Bouncing Off the Walls

I've used the phrase "my kids are bouncing off the walls" before. I've never meant it literally until yesterday.

I blame myself. I was unprepared for an hour at the doctors office. Hayden & Rachel were zooming around the office. They decided it was hysterical to charge the door at full speed & bounce off it.

I'm sure the people in the hall were wondering what was going on in our office. The doctor was startled when she tried to open the door & it thumped loudly back at her. I was horrified, mortified, & utterly defeated. Most days I can keep better control on my brood but by the time we were at that point in our day, I was feeling deflated.

So if bouncing off the walls kept the younger kids relatively quiet while I tried to hold onto my sanity, so be it! You may read this & think I'm an awful parent, but "frankly my dear I don't give a..."


- Why am I up so late blogging from my iPhone?

Walking Drug Store

Allergies this season have been brutal. Rob & I have both had the ithcy red eyes & sneezing. But poor Ben has had it the worst.

He goes outside & returns with eyes so swollen he can barely open them. The scary thing was yesterday after playing outside was the wheezing that started.

By last night I had him in the doctors office with a allergy induced asthma attack occurring. My poor boy!

We are starting breathing treatments every 3-4 hours, giving him an oral steroid 2xs daily, starting a new allergy med morning & night, and medicated eyedrops. The kid's like a walking drug store! Whatever it takes to get him back breathing normally I'm good with.

I am grateful that it's only allergy induced asthma and not exercise induced (or whatever else causes it). Too bad Ben is allergic to grass-he's gonna have to outgrow this because I'm NOT keeping him inside all summer!




- Why am I up so late blogging from my iPhone?

Summertime BLUEs

Ever since spring break ended I've been excited for school to be out for the summer.

Day 2 of summer break & now I'm wondering...what was I thinking?

My house is more disastrous than normal. The fighting is intensified. Errands that would've taken 30 minutes now take 2 hours. All of that is manageable.

Then there's this:

I woke up to blue Avatar-style children. Don't be fooled when the markers say washable. The color may fade but everything still has a blue hue to it.

Hayden is STILL blue. I don't dare scrub any harder for fear I'll take off his top layer of skin. The only reason his chest isn't blue also is because he had a shirt on...yes it was blue too. Now, I would have laughed if it was only the children that were blue (all of them had blue splotches on them, Hayden was simply the worst) BUT...

My carpet was blue. My hardwood was blue. My leather sofa was blue. My mini tan recliner was blue...Do you sense the theme?

I was NOT blue. I was a little GREEN because it made me sick when I struggled to clean the carpet. I was probably RED in the face as I yelled at my BLUE children (yes I just admitted publicly that I yelled at my kids...no point in pretending I didn't, my neighbors can most likely attest to this anyway).

I find myself wondering...

How many more days until school starts?


- Why am I up so late blogging from my iPhone?

Rachelisms

I told Rachel I was signing her up for soccer & that she'd get a uniform. Her eyes lit up as she incredulously asked "I get a unicorn in soccer?"

That child is funny without trying! Thank heavens for Rachelisms!


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Perform...In Public...By Choice?

Lauren dropped the bomb on me that she wants to be in the talent show at school! Whose kid is she? I mean seriously...perform...in public...by choice? What is wrong with that child? She obviously didn't get that from me! But she's a good dancer and if she wants to show off, I'm not going to stop her.

HOWEVER, she informed me of this desire on Monday night and the auditions are being held Monday through Thursday. 2 days to throw something together? Welcome back from Florida mom!!!

She wrangled a buddy into joining her and I got to help them put together a dance performance at 7 o'clock last night. Fortunately, Lauren still remembered most of the dance she did at Disneyland a year and a half ago. We just had to work out a few kinks and teach her friend all the steps. After a couple hours of practicing they seem like they have it down.

Another stroke of luck is that Wendi, our favorite dance teacher, is willing to loan us the props we need. Now I just get to try to slam out a couple of pink tutu's tonight & they are set.

As I said, I am happy to help her perform...just don't make me get up and do it!

Crack Creeper

Rachel "what swimsuit should I wear to school Friday?"

Me "I don't know...which one do you want to wear?"

Rachel "probably the flower one...cuz it doesn't creep up my crack. That would probably be important."

That girl can't keep her "cheeks" covered no matter how hard she tries. Last summer the only sunburn she got was on her rear end (I failed in my sunscreen duties)! I guess I should just be grateful that she realizes it's important to TRY to keep her booty covered up!


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Glimpse of Retirement

Hurray for business trips! Rob had a conference in Orlando and I got to tag along for the week. We went out a couple days early and hit Disney World. Now let me just say that humidity & I don't get along very well. It makes my hair CRAZY curly and I feel like I'm being smothered when I breathe. But that considered, I had a magical time!

You may be wondering what we did with the kids for the week...Happy Mother's Day to my Mom. She got all four wild things for all 8 days! To her credit, she survived!

I'll admit Disney World just wasn't the same without the kids...

We didn't have to stop to talk to even ONE character. I didn't have to console anyone when a line took longer than it should have-although there were times I worried about Rob;). We skipped Fantasyland and Toontown without any heartbreak. The ONLY thing we did in Hollywood Studios was ride Rockin' Rollercoaster again, and again, and AGAIN!

I confess I did miss them a tiny bit. We kept taking pictures of the things the kids would have loved. I missed them most at Clearwater Beach. Rob was at meetings with his boss, Dean, for the latter part of the week; so Marla, Dean's wife, and I ventured to the Gulf. We got lost in Tampa (thank you Google maps for that detour) but eventually found our way to Clearwater. It was BEAUTIFUL! The waves were so small it made me want the kids there to play with down in the water. They would've loved it. I was happy there was no oil in the water or on the beach from the BP oil spill.

We considered going to Cocoa Beach out on the Atlantic, but the space shuttle launch was scheduled and we decided not to try to fight the crowds (the news said they predicted over 300 thousand people would go out there to watch it-and to get to Cocoa Beach it's a single lane road...YIKES)!


One of the highlights was that we got to visit with some long, lost college friends. As luck had it, Craig & Tammy Youngs were in Orlando for a business conference at the same time we were there. We met them for magic hours at Hollywood Studios and rode Rockin' Rollercoaster with them for awhile, then headed to Downtown Disney for dinner. We sat outside talking for hours. I wish they didn't live in Michigan-they'd be fun to hang out with more often than once every 12 years!


We got to go out on an airboat ride and see some gators. The amount of bugs that were in the air freaked me out-I just got the creepy-crawlys thinking about it. Not my favorite thing we did, but worth doing once. We saw more alligators in the lobby of the Gaylord Palms, the hotel where Rob's convention was, than we saw out on the airboat.

On a random side note: Rob has become the king of self-photos. We worked our way through Florida with Rob's long arm snapping pictures along the way. It's very useful since we hate asking random people to take our picture.

I think I've caught a glimpse of what retirement can hold...and I'm looking forward to it! But in the meantime I will be content for the occasional getaway. I don't think it can be more than occasional, Hayden wouldn't let go of me all day Sunday. He kept his little arms around my neck and kept saying "Missed you mom". Always glad to know I'm missed!