boys.

My boy walks down the stairs, crying. I look up at him and I see his lips, pooched out at me, getting ready to tell me something that is so very important. He has big, sloppy tears that are running down his cheeks and clinging to his long curly eyelashes. As I look at him, I see a size five toddler body and a going on seven attitude. He is wearing his pajamas, the same pair he has worn for the past two years. He calls them "blue jeans". In fact, they are Spiderman boxer shorts. I would never tell him any different.

I go to him, pick him up, and cuddle him in my arms. He is unable to fall alseep, he says, and Emma will not talk to him anymore. Can he have a drink? Can he lay with me? It is a school night, I tell him. He needs his rest. So I hug and kiss him, and take this moment to go back up the stairs, just one more time, and tuck him in tightly. This, I tell him, is what he needs just to sleep right. The one thing that is forgotten is Tad, his frog that he has had since he was a small boy. That will do the trick. So we find Tad, and I hug and kiss them both. And my boy drifts off to sleep.

Not so long ago, my other boy was always looking for a reason to stay awake. Ninjas would fly to his window. He couldn't find the stuffed bear he called his "sleeping partner". Now, this boy has scraggly hairs that are popping out on his face. He has the body of a young man. But sometimes, he will still come down the stairs after he has said his final good night, and he will wrap his big, long arms around my neck, and he will kiss me just one more time. And sometimes, I will go up to his room, and I will sit on the edge of the bed as he sleeps and I will listen to him breathe. If I close my eyes tightly, I still see the little blonde haired boy with a huge smile that was waiting for ninjas, looking for the lost bear, and trying to find any excuse that he could to cuddle in between his dad and myself.

Time is so short. And this time has went by so fast.

what you see on a sunday evening in the e.r.

Women in cat print jackets.

Pajamas.

State troopers.

Smokers on IV poles.

Vomit (from me)

Belly flaps hanging over pants. (Not from me)

People saying the word "youns"

Teenagers with backaches.

Medicaid people with Iphones talking about their next batch of food stamps.

Flip flops.

A guy with a feeding bag smoking at the curb in a short sleeve shirt.

Snow... Um, no.

How I wish we could have a few snow days. As of right now, we still have eleven in the bank. The way it looks, they are going to go to waste. I was patiently waiting for time off. But instead, I am getting spring in the winter. My Easter flowers are up!


We are all so busy, busy. Basketball season has started. Both Tripp and Emma are playing, with practice two nights a week and games on Saturday. Eli is in soccer season, with games starting on March 3rd.


I am in a rush to get my school babies to learn. I have learned that repetition is the key. I made a "What We Have Learned" board and we constantly review during transition times. I am happy to say we have now got Nouns, Verbs, Helping Verbs and Adjectives down! Next, I am going to tackle Foldables. I did a workshop on them with this lady, they are pretty neat.


Speaking of school, I filled out my FASFA a while ago. I have decided that I am ready for graduate school. I am going to get my masters in Special Education. I will probably start in the fall. I would like to have the summer off, since I worked last summer and then went straight to decorating a classroom.

So, I guess that is my weekly update.

Anxious.

About three years ago, I started feeling anxious. It began one night, as I lay suggled up and cozy in the bed, and someone beat on the door. I woke up in a panic, thinking that they were "coming to get the kids". And from then on, I had irrational thoughts.

What if the kids wake up in the middle of the night, fall down the stairs, and break their necks and die?

What if they die in a car wreck?

What if they choke at dinner and I can't save them?

What if I die? Who will raise my kids and fix Emma's hair? Will there be a flower for me in a chair at her wedding?

My irrational thoughts had no rhyme or reason. And they got more stupider than that, I will tell ya.

I never shared with anybody that I was feeling anxious about this kind of stuff. I live in a "suck it up" kind of family, so there is really no sympathy. Then one day, I was talking to another mother, and she told me SHE has the same kinds of anxieties and worries. I didn't feel quite so alone. And so I just moved on.

Adding up all the stresses of the past couple of years (a bad job with an angry co-worker, the girls, the girls leaving, extended family issues, school, finances...) well, my anxiety got worse. Then, not only did I have irrational thoughts, I had anxiety to go with it.

Holy Crap.

Now that everything seems to have slowed down (graduated school, got a job, only three kids who are somewhat behaved) I started trying to pinpoint what causes my anxiety and irrational thoughts.

Because writing is a great form of therapy, and I have heard from others that they have these same issues, I am going to label (for myself) what some of my triggers are.

1. I like to think I am doing a better job than my mother. In case you haven't noticed, my mother sucked and still does. I have a hard time telling myself that I need "me" time because my mother said that I didn't, and if I took it, I was selfish. So I constantly beat my mothering abilities up - to a pulp.

2. Not completing housework - having a dirty house. Because I was a stay at home mom for nine years, I completed chores on certain days. Now, chores don't get finished until Saturday. or Sunday. And as fast as I can clean or put clothes away, it piles back up. And my family is not the best at picking up after themselves. So I always feel like I am drowning in housework, laundry and groceries.

3. Not completing tasks. I never get finished. And I like for things to be complete.

Just so you know, my house is not a disaster. I just hate clutter of any kind. I believe that everything should have a place. I like clean kids. So my kids have to bathe every day.

So I have found if I break it down - work on one room at a time, one step at a time, it helps. I am trying to figure out how these kids will help. I have tried chore charts. Didn't work. Not a biggie. And I really didn't follow through. Because it added to my "list" of things to keep up with. And sometimes it is easier to do it yourself than to ask for help.

Weekly Review.

As you can see here, Tripp is reading! I asked his teacher for extra material, and she gave me two 1st grade books. When he finishes them, I promised a trip to Chuck E. Cheese! He has made it through book #1 in less than a week. I am looking toward seeing the mouse next weekend.

Eli. Eli is dating. He has a girlfriend. She is sweet and oh, so pretty. They went out on a date! Since he doesn't drive, she picked him up. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. I tried not to think about it.

Emma is all over the place. There is lots of girl drama. She is loads of fun, and she surely has her own opinion.

We had our first snow day last week. I was excited, but it would have been much better had we been in school for a few previous days. I did nothing, just sat around in the jammies. Dave said I looked like a bag lady :)

On Friday, I got tubes put in my ears. That is right, tubes, like tubes that little kids get. And I will tell you that they do this in the office for adults. With no medication. And it hurt alot. When the first one went in, I was a little sweaty. I compared it to sticking a q-tip to far into your ear for about 2 hours. :) As soon as the first one was finished, I heard the wheels on the chair squeak. I guess I really do have a hearing loss- not just selective hearing. :)

Here is to a busy week. Report cards go out on Wednesday. So I have lots to do on tomorrow and on Tuesday.

A New Year.

2012.

Time is flying by. This is my fourth year blogging. I love looking back, seeing how the kids have grown, how I have progressed.

There are lots I hope to accomplish in the future. Some of those things include:

• Work on myself - I want to exercise more. I am pretty comfortable in my skin. But I need the emotional benefits of exercise. And the time by myself is pretty nice, too. I also want to (and need to) figure out some things that I am still working on from 2011. I hate to bring it in to the new year, but alot of it is still on my head. And since I am working on myself, it will be part of my personal work.



• Making time for myself. I always thought that if I took time here and there for ME, then I was not a good mother. And I have figured out that an hour here and there makes me even better.



• Read more to my kids. I am so tired in the evenings, all the time, really, that I don't read alot out loud. Face it, when you talk to kids all day, the last thing you want to do at home is read to your children.



• Be a better wife. I hope that I become more organized and better at this working full time/cleaning the house/cooking dinner thing. I am just not that good at planning meals and balancing everything. Dinner is important to Dave. I am not that impressed with it. Also, he likes to watch that goofy moonshine making show and ice road truckers. Maybe I can stay awake to watch it with him.

These things, by no means, are Resolutions. These are things just for me that I hope to improve on. Here we go.