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Easter. Uncensored.

12 Apr

For the censored version go here.

Friday after working four non-stop hours I hurried home expecting a spotless house having hired a cleaning service for just that task. This was not remotely the case and instead the H and I spent 90 minutes cleaning after the cleaning lady.  I was hoping to wow my mother with my cleaning prowess. No one noticed or mentioned it.

I picked up the hunny bunny I ordered and impulse bought some Hot Cross buns that I thought we could eat as we dyed Easter eggs. Bear didn’t like the raisins. The H doesn’t eat anything healthy. Bella ate only the frosting. My mother despite me asking her multiple times rejected them, so only my father and I actually ate the nine dollar buns.

We went to pick something up at the store and my father honks at a pedestrian trying to walk across the crosswalk in the parking lot. And then they proceed to yell at each other. I proceed to pretend like I don’t know these people. 10 minutes later in the juice aisle my mother attempts to engage me in conversation and proceeds to start crying. I do not do well with public crying. In the span of 18 minutes my father yelled at a stranger and my mother publicly burst into tears.

My husband left for a prior engagement so I drank white wine in a regular glass as not to arise suspicion while preparing Bella’s dinner.

Saturday was a flurry of little things that culminated in a rapid fire of texts to my two closest friends which are transcribed below:

I just went to get some wine. Didn’t want to draw attention to it so I tried to use the awful electric opener I have. It did this.

Then I tried to gnaw it. Which didn’t work. So I had to get a corkscrew.

Now I’m doing this

Yes I was in fact drinking wine in my laundry room like all classy ladies do on Easter Eve.

After stuffing the plastic Easter eggs with chocolate and hiding them about the house I was getting ready for bed when I heard Bear coughing vehemently and went to check it out. I was greeted with projectile vomiting…. on me.

That morning we discovered that the dogs had gone on their own night time Easter egg hunt and had found and eaten an assortment of Easter eggs. The children were then quarantined to the bedroom while we washed, re-stuffed, and re-hid the eggs.

After setting a beautiful Easter table I showered quickly before we sat down to eat only to have a violent allergic reaction to something causing this to happen to my face:

Despite the delicious spread of food Bella refused to eat breakfast and spent the entire time saying “no” and trying to jump out of her high chair.

This is the photo of me being hit in the face with a football:

And that my friends is the uncensored version of Easter.

Something went Awry

18 Apr

Let me paint you a picture:

Black flats from Target, red & white snowflake fuzzy socks from Bath & Body Works, white and black snowflake pj bottoms, white and blue Columbia jacket. Broken glasses (Bear broke one of the sides last year), newly highlighted and cut hair in a ponytail. Glass of Riesling, cigarette, sitting on my porch step looking at my two dogs, a yard full of leaves, sticks and dog poop.

How did I get here?

This morning I woke up earlier than I usually do on Mondays, my proverbial “day off”, and was highly productive. By 9 am all the laundry was sorted, the dishwasher loaded and on, Bella fed & medicined and down for a nap, Bear and I had breakfast, a to do list was made, eggs were cooking for dyeing.

Then something happened. Something went awry and sent me off kilter and I’ve been struggling to get back since.

I can’t quite figure out what it was. Was it that when I went to do the laundry I realized that the H had put a load of sheets in on Friday and they were still wet in the washer never being put in the dryer? Was it that when I incesentally called Athens he didn’t come and I thought he had jumped the fence? Was it that I stupidly checked my emailing awaiting the Prof’s response to the mistake I realized I had made end of the day Friday?

One of these things or all of these things sent me into my bed with chocolate and Desperate Housewives. Then I got a little of my mojo back. I got some laundry done, we finished our pirate easter eggs, the house was vacuumed, the fridge cleaned, the dishwasher unloaded, the kitchen counters cleaned. Then Bear went down for his nap, but Bella wouldn’t sleep. She didn’t want to sit, she didn’t want to play, she tugged on her ears and squirmed in my arms only wanting to stand.

I fought the urge to scream, “You can’t stand! I’m not going to hold you up all day.” I did however leave her in her room with her tea set and toy cell phone and told her to call someone who cares.

I hate this part of my personality. Something goes wrong, so slightly I can’t even pinpoint it and it spirals me into shutdown mode. Or eat three double stuff oreos and want to cry mode. But no tears come. I’m not a crier.

I drank some of said Riesling, felt stupid about it and dumped half of my glass down the drain. Bella’s sleeping now and so is Bear. I could and should work out. Something I had been so good about until this weekend. Now its been three days since the treadmill and I saw each other and I have no desire to go back to the basement except for another load of laundry.

I want to eat more Oreos or a hamburger, or anything. I want to go to the store and buy something, something/anything to make the children happy and relieve the guilt I feel for so thoroughly not wanting their company right now.

Fucking Prof scheduled me into a meeting at 8:15 am tomorrow to discuss the mistake I made. Really? It can’t wait until later? I’m sorry I relied on an inventory 3 months old. I’m sorry I relied on the Devo Assistant to mention to me that we were out of reply cards, which she didn’t. But is this something we need to talk about at 8:15 AM? Why do I check my work email on my day off? Why when I so passionately hate my place of work currently?

Maybe it was the email from the Dr. of Ops scheduling a lunch meeting with me and our other friends to talk about a big announcement. Maybe its the jealously that she got a promotion? won the lottery? … something I didn’t get.

Something happened and I can’t recover from it, so I’m stagnating.

January Resolution Sum Up

31 Jan

So let’s see how I did on my new years resolutions just a mere 31 days into the new year…

  • Get back to pre-pregnancy weight.
    • Well I haven’t weighed myself in a long time but I can’t imagine after all the Chipotle, McDonalds and other eating out this month I’ve come anywhere near this.
  • Exercise
    • I quit the gym… so no.
  • Financial/ Career
    • Because of all the eating out done I definitely spent more than I should have this month. Plus with the baptism expenses, Valentine’s Day gifts and The H buying me a birthday present (even though I told him going to Chicago was my present) we did not achieve this.
    • I applied for my dream job and met with an upper level co-worker and asked him to write a recommendation to the CEO of the company I applied at since they’re friends.
  • Take better care of my dogs
    • Well I’ve been sporadic with filling the Kong for the dogs, but they haven’t done anything too bad while we’ve been gone with the exception of eating Bear’s Megamind mask from the ZooBoo.
  • Be a better Parents and apply some of these Mommy Resolutions
    • Bella sleeps almost exclusively in her crib during the day — woohoo. We still have not started a bedtime routine though.
    • We are better about bathing the kids — but not great.
    • Bear still watches too much TV, doesn’t wash his hands enough and cleaned his room every day until he didn’t.
    • We probably did have family dinner at least once a week.
  • Me and The H Time
    • For my birthday we had dinner together even though friends invited us to go with them. I strongly debated this, but in the end decided for us to just have dinner and it was really nice!

All in all I would say I’m 50% ish on track. With the February Detox I have great hopes for the next 28 days!

 

2011 New Years Resolutions

30 Dec

It’s that time of year: when you make promises and wishes for the new year and most likely do not follow through. What? I’m just being realistic!

Mine are in keeping with what I imagine everyone says, “lose weight, save money, pay down debt.” However, I’d like to make it a little more practical so I’m going to break it down to tangible goals similar to my attempt last year until I got pregnant and threw my resolutions to the wind.

  • Get back to pre-pregnancy weight.
    • Goal: Last time I weighed myself (which was awhile ago) this would mean losing 15 lbs.
    • Deadline: I’d like to do this by bikini season ideally July when I go to Orlando for a conference.
    • Action Steps: Means stop snacking on random shit, stop drinking coke, eat normal sized portions. (This will be applied after tomorrow’s Fogo de Chao devouring).
  • Exercise
    • Goal: Possibly run half marathon with @zwjohnson
    • Deadline: Monthly
    • Action Steps: Go to the gym 12 x every month for Medica discount.
  • Financial/ Career
    • Goal: Don’t accrue any new debt and attempt to pay off existing. Adding $1,860 in monthly daycare expenses means paying down debt ceases to be a realistic possibility as all my money will go towards daycare expenses.
    • Action Steps: Use refund money to pay off windows and fridge. Stay in the Green for budget! Have a garage sale this summer. Ask for raise at January performance review. Look for new jobs.
  • Take better care of my dogs
    • Action Steps: Take to dog park more frequently, run around the block with them, leave Kong filled with treats to prevent boredom.
  • Be a better Parents and apply some of these Mommy Resolutions

    • Action Steps:
      • Play with Bear every day (and Bella too)
      • Make sure Bear washes his hands before eating (we’re terrible about remembering that)
      • Bear should watch less tv (or movies)
      • At least once a week family dinner
      • We should also bathe the kids more often
      • Have Bear clean up his room before bedtime
      • Start bedtime routine with Bella
      • Have Bella sleep in crib not swing for daytime naps
  • Me and The H Time
    • Goal: Spend time with the H not watching TV, without the kids or friends
    • Action Steps: The H possibly accompany me to Orlando for conference, Mexico in December for 5 year wedding anniversary. Scatter some date nights throughout the year. (And actually go somewhere not have McDonalds and watch TV, or hang out with Friends.

Future Goals:

Find a way to logistically have another baby in 2012 or 2013:

Current plan is to try in January, February and March of 2012 and if we don’t succeed try again after my 28th birthday. I really don’t want to be pregnant on my golden birthday (no idea why this is important to me) so i’d need to have a baby before or after.

  • This would require us getting a minivan (we’ll be done paying off the Subaru February 2012 and the Deathmobile is well the Deathmobile)
  • We would need to make the basement office a livable room and move Bear there or the kids would need to share a room or we’d share a room with baby or most unlikely move to a bigger house.
  • Would like to have no debt at this time.
    • End of 2012 Bear would be in school so we’d have 2 in daycare (not 3!)
    • We would have had a year with no car payments (though I imagine minivan costs much more than our Subaru Forester also assumes Deathmobile can make it this long)
    • Hopefully we’ll both have raises/new jobs at this time.
    • Very dependent on how 2011 goes financially…

The Dog Dilemma / Overstepping Your Bounds

29 Dec

So yesterday when I came home from work the dogs (or most likely singular — moose) had decided they wanted an afternoon snack of Christmas ornaments. 5 ornaments in total were destroyed including the one Bella got for Christmas and is looking at with such interest in this photograph:

I decided to cry upon seeing the giraffe destroyed and the general fact that I have terrible dogs. (I also had a hard day at work realizing that in fact I have to keep working there.) The H came home shortly after and chose anger as his outlet. Issue is that the MIL came to drop off the kids since she had been watching them during the day at her house and she walked into this scene. I had luckily composed myself at this point, but the H was yelling at the dogs that I had banned to the outside. While I took Bella to nurse the MIL decided to take this opportunity to lecture me on how we need to get rid of the dogs, because we have so much going on and they’re destroying the house and how we should put them down if we can’t find someone to take them. She peppers this lecture with frequent mentions of how she doesn’t want to be over stepping her bounds.

I’m sorry lady but you just told me to kill my dogs because they ate $10 worth of Xmas ornaments. I think you’re over stepping your bounds a little don’t you? Doesn’t help that like my breast is out and there’s not much chance of walking away from the situation, she has me cornered. Literally.

She then leaves and calls me afterwords saying that she’s been thinking this through and we really should consider getting rid of these dogs. While in the short term perhaps Bear will be upset in the long term its more detrimental to him to see the “pressure” and stress the dogs are placing us under. And to see The H’s anger. And please tell the H to call her because she wants to have a talking to with him.

Uh ha.

She calls the H later, since he of course does not call her, and lectures him as well about how we should get rid of the dogs.

I’d like to insert the fact that she put down their family dog because he had separation anxiety when the H left for college since they had most closely bonded.

My solution usually isn’t to kill or return something (well unless its due to my excessive shopping) just because they acted badly. I’m not going to claim that the dogs are saints, I’ve obviously blogged and tweeted frequently about the fact that they’re not. Nor am I going to deny on multiple occasions in anger threatening to get rid of the dogs and wishing they would die. The issue is I don’t mean it. I’m angry and frustrated and that sounds all fine and dandy in the moment. Until like last night I go in to the kitchen to get something to drink and moose is laying chilly alone on the couch looking all dejected because we’re all in the bedroom and there’s no room for him. And then my heart melts. Because this is my dog. And I’ve had him for almost six years. He was my first baby. And despite the fact that he’s an awful dog (sometimes, not always) he’s my awful dog. Can you imagine if they had put down Marley?

The New Godmother and I were discussing this and we agree that its similar to kids. If Bear broke things and didn’t listen to us we wouldn’t return him. He’s our responsibility and we would work on fixing the issues. Not just get rid of him for ease. It’d be a whole other discussion if the dogs were remotely aggressive, but they’re not.

Maybe he’ll do anything for food but he loves his family and he’s amazing with the kids. Look at him and Bear from Thanksgiving:

Also, its not HIS fault that he’s a bad dog. Its much more likely our fault for being bad dog owners. I did a lot of googling on this topic this morning and perhaps he has pica, or maybe we just need to feed him more, or feed him a more nutrient rich diet, or maybe he’s just bored. So upon recommendations of the ASPCA I ordered two kongs from Amazon today. One for each of the dogs. Using the New Godmother’s suggestion we’re going to fill it with peanut butter and dog treats and the key here is to freeze it. She does this for her dogs and finds it works well. Hopefully it’ll work well for us too. And maybe the H can take the dogs for a quick jog around the block when he gets home to burn some of their excess energy.

We’re going to make this work because well he’s damn cute, and he’s my damn cute awful dog.

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