I Still Held My Breath A Little

This post is a bit personal and I am not sure yet if I will publish it. I am pretty sure Brent would not like me to publish it, but he doesn't appreciate half of the things I share on here. But, it might be necessary to share because I think this might help someone out there. And for me, writing is a bit therapeutic.


Last week, I was a week late. Now don't get all excited. Notice the past tense in that sentence. "Was" a week late. There are some things that you should know. If Brent and I were to ever conceive a child together it would be a miracle just short of the Immaculate Conception. Our bodies together have a VERY small chance of doing that. Our bodies had a very small chance of even conceiving through IVF. I know this, yet I still held my breath a little. 
My body usually pulls this trick on me every summer just after school gets out. I think it is my way of adjusting from crazy busy schedule to relaxing and enjoying family time schedule. I know this, yet I still held my breath a little.
My body, unlike the rest of me, has never appreciated schedules or being on time with cycles. I know this, yet I still held my breath a little. 


The truth is, every month I hold my breath a little. And I always will. Just because we have made the decision to adopt, just because we have two beautiful children whom I am totally in love with, doesn't mean I have completely gotten over the desire to be pregnant. 


After day 5 of tardiness, I decided to waste my money on a test. I knew what the answer would be, yet I still held my breath a little. 


It would be a horrible time to bring another life into our already too small house. We are just starting to make dents financially. Our house is only two bedrooms and we will be here for awhile yet. My kids are eleven months apart (one and two years old). Life is beautiful and crazy. 


Yet, I held my breath a little. I thought I wanted another baby. Then my mind starting yelling at me. How can you be so selfish? You have two beautiful children at home! Through the adoption process I met so many people waiting to have children (some are still waiting) and I am blessed to have two so quickly. And now I am greedy and want another one. But is that greedy? Some people have 5-6 children. After two, did they get greedy?


I am not sure what the answer is here. But this is what I am telling myself:
No, they are not greedy. No, I am not greedy and selfish. I just need to slow down. I need to appreciate what I have (which I do), AND the road that led me here (which I forget about). I will probably never experience pregnancy (well, I have this theory that I will be pregnant at 40 but that is another story) but through adoption I have gained so many amazing experiences that those who experienced pregnancy will probably never have. 
I need to sit back and enjoy the ride (which I do not control -- DAMN!) and let God lead the way.


Everyday there is more than enough in life to make me hold my breath a little (or a lot!).


Alright...here goes the publish button.....

Stopping to Smell the Roses (Literally)

I love watching my kids learn. Actually, I love watching any kid learn. That is probably why I am a teacher. It appears that Kate has just discovered she has 4 senses in addition to sight. I believe that she had a mission to use all five today when we were doing our weekly family trip to "'Nards and Carget."




Sense of Hearing:
She heard some distant rumbling from a tractor in the yard. She paused, looked at me and said, "I herrrd dat! Heer dat, Momma? Funder! Boom! Boom! Boom! God do dat! In da ky!"
We continued our discussion of funder and other tractor noises as we helped Daddy look for new locks for the doors.


Sense of Smell:
This was my favorite part of the day. As we walked through Menards, Kate noticed a huge floral advertisement on the tiles. All of a sudden I didn't see her toddling next to me so I stopped and turned around to see her sprawled out in the middle of the aisle with her nose to the floor. She was smelling the roses! HA! I thought it was adorable but I am pretty sure everyone around us thought I was doing poor parenting by letting my kid lay on the floor.


Sense of Touch:
This one is constant. Everything she sees she wants to touch. Usually I tell her to go for it, but there are some things that I don't quite know how to answer. For example, "Hot outside, Momma?" "Yes, Kate. It's hot outside." "Touch it?"


Sense of Taste:
This one was my least favorite today. After a brief chat on why she needs to hold Momma's hand or ride in the cart. And a longer extension to that conversation on why she should not hit Momma just because she doesn't hear what she likes.
She then took off across the aisle to a big metal pallet cart as I was looking at the greeting cards. "Kate, c'mon, let's go." "See dat cart, Momma? Touch it? Push it?" "No, baby, let's go." "Lick it?" My head spun around so fast it almost came loose! Yes, my Kate was licking the metal cart and all of the other shoppers were gasping in horror. It was time to go.


I am not saying that I have learned from my daughter that I should go around licking random things, but she sure gave me a great reminder to pay attention to the small things around me! For the little things make life worth living!

They're Doing It Wrong

So....I suck at playing toys with my kids. 
I know this sounds ridiculous. I mean, how can one "suck" at "playing?" 
Well, let me tell you how:
I am a little, shall we say controlling? And obsessive? 
Alright, after you read this you will see that I am much more than a little. But there has to be someone else out there like me. Right? Anyone?


Every time I watch my kids play I have to use all of my will-power to keep myself from correcting them. I just don't understand why they are trying to put a car in the picnic basket when clearly the picnic basket goes with all of the cute little food and cups and plates. The car does not belong there! I know it would be stifling their creativity and imagination if I tried to stop them, so I don't. But I really want to show them that the shovel goes with the sand toys and not with the tea pot.




I think the worst, and I mean absolute WORST time of day for me is when we go outside to play with the sand and water table. This is painful and I cringe just thinking about it. See this?

That's right. There is sand in the water side and water in the sand side. (GASP!)This hurts my feelings just looking at it. But my beautiful baby is enjoying herself so I know I need to let it go. So I will take a deep breath. Close my eyes....


....And wait until they go to bed so I can make my world right again by putting the correct toys in the picnic basket, clearing the sand out of the water side of the table, and placing the teapot in the play house on the stove where it all belongs.


Don't judge. I know there are more of me out there. They just won't admit it! :)

E.N.U.F Already

I will be brief although this is something that I feel quite strongly about....


Dear Advertisers,
Please stop misspelling words on purpose. You are confusing our society's youth and most of the adults. You are also making my job quite difficult when trying to teach my children and others' children how to spell commonly used words. 


                                Sincerely,
 3rd Grade Teacher/Mom/Lover of the English Language




Dear Consumers and Children,
Here is some clarification for you --


This is wrong:

 

An advertiser of graduation decorations did this clever spelling as a reference to graduates. The word is Congratulations therefore the appropriate abbreviation is:
Congrats!


This is also wrong:

Not sure what happened here but I am tired of correcting this word on spelling tests and in stories written by my students. I hope this is redundant, but the correct spelling is MUD with only one 'd.'


This is wrong and not very clever. It just looks ridiculous.

Just because very and berry rhyme does not mean that they need to be spelled the same. 


I hope these examples get my point across. Feel free to email me with any additional questions. Another great resource is Webster's Dictionary.
Have a luvly day. :) (LOL!)

Fantasy Bike Ride

First off, I should tell you that no, this post has nothing to do with Christian Grey. So if that is what you were expecting, stop reading now. (Heh, Heh, Heh)


This post is just a reminder to me that most things do not turn out the way that I had planned. Some things turn out better than what I had planned. Others, like my fantasy bike ride, go horribly, horribly wrong. 


I got a new bike for Mothers' Day. We just picked it out last weekend from Target. Since this summer is Operation Lose My Muffin Top, it was an appropriate purchase. Kate got a new bike helmet (which she never takes off) and a bike trailer for two to attach to my bike. This may seem like a lame gift for a 2 year old but every time I ask her what she wants she says, "Cake! Blue Dora cake!" So she is getting blue Dora cake and a bike trailer.


Anyway, my mind immediately went into fantasy mode...
Our little family was going to go on a family bike ride! My girls were going to ride happily in the bike trailer with their bike helmets. They would probably even have a 'spot of tea and crumpets' back there. Brent would be on his bike and Gilbert would be jogging nicely beside him. And we would all be happily riding off at a leisurely pace into the sunset.


Well, now I know that this is ridiculous and damn near impossible (at least with my little family). Daddy put the bike trailer together while we all waited in anticipation of our first bike ride. This was going to be our "test-ride" before our family bike ride in the evening. I put the girls in the trailer with some water and Gold-fish. I buckled on their helmets and harnessed them in. I strolled down the driveway and into the road. 


Immediately my legs started screaming at me. I know, I know, I was pulling about 50 pounds worth of kids in a trailer. But, I have a sneaking suspicion that my legs would be screaming even if I weren't pulling something...they may have waited until the end of the block though. I switched her down to first gear and slowly inched down the street. I had high hopes that we were going to make it to the CE trail and go for a nice ride. 


Then the screaming started, "NO! MINE! DEEEEE! MINE!" They were fighting over water bottles. Then Neddy got ticked and started bucking in her seat harness. She decided she didn't like being restrained. I looked back and tried to speak in a soothing voice but all that came out was, "YOU BE NICE!" Kate of course responded with, "No Mama!" and "Oh my God!" She knows that this phrase is prohibited but she also knew I couldn't reach her so she sat grinning at me and repeated the phrase. Neddy kept bucking and getting angrier and angrier until she was all red-faced, sweaty, boogery, and of course choking on her booger/Gold-fish combo. I believe the correct term is, "She was a hot mess."


I pulled over the bike and got them situated, pulled out the mushed up crackers and boogers from Neddy's mouth and did what I was threatening in my mind. I will turn this bike around and head home if you two keep this up!


We went home, had lunch, and a nice long nap before trying our actual fantasy bike ride which I was sure would go much better than the first. Because, after all, they were probably just tired. 


Well, no. They weren't just tired. Our second ride, with Daddy and Gilbert went much the same as the first. There was even some biting taking place. And Gilbert, he didn't quite know how to handle being out for a family outing so he went nuts, tried to run ahead of us then wrapped himself around Brent's bike until the chain fell off. Brent swore, kicked his bike in a tantrum and muttered something about, "Go on without me. I am going home." So we continued until I heard the ear piercing screams of, "NO DEEEE! OH MY GOD!!!! MINEEEEE!" And then the choking started again. I looked back and Kate had pulled Neddy's bike helmet over her face and Neddy was MAD! 


As I turned around, my legs cheered because they knew I was going to stop making them exercise. The congratulated my children on a job well done.


Kate keeps trying to get back in that bike trailer but I am not quite ready to tackle that again this week. 


Maybe it all went wrong because I was missing the 'spot of tea and crumpets'?

Caged Animals

We had Neddy's twelve month check-up this week. I am pretty sure that our sitter gave our kids naughty pills or extreme amounts of sugar before I picked them up and hauled them to the doctor's office by myself. Let's just say things didn't go well.

I, of course, was running late and out of gas. Kate, of course, didn't want to go to the doctor. She wanted to "play 'side." Neddy was quietly chilling in the backseat, or so I thought until I heard a loud splash and turned to see that she had ripped the nipple off of her bottle and was happily pouring its milky contents into my school bag where my report cards were now floating.

This isn't even the bad part. We flew into the doctor's office. Only three minutes late! Of course, hubby later pointed out that this was not a victory because we were still, of course, late. And in his mind, late is late. There are no shades of late.

Kate ran for the sick child part of the waiting room. Why is that the only place that they put an enormous fish tank? When my kids are sick, the last thing they want to do is sit quietly and stare at some fish. 

Now, I am pretty sure I know what happens when we show up for our doctor's appointments. I can see the telling faces of the nurses when they call our name. I know when they look at the schedule for the day and see our last name on the list, they groan loudly. When we arrive, late, they peek around the corner to see if I have both red-headed beasts in tow or just the one. When they see that I have both, they groan even louder, crack open a bottle of hard liquor, take a swig and a deep breath, put on a gorgeous smile before walking around the corner and stating our name through clenched jaws. 

Honestly, I don't blame them. Our children at the doctor's office are like little caged animals. We walked into the room and Kate proceeded to open all of the drawers and empty their contents. I tried to stop her but I needed to strip Neddy down to her diaper so that she could get checked out. Next we walked, Kate ran clumsily with her pigeon-toe feet, down the hall to the scale. As Neddy was was weighed and measured, Kate ripped the big paper giraffe off the wall. 


When we returned to the room, Kate immediately grabbed the paper cover and started to unroll it. I asked her to stop. She said, "No mama. Kate do dat." And I placed her in time-out. When I turned back around, Neddy was shredding the paper and eating it. I dug it all out but the doctor was concerned that there was still some in there. Once I proved to her that it was all out, I turned to look at Kate who had ripped the rubber stoppers off of the bottom of the chair and was chewing on them. I took those and then removed her from time-out to clean up the mess. 


When we were finally cleaned up, Kate decided that she was "Baby Tate" and needed to be carried. I tried to hold both children, but "Baby Tate" was angry and tried to push Neddy out of my arms. I set Neddy down and then we had the kicker....
Kate, with amazing speed, pulled my shirt down and said, "Mama boobies." I yanked my shirt up with my free arm, turned crimson and started sweating at the thought of what had just happened. I looked at the nurse, who had a thin smile, and said, "I am so sorry. She has never done that before..."


As she walked out to get Neddy's shots prepared, I stood there dumbfounded at all of the events that had taken place in the last 15 minutes. How did things go so completely wrong? 
We finished the shots and packed everything up. Just when the nurse thought she was done with us for a few months, I said sweetly, "See you next month for Kate's check-up!" (That's right, my kids are 11 months apart....heh heh heh!) I am sure she will buy a bigger bottle of liquor next time. Maybe she will share with me.