Life in The Circus

I get a lot of pictures on my phone from kids when we're just hanging out, or ran out for drinks and took selfies.  Some I know about, some I find later.  If I'd been keeping up with daily blogging I would have thrown them up as I went along, but now they get their own post.

Random pictures from 2015.

I don't even know.

A visit to my work:

When the power went out at work mid-day and the sent us home (in the summer) so I took the girls to a dollar theater matinee:

Fancy drinks after an ortho appointment:

The Toothfairy Test

I had a conversation with a co-worker a few weeks ago about being a parent.  I think she said it nicely when she stated, "It doesn't matter how many books or articles you read, or how prepared you think you are for parenting, it's never enough.  Those kids come with their own hard drives and you can only hope that they'll turn okay despite you."

Here here, amen, and all that jazz.

Parenthood is giving me a great big slap in the face right now with a couple of my children who are struggling with school, and I'm at a complete loss as to what more I can do.

And equally as aggravating: the toothfairy. (here)  Yeah, totally on the same level for me.

Yesterday morning I was throwing a load of laundry into the dryer because I needed an article of clothing out of it to wear to work.  Tayler's alarm went off in her bedroom, and she crept out into the hallway rubbing her eyes.

"Mom, I need to tell you something."

This could be the opening for who knows how many things so I simply turned and looked at her, waiting for what would follow.

"Cali lost a tooth yesterday but she didn't tell you because she wants to see if the Toothfairy is real."

I almost had a hallelujah spot right there in the closet of a laundry room (Literally.  It used to be a large linen closet).  I hate the Toothfairy.  Loathe her.  Who in their right mind ever thought she was a good idea?  You're naturally growing up and loosing body parts, let me give you money.  And here it was, my perfect chance to be done with it for good.  Cali is my last believer, and we're on borrowed time with her belief at that.

But then I thought of all the ways to realize that the Toothfairy isn't real... and of course, subsequently the Easter Bunny and that jolly ol' elf, Santa Claus himself...  In one early morning moment all of that would be gone from our house.  Forever.  And not just the loss of those beliefs, but we'd be leaving behind a stage of our lives.  That would be the end of little kids in our home.  Our family would step into a new phase of life.


And it all hung on that stinking Toothfairy.

I walked Tayler downstairs where we raided The Man's wallet for a single dollar, because let's face it, I rarely have cash on hand.  I handed the dollar to Tay and asked her to go make the exchange.  If Cali woke up it would be much less strange to see Tayler standing next to their bunk beds than it would be to see me.

But Cali didn't even stir and Tayler found the tooth hidden in an empty gum box (I don't know... my kids are weird).

And with that we borrowed just a little more time for Cali's childhood, before she gets too big on me.

For the record Cali didn't say a single word to me about her missing tooth until after dinner last night.  And she only showed me the gaping hole in her mouth, she made no mention of her test, and the fact that it successfully proved the reality of the Toothfairy.

Not a single word.

I guess that's how it is when you know something secret, that not everyone else is sure they know.  There's power in that, and that was good enough for her.

Or she faked sleeping and knows exactly what went down and now has a completely different secret.

I guess I'll never know.

Daily Grind.

This was the first post ever written on this blog.  I wanted to keep track of my life, the details of it, and so that's what I first wrote about it: the daily grind.

This post was originally written and posted on April 10, 2008.

Divorced... with kids.

Someone should make a TV series out of it.

Seriously.

I'll admit switching gears from stay at home mom to working mom hasn't been easy. I'm still trying to get the hang of it. The routines are different and there is so little time to spare.

I'm up at 5:00 a.m., the girls are up at 6:30, and we're out of the house by 7:30.

Off to daycare where thankfully they eat breakfast because if I had to add just one more thing in the morning we'd never make it out of the house on time.

I say I wake up at 5:00, but realistically I'm rolling out of bed an hour later at 6:00.

Mornings are not my friend.

Some how, miraculously, all five of us are ready to go in an hour and half.

(Maybe I won't mention that sometimes this means compromise to avoid arguments, like Cali (3 years old) wearing her dance out fit and snow boots to daycare).

I can usually drop the girls off at 7:45 and make it in to work aby 7:55-ish, where I get to answer the phone (Thank you for calling Burt Brothers, this is Stephanie...) and scan my life away... one paper at a time.

I only have seven overflowing inboxes...

Lunch time is errands. If it weren't for that one sacred hour of the day I would get nothing done. I squeeze as many little errands into that one hour as I possibly can. This includes grocery shopping.

I start the count down for 5:00 at about 2:30, when finally I can hit the gym (more daycare for the kids, but they like all the friends they're making). The gym is the one thing in my life that I do for completely selfish reasons.

I do it for me.

Of course, this means dinner at 7:00, and somehow we squeeze in homework, baths, and story time to make it to bed by 8:00.

Not me, the girls.

After the girls are in bed, I get to do laundry and dishes and any other miscellaneous cleaning jobs like mopping and picking up stray toys.

Maybe I'll make it to bed by 11:00...

I Have My Hands Full.

This post was originally written and posted on November 10, 2011.

I went to Subway for lunch, went through the process of creating my sandwich, and handed over my debit card to pay for it.  The cashier, a lady who was a bit older than I am, took my card and stared at it.  

Intently.  

It has this picture on it:

"What's the story with this picture?" She asks.

"That would be my family," I reply.

She starts counting.  I kid you not.  Gets her finger out and starts ticking off the kids, one, two three, four...

"How old is your oldest?" She asks after counting off all six of the kids.

"Eleven."

"Wow, you work faster than I do.  I had six in 14 years of each other." 

I won't tell her that I have six within 5 years.

Here it is.
 
I have six kids.

They're all in elementary school.

I have my hands full.

As I'm repeatedly reminded of by strangers who feel it their duty to tell me so.

But they're amazing kids. 

I can take them into public and I know they're not going to throw a tantrum.  They're not going to run around and scream.  (Though they may dance a little and giggle a whole lot).  They're polite and they, for the most part, share with each other. 

You say I have my hands full simply because of the mass of them?

Huh. 

I would have said otherwise.

So Pretty. And "What's A Cassette Tape?"

Lately The Man has taken to calling me, "Pretty Wife," which, if I'm being completely honest, I love.

Love.

The Man is going to get anything he wants when he calls me Pretty Wife.

Anything.

I will even scrub out the outside garbage can for him.  You know, the one that reeks to high heaven whenever you open the lid.

It has that much power over me.

But then I got this string of texts from him:

I'm thinking maybe "pretty" doesn't mean what I thought it meant.

Also, I'm thinking the garbage can doesn't need to be scrubbed out so badly after all.

Tomorrow I start with some catch up posts, and will be getting back into the swing of daily posting.  There's a bunch of end of school year stuff and Girl's Camp that I need to throw up for heritage sake.  I'm pretty sure the generations that will stretch on after me will want to know all about these things.  

Actually, I think it's pretty fun to see how life "used" to be.  And conversations like, "You didn't always have color TV?" with my mom are hilarious.

To think of all that has changed in my own lifetime is amazing to think about.  

An old song came on the radio and I told the girls, "This song is so old!  I had it on cassette tape when I was a kid."

Casidee laughs and then stops.  "What's a cassette tape?"

Has life really caught up to me this much? I proceeded to tell her that CD's weren't a big thing until I was about her age.  I didn't get my first CD until I was in Jr.  High.  Before that... it was recording songs off the radio onto cassette tapes.

So tomorrow, catching up.  You know, for heritage sake.

Good Morning Beautiful

I'm starting to bring old posts over from my other url so all my posts will be together.

This post was originally posted 16 February, 2012

The Man didn't have work today.  Usually he's up before me and already downstairs doing whatever it is he does in the wee morning hours before I roll out of bed.

Mornings, to me, are not pretty.

It's not that I'm ornery or grumpy, because I'm not.  You can talk to me and I'm not going to bite your head off.  I'll even most likely give you a smile.  But I'm slow.  I don't get things.  My brain doesn't work.  And often times West will find me back in bed after my long shower when I should be putting clothes on and blow drying my hair.

But this morning it was me who was getting up before him.  Slowly.  Agonizingly.  It doesn't matter what time I go to bed, or how much sleep I get, it's the same ol' I can't get this brain to function routine for me.  I usually stand in a glazed over daze in the shower for a really long time.

Since West was still in bed, that meant that I couldn't get back in it because the lights were off, and that would mean that I would be out cold in a matter of seconds.  Usually when I crawl back in bed the lights are on.  That keeps me coherent enough to get back up again.

I stepped out of the shower, got dressed in the clothes I had put in the bathroom the night before, and blow dried my hair.  By then the circus was stirring. 

I stepped out of our bathroom into the dark bedroom and made my way around the bed to go downstairs and make the circus eggs.  We had 1/4 of a gallon of milk.  Cereal wasn't going to happen today.

As I groped through the dark I hear, "I hear my beautiful woman."

Does he know just what to say first thing in the morning or what.  Instead of finding the door, I found him.  Then he whispers to me, "what are your lunch plans today? Oh yeah, you have lunch plans with me."  Like he's the luckiest man in the world to eat lunch with me.

I'm the luckiest woman in the world to be having lunch plans with him.

West's cousin (but I'm claiming him too!) Got married to a cute girl yesterday.

{I totally stole this off of his facebook.  Aren't they reeking of fun personality?}

I love their family.  They are down right the nicest people on this earth.  I don't usually do wedding cakes.  I prefer to do character cakes and birthday cakes.  I usually pass the wedding cakes on to my friend Aislinn, who is Amazing with a capital "A", and actually in business where I am not.  I just have a hobby.  But when this family of ours asked me to help with the wedding cake I wasn't going to tell them no.

Like I said, I'm no professional.  And it shows.  But what it lacks in pristine perfectness it makes up for in taste and flavor. 

I think I'll stick to "fun cakes".

Happy wedding to our cousins.  Their wedding lunch is today and I get to meet my man there to celebrate the union of a cute couple and the fact that we are a part of a great family.

A Creature of Habit I Am

I may or may not have rolled into my math class with a pillow crease still on my face this morning.

That's how I'm starting to roll now that we're past the halfway mark of the semester.

As it is, I'm a creature of habit and when I fall into a routine of doing something I like, I don't vary from it very much, if at all.  At least until I'm completely sick of it and find a new routine.

Every morning between math and work I stop at a particular Subway (there are three in the very near vicinity of the campus and my work, but this particular one is the only with a drive-thru and I'm lazy so it appeals to me) where I order a 6 inch egg and cheese on flatbread.  Pepperjack, spinach, tomatoes, and chipotle.

One point of variation is I may or may not then stop at the McD's, which is right next to the Subway, for a Coke.  Lately, though, I've skipped this.  I'm trying to drink more water.  Which is strangely hard for me to do.

And then I head to work.

On the days when I have my Spanish class after work I stop at Sonic for a Dirty Coke.  This could be before class, or after on my way home.  There's something about a 15 hour day that just screams "get some sugar laced with coconut!  Now!"

And I relish it.

Wait, was I trying to drink more water?

At least I've been skipping the morning Cokes.

I pulled into Subway for my egg sandwich this morning, numb from an hour of logarithms, and spoke my order into the intercom.  The pillow crease had faded from my face by this point and as I sat at the window waiting for my breakfast, the sun peaked over the top of the mountain behind me, suddenly blinding me through the reflection of my side view mirror.  I let the sun into my soul and I smiled.  And squinted.  I wish I could have captured that moment with a picture, but some moments don't transfer over with pictures very well.

The cute girl, who I noticed helps me every morning, opened the window and laughs.

"I help you here and I help you at Sonic," she says to me.

And I took a good look at her.  I knew she was the same person who helped me every morning at Subway.

And I knew the girl at Sonic was the same girl who helped me every time I go there.

But I hadn't connected that they were the same girl at both places.

I burst out laughing.

How random is that?

And now she totally knows that I'm a creature of habit.

I feel like I should give her a thank you card or a big tip or something.

Not on my habitual routine... ever... I joined a bracket for... I don't even know what it is.  A tournament for college... basketball?  The whole point being if we get a better score from our picks than our math teacher then we get some extra credit.

So why not?

I used to do NFL picks in Jr. High with my math class and whoever had the most right from the week's games got a 2 liter of pop.  What is is with math teachers and sports picks?  I chose all those based on mascot vs. mascot.  I won a lot by doing it that way, actually.

I don't know what the mascots are for these college teams so we'll just have to see how my random clicking pans out for me.