How Thomas the Tank Engine Almost Ruined Christmas

My 2 year old is OBSESSED with Thomas. It's like that train is a little crack rock and my son needs his fix. I took my boys Christmas shopping for their dad and to buy some little outfits to wear at their grandparent's house for Christmas dinner. As I am trying to find something in the sorry excuse the stores call a "Toddler Boys"aisle my little Remy sees toys (because stores like TJ Maxx and Marshalls are out to sabotage a mother's day by placing toys next to kid's clothes while their employees stare at you like YOUR fault you can't control your offspring) and immediately starts to scream "Thomas!!!!" at me and cry loudly. I try to tell him sweetly that A) Santa is going to bring Thomas if he is "nice" B) there aren't any Thomas toys there right now C) stop crying right now or you will have a time out in the car. None of these worked as he couldn't hear me over his screams. On top of that, his unruly behavior activated my 3 year old who began climbing out of the cart and screaming "I want to walk!". So now I have a chorus of "Thomas, waaaaa!!" and "Mama I want to walk!!!" as other shoppers stare at me like I have shit sprayed all over me. I did the one thing Dr. Spock and any other child "expert" would totally disapprove of, I bribed those two little people right there in the store. I offered candy in exchange for a more peaceful shopping trip. It worked. And my boys looked like this in their new shirts on Christmas day:

Lash & Remy

Thomas' path of destruction did not however end there. My husband, being the preemptive dude that he is took the boys shopping after their nap on Christmas Eve. He needed to get me a few things and wanted the boys to pick gifts for me. With sweet pictures of our little guys carefully selecting gifts of love for their mama dancing in his head my husband headed out into the war zone that was Christmas Eve shopping. Evidently the minute he hit Victoria's Secret Remy started in with his Thomas rampage. He yells his crack rock's name while crying and screaming. He didn't give a damn that Thomas the Tank Engine didn't even exist at Victoria's Secret. Surrounded by underwear, bras, and pajamas my baby wanted his Thomas. My husband high tailed it out of there because the sales girls were being rude in the first place and my son's tantrum was not helping the situation. His next stop was the Juicy Couture store where he hoped all would be better (so brave and optimistic). As my husband was shopping with his favorite salesperson my youngest started with the Thomas crap. A nice sales girl offered him a sticker in an attempt to be helpful (which is more than I can say for those bitches at Victoria's Secret). Evidently this kindness just set his tantrum into overdrive and he proceeded to obliterate a display with his foot. I am glad I was not there or I would have acted like I didn't know the child using the nice Juicy display as a soccer ball. Thankfully this ill fated shopping trip ended with some great gifts for me but has left a sour taste in my husband's mouth for shopping solo with Remy.

Thomas tragedies aside, Christmas turned out great. We had a great morning opening gifts:

We spent the evening with my husband's family which was wonderful and fun:

(Good times but Remy and I were exhausted by the end of the night)

I fully enjoyed my holiday but would like to take that little train and run it over in the street with my Yukon. I fear though that if I tried this my son would have withdrawls and have to enter rehab at the tender age of 2 which probably wouldn't look good. Maybe I will get my revenge in a few years if he outgrows this.

A Break From the Monotony

As a follow up to yesterday's bitch fest about cleaning I forgot to disclose that I don't have to clean the first floor of my house this week because we are in the middle of remodeling our kitchen leaving our kitchen and dining room to look like this:



Dining (all kitchen items piled here)

Kitchen(cupboards are going in and granite being cut)

This is where my sink,dishwasher,and trash compactor will go

Though these are only two of the three areas downstairs I am considering the mess and clutter my excuse to ignore the living room as well. I am keeping the bathroom clean since the construction workers are using it but other than that I am free!!! No dishes, no vacuum, no dusting (sawdust everywhere anyway), and no vacuum. I am also granted a reprieve from laundry since our water softener is disconnected while the sink is gone. There's no water to my washing machine!! A bit inconvenient but we have enough to wear (if you don't mind holes and grease stains). I feel liberated. We are spending a fortune in eating out though so I hope my Utopia ends by this weekend the way it is scheduled to. For now though, I am kicking back and enjoying my big break. Check back soon as I will be posting pics of my new kitchen when it's done.

Merry Christmas!!!!

Adventures In Monotony

I waste a lot of time wondering how I waste so much time and why I feel so overwhelmed. It’s not like my duties as housewife change every two days, but I still couldn't’t figure out why nothing was getting done. Then, I figured it out. I feel overwhelmed which leads to me doing nothing at all because I am the queen of avoidance. Though my job activities are fairly simple they become overwhelming because they never feel done. When I taught I had the ability to feel accomplishment and that I had COMPLETED a task. I could measure this through my students’ grades after a lesson or through finishing a section of a textbook successfully. No matter what I do around this damn house nothing ever feels done. I can (and on occasion do) spend a whole day cleaning and scrubbing and washing only to have my husband and kids screw it up within the first hour of being home. My boys (who lets face it don’t know better yet) get more food on the table during one meal than in their little stomachs, my husband will ash/shave (without rinsing) in the sink I just cleaned, or my dad will make his morning toast without cleaning up the subsequent crumbs. So, after busting my ass I have to go back and clean the same thing within hours of its first scrubbing which I refuse to do because I am not the Merry fucking Maids and housework bores me to the point of tears. It took me so long to figure this out but this is why nothing gets done, because if I can’t feel that sense of accomplishment at least once or twice a week for more than 2 hours I will avoid doing the task. I understand that we live here and that shit happens (both in and out of my children’s diapers) so all I’m asking is that the other adults that live here pick up after themselves the first day or two after they notice I have cleaned. I chose to be a housewife and take care of my family which I don’t mind on a reasonable basis but that does not mean I am an indentured servant or Bill Murray in “Groundhog Day”. I do not wish to clean the sink or toilet twice a day. I prefer to do it like 2 times a week (that may be lazy but that’s the way I roll). Now instead of wasting time wondering how I waste time I am free to waste my time plotting a scheme to extract some assistance from the other residents of my house (bigs and littles).
Hmmmm, looks like I’ll be waking up in Punxsutawney again tomorrow.

**Let me and my few followers know how much help you get around the house by taking my poll in the left sidebar.**

I'm So Sorry

To anyone who actually reads this sorry I haven't posted but I have been busy and uninspired. I rack my brain trying to figure out what to write about and nothing comes to mind. I think this is why I never pursued my dream of becoming a writer, I suffer from extreme writers block too often. I will try to come up with something great in the next few days though. As the honorable Governor Schwarzenegger (hope I spelled it right) used to say "I'll be back".

I Curse Therefore I Reap

As those of you with kids understand the first year is spent in blissful freedom. You can talk about whatever you want however you want because the baby doesn't know the damn difference. Then out of nowhere you have a 3 year old saying "God dammit" when he crashes his bike, calling one of his fellow prisoners at daycare an asshole, or telling you "I always say fuck mama". He perks up when you discuss toys or going out somewhere. To put it simply, you have a mini eavesdropper in your midst and you have to adjust. This seems to happen faster than your mouth and mind are ready for. I try spelling things I don't want my kids to hear to my husband but he's a little slow on the uptake and I end up attempting to whisper it. But 3 year old radar ears picks that up and is instantly all up in the biz. Don't get me wrong, I love that he has learned to understand and process his world. Hell, I'm kinda proud he uses curse words in perfect context (pat on the back for teaching him shit can be used as an exclamation and not just to label what comes out of his ass). The problem is it is socially unacceptable for my 2 year old to exclaim "Holy shit" when the barbeque is on fire no matter how appropriate it is for the situation. I have begun to practice word substitution. My 3 year old has caught on and will assist. He came up with saying "doughnut" for dammit. So now when I curse he calls me on it by saying "Mama don't say shit" or whichever offensive word I've chosen (I've tried to tell him to chastise me by saying we don't say bad words but he insists on repeating whatever word I've used) and I quickly try to come up with a substitute that sounds like the word. Having trouble with quick thinking however I have used "omit" for shit and that didn't quite work. I don't understand why this transition has been difficult, I was a teacher and refrained from cursing in front of my students all year. It's probably because this is my home so my comfort level increases my verbal offenses. Either way I have a couple of mini sailors on my hands and the deprogramming seems to go much slower than the original programming, I'm working at it diligently though. Now to just figure out how to keep up on the substitutions during my husband's Sunday football games.

Black Friday Observation (a little late)

This year for the first time in a long time I ventured out on Black Friday. My husband wanted to look at electronics at Best Buy and we wanted to hit up some of the Toys R Us sales. So we stood in line for an hour and a half at Best Buy to buy a new television. It was uneventful at most. There were several women who didn't even bother to change out of their night attire though it was 9am. Later in the evening we left the kids and went to Toys R Us. Though the store was ransacked that trip was also uneventful, pleasant even. When we got home is when I saw all that we had missed by going out later. News footage showed people standing in huge lines at 5 in the morning. We saw masses running into Targets and Walmarts everywhere. Overweight housewives with no make up and a crazed look in their eyes were caught on surveillance cameras bolting past the shopping cart station toward who knows what. These people had that look of someone who's been stranded on a desert island for months only to be rescued by a Navy ship with a buffet on board. Complete with unkempt hair, pajamas as fashion, and I'm going to guess a lack of oral hygiene. It made me wonder where have we really gone as a society. People so driven by sales they bum rush security guards to buy a navigation device touting 100 dollars off. Does a 10 dollar toaster really mean that much to you? I know we're in a recession and any deal helps, but could you shower and maybe change out of your pajamas before hitting the local super center? Is it too much to ask that everyone enter the store in a mannerly fashion instead of like a heard of cattle who've just been allowed to pasture? I don't know, maybe it's because I am a bitch and don't enjoy shopping like a sardine but Black Friday is not for me. I don't want to experience the masses in their unwashed greed driven stupor. I guess I'm just more of a Cyber Monday girl or I'm just a bitch being judgmental of people who need a deal. Either way I gotta go, my 3 year old just tried to hand me a piece of shit from his diaper putting me in the running for most glamorous among the Black Friday shoppers.