Containment and Peeing in Public: Opportunity Lost

 
A good friend came over on Saturday morning to install THIS:

Her escape plot is FOILED!!!!!!!!!

THIS is going to make my life so much freaking easier, I am almost doing back flips.   Maggie is not going to be able to run outside NAKED ANYMORE!

In the past few weeks, nothing will keep this child inside.

She knows how to unlock doors, turn dead bolts  and is not afraid to run full tilt down the street, her family just an afterthought residing in that two-story craftsman style brick behind her.

The neighbors probably think we have zero control over our brood, and honestly, we sort of don't. Particularly the two year old.

But thanks to our friend Hank, his tool box and this J-lock, we have more control than we have had, like, ever.

It's a good thing we live in a cul-de-sac.

Not such a good thing that there was a water-mocassin in our yard two weeks ago that almost bit Wesley.

Just ONE of the many number of reasons this two year old needs to be contained.

Oh, also it was pointed out to me that I was super-duper mean on my post yesterday when I stated that my brother was "pushing 40."   He is actually 35.  

I rounded up on his age and what I meant was that he is on the "latter half" of this decade to 40.  As am I.

I was using it as an illustration, people.  Sheesh.

He's still not getting any younger ladies.

Another thing I wanted to mention:  yesterday Chris and I ran errands ALL DAY and about half of that time I had to use the bathroom, but I didn't want to use a public toilet.

I realized that I didn't move fast enough on my Go-Girl purchase that I discussed a few weeks ago.

I was sitting in the middle of the Publix parking lot  ~ or PUBIX, as my dad likes to call it ~ waiting for my husband to pick up a prescription, and I realized that I COULD PEE RIGHT THERE AND NO ONE WOULD KNOW IT!

I was wearing my adorable Boden Denim skirt that I could just yank up a little.   I could just pee in the Go-Girl and not one person in that parking lot would be any wiser.

Totally freaking cute, right?  BodenUsa.com  

I'm going to have to order the Go-Girl pronto.

I better get back to my futile task of cleaning up the house.  It is futile because the two year old keeps tearing everything apart after I clean it up.

So I am really not sure why I am bothering with it.

I don't know how people do it with multiple children at home, I really don't.

 I mean, really, hats off to you.

It's about 2pm and I'm almost ready for vodka.  

Whew.

New Journeys, Updates and Epiphanies

I looked over my posts lately and noticed I have not said anything about running or the gym.

That is because a.) I have done absolutely no running, and b.) I have not been to the gym in ages.

There.

Rather, I have been quite a fantabulous couch potato, valued online shopper to J Crew and trusty chauffeur.  

This is Wesley's last week of football  and I am terribly excited about it.

I am pretty much over eating dinner at 9 p.m.

Chris is completing his first stint as assistant Pop Warner coach to a mess of squirrelly  8-10 year olds.

All of the practice is all for naught because every Saturday it has been a veritable slaughter on the football field for the boys.

Our parents have begun standing and applauding for first downs as if they were touchdowns.   Yep, they are that bad.

Their last game is this Saturday.

They are playing another team that has won not one game.  This may very well be the most  interesting game of the season to attend by far;   I may even show up on time.

I have thrown caution to the wind with the diet and exercise program.  

I thoroughly enjoy my salads, so I have been still been eating those, but I also have been drinking my wine, eating regular pepperoni and cheese and have discovered that whole milk mixed with Hershey's syrup makes delightful chocolate milk.

In short, I'm sort of over myself.   And something interesting happened when I got over myself...when I got over obsessing about the diets, the running, the exercising, the gym:

I lost some weight.

Not a lot, but enough for people to notice.

I might be onto something...

I also started reading again.

I used to read a book every couple of days which now is virtually impossible with the bigger house and bigger family to take care of (not very well, but I try...sort of~).

I began a new series that I really like:

I finished the first in the series and have the second waiting in a huge PILE of books waiting to be read by my bed.

I am in the middle of a slower paced, yet interesting book that is taking me longer to get through.

I am becoming active on Paperbackswap.com again.

It is a WONDERFUL website that I encourage you to check out.

It is a great way to recycle your books if you have a lot lying around.

It's basically a book trade.  You pay for postage to send a book out if someone requests a book FROM you (about 2.50 to send a book) but if you request a book from some, they pay for postage to send it TO you.  So...it all evens out in the end.

I'm also becoming inspired by personal blogs that I am reading and am wanting to learn more about how to sew and create things...

I follow Bromeliad and I love her blog.  She has such interesting pictures and ideas and sees things in a way that I don't.   I want to learn how to make these cloth flowers to add to my t-shirts!

And isn't this an adorable Halloween flower planter???

 It is from the FlowerGardengirl blog, who has such awesome flower/pots/plant ideas.

I have also recently discovered The Good Life blog, too.  This is one of her newest Anthropologie projects:

There are so many fun ideas and inspirations out there and it is really amazing to me that I virtually have the world at my fingertips via the internet.  I have no excuse to be a boring, uninspired person.   There are ideas upon ideas....so many so that it is mind-boggling!

I have never really had a challenge for myself other than diet and exercise.

I know, beyond shallow.  Right?

At my age, though, I think it is time to think about things a little differently.   Maybe if  I do so, the other stuff (weight/health/family) will fall into place, too.

Is this what is called an epiphany?   Perhaps other people have them at earlier ages and I am a late bloomer.  Late bloomers run in my family.  Hell,  my brother is almost 40 and not married.

For me, I'm going to try a different direction.  I think that first step is going to be fixing my sewing machine.  I bought a second-hand sewing machine a couple years ago and jammed it the very first time I tried to put random cloth through it to "test" it.

There are "crafters" at our church ~ i.e. a bunch of sweet ladies ~ who would probably love to tell me how to use a sewing machine.

So, I think that this will be my first goals this week:

FIRST GOAL:  UN-JAM THE SEWING MACHINE and LEARN HOW TO USE IT (BASICS).  

Except, I am not sure where the sewing machine is because it has been moved twice since I bought it.  So technically #1 should be "find the sewing machine, then #2 should be "un-jam the sewing machine and learn how to use it (basics)."

But whatever.

Semantics.

I'll keep you updated on my new journey.

Wonder Woman, Regressions and Digressions

The boys had Monday and Tuesday off of school this week.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Calvin went to stay with my parents in the Orlando area.

Grandmother fed him as much ice cream and red meat as his little heart desired. In return, he dug holes, trimmed crepe myrtle trees and moved various plants from point "a" to point "b."

Wesley spent the time, quite miserable, with me.

He was instructed to clean his room on Saturday.

It was clean by noon on Monday .

During that time, the uncooperativeness caused the Legos littering his room to be packed up and put away.

My reasoning was that if he wasn't going to pick those evil little buggers up, they would be taking an open-ended hiatus. The ones left on the floor in the common areas are regularly sucked up through the vacuum hose.

He doesn't know that, though.

The uncooperativeness continued through Sunday, so his action figures were also cleared out.

He cried. He begged for mercy as I threw the Star Wars, the Spidermans and the Fantastic Four characters in the large garbage bag that will be stored in an undisclosed location until I see fit.

So, basically the current entertainment in his room consists of three shelves of books.

I don't think that taking toys away is a bad thing ~ or mean ~ at all.

I'm not hitting him too much as of late, so given the choice of two punishments, I think he would happily accept the former rather than the latter. Totally kidding.

And good grief, in the old days, kids played with string or mud. Or rocks. Or a variation of the three.

The peer pressure on Monday finally broke him. His friends came to do the door no less than three times in less than 30 minutes, wondering how long it could POSSIBLY take for him to clean his room (if only they knew) and why wasn't he finished, already?

As they were waiting, they hovered and rode their bicycles and scooters in circles on the street in front of our house. They looked like deranged little Energizer Bunnies.

Yesterday morning I decided that we were going to Orlando.

I threw the Pack N Play in the back of the SUV and herded the cats. We arrived around lunchtime. My mother was at one of her numerous doctor's appointments.

I'm not exactly sure why this happens, but I regress the moment I walk into my parents' house. Chris comments on it all the time and asks why my ability to think for and take care of myself completely disappears once I walk inside my parents' home.

My brother and I sat in Mom and Dad's rocking chairs, looking at each other.

The kids tore through the house maniacally trying to tackle each other to perform wedgies. The goal: rip the underwear. Although I very clearly disapproved, this activity was highly encouraged by Tony. Thus, my authority was completely negated. I am not as cool as he is, nor do I buy them Abercrombie and Fitch clothing.

"What was mom doing for lunch," I asked. It was now 1pm.

We were all hungry and, upon walking through the front door of this house our brains had fallen out and we all forgot where to find sandwich meat and how to make ourselves sandwiches.

Mother returned at 1:30 with Chick Fil A. And she remembered the extra barbecue sauce for my waffle fries. Something not even Chris always does.

I had an unusual burst of energy (or, rather, lots of babysitters) so I vacuumed out my car. This is no small feat ~ let me tell you ~ as it hadn't been done all summer and we visited the beach at least once a week since July.

I then took the car to the local car wash and paid ten bucks for the "Ultimate" wash.

As we left after dinner that evening the heavens unleashed their fury, in the form of rain, on my freshly washed car.

GREAT, I just flushed ten more dollars down the toilet, in addition to the GI Joe Snake Eyes costume I bought for Wesley. He shows a great amount of enthusiasm for the costume, but it is too tight in the crotch area and I'm concerned that it is not entirely appropriate for him to wear to school on Friday.

He thinks it is just fine. What to do, what to do.

I wasn't going to dress Maggie up, but I recently saw pictures of a friend's daughter dressed up in a kick ass Wonder Woman costume that I believe I must have.

My daughter WILL be Wonder Woman, you know, in real life. I feel as if my opportunity to be rockin' and wonderful has passed me by at times, but I am totally not above living vicariously through her.

"You can do ANYTHING! You want to be the president AND a doctor AND a paleontologist? SURE YOU CAN! You are STRONG! You are SMART! You will take no sh**! TEAM MARGARET!"

She'll look back at pictures of herself dressed as Wonder Woman when she was 17 months old and will be all, "This is where it all started, folks. "

Alas...I digress.

It is back to life as normal for Calvin. Back to canned soup, the un-fun cereal (Raisin Bran). There is no ice cream for him to inhale. Wesley's room is still clean as a whistle, mostly because there are no toys for him to throw around.

Netflix finally sent a movie on the top of my queue, instead of my crappy fourth, fifth and sixth choices.

So we will all be watching Transformers 2 this evening and eating popcorn. I can't think of a better way to spend a fall evening.