Just the usual

Here's what I really love about my children.  They know how to turn it on for company.  Enter: Parents As Teachers.  My kids perform like the little circus monkey's we all know and love.  Justin is five steps ahead of the game.  He surpasses PAT Jenny's expectations for a child his age.  Writes his name on command, displays his ridiculous vocabulary for a 3 year old, counts, writes, categorizes, follows directions, strings some beads forward/backward/upside down/according to color/shape/size, the list goes on.  Leo meanwhile is working the room too.  Politely hugging on dad and asking nicely for Scooby.  Going downstairs when asked to give Justin his time for PAT.  Then coming back up to tell Jenny all about his "BIG boogie" from his runny nose and then rush off to "go stinky."

But it's all short-lived, my friends.  The little stinkers knew what they were doing.  They were biding their time.  Jenny only stays an hour.  Daddy has to go to work.  They knew they would get me all to themselves in just a few short minutes and stop this charade.  It really must be exhausting for them! 

(as Sofia Petrillo would say) Picture it: Kansas City, MO.  February 7, 2011.  5:00 pm.  All hell breaks loose.  Jenny leaves.  Jeremy starts to put on his boots to leave for work after staying home all day with the sick kids.  Leo starts a coughing fit only to be interrupted by his first of many antibiotic-induced trips to the potty.  I get a call from work about a less than pleasant situation (aren't they all in my line of work??).  Jeremy leaves.  Then a call from my mom who I can't hear over Leo's screams.  I've got Leo pinned down for a breathing treatment for which he is screaming that it is hurting his face... whatever that means.  I have Scooby Doo on TV and turned up to a ridiculous volume so that Leo can hear it over the loud hum of the Nebulizer.  Justin starts flaking out.  He NEEDS juice.  Yes, right this minute.  He MUST have it. 

Leo is done with his treatment and now it's on to Justin.  He does the big 1,2,3 freak out for no apparent reason other than he wants to challenge my authority.  And we all know how much I love that.  It goes over really well. 

Things calm down for a few minutes until Justin wants to play hide and seek....but with a twist.  He has found a new hiding spot (behind the overstuffed chair).  In true oldest child fashion, he bosses me and Leo around.  He tells us...from his hiding spot....to count to 20 and then go look around the whole house...the WHOLE house...and then come look behind the OTHER chair and THEN we can find him and he will say surprise.  Good plan, J.  Too bad Leo is only 2 and can't follow more than 2 commands at once. 

So we count to twenty....well I do.  Leo stops around 14 and just repeats that number until he shouts TWENTY!!  So we look in the dining room.  Spoiler alert: Justin wasn't there.  On to the living room.  We are rounding the couch when Justin pops his head up from his hiding space to demand, once again, that we search the WHOLE house, and THEN behind the other chair, and THEN find him.  I must capitalize those words each time to demonstrate the extreme emphasis that Justin placed on them every time he repeated his instructions. 

So Leo and I venture to the kitchen and the playroom and shockingly Justin is no where to be found.  We make our way back up to the living room where he again begins to talk to us from his hiding spot.  Well whadda ya know?  Leo walks right over to his hiding spot and "finds" him.  This of course causes a complete freak out because......why?  Well, because we didn't look behind the OTHER chair first!  Oh, the drama. 

So every the compliant younger brother.  Leo walks over to look behind the other chain and then back to find Leo.  Whew.  All was resolved. 

But that wasn't the end of this fun night.  Oh, no, no, no it wasn't.  Leo begins about a 30 minute stretch of trips to the potty every 3-4 minutes.  Three days of a steroid and antibiotic have done a number on his system.  A number 2 to be exact.  Each time he insists that his underwear is wet, which it is not, and refuses to put the same pair back on.  He screams in panic when I try to put them back on him which only brings on another coughing fit which brings on more pooping.  And around and around we go. 

So on one of these trips to the bathroom I can see out of the corner of my eye that the living room light is going off and on.  Really?  I don't even have time to chide Justin for playing with the light switch.  But when I get downstairs I find him hiding behind the overstuffed chair pulling the lamp plug in and out of the outlet.  For crying out loud!!!!  I've got one with the runs and one trying to electrocute himself. 

Ahhhhhh motherhood.  I do love it so.  So after dinner, bath, story time, and meds.....all is quiet on the home front.  For now.

Sing us the song you're the Piano Man...

I often look at my boys and wonder what they will be like as teenagers.  Or even worse, pre-teens.  Not so much their attitudes and misbehavior (gasp!).  But rather what those awkward years will be like.  Perhaps because, like most of us, I am still haunted by my awkward teenage years. 

One particular awkward tween moment came back to me today as I drove home during Snowpocolypse 2011.  Billy Joel's Piano Man was on the radio.  It took me back.....back to the good ol' days.  I had the cassette tape.  Oh yes, ma'am, I did.  And I can't ever hear that song without thinking of Mark Hemry. 

I'm going to guess that I was about 13 years old....which in gymanst years is about 10 years old because not only does gymnastics stunt your growth it also stunts your social maturity because you spend every waking moment in a gym instead of doing normal childhood and teenage activities.

Oh, but I was COOOOOL!  Or at least I thought. (I was wrong, btw).  So after I listened to my tape of Piano Man about a million times (you are welcome, mom) I bragged to my sister's boyfriend that I knew all of the words.  Ohhhhh, I know you are all jealous.

Enter one, Mark Hemry.  My older sister's even older boyfriend.....who just so happens to now be my brother-in-law.  Who wouldda thunk it?  So if I was 13, going on 10, I'm guessing Marky was about 17 going on 22. 

So it went something like this:
Me: Hey, Mark.  Want to hear me sing all the words to Piano Man?

Mark: Sure (I have no idea what he must have been thinking but he was throwing me a bone by even entertaining the idea)

Me:  Ok. 
[key up the cassette tape].

Me: Well, it's 12:00 on a Saturday...oh crap I messed up already.

Mark just walked away. 

Ouch, that stings.

Sixteen things I've done today

because I'm sure everyone is sitting around on this cold Sunday morning wondering what I am doing....here's a run down thus far.

1. silently cursed the children for playing with Jeremy's alarm clock
2. loudly cursed the alarm clock when it went off at 5 am
3. laundry
4. watched 10 minutes of 90210.  Poor Dylan.  He had it rough.
5. sent a FB congrats to Jeremy's cousins on their new bundle of joy!!
6. watched the last half of Knocked Up and considered being such....decided against it after the labor scene
7. had a mimosa
8. had some eggs Benedict and lobster bisque among other things at Granite City brunch with my hubby
9. had another mimosa
10. convinced my wonderful and giving husband to pump my gas in 20 degree weather
11. bought some ice melt and threw in a new ice scraper for good measure
12. scheduled a massage on a whim
13. got my eyebrows waxed FINALLY
14. cancelled my massage 10 minutes later after some Dave Ramsey reflection....not like I was following the plan anyway (see #7-9)
15. tried on a sample of some $90 wrinkle creme
16. had a nice long conversation with a great friend

Not bad.  It's only 1:00.  What to do next?

They're Grrrrrreat!

We all mark the important milestones and achievements of our offspring with great pride.  Rolling over, sitting up, first steps, first day of school, all the way through graduations, marriages, and their own kids.  So it with great pride that I announce a first in this house.  A real milestone. 

Justin had a bowl of Frosted Flakes.  That's right folks.  Cereal.  Can I get a WHOO HOO?  I really wanted to take his picture.  His favorite part,  you might be asking?  Ok, you probably aren't asking, but I'm telling anyway.  It was slurping the soy milk from the spoon.  He was fascinated with it. 

It's not that he hasn't had dry cereal before...that in itself was a huge milestone about a year ago.  It was just the actual event of having a bowl of cereal with milk that nearly brought a tear to my eye.  Such a normal childhood experience and here he is 2 months shy of 4 years old and just now experiencing it.  After five trips to the ER with overnight hospital stays in his first year of life, food allergies pretty much ruled the roost in this house.  Slowly but surely we have added pretty much every food except for the dreaded rice.  He generally avoids dairy too. 

Anyway, a successful night of new food in the O'Brien household!  Grrrrreat!

The Queen Mother Tells All

On a cozy December night a few days before Christmas, my little sis and I were treated to a day of cooking family recipes and an evening of family history from Grandma Dorothy...who just happens to be a Queen Mother in her Red Hatter's group (hence the title). I can't say it was a particularly calm night because we had more than our fair share of company. My niece and nephew were spending the night so we had four children ages 7 to 2. Much of their night consisted of "dance party" to fun and funky music in the play room. But upstairs, we were getting a family history lesson.

Here is what I learned:
My great-great grandma's name was Elsie Belle Kelsey. Yup, Elsie Kelsey. And I learned that she was nice. That might not seem like a revelation to most people, but if you knew her daughter you would be surprised. Elsie's daughter, Jeanette, was my great-grandmother. We all knew her as Grandma Net and she, my friends, was a crotchety old woman. God love her and may she rest in peace, but I'm telling ya she was one cranky woman! She couldn't have been more than 5 feet tall and she was NEVER without her headscarf. Honestly, I don't have a single memory of her without her headscarf on...in or outside the house. She couldn't hear worth a darn in the first place and then to put a scarf over her ears....well, to each her own.

I also learned that Grandma Elsie's husband, my Grandpa Brenneman, was a womanizer. GASP! He left his wife, children, and grandchildren (including my Grandma Dorothy), in the late 1930's. But he didn't just leave. He took the mattress with him! Yup, that's right. He took the actual bed that he shared with his wife. And to top it off, the bed frame made a huge scrape down the stairs as he dragged it out of the house. So Grandma Elsie had a constant reminder of his departure every time she went up and down her own stairs! Grandma Elsie ran her farm with her children to survive, but they never did get running water.

Grandpa Brenneman didn't show up again until many years later (1955) on the night before my Grandma Dorothy's wedding. He didn't even know that she was getting married.

So that brings me to the second topic that we learned about that night. Grandma Dorothy's wedding. She and Papa Norm were married in December 1955 in the chapel of the Christian Church. Grandma wore a red skirt/suit and high heels. They only had two people in attendance, Papa Norm's friend and the friends girlfriend. Papa Norm is a bit of an introvert to put it mildly. Not only did he not want anyone to attend, but he wouldn't even let Grandma tell anyone that they were getting married. I am always grateful that he came to my wedding because I know how strongly he dislikes large groups of people. So I'm guessing I don't get my extreme need to be the center of attention from his side!!

The last little tidbit of information that we learned that night was that my Grandma Dorothy was born at the family farmhouse on a cold January day. Her family set her on the oven door to keep her warm and alive. Don't try that at home!

So that was our wonderful day with Grandma Dorothy. Cooking, crafts, family history lesson, and watching the kids have a dance party in the playroom.

Follow me?

Just playing around with my blog format this afternoon. I've worked my butt off all morning cleaning and doing odds and ends that I think I deserve some time to veg out and play on the computer.

I chose this new background because of my love of books! I want a whole library in my house...someday. Ahhhh, yes...someday.

And I'm messing around with some other formatting stuff. Here's what I need, or rather what I want, from my faithful blog followers. I want to try to get to 30 followers in the next 30 days. Figured might as well stick with the 30 theme of the blog and see how it goes.

So we'll see how it goes. Thanks in advance.

Happy New Year

Hap, Hap, Happy New Year!! So many blog thoughts...so little time to put them on "paper." I'm always anxious to see what a new year will bring. Well anxious makes it seem bad. I'm excited actually. I think this will be a good year.

I can't set resolutions. They freak me out. Generally make me feel like a loser because I can't live up to them. I set my sights too high and can't succeed, thus the LOSER feeling.

I have about 150 things I would like to do better all which fall into standard categories of be a better mother, wife, woman, boss, friend, daughter, sister. Ahhhh the list goes on. Shall I? Nope. Stopping myself from that long list.

And now I'm getting anxious just thinking about it. Gotta change subjects. Oh crap. I can't. Now I'm stuck in the thoughts of all the things I need to do better. I never should have started down this track. I KNOW better :)

As I read back, I started this blog with being excited about the new year. Gotta get back to that.

Whew. That was a huge digression that was near catastrophic. Perhaps a New Year's Resolution could be to be less dramatic.....nah, we all know I couldn't follow through on that one either ;).

So, I ask myself: Self, what DO I think will go well for me in 2011? A lot. We are on the track to ol' Dave Ramsey's Debt Free plan despite a November/December spending spree. The boys are getting older and more fun by the minute, if not by the second! Jeremy is DONE, DONE, DONE with paramedic school! YIPPEE!! I have the most excellent group of people to work with who make our difficult work tolerable every day. That's a good start.

Ok. I redeemed myself from my own freak out.

Sigh.