Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Cae's White Baby

Ah mystery cuts, how I despise you… 

Somehow I have cut one of my fingers on the joint.  It’s little, but wouldn’t you know, the little ones always hurt the most.  Especially when you’re marathon cleaning because the man you haven’t seen in over a year will be coming home on leave sooner that I think but not soon enough.

So, my room isn’t clean.  I’m sweaty as hell, the bathroom’s at a halfway point, but the sink finally is draining again.  Class site is buggy again, oh joy.  So the plan once Cae’s on the bus is to take my meds, eat something, get dressed and clean till the class site’s up.

Cae got on the bus this morning and freaked out because he was expecting his driver from last year, Miss R.  Imagine his surprise when it was Mrs M?  I’ve got a strong suspicion that Mrs M was one of my drivers when I was in elementary school, but I digress…  He has a meltdown after showing Mrs M he can do his own seatbelt, thank you very much, and she is freaking brilliant!  She asked me to go get his favorite toy – White Baby.

Yes.  My sweet sensitive little guy loves his baby dolls.  Cars are cool, blocks are interesting, but when he’s having a meltdown or feeling like he needs a cuddle but doesn’t want to be around people, nothing beats a baby doll.  His favorite is a beat up generic dolly with a white body suit and socks that he calls “White Baby”.  Yes, he’s five.  Yes, I think it’s healthy.  No, I’m not taking it from him, because when he gets the freak outs, White Baby fixes it.  He’s a good “daddy” to White Baby, and there are times that White Baby is a power ranger, or cries, or is sleeping.  Much like brown fuzzy, his favorite blanket, White Baby doesn’t get washed often.  It’s body suit is more grey than white right now.  It’s got smears of chocolate on it’s head, too.

But White Baby is well loved, and makes him happy, and that’s all that matters to me…  There are no gender specific toys.  Really.  If your little boy is playing with dollies, or wearing your shoes, don’t flip out.  It’s no big deal.


Monday, June 13, 2011

What. The. &$%*!!!

Okay, so I’m sure that everyone HAS to have a crap day at least once a week.

Today is Monday, it’s the beginning of June, and today is another hell-day.  Marion was up before seven, yelling at me.  She doesn’t appreciate two baby gates thwarting her plans for world domination through destroying the kitchen and flooding the fridge.  Cae’s home from school today.  He goes to a summer program that I thought didn’t start till the end of the month.  SURPRISE!  His driver that was supposed to call during her dry run last week didn’t call till this morning to ask if Cae was going to school.  WTF???

My school website is down, it’s been outta commission since early last night, and I’ve got 2 team assignments and an individual assignment due by midnight tonight.  I need to play “what’s that smell” with the kitchen.  Gross, yes, but it’s a game that many in the desert play because of the heat; it still sucks.  Oh, and we’re counting the HOURS till airport time and Daddy’s visit; I still have a crap-ton of cleaning to do before he gets here so that I don’t feel like Peggy Bundy when he walks in the house.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!!  I so need a helper once the site comes back on-line!  Hell, I need a helper NOW, lol!

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Cue the William Tell Overture... Or "I'm late" from Alice in Wonderland

As usual, I’m running late.  But really, this time it’s not completely my fault.

I’m running on something like five hours of sleep.  Both Cae and I had insomnia last night.  And then just as I was getting tired, I remembered that I had to do the final draft on a team assignment.  Fast forward to this morning.  I got up the first time after 2 ½ hours of sleep to get Beckie up.  Marion woke me up an hour later to demand that I not only open her oranges, but put them into a drinking glass and turn on the TV because “Oomie Zoomie, Mom!”

Cae was still passed out, and since I had an appointment anyway, I figure, “Okay, I’ll just let him sleep and drop him off on my way to Nellis, I’ll have time.”  Suuuuuure I will.  So I get up an hour before the appointment and things just start going nuts.  In my brilliance, I had forgotten to get D’s most current check stub before this morning.  He was listed as “on-line”, so I’m thinking “Yay, is SOMETHING going to go right in the morning dash?”  Nope.  As soon as I ask for the LES, he logs off and things go downhill from there.

Thursday I missed my morning meds.  It took me till Sunday to even out.  So there are no clean “public” shirts in my closet.  They’re all in the dryer, along with most of Cae’s underwear.  Okay, no biggie dealie…  Crap, everything’s still damp.  And smells kinda…  off.  Craaaaaaaaap.

Marion’s fighting getting dressed and can’t find her other “dancey” shoe.  Cae doesn’t want to take off last night’s pull up, doesn’t want to make his bed and most definitely wants to camp out in front of the TV.  I’ve found out the hard way that that my shorts choices are the shorts on the floor with the lotion on them or the shorts on the floor with the dog hair (and yes, that’s a story for another time).  Marion’s finally dressed, refusing to do anything with her hair, and is convinced that “Why-on” and “Teddy” have to go with us even though the rule is one toy.  Being reminded of this rule sparks the first tantrum of the day.  It’s not even 0930 yet.

We get to the van with everyone and no falls, only to have Marion spot “blue juice” cups.  They’ve been in the van long enough that they’ve started to leak, so they have to go to the dumpster.  Cae chooses right in the middle of this insanity that he’s forgotten how to put on his seatbelt, but as soon as I crawl into the van to help (because Muttley is ancient and only has one sliding door) he starts shrieking “NO I DO IT!!!”

We finally get on the road to take Cae to school only to find that the turn lane to the freeway is closed.  Cynical me makes the command decision to switch lanes – good thing, because the drivers in the lane next to the turn lane are a mix of directions, and, as usual, are inconsiderate as hell.  We get Cae to school, and Marion decides that she can’t leave the car without a hat.  Lucky lucky, under the winter coat that has a smashed furry piece of fruit and broken zipper that Cae refuses to wear is Marion’s Sponge Bob hat.

So all the school attending kids are where they need to be, and my constant short companion and I haul it to Nellis.  To recap, I swear that I can smell myself, my shorts are covered in dog hair, I haven’t had a shower yet, and my shirt smells “off”.  Add to this that all I’ve eaten today are my meds and a glass of water and I’m wearing flip flops with untrimmed toenails (forget painting them!), no make-up and I’m rocking the stereotypical E-wife look.

We get on the freeway only to get cut off by a van that turns out to be driven by an Asian guy (from what I’ve heard, they are stereotypical rotten drivers, this is why I mention it).  He takes the turn wide, then goes back to the lane he should’ve turned into in the first place.  He then does another wide turn cutting me off once again.  I get off the freeway only to get stuck behind a semi, a truck towing a cement mixer and a delivery truck.  I get around them, I’m already late for my appointment…  Amazing, there’s no line to get on Nellis.  But the guard tells me “You can pull up a little more, you know.”  Get to the appointment nearly 20 minutes late only to be told that the LES’s I do have aren’t enough, we’re going to have to re-schedule AGAIN.  Okay.  Fine.  Don’t care now.

We do our thing at the BX and as I’m loading Marion, some lady in a newer SUV pulls up next to Muttley and as she’s passing me, she slaps and scraped her keys on my van.  Now, I do realize that Muttley is old, usually filthy, and basically, on a bad day a dumpster on wheels, but come on!  He’s mine, paid for in full, has a banging stereo and perfect AC.  I LOVE Muttley - the kids and I even sing a "Muttley song" when we're going out to the parking lot to get into it.  The kicker here?  Chick didn’t say a word, just kept walking.  FINE.  Karma's coming for you and your gas guzzling shiny black SUV, too.

So, as usual, we hit Burger King before we leave base.  The salad I should’ve ordered was ignored in favor of a burger whose only claim to fame is being a third larger than McDonald’s Angus burger.  I’ve got coffee that is the only thing keeping ME from a tantrum that Marion’s trying to steal like the French fry she sniped off of some airman’s tray WHILE HE WAS BEHIND US.

I did make it to SSI and Marion got a nap, but I have to do a walk in appointment to fix that bit of government funded stupidity.  I got the illegal cupcakes to Cae’s school for snack time, but Marion mentioned them at the front desk and one of Cae’s teachers and I ended up lying to the principal’s secretary; seems baked goods aren’t allowed at school for any reason per the principal.  Cow.

I still have to do Cae’s party invites by Thursday.  My “business proposal” for class is horribly lacking (don’t care about that one…  I don’t do “pretend you are…” real well when it comes to assignments)

And they say SAHMs have it easy…  CRAP I’ve gotta gas the car again?!  And start out even earlier tomorrow?  DAMN.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Five years already? Part I

So today is the sixth of June.  Five years ago today I was in the hospital, having my second child, and the first one with Donovan.  A baby boy, my sweet Caelen…
In the past 5 years I’ve learned so much from him, and discovered the joy of having a sensitive little boy.  Yes, he’s a sweet little boy.  When it suits him.  He loves his little sister, harasses the dog, adores school and his teachers and many nights will have a raging case of insomnia.
Because of his autism, we’re still fighting about potty training.  It’s harder to train boys, I know this, and the issues that he’s got don’t make anything “new” like chores or self maintenance any easier.
Thinking on my three kids…  It makes me think that maybe it would be a good thing to put down what they’ve taught me.  Things like “an infant can’t fall off the floor” or “a determined child can, in fact, scale a wall”.
So stay tuned, kiddies.  Eventually I’m going to get my act together and list everything that these kinder-beasties have taught me, haha.