no tv! no dramma mamma

Lord help the mothers of 6 year old girls.

Yeah I understand that this does not seem like a worth while problem someone would ask the great power above for help with, but this is what I have needed help with so I'm assuming their are other mammas out there, who have seen the transformation from sweet cuddly helpful five year old daughters to bratty obnoxious little beings who have discovered sarcasm.

With our oldest we breezed through all the stages other parents talk about, teething, terrible twos, the "how come?" threes. Bed time night training at four. These all came with relative ease. But then school came at us. And I am not talking about the sweet, circle time, hold hands 5 year old kindergartner either. I'm talking about the "your not coming to my birthday party" grade one. Yup 24, 6 year olds crammed in and guided by one capable and patient adult.

This is when I feel children start to develop control over their relationships, they aren't just friends with their mommies coffee buddies, kids. They are friends with their peers. And with this comes tattling, hurt feelings, bossiness, and occasionally and i do mean occasionally actual playing.

I had noticed my daughter crossing her arms and stomping her feet when asked to do something she didn't like. The lip pout accompanied with the sit and somber when things didn't go her way. It was the talking back that really rattled my chain. The learned sarcasm and the basic "well duh" tone to her voice made me grit my teeth. How am I going to convey politeness to my child when her actions made me want to scream and shout. I was sure this was brought on by school yard bantering.

So I patiently tried to use my words, sometimes breaking down and mimicking her. Anything I could to to get her to understand respect, all to no avail.

At 6 she is no longer willing to sit and watch the backyardigans with her little sister. And as the senior she basically controls the boob tube. So my four year old is also watching the likes of miss montana, and alex the wizard, all of whom I learn talk to there friends, parents, and siblings with the snotty tone I had grown to loathe. Could this be true? I am providing my children with the bad influence?

As a child we had always had TV. We watched or we didn't. And maybe because back in the 80's and the 90's their weren't whole networks aimed at entertaining kids. I don't recall the heroines of the shows to have a constant sarcastic attitude...... or maybe i am wrong.... i was in love with Zach from "saved by the bell" and he wasn't exactly kind and thoughtful of Mister belding. Hmmmm tv is a bad influence after all.

I went back and forth with this thought for awhile. The final straw was when I heard my precious four year old use that same gratting tone and thats when I pulled the plug on the tv.

I cancelled cable. I didn't tell the kids. One day there just wasnt tv. I stocked up on disney vhs's and a bunch of dvd's. I set the kids up with there own computer and they have wii. Im not depriving them of entertainment. I'm just not going to have the so called "family" Channel on at all hours of the day, London Tipton's entitled attitude will not be a constant influence on my kids.

Now your probably wondering did this even help... what does my husband have to say about losing his constants sports updates. How am I surviving with out my greys, or survivor.

It did help. My kids have never complained about no tv. Although they are eagar to watch whenever we go to there aunts or grandparents. Occasionally I will put a show on the computer. I have found them playing more. Building couch forts and pillow rooms. The snotty tone has dissipated and i hear love and kindness in its place(alot more of the time anyways).

My husband watches all his shows online. No commercials. You can watch sports live on the Internet. We have found that we spend more time together, curled up watching the latest episode of community or mantracker. We haven't gone so far as to hook one of our many computers up to the big screen but I am tempted.

No TV. Saved Money. Better Family. I probably wont be TV free for ever but I am enjoying my experiment now.

we have hit the great depression of free time

Before children the ability to do what you want when you want was so amazing.... the only thing stopping me was well nothing... My husband looked at free time as a put in take out kind of banking system. At the time it was annoying. I would go for drinks with the girls come home a little tipsy and he would see this excursion as basic permission to go out with the boys come home at some godawful hour completely obliterated and often on the prowl. So you could see how this might be annoying.

Well you add children, free time becomes less frequent. the ability to get a little tipsy just about disappears. This becomes more apparent as the children start to outnumber the parents. Basically there is no escape. My daily routine is planned to the max, no free time. 8:00 am to 9:00 pm we are picking up, dropping off, finding leotards, hair elastics and the ever hiding hairbrush. Not to mention the bedtime hour that seems to be getting longer and angrier as my children refuse to stay in bed. Regardless, if I want to have lunch with my sister I basically need three days notice to schedule a sitter.

You would think his banking system would come in handy now but in reality he is ok going into overdraft in fact im positive he has reached full limit on all his free time credit cards. Because as a man he needs more free time then me. Coffee with the guys in the morning, fishing, hockey, golfing, slo pitch.... these things eat up a lot of time. And he wants to do all of them every week..... we have three kids, which I have alone for 45 hours a week. And all these tasks add on 10-15 extra hours of free time, and you know who that falls on... moi....

It often gets to the point where im so annoyed at his overschelduling of his outside time that i put restrictions on..... he was leaving the house at 6:30 in the morning to watch sports and drink coffee with the guys( he doesnt work till 8). Which left me to pull my butt out of bed and take care of the baby. After about three days of going to bed at 12 and waking up at 6:30 i had, had enough. He got home ...poor him... to a very exhausted, mentally depleted, and vengeful wife.... an hour and a frickin half. If he wants to wake up that early thats fine... i have laundry lunches and coffee on my to do list, thanks for volunteering! The new rule is no leaving this house till 7:30 am.

He is a clever man though, and he in his desire to catch all the latest sports stats... started to change our alarm clock time ahead.... eventually buying himself an extra 17 minutes a day. WTF. I got him back though..... I changed it and bought myself an extra seventeen minutes the other way. he caught on though the first day, stupid men and there internal clock! More so stupid me, i should have done it gradually too!

Yes I may have solved the morning issue. But he has time taken up everywhere and im sorry but we are in a recession of free time.... come see me in a few years when our babes r a little more independent. Im sure he will have time to frolic when they are older.... with three girls im assuming then he will be using his free time to hunt down boyfriends.

No work.... oh no work

I have had a fabulous maternity leave. My baby was a sleeper... all day and all night. My oldest was in a school she finally liked..... ( the year before i had tried to have some culture in her life by having her attend a strictly french school.... it was more like culture shock!) My middle child was finally speaking in a language adults could semi understand.



I spent time with family. I sewed. I coffeed ( Yeah i made up a verb so what) Oh you need a definition



coffeed: a group of friends getting to gether drinking coffee and bashing there husbands... just joking.



Regardless I had it going on.....



My return to work date was coming up... and it kept approaching faster...... how was i going to give up running my house like a well oiled machine... for rushed mean morning mom... or tired exhausted dinner mom.... lets not even talk about the bedtime monster... Three kids in child care.... bahahaha wowza there goes my paycheck.



Ok im not going back... no im going.... oooh all that work for no money........ kay im done... better tell my boss.



Now here i am, at home, not really sewing, parenting my baby who sleeps for 6 hours a day. And my middle one is addicted to the computer....and Im hit with the reality, im not working, no paycheck, no real adult time. No directional goal.



I am throwing my self into school fundraisers and organizing photoshoots for friends spending all kinds of hours working, and i realize i am back to where i was before, (all that work for no money)... im a month into my non working life and i have realized I need work.. At least a form of it. Outside washing toilets and making baby food, planning family dinners and organizing our life.

So now, to find the ultimate job for a want to work mommy.....

my four year old is me.... this is what my parents threatened me with

• They are all laughing at me.... My parents, probably my sisters basically anyone who knew me as a child.
  
  
  My middle daughter is terrible, she's adorable i will give you that and her voice is not as gratting as mine was im sure but she is basically me as a child.
  
  
  
  As a child I was horrid. I was super loving, but I was a tyrant. Rebelled against any order. Apparently my voice could be heard within a twelve mile radius when i was upset. I did destructive things all the time especially if my parents told me not too. here i will list a few examples so you can get an idea of how terrible i was:
  
  As a child 6 and under
  
  
• I would peel the wall paper off my walls on purpose immediately after told and threatened not too.


• I would wake up and pee the bed, gross i know but as a child i didnt seem to mind lying in my own urine.
  
• to get back at my parents during time outs, i would climb under my bed and have a nice little pee.
  
• I hit, screamed, and tortured anyone in my way


• And i chronically whined.... And i would persistently ask for what I wanted.... Im sure this was the worst

Now there was much more terrible things I did but I thought this list would give you an example of just what my parents had to put up with. Basically as a child if you crossed me i punished you. my favorite weapon just happened to be pee.

So as a child and more so as an adolescent my parents would joke wth me and tell others basically what goes around comes around and I would get what i gave.


So when I had my first daughter and she was an angel. Even at six when she comes home with the super terrible i know everything six year old attitude she is not hard to get through too. When i give her a consequence she just pouts.

I had thought my parents were wrong though. My first daughter was an angel and my second baby smiled all the time.

Even at 9 months when my quiet smiling baby started yelling at me i didnt see the resembalance to me. Because from 18 months to two and half she went back to being sweet and kind and loving. Slowly though i see me in her and I fear for my sanity.

For example they coloured on my walls. I mean they coloured murals on like eight walls. Im going to figure out how to add pictures and give you all a laugh!

I made them wash them off. I was terribly stern I was a terribly mean mommy. Bria seemed to learn her lesson. She has coloured on the walls since but she has kept them small and hidden.... Mia punished me almost immediately for the wall incident and my harshness. She coloured my brand new chaise with marker....

Now when I say she is me.... its her reasoning skills and negotiating persistence that reminds me of me. It is exhausting. And funny. when she is naughty and she often is, she says things that I remember saying and I can see her train of thought like it is my own. The fact that she is so like me makes parenting her impossible... well almost. I cannot keep a straight face in the midst of one her episodes.

Panic Often sets in when i look at my gorgeous clever trouble maker and i think of my life as a teen..... and this is what my parents threatened me with.....

My House Smells like vomit

There is not a clean room in my house. uhg I can't stand it. and so what am i doing.... escaping to my computer lying to my husband saying i have to work.

This is not work..... well i guess sort of is, I make diapers for a living and this chronicles my diaper life.

I have just put a load of diapers in the wash and i only did that because I had to.

My Baby has being so sick. I mean sick ! She is six months old and i have never had a sick baby before. She started teething on tuesday night so that was a pretty sleepless night.... then she got sick on weds. nite. And when I say sick I mean "is it possible for that much stuff to come out of a little baby" kind of sick. More then once she covered me from head to toe in baby upchuck. we didnt sleep on wensday either..... On thursday she vomited so much she obstructed her airway. I took her to the hospital. the nurses helpline was going to make me call 911 but seriously i live closer then the ambulance.....well sort of. We didnt sleep on thusday nite either....... friday I was a zombie. my house smelled rancid.

I was drunk on exhaustion. we ate pizza. I hadn't being eating because i was to tired to make something. Pizza was good. we left all our dishes on the table. we left our clothes on the floor, toys were everywhere.

I went to bed early friday night. I expected the exhaustion drunkedness to let me fall asleep right away..... Oh my god...... I cant eefing sleep..... the baby is asleep, dennis is asleep, the girls are asleep and i cant sleep. I tried counting sheep. Yeah i did. I know its from a mattress commercial or whatever but i tried anyways.....I'm still not asleep. I look at the clock its just about 12:00 and all i can think about is trying to force myself to sleep. who knows how long i have..... before " she" starts again.

Yup I just referred to my precious gorgeous baby girl as "she". I havent slept. Im blaming my poor baby..... you try three days with no sleep and tell me how you handle it! I sleep.

baby wakes up at 3:45 whine crying.... I ignore.... dennis doesn't... God i love him! at 4:30 she is still whine crying. dennis and me are both up now.... nothing is working... 5:00 still whine crying.... dennis says " oh god just go to sleep" I say "I'm Trying" He laughs.

I decide to give "the brain damage giving, everyone gets bad emails about the danger of numbing the toungue and choking to death, poison BABY ORALGEL " and for those of you who are against it I did my own home studies and not once did my toungue go so numb I choked on it.... I also give her some tylenol.

By six she is sleeping and by six oh one I am too. I sleep and so does den till 9:30 our older girls have being up eating wagon wheels for a couple hours.

When she wakes at ten I drag my lazy butt out of bed. I pick her up and have a snuggle. Even when she is sleep sweaty, puke covered, and a full cloth diaper full of pee , she smell precious and perfect. Im nuzzling her when i see something coming out of her ear. I look and it is full on infected I can see puss (god that word is gross) coming out of her ear. Great I was suppose to bring her to the emergency today and now im going to have to.

Now let me tell you I was not looking forward to a saturday visit to the emergency department. The wait is terrible.... always like fifteen or more people waiting to see a doctor and i was going to have to hold my baby on my lap so random germ infested people wouldn't feel the need to touch her hands and her face. I am prepared I put on my moby wrap and swaddle my baby put her in facing me the only visible part of her is her face and people wont touch her when her face is so close to me.

Now dont get me wrong... Im not a germa phobe anymore.... but the hospital is a breeding ground for mrsa and staph bacterias not to mention people who go there arent there because they r healthy.

I go in baby is quiet crying she is taking it all in. Quietly letting people assess her. They send us out into the waiting room to wait.... not a priority. I sit with her and after a minute she is use to the waiting room she starts to whine cry. Someone stops and says how cute she is and touches her face..gross. Then after a minute of whinecrying she starts to really cry.... The people in the waiting room look at me with a mixture of pity and am I really going to have to listen to this for the next two hours.

Here comes the nurse. he says " can reg and aaaah tinsley follow me."

I think what we just got here. OH well they put me in the kid room. Baby keeps crying. I try to calm her I try to make her laugh. But all I get is a laugh cry and it sounds kind of creepy so I hold her and let her cry. I hear the doctor, he says" no no I will see them after" I will take care of the babe first"

What really.... it's a full house in the er... I just saw the ambulance bring in someone I saw three beds full at least and someone in the cast room and I get to see the doctor first..... Baby is still wailing. Doctor says to me " i will just wash my hands and we will see what we can do for you baby"

He comes in and listens to her chest. She screams the entire time. I tell him about the puss ( the word just grosses me out) he has a look and says "wow I cant even see her drum she is really infected." Hands me a prescription gives her some motrin and i am on my way out... As Im thanking the doctor tinsley falls asleep so quickly we both look down. She is so peaceful. So sweet. Had she being doing this ten minutes ago i would still be waiting in the waiting room instead im joyfully leaving. Woohoo thank you tinsley for being unbareable!!!!!

She sleeps I sleep.

Now it is monday one full day from the last time she was ill. My house is still a disaster. It is gross. I should be doing something but im not. Im on my computer, d- virusing the kids computer while siting with mine on my lap pretending to work hoping my husband will wash the floors.....

no Farm for this gal

of course i didn't actually have the guts to ask dennis for a sheep. This is not my first time down the barnyard pet road. and let me tell you no one is ever on my side.... well amanda usually is.



About a year or so ago I was positive I needed a cow. seriously I needed a cow. when I say I like to do things myself i'm talking everything.. the cow started actually with amanda telling me I should read the little house on the prairie books. yeah sounds juvenile i know but man are they interesting. Well during the story it descrbes how "ma" makes cheese, get this....gag.. with the stomach of a milk fed calf. I had never thought of cheese being a home made thing before. Sooo I totally got into looking up how to make cheese and where to get supplies from and get this I ordered special plant based enzymes for curding up the cheese. Yay not killing baby cows at this house! So I can hardly wait to make some cheese as soon as my stuff arrives I get down to making some mozzarella.



mmmmm. It is good. wow and easy. So I make a few more bathches. mozza is easy its a fresh cheese ... no aging. But around my forth batch something goes wrong my curds look like crappy tiny flakes of feta. and it wont melt to mozzarella. a waste. my next batch same thing.



Of course i go to my trusty computer and find out its the over sterilation of the milk companies messing with my curd. Well I cant just call up island farms and tell them to turn it down a notch so i put a facebook call out for anybody with some home pasterized milk. haha what a joke.. im the most granola out of anyone i know..... I would be the one to have a cow and milk it. Yeah I should have a cow and milk it. What a great idea. I mean Dennis is always talking about getting acrerage. Why have land if your not going to use it. So i run it by my trusty always on board hubby.. he says great idea.

woohoo butter time!

then he says " don't cows make the most milk in summer." "yeah" i say. "well we're never home in the summer"

hmmm he is right. were chronic summertime vacationers. may to sept im not around. but i mean im talking a glorious farm with chickens cows ponds and whatever else you put on a hobby farm, oh yeah and a duck definetly want a duck. who needs to vacation when you have a wicked farm. plus the farms im looking at cost a pretty penny so we totally wont have money to vacation, or buy cheese. so it will be a good thing that i can make my own!!!

so now in the present time, months later I dont live on a farm.. no cow no chickens no pond no flipping duck. As it turns out i kind of like having a bit of cash and it was a high price to pay to make a little cheese at home...

so not to put me through the whole excitement of getting a farm to the reality that it just wont happen I put the sheep out of my head pretty quickly... besides im a crappy knitter!

can i have a sheep dennis

So in the 50's wool "longies" or shorties" were soakers. pants shorts or diaper wraps to cover your babies cloth diapers. well now is the new age of wool. apparently wool is the all time bulletproof diaper cover.

Now those of you who know me know im totally into making my own stuff. Im not about to spen fifty dollars on a diaper cover.

So i research wool..... wikihow is amazing...how-to is not bad.... its dinner time my kids r hungry and im glued to the computer screen figuring out ways to make wool diaper covers. den says the kids r hungry and i say make some kd. I hear bria say not again no i dont want kraft dinner. You know you've being serving to much KD when a six year old refuses!!!

I get up ...reluctantly... and scan my cupboard and freezers. poor dennis he is craving red meat and i 've being serving chicken for a week. I decide i could make bacon mushroom carbonara and a apple fig salad and be back to the computer in no time.... I admit it I have a Problem.

Sitting down for dinner... rule at my house we always sit together for dinner.... this rule is so fricking lame i could be researching the best way to use recycled material to make diaper covers instead im watching my six year old make lettuce wraps with carbonara. gag.

I shovel food down super fast. Im done, when your done you can leave the table. aaaaahhhh back at my computer..... all the imformation i could possibly need with a few strokes of my fingertips.

So research tells me how to make wool longies out of old sweaters...... I have ridiculous size closet... ive worked in a clothing store for ten years I ve actually made my husband convert a bedroom into a walk in closet. So of course i must have some old wool sweaters buried in there. I start going through the labels.... can you believe it the only sweater i have that has any wool in it is a vest and its only 13 percent. i have litterally spent thousands of dollars on clothes made out of viscose and acrylic..... I should read labels when i buy more often.

haha an idea strikes me.... the hospital auxillary....our towns version of a thrift store. Of course i can find old wool sweaters there. It will be rich resource for my diaper needs! So i have the great idea of going with three kids in tow. when i say great idea i mean the total opposite. the store is full of crabby people searching for bargains... who knew this place was such a happening place. I go to a rack of womans sweaters.... nothing... nothing...100 % cashmere wool... hmm pink... im gonna try....nothin nothing nothing nothin....HOLY I seriously can't believe i cant find one lambs wool sweater. this blows.... mens section ... not even a sweater section... well thats fine i want girly things anyways.... plus size oooh whats this yup its a totally ugly boiled lambs wool swearter. i dont care im gonna make it work. i bring my two pitiful finds up to the casheer she says fifteen dollars. HUh fifteen dollars for two used sweaters. I dont say this out loud but i think it.. i also think crap i have to cut sew and make mistakes 30 more dollars i could have had someone make them for me.


I make them and they blow. uber ugly. oh well... time and money not well wasted.

So im at the fall fair. lots of cute things. but this one station really catches my eyes three ladies... sheep skins, bags of dirty wool, those spinning machines ,"like from sleeping beauty", ladies knitting. I can knit. i've knitted before not well but i'd get better.

Now this is how my brain works.

I dont think of buying the wool already spun. I dont think about buying the unspun wool. i think i should buy a sheep. harvest my own wool... ive done it on farmville...looked easy enough to me. spin it dye it and knit it into soaker. of course i can do this... now one problem occurs to me.

how do i ask my husband..."can i have a sheep dennis"