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.

Nose Burrowing

Violet has this really disgusting habit where instead of just sucking her thumb like a typical fidgety child, she goes the extra mile shoves any and all available fingers up her nose. Pinkies are preferable. She does this basically anytime that she is watching tv, riding in the car, or otherwise not actively using her hands for anything productive--hello 11 hours of sleep. So, like, 75% of the day she has 1 thumb in her mouth, 1-2 fingers on the outside of her nose, and 2 pinkies either just in or digging in her nostrils. HOLY CRAP. This bugs me probably far more than it should. It kind of hits me right where nails on a chalkboard would be.

I know, I know, I need to just help her quit. But so far I have had no luck. Usually I say, "hand!" and she stops. Then 30 seconds later, "hand!!" And so on and so forth. She is a 4 year-old who doesn't have the self-control to stop an activity like this. By the fifth time I start to get testy and become the mean mom who yells at her kids for pathetically tiny wrongs like thumb sucking/nose picking.

But, like, I am really, really OCD about germs and nasty things, so this is almost one of my worst nightmares about having children. That and warts. I hope my kids never have wart issues. *shudder*

I actually have big plans for a sticker chart and Disney Princess reward system and a Baby Lulu floofy dress ultimate reward and Thum, this bitter, minty stuff that you paint on your kids' fingers. I have purchased all these things, and they are sitting in my (parents') garage. I just...need...to...get...going on it. Sigh. Lazy fatalism is holding me back.

**Side Note: While typing this blog the past 10 minutes, Violet is watching Speical Agent Oso, and I have said, "hand!!!!!!!!" about 13x. Thirteen. Grr.**

***Extra Side Note: I just changed to Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and this upset Wright so much that he walked up to the tv and hit Mickey's image on the screen. Brilliant.***

On a slightly happier note, I just came across this website last night, Overhead in New York, and I die. I stayed up way too late scrolling through the entries. It all quotes that various New Yorkers have overheard and then submit to the website. I like to imagine New York accents as I read some of them. Beware though, they are not for virgin ears (as is New York itself, no?). This one was one of my favorites:

(**Disclaimer: I did not write this entry and swear words, I am just click-quoting another site!!**)

I Hear He Does Quartets All the Time
14-year-old boy #1: You ever play any Chopin?

14-year-old boy #2: Yeah, I played one of his last year.

14-year-old boy #1: Can you play Fantasie-Impromptu? That one's mad hard.

14-year-old boy #2: No, I did an Etude. That's where you play scales and shit.

14-year-old boy #1: I read that he, like, bridged the gap between the classical and romantic eras.

14-year-old boy #2: No way, dude. You ever hear his Nocturnes? That shit is mad romantic. You're thinking of Beethoven.

14-year-old boy #1: Oh, right. Beethoven. He was a pimp.

--2 Train

Overheard by: Blerg
via Overheard in New York, Apr 6, 2010

Happy almost-weekend, people!

In the Bleak Midwinter

I know, I know. I live in Southern California, so this technically doesn't apply. Our Winter is nae near so bleak as, say, way up near a frozen Minnesota lake where no mountains hover and a few bare-bone trees stand aboot. Bear with me here.

It's, er, more figurative. I live in a house where I spend all day avoiding my parents, suppressing my children lest I offend said parents, and overall just living a half-life. Not to mention, it has been rather rainy and dreary these past months. Yes? Okay, then. So in light of that only mildly depressing outlook...

My muse has gone missing.

I think perhaps it got trampled underneath my dad's offensive, shuffling feet? Maybe it rode away with Sam as he took our CR-V to work so many times this Winter?

My best theory: I can't feel it because in order to exist here each day, I have emotionally numbed myself up but good.

Wah, wah, woe is me. My life is SO hard. Gag.

I realize no one is threatening my life or children, no one is on drugs, my kids aren't mortally sick, and so this is all psychiatrist-couch meandering, OKAY??! I'm not trying to be epic here, just digging and 'splaining.

Enerate (that's hillbilly speak from my dad), there it is. I can't feel my feelings, or I only feel the dark and icky ones, so I don't want to bring them out into the light and expose their slimy yuck. Reaching way down, I can't find anything even blackly funny that I can poke at, no sarcastic comment to amuse you. Not just now.

So, sorry. You know you feel yourself reaching back over to your Google Reader page...clicking on some blog with inspiring pictures that'll cheer you up (and possibly make you feel a bit jealous?? Just sayin'...). I know. I read those ones to, and God bless those people. We need them. I love looking at beautiful pictures and eloquent waxing about how "amazing!" and "awesome!" life is as much as anyone. I know I'll never be that girl, though. So I feel free to hang out over here with my black fingernails and my coffee and my complaint rock. To each her own.

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.)

And it's gone

Okay, I lied.

We're not going to get a house anymore. Not right now, at least.

But we are going to move out of my parents' house. THANK. GOD.

Before starting our current house search, we had been cautioned by many MSN articles...Money magazine...the newspaper...our friend Paul, that it is a terrible time to buy a house. Undeterred and in denial, we brushed this advice aside and plunged in the desert wasteland that is the Southern California housing market.

Except, then it didn't go very well. Actually, it didn't go at all. Man, there is nothing--n-o-t-h-i-n-g--out there. At least nothing that we can agree on or mostly like or even get into when we have to compete with 10 to 15 offers on each house, and everything gets bid up like crazy out of our price range. It's not discouraging, it's throw your hands up in the air impossible. And empty.

After only a week, I was honest with myself that this whole thing didn't feel right. The terrifying feeling I felt when we put our offer(s) in was not excitement and nervousness, it was "I don't want this" scared. I mean, getting out of my parents house feels right, but the house hunt was just...wrong. I kinda don't like it when people throw God's will around like it's nothing ("And then I knew that God wanted me to go to Wal-Mart to get my tampons, and I was like, thanks God!"), because who are we to always be so certain of God's will, y'know, but...I don't think God was into our house search. I feel like this is a very clear, "NO. Not right now." And I truly feel that we're not just being discouraged either, but rather reading the signs like sensible people.

Sooo, the current plan is to:

a) Get our freakin' townhouse re-rented & squared away.

b) Rent a house in our desired area. A simple Craigslist perusal has proved that there are plenty of houses for rent out there that will fit our needs. We will live there and nest and start our life until such time as is right to start up the house search again.

This feels right.

Truth time

This week we finally, FINALLY started our for realz search for a house. I have mixed feelings. Although I've had plenty of time to mentally prepare myself for this, years of driving around pretty much every neighborhood in the county lusting after various houses hasn't actually given me a true idea, in my head, of what is actually an option for us.

Here is what I have discovered:

I have big eyes.

Yup, this should not come as a surprise to me, yet for some reason I am still a little disappointed at the grandiose new house castles I let myself build in my head. Dammit, why do I have to have such nice taste?

Sigh.

The truth is, we are going to have plenty of house for what we need. But I would like a big house that's already nicely made up. Turns out I can check one of those boxes a) big, or b) upgraded & nice.

Today we toured a rather large house that would be just about perfect, p-e-r-f-e-c-t for our needs. Great neighborhood, great school district, room for the kids, my sewing, entertaining, etc. So, maybe we are total nincompoops, but we went ahead and put our bid in, because this place is going to move FAST.

It feels so WEIRD. Just weird.

The inside, to be honest, looks like total sh!t. I know that after a tiny bit of love it could and will look very nice, but I don't see that in my head. In my head I see yucky dirty carpet, marked up white walls, and chipped tile counter tops. Kinda hard to get excited about that, no?

Eh, I leave it up to God.

Shoe drool

I really, really want these shoes. I'm so tired of just wearing flip-flops when I want to be comfortable. I'm so tired of have uncomfortable feet when I want to look cute.

Enter Ugg sandals: Comfortable. Cute. One hundred bucks a pop.

Maybe this is one of those things where if you amertize the price over 2-3 years of wear it's actually a great deal??

My Glamour magazine says that gladiator sandals are, "here to stay." Who am I to argue with that? I am totally a gladiator girl.

WANT.