So far 8 is G-R-E-A-T!

 Happy Birthday, Ella- burrito.  We love you and I can't think of a better way to express it then posting this picture of  me squeezing the daylights out of you, with only one eye opened, and a little bit of my religion peeking out.  That's some serious love.

Ella was wise enough to choose to come into this world on conference weekend.  I say "choose" because I spent 3 whole days in the hospital waiting for her to greet me.  I would have been happy to wrap the whole thing up within 6 hours.  However, a fortunate by-product of her reluctance to enter the world was that she got to spend her birthday at the cabin with some of her favorite people.  We had a lovely celebration in her honor complete with a kill-your-diet chocolate bundt cake.  Oh, sometimes I still dream about that cake.

Feel the love. 

Jackson provided the entertainment.  

We take blowing out candles seriously.  As you can see from Jackson and Robert, we allow no interference in the process.  So don't even try to breathe in the direction of our candles.  We will take you out!

Oh, Ella you are so lovely.  

It was one of those years.  The one where I agree to host a birthday party  for my child.  It was also one of those days that Robert decided that he would try and be as far away as possible (Brazil).  I don't understand why twelve squealing 8 year-olds playing games and doing crafts doesn't sound like a fun evening to him?

I'm just guessing but I think Ella had a great time.  

No one likes a frowny face :(

Jackson came home from school yesterday with a frowny face paper.  This means he was not able to sit in his chair to do his work, did not practice proper hall procedures, and spoke without raising his hand.  These are hard things for Jackson.  He can't even sit in his chair during meal time so I can't imagine how this challenges him at school.  Anyway, I expressed my disappointment in his behavior culminating in him crying it out on the couch.  Don't worry, the remorse lasted about 30 seconds and then he got distracted by a remote control car.  All better.  Anyhow, I was having a frank discussion about how we behave with him on the way to soccer practice.  To share his feelings with me, he broke out in song.  Yes, song.  It was so adorable, although I was trying hard to stay stern.  He sang about how he tries his best and works hard.  He sang about how he loves me and how I take care of him when he is sick and all the time.  Suddenly he stops and says, "Mom, sometimes my eyes water when I'm just so happy."  I look back at him and sure enough his eyes are "watering".   That, of course, chokes me up and I say, "Me too, J.  Me too."   How can you be mad at a kid like that?

Happy 3rd Birthday, Bob Do-do a.k.a Max.

I love this boy.

Dearest Blog,

I am avoiding you.  Sigh.  I cannot keep up with laundry, bills, groceries, blah, blah, blah and blog about it too. Here, look, see what I mean...the following is my schedule yesterday (yes, yesterday while you were mercilessly teasing me and calling my name.  Why haven't you posted Max's birthday pictures?  It's been over a week!  Don't you love him as much as the rest of the kids?  You manage to post their birthday pics on time.  What kind of Mother are you? Ack, the torture! )


6:00 a.m.-- Good Morning, Max.  Time for a pee-pee and Mom to put on clothes.
7:00a.m.-- Let's have a mad dash around the house looking for lost socks, missing shoes and that darn shirt.   Make three lunches, feed 4 children breakfast, listen to some whining, explain why we don't kick soccer balls in the house,  HAVE YOU BRUSHED YOUR TEETH YET!!??
8:20-Big Kids out the door, hopefully with their lunches, water (with ice, of course), healthy snacks (cause just lunch isn't enough), shoe laces tied, hair combed, and Jackson with new shirt since the first one didn't survive breakfast.
9:00- Gym.  5 miles on the treadmill.  Fast.  Well, everything is relative.
10:00-- Grocery store, gas and bank. Don't forget to drive to CVS because Albertsons doesn't have what you need.  CVS doesn't have it either, of course.  Max uses the bathroom at each place.  Nothing makes me move faster than "Poo-poo, Mama."
11:30--Home.  Unload groceries and feed the Max-man.
12:00--Lunch.  Decide I need a vacation and start researching before I realize that I should be prepping food for my food group dinner, finishing up the laundry and calling my visiting teachee's to set up an appointment (Only two more days!).
12:30--Spend half an hour convincing Max that naps are good.
1:00--Give up on nap.  Make pizza dough and let rise. Work on sauce and start baking cookies.  Make salad. Try and do a crap load of dishes.  Field a few phone calls and texts from Hubby who is out of town.  Wonder why people always have crisis that involve me on Tuesday?  Why not Monday?
3:30--Jackson doesn't arrive on school bus with sisters.  Piano teacher arrives to give Ella lessons.
3:45--Run Kate to activity days and meet neighbor who agreed to  pick up Jackson from school.  Run him and neighbor's kid home.
4:00-Homework, snacks and general chaos.
4:30-- Half an hour on phone with School district because bus wouldn't bring Jackson home because it was "too crowded" leaving my first grader without his sisters, alone and scared!
4:45-- Still on phone, run to pick up Kate from Activity days early so she can make piano lessons.
5:00--Pick up Ella, Jackson and Max.  Take them to park for soccer practice.  Drop off Kate for piano lessons.
6:00-Rush home from soccer practice because Kate is alone.  Start making pizza like a crazy woman.
7:20-Deliver Neighbor's dinner and start to eat our own.
8:00- Kitchen a wreck with flour everywhere, pizza sauce smeared on cabinets, quizzing Kate on times tables while ordering other kids to get ready for bed.  Max asleep in his high chair.
8:20- Max in bed, Jackson still needs to brush his teeth and has spent twenty minutes talking about, well, I can't even remember.   Ella annoying Kate.  Kate crying. "I want my Mommy."  Enough.  Everyone to bed.  NOW!
8:30-Prayers, skip scriptures and stories and straight to bed. Carry six cups filled with water out of Kate & Ella's room.
8:45- Clean kitchen, wipe counters, wash all the dishes that wouldn't fit in the dishwasher.  Go through all the papers from school, sign stuff, finish laundry, pick up toys, clean tooth paste off Jackson's bathroom mirror.  I"m not going to say a bad word.  I'm not!
11:00- Go to bed.  Set alarm for 5:30a.m.  Try not to fall asleep while praying.


The End.

What's on my mind:

The butcher's knife stuck in a tree in the front yard of the house where Max goes to preschool.

I want a cookie.

I paid my taxes today. I feel poor.

My friend. She will have a baby today that won't live.

Oliver Cowdery. Thank goodness he was ambitious because we have D&C 9.

Will I have to wash poop out of Max's underwear today?

(And maybe a few other things. :))

The mother of melt-downs--mine.

With a title like that, I feel like I must set the stage a bit, you know show you why I felt the need to melt. My day started at 5:30a.m. with an hour long sweat-fest at the gym. It seemed like the way to go since exercise had be nil over the weekend and eating had been in the abundance category. I arrived home at 7:10, in plenty of time to make breakfast, pack lunches, search for lost socks, argue the merits of brushing vs. mouthwash, explain in detail what was in their lunch for the day, find the lost homework stashed in the bathroom and gel the hair.

It's my turn to drive carpool and it is an auspicious day for it, as the roads in the neighborhood are closed for a slurry seal. What is that you ask? I think it's just more asphalt but really I couldn't care less because it's kept the neighborhood association off my back for a week, and that means they haven't had time to notice the dead plant in my front yard. It's number 97 on my list of things to get done in my lifetime, in case you were wondering. Actually, this slurry seal is more than a little annoying as I have to park a couple streets away. That means dragging the neighborhood children to the bus the old-fashioned way: walking.

I rush because I have to get home to shower the stink off me before I take Kate to the doctor at 9:30a.m. I also need to wipe Max's nose, fix his wayward hair and change him out of his pajamas that have soggy Golden Grahams glued in various locations. I shower, apply a coat of mascara and lip-gloss and manage to stick the milk in the fridge before we leave. We are late.

Max said poo-poo as I was buckling his car-seat so we retraced our steps at lightening speed. A successful plop was made and our lateness was solidified.

We wait, wait, wait while Max checks out the floor with his tongue, names all the colors in the room, turns on and off the light switch until time out, climbs on the chairs, rips the paper on the table, plays cars, kicks the wall, and sings songs. Katie is diagnosed and it's not one of the two horrible diseases that I was sure (from my internet research) she had. I am relieved and so it's back in the car to drive her across town and back to school.

After a quick stop at the pharmacy, it's time to go home and feed Max lunch. I only have a half-hour to get him to eat before his nap. This may seem like plenty of time but really, you probably don't have a toddler who feels that eating at meal time is optional. Why eat what's placed in front of me when I'm perfectly capable of opening the fridge whenever I'm hungry or climbing the shelves in the pantry for the good stuff? He eats satisfactorily and I wrestle him down for his nap because he has (drum roll) his very first speech therapy appointment.

I have been anticipating this for a month. I have! You see, I am frustrated. My sweet, yummy Max is clever and I can tell he has a fabulous personality but I can't understand him. I want to be able to write down all the cute baby things he says and thinks but really most of the time I have no idea. The clock is ticking, he's getting older (almost 3) and I'm missing how he is discovering and understanding the world. This is a gigantic tragedy in my book and I really want to get him some help.

I have prepared for this day. I have negotiated with Robert to be home (not easy) AND to pick up the neighborhood kids from the bus stop. He's more than willing to do these things but it comes at a busy time for him and I realize that I am not going to be able to hold him to his end of our only gone 3-nights-a- week deal (this week) because of this. Sigh. More time to blog and blog and bore everyone with my stories. I have looked up the address, map quested it and am ready to go. I even wake Max up early from his nap so I can arrive on time.

I get lost. Really. It's in a part of town that I rarely venture. I blame Map Quest but I'm not positive it's the map. A recipe for disaster in my family is Robert at the wheel and me in the passenger seat, map in hand, directing. I frustrate Robert with my creative interpertations of maps, signs, roads, etc. He always asks, " But WHY did you think that?" I can't explain it. It always seems like a reasonable option at the time.

Anyway, I made so many u-turns with my car, I was starting to get sick. I called to let them know I was running a little late. I apologized and even laughed with receptionist about Map quest. Two minutes later I pull into the parking lot and my phone is buzzing. It was her. The receptionist but without the friendliness in her voice. She's all business now.

"I'm afraid we are going to have to reschedule your appointment. You are 15 minutes late and we can't accomodate you now."

"Whaaat?" I sputter. "But I'm here. RIGHT NOW."

"I'm sorry, we need the full hour to do an evaluation of Max."

"Okay, so can we do half of the appointment now and then I can come back later. I just drove a long ways to get here. I left in plenty of time, I just got lost."

In her best screw-you voice she answered, "You were late and not we can't do half now and half later. It doesn't work like that. We are on a tight schedule and have an appointment at 3:30p.m."

"Okay, could we see if this next appointment would mind starting a little bit later since I am HERE NOW?" I ask.

The conversation begins to deteriorate from there. She is unwilling to do anything to help me or be sympathetic to my situation. I get really upset and before I start to cry I tell her in my wobbliest voice that we will have to discuss this later. She answers, "Fine," and slams the phone down like I deserve to live life without speech therapy because I was 15 minutes late. I start to cry. I think about the day I've had, the week, the busy, busy, the awful, awful and the unfair. I sob. I get home and scare the crap out of Robert. He can't understand why I am so upset. I can't explain it to him. Except that I really just want to clean my car alone. In peace.

I want to scrub the dirt off the seats and wipe the windows because you see, I feel like I am my mini-van. I am dented, scratched and need a new paint job. On the inside, I'm not much better. I have kid finger prints, clutter and a broken windshield wiper. So he watches the kids and I clean. It's cathartic and practical as I am the one driving tonight for our monthly GNO and I am embarrassed for anyone, even a friend, to see the state of me and my mini-van. Thank goodness I had a night off. I think that if I hadn't, Robert might have had genuine cause for concern. And yes, I do realize there are bigger problems and worse days, but that line of reasoning has yet to work on any of my kids in the middle of a melt-down. The same holds true for me.

Am I a bad person if I wish that receptionist a couple of bad hair days and a huge zit on her nose?

Max's First Day of Preschool or What the Heck, where did the last three years go?

The preschool-aged child himself--complete with spiderman backpack stuffed with his favorite stuffed bunny friend and his "B" (blanket--can't go to school with out it. I mean what if you are the only 2 3/4 year old who forgot his "B"?)
Me: Max, it's your first day of school! You are such a big boy!

Max: I go school now Mommy. I go pee and poo-poo in potty so I big boy. I go school NOW mommy.

Yes, I felt a little emotional dropping off my little buddy for his first day of school. I went to an Adult Religion class and got myself some edu-ma-cation as I have been wanting to do for years. It was nice. I keep reminding myself that it isn't like it's Kindergarten. It's only for a couple hours--I still get to keep him for a few more years--like 15. Yeah, then a few hours don't seem to bother me. Especially when I think about how old I'll be then. I might need a walker, happy pills and Botox! Yikes. I'm not liking this train of thought. MOVING ON... Last week I canned peaches because that is a very hip, young thing to do. Not matronly at ALL. At least my peaches will still be pretty when I am not....