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So I just went to pick Laylee up from our co-op preschool. When I got there, she was nowhere to be found. The mother in charge, we’ll call her Too Lucy (all my friends have the same names), she told me that Laylee was upstairs with her son, we’ll call him Big Moses (all her male friends have biblical names but none of them are Moses so I think I’ll call them all Moses from now on).

Supposedly they were playing a game where they were pretending to be each other. Big Moses was tucking her in his bed and she was calling him Laylee.

I walked up there and found her in her birthday suit (desperately trying to avoid using “questionable keywords” here) with Big Moses helping her to put on his underwear. I guess they wanted to be each other from the inside out.

I let her keep them on and we headed home. She is very proud to be wearing “Big Moses Pants.” For some reason, I cannot stop laughing when she mentions this, which is probably why she cannot stop mentioning it.

I love using fake names on this blog. It makes everything seem so dramatic somehow, like we’re all in the witness protection program.

It reminds me of the time I made a short documentary about some guys running a pirate radio station out of their bedroom at BYU, not exactly a hotbed of illegal activity. I think their broadcast radius was around 10 feet but they were really proud to be bringing “indie music to the people.”

They wouldn’t use their real names and conducted their entire interviews wearing Strong Bad-style Mexican wrestling masks.

Ahhh……Some of my finest film work.

Hopefully then I’ll be able to shed a few layers.

I’m still taking some “help” for my post partum anxiety with Magoo. I can miss a dose and sometimes I’m fine. Sometimes the anxiety and panic attacks come back.

My doctor explained that the pills are like layers of clothing and my life situation is like the weather. When it’s cold outside, I need more layers but if it’s a nice day, I can shed a parka, sweater, fleece, halter top or whatever.

So, in an attempt to get myself to a place where I can start aggressively weaning from the stuff, I’ve decided to work on changing the weather.

1. My hormones and chemicals — um guess I’ll move on to number two. I think this area will remain frigid for a while to come. My body has to decide on this one and according to Dr McGenius, it may be a year or more.

2. Sleep — I will do more of it. This will be accomplished by going to bed earlier and telling Magoo to stop having a cold and waking up in the night repeatedly.

3. Christmas stuff — I will not be making Christmas cards by hand this year. Sadly, the cheap lightweight cards I got for a wickedly low price at Joanne Fabrics will probably be cuter than the ones I made last year.

I am pretty much done my Christmas shopping. I will not re-buy, even if I decide I don’t like the gifts I purchased the day after Thanksgiving. Sorry family and friends. You’re stuck with what I already got.

4. NANOWRIMO — She is no more. I will post later about all the wonderful fabulous things I learned from the experience but for now I will be writing more like 250 words per day, rather than 5000.

5. I will breathe and mediate and take one day at a time and stop blaming myself for all the crazy things that go wrong in my life and the insane things my kids do.

I will allow myself to “quit” things. I will allow myself to “fail” and I will move on. I will “be who I am because somebody has to and [I’m] the closest.” (from Jack Kent’s children’s book “Just Only John”)

Random side note. I am currently the number one hit for the msn search – mom abandon kids – and – my mother is selfish. Nice!

And I’ve Brought Some Corn for Poppage
But as long as you love me so
Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

I am working on having the words to that song officially changed, bring it a little more up to date, yo.

It’s not snowing here and not likely to be – ever – but that doesn’t mean we’re not putting a “snowman day” on the ole’ advent calendar. We plan to drive up I-90 one Saturday this month until we find snow. We will then stop and build an environmentally friendly snowman and drive home for cocoa. I am pretty stoked about this lee-tle plan.

Also on the calendar will be an outing to a local mall where we can “Experience the enchantment of Snowflake Lane where each night 60 live toy soldiers, music and a light show will brighten the night and warm your heart.”

I don’t know how “toy” soldiers can be “live” but I want my heart to be warmed and hey, it’s free.

Today I saw the first installation of the Christmas Palace. It looks different this year with the new paint. It looks like we painted the walls all spicy and warm especially for the season. And I think we will keep this tradition up, painting the walls a different color each season……or each mood I’m in….not sure which yet.

The painting was completed just in time too. For the first time ever, Laylee colored all over the walls with black crayon. Dan made her wash it off and she could and she did and the peasants rejoiced.

Here is the nativity, complete with shepherds and completely suckable. Let’s see how many times we can lose baby Jesus and have a meltdown this year.

This is the place where it looks like Christmas yorched on my bookshelves. I like it in a busy sort of way.

This is the wall outside of Laylee’s room where I placed the big funky colored lights I love but don’t want to put anywhere in the house that might be visible to people other than the children. Tomorrow morning when she wakes up and sees this, she will lose her mind. Yes, she will no longer have any mind.

These are my favorite.

Look closer.

“Well, aren’t those mittens the cutest ever? Where did you get those?” you ask, “You could not possibly have made such an exquisite piece of handywork!”

“Why, yes I did.”

“Shut up!”

“No. I will not.”

Now for this doorway, we really need some sweet minizletoe. Anyone know where I can git me some?

Any excuse for some holiday action is a good excuse. That’s what my pappy always used to say.

-House painted the color of Kraft Carmels and pumpkin pie. Yum.

-Decision made to try NANOWRIMO again when my kids are old enough for me to do it AND maintain my sanity. Sigh of relief.

-Laylee taken to the ER of Children’s Hospital on doctor’s orders. No good.

-Cleaned buckets of vomit out of car. Why did we opt not to take the ambulance again? No comment.

-Release from the hospital with semi-clean bill of health. Grateful.

-Thanksgiving with good friends, none of whom have children. Good times, great food, fun conversation.

-Time for our departure signaled by Laylee spilling beverage on host’s wireless keyboard. Sticky.

-2-year-old vomits buckets on white carpet of host, one inch from hardwood front entry on our way out the door. Cleaning bill to come.

-Falling down at midnight while getting ready for big shopping day, deciding to shop rather than see a doctor about my foot. Not smart, but very typical.

-Getting up at 4:00am to shop till I dropped. Invigorating.

-The deals, the glorious deals. Yippee!

-Bed and looking forward to a day of vomit-free relaxation tomorrow. Ahhhhh!

Sorry for this pathetic list. I promise I’ll be back soon with new info and some fun stories. ER, yadda, vomit, yadda holiday blah blah, nearly-broken-foot-that-still-hurts-to-put-weight-on blah blah …. Excuses, excuses.

We have so much to be grateful for. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Strangely enough, I did.

We all know it’s important to take time that’s just for us, to recharge, to remember who we are, to have a teensy break from our 24/7 work schedules.

Some ideas:
1. I go to desert and late night movies in the middle of the week with my girlfriends. We go after the kids are in bed so we can be crazy, eat fattening food, watch movies our husbands wouldn’t be caught dead seeing and relive those carefree high school days of girl bonding.

2. I take long hot baths. I fill the tub as hot as I can stand it, bring in a good book or a magazine, light some candles and soak until my husband feels the need to come in and check my pulse.

3. Early morning walks with a friend are wonderful once we’re up and out. We breathe in the fresh air, talk about the joys and frustrations of our lives, meet interesting people and start the day with a bang.

4. Teaching piano — I teach one student once a week while her sweet mother plays with my kids. (They pay me a fairly low amount, so it’s not about the money, and should probably pay me nothing considering the free babysitting I’m getting out of it.) I love to teach and I consider this “me time.”

5. Book Club – reading the book, discussing online, meeting with friends once a month. Love it, love it love it.

What activities are important to you when you have a few minutes or a few hours all to yourself?

Why do you take this time?

How do you make it work with your family’s busy schedules?

I saw this picture on a website advertising home loans recently.

1. Why didn’t anyone tell us a clandestine cameraman was taking our picture when we signed our first Mortgage?

2. Why did they change our hair colors in post-production and Photoshop all that extra arm hair on Dan? I mean, come on, he’s manly enough as it is. Let’s not get gratuitous here.

3. Why was no one there to photo document our recent refinance? I was laughing so hard at that signing that I couldn’t reach for Dan’s fur-covered arm in time. I fell flat on my face on the mahogany desk of our closing agent, smashing it into a million pieces and scattering papers everywhere, in a fit of hysterical I-can’t-believe-we’re-getting-such-a-great-deal-on-this-fabulous-mortgage-product laughter.

Now THAT would have been a great picture to show the joy of the home loan process, me lying in a pile of papers and rubble, snorting like a pig, while giddy Dan picked wood-chips out of my hair with abandon.

She emerged timidly from her room this morning, unsure of the reception she would receive. Her face just melts me.

Love, hugs and cuddling. A serious talk about what she did, why we were upset, what the consequences will be. She lays her head against my chest and I stroke her hair.

I cried for a long time last night when she was finally asleep. I wanted my mommy.

“They” say ‘you hurt the ones you love the most.’
I say ‘you are hurt the most by the ones you love.’

If I didn’t give everything, mind body and soul for these kids, it wouldn’t hurt so much when they gave me that mocking look, the look that says, “I don’t need you. I can do what I want. Shove it, mom!”

I question everything. Everything about being a mother makes me question myself, my preconceptions, my feelings, my treatment of the kids. Am I saying the right things, being too rough, too lenient? Will some flippant comment I make be the subject of therapy years from now? Or will it be something I didn’t say or do, but should have?

We’re making people here, folks. This is serious business.

The DYM ain’t laughin’ today. I’m not crying either, just thinking.

Join me fellow witchy moms and we’ll take this baby for a spin. I am so mad right now, I can hardly type this post. However, doing so will keep my sweet little this-close-to-being-sold-to-the-next-group-of-traveling-gypsies daughter from being flung from the house.

Currently I am self-medicating with Dryer’s mint chocolate chip slow-churned. Dan’s drug of choice is Tums.

I have seriously never wanted to kick someone’s trash the way I want to right now and she’s laughing at me, no remorse whatsoever.

For the past two weeks, Laylee has decided that she’s potty trained. No more duct tape at night, no more diapers. I rarely even ask her if she has to go anymore. She just does. Amazing. I told a friend on Friday that we are on the downward slope of a very bratty 3 month period. We were glad to be on the downward slope.

Tonight this all changed. She is going to be 3 years old in a couple of months. She is very mature and usually well behaved for her age. She knows what we expect. Today signs of bratishness have abounded and it has worried me greatly.

Tonight when we put her in bed, she did this AGAIN! ONLY WORSE! She ground it so deep into the carpet that in certain places, we couldn’t get it out. We’re going to need professional help (take that however you want to).

It was in her hair, under her fingernails, EV-ER-Y-WHERE! Nothing we did could stop her from smiling. I scrubbed her down mercilessly with ice-cold water. I washed her hair with it and poured it over her head (to her, the worst kind of torture).

Still the smirk remained.

We made her sit in time out while we spent ½ an hour attempting to scrub the poop from the fibers of our semi-shag carpet.

We took away Ducky.

We took away starshine (a star lamp that she loves).

We removed every toy and fun wall hanging from her room (this sounds more dramatic than it really is. The room is being painted on Monday so we had to do this anyway. Good thing too because I couldn’t get all the poop out of the texturing on her wall. I guess they will just paint over it.).

Still the smirk remained.

We told her that because she was acting like a baby, she would have to wear diapers like a baby, not just today but tomorrow too, to church, with her friends, where they would all be wearing big kid panties and wouldn’t that be sad?

Still the smirk remained.

We told her maybe she wouldn’t get to go to nursery tomorrow (to her, the happiest place on earth).

Still the smirk remained.

She now lays in a deserted whoville-esque room of sadness but there is no crying, only smirking. The whole house smells like poop. I didn’t get to take a relaxing bath, work on NANOWRIMO, get through some paperwork that’s been stacking up, cuddle with my shmoop, eat bon bons or travel to Europe.

Nope. All I got to do was be a mom. Some days it’s glorious and some days it bites the big one. Tonight I got option B.

Your earrings were very eye-catching and sparkly.

I wanted to tell you this but felt intimidated by your 6’5” spike-heel-enhanced height and the two miniature body guards flanking you.

I nodded to nearly everyone I saw on the street as we headed to the theatre. To some I gave a smile. To others I said “Hello.”

To you, I made no gesture, said nothing. Isn’t it strange that you go to so much effort to attract attention to yourself, only to be studiously ignored by the majority of the people you pass on the street?

I liked the earrings, although I could not pull them off with my wardrobe. I thought you should know.