Tired Mama.com

Um yeah, I'm tired.

You know what first crossed my mind when I started reading about the swine flu reaching my area and making people mildly ill?

I thought,

'Lucky devils, they get to go to bed for a few days.'

Oy.

I gotta get to bed on time tonight. 

Make me? I can do that.

After dinner tonight I asked my youngest to turn off the TV and go upstairs to have her shower and get her PJ's on.

She answered, 'No. I don't want to.'

'That's not nice, nor appropriate,' I said in a cautionary and tired tone.

'Too bad,' she replied.

I turned a mild Mama laser death look on her but she was busy watching the TV and didn't catch it.

My older children did however and they quickly exchanged a look and then almost ran from the room. 

'Upstairs. Now.' I said to my youngest and I must admit my mother tone did take on a tiny bit of an edge.

'Make me,' she replied.

Make me?

Oh baby girl, now them's fighting words.

Now, my head didn't spin around, and my eyes didn't pop out of my head, this is my third child after all and I've learned a little bit about how to handle disrespectful nine year olds. Still, I can assure you that when I turned off the TV and turned my full fury filled laser death look on my daughter she did very quickly make her way upstairs into the shower and then went directly to bed.

Disrespectful little girls in my house go to bed early.

That child obviously has no idea what she's up against when she's faced with her Mama's full fury filled laser death look.

Make me indeed.

Sesh.

Amateur.

How was your weekend?

This past weekend was a whirlwind of activity. It's actually all a bit of a blur. 

On Saturday night we had seventeen friends over for dinner. We also had a choir practice and dance lessons to fit into the afternoon as well.

We are billeting some kids from the other end of the country on an international exchange program my daughter participates in this week. We spent Sunday welcoming them and participating in the opening ceremonies for their conference.

Today I spent most of  the day with my son at the dentist as he managed to crack three teeth chewing gum. Don't ask. The good news is they're all baby teeth.

Tonight I should be preparing for my classes tomorrow, and catching up on everything I should have done this weekend but I'm uh, blogging and surfing the net instead.

Procrastination thy name is Mama. Tired Mama.

Sigh.

Works for me

I was talking to a girlfriend of mine who also has a fourteen year old daughter.

As we were commiserating over the pains involved in raising teen girls she told me that an elderly friend of hers had given her this advice.

"Keep 'em busy and keep 'em poor."

I think I like it.

Sing. Sing a song.

My youngest daughter sings competitively in the music festival here in town.

Today she sang in a class that consisted of older kids and won. So far, she's sung in three categories, each consisting of at least eight kids, and she's placed first in all of them.

Yep, I'm proud of her.

She should be proud of herself as she practices and works hard at her vocal lessons. My youngest seriously LOVES to sing.

What I'm struggling with however is how much I let her tell people (brag) about it.

When people remember to ask, I let her tell them how she did. If they don't ask I tell her not to volunteer the information unless she's talking to family.

Does that sound right?

Yep, if you're reading this you're now officially
family. Welcome.

What do you think? 

H Two O

We have a water cooler in our kitchen. It gets a lot of use from everyone in the family and I must admit that it's great to get a nice cold glass of water at the push of a button.

Yesterday however the water ran out and I haven't had a chance today to get to Costco for a new jug so right now the water cooler is uh, dry. 

My children are taking it badly. They've all mentioned to me at least once or twice today that the water cooler is empty and my youngest just came in AGAIN to ask me if I'd had a chance, since she last asked, to get out and buy a new jug for the cooler.

My answer was no, mainly because she'd just asked me the same question about twenty minutes prior.

I'm glad my kids are drinking water, they could be asking for a lot worse things.

But guys? The tap still runs cold water. It even tastes the same.

Gesh.

My family is spoiled in so many ways. 

Sigh.

You were saying?

In our back hall I have a sign board. I got it years ago at Pottery Barn and it sort of looks like something you'd find in a restaurant to list meal specials and prices.

I've always used it to put up funny sayings, or just say 'Merry/Happy What-ever' to my family and our guests. I've also always put 'We love you' on the bottom line. 

Since I noticed today that it still said 'Happy Easter' on the board I asked my eldest daughter to change it.

She didn't know what to put on the sign so I suggested she just put up something about spring. I suggested, 'Happy Spring'.

What did she put up? This,

Sigh.

Keep Believing

This post is for Angie.

Angie lost her husband to cancer recently. Today would have been her wedding anniversary. You can visit Angie at her blog Keep Believing.

Sigh.

I'm hopelessly inept at articulating my feelings at times like this.

I feel helpless and hopeless and yet my heart cries out to help in some way because I know today must be a difficult day for her.

Angie, today you're in my thoughts. 

Believe many people are thinking of you today.

Believe that you are strong.

Believe in yourself.

Believe in your future.

Believe you are loved.

It's all true. 

Keep Believing.

Little People

When my youngest was six years old I received an e-mail from Fisher Price telling me that they were sending me my last 'parenting resource' e-mail.

Okay, so Fisher Price's parenting advice might be thinly veiled marketing and promotional propaganda, but you know what?

That e-mail made me sad.

You see I have a thing for Fisher Price's 'Little People' line. I think these little plastic people are adorable and I love them. Yep, I do.

My kids had them all too. Every last little person Fisher Price made I bought and every night I would gather them all up and set them up in their little pretend towns and make sure it was all picture perfect. The rest of my kid's toys? They just got thrown in the toy baskets.

So, when I got this last e-mail telling me I was being cut off from announcements about new Little People launches I did the sensible thing.

I made up a child.

Yes I did. My 'real' kids are all roughly three years apart so I gave myself a pretend fourth child. I have two girls and a boy so to even things out my fourth Fisher Price child is another little boy. I made him three years younger than my youngest daughter, registered him on their site and ever since then I have been happily receiving monthly e-mail updates from Fisher Price about their new Little People lines. I have been getting their Christmas catalogs too.

But today my imaginary child turned six and I got that 'we're dropping you from our e-mail list' e-mail again.

Sigh. I'm over forty now. I have a teen and two 'almost' teens. My kids are well over playing with Little People.

Most of our Little People characters have been given away too.

But I still have one Little People person left. It's a little blonde girl character who sits in the corner of my desk in her pink PJ's.

I keep her there because she makes me happy. She reminds me that my children were once babies. She reminds me of how fast time flies.

She also reminds me that I'm sort of sad and pathetic at times.

And you know what?

I'm okay with that.

Have a lovely weekend.

Reality Check

As we were driving home from school yesterday my son asked me where he was going to park his car.

'Um, your car?' I asked.

My son is eleven.

Yeah, he wanted to know if he was going to have to park it outside.

I told him he'd probably park it at his house.

'My house?' he replied, obviously confused.

My son assumed since he could get his driver's license at sixteen, he could get a car at sixteen too.

I then explained how car payments, gas charges, insurance and repair bills worked.

My son then figured out he's probably got enough money saved for a couple of tires.

He was very quiet and I felt sorta bad for him. A little.

TiredMama - destroyer of dreams.

Or perhaps just an advocate of working hard to achieve them.

It works both ways I hope.

Time, keeps flowing like a river...

Do you ever wonder where time goes?

I mean we just had a long weekend here and I was hoping to get a lot accomplished.

I wanted to finish ripping out 'mean-bush' this weekend. It didn't happen.

I wanted to decimate Mt. Laundry. Um, I tried and it's better, but it's still a small hill.

I wanted to sleep in but the kids woke me up. Heck, the Easter Bunny came so they were excited.

I was even hoping to get some time to talk to TiredPapa about a few things. Nope, we took the kids out to dinner and then to see the Hannah Montana movie instead.

All the day to day time sucking boring chores just get in the way of me getting stuff done time and time again. 

I keep thinking I'll just set aside some time to focus on one thing and I'll ignore everything else and then? Some child gets hungry or scared or something.

Okay, or I fall asleep.

Sigh. 

I just need time to stand still for a few days so I can get a few things done.

Anyone know how to make that happen?

The bush won.

I went out today and attacked mean-bush.

Yep, that's 'mean-bush'.

I have no idea what kind of plant/bush this thing is, so I just call it 'mean-bush'.

Mean bush is a big prickly bush thing that is growing beside my fence in my back yard. It's over grown, it's prickly and it always grabs and scratches anyone who ventures near it. This thing has serious thorns and serious attitude. This bush is MEAN.

So I decided yesterday, before the thing could grow back leaves and more branches, that I was going to cut it down and dig it out.

Did I mention mean-bush is big?

Um, and have I told you that this sucker is mean?

After a three hour battle this afternoon, mean-bush is only half gone from my garden and my left hand is swollen with scratches. I had to throw out a pair of gardening gloves because they are covered in blood from mean-bush's fangs thorns.

I'm going to Home Depot tomorrow to get some reinforcements. I'm planning on buying big shears and some thicker gloves that I can use to protect myself when I go into combat again against mean-bush.

And my battles won't be over once mean-bush is defeated. No, after I slay him I then need to go back into the garden and take on 'dead-tree'.

Yep, 'dead-tree' must be taken out too. He's not as mean, but dead-tree is much bigger than mean-bush and is a more unpredictable foe.

Sigh.

Tell me again, why did I want spring to arrive so badly?

Happy Good Friday

Happy Good Friday everyone!

It's finally sunny here and the rain has stopped. Yippe!

Since most of our extended family is unavailable this weekend to celebrate Easter with us I've decided to celebrate by having my family help me clean out the garage and the gardens this long weekend.

We won't do anything too strenuous, just enough to get us all outside and complaining working together as a family.

Do I know how to celebrate or what?

I hope you're enjoying your blessings this weekend too.

She was born to entertain you

My youngest daughter is singing in the local music festival next week. She's singing with her school choir and she has three individual pieces to sing in the competition too.

I was helping her practice tonight and we talked for a minute about how when you sing you need to act a little.

So, we continued to practice and she sang and she acted and then she over acted to the point that I was laughing so hard I couldn't hear her sing.

Her pieces are not meant to be comical.

Watching her in the music festival this year could be interesting.

If you ever meet my youngest it won't take you long to realize that she THINKS she was born to be an actress.

As sure as she is of this, I'm equally sure I was NOT intended to be the mother of an actress.

Oy.

I can't wait until she's a teen.

Um, and just in case you can't read the sarcasm in that statement, trust me it's there.

Sigh.

Official whining

It's only 6:30 pm but all I feel like doing is going to bed.

I was up early today to get my eldest off to choir practice for 7:30 am, and then I had a parent school meeting, this was followed by my classes, and after school all three of the kids had music lessons. 

I'm tired but we've still got a birthday party and a full night of homework in front of us before I can call it a night.

Dinner? Um, that would be take-out pizza.

I should probably also be tidying the house and throwing a load of laundry in too.

You know what? I don't feel like it.

Yep, Tired Mama is tired tonight and maybe grumpy too.

Shocking.

Tired Papa is working on the other side of the country this week so he's missing all the fun. Oh, did I mention that where he's working it's hot and sunny?

Here? I have freezing rain.

Grump.

Hello, Spring? You're welcome to arrive anytime.

I wanted to get out today and get a picture of the crocuses blooming in the spring sunshine in my background but I just didn't get around to it. 

Now, since I just checked the weather for the week, I wish I had. We've got snow in the forecast for later tomorrow here.

Yep, snow.

Enough for a weather warning too.

Sigh.

Hello? Are you listening?

As my kids are getting older they are getting less chatty in the morning.

The twenty minute drive to their school is quieter these days with only my youngest usually talking or the radio playing.

When I drop my trio off at their school, I usually chirp, 'Have a good day. I love you. I'll see you at pick-up.' at them as they're getting out of the car. My youngest will always give me a reply but my older two will now usually just ignore me.

So today I decided to reply for them. I gave them my usual 'have a good day' line, and then I said to them, "Thanks Mom, you have a good day too. We hope you're feeling better.'

I figured if they weren't going to have the MANNERS to reply to me, then I'd set a good example and show them what an appropriate response would be.

What did they do?

My youngest smiled. My older son and daughter? They rolled their eyes and then my teen said to my tween, 'OMG, she's losing it.'

She's losing it?

Yep. I want acknowledgement to my uh, being alive in the morning from my children.

What was I thinking?

I've lost it indeed.

Sigh.

Sick

I have the flu.

I have the achy, high temperature, stomach pains, throwing up kind of flu.

I'm feeling better this morning but yesterday was rough.

Last night, when I was feeling my worst, my younger kids decided that they would have a huge fight and barge into my bedroom for me to referee it.

I discovered last night that when I am sick to my stomach I don't care if my kids are threatening to kill each other.

Thank goodness Tired Papa showed up from work a little early to help me out, I was seriously ready to throw up on my kids just to get them to leave me alone.

With my luck they would have thought that was cool though and just gone on fighting.

Sigh.

Pass the chicken soup will ya? The kids have left for school and I'm going back to bed.