Winter Pants!

Well it is official!  I fit into my winter pants!  It’s never a goal I have but every year I manage to accomplish it.  The stinky part is, I will probably fit into them until Spring.  March will roll around and I will start getting busier outside and spend less time in the house and in the kitchen.  I won’t crave the warm comfort foods of winter and will instead be craving the fresh vegetables from the garden. By June I should be able to get into my Summer Pants (maybe)!  Then the cool Fall weather will start and without even trying I will start working on getting into my winter pants again!  Do you see a viscous circle? 

The growing into the winter pants is usually accompanied by my addiction to fudge during the Holidays.  I usually make my first pan of fudge for Thanksgiving.  The second pan gets made the first week of December for whatever reason: company coming, a school function or just because I feel like it.  Then usually by the 15^th of December we will have made one if not two more, this depends on how many people we decide to give gift baskets of baked goods to.  And if necessary I may make a couple different flavors. Cherry fudge topped with chocolate is one of my favorites!  When Christmas rolls around so does another pan of fudge, and if that one gets eaten by New Years, we just have to make one more. 

By the first of the year I’m contemplating checking into some sort of fudge rehab center.   Really if they have drug and alcohol rehab centers, it only makes since they would have one for fudge.  It’s just as addicting and can have devastating effects.  When the pan is close to empty I start hording it.  I tell the kids that it’s all gone so I don’t have to share, or wait until nobody is around to eat it.  If nobody sees you eat it, did you really eat it?  As soon as the pan is empty, I try to not think about it. I tell myself I don’t need it, and nothing else I eat fills the void left by the missing fudge.  I will start to get a headache, I start to get the shakes and become really, really crabby! I wander aimlessly around the kitchen looking for something to satisfy my craving, but alas nothing but fudge will work. 

My only hope is to run out of marshmallow cream or evaporated milk.  Since the closest grocery store is at least 30 miles away I stand a chance at kicking this addiction.  I mean who really drives 30 miles for marshmallow cream?  People do crazy things for their drugs, but thank the lord, I’m too tight to drive that far for the sake of a pan of fudge.   My WONDERFUL mother in-law gave me a Keurig coffee maker for Christmas.  Nothing goes better with a cup of coffee than fudge.  So for the last week, I’ve done nothing but drink coffee and eat fudge.  When the fun of making cups of coffee at the drop of the hat and the last piece of fudge wears off, this could get ugly! I am still working on the last half of the pan from Christmas, and New Year’s Eve is only a couple of days away.  So until then, my family is oblivious to the ticking time bomb they are living with.

I had plans for kicking this year’s addiction with the new treadmill I was going to get for Christmas, and dates with Jillian Michaels.  I can still hook up with Jillian Michaels, when she doesn’t tick me off for trying to kill me. However my plans for a new treadmill fell through.  For months before Christmas I told the girls to tell The Husband that I wanted a new treadmill for Christmas. The one I have was a pretty cheap one to begin with, it’s duct taped together, I can’t read the screen anymore and the motor and belt make so much noise I can’t hear the TV over the top of it. TB told me “Dad doesn’t have that kind of money, Mom.” When I mentioned that they suggest it to their dad.  One day on the way to the bus, BR was putting a bug in Dad’s ear about what he should get me for Christmas.  TB pipes up in the back seat, and says “Don’t worry Dad, I already told mom you don’t have that kind of money!”  So needless to say I didn’t get the treadmill I had hoped for.  The husband said I didn’t ask for anything realistic…I’m not sure what’s not realistic about a new treadmill.  It’s not like I asked for the new body I wish I had after having 5 kids, now that would’ve been “not realistic.”

 I guess I will just have to annoy the crap out of my husband with the old treadmill enough to get a new one.  Maybe I should run on it while he’s trying to watch football.  Nothing says “I love you” like a little payback paired with a New Year’s diet.  

Wishing everybody a Happy New Year and here’s to fitting into your “Summer Pants” before summer!

Unwrapping a Secret

Secrets are so hard to keep!  TB stinks at keeping a secret, plain and simple.  Great Grandpa used to say he loved when Tessa would come to visit because she was like a little newspaper.  She loved to tell Great Grandpa what everybody was up to around the ranch.  TB also has a memory like a steel trap.  So when she tells a story she rarely forgets a detail.  TB also gets very excited about the stories she tells and often spits them out as fast as she can.  The trick is to follow along fast enough to get what she’s telling you.

If you tell TB something is a secret, that’s almost worse.  It’s made more difficult by the fact that she remembers every detail, and loves to share stories.  I have said, “Now don’t tell Dad what we did today, it’s a surprise.”  She will sit down at the supper table and without a second thought tell him every last detail of what we did.  Nothing is a secret.  I would love to be a fly on the wall at school.  I sometimes wonder what details about our family life have been shared at school.  Or maybe I don’t want to know!

When The Husband and I found out we were expecting baby #5 we (or maybe I) didn’t want to tell everybody right away.  We knew that if we spilled the beans to the kids, TB would never ever be able to keep it quiet until we were ready to tell.  So we opted not to tell the kids for a while.  We were right.  We sprung the news on the kids at supper one evening and that was all we had to do to get the news out.  Taking an ad out in the local newspaper wouldn’t have been nearly as effective.  I picked the girls up from school the next afternoon, I hadn’t even pulled out of school parking lot and my phone was already ringing asking if the news was true.  It probably doesn’t help that we live in a really small tight knit community, and news about a family having the FIFTH baby is big news.  And BIG news travels fast, really fast!  The Husband and I’s phones rang off the hook with people calling for conformation for the next 3 days, and Facebook was on fire!  The funny thing is, The Husband and I never told a sole, just the kids!  

I don’t know how many times that TB has spilled the beans at Christmas.  It doesn’t help that The Husband is a big kid at Christmas too.  He loves to try to find out what his gift is, I don’t know if I have ever really surprised him.  Somehow he always finds out.  His favorite source of information is my little open book, TB.  He starts out nonchalantly asking all of them questions. They have all been given coached answers, because the coach knows his play book.  They hold out as long as they can! Then out of the blue he trips them up and the cat is out of the bag.  There is a pretty good chance that TB was the one duped.

This year was no exception.  I had even contemplated not letting the kids help wrap his gift.  Part of the love that goes into a gift is the wrapping of the gift. It’s not really fair to deprive the girls of that joy, just because their father will want to find out what the gift is.  There is also joy in seeing someone’s face as they open the gift you gave them.  I always figured he was the one ruining his own surprise and if it didn’t bother him it shouldn’t bother me.  So all 5 girls helped me wrap up the gift, and they so proudly put it under the tree, just knowing that dad would be so surprised.

So tickled about their recently wrapped gifts, they sit down to supper that night and tales of wrapping gifts ensued.  It isn’t long at all before dad has them “wrapped” around his little finger.  They are chattering on and on about what they wrapped for classmates, 4-H members, teachers and friends.  I can see the writing on the wall. He casually starts asking if they wrapped one for him.  Of course 4 little mouths answered “Yes!” as quickly as they could.  (The 5^th one would have piped up if she could’ve.)  I can see an almost devilish smile cross The Husband’s face like, “GAME ON!”  The questions started like a firing squad, and my troops took them on just like I had instructed.  One at a time they gave him the prepared answers to his quiz.  Like a clever fox he makes his way around the table, it doesn’t take long to spot the weak link.  He hones in on TB like a magnet.  I remind him that it’s not fair to quiz the girls, that he should just let it go and wait until Christmas gets here… like grown-ups do!  Nope. On goes the inquisition.  So “Is it a shirt?” the fox says to the mouse.  “No!” TB says.  “New boots?” he asks.  “NO!” she answers again.  “Oh I know! It’s a pair of chaps!”  “Yup!” and then it hits her like a brick, and the look on her face says I just ruined Christmas. 

She started to tear up, so sad that she couldn’t keep the secret.  She says, “Mom, I don’t like to tell a lie.”  I hugged her tight and said “Everything will be alright, If dad wants to spoil his surprise that is up to him.  It’s good to be honest.”

Moral of the story, we don’t have many secrets at this house.  Just ask TB!

Christmas "Spirit"

I’ve been making an attempt to get ready for Christmas.  So much I should be doing, so much not getting done.  So instead of being productive, I’ve chosen to sit down and do this.  Actually the kids get out of school early today and I will have to run to the bus shortly to get them.  So really no point in starting something I know I won’t finish.

So glad I won’t be having Christmas at my house this year, simply haven’t had the time to do a deep cleaning on my house.  That or maybe I just haven’t made an attempt at deep cleaning my house.  Either way a clean house would be so much more fun if somebody else would do it for me.  It actually seemed easier to keep things cleaner when the kids were tiny, now they are big enough to drag lots more stuff out and make even bigger messes.  Yes, they do their fair share of cleaning around here too.  But let’s be honest, their idea of “clean” and my idea of clean are two different things. 

I’ve learned to live with their idea of clean to a certain extent.  To be honest I can’t keep up with everybody.  So sometimes half-assed is better than nothing.  I often have to remind myself when I walk into their bathroom and can’t see myself because they’ve used Commit to clean the mirror; at least they tried to clean it.  When I look at the balls of clothes lying on the coffee table, at least they tried to fold them. Or as I walk across the kitchen floor and step in a big puddle of water, I try to convince myself it’s cleaner than when they started.

 Even though we don’t plan on having Christmas at our house, we do plan on hosting the 4-H Christmas party.  So I still need to spruce up a little bit.  It may be a good idea to fold the pile of laundry looming on the couch. For some reason I think the families in the 4-H club may appreciate having a place to sit, no need for the piles of underwear folded up on the coffee table to be the center of conversation.  At least it would all be clean. We wouldn’t be airing out our dirty laundry! (HA HA HA)

I use to be a stressed out mess during Christmas.  I had this preconceived notion that all “good” moms made and decorated sugar cookies, homemade Christmas tree ornaments and other “crafty” Christmas items.  What I found out is I am not one of THOSE kinds of moms.  I’m not crafty, at all!  I can bake a thing or two, but don’t bake anything that requires being decorated or made to resemble some sort of Christmas character.  (This also includes Birthday cakes!!)  Remember…not crafty, at all!  So why stress about it.  I can admit my short comings, and have resorted to buying bottles of wine for Christmas.  Really who doesn’t love a bottle of wine?  I’d rather have a bottle of wine over a sugar cookie any day! 

In fact, the kids got out of school early yesterday and wanted to do some baking so Santa had some cookies to eat.  It was snowing and cold out so I made a pot of coffee and we started to bake, we even turned on Pandora and listened to “Traditional Christmas Music”.  This was my attempt at getting into the spirit!  After a short time I could see we were going to need something stronger than coffee and Christmas music to get through the baking, and get into the Christmas SPIRIT.  Not 5 minutes in they were at each other’s throats!  Of course each one wants to bake their own kind of cookies, so we can’t just work together and make one or two.  Long story short we made 3 different kinds of cookies and a pan of fudge. When we were finished the counters were covered in powdered sugar, and you could hear the sugar on the floor grinding under your shoes.  All the while I think, “Where did the tradition of leaving cookies for Santa come from?  All Santa really wants is a big glass of wine!”  At least all mom really wants is a big glass of wine! 

I guess the vision of a drunken fat man sneaking into your house through the chimney shouting HO, HO, HO, even if he does leave presents, doesn’t paint the coziest of pictures.  Hey look at it this way at least he would have eight designated drivers. 

Ok so that might not be such a good idea! But please, if really love mom and want to get her something she will appreciate and use for Christmas, all you have to do is wrap up her favorite bottle of wine!  Because if she is a stressed as most of us get, it will make it all OK!

Don't take your dishwasher for granted!

We often take for granted what we have until it’s gone. 

We are very fortunate to have good tasting, clean, spring water.  We are also very lucky that it is gravity fed right here to the place.  We don’t have to rely on a pump to get it here, so when the power goes out we still have water.  This fall that proved to be an invaluable asset!

Among all the things that can go wrong during a cold spell, one of them happened to be we discovered we must have a leak in our water line.  Our water pressure is considerably less than normal since the temperatures dipped into the -20’s.  It could be worse.   We could have no water at all.  One winter we had a frog get in the line, not much water gets past a frog!  And from the remains we found in the filter on the line going into the washing machine, it looks like he wasn’t alone.

Now that we don’t have good water pressure I can’t run my dishwasher!  My dishwasher, along with the washing machine, and dryer are some of the most vital appliances in this house.  Doing dishes by hand 3 times a day for a family of 7 doesn’t leave much room for all of my other bad habits.  So all I have accomplished today is to cook and do dishes and wash a couple loads of laundry.  It’s a good thing Christmas vacation starts in a week, I will have my 4 little dish washers’ home from school to help.  From the eye rolling and sighs of disgust when they are asked to wash dishes, I know how excited they will be to help their mother out with this chore.

About 2 years ago we splurged and bought new front load washer and dryer set.  We went even as far as buying the extended warranty.  Honestly we rarely ever purchase the extended warranty on anything so this was a pure stroke of genius on our part.  About a year into using the new washer it started to leak water out of the detergent dispenser.  I tried all of the trouble shooting tips they provide on the washing machine website to no avail.  So I called the warranty company in hopes that they would send somebody out to look at it.  After talking to several people, and by the end of the week they called to tell me that they had no certified repair men in a 90 mile radius.  I tried to tell them that.  But what do I know?   I am just the customer who lives a 120 miles from the nearest Lowe’s!  In the meantime while they are trying to find a repair man my laundry is starting to pile up, I tried to explain to the lady that I don’t have a washing machine and that there are six of us in this house, on a ranch, 30 miles from the nearest Laundromat, was it possible to look into this with a sense of urgency.  Needless to say there was no urgency. While they were determining what to do about my machine, I needed to wash clothes.  I very well couldn’t load up laundry and drive to town every day to wash clothes.  So we duct taped the soap dispenser shut every time we ran a load.  After leaving me to duct tape my washer shut so it wouldn’t leak for the better part of two weeks, they decided they couldn’t find anybody to fix it and they just replaced it. 

That wasn’t even the kicker of the deal, almost a month later the element in the dryer burned out.  They didn’t need a certified repair man to fix it but managed to take 2 months to order the element.  So from Halloween until almost Christmas we hung laundry for six people all over the house to dry.  My living room looked like a thrift shop.  Had it decided to quit in July, this wouldn’t have been such a big deal, but in November and December, clothes don’t particularly dry well on an outdoor clothes line.  They have a tendency to get a little stiff.

So, today I miss my dishwasher.  I miss loading it, running it and listening to the kids groan when I tell them to unload it and reload it after a meal.  There will be a little consolation tonight, as I will get to listen to them argue over who is doing more work, the one clearing the table, the one washing the dishes, the one drying them, or the one putting them away.  And the one who whines and cries and complains the most will win the grand prize of sweeping the kitchen floor as well.   If nothing else, they are learning team work, cooperation and that just having to clean out the dishwasher isn’t so bad after all.  See there is always a silver lining.

Birthday Parties lead to dirty books, drinking and smoking!

KJ’s Birthday is coming up, she wants to take a couple of friends and go to a movie.  Sounds like a great idea.  I’m all for a movie night even if it’s with a bunch of pre-teens.  I haven’t been to a movie since before we had kids.  I just hope I can sit through a whole movie.  We watch movies here at home once and a while, but I am almost as bad as BR.  Neither one of can sit still.  I have an urge to get up and fold clothes or something, you know, that Mommy ADD! J

Last year at Christmas the first movie in the Hunger Games Series came out on DVD.  KJ begged for this movie, so that’s what she got for Christmas.  She was a little disappointed I think.  A movie is never as good as the book.  She begged and begged to read those books.  I had heard about them, and had heard they were a little bit violent.  Naturally, I thought I should read them first.

I bought the first book for us to read.  It sat on my dresser for months; I was going to read it.  Anytime KJ came into my bedroom and spied the book, she would ask if I had started it.  My answer was always no, soon!  To be honest, it had been years since I actually sat down and read a book, probably since before the kids were born. (Do you see a pattern developing?)  I used to read all of the time, I loved nothing more than a good book.  When I was pregnant with KJ that was all I did was read.

Now 10 years later I hadn’t touched a book, but it’s just like riding a bike, once you get back on it all comes back to you.  I finally sat down and started reading.  The more I read, the less I did.  I was starting to realize why I hadn’t read a book in 10 years.  Back then if I cleaned the house, it stayed that way, now it doesn’t so much!  I had also forgotten how easily I get sucked into a book and the only thing I can do until that book is finished, is read.  Did I mention I was about 7 months pregnant and it was the middle of a hot dry miserable summer? It was almost as if you could watch my house deteriorate around me.  Four children ran amuck, while their pregnant mother sat in a chair next to the AC vent with a book. 

I finished it and KJ begged to read it.  I wasn’t sure if she should, for crying out loud, it’s a story about kids killing kids in a sick twisted government game.  The husband says, “Just let her read it!” Of course he hasn’t read a book since high school, unless it was a manual for a piece of equipment or about a snowmobile.  Long story short she got to read it, then we were both hooked, we both read the whole series.  KJ was in love with the books!  She dressed as Katniss Everdean for Halloween, and made up her own version of the Hunger Games that her and her sisters played out in the tree belt.  So naturally she wanted to watch the movie when it came out.  Being the cheapskate parents that we are however, we made her wait until it came out on DVD and I could buy it on Black Friday.  So guess what movie KJ wants to see for her birthday?  That’s right Catching Fire.

Speaking of Catching Fire, my book reading didn’t stop there!  I was hooked and in a bad way!  RJ was born in August, and the girls used some money they had from selling their bum lamb to buy a kindle.  Now if that wasn’t just the best idea, electronic books.  I spent the next six month sitting in a rocking chair with an infant: reading, breast feeding and drinking coffee.  Could explain why RJ is a Momma’s girl, and why my ass is a little wider than it was before.

I had heard all of the hullabaloo about the 50 Shades of Grey series too.  I had heard it was pretty racy.  I thought it couldn’t be that bad?  Naturally I felt the need to check it out.  So I started the first book, Holy Moly if that didn’t make your toes curl!  While you were reading you felt the need to drink a bottle of wine, and when you were finished you wanted to smoke a cigarette. 

When you started reading this post I was talking about pre-teen birthday parties, and somehow we ended up talking about dirty books, wine and smoking cigarettes.  This is what goes on in my head all day long people!  One crazy thing leads to another!

Big Expectations

I had a conversation with my sister a couple days ago.  Since then I can’t get this out of my head, I will share my thoughts with all of you.  These are my thoughts and opinions and I realize some might not agree, but I’m about to tell it how I see it.  If any of you know ME very well at all, I have lots of opinions, but that’s just it, they are my opinions.   I don’t expect everybody to agree with them.

So the conversation started about what we expect from our kids.  I’ve been told that I expect a lot from mine, but I never thought what I expect is a lot.  I expect my kids to be respectful to adults, to behave in a polite and kind manner.  I expect them to be responsible for themselves and their things.  I also expect them to understand that when we are in public (Wal-Mart, Doctors’ offices etc.)  I expect them to behave differently than we would outside on the playground. I expect them to be honest and trust worthy.  I also expect them to treat others how they would like to be treated. These of course are just the tip of the iceberg.  I could go on, but you get the drift. 

I also expect they are going to slip up.  They are children.  And honestly they have slipped up.  (This is where I get on my soap box now!)  And I am their mother NOT their friend.  My job is to show them where they slipped up and give them a consequence for their behavior.  My job is to raise them into honest, responsible people in the community.  Don’t get me wrong, we have times when we sit down and have one on one mom talks.  My girls know the door is always open to talk to me about things, and we do. 

I don’t believe you should give in and not discipline or not have consequences for bad behavior, just to keep peace.  Yes, I will agree it is no fun to have a screaming 3yr old in Wal-Mart.  I’ve been there and usually with 2 or 3 in tow, and all by myself.  You CAN discipline your children in Wal-Mart.  Lay it out to them before you walk in the door.  I expect this from you, and the consequences for not following the rules are…  Then you just have to follow through!  (Wal-Mart has corners and folding chairs to sit on if you need a place for time-outs, most bathrooms have benches so you can have a seat if it’s going to be a long one!)  And honestly if anybody is judging you about your 3yr olds tantrum, should you really care? NO!  If they are judging you they’ve either forgotten what it is like to have a 3yr old whose sole purpose in life is to be the family tyrant, or they’ve never had children.  It’s your job to be their parent, not their friend and give in to their every whim.  I understand stopping in the middle of a shopping trip for a time-out is a giant pain in the rear.  Personally I would rather nip it in the butt right then.  Then next time we go shopping everybody is aware that mom means what she says! 

When TB was 3yrs old she was terrible!  If you said blue she said green, if you said up she said down.  She was exasperating.  I don’t know how many times that kid told me she didn’t love me anymore.  She didn’t want to get dressed one day and offered to pay me $10,000 to do it for her.  We still go around on occasion, but I have stood my ground and been the bad guy often enough that our locking of horns isn’t so often and not to the death anymore.  She knows I mean business, and I am the mom, I am the one who makes and enforces the rules.

My kids even surprise themselves from time to time.  Doctors’ appointments and shopping are even less fun for them than they are for me.  Sitting quiet and still is not something natural for a child and they know it better than we do.

On a trip to town, we made our monthly trip to Wal-Mart and as usual we had a big list.  Wal-Mart trips take a good amount of time.  So as usual before we get out of the car, I spell it out to them.  Keep your hands to yourself, if you don’t have money to pay for it don’t touch it, no running, yelling, fighting, you stay with me and where I can see you at all times etc. etc.  So we head in, and for the most part I have to say they were very well behaved considering how much fun shopping at Wal-Mart can be.  As we are headed out to the car me pushing one cart and pulling another with 5 kids following.  I tell them how I think things went pretty well, and how they were all very big helpers.  KJ looks at me and says, “Yeah, It actually did go pretty good!”   She was even surprised by how well they could behave.

People would be surprised by how much their children want to live up to your expectations. Expect big things from your kids and your kids will surprise you, they will even surprise themselves.  But don’t forget they are kids and they will slip up too!  You just have to be there to get them back on track.  Even if that means not being the most popular person in the room, they will thank you when they are old enough to realize you were just doing your job.  At least that’s what I hope!!