Calgon, Take Me Away!

It's been one of those days. Tuesdays are always the pits because John is in Houston all day and all evening. I only have to be a single mom three nights a week, and I can't hack it. Well, I feel like I rallied somewhat at the end, but no mommy awards coming down the pipe today, friends. No human being honors either. And I'll be giving an account for this one for sure.
5:00-awaken, coffee
5:10-nurse baby
5:30-dress
6:00-leave for mail run
7:15-decide to read magazine while I wait for my mail to be sorted. I'm thinking that this will be a special treat to read in peace and quite for 45 minutes, but just end up fighting envy because these celebrities are completely godless and living lives of absolute selfishness and dissipation and they are STINKING rich. Way to let your joy be robbed, Jess. John pulls up and sheepishly climbs out of my parent's car. The point of me doing the mail run was to let him get an early start on Houston traffic. He missed the bus stop and had to bring the kids down anyway. By this time, I'm STARVING, he brings me a single serving of pound cake from the gas station. DO NOT EAT ANYTHING FROM A GAS STATION. You have no idea how many points values are in those things! I only ate half the piece and it was 6 points.
8:30-arrive home and chat with my parents who got up before sun rise so my kids could get to school and they could bring us a vehicle, because we still don't have money to fix our van.
9:00-nurse baby
9:15-begin cleaning living room, which I cleaned Saturday, and is a pig sty AGAIN! Two loads of laundry, put away breakfast leavings, clean exersaucer of crusted spitup, etc.
10:00-dress M and baby
10:10-need to check with neighbor across the street and make sure she is still planning to watch my kids after school for an hour. Ian and Marina are riding their bikes in our driveway. I remind them that they are not to ride them outside the picket fence, which they know, because we play out there every day and I tell them every day not to do that and I show them how far they can go and where they must stop and I remind them constantly not to get any closer to the road and not to ever chase a ball into the road or follow someone into the road or cross without an adult holding their hand and my life is a broken record of the same instructions over and over again...I say, "I'm going across the street to speak with Mrs. Kristen for a minute. You don't need to come. No, just play here. I can watch you from across the street. I'm watching you. Look, don't follow me. Don't come close to the road. You know not to go past the fence." I cross the street (by the way, our house is in a school zone and might see 5 cars roll down it on a busy morning), I knock on the fema trailor door. We exchange pleasantries, "How was your Thanksgiving? Fine, and yours?" And I have one eye trained on my driveway, because deep down, I know. I know she will not be able to stand it. She will not be able to stand such a clear cut, simple, in-your-face-obey-me command, and I was RIGHT. As soon as she thinks I am absorbed in my conversation she is pedaling maniac style to the road, past her brother, past the parked van, and PAST THE FENCE. So I'm hollering like a drunken fish wife at her to STOP to get her rear end back in that driveway and park that little hiney on the porch bench because I'm coming to tear it up in just a minute....."WAAAAAAAAAA!" the siren yell. All in front of my neighbor who is lost as a goose and who I've been trying to build a friendship with for a year now. And it has been all uphill work because she thought--strike that thinks--people who went to church were all either nut jobs or hypocrites. What's that I hear? Is that the sound of a testimony being flushed down the toilet?
10:30-Take care of the aforementioned bizniz.
11:00-feed children.
11:30-feed myself
12:00-read books to toddlers
12:30-send them off for naps, nurse burp diaper and tickle baby
1:00-lay down for my own little siesta.
1:15-but I think it must be 3:00 because there is a party going on down the hall. "Oh my, I can barely pull my eyes open. A two hour nap and it feels like I just laid down. What wrong with me? You gotta wake up..." And I'm draggin out of bed, putting on my shoes, and puttering into the kitchen for a glass of water. The kids are bouncing around me in a decidedly anti-postnap manner. I look at the clock. IT IS 1:15??!! On the best of days, Fiona (Marina's alter ego) needs at least a two hour nap! And today is not the best of days. 30 minutes is not going to cut it. "GRRRR! Ian, I know you are behind this! You went into her room and woke her up and you two have been in there playing and carrying on. You get in that bed right now...Both of you!" Take care of some Bizniz with him.
1:25-O.K., Jess, get it together, you can salvage this day. It could be worse. At least they didn't wake the baby...
1.5 seconds later-DING DONG! Our super sonic door bell sounds in the back hall. Right by the baby's room. He immediately begins to stir. It had better be Ed McMann at that door. Nope. My mentally handicapped neighbor. She is in her mid forties, but has the mind of a six year old. She comes over about four times a week during the day. Can I tape some pictures together for her, can I staple this for her, do I have bandaids in the house, can I read this note for her. Today's emergency was a Christmas ornament that needed hot glue. She can't touch them guns. They get hot and burn her. Can I work a one of them guns? Yes, of course I will V, but honey, do you remember? Please don't ring the bell during the day. Remember? Just knock softly. The baby takes naps and the door bell wakes him up. By now there are blood curdling screams emanating from the nursery door. She looks at me confused. But, Miss Jessica, I think your baby is awake right now. And I could not hold back a note of exasperation. Yes V, he is awake now because you woke him up when you rang the door bell. She probably didn't understand the sentence, but the frustration she instantly registered. Her eyes filled with tears. Oh, Miss Jessica, I so sorry. Please forgive me. I promise I won't do that no more. I real, real sorry. You been so nice to help me...She is hugging me. Me, the SCUM OF THE EARTH. I have made a mentally handicapped person cry. You don't get much lower than that.
1:30-go pick up baby and we cry together on the sofa. I hear a slamming noise. Could that be the child I plainly told to lay in her bed? Why yes, it is. She was told to lay in bed and has decided to disobey. But it wasn't good enough for her to disobey; she needed my attention drawn to the disobedience. More BIZNIZ.
2:00-abandon all hope of a nap. Put two kids in back yard to play (what they wanted all along.) Put baby in now clean exersaucer where he commences to vomit. Sit down at table with view of backyard and work on my Walk Thru The Bible application. Yes, that would be me, the SCUM OF THE EARTH, filling out a job app for a teaching position with Walk Thru The Bible. A job in which people would pay MONEY for ME to teach THEIR CHILDREN the BIBLE! The truly scary thing is that I just might get the job. Because girlfriend KNOWS the Bible. Which just proves that it's not what you know, it is what you do.

Can I please start this day over?

Update

I'm back. Here is what has been going on in my life aside from love slaving.
1. Puppies are growing! The runt with the torn umbilical cord has made a full recovery. They have their eyes open now and are scooting all over the whelping kennel. We are a little worried about Sally, though, she is still spotting. Are dogs supposed to do that this long after puppy birth?
2. Randy is taking some solids. He'd been turning up his nose at rice cereal for two weeks. You are supposed to start with rice cereal. I think it is written in the Great Book Of Mommyhood. "Thou shalt offer no other foods before rice cereal." And just under it, "Thou shalt not introduce fruit before veggies." I broke both laws and bought him some oatmeal with apples. I hope this is not the beginning of a lifetime of poor nutrition. He was pleased, anyway.
3. I have lost 15.8 pounds!! Weighed in today at just 2 pounds over my healthy weight range limit. It will probably take until next week for Thanksgiving to catch up with me, so if I am VERY good all week, maybe I can make up for it. I would love to hit my 10% mark on Saturday. That is ten percent of total body weight, not 10% toward goal. I'm a little over six pounds from goal. But I'll tell you sisters, that there is more than six pounds of flab still left on this old body, and just what am I going to do with that? I'm not really a serious exercise enthusiast and a tummy tuck is not an option because...
4. We are broke. We are so broke. Our van is broke. Second break down in two weeks. First break down cost us $700.00. The Lord only knows where the money is going to come from for this job. We are praying, praying, praying and claiming His promises. Because we are broke. Really, really broke.
5. Just got my 20 pound turkey out of the oven. Yes, it is the Saturday after Thanksgiving and I'm just now cooking turkey, but we ate at my sister's, and someone had given us this ENORMOUS turkey. A local grocery was giving them away to shoppers who spent $100 or more on a certain day. So a step-father-in-law of one of our neighbors got this turkey, and I guess somehow he knew that DH was a pastor, so he knocks on our door and asks if our church is giving away Thanksgiving baskets. We were. And to be honest, from the look of this guy, I thought he must be knocking to ask if he could get one. Nope. He hefts this bird at hubby. Well actually, the baskets are just for non-perishable items. "Well, you can have it then. We don't want it." And with that he was gone, leaving his gobbler behind. So we will be having turkey and stuffing tomorrow, turkey pot pie on Monday, turkey enchiladas on Tuesday, turkey gumbo on Wednesday...I'm sure this must be part of God's provision. Now taking any and all turkey recipes.

Caught

O.K., Suzi caught me off my chains and tagged me for a round of "What's Inside My Purse." It is Wednesday and the master is away on Wednesday night, He,he,he! When the master is away, the love slave will blog. I would love to play, but I don't own a purse. Haven't carried one since '96. Mother of five and I don't carry a purse? It just struck me how incongruent that is. When my kids have snot, I don't say, "Oh, just a second honey, I have a tissue in my purse." Usually something more along the lines of, "That is disgusting, go find a tissue." When my kids spill something down the front of their shirts, I don't whip out a Shout wipe, I just think, "Man, I hope that comes out." Sa La Vi.
This is what is in my wallet:
1. four pennies (sadly the only money in my wallet)
2. debit card
3. Wal*Mart gift card (for purchasing gasoline at a 3 cent discount)
4. An appointment card for the baby's pediatrician for the seventh. Which we missed! I should have played this game earlier.
5. Weight Watchers Membership Book. Recording a 13 pound loss, ladies, yeah me!
6. Insurance cards
7. Social Security Cards for me and all five kiddos. You're not supposed to carry these on your person, I know. Don't tell my mother.
8. Marble slab punch card. It hasn't been seeing much action lately on account of #5.
9. Pictures of kids and nieces. Looking at them they are all really outdated. I don't even know why I have them. I never show them to anybody and I never look at them myself.
10 Driver's License
11. J.C. Penney charge card. It has been seeing way too much action.
12. five library cards
13. Goodwill punch card. Three more stamps and I get $10.00 in free merchandise!
14. Toys R Us gift card with $10.00 from last year's holiday shopping. I wonder if it is still good?
15. 10 receipts from Wall*Mart. We keep that place in business.

My wallet is big, black, and ugly and I don't actually remember when I purchased it. I can tell you that it is OLD. Maybe I'll head on down to the Goodwill store for some purse shopping! I tag Lisa, Cari, and Kim (if you haven't already been tagged.

The Puppies are HERE!

I have been granted a momentary leave of absence from slaving to report on our harrowing adventure of delivering puppies last night. After many years, and many disappointments, DH and I have brought forth our first litter! Sometime back in 2001, we decided that it would be a good learning experience for our kids to raise something. Teach responsibility, business management, and sex ed all rolled up into one family enterprise. Living in the city, we agreed upon dachshunds. Small, short hair dogs. Cute. Sell for $$$$. Good idea, right?
Yeah, until your first female comes into her first heat and you discover she has a hereditary defect and you have to get her fixed and then you run over her in your own driveway with your little children watching and the whole experience is just so traumatizing that you wait another year and buy a new female and male pair and then you move and have a hurricane and the dog is so stressed that it doesn't come into heat for a whole nuther year and when it does it turns out that breeding an even slightly larger dog with a slightly smaller female is a profoundly stupid idea!
Our poor dog was in such agony last night. We had one good happy moment when the first puppy was born and the kids were all crowded around the whelping kennel exclaiming over the wonder of life, but it went to hell in a hand-basket from there. Thankfully, after the kids were ushered off to bed. It turns out that first one was the runt of the litter. It had a hernia and had to be whisked to the animal hospital for stitches. Do you know how much after-hours, emergency vet care costs? That will be $75 for the exam. $40 for the stitches. Two tiny stitches. Took a total of 10 minutes. Oh, and by the way, if you have to bring in the mother, that will be $500.00 up front for us to even look at her. O.K., no thank you, we will be delivering these puppies ourselves. Dogs have been doing it on their own since the garden, so how hard can it be, right? Twelve hours later, I'm back on the hotline, weeping, I will gladly pay whatever they ask. Just please stop this animal's suffering--the dog's too!
Sorry, we're closed. And your vet? Oh, I don't believe he opens until 8:30.
TWO hours away!! And the whole time Sally is looking at me with these--well, yes, puppy dog eyes--that said, "Please, help me!" She wasn't going to make it another two hours.
We were miserable knowing we had done this terrible thing to Sally, but we did try to do everything we could to save her and the puppies. Girlfriends, I stuck my finger in places I never thought I would! We lost two of the puppies and saved three. And Sally lived, praise God, she lived! If you have never had to tell your children that a beloved pet is dead, you cannot know my relief. She is being a good mother to her puppies. They are very cute, but I don't think I'm cut out for the dog business.

Dachshund anyone?

And So For A Time..

I must bid you all a farewell. Tensions have been building in our home, and I think my new blog habit might be partially to blame. I've been spending about an hour every evening parked here, reading blogs, and check back throughout the day looking for comments. So I think a two week hiatus is in order. I will greet my husband in the door, make sure his dinner is on the table, hang upon his every word after the meal, and make myself his love slave. At the end of two weeks, mark my words, he will be bring me flowers, he will beg to be assigned household tasks, he will sing my praises at the city gate. And he will ask, "What may I do for you, oh woman of women?" To which I will respond in my most submissive voice, "Oh, my lord, might I have an hour or even two to blog?"
Or something to that affect.

Weight Watchers Update

Bet you thought I'd fallen off the wagon, right? Well, I haven't, but I haven't been especially good--that is 'following plan'--this week, either. I could make excuses, but we are strictly trained at Weight Watchers not to do that. This morning was the first weigh in where I hadn't lost. I didn't gain, but it has been such an encouragement every week to see those falling numbers on my chart. I was only two tenths of a pound away from that 10 pound mark, too! Next week will bring better results. Me and old Leslie Sandsone are going to spend some quality time together. This blog will keep me accountable. I will have success.

Thanks for sitting in on my little positive self talk session. Feel free to leave me some cooperative feedback. Listen to me with all this Weight Watchers lingo!

Lifebook

By a series of disconnected events (which is the story of my life), I finished Marina's Life Book today. Winter has finally arrived; I was dressing the baby and realized that I didn't have any socks that fit him. Up until today, he hasn't needed any. I went out to the shed to search the hand-me-down boxes for socks. On top of the tough tote was a neglected milk carton with a few odds and ends left over from the move. In it, I saw a blue folder. Eureka! The lost notes from our first trip to Russia and newspaper articles of Marina's adoption. I bring them in and decide that,before I lose them again, I will type up the journal notes and put them in her lifebook. Shucks, while I'm doing that, I might as well finish the whole darn book. It's only been two years, so why not? It has been sort-of finished for a year now and Marina loves to look at the pictures. She doesn't understand it all, but that doesn't stop her from lording it over her brother that she is Russian.

Rina/pointing/: See. Look! Mommy...and Weena.../Rina/ BABY Weena. Mommy hold Weena...Wussia.
Ian/crowding in/:Yeah, we went to see that big bell and...
Rina/breaking in with urgency/:Nuh, uh! ME! Not YOU! Not Ian. Me--Wussian. Not you."
Me: She is right Ian, you weren't there. You didn't go.
Rina/smugly triumphant/:Das wite. Me-ee Wussian. Not you.

I guess that's a good start on cultural pride, yes? Or maybe just a normal start on sibling rivalry? Probably. But I'll take it. She pronounces 'Russia' so cute!
Notice that I have given up substituting initials for names. With as many kids as I have, it is rather cumbersome and they made my posts confusing. Most of you reading this blog know us anyway. And any sicko lurkers out there be advised, I have a gun and I wouldn't mind using it.

I Survived Fall Festival

But it was a close shave. I always make my kids' costumes, and I always say, "NEVER again!" This year I really mean it. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown and my house looks like...well my house, my house...it may never recover. I was up until 2:00 a.m. feverishly sewing the last touches on a mermaid and two tropical fish. That is hand sewing, mind you...the machine work I finished at 10:00. 'Never operate heavy equipment after 10:00,' is probably a good rule of thumb wouldn't you say? It was only a teeny, tiny bit worth it when an elderly lady asked A where she had gotten such a pretty costume and she answered with audible pride in her voice, "My mommy made it for me!" and so totally not worth it when I ditched his fish 10 minutes into Fall Fest and flatly refused to wear it properly.
But here is the result. Aren't they cute? Now, M and R's costume I did not make. I found them on ebay for cheaper than what I could make them for and oh, so darling. Besides, five costumes would certainly have been the end of me. This year's theme, obviously, "Under the Sea."