1 Full House -

My oldest, Elijah, asked if he could fall asleep in our bed the other night. Sure why not. The kid’s getting bigger every day, and someday in the not-to-distant future, I won’t be able to even hug him in public. So he lays down and we start talking about his day. A quick chat about his first day at art camp, and then we move on to sibling issues.

“Hey mommy? I think Jordan is going to kill me.”

“What!? What are you talking about babe? I don’t think Jo-jo is going to kill you.”

“Yeah, he is, he drives me NUTS! He’s really really realy going to KILL me!”

“Well what does he do?”

“He pulls on that back of my shirt and chokes me.”

(Side note: I’ve seen the kid in question do this, and we’ve been having some talks…and a few spankings, because of it.)

“Well ‘Lij, you need to talk to him yourself, and tell him to stop. You know screaming at him saying JORDAN JORDAN JORDAN doesn’t work too well. And if he doesn’t stop, and he’s hurting you, you need to make him stop. OK? I’ll have a talk with him tomorrow too.”

“Thanks for the advice, Mommy. I feel better now.”

I must have had a smile a mile wide when he said that. One of my biggest hopes, is that my children can talk to me about whatever they want. And that I will be able to do my best to give solid advice.

I hope this is the first in a long line of advice, I can give my kids. I love those little boogers.

Well camping was a blast. I took off Thursday & Friday from work, and we spent the whole weekend up in Munds Park. We got up there around 1pm on Thurs, and starting setting up camp. The boys played, we picked and few flowers for the dinner table, and then cooked dinner over the campfire.

By the way, cooking dinner over a fire is not nearly as easy as it might seem. Thursday’s dinner was a hoshposh of burnt sausage, potatoes, and summer squashes. Ham sandwiches turned out just right though… We froze our asses off the first night, but it wasn’t totally unbearable. (I forgot Alex’s & I’s pillows…)

Friday Alex took Elijah shooting, and I spent most of the day cleaning camp, and then looking for bugs with Jordan & Michael.

Sunday though, Mikey woke up with one hell of a spider bite near the inside corner of his eye. Poor little guys eye swelled up like a balloon. Between that and the fact that none of us had shower in a few days, off to my mom’s cabin it was!

Saturday & we went for a picnic up near Sheep Springs, and the boys played and watched movies at the cabin.

All in all it was a great weekend, and a much needed break from the city.

Today was an interesting day. Started off with a nice drive to the office. (Holiday-light traffic) Pretty smooth and easy day at the office. Nice lunch with the co-workers, and a confirmation of a few sales from clients. I should have known, eh? Nothing goes that smoothly. (Exhibit 1)

(Blissfully unaware)

Got a call from the Hubs around 2ish, the kids were at it again. Had pulled most of my garden out, including my new Jalapeño plant, the artichoke, turnips, and a few other miscellaneous items. Oh, yes…and the radishes, for the 2nd time. Sunday, Mr. Moo ha pulled out every. single. radish. in a 3′ x 3′ garden. Lost about 1/2 that crop. But we’ll get back to the radishes in a minute here.

Back to the Hubs and the boys. He dutifully sends the boys to their rooms for the garden fiasco, to go work on getting the garden back together. Soon, the screams ensue. Another bonk for Mr. Moo. (exhibit 2)

For the record, that’s a bruise, on top of a bruise/egg combo. The first was from 2 Sunday’s ago, under another’s care. I swear if these boys make it to 18 with all their god-given limbs, I will be a blessed mother.

So, expecting the worst, I head home a bit early. I knew I was walking in to insanity. Kids alive, check. No broken bones other physical ailments other than above, check. Garden, worse for the wear, but a check nonetheless. Though there’s word on the street of a possible record for me? What record might that be you ask? Well let me show you! For your pleasure, exhibit 3.

Radishes!!! Holy CRAP!

Odd. I was doing a bit of research just now. I was thinking about how such a large part of our life right now is the fact that I am the ‘bread winner’ and my husband stays at home. Now, I know he is working with his writing, plus college, plus cleaning the house (seriously busy!!), but as far as $$ goes, it’s my income that supports the family. Anywho, I decided to google to see if there were other blogs out there about people in similar situations. Ok, googled “female head of household”. Hmm, the first few results were submissive males, or dominant females. I must say, that is not at all what I was thinking. Let’s try this another way… Ok, much better.

Gee, I hope people don’t initially think of me as some dominatrix! HA

Well, even with the hour of searching I did, I wasn’t able to find much about it. At least from the wife’s point of view. Here’s my theory why.

Mother’s Guilt

Yup, that nasty little nagging feeling that we are never good enough moms. The one that we always seem to fail talking about. The one that’s always there.

I think, that as mothers, we feel too guilty that we are NOT Doris Day. We wish we could do 15 loads of laundry in 2 hours, all the while baking maple cream cheese frosted holiday cookies, oh and don’t forget to wear the pearls! We must beproud, yet humble, and willing to wake at dawn to feed the kids! This mother’s guilt causes us to work ourselves silly.

Even though I think this guilt is inherent to all mothers, I think it takes a new form with working moms.

In my case…ha, I think I may be running myself ragged with all the ‘extras’ I feel I should be doing. (And in many cases, love to do) For instance, I took a sewing class earlier this week. I have the spring garden to plan and plant, I have b-day parties to plan, etc, etc. They are all things I want to do, no doubt about it. It’s just a matter of finding the damned time to do them!

Now, I don’t want to get up from this PC right now and finish the laundry. Maybe I won’t. Though I will probably pick up every single toy on the floor on the way to the TV.

So I’ve been seriously dragging my feet on this whole blog thing. There’s a lot of excuses that keep rumbling through my mind on why. Shit, I have 3 kids, that’s more than most people with just that. Oh, works been just too stressful, big-box needs another damned report, I’ll put it off until tomorrow. Mr. Moo is throwing a fit again, Curly is screaming and I want to jab a pencil in my damned ear, or Spaz is jumping around the house like a damned monkey on crack. Maybe me and the hubby are fighting. Shit, I may just be PMS’ing. But here’s the deal people, all of those reasons above are the EXACT reasons why I need this.

People have looked at me with pity when I tell them everything I have going on. I’ve come to a point in my life where everything can’t be about everyone else. Guess what? I have a big fat stinking pile of laundry to do, my bathroom stinks a little bit like little boy pee. Oh well I say. It will get done, my ‘mother’s guilt’ will make sure of that. I just have to set time aside for Ananda. That’s the brunt of it right there.

You may find my dribble boring, I can’t imagine many people are going to care about a working mother of 3 that can be a little crazy at times. It’s not like I’m doing this for the fame (HA!). So there it is.

(Though if you find my blog entertaining in even the slightest, please let me know.)

I’m trying very hard here to get a photos page up and running and have a few problems. Hopefully my brain will get off vacation soon and help out…

In other news, my first big re-roof project started today…with tons of hitches of course. Manufacturer decided to ship out the incorrect color, and my big-box client is none too happy. Hopefully we’ll get this worked out soon enough.

Brand spankin’ new blog baby! There’s more where this came from.