I am a 36 year old Stay at home Mom. This is my journal of (hopefully)self improvement. There are many things I feel the need to change about myself. I will also have some average, run of the mill rants and raves thrown in for fun.
My poor little baby (I not a baby Mom! I a big boy!) has been sick. He came down with a fever Wed afternoon and felt ucky and said his whole body hurt that night. The fever got quite high for him at 102.5 he rarely runs anything over the 101 range. He was feeling pretty bad and I felt so sorry for him. The fever was off and on all day yesterday then broke last night. He was up in the middle of the night last night so is still amazingly asleep this morning at 10:00. I just went in to check on him because this is so rare. My guess is he needs the rest to catch up and recover completely so I will let him sleep as late as he wants.
Some interesting things have been going on with Bryan's work. But a comment last night was a real eye opener for me. He mentioned that money was tight at work right now. Because of the economy people are reducing inventory and pulling back on business in general. The company he works for does warehousing (rent warehouse space or actually does warehousing for some companies) Bryan mentioned last night that they now only have 1 warehousing customer - that they do the work for, and that space rental is way down. This scares the hell out of me. I never thought of the economy effecting us like this. ugh. Even if I go back to work I cannot support our family. Bryan's job is to keep those buildings running anf maintained so there will be a need for him but if the business fails then there won't be any buildings to maintain. I have to admire the way President Bush has handled the Sept 11 terrorism but I am not in the least thrilled with what he has done to our economy, I don't buy the 8 year philosphy that all this was caused by Democrats and it just takes 8 years to show up. What a ridiculous assumption. I am very guilty of dumbing myself down to avoid stressing about these things so I have not thought a lot about the state of the economy. Now it might effect us and I am scared.
Here are the basic lists I have so far. I am going to go through these further and establish how often they need to be done, such as daily, weekly, monthly or as needed.
1. Wipe down counters
2. Wipe off stove
3. Put dishes in dishwasher
4. Clean sink
5. Put away clean dishes
6. Sweep floor
7. Clean table off
8. Clear credenza
9. Mop floor
10. Wipe off dishwasher and oven
11. Make sure trash is empty
12. Make sure utility cabinet is cleaned out
13. Wipe down walls
14. Wipe down refrigerator
15. Clean out refrigerator shelves and drawers
Bathroom
1. Clean off sink
2. Wipe outside of toilet
3. Clean inside of toilet with brush and cleaner
4. Clean tub with comet/ajax
5. Clean tub walls and doors with CLR
6. Sweep floor
7. Mop floor
8. Clean mirrors/outside of shower doors with glass cleaner
9. Straighten shelves of cabinet
10. Clean out medicine cabinets
11. Empty trash
Bedroom
1. Make beds
2. Vacuum floor
3. Straighten computer area
4. Straighten toy area
5. Make sure laundry is picked up
6. Clear dresser tops
7. Dust furniture
8. Keep rocking chair cleared
9. Steam clean carpet
10. Empty trash
Miscellaneous cleaning
1. Sweep hall floors
2. Mop hall floors
3. Sort/wash/fold laundry
4. Keep fish tank clean
This is also open to having things added as I think of them. This is just off the top of my head stuff.
I haven't done much pertaining to The flylady cleaning system. My house is looking a bit better but I have not been working the program. I am going to try to make a list of the different rooms and all the jobs that need to be done in them. Of course I am here blogging about doing it in and attempt to put off actually doing it. How sad is that? Very sad actually. I could go into a long drawn out tirade about how sad it is but then that would be even sadder. I guess I will now go and start working on the lists. I will post them when I get them figured out.
what a day. I am not sure what is going on with my marriage. I'm getting some wierd vibes since coming home. I flat out told my husband I expected a little action on Sunday when I got home. Well we ended up with Andrew in bed with us right away and I fell asleep before Andrew so that ruled that out. Then yesterday morning I told how I had missed him and he made a joke. Then last night I asked him about it and he still skirted the issue. Fuck would it have been that hard for him to lie and say he missed me too? Then we head to bed. My back was hurting so I asked him to rub it. He rubbed it and snuggled up for a while then rolled over and watched third rock from the sun. This is not my husband. He is as a rule unable to rub my back without wanting more, certainly cannot snuggle up and then roll over. This shot up the old red flags. I couldn't help it, I decided I needed to check his computer and see just what he was up to while I was gone. His computer wasn't really acting right but I did find a disquised file of porn movies. He watched them Friday night. Fuck when I am just getting confident enough that I can go away and not worry about this and it rears it's ugly head again. I cannot do this again. I just cannot. I won't. I will not go through the heartache that his fucking problem brings. Hell he can choose to jackoff in a corner by himself for the rest of his life for all I care. Doesn't he see his hiding this from me a start down that slippery slope we just recovered from? I cannot express tha rage I felt when I found the movies and found them hidden in a mundane folder named AM. It would have been bad to find them in there but the fact that they were intentionally hidden inside a misleading folder totally enraged me. I feel so betrayed again. This has become a theme in my marriage. I was so hurt/angry that I felt like just smashing his computer. I wanted to just mess the thing up. I however opted to just rename the AM folder something like. Stupid assed sneaky porn folder AKA a quick click to a divorce. I renamed the movies something like 'is this worth losing your family?' and 'I will not go through this again.' There were other movies on another drive but I could not get the other drive to open to see what they were. They had numbers for names which leads me to believe they were porn. I tried like hell to get that drive to open but just clicking on it bogged down the system and ultimately stopped it, to the point of having to shut it down.
Flash forward to tonight. Bryan gets home and tells me his computer is screwed. Won't really boot up and he can't get it to boot to the cd drive either. I play dumb that I wasn't aware that there was anything wrong with the computer. I didn't want to get into a big ordeal. I am sure he will think I had soemthing to do with the problems when he finds the renamed files. I wished it broken but I wished it unfixable and it is fixable. I figure some day it is going to make me angry enough to risk him ruining my computer in return. Of course I cannot show that kind of rage I have children who look up to me but the thought is fulfilling. I now feel I have been reduced to the watcher status again. I do not want to be put back in this roll and I don't have to let myself. I just can't seem to not look. It is like a car wreck. You know what you are going to see and that you really don't want to see it yet you are still drawn to look anyway. I have to look. I need to own that and stop myself and let him take care of his problem but if he won't then what do I do?
on to fun stuff. I went to Barnes and Noble today and bought Andrew Diesel 10. He was supposed to get splatter and dodge too but they didn't have them. I guess we will have to make a trip to the train store soon. I also picked up the book Protecting the Gift It is about keeping childrens and teens safe. I have heard great reviews and I can't wait to read it. It is so scary all the kidnappings and evil things happening to children these days. I am so scared of something happening to one of my children. I do not know how parents go on after such a tragedy. I want to hold them close to me forever and never let them out in the big bad world.
We also went to the fabric store and bought the pattern and materials to make Andrews Clifford costume. They didn't have an actual clifford costume so I just bought a dog pattern and some red fake fur. I can't wait to see it on Andrew. I had a hard time finding a dog pattern in his size. I found the one by Buttericlk but after looking at it the hood wasn't lined and the jumpsuit was held together by velcro. That didn't seem like a good combination with fake fur. I found another pattern for a dog costume but the largest size was a 4T. Andrew wears a 4T and he is about an inch smaller than the measurements for it but I just would have liked the costume to be little bigger. I am hoping he doesn't grow too much before October. heck that is still 3 months away. I guess if he outgrows the costume I will try to sell it and make due with the other pattern. I will post pictures of my progress on it.
oh just another thing I wanted to contemplate. I wonder what is going on with Andrew. My guess is the weekend took a toll on him and he will recover soon. Today was just a no godd terrible very bad day. He got in trouble for pushing at WeeCare. How do I curb this in him? I have asked Michael to not hit at all but that is like talking to a brick wall. I guess I will keep reminding them both that hitting pinching biting....hurting another person in any way is not ok. So after that he fell on the way out of the Y and skinned his knee up. He pouted about it for close to an hour - very unusual for him. Then at the grocery store he wanted to push the cart. I was picking something up and asked him to wait. He didn't. So I look up and he is pushing the cart right toward a woman stocking the case. I yell Andrew stop 3 times but he doesn't luckily I gained her attention and she stopped the cart before it broadsided her. I then made Andrew ride in the cart for not listening. He was not happy. Then after we are home I made some okra for dinner. Andrew was putting the ends I had cut off in a box. I figured it was keeping him busy so didn't worry about it. Then Bryan looks up and catches that he is about to pour the good okra into the same box. The cut up okra was in a bowl with some cold water so Bryan knows this is going to be a big mess. He tells him no but Andrew will not listen and continues pouring. Bryan takes it away and it was meltdown city. Then I let him help me bread the okra. I turn my back to put some in the fryer and when I turn back he has dumped the rest into my sugar canister. He had to pull the canister out and open it to accomplish this. I sent him out of the kitchen at that point. Then a little after dinner we are in the livingroom. He is playing behind me, then I notice him standing next to me. I turn around and he has my deodorant from my gym bag and is smearing it all over the TV cabinet glass next to me. This was just a rotten day. I hope he has a happier day tomorrow. poor guy. He is never like this. He has his moments but today he just seemed so out of sorts.
So this morning I touched on the bad things about this weekend. It wasn't all bad. I got to see my Aunts sister in law Otelia and she is amazing. She looks like an Angel and she truly is one. I just love her. She is an amazing cook and just a wonderful person. She has been staying with My Aunt since the surgery and taking care of them all. She drives Aunt Pat back and forth from her radiation treatments. (80 minutes each way but only a 15 min treatment). She is just so soft spoken. Children adore her. I think that says it all. Children are really very great judges of character and every child in that house was mesmerized by Otelia. Of course so were all the adults too. I enjoyed visiting with her. It had been many many years since I had seen her.
This is an Andrew cute story. Sunday morning I had done something Andrew wasn't thrilled with, so I was talking to him and I asked "What are you going to do with a mom like that?" Otelia says "I know, you're going to love her to pieces." Andrew gives her the funniest look and says "No! I don't love my Mommy to pieces! I love her all together!" It was heartmelting. I really adore that boy. I love him all together too.
It was also nice to see my cousins and my aunt this weekend. It was odd seeing my aunt with just 1/2" of hair but great to see her alive and doing well. The tumor isn't growing but it hasn't shrunk either. They are changing where they give her the radiation and that might help shrink it. I am so worried for her. I love her so much and I am so sorry that this weekend sucked so badly. I am feeling like I will never go back but how can I not go back? I am hoping that maybe soon she will feel up to a visit here and we can visit in a different setting. This cannot be my last visit with my Aunt. It was not a good note to end on. I mean she was wonderful as always but the whole visit is tainted in my mind. So much more I could say but I think it is time to move on.
Andrew has decided he wants to be clifford for Halloween this year. That should be relatively simple to make I think I will use this pattern for the dog and just make it out of red fake fur. It should be adorable. Then I could always go as Emily Elizabeth....LOL just a joke there. I was thinking I would find a couple little stuffed dogs for him to carry as his friends or maybe I will make his basket be a dog bone. I think I will also ad a collar and a tag that reads clifford in case anyone doesn't get it. I love doing their costumes. It is really cute that Andrew has made up his mind and hasn't changed it for a while so I will be buying the stuff to make it soon. It shouldn't be too much to make. I like getting the costumes made early so I don't have to worry with it last minute.
Great news! Andrew will be getting splatter, Dodge and Diesel 10 (Thomas the tank engine characters) This was his big potty training incentive. The original deal was that he could have them when he went an entire week without an accident. He hasn't actually done that but he has only had like 2 accidents in the last 12 days. He is doing a super duper job and so I feel he deserves them at this point. I think I would now say he is potty trained (hate that trained part) He uses the potty with near 100% accuracy. I know some kind in Kindergarten that aren't doing any better than him. I am so glad I let him take the lead. I was getting worried and depressed that all the other BYB 3 yr olds were getting it but all in all metting him decide was the way to go. Once he was ready he just did it. It was really effortless on my part. Don't get me wrong I did try to bribe him and whatnot but in the end I had to back off and let him take the lead. He did and he didn't look back.
(insert primal scream) The weekend away was less than stellar. It was good to see my family but on the whole not much fun. I was feeling extremely sensitive to start the fun and then for some unknown reason my cousins daughter decided to have it in for Andrew. I just wanted to cry; ok I did cry a couple times. I t started when we got there on Friday night. We ate right away and then the kids went to play next thing I know Cori is running out saying Andrew was mean to her and I surmised he had bitten and hit her. I made him come in and sit down and talked about how he had to be nice to play with the other kids. He was begging me to let him get back up and play but I made him sit down. We talked some about why he would bite and how he wouldn't like it if the others hurt him. I figured it had somethng to do with being tired and the long car ride. Just when I was ready to let him go play and apologize I find that Cori will no longer be spending the night with Andrew and is instead going home with other cousins right then. This is a relief for me in a way because now he can get rested without the kids around and the turmoil of arguing with them. We stay up and visit for a while then I get him in his jammies and onto the air mattress for the night. That was the best time during our weekend. The next morning all the cousins come back including Cori who at this point has obviously got it in for Andrew. The day then deteriorated into Kelly Andrew pushed me ,Kelly Andrew smacked jazzy, Kelly Andrew is being mean......I started paying attention and seeing that Andrew was indeed pinching pushing hitting but it was in retaliation for being pushed pinched and hit. The final straw for me came when Andrew comes running to the room I am in crying with Cori and Jazmine right behind him. Cori stands there and pinches his arm and hits him in the back of the head. she is obviously unaware that I am watching because then she says. Kelly Andrew hit me and pinched me. I replied that wow that really wasn't very nice of him but I wasn't going to punish him since I had just seen her punish him. She shot me a look that would have killed me if looks could, then turned around and smacked him and pinched him again. Oops momma bear in me came out I yelled Cori, don't you do that and jumped up to get Andrew. Her cousin jazmine asks what she did and she replies I hit him and pinched him twice. well of course everyone at the table asks what she did and it this point I feel like a jackass for having yelled at her so I apologized and told them I reacted out of shock then explained that I had watched her hit and pinch him once so told her I was sorry he had hurt her but since she had already punished him I wasn't going to then explained that she turened around and hit and pinched him again. My Aunt her grandmother called her in and told her she was not to punish anyone. She looked her grandmother in the eye and said she never touched him. Luckily my word was good enough. There were just so many little slights toward Andrew this weekend it made me sad. Once they were all coloring and she wouldn't give Andrew a picture to color. I got out the gel pens I had brought and some notebook paper; soon they were all in wanting to use the pens. I was so wishing that Andrew would just tell them no. I wouldn't have allowed it but damn it would have been nice for him to get to say it once. There were just too many instances to even document. I was in the bathroom and she was banging on the door to tell me he had been mean.... There was her taking the catapillar and hiding it because Andrew liked it and wanted to see it. There was her letting everyone play with the hand pump until Andrew asked then she needed to put it away. At least her cousin told her she was being selfish and mean for letting everyone else play with it and not Andrew. She was smart mouthed and nasty the majority of the trip and it really put a huge damper on the trip for me. Andrew seemed to take it in stride and not be too bothered by it. I was absolutely much more bothered than he was. He was just thrilled to have children to play with. There were other things that just felt off. Like often I would find Me Mom and Dad in one room and everyone else would gather elsewhere. I remember thinking I could have stayed home to not visit. It just all felt odd and I was so so so damn happy to be coming home yesterday.
Then we finally get in town and after this horrid weekend I was just thrilled that I was home to my family I called Bryan to tell him to get his shoes on to help me bring in the stuff. He replies with "We aren't home. We went to get something to eat." I just turned my phone off. I was so depressed. He knew I was coming home yesterday it was only 5:30 when I got home.... He later said they waited and waited for us but they were hungry so went to eat. Having gone to eat at 5:00 I laughed and said yeah you really waited supper for me a long time. I was disappointed. I wanted him to be opverflowing with love for me and having missed me. It wasn't there.
Then last night I hurt my shoulders I am thinking it was tension related but I asked him to put Andrew to sleep. I mean he hadn't seen him all fucking weekend since Thursday night really I don't think I was out of line asking him to take on this task. He moaned and griped and was getting pissed that Andrew didn't fall right to sleep. At one point he claimed it had been 40 minutes ...big fucking deal FTR it hadn't been that long 30 at the most and that was a stretch. I explained that he takes a bit to wind down to fall asleep so why shouldn't Andrew. I finally took over and then we ended up just all going to bed together. This morning Bryan kissed me goodbye. I told him I had missed him this weekend. His reply. "You did, didyou?" that was wonderful. no I missed you guys too. just a flippant remark that let me know he wouldn't give a diddly squat if I was gone forever. Man the depression is hitting me hard lately. I am a basket case.
Must run I have 3o minutes to get ready for water aerobics.
for the dog and just make it out of red fake fur. It should be adorable. Then I could always go as Emily Elizabeth....LOL just a joke there. I was thinking I would find a couple little stuffed dogs for him to carry as his friends or maybe I will make his basket be a dog bone. I think I will also ad a collar and a tag that reads clifford in case anyone doesn't get it. I love doing their costumes. It is really cute that Andrew has made up his mind and hasn't changed it for a while so I will be buying the stuff to make it soon. It shouldn't be too much to make. I like getting the costumes made early so I don't have to worry with it last minute.
