surprise!

one last post for 2005...

rob has received some news from his detailer. he won't be going to iraq! yay! rob doesn't have official orders yet though, and he won't fully relax until he does have them in hand. (although even then, orders can be 'modified' without much notice.) according to the detailer, rob will be attending XO training in either april or july. the guy mentioned january, but i don't think they can get things together THAT fast. (january's and july's will be held in pearl harbor, april's session will be held locally in CT.)

the person who is replacing him is from the local base. rob's going to be in contact with him over the next few days. rob feels horribly guilty about this. i do too. i hope this guy's family can handle it.

so anyway, we've returned from iowa. we all survived and enjoyed a merry xmas. wasn't as merry as it should have been. a practical 'joke' on my mom at our xmas eve family gathering was more hurtful than funny. actually, considering it was all family attending, it was pretty damn discouraging. i still can't believe someone did that to her. it really makes me consider not coming back for next year. we've invited my parents to CT for next xmas...it would be nice to have them here and not have to travel. our poor xmas tree has never actually had presents under it. poor guy.

we had a decent xmas. spent too much $$$ and received a lot of stuff that i have no clue where to put it all. the kids have just way too much stuff. we could have gotten rid of all of their toys and just let them play with their xmas presents and they would be completely oblivious that they were even missing anything. i think i'll be cleaning out the toys soon. most of them are on our main floor, since that's where the kids spend the most time. i hate having toys in their rooms b/c then i find them playing with toys when they should be sleeping.

here's the big news: i finally got invited over to my brother's new house. they've been in it just over 8 months and it took 2 visits to iowa before i received an invitation. pooh on them. :/ and actually, if rob hadn't fixed their computer for them, i doubt we would have been invited.

it's a cute house...cozy. but you could really tell they're not very clean people. ugh. messy is ok. clean is not. and sharon (sis in law) had 5 candles burning and a febreeze scentstories thing going in her 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom house...maybe 1200 feet total. i'm wondering if she just really likes a smelly house or if she's just trying to cover up some totally horrible stench.

we did get to visit their dog, who has become an angel since i last saw him. his name is bear (he's a black lab mix, but looks 100% lab) and he visited about 6 months with my parents out in the country. sharon's sister was unable to care for him due to some reason and mom & dad had 4 acres going to waste...he was tied up with no kids around and not a lot of attention given to him. i never went near him when we visited b/c he was so wild i knew he would just knock the kids over if we got too close.

but now he's an inside dog with chris & sharon (in their tiny, candleful house) and he is the best behaved dog i've ever seen. he was so good around the kids. i can only hope that our dog-to-be is 1/2 that good.

time to go to sleep. how did i stay up this long?

does your husband do it right?

this will probably be my last post for the year.

we're heading 'over the river & thru the woods' to iowa. we plan on leaving monday night and arriving there wednesday afternoon. the plan is to drive all monday night while the kids sleep and keep driving til around 4 in the afternoon tuesday. then get a hotel for the night in indiana or western ohio and get the kids some exercise and a good night's sleep. then on the road again on wednesday morning and in grandma & grandpa's driveway before dark. hope the kids decide to cooperate with the plan. if not, we have lots of dvds to play. i think i counted 13...enough to play nonstop the whole way.

presents are all bought and mostly wrapped. hope they get to iowa in good enough condition to put under the tree. we have the mini van and the car top carrier. rob is insistent on leaving the rear seat up so that whoever isn't driving can sleep. personally i think we're really going to need the space. i also think it would have taken less space to just wrap our gifts in iowa. but they're wrapped now, so we'll have to make do.

tomorrow i have to:
--do ass tons of laundry, the kids have to wear some decent clothes
--pack
--do more laundry
--check on rob's packing of the car b/c he just doesn't do it right (everything that i might need to have handy while the car is in motion gets put in back. all of his stuff gets a lovely place on top and all of our stuff is on the bottom getting smushed.)

speaking of laundry...i bought cade some flannel shirts that i'm thinking about letting him wear for xmas eve. on that night we have a soup supper with my mom's side of the family and we exchange presents. it's totally out of control & i love it. kids running everywhere, sneaking food off the table, old farts bitching about the kids running everywhere...you know how family get-togethers are. this side of the family are pretty much rednecks. they live for 'coon-hunting', in fact my uncle raises coon dogs. the hot gift last year at the exchange was the million candlelight hand-held spotlight. ??? rob got one and he didn't know what the hell to do with that. who knew you could get one at walmart for under $10. so anyway, cade will fit right in with his new short hair and his flannel shirt.

i really hope rob & i survive this trip. just down the road to petco today i wanted to murder him. i get so flippin' tired of the damn coffee cup he has to carry everywhere he goes. he's a coffeeaholic who wants frequent kisses but hasn't figured out why i go for a peck on the cheek. this coffee cup has a flip top that he never flips shut. the cup doesn't fit in the cupholder very well (it's too narrow at the bottom) but he refuses to flip it shut. i've told him IN VERY PLAIN TERMS that if he spills coffee in our new van that i will hurt him. the best is when i ask him to help out by carrying something to the car and he looks at his hands...his right one has the car keys and the left one has that damn coffee cup. then he looks at me like i'm asking him to donate his last kidney and says, *sigh* 'hang on, let me' maneuvers both items into one hand, 'try and get a free hand.' UGH. i can carry 1 kid, a purse, my keys, sunglasses, a sippy cup, hat for the youngest, and my list. with my gloves ON. i wish sometimes that men would just try. just try to put themselves in someone else's seat and realize that they could help out more. honestly, can they help out less? physically impossible, in rob's case.

and now, i must go to bed. i need to have energy so i can do my mountains of laundry in the morning. rob volunteered to help and i just laughed. laundry is another thing he just doesn't do right. (things are matched by color but not by texture. he'd throw towels in with the kids gentle stuff if they are close enough in color...funny, that's how they do laundry on the sub.)

good night.
merry christmas.

oh and we still don't have a definite answer yet on the whole iraq thing.

there's still hope

rob had some news when he got home today.

the detailer had finally gotten in touch with him around 3pm today. what he's hoping to do is to issue rob orders to go to XO training (executive officer training, 2nd in command to you civilians). if those orders have a report date of april '06, then rob's name will be removed from the pot of many selections. (he had 18 months of shore duty remaining, that's a lot of time to send someone to iraq to fill a spot.) with only 4 months until reporting to XO training, there's not a lot they can do to screw you over.

the detailer is working really hard to get rob's name off this assignment.

rob has actually screened for xo. there's lots of lieutenant commanders that have screened for xo but they're on reserve, only to go to XO training if absolutely needed. i can't remember the phrase for them...hmmm. so the detailer is thinking to send one of those guys instead of a guy who fully screened. hope that makes sense. my emotions have been up, down & all around today.

after i got the news, i cried a bit. i think i was in shock, a lot of the day is kind of a blur. took reese to school...90 minutes late. wish they would publish a policy about how preschool students should handle late-start scheduling BEFORE they actually have to have a late start. arg. but reese got to play with her friends and didn't even realize she was only there for an hour. thank god! i couldn't have handled carrying her AND cade out to the car kicking & screaming.

rob and i have talked and if he does get sent to a sub out of pearl harbor or guam, i would stay in the 48 states and he would go on alone. i have absoluetly no desire to visit guam, let alone live there (aren't there some frickin' huge bugs there?) and living on an island like hawaii makes me feel claustrophobic. there's no where to go! except around this island or that island. i'm not much of a beach person anyway. i'd just age really fast, freckley skin doesn't stay pretty in the tropics.

an xo tour is 22 months (give or take). if rob does get sent to an island, i would probably sell this house in CT and rent a house in iowa, close to my parents. i would like to let my kids get to know my family more. as it is, reese remembers uncle chris & aunt sharon but they really only spend an afternoon or 2 when we visit. and i would like to be around to help out my parents more. who am i kidding, they'd probably end up helping me out. now that i think about it, i could use some support, dammit.

a teeny part of me hopes he does get hawaii. it would be neat to fly out once in a while to see him and that means he'd be doing pacific ocean tours...port calls in singapore, austrailia (!!). i asked rob about tahiti and he just laughed.

i really do think this is going to turn out ok. rob will end his shore duty early but to avoid iraq, i think it might be worth it.

thanks for all your prayers & thoughts :)

the decision is...

this morning rob received orders to go to iraq.

i can't believe my husband, a submariner, is supposed to go to the desert for a year.

there's still a chance the detailer could turn this around. rob has been playing phone tag with him, but i'm not sure the detailer has enough authority to change this.

his departure date is jan 22nd 2006. return date is july 22nd 2007.

still in denial.

still waiting...

still waiting for the decision on whether my husband will be gone for 18 months. his name has made it past the 2nd round of cuts. there's only 3 rounds so i'm kind of starting to get worried.

rob's already worried. he's been researching everything he can find about conditions over there in iraq and filling me in on it all. in fact, he's been talking about it too much b/c i'm getting tired of the worrying. i'd rather try & push it out of my mind and have a nice holiday, since it might be the last one we'll have as a family for a bit. (and yes, i'm in DENIAL.)

i'm trying to figure out wth i would do with the kids everyday. i mean, reese & cade look forward to his arrival home from work and right after he gets home, we eat dinner. then he and the kids pal around a bit and then it's bathtime. it's just nice to shift the kids' focus to someone else...and say, 'take the kids downstairs with you. i need some quiet.'

however, we did get a positive feeling today. rob was talking with his boss, who had spoken with rob's detailer (the guy who decides what job rob will be assigned to next), and the detailer had no clue that his name had been put in for this job. he (the detailer) said he'd be in contact with rob very soon and then when he got home, rob had an email waiting for him from the detailer. however, he was gone for the day so it will have to wait til tomorrow.

like i said in a previous post, i know that if my husband doesn't go, then someone else's husband will have to go. and maybe that other family is a lot worse off than we are, so it's not fair for me to wish for someone else to do it. i guess i'm just hoping i don't have to do it...it's not only hard doing the job over there, but the waiting at home is tough. waiting for any news at all about your husband's whereabouts, his safety, waiting to hear the worst. and if he was selected for this job, then i would not have a lot of support from the local naval base. rob wouldn't be 'with' a unit or a boat, so i would not have any support from a wive's group or an ombudsman.

anyway, on that happy note, i'm going to bed. i hear the freezing rain/sleet hitting the windows...hope reese has school tomorrow!

just a lot of yadda yadda yadda

i'm mentally preparing our xmas letter that goes in our xmas cards. it might or might not this year. i seem to have bought little xmas cards and i don't think a folded 8x11 piece of paper will fit. so i'm thinking about returning the xmas cards. however, i'm not sure i still have the receipt. hmmmm. i haven't even opened them, i bought them right after halloween and they're still in the target sack. the only thing i've done toward getting cards in the mail is making a list of recipients. i should stop by the post office on my way to return the cards.

the kids are entertaining themselves by throwing their teeny bodies upon the sofa cushions on the floor. they've been doing this for 1/2 an hour, i would think it would get old after awhile. but they're still laughing.

we're adopting a dog! yay! we're going through labs4rescue.com and we'll be adopting a black lab mix named mickey. (we'll be changing his name when we decide on one.) he's adorable but he's only 25 lbs. he's the size of a terrier! but he acts and looks exactly like a lab. i think he'll be perfect for us, i was worried how a huge lab would work in our home...but i still wanted a lab b/c they're wonderful around children. mickey is housetrained (almost wrote pottytrained there! :)) and cratetrained. we met him on saturday at the foster family's. it was a nice drive on a beautiful day and we had pizza at the local pizza place in middlefield (which is near middletown, go figure). then i got to go shopping that afternoon BY MYSELF so it was a good day.

i'm afraid i need some of your prayers (or good thoughts, if you don't believe in that sort of thing...i'm not sure i do some days). rob's name has been submitted to go to iraq for 18 months. there's 2 rounds of selections and he's past the first round. if he went, he'd be working 'civic affairs' for the army. rob explained it like this: "if the army screws up and bombs the wrong village, we go in and give them a lot of goats and cows to make up for it." hmmmm. not exactly what a submarine officer would be trained for. i'm assuming they'd give him some training and he said that they would issue a 9mm to him that he would probably be carrying/sleeping with 24/7. sigh.

i know the job has to be filled and whoever goes will probably be someone's husband, someone's father. but i really don't want my husband to do this. i feel like he's pretty safe on submarines, even if he is 600+ feet under the water, next to tomahawk missles and cozied up to a nuclear reactor.

so i don't know if i'm asking for prayers that he doesn't go or prayers that he'll be safe and i'll be a strong wife while he's gone or what. we should find out before xmas; he'd have to leave in january. and wouldn't be back til july 2007. oh, did i mention he would probably not get leave time at all in there? sigh.

ha. cade just got slapped on the side of the head by the cat. no blood. although that reminds me that i need to cut the cat's claws. :b

off to go look for that receipt.

funny how blogging gets pushed to the side.

it's been um...17 days since i last posted? if my mommy mind can count i think that's right...

what have i been busy doing???

1. i cooked the hell out of a turkey on thanksgiving. i was so impressed. however, when i look at this picture i have to think of the old gag...'which one is the turkey?' ha.

2. we bought a car! wow! well, not a car. we're now proud owners of a 2006 honda odyssey. we picked it up a week ago yesterday and we still only have 200 miles on it. i think 150 of that is runs to walmart. (and yes i'm going back again tomorrow...rob bought granola bars today that expired in july '05...i'm surprised he didn't have to wipe the dust off the box to see what he was buying.) we have a moonroof, leather seats, power side doors and a dvd player. to tell the truth all i wanted was the basic one with cloth seats but i started thinking about those long trips to iowa to see grandma & grandpa. so we went with the leather package. i was impressed with the dealership (not the salesperson, just the dealership). they gave us full price for our trade in. lesson learned: get the used vehicle appraised at night. i doubt they saw the windshield pits, the rusty spots on the hood, how long it had been since it'd been washed or waxed...

3. we're about done with our xmas shopping. actually rob did most of it. i just have to shop for my mom & bro & sister-in-law. i think my mom is about done. now, my bro & sil, i have no clue. this is a sore spot with me. i'd love to get them something for their house (a picture, a mirror, an appliance) but have i ever been invited to where they live? no. they bought a new house this past spring and we were in iowa over the summer but were we invited to see it? no. sil said that she would invite me next time we were out, b/c they had to 'clean.' wtf. it's a herculean effort to get out to iowa to see family and they have a new house and she says 'we'll do it next time?' phhhhhbt. i have a feeling it's a dump. but do they think i'm that rude to have this disgusted look on my face if i were to come over? ugh. like i said...sore spot.

i guess i don't have a 4.

i have lots of plans for the next few weeks though. (here comes another list! i'll use letters though, just for flair.)

a. bake some cookies. i'm thinking about having a get together with some friends. the guys can do poker in the basement and the ladies & kids can do gossip/cookie decorating upstairs. actually i'd like to invite just a friend & her kids to do this. trying it with more than a few kids would be a disaster. and it would probably involve steam cleaning the carpeting.

b. get rid of some of the damn toys around here. i made one trip today to goodwill. not just toys, i guess. rob's tshirts have got to go. his dresser is full and he has 3 of those yabba cubes (or whatever the hell they are that college kids use as bookshelves) full of them. i guess they multiply as we're sleeping??? if rob was on deployment they would have been gone right after he left, they've been bugging me that much.

c. do some sewing. i've kind of come to a dead halt on it. i think it's b/c it's hard for me to sew with the kids around and reese has been very attached to me lately. (mom, i'm going to help you; mom, i can do it all by myself [and she grabs what i have in my hands]; mom, play with me; mom, dance with me; mom, you be frosty and i'll be karen...i'm about to lock myself in a closet and force her to do something INDEPENDENT.) i have reese's jumper that i don't think it going to turn out very well, another vest for her (our family LOVES fleece), and i want to make a table runner for my table but i have no clue even wehre to start on that. (i bought the fabric last year...shhhh...)

d. have the neighbor and her son over for a playdate. or cookie decorating. :p
i would have done it before now but we're finally getting healthy after some stubborn colds. i don't think she'd care about a little extra snot, but i'd feel bad if i got her kids sick.

i think that's it for now. oh, wait. CHRISTMAS CARDS. isn't that a huge undertaking these days? the toughest part is the damn photo of the kids. i should do one of the family but i just look way too fat in photos these days and i guess i'm in denial that i'm really THAT fat. so i just do pics of the kids. :) let the relatives get one hell of surprise on xmas eve when they see me waddling in. ha! anyway, there's the photo, the xmas letter, the card itself, the addressing, the stamps, and the seal. quite a costly effort. the photo i'll do at home & just print off on our computer. i could do it at the kodak machine though. those might look a bit better. i really don't want to do a letter. the kids have been busy but what have i been doing? checking message boards obsessively? blogging occasionally? keeping up on the amazing race and america's next top model, thanks to tivo? cleaning the toilets? changing the most rotten diapers a child could ever produce? i can brag up & down about my kids & husband but when it comes to me, there's not much to say.

sigh.

on that note i'm heading to bed. maybe i'll think of something braggy to say about myself in our letter...

the bobeara...from a-z

i got this from mrs. fun. she's a wonderful, smart woman who's lots of fun. just like her name says. :) however, i didn't ask her to 'borrow' it so i'm not going to link you up. if she'd like to be linked, i'm sure she'll let us know.

A is for Age - 29
B is for Booze - not much, just a beer here & there
C is for Career - raising the kids at home
D is for Dad’s name - Joe
E is for Essential items to bring to a party - doritos
F is for Favorite songs at the moment - 'per te' by josh groban
G is for Goof off thing to do - surf tv channels, read blogs/boards
H is for Hometown - monroe iowa
I is for Instrument you play - clarinet, saxophone, right hand piano :b
J is for Jam or Jelly you like - not really a jelly fan
K is for Kids - 1 girl (3.5), 1 boy (16 months)
L is for Living arrangement - 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house...god i wish i had a garage...
M is for Mom’s name - linda
N is for Names of best friends - dawn, michelle
O is for overnight hospital stays - tonsilectomy age 6, 2 nights with daughter, 1 night with son
P is for Phobias - bridges over water, high bridges (like I-80 through PA...eek!)
Q is for Quote you like - 'don't walk in front of me, i may not follow, don't walk behind me i may not lead; just walk in front of me & be my friend.' i remember that from my grandma's fridge magnet.
R is for Relationship that lasted longest - debbie, 14 years
S is for Siblings - 1 older brother
T is for Texas , Ever been?- san antonio on a band trip
U is for Unique trait - i have freckles. not that unique, but it's mine
V if for Vegetable you love - tomatoes (are those a fruit though? thery're in the veggie section at the store...)
W is for Worst traits - not following through on things/procrastination
X is for XRays you’ve had - teeth, right elbow, right wrist
Y is for Yummy food you make - i'm awesome at chocolate chip cookies
Z is for Zodiac sign - pisces (sp?)

adios house guests!

yay! the house is ours again.

actually it wasn't too bad. i didn't feel as invaded as i had during previous visits, i think my parents did their best to keep their crap in their bedroom.

i'll come back & blog more later. reese has a haircut appt in 40 minutes and we're all still in our jammies!

all tangled up.

i'm back. but just to update all of you who think the sewing classes are going great. :/

wednesday night i was humbled. before then, i thought i was making pretty good progress, doing ok, grasping concepts well, etc. then i went to class and i could NOT get my machine to do anything. all i needed to do was sew a neckband onto the sleeper, but every seam was loopy on the bottom. i spent 2.5 hours ripping out 3 (crappy) attempts. the instructor attempted to sew as well, but got the same result no matter what the thread tension was set at. i was sooooo frustrated.

so then the instructor allows me to use her machine. keep in mind i really don't know ANYTHING about machines (which is why i can't figure out mine) so i tried to load in the bobbin. hers is not a drop in, mine is; i took apart what i thought was necessary to get the bobbin in. then i couldn't figure it out so i took it up to the instructor and just about gave her a heart attack. i had disassembled her entire bobbin assembly and taken it apart so thoroughly that she would have to take her machine to the shop to get it fixed. i felt like complete shit. :( not only had i disabled MY machine (somehow?!?!) but i had broken hers too. ugh.

but the instructor sat down and tried to put it together and after about 10 minutes she got it. big frickin' sigh of relief from me. i wiped my tears away (yes, i'm almost 30 and i was crying over this!) and she threaded the bobbin for me and i managed to sew ONE seam in 3 hours.

when i got home my mom & i tried to figure out what was wrong. all i can think of is that i wasn't holding onto the threads when i started sewing. (i would make sure they were to the back, but i don't recall holding onto them at all times.) but how could i have done that for practically 3 HOURS?!? and the instructor did the same thing?!?! ugh.

anyway, i sewed a bit today with no problems. the instructor showed us how to put in a zipper and that's my next step so i think i might try & do it with my mom's help (refreshing my memory :)).

i'm kind of down on sewing today. but the instructor did put a positive look on me breaking her machine. she said that in all her years of sewing that she had never had to sit down and try to put her bobbin assembly back together. now if it ever happens again, she knows that she got it once so she can get it again. thanks, teach :)

today my mom made some yummy homemade chix noodle soup. it was sooo good. she even made her own noodles. roasted the chicken (and yes she bought the chicken at the store just like everyone else, no chicken coop in our backyard! :)). made her own broth. at times i wonder if i will ever put that much effort into something i know i can buy for $1.00 a can at the store. but this was just excellent. and i put in my something special too.

i made bread sticks. i was hoping to make decent breadsticks out of a package of pizza crust mix. i mixed up the crust, added extra garlic salt and italian seasonings, spread it out on the cookie sheet, and baked it for 10 minutes (425 degrees). then i slathered on some melted butter on top. i had hoped the crust would rise more but it didn't. so we ended up having something like heavily seasoned crackers. it was pretty good...one of those mistakes that was pretty tasty. and i felt very martha-ish that i had made something so tasty out of just a package of pizza crust mix.

anyway, it's late. the kids will be up early (as always) so i'm off to bed. goodnight, folks :)

my parents have arrived! safely! my mom was pretty stressed after their trip through hartford. apparently she doesn't trust ANYONE in a car. not even the driver of the car that she is in. after almost 38 years of marriage, i guess my dad has learned to live with it. what a guy. :)

anyway, reese was beyond excited to see them. you know how terrier dogs can just bounce and bounce and bounce? well, that was reese when my parents walked through the door. i think i'm going to make her our offical welcoming committee. funny, later during bathtime i was admiring what good muscle tone reese has in her legs. wish she could inspire me, my legs could use some work.

another sewing class coming up tomorrow. hopefully it goes well :) my folks (joe & linda bobeara) are going to be watching the kids for about 1/2 an hour since rob's coming home a bit late tomorrow. so we're ordering pizza for dinner and i bet cade won't even notice i'm gone. reese won't even care. i'm thinking about doing some sewing 'extra credit'...maybe thursday nights too. only on thursday nights, i'll go to borders and grab a good book and a hot drink and read and people watch.

ooooh, i just realized that since i cleaned the tub in our bathroom today, that it's clean enough for an actual bath. woohoo! that is sounding a lot better than folding a huge load of little kid laundry.

see ya!

work to do...

i think i work best under pressure. i know i did in my college days. even in high school, i'd leave things til the last possible moment. i recall doing an autobiography in senior english that i spent the night before actually writing...not just proofing or assembling. writing. i believe it was 10-12 pages long.

then in college, i'd leave papers til the last moment. my roommate would go to bed at 11ish and i'd watch her go to sleep, wishing i could be in my own bed, snoozing away. yet i would stay up til 3 or 4 in the morning, typing and making up shit (now known as MSU in our household...) so that i could just have the paper DONE. i often wonder what my grades would have been if i hadn't procrastinated so often.

however, now i do the same thing. but now it's not for assignments or papers.

my parents are coming to visit us tomorrow. and my house is a pit.

a little background: my m&d live in iowa. we live in connecticut. that's 1200 miles & 2.5 days of driving. they left on sunday to drive here, and i've known that they would leave on that day for 2 weeks. so now they'll be here in about 20 hours and i have mucho work to do. all 3 bathrooms (3 toilets, 3 sinks, 2 tubs, 3 bathroom floors--puke!, and 1 cat box). vacuuming 2 levels. scrubbing kitchen floor. some laundry done so the kids are clean AND cute. some grocery shopping to do so i can put together a meal tomorrow night. oh and add in there that i need to lose 40 lbs. :) i can do that all by 3 or 4 tomorrow afternoon, right? :)

another challenge is that i currently have 3 books in the house that i'm interested in reading. and they seem to show up right where i have the most work to do: the bathroom. (yes, i am a bathroom reader. in fact, i've looked in home depot for a magazine rack for the bathroom. did you know i've STILL never found one there? linens & things has plenty. they should get some sort of award for offering something that's so vital!) so it's sooooo tough to clean up pee drips and scrub the grungies off the bathtub when i'm wondering what's happening to jamie frasier in diana garbaldon's latest. sigh.

and it's not like i get a second alone when the kids are awake. that will be interesting to have to do that much housework while keeping the kids entertained and from pulling out what i just put away. maybe i can lock them in a box for a few hours. (just kidding, of course! i would only do that for 15 minutes, tops.)

maybe i'll just get a good night's rest and work on the house tomorrow. i'm kind of tired from all this procrastinating.

it's october???

another short & sweet update. i have to work fast b/c who knows when the kids will attach themselves to me and demand yet more attention. at times i feel like i have no time for myself. then i realize that i just don't use my time affectively. i get wrapped up in the internet/blogs/boards and enter some kind of time warp. so, the time that i think i don't get is there, but just being wasted.

i'm still taking my sewing class. i was thinking i was doing really well, and then i posted pics on my parenting board and someone mentioned the word 'serge'. as in 'hope you serged that b/c otherwise it will really unravel.' ummm.. no. no serging involved. i don't even know what the hell serging is. so, as usual, i'm going to call my mom & find out. the instructor of the class didn't mention serging. :/ so now i'm sofa king worried that my whole project is going to turn to rags when i throw it in the washer. (btw...i love saying 'sofa king'...sounds exactly like so fucking, but in an innocent way.)

reese is becoming a brat. at least 1x every 10 minutes, she gets this look on her face like she's going to go postal on you. teeth gnashing, face as angry looking as can be and she comes at you swinging. ugh. i can put her in timeout as often as i need to but it's really not fixing the behavior. worse, yet is that she does it to me and to cade. not so much to rob b/c rob doesn't discipline much. or i should say, he's too busy watching baseball to discipline her. (however the red sox LOST yesterday so they're DONE DONE DONE! yipee!) so now we've reverted to taking away privleges. if she does it after dinner, she loses watching 'the saveums' http://angela.decode-ent.com/saveums/ . (can you believe i'm too impatient to make a better link. sorry blog experts. you're getting the bare basics here!)

if she starts swinging during the day she usually goes straight to quiet time. i really need to work on a better plan though. maybe i should start tivoing supernanny again.

cade is doing great. i think he grew over the last few days b/c suddenly the 2T shirts don't look so long on him. hmm...i know he's getting more teeth...including his first molar! for those of you who don't know, molars suck. cade's teeth are so slow breaking through anyway, and this molar has taken 2 weeks now. arg. funny, i think it's a 2 year molar, but he's only 15 months (tomorrow!). oh well. he's doing great with his spoon, trying to figure out his fork. he loves wearing baseball hats (when daddy is wearing one too) and rob has gotten him excited about watching sports. in fact both kids love watching sports. ??? so they can all hang out downstairs in a few years watching football, etc and i can go do my mommy stuff. maybe rob has the right idea!

rob is getting brownie points. he's been playing with the kids for the last half hour while i've been dicking with this. and now my right thumb is going numb. hopefully it's not signs of carpal tunnel. :( i've had a bit of aching, numbness...kind of like a pain that really isn't painful. hard to explain...

oh, guess who's coming to visit next week??? my parents! i'm excited to see them, but not b/c i need to clean like a mofo. and there's a lot of projects i wanted to have done before they got here. but i don't think i'm going to get them done before this tuesday. :( especially b/c most of them involved painting entire rooms or new furniture!

my main gripe of the week: the f-ing weather. ct is turning into a damn rainforest. for the last 2 days it has been low 70s and 99% humidity. so it's clammy and i swear i hear mold just growing everywhere. (i'm mold-paranoid. it grows everywhere and i think entire state of connecticut should be doused with clorox.) yesterday it was a high of 75ish and last night it maybe got down to 68. now it's raining (100% humidity) but if we close the windows b/c of the rain, we'll suffocate. where's that damn cold front that's been advertised for the last week?!?!

ok...that should satisfy most of you. and just as predicted, the children have migrated over here. cade is grabbing for my fingers and so i must....go........bye!

thinking 'bout babies...

well, i'm not pregnant! :b

i've been having weirdo symptoms for the last week. (insomnia, cramps, increased cm, not being able to concentrate are just a few...oh, and the cat WOULD NOT leave me alone!) it's amazing how easy it is to convince yourself that you are pg. but i'm not. so why am i having these issues??? i think it's hormonal, something to add to the list of subjects when i have my annual physical next month.

i haven't really felt like doing much. i'm just so blah these days. that's one reason i haven't been popping onto my usual message boards lately.

bought some groceries this am. out of the corner of my eye i could see the cashier do a double take when she rang up the pgy tests. then a few minutes later she asked how old the kids were...i'm sure that btwn my sweats & tshirt and having 2 young children, she thought i was on the welfare train. i noticed that she closely checked my signature against my credit card signature. :/ i've thought about when to add baby #3. i know that our family does not feel like it's finished yet. rob & i both want to have another baby. ideally i'd like to wait until cade is 3 before baby #3 is born (meaning, born after july 2007). by then reese would be 5 and in kindergarten. but then cade would get no alone time with me at all...however, i think that's probably a good thing. he's already a momma's boy, to the point where he cries if he can't get to me. i think if we let him think he's the baby of the family, he'll have a harder time accepting this new addition to the family.

and then there's rob's work to consider. he's going to back to sea duty in march of '07 and that will be 2 or 2.5 years that he'll be attached to a submarine...working 10+ hours a day and weekends, not able to take more than a few days of leave at a time...and those were just the conditions on his last boat as a weapons officer. in '07 he'll be the executive officer (which is navy talk for the commander's bitch :/)...i'm thinking he'll be gone a lot more than he was as a weapons officer. sigh.

so, do i want to be pg while he's the XO of a boat, with no family and not many friends to count on for help? or do i want to have a baby before he gets to be XO of a boat and then freak out when he's not around to help much. ugh. it makes sense to just have the next baby soon, i think that would be best for rob's work, for cade to accept the new baby, and to just get the baby stuff OVER WITH!

but then there's me to consider. i think i may have had more than just the baby blues with cade, however, i wasn't comfortable taking medicine for it. so there's a chance of that happening again (or maybe even being worse this time). and what if i'm not ready to have another baby yet? i'm really enjoying watching cade grow. he's only 14 months now, is it fair to him to add another baby to the mix? (was it fair for reese to deal with it too? she was 18 months when i got pg with cade, had just turned 2 when he was born.) and what if we go ahead & have baby #3 soon...and then 4 years down the road i just feel like we're still not done, but rob feels just the opposite?

can my body handle another pregnancy? both of my previous ones went smoothly, no complications at all, but i'm still carrying around about 30 lbs of babyweight. am i pushing my luck if i try to have another healthy baby with no complications? sigh.

i don't quite have baby fever yet. when i see newborns in stores, i get the mushy 'awwwww' feeling and remember what emotions i went through as a new mom. but i'm not to the point where i'm thinking, "hey! i want one too!" i think i'll wait another 5-6 months and revisit my thoughts on this.

sneaking in a quickie...

here it is, sunday again. and appropriately, the sun is blazing away on our connecticut home. :)

we had some pretty rough weather last night. about 6pm a band of thunderstorms moved through, it included some pretty neat lightening and some really loud thunder. oh, and some rain. rob gets all excited about the weather and stands at the window, ooohing & ahhhing. i keep telling him to calm down, or else he's going to get reese excited/nervous about the weather too. the last thing i need is a 3 year old with a storm phobia. i love storms and would love to just watch the lightening too, though.

this morning is bright and cloudless...still a bit humid, so rob is setting up the fans for maxium air flow. i will be more than ready for fall weather, i'm so tired of the hum of air conditioners and fans...i can't wait for some silence in this house. wait...i have 2 kids, that is not going to happen for a LONG time.

i'm playing hooky from showering. rob took the kids outside and i said i would go hop in the shower & get that over with. obviously, i'm not typing this from the shower. shhhhh....

sundays are supposed to be MY day to sleep in. rob gets saturdays to sleep in; if he wants to wake up at 7am like normal, that's his business. i'm more than willing to get up with the kids and try to get them downstairs without making too much noise on saturday mornings. but guess who got up today with the kids? clue: it wasn't rob. :( oh well. mornings just run more smoothly when i get up with them. rob is not a morning person (although he used to be, i kind of miss that) and if he's in charge of breakfast i usually hear some crying or screaming from the kids. Knowing that there's unhappiness in the house makes it hard to enjoy my snooze. i'll probably guilt him into letting me take a nap later on when one of the kids is asleep.

speaking of sleep (seems to be a favorite topic of mine)...reese is so screwy with her sleep. she just turned 3, so i'd expect about 10 hours straight at night and an hour or 2 nap. we're lucky to get 8 hours at night from her. last night she didn't fall asleep til after 10 and was up at 6. naps are a day-by-day thing, about every other day she refuses to nap. when she totally gives up her nap, i don't know what i'm going to do. i really, really, REALLY like my kid-free time. if both kids happen to nap at the same time, it's like i was blessed by an angel and heaven smiled down on me and i could walk on water...blahblah, you get the idea.

i've been having problems sleeping too. i just can't get comfortable. i get aches & pains all over (back, hips, neck, shoulders) and i'm wondering if we should get a new bed. b/c i feel so sore that i feel like i'm 8 months pg. i've never had problems sleeping unless i was pregnant, i hate not being able to sleep. i'm only 29, but when i get up i feel like i'm twice that. :( i don't even know what i would try for a bed, i'd love to try the sleep # bed, but geez that's expensive. plus can it handle the inevitable jumping that children will sneak in?

suppose i should go hop in the shower. gotta shave my legs...it is sunday, you know :)

my cat has what??

did i mention i'm tired?

yeah. i did. well, i'm still tired.

but at least the rest of the family got naps today. even rob...which is why he was in charge of dinner. well, in charge of the preparation. i made sure we had everything and even ran to the store for italian bread, and got the pans out and got the bread ready for the oven. so i guess i did 1/2 the work and rob got the easy part. hell, i even cleaned up. how did that happen?!?!?

i took the cat to the vet this afternoon. when i told the girl this morning about his raw spots on his feet, she suggested a 3:15 appt. rob got home at 2:45 and i was able to make it without too big of a rush (and the ipod works in the car! yay!). the vet says my cat has allergies! he's 5 years old and apparently allergies show themselves btwn the ages of 4-6. spikey has been scratching/licking/chewing on his back legs b/c they itch so badly. i felt so horrible. i just thought he was scraping his legs on something around the house as he was jumping around. i didn't know cats had allergies. :/ so now i have to get shots for my cat every 4-12 weeks.

oh, and he has a heart murmur too :( as the vet is telling me all this, i almost started crying. i never realized how attached i am to this cat...or how attached this family is to this cat. cade uses him for a pillow and gets so excited whenever he sees him.

$110 later, i'm armed with antibiotics (2x a day i have to squirt 1mL of amoxicillian into his mouth--i think i'd rather give him a bath!), what to look for if his allergy shot reacts badly with his heart murmur, what to look for when his allergy shot wears off, and a huge feeling of guilt for not having rushed him to the doc 2 weeks ago when we first noticed his leg was so raw.

hopefully he reacts well to all meds. any well wishes for spike would be appreciated :) i suppose i should go give him a dose of amox stuff. i can't believe he needs a whole mL of it...i can only compare it to cade needing .16 mL of tylenol. cade is twice the weight of the cat. different drugs, i know.

the good news today...i finally figured out how to make SOFT chocolate chip cookies. the recipe on the back of the chips always says bake at 375. well, i baked at 350 today and even though it took a bit longer, they turned out just beautifully. i think that at 375 the brown sugar starts to melt & get too hot so the cookies turn crispy when they cool. at 350 they stay soft. can't believe it took me this long to figure it out. i recall in 8th grade (1989?) having to do a presentation on how to do something. i picked 'how to make chocolate chip cookies', complete with samples for the class afterward. freebies for the masses always make you popular. :)

it's all harry potter's fault

i'm just so tired. i've stayed up til midnight the last 3 nights reading book 4 of the harry potter series. i got about 200 pages into it a month ago and just got potter-ed out so i put the book aside for a bit. then over the weekend i picked it back up and just couldn't put it down again. yawn.

but i finished it. and it was good. each time i finish one i think, 'that was better than the last one' and 'could i ever write a book?' i don't think i could. it's a dream of mine, but it's quite an undertaking. i haven't written anything but this blog since college (almost 8 years ago). as i read a book i notice the characterization, the dialog btwn characters and i just don't think i could do it as well as other people have. i don't even have a story. i do have an idea though...a few years ago i had a vivid dream and when i woke up i jotted down what i could remember. i believe it's tucked away in my filing cabinet.

our turntable in our microwave finally died. sigh. now i suppose i'll have to call someone to come fix it. our micro's only 3 years old. seems strange for the turntable motor to poop out. maybe this is how frigidares work. i've never bought this brand before, all the appliances came with the house.

why must reese repeat everything she says??? this morning she said something 10x before i gave up and said 'yes reese' and then she still said it 2x after that. it's the most irritating thing i've ever had to sit through. and her narration as she plays? i'm really glad she's using language appropriately but the constant chatter is just driving. me. crazy. i'm thisclose to getting the duct tape out.

i watched the movie 'constantine' yesterday. didn't understand a whit of it. maybe if i was catholic it would have made more sense? sometimes i think i'm going deaf b/c a lot of the comments in the movie i couldn't hear. our sound system is weird, i think it needs to be reconfigured to the basement dimensions, i have to turn it up to 70 before i can hear it. in our old house anything above 45 was too loud. and we have fans set up all over the place so i have to turn up tvs even louder. (another way i'm turning into my parents :/)

we have nothing to do today. i should go return a few things to old navy & kohl's but i also need to go to michael's crafts and they're in different directions. i'm looking for some stencils that i can do in our bathroom. i'm sure you're thinking something overdone and ugly, something that future owners of this house will cringe and think 'paint over it! before i go blind!'. but i'm looking for just a swoop that i can turn vertically and do a line of them along a wall that sticks out a bit. and then paint the wall above the tub blue (the long wall, not all 3). so i'm adding very little color to this bathroom but i think it will all be good. however, i need to repair/spackle the walls a bit, scrape the caulking from the top of the tub, prime the walls (i don't think they were before? whatever paint is there is shit, you can practically see the grey drywall under it, it was sprayed so thinly, paint all the walls & the ceiling, do my stencil, and recaulk the top of the tub. whew. now you know why i'm dragging this project out...i think i could do it quickly if these kids would just grow some sack and entertain themselves.

while typing that i had to pry my laptop's power adapter & cord out of my 14 month old's hands. he was dragging it around like a pull toy and sucking on the end. don't these kids understand i'm BLOGGING for CHRIST'S SAKE. i think i'm feeling a little stressed lately...the phrase 'for christ's sake' has been coming out my mouth more than normal. these kids won't go more than 3 feet from me, and reese has taken to rubbing up against me all the flippin' time. i'm so tired of being touched. is it friday yet? can i take her to school??!?!?!? i'm wondering if i should have put her in preschool, just so i can get a break.

actually i've been worrying about that a lot. should i have put her in p/s? i've always thought ps was for 4 year olds, i think 3 is just too young to expect them to behave in a classroom setting. i think reese would do pretty well, but i just didn't want to push her. we're working dilligently on letters, numbers, etc. at home but she has the next 20 years to spend in school. who knows, if we wait & put her in next year, she might actually get more out of it. and lately she's just been loving sesame street. a few months ago she wouldn't have watched it or gotten really bored when they would do letter stuff. now she loves it.

anyway, more blather from me.

i'm sitting on the stairs behind the baby gate. the kids can't get to me. reese is watching sesame street and cade is playing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for me to get within reach. i'm listening to marvin gaye. i'm spending entirely too much on itunes downloads. i probably buy 3 albums a week :o it's just too easy to click on that buy button. at the store it was easier to walk away from the cd case but apple has made it easier than every to blow $$$. thanks apple guys!

i guess i'm done for now. out of boring things to talk about. (yes, it had to happen some time.)

monday, monday (nah nah, nah nah nah nah)

welcome to another week.

the fine city of norwich is doing some road work on our road. they've been at it for 3 days and who knows when they'll be done. we live on a dead end street, about the length of a football field (maybe shorter? i'm really not a sports fan, so i don't know :b). the folks at the end of the street were having issues where all the water running down the road toward the river seemed to pool in their yard/driveway/basement.

so they complained enough and that got the public works dept on the job. they started the process last wednesday, started digging thursday, did a little work friday am and now they're back. a neighbor said that they're just replacing some piping that's under the road. didn't know that would take more than 3 days??? maybe the guys have just realized that if they work too efficiently, they'll work themselves out of a job! and may i mention that each time the crew comes out they have 3 dump trucks, a little skidloader (on a trailer), and a big pickup truck full of junk, and about 10 people. they spend most of the day backing up & down the road to make room for the different vehicles to get to the work area...did i mention it's a short AND NARROW road? oh well. i'm just glad they're not dicking around with our driveway area. their 'work' really isn't inconvenincing me, other than just listening to the 'beep beep beep' when they back up.

my weekend was pretty much a waste. i just couldn't get motivated to do much. we all know what i did on friday night :) saturday after the kids went down for a nap, i went shopping. hit kohls, old navy, and home depot.
home depot: new ceiling fan for cade's room (it's white but i'm going to spray paint parts of it red & blue, we hope to do a sports theme in there...if that fails, we'll do it patriotic :b every navy family needs a patriotic room!); new light fixture for living room ceiling fan (we broke the current one--playing ball in the house, oops!) and i hate it anyway); new shower curtain rod for the master bath (this is stainless steel w/ white ends and it matches our fixtures, woohoo). i spent about $115 there.
kohl's: 4 long sleeved shirts for reese (they all look the same, but in different colors...$8 each); a dalmation costume for cade that will have to go back b/c it's HUGE on the poor boy, he will be a frog in reese's old costume :); a sweater for reese with poofballs on the strings of the hood (we're already missing one poof. arg)...about $45 spent here.
old navy: (i went crazy here!) 3 pairs of pants for me (1 trouser, 2 prs jeans--the trousers are going back and one pair of jeans are going back...they just look too sloppy); a zip up hoodie for me; yoga pants for me (both on sale!); a black tank to go under the hoodie; a pair of jeans for reese that are going back, they are her size but they're just HUGE on her, ugh. spent $120 here.

so yeah, i blew some $$$ this weekend but i imagine about $40-50 of it will be returned. i rarely try clothes on in dressing rooms anymore. it's just easier to try it on in my bed room than deal with the guard at teh dressing room door (at old navy). and i can't believe i couldn't find any clothes for the kids at ON. the girls stuff was just ugly, imo. and the employees were having a pow-wow in front of the toddler boy stuff so i couldn't browse. the kids have enough clothes anyway. oh, i did buy one more thing for reese:

http://www.oldnavy.com/Asset_Archive/ONWeb/Assets/Product/324/324176/big/on324176-00vliv01.jpg

that describes her personality perfectly these days. maybe replace the w with a b occasionally.

better go get showered while cade (the snot machine) is sleeping. i tried wiping his nose today and he turned his head so he has a streak of dried snot from nose up to his right eyebrow. it looks like glue, the skin under it is wrinkly. should be fun cleaning him up after he wakes up.

both the kids fell asleep after 9pm last night but were up shortly after 6. i think they wake up b/c rob is the noisiest fucking nose blower in the world. starts out normal volume, then turns into big honks as he clears the crap out. by the time he's done both kids are awake and up for the day. and he eats the stinkiest things. my nose is still sensitive after having the kids...i didn't know my preggo nose would morph into my mommy nose :/ anyway, he eats that quick-heating rice in a bag crap with tuna. puke puke puke. the smell keeps me upstairs and i call his cell phone downstairs to ask him to light a candle. the strong LEMON candle that i usually save for after cooking fried foods. rob also likes hot wings...whenever he eats those, all i can smell is the vinegar they use in the hot sauce. it practically burns my nose.

anyway, off to go do something...shower, laundry, call the vet, call my brother (HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHRIS!!), survive til rob gets home around 4. think up something for dinner :) what a fulfilling day!!!

3 beers later...

i passed out. yep, 36 oz of killian's red and i'm a goner. actually i was pretty dizzy after the first bottle. but it was fun. i've never done bathtime 1/2 drunk! i was a lot more relaxed :)

i laid down on our bed to wait for reese to konk out in her bed and next thing i know, rob is turning off the tv and it's almost 2am. so i did get some rest, although this morning i smell beery. yuck.

reese enjoyed her 2nd day of school yesterday. i snuck into the room as they were doing their goodbye song and when reese saw me, she ran to me yelling, 'mommy!!' with a big smile on her face. so much better than last time when she saw me & started crying b/c she didn't want to go home. we talked a lot during the week about how she should be happy to see mommy & daddy b/c we're happy to see her, etc. etc...i guess it worked. or else the teachers gave her a bit more warning this time.

they're working on the 'sp' sound (like in spoon) and so they did a spot picture. i think they took those bingo markers and just marked up a piece of paper. lol...it doesn't take much to impress a 3 year old. now she's bugging ME to do it again. ack! i don't have any bingo markers so i guess i'll have to cut up a sponge...hopefully we have some paint around here. otherwise i'll have to use glue & food coloring. the good news is that reese has been saying 'sp' correctly, so she knows this one :)

cade is teething like an i don't know what. for the last 3 days he's been walking around with his hand stuffed in his mouth, whining/crying. he has to be the slowest teether i've ever seen. a few times he had his hand stuffed in there so deep that i heard him gag. if he pukes, rob will be cleaning him up. i've kind of had my fill of him over the last 3 days, cade is very mommy-centric. he orbits me like the sun. (sarah=sun goddess? maybe :))

here's how i'm monitoring reese's tv viewing...we have a 9' tv that she watches in the living room and then around the corner in the kitchen we have a 15' flat screen tv. i just tune both to the same channel and viola...i know what she's watching. of course, now i know WAY too much about clifford, sesame street, and dora. gives us discussion topics though. it's like an oral book report.

yesterday was very busy. i space out my errands so we don't get bored during the rest of the week. but yesterday, we were on the run all day. (which is why we had beer & pizza for dinner. the kids had milk, don't worry;))

--9am: sarah to the doctor for a sore middle finger. and no, it's not from flipping off all those RI drivers that visit CT...doc says it's a neuroma? neurtoma? something not serious, but she's sending me for xrays to rule out anything serious. she'll call me if it is serious, otherwise follow up with my primary doc in 2 or 3 weeks if it's still bothering me. just like a navy doc should, she prescribed vitamin m. 800 mg motrin :) it doesn't really hurt that bad and i think the pills ARE BIGGER than any prenatal vitamin i've ever seen. bad news: i have both kids with me so i'll have to come back for the xray after rob gets home.
--11:45: after letting reese watch 'frosty the snowman' to kill a bit of time at home, we head 6 miles to school so i can drop off reese. funny, these 6 miles take about 15 minutes and involve 2 bridges.
--12:30: get back home, get cade eating lunch. he's crabby b/c he didn't have a nap. for lunch: peach yogurt and cold mac & cheese (our micro's doing weird things). oh, and cade added some mucas to his meal, his nose would not stop running. yuck.
--1:15: cade's asleep, rob's home, and reese is still at school. i run back to the base hospital so i can get the xray.
--2pm: done with the xray, head to my salon to get my brows done. woohoo, my stylist can do it! she's such a sweetie :)
--2:30: fill up rob's car with cheap gas from the gas station next to reese's school. buy star magazine (they were out of people & i needed some gossip!!!), a 32 oz fountain root beer, & 2 snack packs of chips ahoy. i head up the road to reese's school and hang out in my car, reading gossip (which revolves around angelina jolie's sex life & little richie's weightloss) and drinking pop and eating cookies. in silence. ahhhhhh.
--3pm: pick up reese, meet another mom who's son is in class with reese, bribe reese to the car with a cookie. (yes there are some left, i only ate 1 snack pack.)
--4pm: get home and rob immediately leaves for home depot. couldn't he have taken a kid with him? we have 2! arg.
--5:30pm: pick up dinner (pizza & beer). consume mass quantities. let kids run around like freaks on the deck. (cade with only a diaper on :b)

almost done, just have to tell you about reese. she is so cute when she's talking on the phone. yesterday was my dad's birthday and she sang happy birthday to him on the phone. she pronounced every word perfectly and grandpa was very happy :)

reese is now bugging me to do more spot pictures. guess i'll go whip up some spotting materials. :)

bye!

abandoned again...

rob has ditched me again. he went to a local baseball game. sigh.

do i depend on him for my happiness? no, b/c i'm not that happy when i'm with him. everything he does just annoys me. his coffee breath (all day long b/c he sips on coffee all day), how he barely listens to anything i have to say b/c he's on teh computer or else watching tv (sports or weather)...

then i get angry that he takes me for granted. he doesn't help with the laundry, unless you call making it to the basket as 'helping.' he sometimes carries the clean stuff upstairs but it's just easier for me to do it instead of waiting for him. he just leaves stuff all over without a 2nd thought for who's going to pick it up. it's bad enough the kids leave stuff all over, i feel like i'm picking up after a 3rd kid. if i just leave his stuff, he doesn't care...it could sit there til it rots and rob would not even notice it.

even just talking to rob is painful. i can predict almost everything he's going to say or every viewpoint he has. everything is about him and how everyone else is an idiot or a moron or a combination of both.

he brings me down, but then i'm back to the beginning of this...do i depend on him for my happiness? should i? apparently i shouldn't, since he didn't have any 2nd thoughts going to the game.

he was going to bring reese but the game is/was at 2pm...right in the middle of her naptime. even if she hadn't been sick, she would have been cranky & bored. i think he just wanted to go and thought he'd bring her a long too.

he's just such a disappointment to me. when i say that i obviously was hoping he'd turn into superman or something after i married him, after we had kids, after we bought a house...

***update***
i'm a schmuck. he volunteered to make dinner & do bathtime. which is better :) although dinner will probably be chinese and the kids will scream bloody murder during bathtime, but at least he offered. that's more than he's done all week. there may be hope for him to get laid after all!

good morning...

not much happening around here. cade is already asleep for a morning nap. he's been up since 5:45 (yawn :/) and reese is annoying me b/c she's bored. it's one of those days when i really don't want her climbing all over me...i just don't want her to touch me.

wish i was asleep too. i tried snoozing while reese was watching tv but she kept nudging me and then climbing all over me and i gave up.

i need to go work out. that would really make me feel better. but rob decided he needed to spend a few hours dorking around with the yard today. he just goes out and starts working on it, so i guess i'm in charge of the kids.

i don't even feel like talking to rob. everything is about him. i was talking about reese going to school yesterday and he just comes up with some statement about when he went to school. wtf? i'm trying to discuss what would be best for HER and he just recalls about his school days. like that's all the imput he has. things have changed in 29 years, buddy. i'd like some input other than you & your glory days.

he's turned into a baseball nerd. as in watching the red sox's every friggin game. and baseball is not an hour thing...usually 3 hours or more. and they have 5-6 games a week. that means that he is spending at least 15 hours a week watching tv. and ignoring me. :/ he says, why don't you watch it with me? b/c you act like a freak, yelling and shouting at the tve and making an ass out of yourself. that's why.

i don't even feel like doing anything with him, he just does not consider anyone but himself. when he feeds the kids, he always fixes himself lunch first and then sometimes eats it before getting the kids anything. ??? yes, kids can wait, they won't starve. but then he wonders why they're crying when he doesn't share.

he just expects respect from reese but he doesn't do anything to earn it. he doesn't spend time with her, when she comes down from her nap he rolls his eyes like he expected her to sleep all afternoon. not like it impacts him anyway, he doesn't do anything with her. he says that lately she's been bratty and he doesn't like spending time with her. well, she's your kid too, maybe if you'd spend more time FATHERING instead of fucking around, she'd listen to you more.

he does great with cade. he's already preferring to spend time with his son than with reese. tell me she won't remember that :/

yes, i agree, reese can be a brat. so can all kids. but the more time you spend with them, you learn how they tick and what works with them for discipline...and what doesn't. she's your kid, enjoy her. she'll be a teenager soon and then you'll know how big a brat she can be!

i think i've been talked into it...

i'm 90% sure that the next vehicle we get will be a hybrid. we were looking at honda pilots, hoping to make a decision by xmas this year, however i really think the smart thing is to look at cars that get more than 20 m/g in town. i think that if i didn't get a hybrid car, i would feel guilty for consuming more gas than is necessary...the technology is there, it's like spitting on mother nature to ignore it. :(

it will be more expensive but rob has discussed trading in his acura for something either smaller or another hybrid. he's thinking a honda civic (either hybrid or normal). the kids rarely both ride with him so it's not like it has to be big. he's commuting a lot now but that will change by xmas, he'll be stationed about 15 miles from home instead of 50.

it frustrates both of us that hybrid technology is not available in more vehicles. i believe i saw that the GMC sierra now offers a hybrid. but that's still just a handful of models out of hundreds.

i had been looking for something big enough to accomodate 3 carseats if necessary (seems this navy wife has not been very good about planning her children...who knows when #3 will decide to make an appearance). hence the honda pilot interest. i was thinking that toyota makes a highlander hybrid?? rob is the one who's been doing the research on all of this. we have an xmas deadline, i meant it when i told rob that we're not doing another iowa road trip in our CRV. i love the CRV and i love hondas. :( wish they'd get with the ball a little...part of me wonders if they'll be coming out with something soon and i should just wait a bit longer to get what i want.

things i've learned today:
1. both kids are spectacular if you take them to the grocery store by 8am. they were happy and giggly and content the whole time we were there. we got home by 9:30...usually i'm not even out of my pjs by then.
2. if you turn the car's air vent on recirulate while you're following a diesel bus and then turn on the a/c a few days later, you get really stinky burnt-fuel smelling air in your car. at first i was worried that our car was making that smell but it disappeared within a minute or two.
3. i really don't like eating food that other people prepare. a neighbor brought over some unbaked oatmeal chocolate cookies and it bothers me not to know the conditions under which it was made. did they wipe off the table? wash their hands? make sure the pans were clean after they'd been sittingin the cupboard? of course, i'll eat at any fast food restaurant without a 2nd thought.

that's all i've learned today. :)

wake up already!

rob is still sleeping. it's almost 8 am and to me that's sleeping in! esp since cade woke up at 5:20ish and wouldn't go back to sleep. i'm lucky he slept that long though. yesterday he slept til 5:45 and had to be woken up for dinner. then bed time was at 8:15 last night so i'm lucky that he was tired enough to go to sleep.

so anyway, we've been bumping around and now i think i smell something stinky...called eau du cade. :/

i really feel like going out & doing something fun with the kids. like visiting gillette castle (it's only about 30 minutes from here) or visiting the beach (the kids have still never been...i'm just not a beach person...hate sand, sunburn easily, really don't want to drown :b). it's cool enough that we wouldn't swim, just play in the sand or walk along the water's edge. sounds picturesque, but reality with 2 young kids is very different sometimes.

or maybe even going back to niantic & bumming around. hm...rob will probably weener out. him & his 'reading' for school. (rolling eyes here.)

maybe i want out of the house so i can avoid housework. i just feel like i'm cooped up here and i want to get out and do some stuff before school starts.

going to go check out the diaper situation...

so i wanted to do something different...

i finally took the kids to the kids' museum. i had been thinking it was further away than it was...only about 15 miles/25 minutes. it's in niantic CT...it was easy to find, parking was available (whew...i hate parallel parking!). so based on those good signs i went ahead and got us a family membership. it was $45 and just today it would have been $15, $20 if rob had come. so i figure we might as well come often and get our $$'s worth. i'm sure they'll get tired of us by the time the year is up!

if the kids had been happier, we would have walked around a bit downtown. they have a touristy downtown area (if you've been there, think mystic, CT) and i admit i was more than interested in an ice cream shop we drove past :b however, by the time we left both kids were grumpy and reese threw a fit so we went straight home.

the museum itself was ok. looked a little used & abused...but that's just how everything in CT is, imo. one of the beanbags in the listening corner smelled like urine, so i guess i know what to avoid now.

reese's favorite was the fishing boat and the mexican restaurant (the kids could 'cook' and serve the plastic food). if i hadn't had cade, i could have interacted more with her. maybe i'll leave cade with rob next time. cade had some fun here & there but he was really shy, would hardly let me put him down. i think he enjoys a playground more.

we're back home now, trying to have some nap time. cade is complying, reese is not, and i'm about to go laydown and hide out somewhere. hm, the sofa downstairs or our bedroom?

good morning

what a nice morning! weather-wise i mean. if it was truly a nice morning, i would have been able to sleep in until at least 9am. the kids had me up by 6:35.

this morning i didn't mind getting up so early...after the normal morning fog had lifted that is. the weather is cool, in fact it's 63 degrees out right now and it's partly cloudy and there's a nice breeze...and best of all, it's dry and NOT HUMID. that's the best feeling after having such muggy days last weekend.

so we had breakfast (bananas, pb toast & applesauce for the kids) and cheerios & coffee for me. after feeding cade & reese i realized that i fed them 3/4 of the BRAT diet. oops. i do that so often. probably b/c they both love bananas & applesauce. so hopefully little man doesn't get all bound up.

cade is chasing a ball around the house, throwing it & he looks like he's trying to dribble it. or maybe he's just waving at it? it's a pretty slow morning around here. rob's at work and we're just digesting.

yesterday i was so excited. reese received a postcard in the mail from her teacher! just a little note about how the teacher was eager to see her on sept 2nd. reese will be attending a speech articulation preschool program this year. it's through the local public schools but only on friday afternoons. i don't even know how much she'll get out of it, the teacher has said that most of the work will be done at home with handouts for the parents. which is fine. reese has never been in a school setting (not even daycare) before so this might give her some good prep for preschool.

i've been checking out clothes in stores, looking at what might be appropriate for her to wear to school. she'll be there about 3 hours a week so i don't know i'm so worried about it. i just have to keep in mind clothes that are easy for her to pull up & down for the toilet and no dresses w/o biking shorts on underneath.

i did buy her her first pair of levi's yesterday. size 4s are a bit big in the waist (which is fixable with the button waist that's built into them--great idea!!) and about an inch too long. so i think they'll fit fine. cade also got a pair of levi's that are just huge on him. i have to roll them 2x and they're elastic-waisted so they don't bag off him but i think they'll slide down :/ they're 18month size. but i know if i get him a 12 month size he'll outgrow that within a month. i think he just has has my short legs.

anyway, i have hopes of going to the children's museum today. i think it would be fun, we've never been (eek! we live about 20 miles away, i consider myself a bad mother that we haven't checked it out before now.) but the timing is such a hassle. cade takes a 2 hour nap in the morning, he wakes up right before lunch, then naptime for reese is around 2 and cade needs at least an hour nap in the afternoon sometime. maybe i should plan an early lunch and head out after that. if we only spend about 90 minutes there and head home, maybe reese can catch a snooze on the way home.

and we're close enough that we could become members and go WHENEVER WE WANT TO. :b for some reason i always think that we have to do the whole thing in one visit. off to go check out the website...

welcome!

good morning :)

this is going to be a quick entry...naptime is imminent.

just wanted to post one for somewhere to start!

getting used to this

can you believe i've been thinking the last few minutes about all the stuff i want to talk about? i guess i think i have an audience here!

so anyway, cade is down for a nap. i can't believe how happy i am that he's sleeping through the night now. he's 13 months and until about 2 weeks ago, he'd only slept through the night about 3 or 4 times. and that was like 8pm til 4am...about 8-9 hours. now he'll sleep from 8am til 7ish. sometimes earlier, sometimes later.

however teething is a long process for him. i secretly think it's b/c he's male, that he's so fussy and grumpy from his teeth. he currently has 2 on the bottom and one on top. i think he's getting 1 or 2 more on the bottom and his other front top one. i remember reese got all 4 top ones at once but it didn't seem to bother her near this much. we're going on 8 days here with cade. arg.

rob is back at work. he's at the war college in newport, RI. only 3 months left there. :( i think this is harder on the wives, what with having to actually SEE our husbands and then when they go back to real work, having to adjust to navy life again. i know i got used to having my husbans home for 3 day weekends and by 4pm everyday. and the 2 months off for summer break was just unreal. we've realized that rob will NEVER have that again until he retires at around age 70. hope he made good use of it! rob has really enjoyed attending the college i think. the only bad part is that it's an hour away. with gas here in town about $2.65/gal (it went up 5 cents overnight), it's starting to concern us a bit. the part i miss is that all the wives are also an hour away so i'm really not getting to know any other women. but i'm not going to pack up, sell the house and relocate an hour away and then have to move back to this area in a year. (rob will return to the groton base this november, as an instructor for subschool.)

i imagine you'll find i'm pretty random when i type. since having kids, i've discovered i have a short attention span. i either get bored, get distracted, or get sleepy. i think i'm a night owl, trying to live with children who like to get up at 6am. i think this is a genetic trait from rob and i wonder why HE doesn't get up with them if he's so damn happy in the morning. at least he used to be. when we first started living together he was so happy in the am...now he's just your average grumpy person. :( makes me miss it, b/c i've always been grumpy and him being sunshiny in the morning made my mornings a little easier.

anyway, i better go shower while cade's sleeping. it's wonderful weather today, cool and partly cloudy...wonder what to do? the local park is closed (bastards)...it'd be neat to haul the kids to the zoo in RI. hmmm....wish i would have planned this better, then cade could have taken a nap in the car on the way there and rob could have met us afterward. :/ it's only an hour-ish away.

maybe i'll go research it...bye ;)