How I was injured by a booger

I didn't know that it was possible to sustain in injury by booger, someone else's booger no less. But it is possible.

Warning.....this story is not for the faint of heart. You may want to stop reading now if stories about other peoples boogers make you sick. Heck, I may need to stop reading now.

The other day I was making the girls bed while they were at school. I'm nice like that.

There I was, minding my own business, when I came across something questionable: a dried booger on a pillow case. Seeing how I am a candidate for Mother of the Year, I decided to scrape it off with my finger nail rather than just wash the pillow case.  I soon learned my lesson.

As I was scraping the disgusting little booger off of my husband's children's pillows case the hardened little booger became wedged in between my skin and nail. It was like a piece of metal had been shoved underneath my nail. I retracted in pain and quickly examined my injury. I could see the beginnings of blood oozing from my wound. I was in pain, I was angry, I was humiliated. I had just lost blood on account of a booger. That's a new all-time low in life. I don't get paid enough for what I do for these people but no one should have to work under these kinds of conditions, withstand this type of abuse. I need a new job. I quit.

While the Elf's away the children will play

My husbands children just noticed that our Elf on a Shelf Marabelle is no longer with us and had the following to say about it.

"Mommy, where did she go?"

Me: "Back to the North Pole to be with Santa."

Birdie: "Oh good, now we can be naughty again."

Maybe I'll have to pull the Elf out and she will be a year round fixture at our house.

Not so near death experience

Tonight at dinner the following conversation took place between me and my 6 yr old little diabetic.

Me: "Birdie, will you check your blood sugar please."

Birdie (acting perfectly normal) "Oh no Mommy, I'm 20, I'm 20"

A normal blood sugar is 100. Lower than 40 means seizures and a coma.

Me "Show me?". Meanwhile my heart dropped and I was wondering how she was still talking and walking if her blood sugar was really that low.

Birdie ran over with the monitor and showed me the number. It read 200, not 20, big difference. We both felt better after we made that clarification.

I think we're going to spend our holiday breaking working on our math and numbers skills.

It's a good thing he's pretty

I just ran over to help a friend for a few minutes and left the children's father in charge of dinner. We had plenty of cold cuts and I told him to make the girls sandwiches. He is always willing to help with dinner but gets stressed if he has to decide what will be served. Once I tell him what to serve he is a happy helper.

Upon my return I saw a table full of partially consumed sandwiches and empty bowls of Campbells chicken noodle soup. I noticed a couple of untouched sandwiches on the counter and grabbed one to eat. I quickly realized that these were no ordinary sandwiches and inquired upon the children's father to explain.

Me "What's going on with these sandwiches?"

The Daddy "I let the girls decide what kind of sandwiches they wanted. They promised me if I made what they wanted they would eat it."

Me "What kind of sandwiches did you make?"

The Daddy "Birdie wanted a peanut butter and Swiss cheese on wheat. Cricket wanted a turkey and strawberry jam. Dolly just wanted a ham and cheese sandwich."

Me "Really? You thought they would eat those?"

The Daddy "They promised. I even let them have taste test before I made the entire sandwich. But once they were made they demanded chicken noodle soup."

Wow. It's a good things he's pretty cause he's not very knowledgeable when it comes to what small children will eat.

I love you babe. Keep trying.

Peanut Butter and Swiss. Delicious!

In the blink of an eye

My sweet little three year old Dolly is in the fine-tuning process of potty training. She rarely has accidents but still needs some help getting up and down, wiping and washing hands. But at least she can tell me when she needs to go!

Today something terrible happened. It happened so quickly there was no way I could stop it.

I lifted her on the toilet and she did a good job with her business. I handed her some toilet paper and told her to wipe. She wiped, dropped the paper in the toilet and immediately licked the pee that had dripped on her hand. WAIT, what just happened.  I'm still coming to grips with the fact that my daughter licked her own urine. Now, I'm sure it wasn't more than a few drops but still........gross. Is she going to get some kind of disease from that? Is there a vacine for that? Should I call poison control.

She and I had a nice little talk about not licking your own pee pee (not a conversation I thought I would ever have). And she has agreed to never.do.it.again.

YUCK

I'll have what she's having

We have an annual tradition of attending Breakfast with Santa at the Grand America in Salt Lake. We all get dressed up and enjoy a beautiful meal prepared by someone other than me. All 5 of us look forward to it every year. I will admit it's a little stressful for us to be up, looking good, arriving safely in a blizzard to downtown by 8:45am. But we did it. There was a little bit of crying, wailing and gnashing of teeth (by me) but once we arrived there was a glorious time had by all.

As we walked in the hotel I noticed a beautiful woman. I quickly put two and two together that we had graduated HS together but her name completely slipped me. I hurried past her with my husband's children in hopes that we were moving so quickly she wouldn't see how disobedient they could be. We got seated and started on our breakfast. Around that time the name of the woman I saw finally came back to me. Then I started to remember more about her. She was one of the most beautiful girls in school. But ironically she was also one of the kindest, sweetest and most genuine people I had the pleasure of knowing. We hadn't kept in touch since HS but she was a person that if I saw (and remembered her name) that I should go say hello (the same cannot be said for everyone I went to HS with). My big chance for redemption came in the made to order omelet line a few minutes later. She was already there at the back of the line and I was headed that way. I walked up, put my arm around her, called her by her first name (I hoped was correct) and started to chat with her. I apologized for my rude behavior and we spent the next few minutes catching up. She has three beautiful girls (just like me), she's a stay at home mom (just like me) and she's still extremely kind and open (perhaps I'm lacking in these department a little). One major difference is that she looks like she just graduated HS. I on the other hand didn't even get carded the one time I went to the liquor store to be alcohol for my homemade vanilla (I swear that is what I was using it for). 

Now came the time to order our omelets and she was up first. She ordered a small omelet with tomatoes, peppers, spinach, mushrooms, etc. Leaving out the cheese, bacon, ham and anything else fatty. I(t was decision time for me. Do I order the omelet I really want...inspired by the one the children's father had just brought back to the table with cheese, bacon, ham and tomatoes (you have to add something healthy in there to feel good about eating the other stuff). Or do I order the omelet that my tall, thin, beautiful friend had ordered. Hoping that she would think I eat as well as her and the fact that I don't weigh my HS weight like she does is just because of bad genes and not because I LOVE BACON. Since we were keeping up appearances at the nicest hotel in Utah (not some place we frequent) I thought I would maintain the charade and put in this order "I'll have what she's having." It tasted fine but I'm sure not as good as the children's father consumed. Oh well, hopefully I'll end up looking like her after all.

Maybe they'll listen to Marabelle

Elf on a Shelf

This is our Elf - Marabelle. Some people get creative with their Elf's and have them do naughty/silly things. I think the Elf is supposed to be watching the girls and reporting back to Santa on their good deeds, not setting a bad example. So Marabelle herself is trying to set a good example. Here she is, gently reminding the girls to wash and flush after going to the bathroom. I'm quite sure I tell the the girls to do those two things at least 10 times a day. Sometimes they'll come out of the bathroom and ask me "Are you going to smell my hands?" Essentially asking if I'm going to check on their hand sanitation situation. Of course my answer is always YES. To which they stomp back into the bathroom and wash up. One day they'll figure out my secret to knowing if they flushed right after they walked out is because I have ears that allow me to hear the flush of a toilet. In the mean time they are convinced I have a crystal ball that allows me to see everything they do.

 

 

Another prompting from Marabelle. Unfortunately they didn't heed her advice. I took this picture the night before when I set it up. By the time I came downstairs in the morning the candy had been consumed. I asked them what Marabelle was doing on the kitchen table and they coolly told me that she was just hanging out, watching TV. I think we have some future con artists on our hands. Anyone elses children straight face lie to them?

Drama for the day

One of my 6 yr old twins has type 1 diabetes. This is an all consuming disease and never rests (which means I never rest). One of my greatest stresses is her health and care at school. We have been blessed to have the twins attend an incredible charter school that takes very good care of them. One day this week the teacher and the teachers aid had to leave suddenly. The head secretary who is also trained on taking care of Birdie was also out. So they called me to come in and help with the class for a few hours because they were worried the substitute wouldn't know what to do about Birdie. Although it put a kink in my plans for the day I was happy to go to the class and help out. Everything went well and Bird's blood sugar levels were stable.

That was Wednesday.......I got another call from the school today (Friday). Every time they call my heart drops for fear that something is wrong with Birdie. And it was, just not what I expected.

You see, my husbands daughter had pooped her pants and was now hiding under the table and wouldn't come out. GIVE ME A BREAK. Some times his children can be so naughty. Now I understand that accidents can happen, especially in kindergarten. And I'm very sympathetic to that, but I'm not so sympathetic to the drama my children attach to these situations. I quickly left the house, loaded with flushable wipes, and entire clean change of clothes (expecting the worst) and her Blood Glucose kit to check her and make sure everything was ok with her numbers. Sometimes extremely high or low numbers can cause diabetic children's bodies to not perform properly.

What I found when I arrived was very disappointing to me. Bird was still pouting (for dramatic purposes) under the desk. I took her in the bathroom to get her cleaned up. She had left the dirty undies on the floor of the bathroom (LOVELY) and put her tights and shirt back on. She was physically clean and aside from not wearing underwear could have gone on with the last hour of school without notice. It wasn't a big mess, she didn't need help, her blood sugar levels were great, she just wanted attention.  I kindly explained to her that if that were to happen again (which it needs to not happen again) she is to just do what she did with the addition of throwing away the messy undies. Then we can talk about it at home. Disaster averted.

A few funnies for the day

Maren "Eww dross, I just stepped in that yellow spot."
Me "you mean the spot where you just peed on the carpet?"
Maren "Yes! Clean it up."

Maren (who turned 3 less than two months ago) asked the following question at bedtime
"Mommy, how many more minutes until my birthday."
How do you even begin to figure that one out.

Today I volunteered at the twins school. A little boy had the following conversation with me.
Boy "You're Laila's mom right?"
Me "I sure am. I'm Sonja's mom too."
Boy (with confusion on his face) "You are?"
Me "Yes, they're sisters. So I'm mother to both of them."
Boy "I knew they were sisters but I didn't know you were Sonja's mom too."
At least I know there is one kid in their class that the girls are smarter than. Maybe his parents should sit him down and explain how siblings work.

The children's father and the mall

Incident of the day. The childrens father (a mall novice) took one child (age 3) to the mall today. He lost that child at the mall. Luckily some concerned citizens stopped her from exiting the mall. They called security but her father found her before security arrived. Unfortunately the child refused to acknowledge her father and continued her big escape. This made the concerned citizens even more concerned. This poor beautiful child was now not only in danger of being run over by a car but also being kidnapped by a strange man dressed head to toe in University of Utah apparel. Eventually he was able to convince the child and citizens that he was in fact her father. The fact that he hadn't showered today (or shaved in two weeks) and resembled a homeless man didn't help the situation. Don't worry, everyone is now tucked safely in their beds at home. Unfortunately, the children father still hasn't showered (or shaved) at continues to resemble a homeless man.

Why Suave shampoo prevents child abuse

We've all seen it happen. The little girls get put in the shower with a full bottle of shampoo. Some how during the course of their 20 minute shower they use THE.ENTIRE.BOTTLE. They weren't very dirty to begin with so cleanliness issues are out of the questions. Naughtiness is the only remaining option. But over the course of the past 6 years that I have been a mother I have learned a few things. The first being Don't Buy Expensive Things For My Children. I care about their possessions much more than they do. They don't care if a brand new bottle of shampoo costs $2 or $22. After the first destroyed bottle I quickly learned that buying the cheapest product to do the trick saves my sanity and them from possible child abuse. Tonight was no different. Their father bathed them while I was out and when I got home my showers walls and everything in it was covered with shampoo. Too much shampoo for them to rinse themselves. But I calmly told myself "It was $2 worth of shampoo, that isn't worth screaming about." And it wasn't. Although we will have a discussion on using only a nickel size portion of shampoo next time they are bathed.

I have the same philosophy regarding my sunglasses. I really want a nice pair of sunglasses, I'm talking at least $100 worth. But I've learned enough along the way to know that sunglasses of all things WILL GET BROKEN. Most likely buy my children. So if I limit myself to $15 or less sunglasses (with a back up pair at home) from TJ MAXX no one gets hurt. It's just expected they will get broken. It's called lowering your expectations in life and slowly but surely I'm learning to incorporate it into my world.

In the Beginning

In the beginning there was a woman. A woman who needed an out. Something to occupy her mind from the real life she was facing. Something to help her use her brain again for something other than stain removal techniques. She decided to start a blog discussing the ups and downs of motherhood. The funny things and harsh things we deal with on a daily basis. Join me on this journey to help me cope with reality.

I am a stay at home mother of 3 girls. My twins are 6 (Cricket and Bird) and the youngest is 3(Dolly). I gave up my dream career to be yelled at, hit, sassed, kissed and loved more than I ever expected. I'm married to my children's father and he keeps me on my toes.

Follow along as I stumble and fumble through life. Trying to be the woman I want, the mother my girls need, the wife of my husband dreams and the person the world expects me to be.

Questions, comments and verbal abuse welcome.