I really shouldn't be doing this, but....

Anyone remember that business that the hubby and I started last year in Michigan? I don't remember if I blogged about it, and honestly, right now, I don't have time to re-read all my old posts to see if I did. Anyway... the exciting news is all of a sudden (and I mean that in the nobody knew we existed one day and the next day our phone was ringing off the hook kinda way) we started actually conducting business. What this means is the rest of my life got turned on it's head when this new 40 hour a week job fell in my lap. You see, I am the magic behind the scenes that makes sure that people pay us, that we pay the people who are expecting money from us, and that everything is legal. I already had a pretty tightly packed schedule with the job at the restaurant, parenting three kids, and being VP of their school PTA. So some stuff, ok a lot of stuff, has been being ignored while I try to figure it all out. One of those being this blog. And really seriously, I shouldn't be here blogging right now. I should be getting my kids ready for school, but I missed you my dear readers, all 17 of you.

So for now, I have this little snippet:

Conversation I had this morning with my daughter as I was trying to wake the kids without actually going upstairs to do it.

Me (yelling, but in a cheerful morning voice) : Little people, it's time to get up, time to get out of bed

Her (in a I'm faking being offended voice) : I'm not a little person

Me : Well not in the midget kinda way, but in the you aren't a fully grown human kinda way

Her : Okay, but I'm still not little

Me : Would you rather I told you to get your BIG butt out of bed?

Her : That would be kinda funny


Have a great Friday all, and I'll try to come back soon

And in other news

A couple of months ago my dog Max was finally successful in his attempts to lose his doggie virginity. After several failed attempts, he finally figured out where to put it, (not in her ear, not on her hip, not in her face), and ended up doing this....

Tiffany said they looked like Catdog. Anyone remember that show?
It was hysterical, because, she was right, they totally did.


So like a month went by and my little Roxy doggie did not seem to be making any womanly changes so I pretty much figured that Max hadn't been successful in his attempts to create an heir.


I went to Hawaii for 9 days to help my family, and when I returned, I found that my little doggie looked like this....

For those of you who are unfamiliar with what she looked like 9 days prior, well, let's just say she was about half that size.


So a little math was done with the help of that picture I took of them when they looked like Catdog, and it was determined that she would be having puppies this week.


Mind you, I never had dogs growing up, and certainly never had one have puppies so this was all new to me. Have you gotten a whelping box? Have you done this? Have you done that? Don't let her to this? Make sure she does that? OK, Ok, my head is spinning. So a week and a half ago I got busy building a whelping box. It was made out of cardboard because I'm currently pretty poor and I have an abundance of cardboard boxes left over from all the moving we did this year. I was all proud of myself for getting it done early since I tend to be a bit of a procrastinator. It totally had one removeable side so I could close them in or access them as needed.


The kids were all impressed with mom's mad cardboard carpentry skills.


So I'm thinking I have another week when last Tuesday Aimee calls me when she gets home from school and tells me "Roxy had her puppies!!" Wha?? That wasn't supposed to happen for another week! She tells me there are four and they all seem to be doing good. There was a black one, a tan one, a brown one, and a brown and white one. Aww.


Then. Like two hours later. After I had picked up Kimberly and Tiffany from school, Tiffany comes to me and says "Mom, now there are TWO tan ones. I just saw the other one come out of Roxy's BUTT." Holy cow. Five puppies were in my little doggie. FIVE. And they all lived. Everyone had told me that there was a good chance with it being her first litter that one or more would die. But they didn't. I have five of the most freakingly adorable puppies I have ever seen.


Can you see them all? The brown and white one is under her ear.

Here's a picture I took of just the puppies while momma took a potty break.

This one is my fave. One of the tan ones was totally laying on it's back to nurse.

Torture

Today is my first day off in a week. I had plans for today. They involved me and a big body of water in my backyard spending some quality time together. I got up at eight a.m. and went outside to admire the beauty that is my swimming pool. There were some leaves and dirt in it from the storm we had the other night so I set to work cleaning it. I noticed a strange smell kinda reminiscent of pond water and a few little spots of algae starting to grow. Ruh Roh. When is the last time hubby tested the pool water? Before I went to Hawaii like six weeks ago?? Is there any chlorine in the floaty thingie? Nope?? What time does Leslie's open?? Not until ten!!!

Ten a.m. finally arrived and I took my pool water sample to Leslie's. Which is a pool supply place for anyone that doesn't have this particular chain in their state. A helpful but stillness challenged guy named Mike tested my water. It made me a bit uneasy watching him as he rocked back and forth and seemed to be doing some kind of intricately choreographed dance with my water sample. Really I think Mike is in the wrong line of work. Exotic dancer maybe would be more up his alley the way he was moving and grooving while adding drops of this here and inserting a test strip there.

His conclusion was that I needed thirty five dollars worth of chemicals and crap in addition to the small stockpile of chemicals and crap I already had at home. And the kicker? I can't swim in it for two days!!! Two days!!. Asking if I could swim in it today and start putting the chemicals in it after actually got Mike to stand motionless for half a second while giving me a disgusted look. "I wouldn't recommend that, it's not safe" he said. Fuckstockings!

Plans for the day ruined I returned home with the chemicals and a sheet of instructions that Mike had printed for me, where he carefully highlighted all the parts that say add this crap, wait 12 hours, add more crap, wait another 12 hours, add even more crap, wait another 12 hours, and then you can swim. He used a sharpie to cross out all the other stuff that I'm sure included the location of the magic wand that would make my pool swimable today.

First step, backwash the pool filter. Have you ever back washed a pool filter? This is similar to making the vacuum blow and not suck and forgetting to take the dirty bag out first, only with water. Lots and lots of water. Where does this water go you ask? All over the flipping yard! Unless you are my husband. He likes to direct the hose over our back wall and into the church parking lot behind us. However, today being Sunday, and church being in full swing, I was afraid someone might notice the bright blue hose spewing dirty pool filter water all over their parking lot.

So with my backyard resembling a swamp, or a rice field maybe, it was on to the next step. Add some algae killer stuff. The kids commented on the beauty of the blue crystals as I sprinkled them into the pool. Pretty and functional, that's my kind of product! That was followed by some shock. A nifty name for a crap load of chlorine, I think. Boring, unpretty, white powder. Then, nothing, until 11 p.m. tonight when more shock goes in. So all afternoon I've been looking at my pool, which looks deceptively clean and sparkly but which is either still a pond in disguise or has enough chemicals to eat your skin off, I'm not sure.

Back to School

Today my kids started school.
My oldest... officially a high schooler.
My little two.. sixth and third grade.



It really seems like we just did this. Hard to believe it was a year ago already.

They say time flies when you are having fun, but I think time just flies. Every year that goes by seems to go by at a rate exponentially faster than the one before. I remember with my first I couldn't wait for her to reach the next milestone that "What to Expect the First Year" told me she would. With the second, I eagerly awaited the next step in hopes that the screaming would stop (if only I knew she would be 9 before she could effectively use her words). With the youngest, I had finally learned to stop looking forward, and just enjoy NOW. I relished every moment of what she was doing right now, without being in a hurry for what would come next. Of course right now she is going through that inquisitive phase where she asks a bazillion questions a day, and well frankly, I wouldn't mind THAT being over.

Today my littlest one got up at the same time as her big sister the high schooler. The high school starts two hours earlier than the elementary school. Meaning that my little one was up, dressed and ready to go THREE hours before school was going to start. So for three hours I endured her endless questions about everything from lunch, to when the puppies are going to be born. She asked about a hundred times when we were going to leave for school. She asked about her birthday that is still weeks away and why mommy likes coffee so much. She asked and asked and asked, and finally I smiled thinking that today, for the first time in two and a half months, for 6 whole hours, she'd have someone else at which to direct her questions.

Homeward Bound

Today is my last day here in Hawaii. Most people would expect that I would be sad about going home, but it hasn't been beaches and mai tai's. The only water my feet have touched is in the shower, and I'm losing my tan from spending my days inside the hospital. It's been a rough nine days. Not only have I cooked and cleaned more than I ever do in my own home, it's been emotionally draining to be the only one thinking rationally in a house full of people grieving over a sick family member. My mother in law is a wreck. My sister in law is emotionally vacant. I worry about how they will cope when I'm gone. I've suggested they find some kind of therapy or support group so that they get the emotional support that they need when I'm gone. I hope they do, because they will need it, but I'm not holding my breath. I love them because they are my husband's family, but I miss my own kids and my own bed. It will be so good to be home.

Once I get home I need to get busy getting everything ready for school to start. There are backpacks and crayons to buy, doctor's appointments to attend, prescriptions to fill. Not to mention the meetings with the PTA to get everything ready to go the first week of school. I've got a lot to do over the next two weeks to get my house in order to start school. I still can't believe that summer is almost over. It feels like we haven't done anything.

Right where I need to be

Again with the writer's block. Blech.

It's been almost two months since I've posted. I just haven't felt like I had anything to say. Overall our summer has been pretty uneventful. Mostly I'm happy about that, but it does keep me from having fodder for my blog.

The kids start school in two weeks. I wonder where my summer went. Sure we've been to some movies and I'm rocking a pretty good tan, but I still feel like we haven't done anything. Our summers used to be busy with swimming lessons and other activities. The past two summers we've spent them mostly at home doing nothing. Not to knock doing nothing. It's good to relax sometimes, but I feel rather unproductive.

For the past five days I've been in Hawaii. Not for a vacation, but to help my mother in law since my father in law is sick in the hospital. A week ago he almost died. The doctors told MIL that she needed to call her kids. It was bad. My husband was conflicted, he wanted to be here to comfort his mom, but he also needed to do some work to provide for our family. I suggested that I could come in his place. And just like that my plans for the next couple of weeks changed drastically. Immediately I was packing and getting on a plane, putting my entire life on hold for 10 days to come out here and do whatever I can. The night I arrived I looked up into the night sky and saw the big dipper. So close and so bright I felt like I could touch it. In that moment I knew, I was right where I needed to be. The big dipper has always been my personal compass. Any time I've been at any kind of crossroads in my life, and wanted reassurance that I was on the right path, if I saw the big dipper in the sky things always turned out okay. This may seem silly to you reading this, being as how the big dipper is pretty easy to recognize in the night sky, but I can tell you, there are times when you can't. Whether it is a matter of the tilt of the earth, or clouds, or whatever, there are just times that it is not there to see. And it's not as if I go looking for it either. I just happen to see it while thinking about other things. Like this time, when I looked up to the sky it was just there, the only thing I could see in the patch of sky I could see between the houses and the trees that obscured my view. So for the last five days I haven't worried about all the things at home that need to get done, or the money I spent to fly out here, or anything other than helping my MIL. All those things will work themselves out, because I am needed here, so this is where I am.

Getting to know you, getting to know all about you...

This past weekend the hubby went out of town and my mom took my younger two giving me the rare opportunity to spend some quality time and talk with my teenager. It's not often that I can really talk to her. Whether it's my hubby chiming in finishing my sentences with what he thinks I'm trying to say, or her little sisters being nosey, it's hard to finish a thought, let alone a whole conversation.

We spent all day Sunday together. We had lunch, saw a movie, and went out to dinner. At lunch, we talked and I learned some amazing things. I started off by telling her that I was completely clueless about how to relate to her new teenager self. That I couldn't decide between punishing her for failing two classes or rewarding her for being so responsible around the house. I told her that I felt I was out of touch with what she liked and disliked, but that I realized that the punishments we were using such as taking her phone away, really didn't seem to bother her and therefore weren't motivation to do better. I asked her what kinds of privileges or possessions she wanted and would be upset if they were taken away as punishment. She shrugged and said I don't know.

We continued to talk and little by little the picture became clearer. What I figured out is she really doesn't like her sisters. I mean she loves them, they are her sisters after all, but they annoy the crap out of her. Even though my middle one is only 2 1/2 years younger than her, there is a huge gap between what she wants to do and what they want to do. Everything she said seemed to center on the same theme, "All they want to watch on TV is baby shows" "They're so annoying" "They always come in my room and get into my stuff". When I asked her if she would be motivated to do better in school if I offered her $100 for a straight A report card, she shrugged and said "Not really", but after a pause she followed it up with "If you gave me $100 for each report card with straight A's, I'd save it so I could go to Hawaii and visit grandma (hubby's mom) for a week without my sisters."

So now I'm able to formulate a plan.

First, I need to give her more opportunities to do stuff without her sisters, like offering to drop her and her friends off at the movie or at the mall for a few hours. This is going to be a struggle for me. Up until this point, if they haven't been in my sight, they were always in the care of some other adult I trusted or at school. Yeah I'm a little a lot overprotective. I just think I would DIE if something ever happened to my kids that I could have prevented if I was watching them. So just the thought of letting her go off on her own and not knowing her exact location for a couple of hours makes me literally nauseous. Do they make lojack for teenagers?

Second, we need to give her more control over her room and her ability to keep her sisters out of it. Now this one is going to be harder for my husband. I have no problem with her shutting her door or even locking it. He on the other hand hates it when the kids shut their doors, and comes unglued if one of them locks it. He sees no need for it, but then again, he grew up in a house with no doorknobs (I won't even begin to get into that). I told him he's going to have to let up on the door locking thing, because I think THAT would be a privilege she would work hard to keep.

Third, we are considering getting her a TV and DVR for her room so she can watch the shows that she wants to watch without her sisters interrupting her or bugging her to put on a "baby" show. Screw up at school and it's back to preschool TV with your sisters.

Finally... that trip to Hawaii... I think if she brings home straight A report cards, we can put $100 in a savings account each time towards her ticket. Maybe by next summer I'll be over my fear of letting her out of my sight enough to deal with the thought of letting her navigate the airport and get on a plane by herself.

Snap 2 Twitter FAIL

Snap 2 Twitter is a pretty cool app I downloaded on my blackberry. It allows you to take a pic with your phone and then tweet about it and upload all in one step.

Except.

I just was on twitter seeing what the pic tweet I just sent looked like(Kimberly's little stuffed dog on the pony wall with a creepy note). Followed the little mini url to my pic. It totally worked, pretty cool, but then WHOA!!! There is a pic on there that looks like cleavage or ass cheek or something. No wonder I've had so many new twitter followers this week! They think I'm some porn twitterer or something.

And the picture. Yeah, totally my knee. Took it by accident. So totally not porn. Totally didn't mean to post it.

The problem is the minute you snap a pic it goes to this Snap 2 Twitter app. Gives you the option to "save and tweet" or "save only". You have to hit save only in order to go back and delete the accidental knee pics. Apparently I hit save and tweet by accident.

Don't bother going to look for it now, I deleted it.

How to parent a teenager

If you are looking for an answer you are not going to find it here. Look me up in 10 years and maybe I'll have a clue. Right now what I have is a girl who just turned 13 and not a freaking clue of what to do with her. I'm swimming in self doubt and totally scared that I'm screwing up royally.

She is still screwing up in school. Despite my best efforts, grounding, taking away all her cool stuff, lectures on why she doesn't want to end up a drop out, etc., she still managed to fail two of her classes last quarter.

I really don't get it. She's really smart so it's not a matter of the subject matter being too hard. Plus she's really super responsible about other stuff. She cleans her room, does her chores, helps with her sisters. Why can't she do her homework too? I have a really hard time punishing her because 98% of the time she is an angel. She's just doesn't give a crap about her grades. I don't get it.

I don't know what more to do to motivate her. Last summer I started paying her for babysitting her sisters. She gets paid per hour whatever her GPA is. I explained that if she got straight A's that would be worth a bonus dollar for a total of $5. Right now she's earning a whopping $2.33. I tried explaining to her that this is just like life, the better you do in school, the more money you can make. One quarter this year she had a 3.o, but now we are back down to 2 and change.

I asked her to write an essay on the importance of education citing at least 6 statistics. What I got back was an essay on why she "thinks" the high school she wants to go to is superior to the one she is going to attend. She totally didn't read the explanation of the rankings she was citing and got it completely ass backwards.

I get that this last quarter has been an emotional roller coaster for her. First we have to move, and end up in a different high school boundary than where we started, then we try to keep her in that high school by applying for two different programs that would allow her to stay (she doesn't get accepted to either), followed by not making the cheerleading squad at the one she is going to attend. I totally understand how craptastic that is for a 13 year old.

HOWEVER. We now live in a nicer neighborhood. The high school she is being "forced" to attend turns out more college bound kids than the other one. It's students consistently score higher on the state standardized tests. I'm totally not brokenhearted about her having to go there. She doesn't care at all about any of that though, she just cares that all her friends are going to the other school. And in true 13 year old drama queen form, she is POSITIVE she will NOT be able to make ANY new friends at the new school.

I am left confused with how to proceed. On one hand I want to spoil her with fun stuff this summer to cheer her up since I know in her 13 year old mind she thinks her world is ending, on the other hand I want to ground her for the whole summer for getting two F's, and bottom line, I have no idea if EITHER strategy will improve anything.

I had my chance..

and didn't take it.

What you ask?

My kids are going to a new school next year. This whole moving thing has thrust us into the boundaries of a different school and despite my best efforts the kids will not be able to stay at their old school. Budget crisis' suck, but that's a whole other post.

Leaving our previous school prematurely ended my term as PTA Vice President. I could have gone to the new school and pretended I didn't know what a PTA was. I could have laid low, bought my catalog crap and cookie dough, and left the work to some other sucker. But NOOO.

The day after school ended I went to the new school with the kids withdrawal paperwork from the other school and got them all signed up. She took me and the kids on a tour of the school and I got a little giddy about all the cool things they have at this school as opposed to the old one. It's a technology math/science concept school and beyond awesome. As I was preparing to leave, I heard myself say "so how do I get in touch with your PTA?".

I wasn't planning on asking about the PTA. Where those words came from, I have absolutely no clue. The very nice office lady took this opportunity to tell me that the newly elected PTA was short a few officers, a VP, treasurer, and secretary to be exact. Yeah, they're just short 3/5ths of their board. They NEED my help. And so it starts again.

I don't know why I can't just run away from the PTA. I've spent eleventy billion hours this last year alone doing PTA stuff. I should be a little burnt out on it by now. It's not like I have an excess of time on my hands as is evidenced by my lack of blogging for the last month. I have other things I like to do with my time and PTA cuts into that, but I still can't seem to walk away.

It's like Stockholm Syndrome, even when I have the chance to leave, I don't because I identify with my captors. I feel bad for them. They NEED me. So I have a meeting next week to meet with their two members and compare notes. To tell them all about what I know that works and to find out what they are planning. I'll probably end up involved.

The fact is, I like being on the PTA. I like the Principal knowing me by name. I like not having to show my ID when I pull my kids out for a doctor's appointment because the staff knows exactly who I am. I like it when the teachers take the extra bit of time to listen to my concerns because I'm the one that hooks them up with money for field trips. I like that my kids know that I value them and their education enough to give my time to get involved. I like the fact that they, and all the other kids, get to have cool things like Holiday Shops and Carnivals that I put together.

I'm pretty sure if I don't do it, nobody will. The fact that this board only has two out of five members just goes to show that not many people want to devote their time to a job that only pays in kid's smiles. This has been my experience with every school my kids have ever been to. The same eight people show up to every meeting and the other thousand parents take the attitude that someone else will do it. I want my kids to have the things that the PTA provides, and I'm willing to work to make sure they have it.