I Know, I Know

One class left. And a capstone (whatever that is). Then I will be Mrs. B. Roth, BGS. I will totally change my blog title even. Which is not very impressive. But it's not nothing.

So. How's life?

Canon turned 5. He's in a new school and seems very happy about life in general. Wrote his numbers to a hundred last week. Calls me Ms. Brandy, Ms. Brandy Dan, and Ms. Fancy Pants. He pretty much teases me incessantly. And says poop way too much. I love seeing his big smile so often tho.

Sagan is 2 and a half. She loves to giggle and sing with me. She skips. The boys would walk or run or climb or jump ... she skips around the room. In the middle of the night, if she wakes up, she brings her water bottle, her purse, her baby, a book, and sometimes a blanket and pillow into our room. Sometimes it takes her two trips. And she is anti-blankie, where as I am extremely pro-blankie AND she and I fight over who gets to sleep on the edge ... why does she never try daddy's side?

Crichton got a blue ribbon in the science fair (shh, blue ribbon=participant) for his potato electricity project. Also, he made a cool desert diorama. And he had to sew a dress for his classes Hundred Dresses project (a small dress, not a real one). Projects are fun. He's in choir and after school sport club thing. His bike got stolen because he didn't lock it one morning when his hands were cold (dammit), so we have to drive him to school and he walks home. He reads a lot. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Alcatraz and the Evil Librarians. Last night he said, "I wish every time you turned a page, another page would appear at the back of the book, so it'd never end." We recommended he read Robert Jordon's books.

Greggie Poo is working hard and writing. In November he finished a novel. WRITING. And I'm reading it and I like it. (He doesn't like it when I write about him ...)

Me? I work a couple hours at my old job, pretend to do homework and lesson plans all afternoon, then go to my new job, Canon and Sagan's new school, and work 4 hours, come home, make dinner, put kids to bed, watch TV with beloved, sleep happily. Oh, and I'm a singer in a band. I'll post my music videos once they are finished. I'm not kidding. And sometimes I make balloon animals just for fun. Monkeys are still my favorite.

I need to have a family portrait taken. My little family is so dang cute right now ... I don't think we are ever gonna be this cute again ... the boys will start dressing weird and making "decisions" about their hair ... Sagan will grow out of cute big baby and become cute little girl (maybe it's already too late). Yes, need a family portrait.

OK. On to homework, lessons, guitar playing, etc.

MUAH!

Something Important

A blog is like a tiny giant megaphone. People pay attention, if they want to (and being paid attention is second only to being paid actual money).

I started my blog about a million years ago for a billion reasons, mostly selfish and attention-whore related. But often I was trying to say something important .. or trying to figure out what was important.

Something I talk about are my feelings for my mother. Now, you can't make yourself feel something that's not there, but you can behave in a decent and civil way. My husband would disagree, but, as I avoid being in the same room, avoid conversing ... I'm trying to be civil. Otherwise, all I wanna do is criticize her and shake my fist at God (He's such a jerk) for His methods of taking and leaving people. Not sure it's really up to Him, anyway. And my vision of God is shifting.

Last night, after we got the kids to bed, my mother was playing a nearly mindless video game on the downstairs TV so we were procuring snacks to eat while watching super cute Joshua Jackson on the upstairs TV.

She was crying.

I was perplexed.

"Are you crying?" I asked incredulously.

She sniffed in confirmation.

I didn't know what to do about it. I should care, I should be concerned, but I'm a jerk and I was irritated.

"What's the matter?" My much-better-human-being-than-I husband asked, carefully.

"I'm just lonely."

My eyes rolled involuntarily. How dare she have complex feelings and stuff. My family provides for all her basic needs. She needs more? She wants attention and affection, too?

"What are you going to do about it," My solution-oriented husband asked.

"It'll pass," she says.

So nothing, I think to myself. Effective.

But dagnabit ... it's bothering me and I don't know what to do.

She does nothing. Well, video games and light housework. Occasional child care. She never really leaves the house, except to get the mail; never goes out with friends, I'm not sure she knows anyone outside of our family. If we ask her if she's looked into hobbies or interests, she has excuses for why it's impossible, or doesn't exist here.

To me, it seems she is wasting life. I have so many things I wanna do ... I am pulled a dozen ways constantly. I never think to myself, "I am bored."

Part of me wants to help her; part of me says if she won't do it for herself, she doesn't deserve it. She's always made people do everything for her. She still is.

Tell me, what should I do?

Someone Wet the Bed. Again

I'm changing my bedsheets today.

Again.

About a week ago, Canon allegedly peed in our bed. On Greg's side. I was on my way to work when I noticed it and I figured Greg would take care of it. It was on his side, after all.

That night, when I fell into bed, it was still the same sheets.

Night after night, morning after morning, I kept thinking to myself, as I'd notice the small pizza -sized yellow stain, "I should change these sheets." A few times, I even started looking for new sheets to put on the bed, but I could never find a bottom sheet and I'd get distracted.

Finally, last night, I ripped the sheets off the bed and took them down to the laundry room. I searched high and low and could not find a stupid bottom sheet. How can we have FOUR top sheets and only one TOTALLY RIPPED UP bottom sheet. I shook my fist at the universe and put the kids to bed.

Fell asleep.

Greg woke me up and we may have watched something together on the couch. I fell asleep.

Greg woke me up again, but this time I was possessed by Satan and Greg wanted me to FINISH MAKING THE STUPID BED already.

Loud and unnecessarily mean things were said. I am ashamed.

Green and arguably stinky sheets were located and placed on the bed and we all went to sleep.

This morning, Greg was in the shower when I got home from my first job at 9:30 am. I noticed a GIANT wet spot on MY SIDE OF THE BED.

Grrrr.

I ripped off the sheets, cleaned up the urine, allowed it to dry sufficiently, and I will now put clean sheets on my bed.

Again.

On Healing and Dying

Paradoxes are my favorite.

The human body heals itself. Get a cut, break a bone ... your body will heal. You can take antibiotics for 10 days or wait ten days and let your immune system handle the germs. If I could invent a chair that could heal when it breaks a leg ... wow .. it'd last forever.

But we don't last forever. Sometimes too much happens and your body can't heal fast enough (like when you fall whoopsie daisy into a wood chipper). But, more typically, we get old and die.

Why? How? It doesn't make sense.

Except it really does.

It tells us this life is not forever. We are not stuck in this existence for all time. There is more to come. I think.

And that's kind of a blessing, too.

Also, I got this Oil of Olay Eye Serum for $10 at Target and I really think it reduces the puffiness and fine lines around my eyes.

Twenty Eleven

Stupid year; 2010. Good riddance.

Where have I been?

I got a job, worked too much, found another. Worked both. Now I trying to extricate myself from job one so I can do job two and not be so timeless.

And some other stuff. Singer in a band. Hater of mia madre. Mother of my amazing children; wife of Greg. much to do.

I missed you.

A lot.

More than you can possibly know.

I'd like to cautiously suggest that I might blog a little more often in 2011.