HOOLIGANS!!!

....the definition of the dudes when Indiana is under drought conditions with a heat advisory for nearly the entire summer, and stepmama is great big pregnant.  Drought conditions means no sprinkler or slip n slide.  Heat advisory means no trampoline or digging outside in the dirt or playing tag or hide and seek or even going out for longer than a few minutes at a time.  Pregnancy means no going down the dangerously steep hill to the lake or going to the Children's Museum for hours of walking.  Hence, we are all stuck inside all day every day.

This...it leads to fighting and a LOT of it.  The dudes have separate interests and completely opposite personalities.  The Big Man wants to play video games or watch TV and movies all day.  The Little Man gets bored after 10-15 minutes of screen time.  He prefers running around the basement making noise and playing construction or trains.  Big Man prefers to be alone.  Little Man won't play unless Big Man will play with him.  Therefore, Big Man has perfected the terrible tween "get out of my face" persona, while Little Man has honed his annoying little brother skills to absolute perfection.  After 10-15 minutes of being in the same room together, it begins:

Big Man: OOOOOW!  STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT! OWSTOPIT! STOP! STOP! DON'T YOU DARE! STOP!
Little Man:  *shriiiiek giggle giggle*
Big Man:  O.M.GOSH.WHY.ARE.YOU.*insert yelling tattle here so that he doesn't have to pause his game to get up to tattle and instead yells so that he knows I HEAR the tattle*
Little Man:  *giggle giggle haha*
Big Man: STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!!!! STOP IT! OOOOOOOW! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!  WHY DO YOU KEEP PUSHING ME?  *eyes never leave the TV screen but begins flailing hoping to connect with annoying little brother flesh*
Little Man: OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW!! KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAREN!  HE HIT ME!!!

Abouuuuuuut 452 times a day.  So, I separate them.  And all is quiet.  Until they are bored being alone and try to play together again.  Then, lather, rinse, repeat.  I try to play games with them.  One always accuses the other of cheating, then one will throw the cards or the pieces across the board and declare, "I'm not playing anymore!" and stomp off.  I try to take them out.  Constant complaints.  It's too hot out here.  My feet hurt.  The water's too cold.  I don't care that I had a popsicle before we left the house, I want you to spend money on ice cream now!  The drive is too long.  He's on my side of the car.  He's touching my blanket.  His blanket is touching my leg.  He looked at my car.  He said I cannot pretend that my car is an airplane.

I had to pull over on the side of the road for them to get out of the car and stand in the grass in time out yesterday.  I know it's normal and that it's boredom and that a lot of it is that we just moved and they only have one another to play with until school starts and they make friends at the new school, but for real...I need a bicker break!

They were fighting this morning.  I was chatting with my friend Amanda and told her I needed to make them lunch.  She suggested bread and water because, "if they're going to act like convicts..."

"Here's your bread and water."
"After lunch, I'm going to put you out in the yard with a weight bench and a basketball."
"After rec time, we'll go ahead and tattoo you guys with Mom hearts using a toothpick and an ink pen."
"Craft time will show you how to make a homemade shiv."

Damage Control

I have to go behind the couch in order to open the windows in the house.  I can no longer fit behind the couch.  Generally, I like to shut the AC off and open the windows in the mornings before it gets too hot, and then I'll close them and turn it on when the heat starts showing up.  I was going through the other morning doing this, and I had to get behind the couch.  I didn't fit.  The dudes were on the couch, so I asked them to get up for a second so I could move the couch out an inch or so.  The comments for this were as follows:

Little Man:  Yeah, we have to get up because Karen's body is so fat.
Big Man:  (attempting damage control)  No!  Her body isn't fat, it's just her belly that is really fat!

Er...it totally is.  I'm at the stage in pregnancy where I don't fit places that I used to and where I'm kinda sore and tired all of the time.  I'm about 28 weeks along and starting to feel like an elephant.  My feet and lower back hurt all of the time, and I feel exhausted if I climb a flight of stairs.  There's heartburn and uncomfortable (non) sleeping.  I'm ready to meet the Bot and cuddle her and love on her.  I have around 2 to 2-1/2 months to go.

I hired a doula!  I'm totally excited about this.  I was really worried about having someone there that can help calm me down.  I'm going for an unmedicated birth.  I don't want to do anything to slow her down coming out, and I REALLY don't want to do anything that would slow down her functioning after birth so that she can breastfeed right away.  I know my family will see me in pain, and as soon as I say, "OMGosh DRUUUUGGGGS!!!" they will not want to see me in pain and demand drugs, too.  A doula will remind me of my birth plan and calm me down a bit to work through it.  Totally excited to the max.

I had other stuff to say in this blog, but the dudes started fighting, and Big Man woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning with a hellacious attitude, so I needed to send him back to bed.  Then Little Man accidentally erased Big Man's Mario game on the Super Nintendo, and Big Man was all of the way to the end castle, so TRAGEDY!  I've been trying to console a crying Big Man and find another Super Nintendo to put in Big Man's room that Little Man can't touch so that this doesn't happen again.

*sigh*  Oooooh, the tribulations of a SAHM.  *hands to forehead.  dramatic sigh.  faint.*

A New Look!

So, the bloggy blog has a new look thanks to my friend, Alex, and her amazing HTML knowledge that reaches much, much further than my own.

What do you think?