So, I haven't slept in a good, long while. A few days. Five, maybe six. It's all just one long day at this point. It started with a 3-day migraine. The headache didn't let me sleep, so I took a Motrin PM for a few nights, and that started really weird dreams. Dreams of being eaten by dinosaurs and the cat being kidnapped by drug dealers. Just messed up. They kept me awake every couple of hours, so I'd sleep for a few hours and then be awake for an hour and a half, etc. Then two nights ago, I started waking up every 45 minutes. Even a couple of naps I tried to take were interrupted by strange dreams.
Last night, though, the dream woke me up with a broken heart. I was having a baby, but the nurses and doctors wouldn't let Eric or my mom in the delivery room. When the baby was born, everyone kept calling the baby "Jason" and saying that he was called Jason after his father. I kept screaming, "No! His name is not Jason! My husband is Eric, not Jason!" I kept asking for Eric, but they wouldn't let him in, and then a couple came in, and the nurses gave them my baby. I woke up with a pain in my chest, and I couldn't get back to sleep. It just hurt so badly.
I don't even know where to go from there. I need to sleep.
We are still trying to buy a house and sell our house. Nothing much has come our way. It's at a bit of a standstill, which is fine, because with the kids in school and me in school, it's been a little crazy. Little Man has been doing better in kindergarten. We haven't had any major incidences for a couple of weeks. He just has some trouble with volume control.
Both boys have been acting kind of odd at home, though. Little Man is acting out in ways he hasn't for years. It's been weird, his attitude. He's been really disrespectful and rude to his father, telling him "no" when told to go to time out and even yelling, "Listen to me when I'm talking to you!" at him. We can deal with it. He just gets to stand in the corner longer. Big Man, however, is acting really, really strangely. He's throwing crazy fits, which is not like him at.all. For odd things like spilling his juice. He's breaking down in tears and screaming like his world is over. I really think he's not sleeping well, either. He seems really, really tired. He won't tell me when I ask him (not unusual). He's still doing well in school, though I wonder how he's doing on the friend front. He says he doesn't have any, but he doesn't seem to care. Big Man is a lot more mature (usually) than other children his age, and I think he just can't connect with them. He doesn't care about things like Spiderman or riding his bike like other kids do. Maybe that's our fault. He just hasn't seemed interested in anything we've brought to his attention. He doesn't want to play sports. I'm not sure he has any interests at all. None that he will tell me about, anyway. I try to bring home books about space, skateboarding, Captain Underpants, baseball. He hates it all. I've taken him to the store to pick out toys. He takes 45 minutes to pick out nothing. He's just not interested in anything at all. He probably does genius-level math in his head all day, and we can't see his untapped talent. He has all perfect behavior days at school, a whole month's worth, so I put a computer in his room. It's Net Nannied (by me, because I have to put a password in for him to turn it on), of course, but he seems to be able to learn anything if it's attached to a monitor, so maybe we can see what kinda stuff he's into because that's what he'll look for. I feel like I don't know the Big Man at all, so I don't know how to take his change in behavior. I hope he opens up a little more. I can tell he still doesn't trust me. He asks me sometimes when I'm going to leave. He's just such a serious and complex young man. You get the feeling from him that he hasn't been a child in a long time.
I shoulda got a falcon.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
Airbilbi
What's that mean? I don't know. You don't know. Google doesn't know. It was my "word verification" so that I could post on Leti's blog, U8MyCrayons.
It's the beginning of the second week at school. Hopefully it's better than the last one. Well, Big Man did awesome, of course, because he feels embarrassed when he behaves poorly in public. Heck, he feels embarrassed when he behaves poorly at home. He's so flippin easy. The worst we have to deal with is him telling the Little Man what to do all of the time and the monster that is "I forgot." I promise to you that I am going to ban the word "forgot" from this house. I can't do that. I'm scared of what other "F" words they'll figure out to replace it with.
Oh, man, GO, BIG MONEY!
Sorry. I love these Flo commercials. Hilarious. Also, "you look like a beach angel!" haaaaaahahahahaha
Ok, so, the big problem school wise is, of course, the Little Man. I mentioned last blog that I was concerned that I hadn't been able to modify his behavior enough and that he'd get violent at school. I was concerned that we'd made the wrong decision about allowing him to start kindergarten, even though his preschool teacher felt he wasn't ready. I was positive I could turn his social skills around in time.
I failed. I failed big time. It took a total of five days for my failure to show its face. He had three perfect days Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday he had to move his card because he got two warnings for "talking too loudly." This is expected, as Little Man's volume control when he gets excited is about as good as mine. Still, it wasn't too bad. Friday, the poop hit the things with the stuff, and he did so poorly at school that he got a call home. Eric let me listen to the message. It was so embarrassing. The teacher sounded so frustrated and upset, and I completely understood her frustration. He reverted to the same behaviors that he had with me when I first started staying home with him. He fought with her about using the restroom. He hit her with his lunchbox. He was told he lost his free time because of his behavior, and his response was, "Whatever." She told him to sit still while the other children had their free time. He refused and told her he wasn't going to do anything she said.
*sigh* He's lucky he's as easy to love as his brother. He behaves this way, and you think he's possessed. He goes from zero to terrorist in 0.23 seconds. Then, once he calms down, he turns on the charm big time, and it's easy to forget that you have to follow through on the consequences. The dimples come out, the big blue eyes with the cute wire glasses, the head cocked to the side and the innocent little, "sowwy." What is unfortunate is that he isn't really sorry. He thinks "sorry" means no standing in the corner, or he gets his toys back, or he gets to do what he wanted before he got in trouble. Once he says sorry and still gets a consequence, he goes off again with screaming and fit throwing. Our consequences have been working rather well at home. I rarely deal with fits, and he rarely, RARELY hits me, like once a month if that, where it used to be every day several times a day. The problem is, every authority figure he has, he needs to test them. He needs to be on his worst behavior to see if they mean business, but darn it, HOW LONG DOES HE NEED TO TEST?!? He's been testing mom and grandma forEVER now. WHY is it taking so long for him to see that they mean business?! Is he going to test every new teacher he has for the entire year he has them before he realizes they have consequences? He'll get booted out of school! He hits someone now, and it sucks, but it doesn't really hurt. If he's still hitting by the time he's 15, he's gonna knock someone out and go to jail.
Sometimes I watch Supernanny to remind myself that it's not THAT bad. At least he's not cussing me out or calling me names. Yet.
Let's talk about awesome stuff, instead. Academically, Little Man is doing REMARKABLY well. Now, listen to me when I tell you this. All summer, I worked with the kids on memorizing their address and phone number. How I did this was that I made a template with it written on it, and I had them copy it to memorize it. Dudes. This shit DOES NOT WORK! All summer I had them doing this. For months and months. First day of school rolls around, and I'm all, "What's your phone number?" And they're all, "What you talkin 'bout, Willis? We have a phone?" Well, on Tuesday, Little Man's homework was "practice your phone number." So, I tried a new technique. I present to you:
Giant telephone! I taped this big telephone to the floor and had them both jump from number to number. They knew the number within 3 tries. It took all of 60 seconds for them to learn it. Heck, Big Man learned it backward, too! Months of writing? Failure! Giant telephone? WIN! Except the next morning, at 7:30 a.m., Little Man decided to pick up my phone and try to practice his phone number on it. He couldn't find the number pad on the touch screen, so he just started pushing buttons....and he called and woke up my friend. Sorry, again, Liz! Note to self: Put the telephone in a high place.
Oh, crap! I gotta go get my brakes checked! Ciao! Aloha! Arrividerci! Adios! Uh....whatever goodbye is in French!
It's the beginning of the second week at school. Hopefully it's better than the last one. Well, Big Man did awesome, of course, because he feels embarrassed when he behaves poorly in public. Heck, he feels embarrassed when he behaves poorly at home. He's so flippin easy. The worst we have to deal with is him telling the Little Man what to do all of the time and the monster that is "I forgot." I promise to you that I am going to ban the word "forgot" from this house. I can't do that. I'm scared of what other "F" words they'll figure out to replace it with.
Oh, man, GO, BIG MONEY!
Sorry. I love these Flo commercials. Hilarious. Also, "you look like a beach angel!" haaaaaahahahahaha
Ok, so, the big problem school wise is, of course, the Little Man. I mentioned last blog that I was concerned that I hadn't been able to modify his behavior enough and that he'd get violent at school. I was concerned that we'd made the wrong decision about allowing him to start kindergarten, even though his preschool teacher felt he wasn't ready. I was positive I could turn his social skills around in time.
I failed. I failed big time. It took a total of five days for my failure to show its face. He had three perfect days Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday he had to move his card because he got two warnings for "talking too loudly." This is expected, as Little Man's volume control when he gets excited is about as good as mine. Still, it wasn't too bad. Friday, the poop hit the things with the stuff, and he did so poorly at school that he got a call home. Eric let me listen to the message. It was so embarrassing. The teacher sounded so frustrated and upset, and I completely understood her frustration. He reverted to the same behaviors that he had with me when I first started staying home with him. He fought with her about using the restroom. He hit her with his lunchbox. He was told he lost his free time because of his behavior, and his response was, "Whatever." She told him to sit still while the other children had their free time. He refused and told her he wasn't going to do anything she said.
*sigh* He's lucky he's as easy to love as his brother. He behaves this way, and you think he's possessed. He goes from zero to terrorist in 0.23 seconds. Then, once he calms down, he turns on the charm big time, and it's easy to forget that you have to follow through on the consequences. The dimples come out, the big blue eyes with the cute wire glasses, the head cocked to the side and the innocent little, "sowwy." What is unfortunate is that he isn't really sorry. He thinks "sorry" means no standing in the corner, or he gets his toys back, or he gets to do what he wanted before he got in trouble. Once he says sorry and still gets a consequence, he goes off again with screaming and fit throwing. Our consequences have been working rather well at home. I rarely deal with fits, and he rarely, RARELY hits me, like once a month if that, where it used to be every day several times a day. The problem is, every authority figure he has, he needs to test them. He needs to be on his worst behavior to see if they mean business, but darn it, HOW LONG DOES HE NEED TO TEST?!? He's been testing mom and grandma forEVER now. WHY is it taking so long for him to see that they mean business?! Is he going to test every new teacher he has for the entire year he has them before he realizes they have consequences? He'll get booted out of school! He hits someone now, and it sucks, but it doesn't really hurt. If he's still hitting by the time he's 15, he's gonna knock someone out and go to jail.
Sometimes I watch Supernanny to remind myself that it's not THAT bad. At least he's not cussing me out or calling me names. Yet.
Let's talk about awesome stuff, instead. Academically, Little Man is doing REMARKABLY well. Now, listen to me when I tell you this. All summer, I worked with the kids on memorizing their address and phone number. How I did this was that I made a template with it written on it, and I had them copy it to memorize it. Dudes. This shit DOES NOT WORK! All summer I had them doing this. For months and months. First day of school rolls around, and I'm all, "What's your phone number?" And they're all, "What you talkin 'bout, Willis? We have a phone?" Well, on Tuesday, Little Man's homework was "practice your phone number." So, I tried a new technique. I present to you:
Giant telephone! I taped this big telephone to the floor and had them both jump from number to number. They knew the number within 3 tries. It took all of 60 seconds for them to learn it. Heck, Big Man learned it backward, too! Months of writing? Failure! Giant telephone? WIN! Except the next morning, at 7:30 a.m., Little Man decided to pick up my phone and try to practice his phone number on it. He couldn't find the number pad on the touch screen, so he just started pushing buttons....and he called and woke up my friend. Sorry, again, Liz! Note to self: Put the telephone in a high place.
Oh, crap! I gotta go get my brakes checked! Ciao! Aloha! Arrividerci! Adios! Uh....whatever goodbye is in French!
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
"Terry says the only reason he signed the birth certificate is because he was drunk on moonshine!"
I haven't written a post in a very, very long time. I know that, and I'm sorry, but I will explain it all here in this blog. July was flippin crazy! Eric and I got married and went for a week on our honeymoon, and as soon as we got back, the kids had only 6 days until school started, so we had to get them registered and shopped and get their schedules set, plus re-teaching them all of the rules of the house. Little Man was a bit nuts for the week and back to square one on the testing limits department since he'd spent a week with grandparents. This blog post is probably gonna be long. I'm going to write it in pieces.
Firsty first! WEDDING! Dudes! It was simply amazing. I know most of you read my Facebook and have seen all of the 8804 pictures I've posted, so I'm only going to post a few of my favorites here. First and foremost, I am OFFICIALLY AND LEGALLY a stepmother! (Click pics to make them bigger)
The dudes seemed pretty happy at the wedding. Big Man didn't want to take off his tuxedo. Little Man threw his jacket, vest, tie and shoes off as soon as he finished walking down the aisle. He started undressing before he was even back to his seat! I promise to you that I did not teach him stripping as a life skill.
Ok, ok, I need to back track a little bit to a few days before the wedding. Eric and I hired a photographer that also happens to be a long-time friend of mine, but he lives in Las Vegas. Therefore, our "engagement" photos didn't happen when we got engaged. Rather, they happened two days before the wedding when he flew into the city. We went to Broad Ripple Park to shoot them, and it was just beautiful out there. Even though we took some pictures in a clearing near the pool, and the park itself was blaring loud, inappropriate rap music at high volumes. It was odd. The pool was full of little kids. Anyway, here are some of the shots we got:
Ok, ok, so that's that. It was really a lot of fun. The next day was our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. That was NOT fun. It was really stressful for me. I had no idea what I was doing, but everyone kept asking me what to do during the rehearsal, and then when I made a decision and told someone what I wanted them to do, a dozen people would chime in as to why that was a bad idea, and we should do it their way. It wasn't that their ideas weren't good, because they were, it was just a load of stress on me. There seemed to be constantly more than one person talking to me at all times, so I'd get very confused. Besides, there was a wedding coordinator there for the whole thing. And in the end, we ended up doing exactly what SHE said about every detail, since she was the most experienced one in the room. I wish she hadn't been so quiet and had stepped up to take charge instead of waiting until everyone was done yelling across the room at me and quietly saying, "Karen, I think we should do it this way." I should have just shouted, "Listen up! Do whatever Priscilla tells you to do!" Then I wouldn't have wanted to kick myself in the shins. As it was, the rehearsal nightmare was only an hour and a half out of my life, and it went well in the end, and then it was time for the rehearsal dinner, which was just what the doctor ordered. No fancy, shmancy to-do for us, no, sir. We just invited the whole entourage over to play in the sprinkler and have a cookout. It was a good time with good family, and it was perfect.
Ok, listen, I just left to go do some errands, and one of them was to the library, and seriously, dudes, w.t.f?!? Has library etiquette completely changed, or is it just my ghetto-ass side of town? I'm unbelievably pissed. That was my only fun activity for the day, and those jerks completely ruined it. Listening to a radio with NO HEADPHONES, several people talking on the phone, and the librarians not doing a dang thing. One lady was arguing on the phone and shouting while sitting at a computer. What kinda....ARG!
Back to regularly scheduled happiness. WEDDING DAY!! Let's just say it was maaagnificent, and here are some pictures. If you can't tell, I'm a damn happy bride. It's been a couple of weeks, and I can say I'm a damn happy wife, as well. I officially had my name changed yesterday (and got a parking ticket in the process, boo).
First off, as I mentioned in a previous blog, we are crazy about action films. We fell in love watching action films together, and we wanted to incorporate that into our wedding in some way, even though we had a formal to-do planned. We got married at a theatre, and the theatre had some poster boxes out front, so we used those, and our friend Stephanie made these for us to put there:
And we had the marquee!
It was really beautiful at night. Here are a couple of pictures of the ceremony. I was very giddy during the whole thing and giggling, etc.
On another note, I have a double chin, and I hate it. When did my face get fat? I do not know. The rest of me is not fat. I read that chewing gum can help it, but 1) I hate chewing gum, and 2) isn't chewing what got me into this predicament in the first place? Oooh, I need to go clean the kitchen for the only time today. More on that later.
We went to Key West on our honeymoon! We were totally nerdalicious on it, too, and did a ton of geocaching. (Geocaching.com, check it out) We flew into Ft. Lauderdale and drove down to the Keys, and just had a good road trip together. Eric and I travel very well together. There was a drawbridge going up on the way there, and that was pretty cool, and then a ship flying pirate flags went under it. Our first few days at our hotel were awesome. I think we were the only ones there. It was seriously relaxing and exactly what we needed. We did a lot of walking and bike riding and lying by the pool and watching movies and just not having a care in the world...until Thursday haha. The hotel filled up on Thursday. Key West is a party town, which we didn't exactly know much about when we chose our location. That's really not our style. Our hotel was on the "quiet" end of Duval St., but even so, it had its own piano bar, which was right outside of our hotel room, and very, VERY loud until late at night. We didn't sleep well on Thursday, Friday or Saturday, and we had to leave Sunday morning at 5 a.m. to drive up to meet our plane. After the third day of no sleep, we were kind of irritable, though we did have quite a few afternoon naps. When we left there was a naked man outside of our room on the patio. He was still drunk. Not really our scene. We enjoyed ourselves, but we likely won't go back. We did like going somewhere we've never been before, and we went off the beaten path quite a bit, saw some parks and beaches and did some scavenging for geocaching, and then we went parasailing! I was terrified but excited.
I am really scared of the water. I wasn't afraid of going up in the air at all. I'm not afraid of heights, but the boat, dudes, the BOAT! I'm afraid of the ocean; and, furthermore, I don't like to get wet. It's a complete sensory issue. I can't really describe the feeling when water or Kool-Aid or spit or anything liquid touches my skin. I can't tell if it's the getting wet part or the instant cold feeling as the water is drying or what. It's not exactly pain, but I think it triggers the same feelings in my brain. I DO go swimming and take showers, etc., I just have to know that I'm about to get wet and that there's going to be a towel nearby to get myself as dry as possible as quickly as possible. I take very, very quick showers, and I dry off while still standing in the shower still immediately. I just don't like it. So, I was scared to go parasailing, but I'm not going to let this crap stop me from going on new adventures. They promised me they wouldn't let me get wet, and they didn't, which I appreciated. The view was amazingly beautiful. Eric and I got to go up together. Unfortunately, my Dramamine stopped working as we headed up into the air, and by the time we were back on the boat, I was feeling it. I ended up vomiting over the side of the boat in front of ten people :( That was embarrassing. It was still a good experience for us.
Man, this is a long blog entry.
Anyway, we got back home, and a few days later, the kids started school! I was a worry-face, like usual, about the Little Man. We got all of their supplies, and we practiced some more writing and reading and numbers, etc. We got a few new clothes and set up a school day schedule. We weaned the Little Man off of naps and pushed the Big Man's bedtime back an hour, as he was waking up at 5 or 6 a.m. every day. The Sunday before school started (yesterday), I was a wreck. I was worried about the preparation for the Little Man. As I've mentioned before, the Little Man is a challenge. He's much less challenging than he used to be. It's been he and I for so long now, working out the kinks in our relationship and working on his behavior issues. His preschool teacher had told me that he was academically ready for kindergarten, but socially he wasn't there, yet. I had seen so much improvement between ages 3 and 4-1/2 with him staying home with me and learning with me that I felt confident that by the time kindergarten rolled around, he'd be ready, and I told Eric so. As the days toward kindy crept forward, though, I began to have my doubts, and I started to worry. I was worried that someone would take a toy from him, and he'd hit them or scream at his teacher or not listen, etc. I'm worried that everyone will know how to tie their shoes, and he won't. I was worried that he would hate school. He's been saying he doesn't like school ever since the middle of preschool last year. Both boys flat told me they weren't excited for school to start, and they didn't want to go, and school was boring.
As it was, the first day of school was yesterday. There was some confusion, as we'd gotten in the mail a card that said their bus number, and that's not the bus that picked them up. Apparently there was the same mix up on the way home, because the bus was 30 minutes late, and Big Man said they made him go to the office with a note to fix it because he wanted to go on the right bus, and they kept telling him it was the wrong bus. I was a wreck waiting outside for them for that long. They got home, and Little Man tells me that he's tired of school already, and that two girls on the bus are mean to him. He's got little bullies already :( I asked what he did about it, and luckily, he didn't scream or hit them. Big Man said he told the bus driver on them, and that was that. Score one for the dudes! They sat in a different seat this morning. Furthermore, after Little Man heard that his big brother had stood up for him and taken care of the problem, he began shouting, "I love kindergarten, and I love my friends, and my teacher, too!!" Then the boys both pretended to be teachers, and Little Man kept calling them "Mrs. Little Man and Mrs. Big Man" haha. I'm really happy that my paranoia amounted to nothing so far.
Speaking of....the kids are getting home in an hour, and I've not finished my cleaning that I had planned for the day. Since they go to school, I only have to clean the kitchen once a day! It's a flippin miracle! I usually clean it three times a day at least, if not more. These two can't eat a Hershey's Kiss without somehow making it look like kitchenpocalypse 2011 in there. I have loud music on that has curse words in it, too! And, I watched Maury today, which is where the title of this post came from. Never.again. So much shrieking on that show, I thought the kids were still home. Crazy!
Ok, gotta get to it.
Firsty first! WEDDING! Dudes! It was simply amazing. I know most of you read my Facebook and have seen all of the 8804 pictures I've posted, so I'm only going to post a few of my favorites here. First and foremost, I am OFFICIALLY AND LEGALLY a stepmother! (Click pics to make them bigger)
The dudes seemed pretty happy at the wedding. Big Man didn't want to take off his tuxedo. Little Man threw his jacket, vest, tie and shoes off as soon as he finished walking down the aisle. He started undressing before he was even back to his seat! I promise to you that I did not teach him stripping as a life skill.
Ok, ok, I need to back track a little bit to a few days before the wedding. Eric and I hired a photographer that also happens to be a long-time friend of mine, but he lives in Las Vegas. Therefore, our "engagement" photos didn't happen when we got engaged. Rather, they happened two days before the wedding when he flew into the city. We went to Broad Ripple Park to shoot them, and it was just beautiful out there. Even though we took some pictures in a clearing near the pool, and the park itself was blaring loud, inappropriate rap music at high volumes. It was odd. The pool was full of little kids. Anyway, here are some of the shots we got:
Ok, ok, so that's that. It was really a lot of fun. The next day was our rehearsal and rehearsal dinner. That was NOT fun. It was really stressful for me. I had no idea what I was doing, but everyone kept asking me what to do during the rehearsal, and then when I made a decision and told someone what I wanted them to do, a dozen people would chime in as to why that was a bad idea, and we should do it their way. It wasn't that their ideas weren't good, because they were, it was just a load of stress on me. There seemed to be constantly more than one person talking to me at all times, so I'd get very confused. Besides, there was a wedding coordinator there for the whole thing. And in the end, we ended up doing exactly what SHE said about every detail, since she was the most experienced one in the room. I wish she hadn't been so quiet and had stepped up to take charge instead of waiting until everyone was done yelling across the room at me and quietly saying, "Karen, I think we should do it this way." I should have just shouted, "Listen up! Do whatever Priscilla tells you to do!" Then I wouldn't have wanted to kick myself in the shins. As it was, the rehearsal nightmare was only an hour and a half out of my life, and it went well in the end, and then it was time for the rehearsal dinner, which was just what the doctor ordered. No fancy, shmancy to-do for us, no, sir. We just invited the whole entourage over to play in the sprinkler and have a cookout. It was a good time with good family, and it was perfect.
Ok, listen, I just left to go do some errands, and one of them was to the library, and seriously, dudes, w.t.f?!? Has library etiquette completely changed, or is it just my ghetto-ass side of town? I'm unbelievably pissed. That was my only fun activity for the day, and those jerks completely ruined it. Listening to a radio with NO HEADPHONES, several people talking on the phone, and the librarians not doing a dang thing. One lady was arguing on the phone and shouting while sitting at a computer. What kinda....ARG!
Back to regularly scheduled happiness. WEDDING DAY!! Let's just say it was maaagnificent, and here are some pictures. If you can't tell, I'm a damn happy bride. It's been a couple of weeks, and I can say I'm a damn happy wife, as well. I officially had my name changed yesterday (and got a parking ticket in the process, boo).
First off, as I mentioned in a previous blog, we are crazy about action films. We fell in love watching action films together, and we wanted to incorporate that into our wedding in some way, even though we had a formal to-do planned. We got married at a theatre, and the theatre had some poster boxes out front, so we used those, and our friend Stephanie made these for us to put there:
And we had the marquee!
It was really beautiful at night. Here are a couple of pictures of the ceremony. I was very giddy during the whole thing and giggling, etc.
On another note, I have a double chin, and I hate it. When did my face get fat? I do not know. The rest of me is not fat. I read that chewing gum can help it, but 1) I hate chewing gum, and 2) isn't chewing what got me into this predicament in the first place? Oooh, I need to go clean the kitchen for the only time today. More on that later.
We went to Key West on our honeymoon! We were totally nerdalicious on it, too, and did a ton of geocaching. (Geocaching.com, check it out) We flew into Ft. Lauderdale and drove down to the Keys, and just had a good road trip together. Eric and I travel very well together. There was a drawbridge going up on the way there, and that was pretty cool, and then a ship flying pirate flags went under it. Our first few days at our hotel were awesome. I think we were the only ones there. It was seriously relaxing and exactly what we needed. We did a lot of walking and bike riding and lying by the pool and watching movies and just not having a care in the world...until Thursday haha. The hotel filled up on Thursday. Key West is a party town, which we didn't exactly know much about when we chose our location. That's really not our style. Our hotel was on the "quiet" end of Duval St., but even so, it had its own piano bar, which was right outside of our hotel room, and very, VERY loud until late at night. We didn't sleep well on Thursday, Friday or Saturday, and we had to leave Sunday morning at 5 a.m. to drive up to meet our plane. After the third day of no sleep, we were kind of irritable, though we did have quite a few afternoon naps. When we left there was a naked man outside of our room on the patio. He was still drunk. Not really our scene. We enjoyed ourselves, but we likely won't go back. We did like going somewhere we've never been before, and we went off the beaten path quite a bit, saw some parks and beaches and did some scavenging for geocaching, and then we went parasailing! I was terrified but excited.
I am really scared of the water. I wasn't afraid of going up in the air at all. I'm not afraid of heights, but the boat, dudes, the BOAT! I'm afraid of the ocean; and, furthermore, I don't like to get wet. It's a complete sensory issue. I can't really describe the feeling when water or Kool-Aid or spit or anything liquid touches my skin. I can't tell if it's the getting wet part or the instant cold feeling as the water is drying or what. It's not exactly pain, but I think it triggers the same feelings in my brain. I DO go swimming and take showers, etc., I just have to know that I'm about to get wet and that there's going to be a towel nearby to get myself as dry as possible as quickly as possible. I take very, very quick showers, and I dry off while still standing in the shower still immediately. I just don't like it. So, I was scared to go parasailing, but I'm not going to let this crap stop me from going on new adventures. They promised me they wouldn't let me get wet, and they didn't, which I appreciated. The view was amazingly beautiful. Eric and I got to go up together. Unfortunately, my Dramamine stopped working as we headed up into the air, and by the time we were back on the boat, I was feeling it. I ended up vomiting over the side of the boat in front of ten people :( That was embarrassing. It was still a good experience for us.
Man, this is a long blog entry.
Anyway, we got back home, and a few days later, the kids started school! I was a worry-face, like usual, about the Little Man. We got all of their supplies, and we practiced some more writing and reading and numbers, etc. We got a few new clothes and set up a school day schedule. We weaned the Little Man off of naps and pushed the Big Man's bedtime back an hour, as he was waking up at 5 or 6 a.m. every day. The Sunday before school started (yesterday), I was a wreck. I was worried about the preparation for the Little Man. As I've mentioned before, the Little Man is a challenge. He's much less challenging than he used to be. It's been he and I for so long now, working out the kinks in our relationship and working on his behavior issues. His preschool teacher had told me that he was academically ready for kindergarten, but socially he wasn't there, yet. I had seen so much improvement between ages 3 and 4-1/2 with him staying home with me and learning with me that I felt confident that by the time kindergarten rolled around, he'd be ready, and I told Eric so. As the days toward kindy crept forward, though, I began to have my doubts, and I started to worry. I was worried that someone would take a toy from him, and he'd hit them or scream at his teacher or not listen, etc. I'm worried that everyone will know how to tie their shoes, and he won't. I was worried that he would hate school. He's been saying he doesn't like school ever since the middle of preschool last year. Both boys flat told me they weren't excited for school to start, and they didn't want to go, and school was boring.
As it was, the first day of school was yesterday. There was some confusion, as we'd gotten in the mail a card that said their bus number, and that's not the bus that picked them up. Apparently there was the same mix up on the way home, because the bus was 30 minutes late, and Big Man said they made him go to the office with a note to fix it because he wanted to go on the right bus, and they kept telling him it was the wrong bus. I was a wreck waiting outside for them for that long. They got home, and Little Man tells me that he's tired of school already, and that two girls on the bus are mean to him. He's got little bullies already :( I asked what he did about it, and luckily, he didn't scream or hit them. Big Man said he told the bus driver on them, and that was that. Score one for the dudes! They sat in a different seat this morning. Furthermore, after Little Man heard that his big brother had stood up for him and taken care of the problem, he began shouting, "I love kindergarten, and I love my friends, and my teacher, too!!" Then the boys both pretended to be teachers, and Little Man kept calling them "Mrs. Little Man and Mrs. Big Man" haha. I'm really happy that my paranoia amounted to nothing so far.
Speaking of....the kids are getting home in an hour, and I've not finished my cleaning that I had planned for the day. Since they go to school, I only have to clean the kitchen once a day! It's a flippin miracle! I usually clean it three times a day at least, if not more. These two can't eat a Hershey's Kiss without somehow making it look like kitchenpocalypse 2011 in there. I have loud music on that has curse words in it, too! And, I watched Maury today, which is where the title of this post came from. Never.again. So much shrieking on that show, I thought the kids were still home. Crazy!
Ok, gotta get to it.
