Things I Know

Axiom #1: Trader Joe's Hawaiian Style Salted Potato Chips are like crunchy, salty, manna from heaven at 10:30 on a weeknight.

Axiom #2: I should really, truly, not eat Trader Joe's Hawaiian Style Salted Potato Chips at 10:30 on a weeknight. Or really any night.

But. OMG.

*crunchy salty crispness on my tongue*

Dangit, these things are amazing.

Ahem.

Lately I have contemplated the beauty of my children a lot. I see so many horrible, awful things happening to peoples' children in the news these days, and I think, "how would I feel if that were my kid? How much would my world end?" And I look at my beautiful, healthy, and safe kids. And I just...I treasure them. I am so blessed to have them. I bear the frightening responsibility of getting them to adulthood without serious injury, physical or emotional or otherwise. Once they get there, they should be grounded, sane adults capable of relationships and work.

That is totally overwhelming.

Whenever I complain about these early years, inevitably some well-meaning yet pithy-commenter will always say something to me, like, "oh, just you wait! This time is so short, and you will miss it when they're teenagers!"

*pause to gag*

My internal reaction tends to go something like this:

A) Hey, thanks! This is so much easier now! Hey, do you want to spend a night or two in my bed with my kids?? Like to wake up constantly to shuffle your child or pat a sobbing child? Enjoy a day of breaking up fights on a foggy, coffee-fueled brain?? (Day after day after day!) No? HMM.

Or even...

B) Fine. That's how it is for you. Probably your kids slept for you at a decent age. Or you were a "kid person" who likes playing with little kids, which I'm not. Perhaps you weren't an introvert who needs copious time to yourself in order to recharge and resents the lack of privacy, like me. Surely you didn't raise a couple of stubborn cranky mules, like I am doing? Hah! I plan to look back when my kids are older and say, "thank God!" BTW, suck it non-empathetic, pat answer person!!

Well.

Buuuuuuuuuuuut.

I think I might be sorta, half-way starting to get this whole idea. Like, my kids are er...kinda freakin' awesome at their respective ages.

Wright says hilarious things to me every day in his silly, leave-out-most-of-the-consonants way. He has the most endorphiny belly laugh. And he is so cuddly. I confess I love to squeeze up next to him at night, as long as he's sleepy. I know he is a boy, and I will forever lose that physical closeness with him someday. I will be sad when this stage is over, because even though he's a crazy two year-old that doesn't heel, he comes with all this GOOD to make up for it.

Then there's Violet. Once I get the thumbsucking and nose-picking out from between us (and we have made muchose progressos!), I can look in her bee-u-ti-ful face and marvel that this increasingly gangly, freckle-faced and blue-eyed child is mine. Like, really? And the ladies in the nursery that I scoffed at all those years ago were right...she truly has a sweet spirit. Lord knows where it comes from, but she is this friendly, kind little girl who loves to make new friends and paint pictures and bake cakes with Meemah. I am blessed. One day she will be a surly, moody tween who thinks I suck. I will surely miss this time then.

All those surfacey beetches were right. Grr.

And things change. Again.

Since my last post, many statuses have gone up, down, sideways, and which whatnot.

Sam has informed me that this would all be much easier if I didn't, "post our every decision on Facebook." What?! Me? NO. ;p~

Soooo, we have decided to sort of still house-hunt with an expiration date. If we don't find anything in the near future, we will go ahead and move forward with renting. Because, hell, we REALLLLLY need to move out of my parents.

It's just really about finding the right house. And if we have to pay a little more for that house than we might later this year, then so be it.

Do I seem a lil' obsessed with this? I apologize. I believe my obsessed obsession obsessiveness stems from the fact that--no matter what size house we live in or whether or not we own it--my current chosen profession is Homemaker. Home. Maker. And, after living like a teenager at my parents' house these past 18 months, I have come to realize that while a home is important to everyone, it's sort of my focus for living and existing. Making a home for my family and raising my kids in it. That's what I'm supposed to be doing here. And, if I don't have that...I feel rather aimless. I'm just waiting for my Life to start.

Hey Life, hurry it up, will ya?? My dad's been sticking cotton balls in his ears again to drown out Wright's screaming, and I can't take it anymore.

(P.S. If the screaming could stop, too, that would be great! Thanks, Leah.)

A Very Merry Un-birthday

I have learned that as long as my Dad is a) gone from the house, or b) wearing slippers, I can have a good day.

This morning Sam woke me up with these words, "Happy Birthday! I think your dad must know it's your birthday. He's in the kitchen right now, wearing the same clothes as yesterday, no shoes or socks, and frying the living crap out of an egg. To add to that, he is making a "beef" hamburger patty on the Foreman."

Have you ever smelled flavor raped eggs? How about jumbo-pack type hamburger patties of questionable origin?

I don't even want to talk about the odors coming from the dirty clothes hamper while I was doing laundry all day yesterday.

Or how my Dad's taken to wearing shooting range muffs around the house to block out the noise from Wright & Violet, the only grandchildren he will ever get the chance to know.

Or how they started rough-housing earlier about 2-inches from his funginfectious feet. !!!

It will get cold and he will have to wear slippers, slippers, slippers. Only 5 more months of this (maybe)?

Starbucks, take me away.