Boo!

I totally think you're lying if you try to tell me that you never look at things other mothers do and roll your eyes and think "THIS bitch" and "hey, why don't you just go join OVERACHEIVERS ANNONYMOUS and get it over with, mmkay."  If you read blogs, it's a pretty good bet that you think things like that on the daily.

With that said, I can go on ahead and admit that sometimes I approach "THAT mom" territory.  When it comes to food. 

I love holidays.  I love the who even cares holidays (groundhog day, anyone?). I love the big holidays.  Even more so because I have children.  What do I love more than holidays?  If you've read my blog anytime at all then you arrdy done know . . . FOOD.  I love food.  I love holidays.  And I love making food fun for the holidays.  You're probably not going to catch me making things like sandcastles out of sandwhiches for my kids for lunch.  But I do love to get creative with food when holidays roll around.

And Halloween?  Totes my favorite fun food holiday!  That being said, I thought I'd share some of the fun things I've done.  (Just as an FYI: very, very few of these ideas are mine.  Most of them came from that lovely mecca of creative we all know as Pinterest).

We did this one last year.  It's a grilled cheese sandwhich made into a spider, witches broomsticks (the pretzel sticks), moster mouth (apple slices, peanutbutter, marshmallows), a ghost and ghost poop, and one lonely moster eyeball.  Monsters totally have square eyeballs, ya'll.

 

This was dinner a couple weeks ago (I can get wayyy  more creative with dinner when the husband doesn't eat with us!)  Mummy Dogs are a Halloween tradition at our house and Jaidan usually starts asking for them around October 1st.  We also had spiders, witches fingers (baked zuchinni fries), and a little banana ghost.  We'll probably have some version of this for dinner tonight.

 

Last night's dinner!  The jack-o-lantern quesadilla looks totes appetizing, no?  I also colored a jack-o-lantern face on a clear cup and then filled it with orange soda (oh, shut-up, it's a holiday and I can give 'em soda if I want to!).  They LOVED this.  Even my stepdaughter, who is 12 and mortified by anything that's slightly childish, thought this dinner was fun.  (And, just in case you're wondering, they also had chips and salsa and baked apples with the dinner -- neither of those were all that Halloween-y, though, so Jaidan made his chips into hair for his quesadilla and then decided the apples were witch warts).

 

Now, let's talk about this morning.  I had every intention of getting up and making ghost pancakes for the kids.  Yeah.  The kids ate (formerly) frozen waffles and I'll scarf down something at some point.  School mornings are all kinds of cray-cray at our house.  I spent my morning saying things like "seriously, just EAT!" "You have five more minutes."  "Um, it's still at least eleven hours until we go trick-or-treating."  "The school said no costumes so, no, you cannot just wear your mask."  "Because your mask is part of your costume."  "Because I don't want you to lose it."  "Yes you will."  "Yes you will."  "Yes you will."  "HOW ABOUT BECAUSE I SAID NO, OKAY?"  "That's great if Jayla's mom will let her wear her mask.  I'm not Jayla's mom."  "Nope, sorry, don't know what Rudy is going to be for Halloween."  "Can we please just get out the door?"  Anyway.  Good thing I put most of J's special Halloween lunch together last night.  I had so much fun doing this!  I hope he gets a kick out of it when he opens it up and sees all his fun Halloween food.

His sandwhich is shaped like a ghost.  He has those peanut butter cracker spiders, an orange jack-o-lantern, ghost poop and bat wings (raisins and marshmallows), goblin fingers and witches brew (celery sticks), and a monster mouth.  I'm sure you're glad we're doing our part to destroy the environment by using all those plastic bags . . .



 

My favorite part of his lunch?

The three-eyed moster juice box!  How cute is this guy?

By the way, if it seems like J had a bunch of food it's because the poor kid eats lunch at 10:10 and they don't have a snack.  So he doesn't eat again until we get home some time around 3:15.



 

And that's a little glimpse of how we do Halloween food in our house.

 

Happy Halloween! 





Confessions: Halloween Style

I'm feeling lazy -- and Blogger is being a gigantic asshat to me lately -- so, today, a list:

1) After seeing the 800th Facebook photo of someone's children posing with My Little Pony and Transformer pumpkins (wtf ever happened to the uneven jagged mouthed jack-o-lantern?) I realized I am probably the only person who has never done pumpkin carving with my kids. I have no desire to. It's messy and involves using a knife and I just ... no desire. I generally just paint pumpkins with the kids (still messy, no sharp objects) which brings me to ...

2) I haven't even bought a pumpkin this year! Not one! Because ...

3) We haven't been to the pumpkin patch. I suppose we could still go but we went one year ON Halloween and there were, like, three rotten pumpkins. I'm assuming things won't be much better the day before. Besides, back in '10 when I was doing the Macaroni Kid newsletter for my area the kids and I hit up four or five patches. So technically I'm good till circa 2015.

4) I waited too long to buy a red Power Ranger costume so now a little boy is having wear his brother's hand-me-down Spiderman costume. Thankfully he's four and still seems to believe everything his brother owns or has owned is super cool.

5) Judging from pictures, I dressed as a baby (how creative of me!) at least three different times. And two of those times involved other people cross dressing. Awesome.

I can't find the third picture but I swear it exists and I'm pretty sure it was posted on Facebook at some point.

6) Of those pictures -- I believe one was taken my freshman year of high school. I know the other was during my senior year. I trick-or-treated both times. Yeah. I was that kid. BUT AT LEAST I WAS IN COSTUME.

7) I hate trunk or treats. I understand the purpose, I guess, but they've destroyed traditional trick or treating and that makes me want to kick a kitten.  These days you're lucky to find three or four houses on each street who are handing out candy.  SAD FACE.  I'm sure this year will be even worse seeing as Halloween falls on a traditional church evening.

8) A look at Halloween pre- and post-children.

 



Man, Johnson & Johnson totally nailed it with that This Changes Everything campaign, huh?

Also -- can I please have those pre-baby boobs back?  Please?  I swear I'll be nice and help old ladies cross the street and quit calling my kids assholes.

9) I'm feeling kind of stabby over the fact that Jaidan isn't having a Halloween party at school (unless they happen to send info about it today which I doubt).  NO HALLOWEEN PARTY?!? I can understand not wanting them to come in costume but no party? 

10) Finally,  I'll leave you with one of the scariest things you'll see this entire Halloween season.  I'm assuming I was around four when this picture was taken, making it 1984.  Also meaning: can't judge me for wearing it; judge my parents for letting me buy it.  Aren't we relieved that store-bought costumes have changed some since the 80's?

It Happened This Week

My plans for the weekend changed and I ended up not going to the game yesterday.  I was pretty bummed Friday evening but considering I woke up with a raging sinus headache yesterday morning - and the fact that temperatures were in the 40's at kickoff - it was probably for the best.  So instead of a crazy busy go, go, go weekend we've had an extremely chill one.  Eddie and I went to dinner (withOUT the kids!  I KNOW!) Friday night and, other tham that, I haven't even been out of the house to so much as check the mail.  You know what?  After such a busy week it feels pretty awesome.

 

 

 

I feel a little silly posting pictures of kids with their faces blocked, and I obviously saved an original to my files, but those aren't my kids and I don't know their parents so I didn't feel right showing their faces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday Things

1) The good news: the Razorbacks play in Little Rock on Saturday and guess who will be there? THIS GIRL!

The better news: I'm going to the game with Storme. I haven't seen her since my birthday! (Y'all don't even understand. That's five months! A tragedy!)

The bad news: the predicted high for Saturday is 60. Kickoff is at 11. Vedddy chilly for tailgating!

2) Jaidan attends a Title 1 school (they are considered a high poverty school because more than half the students qualify for free/ reduced lunches and, therefore, receive federal funding via No Child Left Behind to improve performance standards). Because of the Title 1 funding the school was able to host a "Reading and Social Studies Night" Tuesday evening. I took both boys and we had so much fun! They had various fun activities centered around things like dinosaurs, polar bears, the Revolutionary War. The boys had a blast -- and I even enjoyed it too!

3) J was recognized for "excellent conduct" at the kindergarten honors program yesterday. I'm so proud of him!  I was really, truly, honestly worried about his behavior.  Let's just say he wouldn't be getting any "excellent conduct" awards at home.  But he's done amazing thus far in kindergarten and I'm so proud of him I could just burst into ten bazillion tiny pieces.

So, at this honors ceremony. They called J on the stage and I noticed his shirt was tucked in the front but not the back. Then when I got home I realized my shirt was unbuttoned and gaping. Winning! A family of fashion fails.

4) My husband and children want a dog.  I do not.  I don't have a problem with dogs except that they smell.  And poop.  And shed.  And chew up stuff.  And I also have four children and a husband to take care of.  And they go to the doctor more than children and while I'm sure there's pet insurance to where you don't have to pay all those vet bills at once, I doubt it'll be covered under Obamacare.  And it's probably pretty pricey.  ANYWAY.  The other night Jaidan was being all, "what will we name our dog?" and "I know!  But if we DID have one."  and "Oh, come on, just tell me a name!"  So I named off Chandler Bing (Chandlaaaaaaa Bing!), Zach Morris, Jack MacFarland, a few others.  He finally agreed to Danny Tanner. 

And now I kind of want a dog just so I can name him Danny Tanner.  But then I'd also have to get an Uncle Jesse and a Kimmie Gibbler.

5) I understand that having "stuff" doesn't equate with happiness. But, dang, does shopping not give you a bit of a high? I picked up some fall clothes last week in an effort to feel better about the changing seasons. Of course, it's been 85 this week. Hmm. You think if I shop for fall merchandise weekly then it'll stay in the 80's? And how do you think my husband would feel about that?

6) Donald Trump needs to just sit down and STFU. Can this man not go two minutes without the spotlight on him? Media whore. Imma start referring to him as Donald Kardashian.

7) We got Jaidan's school pictures back yesterday and they.are.so.good.

I know I'm biased - extremely - but is that kid not just about the most handsome kindergartener who ever kindergartened?  Gah.  The handsome.  It kills me.

8) So Furby is, aparently, THE toy of the upcoming holiday season.  As I posted on Facebook the other day: are we back in 1999?  And, if so, may I please have back the butt and boobs I had then?  Kthanks.  By the way -- luckily, my children are either too young or too uninterested to want a Furby.  Woo Hoo for Team Superhero!  Oh, and as long as we're bringing back old toys -- how about the Light Bright?  Best.toy.ever.

9) I hate - hate - the new(ish) Chuck E. Cheese slogan.  The whole "everybody says cheese is funner" thing.  Funner may 'technically' be a word but it sounds stupid and like bad grammar.  I tell my kids all.the.time that I hate the commercial because it's bad grammar and "bad grammar makes the Baby Jesus cry."  I was singing the song yesterday (I KNOW!) and Jaidan yelled, "STOP!  Think about what you're doing to GOD, okay?"  That kid.

10) This e-card:



Reminds me, in a weird, way of traveling to New Orleans earlier this year.  We heard the lovely little ditty "Rack City Bitch" and my friend Tina said, of the rapper, "I bet he likes to cuddle."  Dead.

Food and Family

I got a little tipsy on wine Saturday night and forgot to set out the ham and soak the black eyed peas for Sunday's dinner. Seeing as we were in desperate need for a run to the grocery store - and the ham and peas were pretty much the essence of the dinner I had planned (i.e. we weren't going to eat just cornbread) - I found myself at the stove Sunday evening slicing and frying up hotdogs. The hotdog sandwich. A food memory from my youth that my own children have only known the pleasure of a time or two.

You probably could care less about how to make a hotdog sandwich. Let's face it: we're a nation of hotdog snobs. Unless it comes from a baseball game, is battered, deep fried, and on a stick, or is grilled on the Fourth of July, those of us over the age of 10 are all "eww, do you know what is IN those?!?" But the hotdog sandwich -- two hotdogs sliced in half length-wise then fried and plopped between two slices of white bread with mustard, ketchup, and American cheese reminds me of my dad more than almost any other food out there. Whenever Dad was in charge of the meal you could bet you were going to get one of three things: the hotdog sandwich, pigs in a blanket and macaroni and cheese, or the thick, juicy burgers he was family-famous for.

I fixed the ham and peas and mashed potatoes and cornbread for dinner Monday night. When it came time to eat, no one cared how much time I'd spent peeling and slicing the potatoes. And no one mentioned that the peas were seasoned to perfection (finally!). Someone did point out that the cornbread was a little undercooked. And Kyan had to be bribed to eat the peas and Karis pointed at the ham and proclaimed, "it's yuck. It's gwoss. It's nassy and I not eat it." The moral: all the slaving over a nice meal, a meal of "Sunday dinner" standards, and the hotdog sandwiches of the night before were a bigger hit.

It got me thinking of my own childhood and the food memories. And you know what? Most of my favorite memories are centered around those simpler meals, the hotdog sandwiches of my childhood.

My mom is - and always has been - an amazing cook. Her taco lasagna is the stuff legends are made of and her regular lasagna is out if this world. But my favorite meals as a child? Homemade pizza with a canned biscuit crust. Burritos -- "white people" burritos with ground beef and flour tortillas and ranch style beans -- dipped in cheesedip. And speaking of cheesedip! We loved the nights when my dad, who was diagnosed diabetic when I was a young teen, was working late or out of town and our meal didn't have to be diabetic friendly. Because that meant we were having nachos. And nachos, in those days, were made like this: chips, Wolf brand chili, cheesedip (Velveeta, Rotel, can of cheddar cheese soup, can of nacho cheese soup), Wolf brand chili, cheesedip, and shredded cheddar cheese sprinkled on top. Maybe brownies and ice cream with dessert.

I remember Sunday afternoons picking up the makings for sandwiches on the way home from church then eating them while reading the paper. And, of course, a simplistic favorite in our house was chili mixed with beef stew. I can't remember which of my parents introduced the other to it but it was a staple in our house growing up and I've never met another family who's ever eaten it.

Even when it comes to my grandparents, my food memories are of the more simple variety. I can remember the absolute euphoria of being 10 years old, running to my Granny's house after school and realizing that "OHMYGAWWWW, y'all, she made sugar cookies!!" The absolute best thing my Granny made -- the one thing I would give anything, anything for my children to be able to taste just one time -- was her biscuits and those were always in her cabinets. I spent countless afternoons on her front porch with my cousins chowing down on biscuits and government cheese and drowning it down with a coke or Dr. Pepper or Sprite or whatever other canned drink she had in her cabinet. (What?  That wasn't a standard after school snack everywhere?!?)

I can't think of my Pawpaw without thinking of the "bologna burgers" he'd pick up from Bowman's store or his nightly bowl of Cornflakes. My Ma, my dad's mom, made the fluffiest, yummiest, yellowest eggs. She always made toast in the toaster oven and I loved the brown ends. I can remember being a very, very young child and requesting she let me eat my tomato soup from a thermos. Her husband, my Papa B, made the most amazing, never duplicated cheese dip. It was his contribution to every family Christmas ever. I haven't spent Christmas with him in more than a decade and sometimes it still doesn't feel right not to have that dip with Frito's.

My MawMaw will still make a dirt cake - and include the gummy worms! - from time to time.

Said dirt cake

And, HOLY FREEZE TIME BATMAN, look how tiny my boys were!  And look at all Kyan's HAIR!



When I was pregnant with Jaidan and being a brat and wanting both a brunch baby shower and my favorite potato casserole, even though it was not a brunch food in the least, MawMaw prepared some and brought it for me.  I lived with her and my PawPaw during my senior year of high school and she made me cheese toast for breakfast every morning.

Cheese toast and fluffy scrambled eggs, bologna burgers and dirt cake are not the things gourmet cookbooks - or probably any cookbooks - are made of.  But - cue the corny - they are the things memories are made of.  I can't help but wonder if the more simplistic foods, the times when Daddy is working and we eat pancakes for dinner, are what my kids will remember.  As it is, Jaidan will tell you his favorite food (outside of Buffalo Wild Wings, natch) is tatortot casserole.  That's probably the most country folk trash food that a kid can prefer.  (Hey, at least it's not Honey Boo Boo's 'sketti,' mmmkay).

I consider myself a foodie.  I love all kinds of food.  I wouldn't even be able to tell you my very favorite food.  Maybe if you ask me my favorite dessert or favorite Mexican dish or favorite flavor of wings (traditional or boneless?) I'd be able to give you an answer.  I do know this though: the hotdog sandwich and pigs in a blanket aren't even in the top 50 of any list.  Yet they're also the foods - and memories - I cherish from my childhood. 

Funny how that works.

P.S. I read through this after writing it and realized just how country it makes me and my family sound!  Hotdogs and biscuits and government cheese and bologna burgers!  But I love my family, I love the way I grew up, and I appreciate all these not-quite-culinary-masterpiece memories.

It Happened This Week

This was, like, the fastest week ever.  And we didn't even have anything going on.  This next week?  There is literally something every single day.  We still haven't made a trip to a pumpkin patch for the year and I'm trying to figure out how we're going to fit it in and . . . I'm drawing a blank.  Do I have to relinquish my claim on any Mom of the Year-ness if my kids don't make it to the pumpkin patch?  Are you going to judge me?  Are you guys going to talk about me behind my back?!?

Anyway.  A look at our week:

I follow quite a few of couponing blogs -- more like I catch their updates on Facebook.  Several always post various deals and follow the deal up with "would be great for a gift closet!!"  Know why people get a gift closet?  So that when their kids get invited over for "cake and ice cream" approxomately half an hour before "cake and ice cream" time, they have something to throw in a gift bag to give the "cake and ice cream" child.  New Years Resolution 2013: Start a gift closet.

 

Yeah, the date is wrong on these first two pictures.

Too lazy to correct.

Yawn.

 

 

 

 

Yep, we voted!

I posted on Facebook that I voted so everyone coould just, you know, STOP with the political posts.  THEY ARE NOT LISTENING. 

Also, shortly after I posted I was reminded of the electoral collage and since I live in a deeply blue state, my vote probably didn't really matter all that much anyway.  SAD FACE.

(Yes, I voted for the POTUS and, yes, I am a bleeding heart liberal).

 

 



No Bubble Wrap Needed

I read an article the other day concerning the kidnapping and murder of Jessica Ridgeway.  And then made the mistake of reading the comments.  Some of them made my stomach hurt, made me sad, made me a little angry. 

If you're unaware -- Jessica Ridgeway is a 10-year-old girl from Colorado who was abducted while walking to school a couple weeks ago.  She was walking THREE BLOCKS to meet her friends and walk the rest of the way to school with them.  Three blocks!  Her mother, a single mom, works overnights and was sleeping when the school called to let her know her daughter wasn't in class that morning.  Her body was found last week.

I can only imagine what that mother is feeling, how severely she is beating herself up.  And for no reason whatsoever. 

I won't lie to you -- I wouldn't hesitate to let a 10-year-old walk three blocks in an area I deemed to be safe.  Judging from the comments I read on that article, I'm one of the few.  So many people these days seem to want to put their children in a bubble and keep them there.  We are so afraid of the things that probably won't happen that we don't even allow them to have a childhood anymore.

My absolute biggest fear in life is something happening to one of my children.  I don't know how I would survive it.  The thought of them being abducted, sexually assaulted, their body just tossed away?  It makes me physically ill just thinking about it.  But I also know that the odds are that it won't happen.  And I also know there are cases like that of Polly Klaas and Elizabeth Smart, who were both abducted from their own bedrooms.  Their own bedrooms!  With their favorite blankets and stuffed animals and Mom and Dad sleeping down the hall.

I refuse to put my children in a bubble.

Don't get me wrong -- I certainly don't take unnecessary risks with their safety.  But I want to raise children who are strong and independent and I don't want to forsake their childhood because I am too afraid.

People like to say "when I was a kid we could walk to school without problems and "we could play outside all day long in the summer." Guess what? Provided you don't live in an inner city battle zone, most kids still can! At the risk of sounding flippant and crass, pedophiles have always been around. Children have been molested, raped, and murdered since ... since always. The Etan Patz case was recently back in the news. This little boy disappeared while walking to school back before I was even born.

There are not more pedophiles, perverts, murderers, and sick freaks in the world than there were when we were children. The only thing there is more of is a media presence. When I was a kid, the local news came on at 6:00 in the evening. There was no 24 hour consumption. The odds are good that 25 years ago no one outside of Colorado would've heard of Jessica Ridgeway.  Now we have dozens of cable news stations -- not to mention all the internet news sources and social media -- that can deliver us news from all over the world.  The bad stuff, the horrible things that horrible people do to innocent children, are in our faces like never before.

It hurts my heart to know that there are these disgusting people in the world.  It would kill me if anything happened to one of my children.  But I also know the number of stranger abductions is miniscule.  We should - statistically - worry more about the people our children already know.  The best thing we can do is to teach our kids about strangers and teach them about what's okay and not okay for anyone to touch or see on their bodies.  Sending them out into the world in bubble wrap?  Nope.  Not going to work.  Not going to do it.

Thursday Things

1) I mentioned earlier this week that we held Jaidan's birthday party on Saturday.  This was the first more-than-just-family party we had since he turned two.  I thought it would be fun to do a Halloween party and have all his little friends dress in costumes and do the thing where you blindfold them and stick their hand in a bowl of spaghetti and tell them it's brains.  The thing with 6-year-olds, though, is they don't care what you think.  He wanted super heroes and a bouncy house.  So that's what we had.



J's school makes it super hard - super hard - to invite classmates to a party.  They don't allow invitations to be handed out at all.  Because, you know, we have to bubble wrap our children and their emotions and can't allow them to ever feel any kind of hurt feelings at all.  *Stank Face*  Since J's birthday was pretty close to the beginning of the school year, we really didn't know any of his classmates.  Not too many people (six, actually) contributed to their class directory.  And, yeah, it was just hard to get the word out about his party!  I think between classmates and other friends we had around six or seven kids show.  Add in parents and big sisters and it was a pretty decent crowd.

 

 

All that really matters is that this ^ kid had a total blast.  Oh, and he was able to have his first ever at-our-house sleepover the night of his party.  I was sure - sure! - that the bouce house would've worn the little brats out and they'd sack out early in the evening.  Ha! They were up until after midnight. 

 

2) Speaking of the Birds . . . he got his first report card yesterday.  I'm so proud of this little booger!  He was meeting or exceeding expectations/ standards on every single criteria.  He received an exceeds expectations in classroom conduct.  I was torn between being all "THAT'S MY BOY! WAAA-HOOO!" and more like "Why do you have to bring all the assholery home with you?"

 

3) I really like the orange tangerine flavor of Mio.  Really like it.  They didn't have it at Walmart the other day so I grabbed the Walmart brand.  Ohmygerd.  NEVER EVER DO THAT.  So not good.  So can't get the taste out of my mouth.  Byuck.  Yuck, yuck, yuck.

 

4) I discovered the show Breaking Amish a few weeks ago and was intrigued.  Pretty much anything involving the Amish intrigues me.  I halfway paid attention to the show the first time I watched.  I happened to catch a marathon of it the other day and recorded.  People.  This show is so fake!  I felt like things were a little off when one of the guys was cussing.  Then I realized that, in the very first episode, one of the guy's family is being recorded.  I seriously doubt any Amish would agree to go on camera.  I googled and there are Facebook pages and message boards devoted to how fake the show is.  One of the guys has even been out of the Amish lifestyle for 14 years!  I'm so disappointed.  Eff you, TLC!

 

5) Took this the other day:

Love!  I'm so glad my kids have friends right here in the neighborhood to play with.  When we first moved here, there was only one kid relatively close in age.  Now we've had people move in and babies have aged a couple years and there's our own little neighborhood gang.

6) I don't know what's wrong with me but I just have not been reading.  I haven't even had the desire to read.  I read a book on my flights to and from Vegas but that's pretty much IT for the past month or so.  WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

7) Remember how I said that Karis always has to pick two random items to take with her every time we leave the house?  She seems to be partial to Mr. Potato Head's arm or ear and a pink block.  But the other day she had to take this:

Yeah.  That's an empty TOILET PAPER ROLL.  Seriously kid?  I mean really?

8) I made enchilada lasagna the other night for dinner.  I thought it would be pretty good -- it's basically just white girl enchiladas made into lasagna/casserole form - and, maybe, was I right.  This stuff was so good!  And it was still good for leftovers the next day as well.

9) Annoying: Shelby County, Tennessee (where I live, FYI) sounds tornado sirens for the WHOLE DAMN COUNTY when there's bad weather in the area.  The county covers nearly 800 square miles.  There could be a possible tornado in one area while there's merely rain in another.  They kept saying on the news last night, "you're not under a tornado warning.  Even though the sirens are going off, you are not under a warning."  Meanwhile, my kids were freaking out.  Grr.  So.annoying.

10) **Politcal but with a funny ending** The husband and I watched the debate the other night.  When Romeny was asked the question about fair pay for women I told Eddie, "Oh, THIS is going to be good."  How was he going to talk around his view on the Lilly Ledbetter Act?  Then he got condescending and I snorted but I never realized the "binders of women" would take off the way it did.  I saw so many funny memes yesterday.  My personal favorite:

Dead.

Dead, dead, dead.



Yesterday

Yesterday was the six year anniversary of the day I was diagnosed with necrotizing fasciitis, the day I had a surgical debreedment that saved my life. I've written about my battle with necrotizing fasciitis quite a bit. Partly because I'm still working through all the emotions of October 2006. And partly because it was the biggest game changer in my life so far. It changed me more than having children or getting married or even losing my own dad. I suppose coming face to face with your own mortality will do that to a person.

In the beginning -- the first few months of dealing with the after effects of NF -- I would think, "why me?" Why did such a rare infection find its way to me? Why was I the one suffering? In the past six years, though, I've realized something: everyone has their tragedy. Everyone. Maybe it's contracting necrotizing fasciitis in a c-section incision at age 26. Maybe it's losing a child or saying goodbye to a parent too soon. Maybe it's struggling with infertility or the break up of a marriage or losing everything in the economic crisis. Everyone has their tragedy. Some are worse than others, sure, but if there's one definite in this life it's that you're going to have to trudge through some bullshit. The way I look at NF now is different. It's no longer "why did this happen to me?" but rather the realization that if it hadn't been necrotizing fasciitis, it would've been something else. Pessimistic? Maybe. But also true.

What I struggle with the most nowadays is a different sort of "why me?". NF is a nasty bitch. So many people don't survive it and, most of those who do, have more problems than just an ugly abdominal scar. Remember Aimee Copeland who made headlines earlier this year because of NF? She lost a leg, a foot, and most of both of her hands. Lana Kuykendall was diagnosed with NF four days after she delivered twins and ended up enduring twenty surgeries and spent months in the hospital. In the months following my struggle with NF, I read dozens of survivor stories on the NNFF website. And in doing so I realized I was the LUCKIEST person to post on that site. Not one of the luckiest. THE luckiest. People lost limbs, people were in comas for months, people had skin grafts, and dozens of surgeries. I had one surgical debreedment and one bedside debreedment. I was hospitalized for 11 days. I was never placed in a medically induced coma. My wound closed on its own and didn't require a skin graft. Six years later, you can't tell anything ever happened to me (unless you happen to see me nakey and catch a glimpse of the hip-to-hip scar). I was so incredibly lucky.

And it makes me wonder why ... WHY was my story so different than the rest of these.  I'm not being melodramatic when I say the best possible outcome of NF is basically not dying.  So why did I end up so incredibly lucky, so blessed in my dance with NF?  It's one of those things that just makes you not only realize how fortunate and blessed you are, but makes you just plain wonder why.  Was it so that I could stick around to be a mom to Jaidan?  So that I could bring two more children into this world? Why?

Can't.Let.Go.

Jaidan's birthday party was Saturday, bringing out birthday season at our house with a bang.

Six months until we have to deal with another birthday celebration.  Holla!

Now that birthday season is over, it's time to start focusing on the holidays.  What're the kids going to be for Halloween?  How much am I going to complain about trunk or treats taking over good old fashioned fun?  Which one was the house who gave out full sized candy bars lastyear?  Are we going to  Arkansas for Thanksgiving? Staying here?  BLACK FRIDAY SHOPPING.  What the heck are we getting these kids for Christmas? Should I buy a new tree this year? Send out Christmas cards?

Normally I'd already be playing Christmas music (when Eddie's not home to make fun of me, natch).  Normally I'd be all OCTOBER and PUMPKIN (okay, okay so I'm totally all PUMPKIN).  Normally I'd be like "HELL YEAH.  Election in a few weeks and I can like my Facebook friends again!"  Normally I'd be so happy all my shows were back on.  Normally I'd be basking in the cooler weather, planning a trip to the pumpkin patch, and making ghost and spiders out of my children's hand prints.

This year, though, it's just not happening.

People.

I'm not even into football as much as I usually am.

I KNOW!

Please don't get me wrong.  I still love me some college football and I'm all about my Razorbacks (we've won two games in a row, ya'll!). 

But.  I just can't let go of summer.  I realize it's already long gone.  I wore a hoodie to take Jaidan to school this morning.  People have already pulled their boots out (assholes.  It's not that cold).  We had our first hot chocolate of the season a week or so ago.  The leaves are changing.  Halloween stuff is everywhere and Target has even started putting out their Christmas decorations.

Can a girl just get an 85 degree day and a pina colada?

I don't know if it's because I had a pretty epic summer and don't want it to end.  Or maybe it's because we weren't home as much this summer and there weren't as many trips to the spray park or lazy afternoons spent in the [kiddie] pool with popsicles.  Maybe it's because Eddie and I still have our cruise to look forward too (we'll be in Mexico one month from today!) and I'm thinking it'll put the exclamation point on our summer.  I don't know.  It's only October, though, and I'm already ready for next June.

By the way: feeling a major case of deja vu and thinking I've written this entry before.  Which just goes to show just how much I can't let go!

It Happened This Week

Yesterday was Jaidan's birthday party.  It was our first "big" birthday party (more than just family) since he turned two.  Man.  I am EXhausted.  I'll write more about his party sometime this week but let me just go ahead and tell you.  Those bounce house things?  They are no joke, my friends.  NO JOKE.  I jumped in one for all of, oh, sixty seconds and felt like I WAS GOING TO DIIIIIIIE.  Oh.  Collapsed lung.  Owwwww.  My stepdaughter also got a hold of my phone and took pictures of me jumping.  Most unflattering pictures in the history of ever.  Lesson learned: bounce houses try to kill you and make you look awful while they do it.

Our week:

 

I hope she loves to sweep this much when she gets old enough to do it correctly

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So Very Pinteresting

Dude.  It's been a while!  Here's hoping I can actually remember at least some of the pins I've tried.

Yummies:

Jalapeno Popper Grilled Cheese - I hate running across recipes and thinking I COULD'VE THOUGHT OF THAT ON MY OWN!  So frus-trat-ing.  This was one of those.  Jalapeno popper sandwich? Yes, please, and THANK YOU.  The pin says to use cream cheese, bacon, and jalapenos.  The actual recipe it links to says goat cheese, the bacon and jalapenos, and . . . apricot preserves?  I don't like cream cheese and didn't have any goat cheese so I chose to use Laughing Cow swiss.  I skipped the whole apricot preserves part because, really, the eff?  So my sammich was just laughing cow, bacon, and jalapenos and SWEET BABY JESUS was it good! I had it for dinner one night (the rest of the fam had spaghetti which I try to avoid at all costs) and lunch the next day.

Loaded Cauliflower - 'Twas slightly intimidated by this recipe.  I use cauliflower in mashed potatoes and potato soup -- dishes where I can cammoflauge it's flavor.  I wasn't sure if making it "twice baked style" with cheese, sour cream, and bacon would cover the too-veggie-ish flavor or not.  Well guess what?  IT WAS GOOD.  So good, in fact, that this girl went back for seconds.  Of cauliflower!  It's a miracle!  (By the way -- this pin doesn't link to a recipe.  I boiled my cauliflower till tender then mashed it.  Put it in a casserole dish with sour cream, cheese, and bacon bits.  Added more cheese and bacon on top and baked at 400 for about 20 minutes).

Buffalo Chicken Garbage Bread - I have been on a major buffalo chicken kick here lately!  LOVE!  I made this a few weeks ago.  The only real "tweak" I did to the recipe was I folded the pizza dough over like a calzone rather than rolling it jelly roll style.  It was super good! It's one that will definitely be made again.

Banana "Pancakes"  - Okay.  Recipe says you can mash one ripe banana with two eggs and griddle 'em up like pancakes.  After reading the comments, I decided to add a tiny bit of banana as well as some Splenda and cinnamon.  The first time I made them, they were super good.  Super good.  The second time?  I'm not sure if my banana wasn't ripe enough or what but I just wasn't feeling the.  I will say this: they DEFINITELY need the addition of the vanilla, cinnamon, and sugar/ sugar sub.  Without those you'll basically eating a banana flavored egg.  And y'all?  YUCK.

Turkey Ranch Club Wrap - I've made this wrap for lunch nearly everyday this week!  I use Laughing Cow Cheese, add a few slices of ham, cut out the lettuce and tomato, and add banana pepper.  Really yummy!

Cake Batter Fudge - Yuck, yuck, double yuck.  The only good thing about this is that I didn't waste a lot of money on a fudge recipe that never even set and wasn't even good enough to just eat with a spoon.  Don't even bother with this one.

Strawberry Cake - I love strawberry cake so I was excited to make this.  And I was, unfortunately, pretty disappointed.  The flavor was really lacking and the icing was too buttery.  The recipe said it tasted better cold -- and that was certainly true.  I wouldn't say it was bad necessarily but it was certainly disappointing.

Baked Pumpkin Donuts - I'm  one of those annoying "OMGPUMPKIN" people.   I love pumpkin.  LOVE.  I also recently bought a donut fan so when I pinned this recipe I knew I would be making it asap.  Aaaaaand . . . once again . . . I ended up pretty disappointed.  They were okay but certainly not at all what I was expecting.  They tasted better when they had a chance to cool a little bit.  Honestly, though, they were too much trouble (well, not so much trouble as they were breakfast and my kids expect instant gratification when it comes to breakfast; notsomuch fans of the whole having to wait for something to bake thing) to make again. 

Finally this is ohsoappropriate for right now.  I spent a good chunk of yesterday afternoon and evening getting my house to the point that I can just refer to it as a "mess."  Fun stuff!

Thursday Things

1) My boy turned six yesterday!

A little girl called him last night to tell him Happy Birthday.  A different little girl than the hooch who called him a couple weeks ago.

He's SIX!  Not 16! 

He had school, of course, on his birthday so we kept the day fairly low key.  It's a tradition in our family to decorate the room of the Birthday Kid so he woke up yesterday morning to streamers and balloons.  There were birthday donuts for breakfast and then I took cupcakes up for his class at school.  We had dinner at McDonald's, his second choice as Buffalo Wild Wings was closed for remodeling.  The party is Saturday.  Jaidan is excited about it; I need prayers.  Lots and lots of 'em.

2) So, Kyan.  This kid.  He's funny without even trying to be -- probably one of the biggest differences between him and his brother.  Jaidan loves to make other people laugh and always tries to do so.  Kyan is effortlessly funny and then gets mad when you laugh about his funnies.  A couple weeks ago, I clipped a toenail for him and he told me, "now you have to eat it." Um.  Say whaaaa?  "Eat it.  It's good.  I tasted one the other day."  This kid will not eat normal kid food - he doesn't like macaroni or french fries.  He won't eat CHEESE for crying out loud!  Cheese belongs in its own little food group.  He won't even eat chicken nuggets unless you pull the skin off.  However.  HE THINKS TOENAILS TASTE GOOD?  What in the what what?

3) Who remembers the Bubba Sparxx song, circa 2006, "Ms. New Booty?" Would you judge me if I admitted singing that to my kids? Usually, during diaper changes complete with a few wittle baby booty pinches at the "booty booty booty booty rockin' everywhere" part. I can't help it. I love baby booties. Anyway. My daughter now will hit a backside - any backside - and yell "Booty, booty rock where!" Please don't call CPS on me.

4) I remember when Jaidan wasn't quite two-years-old.  He started going through a phase where he took weird - usually hard plastic - objects to bed with him.  Kyan did the same sort of thing.  With Karis, she routinely picks two weird things to take with her every time we leave the house.  The other day she took an old water gun and a chip clip to Walmart with her.  We were getting ready to run to the school the afternoon and I told her we were about to go bye-bye.  She ran to the toy box we keep in the living room and kept looking through it, occasionally tossing things out and yelling, "Nope!" and "No!"  She finally surfaced with a wooden block and a Mr. Potato Head ear.  Toddlers are weird, yo.

5) Can we talk about this Alex Cross movie for a minute here? Who in their right mind thought of casting Tyler Perry to play Alex Cross?  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  That character was written for Denzel (circa Training Day).  I love me some Tyler Perry but no.  No, no, no, no.  NO.

6) I SWORE I posted a wrap up of my Vegas trip on Monday but apparently it never posted.  Maybe tomorrow.  Sigh.

7) Kyan and Karis have both really taken a liking to watching Peppa Pig.  This show isn't as annoying as SOME of the kiddie shows out there (Wonderpets, anyone?  Caillou?) but it . . . irritates me.  For starters, Peppa is bossy -- and not in the endearing way that Olivia (you know, of Olivia) is bossy.  More of a Max and Ruby type of bossy.  And then there's the fact that they always - in every episode! - make a big deal out of "Daddy's big tummy."  It makes me want to scream.  And this will end my review of preschool tv.

8) Fall showed up in the midsouth over the weekend.  I'm . . . not okay . . . with this.  I'm sure I'm one of only approxomately 13 people who wasn't happy about the weather shift.  But.  Wasn't.  Not happy at all.  It's supposed to be 85 again by the weekend and you know what?  More my type of thing. 

9) Another of the birthday traditions I have with my kids is to take a picture of me and them every year on their birthday (okay, so I had an OOPS on J's fourth birthday and didn't get one of just me and him).  It's fun to look at how much we both change over the years.

Can you guess which two I was pregnant?

 

10) This.



Six

I rocked all of my babies to sleep.  From the time they were newborns until they got to the point of fighting sleep, we rocked.  Every night.  Sometimes several times a night.  People would tell me I was spoiling them and, as they got a little older, I was often asked something along the lines of, "you're STILL rocking him?"  There were nights that I didn't exactly enjoy it -- especially when "night" was around 3:00 in the morning.  But, more often than not, I absolutely loved that time.  Me and a sweet smelling baby, snuggled together, quality time (and, you know, catching up with recorded TV).  If I could give any one piece of advice to new moms it would easily be rock your babies!  Because one day they won't want to be rocked anymore.  Because one day you'll blink and your happy little chubster will have grown into a little boy.  Because one day he'll pick up a Victoria's Secret advertisement off your dresser - an ad you never, ever thought to hide because, hello, you have BABIES - and say something along the lines of, "WOAH!  Who is THAT?" and follow it all up with a whistle (true story, happened Monday). 

Because one day your sweet little baby will be six.

And he'll still hug and kiss you when you drop him off at school and turn around and wave until he's made his way up to the building.  And sometimes he'll still want to cuddle.  And he's free with the "I love yous."  But you know those days are fleeting.  Because you remember the days when you rocked him, when he depended on you for everything, when his favorite place to be was nestled up against your chest.  Days that are long gone.

The time goes faster between each birthday.  Jaidan is six now.  Six!  Six more years and he'll be 12.  Six years after that he'll be 18 and we'll be looking at cap and gowns and doing campus visits and there's a chance there'll be a girlfriend in the picture and Vicky's Secret ads will be the least of my worries.

Six!

 

Happy Birthday Jaybird!

It Happened This Week

I made the colossal mistake Friday night of taking the boys to family movie night at Jaidan's school.

Oh sweet baby Jesus.

I'm not going to say never again.  But I am going to say not unless they serve beer and wine.

I've been around 32 years so you'd think, at some point, it would cease to amaze me the level of assholery parents will allow their children to possess.  Yeah.  I'm still amazed.  Novel idea: the FIRST time your kid runs in front of the projector and acts a fool then get in their face and let them know it's not okay.  The second time?  Take their bad little ass home!  Jeez.  It's not rocket science.  My kids may act all kinds of cray-cray at home but I will not put up with that shit - I won't! in public. 

Other than our "wild and crazy" Friday night, it's been a pretty chill week around these parts.  I didn't have any epic long nights in Vegas but I still came home all kinds of tired. I've spent most of the week trying to get over the weekend!  I'm pretty sure that's a sign I'm old because, seriously, my trip was really tame in comparison to years past!

A little look at the past two weeks:

 

She has started making this face and saying "I scurred!"

 

 

There is just too much handsome in my house.

 

 

Total photo fail for this day.  Had to use an Instagram!

 

 

 

Someone remind me to not ever pose like that again.

Also? I'd just spent, like, 12 hours traveling.  Ai yi yi.  Scurry.

 

 

 

 

 

We woke up yesterday morning and realized fall had made its way to the mid-south.  Brr.  I tried not to think about the fact that it was FORTY DEGREES COOLER than where I was the previous Saturday night.  *Sad Face*