Slow Down * Enjoy Life

Phew…

Another Christmas, Another Anniversary … your birthday … and soon the kids birthdays too.  That’s a lot of stuff in less than 2 months.

Their birthday parties are planned.  Now I just need to get out all the invites.  We have big parties when it’s just our friends but now we have our new PK and K friends … I don’t mind putting it together but my hand hurts tonight from writing out the invites.  I wonder if this will be the last year I do their parties together.  I think next year they might just want it to be only the ‘boys’ or the ‘girls’ instead of a party all together.

Our anniversary would have been our 7th.  Most people didn’t remember or at least they didn’t say anything.  But at least one person remembered and msg’d me.  We went out with friends, the kids too, it was fun!  Would have been 7 years.  YIKES.  Does that mean 4 anniversaries have past already?

We also went out on NYE.  We didn’t get home until almost 2a and I had the kids with me.  That was SO past their bedtime.  And SO not the norm for me … way outside my normal boundaries of normalcy.  We left the party around 1:15 and C cried half the way home.  All the kids there were just running around on everybody else’s energy it seemed.  I’m actually surprised they made it so late.  It took like 2 days to recover.  It was like having a hangover without actually being hungover.  I don’t think I’m going to try that again any time soon … I need some adult nights out soon … and then a day of rest.

Christmas was amazing for the kids.  $ was tight this year so the present count was down a little.  But the kids didn’t seem to mind.  She got a barbie dream house, a new amercian girl doll, and her favorite, an easy bake oven.  He got a new bike, a bunch of avenger toys, and a remote control car.  I’m glad it’s over but I do enjoy that time of the year with the kids.  They’re so amazingly cute.  I hope they hold onto santa for years.

Next year we’re going to take a vacation for at least NYE, like leave the day after Christmas.  I so want to be somewhere warm instead.  A vacation is definitely needed.  Hopefully it won’t take another 12 months to happen.

The kids miss you tons, btw.  We may not talk about it all the time but it’s at least every other day.  E loves you more than anyone else.  In fact she might tell me that every day.  Heaven is such a difficult concept.  We have a book that talks about heaven and read it every so often.  While I use the concept to explain to the kids what happened, it’s a really struggle for me to explain since it simply isn’t what I believe.  UGH!  That itself is a topic for another day.

I found 2 dimes yesterday.  Like they were put there on purpose.  So crazy.  Like I open the back of the car to put in some groceries and a midst the mess that is the back of the car sits a dime, like a bright light from the sky is shinning on only that small little spot.

Some family and friends came over last night.  The kids were up til 11:30 … yikes!  Totally goes against all my parenting morals 😉  But amazingly they did fine, and were really good with the kids that were over too.  And even this morning they slept until 9a and so far so good.

I kind of wish more people would have come over last night, however.  Even though it was really great to have those here who did make it.  I guess I’m just a little disappointed in those that didn’t make it.  Not those that were sick but particularly those who decided that a neighborhood holiday party was more important.  I don’t know … I would skip a neighborhood holiday party any day if my friends were getting together.  I guess maybe I would have rather just heard them lie and say they were sick.  Thinking about it, I probably would have accepted any excuse other than a neighborhood holiday party … maybe that’s just me and maybe that’s just me venting.  I’m certain you would have def yelled at them. 😉

I can’t remember the last time I had as lazy a day as I had today.  Although my definition of lazy is not the same as the pre-kid definition off lazy.  While I just wanted to sit on the couch all day I still had to make breakfast, lunch & dinner, entertain them a dozen different times throughout the day, and dissolve nearly as many he-hit-me, she-hit-me, i-want-it, she/he-took it near-disasters … we did however find time to make snowflakes, play multiple games and work on homework … oh, and a think I changed 3 lightbulbs and washed dishes – go me

So “lazy then” doesn’t equal “lazy today”.  Lazy today didn’t mean napping on the couch but it did involve lounging on the couch nearly every minute I wasn’t involved in any of the above-mentioned activities.

Last night I entered a chili cook-off.  Somehow I ended up being the only one of my friends to actually cook.  BTW, they gave away prizes from 1st to 5th place and I didn’t win one award.  I don’t know what that was all about.  I thought mine was actually pretty damn good.  I actually put real effort into it … even though I might have borrowed the recipe…turkey chili with multiple peppers, seasoning … I should have at least won something for the prettiest chili.  Besides my ultimate failure, a totally random thing happened at this little LGP event … one of my fraternity brothers unexpectedly walked in the door.  Totally random.  Although he’s from the area so doesn’t live around here any more.  He’s one of the same person we ran into at the super bowl in Miami back in ’07 when we were 2 days from having our little princess.  Anyways, it was pretty cool to see him.  Those random meetings do however tend to bring up certain topics of conversation… ugh

6 days til her birthday.  A few of us will probably get together.  It’s not the easiest day.  Especially for the kids. Birthday’s were her thing.  Plenty of memories.  Maybe we’ll have cake.

What a waste of a day today.  It’s kind of crazy that I have a december weekend with nothing to do.  That’s not so much the case next weekend, however.  Maybe we’ll be productive tomorrow.  I’m not totally looking forward to a trip to the mall with the kids but I might brave at least a store or two.

School & Parents … Is drama supposed to happen in kindergarten?  Are there supposed to be kindergarten parents that bitch constantly about the teacher or other kids or whatever happens to be twisting this particular parents mind on any particular morning.  Seriously.  I know there are crazies out there.  Those p’s that can never be happy.  Those people who I would never ever ever want to associate with.  But in kindergarten.  Seriously?  I have no problem moving schools to get away from it.  Not that I’m planning to, but it’s an option I consider every now and then … pretty much every time I see her and I overhear her complaining to whoever will listen … sometimes she just complains out loud perhaps hoping that someone is listening and actually wants to hear the shit, yes shit, flowing out of her mouth … I’m not one for drama, causing drama, hearing about drama, involving myself in drama, but I can’t help from complaining about this.  She must be a really really unhappy person.

Enough about that …

I should probably go to bed.  I can’t believe I’m still sitting on the couch

All the decorations are up and have been up for a couple weeks.  Christmas cards started going out this week.  I haven’t done all my shopping yet.  Maybe that’s what I should be working on … maybe tomorrow.

I signed up to be a parent volunteer in her class today.  She was so excited for me to be there.  It felt SO good.  It really made my day.  She told me last week that her teacher mentioned that I would be in today. She was already excited.  Then today I’m standing outside her classroom and I hear her ask the teacher if her daddy was here yet.  That’s when I walked into her class…all smiles!

I helped her and 3 other students work on a craft.  I can’t wait to do it again.

—————————————————————————–

I had another halloween party for the kids this past weekend.  Our first party at the new house.  It was a little bit of a house-warming party at the same time I guess, but it was mainly for the kids.  I counted 32 kids on the evite … YIKES.  Everyone came too.  The yard is smaller than the old yard so the jumpie was stuffed into a corner but it still worked.  I do miss the big yard but we have more space inside the house now and that matters a little more.

The kids were super excited for the party.  They both had multiple costumes.  He dressed as Captain America and later put on the Hulk costume.  She dressed as a mermaid.  They didn’t know I was going to dress up too.  I picked up a Hulk costume (kind of corny but I could only think of how excited he’d be when he saw me in it + the pictures would be cute).  And he was super excited.  I did make a few kids cry, however.  Oops!

Anyways, it was a great day!  The weather was beyond perfect.  Nearly 70 degrees on Oct 21st … couldn’t have asked for any better.  Thanks Cari!

We had plenty of food, the kids were entertained the whole time … it was great.

We did, however, end up in the ER with another dislocated elbow.  Ugh.  He’s a champ thought.  That has to be painful.  MK drove us and I sat in the back seat of my car with him and held on tight.  He fell asleep in the car but woke crying as soon as I moved just a little when we arrived.  Fortunately we have connections at the hospital.  So even though we drove the 25 minutes extra to get to this hospital it was totally worth it.  It took them all but 5 seconds to pop it back in.  Then it took him another 3-4 minutes to figure out it didn’t hurt any more.  Poor guy!

Thanks to all the awesome people that cleaned up while I was dealing with that

—————————————————————————–

Today I was talking with another girls mom.  Her daughter and mine are super cute together.  We got to talking and she mentioned how she lost her finance and how she never wanted to marry again but then met her husband and can’t be happier.

What’s the odds that I’m surrounded so close by people who have experienced similar losses so early in life.

—————————————————————————–

“Daddy, guess what”

“What?”

“We carry Heaven in our Heart and we carry Mommy in our Heart”

“Right?”

“Right”

“And Papa and everyone else that died, and Jesus too”

“Grandma, Titi & Hauntie carry Papa in their Heart”

“Who told you that?”

“[My sister] did”

“What else do you know about Heaven”

“That’s all”

“I love you”

“I love you too!!!”