­sage sty­les.  My least favo­rite is the catch all Swe­dish Mas­sage.  I’m of the opi­nion that when I pay you a large sum of money for a ser­vice, I want to actually feel the mas­sage.  And often a Swe­dish mas­sage ends up being nothing more than a soft rub of the body.

So I always encou­rage the mas­seuse to mas­sage as hard as she wishes.

And this lady step­ped up to my challenge.

Appa­rently I have a ton of knots in my back, spe­ci­fi­cally  on my right shoul­der.  Can you guess why?  That’s right, I carry the ever gro­wing baby eigh­teen month old around on my right hip.

So today was a fan­tas­tic hour and a half break from the kids and house.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it was rela­xing, but it sure was nice being able to have time dedi­ca­ted just to me.  Without anyone tal­king.  No screa­ming, crying or phone rin­ging.  Silence.

And it was nice.

Tomo­rrow we leave for cam­ping.  We’ll be back late Mon­day after­noon.  In the mean­time my father will post a let­ter to BC that I wrote on Satur­day.  And on Mon­day I’m par­ti­ci­pa­ting in July’s Blog Exchange.   He’ll post that for me as well.

Last night my sisters-in-laws and I went out for some much nee­ded time away from the kids! We went to a bea­ding shop to exer­cise the crea­tive side of our brain. Ok, I’m not too crea­tive, but am happy with the nec­klace I made. It was actually really fun. I think the three of us could have easily spent 4 or 5 hours crea­ting our necklaces.

I have enough beads left over to make earrings to go with this fine piece of art. Hope­fully that’ll hap­pen soo­ner rather than later!

After bea­ding we went to Sushi. Nothing makes you feel older than going to a popu­lar college sushi bar and watching a bunch of 21 year olds stand on chairs and shout, “Sakai—BOMB” and chug down a beer with a shot of Sakai at the bot­tom of it. By the end, I felt like I nee­ded to whip out my collap­si­ble cane and hob­ble on out of the res­tau­rant. Old is 30. I just didn’t know it until last night. I think tonight I’ll go to the early bird spe­cial at Black Angus so I can feel young again.

From there we thought we’d really party it up and head over to a movie. We bought tic­kets for Geor­gia Rule, but after 4 minu­tes of Lind­sey Lohan, we movie hop­ped to The Ex. It was cute, but not worth actually paying for in the movie. Unless you are trying to escape the mayhem of your chil­dren. Hell, then I’d recom­mend you seeing Geor­gia Rule!

I’m tired today, but really enjo­yed get­ting out last night.

Now, for what you’ve been wai­ting for. Another ins­tall­ment of Kids Say the Darn­dest Things! Actually, this is the pic­ture ver­sion, The World Accor­ding to My Two Year Old. I’ll give you a sneak peek. It’s riveting!

Don’t bug Mommy, she’s blogging!

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Bac­king up two weeks…

eClaire was sick with the flu for a week straight. It was horri­ble. She had the runs and didn’t eat or drink vir­tually anything for a week. The last two major days of her flu, she threw up and was mise­ra­ble. She just wan­ted to be held.

During this time, it was my job to orga­nize and pre­pare for Steve’s pro­mo­tion party. I bought a sexy new dress from Macy’s, bought a tie and but­ton down shirt along with shiny black shoes for Bro. Clea­ned the house, made 4 chee­se­ca­kes, star sugar coo­kies, which were deli­cious with a sil­ve­rish fros­ting, to make them look like bad­ges. Also, I made a dou­ble batch of coo­kies. I was on the edge of melt-down. But exci­ted for the upco­ming party. On Wed­nes­day eve­ning, eClaire had her first meal since the pre­vious Sun­day. On Thurs­day, Hubby got sick. And when I say sick, I mean “ring a bell and come help me” sick! It was not good. We ended up in Urgent Care on Thurs­day, can­ce­led the pro­mo­tion and the party sche­du­led for Fri­day and went back to the ER on Sun­day. Finally on Tues­day, Hubby began fee­ling bet­ter. It’s been one hell of a ride.

Don’t worry, all chee­se­ca­kes were eaten. One by me, thank you very much! And all are fee­ling bet­ter. Aside from a snotty nose and cough, our kids and adults are healthy. Thank goodness.

For Valentine’s Day/Birthday, Hubby sur­pri­sed me with a day away. Not only did he find me a friend to go eat lunch with at Lisa’s Tea Trea­su­res, but he also sche­du­led a mani­cure and pedi­cure at a really nice spa called Burke William Spa. It was fan­tas­tic. But best of all, he orga­ni­zed all this and a baby­sit­ter to come watch the kids without me kno­wing. He then sent me off with cash to spend so this fun excur­sion wouldn’t show up on our cre­dit card later. Now that, my friends, is sexy!!

There is nothing like a few hours of rejuvenation!

Now I’ll leave you with a few of my favo­rite current pic­tu­res of my babies. Enjoy!

Bro dres­sed up like a hero

eClaire, ready to fight!

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