Oh Snappies!

Poop Sucks

I know I whine about it on a daily basis, but really, summer vacation.  I am so over it.  I mean it this time.  I actually laid in bed last night and cried.  I am a big baby, I know it. 

Aivlene has a monster case of diarrhea.  Monster.  She is newly-potty trained, so it is very important to her to actually, you know, poop on the potty.  I have spent 4556666 hours in all three of my bathrooms since Monday.  I also have a bad case of "Phantom Poop Smells", where I think I smell poop.  My daughter, she smells like the monkey house at the zoo.  She is a miserable mess and I feel so bad for her.  She won't eat, she's cranky and poops a lot. 

The boys have been cooped up since Aivlene is on Deathly Diarrhea Watch 2008.  They are going a bit stir-crazy and I am too.  I am sick of reading, Little Bear, Caillou and Dora.  I was desperate for ideas yesterday, so I pretended the kids were dogs and I was their trainer.  I made them do tricks for marshmallows.  I rock.  I need to leave this house ASAP.  I keep hoping Disney will call and sponsor me a trip, like an adult Make-A-Wish, except there is nothing wrong with me, other than an intolerance to summer vacation and that I smell poop.  I have given up on Disney, but if the Borough of Stone Harbor  wants to sponsor my family for a week, I will give a blow-by-blow of my vacation on my blog.  I know it's not really going to happen, but I can dream...right?  It is also very, very hot out.  I don't like hot, it makes my hair frizz.

I am leaving Jon with three kids, The Emo, The Terror and The Poop Queen while I go to work, to say I am mildly excited about going to work tonight is an understatement.

Fit for a Princess

Aivlene is now 2 1/2, which means she is bossy, can poop on the potty, is bossy and has very clear ideas on what she likes.  She likes princesses.  She is all girl.  My heart has been warmed and I am so very glad I asked and begged and did the hibbity-dibbity A LOT for this child.  Have I mentioned that she is very bossy and loves all things princess? 

She has also warmed her father's cold heart and she wants a princess room.  Go here and look at these pictures.  Rachael is one of my oldest and bestest Internet friends and I have asked her and her sister to adopt me into their family because they always have fun and have the cutest kids. Rachael also takes the best pictures AND gives the best MySpace comments. She has re-done her kids rooms and I now have room envy. 

I need help making a princess room.  I don't know where to start all I know is that I don't want a lot of Disney Princess stuff, not because I am not down with Disney and the princesses because um, Hi!  Disney if you read this and want to give me a vacation and maybe throw some Cinderella stuff my way, I will totally sell you my soul and my 2004 Chevy Venture.  I just want a really cool room. 

She has plain white walls right now with god-awful mauve carpeting because when we were building our house I had a fit of madness.  I couldn't choose a neutral color because I am scared of light colors with my three kids.  We were able to choose three different colors for the kids room because we up-graded our carpets but we were limited in colors, so mauve it was.  I have set my heart on Valspar's Brushed Pearl faux finish because nothing says princess like Brushed Pearl.  It also has a three step process which is bound to drive me crazy while attempting it with three kids underfoot.

I give you this challenge Internet, help me design a super-cool princess room for Aivlene.  She's two.  She's bossy.  She can poop in a potty.  She loves Sindawella (Cinderella).  I am also open for a nice trip to Disney World and free Disney goods.  I can give away a 2004 Chevy Venture that sucks the soul out of 31 year old women and maybe a Beagle-Jack Russell terrier that may be retarded.

Go at it, yo.

Smell that!

I am not a great cook.  I can follow recipes and make some meals, but I do not profess to be a super-awesome cook.  I mainly use my own recipes, Kraft recipes, The Pioneer Woman or whatever else I can find on the Internet.  My all-time favorite Internet recipe belongs to Jen and her Singapore Rice Noodles.  I can just randomly think of the recipe and my mouth waters.  Yum.  I had it on my list to make this week and I thought about it all day long.  Jon and I happily made that bad-boy tonight and it was so very, very awesome.  Jon and I also only had one kid today as my dad still has my boys which meant Aivlene was the center of attention while we were cooking. 

"Ewwww, I don't like that!  Ewwww!  Dat Smell! Ewwww!", that is what resonated throughout the kitchen the entire time we cooked and the entire time we ate.   Little Miss Priss was so annoyed by the smell that she had to eat her dinner outside.  Yes, you read that right.  She also could not poop on her Dora potty because the smell was bugging her, she had to go upstairs and go up there.  Nice.

I think her senses were on overload today.  We took her to the mall and she went into the Yankee Candle store and demanded to sniff every.single.candle.  Every single one.  Oy.  I had to stop at the Sun and Sand because it truly smelled like sun and sand and I almost died of happiness.  We then ventured to Macy's and tried on perfume, Euphoria for me and Princess for the little princess.  We smelled so fabulous that we had to smell even more at Bath and Body Works.  This whole trip was just one big smell to her.  She was on fire by the time we got to Claire's and she thought she needed every single piece of princess jewelry.  She wants it all, but god forbid it smell like curry powder.  I am afraid we might not be able to go back into the house tonight.

A culinary delight and smelly day, all in all an excellent day!

Sleep or lack of

Jaden has this "thing" now, a "thing" that may drive me to drink even more boxed wine.  He refuses to go to sleep.  RE-FREAKING-FUSES.  He's 7 going on 47 so you try convincing a 7 going on 47 year old boy to go to FREAKING SLEEP ALREADY.  Have you?

Yeah, so how did that one go?

My little joy of sunshine has not gone to sleep before MIDNIGHT, the last two nights. He thinks that he needs to sleep in our room and I am all, "Oh hells no.  Could the kids kindly leave my room already?".  Since sunshine doesn't go to sleep until midnight, he wakes up at 11 a.m., which would be nice if I could sleep until then, but I don't and if mommy doesn't get to sleep, why should anyone?

My boys are spending the weekend with my dad.  I find that a good thing because they will not only tire my dad out, my dad will tire them out with quad rides, golf cart rides, fireworks, fishing and bothering my little brother.  I am hoping on Sunday night to get both boys into bed early and then reversing this whole sleep thing.  It is my goal here. 

It is so hard to have a son who is wiser than  you.  He's more emo than Pete Wentz. I fully expect the guyliner to be on the kid any day now.  I can just look at him funny and it sends him into a fit.  He's also become a bit ummm...obnoxious.  He knows he is smart and emo so he uses it to try to kill me.

Except he is so cute right now, as he somehow has made his way into my room and is sleeping, curled up next to his little brother.  I don't know why I even fight them at bedtime about coming into our room because they end up in here anyway.  I can just pretend I am Angelina Jolie and Jon is Brad Pitt.  They do a family bed.  I'd take a picture, but my camera has died and I have no way of capturing the memories here.  I think I deserve a camera for all the emo-ness I endure throughout the day and now into the night. 

Jaden just fell off my bed and woke up.  It made him laugh.  Joey then woke up and asked Jaden if he was okay.  It was enough to make my heart melt.  I wish I had a camera.

Cleaning out the closet

In honor of celebrating 51 more days (but who is counting?) of summer vacation, I took the opportunity to clean out the boys closets this morning while putting away 43555 loads of laundry that I acquired this Independence Day.  When do I get an Independence Day from laundry?  When?  I was putting away Jaden's clothes when I noticed that his closet has been attacked by Christmas decorations.  Christmas decorations and clothes.  The Christmas decorations in his closet have been tugging at my OCD since January, so I decided to tackle them since Jon left the ladder in our bedroom because we finally painted our upstairs hallway this weekend.  I think he left the ladder in our bedroom to annoy me but I paid him back by taking the opportunity by making him take huge boxes of Christmas decorations to the attic.

I have never been in our attic.  I have heard that it has the fancy blown-in insulation and that it is dark.  That's about it.  I have stored Aivlene's crib and bassinet in there but other than that I stay away from that shiznizzle.  I unfortunately love Christmas and the decorations that go along with the holiday so I have way too many decorations.  I also have a small problem with threatening my mom with kicking her ass if she doesn't give me her very awesome decorations.  I think my mom is scared that one day I may off her just for her Christopher Radko decorations. She really doesn't have to worry, I am all talk.  I do though, love me some Christmas decorations.  I had five totes and random items placed in Jaden's closet.  I also have a butt-load of decorations in the garage.  See?  I have a problem.  I paid Jon back for leaving the ladder in our bedroom by making him go into the attic.  SCORE!

I then went through all of Jaden's clothes to give to Joey.  Poor Joey, he gets whatever Jaden outgrows.  It sucks to be the Jan Brady of the family.  Luckily for Joey, I like clothes, so he gets some good stuff.  What I would like to know is what the hell Jaden did to all his jeans.  The kid is skinnier than a bean pole and is hard to find jeans for.  He could probably wear a size 5 waist, but floods the jeans, so I bought him size 7's and belted the kid up.  I bought tons of jeans from The Gap, Target, Levi's and The Children's Place and I am so not joking when I tell you this, he would come home everyday with a tear in the knees.  EVERYDAY.  I was so happy when mid-April came and I could make him wear shorts, because I was in shock that a seven year old could kill a pair of jeans in a matter of minutes.  Joey will not be receiving any hand-me-down jeans as his brother killed all of them.

I moved onto Aivlene's room and straightened up her closet.  We have yet to paint her room because we are lazy.  It's decorated but not painted.  Aivlene got it in her head this weekend that she needs a princess bedroom.  A princess bedroom?  She now calls her bedroom, "Leni Tayte's pwincess bedroom".  Okay.  I am down with the princess theme as long as we don't oversaturate the room with cheesy looking princesses, anything animal print and we can leave her Eloise Wilkin prints up. I happen to be very much in love with anything Eloise Wilkin and I am having issues accepting the princess shiz.

Reading Rainbow

Reading is very important to me.  I love to read.  No, I mean I really, really love to read.  I think a perfect day for me would be me, plopped down at the shore in Stone Harbor, New Jersey with a load of books nearby, waves crashing at my feet and a box o' wine on hand.  Nirvana.  Sigh. 

My dreams in life include having every room in my house painted (4 more to go!), a new camera and my kids to read and love it.  Jaden is so my child.  He likes to read.  He learned to read relatively early, I think he started right before he turned five.  It just clicked for him.  He's big on any kind of fact book, space books or Magic Tree House books.  It fills my heart with such happiness to see him read.  Jaden claims to have a photographic memory, as he likes to quote random facts to me at various times during the day.  I will ask how he knows this, and he will tell me he read it and he can see it still in his head.  A little freaky, yes, but warms my heart still.

I am working on Joey.  He's about to start Kindergarten and can't read.  I am not stressing though, because he is so very different than Jaden.  I think that if the kid sat still long enough to listen to me, he would catch on right away.  He is very stubborn though and won't let me explain sounding out words and taking your time.  He's on his way though. 

Aivlene.  She's a baby.  She can't read yet.  She does love the book Pinkalicious though, we read that a lot.  We are looking forward to buying Purplicious soon.  I also would also like for us to add, "Read All About It" by Laura and Jenna Bush because not only do I love to read, I like Republicans.

I am now reading SuperFudge to the kids.  My first grade teacher read it to my class and I fell in love with all things Judy Blume within three pages of it.  Jaden and Joey are in love with SuperFudge now.  They lay on my bed while I read to them and crack up over the adventures of Fudge and Peter.  They had to do renditions of "Anita's Anger" for me and Joey likes to say, "Bonjour Stupid!" to his friends.  I can't even get mad at that one, because dude, it's Judy Blume!  We have five more pages of SuperFudge and then we are on to Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.

I had the bright idea to download, Ramona Quimby, Age 8 last year.   My  I-Pod had a brain fart and then I got a new computer and I thought I had lost it.  I finally fixed my I-Pod and I found my Ramona story.  I had the bright idea of putting it on in the car the other day.  Joey was riveted.  He kept asking to play it and it saved the day when we drove an hour to get to a friends house.  I used to love Beverly Cleary, so I was quite pleased by this.  It also made for a semi-quiet car ride until we finished the story and we had to stop for fireworks, that's when all hell broke loose.

I hope to be a reading family for life.  It would be awesome if I could have an unlimited gift card to Barnes and Noble.  I'd even tattoo Barnes and Noble on my forehead or something.  It would also be awesome for my family to spend two weeks in Stone Harbor, New Jersey.  I  could use my unlimited Barnes and Noble gift card to read on the beach.  Imagine, me and my kids on the beach reading all day.  Could life get any better? 

Brought to you by a woman without a soul

I am pretty sure that summer vacation is sucking the soul out of me.  I am also pretty sure that I have already mentioned that same phrase on this very blog 7659 times before, but it is. It is the very reason I have not been writing as much lately.  My soul has been sucked out of me and it has left a bitter, crusty Corrie in it's place.  I then have to go to work and deal with a bunch of interns who are like, 10 and like to remind me on a daily basis that they were and I quote, "Like 6 when Vanilla Ice was popular and maybe 8 when Loser by Beck was awesome!".  I then smack the shit out of them with whatever is nearby, that's what you get when you make a person without a soul cry.

My soul is missing, but I did manage to potty train Aivlene*.   I have been attempting this for awhile, but I never really stuck to it.  I showed her the potty, but she was scared of it.  She didn't like panties, she liked diapers.  She also had a freakish addiction to wear pants with dresses and skirts, which drove me crazy.  I just kind of went with it.  She then decided that she wanted to be potty trained, but I went back to work so that kind of messed us up.  The last couple of weeks though, we buckled down and it finally stuck.  She's a rock star.  She has only had a couple of accidents and is staying dry through naps and at night.  Potty training was my single most dreaded duty as a parent, but with all three kids, it was very simple, minus the time Joey refused to poop in the potty and finally pooped in a Pull-Up and claimed that he had given birth to twins.

We are also in the process of painting our upstairs hallway and the walls leading upstairs, which sucks because it is super high.  I am so happy to get rid of the contractor's white paint that I might do a little jig.  I am scared because tomorrow Jon is going to attempt to paint the highest part of the wall, which he cannot reach, there are rumors of ladders and buckets and balancing things. I am scared. 

*I have decided to use my kid's real names.  If you stalk me, remember I have had my soul sucked out and I may have to kill you.

All better

It's amazing how kids bounce back after an accident.  Baby A hurt herself on a trampoline Friday night, had full on drama all night Friday and Saturday, complete with her taking after her mother and self-diagnosing herself with a "browken arwm".  She has forgotten all about the arm and wanted to jump on the trampoline tonight and Jon and I were all, "Hells No!  Do you not remember this weekend?". 

I gave up on the ER Friday night once I saw some guy dripping blood and a Baby Mama having herself some drama on her cell phone very loudly.  My daughter was in pain, but it was 11 o'clock at night and the nurses did not seem to care.  I took her home, which led to her falling asleep for 45 minutes and then all hell breaking loose.  She screamed and cried until two in the morning.  I cried and screamed too, I felt so bad for her.  I actually got re-dressed and ready to take her to another ER, one that was not as ghetto, but decided against it.

We woke up bright and early and Little J and I took her to a Med-Express.  She had X-Rays, but they could not find anything wrong.  They gave us a sling and wished us look.  She was so pitiful, with her gimp arm all gimpy and she would try to smack Little J and her gimp arm all limp.  She would also whimper, "Oh my arwm, it browken.".  She finally felt better on Sunday and by Monday, she announced that she wasn't broken anymore.

I find it suspicious however, that if I ask her to do something that her arm is all of the sudden sore again.  Thank you though, for thinking of her.  She's quite the Drama Queen.

I am going to make a fort out of blankets and pillows and hide in it

I am in the process of potty-training Baby A.  It's going well, thanks for asking.  I took this approach, show her a potty with Dora the Crackhead Explorer on it, buy her panties and then let her mess around with the panties and potty for about six months.  She wasn't stressed out and I wasn't stressed out.  It is a win-win situation. 

It's been six months.  She knows when she has to do her business.  She knows all about the potty.  She was all about the potty during the Bible School show that featured Big J and his jazz hands.  Choose Jesus!  It was a catchy tune, but I had to run Baby A to the potty.  Ergggh.  We hit a road block when she gets scared, she pees.  Baby A road a roller coaster at a couple of nights ago, she had just visited the potty and then she rode the coaster.  You know that made her pee.  She is also scared of thunder and lightning, because that made her pee too.

Poor Baby A her day is getting worse as she has apparently either dislocated her elbow (time #3, I am an AWESOME mom!) or broke her wrist.   I was at work and she fell on a trampoline, I happened to call home to check on the kids and Jon told me the story.  I had an hour and a half left at work.  I figured if I got home and she was asleep she was okay, but if she was awake and screaming she wasn't.

She was screaming when I walked into the door.  I abandoned all hope of eating and checked on the baby.  She was holding her wrist, so I just picked her up and announced I was taking her to the ER.  She would cry if she moved or looked at it. 

The ER had a 4 hour wait.  FOUR HOURS.  Baby A could not get comfortable at all and every time she moved she cried.  I brought her home, gave her some Motrin and now she's resting in my bed.  I am taking her to Urgent Care first thing in the morning.

The dog ate poop out of Baby A's  potty this morning, I have had a kid with pee-pee pants today, both boys needed to use the bathroom while at the grocery store, I had to work, I haven't been able to sleep at night and I watched a movie about Celine Dion last night, my baby is hurt and I am tired.  I think I need a vacation!

Gone baby, GONE!

The non-symmetrical pool is gone y'all.  Gone.  I think it gave my kid Swimmer's Ear, which made me drag three kids to the pediatrician and then to the pharmacy to get his meds, which then made me threaten co-workers to, "You see the circus I travel with, just get me the meds fast or I will cut you!", which then gave me a new-found street cred at work.  The pool also left a perfectly symmetrical circle of dead grass in my backyard.  How can a non-symmetrical pool leave perfect circle in my backyard?  Karma is messing with me.  I am now geeked up about the ring of dead grass in my backyard and if we don't fix that shit soon I am going to hide in my closet with tin-foil on my head and talk about crop circles.

Today was the first day of Vacation Bible School for all but one of my kids, as the baby is only two and is way too young to sing song about Jesus.  Little J was so pumped for Bible School that he proclaimed that he had, "birdies in his belly!" on the way to the shindig.  I was so pumped just to get rid of two out of the three kids that I may have peed my pants.  I also may go straight to hell, as a naughty word slipped out of my mouth in church.  It was crowed and chaotic though, so maybe I'll get a reprieve.  Who knows, all I know is that they are going back tomorrow and I may hit up every bible school in town for the rest of the summer.