catastrophe

That is what I have caused in my house.

I decided to surprise my husband and take the damn Christmas tree down by myself. My real, needley, dried up, been-here-since-the-weekend-of-thanksgiving tree. I have never taken a tree down by myself.

Oh heavens.

First, I broke Elizabeth's Hallmark ballerina ornament. I couldn't find her box, so I laid her on the arm of the chair until I could locate it, and then promptly knocked her off. And when I say broke, I mean she has multiple fractures of her legs, hands, and arms. I think she is in approximately 9 pieces.

Other than that one, all the other ornaments made it safely to the Christmas box. Initially.

So then it was time to take off the 19 strands of lights that Marty put on the tree. The lights are always, always his job. He puts the tree in the stand and puts the lights on, and then the tree is mine. Therefore, I do not know the method he uses to adorn the tree with lights. I assumed (ass u me) that he strung them on the tree in a circular fashion, round and round the tree until he reached the top. The tree is in the corner, and is rather dry and pokey, so I did not really want to walk circles around the tree, getting jabbed repeatedly with sticks and needles in the cramped corner of the room. SO, I tried spinning the tree to take the lights off. Oddly, that did not work. I tried standing on the couch and taking them off from the top. That did not work either. I tried pulling them all down to the floor and then lifting the tree off of them. ummm... miraculously, that did not work. Every way that I tried to remove them, they became more and more tangled.

I finally got pissed and put on rubber gloves, grabbed the tree by the trunk and just yanked it through the living room and out of the house, lights and all. My thinking was that it would be much easier to get the lights off if I could move all the way around it outside.

hahahahahha.

The 8 foot tree moving through the house scared colby to pieces. It took me 10 minutes to get him calmed down.

In the process of moving it out, I knocked over the floor lamp, and knocked the box of ornaments off the couch. More broken ornaments. I also stubbed my toe and it bled. I am unsure what I stubbed it on, but it could be any multitude of toys that I did not pick up before starting this task.

The stand was full of water. Brown, stinky tree water. I spilled it. Everywhere. I think you might be supposed to take the tree out of the stand before moving it.

The worst of all is that I dropped approximately 47 million tree needles into the carpet.

I have never had carpet in the living room - I have always had hardwood floors which are SO easy to sweep. This year, a large, beautiful off-white rug was my tax-refund gift to myself.

Carpet is not easy to sweep.

No biggie, I have a rainbow vacuum. I haul the MF out, fill the tank with water, hook it up, plug it up and start vacuuming.

Ummm... it doesn't vacuum up tree needles. In fact, all it really does is break the long, dry needles in to really small, sharp, needle powders. I have clogged up the hose of the rainbow with a million needles and there are still 46 million in my carpet.

I even tried the higher power hose without a head on it.

Nope. Clogged that up too.

So now, the situation is:

1. 46 million tree needles in the carpet.

2. Two tree needle clogged rainbow hoses.

3. A tree in my yard full of lights that are horribly and completely knotted up from my pulling an yanking.

4. Brown water stinky stained carpet.

5. broken ornaments

6. Sappy hands

7. Sappy feet

8. Sappy children

9. Rash from needles

10. Bloody foot

11. Needle powder, everywhere.

12. Crying mama, who decided to give up and blog instead.

It is not really looking up for the New Year. And somehow, I don't think Marty is going to be impressed with my industriousness.

you can pick your friends noses, but you can't pick your friends...

Cause if you could, my friends would definately include Jennifer Weiner.

When I found "Good In Bed" all on my own, I was so excited. I read the book twice in one weekend and then started sharing it. "You are going to LOVE this girl!" I would say. "This book is one of the best books I have ever read!"

"Oh, yeah. Jennifer Weiner." they would reply. "She is pretty good. Have you read her other books?"

Other books?? What?? She couldn't have written any other books, because I FOUND HER. All on my own!!!

But, this was one time that I was wrong. And I am glad! Each book of hers that I read, I love more than the last. It sounds corny to say, but she really speaks to me. Her sense of humor closely mirrors my own.

Santa brought "Goodnight, Nobody" for me for Christmas this year. Sadly, he must have left it early, because after I finished my last library book on Friday, I stumbled upon "Goodnight, Nobody" in Marty's shop, in a taped up bag, under a boat motor and a bunch of life jackets. And then I thought, "I will just read the first chapter and then sneak it back."

Needless to say, Marty found me many chapters later, laughing my ass off, and looking very guilty. "There will be nothing under the tree to replace that book." he says, sternly.

So, I bought myself a flannel nightgown so that I would have something to open. HA!! I showed him!!

Beware the wolf in toddler clothing...

The funniest thing happened when we went to get our tree. We actually went and got it the day after Thanksgiving, but I kept forgetting to share...

Our tradition is that we set aside about two hours to go and get our tree. We ride the haywagon out into the field, then walk around until we find the perfect tree. We cut it down, and then ride the haywagon back to the main house.

While they are trimming up the tree, and shaking all the needles out of it, we let the kids climb around on the hay bales, and we look at handmade ornaments and drink cider and all that fun Christmas stuff. Then, on our way out, we always stop by the goat pen and let the kids feed the goats.

Now, these goats are pets, very docile and not a bit skittish... generally. Elizabeth was over feeding them, and Colby crawled up to the pen and was talking to them and I am taking pictures. About 2 seconds after I snapped this picture, I realized that the mama goat was not amused. She was spitting and snorting and stomping, and getting ready to head-butt my sweet boy. I jerked Colby up right in the nick of time.

All Marty and I can figure is that she thought he was a predator coming to eat her babies the way he crawled up to the pen. It could have been a bad thing, but the picture really cracks me up.

The Legend of Johnny Cash

I will readily admit here that I am a bit of a dork.

I love Johnny Cash. Yes, a lot of his songs are hokey, but I think that is part of the charm. I begged and pleaded with my husband the night Walk the Line opened to take me to the movies. I wanted to be at the first showing. We made it, thirty minutes early, and it was already sold out. I was so upset. I then had to talk him into staying in town until the 10:30PM showing. He relented, and in the end, he was glad he did. It is a really, really good movie, even if you aren't a fan of Johnny's. I can't wait until the dvd comes out with all the extras.

Either way, Marty bought me the album above for an early Christmas present. I have listened to it constantly (in the car, i am not obsessively walking around listening to it!) for 4 days.

Doodlebop Education

Wanna know why I loooove watching the Doodlebops??

At the end of the show, when Deedee, Rooney and Moe Doodle do their little song and dance number, ("I say CAWLIE!!! YOU say FLOWER!!!") and the camera pans the audience, and you see all the gleeful children happily singing ("FLOWER!!!") and dancing and laughing... Invariably, in the center of the screen is Perfect Mom. She is there with her 5 children, dancing and laughing and bringing joy to the world. When they leave the Doodlebops set, they will head to a soup kitchen and feed the homeless. This family has nothing but joy in their hearts, and a song on their tounge.

But!! The best part!! Peer around Perfect mom and her brood of plexichildren, and if you look hard enough, you will find, "I am about to have a breakdown and shoot a bunch of Damndoodlefuckingbops" mom and / or dad. I am not kidding, it is the funniest thing. You can just tell that this mom / dad had probably had never even watched the show until today, just heard the announcement on the telly and thought, "Hmmm, the Doodlebops Live.... I bet Billy Wayne and Edna Jo would like that!" So then they waited in line, in the cold, with two whiny kids that cried and whined and begged for snacks like Perfect Mom had packed for her children, or wanted to get in the car and warm up, or wanted a piggy back ride or their feet were tired... They finally get into the theater and wait for hours for the show to start, and when it does.... Well, they wish that they had actually been arrested for tax evasion last year, because then they would be in jail, and not on the Doodlebops set.

The fun part is finding them. Kind of like a Where's Waldo? for the jaded parents. Where's The Man That Is About To Kill The Doodlebops? Or, Where's The Mom That Is Drinking Tequila To Drown Out The Sounds Of The Doodlebops?

Oh wait. That might be Perfect Mom... hmmmm....

Don't worry... be happy now!

Ok, after 6 months of being off the Lexapro that I was convinced I did not need, I finally got tired of being a cranky hateful bitch every single minute of every single day. So now I am on Paxil.

I feel better, just knowing that soon I am going to feel better... until I decide to look up paxil, to see if it has any odd side effects...

Now I am afraid to take the damn things!!!

Small, silly stories like:

My daughter who was 14 was on 35mg Paxil last year. while she was on this medicine she started having fainting spells. After being on the meds for 3 months she started having seizures. These seizures were very severe. After having one she would lose her speech and be very tired, and she didn't have any memory as to what happened except that she was exhausted...

Or, for the more adult consumer:

I started taking Paxil about a year and a half ago. My mother put me on it, but failed to look up the side-effects. I recently did so and discovered that it was just as addictive as herion, banned in over 5 countries (including England) and not acceptable for people under 18 to take. I'm only 15. After I realized how horrible the drug was, I began trying to take myself off of it. I experienced every symtom you had after only 3 days of being off of it. The fourth night, I woke up screaming, my whole bed was wet with sweat. I realized that I need to take my pill and when I got up to take it, I couldn't walk hardley at all. I felt as though I were drunk. I can't quit, I'm completly addicted and I feel ashamed that I don't have enought will power to stop. This drug has beaten me down.

Or, even more fun:

I've been on Paxil for almost a year and now I'm starting to go off of it. I was forced cold turkey a few times because of missed perscription refills, and
I had horrible shocks that started in my calvs and zapped me up in the head so hard that i would pass out. i threw up, didn't eat, cried for no reason, felt the room spinning, saw things that weren't there, extreme headache and exhaustion.

So... maybe getting fat on Lexapro would not be so bad after all... lets see... fat and happy, or having shocks, seizures, and searching for guns...

Uggg. I don't know what to do. I just want to feel better!

Give the gift of broken bones, and higher home insurance

We took Colby and Elizabeth to see Santa at the mall last week.

First, let me tell you that I am so disappointed in the mall. All these years, they had a simple chair, with a tree beside it, and you could take your kid and let them meet Santa and sit in his lap, and you could video it, or take your own camera... so that is what we did every year.

This year, they decided that they weren't making nearly enough money, and they "sold" the job to a photography company. So now, they have a huge, gaudy, ugly display with Santa sitting lost in the middle of the madness, and they have it all roped off, with huge signs proclaiming, "NO CAMERAS!! NO VIDEO!!! We are HAPPY to capture the magical moment for YOU!!"

Um, yeah. We are happy to capture the magical moment for you for $10 for a 3X5 photo, or the Family Pack - 1 8X10, 1 5X7, and 6 wallets for $49.95!!! One thing you can say about the photo people, they are generous.

So anyway, we get in line with all the other cranky parents, and screaming children, and we wait. Every other time the photographer would take a pic, the computer would freeze up, and they would have to reboot it. So it took forever.

We finally get up to Santa, and Elizabeth runs nervously to Santa's lap. They chit-chat for a moment, and Marty and I are struggling to get Colby out of the stroller, and the photographer tells us that they are having to reboot again. Great.

Meanwhile, Santa asks Elizabeth, "So have you been good this year?"

"Yes, sir." she replies.

"So what would you like for Christmas?"

"A trampoline!!" she says, breathlessly.

"HO HO HO!! A TRAMPOLINE!!! Do you think that will fit in my sleigh??" Santa says, somewhat condescendingly.

I am shaking my head like mad behind Elizabeth's head. No kid of mine is going to own one of those death traps!!

Until I see the disappointment, and heartache in Elizabeth's eyes.

"No sir, probably not." she says, dejectedly.

"What else would you like, Elizabeth?" Santa hohoho's.

"A stereo for my room, so that I can listen to my cd's," she says quietly.

"HO HO HO!!! A STEREO!! MY GOODNESS!!!"

I guess Elizabeth was feeling like the most selfish kid in the universe at this point, because she jumped in with, "Just a little one, Santa! Just a little bitty one!!"and she is holding her hands approximately 3 inches apart, pantomiming the worlds smallest stereo.

Meanwhile, we are still waiting for the computer to reboot, and Santa tries to send Elizabeth on her way... Marty is wrestling Colby, who wants to singlehandedly destroy the crappy, massive backdrop. I say, "Oops, wait Santa, we wanted to get a picture with you."

"OH!! Alrighty!! Oh little photo elf!! We are waiting for a picture!" Santa sounds a bit peeved.

But not nearly as peeved as Photo Elf... "I am TRYING, SANTA!!! We are having a bit of TROUBLE with the CAMERA!!!" Even though she is smiling like mad, you can see a glimpse of Satan in her eyes.

When she finally gets the camera going, she does not even try to get Colby to look at her. Just snaps a picture. And who is the fool that still spends the $10 for the tiny photo? That would be me.

After we got home, and got the kids to bed, I could still see Elizabeth's sad little face in my heart. I finally told Marty that I found out the truth about Santa when I was 7, and that we are in our last times of Elizabeth believing in the magic of Christmas. And that Colby is still too young to realize that we spent $300 on his sister, and $30 on him. It didn't take much convincing.

Anybody want to help put together a trampoline before Christmas?? Did you know that they come in a box??

OOOOHHH the weather outside...

Sucks.

In case I haven't mentioned it fifty thousand times yet, I hate the cold. Hate, detest, abhor, loathe, despise, ... um, where is my thesaurus when I need it??

As soon as the temps drop below 50, (and ideally it should always be at least 75, but I try to give nature a bit of a break) I get cranky. I own one coat, because I hate coats. I hate buying them (freaking expensive!) and I hate wearing them. (freaking bulky! Like I need to look fatter!) I hate dragging out the sweaters, and the corduroy pants, and the hats and scarves and gloves. I hate going outside in the cold and warming up the car. I was so thrilled when my used Durango had leather seats... NEVER AGAIN. Those fuckers never get warm. My ass is a perpetual ice cube. (I asked Santa for corduroy seat covers for Christmas, but Santa thinks they are a waste of money and that my ass will be cold no matter because I am impossible to please this time of year, and I need to shut up and get happy because we don't live in Jamaica.)

Right now, it is like, 20 degrees or something outside. The Natalie Thermometer says that it is -200. I may as well live in the Artic Circle. My hands and feet are never warm. This house is old, and poorly insulated and with natural gas prices the way they are, we can't afford to keep the thermostat on the 85 degrees that would make me happy. We don't have a fireplace, (note to self - next house: two bathrooms and fireplace.) and when I go to visit people who DO have a fireplace, I spend the visit sitting IN the fire, finally warm.

My skin gets so dry and itchy this time of year that the only thing I can do for relief is to take baths with a ton of baby oil in the water. If not, I will scratch my legs bloody in my sleep.

At the office, I work with three men who love winter, who duck hunt and deer hunt in their underwear, and with 7 women who are apparently in the midst of menopause. It is nothing for the office temp to be displaying a flashing "57" degrees. And more often than not, if the temp gets up to 60, they are crying about how stuffy it is, and propping open the front door.

I keep a tiny space heater under my desk, my feet up against it all day long. Co-workers come in to bring me my mail, or to ask me a question, and without fail the conversation goes like this:

"Hey Natalie? Mr. Robbins just called and ... OHMYGOSH!!! It is so FREAKING HOT in here!! How can you STAND it??"

"Uh, get out." I say. "You are letting in a draft." I shove my toes into the slats of my heater. My socks start to smolder.

My dad is the same way I am. The only difference is that he jacks his heater up, and has had little gas wall heaters installed in every room of his house. He says, "I don't care if I have to file fucking bankruptcy, I will be damned if I am going to be cold in my own fucking house."

(My dad really does talk like that, by the way. Just in case you were wondering where my gutter mouth came from.)

My mother, not so much. My mother burns up all the time. She just gave me a wool blanket because she can't sleep under it because it is too hot. She rarely runs her heat at home. I hate visiting there in the winter. I feel like little Laura Ingalls during the long prairie winter, cuddled under a blanket, not even daring to go and pee, because my pee would probably freeze into a little yellow icicle. Ma cooks supper in her shorts and t-shirt, and I am wondering if it is possible to get frostbite while sitting on a leather couch in the game room.

My kids seem to be oblivious to the cold. It is just me continually freezing. Day in and day out.

I wish I could hibernate.

schadenfreude

(excuse the horrid pixelation on my widdle family!!)


Sunday, we went to have our family pics made in Hot Springs. My super talented photographer / insurance / stripper friend Misty takes our pics every year but refuses to let me pay her. She even brings me professional film! She is so nice. (And yes, I am working on a little gift for her... but don't tell!!)

Before we went to meet Misty, we stopped at the mall to have the kid's pics taken with Santa. We were in a hurry because it was 2:15 when we left the mall and we were supposed to meet Misty all the way downtown. Marty went to put Elizabeth in the car and I was getting Colby out of the stroller at the back of the Durango. For some stupid reason, Marty came behind me to help, but I didn't see him. I swung around with Colby in my arms and ran smack into Marty. I knocked him off balance and he CRACKED his head open on the rear hatch door, which I had thoughtfully left open so that loading the stroller would be easier. He literally fell to the ground moaning and holding his head and I seriously tried not to laugh. It was not easy because the giggles were boiling up inside of me. Why do I do this???? I managed to get myself under control while I buckled Colby in, and then went back to check on Marty who was still on the ground. (I KNOW!! I AM SO FREAKING MEAN!!) He seriously probably needed a couple of stitches. His head bled all afternoon. We just kept wiping it clean for the pics. Either way, I remained as calm and comforting as i could, until finally we were about halfway downtown and I pictured it again in my head, and just lost it. I was laughing so hard I could hardly drive. And what made it worse, (as if anything could) I kept saying, "Marty I love you (hahahahahahha) so much, (hahahahahahaha) and i am so sorry (hahahahahhahaha) that you are (hahahahhahaha) hurt!! Do you want (hahahhahaha) to go to the (hahahahhahha) ER??"Luckily, he knows how I am and was not pissed.

He is a freaking saint.

if I were rich...

... my kid's rooms would be completely furnished with stuff from The Land Of Nod.

At the same time, it is fascinating to me that the "My grandfather built this bed back in 1945 and I am passing it down to you" look can be so freaking expensive. Seriously, a $99 bean bag chair*???

*this blog in no way is meant to be demeaning to parents who have paid $99 for a bean bag chair.

Get a Jar!!! I need a Karma Chameleon!

My karma is black right now. Or maybe it's red. Black Friday is good. Means the stores are making money. So being in the red is bad, because it means you aren't making any money. And if you go by the terror alert scale, red means that there is definately going to be a terrorist attack. But red seems like such an angry color, and my karma is not angry. It is just sad and missing. Or dead. Maybe my karma is dead and so then it would be showing signs of lividity and would be more of a purpley color.

This has been the worst week. It is only Wednesday, but I have been lied to, stolen from, verbally attacked, shamed.... I have lost friends, and I have made enemies. I am being talked about behind my back, and I am being made an example of in public. I almost had a wreck, something is wrong with my transmission, I fell walking to lunch, I was so worn down and depressed last night that I forgot to turn on the alarm clocks and we all overslept. Marty and I were late for work, E was late for school. Colby is sick and cranky. He has broken two ornaments already. It is not even December.

My secretary lost some of my documents and caused me to fail an internal audit. I have been written up. Our field rep knows why I didn't have the documents, but it is inconsequental to him. The documents are my responsibility, and it is my duty to make sure they are where they are supposed to be. And she doesn't even get in trouble.

I am probably going to be sued by Alltel. My email box is empty and my mailbox is full... of bills. I can't pay my bills. Christmas is coming and I am taking money out of my equity asset line to buy presents. I am thankful that I have that option. I know that there are others that do not.

I have stopped the South Beach Diet, but have not started the Weight Watchers. Instead I am watching myself gain all my weight back because I am eating my sorrows away.

All in all, I am feeling pretty shitty. I want to quit my job and go home and lay in my bed for 27 days. I don't want to talk to anyone, and I don't want to see anyone. I just want my friends, Flannel Sheet, and Handmade Quilt to keep me company. If he isn't doing anything else, it would be nice if Feather Pillow was there, but I don't have to have him. Sourapple Martini would be good too. She is always up for a good time.

This week sucks.

on a whim...

I sent this email to Family Fun Magazine, along with this pic of Elizabeth. I am sure that nothing will come of it, but it would be cool to see her in the "Letters" section, huh?

My 6-year old daughter, Elizabeth, and I were trying to find a cookie recipe that she could make for our family dinner on Thanksgiving. I remembered your Chocolate Cookie Bark recipe from the December issue, and knew that would be something she could make with minimal help, which was just what she wanted. We decided to use the white chocolate chips and mix them with Mint Chocolate Oreos for a more festive flavor. She crushed the cookies and mixed everything together by herself. However, I knew immediately that these cookies would not look like the pretty ones in the magazine. They were kind of greenish-gray, I suppose because of the green tint in the Oreo icing. I went ahead and refrigerated them as directed, and two hours later, removed the cookie block and began to cut it into triangles. But when I cut off the first piece, my daughter exclaimed, "Cool!! We made moon rocks!" She was exactly right! Instead of breaking them into triangles, we just broke them into odd size pieces, and took the Moon Rock Cookies to Thanksgiving dinner. They were delicious, and every last one was eaten! My family even asked her to make more for Christmas. She is extremely proud of herself for creating something so special.

Natalie
Arkansas

Dear John... I mean South Beach

Dear South Beach,

You suck. Yes, the beginning of our relationship was wonderful, all sweetness and light. I read your book, and agreed with nearly everything you said. I decided instantly, in that glow of first love, that I could totally stick with you in everything, forsaking all others. And yes, at first it was wonderful.

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter actually tastes good. I enjoyed your menu of lettuce and carb free dressing, of crab meat, of grilled chicken and sugar free salsa. I salivated over your Vanilla Ricotta Creme, and waited breathlessly for the evenings of No Sugar Added Fudge Pops. And you rewarded me richly. A ten pound weight loss in the first two weeks. And I was never hungry for others. You sustained me. You completed me. Yes, at times I was bored and lonely, but I knew that I would be rewarded for my sacrifices.

But, alas, I have strayed. And once I tasted the richness of mashed potatoes, and hot chicken and dressing, (and hot rolls, and homemade pumpkin bread and pecan pie...) I knew that it was over for us. I can't pretend to be someone that I am not.

I am not just a carnivore. I am multifaceted.

I am a carbavore. I am a pieavore. I am a potatoavore. Yes, I like your rich, lean meats, but I also like variety in my life. I crave adventure, and you... and you... you are strict, ungiving. You want things your way, all the time.

I know that there are many more out there that can stay with you for a lifetime. Tasha loves you and swears that there is no other for her. And it looks like she is correct. Close to a 50 pound weight loss. She is looking slim and successful in your shadow. But you are tearing me apart.

In short, Mr. South Beach, I am leaving you. I am going to try a date with Mr. Weight Watchers. He is more giving and forgiving. He is fun. He knows that sometimes a girl just needs pie. And he allows for that. He lets me eat carrots, and bread, and things with sugar. He is the kind of guy I could fall for.

(Don't guess I am going to get my $10 back for the book?)

Natalie

Thankfulness and stuff...

My friend Misty said that we all need to blog about things we are thankful for. I was in a pissy mood when I read that, and thought about doing a tounge in cheek list... but then I felt guilty, like the Curse of the Pilgrims would descend upon me and take away all the things i really do hold dear. (What was that town that disappeared long ago?? During Pilgrim time?? Like everyone in the town just vanished and there was still hot food sitting out and stuff....?? DAMMIT. Damn American History. I had a joke about that, but it doesn't work without the town name. Ahh well.)

1. I am thankful that I have two happy, healthy, cutie pie babies.

2. I am thankful for my husband, although I am not sure why. I love him and all, but he is kind of like a potted plant. Nice to have around, but not very useful... (KIDDING MARTY!! Kind of... ) It is nice to have someone to have relations with sometimes.

3. I am thankful that Misser Colby is finally WALKING!!!

4. I am thankful that I don't own any Zena The Warrior Princess shoes, like my receptionist.

5. I am thankful for hamsters.

6. (omitted)

7. I am thankful for my friends, near and far. I am glad that I found each and every one of you. (Oh wait. Not you, honey. Really just the others. HA!!)

8. I am thankful that i got a phone call from someone friendly last night!!! And you know who you are!! *smooch* (you aren't scary at all!!)

9. I am thankful that my brother got a job, even though he is moving far, far away. He needs a fresh start in life.

10. I am thankful that Andrea got kicked off The Biggest Loser.

11. Now if only Carter would come back to Abby on ER, my life would be complete.

12. I am thankful for my new tires, even though I had to put them on the credit card.

13. I am thankful to Tonya, for being so sweet and awesome and wonderful, and helping me (and Elizabeth) out so much. (I will have pictures tomorrow of her in "her" Thanksgiving dress - "The one that is colored like cramberry"... LMAO!!)

14. I am thankful for warm summers. I hate this freaking cold. I guess I am thankful that I can feel the cold and that I am not dead. I would be really thankful if i had an electric blanket, and if people would stop coming in my office (i keep a heater under my desk) and saying "MY GOSH!! It is freaking HOT in here!!" I would be thankful if they would go outside and sit in the cold. Then we would all be happy.

15. I am thankful that all my grandparents are still alive. I am afraid I won't be able to say that next year, but I hope that I am wrong.

16. I am thankful that my aunt has been walking with me every morning.

17. I am thankful for my jody board friends, who really made my birthday special.

18. I am thankful that my kids are little and i can hug them and kiss them and love them without them being embarrassed.

There really are a lot of things that I am thankful for, but sometimes I am bitching so loudly that you can't quite hear them... Like when I say, "you are really pissing me off right now." you should hear that underlying, "I love you so much that it hurts me when you don't agree with everything I say, my love." (Thats for Ingrid.)

Either way, Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! I am including a picture of Elizabeth as a pilgrim. We got to go eat Thanksgiving dinner (lunch) at her school. Some of the class were pilgrims and some were Indians. I got cracked up because her teacher gave the Indians "Indian" names like, "chief Can'tsitstill"... I love her teacher.

oops!! There you go!!

19. I am thankful for Elizabeth's teacher.

the view from the other side of the fence...

My friend kellee blogged about something that reminded me of a time in my life that I had put away in the old memory banks. I have never really talked about how I felt then, even to Marty. So, since this is my journal so to speak, let's haul it all out for inspection.

When I got pregnant with Elizabeth, I was working as a teller at a bank. It was a easy job, something I didn't appreciate then. Unlike insurance, where I go home at night and worry about what I didn't do, or what I have screwed up, or who the heck is going to sue me, the bank closed at 5:00, and by 5:10, I had forgotten all about it. As long as your drawer balanced, and mine usually did, you had done your job.

Just like most jobs, you get close with the people working next to you in the teller window, and the customers that come in every day. I was so excited about being pregnant, and this kind of job is wonderful for people like me who like to focus on one thing and obsess about it constantly. A customer would come in and ask how I was doing, and I could complain about the morning sickness, and the constant peeing, and how I had an ultrasound coming up, and they would give me encouragement and tell me about when they were pregnant, and then it would start all over with the next customer that came it. It is the joy and torture of living in a small town. Especially one where Marty grew up and now fights fires in, where his dad is one of the main mechanics in town, and his stepmom works at the only investment firm. They all know me.

By June, I was four months pregnant and starting to show. I kept the perfect ultrasound picture I had gotten of Elizabeth in a silver frame in my teller window. For some reason, most of my customers thought that it was hysterical that I did that.

Around that time, one of the other tellers, (lets call her Megan) announced that she had taken a pregnancy test, and it had come back positive. We were all excited, and she and I talked about babies and pregnancy quite a lot there for a couple of weeks. She finally had her first appointment, and planned on coming back to work afterwards. I was excited to hear how it went. It was fun to share that kind of stuff with someone going through it the same time as me.

However, she called and said that there was a problem and she might not make it back. Nothing too alarming, but she would explain it all when she got back.

The next day she told us that she went for her appointment and her doctor found something odd when he measured her, and sent her over for an ultrasound. Ends up, she was not 6-8 weeks pregnant as she had thought. She was approximately 6 and a half months along. She had been getting her period like clockwork every month and never had any morning sickness so she had no reason to suspect anything. She had been feeling movement, but with no reason to suspect anything, she thought it was the rumbly gas feeling that you sometimes get.

There was a little more to be worried about though. In March, she had anesthesia to have her wisdom teeth cut out. Around that same time, she noticed she was gaining weight, and started taking diet pills. She drank alcohol at parties. She was on the pill. She didn't know that she was pregnant, and lived life as most of us do when we are young and not pregnant. I must explain that she was a smart woman, that she wasn't some confused 19 year old. I think she was around 25, and was working her way through college, married, happy. She just had no reason to suspect she was pregnant.

The news sent a bit of worry throughout the bank. She insisted that everything was fine, the baby was a girl, and had a strong heartbeat and the ultrasounds showed no abnormalities. Her doctor put her on a special high calorie, high protein and vegetable rich diet. It was unbelievable how her body adjusted once she knew that she was pregnant. Within a month, she was bigger than me. We were all surprised at the change. She was having bi-monthly ultrasounds to monitor the baby's growth. Time moved on.

On September 8th, we had an after hours baby shower for her. They had asked if we wanted a joint shower, but to be honest, I was a bit resentful at how her pregnancy had taken center stage. I didn't want a joint shower, we were not having twins. I wanted my own shower. Call me bitchy, I guess that I was. But there it is.

So we had a shower, and she got a ton of awesome gifts. I was excited to see what all she got, since I was also having a girl, and knowing that people would not want to show favoritism, I assumed I would get many of the same things. It was fun. We had cake and we all laughed and cut up, and then we all went home.

The next morning, she was scheduled to work at a different branch than me. We got a call from her branch supervisor at 8:20ish that said that she had come in and was complaining that she had awful indigestion from the food at the shower, and felt like she was going to have to throw up. Her stomach was cramping. The supervisor asked if her cramps were coming at regular intervals, and said that a dawning came over her face. Surely not. Surely this isn't labor?? They told her to go on to the hospital and at least get checked out. We got a call about an hour later, that yes, she was in labor.

The next call came around noon. I knew something was up immediately. My branch supervisor worked in the window next to mine and they called her window. I remember vividly her saying, "OH!! Have you heard anything?" and then she went completely silent. I could see she was crying, and she hung up without saying a word and left her window. Within minutes, they started calling the other tellers to the back, one at a time. They called me last. Megan's baby was stillborn. It seemed that a blood clot had traveled down the umbilical cord. Megan was in danger at that moment because they could not stop her bleeding, and they were going to have to go in surgically and try and stop it.

I was horrified and scared. I wanted to go home, but I couldn't because we were already shorthanded. Plus the word was spreading, and customers were coming in and asking questions. Even asking me what had happened, and would Megan come back to work, and how was I holding up. It was a horrible day. Megan pulled through, but she was in the hospital so long that she missed her baby's funeral.

It worked out that Megan was off for 8 weeks, and the week she was scheduled to come back, I got put on bedrest. I didn't have to see her until I came back to work from maternity leave in January. Here is where you get to see the spoiled person that I am inside, I suppose. For although I ached for her loss, and know that what she went through was a thousand times worse than what I did, I still want to get this out.

The bank never had a shower for me, and it made me angry. It made me feel that the loss of her child caused the joy of my child to be diminished. There was no reason to NOT have a shower for me, because Megan was off work and would not know of the celebration.

When I came back to work, no one asked to see pictures, unless we were in the breakroom, while Megan was working. No one asked how Elizabeth was doing, or how I was doing. It broke my heart. This was the happiest time in my life and I could not talk about it. And even if a customer who didn't know what had happened with Megan asked me a question about my new baby, I would feel that I had to whisper, that I needed to make sure she didn't hear me talk about how my 2 month old was already sleeping through the night, and eating like a pig, and had the most beautiful red hair you have ever seen. I felt ashamed for having a healthy, happy, beautiful baby. It sucked. My ultrasound picture had long since been taken home, and I didn't feel that I could put up a new one of my precious baby. Instead of saying that I had to be off a certain day for her checkups, I would just quietly mark "Need off at 10" on the schedule chart.

This went on for nearly a year, until Megan quit the bank. She said it was time to make some changes in her life, and she left. I have never seen her again. I have no idea what happened to her, if she had more children, finished her degree, or if she is even still in the state. But the damage was done. I was used to not sharing my motherhood, and it continued. I still didn't talk about Elizabeth much at work. If I said anything about her, I would still feel a bit of latent guilt. I felt like my talking about her brought Megan and her little girl back to the minds of the people around me. It was a hard time.

I guess that is all I wanted to say, just that this kind of tradgedy is hard all around, and does affect the lucky ones, too.

Not a good idea

My house is a disaster. A constant state of upheaval. No sooner can I get something done, like the dishes or the laundry, then someone is in another room tearing up tissues, or throwing a bowl of food.

So over the last few months, I have developed the working mom's cleaning solution. If it is unsanitary, or is going to attract bugs, or cause a smell, it gets cleaned. Other than that, it is every sock, shoe, toy, book, paper, pen, glass, crayondolllipglossfishbait for its self.

This method has its downfall, believe it or not.

Generally, I get dressed for walking, drive the 20 minutes to drop Elizabeth off at school, go walk two miles, then change at the office, and get my butt to my desk.

On Tuesday, this plan was totally interrupted. I could not find a bra... anywhere. At 7:35, I was tearing the house apart, sifting through laundry baskets of clean clothes, looking under the beds, on the doorknobs, in the laundry room... everywhere I could think to look. No freaking bra. This doesn't sound too bad, unless you consider that I am the proud owner of SIX bras. Two good ones, two crappy ones that I walk in, and one black one that is too small, but I have two dresses that are thin and black and I wear it with those. I couldn't even find that one.

So, I drove the 20 minutes to school, with no bra on. Elizabeth was late of course. Then drove 20 minutes back home to search for a damn bra. Going without is not an option. I am a 34DD, and the sisters do not point forward. I would look like the redneck lady that they always interview on the news after a twister... "I dint know what it wuz!! It sounted like a freight train!!" *boobs swaying when she points in the direction of the freight train* Thank goodness, I found ONE. The other five are still incognito.

Then yesterday, I could not find the hair brush. Again, no big deal unless you know that we own FOUR hairbrushes. Two good ones, and two crappy ones. None anywhere. I actually brushed Elizabeths hair with one of her plastic doll brushes.

I, of course, was cussing a blue streak about how trashed this house is, and why can't anyone (ie: Marty) ever help do anything. (considering he is a stay at home dad most days.)

Marty says, "You know, I have been meaning to talk to you about this. We are both unorganized and something needs to change. Here is my idea. Today, while you are at work, make a list of all the things that I do around here that need improvement, or that irritate you. And I will make one about you." He is so gleeful, obviously happy that he has come up with this ingenious plan.

I looked at him for a long moment, and then smiled. "You are right honey. We have been married nearly 11 years. Its high time we had a huge fight and got divorced! I will start on my list right now!!"

He is stunned by my lack of cooperation. "Honey!! Seriously!! We can do this without getting mad! See, for instance, it drives me crazy that you kick off your shoes by the living room door every day. If you would start picking up after yourself in little ways, like taking your shoes to your closet every day, the house would be clean! And I know that there are things I need to do around here too!!"

*S T U N N E D S P E E C H L E S S *

All i can do is splutter and jab my finger helplessly at all the shoes in the living room: Yes, three pair of mine, colby's lonely only pair, Marty's work shoes, and two pair of Elizabeth's tennis shoes. Why am I taking the fall? I am instantly furious, looking at the OTHER junk in the living room.

Marty's thing that makes me nuts? (one of many, mind you!) He uses his feet to kick off his socks, and then shoves them down into the couch. I can see at least 3 socks sticking out of the cushion.

This is by far one of the worst ideas he has ever come up with. He must have me confused with the docile, sweet, obedient girl he MEANT to marry. There is no way, with all the work that I do around here, that I am going to take constructive criticism about the stupid, meaningless things that I don't do.

I am not making a list. And he sure as hell better not hand me one, either!!

I remember when I was in the 6th grade, sitting on the playground with my very best preteen friend, Laura Frost, and mentioning that it was my mom's birthday.

"Oh really?" She asked. "How old is your mom?"

I remember being slightly embarrassed and rolling my eyes and saying, "Oh my gosh, she is really old. She is 32 now."

Then Laura's face turned beet red and she said, "Uh... my mom had me when she was 32... she is 44 now."

I was horrified. How could Mrs. Frost, who was soon to be my 7th grade English teacher, be so CARELESS to have a child so late in life??? I remember laying awake that night and wondering if decrepit "old" Mrs. Frost would live to see and enjoy her grandchildren. I mean, my mom was OLD, but dear heavens!!! Having children at 32????

I turned 32 yesterday. I don't know whether to laugh at my innocence, or cry at how my child must see me.

Even now, when someone asks, "How old are you?" my immediate response is "Twen... Thirty... one." I still feel 26. How long is that going to get me through?

Better old than dead.

Rated G - for the gazillions you will spend on therapy later...

Elizabeth's family birthday party was kind of a bust. We cancelled the "joint" party, and decided to just have a family thing out at my mom's. Well, ended up that no one could make it. One of my grandmother's brothers died, my uncle had to have a defibullator put in, and my brother was having a personal crisis. Elizabeth had a great time, but it was really like just another day at meme's, but with cupcakes and a couple of presents.

So to make up for it, I called my friend Tasha, and asked her to bring her girls and meet me in Hot Springs for dinner and a movie. And when you are taking little kids to the movies, what better choice is there right now but "Chicken Little"? Well, we may as well have taken them to see "The Fog".

Don't get me wrong - Tasha and I loved the movie. We laughed obnoxiously throughout, while most of the rest of the theater sat quietly. It appealed to our weird sense of humor.

What irks me is that they show the ads for these movies, and the ads are a bunch of cutie Chicken Little with his cutie friends doing cutie things, and you think, "Now THERE is a good wholesome movie!" It's not until you get your kids in the theater, and the sky cracks open in an awfully horrific manner, and all these spaceships come down out of the cracks and when the spaceships open up, and these huge, scary spider aliens come out with feet ending in metal spikes, and they start destroying everything in their path and your kid starts crying to go home and burying her face in your lap that you think, "Huh. Maybe we should have previewed this first....?" And it only got worse from there. We actually checked the movie poster when we left to make sure it didn't say PG13.

After we got the little kids in the car, (the bigger girls went to see a different movie that ended an hour after ours... at 13, it is apparently "uncool" to go see a kid's movie with your mom and her best friend, and two little kids... LOL!!) and took them to Sonic for drinks, I reminded Tasha how things have come full circle. Ten years ago, when her oldest was 3, we fell into this same trap with Toy Story. We see the ads with silly old Woody and confused, kooky, Buzz, and all the toy room gang and thought it would be a great movie to take Kasey to see. She became so hysterical over the mean kid next door and his scary mutant toys that we really DID leave the theater. I didn't see the end of the movie until it came out on video.

What is the problem with making a kids movie that is really just for kids? Do we have to have the scary situations, the adult targeted jokes, and crazy storylines? Do moviemaker people think we as adults are so self centered that we can't give two hours (or an hour, in this case) of our time strictly for our childrens entertainment, without having to be entertained ourselves?

It's kind of sad really.

Food Snob

I am becoming such a food snob. I am not as bad as some people I know (misty, karrie!!!) but a snob nonetheless.

My mom found out I am trying to do the South Beach Diet, and that eggs are one of the few things that I can eat in the first phase. So, to be nice, she talked to a farmer friend of hers and he gave her a flat of irregular eggs that he could not sell. She gave them to me last night, and I tried to act overjoyed, but those wavy-shelled monstrosities scared me.

"Don't be surprised if some of them have double yolks!!"

Double yolks, you say? Wavy-brown-shells, AND double yolks?? Wow! It's like a carnival of food!

I have good intentions and I put them in my fridge. But this morning when crunch time came... my hand hesitated over the sci-fi, bi-yolked chicken babies, and then reached on past to the REAL eggs... You know, in the yellow carton, with the shiny white shells.

I don't know if I can eat those eggs.

I have a tenuous relationship with eggs anyway. After years of not being able to eat them, I have finally made peace with the egg. In high school, a friend of mine and I were making brownies, or cake or some such treat and she broke the egg into the batter, and said, "Ohhh!! Look at the umbilical cord on that one!!" Ever since then, I have to pick that white thing that IS NOT AN UMBILICAL CORD, (I like to think of it as a little egg-ribbon of love) out of my egg before I can cook it. And even then I have to scramble them. Can't eat them over easy. or fried, or anything where the yolk is runny.

I am the same way about meat. I can't eat anything with a bone in it. I just can't. It makes me gag. One of the girls at the office brought a rotissierie chicken for us to cut up and put in our salads and I thought I would die. It was just a headless chicken with wings and legs, laying in a puddle of juice, skin stretched, it's little wings all curled up... oh gag.

I know how I got to be overweight. I like my chicken breaded and in a round shape, dipped in sauce. I like my eggs inside of a cake. Steak is that stuff you get on your taco at Taco Bell. Hamburger meat comes in a cellophane package and is a nice bright pink.

I know if I ate the "real" versions of food, I would be thinner.

But I would also be nauseated a lot.

A very scary halloween story!

Sometimes I wonder if I really bring on a lot of my frustrations myself. I don't know HOW, but it seems like, with me, the tiniest little errand turns into a figurative 10 car pile up.

We will start with Halloween. My mom was keeping Colby on Halloween, and she brought him to my office at 4:00 so that we could start getting him and Elizabeth ready. (I picked her up at school.) She brought them both a Happy Meal (yes, I know - they are evil. But we ordered milk instead of cokes so it's all good.) Colby was in one of his moods where he wanted to climb on the table and lay in the burger chunks instead of sitting like a human and eating them. My mom was getting frustrated, and I couldn't help much because I was technically still on the clock. (Our wonder-secretary called in, or this would not have been an issue.) I finally had the bright idea of getting the stroller out of the car and buckling him in it, therefore halting the burger bath.

I get out to the car... no stroller. WTH!! The stroller STAYS in the durango, because I use it so much. I call Marty and ask him where the stroller is. "It's on the porch."

"And it would be there... why??"

"Honey, I asked you last night if you needed the stroller and you said no, so I took it out."

Dammit!! Yes, he did say, "Honey, do you need this stroller?" and I, sitting there in my pajamas watching Desperate Housewives with my hair wet and both kids asleep, was thinking, "Why in the hell would i need the damn stroller??" Of course, all I said was, "No."

He took that apparently to mean, "I am never going to need the stroller again, please place it far back on the front porch where I can't see it."

Well, we trick or treat at a college here in Arkadelphia, and it is always a madhouse, with hundreds of kids in line for hours. There was no way that we could carry Colby for that long. Especially considering he does not LIKE to be carried. He LIKES to be put down to crawl off and search for adventure. And eat bugs.

Plus, my house is 20 minutes away. No time to go home to get the stroller. I told my mom, "No big deal! I will run to Walmart and get one of those pop up umbrella strollers that are like $8. I could probably use a spare, anyway."

So I run to walmart to get a stroller. They only had two, a reddish one and a winnie the pooh one. I grabbed the red one, and headed for the front.

I found one line that had only one little old lady in it, and she didn't have a ton of groceries. The checker was pretty busy chatting with another checker and after the little old lady paid and thanked her and headed for the doors, the checker finally clued in that she had not put any of the groceries in the womans basket.

Instead of chasing after her, she just got all the bags off the carousel and put them behind her. I am thinking, "WHAT THE CRAP!! So THIS is why walmart put the new carousel bag thingies in!! To make more money!!" And I told the girl to just wait a minute, and I ran after the lady, and told her she had left some groceries. Easy solution. She came back and got her groceried and i paid for my stroller and left the store.

So, did I mention that it was pouring down rain? Well it was. So we haul the kids down to the college and we get the new stroller out of the car, and Colby the Ticked Off Lion out of the car, and put Colby in the brand new stroller and start to push it... and it doesn't move. Why?

NO FRONT WHEELS!!

So, we have to push him all night in a stroller with 2 wheels. Not only that, because of the rain, Henderson had a record number of trick-or-treaters. It was a literal crush of people, and the line was about an hour long. Were it not for Elizabeth, we would have went straight home, but she looks so forward to this every year.

And off topic a bit! There was one door that was not secure in the Garrison Center, and there were PARENTS that were sneaking their kids in there, bypassing the 1 hour wait. That just made me insane. There was a group that tried to cut in between me and the lady in front of me, and she turned around and said "Don't you EVEN think about cutting in line here! We have been in line with our whiney ass children for an hour and I will be DANGED if you are getting in near me!!" My sentiments exactly.

So we get home with our candy horde and all go to bed and all is well.

The next day, I take the stroller back to walmart. The lady gives me lip because the wheels are dirty. I told her that yes, the wheels are dirty, I bought a stroller that I needed, and had to use it even though it was faulty. And now I am returning it, with my receipt dated yesterday, for my "unconditional money back guarantee" that walmart is so proud of advertising.

Then, yesterday Marty took Colby to walmart for groceries while I was at work, and right before I left the office, he called.

"You are going to have to run back to walmart."

Please not that. I can't take it anymore!!

"Why??? WHY???"

Marty is boiling mad. "Because I was checking out, and your son was pitching a fit and I didn't notice until just now that none of our meat got put in the basket." That would be 5 pounds ground chuck, a pound of bacon, a package of turkey, and a package of crab.

Damn the carousel. And damn Walmart.

damn you, red ribbon week

Today, Elizabeth got home from school and cornered me at the dinner table.

"Mom! I want you to stop doing drugs!!"

Oh hell. Who has she been talking to??

"Honey!! What are you talking about?? I don't do drugs!!!" I exclaimed, innocently.

"Oh yes you do!! Today we talked about smoking and I told my class that you smoke all the time, and cigarettes are drugs and you need to stop smoking or you are going to DIE!"

Great. Let's not even take into account that I have more or less quit smoking except for the one weekend a month that I go see my friend Tasha. She has quit too, but when we are together, we smoke. Yes, its bad. But its better than me smoking all the time. It has made it much easier for me to quit, because I know that I can have one or two or five when I am with her.

Being the grownup that I am, I hated to take all the blame, so I said, "What about your dad? He dips skoal, and that is a drug too!!"

Marty nearly drops his plate, and looks as if he might throw it at me. But he can't argue, now can he?

"Well, we didn't talk about skoal."

"Well, I promise you, its a drug too!!" I said, ignoring the gasps of incredulousness from Marty's direction that say, how can you throw me to the dogs to save your own smoker ass??? Because I can, honey. We are married, and if one of us has to have questionable morals and be a bad influence... well then we both do. So there.

Elizabeth then puts her fork down, and throws her hands up in the air in disgust. "GREAT!! I live in a drug house! That is just great!!"

I laughed until I was crying.

I have to go and clean my house now. I figure the police will be here with search warrants by about 9AM.

a poem

By: Elizabeth Adair
Dedication: To Whiney Butt Colby

Roses are red
Violets are blue
Our mama is beautiful
And I love her more than you do.

Doesn't that just warm your heart??

big fat baby

Marty did the unthinkable to me last night in bed.

NO!! NOT THAT!! Get your mind out of the gutter!

We were laying in bed, and I was almost asleep, somewhere in drifty land... and he raises up in bed and sits very still.

"Waddare you doon?" I mumble.

"Did you hear that?" he whispers.

I am instantly awake, heart pounding. "What?!?" I say, too loudly.

"That noise??"

"WHAT NOISE???" i am near hysteria at this point. "WHAT did it SOUND like??"

"I don't know, it was just an odd noise... I don't hear it now, it was probably nothing." He rolls over and is nearly instantly snoring.

I, on the other hand, and lying stock-still in the bed, trembling in fear, ears trying desperately to pick up the "odd noise" that he heard. This is a near impossibility since the blood is roaring in my head.

I bet I layed there scared to death for over an hour, just waiting for the rapist / child molester / kidnapper / murderer to appear at the foot of my bed. Or for the quietly sizzling wires to finally catch fire, and burn us all to death in our sleep. I wanted to go and peek at the children and make sure they had not strangled on their blankets, or suffocated on their stuffed animals. Or choked on a bug. But I am stuck in the paralysis of fear.

I have always, as long as I can remember, had these night terrors. I have no idea why, and I usually can keep them in check. I have had to, because Marty is gone so much at night, and I don't like sleeping with lights on. But all it takes is something like last night to send me over the edge.

I remember the first year we lived here, I woke up at 2 AM, conVINCED that someone was on the roof... why in the world they would be on our roof when we have no chimney, and two perfectly accessible doors, I don't know. But he was up there, I was sure of it. After 30 minutes of being terrified, I woke Marty up. I harassed him and hounded him until he got pissed and went outside to look on the roof. He came back minutes later and said that there was nothing up there. I asked if he actually climbed up there to see.

"Dammit, Natalie! It's 2AM, and its freezing outside and I am not climbing up on the damn roof!"

So I started crying. And he got dressed again, and cussed the whole time, and went and got a ladder out of the garage, and climbed up on the roof. He stomped around A LOT so that I would know that he covered every inch of our 1200 square foot roof.

He came back in the house, got nakey again, and climbed under the covers, and never said a word. I kissed him and said "Thank you, honey." and turned off the light.

I layed there for about 5 minutes before it hit me and I turned white hot with terror again.

"Marty!" I whispered. "Marty!!" I whispered more urgently when he didn't respond.

"OHMYGOD WHAT??" He screamed.

"It wasn't the roof... someone is in the ATTIC!!!"

We didn't get much sleep that night.

I refrained from waking him last night. I try really hard to not be a crazy woman, but one of these days when I get murdered in my sleep, everyone is going to feel PRETTY bad about making fun of me.

I can't even watch scary movies. I feel sick at my stomach if i catch part of one on tv as I am channel surfing. Previews for theater releases of slasher films break me out in a cold sweat.

Last year when The Exorcist II was being previewed, I nearly had a panic attack every time the commercial was played. I saw the original when I was way to young to be watching it, and I remember laying in bed at night and staring at my louvered closet doors and waiting for a SatanChild to peek through the slats.

Anyone want to come to my house and watch the Smurfs Halloween Adventure???

who needs Zolft when there is frozen custard??

I don't know what is going on around here! On friday, my computer quit working. Marty and I spent most of friday night trying to fix it, but to no avail. Saturday, the Dish satellite quit. In normal circumstances, it would be no big deal to call up Dish and say, "Hey!! Our satellite quit!! Get someone's ass out here!" Unfortunately, since we are D I R T poor, I have to pay first things first... and our dish payment is almost two months behind. No, it wasn't disconnected before you ask. Over the summer, Marty hit it with the lawnmower and knocked out one of the two transponders. With it only running on one transponder, it would occasionally lose a signal. Well, on Saturday, we got just enough wind to almost completely knock out the other. I was trying to watch some bad Lifetime movie, and would get about two minutes of the show... and then a full minute of "Your signal has been LOST!! Searching for signal...", then two more minutes of the show... you get the picture. I promise you, it was worse than it being altogether disconnected.

On Sunday, Marty promised that he would be home early and that we were going to have a family day. In fact, he said, "I thought of something the whole family can do, and it is something you have always wanted to do, and I have never taken you. And i think the weather will be perfect." I was so excited, because I just KNEW we were going to go dig for diamonds.

I got the kids up at 8:00, and put them in play clothes. And we waited. And we waited.

By 11:00, the worst (what I am thinking is PMS) attack that I have had in a long time set in. I just felt seriously like jumping off a bridge... Had I a bridge.... And a babysitter to watch the kids while I jumped... And a nice dress to wear in the casket. I put Colby down for a nap, and let Elizabeth watch a movie, and just layed on the couch with my back to her so that she thought I was asleep and just cried my eyes out. I don't know what it was. I just felt... dispair.

Marty got home around 12:30 and said that it was really too cold for what he had planned... I should have known it wasn't REALLY something I had always wanted to do... Marty doesn't work that way. HIS idea was for us to take the boat to Hot Springs and explore Lake Hamilton. There are tons of multimillion dollar houses all along the shores of the lake... ok, I did mention this summer that I would like to explore Lake Hamilton, but I meant sans children. No offense, but for those of you with May 2004 children, does it REALLY sound like fun to be out in a bass boat with extremely low sides all afternoon on a chilly day... ? uh, no.

So, then he wants to know why I am crying. I don't know. I just am. I am... just sad. I am 3 weeks from my 32nd birthday, and I always thought by this age I would be... more than I am now. I am less successful now than I was 5 years ago. (Except for the babies, of course!)

So anyway, I tell Marty that I just need to get out of the house for awhile, and we went to Hot Springs and got chips and dip at On The Border, then did a little retail therapy at Old Navy, (on the Old Navy card, of course...) (can I tell you that in July I bought Elizabeth 3 pairs of pants and 3 dresses in a size 5, and they don't fit anymore? AND that after a trip to the dressing room, we discovered that she can't wear SIXES either???? How can a kid skip a size in 3 months?????) and then we visited my dad and his girlfriend, and THEN we went to Shakey's and I got a Fudge Brownie and Pecan Frozen Custard Concrete... HEAVEN.... CALORIES for the WEEK too!!

And I feel better today.

OH!! And my cordless phone quit on Sunday. WTH!! Karma is paying me back electronically for being a bitter, whiney, ass.

Maybe that can be my new nickname... BWA.

To leave on a lighter note, I called my husband from work and told him that if he would wash dishes, start the laundry and cook supper, I would pick Elizabeth up from school and let her play on the computer at my office until I got off work at 5.

When we got home, the dishes were washed, the laundry started... and a bonfire was roaring in the front yard. When I asked why we had a huge fire in the front yard, he responded, "SUPPER!!" with a devilish grin.

We roasted hot dogs with the kids in the front yard in front of God and everybody, and ate them hot off the stick.

We are such rednecks.

My little artist

I have so much in my head right now, but do not have time to blog it all... so instead I am sharing another of E's fabulous art projects.

We had our first parent teacher conference last night, and her teacher pointed out that on E's report card, she had gotten an "exceeds expectations" in art. She told us that she *never* gives that grade in art, but that E is so artistic, she had to do it. And then she gave us this picture that she copied out of E's journal for the day.

She said that she passed out their journals and told them to write about something they could see in the room and she said that it wasn't five minutes later that E said "I'm finished!!" and this was the picture she drew. I think it is just precious, (the actual picture is much more detailed, the bat even has little hands in his wings... awwww!) and I am framing it in my office for the rest of the month.

Now, an offshoot of this photo... am i the only one that thinks about the mean website where the guy made fun of the kids art everytime they share one of their kids drawings??? *sigh*... it is kind of funny though... But please don't mail Elizabeth's drawings to him!!!!!!

I will be back with a longer blog tonight.

*smooch*

Orthodontaphobia

I hate the dentist.

I would seriously rather have a colorectal probe screening once a month than go to the dentist once a year. (And yes, once a year. FORGET about me going biannually... It is NOT going to happen!!)

I did good for awhile there, until my insurance stopped covering my dentist. I used that as an excuse not to go for the last two years. And now I am paying for it, a thousandfold.

A little background: Back in high school, (and I remember this like it was yesterday,) my mom, my aunt and I went to Little Rock to do some Christmas shopping. I had bought a couple of those Atomic Fireballs jawbreakers, (I was addicted to those things back in the day) and was happily chomping along while my mom drove. Suddenly, I chomped and the jawbreaker gave... only it wasn't the jawbreaker as I soon discovered when I was blinded by pain. It was my back jawtooth on the left side. It cracked it completely in half and half of it was in my mouth. As in, NOT ATTACHED ANYMORE. I went to the dentist the next day, and he said it was such a mess that the best thing we could do would be to pull it. So he did. So the last 15 years, I have had only one upper left jawtooth. No biggie. I really haven't noticed.

About 5 years ago, I had a cavity in the remaining upper left jawtooth. My dentist then was drilling away and suddenly I felt his hand slip, and he uttered, "OOPS!!" Not a very comforting word when you are me, and you are in a dentists chair wishing you were drunk. "Waaa??" I said, my mouth numb and full of torture devices... "Well, your tooth just cracked and broke a little. I think I can fix it though." Lovely. Just flippin lovely. He claims to have fixed it and it is not until that night when I get my feeling back in my mouth that I find I am left with a ragged tooth-shell. It is nearly all filling, and has a jagged point. I went back that week because the filling was not ground down enough and I was having a hard time eating and having headaches, and I asked him at that time if he didn't think it might be better to just have it capped, and he said "No. Caps are expensive and this will hold up for awhile. I don't like to cap if I don't have to." Whatever. You are the doctor of teeth, not me.

I went to him a couple of more times before he dropped my insurance. Or my insurance dropped him, whichever.

Well, Monday night, I was eating dinner and had a teeny bit of flash pain on that side of my mouth. Under futher investigation, I found that another piece of that tooth has broken off. (Aren't teeth supposed to be the strongest substance in the human body?? I think mine are made of glass!) So now I am terrified that I am going to lose that tooth, too. I will have to have a bridge. Ugg. I am 31 and 11/12ths... I don't want fake teeth yet!!

I made an appointment with my new dentist today. He is the only one that is covered by my insurance in a 50 mile radius, so I hope he is good. I can't get in until next Wednesday though. Now would be a good time to try that liquid diet.

About once a month, I have a dream that my teeth are all breaking off in my mouth, and I am having to spit tooth pieces all over the place, and Marty has actually woken me up and told me, "YOU are SPITTING all over the pillow! STOP!! Immediately!!!!!!"

This is a serious issue for me. Damn teeth. And don't let your kids have jawbreakers!!!!

Just you wait, your time is coming...

I hate mornings like this morning. I totally lost my temper at Elizabeth and turned into Mommy Dearest. Seriously.

It is a fight every single morning with her because she wants to wear a dress everyday. Today at school they are doing a physical challenge (no, she isn't in a tiny reality show... lol!) and have to run a mile. I laid out her stretchy pants and a t-shirt and she freaked out. "YOU SAID I could wear my BROWN DRESS this week and you have NOT LET ME YET!!!!" stomp feet, scream, tears.

I tried to reason with her about the run and she said "I CAN WEAR TENNIS SHOES WITH MY DRESS! I CAN RUN IN A DRESS!! YOU SAID I COULD WEAR A DRESS AND I WANT TO WEAR A DRESS!!!"

Meanwhile, Colby is laughing and throwing oatmeal and banana slices all over the kitchen, and then tosses his sippy as hard as he can. OF COURSE, the lid pops off and milk goes everywhere.

Deep breath.... cleansing breath... the world is full of poppies and butterflies... remember the moment of their birth... how precious they were!.... precious babies.... cotton candy... ice cold coke from a glass bottle.... deep breath.... in through the nose....

Ok.... she is right. She can run in a dress. I go to her closet and pull out a brown velvet short sleeve dress. I walk into the bathroom where she is standing in her panties, tears streaming, and say "Here you go." and hand her the dress. She begins wailing again, and stomping her feet. "NOT THAT BROWN DRESS!!!! THE ONE WITH THE FLOWERY BELT!!!! WITH THE SNAPS!!! THE LIGHT BROWN DRESS!!! I HATE THIS ONE!!!"

Speaking of "Snap".... I picked up her Fairly Oddparents Toothpaste and threw it into the wall as hard as I could. Which was pretty hard because it broke the whole lid off and liquid toothpaste went everywhere. I then screamed at her. And threw the brown velvet dress across the room.

The brown dress that she is wanting is one I bought at Old Navy before school started. She has grown just enough that the dress shows her panties when she bends over. Even though she is only in kindergarten, I don't want her flashing her drawers all over the town.

I told her tough luck, but the dress is too small, and she is not wearing it. More tears, more tears, more tears. And she is crying, "I can't believe you broke my toothpaste!! NOW how am I going to brush my teeth!! They are all going to fall OUT!!!!"

I told her to suck it up and go get her damn backpack ready. At this point I could care less if every tooth in her head simultaneously falls on the floor. We eventually leave the house, (cleaning up only the milk, but leaving the remnants of a one man food fight in the kitchen... nice.) and we get halfway to school and I look back at her and she doesn't have her jacket. (She ended up wearing an ugly short sleeve pink dress... with tennis shoes.) "Elizabeth. Where is your JACKET??"

"You didn't hand it to me, so I don't have it."

Pull over just long enough to beat my head into the steering wheel. "Elizabeth, you are almost 6 years old, and you know you need a jacket. It's hanging right by the door. Just get it as you leave the house."

"Well, you are my mom and you are supposed to give it to me when it's cold. That is what moms do."

Lay it on a little thicker, honey. We all know, you are one abused child.

When we got to school, she didn't even kiss me goodbye, just got out of the car.

Now I have to sit here at work and wish that I could start over. And hope she stays safe at school today, so that I don't have to remember this morning as "our last morning together". I know, morbid.

heh-whoa? heeeeyyyy....

These kids are so funny! Lord, how I wish I were a better mother about keeping track of the funny things they do. With Elizabeth I didn't realize how important it was, didn't realize how many things I would forget about her toddlerhood. Now with Colby, I do realize it, but I don't want Elizabeth to be hurt someday when I have a book of all of Colby's funny things and not her witicisms.... Maybe I should make some up...?? LMAO!!

Colby's new thing is to play what I call telemarketer. He will pick up a random object and put it on his shoulder like its a phone and say, "Heh-whoa? HEEEYYYY!!!" then mumble a bunch of gobbledygook and then laugh outrageously and then say, "okbye." Sometimes while he is on line one, he will hear another line "ring", and will put a second random object to his other ear and carry on two conversations. So if you come over and he has a hairbrush on one shoulder and a shoe on the other.... you will know he is trying to sell some siding.

The hairbrush is another thing. Every day after his bath, he will get the hairbrush and sit on the couch and brush his hair... only thing is, he has been watching me brush his sisters hair, so apparently he thinks his hair is to his waist, too. What a mess!!

And lastly, he has found his male gene... the testosterone has started flowing through his bloodstream... he is OBSESSED with cars. He spends all day pushing cars all over the house. No noises yet, I suppose his cars are the silent cars of the future. Of course he is also obsessed with his sisters stash of "mardi gras" beads... Maybe he will be the first cross dressing indy car driver. If he ever learns to walk that is...

Now for my Elizabeth.... I narrowly adverted a huge mess with her yesterday! It is past time for my gynecologist appointment. I was supposed to go in September, but dreaded going weighing what I do now and was hoping to lose some weight before then. But here is is a month and a half later, and even though I have been walking my fool ass off, I have not lost a single pound. (How can this BE???) So I went ahead and made my appointment.

At dinner last night, I mentioned to Marty that, "I made my appointment with Dr. Henson today. It is the day after my birthday at 1:45, so maybe you and Colby can go with me." (my Dr is about an hour away in a bigger city, so we used to go as a family and go out for lunch and shop and all... just so you know that I didn't want him to come and watch me get my cervix scraped and my boobs examined.) He said that was fine. I did not notice my daughters apparent glee over this statement. She did ask if she could go, and I told her that she would be in school that day. That was that.

Until later that evening when she asked me how long until the baby gets to come out. I asked her what she meant and she said, "The baby in your belly!!" For a moment I was afraid this was going to be another "fat" conversation, and I cringed, and asked, "What are you talking about honey?" and she said "YOU SAID you were going to see Dr. Handsome (I swear she came up with that on her own!) for your birthday!!" To her, Dr. Handsome is the Doctor That Gets The Baby Out. I had to explain that this was not the case and that it was just a checkup. She then wanted to know if it was a checkup to see if we can put a baby in there to grow and I said NO. This pod is closed indefinitely.

She is such a good child. I don't know if I mentioned it or not, but she was picked a couple of weeks ago as Citizen of the Month at her school, because of her "willingness to help others without being asked" and her "great manners!!" It's so funny because once we started talking about manners, she became praise obsessed.

A typical meal would go like this:

"Mom, could you please hand me the ketchup?
mom hands the ketchup
"thank you ma'am!!" Elizabeth beams.
Mom says, "You are welcome!"
"Hey mom, did you hear I said please, ma'am, and thank you?? Isn't that such good manners of me??"

I wish I had the money to have ten more children.

look at all the pretty colors!! and the tag says "drink me!"

So I did.

Ugg. I never drink. Seriously. (By never, I mean like 3 times a year.) I guess that because of this, I am a cheap drunk. And since I quit smoking, I don't even take breaks from drinking to inhale toxic plumes into my lungs. It's just an all night slurpfest. (by all night, I mean about 30 minutes)

Lately nothing is quite going the way it should. I had a crapper day at work yesterday- and had a customer call me at 4:55 and want me to (insert insurance crap here that no one really cares about) and I told him that was impossible to do at that time of day because (insurance insurance insurance laws and boring regulations blah blah blah) and he was furious and chewed me out. Demanded to talk to my boss, and I told him my boss was fishing on the river... ended up being on the phone with him until 5:20, and he hung up mad. (We close at 5)

So I come home and tell Marty I want to run to the beer store (beer store - kind of like the whole coke/soda/pop thing... you say beer store even if you are going to get wine, or in my case vodka.)

I wanted to do what any responsible adult would do in my shoes... Put the kids to bed and get trashed.

I used to be a complete margarita girl. But thanks to the Office Party That Will Live in Infamy... (thanks Misty, for mixing those "margaritas"... A Misty Margarita is a glass full of Tequila and a splash of margarita mix for color. No salt because Misty doesn't like it.) I nearly hurl every time I smell Tequila... Not only did it make my clothes fall off, it made me puke in various locations, lose my watch, and pee on the ground. (the bathroom was too far.)

So, last night I bought the stuff for Chocolate Martinis (chocolate and alcohol... if it came with a side of hot gynecologist and a maid, it would be every girls dream... there is even a cherry in the bottom, so it is healthy too!!) and for Sour Apple Martinis. (Looks like antifreeze, tastes like Jolly Ranchers!! YUM!!) I had big dreams... Apparently thought I had turned in to Tara Reid overnight.

I had three (three!!) small drinks, and was snockered. And I had the irresistible urge to make an ass out of myself over the internet. First I made a very melodramatic post on the board (if you have not seen it, I am sure not going to point you in that direction!) and then I got into BBC chat and no one was there (well except for the April 05 moms and some group that I could not decipher. But just in case it was the Mom's Against Other Moms Drinking Alcohol and Getting In To Chat, (MAOMDAGITC) I decided not to go there. So then I went to Jody Evans Chat even though I am still nursing hurt feelings over there. (This would be the "trip" people for those of you in the know - for those of you that aren't, we were supposed to go on a trip, and they have edited me out.... another reason for my pissy week. Oh and they didn't edit me out because I am psycho alcoholic girl, but because they wanted to leave a day early and I can't, so they decided to leave me behind like an unwanted dog.) ANNNNYWAY!! The point was moot because after all that surfing, I was sick. I layed on the kitchen floor and let Marty take over the computer. Then I went to sleep.

And this morning, I feel like crap. And I didn't take my makeup off last night, so I look pretty crappy too. Time to stick all these bottles up on top of the fridge with all the other nearly full bottles.

I suck at being Tara.

Kiki is smart

Kristen blogged a long long long time ago about how it sucked that she passed out her blog address with wild abandon and now finds that she can't blog all she wants and needs to blog because too many people have her address and will be checking it, and get offended and friendships will end, and wars will begin...

She is so right.

It DOES suck. And I can't imagine what I would do if I had passed my address out to family!! Yall would be reading about what I ate for breakfast (vanilla creme shredded wheat!! HEAVENLY!!) or about how all this damn walking is not doing a damn thing and i have not lost a damn hell pound and so now i am going to start the damn South Beach shit tomorrow, or how I can't withhold relations to punish my husband for being a complete ass because i am WEAK and SLUTTY...

Ok, enough about that...

Colby has a new pasttime... ripping my heart out. Every morning when Elizabeth and I leave, he crawls into his coveted red chair and looks out the window, bawling and screaming for us to come back. I can see his little beet red teary face all the way to the highway. It freaking kills me. I can't stand it. I took this picture this morning... you can't see it all that well, but I couldn't hang around for a better one. He was screaming his little heart out.

Kids are mean.

How to lose a fan in 10 seconds...

Since I am having such a crappy life right now, I decided that there was one thing I needed... Some best-friend-time!!

Tasha has been my best friend and most trusted confidant for a seriously long time. We have known each other our whole lives, but didn't really get to be friends until I dated her husband...

Ok, that was a joke. Really, back in high school, there was this guy that I went out with one time, who would not leave me alone. I thought he was creepy, and strange (blind date) and he told some seriously unbelievable stories. (One being that he had been a cop in NY and had gotten shot by some gang members and nearly died... BUT did not have a visible scar because NY plastic surgeons are so much more advanced that Arkansas plastic surgeons.... yeah, winner.)

So anyway, Tasha comes up to me in journalism class (back when we were not friends at all) and tells me that this guy asked her out and she heard we were a couple and wanted to know if that was true.... "OH NO!! We are SO NOT a couple!! GO out with him!! SERIOUSLY!!! Have a great time!!!" She says now that my enthusiasm for her happiness should have clued her in. They were married by the end of the year, and divorced 2 years later.

During the divorce, she applied for a job where I worked, not knowing that I worked there. After a few rough days, (more on that some other time!) we forged a friendship. I had no idea that we would still be here 12 years later, and that she would be one of the most important and influential people in my life.

The only bad part is that she moved over an hour away, so we don't get to spend much time together. But when things are rough, I know where to go.

It just so happened that Jamie O'Neal was doing an outdoor concert in Nashville Arkansas this weekend. (Is there anything better than an outdoor concert?? I love them!!)

Tasha and I loaded up our bevy of children (5 between us) and drove to nearly an hour from her house to Nashville. The concert was in the middle of their city park and it was SUCH a gorgeous night!! We set our chairs up back a bit from the crowd so that the little girls could dance and play, and we really had a great time. Jamie sounded really, really good, and she has an awesome stage presence. She interacts and jokes a lot with her audience, and even brought her two year old daughter out to sing. (TOO CUTE!!) The only thing I would have changed about the concert is that she only played an hour. We really enjoyed that half of the night.

However, right before she went on, the announcer came out and was talking about how there was a meet-n-greet after the show and to feel free to come and meet Jamie after and get your cds signed, and "...even if you don't have a cd, Jamie is really excited to meet some of her fans! Just head to her concessions booth when the concert is over!!!" Well, Elizabeth now knows what a meet-n-greet is, and got really excited, and started asking me if we could go meet Jamie "for the first time" after the show. I told her it depended on how long the show lasted. Since it was barely 9:00 when the concert was over, we loaded up all the kids, blankets, etc, and went and got in the meet and greet line. We were nearly the last ones in line, which was fine because I was maneuvering the stroller through the crowd.

Now, we stood in line a good 15 minutes before we hit the merchandise table. The merch table was kind of in the middle of the line, so, after we passed that, we would have about another 15 minute wait. E wanted a picture to have autographed, so as we passed the table, we bought a $5 publicity photo. We waited in line another 10 minutes and as we approached the security gates, the girl asked where our cd was. We told her we didn't have one, and she said "Jamie is only seeing people who bought her cd." I said, "But we bought photos" and she said "I am sorry." and I said "If we had known THAT, we would not have bought photos!" and she said "I am sorry, but you are going to have to leave the line."

WELL, Elizabeth bursts into brokenhearted tears. Seriously, she stood there hunched over and just simply bawling. What could I do?? We stood around really a little shocked for a few minutes (and E started begging me to buy a cd so she could meet jamie) and Tasha saw Jamie's guitar player. She went over with the girls just to see if we could send her picture back and get it signed, and he was borderline rude, and completely unhelpful. We left with our unsigned photos.

Ok, now realistically, I understand that you have to have some way to weed out the crowd, and that being a musician is a job, and that to make money, you have to sell cds. I don't have an issue with that. My thing is that 90% of the people left the concert without going to the meet and greet line. There were not that many people waiting to see her. (maybe 100 people, seriously) And I think that they should have said at the merch table, "Now you know you can't go see her if this is all you are buying." Instead of us waiting in line and buying $10 in photos for nothing.

And Elizabeth is just a little girl. I would understand if it were me and Tasha being goofy and waiting in line by ourselves and them sending us on our way. I probably would not have even been mad. But Elizabeth really took it to heart that Jamie did not want to see HER. She really is a fan, and she is still upset about it.

Oh well.

We were discussing it on the way home and I got agitated and stopped paying attention and promptly got pulled over for speeding. *SIGH* Thank goodness, I did not get a ticket. Thank you Mr. Nashville Police Department Man!!! My kids can eat this week!!!

And Tasha and I stayed up until after 4 AM talking and laughing and acting stupid. It was great. I wish she still lived here in town so that I could go to her house after work and hang out.

A two part cranky list...

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The worlds worst mother...

... is apparently ME!! I hate school. Who invented this crap??

Elizabeth's school has some screwy way of doing lunch. I am sure that it is to minimize allergies, but still, it sucks. There is a specific section of the cafeteria that is designated strictly for lunchbox kids. There is a shelf next to that section where the lunchbox kids put their sack lunches in the morning, and someone checks them to make sure that no contraband has made it's way into the school via Barbie softsides lunch tote, or in my daughter's case, a Hello Kitty metal lunchbox. By contraband I mean "cokes" or "candy"... complete no-no.

Anyway, of all the children in her school, Elizabeth had to make friends with Supermom's daughter. I met her (the mom) on the day that their class went to the fair. We walked around with our little redheaded daughters and chitchatted. She was SUPER DUPER nice. I really liked her a LOT. She is a stay at home mom to 4 kids... a 13 year-old, an 8 year old, a 5 year old and a 1 year old. All redheaded precious babies. She informed me that she gets up every morning at FOUR AM to get all her childrens lunches COOKED and packed, and their backpacks straightened up, and their clothes ironed. I flushed with shame as I recall EVERY morning at my house - Me, still in bed, hitting the snooze on the radio alarm because I am dreaming that I am a singer, or in a bar with Ty Pennington, or some such fun, until I finally open my eyes and realize that it is 30 minutes before we are supposed to leave. The rest of the morning is me running around, waking everyone up, telling Elizabeth to "hurry up!! we are going to be late!! Let me smell your breath... It's fine, just brush them twice tonight, we have got to GOOOOO!!!"

Boy, I can really get off the subject at hand... ANYWAY!! Haley's mother packs her a cooked lunch every day. Therefore, Haley eats at the lunchbox table with all the "cool" kids with good mothers. In my thinking, the school makes a healthy lunch, and it's a $1.25. And it is one less thing I have to do in the mornings. But how mean am I that I force my child to eat school lunches, and all her friends get to hang out together at the cool table. So we compromised. I told her that each Sunday, I would read her the menu, and she could decide which two days she wanted to take her lunch. Seems fair to me. (By the way, the two of you that read this, give me some input... what do you think? Am I being unfair? Is my daughter going to hate me because I made her eat the schools baked ham and green beans instead of lovingly making her a PB&J every morning????)

Well, so this week, I made her a sandwich, and I also packed a banana, some pretzels, and a container of yogurt. I hated to send a metal spoon that she would have to keep up with, so i dug out some of the plastic gerber tossaway baby spoons that I bought months ago for Colby and hated. This one was pink. TOO cute right?? What a nice mom to pack a cool pink spoon for her little girl. And when she is done, if she loses the spoon, no biggie. We still have a yellow one, a blue one, and a green one.

Wrong. On so many levels.

She came home and threw her lunchbox on the table. "Hey sis!! Did you have a good day?"

"NO!! Everyone made fun of me at lunch today!!"

"Why on earth would everyone make fun of you??"

Apparently when she opened her yogurt and started eating, one of the mean little shits in her class started laughing and said something to the effect of "Everybody look at the little BABY ELIZABETH eating her BABY FOOD with her little PINK BABY SPOON!! Does widdle Ewizabef need a bib??" and they all laughed (according to her the whole cafeteria) and pointed (Even the teachers, I am sure) and she was so embarressed that she wanted to cry, but then she knew they would really tease her for being a CRYBABY. And then her best friend Haley told them all to shut up or she was going to TELL. Good Old Haley. Bless her heart.

So now, I am not allowed to pack yogurt in her lunch unless its a GoGurt, and no spoons.

I feel sorry for my mom now. All those times when I would think, "Can she be so DUMB!!?? Doesn't she know what she is doing to me????" when she would buy me ugly clothes, or make me take advantage of the free lunches, even though it meant that i had to hang around the line until I could mix in with a free lunch group, because at OUR school, you had to pay by the day, so either you were cool and handed the cashier a dollar bill, or you were a free lunch reject like me and said, "Lastname, Natalie" and waited for 17 minutes while the little old lady searched for your name on the list, holding up the whole line... ugggg. Now I see, that my mother really didn't know what she was doing. And it makes me feel bad.

How do we keep up??? I thought I had all my bases covered!! What is the next thing that I will screw up for her???