Over the Top Momma

Am I just getting dumber, or older?

2011-07-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

I am starting to have a appreciation for a few clichés I never really understood until now, a few days before yet another thirty something birthday.

“I have forgotten more than you know.”
Realizing exactly how much I have forgotten and how much my kids know, makes me incredibly sad, and makes me wish I didn’t kill off so many brain cells in my youth that might come in handy now.

“I tried so hard not to be like my mother, I turned into my father.”
Oh baby is this weird to realize came to fruition. If you knew my father, you’d understand why the prospect of hanging out in a tree for hours on with a shotgun to shoot a wild turkey only to decide best practice is to jump on its back and break its neck… is not something I am looking forward to deciding was a rational plan, sometime in my future. I am sure that sometimes in my father’s history, he thought… why would I ever do that? And yet, if I have turned into my father, I might start practicing my goat castration methods now.

“Women age like a fine wine.”
Yeah, well this one didn’t work out so well for me yet. However there is a certain complacency that comes from knowing you are not meant to be the one turning the heads in the room. It’s almost like being promoted to a supervisor position on a shift the big boss has gone home. You are not the expert, but a sufficient substitute to judge that the job is getting done… just not by you.

“Drink more, Look better!”
I have a feeling this might be put to the test this weekend on our girls weekend out in Atlantic City. I would be lying if I didn’t say here, that I am a little frightened. I am no longer the alcohol coinsure I was in my 20’s and I believe I can now officially be categorized as a light weight, which is probably the only time I will make the light weight of any category other than say, French history or Latin, or math. Ok, maybe there is a few others… shut up.

I know now why cliché’s were invented. Because as we age, our brains need a few things to say in every situation when our brains click onto autopilot to keep us from just standing there drooling on ourselves.

Friendships

2011-07-08T07:52:00.001-07:00

Recently there was an article in the news that professed in a very unscientific manner, that romance novels were the most popular summer reads, and that this was unhealthy for Americans because it gave an unrealistic view of love, romance and marriage. While I simply laughed and changed the channel, I can’t help but to sit here today and wonder where my unrealistic views of friendship derive from, and wish it were easy enough to blame it all on Danielle Steel.

I am a very good read of people. I usually know what they are about, how they are feeling and pick up intuitively clues to their humor and personality pretty easily. However, understanding someone and being friends with someone are two very different things. Women and friendships are like children going through puberty… very fulfilling and volatile and totally depends on which way the wind is blowing. There are no good human behavior predictors to knowing how women in friendships will flush out.
Heartbreak is a risk when entering into friendship, but one we all do again and again without hesitation because the pay offs can be so good. It seems sometimes the fast friendships where things just click and mold right away, can be the most disappointing friendships when they end. Finding characteristics in others that fit exactly what we need, is sometimes harder than breaking up with a boyfriend when things go wrong.

But when things go right, or you have that unexpected kindness in someone you didn’t expect it from is when you know you are on the right track. With moving around so much, making friends was something I always thought I was good at, but keeping them happy seems to be another story. After my forty hours of entertainment is up, it seems I get tossed away like a dirty paper towel while watching my soul mates find better friends version 2.0. Truth is, moving around with the military, there are a lot more reasons to start and end friendships which make me feel often times like a drama mama. But those friendships that come easily and have many rewards are cherished just that much more.

Today, I will do my best to continue to be a good friend. Today, I am grateful for those who are a good friend to me.

Thank you J.Marie.

Marriage

2011-06-01T17:54:00.000-07:00

Marriage is such a powerful noun used as a verb. It's used to define so much of our society. Ultimately though, it's the one way we can show another person that we totally accept them. And we fight for it so hard because it's means that good and bad we are accepted by another person. Unconditional love and the association of marriage really equals acceptance.

Some people forget that marriage is work, because the other person promised to accept us good and bad. We get upset when suddenly that acceptance is fading or wayning. The love and the passion can understandably come and go, shrink and grow in intensity from day to day as long as we know the underlying acceptance is still there.

So it stands to reason, that when we tell a person they are not going to be allowed to be accepted, that they will revolt. Gay marriage is not about a piece of paper or civil union. It's slicing at the heart of what we as individualls and a society hold dear. It's not just saying we don't accept you for being gay, it's saying we don't accept you and we won't allow anyone else to accept you either. It's not berating their love or what they do in the bedroom, that's easy to turn a deaf ear towards. It's not saying you can have the same thing but call it "Civil Unions" instead of "Marriage" as a reasonable alternative because underneath it all, its one person telling someone else they cannot play in our world.

If there is a day when you find someone wondering, why can't they just be happy with civil unions, or not understanding why they the gay community needs marriage, ask them how they felt when they were not accepted to a club they really wanted to be in. Ask them to remember how it felt to be unaccepted by the popular kids crowd, or feel ashamed to eat at the popular kids table. Ask a parent to remember how it felt to have your child come home crying because the kids were mean to them, and there were no words to console or bruises to heal.

Sometimes we will not approve of who our own children will marry, but we get no say so of their choices. So why are some to pompous to think they can have say so over total strangers?

It all comes down to acceptance, it's emotional and it's intesne, it's raw and necessary. Marriage is not a club. It's a social statement that one person has accepted another person for the good bad and ugly. If you don't want to accept them, then don't buy them an anniversary card.

Musical Poop

2011-05-24T06:32:00.000-07:00

Why is it that poop is the funniest word in the English language? At least it is when you are four and six. Never fails, any song or rhyme can always have the word poop on in a pinch, pee worked into it in a methodical manner to the delight of my kids and annoyance of me. I really think most song writers are missing out on a key market here. Sure, poop goes in the potty was a great one hit wonder… but using poop just for explicit delights much like most artists drop the “F” bombs and call people Bitches and Ho’s is truly underrated for the musical talents geared to the single digit age group demographics. And to be honest, I have a feeling my husband would also delight in these melodic songs on the same subject. Apparently my humor type has run a little too constipated on this topic. Guess I best just relax.

Perhaps I should take an instruction from South Park, as much as I detest the show... they were able to make one very famous poop a prominent figure for about as long as it took to flush him.

Dermovolcanic Postural Awareness

2011-04-23T18:50:00.000-07:00

So tonight I am going to be blogging once again on a very pressing matter. I know most of you are expecting me to respond to the number of remarks, articles and reactions that were sent to me on my last post. It seems gender and gender play is a hot topic around our country these days. However, this is even more pressing on my mind. Actually, more pressing on my face… actually out of my face.

It’s an explosive topic, so please take care and be sensitive in your responses. It’s embarrassing, and kind of disgusting, none the less something I have to live with. It’s this zit on my face.

It’s in the same place every month, right at the corner of my mouth. I find myself at night curled up and jamming my hand right into that same spot. The spot where the phone touches, the spot where that big laugh line is starting to form. And just in case no one catches onto the hormonal imbalances of my moods, there is a big gleaming red light with a white top, like an inside out target sigh, highlighting the way to my disgrace.

As with most things in life, there are certain things you know you shouldn’t do. Don’t do drugs, don’t smoke, don’t over eat… and don’t pick your zits. However, it’s almost like human instinct that the more we aren’t supposed to do something, we do it. Lance that sucker open and squeeze until it bleeds clear, only to leave an even bigger red angry pock mark, which fails to turn the frown upside down.
I can hear you snickering now. It’s a serious situation! It really does prevent me from leaving the house or having any type of inkling of self confidence. One zit takes me right back to some bad episode of “Saved by the Bell” staring me as the female Screech.

Therefore, I thought it only fitting that I bring awareness to this very important issue, and possibly start a non-profit organization to help others who are inflicted with the same debilitating problem.

Sorry You Asked?

2011-04-12T11:29:00.001-07:00

It does appear it’s more than a phase. As we look around our toy room strewn with Littlest Pet Shops, Barbie, My Little Pony, more Dora than Diego and various fairy coloring books, figures, artwork and coloring books, most people can safely agree without offending me that my two boys favor the “girl” toys.

I get a lot of questions about this, so I decided to write this blog to try to answer some of the questions that are proposed not only to me, but to my closest friends who know my family best as well. Am I offended, of course not! I realize that the genderizations that we place on the color pink or the type of play our children engage in is extremely hard wired into our culture, so much so that most people wouldn’t ever give it a second thought. I also understand that gender is hard wired to into an association of sexuality in our culture as well. I am bucking the norms! Am I trying to make my sons gay? Of course not and no one has ever suggested that to my face. In this regard however, because we (my husband and I) allow our boys to choose girl toys over boy toys if they so choose, we are trailblazers against the social norm.

I didn’t expect it to happen like this that is to be sure. I learned about gender issues such as this when I was earning my BA in Sociology at Cal State Hayward, easily one of the most liberal colleges in the world. I just had no idea how these ideas that seemed just slightly over the top would play out in my own experience as a parent. When my oldest was almost three, and youngest just over one I dropped them off at the gym daycare for a couple hours. At this age, their toys are all pretty gender neutral, but the daycare had a box of dress up clothes. My sons started pulling out the princess dresses and Snow White costumes, and putting them on with great delight. I simply giggled and left, only to find when I returned they were dressed as a fairy and a bride. The woman in the daycare said, “I tried to get them to wear the fireman outfits, but they didn’t want those.” I just smiled and thanked them. The next time, they went for the same outfits, and the other kids started to laugh. At this time, my guys are young, they just don’t know they are doing girl stuff. Momma bear comes out and I start telling the other kids how this is alright, they are little… and I ask the girls in the daycare if they can pay special attention to be sure my guys don’t get teased. This happened for the next two weeks, as I patiently waited for my guys to get over this phase.

When it didn’t pass, I found some used princess costumes-four for $10- and brought them home. My thoughts were that they would get to wear them at home, get it out of their systems and not play with the ones at daycare anymore where they might get teased. Little did I know, this was the beginning with no end. They not only wore them there but didn’t give up their dress up habits at the gym either. And when they went to a toy store, they were drawn towards the pink isle rather than that dreary grey and black boy isle. I can see why… girls toys are bright and cheery with more cartoon fun features, cute animals and built for pretend play which was developmentally a better fit for their age. So now their new favorite toys to buy were Littlest Pet Shops, which to me didn’t seem like “girl” toys at all, just cute animals. They certainly weren’t monster trucks or hot wheels however.

This was about the time, I started to look up current research on gender and toys. This is because as we were picking out LPS, the dolls and strollers looked really appealing too. Ok, I guess we already had a baby stroller and doll, and a play kitchen at this time. This was because our oldest son had a little brother coming and we wanted him to become familiar with ways to nurture a baby. The research I found said that boys that play with dolls will learn traits to become great fathers and men. It was also a great way to explain to him what would be coming into his world soon. So yes, they were already in our home, which if we had an older sister... would not seem odd at all. I get told all the time, “My brother played with our dolls all the time.” The difference in our home was there wasn’t a little girl to add some validity for our boys accidentally playing with dolls. We really were letting them make that choice.

It really was just all a natural progression from those early days of a doll and some dresses. The research all said that gender play had nothing to do with sexuality and that is a gross misconception in the American Culture. It made sense, because really, what four year old really has sexuality? It really is something we impose on our kids. I just wanted my kids to have choices, to not be hindered in their thinking of what they could do or play with. We always tell our kids when they get older, “You can be anything you want to be,” but tell them though societies rule that they cannot like pink or play with a doll? I can see don’t play with knives or jump off a roof, but really… I only found positive reasons why I should be giving them options in the toys they play with in childhood.

People were much more supportive of my kids playing with girl toys when they were younger. Clearly they didn’t know better, and people looked at it as if it was just going to be a cute antidotal story one day. I am sure I probably thought the same thing. But as time progressed, and my now six year old showed no signs of converting to traditional gender norms, the view started changing. It appears my son is now old enough to know the social norm, and I assure you he is very well aware. This does cause both adults and kids to take pause. It’s not that my boys are only attracted to girl toys, they like both. They will watch Barbie in a Fairy Secret, and the next movie will be Defenders of the Universe. It’s just that when the feminine end of the spectrum arises, people don’t exactly know how they feel or how they should react.

The kids are very resilient at this age. My kids close friends, simply know they like girl toys and accept it as different but a fact. If a new kid will say something taunting such, it’s usually my kid’s friends that will very matter of fact fill in the new kid, “Yes, they like girl things,” and they move on with their play. It’s all pretty matter of fact, yet it’s acknowledged and gives that moment of validation to my kids that even though it’s not a normal choice, it’s still acceptable. At birthday parties and Christmas, our kids are given more girl toys than boy, because the kids pick them out and know that’s what they will like. It’s very thoughtful and in fact, right on target.

The real surprise is the adults’ reaction to not my children, but me. There is a lot of curiosity around our parenting decisions to let our children choose their own toys. A lot of times people don’t realize the extent to which our boys are immersed in a co-gender toy world, and the reactions will be to a particular story or picture. If we didn’t take pictures of our kids in fairy dresses, we’d have no pictures of them from ages 3-5. They lived in those dresses and there were more than a few tears when they finally ripped and were entirely too small to wear anymore, and had to be retired. People would see the dresses in the consignment shop and wonder, why did Heidi have these? They might come to a party where my kids would get out the dresses complete with shoes and tiara’s and dress up not just themselves but their friends no matter what the gender.

Oh yes, the fathers would flip out at the sight of their son in a pink dress with a fuzzy crown. The veins would pop as they had to control themselves from ripping the dresses off their kids, and I could literally hear the teeth crunching as they grappled with their own masculinity of watching their Mr. Princesses run around enjoying the story of being a princess for everyone at the party to see. I have yet to see a father actually rip the dresses off their sons, but oh yes you know they wanted too. I wonder often, what force it was that stopped them? Could it be they respected my husband and I, and didn’t want to offend us by showing they didn’t approve? Could it be not wanting to stop that fun that their sons were having and potentially cause a scene? Could it be the taboo of rejecting feminization as being chauvinistic? All plausible and all probably true. Whatever it is, it’s a strong force to contend with that amount of vein popping teeth grinding uncomfortable tension brewing inside a 280lb good ol’ Kentucky born and breed huntin’ man.

My oldest, recently inspired by Barbie in the Fashion Fairytale, has decided he wanted to become a fashion designer. He’s quite an artist and loves to sketch things in his notebook. He wanted me to take him to some fashion shows so he could, “Ya know, get some experience.” After emailing all the New York designers I could find, I ended up unsuccessful. Something about fashion designers and their corporations don’t really cater to the six year old gender bending I suppose. There was a charity fashion show close to home however that I was able to secure tickets for, and my oldest son went as my date. He was so popular, I felt like his body guard. These women knew who he was as soon as we stepped off the elevator. Everyone was telling him how handsome he was and he was going to be famous someday. One woman practically ripped his notepad right out from his hands when he was trying to sketch the design he had picked out that would be perfect for his principal Dr. Megan. I realized right away, that is really wasn’t because my son is so adorable, which he is… but it was because he was my son. Had I brought my daughter to the event, no one would have batted an eye, and might have even made an off handed comment about how this is not a children’s event. My little artistic bug however, was breaking the mould, and these made us feel like we were making history. My son is a little on the shy side, but he handled very well by saying, “I have a brother. He’s four…” and he’s whisper to me, “I sure wish he was here right now.” My son also made a very astute observation at this event, where we were experiencing this onslaught of attention. He said, “Mom, there are a lot of old ladies here.” It was a good little reminder for me to note this age and population for our life as we experience it as a social experiment in gender. While these ladies were certainly surprised at the intense interest that my son shared for fashion, and the diligence he presented when sketching the fashions, they were all very kind and very accepting, recognizing they might be sitting with the future Calvin Kline.

Now that I have covered how other people present their observations about my sons perceived tendencies towards girl activities and toys, I will attempt to address the most common question that and my close friends are posed. What does my husband think?
I would be lying though my teeth if I said that my husband is totally comfortable with all that goes on in our home, in regards to gender. The reason why my husband is totally awesome however, is he supports our sons to the best of his ability. The other day, we went to the shoe store to get new tennis shoes. Our oldest son looked over all the choices and then sat quietly on the couch holding back his tears. I asked him what was going on, I saw no reason for tears over tennis shoes. He shyly said that these shoes were all boring and he didn’t want any of them. When I asked him what he wanted, he pointed to the other side of the isle, where on display were rows and rows of shiny sparkly girls shoes with neon paints, glitters and lots of other wonderful frilly attachments to make them as whimsical as possible. I explained that he would have to wear these shoes to school and those were in fact girl shoes. He didn’t care, he loved those and hated all his options, even the shoes that lit up with lights. Any bland shoe on that side of the isle was going to have to shoot out bubbles with each step to compete with the ones in the girls section. Long story short, I told him he was going to get teased. “They probably won’t even notice, Mom.” He said happily that I was even considering this purchase. “I don’t care. I will just walk away.” I asked what he would do if he couldn’t walk away, like if he was in line. Then I even started to taunt him a little bit, like I was a kid at school. “You’re wearing girl shoes,” I said in a snotty voice and pretended to laugh. This is when my son amazed me. I realized his strong character, his confidence and sense of individual was so well developed. He looked me straight in the eye and smiled as he said, “I don’t care. I like ‘em.” I helped him pick out the most demure pair of sparkly shoes we could find, and he was happy. Now, where was my husband? Oh, he was there. But first, my younger son.

My younger son is a bit more well balanced gender speaking, he plays with little people, cars, little ponies and train. He understands and accepts peoples perceptions and knows how to play into them and is willing to do so more than my older son. At school he plays with blocks and at home he plays with fairies. He found a pair of shoes that were not to be ignored however. They were on sale he pointed out repeatedly, because for him they were a must have. Bright pink Hello Kitty slippers.

I explained that those were house shoes, and he was even more in love with that idea. “I can just wear them at home, and it won’t matter that they are girl shoes.” This doesn’t stop him from wanting to wear them to school every once in a while, but he does seem to appreciate the norms perhaps more than his brother or even his mother. Terry watched as he picked out the slippers, but not closely enough to realize until we got home he got the wrong size, and simply said alright. As dearest hubby realized older son was about to get girl shoes, he walked into the men’s department. I looked to him as to ask for help, but it was clear I was on my own. I really did try to talk him out of girl shoes, and I prepared him for the inevitable taunting, but he was not to be dissuaded. I was looking at Terry, to slam the foot down like most men would. Just say no, no way, enough is enough… but he didn’t. He also refused to be anywhere nears us when we paid, and made me use my card. Just something about having to pay for his son’s girl shoes was asking too much, even though he was right there in the store. But he stayed quiet and supported his son in his decision.

Later that night, I asked him about it. He has a great sense of humor about it all. He even took pictures of the boys’ new shoes and put them on his facebook in a very funny way. I suggested that he even start his own blog about it, and he refused. He said, he doesn’t want his sons to read it later and feel that he was anyway disappointed in them, making fun of them or not happy with whom they are whatever they turn out to be. Well, he’s much more thoughtful than I, for sure. There again is another gender difference. While people might have trepidations to ask me about our family gender habits, I can express my pride in my kids being well rounded with great ease, and my sexuality is never called into question. My husband however, feels he cannot even though, he is proud of our sons and believes they are going to grow up to be wonderful, caring , supportive, smart and successful men. There is that fear however, that gay fear, that fear of the overt approval of feminization, the crossing of the line from metro to homo that cannot be ignored because it is hard wired into our culture. He even admits if one of our sons turns out to be homosexual, he doesn’t feel he can handle it well, but he will handle it none the less. It’s just unfair that even in his approval that he feels that pressure of questioning sexuality, much more I dare say than I feel it. This is why, my husband is so great. His friend asked him why he let him get the shoes, and he said, “How could I say no? How can you tell your six year old son, no to something he wants to badly?” Terry wasn’t thinking about the consequences of bucking gender norms, he only saw that his son was being denied something that there was no really reasonable explanation as to why he couldn’t have it, especially since he showed he knew the consequences.

He did wear the shoes to school, and I did go to the school and check on him. The teacher reported back that they did have a conversation but everything seemed to be fine. Aiden said there were some kids who laughed at him, but they were still his friends. Some laughed in a mean way, but he expected that to happen, then he was more than happy to tell me his friend laughed because she had the same shoes. He now switches back and forth between shoes depending on his mood and how long it takes him to get them on. His bright blue crocks with green straps quickly made it to the top of his favorite shoe list, but his girl shoes are simply just … shoes.

I get quite a few questions, but oddly enough it’s my close friends that get even more. Most people are afraid that I will take offense so it’s easier to work out their questions and ideas on our gender friendly household with friends who might know, rather than taking a risk of offending me. And there is a good majority of my friends that love it! There are a majority of people that approve but say their husbands would never allow that, and they won’t even drink from a pink straw. I am honored when people ask me or want to talk about it with me, because it means they are not closed off and are willing to explore the question “Why, or why not?” I have seen some people feel ashamed, because they feel like they missed out on offering their sons some really good life skills when they hear my reasoning. Some people realize they did play have these opportunities because they have a sister in the home to validify any accidental playing of non gender correct play. I have had some people just shake their head but respect my views none the less. I have had people tell my husband, “Wow, I’m so glad I just have girls and don’t have to deal with this stuff.” The most common reaction is wondering how my husband deals with it all and to that I just say...like a champ.

Toy Guns

2011-04-11T09:33:00.000-07:00

I know certain therapist that thinks toys should be part of their toys to help play out aggressive tendencies. Some people think guns are a natural toy that boys should play with, a toy that seems to attach or get them familiar with their masculinity. There are those that see toy guns as a step in the learning process to using guns responsibly. I have even heard, “Well they just pick up sticks and use them as guns anyway.”

To these ideas, I just have to shake my head.

The idea of playing with toy guns is something that is hard to study. It’s hard to see how playing with toy guns can have a scientific foundation on the propensity to use a gun later in life for a violent crime. There is just too many variables to make a statement like that, so if you think that is what I am saying, you are not understanding me. What I am about to write is my gut feelings as an educated mother. I am a liberal California hippy chick tree hugging momma who loves her children and wants to keep my kids sweet disposition for their entire lives, so from this point of view I realize I am bias. I admit that if my kids never killed an animal, or shot an intruder in their entire existence then I will be very happy. So with that I say this:

Guns are not Toys and Toys are not Guns.

I watch my kids. They are creative and artistic. They love hide and seek and bubbles. They make up their own games and I need to take stock in crayola. They color rainbows and play tag. I watched as my son, picked up a toy gun for the first time at a friend’s house. His demeanor changed. He was no longer into collaboration in his game types but started playing with the idea of shooting people dead. This wasn’t the first time they played with the idea of death, but there was a difference. Yesterday, it was my youngest laying on the ground because an Elephant stepped on him, then sat on him and farted, so that made him flat and dead. This time, there was a hunt… a ferocity that came along with the game.

He saw me watching him with a concerned look, and I asked him to put the gun down. He told me, “Mom, we are just pretending.” I explained, it’s not that you are pretending, that’s fine. It’s the way you are pretending. This toy changes your thinking. Thoughts moved from rainbow and bubble gardens, to ultimate victory to the shooting death. I told him, “You are a sweet and kind boy, and this type of play is changing the way you play and think. What kind of boy do you want to be?” He agreed and put down the gun surprisingly without an argument. He hasn’t asked for any type of gun toys since. Apparently he enjoys being a sweet boy too.

So no, it’s not scientific and it’s just one of the many reasons I am over the top.

Guns for adults… I still believe in positive in and positive out. Guns for protection, I trust a baseball bat. I refuse to live in a world where I only feel safe with access to a deadly weapon. Positive in, positive out to create the world I want for my children.

Hopefully the only kind of "gun" my kids will ever use:

Farewell Eyebrows and Dignity

2011-03-29T18:54:00.000-07:00

Nothing like submitting yourself to the torture that we label self care, and have to tip for the extra jovial insults that just don’t quite make it across that language and culture barrier. Yes, that’s right folks, today I got my eyebrows waxed.

It wasn’t the first time I have had my brows thinned and plucked, nor was it the first time I have been oh so gently insulted while having hot wax applied to my face and ripped out the hair by the roots. It’s no wonder why I have it done maybe once every two years at best.

The first time was when I was in California. My friend was on the other side of the half wall from the waxing room where she could hear the gentle soothing sounds of ripping flesh and my skin screaming, when she heard the lady say to me, “Oh, you have very hairy face.” The next sound I heard was the ripping of what was left of my upper right eye lid, followed by the petite giggle of my friend busting a gut on the other side of the half wall.

So fast forwarding into today’s festivities… and that’s what they were. My girlfriend and I decided today was a day of celebration and self care, and off to the Mani/Pedi department AKA nail shop in the strip mall next to the Starbucks. You all know it, everyone has one. It was the usual; pick a color sit in the glorious massage seats as you soak our feet in heavenly hot water. It was wonderful, as long as I kept my eyes on the mural in front of us. Otherwise, I would feel guilty when I looked at the small little woman, scrubbing my feet that were the size of her entire arm. I felt like I was breaking some child labor laws… no one that size should have to scrub feet the size of my clod hoppers. Eyes forward, heaven awaits. Pretty feet, pretty toes and nails are on the way.

Half way through my manicure the poor girl obviously can’t handle it another moment. “We do your eyebrows, huh.” She finally mutters out. Mind you the woman has said nothing to me up until this moment, even when I was giggling wildly and pausing barely to take a breath when she was scrubbing my feet. That elicited no reaction, but my eyebrows were now apparently her nemesis. I could hear the doomsday music looming in the background as I followed her to the torture chamber, AKA the waxing room.

I am no stranger to this, and brace myself as she blows on the wax before placing it on my eyelid. “Thin, yes?” NO… I have Brook Shields eyebrows, think thick! She rips off the strip of wax which was indeed hot enough that I am sure it killed off anything she might have blown into it with her high tech cooling process and she starts telling me…”Look. Look!” I am doing my best to unglue my eye lid and open my eyes to see what must be my entire eyebrow hanging from the strip buried in yellow wax. With each strip she applies and rips, I can’t help it but my body jumps in reaction. “Everything scare you.” She says slightly disgusted. Wow, imagine that ripping out my hair with hot plastic cow byproducts feels unnatural to me; Yeah, I guess I am a bit jumpy.

As she’s starting on my left eye, she’s just starting to get plain giddy now. This was the comment that earned her the big tip. “Your eyebrows are just out of control,” she says. “It’s kinda fun to work on.” Yeah baby, it’s just not a wonder why I don’t do this more often.

However, when I got out, my girlfriend started raving about how great my eye brows looked, saying I looked younger, like I had a face lift, that they were fantastic thin… and I realized at this point, wow… my eyebrows really were also the bane of her existence as well. I never realized my brows were so offensive. Imagine my success if someone would have told me earlier, it’s not skinner or smarter people with more money… it’s all about the brows. Oh, the jobs I could have had; the millionaire I could have married… only had I known the precious ring was really hot wax and tweezers! I’m curious to know what life of luxury I would have if I started waxing the southern regions, taming those jungles and mowing the lawn. I’m sure Hollywood would be calling and I’d be living with some old dude and blond bombshells in a mansion.

Now I am off to put on my shape up shoes, Reebok toner pants, push up bra and wax something important so I can be beautiful on the inside.

Crazy Professor

2011-03-20T19:11:00.000-07:00

I had a professor at Cal State Hayward, now which is Cal State East Bay to which they changed their name in an effort to attract more of the international crowd, who used to insist that our emotions caused weather patterns.

Yes, it has been some years, as you would know if you knew the original name of the college, but I promise you this professors theories sounded just as hair brained then, as they did now. However, I can see how human emotions pull a strong correlation to the weather and natural disasters. Perhaps when we see Japan falling under siege to a Tsunami, it puts us on alert for those emotions and we then play those out in our lives. So when nuclear disaster is pending on the outskirts, we turn to our relationships and act as if the same type of meltdowns are going to occur.

I have done no research, and I have not even fully thought though my own theories on the subject, but suddenly in taking stalk of my own experiences, this professor doesn't seem like such a half wit to at least recognize a correlation as he once did.

Here is Jersey, the seas are calm and Tsunami free, but destruction of friendship and marriages, neighbors and family seem to be hitting the shores under the destruction of stress, economy, gossip, love lost and poor decisions. Even the best intentions are under scrutiny as no one is safe and everyone is seeming to feel alone on an island. Someone needs to pour water on all our emotional nuclear reactors.

It's pretty unlike me, the budding professional school counselor to pass along a sentimate such as this, but here is goes... So what!
Someone mentioned my name in conversation... so what! At least your husband didn't leave you. You got your feelings hurt, so what? At least you still have all your arms and legs and you aren't physically hurt. Seriously people, even if you don't want to step back and take a look at the bigger picture out across the sea, step back and look at the smaller one. Trust your friends and neighbors to know that they love you and have the best of intentions.

I cannot go around in this world thinking that people are anything other than good by nature. I cannot go around being wary of the million people who would help me in a heart beat, because one person might not. At the same time I no longer will let the feelings of other people count more than my own. As long as I am doing my best to be the best, and I believe the same of my friends, family and even aquaintences, all the rest falls into the abyss of so what! You were right professor, we create more than we account for ourselves.

Forgive and do yourself the favor to forget.

There are so many other things in life that will spin up into a Tsunami all on their own, let's not add to it by making our own tornadoes.

Emotional Me

2011-03-04T05:16:00.000-08:00

What are you so emotional about? Who me? Yes... You! I'm not emotional. Then why are you crying to Boom Boom Pow by the Black Eye Peas?

(Maybe if it was "I got a Feeling" because that's one's a real tear jerker.)

Yes, it's a sad truth that this once hard as nails party animal has now been hormonally and situationally shifted into the weepy marshmellow in emotion and stature that now you see before you today.

Is this situation to be remedied? Will I ever get the "old" me back? I have heard a lot of my friend ask the same question as we all step though our life transitions and cling to our youth. "I used to be funny..." I tell my husband as one of my many jokes take one if it's many bombs. Do I miss the old me? Would I change if I could?

Not if you paid me.

Rant or Rave for Valentines Day

2011-02-17T04:26:00.000-08:00

Let’s face it, Valentine’s Day is one of these double edged swords that can slice men and women alike if we don’t play by the rules set forth to sell us under quality over priced sweets, cards and flowers. If your husband is anything like mine, the mere mention of the day sends his eyes rolling to the back of his head. Yes, it’s a chick holiday and this is something that every well trained husband in American has come to accept if he wants to make the transition from February 14th to February 15th a smooth transition.

The harsh reality however is that men should embrace the holiday. Come on, the bar is set pretty low. You can grab a bundle of “One day until they wilt” flowers in the $2.99 bin at Wawa, scribble out a note on the back of a shopping list and you have fulfilled your duty. It’s even lower maintenance than a birthday or anniversary because the reminders are everywhere. And guess what, if your man fails to perform on Valentine’s Day with these small tokens of ceremony, it’s also hard to forget. The tale will be taken to task for weeks to come most likely in front of a marriage counselor.

So here is the question we ask ourselves as we stare at our sink of dirty dishes and toss ravioli can’s into the trash because we didn’t actually plan anything for that big dinner in hopes that there really was just no way he was ignoring the entire day… Is it selfish to set Valentine’s Day expectations? Is it right to assume that because he doesn’t care about the day, that he doesn’t care about me? And how do we calm our seething soul when everywhere we look we see all the celebrations of love and have to fain smiles for the really nice tokens and “bling” our friends splatter all over their facebook page?

My decision, move over satiated love life… momma’s gonna rant for a while. It’s actually harder to ignore the day than it is to just cow tow to the sentiment and break out a couple bucks for a balloon and card at the dollar store. There you are my king of overrated holidays who sits on the couch playing xbox while I cook your dinner, you chose your path and must reap my scorn. And we all know what they say about a woman scorn, but we also know what they say about making your own bed.

Tooth Adventures

2010-09-03T04:38:00.001-07:00

The new source of delight and frustration. As Cody was so delicatly spilling water all over the counter downstairs and worked his way into the plastic veggie bag to get a green banana for breakfast, Aiden was petting a cat next to me on the bed when he discovered laying on his tongue was his tooth.

So as 7am I wandered my unstretched body downstairs to get the camera and the tooth container.

Then the cutest phone conversation I have ever heard took place as Aiden called Terry to tell him.

"Good Morning, Daddy This is Aiden I am calling to tell you that there is a hole in my mouth now where the tooth was." (Yes, he said this as all one coherent sentence.) After a small pause, "Yes, my tooth fell out."

I then cleaned up the spilt water from Cody, and since have been laying flat on my belly twice so far doing the great baby tooth search as Aiden is compelled to carry it around and drop it in our tooth colored verigated carpet.

UPDATE!
Since this just happened one hour later than the original blog post, I figured I'd just add it on as an update.

Aiden and Cody were goofin' around of course. Cody reared his head up and knocked Aiden in the mouth. He cried ouch and reached in his mouth and pulled out the OTHER tooth that was next to the one he just lost. That one was loose before, but not as loose, so this was a bit more painful to loose than the one that came out on it's own. This one still has a bloody little stump, which is causing Aiden some distress.

Poor Guy. After some TLC to both Aiden's mouth and Cody's head, Aiden is back to normal with the exception of a funny accent when he talks now. No determination if Cody is actually back to normal as normal for him is yet to be determined.

Here's the Summer Slam

2010-08-31T16:42:00.001-07:00

Even over the constant request to keep blogging, I have denied my fans of reading my illustrious and sometimes illusive words so I may cater to my whims of self indulgence in summer activities such as.... school, and trips to far off places like Lubbock Texas. (Which yes, is exactly as enchanting as it sounds.)

Truth is, I have found my new addiction and quick fix to bloggers outlet in indeed the social networking system known as FaceCrack. The games, the funny quips of life and bizarre love hate relationships with the "Like" button take the larger part of my creativity and mutilates it into heaps of grain after being worked over with a mortar and pestle.

However, the summer has been filled with fun and friends that we look upon fondly, as the upcoming school year is upon us. This year both kids will be at the same school, and even though it's unclear how often I will be called to substitute teach, the days I do will be calmer and more controlled, shaving off a cool 45 minutes of drive time from shuffling kids from one side of the county to the other.

I have been making an effort to connect with my community. All 7200 residence that stay here in the winter, and apparently I am intent on meeting them all personally. It's not all fun and games however, as I try hard as I might to make all my efforts of volunteering in drug prevention groups and group facilitating a women's support group into something that might be resume worthy in three years or so. I have to admit, the "work" itself is really something I enjoy so if it never makes a relevant point, I am growing.

Speaking of growing, it's a well known fact that sitting on your butt, talking, writing papers and playing on facebook all lead to obesity. Yes, it's true... the lack of getting paid to work out and filling time with trying to fill my brain has also lead to me filling my body... back up. It's ok, I know I will just do it all again when I move back to civilization where they have real gyms and not port-a-aerobics stalls. I just won't go visit my Grandma Betty anytime soon, because I know it will break her heart.

Speaking of heartbreak, we had two of our most beloved family members of ten years leave us this year in a tragic way. Brie and Chianti have gone to a better place to chase rabbits in landfill. While my heart still is healing, the boys are thrilled because we opened our home to a pair of kittens. Skitty is the brother of the two, who has taken to sitting on my desk while I am typing and trying to get comfortable on my face when I try to sleep. Iris, is a lovable little girl who is a bit less demanding in the affection department but still has a great time in their $200 kitty tower that now occupies a quarter of our computer room. I am just happy they use the darn thing more than the kids do. Now it's a fun game of "Is that smell your booty, the cat box or just Jersey?"

Me in my neurotic motherhood, took Aiden to the dentist at the first sign of a loose tooth. I just had visions of extra teeth growing up and mangling his jaw bone so he would be wearing dentures at age eight. The Dentist assured myself and Aiden after a few x-rays that his teeth were perfectly positions and everything was fine. Aiden loves creeping me out by wiggling it all over the place. You can even see the dark root when he pulls the tooth all the way forward where it shows it's bloody little stump. AAAAAH! He loves it.

"Mommy, my tooth not only can wiggle back and forth but also left and right!" The next day, "Look, it can go around in a full circle." Meanwhile my arm hair is crawling out of it's follicles and running for a less stressful location, which appears to be anywhere my delicates cover as those places keep getting hairier and hairier...but I digress.

With that lovely image in your head, I will end it here. Thanks for being patient with me my bloggie fans. I will try to post more often. Oh, just one more picture of Cody with his new teacher!

Tootles!

New American Privileged

2010-02-17T06:07:00.000-08:00

I never considered myself privilaged in the manner the economist or sociologists discuss. It todays economic times however, I have to say being married to a military man is a privliage indeed.

The more bizzare thought however, is the realization that our kids are growing up privilaged. Not rich, but privilaged. They have an attentive two parent household, more toys than they should have, good schools to attend and extra activities like swimming and karate to boot. They will have college funds and opportunities to make the rough college years a little more comfortable. Who's to say if they will be attending ivy league, but truth is our boys are privilaged... just not rich.

With the privilage of raising white men in this socitey however, I think it only responsible parenting that we teach them the truth, that they are privilaged. Denial of that fact will only lead to justification of greed and entitlement issues. I think there can be something to be said for gratitude of circumstances without being racist or elitist. The recognition of privilage among those of us who are privilaged needs to be a humbling and inclusive experience.

When I think about the circumstances in which Terry and I were raised, I can't help to divulge that we were not privilaged in our childhoods. The most disappointing thing I think we could encounter, it to strive to give our children every advantage we can afford only to have them look down their nose at us without even know it. We were the children who grew up in the emotional roller coaster of insecurity, and strive to provide security for our children. We may not have as much now as our neighbors, and we may not be Polyanna every miniute of the day, but despite our backgrounds we can appreciate them, teach our children to appreciate them and know in many ways we are privilaged.

Take a Breath

2009-12-28T15:36:00.000-08:00

There is so many things tonight, that is just screaming for me to take pause and breath in this moment of life that surrounds me.

Holidays brings out many different aspects of our personalities. Stress of being with or without family, things we lost or people we found, elation of engagements and mourning of deaths always seem to happen this time of year. It really is the pinnacle of the emotional roller coaster ride for the year, and just to top it off we have weight loss and gym corporations reminding us all to take stock once again in ourselves... just in case we didn't get it right this year.

There is one thing I got right, and his birthday is tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow is the day my oldest son turns five years old. Tomorrow, it's all about him, but tonight as I sit by monitor light recapping on this moment, it's all about me. Five years ago my life and heart went though a metamorphasis and I couldn't be more grateful.

Three years after a traumatic loss, almost six years after a wonderful wedding to a man who's showing me the best of my dream unimagines are among the highs and lows in my memories tonight. My heart however is grateful for the moment that gave me a future and I met this wonderful little five year old boy we named Aiden. And I must admit, I must have paid off the right person in a past life because this little boy is a pure heart, gentle and kind, a great big brother, sensitive and caring, funny, happy, and as creative as there is space in the universe somehow is my son. Not only that, but by having him in my life, he has brougth other wonderful people to me that I would have otherwise never known.

Indeed, this is a time of year for reflection and gratitude. And my cup overflow.

Take a Bath

2009-11-05T05:27:00.000-08:00

I think I should take a note from my three year old's playbook. Whenever he is faced with anything that doesn't tickle his fancy he immediately runs to me and demands that I draw the king his bath.

For him, this is a social time, thinking time, pondering time, playing time, relaxing time, leaning time but rarely every an actual cleaning time as the rinse just come accidentally.

So as the holidays rear their greedy little heads bringing their friends credit card debt and family drama trash, I suggest we all invest in our Calgon.

Bella's Legacy

2009-10-17T19:21:00.001-07:00

We only had Bella for maybe three weeks, but she was a beloved family member. Carmel colored fuzzy biter, hamster with a tude for sure. Aiden and Cody loved her even when she was banging that dang wheel around in her cage at 3am.

The morning I walked into the room and realized her cage door was open, my heart sunk. It had to be like that over night and I knew she had a good head start on me. If we didn't hear or see her that day, chances were, we wouldn't, and I would have to come up with a story to tell the kids.. Aiden in paticular.

I had a fantastic story all worked up the next day, but I didn't get the chance. That morning, Aiden asked if we could put Bella in the ball. I said, well, no. He asked why not and I said, "Well, do you see anything funny about Bella's cage?" He looked at it and realized immediately the problem with the door being open.

"Oh NO!" He shreaked. "The door is open! Bella got out and the Dogs ate her!!"

There was no getting around it. There was some tears and a couple really hard days as we all searched the house in every crevice and floorspace of every room. The dogs were interrogated of course, but we didn't get much out of them but a suspicious smelly dog lick kiss.

After a couple days, Aiden realized we were not going to be able to find her. This is when he started making up fantastic stories of what could have been a possible alternative to being eaten by the dogs.

"Maybe she went out though the dog door, and decided she liked it outside." I would add in, "And she made friends with the squirrle, and she climbs up the trees and shares their acorns!" He would look at me and say, "Uh, no Mom. Hamsters don't eat acorns."

"Maybe she ran out the door and went over to Abby's house. Yeah, Bella went over there and scratched on the door. Abby heard her, and saw here there and took her in and let her stay with her at her house."

"Bella ran outside and decided she liked it there, so she's living under the porch. But we can't see her because she runs over to Ms. Patty's house when we come looking for her."

"Bella got out of the house, and learned how to fly Mommy! She's a super hero hamster now, that's why she can't come back. She's busy being a super hero!"

I have to admit, as cute as the stories have gotten, Aiden was still asking to get another hamster as soon as he realized Bella was gone. He wanted the brown short haired one, rather than the white long haired one Bella was... But it wasn't until a couple weeks ago, the acceptance was there without the tears that Bella wasn't coming back. The stories started to change a little.

Cody:
Bella's door got left open and she got out and the Dogs ATE her!
Aiden:
No Cody, Bella could have got away.
Cody:
Dogs ATE her!
Aiden:
They maybe didn't eat her.
Cody:
Dogs ATE her! Ump Ump! (Making eating chomping sounds.)
Aiden:
Well, maybe they ate her, but they just opened their mouth and swallowed.
Cody:
Dogs ATE her!
Aiden:
They ate her, but they didn't chew.

They boys thought they wanted to name the new hamster "Zoom" but while at the pet store, they insisted her name was Percy. Must not have looked like a Zoom once they met her.

So now, we quietly welcome Percy to our home. So far, she's much different in temperment. Not quite the spit fire Bella was... who bit me to prove her points. Percy freezes and will play statue for a few hours, and will roll over and play oppossom if you try to pick her up. (The guy in the store wasn't very good at hamster handling. After like three minutes of grasping at her, I thought how cleaver she rolled over and played dead! Like, just do it!!)

The dogs are of course interested in Percy too, but hopefully will not get the opportunity to get up close and personal. We are putting an alarm on the cage door!

The Weather

2009-10-06T20:53:00.001-07:00

I remember when I was younger, people who talked about the weather, was something they did for polite conversation or filler with strangers that they didn't feel they had anything else in common with. I always imagined these conversations as, "Lovely day today." "Yes, it's getting colder." "I think it was winder this time last year."

Now that I am older however, I realize that the weather conversations I have are with the same group of strangers in which I have very little in common. However, my conversations about this topic are nothing short of enthusiastic and astonishing. I find myself waiting to pick up Cody from preschool, talking to people about my decision methods on how to dress the kids or my incorrect decision to leave my sweatshirt in the car. I also tell the story of my astonishment of how myself being a Cali Gal, will never get used to wearing short and t-shirts in 90 degree weather and still have to carry an umbrella.

The other part of this equation, is how excited the people on the other side of this conversation get. They vigerously nod their head and trade tales. "I hate winter here, it's a damp cold." whatever that means... "And the kids have to wear their big heavy coats and their lockers are not even big enough to hold their coats, so they leave them behind and just freeze at the bus stop." I have since learned that winter coats seem to cause the most clutter in the slow winter months in Cape May, NJ.

And when I step away from this converstation, I feel as though we have had a bond. We now share this common phenomenon of questionable dressing of ourselves and our children according to the laws of nature.

Sunny time, sunny times! So when we advise our children to keep their comments to the weather, as in sense and sensibility by my beloved Jane Austin... don't think of this as sending out children to sheild their feelings and restrain their feeling to idol chit chat. No, speak on the weather, delight in the glory of the shared experince that is given to us from mother nature and bond with your fellow earthlings.

Rewards

2009-10-03T17:05:00.000-07:00

We go so tired of being the nay sayers. Constantly telling one or the other to stop this or don't do that. Going to a store has become insane with the "I Want" syndrome. We just were not getting though to them with the behavior we expected.

So starting this morning, we gave them 5 coupons. There was a shelf set up downstairs, with toys for each of the that they picked out the night before that they wanted. In order to get them open, they had to earn coupons and trade them in, like at Chuck E Cheese. They could also spend their coupons for TV time, or Computer Time. 1 coupon = 30 minutes or $1. So if a toy cost $5, it's 5 coupons.

They picked out these dogs, that were $20.

In the morning, Cody was in the lead even after spending a few coupons on computer games. He managed to sit in his seat all through breakfast, used please and thank you and tried a new food. Then we went the store, and there was no "I wants" as they didn't want to lose coupons.

They even put the toys down they were looking at in the toy isle and followed my voice and directions to a couple isles over without asking for toys, screaming, bickering... extremely well behaved in the store. Astonishing!! Cody took a nap WITHOUT MOM like a big boy and with no arguments. Then we went to dinner, where Cody wasn't hungry but he sat at the table, was pleasant and played quietly and was polite. Aiden hit the mother load on coupon earning, where he tried all the following new foods: Tempura sweet potato, tempura Shrimp, fried rice, Carrots, Habachi Chicken (which he loved), squash, mushroom, broccoli, salad, miso soup and for two coupons... Sushi.

Now here is where I need to warn, I was so excited Aiden was eating all these new foods, I completely went overboard on the trying sushi. First, I had forgotten he's eaten so much already. Then, I gave him not the california roll, but the roll with unagi inside and tuna on top. (For my non-sushi eating friends, unagi is cooked eel). It was the sushi with the temptation of two coupons, that made him try it, gag and throw up all over the table. I felt so bad. I will never force him to try sushi again.

He was such a trooper however, we went and got cleaned up. He said in the bathroom, "I don't want two coupons!" I had to laugh, and I did give him the two for trying it anyway.

Aiden saying "Two Coupons!"

Cody on computer time.

Aiden happy with his grand prize puppy.

True Wildwood, NJ Experience

2009-09-19T17:33:00.000-07:00

Our friends the Bianchi's came up from Maryland for the Firemen Convention. We had gotten all settled in, with a great spot with good and cheap pizza slices, liquor store and port a potty within rock throwing distance. A good corner by all accounts.

The kids were enjoying the parade, waving hi and looking for fire dogs and dancing to the marching bands. It was a long parade however, but they were doing really well. Suddenly, I hear a shuffle behind me.
I turn around, and there is a man falling in slow motion to the ground. He can't get up. He rolls over and is looking at me. I ask him in a panic, wondering if one of the bazillion highly trained EMT's would like to access this situation rather than me, a lowly housewife dripping with kids. No one stepped up to the plate however.

"Sir, Sir, are you alright?" He looks at me in a panic. I am wondering if he's having a heart attack. I see blood starting to poor out the side of his face. "Sir, can you speak?"
He nods yes, and mumbles "I'm... I'm Ok." I realized at this point, he was completely inebriated as I inhaled the waft of man marinating in vodka and beer for two days cologne he was sporting. The man was clean enough, but had a two day growth of facial hair, and the stare only an embarrassed drunk who has lost control of his body could inhabit.

Of course, Aiden, the little mimic he is, starts coming over and asking him if he is alright. I redirect Aiden to go by daddy to watch the parade, which he does for about two seconds, and let the man know he is bleeding. The man tried to get up from the sidewalk, but could only manage to roll himself back behind where we were sitting and prop himself up on the fence.
I looked around again, and no one seemed to be paying much attention. Todd walked somewhere, I assumed to tell someone about what was going on. We discussed briefly if we should call the authorities, but decided that wouldn't really help him and that kind of scene for the kids wouldn't be good.

I grabbed some tissue from our stroller and handed it to him. I had put the tissue in his hand and direct him to where the blood was coming from. Luckily it wasn't gushing, but I didn't want the kids to see it. I then walked to the pizza parlor and got him and myself a bottle of water.
When I came out, he was quietly sitting and holding the tissue in the wrong spot on his face, now with a blood trickle drying down his cheek. I gave him a bottle of water, and washed my hands with part of the other one. Then I helped him to wipe the dried blood from his face, (Being sure not to allow any of his fluids to actually touch me, and Tammy was kind enough to give me hand sanitizer immediately after.)

He thanked me, and he sat there like an old uncle at Thanksgiving who everyone ignores. We enjoyed the rest of the parade and got the kids ice cream which was a good distraction. When the parade was over, he was able to get up and walk across the street onto his next adventure.
The funny part was, when I was getting the bottle of water, Aiden grabbed my camera and got a couple of classic shots of the scene in it's entirety.

Classic Aiden! While the picture of our fine friend is somewhat artistic... it was actually really funny because Aiden was telling him to say "cheese" as he was clicking the picture.

Where is the futuristic food in a pill?

2009-09-09T17:23:00.000-07:00

I know you are thinking, what the heck is that? Is that the future food? This, is one round carrot on a plate. I put the dishes from dinner tonight though our first cycle of wash, aka.. let the dogs clean the plates before I put them in the dish washer. Low and behold... even the dogs won't eat the veggies! They too, leave the loan carrot on the plate, just in case the ants want to have a go at ignoring it as well.

Yeah.. you two! I'm talking about you fuzzballs! Next thing you know they are going to ask for a back of goldfish and lemonade for dinner instead, just like my sons.

I hate that I have become one of those Moms, the picky eater holds me hostage. I know I deserve it as I was horribly picky when I was young, right through my 20's. I am even picky now which is why I am so hell bent on wanting my kids to try new things and get used to the idea that food comes in more froms than a box or can. Regardless, I am that mom with the idol threats of sending them to bed hungry but can't handle the thought of their little tummies rumbling in the middle of the night. So I usually give in to a banana or like tonight, a bag of goldfish. Just get the teeth brushed and we'll try it all again tomorrow. It's just me and the carrots on our crusade... lonely on this side of the veggie war!

Aiden's First Day of School

2009-09-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

The comforting thing was, that as Aiden got buckled into his seat on the bus, the other kids looked more terrified than he did.

I am just constantly amazed at how much I love these little people! I am so proud of him, and I can't wait for him to come home and share all his adventures from school with me. I am just ripped apart that he's now going to have all these adventures from here on out that don't include

When we left, we could hear the dogs howling at us down the street. What we didn't expect was for Brie to use her escape hatch and come meet us. I could hear the bus rumbling down the street, so I knew I didn't have time to run her back. So she got to bid Aiden a good day with us. She even tried to get on the bus with her!

Cody is watching "Finding Nemo" and says, "Nemo started school, just like Aiden today!" His orientation is Thursday and he starts next week.

Brag Post

2009-08-31T16:29:00.000-07:00

I would be a horrible mother and get kicked down to the rank of "Brittneyesk Momma" if I didn't join everyone else in posting pictures of my childrens first days at school. I am going to up it one more however, and post the orientation! There were parents there saying, "See, I told you we should have brought our camera!" Yeah, I out parented you and you have to just sit there and take it. Ha.

Aiden running in front of his school.

Aiden trying to pose for a picture with the sun in his face.

Getting used to the classroom, which was really nice. Big with lots of unusual toys like puppets and typewriters.

Then we went on a bus ride around the neighborhood. Turned out one of the women I was friendly with, lives around the corner and Aiden will be at the same bus stop with her daughter. Very exciting, he was thrilled to already have a friend!

Aiden knew just what to do, he sat down and buckled up "Just like on the airplane!" I do worry that when the time comes for him to cruise off by himself that he will panic. The pictures here are the few moments where he wasn't glued to my leg.

While I took Aiden to orientation, Cody got to spend a little time with Daddy at work.

Cody's orientation is in a couple weeks. We already know two kids in his class however. My boys are getting so big!

And here is the hamster update, she's adjusting well. The kids are bound and determined to not let her be an nocturnal animal however, as they keep her awake and want to take her with them everywhere we go.

I myself have been being really good about eating and going to the gym, but hold fast at my current overweight. I just want Wii to tell me I am srong Overweight, rather than "That's Obese." Just like me, always looking for my Wii's approval. I will keep going on my quest to loose my bedonk-a-donk. It's just so hard starting back, but the food I ate, I have to say was so worth it. Sorry Richard Simmons, but it's true.

The Hamster Chronicles

2009-08-29T13:13:00.000-07:00

Ever since the movie "Bolt" came out, Aiden has been interested in hamsters. Then at Aunt Rebecca's house he gets to go nuts over the bunny. Now the movie G-Force has arrived and we have yet to actually watch the whole movie, but just the idea and marketing around has got him Gerbil crazy. This combined with a few trips to the pet store, and he has successfully broken us down and conned us into getting him... a hamster.

Cody was mildly enthused by the idea of a pet hamster, but we know who the real motivator in the house was... Bug. Last week, I told him if he remembered by this week he wanted a hamster we could discuss. I only lasted four days until I decided we could go get one. He kept asking if it was next week yet.

Below is the photo chronicles of the events of picking out and bring home a new hamster.

Meeting the "Long Hair White Girl Hamster"

Cody meeting her...

Got her in the cage! We had gone to Wal-mart and got the cage and supplies with birthday gift cards from Grandma and Grandpa. Thanks!

Leaving the store. Aiden walking slow as to not swing her.

Aiden completely loving her up in the car. He didn't want to name her until we got home. But he did come to this conclusion: "Maybe that's the problem! She's so quiet because she doesn't have a name for us to call her."

Cody, thrilled to have a white ball!

Carrying her up the stairs away from the dogs.

And our newest family addition... Bella! She got named by Aiden as we were putting her cage together. She sleeps in his room and lives in a cage on top of his dresser. She is currently the most spoiled rotten hamster in the world... but what she wouldn't do for a nap.

When I told Aiden, she's most likely really just like to take a nap. He said, "Ok, lets close the door and give her some privacy." He's wanting to take her out and take her with him every where. This will be an interesting learning process... for us all.

Beautiful Flower

2009-08-28T17:06:00.000-07:00

Did everyone enjoy the humidity today like I did? I know most people take three or four showers to try to beat the heat, but I just layed around and stayed stinky. I can't be loosing the shower war if I never participate in the race.

Plus I got to chase the kids with scary armpit itchies.

Speaking of scary, our garden. Before we bought the house, the previous owners were massive gardeners. There are plants I don't recognize and bulbs everywhere. I never know if something is a weed or something that's supposed to be there. So I have stopped just ripping out everything and waiting to see what blooms.

Today with all the rain, something bloomed in the garden. In between thunder storms and torrential downpours, I was able to snap a couple pictures. It was an orange flower, no shocker because the previous owners seemed to have a thing for orange flowers.

Now those picture are a bit blurry, but you can see it's beautiful colors. Let me show you a picture of it, with a little sharpness.

Yes my friends.. the beautiful blossoms are made entirely out of insects. And that's New Jersey!

Typical Summer Day

2009-08-27T16:34:00.001-07:00

We are pretty house bound, waiting for Cody to be potty trained and all. Why is it now that he's doing this, when he does poop in his pants, the face is so much more dramatic. Like he's telling on me.. Hey Mom.. you're not paying attention and I am making a poop face for all the world to see.

He's been scrumptious little stinker today.

Aiden is really liking going to the gym. There are lots of BABIES, which he is always asking for a baby sister. He now wants a hamster. I told him if he can remember next week that he wants a hamster then we could discuss it.

I am glad I joined the gym today, and was completely blown away by the instructor today, who cursed like a sailor. It actually worked however, because she was saying all the things that go through my head. So frustrating trying to get back in shape again, especially considering I was still wanting a different shape when I had a better one than this one now. I know that sentence was confusing, but I also know.. most women know what I am saying.

Looks like these will be our typical days for the rest of the summer. The boys have about two and three more weeks until school starts. Yeah, Jersey didn't do that thing where they move everyone forward because they wanted to get a jump on the summer vacations. Weather still sucks here in June so they are content to wait. Once the mosquitoes are at full swarm, it's time for vacation. Thus, it doesn't start again until Labor Day. Cody's starts a week later which is nice. Gets us a chance to get focus on one, and not have to deal with two at the same time.

Wow, that's all I have to say, but I am missing a witty line to end on. So... I will end on Aiden's favorite joke right now.

"Why did the Banana go to the doctor? Because he wasn't peeling well. Haha, get it? Now that's funny right there."

For all our bored people

2009-08-25T20:17:00.001-07:00

I barely ever watch the news. Now I know why. Besides being annoyed that the show was only giving us information that made interesting sound bites and warned us that the CDC estimates up to 50% of all Americans will contract the swine flu this year in a sentence that was shorter than this one... it reminded me how when people are bored, their stupid starts to show.

Two headline news reports proves Darwin's Theory isn't working as these people are inflicted with some serious stupid.

I haven't been into football really since my first child was born, but I did recently learn of a little drama involving Brett Farve, the handsome cameo star of "There's something about Mary," and pretty well known quarterback, retired, no wait... quarterback... yeah... no.. wait.. what was the question?

As much as his life decisions make absolutely no impact on anything, people are taking this really very seriously. So much, a woman felt the need to take a goat, shave a #4 on it it, paint it purple and yellow (Viking colors for those who didn't catch that) and stuff it in her trunk. When the police found the goat in her trunk, they asked what she was intending to do with it, she said "Kill it." I don't know who is more stupid, this woman... or the prosecutors who are still debating if animal cruelty charges are going to be pressed.

The second story that caught my attention, was the three men who broke into a local zoo, to feed a gorilla pop tarts. This ranks right up there with the two guys who broke into the SF Zoo a few years ago and brought their girlfriends penguins. This one ranks above that however, because one of the guys who needed to give the gorilla sugar high, was a police officer. Seriously, way too many donuts.

That gorilla's got game!

But you know what, this turned out to be a feel good day for the news. Just when I start to loose all faith in humanity I realize, I am not feeling all that bad anymore about not working out or being dumb enough to rip off my own toenail while trying to take off my sandal. I'm still above the curve!

So give me another scoop of ice cream, and let the news roll on. Let's see what's happening to Gotham City tonight.

So when life turns into a comic strip... send in the super heroes!

Meaningless Consumer Driven Lives

2009-08-21T10:12:00.000-07:00

If you can name the movie that quote is from, I will send you a banana!

I just wanted to say, how ridiculous I think it is that resturants and grocery stores are installing these expensive flat screen televisions for the soul purpose of selling me more crap. So now, standing in line to get my groceries, they make me watch ads! I go to the movies, I not only have to watch 20 minutes of trailers, but they tossed in TV ads and took away my entertaining movie facts and trivia.

I'm all for creative advertising. Go ahead and pay someone to drive his car in commute traffic with your signs plastered all over the place. But can you at least make them helpful or funny? What happened to the creating actual ads that you could remember because they were artistic or spoke on a personal level. I want that car ad to say, "I just say you pick your nose. Skype!" In the Wendy's with the broken doors but brand new TV, at least be honest. "Hey you, eating that mega combo... weight watchers in this area is by the mall. You can still eat here, it's just a kids meal with oranges." I want creativity back in advertising rather than just sheer mass bombardment.

That's all I am saying...

BTW.. I will let you know when my Cheerios Box comes out. Lol

Shop Rite Cereal Box

2009-08-19T13:41:00.000-07:00

Calling all over the toppers!

I want to see if I can get on the back of my kids favorite cereal box. You all know how passionate my kids are about Honey Nut Cheerios! I believe I have mentioned my eldest sons obcession with it in a previous post. They are doing this great thing now, but I am on a time crunch. By the end of the day, I need thirty comments back to this post and I get to be part of the cardboard princesses of yummy mummies on the box for New Jersey!

This is what is going on:
ShopRite has created “Blog It Forward To Fight Hunger” to engage others in the fight against hunger through blogging.
General Mills and ShopRite will donate one box of cereal to a food bank in ShopRite’s trading area for the first 30 people who comment on your post.* (*Total Bloggers In Caring donation not to exceed 3,000 boxes)

So tell me how much fun it would be to see my mug on the back of a cereal box! Sign in here and make a comment, and lets hand out some boxes of cereal in New Jersey!!

Viewer Descretion Advised

2009-08-07T21:11:00.000-07:00

Special treat for you tonight, as we can laugh at my misery together!

On our wonderful vacation here in Cali, we took the kids to the river for some water play fun, and to see if we could loose a whiney one in the current. (oops, did I say that out loud?) While taking off my sandals, I used my big toe to pull the sandal off the other foot. First sandal came off fine. Second one however, slipped and caught my toenail, and ripped it all the way back.

We looked at it, it was numb at first. I thought, oh, maybe I didn't bend it back. Then it started oozing out blood like the green blob coming out from under the door, from all the sides. I went in the river, and thought I was going to have to chase my nail down the current. It was painful and gross.

Now my ankle is staring to get soar, for over compensating for the buggard toe. For three days I just put a bandaid over it and prayed it would reattach. Rebecca, looked up toenail injuries on the net however, and we decided the nail needed to come off. She assured me it wasn't reattaching, and was only going to grow mushrooms.

The part you don't see, is me, cutting of the remaining loose nail, trying to clean out what was left, and the SMELL which is horrid. (Does anyone know what Gangreen smells like?) We didn't tape this because I wasn't sure that I wasn't going to puke.

This is not for the squirmish. But for all you sicko's, here's the video and still pictures of before and after.
Follow the link to the actual video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ktk2ggS1SJ0

Gotta wait 18 months for this sucker to grow back.

I promise my next post to be less stomach churning.

Miss me?

2009-08-06T22:58:00.000-07:00

I know you are all just waiting on the edge of your computer chairs, wondering... where is Heidi's next blog?

Well, it's hard blog from my phone.

We did a long trip up to Red Bluff to go fishing with Grandpa Kim. Pictures to come. Cody's B'day is tomorrow and we have many festivities to attend.

But don't worry my little Top Heads, I will have lots of pictures, thoughts and stories for you soon!

Stick with me!

Interesting....

2009-08-02T23:35:00.000-07:00

I went to a barbecue at 10am this morning.

It was with old friends from high school, and I couldn't have been more thrilled to see them. I was particularly impressed to see that one of the guys came up sans wife, just to see us from LA. On a trip that most people won't come across the Altamont pass to come see us, (over a big hill for my east cost friends!) he parted from his wife he adores (which was so obvious and lovely to see) to come up and say hi.

And what daring tales, stories of success and funny antic dotes did I have to offer him for his journey? Nada...

My kids were fighting with the other kids, yelling not sharing. There was a full fledged tantrum at one point and we had to take a time out in the court, where everyone walking their dog was giving me strange sneers. My jokes went over like lead balloons and came off as sarcastic and at times just insulting. I used to be funny.

So, in an effort to feel less like a boring fuddy duddy typical stay at home and eat bon bon's Mom... I am going to go WAY out on a limb here and post things about me that prove... I am an interesting person!

Top Ten Reasons Heidi is an Interesting Person:

10. I peed in a gutter in traffic in downtown San Francisco.

9. I write for an online RPG Star Trek storytelling board. (RPG=Roll Playing Game)

8. I can pick things up with my toes.

7. I had to bail my father out of jail to come to my wedding. (We danced to Jailhouse Rock for our father daughter dance.)

6. I rode topless horseback in Mexico. (More like sat on the horse, riding would have been a whole lotta bouncing... you get the jist)

5. It took me 10 years to get my 4 year degree.

4. Sadly, I lost my mother and step-father to suicide, but have come out with lessons learned. (I said interesting, not all happy go lucky.)

3. I look really good in teal, but my favorite color is yellow.

2. When I am stressed, I bake cookies. Done this since I was 7 years old.

1. I can't get though an entire step class without having to pee. Sometimes, I just wear a pad to soak it up.

Apparently I am not all that embarrassed to share some revolting details about my life.

Guess that's what makes me...Over the Top!

Over the Hump

2009-07-30T20:04:00.000-07:00

I do mean more than just Wednesday. I am over the birthday hump, and entered into a new age demographic...35! I now have to move down one more box when choosing my age bracket on surveys. I can no longer get away with fooling myself into thinking I am early thirties. (No matter what Wii Fit says!)

It was a great day. Being back in CA for my birthday is a great way to get perspective on the years I have spent on this planet. My friend Dave who I happen to be staying with (and his daughter and wife) has the same B'day as me. As did the five other tables at Texas Roadhouse last night for an early dinner. It was an astrological loins den in there... go figure we'd all want meat.

The one thing I learned, there are way too many options at that restaurant for what do to with a sweet potato. I was thinking, it's a veggie without being too green and fibrous, I'll try that. And I will be bad and use some of that cinnamon butter on it, that sounds good. They not only had my ticket on the butter as an offer of a side for this thing, but also offered brown sugar, caramel sauce, marshmallow sauce... by the time he got there I just said, "Can you throw a Twinkies on that too?"

Feeling pretty bad this morning about the amount of delicious but guilty calories I inhaled last night, I decided to go jogging this morning. I still have chest cold however, and I haven't run in a while, plus it might be hot... really with the amount of excuses I was coming up with before even putting on my shoes, it was amazing I even made it out the door. A short run, my personal best was about a 1.25 miles of running the whole way which honestly amazed me. I was envisioning just running round the block a few times, twice if I was feeling lucky. All told, I think I ended up running to Cuba.

The path I took, was a very long road until I hit any road that looked interesting to turn on. I felt good however...35 was the speed limit and my new age, felt like it was meant to be! I could have turned left onto other paved streets with beautiful houses to look at, feeling a wonderful little breeze for the short blocks. Naah, I decided to turn right onto an older road with no sidewalk and run in the sand though the orchards. Turns out those inlets I thought were roads were driveways to combines, and the nearest road was much further down hot road because the breeze was blocked by all the trees. Yet, I still ran. Turning the corner, now had to take it to a partial run, partial walk. At this point I realized the smell of cow pie really does add a little something to a run, as well as I didn't know I could sweat from my forearms. Turns out the orchards I was running though were almond orchards, and I am allergic. My forearms weren't sweatting so much as breaking out in hives. As I turned the last corner walking now past the country club and humiliated because now I was on the busy road where every passing car could seem me walking in shame instead of jogging with pride as I was on the desolate roads, I wonder exactly why I decided I needed to run in the first place.

I got back, this was the thought that prevailed as I undressed for a shower, and fat on my body was no less and still exactly comfortable where it made it's home not one hour before. I'm pretty sure this is why I never ran before unless I was being chased. And even then, I'd probably have a better chance of just getting caught and taking ya down by hand.

With this, we packed up for the Gouda Factory for grilled cheese sandwiches and brownies for lunch.

Ode to Airports with Toddlers

2009-07-29T20:13:00.000-07:00

Snug and snoring in the dark
Stub my toe, that'll leave a mark
Sleepy boys are all mixed up
Spilling orange juice from their cup
In the car saying it's still night
Mommy praying they don't start to fight
Daddy driving, OH help us Lord
Lets get to it, All aboard!
Hoping, wanting to nod off once more
Ache sleepy to the core
Cutiest little boys you have ever seen
Fuzzy back packs and smiles that beam
Airports, escalators and moving side walk
Not the kind to draw on with chalk
Up and down and round on the plane
So air sick, oh not again.
Eat ice cream, snacks and juice
Lets get there soon, get off this goose
Finally the last airport and friends
So glad this journey has good ends
Just don't tell them that in three weeks time
The journey home might just not rhyme.

Customer Intelegence

2009-07-26T17:54:00.000-07:00

It's a Sunday. You know how people say, there are "Sunday Drivers" right. I think there are "Sunday Shoppers!"

No one really wants to work at the local Wal-Mart on a Sunday morning, so it wasn't shocking when we went in there to buy a new camera and found only one person working the entire electronics department. It was shocking however, to find the lines of out-of-townees crowding the camera isle trying to find a new camera or memory card.

I am not saying I am the most intelligent shopper in the world. I do need to ask for help from those more knowledgeable than myself most of the time. However... if you have a camera and you need a memory card... it might help to know what type.

And even if you don't know what type... maybe bring the camera!

I assure you sir, that no matter how many times you point out the three cameras on the display that look kinda like yours, there is no possible way the poor sales girl is miraculously going to go, "OH...of course.. you have a Nikon one touch 6 megapixle with bonus carrying case, that was sold between May 2004 and September 2005 and you left it on the corner of your sofa table next to the dining room. It takes an SD card... I recommend an 6GB." Unless she's clairvoyant, she's just not gonna know with the data you have provided dear sir.

We eventually did get our camera. Here's just a few shots for your amusement of what we captured with it today. Our other one finally died under the spilled lemonade activity from two weeks ago. It tried to hang on.. it was a good camera. RIP little silver canon!

Props for Brittney

2009-07-26T17:02:00.000-07:00

It's hard being a parent. Just get a couple of us in a room, and you can't shut a parent up about the hysterical mess little Tommy made, or the embarassing time Mary brought out the maxi pads and set the dinner table with them. We have all seen the mortified mother in the grocery store with the screaming tantrum foul mouthed hysterical toddler, and given one of two reactions.. sympathy or dismissal because if she was a proper mother that wouldn't happen!

I was talking to a friend of mine a couple days ago, he's also a father of two. We got on the morbid subject of wills and trusts, setting things up for our kids if we kick the bucket. I was telling him my complex grid like equation to figure out in the event of my passing how to calabrate my childrens funds and future. I told him my kids will have to take a drug test before they see a cent of any trust fund. He laughed, but I was serious! He gave me a huge compliment, saying the amount of attention I pay to my kids is going to be the reason he's bet pretty heavily my kids wouldn't go down that road. And this is what sent me on tonights props for Brittney Spears. Stick with me here...

If we were all perfect parents, we'd all turn out to be pretty much the same people. But the world takes all kinds of people to keep in functioning and interesting. But there is more...

I am convienced that when you give birth to a child, you break a little bit. The hormones that are released in your body after it tries to go back to a non-pregnant saggy bag of water...will forever change the dynamic in which the reasoning portion of your brain functions. This is why Mother In Laws get that stereotype of domineering, hard to deal with control freaks. It's because during this time, the hormones went up into the brain and messed with they synapses and made you start thinking, you have the knowledge of things you don't even know about but if it sounds reasonable in a circular argument, then it must be right! Did I loose you? If I did, you must not have had a child yet. Just wait, you will get it.

Now there are a few of us, that figured out this sometimes happens and we try to combat these thoughts by reading books, joining groups, reading internet articles and consulting with like-minded parents in order to "Check Ourselves." This is another defense mechanism that we learned, that was actually installed prior to having kids and right about the time we might have started to realize... Maybe I don't know it all.

But what happens to these young parents, or stunted emotional developed adults who have not yet had the "Huh" device installed yet, but have kids. Well my friends, it's a sad story. These are the parents, to whom we in the mainstream parent bowl, look down our noses at and feel sorry for their children. These are the 15 year old new mothers with their boyfriends name tattooed across their neck. These are the parents who think it's charming to let their toddlers pass the roach clip, or let the kids feed the dog the last swigs from almost empty beer bottles. Yes my friends, these are the Brittany Spears of our nation!

Stick with me here... So while pompus I want to get back to where I know it all mothers like myself sit in judgement of our Nicole Ritchie's of the world, with our books and self doubt about parenting styles... We can take a clue from these carefree livin' life how it's dealt, ignoring reality and the needs of basics like clean clothes, balanced meals or stability. The reason why my friends.... there are no guarentees! We just don't know who is going influence our precious care packages in this world. We are all only doing what we can with the tools, and broken brains we have given to us. So go ahead, roll those eyes and let your heart bleed for the unfortunate children who have it less than... but just remember to send your MIL a nice note while you are at it!

I however, choose to take a moment to honor and cherish those mothers, who can make me feel better about my decisions as a parents. Thank you to those who are brave enough to set the bar lower so I can feel I have achieved! Thank goodness for the teen moms that don't even have the wisdom to know they don't have any wisdom and couldn't even fathom self doubt. Kudos to the emotionally stunted and hurrah for the morally depraved, for you are the gems helping to give our world diversity and the need for socialism. Hats off!

Love Sandwich

2009-07-25T14:31:00.000-07:00

Not much to say today!

Let the Squeals Fly!

2009-07-24T13:14:00.001-07:00

I never realized until today, how many things in life there are to squeal about. When I am out with my boys, I feel like I am always telling them, "No squealing please! Please turn down the volume. Softer voices!"

Seriously, why? WHY? Today, if it's worth squealing about, let's just let it out!

Today the items of squeal deliciousness were the following.

Chocolate milkshakes for lunch!

Playing in the water fountain, tossing in pennies and just getting sprayed with the water streams.

Jumping off the flower bed benches.

As I am older however, I found other things that were making me squeal. Living in Cape May, I have not gotten used to the a la cart way of ordering food here. French fries are always extra and cost as much as the meal where in Maryland, everything was served with a side of fries or it was unpatriotic. So I squealed when I ordered one kids meal of mac and cheese to split, fries and a sandwich with the a drink and the kids shakes and was handed a $44 bill. Squealing like a pig I was... on the inside. On the outside, I just said "Thank you, have a great summer!" Inside saying, Because we sure as heck won't be back. Hot dogs and chips on the back porch for us!

Seeing the kids playing with this tea cup sized 10 week old Yorkie puppy, and as they squealed, it did tug at my heart. So freggin' cute! I toyed with the idea of getting one, and having a little dog to sit on my lap as I blog, as the other two monsters warm my feet like slippers. I asked the woman how much they were, knowing it was coming. And yep... SQUEEEEEEEEEAL! (Followed by a *gasp* *hack* and *cough*) $1500. She wouldn't sell me one until the boys are 5 years old anyway, so that was that. I do need to get into dog breeding!

When I got home however, I did have the child-like squeal that I envy of my boys. There was flowers in my sun room (weird story how they got delivered there, but ok!) from my best friend Rebecca. We had a email fight, so retarded...and we fixed it. But she still ordered me a wonderful gift that had me crying like a baby and left me with the long sought ofter squeal of delight. Geesh, this gal really knows how to say sorry! I'm gonna be making up for this one for a while, but meanwhile, I am loving my flowers.

SQUEEEEEEEEEAL!

Oldie but Goodie-On the Move

2009-07-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

This is a back by popular demand post. I wrote this on my facebook notes before I started blogging and some people have mentioned it a few times. I decided to transfer it here for all to adore. Thanks so much for the encouragement!

We have now entered onto day three of New Jersey and what an experience it has been. To take you with me though this journey, I must start off in Maryland.A few nights before we packed up, we had a big huge blow out party so the kids could all say goodbye to all our MD friends. The party started at 10:30am and mama and friend were up until 2am. So needless to say, trying to prepare for the move with a two day hangover, will cause me to say "I will never drink again!" I do it so rarely these days, my body can't handle and it's so not even worth it anymore. I will just wait until I am in my 80's and can mix alcohol with my medication and a hangover would be a nice distraction from the arthritis. But I digress...The party was well attended with lots of food as we cooked up everything in the freezer that wouldn't travel, plus ordered pizza. The kids were well entertained and entertaining by dressing up in any and all costumes we could dig up. We also had a surprise appearance by the all too popular chocolate fountain! On top of this, we opened up the hot tub! Farewell party to end the farewell tour that has been going on for a month, was a success! So finally the packers arrived. Aiden and Cody had their boxes to pack special toys and items that couldn't leave their side. They packed, and unpacked, and packed and unpacked these boxes a few times before finally realizing they needed to stay packed for the items to be able to go with us in the car. A lesson perhaps not so well learned by Terry, as his uniform for his last day was laid out on top of the suit case and not in it, therefore packed... lending him towards the idea of arriving to work in a t-shirt and briefs. We really didn't know what day they were going to pull out of MD with all our stuff, or arrive, and finally it all shook out, we were to camp out on Wednesday in an empty house, and pull out on Thursday morning, so we could meet the truck with all our stuff Friday morning. Julie then called when we were on the ride back from dinner to our empty house on Wednesday, offering us her guest bedroom and slumber party for the kids. The cheers for a pajama party were most likely heard throughout the county, confirming that yes, we would take her up on her kind offer of crashing at her pad... three doors down from our empty box. The kids and I didn't get as much sleep as usual, for thrills of a sleep over don't usually lend themselves to actual sleep. But we did get up early and pack the car, say a few goodbyes to the kids across the street and our dear friend Ms. Jeanne. Then it was myself, the dogs and two boys... hoping to make it a no stop ride from Glen Burnie to Cape May in three hours. The first call for a bathroom break however came before we even hit the Maryland State line. We pulled into the rest stop, which with much relief, I realized had a Starbucks, and I needed a hit of caffeine. The boys charmed everyone in the rest stop, as they looked at us like quaint travelers instead of what we really were, screaming kids and a mother who's hair was turning grey before their eyes. After fifteen minutes I was able to get everyone's bladders empty, and a Carmel Machiato in my hand. Then , it was the dogs turn. Surprisingly, besides tripping me twice with the leash, they were very well behaved. The second call for bathroom however, came in Township of Insert bizzar name here... where there is nothing but farmland. I asked Aiden if he could wait, and he said he could. However, I there is NOTHING for this 47 mile stretch. Finally poor Aiden was crying that he had to pee, so I pulled over for him to pee in a field. "No Mommy! NO! NO!" He wouldn't even put his feet down, and I couldn't make him pee. Pulling down his pants and yanking on his.. well.. ya know.. would amount to child abuse a this point. The dogs going nuts, "Yeah yeah.. let me show you how to pee in a field," were not helping the issue. I kept asking Aiden if I could pull into a gas station, but he kept insisting on a restaurant. There are no restaurants on the way down to Cape May. Nada, nothing on 47 but fruit stands. Finally, I pulled into a gas station and just hoped that the toilet could entice Aiden enough to go. Success... he was fine as soon as she saw the bathroom, which was surprisingly clean for a men's room in a beat up gas shack. When we got back in the car, Aiden explained he is a boy. Dogs pee in a bush not boys.

I realized a while later as well, that I had failed to explain that the gas stations had restrooms... he knew resturants did, but didn't know gas stations did... so he thought I wanted him to pee on the gas station, like I wanted him to pee in the bush. My bad! Now we both know! We finally arrive in Cape May at our new home. The most exciting thing here, was the blow up mattress, and new Sleeping Beauty movie. We did a little grocery shopping only for me to start to realize, my freezer didn't appear to be working very well. Oh well, I shall adjust the temp and let it take hold and it will be fine tomorrow. It's brand new after all. Or not.. turned out the fridge didn't work at all. I must mention now, the dogs. So excited to have a great big yard, got wet and goopy very quickly in our drizzled on overgrown back yard. What I didn't realize was the gate to the back woods was left open, so when I fell sleep, with Chianti at my side, Brie snuck out to the neighbor dog... a black lab and trolloped all over the neighborhood all night. I caught her coming home in the morning, the walk of shame. Well, to her it was gloating, but it should have been a walk of shame. Chianti had her own little adventure to our neighbors on the other side where she returned with her back paw sliced wide open. I have no idea what she's into lately, but that's the third time in two weeks she's but her pads. This one was the worst yet, and today I learned she actually went in though the dog door of our new neighbor and bled all over her house. She was not so concerned, but was worried since she didn't know who's dog it was who bled all over her house. She now walks around with a bag on her foot and Terry calls her "rag foot." Poor Chianti, she gets injured, and Brie gets a date. No wonder she stays home more. The movers did arrive, and eventually even started to unpack our stuff. Apparently we were over weight by 3000lbs and they wanted the trucks to drive back up two hours to get reweighed. Finally they realized that was not a good idea and let us have our stuff. At this point, you must realize we moved from a 4 bedroom 2.5 bath, into a 3 bedroom 1.5 bath lacking the huge basement and garage. The amount of boxes and cardboard I believe sunk the house foundation three inches. At this point, you might wonder, how are the boys doing? Well, I have to admit, Aiden is having a hard time. He wants to go back to our old house and all his friends. I finally convinced them to come take a walk with me, we didn't get 15 feet down the sidewalk before the neighborhood girls were coming over and introducing themselves to us. Most the kids in the neighborhood are 5th grade girls, but there is one kindergartner boy, Robert who the kids made fast friends with, as the girls caught me up on all the neighborhood gossip. That made me feel a little better, and now we knew Robert, who Aiden was sure was going to be his new best friend. Cody seems pretty alright with the whole move, as long as he has a nap. With the waiting for deliveries, needing to go shopping and unpacking, he has missed a nap here and there to our utter dismay. Cody needs his beauty rest! So today, for a change of pace I went outside to start on our weeds, otherwise known as our front yard. We have huge planter boxes out there that need to be cleared out. The boys came out to play with me too and the neighbors started coming over in droves. They had all gotten my cards I sent them with our pictures telling them we were moving in June. Everyone was so nice, and the cool thing here.. the kids are kids. Not one child under the age of 17 has been sitting text messaging or talking on their cell phone. The kids ride their bikes, walk around, play with their dogs and sandboxes... its so old school. I love it. We found out that one of the houses across the street has a son graduating from High school, and they were throwing a big party. I was trying to figure how I could finagle myself and the boys an invitation, when the answer arrived. The neighbors told me just to go on over. So I stopped in a Walmart, picked up a graduation card and gift card, and went over with the boys. The neighborhood girls recognized us of course and gave us a warm greeting, and I was off to the races meeting all the neighbors and the boys got a few minutes of fun with Robert, the swing set, a bounce house and a dog named Seamus. They had a pool and were cooking smores but that was a little labor intensive for me, so after a small amount of whimpering, the boys were content just to play for a little while. So yes, I crashed my neighbors party using two cute boys as a shield. They neighbors all couldn't be happier I did, and it was great. Meanwhile, our refrigerator that I bought from Lowes and Cody slept on my shoulder arrived. Now we just need to figure out how to get water over to it for the ice maker. And finally the network guy showed up to fix our internet. All the technicians in Cape May are fabulous, but the home offices seem to be jacked up. Who knows... the acid test will be when we get our first bill. So we probably have about 2/3rds of the boxes unpacked.. that will get unpacked. I still need to find the glass for my cabinets to put the dining room together, our bedroom needs some major help as the bed and dresser need to be swapped because it' doesn't fit right in our long narrow room. Cody to our surprise, loves having his own room and sleeping in there alone.. but wakes up in the middle of the night to come get Mommy to sleep with him. Normally he might just crawl in bed with me, but since our bed doesn't have linens on it yet.. it's harder to do. Aiden is still asking to go back to our old house. At one point he took and empty box and filled it with all his books and told Terry to take them and all our stuff back to our real house. He asks for his friends a lot, especially Oscar and Calvin who are moving to Germany in a few days... and Hayden and Anna... and Will, Danielle and Grace... who were all our neighbors and totally accessible at all time. Cody is content to call them but Aiden just gets more frustrated when they don't show up at our door. I am hoping we can get settled soon and get into some activities, maybe swim lessons, library groups, playgroups and the beach so get involved. We already got an invite to another party for next Saturday, another neighbor, another graduation.. so hopefully all the kids will be there to. Missing everyone very much. I think once we get settled, this will make a lovely home. People here are not your typical Jersey. I haven't heard a single Joisey accent yet, and they seem to have good ideals thus far, and like to have a good time. Schools in this area albeit confusing, seem to be very good. Once the dust settles.. literally, I think we will have a good time.

Last night in MD house.

Abby

2009-07-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

We are lucky enough to live next to the most lovely darling girl named Abby. She is eleven years old and my boys, especially my youngest is completely in love with her. Since he doesn't know about romance, love and marriage yet however... he simply says he likes being Abby's little sister. We then correct him and explain he would still be the little brother and she's the big sister. Then my oldest, has to top it all off and say, "Abby makes a great big sister." Oh, the love!

Today, we invited Abby to come with us to the movies to see Nyms Island. They boys were over the moon when she showed up, and fought to see who could give her the boquet of flowers they picked for her at 7:30am in the morning.

I can only hope this will be the height of their sibling rivalry over a woman. Somehow, I am thinking this is going to be considered the good ol' days.

Turning Corners

2009-07-21T18:18:00.000-07:00

It really is all about lessons learned. Our entire lives, it's either learning a lesson or repeating the same mistakes. Many of my lessons I learn from my kids. These past few days, they are teaching me about turning corners.

Seems Mommy has been waking up cranky lately. It's hard to pull myself out of bed, and get happy about being up way to early to be a short order cook and argue about why I can't get the computer on to play Nick Jr. games that I am not thrilled they discovered in the first place. Moods made worse by my plans for a lovely breakfast of hot chocolate and free pastries at Starbucks gone to pot because my children can't sit still and feel the need to sit upside down in the chairs, yell to loud, fight with each other, talk back to me and spill their $4 cups of Vivianno's all over the floor. Days made worse by not taking naps, demanding cookies and strawberries instead of eating what I made, whining because I'm not sitting where I am told or allowing jumping off the coffee table or pulling on my hair. Lesson is, find something to turn the corner. My kids do it all the time. They can easily let the garbage of the minute go...

A trip to the beach, meeting strangers and sharing cookies, just made the day a great day.

Finding friends and eating lunch amidst the hot chocolate stained clothes, still makes them smile.

And the smallest compliments about my parenting or my blog, has helped me to turn my corner today. Finding a new friend and having my heart kissed by and old one make me humble and grateful among the frustration and loneliness. Thanks to my friends and my boys for helping me to not repeat the same mistakes. Special thanks for Jacki and Andrea for helping me feel like a king!

Black Hat, White Hat

2009-07-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

It was a trans continental case of good guy, bad guy.

I thought the seagulls in California, with their white heads were annoying.

They are annoying the way you see a cop in your rear view mirror and you are not sure what the speed limit is in the area you are currently driving.

Our here on the East Coast, the domineering bad cowboy music starts playing and suddenly, you see this seagull.

By himself, he looks harmless enough. But then he makes an annoying call, and his buddies join in by the dozens while the theme song from The Birds starts to play. I laughed at my friend Rebecca when she came to visit and got attacked my these guys at the water park. Hey.. they had signs that said they wouldn't replace any food the seagulls got...so we knew they were aggressive there. Sweet vindication for her today.

I just wasn't expecting to cause my child another great phobia simply by trying to have lunch in the park. The black villains did their thing, and grabbed a slice of turkey right out of the lunchable tray on our table right in front of our faces. Clearly a bad choice. So I put the tray in the cooler and gave Aiden a peanut butter and jelly quarter sandwich...you know the kind, grape elly sliced into triangles. The little buggard swooped down while his friends were distracting us and not only grabbed the sandwich right out of his hand, but just about took his finger with him. Armed with a mustard packet someone else had left behind I tried to chuck it at another bird as I had Aiden on my lap trying to comfort and protect him from the onslaught. Cody oddly enough was bizarrely unaffected and thought it kinda humorous, but dared not laugh. As the mustard packet flew through the air, the bird mearly stepped over it as gracefully as a giselle and let is slide off the end of the table. I'm sure we would have heard the sounds of him saying, "Ha, is that all you got?" Instead, his laughs were drown out by my yells of... "Come on boys..RUN!" Clearly we were sitting at THEIR picnic table.

This really was just the final trauma of the day. We went blueberry picking only to find out that bees really like the colors on our buckets. We picked about six berries and ate about six berries, but the boys had enough of the bees and it was time to go home.

Then as I was talking to the adorable owners of the farm, I stepped in something seriously stinky smelling and didn't realize it was on my shoe until I got into the car. Time to clean out that car I tell ya. It was bad enough to make me tear up a bit. Right on par with how bad Brie was smelling when I shaved her last Saturday morning.

My philosophy is, we wouldn't know what the really good or great things are that happen to us, if we didn't have bad things to compare them too. So I don't mind these lifes small adversities and I think they are actually good lessons for the boys. Seriously however, come on! Bee's, Seagulls and acid Poop all before 11:30am... I'm ready to go back to bed.

P.S. I did go back to bed, we all took a three hour nap. Feel free to call, I will be up until 2am with the kids.

p.s.s. Yes, that giselle comment was for you, Dave.

What did God do on the 7th day?

2009-07-19T17:14:00.000-07:00

After putting in long hours of creativity, hard word and wonderment in creating the universe... if indeed we are created in his/her image, he must have sat back and looked at his/her creation and said, "Eh... I could have done better."

Watch out world, I'm on a rant. Don't take my silence as being shy or even tired. I'm simply stewing in self criticism. I should read more, exercise more, eat less, make more friends, sit up straight, speak nicer, be a better cook, learn to sew, wear make-up, cook healthier, be more creative, be more prepared, be more generous, be more frugile, finish something in the garden, clean out the car, stop eating cookies, cake and ice cream for my main meals and continue my education. So when I say with all seriousness "watch out world" it's a true warning because if God has any of this going on within on his/her Sundays, no wonder there are people waiting for Armageddon.

My advise for the world: Keep doing things that are cute. Seriously, it's our only hope as a planet... as a universe! That's how my kids stay alive and I think we should take a cue from them.

Speaking of cute, funny think happened this week! Cody discovered... showers. Now anytime I get it, he strips down and jumps in with me. I can only imagine the conversation we will be having in the next few months as he eye balls me up and down; beyond that I hate to think of what he will be saying to his therapist in a few years. Right now however, he's more interested in rinsing his tushie, with great delight.

The problem with this is, this used to be my brain runith over time. The time when random thought could surface in my head and get washed down the drain. Most of the time, I just have random words... words that I don't use in typical conversation but for some reason just pop into my head. Words like incredulous an pithy. Words that if I used in a normal conversation I would know exactly what they mean... but to pull them up by themselves after having 98% of my conversations in a day with a 3 and 4 year old, I have no clue and run to the internet to search it meaning and also check if it's a peek into my subconscious. (Lucky ducky for you, for all those who are reading this going... "duuh incredulous means skeptical and pithy means forceful and brief". Congratustinkinlations!) The bizzar side effect of this however, is when I hear a word that might be something on the SAT's, I get all excited and stop the conversation. "OOH! What does guile mean!"

So to all you brainiacs out there, I have birthday coming up. I'm thinking a great book recommendation with lots of funky words but won't bore me, or a dictionary and thesaurus would be great. Save me from smelling up the room with brain farts.

Dog Grooming

2009-07-18T08:42:00.001-07:00

A wonderful Saturday morning. The kids are being adorable. I cuddle with my oldest in the nicely air conditioned room as he tells me, "Mommy, you are the best Mommy in the whole wide world!" What can be better than that.

We trounce downstairs to find hubby and my youngest being equally as cute, pouring liquid breakfast of orange juice and coke over ice and playing computer games. (OJ for the kid, Coke for the Dad!)

Then it happened. I turned around and got hit with an odor that could only be flattered by being called putrid.

I look down to see my adoring smallest dog (smallest at 45lbs!) staring up at me asking for her morning rub behind the ear. Brown, green and orange yuck is smeared here and there up her side and on her face. This is it! She's been escaping into the neighborhood though what we can only figure must be a transporter over our fence and trolloping around. And on the special occasions, she brings home a fantastic smell of the dead to share and spread among our house hold belongings. Well, today this does not go unpunished.

"Terry, do you know where the dog clippers are?" He tells me yes with huge trepidation in his voice. Perhaps he is remembering my last attempt at giving our dogs a haircut. Four hours of painstaking drama on the back porch, trying to figure out how to use the guard and liquid cooling oil, only to have them coming out looking like they went four rounds with a tazer sea of tiki torches.

I went to the porch, plugged in the clippers. It wasn't about two minutes until I called to my assistant, "Terry.. can you get me the cooling oil and some bug spray!" I was getting eaten alive. It was making Brie very nervous when I am shaving her and stomping my legs to get the flies off. As if I wasn't bad at this enough!

Terry come out and sprayed down, with the bug spray not the oil... and I was really off to the races. No going back now.

At this point you might be wondering, why didn't she just take them to the groomers? One answer... $300! I can deal with some patch work looking dogs that don't stink to high heavens and shed all over my floors in an effort to save that kind of cash!

A few minutes into this however, my artistic side started to come out. Famous quotes from movies started to fill my head from "Surfs Up" (remember, I have watch primarily childrens' movies for the last four years!). The dog is in there, I just have to let it out. Smooth strokes... find the dog!"

I was feeling pretty good about the job I was doing. I was onto dog number two and they didn't look nearly as patchy as my attempt on them a few years back, and this time, there was no blood. (Unfortunately I did nick one bad enough last time to bleed.) But this time.. success. Humm.. is this possibly my new calling. Well, they didn't look that good.. but if I was perhaps in dog salon rather than a back porch contorting myself around the stool and table legs, maybe I could do better. Or maybe I could be the one who just gets the bulk off, and gives the mutts to someone else to do the finishing work. Just then as I was doing the finishing touches on Chianti, I squatted down and sat on the can of cooling oil, which allowed it to dispense itself all over my butt. If that's not a sign, I don't know what is... not my calling.

Birthday Season

2009-07-17T14:52:00.001-07:00

Ah, to be in the mind of a four year old!

I'm sure it's confusing. All the sudden, we are making trips to
Big Lots and buying gifts in bulk. Each weekend is a wonderful back yard adventure filled with brightly colored wrapping paper, ribbons and party hats. My four year old decided this morning however, we needed some order about the entire process.

He enlisted his army of myself and his little brother. Apparently I was his sergent, my qualifications being greater definded motor skills and I can reach the scissors.

He marched the troops downstairs to the pile of bags that held the seven items to be wrapped, plus bags, two rolls of wrapping paper and after a bit of looking, the tissue paper.

While the process beyond why I was calling the brightly colored paper, toilet paper,(as he kept running to the bathroom and saying "Tissue is right here!"), it proved to be rather uninteresting to my youngest. He instead insisted to sit on my lap and took pictures of my placemats his own fingers.

Aiden however, was captivated by getting the task at hand completed and done! He saluted me with each direction and was ready with tape and all the opinions he could muster of which color paper should go around each gift.

Ah, tis the season. Hubby, yougest son and myself all have B'days coming up as well. While we all share little interest in this fact, my four year old has taken it upon himself to let everyone we know, anywhere we go that it is indeed someone's birthday. He even conveinced a waitress in a resturant the other day that it was my B'day by him and Cody constantly singing over and over and over. She brought me a piece of cake and said, "It's gotta be true, if not, it's true to them!"

Texas

2009-07-16T05:56:00.001-07:00

Now, what I am about to write is in good humor. I love my husband and he hails from the grand state of Texas. His family, all adorable! Even Uncle Leo who likes to hug and jiggle me a little too much... ok, maybe not Uncle Leo.

I worked a lot in Texas when I was doing telecom training. Plano, which lived up to it's name with it's vast miles and miles of flat land was indeed on the more plain side. I also saw parts of Dallas, and San Antonio. Thanks to Terry, I have gotten to experience visiting relatives in Lewisville, Denton and Lubbock.

We often wonder where it is we should retire too, (Well when Terry retires and Heidi starts her career.) and Texas does offer him a wonderful opportunity to use his GI bill and get a huge education all express free. So there is a chance, we might end up back in TX, if not just for a few years. However, I am concerned.

Top Ten Reasons I’d get kicked out of Texas
1. I’d be considered a tree hugger, for asking “Do we recycle?”
2. If everything is bigger in Texas, consider the size of my mouth after crossing that state line.
3. They would have to repaint the state, to include a blue dot to represent our house.
4. I don’t know who played for Dallas Wide receiver in 1984.
5. I don’t care who played for Dallas wide receiver in 1984.
6. I can see a clear distinction between two same sex humans getting married and someone who wants to marry their dog.
7. I believe in evolution and spirituality and believe neither have to do with the church. (I could get shot there for this one.)
8. I believe in teaching children to write thank you notes.
9. I find it ridiculous/laughable to have to drive across a county line or have a license to buy booze but you can bum a cigarette off a 8 year.
10. My sarcasm would not be recognized, and I would end up with a gun rack mounted to the grill of my car.

Lets face it, there are plenty of reasons I would get kicked out of Texas, and here is the main reasons why:

Little Mermaid and Care Bear pillows, that's one thing, but the other pics in TX could amount to a phone call to Children's Services.

This being said, I do love that most restaurants in TX, have Diet Dr. Pepper as a drink option. There is always a silver lining. So I can have a healthy choice with my deep fried veggie of the day and steak with honey butter. (actually, that sounds really good!)

Nothing Half Way

2009-07-15T08:25:00.001-07:00

My parents and now my husband always tell me, "you don't do anything half way!" Funny how people see half way, I feel like my life is a constant stream of half way. I planted the seeds for the veggie garden, but have yet to actually transfer them to the flower bed. I cleaned the kitchen counters, but not the floors. We've gotten one of our two dogs to learn to stay at home and not escape the yard and wander around the neighborhood (little tramp) And with my youngest son, we are half way to being potty trained.

Now, I am on a new half mission, to figure out...what exactly do I want to be as my boys grow up. For months now, trying to pick a profession that won't put us in the poor house with student loans but will bring me a sense of pride when the boys say, "My mommy is a....fill in the blank." Seriously, fill in the blank.. someone, anyone!

Not only am I a stay at home mom...a trader to my sociology degree as all sociologists believe that profession is under appreciated and detrimental to a woman and perpetuation of the glass ceiling for women on a global level...I am a military wife. This means, not only do I have the holes in my resume from the hiatus to adore my children while eating bon-bons and watching daytime television (yeah right!) but I have holes created by the constant moving with my husband to his next billet.

So as I go through the demoralizing process of trying to update my resume and wanting to make fondue with this paper Swiss cheese, I am reminded of the irony of how many half ways this appears to be on paper and how ironic that people think I do nothing half way at all.

I do envy my son, who has known since birth he wants to be a veterinarian. With his first word being "Dog" over the usual words such as "Mamma" or "Daddy", or even "Hi". I do wonder however since my second son's first words were "Waffle" and "Syrup" what he will fancy himself, or perhaps he will simply marry Ms. Butterworth or Aunt Jermima.

Anyone know if they are single?

Captains Log No. 1

2009-07-14T19:52:00.000-07:00

Is it any surprise that my first post, I name and make reference to one of the all time over the top actors and characters played by Mr. William Shatner; James......T......Kirk.

No offense to Mr. Shatner by the way, but loved the new movie. Then again, I seem to be drawn to all thing Star Trek, even though my affection for Trek in general only hits on mild amusement in the grand scheme of my entertainment values.

I am a geek however. Dungeons and Dragons my first love. I just can't stay away from that desperate adventuring sorcerer who is too impatient especially by elven standards to stay and study at school and must at the tender age of 153, venture out to see what lurks in the woods. I attended Dundracon for some years in a row. My new husband and I attended our last con in San Ramon, CA with our less than one year old baby. While we didn't dress up, we did dress him like a little dragon thus only beginning his career of dressing up with careless abandon.

For sure, other items will be revealed about myself and the things I say, thus an understanding will emerge of why this blog is named, "Over the top". For now, I will just open the door with these few tid-bits and let our understanding of each other begin.