My "Renae is a Jerk" Moment of the Day

I took Clayton to story time at the library today. As they were passing out the snack, the little girl across the table from us asked "Does this have any fat in it?" to which I laughed out loud. It just sounded so odd to hear that phrase coming from a three year old little girl. It struck me as funny and darn cute. I attributed it to a mother who worries about her own diet, and her daughter was picking up on it. That was until I heard her say "Good, I don't have to take my enzymes." Wow! Renae is a jerk! Her mom played it off very nicely and acted like "Yes, my daughter is cute." Which she was, but man I felt like a jerk! I am so very thankful that I have healthy kids!

Mothering

Mothering is just the strangest phenomenon! It's like ... getting mauled by an overly loving, cute as a button, HUGE, disobedient puppy dog. You appreciate the love and the cuteness of it all, but at the same time, you need some space. That's not quite exactly right, but... I can't find the right words.

On the one hand I positively CRAVE solitude and quiet moments, and time to work on things that I want to learn to do. You know you might be a parent when you find yourself taking your time on the toilet, because you know that's the only time when everyone is at least supposed to leave you alone.

On the other hand, I seem to have lost the ability to truly enjoy any time away. Any time I actually DO get away, it is always tainted by a little twinge of guilt, and a small wish that the kids were there with me.

The kids just started back to school, and OH BE JOYFUL!!! I am loving having a routine back! I never feel like a good parent during the summer. I feel like all I do is yell, and tell folks to turn the darn TV / computer off. There seems to be a fight to be broken up every two seconds, and somebody needs something from me every blessed second of the day, and I NEVER have a minute to myself, the kids are BORED, and I just turn into a mean, frustrated, horrible ogress!

I love having a reason to make the kids get up and get dressed. I love having something to do. I love getting into a routine for bedtime again. I love when the kids come home from school, and we can spend some time together in the evenings. I actually feel like I have a reason for the things that I do. I love that now I have my piano time back. But most of all, I love that Clayton takes a nap, and I can have some peace and quiet!

The down side is that Justice is now in Kindergarten. I've been looking forward to when I finally get all of my kids in school, so I can go back to school. I positively ACHE to learn! I LOVE school. BUT... every time a kid starts school, I miss my little buddy! It's never quite the same again. I miss each and every one of those 3 and 4 year old kids that have left me to go to school. As much as I want to go back to school, I don't know if I can take not having a preschool kid here with me. Come to think of it, I don't want to do it at all. I don't want life to change like that. I can't believe I'm actually SAYING THAT!!! But it's true. I miss Clayton already, and I still have two more years with him home. I guess it's a good thing to realize that right now. I miss my Justice, I miss my Mark, I miss my Ross, and I miss my little Lydia. Life will definitely lose a little of it's magic when I no longer have a little one to share it with. Sigh... I'm a bit pathetic, you know.

Outings

While out, I took a picture of this "Getting Along With Your Neighbors Fail." There are actually three "No Trespassing" signs running the property line between these two houses.

While Bruce's BRAVE and wonderful parents took my four oldest kids clothes shopping today, I took Clayton to the park, just the two of us. How different it is to hang out with just one child at a time. It reminded me of when Lydia was little and I used to go out with just her. It was just the most beautiful day ever. I really enjoyed hanging out with just my Mr. C.

This evening Lydia and I did some shopping, just the two of us, also a very good time. We always laugh our heads off when we are together.

These are pictures from yesterday's outing to the park with all of the kids.
I had to bribe Ross to let me take this picture, as he was trying very hard to boycott my camera. He wanted help moving a big log. Easy!






I really liked this picture of Ross until he pointed out that he looks like Gollum.

How nice when they play together. Actually they were having a spitting contest.

Quintessential Justice!

Pictures That Have Nothing To Do With The Rest Of The Post

I got up with the intention to run at 6:00 this morning. (Got to get the run in before the day heats up.) As I got ready, Clayton woke up. Not wanting to leave the three year old as the only person awake in the house, I got him dressed, made him some take along breakfast, and headed out to get my running stroller out of the garage. Unfortunately, all three tires were half flat. Back inside I go to get the air pump. When I headed back outside with the pump, the dog followed me. Having lubed and aired up the tires, I realized that Miss Ally really wanted to come for a run too. So I headed back inside to fetch the leash and a poop bag. While I was inside, the Empire decided to strike back. (This is my own personal running code phrase for dumping the waste before making the jump to hyper-speed.)

FINALLY on the road and running, Ally (dog) was behaving badly. (I really need to take the time to leash train her better!) It's totally not fun to run with a dog that wants to pull, while pushing a running stroller! So after running a quarter of a mile, we came to the woodsy place where I try to get my dog to do her business when we are out walking or running, so I don't have to pick it up. I stopped running and gave her ample opportunity to take care of things. She didn't ... until about two houses after we left the woodsy area. Mess cleaned up, we are again on our way, but Ally won't stop pulling, and trying to go after cats and squirrels. Fed up, I ran back home and left that stupid dog behind.

Now sans dog, I realize that my stroller is pulling to the right. Annoyed with my kids who like to ride my running stroller, down the hill in the back yard, and into the fence, I kept on anyway. After I leave my neighborhood, and am crossing the road, I realize that my kids have also lost me one of the quick release pins that keeps my handle bar in place. So once safely off the road, I stopped for a couple of fixes. Being of the quick release variety, my pulling to the right front wheel was not too hard to straighten out. I also replaced my missing handle bar pin with a less important one, and AGAIN we were one our way (an entire HOUR after I wanted to leave).

Fortunately, I had a really good run after that. It wasn't too hot, I felt good, and I ended up doing just under six miles with a child in the running stroller. Just a rough start to a good run. Yay for perseverance!

I Always Wanted To Be The Best At Something

As I was changing his stinky diaper, Clayton informs me, "Mom, you are the best wiper. Leela is the best drawer. You are the best wiper."

Oh joy. What an honor.

Vacation Week

We started last week out by shopping for and replacing our fridge. Here's what poor Bruce looked like when he came home from earning all that overtime that is paying for our new fridge.

So after cleaning the house, doing all the laundry, packing everybody's stuff, cleaning out the old fridge, and installing the new one, which was just a bit taller than our old one, so we had to move a kitchen cabinet to make it fit, ANYWAY after that and a long run on sentence, we went to Santa Claus, Indiana with Bruce's family. We played all day at the water park on Wednesday, and on Thursday we played all day at the non-water part of the park. It was a good time!

Here's the good thing about traveling with boys. Ross was actually there too, but he got done and ran out of the shot right before I took this picture.

Clayton had his birthday while we were in Indiana.

Next we packed up, drove home, dropped off our dirty laundry, and headed out for Nauvoo, where we geeked out again over Vocal Point. I have more pictures just like this one, but with the different members of VP. However, you'll just have to be happy with a sample, because I don't feel like posting all of them.

Ross was way excited to take a picture with VP's Ross. All of the VP members were very nice and good sports about dorks like us who bugged them after the show for pictures. I totally love these guys!

Vocal Point
Back row left to right: Jake Hunsaker, Robert Seely, Keith Evans, Mike Christensen, Tyler Sterling, and Ross Welch
Front row, left to right: Tanner Nilssen, McKay Crockett, and Ben Murphy

We got home from our Nauvoo trip Sunday evening. My family deserves major props because they all pitched in and in less than an hour's time we had our van completely unpacked, and everything put back in it's place.

Monday morning I was up at 4:45 and off to do the 4th of July biathlon (5 mile run and 20 mile bike) with Bruce's dad. I think the clouds scared off a bunch of folks, because the turn out was not all that good. However the weather was just about as perfect as it gets for 4th of July. I did okayish. I took second in my division, but that's really only because there weren't very many people there.

Am I just old and farty? That vacation WORE me OUT!!

Pay Your Tithing Folks!

We had to buy a new fridge. Boo! We did get a great deal though, and a cool "pay your tithing" lesson out of it. Our old fridge is not quite broken yet, but it's showing all the signs that the end is near soon. The outside has some really hot spots, it leaves puddles on the floor, the inside of the freezer is always frosty, and the ice cream is always half melted. We decided that we would rather avoid the whole "The-fridge-is-broken-we-need-a-new-one-NOW-cuz-all-our-food-is-spoiling-and-making-a-huge-stinky-mess." kind of problem.

We therefore spent Saturday buying a new one. I did all the consumer reports research and picked out the fridge that I thought I wanted, and hunted for the store with the best price on that particular fridge. Bruce and I headed out to Best Buy, paper in hand, and I asked the first sales person I saw to ring me up for that particular fridge. He walked us back to the fridge section, where I saw the one that I had picked out. Upon actually seeing the fridge in person, I realized that it looked rather plasticy and flimsy, and that my kids would probably rip the door off in the first week. We started looking at other fridges. We found a floor model that had a couple of minor dings in it that made them knock the price down by $700. The original price was twice the price of the one that I had gone to the store to buy, but with the dings, it was now only a couple of hundred more than the other one. When you are already committed to spend $800, really why not spend $1000 and get a MUCH nicer fridge? So that's what we did.

Here comes the tithing lesson. As you might already know, we are ALWAYS EXTREMELY stressed where the money situation is concerned, so spending $1000 dollars on a new fridge out of the blue really made me want to puke. Of course we don't have that kind of money sitting around. We had to take get a Best Buy credit card, and put it on that. It's an 18 month same as cash deal. If I budget it right, we should be able to do it. Still, it makes me want to vomit. As it turns out, this week is Bruce's week to be on call, and Anheuser Busch had a major truck scale go down in a major way. Bruce put in 11 hours of over time on it the other night. That alone should bring in $450. Earlier this week, Bruce had about four hours of over time put in on something else. With that we are over half way there to have that fridge paid off. In a completely insane twist of fate, that same truck scale that they had JUST spent so many hours of over time fixing got struck by lightening in a storm the next night. So on Bruce's last night of on call, which was Sunday when over time pays double time instead of just time and a half, Bruce got called out to work for about nine more hours on that same scale. Upon doing the math, all that over time adds up to about $1000 (the price of our new fridge). Now TELL me that paying your tithing doesn't take care of you! We certainly are not wealthy. We barely scrape by, but guess what: We always have just enough for what we need. It's rather amazing when you think about it!

A Little Laugh at Mom's Expense

I scared the crud out of my mom. Always funny! Especially since I wasn't even trying to scare her. All I did was to come over unannounced with my dog. As always when I bring the dog along, I took her straight to the backyard (dogs are strictly forbidden inside my parents' house). Mom and Dad were on the other side of the yard, and didn't see or hear us enter the yard. The first thing they saw was an over excited large black furry thing that "snuck up" quick as lightening from behind and got right in their faces. They both jumped about a foot in the air, and Mom actually screamed. Oh I wish I had a video camera with me! It was hilarious!

Losing It!

Is it completely unusual for folks above the age of 30 something to forget how old they are??? Or am I just seriously losing my mind waaay too soon?? I'm blaming it on the kids. I seriously had to do the math, because I couldn't remember if I was 35 or 36. Wow! I'm totally losing it!! (For the record, I'm only 35. Whew!)

Problem Solved

My two youngest boys love to play "Harry Potter," which includes using a marker to draw glasses around your eyes and a scar on your forehead. You must also have a wand. This can be anything from a pencil to a screw driver or anything long and thin. Next you must run around on pretend broomsticks cursing everything in sight. On a side note, Clayton has taken to wielding his wand at me and shouting "avada kedavra!" at me when ever he is upset with me for any reason. ie:

"Clayton clean up your toys."

"Avada kedavra!"

Should I be insulted that my 3 year old is casting the killing curse at me? Probably not. I don't think he knows what it is.

Anyway as a parent, and as my MIL likes to point out to me, kids running around with sharp pointy objects is not the best idea. The current favorite wand material is the stick part that comes off of some giant bubble wands. I have actually gone to the dollar store and bought a couple of these to replace wands that have been lost.

However, when Bruce was a child he nearly died when he fell on a wooden spoon and it went into his open mouth and through his soft pallet. Hence, his mother has often told me how dangerous it is to let kids run around with toothbrushes, and she really doesn't like this wand obsession either. I can't blame her, and after all of those stories it makes me a little nervous.

Last night Clayton couldn't find his "wand" so I improvised. I found the perfect solution!! (That is if I can convince Justice and Clayton that these wands are better than the bubble wand kind.) Those extra long glue sticks! They are the perfect size, and they are completely flexible. If you fell on it, the thing totally wouldn't hurt you. Now I just have to figure out a way for the bubble wand things to disappear, and for glue sticks to seem totally cool. ????????? I'll have to think on that.