The Great Binky/Bottle Debate

Since the dawn of time, OK not dawn of time, but since children have had binks and bottles, mothers everywhere have pondered the question- when do I wretch these items out of my child's hands and mouths forever? With my first on the bottle was gone by the time he was 16 months and the bink by the time he was three. The bottle was a non-issue, that only took a day. The bink I finally just banished when I saw him stuffing two in his mouth at the same time.

My youngest is almost 18 months old and he still has both. He is very much a creature of habit. He knows when its time for his bath then his bottle. He will scream like a banshee for his bottle. He screams if he can't find his bink. He can drink just fine out of a sippy cup but he prefers milk in the bottle. My pediatrician recommended that we get rid of the bottle by 15 months. I didn't mention it at his last appointment and she never brought it up so I felt OK. I know I need to take it away but I just can't. It's so nice to snuggle with him in the morning when he has it, watching his little mouth wrap around the bottle like a baby calf. My other excuse is the other little guy at day care still has his so I couldn't possibly take Owen's away. He loves his bottle, and since this is more than likely my last baby I want to let him have it as long as possible

The bink also is not a big deal for me, like I said my oldest had his till age 3, and it wasn't all the time then, just naps and bedtimes. This little baby however would keep his in his mouth 24/7, and since he is teething, I don't even have the heart to take it away. Look how adorable he is, how could anyone possibly take anything away from such a beautiful boy?

Who the Hell are you and why do you keep looking at me?

That is exactly what I say to myself when I look in the mirror everyday. Who is this person and why the hell does she look like that. Ok to be fair, I have always kind of felt like that. You know the low self-esteem issues I have had since elementary school, but still. Something has got to change. I need more sleep. I need a better diet. I need to LOSE WEIGHT! That is the biggest thing. I am really fat right now. Fatter than I have been unless I was pregnant. I have never been skinny. Except maybe until I was about 8 1/2 and puberty hit, or about a year in high school when I was playing sports, and even then I thought I was fat. This is ridiculous though. There is no excuse for it. I really don't think I overeat. I have never been one to eat an entire bag of chips, or a whole container of ice cream. I don't wake up and eat in the middle of the night. I love fruits and vegetables. I drink water.

Part of my problem is I sit on my ass all day at work. I am tied to my desk because I answer phones all day long. I try and get outside and walk when I can but for one, it's the middle of winter and for another I work in Downtown Flint. Soooo, unless someone is with me I am not walking very far. My goal is to be thinner, not thin, because unless I quit eating altogether and work out 23 hours a day, I will never be thin. It's just not in my genes. I want to look like this.
OK, I want to look like that minus the booze. This picture was taken when I was 19 and I know I will never look like that again but I would like to have this body back

But right now I look like this.
It's not pretty. I am starting to have visions of some of my great aunt's on my dad's side of the family. Wonderful women but their hips and butts went on for miles.

OK, enough complaining for tonight, I am going to do some crunches and hopefully not break anything, wish me luck!

The Randomness of being Random

I don't have anything spectacular or mind-boggling to report. No insightful topic to discuss. Not much going on in my life and sometimes that is a good thing. So here is just a random, update on my humble little life:

I think I got food poisoning on Monday. The only place I ate was Qdoba and that is one of my favorite places to go. I had taken Evan shopping with me and we stopped there for lunch then about two hours later in Meijers I started to feel a little funky. I will spare you the gory details but it went downhill from there. I stayed in bed most of yesterday but am finally feeling better.

I think that my stomach illness is going to help me jump start some kind of diet. I don't want to eat anything right now so hopefully I can just eat small amounts and stick to it for awhile.

Things are pretty good on the home front right now. We are treating each other better, and I am being more vocal about some of the things that come out of his mouth.

I don't know why I get surprised when I get stabbed in the back by people who I think are friends or are someone I can trust. I shared some information with a co-worker last week and thought it would help her out and it was agreed she wouldn't discuss with anyone else. Well guess what? I came into work today and another co-worker said she was discussing it while I was out yesterday. When will I Learn? No one can be trusted.

I took Evan to see Paul Blart-Mall Cop on Friday and it's very funny. Very family-friendly. He really liked it and wants the movie when it comes out on DVD, which I had to remind him could be several months.

I finally finished the Twilight series. I am really hoping she is going to continue this series but with the last book at 759 pages, not sure I could handle more. It was easy to read but too much content sometimes. I found myself skipping paragraphs that I knew were just descriptions and not essential to the storyline.

I did not watch any of the inauguration yesterday. Besides feeling like dog-poo I just wasn't into it. Still not impressed with him and ok fine yes he is the first black president but the whole thing seemed a little anti-climatic. The pomp and circumstance of the swearing in of our 44th president turned into a tacky Hollywood production. We don't even know if this guy can lead out country but people are acting as if this is the second coming of Christ. Seriously it's a sad state of affairs when there are whole news articles dedicated to his wife's attire.

I cannot wait till SPRING! I hate winter with every fiber of my being. I don't think it's fun or pretty. There is nothing to do outside other than stomp around, yes I know we can sled or build snowment but unless it's 30 degrees and sunny forget it.

I really need to get my poop in a group, if you will and get going on some crafting. I got a Cricut for Christmas, the big one, and I don't even have it out of the box yet! I mean seriously, one of the most coveted crafting items and I haven't even looked at it! Also I need to just make some time to start quiting again. I have the quilt top my Great-Aunt gave me and I told myself I would start it after the new year.

Ok, nothing earth-shattering but that is all I have today. All I can say is maybe I will have some kind of experience or epiphany by tomorrow

But what about what I think

Thursday was the second counseling session. Darren went too. Now before you get all excited and say great, let me tell you he was there against his will. Maybe most men are. He basically told me Monday that he would give in and go , basically so I would shut up about it.

So we went, separately of course because I was coming from work. We get in there and I know she was just trying to get a feel for him but they spent the better part of 20 minutes chitchatting. She asked him why he thought we were there and it he stated because we don't get along and we fight. She asked him what we fight about and he said the basics: kids, sometimes money, him working too much. He admitted that he can bring his job home and that he is little too controlling on some things the kids do.

It was all very light-hearted. A little too much if you ask me. It's not like I was hoping for screaming and yelling and some kicking of doors, it's just that when I went by myself she seemed like she understood and she was on my side. Thursday it was more like we had only been married a year and had no idea what a marriage was supposed to be. She wants us both to read Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Seriously, this is why I have rearranged my schedule and been on pins and needles for months now? The whole session was a joke. We go back again in two weeks. My issues are not that I don't think my husband understands me, my issue is that he treats me like crap, yells all the time and seems to be in a permanently bad mood. I tried to say that but every time I did they both looked at me like I was a whiny, petulant child. At least my mom understands me.

Heather and the horrible, no good, very bad day!

This is how I felt by the end of the day yesterday

I meant to post this yesterday but it just didn't happen. Yesterday was a disaster. I woke up late because baby boy is teething and we were up quite a bit through the night. I called work to tell them I should only be a half hour late. My big boy decided he would try and play the sick card, but after going to the bathroom and eating some cereal he decided he was OK. Then big boys decides that he doesn't like the jeans I picked out for him so he will just throw a fit and stomps out of the bathroom and inadvertently shuts his little brothers hand in the door. Now I have two crying kids, big boy is crying because he hurt his brother and didn't mean to and now baby boy is obviously crying because of the pain. Still keeping it together, I manage to get everyone dressed and ready to go when I smelled the dreaded smell of a poopy diaper *Side note* I will never be on of those mothers who drops her kid off at daycare with a poopy diaper* So I get the diaper changed and get the kids in the car and drop baby boy off at the sitters and take big boy to school. He is more than 10 minutes late so I have to walk him in and sign him in at the office. Done, check. Head to work and of course if you live anywhere near the Midwest you know that our weather has been abysmal. I look down and my gas gauge and of course its on E. I haven't driven my car since Saturday so I kind of forgot I needed gas. Soooo, I pull into my usual gas station type place and try and swipe my card in the machine and its stuck. My debit card is stuck in the machine! I take off my gloves and pull it out and it's so flippin cold out that you cant even read the numbers on the screen- so I go in and just have them run my card for $20.00 so I can get this over with.

I slide into work missing accidents and dumb jackasses all the way. I end up being and hour and 10 minutes late to work. It didn't get much better than that. Work dragged, it was colder than before outside, Baby boy was cranky and cried all night till he finally fell asleep, and then being the dork that I sometimes am, I pulled my calf muscle trying to be suave jumping over the bottom step in the basement.

No more days like Tuesday!

What have you been doing all day?

The toy tornado never comes to a rest!



It's the age old question. Husbands go off to work then come home and wonder what their wives could possibly be doing all day. This is especially true if the house isn't clean, dinner not on the table, etc. Well guess what? I WORK ALL DAY. Monday through Friday I work outside of the home and then every evening I do some housework but the majority of it waits until Saturday and sometimes Sunday if I am feeling particularly lazy.

Over the summer I had a week off so you know I had ALL week to just keep the house up! I took some pictures of the going-ons that happen when I am at home with the kids.

Guess what we do? We watch cartoons, and we play and I clean and cook breakfast and I clean some more and I pick up toys and I clean and then I make lunch and do dishes and do some laundry and we watch cartoons and play, and I do some more laundry and I cook and I clean and play with my kids.

If I am lucky I get to do something I like, like sew or scrapbook or,, get ready- watch something on my TV that doesn't involve singing animals or talking sponges.

But I wouldn't trade it for anything because we have fun and if I don't get everything done, guess what? There is always tomorrow!

Shiny Happy People

So I re-read all my blogs and just realized how miserable I sound. And kind of whiny. I am not like that at all. I don't post things so I can get a big poor me from everyone and I really haven't but I didn't want anyone to think I am on the verge of a breakdown. I really am a happy person. I have beautiful children and wonderful friends and a very close-knit family. Right now I just happen to be going through one of those difficult times in my life and need to figure it out. So thank you for anyone who has been concerned about me and left me messages on my Myspace for Facebook but I will be OK. You know what they say "That that doesn't kill me will only make me stronger."