The Universe Set me Up! ( damn it)

Sometimes I just want to bitch about things, and complain, and be grumpy, and act helpless, and make everyone around me miserable. And that's exactly how today started out. Nothing was going as planned, I was feeling put out, and put upon, and didn't want to put up with it. And because the whole damn world wasn't going to cooperate with me, I was going to take it out on everyone in it. So THERE!!

Yes, I am aware of how this is making me sound, but you've been there too. admit it. you know it, and I know it.  Own it and move on.

So, I was busy sulking, yelling at my kids, whining to my husband, and doing absolutely nothing to fix anything, OH yes.. and sitting on my butt browsing facebook, when the universe came out and gave me a quick bitchslap across the face.

 Not nice universe, not nice at all.

See a few days ago when I was feeling motivated and positive and there was all this awesome craziness that was coming my way and the energy was flowing well I found and re-posted a link to a article on WhiteHotTruth.com http://whitehottruth.com/white-hot/in-honour-of-the-fact-that-life-is-short/ . Its easy to feel good about life when things are going your way right?? and this was just another awesome little thing I found to reinforce that whole " life is great:" feeling I was having.

So back to today: Bitchy mean version of me is sulking and wallowing in self pity while on facebook, and I notice that there's an article on mothering.com's news feed by Danielle LaPorte ( same lady that runs the WhiteHotTruth.com site). I would not have EVER clicked on the link had that name not jumped out at me. But it did, So I did. and here's what I found.

http://mothering.com/all-things-mothering/mothering/the-grand-pep-talk-decide-to-rise-refer-to-this-when-in-doubt-or-sick-tired

This is the last thing I wanted to hear. I was enjoying feeling helpless and like the universe was plotting against me and all the things I needed to get done, but it was also exactly what I needed to hear.

So, you see, the universe was plotting against me. Days ago. Weeks ago. Possibly for years. And it helped me to find exactly what I needed ( NOT what I wanted) to get me to stop whining and start doing today. and it'll probably give me exactly what I need ( and again not what I want) tomorrow and next week and next year.

All these little things that are incidental. unimportant. they are all little pieces of what path we are on.
Sometimes we just need a little pep talk to make us put it all together.

By the way, I got everything done that I was whining about except for going to the post office, and that I can do tomorrow.  Damn it. ;)

Sparkles, and Sunshine, and all that happy shit. ( Or. Don't let the assholes get you down.)

this probably wont make any sense to you, but that's ok. I'm pretty sure when I read it back it wont make sense to me either.
about a week and a half ago I got dragged into work on my day off last minute when I had no car and no sitter to talk with my boss about stuff he wanted fixed which included the fact that he thinks I have a "bad attitude" which is fine. I mean I'm probably much less of a pansy than most of the people he's used to bullying and not listening too. All in all it was a pain in the ass, and it pissed me off that they have so little respect for my time that even KNOWING it was my day off he planned to come on that day and didn't talk to me about it first.
I refuse to let it bother me too badly, and after smoking 2 Cigarettes back to back I went home and decided I'd better figure out a way to handle this since I cant just quit seeing as I'm the primary income for our family.
The conclusion I came to is this: In order to save my sanity and my income I was going to have to become a fucking unicorn. Like this guy.

  All Sparkles and sunshine and happy shit. Also, totally fake. fictional. non-existent.
Normally I'm all about being real, and if that makes me a bitch than so be it. However, when we're talking about my ability to buy food for my kids, or keep a roof over their head.. well compromises have to be made.
So, I channel my inner Southern Belle. I'm all sweetness and smiles, and southern drawl.
This has been my mode of operation since the day after this "meeting". and guess what? I've had a HELLA GOOD WEEK AT WORK.
Maybe unicorns are magical for real. ;)

Coffee is like $100.00. ( or, sometimes I am a girl.)

So, Generally I am not very girly about things in the whole emotionally girly type of way. I don't usually do the  I expect you to read my mind and do what I want you to, and if you don't I will be upset at you and give you the silent treatment thing. This is not my usual style. I'm a fairly direct person. OK... I'm a really direct person. but every once in a great while the girl hormones get the best of me and my poor husband gets caught in the cross fire. Let me set the scene.

Its my day off. Which happens about once every 23 months. I am PMS'ing like a MOFO, which also only happens about once every 23 months. I was unreasonably tired, as in there was NO reason for me to be as tired as I was. the morning went something like this.

G Gets up a takes our oldest child to school and lets me sleep in ( Yay!)
Then G comes back to bed and starts trying to wake me up ( not yay.)
I Tell G "I'm so fucking tired. I really need coffee."
G goes and feed the middle kids breakfast and lets me stay in bed (more Yay!)
G comes back to bed and starts trying to wake me up again ( NOoooo.)
I tell G " Seriously. I'm Sooo tired. I REALLY need some coffee.. like yesterday."
G puts on show for Youngest.
G Gets tired of waiting for me to wake up and gets on his computer to play games for a bit.
I get pissed that I still don't have coffee and get up all stomp-y like and start banging around the kitchen making coffee.
I spend all morning sighing loudly and acting butt-hurt and getting mad at G for every little thing.
I have a long conversation in my head where I call G lots of names, the nicest of which is "daft", because he couldn't put together something as simple as the fact that I wanted him to start the effing coffee maker.
I find a post from my friend who compares someone bringing you coffee in bed to a non-coffee drinker having someone bring you 100.00 in bed every morning to wake you up.
I get more mad because G is depriving me of 100.00 worth of happiness in the mornings. and its not even costing him anything other than 2 minutes to turn the stupid coffee maker on.

Then I finish my coffee, that I made. And for some reason once my blood had reached a reasonable operational level of caffeine content I was able to see how insane I was being. Otherwise known as typical girl behavior.

So, I sat G down. I explained that I know he has been trained to expect that if I want him to do something I will just tell him what I want, but that when my stupid uterus hormones get the better of me I do need him to do a little thinking of his own. if I repeat 3 or 4 times in 1 hour that I'm super tired and I NEED coffee ( especially in a whiny girl voice), than its a safe bet to assume that I want him to go get me some effing coffee.
I also explained my friends 100.00 vs coffee analogy.

Yesterday morning, I got a big green cup with 100.00 worth of happiness delivered to me in bed. :) Sometimes my Husband rocks.

Cold and Flu Season: aka The germy little bastards are back in school

We are now 3 weeks into school. this year I have 2 kids in school. Sweetsy Started Kindergarten this year. its been 5 years since Bugga was in K and I had forgotten how good the little school kids are about sharing every stinking germ or virus or parasite or speck of grime they come in contact with. I know that they really work to enforce sharing in those classes but this seems like over kill to me.

So, 3 weeks in.... we haven't even hit the annual flu shoot out date which is usually when I can time Bugga getting sick by ( flyer comes home, we mark the calender for 8 days after it starts and magically we have predicted the exact date that JT will come home sick).. and every single kid in my house other than Bugga is sick. 

I'm going to go have my kids dig around in the dirt this weekend in the sun and see if we can improve their immune response because if this is an indicator of how things are going to be thing year its going to be a LONG LONG winter. 

better start stocking up on EO's and Vit D.

Good luck to all you mommas who are sending your germy little bastards back to school too. I'm praying for your sleep and sanity. Lord knows we're going to need it. 

little guy gripe: " the sipper"

Background: I have 4 boys. this means that my house is always loud, messy, dirty, and shit is always broken. it also means that I am the QUEEN and don't have to compete with any other female for any of the attention. this is a blessing and a curse because it also means that I always have at least one child attached to me every single second I am home unless its "daddy's time" in which case I have one BIG kid hanging all over me. However, I wouldn't trade a single one of them for a girl. ever. there's only room for one bitch in this house.

Now, on to the gripe.
The little guy. we call him Scootsy. Scootsy is ALMOST 2. If you know me you know that I'm not a total hippy, but I am a little "granola", So Scootsy ( like all my other kids) has been breastfed since birth. This is part ideology, part health, part laziness ( I'm not getting out of bed to make a bottle for ANYONE), and part cheapness ( go buy a can of formula and you'll see what I mean). My Goal has always been to make it to 2 years of breastfeeding with each of my kids. My kids had other ideas... mainly ideas about adult food tasting better than milk. especially room temperature milk.  So, they all self weaned by 18 months. no big deal.. I can deal with it. I didn't force any of them into an all solid food diet before they were ready, so I felt pretty good about that. But Scoots? He's different. He's the last one, and I think he knows it somehow. He's stayed "baby" longer than any of the others.  ( if you have kids, you know what I mean about staying "baby". if you don't I wouldn't be able to explain it well enough for it to make sense) and he slid right on past that 18 month mark with ease. He still wanted to nurse at night, in the morning, and the second I got home from work. I felt Good about this. Accomplished even. I was finally going to see that 2 year mark. Yay for boobies!
Well, as usual, My self congratulation was misplaced and I'm about ready to give up on nursing all together 1 month before reaching that lofty 2 year goal. My child has turned into a "Sipper"

Let me explain. I lived through the all day nursing. I lived through the nursing and then pumping and nursing and pumping at the same time. I lived through the acrobatic nursing. I lived through the biting stage. teething. the twisty hands down the shirt stage, the trying to nurse WHILE eating or drinking so other kind of food... but the Sipping stage might just take me down.
It goes something like this. Scoots comes over and climbs up on my lap. He snuggles in and lets me know he wants to nurse. we get settled in, He latches on and then 10 seconds later he SITS UP to watch something, or listen to something, or tell something to a big brother, or play with my keyboard, or sing something, and then he latches Back on for 10 EFFING seconds!! this goes on for 10- 15 minutes until I freak the fuck out, and kick him off my lap. He cries a bit, then he goes and plays for a few minutes and then comes back to snuggle up on my lap again. we repeat this disaster 6-10 times a day. Misery.

I thought once I survived being a walking jungle gym that anything else would be a cake walk.. boy was I wrong. being a human sippy cup is the most skincrawlingly irritating thing I've ever experienced with one of my kids.

Anyone else had an older nursling do this routine with them? does it Stop?? How did YOU survive it?
Send me a msg. for real, because I'm about to go batshit crazy from this nonsense.

Why I don't mind being a bitch, and why I'm going to try blogging.

Where to start...

I recently realized that almost everyone I know has a certain opinion of me. This might bother some people, for me it was just one of those " Oh, well that explains some stuff." moments. What is this opinion? Well, its that I'm a bitch. Notice that I didnt capitalize that. Its not because I'm too lazy, or that I have a toddler climbing on me while I type ( although that IS the case). It's because I'm not a Bitch ( BIG Capital B Bitch), I'm just a little bit bitchy. Its an occupational hazard. I'm a manager, so am the bearer of bad news, or to do lists, or the " I know you don't want to do it, but its your job so you'd better do it or we're going to have to have a chat.." convo. I'm also a Mom, so I am the chore list giver, tooth brushing nazi, homework police, room cleaning enforcer, and general bad guy. I have a wide variety of interests and do a lot of reading and research on things, so I am quite opinionated and if you ask me for advice, or for my opinion, you're going to get it. And I wont sugar coat it.

I don't go out of my way to be a bitch. Its not something I have worked hard at or that I cultivate. I genuinely try to be a kind, helpful, understanding, fair person. But I am not "nice". I am not a push over. I am not a "Yes man".  This means that I have many people who respect me, many people who come to me for help, many people who want my advice, but I am not the fun person. I am not popular in a traditional sense. I am not a person with a lot of  Social friends, and I'm ok with that. But, that brings me to why I'm going to try blogging.,,

I need an outlet. I need to be able to Vent, or Cheer, or Whine, and just get things out of my head sometimes.. but since I'm the person everyone goes to when they need those things.. I cant really unload on them. Even my poor husband looks at me like I've got a screw loose when I try to talk to him about anything thats overly exciting to me, or that has me really on edge, or that I'm upset about... because my job- the thing I DO day in and day out - at work AND at home, is to keep it all together.

I'm hoping that I can use this as a tool to let loose a bit since I dont have to be the boss here. I intend to post silly things, fun things, angry things, things that are important to me, things that are just odd, things I find interesting. I will post products I love, I will post stories from my life, and yes - I will post things I need to bitch about.

Follow if you want, and if you like it you can share it...