shut up Shut Up SHUT UP!!!!

I swear to God, if my kids don't stop trying to one-up each other, I'm going to scream. Ever since school started, this problem has actually been worse than it was during the summer! For instance:

Girl: I have twenty pages of reading to do tonight!
Boy: Well, I have twenty BILLION things to read tonight!!!! I have to read a whole book!
Girl(disgusted): You don't even know what twenty billion is.
Boy: Yes I DO! AND I have more scratches.
Girl: No, look at mine!

and so on. All afternoon. Frequently, they have this conversation on top of one another, in increasing volume, all at the same time, while I first try to stem the tide, and then turn up the radio, and finally demand silence. Sheesh.

Actually, I have noticed that almost all of a child's life is a competition. Even with their friends, much of the conversation seems to center on who did what better, faster, or higher than the other person. It's like the ultimate in Being A Know-it-all.

Come to think of it, I believe that a lot of adults to it, too. I have several friends who are constantly either Poorer Than Thou, More Eco-concerned Than Thou, or, generally, Holier Than Thou. I love these people, and I'm not dogging them at all, because I'm probably Wordier-Than-Thou, or Smellier-Than-Thou, or something. It's just that I always know, if certain topics come up around certain people, that they will be whatever-it-is more than me. I think I do it about dogs, actually, probably, come to think of it.

So, what does this mean? When does it stop? I'm in my mid-thirties, and apparently the need to be seen and heard as an expert on something is still very much alive and kicking. Maybe this will be the beauty of getting older; not caring what other people think, or what they think of me. Maybe when you get old, it comes down to everyone putting on their Depends one leg at a time, and once you're there, everything else kind of comes out in the wash, so to speak.

In the meantime, I want my kids to stop doing it NOW!

Decision

I made a decision on what to do about my SIL, Kathy's, shower. I'm not helping with it in any meaningful way. I just don't feel it in my heart, she'll never notice, or be grateful or ungrateful, either way. My mother-in-law and other SIL, Jen, seem to have the whole thing under control, and since they live 90min from me (but only about 15min from each other), it's hard for me to help, anyway. Plus, Kathy's grown daughter and their tenant (who rents a cottage on the property) want to help out with the decorating, etc, too, so that's four people. They don't need help, so I don't feel guilty about ditching them. My MIL had sent an email telling me they they already had figured out the invitations, and Jen has looked at websites for decorations, etc etc etc, and that she "assumed I'd want to help (?)". I took that opportunity to say that since they have it under control, and I'm so far away, that I didn't see what I could possibly add, but that if they need something specific done, like a list of things to pick up at the party store, to let me know, and that I'll be happy to go early to help set up.

I feel SO GOOD about this. I'm tired of feeling completely unappreciated (another example of this: for Kathy's surprise 40th birthday party five years ago, I spent two hours scrubbing their disgusting, slimy-mold-filled downstairs bathroom, complete with crusted toilet seat, so it would be useable by the guests, only to be told by her later that, oh, they only used the sunken tub in that bathroom for washing the dogs, anyway'), and of being annoyed by it. This way, I can help out if they need me to, but I'm not taking any of the responsibility for doing something for someone who doesn't show any interest in our family, so I won't feel annoyed OR guilty. The past year or so I've been really working on developing relationships with people who are healthy for me to be with, and lengthening the rope on people who aren't. Since Kathy and her husband are family, obviously I can't cut them off, but I'm not going to work anymore to pull them closer, either.

Thank you all so much for your input. It really helped to have other people give me unbiased opinions!!!! I'm so glad I've met you all!

I Didn't Pee Myself, I Swear

This morning, I was awoken at 6:30 by a pretty good thunderstorm. That's unusual here; typically the storms are around 4:30 or so, when the day's heated up and all the moisture has been sucked out of the earth. Today, though, apparently, the earth had been sucked dry early.

Anyway, the booming stopped, and the rain abated enough that we didn't need umbrellas by the time we needed to get into the car for the trip to school. Unfortunately, I had left my minivan windows open last night. The entire front of the van was DRENCHED. Even the little elbow rest on the door had a pool of water in it. CRAP!

I ran into the house and grabbed a plastic trash bag to drape over the seat, so at least my butt would be dry. It felt really nice on the way to school, sitting on a plastic bag. Thank God I didn't get pulled over.

After I dropped off the kids, I went to Starbucks to sit for the first time, since I had a few minutes to kill before Target opened. When I got out, I realized that when I had gotten into the car, my butt had scooted the bag over so my left butt cheek was soaked. The girl behind the counter probably thought I was some caffeine-obsessed freak that hadn't noticed that half her ass was wet, and who obviously needed to put more liquid in her body like a hole in the head. You will all be relieved to know that I was cool with it, didn't worry, and actually did a good jobn at pretending that half my butt is wet ALL the time, no big whoop. I'm not sure what that says about my mental state, actually, since I totally looked like I had peed myself in some strange, colostomy-bag-explosion incident. Also, I forgot to take the bag off the seat so it could dry out a little while I was in there, so I still had to sit on it on the way to Target a half hour later, except this time it kept the moisture from drying on my shorts, as well. Nice.

Happy ending - When I got to Target, the sun had come partly out, and the radio guy was saying that the flood watches had been canceled. Phew, right? I could move the bag AND leave the windows open a little, in some small prayer that the car would not only dry, but not smell like wet-dog-mold for the next week. I went into Target to finish letting mt butt and seat dry. I actually stayed in there a little longer than I probably would have, just to get in that extra drying time.

Except, can you guess?

When I walked out the door, it was pouring cats and camels.

Family Quandries

Here is my quandry. My pregnant SIL, Kathy, is on my nerves, and I need some advice.

I am the kind of person who tries very hard to remember everyone's birthdays, anniversaries, and other major events. If I don't send a gift or card, I call or at least email. If there's an event, we always go, especially if the event is for children (the exception to this is when I was recently in the hospital, I missed my neice's 18th bday shindig). I feel that it's important to be there for people, and show them that I care. If someone is ill, or hurt, I want to know how they are. If there's a new baby, I go see it, giftie in hand for mom and baby. I like doing this. I like being part of a family, after not really growing up in one.

My problem is this: Kathy is not interested in any of this. We get no acknowledgement of events, birthdays, anniversaries, nothing, not even for the kids. I don't expect a gift, but a call or email would be nice. I can count on one hand the number of times she's shown up at a kid's birthday, and my BIL has never once gone. We hear from them so little, and see them so little, that Patrick actually forgets that they are out there; he told me awhile ago when we were talking about how who was related to who in our family that he has one aunt and uncle. When I reminded him that no, he has two, he was mystified. It's not like we live far from these people, either, since they are actually much closer physically to us than my other SIL, Jen, whom I adore and talk to / see often even though she's 90min away, and my MIL who lives near Jen. We would like to visit Kathy and her family, but when we mention that we'd like to stop over, we get told that they'll be doing yard work, or mucking out the pond, or something like that, and we can come over and help if we want. Jen did that, and ended up with raging poison ivy. There's no sitting and visiting - if you want to see them, you have to go and Do Something. Invitations for them to visit us, or other people, are generally declined. They do have friends, and they do hang out with said friends, however, at least on occasion.

So, now there's this pregnancy. And an expected baby shower, which is expected to be given by my SIL, MIL, and I. Initially, it was supposed to be by the end of September, because my IL's will be away in Oct, and Kathy didn't want to be bothered with it in November, because she's due in January and felt that she wouldn't want to deal with anything in her third trimester. Thankfully, that was changed to Nov 2, since there's no way anything like that could be pulled off in the four to six weeks we were initially given. She only wants to register at Walmart because she doesn't want to have to drive to the larger town twenty minutes away to return things. Oh, and it's going to need to be at the firehouse, so the wives of all the guys in the fire dept, plus family and friends can come. When my MIL told her that she needed to call Jen with a guest list, she replied that Jen would have to call her. When Jen did call, she didn't get a return call until today, two weeks later. But we need to get on that, mmm-kay? Never mind that she didn't help out with the shower for her sister's wedding or her baby shower; I did those on my own, and while I loved it, isn't that something a sister should want to do? But we need to get on hers.

On top of all this, I have heard not one word from her the entire time my whole gb situation was going on. Not when I was admitted to the hospital for three days, not before or after the surgery, nothing. That really hurt my feelings. DH went to the ER for a kidney stone. Nada.

So, now the babies will be coming, and I'm feeling like my MIL thinks we're going to go and help out after they're home. Ordinarily, I would be All Over That, because I love babies, but... I'm tired of feeling like I should keep giving and giving and getting nothing back. I honestly don't think they care much about anyone but themselves. I've been in this family for over ten years now, and it's always been this way. DH told me today that he would have stopped being in contact with them long ago if I hadn't been pushing it.

So, what do I do? Do I help out with this shower, buy gifts for said shower and births, help out with babysitting, etc after they're born while the kids are at school once a week or so? As a family, it's the right thing to do. It's what I would do for my friends. Or, do I admit that I'm tired of being one hand clapping, and give it a rest? Stay home? Maybe send a card? I doubt she'd notice. I'm really feeling done.

Can You Feel the Hotness?

Well, I can, and it's swampy, and it's pissing me off!!!! The mercury is DEFINITELY going in the wrong direction, my friends. Seriously, it's over 90 again today. Suck.

So, I hid from the heat at various retail outlets. First, I went to Kincaid's and got these loverly metal accent items for the living room:

these three came together, and look great with the picture


and this matching shelf for our clock is on the opposing wall


Then, I took my bad self over to Joanne's Fabrics. I finally was able to spend as much time as I wanted browsing there, since I had literally no one to deal with and nowhere to be for the first time, so I was there WAAAYYY too long, like probably an hour and a half, but I came away with these beautiful fabrics:

The darker one is going to be the valance for our dining room, and the lighter will be the sheer. Our dining room has been difficult, because we have a persian rug in there that has a lot going on, and is an off color. In the past, I tried to match the blues, and wasn't getting anywhere, so this time it finally occurred to me to just work on pulling out one of the other colors from the pattern. Here's a photo of the fabrics where you can also see the rug, as well as the paint chips for the colors I'm going to use on the walls. I'm thinking about doing the whole bay-window area in the darker color, and then doing the top half lighter and the bottom half the darker color in the rest of the room. What do you think?


Then, because it was on clearance, I also got this. It's hard to tell in a picture, but the fabric is actually dark red, that kind of satiny stuff where at one angle it looks almost black and at another seems bright red. At a later point, I will get some black velvet fabric and make a dress using this as the skirt for Josie for winter. I think it's the cutest thing I've ever seen:


Anyhoo, that's enough for me. I have to think about dinner, because tonight starts soccer practice madness. Yes, poor Patrick has his first practice on a 90 degree day. And poor Mommy and Josie both have to go too, because DH is working a little late tonight. Yuck. Oh, fair Fall, where are you when I need you?!

Kickin' A, No Names Required

I have been TOTALLY kicking a** all day long in this house!!!!! Oh, YEAH, I'm talkin' to YOU, kitchen! And you, mop! You have been officially made my be-och of the day. Hello!

Sometimes I just get on tears, and go house on the house. It's like I do one thing, which leads to another, and another, and pretty soon I'm passed out on the couch from exhaustion. The difference from that and a normal day is that the house is SPARKLING when I'm done. This particular house-housing was brought on by my being required to lay around for several days watching it get messier and messier on top of the already crusted-on base layer of leftover Summer Crud. So, since I was feeling better yesterday, I figured, hey, I'll rearrange the living room furniture so we can all actually sit together rather than the roomier-but-less-comfy arrangement we had before. Well, you know what happened THEN, especially if you have pets. You've got it - the epic battle with the UnderStuff Hair Puppies had begun. Isn't moving large things the grossest?! Couches, chairs, fridges, anything like that, eeeeeyyyooouuuuu. Seriously.

Once I was done, the living room looked WAY better, and everyone loved it when they got home. The problem was, of course, that then the living room looked great, making the rest of the house look like shiite. SO, I began to plot. All evening I stewed on what needed to be done. Then, this morning, I:

- vacuumed the two main levels and stairs
- mopped the floors TWICE on each level, plus the stairs, to make sure that my socks will NOT be brown on bottom again for at least a week
- cleaned the kitchen, removing ALL clutter, washing cabinets, removing stove coils, and scrubbing sink
- rearranged pictures around the house that had been hung wherever they were unpacked so they actually are where they belong now
- cleaned the bathroom upstairs, washed the floor, tub, etc
- moved two window treatments to new locations and reconfigured them so they would hang better (aka, cut little holes so I could make the bunch-up curtain parts hang shorter - they were way too long)
- also walked the dogs
- Febreezed the furniture to get rid of Summer Doggie smell created by a shut-up house with a/c

PHEW!!!!! There's still a lot left to do, but I feel SO much better. Pooped, but better. Sweaty, but better. I'm forcing myself to stop now so I don't end up really, totally exhausted, and also because the kids want chores to do (they only get money if they do chores, and I haven't had a list for a little while, so they've been doing when-I-remember-to-tell-them things, resulting in not much money for them). Today I will make up the chore list. It's harder to think up things that Patrick can do that will be helpful in a way that won't make me want to just redo them myself later to get them right.

I swear I'm not a clean freak normally, but now that I'm in the house all day on my own (!!!!!!), I want to be in a clean house while I do my other things, like making the dress I've been promising Josie for months now, or painting the various rooms that need to be done. It's no fun hanging around in a messy house, and it's really satisfying to clean when it actually STAYS that way for at least a few hours. Once I actually get the place clean, I'm going to try and concentrate on only doing one room/area a day. That will make it so I only spend a short amount of time cleaning each day, and everything will stay at the same base-level of mess/clean. I don't know if that will work or not, so I'll keep you posted.

The Revlon Revelation

Yesterday morning the younger dog, Baci, was going bananas from lack of activity. Usually, both dogs get a long walk every morning and evening, but with my Situation and the heat over the last few days, that hadn't been happening as regularly as usual. This resulted in The Canine Freakout, otherwise known as tucking his tail in and tearing around the bedroom like his a** was on fire, round and round, on the bed, off the bed, chase the tail, on the bed, off the bed, woof woof woof. (Oh, to have the energy of a 18mo dog. Seriously.) I was laying on the bed, scrunched up next t0 the wall, giggling, with Old Man Tyler Dog next to me.

Enter DH, carrying a leash, which was apparently what had spurred on the display of Doggie Joy. Also enter Patrick, who was going to be tagging along on the walk.

Baci leaped on the bed and rolled around, flailing his head and tail, grunting and wagging. As sometimes happens when a Boy is too excited, his, urm.... Lipstick made an appearance. I have no idea why dogs are made that way, with their Thing all Revlon'd out, but GROSS.

Patrick, darling boy that he is, pointed and yelled, 'Hey!!! Look at THAT!!!! It's Really Big!!!!!'

They both headed for the stairs. Then, a second later I heard... wait for it.....

'Hey!!! It's even bigger than yours, Daddy!!!''

and the front door slammed shut!!!!!

It's a wonder they didn't have to take me back to the ER, because I was laughing so hard it's a wonder I didn't split open all my stitches!!!!!!!!