I'm so SAD, but everyone expects me to be HAPPY

What I am about to tell you....well... I would rather go with a group of perky twenty year old cheerleaders with tight bums and flat stomachs to try on women's lingerie in a communal dressing room than have to tell you it.

My baby, Logan. He is four. FOUR. Today after lunch I sent him outside to play with a ring pop type sucker. (It was a soccer ball shaped one, not a gem shaped one, but I cannot find any pictures of it.) A few minutes after I sent him outside with it, he and his best friend K, who lives next door to us came rushing inside.

"Logan's mouth is bleeding! He broked his toof!" K told me. Since Blake had so recently chipped a tooth I got worried right away and made Logan open big so I could see. Logan had tried to bite the sucker, which is a really HARD candy, and his tooth was indeed bleeding. But worse. Way worse, was the ADULT tooth poking up through his gums underneath the bleeding tooth.

And since his tooth was barely in there, I asked him if I could take it out. As sad as I was, I did not want him to lose his first tooth at school, away from me. (School starts for Logan at 12:30, this all took place at 12pm. I feed him lunch at 11 to make sure he is done without having to rush through it)

He said "It might hurt", and I told him, "Yup, it might, but just a little". Then he said "OK. You can take it out." and I did.

(You can't really tell, but he is holding his tiny baby tooth in his fingers in the picture)

HE IS FOUR YEARS OLD!

Kids are supposed to lose their teeth between five and six years of age, NOT four. And if you remind me that he will be five in one month less a day I will slap you through the interwebs! And if you point out that he began getting his teeth at two moths of age, I will KICK then SLAP you through the interwebs!

Please. Don't tell me to be happy, or excited for him. As far as he thinks, I am the proudest most happiest mom, and think he is super amazing because he lost his baby tooth. The kid is walking around with his mouth wide open so everyone can see, and when we got to school he was shoving his open mouth into all the kids faces telling them what he did.

So yeah. For his sake, I am pretending to be excited. He is so proud of himself that I will not let my sadness ruin it for him.

But you know what? When I tell you face to face, adult to adult, that I am sad about it, don't giggle and say, its so exciting, so neat he lost it this early! When I go on Twitter and pout about it, don't tell me to "buck up princess".

I KNOW it was going to happen eventually. I KNOW it is silly for me to be this sad about it, BUT that does NOT make my feelings on the matter any less valid.

Odds and Ends

• Recently we bought a box of Swiffer Wet Cloths, refill. we chose the "Open - Window Scent. I washed the floors today and went outside to have a cigarette while they dried, and when I walked in, the house did NOT smell Open-Window Fresh, instead, it smelt like three day old beer. I've got the doors and windows open, as well as three fans going, but ALL I can smell is stale beer. YUCK!
• In February our town got a medical clinic. I think it is wonderful. Should the boys fall and break a bone or need stitches, its a two minute drive to the clinic. (vrs. a 40 minute ride to the city hospital) The clinic has a phlebotomy lab, an x-ray as well as three over-night rooms for people who need to be observed. I called to make an appointment this afternoon and they will see me tomorrow at two PM. I'm scared.
• I'm scared because this is a brand new doctor (a female), and a fresh start for me. I am determined to not let the medical field toss my fears and concerns out the window. I am determined to find out what is wrong with me. However, I am NOT good at standing up for myself. Not at all. The appointment tomorrow is a "lets get your medical history and discuss what issues you want looked at" Ive never had a doctor who wants to actually spend time asking me what my problem is. They all want me out to door ASAP. I am cautiously optimistic, but still, mostly terrified!
• Yesterday I was laying on the couch in my pajamas with my hair "out to here". I had gone to bed with gel in my hair and so there was no way I could go out without washing my hair. Or shaving it all off. So imagine my reaction when the school called at 9:09 am telling me there was a bike rodeo and my seven year old wanted me to bring his bike and helmet to the school - oh, and be here before 9:30! I yelled to Logan who was just in his underwear "Put some clothes on, I don't care what clothes, grab anything and get dressed!" I washed my hair in the sink, grabbed some clothes and we sped to the school, arriving at 9:24 to sign a permission slip. It was rushed. Very rushed, but the happy smile on Blake's face was worth it!
  
• We have a very expensive automated litter box for our cat. The way it is supposed to work is she goes potty and a rake thingy goes in after her, sweeping her mess into a sealed box. We have had the litter box for 18 months now and have yet to find a litter that works for it. I needed paper towel, and had a vague memory of the grocery store in town having a type of litter that is very light weight and kind of like crystals. It was definitely not clay though, and since up to now all we have been using is clay, and the material is too heavy for the rake, I though I would try it. Except, I went down the cat supplies isle and they had only the clay type in stock. I will try and locate it in the big city store next time I go in!

Annnnd. I guess that about brings you up to speed! I will fill you in on how my appointment goes tomorrow evening! Wish me luck!

The New Car

Recently, my in-laws traveled to Alberta to purchase a NewUsed car, a Ford Focus. My inlaws like to keep two cars at all times so that they are never stuck at home if they need to be somewhere.

Case in point, my father in law just got home last week from a week long trip up north hunting bear. While he was gone, My Mother in law used the new Focus to go out with her sister a few times, as well as taking my boys to and from school.

It's kind of cute how she is acting with the car. It's like she is a teenager again, like her children, her grand kids, worry about hair loss treatment and even the furor over Y2K has never happened.

She literally squealed with glee the first time she showed me her new car!

Actually, I recall MY excitement when I was 17 and my father put-put-puttered into the driveway in a beat up heap he called a car, and handed me the keys.

Men + exasperated Sigh, part two

For another look at what I am talking about, be sure to scroll down and read my post about Micah and the barcode scanner addiction he has.

A few nights ago I wrote on Bluepaintred that my husband was finally going to the doctors to get his foot x-rayed. he fell down the stairs four, FOUR, moths ago, and finally gave in and decided that it should be looked at by a professional.

Yeah.

Why do men DO this? Their obsession with doing things all by themselves, accepting no help, it boggles the mind!

"Naw, I'm not going to stop and ask for directions, it's around here somewhere"
"Hell, I can bag my own groceries twioce as fast as they can"

My husband will sit and moan about a headache, and when I suggest he take and Advil or Tylenol for it, he is all "Nah, it will go away on it's own". Dude. If the pain is bad enough that you have to bug ME about it, take the damn pill!

And this, this is the icing on the "Men!" cake. This is a perfect example of a man who won't accept help:

Nearly ten years ago, my husband was working as a cook in a restaurant in town, Moxies. It was late at night, around ten PM and he was cleaning out the deep fryer at work. There are two sizes of deep fryer there, a big one and a small one, and thus, two sizes of metal rods that are used to push through blockages in the deep fryers. My husband picked up the small sized one and shoved it into the deep fryer. Because it was not the proper size, he shoved his hand, up the the wrist in HOT fry grease.

His co-workers sprayed some stuff for grease burns on his hand, and gave him a bucket of ice to put his hand in. He drove across the street (after telling his co workers, no, I don't need a ride, even though he was driving a stick shift vehicle at the time - those take two hands to drive, by the way) to a medical center.

The medical clinic across the street was closed, and instead of heading tot he nearest hospital, he drove across town to join me and some friends for coffee. We peered into the bucket, and upon seeing the chinks of flesh that had peeled off his hands and fingers floating in the bucket, we insisted he go straight to the hospital emergency room. It took me and two other friends almost half an hour to convince him that he HAD to go.

He had second and third degree burns on his hand, and we had to go back every day for weeks for them to peel more dead skin off, apply cream and re bandage his hand. AND YET, HE WASN'T EVEN GOING TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL~!

Men!

(Now we joke about the incident; "they asked for Chicken fingers, NOT fingers!")

Things a Mom Worries about

This is absolutely NOT a full list. Were I to list fully the things I worry about, I would fill up the entire internet and then some.

I worry a lot about the foods my kids eat. I try my best to make sure they are eating a wide variety of foods, and a healthy assortment of those foods, but it seems that no matter how good I try to feed them I run into problems. Sometimes it is a simple matter of my children not liking the food, other times I switch to product B, from Product A becuase of news reports only to find out that I should have been serving Product C!

I worry about weather a lot. And I mean a LOT. Right now it is cold, cloudy and wet, but soon enough the hot temperatures will come. Then I get to worry about Skin Cancer from the sun, and storms. Storms are a big worry for me. If there is lightning, I cannot sleep. I lay awake, watching the weather channel on mute, reading the alerts on the bottom, ready to grab my boys and run for the basement as soon as the station reports a tornado. Want to know how many tornadoes have hit a town we've lived in, in the ten years that I have been a mom? NONE. and yet, I still stay awake, too scared to sleep.

I worry about the school the boys attend. It is an older school, (although not as old as some of the schools in our district) and it seems that every time I walk the halls to pick up my boys from their respective classes, there is at least one ladder up to the roof, ceiling tiles pulled aside for work to be done. I worry it could be asbestos (Asbestos causes mesothelioma). I know that the chances of that are very slim and that it is most likely a roof leak - especially as the school has been accepting bids for a new root this year. I worry that the teachers won't be able to teach the boys all they need to know academically. I worry about guns, and bullies and girls and ...

I worry about people on the streets taking my children. I worry about them every time they get on their bike, that they may fall. I worry that the trampoline is a cleverly disguised death trap, I WORRY.

I never used to worry. Not until I became a mother.

"But it saves Time"

That's what my husband always says when we go through the self check out at the grocery store.

I disagree.

Both the self check out and the manned check out counter have the same barcode scanner thing-a-ma-do-dad, but the self check out lane also has this scale thing. If the food (or what have you) is moved too slowly or to quickly or even JUST RIGHT, the whole thing shuts down and we then have to wait for a cashier to come figure out why the machine is having a hissy fit.

(and don;t even get me started on how my husband bags the freaking groceries! I have bought 937598723895 MILLION of those reusable grocery bags and we bring them ALL in when we go grocery shopping. there is NO excuse for putting bananas with shampoo and toilet bowl cleaner, canned goods on top of eggs. NONE)

Every time we go shopping we end up having the same argument. he want's to use the self check out, I want to go through a manned line, and every time, he gets a stubborn look on his face, I can almost SEE his little foot stomping like a two year old, and we go through the self check out. I then have to re-bag every single thing he tries to pack, and place them in the cart while he is arguing with the cashier who has come to unfreeze the machine that he "was doing it right and the machine must be broken".

Hubs has suggested we time it. One week go through the self, one week, go through the manned. It's obvious to me this won't work becuase we don't buy the same things or amount of things each time, and even if it DID save time, the manned line saves my SANITY and whats time when a mind is at stake?

On hopes and dreams

Most nights while I lay in my bed waiting for sleep to claim me, I make plans. Some are small. I make plans to work out. I make plans to say NO to the cheezies that call my name round two in the afternoon. Some plans are big. I make plans on how we will dig up the grass in the backyard and lay the patio stones we have still not bought. I make plans about renting a specialized machine to flatten the ground to make the laying of the stones easier.

I make plans, big or small all the time.

Invariably, my plans never come to fruition.

My plans for working out this morning were dashed by the site of a small boy on the couch complaining of a tummy upset, and wanting to watch cartoons while curled up with his puppy. I end up listening to the drone of cartoon voices while dreaming about a quick fix to my tummy - like a Slimquick Cleanse.

My plans for the back yard are still more of a dream than a plan now that i know that the paving stones will cost over 100.00 just for the stones.

It doesn't matter though, becuase when I lay in bed tonight I will still plan and dream and wish and hope, and on the morrow, whether they come to life, or fade into the past, my dream, my hopes, it is what keeps me going.

It is what keeps us all going, I think.

As Promised!

Please head over to Where Was I? for pictures of the completed PupCakes!

Dogs who are all bite and no Bark

The pictures you see was taken for this blog post.

The Westie cupcakes on the cover are my project for tonight/tomorrow morning. My dad's birthday is today (May second) and we are heading down to help him celebrate tomorrow.

I've already got the cupcakes made, and cooling on the counter. For this recipe, you need to make regular size cupcakes and small mini cupcakes. I was going to make them up entirely tonight but have now decided to wait to decorate them until the morning seeing as the nose and ears are marshmallow. the very last thing I want is to bite into a cupcake as nummy and diet pill inducing as this and fine rock hard, stale marshmallows in my mouth!

I sure hope they turn out OK, and will be sure to post pictures after they are done!