I am a stay-at-home mom

5:45 - 6:15am Shower and get looking presentable for day
6:15 - 7:00 Make lunches, make breakfast
7:00 scriptures, family prayer
7:15 take first group of people to school
7:25 feed baby breakfast
7:40 send second wave of people to school
7:40 - 8:30 dress Samy in cowgirl gear for Western day at school, respond to last nights emails about Twilight Camp for Cub Scouts (that will be another post -- or several...)
8:30 take last wave of people to school
9:00 get Route 44 diet coke from Sonic with 99 cent sticker! (Necessity)
9:30 - 11:30 home. Give baby bottle that he can feed himself (yippee!) baby naps, mom piddles, does "admin" stuff.
11:30 - 12:30 pm Go to far away Wal-Mart because one by home is too gross. Hate Wal-Mart, swear (again) to never go there again. Buy baby formula, two pairs of shorts for boy who begs for this certain brand and will probably be ungrateful for them. Buy material to make adorable summer dresses/swim cover-ups for girls.
12:30 - 1:10 Shoe breaks while walking to car after Wal-Mart shop. (Still hate Wal-Mart) Refuse to go back to Wal-Mart for new shoes. See Kohls across the parking lot. Hate Kohls, but not as bad as Wal-Mart. Buy new sandals at Kohls.
1:10 - 1:30 go to Babies R Us because they are sure to have a baby gate that is wide enough to fill the opening I need blocked. Found one. Hope it works. Buy bottle and juice for very cranky, tired and getting sick baby. (Of coarse I didn't have a bottle in the diaper bag -- it's the fifth kid, I'm lucky I had the diaper bag!)
1:30 - 2:00 pick up first of people from school.
2:30 - 3:00 put away all purchases, give baby another bottle that he feeds himself.
3:00 pick up friends daughter from school to keep until the dad gets home (the mom is out of town).
3:30 pick up second group of my people from school
3:30 - 4:30 down time!!! Put baby down to try to take another nap -- doesn't really take. Coughing too much. Check email and Google reader, post comments, etc.
4:30 Get cranky baby out of bed. Pick up last group of my people from bus stop so that we can get ready and to Baseball practice.
5:15 go to baseball practice
5:30 park at ball field, let boys out to run to practice. Make all other children stay in car so I can move to a better, less crowded parking space. Car is completely DEAD.
5:30 - 6:20 Feed baby dinner in his stroller. Search and finally find someone with jumper cables. Cables don't start car. Call Roadside assistance. Try cables one more time for the heck of it. Car starts. Call Roadside assistance back to cancel service. Sit in running car until practice is over and friends dad picks her up (that part was pre-arranged).
6:45 pick up pizza for dinner -- send in boy with check so as to not shut off car. Love having older children.
6:45 - 7:00 drive home with white knuckles as dash board lights fade and dim and CD player stops working. Say continuous, silent prayer. Pull into driveway. Turn off car. Decide to start car again just to see. Car is completely DEAD. Say a prayer of thanks for getting us home.
7:00 - 8:00 shower and bathe all children, set up pizza and movie on blanket in play room. Feed baby final bottle. Baby is too tired and coughing too much to drink bottle. Put baby in bed. Go to get humidifier. Remember that I threw away the gross filter and meant to buy a new one. Leave kids to watch and eat while I run to corner drug store to get new filter. Love having older kids again. Remember car is dead in driveway. Go get neighbors car and get filter. Love awesome neighbors.
8:00 - 9:00 set up humidifier, clean up pizza party, put kids to bed. Rock coughing baby back to sleep. Clean up kitchen, put away left-overs.
9:00 - 10:45 Sit down at computer and do this. Eat snack sized milky way bar and drink diet coke that was purchased during corner drug store run.
11:00pm go to bed knowing that baby will wake up coughing at any time.

This day is not completely typical, but not too far off. "Stay-at-home mom" is a ridiculous term. I'm just saying.

Adventures in Flying (or getting to the flight)

Geoff usually works in town or from home on Fridays. Today, however, he had to go to the East Coast for a meeting. (Really ridiculous actually, that he is traveling for something like 9 hours today, all for a 1 1/2 hour meeting. Whatever.) He should have gone straight from the West Coast to the East, but said he wanted to come home Thursday night because he didn't have enough clothes -- underclothes to be exact.... for one more day -- the trip came up during the week. Anyway, so he had to leave our house at about 5:15 am to get on a 6:40 flight -- he cuts it close. The airport is about 40 minutes from our house when traffic is good, which it would be at 5:30 in the morning. So, at 5:45 am my alarm went off for me to start my day and I notice that he is still in bed. "Didn't you have an early flight?" "I still do", he says as he turns into the Tasmanian Devil.

So I ask what I can do to help as he is throwing clothes on like in the movies (there is a Seinfeld episode about this -- there's a Seinfeld episode for every situation...). I say I will go out and warm the car up so the windows defog. So, I go outside and it's like 70 degrees. No need to warm the car. I guess for a second, I thought we lived somewhere where the weather fit the season. Silly me!

So, he gets out the door and peels out of the driveway and down the street. Meanwhile, I say a prayer that I will not become a widow this morning. Seriously, I started thinking about the movie "Premonition" with Sandra Bullock. I thought about making arrangements, calling the financial planner -- I mean getting one -- and all that stuff. My mind went crazy. Then at 6:33, the phone rang. I figured it was either Geoff or the Police. Thankfully, it was Geoff calling from the plane.

Okay, but think about it: He got out of bed at 5:45 and was on the plane at 6:33! I don't even want to think about all the traffic laws that were broken. That is a serious traveler. He said he was trying to stop sweating. His old college track experience came in handy, I'm sure.
I told him that I didn't care if he was late coming home, so don't rush it if the meeting goes late. I called to talk to him this afternoon, but he was driving and couldn't talk. Apparently it is illegal to talk on a cell phone in Connecticut. At least he is obeying the laws of the land again!

The best, most ironic part of all is that there was no time this morning for a shower and clean undies. Bwahhhahahaha!

First swim of the season

I was feeling generous this afternoon and let the kids play in the sprinkler after school. I don't normally do things like this because I am an awful uptight mom who doesn't like grass and/or water on the floor of the house. But again, I was in a good mood and boy they had the greatest time ever!

For Christmas, Santa brought us a tether ball set. That's now our version of pool volleyball.

Some day we hope to have a pool. Come summer, we will loaf off of the awesome neighbors once swim season officially begins. For the time being, the sprinkler will have to do. But the lawn may improve, so there's something.

Day of Remembrance

Go Hokies!

Sound bites

The other day, Geoff and Child were weeding the flower beds.

Geoff: "So, I heard mom had a talk with you."

Child: "About what" (worried look like he was in trouble for something)

Geoff: "About s#x."

Child: "Yeah, she kept talking and talking and I just wanted her to stop. Kind of like you right now."

I walked into my bathroom and found Samantha holding a bloody hand to her mouth. I looked and found that her lip was bleeding. Just as I was about to yell at some other kid for bloodying thier sisters mouth, I noticed Geoff's razor on the counter and a drop of blood next to it.

Me: "How did this happen?"
Sam: "I was using dads thing." (Note, she wasn't crying because she was more worried about being in trouble.)
Me: "Are you going to ever do that again?"
Sam: "No. Don't tell dad because I don't want him to talk to me about it."

The funny thing is that Geoff is way nicer to these people than I am!

the Talk

Barb recently posted about how when your children get old/big enough, they sit in the front seat of your car and you therefore lose your "command center". But, she said, and I agree, that on the positive side, you are able to have some good discussions with your children that you may not have had were you talking over your shoulder.

The other night, I had one of these such conversations. I left one age appropriate child to babysit while another child and I ran to the book store to pick up a book that he had on order. As we were going down the road listening to the radio, completely out of left field, Child says: "Mom, how does your body know that you are married so that you can get pregnant and have a baby?" (The sweet, innocent phrasing of the question comes directly from me preaching that you can not have children until you are married).

In a matter of about four seconds, I was able to stay in my lane of traffic, turn off the radio, and say a little prayer for guidance. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Do you know what the word s#x means? (I've changed the word so that Google doesn't bring this post up where I don't want it to.... you get the meaning).

Child: I've heard it, and people talk about it, but I don't really listen when they do.

M: The word s has a few definitions. First, it means your gender, like when you fill out a form and it asks if you are male or female. That is your gender. Another meaning is when a man and a woman .... sleep together..... (I admit, I was fumbling)

C: Oh, so when a man and woman sleep in the same bed, it is s?

M: Well, there's really very little sleep that goes on during s. Let me ask you this... do you know the difference between a man's body and a woman's body?

C: Yes.

M: Okay, when a man and a woman have s, the man puts his part into the woman's part.

C: Which part?

M: The parts that are different from each other. (I actually said the real names instead of our family name - Lee (don't ask.))

With this, understanding dawned on his face and he literally jumped and smashed himself to the car door and said, "Ewwwe gross!"


I asked him if he understood what I had said. He said yes, and then I decided that at this time, he didn't need to know anymore of the actual physical act, but bore into him all the other important information, such as:

• Technically, a man and a woman don't have to be married in order to have a baby, but as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we have been commanded by Heavenly Father not to have s-ual relations with anyone that we are not married to. In fact, we make a covenant in the temple exactly stating that.



• When you're nine, it is the grossest thing in the world to imagine, but when you are older and mature and married, it is a beautiful thing that you can share with your wife, and it is the way that we bring beautiful children into our families, like Christian.



• It is a very personal and private thing and not something that you would try to teach your younger sisters or brother. It's not even something that you need to discuss with your older brother. It's also something that you don't need to discuss with friends, because it is not really an appropriate topic to discuss outside of your home.



• It's probably too gross right now, but probably when you get a bit older, or even within the next few days, if you think of any other questions you want to ask, please come to me or dad. It is way better to talk to us and learn from us so that we know you are getting accurate and truthful information. "Will you do that?", I said. He said "I don't have any more questions about that. I don't want to know any more right now!"

Poor baby. He's pretty tough, so I don't think I scarred him for life, but it's sad to know that the innocent baby is disappearing.

Everything has been nice and normal between us. I don't think he is damaged. He probably hasn't thought a second thing about it all. Ever since I talked to other age appropriate child about it, it seems like he barely comes into our bedroom and won't even touch our bed. I think it was worse for him because I was actually pregnant with Christian. It was just bad timing, but had to be done.

I know there was a lot more to explain and go over, but I really felt that this was all that Child needed/could handle right now. We'll visit it again another time.

This talk is right up there with potty training on my list for the worst parts of parenting. I can't imagine it will be any better with girls....

This is pretty cool

HowManyOfMe.com

There is 1 person with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

I am the only person in the US with my name. There are two people with my maiden name (and one of them was me.) I am so unique...

Thanks for sending this, Jane.

I ran to the grocery store...

... to buy one of those roasted chickens and some good bread for lunch. Somehow a box of doughnuts jumped into the shopping cart. As I got into the car, I reached over and got out a doughnut for the drive home. I looked at the skinny girl loading her car next to me and she was doing the same thing. Only instead of a doughnut, she got a banana. Hmmm. Maybe that's part of my problem....

(I'm considering weather or not the rest of the family will ever know about the box of doughnuts.) Maybe that's another part of my problem. You think?

Happy Saturday!

Just a quick trip to the dentist

Every now and again, I throw off my bite or my jaw alignment - similar to my car that is always in need of an alignment. The car is in need because I tend to hit curbs. My jaw? Not hitting curbs with that, so I'm not quite sure how that one happens, but it does. So, a few months ago, I had bad pain in my jaw due to the said alignment issue (of my jaw, not car). I went to the dentist and he checked my bite and quickly and easily shaved off a bit of a tooth, smoothed it out and fixed the bite. I was good to go!

So, the past few days I have been experiencing the same problem again. Last night I woke up in so much pain that I actually cried. Today when I dropped Samy off at school, I decided that since I only had one child, I would call to see if I could get squeezed into the dentist. Went to the dentist, told him my problem. He said let's take a picture just in case. Took an X-ray (cutest little shield they put on the baby carrier!), and saw a very large "shadow" under a previous filling. This means my tooth is dead and "let's do a root canal". HELLLLO!

So, lickety split, he numbed my jaw. I fed Christian while it set in (luckily I had brought a bottle), and in about 20 minutes, I had a root canal. How awesome is that?!

I love this dentist and his staff. They babysat Christian while I had the procedure done. So, I'll go back in a week to have the temporary filling replaced by a permanent one and that will be that! Hopefully it will be the end of the pain for good.

Thinking about it, I think the bite problem was caused by me putting too much emphasis on one side of my mouth to compensate for the pain I felt on the root canal side. I'm thinking/hoping that that problem will now be taken care of on it's own as well.

The very worst part about all of this is that on the way to the dentist, I had just gotten a giant Diet Coke, and now with a numb mouth, I can't drink it. Such a shame to waste a good Diet Coke. It was from Sonic with the really good ice. Dang!