Who Am I?

Today is not so much focused on my kids as it is focused on the mother of my kids. ( I don't even refer to myself by name anymore.) You see, I seem to have lost some of my own identity on the motherhood journey.

Today Mark and I took the older 3 kids bowling. (When you can take your older 3 kids somewhere, that means you have a LOT of kids.) I digress.... We took the kids bowling and I was having fun and dancing to the music at the bowling alley--normal bowling alley stuff. Elena was giggling and she said, "Wow, you're in a good mood!" I got thinking about that comment. My first thought was I'm always in a good mood. Then I thought Apparently, I'm not always in a good mood if she made a comment. Then I remembered back to before having kids I USED to always be in a good mood. I guess I'm all about business a lot of the time. It's hard watching 4 kids and doing a mountain of business paperwork and taking care of the house. Maybe I don't have TIME to be in a good mood anymore. Then I remembered what one mom in MOPS said on Wednesday. I'm the box that the baby came in.

Allow me to explain: On Wednesday Lisa, one of my mom friends from MOPS said that we as moms sometimes treat ourselves as "the box that the baby came in." When I go out I always make sure that my kids look good and presentable. They have their hair brushed (I swear Christina's hair doesn't like that in the morning), nice clothes, and are taken care of. Me? Not so much. I go to the grocery store and the bank all of the time in my half pajamas--hoping the whole time that I don't run into my mother. (She would probably pinch me....) As my friend Lisa said, I treat myself as the box the baby came in. Like I am just a glorified caretaker. Just a chauffeur for those adorable children.

I guess that's why I'm blogging. This is an attempt to remember what I once was--and what I used to love to do. I remember when I wanted to be a writer. Then I also wanted to work on the Spanish language. I just love languages. Somewhere along the way I became an unpaid daycare worker and bookkeeper. Neither job is really too glorious. They are, however, necessary. I want to remember the day when my life was so full of promise. I just have to figure out how that fits in with my family. That could take a lot of time to ponder.

I feel much better now. My rant is done and now I have to finish filing all of my year end reports. Adios.

Flashback-Desitin & Toothpaste

Today my friend Becky was trying to find out how to get toothpaste out of carpet. That conversation brought not so fond memories of toothpaste and Desitin. Neither substance is fun to get out of carpet!

When Micah was about 1 and Christina was about 3 1/2, Christina decided that she wanted to discover her inner artist. Whenever I do something crazy like trying to take a 5 minute shower, one of my kids always gets a new creative idea. After I got mostly dressed I walked in to find the scene above. Destin is NOT fun to get out of carpet. However, poison control wasn't too worried that my son ingested some.

Toothpaste is the other substance I'm not too fond of. There is carpet in front of the sink in my kids' bathroom. Why? I have no idea. Every time I go to clean the bathroom mirror, there is toothpaste at the top of the mirror. How in the world do people that are 3-4 feet tall get toothpaste on the top of the mirror? I can't even reach the top of the mirror without straining. I've given up trying to get toothpaste out of the carpet. It's a losing battle. I just changed my color scheme to match the toothpaste...

Nilk

My son Micah loves milk. A LOT. He loves milk so much that when he was 1 year old Mark nicknamed him Mikey Moo Cow. We've been changing it to Mikey Moose (Mark says that Moose is much better name when he's older). However, his love of milk remains unchanged.

Micah has a morning routine. He wakes up and immediately comes and jumps in our bed. He bugs us while yelling, "POTTY!" the whole time until we walk with him to the bathroom. Why in the world he can't go to the bathroom by himself no one knows..... After he goes to the bathroom, he likes to drink a sippy cup half full of milk. (It HAS to be a sippy cup or he melts down---there are a lot of rules that we have to follow in the morning.) Then he eats a bowl of oatmeal. Deviate from the plan, and we're in a world of hurt.

We ran out of milk on Saturday and on Sunday morning we had failed to replenish the milk supply. Micah walked in in a worse mood than usual and after he had relieved himself in the bathroom, he was ready for the next step: milk. Mark and I knew we were in for it. Micah is NOT a morning person at all. I already feel sorry for his future wife. I hope she will be a very patient woman. We tried to break the news to him gently, "Micah, we have no milk. We ran out yesterday." The drama begins.

Micah begins screaming angrily, "I want nilk! I want nilk!" Mark and I tried to quiet him so he woudn't wake up everyone, but he entered into an angry funk. "Nilk! Nilk!" Finally, he stomps out of the bedroom and we heard him stomp down the stairs. We had no idea what he was up to. Suddenly, we hear the most gut wrenching, grevious scream/wail. Mark likens it to the time on Star Wars when Luke finds out Darth Vader is his father. Micah had apparently checked the refrigerator himself. "No NIIIIIILK!!!!!" Both of us broke out in laughter.

Micah was in the pit of dispair. We hear deep sobs and crying, "Where'd nilk GO! Where'd nilk GO!" Then a few moments later, "Whey are you nilk? Whey are you? AHHHHH!!!" If only life were so simple that not having milk was the worst thing in the world. We ended his time of sorrow by buying milk on our way home from church. Micah won the drama award for the week!

My Little Pony needs a shave

My youngest daughter has always sucked her thumb...A LOT. Last year Mark and I told her that if she stopped sucking her thumb for 30 days, she could have a cat. Well, I don't think she had even made it 30 minutes until last week. Micah, my little 3 year old, help me out with a toddler style intervention. Now Christina has been thumb free for 10 days. She already knows what kind of cat she wants. Warning, don't try this at home!

Christina and Micah were playing quietly. (This was my first clue. Remember the poop story?) Apparently My Little Pony was looking a little scruffy and the kids decided to give her a shave. They lathered the pony in shaving cream and proceeded to start shaving. Somehow during the shave, Micah scraped Christina's thumb with one of Mark's razors. I was getting a ton of business paperwork done when all of the sudden Christina runs into my office yelling, "I'm bleeding! I'm bleeding!" I look at her and she was not kidding. There was blood everywhere! I jumped up and grabbed a towel out of the laundry room to stop the bleeding (which didn't stop for long).

I calmed her down and asked what happened. "Micah cut me! Micah did it!" It was at this point that it dawned on me that it was her sucking thumb that was cut. I tried not to be happy, but I realized that this could definitely work out to my advantage. I verified my discovery, "Is that your sucking thumb?" Devastated, she started to nod her head. Way to go Micah!

I then proceeded to make a huge deal out of the thumb. I disinfected it, all the time trying to think of the best way to make sure that she can't possibly suck it. I first looked at it, shaking my head as much as possible. I told her, "Now, you know that you can't suck this thumb or we'll have to go to the hospital. If it gets infected, you're going to need a shot." Her eyes grew big. Then, I put a ton of Neosporin on the thumb. I told her, "You absolutely CANNOT suck this thumb. This stuff will make you really sick and we'll have to take you to the hospital for that, too." She looked at her thumb and her eyes grew even bigger. Then, I put a band-aid around the thumb, and over the top of the thumb. It still looked vaguely suckable, so I dug in the garage for painters' masking tape and started wrapping the thumb with large amounts of blue tape. I swear it was twice as thick. I'm surprised that she didn't have to hold it up with her other hand. I ended the ordeal with a reminder. Christina just sat there, staring at her thumb in horror. I wondered if I went too far...NAH!

Finding Snowy

So, my husband and I had the bright idea to buy fish for our animal lover daughter Christina for Christmas. Last night we were putting our kids to bed and the girls kept saying that Snowy, the white guppie, was "hiding." We both looked in the tank and Snowy was nowhere to be found, so Mark starts to distract the girls why I look for the missing fish. Finally I looked in the filter and there she lay (she is a girl, of course). I start motioning to Mark to keep the kids distracted, but being a man, he has to see the scene of the accident. As the girls are happily reading books and getting dressed, we are signing and mouthing words to each other vigorously. I wanted to hide it and Mark is convinced that the fish is fine and just needs to breathe fresh water in the tank. Finally, as we are mouthing back in forth to each other, Mark grabs the fish and sticks it back in the tank. Snowy's lifeless body floats to the bottom of the tank-as dead as dead can be-and lands in a bush. At this point, I stare in horror and start flailing my arms as to say What in the world are we going to do now? Mark shrugs his shoulders and at this point our son Micah, who is 3 years old, points to the fish and starts saying, "Fishy sleeping!" Mark runs out of the room to grab a pair of pliers because we can't reach the fish and the girls look at the tank, horrified. Elena, our 8 year old, starts to fight back tears. Mark finally returns with the pliers and pulls the fish out. As its lifeless body lays in Mark's hands, Elena is on the edge of tears and Micah keeps trying to grab it because he wants to play with it. Mark starts telling the kids something about this being a life lesson and he wants to give the fish a watery funeral. Then he tries to lighten the mood by saying that Snowy did a Nemo. (Remember in Finding Nemo when Nemo swims up the filter to turn it off? Well, Nemo lived and Snowy didn't--as my daughter pointed out.) As we turned the lights off for bed, the girls are just staring at the tank, still looking horrified. I guess we're going back to the fish store.

And the sewing machine went down the stairs...

My husband, God bless his soul, offered to bring the sewing machine up for me on Saturday. I had this great inspiration to sew a custom bag for my church choir music. (Let me just add that I am in no way a sewing expert. I sew only straight lines for curtains and every once in a while I might sew a choir music bag.) Anyway, Mark was bringing up the sewing machine in its case out of the basement when, once he reached the top of the stairs, the bottom of the case dropped off and I heard the thud of my Husqvarna Viking sewing machine hit the top stair... then the next one...and the next one.... all the way down to the bottom. As my husband watched the sewing machine bounce down the stairs the only thing to escape his lips was, "That was not good." Amazing enough, the sewing machine survived. Sure, the case was a little crooked and had to be pushed back together, but it sewed my choir bag 15 minutes later with no problem! I don't have one of those fancy computer machines (and it's probably a good thing), but I would buy another Husqrvana Viking any day. I can hear the commercial now: I love my Husqvarna Viking sewing machine. It's so well built that when my husband accidently dropped it down a flight of stairs and 15 minutes later (once we readjusted the shell) I started my new sewing project! (Actual customer testimony.)