Why I'll never be "Mother Of The Year"

I'm 47 years old ... I'm old ... I know I'm old. I hope at this point you're thinking ... that's not so old, I'm 40 ... 38 ...35 (fill in your number here). I've started many sentences with "I'm an older mom ... " only to have another mom say, "I'm an older mom, too."


Two close family members, both moms, also say this to me often. But they don't understand what makes it different for me ... one of them has two daughters, 10-1/2 and 8-1/2, the other has a girl about to turn 16 and a son that is 14.


All these people don't understand one important thing ... they are this age NOW ... I'm this age with 3 and 4 year olds.

ALL of the mom's I meet are easily 10-20 years younger than I am.


To put this in perspective let me site these statistics for you ... when Girl 1 starts Kindergarten I will be 49 ...

When the twins start ... I'll be 50.


When Girl 1 graduates High School, with the Class of 2023, I will be 61. When the twins graduate, I will be 62.


Even my younger sister didn't get it until I called her on her 43rd birthday last year ... during our conversation I casually slipped in ... "Just think ... two weeks after MY 43rd birthday I had my first child" ... I think this is the longest she has ever been at a loss for words ... she had just become a grandmother for the first time the month before ... "OMG ... OMG ... " ... "Yes," I said, " ... now you understand my situation".


Now that I have your attention ... you'll be so impressed at how mature I am and why I'll never be "Mother of the Year" ...


My neighbor inspired this post ... she is one of these southern women who has a huge smile on her face no matter what crap is coming out of her mouth. I had to remind her one day that I'm the mother of my children ... NOT HER ... and she has never gotten past that ... she loves to takes shots at me with a huge smile on her face ... It's too bad she doesn't read this blog ... I could really drive her crazy :)


Any whooo ... I thought about the many things I do with my kids that may take me out of the running for Mother of the Year ... here are just a few examples ...


One day, whilst on a walk/bike ride with the kids, a wasp landed on the basket of Girl 1's bike. She calmly said "Mom what kind of a bee is that?" I look and yell "Run" and yell again, "Ahhh it's a wasp ... every man for himself ... aaahhhh." When I look back, from across the street, I see the children have not followed ... they are looking closely at the wasp ... I yell "Don't touch it ... if it stings you you'll swell up like a hippo and that's not a good look for a girl".

Unfortunately, my neighbor was watching and it prompted her to say, "Yeah, you're getting Mother Of The Year for sure."


I wanted to take a photo of my daughters first skid marks for her baby album.

I encourage the kids to blame all farts and burps, that happen during the day, on daddy who is at work and can't defend himself.


My daughter yells "boogers boogers" every time she cries and her nose starts to run. When she had a mini tantrum recently, I was ignoring her and it made her really mad so she said,"I'm going to tell daddy" and I said, " You may think that's going to make me feel bad ... but it's snot" and laughed until my sides hurt.


Every time I change a diaper that is just urine I say, "It's all urine pee pee" and I laugh every time ... I'm laughing now just typing this ... this is my brothers fault ... he used to say this every time he had to urinate.


The first time I changed a diaper that had corn in it ... I called the other kids over to look.

I like to freak them out occasionally ... it keeps them on their toes. Our local museum had a dinosaur exhibit ... I thought it would be a fun time and a good photo op ...



And I was right ... the dinosaurs roar and move and open their mouths ... my normally unflappable daughter was impressed ... The real picture...

Possibly my husband won't get Father of the Year, either ... he stuck his hand in it's mouth when it roared and my daughter freaked ...

Poor kids ... :)

The One Most Likely To Be Me

It's time to post about my little darlings. Since I featured Girl 3 most recently (she was the one featured in the puppy incident), I decided to start with her ...

Stickers on all her stuffed animals was an easy decision after she decorated the front of the vanity drawers in stickers ... the world needs more decoration.

Poor dear ... she seems to have inherited all my weirdness. As the kids have grown, their personalities are becoming more apparent. It's difficult to get a photo of her just posing with a smile ... if you ask her to smile for the camera ... you get this ...

Or this ...

Packing the diaper bag for the zoo, I of course put in sunglasses and hats for the kids ... when I went to buckle her in her seat, I found this ...

I got the kids balloons at the end of a long day of errands, she picked this one and insisted on a picture of her and Dora ... I think if I included Dora in the photos of all the kids, their heads wouldn't look so big ...

If she is left alone, we will typically get something like this ...

And this ...

Her preferred bike riding attire ...


If she can be bothered to stop and rest, she will have a pile of animals with her ... and always this cat ...

She adores her big sister ...

And we couldn't adore her more than we do ...

How To Win A War

The randomness of my thoughts is disconcerting ... here I am driving down the road ... kids being entertained by the highly annoying Max and Ruby DVD ... the same Christmas one that they have wanted to see a gazillion times since Thanksgiving ... and I'm thinking about a conversation I had with my husband the day before ... it went something like this ...

Husband, "I just picked up an entire bag of dog poop in the backyard ... I thought we agreed that you were going to do that every day and I'd do it on the weekends so the kids can safely run around back there. Why haven't you been doing that?"

Me, (never one to miss an opportunity to make some kind of snarky comment) "Well, it has been 9 friggin degrees this past week and I didn't feel like freezing my ass off to do it when the kids were not going to be outside anyway."

Husband ... starts to back away ... knowing full well he has just started something that is not going to come out with him looking good in any way ...

Me, "I wipe every butt in this house except yours ... and that includes the dogs ... every damn time the kids sneak them food I end up cleaning dog butts. So I think YOU should be picking up ALL the dog poop from now on ...

Me ... still, "In fact, I think you should really be doing more of everything around here ... If we were to put up a scoreboard to keep track of the amount of hours I spend wiping butts vs the amount of time you spend at work getting quiet time (if he gets to call my running errands without kids "my free time" I get to call his day at work "quiet time") I would be the winner hands down. If we added in wiping noses and cleaning vomit (yes, the dogs too) you would never catch up.

And on it went until he called "uncle" and decided it would be in his best interest to maybe pick up all the dog poop.

Then somehow my brain went to a night recently ... there I was enjoying a quiet moment watching a TV program and a horrible odor invades the room ... ack ... ack ... that smell is horrible ... I look over at my husband and he is sound asleep. I look over the edge of the bed and there is the dog ... poor guy, I think ... he's 13 and not doing great ... I can tolerate a few nasty farts ... it's just really too bad that he likes to sleep on my side of the bed.

The smell gets worse and worse ... he's cranking them out at breakneck speed ... then, I can stand it no longer ... I get up ... open everything and turn on the fan and crank up the heater ... finally, it subsides ... I close up and turn off everything and crawl back in bed ... within seconds the smell has returned ... with a vengeance ... I make some sort of gagging noise ... and my husband starts to shake with uncontrolled laughter ...

So now, here I am, driving down the road, wondering how I can get him back, when my daughter says, "Mom I'm hungry. Can we get cheese roll ups?"

Click ... an idea ....

"Sure ... let's go to Taco Bell ... I'm going to get 3 bean burritos with extra beans."

"Honey ... I'm home ... and do I have a surprise for you ...."

A New Kind Of Diaper

Yesterday was one of those days when things start out normally enough, then piece by piece start to unravel.


I dropped the kids off at preschool and ran to complete as many tasks as possible in my two hours of time ... I'd just pulled into the parking lot when my sister calls ... Her 1 year old grandson is having a medical problem that is a real serious issue ... we spent the better part of 2 hours brainstorming ways to support her daughter and grandson.


I was almost late to read to my daughters class ... I arrived out of breath and discombobulated ... something you don't want to be in front of 4 and 5 years old. The reading went smoothly enough but it was not as much fun as usual ... I was too distracted.


When we pick up the other two kids, I notice my youngest daughter is not wearing the clothes she was brought to school in ... this must mean she had another peeing accident. She has started this the last two days. Oh well, I think, lets move on ... but no ... she jumps up and says in a loud voice "Mommy ... the pee pee just came out ... there was nothing I could do ... it went sssshhhh, ssshhh and it just came out ... and then I farted" ... and of course every adult standing there laughed ... and, of course, that was just what she wanted ... her descriptions of her "pee pee" accidents have been hysterical the last two days ... It's what has kept me from being really pissed off at her ...


So I move on ... I know I'm going to have to correct this ... but we have a play date at the park and we have to get moving. Then I discover that there are no diapers in the car and my son's diaper is FULL ... one more drop of urine and the thing will explode ... I check his backpack ... no diapers ... he must have needed two diapers today at school. So now I'm stuck ... then I try to convince him to use a pull up ... no dice ... I decide to chance it and go to the park.


We are at the park for a full 15 minutes and my daughter pees again in her pants ... lovely ... so now we have no choice but to leave.


At home, I set about correcting all the urine related problems ... clean diapers, clean clothes, everybody uses the potty ... ok, we're good to go ... but wait ... in walks my daughter with a suspicious bulge in the back of her pants ...


"Did you poop in your pants?" I ask in an angry voice ... because this is it ... I'll have to punish her ...


"It's my puppy" she says ... huh? ... is this a new euphemism for poop? ...


"My puppy said he wants to be in my pants" she says


"Fine" I say and I walk off ... this girl is over the top weird ... I have no idea where she could have inherited that from ...


Then, about an hour later, I get "Mommy, my puppy peed in my pants" ... what now? ...


"What do you mean?" I ask ... fearing the worst ... I look in her pants and pull out this ...

It is, of course, filled with pee. But on the bright side ... I've discovered two new things ...

I can now totally go "green" ... we have a ton of these small stuffed toys and this little guy absorbed every drop of her pee ... I'm planning to use them in every diaper for my son from now on ... I may have to buy him bigger pants and I'll definitely have to get his teachers on board ... but they wash really well ...

And I discovered a new way to keep the twins entertained ....

... wash their stuffed toys and put them in the dryer with the light on ... I should have made a video of it ... they were laughing like crazy ....

Probing The Environment

This post contains the words pee pee, penis, and erection ...

Read at your own risk ...

Yesterday, my husband took our oldest daughter on a daddy and daughter outing ... they took a day trip to Houston to see grammy and grandpa by airplane. Ever the thoughtful one, my husband purchases a toy for her and she gets matching ones for the twins.

This morning they distribute the gifts and there is excited squeals all around. Shortly, thereafter there is laughter from the family room ... my son is holding it up from his lap laughing like crazy ... finally he says "it looks like a big pee pee"

My sister has four boys ... she swears that they are touching themselves in the womb. She once told me that every time she removed a diaper their hand was on their penis.

Seriously ... if we played with our boobs that much they would think we were strange ... hmmm ... but really it would probably make them just think more about their penis.

Any whooo ... my husband and I were in the kitchen when our son had this enlightening observation ... here is our conversation that followed ...

Me (shaking my head) - " What is wrong with all of you?"

Husband - "What? It's natural"

Me - "He had an erection in the tub once and told me that his pee pee looked like a poo poo"

Husband - (laughs ... some kind of "yeah I understand that" laugh)

Me - "Then, a few days ago, I saw him put his finger on the tip and push the whole thing back inside himself"

Husband - (now dying laughing)

Me - "What? Do you do that? Have you done that?"

Husband - (now practically crying he's laughing so hard ... I suspect he has done that at some point ... jeez ... men are so weird)

Me - "Why are you all so weird? ... and seriously ... what's wrong with you? Why do you all do that? Come on ... tell me ... did you ever try to push your penis back inside like that?"

Husband - (with a perfectly straight face) "Don't worry about it ... it's all part of probing the environment" (then laughs again).

So ... here it is ... a new euphemism for playing with yourself ...

You have no idea what I have to put up with everyday ...

 

The Big Purge ... Starts Here ....

This will be my first post of the new year. I've started about 5 ...but never finished. They somehow didn't seem important enough to start off the new year. Most of my favorite bloggers had some end of the year/start off the new year idea for great posts. But me? Nothing ... and then more nothing. I was able to make some decorating changes to my blog ... I guess that's something. Then, whilst in the midst of that, I decided to clean house and kick some bloggers to the curb ... and an idea for a goal this year was born. (One year my goal was to have kids ... look how that worked out).

Purge ....

I have resolved this year to be happy. I have noticed that I have a sour attitude lately and I don't care for it. So, this year, I'm back to my happy self. I'm purging "negative" from my life where ever possible and I'm starting with the blogs I read.

Every day I have to make a decision about how I'm going to spend my 30 minutes of "me" time. I can read blogs and comment or I can blog myself. One morning, a blogger asked a question "How many blogs do you have on your reading list?" I don't have many ... at least not compared to most of the other blogs I read ... and some of those, I noticed, I'm not really enjoying ... I'm going to their site mostly out of habit ... So I purged them.

My 2010 theme ... This will be my year to purge and be selective ... this will be my year to start back to things that make me happy ... to streamline my life in many ways ... I'm starting with my blog and moving to my house ... watch out kids ... all your stuff is next. Maybe my husband should be next ... he is a keeper of crap (I would say he's "a saver" or "a collector of items" but he is not selective ... he keeps everything.)

Any whooo ... the bloggers on my reading list now are people I really enjoy reading everyday ... they are bloggers I wish would blog more than they do. They make me laugh and think ... and they help me to be better in some way ... even if it's just to start my day with a more happy attitude.

Watch out family ...the purge is ON ... you may be next