Lipstick Cover-Up

Hope you all have fun trick or treating if you do that sort of thing. Both of my girls are Cheerleaders, my son is a bionicle, it's a lego robot warrior thingy...yeah I know, I tried football player, but it was a no go, he loves the bionicle outfit, I think the baby is going to cry when she sees him!

I'm going to try and not eat all the candy, but I'm sure I'll have a piece, ok maybe 2!

What i love is that my kids like to give the candy out more than go and get it, we go to maybe 5 or 6 homes in our subdivision, and we go early so they can get home and and give it out and see other kids outfits. We also have a tradition, every halloween hubby makes chili, we eat it together, with cheese and sour cream on top and we watch whatever movie is on the Disney channel and then go into sugar shock and pass out. We toss the candy in a day or two b/c it does lose it's luster.

Tonight we'll have spooky music playing outside and cobwebs and a black light on the front porch, if you're in Virginia, Stop by, we'll have plenty of chili!

and some are hard. Today is ok. But lately I just have this feeling that I can't shake, the feeling that I just don't measure up to what I should. The "should" is on me...I set the "should's", but there just seems to be so many lately, I feel like I'm failing, well maybe not a total F, but I'm like a "high C" student right now in this game of life. I want to be an "A", I've been an A before, I just know it.

It's bugging me, I want to feel some kind of affirmation that I'm doing right by my children, my family. Somedays lately I feel consumed with worry. Stale, stagnant, unhappy even, with me though, not them or anyone else. This sounds so horrible when I type it, I'm not feeling horrible, just so uninspired I guess. I hate always seeing the negative, I want to enjoy the moment more, moments that just seem to go whizzing by. Giggling baby, happy kids, great effort, fun dinners, reading books together...going by so fast and I'm always worrying about the Next thing, or what has to be done, or crap with my mother, instead of living in the NOW with my family. I want my kids to know that I am focused on them, not always looking at tomorrow's list of "to-do's", but with them in the moment.

It just flies by, days, weeks, years, they just go faster each year, milestones just shoot by my line of vision before I can take a snapshot.

I fear regret, I don't want to regret things I missed because I was so busy planning, cleaning, trying to organize, decluttering. Where's the line on these things, stuff has to get done, but when I ask myself? When do I fit it all in and still have something left of me to give my kids not to mention a little slice of peace for me in a given day. I hate that compromise that is motherhood, marriage, life in general for women today. I want it all, and to not be exhausted getting it...that's not too much to ask now is it?

I think I've blogged on this before. Such poor planning on my part not to find the post and link it....crap.

Today is my son's birthday, he's 7 years old. I love him oh so very much and want him to know it!

We had his party on Saturday, so much fun, of course the first 3 children to arrive at the place hadn't RSVP'd but this place was so great, they just added the necessary items and it went off without a hitch. He chose to have Japanese food for dinner, he wanted a friend of his to come so we did it on Saturday so he could. The hibachi was fun, we've done this a lot with our kids but the little boy that came with us hadn't, WHAT FUN we had. The chef did some extra fun stuff for the kids too. We enjoyed some sushi as well, which I'm so happy the kids like.

7 years ago today at about 7:30 in the morning, they took little Green Bean from my tummy, this was a planned c-section after my first difficult delivery with my oldest daughter. He was 3 weeks early, 9 lbs. 13 oz, and 21 and half inches long. He had dark hair, which he'd soon lose that would come in blond...beautiful blue eyes and long fingers and toes. He squeaked like a bird, a pteradactyl to be exact, and he was such a noisy eater with this loud strider noise. He had a "floppy" esphogus, high bilirubin, and didn't hold his temperature well. It was several weeks before we found his heart problem but the docs were great and fixed him and his heart well. Then he started to eat normally, didn't turn blue anymore and the strider squeak was gone, we then had such a happy little boy.

He made us laugh with his crooked grin and dimples and still does today. He's the class clown, very bright, loves his baseball and football, and having fun. His cousin is his best friend, he can be a mamma's boy, and momma love's it!

GB, you bring us such joy and happiness. I know each day I see you and your sister's faces how very blessed I am...even when you shove stuff under the bed and misbehave and don't listen very well sometimes...I never forget how blessed we are to have you.

Happy Birthday little man!

Love,
Momma

On Sunday we finally did what we said we were going to do several weekends ago, moved around the furniture in the kids room, taking the bunkbeds apart. We've had the plan for sometime, but life and incessant birthday parties for schoolmates has come in the way of my plans....so this weekend was it.

A little back round on this. We have 3 bedrooms upstairs, 2 downstairs in our home. When we bought our house we did it b/c we liked the neighborhood and the school district for elementary schools, plus it was just barely in the county where we HAD to live b/c of husband's former job as a cop. Not so much b/c we loved the house, it was ok, not the home of my dreams, but had more room, good yard, lovely trees, etc. Well when we moved there we had 2 kids, thought we were only ever going to have 2 kids. Last November as you all know we had our little bundle of joy, Little Bean. Prior to her arrival we tried to groom Loud Girl to move downstairs. We set up a wonderful room for her, decorated, all that jazz. She's slept in it fewer times than I can count on my fingers, and that has been when she's had her cousin over for a sleepover, less than one hand by herself. She's not the soundest of sleepers, she wakes easily, things scare her, you know the drill, the wind is a ghost, the creak in the floor is the boogy man and any noise outside is "AN INTRUDER!!"

Seeing how this wasn't working, we purchased bunkbeds and Green Bean and Loud Girl moved in together, I know a boy and girl sharing a room, but worse things could happen, they're still quite young (6 & 7 at the time of the move), plus they always ended up in the same room anyhow it seemed.

They love love loved their bunkbeds for about 2 whole weeks, a real long time in kid-time. But they've wearied of them...I often hear, "they're so hard to jump on, they're darker than a regular bed, Loud Girl hates the top bunk now (even though she FOUGHT to have it, so in the middle of the night, without fail, she gets up climbs down and sleeps at the opposite end of her brothers bed on the bottom, causing much ado since they are both sidewinders when they sleep)"

We've offered to move one or both downstairs but it's a no-go option so far, I should be happy about it I know, in a few short years they're going to be fighting about moving down there and getting far away from me and dad.

Fast forward to Sunday. I measure, and measure, I get the configuration in my head that I want I measure again, it'll work, surely it will. Hubby comes and helps me take the bunks apart...and low and behold, THEY DON'T FIT THE WAY I MEASURED. He says that I didn't measure the POSTS fully, or the window sill, or the facts that I need to open and close the closet doors and possibly the drawers to the dressers on occaision. I leave the room, stunned at my subpar measurement performance and he configures it. Not the way I wanted, but it works, and he sure as shit isn't going to be picking that top bunk up again.

I'm left to organize, expunge junk, clean under the beds, re-vacuum, clean the hamster cage, hang the curtains, make the beds, you know the EASY stuff that doesn't take much time. I added in cleaning the closet and going through the dressers to start the change of season switch of clothes too. Then I re-decorated all the walls, to give them each their own little space, designed just for them. It went pretty well, until I got to cleaning under the formerly bottom bunk. I saw a few shoes and a stray sock, then when I reached under to make sure that was it, I was met with a wall of JUNK, shit shoved so far and so compacted under the bed I was shocked, I grabbed one of the toys of my sons, this nerf crossbow thing, looks like the Lord of Rings ones, it was sitting right there too. I have to wedge my body under the bed and reach and drag all this stuff out. Shoes that I thought were long gone, clothes, papers, art projects gone awry, books, books and more books, one book that I had already paid the library for b/c it was so LOST. Hairbands, cletes, roller blades, toys, toys and more toys. The list goes on and one, by the time I'm done I have this enormous pile in the middle of the room that used to be clean and tidy, AAGGHH!

I call the kids in, I say, "Look at this pile of stuff, shoes I thought we'd lost, books I've paid for, clothes, papers, toys, all of it...it was UNDER the bed, not just a little under, shoved under compacted under. You both need to be more mindful of your belongings and not leave things around to get lost under the bed." You see up until then I still believed this was just the kids being messy, things fall, get forgotten. Loud Girl is looking at the pile like she's found buried treasure, so happy about some of the finds she was! Green Bean, not so much.

He looks at me with those big blue eyes and says, "Momma, leave Loud Girl out of it, it's my fault, all my fault." Huh, what did he say? I must have had the quizzical "what are you talking about face" on that my children have come to recognize well so he continues....." You know every time you tell me to clean up my room and pickup, well I just shove it under there." Ok, I'm thinking ok, then he adds this gem " I take my crossbow over there and I shove it until it won't go any further so that I'll have room for next time too. I'm sorry, it's just whenever you want me to clean up I want to play so it's quicker, I'm sorry" He has tears now, knows he's busted.

I look at him and his sister, she's feeling for him right now, she's hoping I don't yell or get mad, I can tell that look too. I say, "Well Green Bean, at least your honest about it. You gonna do it again?" "No," he says, "NEVER AGAIN, I PROMISE" Ok, I let them go after they help clean it up.

We played UNO together after baths, read a bunch of books, played on their "new" beds and snuggled, I fell asleep with them. It was a great day.