Chucky??

I forgot to mention this on my Kewanee blog...

So Saturday we are all at the park in Kewanee and apparently that is where you go when you are young and want to hang out and look cool in High School.

Apparently I have been out of high school for that long that I forgot that is where I used to hang out too! And make fun of the "old" people and their kids, and give them dirty looks...lol So we are there playing with the kids, and this bitch...I mean girl says to her friend "Don't you think that little boy over there, the one with red hair looks like Chucky?" Her friend said "Oh my Gawd! No!" Well at least that one had some sense, and it took all my mommy willpower to not go over there and punch the girl in her nose. Wouldn't be a very good example for the kids, plus I bet her and her skinny little friends could have kicked my ass if they wanted to, it is Kewanee after all. So that night on the phone I tell Eric this and laugh and wonder if it is a very good mother thing to do to dye my kid's hair a nice shade of not red....

So last night in our Sunday night (don't call it a booty call) get together, he tells me he was telling the girls about that older girl saying Nathan looked like Chucky and they told him that they probably meant the Chucky from Rugrats...lol So I said yeah I am sure that's what the 14 year old girl meant...that he looks like a red headed cartoon, which I guess is better than a red headed killer doll. His daughter told him to tell me that "This is Kewanee and everyone in Kewanee watches the Rugrats" if I didn't believe them. Such nice girls trying to ease probably my son's very first red headed dis. The red haired gene that skipped myself, my sister, and all 3 of my older kids, and then there is Nathan with his red hair, which actually to be perfectly honest is more of an orange than red...poor kid I better get him into Tae Kwon Do now

I posted the pictures of all three red heads and come on...my sweet little Red doesnt look anything like those other pictures. Right??

There Is Nothing To Fear but Fear Itself

Ole FDR had it right, but try explaining that to a screaming 5 year old in the middle of the night...yeah not so easy. She didn't enjoy my philosophy lesson either, the passage that says “Nothing is terrible in things; except fear itself”. I was pretty proud of myself that I remembered that one from my wonderful Philosophy 110 teacher, and I thought I had her there for a moment she stopped crying looked at me and started screaming again. Alright so maybe reason doesn't always work. She doesn't give a shit that her dreams are just pretend, just figments of our subconscious. She wants someone to hug her, kiss her and tell her that it will be alright. That I am there and that she knows she is safe. Because to her that dream was as good as real in her little five years of life world. Damn, I wish ,even though I think I have someone that would say those things to me if I suddenly started having bad dreams, that I could believe that again. Soph settled down, I rubbed her back and all was forgotten.

I grew up on Barker 1711 to be exact, on the Peoria side not the West Peoria side, I loved that house everything about it. Which when my mom went to sell the house back 10 years ago didn't even get the "for sale" sign in the yard before the house was sold to some scum lord who crams about 8 Bradley kids in there for $400 a month. When he bought the house for next to nothing...but that's a different soap box to stand on. : )

The things I loved the most were the things that scared me the most of all. We had this big built in china cabinet, that a babysitter told me once that if I stuck my hand in there far enough I could touch dead people. Or in my bedroom I was on the top bunk looking directly at the watermark on the ceiling that looked like a wolf's head...or the beautiful walk-in closets that I was petrified to hang my clothes in the way back for fear of zombies, or boogy men, or some equally scary thing. My fears didn't end at my home, at the swimming pool I thought the light covers in the pool were really covers to shark cages, that my parents, when I would hear them fighting I was terrified that if they got divorced how would I decide on where to take my kids to Christmas. lol Yeah I was a little OCD even back in the day.

I remember thinking that once I got older that my fears would go away. That adults had all the answers and once I got to be "old" like you know 20, I wouldn't be scared of the closets or not having the hall light on at night. I would be an adult and brave and strong. You think you are immortal then so I think some of my fear got replaced by stupidity and that nothing can happen to you cause your young and on your own and invincible. Then when I had babies I think that is when I saw things differently as an adult and a whole new batch of fears cropped up. Will I be a good mom, will I have money for their college, will Target have the brand of formula I need at 10 o'clock at night.

I like to lovingly refer to my children as little ticking time bombs that remind us as parents how old we are getting (uplifting I know) so as my kids got older my fears about what would happen if something happened to me intensified. I needed someone to reassure me, constantly that I was alright. The feeling of not being able to control getting older, and possibly, someday, if they don't invent a magic stay young forever pill, that I am going to get old and one day *gulp* die, was awful. I hated it. Someone who had lists upon lists, whose week was planned out down to the minute at times in those early years of marriage and pregnancies and babies. It was overwhelming when those thoughts got out of control and I felt like Sophie last night screaming in the night for someone to come and hug me and tell me I was safe. As an adult I got to learn from that scary experience, I got the tools to identify my fears and how to nip it in the proverbial bud before they got out of control. Now granted I couldn't always use those tools on my kids and their bad dreams but I became a better parent. And I know and have accepted fear as a good thing in my life to remind me that no one has total control and to learn how to let go and live.

Kewanee, Illinois, Kids, Cosmo

Well I spent the day in Kewanee today....I know you are all jealous. : ) But we had a lot of fun! I am the proud girlfriend of a man who has two children. Eleven year old twin girls. They are so super awesome and I really lucked out on that aspect of the relationship. Since we all have met we try and get everyone together about once a month to hang out and to get them all to love each other :) which really hasn't been a difficult thing to do, thank God. So today we headed over there and spent the day at his house, playin outside, grillin out, and playing in the park. They are soo good with my little ones and I wish they lived closer so they could babysit! It was alot of fun and I am so exhausted it is amazing. I am thinking it must have been all the fresh air, cause I pretty much just hung back and took pictures all day, instead of Eric who was constantly running around with them, giving piggy back rides and chasing them with silly string. I have never dated anyone with kids before. That seems weird thinking about it, and I don't know if I subconsciously did that or that was just the way the dating ball fell each time till now. I have to say the prospect of someday becoming a step mom was frightening, especially to two girls, but they are great and I am hoping he isn't lying when he tells me they like me! : ) I like the idea of being in their lives as someone other than a mom and hopefully if my relationship with their Dad continues to grow, my relationships with them will also. And they won't hate me and write notes that say "We hate Sarah" and leave them "hidden" in plane site so my step mom could find them and hopefully go away like my sister and I did to our step mom. lol We love her now, but it was a rocky road the first couple of years, and I am grateful that this is turning out differently.
He is wonderful with my kids, I think he sincerely enjoys kids and being around them and I have never seen a better Dad, and I am not just trying to kiss ass here cause he doesn't even read this blog...lol. I feel confident that he would be a good role model to my kids and a good example of how a Dad should be, which what more could I ask for? I have been so fortunate that the men that I have dated have never really thought twice about the fact that I have 4 kids. I mean I guess that maybe alot of them never really wanted anything serious and so they didn't think that they would be involved with them, but the ones that have met them, have loved them easily...or at least liked them easily. My kids are easy to love in the sense that they pretty much love anyone...lol. They are little enough that basically all you have to do is make a fart joke and you are in like Flynn. Its all very exciting and scary to me this phase I am in with him. The moving forward, the kids meeting, and the progression of an actual grown-up relationship.

Ok so enough of all that serious stuff on to the important things like what my Cosmo said this month! So in my last blog I was talking about the questions I was asking E that I really wanted to know the answers to but no really...like "Tell me something I don't know about you" or anything pertaining to an ex-girlfriend. Like I said I have been warned not to ask such questions, but me being me, I ask anyway and sometimes I don't really like the responses I get but I am learning. So on my very exciting Saturday night I was reading my Cosmo and came across this article on questions you are Suppose to ask the significant other to find out more about them and I thought I would share these with you my faithful reader(s):

1. Let's say you won the lottery tomorrow. Would you fly to the Caribbean or do something charitable?
(trick question if you ask me)

2. If we hadn't met, what do you think your life would be like right now?

3. Did you ever have a psychic premonition?

4. What superpower do you wish you had?

5. When you were little, did you ever pack a bag and try and run away from home? How come?

Just a sampling from the literary great Cosmopolitan. I personally think they all are a tad on the amateur side of the question asking line. Even though you probably won't get any really juicy stories out of any of these, they could possibly save you from hearing about your boyfriends favorite part of his ex-girlfriend...or any of those other relationship questioning conversations I tend to want to start on a Wednesday night after a couple of beers! : )

August 16, 2008 Slumber Parties

Slumber parties, the words reminds me of days long ago when my best friend in grade school, Susie and I were constantly spending the night at each other's house. Mainly I was at her house playing in the woods in her backyard, making nachos at midnight and stalking her cute neighbor. Occasionally one our other friends would have a birthday sleep over, where there were more than just 2 of us girls. Calling the radio station to see if we could request a song on KZ-93, prank calling boys, and giving makeovers, interspersed by large amounts of sugar and caffeine. I don't remember anything particularly awful about any of them, except I do know that Susie and I were kind of mean to the girls that weren't in our "group" Yeah I'm not too proud of it now, especially since I have 2 daughters of my own now, but it was what it was. One sleep over at my Dad's house, Karen, a girl that was kind of odd, fell asleep first and she got her hair covered in glitter and underwear placed ever so gently on top of her head. I mean it sounds pretty tame to the pranks of today's girls I wasn't telling all of myspace that she was a slut or anything. But still kind of mean. I am surprised her parents didn't sue mine.

But on a side note Karen the girl with the glitter in her hair and the underwear on her head...she has her PH.D in medical research and makes a very good living with her very successful and very drop dead gorgeous husband near Chicago. When I saw her a couple of years ago stricken with grief that we had scared her for life, she couldn't remember the slumber party in question. My guess is lots of therapy, and possibly some sort of drugs to block out the pain.

My daughter turned 7 last week and me as her mom being slightly crazy 98% of the time thought it would be a great idea to invite all her little friends over for a slumber party. She had just gotten back from her first slumber party and had loved it and the mom of that little girl looked rested and unfazed by the night of little girls, so I thought "Why not?" I gave birth to four kids! I can handle 7 little seven year old girls!

Well it is the morning after and I am think I want to trade my daughters for sons... Is it too late for that?? I was completely unaware that at 7 girls turn into soap opera actresses, eat like grown men, and gossip like old women. The night was pretty successful, all the girls got along for the most part, and all were pretty agreeable. And the only "prank" that was pulled off was pulled in the morning since they all fell asleep by 10 PM. The girls that got up first put pillows on the other girls heads. No suffocation involved and everyone thought it was terribly funny.

I now know that Disney Princesses are uncool and that Kaleb likes Tianna apparently because of this love letter:

Roses Are Red Violets Are Blue
If You Come Over To My Desk
I Will Hit You On the Head.

I know I know ladies right? That Kaleb is a smooth operator. I asked her why she thought that meant that he liked her and she told me that he didn't write poems like that to just any girl!Plus she thought it was funny and she likes funny boys.

Here are a few other cute little quotes from the evening of fun:

Girl1: "Oh did you hear that the Jonas Brother with the straight hair broke up with Miley Cyrus?"
Girl2 "No!! That is awful! Do you think she cried?"

I am thinkin probably so, I mean he is a Jonas Brother! I had never really paid attention to them before, but apparently I need to start! Nothin like a seven year old to make me feel very old and uncool.

Here's another one:

I asked one of the little girls if she wanted another cupcake and she replied :

"No I don't want my butt to get big like my mom's."

Laughing yet silently cursing all the times I have said how much I need to lose weight in front of my girls, and practically shoved the cookie into the little girl's mouth.

This one is my favorite coming from my sweet Lily. They were all around in their sleeping bags taking about boys...which just for the record I soo think second grade is scary young to be talking about boys, but I can't live in denial forever as hard as I try...

Lily: "I heard that in second grade the boys have gotten taller but aren't as smart!"

Gotta love my Lily for wantin a smart man. So Another little girl told her to wait until they get to be 10 years old cause that is when they are really smart. Good girls. At least maybe I have a couple of years to convince her dumb boys have cooties. Even though unfortunately all the not so smart ones also happen to be the really cute ones, as Tianna pointed out. But hey what does she know? Her man Kaleb wants to hit her on the head.

Well the last of the little girls are trickling out of my home and I am amazed everyday that I am actually old enough to have kids, let alone kids that are old enough to have sleepovers. Yeah talk about denial huh??

It went well and maybe in about 5-10 years I will let her have another one!

July 23, 2008 Well, the year is more than half way over...

Who would of thought that the movie entirely made up of songs from ABBA would have inspired me to write this blog to you my faithful reader(s) today? I am standing at the crossroads and I am not afraid to cross...a line from a song I heard today which caused me to think about where I am in my life. The thing is is that I thought I had it all figured out last year and early on in this one. I thought I was at the crossroads and not afraid anymore. I thought I was crossing with full steam ahead and not an ounce of fear, but my friends I know I was wrong. I know I was scared shitless and may have been crossing but carelessly and with out a lot of thought going into the process. The crossroads I was standing on were stupidity and scardycat lanes...they exist I know.

The beginning of this year was a learning experience for me. I was in a relationship for the first time after my divorce. After my very wild and crazy summer of love and fall of love last year. When I met this man who after being a little wild and crazy for 6 months I thought could calm me down. I thought he was the one who I wanted to settle down with and have him help me raise my family. I thought that the fact that he loved me soo much could mask all the fear and doubt I had about us. I thought that if someone loved me enough it could be enough for the two of us. Boy I was wrong, and I will love him forever for teaching me that lesson. I always wanted the man to "love me more than I loved him" I always thought that after a rocky marriage where I always felt unstable that his love would stabilize me, his massive amounts of love would help me feel secure and in turn some of that love I could give back. Well guess what? It didn't. It made me almost resent him for seeing that it wasn't mutual and for still sticking around. It made me feel crazy and suffocated and that something was wrong with me for not being able to reciprocate this love. So I stuck it out till circumstances beyond our control took over and I had to end that.Which in retrospect was the best thing that happened to me. It taught me another valuable life lesson on not ever settling for anything less than what I want out of life, that a love that is meant to last is mutual built on partnership and love from both people, now I know at 31 that's a little late in the game to be figuring that one out but hey better late than never.

The night I had broken up with him I got an IM from my best friend who I hadn't seen since January a good 6 months. We had been occasionally talking back and forth through emails both of us cautious to get back together thinking that we needed more time to heal from the argument we had ( the reason we hadn't seen each other in 6 months). She asked me how I was doing and I broke down (cyberly) and cried to her that I felt bad and guilty for ending things for letting my children get so attached, for going so quickly and for in essence, though not to that extreme degree, settling again. And we talked forever about my ex and about her boyfriend, and I knew that if she was with me I would be okay. I felt like my arm was broken, or missing for the last 6 months not having her to talk to everyday and knowing that we would be okay, that night was better than anything that anyone could have done for me at that moment. We of course still continue to talk to each other and it is slowly but surely getting back to the way things used to be, catching up like crazy still filling each other in on the details of our lives that we had missed out on. I knew that everything would be okay with her to support me and most of all just to be my friend again.

So with the better part of the year spent taking care of a relationship that was badly broken and morning the loss of a friendship. I was ready for a summer that was different. And it has been such a nice relaxing new summer full of adventures with my babies, finding my very best friend again and having that relationship back, which almost feels like with her back in my life I am able to breath again. I have the use of that broken arm back and with that boyfriend gone I have my mind and my head back to think clearly about what I really and truly want for me and my family. I am dating again and with the clarity of someone who through trial and err knows how to behave and knows what I want and how I want it done and I am standing there at those crossroads and its not scary I don't need my hand held like I thought I did 9 months ago. So thank you ABBA ... Who woulda thought?

January 31, 2008 The anwser is tampons, baby wipes and q-tips

OK so what's the million dollar question? Things you don't flush down your toilet or else you will have to spend $2000 to have a plumber dig up your yard and replace the pipe. Yep that was my good news today and a little friendly reminder to all my peoples...

Now I know that logically in my head none of those things should be going down a toilet but it says they can on the tampon box or on the Kandu box of "flushable" wipes for my kids...nope think again. My lovely plumber Mark from Arnold and Sons (who are the biggest crooks ever) told me they got half of a 5 gallon bucket full of all that shit, and what was causing my laundry drain to back up (why I called them in the first place) was only partly due to the fact that there is a big root blocking it, which they probably could have rooter rootered but all the tampons, qtips and diaper wipes formed this kind of barrier like a bunch of gooey wet t-shirts...aghhhh so their super mighty blades could not get to the root....Disgusting and fairly effective for appetite control I know...

So please all of you who have the great honor and responsibility of owning your own home...haha don't put stuff down your toilet besides good ole TP even though the guy at Lowe's tells you you can flush 74 golf balls down the toilet I have...don't believe him...they will only end up clogging your drain and you'll be shelling out $380 an hour for a plumber...

Damn why couldn't any of the men (or women for that matter) in my family be plumbers? Or mechanics, or lawyers? The 3 major things I seem to have spent money on this year? Oh well so if anyone is out and about and wants to see a big excavator dig a big hole in my front lawn tomorrow around noon come on by...unless that is it snows more than 6 inches tonight

December 10, 2007 Water Heaters, Car Batteries, and Bloody Fingers

So I tend to write when things are going shitty or when I feel the need to share my thoughts with the masses, but on this particular day it is a procrastination tool. My life is really good, now mind you I said that yesterday to a friend on the phone and not 2 hours later a pipe going into my water heater sprung a ginormous leak and pretty much rained in my basement for about 30 minutes before me and my knight and shining armor saved the day and found the shut off thingy....

Now as most of my close friends and even those who meet me in the check out line at Walmart know, that I am usually not the "go to" girl in a crisis I can sit back and calmly watch someone else have a meltdown...but when it comes to me and my life or any of the people that I love that are directly involved in my crisis then I pretty much just start to cry and want to just shut my eyes and will it better. Which yes I realize that that is very childlike The whole "I can't see you you can't see me" outlook on life. Not the most effective for sure. This happened Sunday night, the Sunday night before that my 3 year old lovingly slammed his brother's finger in a door and we had to make a trip to the ER just when the bedtime hour was right around the corner for the wee ones and the thought of having a night to myself to run, and read, and do whatever I wanted to was a possibility, bam ole red had to go and nearly get his finger torn off
I think when it comes to my kids in crisis I am pretty good at keeping it together, that's when then OCD kicks in and I think if I can control the situation, the doctors, the nurses, the whatever that nothing bad will ever happen to them...again not always the case, but it works for now, and I'm not on the bathroom floor calling Renee at 3 in the morning to come and look at my moles on my back So I'll do what works for the moment.

This morning I woke up, got the kiddies ready for school, cereal, brushin hairs, makin lists and washin faces, with bottled water, since if we all remember the water is shut off due to the flood of '07. I go downstairs to the garage and I had left the keys in my car to the "on" position, which apparently will make your battery die, so I call my knight again to tell me what to do :) then I call my second in command well actually the first, Renee, so she can also tell me what I should do and helps me get in contact with the guy to jump my car.

My water heater is under warranty, which apparently means there is an approval process, they just don't want to look around and see the leaking water heater, and all the water soaked ruined shit and replace it the same day...No my friends that would be too easy. So he replaces the pipe that is leaking and tells me he has to wait to hear back from the insurance people if they will actually replace it, so I tell the guy to Please please lie for me and tell them that it is an emergency and my livelyhood depends on water. The guy laughed and said "Well I'll see what I can do doll", which could mean "Sorry lady you're screwed", or "Sure lady I see and hear the four wild children running around and they look like they need a bath so I'll go to bat for you on this one". That is the one I'm sticking with .

No point really to this blog, just rambles. I was thinking Man last Sunday it was stitches in my babies hand, the Wednesday before that it was Sophie in the ER getting staples in her ole noggin, and now this Sunday it was the water heater. I really was all set to whine and play the poor me card. But honestly in perspective yeah last night sucked..it ruined some of my stuff and even more of my knight's things...and I felt really bad about that. It was shitty but there was no blood involved in last night :), nobody was hurt. My babies slept like well, like babies through the whole ordeal and we cleaned it up and threw some shit away that can't be replaced, but there was no blood, no death or sickness or dying involved .

Today it was the car, and the plumber, and then ole red's hand starting to bleed again, so another trip to the doctor. I just really wanna shut my eyes and not deal with it. So we go to Walmart and I think everybody must think the world is going to end with the ice tonight because EVERYBODY was there. I ran in to this girl that a friend of mine used to go to high school with. I knew her a little bit but not a whole lot. Her little girl just passed away from cancer about 2 weeks ago. Here I was telling her about my morning and my shitty water heater and her daughter had DIED 2 weeks ago...who the fuck cares if I have to be inconvenienced and get my car battery jumped ...I felt like an ass but she was very understanding and gracious. I literally don't know if I would be able to stand 2 weeks after such a tragedy, but here she was with her son x-mas shopping, and here I was with my 4 getting milk and wondering if I'm gonna have hot water when I get home. Silly me

We got home and I turned on cartoons and I went in here to finish up some homework and it was really quite in my house, now those of you with kids in your house, or even those of you that know my kids know that they are never quite...lol Even when they are sleeping someone is talking in their sleep, so I go out to the living room and they are all asleep on the couch in this little sibling ball of legs and arms and smelly heads. .. even Lily who never sleeps, Lily has Sophie on her lap and Nick is kind of scrunched in between their legs. Well now that's what's important, happy healthy (for the most part) sleeping peaceful kids A peaceful life.

My attitude now or what I am trying to implement in my life is to be peaceful, to chose my battles and to try and control my need to control..lol to control my need for things to be perfect and to try and control my anger at stupid shit...like water heaters and car batteries, and bloody fingers and to step out every once in awhile and just be ...just be thankful and happy that those babies are mine and my life is good, I have food and a roof over my head and people who I love in my life. This sounds a little bit like an after school special or a Thanksgiving prayer, but its still the season to be thankful, to be reflective on your life choices. This year has been one of tremendous change and tremendous losses and tremendous gains and I am ready for 2008 I am ready to start "new" with the new year and to slow down and see what's truly important