I was almost done

I had a post almost done when Elyse went behind the desk and turned the surge protector off and poof, it all went dark, argh!!!

Lots going on! Birthdays galore happening around here, five this week alone, whew. I am officially a mom of a teenager and a toddler, eeek.

I will share more tomorrow when I have more time.

Making friends, whether I want to or not

I live in a very tight circle. I have a few friends, some closer than others, and I am comfortable in my little circle. I am a busy mom, so I don't have a lot ot time to forge new friendships. Yesterday, I made new friends, even though I wasn't looking for any.

Tayler has decided that she wants to join the Girl Scouts (again). I went to the first meeting with her after school and there were a lot of other mothers there. I said my hellos to the ladies I knew, careful not to linger for fear I might be drawn into a conversation I didn't want to participate it. I kept eyeing the chair next to the door, the one all by itself, thinking that is where I want to sit. Sit and be alone.

But it wasn't to be. The mothers were herded over to a table with another leader. I sat next down to a mother that I am friendly with and I told her this is when they try to get us to volunteer to be leaders. She had a look of shock on her face and asked, do you really think so? I said, oh yes, I have been in this position before, many times, with many different organizations. And sure enough that's what happened. The guilt ridden speech about how these girls desperately needed a leader and would someone please step up came next. I looked around the table at all these moms that are new to these things. They were adverting their eyes or whispering to each other hoping not to be noticed or singled out. I finally spoke up and told the GS leader that most of us either had small kids in addition to our hopeful girlscouts, or the moms worked. The leader looked at me like I had said nothing but the other moms started to nod and agree. They started to talk about co-leading and taking different offices, but that is not what GS does. It is a one woman show.

But I digress. After my statement(s) the other moms started talking to me, engaging me in conversation about kids, parks and fast food restaurants. It was nice. The conversation was actually nice. I looked over at the chair by the door, all alone and it no longer looked appealing to me.

Last night was skate night for the elementary school. Jeff wanted to go so bad, but you see, he doesn't skate. I had planned on going, taking the older kids and their friends and burying my head in a book while I waited for the fun to end. But Jeff kept saying he was willing to give skating a try. Jeff trying a new thing, is well, a big deal so I couldn't turn him down. When we got to the rink and I went and got his skates and me some skates too. I laced us into them and onto the skate floor we went. Jeff must have fell 24 times on the first round. He would fall and I would pick him up, he would fall and I would pick him, he would fall and - you can see where this is going. I was also trying to help other little bodies that were strewn around the rink next to the wall. I was picking kids up everywhere and wondering why their parents weren't out there humiliating themselves on skates like I was. Again, I digress.

We made it around the rink that first time, whew. I had Jeff practice on the carpet for a while. I was sure he would give up and I could sit by the door with my book and dole out quarters to him for the arcade. Nope, he wanted to try again. So around the rink we went, again. He fell less this time, but I was sure he would give up. Nope, we went around again and again and again. We did that for two hours, we took a couple of breaks for water but he was determined. He never did get very good at it, but when we would make it to our starting place he would declare, I only fell six times (or seven or four) that time around. Much better than the 24 when we started.

I finally had to take my skates off, my feet were cramping up and I just couldn't do it anymore. I was sitting on a bench messaging my feet when a neighbor came over and introduced herself to me. We have lived three houses apart for 15 year but have never met. Sad, huh!? We talked about the neighborhood, the neighbors and our families. We have a nice conversion. After she left another neighbor, my next door neighbor who I just exchange niceties with on the rare occasion that I see her out, walked over and we had a nice long conversation. A dad came over and thanked me for helping his daughter out with her skating. He had had knee surgery not too long ago and was not able to skate. He was appreciations that I had helped his daughter. We exchanged knee surgery stories and had a nice conversation.

Soon, almost too soon, it was time to load up the car and head home. I felt happy, like I had made some new friends, whether I wanted to or not.

The wayward contact and Lasik

I wear contacts, I have for 15 years or so. I don't like glasses, I don't like the way they feel on my face, and maybe I am a little bit vein about having to wear glasses too.

So, last night I went to take my contacts out, and I couldn't find the one in my right eye. I knew it was in there somewhere because I could feel something in my eye, it had moved but I couldn't tell where it moved to. This has happened before with these contacts and I usually find it, but last night I couldn't find it anywhere. I got a small flash light and Dave searched all corners of my eye to no avail. They are tinted blue so it should have been easy to spot.

I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach. There was a thin layer of plastic stuck to my eye ball and I couldn't get it out. We had watched CSI a couple of weeks ago and it showed the guy that does the autopsies pull an eyeball out and then they attempted to remove fluid from it. They showed those eyeballs several times and that is all I could think about. Someday they will remove my eyeball and there will be a contact stuck to the back of it.


My eye became red, bloodshot and inflamed from all the poking around in it. I finally decided to leave it alone and maybe I could find the contact in the morning. If not I would have to go to an optometrist who could hopefully remove it. I went to sleep and kept dreaming of the wayward contact and that I was able to find it and pull it out.

About 2:30 I got up to go to the bathroom and I could still feel it in my eye. I went back to bed and lay there for a while and really concentrated on where I was feeling it at. It didn't hurt, it was just uncomfortable. I got up went to the mirror pulled my bottom lid down and sure enough, there is was. I pulled it out! Oh sweet relief! I woke Dave up to tell him and he said he was happy but it was hard to tell at 3:00 a.m.

Dave has been bugging me to get Lasik surgery on my eyes. Our insurance will pay for part of it, but I am too chicken. I can't stand the thought of my eyes being pinned back and the assaulted with a laser.

But after last night I am ready to look into it. Living with contacts the last couple of years has become difficult. They don't fit right anymore, I have tried several different kinds. I have lost them and tore them. They dry my eyes out and I don't feel as though I can see clearly with them, even though the prescription is correct.

On a happy note, I have been migrain free for two days!

On the computer front, when Dave got home he checked things out and it seems our modem had gone bad. He replaced it this morning I had no problem getting a connection and it is faster than ever.

Happy Presidents Day, and I am a computer geek, sort of...

Today is Presidents Day, another day off school for the kiddies. It was nice to sleep in, I didn't even get dressed until after 11:00. Tayler is still in her footie jammies with no desire to get dressed at all today. I am just puttering around the house doing laundry and not much else.

I was having computer problems this morning, I just couldn't get an internet connection. I called Dave, the computer geek, at work, which is something I don't do unless it is a dyer emergency. I told him my problem. He said there was nothing he could do until he got home, something about a bad router. I told him I HAD to get on, my *friends* are out there and I needed to be in contact with them. Again, he said he was sorry, but I would have to wait. I was starting to feel like Christopher does when he can't get his V-Smile to work and I am elbow deep in dishes and I tell him to just wait a second. Next time I will dry off my hands and help him. The dishes can wait.

You see, Dave has tried over and over to teach me how these things work, but I don't pay attention. I have never seen a reason to learn since he can do it, and it is what he does for a living. When he isn't home and these things happen, oh how I wish I had paid attention.

Something must have rubbed off, I messed around with two routers, and the wireless connection thingie (I am so technical) until I got it to connect, HA! I did it myself, without Daves help. Of course, the connection is intermittent, I am really hoping to not lose my connection before I am done with this post, and it is really slow. But I did do it. It's the little things, ya know?

Absent blogger

I haven't been keeping up here like I would like to. You see, I have been fighting a migrain for three effen days now. I am so tired of these things, it is time to see my doctor and do something about it. I can take the occasional migrain, but not one on top of another.

It looks like winter has finally hit us! It has rained off and on for two days now. I love laying in bed watching the the big gray clouds rumbling around the sky out my window. It has also been chilly for us, 58 yesterday with a cold wind. I had to actually break out a fleece coat to wear.

I took Scott and Tayler to a birthday party last night. There was roller skating and ice skating. I roller skated some with the kids and it was fun. I also enjoyed some nice adult conversation with some friends I don't get to see often enough. It was a fun evening and mostly head ace free. But this morning I woke up with that all too familiar ache in the front of my head.

Lonely evenings

Dave started taking night classes a couple of weeks ago. On school nights he spends about 35 minutes with us, he eats a quick dinner, then he is out the door. I am usually asleep when he gets home, as are the kids. I miss him on these nights, even with five kids in the house, I find myself feeling lonely.

Valentines Day

I have *ears* for every holiday

Happy Valentines Day! We don't have a lot planned. No going out for Dave and I. It is just too hard to get out on a School night. Plus, a sitter for five kids can cost a fortune. I can't wait until Scott is old enough to sit with the younger kids for a couple of hours, it won't be long.

I plan on making a pasta dish for dinner with salad and garlic toast. Christopher and I are going to make chocolate cup cakes when Elyse goes down for her nap. We will eat dinner by candle light, it will be so romantic, just the seven of us.

Tayler and Jeff have their backpacks full of Valentines to give out to their class mates today. Scott is too old, he says, he is in seventh grade. When I dropped him off this morning I saw a couple of boys standing at the curb of the drop off line with presents. One uncomfortable looking boy had a huge white teddy bear with a hear shaped balloon attached to it that said "I Love You". I was surprised, I don't think it is appropriate for 12 and 13 year olds to be giving gifts like that. There were girls standing there with presents too. I know I must be behind the times.

Camouflaged

It was such a beautiful day today and we had been in the backyard for at least an hour, when Jeff said "hey mom, look what I found" and he was pointing at a parrot in a bush. We had been no more than a foot away from that fence several times today. It was very well camouflaged in the green bush.

We have a couple of flocks of wild parrots in the area. One is a rather large flock of 30 parrots and the other is much smaller in size of about eight to ten parrots. They are not indignant to our Southern California area and I am not sure where they came from but they have been around for 20+ years.

But this parrot was not a wild parrot. It acted almost bored when we all gathered around to gawk at it. It was someone's pet. The kids wanted to keep it, of course, but there is no way I am bringing one of those dirty creatures into our already crowded quarters. I have had birds before and they are messy.

I knew we couldn't leave it out like that, it obviously had no survival skills since it couldn't even detect the impending danger of five kids stalking it. We have cats, possums and raccoons in the area and I didn't want it to become a meal. So we alerted the neighbors, who have birds and an available cage to give it a suitable home. It was easily captured and looked relieved to be behind bars. Signs will be put up and ads will be taken out in search of the wayward parrots owners. If they aren't found it will have a good home.

Later, I was thinking about how well the parrot was camouflaged, how it just wanted to blend in and not be noticed. That is how my mood has become lately. I just want to blend in. I don't want to stand out, I don't want to participate, I don't want to socialize. I just want to become a solitary creature. An impossibility in my household I know, but outside the house I just want to remain anonymous.

I force myself out of bed everyday. I force myself to shower and dress thinking once I get going I will feel better and more up to facing the day. I don't. I get the kids off to school, play with the younger kids and go through our morning routine and at 11:00, t.v. time, I go back to my bed and pull the covers up to my neck hoping to be swallowed up and disappear. I don't even want to answer the phone when it rings, I don't want to talk, I don't want to engage in the niceties of a conversation. I just want to be numb.

Of course I can't, the kids, my family, need me to be an active participant in life. So I continue to pretend, hoping that if I fake it, I will make it.

The difference between girls and boys

Christopher and Elyse were eating lunch today as I was cleaning up the kitchen. I walked over to Elyse's highchair and said wow, you ate all your lunch, you must have been a hungry girl!

Christopher said, what about me? I ate all my lunch too. I said yes you did, but I was talking to Elyse and I said she was a hungry girl, are you a girl? He said, no mom, of course not. So I asked him if he knew what the difference is between a girl and a boy.

He responded with, boys have peanuts and girls have, um, tacos?!

Crazy life and I am an idiot blogger

Life has been more crazy than usual these last couple of days. Elyse is still keeping me up most of the night. Now instead of going to bed at her usual time of 8:30 and then getting up at 2 a.m., she stays up until 11:30 then gets up at 2 anyway. So my nights have been short lived.

There have been wild fires not far from our house. Ashes have been falling for two days and everything is filthy from it. The smoke has been so thick it looks like fog. The smokey conditions have made Jeffs asthma flare up, and mine too. I went out yesterday for a little while and when I got home I had to change my clothes because they smelled so badly of smoke. It has also been hot, in the 80's. I can't even remember the last time it rained.

Tayler has had a bladder infection. It has now spread to her kidney's. She is on an antibiotic that is not doing it's job. The doctor has changed it, and we are hoping it will start to work soon. She has been in horrible pain and running a fever. She is missing school, this isn't good. If she isn't better by Thursday she may have to go to Childrens hospital for IV antibiotics. We have our fingers crossed that won't happen!

I am so ignorant to this blogging stuff. I want to add my pic to my profile and I can't figure out how. It can't be that hard, can it? I also wanted to add my Flickr photos and they keep ending up in odd places. Don't even get me started about blog rolls, I have no idea how to add one. This does get easier doesn't it?

Oh, and to top it off, Dave has been gone for three days, I am about to go insane with these kids and lack of sleep.

I need a warm bath and a refreshment.

Older kids and younger kids

I have five kids. They range in ages from almost 13 down to 22 months. Scott is my oldest son, he is a good kid. He is almost a teen so he has to test his limits sometimes with the back talk and being sassy, but he really is a good kid. He is great with his younger siblings. He is so patient with them and gives them a lot of time and attention.

We were at the park yesterday, walking next to a lake and I heard him say, Christopher you have to hold my hand! I don't want you falling in. I had to laugh to myself wondering when he became a mother. He kept a close on Christopher the whole time making sure he stayed safe and dry.

But I also had to wonder where the line is between sibling and parent figure. I have always been careful not to put too much responsibility on the older kids with the younger kids. They never change diapers, and I don't put them in charge of the younger sibs so I can sit around and do nothing. They are expected to help though. If Elyse needs help with her shoes or jacket I ask one of the older kids too help if I am busy. Or if I am making dinner I will ask the older kids to read or play with a younger kid to keep them busy. But I never want the older kids to view their younger sibs as a burden. Watching Scott be so protective of Christopher makes me wonder if that line has been crossed somewhere along the way. I don't think it has, I think he was just being an overprotective big brother. Still, I wonder.

I tried to get a nice picture of a sunset but this is all I got. Not very good but kind of nice in a way.

Show and Tell: My Purse

Show and tell Friday for Blackbird this week is our purse or briefcase.

This is my current purse, it is made by Nine West. I like to change purses three or four times a year. But I have been carrying this one since last summer. I looked for a winter purse, but I couldn't find one I liked in my price range. I am picky about my purses. I don't like them too big because I tend to load them with junk. I also don't like them too small because I still need to be able to stick a (clean) diaper in it. I don't carry a diaper bag anymore. I also like the handles to be long enough so I can fit my purse up under my arm but not too long so it hangs and hits me in the leg. It took me a couple of weeks to find this one. The thing I don't like about this one is that the cell phone pocket isn't in the right place so I don't use it. So, whenever my cell phone rings I have to dig around my purse to find it. It is time to shop for a new purse.

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In other news, I am feeling much better today. The kids are home from school for a non student day, whatever that means. All week I heard the temperature was going to be in the 80's by Friday. So I thought we would spend a good chunk of the day at the beach. Guess what, it is foggy and cold out, and now it is going to be 67, grrrr. So now I don't know what we will do. Maybe the movies and lunch at the mall. So it goes from a totally free outing to a good $60.00 for an afternoon out. Oh well.

I think I am sick

I don't feel too well, it feels like a stomach bug. My stomach is really upset, my body aches and the side of my head hurts. I can't decided if it is turning into a migrain or not. I don't want to take the migrain meds if I don't have to, but I also don't want to let the headache get out of control and turn into a migrain. It's a fine line.

I was asleep last night before 9:00, I was just so tired, this must have been coming on. It also might explain why I was so, lets say, cranky, yesterday. I hate stomach bugs, they keep me from enjoying one of my favorite things - FOOD.

At least the 1 year old insomniac is sleeping better. She came into my room at 5:30 this morning, not too early. She snuggled up next to me and went back to sleep. I lay there looking at her sweet little sleeping face, feeling so much love for her I could hardly stand I just wanted to burn that moment in time in my brain forever. It was nice having her snuggled up againts me, her warm body easing my aches.

I really don't have time to be sick. And I really hate sitting the kids in front of the electronic babysitter all day, ugh. Ten more hours until Dave gets home, if I can just hang on until then. It's going to be a long day.

I probably should have stayed in bed today

Thank God this day is almost over! It has been one thing after another, all day. I won't even begin to describe it. I have come to the conclusion that either:

• Everyone outside of my bedroom are idiots.
• Or I am a raving bitch.

It is probably the second on. I think at a certain time of the month, I should just stay inside the house with the curtains drawn wiht the doors bolted.

I have been picking arguments with Dave all evening. And you know what? It feels good! I think I might be on the passive aggressive side today.

I went to the store to pick up some hard taco shells for dinner, because no one except me can eat soft taco shells, so I had to go get the hard ones for the rest of the family (insert sarcasm) . I came out of the store and turned the car on. I sat for a few seconds then I turned the car off and rested my head on the steering wheel. I don't know how long I sat like that, my radio did turn off, it does that after ten minutes. Then I heard a knock on the window. I looked up and there was my friend Jen. She said she had seen me sitting there for a while, and she wanted to know if I was okay. I said yes, it had just been a difficult day. She works at a daycare center and she knows all about bad days. She hopped in the car and we went across the street to Starbucks.

We were sitting there having our treats, and enjoying ourselves. I was actually laughing and I felt relaxed. I had been gone for over an hour, a trip that should have taken 15 minutes. My cell started to ring. It was Dave wanting to know when I was coming home with the shells, the rest of dinner was ready. So there went my serenity, back to reality.

Dave is giving me my space now. He can sense that I am at my breaking point. So here I sit, in bed with the lap top enjoying my alone time. It won't last.