2006, that is.

And my house is still messy.

After my last blog, I did make an effort at the things I said I was going to do. I did do some laundry. I did find new homes for their new toys. I did do something else that has since been so completely undone that I don’t remember what it was. And, then, without warning, all energy suddenly left my body. I’ve not done anything since.

The laundry is again piled up. The toys are no longer in their new homes, but are scattered about like homeless vagrants. The kitchen has a pile of mail on the counter, and a sinkful of dishes. I told Chris that since I asked him to do the dishes the other day, because there were just a few, and I was folding about seven loads of laundry, and then he just put them all in the sink and ran it full of soapy water to let them “soak” and then left them there and never did anything else with them that I would leave them there until he did decide to wash them, even if they sat there for two weeks. Yes, I know that was the longest run on sentence in history, but, what do I care? So, anyway, they’re still there sitting in a sinkful of water. My resistence is weakening, though, and I’m contemplating washing them myself. I hate sticking my hand in old dishwater, though, and haven’t brought myself to do it yet.

Aside from those things, though, it’s not so bad. It just looks as though a nuclear bomb went off in my house. But other than that…

So, I’m not quite as confidant in the whole “tidy end to 2005″ thing yet.

I have zero energy. That’s the main problem. I got all motivated, and then I bottomed out in the energy department. I guess it’s a combination of getting a bad sinus infection before I had really completely recovered from the virus, and just being pregnant. I’m tired. I spent half of yesterday in bed. I had to call the pastor and tell him that I didn’t think I was up to cleaning the church this week, slacker that I am. I just can’t imagine summoning up the energy to vacuum the church, much less the bathrooms and everything else. Vacuuming alone takes about an hour. Anyway, he was quite understanding, and I laid in bed most of the day. When Chris got home, we rode to Wartburg with him, to take his broadcast to the radio station, and then I deposited my cleaning check and we went to McDonalds.

I desire to do better today. But I’m tired.

Have you went into a coma yet? I know this is boring. Really, I do. I’m too tired to do anything exciting to blog about, though.

I have almost finished The Chronicles of Narnia. I’m going to be sad when I’m through. It’s been such an exciting, entertaining read. I’m on the second to last book. Does anyone think Caspian is a good name for a boy. I didn’t think so. I like it, though. It’s cool. I’m about to die to go see The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. Chris and I were going to have my mother-in-law watch the kids while we went and saw it last Friday, but then I had to go and get deathly ill.

Speaking of ill, I finally had my follow up with my OB on Wednesday, and everything was A-Ok. I had lost three pounds, but I was no longer dehydrated. They did an ultrasound, because they still couldn’t find the baby’s heartbeat with the doppler, and Boo is quite fine. S/he was kicking, and moving around. Chris and the kids got to see an u/s for the first time this pregnancy, so that was neat. Kyra was really excited about it. She jabbered the whole time to the nurse practitioner, who was prompted to ask me, “Does she always talk like this?”. I had to be honest, and say, “Yes. I’m afraid she got that from her mother.” Kyra told her, “I named her Baby Boo. Is that okay?”. The NP told her that it was okay, and that it was indeed a very good name. Kyra and I went in circles yesterday when I told her that she could call the baby Boo, but she needed to have a real name, too. Kyra insisted that Boo is a perfectly good name, and didn’t care one whit when I said that Boo would not be a very good name for a grown up. She insists that the baby’s name is “Boo Harmon! Just Boo Harmon!”

My brother and sister-in-law are coming home today. They are stationed in Nebraska, and Aaron wanted to come home to see Jason one last time, before he goes to Iraq in February. I can’t wait to see him. I’ve seen Tasha, his wife, twice since I’ve last saw him. He hasn’t been home since this past spring/summer. We’ll probably go to my mom’s this evening, after Chris gets off work, and visit with them.

Okay. Enough is enough.

It’s been an interesting few days.

Just as I was gearing up to finish the very last of the Christmas preparations (wrapping the last of the gifts sitting downstairs, buying the last of the gifts for the people that I forgot about, and buying the little gift bags for the people that I remembered), we got hit by a virus. I started getting sick Thursday night, and by Friday night I was in the ER hooked up to an IV. Not pleasant. My procrastination in Christmas things came back to bite me when some things just never got done. My Christmas cookies that I bought the ingredients, the decorations, the rolling pin, the cookie cutters, and the cookie sheet never even got baked. Kyra and Elijah both got the virus, too, but they both only threw up twice and never seemed to feel too sick. Elijah slept through both of his puking episodes. Now, that is the way to be sick!

Christmas Eve found me very weak and queasy, but well enough to open gifts with the kids. They both made out like bandits, getting way more than they have been able to play with, as of yet. Kyra’s favorite gift, by far, was her Cinderella Make Up Table, courtesy of Chris’ aunt and his mother. All of the gifts that Chris and I got her paled in comparison. Elijah’s favorite gift was from us, though, and it was his adjustable baksetball goal. He really loved it. Chris got me a diamond necklace, a watch, and some new perfume. I was very happy. I got him a fancy, schmanzy electric razor, a travel chess set, and Madden 06 for his PSP. I think everyone was happy, when it was all said and done.

Christmas Day started out with us going to church, then we went to my mom’s for dinner and more gift opening, and back to church that night. It was then that I realized that, though the virus had left, I now have a sinus infection. Not pleasant. I suppose it could be worse, though.

So, it was fun, but I’m glad that Christmas has come and gone. Now, I’m left with the job of finding homes for all of the new stuff, and wondering which of the old toys can get banished to the toy dungeon den downstairs to await their final doom departure by way of my summer yard sale.

Last night, I made a huge dent in the mountain of laudry that had accumulated over the past several days of busy activities and sickness, and am hoping to get the house back in presentable shape so that I can have a nice, tidy wrap up to 2005.

The first several weeks of 2006 should give me the answer to the “Baby Boo: Boy or Girl?” question, and then I will have a whole new round of preparations to attend to. One of the children will have to share a room with this new baby eventually. If Boo is a boy, the children will have to switch bedrooms, as Kyra’s is a lot bigger than Elijah’s room, and it is only fair that the bigger room go to the kids who have to share. So, in that case, the rooms would have to be re-painted, because Kyra’s room is painted purple with flowers on the bottom of the wall…not really very boyish. Also, we’ll have to do a bed shuffle. Elijah’s crib will go to the baby, Kyra’s toddler bed to Elijah, and Kyra will need a big bed. Then, I have to decide what kind of beds to go with. If the new baby is a boy, I will definitely have bunk beds for a boy’s room, but, if Boo is a girl, than I don’t know if I will do bunk beds or two twin beds in the long run. See, it’s all a big question mark. So many decisions! I prefer to get them all made, and the things that need doing done while this baby is still quietly hanging out inside, because it just gets harder to get things done once it is outside demanding time, attention, and hours and hours of breastfeeding.

So, yes, this post was meant to be a mile long, boring, and rambling, but no one forced you to read it.

Hope everyone had a good Christmas, has a good New Year, and I am off to shower and finish up the laundry.

I don’t know if my children are having a bad day today, if they are slightly drunk, or if the are just very clumsy children. They’re not usually very clumsy, which makes me think that that option is not the correct answer. It would be hard for them to be slightly drunk, as we don’t drink alcohol, and thus have none in our house. They could, however, have found a sippy cup of white grape juice under some piece of furniture or pushed to the back of a closet that had fermented and turned to wine, I guess. I haven’t seen them sipping from any suspicious cups lately, though, so I think I’m going to have to go with them just having an unfortunately bad day.

Case in point, as I was sitting here at my computer, Kyra was just yards away (but just out of my line of vision) using my bathroom. I peeked in once at a suspicious sound, but it was just her rolling up a roll of toilet paper that she must have previously unrolled, while sitting on the potty. Lost in my own thoughts, I didn’t really recognize the whimpering cries coming from her direction as “I’m in trouble, come help me!” cries at first. When I did register that she sounded slightly panicked, I leaned over and peeked around the doorframe, and this is what I saw…
Kyra was no long seated on the potty, but had fallen off somehow and was balanced on her head with her legs in the air, leaned slightly against the toilet, bare butt there for all the world (well, just me, I guess) to see. My first thought was, “Would it be totally terrible to snap a quick picture before helping her off of her head?”. Through my quick mental deductions, I realized that I might very well have my good mommy status taken away if I had that particular picture in my photo album, and thus rushed to help her up. Laughing, I asked her what happened. Her response? “The potty did it.”

The second incidence happened while I was ignoring my children tending to pressing email issues, and I heard upset cries of the Elijah type coming from the other bathroom. His cries were bordering angry, and I first thought he was just having a hard time reaching something or some similar problem. When the angry/upset cries continues, I got up to go check on him. I found him balanced precariously on the side of the tub. He was sitting there, careful not to lean forward or backward, because he certainly would have fell. He looked up at me with angry eyes, and said, “Stuck!”. And so he was. This doesn’t sound too problematic, until you take into consideration that our tub doesn’t have a smooth edge because we have sliding doors instead of a shower curtain, which of course means that he was balancing his diaper-clad butt on a metal track in which the doors slide. It couldn’t have been comfortable digging into his bare, chubby, little legs.

Bad day or not, I wonder if my next child will be as spazzy special as my first two. I can only hope.

With my Christmas shopping, that is. Completely finished. I went shopping last night, and got the last of my Christmas list taken care of. It’s always such a relief.
I also got some really good clearance deals on some needed clothes for the kids. Can’t beat that!

Now, I can just sit back and enjoy Christmas.

I have some pictures to share with you of my children doing housework.

Let me explain…

They would not have been required to use the vacuum under normal circumstances, but, for some odd reason, they decided to pour a whole ton of goldfish onto Elijah’s bedroom floor. After doing so, they figured they better clean it up before they got in trouble. This is where Chris got suspicious, when he saw them getting the broom from the closet.

I came running, when I heard Chris say, “Oh…Mommy’s going to be so mad!”.

When I saw what they had done, I got the vacuum cleaner out, and this is the result.


Now that I know she can do it…well, she might need some daily chore assignments, don’t you think?

Elijah felt he was better suited for a supervisor position.

Sometimes my geekiness astounds even me.

Shouldn’t I have grown out of it by now?

After another unexcused absence, I’m back to account my days of non-blogging, so Jen will not call me a slacker anymore. Well, at least not until my next stretch of not blogging.

I’ve been feeling much better lately. I’ve barely been sick at all for the past couple of weeks. I’ve still been super tired all the time, though, which is why I’ve not written much lately. Some nights, I have even went to bed without…hold onto your seats people…without checking my email. That is like, unheard of for me. I’m spending about a fifth of the time online that I used to. Whether good or bad, it is certainly a drastic change.

What else has been going on? I’m glad you asked. Here’s a short list:

Elijah has used the potty a total of four times in the past week.
Elijah has taken his diaper off and peed in the floor a total of four times lately.
Today, Elijah took off his diaper and pooped in the floor.
Two nights ago, Elijah took off his diaper and peed all over his bed while he was supposed to be sleeping.

Yes…my life is just that good.

Let’s move on…

Kyra has made up about thirty five songs in the past couple of weeks. My favorite is “Everybody Likes Christmas”. It goes like this….
Everybody likes Christmas.
Everybody likes Christmas.
Everybody likes Christ-MAS!!!!
Everybody likes CHristmas.

Brilliant, no? Yes, she is a prodigy. It was a new style for her. Most of her songs are more of a narrative…telling a story of how one or more of her parents are so mean to her, and make her go to her room because they are so mean and make her so sad. Those are what I classify as her “dark” songs. She also has a large collection of more upbeat songs that could be about anything from the cat to a trip to Walmart to helping the poor black children. (More about that last one to come.)

Moving on…

We had our windows replaced yesterday. They look fabulous. You guys should really drive by the house and look at them. If it’s after one in the afternoon, you should stop for a chat. Any earlier than that, and it would be safe to assume that we are still pajama clad and in no shape for visitors.

What else? Let’s see…

Kyra is making her on stage debut (not counting the Jesus Loves Me solo) Sunday night at six o’clock at the church. It should be a can’t miss event…what with her reciting poetry, singing a cute little Christmas song, and being an angel in the nativity. If you still aren’t convinced that you should be there…well…I will be making a brief appearance in the older kids’ Christmas play with Kyra as…drum roll please…a homeless lady! Come on guys…you know it’s gotta be good if there are homeless people involved.

Perhaps the biggest news to report…okay, who am I kidding…definitely the biggest news to report is that Chris got a promotion at work. I’m so proud of him, and he is so happy. He was promoted to lieutenant! How cool is that. We’re still waiting to find out which shift he will be working…I’m still hoping and praying for dayshift. This new job means that he is going to be home for Christmas Eve and Christmas this year! Can you believe it? That is monumental in our house…having Daddy around for Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, and Christmas. So, yeah…I’m excited about it all.

I’m thinking that that is pretty much it. I have some pictures to post later of me forcing my young children to do housework. Don’t worry…they had already had their bread and water rations, so they had plenty of strength.

Until next time, Kids!

In some ways, I feel like I’ve had a head start on Chris in the parenting arena. After all, as the second of six kids, I had a lot of childcare under my belt when I married him. When Kyra was born, Chris changed his very first dirty diaper. For me, it was probably like the five thousand, eight hundred, and seventy-fourth dirty diaper. When her paci hit the floor, he would rinse it off before giving it back to her, while I would simply quote the five second rule. While he was making people sanitize their hands before holding her, I was thinking about how she would probably eat dirt by the handful before she was two.
So, I try to keep that in mind. I have had a bit of an advantage.

This brings us to last night. We took the kids to the local Christmas parade. It was cold, the parade was mediocre, but the candy was flying towards us with full force. We also had the presence of mind to find a place at the beginning of the parade. That meant that we stood in the cold for less time, and all of the good candy had not yet been thrown. So, we took home a gallon sized ziploc bag full of candy.

Last night, Kyra and Elijah helped themselves to a piece of candy each from the bag of candy. Kyra was all set to enjoy her nasty, strawberry-flavored piece of holiday hard candy, and Elijah was holding out a peppermint to be unwrapped. I told him that he couldn’t have hard candy, because he might choke. I sent Chris to get him some sort of chewy candy. The next thing I knew, Elijah was enjoying a mouthful of Snickers bar.

I looked at Chris like he was nuts, and spoke slowly and clearly so he would understand. “Chris…Honey. We are the parents. They are kids. We get the good candy. They get Tootsie rolls, broken suckers, and those hideous holiday hard candies.”

He just looked at me.

Ameteur!