the skirt

It's definitely not the coffee, cause it was bad, I mean really bad. It's certainly not the 'social' aspect, I worked in my own one man (umm, woman) team. There are only a few things I miss about not working 'outside' the house, as in not contained within these four walls with an equal number of children, leaving me outnumbered for nearly 12 hours a day. What I miss the most about working (and I'm going to drop the 'outside the house' part from here on out because you get it, I get it; we Moms are all still working, some just get checks deposited in the bank. Back to what I miss most about working...) is getting 'dressed up'.

I'm not one of those people that must wear makeup before leaving the house or am I one of those that wears velor jogging suits out in public. I'd like to think I'm the middle of the road here; a little bit of fuss and of course, a little bit of muss.

I worked in corporate retail, I got to dress with the best of the best, at least for the Minneapolis area. I literally rode 'their' coattails trying to look a quarter as good as they did. When it's laundry day here, I find myself reminiscing at the closet doors. The green suede skirt is calling me. It's a one-of-a-kind, soft, buttery dark green suede pencil length skirt. It was never put into production and I probably bought it for $10 at a sample sale, but nonetheless, it is one of those things that makes me wish I was still stuck in a cubicle with my plastic plants.

I slip off my stretchy pants and slip into my skirt. It doesn't look horrible with my matching sweatshirt, but I look for a replacement. I top it off with my favorite pair of black heels. Forty minutes later, I've tried on nearly all of my all of my old work clothes, have a pile of things that should be hung back up and the pile of laundry still in the basket is still there. I contemplate actually wearing the skirt, but come to my senses. I have a 15 month old that likes to throw his food in any 4 foot radius. I'm on the floor at least six times a day wiping spilt milk up from under the dining room table. I have to pin the arms down on Wyatt to change his diaper.

What, give up this glamorous job? The skirt will have to wait.

running in circles

I'm on vacation this week, with both of my children, without my husband. I'm really not certain it should be considered a vacation on my side but I'm certain that my husband should consider it his. I have a renewed respect for single parenting. I feel like I'm running in circles, getting pretty much nowhere. I often have been thinking about this video of Wyatt at about 9 months old. He's doing exactly how I feel 'running in circles', but at least he and I are having fun doing it.

This video has been posted previously, but recycling in all forms is pretty cool, right?

fuzzy numbers

Remember this from your child birthing classes?


I think that today I'm at about a 3, multiply this by the fact that it's 82 degrees in our house (because the air conditioner is broken and it's smack dab in the middle of summer therefore not being fixed until tomorrow). All you mathematical geniuses out there probably have an equation that can calculate my pain level of 3 multiplied by the degree of 82 and come up with some real 'emotional' number but I'm guessing that my face looks closer to the 5 than it does to the 0.

It's not that I hurt or I'm in pain, I'm simply tired. I'm tired of being the 'bad guy' all. the. time. I'm tired of pulling Henry off Wyatt when he performs his 'smothering hug'. I'm tired of separating Henry and his friend from yet another one of their death-match wrestling moves. I'm tired of putting them in a time out for the third time in a row. I'm tired of asking 'why you did this?' only to be responded to with a snicker or a shrug of the shoulder. I'm tired of him saying that I'm being the naughty one. I'm tired of him saying that he doesn't love me.

But there was five minutes today (which is probably as exaggeration, it was more like a minute and a half, but I'm hanging onto those '5 minutes' with all I've got) where I was so happy to be with my children, in the moment, right there. Since the air conditioning is out I have both fans running in our living room. Today, for the first time, I showed Wyatt the simple joy of 'talking' into the fan. He was enthralled; first timid, then inquisitive and then he thought the entire experience was hilarious. When he discovered that he too could 'talk' into the fan, well that moment is simply one of those moments that I just can't get tired of.

Don't you love the wind blowing in his hair? He looks like a 'little old man' about to lose his toupee.

one week only

It's awesome when my two passions collide (at least 'hang' on the doorknob of my front steps) of 'being lazy' and of 'being cheap'. Now, I don't have to cook for an entire week. How else could I feed a family of four for the bargain price of $5.99. If they just made a breakfast pizza, I'd totally be covered.
For those of you that aren't sure if I'm serious, I'm not. Once again, please remove your hand from the phone, no need to call social services.

federal architecture

We (well, mostly me) walked through 31 houses, peeled back the orange shag carpet to peek at the hardwood floors in about 12 houses, we put offers in on 7 houses and we ended up with the 1 house my husband walked into and said 'now this is more like it'. It was the very first day the house was on the market, there were 3 offers and we paid over the asking price for the house but all in all, we loved our little three bedroom, one bathroom house. We lived in that house for three years. In that time, we got married (I know, us sinners) , we had our first baby and we fell in love with our neighbors.

Walking around the neighborhood, we spied a house 35 years newer, 2 1/2 blocks away from our current house, that was a huge 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom. We yet again, fell in love, this time it was for the potential. So we packed up our little red radio flyer and made about 1000 trips back and forth those 2 1/2 blocks. (I'm totally joking, of course we begged and borrowed friends and a truck, like normal people do).

The relationship with our house has been been mostly one-sided, us being the giver, the house being the taker (as in taking our wallets and squeezing out as much as possible). The house was in horrible condition, owned by not one, but two smokers, and everything from the light fixtures to light switch plates had to be replaced. The outside was nearly as bad, decorated with plastic butterflies and an eagle.

No doubt the butterflies were burned within the first week, but my husband held his ground on the eagle, he said 'it's federal architecture'. I begged, I stomped my foot and I even offered 'my services' unmentionable in my blog. (I did hijack my parent's computer last time I was home and added my blog to their favorites, so just in case, ya know). The eagle remained in it's honorable position above the garage for three years.
This weekend, I got my reckoning. A hail storm pounded our neighborhood two months ago, providing us with a new roof and siding (thank you, God and our friendly insurance claim adjuster). As the siding was being ripped away, I snuck outside, nabbed it from a pile of 'too be saved' and threw it. Can you guess where?

the end of my love affair

There's not much that trumps my desire to cut corners whenever humanly possible. It's hard to imagine that I might have even been more 'lazy' when I was without children, but there I was ordering my groceries online when I had no one (or two) blabbing about getting the Reese's Puffs now or fussing about not being able to steer the car cart.

I loved ordering my groceries online. I'd grab a Diet Coke, settle in front of my computer during my lunch break and peruse the virtual aisles. I could order Panera Cinnamon Crunch bagels alongside my celery stalks. I could finally get my favorite bottle of wine and my favorite toilet paper with one purchase. Oh the luxury of it all!

Alas, my love affair had to end. The one thing that does trump my laziness is my cheapness. We had a child, I decided to stay home with Henry which cut my income by roughly 70% (it still hurts a little in writing that) and those lovely green containers (and lovely delivery men) that arrived on my doorstep every Wednesday night had to stop.

Today, I find out that my online grocery store, Simon Delivers is closing. I'm heartbroken, though I know our affair was a short one, lasting only one year, I still hold it so dearly in my heart. I know there are others out there, but it is you, Simon Delivers who I counted on being there for me. There will come a day when I can afford once again to be little bit lazier and thought you would still be there for me, your virtual glass doors sliding open, welcoming me to the grocery shopping experience of my dreams. Now, it is simply that, a dream. Farewell my sweet Prince of online grocery shopping.

encouraging words

'Hold your pee for as long as possible, do this sort of yoga downward dog pose and remain in this position for the minimum of 1 hour and really try to do this five days before you ovulate' (because that is so predictable). Henry was 'the bottom of the barrel', five-dayer and should have been girl, but I hope you guessed it, he's a boy. I've even had another person's embryo put into my body and yet again, boy. When Wyatt came along, people started cheering me on, 'Are you going to try for a girl? I bet you'll have a girl if you get pregnant again'. If your going to bet on me (the wife of a husband whose the fifth son), I'd be betting for the the boy team, people. Encouraging words are thrown my way often. 'You should definitely try for a third, your due for a girl'.

Those encouraging words have seemed to spread outward, somewhere in the past two months it's changed from 'oh, he's just a baby' to 'I once met a 17 month old that wasn't yet walking and she turned out just fine, it really wasn't a problem'. From being this 'average' little baby to suddenly this 14 month old toddler that could be highly encouraged to be signed up for after-play date tutoring. Unless I have a white piece of paper safety-pinned to my back with the words 'Needs Encouragement' written, please you and your 'just-turned-out-to-be-a-girl, already-walking-at-10-months' little toddler just continue on toddling by. Me and Wyatt will be following right behind you; crawling, sticking our tongues out and giving you mean baby faces.

Over the weekend he decided to take a few steps, so perhaps we won't have to pay for tutoring afterall.

good ol' Iowa

I'm so Iowan, not in the cool Iowa way that only 1% of the population knows about, but in the cliche; as in where 'dinner' means lunch and 'supper' means dinner, where those suppers consist of hot dishes and casseroles, where clean overalls are considered acceptable wedding attire and where people do in fact marry their high school sweethearts. I do not fall into the categories of most of these, but yes, I did indeed meet my husband in high school, well actually at our after school job at the local grocery store, he bagging groceries and me, a cashier. He impressed me with his shelf pulling abilities and I, him with my produce code memorization. (Isn't our romance sickening?)

Every so often I think about moving back to Iowa, helped along with subtle hints from my family about job openings and houses for sale. In this part of Iowa, you could buy a 3 bedroom house for 90K, yes that's under $100,000 for a real house, this simply blows my Minneapolis-market mind! So the lure of being able to walk to the movie theatre, stroll with stroller out to dinner and free parking everywhere is pulling me yet again. (Okay and almost all of my family being within a 5 mile radius - are you happy, Aryn?) It brings back a flood of memories. I'm just not certain I really want to relive all of those. For all those wondering, it's prom 1994 not 1974. I'm not that old, it just takes twenty years for trends to hit good ol' Iowa.

bravery

I held Henry's hand as we walked up the flight of stairs. I told him he was being brave. When we reached the top of the water slide, he freaked out. 'Let's turn around'. I convinced him to watch other people going down, that they in fact were not going very fast and they did indeed look like they were having fun. We sat down in position, him between my legs, when he started screaming again 'No, No'. I stood up and pull him off to the side of the slide. I told him 'sometimes things that look really scary, aren't. Sometimes we have to do things that we might be scared of doing, but in the end, we end up loving them. We learn that they can be fun.' I ask him 'do you trust me? I will hold on to you so tight and make sure nothing happens. I really want you to trust me'. So he does. We sit back down, prepare for the lifeguard to say go when he screams yet again, 'I don't trust you Mommy'. I pull him off and say 'let's be brave. Close your eyes and give it a try'. He silently nods his head, sits between my legs and we go.

I wish I could say that he loved it, that he jumped out of the water shouting 'let's do it again!'. He didn't. He cried. He cried from the time I pushed off to when we climbed out of the pool. He started shaking uncontrollably with quivering lips. It was talked about hours later as the worst thing he has ever done in his life. Nonetheless, I am proud of him, he did something that he thought was going be scary and tried it.

I myself, took my advice. This was the first time I bravely wore a bikini to the public pool. With my son screaming murder at the top of his lungs, mothers giving me the look like I abuse my child, I was trying to calm him down and not draw to much attention to him or to my bikini-wearing self. With my tummy kind of proudly displaying (and somewhat hiding) my three 4" long stretch marks, I wanted to tell my son 'look at Mommy, see how brave I am today' but I really don't think he would have understood.

underwear fetish

There are a million and one things sprawled across the floor of Henry's bedroom which Wyatt shouldn't have; from the miniature football guys to the tiny plastic construction zone cones, from the year-round Easter eggs to the big-boy library book. All of which are why we keep the door to Henry's room closed, almost all the time.

When the door happens to be open it's like the brides-to-be at the annual Filene's Basement bridal dash only Wyatt is crawling (though it is in double time, his quick heavy breathing crawl) and the prize for his dash is not a magical, once-in-a-lifetime wedding dress but his four year old brother's underwear.

He will crawl around the house grasping onto Henry's underwear like it's glued to his little palm. It's a sort of security blanket, I'm certain he would go to bed with if I allowed him. There are a million reasons why I love this kid, his underwear fetish is just one.