Dear two year old,

Dear two year,

I love you dearly but I have to ask, are you bipolar or are you just trying to drive me bat shit crazy? I'm serious, one minute you're so sweet and giving me hugs and kisses and then the next minute you're screaming bloody murder because I said that you can't have cereal for the third time today. You lift your little arms up to me for consoling then as soon as I sit you on my lap for a hug, you slide off, thrown yourself on the floor and go back to screaming. This goes on for thirty minutes or so before you run off to your room because you heard your sister playing with Barbies. I take a huge sigh of relief that your meltdown is over. But the dramatics are never truly over. It's more like the calm before the storm. Next thing I know you're in hysterics simply because you can't find the exact barbie shoes you wanted even though there are five pairs sitting right in front of you. You've also decided that you have to have the barbie that you're sister has spent the last twenty minutes playing with. I have to defend your sister and tell you that she had it first when all I really want to do is scream "OH MY GOD, JUST GIVE HER THE DAMN THING!" But I'm a responsible parent so of course I can't do that. So I resort to turning on your favorite show. Have I mentioned how sick I am of watching Mickey Mouse? But it's not enough to sit with me on the couch, you need your favorite blanket, your favorite pillow, and at least 5 out of 20 of your favorite stuffed animals. And Heaven forbid if I don't know where any of these are!

What other offenses have I committed today to make you act out the scariest scenes of Exorcist?

I told you that you can't have my coffee. (which you then drank as soon as I walked out of the room)

I put my icee up where you can't reach it. (you then just waited till I walked away, dumped out the barbie crate, flipped it upside down, and used it to reach the icee)

I told you that you can't have a pop tart at 4:30 when I'm about to start dinner in half an hour. 

I told you no to going outside to play when it's pouring down rain. 

I told you that you had to clean up the blocks that you scattered all over my living room floor. 

I told you that you can't use crayons to draw on the dry erase board. 

I told you to sit down at the table and eat your dinner. 

And the biggest offense of all......I informed you that it was BED TIME! 

But as big of a pain in the ass as you are, I love you to the moon and back. And one day, when you're a parent, and your kids are driving you crazy to the point of needing a straight jacket, I can sit back and laugh knowing that revenge has been served! lol

No More Tattling!

This is actually a repost from my old blog in 2013. Three of these kids no longer live with us but the tattling rule still remains.

We have a lot of kids in our house, ok more than a lot. Some days I can't even count them all or keep their names straight. Anyways, because of how many there are, there is a lot of tattling! Enough that if you actually listened to it all, you would want to bash your head against a brick wall. Don't give me that look, I know you've been there too!

Hunter took my toy! Holly hit me! Aiden is hanging from the rod in the closet! Anthony choked me! Alexis won't talk to me! Jordyn won't shut up! Holly said I'm a jerk! Hunter said he hates me! Aiden said he's not my friend anymore! Holly and Aiden played in the dog poop! Is your brain starting to melt yet? Yeah mine too!

So now every time one of them comes to tattle I repeat the same thing.

• Dead
• Dying
• Bleeding
• Vomiting
• Diarrhea
• Bones protruding 
• Or siblings resorting to cannibalism

Unless it falls into one of those categories, shake it off, you'll be fine. I bet I'm going to be getting that Mommy of the Year award soon after this post! :)

Our Beginning

There are two phrases in our sixteen years of knowing each other that really stick out in my mind and in a way define our relationship. The first, spoken in the sarcastic and naive way of a thirteen year old girl. "Hi! Who the hell are you?" The second was spoken sixteen years later by a very determined man. "I meant what I said earlier. I'm never letting you go again." These two instances play over and over in my head just about every day. Would the second statement ever have happened if the first one had never been uttered?

We were thirteen and fifteen when we met. A mutual friend kept telling him that he had to meet me and eventually he dragged him over to my apartment to do just that. According to him, he was pretty much hooked right when those words left my mouth. Ever since then it's been me and him. Within a week or two he asked me out. I was in the pool with some friends when he asked me to come here. Naturally, there was no way my self conscious self was climbing out so I went over to the edge. He asked me out. I was thrilled but managed to very calmly say yes. I then proceeded to turn around and continue talking to my other friends. Lucky for me, he's always seemed amused by my personality and little quirks. Another boy may have been offended. Not him though. I will never forget how he leaned down and from the side of the pool, he wrapped his arms around me from behind and whispered "Thank you" in my ear. Thinking back on it I don't think I realized it then, but I'm pretty sure that was the moment he claimed my heart.

I didn't find out until later that I was his very first girlfriend. We dated off and on for a few years yet even when we weren't actually together, you wouldn't know it. Even if we were dating other people we still cuddled and talked and went places together. No matter what happened between us we always remained best friends. Nobody really ever understood our relationship. The biggest thing that people couldn't believe was that we were never sexual with each other, not even any real kisses. Even when we dated again after each of us had lost our virginity, we never went there. Not that the thoughts or opportunities weren't there, it just never seemed right. We were left alone constantly. My Dad loved him, he was always welcome in our home. No matter what time it was or even if I was grounded, Dad's answer to his knock at the door was the same, "Come on in."

When my step-mom came along she used to tell us that one day, one of us would move away (I did), we would marry other people and have kids (we both did), but that eventually we would end up together for good. She said that she would write this down and have it framed as our wedding present. That day finally happened just over a month ago.

My dear sweet husband....

Dear Husband,
       Here we are at the end of the week and the house looks like shit. Actually, I don't look so hot myself. You may think that I've spent all week doing absolutely nothing, watching TV and eating chocolate all day. Though if you've looked in the fridge lately you'll remember that we don't have any good chocolate and haven't in awhile. So here's how my week from Monday to Wednesday went, or at least what I remember of it. Riley. Coughing. Crying. Whining. Not napping. Hardly eating. Not sleeping at night. Not staying in her bed at night. "Sleeping" on top of me. Squishing me in between you two. Add to that the other four children (plus the one extra that I watched yesterday) whining, crying and not listening. Now put this on a constant repeat. I swear they've all been bathed and fed this week. I've cleaned the living room probably two dozen times. I've managed one shower for myself and I've managed to not give in to the constant urge to cry because of frustration and lack of sleep.

This takes us to Thursday. Riley actually slept last night! OMG I was so excited when I woke up today! I was still tired but I didn't feel like having a nervous breakdown. Holly and Riley were reasonably well behaved in the morning. I cleaned up the toys in the living room, again. Swept the floor. It didn't look too bad. I even managed to get a little work done on my blog! Since then, Riley has dumped her bowl of nummies on the couch, then onto the floor I don't know how many times. And scattered toys all over the room yet again. Her and Holly even finally took naps today. That's where Riley's good mood ended. Since waking up she's been whiny, demanding, clingy and in general just a pain in my ass. It's barely 2:30 in the afternoon and it will only get worse when the other demon spawns get home from school in a little bit.

So, I love you. I missed you. And I hope you had a wonderful day at work. If I'm less than sweet and lovable when you get home tonight, I'm truly sorry. But Riley started it.

To Blog or Not to Blog....

Sometimes blogging sucks! There I said it. Trying to figure out which backgrounds work the best. What kind of social media sites you need to be connected to. If anybody actually reads or cares about what you have to say or if you are just randomly babbling to yourself. Trying to not offend or generally piss off any guilty parties who read your blog when you really need to vent about them or hire a hit man. And starting over with a new blog when you put so much time and effort into your first one. There, did I cover all the sucky aspects of having a blog?

But it's also wonderful to have a blog. Somewhere that you can just babble to yourself without worrying that people think you're strange as hell. Yeah, they can comment, but you don't have to post their comment. It's a liberating feeling. There's been many times where blogging has saved my sanity after a day of dealing with these little demanding people who call me Mommy. It's honestly a perfect time out for me. I get out whatever they have done to drive me bat shit crazy, they get to live, and I don't have to take a xanax. It's a win win situation.

But the absolute best part of having a blog, is the community. It's reading what others have to say and finding out that as crazy as your life may be, you're not alone. And sometimes finding out that you're not nearly as crazy as some others! lol. So as overwhelmed as I may get with my blog sometimes, I think I'll stick with it. Besides, it's way cheaper than therapy!

Must. Get. Sleep...

I'm sitting here wondering just how much bungee cord it would take to keep Riley in her bed at night. I happened to blurt this out loud to my husband. His response? "Duct tape would work better." When I expressed my concern over it being too sticky he suggested electrical tape. Damn I love him! lol. Now before you get too concerned, rest assured we would never actually do any of these things. If so, they would have been tested on one of her many older siblings! But seriously, somethings gotta give! This Mama is getting practically no sleep. Riley is two years old and as precious and loved as she is, I'm definitely at the end of my rope. She will not stay in her bed at night. She goes to sleep, on a good night, after about an hour. Usually she sleeps in her four year old sister's bed. Holly doesn't mind Riley sleeping with her. And at first it helped. Riley would sleep through the night. It didn't last long though. I can spend hours taking her back to her bed. As soon as I doze off, she's back, crawling in my bed. Eventually I'm so tired that I just scoot over for her. That doesn't really work either. We sleep on a full size futon. Once you put Josh, me and Riley in it, it's overly crowded. I end up squished and roasting in between them. And it's not just enough to lay next to me. Oh no, she wants to be as close to me as humanly possible! And she tosses and turns and fusses ALL NIGHT LONG. Come morning I'm too damn tired to think. Now you'd think I could use her nap time to rest a bit, but nope, Miss Riley has different plans. No matter how tired she is, she's been refusing to sleep at nap time lately. By the time poor Josh gets home at night, I'm tired and extremely grumpy. Now add to that the fact that Riley is sick at least once a month for a week or more. Between her asthma and allergies this week consists of cough medicine, her twice daily preventative inhaler, her rescue inhaler when the coughing gets too bad, breathing treatments and lots of Vick's. So her sleeping on top of me next to me, also involves being coughed on constantly. By the time bed time comes around each night I just want to run away. I hate feeling this way. I'm glad that Riley seems to love me more than anybody else on the planet, but occasionally I wish she'd torment her Dad for a few minutes and give Mommy a break.

Revelations

Josh and I have been together as adults for three years now and of course we both have our pasts. We went for a late walk together the other night and i found out something that kind of surprised me. He only stopped worrying that I'd leave him to go back to my ex husband about six months ago. That really shocked me. Not that he worried about it, but that he has worried about it for such a long time. My ex and I have been completely separated for three years now and divorced for two. I understand why Josh worried. Partly because his first wife left him for her ex after just a few months of being married. Also, because my ex and I have been on and off again for so many years. I just don't get why he worried for so long. And I'm really curious what it was that finally made him stop worrying about it. I honestly can't think of anything that changed recently. Well besides us getting married but that was only a month ago. We were discussing so many things that night plus I was kind of shocked, that it didn't even occur to me to ask him. I guess that's a conversation and a post for another day....

I Do

Well we finally did it. Josh and I got married a few weeks ago. He's only been waiting for nineteen years! lol. We put the entire wedding together in ten days! We had been engaged for three years but I just wasn't ready. Every time I even considered getting married before I ended up with an anxiety attack. It was nothing personal towards Josh, I was just freaked out after already having one bad marriage. I really don't know what changed things for me, something just kind of clicked I guess. We had some problems with taxes last year and the lady from the IRS told us things would be easier if we got married. That alone was not a good enough reason in my mind. We discussed it randomly for a couple months and I tossed the idea around in my head for a while. Then one day, I literally told him, screw it, let's just do it! And amazingly, it felt ok. No anxiety attack. But it needed to be done before the end of the year. Hence planning a wedding in ten days!

Originally we were just going to go down to the courthouse to do it but I knew how much having an actual wedding meant to him. I couldn't manage a church wedding so we went for the next best thing. Pot Luck style at our favorite park. Sounds strange I know but it was totally fitting with our personalities. Every day through all the planning I took a minute to stop and asses, see if I was still ok. If the anxiety was creeping back in. It never did. Yeah, I was stressed with the planning but not with the idea of marrying Josh. Our wedding was simple but nice. Our friends did a wonderful job pitching in and helping with all the preparations. A really good friend of ours, Dizzy, actually got ordained and performed the ceremony for us. She mixed the perfect amount of sweet with witty sarcasm. The only things that came close to "going wrong" were actually pretty amusing afterwards. It was supossed to be a nice warm 64 degrees out that day. It ended up being more like 46 degrees and really windy. The planned fifteen minute ceremony turned out to be more like 5 minutes! And our wonderful friend/minister got nervous and had us all sign the marriage license in the wrong spots and put the wrong date. We spent the day after the wedding going to the courthouse to get a new license and tracking down the groom, best man, maid of honor and minister to resign the new license! Being the sweet blushing bride that I am, I told Dizzy to bring me my favorite icee and all would be forgiven. lol.

Nothing has physically changed since we got married. But there are definitely differences. He's happier now and I feel a greater sense of commitment. It makes both of us act a lot nicer and lovable towards each other. There are still days where he drives me bat shit crazy and I'd love to hit him over the head with a frying pan. But I don't. And when I feel overwhelmed by life instead of giving in to the intense anger that that usually makes me feel, I take a time out and then tell Josh that I love him and we'll get through it. Things haven't magically become perfect since we said I Do, but I do feel like I really have a partner in all this craziness for the first time ever.