Em and the Possibilities There are no guarantees in life…only the possibilities

Well, since I can’t decide what I want to do with 2004, I thought I’d recap all that happened in 2003.

January – decide living in Arkansas with the ex sux big fat hairy rocks.
February – hop on a plane with 2 kids and 2 suitcases crammed as full as I could get them. Send Dad to get the rest of my stuff.
March – July – gestate and get used to living with the folks again.
August – give birth.
September – December – get used to raising 3 kids while living with the folks. Decide I’m going back to school.

As you can see, not much has happened. LOL!

Dad got a box of chocolates from my daughter for Christmas. Whoever planted it under the tree didn’t check the tags…so the chocolates got left next to the heating vent. We stuck the chocolate in the fridge to firm back up and didn’t think another thing about it.

Last night, I lost track of Daniel. Walk into the kitchen and notice the fridge door is wide open. Walk around the table, and see him standing in front of the fridge buck naked, wolfing chocolates as quickly as he could cram them in his mouth.

And I didn’t get a picture.

up the storylines in my life.

It’s a gorgeous day outside, the kids are *intently* playing with their new toys, and all is right with the world . My folks just left to visit Granny overnight, leaving me at home with the kids. I love to visit Granny, but she’s moved in with my cousin – the one who *refuses* to baby-proof her house.

Moving back in with my folks has had an un-intended benefit. After reading about Kelley and her new career as a domestic goddess I realized that I’ve moved away from everyone I ever cooked a Christmas gift for. While I missed the smells of sausage balls, fudge, cookies, cakes, and wine mulling with spices….I really didn’t miss the stress of putting all that stuff out.

The ex finally graced us with a 30 second phone call to my daughter. Didn’t bother speaking to Daniel (his son), or me.

I finally snapped out of my hormonally-induced sentiment regarding Joe’s sperm donor. While we had good online conversations about the future we wanted, the fact remains that IRL, he was a vacation fling that I just happened to get pregnant on. Life goes on.

We got an update from Tanya at Life’s Like This. Her Hubby is still alive and kicking. Please keep them in your continual good thoughts.

I spoke briefly last night about writing a website. I’ve finally decided on a domain name, but don’t want to sling a half-assed index page up. Never fear, my blog won’t be moving for quite some time – but there’s a lot more to me than this little online diary of sorts. And I really, sincerely wish there were a way to resize multiple pictures at once. I don’t generally edit for more than size and/or to eliminate distractions from the background.

I’m nervous about starting school in the new year. While I’m looking forward to being out of the house for more than 10 minutes (without kids), I’ve never been away from Daniel or Joe for that long. And yeah, I know they’ll probably be OK…but I don’t want them to get used to me being gone like that. That’s what attached parenting is all about, right?

Kids crying – back later to post pics.

I don’t quite know how to act. All the kids are in bed, there is absolutely no light on…except for the blue glow of my screen. I’m too hyper to sleep, and am afraid to turn on a light to read by so here I sit. I have photos to edit, a website to write, and a new skin to hopefully throw together for this place. I love my boobie-witch, but she’s just too halloween-y for me year-round.

And now the baby wakes, so I’ll continue my thoughts tomorrow.

I just remembered that Tanya has a Paypal Donation button on the main page. It is

If you’ve got it to give, please do so. Thanks!

I didn’t want to include this in my recap of the days activities cuz it’s just too important. Tanya at Life’s Like This is having a crisis moment. Her hubby (and sole breadwinner for their family) re-injured his back. Please remember her family in your prayers/candle lighting/ meditations.

Morning after pill for the day I’ve had today. It started SO cute – Joe woke before I did, and woke me up by caressing my cheek and making an “uh UH” noise–as if he were saying “Wake UP!”

Then I go into the livingroom to survey the damage after Hurricane Sleepover. It really wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, but then I noticed the girls looked….odd. They were messing around with temporary tattoos last night, so I thought that might be it, and went in for a closer look. They had colored tattoos on themselves…with marker. The first one asleep got “Kick my butt” written on the back of one leg, “Kiss my butt” written on the back of the other leg, and green asterisk stars all over her back. I go to look, and all 3 girls are an exercise in everything marker. Take pictures of said body-grafitti, and then pack the girls off for a bath to try to get the marker off so no parents will call me and bitch. Guess what? That’s right! It didn’t come off in the water!

Got them cleaned up as best we could, ordered pizza for lunch, mediated a few “lack of sleep grumpiness” fights, get the livingroom cleaned up and vacuumed, and take one of the girls home.

During the cleaning of the livingroom, I decided that since Dan is using the potty chair pretty regularly, maybe he’s ready to move it into the bathroom. So I break down the potty chair, snap the insert into the toilet seat and turn the base over for a step for him and show him how to climb up and down. He did SOOO good with getting Alannah to go into the bathroom, but then he blew it. No, not that way, the other way. He went into the bathroom unstuporvised. It was a complete and total fuck-up on my part – I didn’t make sure he was in the other room with the girls. How did I find out he was in the bathroom unstuporvised? He came running out of the bathroom doing the “I’m in trouble” cry and trying to close the door. The toilet was backed up and overflowing, and there was water EVERYWHERE. Fortunately, I have a steam-vac, so I just sucked up the water after I hit the shutoff valve. I tried plunging and even sticking my hands down into the toilet, but to no avail. I ended up pulling the toilet so I could get it from the other side. I pulled out a good 2/3 roll of toilet paper that had been wadded up and flushed.

Calgon, take me away!

was I thinking? I have Christmas shopping to do tomorrow, and I let my daughter have a sleepover. She invited two of her best friends over to celebrate the fact that their school is out for the holiday (she’s homeschooled). They’ve played in the make-up, they’ve played FibFinder, they’ve played Waitress and now they’re watching movies. At 11:30 EST. And while I’m on the subject of said girlfriends, I have an opinion I need to express to the rest of the parents of pre-teens worldwide:

Folks, do NOT say to your child “You’re too young for a boyfriend/girlfriend”. Saying that will pretty much guarantee your child will NOT come to you for advice when it’s important.

Why do I say this? GF was in the bathroom crying her eyes out. I go to check on her, and we talk a bit. Come to find out, her boyfriend “cheated” on her and told her he never liked her to begin with. She admitted that he’s never really liked her, but she likes him. She spent most of the time trying to convince me to NOT tell her mom & dad. Why? “Because they say I’m too young for a boyfriend and won’t HELP ME with the problem”. I got her calmed down and then we talked some more. What did I tell her? Two things:
1. Yes, you really are too young for a boyfriend, but I realize that’s not going to stop you.
2. If you absolutely HAVE to have a boyfriend, go with the guy who likes you, not the guy who treats you like trash. At your age, ugly can change into hottie, but jerk is FOREVAH.

Parents, don’t think of these relationships your kids have as insignificant. You wouldn’t give a Ferrari Formula One car to someone who’s never behind the wheel, right? Why turn your kids loose as adults with no experience in relationships?

than having your baby asleep in your arms?

Scrapbooking, that is. I think I’m missing the gene that causes women to write down every single minute cutsie-wootsie detail of our children’s first years. It’s not that my kids don’t have cutsie-wootsie moments…I just don’t write them down in a book. The very thought of doing that somehow lessens the spontaneity of the moment for me. I mean, really…*cute moment happens* and then search the house for the book, try to remember the exact expressions on everyone’s faces and then describe them appropriately. I feel the same way about videotaping. The minute you stick the camera in a child’s face, if they’re old enough to know what’s going on, they start hamming it up. While that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it does affect the spontaneity of the moment. They start performing for the camera instead of interacting with each other.

Now, having said that, I do love to take pictures if I can get them before the kids notice the camera. Dan closes his eyes when he sees the camera, so I have to snap quickly before he sees it. Alannah poses and it drives me nuts sometimes. Hopefully, Joe will be somewhere in the middle of those two.