Slacker

I'm a bum. I admit it, I've been preoccupied and too lazy to post. I didn't even post for Jacob's Birthday! (Hangs head in shame.) I've just been tired and BUSY. Since I can't seem to post any real entries, here is a list post about what we've been up to, because I love lists (and they're easier-again, LAZY).

1. 4 is a good age. Definite  improvements in my little guy has made days with him fun again!
2. The boys are playing so nicely together, it's awesome. Probably due to #1.
3. The dog is driving me up the wall. Seriously, he needs to be entertained constantly. It's very annoying.
4. Trying to get the house ready to sell.
5. Busy trying to get Christmas all taken care of. The decorations are up, some gifts, bought, cards ordered, so we are getting there. I make Christmas cookies in the second half, so I need all my time for that.
6. Trying to keep Drew, who is 6 1/2, to believe in Santa Claus. It's getting really dicey, he keeps asking very sensible questions. My favorite was "I don't know if Santa Claus is real. I don't think he would come down the chimney, ours is so dirty."
7. Trying to remember to move our Elf each day. Remembering is hard, yo.


Uh... that's all I have for the moment.... More to come, I promise!

Wordless Wednesday- A Battle of Wills

Sherlock Bones and The Mystery of the Rotting Food

photo © 2010 Marianne Szeto | more info (via: Wylio)
There seemed to be a string of rotten food that was being found in the Bee house by our Detective Dog, Louie. Every day it seemed he was bringing me a slimy apple, orange, or the like. I couldn't help but wonder, where he was finding all of this food.

I followed him and discovered that he was finding all of these fruits and vegetables under the pedestal of our table. We had a food waster on our hands, but the question was, who was it?

I had my suspicions.

Mr. B had his suspicions.

Louie had his suspicions....

photo © 2009 Procsilas Moscas | more info (via: Wylio)

.....wait that was just what Louie was hoping to find instead of a rotten banana.

So I confronted Mr. I-hate-all-fruit-and-vegetables himself.

He denied it, of course. I then made a blanket statement to all of the boys: There better be no more food found on the ground or else!
Honestly, I had no plans for or else, but it sounded ominous enough.

Enough to scare Drew the food-waster straight, for a while.

Then one night we had asparagus for dinner. Drew took forever eating his asparagus. As I was cleaning up, I saw he had all of them still on his plate. I turned my back 30 seconds later and voila!

"I'm done!" He exclaimed.

"Really?" asked Mr. B.

"Really."

"I don't believe you Drew, where are you hiding them?" I said suspiciously.

"No, honest!"

"Oh okay... this is your chance to tell the truth, and I won't be mad. Did you really eat them?" Asked Mr. B.

"Really I did!"

"Okay," I said. "We are choosing to trust you."

Drew jumped up from his chair. As soon as he did that, we investigated, and noticed he had thrown all of his asparagus in a cardboard box that held Mr. B's old hats.

Upon further investigation we also discovered old apples, bananas, mushrooms... basically every fruit and vegetable  he was supposed to be eating this week. The boy is going to develop scurvy.

So the boy got a timeout, a talking to about lying and wastefulness, and a supervised eating of some new asparagus.

After our anger subsided about the lying, my husband and I got some good laughs, I got a blog post, and Louie got a treat for being a super sniffer who hates fruits and vegetables as much as Drew does.

Wordless Wednesday- Look Mommy, I brought you a present!

Posting just barely makes it into Wednesday!

For more Wordless Wednesday, Visit 5 Minutes for Mom.

Christmas Card Calamities

There are no words for the experience of trying to take my annual Christmas Picture by the Christmas tree, or should I say the three experiences... because the first two times I had no success. The third time I had a little success, enough for me to call it a day!




This collage is my life in a nutshell. We live for chaos er, Christmas.

Mom of the Year

This past Sunday we went to my Mother's house to celebrate her birthday. While we were there, Jacob was all over the place with his cousins, playing and laughing. While I was sitting at the kitchen table with my sister, Jacob started to go downstairs with his cousin. Normally, I helicopter all over him when he does anything on stairs, but he just started to go down the (carpeted) stairs, and he was going slow, taking his time, so I just called out, "Hold onto the rail".

Of course, he bit it, falling down the last two steps. He cried out, and my father, who was at the top of the steps, came and got him. He was limping a little, but he calmed down immediately. People were babying him, of course. I gave him hugs and kisses and he sat on my lap for a while, but if he felt fine, I didn't want to make a big deal about it.

That night he woke up saying his foot hurt. It still looked okay, so I gave him ibuprofen and told him if it hurt in the morning we would take him to the Dr. He told me his foot felt fine in the morning. I drove him to childcare, and later he went to swim class with Mr. B.

Tuesday he woke up with a barking cough which I recognized as croup. I made an appointment with the Dr., and Mr. B and I took him in the afternoon. Luckily, he just had a common cold. While we were there, we thought she should check out his foot, because he was still limping. I think you all know where I am going with this....

Three fractures in his foot, three! All from falling down two steps, the one time I didn't escort him down the stairs. How terrible do I feel? Please, can someone hold onto that "Mom of the Year" trophy for me? He was in the Doctor's office for 5 hours getting x-rayed and casted and he never cried. His Momma on the other hand....

I was back at the Doctor's the next day for a skin infection with Drew. Again, Mom Of The Year award might have to wait.

Then, Louie dog jumped the fence. The neighbors grabbed him, so when I called him, he came running, but we almost lost him. He was all dirty, like he had been left out to run wild for weeks. Not sure what kind of adventures he had, but he acted pretty traumatized. He was not the only one.

Needless to say, I don't have much confidence in myself as a caretaker at this time. I always did have trouble keeping plants alive. At least Sharky v.2.0 is still alive and healthy.

For now.

365 days.... we did it.

A chewed through nude minimizer bra 30$
6 holes in the backyard
Destroyed screen 20$ (?)
Chewed on wall 50$
Deflated toy ball 2$
Chewed through waterproof and living room blanket 80$
Chewed through sweater 30$

Surviving the first year of Puppy-hood? Priceless.

Louie, sometimes you make me crazy and many sometimes I didn't know if adopting you was the best idea, but we love you, you little cuddle-bum and you are part of our family now. Love, the Bees

Maroon 5, Doggy Sundaes and Snoopy (Subtitled: I Want to live in My kid's Imagination, it's awesome there)

This morning was a toughie. Why is it that the wine that sounded so great last night made me feel so terrible this morning? Unfair- it was only 3 glasses, good gravy (sorry, I am obsessed with trying to work good gravy into a sentence- did it work there?) I am a lightweight.

The point is I was hurting a little and we were running late. Luckily the imagination of Drew saved our morning drive and reminded why 5 year old conversations are awesome (and ultimately much more fulfilling than adult conversations):

Halfway to school Maroon 5's "Misery" came on the radio.

Drew: You know, I could see Louie dancing to this.

(In case you forgot, this is Louie)

Me: Really?!?


Drew: Yes, I see him dancing around on one toe, twirling around, surrounded by bowls of vanilla ice cream with doggy bones stuck in them.

(I s#$t you not people, that's what he said.)

Me: Wow.  (Pause) That's quite a picture in my head.

(This is the pic in my head)

This dog-

Doing This:

surrounded by "Doggie Sundaes"

Drew: Yep! (Said all smugly) and then I will be like (Breaking into a smug dance the equivalent of the 'Head nod' dance- and Drew can dance, so this looked pretty cool.)

Me: I would love to see that!


Drew: Yeah, I'm a pretty good dancer. So can we bring a CD player outside with this song when we get home?

Me: Yes, we can.


Thanks for the funny this morning, Drew.

** On a side note, this makes me wish I had written down the conversation that I had with Mr. B about monkeys when he was sleep-talking. Mr. B sleep-talks a LOT. That post would be titled: Mr. B is a monkey trainer when he falls asleep

On Running

Okay, so I am an asshat. I have not meant to be away or worry anyone. I just have no time anymore. In fact, I'm wondering how I ever had time for a blog ever, with how filled my life has been. In fact, I think I said this last time, which makes me even more of an asshat. (Is such a thing possible?) I'm sorry for all of the wonderful comments I missed (seriously, I don't deserve you guys, but I am working on responding).

Here's my update: Drew is doing well, we have talked to his teachers and they are keeping a close eye on the situation. Obviously we are still concerned, but things seem better so far. Mr. B now has 3 shifts at his work which means working considerably less. It started this week, so fingers crossed. Mr. Calamity is spending most of his days on our special, new TO bench, or marching like a dinosaur... and Louie is recovering nicely from his surgery that we got him so "he doesn't go make little baby Louies", as I told the children, or as Mr. B told Drew, "the surgery that removed his balls". (He cuts to the chase more than I ever could.)

What have I been doing? Why training for a 5k. Fun times.

I have found training for a 5k to be very time consuming. Especially when you are a terrible runner like I am. If you could call what I do "running". It's more like "walking with a bounce". This is usually how the run goes....

0:00-2:00 Warm up. Oh, this will be fun. I am excited to burn some calories.

2:00-4:30 Oh, I have so much energy. This is great!

5:30-7:30 Side cramp, must fast walk.

10:00-15:00 Back on track- doing great- hey wait, am I really tired from "running" a 12 minute mile?

15:00- 17:00 SHINS ON FIRE.

18:00-20:00 Really, I'm fast walking again? Must find annoying fast song on Ipod. Okay, That'll do Britney Spears, that'll do.

20:00-25:00 Okay I might die now. Must keep going... shins and side now working together in an effort to make me stop.

25:00-29:30 A "can't breathe" slowdown, accompanied by "Must do" second wind.

29:30-32:00 Almost done- kind of? I really hate these mirrors alongside me at the gym. I am a sweaty tomato.

32:00 Ha! Person on treadmill stopped. I am stronger than them. Give gloaty look to senior citizen as she walks by.

32:00-38:00 Push to make my "best- worst" time at 5k (i.e. The time I need to get to not berate myself.)

38:00-40:00 Cool down. Thank god that's over. Wait, I have to do it again tomorrow?

I will definitely update you all when I finally do the 5k in a week and a half. Yup. I'm TOTALLY freaked. Then you can see some pictures of a red tomato "walking with a bounce".

Not Me Monday: Trashy Mom Edition

  

This week was NOT full of me fufilling my white trash aspirations with these actions:

There is NOT a bag of Cheeze-its in our bathroom.

I did NOT yell at Jacob for play humping our puppy.

I did NOT almost yell "Damn straight!" when someone at PetSmart said Louie was the cutest puppy she had every seen.

Cutest puppy? Um, yeah- Damn Straight!

Also, Louie was NOT the most rambunctious puppy in his Puppy training class.

I am soooo NOT dreading the homework for Louie and my five year old Drew this week. (Seriously, homework for a puppy AND my kindgartener? Someone shoot me.)

I have NOT watched over 4 hours of Scooby Doo this weekend; consequently I do NOT have a weird urge to pepper my conversation with "zoinks!", "dangnabit!" and "groovy".

My children were NOT pantsless all Sunday. Nope, they are always properly dressed. I would NEVER be too lazy to dress them and let them get away with undressing themselves and running around.

I did NOT (gasp) watch the season finale of Jersey Shore and then the reunion show that followed it.

I did NOT watch "The Pregnancy Pact" on Lifetime all drunk, and I did NOT kind of enjoy it. I am not the queen of trashy TV lately.

I did NOT swear like a sailor with Tourette's Syndrome all week due to my frustrations (New puppy! Husband working 80 hours! Tough week at work (for me)! Constantly hungry children- seriously about to eat us out of house and home! Crazy two year old! No time to myself for anything- including working out! Too much Scooby Doo!)

Also, I did NOT write a whole blog post about Dwayne Johnson (i.e., The Rock).

What kind of trashy, embarrassing things did you NOT do this week? Let me know in the comments so I can judge commiserate with you!
*This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

My Puppy, My Baby?!?

Big News for the Bee family... our new puppy, Louie, is home! As you can imagine, my life has been pretty hectic this week. Having a new puppy is so much like becoming a mother all over again, although with a steeper learning curve. At least for me. What, you don't believe me? Well, I have points to prove it. (Warning: if you are not a dog person, this post might not be for you. Gratuitous Dog musings are abound in this post.)


The ride home. Of course you never forget the ride home after you have your baby pick up your puppy. Louie shook in my arms and buried his head in my lap (obviously not the case with a bringing home a newborn baby, what with all those silly car seat laws, and me wanting to hold my newborn babies, and you know, wanting to keep them safe and all) but I felt just as protective of him as if he was my little newborn baby.

The first OMIGOD what-have-I-done-my-life-will-never-be-the-same-I'm-freaking-out how-will-I-do-this moment.  I had this with Drew when I realized no one would let me sleep because they wanted me to keep trying to breastfeed. I had this moment with Louie when I realized that I had to literally be holding Louie most of the time around the kids.

The first epic poop disaster. Ahhh, the runs.... we all know about how it can end up everywhere. Louie was very nervous the first day, and his bowels let loose everywhere. But how could we be upset, he's just a baby puppy! Who needs unspotted carpet anyway? Now we have character in our house.

The first night time they sleep through the night. Louie did this last night, and what a glorious moment to wake up at 7 and he was still sleeping. I was ridiculously proud of my wittle boy my little puppy! I felt so well rested, as if I could take on the world. I wanted to shout from the rooftops- Hey everyone, I have a puppy, a toddler and a kindergartener and I slept 7 straight hours! I am King of the World! This delirium is true of parents of babies, although it's even more outlandish because they are even more sleep deprived.

The first milestone. This morning Louie ran to the door to be let out to poop. I was so happy and impressed by him... much like the time Drew began to crawl. I feel like I should write the date down in a baby puppy book.

The hours you spend holding a sleepy baby   puppy in your arms  lap because you don't want to disturb them. I pulled this one the first day. Hey, it got me out of dishes that night.  


The ridiculous belief that your baby puppy is the cutest baby puppy on the planet. Obviously no explanation needed here, because he is. He is a wittle wrinkly man who is soooo vewwwy cute! Ahem, I'm done.

The moment your husband breaks down and turns into a pile of goo around your baby puppy. I heard Mr. B utter "Oh, Mr Wrinkly man I could just eat up your wrinkles you are so cute! Yes you are. you little cutie!" This made ME almost turn into a pile of goo, it was so funny and sweet.

And there you have it. Puppies and babies, they tear up your life, there's a million reasons not to have them, but what they give you back is immeasurable.

Welcome home, Louie Bee. We love you, Mr. Lou.