My Head Is SPINNING!

Have you ever felt so completely discombobulated?  It seems to be daily fair for me lately.  So much is running through my mind with little direction or patience to lead me in any one direction for enough time to fully complete a single task.  I am not super mom, although I have to honestly say that I strive to be.  I want to be the Mommy that can handle anything.  All of life’s twists and turns, the ups and downs of juggling a fabulous husband and his 7 little offspring.  How I envy their energy, joy and resilience.  They seem to bounce back from whatever life throws their way.  Me…I bounce, just in all the wrong spots. LOL!  This last pregnancy has left me heavier than I have ever been in my life, and the journey to get back in shape is going to be a challenge.  I would like to start with my eating habits, but it is hard due to my breastfeeding baby’s sensitive tummy.  What can I eat?  Who knows.  I ask myself that everyday!  No dairy, no eggs, no rice, no green veggies, no red veggies, etc.  It is definitely taking it’s toll on my energy and state of mind.  The kids are no worse for wear, but I feel the weight of my lack of sleep combined with my poor food options and added body mass.  So what is my plan you ask?  Well, I just started physical therapy for my chronic back issues, muscle spasms to be exact, no doubt from being pregnant or nursing over the last 13 years!  Along with PT, I am trying to start yoga   and nightly walks…I say trying because I have yet to attend a single yoga class!  Life keeps getting in the way.  Aghhhh.  I am sure you all have experienced that happening a time or two.  And as for the walks….well, let’s say that I am full of good intentions   Aren’t we all.  Someone once told me that good intentions pave the way to hell.  Man, I really hope that isn’t the case.

Among all the chaos of life and daily challenges, I did manage to buy a whole lot of meat and divvy it up into family portions, added some different sauces and froze those bad boys.  It is convenient to have them all ready to go; to pull out in the morning so that dinner is ready when Rich gets home.  Now if I could only remember to pull them out in the AM so they will be thawed in time   Heeheehee.  Seriously, there are days when I tell the kids to fend for themselves.  It is interesting to see what they come up with.  They are quite resourceful little monkeys.  My kitchen always ends up looking like a bunch of wild monkeys ransacked it anyway, so have at it kiddos!

Is anyone else absolutely OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder) over the mess in their house?  I never want to be the mommy that stays home and has a huge family with fingerprints all over the walls, dirt in every corner and a mountain of laundry that kills my washing machine every few months because it seems to never stop long enough to cool down.  The constant hum of the washer and dryer is probably a sound that would rock all my little ones to sleep.  Yet despite all my efforts, that is my home.  I think most of my trouble comes from me beating my head against the idea of who I really am.  I am a mom, with a messy home, dirty face and footed children and Mount Everest in my laundry room.

I often find myself thinking about the song “Dirty Dishes” by Scotty McCreery.  Simply put, I have so much to be thankful for.  Endless dishes in the sink, noisy children and mountains of laundry.  But with each of those things, I have children that have plenty to eat, laughter coming from my children’s mouths and clearly enough clothes to keep them warm and covered.  If you haven’t listened to the song, please do.  That is my life to a T!  I honestly think he wrote it for me.

Okay, I feel better.  So even though I manage to bitch (sorry) and moan, I am truly grateful for all that I have.  None of my life was burdened upon me.  It was all a conscious decision and I would never change a moment of it.  But if, if, if, if I could have a super power, it would be to never be upset by the little things in life.  To take everything as what it is.  A gift.  Remember, we don’t all get the same gifts, and that is for a reason.  But none the less, to see everything for what it is.  An opportunity to better myself and those around me through love.

So I challenge all of you to try to do the same.   Find something today that would normally drive you crazy and ready to throw someone through the window for and thank God for it.  I am going to thank God for that damn TV in the living room that my children keep sneaking on while I am occupied writing this.  I am thankful for this time of peace and the opportunity to share this blog with all of you.  Even if in the meantime my little monkeys are being disobedient to my rules.  Hey, now I get to have them pull some weeds in the front yard for disobeying me! Man, this is GREAT!  I should do this more often.  There will always be a snowball rolling somewhere, you might just need to give it a little push   Have a great day.  Miss you all!

It’s Official!!! Summer has arrived to the Oregon Coast :)

Yesterday, I found myself standing in the middle of a blueberry field.  For any of you that have not picked your own blueberries before, you are missing out!  It is tranquil, relaxing, and well, yummy!  You eat as you go and hopefully end up bucketing more than you consume.  With 6 kids in tow and a full 8 1/2 month pregnant belly, berries are sure to be consumed in multitudes before buckets are filled, but that is part of the experience.  We picked our own strawberries last month, crawling around on our knees through dusty rows with low crawling, sprawling vines.  But blueberries, oh the marvel.  For those that don’t know, blueberries grow on bushes, and these bushes were taller than ME!  Stretching skyward, loaded with plump, large berries, ready for the picking…did I mention eating?  We hit the field and my kids scattered like wildflowers, searching out the prime area for picking, dictated by their height, and in search of new friends.  It is so easy for children to strike up conversation with anyone standing by…why do we lose that as adults?  Back to the berries   The reality of picking such delicious berries is that even though you have 6 little field hands helping you out, their work effort is minimal at most….they are busy yapping with fellow berry pickers or chewing with their mouths open, stuffing the sweet morsels in as fast as they can. (The chewing with their mouths open thing is a work in progress, though I am sure it couldn’t be avoided given the quantity of fruit they were stuffing in at any one time)

Three hours post arrival, I was thoroughly exhausted, having picked three full buckets myself, along with supplying the little ones with berries to fill their mini pails.  The 3 oldest children ate more then they contributed to the family supply, but so is the way of berry picking in such prime conditions.  We ended up leaving with 6 buckets filled to the brim, 37 lbs. of blueberries!  My sweet Benjamin ended up filling a bucket pretty much on his own, I was so impressed!  For a 5 year old, I think that was a task well tackled.  This is given the fact that my 8 and 12 year old daughters barely got 1 bucket filled between the two of them the whole 3 hours.  Rich figured out their contribution and said they are each allotted a 1/2 lb of berries. LOL.  I feel like the Little Red Hen, not sharing her bread! LOL!

In the words of, Under The Tuscan Sun, the berries even tasted BLUE!

Tug-Of-War

PICTURE:

I walk into the room where my son is screaming his head off.  He is laying stretched out on the floor clasping frantically to his head.  The new puppy has her sweet little puppy teeth clenched on to my sons head, his hair to be more precise…pulling on it with all her  playing tug-of-war!  She must have thought the screaming was kind of new squeaky toy!

LOL.  Sorry son, I am not laughing at you, but I have been telling you that we need to cut your hair! LOL.

Coming Along

Six kids, four rats, two dogs, 1 fixer-upper house, endless laundry and bottomless sink full of dishes.  Does this really sum up my life?  Sure not, but it seems to consume me most of the time. LOL.  Most days I feel as though I should be carrying around a tape recorder.  I would only need a few different verses recorded to cover the gamut.  Something like, “No”, “Because I said so” and “Go to room and sit on your bed!”  Or as any of you that truly know our household, “Get your sentence book, you owe me a page!”  I think that pretty much sums it up…for the kids at least.  The rats I don’t have to deal with except to remind the 11 year old to make sure their water bottles are full.

Now as for the two dogs….our chocolate lab looks like a saint compared to the boxer pup that is confused about where she is supposed to pee!  It is not on my bedroom floor!!!!  And I don’t know what the perks are to expensive dog food, but it clearly has nothing to do with odor control, because whatever that smell is coming out of the pup on regular intervals is forcing me to run to any door, window or crevice providing fresher air!  Despite the foul odor, she is a sweet pup who is tuckering our lab out and seems to be content staying close to home.

The endless laundry will remain endless as will the bottomless sink full of dishes.  The fixer-upper house is coming along.  Hubby is installing the crown molding in my kitchen and other projects are coming together!  Everything seems to be looking up   I can’t wait for Spring when I can start my garden and then for Summer when I can open my windows and leave them open!

 

Don’t Do It!!!

When your child comes up to you and says, “Smell my hand,” don’t do it!!!  I quickly respond with, get away from me right now, I am not smelling anything!!!!

This reminds me of my 3 year old.  Earlier in the day she came to me and said, “Mommy, my butt kwack itches!”

I did laugh, but then I said, go into the bathroom and use a wet wipe and wipe your bum, then wash your hands!!

As Rich and I sat on our bed later that day, my sweet 3 year old climbed on the bed and began bouncing around, when I caught a whiff of that tell tale smell.  Immediately I told her in a very stern Mommy voice to get in the bathroom and wash her hands!

This is when Rich pipes in, obviously not learning the above yet, LOL!  He says, “Come here, let me smell your hands!”  The face that followed was hysterical.  A scowl, a gag and near vomit later, I am busting up laughing and he delares, “WHAT IS THAT SMELL?!!!”

I respond with, “Itchy butt Kwack!!!!!” Haaahaaahaaahaaa.

I am still laughing!  I hope he learned something. LOL!

The Hills Are Alive…

In my case, the hills are actually mountains of laundry alive with I don’t know what, but it keeps pouring out of my children’s rooms like lava from a volcano.  Did I mention that they are not supposed to have clothes in their rooms…. what is going on here?  Wait a minute, I just washed that shirt, and those pants are still folded!  Perhaps I should start charging per load over the weekly limit.

How are so many things dirty in a weeks time?  Has food gotten messier since I was a child?  Granted with my huge herd I do buy things in bulk and they aren’t prepackaged in those nice, tidy packages.  We actually cook our own  food, mostly from scratch,  eat it, and apparently end up wearing a lot of it too!

I am finding a pattern evolving among my children.  The clothes that are coated in meals from last week are thrown in their drawers to be worn another day while the clean folded ones are being brought down for another washing.  I might just have to assign everyone 7 pairs of undies, 7 pairs of socks and one outfit for the week since it seems they are intent on wearing the smelly, dirty ones over and over again anyway.  Or perhaps I should start having them hand wash their laundry.  Don’t get me wrong.  My kids play, and they play hard.  I don’t have a problem with that, just please, give me the dirty clothes to be washed and put the clean ones away.

How Old Do I Look?

“Mom, it says here that Napoleon was born in 1769….were you alive then?”

WHAT?!!!!  Clearly we need to review our history timeline with a new addition….ME, in 1979!!