Light Show , originally uploaded by dawnkrutt.

Last night's thunder storm. It was pretty impressive.

"I do?!"

"Yes. Maybe it's laying in the field."

Maybe.


And the Hannah Montana cake...
 

Had a dream I was at some kind of resort place and I was sweeping dirt off of the deck, except I couldn’t get anything finished because Alice Cooper kept trying to feel me up and kiss my neck. I was constantly fending him off. Alice Cooper. Really? Come on! I’m dreaming! I can dream about anything, anyone.

And I’m getting intimate with Alice Cooper.

Nick came home from school earlier this week and told me that his class was going to take real guns and shoot eggs. I told him that he must have misunderstood...I said that didn’t sound like something that his preschool would do.

"But mom!" he wailed. "Teacher said we were going on an Easter Egg Hunt!"

It’s been awhile…did you miss me? You know you did. You’ve been waiting, with baited breath, anxious for the next witty synopsis of my day to day affairs, yes? Yes. Well, I am back and I find myself wondering what exactly “baited breath” is supposed to mean. In fact, I have to look that up…ok, I’m back. It can be either “baited” or “bated” although “bated” makes more sense seeing how it is a shortened form of “abated”. Or, in other words “Breathing that is subdued because of some emotion or difficulty”. There. A little language lesson for you.

Now I’ve forgotten what I’ve come here to say. I’ve been doing a lot of that lately. Hmmm…

Nick is making play-doh monsters who keep attacking each other, Delaney is sleeping, as is Sam, who happens to be asleep in my arms and I just know that if I set him down he will wake. So, I type with one hand, while the left hand is slowly growing numb and tingly. And I really have to pee. But I will not risk waking the baby. Sam sleeping soundly is such an odd occurrence that I’m reluctant to tamper with it. He does not like to sleep. Ever. They say infants sleep about 16 hours a day. Where are these infants? And why have I never had one? I’m going to have to lie to my Pediatrician again when he asks how he sleeps. Great! Of course he’s in his crib! On his back! Rather than…he sleeps for about 20 minutes then wakes up screaming and I do all the suggested sleep techniques in the books until I‘m so tired that I can’t walk straight and then I just take him to bed with me… the last time I hinted at that I got a little lecture from him. I don’t know why it’s so hard to find a good doctor. I’ve gone through several trying to find one that I am happy with, but I can‘t seem to find a good one. Sigh. Sam doesn’t seem to care for solid foods either. For a while I was pretty sure he had been a dog in his last reincarnation; he licks the spoon, rather than opening his mouth to eat. It’s quite messy and time consuming. The I made a startling discovery! Turns out it’s just baby food he will not eat properly. Give him guacamole and refried beans and it’s a whole different story. The only other time I’ve seen him open his mouth that wide is when it’s emitting unholy screaming. So I think it’s time to break out the baby food grinder and just feed him whatever I make for dinner.

I have to register Nick for kindergarten in about 20 minutes. Kindergarten! That’s real school. He’s a real boy. And suddenly all his clothes are too short. I needed his birth certificate to register him and we keep it in our safe. Which wouldn’t open. We have the key and the combo and it gives the unlock symbol, it just wouldn’t open. So I call the company and she walks me through a few fixes, which didn’t fix anything. So she says I need to find something to hit it with. I laugh. No, really, she insists. Get a hammer and a phone book(so I won‘t dent the safe). So, I do what I’m told ( all the while, cynically arching my eyebrow) and she has me hit the thing a dozen times between the faceplate and the hinge. And it opens. Apparently, sometimes something gets jammed inside and it has to be vibrated loose. Of course.

Anyway, gotta wake up Delaney and off to school we go!

After spending a weekend with kids who had fevers and were coughing so hard they threw up, we spent Sunday in Urgent Care...wasn’t so worried about the older ones; they’ve had colds before and I figured it would pass, but Sam’s fever was really high, and he just would lay there and stare into space. He would hardly react when you’d pick him up. It scared me. A lot. So to the hospital we went...after chest x-rays and flu swabs and all kinds of fun indignities, Sam was diagnosed with Bronchitis and an ear infection. While we were there, I figured they may as well take a look at Nick. Who also has an ear infection. His very first one... Delaney is just plain old sick. But she’s worse today than she was, so I’m hoping another trip to the doctor isn’t in order.

This is when having three kids is really hard...I don’t have enough hands and I have to take turns comforting them, leaving the others to scream and cry. Fun. FUN, I tell ya. Fun.

If I had wanted to be a single parent, I’m sure I could have found someone to impregnate me and vanish. But, no, I had to get married for that to happen. Yes, I am feeling sorry for myself. I haven’t seen Darrin for more that 10 minutes at a time in several weeks. And when he is home and awake for any longer than that he really screws up our schedule and I find myself wishing he would just leave. Along with his work, there is some idiot kid setting fires to cars in town and Darrin has been involved in all aspects of catching him...bait car, fliers, working with the police... there’s a frickin’ meeting about it just about every day, in between the hours it takes to respond to the fire call, put it out, clean it up, file paperwork, report the arson and whatever else they do. I wouldn’t know. I don’t talk to my husband. I don’t see him enough.

I was just reading a story about a 5^th grader whom they believe committed suicide at school, by hanging himself in the bathroom. A 5^th grader! I can’t even imagine. It makes me want to go upstairs and hug Nick. He’s been a terror lately and I have a feeling that he may be picking up on the animosity I have towards Darrin right now. That, and it’s really hard to raise 3 kids completely by yourself. I am with them 24 hours a day. I go to bed and usually 2 of the 3 are in bed with me. There is not a 5 minute space of time that I am without them and I’ll admit I get a bit frustrated with them. I think I’m justified. I honestly don’t know how much longer it can go on like this. I don’t even want to get out of bed in the morning. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect my husband to help raise our children. Or at least come home once or twice a week. But then I always think I should be thankful for what I have. It could always be worse. I have a good friend whose husband was laid off and she’s had to take an extra kid in 8 hours a day, 5 days a week to make some money. Her husband has a bit of a monogamy problem and has recently left town for three weeks for a temporary job in the mountains. So, where would I rather be? Here, in my life? Or there, in hers, taking care of someone else’s kid, plus my own, wondering if my husband is alone in his hotel room? Ahhh... I don’t know. Aren’t there men out there that come home at night and on the weekends, help with the kids and the house and don’t have affairs? Or am I being unrealistic?

Anyway...

I took Delaney to the dentist today to have two of her teeth fixed. They came in missing enamel in two small places and over the past year it has decayed so they wanted to drill and fill them. I was a nervous wreck and it didn’t help when I walk into the room and I’m asked to sign a waiver saying they can tie her down to the cutesy named "papoose board" if they need to. I told them that I was absolutely not comfortable with them using it and I held her hands during the procedure and she did amazing. She never flinched and it over in less than half an hour. The dentist said she’d never worked on a better two year old. Delaney’s mouth was numb for a bit and she kept asking me what was in it...

I’m having a friend over for lunch tomorrow and our kids can play. It will nice to have adult conversation for awhile. Even if all we talk about is our kids...It's funny. I'll never once mention how miserable I am.
 

Sam is sleeping and Nick and Delaney are playing contentedly in the basement. I should be working on my novel. But I’m not. It turns out the whole "page a day" thing was a bit ambitious for me. But I think I’ve maybe written about 3-4 pages this month, so all is not lost. My problem comes when I sit down to write...the chances are so few and far between that I spend a good part of my available time reading what I had written, trying to figure out where I left off. It takes me a bit to get back into character...then the kids are crying and starving and breaking things and I have to go. Sigh.

This morning I woke up to the sound of Charlie barking. From outside. Which would be ok if he hadn’t been inside when I went to bed. So, I get up and go into Nick and Delaney’s room. And neither of them are there. I go downstairs, where all the lights are on and the curtains are open. It also smells like waffles. And the dog is definitely out. But no kids. I go down into the basement/playroom and there they are, sitting on the sofa, eating their toasted waffles and drinking juice boxes. I asked Delaney how she got out of her crib. "Nick helped me!" she said. I look at Nick. "There’s nothing on tv," he sighed.

I’ve been made redundant.

Today is my brother’s 30^th birthday. Which makes me, well, older. We went out to dinner last night to celebrate, where I had a really weak margarita and a very tasty burrito. We all pitched in and bought Andy a belt sander, and I bought him the Planet Earth BluRay movie. Earlier that day the kids spent hours making him cards. They were quite lovely. A little glue, Apple Jacks, noodles and markers and you have a masterpiece. Oh, and pipe cleaners. I also made a cake. Which I can say without a doubt, was the most fantastic cake wreck I have yet to make. It wouldn’t come out of the pan, so I tried to reassemble the pieces with frosting, but ran out of powdered sugar so the frosting was too runny. I suppose I could have made little fondant people and placed them around the teetering mess and made an earthquake cake, but instead, I dumped it into a bowl and added some strawberries and blueberries. Only to discover, too late, that the blueberries had been frozen too long, tasted like the freezer and were extremely chewy and gag inducing. The whole mess went into the trash. So I’m going to make another and bring it over to him next Sunday and we are going to have another little party. A birthday in our family can last for weeks...

Sam is no longer asleep. He is crying. So is Delaney. I suspect Nick.

My head hurts.

Sam has been crying for about 3 hours straight now. He stops if I pick him up, but I can’t carry him around all day. You should see my house. The laundry basket stands taller than I do at this point. Half folded clothes cover the sofa and the table downstairs, there is another half folded basket in the bedroom. And I’ve had to make phone calls today. Fun ones. Like trying to figure out why the hell the State of Colorado thinks we owe them $6,700.00 for our fuel tax which is supposed to be $0, since we’ve already paid tax on our fuel. But of course, no one returns my phone calls. Not that I’ll be able to hear them, over Sam’s screaming. Then I was trying to set up a payment plan for our state taxes for 2007. They refer you to their website. Where you discover that you don’t have a PIN number to access your account, so you have to request one by mail. I finally received it and entered it, only to be told that they can’t access my account online. So I call again and have to go through their automated system, pushing buttons for 10 minutes just till I get to a point where I can talk to a person. Then there is the issue of being paid for work. Darrin was hauling ice slicer alone last year, but was pushed out by a huge company out of Denver. In an attempt to win back the account, Darrin combined his trucks with a few other small companies so they would have enough trucks to compete. We delegated the combined billing to one of the other companies because I didn’t think I’d have enough time to do all the billing for all the trucks with the kids. So, two months ago they started hauling. Two months later, we had yet to get a check. We call Brett daily to ask where it is. "Oh, we haven’t been paid yet." Which is bull, because the ice slicer company pays every two weeks and always has. Which means he would have gotten at least 3, maybe 4 checks by now. Which we know, because Darrin has hauled for them for years and in case you forgot Brett, we got you the fucking job. So he calls today, all pleased that he "finally got a check" and relieved, we go to pick it up. And it’s for two fucking days of work. Two damn days. No wonder he can afford that monster house. He pays for it with other people’s money. I guess he has to afford the crates of Busch Lite somehow. Bastard.

God, how long can a baby cry without stopping? Shouldn’t he be tired by now?

In an attempt to scare up some extra money, I recently had several of my books appraised, to see if I could possibly make anything there. I picked three first editions that I had have trouble researching on my own and found an appraiser. Apparently, the three I picked are worth $4,100 (insured value). So, extremely surprised and intrigued I had him appraise a set of text books that I have from the early 1900s. They are in mint condition, still in the dust wrapper and are actually still in the boxes they were issued in. They range in topics from Standard Bred Poultry to Cherries and Apricots, to Toolmaking and Grinding, Carpentry to Patterns and Molds and "cupola making", to Qualitative Analysis and Organic Chemistry...they’re pretty interesting. And most had never even been opened. And they also appraised at around $4,000, insured value. Several are extremely rare, apparently, especially the two about fruit... So, now that I know they are worth something, I’m extremely reluctant to sell them. So much for that. Although I’m glad I had it done. It’s interesting. I had no idea that I actually had anything worth anything. I have several more that I’d like to have appraised and I’m beginning to think that maybe I should have my entire collection looked at and insured. I have about 10 little pamphlet-type books by Rand- McNally in the "Pocket Map and Shipper’s Guide" for different states. They even have the original state map still attached, showing all railroads, cities, rivers, etc. They’re extremely fun to look at (carefully). They are also from the early 1900s and the ads in them are great. One advertises the Albany Hotel in Denver, 300 rooms with private baths! $1.50 a day! Or there’s always the "New Million Dollar Hotel" in Texas. It’s "fireproof!" Or there is always the "Hotel Vail" in Pueblo, which is "absolutely fireproof", featuring the "European Plan" and "solid comfort". I have a feeling they might be worth something, as well. Although, I could never part with those either. I’ll leave them to my grandchildren and they will probably auction them off on some futuristic e-bay...

Whoa. A post that’s not about my children or my tentative grip on sanity. Amazing.

Christmas has come and gone with relatively little trauma. I had one of the worst migraines of my life Christmas Eve and half of Christmas, which meant that since I was doing dinner, dinner was late. By several hours. But no one complained. And I wasn’t feeling as nice and agreeable as I usually am, so if anyone had said anything, there was the possibility that we could have had a fatality. Ok, maybe not. Even at my least agreeable, I’m still pretty nice. Only because the good comebacks don’t come to me until several hours later. It’s very unfortunate.

The kids had a good time...I remember how fun Christmas was when I was little. I miss that a bit. Although I still look forward to it. Watching the kids open their presents is so much fun. They did well this year...I won’t have to buy clothes for any of them for the rest of the season. Or toys. Darrin got me a camera bag and some accessories for my new camera. Which I love. I’ve probably taken more pictures this month with the new one than I have with my old one the entire year. On Christmas, I found myself taking pictures of things like the gravy. Because you never know when you might want to frame one of those.( I posted a bunch of them on Facebook, for those of you who are Facebookish. But not the gravy one.)

Then came New Year’s Eve...which we also survived. I’m normally a stay-at-home-drink-wine celebrating kind of girl, even before we had kids. I’m just not big on (ok, terrified of) lots of people and the crowd thing but we had two parties we had to attend last night. After a beer and Valium, I was reasonably fortified enough to deal with them. One was hosted by a man with a black widow tattooed on his head (among others-that’s just the most memorable)...He works with Darrin and he’s a very interesting man. We always talk about tattoos. And once we had an intriguing conversation about horseradish. We dragged our kids to that party first, knowing that it was not going to be kid friendly and babysitters on New Year’s Eve are hard to come by. They had a nice big pig roasting (that I tried not to look at-poor thing) and I think we were the only ones not wearing our leather chaps. I talked to a woman about her grand kids and alcoholics for about an hour, while Darrin mingled and ate pork and the kids followed an ancient pug with bad legs around and around the garage. Then we slipped out and headed to the other party. Which was at one of the firefighter’s houses. Him and his wife have 4 kids and because I believe in karma, that’s all I’m going to say. But I know a really good story about them that involves a strip club and pierced nipples. But I’ll leave it at that. I ate about 50 little (ok, maybe they weren’t so little) chocolate covered cream puffs and handfuls of m&ms. And maybe a chocolate chip cookie. Or two-ish. And we were home by ten. Diehard we are. And although I usually do not make resolutions because I have a bit of a commitment problem, but this year I am going to try. I will write at least one page a day on my novel. One page a day. That’s reasonable, right? For once in my life, I would like to be able to complete something. I would like to see at least one of my brilliant ideas through to the end. I can do that, can’t I? Can’t I? Sure. Yes. I can.

Happy New Year.

(See? That was about a page. I can write a page a day. No problem.)

The holiday season has dawned at our house, bringing with it three gifts...

1. Pink eye

2. A cold

3. Some gastrointestinal ailment that causes projectile vomiting and explosive diarrhea.

It’s been great fun. When I’m not crawling to the bathroom myself, I’m changing the kid’s sheets and trying to keep up with the astronomical amount of laundry these illnesses have caused. All I want for Christmas is a maid. And my mommy.

There. Aren’t you glad to know that?

Actually, I’m feeling much better today. My head only hurts if I move. Or breath. Or blink. I feel much better. Or I was until a little while ago when my step-mother-in-law called. Apparently, since I hadn’t issued formal invitations to the Christmas dinner that we have here every year, she and Heather (sister-in-law) decided that they would go ahead and make their own plans and have a Mexican dinner at Chris and Heather’s house on Christmas. I told her that like usual, I’m cooking here and they are more than welcome to come if they like. Like they do every year. "Oh, well we hadn’t heard..." (When I know for a fact that Darrin called them.) Next time I’ll issue a singing telegram. Then; "Well, I know feelings will be hurt if we go to one place and not the other..." I assured her that my feelings would most definitely not be hurt. "If we do decide to come, I’ll just make a dessert. That’s easy. I’ve just been so tired and busy with work..." Which is a not so subtle jab at the fact that I stay home with the kids. And all stay at home parents know how simple that is. Especially when their children are leaking from every orifice. Argh. I then immediately call Darrin, who assures me that he did call them and his dad is planning on frying a turkey to bring. And he had spoke to Chris as well, and they are also planning on coming over. What?? Is there just not any communication in that family? Is she just playing games with me? I give up.

Anyway, gotta go. I have to attend to some leaking children.

While searching online for the value of my house, I started to get curious about past houses I have lived in, which then plunged me into a pit of nostalgia. Some of the house I’ve lived in meant very little to me, some I have wonderful memories of, and then there is the one that I wish we had never left. And now you get to hear about all of them! Yay!

At school:

"Tanner and I used the bathroom together today." Nick said.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yup. And we fought with our pee in the toilet."

When coloring and the markers are drying out:
"The power is going out on this one, too!"

 At the doctor:
We took Nick to the doctor for a possible Urinary tract infection. The doctor examined his penis.
"That was fun!" he said when she finished.
"Quote of the day," she said.

Delaney pronounces Cinderella "Inda-wa-wa" and every toy remotely female is a Cinderella.

Nick’s preschool had a field trip to a pumpkin patch yesterday. Last year when we went, it was freezing; the wind was blowing and it was trying to snow. This year was much more pleasant and sunny. My mom came with us, which I was grateful for. Handling all three kids out there was an adventure. I was the first one there and since the gate was still locked, I parked off the road, several car lengths back so they could get in and open the gate. Every other car that came lined up behind me. Like sheep. One of the other parent’s, a grumpy man, decided to get out of his car, stomp up to my car and tell me that I needed to move up because I have so many cars behind me that they’re blocking the cross road. ? ? ? Why, exactly, can’t the rest of the cars pull around me? Or park on the other side of the road? Did I have a sign on the back of my truck that said "follow me and do exactly as I do?" Apparently I did. If I were to have parked sideways, I wonder if everyone else would have done the same? We’re interesting creatures. Anyway, stupid man. I thought of all sorts of good comebacks as soon as he stomped back to his car; anything would have been better than the bewildered stare I gave him. And since my kids were in the car, I couldn’t really call him all the things I was calling him in my head. So I spelled them instead. Seriously. He walked back to his car and my mom and I stared at each other in a "what the heck was that about?" kind of way. S-t-u-p-i-d p-r-i-c-k, I spelled. D-u-m-b a-s-s, my mom spelled. And so on, working our way through various insults. I felt much better by the time they opened the gate and let us in. (And, by the way, they thanked me for leaving room. I wished the d-i-c-k-h-e-a-d would have been around to hear it.)

Anyway...after I got over being yelled at, we managed to have fun. The kids got to ride a little barrel train, jump on one of those inflatable trampoline things, go through a 3-D house, play at the park, bury themselves in the corn box (you know, a sand box...with corn) and then they got to pick their pumpkins. They were exhausted by the time we were done. And I had a headache.

When we got home, Nick was looking through a costume magazine and informed me that he is going to be a Ninja for Halloween and that Delaney should be Cinderella. (Which happens to be Nick’s favorite movie and book right now...) I asked Delaney what she wanted to be. A"wadybug". Nick thinks I need to be Batgirl.