Nothing special...which makes it special

I took these photos a couple of months ago.  It wasn't a birthday.  It wasn't a holiday.  It wasn't an original location or first-day-of-anything or last-day-of-something or even a Saturday.

It was just an ordinary day.  Evening I think, since Cooper (at six years old) is always lobbying to sleep in the top bunk.  I didn't even crop or edit these pictures; I kind of didn't know what to do with them.

But now I know: I'm taking more pictures like them.  They're a reminder that I need to take more photos of the ordinary times.  The special occasions...of course I have a lot of shots of those.  The day-to-day stuff?  Not so much...not since they've gotten a little older and in school.  Seems like school and all its activities have crowded out the routine but special time I used to have so much of with the boys.  At least this time of year...

So here's to more of the ordinary.  And Cooper getting to the top bunk someday.

If an apology falls on deaf ears, do you still have to apologize?

So yesterday morning when I got the boys up I thought I'd try apologizing for acting the way I did the night before.  I wanted to tell them it's hard to have a lot of patience all the time and that at the end of the day that patience gets thinner and thinner and when I have to do tasks I really dislike it puts me in a rotten mood and I took it out on them but also Cooper you shouldn't have hit your brother but I shouldn't have reacted like that and I'm soooo sorry.

Yes, I really wanted to say all that, but I knew they would just stare at me and probably at the end of my diatribe they would just say "okay."

So I decided to take an easier, less dramatic route.  I waited until they were a few bites into their breakfast and then I said "sorry I was such a crab last night.  You get double goodnight kisses tonight."

Chewing their waffles, they looked up at me and Cooper says "okay."  I don't think Carson looked up.

Seriously, are apologies to my kids more for me than for them?  Do they really care?

I did feel better having said it to them, and maybe in ten years they'll remember their mom wasn't too good to tell them I'm sorry.

But just in case they never remember that, I showed up at the school to have lunch with them.  Maybe they'll never understand why I was there on that day, but for whatever reason they make a big deal about it when I surprise them at lunchtime.  And that's just fine with me...

One of those nights...

Who knows why I'm choosing such a crappy night to turn to you, neglected blog readers (if there's any of you still out there).  But tonight, for whatever reason, I feel compelled...

It was a busy night here: we got home from soccer and eating dinner out at 7:15.  Not insanely late but still late, considering the boys' bedtime is 8:00 on a school night and I am a major scrooge about varying from it even a little.

So when we walked in the door I realized...and nearly turned back around and walked out...that I'd forgotten to get clean sheets on all our beds.  The boys' BUNKBEDS were already stripped of their bedding or I'd have put off this horrible task yet another day.  So I started my barking at them to begin their bath while I tackled the beds.

And our bed was jacked up, too.  For some reason there was gigantic hole in the bottom sheet where my feet go.  Maybe I desperately need a pedicure or something, but with each passing night the hole ripped further and further until it got about two feet (no pun intended) wide.

So every bed in our house needed changing, on a school night with baths still ahead of us at 7:30 p.m.

That's a lot of not-needed detail just to say that wrestling with it all just put me in a foul mood.  Bunkbeds have their place in life, I suppose, but OH MY.  Changing the sheets on those things ranks right up there with dental work.

And since the clock was ticking toward bedtime I got to parent (i.e., yell) from afar to the boys to hurry up with their baths and teeth-brushing.  That's fun.

Dwayne was in the house, in case you're wondering.  And he did show up in their bedroom to help.  But he's just not as, shall we say, enthusiastic about keeping bedtime on time as I am.  I tell him all the time if he was the one who had to drag them awake every morning, he'd make sure they got to bed on time.

So finally the task of clean sheets was done and the boys were momentarily alone in their room, and I hear a "whap!"

The sound of Cooper's hand hitting some part of Carson.

So given the mood I was in and the late hour and whatever else had been piling up in my mind...I totally went off on him and yelled until the chandelier rattled (okay, if we had a chandelier it would have rattled).  I made him apologize to Carson and then put them both in bed without saying goodnight or prayers or reading a story or even giving a kiss.

I went in the living room, got the remote, and for one hour I polluted my mind with Kim Kardashian's wedding special.

See, you'd feel like crap, too.

I think Dwayne went in to the boys and tried to smooth things over for me, but I didn't get a chance to ask him because he, too, went straight to bed.  Asleep.

So looks like, at this moment, I've hurt the feelings of everyone in this house.

Right now I really just want to go wake everyone up and tell them I'm sorry.  But I know all these men, and I believe they all like their sleep more than hearing me grovel.

I suppose I've done the crime; tomorrow I'll have to do the time.  I don't really know what I can do to make it up to everyone.  Frankly, I think the boys will forget about it pretty quickly and move on.  Probably the more I say about it, the more they'll just be like "okay, Mom.  Can we have fruit snacks in our lunch?"

Tonight, though, I think some prayers for patience are in order...

Wow.

I used to love it out here.  Just writing whatever...whenever.  Now Whatever and Whenever have completely stopped.

I have my reasons.  Maybe I started meeting too many of my readers face to face.  That's weird.  See, I like to think no one's reading and I can just write whatever...whenever.  But now and then I get an audible comment and I want to escape somewhere and shut the door.  Still trying to figure that one out...

But it turns out some people missed reading my little (and I do mean little) blog.  Not many, but some. 

Maybe I'll just start up this ol' rickety thing again.

Hmmm...

How I'm living without Facebook

It's been since Ash Wednesday that I gave up Facebook for Lent.  If you aren't sure why we Catholics bother to find something to "give up" during these days preceding Easter, check here for a thorough explanation.  Me?  I find it strengthening to challenge myself to abstain from something in my life that I feel is bringing me down...that seems to suck the time from my day (or brain cells from my head) with really nothing to offer me in return.

(The Lenten season is made up of the 40 days before Easter. I've read and heard a few places that Sundays during this time are not considered part of Lent, and therefore you're not required to abstain from whatever you're giving up on these days.  I finally looked it up and found this explanation, which is very convincing.)

Why was Facebook my target this year?  I found I was spending a couple of hours a day reading things like "nice day today...I think I'll take a walk" and "is it Monday already?"  I don't think these types of inane comments would normally bother me, but seeing them every day was mind-numbing.  Once I realized my friends' and family were having an okay day or their kids were super cute the day before, I would wander off to someone's photo albums and waste some more time viewing, ultimately, photos I'd already seen.

Then there was Bejeweled Blitz.  It's an Facebook video game where...oh, suffice it to say it was not time well spent.  In addition to a couple of hours on Facebook reading statuses and viewing photos and whatnot, I'd skip over to BB where I could play one-minute games for 40 minutes or more.  And this would happen three or four times a day.


So in an effort to use my time more wisely I gave it all up.  For several days I went cold turkey: didn't even log on to Facebook one time.

Then I started sneaking out there every once in a while.  I do have some family members I like to keep up with...and my sister got married for heaven's sake.  I had to view photos!

I can tell you, however, it's nothing like it was before.  I scroll down once, maybe twice, to see if there's anything I've missed.  Then I'm done!  There's no aimless wandering!  Once or twice I've cringed at a status here or there, and then I know it's time to shut it down.  And I do it with ease instead of trying to find something worthwhile.  And recently when tornado weather passed through the area, I watched TV with glee and thought about the five or six or twenty media-types I follow, and how they'd be saying the same ol' thing over and over and over.  (Could be a clue I need to de-friend some folks...)

I like Facebook, I really do.  But tempering my use of it these last few weeks has been good for my soul.  I've learned I can say no to myself once in a while.  I'll probably start updating my status a little after Easter, but it feels like the end of getting up from my computer wondering why I wasted so much time there.

Since I gave up Facebook for Lent...

I'm sharing this with my true friends...at least the ones who appreciate (or severely do not) pop music.

Why do all those pop songs sound the same?

NCAA tournament comes to Tulsa...

  ...and so do dancin' fans.  Or at least those who think they can.

Wow

We already got 14 inches of snow...is this really necessary?

Testing mobile blogger app

Just downloaded Blogger for android.  Apparently I can now blog from my phone.  Woo-hoo!  For me at least.

The boys are busy scanning 40-year-old slides into computer files for their grandpa.  I have no idea how to do it so I guess I can go take a nap.

Blizzard: Day Three

That's right: I haven't updated my blog in a month and now I'm jumping into the fray in the middle, not even at the beginning, of Tulsa's big 'ol blizzard of 2011.  It's Day Three of the mayhem, and even though the snow has stopped falling it's really worse than the first day, you know, the one when we got all the snow and wind...it wasn't as bad for the road and temps situation as the last two have been.

Man, I'm boring.

But trudging onward...

Dwayne managed to get his truck out of the confines of the driveway yesterday and go to work, but I think he was one of about three people who made it.  And he was not happy about it.  For you motherly types out there, I did try to discourage him from going in but he was on a mission so I loaded him up with a big quilt and some rations in a paper bag, some coffee, and a Gatorade in case he sweat (huh?).  He worked almost the whole day and crept home while talking to me on his headset thing and informing me of two drivers who passed him and how he "waved" to them.  Thankfully he's made it driving about town without incident.  Or accident.

The boys and I...we're surviving.  The first day it was all fun and games and snow ice cream, now I'm just trying to keep them from hurting each other.  I made them little tickets to redeem for playing video games, each of them worth 30 minutes.  Give or take an hour.  So far it's keeping everyone happy.

Oh, and in preparation for the storm, we stopped at their school's library on Monday and loaded up on books, about a dozen or so.  Unfortunately, Carson only had about ten books left to go on his 100-books reading log and he managed to knock those out before the snow even stopped falling.  That little piece of paper on the refrigerator was such a motivator for him to read every day that I'm thinking of printing off another one for him to do before the end of the year.

As for Cooper, he didn't have a reading log but that little dude is reading his share nonetheless.  He can poke his way through Green Eggs and Ham and a couple of others.  He informed me last night that he would read to me any time I wanted him to...

Oh, and yes, we've been outside.  The first trip I stayed indoors in my flannel while Dwayne ventured out with the boys.  The drifts...they swallowed them up!  Carson came in and told me he had so much fun making lots of "trespasses" all over the yard.

I'll pause while you think about that one.

I did take snow photos but they are still on my camera with most of December's.  I'm so behind on photos...

To add to our drama...wait...there's no drama here.  I wish there was, actually.  But to add to whatever we have going on here, there's a leak in our roof that is drip-drip-dripping water into a pan in our living room.  This happened during the Christmas Eve Blizzard last year and the roofer guy assured us that was a freak storm and it would never happen again.  Thanks, roofer guy...

That's all I got.  Stay warm.

Thievery

My niece and my sister from Texas spent a night with us last night and Brittany, being The Fun Cousin, brought an activity for the kids.

And since I'm the Queen of the Lazy Bloggers I'm so stealing this post from her about the evening.

(And the rest of her blog is pretty darn entertaining, too.)

Eggnog Cupcakes: the recipe

As promised, here's the recipe for Eggnog Cupcakes.  It came in the mail in a flyer for Braum's, a wonderful local-ish dairy store who needs a real graphic designer but puts out some to-die-for products and recipes.

CREAMY EGGNOG CUPCAKES

Cupcakes
1 (16 oz.) package pound cake mix
1 1/4 c. eggnog
2 large eggs
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Beat all ingredients together at low speed until blended.  Increase speed to medium and beat two minutes more.  Place baking cups into muffin tin and spoon batter into cups.  Bake for 18-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.  Transfer to wire rack; cool completely before frosting.

Frosting
1/2 c. butter, softened
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
16 oz. powdered sugar (would someone please tell me how many cups this is??)
1/4 c. eggnog
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Beat butter and cream cheese until creamy.  Gradually add powdered sugar alternating with eggnog, beginning and ending with sugar and beating at low speed.  Add nutmeg and vanilla extract and beat until smooth.  Spread over cupcakes.

Little clouds of Christmas.

Eggnog Cupcakes.

Wouldn't these make cute Christmas tree ornaments?

But then I wouldn't get to taste one since they'd be all petrified or made of wood.  And there's two cups of 'nog in there that makes them taste like a little bit of heaven.

You want the recipe?  I suppose that would be the responsible blogger thing to do.  But I've never put myself in that category.  And the recipe is all the way in the, um, kitchen.  And I'm not getting up just yet.

Besides, if I'm going to start bloggin' again I have to streeetttch out my material.  The responsible bloggers, they give you complete and detailed posts, all at once.  With a lot of detailed photos detailing processes.  Details, details, details...

We flaky bloggers can't be bothered with details.  Or completeness.

Unless you count my little cupcake friends...they're pretty complete, I'd say.

An exchange I won't hear but will happen. Guaranteed.

Mom #1:  Did you see Christine just now?

Mom #2:  Just said hi to her in the hallway.

Mom #1:  So you just saw the front of her, not the back?

Mom #2:  Yeah, why?

Mom #1:  Seriously?!  Well, someone must have finally broken the news to her about scrunchies.

Mom #2:  Nooooo!  Really?!!  Are you sure??

Mom #1:  If I'm lyin' I'm dyin'!  She's NOT wearing a scrunchie today.

Mom #2:  Wow, and she even knows how outdated they are because I think she's seen that Seinfeld episode about the girl with the velvet scrunchie...from like 1994 or so?

(laughter from both)

Mom #1:  I know, back when we were in junior high?!

(more laughter)

Mom #2:  I really thought I'd never see the day she didn't wear one.
Mom #1:  I know.

(pause)

Mom #2:  Think we should save her from those black jeans?

Hello, friend.

We moved into our current house in July.  Of 2009.  I sacrificed some kitchen space to get square footage in other parts of the house, and one of the casualties was my Kitchen Aid mixer.  It's my favorite possession, next to my wedding ring.  And my photos.  And my Burt's Bees lip balm.  I think there's a reason "possession" and "obsession" sound alike.

But when we moved and I started settling into the new kitchen, I didn't measure it but I'm sure my counter space was cut in half.  So I boxed up The Mixer and stored it in our (freaking small and dark) pantry where it's been ever since.  I've missed it, but I bought a Kitchen Aid hand-held mixer which helped me heal from the trauma.

Then last night at a church dinner, someone asked a group of us moms what we'd recommend for a Kitchen Aid model if we were going to buy one.  And the conversation ensued.  We all had our opinions about what she should get, but there was no doubt about it: those of us who are already KA mixer owners talked about ours like they were permanent family pets.

So today I began shoving and moving and crowding, and brought her out of hiding.  Now she's ruling my kitchen from the (only) corner of my countertop, right where she should be.  I'm thinking about finally installing under-cabinet lighting now.

Don't you think she deserves it?

One year.

A year ago today I was driving down 51st St. here in Tulsa with Cooper in the back seat.  It was about 9:30 a.m.  My cell phone rang and I glanced down to see it was my sister Judy, who works full time and never has time to call me during the day even if she wanted to...you know, to share a recipe or something.  So I knew something was up and didn't hesitate a second before I picked it up.

"It's Mamma," she said. "It's a heart attack."  And she said it as gently as she could.  I don't know how exactly that is, but I think she knew I was driving and she didn't want me to run off the road and I could hear the calmness in her voice.

So immediately I started to frantically try to stay calm and scanned the curb for a cut where I could turn around to go...actually at the time I didn't know where I was going.  I just needed to turn around and stop doing what I was doing.  Stop going where I was going.  Get to somewhere where I could do something right then and there because driving down the road was out of the question.

But there really wasn't anything I could do.  I quickly hung up with Judy after I'd gotten the details about Mom's condition.  She was in the hospital in her town about an hour away and I should just wait for more info.

Retelling all the details from that day a year ago would simply take me too long.  Since our immediate family is so big, a lot of the time was spent on the phone relaying information as we got it.  We soon set up texting and call "trees," so no one person had to call ten people.  As we got the news of Mom being helicoptered to Tulsa, I called my friend Amy who omigosh came to my rescue taking care of Carson and Cooper since Dwayne was out of town that day.  As a family, we talked to so many doctors and other medical people and tried to figure out how and why it happened and what lies ahead for our mom since she's now become a member of the cardiac patient club.

Skip ahead.  One year and a lot of doctor's visits and tests and other complications later.

 

You could say she's recovering nicely.

It's been a long year for her, to be sure.  She's had to change a lot of things in her lifestyle and start putting herself first.  I imagine that's hard after a lifetime of taking care of so many people...family as well as friends.

But she's getting there.  And one year later she's trying to do too much for Christmas once again.  And she's not going to like reading that since that means her kids are going to start nagging her about taking it easy.

Ahhhh, all things back to normal...

 

Cooper

Today he's five.

Today he's leaving behind another year.

Today he's at an age where he could remember any day of his childhood from now on.

Today he wears a size 6.

Today I still love staring at his blue eyes.

Today his favorite things are the Wii, Wipeout, and Legos.  And school.  And not fruit or vegetables.

Today I can remember the moment he was born and the doctor told me he was a him.  And I realized I had two hims and I laughed and cried at the same time.

Today I hope he never forgets how he kisses me on the arm for no reason.  And when he's a smelly 10-year-old I hope I never forget how soft that feels.

Today he still crawls in bed with us at night.  And burrows up next to me as if he hasn't seen me in a week.

(Today I wish we had a bigger bed.)

Today I'm surprised at something he did.  I can say that this morning because I know it'll be true later on.

Today I realize that I thought I'd be teaching him, but he's the real teacher in our relationship.

Today, he's five.

First day on my own

Well, they're in there now.  Carson and Cooper are in school, two rooms down from each other.  All day, five days a week.

And until 3:05 today, I'm here.  Just me.

Really I'm in the car mechanic's waiting room...but I'm all by myself.  No one to entertain or to help find a play area.  There's a woman here with a three-year-old and a baby in a stroller.  Good luck, ma'am...get ready for a lifetime of heartache.

I dropped the boys off at the school this morning, after a night of restless sleep and about two hours of rationalizing with Dwayne.

"What if I were to just keep him home tomorrow and homeschool him for Pre-K?  How hard can that be?"  Then I played out the scenario of breaking that news to Cooper, that his uniforms wouldn't be needed, that he's not going to be with that teacher who seems to have hung the moon, that he's not going to be a part of their first learning unit: all about Africa.

And I knew I'd have a fight on my hands.  A big one.

So I reassured myself once again: that this is going to be a healthy and enriching environment for him.  That he's old by pre-k standards (five in about three weeks) and he's ready for a classroom.  That we're so incredibly lucky to be a part of this school.

And then this morning I nearly lost it at the sight of him in his uniform.  And Carson, in all his 1st grade wisdom, briefing him on some basic rules of school and reminding him that we want to hear all about his day.

Once we made it to the hallway outside Cooper's classroom, I'd officially begun deep-breathing...searching somewhere for composure.  The emotion, I think, comes from so many places: I'm sad to be facing seven hours daily without him, I'm happy he'll be in such a wonderful program, I'm thinking of him at nine weeks old when I drove myself crazy wondering what kind of four-year-old he'd be.

And as I fumbled outside his locker with his backpack and pillow and blanket, he deserted me.  Right into the classroom.  Carson was long gone to his own room with not even a glance back to me.  Fine.  Leave me standing in my own breathing exercises in the middle of the hallway.

Dwayne and I followed him into the room, where he'd assumed a position in the middle with his hands shoved into the pockets of his creased shorts.  He seemed to be surveying the situation...the other kids, all the colorful decor, the crying little girl clinging to her mother.  Yeah, that helped.  I wanted to say "don't look!" but he stared at her shyly, maybe wondering "what's her problem?"  Didn't seem to faze him too much.  Me, on the other hand...

When it was time to go I leaned over Cooper and hugged him and told him to have a great day.  Only my words were choppy, probably because of the deep breathing exercises.  "K," he said.  "Bye Mom."

And just like that, he's a student.

I turned to walk out and continued to deep-breathe, but by now I realized that wasn't working worth a crap.  And Dwayne put his arm around me and shuffled me out the door and honestly, I have no idea what his reaction to the whole process was because I was so involved in my own drama.  Maybe I should call him...

I met several sympathetic faces on the way out of the building, but I really just wanted to get to my car so I could ugly-cry in peace.  After a hug from Dwayne and a minute to myself, I managed to get a grip.

Dwayne reminded me last night that they'll also be starting sixth grade in a few years, then high school, then college (God willing), and I'm not sure of his point but I think it was something like "you better learn how to deal with stuff like this 'cause it's never going to end..."

And he's right: my kids will be growing up and moving on and having new beginnings their whole lives.  I wouldn't want anything less for them.

But I seriously need to get better at that whole deep-breathing thing.

Breathe in, breathe out....oh, wait.

Ya'll know what's grosser and smellier than trash?

The trash that's in two trash bins outside my garage door.

Ya'll know what's grosser and smellier than trash in two trash bins outside my garage door?

Trash in two trash bins outside my garage door that has been there for ten days because I missed the pickups since Dwayne was out of town and he usually does it.

Ya'll know what's grosser and smellier than trash in two trash bins outside my garage door that's been there for ten days because I missed the pickups since Dwayne was out of town and he usually does it?

Trash in two trash bins outside my garage door that's been there for ten days because I missed the pickups since Dwayne was out of town (and he usually does it) that also has a dead crow in it that somehow bought the farm in our wading pool.

Ah, and it's also been 100 degrees for the last several days, give or take.

Sunlight, high temps, and humidity...those things add a whole new level of Gross and Smelly to trash.  A level that is starting to permeate our garage, which means it's one step away...from...my kitchen.  Wow.

So if you're planning to drop in on us, please wait until Wednesday.  Afternoon.  Late.  And let's hope there's a breeze that day.

Awww, is this post making your tummy do flip-flops?

You can thank me for not posting pics...

Brilliant at being casual

I wish I had something brilliant to say.  I wish you could visit here every day and see something that makes your day, something you never thought of before, something that helps you see things in a new light or put a great meal on the table or decorate a room for $100.  I wish I could do that for my readers.

I read a lot of blogs, and the ones I seem to visit over and over again are the ones that do something for me: they entertain, enlighten, or provide information.  Think about the blogs or sites you read and you'll probably come up with the same answer.

As for me and my blog?  We seem to just exist for each other and no other reason.  The blog...it's just been sitting on a shelf for a long time unattended...waiting for me to bring it down and fluff it up a bit.  I don't have a list of subjects waiting to be researched, or a stack of innovative (and yet inexpensive and kid-friendly!) recipes waiting to be posted every Thursday, or a list of valuable websites you've never heard of but can't live without.  I don't even have any decent pics to put up here, since a lot of them are already on Facebook and I feel like I'd be cheating to post them here, too.

I can go on and on about what I don't have (forgot to mention side bar links that work).  I could do a post every day about what this blog isn't.

But I'll spare you all that.  Fact is, this blog is my casual friend who is there for me when the mood strikes, which isn't often.  Maybe we'll step it up when school starts and the boys are gone...sniff...every day for six hours.  Maybe I'll get more intense about my writing.  Maybe I'll actually look up a source for a post.  Or take more than 20 minutes from "new post" to "publish."

Until then, it's casual and hit or miss and sometimes posting.

And me and my blog...we're happy that way.