January 2009 Arkansas Ice Storm

We are safe, warm, alive, and thankful! The Ice Storm was very rough and our town, county, well norther part of our state looks like a tornado hit! These are some of my pictures from the storm. Pray for our friends and neighbors to get electricity back in less than the 2-3 weeks they are predicting! Thank God for our responders, officers, road crews, and other workers out there no matter the weather cleaning up and repairing and checking the welfare of our citizens! Oh wait these aren't so much storm pics as pictures of what I am so thankful for!I have some wonderful sons!And they are so handsome!!They are very lucky to be so cute, otherwise they would be in TROUBLE!! LOL!

Elimination on the carpet = someone getting eliminated!

Monday morning, very tired from my busy work weekend, I made my way home to find some strange looking "mound" under Kevin's computer chair. Now he is a Deputy and does end up outside and in mud etc at times, so I gave this questionable mound a wide berth and got myself and Barrett unbundled and called for Xander's assistance getting everything together. After dialing in Kevin, who got called out on a last minute call for work, I noticed the questionable piles might not be Mud Clods I had immediately hoped, and desperately hoped they were. So, while requesting my loving boyfriend to requisition us some McDonald's Breakfast, I asked my oldest to check on the piles. Now I will try and remember that TODAY is when we got his eyes checked so I shouldn't be TOO hard on him when he squatted over the questionable material to pronounce that he most certainly had NO idea what it might be. When further questioned if it was poop my question was met with an authoritative "I don't know ma'am". Forgetting for a moment while wrestling with the smallish bear in my arms I decided to take care of some menial task forgetting about the foreign objects on the floor. I know I know I really need to wake up and take care of this stuff right away! Anyway, I catch Barrett JUST before he had clasped a piece of the material in his hand. Again I am still questioning it's origin. So, half asleep and obviously not in my right mind I reach down and pick up a piece. I had completely convinced myself this WAS just a REALLY big clod of dirt that clung to Kevin's boot when he came in that morning before getting called back out. Needless to say, I was wrong. It was Poo. Unquestionably it was poo. And here I sit with Bear in one arm and poo in my other hand, trying to keep him from touching it and wondering what in the world to do. Initial reaction? Yelling at Xander of course for not realizing this was poo before I reached down and grabbed it myself, and before his brother almost grabbed it. Because we ALL know the first time he got to it he would be placing it in his mouth! All that was received with wide blinking eyes and a very sincere "I don't know ma'am." followed by a wild dash outside to retrieve the McDonald's Breakfast that he now knows is the only thing to make my morning look up. So, long story short, I did finally remove the refuse from the carpet and luckily it was solid enough to not require MAJOR carpet cleaning. This is when I make the realization that maybe I should wash my hands AGAIN since I had just minutes before held that poo in my hands, AND that we have too darn many cats if they are no longer pooing in the litter boxes and are now pooing on my carpet. So, Today, we took two of our four cats up to my mom's house to see if they can "make it" on the outside. Gracie I am sure will make it, Boots I am afraid will make my mother feel so sorry for him that he will go into her house and stay, of course she will let him go in and out. My only hope is that NO ONE poos on her carpet or we will have cats on our doorstep immediately following. Oh and I thoroughly enjoyed my McDonald's Breakfast, not even poo can keep me from eating!

I got to go SHOPPING!!

Ok, so for most people going shopping is no big deal, and usually I am not a huge shopper but I sat and thought about this while Kevin was driving us back from Fayetteville...it has been almost 2 years since I have been in a mall to just shop randomly. AND last July was the last time I set foot in a mall, just to run to Vanity and out again! OMG I am soooo sooooo sooooo happy!! We got a bunch of new clothes for Barrett, and he really needs them cause he is outgrowing everything we have and all we have to shop at here is Walmart and I HATE that they NEVER have anything in Barrett's size on sale and OMG I can spend $100 and only have a couple of things. So, I uploaded pics to Facebook of my buys.....I am soooo excited...did I say that already? It didn't even bother me that I did zero shopping for myself!! Yay! The pics are blurry cause they are taken with my crackberry, I mean Blackberry! Ok.....here are my buys:

Worst Mother Ever Award? I need a trophey case!

So, previously I have discussed my lack of patience and lack of sleep and all together issues that I need to work on. Well, today was a VERY bad day. I should have known it would be a very bad day because it started out so well! Barrett let mommy lounge on the couch and drift in and out of consciousness without getting into anything he wasn't supposed to or seriously injuring himself!! Yay!! Then I got up off the couch. Should have known better. LET THE SCREECHING BEGIN!! I seriously have little or no way of dealing with the screeching epidemic that has taken over at my house. Normally I would have just nipped this in the bud and put him in his Pack-n-Play to howl in the other room but unfortunatly, with our work schedule and Kevin and I both needing to get sleep we have ended up spoiling the crap out of this little turd. To keep from waking up the other while they are sleeping we pick him up and try to appease him at every howl, every wail. I paid for this in SPADES today. I am tired, I am more than tired I am EXHAUSTED! I could do nothing without either holding Barrett or him SCREAMING at me. There was nothing I could do. I finally just let him go. Screaming for almost half an hour. I had to call mom for an intervention. Thinking when Xander got home things would be better I declined her wonderful offer to come and take Barrett for a few hours. So....jump to the moment my 11 yo is yelling at Barrett, who I am trying to get to stop doing something all together naughty I just snapped. I swooped over picked up Barrett and swatted him REALLY hard on the diaper. Well, I missed the diaper. And being the worst mother ever, I really hurt my child. He was relatively unfazed by these events and went directly back to the No-No that he was enthralled with earlier, and I just thought, insert sigh of relief, it must have not been as hard as I imagined. Well, it was......I put a red mark on my babies back. I saw it when I changed his diaper. I have to get away, or some sort of relief, I never never thought I was someone who would intentionally hurt my baby. Now I am even more upset. So this is my confession to the world. I am sorry, I hope I will NEVER do that again! I am record setting, the worst mommy ever!

So MAYBE the lack of sleep is getting to me

So, I totally will be the first to sing the praises of my boyfriend Kevin in letting me get as much sleep as is humanly possible with a 10 month old and a 12 hour over night job. But no matter how much "make up" sleep I get nothing changes the fact that I am getting a little more on edge every day, and every day that this baby refuses to sleep, take a nap, or do anything other than squeal in either delight, anger or both is slowly and steadily driving me crazy. Not good crazy either. The reason I am blogging right now is because I have reached my limit. I have to simply IGNORE whatever it is that the baby is doing and pray that the baby proofing is going to hold up and the cats won't decide they have had enough of his crap and gang up and smother/claw my baby to death. At this point I know I would save him but I might take my time getting up off the couch! There is no doubt I would move heaven and earth for my kids but I have reached such a low level of tolerance that I am not sure what is going to motivate me to do anything right now barring near serious injury/death. I am not sure if that will be met with tears or laughter at this point. It is almost as if the "thing" inside of me that represents my patience/sanity is stretched to its tightest proportion....like if it was visible you could see through it in a thin opaquey way. One single pin prick causing it to burst like a too full balloon. I think I might need a vacation. Is it possible to take a vacation away EVERYONE? I mean do I HAVE to take my kids?? Hell, I would be lucky to get a vacation WITH the kids. I don't know what has pushed me to this point but I have to say I know life was easier. Oh....and part of my stress is wonderful news in other peoples lives. My 10 month old has now started walking. So no more just sitting around for him....Joy! Read that last with a sincere lack of enthusiasm only a burnt out exhausted second time mom would have remembering back when her first baby worried her to death by not walking after 16 months old. Oh, to get in the way back machine and inform that MUCH MUCH younger me to cherish that gift my oldest was giving me!! Of course then I would have to go off about putting up with crap from my Ex-husband who was far from being an ex at that point in which I would only imagine a knock down drag out fight between me and my younger self would ensue, and I am pretty sure I would kick my ass....the younger me having to take the bulk of the beating and thus losing which I could only assume would affect the time line now to the extent that now would be irrevocably changed and much like the butterfly effect everything in my world would not be as it is now and maybe the world would rip open and suck us all in in some strange random black hole. Yes, I think too much and in very odd and off beat ways when I am stressed and tired. I wonder what kind of chaotic string theories I can come up with today......

Pondering the Origins of Stress

I found myself today pondering the origins of stress. Where is my stress coming from? Well, basically stress is coming from every aspect of my life, and I don't mind having stress, but I hate that I am becoming so crabby as a result! Something about dealing with a baby in addition to an 11 yo seems to wear on me more than usual these days. I think it is more the lack of satisfaction my little one derives from the simple things, and his screeching demands for more of whatever he cannot yet verbalize he is left wanting. Then add in Xander trying to be helpful and yet getting more in the way than helping move things out of the way. I love my kids, and I treasure them, but for some reason just thinking about them makes my blood pressure seem to sore these last few days. Ok, so being a 911 dispatcher is not exactly the stress free job that one would assume. For some reason helping others is not as relaxing as one would hope it could be. In my delving into this topic in my own head, which is not empty as previously was believed, I have realized a lot of the stress is self induced. I am taking way too much personally and carrying it around with me instead of just letting it go. I had established about 2-3 months ago that I need to do more moving around and less sitting on my can, and now I need to put that into action. Nothing relieves stress like exercise. Maybe this is my revelation into a New Years Resolution, I need to move to de-stress. I need to de-stress to remain sane. And maybe somewhere along the way I will be able to be healthy for an extended period of time and all this will just stop bringing me down! Of course again to offset the post, I have included some of my favorite new pictures of my family. I hope at least those you enjoyed!