Collection of Random Thoughts...

I don't really have the brain power today (any day?) to form a coherent, well-organized post.  So you get some random thoughts, brain-vomit-style. 

*I can't ever seem to find either of my two hair-ties.  I don't ever think to purchase more, so I reuse the same two and if I lose them, I'm toast.  In desperation this morning, I resorted to using the twist-tie from my bread bag to tame my hair.  That's sad.  (But I like how loosely it holds my hair - the result is a very wispy-looking style... hm....)

*I moved the girls into booster seats at the table instead of their high chairs.  It's really nice to have all of us sitting at the table for meals.

*Jordan and Addie started talking much earlier than Jack, saying their first words at 9 months, and now at 16 months, they've got quite an adorable vocabulary.  Addie's is mostly food-related and Jordan is much more social.  She calls everyone in the family by name, including the Baby in my "pat pat" (her word for stomach, thanks to Disney's Little Einsteins TV show).  I love listening to them chatter and learn from one another.  They also seem to learn from Jack to an absolutely absurd extent.  I wonder if having him around doesn't have more to do with their advanced speech (relative to his at the same age) than anything else.

*I haven't been feeling too terrible lately, thanks to that awesome 2nd trimester.  The only thing I'm dealing with is a weird symptom - heart palpitations that make my heart race and beat irregularly to where I get short of breath and slightly dizzy.  It's pretty disquieting, but I'm dealing with it.  This pregnancy is so funny to me; with Jack, I couldn't WAIT to start showing and move into maternity clothes and I was so bummed that even at 6 months, I wasn't really looking pregnant (just "fat" as my MIL delicately put it).  With the twins, I resisted maternity clothes as long as possible, wearing Bella Bands and yoga pants and maxi-dresses as long as humanly possible, even to the point of discomfort.  With this one, I threw my hands up in the air around 11 weeks when my pants started - started! - to feel tight and moved into mostly maternity stuff, even though it's much too big.  At this point in my life, comfort is so much more important than being able to tell myself I'm still wearing my size 4 Lucky's (albeit unbuttoned and glued to my body by an elastic sleeve) or feeling like it's any kind of victory to do so.  Shoot. 

*Yesterday, when I picked Jack up from school, his classmate's mom was there with her 10 day old infant.  I was chatting with her when big brother came out and proudly showed off his new baby brother to Jack - it was so adorable!  Jack regarded the new baby and turned to me and smacked my stomach and said to his friend, "Here's MY baby brother!" (We have no idea if it's a boy/girl.) and stormed off.  Later in the car, he asked if we could take the baby out to show his friends.   When I told him that he could show off Addie and Jordan, he said, "They're not babies anymore.  They're big now."  My eyes overflowed because he's right. 

*Jordan is a total dare-devil.  She jumped off my bed the other night and smashed her face on the floor, giving herself rug burn on her nose.  She scales chairs and cabinets and has figured out to cart Jack's step-stool around to reach more stuff.  The other day, I visited the bathroom and came out to find that she had put the stool ON the sofa and was standing on it, getting ready to dive over the arm of the couch.  Luckily I caught her, but all she did was giggle.  She got a bloody nose by chasing after Jack and losing her footing.  It's not uncommon to find her swinging from door knobs or pouncing on her siblings (and Daddy!) like a rabid cat.

*Addison is sweet and calm unless there's any kind of music involved and then she starts to sing and dance.  Its too funny to see her wiggling her hips or shimmying her shoulders to a hymn during Mass.  She'll break it down in the grocery store or bop her head around in her car seat.  I love it - she is so adorable with it.  If she wants to dance and there's no music around, she'll make up a little song and sing to herself so she can dance.  I love her.

*Jack loves his "big white school" - and I couldn't be more thrilled that he's fitting in so well at his new place.  I'm a little bummed that we're going to be moving farther away from it, but we'll keep going, even if it's a longer drive.  He is super excited about the idea of building a house; he never really got attached to this one. In all the houses we've looked at, Jack has been sure to pick out his bedroom and where the train table will go, as well as where the babies and the new baby will sleep.  I try not to get too offended when he picks a closet for Mommy and Daddy's room... He loves to look at floor plans and he delights in exploring construction sites.  I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to making a place that is truly ours - and giving him a place of his very own where he can pick out a color for his room and where he can feel ownership over every bit of his home.  I think it's going to be a fabulous adventure for all of us, but for him, I can't even count all the benefits. 

*The littles are up and rambunctious so I'm going to go color and play hide and seek!

Details, Details

So, I'm sure our announcement left you with some burning questions...  I'll go ahead dish, mmkay?

First of all, as first trimesters go, this one wasn't too bad.  I had some nausea and lots of fatigue (which is generally why you found me absent from commenting on your blogs as often as I'd like, or remiss in posting on my own) but in general, this baby has been pretty good to me, considering the other three have - ahem - not been as forgiving.  I mean, saying, "Jordan, can you please hurry up with those molars because Mommy is trying to gestate a baby and I'm too tired to listen to your whining" doesn't really get you anywhere. 

To that effect, any first trimester with 3 kids 3 and under already making your life chaos is pretty much something I'd advise against... you know, except for the whole part where you don't get a baby after 40 weeks without the first trimester...

Anyway, one of the worst parts of all of this ended up being my decision to use cloth diapers.  My nose has been super sensitive and ANY smell - good or bad - sets me a-gaggin' so scraping fresh "I'm teething and just ate corn and 4 crayons"-style poop out of cloth diapers into the toilet generally left me weak and shaky and my stomach totally empty.  Talk about a bummer.  I'm not totally over the smell thing, so if you can pray to the gods of solid poop for the next week or so, I'd really appreciate it. 

Aside from physically, I'm feeling basically blessed.  Overwhelmed with love for this kiddo already, and sad but  happy because I think he ("he"... in my house, you're innocent until proven guilty) is our last and I've not even held him in my arms and I'm already lamenting the last time he smiles without teeth or the last time I puree baby food or the last time I put him to my breast or the last diaper I'll change or the last time his hair has that downy-soft "baby" feel... It was horrifically hard with the older 3 to let those things go, and I'm pretty certain that the passing of each milestone is going to dissolve me into a sobbing mess in the corner of my closet... *sigh*

I mean, here's the deal: we were actively trying to avoid a pregnancy at this point in our lives.  A fourth was on our radar, but we were planning (hah!) to wait for a bit longer before we started serious discussions.  But our hearts were open, so I guess that trumps what our rational brains were saying.  Anyway, two pretty darned reliable methods of birth control failed (no, not operator error, I promise; I flounced into my doctor's office for my yearly exam a few days before the test came back as positive, utterly confident that there was no way a pregnancy was even remotely possible) putting this baby into an impossibly small percentage of probability... which makes his presence in our lives nearly miraculous.  And for that, I am both grateful and still a little mystified.  (Though, despite all the love and happiness, I'm still considering the company named for a Greek city a bill for college tuition in 19 years.)

The kids are doing great with everything; the girls understand nearly nothing, but Jack is excited and loves to pat my belly and then ask me to pat his (where his baby is also growing) and Addison loves all things baby - she's very sweet and gentle and loving.  I think she'll do wonderfully well... Jordan... well, Jordan will no longer the "the" baby of the family, so I think that'll irk her a bit since she already feels she doesn't get enough (constant) attention, but then again, she is full of surprises so I'm just going to sit back and watch.

I'll leave you with some stats, in case you were wondering... or in case you needed someone to point and laugh at today or in the future when you're starting to think I've got my shit together:

When this baby is born, Jack will be 4 years, 3 weeks old.  The girls will be 22 months old.  There will be 4 kids, 4 and under in my household, and for a year, there will be 3 under 3 again.. actually, 3 kids 2 and under, if that sounds nuttier.  For that matter, for two months, I will have an incredible 3 kids under 2.  In five years, I'll have had 4 children.  Woah. 

Truly, it shouldn't be too bad.  They're close in age which will make things much easier... for now.  At least, that's what I tell myself.  Stay tuned... it's gonna get crazy (er, crazIER)!

I also updated, and will continue to update, The Exhibits page as this whole thing unfolds... Thanks for being a part of our incredible experience!

5Q Friday...

Alright... I'm feeling pretty uninspired.  I'm working on some super-dooper awesome posts for next week, but I'm being an annoying perfectionist, so they'll have to wait... Buuuuuut, I need something to distract me from browsing through Gymboree's awesome sale online and drooling over all the freaking adorable fall clothing for littles.  So, enter Mama M.'s Five Question Friday.  I LOVE Mama M.'s blog.  I don't know why I don't end up commenting more on it.... but she's so genuine and so funny - I feel like I'd want her as an aunt.  Or a L&D nurse.  Definitely for an L&D nurse.  (And sometimes reading her stories of being an L&D nurse makes me want to have more kids.  That's how you KNOW there's something wrong with me.)

Anyway, head to her blog to play along OR leave a comment and let me know what your answers would be - fun!

1) Do you feel guilty spending money on yourself?

Um, YES!  It kinda gives me cold sweats to buy myself stuff.  Or eat anything that's NOT on the dollar menu.  I mean, the last time I paid someone to cut my hair was in Georgia.  Jack was 18 months old, and the twins had yet to be conceived.  THAT is intense.  (No, my hair is not super long... I got sick of it about 3 months ago and used some Fiskars to lop off about 6 inches of it on my back deck.)  My wardrobe gets refreshed when my sweet and super fashionable little sis brings me hand-me-downs as she cleans out her closet.  Sigh.  It's not like we're in dire financial straits or anything, but I'd so much rather see my kids in new clothes that fit or reading a new book or put money in a piggy bank for my Dyson or something.

2) How well do you know your neighbors?

We've only lived here for about 4 months, but we LOVE having a sense of community around us, so we're certainly trying to get to know more people.  We lived in college dorms, followed by an apartment with our best friends surrounding us, then to a military base where everyone was friendly, to a fantastic neighborhood in Georgia where we'd have regular "driveway gatherings"... to Virginia where that started to go away and now we're here and we're putting forth a HUGE effort to learn people's names and a little about them.  The people across the street are swingers, though, so I don't really try too hard with them.

3) What age are you looking forward to being?

I like Mama M.'s answer... but I don't really look forward to being any particular age because I'm much more focused on enjoying each minute of every day.  It's not easy... but I've got no guarantee that I'll get to be any other age than what I am TODAY, so I try to relish that instead of looking ahead too far in case I get too busy dreaming about some future time that I stop appreciating now.  Does that make sense?  However, if someone could tell me I'm going to win the lottery at a certain age, I'll pick that.

4) Do you get excited when the mail comes?  Why?

Yeah, I do... a little bit... not every day, but pretty often.  I think it's a combination of a) me having an excuse to leave the kids in the house and walk to the mailbox alone for a second of fresh air and freedom (that's so sad and pitiful, I should delete it so you don't all know how pathetic I am) and b) the possibility of there being something cool in it... like Disc 3, season 7 of Entourage.  I was thinking about the whole "mail" thing and marveling that my kids will probably not really "get" what it's like to be excited about the mail... and if they do, my grandchildren certainly won't.  So weird.  They totally won't understand "film" or "corded telephones" either.  (Sorry, I digress!)

5) What is your earliest childhood memory?

Hm, I'm not sure of timelines, so I don't know what would be my earliest... I have tons and TONS of very vivid memories from being very young - before my sister was born, certainly.  I'm 4 years older than her, so I can recall things from earlier than that, at least.  I remember once staying with my dad's parents, Grammy and Grandpa, and eating dinner from a kiddie-plate shaped like a train (pork chops, potatoes and veggies) while Grammy baked bread (delicious bread full of holes and very buttery tasting) and then heading to a local store called "Duckwall" to buy thread so Grammy could finish sewing a dress for me.  I remember going back to their house afterward (in their giant blue Cadillac station wagon) to take a bath (in which I got to play with a plastic shape-sorter ball) and I can even recall the smell of the soap which was slightly floral and light pink-colored.

Okay, that's enough nonsnese for one morning - the girls are jail-bird style rattling their crib bars and squaking "Mama"! so I'd better go scoop them up and get a-snugglin'.

Potty Language

I love, apparently, to talk about poop.

Not that I get all giddy and gleeful like: "Poop!  Oh, poop! I can talk about it! Yay!" but in that I do it so often.  Not do poop, that is - talk about poop.  (Seriously, this post isn't THAT gross.)  I must find some sort of foul enjoyment in the discussions because they permeate my conversational repertoire.  The situation has gotten so bad that I can't even tell if other moms are like me, or if I just engage them in doo-themed discussions because I am such an avid poopophile.

It's beginning to worry me.

I can recall being younger, sitting at my grandmother's kitchen table listening to her describe a bowel movement to my mother as if she were talking about a recent rainstorm that produced the most brilliant rainbow.  I was appalled.  I swore that I would never ever talk about # 2 (go ahead, say it like Austin Powers... you know you want to) to the extent (ahem, or at all!) the way she did.

(In my defense, I am certainly NOT at the point of discussing any of this as it relates to the things I do in the ladies' room.)

Just last night, not only did I laugh to the point of tears at a "poo-dicament" involving Jordan and a bathtub, but I went a step further and posted about on Facebook.  (Not friends with me on Facebook?  You're missing out... er, maybe not.) See, she has this tendency to drop a deuce in the tub after dinner. Well, she has the last few nights, anyway.  And it's usually as I'm rinsing shampoo out of Addie's hair, so Jordan announces she's done her deed by screaming and crying in a horrified way (the turds scare her... do I even say it?  ..they scare the crap out of her.  There. I did it.  Forgive me.) as the product floats away, disintegrating quickly and making for a nasty clean-up job.  Yesterday, when I realized what was going on, I hollered, "Just, help!  Poop!  Poop in the waaaa-ter!" and he came running, to find me fishing squirmy, slimy toddlers out of the tub and passing them to him to towel off before they realize what's going on or have time to try to dive back into the bath (as they're prone to doing).  As Jordan got passed off, I said, "Please, get a dipe on Miss TubDump! I don't know if she's done!"  Well, the nickname kinda stuck for the rest of the evening, so I couldn't stop laughing, even as I scooped, bare-handed, the poo from the tub, wiped the floor, the tub, the toys, with bleach (for the third time in a row this week).  I couldn't get her terrified facial expression out of my face... like the toddler equivalent of staring at Jaws.  I couldn't stop laughing.  I mean, what's WRONG with me?

And I heard recently that Twitter conversations are getting logged in the Library of Congress and archived now.  What if they do that with Facebook feeds?  Will my kids be able to look up these status updates years from now, and use them to torture one another (that is, if I haven't already tortured them with it personally...)?

Yikes.

But it doesn't stop there.  The other day, one of the girls waited until AFTER the bath to leave a little surprise for me.  I had to chase one girl down (who has a habit of piddling when the cold air hits her wet skin) to diaper her and ran back to find her sister with a diaper in my hand when I noticed a particularly bad smell in their bedroom.  Thinking it was just a fart, I grabbed the naked tot and realized she had "fart" smeared all over her backside, feet and legs.  And then I found the pile.  Or three.  So I wiped the child down, diapered her, put both girls in the crib to keep them away from the mess and took a picture of the biscuit with my cell phone.

Yeah, I'm that gross. Love me anyway.

Then, when Justin was walking into our bedroom about 20 minutes later and roared with shock at the log that one of the girls had "baby-trapped" the doorway with, I lost it.  I was nearly sobbing with laughter.

Now, am I seriously that insane?  Or am I laughing because it's better to sob with laughter than to just plain sob?  Or am I really a 6th grade boy trapped in a 28-year-old woman's body?

I use cloth diapers.  That necessitates scraping the solid waste from the diaper into the toilet, flushing it, and laundering the diaper.  What do I use for that job?  Why, a plastic picnic spoon, kept in a plastic cup in the kids' bathroom (on a high shelf... after I found Jack drinking out of the cup and Jordan chewing on the spoon a few months ago, I learned that higher is always better [this is a statement of distance from the ground, people, not a life-style endorsement]).  What do I call the contraption?  My sPOOn.  Yeah, it's labeled on the cup... I even pronounce it like that.  "sssssPOOnnnn"

We use poop themed nicknames occasionally... "Daisy Duke", "Miss TubDump", "Pooo-rincess", "Deuce Nukem" and so on.  Different kinds of bowel movements get their own category from "stealth poop" if it doesn't smell so you get set to change a urine diaper and are surprised with a more complicated job, "faux poo" if you're prepared for a dirty diaper and there's nothing to be seen, and then into the more descriptive names that I'll spare you.

But ("butt"? ba-dum-chhhh) I have to wonder - is this motherhood?  Is this how I know I'm a mom first and a mom forever?  Have I degenerated from my super-educated, want-to-save-the-world-and-effect-positive-change-through-academic-achievement-self of old into a fugazi, mundane, even disgusting drain on society with nothing meaningful to contribute?  Have I become "Idiocracy"?  Am I "doomed" to a life of bad puns, embarrassing discussions and sounding like I've got an IQ of about 60?

Or does this pass?

I suppose all things doo.

Ask Jordan.

Ya Know...

I have absolutely nothing to post. 

Wow - that's a heck of an opening line, right?  Talk about grabbing your attention, eh?  High school English teachers the nation over are clutching their hearts, aghast at my utter dearth of creativity.

I've just been feeling really blah. 

The girls are teething up a storm so I don't have any cute pictures of their faces because they've donned permanent scowls and established "whine" as their primary language.  We've been spending a ton of time outside at parks and walking on nature trails and looking at land to buy in the area, which only compounds the girls' general bitchiness since they love nature about as much as I love scraping corn-y poo out of cloth diapers. 

And don't even get me started on the state of my house.  I essentially gave up on cleaning after this hot mess, but my dad is coming to visit for the first time in FIVE years, so I'd like to put up this front of "having it all together" for at least the first few minutes of his visit.  HOWEVER, teethy/whiny/snarky/screechy/butt-crawly-upy kids are not making that possible.  In fact, right now, I'm icing my hand because I was so angry with the fact that I vacuumed, paused to change a diaper, and came out of the girls' room to discover that the other two had discovered how to take the thingy out of the vacuum cleaner and were working on replacing the filth on the floor (where it clearly belongs) that I ended up shutting myself in my room and punching a pillow, only to miss the pillow about 3 swings in and crush my knuckle on the bedpost. 

Joy.

So I have a ton of pictures in my August folder of random patches of land...

...and of Addie hating the Great Outdoors...

...and of the back of Jordan because I'm often afraid to look her in the eye when she's in a Mood for fear of being turned to stone.

I mean, I love my kids.  But woah - these last few days have been challenging. 

Anyway, here's to the weekend (and maybe 10 minutes of peace... dare I hope?) - hope yours is great!

You Know You're a Mom...

My girl Arizona Mamma does "You Know You're a Mom When-sDaze" and I absolutely love participating because every single post without fail has me nodding my head along with her and either laughing or crying because every mom can relate on at least some level.

Sometimes, that's great!  Other times, uh, not so much.


We, for instance, have had a particularly rough start to the week.  Sweltering weather has kept us cooped up inside and I'm trying to get the house ready for the grandparents' visit (yay!) at the end of the weekend, so I've been trying to do too much and maybe not doting on the kids to the extent they'd like.  The result?  A big, hot mess.  I'm a hot mess, the house is a hot mess, the kids are a giant ball of hot mess.  Hot.  Mess.

At this point, I think the cleaning and organizing I'm trying to do is actually making the house worse because the kids are trying extra hard to un-do my work... and then some.

So, you know you're a mom when you try to put laundry away and you see this:

and you think, "I should stop them..." and then you think, "but I should put these socks away first and they'll leave me alone for a second..."  so you let it continue for another minute.

Then you realize that they've dumped 4 books in the tub and you didn't see it at first.  One of those books was a library book.  Due yesterday.

So you come up with a solution:

...because you need to turn that book in when you run errands later.  And while you're waiting for your book to dry, you determine you should clean the bathroom, but in your haste to put everything back before the kiddos realize what you're doing, you end up with this:

...which results at 11:49 pm in a big, disgusting mouthful of diaper cream.  Yummy.  See?  Hot mess.

Anyway, while you're quickly putting stuff back on your bathroom counter, ignoring a 3-year-old's insistence that your betta fish needs a friend, you've left them unsupervised in the living room in front of a tv show, so it should be no surprise to see this:

... and now that 3-year-old logic makes sense.  Plastic fish, real fish.  Real fish, plastic fish... it's all the same, so why not cohabitate?  Awesome.

Jordan had also, in this time, removed her diaper, peed on the kitchen floor and had then occupied herself by dropping Cherrios into the air vent, and Addison had discovered Jordan's puddle. 

So, the net result of my cleaning?  A dirtier, more chaotic zoo of a house, kids who needed sanitizing, a load of wet laundry that needed to be re-run because the dryer was being used for a book, and a late start on our errands, leading directly to Car Nap Syndrome and a ruinous evening, not to mention the distinct feeling of zinc diaper cream slathered on your teeth and tongue.  Our hot mess has become hotter and messier.  What?! That's only possible if you're a mom... or maybe someone who has lots of unruly cats and dogs and a few ferrets... maybe.

AND, wouldn't you know it - this post also eeks its way in as my first entry for

... a super-nerdy, super-fun meme you can check out at THIS spectacular blog!

Let's Talk About Socks, Baby, Let's Talk About You and Me...

I'm going to preface this whole post with this: I love my son.  I love his quirks.  I would not trade a single aspect of his personality for anything.  However, he is a total and complete weirdo. 

I mean, he's got a list of idiosyncrasies that would make your brain hurt.  I could write and write and write about the strange crap that Jack does.  But in the interest of preserving your sanity, I'm only going to focus on one of those:  his inane obsession with wearing socks.

The whole absurd thing started 4 or 5 months ago when he got an owie on his toe but wouldn't let me put anything on it to make it feel better and the miracle of the magic mommy kiss wore off every time he looked down and saw the teeny red mark.  So, to preserve (silly me, in retrospect) the illusion that his foot was fine once I put a kiss on it, I talked him into putting a sock on to hold the kiss in place (and hide the owie from sight).  My fix helped him that evening and the next and I figured myself for some kind of genius until I tried to take the socks off for a bath and he wigged the hell out on  me.  Like, dude needed a straight jacket.  So I left his socks on and  he happily got into the tub and we did the whole thing just fine until he got out and I had to take the wet socks off.  He would not allow me to remove the wet sock until I proved to him that I had a dry sock ready to go.

The owie has LONG since healed.

The socks remain.

I ask him periodically if we can take them off but no, he will not let me.  There is still some mystery owie that needs to heal beneath these all-powerful socks. 

I desperately need to get him over this thing before summer because the idea of rolling around town with my son rocking socks and sandals makes me a little queasy.  (Fashionista I am not, but even someone like me has standards.)

Jack's sockophilia even causes marriage issues for us.  I mean, nothing serious, but periodically over the last 4 or 5 months the "sock or no sock" argument rears its nasty head and Justin gets it in his noggin that Jack absolutely should no longer wear socks and I insist that it does not, in the grand scheme, matter.  Things ensue as follows: Justin takes off everyone's socks and bellows about how there is no owie, Jack wails in misery befitting a crude amputation of his leg and I throw my hands up and holler at the two of them for fighting about socks.

Socks.

My husband and I rarely argue, but the sock issue never fails to spark a tiff.

Freaking socks.

I've never understood all the inner workings of the Jack mind, nor will I ever, I'm sure.  Just once, though, I'd like to get this.  If only to say to Justin, "Pipe down, it's only a bit longer," in attempts to assuage his frustration and ease my fashion nightmares. 

Grrrrrrr. 

Twilight...

... and all the associated stuff - the people, movies, vampire-obsessed teens...

I don't get it.

It just baffles me.

My 100th Post!

Hooray for me!  I bet this is where you expected me to write something profound?  Hm, sorry.  Profundity and I aren't a good match these days.  BUT, I will make sure I regale you with a few amusing points, even if there is no actual specific thesis for this particular post.  I'm sure you'll forgive me since there are 99 other marvelously fantastic, amusing, insightful, brilliantly written blog posts for your reading pleasure...

...no? 

*sigh* You're right.  So, celebrating mediocrity for the 100th time, I present:

My living room floor!  Yay!  And the three kiddos lounging on it, flea-free* at last!

(*until they come back, which they probably will and I will again be placed on homicide-watch.)

You see, fleas attacked us.  No, we don't have pets.  Yes, I am a clean (obsessively so) person and yes, they really are as obnoxious as you've heard.  So after 2 treatments from Terminix (the only reason I've made it through this past year in the dump I call my house) and daily vacuuming, it appears that so far, we've kept the pesky little punks at bay.  Score.  One.  For.  Me.

(And I neeeeeed that point.)

Well.  In the midst of all the drama and chaos resulting from our arachnid visitors, I was able to get all 4 of our trees up.  See?

The living room tree... well, part of it.

The dining room tree.

The girls' tree.

Jack's tree.

... some of the adorable ornaments on the living room (family) tree and of course, the stocking holders. 

Speaking of stocking holders, I had to go buy a few extra ones to accommodate our expanded family, as well as this year's stupendous addition of my mom and sister!  (And even still have one left over for baby #4...? Eventually...?  Please, Hubby...?)

So... hm.  Well, also in Melis-News, Jordan has been driving me crazy since she learned to roll over.  She actually not only learned to roll, but developed a rolling compulsion.  See, I can't keep the kid on her back for the life of me.  Not for a diaper change, not in the bouncer, not even on my lap to nurse, since she's halfway there.  She in fact spends the nursing sessions trying to go the rest of the way over and wind up on my lap on her belly.  Oh, but it's not because she likes being on her belly.  In fact, she hates it.  And she doesn't think to just roll back.  No, she starts shrieking immediately like someone was eviscerating her with a dull spoon.  I mean, normally, fine.  Whatever, Kiddo, I'll help you out.  But it gets pretty old when it happens, oh 12 times a night.  Or when it cuts nap short for you AND your sister... AND your brother because your wailing is loud enough to rattle our next-door neighbor's dishes.  I have no idea how to stop this, either.  She's a weird, weird kid.

The silver lining to the flea issue and to the Jordan/OCD issue is that the combination of the running around and doing crazy housework thanks to the fleas and the increased nursing to get Jordan to sleep after her 5th or 6th nightly wake-up has kicked my metabolism into high gear because mysteriously, I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight.  Now, my pre-pregnancy weight was not my ideal weight (I have another 5lbs to go to hit that one) and furthermore, pre-pregnancy weight in no way is related to pre-pregnancy shape.  I could lose another 30 pounds and not attain that... well, I would probably die at that point, but you get the point.  So, go me!  (Really, what this means is that my jeans are looser and all the more willing to allow Muffin Top to creep up and greet the world... joy.)

And lastly, (for now, as I'm making fudge and need to go check on it taste it) I would like to point out that... crap, I totally forgot what I was saying because I went up to add the sentence about Jordan being a weird kid.

*Sigh* Okay, well, I did try to give you a good post for #100, but my tired brain failed me and hey, at least there are photos, right?  Right.  Stop whining. 

Here's to 100 more gems...

My Anger Migraine

More often than not my posts tend to be light-hearted and (I think) funny. I try. That's who I am. That's how I write. That's how I cope.

There isn't a lot I need to cope with. Really. I read lots of blogs and I know lots of people. And you know what? I am the first to admit that I have it easier than so many others, and also the first to be thankful for that. I mean, I am CONSTANTLY thanking God that I am as blessed as I am... and maybe that helps me cope too.

Pardon me, this is going to be a bit brain-dump-ey...

BUT every once in a while I get to the point where I need to vent. I have one of the longest fuses out there. BUT. But, that nagging little article of speech everyone dreads... But. If you read my blog on any kind of regular basis you deserve a medal you've probably noticed I haven't posted since last Monday. And before that, it had been a while... Well that's because I've been really struggling to find the funny inside because the mad inside is getting a little out of control.

And compounding the mad is the guilt I feel because, as I've said, I really don't have it bad at all. Roof over my head (albeit, a crappy, 100-year-old roof), food on the table, clothes, health... all good. So there's just this amorphous, directionless, vague anger bouncing around inside making me feel... well, ugly. Not in the sense that I feel like I could use a good makeup artist but in the "I don't like who I am" sense. I'm angry at my husband's job. I'm angry at the house I'm stuck living in. I'm angry at people who expect the world to take care of them regardless of effort or lack there-of to do anything about a situation. I'm angry at lazy people. I'm angry at... well, I don't even know, and that's the problem. I'm just mad.

Like, constantly.

And I'm doing my best to not take it out on people who don't deserve it, but that gets to be so damned difficult because I can't possibly take it out on those that do or that which does deserve my wrath. (And, for future reference, my wrath is NOT something anyone ever wants to see. I'm very good at being mad.) So the mad inside just stays there. Bottled up, bouncing to and fro, waiting to leak out through a harsh word or a barked command at my toddler or to turn my sigh of frustration over a crying baby into a scream of anger. It's always there, pushing at the edges of my conversations with my husband, trying to hone my words into weapons and wound with intractable insults.

But why? This isn't me. I'm not an angry person! I hate - hate- this mad in me. I want it out and I want it to not come back. I want to not look at the clock and be instantly furious. I want to step into my kitchen and not have fury flash into my heart over the cold, damp awfulness that my landlord allows to seep in through the non-functional door. I want to watch the news and not want to commit assault when I hear about the multitudes of people looking for someone else to blame for problems that can be over come with hard work. I. Just. Don't. Want. To. Be. Mad.

I don't want to growl angry hateful words about people who don't do their jobs and make my husband pick up their slack. I don't want to compare our paycheck to someone else's and think about how much more work we do to earn ours. I don't want to leave one job behind for another and have bitterness and scorn taint the good memories we've made.

Grrrr, go away, Mad!

I am happy with so much in my life. Beyond happy. I'm completely content and, as I said, so grateful for so much, that I guess I should probably embrace the stupid mad and be thankful that I can be mad that my husband works absurd hours because it means I want him here, home with us, instead. I guess that anger highlights how much I love him and his presence. I should learn from the frustration with this house and apply it to the next time we pick out a place to live...

But come on; I don't need week after week of a crappy work schedule or cockroach roommates to teach me life lessons! I get it!

Grrr!

I don't mind being mad when I can use it to do something positive... to be proactive or to make a change or something like that. But this mad just sits there... it's like the pain of childbirth versus the pain of a migraine... one is productive and has an amazing outcome and the other is just plain, stupid, pointless pain. This - what I'm dealing with - is like an anger migraine. Pointless and painful for no good reason.

I don't know. Maybe this will help. Bitching to you all 3 about it. I'm sorry. I am. I feel bad griping and moaning and whining because this is my funny place. This blog is my laugh at myself and see all the good in things place and I'm yucking it up with my mad. Do you ever feel that way? Just mad? How the heck do I get past it? What I want is a punching bag. What I've got are some plaster walls that (I tried) don't really like getting punched and will most certainly hurt you back. I've got a pile of leftover Halloween candy and some absolutely adorable kids to snuggle and that does help. But as soon as I'm not cuddling them in my arms, that stupid anger migraine pops up again and undoes all the good my babies' presence has done. So what to do? Wait for it to go away? Ack.

*sigh*

So in the meantime, I'll get my funny on again and find my laugh deep down, underneath the cursing and growling, and step my game on up. Promise. Hold me to that.

Rants (warning: negativity follows)

* Is it okay that I'm a politcal science major and HATE listening to crap about politcs these days? I'm over the popularity contests and the mud-flinging and ignorance that goes along with elections.

*I hate the economy right now. That probably goes without saying, but I am not in love with trying to sell a house in a credit-challenged society. Not such a great situation.

*Johnny and the Sprites - moms, you know what I'm talking about - the Playhouse Disney show that probably only comes on early on Saturdays but they advertise the crap out of... Johnny is so blatantly gay. I love gay people (seriously, but not like that) but Johnny is almost a walking, talking, homosexual parody of homosexuality. Come on, it's too much. Kids are getting meaner, don't give them someone so out there for my toddler to point and laugh at. Dude doesn't need to be all lispy and overly made-up to appeal to kids... look at the Imagination Movers - those guys are HOT! I don't care if they ARE gay, they're funny and sexy (okay I might be weird) and genuine. In no way do they come off as "I am only doing this so I can get fan mail from little boys" like Johnny. I mean, come on, Disney, don't set yourselves up for an in-house episode of Law and Order: SVU. And have you SEEN the "Mother Earth" character? I don't know what they were going for, but I'm pretty sure what they got was half-baked trailer trash hippie. And this is from someone who hasn't even seen an episode - just the clips that (unfortunately) come on during Jack's Little Einsteins/Clubhouse/Handy Manny run.

*I just burned my mouth on crazy hot coffee.

*My fish tank is horrible. I clean the stupid thing to within an inch of its life, have only 3 fish in 10 gallons (including an algae-eater!) and have a rockstar filter with a cartridge I change every 2 weeks instead of every 4, I condition the water with the right stuff in the right amounts and within 3 days of adding fresh water, the tank looks like a big rectangle of green jello. (Yeah run-on sentence...)
---> update: I just paused in writing this post to put the tank and its constituent parts in an ad on Freecycle so hopefully someone in the area that actually wants some useless pets will benefit from my utter and complete resignation. So I feel better knowing that soon it will be someone else's problem. I wish them the best of luck. (Suckers!)

*Someone's muffler is laying in the road outside my house. Why don't all states have emissions requirements?

*I have to put laundry away. I hate hanging clothes up. HATE it. My least favorite household chore. I'll scrub 100 toilets before I voluntarily put clothes on hangers in the closet.

Okay I'm done. I needed to vent. Sorry you had to put up with that. It's 9:20 and Jack is still passed out because he's got a cold. Poor kiddo. But it gave me some time to bleed out some frustrations and to put my tank on Freecycle. Sweet.