My "other child"

Do you ever wonder if your husband is also your child?

 I often find myself pondering this thought. I'm fairly certain he pulls the boys aside each week and asks them if there is any "new" rule or any rule in particular I may or may not be harping upon (yes, I can be a bit of a stickler) and then goes out of his way to see how long it will take for me to become frustrated. I know he finds it completely humorous when I'm ranting and raving about running in the kitchen or toys on the stairs or pillows missing from every couch,chair and bed in the house. That last one REALLY drives me crazy. Build your fort-but for the love of all that's holy PLEASE put them back where they belong!!! Anyway, the wonderful part of your husband being your child from another mother is it makes him a stellar Dad. He can build forts, play evil tricks like freezing plastic bugs in ice and placing them just so they come out of the dispenser when I get a drink and he can make explosion noises better than anyone, do a forward roll to avoid being struck by a grenade and wear top secret spy glasses. It allows him to enjoy playing with his boys just as much as they enjoy playing with him...I love my "other child"

Crazy fun!

I know it's blurry but my husband NEVER dances! He rocked his 40th surprise celebration at Hauser Winery.

The cake

The awesome cake created with much love and teamwork ;0)

Daddy's 40!

Celebrating Daddy's Birthday at Aki

Pure

I love my dog. Parker fell asleep in my bed a few nights ago with a belly-ache. When I came in to go to bed this is what I found. I love my dog. I also love how sweet Parker tucks his fist under his chin. He has slept like this since he was a baby.

She's here!!!

Taylor has arrived! Our beloved babysitter that left us in August for Mississippi has come to visit for a week. The boys have been anxiously awaiting this day for over a month. It's so wonderful to have her back in our home. Sure I miss her for selfish reasons- a night out here and there, a pedicure, coffee, a trip to the grocery store but mainly I just miss her. She was a part of our life. Part of our family. She always will be but she had to do what all must do...go on and grow up. For someone that likes change about as much as I liked that lovely pelvic ultrasound the other day, well it just sucks! Sorry for the ultrasound reference but it really is terrible! As I'm typing I can hear her reading to Parker...my heart is already breaking knowing Sunday is going to come all too soon. I can't imagine how hard the boys are going to take it. I better stock up on the Kettle One...I mean Kettle corn...oh, who am I kidding. I mean both and chocolate too.

even our dog missed her

The great tease

Today was a lovely, giant-teaser of a spring day. Maybe more like summer. It's been cold and rainy for so long I've forgotten what either feel like! All I know is today was phenomenal and I BEGGED Mr. Responsible Pants to let us all play hooky today and go to the zoo or something but NOOOOOOO. I tried every angle I could think... "Oh it's just Kindergarten." " I can rope a school lesson into it." "You know kids gain more from spending quality family time then sitting in a classroom." "We should take this time and be with the kids, they're growing up so fast and you travel so much." He saw right through every "reason". He full well knew I have Spring fever. I am itching for a road trip. I wanted to shirk my responsibilities for the day. So we compromised. He would quit work in time to pick Parker up from school and go to the closest thing we're getting to a beach until June...Cowan's Gap. This and that rare warm day in Fall is our favorite time to go because there's no one there. We had a fabulous time building sandcastles and racing up and down the sand. The evening ended with a requisite trip to the Milky Way which unfortunately involved ice cream and hot fudge. Grrrrrr, I'm powerless against it. There was also some highly inappropriate conversations involving butts. I feel as though I should find the people sitting on either side of us and apologize! We can't be parents of the year every year. It's all about sharing and giving others the opportunity ;-) 

Happy St. Patty's Day

I like to have fun with color holiday's. You know, play a little game of how much of one color you can inject into your normal daily routine. It really doesn't take much to amuse me. The top two winners today in our house were green pancakes and Leprechaun pee.
I may or may not have squirted some green food gel into the potty. The screams of amazement from my sleepy eyed children were hysterical to say the least. Part of me feels guilty for fooling them so bad, part of me feels sad that I can fool them so bad, but mainly I feel blessed that we have such quirky family traditions. I have a picture of the pancakes but not the pee-that would just be tacky ;-).

So we may celebrate with green pancakes instead of green beer but we wouldn't have it any other way.

Grow baby, Grow!

This year we are determined to be on the ball with our gardening. We have a tendency to forget to check our plantings and have lost many a vegetable to a pesky bug or an adventurous bunny rabbit. This year our strategy is to only plant a cutting garden in the garden box and we are going to try container gardening on the patio. Our hope is that if we're forced to pass by our veggies we'll do a better job taking care of them. When I was buying the trays to start our seeds indoors I came across a cool kid seed starter kit. I KNOW I could have done it myself but I like that it was all there and ready to go. Tonight the boys started Zinnia's, Sunflowers, and Marigolds. Parker sat beside his for 20 min looking through binoculars. He was convinced he could already see them growing. I love how excited and curious he is about the project. The cups have an insert which is clear so the boys will be able to watch the seeds splitting and growing...stay tuned for the growth report!

And they're off

So we were really cranking through the school work today. It doesn't matter the reason( my husband bribed my child behind my back). I told him no need to bribe in secret- I'm all about anything to make it easier. I know I should call it an incentive but I find that's really just a fancy word for bribe in our house. Anyway, as a reward for my stellar teaching day I made plans with my favorite cozy blanket. I don't know the last time I napped but since my brain has decided it's a blast waking me every night around 3:16/3:23am, I'm exhausted. So you can imagine my excitement when it was suggested I take Nick to Norlo for a run. My husband who is working from home ALL week took a quick 5 miler over his lunch break. He said it was a little chilly to start but felt good once you got going...I tried to literally burn a hole into his skin with my super powered dirty look. It didn't work, so Nick and I got suited up. It wasn't decent, it wasn't even a little decent...it was cold AND windy! Nick couldn't feel his quads after the 2nd mile so we called it a day! The really irritating part...it really was way better than taking a nap!!!

Odds and Ends

Odds and Ends is just another way to say, " here's all the stuff I meant to blog about but never got around to"... so let's get to it...

1. I find myself at once fascinated and horrified by the lizard thing in our house. I feel bad for it because my cats pounce on it's cage constantly. It does nothing but eat crickets and hide in leaves all day. BORING! Nick has tried many times to "tame" it but it has made it perfectly clear it wants no part in regular recess. This lizard was one of my husband's GREAT (inject sarcasm) ideas. The thing is more work than my dog and 2 cats combined. Climate control, only distilled water, the smallest of the small crickets... I call it the Diva. Her name is Lizzy. The other day Parker woke me up by holding a cricket he found about an inch from my nose. He thought it was HILARIOUS the way I screamed and jumped out of bed. I hit the end of my bed so hard I still have a bruise almost the entire length of my shin! Boys! Here is a picture of her molting? I have no idea what you call it but I must say it does fascinate me...

2. Boys and mud. Bob and the boys recently went on a Dad's only camping trip. Well, us Mom's can come but seriously...why would we?!? We say how it would be so great for us to have a few days to get the laundry caught up, clean out the closets...blah, blah, blah but really that's prime finally getting a girl's night out time, catching up on all the trash t.v. and chick flicks you've missed time followed by racing around like a lunatic the morning they're coming home so it looks like you had a really productive weekend time! Hint: just spray something that smells really good and have the floors swept. Your family will think you worked so hard you didn't even sleep. And I've lost focus again...back to the point. When they came home from the weekend my oldest was a tad out of sorts. All the chaos, free for all eating plays havoc on his tourettes so I took him out for a hike and a good ole' romp in the mud. At one point he had so much mud and grass stuck to his shoes he couldn't lift his feet. I wish I would have captured the smiles but I at least got a picture of the shoes...

3. My dear husband travels A LOT! This is hard for everyone. Sometimes we forget how hard it is on him. It has been especially hard for him in terms of his coming to accept Nick and his tourette's. When you don't live it day in and day out I think it's easier to try and dismiss things. Also, I'm sure it is hard for a man to face certain things about his son. However Bob is making huge strides in his acceptance and support. Just last week Nick was having a particularly rough day and Bob happened to be working from home. He calmly took Nick outside and kicked a soccer ball back and forth in the fairly cold weather ( Nick insisted on wearing shorts). Exercise works wonders for a super charged nervous system. My husband taking time out of his busy day to do this works wonders for my soul. He is a good man.

side note: not only do I despise winter, I despise the insane wind tunnel that constantly blows all of our mulch away!

I have much more to catch up on but I think that is all for now...

Why? WHy? WHY?

Why can't I get it together to blog? I look at my computer. Correction. I glare at my computer. As if it's my computer's fault I'm too scatter brained and self depreciating to take 15 minutes out of my day to blog. Have any of you ever watched "Bethenny's Getting married" or "Bethenny ever after" ? I'm not as neurotic as she is(no comments please) but I do have her annoying negative inner dialog. So I found myself contemplating why? Then I realized it was a waste of time because I''m who I am. I'm never going to be the girl who remembers to do 1/2 of the stuff I am supposed to do or want to do. At least I keep it interesting, even if it's not by choice most of the time!

I did just purchase a new piece of art. The hope of Spring always puts me in the mood for decorating. The picture says, " I can't remember what I forgot". I thought it was rather perfect...