The Middle Place

So I'm reading this book called, "The Middle Place" by Kelly Corrigan. I'm crying and laughing and glad I'm not her but wondering what if... She's telling one story about e-mails and phone calls and trying to get information all the while her 3 year old and 18month old are fighting, then needing something from her, etc. (You'll have to read the book for more) And there I am...

Tonight I get a phone call from Taylor. "What does the t in the recipe for zuchinni bread mean?" I ask if it's a big T or a little t. "A little one." "That would be a teaspoon," I tell her. Then apparently I'm in trouble because I did not explain this to her and I laugh because she just put a tablespoon of baking soda in where it called for a teaspoon and 2 tablespoons of vanilla. She's not amused and tells me she resents the fact that I said "everyone" knows the little t is teaspoon. "This is the first time I've ever baked, mom. I don't bake, I cook." Soooo-ryyyy! I can't believe a child of mine hasn't ever baked because you see, I bake, I don't cook. Well, I do but I don't like it. But because I'm mom, I've fallen down on the job and now it's my fault that my daughter has put too much baking soda and vanilla in her zuchinni bread. I'm 60 miles away, but it's my fault.

And then Charli is needing help with geometry and we all know it's not going to be me that helps her and yet she's standing there looking at me, talking to me, telling me this while I'm on the phone with Taylor again because she can't get her pictures to transfer to a cd. Meanwhile Gianna is under my legs, "Mommy? Mommy? Mom? Mama?" over and over and over again until in mid sentence with Taylor I snap "What?!" and she asks if she can have a banana. But Taylor thinks I'm talking to her and Charli thinks I'm talking to her. Really? I hand Georgi some papers I made copies of for her school friend who lost her report page that has to be turned in tomorrow and whose mom is on her way to get it, tell Charli to use the house phone to call Ashley for help with math and tell Taylor that I don't know why her pictures are not transferring.

All I want to do is read my book...

Then Gianna is yelling at Georgi because she won't call her "Princess Nanni", Charli is mad at her dad because she doesn't understand what he's saying and he's getting mad at her because she's not listening and he's just trying to help so I'm trying to smoothe that over. The dog is following me around and irritating me until I remember I haven't fed her. Gianna pooped in her pants ~ again. Georgi says she "feels weird" which is code for "you don't pay enough attention to me" and my kitchen is a mess from dinner and I don't think the dishes fairy is coming tonight.

And yet... I'm very grateful. I know that sounds stupid and I know I get irritated and crabby and wonder whose idea it was to have so many kids, but I am... very grateful for my middle place.

Okay, I was... now Charli wants the computer and Gianna wants cereal in a bag. Ugh! ;o) At least she's singing to me, you can't get mad at a 3 year old when she's singing to you.

Oh and I'll be digging up some interesting things on my oldest two, Lacey and Taylor. Besides all the lovely, wonderful, easy stuff I do all day I now have to make sure that they are included in the blog because apparently it appears I only have 3 children since "they're all I talk about." Be careful what you wish for!

School Has Begun...duhn tuhn duhn

So I actually logged on here... and couldn't remember my password it's been so long! LOL Then I saw that my mother has posted twice on her blog since I've been around. Really??? Way to go Mom!!! Nene's pretty good about hers and I appreciate it. ;o)

First of all, there was way too much stuff from the summer and I couldn't possibly remember it
all so I won't be catching up, but more like starting over. Let's just say "softball" and leave it at that. If I remember something funny I'll post that... Don't hold your breath...

SCHOOL HAS STARTED!!!! I received three automated phone calls from the various schools and the district reminding me. Like I could forget. There's all those witty back to school ads and the 100 degree temperatures so of course it's time to go back to school since running the air in August is wayyyyyy better than June when it is overcast and a nice 70 degrees. Gosh, them government people are sooo much smarterer than us dumb regular folk. Especially when they have those darn budget deficits and want me to provide their classroom paper, kleenex and every other supply my kid needs to learn. But hey, I provided the money they overspent too.

Yup, back to school... Charli turned 15 years old the day before, had that one weekend off from softball and I'm just going to say it... I'M NOT READY!!! The pool's nice, the kids are still somewhat behaving, I've got more books to read, I don't feel like cleaning house and now that their all gone, here I am noticing every little thing I didn't do over the summer. Stupid school.

I think they're happy to be back though. (The older girls haven't started yet.) Charli likes all her classes and Georgi is thrilled she got the teacher she wanted. It only took me until the 4th kid to figure out how to get my way at that school. But then it's only the 2nd day and I'm betting by Monday they're going to be whining. ANOTHER REASON SCHOOL SHOULDN'T BE IN SESSION YET. But that's just me. Georgi has her first project and while I'm glad they didn't cram them all in in the last 6 weeks of school like last year.... COULD YOU PLEASE SLOW DOWN?? I'M NOT READY YET!!!

Okay, that's it for now. Thanks for listening. Gotta figure out dinner, sign 8 million papers for the girls to turn in tomorrow, pick up Georgi from school and get ready for a softball booster meeting. You know, cause I have nothing else to do and SCHOOL HAS STARTED!!! UGH!!!

Guess Who Fell Down the Stairs?

So Greg was sick and I guess at some point he needed to get up in the middle of the night to get water. Now, I'm used to finding him on the couch in the morning because he wakes up all the time when he's sick, so it didn't surprise me when a few weeks ago I find him there. I make coffee, get Charli off to school and go to get Georgi up and he's sitting up and says, "Hey." I'm thinking it's the term of endearment that we're known for around here so I say, "Hey", right back at him and start up the stairs. "Hey," he says louder and the loving wife I am who has things to do says, "What?" "I think I broke my ankle." What?
Apparently on the way down the stairs at 3am, (the stairs that are always cluttered with "stuff" that I put there so people will take it up on their way and never do and I just happened to have cleaned off the night before) Greg fell. "How?" You know, cause that's me. Not, "Are you okay?" No, I want to know how this happened. I do it to the kids too, I'm a sympathetic soul I tell ya. Well, wouldn't you know I must have missed a little stuffed animal and he "thinks" he hit it with his heel, at which point both his feet went toes down into the next stair and he landed on his face. Face didn't hurt, just the ankle. And it was the 2nd to the last stair, not all the way at the top. Thank God for small things, huh?
Luckily after the trip to urgent care and x-rays he didn't break it. But he did tear ligaments, which is not better. He was healing nicely until this last weekend when he went golfing. Second to the last hole and oops, turns on it wrong.
I got a call from a neighbor who's been leaving her vacuum at the top of the stairs waiting for one of her kids to bring it down now for about a week and after hearing about Greg, decided she'd go ahead and bring it downstairs. I've been doing better about keeping the stairs cleaned up too. I'm not sure we're doing the right thing because the kids should be cleaning up their stuff but who wants a broken husband, so there we are. However I am not allowed to live down the fact that my poor husband was lying on the tile cussing up a storm at 3am and I slept through it. Oops. Love ya honey!

Sick Day

Well it was bound to happen... no one has been sick for a long time now, so here we are. Greg was the first to get it, which is rare. He's always the 2nd or 3rd but to have him get sick when no one in the house or the neighborhood is sick and I do mean no one, that's just odd. So he has this cold and he's doing pretty good, you know, for a guy. 4 days now and wouldn't you know Georgi tells me she doesn't feel good.
Being the good mom that I am I don't believe her. What hurts? She describes what she's feeling and I go off to find Greg to see if it matches. It does. But I still woke her up for school this morning. She didn't go.
See, here's the thing about "sick" kids staying home from school. You better have your butt on the couch behaving yourself so well that I'm glad you're home sick. When you're antagonizing your little sister, fighting over the remote for the TV and making a fort out of the blankets, That Is Not Sick !
And just take a guess on what we have today? You just go ahead and guess, I've gotta go take the remote away from a couple of kids.

Is It Over Yet??

This week was, well, it was a week.
It started off with Gianna finally wanting to pee in the potty. Yay! I cannot tell you after 21 years of raising kids how exciting this was for me. I've been trying to get her potty trained for a year and finally gave up several months ago. I mean, she was staying dry through the night and asking me to change her diaper/pull-up when she was wet but she refused to wear underwear. So Tuesday or Wednesday she says, "I want my underwears." Okay dokey. Then she tells me a few hours later, "I'm gonna pee in my potty." Yeah, okay, whatever; heard that before.
Next thing you know she's yelling from the bathroom, "Mom! I peed! It worked!" And I'm laughing and telling her what a great job she did, what a big girl she is. We have to call Taylor and leave a message, then she wants to call grandma and leave her a message.
Later Grandma calls back and asked what the message said, she thought she said, "I baked a pie." I don't know. Taylor thought she was wishing her a happy Valentines day. I laughed.
No accidents that day, it was beautiful. Then the next day I say, "Let's go potty." "You have to go too mom?" she asks. "Yes," I tell her, "I'm a big girl." And you know she watches too much t.v. because her response was, "Come on mom, let's do this! Woohoo!" With her little fist pumping the air. I've never been so please with bodily functions as I was this week. This is my life, this is what I get excited over. It's great.
So after a bath one night she says to me, "I want a thing like this." This would be her hopping around with her hands up like a kangaroo. "For my bird-day," she tells me. "You want a kangaroo for your birthday?" I ask wondering how hard it is going to be distracting her away from this topic. "Yes, a kangaroo!" she says hopping around. So I sigh real big and say,"I don't think mommy can get you a kangaroo for your birthday." She stops and looks at me like I'm crazy. "Not you! Grandma." Like, duh~
The rest of the kids were not nearly as entertaining this week. Charli has a D in AVID, which is a totally dumb class and I'm sorry I put her in there. But it's no excuse for not turning in your homework. So then she tells me she's getting a D in Biology too. WHAT? Science and math are her subjects, the ones she excels in. WHAT? Oh, because you haven't been turning in your assignments ~ really. So who does the work and doesn't turn it in? Who does that?
Yesterday I took her cornell notes and math to school after I saw them sitting on her desk and met her at lunch to give to her. I also gave her all her missing biology assignments. Some I found, some I actually did for her... Yeah, I did it. I told her to NOT forget to turn them in. "K Mom, gotta go."
When I pick her up from school, after softball practice, I ask. You gotta ask. "Did you turn in your bio?" "I didn't have time." YOU DIDN'T HAVE TIME??? Today was the last day for D/F reports, you know you're getting a D, I did the freaking homework and hand delivered it to you at school and YOU DID'NT HAVE TIME TO TURN IT IN??? She says, "Why are you yelling at me?" WHY AM I YELLING AT YOU? WHY AM I YELLING AT YOU? SERIOUSLY?
So we get home and I march my behind into the house, drop off the baby, my purse, grab a beer and head down to the neighbors house. We sit on the porch and I yell some more. At one point Georgi shows up. "Um, mom?" What? "Um, I can hear you all the way down at our house." My neighbor laughs. I say, "Is your homework done?!" My neighbor says, "Honey, you should really go home and make sure all your stuff is done." Georgi says, "But I thought she was mad at Charli." "She is, but you might not want to be in her way right now." That was good advice.
So it's Friday and I'm looking forward to the weekend. I was waiting to pick Charli up from practice but her dad said he'd do it so I left for Costco. Took Georgi, her friend and Gianna. That was fun. The two 10 year olds ran all over the place and I had to stop constantly to be sure I hadn't lost them. I'm not sure it would have been a bad thing if I had but I'm pretty sure her friend's mom would have eventually wanted her back.
Greg and I explained to Charli that she had lost her computer, phone and television privileges. She took it pretty well until I asked for her passwords so I could change them. I mean, I have them but I didn't feel like looking for them. She looked at me like I was an alien and don't get me wrong, I get that from people from time to time but we had just explained that she lost her privilege of using the computer.... hello? Yes, I'm changing the passwords. We've raised two other daughters who were 14 at one time and you think I'm really going to let you just go on your honor? Like you did with your homework? Mmmhmm. I'm not the brightest bulb in the box but I catch on eventually. More to come on this story later I'm sure....