'Tis the Season

It is becoming a new Christmas tradition for my family that Santa cannot deliver. I foolishly thought that this holiday season would be different as I was lucky enough to preorder one of this year’s so-called “hot items” more than two months before Christmas. Apparently, this was a false sense of hope because the “inability to fulfill your order” email came this week. So I called Toys-R-Us and talked to one of their non-helpful, unconcerned representatives. He offered me 10% off and free shipping on my next purchase, but no solution as to how one can go about obtaining an item that was ordered two months in advance now that Toys-R-Us has written off said order. What he did tell me was that Toys-R-Us is obligated to fulfill individual store orders so that those stores have their promised stock, but failed to see my point about people that are poaching these items from stores to resell them for profit… the same toy that my child should be opening Christmas morning.

A few weeks ago, I came by a hard to find toy while shopping and snagged it to put under my Christmas tree. There were four more of this toy at the store and I thought about purchasing all of them, but not for the purpose of resale. I wanted to save these toys from the miserable greedy misers that take them away from children to turn a buck. Not only has Toys-R-Us not held up their end of our sale, but their policy of delivering to their stores first enables resellers to make such items both unattainable and unaffordable to the average family. Personally, I think the idea of waiting in-lines for stores to open in hopes of hunting down that elusive gift is a bit insane but, if you’re willing to go to those lengths for your child, kudos to you. The point that I am trying to make is that, if people with no intention of keeping that special gift weren’t snatching them up to make a profit, it could save a lot of Santa’s helpers hours in the cold.

Foresight

Just when I was patting myself on the back for not having any recent yelling episodes or freak outs, less than 24 hours later, I have a full blown meltdown. Serves me right for feeling good about myself. A huge part of my tantrum was the fact that I am dieting *again* and, even though I don't look like it, I am starving. to. death. See that cruise countdown ticker over there? =========>>> I have exactly that much time to lose a bazillion pounds and, despite losing 5 pounds over the past few days, I'm still a far cry from duck-facing-it for the world. I'm also crabby as all get out from the lack of sugar and fat and carbs that my body is used to functioning on.

Anyway, a series of events took place yesterday that lead to me totally losing my schmidt in the front yard of our home minutes before the family had planned to head in for the night. There was yelling and spanking. Neighboring children were scolded and sent home... possibly forever. There were also witnesses and I am probably now branded as the-crazy-lady-on-the-corner. The kicker to the whole stupid, spiraling day is that my meltdown could have been prevented and I even tried to prevent it, but I was overruled and so, chaos ensued. In other words... I told him so.

Now, let's talk about a little something called foresight. My life is ruled by it. I think everything out five steps ahead, two weeks (months) in advance, no present decision is made without thinking of the possible future consequences. I don't like unpleasant surprises and so I feel better knowing what could happen if I make decision x, y, or z. And yes, I do realize to some people, this is the real reason as to why I should be labeled the-crazy-lady-on-the-corner.

In fact, Husband happens to be a subscriber to this particular theory on my insanity. He does not drink my particular brand of kool-aid opting to sip his own fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-and-deal-with-the-consequences-later variety instead. Every once in awhile, perhaps in an attempt to "cure the crazy", he pours me a big, full cup of his approach. Every once in a greater while, I reluctantly give in and drink. And last night was an example of me spitting that shit out all over our front yard.

Question:

You buy your significant other a gift. Years later, he wants to get rid of said gift claiming it never gets used. In truth, it gets used about once a year so you ask that it be kept for those rare times that the item has purpose. Here's the question...

Should you (read *I*) feel guilty when significant other has to go out and buy a replacement for the item that he threw away even though you (*I*) asked that it be kept for sporadic usage because, as it turns out, today is that rare occasion that the item is needed?

I think the answer here is clear, but the stomach ache I've given myself because I feel bad that he went out and spent money on something we only use once a year is betraying my conviction.

A Start to Summer

My poor kiddos. I think it is just awful that I had to put them on that big, yellow bus this morning after spending the last three days giving them a glimpse into how fun this summer is going to be. I'm pretty sure the school year was done before Memorial Day weekend last year. I remember thinking how fantastic it was that school was done and summer could officially start on all levels. None of this taunting and teasing nonsense of having SIX MORE DAYS!!!

Anyway, this past weekend was awesome. Beyond awesome really... it might have just been the best Memorial Day weekend I have ever had. At the very least, it is in my top two. Husband and I once went camping with a handful of other couples when we were dating and it was one of the most fun times we have ever had. So that long ago memory is definitely a contender for the title of My Best Memorial Day Weekend Ever. What was so great about the past three days was that we kind of flew by the seat of out pants, which I rarely do. I am a planner at heart and I did have my plan laid for this holiday weekend but, of course, the weather didn't cooperate and we had to improvise.

We were supposed to spend Saturday camping with friends overnight in our tent until late Sunday morning. I was also going to take the kids to the zoo on Monday since Husband had to work. It was a simple plan that left us lots of wiggle room to get other things done around the house like laundry and yard work on Sunday afternoon. But when we woke up Saturday morning and looked at the weather forecast, all of that went out the window. Memorial Day weekend in northern Indiana is synonymous with miserable, cold rain if you didn't already know. Saturday was that day this past weekend. We rescheduled the campground for Sunday when the forecast looked a little more tolerable and headed out to the movie theater to see Rio. We will forever remember to keep "movie theater outing" in our back pocket of "things to occupy the kids" when Memorial Day weekend weather inevitably sucks.

After the movie, we came home and played Monopoly because when the hell else are we going to have time to play a three hour game except on a day that we were supposed to do something else and couldn't. We had also opened a new video game the night before that had a bunch of family games on it like Life, Clue, and Mouse Trap, so we played a few of those games as well. The kids and I are completely addicted to playing Life and 8yr-old-boy is begging us to get him the *real* board version. I'm also planning on picking up the board version of Clue because the kids like the concept and collecting the clues on the video game, but it just isn't as good as the board version. Family movie/game day concluded with me pitching a tent in the toy room after we got home from church because the kids had really been looking forward to sleeping in a tent and I didn't want them to miss out on it completely because of the rain.

Sunday, we loaded up kids and car and headed for the campground to spend the day with our friends. It was overcast, but warm and we hit the pool as soon as lunch was over. The water was a little chilly, but the kids didn't care and they played and swam for awhile. We went for a golf cart ride through the campground next and decided that the beach looked like something fun for the kids to do so we grabbed buckets and shovels and went back to the beach to let them do their thing. They were having a grand old time digging and rolling and burying when all of a sudden everyone started fleeing the beach like a shark had been spotted in the tiny lake.

We didn't know what was happening. I asked a man not far from us what was going on and he simply said, "Tornado". Umm, what? The sky was clear and not really even overcast anymore. It didn't make sense, but we loaded the kids up and headed back to the campsite to figure out what was going on. The ride back was noticeably cooler, the temperature was dropping and the wind was picking up a bit, but the sky was still clear. Once we were back at the camper, we found out that there had been a touch down 40 miles west of us and we were in the storms path. Thank you once again Memorial Day weekend for being the ambassador of terrible weather.

So we waited. We waited for about 30 minutes at the campsite until the sky turned black and the wind began to whip dead leaves and grass. We spent the next half hour sheltered in a bathhouse with forty other people while the storm dumped a crazy amount of rain and snapped a few tree branches outside. And then the rain and wind were gone and we resumed our previously scheduled camping shenanigans. I drank too much, the kids got filthy (I do not expect to ever be forgiven for the state of that bathroom after I hosed them down), we stayed too late, 4yr-old-boy snored the whole way home, I collapsed into bed once we were home, Husband unloaded kids and car and went to work on not enough sleep the next day. It was a perfect day.

The crazy weather continued and Monday's temperatures soared to 95+ degrees. No way was I going to spend the day sweltering at the zoo. There is only one place to go and bake on a day that hot.... I packed a lunch, grabbed the sand toys, and the kids and I headed to the beach. And so did every other family in the county. It took me 90 minutes, one scary car stall and a resulting service light, to creep the two miles into the state park beach. I have never seen my kids behave so well. Ever. They were hot and antsy and held their stuff together so Mommy could maintain hers. Thank you, babies, for not pushing me over the edge while the stupid dashboard light terrorized me that last mile.

We ate, we played, we basked, we froze our patooties off in the frigid Lake Michigan waters. I took a bazillion photos to document the frolicking and sand writhing that Husband missed. We stayed until dinner time when I knew Husband would be on his way home from work and could come rescue us when my car decided not to start in the parking lot. But it did start and the service light had disappeared, so we drove home happy and content in wet swimsuits with sand between our toes and everywhere else, glowing from all of the sun that we had soaked up (or an entire bottle of greasy sunscreen) with baggies full of sand and rocks that the kids simply had to bring home. It was wonderful.

I just realized that neither of my top two Memorial Day weekends were planned. All of those years ago, when Husband (then Boyfriend) and I went camping, he called me the morning of to see if I wanted to go. It just goes to show that sometimes letting things unfold in there own way can result in some pretty fantastic times and memories. I will never forget that weekend more than a decade ago and I know my kids will remember fun at the beach, the 5 gallon container of cheese balls, and the almost tornado. Raising my kids is what has taught me that sometimes I need to let go and just roll with whatever is going to happen. When you're the mom of three, there's not much else you can do.

Random Ranting

Really? 6:20am seemed like the perfect time to slam the laundry room door and proceed to "work on" the hot water heater? When I finally yelled for you to stop, you actually did, but then promptly disappeared. An apology would have been nice. Letting me sleep that precious extra 30 minutes until my alarm was scheduled to go off would have been even better!

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You see that vacation ticker over there in the top, right-hand corner? That, my friends, is the countdown to impending doom. What? How can a forthcoming Disney cruise be seen as anything but the long awaited answer to our family vacation dreams? Because each 24 hours that creeps by is one less day that I have to lose enough weight so I won't spend the entire vacation sporting a moo-moo. *sigh*

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Thank you for doing a half-ass job of helping 4yr-old-boy wipe after his morning poop (pun intended). It resulted in him digging at his butt through most of his preschool certificate ceremony. Glad I was there to field that embarrassment on my own and that some twenty odd parents have it caught on video.

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I really enjoy your status updates about how all of you got together over the weekend and didn't bother telling me. I was the only one not there. Are you that stupid and didn't realize I would read it? Are you trying to bait me into unfriending the whole lot of you? Or am I simply being to sensitive for my own damn good and shouldn't let this hurt my feelings?

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Updates

It always makes me sad when I come back to this blog and see that my last post date was weeks (or even months) ago. I don't mean to neglect this little corner that I have claimed for myself, but I find it hard to post on a regular basis... mostly because I have become accustomed to censoring a lot of what I allow myself to write so I don't come across as whiny, negative, or ungrateful. The thing is, I am whiny, negative, and ungrateful. I like to think I posses a few redeeming qualities as well, but I do harbor more than my fair share of pessimistic thoughts and feelings...a lot of the time. I started blogging as a means of getting all of the garbage out of my heart and head so I had only the best of me left to give to the people I interact with on a daily basis. Somewhere along the way, I started fearing that I was going to sound like a raving bitch if I used my blog for its intended purpose. You see, I want to be liked and I care deeply when I'm not despite my own inability to tolerate, let alone like most people.

Anyway, I suck at blogging because I haven't allowed myself to actually do it the way I set out to. I wanted this to be more of a journal of my emotions... a diary... since I knew that I would never keep up with a written one. I didn't start writing this to gush about how fantastic my life, kids, husband, blah, blah, blah are. I began posting here to vent because I need to vent, to purge, to get the bad, negative junk out of me. I have social anxiety issues. Compound that with how appalling I find the lack of social etiquette of most people. I am a ticking time bomb waiting to go off on the stupidity, carelessness, and selfishness of others... and then I lack the ability to cope with the fall out once I do flip my lid. I also happen to believe that it is thoughtless, careless and rude to go around berating stupid people for being stupid so I obviously need some other release to get it all off my chest. This was supposed to be that release.

It was also never my intention to write nothing but angsty, whiny, drama laden posts as I actually do have a fantastic life, kids, husband, blah, blah, blah to gush about and be grateful for. I love sharing the beautiful insanity that is our life together but, somewhere along the way, I started to feel like I had to post nothing but sunshine and fluff or else be perceived as dark and troubled. I mean sure, part of me is dark and troubled; I can own that. I just don't want to be defined by that one facet of myself. All that being said, I want to get back to what this blog was supposed to be... my outlet. Mine. It is not a place for the judgement of others. It is not a place to be challenged by anyone but me. If you can't manage those two things in your reading, then you don't need to be here and what I share here is not for you.

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Now that we've discussed the direction and purpose of future posts here, I have an update on my bird nest post from three weeks ago... some fluff and sunshine, if you will.

I still think this bird is either a first time mama/nest builder or the personification of the phrase 'bird brain'. She insisted on her nest remaining in our front porch light, managed to build quite a sturdy one at that, and now there are little baby birds in there. How do I know there are little baby birds in there? Because yesterday, as Husband entered through the front door, Mama Bird took off in a frenzy like she always does and knocked one of her babies out of the nest causing it to fall a good three or four feet to the ledge below. We waited about half an hour to see if she would try to retrieve her fallen baby, but she did not. Husband went out, armed with a piece of paper, and scooped the little baby up and back into the nest. It opened its mouth looking for food at Husband's touch and I was relieved that it didn't die in the 30 minutes spent out of the nest. I've checked back a couple of times and there are no abandoned babies beneath Mama Bird's perch so I am hopeful that the baby was returned successfully.

The front door of our house is now off limits so we are entering and exiting through the garage. Packages and visitors, once met with enthusiasm, are now feared with the threat of Crazy Mama Bird and her flights of frenzy. I wonder how long it takes a baby robin to fly. I think I need to do a little research into exactly how long the main entry of our house is going to be out of commission in what could be seen as a ridiculous attempt to protect our as-of-yet featherless little friends from getting an early boot. Why am I getting a tad 'one flew over the cuckoo's nest' over this family of robins? Because my kids want nothing more than for these babies to survive. Mama Bird picked our light and now we all feel some bizarre duty to do our best to keep her babies safe. Yesterday, after I told the kids of their dad's heroic rescue, 8yr-old-boy made this journal entry, "Today, I am grateful for the baby bird."

Persistence

I'm starting to feel guilty for wanting this poor bird to rebuild. Three days in a row the wind and rain have taken out her creation, yet she keeps coming back to fix the damage and add more. It was completely gone yesterday and we even swept the remnants off the front porch assuming she would give up, but she has been back at it all morning. This is the farthest she has gotten and the wind is picking up again as I type. Poor, dumb bird. I think she might be a first timer.

Part of me wants her to succeed. She has obviously got her heart set on sharing our view and coveted spot right on the bus stop, but I just don't see how a nest is going to stay balanced in that light even if the wind does let up and allow her to continue to make progress. I yelled at 8yr-old-boy when he came back for the third time in the 10 minutes since he had gone out to play that he can't keep using the front door if we want the bird to have any chance of getting a good structure laid. Yea, I might be a little to wrapped up in Momma Bird's project.

And what if she does manage to build something that will withstand that precarious building spot and the elements? Are we going to be under constant attack once she lays her eggs just trying to use the front door? Even worse, it seems the chances of a bird flying into the house when we do open the door are drastically increased. Guess if she doesn't give up and actually pulls it off, the least I can do is enforce a "through the garage" directive and restrict use of the front door until all babies have flown the coop... so to speak.