Being a "Lurky Loo"

OK, Feeling semi- normal but haven't felt like posting. I do get on the web and lurk ALL THE TIME at other sites. I check out Jenn and her life pretty much every day. Do I know her? No! but somehow since I relate to her (and see a lot of myself there what with the sarcasm and Japanese parentage) postings I feel like she's a BFF. If she ever knew that she'd probably get a restraining order from the scary stalker chick.

I look a lot on the internet and belong to some forums but I hardly ever post. It's not that I'm afraid to put myself out there it's sheer laziness. What take the time to write a comment when I can be two clicks on another site already. What else do I waste my time on.....Webkinz. Mia only has one that she got at Christmas and I waited a few months before I entered the code on the site because I knew we'd have to "take care of it". What I didn't anticipate was how freakin' addicting it is to play the games.
Week One:
Mike- Are you playing Mia's Webkinz?
Me- I'm just playing to make her some money so we can get some stuff for her room.

Week Two:
Me- (to Mike) Hey, what's that game.... how do you play....can I have a turn.

Week Three:
Mia- Hey, are you playing my Webkinz? Oh Good, I want to play with my puppy.
Me- There you go honey.

Week Four:
Mia- Mom! When can I have a turn to play.
Me- It's my turn after your Dad.

Every night when I need to check e-mail and get some of my work (projects) done I tell myself, "just one quick game and then I'll log off". All of a sudden it's 10pm and I've got nothing done.

Head will explode

Okay day 8 of Antibiotics and I have a headache I can't kick. I've taken everything.... no dice. So I've just popped one of my sleeping pills hoping that I just pass out at this point. Only 2 more days of antibiotics left and the doc said that ALL my symptoms better be gone because of the length this sickness has dragged on. Should I be worried that I'm on day 8 of a 10 day prescription and my symptoms are far from gone.

Also, add to that that my loving dear husband has bought me the bean which we have been doing every night. It would be nicer had the hidden implication not been "I'm sick of seeing your fat ass.". At least he is doing it with me. We started doing push-ups and sit-ups (just like we were back in the military) every night before the bean showed up so I'm already sore. Now I could almost cry when I need to cough. Wonderful! Progress though since I can now once again sit up in bed in the morning. Now if I ever kick the head crap that's taking over my life, I'll make it back down to the treadmill for some cardio. I mean really it's in my basement in front of a TV, Totally do-able if I just didn't feel like crap 90% of the time. Feeling this way makes for some good parenting too. Just in case you were wondering. I need a weekend of feeling good by myself to just totally get caught up on everything I have going on. Don't think that will happen anytime soon though! I really need to find some good babysitters in my neighborhood.

Enough about that though since I can start to feel my drugs working their magic. Better go lie down. Sweet dreams!

Reading Olivia

I'm a sucker for children's books and have been buying them since before I even had kids. Whenever I flew somewhere in the military I always tried to come home with a children's book. (most of the time I wasn't able to get my hands on one). I really didn't buy your typical souvieniers though: children's books, music CD's, cookbooks, etc. Anyway, I love the Olivia books by Ian Falconer. I've borrowed them again from the libray (we go every week) and Mason has taken to "Olivia and the Missing Toy". I know I will be buying that one now. He not only wants it read over and over to him but he wants to read it to us as well.



If you don't have these books, I highly recommend them.

Girl Crazy!

Mia's last day of soccer was last night and it made me think of a video I shot last week. I was taking pictures of Mia and "her girls" at soccer and noticed Mason eyeing up his "girl". The last couple of weeks while Mia was in her soccer class Mason was entertained by two other little girls who must have had a sibling in Mia's class. They chased each other the whole time. The last 10 minutes of the class they let the parents and siblings come in to play. (This is the reason Mason has to go every week. He LOVES those 10 minutes). So while I'm looking for my kid's to take pictures I see Mason look for his girl and then beeline for her. Watch the video.

Also, when I was at Soccer I was the worst parent in the world. Every week Mason would end up hurting himself and some other adult would come to me carrying my crying child. Last week, he was playing with one of my friend's older son, Alex, (8) when Alex came running around the corner to tell me Mason needed me. As I'm calmly walking to where Alex came from... Alex, says "he fell on his head, he's hurt". Now I'm running. As I turn the corner there's a man surrounded by a bunch of other adults holding Mason as Mason is crying. I retrieve my child and am comforting him as Alex tells me they were at the top of the bleachers and Mason tripped then fell headfirst off the bleachers and onto the cement. He had just a little cut on his cheek and was fine minutes later. I can't believe he was so lucky. Later the same night he's playing with "his girls" on the bleachers and I tell him to get down, be careful. He says, "so I don't hurt the other cheek?" How about so you don't crack your head open! (I didn't say that just thought it). Yesterday, I'm talking to my friend while Mason is playing on the stairs (just 3 of them) about four feet away from me. All of a suddent this lady walks up to us carrying Mason and says, "is this your son?". She tells me he was stuck in the railing. Are you kidding me? Thank goodness soccer is over. I don't know if Mason could have survived it much longer.

Mia and her girls, Abby and Alyssa.

Mia's actual birthday

The presents were wrapped and waiting when she woke up in the morning. For some reason, even though she usually sleeps to 8:30-9ish she was up at the crack of dawn telling us it was her birthday. Her present from us was a "big girl" bike. Of course, I don't know if it's still considered a "big girl" bike when it has training wheels.

Later we packed up the cupcakes to take to school and headed out. It was snowing a LOT. I had told her we were going to eat at a restaurant that night since it was Ash Wednesday and Mike and I couldn't eat meat. I let the kids pick and will usually just make their favorite dinner however her favorites usually involve meat and I didn't feel like cooking twice.

Here she is dressed and ready for school. She said she was a "black birthday ninja"! Huh? OK. ...So after I drop the kids off at school I head to mass and the roads are really starting to get bad. By late afternoon all evening activities in the area are cancelling and Mike says, "no way, are we going out in that just to eat." Well, after I point out that I already told her we were going, I've got nothing ready to cook and I need to eat REAL SOON as I fasted all day (being the good Catholic) and can feel the headache coming on. We head out. Other than the weather it turned out to be a good day. She was happy so we were happy. Mason couldn't understand why she had more presents since he kept saying her birthday was over. (He means the party was days ago). He liked playing with her and her new toys though.

Note: I did go to the doctor today, you'll never guess. Hmmm. Sinus infection. Yep got antibiotics. I'll be thrilled to get that bill.

SICK! I surrender!

Okay about 2 months ago the whole family was sick. Mike was worse than any of us and ended up taking some leftover antibiotics to get rid of it (there were 9 left for once a day). I seemed to get better on my own. Then about a week and a half after I "got better" I started getting huge headaches that initially would go away with sinus/congestion OTC stuff but then got progressively worse and I started throwing up. I was throwing up mucus though so I'm pretty sure it's not migraine headaches. I did try my migraine medicine though and nothing I tried helped. Flash back in my memory to Spring of 1994 when I was seemingly fine (no cold) and I started getting headaches so bad I had to pull the car off the road if I was driving. Not good considering I was in flight school at Ft. Rucker, AL learning to fly Army helicopters at the time. I finally went to the hospital and they took x-rays to make sure I didn't have some kind of brain tumor. What showed up on the x-ray though was a huge cloud in my sinuses that they diagnosed as Sinusitis and prescribed me antibiotics. That was that.
Back to the present. I posted a while back that I started taking some left over antibiotics and they worked. I could not get the perscription refilled without an evaluation so I just decided to see how it goes. So I take the rest and am again seemingly better. Thursday I wake up with a sore throat. I cannot believe the amount of mucus that is coming out of me. I feel like a drug addict that's been taking Mucinex, Advil, Tylonel head congestion, Nyquil, etc..... I give up I promise I'll call the doctor tomorrow. It just kills me to go in when and pay that much money when I know what the matter is but I've been sick for about 2 months. I'm ready to have a productive day already rather than just going through the motions. I'm sooo far behind in e-mails, house cleaning, correspondence with family, teaching my kids something, EXERCISE, my on going projects....... I guess to sum up I really behind in being a friend, a wife and a mom.

Too good to be true

I should have known it was too good to be true. Last fall around September was when Mason finally just clicked into the whole potty training thing. After months of keeping his pull-up dry all night I just switched to underwear at night and it never was an issue. Well, two weeks ago he pee'd my bed after he had climbed in sometime in the middle of the night. It was a little weird since he didn't even wake up since this is the kid that if he gets a drop of pee in his underwear freaks out. A few days ago I made him wear a pull-up to bed because I hadn't put his clean underwear in his drawer (still sitting in the laundry basket, clean but not put away) and he started crying about how diapers are for babies and he's a not a BABY.
I was a little ticked about the accident since of course our bed doesn't have the waterproof pad on it. In fact, I had moved the waterproof pad to the bed in Mia's room to the bed he usually sleeps in and there's not even a pad on the bed in his room. Of course the kids wanted to sleep in Mason's bed last night and about 5:30am Mia comes in crying that Mason pee'd the bed and got her jammies wet. His bed is totally soaked: sheets, comforter and mattress. I just hope I got it all out of the mattress. So after months of not even one accident it starts. I guess I need to go buy a mattress pad for just in case.

I had planned on posting about Mia's actual birthday (Ash Wednesday) and some hair bows that I made but the cold that I thought was gone turned into a pretty bad sinus infection and although I'm not "cold-like" sick I was almost bed-ridden with headaches and throwing up. I finally started taking some left-over antibiotics from the last time and I'm actually starting to get some hours of no pain. Our insurance really stinks so I've been avoiding going to the doctor's office since I'll end up paying a couple hundred dollars just to get antibiotics. It really sucks when you KNOW what's wrong with you but can't do anything to make yourself better. We'll see what happens on that front as I only had 7 pills left (2 a day) and will have to call the office to see if they will prescribe more to knock out the infection. I know I don't have a medical degree but when it's something I've had before and the pills are working.... I'm trusting my self-diagnosis.

Mom jeans

I'm always on the hunt for a good pair of jeans. My favorite pair of jeans are over 10 years old and starting to wear at the seams. I have of course seen the Oprah show but I don't feel that a pair of jeans should cost almost $200. That being said if I tried on a pair of $200 jeans and it make me looke like a size 2 then I'd probably drop the money on them. My friend Susan told me that she heard the lighter color jeans are supposed to be coming back in style. I ran into the Gap last week and the lady working told me they were getting a bunch more colors that night so I asked her if it's true the lighter jeans were coming back. She said she didn't know but she said the high waist jeans are coming back. It made me think of this SNL skit Mom jeans. I don't want low cut and I don't want high waist..... why can't they make it in the middle. I think like keeping the average woman either looking like she's trying to be a teenager again (and the clothes clearly don't fit) or like I should join a shuffleboard tournament. Why should a good fitting jean be so ellusive? My loving husband the other day told me my "muffin top" has turned into a "loaf of bread". Think before you speak dear.

what does THIS dancer say about YOU?

Left brain vs. right brain.

This is so weird. I know e-mailed this to most everyone after my SIL e-mailed it to me. When I first looked she would only go counter-clockwise and I couldn't make it switch. Then I opened it again to show Mike and he saw it going clockwise. We sat there and argued about it since we were watching it at the same time. I opened it again today and it was going clockwise. The more I stared at it the more it randomly switched direction. It's nice to know I use both sides of my brain. Also, kind of shock that my ANAL husband doesn't see it going counter-clockwise. Which are you?

The Princess Party

This year Mia wanted to dress-up with her friends so we had a "party" Saturday. We only invited her "girlfrieds" and Mason was the lone male. I made flower cakes (forgot to take a picture of them), red punch, meatballs, a bowl of mixed fruit and every kids favorite- mac & cheese. We let them just play for awhile while us moms just sat around and talked. Gotta love it when the guest list includes your friends. Then we made crowns and wands. One little princess had to go home for a nap before we took the pictures but here are the rest of the little ladies with Prince Mason:

My SIL told me that whenever there is girls for a party there is ALWAYS drama. Thank Goodness we didn't have any of that! We did have a little prince pretending to be a monster chasing princesses and whacking them with his sword though.

There were times when Mason kind of questioned Mia's party. I'm not sure if he's putting together that she got a birthday party and he didn't. My poor Christmas Eve baby we'll do a half birthday party for you this summer so you can have at least one to remember.

Signs of non-active parenting

In our defense... Mike and I have been sick for almost the last 3 weeks. Two weekends ago was so bad it was like a movie marathon in our home. We were just so sick but the kids were fine. We were like, "How about a movie?".... two hours later, "How 'bout another movie?" and so on.
Yesterday Mia was watching a Wonderpets show and at the end the baby bee and mom bee were flying outside the hive.
Mia - "Where's the Daddy?".
Me- "I know he's probably working."
Mia- " I know! He's probably inside sitting on the couch watching TV".

Yikes! Do they really view us as deadbeats?

I'll post about the birthday madness tomorrow.

Deal of the day

I went to Younkers today thinking I would just look to see if they had any boy's winter coats on clearance. I usually buy my kids winter coats (& snowpants) for the next year when they're on clearance at the end of the season. I usually never find stuff in Mason's size and there was one style coat left on the clearance rack with a final price of $24. It was trimmed in blue and the next size up was trimmed in black which is what I would have preferred. So I decided I'd get it since I can always take it back if I find a better deal down the road. Then at the last minute I decided I'd go check in the "boys" section in case some clothes got misplaced. They did have one coat left overthere trimmed in black in 3T. So far so good. Then I noticed a rack of coats marked $14.99. The sign said originally $60-$45 and I saw 2 snow suits on the rack but they were marked originally $80. So I took one up to the counter and asked her if it was on sale. It was. So I got a snow suit for $14.99! It's a 4T so it will be probably 2 years before he wears it but $14.99.
The brand is London Fog. Not too shabby. She said I could have even used my coupon but I brought the wrong coupons which were dated Friday-Saturday. It would have been another 20% off.

In other news I've decided I'm pretty much done with the kid's rooms. I really messed up the pillow shams I was trying to do for Mason's room so I salvaged what I could and made pillowcases. Mason's bedroom is in the pic below followed by a picture of his bunk-bed bag that is on Mia's bunkbed. Below is Mia's room.

Have passport want to travel

So way back in August we talked about getting the kids passports in case Mike gets sent to Japan again. I also pointed out that if we should ever want to go to Canada or Mexico we now need passports. I finally got the kids applications put together over the Holidays and took them in on Friday Jan 4th. They weren't turned in early either since I needed to run home to write separate checks instead of the one combined total that I had ready. She said if I got the checks back by 4pm they'd go out that day. I think I delivered them around 3pm. Imagine my surprise when Mason's passport arrived Monday the 14th and Mia's the 17th. I was thinking it was going to take 3 months and it was less then 2 weeks. Impressive! Maybe we should take a winter escape to Mexico to test them out. I WISH.

Weather update here: SNOW, SNOW & more SNOW!

Sir Mason

Mason in his knight costume. Disney was having 50% off the sale price and I spent $5.99 for the costume, $2.99 for the sword and shield and $8.50 for shipping. CRAZY! Anyway the quality is great and he loves it. He's so short that when he puts his boot covers on you can't see his pants:)

The Next Mia Soccer Star

Mia had her first soccer class Tuesday. It all started out well but then about halfway through she sat down and refused to move. Then she came over to the side and told me she's bored. She said she knew how to play soccer and they weren't playing a game.

The last 10 minutes of class they let the siblings come out and run around. Mason LOVED it!

I'm going to have a hard time keeping him away from the class now that he thinks it's his class too. It was a little ridiculous that the kid's had 3 or 4 water breaks for a 45 minute class. My friend Becky said something though to the people that run the place so maybe it will be different next week. We signed up with some friends so Mia gets to see her friends and I get to see mine. She has asked repeatedly since then when "soccer practice" is again. I said, "why, you didn't play with everyone else". She claims she likes it. She said her favorite part is one the brothers and sisters get to come out. Of course, who wouldn't love a bunch of kids running around like mad. It's kind of like a a little mosh pit.

Here's Mia getting ready for soccer in her "Mia Hamm" soccer shirt she got for Christmas from the Ferg's. She keeps telling me she's "number 9". Very cool that she gets her own personalized shirt to run around in.

Valtrex

Mike and I were watching the pre-game for the OSU game yesterday (we won't mention the game) when a commercial for Valtrex came on. I started laughing because it made me think of the SNL skit with Alec Baldwin. When I watch SNL (once a month or so) I generally don't think it's very funny anymore but there are quite a few skits when I think of it that really crack me up. So click the link above for a good laugh.

Bunkbed Bag

Tried to get caught up a little today with some sewing and finally made Mia a bunkbed bag. It is a bag to hang from the rail in her bunkbed to hold books. I'm hoping this will keep them from ending up all over the bed and buried under the sheets. I'm also thinking of putting a pack of Kleenex in there in hopes that this will end the existence of the "booger wall". OK, maybe there's only one booger every few months but it still grosses me out.

A few months ago I decided to do Mason's room in an Airplane theme and finally made him a curtain. I'll take a picture of his room when I finally get around to doing his bedding.
I still have lots of ongoing projects but at least I got something done.

Christmas Sales are killing me

I just go to make a return and then I see something that I want (don't need) that's 80% off. I went into Kohl's to return a few things and see a table in the back that has their nice hardcover books for $2.50. Then the Christmas Corner. They had apothecary jars marked down from $40 to $8. They even come with the holiday stuff to put in them. Of course, I'll have to stash the holiday stuff until next year but I hope the jars look as good in my house as they do in everyone else's. I also got a new coat that I needed. What I need are some clothes but I either don't have the time to look or I'm not in the mood to try things on. After a break of just eating and PMS set in trying on clothes is some kind of torture.
Anyway, trying to gear myself up to run to the store with the kids today. Never a fun time.

Mia's Fake American Girl Doll

Mia had saw some ads in the Tuesday Morning ad in November for some Gotz dolls and commented on how she wanted one. The dolls in the ad (IMO) were UGLY! I'm not keen on the dolls with the crazy bangs. I did happen to go to Tuesday Morning later that week for something else and took a stroll down the toy aisle. I did find a doll that I thought was cute and for only $30.
I thought for $30 we'll give it a try as there's no way I'm spending a $100 on an American Girl Doll to have her destroy it or just not play with it. So my mom bought it from me and gave it to her for Christmas. She loves it. So far anyway.

I did find out yesterday though that there is a new American Girl doll out named Mia. Mia is a figure skater but is reddish blonde with freckles. She does resemble her cousin Bailey though (on left) who Mia also LOVES. So if I do decide to ever break down and get an AG doll. That may be the one.

I keep checking back at Tuesday Morning everytime I go to see if I can find another "cute" (I have my standards) doll to get for Bailey but so far no luck. I'll keep trying though.

Football is painful yet wonderful

I'll admit I was very pessimistic about watching my Wolverines play yesterday. Michigan never seems to play well after a break and I was wondering which Michigan team would show up to play. I've been a fan forever. I've been watching Michigan football since I was in Elementary school and even started attending some of the games when I was in middle school. Both my dad's grandparents moved their families to the Ann Arbor area for the express purpose of my grandparents attending Michigan. We (me and my Dad) are true blue Michigan fans. That being said we both know that the Michigan football team is bi-polar. They either come out and play INCREDIBLE or they come out and look like they're not even trying. So it was with anxiety and angst that I sat down to watch the game yesterday. True to form the game brought me nearly to tears while I cursed like I had Tourette's syndrome at the TV. But it the end, it was worth it.

Now that I live in a split household having married into an Ohio State family I'll have to root for the Buckeyes next Monday. Actually, I would anyway. If the school is not playing Michigan, I always root for the other Big 10 schools. Unlike my Father-in-law who hates Michigan so much he went out and bought an Appalachian State shirt. At least Mike suffered through the game with me yesterday cheering for Michigan. There could have been some blood shed had I heard any of those well-deserved anti-Michigan comments during the game yesterday.