Puke

I've had it. I swear, if one more kid vomits I'm going to lose it. The past 8 months have been so full of puke I can hardly stand it.

On May 3rd, Adam and I celebrated our anniversary with a sick Jet and Jude. Then, after the 4th of July, Jet, Jude, Jovie, and Stone had some sort of stomach bug. Yep, stomach bug in the summer. Isn't summer supposed to be a break from illness?

Right after Labor day, Jovie, Jagger, and Jude had another bug. Are you detecting a trend yet?

Halloween we were safe, but forget about Thanksgiving. Jet woke up sick.

Lesson 103: spending Thanksgiving cleaning vomit and Thanksgiving dinner consisting of nothing but Oodles of Noodles = white trash

Jet ended up making the whole house sick, including me. I haven't had the stomach flu since February 1998! Thanks Jet.

Martin Luther King day kicked off with Jagger puking at 5 am. No holiday is safe!! The following Thursday Jude woke up sick. The next Monday Jude was puking AGAIN!

Lesson 104: kid puking on the sidewalk in front of Steak and Shake = white trash

That was this past Monday. Guess what happened this morning? Yep, Jagger's sick.

All that's left to be said is, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

St. Francis de Sales This One's For You

There are a lot of saints that I ask to pray for me on a daily basis. Mary and Joseph I have praying for Adam and me to be the best parents we can be, Saint Dymphna prays for Stone and Jagger's mental issues, and poor Saint Jude, being a drama queen I feel all stressful situations are desperate cases. I never leave that poor guy alone.

A few years ago, when I started my writing adventure, I would pray before I wrote. I wanted God to guide me always. After saying my prayers, I was going through my saint list and asking them to pray for various issues. When I was done I thought to myself, "Did I get everyone?" That's when I heard it. It wasn't audible, it was written on my heart. "Ask St. Francis to pray for you."

Huh? I brushed it off. A few seconds later it came again. I chuckled and knew it wasn't me. I remember saying, "Ok, and even though I don't know why, St. Francis please pray for me."

After that experience I had to immediately look on the internet to find out what St. Francis was the patron saint of. I looked up St. Francis of Assissi, since he was the only St. Francis I knew. Animals? No. That couldn't be it. I noticed St. Francis de Sales and clicked on the link. I smiled when I read he was the patron saint of writers.

Needless to say, he's become a good friend. So good in fact, that when Stone was born I told Adam I wanted his middle name to be DeSales. Adam agreed.

When Stone was born Adam texted friends and family. A couple days later we got a text from a friend that said, "lol, sounds like Stoned As Hell."

Noooooooooooooo!

Lesson 102: trying to name your kid after a saint, but winding up with his name sounding like "Stoned As Hell" = white trash

So, in honor of St. Francis de Sales's feast day, this blogs for you! Thank you for all your prayers!!

Brother Bowling

Today, I rounded the corner to find my kids had created a new game.

Lesson 101: using your baby brother as some sort of bowling ball = white trash

Ghetto Hoo-Ride

Our family has been in need of a new vehicle for a long time. I've just been too cheap to admit it. Who cares if we didn't all fit in it, the air conditioning and heat didn't work, the cd player was broken, the vhs player was broken, there was a huge crack in the windshield, and the power steering belt, that also controlled the coolant, fell off every other week, resulting in the van over-heating and needing to be towed home? We didn't have a car payment and that, my friends, was all I cared about.

I guess Adam had had enough, after being towed home twice in one month. He pulled the we're getting a new vehicle and I don't care what you say. He was right. It was definitely time.

We started our car search with a few must-haves. First, air conditioning. We haven't had an air conditioned car since 2005. I'm for reals! I was pregnant for 3 of those past summers. I remember, when I was pregnant with Jude, the temperature was 100 degrees with high humidity and I had to take Marky home in the middle of the day, on route 51 in Pittsburgh, going to the South Hills. If anyone has driven on this road, you know I had to stop at a red light every 5 seconds. It was so hot and humid that I let Marky, Jagger, and Jet wear nothing but underwear and diapers; and at every stop light I turned around and sprayed them with a spray bottle full of water.

Lesson 99: spraying your kids down like a bad dog, because you don't have any other way to cool them off in your car = white trash

The next thing on our list, seating for 8 or more. I told him we needed something that at least sat 9, but all we could find were those 15 passenger vans, and all the reviews we read said they did horrible in the snow. HA! We live in Pittsburgh.......on a hill! Adam said he didn't want a "Yoder-toter" anyway.

Adam searched for weeks, until he found a really good deal on a used Ford Expedition. It sat 8 and had 4-wheel drive. We drove all the way to Ohio to check it out. Adam fell in love immediately. All I could see was the price of gas. (It actually isn't too bad. I was pleasantly surprised.) Needless to say, we bought it. Here it is.

On the way home, Adam kept going over the speed limit. It wasn't his fault. The ride was so smooth. Nothing like the van that shook violently after you hit 60 mph, shaking your brain loose. I finally told him, "Please be careful in this thing. The police are going to be looking for a reason to pull you over."

"Why would they want to pull me over?" he asked.

I chuckled, "Because it looks like a druggie-hoo-ride."

"No it doesn't." Adam got defensive.

"Honey, there's no Ford emblem on the front, like the person who owned it before wanted people to think it's an Escalade, the front windows are extremely tinted, and we have rims for crying out loud! This used to be a druggie-hoo-ride!"

Adam started to laugh. "Yeah, it probably was."

The funny thing is, I'm the one who got pulled over. It wasn't even a month after we bought it, when I was driving down my own town's street, I passed a police car that busted a U in the middle of the street just to pull me over. I wish everyone could have seen this officer's face when he peeked in the back of my vehicle to see a car full of children.

Lesson 100: getting pulled over, because your car looks like a drug dealers, and surprising the officer, because it's obvious the only kind of dealin' you're doing, is dealin' with your ridiculous life, and he can read that ALL over your face = white trash

He gave me a warning, and made Adam remove the tint from the front windows. Now it doesn't look as suspicious. We definitely need to get one of those family stick figure decals for my back window. That way the police know we need the car for the seats, not because we gangsta.

But hey, it's got air!!!

Trash Tree

The Christmas tree is one of our family's favorite traditions. We bundle up every year and head to Grupps Christmas Tree Farm. These very sweet people hand us a saw and a cart, and send us into a field to pick out and cut down the tree of our choice. The kids love this. I love that it's such a safe environment that I don't have to worry about my kids running ahead and losing themselves in the labyrinth of trees. Not that they are ever hard to find, I usually follow the loud squeals of delight and trail of snow angels made between trees.

This is the tree Adam and I picked out.

I called the kids and told them to hurry up because Dad was cutting down our tree. They all ran, screaming with excitement. I wish I could have gotten their expressions when they saw this pathetic twig. We even took the joke so far as to make them pose with the tree so I could take a picture. They were so depressed. They didn't find this as funny as Adam and I did.

After the kids realized we weren't serious about that tree, their spirits were renewed. We trudged through snow for a long time before finding the best tree for our house. Adam cut it down with Stone's help.

We took our tree home and decorated it the next day. (The day we got it, Adam threw the tree in the house and went to work. He doesn't have ANY days off this month.) Jude and Jovie really enjoyed the decorating this year, but they still don't get all the rules of tree decorating. First we had to explain to Jude that we only had a certain amount of ornaments and a whole tree to cover.

Then, I've had to tell them every day since, that just because something has a hook or something resembling a hook, that doesn't mean it's an ornament. Every day I come down to find random crap hanging on our tree's bottom branches. First, Jovie found a Halloween spider and hung it up. Nothing says "Merry Christmas" like a big hairy spider. Then, Jude made paper monkeys at pre-school. Notice the hook shaped tails? The thing that took the cake was when Jude found a piece of cardboard that was connected to a pair of gloves, price tag still on it, and hung it on the tree, just because it had a hook. I told him it wasn't an ornament and we had a 15 minute argument about it. He just kept insisting, "Look at the hook!"

Lesson 98: hanging Halloween decorations and garbage on your Christmas tree = white trash

For all you wondering, yes, they are still there. It makes for good conversation.

Merry Christmas!!

Pictureka!

I admit that I have been a tad more stressed lately. I'm also aware it has affected my outward appearance. Thinking about spending the time to do my hair, put on make-up, or even pick out clothes that match makes me tired. I did NOT know, however, how bad I must look until today.

Our kids have a card game called Pictureka!. It has cards with random pictures and you can play several different kinds of games with the same deck of cards. My boys love it.

Today while they were at school, Jovie sat at the kitchen table looking at the cards while I threw beans and meat in a crock pot for chilli. I heard her exclaim, "Oh, yes," and the sound of her running toward me. She rounded the corner with one of the cards in hand. Smiling proudly, she said, "Mom, look. It you!"

Here it is.......

Lesson 97: your daughter thinking you look like a cave man = white trash

I think I'm more disturbed that this dude has a five-o-clock shadow. What's up with that? I don't know, there were so many cards to choose from. I think if I had to pick a card from that deck that showed what I've looked like lately, I probably would have chosen this card.......

Yes, this is really a card.

Puppies

People tell me all the time that we need a dog. Why would I need a dog when I have my kids? Today alone Stone has chewed on multiple shoes, and ate an important document. Jude has acquired a phobia of the bathroom, and refuses to open the back door by himself, so I have to let him out to pee every few hours. Not to mention, Jovie has growled at me, bit Jude, ate off the floor, and peed in a box, on the floor, and on my computer chair (yes I sat in it before I noticed) all within 4 hours of her waking up this morning. Who needs a dog?

Lesson 96: not needing a pet because your children are less trained than a 6 month old puppy = white trash