Tired Mama.com

Arghhhhh

I don't get it.

When my kitchen garbage can is filled to the very top, why does my family insist on balancing one more piece of garbage on this over flowing heap?

We have an entrance to our garage from inside the house, you'd think it would be easy to just haul a full kitchen garbage bag out of the can and put it in the garage.

But nooooo.

My family has to balance their pieces of garbage on the already overflowing heap until it makes a huge tower of rubbish that will finally fall over onto the kitchen floor.

These kids can read music, swim, ice skate, run races, sing on stage and do numerous other amazing things.

So why can't they take the kitchen garbage out to the garage when it's full and put a fresh bag in the can? 

Why?

Why? Why? Why?

Oh, because if it's left long enough Mama will do. That's why.

Sigh.

Home again, home again.

I'm back.

We went away for eleven days for the kid's school break but now we're home.

I LIKE being home.

Traveling with three kids is not a vacation, it's a trip.

We had fun, we saw the sun.

Now it's back to reality.

Sigh.

Today we have hockey playoffs and music lessons. We NEED to get to the music lessons as our district music festival starts on Tuesday. Tomorrow we have a family dentist appointment and then the kid's swimming lessons start up again in the evening.

I have a paper due on Tuesday for my class too.

Let's not even talk about Mt. Laundry.

Did I say I like being home?

I may have lied.

This is spring?

It's March 26th and it's supposed to be spring by now.

It's not.

The ground is still frozen so hard that I can't get the Christmas light extension cords out and I still need to wear a coat when I go out.

I want a spring refund. Either that or I want a free trip down south.

Or both.

Sigh.

1871 logic

I came across this line in the novel Middlemarch (1871) by George Eliot.

'Sane people did what their neighbors did, so that if any lunatics were at large, one might know and avoid them.'

There you go, I knew there had to be a way to explain the growth of suburbs.

Middlemarch

I can't blog today because I need to read.

I have to have Middlemarch (George Eliot) read for my course by next Tuesday and out of the 800 odd pages I've now read about oh, thirty.

So, I'm going to spend the day reading.

It's a tough job....

They're driving Mama crazy. Again.

We've been traveling around town this week with Grandma and Grandpa.

Since my mini-van sits eight it makes sense for us to use it for our travels.

This means however that my three kids have had to sit three across in the back of the van on the bench seat.

Did you know that if you put my three kids shoulder to shoulder for any extended period of time they will fight?

Yep, and their bickering, poking, slapping, yelling, fighting in the back is driving me crazy.

Actually it's making me more than a little crazy; it's driving me flipping insane.

I'm thinking about renting a school bus now.

I figure if I get one of those I can give all my kids their own seats and still drag the grandparents around with us everywhere.

Anyone know what kind of gas mileage a school bus gets?

Words

It seems like I'm having 'words' with my children these days.

'Pick up your coat.'

'Put away your shoes.'

'Who left the tap running in the bathroom?'

And then today one of my kids accused me of screaming at them.

I'm not.

Honest.

I'm actually very calm when I make these requests. I also know that I'm NOT screaming because my teeth are clamped together as I repeat these things over and over and over.

You can't scream when your teeth are clenched.

When I was accused of this I replied that I was not screaming and then I asked them the classic Mom question, 'Do you want to hear me scream?'

Funny but the child said no.

The child ran too.

I can't imagine why, I have such a lovely screaming voice.

Sigh.

Humbled

In my blogroll you'll find this link. http://aboneill.blogspot.com

It's for the blog 'Keep Believing' written by Angie O'Neill, a Mom of two, who describes her life and blog this way,

'I am the wife of an amazing man with a serious brain tumor diagnosed in 1997 one month after our wedding. I am a stay at home mother of two young boys. I started sending out emails when Brian was first diagnosed with cancer to keep our family and friends apprised of his progress. The email list grew so large that it became too cumbersome to maintain. In order to continue to inform those that inquire about our family's health and experiences, I created this blog.'

This morning Brian passed away.

I've never met this family and I don't know Angie at all, but I've followed Angie's blog for about a year now and I cried when I read her latest entry. 

Angie inspired me constantly over the past year with her strength, her beliefs and her ability to articulate everything she was feeling so clearly.

Please pop by and leave her your support if you can.

Rest in peace Brian.

We're bonding

I spent tonight playing on Neopets.

Yep, Neopets.

My oldest daughter is on there a lot and so I decided I should go on and see what it was all about.

Basically Neopets is an online gaming site where you 'adopt' little virtual pets and then play games and do weird tasks to keep these little pets happy and uh, alive.

As my eldest is getting older it seems like she has less and less she wants to talk to me about.

So now? Now, at least we can talk about Neopets together. Actually what seems to be happening is I get this little Neopet virtual creature in trouble and my daughter bails me out.

If you're ever on there, look me up. My pet is a little unicorn named Capplie.

Yep, I know it's a Saturday night.

What's Tired Papa doing?

He's watching the hockey game with our son. 

What can I say? We're just a wild and crazy couple.

But at least our kids are talking to us - about something.

I'm not going away. Honest.

I was going to write a post here about how we're going away on my kid's school break vacation but I was at a dinner party a few weeks ago and someone mentioned how stupid it was to write about going away on a blog where anyone could read it and then come over and rob you.

Okay.

No one at that party knew that I blog. After this comment I didn't tell them either.

So, now what do I do?

I'm thinking I won't blog about my trip until it's over.

But really, no one who reads my blog is going to rob me anyway so I think I should just talk about it. 

Right?

Shoot.

Okay, so I might or might not be taking a vacation soon. 

Yes, it's some place warm. 

Maybe.  

I'll tell you about it when I return.

If I go that is. 

If I go that is and leave big guard dogs, high tech security alarm systems and ah, a trio of really big football (pistol-packing) players living in my house to protect it.

Yeah, that's it.

Oh, for gosh sake,I've got nothing worth stealing anyway.

Come on over robbers, the beer is in the fridge but please; don't attack the nice family who really are watching the house and feeding the cat and guinea pig while I'm away. 

That family's got a uh, bazooka.

Yeah, a big one too. Watch out for them, they're dangerous. 

Sigh. 

On the hamster wheel of life

Today was a good day.

Today was a day when I got a million different little things done.

I sorted pictures, I filled up a recycling bin with waste paper from my office, I filled out forms, I registered the kids for summer camps, I made hair appointments, I made brown bananas into banana bread and I did laundry. I made meals, I washed dishes, I vacuumed crumbs and I cleaned out the fuzzy green stuff from the fridge.

I made lists.

I love lists.

I need more days like this.

Now, we're leaving on vacation in five days so I think it's time I started packing and organizing for that too.

But first? First, I'm just gonna stop and enjoy the feeling of having gotten a little closer to getting on top of things today.

Because tomorrow?

Tomorrow you're gonna look around my house and it'll be like I didn't do a darn thing today. The piles will be back and the to-do list will grow and I'll be behind again.

So, I'm just gonna stop for the night now and savor the moment.

Call me when it's time for bed.

Same old

Today is the last day of my exams, until of course May.

As of Thursday the kids are off of school for their break.

The kids have a million activities this week.

The house is a mess.

There's nothing to eat here either.

I'm tired.

Yep, everything is going along here just about the same as always.

Let me know when I can stop running around and start enjoying all these wonderful things I'm doing, m'kay?

Thanks.

I'm old and tired.

We hosted my youngest daughter's birthday party last night.

The party consisted of too many eight year old girls having dinner out, watching the Jonas Brothers in 3D at the theatre and sleeping over in my family room.

Ugh.

I must admit the concert/movie was better than I expected and the girls slept about as long as I expected. That means they didn't sleep at all, which means I didn't sleep at all either.

For the record? I am getting too old for this.

The good news is the time change also happened last night. I'm actually happy about this because it now means I can go to bed tonight at nine instead of eight.

I like the idea of being able to mange to stay up past eight o'clock at night - it makes me feel a little less old and uh, pathetic.

I hate being pathetic.

Sigh. 

I'm behind. Again.

According to a survey, from a UK website, that was quoted in my local newspaper (http://www.thestar.com/living/article/595998) in order to have a happy marriage I need to make sure that Tired Papa and I cuddle three times per day and kiss four times a day.

Um, I'm not sure we do that but I must admit I'm not really counting either.

Now, I know Tired Papa kisses me good-bye every morning and kisses me randomly there after too.

Cuddling? Well, we're usually too tired from working or shuffling the kids around for that more than once a day.

Okay, so let's say we cuddle once a day and for the sake of argument we kiss twice a day.

We've been married almost sixteen years. So we're supposed to have shared 16 X 365 X 4 kisses and 16 X 365 X 3 cuddles.

That's uh, wait, I need to get a calculator.

Okay, that's 23,360 kisses and 17,520 cuddles.

Jeepers, I think we're behind on about 11,680 kisses and 5,840 cuddles.

I think we need to catch up.

Hey Tired Papa?

Got any plans for the weekend?

Ranting

I'm thinking about sewing little magnets into my kid's clothes so that their dirty laundry will automatically fling itself into the metal laundry basket.

What do you think?

I've already tried buying a bigger laundry bin. That didn't help; the dirty clothes are still all piled around it.

What's up with this anyway?

Why is it so hard for kids to take off their clothes and put them in the laundry basket?

Actually, why is it so hard for kids to turn off a light when they leave a room?

Why is hanging up a wet shower towel on a bar so impossible for children to figure out?

And why is putting a coat on a hanger such a hardship for my offspring?

Anyone?

Sigh.

Acting

Quote of the Day:

"I wasn't lying Mama. I was acting."

Uh, yeah.

** Tired Mama bangs head against wall. **