Do you hear the hallelujah choir, too?

In the mornings, it wakes me up with the most annoying sound.  Incredibly annoying.  And I hit snooze.  Many times.  I don’t leave the house without it.  Well, I did once, but I had a bit of an anxiety attack and stole hubby’s.  A girl has to have her apps when she has to have her apps.  You’d think that this thing did everything.  Oh, wait, it kind of does.  It doesn’t pee for me, but I can set alarms to remind me to go.  Sad, I know.

I take notes on it constantly.  I can record voice messages, which comes in handy when you get verbally attacked over the phone.  Or on FB.  I can take pictures of  hateful and just plain nasty messages put on FB, that are quickly deleted and save them for an eternity.  I love that feature.  That’s how I got this picture of my home screen.

And the folders that you can create, they practically spontaneously generated from my OCD.

It’s an older version of the phone.  I actually have the 3G.  Not even the 3GS or the 4.  My little, older iPhone is still a wonderful addition to my life.  What can I say?  I have a problem.

Thank goodness the apps don’t organize themselves like this.  I’d be screwed.

I’m also an enabler.  My Hubby, BFF, some coworkers, some friends have been persuaded by my love for this whore of technology.  I should be ashamed.  Yet, I’m not.  I could seek help though.  Maybe.

This is the important part of this post:

Really, I just couldn’t think  of what to write today.  My dad is in the hospital and I don’t want to think about it.  He’ll be fine.  The phone helped me 10 times yesterday while I was with him.  I had to give the gadget a shout out.  Holla!

]]> http://donedieting.org/2010/09/03/a-confession-of-sorts/feed/ 1 Lu http://donedieting.org/2010/09/02/the-little-thing/ http://donedieting.org/2010/09/02/the-little-thing/#comments Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:42:40 +0000 Lu https://donedieting.wordpress.com/?p=1261 ]]>

School has been a bit of a rough transition for Bean.  He’s in Pre-K.  My mom believes that he’s too small to be in school yet and that it’s too structured of an environment for him.  My father is a bit perturbed by the fact that it is a Catholic school and you just never know about those priests.  My husband and I were convinced that we didn’t think he could spend one more minute in daycare.  However, he’s a willful child.  His teacher struggles with him daily, so much so that it can be daunting to read the notes she sends because to me it sounds like she’s describing some other child.  Mine would never pitch a fit, Mrs. Arreaga.  Oh no, you must be mistaken he would never take a bite out of someone’s breakfast.  Ian?  No he would never climb up on a chair and jump off of it.  Repeatedly.  Are you sure it’s him?  I don’t know why he won’t work in class.  You understand, right?  I just don’t know what to do with him.

However, last night something happened at home that really got me thinking.  We have been trying to get him to pick up his pencil correctly.  He never does it.  Ever.  Every time he goes to pick it up, he does it backwards.  It was frustrating to us because he is willful and we figured that he was just being difficult.  Then Hubby asks him to pick it up with his other hand.  His left hand.  And he does it.  The right way.  WTF?  I felt like I was hit with a brick.  Could it be that he’s a lefty?

He eats with both hands, writes with both hands, can throw a ball better with the left hand, kicks with both feet, if you hand him something he’ll grab it with either hand.  He’s pretty much split down the middle.

Is he or isn’t he?

Could it be that he is so frustrated with this one little thing that he is acting out altogether?

Color me curious.  Well, that and color me oblivious, too.

My wonderful, intelligent, insightful friend Erika provided me with the best idea ever.  I don’t know how I didn’t think of it, but I guess it has to do with her years of law experience, paired with her playful nature that bested me.  I can see the trial now.

Monster v. Bean

Hopefully it won’t come to that, but if it did I’d want her on my side.  She gave me the perfect solution to my monster dilemma.  Monster repellent.

Oh. Hell. Yeah.  If I would have gotten her comment before 9 pm last night I would have been brewing some concoction in my kitchen yesterday.  However, I didn’t get to it in time.

Tonight I have every intention of creating some version of a monster repellent for Bean.

Ingredients:

2 cups water

1 stick cinnamon

1 T. cloves

1 clove of garlic (for vampires)

1 sprig of lavender

Boil and cool.  The cinnamon and cloves will give it a homey, calming feel, the garlic will keep away any vamps and the lavender is soothing.  Really, it’s just going to be a lot of water with a little smell.  It ought to be very interesting.

Who knows, maybe I’ll market it.

Now, this could go several ways.

1) It works and we have a monster-free home.

2) It doesn’t work against these particular “monsters”, because from what I hear they aren’t the normal kind.  They don’t listen to reason, and they like to tickle little kids.

3) I’ll be brewing this concoction till he’s a tween.

As long as I don’t find him sitting in the middle of his bed, wearing an aluminum foil hat, holding a bat and wearing a head of garlic around his neck, I’ll consider this to be a WIN!

Hopefully, tomorrow’s post will be about something more entertaining.   Like my impending midnight confrontation with Mr. Green-Purple-Blue or, even better, the smudging I do to keep the heebie geebies away.  You just never know with a 4 year old.

Image courtesy of Google images.

Anyway, my request for a king size bed went ignored.  It was never a priority for him and he wanted to be close to me.  Ick!  I love the man, but I’m a private sleeper.  If I can put 2 feet between us and still like you in the morning, I figure we’re in it for the long haul.  So I struggled for about two years to get him to bend on my request.  Sometime in April of this year he caved.  And I got my luscious king size bed.  I was in heaven.  Microfiber sheets, fake down duvet (for friendliness to animals), wonderful plush pillows.  Amazing.

Everything was glorious with my king size bed, until last night.  At about 10:30 pm my son came into the bedroom and said “Good morning!”.  If you’re a mother this sets of oh crap alarms in your head.  If you’re not a mother, make a note of this.  I figured I could persuade him back to his room under the guise that he was still asleep, you know, a total fake out.  Didn’t work.

“It’s not morning, it’s time to go back to bed”, I said.

“But, I’m thirsty”, he says, and throws himself on the ground dramatically.

“I’ll get you something to drink.”

“I want milk.”

“You can have water”, he continues with the meltdown.

“Stop crying, you can’t have milk right now.  You already brushed your teeth.” I go to get him a cup of water.

We go back to his room.  I get him back in bed.  I cover him up and I start to rub his back.  He closes his eyes.  He says that he needs the door closed and that he’s ready to go to sleep.  I get up and leave, closing the door behind me.  I think to myself that I’ve just been duped by a 4 year old.

I finish getting ready for bed.  I lay down and start to wind down.  I’m reading my “crack” magazine, Real Simple.  Ironically, there is a really good article about parents who make the conscious decision to have only one child.  I can totally relate to that when I hear his bedroom door open, and close.  I look at the hubby and he looks at me and we aren’t sure what to do at this point.  Do we quickly turn out the lights and start snoring, do we get up and head him off at the pass, do we suck it up and just let him show up, what do we do?  He’s pretty fast.  He was in our room crying within 2 seconds.

“There is a purple, green, blue monster in my room.”

“Really?”

“Yes.  It’s under my bed.”

“Bean, all of the monsters in the house are nice ones.  They are afraid of Mommy and Daddy so they behave.  We told them to take care of you.”

“No.  They’re mean.  They don’t want me to be safe.  Who will protect me from the monster, the humans?”  A little creepy.

“Ok.  You can lay down with us for a little bit. “

Eight hours later, needless to say, I had a terrible nights sleep.  So did Hubby.  My usual space was reduced to a foot width space.  Hubby has about the same amount of room.  Bean was super comfortable laying horizontally across the bed.  His feet on my head, and his head on Hubby’s chest.  Just imagine what it would have been like if we had a queen size bed.

I’m putting out an APB for this pesky little creature.  I don’t want him back.  I just want him to go away.

Photo courtesy of Google Images and macmcrae.com.

• Permanent babysitter, my mom, went out of town.
• Husband broke his collarbone.
• Started a home-based business.
• Continued working two jobs without recognition for either.
• Got verbally attacked by an evil, hateful person on Facebook.
• Contemplated getting rid of FB, until I got a friend request from a dear old friend.  Blast and curse you FB!  You should be destroyed.
• Haven’t had a chance to hang out with friends, truly diminishing my funny life events.  I doubt you want to hear about my dinner every day.
• Husband had surgery for his broken collarbone.  Didn’t. Go. Great.
• Decided that one fun, high point in my life is blogging.  But I’ve been bad about it.  I should be punished.  Oh wait, maybe if I start blogging, the universe will stop punishing me.

Here’s for trying!  I plan on being back for a long time now.  I’ll make the time.

It was a late start to the day.  We didn’t actually get to the zoo until 1:45 pm.  It was hot, and gross.  I took the stroller, but mostly it was used to carry my purse.  Bean didn’t sit down once.  He was busy.  I would show more pictures of the animals, but my camera was lost by the hubby.  I’m not happy.  I digress.  This post will show no pictures of animals.

Here he is next to a waterfall in the Africa Live area.  He looks a lot like his dad in this picture.  But cuter.

Here is a picture of my BFF’s three boys and mine.  This turned out to be a nice picture.  Her boys are 7, 8 and 9 years old.  This officially makes her my hero.  I stopped at one.  I know what I can handle.  One wonderful, intelligent, creative boy.  As opposed to 3.

As soon as we loaded him into the car this happened.  I’m not kidding.  We weren’t even out of the parking lot.  He was just getting his second wind.

It was a lot of fun.  We were tired, and beat.  But nothing is better than a happy child.  Even if my version of going to the zoo is watching the National Geographic channel.

My wife and I were watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire while we were in bed.  I turned to her and said, ‘Do you want to have Sex?.

‘No,’ she answered.

I then said, ‘Is that your final answer?’  She didn’t even look  at me this time, simply saying, ‘Yes.’
So I said, “Then I’d like to phone a friend.”

And  that’s when the fight started…

When I read that I couldn’t help myself.  I laughed for a few minutes.  It was a great feeling.  However, I did stop rather quickly because I have a tendency to go from laughing to crying in a few minutes.  Why is that?  I’m not sad.  Is it just a huge influx of hormones or something.  I blame hormones for everything.  Well, that and low blood sugar.

I digress.  Starting the day with a laugh was wonderful.  It calmed my nerves and it made me look forward to the day.

As a general rule I’m not a morning person.  My step-father used to say that I needed a cup of coffee at the age of 11.  Truth is I started drinking coffee much earlier than that.  Thanks Tia Juli.  However, my new goal is to start each day with something funny and end it with a smile on my face.

I’m not really an optimist either.  But, I’ve been difficult and pessimistic long enough.  I’m going to look at the bright side of things.  Or at least put a happy spin on it all.

To this phone.

Now, this phone was not a great at all.  We were extremely disappointed with this Samsung.  Actually, it was awful.  In 4 days we determined that it wasn’t worth the price we paid for it.  Just. Plain. Awful.  It wouldn’t receive calls, it wouldn’t send messages half the time, the voicemail couldn’t be set up.  Awful.  I finally convinced her that she needed to get a smartphone, to replace the stupidphone.

So  my mom got a Blackberry.  She’s working it out.  It’s going to take a little time.  She’s smart, so she’ll figure it out.  I have 100% faith in her.  However, the learning process does provide me some giggles.

Enter the Blackberry Curve.  Coincidence that it rhymes with lurve?  Nope.  This phone is nifty.  I won’t change my iPhone for it, but it is perfect for her.  She can track her clients, appointments, emails, etc.  It really is cool.  She’s managing it quite well.

I’m really glad that she got this phone.  It will help her immensely.  I’m proud of her for taking the plunge and agreeing to get a smartphone.  I did laugh though when she asked the sales rep where the blueteeth were.  As in the plural for Bluetooth.  It still makes me giggle.

I constantly dream about running.  All. The. Time.  It’s an ironic thing, considering I don’t run as a form of exercise.  I only run to get away from something.  Usually something with big teeth, and a ravenous appetite.  Like my husband, for example.  It’s the type of dream where I wake up with every intention of running.  My subconscious is telling me to go for it.  As soon as I try to though, I’m too aware of the fact that I suck at it.  My plan?  Get over it.

Here is what I have planned to do today.  I’m going to pick a landmark, and run to it.  Not like the Washington Monument, but like the telephone pole up the street.  I will say though, that running to the Alamo is completely doable.  It’s about 10 miles from my house.  Am I going to run a marathon this weekend?  Nope. However, little steps grasshopper, little steps.

I’ll update on how that went later.  Hopefully, not from by bedroom because I broke something.  Just kidding, that telephone pole is like two houses down.  When I say little steps, I mean little steps.

She’s somewhere between 5’8″ and 5’9, which means she’s 5 to 6 inches taller than me.  I’m 20 years older than her.  Sheesh!  I had to swat the boys away with sticks.  A couple of them may have gotten whiplash.

While at dinner , it dawned on me that I’ve grown up a lot in the past 8 years.  When I met her she was a child.  She was a flower girl at my wedding.  Now she’s a young lady.  I felt very happy that I could take her out, buy her stuff, treat her to things, be the adult.  8 years ago the hubby and I were starting out.  We were learning about bills, and life as a couple.  I knew the day would come when we were established.  This weekend just brought it all together.  The little girl that fell asleep on my lap at the first Christmas I shared with this family, grew up.  I grew up.  I guess there are some wonderful things about adulthood that no one ever mentions.

My nephew is turning out to be a lot like my husband.  He looks like him.  He acts like him.  It’s eerie.  My sister-in-law swears that she didn’t like my husband when he was younger so there’s no way that he could be his father.  However, they act the same, look similar and eat like horses.  I tell my sis-in-law that it was the dislike that she had for the hubby at one time that made her son turn out the way he did.  There is a saying in Costa Rica: “what you dislike, you’ll bring to your house.”  We were able to enjoy his company too.  Although I’m pretty sure he got the short end of the spoiling stick.  I did get him a night of paintballing.  Hubby has the battle scars to prove it.