Words I have actually said since embarking on motherhood

1. Please don't paint your brother's toes with yogurt.
2. Actually, I don't think a pile of mud in the living room is a good idea, even though I know it would be fun to play with.
3. Said to my husband: No, really, I'd LOVE to go to the market. (stated with such enthusiasm he thought I'd misunderstood him and thought he needed me to go to Mazatlan.)
4. Well, I guess poop kind of looks like mud but no, you can't play in it.
5. Well, babies can't really swim so if I just drop him in the pool, we'd probably have a problem.
6. Let me just finish my lunch and then I'd love to play cars with you. (I was never a babysitter.)
7. Wouldn't it be great if there was a radio station that played The Wiggles!?!
8. Also said to my husband: It's so sad, Raffi doesn't give concerts anymore. Bummer, huh?
9. Said to anyone who will listen: I think I could sleep for a week and still be tired.
10. Said to the greatest kids on the planet, at least a million times a day: I love love love you! (OK, supercornball that I am, but every now and then it hits me extra hard how great they are!)

Honesty

I asked a favor of someone, and explaind to them that I would completely understand if for whatever reason they couldn't do this favor... and I kind of suspected they wouldn't be game for it. What's really annoying to me is that they couldn't just come out and say, "No can do", they had to come up with a milion reasons why it just wouldn't work for me. Makes me crazy. I just wish that humans had that honesty thing down... and that our society/culture/whatever drives us would allow us to say "no" without guilt. I'm not great at that, but when I'm on the receiving end, it does make me want to be better at saying "no" when that's what I need to do. Argh.

Consumption

We have made at least three runs to Salvation Army by now. I've taken three huge loads of kids clothes to Children's Orchard. We've put out more than our share of garbage every week.

And now, more than 1/2way through packing our mini-storage/traveling unit thing, we have *mounds* of garbage and another full load for Salvation Army.

It's pretty embarrassing. I mean, we don't buy a ton--the kids have some plastic toys, sure, but not the amazing amounts I see overflowing the living rooms of some families. I do buy too many clothes, but not anything totally outrageous--really. Where *does* all this stuff come from?

We've thrown out stuff that in many countries and for many people would be usable, practical things--and we've pitched this stuff because we don' t have the room to use it, or we can't find the matching lid, or it no longer fits.

We're a wealthy country, even when it doesn't feel like it when the bills come due.

In the "isn't it ironic" category...

...Two grown men have now been working on our garage door opener for 1.5 hours. At $70/hour. And all this for a garage door that's functioned the entire six years we've lived here but, apparently, somehow skips the chain when it does that automatic stop thing. I guess we just lived with it. Or we didn't put our children right under it and lower it.

We're throwing around $100s right now to get out of here--so what's a few hundred more?

Measure once, cut twice...

Which is unfortunately how I thought the saying went, and come to find out it's measure twice, cut once. Argh. Had a wildly successful trip to Target to purchase drapes for Boy #1's room in hopes of preventing him from waking up with the chickens as soon as the room is a bit light. When we left the house, I thought I remembered the window was 35" wide by 48" long... Turns out the window is 49" wide (old house, don't ask) by 34" and change long. The rod is too small, and I do believe the curtain would have to be stretched like Saran Wrap to work in the windows. Someday I'll do things in an organized fashion but for now, I have too-small things I need to return.
Don't miss prrrof's post below, folks!

Yes, there's a reason the title is plural...

...and I'm here.

Thanks to LCS for keeping this kickin'--I've been reading, sometimes, folks, but have had no time for posting. It's been near-insanity (or what passes for that in our mostly mellow, relatively stress-free lives) here in the middle east. As LCS noted a few posts ago, there are quite a few bees buzzin' in this ol' family tree:

1. First, and most seriously, our mom has cancer. Yes, that c word that fills all hearts with dread. It's nearly impossible to imagine this happening to her. Really, I thought? (In fact, my first words were, "you're joking." Duh. What a clever reaction to have.) But seriously...our full-of-energy, ready-to-go, laugh-and-drink-some-more-coffee mother? It hardly seems possible. Or at least, it hardly did several weeks ago. We've been through the incredulous stage and are now in some adjusted stage of reality...I'm glad LCS is close enough to our parents to go see her more. I can't wait to be closer so we can too. Yes, it's "manageable" cancer...for what that's worth. Just another reminder for me that any of my tiny little life events are manageable too.

2. Our house sold, which is very excellent, and it sold quickly, which is also very excellent but brought the commensurate panic. We are packing, packing, packing...and somehow we'll fit it all into one of these Go Minis. It'll be delivered Saturday (and that day, of course, I also have a 5-hour portfolio assessment to both help coordinate and participate in; we have a birthday party of a good friend as well). The storage vessel then sails forth on Wednesday; we clean on Thursday and close on Friday! Then, having packed perfectly, we'll head off to live with some very good friends here for a month or so. Also thrown in that time is a trip to the Left Coast and to New Mountain State--did I mention that dear husband has not yet seen our New Fair City? :)

3. My sister-in-law is approaching the end of her pregnancy. She lives a long, long, looooong ways away, and I feel pulled in that direction as well. I won't go into details here, but her last pregnancy was very, very difficult and filled with heartache...and we were here, and they were there. I want to be there and can't.

#s 1, 2, and 3 then converge next Friday: it's the date of our mom's surgery; it's our closing date; and it's the due date of my SIL. For #2, may I not forget to always add my middle initial when I sign my name 5000 times. For # 1 and 3, may health and peace result.

Some dirt

I have a new hobby. Gardening. They say we become our parents, and I really think I am. If there was anything I hated to do when we were growing up, it was weeding. I remember thinking that my mother truly was out to ruin my life if I had to spend a Saturday weeding (in reality I'm sure it was about 30 minutes on a Saturday, it just felt like the entire day). Now, I am planting more plants in my garden. Maybe it's being over 30 and realizing that I am simply... not cool. I have lost all coolness I might have had and there's no hope of gaining it back so I might as well feed my inner little old lady. (An aside: At the hospital we used to note "LOL" for a patient that was a little old lady in the pre-blogging days. Many of those patients weren't lol! But I digress...)
Today I planted 4 daisy plants, a watermelon, canteloupe, and two tomato plants. I have a grapevine almost ready for planting as well. (Since I know I won't win any awards for amazing produce at the fair, I thought I'd go for the most eclectic garden.) Maybe it's owning my own home, but I could spend hundreds of dollars on flowers and plants, many of whom would not survive their childhood under my watch.
Therein lies the problem. I love plants, and teh idea of growing my own food is so appealing to me. Maybe it's the third grader in me, wanting to see the seed produce a little green shoot in my styrofoam cup. However, care of plants and animals has never been my strong suit. My friends in our Former City, Michelle and Sara, are amazing. Their own hands actually produce things you can eat. That's my goal. I'm not hoping for prize winning tomatoes, I'm just hoping that I will have at least one measly item in 80-84 days (that's what the package said) that I could throw in a salad, so I can wax poetic about my farming roots finally coming out. I'll keep you posted on this one.

Could you just say "you're wonderful!"?!!?

Yesterday I told my husband a tidbit of interesting information passed on by my Mom. She'd heard on the news or Paul Harvey that the value of a stay at home mom is $134,122.00 annually. That's taking into account the light gardening, housekeeping, bookkeeping, transportation services, babysitting, meal preparation, household coordination (doctor's appts., repair people, etc) provided by the mom... When I told my my ever-so-complimentary husband that, he said, "Well, that's really inflated, because if I was paying Molly Maids to come out here, I'd expect that the floors were always scrubbed, windows cleaned thoroughly, you know, everything done." I had to laugh. This from the man who called me about 10 minutes after I left him with two kids (for the one and only time, I might add) telling me the baby was crying and I needed to get home. And when I left, believe me, he wasn't exactly scrubbing the floors while watching the kids.

oh, yeah, and one more thing...

I read Jay Are's post about the 6 weird/different/odd things about her, so I tagged myself. She's more interesting, but here are mine.
#1. I am fascinated by Tom Cruise. I can't stand the man, but I'll devour every article about him. I must enjoy torturing myself.
#2. I love making lists but I rarely use them.
#3. One of the happiest feelings I have is when I have a full tank of gas.
#4. I love love love flowers but have killed approximately 100% of the ones i've planted.
#5. When we lived in our former City, I would make a point to run early morning errands so I could listen to the morning radio show on Alice at 97.3. Love them.
#6. I love shoes but never seem to have the right ones for certain outfits. Argh. And now we are as poor as church mice and I can't feed the fetish. Bummer.

A few things on my mind...

In this PC world we live in, and by that I'm referring to political correctness and not the to-Mac-or-not-to-Mac question, having a toddler can be dangerous. At the very least, walking around with a toddler who is friendly, loves to talk, and has no concept about volume control puts me at risk for great embarassment. Today we went to the bank and were just about to be helped by a teller when a very short gentleman- and I want to emphasize, he was very short - walked to the end of the line. My dear little son yells out, "Hey, look, that's a really little man!" And me? I started digging the hole I'm writing this blog from.
The burning question I'm sure you all have in your minds, is where is the more erudite sister at? Well, she's busy packing (yes, their house sold and with a very short escrow, I might add) and she likely has enough to do that she can't quite find time to elaborate on her thoughts. Is she still around? Will she once again compose the stimulating blogs of yore that we all looked for daily? Yes and yes. Just give the woman time. Perhaps you could fly out and help her move. At the very least you could drive the UHaul out west for them.
On to a more heavy thing on my mind, our family has been reminded of the simple brevity of life. Our mother has been diagnosed with cancer and it's a weird, weird experience already. It's a slow-growing kind and she's certainly got very good treatment options, but it's just odd to have this happen to someone I am so close to. It makes me wonder how I ever helped my oncology patients when I didn't fully understand how surreal it is to hear the words "cancer" and "my mom" in the same sentance. The other weird thing is that while there is no cure, she'll be in treatment for the rest of her life which sounds so daunting... but really, if my mom lives another 20 years, that'll put her at the ripe old age of 82. That's a good life. And while I know the natural order of things is that our parents go before us, I simply cannot imagine life without my mom. So all in all the last few months have been crazy for our family. One new member added to our family (Kid #2), our brother running off to the Bering Sea (no joke), proff's move across the country, and our mom's recent diagnosis. 2006 doesn't show signs of letting up and it's only May. My favorite song right now? "Remember to Breathe".