From my house to yours, I wish your family a happy, healthy stuffed to the gills turkey day!  We spent ours quietly at home, #1 and I spent the morning cooking while watching the Macy's parade.  I had a surprise phone call from #2 this morning - when I saw the school's name on the caller ID, I froze thinking something was wrong, but when I answered, there was his wonderful voice saying "Happy Thanksgiving mom!"  I made it through the phone call, but burst into tears as soon as I hung up.  Although he has been gone 6 months, this is the first holiday we have ever been apart.  I am thankful for his progress and the help the program is giving to him, but as a mother, my heart aches to have him home here with me.  As my darling mother pointed out when I called her crying "suck it up, he's old enough that soon he will be out on his own and may not even call let alone come home at Thanksgiving"  Gee mom, thanks for the support. 

So I never really got around to updating on our "fabulous weekend alone".  Notice the quotes I put there......that is because it was, yet again, another great example of what a day in my life is like.  I promise that all I am about to tell you is true, not exaggerated or embelished.  As unbelivable as some of it is - think of how I feel, I live it.  It went a little something like this -

1.  We left almost 3 hours late because DH got caught up trying to do some paperwork at his office meaning it was almost 8pm before we got to eat dinner. UGH!  It was, however, excellent sushi!

2.  Our hotel room, although nice, had the smallest bathroom known to man and especially for a Hyatt Hotel.  Seriously, you had to go in, squeeze between the toilet and the tub to shut the door to get to the sink - what genius got paid to design this????  There was no possible way to stand in the bathroom and shut the door unless you stook IN the tub or on the toilet.

3.  When I booked the weekend I didn't book it through reservations or online.  I had to talk directly with the hotel sales department because we were getting a special "relaxation" package.  Silly me, I would have assumed that the sales dept would know the bookings for the weekend and might have had the common sense to say to me "m''am, we have several events going on that weekend including a kids dance competition (so there will be about a million kids in the hotel), a college alumni weekend (so the resaurants will be impossibly crowded) and the same local college will be having their homecoming as a street party right outside the hotel".  DUH????? Maybe we would have liked to pick another weekend???  The size of the bathroom and chaos in the hotel netted us a call from the manager saying she was reducing our room rate to $99 for both nights. (WOO HOO! - basically gave us the massages for free)

4.  Nice dinner, glass of wine, very exhausted..........woke up about 6am without really knowing why after having slept terrible and tossing & turning all night......realized it was because there was a CRYING BABY in the room next door!!!! Subconciously I must have stirred every single time the baby cried in the night.  GRRRR!  The front desk got a not-so-nice phone call from me at 7am - remember my coffee issue and morning attitude?.  Later in the afternoon we were moved to a suite.  Thankfully, the bathroom was a normal size.  Now at this point, we asked the front desk where we should have dinner - they gave us a name and a phone number and we made reservations. We had our massages and that part of the weekend was FANTASTIC!      ****I have to sidetrack here to a funny point - DH and I ate lunch at a Jamaican restaurant since we both love patties (meat filled pastry) and ordered two dozen to pick up later that night to take home for the kids.  While I was showering and getting dressed for dinner, DH who is an Itallian dressed in cowboy boots, jeans, nice shirt and a sport coat walks into the Jamiacan place and walks out with a duct taped styrofoam cooler ---- the looks he got both there and the hotel lobby were pricelss!!!!  So we head off to dinner - ends up being a very tiny, hole in the wall place run by two of the crankiest old biddies I have ever met.  We walked out - went back to the sushi place and asked a waitress where to go.  She directed us to another restaurant and we had, without a doubt, the best meal we have had in five years.  The food and service were both impecable.  I highly reccomend that if you are ever in Greenville, SC you eat at a place called Devaroux's off of main street.

All in all, it was a nice weekend for us, but as usual, coming home was a let down.  C'mon moms, you know what I mean.  The babies were all off schedule, the house needed to be cleaned, laundry had piled up, etc, etc.  Sometimes it is more trouble than it is worth to try to take time for ourselves.  Oh, and to top it all off - DH took me to dinner so I wouldn't have to cook and on the way there we hit and killed a deer - thankfully, no damage at all to my truck beyond some fur on the bumper.  Sigh, welcome to my life! 

Everyone who knows me knows that I am NOT a morning person.  Since discovering coffee about 8 years ago, mornings are better, but still - better not talk to me unless you're sure I have finished a cup already.  Today I was scheduled to have some routine bloodwork done (darn this getting older!) and so I wasn't allowed anything except water after midnight last night.  Not really a problem.  I can handle it.  If I wake up normal time about 7:30 and have to get myself and everyone ready and out the door by 8:45 to make it to the doctor's office, I can manage, sure.  Well, here is one of those days when I am convinced God must have been bored up there ------ I awoke about 5:30 to #5 crying, stumbled out of bed and poped her binky back in her mouth.  Stumbled back to bed, pulled the covers up and realized through my sleepy fog that AF had arrived a day early!  Jumped out of bed as quietly as I could manage, stumbled to the bathroom and well ladies, you know the drill.  First day is never any good and here I was not awake, having to get in the shower and then get dressed all before 6am and no hope of coffee in my immediate future.  AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Let's just say I am not in the most pleasant of moods today and leave it at that.  LOL  I'm off to drop #3 at a class and swing through MickyD's for an iced coffee - sweet nirvana!

I just finished an ENTIRE load of baby laundry, start to finish and as I folded the very last blanket thought "Hmmm, these don't smell as nice as they usually do."  (Lightbulb moment here)

I FORGOT TO PUT ANY LAUNDRY SOAP INTO THE WASHING MACHINE!!!!!

LOL  LOL  What can I say, I'm a blonde!

I really wish I could have gotten the camera and taken a picture of #4 today, but I was truly afraid that if daddy saw him he might have a heart attack!  #4 came down from upstairs (where he is not allowed as it is the movie room and also his big brother's rooms) and when he turned his head, the ENTIRE left side of his face was scribbled with permanent black magic marker!!!     Thankfully, I am no novice mother here.  I swooped him up, headed for the bathroom and dug around until I found a tube of toothpaste that was the old fashioned paste kind.  Don't ask me how or why it works, but if you've got a kid with permanent marker or something similar on it and you're not sure how to get it off try rubbing it with the paste toothpaste.  Tip of the Day - - to spot clean a car seat without taking it all apart is to spray some shaving cream on it, rub it in, let it set and then wipe it off with a damp cloth.  Another great unexplained cleaning miracle.  

When we moved to North Carolina 6+ years ago our old house had a HUGE dinning room.  Even with a big dining room set of a table, eight chairs and a buffet, there was still one big, blank wall staring right at me.  I got the brilliant notion of putting a 55 gallon fishtank on a stand on that wall.  My hubby affectionately called it my "chinese restaurant" from that point on.  Secretly, he realy enjoyed that tank.  Here's the catch - I had had tanks before in Florida and who knew that North Carolina water was THAT much different?  Thus began my undesired career as the "fish killer".  Honestly, I spent more on fish that first six months than I did on the whole tank set up!  Eventually, I found a good pet shop where the owner clued me in on what was wrong and our tank thrived for 5 years after that.  When we built our new house, there wasn't any one place that called out for the fish tank and so I decided to sell it - to a wonderful older lady so her grandaughter she was raising could have a pet.

Fast forward to the present -----  #4 has been wanting fish for the last several months.  After watching him gaze longingly into the horse trough for the hundredth time at the lone orange fish known as "lucky" (don't even ask!)  I finally gave in about a month ago on a trip to the "Evil Empire" and bought him a little 2 gallon tabletop tank.  Of course, we are in the only "Evil Empire" store in a two hundred mile radius that DOESN'T actually sell the fish, just the supplies.  Not a problem.  We'll just stop on our way home in the little town over from ours and buy two little ten cent fish at the only pet store in our county.  Of course, as is our luck, she is completely out of any fish under the price of $30.  After trying to have a logical conversation with a crying 2 year old, I called hubby's secretary who lives up the mountain from us and begged her to stop and buy two fish for me to come pick up at her house.  Crazy that we spend about $8 each on gas for our gas hogging SUV's over 50 cents worth of fish, but the smiles and joy on #4's face were all worth it.  About a week later, when #1 was cleaning out the horse tank she thought a racoon had eaten the fish and didn't pay attention until there was suddenly a wild flapping of orange on the ground.  She came running into the house, hand outstretched yelling and dumped the orange fish into the tank.  I thought for sure, he wouldn't survive going from an outdoor tank of about 40 degree water to the tank of about 70 degrees, but he's alive and kicking today.

Now here we are a month later and for some unknown reason, both black fish have gone to the "great tank beyond" in the course of a week.  Each time, #1 has sneaked them out of the tank while #4 was alseep and they have "gone to the dr".  Now I am not one to lie to my children.  I believe in the truth about life, death and the food chair as evidenced by our ownership of a ball python snake the children all love to watch eat the mice.  Right now, #4 is still a bit young to get the concept though.  So either today when we are up the mountain in town running errands or on tuesday when we are there, I guess we will be stopping by the pet store to purchase new tank mates for "pumpkin" since "elmo" & "birdie" are going to be in the hospital for quite some time yet.   Ah, the joys of motherhood.  Since I still don't have any clue as to why these two happily swimming fish became floaters, everyone cross your fingers...................

Have you ever been sitting around, frustrated with something and just all of the sudden, the lightbulb in your head goes off and you go "AH - HA!"  Well, I had one of those earlier this week.  #5 doesn't like the plastic bibs or anything that ties around her neck.  Add to that, now that it is cold out and I am dressing the little ones in long sleeve shirts, I am tired of getting baby food on the sleeves of their clothes because the bib doesn't cover them up.  (Insert "AH - HA!"  moment here.)

Now I am no master seamstress by any means, but I have been sewing for quite some many years now.  I am able to make just about anything reasonably well, pattern or no pattern.  So I took a bib that I like, mapped out a pattern and a plan.  Got some scrap fabric I had and about an hour later - Voila!

Not bad if I do say so myself.  I put it on her at our homeschool co-op yesterday to feed her lunch and several moms did the "Why didn't I thnk of that?" headshake.  So now today, I am whipping up a few more for her - they're made out of broadcloth and backed with fleece to help soak up things and although they aren't waterproof, I don't see that being an issue.  I've already washed this one twice and with the exception of the terrible, dreaded carrot stains, it came out pretty clean.  If anyone has a magic "carrot stain remover" please pass it along and save me some heartache!  My machine is calling me.........

I just LOVE fall!  The beautiful colors on the trees.......... the crisp, cool air...........snuggling up with my babies in a warm bed...........and of course, comfort food.  C'mon, admit it - no matter how bad you are craving it, when the temperature outside is in the 90's comfort food just isn't the same as when it's in the 40's.  I love the smells throughtout the house as it cooks just warming up my soul for what is to come at dinnertime. 

One of our favorites is home made chicken pot pie.  Now, I admit that prior to 2 years ago, I would never have attempted making such a thing.  To me, it seemed way too complicated and way too much work no matter how much I loved the final result.  August 2005 while I was in the hospital giving birth to #4 (on my birthday I might add!) my wonderful step-mother decided to fix a full meal to have at my house when I came home.  I arrived home with my first new baby in 10 years, feeling QUITE my age and a bit blue that although I had this precious gift in my arms, my birthday had gotten pushed aside. (I'm sure most of it was purely hormonal since I detest birthdays and don't even celebrate them anymore.  I have "anniversaries" and so this year was the 9th anniversary of my 30th birthday.  If there's no cake and nobody sings, then it NEVER happened.........  )  Back to my story, I walk into the house to find a big ol' pitcher of sweet tea, a crisp green salad, two home made chicken pot pies warm in the oven and a peach cobbler.  Absolute HEAVEN after crummy hospital food for two days!

Yesterday was my day to indulge in the first chicken pot pie of the season.  I make a HUGE batch of filling, unbelieable actually.  Enough that I dish it out into gallon freezer bags and then all I have to do another day is thaw one out, bake the pie crust, dump it in, top with another crust and bake for 35 minutes.  Wonderful, easy dinner.  Just in case you don't believe me - here are pictures from yesterday.  I made enough for 6 pot pies.

It's not very hard and although I don't have a recipe, I can pass along my "method" if anyone wants some comfort food. 

For the first time in five years, DH and I will be going away for the weekend - WITH NO CHILDREN!  THat's right, just the two of us.  Adult conversations, a relaxing massage, no sippy cups, no poopy diapers, clean clothes with no spit up, and most importantly of all, hopefull, a full uninterupted 8 hours of sleep!  Can you tell I am excited???? 

Yes, there is the nervous part of me at leaving #1 in charge of the youngest 3 kids, but a good friend of mine is coming to stay with her daughter and help out.  So, fingers crossed no one gets sick, no problems with the horses, etc. etc. etc. and I'll check back in most likely on monday (I'm sure I'll spend sunday night getting the house back in order before another hectic week!)  Everyone enjoy your weekend!

 This was too funny NOT to post -

 #4 decided he had an "owie" on his leg and needed cream.  I told him that no, he didn't have an owie and he was fine.  Five minutes later, I walked into my room to find this......................... 

Ever notice how many wipes it takes to actually get all of the diaper cream off???  Me either,  Usually, once I put it on a tushie I forget about it -   BTW, the answer is - 6 baby wipes!

Boy did I luck out - the new playset arrived today and was put up in about 3 hours.  By 4pm the kids were all having a great time - including my almost 18 year old daughter!  So much so, that when I told them it was time to go in and get ready to go to the town halloween festival, everyone yelled "NO!".  They wanted to stay outside and play!  I thought to myself......."Hmmm, get everyone ready, throw them in the car, drive to where there are 300 other mothers with kids in tow, deal with the crowd and the stroller while keeping tabs on a toddler   OR   Let everyone stay where they are, happily playing in our own backyard and just buy them a bag of candy half-price tomorrow???"  Seriously, that's a no brainer!  LOL  They played for two hours, came in to eat dinner, then went right back outside bundled up to play until well after dark.  #4 barely got a bath and story read before he zonked out.  (I must add here that I am ashamed to admit that throughout the day and up until he got undressed for his bath, he was still in his pj's from the night before!!!!) 

So here they are on the playset...................

I predict hours of outside play in our future!!!

Wow!  I realize it has been literally FOREVER since I have found time to post on here.  Okay, so maybe that is only partially true - I also haven't felt any great words of wisdom, magic truths to reveal or needed somewhere to "think" through things.  I felt like trivial matters just weren't worth the time it takes to get on here, think and type it out, edit and post.  There is way to much happening lately that each moment seems to be taken up by the everyday things.

A few of the highlights -

1.  I took #5 for her 6 month check up.  She is growing nicely, had her usual shots minus the DTAP which she will have in a couple of weeks - we're praying for a better, uneventful reaction this time.  She also got her ears pierced!!!  She looks adorable and despite my crying for a full five minutes, she only screamed bloody murder for about 60 seconds.  She is finally growing in some hair and so I am excitedly creating bows for her hair!

2.  Homeschooling has fallen a bit by the wayside and we are behind in our work.  This is because the month of October contained an unusual number of extra classes outside of home for #3.  In particular, he took a cattle class offered through the 4H club - he learned how to care for and show a steer.  Let me create a visual for you - #3 is about 60 pounds sopping wet, at the end of a lead rope attached to a 350 pound steer who hasn't been handled before and has his own ideas of cooperating.  It was quite comical during the classes, but after the "First Annual Livestock Show" this week, #3 came home with a blue ribbon in both divisions.  He was so happy to get first place in both catagories, but add to that, he got a $25 prize for each one!  He was excited beyond belief!  At least it played into the lesson we are working on about putting a percentage of money you earn into savings, spending and right now, his Christmas savings for buying presents.

3.  DH went out to Utah last weekend to visit with #2 at school.  All of us were dreading the visit for different reasons, but it went quite well.  #2 still has things to progress and work on, but DH said he was pleasantly surprised wtih the changes he has made so far.  The plan right now is for #2 to continue to progress and stay on track so he will be granted a leave home for the holidays (something that isn't generally allowed, but given our situation, will probably be granted) and then once he returns at the first of the year, he will have 9 more weeks to finish and he will graduate private school a full year ahead of schedule.  Maybe this doesn't sound like a big deal, but for us it's huge.  He has gone from a failing student who was suicidal to an A student coping with life and has the goal of being a lawyer like DH. 

4.  We finally have a pasture and barn, given the severe drought in our area hay has been very difficult to find unless you are willing to pay a fortune.  I held out, prayed a lot and came across a generous man who is not in the farming business, but has land and cuts/sells the bales for the simple fact of enabling people to feed their horses.  Compared to the going rate of $16 a bale, including paying another friend to go pick it up for us, I only payed $11 a bale hay/delivery.  I did realize after throwing and stacking 160 bales of hay at 60lbs each, I am just too old for this stuff!!!  LOL  The horses are doing great, we LOVE having them here and are having a great time on the 4-wheeler we had to purchase to help with pasture maintenance.  Grin.

For now, it is time to go - my fresh banana bread is about to come out of the oven - the house smells wonderful!  The one thing I have managed to accomplish is getting myself organized/creating 2 months worth of planned menus/recipes/shopping lists/chore lists all in one place.  Life is easier now!  If anyone is wanting them, the files are in word and I can email them to you with explanations on how they work for me - contact me at babysheffron@yahoo.com   We have several Halloween parties over the next few days with food needing to be cooked and baked to contribute.  I hope to push blogging back up to the top of my "to do " list...............fingers crossed!

Nope, I'm not going to tell you how old I am so don't bother to ask.............LOL  In truth, I don't celebrate brithdays anymore - if there's no cake and nobody sings, then it never happened!      I do however, celebrate anniversaries and so ====== today is the 9th anniversary of my 30th birthday.  Pretty crafty of me, huh? 

Two years ago tonight, I received the best birthday present ever ---- my beautiful son Hyland came into the world 10 days early.  Some people say he was too selfish and wouldn't let me have a day of my own, I say he was helping me out - DH has absolutely NO excuse for ever forgetting my birthday again.  HAH!  He was one of my longest labors, and granted, spending your birthday in that much pain is not something I would reccomend as a top 10 way to spend the day, but the end result was so worth it. 

Tonight, we had a few rare moments of quiet, just he and I.  DH was still at work, #1 was at Bible Study, #3 was outside still playing, and #5 fell asleep while playing on the floor.  I took the opportunity to fix our dinner plates, just his and mine, got a glass of wine and sat down to dine with my son for our birthday dinner, just him and mamma.  In case I didn't make it clear - I don't like birthdays.  Mine at least.  So for the first time in a long time, I truly enjoyed my birthday, just a quiet little dinner with my 2 year old "big boy" and me.  Thank you Father for all of the many blessings you have brought into my life and all of the joy you fill each day with.  I can't think of anything greater in the world than the unconditional love of a child.  No gift in the world could top the feel of those little arms around my neck at  bedtime with that sweet little voice saying "I love you". 

I have to take a moment and shamelessly show off my beautiful little girl - #5. 

She is turning into such a little butterball!  After a month on Nutramigen formula she is a happy, healthy, pudgy little baby.  Weaning her at 2 months was not what I had planned, especially not after sucessfully breast feeding 4 previous babies.  But this little one has inherited her daddy's stomach and something in my milk was really making her sick.  We didn't have one feeding where she didn't throw up at least half of her meal.  And yes, I do mean throw up - we would have been THRILLED with spit up, but not from this little girl.  Then there were the tummy aches, constant crying and enough gas to power our house through the winter.  To say she was uncomfortable and we were all miserable was the understatement of the year. 

 Add to that, she just couldn't poo.  Not that she wasn't going poo every day, but she was only going poo every 10-14 days IF I gave her a suppository.  When she did poo, the stench was so bad, I was afraid the nieghbor was going to call the haz mat crew on me.  I tell you all of this only to lay the foundation for one of the funniest stories ever --- I can say that now, after the fact, because in the middle of the catastrophie, TRUST ME, I wasn't laughing!  Let me also preface this by letting you all know, my DH has OCD - but that's a whole other blog of funny for another time.

I had just finished bathing #4 & #5 and gotten them dressed & ready for bed.  Sat down on my bed with #5 in my lap and finished nursing her.  She was all burped and we were settling down to relax for the night.  I can't remember exactly how long it had been since a poo, but it had definately been a while.  How do I know this? Let's see, a baby who doesn't poo for 2 days has 2 days worth of poo in the diaper.  Thererfore, a baby who doesn't poo for a week, has a week's worth of poo.....you get the picture. 

I heard her make a "frog" as we politely call it, but didn't think anything since it usually didn't mean anything.  That's when it hit me - the smell.  I suddenly had a feeling that something was VERY, VERY wrong.   I looked down to see the product of this smell working it's way out of her diaper and up the inside of her onsie and out of her onsie onto me.  I jumped up to try to keep it off of the duvet (yes, I know, what was I thinking since the duvet can be washed while the WHITE carpeting on the floor cannot!!! Go figure) anyhoo, off the bed, OVER the 130lb German Shepherd laying next to the bed and across the room, through the closet and into the bathroom.  Now unknown to me, because at this point I am yelling for #1 to come and help me, DH is freaking out that there is poo on the sheets, poo on the floor and more importantly, POO ON HIS DOG!  So he is grabbing anything he can find to try to wipe the poo off the dog while yelling at me to just get in the shower, baby, clothes and all.  Seriously, I don't think it had occured to him that the result of that would be poo in the shower!  So I layed #5 in her bath hammock in the tub and told #1 to watch her while I figured out where to start.  I had poo from my stomach down to my ankles - UGH!  I got into the shower, clothes and all & cleaned up quickly.  Got out and naked as the day I was born, attempted to wriggle a squirmy baby out a poo filled onsie.  #1 had realized that DH was having an OCD fit over all of the poo everywhere and was laughing hysterically.   Sure, if this isn't an effective form of birth control for her, I don't know what is. 

It took me almost an hour to clean up #5 and myself, another hour to clean up the bed and carpet and part of the next day to clean the bathroom, bathe the dog, re-clean the carpet and do the laundry.  My mother laughed at me for my excitement of daily poos once we finally got #5 on the formula and resolved her tummy troubles.  She now poo's every day, sometimes several times a day and we only have a diaper blow out about once a week.  Somehow she times it to coincide with a library visit or her favorite poo location, Walmart.  DH is only mad because I usually think I am just "running in" and don't take the diaper bag with me, resulting in my carrying a stinky, messy baby through the store as I try to grab things, forget things and race to the check out so I can get to the truck to change her.  You would think that by the third or fourth time I would learn, but nope, not me.  So if you see me racing through Walmart with a suspicious stain on my shirt......you know the drill.

S-L-A-C-K-E-R    Yep, that's the only appropriate name I can come up with for myself right now.  Slacker with a capital "S".  Although, given the week I've had, I don't think anyone would blame me too much.  Certainly not as much as I blame myself.

I am quite frankly, too exhausted to even begin to go into the rundown on all of it.  The biggest burden sitting on me (by FAR!) right now is that my lovely Aunt Flo is 4 days late for her monthly visit.  Side note here: don't forget, #5 is not even 4 months old yet.  Sigh.  At almost 39 years old, it seems silly for me to say I have no idea how this happened.  I mean, I know HOW it happened, I'm just not certain since while we weren't quite as careful as we are normally, we weren't careless either.  I'm just holding on that God knows what he is doing.  I certainly doubt my ability to manage 3 under the age of 3, but this too falls under "He won't give me anything He hasn't also equiped me to handle".  Sometimes I annoy myself with my cheerfulness and ability to work through the speedbumps of life.  No wonder other people get sick of hearing it.

And so for now, we sit and wait.  I am a horrible POAS-a-holic and have already taken one test last week which was negative.  Looking back at my cycle for #5 and #4 though, I got negatives from about 5 days before and repeatedly until about 6 days late when I finally got the BFP.  So we wait.  I did pick up a test today and it is going to be a sheer test of willpower to hold out and not POAS.  All I do is frustrate myself with the "non" answer and spend more time and money going to buy more tests.  DH thinks it is all fine and #1 thinks it is hillarious - sure, a teenager would. All I know is that I am SO tired, my back is killing me and a hormonal woman shouldn't watch "The Pursuit of Happyness" without a box of tissues nearby.  The wait continues........................................

Who do I need to lobby to in order to get mandatory nap times for SAHM's???  Anybody know??  It's so hard when your husband has a high-stress/high-powered job and thinks that you sit around all day watching soap operas and cruising ebay (well, okay so I don't watch soaps, but the ebay accusation may be partially pretty true! I can't help that I get some great deals......)  I sometimes wish we could do like a Disney movie and switch lives for just one day ----- He may be a bulldog in front of the Judge and jury, but faced with two cranky, teething babies, cat yak on the front porch from yet another hairball, a potty accident, a mountain of laundry, dinner to plan and cook, along with a hundred other things would have him wimpering and cowering in the fetal position,  I know who REALLY is the stronger of the two sexes!

*** Side note ---  #4 just stood here next to me as I type, and said "pee" as he cut loose all down his legs and onto my bedroom carpet.......Sigh.  Did I mention that in some moment of insanity, I decided when we redid the flooring that white carpet was what I wanted??  You think  I would know better by now.  He really is doing quite well for a not yet two year old who is potty training.  Accidents are expected, but I find that if I don't remind him every so often, he gets too preoccupied to stop and go.

So back to this nap issue --- if you calculate it out, I haven't had a full, uninterrupted 8 hours of sleep since December of 2003.  That's 4 years of what the experts qualify as "dangerous sleep habits".  Gee, you think?  How about telling my pregnant body/hungry infant/ dream filled toddler how this is detrimental to my health - will it change anything?  Of course not.  As for the napping part, when I was pregnant with #5, I was able to nap occasionally while #4 was down for his nap.  Now, I can usually coordinate about 30 minutes of tandem nap time between the two of them, but never predictable so napping is more bothersome than it is worth.  I do however have a habit of passing out before prime time tv even gets the trailers finished!  If only DH who is an insomniac wouldn't wake me up after midnight then I would have a shot at getting a good chunk of sleep before the Princess starts wailing for her midnight bottle.  We wouldn't want to upset the delicate ballance of the world by having her wake up while DH is still awake so he could feed her........

Tonight is one where DH will be home later..................It is just now 7:30.  I have immediate plans for baths, bottles, stories and off to bed before the sun even has time to set.  That's bedtime for me, not just the babies!  The mountain of laundry will still be sitting waiting to fold and put away come morning - Sometimes, you just gotta live a little. 

ETA:  It's morning now and I failed miserably at my plan.  I finished the laundry, cleaned the kitchen and paid bills.  Only getting into bed a few minutes before DH came home around 10pm and not going to sleep until closer to 10:30.  Back to one of my favorite sayings........."Men plan, God laughs".

I have been best friends with Michelle for almost 8 years now - ever since Diego (aka "Superman") said to me while dancing an East Coast Swing "I have a friend I want you to meet.  She could use someone like you to help guide her life."  I didn't think he was serious on the guiding part or that I of all people would have anything to contribute, but he knew what he was doing in introducing us.  Like me, Michelle was a single mom trying to get by day-by-day, but the difference was, she couldn't seem to get on track or get ahead.  For the next year, life was a blur..........not because we were out having a good time (which we did frequently), but because two single women with five kids between them made life hectic.  She made me try sushi, I insisted on cutting her 3yo son's hair since he looked like a little girl, she cooked me great homemade Itallian food, I got tired of listening to her whine about wanting a bellyring so I made her get one, she kept me from going back to an unhealthy relationship, I kept her from making some seriously bad choices and since her wanting to introduce me to one of her old boyfriends & my agreeing, led to her meeting his best friend who is now her husband, I get credit for that!  LOL  Our relationship has been one of give and take from the very begininning, although she will probably insist I did more giving than taking.  I disagree completely!

It seems that throughout the years I have been just one small step ahead of her in life.  I'm not sure why, but God puts me to the test, usually on a smaller scale, and then not long after that, she goes through something similar, usually on a much bigger scale.  Or maybe that is just her ability to blow a minute event into a full blow catastrophie!  (Seriously, I do love you Michelle, drama and all!)  So although I am not that smart, or that insightful, my experience through it leads me to good advice giving which makes me look like a genius to her - I wish!  She in turn, can calm me down during any breakdown, make me laugh when everything is making me cry and when life seems more than I can handle, she is my faithful cheerleader that I can handle ANYTHING.  Her reasoning: If I can't handle it and fall apart, there is no hope for her. 

We are back on a parallel path right now with our teenage sons - mine has been in a program out in UT since Mother's Day weekend and hers just got accepted into a program to start next month.  Once again, my life is less dramatic and I am one step ahead of her through the process, but this has allowed me to "guide" her in all that she does.  Her coping ability, parenting ability, relationship with her husband, etc.;  I am so humbled by it all - that God would trust me in showing her what she is too stubborn to see from Him herself.  Even though I have been giving her advice for years now, her recent visit for a week in my home is what "opened her eyes" in her words.  As parents, she and her husband would hear what I was saying as it related to my own family and thought "there's no way that could work for us.  They're too strict."  After seeing first hand how our family works and how our children live, they have returned home to take control of their own house.  I in NO way think my way is the best or only way, but learning how we do what we do has enabled them to adapt it for their own lives.  The changes in a week have been amazing and even though she tells me in our daily phone calls how grateful they are to me, I am truly not worthy.  Without God's direction in my life, I would have no idea how to lead her.  I am the first one to admit that I have NO CLUE of what I am doing and if my children don't grow up to need years of therapy, then I will be truly surprised!

I guess the point of all this rambling comes to this -
1.  I am so grateful and thankful to God for all of the blessings and guidance in my life that enables me to help someone I love so much.
2.  I am so incredibly proud of Michelle for seeing what she wants her life to be and taking the hard steps to make it happen.  Above all, her efforts to step back and lean on her husband for the first time in their marriage instead of trying to keep control of the reins.  Kudos to Ryan for setting his laid-back attitude aside and taking charge of it all!
3.  Happy Birthday Michelle!! - you keep my feet on the ground, my dreams above the clouds and my heart full of love just by being a part of my life.  You're a HUGE pain in the butt sometimes, but I love you more than I could love a sister - please don't ever forget that!

1. I really do love the theraputic quality of repeating the same pattern over and over and over to keep my hands busy while I'm watching tv at night.
2. Just like the kitchen floor, the crochet hook has a "magnetic" power to it - only it attracts children and babies who need mama to drop eveything to help them (often to the cry of "Potty! Potty! which is often a false alarm). Resulting in mama having to really THINK about what step of the pattern repeat she was on when duty called.
3. I am not very good at it.  As evidenced by the first two rows of the baby blanket I am attempting to create. 
4. NO matter how careful I am, each row seems to end differently than the rest of them!  I'm sure I am going to have the most mis-shapen blanket in the history of the world!
5. The Virgo perfectionist in me wants to rip it all out and start over, but the side of me who loves the feeling of completion says "just leave it, it is fine.  The child who gets it isn't going to notice or care." I still feel guilty that a child would recieve a less then "perfect" blanket.
6. As I see it, there will be one of two scenarios possible when Project Linus takes possesion of it.
   A.  The auixillary lady will present it to a child in need and the parent will think "how wonderful of someone to take the time to make this for my child!"  OR
   B.  Upon presentaion the parent will think "holy cow, blind people can crochet???"    LOL 
   
   I'm going with option B at this point, because only a blind person could look at it and think it is wonderful!  LOL
7. It may not be pretty, but it's making me feel good to make it.  Enough said.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I have no less than 50 half-finished projects tucked away somewhere in various areas of my home.  Crochet, cross stitch, sewing, beading, scrapbooking, etc, etc, not to mention the supplies laying around for the "to do" list of home projects I fully intend to get to in this lifetime.  I am very good at seeing an idea, researching it, and teaching myself how to do it.  #1 is still perturbed that the year she needed to learn crochet in Home Ec., I promptly went out and bought the supplies along with a book "I taught myself to Crochet" and had a baby blanket all whipped up before she could chain the first row of a scarf.  I will be honest that any crocheting I plan to do will have to include a refresher course from that book as I can't remember a SC from a HDC from a DH.   Yes, that was an intended Dear Hubby mistake!

I am like a dog on a bone when I am after something.  This has carried over into home improvement projects also.  Poor DH, when he met me he had NO idea just what he was in for.  The first trip he took out of town for business, he came back three days later - I had ripped out the in-wall medicine cabinet & replaced it, dry walled, torn down the old wallpaper and hung new, replaced the light fixture as well as all of the faucets & hardware and made new curtains.  I was doing "While You Were Out" LONG before the show was ever a concept in a young producer's mind.  HAH!

Back to the point of my blog......tonight I was checking in on a family I have been following through their incredible journey of their little one's birth - Kim and Baby Matthew.  In her post, Kim tells about a wonderful organization called Project Linus.  So now I am hooked again with a new project.  Now, knowing ME the way I do, I'm not going to call to let them know I plan to help out until I have actually managed to COMPLETE a blanket or two.  LOL  Optimistically in the next week or so, but realistically, months from now.  I have yarn from the baby blanket I have started and ripped out 3 times, yes that's right 3x, while I was pregnant with #5.  They provide a nice pattern on their website for a blanket that works especially well for the babies as there are no holes in it to get caught on any of the medical equipment.  They also have a simple five step pattern for a quick, easy fleece blanket I think #1 & #3 should be able to help with or make on their own.  I am VERY, VERY fortunate that all five of my children have been born healthy and with only minor things to deal with.  My heart goes out to all of the parents who's babies are struggling just to survive each day.  Not to mention all of the babies who don't have someone to hold and love them due to circumstances.  If I can take some of my time to make a blanket that can wrap a little one in love or comfort an older child when they are scared, it may not be a huge contribution to fixing all that is wrong in the world, but it's a start.  Even if it's going to take me a while to get there....................

P.S.  Anyone up for a contest to see who can contirbute the most number of blankets in a given time frame? Yes, I realize that would put me at a definate disadvantage!  LOL