Yesterday I was playing cowboys with The Kid (we even had our own make believe lasso) when I had the strongest memory flashback. It's amazing the kind of things that can happen to a person and one can put so far out of their minds that the person can't even remember it happening anymore.

It was horrible and I started crying inconsolably. My "father" and I use the term loosely, tied my hands together and my feet together and then tied them to each other in such a way that I had to be laying down on the ground because I couldn't sit up or stand up straight. He did the same to my sister, he also gave us a beating beforehand. Our crime? I can't remember, but if it's anything like previous times that we got beat, it was probably because my mom didn't western union him all the money that she got from her paycheck. I can't remember the exact age I was at the time, all I know is that we lived in that apartment from when I was around six until I was eight. God, if I ever think of doing something like that to one of my children; please smite me. I don't ever want to inflict that kind of pain on a child, any child.


runs off to cry...

I normally don't do black friday. What with the hassle of lugging two kids through a madhouse and all. But I've been doing CVS for awhile now and have saved up a ton of money. So much so, that I've decided to take the plunge and go to CVS for black friday. The best part? Their ads start on thurs and the 24hr CVS start at 12:01am. So, my plan is to show up to my CVS at 10:30-10:45pm tonite. I will bring some sort of goody for the cashiers and warn them of what's coming. I shall then load up my cart and will check out promptly at 12:01am. Then I shall go home and sleep. FYI: ECB stands for Extra Care Bucks. These print out at the bottom of the receipt and can be used as cash in any purchases. Everything else is coupons that I've collected from either the sunday paper, email, or snail mail. The bolded is my total before coupons and ECB, the red is my total Out Of Pocket expense. This is what my three transactions will look like:

Start with 15ECB, 5ECB and 8.99ECB and 3.49ECB

Tran#1
2.99 Colgate toothpaste
2.99 Aussie shampoo
6.99 L’Oreal lipgloss
5.99 Cover Girl Powder foundation
5.99 Bic Soleil razor
3.57 Buddies soap bars x3
3.49 Crest toothpaste
=32.01
-1.50/1 Colgate Q
-1/1 Aussie Q
-1/1 L’oreal Q
-1/1 CG Q
-3/1 Bic Q
-3/3 JJ Q
-1/1 Crest Q
-5/30 CVS
-15ECB
=.51 +tax OOP, earn 2.99ECB, 2.99ECB, 6.99ECB, 5.99ECB, 5.99ECB, 3.49ECB

Tran#2
8.99 Maybelline Liquid foundation
3.57 Buddies soap bars
7.99 Cover Girl Liquid foundation
2.99 Colgate toothpaste
2.00 Hersheys x2
5.99 Garnier facial cleansing cloths
6.99 L’Oreal lipgloss
5.99 Bic Soleil razor
2.99 Aussie shampoo
3.49 Crest toothpaste
=50.99
-3/1 Maybelline Q
-3/3 JJ Q
-1/1 CG Q
-1.50/1 Colgate Q
-1 BOGO Hersheys Q
-1/1 Garnier Q
-1/1 L’oreal Q
-3/1 Bic Q
-1/1 Aussie Q
-3/1 Crest (got this through mail) Q
-10/50 CVS
-5.99ECB, 5.99ECB, 6.99ECB, 3.49ECB
=.03 +tax OOP, earn 8.99ECB, 7.99ECB,
2.99ECB, 1ECB, 5.99ECB, 6.99ECB, 5.99ECB, 2.99ECB, 3.49ECB

Tran #3
6.99 L’Oreal lipgloss
8.99 Maybelline foundation
5.99 Cover Girl Powder foundation
3.57 Buddies soap bar x3
=25.54
-1/1 L’oreal Q
-3/1 Maybelline Q
-1/1 CG Q
-3/3 JJ Q
-4/20 CVS Beauty
-8.99ECB, 3.49ECB
=1.06 +tax OOP, earn 6.99ECB, 8.99ECB, 5.99ECB

Win a Free Organic Embroidered Ergo Baby Carrier Hands Free System from Along for the Ride

These are absolutely cute carriers. Even if you don't currently have a little baby to wear, you should enter anyways. It would make a great christmas present.

The Hubby is coming home on R&R on dec 19th~~~!!!!!! I'm going to buy his plane ticket this weekend. I'm so excited, we have a lot to catch up on. I hope the kidlets don't get scared of him since it's been so long and kids have short memories. Of course, he says that he doesn't want anyone meeting him at the airport when he comes which means that I am so going to have a group of people there waiting for him. I'm going to make signs, and get balloons, and all that happy crappy stuff. It will have been six months from the last time that we saw him, of course people want to see him. He'll be here until just after new year's which will give him some time to get a relationship going with the kidlets again. Especially Ducky. The poor thing barely remembers him (I think)I hope that he doesn't take offense if Ducky doesn't run to him right away. After all, he's been gone half of Ducky's life. And of course we have to catch up on six month's worth of conjugal visits if you know what I mean, hehe. It's too bad that I don't have any vacation time left, or I'd take some time then to spend with him. Oh well, he can have a nice hot meal ready for me when I get home from work.

We went to the aquarium on tuesday. It was fun. Made especially so because it was free thanks to my awesome military discount. There was a fish there. I'm pretty sure it was a grouper. It was bigger than katie's head. And before you start with your "but SPB, you're always comparing things to people's heads. How are we supposed to know any difference?" think on this, all we could see of the fish was it's tail which was bigger than a fan. It was huge. I had to wipe the drool off my mouth just thinking of that fish on a plate before me. Of course, kids being kids, The Kid only cared about the play area outside. Had I known that he'd rush me through everything just so he can go down a slide I would've just taken him to the park down the street and saved me some gas.

The Kid got a pair of rollerskates. He looks so adorable in them. They're the old fashioned kind that adjust at the bottom and you put over your shoes. Of course, he doesn't skate, he walks on the skates but thinks he is skating. It's cute, actually. Ducky's tooth finally cut through, and I have the bitemarks to prove it. The Kid never did bite this much when he was nursing. Need to think of way to make him stop, otherwise I'll be nippleless by the time he turns one.

Unless you vote today, you cannot complain about the results. Any violation of that will result in someone's foot (mine) to be dropkicked into your eye. And don't you come whining to me about how "the spleen goes inside!"

This whole single mothering thing is getting to me. I keep toggling between bouts of hate/depression. Hate for The Hubby for abandoning me (I know he didn't, but try telling my heart that) combined with a yearning for him. A need for his touch, his voice, heck even his snoring.

The depression part. If it weren't for the kidlets, I wouldn't even get out of bed most days. There's no point. I'm barely cooking and cleaning. I'm basically doing the bare minimum needed to survive. There's no point. I'm not going to cook a pot of rice and chicken for one. Dishes pile up in the sink for days at a time. Why clean? There's no point. No one's coming to visit, no one's home to look at it. It's just the boys and me. I haven't even been going to church as often either. Don't want to have to talk to people and deal with reality. I know it's not good, it's unhealthy and even toxic for the kidlets to be in this kind of environment but I just don't care anymore. I have gotten better though, I actually fired up the stove and cooked twice in three days. That's a record for me nowadays.

We've been battling a nasty bug that keeps passing from kid to kid to mom like a bad joke. But I think that we're finally overcoming it. It's what The Kid did last night that made my heart skip a beat. He asked to sleep on my bed when it was bedtime and since he wasn't fully well I let him. Imagine my surprise when I went to bed myself about three hours later to find him still awake. He gave me a big hug and said "mamma, you're the best!" and fell asleep on my arms.

Doesn't that melt your heart?

But the cat was already dead. Not really, but yeah. See, in my random caribbean island of birth there exists no such thing as spaying or neutering pets. For that matter, pet food is nonexistent and vets are only there to provide forms when someone wants to take an animal out of the country. So most people's forms of pet natality control is laying out a bunch of traps and killing them. Mean, sad, but true. And the butcher on the corner was most interested in keeping the cat population in the neighborhood under control.

That said, one beautiful spring morning we woke up to a dead cat in our garden. We being curious kids with nothing else to do started poking and prodding the cat. You know, for fun. It was a beautiful orange sherbet tabby and it's eyes were wide open and staring off into space. Or so I thought. Apparently the cat must've been only paralyzed because it started to stare at me. No one else saw it, but it kept on looking at me and freaking the heck out of me. Not sure what happened to the carcass of the cat. I'm sure that it eventually died off and was stuck in a garbage bag by one of the adults and then thrown in the trash.

So.....This morning I was changing The Kid for skool and I'd left Duckie in the bathroom. I'd expected Duckie to follow us out of the bathroom like he always does when I realized that not only had he not followed us, but that there was a weird noise going on....I rush to the bathroom to find....





My sweet baby boy pretending to brush his gums with the toilet bowl cleaner!!!!!!!!!! ahhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (major overreaction emoticon)


I scrubbed his mouth and hands as best I could but I could not bring myself to kiss him when I dropped him off at the sitter's. I'm hoping that they'll kiss the nastiness out of him by the time I pick him up after work.

The Kid, you have started skool and you have a love/hate relationship with it. On Monday, your first day, you cried on and off for the entire two hours that you were there. Tuesday, you didn't cry as much. Only in the morning but were extremely happy when I picked you up. You had a very good day that day. Yesterday you had a good day too. Although when I told you that you were going to skool you started to cry and said "no shhkowl mommy, no shhkowl". But when I told you that skool was fun you started to laugh and tell me all about their puzzles, and slides, and your friends.


You're an odd kid, but I love you.

So, here it is, either late or early, The Kid's update. I hope that he doesn't get mad at me when he's older and sees all the updates that Duckie has and the few that he has.

The Kid, you are two and a half and a wonder to be around. You can:
dress yourself (for the most part. You still need a bit of help but you're getting there)
are an expert in putting your shoes on in the wrong foot, lol.
Know your ABC's in both english and spanish as well as your numbers in both languages.
Know your shapes, colors, numbers (some numbers, depending on the font that they're printed).
Are about to start skool, you are very excited about this one.
Your vocabulary is expanding more and more each day.
You can do a flip and almost a cartwheel. You're working on both a headstand and walking on your hands. Either of the two is giving me more gray hairs than I can manage.
You love creating with your hands.
You miss daddy a lot, but we look at your book everyday which is filled with pictures of daddy.
If it's high up/dangerous/toxic, you want to do it. I've resigned myself to the fact that you're a daredevil and nothing I do will change it.
You absolutely love to draw, and your drawings are too cute.

Have turned into such a polite little boy. I have no idea where my baby went to, you say please, thank you, sorry, and expect the same courtesy to be given to you. Although I'm getting tired of apologizing to you for your getting hit on the table/floor/chair. It's not my fault you fell, not sure why I have to say I'm sorry.

you know what? we haven't really had a tantrum episode. The few times that we've been out and about and you've misbehaved it could be directly traced back to being overdue for a nap or just woke up from a nap. Either I've been doing a good job disciplining you or I've been getting better in scheduling outings at the best of times for you. I'm leaning towards the latter, you know, in case it comes back to bite me in the butt.

Duckie, today (well, a couple of days ago) you turned 7 months. In this time, you've learned to do many more things:

you can pull yourself up to a standing position. You can't bring yourself down yet and it frustrates you.
You have done a teensy bit of cruising but are still skeptical of it.
You have finally mastered the weird stepthing from the TV room into the kitchen. This used to have sliding glass doors and were removed but the track is still there. You used to be afraid of it and would get stuck over it crying. You have managed to do it and will happily go for it.
You have busted your nose, thankfully it's better now. Please try to hold off on the jumping.
You are definitely becoming more and more mobile by the day. You love chasing your big brother around the house.

And what's more important, you are teaching yourself to fall asleep on your own. A definite plus, you may not stay asleep for long during the night, but it helps a bit.

I just finished most of the paperwork to enroll The Kid in skool. He starts on 8/4 and is just so excited! He's going to this montessori academy. I took a tour of the skool on Friday and saw the different classrooms. Their four year olds are already doing long division! And reading! Although I'm sure that The Kid's favorite thing will be a toss up between the slides, gymnastics class, and lunch/snack time. Pretty sure that naptime will be his most hated subject. I'm so proud of him! He's going to do great in skool and the fact that we can now afford(not really, it'll be a tight fit but it's a sacrifice worth making) to send him to this great place makes me happy. If I can't stay home with my kiddos and teach them stuff, I might as well find a skool that will teach them the same way that I would. He's going to be having math, science, social studies, practical life, and reading classes in addition to gymnnastics (not sure about dance) and whatever else they throw in.

It's going to work out great. He'll be there from 9-3pm, I'll drop him off and pick him up at the sitter's and she'll take him to and from skool. I don't have to switch my schedule around, the sitter gets rid of him for 6 hours a day, and Duckie gets to have personal one on one time with the sitter and her family. See, everybody wins.

It will hopefully serve as a distraction for him what with daddy being gone and all. Maybe then he'll stop picking on his baby brother.

On weds as I was getting ready to go to work, tragedy struck. I'd been in the kitchen getting some things prepared for The Kid when I heard a gutwrenching bloodcurling scream.


Duckie had falled out of bed. This wasn't your normal day to day kid fell out of bed. He'd somehow fallen at an angle and was actually balancing his body on his nose.

Poor thing, he had blood coming out of his nose like it was nobody's business. Several phone calls later to the pedi's office found me on my way to the ER to get x-rays done to make sure his nose wasn't broken. Thank God it wasn't, but holding him down while they took the xray was almost as bad as holding him down while that inept nurse that drew his blood poked him several times and shook the needle back and forth and to and fro because she couldn't find his vein. I wanted to hurt her like she hurt my baby.

He's on the mend now, all he has to show for it is a scrape on the tip of his nose but now that I'm doubly sure that he can get out of his crib and land on the bed and then land on the floor; I think that I'll put his mattress on the floor.

or my sister traumatized the heck out of me.

1 jiffy pop popcorn container with english instructions
1 child that doesn't speak english
1 teaspoon salt
3 cups sugar
3 guinea pigs


Instructions:
When I was about 6 years old my mom went from lonuevayores (new york) to our random caribbean island to visit us. In her bag was one of these Now, if you've seen these you will note that the instructions are in english and that it has three distinct pictures. First picture has the container on the stove, second picture has the top lid thing raised up high, and the third pic is opened up with the popcorn coming out. Keep that in mind for future reference it'll explain a lot.


So, my two cousins, my sister, and I were alone in the house and we(as in my sister) wanted some popcorn. We/she decided that even though we only spoke and read spanish that we wouldn't need an adult to help. Nevermind the fact that we had a gas stove that didn't have a pilot light. She decided that she was big enough and old enough to work the stove and read directions. She went by the pictures and sure enough, put the pan on the heat (picture one). After a few minutes the popcorn started to raise up the lid part(picture two) and we were happy that the popcorn was almost ours but we had to wait until the lid opened up (picture three). We waited, and waited, and waited. The popcorn was burning (we could smell something was off) but she refused to take it off the stove because the picture said that when it was done it would open up. She finally relented and took it off the heat.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that the popcorn inside was black. And it stunk to high heaven. My sister, being the good loving sister that she is, decided that it could not be put to waste but that we should eat it. ....She served it in several cups, added salt to the popcorn because that's what you eat it with. And then she decided to add sugar to it to offset the burn taste. She accidentally put in a lot of sugar, it was like 1/2 full of sugar and had a few kernels floating in it. So she put in more salt to offset some of that sugar.


Because she was two years older than us she made us eat it. To this day I can't stand not even the smell of popcorn, much less the taste.

70 As a 1930s wife, I am Superior Take the test!

I pulled into my sitter's driveway yesterday to drop off The Kid. She has a long driveway that fits three and a half cars in it and her car was parked (and off) in its usual spot. I stopped about 1 car lenght away from her car, turned it off and was about to get out when her car turned on, break lights came on and she started to back up. I honked at her and she saw me and stopped literally inches from my car. She didn't see me..... Thankfully the car was okay.


Still, had me wondering just how much attention she pays when she backs up. I mean, she lives in a residential neighborhood and there are tons of little children around.

If gas prices continue to rise

Aint he cute?

could love a poopy face like this.

before

after

ain't it a beaut? You must forgive the dirty floor, it's been rainy outside and everytime we come in, we drag stuff through the entryway.


And don't even mention anything about the dozens of bent nails. YOU try to hammer in some flimsy nails to concrete.

Or I'd have tore him a new one. You see, one of the biggest arguments that we have is regarding money. Not how much I spend or he spends, but the actual paying of the bills, budgeting kind of fights. The problem was that he wouldn't let me see the bills and he would pay them himself. I'm not kidding you when I say that we've had several talks with the pastors regarding this. They were always on my side because as his wife and a bringer of money, I should know what the money is being spent on.

Well, the past few days I've been going over the finances and let me just tell you that angry does not even begin to cover what I'm feeling. Let's just say that our take home income is about 1/4 of our monthly bills. Where was the rest of the money coming from you may ask? From an equity line of credit that we have. Said equity is emptied out and mr. sourpatch decided to run away instead of getting a real job and doing his part.

Don't get me wrong, it's not that he hasn't been working. It's just that since The Kid was born and he quit his job so that he could study and then start his own business things had been going downhill. Especially since the construction business is slow. Especially since he'd been getting work from a good for nothing "christian" and I use that term loosely. I'd been telling that man to get a job, any job but the man had his sight set on that he could only work at a Lowe's or a Home Depot. Not sure why, since he used to work in the corporate world and made good money. He also didn't want a job that would pay less than 15/hr. because we wouldn't be able to live otherwise. But yet it was okay for him to stay home and wait on his good for nothing boss that owes us several thousand dollars for back pay to call him up and give him more work. I tell you, I'm seriously thinking of suing that good for nothing. And he called himself a christian. Any christian worth their salt would borrow money if need be so that they could pay their employees NOT take the money that they received and pay their own bills totally forgetting the employees.

Right now, I have to come up with several thousand dollars to pay all the late bills and hopefully stop some things from getting cut. Keep in mind that after health insurance is paid, my paycheck only covers gas, daycare, and groceries. That's it. I guess it's time to break out the stripper clothes and go hang out in the corner.

You guys should run over and check out my other blog, baby led weaning for dummies. In it, I'll chronicle my journey of weaning Duckie into straight up adult food. No baby food for him. There will be plenty of messy baby pictures in there as well.

He was supposed to call on Sunday. It's the only day of the week when they're allowed to make phone calls and he didn't call. Now I'm worried that something's happened...


I miss him so.

You're six months old now. You weight in at 17lbs but feel more like 30. What you have accomplished so far this month:

You can so totally sit for a long time alone. You're working on getting off of that position now. You only manage to fall flat on your face when you try though.
You have started to eat solids. Granted I didn't wait until you were six months, but I don't think they're going to care much that I started feeding you two days before your half birthday. Your first food was bowtie pasta and you loved it. You also loved the steamed broccoli and carrots that mama gave you as well.
You're my guinea pig, and I'm Baby Led Weaning you. Here's to hoping you don't choke, lol. You're doing great though and it helps me keep you occupied when The Kid and I eat dinner.
You can stand for a long time if someone is holding your hands and you can even take a few steps that way too.
Did I mention the cellulite? Cuz your thighs are full of that deelishus baby cellulite. I love it.

Last night around 4am I woke up to Duckie trying to crawl over me. He was trying to reach the alarm clock so that he could play with it. I mean, isn't that what all the kewl kids are doing these days? Waking up at 4am wanting to play?

He was totally wide awake and didn't want to sleep, so I put him on his crib and fell asleep myself. I was kinda woken up when I heard someone knocking on the door. I was about to fall asleep again when the knocking started again but this time it was accompanied by Duckie grunting. That woke me up fully and I got up right away to check on him. Little bugger that he is, he managed to do a complete 180 degree turn in the crib and was crawling. Except that he ran out of crib space and just kept banging his head against the rails of the crib. That was the knocking noise I heard. Surprisingly, he wasn't grunting cuz it hurt; he was grunting cuz he was crawling but going nowhere. Go figure :) It was hilarious though.

The Kid is also cutting one of his molars.






How much longer will it be until all their teeth are in? I seriously thought that he'd been finished teething, gr. At least he can tell me when/where it hurts. The Hubbster called, they only allow them to call for a maximum of three minutes on Sundays so we couldn't talk much. Also, The Kid is majorly missing his daddy. Since The Hubby has insomnia, he'll sometimes sleep in the couch and I've caught the poor The Kid sneaking off to the couch in the middle of the night looking for daddy. :(

He's gone and am all alone in the house with the kidlets. Keep trying to make myself be busy so that I don't have to miss him. It sucks big fat monkey butt cuz I already got used to him being around all the time and now I have to get unused to it. I won't hear from him for the next few weeks cuz they like to keep their newbies sequestered for awhile. After that, we'll be able to talk to him on Sundays until he finishes up Basic. I so wish that we could pack up and move with him to his class after that but it's not financially feasible.

I am making a list of all the things that I want to get done around the house to keep me busy:
rug- the edge where it ends and the tile starts was ripped by the previous tenants and because The Hubby was going to retile the entire area he never got around to fixing it. I know exactly how to fix that problem and will be heading over to Home Depot this weekend to fix it. Wish me luck cuz I've never drilled through concrete nor sawed metal before. Am planning on using womanly wiles to get the Home Depot workers to cut the metal for me.

kidlets room have to figure some sort of storage space in there. Plus have to fit Ducky's crib in there as well

backyard since The Hubby used to do all his work in the backyard and was dumb enough to throw nails and broken glass all over it, The Kid could never play in it. Am going to separate an area just for him, comb through it for any nails/glass/sharp object, and then will throw one of those plastickey outdoor rug thingies on it in case I missed something. Will be second on list as I will then be able to let him out to play while I cook/clean/sleep.

laundry room he has a million things in here that he will never use. I will go over everything and throw away what's not needed. Get some organization in there as well.

computer/rumpus room Since he's gone, I can move things around and put them where they should be and gasp! get an actual computer table instead of a big long table that takes up half the room. Seriously, this has caused more fights than leaving the toilet seat up. Concurrent to that, I will be installing Microsoft Word AND Excel in the computer. He is mortal enemies with these two programs and forced me to go to the library and do my homework because he wouldn't install it. He thinks that WordPerfect is just fine and that "teachers have to understand it." Umn.. no, they fail you if you don't submit your work in the format required.

Am sure the list will get bigger as I think of more things that have not gotten done around the house.



In other news, Ducky would.not.sleep last night. I'm sure that he caught wind of Diana's sleepless teething night and decided that it was high time he did that as well. He was screaming horribly and was so tired and sleepy but just couldn't stop crying. I could see why some people shake their babies, because it was so bad that all I wanted was for him to stop crying. If I'd been told at that point that shaking him would've made him stop, I would've done it too. The desperation, sadness, tiredness, all combined with the fact that now am all alone with the kidlets kinda got to me. Thankfully the most harmful thing I did to him was give him Tylenol but even that didn't work. He finally fell asleep exhausted around 5:30am. Just in time for the alarm to ring.

Mr. Sourpatch is joining the army. It came on just as suddenly for me as it's for you. He leaves on Tuesday for Basic Training and from there will go straight to his class. He won't graduate there until sometime in Jan or Feb. So I will be a single mom until then.....



It sucks. I made a pro and con list of his going and the only things in the pro list are: less laundry and not as much cooking.

There's a big decision to be made in the sour household. Something that will affect the lives of ourselves and those who we hold near and dear to us. It's not divorce, so don't worry about that. I can't say anything concrete to you internets yet, but as soon as I have clearance, I will.

In the other hand, The Kid has been dressing himself of late. It's kinda cute to see all the funky combinations that he comes up with (green and blue shirt with red pants. one black, one elmo shoe) but he has to learn somehow.

Saturday Ducky decided that he'd roll over from his back to his tummy for the first time. No biggie, it's supposed to be a milestone and all. he did it a total of 4 different times and each time it scared the poop out of him. Poor baby, it took me over an hour each time to calm him down long enough to be able to put him down again and he had to go on and turn.


Kids are so silly. In other news, this morning I found The Kid sleeping on top of a pillow in the living room(top half was on pillow, bum in the air) clutching a cup. When I touched him to pick him up, he turned to me smiling and said: I's stuck mommy!

Ducky, today you're five months old so let's recap on what you've done this past month.
You no longer scoot around the house in your tummy (although you were quite able to get what you wanted that way), you now rock back and forth in your hands and knees and projectile yourself forwards. It gets the job done and you've got the bruises in your face to prove it. It's not as fast as scooting, but you'll get the hang of it.
You discovered that you have toes, and that you can grab them. This is now your second favorite thing to do besides eating. You love grabbing both feet and rolling to the side.
You're in love with your big brother but wish that he didn't squeeze you so hard. At least he stopped poking your eyes. Now we just have to work on him not sticking his fingers in your mouth.
you talk. A lot. It's all gibbergarble now, but you totally think that we understand you.
Even though that tooth is right there it's still not fully coming out and it's frustrating the heck out of both of us.
You think the world is your chew toy. It's not.

how come it's okay for people to take advantage of you and expect you to roll over and jump when they say but it's not okay to do the same to them?

I was at home eating dinner when my phone rang. I didn't pick up the phone because I was eating. As soon as my phone stopped ringing, The Hubby's phone rang. And then they called my phone right after again. Now I got home at 6:40pm yesterday and we were eating dinner around 7:30pm. Who was it? Once I finished eating I checked my messages. It was a person telling me that their child had to do a project and that they needed to come to my house and use the computer and since I didn't pick up the phone, they were on the way to my house. It was already past 8:30pm and I had a very cranky baby to deal with and now this person. Now, I'd already spoken to this person about their child's assignment two saturdays ago and he was supposed to come over that day to do the assigment. But once he found out that I didn't have a color printer he said he'd go to kinko's (we do, but it's not hooked up to the pc)so I didn't pay any mind to his message. Especially since this person had spent this saturday at my home from about 8pm until 2am. whatever.

So the person comes over and yup, you guessed it, the assignment is due on 5/20 (today) and the child needs the info asap (they have a pc at their house but they have dial up and don't like to use it a lot). What does this person do? Plops the child in front of the pc and expects me and hubby to help the child do the homework. Because it's easier to sit in the couch and let someone else do it. I was tired, cranky, pukey (ate too much), had a ton of dishes to do and wanted to clean my floors that day but no, I have to entertain this person. I went and sat in the living room with Ducky after I put The Kid to bed and was constantly being pulled away from watching House (did you see it?) to play hostess. blah, blah, blah, blah, I guess what really irked me was that I couldn't spend alone time with The Kid before he went to bed last night and the fact that the other child of this person had been playing with a flashlight of The Hubby's and when they were going to leave, he threw it in the couch. I had to ask him twice if that was the spot where he found the flashlight until the parent caught on and made their kid go and put it back. This after this child kept on putting his shoes on the couch and asking for food (he wasn't hungry, he just wanted junk food. I offered him rice and beans and he looked at me like I'd grown three heads. It aint my fault that your parents feed you junk, don't expect me to feed it to you)

I was preparing dinner last night and had the chillums chillin' in the living room. There's a partial wall that separates the kitchen from the living room and the pantry is in the hallway across the kitchen. Ducky was practicing his crawling (He kinda regressed a bit there because the sitter would leave him all day in either the bassinet or the vibrating chair. and he kinda forgot what he was doing. thankfully I put a stop to that and she's now letting him chill in the floor to do his baby stuff)

I heard Ducky grunting and thought that maybe he'd pushed the toy that I gave him away from him and was trying to get it. I went to the pantry to get something and heard The Kid say "look mommy, look!" I kinda saw what he was doing out of the corner of my eye and turned back to the kitchen. About .2 seconds later a lightbulb turned on in my head and I doubled back to the living room. What do you think I saw internets? Guess, just go ahead and guess......




THE KID WAS SITTING ON TOP OF DUCKY that's what. Not pretending, full on sitting on top of the baby. and bouncing. sitting and bouncing like my baby was some sort of horse of some sort. Ducky was looking up at me with a what's going on up there type of look. the Of course I calmly removed janked The Kid off his brother screaming telling him that we do not ride on the baby. Ducky was fine. At least, I hope he's fine.

Yeah that. When I was a wee baby and only had my top two front teeth; they had me on a baby swing of some sort and a cousin of mine that was about a year older than me decided to push me to play with me. Of course, I ended up flying out of the swing and breaking the only two teeth that I had. I wasn't that mad at the loss of my teeth once I got older cuz I used to suck my thumb and I had a perfect slit for my thumb there. Of course, once all my other baby teeth fell out and were replaced by adult teeth, I thought I'd get my other two teeth back as well. No such luck.

In the past, whenever we'd had a loose tooth that needed to come out, father would send us to get his pliers and he'd pul the tooth out. Once, he had me to bring the pliers outside where he was playing dominoes and drinking beer with his buddies. He then had me lean over on his lap while he pulled the tooth out. I don't think that he ever thought of even wiping clean them pliers before pulling our teeth. And those were his work pliers. You could scrape your nail across it and it'd come out rusty and dirty.

When I was 11 almost 12 my father took me to the dentist (the very first time anyone in my family had ever gone to the dentist) to see why my teeth weren't coming in. Of course, in true random caribbean island fashion there was no electricity over at the dentist's when we got there. We waited a couple of hours and the electricity came back on. Once it did, they took some xrays of my mouth and declared that my adult teeth were there, they just didn't want to come out at this point. Dentist said that they would come out when they darn well pleased and that'll be 200 pesos thank you very much.

They came in about two or three months later. And then you all wonder why I'm weird. I had pliers in my mouth that's why.

So, Ducky's first tooth is poking through. Any guess as to where it's at? Anyone? Katie?

It's one of the vampire teeth at the bottom. I'm kinda hoping that he'll get all his canines before anything else so that he can look like this boy. Now that would be kewl. don't you think?



btw, I don't go around searching for goth twin preemie vampire demon babies but someone in my board posted it yesterday. which, coincidentally was the day that we saw ducky's tooth coming through. Coincidence? Casuality? Causality? You choose.

Is sleep for 58 straight hours and then travel back to the time when I started. I'm exhausted and sleepy. Not to mention hungry.



Of course, Duckie sucking his thumb at night helps a lot since he doesn't wake up as often to feed. But for some reason I just can't rest when I sleep. I've already had two nightmares about work. There's nothing like showing up for work already feeling like you just got off an 8 hour shift. Or even worse, having a nightmare on the night that you're taking off, making you feel as if you never left work in the first place.

Did you have to fight your husband to get him to show your boy how to pee like a man? Cuz seriously, I'm thisclose to growing my own manparts and showing The Kid how it's done. Somehow, after four years of marriage The Hubby has grown prude and doesn't want to show his manparts to The Kid.


is all I'm saying....

after I take a shower. I have to choose to either freeze my buns off while I brush them teeths, or wait forever until I get dressed to brush my teeth. And if you know me, you know that it's impossible for me to stay quiet for more than a minute unless I'm sleeping.

Katie, is this you?

Just checking.

I really, really wanted to do this every month for ducky but I kept forgetting so here it goes:

At 4 months you now
laugh out loud
sleep through most of the night
suck your thumb, finger, and whatever gets near your mouth
are teething, as evidenced by the fact that you drool a mile a minute and are cranky as heck (we can see something there, but you won't let us get a good look)
roll over front to back
do the helicopter move. Right now you will crawl forwards only when you're extremely annoyed and to the point of crying. Any other time you'll just go backwards.
are a boobman
give the biggest smiles evah and have the cutest dimple in your face when you do.
have lost a bunch of hair, you still need a haircut but you've thinned out

You are such an easygoing baby it's not even funny. I haven't even thought of taking you back to the hospital once which is totally the opposite of your brother (but don't tell him I told you)

There I was, I couldn't have been more than 5 maybe six and was still peeing on the bed. My sister also did it but she's older than me by two years. She was seven maybe eight. Some crazy neighbor lady told my father that she knew a surefire way to get us to stop peeing the bed. So he decided to give it a go. So that night before bed that lady, some random man, my father, sister, and I all piled up in our one bedroom apt. The lady brought over a 5 gallon can of crisol (kindof like crisco). Then my dad took the caldero (cast iron pot, hispanic people make their rice here) and put it on the stove and heated it. Once the caldero was very very hot, they took some rags and placed it inside the can of crisol. They then placed the crisol in the middle of the room. Then the crazyness happened.

Pee on it.
say what?
You heard me, pee on it. It'll make you stop peeing the bed.
Uh, no thanks. I'm fine, really. I don't fly like that.
Pee.On.It.Now. And make sure that you pee inside the caldero.
------
so, there I am, in my innocent childlike innocence and I have to pull my pants down in front of these people so that I can pee in a hot caldero? I'm pretty sure that if The Hubby knew how eager I was to please others when I was younger, he'd want a refund of some sort.

So.... I hovered over the can and peed. I'm pretty sure you all know what happens when you put an empty pot on the stove and then add water to it after it gets hot. There was steam EVERYWHERE. And it hit me. there. Gosh, that was a lot of steam generated. Cuz you know, they wouldn't let me go to the bathroom beforehand and I had a lot to empty.

There was no neosporin for my burned insides, just a: take it like a man and stop crying.
And then it was my sister's turn. Oh boy, that was not fun. Correction, it was fun for me. She was smart, she did a drive by type of thing and wouldn't stay over the caldero long enough to feel the burniness of the steam. Not even when the adults threatened her with the big mama belt.

I did stop peeing the bed, I'm not sure that it was definitely that incident that caused it to happen although if they threatened to burn my bits again I would've probably never peed again. My sister went on to have a successful bed peeing career. I think she stopped when she was about 12. To this day, they still credit the caldero recipe for my stopping peeing on the bed. They say that because my sister didn't do it right, is the reason she kept on peeing.


I'm not so sure. Anyone know the number for international CPS? I'm pretty sure that incident would qualify my father to get his parental rights terminated. Or at least get him sterilized or something. And then katie wonders why I'm this messed up.

So, I'm watching judge judy and in the case the woman's complaining how the ex put lawnmower oil in her gas tank resulting in expensive repairs and such. All of a sudden, The Hubby, who was folding laundry while I sat on my butt and watched TV blurts out:

I did that once and continues to fold laundry.
whoa, back up here. you did what?
I put something in a lady's gas tank. except that it was sand that I put in there.
when? why? tell me! at this point am teethering on the edge of my seat. Judge Judy aside, my goody two shoes husband did criminal mischief. I've gotta get the details.
Oh, it was nothing. It was a lady that my dad used to date. She treated him badly and I put sand in her gas tank to get even. I was a teenager at the time.
did you tell anyone?
no. over in (insert the name of the island town he used to live in), if anyone'd learned I'd gotted beat up badly. So don't tell anyone.

point taken husband. The words: my husband commited random acts of criminal violence will not cross my lips. I pwomish that I won't blog about it either. I pwomish

What I had, was actually a sudden drop in body temperature. By the time I got home, I was running a high fever. So, doctor mom prescribed some much needed sleep and on weds the kids were shipped off to the sitter's while I slept the ills away. It was just what I needed and am feeling back to my normal self.

I'm sooo cold in the office that my fingers are literally turning blue. I've drunk like 3 cups of hot cocoa already to try and warm up to no avail.

the kicker? It's beach weather outside my window...Wish I could play hookie :)

and I dragged the boys with me. puking, coughing, fever. It sucks big time because all I felt like doing is crawl under a rock and die, I mean sleep but I had take care of the boys too. All The Kid wanted to eat was sweet peas, blueberries and juice. Three days of that, I don't even have to go into what his output was.

But, we're on the mend now. In fact, The Kid is feeling so much better now that saturday he finally managed to do a full on front flip. It's a little project he's been working on for a few months now. You know, in the edge of the bed or on top of the couch. Just enough danger to give me a mild heart attack. Well, saturday he graduated from doing just a tumble, to a full on flip. At two point five years old. What the heck??!

at least he's feeling better; although I do fear that I will end up with a full heart attack next.

Picture this:

friday night around 10:30pm, I'm coming home from church and am driving in a dark bumpy road.

I'm approaching a red light. It is the only source of light in the whole intersection. I'm slowing down but just before the car comes to a complete stop, I hit a manhole. But not just any manhole, this one is raised above the ground and it is so dark that it's not visible. And I didn't just hit it with the car, only the rim of the car hit it. So, what happened? The rim came off the wheel and went rolling down the intersection and stopped in the middle of the road. Did I stop to pick it up? Heck no! The light turned green and I had sleeping to do.

Here's the short video of duckie. Unfortunately, photobucket is being a pain in the arse and won't let me put the actual video feed in the post. So here's the link. Also, the whole thing is almost three minutes long. You get the same effect if you fast forward it, plus he looks funny that way :)

Please forgive the darkness, for some reason everything I record with the camera comes out extremely dark. Also, from about 1:44 until around :50 seconds, he's stuck on top of the remote and can't get off it.

I don't know if you've ever held a baby chick, but they're such fragile animals that they will practically die on you if you sneeze. Why do I tell you this? Because when I was around two and my sister around four, we were given a dozen baby chicks as pets. Needless to say, they died. The way they died is today's topic.

**I do warn you that death is described in a cold hearted manner. As you read this remember that I did this as a toddler and that any responsibility for their death, if any, should be given to the dummies that decided chicks would make a perfect gift for a toddler.**

I can only remember the deaths of a few of them since I was so young, but I've been told by the adults that the rest of them met similar fates. One of them simply would.not.eat. I tried feeding it. I remember my hand around the chick's body pushing it into it's feed bowl trying to make it eat. Not sure exactly how it died, but it must've either choked or been choked by me. Another one would not drink it's water. That one I believe drowned in my attempt to make it do that cute little pick up the water and lift the head up maneuver that they do. Another one of them was playing horsie with me (or the other way around, I don't want to be too graphic). The last chickie, I vaguely remember grabbing it's little leg and swinging it round and round in a wide circle. I seem to remember that I wanted it to know what a merry go round felt like. I must have dropped it at some point or hit a wall with it, because I distinctly remember that I had just a chicken leg in my hand. The darn thing just wasn't made like they used to. Thankfully I didn't go on to continue aiding on the demise of chickens everywhere when I got older. I do believe that my actions scarred/traumatized the adults in my family because no matter how hard I begged, they never bought me a baby chicken again. Not even when I was 10 and the lady had several dozen of them spray painted with easter and neon colors. And I so wanted that neon purple chick too.

Katie, if you tell the internets anything else regarding this, I shall spray you with something. I don't know what, but I promise it will be sticky and hard to clean.

I do have to mention that I'm a much better pet owner now that I have the full use of my faculties, and that my hand eye coordination is much better.

Umn.... can someone tell my not quite three month old that he's not supposed to be crawling?

Yeah, he's moving. It's not full on crawling, it takes him awhile to get from point A to point B but he is going in a straight line. It's too funny though, I have to post a video of it. He looks like a lobster cuz he will put his feet under him and snap them out to move.

So, The Kid came up to me Tuesday night while I was cooking looking very concerned and holding his butt. kaka! kaka! And he had the sorryest looking face that I've ever seen. So much so, that I didn't even get mad at him for pooping his underwear. You would be proud of me katie :) When I took him to the bathroom to asses the situation, diarrhea. Yep, he'd done what he thought was a fart and pooped himself. And there was way more where that came from. Hopefully it was a onetime fluke and not a repeat of last year's poop frenzy.

The setting:
Saturday afternoon. I'm cooking in the kitchen, The Hubby is watching TV and the offspring is playing in the living room.

All of a sudden, I hear a huge wail. I look at the baby and it's not him, it's the other one. He's pointing to his mouth and crying. I ask The Hubby to take care of it as I'm up to my elbows in assorted raw chicken parts. He goes over to him and stares at him. Then I hear: stop crying what's going on? sourpatch I don't know what's going, on he won't tell me. And then he goes and sits back down. I call to The Kid while cleaning my hands. He gets to me and first thing I do is notice that he has a piece of ham in his hand. I open his mouth and there's another piece of ham in there (don't ask how or where he got it, it's still a mystery). It didn't take a rocket scientist to see that he'd gotten some ham stuck between his teeth and didn't know how to get it out. As soon as I pushed the bit of ham from between his two front teeth he went happily over to his toys to play some more.


Now if someone can assure me that he won't get salmonella again, I'll be fine. :P

th_stuff295
Originally uploaded by sourpatchbabe

It seems like mr. duckie has found his thumb! As of thursday night, he has been sucking away like there's no tomorrow. It's no surprise, he was sucking it in the ultrasound and he has been trying to get at it for the past few weeks. It's just that the whole hand/eye coordination thing was getting in his way. But no more. I do think he looks cute sucking his little thumb though.

btw, this isn't a pic from this weekend. This one was taken on one of those rare occasions that he managed to put his thumb in his mouth. The shirt that he's wearing in this pic no longer fits him.

What is the problem with all these stupid teachers doing it with their students? Is there no dignity anymore? I just heard on the news that yet another pervert was caught. She rented a hotel room with FIVE of her underage students, bought them beer and stuff, and then took a "shower" with the 17 year old. If this woman starts saying that she's too pretty to go to prison I think I'm gonna hurt someone. Parents are supposed to send their children to skool to learn to read and write, not learn how to do it. Especially not from their teachers. Am I going crazy or are all these pedophile teachers only in florida?

This is enough to make me seriously consider homeskooling. Before I was just toying with the idea but now it looks like it's the only choice unless I want my kids to be violated by their teachers. Can't these women find a man their own age? Why do they have to go off and rape these boys (it seems all the cases in the news are female teachers and male students). It's sickening the way things are going now. If things keep going this way, five years from now we'll be hearing this:

mom: so, honey how was skool today?

daughter: good, I learned all about amoebas, practiced the periodic tables. And mom, nobody touched my vagina today!

mom: oh good, I was a bit worried there.

What are they teaching these sickos over in teacher skool??? Last I checked, I thought that the teachers are supposed to be like a second set of parents towards the children and help bring them up to be productive members of society. Skools are supposed to be a place for education, not a flesh market. And what kind of pervert would find a child sexually appealing? EW! Gross!

I am so hot, I'm on fire. You see, my internal body temperature is higher than the average person's. So high in fact, that if you didn't know beforehand and checked my temperature you'd think I was running a fever. That was great in skool cuz I'd pretend I was sick and get sent home (until the nurse caught on, darn smart woman I shake my fist at thee).

So there, now you know that I truly am hotter than you.

Hit him in the head with a clock...


Seriously, last night duckie woke up unconsolably crying and wouldn't stop. I tried nursing him and he was so desperate that he couldn't latch on. He was acting like he does when he sleeps too long and wakes up starvin' like marvin. Since The Hubby moved the furniture around and unplugged my nightlight, I had the alarm clock in bed with me so I moved it to the pillow to give me some light as I tried to calm down duckie. He throws his arm up in the air and hits the clock. The clock falls on his head with a loud smack, I get up out of bed quickly thinking that he's going to cry up a storm....he burps, latches on, and falls asleep in a matter of seconds.


The moral of the story, remember to burp your baby after feeding him no matter the time.

So, I was all ready to leave for work this morning. All I had left to do was change the baby's diaper. In the process of doing so, duckie decided that he wanted to poop and fart at the same time. Well, for those of you that don't know breastfed babies' poop is liquidy. He got my arm, shirt, the bed, and THE WALL!!! How the heck does one get a wall poopy??@!! I'm screamming at the husband to help me and he's calmly getting up out of bed. He approaches me ever so slowly and asks what do I need....grr! first of all turn on the light and get me about a thousand more wipes stat!

he walks with all the calm in the world to get the wipes and comes back about 5 minutes later, hands them to me and then proceeds to go back to bed. Umn, no you clean this kid while I clean me up. When I came back from cleaning me up and finding another shirt, what do I find but him next to duckie and the baby face down naked. that's right folks, he couldn't even put a diaper on the baby. I get him changed and start feeding him and what does he do next but spit up everything all over me and voila' another clothes change for mommy. When it was all over I turned to The Hubby and said: you have the slowest response time EVER!

poor duckie though, we're all sick and diseased at the house and he's getting it now. Hopefully it won't be as bad as the colds that we have. Poor poor baby.

So, there he was all cute and all laying on the floor. Next thing I know, a soundbarrier breaking shriek blasts through the house and I go flying to his side to see what went on. I originally thought that he'd grabbed a fistful of hair and kept pulling at it not knowing why his head was hurting so much. I mean, the boy has a mean grip. Instead I found him grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling at it with so much force that had his shirt been made of a flimsy material, he would've most likely broken it.

Now I understand, he was confused and scared as to why someone was shaking him and grabbing at his shirt like that. Poor kid, you really have to feel sorry for him what with his not even realizing that he even has hands. I do look forward to the day when I no longer have to rescue him from himself (yes, I know that I'm just trading in one kind of rescuing for another, but still) even if only from premature baldness.

So, wondering how the rest of the fish died?

Well we had this girl that watched my sister and I after we came home from skool. She also had to do some cleaning and cooking for us until our parents got home later that day. Well, once she mopped the floor and we didn't think anything off it until later that evening when she was gone that we went to play with the fish. The fish were all dead. Turns out that she put the mop water in the tank "thinking" that it was just a dump tank and not thinking that fish lived in it........I don't think I saw her after that.

I used to have pets. lots of them. Lets see, there was a dozen baby chicks, two turtles, two baby crabs (the edible kind, not the nasty kind; katie get your mind out of the gutter), a gazillion fish, three or four dogs, a chicken, two cats. And all of them met untimely deaths (with the exception of the dogs which were given away).

Today, I'll talk about the turtles and fish. See, we had two green turtles my sister and I. And they looked so very lonely and unhappy. The fish on the other hand, looked so very happy swimming away in their tank. We had so many fish that they were in a 25 gallon tank and you could stick your hand in there and randomly grab a couple of fish without even trying. It was fun, slimy but fun. So my sister and I decided that we'd do little overnight trips for the turtles so that the fish could tell them how fun life was.

We didn't know that turtles ate fish. Of course we noticed how the next day the turtles didn't seem to like it when we took them out of the tank. And of course we noticed that some fish were half eaten. But somehow we never quite put two and two together. I have no idea what happened to my sister's turtle. My turtle on the other hand met its maker one sunny weekend that my cousin came to visit. You see, he wanted to play with the turtle but he was a bit rough. So rough in fact that he ended up poking the turtle's eye out. As you can imagine, the eyeless turtle bit the naughty boy quite hard. The boy threw the turtle out the window never to be seen again. Did I mention that we lived in a two story building?

The fish didn't all die thanks to our turtles but that's a tale for another day.

Seriously, he's so goshdarndeddumb it's not even funny. The day started innocently enough, I went to pick up the kids at the sitter yesterday and bent down to say hello to duckie (that's gonna be The Child's new name from now on on account of how he scrunches up his lips). He was sitting in his little chair. He turned and looked at me, then turned right back to laugh and smile at the sitter and her granddaughter. He didn't glance back at me. Even after I picked him up and put him in the carseat, it was as if he'd rather be somewhere else than with me. Just like his older brother. It hurt, but I didn't let them know that it did.

When I went home, I told The Hubby what happened and instead of a little sympathy or even a there, there; all I got was:

Well, now you know that you're not duckie's god.

WTH does that even mean and what does it have to do with the fact that as a mom it hurt that my child would prefer someone else over me???!?!?!?! Seriously, what the heck is his head filled with, eucalyptus leaves? I couldn't talk to him, just ignored him the rest of the evening. Thankfully he had to leave to do some work and I didn't have to be plagued with looking at his sorry behind. He did try to call me later on, probably to tell me to record some stupid construction tv show but I didn't pick up. He knows that I haven't been in my right state of mind and he goes and throws this at me? It's like he's telling me to go completely crazy. It's things like this that make me wonder if I wouldn't be better off just being a single mom.

If someone can shed some light as to what the heck he meant by that, by all means please do.

He loves her more. I don't blame him, she's there for him more than I am. She's a better listener, better company. Heck, I'd rather be with her than with me. Everytime that he's with me, he is thinking about her and about the next time he'll see her again. He doesn't really care that he's hurting my feelings as long as he gets to hold and be held by her. If something were to happen to him he'd go to her and tell her way before even thinking about telling me. She gives him a level of comfort that I can't compete with.

I know about her, been knowing for a while now and there's nothing I can do. She's good for and with him. I just wish that it could've been me, ya know? I can't stop him from seeing her because he needs her and frankly, I need her too.

Tell me, how do you handle having your kids love their sitters more than they love you?

Katie, why didn't you tell me that cajun meant hot as in spicy?

I'm sitting here eating my cajun chicken ramen noodles (that's how us broke people do) and it's burning a hole in my mouth it's so hot!
It feels weird being back at work after being gone for awhile. I feel like it's a new job that I've started only that I know the people here. And to top it all off, they have made so many changes around that it's really confusing. My replacement is teaching me how to do my job, lol.

Katie, can I be an obama mama? I like the sound of that. We all know that no republican candidate will win this election thanks to our c average nucular president so it's going to be a democrat in the whitehouse. Hillary is too manly for my taste and we already had her ruling the country for eight years, why should she get another chance since she botched it the first time? Obama on the other hand is not bad lookin', you know if you like the skinny type. He's gonna win. Oh heck, the voters will choose an illegal martian alien as the president as long as it was a man before they chose a woman. And I mean this in the nicest way possible, seeing as how the biggest voters are really really really old. Do you realize that if you put some meat on him, a nice fedora, a long coat with feathers/fluffy stuff on the collar, and a walking stick that there's no difference between him and the pimp next door? Obama is gonna pimp our country up to the highest bidder, yeah!

He'll pimp the country out but we as the people will be like his little crackbabies, pimps take care of their crackbabies right? Or do they just take them and sell them for more crack? I can't remember. Either way, it's a win win situation with him

I didn't tell you guys about the last time I almost died. Well, here it is:

It was a beautiful sunny saturday morning and the other women from church and myself were going to a conference in Orlando. We were going to drive there and I was in the car of lady B, along with two other ladies and The Kid. I was about seven months pregnant at the time. Lady A was to lead the group of cars and she wasn't doing a very good job about it. Let's just say that for about 45 minutes, she had us lost withing 15 miles of church. Yes, that means we were driving around in circles in the same general area. Then, once we finally made it to the 75mph minimum highway, she kept on switching lanes like it was going out of style or something; completely forgetting that there were other cars following her. We had to pull over in the middle of the highway because someone got a flat tire. After getting some confusing signals, lady B pulled out of the grassy area and went into the right lane of the highway and stopped.

Yes, she came to a complete stop in the 75mph highway waiting for lady A to pull out. Lady A didn't pull out cuz she was fixing her makeup or talking. Meanwhile, I get this funny feeling and look behind me (did I mention that I was riding in the backseat along with The Kid? Well, I was) and lo and behold there's the biggest 18 wheeler truck in our lane that we are totally stopped in and he's honking his horn, hitting his brakes, and I could see the man's terrified face as he realized that he was going to plummet into our car. Two things I did at once, yell at lady B to move your car woman git! git! git! And realize that I was probably going to die alongside foetus mccletus and The Kid since we were in the backseat and would get hit first. My life flashed before my eyes. The Kid happily munched on some cheerios and blueberries.

Thankfully lady B moved the car back into the grassy area and we survived. The truck driver's tires did not. There was so.much.smoke coming from his tires from when he was slamming on his breaks that I think they may have caught on fire, remember it was a 75+mph highway and he was going pretty fast. Little foetus mccletus did not move at all for the rest of the drive. It was pretty scarey. We made it to the conference and on the way back they had someone else be the leader of the cars. That ride was so satisfyingly boring that I almost peed my pants. Oh lets face it, I was pregnant, it didn't take much to make me pee my pants.

And that my friends, is the tale of how I almost died.

so.. my poor The Kid, he's the one that's borne the brunt of my monster. It's as if a switch was hit inside of me where the baby could do no wrong and The Kid could do nothing right. And then I'd blow up, big time. I'll even admit it, I hit him in anger a couple of times before I got help. It was that which made me realize how wrong I was and how much help I truly needed. I smacked his butt and leg so hard because he had a small accident (we'd been potty training him before the baby was born) that when I sat him in the potty immediately after I noticed that I'd left a red welt on his leg. Oh God how I lost it then. But the worse was yet to come. He started telling me that he was sorry for what he did. Do you know how horrible it is to hear your child apologize to you for something that YOU did wrong? I just dropped down on my knees and started hugging my poor confused boy; kissing him and apologizing to him. I just thank God that it didn't get worse than that and that I'm getting the help I need. One day at a time is the most anyone can ask of me and that's how am doing it.

I've been making sure that The Kid gets the appreciation that he deserves and paying lots of attention to him. I just hope that I didn't scar him for life or that I jeopardized his relationship with his baby brother because of it seeing as how I turned into a monster after the baby came.

Today I went back to work. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. I cried like a banshee. I'd really thought that this time I'd be able to stay at home and take care of my baby, see his first step, give him his first foods. But no, bills have to be paid and I have to go back to work. The only thing that's keeping me sane is the knowledge that I'm over and done with skool and I won't be coming home at 11pm every night this time around. I'm not going to be coming home just to put my baby to sleep for the night. God, it was so tough last time. I believe now that I had undiagnosed PDD that time. Had to fight the almost daily urge to drive the car into the river just so that I could stop the pain and hurt. The only thing that kept me from doing so is that if I did, The Hubby would have to feed the baby formula and my sheer stubbornness to not have a formula fed baby stopped me. That's what saved my life that time.

This time around, I felt the monster way before I even went back to work. Didn't want to talk to anyone, barely left the house, couldn't eat, barely slept, didn't even want to bathe, horrible uncontrolable mood swings (mostly directed at the poor The Kid who didn't recognized the monster that replaced his momma), fighting the urge to hurt The Kid. Seriously, this is not something to play with. Thankfully I've been given some good herbs by the midwife (totally bf friendly) that are helping me a little. I pray to God that it doesn't get worse now that I'm working again since that's when things got out of control last time. If you ever feel like something is not right, get help before it's too late. And don't try to talk to my husband about it, he's no help. When I told him about how I'd get these uncontrolable anger spells and I'd start yelling at the poor The Kid for no reason and how I couldn't stop myself, his words were: well then, stop doing it.

Husband of mine, I have one thing to say to you:

rubber, glue, back to you.

It's been terribly hard to even get on the internet since well, sleeping is more needed and wanted at this point. It's not that The Child wakes up 75,33,4356456 times during the night; it's that in between the 75,33,4356456 times that he wakes up he's making the weirdest noises (think the horse from Mr. Ed) when he's asleep. He's so loud when he shouldn't be that it's keeping me up. Plus he has the most horrible habit of waking up at quarter to six and staying up until around 8:30am ish. But I digress. My point for posting was this: there was something that I neglected to tell you guys about the birth story. Something that I've just now been able to deal with.

When The Child was born, the cord was wrapped around his neck and he wasn't breathing. His apgar was only 2 when it should've been much higher. They had to use a breathing mask on him and stimulate him for the longest minutes of my life before he started to cry and breathe well. He was so purple and mewey before that happened that I really thought I'd lose him. It's the worse feeling in the world and I don't wish that on anyone at all. I don't know what I would've done had I lost him, I would've seriously considered killing myself most likely. I don't think I would've been able to cope. Seeing his teeny little body being taken from me so that they could help him breathe ripped my heart into shreds. Thank God that he was okay and was able to come back into my arms soon after since I would've probably lost it if he would've had to go to be taken to the hospital. But now my little boy is sleeping soundly by my side and thriving and I can't be more thankful to God. The Lord has truly blessed my life with this little boy and I can't begin to say how much better my life is now that he is here.