New Candle Lady In Town

Some of you may remember that one of our biggest issues in being a family of five is financially related. Jane doesn’t pay us anything when it comes to the care of the children. She’s not required to based off of their divorce papers.

This is one of the frustrating things for me. I am THE caretaker and provider of the children (in addition to FH of course) yet I just don’t have those legal rights. I’ve learned not to dwell on it because it only further pisses me off when she pulls one of her demand tantrums. Luckily they’re rare and few in a year.

Last year FH tried to pick up a second job, but the hours and the pay just weren’t worth it. And I was going absolutely stir crazy being home with the boys all day during the weekend. In January and February I tried looking for a part-time serving job. I waitressed myself through college and made some pretty decent money. However, when I discovered I was pregnant I knew that waitressing was not in my future.

Enter Partylite Candles. I had hosted a party last year and I had kept in touch with the consultant. My sister in law ended up hosting a party last month and that was when I decided that I ought to try being a candle lady. That and I didn’t have to put any money down on the table to start off so that was a big plus in my book.

So for the last two weeks I’ve been working furiously to get parties scheduled, my personal website up, and take care of my family. All the while making sure I’m taking care of me and our little lady in waiting.

I’m really excited, mainly because I’m hoping this will give me a chance to get out of the house more often. Ever since I started working full time from home I’ve become a sort of hermit. I love work, and when work is in my house I just don’t leave it as often. And I’m hoping that we’ll be able to use the extra income to save up to put a down payment on a house. Because this little two bedroom apartment just isn’t going to hold all six of us for too much longer once the baby is born.

So wish me luck! If you would like to check out the website feel free to contact me (there is an e-mail link on my profile). And now that I’m more settled in I hope to be on more often. 2010 has definitely been a hectic year so far, but I have faith that I’ll get a better grip on it all eventually.

Toilet Bowl Water Games

I don’t know what caused it or influenced it or even brought forth the idea of it. Yesterday afternoon I walked into the kitchen to refill my water bottle when I glanced into the bathroom. And there in front of the toilet bowl stood Younger Boy. His pants partially pulled up, Thomas underwear sticking out, his right arm furiously swirling around inside the toilet bowl water.

Yet this wasn’t what horrified and disgusted me. I interrupted his water play with an “Excuse me?!? What are you doing?!?” He immediately withdrew his hand from the water in the toilet bowl, walked over to the towel that we all use to dry our hands after we wash them, and dried his hands.

That made me a bit sick to my stomach as I considered that maybe this wasn’t the first time the child has stuck his hands in the filthy toilet bowl water and dried them on the same towel the rest of us use. I then chose to believe that this was indeed the first offense.

Younger Boy was then instructed to wash his hands, with soap, a lot of soap. Twice.

I grabbed a paper towel and moved the toilet bowl watered towel to the dirty clothes basket and replaced it with another towel. I have since added an extra towel on the back of the door for my own personal sanity and health.

I then sent Younger Boy off for his nap and grabbed the Lysol can and sprayed anything and everything that one might touch with toilet bowl watered hands.

At dinner last night Younger Boy and I had a conversation.

Me: Younger Boy, should we put our hands in the toilet?
YB: No.
Me: What do we use a toilet for?
YB: To go pee.
Me: And?
YB: And to go poop.
Me: Do we play in the toilet?
YB: No.
Me: Do we put our hands in the toilet?
YB: No.

I’m going to hope that this was the first and last time Younger Boy will participate in the Toilet Bowl Water Games.

Kind of Irked Me

I’m aware that when people say things to me they’re sometimes trying to be encouraging or positive. However, sometimes when people say things to me it really just irks me. I’ve learned to try and view it with a “Don’t take it personal” attitude. It’s not even that I’m all that sensitive, especially as I’m probably the one who generally is offending to others who are used to my blunt and honest disposition on things.

Ever since we found out that I was pregnant there have been little things said to me in terms of “Now you finally get to be a mother.”

Now, I’m aware that I’ve yet to experience childbirth or a baby of my own. I’m fully aware that there is something missing between myself and the boys since I am not their birth mother. However, since moving in I promise I have not totally been denied the experience of being a mother.

It’s mainly my mother-in-law and some other family members who have said such things. It always catches me off guard and I have to really bite my tongue with the response I want to sling out.

For example, a month or two ago my mother-in-law told me that I’ll finally get to celebrate my first real Mother’s Day. It really irked me. I’m aware she meant it as a mother who has given birth to a child of my own. However, I’ve celebrated a real Mother’s Day. I got the homemade card that was made at school and I swallowed the tears and joy that came with it. I’ve had the opportunity of being able to help see a child excel and grow both physically and intellectually. It’s amazing…that joy and pride you feel when you see a child growing and you know you had something to do with that.

It’s just become kind of obvious to me that now that I’m pregnant with a child that some people have this view that now I’m a real mother. Thank goodness for people like my own mother and sister who realize that I was already a mother before I got pregnant. Not that I need anyone else to validate my worth as a stepmother to the boys, but it’s nice to be recognized. It’s also nice to have family members that treat your new family as if they’ve always been there and not like a stranger still feeling their ways around the formalities.

As I mentioned, I’ve taken to the attitude to not take it personally and to just go with the flow. But I guess it’s just one of those things that stepmoms get to deal with.

It kind of goes with the frustration of wanting to scream out “You try diving in to an already made family, learning to spend all of your paycheck, time and effort on three kids that aren’t yours and you tell me how sane and appreciated you feel!” Maybe I can put that on a giant wine goblet for those rough days.

Baby Update: Going on 19 weeks on Wednesday. Everything in the ultrasound looked good. Good heart beat, all four heart chambers developed, all the good stuff. Now that we know it’s a girl we’re all really excited. My aunt had already started buying girl stuff before we found out so we informed her that she could be at ease that she was right.

Sugar and Spice

And Everything Nice.

It's a GIRL!!!!

The Three Faces of Younger Boy

Younger Boy is now 4 years old. For most of you who have followed me from the beginning you know that Younger Boy and I have come a long way together from being the ripe age of 2-years-old-in-diapers to the 4-year-old-potty-trained-letter-loving kid he is now. One thing that I’ve always found frustrating is his behavior when he’s with me, or FH and the boys, or when he’s coming home from being with Jane. It drives me absolutely batty.

Face One – Me and Him

When it’s just me and him he’s this active, happy, calm, fun-loving kiddo. He listens, he has amazing manners, and he’s adventurous and enjoys trying something new – or at least is willing to try something new.

Face Two – When Dad and the Brothers Come Home

He kind of turns into a big mean butt-head. He finds the need to defend himself against Middle Boy, whether or not Middle Boy is antagonizing him. He starts doing things he known he’s not supposed to do (probably because Older Boy seems to think that if he’s doing something with Younger Boy it will be OK even though it never seems to be.) He gets cranky and rude more often. He may or may not be willing to try something new.

Face Three – Coming Home from being with Jane and Jolie

He’s a baby. He can’t do anything himself. He has no manners whatsoever. He doesn’t want to do anything. He gets whiney and starts sniffling and crying at everything.

I bring this up because I really really hoped that as he got closer to being 5-years-old and wanting to start Kindergarten he would perhaps leave some of this negative behavior behind. However, I’m now seeing the light of day. As long as Jane and Jolie baby him and treat him like a baby instead of a big boy he’s going to revert back to the behaviors of his 2-year-old days.

I guess this is me hoping that eventually as he gets even older he’ll at least start to realize that bringing that behavior back home with him isn’t going to fly. Middle Boy learned that last year. He was in the middle of saying something rather not OK and he looked at the look on my face (the raised eyebrow) and realized who he was talking to. This was followed by the “Oh shit that’s not going to work on Crys” look on his face and from then on he left that version of himself at Jane’s. One can always hope, right? All I know is that consistency in my behavior works. So I’m not giving up all hope.

Baby Update: Today I’m at 17 weeks. My mom took me out shopping for some maternity clothes because my clothes just weren’t fitting anymore. The problem is that we bought some of them a size bigger than I needed in anticipation of how big I will grow. But, it’s nice to at least be able to fit inside of a pair of pants, even if I’m tugging on them now and then compared to not being able to squeeze into them.

Accomplishing the Kindergarten Checklist

I picked up the Kindergarten Registration packet for Younger Boy and in it was a page that has a list of things that “They would like him or her to know” before your child enters school in the fall.

Younger Boy can do quite a bit of them already. He knows his colors, he knows common shapes, he knows common fruits and vegetables, he knows common animal names and he’s pretty good at knowing his different body parts. Although he’s having some trouble remembering his shoulder but that’s not a high concern on my list.

They also would like him to be able to count up to 10 objects. So I plopped down a handful of mini marshmallows in front of him. He got up to 19 because that’s all that was there. I didn’t want to give him too many because the rule is if you touch it you eat it.

Some of the things on there that I thought was a little silly was the ability to cut on a line, color inside the lines and string beads or macaroni. I figure he’ll strengthen on these on his own as he gets into his Kindergarten groove. Besides, I know people my age who have trouble coloring inside the lines. I’m not going to expect a 4-year-old to have mastered that feat just yet.

The one big thing I have been working with him on is writing. He, of course, wants to hold the pencil/pen wrong. So we’ve been trying to work daily on writing the letters and how to hold the pencil. I bought a wipe-off work book for Middle Boy when he was learning to write his letters so I’ve been using that with Younger Boy. He’s gotten pretty good at it.

I’ve also been working with him on how to spell his name. We started off using the letter magnets on the refrigerator. And this past Friday was my mom’s birthday so I thought it would be a good idea to have him practice writing his name by signing the card himself. I copied his name down on a piece of paper and had him copy the letters. He sat there and struggled a little bit. But he managed to get the letters onto the card. They were somewhat legible, different sizes, and his s was backwards. But you could read it and know whose name it was.

Yesterday I had FH sit down to work on some of these Kindergarten feats with him. He had a pencil in hand and a big piece of paper. I asked Younger Boy to practice writing his name. I also asked FH to go grab the piece of paper so he could copy it down for him. Well, low and behold, by the time FH walked over from the desk to the table Younger Boy had printed out his name if very legible letters.

FH and I looked at each other quite astonished, and proud. Younger Boy looked at me and smiled. I could swear his had a “You silly fool. Of course I can write my name” look on his face.

Baby Update: I'll be going on 17 weeks on Wednesday. We heard the heartbeat again and it's still going strong. I'm waiting for the next ultrasound on April 29th. It's the big one where I have to drink 5 1/2 glasses of water an hour and a half before so they can look for birth defects and what not. We're hoping the baby will let us know what he or she is. Please think *Girl* for me because I sure could use another female in this house of boys. Especially considering even the cat is a male.

I’m Here! I’m Here!

I realized today that it has been weeks since I’ve updated. I finally have a break so here I am with a rambling update.

Can I tell you that having a very sick FH in bed while I tend to the house chores that he usually does, taking care of the boys and trying to grow a baby are all very exhausting when done at the same time. I think last week has by far been the longest week ever.

It all started last Saturday when Older Boy had his first ever slumber party to celebrate his 10th birthday. I learned that I have no idea what 10-year-old boys enjoy doing to entertain themselves. Apparently video games, board games and movies did just fine though.

I also learned that apparently it’s at 10 years of age that the infamous and indifferent “I Don’t Care” and “I Don’t Know” start to show their ugly heads. I noticed Older Boy started with the “I Don’t Care” probably about two weeks or so ago. I had to think back to when “I Don’t Care” reared it’s ugly head when I was younger. It was about this age.

And my thoughts were confirmed by all three of the 4th grade boys that came to our house.

The smart thing we did was send Middle Boy and Younger Boy to my parents’ house. The dumb thing we did was actually expect the fourth graders to keep somewhat quiet when it got too late. I was awoken around 1am by high pitched giggling. Luckily FH got to be the parent that got up and told them to go to bed. Thank goodness because I was exhausted and cranky and likely to snap.

Then FH got a nasty, painful, energy zapping sinus infection. Luckily we got him some antibiotics; unluckily it was almost a week later (this last Saturday) so we both got drained – He from his illness and I from trying to do everything while pregnant.

I am currently being rewarded though. FH and the boys are off camping this week. That means that Nasty Cat and I have the house to ourselves. The quiet is nice and I’ve been able to sleep and relax. Although I do miss them, it’s really nice to get some time to myself to recharge and catch up.

Baby Update: As of Wednesday, April 7th I’ll be 15 weeks in my pregnancy. The all-day-morning sickness has been traded in for nasty headaches. I guess I’d rather get a nasty headache once in a while though compared to feeling sick to my stomach every day all day. I'm still waiting for the moment that I just might enjoy being pregnant like so many of my friends. However, I'm not ashamed to say that I'm maybe a part of that other group that does not enjoy it. Because I honestly am not enjoying it. But, I'm excited and happy as the weeks go on.