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I was tagged by Valeta.

The rules:
Link to the person who tagged you.
Post the rules.
Share six non-important habits/quirks about yourself.
Tag three other people.

1. I'm currently obsessed with anticide. I'm not sure if that's an actual "-cide" but in my world, it's the mass killing of ants. We had a small problem when we moved in here and it's escalated. I've tried Raid discs, Combat Quick Kill discs, multi-purpose cleaner, a line of comet around where the ants are coming in, honey/borax bait, and just cleaning. The discs work somewhat, but after a good rain or a cold spell, those fuckers are back in here. I'm open to suggestions.

2. I'm tongue-tied. Literally.

3. I've never had a pedicure.

4. Between 1992 and 1997, I had no idea what my natural hair color was. Lo and behold, it's dark brown.

5. I'm a Diet Coke addict, I drink a LOT of it.

6. I refuse to watch any new Johnny Depp movies. Un-American bastard.

I hereby tag: whomever reads this. I'm only certain of one reader, and she tagged me, so...

My Truth About Motherhood

If there is one thing I wish someone had told me about motherhood, it is this: your child will force you to face your flaws and become a better person. Your child will not only make you work on yourself as a whole, but want to change yourself.

I wish I'd known how proud I'd be when my oldest child said her first word at 23 months. I always assumed I'd have a perfectly normal kid. No one told me that sometimes, kids aren't perfect. Who knew?! My daughter had/has a speech delay, she's about eight months behind the curve.

I wish I'd been prepared for how hard and how often she would cry. I wish I'd known there'd be nights I wouldn't sleep AT ALL. I never thought I'd spend over a year feeding her peanut butter sandwiches and chicken because that's all she'd eat. I never knew that a little cut on the forehead would send me into a full-on panic, half-convinced she'd need stitches (when in fact, it scabbed over and healed within a week), making me the saddest mommy ever.

I wish someone would have told me how hard I'd have to control my anger every time she disobeyed me. I didn't know how hard I'd have to work on not criticizing her at every turn; my mom did this to me for years and I always swore I'd never let that happen to my daughter. I struggle with this daily.

The truth about motherhood is that it shakes you to your core. It brings every imaginable emotion to the surface and forces you to stare at it, like a gaping wound. It makes you acknowledge your flaws and your strengths. It turns you into a lioness, protecting her cub on a very primal level. It makes you question your abilities as not just a parent, but as a member of society.

But what I really wish someone had warned me about...is how I'd have to choke back tears of joy and pride when, after a long day of potty training, reading nine Dr. Seuss books three times each, and a screaming match over eating two bites of chicken for dinner, my three-year-old would run up behind me on the floor, throw her arms around my neck and say, "Mama! Mama! I love you."

Check out these links to understand the truth about motherhood...
Advice from the Girlfriends
The Parent Bloggers Network

Just tired of this shit.

To any and all of my right coast people out there...I miss you. There's something to be said for keeping the friends you've had your whole life. They know you best and actually give a shit about you.

Someone fly out here and visit us! We used up all of R's vacation time between finding a place to live and him having pneumonia, so we can't make it back this summer. *whaaaaaaa!!!!* We have the space for guests...we'll show you San Francisco, Monterey Bay, Napa, Sacramento, Tahoe, Reno, whatever! Just come out here and see us!!!!

I can sleep when I'm dead, right?

Isn't that what someone says when they want to get some rest, but know they have things to do and thus don't get that rest? Then I must sound like a Winchester Repeater. I've had, like, a maximum of four hours of sleep every night for the last two weeks. I've got enough baggage under my eyes to take me to Germany. I'm forgetting things, I'm dozing off on the couch during the day when I'm supposed to be caring for my children, I've got a headache that just seems to carry on from day to day.

If any of you EVER catch me yapping about wanting another baby or "growing our family," bitch slap me. No mas. Two is plenty for this mama!

Todays episode is brought to you by the letter...P!

So I guess I just finally had enough of it today. Had to go out last night and buy a tide-us-over-till-payday pack of diapers for Beth. SHE'S THREE. I decided this morning - this is the day she learns. So, for the first few hours of the day, we tried underwear. I quickly discovered, however, that she saw underwear as a thin substitute for a diaper. She was still running to the potty when she'd start to go, but nonetheless...

So for the afternoon, she went naked. Finally, she got it. She was running back and forth to her potty all afternoon!!!! She still had accidents, of course, and had a big one right after dinner. But still, I'm SO PROUD!!!

Hooray for pee!

Why must girls be so damn dramatic?!

So Beth fell today. We were coming back from the grocery store and she was all grown up, wearing her new flip flops. They're orange with green frogs on them; she picked them out herself! But she has a habit of dragging her feet and she caught the front of one shoe on the pavement...BAM!!! Down goes Frasier! She immediately wailed and I honestly had no idea what she'd hit, aside from concrete. She stood up, all blubbering and sputtering, and I saw skinned hands and skinned knee.

That one little skinned knee brought on TWO HOURS of tragedy. She cried and ran when she saw me coming at her with the antiseptic (I use the Band-Aid brand that has the words "Pain Relief" in its name, but I learned a long time ago that kids can't comprehend, "It'll feel better." They just know, "It HURTS!"), she flopped around like a fish out of water when I tried to put the band-aid on, and popped loose that one last screw when it was bath time. She wouldn't put it in the water and she screamed bloody murder every time water ran over it. After all that was done, I gave her some children's ibuprofen and put her to bed. She was out cold within two minutes.

I'm vainly holding on to hope that she'll get past all this drama, but being a professional-grade drama queen for the better part of my long-legged 28 years, I know damn well that this is just the tip of the iceberg. Sugar and spice, my ass!

But I love that little spitfire.

Fat, Dumb and Happy

I think that's how my husband and I are perceived. That's what I'm gleaning. We're overweight (which we openly acknowledge and are working to change), and thus, we must be stupid. Because we're stupid, of course, we're then ignorant of our stupidity and as they say, "ignorance is bliss."

So...Fat, Dumb and Happy.

Goddamn people!!! Seriously, I'm irritated. If there's anything that gets stuck in my craw, it's when people make that assumption. I am a learned person. I'm educated. I read. Not as much as I like anymore, but I still read. If I want to know more about something, I research it. My husband constantly has his nose in a book and thinks about things like it's going out of style.

Just because we're overweight does NOT mean we're dumb. We're smart people. Don't talk down to us, don't assume we have nothing to contribute to a conversation, and please, please, PLEASE don't feel the need to educate us. It's demeaning, rude and not in your best interest. This is how you alienate people.

Updates, updates, updates!

We own fish. You heard me right, we're the proud parents of six fantastic goldfish, five of whom are fancy. That's right...fancy. For those of you who speak Fishese, we have a Ryukin, a Pearlscale, a Moor, two Fantails and a Comet. We have a nice tank and a few accoutrement therein. It's a nice setup!

The original plan (and my hubby's plan, at that) was to buy a handful of Comets from Walmart and a tiny little tank to put them all in - all with the heartfelt and loving intentions of fulfilling his little girls wish to have fish. She LOVES looking at the fish at Walmart! So we get our 10 Comets home, put them in the tank and watch them. I thought we should do more...I thought fish ownership required more work, not to mention more money. Within about four hours, half of them were "no longer with us." That's when we decided that hubby and Thing 1 would go to Petco and do it up right - we figured it was just a matter of hours before the other five went to see the Big Fish in the Sky.

They left, and while they were gone, four of the five did die. But the funny thing was, they were the four I thought were going to make it, so I transferred them to my Pyrex mixing bowl to be in fresher water and have a larger surface area, thus more oxygen. I left Fish #5 in the original tank, assuming he was on his way out. An hour later, the four were dead and he was still breathing, albeit somewhat shallowly. When we set up the new tank and introduced everyone, he seemed pretty touch and go. We weren't sure he'd make it through the night, to be honest. But lo and behold, he survived! He's now thriving amongst the larger fish. If you know of a famous survivor, please let me know - he needs a strong name!

In other news, Thing 1 has FINALLY decided to be interested in the potty. She's asked numerous times to go, and each time will sit in there for half an hour or so, pants down and diaper off!!!! No pee-pees in the potty yet, but I'm optimistic! Yay!

Update on the Battle of Wills

We went through the same rigamarole with dinner last night. On the menu: chicken hot dogs and corn. It was 10:30 p.m. and two failed attempts to go to sleep before she gave in and ate half the hot dog. She couldn't get to sleep because she was hungry!

I wonder how many nights of this we'll have to do hold out on her before she gets it?

To the victor goes the spoils

Or at least a kid who learned a lesson.

We finally had it out with Beth: eat what you’re given for dinner or you get nothing else the rest of the night. Mommy is not a short-order cook and you can’t eat peanut butter bread for every meal. You will go to bed hungry if you don’t eat your dinner.

She was given a small plate with four bites of chicken breast and a wee pile of green beans. When she refused the meal at first, Robby set to make her sit there until she ate one bite of chicken. This went on for half an hour. She got up and spent the next 3 hours fighting us on the chicken.

We refused to give in. Dammit, she was going to learn to eat her dinner. All we were asking was one piece of chicken. By 9 p.m., you could tell she was hungry...we kept telling her if she ate a piece of chicken (to not only get some lean protein in her but to also prove to her that she actually likes chicken), she could have a piece of peanut butter bread, or milk or water or whatever, and she kept saying no.

But we were determined to make this work.

Finally, she decided to bite the bullet and eat the tiniest piece of chicken. Then she wanted more. And more. She ate almost all four bites!!!!!!!!

Why must three-year-olds be so flippin’ stubborn????

Got a lot on my mind lately

Some of my rambling thoughts...

1. Just read The Redneck Mommy's most recent post and it brought a lot of bittersweet feelings to the surface about the people I've lost in my life, especially my dad and my aunt. A lot of the sensory memories fade as time wears on...how it felt to hug them, hearing their voice, etc....and all you have left are pictures. Or rather, you do still have pictures, and your memories. I want to feel a hug from my dad again, or hear my aunt defend herself when incriminating stories of her naiveté are brought up at family gatherings. It pisses me off that I can't.

2. I'm learning that I may not be the best judge of character, at least not at first. Does this mean that I'm potentially wrong sometimes? Oy.

3. Why did I have to wait three extra weeks and spend $30 just to find out that my daughter had a sinus infection, which I've known all along and told the pediatrician three weeks ago? Damn HMO.

Busier than a one-armed paper-hanger

So we were busy today (that's for those of you who bypassed the informative title). We woke up around 7, did some putting-away of things, then spent 2.5 hours at the laundry mat. We came home, ate quick lunch, and then my hubby and Thing 1 took off for Walmart to impulsively buy a grill because we were having company tonight and possibly next weekend, and we need to barbecue. You know, because we're having company. Man must grill.

In that time, I managed to get Thing 2 down for a nap and then make a bigger mess of the living room - clean clothes everywhere from the laundry mat, a dispersion of things that belong on our desk in order to organize them (if that makes any sense), etc. Then hubby came home with the aforementioned grill which he insisted we assemble in our living room. This production ate up TWO HOURS of my precious party prep time. It was 20 minutes after 4 before he got in the shower, 20 minutes before 5 when I got in the shower, and our company showed up as I stepped out of the shower. Oy.

But then we had a good time! The men beat their chests and "congratulated themselves on being masters of the universe," and the women clucked around the kitchen. The kids ran around and screamed like banshees and the babies cried and cooed. We had a fun night!

And I'll raise my post-party Corona and wish you all a happy weekend!


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Home is where you keep your shit...

...and we have a lot of shit!

I was simply astounded by how much STUFF we have. Not just what we were keeping at my in-laws place, but how much was in storage. We've been in here since Saturday and we're still not completely unpacked.

Granted, we've been out and about nearly every day, buying MORE STUFF to cram into our new place. Mostly needs, but it's just more STUFF. I can't get away from it!

After six days, I have my kitchen mostly in order. Our living room is getting there. The desk/bookshelf area is a clusterf***, and the kids room and our room both are just catch-alls for what doesn't fit out here! I have to have it all in order by Saturday though, we're having company over.

I just don't understand how we fit all of that into a one-bedroom apartment and are having trouble fitting it all into a two-bedroom apartment that is not only bigger by 100 square feet, but also has twice the amount of storage. I'm baffled.