Been a while

I haven't been writing on my blog as much as I'd like lately. Things have been a little rough around here and free time has been scarce.

The children's father as moved out and moved on. He has moved to another state to start a new job. We're hoping to join him in a few months. In the mean time we're sticking around to finish up school and wait for the new house we're buying to close so we'll have a place to live.

Being a single parent is much harder than I ever ever thought it would be. I love being with my girls, love being a stay a home mom and generally love my life. But I didn't realize how much I depended on the children's father for support. We Skype daily, talk almost hourly and still have know exactly what's going in each other's lives. But it's still painfully difficult to be away from him.

This weekend I had the opportunity to go to Vegas with a family member to see Tim McGraw and Faith Hill in concert. We coordinated everything so I would fly out and a few hours later the Daddy would fly home and take care of the girls while I was gone. Everything went just about as smoothly as it could. He had a great time catching up with his girls (he hadn't seen them in two weeks) and I had a great time getting some much needed rest in my own hotel room in Vegas.

My family picked me up from the airport tonight and we decided to go out to dinner. The girls decided on McDonalds (we're fancy like that) and had a blast. In fact all three cried when we made them leave 1 1/2 hours later. I had a chance to talk to Cricket for a few minutes while we were there. I asked her how things had gone with Daddy while I was out of town. Her response struck me in the heart, "Good, it's been fun. And we haven't made him cry." Ouch, apparently I have been shedding a lot of tears since the children's father left. I had noticed it but was hoping not everyone else had. Not the case. But I would bet $100 if the Daddy was left alone with his children for 14 days straight, 24 hours a day, he would be crying too.

The daddy leaves again tomorrow and I'm trying hard to limit my tears. I need to be stronger for the girls, stronger for the daddy and stronger for myself. If anyone has any great ideas on how to do that please let me know. In the mean time I'll be in the closet crying and eating ice cream.

Meanest mother ever

Last weekend the girls and I did some cleaning of their toys. We mothers are all too familiar with the endless piles of toys that no one wants to clean because it has now become more than anyone can handle. The girls won't play with the toys any more because they can't see what they have or find what they want. THE TIME HAD COME TO CLEAN.

We spent a few hours in the basements cleaning, thinning out and organizing their toys. I had trash backs to sort the trash & donation toys. Every time I put something in one of those two bags the girls freaked out. Tears were shed, words said that can't be taken back and tantrums thrown. But in the end the room was cleaned and organized.

At the end of the painful but now beautiful process Laila turned to me and said "Mommy, when I'm a mommy I'm never going to make my kids clean out their toys, it's just mean and makes us sad.

Someone please call DCFS and report the terrible injustices that take place at our house. It's borderline abusive.

But in the mean time know that the girls are incredibly proud of their clean toy room, love spending time down there now that they can find what they want, and show everyone that is willing their  new clean toy room.

Mission accomplished.

I like the way she thinks

This is a conversation that my 6 yr old and I had after we got home from the dentist this week.

Cricket "Mommy, are we going to have a yard sale this year?"

Me "Sure"

Cricket "Good, cause I have some things to sell."

Me "Oh yeah, like what?"

Cricket "My old toothbrush. I don't need it anymore cause I got a new one at the dentist today."

Me "That's nice that you want to sell your old one but I don't think people want to buy used toothbrushes. That's just something you want a new one of."

I did appreciate that she was thinking of things to sell but she might want to be a little more generous than her old toothbrush. We'll keep working on it.

Strange things happen in the middle of the night

A few nights ago I got up at 4:00am to check my little diabetic daughter's blood sugar. Middle of the night blood checks are a daily ritual at our house because her numbers are still so unstable. On this night she was overly high and I was afraid there was a problem with her pump site for her insulin pump. I wanted to rule that out so I decided to quickly change her site. I changed it, gave her more insulin and went back to bed. In the morning she was still high so I continued to give her more insulin. Throughout the day she had some of her worst numbers yet, despite my constant administering of insulin. Finally that evening I decided to change her site one more time. It was then that I discovered my poor site change from the night before.

 

 

Please look closely and you will see the needle that goes under her skin is bent. Why is it bent? Because I inserted it with the plastic safety cover still on so there was no where for it to go besides bend.  So she got no insulin all day. I would think poorly of myself if I had done this at some point in the day besides the middle of the night. But I'm giving myself a pass for the night and promising myself to do better next time.

What's wrong with Birdie

The following conversation just took place between by 6yr old diabetic and her twin sister. It was in regards to her hospital stay (3 yrs ago) when she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

Bird "Remember when I was in the hospital and you got to sleep over at grandma's

and I didn't?"

Cricket"Yeah, I'm sorry you didn't get to sleepover. Why were you at the hospital?"

Bird "Something was wrong with me."

Cricket "What was wrong?"

Bird "I don't remember."

Cricket "When you remember, tell me."

Apparently the only traumatic part of that fateful weekend was the fact that her sister got to sleep at grandmas and she didn't. She still doesn't even know there is something wrong with her. I'm not going to be the one to tell her.

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