Just imagine

In light of reading a new friend's LiveJournal post and enduring the tough week I've had, I thought I'd take a humorous look at motherhood...or, if you're a SAHD, fatherhood.

Those of us who stay home with the kids really do have to wear dozens of hats in a day. Our job is 24/7, we're the sole owners/managers/underlings that run the HomeShow. We're chefs, nurses, singers, actors, artists, movie projectionists, librarians, chauffers, narrators, playground directors, teachers, pet groomers, maintenance staff, laundry personnel, and chief confidant to all persons within the four walls. We're also the police, wardens of the Time Out Cell Block, politicians, mediators, seamstresses (seamspeople? seamspersons?), and bartenders. Bully for us!

Sometimes, I feel like I lose myself in the shuffle of small hands and feet, crayons and diapers, but when the sun goes down and my kids go to bed I take a deep breath and watch my babies sleep. That's when I find myself again. I can slow down and really enjoy what we have.

We don't have much, those who know us or have been reading my blog long enough know that. But we do have is love and laughter and we have an abundance of both. We may not live in the best neighborhood (although for Hayward, we could do much, much worse), and we may not drive the nicest car or wear high-end clothes, but we smile and laugh and love all day long and honestly, I'll take that over possessions any day!

So I guess what I'm saying here is that amid all the chaos, budget drama and worries, I'm really thankful what what I have.

I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a balla...

...or I wish I wasn't such a damn wallflower.

Seriously folks, I haven't had a "night out" with the girls - whether they be girls from C-Town or from college - since mid-2001. SEVEN YEARS. SEVEN!

When I met Rob and got married, I kinda lost interest in that scene. I calmed down for a while. I'm still calm, but now that I've moved out here, popped out a couple of kids, and have seen the calm side of life, I'm wishing I had girlfriends out here who would drag my sorry ass out on a Friday or Saturday night!

A number of things are preventing this from happening:

1. I'm a HUGE wallflower. I'm not a go-getter. I don't join mommy groups or playgroups because I'm afraid I won't be accepted. I'm not everyone's cup of tea. I'm not skinny, I'm not beautiful, I never have a lot of wiggle room with money to do every activity under the sun, I'm a Republican, et al.

2. I don't have many friends out here. I have two local friends but they're both a bit younger than me and have their own activities. One has her own mommy group, not to mention money to do the things they do.

3. I'm very self-conscious. I don't have nice "going out" clothes. Most of my shirts either have holes in them because they're so old or they have some miscellaneous stain on them that make them look as though they'd be put to better use as dust cloths.

4. I'm a Negative Nelly. Look at this list!!!!

I'm just a self-sabotager, I suppose. I have no self-esteem, I'm persistently certain that I'm always being judged for my decisions, my appearance, my beliefs...*sigh*

Honestly, I miss my friends back east. I love living out here, I do. But if y'all could just hop into a caravan of U-Hauls and move your asses out here, that'd be great. Or you could just take vacations in tandem and a few times a year, I could go out and get a little crazy. Maybe cut a little rug. ;-)

From the days when I was a lot of fun...





And a picture of mom and me, for putting up with this morning's posts!

Good news!

She's fine. I called her again at 7:30 a.m., got her machine this time, and then called her at work. Found her! Turns out she was having problems with the phone and they just got it fixed this morning. Yay!

*phew!*

Please talk me down from the ledge

So my sister calls me last night and starts off the conversation with, "Well, the reason I'm calling, and I don't want to alarm you, but..."

Evidently, she had tried calling mom three times yesterday evening between 8:30 and 10:30 p.m. and mom never picked up. It's very unlike mom to not be home that late at night, especially if she has to work the next day. She's usually in bed by 9:00 p.m. or so.

However, her machine didn't pick up either, it just rang and rang. So I'm trying to sit on the optimistic side of things and say Well, maybe she turned the machine off, or even the ringer off, when she went to bed. Or the line came loose from the wall and her bedroom phone isn't ringing.

No matter how you slice it, I'm worried. She's almost 70, she had a cold the last time I spoke to her, and she's a transplant patient. Although she's sailed through having the transplant and has had ZERO problems with it, they did only give her an extra ten years with the new heart. This Christmas, it'll be seven.

So someone please reassure me that she's fine!! I'm not ready to go down that road.

I'm unnaturally excited about this!

Kids should come equipped with cow bells

No nightmare, no scary story, no horror movie will ever frighten you as badly as being awoken by your child in the middle of the night in near-pitch black darkness. The best part? She doesn't announce her arrival until she's three inches from my face.

"Mama."

[pause]

"Mama."

[pause]

"Mama."

[longer pause]

"MAMA!"

me: "Holy shit! What?!?!"

Then I realize it's her and she's at the side of my bed with an unspoken request to sleep in between Rob and I. So with my heart beating a mile a minute, I pick her up, haul her across my body and plop her down in the middle.

This happens maybe once a week these days and I'm thankful that's all it is. Most parents would be annoyed that once a week, they got zero sleep. Me? It's the bomb. She used to do this every. single. night. Now that she's sleeping in her own room (well, for almost four months now) she sleeps through the night more often than not. Yay!

Of all her make-mommy-fall-out-of-bed-in-fright moments, nothing beats what happened this past Saturday. Friday and Saturday nights, it was hotter than hell's bells here and it didn't cool down much at night. We don't have central air in this apartment, so we rely on box fans and ceiling fans to keep cool. If it cools down at night, we open up all the windows and let the night air cool us. Great for the electric bill, total suckfest for us.

Anyway, we decided to camp out in the living room those two nights (okay, we camped out Sunday night too, but that's because Beth fell asleep on the couch with her pillow and I didn't have the heart to move her) with all fans on high. We have a really big sectional couch - about nine feet on the long end, six feet on the short end - so Rob slept on the long end and Beth and I shared the short end. I fell into a deep, deep sleep. I was in the middle of an already-scary dream and all of a sudden, in my dream, I heard crying. It was really out of place in the dream so I started looking (in my dream) for the origin of the crying. The crying got louder. Finally, my eyes pop open and I see a head holding a seemingly-large obect looking down at me, an orange and yellow glow around them.

I figured this was it. This is the big one (for those of you who've watched, it's from "Sanford & Son")! Then I regained my senses and realized it was Beth, standing behind the couch, holding the toilet paper, asking for help. She'd apparently woken and needed to go to the bathroom but couldn't handle the whole process by herself.

Damn kids need cow bells.

"I want my MTV."

Remember that? From back in the days where MTV was Music Television? When MTV was new and shiny, and all they ran were music videos? Well, that and a few select game shows, like "Remote Control" and "Singled Out." It was an awesome time - you came home from school, dropped your Trapper Keeper backpack by the door, grabbed the remote control that was the size of a small photo album, and plopped down on the couch to watch MTV until someone told you not to.

Then you'd put up 15 minutes of protest because Kurt Loder has been saying for the last half hour that George Michael's "Faith" was coming on soon.


more graph humor and song chart memes

What happened to MTV? Is there some alternate MTV that still plays music videos all the time? Now all MTV consists of is craptastic "reality" shows with over-developed teenagers and early twenty-somethings acting like total whores (guys AND girls). What's worse, half of these shows have parents who CONDONE their behavior!!! Have you ever wasted 30 minutes of your life to watch "Parental Control?" It's awful! Moms and dads getting all excited because some strange guy has his mitts all over their daughter.

It's unreal. It blows my mind that people like this stuff! Maybe I'm just getting old. Just once, I'd like to flip through MTV and see Downtown Julie Brown, or ANY veejay for that matter, announcing MUSIC videos. Not TRL where you only see portions of videos for an hour in the afternoon, with a ticker running along the bottom with incoherent LOLspeak emails in it.

George. Or...I Can't Find Anything Else to Blog About.

Since it's all anyone can talk about, I suppose I should say something about George Carlin.

A lot of people, and by "a lot," I mean millions of people, found George Carlin to be a comedic genius. I'm not sure I hold him in the same esteem. I mean, he had funny moments, and certainly a few funny lists, but I don't rank him anywhere near the top.

First of all, he was profane. I'm all for profanity, I use it frequently. Too frequently, perhaps! But when "fuck" is mentioned, in some derivation, four times in one sentence, that's overkill.

Second, he pledged no allegiance to anything: not to a god, not to our country, nothing. I couldn't care less about his lack of religion/spiritualism; hell, I applaud it. But no allegiance to our country? As a red-blooded American who's proud as all get out of being an American, I can't wrap my head around that concept.

Mexicans are proud of Mexico (so much so, in fact, that they'll fly their Mexican flags while they're [maybe] citizens of American living on our American streets), Canadians love Canada, Greeks love Greece...how does an American-born man, granted all these great freedoms, a man who is known for pushing the envelope of the coveted freedom of speech, not love America?

I don't know. I'm sad he died, of course, I'm sad when almost anyone dies. I'm just not as sad now as I was, say, when John Ritter, or Jack Lemmon, or Johnny Carson died. They were funny.

Terror Beach and Fruit Stands

So our day was off to a rockin' start when we gassed up, got some Subway for lunch and some Slurpees for the road. We hopped on Hwy 92 and were off for Half Moon Bay. Hooray for hot-ass temps and a reason to go to the beach.

Granted, we don't have "beach bodies" and certainly didn't wear bathing suits (*ahem* because don't have any), but we had our shorts on, sunblock slathered all over, and shades down! It was beach time.

We get there, eat our sandwiches, and head down to the sand. We no sooner hit the sand that Beth's Half Hour on Terror Beach began. She started flipping out when her socked-and-shoed toes hit the sand and continued on while the baby and I sat in the sand and Rob carried her down to the water and stood there with her. You should have seen the look of HOLY SHIT on her face when we took her socks and shoes off!! You'd think we were feeding her to the sharks.

The only time she quieted down was when Rob dipped her feet in the surf. But as soon as the water retracted into the massive ocean, and her feet sank into the wet sand. Then it was all, "UP PLEASE! UP PLEASE!" Oy.

Robby, on the other hand, had the time of his life! He was sitting in the sand, digging his hands in, eating the sand and not seeming to mind that the gritty stuff was in his mouth, laughing, jumping - he had a good ol' time! That baby is just so damn happy!!

After our brief visit to the crowded but refreshing beach, we took off up Hwy 1 and drove a bit into San Francisco, then across the Bay Bridge and down home. We made two bried pit stops: one in Half Moon Bay at the Farmer's Daughter produce stand and one in Pacifica to feed the baby an organic banana.

That fruit was/is AWESOME! We bought three plums, two bananas, two small baskets of strawberries, and a small bag of Bing cherries. I know it's expensive, but if you have the money, I strongly recommend buying organic produce. SO much tastier than the regular stuff!

So now we're home in our Easy Bake Oven Apartment, fans a-blowing, family a-roasting. I'm about to slap together some burgers for the grill and some baked beans to cook out there too, on the burner. No indoor cooking!

I'm just hoping it cools down enough for us to sleep in our beds tonight. We all had to camp out in the living room last night because it was so frickin' hot. Oh, and a little update for you all: we didn't end up renting movies last night. We had a lot of stuff on our DVR to watch, so we said "Screw it." Why waste the money?

Pictures from our day...

"Mama, it's hot. Take us to the beach!!!"



"Hot fun in the summertime!"

Mindless Ramblings

So I started taking walks with my kids in the morning, before it gets hot as hell here. Only a mile or so, as I don't want to go out too far with Beth only to have her melt down on the way home and beg, every three steps, for me to carry her.

As it turns out, per my anonymous reader's suggestion, this does lift my spirits for the day and make everything a bit easier to deal with. Unfortunately, by the end of the day, I'm still worn out, but I guess that comes with watching three kids all day, in this torrid heat, and being the size that I am. *shrug*

So tonight is our Night Out In...we're getting take-out Chinese food and renting a couple of movies. I'm thinking I either want "The Other Boleyn Girl" or "P.S. I Love You." The former seems very interesting and interpretively historical, which I like, but the other one seems to be a tear-jerker, which I LOVE. I've been desperately trying to watch "Catch & Release" on our DVR; I recorded it probably a month ago, but I can never find a quiet moment to do it.

I really love chick flicks, can't get enough of them. I'm a sucker for "The Notebook," "Dirty Dancing," and "When Harry Met Sally," among many, many others. I also love historical drama. I loved "Schindler's List," "The '60s," "We Were Soldiers," "Apollo 13," the list goes on and on. Okay, so I'm a bit of a movie nerd. We even rent the not-so-much-blockbusters, like "The Amateurs" (U.K. title: "The Moguls") or "King of California." We love them all!

What are your favorite movies? Feel free to ramble!

Now...to decided between chicken egg foo yung and orange chicken...

Thousand Words Thursday

I should totally get paid for this...

but I won't. But I should. I'm not one to publicly endorse a particular product. I know people have their preferences and some feel that the more you spend, the better the product. *shrug* Maybe.

But I spent $49.99 on a stroller last year and although it's seen better days, I really can't complain! We bought it a few days before we took our trip to Barstow and Las Vegas. My other stroller was a beat-up, dirty, smelly, two-year-old Graco from a travel system. It squeaked, the tray was all scratched up, the handle was permanently dirty, the seat pad - although I had washed it - was stained from all the sunblock I'd put on Beth's legs over the years, and it had cat fur embedded in the creases because my cats saw fit to make a bed out of it if it wasn't collapsed. Stupid furballs.

I wasn't about to take that jalopy to Vegas! It was bad enough that when we asked to borrow luggage from my in-laws for the trip, we were loaned two big-ass duffel bags. Combine that with our Walmart/Target/Mervyns attire and a Chevy Tracker in bad need of a carwash, and you have this:



Anyway, I insisted on a new stroller for the trip. I vowed to not spend more than $60.00. I spent about half an hour in Babies 'R Us checking out their lightweight strollers. I didn't want a full-size stroller; Beth was two years old at that point, sooner or later, she was going to have to walk places. [Wouldn't ya know, two weeks later I discovered I was pregnant! She's a full-time walker now.]

I ended up settling for the Baby Trend Trendsport Lite. I was a little less than optimistic about it. It didn't cost much and seemed a bit flimsy. But, I figured, it wasn't meant to last a long time. It was only fifty bucks. What did I want? A Peg Perego???

Lemme tell you, I couldn't be happier with this purchase! We've had that puppy for 16 months and now we're using it with Robby. The only part that could use replacing is the wheels; it seems the "tires" have broken away from the wheel and if too much weight is put on them, they could fall off, although they haven't yet. We're hard on our strollers though, they've been used to haul groceries up to a 2nd floor apartment, haul a 30+ lb. girl around town, four one-gallon jugs of water AND the aforementioned girl for a few miles...so yeah, we're hard on the strollers.

Seriously folks, if you're looking for a lightweight stroller but don't want to drop $300.00, this is something to consider.

Life is what happens while you're busy making other plans.

That John Lennon...pretty smart guy. I recently figured out, due to a very helpful and interesting website, that John Lennon was an Atheist. Yay!

I apologize to any readers who have Christian beliefs. I do not wish to offend!

Anyway, I never really paid attention to the lyrics in "Imagine." You could have knocked me over with a feather when I realized that song was about an Atheist world, where we all really, truly could get along! It's fairly obvious, even to the unlearned eye, that religion is what builds walls in this world. If religions were eliminated, or never existed in the first place...well, just imagine.

This was SOOO not where I intended tonight's post to go. What I really was driving at [raise your eyes to this post's title], is that I get so wrapped up in the minute little details of my day-to-day life that I miss out on some of the cutest, happiest moments of my children's days. This really saddens me.

I am, by nature - if you subscribe to astrological beliefs - a detail-oriented person. I'm a perfectionist and this often becomes the bane of my existence. I'll waste away an hour of my evening making sure my kitchen looks good enough to wake up to in the morning. Some nights, I can't stop cleaning up before bed. More often than not, I don't get to bed before midnight, and I'm always up at 5:30 a.m.

So by dinnertime, I'm coming unraveled. I'm barking at the older one (sometimes over nothing - she's just being a little too eager to "help" me at a time when it could be dangerous for her) and I hate hate HATE that. I should be embracing her want of helping mama in the kitchen, not screaming at her to get out of the kitchen all together!!

Equally as bad, my 7.5-month-old son is witnessing this. He must think that all mama does is yell!!! I still manage smiles and laughs for him, but I cringe when I think of the side of me he sees far too often.

I really need to relax. I need to quit worrying about the little shit...three dishes in the sink, fruit that isn't perfectly stacked on the counter, the soda cans strewn about the living room that could wait until morning...and spend time with them. They're only little once.

So can you all offer me some relaxation techniques that work for you? I mean, they need to work when you're at your boiling point. I draw the line at weed. ;-)

Sorry I'm not home right now, I'm walking through the spiderwebs...

Trying to figure out the way a three-year-old's mind works is like trying to solve Rubik's Cube without the instructions (which, by the way, is how my husband mastered the geeky art). I've thrown my hands up in defeat, brought to my knees at some of her nonsensical antics...yet I feel like slamming my head in a drawer multiple times daily.

She's recently figured out how to ask what we're doing, where we're going, what that is, etc. I really wish she'd figured this out a year or so ago when her little mind wasn't so demanding. Now, when she asks, "What's that?" what she really means is: "What are all the items in the picture/on the TV/outside the window, what are their names, how many are they, what kinds of clothes are they wearing, what are they doing, and how long will it take them?"

Each. And. Every. Time.

It's enough to drive a woman to pick up a pack of Marlboro Lights at the 7-11.

[For the record, I quit smoking on March 3, 2004; haven't lit up since]

And then there are the countless meltdowns over excruciatingly simple things: tuna fish instead of peanut butter sandwiches for lunch, we don't have On Demand yet and Dora isn't on right now so the world's coming to an end, she can't have a snack because she didn't eat her dinner, I need to re-ponytail her hair and she's in a mad dash to get to the other end of the house to pick up a stuffed animal, we were on our way out the door but mama forgot something so we have to turn back for a second...the list goes on and on. And I do mean meltdowns.

Exhibit A:

Then there's the Miss Priss attitude she's recently developed. Everything is HERS. When she goes to the bathroom, we are to STAY. [Meaning: She does NOT want our help. She'll do it herself.] That is, until she's done and wants help guidance putting her underwear and pants back on. Getting silverware, brushing her teeth, picking out clothes: "I do it."

Exhibit B:

Now multiply that times two and you'll have approximately NINE HOURS of my day, every day, Monday through Friday. And you wonder why, after four years of being smoke-free, I'd consider picking up a pack???

A Sixer

Six things I could live without, but really wouldn’t want to:
- TV
- Internets
- Diet Coke
- The occasional pint of Ben & Jerry's
- My Dirt Devil Scorpion
- Good shampoo

Six movies I’ve never seen before:
- 28 Days
- Don't Be A Menace
- Saving Silverman
- Seven Years in Tibet
- Menace II Society
- Ghandi

Six of my pet peeves:
- People who don't know how to get on the freeway
- Target's return policy
- Noisy or disruptive fidgeting
- Parents who think their "baby" is completely innocent, no matter the circumstances
- Having religion shoved down my throat, like that's going to make me believe
- Seasonal allergies

Six things I really love doing:
- Writing
- Watching chick flicks
- Laughing; Rob's particularly good at inducing giggle fits
- Dancing
- Making my kids laugh and smile
- Anything supernatural

Six things I was into as a kid:
- Barbie
- Cartoons (Smurfs, Garfield & Friends, He-Man, etc.)
- Riding my bike all over town
- New Kids on the Block
- Achieving the perfect "big bangs"
- TGIF!

Six things I was into as a teenager:
- "Friends"
- Socializing
- Being musical...I played instruments, sang in choirs
- Boys
- Cheerleading
- No Doubt

Some days, you have to wonder if it even pays to get out of bed.

Yesterday, my day ended...well, at 1:00 a.m. this morning. Today started at 5:00 a.m. Then I dozed with Robby on the couch until 6:00 a.m. when Beth marched out demanding milk and waffles. Hrmph. That little troll needs to learn the fine, time-tested art of sleeping in!

I had an in-house appointment at 9:00 a.m. with a company who shall remain nameless as I signed a form stating I would not disclose any information from our meeting to any third parties. So for two hours, I let Rob sleep in. He agreed to stay home today and watch the kids so I could focus on the appointment. So we did the chickens-with-our-heads-cut-off cleaning of the downstairs...that was fun, let me tell you. I definitely didn't get a shower this morning - I definitely needed one.

Anyway, they came, we interviewed, I got my incentive (those free groceries I mentioned a while back) and I came home. I then had precisely an hour to go to Safeway, buy lunch for us, get back and eat before Boy showed up.

He shows up at 12:30 p.m., when his mom informs me he's coming down with some sort of cold. Great. WONDERFUL. He fell asleep about 45 minutes into his stay here today, and didn't wake up until I woke him for dinner. Then I spent the next four hours trying to keep him a safe distance from my children to hopefully avoid them getting sick.

Somewhere in there, I had to go back to Safeway to finish our grocery shopping, so I Snuglied Robby up and away we went for one of the most stressful shopping trips I've had with him to date. I put him in the carrier facing forward so he could look around...nice mommy, right? That's what I thought. Then I got to the produce section. Every time I tried to get a plastic bag out to put my bananas/pears/mangoes in, he was after it. With every piece of fruit, he lunged forward. This little boy's a go-getter, and I can certainly appreciate that, but for Pete's sake!!! Let me bag some fruit, man! Finally, he started to get tired. And bored. And hungry. I had no food for him and I forgot the binky at home. I was in for a real treat! I spent ten minutes in the freezer section, rocking back and forth, letting him use my thumb as a binky, humming Brahm's Lullaby. I'm pretty sure I memorized the prices of frozen vegetables this afternoon. You can get a 16 oz. bag of broccoli florets for $3.19.

Then Beth was being an ornery pain in the rear tonight. Just babbling constantly, whining, fake crying, asking for stuff she knows she can't have at night (cereal, milk, snacks in general). Between her and trying to make Boy understand that he has to keep away from the other kids until he gets better, I had a couple of confused and annoyed kids on my hands!

Couple that with the migraine that's been building all day and I ended up giving myself a time out on our front step. I had to get out. Thank heavens my husband was home with me to sort of grant me that little reprieve! I swear, some days I don't think I'd make it through, mentally speaking, if it weren't for him.

Tell me I'm not alone...that you all have days like this too!

Happy Father's Day, Dads!

Namely, my dad, my husband, and my father-in-law. This is always a bittersweet holiday for me, probably always will be.

This is going to be an abbreviate blog for many reasons, but primarily because I don't want to bring everyone down. I just want to thank my father-in-law for being a terrific Papa to my kids - they think he's the cat's pajamas.

And my husband...he's an AWESOME father!! He's playful, fun, and loving and a good provider. I couldn't ask for a better Baby Daddy! :-)

And Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there.

And THIS is why "they" don't want Walmarts in California...

I'm a shop-on-a-shoestring mama. I love a bargain and I run a pretty tight budget when it comes to groceries and necessities. Hence, I shop at Walmart on the regular. I buy baby formula, diapers, wipes, bottle supplies, toiletries, and most of the kids' clothes there*. You just can't get those things cheaper anywhere else!!!

But I absolutely HATE shopping at California Walmarts! When I lived in Pennsylvania, it was almost a treat to take a trip to Walmart. To begin with, we were privy to a Walmart Supercenter, the mecca of discount shopping. I really, really miss that - getting it all done in one shot. *sigh* Furthermore, you were guaranteed to run into someone you know, catch up on gossip, and make empty promises "to get together sometime."

Out here, all you encounter are rude, pushy, and ignorant people who don't give a hoot about you and your little brood. They will ram into you (front OR back) with their carts if you don't get out of their way, they give YOU dirty looks if you're in the way and simply can't move, they completely trash the shelves, and nothing's where it belongs and half of the packaging is destroyed. The best example of this: back in December, we went to Walmart to buy a megapack of Huggies for Robby. You know, like 116-or-so Size 2s.

All of the packages had been ripped open and diapers had been taken from each package. I understand that hard times come about and moms do what they gotta do, but damn...don't steal. We've hit rock bottom but we just bought the cheapest diapers we could find (Parents Choice, White Cloud, Target brand, etc.)**. The end result of stealing diapers from Walmart is that you're now a pain in the ass to us honest people who just want to diaper their baby, you've broken the law, and because of you, the cost of diapers will go up another fraction of a cent to make up for the loss. Thanks.

People are animals at Walmarts out here! I know it's marketed towards the less-affluent end of society, and I make no claims to be high-falutin'. If anything, I declare with complete honesty and a tinge of pride that my little crew bare red necks. ;-) But c'mon folks, keep it nice for everyone! We don't shop there, really, because we want to, it's because until our youngest is out of diapers and formula, this is where I need to shop.

After that, I'm on to Target. Shampoo can't cost that much more there!

Lane Change: I had a really good day with my family. We're being guilted into dutifully headed up to my in-laws place tomorrow for Father's Day, so we're celebrating the holiday for my husband today. We took the kids to San Gregorio State Beach on Highway 1 to look for seashells and introduce the baby to the Pacific Ocean. We left early, around 8:30 a.m., and got there a little after 9 a.m. Beth was fine, until her feet got too cold...then she sorta fell apart. The baby loved it! He was smiling and kicking his legs in the Snugli the whole time!

Afterwards, the kids napped in the car and we drove down to Santa Cruz, had lunch at a Chinese place, and headed back home. This evening, I was talking to Beth before she fell asleep and here's how the conversation went:

Beth: I like the ocean.
Me: Oh yeah?
Beth: Yeah.
Me: Do you want Daddy to take you back to the ocean?
Beth: No.
Me: No? Why not?
Beth: I'm sleepy. It's sleepy time.

I was so amused, I had to bite my tongue to stifle my laughter! I forget, quite often, how literal little kids are; she thought I wanted Rob to take her back tonight!!

Ah, kids.

Pictures from our morning...

The Things We Think and Do Not Say

Ever have one of those internal moments, long after a discussion has passed, where you think of a million things you should have said but didn't? Or you think of them during the conversation, but don't say them for fear of confrontation, rejection, anger, etc.? I hate that. I'm very non-confrontational, I don't like fighting and I'm a big chickenshit. I won't ruffle feathers if I can't find a quick exit out of the henhouse. I'm always afraid I won't be able to back up my words and that I'll end up looking like a big asshole.

It's probably a self-esteem problem. I do hold some pretty strong opinions on certain subjects and in my own, soundless rhetoric, I sound fairly intelligent. But I fear the debate. What if someone else holds an equal or superior argument? Will I be able to hold my own?

What are some things you wish you could say to people in your life, be they loved ones or strangers you see every day? You don't have to name them, but I'm always interested in what goes on in peoples' heads.

Here are mine:
- I know your life's different now, but that doesn't mean it's a bad different.
- Grow up, please. People are laughing at you.
- I'm really proud of what you've done with your life, you've really turned things around. You have a long way to go in other areas, but I can tell you know that.
- You're not as important as you fancy yourself.
- Please stop pushing religion down my throat, no amount of badgering is going to change my mind.
- I love you, and I'll help you out when I can, but I don't want you involved in my childrens lives.
- Please quit trying to make me feel bad for moving out here; we're making our own life out here, you should be proud.
- I miss you and our talks. It's not fair that you "handed me off" and missed my wedding. I haven't heard from you in years and I feel like you all but abandoned me and that hurt worse than anything.

So c'mon folks...what's in your head?

I'll be back!

So as it turns out, you can't add much HTML to Wordpress, which sucks. I was liking my little slice of BlogLand over there. But now I have itchy feet and miss being able to add certain widgets, so I'll be back to Blogger soon. It's going to take me a day or two to pack up and move, but never you fear: I'll be back!