She has always have a love for all things bug related and lately her brother has been no exception.  It makes my heart swell to see them (finally) getting along.

A couple of weekends ago, Monga came over to help in my yard.  With my sun allergy, I haven’t been able to do much out there, and Daddy’s been working like mad to pay off debt and make our vacation reservations.  I wouldn’t say the yard is in horrible condition, but Monga offered to come over and make it so we wouldn’t have to do as much maintenance overall, so we jumped on the opportunity.

About a month ago we had questioned our HOA on some things such as the lack of communication between the HOA and residents (ie. Their main form of communication is a newsletter “as needed”, so we asked how we were supposed to know if we missed it), we made a suggestion at that time for a Facebook page to be started since it was free, and residents could stay in the loop.  Our request was denied.  We asked why our trash wasn’t being picked up until about 8pm when we were supposed to have it out by 7am – resulting in trash all over the hood.  They explained the trash company has offered them a refund, and upon questioning confirmed they would not be passing that refund on to residents.  I complained on Facebook to my friends.  Catty?  Probably.  I’ll admit it wasn’t my finest moment.

Two weeks later we received a stack of violations in the mail including:

• Our lattice is white instead of cream like the trim on our house
• We left a child toy on our front porch overnight
• Weeds in our backyard

Most of the letters were duplicative, so I’m not sure if they had them and forgot to mail them out, or if they felt like multiple wordings would make a bigger impact.  Either way, I couldn’t help but feel it was just a bit retaliatory.  After all, our offensive white lattice has been there for three years and has a vine growing up it, therefore why the color matters is beyond me.

Back to Monga.  When she found out how severe my reactions have become to the sun, she graciously offered to come make my yard almost maintenance free.  She told us what plants to go buy, and because of the time of year, we got some great deals.  She helped Daddy plant them, and worked like mad for three days making things look great.

I got a letter today from our HOA that we have a dead bush.  I laughed because Monga was convinced she could save the bush.  I wasn’t.  It became her personal challenge.  Guess not any more.

While Monga and Daddy were working in the backyard, Monkey and Caterpillar played like the best of friends.  Until Monkey did some kung-fu move off the play yard and landed square on her bottom.  She cried.  I came running, as did Daddy.  Mid-wail she stopped and pointed at Daddy’s shoe.

“A caterpillar!”

Sure enough a caterpillar was on the side of Daddy’s shoe.

We brought him inside, read all about him, bought him a home and all was right with the world again.

Well, except for the HOA.  Those people may never be right in my book.

Operation Fake House started on Sunday, the house cleaner came Tuesday, and they arrived on Thursday, after I shot my first NILMDTS session.  It was a whirlwind of a week, to say the least.

Friday was the funeral, and I was gone volunteering at Monkey’s school for a good portion of the day.  I shot another session for NILMDTS, hung out with kiddos while Daddy worked with the good people at The Justice Run, and then I died of exhaustion.

I can’t remember what we did Saturday, but I know it did include coloring Easter eggs, cooking a big dinner, editing photos, having a group of grown men over and staying up too late to finish a scratch carrot cake for my sisters house.  Oh.  I also captured this picture of my sweet Monkey:

Woke up early Sunday, headed downtown to capture baby T (yay!!), celebrated Easter with my side of the family, came home edited photos until I passed out from exhaustion.

Monday was an all day training class for NILMDTS and since Monday I’ve been in a coma, so I can’t swear for sure what I’ve been doing.

Although at some point I agreed to lead Monkey’s Daisy troop next year.  I *might* have also agreed to be the communications chair for her school.  Can you believe she’s going to be in FIRST grade?  That sounds way more grown up than being a Kindie.

Throw into the mix that I got a little over-zealous about paying things off this month and I ran our budget a little too tight.  Okay a lot too tight and you’ll see why today I’m laying in the fetal position, sucking my thumb.  Thank goodness tomorrow is payday.

Please don’t call 911.

Just send coffee.

And doughnuts.

Come lay with me on the bathroom floor and we can giggle about what a nut I am.  And I’ll remind you that it’s all good stuff.  God chose me for this crazy rat race, and I’m thankful that he has.  I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Monkey was in trouble for a good portion of our time off because she just doesn’t have a heart for Caterpillar.  He adores her.  She is annoyed by him.

Normal sibling rivalry?  Yep.

Heartbreaking?  You betcha.

So, I’m sad to say I wish we had more time.  We fought too much and loved too little.

It’s back to the grindstone tomorrow, and I just want to spend my week enjoying some more of this:

I love her.  She’s a good kid, and I know even if we did have another week it wouldn’t be enough.

Is it summer yet?!

On one hand, this is a good thing.  We’ve been raising her to have a good appreciation for the power that words contain.  On the other, not so much.

Just when she was starting to recover from the other situation, she had a couple of other things flare up.  In one situation, she was told all of the kids were going to do something they were not supposed to do, then they counted down, and no one did but her and they all laughed.  This one broke my heart.  I know it’s just kids being kids, but to set her up like that was a bit disheartening.  She didn’t seem to mind all that much, and was more upset about the second thing that happened that night: basically one of the little ones thought it would be funny to tell Monkey she had to buy them presents with her allowance, or they would just take the money.

Do I think these kids are doing horrible things?  Absolutely not.  But, it has revealed to me that there’s a gap in our guidance.  Some where along the way, our teachings did not provide her the tools needed to deal with kids who have a different sense of humor.

I’m left a little baffled.  On one hand, she carries so much more confidence than I ever did (and sometimes do!).  She’s smart and funny and it seems like the kids at school generally like her and see the same.  She seems to like most of them, and almost every day gets in the car and tells me she had an awesome day.  She tells me about the kids she’s played with, and other parents have told me numerous times that she’s always happy and playing with different kids.   So when she’s left with such a gaping hole in her social interaction, I am not sure how to help … or if I do even need to help.

We did some role playing in which I tried to convince her to do things she knew she shouldn’t.  Things that were breaking the rules, things that would be funny at someone’s expense, etc. and she seemed to really get it, and even came up with things to say to me and was confident in walking away when I wouldn’t take no for an answer.

But is that enough?  Right now they have little people problems.  They tug on my heart strings, but I am thankful that God is revealing these things now instead of when she’s a bit older and tries meth because ‘everyone is doing it’.

I suppose only time will tell if these things are enough, but for right now I am really focused on making sure my words build her up, and I show her how much I trust her decisions.  However, any ideas any of you lovely readers have for me, please give me a shout out.

xoxox

A

The school supports and practices Love and Logic, which also seems to building her confidence.  So, when a little boy and her got into a bit of a squabble, I simply explained from my perspective she had the choice of working it out with him, or playing with other friends.  Inside I was crying right along with those big blue eyes.  How could he uninvite her to his birthday party?  When the heck is his birthday party?  Why did he have to point out they were going to Monkey Bizness, which just happens to be one of her favorite places?  Why can’t I just email his mom and make them work it out? She just kept asking why HE’D asked HER to be best friends, if he was going to be mean. How do I explain that it was not her fault that the rug was pulled out from under her?  That the kick in the face could not have been expected? How do I tell my sweet princess that sometimes people just don’t keep their word.  Especially when they are five and would simply rather play basketball with the boys. 

Every day, when Monkey would get into the car and tell me she had a great day, I’d ask who she played with, and it was never that boy.  At the end of the week, she told me she had decided to just play with those kids who are nice to her, and let the other ones figure that out on their own because them being mean is not in her control or her problem.

Wow.  Such wisdom from the five year old.

Even though I think she knew those words to be true, she was acting just a bit off.  She was a little more whiny, and just seemed discontent.

A week or so had gone by, and she was whining about having to pick up her toy room.  After listening to the screaming and demands to come help, I grabbed a trash bag and began helping.  I explained that I was happy to help her the way that I knew how – by donating the excess.  She started running around picking up all of the toys before I could get my hands on them.  I gathered up the bagful that I had in my hands, and asked her if she felt like she could finish.  Of course it was no problem, so I put the bag of toys in my room and could then hear Caterpillar making his way up the stairs.

No – Don’t come up here!  You’ll make a mess, and I’ll get my toys thrown out!  Go down stairs!

<Pitter patter of the two year old coming up the stairs>

LEAVE!! DON’T COME UP HERE!!!

<Hard crying from the two year old>

I run out of the room and see him sliding backwards down the stairs.  I picked him up and Monkey starts explaining as fast as possible that he fell down the stairs.  I look at him and blood is gushing from his mouth.  I ran downstairs to wash it out, and I can hear Monkey saying she’s going to throw up.

It’s bleeding like crazy and I can’t even tell where it’s coming from.  Monkey comes down and sits at the counter and is crying and it’s becoming more and more obvious that he didn’t fall.

Finally the bleeding mostly stops, and I ask Monkey to think for a minute, and tell me everything that happened.  I told her I needed to know just in case he had to go to the doctor.  She asked if I was going to yell, and I promised I wouldn’t.  Not because I’m above yelling at my children once in a while, but because the torture of not yelling seemed to be something she’d remember a bit longer.  If I yelled, she’d be off the hook.

I told her she has one chance to tell the truth.

She explains that he was coming up the stairs and she didn’t want him to.  Then she started practicing her kicks (as if she does kicks in a club or something that she needed to practice) and he got too close and she accidentally kicked him.

I don’t say anything.

She waits.

She starts bawling.

I’m silent.

She confesses in complete detail that she purposely kicked him in the face to get him not to come up stairs.

I don’t say anything, except this:  Call your Daddy and tell him, just in case we are at the doctor when he gets home.

I’d place money on the fact that she won’t ever do that again.

I think I’m going to like this Love and Logic style of parenting.

Oh, and as far as the boy and his birthday party?  She was invited last week.  I had the mom double check that he did in fact want Monkey to be there, and it turns out that he didn’t mean it when he said he didn’t want her to come.  While they aren’t going to Monkey Bizness, I know she’s over the moon excited, and can’t wait to join them.

Guess she didn’t need mom to intervene after all.  A kick in the face? Nah.  I’m happy for her. She’s growing up so fast, which is a little sad for me, but I just adore and admire who she’s becoming.

I have stumbled on a bit of a blank stare when it comes to actually blogging.  That makes me giggle, because even when I was little people told me I did the blank stare.  What they didn’t realize is I wasn’t blank staring at all … I was just taking it all in.  Absorbing all of the detail for me to lock away in my brain for goodness knows what at some future date.  In my former life, I used this creepy detail absorption to remember clients.  Sort of freaked them out when I would pull their names out the the vault after months of meeting them.

Anywho, my darling Monkey does not have this freakishly weird trait skill.  She’s more of a live in the moment kinda girl.  She’ll meet ya, be best friends with you in seconds, hang out all day (because she’s loyal like that) and then at the end of the day she has no idea what your name is, or anything about you.  She does remember that she liked you a whole bunch and that you had a heck of a time together.

So, when she started school, I was a little concerned how the retention side of learning was going to go.  Coupled with her Daddy’s imagination, I figured we could be in for a bit of a surprise from my people pleasin’ oldest child.  We had our student-led conference (read: hippie school) and it didn’t seem there were any issues to be concerned about.  Well, none that she shared anyway.  About a week later we got report cards, and they don’t give letter grades in her school. (read: hippie school)

A “1″ means you are on target for grade level in the first trimester, a “2″ means you are on target for the second semester, and a “3″ means you are on target for third semester for the grade.  The first category for the Kindie Crew is reading and letter recognition.  She got 2.5 – 3 in every sub-category.  The second category was math.  She got 1′s in every category.  There were no teacher comments, so I’m taking the card to mean she’s pretty much on track, and her reading is a bit ahead.  We did know that, as she’s reading books like The Magic Treehouse Series (and has been since last summer) so needless to say I wasn’t all that surprised.  The fact that she’s great in English and average in math however was a bit of a surprise.

Guess she’s a bit more like her mama then we’d all figured.

We had been trying to get the tickets we’d ordered since we arrived, but they were having some sort of computer issues all week, so finally it was decided the best bet was to arrive an hour early. Not ideal with two little ones, but what can ya do?

After standing in line for the boat, along with everyone else who was told to come early for their tickets, Disney realized the natives were getting restless, and got a second boat to relieve some of the flow.

Once we got over to the campsite, it was more long lines, as they were doing everything manually. Our tickets were printed about two minutes before show time, and by the time we got inside, the only available seats were towards the back. We were so bummed since we’d booked this six months ago! Daddy ended up mentioning our frustration and they sent over a manager to talk to me. I explained part of the reason we came early is due to my allergy. (They have been preparing my GF food to order), and the chef went over my options and the manager explained where we were sitting was actually going to be awesome, as the white square in front of us is where a character will come dance all night.

The characters came out and did a center stage show that we mostly missed, but the Goofy (Caterpillar’s fave) came over to our little square, and danced alone with Monkey for at least thirty seconds before the other families caught on and moved in. The pictures are awesome, and I’ll add them as soon as I have actual Internet instead of my iPhone 3G.

Today’s weather was quite warm again, much to my Hashi flare ups dismay. My face swelled up so much it was hard to see. I had called my endo yesterday, hoping they’d just call something in, but they said it sounded so much like Lupus, they’d want to run tests before prescribing.

Totally understandable, but I was still totally bumming. I poked into a fist aid station today to see what, if anything, they could do. They put me on a free shuttle to the Urgent Care Center, where the doc came in, spent 3.2 seconds verifying it wasn’t an allergic reaction, and wrote me a script for Predisone and sent me on my way.

Ahhh. Finally some relief from the reaction that just about BBQ’d the fun out of our trip! One eye is almost back to normal, but within hours, it just felt so much better.

We are heading to the time share tomorrow morning, and I am really looking forward to the kids being in their own rooms! I’m hoping I’ll get to merge from mom mode, to wife and vacation mode very quickly now that the forecast includes some cooler temps, and a little less BBQ.

It had just gotten to the point where being on leadership wasn’t worth the time I was investing.  I added up my time the other day before leaving and I was investing approximately 50 hours per month into that ministry.  I was comfortable doing so, but it had reached a point where I was witnessing the focus switch (once again) from God, to internal politics and personal agenda.  After last year, I did not have the fight in me needed to even attempt to try to change the hearts of the women in charge.  Nor did I feel like it’s necessarily my job to do so.  Tuesday I made the decision to step down.

I don’t know what it is in me that just can’t seem to be a part of something that I don’t agree with 100%.  When I left my job it was because they wanted to cover up some relatively small details to avoid what they thought could turn into something big.  I couldn’t do it, so I left.  I walked away from a pretty promising career, making a very good salary because something in me just could not turn a blind eye to what was right.

It’s the same situation with MOPS.  I loved the work I was doing.  I loved serving women in a stage of life that can be so trying and downright scary.  So, why not just turn a blind eye to the other issues?  Why is it that last year I was able to put my head down and just do my work … yet this year I just couldn’t?

No idea.

But, I do know once I quit, I was scared.  Scared that I would return to being as lonely as I was before I joined four years ago.

The one person, who in my mind, should have some sort of response (the leader) had none.  Two days of silence from her, followed up by an email request for the website passwords.  As I read those words I realized I was not going to be alone, because spending my time with people who care so little about me indicates I already was alone.  I knew then I made the right decision.  Instead of walking away from something I loved, I would be able to take back those 50 hours a month and fill them with people who actually care about me and what I have to give.  People who actually feel like I cannot simply be replaced by the next applicant.

The surprising thing to me through all of this, is not only the outpouring of support and love I’ve received from not only people in MOPS, but mommies that have left MOPS in previous years.  I want each of you to know my goal is to be able to continue to serve you as part of the community.  With the gift of time on my side, I know I’ll be able to do more things like making meals for people in need and I’ll be able to bless your children as I serve at Monkey’s school.  More importantly, I’ll have more time in The Word, and I’ll be praying for each and every one of you often.  So, if you have needs, either spoken or unspoken, please know I am here to help in any way I can.  I’d love to think that even though MOPS came to a disappointing end, it will always be a blessing in my life because it made me a better mommy and a better friend.  For those of you left on steering that have felt as though I left you to fight the fight alone, please know you were the reason I stayed as long as I did.

But in the end I realized, it’s not you that I have to decide for, it’s me.

With all of that, we are leaving for Disney on Tuesday, and my plan is to start the vacation NOW.  So, I don’t think I’ll be blogging while we are there, but I just might surprise you.  Otherwise, I’ll see you in a couple of weeks!!

xoxo,

A

So, I went to the store and bought a potty.

Did you know they have a guard for boys?  How smart is that!?  Obviously I am in way over my head here, people.

He sat there for a VERY long time reading, drinking juice and water, water and juice, but nothing more than sitting.

Lots of tooting in typical boy fashion, but no pee.

After two (!) hours, lots of crying (mostly on my part), I let him get up.  He ran into Monkey’s room, and I just knew he was going to mark his territory like a dog.

So I grabbed him, sat him down and went to get something.  I came back to ‘Mommy, I pee-peed and I’m all done’.

Sure enough, he went in his potty.

All of that waiting, and I missed it.

When it was about time to start the whole process all over again, I realized we are heading to Disney World in two weeks, and if this whole potty training thing starts to catch on in his mind, I’m creating a bunch more work and frustration for myself.

That’s the end of potty training for now.

The end.

Your Local Mother of The Year Nominee,

Angie

Last time she called for coffee, she brought up guilt she’d been carrying around for 20 years regarding something Daddy really had no feeling toward whatsoever, so it’s up in the air what she’d like to talk about.

We just saw her last week, when she came to one of Monkey’s cheerleading games, which ended in her just walking off and when Daddy chased her down she said we didn’t make her feel welcome.  So, perhaps it’s about that ??

Papa’s health doesn’t seem to be swinging in the ‘good’ direction much any more, but the info we get about that side of the family is cryptic at best … I am praying that he is not the reason for the coffee talk.

Please just keep Daddy in your prayers over the next few days.  I’m not sure when their date will be, but I can tell it’s wearing on us already and all she did was call.

xoxox

A

P.S. My camera should arrive tomorrow!! Woot-woot!