Just Heather
1
Clueless
Jun 23, 2006 | Filed Under: Entertain Me, Mommyhood, Road Trip

I’ve been away awhile. I spent a week in my hometown and now I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. It’s been interesting trying to readjust to life with 3 kids at home. Lorelai is getting ready to take off. You can just see in her eyes she’s starting to figure out that she can move. Any day now I won’t be able to keep up with her. For now, she’s still somewhat content to lay around and look up at me with those beautiful blue eyes.

Those gorgeous eyes that are noticed by everyone. Last week, in my hometown, we went to the Red Skelton festival. At lunch, a very nice man stopped me and told me I had a beautiful baby with gorgeous eyes. A little while later, at the same restaurant, his buddy smiled and waved to me. I’m thinking he knows my dad or something. It happens a lot.

On the way out, I pointed them out to Mom and asked who they were. She told me and said they were in town for the gala tonight. The name didn’t ring a bell. I’m still thinking maybe they know Dad or they’re some local talent. Fast forward to Sunday night back at home.

Hubby is watching a documentary on the most horribly vile, terribly unfunny joke I’d never heard of. I glance up at one point to see these nice men I chatted with. “Oh, my gosh, are those the Smothers Brothers?” Of course they were, and I had absolutely no idea.

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2
The Potty Problem
Jun 01, 2006 | Filed Under: Quotable Kids

The title of this post could easily refer to my own potty problems. I typically have a kid or two tagging along to the toilet or shower. I get to use toilet paper from the pile on the floor since the spinning is so! much! fun! However, this is all about my 3 year old and her most recent shenanigans. We seem to be having a regression problem where the potty training is concerned. I would be much more upset about it if the things that come out of her mouth weren’t so blessed funny.

“I like pooping! I don’t like smelling poop, though.”

“Mommy! My panties are peeing on the floor!”

“The pee all falled out of my butt.” (More specifically, her “front butt.”)

“Oh, Grandmama, I peed on that rug.”

My favorite, though, was watching her run the 50 yards from my mother’s pool to the house, holding her bottom all the way, only to discover she couldn’t open the door with wet hands. Summer activities are just too much fun to give up for something as mundane as peeing in the potty.

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3
All Growed Up
May 23, 2006 | Filed Under: Mommyhood

Brenia moved out of her toddler bed and into the bunk beds Stacia has just relinquished.

I suppose I should feel sad or nostalgic—lamenting the passage of time and the loss of Brenia’s baby years—but mostly I’m just hoping it means she won’t be joining me in my bed in the middle of the night. Her story of “I was squished in my bed with Stuffy” just didn’t fly with me. I’m sure that bear really compares to 42″ of toddler sleeping sideways in my bed—not to mention the feet in my face.

Stacia is now sleeping on a mattress on the floor (so there’s no “under the bed” to clean), and soon to be sleeping on a yet-to-be-built loft. She’s moving into the highly marketed “tween” age. She is just at that in between stage where you don’t know how to treat her or what might interest her from minute to minute.

She’s not a little girl any more, but she’s still far from teen angst. I’m grappling with my new role as mother of an almost preteen. We’re wading into the muddy waters of tooth fairy disbelief, schoolyard tales, and No Boys Allowed clubs which will all lead into makeup, gossip, and boyfriends.

That just might make me cry.

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2
Confessions of a Super (Crazy) Mom
May 19, 2006 | Filed Under: Mommyhood
  • Even at $2.99/gallon, I still prefer to drive in circles with the little ones snoring in the back than return home and risk waking them by stopping the car. (Don’t worry, dear, I don’t actually do this, though I have taken the scenic route on many occasions.)
  • I eat my children’s holiday candy. (Not all of it—just the good stuff. Reese’s peanut butter eggs have been a great source of sustenance in recent weeks.)
  • I take advantage of the fact that my children can’t tell time to put them in bed early.
  • I may say “Just pick a bathroom and go!” but I wouldn’t sit on that potty either.
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3
What Happened to the Bon-Bons?
May 09, 2006 | Filed Under: Busy Bees, Calendar Girl, Mommyhood

The job of a SAHM is not an easy one. It is packed with carpools, runny noses, doctor appointments, and household chores. That image of the housewife sitting on the couch with her bon-bons? If only. But at the end of the day, I’m left looking around my trashed house wondering what it was I did all day that made me so tired.

A few months ago, we completed an exercise in my women’s ministry that shed some light on my daily life. I knew I was busy, I just didn’t realize how busy I truly was. We were given a grid with all the hours in a week and told to start filling it in. Begin with standing appointments and known tasks, then move on to things that aren’t scheduled, but require time out of our day. For example, I calculated that I spend 2 hours each day feeding and diapering the little one. That’s a task that is 5 minutes here, 20 minutes there, but adds up to a decent chunk of my day.

Turns out I have several such tasks—they don’t warrant a note on the calendar, but they do require much of my time. Supervising homework, returning non-sleeping kids to their beds, and cleaning spilled milk (yes, this is a daily one!), not to mention how many times this given-birth-3-times body goes to the bathroom each day. Once I filled in all the daily items, mundane chores (including laundry, coupon-clipping and grocery shopping), and, um, time with my husband—and allotted for 7 hours of sleep each night—there wasn’t a white space on the calendar.

So what happens when soccer season hits and each weekend suddenly needs nearly 5 extra hours—1 for practice, 1 1/4 for each game, and travel time back and forth all 3 trips? Or the bathroom crashes through the dining room and I’m pulled in 3 different directions for cleanup and repairs?

You get one over-worked, sleep deprived, celibate cranky mommy.

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3
There’d Be Days Like This, My Momma Said
May 01, 2006 | Filed Under: Household CEO, Mommyhood, Sick & Tired

4:00am: Summoned by vomitting Stacia
4:15am: Gag while attempting to cleanup said vomit
4:20am: Decide cleanup can wait until morning
4:21am: Settle sick kid onto my floor
5:15am: Stacia pukes again
5:20am: Settle sick kid onto floor once again
7:15am: Early morning wakeup call by baby
7:20am: Baby back to sleep. God bless her favorite lullaby CD.
7:25am: Attempt to go back to sleep
8:15am: Brenia awake for the day
8:20am: Convince her to play quietly in her room
8:21am: Briefly wonder at her aquiescence; call school to inform them of sick kid’s absence
8:25am: Attempt to go back to sleep
8:45am: Awake to Stacia vomitting
9:00am: Breakfast for non-sick kids
9:15am: Launder puked-on bedding/clothes that shouldn’t have been on the floor
9:25am: Throw away puked-on toys that shouldn’t have been on the floor
9:30am: Spray carpet cleaner on the floor
9:35am: Call pediatrician for medical instructions
10:15am: Hubby awake—also sick—announces intention to take a bath in hopes of relieving what ails him
10:45am: Walk in on hubby taking a shower
11:15am: Notice a familiar dripping sound
11:16am: Mad-dash around the dining room to save all pictures from massive water damage coming through the ceiling
11:20am: Frantic phone calls to plumber, water restoration, and insurance company
12:00pm: Plumber arrives
12:30pm: Lunch for non-sick kiddos
1:00pm: After cutting giant hole in dining room ceiling to access pipes, plumber determines there is no leak
1:15pm: Plumber finds several cracks in bathtub
1:30pm: Hubby pissed that the one time he takes a bath it leaks, while my nightly bubble baths do nothing
1:45pm: Pay said plumber; show Chem-Dry into the wet area
2:00pm: Wonder how an $84 plumbing diagnostic fee became $127 when he didn’t actually fix anything
2:45pm: naptime for all kids
3:15pm: Instructions from Chem-Dry for 3-5 days of industrial fans and dehumidifer—again
3:30pm: Collapse onto couch for much-needed nap
3:32pm: Snack for baby
4:00pm: Nap for baby
4:15pm: Collapse onto bed for much-needed nap
4:20pm: Console non-sleeping baby
4:25pm: Collapse onto bed for much-needed nap
4:30pm: Console non-sleeping baby
4:35pm: Collapse onto bed for much-needed nap
5:00pm: Awakened by sickling to turn on the downstairs television
5:05pm: Find hubby asleep on the couch right next to the remote for said television
5:10pm: Retrieve fussy baby; Realize “lunch” consisted solely of milk
5:11pm: Feed baby
5:20pm: Start dinner
5:50pm: Realize starting dinner meant deciding what to fix while juggling baby on hip; attempt to put fussy baby down so I can actually cook something
6:00pm: Peel potatoes since for mashing as it’s about the only thing the sicklings will eat
6:15pm: Marvel at the disaster that is my house
6:45pm: Give up on any sense of routine and put baby to bed early
6:50pm: Wish I could end the day and go to bed early myself

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1
Oops…
Apr 26, 2006 | Filed Under: Busy Bees, Family Ties, Mommy Guilt

I am the worst daughter-in-law ever. I dutifully remembered to tell my mother about Stacia’s spring musical, but I neglected to tell any of her other grandparents. I most likely only told my mother because I was on the phone with her when the note came home from school.

It didn’t even dawn on me that I needed to inform anyone else until Mom called just now— from the road, on her way here for said musical—and asked who else was coming. Oops. My bad. Perhaps I can console myself with the fact that they saw the exact same musical last year, only she’ll be wearing orange instead of navy blue.

I’m pretty sure that would never in a million years fly with the mother-in-law, and I bet telling her it’s okay because I didn’t even remember to tell the in-laws I actually like would only make it worse. I repeat—I am the worst daughter-in-law. Ever.

Here’s hoping they sell DVDs again this year.

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0
Everybody’s Got a Dream
Apr 26, 2006 | Filed Under: Quotable Kids

Earlier this week, I checked on the girls (two of mine and the extra I have 3 days a week) to find them playing school with Brenia’s desk. My friend’s little girl informed me that she was going to be a teacher when she grew up. A common goal for little kids-bossing around the other kids is such fun when it’s your turn to be teacher!

That statement was immediately followed by, “When Brenia grows up, she’s going to date a boy!”

I turn to find my middle child—decked out in full princess attire from the crown on her head to the glass slippers on her toes—grinning with a gleam in her eye. “Yep!” she agreed a bit too quickly.

We’re in so much trouble.

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