I shall call this :my 6 year old will whoop your ass or 47 seconds of terror

"Santa" bestowed the gift of Wii and Wii Fit upon our home this year.

Word to yo'mutha Nintendo, because seriously I don't know how Wii existed before it. You've brought out the hidden talents in all us all.

Particularly my 6 year old daughter,J


Look at those moves. Those little feet get going. That ponytail gets to bobbing and it's on.

All I'm saying is Laila Ali, watch out.

The Gift

Written as part of Mrs.Flingers {W}rite of Passage Challenge #3 :Write about the Christmas gift you remember the most.

1999 had been an incredibly hard year. I'd lost my Dad suddenly and unexpectedly in July and I wasn't sure how I'd handle that first holiday season without him.

My then boyfriend had been an amazing support. It was he who picked me up from work, after I'd gotten the call that my Dad passed away. It was he who laid next to me on the bed and rubbed my back as I cried and cried. It was he that asked me what I needed and let me grieve whatever way I needed to. I knew then that he was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

One December evening, I came home after a particularly exhausting day to see him lying on the couch watching tv with a new blanket.

"Is that new ?" I asked even though I knew it was. When he confirmed, as irritational as it sounds, I became irritated.

He knows what I'm going through, I thought, and he has the nerve to go out and get a blanket just big enough for himself that at that moment looked like the softest,warmest,wrap-you-up-and-take-all-your-cares-away blanket.

I sulked away in a huff.

A week later,on Christmas day one present in particular caught my eye. It was puffy and squarish and looked much like a small blanket might look wrapped. I smiled quietly to myself. It was the first one he wanted me to open. I looked at him with a knowing glance. He looked oddly excited and nervous as I ripped at the paper.
Upon freeing the blanket from the wrapping paper I reached to give him a hug and thank him.

"Open it up" he said

"I did and I love it"

"No, the blanket, open it up"

So I slowly unzipped the plastic packaging and unfolded the blanket. A card fell out. My fingers touched something small and round inside the envelope.

Nervously, I lifted the flap and pulled out the card.

I read about our life together , how much we'd been through, how much I meant to him and how much he loved me.

And taped to the back of the card, was a ring. A beautiful engagement ring and the words "Will you Marry Me?"

****************************************
Happy Holiday's y'all, I hope they're filled with lots of love and happiness!

Oh the Shame...

So now that I'm mostly recovered, suffice it to say I think in Vegas I drank more than I ever really should have been allowed.

I'll spare you most of the gory details and instead just give you the highlights:

Arrived in Vegas Friday afternoon. Ate at Margaritaville. Took awesome picture with hubby and parrots (if you're my friend on FB you can see it there). Asked if I could slide into the large life sized margarita. Was told if I was faster than security I might be able to do it. I decided not to chance it.

Later we met up at PH with a large group of the most fabulous bloggers ever (whom I'd like to link to, but good god I'm lazy) and I proceeded to drink more than I ever really should have. Pictures were taken. None of which can be shown. We then took the party to the redonkulously awesome penthouse suite where the lovely Queen of Spain , who coordinated this whole dang thing in celebration of her own birthday,was staying. I proceeded to drink more , say ridiculous things and then suggested we all go dancing. We got a personal escort in to the posh club where at some point I fell. Yes I know I'm awesome. I don't even know what time that night ended.

The next morning was hell but I rallied. The hubby and I gambled a little, shopped a little, ate a little, saw the sights and finally when I could take no more we headed back to our room for a nap.

Post nap we headed out to gamble a little more then to the actual birthday bash. Lets see there was, drinking, more drinking, dancing on tables, lots and lots of cleavage/boobies and lord knows what else. I also do not know what time that night ended.

Sunday we were up $60 on penny slots and feeling high on life. A little roulette a little lunch and then it was off to the airport...where our flight was delayed. Which is really the suck when you're hungover, missing your kids and just want to be home.

Finally made it home at around 11:00 p.m. and crashed hard.

It was hell on my liver. Hell on my pride.

But dammit I can't wait to do it again.

It's almost my birthday and I'm giving you a present (maybe)

OMG, OMG, OMG, I can barely contain myself because... VEGAS... in one day!

It's a big ass birthday bash and I.cannot.wait. And I'll be darned if there isn't a party at Planet Hollywood on Saturday (my actual birthday and no its not in my honor but who cares because there will be bloggers,booze and insanity. I have a feeling what happens in Vegas will not stay in Vegas but be blogged tweeted , Facebooked, emailed...yeah you get the point)

So while I'm busily getting ready for that head on over to my review blog and enter to win free cereal and movie tickets!

And Happy Birthday to me. 37 never looked better

Mwah,

WM

The epitome of stupidity

I stayed mostly unplugged over the luxoriously long five day break. I had more important things to do- you know, like relive my youth and watch awesomely bad 80s movies.

Like this one


And no I'm not joking, I watched Footloose over the holiday.

Lemme see, I was about 12 years old when it first came out and I remember thinking from the music, to the dancing, to the hawtness of one Kevin Bacon this movie is full of win.

Watching it again, at 36 (soon to be 37-11 days and counting- yay me! Oops I digress. Oh and I acccept gifts of all kinds -oops there I go again)

...well if I'd had 12 year old me there I'd have shaken her and said "The fuck?!"

But I don't fault 12 year old me because, hell, I was 12 and didn't have the,um, refined tastes I have now.

What did I know? I wore flourescent ties and shoulder pads. 12 year old me believed that a town really could have laws forbidding dancing.
12 year old me believed that Ren's spastic dancing made him hot.
12 year old me didn't question the scene when Ariel got into a physical fight with her boyfriend. Nope didn't wonder why no one addressed the whole dude hitting a girl thing and holygoodgawdalmighty the inappropriateness and holygoodgawdalmighty what message are they sending to 12 year olds.

12 year old me adored that movie especially the no-rhythym shuffle K.Bake et al did at the very end of the movie.
In fact I think I may have practiced it once or twice after hearing the theme song (Now you gotta cut loose, Footloose, kick off your Sunday shoes...you have it in your head now don't you ? You're welcome) on the clock radio I begged my mother for and thought I was the shizz when I actually got.

Aah the memories that movie brought back.

But oh the brain cells that it killed.

Hope y'all had the happiest of Thankgivings and filled your days with hip arthouse "films" and skipped the whole Footloose thing. But if you didn't, remember my stupid ass was doing the very same thing. So don't be too hard on yourself.

We don't do catty here

My stepdaughter, TomGirl doesn't like girls. Or so she says.

"I just get along better with guys" she remarks "they don't seem to have all the...you know issues girls have"

And while I told her that making a blanket statement that she's doesn't like girls is ridiculous. I kind of get it. Sometimes teenage girls are catty.

It takes some maturity to realize we shouldn't be in competition with one another but instead respect, understand and appreciate one another as females.

I don't do catty. Or at least I try not to. Sure I've been gossipy and maybe even said some things I've regretted before but generally cattiness doesn't serve any real purpose. So when I see that behavior in another female I tend to run screaming for the hills.

Kind of like last night as I sat chatting with a group of moms while at a birthday party with my kids. I'd met and conversed with these moms several times before so we chatted comfortably and easily about one thing or another.

As all the kids stood salivating around the cake, one of the moms,Rochelle, made a comment about one of the boys being on the smaller side. It wasn't said maliciously. It was simply an observation.

But then Janet, who was sitting next to me says "Well, we all know that everybody comes in different shapes and sizes don't we ?" (and even though it shouldn't matter, keep in mind that the boy in question was not her kid )

Her statement was made with emphasis on the words "know, shapes and sizes" while glaring at Rochelle who just happens to be a larger woman.

Cue record scratching as I mentally run screaming for the hills.

Silence hung in the air for what seemed like hours but in actuality was probably only seconds.

Her remark was rude, it was catty and unecessary. And frankly it wasn't the first time she'd said this kind of thing.

So I turned to her and said "Wow, what a bitchy thing to say."

Ok no I didn't really. But I wanted to. Sure her statement was true, but the manner in which it was said was just nasty.

Kinda like when she called me out for not inviting her kid to a party before we really even knew their family. Or when we did finally invite her kid to a party and my husband asked the kids to be careful with juice on the carpet she remarked "well you shouldn't have had juice if you didn't want kids to spill it."

What.the.eff ?

Awesome right ? I guess she skipped out on that maturity piece.

Love for Anissa

I haven't yet met Anissa in real life. I say "yet" because I fully intend on meeting her. Soon. (hear that Anissa ?...be very afraid!)

I mean after all who wouldn't want to meet one of the kindest, FUNNIEST, genuine down ass chicks on the planet in real life.

Anissa with out knowing me offered up a place to stay when I thought I'd be in her town and well much of my daily laughter comes from her Twitter stream. She's just good people and I adore her!

Sadly, yesterday, Anissa suffered a stroke and is currently in ICU. I've been praying for her speedy recovery and I'm asking that you pray, send good health vibes, whatever you can to get our Anissa back to us.

Anissa has three darling children, one of whom Peyton is a cancer survivor. I can only imagine how scary this much be for them.

To find out more about how you can help click here (also check out this site because it's displays even more of Anissa's awesomeness)

Thanks friends. It makes me proud to be a part of such a community that reaches out to help when one of our own is in need.

Venting...

I should rename this blog: Because I'm good at venting.
The ranting. The bitching. The stuff I need a release for, well, this has been the receptacle for those emotions of late.

These last few months... have been challenging to say the least. In my son, we have seen some behaviors that as a good parent I'd be remiss if I didn't try and address.

Sorry for the lack of detail. I'm just not sure how much I want to say. Rest assured he's a generally happy healthy six year old little boy but as his mother I feel compelled to address these other "things".

That said, the point of this post is not to vent about my son. I love him so much it's indescribable and only want to do what's right for him.

No, the point of this is to vent about commentary made about my son.

When we received his report card his PE teacher basically had nothing nice to say. He simply gave him a grade and made comments that were, well, antagonistic at best.

And this was the first communication I've ever had with this man. If you can call it that.

I'm pissed frankly that he didn't reach out to me earlier to make me aware of the problems my son was having in his class but instead categorized him as a problem child in the brief paragraph he'd written.

I tried to understand that teacher's logic by making excuses for him.

He's the sole PE teacher for 300 plus kids and he only has a limited time to complete all these analysis, I tried to reason.

But the thing is, he's been a teacher for several years and he should know better. How can I try and change that which I'm unaware of.

And yes I know that report can be used as an opportunity to try to turn things around and I will. But frankly I take issue with his style... utter lack of communication.

It hurts me as a parent to know that a teacher wouldn't take the time to understand, much like we have, that perhaps something else is going on. It disturbs me that he wouldn't try and dig any further. At a minimum I expect a call or an email to discuss the situation. This is a team effort between the teachers my husband and I. I'm trying to do my part. Is it wrong to expect him to do his ?

And so we have our parent teacher conference tonight.
Rest assured. The school will know how I feel.

Swine flu vaccine inducing crazy and the house o'suck

I have been living in the house o'sick. Or the house o'suck as I've come to call it in the last week. When you have a husband laid up with a bad back and twins who give the Tasmanian devil a run for his money,let me tell you, it definitely rates high on the suckage meter.

This all began about one week ago, when hubby threw his back out. He has this thing, doctors have diagnosed as an "arthritic twinge" which is doctor speak for you may be doing the most basic thing and your back that you rely on to stand erect will say fuck you and give out.
Usually when this happens the hubby is out of commission for 2 days and then he's fine. But to hear him tell it, this pain was unlike the other times. It was to the point where he couldn't even get up to pee and I really did offer him a cup. His pride wouldn't allow him to do it but it did prompt a trip to the ER. So a bunch of drugs and a whole lot of cotton mouth later he was back home and unbeknownst to me would claim a place on our bed for the WHOLE week.
So that was that.

Except for mid week, when my daughter got a fever and begun throwing up. The little neighbor girl,whom my daughter adores and plays with frequently, had been diagnosed with swine flu recently so I just knew those evil piggies had invaded my little girl's innards. The thought that my daughter had gotten swine flu that particular day was messing with my head in the worst way because I'd intended to get her and her brother vaccinated that weekend after struggling with whether or not to actually get them vaccinated.

Fortunately, J, was back to normal the next day and since she'd been better for a full 24 hours I proceeded with the vaccination plan.

Vaccination day was rainy, windy AND bitterly cold and of course there was a line which could rival any Miley Cyrus concert ticket sales line. But I was determined not to leave regardless of how many times my children asked me to do so.

All I can say is thank goodness for the wonderful women that saved our place in line and allowed us to go defrost in our car for a bit. After a couple of hours and a level 5 freakout from my daughter about the needle, vaccinations were completed and we were able to resume our regularly scheduled day.

The regularly scheduled day was traveling 1 hour north to go pick up my 14 year old stepdaughter and then take her and the twins to see Disney on Ice.

All was well until the ride home when my son complained of a tummy ache and later threw up everywhere. Clean up was crazy because really who's prepared for having to clean up a ton of vomit while on the road. I wasn't but I'll tell you one thing. I will be from now on.

And in our hour long ride home there was ...2 more vomiting episodes. While my sane mind knew this was probably just the bug his sister had earlier in the week, my insane , worrywart mind told me that this was a reaction to the swine flu vaccine and that we were going to wind up in the emergency room again. For the second time that week.
And the thing was I couldn't talk my mind out of that crazy.

But it's the next morning and while not completely out of the woods he hasn't thrown up in several hours.

BUT...my husband has. He woke up this morning and promptly threw up.

And I'm. Crossing.my.fingers.

I'll be damned if the house of sick/suck will get me.

If it doesn't have 140 characters or less...I'm out

Dear God. What has Twitter done to me ? My attention span is, for lack of a better term , utter doo-doo.

I started two different blog posts last night. Things I really, really wanted to say. I mean it was really great stuff if I do say so myself. You would have really loved the one where I came to terms with my physical appearance and the fact that if I were pink I'd easily be mistaken for Ms. Piggy.

Or there was a really good one about putting myself out there on the internet and how blogging can be wonderful and scary all at the same time. Oh and lets not even talk about the reviews and giveaways I should be doing. I really, really want to tell you about the V.I.B.E (Very Important Blogger Event) that QFC (grocery) put on for a few of us Seattle moms. It was delightful, and our voices were heard. Yet I can't regale you with these tales because I can't even make it to the second paragraph. I just stop. The words just don't come.

I've got Twitterholism which because it was left untreated lead to Blogstipation.

The doctors tell me I can beat this.

So I'm hopeful

I know I can get sober. Just hang with me.

Smooches,

WM

Celebrating my favorite breast cancer survivor

As you may well know, October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I can't urge you enough to CHECK YOURSELF and/or get checked by a physician REGULARLY. But then you already know that right?

In celebration of the month and in honor of my favorite breast cancer survivor, my mom, I'm reposting her story.

Oh Hai...I are back. Sort of...

Ohmahgawd, hi! I'm alive. Didja miss me? First off I really didn't intend to be gone for so long but everytime I thought about posting I.just.got.exhausted.

It could be because my children were supposed to have entered 1st grade about two weeks ago.

But they havent.

Our teachers have been striking and it's been weighing heavily on my mind. I support the teachers 100% but then am conflicted because I am angered that the strike continues. I just want my kids to be back in school. Their little minds and spirits are starving for that environment that only school can provide. Mainly I just wonder why the school district and the teachers association don't attempt to get this shit resolved earlier. I will not go in to it any further than what I have but suffice it to say it's a most sucky situation.

Then there is still the minderasing system conversion at work. It's gotten more nightmarish. But yeah, don't much wanna talk about that.

Then I had an "issue" with an evil hag at work with whom I'm making it my mission now to make miserable. Don't ask. But she deserves it. She went on a personal attack. And homey...don't playdat.

Oh lets see, there was the biopsy that my daughter had to have on a spot near her left ear.She handled it like a champ. Me not so much. They have assured me it's not cancerous..but yet they couldn't tell me for sure what it was until they biopsied it.

and then I took the plunge and signed up for Facebook. Or as a good friend calls it Crackbook. We all know with my addictive personality that kind of thing never ends well.

Oh and then I became a grandma...

Of a pillowgrandchild. My daughter married one of our couch pillows and had little throw pillow babies.

So as you can read, I've been busy. But I've missed you.

So tell me, what have I missed in your scintillating lives?

Sometimes it's great to let others do your work for you

First off, forgive me readers for I have sinned.

My apologies to y'all for making commenting ridiculously hard over the last month or so. I thought I was doing a good thing trying to enable Comment luv for Blogger. I suppose that's what I get for thinking. The comment plugin required to enable it was basically a bastard of a plug-in and only served to make things harder for you and for me. So I've said my hail marys and deleted that sucker. Am I forgiven?

Secondly...busy doesn't even begin to explain my life at this moment. I have but two words. System conversion (at work) and ok that's technically 4 but anyway 'nuff said. Talking about it too much makes me feel all kinds of stabby w/a side order of head exploding.

Thirdly...because I can't function well enough to put together a post about the fun parts of my life. You know the stuff I like writing about. I give you this:

And for those of you that are all: You expect me to read all that ??? I will give you the abbreviated version of this long ass email I just received. It's about a new Iphone app called KegelTopia. Yup , it's an Iphone app for Kegel exercises. I'm still not entirely sure it's not a joke.

Now then, enjoy , have fun, and I'll holler atcha again when I can....

Mwah,
WM


Hi –
Hope you’re doing well. I just wanted to flag a new iPhone application for you. Today, iTactility announced the launch of the KegelTopia application for iPhone and iPod touch. The full press release is below, but in short, the new app lets users select Kegel workouts to practice and allows them to track their progress over time.
Please let me know if you would like to review a copy of this app or speak to someone about it. Additionally, a short video demo is available athttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmz9QZjSjLU.
Thanks,
Oona
KegelTopia
(c) 202-xxx-xxxx
orokyta@email.com

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 21, 2009 at 10:30am PDT

KegelTopia Launched in iPhone App Store
New exercise application helps new mothers get back in shape

August 21, 2009 – San Francisco, CA – iTactility, has today launched a new application, KegelTopia, through the iPhone App Store. This new interactive application is intended primarily for expectant and new mothers as a way to strengthen muscles prior to and after childbirth. The application provides a variety of exercise types, however, that should appeal to a broader audience of women hoping to strengthen a core set of muscle groups.
Kegel exercises have long been acknowledged as an effective way to rebuild pelvic floor muscles. The KegelTopia application offers a series of exercises narrated by a yoga instructor at various time intervals, making the exercises simple to do whether at home or elsewhere. Also developed to track your progress over time in terms of time intervals, the application makes tracking regular Kegel exercises easy and motivating.
KegelTopia features:
· Tutorial with audio content
· Audio exercise instructions delivered by a professional yoga instructor
· 3 types of pelvic floor exercises to address different aspects of muscle conditioning (Mini, 3 Second Hold and Elevator intervals)
· Interactive “Freestyle” exercise with contraction tracker records progress
· Preset timer for exercises
· Comprehensive history view to quickly assess overall progress (over various date ranges)

The KegelTopia application was inspired by a new mother after speaking with her doctor about exercises critical to improving her physical health after pregnancy. Developed in conjunction with a professional yoga instructor, KegelTopia is the most comprehensive Kegel exercise application for the iPhone and iPod touch. Available now at the iPhone App Store for US$4.99.

Media Contact
Oona Rokyta
202-xxx-xxxx
orokyta@email.com
Twitter - @o****ta

It rhymes with funyuns and is only slightly less classy

The universe is out to get me. Really. I think I was way to all about me back in the day, when I had every fantastic, orgasmic but feet destroying shoe one could ever dream of or want.

Now I'm in my mid thirties late twenties...my feet.aren't.havin.it.

There was this betrayal and now...I may have a . I don't know if I can even bring myself to say it.

A bunion.

I know , I know...I'm as horrified as you are. Especially when I Googled my latest foot pain and this little bit of loveliness is what the internetz retrieved

For the record, that is NOT my foot. I'll go under the knife and be partially immobile for the better part of 6 weeks before I ever let my feet get to some gnarly looking hot mess like that.
I likey de sandals way too much.

So I see the doctor tomorrow for diagnosis and next steps...but I'd like to say to the universe once again, fuckyouverymuch. You're not even remotely funny anymore

Oh the agony of de feet.


P.S....so we don't end on a nasty, she wrote a whole post about feet again note I give you this much more delightful pic. And yes, that is my son, rocking a mohawk. He's in to the whole "rockstar" thing...and who am I to discourage the boys dreams.

The next time I complain about my kids...stick this in my face

Returning home Saturday night after celebrating the hubby's birthday I walked in to ... a spotless house.

My stepdaughter, GT helped the twins clean their room and figure out which toys they wanted to donate and had them bagged and ready to go, she got down on her hands and knees scrubbed the kitchen floor and according to her the twins suggested steam cleaning the carpet in the family room and so they did.

And as if that wasn't enough they made up our bed and left candy in the shape of a heart on it.

I'm now starting a full on campaign for GT to come live with us full time because seriously I could really get use to this children-doing-lots-of-work-so-I don't-have-to-sparkly-house-thing.

Then this morning, a morning I was sure was going to be hellish because I had to get the kids up and ready at o'dark thirty, began with my son protecting me from the law. "Mom," he said "watch out because there's a police car over there ...d'ya see it" I could've kissed his face off at that moment...because protecting his speed demon mom, well that's nothing short of awesome.
Later on during the drive we spotted another police car and I remarked that we sure were seeing a lot of cop cars for that early in the morning to which my son said "They must be looking for donuts"

LOVE that kid.

The end.

If you haven't guessed yet, I'm kinda avoiding the blogosphere and Twitter and every other social media site where people might talk about BlogHer

I could lie and say I haven't had time for the internetz because I've been really busy. But that would only be half true. Sure I'm busy. Why just last week my boss left town for two weeks - which means I'm doing her work and mine, my sister arrived in town which means I'm spending as much time as possible chillaxin with her, I had a wedding to go to and a party to host at my house. So there were things. Lots of things.

But my work requires that I sit in front of a computer the bulk of the day. So...that...would only be an excuse.

Look, if we're being honest here I'm kind of hiding. Except for reading a few posts and maybe commenting here and there I am for all intents and purposes pretending like the blogosphere doesn't exist.

Why?

In a word BlogHer. Which shall heretofor be renamed The-conference-that-no-matter-how-intently-I-set-my-mind-to-go-to-I-for-some-reason-or-another-can-never-make-when-the-time-comes.

I just can't bear to read all the wrap-up posts about how such and such party was so fab and how xyz panel was so positively life changing. I really want to cover my eyes and run away screaming from the computer screen when I read stuff like "I met Jane Doe blogger that I've read for years and she was as ridiculously awesome in person as I knew she'd be"

Oh and then there are the pictures. The pictures that clearly illustrate all the fun and fabulousness that I was not able to partake in.

So what am I doing about all that ?

I'm gonna pout. I'm going to fold my arms, poke out my bottom lip and pout. And hide and pretend like all of it didn't happen.

It's good to be mature.

Thanks folks, they're here all week

Snippets from the funny farm:

Friday my son, B, ready to get into our new larger pool grabbed his life jacket and put it on himself. Looking at the strap that goes through the crotch area my hubby inquired as to whether it was too tight and if "things" weren't squished down below.

"What you mean my boys ?" my son questioned. (Let me tell you when you hear this from a serious six year old you snort... a lot)

And then there was this:

Hubby and I were sitting down watching "Things we Lost in the Fire" when hubby said "I don't get why women think he's so handsome," referring to Benecio Del Toro.

"He may not have traditional good looks" I answered "but he's got a lot of sex appeal. There are some people that can just do things that exude sexiness, you know what I mean?"

And with a straight face, hubby said, "I know" he says "It's kinda like me...when I breathe"

Ba-dum-bum! Ching!

So yeah maybe I did marry him for his sense of humor. He's kinda quick witted like that.

They're lucky I even have pants on

I wish the stars would align, or the universe would turn inside out or whatever needs to happen to make me a morning person.

I hate that I'm this evil grumpy hag for the first 15 minutes of my day every weekday morning I'm woken up by that demon called the alarm clock.

As I stand in front of my mirror trying to care that I'm supposed to look half decent, all I can think about is how much I hate this process. So I kind of half-ass it and get dressed in the closest thing to casual I can and somehow even though I'm half-assing it I always manage to get behind schedule. Don't tell anybody...but it might be because I've fallen back asleep in my closet. Or on some mornings where I'm really hating it I may have fallen asleep on the terlit. But that's just between you and me.

Ahem.

All this makes me think, I really want my in-laws to adopt me. Sure I'm their "daughter-in-law", but I want to be their actual kid. And live with them permanently and live the life I lived last week. One of a spoiled pampered princess.

I woke up when I wanted to , to coffee, tea and a breakfast of champions (and I'm not talking Wheaties, folks, I'm talking the fluffiest, flavorful perfect sized pancakes, sausages, bacon, milk , oj, you name it it was there). Then if I wanted to I could take a dip in their pool, or if the mood struck me I chilled in the hot tub. Then after lazing around, chatting up other fam, lunch and dinner (can you say the yummiest brisket ever) were made for me.

Then there were the days at the lake resort where I drove a jet ski for the first time (I've only ever been a passenger before - Nevermind that I came close to hitting a boat...) Swam, ate, drank, played games, took walks, jumped in the lake, relaxed, laughed, rinsed and repeated.

Gah, a girl could really get used to that.

So I'm back...at work. And I'm tired and whiny and maybe a little eviler than normal because man...vacay was good.

But give me a few minutes. I'll get back in to this blog thing. Cuz truth be told I might have missed you guys.

But only a little...

*****************
Going on vacay ? Want a great way to keep your kiddos entertained? Get thee to my review blog and Enter to win Chicco's latest awesome toy

It's all about the Vacay...

I'd venture to say this is probably one of the coolest Mondays ever. And that's saying a lot coming from me because frankly I think Mondays suck big bull testicles.

Not this one,though. Because in addition to this awesome present my boss brought back from the HR conference in N'awlins...




I am working just two days this week and then you'll found me on one of them aeroplanes headed for hotter than hades Texas where I will be vacationing with the fam by the lake - family reunion style

Aah....I can feel the relaxation already.

So talk amongst yourselves. I'll be back sometime next week.

Maybe


Until then, consider heading over to my review blog and entering to win
Special K Protein Shakes (4 winners) or if you're in the Seattle area Wiggles Tickets

Mwah,
WM

Prednisone...I love you , no I hate you...eh I'm conflicted

Friday evening started out grim. I arrived home to find my concerned mother and worried husband standing over my feverish, shallow breathing, moaning son.

I took one look and asked my husband to get him dressed. "We're heading to urgent care" I said.

B had a fever earlier that day which my mom said responded well to Tylenol. When I talked to him shortly after he was happily playing and said he felt "good".

To say I was suprised to come home to him like this was an understatement.

We quickly headed off to urgent care where I had hoped we'd be seen immediately because it was clear my son was very sick. But nope. We waited. When we were finally called in to the exam room , we waited some more.

When the doctor finally arrived, he was worth the wait. He was attentive,thorough and had a great bedside manner.

He listened to B's chest for a while then had the nurse come back and test for flu. When those results came back negative he said B most likely has some kind of respiratory virus that has been exascerbated by his allergies and asthma. He said that he's working really hard to breathe because his lungs are inflammed.

I talked to him about my son's "exercise induced" asthma that we'd been prescribed Albuterol for. "Albuterol is great as rescue treatment and opens up the lungs" he said "But it doesn't do anything for the inflammation once it wears off. We need to treat the inflammation."

After talking with him some more and explaining past issues with my son, we talked about the fact that his asthma is not just exercise induced but the chronic type. This both pleased and infuriated me. I was pleased for a diagnosis which explained a lot but wondered why no other doctor had figured this out before.

I'd told them the same things I'd told this doc. I simply don't get it. And it really pisses me off! * End rant before it really begins because that's a whole other blog post for another day

Ahem...

After a dose of tylenol, B quickly rallied and was up and happily downing the green Otter Pop they'd given him. Dr. Awesome told me that B should take a steroid for the next five days to get the inflammation down.

Cue the doom and gloom music

I know what steriods can do. No, I'm not talking 'roid rage. Asthma runs in the family and when steriods have been prescribed long term, I've seen little kids turn into gigantic kids. Of course I'll do what I need to to get my son well...but I'd hate for him to be teased because of medicine induced weight gain. *sigh*

Remembering this,I asked the doctor about side effects and things to be aware of. The first thing he says is it can cause some kids to "wig out". It can also suppress the immune system making him susceptible to other infections (joy!) but many kids have little to no adverse effects.

So I tucked the information away, smiled at my son, who I could tell was feeling tons better, thanked Dr. Awesome and we headed out to go fill our steriod prescription.

A day later, the fever long gone, the breathing returned to normal, the asthma attacks at bay...my 6 year old turned into someone resembling a crack addict

I videotaped (and coincidentally left at home) my son simply because I couldn't believe the craziness.

He'd be fine one second, then run from one side of the room to the next repeatedly.

It was almost liked he'd have spontaneous tics. Yelling randomly. And loudly

A request for hotdogs started with "Mom, can we cook some hotdogs?" to "IWANNACOOKSOMEHOTDOGS, HOTDOGSHOTDOGSYUMMY HOTDOGS" "J stop talking" "YOUWANTAHOTDOG?" commence dancing in place.

And I'm so not kidding.

I'd like to be. But I'm not.

Pray for me. We've got about 3 more days of this stuff.

When you gotta go...you gotta go...

I came home yesterday to find this lovely artistic rendering of two dinosaurs hanging out and ...pooping.

Drawn courtesy of my son, B.

I both laughed and breathed a sigh of relief that kindergarten is over. I could only imagine the note that would have come home had this drawing been done in school.

Not a real blog post but worthy (like contest giveaway worthy) info just the same

After agonizing over whether to update my last post or do a whole new blog post I decided that agonizing over it is dumb.

*Ahem,*

For those of you Seattle area peeps with little ones I just got offered 4 tix to giveaway to the upcoming Wiggles show at Comcast Arena. My two were ginormous fans (and uh maybe I was too) so I'm passing that pleasure on to my Seattle homies. Because I love you. So go forth to my review blog and enter. Now!

And if you've tried to comment and it's been all wonky , or your comments disappeared believe me I'm well aware. I'm trying to try out Comment Luv for Blogger (when they open it back up for registration) and it's the new widget associated with that that's making my comments all twilight zonesque. So bear with me pretty please.

Mwah,
WM

Last Day of Kindergarten...shedding tears

I remember a mere 8 months ago I was freaked. FREAKED I tell you...because I was convinced the school district was trying to prepare my then five year olds for freshman year of college.

I remember thinking...what in the hell ? They don't even have to time to eat paste because the school district thinks they need to be full fledged readers, writers and illustrators of their writings, counting to 115, counting by 2s,5s and 10s, understanding the value of money, doing basic addition and subtraction all in a 3 hour day. If it made my 36 year old mind want to explode, I could only imagine what it would do to my twins little minds.

But here we are on their last day of kindergarten and they can do everything the school anticipated they'd be able to do.

Why just yesterday my son made a grocery list. He wanted to make sure we got pop, not because I let him drink it, but because he could spell it all by himself with no help from me. And what he couldn't spell he sounded out and came so close. I was ecstatic to go buy my green bens (he has a special recipe he likes to make) and toylet paper.

I'm amazed. And completely proud of my big six year olds. That are now classifying animal species. And making me feel kinda simple because I'm NOT smarter than a kindergartner.

But it's good. It's a great feeling. And while this year wasn't without it's challenges, standing on the other side of it I feel ...lucky and blessed.

We lucked in to a top-notch school with fantastic staff and my children have grown in this wonderfully innocent way that I just really can't put in to words.

It's a tad bittersweet though, because I no longer have babies. I have these grown up kids. We have this changed relationship where I'm needing to recognize them for the big kids that they are.
It's new and different and... beautiful and I feel thankful for every day they are in my life. For every new experience that we can share.
Together.

Let's just say...

That I was right about there being a secret wedding. Did you even doubt me for a second ? You did ? Well don't ever do it again,mmkay?

I drove down after work with Kay and the twins and the trip began with family drama. Their side not ours. I was seriously ready to turn around and go home. Most of the first night was weird to say the least.

But then it got better. There was a wedding Saturday evening on the dock with all of the guests in bathing suits. The newlyweds, the bride in a long flowing sundress and the groom in a short sleeved button down and shorts, took a plunge off of the dock upon being pronounced married. Then there was celebrating. Lots of celebrating.

After dinner, there may have been some drinking of the al-key-hall. Big kids may have been asked to watch little kids and some of the adults may have gone to a restaurant/bar within walking distance where maybe more alcohol was consumed. There may have even been some shirtless men dancing on a bar. One of them may have been my husband.

There may have been a rendevous in the grass which caused me to temporarily lose my cell phone. I might have been overheard by my stepdaughter,TomGirl, saying to my husband that I think my phone fell out of my jeans pocket in the grass when I , er removed them. She may never recover from hearing that. Or she may have said: I knew what you guys were doing when you came and grabbed a sleeping bag and it's all good. At least it shows that you guys love each other. I may just think she's the coolest teenager around.

There may have been wakeboarding, boating, seadoo-ing and there may have been a scary the water is too cold- I have this wakeboard stuck on my feet-I wanna get out but I can't and am panicking water incident. Maybe.

All I know is I'm still tired. Work is fairly busy. So that's all you get.

For now.

Mwah,
WM

Suprise ! It's...a wedding.

Remember when I talked about how my friend got engaged to a man she's known for two months. From what I know, dude seems like he has it together, he seems to really care for her, he's got a good sense of humor and he ain't bad on the eyes. From what I know.

My beef is not so much with him as it is with the need to get married so quickly. To be legally bound to someone she's known for such a short period of time. Someone who has history she has yet to know, with whom she's never hashed out any serious problems, someone who will now be stepparent to her children. Someone with whom she will share her finances. Ya get my point, here?

Ahem...

So I got a call from Kay (the friend in question) a few nights ago asking what I'm doing this weekend.

"Not sure,why what's up?"

" We're having a little engagement party and we'd like you guys to come"

"Sure" I say thinking it would be at her house.

"We're going to Vantage" she said "We're bringing the boat, there will be tons of kids there, R's (her new man)mom will be there, we'll throw steaks on the grill, you in?"

"Sure but we can't get there until Saturday, we've got to pick TomGirl up from Saturday school first and then we can head out"

"Well you need to be there at a certain time"

...For camping ??? It was then that the wheels begin to turn...

"This is a wedding isn't it...you guys are getting married aren't you?"

"I just thought it would be fun for all the kids, R's boys will be there it will be fun, don't go if you don't want to"

The slight testiness only served as further evidence that she was holding something back.

"This isn't an engagement party. It's a wedding isn't it...should I be bringing a dress? You're totally pulling one of those celebrity moves where you invite friends to "dinner" and then suprise it's a wedding"

We went round and round like that for what seemed like forever but she wouldn't budge.

But here's the thing: Dude's mom is in town, his boys are in town and I need to arrive at a certain time.

C'mon, I didn't just fall off the turnip truck.

She's not calling it what it is because she doesn't want me to try and talk her out of it.

On the one hand I'm appreciative that she is including me even though I disagree but on the other hand it's taking everything I have not to shake the fark out of her and say "snap out of it". But since she's an adult, I'm staying mum. I gave my opinion when she told me they'd gotten engaged and I'm leaving it at that.

But for real?

A secret wedding.

Hell, I didn't even get to throw the bachelorette party. In fact that may be what I'm really upset at. She's denying me my "free pass" to get liquored up and receive lap dances from half nekkid, hot bodied men.

Damn her!

We walked, we saw, we're determined to kick major ass next year

My mom, my two aunts and I joined thousands of Seattlelites at the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure yesterday.

The event,in a word, was nothing short of amazing. The sheer number of folks that walked, raced, raised money and dedicated their time to support curing breast cancer was incredible.

I'd joined the walk late in the game. I knew I wanted to get out and walk in support of my mother, a two year survivor, but I procrastinated and just two days before the walk joined the team my aunt's workplace sponsored.

I was humbled to be amongst such brave woman and their families. I was inspired by the hundres of thousands of dollars that had been raised. As I looked around at all the teams I couldn't help but feel like I really could have (and should have) done much more.

The creativity, thought and sheer time put in to organizing, fundraising and coordinating their personal teams was unbelievable. There were teams with pink tutus with fun names like "Jacks Racks",teams with solid black tees with pink sunflowers over each breast. Then there was this team: I loved their slogan (Save 2nd base) so much I had to stop one of the team members and ask her for a picture.

Then there were these guys


With their pink headbands, pink muscle shirts and pink shorts they were just too awesome for words.

And this. Could you just die from the cuteness or what?


Seeing all this energized me to do more.

And so it was born: my aunts, my mom and I are seriously motivated to create the rockinest team ever.

We want a sassy name, we want cool hats and awesome tees. (That's where you come in, internetz. Ideas ? The best team name I came up with was Hotties for Healthy Hooters. But I'm certainly not married to that name)

We want to raise tons of money. We want more of our family to come out.

But most importantly we want to show what we can really do to support such an incredibly worthy cause.

So next year watch out...

p.s.Go check out my latest book giveaway sponsored by Cheerios supporting new and aspiring children's authors.

If I was a comedian this would all be much funnier...only I'm not and couldn't even begin to dream up how to make it funny

So I have this friend. She's my best friend in fact. We've been through a lot together (this is where a comedian might begin the joke) Last night she calls me and tells me that the man she's been seeing for, oh about 2 months, proposed and she accepted (buh dum bum...what? Not funny? Right. I didn't think so either).

Before you jump on her, know that I already did it and apologized. I didn't take back what I said. But I apologized for not reacting the way she needed me to. In the end I told her she's an adult and I'll love and support her regardless.

But it's still weighing heavy on my mind. She's only been divorced a year. And while I do really dig her new guy...two months...seriously?

Ahem....

Then about one hour after that call took place I hear my kids running down the stairs yelling "Mom, it's an emergency". Getting up off the couch at break neck speed I head in the direction of the stairs only to find my kids right there and my daughter with part of her gerbil's tail in her hand (hysterical right?).

Resisting the urge to hurl I listened to her story about how my son pulled it off.

It seems that Cutie, my daughters gerbil who has only been a part of our family for about 3 weeks, had her butt turned towards my son and her tail sticking out of the cage. My son decided to pull her tail. I'm sure he didn't expect it to fall off. But to hear my daughter tell it, her gerbil did squeal which to me clearly indicates one pissed off rodent and hello...stop it little boy! But he didn't and look what happened (I know you're letting out deep belly laughs now right?)

The boy child got the I'm so disgusted with you I don't even know what to do toned lecture about how if he can't properly take care of his pet and be gentle then he will not be allowed to have him any longer. He admitted he felt bad. But then all I can think of is what in the fuck is wrong with my kid ?

I have also lectured my daughter many a time about doing nothing when she sees something bad happening. I've told her she's going to get in just as much trouble as her brother for letting it happen. She got that lecture again...for about the 3,357th time.

Nobody writes that stuff in the parenting manuals.

Chapter 10: What to do when your child dismembers a family pet. Nope don't remember that.

So I decided I would try to clean and bandage Cutie's tail. But she's such a fast little sucker I couldn't get her to stay still long enough to do anything. It was all I could do to pour a little water on her tail and keep my fingers crossed. Luckily she went right back to playing and eating and by morning her tail looked to be healed.

But still not funny.

So my husband is sunburned to a crisp and looking quite lobstertastic these days and he has a man cold at the same time. So again not funny. It's just about as pleasant as you can imagine.

So how am I doing ? Eh

I've seen better days.

I'm WM and I'm here all week.

Thank you and goodnight

Guess

Because I am still in three day weekend mode (read:tired and can't form a coherent thought much less a whole blog post) you get another thrilling installment of What did my kid draw ?

You can find Part I here. Oh and here's Part II.Those two pieces were brought to you courtesy of my daughter.

This artistic rendering is courtesy of my boy child.





Now then go forth, guess and... well I really have no prize. Much like the other installments. But just know I'll think you're the cat's meow. And let me tell you, that kind of endorsement from me will get you...

Nowhere.

But hey play along anyway. Because this may be the last riveting installment of this game and you just can't miss out on that,right?

Mwah
WM

With a little bit of salt, this foot might taste a right bit of good

Remembering that my boss had left early yesterday to get her hair cut and colored I walked in to her office saying "'Morning, lets see that new 'do".

She turned her head from side to side letting me get a good look at her coif.

"I wish I could have seen it yesterday" I said.

"I wish I could have seen it yesterday" The hell??! I could hear the record scratching loudly in my brain.

Not "cute" or "nice" or even "cool" but "I wish I could have seen it yesterday"

I think I meant well. I think I was ... Wait a minute I don't know what the hell I was thinking. Clearly the caffeine had not reached that filter in my brain that keeps me from making such ass-clownian statements.

So I tried my hardest to get my foot unlodged from my throat but only made it worse.

"I mean it's so hard to replicate what the hair stylist does" "I mean I never can get my hair looking as good as when I step out of the salon" "Uh..." (what the hell did I mean)?

My boss simply stared at me saying nothing. Which I'm quite sure was a good thing. Because I really didn't want to hear where and what I could do with my stuttering stumbling mess of a self.

Finally , my brain kicked into action and said "it's cute"

But it was too late. The damage was done , the words were out there.

As I practically ran away from her office feeling all kinds of dumb, I thought about returning and admitting to my idiocy and apologizing.

But it really didn't matter because the fact is that she still knows I am not in love with her new hairstyle. Which is in fact a cute style but just not the most flattering for her.


And to make matters worse, my co-worker came in just minutes ago exclaiming "It looks so cute" with such genuiness that I am now hiding in my office feeling about the size of an ant's pinkie toenail.*sigh*


Note to self: Work on ability to lie. It will help you immensely.

Or better yet, start slapping yourself because you've just got to be asleep and this is all just an awful awkard nightmare.

Sexis...Enlightening (links may be considered NSFW)

I have to say I just love Edenfantasys. Or whomever is in charge of their marketing. Seriously Drew and the crew have singlehandedly taken over the mommyblogger world. Or filled it with lots of sex toys anyway, thus making them the most talked about adult toy store on the net.

And I'm not mad at 'em. For real.

From the time I was contacted by them back in December and decided to host a giveaway on their behalf I have fallen in heavy like with these guys. Like I said in that post, sex between consenting adults is healthy and why it's supposed to be all hush, hush I'll never know.

I love that they're helping to get us all talking and embracing our sexuality.

So when I was contacted again a couple of weeks back by my homies over at Edenfantasys about their new online magazine Sexis, I was happy to write a little promotional something for them.

Chock full of sex education, sex tips and sex news and culture Sexis is funny,informative and enlightening.

And as if that wasn't enough, in a major coo, Sexis landed one of my faves Jenny, The Bloggess as a contributing writer.

Go check it out. You'll be glad you did.

Let's Talk Whirlwind...

In bullet points for your viewing pleasure:

Monday - Thursday of last week: half-assedly finish 1/10 of the tasks at work so you can take Friday and Monday (yesterday) off.

Thursday evening: run around doing errands in preparation for your mother-in- law and her boyfriend's arrival and the twin's birthday party. You recognize you could have done many of these errands days ago but waited, because lets face it, you are a procrastinator.

Friday: chaperone Zoo field trip, run more last minute errands and then return home to greet mother-in-law. She has dinner waiting for you. You squeeze the bejezus out of her because she rawks in the kind of way you know no other mother-in-law does

Saturday: host 15 - 5 & 6 year olds and several adults for the twins birthday party. It goes well. You're ecstatic, because holy lord, the sheer planning that went into this shindig just about sent you to the funny farm.

Saturday evening: scoop up your own mother, you mother-in-law and head off to the casino. Give them duckets to gamble as an early mother's day gift , gamble a little yourself but then mostly hang out in the club. While you are dancing, paramedics have to recuscitate another club patron. You do not realize this until the music abruptly shuts off and although yellow drapes are shielding them you can hear them counting as they do chest compressions. Thankfully, they revive him but you head out shortly thereafter...as this is just too much for you and the 4 glasses of wine that are sloshing around in your system.

Sunday: you are a wee bit hungover, but rally and head out with the fam to Family Day at Emerald Downs. Everyone and their mother is there. You question why you joined in but in the end enjoy yourself.

Monday: your MIL leaves, you head to school with the kiddos and help out in class as per their request. You add two new family members today. Monkey and Brownie, gerbils that technically are given to your kids by you as a birthday present but you know you will end up caring for. Monday evening go to dinner at Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate the twins (actual) birthday

Monday late evening:Return home, try to watch a movie w/Edward Norton whom you adore but your eyes just can't stay open.

Monday night on into this morning: Head to bed, wake up early for, ugh... work, only to find your dog has crapped in the house

This morning about 6:30 a.m.: Cuss a lot , clean it up, get to work late....

and here I am. Back again

So that's what I've been up to. You?

The kind of Parents that I wanna kick in the junk

I want to love and respect all parents. Because seriously? We all have a very important and difficult job to do and I want to believe we're all doing the very best we can.

I want to operate under a I won't critize you if you don't criticize me mode. I want us all to realize the perfect parent doesn't exist and accept and embrace one another- imperfections and all.

But a few weeks ago on a wonderfully sunny weekend day when my family and I went out to fly a model rocket I couldn't keep to that motto.

Hubby mentioned that we needed a large open space in order to safely fly the rocket. So we settled on the grassy part of a track at a local school. We were the only ones on this field. The nearest person was literally a mile or more away.

Hubby again issued the appropriate safety precautions then the twins and I stood back as he launched the rocket.

It was truly awesome seeing the excitement on my kids faces as they watched the rocket float high in to the sky and then running with them to the spot where we anticipated the rocket would land. It was a beautiful day and I couldn't think of anything I'd rather be doing then enjoying it with my family.

Then some fucker wrecked it.

After launching one more time we saw him. The rent-a-cop. He'd pulled up in the school parking lot several hundred feet away. Hubby and I looked at one another with an "are you kidding me?" expression and then slowly began to put away our stuff as the rent-a-cop walked towards us.

"Blah,Blah,Blah several calls from parents. Blah, Blah, Blah fireworks" he said. We briefly explained that we were not setting off fireworks but in the end needed to leave.

I get that it was a school. I get that fireworks are not allowed. But I was still irritated that rather than finding out what we were doing some fun-wrecking-mother-humper called the cops.

Uggh...that parent can bite me. I mean really do they think I'd put my own kids safety in jeopardy ? Save for a freak accident that can happen anywhere anytime I don't believe we were doing anything wrong.

It took me a while to get over that one.

As if that incident wasn't enough a few days later, I'd called a classmates mother to get her snail mail address to send out an invitation to the twins birthday party.

I told her that I would have emailed but worried about the invitation going in to spam folders. To which she responded, "yeah awhile back Rochelle (another mom) forwarded me the class list you sent her and it had a Halloween party invitation or something like that on it. You had a Halloween party right?"

"Uh yeah" I stumbled

Brief silence...then

"leave it to Rochelle not to delete those kinds of things"

"Uh yeah" I stumbled again. "It was uh preschool and some new kindergarten friends and uh the kids just threw out names and I uh, uh..."

WTF I thought?! I was talking about Spam and she randomly pulls a forwarded class list and invitation to a party months ago out of the sky.

But I knew what I was supposed to get from her statement. She wanted me to know that she knew that her kid had not been invited to that party.

I was at a loss. I mean sure as ridiculous as it may sound, I kind of get being offended by your kid not being invited to a party. But I would never, in a million years bring it up to the other parent.

What the hell is the point in that?

And although we had a nice conversation after that, I felt awkward and maybe even a little bad. All I wanted to do was call and invite her kid to this party. But I left that conversation feeling like I'd done something wrong.

Uggh, she can bite me too.

This parent thing is hard enough without contending with all this drama.

So tell me something, if you're a parent: are you all kumbaya and love everyone or is there someone or some type of parent that irritates you. I gotta believe I'm not the only one.

Hacked,Jacked and feeling out of whack

You hear about it every day. Some poor, naive person responds to an email request for personal information and then gets taken for everything they're worth. You shake your head in disgust at the scam artists but then take comfort in the fact that that will never be you. You're much too smart to fall for any of that.

So you continue on with your online shopping life, not terribly worried about evil befalling you, until you get denied for a $76 dollar purchase in the grocery store.
Embarassed and confused you finally figure out that it didn't matter that you were too smart to fall for the "Gimme your personal info scam" the scammers were smarter than you and hacked in to your Paypal account and bought some software and hardware for several hundred dollars WITH YOUR MONEY.

Fortunately, you report it in time and although you're incensed that this happened to you you get all your money back.

You change your passwords and immediately install updated anti-virus software but you're raw from this and don't shop online for awhile.

After a few months you decide to dip your toe in the pool. As it turns out the water is fine, so you dive in, resuming your online shopping as if there had never been an issue.

The years pass without incident until today when you try to log on to you eBay account. Upon typing in the password you know is correct you're denied access. You try twice more thinking perhaps you typed it wrong, to no avail. You then request eBay send you your user name and password. Nothing comes.

This is all so odd you decide to contact eBay.

Only to find someone has hacked in to your account. They're putting up auctions and charging fees to you like there was no tomorrow. You're not sure but they may have hacked in to your email account to re-route emails from eBay to themselves.

You are in a semi-panic because you've had this particular email address for a while and you don't want to shut it down.

eBay takes the fraudulent auctions down. You change all your passwords again and question whether or not you should close this particular email address but decide you're not quite ready. You change your eBay communications to another email address and hope that solves it.

But still you feel all weird and violated.

This was minor you keep telling yourself. It could have been much worse.

And it helps. Sort of.

But you want those hackers to know. "I've got my eye on you, bitches!"

And then... for the first time in your life start to think torture isn't such a bad thing.

Reading this might help save my marriage

I almost shanked my husband last night.

It was during a discussion, no let just call it what it was: an argument
about removing the safety guard rail that protects my son from falling from his top bunk.

You've probably already guessed that I'm opposed. At least at this particular time.

Yes my son is almost 6, but all it would take is one unconscious roll during slumber and bam he falls to the floor lands on his arm breaking it in two places or worse yet he lands on one of the wooden drawers underneath the bottom bunk that he and his sister always forget to close and cracks his noggin.

You see what I'm getting at here ?

Well the hubby did not. His stance was that my son wants to be a big boy and I'm not allowing him the chance to do that.

Ahem, so I'll spare you most of the gory details.

But what you do need to know is that as the argument labored on it got all kinds of ugly.

Me: I get that B would like to have it removed so he can feel like a big boy. He's a smart kid though. If I explain that I think he is a very big boy- it's just about keeping him safe he'll understand.

Hubby: Why don't you just put him in a bubble.

Me: Ok now you're just being stupid

Hubby: Even if he does fall he won't hurt himself

Me: You don't know that

Him: Ok get me some statistics on injuries from your computer

Me: I don't need to get you statistics. It's my son. There is nothing wrong with wanting to protect him. In fact it's my job.

Him: I'm taking it off on his birthday

Me: I'll put it back on

Him: You're gonna raise him to be a p_ssy.

Me: What the fuck did you just say to me ?

So how did all this end? It really didn't. Sure there were apologies at harsh words spoken but in the end neither of us were budging.

So I turn to you, dear internetz, for your thoughts. Am I being ridiculous? Is the hubby right ?

It's ok be honest. I promise not to shank you for doing so.


Uh... unless you disagree with me.

In memory of Maddie - Updated

Please take a moment to read Maddie's parents Mike and Heather's beautiful tributes to their little girl.

*****************************************************************************
Returning from vacation this week, I was all set to post some silly, snarky post.

Then I checked email to find a post in which I learned that little Maddie Spohr, who I came to know and adore via her dad Mike's blog, passed away last week.

Words cannot express how shocked and heartbroken I am.

I just...am at a loss.

Please, consider sending your condolences to her parents Mike and Heather:

Mike & Heather Spohr
11870 Santa Monica Blvd. #106-514
West Los Angeles, CA 90025

and consider donating to March of Dimes or donating via Paypal using the link below to help with their considerable medical and funeral expenses.

Lastly, please be kind to one another and enjoy your families.

I'll be unplugged this week in honor of Maddie and because posting anything else at this point just wouldn't feel right.

On husbands and panty dropping

Yesterday afternoon after playing many unsuccessful April Fools Day pranks on me by phone I received a text picture (a pixt??) from hubby of what looked like a larger dog trying to have it's way with a smaller dog.

I could tell the picture was taken within moments of being sent and that it was taken right outside of his workplace. WTF?? I thought and tweeted as much.

But really if you know the Mr. this would not be out of character for him because he's a big old perv and sends me the raunchiest texts during the day. But those are usually about us or him and not dogs.

So I texted him back "I don't even want to know what's going on here" because the more I thought about it the more I questioned how it is that these dogs just decided to get busy right in front of his shop and how is it that he was right there at that moment to capture this picture and ... Ok yeah it's kind of funny but whatever, dogs humping just don't do it for me.

Minutes later I got a return text from hubby saying "It's mama and baby,too much cute".
The "too much cute" is a saying we adopted several years ago when we were in a store with our freshly popped out of the oven twins. The cashier, an incredibly nice Ukranian woman, fawned all over them and deemed them "too much cute". We loved that phrase and so it's been one those cutesy little things we say to each other. (I know, I know...please stop wretching)

I then decided to enlarge the picture, which I should have done in the first place, and realized it was a baby bulldog with the mom following closely behind. And it was "too much cute".

Looking at that picture, I had one of those moments were I thought, gawd, my husband is truly thoughtful. Where I forgot about the fact that he annoys me with his gas, and sings incredibly annoying songs in the morning while I'm getting ready because he knows it irritates the bejeezus out of me. I forgot that he doesn't cook and simply just got all gooey inside.

It's moments like that and the time when he texted me a rainbow he saw while driving over a bridge that are so sweet they just make me wanna rush home and drop my drawers.

Seriously...

C'mon you know it happens to you too. ' Fess up.

***
P.S. new giveaway posted here on my review blog. Great product for labeling your baby/kids stuff!

Look Mom, Barbie sprained her Crotch

I never know what new and "creative" words I'll hear out of the mouths of my 5 year olds. Now that they're in "real" school and exposed to older kids I'm hearing it all. This weekend, that word was: crotch.

And while crotch is not a bad word and in fact is much better then some other words they could be saying, I have to tell them that it's not really appropriate to just throw the word around because mommy doesn't need parents, teachers and others who don't understand kids can pick up things anywhere judging her parenting .

Like on Friday afternoon when my son was playing on the little neighbor kid's scooter and fell. When I called to him to make sure he was ok.
He said simply:

"Yeah mom, but I think I broke my crotch".

Biting my lip, I made sure he was really ok and then had to launch into an explanation of how he probably shouldn't say crotch so loud and added that frankly I don't really think crotches break. But dammit if I didn't want to laugh. Hell, my son was laughing. Why couldn't I laugh ? But we averted the crotch crisis.

That time.

But then there was Saturday. As we prepared to head out, my daughter busily played with her Barbies at the sink next to me while I finished putting on my make-up.

"Mom," she said "This is my new Barbie and this is her sister" she said showing me the two Barbies that had been keeping her busy.

"Cool," I said

J went on to tell me about how Barbie now needed to get to work and she was running late. I learned that Barbie worked at a very nice place where all they did was have lunch and then take naps.

I asked my daughter if I could fill out an application.

"What's an application?" J asked

"Well, it's a paper that you fill out with information about yourself so people will hopefully hire you" I answered

"Oh" she said "Well she can't take applications now because she sprained her crotch"

"She did?" I say in utter surprise

"Yeah and she can't walk"

"Oh?" I questioned curiously

"Yeah" J continued "you just keep your legs closed for about 11 weeks and then it's fixed" she says authoritatively

It was then that I took a real look at the cheerleader Barbie that J had been playing with. With her oddly flexible ,posable body it was entirely possible that she could look, to my 5 year old, like she had a sprained crotch.

So I decided not to correct my daughter.

Besides I was highly amused

Crotch Crisis - 1
Mom - 0

Lady feels like a ...dude

Ok, so that was my lame attempt at a play on words with the Aerosmith song "Dude looks like a Lady" . Whaddya want, I really couldn't think of another way to express the fact that I, WM, wife and mother, am a total dude.

Ok sure I like shopping, make-up and some other very un-dude like things but there is this part of me that screams: I am man hear me roar!

Why if you'd have been in my car yesterday after work you'd have heard me listening to my favorite afternoon radio show:The Men's Room .

I really dig football and if the 'Hawks are doing well I'm swilling' beer and cheering louder than any man.

I like Monster Trucks. There I said it.Gasp if you must but something about those huge wheels crushing steel and destroying everything in their wake makes me pound my chest in excitement

I cuss like a sailor and like sex jokes. The dirtier the better (although this probably doesn't make me so much of a dude as it does just a very inappropriate female,ahem)

But, the number one reason I am a total dude:

I take reading material into the latrine.

...and yes, I know I'm awesome. Thanks.

It's my party and I'll cry if I want to

No..this isn't about TomGirl's 16th birthday this past Friday in which her Dad and I took her and some friends to an all ages club.

That, went suprisingly well. We suprised TomGirl with a limo as her present and actually had a good time ( I know gasp, right ?).

For as much as I bitch about teens, I have to admit I lucked in to having two great stepdaughters. And the club had it so together there wasn't time for any misbehavior by any of the other teens. It was actually pretty wild to go clubbing with TomGirl. I was..well ...proud. As silly as it sounds. At her age and well into my twenties I very much enjoyed going out dancing and it was nice to be able to share that with my kid.

But this isn't about that.

This is about my party.

Well my blogiversary anyway.

Because I Must Blog is two today.

And I'm giving myself a gift. The gift of a small break from posting. Maybe a week, maybe two...we'll see. That, said go forth and talk amongst yourselves.

I'll see you when I get back. Oh and if you really begin to miss me (because I just KNOW that's going to happen*snort*) leave tons of comments. Comments make my heart swell.


Mwah,

WM

When good Weekends go Bad

I will never, ever again assume my weekend is going to be lo-key.

I have now resigned myself to the fact that for as neat and tidy as I'd like my life to be, it just ain't. In fact, sometimes it's really, really messy:

And here it is, in all it's messy glory and in bullet points for your viewing pleasure: my jacked up weekend (keep in mind the husband is ill. Like fever, hacking,snot filled,sore-throat ill. He is not featured in any of the incidences because he was too sick to be of any good to anyone).

Friday after work you prepare to take kids to the 1 hours childrens concert you'd promised weeks ago and then get happy because you know after this it will be bed for them and full on relaxation for you

But then the phone rings. It is your bff. She seems to be angry. She asks you why you haven't been answering your phone. You tell her you left your cell phone in another coat and apologize. She proceeds to tell you her new man is about to break up with her. You sensed this might happen but talk with her as best as you can while children ask you several hundred times when the concert starts. There are a number of "I'll call you backs" from both of you. You because of your children, her because she needs to check in with the boyfriend who was supposed to take her out to dinner to "talk". In the end he doesn't do that instead he just breaks up with her by phone.

Deciding bff really needs more attention, you invite her over to have a glass of wine and talk. But first you need to take the kids to the concert. So you rush out telling her to call you when she gets close.

You tell kids you are sorry that they won't be able to see the full concert but also remind them you are going to a play on Sunday. You spend about 20 minutes "concerting" and then must leave.

BFF is already at your house when you get there and decides she wants to go out on the town. You are not really in the mood but you agree.

Whilst enjoying a little vino, you change your clothes, slap on some warpaint and head out to a club. BFF, who drank a little before she came to see you, is now three sheets to the wind and you are getting there too. When you arrive at the hotel you think the club is on the penthouse level so you go there. You realize you are on the wrong floor but the BFF is way ahead of you heading into some random strangers room because their door is open and she has to pee and, well, they let her. You follow her feeling ridiculous but wanting to look out for her. Once she is finished you try your hardest to get out of the room and not look like a crazy person. You don't succeed. But what you do succeed at is getting some weird hangers on from the Rotary convention that's at the hotel wanting to "party" with you. You hold up your hand to display your wedding ring and move on. You then head down to the club

You get convinced it would be fun to do a shot of tequila by a different group of hard partying Rotary conference members that are staying at the hotel. (you will regret this the next day)

You're relaxed, and casually dancing when some monstrous woman says angrily to your BFF that she bumped in to her. You know the bff did not and you say so, politely. Monstrous woman whispers something to her equally monstrous female friend who then asks "Did you just call my friend a bitch?". You know those words never left your lips so you tell her so. Monstrous woman and monstrous friend are now trying to get in your face. You see them look at one another and snicker. You realize they are intentionally picking a fight because they are immature whores. You don't get in their faces, but you don't back down either because you are stupid, hammered not in the right frame of mind. Luckily BFF pulls you away by the arm and you avoid crisis.

You are in complete disbelief at the ridiculousness of those females trying to start a fight. You thought you went to a club with mature adults. You were wrong.

The night ends, though, without any arrests and the bff's son comes to pick your hammered asses up

You eat Taco hell and then pass out. You don't really know what time it is.

The next morning you call to check on BFF. She is in tears again so although you are incredibly hungover you head to her house to lend support

On the way there while going over a bumpy road, your son will tell you it's making his penis go up and down, your daughter will tell you it's making her "vagina shiver". You will nearly run off the road when you hear this

You spend as much time as you can with the BFF and then head home before you drop out of shear tiredness

The following day,Sunday, you want to repent, but your still hungover arse can't make it to church. You are one sorry individual. You have accepted it.

You do manage to take kids to the play you'd promised them and enjoy yourself

On the way home you realize your children are getting whatever nastiness their Dad was struck with and you spend the rest of Sunday caring for 3 sick children (Hubby being the 3rd child). None of these people go to sleep at any reasonable hour because when they try they hack and cough. Which means you don't get to sleep at any reasonable hour

You finally get to bed in between 12 and 1 a.m. knowing you need to wake up at 5:40 a.m. for work the next day

The End

...and no I have no creatively funny way to end this. I'm exhausted just reliving it for you. You can't tell me you're not exhausted from having read it.

Shred it and Forget it

Early last year, in my constant quest to shed the lbs that have nagged me over the last few years I found a partner with similar goals and arranged to meet her at a local gym for workouts a few evenings a week.

I was proud of me, thinking I'd made that first important step to reaching my goals. Until that first night when she called and cancelled.

"No problem," I'd told her trying to hide my disappointment "we'll just meet up tomorrow"

But then tomorrow came and it was me that cancelled. After really thinking about the committment I'd made, I realized I didn't want to go to a gym 3-4 times a week.
It wasn't that I didn't want to work on me. I was still determined to rediscover the me of old, the healthier me.

It was about my children. Being away from them for 8 hours each day while at work, I miss them terribly. It didn't make sense to leave for another 2 hours. No matter what the reason.

So there I was, feeling bad about having dogged out a woman desperately trying to help herself, but knowing I made the right decision for me. And, I still hadn't figured out how to incorporate working out into my life.

That was until I found Ms. Jillian Michaels.

I stumbled upon her 30 day shred while shuffling through Exercise TV and instanly fell in heavy like.

Sure it was painful, and sure midway in I cussed out everything from twinkies to fitness gurus but sweating like a pig at the end of 20 minutes I was done.

And truth be told I felt really,really good. And better still it had only been 20 minutes and I'd never left my home or my kids. In fact , sometimes they'd work out right beside me.

But then right around the holiday season, Jillian and I had a parting of ways.

It wasn't her . It was me.

And I've missed her desperately. As have my jiggly belly and arse.

So we made our way back in to her amazingly chiseled arms.

And here we are, banding together with other "shredheads" to shred it and forget it. I can't tell you how happy I am to have found other gluttons for punishment Jillian devotees.

Starting Monday I'm on the journey to become a leaner, meaner, once again hawt-ass me (read: I want to lose enough lbs to fit back in to my size 6 clothes. Truthfully it's not about a number on a scale, but where I look and feel most comfortable)

Holy hell what have i gotten myself into...

(Ahem)I mean wish me luck

Word verification: Tool of the devil or saving grace?

C'mon you know what I'm talking about. You go to comment on your favorite blogger's post about,say, sex and your word verification is "moistl" (and yes that did just happen to me,thankyouverymuch).

Ok,so I get that moistl is not a word. But moist sure in the hell is and well are you getting the connection here ?

Maybe you chuckle a little and think: what a co-inky dink. But then, when you look at the next word verification for said post it's cumlum.
Seriously what is that about? Is this Bloggers attempt at being funny or clever or just straight out creepy.

And no,I don't want 46 catrillion comments about how I can become a millionaire overnight by following whatever the latest scam is. So yes, I see the value.

But are these words truly randomly generated or is there some creepy dude (or dudette, hell we don't discriminate here) laughing evily as s/he sends out the word verification of "fatard" to you when you simply want to post a comment thanking your commenters on a post in which you just poured out your heart and soul about being a tad overweight.

Maybe there's a team of freaks who sit around a table and say, "How can we get our rocks off today?" and then someone shouts out "You know that one really popular post where the blogger lost her pet ? Let's make the word verification stuff like "croakd" and "coffen" then bust out into simultaneous laughter.

I don't know...but I kinda have to wonder.

Particularly when I go to comment on a post about diet. My comments are all about how protein tends to make me feel fuller and then my word verification is sperm (and yes that is true)

Uhh are you kidding me ?


and a totally unrelated P.S. - Go forth to,BIMRI (aka my review blog) if you're interested in a giveaway for a Fiber One Spa Break Gift Basket . 3 winners, peeps...

What a week

So much has been going on. Really I swear. But it's just not riveting stuff. At.all.
I get exhausted just trying to relay it to you. So there it sits in draft, until I can decide if it's really postworthy.

Do you really want to hear about how it took everything in my power not to kick a 10 year old boy's teeth down his throat for teasing my 5 year old daughter on the bus (in addition to teasing her about being a kindergartener her called her an asshole).

Or about how my BFF's new man isn't all he initially seemed to be. Initially ,he seemed wonderful. Now something is a little off. I can't quite put my finger on it and while I still like him, I can't help but wonder if this thing is going to last. And that sucks that I can't like him as much as my BFF wants me to.

Then there's the fact that I fell off the wagon. What can I say? I was stressed and those bake-in-the pan peanut butter chocolate chunk bars that I found at the Grocery Outlet for only $0.89 got me more than a little giddy.

I've also been considering telling you about how TomGirl turns 16 next week and how I decided it would be fun to take her to an all ages nightclub. And how I'm now regretting that promise. A friday night with a bunch of 16 year olds who will surely have snuck some shots before entering the club is sure to send me right to straightjacketed, knees pulled to chest,rocking in a corner babbling and drooling kind of insanity.

And then I could also tell you how I'm totally and completely burnt out at work (but trying to just be happy about the fact that I have a job)

So yeah, that's what I haven't been posting about.

But enough about me. What about you ? Anybody do anything I just gotta know about? Do tell...especially if it's scandalous.

Ahh, the joy of teenagers...

We had an extra teen at casa de WM this past weekend.

As much as I tried to avoid it like the plague, we'd promised my 14 year old stepdaughter, GT that she could have her best friend,Cady over if she improved her grades.

I was initially reluctant because my stepdaughters live about an hour and a half away and if this girl turned out to be demon spawn much like I knew she would because all teenagers are it wasn't like we could just have her walk home or have her parents come get her. We were stuck with her. For.the.weekend.

Don't get me wrong, I love my stepdaughters. But they are at that teenagery point in their life where lets just say they can grate your nerves like finely shredded cheese. That being the case I certainly didn't want to add one more to the mix.

Besides my oldest stepdaughter,TomGirl was pretty vocal about not wanting Cady to come over. She's made no secret about the fact that she didn't care for her.
When asked why, TomGirl informed us that the bff, Cady was a skank. Now if you know TomGirl that doesn't mean much. TomGirl is the kind of girl who's friend are mostly guys. As much as I don't get it, she has this aversion to friending her own gender.

Fortunately, Cady was really sweet, or at least was able to snow us in to thinking so. She got along well with the twins and in general was the kind of houseguest you want to have.

So when it was time to go, I gave my stepdaughters hugs and then reached out to hug Cady. (What can I say, I'm a hugger. Sometimes I dont stop and think whether or not it may freak someone out.) To my delight, Cady was receptive and hugged back and thanked me for allowing her over.

As we're having our love fest, I hear "Ewww, gross now you've got whore juice all over you"

It was TomGirl. and she didn't stop there. She went so far as to say "gross, whore germs"

Poor Cady tried to shrug it off and force a smile. I searched for something to say at that moment to cut the awkward silence.

"That was rude" I said to TomGirl and then to Cady jokingly "you have my permission to lay the smackdown"

Cady let out a nervous laugh while looking like she'd wanted to crawl under a rock.

I glared at the laughing TomGirl and told her she should apologize.

"Yeaahh, right" she said oozing with sarcasm as she headed for the door.

It was then that I heard my mom's voice in my head "I told you" she was saying whilst laughing maniacally.

Payback really is a bitch