Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Donald Addies (No, you don't know him, but you will soon!)

A little conversation that occurred in our house last night.

Riley: Mo-mmy!
Me: What?
Riley: Donald.
Me: (absent-mindedly) Donald?
Riley: Donald.
Me: Donald?
Riley: huh (that means yes).

(Pause)

Riley: Mo-mmy!
Me: What?
Riley: Seen.
Me: Seen? Seen what?
Riley: Seen. Mo-mmy! MO-MMY!
Me: What? (halfway cluing in) What, Riley?
Riley: Seen, Mo-mmy! Seen! Seen Donald! Seen Donald, Mo-mmy! Seen!
Me: Oh! Sing?
Riley: huh
Me: You want me to sing? What do you want me to sing?
Riley: Donald, Donald, Donald.
Me: (zoning out again)

(Pause)

Riley: Mo-mmy!
Me: What, Riley?! I don't know what Donald is. Sing Donald?
Riley: huh. (pats my face) Seen Donald, Donald, Donald.
Me: Old MacDonald?
Riley: huh! Donald, Donald, Donald. Seen!

So I sang Old MacDonald.

Then I got told to sing it again.

And I did.

I am always quick to obey The Little Dictator's commands.

Today he dictated that I should make Addies (eggies*) for lunch. And I did. Without even blinking.

Riley: Mo-mmy!
Me: What, Riley?
Riley: Addies!
Me: Addies? You want eggies?
Riley: Huh.
Me: Ok. They'll be ready in 5 minutes. (I start pulling eggs and milk out of the fridge.)
Riley: Mo-mmy!
Me: What?
Riley: Put. Plate.
Me: I will, buddy. I have to make them first. Look. I'm cooking them.
Riley: Addies. Put. Plate!
Me: Okay, bud. 5 minutes. Have patience.
Riley: day. (Okay.)

Yes, it's true. He demands and I acquiesce. Immediately. It's kind of a good groove that we're in.

For him.

For me, not so much.

Oh well, I suppose one day I'll look back and wish I could have a Little Dictator again. (At that point he'll weigh more than me and will be known affectionately as The Big Dictator. Until then, these are happy days.

*Yes, I really call them "eggies" with my kids. I'm pretty sure I'm the one that made that up too. You never would have guessed, right?

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Boundaries, Cat-Style

Guess what I did yesterday?

No, I didn't go on a week-long cruise through the continent of Africa.

Uh, nope, it wasn't the skydiving that I'm dying to do (although hopefully not literally).

No, I didn't find more poop on the carpet or in the trash can. (I did find a big old pile of it in the toilet waiting for me when I went in to use the bathroom. Man, I hate it when the flushing step gets cut out of the routine. But anyway, that's a different story.)

Okay, you're never going to guess. I'm just going to tell you.

I deleted about 50 people as my friends on facebook. Oh, ouch! (I know you're just dying to know if it was you, am I right?)

We were talking about Facebook with some friends on Sunday, and one of my friends said that she didn't feel the need to be friends with people on Facebook that she isn't friends with in real life. And somehow that just got me to thinking. I've been toying with the idea of canceling my Facebook account altogether because sometimes I just hate it. I hate seeing people that I don't like having their faces and stories all over my computer screen. I know that sounds really mean, but I've been thinking that some of the people I'm "friends" with on Facebook could come up to me and ask me to go out to lunch with them--or even just go get coffee, for that matter--and I would turn them down. I would make up an awesome excuse about how I'm really busy with my kids, or this is just such a crazy time of life for us, or how I have special needs and have to spend more time meditating so that I don't kill people...You get the picture. Anything to get them to go away. And I avoid checking my facebook regularly because without fail, those are the people who post 6,000 updates every 10 minutes, so I end up only seeing them and not people whose lives I am genuinely interested in.

So I started to feel very powerful. Very, very powerful. (Can you hear the evil laugh? "That's about standards.") And I went through and deleted. Do I talk to you? Do I like seeing your status updates? Would I send you a Christmas card or expect one in return? If the answer was "no", I showed no mercy. Just, boom. Gone.

And surprisingly, I feel really good about those decisions. I feel freer, less cluttered. I don't want to be "friends" with people just because it makes me look better to have 260 friends instead of 42. I always felt kind of sorry for the people with 42 friends--as if they weren't cool enough to have hundreds. Now I think maybe they just have better boundaries than I do.

Now I just hope none of those people read my blog regularly.

Well, if you do, and you found yourself deleted by me yesterday, and it matters to you, please email me about it. I'm sorry if I stepped on your toes. I just really don't even know who you are. So help me out here. If we were best buddies in another life, you need to let me in on the secret. Thanks.


This is my kitty, Max. If you didn't know Max before he went off to kitty heaven, you should have. He had boundaries. And special needs. He would have had no trouble coming up with the excuses to get him out of going to lunch with the kitty friends he didn't like. One sneeze of blood would have been all it took, and they would have run in the other direction. I'm going to make it a point to be more like Max today.

Friday, October 23, 2009

As Promised

"Mommy, there's poop on the carpet!" Skylar yelled to me from across the house.
"What do you mean, Poop?!" I yelled back.
"Poop! It's poop! On the carpet in the hallway. I will NOT walk down the hallway because I will get poop on my feet!"
"Whose poop is it?" a critical question at this point, I thought.
"I don't know."
"Was it yours?"
"No! I do NOT poop on the floor. It's probably Joey's. Or maybe Riley's."
"Good deduction." (There aren't really any other people in our family at this point since Pete was at work.)
I wasn't yelling anymore because she had come over to where I was. "Did you actually see someone pooping on the carpet?" (For more info about people pooping on my carpet, see my post on pooping on the carpet. It's not really a how-to, but it is a good story.) I started walking with her to the other side of the house. The whole time, she kept up a constant ramble about poop and her feet and the carpet and not going down the hallway. When we got to the hallway, I looked around for the poop.
"Eww, do you smell that?" Skylar asked.
"Yeah," Joey answered. "It smells like POOP!" He giggled. A lot.
"Joey, did you have an accident?"
"No!" He stated emphatically. "I only poop in the potty."
I still didn't see the poop.
"Where is it?"
The kids pointed out a very small piece of brown that could quite possibly have been poop. Or a piece of raisin that was smooshed. Or dirt from someone's shoe. They gathered around it and put their heads together over the top of the "poop."
"I will NOT step in it!" Joey decided.
"Eww. My nose doesn't like smelling poop!" Skylar shared.
"I'm looking at the poop. Right there. It smells like POOP!" Joey really loves to say the word poop. Then he giggled again.
"Well, don't gather around it, kids. I'll clean it up."
"Can you clean it up?" Skylar asked doubtfully.
"I'm pretty sure I can manage."
"Wow," she breathed in admiration.
Yes, I am that awesome. I really am.

I am so awesome that I promptly forgot what I was doing and did not go back to clean it up because I had 7,562 other things on my mind and apparently couldn't hold in one more piece of poop. So, maybe it's still there, I don't really know. Or maybe it turned into a raisin after all and already got eaten.

Ah, poop. It does a family good.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The Post-Cubbie-Bear Post

Tonight after a long night in Cubbie's (the 3 and 4 yr old's AWANA class that I teach at our church), I got home to find Pete watching TV in bed. I crawled up on the bed next to him to kiss him hello. He leaned his face toward me, and then pulled away.

"Take that shirt off before you come and kiss me."

My eyebrows rose.

Wow, really?

I mean, I haven't put the kids in bed yet, but, okay. We could play that game.

Oh, wait.

I looked down.

Yep, that would be it.

I sighed. (Internally, though, not wanting to tip my hand that I had thought I was being propositioned by an incredibly handsome man who was currently lying in my bed.)

"Why, because it's covered in snot and Cubbie-Bear-cough germs?" I asked innocently.

"Yeah. I'm afraid of it," he said, then promptly turned back to Law & Order on TV.

"Oh." I sighed.

Then I giggled.

Then I blogged about it.

Now you can giggle too.

If you want to.

P.S. I did take my shirt off and give him that kiss after all. We'll see whose eyebrows have the last word...or raise, as it were.

P.P.S. Just to keep this PG, I had a tank top on underneath. Not that I would have had to, and not that I wouldn't have done it anyway, but I did. Just so we're on the up and up. I don't want someone to turn this into something it's not.

Because it's really not. Here I am blogging, and there he is...watching Mythbusters.

Ah.

All is as it should be.

P.P.P.S. After posting my picture of us, I'd really like to rip his hat off and smooch him till his eyes go blurry and his ears start ringing. I'm just saying.

P.P.P.P.S. That's why we have so many kids. And that's why Pete got the snip-snippy, if you know what I mean.

Wow, I am just sharing all kinds of personal information tonight. I need to go and pick my toenails* or something.

*Not that I would ever do that. You understand. It's just that anything is better than this colossal throwing up of my personal life all over you. No, wait, that's what I always do. Oh, yeah, I guess we're good then.

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

The Follow Up to the Foreclosure Post

Okay, so I kind of blasted everyone a few days ago with my foreclosure post. I got so many people either calling me or emailing me with encouragement, and that was priceless! Seriously, thank you so much for taking the time to do that. But I also had almost every single person ask me if they were the ones who had made comments like the ones about which I wrote. And I just wanted to make a formal statement. I don't think I was talking to you. (There, doesn't that assuage you guilt?) I wasn't trying to squeeze confessions out of you or make you come and beg forgiveness (not that any of you did) (Jerks) (Just kidding), but I wanted to vent to you and to say that I am tired of the commercials and in general the announcements that are being crammed down our throats saying that the banks don't want you to foreclose, that they will do anything to keep you in your house, blah blah blah. For us, that was so far from the truth, it's not even funny. And I got a comment from Mama V saying that she and her husband are going through a similar time with the bank. Wake up, News! Wake up, Banks! Telling someone to default on their payments when they are trying to be proactive and deal with a problem before it crushes them is NOT working with them at all cost. It is NOT working with "anyone", and it really is not helpful. Once you are in default, it is seemingly impossible to get out. Once we went there, we had to pay back the extra that we had missed along with our regular payment. Oh, you can't pay your regular mortgage? Okay, here, we've given you a payment that's $500 higher every month. Aren't we nice? Oh, you can't pay that? And it's been 5 months since you've made a mortgage payment? Well, we'll give you a trial period that is $200 less than what you should have been paying all along. What? You can't afford that? (Duh. You have our entire financial history, bank accounts, pay stubs, tax forms, utilities bills, affidavits of grocery and gas bills... Look at that and tell me if I can afford your trial period.) (I'm not bitter, though.) (Not really) Well, then--and here it comes--the line we heard so many times it makes me want to gouge my eyes out and throw them all the way to Texas to hit the person I'm talking to in the face--"I'm sorry, ma'am, but if you won't make your payments in the trial period, there's nothing we can do."

You're saying there's nothing you can do?

That's right, ma'am. Nothing.

What about what I hear on the news? About you working with anyone, renegotiating with anyone?

Did you make your payments in the trial period?

No, I couldn't afford them. You have all of my financial paperwork. You can clearly see that I couldn't afford them.

Well, it doesn't matter if you can afford them or not. If you don't make your payments during the trial period, there. is. nothing. we. can. do. (Pause) Will there be anything else I can help you with today?

No, really, you've been too helpful already. Thank you so much.

Now, you may wonder why I am bringing all of this up again. Am I still that ticked? Do I need another round of e-hugs to feel better? (Well, actually, that's not a bad idea.)

But seriously, it came up again because I called the mortgage company again today, and once it's ruined my day, I feel like I should share the love and ruin yours too.

We found out a couple of weeks ago that we still own our house, that it didn't go to auction as they assured us it would back in June. So we have been tossing around ideas on whether we should try to save it again (now that Pete has a different job), or whether we should really, really let it go. When I talked to them today (after 42 minutes on hold and three tries to get more than a person who said "That's not my department. Can I put you on hold again?" Uh, no.) (The 42 minutes was not an exaggeration, by the way. I know a lot of times I exaggerate, and it's hard to tell the difference), the lady I spoke with said that they had apparently put the process on hold because of a letter I sent them in July. Did I send them a letter, she asked? I was pretty sure I had, I answered (and a quick check of My Documents proved that assumption correct). Apparently, they decided to try and work with me, she said. What did she mean, work with me, I asked. Did they call me?

Um, not that I show.

Did they contact me by mail?

Um, not that I show.

I'm unclear as to how they were working with me, then. Did they send a carrier pigeon to my old house? Because I moved out of that house when they told me too. What exactly did they do to let me know that they had received my letter and decided to extend me more of a grace period?

Um, I don't really show anyth--you know what? I don't have that information. Do you want me to transfer you to the department that might have that information?

Is it the same department I left a message for 3 weeks ago and haven't heard back from?

Yep, that'd be the one.

Uh, no. Thanks for the effort, but I'm fine here. Really. It was just a house. What do I care? It's just $183,000 going on my credit. No big deal. Really. No big deal.

I know what you're thinking. (Not really) (Well, maybe.) (Muwah-ah-ah-ah.) You're thinking that I sound really depressed all the time lately, and that I've lost my sense of fun and adventure, and seriously, can't we skip all the crazy ranting posts and just go back to the ones about poop?! (Poop is always a crowd-pleaser.)

Here's my answer to that: This is my blog. I like to write about what is going on in my life. I like to let you in on what I'm thinking about. (Unless it's how many times a day I think about Pete's hotness. I like to censor that a little bit.) And I definitely believe that I need to trust God in the middle of my circumstances, and I definitely try my hardest to let it go. But one of my biggest ways of letting things go has always been writing about them. So there you have it. I write about them, complain about them, then get up from the computer knowing that now other people can share my burdens a little better because they've seen inside my head for a minute (yikes! scary place, I know!), and then I go make dinner and deal with a whole bunch more poop and don't worry about my house anymore. That day.

Okay, that minute.

Fine, Second.

Oh well, it all works out in the end. Anyway, I'm not crazy depressed, and I don't need the name of your shrink, I just need to be able to live through what I'm living through. And this is how I do it. I love you all for being my devoted readers and hope that you won't feel compelled to send me your leftover, half-chewed anti-depressants or half-drunk bottles of happy juice (i.e., Dr. Pepper) (wait, why would you ever send me those things??); just read my blog and comment and send me more e-hugs than you otherwise would while we're going through this time. We'll get through it. We know that. It's just that the only way through it is through it. And that's the frustrating part.

Now...(!)...off to more poop!