Burnt Popcorn

12-24-09

Merry Christmas Eve!

Here I am, stuck at work. Sigh. Not cool. Oh well. Hopefully the day goes by quickly. I have mostly been dinking around on the net. I have cleaned my desk a bit, and other than that, really not much of anything. I am happy that I made coffee since one of the warehouse guys came in and was grateful someone made fresh coffee. One of my IT guys just arrived, so there are a couple of people here.

I am driving Ken’s car this morning. Ken and the boys were going to go get my oil changed. Plus, Ken needs to have a car at home that he can put the kids in. His car, well, let’s just say one of our projects this next week HAS to be cleaning it out. And I thought my car was gross because of a little bird poop!

Knowing how things work around here, I have a feeling I am stuck till my normal leave time. My boss was already being annoying yesterday, so I have a feeling that in his boredom today he is going to think of something he needs for an account (not necessarily mine) and he doesn’t know how to do anything. So he will then have me do it. Fun.

Ken wrapped all the presents yesterday. Apparently there are way more than I realized. Oops. I guess we may have spoiled the children.

He also broke my excitement in many little pieces when he told me their bikes are incredibly easy to put together. Dammit! I wanted them to be hard so that Ken has to get annoyed the night before Christmas as he built them.

It is now 7 am, which means the boss is probably due soon. I realize I did my project yesterday a day too soon.

The only thing we don’t have at this point is Matt’s present. It is in theory supposed to arrive today. If it doesn’t, I will be stopping by the K-Mart on the way home from here to see what I can get him. Plus, I will probably then go get some gift cards for fast food since he loves that stuff.

Tonight we are going to probably watch Santa Buddies, and then set out cookies for Santa. I think then it is time for bed and Ken and I will set up the tree on the floor and get all the presents out and ready. We plan on watching Love Actually, since it has been far too long, and it is very Christmasy. Of course, dinner will be pizza, as this is a Brenan holiday tradition.

I have explained to the boys that they have to be extra good today since Santa will be watching very carefully. Nothing better than instilling the fear of Santa in kids in order to keep them good for a day.

I WANT TO GO HOME!!!!

Ok, just read some more crap online. I think I have decided I really like Time Magazine. I read an article on the passing of Britney Murphy, and it was really good. Only one small error, when he credited Tom Waitts when it really is Tom Petty who voices Lucky on King of the Hill, but other than that, a very touching tribute, which I thought was so much nicer than all the other crap written about her. I also love Joel Stein, who writes for the magazine. If I could be half as good as him, I will make it some day.

I was very pleased when I also saw that the boy that was kidnapped essentially by his mother 5 years ago and taken to Brazil was finally reunited with his father. The story, for those of you not familiar, was that the parents were married and living in Jersey with their 4 year old son. She took the boy to Brazil for a visit with her family. She never came back. She opted to divorce him, and ended up getting remarried. My understanding was that the dad has been in contact all these years, but never was permitted to see his son. Then she died in childbirth last year, so the dad had his window. With him being the only birth parent alive, he should get custody of his son. But the stepfather and his family fought tooth and nail. They felt that since the boy has been there for 5 years, it would be bad for the kid. No, people, what was bad was when you denied this child his rightful father for 5 years. You lose. You should have talked sense into your wife/daughter when you had the chance. I feel bad for this kid. Of course he has probably done stuff like say he doesn’t want to go. But do you blame him. Who knows what these people tell him. Plus, yes, he has been technically happy for 5 years. But it isn’t fair to have kept him from his dad for this long. Father and son were reunited on Christmas Eve (the true Christmas Miracle if you ask me) and he is supposed to return home to America soon. I know the grandma and step dad want to meet with dad to tell him a bunch of crap, like things he likes to eat, etc. But they have vowed not to appeal the case. That is impressive, but I still say it is too little too late. I hope that this little boy doesn’t resent his father, but actually see how much his dad loved him to fight for so long and hard to get him back. What a bitch that woman was. Damn her. She didn’t just hurt this man, she hurt her son in the long run. I find that to be just downright deplorable. I certainly can’t say I wished her death, most of all, not in the midst of childbirth, but wow, she certainly didn’t exactly give Karma much of a choice now did she? Sorry, I am feeling a bit feisty this morning. I don’t normally condemn folks to death until after lunch.

Ok, it is now almost 8, and no boss. I wonder what is up with that. Maybe he will come in late because he is letting me cover the early “shift” and then he will cover the later part of the day. Oh, wait, I am so giving too much credit to this man.

Being here is so killing my normal cheery demeanor for Christmas Eve. It is sucking the jolly right out of me. Grr!!

Time for Hot Chocolate.

It appears that IT is installing some new servers. So there are giant boxes all strewn about so not only am I all alone here, I am literally boxed in. How incredibly depressing. Look, I know I don’t like most people, but I am like poor Lycos. I want to bark at everyone, but really, I would rather just play and have fun with folks.

I made hot chocolate, but I don’t think I want it. First off, it is the packet of powder, and I am spoiled with my good stuff. Second, I really don’t want it, I just made it to get up from my desk for a few minutes.

While I am ranting, I might as well yell at this article I read yesterday. It was about the poor kids and people who have to deal with Christmas when they are of a different religion that doesn’t celebrate Christmas. Look, Christmas doesn’t have to be religious. I don’t believe in god. I LOVE Christmas. And maybe that is what annoys me so much. People complain about either the lack of Christ in Christmas or that there is too much. People, yes, it is originally celebrated as the birth of Christ. I don’t take that away from people who believe in it. I actually think it is a very sweet story, real or not. But these days, you don’t have to only look at it that way. With America being the melting pot of cultures everywhere, we get to see all kinds of different ways to celebrate this season. Some of them do other holidays, but let’s look at Christmas. It can be celebrated 1000 ways, and by all different races and religions. That is truly what makes Christmas magical. Not the presents. Not the trees. It is the time of year when we all take a little bit of time to do nice things for others, do some decorations to be cheery, and to see friends and family we might not see all year long. Some people eat Turkey. Some I know eat Lobster. Some eat a dish that has no animal by products at all. All of them are wonderful! Some people have big families sitting around. Some have only 2 people and the bump that will be inside out in a couple months. Some people travel to snow, some travel away form it. But isn’t what all of it really means is love? Hell, Christmas is the day when you tell people you love them. Not Valentine’s Day. It is Christmas. Sometimes you tell them with a giant sparkly. Sometimes you tell them with a toy train. Maybe it is just a card with a picture of your family, smiling big on the outside. Maybe it is just a status update wishing everyone a Merry Christmas. It is all good, no matter what religion or background you may come from. So I propose that we don’t just look at it as the birth of Christ. We don’t look at it as an insult to Jews or the day before Kwanzaa. It is a holiday all by itself that happens to have all the different ways to celebrate. Stop treating it like a curse. And if your kid happens to be Hindu and comes home from school with an assignment of what do you do over the holidays, don’t get all pissy. You still get time off, jackass, so have your kid tell us what he did during that time. Trust me, your ignorance of what it is all about is worse for your kid than any assignment that might mention Christmas in it.

The boss has arrived. I told him that it was dead here. Of course, we both just got an email from the customer that drives me to drink. Mind you, there is NOTHING we can do about said email today since no one is in the office who can take care of it, but he will still fret about it and make me want to kick him. I already told my coworkers if when they come in on Monday there is a bloody corpse by my desk to not be surprised.

It is now 9 am. I am bored out of my skull. I had to talk to one customer, and apparently I was charming enough to get him to laugh even though he was annoyed. But other than that and a couple of order releases, it is dead. It is like popping popcorn. The bag starts with nothing, then a bunch of pops, which was this week. Then it gets to the point where just about everything is done, so there are way less pops. Now, the pops are so infrequent that you tend to open the microwave to enjoy. I am still in the fucking microwave, and the already popped corn is starting to burn. Let me out!!

LOL!! I was on the phone with Ken and I talked to Dax. After I was done talking to Dax, I asked him to hand the phone to Bobby. Dax hands him the phone and says, “Here, Bobby, Mommy is in here.”

Sigh. My morning now has been spent going back and forth from my desk to the boss’s to show him how to set up a read receipt and delivery receipt on emails he sends. Then, I had to talk back and forth to test it. Oh, and of course, it doesn’t work on his. Sigh.

My CFO just gave me my yearly Starbucks gift card. He gets them for all of the department under him. I still have my card from last year since I don’t drink coffee. But on the plus side, instead of only $5, I now in theory should have $10 since each card is worth $5. LOL! Maybe I will need to actually go get something.

20 till 10. I am still bored.

20 after 10. I am still bored. Yeah, this is beginning to be a theme.

Dax told me they were fixing my wheel. I wasn’t sure what he meant, so he clarified. “The black wheel”. Luckily I was able to figure out he meant they were getting my tire changed. I have been driving on the spare since Disneyland. Luckily, the spare was a full sized tire. I guess right now they are at Spires eating brunch while waiting for the oil to be changed. Ken is playing single parent right now. LOL! If they are getting the oil changed where I think they are (based on the fact that they are at Spires), then my car is also getting nice and clean. WOO HOO!

No sign of anyone thinking about this being an early day. I am not surprised. The people who have the power actually have work to do since it doesn’t involve customers, so they don’t understand us grunts being bored. My CFO explained to me how many emails he had waiting for him after his meeting with some bankers yesterday. I would feel sorry for him, except the meeting was a golf game. I am not sure that counts as ground for a pity party.

I think that at noon-ish, I will remove my Christmas lights from my desk and get that all packed up. That way if a Christmas Miracle does occur, then I can just walk out.

Wow, no blogs probably until the first of the year. Of course, I might get bored and post one anyway.

On Monday, the plan is now to see Sherlock Holmes. Ken said Avatar is probably the best film he has ever seen. So now I am torn, especially since in reality, that is one to see in the 3-D on the big screen. I am still skeptical of it. I mean, sure, Titanic was hailed as brilliant, but the only good part about that movie was Kate, cause, let’s face it, she is awesome. Don’t get me wrong, I cried at the movie. It was well done. And maybe I am tainted since we saw the damn thing on NYE when it came out and that wasn’t my idea of the best New Years party. But what I am trying to say is, there was a lot of hype. I tend to not like movies with that much hype. Then again, because I would go into it knowing I will not like it as much, perhaps by lowering that bar, I will in fact love it. Who knows. Ken said he would like to see it again, so perhaps that will be what we see. Either way, it is a movie Monday morning, and then lunch with my hubby. Woo hoo!

I was going to bring in donuts this morning as my suck up device. I opted against it. I wanted to see if the boss would actually think about something like that. Of course not. I now wonder if I should have brought them in. Oh well. I have to get donuts tomorrow morning. It is a Bowlby tradition for Christmas morning to get donuts. I was going to get them tonight, but I think I will go in the morning. I will see who wants to come with. Sometimes, only one of them wants to go, so that might work out just fine.

We got some gingerbread men raw hide treats for Luna and Lycos for Christmas morning. We also got these squeaky toys that look like giant Christmas lightbulbs, along with a small assortment of other squeaky toys for Luna to play with in the yard. She seems uninterested as of last night. I may need to put them in the sandbox as if they were toys for the kids and see if then she might be intrigued.

I was excited to see this morning that my happy making sandals from Sketchers are still made and on their web site. It means they may still have some cheaper ones at the outlet store. Woo Hoo! There are several kinds that they have that I was drawn to. I trust they will rock since I have now owned 4 pair of Sketchers sandals, with 10 out of 10 success on 3, and I would say 7 out of 10 on the other pair (they squeak, so that cuts them down, but other than that, they are comfy and cute). So I think one of my shopping adventures will include replacing a lot of my shoes that have been falling apart.

It is bad enough when I am in my corner alone and I don’t see people most of the day. But now, I am alone not just in my corner. Not great! Poor Ken is in for a full on Chatty Cathy when I get home.

Alright, I just heated up my lunch. It is 11. I started Wiki surfing, which kills some time. I will probably go back to it here in a bit. I am not even bothering with copy and pasting in word. No one is here and I am pretty sure no one will fault me for dinking around.

I hear my boss on the phone. Never a good thing. Hopefully it isn’t a call eh wants me to be conferenced in on. I hate it when he does that. Especially since he does all the talking, and in reality, I think I am just there as a witness that he made the call.

In an act of, wow, what a crappy mom, I have just put out all of the Halloween candy the boys got in a giant bowl at work for my coworkers to enjoy. Look, those kids ate plenty of the stuff, and let’s face it, with a diet looming in the future for me, I don’t need any extra temptations. Also, a lot of the candy is stuff they won’t eat. Plus, I am pretty sure they are going to get stuff tomorrow as well. Heck, if only in the Life Saver books I just had to get them. LOL!

Have I mentioned how much I want to go home yet?

11:30, no signs of goodwill so far. I bumped into the boss when I was putting out the candy. He helped himself to some Dots. I also just watched who I think was the CFO leaving, which doesn’t bode well for our heroes. Sure, I could hope he was just going out to get lunch, but in reality, I could so see him leaving and not bothering to let anyone know. What is funny is, I actually think of my company as pretty good to their people. Despite some major communication issues they still seem to struggle with, over all, they try very hard to do nice things for us. So I don’t know that I can really fault them for not attempting to shut down early. I mean, if they send me home with pay, that cost. If they send me home with no pay, they still run the risk of an order coming up that no one can release. Then again, if they let everyone go, there is no orders being placed. Of course, then you lose a potential order. Clearly, I have been reading the books the boys got too much. The Braskins present to them was books (with a corresponding stuffed friend) from the “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie” series. Basically, it is a book showing that if you do a nice thing, be prepared for that person to take advantage of your generosity and will keep asking for more. Dax’s book is “If You Give a Cat a Cupcake” which takes the cat from a cupcake, to sprinkles to the beach, to the gym, to the merry go round. Bobby’s Pig, which gets a Party in the book, proceeds to have a sleepover with friends and the non porn style variety of pillow fight. Both sets are super cute, with the boys loving the crap out of them, but it makes you wonder what someone was thinking when they wrote these books. Had they recently been screwed over by some a-hole they were being nice to? Maybe there is the grown up version of “If You Give a Bum a Quarter”. See, once you give him the Quarter, he will then ask for a can of beer. Then if he has a beer, he is going to want peanuts. Of course, when he has the peanuts, he will want to go to the zoo to feed the elephants. Once he sees the elephants squirting each other with their noses, he will want to take a shower. Once he takes a shower, he will want some new clothes to get all warm. Once he has the new clothes, he will be ready to go get a drink and is going to need to call for a cab. And of course, in order to call for a cab, he is going to need a quarter for the call. Trust me, if you have read these books, you would be laughing right about now.

I AM BORED!!!

Alternate path for my bum story. Once he sees the Elephants, he will think of horses and want to go to the race tracks. Once he is at the tracks, he will want some money to gamble with. Of course, once he wins, he will want to spend his winnings on hookers and blow. Once he finds what he is looking for, he will need a cheap hotel room. Once he gets a cheap hotel room, he will need a condom. So he in order to get a condom, he will ask you for a quarter to get one from the vending machine.

Seriously, get me out of here soon or else I will end up writing more of these!

2 more days!

12-23-09

Happy Christmas Eve Eve! LOL!

Ok, it is going to be a better day. It has to be! I have decided.

Ken managed to get some awesome Transformers stuff for the boys. This was impressive being that he had to travel to like 4 Toys R Us locations, Targets galore, and many other stops. But we certainly have exactly what was needed, and then some.

I am sleepy. Dax for some reason was up at like 1 am throwing a tantrum. We let him cry for a while since it was clearly a tantrum when he went from I am hungry to I am cold to I want milk to I don’t feel well to I want a story, etc etc. I had finally warmed up at this point, Ken having put some socks on me and more blankets when I was shivering earlier. I offered to go in, but Ken took the hit. Dax stopped screaming after about 5 minutes, and despite my best efforts to stay awake in case they needed me, I fell asleep. I think Ken was in there for like an hour if I looked at the clock right when I heard him come in.

At least Ken can rest today since he has no more shopping adventures, and the boys still have daycare today.

I would love to go curl back up into bed. I was comfy. It was cold out so the gobs of warmth and heavy blankets were soothing. I have 2 more days and really, only one more morning of having to get up early before I have 9 blissful days of sleeping in. Woo hoo!!

I got my dress from Torrid. I do love it, but I had not realized it was a halter top. I like the style, but I don’t currently own a bra to allow for that. So one of my necessities shopping runs over this next week will include a strapless style bra. I also determined I need like 10 pair of black knee high socks and about a dozen nice tank tops, 6 of which should be black, and the rest various colors. These are the staples of what goes with everything I wear. I figure once I have those, I can get various other items when I happen to see something. I also may need a couple of long sleeve shirts.

Andy and Scott sent some wonderful presents for the boys. Seriously, these kids are going to have quite the Christmas. I think tonight I need to go through their rooms and make sure that there is a place for all their new crap.

I was just talking to my boss and we were discussing tomorrow on how it is just he and I. I told him that he needed to do things like get a list of who is here tomorrow and also some info from our reps on what orders need to stay on hold. I then told him he needed to work on seeing if we could just do a half day. He looked surprised at my statement, but intrigued. He asked if we used to go home early, and I pointed out a long long time ago we used to with the old CFO, but that perhaps since we won’t be that busy that we can sneak out. I think he assumes he doesn’t have the power to send us home early. I say if he is insistent on calling himself the director, he has that power. Dammit. So I may have planted a seed in his tiny little brain.

They are replaying clips of K&B from this past year for the best of. They are revisiting the idea of how many 5 year olds can you fight off. Mike is saying he can take on 50. I am calling BS because honestly, I think he would have a hard time with my 3 year old.

I think today is a clean my desk kind of day. Although, I may wait until after Christmas for that. I realize that at that point I will take down my Christmas decorations and I can make it much more clean. Based on that, I may take it all down tomorrow since I won’t be back until the new year, and I don’t want my tree to dry up.

Ok, I have managed to keep myself busy with a project. I am so proud. I still have a bit more to do on it, but I was at a mini stopping point. Playing Dear Abby to one friend right now. Always interesting. I think I need a break, though, from playing the good doctor.

You take the good with the bad

12-22-09

I am already in a foul mood. This morning, probably as I walked to my car, I seem to have lost my pink hair piece. I didn’t notice until I got to work and to my desk. I backtracked to my car in the lot, but it appears it must have fallen off either in my house or in my yard, where there were huge gusts of wind. I loved that thing, and I am going to be quite sad if it is gone forever. Plus, I am pissed because it went with my outfit today, and now my hair is just in a silly bun. I know, nothing to be pissed about, but it annoyed me.

On top of that, as much as I am loving this wonderful wind, it is making it next to impossible to get KROQ at my desk. At least it is just the best of this week, but still.

I also noticed I am out of gum.

Oh, yeah, and the computer crashed this morning while I was in the middle of stuff.

I am thinking that at this point, things can’t get worse, right? So perhaps they can only get better.

Yesterday afternoon was pretty good. We had to go by the post office to pick up Matt’s present since Ken had apparently not changed the ship to address on his amazon account. It was delivered to his old shop address, which ended up kicking it back to the USPS. Fun.

So we loaded the kids and in a random plan, we brought the dogs. I figured this was a relatively short outing, and Luna needs to get used to car trips. Lycos just enjoyed coming along.

Luna did great in the car. She was a smidge nervous, but took out her nervous energy by licking Bobby’s face clean. Eventually, she mostly just settled in. We got to the post office, where as predicted, it was packed. We drove around the tiny lot and dropped Ken off, and then the boys, dogs and I drove around the block. We went back into the lot and actually found a spot. It seemed that most people were just driving up to the drop off boxes, and overall, there was always someone leaving. It was quite organized! Ken didn’t take more than maybe 15 minutes, during which time the boys and I chit chatted, wile the dogs sat up in the shotgun position, checking out the sights.

Ken came out and we headed up to the doctor’s office to get the boys their H1N1 mist. We were nervous. Although Dax was a trouper last time, Bobby was not. Plus, for all we knew, they both might get crazy.

We went into the same room, which they both happily remembered. Dax popped up on the chair, and once again, was incredibly charming and sweet as he got his vaccine.

Bobby’s turn. I got really nervous when he said he didn’t want to sit in the same chair Dax used. Crap, this is how it starts. He wanted the smaller chair. So I pulled it out for him to sit. Sure enough, he sat calmly. He winced for each squirt, but was pleasant and happy right after. YAY!!!!!!

Now, I would like to say he did better because he knew what was coming this time, and therefore could handle it. In reality, we had told them only moments before if they do this well, McDonalds was in our immediate future.

We headed to the golden arches where the boys played for a little while. I am still always shocked at how many of the kids are with nannies and not parents. Luckily, this batch of kids were all well behaved with the right amount of crazy so everyone had a good time.

We got home, and the boys had their jammies on, ready for the wind down Spongebob. They kept chirping and wiggling and just wouldn’t sit still. It is quiet time in which we need to be calm. So I told them it was their last warning. If they couldn’t stay quiet, we would go to bed.

I think they must have thought I was kidding.

As we carried the spastic, screaming kids into their rooms, they each started losing other privileges. I don’t know what Bobby had done, but I do know Dax once again decided that violence was the best approach to his frustration. He kicked, he head butted, he hit. I pinned him down, as he flung his head back into my skull. Ouch. But after a while of me holding him down, he kept hitting his face on the bed. He yelled that he wanted to move his blanket. I explained once he calmed down that I would let him go and he could move it himself. So he kept yelling. Finally, he told me his nose hurt. Not shocking being that he was banging it pretty hard on the mattress. So he sat up, and he held it together long enough for me to tuck him in. He asked for a story, to which I explained that I don’t read to little boys who kick the shit out of me. He was upset. He yelled. He also has figured out magic words to make us worry. He told Ken he felt like he was going to throw up. He of course also asked for milk. I gave him a little before he talked to Ken. Mostly it was a compromise since he had been coughing from all the screaming. But he spent about 90 minutes fussing. He was that mad about losing story and Spongebob. He finally fell asleep.

Bobby had similar getting to sleep issues. He will come out to use the bathroom. He will ask for water. He will say he is cold. He will say he is scared. You name it, he will come up with it. I went to sleep long before I think he did.

My dad just forwarded me an email from my cousin, Jason. He is putting together some kind of present for Grammie that involves pictures. He needed pics of my family. So I sent him the Picasa link. I am thinking that will give him gobs to work with. It also makes me realize I have so much more to scan.

I get my dress today! YAY! I ordered a dress on Saturday from Torrid. The tracking info says it will come today. I am excited. It doesn’t take much to get me excited.

I need to go over and get my shot at 9. I am guessing this one will end up hurting since the other one did not. Fun. As Ken pointed out, it would totally suck if I had a bad reaction to this since it is right before Christmas. I am going to choose to ignore that.

Ok, so not only is my hair way too dark, this hair dye seems to have angered it more. It is more tangled and hair is falling out. Not fun. I have to just let it sit for a while since I don’t want to add anything to the mess for now. It is not the first time I have messed up my hair. I know it will be fine. I just need to be patient. Some creative up dos and hats will be my friend for a while.

Sigh. So apparently the gardeners found my hair piece. They tossed it. Ken found it at the bottom of the trash can. He is trying to salvage it (it landed in questionable debris), but it doesn’t look good. I am sad.

I have gotten my shot. Once again, it didn’t hurt. I didn’t even feel it. Woo Hoo! Of course, Vyerah came and yelled at me for doing a little cheer when I was done since hers still hurts. LOL!

Matt’s Christmas present was sent back. Sigh. So Ken is on a search to find it in a store. Fun.

I have become one of those women and I am not proud of it. My pregnant HR lady was at the shot place. She is due to have the baby within the next 10 days. She is already dilated. We talked a bit, and another co worker came in telling us that her grandbabies were just born. We then started talking birth stories, and I found myself not only knowing too much, but I am pretty sure I was annoying when I told them how it went. I was trying to reassure the pregnant one that it isn’t bad, but of course, my understanding is that I had it easy. Mind you, she has had a very easy pregnancy from what I can tell, but I think it is safe to say it is rude of me to brag.

The boys apparently fought with Ken a bit this morning on cleaning up their toys. Let’s just say there is a trash bag full of toys now on my bed. They tell Ken they don’t want to clean, so Ken says he will clean. I am going to go through the bag to see what things need to stay, and I am truly considering tossing the rest (by tossing I do mean Goodwill if possible. Some are pretty used). I figure if they can’t take care of their stuff, they should not have it. I may salvage some of the cooler things that I can then give them if they are good. But really, they have too much shit as it is, so this is a good opportunity to toss some. Plus, Christmas is in 3 days. I am sure they will have new stuff.

Ken’s travels have not proven to be successful. So far, he has determined no Matt’s present, so he is going to order it when he gets home for an over night delivery. Fun. He also has had zero luck on the transformers, which isn’t good. He his hitting up a different Toys R Us shortly and hopefully there is some luck. He did find Toy Story Lego, which the boys will love, so this is a good thing. I may have to go to K-Mart on the way home from work.

I wonder how many people are here tomorrow. The number of employees seem to be dwindling already. I can’t believe Christmas is this week! Where did the season go???

No reactions so far to my shot. This is a good thing. This means three quarters of our house is vaccinated. Ken is getting one on the 7th if I overheard correctly.

Bobby says to us yesterday that he had enchiladas at Maria’s and that he loved them. I have been trying to get him to eat enchiladas for some time now. Damn you Maria. I need to get him out as it is driving me nuts. I think part of my vacation will be spent researching local preschools.

I am falling asleep out of pure boredom. I hope I can find some good stuff to download for reading this afternoon.

4 more days

12-21-09

Only 4 more days till I get a much deserved vacation. YAY!!

Friday evening we headed over to Costco. We picked up our first real splurge purchase from Grammie money. We got a Wii and Wii Fit. I am quite jazzed since it will be one of those things that perhaps I am more inspired to use. Especially when my goal for next year is to drop the lbs. Bobby was just jazzed since he loves the bowling game, and apparently boxing. On Saturday he knocked out 5 guys in a row!

Saturday was Ken’s last tournament for the year (I think, if I remembering correctly that is it). The boys slept in till 7:40. You could actually hear Ken’s grumble when I texted him this news. He was annoyed for two reasons. One, that they never sleep in when he is home. And two, I had gotten up when he did, meaning I passed up sleeping in time. In all fairness, I couldn’t sleep anymore, and I am not one of those lie in bed type of gals, even though I love my bed. I might be able to do it if Ken was in there, too, or even the boys, but lying in there alone, I don’t know. Maybe it is just my fear of Stabby Joe.

I was worried that with two rested boys I was in for trouble on Saturday. Luckily, they were fantastic. They watched a movie while I did some chores. We played out back, where they put stickers all over their house. I played fetch with the dogs. It was good.

It would have been nicer if they had actually napped, but I am starting to see that naps are a thing of the past.

We went and got my car washed. The tree I park under has now become a popular hot spot for the local birds and my car looks like hell after just one day. I may need to get a car cover.

I thought that I could be all wonderful mommy by making cake. Ken has these cake molds that are giant Lego bricks. I figured this would be awesome. Turns out, though, you can’t really fill them that much. I made this mistake and when the cook time ended, I opened the oven to find the cake mix not fully cooked, but also oozing out of the mold. Crap! I ended up dumping the half cooked concoction on to cookie sheet to finish the cooking. I was left with a couple of mostly formed bricks in a giant puddle of cake. It still tasted fine according to the boys who each ate a brick and some puddle.

On Friday night, Bobby told me it was time to cut his hair. I assumed he just meant to trim his bangs, but he assured me he wanted it short now. No problem. I told him we could look through hair cut pictures so he could choose one. We looked on Saturday and he found this one simple short cut that would work fine with his hair. He also gravitated towards this one black kid’s hair cut that just looks like the kid was bald and his hair was drawn on with a sharpie. I explained his hair wouldn’t do that.

So on Sunday, I told him that we would go get it done. He was very excited. I of course was torn, but it is his hair, and it would make life easier on all of us.

So after bowling, we went home to look up to see if we could find any of those haircut places where the kid could sit in a car or something. We found some, but opted to just go to Supercuts by our house.

When we were about to get ready to go, Bobby flipped out. I had just had him stand there so I could take a before picture, and I think this stressed him out. I had been trying to be pretty light and fluffy about the whole thing. He was scared it would hurt. He was just nervous. So we didn’t go. The thing is, yes, even though it is his hair, we probably should have pushed him a bit more if only to not let him be coddled when it comes to his irrational fear. Hell, I probably could have cut a lot of it, and then we could go down to the hair cut place to clean it up. It is a difficult situation, especially since he was so dead set on getting it done. He doesn’t normally decide such things. He even repeatedly pointed out the one pic of hair he really liked. I am going to bring it up to him again today to see if the only reason he didn’t do it was fear. This fear should be tackled. He used to flip out (he still does a little) when I cut his toe nails. Yet it doesn’t hurt. He says it doesn’t hurt. He is just afraid it will. I want him to sometimes face his fears, and this is one that is doable. It means we may just need to take him to the fun place as it might help him ease into the hair cut. Either that or maybe I will get my hair trimmed at the same time he gets his cut, giving him a good model. Although that has never helped in the past. We will see.

While the boys were in “nap” on Sunday, Ken and I watched Star Trek. It was quite good. I was a little surprised at how much I enjoyed it. Of course Ken enjoyed it on other levels, but it was nice that it didn’t only play to the Trekkie audience, but everyone. We can now return that one and get the Hangover and Inglorious Basterds. Of course, to get both, we need to return the Luna Christmas movie, which has been played several times now. I guess it will need to be purchased.

Sunday night we went and saw the Christmas lights in the Torrance neighborhood referred to as Sleepy Hollow. I love that place. Seriously, if I win the lottery, I am going to make a bid on this one house there. LOVE IT!

The lights were awesome as always. My parents and Matt came along. My dad was teasing more than normal, and Matt was trying to pick fights, which made me cranky. Ken made a few cracks that I guess were meant to be funny, but I was already frustrated. It didn’t help that when Ken got upset at my lack of humor, I was still stinging from his comment that morning when he said to me that he wanted to know when we could start joking around again. Ouch. I felt like I had turned into Kate Gosselin and that I apparently am the humorless one. I don’t like being told I am too grouchy. Especially when through a good chunk of my days I get taken advantage of with no thanks and yet still manage to be fairly happy. If I am grumpy it is because I am tired. It is because I do everything for everyone and have no appreciation.

Ok, sorry. I have a lot of venting to do, but I think that I will keep it in check right now as I don’t need to be all worked up while I sit here at work.

Ok, one yay note for me. I ordered a dress on Saturday which should arrive tomorrow. It is one of those maxi dresses, which I guess stands for super duper long, which is perfect for what I have been wanting for a while which are skirts that drag on the floor similar to how my jeans do. LOL! I am looking forward to doing some clothes shopping. I need some new tops that go with everything, and gobs of jeans. I may pick up some skirts, too. I am looking for Mommy Chic. I want to look put together, yet still be able to go to a soccer game. Oh, and I still want my style which might include a hat or funky shoes. I picked up some fun ties at the 99 cent store. One is zebra print, one is black and white checked. I also got one that is red with little music notes that are actually skulls. Very excited about these. Especially since it cost me all of $3?

The 99 cent store provided us with adventure and it made me happy that I carry like 30 bandaids in my purse. Ken picked up a little cactus for our neighbor for Christmas. He loves those things. Well, he had it in the basket and he told the boys not to touch. This of course in Bobby speak means to go ahead and grab the damn thing. Ouch! He hurt, and it freaked him out. Plus, he still had gobs of the tiny spikes in his finger. The problem was that he was grabbing his finger, which pushed them in farther. He was panicking, Ken was trying to stop him from getting upset and in the process he was getting frustrated. Finally I was able to calm him enough to be able to use a bandid which we used to pull the stickers out of his finger. Luckily, the process didn’t hurt, and we got them all out. I even had a bandaid to spare in order to make him feel better. It was chaos for 5 minutes, but we got him better. Not fun.

The boys are so funny. I asked Dax on Friday what he wanted to get Bobby for Christmas. Without thinking, he says Optimus Prime. I laughed. I then asked him what he wanted to get Daddy. He says, Megatron. Ok, so then I go and ask Bobby. He says he wants to get Dax Bumblebee, and because someone needs to play Megatron, he wants to get Daddy Megatron. Strange kids, but they both were pretty set on what they wanted for each other. So Ken is going out today to pick up a small action figure of all the characters in question so that they can give these things to each other.

I am zoned out here at work. I am splitting my time between emailing invoices and reading wiki pages on Star Trek. I really hope the day picks up.

Yeah, cause that will be a good Christmas Eve. Apparently I am the only person here in my department on Thursday. Oh, and by the by, the other person? The boss. YUCK!!!

I get my H1N1 shot finally tomorrow. I think I will suggest to Ken we take the boys today to get their other mist.

I half expected them to shut down the business on Christmas Eve. It is going to be super slow, especially being that Christmas is on a Friday this year. So many people take off Christmas Eve to make it a 4 day weekend. Last year I think we closed on the Friday after Christmas since let’s face it, who is coming to work the day after when it is on a Friday.
I think our plan for next Christmas is going up North. We would probably head up the 23rd, stay through Christmas and maybe come home on like the 29th. That is a long time. For our next visit up north, the plan is MLK weekend. I am taking off the Friday and Monday around the weekend. Kind of an extended trip, but not super long. Long enough where I don’t feel like driving for that long with kids is wasted.

My vacation that starts this week will be good. I figure we have Christmas festivities on Friday. Saturday and Sunday will be kids playing with toys. Hell, us playing with toys. I may hit up a shopping sale or two. On Monday, I am hoping to take the boys to daycare with that being the only day we do. They will need to return to some down time and routine after the holiday chaos. Plus, Ken and I are going to go see a movie. Ken says if Avatar is any good, he would like to see that (he is in the theatre right now watching it). Me, though, I would much rather see something else. Something light. Plus, I have to admit, the idea of sitting in a theatre for 3 hours sounds not fun. I don’t care about special effects. If the story is as good as Cameron is making it out to be, I will be fine watching it at home.

As for the rest of next week (Tuesday through the dreaded Monday return to work), I don’t know what we will do. Go to the zoo? Maybe go some other random place. We can go to Disneyland on the 3rd. My mom’s birthday is that day, though, so we will have some plans there. I do just want to be able to be at the house, but I have a feeling we will have gobs of down time that will need to be filled with something other than just being in the back yard.

Perhaps I will be spending gobs of time working out on the Wii. LOL!

Seriously, is it time to go home yet???

I am still a little shocked at the sudden death of Brittany Murphy yesterday. She was this fun actress who was only 32. She apparently died of cardiac arrest after having flu like symptoms the last couple days. Of course, in the next few weeks there will be gobs of info on what happened. But regardless of what killed her, it is still sad. It has been a rough year for celebrities. Poor thing, most of the magazines have already run their tribute issues. She won’t be in one. Next year’s will only cover 2010. Of course, this is the least of her concerns. She is dead, after all. Still sad.

It is always a good thing when people just know that you talk to yourself. Just now, the girl next to me said something that sounded like she was asking me a question. I responded with a “which one? Turned out she was on the phone. So me, noting I sounded like an idiot, went ahead and started yelling at my computer a bit. No one even thinks about it. LOL! I know, it shouldn’t matter, but it is also useful when you have your headset on. People who come to your desk that you don’t want to talk to, you can indicate you are on the phone. Of course, the best reason to talk to yourself is just to mess with people.

Bitty and the Tantrum to end all Tantrums

12-18-09

Aaaahhhhh!!! One more week till Christmas!

Well, what an afternoon!

I headed over to the Holiday Luncheon at work yesterday around noon. Everyone appreciated my holiday spirit with my socks and hat. They had the warehouse set up with a bunch of circle tables. It was very festive.

I sort of expected turkey or something along those lines. Instead, they had these tacos complete with different meats and what not. Clearly we were going for the Feliz Navidad theme. They were quite tasty and had a lot of kick.

I sat at a table with all the people in my department less the boss, Fred and Glenda (Glenda is a Jehovah’s witness so she doesn’t celebrate any of the holidays). What shocked me was the big boss also sat with us. I don’t tend to socialize with him much, but for some reason, the two of us were on fire. Between he and I, we had slammed the hell out everything in the room. We made fun of people, the organization of the event, etc. At one point I asked him where he had found the vodka since clearly he was drinking based on the stuff he was saying. He was quite amused with me. Yay points for Gena!

The baby pictures game seemed to be the bulk of the party. They had all the pics submitted blown up and put on 4 poster boards. They then let everyone take 30 minutes to study them and turn in their answers. I couldn’t do more than 3. There were 35. It was especially hard since we were all crowded around this board and you could hardly see anything. I threw in the towel early. That being said, I enjoyed giving everyone else a hard time when they said they didn’t find me. So I would tell them to go look for Dax. Sure enough, they all came back to me with shock. My baby picture did in fact look like Dax.

Through the whole party, they had a raffle. They gave out gift cards to Ralphs and Starbucks, along with a handful of other things like digital cameras. At the end of the whole event was the grand prize. They read off the first 5 numbers on the ticket, leaving the suspenseful 6th number for a second. She then told us all to stand up who had the first 5 numbers. She then told everyone whose number was 6 and higher to sit down. Wow! I didn’t have to sit down yet. My number was 4. She then slowly said the number. 4! Holy crap!! I won!! I won the grand prize!!!! And it wasn’t too shabby. A Samsung Netbook. Dude, I won a computer! How freaking awesome is that?? I of course shot my hands in the air with my victory scream. I ran up, taking great care in not tripping as that was my big fear. She verified my ticket and handed me my present (it was wrapped up in wrapping paper, and had another package which turned out to be the case for it). I was so excited, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I of course promptly changed my status on Facebook.

When we got back to the office, everyone wanted to see, so I opened it. It is blue and I have named it Bitty. It is so freaking cute! Really, I would have been excited if I had won an orange, but to win a Netbook? Holy hell!

The rest of my day flew by. We didn’t get back to the office until 1:30, and then I ended up chatting with my IT guy for the rest of the afternoon. It was a good way to end my day.

I then headed over to Brandy’s work since she also had a present for me. Boots!! And not just any boots. They are fuzzy pink with zebra stripes. Only the coolest ever!! I am wearing them today, along with my matching hair piece that also happens to be pink. I am rockin today!

With every good thing, there has to be a bad.

We headed out with the boys to Petsmart to get a crate for Luna. We also needed critter kibble, so it was a full adventure. In Petsmart, the boys started to act up. They clearly didn’t want to be confined to a store right then. I ended up taking them to the car while Ken paid. Both pitched a fit, Dax specifically. When they started saying they wanted Daddy, my heart broke. In hindsight, I think they just thought we were leaving Daddy at the store. But at the time, I felt like perhaps I was too strict.

We still had to go to Target since litter is cheaper there. Dax really liked that we were going to Target. Both boys seemed happy and excited. We went in, and started doing our shopping. One wonderful thing that happened is that clearly Target made a mistake and had out Toy Story Lego way early, so we snatched up 3 boxes.

Dax and Bobby were sitting in one of the kid carts where they can both sit in there. Dax kept pushing Bobby with his legs. So finally I told him that was it and took a screaming Dax to the car.

Now when I say screaming, I am not explaining it correctly. This kid turned into a banshee. He screamed, he cried, he head butted me, he kicked, he squirmed, he was basically just crazy. I could hardly carry him, and he wouldn’t walk. I stayed calm in my trek back to the car. At one point he lost a shoe, and I ended up removing both of his shoes which I think may of, if it is possible, worse.

Of course, it was the one day I parked crazy far away, therefore, causing it to be insanely exhausting. Dax is strong. Like crazy retard strong. It is not fun.

I got him to the car, and he flailed around on the pavement for a while. In hindsight, I should have let him cool off there. Sure, he would have gotten dirty, but there were no other cars, and I wouldn’t of had to deal with the next part.

I put him in the car seat, where his little body promptly stiffened up and slid down the front. It would be another 10 minutes before I finally won.

The kid kicked, hit, screamed and showed me that my car seats even when fastened are no match for the incredible hulk. At one point I pinned his arm when he hit me and I freaked out that I was being too rough. Another point, he got his finger pinched on the buckle, which gave me 5 seconds of him not fighting me, so that gave me enough time to get the bottom buckled. He was screaming so much he ended up throwing up on my shirt a bit. It was in fact the tantrum of all tantrums.

I was half expecting someone to show up and take him away from me. Especially since he kept telling me to leave him alone, which might look like I was abducting him or something. I was relieved when no one approached.

I finally got him secure, him still screaming and I went and sat down in the driver’s seat. I was sore. My arms hurt from trying to keep him from flailing while I put his arms into each seat belt. He stopped crying enough for me to offer him some water. He was coughing up stuff from the crying, and I figured this might calm him down. It did.

Ken and Bobby emerged from Target maybe 5 minutes after I had him buckled in. My whole ordeal with him was 20 minutes of crazy.

We got home and got the boys fed. Dax had lost show privileges and story because of the tantrum. Bobby also lost show and one story since he wasn’t listening. They were both devastated. Luckily, I had a dirty Dax room that needed cleaning, and by bribing them with the show, they cleaned the room. I am now thinking this is the last time I will use this since they need to clean their rooms no matter what.

The good news is, both boys fell asleep pretty quickly. Shoot, Dax at the very least couldn’t possibly have any energy left. I know I didn’t.

We then set to crate training. Ken sat with the squirt bottle on the ready while Luna sat in her crate. Every time she barked, he squirted. She was pretty soaked by the time I let her out to pee. But over night, I don’t remember hearing her whine or bark, so this seems promising. We put her crate next to Lycos’ crate in the living room for the time being. Tomorrow when I clean house, I am going to make arrangements for her to be in our room. Maybe even Dax’s, but I don’t know yet.

I also colored my hair. I used my $5 clearance hair color. It claimed to be Nice and Easy, but there was nothing Nice or Easy about it. First off, my arms hurt from the Dax adventure, so coloring my hair was rough. Second, this brand seemed to get everywhere. Normally my scalp doesn’t look like it was dyed. This stuff was on my ears, my scalp, my arms, everywhere. It was crazy. I still have a little brown spot on my finger that didn’t come off. Luckily, when I washed my hair this morning (which I don’t normally do after a coloring), the scalp and most of the other spots came out. My hair is dark, this is for sure. I don’t know how even it is as I have it up in a bun today. The bangs look ok, though. It will lighten as the time goes on, so that will make it better overall I think.

The boss is in early. It came in at 7:30 which I can safely say is not good. I might be wrong, in which case, I will be ok with being wrong.

I did spent the first 45 minutes of my morning talking to my IT guy, just bullshitting about everything from work injustices to his wife’s desire to get the lap band. Super entertaining.

My throat has gotten to the point of crazy pain. Last night I couldn’t even talk 100%. In the middle of a sentence, my voice would disappear and my throat was stinging. It sucked! So I spent much of the night whispering.

Apparently there is some crazy sale down at the convention center where they have gobs of stuff for like 70% off. I am tempted to check it out, but I know it will be a zoo. Plus, impulse sale buying isn’t good. Just because a pair of $300 pants is marked down to say $70 doesn’t mean you should spend $70 on a pair of pants. Then again, what if you find that cool toy that is normally $100 and it is now $20? That might be worth it. It is so hard to say. Ken told me if I happen to sneak out at like noon we can go. LOL!

I think today, though, needs to be spent at home. I want to get home, get into jammies, get the boys, turn them lose in the yard with the dogs, and maybe bbq hot dogs and hang out. Tomorrow is going to be tiring because it is just the boys and me. I have some shopping adventures I want to do with them, but that will be ok since I think if we go early enough, it will tire them out and we can enjoy nap time again. Ken won’t be home till probably close to 6, maybe 7. Hmmm…I might take the kids to my parent’s house and let them watch them for a couple hours and maybe I will run up to the mall and get what I need, then my parents get a fix and I get a break. Hmmmmm…..

Ok, people are idiots. Especially at my work. This chick comes up to me to ask me about a report. Basically the boss asked her for a report. Ok, first off, boss is dumb since I am the one who does most of the reports and one of 2 people here that know how to do them, and she isn’t the other one. Plus, he has to know by now that she will just ask me. Fine. So she asks. The details of what she wants are vague at best. She wants credits only issued for customer out of this one office. Apparently our one division (which has since merged with the whole company and therefore should not keep being treated as a different division) thinks they issue too many credits. Ok, seems reasonable, but the only problem is, credits don’t get coded like that. So I explain this to her. She is confused. She is dead sure I can run this since she says I send it each month. I realize that she now is thinking my little listing of OPEN credits must be every single credit ever issued. She is clearly retarded. I point this out to her (not the retarded part, just the part about it not being all credits) and she still doesn’t get it. She wants me to call and tell the boss this. Here is where all bets are off with me. Look, if he wants you to do it, it is on you my friend. And then if you go on to pretty much tell me I am wrong, don’t let the door hit you on the behind. I point out that really, when you get right down to it, AR shouldn’t even worry about this in the first place. We don’t issue credits. The fucking sales department does. And it is sales who wants to know! So tell sales to fucking run a report on what credits they issue and leave us the hell alone. She started to ask me to tell them this but I think she may have felt the sudden drop in temperature when I glared at her and she high tailed it on out of here.

Just 35 more hours and I get 9 days off. I can do it!

I just gorged myself on left over Chinese food. It is no wonder I am such a fat load. Thank goodness the Wii and Wii Fit are on sale at Costco for like $300 total. I am very excited about this and plan on doing it a little each day. I will work on food consumption later. First, exercise. Then I can get better about everything.

Yay! Time for clocking out. That means I only have a little bit longer here! Woo hoo!!

Another slightly early day

12-17-09

Ok, ready for the holiday party. I have Santa socks and my Santa hat. My outfit aside from that is slightly annoying since the skirt is the wrong kind, but it is what it is. So now I have to wait like 6 hours.

We ended up going to Disneyland last night. Since Roy died yesterday, we thought it appropriate. We ended up going over to Toon Town last night. We took the train over and headed in. They loved it. We went into Mickey’s house, where you actually got some face time with the big cheese himself. They take your picture with Mickey and they have this little card that you can then go download the photo. Totally cool! Mickey gave the boys hugs, and kissed and hugged me, which was strange but awesome. The boys were a little hesitant at first to meet the giant mouse, but they warmed up quickly.

We went on the Chip and Dale roller coaster. As we waited in line, they watched it zoom over us and they looked so excited. I have never seen them look so giddy. As we went up the hill, Dax was almost shaking with excitement. Then the fast part came on, and he was screaming YAY!!!! His face was ear to ear grin. Bobby was giggling hysterically. Clearly, we found what makes them happy. Ken and I were laughing so hard when we got off just due to how funny it was to see the boys so happy.

We explored a bit of Toon Town, hitting up the mini jail and letting the boys push buttons and turn the knobs to get all the sound effects. We also went on the Roger Rabbit ride, which they seemed overwhelmed with. There is so much to see in those rides, they barely have time to get all giddy like in the roller coaster.

It was now 6:30 or so, and this meant it was time to get going. We took the train back. We were going to take the tram to the parking lot. The lines were insane, with what looked like not enough trams running. I asked if we could walk, and Ken agreed. As we were walking away, we noted this empty tram with a few people starting to get on. So we also hopped on the tram. Clearly we were loading up when we should not be. But a bunch of other folks jumped on, filling up our car. We figured if they kicked us off, no worries, we could still walk.

Then a kid who was probably 10, that was in the group in our car, jumped out of the tram and proceeded to vomit. Fun. Luckily it was mostly dry heaves since I am pretty sure I didn’t need to see puke. Poor kid, though. He had all these people looking at him as he was sick. It was around this time the tram operator came back and shooed us all out of the tram. Oh well.

We walked to the lot, with a whiny Bobby and Dax the whole way. They complained of being hungry and tired. If they were tired, it means we don’t walk enough. I doubt they were as tired as they said as I have seen them run for 3 hours straight. Hungry, well, I could cut them some slack. It was almost 2 hours past dinner for them.

We stopped and got some food and got us all home. Bobby lost his show for the night since he just continues to not listen to me when I tell him to stop doing something. So the punishment has started to get harsher since it is the only thing that seems to make him understand.

I am relatively sure I am going to have a boring morning. I am tired. Although, I wonder if I need to deal with some idiots this morning.

So far it has in fact been a mellow morning. My schedule is all off because Kevin and Bean are out until next year. They still play best of, but their breaks are different and I kind of have been tuning out on the bits I have heard a million times. I also spent 20 minutes talking to MaryAnn about the care her mother is getting at this rehabilitation center. All I can say is, I hope my parents never have to be in one. It is horrible. She is 90 and broke her hip. She got some rod in her leg. This facility was to help her walk again and take care of her for a month while she healed. They are discharging her Saturday after telling MaryAnn and her sister very little, including neglecting to tell them that in fact her walking progress has gotten worse (they told them it had reached a plateau), got her convinced it is ok to use a diaper, and continued to give her stool softeners despite the fact that she had diarrhea. They are appealing it all, but honestly, I don’t know why you would fight to keep her in this place when they suck. I might be trying harder to find a new facility before Saturday so that you can get her some place that will actually care for her instead of just angering the folks at the place that already doesn’t seem to give a rat’s ass.

Ok, I just called in for a costume change. I texted Ken to see if he could bring me my other dress that would go better with what I am wearing. I am 3 hours into my day, and I am getting a costume change!! How lame am I??? Pretty lame. LOL!!

I found out that Grammie may have split her money up unevenly. My mom mentioned on the phone yesterday that my brother didn’t get the same amount as I did, and that in fact, the check my parents got was for them and Matt, and their check was the same amount as my check. At first, I was pretty annoyed with this. If you are going to give money to all the grandkids, don’t pick and choose favorites. I also know it probably upset my mom a bit in its reinforcing tone of picking me over Matt. I mentioned this to Brandy, and she pointed out that really, it wasn’t any of our place to get upset. It is Grammie’s money, after all and if she wants to give it all to a favorite rock in a park, that is her deal. I don’t need to worry about Matt in terms of him say being jealous of the money I got. I know my mom won’t tell him the amount, and Matt still sees he got some money, so that is all that matters in his eyes. I may worry too much about things being fair.

I am trying to teach my kids that life isn’t fair, so I suppose I need to adhere to that advice. I am buying Christmas presents for them, making sure they each have the same number of presents. It won’t always be the same. I might get Dax 2 little things and Bobby one big thing. I need to be ok with that, which in turn will teach them it is ok to be ok with that. They are still young enough to not count out who has more. But they are old enough to see, hey, Bobby got a Transformer, so why didn’t Dax. Yeah, it is that kind of complicated in my head.

Crap. So I am looking up the Optimus Prime toys and they don’t really have one that “matches” the Bumblebee Dax has. I am now left wondering if I get them both new ones so that they are matching. Arrggghhh! But I really don’t need more freaking blooping and bleeping toys in my house. Did I mention the elephants?

Yeah, the freaking elephants Grammie got them have been trumpeting so much I actually told the boys at one point I was about to start supporting poachers.

While on our way to Disneyland, Bobby yells out, “Look at the giant fag, mom!”

“Honey, you need to work on your “L” please.”

Ken brought me my costume change. I am so much happier in this. I feel more comfortable. He also asked me to bring my keys out when I came. I got out there and he says that he thought his sweatshirt was in the car. I then pointed out it was on me. LOL!

I am starving!! And I can’t eat for another 90 minutes!! Grrr!!

All is right with the universe. I found peanuts at my desk. Yum!

One hour till party time. I think I will head over a smidge early. Would rather not have to sit next to folks I can’t stand. It is a day like today I really miss all my old peeps that are not here anymore.

wow

12-16-09

So I did in fact ditch yesterday. In retrospect, I should not have left as early. Mostly because as feared, I didn’t do much. I got home, and Ken and I went straight to Office Depot to get paper. Not tons exciting. We got home where I ended up, well, doing work. I helped count out stacks of flyers for Ken’s school while we watched Doctor Oz. I was pleased that in his segment on the 3 most misdiagnosed ailments in women, I guessed the right diagnosis with the symptoms in 2 out of 3. Yay me!

We went out to the school to take the flyers. I found myself thinking about when I will take Bobby to his first day of school next year. I am going to be such a baby!

We ended up going to my parent’s house with the boys a little earlier. This worked out well since my dad ended up playing with the boys outside while Ken and I sat inside and visited with Grammie. My mom wasn’t home yet. It was a nice conversation, especially since really, I don’t talk with her much. Ken, who had been talking with her before I turned the kids loose, said that it was the longest conversation he had ever had with her. It was good, also, since I am pretty sure she was happy to get to talk with us, and it meant even after my mom got home, she could spent time with the kids instead of entertaining her mother, which is something she isn’t as happy to do.

We went to dinner at the Big Wok where I proceeded to eat way too much. But seriously, it is so freaking good! We went back to the house for Grammie to give some presents to the boys. She got them jammies, a little camera, a book and this cool play set filled with an incredibly noisy elephant, gorilla island rock formation, and gobs of trees and people who all go together. It is pretty sweet, actually. We have not opened them both (they each got the set), thinking that the elephant was enough to take out for now. We probably should have left the elephant in there since all we heard the whole way home was the trumpeting of those damn pachyderms.

What was the most shocking and unexpected event of the night came in the present Grammie presented to us grownups. She had sold her property in Clear Lake, and opted to give her surviving children and grandchildren a cut now. I am one of those folks who doesn’t like to open the envelope with money in it from family until later since I always think it is rude to look. But when my mom looked, and then went, “Oh my goodness!” I had to take a peak. Let’s just say that it was quite generous and quite helpful to us right now. She told Ken at one point that she would much rather give us money now while she is still alive so she can see what we do with it rather that give it to us when she is dead. That makes sense. Ken assured her that some of the money was going to go towards me getting some new clothes since we have been unable to really afford that. One of the things that I will be doing this morning is making the “wish list” for how to spend said money. Yes, some will go into savings and we don’t plan on blowing it all at once, but I would like to get a few things that we had wanted. She wants a full report, so I am hoping to write her up some fun stuff on what we do.

Coming up with a list of things is interesting. I still find myself being a little frugal. I have a couple of high ticket items, but I can tell you I don’t even feel comfortable with getting those!

I am sick. I hate this. Stupid cold has been circling for a couple days now and it has finally started to attack. My throat was killing me last night, and now I am all congested and icky. I am also exhausted. I woke up last night to random elves singing songs. I couldn’t figure out where it came from. I finally determined it wasn’t elves, it was Ken’s iPod playing through the headphones that had fallen out of Ken’s ears after he fell asleep. I was not thrilled with this. I finally fell back asleep when Ken hit my side. I guess he had heard a kid and was getting up and he accidentally hit me, which woke me right up. It was a crazy night.

Ken and Dax were on hold with KROQ for Dax to talk to Santa Karl (Jimmy Kimmel doing a Karl Malone impersonation where he talks to kids as Santa, and it is funny. He makes fun of the kids, who of course have no idea what he is talking about). The phone hung up on them. Ken was very frustrated. I am sad since I know Dax would have been funny on the radio!

I think I need to actually break down and color my hair this evening. There is talk of us going to Disneyland tonight to go to Toon Town since our blackout days keep us from visiting the park from the 18th through the 2nd. We are thinking it would be fun to go, since it will be just a quick trip. We will see how I feel, though. In reality, it would be fine to not go. We can let them run out back with the dogs. Lord knows we be going to Disneyland a lot.

I am so zoned out today. Once again, I don’t feel like working. I will force myself here shortly.

Ok, I did some work, I can stop now, right? LOL!

My list of items is now pretty long. Some of the things are just minor like getting a crate for Luna. One of the things is to get the PT fixed so we have an additional car. Since they are just ideas right now, it is nice because I can look at them and see what is most important.

My coworker just yells out to me to see if I was eating. I said no, so she just came over and decided I needed to help her on something. Wouldn’t it make more sense to ask if I am busy as opposed to seeing if I was eating? Especially since I tend to help people regardless of if I am eating lunch. Sheesh.

Dammit! This broad is a fucking tard. She has been here like 18 years, yet she doesn’t know something simple like how to look up to see what check cleared a fucking invoice?????? God Dammit. She is the one they chose not to lay off? Are you for fucking reals?

Clearly I have lost my patience for the idiots of the world.

Early

12-15-09

Nothing better, by the way, than Kevin and Bean this morning taking caller 20 to win tickets to both night one and night two to the Almost Acoustic Christmas. They got the guy on the line, and he was so jazzed. So Bean throws in back stage passes. The caller is over the moon, so happy. Then Bean says, “So is your time machine working?” The caller is clearly confused when Bean then says, “Well, you know the concerts were this past weekend, right?” I am so glad I was at a red light. I was dying. It was so mean, and so cold, and yet oh so very freaking funny. This guy said he has been trying to win them now for a couple weeks. If he was so excited to go, don’t you think he should know when it was????? Bravo, Bean. Bravo KROQ. Bravo to you stupid, ignorant listener. You all made my morning.

It was an interesting afternoon. I picked up the boys and sat in my living room with wild boys and wild dogs for about 15 minutes. It was crazy, but cool to see all 4 of them so happy to see me and each other. This is when it turned ugly.

Dax, who has been in full diva mode that last few weeks, broke into a whine about wanting milk with a lid. I equate this to wanting only the brown M&M’s. I explained to him I would get him some later, but that in order for it to happen, he needed to ask me politely. He grouched a bit and proceeded to say, “I want milk with a lid!” every 2 minutes in the most aggravating voice ever. Finally I turned to him and said that if he asked again, he would have to spend some time in his room.

“I want milk with a lid” he grumbled under his breath.

I promptly picked him up and took him to his room, him screaming the whole way. I set him down on his bed, where he flopped around like a fish until he was on the ground. I closed the door behind me.

I started to get out of my work clothes when I heard Bobby trying to scold Luna for her constant nips. I went into the living room and did my alpha dog routine, to which Luna promptly stopped her shenanigans. I showed Bobby that he had to be boss, but to make sure to still pet and praise Luna when she calmed down. Luna gladly let Bobby scritch her and I found myself sitting on the floor, playing with Luna and Bobby, both of whom took turns on who got to sit on my lap.

Since I was in the midst of changing, I had on my jeans, bra and socks. The bra and the socks were of great interest to Bobby. He questioned the design of the bra and commented on the hole in my sock. We then ended up sitting there and he asked me 100 questions while I answered them. His first topic was more on my socks.

“You will need to get new socks mom.”

“I know. Daddy might be able to sew these, though.”

“Where is the missing piece?”

“There isn’t something missing, they just ripped so it made the hole.”

“Oh. Well, when your feet grow, we will get you new socks.”

“But my feet will not grow anymore. I am all grown up.”

“But you are not a giant!”

“I won’t be, either.”

“I will. I am going to be a giant.”

“Cool!”

He asked me about where Lycos came from. He asked me where Luna came from and wondered what happened to her mommy. He wanted to know why dogs don’t go on the cat tree. He wanted to know why dog licks are dog kisses. He wanted to know why cat kisses end up being head bonks. It was one of those priceless conversations that I enjoyed very much.

We opted to get up and go help Dax clean his room, since apparently in the morning it was trashed. Bobby ran into Dax’s room and told him he was there to help clean up. I was securing the dogs when Bobby came out and tells me Dax doesn’t want to clean. I went in and explained to Dax we needed to clean his room. He stomped up and down a few times, and I quietly closed the door. I told Bobby to not worry about it and that I appreciated his help and told him he could watch a show. He was quite happy to be able to pick the show without having to run it by Dax first.

I set Bobby up and then went into Dax’s room. I sat him on the bed and started talking to him, trying to find out what the deal was. He was upset, but he was ok with talking it out. I was able to lighten the mood when I noted that on his bed was every pair of underwear he owned. He had taken them out and lined them all up on the bed. So I asked him, “what’s the deal with the underwear, kid?” “I am counting them!” Seems reasonable. So we counted them, which made him super happy. I told him that if he at least put those away, that he could then finish cleaning after dinner and that he could come watch the elf show with Bobby. He was more than happy with this.

Ken got home and we had dinner. I found that I had recorded Underdog and Bobby seemed to really enjoy it. He has gotten old enough now that he likes movies that are not just animated. Also, talking animals seem to rock.

Dax got bored, which I so understand. He kept standing in front of the tv and being loud. So I told him to go get in his jammies so we could clean his room. He had a fit. I had to do another time out approach, and then I went back in to talk to him. He was just grumpy. He kicked at me, which was not cool, especially since he had tried to head butt me earlier. I didn’t appreciate the violence. Especially since what he has been doing is the thrash approach, then he knows I leave him alone, and he calms down instantly and goes back to playing. Not this time. I told him it was time to get undressed to get into his jammies. He pitched the fit, so this time, I pinned him down. Nothing bad, just kind of laid on top of him, making sure he couldn’t kick or hit me. He then just sat there and yelled.

After a couple minutes of ear piercing screams, I would ask him if he was done. If he wasn’t, he would say no, and proceed to yell some more. If he was, I would release him and we would move towards another task. We did this 2 or 3 times. Finally, he was in jammies, and I told him, he could clean, or he could go straight to bed, no story. He said bed, so I started to tuck him in. I said goodnight, and he said, “Story!!!” I explained to him the deal, so he quickly agreed to clean up his room.

In the clean up process, he calmed down significantly. He was pretty cheerful when he climbed into bed. We read a story, and when we were done, he turns to me, and says, “Mom, can you talk to me?”

“Sure, kid, what do you want to talk about.”

“I don’t know.”

“You want to tell me about your day?”

“YEAH!”

So I asked him what he did today. He told me about making stockings and trees, and then says, “Um..and what are those round things?” “Wreaths?” “No.” “Ornaments?” “YEAH!”

It was a nice talk. He was so happy to just chit chat. It made me quite happy since it means he really likes our little talks we normally have before bedtime. I also just loved that I had two wonderful conversations with my kids. You could see them growing up despite the tantrums and whining.

In addition to all of that, Luna and Lycos spend a lot of time really fighting over my attention. They were both nudging my arm so that they could get me to pet them. And when we sat down to watch HIMYM after the kids were asleep, Luna happily ran over to sleep at my feet. She likes it when I sit in my chair and cover up with my blanket. She feels that the only thing missing is puppy on feet. It is very cute. If only Monarch could get over puppy issues, because then I would be complete.

Don’t feel to bad about him. He sleeps on me all night and still is my police escort when I go to the bathroom. He also has resumed his habit of showering. Right before I get in the shower, he comes up on the edge and I cover him in some water. When he feels he is wet enough, he lets me get in and he goes and cleans himself off. I have a very clean, and very strange cat.

I should have used my straightener today. Oh well.

I am considering ducking out a smidge early here. With the boss gone, I might even be able to leave an hour or so early. It isn’t like I am super swamped today. I am just thinking of using the time to go hang out with Ken. I might just wrap some presents, too. Don’t know, yet. When I talk to Ken, I will get a better idea of his schedule. He doesn’t have classes today, but he may have a bunch of things he has to take care of. Apparently Grammie will also be at my parents’ house this afternoon at 2, so maybe we will go over early. My mom just emailed me (gotta love technology when I am now emailing my mom!) to let me know the plan. So I am thinking noon? We will see.

Nothing funnier than trying to explain to my dad the point of status updates on Facebook. In all fairness, it all does seem a little silly. Who really cares when someone just watched a good show or just had a yummy dinner? The problem is, I know I care. So to explain why you care to a guy who doesn’t even like having a cell phone, and who refuses to get call waiting on their land line, is extremely difficult. The plus side is that at least he thinks it is all funny.

My dad has taken to signing up every year for a “letter from Santa” sent to the boys. It is a form letter that has a couple of personal things you include in there. I read the letters to the boys, who don’t quite get it yet, but I am saving them since I know they will appreciate it later. This year, I am amused that my dad put in both letters for the boys to say hello to Lycos and Luna. My dad has never remembered my cats’ names. Ever. He doesn’t like cats too much. He is such a dog guy. I think that he didn’t nag me much on getting another dog because secretly he really likes Luna. He has always liked Lycos (the feeling is quite mutual. The only person Lycos likes better than my dad is Ken’s dad. You should have seen that dog try to get to Papa Brenan when they came to our house before Disneyland. She tried to jump over the couch.) and so another dog seems ok. Don’t get me wrong, he pets the cats when he is over. He is an animal person that doesn’t want to be. He grew up with cats, dogs, a skunk, etc. I know that he has it in him since all of his kids love animals. I have them, Doug has lots, and I am sure if Matt was allowed to, he would have some. I know my mom likes them fine enough, but apparently she has lost her love of them. I wonder if that is why my dad has kind of gotten away from them. My dad cried when Panda died. I still feel like that was one of the hardest things in my life that I had to experience. So I wonder if my dad doesn’t want to have to say goodbye to an animal again, or if he just doesn’t want the initial hassle of worrying about a dog.

I have it in my head now that I am leaving at noon.

It is hard to explain to someone that even though, yes, you have a great family at home, and love and happiness surrounding you that sometimes it is possible to feel alone and sad. My plan is this next year to take steps to just correct it since I am finding that bitching about it is getting me nowhere.

I don’t tend to make lists of resolutions, but I have decided to do so. Here is my list so far:

1) lose 50 pounds-I know I need to lose more than that, but I think I need to be reasonable and start slow. If I lose more, great! This one obviously includes lots of little goals like more exercise and eating better.
2) Have a party/bbq at my house where I invite more than just my parents.
3) Have a date night with Ken at least once every 2 months-This is one of those ones where once again, I think should probably happen even more, but, if I don’t set my goal to high, I will probably meet it.
4) Enroll Bobby in preschool.
5) Have a kick ass birthday party. I am turning 35, so I feel like I should really celebrate, right?


I am starting with 5. I have gobs more stuff I would like to do, but I don’t want to set myself up for failure.

I am quite pleased that Bobby uses the word “apparently” and always uses it correctly.

Would it be wrong to leave now? Yes. It is only 7:30. I can’t leave yet. The earliest I can leave is 10. Really, if I left now, I would end up not doing the things I should be doing. I need to change the oil in my car (so does Ken), I need to wrap presents. I need to clean up my bedroom more, I need to clean the kitchen (although it is Ken’s turn) and I need to do some other light chores. But I would get home, sit in front of the computer, and do nothing. Lame! I talk to Ken in about an hour and a half. I will find out his deal then.

Ok, just been texting with Ken. He only has a couple things he has to do, but I can go with him. As long as I come home after 9, I will not interfere with the kids thinking I am home for them. Is that sad? Actually, I take it as a compliment that they are that happy to see me.

Well, if I am heading out, I suppose I should post this before I go. I think right now I am targeting 9:30 ish. Especially since I have not let anyone know yet. I now need an excuse. Hmm…Ken’s car broke? That might work. I would say H1N1 dose for the boys, but I may need to use that later. Then again, I will probably do their second dose in the afternoon after work anyway, so perhaps that is the plan. We will see.

Poo and vomit warning

12-14-09

Happy Birthday, Scott, and to his little girl Madelyn who turns one today!

It was a crazy weekend.

Friday evening, Dax and I went to the grocery store while Ken and Bobby flipped his bed. I don’t know how it came up, but it was pointed out to Bobby that his bed also is a bunk bed. So they turned it over and got it all set up. He was so excited. It was like Christmas came early!

Dax and I did quite a bit of grocery shopping. Luckily, we didn’t hit too many crowds. He was once again thrilled at being by himself since it meant that I would gladly use one of the car carts that he loves so much.

That night was a rough night. Sleep never really took place.

Saturday morning, I got up with the boys and let them watch Santa Buddies. We rented it because it is filled with 5 Luna puppies. It was less offensive than I had expected, and my girly tendencies got me all teary at all the right parts.

While the boys did this, and I got ready and did some light chores, Ken ran out to Toys R Us to pick up the bikes. Luckily, Facebook rules. There was a Facebook Fan Coupon up the night before in which all bikes on Saturday only were 30% off. Woo hoo! So Ken managed to get two of the Lightning McQueen bikes.

He got back and the 4 of us went over to my parents’ house. My mom had all the cookie stuff already out. She had trays of round cookies, little men, bears, trees, etc. The boys also had their set up which had the sprinkles of varying colors, marshmallows, frosting, etc. It was like we were in the Willy Wonka factory.

The boys actually decorated for much longer than last year. It was a lot of dumping and us prompting, but they had more patience than last year. I decorated quite a bit, but that is because I love this. It is one of the few things that I actually could do for a couple hours.

Then came then melt down. Bobby at one point took his knife to put some frosting on a cookie. Instead of adding it to the cookie, he shoved it in his mouth. I laughed, and pointed out that this was not where the frosting goes. The whole lot of us were laughing, but really, none of us thought twice about it. Until Bobby burst into tears. He was embarrassed that we laughed. He did the full melting, where he didn’t want to look at anyone, and when he held onto you, his deep sobs shook your soul. It was horrible. Ken took him into the other room to calm him down. I felt bad since I was the one who pointed it out. I also felt bad I wasn’t the one calming him down.

We continued to decorate. Bobby came back, but never decorated anything else. It was ok, since Dax lost his interest soon after. So my mom took them down and showed them some games she found on this web site.

After the cookies, and some game time, the boys were given the little trays they had with the cookie decorations. They proceeded to eat all of the stuff on the trays. I knew this would happen. I even made sure they ate a decent breakfast since I knew lunch would consist of processed sugar. They wolfed down gobs of marshmallows, to which I told my mother when she presented them with more that I would be sure to bring her the bag of vomit.

We headed home where the boys actually asked for a sandwich, which surprised me. They ate and headed for nap. The nap never happened. They just dinked around in their room.

While they were “napping”, I headed out to Target for Christmas shopping. I arrived and ended up being forced into the main lot due to the traffic. I didn’t expect to find anything, and even noticed a couple of spots in the far away lot, so I made my way towards that. However, on my way, a spot shockingly opened up right at the front. I had not cared where I parked, but when everything is parked up, you take what you can get, right? I parked and headed in.

It was a bit of a mad house. I went to get soccer balls. A week before, they had 6 or 7 varieties and colors, and really, I didn’t expect it to be a hot ticket item. They had maybe 2 balls left, and they were pink. I dug a little behind some things and found 2 more, good ones, but they were the more pricey of the ones I had seen. I was annoyed. I came across these fake soccer ball sets, where it is a squish type ball that also comes with a goal. They were $10 each, so we opted to pick up those for the boys. We will get real soccer balls another time.

I picked up Dax’s Thomas Lego set. Ken had some cool Bionicle sets for Bobby that he will love. I got them books, I got them some other little things like games. I even got Ken’s present. In all actuality, it was a pretty successful trip. Not bad lines, and it all was easy. This of course was until I got to my car.

It had started raining again. I tossed the stuff in the car quickly and jumped in. I then was stuck in my car in the spot for 15 minutes. No joke. I was in the main row where everyone decided to drive down to leave. So no one would let me out. I was stuck!! I was pissed! To make matters worse, it seems as though the entire store was leaving. It was all very strange. I finally had an opening and was able to escape.

We opted to take the boys to McDonald’s that night. They had gobs of energy that needed releasing. Since it was raining out, they couldn’t go out there. I didn’t need them sprinting through the house, either. We opted to go to a different McDonald’s. It was an adventure.

When we arrived, it was packed. It was filled with the guests from a birthday party. However, not long after we got there, they all left. We were left with a handful of kids. Most were fine except the two I had to yell at for throwing their hot wheels cars down the slide (one hit Dax). Once they left, the group was small, but it had the twins.

Sigh.

These two little boys, who were probably a year older than Bobby were out of control. It is one thing to have a kid who plays rough. It is another when there are two of them siblings and hell bent on being crazy. Oh, and for good measure, let’s add a dash of parents who don’t pay attention, and instead play cards while their sons steal toys, knock other kids down, and be a general nuisance. Of course, my kids decided to play with them.

For the most part, they held their own. But on a couple of occasions, their rough housing sent the boys back to us crying. On the plus side, the twins did seem to understand when the boys came to us. At one point, a twin and Dax were bumping bellies (yeah, I know, it makes no sense, but both were giggling like school girls), and the twin accidentally knocked Dax down. I was impressed with how quickly the twin apologized.

At one point, we heard crying. We determined it was not one of ours, but knew someone was crying in the structure. Of course, grownups can barely get up there, so if a kid is really stuck, it would take a lot to get up there. The crying child was identified, and we saw him in a tube. His parents saw him, and the mom told us it was his first time at one of these, and he was likely lost. So we asked Bobby and Dax to go find the little boy. Bobby didn’t bat an eye. He shot up the structure, looking for Shane. Dax tried, but was a little confused at his assignment. Bobby emerged a few minutes later, and Shane was close behind. He did it! Bobby did tell us after that he couldn’t find him, but I think what happened was Bobby didn’t realize this was the kid, and Shane saw that Bobby seemed to know his way around, and proceeded to follow him out. Shame seemed super shy, but in awe of Bobby the rest of the night. It was very cute. Turned out that Shane was only a couple weeks older than Dax. His parents were very sweet.

Actually, those parents, and another lady there with her friend’s kids were all nice. I never chit chat with other parents, but I liked these folks. It was nice to see people attentive, especially when the twins’ parents were still off in a corner, not watching their kids once again steal another toy from a kid.

We knew something was up with Dax early on. He kept telling us he was hungry. Yet he wouldn’t touch his food. He was thirsty, and drank lots of milk and water. He also looked sad and out of sorts. At one point, he got on the bench and laid his head on me.

It was a little after 6, so we decided to head out. As we drove into our neighborhood, it was dark. Clearly, power was out. Crap. It had been out for about 10 minutes, and ended up being out for at least another 40 minutes. Not fun.

Since there was no power, we told the boys that they could sleep in the bunk bed together. Bobby on top, Dax on the bottom. They liked this idea. We got them all set up, all cozy and lanterns on in their room (thank goodness we have those LED lanterns!). I was maybe 7 pages in on the Lorax when Dax started crying out of control. I had noted when I got him dressed at how bloated he seemed. I hoped that all he needed to do was poo or toot or something. I even told him that was probably the case. He and Bobby did have a glass of milk while I read to them. I think I am thankful for Dax’s sake that he had milk for what happened next.

I got down to him and next thing you know, vomit. I had already started to pull back the covers to see what was up. He seemed in pain (which clearly he was). It was quite a bit that came up. I got him up quickly, and Ken came running in with towels and a paper bag in case there was more. Note to other parents, one paper grocery bag will not hold vomit.

Ken and I switched duties on this round of sick kid. Normally, I am the one who puts them in the tub and gets them all cleaned up while Ken handles the cleanup of bedding. This is mostly because Ken has a weaker stomach for vomit than me. So if Dax were to throw up again, he would have to deal with that, which isn’t good. You might think that clean up of bedding is worse since there is already vomit, but you can walk away from that if need to. You can’t walk away from the spewing 3 year old.

We opted to put him in his own bed at this point. If he was truly sick, there was no point in keeping Bobby up all night. He was a little upset at this, but went to sleep pretty quickly after this. Thank goodness!! Of course, Bobby was a little off from this, but thankfully he was so tired he also passed out. Oh, and by the by, we did all this by the light of flashlights and lanterns. Good times.

Power came back up right after. Figures.

As if kid vomit wasn’t bad enough, earlier we also had puppy vomit. Turned out, Luna got out while we were making Christmas cookies. We had left her and Lycos in the house due to the rain. Our gate must not have been latched since Luna got out of the living room and proceeded to raid the dog food container. When we arrived home, we had a giant, round puppy. Crap!

At first we didn’t realize it was kibble she had eaten. We thought she had gotten into something worse based on how giant her abdomen was. I quickly googled it and yes, she had bloat. We found some vomit, which was essentially a giant pile of kibble. All of the symptoms and signs pointed to our puppy having over eaten. Not good. Especially since this could cause big problems in dogs. However, based on her super perky self (she may have been a giant pig of a dog, but she still was super active), we knew she wasn’t in trouble, at least medically speaking.

I spent from the afternoon till after bowling worried she would die. Over night, though, she did manage to get out a lot of the offending material in the form of a giant poo the size of IO. She also did slightly smaller versions of these all over the yard. She has shrunk in size and seems to be back to herself.

I couldn’t sleep. Once again, rough night. Had bad dreams and stress. I didn’t want to bowl, but the boys love to do it, so I got myself up.

When I went in to get Dax, I asked him how he felt and he sat up, all perky, and says, “I feel good, mom! And I didn’t throw up again!” Awesome!

Bowling was a little less chaotic yesterday. Bobby bowled about the same amount. Dax bowled less. I had only one yelling match with Matt. I am sure there were hostilities from the day before still there. He kept criticizing where Ken and I shop for groceries and what we pick up. It was out of control. I was able to mostly ignore it, though. On Sunday, though, he was making it very clear that he doesn’t respect my parenting.

The boys were putting away their little blue and red soldiers. Dax has little red guys, and Bobby has little blue ones. There is a container for each set. As they were putting them away, Matt kept telling them to just throw them in the buckets, it didn’t matter what color. I pointed out that I wanted them to put them away correctly, that it was a good exercise for them. Plus, the boys seemed to want to do it right. Yet Matt kept telling the boys to put them wherever. Finally, I told Matt to get away from us and that it was my call on how my children did things. Matt got all pissy, proceeded to walk away, not of course without a standard outburst, where he called me a whore at the top of his lungs. Lovely. My dad yelled at him. I didn’t bother with it, and continued helping the boys. I did apologize to my dad later, explaining to him that the outburst was from my yelling at him. My dad told me it didn’t matter what I had done, as Matt needed to not do what he did. So that was good.

We stopped by Target to pick up some things I had forgotten. I parked far away, even though the store was not that crowded.

Once again, the kids did not nap. I am so scared that naps are a fond memory of the past. I will still do quiet time, though. The problem is, they only get like an hour of that, and no longer do I get those occasional 2 and a half hours of quiet.

We told the boys to put on their boots and we sent them to the yard. It was about 1:30 at this point. They played out back, getting nice and muddy, for close to 3 hours. They didn’t fight too much, if at all. In fact, when Luna was being too rough with Bobby, Dax would run to help Bobby. It was gobs of teamwork and nice play. It was perfect, since we then were able to do a lot of housework, including laundry, and Ken set up the “fort” under Bobby’s bunk bed. He converted Bobby’s bottom bunk into a tented area. Very cute.

The boys got caked in mud and dirt. It was cool, actually, to see them that happy and filthy.

We stipped them down and got them nice showers. Afterwards, they ran around in the fort, bringing in every “friend” they could get their hands on. This worked out while I cooked dinner, my homemade chicken noodle soup.

The boys, who have eaten my soup before, we being picky at first. I didn’t want to force them to eat for fear of another reversal. But they did say they were hungry (I think Dax really meant it this time), and I knew they would ask for something else later. So I used bribery. Luckily, it worked, and they tried the soup. They then both seemed shocked that they liked it! YAY!

We got to bed kind of early, but it didn’t help much. I woke up all congested and sore. My back is killing me. I think that is from all the cleaning and moving stuff yesterday. I took some drugs this morning, and the pain has dulled, but my mind has also gone dim. I have to go to a meeting this morning, which is just them going over our new employee handbook. It is probably a good hour long, which will be tough to stay awake for. I am just hoping there is some comedy, which will keep me alert.

Ok, it was pretty painless. The new handbook was actually pretty well done. They have taken out a lot of the silly stuff like a real “dress code” and they have made a lot of it more open. I also was figuring it out that with my vacation days, holiday time off, and sick time, I get about 5 weeks off a year with pay. Not too bad.

Ken has a tournament on Saturday if I remember correctly. I am hoping to try and go see Christmas lights on Sunday evening. The weather report looks like it should be ok. I am sure it will be packed. But if we walk around, it should be good. I think my folks will be joining us. If anyone else would like to, awesome! I will know more details in the week.

Grammie is coming tomorrow and I guess we are doing dinner and their Christmas presents. CRAP! That means I forgot to get her anything. CRAP CRAP CRAP! Although, my mom will tell me not to worry about it. I may need to run out to the mall tonight. I will see how it goes. Maybe we can make her something. I have macaroni and glue, right?

I am hoping my out of sorts-ness this morning is due to the drug induced haze I put myself in with cold medicine.

I am trying to stay focused on work, but I just can’t seem to. I keep looking for distractions. Of course, I am in the midst of the really boring and monotonous part of my job, which is just faxing notices. Sure, I could call these people, but who wants to tell someone they owe money 2 weeks before Christmas?

Holy crap, I must be out of my mind. I just emailed a photo of me as a 3 year old to the holiday contest crap for Thursday.

Ken was watching the last half of War of the Worlds yesterday afternoon. I watched bits and pieces, and I can safely say I don’t need to see anymore. It was not good for me. It was a lot of suspense that made me uncomfortable. It was a lot of really gruesome death, which normally doesn’t bother me, but this seemed without purpose other than to say, these bad guys will f you up. Like, I enjoyed the hell out of Independence Day. I could still watch it today. You got to know the characters, and you felt for them. This? I just wanted them to die so the credits would finally roll. And to see of course the main folks not die? It seemed not right.

Ok, not to toot my own horn, but I have to say, my chicken noodle soup is awesome.

I am being grouchy for no good reason. Ok, there is good reason. I hate it when people come to my desk and without really asking just assume I will drop everything I am working on to do their stuff. It seems rude, really. So when MaryAnn came to my desk right now, and basically sets up shop with her stuff, she then asks me about my weekend and how the boys are. She wanted to know if I did anything exciting. Normally, I would tell her about something like Christmas cookies. But today, I just told her it was just a basic weekend. Is that wrong?

Well Merry Christmas to me! The boss just emailed and he is leaving here at 1:30 and not coming back until Wednesday! Woo hoo!