First Meeting of the Year

I am off to my first official PTO meeting of the year with the executive council at the school - I need luck and patience as I am fairly certain they are going to try to tell me that everything is "JUST GREAT" when I know beyond any doubt things are not! 

question

While I realize going to a water park all day with our beloved children should fill my heart with unmitigated glee … why doesn’t it?  I feel fear & trepidation!

I have packed all the food we are "sneaking in" - the rules say "no coolers" ... and really, do you need a cooler for peanut butter on potato rolls and water?  NO ... so we are taking snacks to alleviate some of the pain of paying for snack food - although I am certain snack food will be purchased!!

I have packed my book - wishful, wishful thinking on my part.

We are off!

kidlet post

Tonight we spent dinner and playtime with a family from the Netherlands - and I am simply amazed by the kids ability to make anyone feel welcome and at home - and just have a lot of fun with them!  I think BeachGirl has three friends for life, and the littlest one has a darling 5 year old swooning over him because he reached out to hold her hand because all the rest of the girls were holding hands walking down the boardwalk and the two of them were left out.  Made my heart melt ... of course, I spent the entire awesome night without a camera so I just have to remember how awesome the three kids are. 

One other fact to keep in mind ... as with most awesome memories, this evening was completely spur of the moment with absolutely no thought on my part.   I couldn't have planned a more perfect time!

Sick, Sick & More Sick

Beachboy gets home from camp and the rest of the men and myself get sick, sick sick!  It has been absolutely miserable around here as we all try to recover from some form of bronchitis/lung gunk or just a virus that we can't seem to get over.  We have watched more "bad tv" and done more surfing than any family should do when the weather is absolutely beautiful outside and screaming for us to come visit the beach.

So we did, visit the beach ... for a whopping 20 minutes before beach-toddler started whining and complaining, beachboy started rolling around in the sand and beachgirl started begging for someone to play in the ocean with her.  Beachdude and I both were sporting fevers, so we really had no desire to entertain (we're bad that way) and I bolted to sit in traffic for an hour to go to the grocery store to pick out dinner.  We (I) decided on boneless country ribs that we grilled and enjoyed Tanqueray and Tonic while waiting for them to finish cooking.  Squash sautee & roasted potatoes rounded out the meal - and it is almost bedtime...woo-hoo.  Tomorrow is another day & I am hoping it is an awesome one - I owe the kids! 

Do you think I missed him much - the final camp email for 2007

WOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOO!  In 6 short (no, actually verrrryyyyy looooonnnnnggggg hours) I will get to embarass the dickens out of you because i get to PICK YOU UP ANDBRING YOU HOME!!! Of course we hope you had a great time and want to goagain next year (let me know if you want to and I will go ahead andsign you up today!), but it has been a really long week without youhere at home harassing your brother and sister, obsessing over gameboy,watching every cartoon known to man, swimming like a dolphin and myever favorite - "do I have to?" I can't wait to see you this afternoonand and bring home that huge duffle bag of dirty laundry!

We can head somewhere for a bite of dinner - and maybe we will beable to stop at Daddy's work to say "hi" when we drive through Dover.Let's find somewhere fun to eat and talk about all the coooollll stuffyou did this week!

See you in a few hours - love ya

mom 

sleepless

The last 18 months have been stressful.  I am sure the months previous to those were stressful as well, but I have not been handling stress well AT ALL in the last year or so and the worst part is that I am not sleeping.  I cannot really say the last time I slept the whole night through in my bed.  My usual night includes falling asleep in bed, getting up sometime between 12 & 2 am and moving to the sofa...sometimes napping on the sofa until morning - but more often than not, tossing and turning and watching Nick at Night (thank God that is on ... The Fresh Prince has become my new show!).  I am not loving this new lifestyle, and hubbie is certainly not loving it - amazing how waking in separate places affects our relationship!

R E S P E C T

My husband is a terrific dad - sometimes I truly believe he is a better Dad than I am a Mom simply because almost everything he does is methodical, organized and thought out.  He has such a strong set of values and morals - and when he disciplines he always does so through the filter of RESPECT. 

The most important quality for a child to exhibit is respect toward others - elders, friends, authority figures, politicians, school, government - you name it, everyone and everything deserves respect.  Misbehaving on the part of the kids is a sign of disrespect toward us as parents.  Physically fighting with one another is disrespect toward you siblings.  Not cutting your hair and letting it hang across your face is disrespect toward yourself and your family because you appear as though you don't care about anything but yourself (not to mention disrespect against God, because how can you possibly worship with hair hanging in your eyes...).  The list goes on and on - and on.  The lessons of respect have certainly been ingrained in the thought processes of the kids - and often it only takes the words "Show some respect" and the older two immediately straighten up and fly right.  The younger understands the tone of voice better than the words but he is getting there.

I have learned so much from my children's father - the amount of respect I hold for him grows by the years.  Of course, he really isn't all that interested in my respect!

banking banking banking

Here it is a Wednesday morning, Beachboy is at camp, Beachgirl is having an awesome playdate at the local waterpark (yes, I am a bit jealous), Beachdude is at his grandparents for the day (a pale comparison to the other two, but as far as his world goes ... AWESOME) and I am sitting at my messy, messy desk.  Why am I not at the beach, by the pool, shopping for birthday gifts, lunching with the girls - because I have to get my desk clean, the rest of the bills paid and some organization to my "paper life".  I am hoping that the investment today (after the massive time investment last week) I can get my overactive imagination (which is negative, by the way) under control.  If I can stop stressing, will I be a nicer mother, daughter, wife and friend?  I SURE HOPE SO!!!

I DID IT!!!!!

Ok, this is VERY WIERD!!!  I was working on a website for someone else and wanted to use my flickr badge as a place holder so I "cut and paste" ed the code into my FP site (I know, very old fashioned ... but that's me).  After I input the code and the badge worked ... I did another cut and paste into my blog and LO AND BEHOLD ... it worked!  Wowza, I am excited. 

The boys went to the doctor yesterday and we found out that not only does the youngest now have some form of allergies ... but the eldest's allergies have now led to the onset of wheezing (I am not saying the A word) and he is now using a nebulizer twice a day with two meds each time.  I am just a little freaked as I was not expecting the doc to say anything other than a virus was causing the problem -- I mean, that is what he ALWAYS SAYS!!!  Hopefully a full week of treatments and beachboy will be just fine until the next allergy season rolls around!

2 days and counting to the big birthday bash for beachgirl!  I think we have all of the non-food supplies - I just have to get cranking on cupcakes and ordering dinner for a late pickup on thursday! 

and it's official ...

I feel like I have reached a milestone - I am finally commenting on other sites with my spiffy new blog address!!!  Woo-hoo.  This blog feels different to me than the last one that I had (and the zillions that I have tried) and certainly is a LOT MORE FUN than the work-blogs (their work, not mine) that I have managed to keep up and running.  I am liking the "KISS" theme that I am sporting - let us call is "minimalist", shall we. 

I constantly find myself trying to add to the sidebars and such, but either my better judgment gets the best of me and I remove the links, the blogrolls, the books, etc ... OR the "great internet queen" makes that decision for me and does not allow me to do what I want to do - ie: put up my flickr badge ... by the way, if you want to see the munchkins, you can visit ...this spot and I think you will be able to see them (with my luck regarding this recent project, probably not!)

So, just in case anyone other than my BFF's visit - WELCOME and ENJOY ... let me know how you like the minimalism and if you have a solution for the inibility to cut and paste the flickr badge code onto my site ... let me know!!!  The sun is shining and we are heading out!

hot & humid

today was just one of those days when I thank the good Lord above for allowing air conditioning to be invented!  I have little or no patience when the temperature is above 95 (well, let's be honest - when it is above, below or even around 95 degrees).  I can't believe how the "littlest" things set me off even when I start my mornings with the promise that I am going to "have a good day" and not spend the day angry.  That is not working very well right now - my patience is thin and my temper chooses to flare quite often.  No one really likes to be around someone who is angry all the time ... I consider myself very fortunate that the kids will love me no matter what - at least until they get a lot older!

flickr frustration

I so badly want to add a flickr badge to this blog, but boy, thanks to the massive security measures of the scarey internet, I can't figure out how to incorporate the code into my site.  I am so unbelievably frustrated because I am finally so close, yet so far from being able to do what I want to do!!!  SSSSCCCCCRRRRREEEEEAAAAAMMMMM!

Happy 4th of July

There is nothing like having your parents live in "Mayberry East"!  Honestly, next year I am making a banner for the festivities.  After sitting on a freezing cold beach first thing in the morning for junior lifeguards, we headed over to my parents neighborhood for a few hours of "Old Fashioned 4th of July Fun!"  And, in spite of my sarcasm, it was actually a lot of fun.  The kids participated in various races for an hour or so - 3-legged, sack, potato races.  Prizes were the new presidential dollars and silver dollars.  Then the ultimate bike parade around the neighborhood - beachgirl was taken out by a little terror on a yellow bike who never even stopped.  Finally more games like Plinko, ring tosses, rubber duckies, popcorn and shaved ice.  It was a really fun way to socialize with the community (they are only 3 blocks away) and enjoy the holiday.  We had everyone over here for dinner - once again, way too much food and then the older two and beachdad headed down to the beach for the fireworks show.  The littlest one chickened out .... fine with me because...

I FEEL LIKE CRAPOLA!  and spent the entire night struggling against a fever the the achy-achies!  Every joint, muscle and bone in my body hurts right now and I honestly have no clue what is going on.  I really, really don't want to go to the doctor to deal with this, but I have not heard of any flu that is going around right now.  Hopefully this too will pass as I am supposed to go see beachgirl ride for the first time today and I really don't want to miss it! 

tickets tickets everywhere!

After some awesome kidlet behaviour today - actually completing some pretty tough chores & helping each other out when things got tough, I finally instituted our "HOME PBS SYSTEM" aka, the "TICKETS TICKETS EVERYWHERE" PROGRAM!  The kids have an awesome PBS (positive behaviour system) at school which they love and talk about constantly - so I decided to start our own here at home with one addition: I CAN TAKE AWAY TICKETS AS WELL AS GI VE THEM OUT!!  This is our first shot at the system, but the kids and I started the basic outline and guidelines ... thought I would share:

 

• Tickets awarded (2) when chores are completed  properly with no arguments or stalling
  
• Tickets awarded for "special behaviors"
  
• Tickets awarded (2) for every 100 pages read
  
• Tickets revoked from BOTH BEACHGIRL & BEACHBOY for arguing
  
• Tickets revoked for not doing daily 30 min of reading - min. 7 pages - Sunday through Thursday
  
• Tickets revoked for arguments when doing summer work
  
• Mommy and Daddy can give and take tickets as they choose!

 

IDEAS FOR USE OF TICKETS:

• 10 tickets - decision for activity of next day
• 50 tickets - new lacrosse gloves
• 40 tickets - Jungle Jim's
• 40 tickets - nintendo game
• 40 tickets - new webkins
• 20 tickets - white water mountain

beachboy's passion

for three years, our son has become a "sports guy"!  This is such an absolute shock to his mother because the most sweating I ever did as a kid was from fear at the bottom of the pyramid as a football cheerleader!  Back then, cheer was not a sport, it was more of a social class!  But beachboy has taken to lacrosse like a fish to water - although it has been fascinating, heartbreaking and awe-inspiring to watch how he works at growing in this sport.  Tonight, for example, he and his dad spent an hour after dinner with a dinner bowl, shaker jar of parmesian cheese and a ceramic carafe figuring out how to best "work the angles" when defending the goal with a long pole!  Please don't ask me what that actually means - I just sat at the table with a huge smile and watched my beloved son entranced with new knowledge and try to integrate the new skills with what he already knows - I am so proud of him for just being such an awesome kid!

 

got out the shovel ...

finally at 4pm yesterday afternoon I started the "big dig" and officially at 6pm this afternoon I have paid all I can pay, filed all I can file (well, almost ... but I am so close I can taste it), balanced the checkbooks, sent out the invoices, figured out all that needs to be taken care of when the assessments for the community and the next paycheck comes in, overcome my fears about money & PROMISED MYSELF THAT I WILL NOT GET MYSELF IN THIS POSITION AGAIN!!!  The financial front is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination - I was actually googling "easy budgets" because I think we need a better method of knowing where our moohlah is going and whether it is coming in.  Somehow I have a hard time accepting that by watching the cash (which doesn't really exist) like a hawk will ease our money problems ... but this method is not working!!

maybe, just maybe I will actually sleep tonight without waking up in a cold sweat.  Friday I should be able to take care of the rest of our personal stuff and then I am staying on top of it - I am, I swear I am ... the last few months have been rather hellish for me in terms of my stress level and I have no doubt that is solely because of cash flow.  My method recently of dealing with our cash issues is to ignore it and pretend that I don't have to pay bills or monitor our spending.  Considering that finances are my responsibility ... things are not cool!  But with a boatload of prayers before, during and after and a concentrated effort, at least a dent has been made and a start is better than where I was.

Oh, and beachboy does get to go to camp!