Do these pants look too tight?.........

I have been exercising my butt off lately.  I determined myself to a years worth of healthy eating and exercise to see if I could really change myself, as a whole, by the time I am 41.  I am not "dieting" per say, cause that don't freaking work, just being  more aware of what I put into my body and at what quantity.

So for over 5 weeks now I have been exercising about 40 minutes a day.  Mostly treadmill and elliptical.  In this time I have managed to shave 16 minutes off my 2 mile run.  so I went from 40 minutes to get to 2 miles on the treadmill to 24 minutes to get to 2 miles on the treadmill.  Which sounds pretty good to me.  I should be seeing some weight come off right?

W R O N G!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! For 4 weeks I was exercising commited, eating properly and NOTHING!!!!!!!!!  Pull my hair out strand by strand with a pair of freaking tweezers people!!!!!!!!!!!

My pants are surely fitting much better, but that flippin scale in my bathroom is SATAN.

My sister told me that I shouldn't count on the scale to show that I am growing more fit, to be patient, that if my clothes were fitting better something was happening......I should focus on that.  She also said that I needed to add some sort of weight resistance to my routine.  That would help burn calories.

So I did.

Last Friday, not yesterday but the one before it, I lamented to Derrick that when I got on the scale that morning....if it didn't show I had lost some weight I was was going to pick it up and throw it into the front yard and if he brought it back into the house I would kill him with it.

So I stood on the scale.....it read 195.  I was some what satisfied.  I know most of you are like WHAT?  She was happy with that number???  She needs to lose some weight!  Well, duh.  

But let me tell you this, when a fat girl commits to exercise and eating seriously healthy and really tries hard for 4 weeks and doesn't shed a single dag gone pound and some days even gains 4 pounds from breakfast to lunch (and Maysie is my witness on this) that is discouraging as shizzle.  I mean  I felt like I lost 28 hours of my life in vain.  I don't want to be a muscular & fit 200 pound girl.  I want to be a reasonable weight fit girl.

So I saw the 195 number, this meant the scale had moved down 5 pounds.

D- Well....what does it say?

A- 195...

D- (breathing sigh of relief for me, cause he knows my temper these days is not controlled easily) Oh thank God....

....but this was the day I gained 4 pounds by lunch and ate the exact same thing D ate for breakfast that was a "healthy breakfast."

I tried not to think of though.  I kept on with the idiot treadmill and adding the idiot weights to my routine.  

This morning when I weighed, I weighed 193.  I think it is surely the weights that is helping.  So that was really good advice my sister gave me.......for my body anyway.

I have gotten to the point that the exercise is becoming something I feel like I need to do everyday...not want to do everyday, but need.....and if  I don't, I feel like I have cheated myself.  Who said that? 

 In what parallel universe would I have ever spoke those words.  Cause forever it seemed to me that while I was wasting time on a treadmill things weren't getting done in my house somewhere else.

Yesterday Zac had soccer practice and I decided to go a little early and try to "jog" around the track.  I wanted to go before everyone else got there so if I looked like an elephant being stung in the butt while skinning a tight rope no one would see it but me and Z.  Z is the best encourager for me.  He constantly pushes me telling me at least I am trying. He doesn't want me to be unhealthy, over weight and die an early death because I didn't at least try.  

I said to him, "Do these exercise pants look too tight?"

Z- Who cares they are exercise pants mom, they are supposed to be tight.

A- Yeah but, you know, your friend's parents will see me and all...

Z- So what, at least you are trying. They look fine, they look good in fact.  I don't think of you looking fat that way. You always look nice to me.

My heart felt really good.

...the very first time we went to the gym together, I was feeling nervous and intimidated and relayed this to him.

Z- Mom it's a gym, all kinds of people go to a gym.  Not just body builders. There will be old people, young people, fat people, and skinny people....you are in the middle of all of those.  Just suck it up we are going in.

Which we did and had a pretty good time.  

Back to the track.....I believed that if I could run 2 miles in 24 minutes on a treadmill I should surely be able to run a minimum of 1 mile on the track.

Um, wrong.  

Running on a surface that does not give tried to make me pee in my pants.  I walked the first lap to warm up, then ran 1 lap holding my bladder by sheer power of the mind, walked it off 1/4 of the 3rd lap & ran 3/4 of the rest of it, walked 1/2 of the 4th lap & ran 1/2 of it....then my walking buddy showed up and we walked about another mile and quit.

My mind thought running at the track was not fun at all. I don't desire to do it ever again. I will walk that track from now on.  I can't say why, but the treadmill with all its faults is so much easier to do.  My brother-in-law runs the marathons and he's in the running clubs, my sister she runs the 8 miles and she is fixin to run some big run and all....I don't know how they do it, I really don't.

I guess I will just keep on keepin on till I get somewhere that is satisfactory for me.  I still have 10 months or so to get to my one year goal and assess what has become of this commitment.

We are getting 2 truck loads of mulch today.......hopefully this will appease my need to fill a space in the day with exercise.

I don't want to wear skinny jeans.  I just want to feel satisfied when I look in the mirror, whatever weight that is.................as long as it's below 150.  I could be satisfied with 150 and fit. 

I think.

it's good the cuss word cop doesn't have a billy stick........

This morning CB was taking a bath while I was getting Skylar ready to go for her dental appointment for sealants. He was going over things that made "Jesus cry"......or rain fall from the sky, Jesus' tears.

I relayed that I always thought that rain was Jesus overflowing his bath water.

To this Sky responded that my thinking could not be right because Jesus was perfect in every way. He wouldn't be dirty and surely not forgetful in turning off His bath water.

CB tells us when people use "t words" it makes Jesus cry.

A- Well, what are "t words?"

CB- Like cuss words or saying "Oh my God" instead of saying "gosh."

S- Cole you always say Oh my God.


CB- No I don't Sky!

S- yes you do liar

A- Sky!  Really?!

S- Well he is a liar and he does use God's name in vain.

.......backtracking in my mind a bit......

Over the holidays we were at a neighbors house for a get together.  Sky called another adult out for using a cuss word...like, damn or something.

Sky is the cuss word cop. She is violent too...if she had a billy stick it would be bad.  The cuss word cop comes from part of her OCD stuff that makes me want to pull my hair out strand by strand with a pair of tweezers some days.  She hears a cuss word then thinks bad thoughts, then spends all day to a couple of days confessing that she has been thinking about the foul word EVERY TIME IT CROSSES HER MIND! Her medication ramps up her OCD issues at times and the confessing constantly is tedious. I'll save this rant for another day.

So when the cuss word cop called out the offending adult. I was embarrassed.  I was embarrassed a little because it came across as my child is calling out an adult on their behavior. It appeared disrespectful in the whole of the situation...especially in another persons house.

But the truth be told... why do adults need to swear in front of children?....or at all?

A Methodist pastor friend of ours said to me over a couples dinner many years before both couples had children, I may have been pregnant...when haven't I been pregnant....he said, "I always felt like people used cuss words when they couldn't think of a more clever word to use."

That really stuck with me.  I have conveyed that sentiment to my own children.  With so many wonderful words to choose from, why use the bad ones?

...but alas I still use them sometimes.  I use them most when I want to put a redneck, big, fat, exclamation point on a thought that conveys I mean business.

  Really? Do I mean business or just sound like a red neck?

Like, one day I was putting on a new shower head. I was up and down the ladder cause the dang thing would not loosen. I had to keep switching tools and getting plumbers tape and this and that & oh yeah what about this tool....up and down, up and down, on and on...every time I came down the ladder Zachary and Maysie were right under my feet, for crying out loud, I was stepping all over them...Why were they UNDER MY STINKING FEET  in the shower??

So.......I am coming down the ladder and I step on Zac's feet......

A- Will you please move your ASS??


Zac and May are shocked and look at each other but did not move.  Zac and I are face to face now in the shower.

Zac looks at Maysie then at me and says - Now you apologize to Maysie. (insinuating May is his ass)

We all start laughing and forget about it....except for Sky

She reminds me at the lunch table that she heard me say a cuss word in the shower and that I could surely have picked a more clever word, and did I ask God to forgive me?


I had been having an eventful morning. One of those days when things happen that shouldn't. Each thing you fix leads to something else that needs attention immediately and before you know it 4 hours has gotten by and what really needed to be accomplished hasn't happened yet and still needs to happen...only now your eating into the schedule 4 hours which puts you going to bed 4 hours later.

So Sky called me out and though she was correct, I lost my sanity in front of all my children at the lunch table and said

A- ASS, ass, ass, ass, ASS, ASS, ass, hell, hell, hell, damn and one more time for good measure, ASS!!

.......cricket, cricket.........

Zac busted out laughing.

May is hands over her mouth speak no evil and Sky is hands over her ears hear no evil.


Cole wants to know if he can have 3 cookies cause he finished all  his lunch.

I am like, gosh where'd that come from?  It was quite therapeutic...for about a minute or so.

M- Well now, that was quite pleasant.  I'm so glad we don't go to public school to learn language like that. I feel smarter already.
...................................................

So we're back in the bathroom with Sky calling out CB's ability to become a professional liar.

A- Skylie, Babe, you know you are absolutely correct to say we shouldn't use cuss words or lie or whatever.  But when you call people out on their sin in front of others two things happen. First, they get embarrassed and second they want to look for a fault in you to call out, so they can show others you sin too. Not that they want to hurt your feelings, but they are human and don't want to feel displaced.  Is the behavior right? No, but drawing a room full of people's attention to another person's sin isn't right either.

I reminded her of the incident at the neighbors house calling out the adult and that this was not the first instance of that either, that it came across as disrespectful more than trying to keep her mind clean.  Which all of us fully understand and outsiders don't.

I reminded her of the Bible story of the women who had been found with another man, like a boyfriend, while she was married. She was going to be stoned to death for this act.  The men brought her to Jesus to see what he would say about it.  Jesus wrote some words in the sand. Some say each man with a stone, ready to cast at the woman, viewed the words written by Jesus as his own secret sin...then Jesus stood and said, "Those without sin should cast the first stones."  When the girl looked up, there was not one man there waiting to stone her, for they all knew they were sinners, the same as she.  Jesus told her to go and sin no more.

I asked Sky if she was she perfect? Would she be able to cast the first stone?  Did she have a secret sin that only she ...and maybe me & Jesus knew about?

Sky expressed that she was glad the girl was not stoned to death and was able to live.  Sky affirmed that she knew she too, was a sinner. She knew she did some things that surely made Jesus unhappy. She understood that she had been casting stones casually and carelessly for her own sake.

I was so moved by her ability to understand this concept and readily accept this correction. I thought of how good God is to give us these moments with our children to teach in them in the way they should go. To be able to trust Him to know and understand what he has to teach our children through us as parents using the wisdom He gives us in His Book.  It takes my breath away, how good and right God is everyday and never failing.

I made a New Years resolution today to try really hard not to cast a bunch of stones casually and carelessly for the sake of myself.  I can't count the times Christ wrote my sins in the sand this past year and I kicked my foot over it so I wouldn't have to read it.

I'm done with that.

just squeezed as hard as I could..............

Looking back a bit...........

Early one morning after we had just gotten our tree up, before all the lights starting acting like morons....

CB jerks away from the tree as I walk into the living room, he looks guilty.

A- CB, what are you doing over there?

CB- Nothing

A- Are you sure? Cause your eyes tell me another story? I won't get mad just tell me. I promise I won't get on to you if you tell the truth. (we are now face to face- eye to eye)

CB- I broke something. (points to the tree)

A- Well where is it so I can see, cause I don't see anything Cole.

Cole heads off towards his room and I follow him. He gets underneath his train table and brings out a hand full of broken elongated glass Christmas ornament. I rush over...

A- Cole, baby, you can't have broken glass under your train table, give me that. You could have cut your hands.

Cole holds out his other hand which he has in fact cut, something like a long paper cut. I am astounded that he has cut himself and not told me and also that he hid the broken glass under the train table in his room.

A- CB, why did you hide this glass under your table? Why didn't you throw it into the garbage can, or tell me?

CB- I didn't want to get in trouble.

I am now under the train table myself picking up tiny pieces of broken ornament out of his carpet. I head back to the Christmas tree to look for more glass within the tree and on the floor around. I ask him how the ornament got broke, assuming he picked it off the tree and dropped it. um, no....he thought it "fit perfectly" into his baby grip, so he just squeezed it as hard as he could. It busted in his grip.

A- Cole! Gosh Son, that is madness. Look at your hand. Do not do that ever again.

CB- Well....I broke some more stuff too.

....heading back to his room and under the other side of his train table that I had paid no attention to before. I am like Oh Lord, what else God, what else?

Cole drags out a birage of broken crap toys(Happy Meal type toys and the likes) that he has taken apart and not been able to put back together.

He has always taken apart his stuff....and ours too. Like our air purifier...he totally took it apart when he had just turned three, filled it full of hot wheels and then put it back together. When I went to move it one day, I noticed it was heavy as all get out. I could hear stuff moving around inside but it wasn't in the area that you would change the filters, which perplexed me. He had filled a section that I didn't even know existed or even came apart.

I swear when he was little if I would 've given him a fork he'd have pried my baseboards off with it.

A- Wow CB. I can't fix this stuff, just throw it in the garbage.

CB- Are you mad Momma?

A- No cause I said I wouldn't get upset if you told the truth. Plus, now I get to throw some stuff that I hate to step on in the garbage (which I am happy about secretly). CB stop taking all this stuff apart, do you understand? Next time I find a pile of treasure hidden like this I will be upset.

Later that morning as all the other kids are getting motivated, CB is feeling good about himself telling the truth.

He starts to spill his honesty all over the breakfast table.

CB - Zachary, I am sorry I broke your Easter Egg. Maysie I am sorry I broke your swirl pen.

Maysie and Zac looking at each other - "What?!"

CB- I broke your stuff but Mom said it's okay today. I threw my pile of treasure in the garbage. I didn't get in trouble for breaking the glass cause I told the truth.

M & Z - What???! MOM!

............................................................

I am pumping gas at the shell station, the same gas station that my car battery quit working for no apparent reason and the one legged man wanted me to show him some love. They dang have TV's to watch while you pump gas. It's idiotic and yet entertaining at the same time. I mean for real, are we so in need of entertainment 24/7 that one has to watch freaking TV while pumping dang gas.

Television is everywhere. On it's mission to contaminate our minds and destroy what shred of decency our minds have left in some tiny corner. Let the brainwashing saturate us...even whilest thou pumpeth the freaking gas.

sidetracked...sorry.

Dig on this...this white dude hippie with dreds that have food and other unknown pieces of white crap in them, pulls up in his car with his girlfriend, a couple pumps down. He gets out, PUMPS THE GAS, THEN starts asking people around him, including me, if we have a dollar we can spare for him to get gas. I am like, you idiot, NO! No money hippie = no gas. you shouldn't have pumped till you could pay for it.

A- Dude...didn't you already pump yer gas??

Hippie -(distant far away look like he may be missing his time spent in rainbow & glitter Never, Never Land) uh, no.

A- Yer lying...

Hippie - (not affected by my calling him out, almost as if he has not heard me at all) - Do you have a dollar I could use to buy some gas.

A- No, all I have is my card. (Which is true, I may have had a quarter and dime stuck in my seats somewhere visiting with the stale, hard french fries)

The hippie continues on to ask some others, that also tell him "No." Hippie is in dilemma now and confers with his girlfriend in secrecy.

I finish pumping and rotting my brain with the gas station television and pull off. I have no idea how they paid for that gas or even if they did pay.

Those kinds of folks agitate my well being intensely in about 100 different ways. While one side argues I should have pity, feel for those in need, and help, help, help, give, give, give, do, do, do.......it's these exact folks that make me feel like this....

I think this is a sure sign I am getting older and less tolerant. The thing is I don't even feel guilty about it anymore either.

um, stupid..........

The holidays are always full of stuff aren't they? It's that time of year when you do stuff that isn't yer everyday activity and then get frustrated and wonder why you do these activities at all....like put lights on yer slumbering bushes and stuff.

I totally had lights on my house before Thanksgiving to get ahead of the game this season. I didn't cut them on till Thanksgiving though.

The kids were playing flashlight hide and seek with neighborhood kids one night. The next day my lights were not working, the wiring was broken slap into two separate strands going from one bush to a Christmas tree shaped evergreen bush thingy. so I blamed it on the kids hiding behind my bushes and told them not to hide there anymore this season. I restrung the lights on the Christmas tree shaped evergreen, it actually looked better than before I thought.

Hide and go seek again....the lights aren't working again. I am like, really?? Some kids are gonna lose a body part for this. I get all CSI trying to figure out which child to convict and sentence. Then it dawns on me the second break is in the exact location of the first. An animal has chewed my lights in half. I do apologize to my children for interrogating them and then relay to D my situation.

Because he can fix everything, literally... he fixes the lights using some cool gadgets he has gotten at this convention in Florida. He does this immediately so I will leave him alone, so that he can watch football on his new 46" TV that everyone in my family practically worships. It's as if they never had TV. If I hear the words "high def" one more time, my eyes are going to pop out of their sockets.

So my lights are working. Here's a picture of CB with "his boyz" as he fondly called his over lit frozen pals.

Then for no apparent reason the lights in the middle of my pre-lit tree that I purchased trying to be "green," went out. May and I replaced about 25 bulbs, on dang quest I tell ya.

Then D replaced 25 more bulbs and checked his meter thing for fuse issues, nothing, the fuses were good. So I made the executive decision to unstrand the lights on the pre-lit tree and re-string them.

um, stupid.

The lights were wrapped onto my tree by an uneducated individual in some random pattern that made no sense to God or anyone in this world even remotely close to adequate. It took entirely too long to unstrand those lights and I am 100% convinced they need to offer college level courses on how to unstrand a pre-lit tree. I grew a beard and died twice while taking those lights off.

That job sucked and I have to use that awful word cause that's how awful that job was.

The lights were, no lie, stung by the longest strand of lights in the whole universe. Each bulb was almost 9" from the next bulb. I have never seen anything like it before in my life. I was thinking, for some folks trying to promote going freaking green...that's a total waste of product.

I had to take off two strands.

Now it looks okay though. I feel satisfied.

I went to upload these photos from my camera and found that at some point CB had taken some video of himself talking smack that is so crazy, I can't even put it on my blog. Not one video of himself talking smack, but 3! ....and this photograph.

to tuck or not to tuck, the epic ending. Praise God..........

The soccer season is almost over.  One more game and the fall school start up chaos is completed….mostly.

We finally got CB playing soccer with his shirt tucked in.  It would seem that with me as his safe haven for hiding from his fear of kids running together in a cluster and being overwhelmed….it was too easy to quit, show his butt, and sit on the sidelines. No matter that he has ran with other kids in a cluster in our backyard a billion times.  It wasn’t the same. D and I came to the conclusion for him to play I would need to be perceived as not being at the field.

These are the steps to getting a 4 ¾ year old child to play a sport that you paid money for and don’t want him to quit (When you have accidentally volunteered his dad to be the coach).

1.  When the child sasses you about how he doesn’t want to play soccer anyway….yank his cleats off, his shin guards, and his jersey then throw them as far as you can into the yard. 

2. Eat Lindor chocolate balls 3 at a time, until the bad mommy feelings inside you go far, far away.

3. Make a deal with the child about tucking his shirt in that will surely be broken.

4. Send him to the soccer field with his dad and tell him you are not able to come to his game. Plan to show up and hide behind a tree to watch him play.

 

5.  In the last quarter, after you have watched him have a great time, score a goal, smile really big all with his idiot shirt tucked in…. reveal yourself as being there the whole time. 

This is when your child will reveal to you that he saw you drive up and get out of the car. That he saw you hiding behind all of the trees.  He will want to know why you didn’t just sit in a chair like all of the other moms and dads.

This is when you will need to eat some more Lindor chocolate balls 3 at a time, until the bad mommy feelings inside you go far, far away.   

                            The End

it's time to play "Let's Make a Deal"...........

Put on the Guy Smiley face with the Vince Fontain(Grease) voice when reading this......

Guy- THANK YOU,

FANS AND FRIENDS AND ODDS AND ENDS.

YOU JIMS AND SALS ARE MY BEST PALS. 

TO LOOK YOUR BEST FOR THE BIG CONTEST, 

BE YOURSELVES AND HAVE A BALL, AFTER ALL. 

FORGET ABOUT THE CAMERA AND 

THINK ABOUT THE BEAT. 

GIVE THE FOLKS A TREAT.

Now let's get ready to play 

LET'S   MAKE   A  DEAL    WITH   

          A   BABY!!!!!

The crowd goes wild.

A- Cole if you quit sucking your thumb, we'll buy you 

     a scooter!

CB- What color? Green?

A- YES!  Can we make a deal???

CB- YES!

.....5 months later, thumb sucking

A- Cole, if you take a bath I won't wash your hair!  Can 

     we make a deal?

Cole - YES!

 .....in the tub screaming and gnashing of teeth trying 

       to bathe.

A- Cole, If you are a good boy today while I am taking Sky

         to the Doctor I will buy you a Hot Wheel!  Can we

           make a deal son??

CB- Yes, Momma, I'll be a good boy!

    ...when I get home I hear nothing but havoc that was 

   wreaked and how they're never going to keep him again. 

     Here's the thing, one on one time is angelic....two on

    one time or three on one time....demonic whine fest.

A - Cole are you going to play soccer on your next game 

        and tuck your shirt in?

CB - yes Momma, I AM I CAN'T WAIT TO PLAY MY 

        SOCCER GAME.

A- Can we make a deal?

CB- YES!

....get to the soccer field last night with a shirt tucked 

in, ready to play.  

On the field the games starts. He 

decides he doesn't want to play after all.

..........strand by strand with tweezers, I tell ya.

...With CB it is all about the follow up.  We had asked him if he wanted to play    soccer.  He said, "yes."

"Okay then, you'll have to tuck your shirt in and be part of 

your team."  He understands this and relays to us he was 

just tired the last game and so forth...leading us to believe 

this was a one  time fluke event.

Um, no.

I had told him if he showed his butt again we were not 

going to stay at the field.  That I was going to take him

home and he would go to bed. We had to drive a long way 

over to the field, Dad has to get off work early, everyone is

adjusting to fit your needs.... so bad attitude = go home 

and go to bed.

CB- Okay Momma.

Last night, after looking forward to playing a game all day

and tucking his shirt in effortlessly...he had a melt down 

on the field and would not play.  I relayed our deal....no

playing, bad attitude = go home and go to bed.

He called my bluff.

CB- I want to go home and go to bed, I don't want to play.

He is just about to get worked up into a fit, I can see the

horse back leg kicking moves about to commence.  So I 

tell him to get up we are leaving.  He leaves the field 

area sucking his thumb, with D still coaching his team. 

The other parents are looking at me like, "What the heck?" 

I suspect. I tried not to imagine the thoughts going 

through their minds, cause.....EMBARRASSED.

I have to deal with the follow through.

I 100% understand the boy is 4 3/4 years old.  I 

understand he may not be ready for organized sports

no matter how hard he plays in the back yard.  I

understand kids get tired by the end of the day.  I 

mean he's my 4th kid for petes sake, but his blatant

determination to not do what he originally said he was 

going to do, irritates the crap out of me. 

D told me I should have left him at the field and made him 

sit the game out,  tis what my mom told me also.  Which is

what we did last week.  CB is clever enough to remember 

if we followed through or not, he forgets nothing. 

He knows exactly how far he can push before the gong 

rings.

My parenting skills suck these days.  I have been praying

for grace to be a better parent incessantly since we got in

the car last night.  I don't want to come this close to the 

teenager-hood in my older kids and lose my perspective 

now with the youngest one.  

I thought by now I would have worked out all these kinks.

um, no.

All this to say...

You CAN NOT make a deal 

      with a baby.

*

To tuck or not to tuck, my friends, that is the blasted question........

Cole had his very first ever soccer game yesterday.

We have been waiting since he signed up for his first big game. I made sure he ate well all day. I made sure he had a nap. I made sure all his gear was clean and ready to be put on when he woke up from his nap. Maysie had her Flip to record all the fun stuff, Zac had the water bottles ready to go, we all rubbed Sky's magic belly for good luck, D got home a little early so we could all ride together.

Excitement in the Williams household.

Did all that preparation work for me?


um, no.


Before we left Z told CB he'd have to tuck his shirt in. The little kid's shirts are too long. I had personally hoped they wouldn't have to be tucked in at the age, cause that would be a lot of tucking. But alas it was a rule that must be obeyed for the game. CB almost had a melt down at the house about tucking that shirt in. I had asked Z to just leave him alone I figured once we got to the field I would casually tuck it in and we'd move on.

um, no.

D casually tucked his shirt in once at the field and all was well in the universe. All the stars lined up properly till CB burst into tears and wanted his shirt untucked.

About this time I was walking up with the cooler full of after game drinks and snacks. I am like what the heck is wrong now? M, Z, D, & CB all at once try to explain to me that CB will not tuck his shirt in. No shirt tucked in = no playing(to put the pressure on).

Z is in shear panic the whole game cause CB isn't going to get to play and CB is sabotaging himself with his pride...it is literally making Z crazy. May is going on about how she can't film him and trying to guilt him. Sky is rubbing it in his face that he is not going to get to have a Capri-Sun drink and fruit roll up by drinking a Capri-Sun drink in his face. CB doesn't care his pride is now firmly cemented. I am embarrassed by his behavior and trying to do the right parenting thing. Secretly on the inside, I want to insist that he get his butt on the field and play like he is supposed too or pull my hair out strand by strand with a pair of tweezer in sheer torture.

To make a hour and a half long story short. I told him we had paid for all that gear and he committed to playing on the team, now Dad had committed to coaching and by golly HE WAS GOING TO TUCK THAT STUPID SHIRT IN EVEN if he sat in the chair on the sidelines.

Which is what he did.

That little boy had determined in his mind that if he had to have his shirt tucked in, he WAS NOT GOING TO PLAY...even if Jesus came back I don't think he would have got up out of that chair, he was so full of himself. Strand by strand I tell you......

Not once did he ask me to get up, not once did he say he would play. He would only convey that I was being mean and he wanted his shirt untucked.

After the game he did not ask for a Capri-Sun or fruit roll up not even in the car on the ride home. D handled the whole thing much better than I thought he would. I thought he would read him the Right Act about his attitude, but he didn't. He conveyed his disappointment and explained how the team had to work harder because he didn't do his part. Explaining how other team members had to be extracted from the opposing team to fill in his spot and relayed what we put down as parents for him to play. When we got home we made him go to his room for a while and then onto bed. He was not happy about that at all.

I conveyed to D that I was proud of him for not losing his temper and handling CB so well. The other kids clapped for him and gave him the standing ovation treatment. They were proud of him too.

In the end though, when I kissed CB goodnight, he was happy. It was as if that evening had never happened and had been erased from his mind.

CB- Goodnight Mommy, I want to give you a kiss on the lips(its his thing).

A- (kiss, big squeezy hug) Okay CB see you in the morning. After tonight we are never going to bring this up again okay. You are going to be expected to do better with out having to be reminded of this day.

CB- I know Mommy. I am going to play next time. I want to play soccer. I'm going to wear my shirt tucked in. (He is telling me these things so easily, they are just flowing out smooth and velvety....I just can't understand why he so happily says them now and so stubbornly refused them just 3 hours earlier.)

A- Okay, sounds good( I give him a big hug and leave)

CB- Go get Daddy and tell him I want a kiss goodnight please.

I tell D.

D and CB have some conversation I can't hear over the air purifier though I am trying so hard to hear it my eyes are squinting for better reception. I can't make it work and move on.

Later that evening, I was conveying to D my severe agitation at having to tuck the dumb shirt in anyway, cause they were too long. To which he said something along the lines of - Thats what's wrong with kids. They aren't made to follow the rules, they make them up as they go along and they expect everyone in life to play along. When kids don't get their way they pride up, people give in and, they learn that if they stomp their feet long enough they get what they demand and don't have to earn it and to heck with respect for themselves or anyone else....the shirt tucked is a principle point about respecting the rules of the game, himself, and his team mates, and his coach. (in a quick nutshell)

I understood that perfectly and it was very valid.

Ugh!! My inability to know how to deal with it publicly was frustrating. It put me on the spot about my child's pride issue. All the peeps in our little family pull their weight pretty good, especially when pressed. Last night Cole did exactly the thing that none of my children have ever done...wait me out and won, while wallowing in pride. I commented to one parent, half joking-half not, that I ought to make him wear his pajamas tucked in to bed tonight. I didn't though...cause he sleeps in his underwear....

I have seen kids do that kind of stuff before, but I had always had the whole "not my kid syndrome." Consistently, CB has been the one who teaches me how to handle parenting skills that I have never had to access before.

I mean it really is a truth that no two kids are the same. Some may come close, but they are not the same. I can see distinct differences in all 4 of my children.

This goes back to me saying 100 times.....

Parenting is freaking hard work!

I have to just keep telling myself.....he's only been alive for 4 years, he is still a super young human with a lot more lessons to learn....


......and teach me about parenting apparently.


Thank you God for grace, I crave it.

*

I tried to step on Jiminy Cricket............

....and in other news.....

I got another camera ticket. This one was not in Oak Ridge though. I got it in Farragut.

I turned right on red and totally rolled the light instead of coming to a complete stop before turning.

I knew the camera was there but must have had a brain fart and forgot. I was completely going to lie to D and not tell him but my Jiminy Cricket wouldn't let me. I tired to step on him and kill him to shut him up, but alas he was a lucky cricket.

I told on myself.

D declared me a bad driver, looked at the video link no less than 14 times, called the kids to come and watch the video for back up on his ranting about how I totally rolled the light and didn't stop, read me the Right Act some more, stated I needed to be a more aware driver, relayed I was a bad driver AGAIN and that maybe he should take my car away (but then there is always reality in the back of the mind of what that really means and therefore get to keep my car), a few more I should more carefuls, and then that was the end.

I find it's a lot easier in these situations where I am totally busted to just say, "yes.......yes.........you're right.........yes, I know, I know.........yes, tunnel vision......yes.........okay, okay.......yes, you're right.........yes."

...and then I'm usually done.

So if you, as a citizen, live near Oak Ridge or Farragut and are enjoying all of their new facilities, roads, parks, or law enforcement capabilities......please direct all of your thank you notes to me at:

Kiss The Silver Bullet's Butt
1234 Universal High Sign Rd.
Tunnel Vision, TN. 56789-1011

....as I seem to be funding most of these activities.

..................................

alrighty then........

Here's my newest pair of TOMS. I call them "From stark white to totally bright."

They were the white canvas, now they are not white canvas. These are sharpie'd and waterproofed. The problem is people think that I bought them this way and have no idea how I much time and sharpie care I put into these. However, when they ask about them I do get to elaborate. Appreciation for time and effort does come.

I like understanding......a lot.

they don't care, adapt and overcome.............

While D was gone to the beach I stayed pretty busy.............duh.

I told May the first night D was gone I was going to stay up all night long surfing the internet and reading, doing what ever I dang well pleased. I told her when I got up on Thursday morning I was going to be a Zombie and when they ask me questions, no amount of coffee was going to get a coherent answer out of me. This was her warning, spread the word.

I am getting so freaking old though, my butt had to go to bed at 11:30 cause I was just too stinkin tired to stay awake any longer. I was reading with my eyes all rolled back in my head, rockin my head back and forth waking myself up before I slammed my face into my book with my reading glasses on.

I couldn't stay awake past midnight any of the nights he was gone. I completely wasted my "me time" sleeping.

Anyhoo, May and I managed to make 30 jars of jam.....23 jars of cherry and 7 jars of chocolate mint. The cherries were from King David's yard and the chocolate mint from mine.

That day....... I unintentionally worked May like a slave.

She was totally gung ho to do the jam but by the last batch she was exhasuted and so was I. We took a quick swim in the lake(and I say quick cause the cows from atop the bluff were blowing their stank over & down onto the lake and it was gross) and then came back and mowed the grass for 3 1/2 hours.

ON THE #4 SETTING BAAAABBY! You know the saying while the cats away the mice will play......ooooohhh yeah. May and I made the executive decision to really CUT the grass. To heck with this man mowing business about "leave it tall and choke out the weeds, mow the grass on the highest setting"........no way, I got busy with it, Momma didn't play. #4 setting!!!!! woot woot

....then, when I was about finished, I noticed there was a lot of grass sitting on top of the grass. So D would notice I cut on #4 instead of #6........ so then I had to lawn sweep the yard for about another hour or so, which meant May had to spread to the grass around like mulch in the designated flower beds. Ooooohhh but it looked awesome when I was done.

May and I so high five'd on our good work. Which our family is high five impaired so when we hit it on the first try, then we had to do it again..........should have left it at the one celebratory high five.

May relayed to me I had worked her like a slave and she was exhausted, that I OWED her a fun day the next day. We decided to go to Tellico Beach, a place D's parents had taken the kids before while we were out of town.

Mistake #1

I spent till midnight locating the beach on a satellite map cause I couldn't find the address to the place ANYWHERE. This should have been my first clue.

So Saturday we get up, eat, pack a cooler with drinks and food for lunch, get our sunscreen, chairs and beach towels and we are off to Tellico Beach.....with my satellite map.

I swear I am all over the dag gone entrance to the place but all the roads appear to be closed. So I go up and down thinking I have surely missed an entrance road for 20 minutes or so before I finally stop and ask this Tellico Villaginite, Bill Gates look alike, pumping his two seater Mercedes back tire up with what looks like a bicycle pump..... if I am close to the beach....

He tells me to go about 4 miles much further down the road than I have been going and according to my trusty picture map that is wrong....but I do it anyway cause I am getting frustrated. I smile real pretty, thank him, offer to let him call someone on my cell, he tells me "It's okay, he'll be done in just a few minutes, it's really okay despite how it looks." I smile again cause he knows I think he's pumping his tire with a bicycle pump apparently.....and maybe he was. Who cares really?

I get to the beach and its definitely not the beach we were shooting for. It's super small, SMALL! There is a birthday party going on with old people and fried chicken that smells great. I ask them about the other beach, the bigger beach, with the pavillion and they send me back down the street to where I started, gabbing on about some small boat ramp entrance.

The children don't want to stay at Fried Chicken Beach so I drag my dogged car back down to where I started and restart my flippin hunt for the entrance. CAN NOT FIND IT!!!!!!! All the entrances ARE CLOSED....DON'T GO THERE with your car packed IT ISN'T OPEN ANYMORE.

By now, CB just wants to get out of the car and he has started chanting Fried Chicken Beach, Fried Chicken Beach, Fried Chicken Beach......and by golly that's exactly where I go.

Mistake #2

We drag all our crap to the very small beach area and set up. Immediately the kids get into the water. The roped off area has been layered with sharp little tiny pebbles that kill your feet when you walk on them.

They don't care, adapt and overcome.

Suddenly the beach becomes crowded with like 50 kids, ages toddler to 8 years old. The toddlers are tired and screaming and should be napping instead of coming to the water......determined to have a good time we adapt and overcome.

Upon May digging up some sand to make a sand castle, she digs up some moisture in the sand below......the sweat bees descend on us like mad. I mean they are no where else. so we move a little bit and they continue to plague us. Cole is getting cranky now.

While we are eating some lunch and swatting sweat bees I declare that this is the most miserable beach ever.....

A- This is the most miserable beach ever! All in favor of leaving Fried Chicken Beach say "I."

M, CB, & S - "I"

A- Let's roll then people, I am over this, you can finish your lunch in the car.

M- I swear this makes the lake at our house look like a freaking water park. Can we go to the lake when we get home?

Mistake #3

A- Absolutely, yes, we can stay there all night if you want.

When we get home CB is zonked out, and it is beginning to rain.

We never get to the lake. I felt so bad for them. I felt like a failure at being the fun parent. I was so disappointed for them. I guess Tellico Beach is a beach reserved for their memories with their grandparents.........

.............while I get stuck with the memories of Fried Chicken Beach.......eeeesh

Have you ever heard of anyone playing the difdle, the lifdle, or the liddle before.............

Doing phonics with Sky some time this week, the word in the sentence is "fiddle"....

S- liddle

A- try again

S- lifdle

A- Sky, please....look at each letter and read that kindergarten word.

S- Shiddle

A- (I snicker...Z at other end of the table snickers)

S- Whats so funny?

A- Nothing read the word...

Z- (completely sidetracked now at Sky saying "shiddle" instead of "fiddle"...still trying not to snicker)

S- What?!

Z- Sounds like something a little dog, like Jenny, would do.....

A- (I try not to laugh, cause that is borderline foul) Z, that's enough.

S- Like, Jenny did a little "shiddle."

A & Z - (laughing cause she has no idea what she has implied and has used it correctly)

Z- SKY! Don't say that!

S- Why? Is shiddle a bad word?

A- No, but it sounds awfully close the way you just used it.

S- Well I didn't know.

A- Don't use that word even when you're playing around Babe, cause it sounds ugly. It's close to an ugly word used for dog poops. Now read this word please.......(try to refocus on phonics and ignore Z still snickering under his shirt that is pulled over his nose)

S- (lacking total focus now & off in some other time zone) Mom? Is shiddle the same word as damn-it?

Z & A - SKY!!!!

Z- (has to leave the table cause he's so sidetracked by her blatant ability to use cuss words with no remorse in inquisitiveness)

A- Sky, yes... those words are in the same ugly word category. Now I want you to get those words out of your mind and quit contaminating yourself. If you blurt those words out again I will get angry. It is determined now that those words are not to be said, they are both not good words. If I hear them again I will put soap on your tongue. (which I know is a lie.... cause you know, I am so done with the throw up) FOCUS PLEASE! Read.... this..... word!

S- difdle......oooh Mom,(whine) I don't know this dumb word, cause now it looks like an ugly word in my mind.

A- Sky the word is dang FIDDLE. Have you ever heard of anyone playing the difdle, the lifdle, or the liddle before?!

S- No, and actually, they don't play the shiddle either.

Z- (busting out laughing in the other room)

I send them both to their rooms, until I can go pray a little bit in my closet. Then we break for lunch, and don't do phonics for two days to be sure that word has long passed both of their minds.

.........................................................

Me, May & Z going over their math at the kitchen table, Cole playing with a short pencil at the other end of the table.......we are not really paying attention to him. There is a break in the conversation and some pause while we think on some stuff and we hear this....

C- (in a perfect Englishman accent) Good Day Suh.

When we look up he has a short pencil squeezed in between his nose and upper lip like a thin mustache. Random, unexpected, and dang funny......

........................................................

Can't sleep........

Tuesday morning up at 4:20 am grading papers........

Wednesday morning up at 5:00 am grading History tests.....

Thursday morning up at 4:50 am reading on constitution stuff for this afternoon.....

......................................................

I took Sky to the allergist yesterday. They skin prick tested her again, which they just did in October of last year. So I thought that was....uumm.... retarded!

All the test were negative for food allergy..... again.

I mean I wanted to say.....the food is messing her up inside her body...inside her body, during swallowing & digestion....I don't rub the food on her skin.......she doesn't break out in hives...SHE VOMITS LADY!!! Just cause you stick some milk on her back she isn't going to VOMIT...it just doesn't make logical sense. I mean if we give the child "a trace amount on non fat dairy" in a slice of bread she vomits. She said her tongue feels fat, May & I have witnessed her uvula swollen...she gasps for air sometimes...THAT IS SCARY TO ME!!!

Every time she coughs at night or starts gagging I wake up and run to her room cause I am afraid she is going to choke or her throat will swell up and I won't know it.

So keep her off dairy Amy & shut up for petes sake....

Well duh.

That's what we've been doing. I swear though, if I hadn't had said I wanted a blood test yesterday just to give me some peace of mind, the gal wouldn't have taken any. She tells me we could try giving her "a little lactaid, even though I don't think that will do much at this point and see if that works, she may just be highly intolerant of dairy."

I am like, no shiddle Lady, she is highly intolerant at the minimum right now.

She then tells me that Sky has no signs of drainage in her nose or throat, but she is going to give her a nose spray anyway.

.....Like the pediatrician that took blood to check her white blood cell count. It was perfect indicating no bacterial problems....but let's give her 14 days worth of antibiotics on top of the 10 she has already taken that aren't working and some more steroids too......cause she just isn't jacked up, gagging, & throwing up enough.

.....Like the Gastro docs office......I tell them Sky has been throwing up every time she eats for two weeks, I would like to bring her in.

Nurse No You Can't Come In - Well if she is coughing she needs to go the pediatrician , call us back if it becomes a digestion issue.

SSSSSCCCCRRREEEAAMMMM!!!!!!!!! I said she is throwing up every time she eats, did you catch that??

So the pediatrician says he has done all he can do, take her to the Gastro.

The allergy lady says she has done all she can do...by giving us nose spray and telling me not to give her dairy if she throws up when she eats it......again, no shiddle...... like I am a moron who loves to clean up throw up and I need to be told that. Take her to the Gastro.

I am serious.......... I am about to become a crack head.

....... with my own special crack pipe with my name air brushed on the side in metallic letters.

I am gonna wait on the blood work to come back. If it shows nothing, I am busting the Gastro's door down and commencing a smack down till he checks her out.

I mean, literally I have done all I can by omitting the dairy, but she is starting to gag again at night. It was getting better once the dairy was gone, but it's like I am filling her with soy now and she is trying to start all over....anything with colored dye....cough, cough, gag, gag.....

I am starting think my Obamacare has already kicked in and no one told me.

No shiddle.