Rugrats and Dirty Rugs

We don't have a good track record with drinking glasses in this house. It is a given that we will eventually end up with no glasses in the house. We usually have to scrounge around for something to drink in and end up using the coffee cups. At least twice a year, I have to buy new glasses. There are various reasons why it ends up this way. The biggest reason is probably me since the boys don't even drink from them and use plastic cups instead. I have a reputation in our home as being a total clutz. Either my elbow or my fingers come in contact with the unsuspecting object and bam! I end up sweeping the floor. The scenario starts out with me cleaning up the kitchen. As I see the glass begin to fall to the floor, everything slows down to slow motion. My eyes widen, my mouth opens, and out comes a wail. "Noooooo!" is followed by a growl and a banging of the fists on the kitchen counter. I get very upset with myself and the boys know by now to scatter in all d...

Whenever our family goes out in public, we have to keep our fingers crossed. There is always a virus laying in wait for our poor unsuspecting children. This past week, four of us were laid low with the flu. For some odd reason, my husband and Caleb were happily saved from this. My other boys and myself included were not so lucky. My little imp was the first to come down with it and passed it on to me. I couldn't understand how we got sick when there was no apparent sickness going around where we were. As I'm hanging over the toilet wanting to die, I wanted to kill whoever had gone out in public with this virus. Anyway, the same night I received my gift, Justin proceeded to throw up on the couch and then the carpet before he made his way to the bathroom. The next day, as is usually the case, he was very stubborn and refused to sleep it off. By the time evening rolled around, Justin's eyes were bloodshot and droopy. In my flu-induced state, I told him to go to bed....

My favorite channel is the Food Network. I love getting ideas on making yummy food for my family and friends. The only time that I don't really appreciate it is during Halloween. It is chock full of ideas on how to make goulish-looking food or tons of sweets. It pretty much turns my stomach regardless of my pregnancy. Turning perfectly good breadsticks into fingers with long nails, spaghetti into worms, food with eyeballs, etc., totally grosses me out. It might be fun for boys and maybe for some girls, but it will not be something I can bring myself to do. When I was a kid, my mom made green eggs and ham for fun. All she did was put green food coloring in the scrambled eggs, but I couldn't touch them. I couldn't even look at them. Normally, I don't have a weak stomach. I can change my son's dirty diaper without one gag. Food is different for me. It should be something beautiful to look at, delightful to smell, and mouth-watering. Otherwise, it goes in ...

Things I promised myself I would never do: 1) "discipline" my kids. I refuse to use the "s" word in case there is a weirdo out there ready to call the cops on me. I can say, "Why no, officer! I would NEVER do that. Just look at my blog. I said "discipline". That means "time out". Whenever I was spanked as a kid, the only thing I could think of to say to my parents in rebellion was, "I am never going to spank MY kids when I'm a mom!" I usually got a smirk, a quirk of the brow, and an, "Oh, yeah?" 2) eat vegetables. I would come to the dinner table and most often there would be vegetables as part of our meal. It would be a low point in my day to see those vegetables. My parents were adamant about eating every bite off our plate or we weren't allowed to leave the table. Most nights, I would be the last person sitting at the table crying into my plate refusing to eat the nastiness. One day, my tortorous l...

Bigger than some; smaller than others. Almost 36 weeks and counting. I want to shout a big thank you to all of my family and friends for the outrageously generous gifts I received for my 5th baby. This kid is already spoiled and he's not even out yet. I washed all my new baby clothes in Dreft last night and was overwhelmed with the need for him to arrive immediately. He may be two or three weeks in coming, though. I will try not to go insane with the waiting. Here are some pics of the wonderful things I got.

My husband and I have been married for twelve years now. We have had our share of pet peeves about each other, but there is one in particular that has me chuckling lately. For years, I have had a problem with the loud buzzer or extremely loud music that awakens my husband in the dark every morning. It probably wouldn't bother me so much if he didn't press the snooze button ten times. Literally. I'm not exaggerating here. Okay, so maybe it's only five, but you get the point. Now, I do have compassion for my husband. I understand it is very difficult to get up in the dark and get ready for a job that you would like to say "shove it" to. You would think I would remember this compassion early in the morning, but when you are as jealous of your sleep as I am, that compassion flies out the window after the third slap of the snooze button. I'm sure my husband's ears are still ringing over the years of complaints coming from the other side of the bed. "Ju...

Be Thou my Vision, O Lord of my heart; Naught be all else to me, save that thou art. Thou my best Thought, by day or by night, Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light. Be Thou my Wisdom, and Thou my true Word; I ever with Thee and Thou with me, Lord; Thou my great Father, I thy true son; Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one. Be Thou my battle Shield, Sword for the fight; Be Thou my Dignity, Thou my Delight; Thou my soul's Shelter, Thou my high Tower: Raise Thou me heavenward, O Power of my power. Riches I heed not, nor man's empty praise, Thou my Inheritance, now and always: Thou and Thou only, first in my heart, High King of Heaven, my Treasure Thou art. High King of Heaven, my victory won, May I reach Heaven's joys, O bright Heaven's Son! Heart of my own heart, whatever befall, Still be my Vision, O Ruler of all. Words by Mary Elizabeth Byrne *I love the Irish tune to this lovely hymn.

We do not have a very good track record with our pets. Our last guinea pig was ceremoniously dumped in the trash can, the pet fish was belly up when we came back from vacation in July, and the beagle puppy "mysteriously disappeared" a few months ago. The only pet we had left was Leigh and she was forever relegated to the garage after the diaretic episodes at 5 in the morning on two occasions. Now, I do my best to forget that we have an animal living in the vicinity. Growing up, my family had one animal after another in our house and it never bothered me. In fact, I was delighted as a girl would be. I never thought I would grow up to hate having animals in my home, but that turned out to be the case. I adore animals......just not in my house. There is a good reason for this non-welcoming feeling. I am the one who has to clean up after them, feed them, and listen to their noise. I already have four boys to do all that for and now I have to do that for an animal? Some...

They have a termagent for a mother. I have become increasingly irritable lately. I have difficulty sleeping and I feel pressured to get school done every day in order to take time off for this baby to finally GET HERE already. I have done a lot of yelling and that's probably why this baby won't come until he's good and ready. Who wants a mother who yells all the time? He's probably in there thinking, "Take a chill, Mom." I know all of them are thinking that while I'm screaming like a banshee. Lately, I have noticed a peculiar trait in my oldest son that has exasperated me. This week, he left a garbage bag in the garage without putting it in the garbage can. Not putting the garbage in the trash can in the garage is a big no-no in our house because the dang dog is a bad dog when it comes to trash. She had gotten into the bag and the trash was strewn all over the garage. As I am "reprimanding" him for this and telling him he has to clean ...

The crack of chewing gum always drove my mother crazy. Growing up, my siblings and I learned never to crack our gum with our mother in the same room. Whenever I involuntarily cracked my gum, her head would whip around and she would have this crazy look in her eyes. "Spit it out," she would demand and would even hold out her hand if there was nothing available to dispose of the gum. The cracking of gum never really bothered me, but this past Saturday I realized that I do have my own pet peeve and it drove me nearly insane. I have realized for years now that I have a gentleman for a husband. I was thankful for this quality in him never more so than on Saturday. We went to our son's last Soccer game together this past weekend. We sat next to Loudmouth Dad. Yelling his head off was bad enough, but then the man began to spit on the ground. I've seen men do this for years. Ever since I was a teenager and saw teenage boys do this, I was completely disgusted by it....

Take my life, and let it be Consecrated, Lord, to thee, Take my moments and my days; Let them flow in ceaseless praise. Take my hands, and let them move At the impulse of thy love. Take my feet, and let them be Swift and beautiful for thee. Take my voice, and let me sing, Always, only, for my King. Take my lips, and let them be Filled with messages from thee. Take my silver and my gold; Not a mite would I withhold. Take my intellect, and use Every power as thou shalt choose. Take my will, and make it thine; It shall be no longer mine. Take my heart, it is thine own; It shall be thy royal throne. Take my love; my Lord, I pour At thy feet its treasure store. Take myself, and I will be Ever, only, all for thee. Amen. Words by Cecil Frances Alexander Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

My youngest brother's birthday was this week. He is seven years younger than me and my first experience with babies. I'm sure I was the little mother with him in between the big sister moments. He always seemed so little and fragile to me and I guess that's why Justin reminds me of him sometimes. To celebrate my baby brother's birthday in a big way, I'm going to tell a story about him. This is the story that seems to be the one my mother tells of the most about him probably because it was very traumatic for her. Being a mother of boys myself, I totally understand that. This story is prominent in my mind lately and I think you'll know why. When I was little, we lived in a neighborhood where the grocery store and the elementary school were within walking distance. On one particular day, my mother took us on a walk to the grocery store. We got to the store and Mom made her purchases without any problems. As we were leaving, though, that's when disast...

Every morning, Aidan wakes me up by getting into bed with me and proceeds to talk or sing to himself until mama pays attention. This morning, he did exactly that until I finally got up and threw a load of laundry in the washer all the while listening to him trying to tell me something about poop/potty chair while wearing no diaper. As is usually the case, he takes his diaper off now when it feels too tight or uncomfortable then goes looking for another one for mama to put on him. Well, he couldn't find another diaper this morning and decided to do his business anyway. I had visions of poopie on the floor somewhere, so I wasn't very happy. When I came out of the laundry room, I went into the bathroom without much hope of seeing poopie in the potty, but I decided to lift the lid and peek anyway. I was delightfully wrong. The kid had actually gotten up this morning while I was snoozing away, took off his diaper, and proceeded to poop in the potty chair. I was absolutely am...