A song I love

I first heard this song on ER during the episode where Dr. Mark Greene passed away. I bawled my eyes out during the episode, and then cried even harder when this song played.

This is, "somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" by Israel Kamakawiwo Ole. It's a beautiful arrangement, and gives me this odd feeling of sadness and nostalgia. Oh to be young and innocent again....

Enjoy!

The ever expanding imaginary world of Colin

I just had to toss this picture in today for two reasons.

1. I can't believe Colin was ever that little.

2. I wish it were that warm and we were back at the BEACH!! It's freakin' 38 degrees here now, and that's the *high* for today.

I know...waa, waa, from all of you northerners dealing with snow and colder temps, but South Carolina is just NOT supposed to be this cold.

I wish I could take up OneHung on partnering in his investment property in Florida! We would head down there this weekend!

If you're a regular reader (yep...all 6 of ya!), you'll recall our new family editions thanks to Colin's highly active imagination.

It all started with William, and he has since added Wazdrowz and Awusu. (Don't ask me where he gets the names...I'm shocked every time I hear a new one.) They are his imaginary brothers and they go with us everywhere. We even had to order lunch for William on one occasion.

Well...the imaginary "friend" saga has now expanded to pets. Colin informed me today that he told his teacher, Ms. Emily, that he had a turtle named "Shotters" at home. (Thank goodness he didn't say shitters!! That would have gone over REALLY well at his Christian pre-school huh?)

Supposedly, Shotters lives in a bowl in his room, where he likes to swim in the water. There is a tree in the bowl that he does *not* run in to, and Colin feeds him turtle food. I'm glad *I* don't have to feed him!

Hey...this is a heck of a lot better than cleaning out a litter box!

Maybe we could move on to imaginary cats to replace the two real ones that we already have???

Just KIDDING Sammy and Uno!!!!

Sort of....

Onehung...

I've GOT to know what you do if you're a CPA and you have time to grace us with our 80's music memories every day! (In broad terms of course, so you don't give your "anonymity" away.)

Can you tell I'm looking for a career change for Hubby?? This busy season/SEC crap SUCKS!!!!

*****edited*****

Oh...I knew that! I guess it's been quite a while since I've read your profile. That, and my children have sucked any and all brain power from my frazzled self today.

Hmmm....I wonder if Kelly might be interested in doing that?

I never knew my child could scream so loudly

Damn.

That was rough.

Colin was all excited to see Dr. Cook, until we started out the appointment with a hemoglobin test. Yep, on top of 3 shots, they had to stick his finger too. He (and I for that matter) had no idea that was coming, and he was so terribly offended when the nurse did it. I kept thinking, "boy, if you think that's bad, just wait till you see what's coming!".

Luckily, he calmed down enough to talk to the Doctor, and everything looks good. He weighs 37 pounds and for the life of me, I can't remember how tall he is.

I had to physically lie on top of him while the nurse gave him his 3 shots. I felt horrible. He screamed bloody murder the entire time, and just kept begging me to make her stop. Sometimes this Mommy gig sucks people. Next time Kelly is taking him to the appointment and handling that job.

He cried for about 30 minutes after we left the office and just kept telling me how badly it hurt. We headed to Target and let me tell you....Hotwheel cars can fix those "boo-boos" in a hurry. At least when my child is concerned.

So...the good news is, it's OVER! At least for another year right?

Last thing,

Can anyone tell me why Landon is refusing to nap? He falls asleep in the car, and then when I take him up to his crib, he cries for an hour. What the heck is UP with that???

SLEEP CHILD...SLEEP!

4 Year check up in the morning with a nasty surprise for Colin

Yep. The poor kid has to get 3 or 4 shots.

I don't know if I'm handling this the right way or not by not telling him. He tends to get very upset and obsess over things like this, so I opted for the surprise approach.

I'm going to have to make sure that we have blankie and doggy when we go. It also might take a couple of hotwheels cars to make up for this as well.

I'll let you guys know how it goes!!

Heroes

Anyone else out there watching this?

I'm LOVIN' it!

The Swiffer Standoff

We've been in our house for almost exactly a month now. . We are still not fully unpacked, and even though the other house is under contract, we have a few boxes and large items awaiting their trip to the new house.

I don't know if I've ever mentioned here how much I really like my Swiffer sweep+vac. This thing rocks people! It's a fast and easy way to grab up all of those dust bunnies that end up chasing me around the house on a daily basis. ( Someone please stop me now, I feel I may be morphing in to some cleaning guru, and I promise...I am so far from it!)

Since we've been in the new house, I've had the Swiffer, but for some reason, the CORD to charge the damn thing has disappeared. I've looked, Kelly has looked, even COLIN has searched for it, but to no avail.

I have finally broken down and surrendered to the fact that I need to buy a new one. I can NOT deal with the dust bunnies anymore. They taunt me as I walk around the house, and I come across a new one every time I turn around. I do my best to grab them up and toss them in the trash, but I turn around...and there's another one!

Kelly has been begging me not to buy one, because he just KNOWS that he can find the cord. He swears up and down that he KNOWS he packed it in a box where there are some cleaning supplies, even though we've looked through every single one.

Well, babe, I hate to break it to you, but.....I did it. I broke down under the pressure of the taunting, teasing, dust-balls. I bought one.

We are no longer under the attack of the dust bunnies.

I promise you'll appreciate it one day.

What to do, what to do....

So, Spring is fast approaching, and Colin is four. Officially old enough to "do" something.

Should we go for soccer or t-ball?? I still need to look around at the different programs in our area to see what's offered. It may turn out that the time of the activity is the deciding factor based on naps and our church schedule.

I also may see if some of his friends are playing and go with that sport simply because there will be someone there that he knows. Colin is not really comfortable in new situations with all new people. I'm hoping that knowing someone on the team will help ease him in to the "team" set-up.

Any thoughts blog friends?? Any experience with soccer and or t-ball??

I just don't get it

What is it with the whole "Stay at home" mom verses "Work out of the home" mom debate??

Why is it that so many people are SOOOOO concerned with being RIGHT, that they can't respect the fact that people can and will do things differently, and also do them well??

Luckily, I am able to stay at home with my boys. Luckily, I get to wake up each morning and spend the day with them creating memories and loving all over them. Everyone is not a LUCKY as I am. Some women even say that there is no way in hell that they *could* stay home. Now...do I like hearing that? Not really. Can I do anything about it? No. Do I understand where they are coming from?

Yep. I certainly do.

Staying at home with your children is NOT an easy thing to do. Some days, I have to remind myself that being at home with my boys IS a blessing. There are some mornings that I wish Kelly would stay home, and I could go to work and actually interact with GROWN adults. Does this make me a bad Mother? I certainly think NOT. Does this make me human? Yep. I can go days at a time without having any brain stimulation other than "go fish". The words that make up my vocabulary on any given day are: poopy, diaper, snack, sippy cup,...etc., etc.

I do yearn for interaction with the adult world. I think this is one of the reasons that I really enjoy blogging. Number one, it shows me that I am not alone in my feelings about motherhood, and number two, it allows me to excercise my brain. I do that daily, but mostly on a 4 year old and 1 year old level. Even more so when my Husband is working non-stop and I simply wake up to feel the weight of him in the bed next to me at night, and then kiss him goodbye in the mornings.

I have a college education. Some days it's hard to believe that. I studied in Spain for a summer and lived with a Spanish family. I attended college in Spain. I taught high school Spanish for a year, I was a Director for an after school program and summer camp for under privileged kids.

I am now a Mother, and I take that job title just as seriously as I did all of the others.

I am proud to have been, and be, all of those things.

I respect all of the other mothers/parents in the world who love their children, and do the best they can for them just as I do. No matter whether they are home with them every day, or at work.

It doesn't mean they love their children any less than I do, they just DO it differently.

What do you do when a blog you love to read goes private??

Anyone??

I loved Manuela's blog, "Thin Pink Line", and I can no longer read it. I understand that she had some pretty nasty trolls hanging around, so I do get her reasons for doing it.

I hope all is okay with her.

Huh??

**edited to add: I posted this LOOOONG before I caught a similar post on MamaPop...... damn
I'm good!** :)





Oh. My. Gosh.

Is there ANY man on the face of the planet that would be caught DEAD in these??

SURELY....they jest????

Under Contract Baby!!!!

After only 8 days on the market, we are under contract!!!! We couldn't be happier!!!!

The first offer fell through after we received the second one this morning and informed them of the terms. They didn't want to get in to a bidding war, which I totally understand.

Get this: Full asking price, no contingencies, no closing costs (payed by us anyway), and they are paying CASH, so no worries about whether financing will fall through on their end!!!!!! We close on February 26th barring any unforseen problems. (Dear Lord, please don't let anything happen.)

Whew.....I'm so glad that part is over. Now only one more month, and our lives will be at least a little closer to normal!!

Goodbye little house!! You've been a part of some amazing memories, and wonderful times. Both boys were brought home from the hospital to your welcoming arms. I hope that the family that is buying you create as many happy memories as we did!

Let's see if I can finish something that I start...

Okay...here I am, crawling out from the hole that I fell in to.

What have I been up to? Well, for starters, pretty much being a single Mom to my two handsome boys. I love them dearly, but let me tell ya, the single Mom gig is 1000 times worse than anyone cracks it up to be.

I *should* be used to this after six years of marriage to my CPA Husband, yet every year it smacks me in the face harder than the last. Probably due to the demands of our ever growing, ever demanding, little men. Of course, this year we just had to go and top it off with a move to a new house, improvements to the last along with selling it, and most of the crap that goes along with it is on my plate.

Enough whining??

Yep, I thought so too.

The good news? Well, the GREAT news is that the old house is finished and CLEAN. We listed it a week ago, and as of tomorrow we will have had 9 showings, and two offers on the table. It's been absolutely crazy!!!

The first offer is still in negotiation. I feel for the folks because they have a lease that doesn't end until June, but I hate to break it to them....it's not up to us to finance OUR home for them, until they can get out of it (they wanted to close May 1st!). They're willing to pay a nice amount for the house, but not enough to make up for the house payments and utilities through May. At least not yet. We're waiting on their counter offer in repsonse to our counter offer. (Can I say counter offer again?) Still, with all of the attention it seems to be getting, I dont think we're going to give in on the close date. We need it under contract and sold ASAP.

We're very blessed to be in this situation, because it could have been SO much worse. We really just need someone to make an offer where we close by the end of February, if not sooner. We'll see what our second offer holds tomorrow morning...hopefully a LOT more dinero and a closer close date. I'm keepin' my fingers crossed.

The boys are doing great. Colin has added another imaginary friend to his entourage, and they go with us everywhere. William is the first, and then our second is "Wazdrowz". Don't ask me WHERE in the world he came up with that name. That kid is a trip!

We also held his birthday party last Saturday and it was a hit. You can NOT beat an indoor, bounce house, play party. Top it off with a PW's ice-cream cake, and it rocked.

Landon is a cute as ever, but the poor child's schedule is totally screwed up. He hasn't been to bed before 8:30 in a week or two, and each night and nap holds at least a 10 minute bout of screeching at the top of lungs in protest. I guess that's just what happens when we try to keep him up to see his Daddy. I don't know which is worse. Going a week at a time without seeing his father, or crying a little before bedtime. I guess maybe he can tell me what he thinks in one of our future therapy sessions since I'm sure one of the two are bound to cause him major trauma right?

Kelly and I were finally able to break in the new pool table last night.

Get your mind out of the gutter folks! We played pool...although I'm SURE Kelly wishes it was the alternative! It's nice to have, and it was really great to actually have some quality adult time with my Husband....finally. Nothing like being a "busy season" widow.

The boys and I also attended a funeral of an 18 year old girl on Tuesday. We used to attend church with her and her mother. She was the first young lady that I ever trusted to babysit Colin. (Landon wasn't born yet.) I'm still in shock. It was heartbreaking to get the news and I don't know that I will ever get the look of her mother's face out of my mind. We don't know exactly what happened. She was at the beach with friends, and they say she went to sleep, and just never woke up. There's a suspicion that drugs may have been involved, but we may never really know the answer to that. Even though she may have gotten mixed up in some pretty bad stuff recently, she was still a beautiful soul. She always had a smile on her face, and she loved kids...especially Colin, and he loved her. It's still really hard to believe that we'll never see her again, and it wasn't easy explaining to Colin what happened.

So, that's been my crazy life in a nutshell.

Just to give you an idea of how frazzled and brain-fried I've been lately, here's how I ended our evening.

As I was getting Landon ready for bed, probably thirty minutes after we got home from dinner with Kelly (yep, he's back at work tonight), I heard a LOUD knock on our front door. It was 9:00pm, and we know NO ONE in the neighborhood. I peeked out of Landon's room and down to the front door, and I heard barking and growling. In the dark, I could see a young man struggling to hold on to his big, black, dog. I cracked open the door, and he explained that as he was walking his dog, he noticed something strange about my car in the driveway.

I had left the stupid driver's side door WIDE open. Yep. I'm an idiot. Either that, or I desperately need a vacation.

Thank God for kind neighbors. Even though he did scare the crap out of me!

CONGRATULATIONS to my brother and his new fiance!

Lucas proposed to Liz this morning, and she said YES! (WHAT in the world is she thinking?) lol!

Just kidding! He's lucky to have her if you ask me. She absolutely ROCKS!

The ring is nothing to sneeze at either! Nice job bro! :)

A Weird Mommy or Me Thing?

What is it about my child's head that makes me want to sniff it ALL. THE. TIME?

I could hold Landon all day and just breathe in the scent of his precious little head. Same with Colin, but he doesn't stay still long enough for me to get a good whiff anymore.

Landon is doing this sweet little thing lately where, while he runs around the room and plays about every 5 minutes or so, he'll RUN to me and tackle me with one of his wonderful hugs. I just hold on as long as I can and breathe in his scent. It only lasts for about 8 seconds, but I cherish every one of those precious snuggles.

I'm curious if this smell thing is just a weird "me" thing, or are there any other parents out there who feel the way.

You can be honest, I *think* I can take it.

Hmmmm, Interesting

Well, I guess I owe the good 'ole (maybe I wouldn't go *that* far) BofA an apology, at least in this situation.

Hubby was finally able to take a moment and research why they put a hold on our closing check and the reason was quite surprising.

The check from the attorney's office...BOUNCED!

Nice huh?

Come to find out that they had someone writing fraudulent checks from their account, and they had to close it. I think we managed to get a check from that same account, so their bank wouldn't honor it.

It's hard for me to believe that they would make this kind of mistake, but I'm offering them the benefit of the doubt. I'll give them until tomorrow to make this right. We'll see what happens.

It's the never-ending saga of home buying crap on this blog.

Maybe I should change the name??

Limbo

Nope. Not the fun kind.

That is if you consider doing the limbo fun anyway.

I am stuck in limbo, and I lack the motivation to get my ass out of it.

I promised to update on the move and the house, and I have yet to do so.

Here goes, better late than never right?

We're here. It's great! I absolutely love my new house and all of the room that it provides us. I just wish that some other poor sap could come and unpack the 20 or so boxes of junk that I just don't feel like messing with. You know those things that you shove in drawers and under the sink? All of that junk that you just don't feel that you can part with at that time, but really don't need to keep? Yeah...that's what I have left to unpack and go through.

I have four boxes in the family room. Eleven boxes in the living room/play room/("box" room). Two in our bedroom, and probably about three in the garage.

Mind you, this does NOT count the piles of crap that are still hanging out at the old house. Those consist of bottles of various cleaning supplies (hehe, think I've done much cleaning in the new house??), two wedding dresses (one used at the wedding to my Dear Hubby and the other bought in a moment of insanity at the age of twenty, whew...glad I dodged *that* bullet!), and various toys that will hopefully only make it as far as our local Goodwill drop-off . Hell, if the boys have made it this long without them, then some other needy child should have them. Colin and Landon are NOT lacking anything on the toy front.

The old house is currently receiving some TLC by way of a couple of coats of paint on the interior, the screened porch being pressure washed, and some steps being re-carpeted (thanks to our loving "un-declawed" kitties. Yes honey, we should have had that done years ago...I know.). We should be able to have it on the market by Monday of next week...thank GOD!

So. Here I am. Stuck in limbo, but really, it's not that bad.

I just keep telling myself, "one thing at a time", and so far it's going pretty well. I only had one near break-down when I found out that the idiots at Bank of Amer*ca had decided to put a hold on a $550 check we received from the closing. You know, we're really rich enough that that much money doesn't matter right? Take it, keep it! We don't need that for anything important. Maybe groceries, diapers, or to pay the electric bill for ONE of our freaking houses. Nothing much you "effing idiots" (hmm...I didn't realize I was holding on to this much hostility. I also hope you can sense the DRIPPING sarcasm here). I called to find out what the hold was for, and went through all of the hoops on the phone while they verified that I was who I said I was, and then they wouldn't speak to me about it. My name is not listed on the savings account that we tried to deposit the funds in to. God forbid I was someone trying to take money from an account that wasn't mine right??? Good to know that they're keeping up those tight security standards.

The poor girl who answered the phone was polite enough to listen to me cuss B of A for a good 5 minutes. I hate that I did that though, because I've worked in customer service before, so I know what that is like. I felt a lot better afterwards though. Sometimes you just have to let the bitch out, know what I mean?

Kelly is working a LOT now due to busy season, but luckily the new house has cut about 15 minutes off of his commute time, so that helps the tiniest of bits. He at least gets to see the kids for a little while before they go to bed. It helps that their routine and bed time was shot to hell during the move, so they're both up a LOT later than I would prefer these last few weeks.

So. I'm off to unpack some boxes.

Maybe I'll just check out ONE more blog before that (wink, wink).

Nothing better than a little procrastination baby!

Create your own avatar

Thanks to Catherine for sharing this link!

Check it out and make your own if you're interested.

Happy Birthday Sweet Boy!

Wow.

Four years ago I held you in my arms for the very first time.

This tiny, squeaky, little thing that would one day become my handsome, sensitive, loving, little boy.

You are so much fun to be around. Your love for life is contagious, and I am so thankful to be your Mommy.

Our lives have been so blessed because of your presence, Colin. I am a better person because you are here.

I'm doing the best that I can to be the best Mommy possible for you and your brother. I'm not perfect, you already know that, but my best is all I have to give.

Thank you for showing me how beautiful life is. I see the world through your eyes now, and it's more amazing than I could have ever imagined.

I can't wait to see what the rest of your life has to hold little man! You are destined for great things!!

Much love,
Mommy

It's official...we have another child in the house

His name is William.

I have no idea what he looks like, but he wears the same size and style clothes as Colin, and he is going to turn 4 on the 8th of January as well.

He joined us for lunch today.

I had to put his shoes on him, put on and zip up his jacket, and buckle him in to the seat of the car.

I had to tell Landon to stop "touching him" in the car, and then explain to Colin that William didn't mind if Landon did when he wouldn't stop.

Yes, William is Colin's new imaginary friend.

Thank God the guy behind the counter at Panera Bread understood this when we ordered his "imaginary cinnamon crunch bagel" for him at lunch today.

Colin was absolutely thrilled when he placed it on the plate along with his blueberry muffin. He was even kind enough to use tissue paper so as not to transfer imaginary germs to William's food.

Just when I've given up on the world, I'm surprised at the kindness of strangers who seem to "get" that you're only a child once.

Thank you Panera Bread employee....you made my kid's day.

Happy New Year Everyone!!!

As I sit here alone in my bed while my dear Hubby is out playing poker with friends.

If that's not a kick-ASS wife, I don't know WHAT is!!

Oh...by the way...we're in the house, I LOVE it, and I still have tons of boxes to unpack.

It's feeling more and more like "home" every day. Pics and more details of moving day soon to follow.