Struggling

I really wanted to write a post all week, but just wasn't sure what to write about. It seems as though nothing terribly exciting is happening in our daily lives, and on top of that I'm struggling with lots and lots of emotions. A great deal of it, I know, has to do with the time of year. I've ALWAYS struggled with the dark, cold days this time of year, and I'm finding that being alone at home all day doesn't help at all. That's another issue, I haven't worked in weeks, and I'm just so sad about it. I don't really know what is happening with the subbing. All-in-all, I just wanted to check in and update that the kids are doing great, and that things are going along without any major bumps in life right now, and for that I'm very grateful!

Going to the Super Bowl!

Pittsburgh prevailed in a great game last night. We were also rooting for Green Bay, so we are very pleased with the results of yesterday's games. With our new HDTV, I even got to see my in-laws on TV! They have really great season tickets and I looked up and there they were! The younger two made it to half time, and JR made it to the beginning of the fourth quarter. Hopefully the later bedtimes don't come back to bite us today. We are all excited though, and looking forward to the big game in a few weeks!

Here we go!

Only about five hours until the big Steelers game today! We are all dressed appropriately, and my husband has gone to pick up the oven bake pizza that we will be having for dinner this evening. We are very disappointed that our game is the later of the two and the little ones, who are the bigger fans than the oldest, won't be able to even dream of staying up until the end. It will be very nice though, to be able to watch it on our new, large, HDTV. Very hopeful that the Steelers will be bringing home a victory and will be headed to the Super Bowl in two weeks!

Home again!

Everyone is home today for another snow day. Both of our schools went on a 2 hour delay fairly early last night, but I was noticing that major metropolitan school districts had gone straight to closing fairly early last evening. I was about 95% certain we were all going to be home again today. Even though it means going longer at the end of the year, we were kind of rooting for it. Yesterday we played some Monopoly and watched movies as a family, and of course my dear husband made everyone a nice hot breakfast. We also got some cleaning and other projects done, so today can really be a carefree day as we head into the weekend. The one downside to this is that we aren't able to go visit my in-laws this weekend like we had planned, but we've already filled the weekend with other fun plans. We are all happy to be home!

Snowing again

We are all home from school today. I'll be honest, I really enjoy snow days, as long as both my kids and my wonderful husband are home. He's always had a tradition of taking the kids to the local diner for breakfast on a "joint" snow day, but since we are really tightening our budget, he's decided to make eggs and waffles at home. It's supposed to snow all day and into the evening, and then the wind is going to pick up and start blowing. Blowing snow is never a good thing in our district, so we'll just have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Our furniture rearranging is pretty much done. Last evening my husband went and picked up our Christmas/anniversary gift from my in-laws...a 42" TV. It's a very nice TV, but almost ridiculously large. The kids are excited about it, but because of where it is it currently only receives the over-the-air signal. That's pretty much all we watch in the evenings this time of year, and most importantly, we'll be able to pull in the Steelers game on Sunday!

Up for sale

Our family is up at my dad's place at the lake. This is an emotional trip...the first one since it was decided that the cottage has to be sold. I had known for a month, but with the holidays and other things I basically just didn't think about it. Dad just can't afford to keep it with his rising health care costs due to his illness, and he is less physically able to enjoy it as well. My wonderful husband and I had hoped to be able to purchase it when this time came, but were hoping it would be in another couple of years. We just can't swing it right now...not even close. We finally told the kids this week because I knew the "for sale" sign would be up when we got here. JR especially took it hard...this place has been so much fun for our family, with so many, so many good memories. JR had reached the age where he was old enough to go to the end of the road and fish for hours by himself. We just came up this morning after Sunday School, and Dad only stayed long enough to have lunch. I can tell he's not feeling well, and that adds to my emotional state. I'm trying so hard to relax and have fun, and to enjoy it while I can!

Purge Fest

Last week, when JC was sick and I was taking down Christmas decorations, we decided to do some major rearranging in our house. I'd had a thought for a while that if we could just get another little sitting area in our dining room, our lives would be so much more functional. Since things were a mess anyway, and we really wanted the boys to stay quiet while JC was resting last week, we decided to move our loveseat from the living room into our dining room, which required us rotating the dining room table 90 degrees and moving it into one side of the room. We actually like the way the dining room table looks, and there was already a TV set up on top of our computer desk, so we were able to watch football in comfort and the boys were entertained by a movie in the living room. By removing the loveseat from our living room, we were able to totally rearrange the living room furniture, and we decided to move our computer desk into a corner of the living room. That left us with nothing for the TV to sit on in the dining room, so yesterday we were off to by a TV stand (and I LOVE the one that we purchased) and had already been planning to buy a new loveseat so that will be delivered in February. In the process of moving the computer desk and other various pieces of furniture, we've doing some MAJOR purging of junk that we no longer want/need. We even decided last night to defrost the basement freezer so that everything was getting a fresh start. Of course, the downside is that with not being able to do everything in one day, we've been living in chaos for a week, and I've also realized today that I'm not completely happy with how everything is currently arranged, so there is more unloading of shelves, moving furniture, and reloading the shelves happening today. Our goal is to have things at least somewhat arranged enough to watch the Steelers game at 4:30. Go Steelers!

When I say clean, I really mean clean

We are having some cleaning issues in this house. The kids seem to think that when I tell them to clean their rooms, or a specific part of their room, I don't actually mean it. Bad news! I really do! Yesterday I informed JR that he was to clean his part of the closet while I was going through HT's toys to determine what had been outgrown and could be given away to make room for the new Christmas gifts. I looked in the closet later, and found that things had been just stacked slightly neater...not cleaned, and barely even defined as "picked up". He lost some privileges, and was pretty upset the rest of the day. Now, I would think that if I had gotten in loads of trouble, I would make sure I had done the job correctly. Nope, checked again after he "cleaned" the second time, and this time he literally took trash, stuffed it into bags, and stuffed it back into the corners of his closet. I am baffled how this is any easier than stuffing it into bags and then throwing away the bag, and I'm also amazed that he seems to think I'm an idiot. HT has also started the "hide it and maybe no one will notice I didn't put it away" plan, and JC has been known to use it in the past. JR is not going to be pleased with life when he gets home today and learns his "fate" for the next 24 hours! He'll have plenty, plenty of time to get that closet cleaned.

No school today

We are home with a snow day. Thanks to the new Ohio laws, this is the final "freebie" we get this year. Everything else will have to be made up. Given that we aren't even half way through January yet, I'm not optimistic that we will be getting out of school on the day we are scheduled to be out. My wonderful husband was out yesterday, but had school today. Strange how that works! Anyway, I've got a touch of a bug, so we are just taking it easy here today. The kids are enjoying some TV time in their jammies before we get started on spelling lists and reading time. I must admit, it did feel good to sleep in!

UGH!

I know that we've all had days like this one...at least several other mothers at school assured me that they've had them too! I was scheduled to work today and because it was at the other school I had to drop the kids off at a morning sitter before heading to work. I had the kids up at 7:25, PLENTY of time before we had to be walking out the door at 8:00. After all, they only had to get dressed, brush their teeth, feed the cats, and pick a breakfast item to take to the sitter. Thirty five minutes seemed ample time. I kept confirming (verbally) that they were up and moving while I was getting myself ready for the day. Imagine my shock when, at 7:55, I discovered that HT was still in his jammies and JC had only managed to get dressed, nothing more. I hate what happened next. I turned into a raving lunatic...it was definitely not one of my finest moments as a mother, or as a human for that matter. On the upside, the kids love their morning sitter and I was able to check in on each of them at lunch (this particular teacher works half day in each building) and it was wonderful to be able to give each of them a hug in the middle of the day...just to kind of reconnect. I'm sure I was probably thinking more about it than either of them, and I hope that is true. I want to remember my behavior this morning, and I want to grow from it as a person. I know that they need to get moving and they need to make better decisions, but one of the best ways I can teach them that is to make good decisions myself, and show a mature way to handle stress instead of becoming a "screaming freak"!

Feeling better

Yesterday turned into a very long day for JC. She woke us at 3AM with a stomach ache, and it seems as though she had developed the stomach flu on top of her throat infection. We had some concerns that she was allergic to the antibiotic, but we checked with the pharmacist, who confirmed that she'd had this medicine before and the symptoms we were describing sounded more like the stomach flu. She had that severe pain again, and it was one of the worst afternoons as a mother, watching her suffer like that. Fortunately, it was very obvious that she felt better last evening, and she has assured us this morning that she is "good as new". We are so glad that she will be able to join us this afternoon for our final Christmas celebration of the year!

Sick kid

JC is home sick today. It was a frustrating morning because she never mentioned anything to me. The school had called asking if I could work, and then JR mentions to me 40 minutes later that JC's throat hurts and she can't swallow. She has temp of about 99.5 so she definitely needs to stay home. I feel badly for her, but at the same time was upset because if she had mentioned this when I first got her out of bed, I could have told the school no. Instead, it was 40 minutes later and I was going to have the school scrambling. They were very understanding about it, but I hate having to do that to them!

I think this might also explain some of her emotions and poor decisions this week. It hasn't been an awful week, but it hasn't been a great one either. I have a doctor appointment for her at 10:30 this morning because we have a big family celebration for our last Christmas and Grandma's 80th birthday Sunday. I would hate for us to have to miss it!

Emotions of a mom

I had several experiences, just today, that made me experience the emotional joy that is being a mother. Yesterday, I had been asked to be a sub for today, and it was supposed to be in JC's class. I was really excited because she is the one child that I hadn't yet had the opportunity to teach. This morning I received an early morning call asking if I would be willing to work all day in a preschool classroom instead of just the morning in JC's room. I explained that I was available and willing to do whatever the principal thought was best. It was settled then, I was going to pre-k. I went in and broke the news to JC, and she was absolutely devastated. She broke my heart...she was trying so hard to be brave and not show her disappointment but the tears were starting to flow. I was disappointed as well, but explained that this was what I had been asked to do, it wasn't my decision, and it gave us a few extra "fun dollars". I promised her that we would spend those few extra "fun dollars" on dinner at McDonalds this evening, and even that didn't seem to lessen her pain. I felt awful about it, and when I told the school about it, they assured me that they would try to get me into her classroom before the end of the year.

The second situation happened at lunch. I had the misfortune of buying a school lunch (just as awful as I remembered it from my school days) and happened to be passing through the lunch room just as HT was getting in line. He asked me if I could sit and eat lunch with him. Oh, I love having a little guy who still adores his mom! I could only stay for about ten minutes, but I loved that my little guy wanted me to eat with him, and I love that I got to hang out with his friends for a few minutes. Being able to see my kids during the day is my favorite part of being a substitute teacher.

And finally, JR had an awesome evening at karate. It was his first success at breaking a board and he was so excited. I love the fact that he loves karate. I think it's truly a great experience for him and I'm so excited for him. These three amazing kids make me so happy and proud to be their mom!

Another one fights the dust

HT has informed me that, apparently, for my entire life I've been wrong. Isn't it great when a child lets you know, with great certainty, that you are wrong? Yeah, anyway...I was singing the other day and found myself singing the words, "Another one bites the dust." HT looked at me and said, "mom, that's not right." I asked what he meant and he said that the correct words are, "No one fights the dust." I couldn't help but laugh at the perspective of my youngest. Hopefully that isn't an indictment of my cleaning...I am trying to fight the dust that accumulates!

Happy Birthday!

I have to take a second to wish my wonderful husband a Happy Birthday! It always stinks when his birthday happens to coincide with the first day back after the holidays, and unfortunately that is often the case. Regardless, we had a nice evening with a family dinner (including dessert!) at Applebee's. We gave him his present last week because I wanted him to have it for yesterday's Steelers' game. He is now the proud owner of his own black Troy Polamalu jersey!

Although he's currently working on school work, we are looking forward to a glass of wine and the Orange Bowl later this evening!

Seriously? Some people think this is the same?

For the very first time in my life, I am drinking Coke Zero. We happen to have it in the house from our New Year's Eve eve gathering we hosted last week. I have a little bit of a headache and caffeine always tends to help my headaches, so I thought I'd give it a taste. I'm a Pepsi girl generally speaking, but will drink Coke when the need occurs...NEVER diet Coke. I can't stand the taste of it. But, I'd seen the commercials about how great Coke Zero tastes and how it's just like Coke. Uhm, NOT. EVEN. CLOSE. I think it has the same after taste I find with most diet sodas. I can't believe they haven't been sued for false advertising...it's awful!

Back at it

Everyone is back in school today, and I must admit I'm pretty grateful, albeit very tired. It definitely felt rough getting up at school time again, but I am, without a doubt, enjoying the peace and quiet. I was fairly certain that I wouldn't be working today, and in fact at this point I'm not scheduled at all this week. I'll be surprised if I don't work at least once, but for today I'm very grateful. I noticed that the kids were none to chipper about getting up this morning either. I'm a little concerned about their ability to hold it together today, but we'll see how it goes.

I've relaxed and enjoyed the quiet, now it's time to go be productive!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! We enjoyed visiting friends last night for a few hours, but wanted the kids to be in bed shortly after Midnight so we came home around 11. It was fun to watch the kids be excited about the ball dropping, and our evening's host had graciously sent home noisemakers so there was lots of happy noise in the house at Midnight.

Today we are all hanging out in our pajamas all day and enjoying all of the college games that are on TV, as well as playing some games and just relaxing. Tomorrow we begin to phase back into reality, but for today, we have no guilt in just hanging out and doing nothing. It's pretty much my favorite day of the year.

Hope everyone has a very blessed 2011!