Um yeah

For anyone who read my last post...ignore that--those of you who didn't be glad. I hit "publish" before re-reading and once I did, I immediately chucked it because somehow it came out completely differently then how it was in my head. I think one thought flowed as another thought did and it come out a complete jumbled mess of nonsense. Nonsense that made no sense to even me...the author. Therefore it had to go. I know what I was trying to say but as I have previously said I am not a writer, at least not a remotely good one...so trying to eloquently word a few paragraphs on how I am not very sociable...came out sounding...well sounding very much not the way I intended. So excuse the hiccup.

Disgusted

I have to say I am just downright sick, sad, and disgusted to see the debates flying all around the internet regarding our Presidents speech to children. Seriously, I don't even know what to say about it, Other than I am just disgusted. Bravo American's, Bravo.
I don't really follow politics, honestly I don't follow them at all. But either way I have respect and a bit of admiration for the President. Even as a kid when they were showing ME speeches that various Presidents made...I knew to respect them, to listen up, and saw them in awe. Afterall it's The President. I am sad to see that apparently it's no longer important to teach our children these things.

Family Project Schmaject

It has begun...how quickly I forgot. The family projects of Kindergarten. When Jakeb started school we were told we would have family projects to do with him every month. After the 1st month I knew I wasn't going to love these "family" projects. Because honestly there isn't much family involved in it...it's more of a Mommy project, though I do recall Robert helping Jakeb once or twice. This very first bit of mommy homework is due tomorrow. This one is to do a poster of pictures of said student and his/her family...including aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc etc. Do they not realize in the day and age of digital that most families do not actually have any pictures they can stick on a poster. Can't I just send a digital slide show on a CD...because I promise that is soooo much easier for me to do. Instead of spending an hour scouring thru files upon files of pictures to send to Walmart's 1hr photo so I can rush up and snag them. Then rush home and start arranging them on poster board...I could just quickly slap them on a disk with a cute little program and send him on his way. Do we see why this is a Mommy project?...because Zachary cannot find the pictures, print the pictures, then cute, paste, and assemble them on a poster. I promise you the end product will be less than acceptable. My neurosis wouldn't allow such a catastrophe. After all the child is only five years old. Yes he will help me--when he gets home from playing soccer at the park with Daddy. But in the mean time I am preparing his project...matching it up with cute scrap book paper, of course. I probably will have a few stickers he can stick on it. I promise you his will be the best one in the class...I just know it. Not that that's the point or anything but I am just sayin'.

Just to prove it to you check out Jakeb's from his kindy year....I mean really, am I wrong?

The idea behind this (which I take no credit for as it wasn't mine) is that it's on 4 12x12 pages and can then be pulled off of the poster and stuck in a scrapbook. Viola 4 pages done. Thank you for the homework kindgarten teacher.

That stung

I realize the last several posts about any of my children have been relatively negative...and nearly every post at some point or another mentions something of Gavin's unruly behavior. Please understand that while I do love my children they drive my absolutely nuts at times and if I didn't vent my frustrations that I won't actually say I am nuts...I will be. Truth be told they are pretty darn good kids and I do know this. However Gavin knows each and every button of mine to push and he pushes them on a daily, even hourly basis.
As previously mentioned the latest trend going on with Gavin (aka the "let's see how I can piss this person off, boy") is that he has taken to voicing his frustrations about not getting what he wants by telling me he doesn't like me or calling names...yesterday I was told I was a "butt head" because I wouldn't give him a waffle. Which incidentally he was punished for...and for the record HE gets spankings (I know, I know horrid right? yeah well you deal with him and then tell me what's horrid...and for another record I at one time said I wouldn't spank) . Then last night after I let him stay up later watching TV with me because he had had a late nap AND then let him get in my bed to sleep...he says "I don't love you anymore". At first I shrugged it off but after days of being told by your 3 year old that he doesn't like you, to get away from him, etc etc. Him finally saying "I don't love you anymore" is almost too much...while I 110% know the kid doesn't have a flipping clue what he's saying and know that he in fact does love me (very much I might add), it's still not exactly what you want to hear. So then as he is telling me to get away from him yet again and rolling away from me, I snapped. And yelled at him that if he doesn't love me, doesn't like me, and can't stand me around him to get out of my bed and go sleep in his own. Then realized how ridiculous my conversation with my three year old little boy sounded. He did stop and after a few seconds begrudgingly snuggled his self next to me and fell asleep sniffing his blanket with his head on my shoulder and slept that way nearly all night long. Only to return to his behavior this morning.
Part of the problem is that he misses his Daddy very much while he is gone--and he's been gone a lot lately. Yet he takes his frustrations out on me...and am d-o-n-e with it. Thank god it's Thursday...Robert will be home in the morning. He can deal with the monster.
He is reason enough to stop at 3 kids, yet again maybe a younger sibling is what he needs to put him in check, because he certainly reigns and wears his "I am the baby" crown proudly.

So I kinda cheated...I had this post already in my head...and partially written and then stumbled upon THIS BLOG and thought I would join in...and how perfect it was that my 3 year old is such a...such a....well you read the post, and the post before it, and before it, you tell me. In any case it roughly fits the "prompt" to tell of a time I was "wrongly wronged".

Baby Baby

I was going thru some old photos recently and found these...
When Jakeb was born we were shocked to see he had lots of dark hair, not so shocked that as he grew older he had brown eyes. As I have brown eyes and all. We have always heard that Jakeb looks just like Robert or just like me, depending on the person looking at him. So we gather he's a good mixture of the 2 of us.
Then Zachary was born with yet again a good bit of dark brown hair, he now has dark green eyes quite a bit like both sets of his grandparents...to me Zachary has always looked the least like Robert or I of the 3 boys. Til I found this picture of Robert when he was 5. Which to me looks like a skinnier version of Zachary...not exact as Robert had blonde hair but their smiles and face shapes. I dunno thought it was pretty neat to see.
Then along came Gavin looking just like what we expected all our kids to look like...bald! I was bald, bald as a baby. Though following 2 dark hairy brothers it was a surprise. Except Gavin has Robert's fairer skin and blue eyes. However then I found this picture...and did a double take as I thought this was Gavin for a split second. It's my brother Robert (yes my husband and brother have the same name) at about the age Gavin is now. Even the boys thought it was Gavin at first look. And then there's me with my big brown eyes and chubby cheeks...I don't see a single bit of me in them when I look at my old pictures.

It's funny how genetics work. All 3 of us (my brothers and I) have different looks, yet we do look related. We all have different color eyes (brown, green, blue) and our parents both had green. Yet Robert and his brother look quite similar. Dirty blonde hair and blue eyes and both very similar builds, however his parents are not built like them at all and both have dark brown hair and green and brown eyes. Go figure. I am curious to see how our 3 grow to look.

Some favs...

So I am in.love.with.iTunes. I listen to my tunes nearly all day long when I am home...playing around with various artists and making playlists. All of this was before. Before the computer...crashed and burned. But before you gasp in horror do not fear I had almost everything backed up on disks and my external hard drive. If you don't do this, stop what you are doing and do it RIGHT now. Anyway so becuase of this loss, all of my hard work and itunes organization is gone.gone.gone. It's nearly devastating, seriously. Every single one of the CD's I had added to my computer is still here but when it's added into Itunes it doesn't list the artist, just the song. Not good, not good at all. I can't organize and group in anyway when I don't know who sung the song...seriously do you know how many "Hello" songs there are!? Anyway this was not at all my point to this post...the only thing I was going to say here was to list a few favorites to share. Since I have been messing with my music a lot lately it's on my mind and all day I have been listening to various artists thinking, Man I just LOVe this.
So here are some favorites--some new loves some old....
"Death Cab for Cutie"
"Kings of Leon"
"Regina Spektor"
"Spoon"
"Jack Johnson"
"Green Day"
"Guster"
"The Killers"
"Red Hot Chilli Peppers"
"Maroon 5"

So what constitutues making it to my real favorite lists you ask? Well if I can listen to the entire CD/album without having to go "Shut up already..." and skip to the next song. I hate when I get something and only 1 or 2 songs on it are any good. So there you have it...my recent playlist :) I am sure I could tell you more but well since everything is a big ole clustered mess I can't bleh.

I take that back

So in a previous post I ranted a bit about Gavin and claimed his horrid behavior was a result of the steroids he had been on. So yeah I take that back...apparently it's just Gavin. He's told me numerous times today he doesn't like me. I tried telling him that's not nice and it hurts peoples feelings--though I honestly could care less that he is saying this because I can tell he's just doing it to be a stink pot. And he doesn't care one eensy weensy bit. He's told me he wants to be mean and that he likes being mean. Lovely just what you like a 3yr old to tell you.
Though reports from preschool teachers today, tell me he's "such a sweet boy" and is very good. Either he's got a split personality or he's one tricky character and likes to be extra special just for me. I thinking the later is true.

Deep Breath....

taking a deep breath, lots of them...I am not feeling 100% and the kids have trashed the house. Neither of which makes me very happy. Trashed house = me on the edge of a psychotic episode.
I don't know what it is about a messy house that sends me over the edge...but when I walk around the corner and see a room that is d-e-s-t-r-o-y-e-d, it just about destroys my sanity. I try, I really try to be chill about it, but it just doesn't work. It's just something I.cannot.handle. Toys here and there I am just fine with but looking like someone took numerous buckets of toys and dumped them all over a room, combined with a smattering of toys, shoes, socks, blankets, and various other objects all over the house...and you get my head spinning and my vocal chords getting one heck of a work out. It's just not pretty, ask my housemates or you can just trust me on it.

Preschooler

Here are a few snaps of Gavin's first day of preschool/MDO's (2 weeks ago). As well as his "new" room.

Super Sunday Seventeen

A recurring event...

1. It's come to my knowledge this past week as I found myself printing off recipes for Chocolate pie, chocolate chip cookies, and brownies galore, after I found myself making numerous trips to DQ for a cookie dough blizzard, after noticing a cart full of chocolate covered deliciousness...that it appears I just may have a problem. It's not good, not good at all...but oh is it so good, so very good, but so very bad. I think I need rehab.

2. I am currently jamming to "Death Cab for Cutie" on itunes. I am not pleased that for some reason it keeps skipping...what's up with that?

3. I try to make it happen that we have at least one day a week at home where we go no where at all. If not for me at least for the kids. Now that they are in school it's very difficult. Though yesterday they didn't go a single place. This makes them happy. I like to give them some chill and play time.

4. I went to dinner last night with friends, we had a great time as always. I have a great many number of friends named Jennifer. It's weird and hard to keep up with at times. Last night I was with 2 of them...I think I was the odd man out.

5. The spending freeze we are on sucks big time. I want to buy things...bad. Things other than cookie dough blizzards from DQ.

6. Instead I have spent a great deal of time cleaning. We now have clean baseboards and windowsills.

7. Gavin will be back at school on Tuesday. They can handle him...actually he's perfect angel boy at school.

8. Jakeb and Zachary seem to be doing great at school. Jakeb made 100's on his 2 spelling tests.

9. We signed Jakeb up for Cub Scouts last week. Robert said when he was a kid Cub Scouts got teased awfully because of their uniforms...I really hope that's not the case now. It looks like LOTS of fun. I am excited for Jakeb and he is super stoked.

10. Can you believe it's already September? I sure can't

11. I have 2 sessions this weekend. This is good, I haven't had any in a couple months it seems. Though it is odd that it always seems to come in spurts.

12. I lost my battery charger for my camera, actually I left it in a hotel in DC. Jerks "claim" they can't find it...which means I need to buy a new one asap. Giant PITA.

13. UGH, my itunes just played half a song and then skipped it! Seriously What IS the deal? I did pay for these.

14. Robert's been gone a lot recently. It's hardest on Gavin it seems. He is super Daddy's boy lately. Hence him not liking me. No skin off my nose, I get Jakeb and Zachary. Especially Jakeb he is "always on my team".

15. OMG, seriously I would like to listen to this music.

16. I want a new tattoo, on my other wrist. I want a me tattoo there, something that has nothing to do with anyone but me. My neighbor about died when she saw the one I have...apparently that changes her view of me because I am "the June Cleaver" of the neighborhood. Now THAT is funny, almost hysterical.

17. I also have decided that one day I would really like to be a foster parent. Actually this has been something I have wanted to do forever. I want to help. I am good with children. I love kids and not just mine. Though since having my own, my take on them has changed. There is a lot that goes into it. I want to wait until Gavin, especially, is older. I don't think I can handle teenagers or special needs. From what I read it is an option to be specific as to what you think you can handle. I will find out more info, and get Robert on board first. No worries.

....and I will leave you with that.

'roids man...

As a result of Gavin's recent bout that landed us in the ER, he was prescribed a short round of steroids. Now this wasn't the first time he's had steroids and I expected him to be just fine on them as I don't recall having issues in the past. If you recall Zachary was on them for SIX weeks straight almost 2 years ago and that was a nightmare.
Um, right so it appears that Gavin turns into even more of a b-r-a-t than he can be without steroids. oh.my.good.lord. I have been kicked at, screamed at, hit at, told to go away, get away from me, leave me alone, don't look at me. That I am not nice, I am not fair, and today he told me "I don't like you anymore. I wish Daddy was here and not you." All this from a teeny tiny 27lb 3 year old. We have had fits galore. Whew it's been loads of fun. I am sure you are extremely jealous. Unfortunately today was the last day for the steroids, we are all just devastated to see the good times end.
On a not so bratty note...he asked me quite cutely today "How do they make dogs talk on TV?" I told him it wasn't real and he then started talking about how "Bumblebee" from Transformers talks and I said they used a computer to make him talk...to which he said "NOoo, he talks from his radio!" He's not a complete monster but pretty close.

Excuse me?

Since school started 2 weeks ago. Jakeb has asked me nearly every morning if he could stay home, whining about not wanting to go etc etc. It's gotten really old especially since he's been in school for a mere 10 days. This morning he for some reason thought that because I got him up 10 min later than normal that he was staying home. Though he was already up hence my "lateness"of coming up just to tell them to get dressed (which I shouldn't have had to do in the first place). So began our argument about why he can't stay home. He then said to me..."Well why do you get to stay home and rest all day, and I have to go to school. I am tired too." ohoh no he didn't. I nicely let him know I absolutely do not rest all day, that I spend most of my day cleaning up after he and his brothers. But maybe I should rest all day and let them do that, just sayin'. Needless to say the "I want to stay home from school" nonsense I am done with.

I did relinquish some control this morning and dropped Zachary off at the door instead of walking him in. He was fine with that, though I did wait for him to get thru the doors before pulling off...I don't remember going at this with such trepidation with Jakeb. I am sure I was just as nervous but Zachary seems so little. Gavin is not going to preschool today, the labored breathing and all seemed reason enough to get to stay home.

Ho hum

The kid across the street has strep throat. Today Jakeb informed me his throat has been hurting. Lovely. Thank you for the welcome back to school from the illness department. We are good, no thank you. Fingers crossed it's a fluke. As part of the "we are broke til payday" crisis we are currently having this week, copays and medicines are not really in the budget. And since we just dropped however much on meds for Gavin and just occurred yet another bill, thank you to the ER visit, I think we are good to go for the week. But I do (not) appreciate the offer, thanks anyway. Afterall the stomach virus that ran thru our house 2 weeks ago was sufficient enough. Please stay away.

Well that was fun..

So we are off to a bumpy start this Monday. We got up and out the door for school on time, however on the way to school we ran into some "traffic" ie the cars in front of me stopped suddenly which caused me to stop suddenly, as well as the cars behind me. Which of course caused a fender bender...thank god not with me but the car directly behind me got slammed into by the car behind them. Yikes was that a crunchy sound, and their front end crumpled. We debated on whether or not I should stop, I mean I did kinda see it happen however not really since it was behind me, plus if I stayed the kids would be very late. So on we went, I called Robert and he reassured me I was ok to go. So off to school we went, send Jakeb on to his class and walked Zachary to his. At which point I realize Zachary is awfully quiet, so ask him what's up and he tells me he doesn't want to go and doesn't want me to leave. Uhoh. We get to class, he drops off his things with his little locker and I go to tell him bye in class and he starts dropping the gigantic tears he gets. Yep, he cried :( Poor baby I hated to go and we waited for his teacher to be able to give him some attention and off I went. I wish I had thought to tell him I would come eat lunch with him because that would have solved any and all tears I am virtually positive, but now I am afraid to go and that he will cry when I leave then. We'll see how the day goes as to whether or not I can get there. Gavin is doing better but I don't know that I should drag him into the school. But I felt so bad for my poor Zman this morning. I am sure his day will be just fine.

ETA: Lunch with Zman was great, no tears and he was doing fine. Also sorry for the giant cluster of thoughts up there...that hurt my head to read. Wow.

Super Sunday 16.

Not in the mood for trying to piece together thoughts into paragraphs...this route is much better today.

1. I have been quite productive today, mopped the kitchen--if this had been the only task I did today I would still feel very productive as I despise mopping and rarely do it. Just don't lick my kitchen floor and your fine--and got Zachary's room painted. As well as one wall in Jakeb's.

2. This is all very good as we spent the better half of last night in the Vanderbilt Children's Hospital ER with a sick Gavin.

3. Gavin has asthma, so far his asthma seems to be flared up by viruses. This is what happened Friday and Saturday and finally hit a head yesterday and I gave up trying to manage it at home and we headed to the ER with him. This was his first ER visit, and he did very, very well.

4. The nurses loved him and said they wished all the patients were that good (and cute!). They set him up with a breathing treatment for 2 hours. This breathing treatment made him very jittery and sent his heart rate into the 180's, a lovely side effect. He was given a dose of Motrin and a dose of a steroid. He didn't sleep a wink the entire time we were there. We left at 1am. He does not have swine flu--good to know huh?

5. Jakeb and Zachary spent the night with Hope. Where they drove everyone in the house crazy with loud talking and giggling.

6. Because of the painting the boys are sleeping on the "couch bed" in the bonus room...right behind me.

7. As part of our "home beautification process" aka Rachel got bored and rearranged the house again...we have moved my office space into the bonus room, along with their toys, TV, and a couch. I actually really like it like this.

8. We also moved Gavin's room into what was the office, Gavin's previous room is ridiculously small and will now be a guest bedroom, once we actually put a bed in there. Which means there will be 6 various beds to sleep in here!

9. We have zilch for storage here and this does provide us with an extra closet to use which is mighty fine. I am always moving things around trying to figure out the best way to keep things organized yet accessible. This is a challenge.

10. Zachary will start his first full week of school tomorrow.

11. Jakeb is already asking if he can skip school...what am I going to do with that child.

12. I actually emailed Jakeb's teacher (and previous teacher) and guidance counselor at the school to see what they think about some of the "issues" Jakeb is having with school. Particularly not wanting to go and crying over homework. His confidence in himself is pretty low and it's troublesome for me.

13. The weather has been uh-mazing this weekend, like windows open a/c off, weather. I am loving it!

14. Jakeb asked me this past week "Hey Mommy, did you see the money you could be saving if you switched to Geico?" I am thinking we need a break from the TV.

15. He also walked up to me today and gave me his $8 from allowance because I have been telling him our money is so tight this week. He said "now you aren't poor!" Seriously could he be any sweeter?

16. I am beat. Poor Robert is too, Gavin has been glued to him all.day.long. If he even tries to walk away within 5 min Gavin is yelling "Daaaadddddyyyy". And he tells me to go away, and my feelings are not even hurt, they really aren't.