IKEA....

has made my husband drop the F bomb more times today than I have ever heard him say in our almost 14 years of marriage. one little hole that was not quite in the right spot has caused hours of frustration and cursing. pics to come, of course.....the children are worth it.

February thoughts

Valentine's Day has come and gone. I got 3 red roses(1 for each child)and a very nice, mushy card. and then, I picked up a friend at the airport who is here for the races this weekend.
it was a fun day for the kids. parties at school, wayyyy too much candy. and then, I had to take Jack to the dentist for a filling after school. he was fine, a little nitrous oxide and a little nappy-poo time and voila, filling all done!
so now, here I sit...Saturday morning at 10AM and I'm ready for a nap. the littlest one is asleep(why he felt that 3AM was a good time to wake up all happy and smiley and ready to play, I have no idea). the other two are outside doing their chore of scooping the dog poops. the dog is asleep. the hamster is asleep.
tonight is Ninja Night! the karate school is having a pizza party/sleepover and both of the older 2 are going. I drop them off tonight after church and pick them up at 9 tomorrow morning. they are so excited, it's funny. they both say they are staying up all night. better the karate teachers than me. I will probably be alone with the littlest one tonight. the man and friend are at Daytona, not quite sure when they will be home, and then they turn around and go back again for the 500 tomorrow.
hmm, what to do? what to do?

oh yes, we've entered bitch zone

the man has been working 12 hour shifts for the past 2 weeks. 7AM-7PM. which means, in a nutshell, that he leaves before the children are up and comes home in time to see them for about an hour before bedtime. this will continue for 1 more week and then, hopefully, his schedule will return to normal.
the hole digging fiasco occurred during this. I called him, explained the situation, asked for help. he replied with something along the lines of, "what exactly do you want me to do? leave work to fill a hole up?" to which I replied with a loud click. OK, so I did take care of it by myself with no help from him. I am a capable woman, however, hauling 2 wheelbarrels full of dirt up a hill was NOT mentioned in the marital vows.
fast forward to the past few days. I tell him that the water heater is making a noise. he walks out to the garage, looks at it, comes back inside and informs me it is not making a noise right now. therefore, in his world, it's fine. did I mention he's been gone for about 13 hours/day and of course it's not going to make the noise for him. sort of like when your car makes a noise and you take it in and then the mechanic guy looks at you like you're a feeble minded fool who knows nothing about the workings of a V8. which, of course, I am. I don't want to know how the car works, I just want it to effing work when I put my key in and put my foot on the gas. end of story. but, I digress....
so, water heater is now making more noises and now there is water coming out of an overflow valve outside where before there was no water. now it's whistling and humming. I call him again. his solution is to tell me where the shut off valve is and to turn it off to see if the noises stop. well, of course the noises stop if you turn the thing off, right?????? but, umm, don't we need hot water at some point?
he then tells me he's been talking to the guys at work about this, and they seem to think we should have someone come out to look at it.
no shit. I never thought of that.
then he proceeds to tell me to call S***s to see when they can send someone out and we'll probably have to get a new water heater installed. now, I should also mention that while he's telling me this, the baby is crying. no, screaming. he is teething and goes through these "I am really pissed and don't know what I want so I will just scream for about an hour and then I'll be OK" phases. he is such a happy guy normally. it's easy to tell when something is wrong, he screams. it'll be nice when he can say,"oh, btw, my tooth hurts a bit", until then I get screaming.
so, baby is screaming, duaghter is asking for more Playdoh because apparantly the Playdoh she was playing with is now missing(something you DO NOT want to hear)., and the man is telling me to call and schedule a repairman to come to the house. let's just say this was my last straw. I had a minor breakdown on the phone in which i explained that I needed him to take care of this because, I was a tad busy and pissed that he was at work doing absolutely nothing while I was taking care of everything else in our world.(and I'm not kidding, he was reading a book when I called him....there was a computer glitch and everyone was sitting around doing nothing) so, everyone at work heard my little tantrum and now thinks I am a royal biatch for yelling at my much beloved husband.
the effects of this meltdown were this- he will call and schedule the repair and make it so that he is home to handle it. if this indeed happens, wonderful. if i have to take cold showers for a week before this happens, there will be hell to pay. me + cold showers and being a single parent do not mix. not at all.

my children, the hole diggers

so last night at about 6PM, I walked outside to tell the neighbor boy that it was time to go home and that it was time for dinner for J & E. I see one of our neighbors (she lives on the next street, but her backyard and our backyard touch at one corner) standing at my fence, waving at me to come over. I tell J and E to go inside with L and I walk over to her. apparently, she has a big hole in her yard and she saw J, E, and neighbor boy with shovels. I apologize profusely, she is very nice about it and I say that I will make it clear that they are NOT to dig in other people's yards, etc. so I spoke with all 3 of them(neighbor boy was still inside the house when I came back), they all said they were sorry and would not do it anymore. this morning, neighbor husband comes over. he asks me if I have seen the hole. no, I just talked to his wife about the hole, I did not actually see it. I walk out back and walk over to his side yard and there is this hole that is about 1 foot in diameter and at least 4 feet deep I kid you not, E could probably stand in the hole and her head might be even with the ground. I apologize even moreso. I am so embarrassed. I ask him if he will leave it alone and not fill it in yet, so that the kids can do this for him when they get home from school. he says that is not necessary, but if that is what I want than he will not do it. E got home from school, I talked with her. J gets home, I talked with him. I got the wheelbarrel and J held 2 shovels and off we went. E was pushing L in the swing in the backyard, that was her responsibility...to keep Luke happy while we filled in the hole. 2 wheelbarrels full of dirt and the hole is no longer there. then, I watched as J & E scooped up the dog poop in the backyard together. then, E Windexed the sliding glass doors and J put away his laundry. we are walking over after dinner so that they can apologize in person. I have no freaking idea how 3 kids dug such a deep hole. and not one of them was dirty.
J did say when we were filling it in that they were on the lookout for bones...as in dinosaur bones.
so at least it started as an educational destruction of property?
there's always a bright side.

it had to happen, right?

I thought I had gotten off without going through the Barney phase. nope, the baby has discovered the big purple dinosaur. and he loves him. a lot.

I actually just dvr'ed some Barney episodes to have on hand. you know, just in case we have a Barney emergency.

he just finished watching an episode and actually clapped. oh, this doesn't look like it's going to be a quick phase.

if my posts start sounding a little too sing songy and happy happy, this is why. I'm surrounded by Max and Ruby and Dora, that chick that sings the ABC ChooChoo Train song, and Noddy.