I Used to Dream My Teeth Were Falling Out

I mean like all the time.  It was particularly horrifying.  I'd notice they were lose feeling and then when I'd reach up to check them they'd fall out in my hand.  I'd instantly taste that metallic flavor of blood in my mouth and my stomach with get tight in knots.  Then I'd run around frantically looking for a cup of milk to put them in.  I think I saw a public service announcement cartoon with a dinosaur who put a tooth in a cup of milk after it got knocked out in a soccer game.  Did I make this up?  I don't know, but this is what I do in my dream.  Look for milk and try and figure out where I can find a dentist.  I've read up on dreams before and I guess teeth falling out is a classic anxiety dream.  Seeing as I'm a classic anxiety person it isn't really shocking that even my dreams are haunted but I've always thought it was weird that this was my go to dream.  I wonder if it has anything to do with how horrifying I found losing teeth to be as a child.  I was not one of those kids who would pull teeth early.  Shoot I wasn't even one of those kids who would let my parents pull my teeth.  I wouldn't even wiggle a tooth.  Instead I'd just let it sit in my mouth, slowly getting a little lose each day, but also slowly healing a little bit as well, so there were be horrible weeks where part of my tooth had come completely off and the gum underneath had healed but the tooth hadn't come out so whenever I'd bite down on that side, pointy horribly sharp ends of the underside of my tooth would poke into my gums.  Really it was a mess.

Last night I had a different kind of anxiety dream.  I dreamed I was at my aunt Naomi's wedding talking on a bench with my grandmother.  I decided to go in to the party and when  looked down I realized I was completely topless.  So here I am in my dream frantically running around looking for a shirt.  I woke up in sort of a panic and realized I had a baby curled up besides me and I was sort of topless.  Was this the origins of my dream, my subconscious self was aware of the fact that my physical self was nursing and decided to add that detail to my dream?  But then there was my grandma and the benches, and the whole thing brought me back to last week when I was hanging out in the locker room at the gym waiting for my friend Melanie to finish blowing drying her hair.   While we were chatting a group of great grandmas strode in the room in varying degrees of undress after finishing their water zumba class.  One came over to me and started looking over my shoulder at some pictures of Peach I was checking out.  Then she got into her locker and grabbed her phone.  She turned back to me and started shoving her phone in my face showing my pictures of her grand kids and great grands.  Boobs were flying, very, very, very close to my face.  I tried desperately to not look to my right while my friend Melanie laughed it up watching my discomfort from the safety of the mirror ten feet away.  Good times at the gym!

Young Matt Damon...I Figured Out Why I Love You :)

So I have a major Matt Damon crush, undeniable, over the top.  I like to tease my husband there is only one man on the planet I would ever leave him for and that man is Matt Damon. Three or four years ago Matt Damon came to a film festival we had in town.  It took pretty much all the self control I have to not stalk the man.  Celebrity crush, embarrassing, I KNOW!  A couple of nights ago while Dr. J was reading I started watching Good Will Hunting, which was the first movie I ever saw Matt Damon in.  I hadn't seen the movie in years, in fact the last time I watched it, I only half watched because I was distracted by snuggling with my new boyfriend, Dr. J, a detail that might seem totally irrelevant except this time I realized as I was watching that young Matt Damon looks a heck of a lot like young Dr. J.  Below I present a few examples for your viewing pleasure.  (Don't worry Dr. J, though it pained me to do so I left the topless pictures out :)  It gave me a good laugh and it made me realize probably my love for Matt Damon has a lot less to do with his abilities as an actor and a whole lot more to do with the fact that he reminds me of my husband, a man I've been crazy over the top in love/lust with for the last eleven years.  Today is the anniversary of the first time Dr. J and I ever kissed.  It was his birthday and when he asked me if he was going to get a birthday kiss, I laid one on him that pretty much sealed the deal for both of us.  He likes to tease me he was only asking for a birthday peck but I say if you're going to do something, do it right!  Plus who gives birthday pecks?  Pecks are for friends or sometimes just brief acquaintances from foreign countries, grandpas with scratchy cheeks, grandmas with soft squish cheeks, and babies.  Pecks are not for hot boys who make your chest burn with a smile, your heart rate jump at a glance, and who even eleven years later can make your cheeks burn with a phrase.  I don't know when I knew I wanted him to be mine, maybe the first time we ever talked, but I knew pretty early on, and sometimes you only get one shot at these things, so when he asked for a kiss I wanted to give him one that let him know that casual flirtation on the way to class wasn't all I was interested in :)  I love you Doctor J.  Happy Birthday.  You are the best gift I ever received in my whole life.  I hope I have been the same for you.  As for young Matt Damon, you are still my favorite movie star.  

One Thing In My Life Is Utterly Exhausting...

That thing is cleaning.  It isn't just the physical act, there is this whole mental and emotional demoralization going on.  Cleaning is constantly necessary, and is the one thing I can never get a complete handle on.  The house is constantly in a state of decay, and I feel like I'm just barely holding back the tide.  When I make dinner, I am creating a mess that will need to be cleaned.  While my kids are eating they are dropping little bits here and there that will need to be picked up.  While I'm washing my clothes there are six people wearing outfits that will need to be washed.  That's almost a full load of laundry there.  When my daughter is looking for a "lost" shoe, she is throwing four pairs onto the floor.  While I'm putting groceries away the kids are dumping crackers on the floor.  While I'm reading to the kids, the baby is pulling all the books on the shelf.  And even if the whole house is picked up (which is never) somewhere in a corner somewhere a child is pulling socks off and shoving them into a toy bin.  The kids actually are amazingly helpful.  They will pick up toys.  They love to vacuum, dust, and clean windows.  They will reluctantly clean toilets, and for the most part they remember to clear the table after themselves.  Their hearts are definitely in the right spot, but they are children, and their hands are often up mischief, and their mere existence is slightly messy.  Don't believe me, you should see what they do with hand soap, or for that matter the state of the bathroom after they bathe themselves :)  So for now I'm just tired, and when I'm not tired from doing the cleaning, I'm tired from thinking about it.  Getting up to get started is usually the biggest part of my battle. Here are some cleaning tidbits from today:

 

Gigi covered the floor with five slices of bread broken up into tidbits so that Cheetah could get a "snack" when she wanted one, because nothing says delicious like bread crumbs laced with dirt and toothpicks :)

I constantly have a collection of clothes at the foot of my stairs that I find and throw there throughout the day as my children strip off pieces of clothing and leave them where they fell.  Socks are the worst.  I find them hidden in the toy box, stuffed in shoes, under the couch, behind the TV, in kitchen cabinets, under the table, behind the garbage can in the bathroom, in the backyard.  Captain E will say, "Mom I don't have any clean socks."  "How is this possible," I'll ask, "You have 36 pairs?"  Well I'll tell you how it is possible, they are all hiding in various corners of my house!

I guess I could just give up on cleaning all together but that makes me tired to think about as well.  So I guess I'll just keep slogging through, so I'd better cut this short, because last time I checked I still had a pile of dishes that needed washing!

Chocolate After School

There are some things about being the parent that are lame: Paying bills, folding endless stacks of laundry, fighting with kids about homework, and cleaning up bodily fluids, there is just nothing enjoyable about wiping buns or washing throw up off carpet.  There are other things about being the parent that are marvelous: teaching a child to read, the feel of a sleeping baby on your chest, baby milk breath, when your kids spontaneously tell you that they love you, hearing them sing in their little voices, watching them open a present or get a surprise, bedtime :).  Another great thing about being a parent is you get to chose to eat whatever you like and force it on the rest of the family, and you also get to choose to eat it whenever you want.  If I want stuffed mushrooms at dinner, we are eating stuffed mushrooms.  If I want oatmeal for lunch, it will be oatmeal for lunch.  Sure sometimes they try to complain but what mom says when it comes to food it what goes.  If you don't like it, feel free to be hungry.  Today when the kids got home from school I was making tuxedo strawberries for Young Woman In Excellence.  I finished up the job and still had a bowl full of chocolate, and so I said to the kids, "Bring me stuff from the cabinet you want chocolate on."  So they ended up with chocolate covered pretzels, graham crackers, marshmallows, bananas, and oranges, and I got to sit around and eat chocolate out of a bowl while they danced around in glee.  This is one of the perks of being the mom, if I say we can have chocolate for our after school snack then no one is going to stop me, and chocolate is what we shall have!

Christmas as a Parent

I was sitting with two friends today and we were talking about what "Santa" or in our case "mom and dad" (yes I'm married to one of those I don't want to teach my kids about Santa people, well guess what they just made up their own mythology about the whole thing) was bringing to the kids.  So the moms still had some things they were unsure of but for the most part we were all fairly confident in our choices for our children.  When the conversation turned to spouses I found that everyone kind of had their own way of doing things.  My friend Andrea and her husband make a list of things they needed.  Then they pick something off the list, wrapped it up, and put it under the tree.  This year both of their items happen to be kitchen items that the whole family will enjoy.  My friend Erin and her husband get money from their parents and then just use it to buy stuff for themselves that they want and call it good.  She was wearing a really cute pair of jeans and sweater that she got herself for "Christmas".  She also had a new pair of running shoes she planned to wrap up and put under the tree.  Her husband Matt would be buying himself gifts after he decided what he wanted.  And then there was me.  Yesterday while doing my cyber Monday shopping I bought Dr. J something.  It wasn't big or necessarily so special but it was something he'd mentioned several times wanting.  I know it will be here in a few days but now I'm left with a dilemma.  Do I save it for Christmas or do I give it to him for his birthday?  If I give it to him for his birthday do I get him something else for Christmas?  I've noticed as I've gotten older that Christmas has become much more special but less because of what I get, and I think looking at how my friends and I plan our Christmas shopping for our spouses and ourselves is proof of that.  I'm an adult with my own money and if I need new socks or pajamas or a new toy (my iphone definitely counts as a toy), I usually just buy it for myself.  I don't need Christmas to get those items.  But I do now have the joy of experiencing Christmas through the eyes of my children, and that is far greater then anything I could ever feel on my own.  We'll both have some Christmas money and maybe I'll use mine to get a new pair of running shoes, and maybe he'll use his to buy a new pair of pants, but when we sit down Christmas morning to open gifts it will all be about watching the kids.

PS.  On the off chance my husband is reading this, my slippers have a hole in them :)

Sugar Cookies and a Prayer Request

Bridget Palmer I'm starting to hate this challenge.  I think maybe if I'd written a couple of blog post ahead of time I'd probably be happier...but I didn't.  Instead I'm stuck every night scrambling for what I want to talk about.    The truth is people I've really started to lose it when it comes to basic conversational skills.  The majority of my day is spent talking in high pitched mommy voice, with some interruptions of yelling "GET THAT CUSHION OFF YOU SISTER NOW!". Then when I do get around normal people (aka, people who are not three) I just start blurting out all kinds of tidbits, like I'm never going to have the opportunity to speak again.  Then I come home and think, "Why the heck did I share that, it didn't even pertain to the conversation being had.  People must think I'm nuts."  So excuse me, but I guess this blog post, and frankly the whole blog sort of resemble my true voice.  Watch out I don't start yelling about wearing socks outside.  Some random things I want to talk about.

Captain E's report card.  He came home with his second term report card.  Straight A's except one subject. Spelling.  My son is getting an F in spelling.  Now frankly we are sort of at a loss on what to do with this subject.  It isn't to say I don't see the value in spelling, but he is putting more time into studying this subject then any other and we are just not seeing any progress.  His teacher has tried several different things on how she is testing him but nothing has seen improvements yet.  I want the school to test him to see if has some type of learning struggle that is yet diagnosed but they seem resistant, maybe because he is doing so well in everything else.  I'm proud of the rest of his grades.  He works hard and is a sharp little thing.  He just can't spell.  Bring on spell check and laptops is all I have to say!

I yelled at Peach today.  Got right up in her face and was just mean.  It made me really sad, even while I was doing it, but I was also so frustrated about the fact that she insist on me putting her on the potty and if I can't for some reason, like maybe I'm nursing a baby or going to the bathroom or eating or whatever, then she'll just go stand in the bathroom and pee her pants.  It drives me crazy!  So I yelled at her.  And it made my head hurt and I felt like a horrible person, because for the most part today I'd kept my cool with her and her crazy, stubborn three year old ways.  But then I lost it on her.  So I put myself in a timeout but I still felt like crap, but then I was also still mad.  I'm always a little bit shocked at how hard this parenting thing is.  I wish I could be laid back, or not evil, or just more patient.  I worry I'm setting my kids up to be like me, not teaching them right.  It is a nerve wracking job being a parent.

I found this sugar cookie recipe in my e-mail again today.  My sister sent it to me years ago and it is by far the best sugar cookies I've ever had.  I actually like these and I hate sugar cookies, so that is saying a lot.  With Christmas just around the corner a good sugar cookie recipe is a must have.

2 C. Sugar
4 Cubes margarine or butter
6 eggs
4 tsp. vanilla
7 C. Flour
6 tsp. baking powder

Cream sugar, margarine and eggs.   Add vanilla.  Sift flour and baking powder together and add to creamed mixture.  Makes a sticky dough.  Roll out 1/4 in thick in lots of flour.  Cut out and place on cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 for 4-6 minutes.  Bake on 2nd shelf.  If cookies are brown on they bottom they are overdone.

Finally and most importantly prayers for my Mops friend Cari and her family.  Her husband went in for surgery today to remove a returning brain tumor.  The prognosis is not good.  She is an amazing woman with an amazing story.  You can read more about her on her blog www.andyandcari.blogspot.com.  I get really frustrated with life sometimes.  I get overwhelmed and wrapped up in the piles on every surface, on the laundry that doesn't get done, on the husband who is late home from work, or the children who are stubborn.  Sometimes it can be easy to forget how sweet life is, what a blessing each moment with our loves ones really is.  Cari's young family has had some crazy struggles and her positive attitude and faith are an inspiration to me.  If you have a moment please say a prayer for her and her family.

"Do You Remember When The Whole Family Took a Bath Together?"

Captain E asked Gigi at the table today.  "No" she said, "When was that?"  "Um, that never happened," I piped in, "We are a family of six, how would we all fit in a tub together?"  It wasn't when we had all the kids." He says, "It was back when we were just me, you, Gigi, and dad."  "That never happened," I told him.  But the thing is my face was getting a little red because actually I did have this nagging little memory of sitting in a bath tub with all four of us, Captain E would have been about three, Gigi would have been a few months old.  In fact the more I pull at the thread of this memory, the more starts to percolate into my mind, and I can actually see the ordering in which we were in the tub.  "No!" I say more firmly, shaking my head for emphasis and to force the memory out, "That did not happen.  Even if there were just four of us, how could four people fit into a tub?"  "Well," he says, giving me a once over with his eyes, "We all use to be a lot smaller."