Clara and I saw Blind Side last night. It was a super duper movie. Like – really good. I recommend it.

Speaking of recommendations…this $1 nail polish I bought at Payless Shoes really is staying on my nails! I think tomorrow will be one week and there are zero (yes you read that right) chips in this nail polish. Granted….the color on the tips of my nails was wearing off. But JUST on the very tips. And my nails were too long anyway so I filed them a little and you can’t tell at all.

Another disclosure: I actually don’t know if it’s the nail polish or the top coat I put on, but my nails seem…like the scratch easily? I mean as in it’s easy to scratch the nail. Like the polish isn’t hard. Does that make sense? I know, not really, because it hasn’t chipped or anything, but that’s the only way I can think to describe it. I’m inclined to think it’s the topcoat, but then again, the topcoat is OPI and it was like a million dollars. So I really don’t know.

Anyway.

Something I do NOT recommend is to think that your baby son is perfect and that he will never mess up. Don’t get me wrong, he’s NEAR perfect. I mean it. But…I think we are having some defiance issues for the first time in his little bitty life.

The other day, he was eating a PB&J (just for funsies, let me throw in that he calls Pedialyte PB&Lyte), and the dog took his sandwich and ate it! He came in cuh-rying and his daddy said he’d make him a new one. Meanwhile, James got the notion that he wanted some sorbet. He begged for some and we told him that he could not have some now, but that he could have some later IF he stopped whining about it.

So Scott finished the sandwich and handed it to James, who promptly went to the garbage and THREW.IT.IN. “I told you, I didn’t want a sandwich! I want sorbet!!!”

Scott looked at me and growled, “you better handle this.” He was absolutely livid and he knew it was a better idea to let me handle it. LOL.

Anyhoo, James’s teacher told us the next day that she’s been having problems with his defiance. And I promise you, that is just not the James we know and love. I’m hoping we get past this REALLY quickly.

Clara’s dorky as ever. When I picked her up from school yesterday, she had three stick-on reinforcements on her face. I asked her why. She answered “because I put them there.” LOL. Well, no doy. So I let her keep them on all afternoon and silently hoped that she would forget they were there and wear them to the movie. :) But alas, she ain’t no dummy, and she remembered.

A little Jamesy

Y’all. Since Monday, my son has let me sleep through the night, with only one short hiccup. You don’t know how huge of a deal this is. He has gotten up several times in the middle of the night since he was about 18 months old. I’m sure you’ve all heard me mention this a time or two. Anyway, it was KILLING Scott and me. It was just pure hell if you want to know the truth.

I’d FINALLY gotten to the point where, short of physically harming the child, I would have done a-n-y-t-h-i-n-g to sleep through the night. I decided that over the Thanksgiving weekend I would emulate Supernanny and just keep putting him back in bed, while ignoring him and saying nothing to him. Oh, it was horrible. The first night we were up for about an hour and a half. Scott had been up with James the night before so I told him to go to Clara’s room and get some sleep. James and I went over and over and over the same thing….

Mom! I am so lonely!
James! GETTOBEDNOW. ITSTIMEFORSLEEP.
Mom! Can I get my sheet off your floor (he’d brought it into my room in an attempt to sleep on a pallet)?
No! It’s too late to be making beds. It’s time for sleep. Go.
And so on and so forth.

And while it was only an hour and a half, it felt like eternity. He was back and forth, up and down, crying, wailing, trying everything to get me to break. Finally he came in, tears running down his face, voice hoarse, and eyes and lips swollen, and he howled, “I am PATHETICALLY BEGGING YOU. Can I please have my sheet?” LOL! Pathetically begging? Why yes, son, you are pathetic.

I had a very hard time not laughing at that one, but instead I sad (rather loudly to stifle my giggles) “FINE. TAKE YOUR SHEET AND GO TO BED.”

I didn’t hear from him again and assumed that had taken care of it. I woke the next morning and went to check on him. His bed was empty. Looked in Clara’s room. Yup. He’d crawled into bed with Scott. All of it was for nothing. He’d ended up getting his way anyway.

The next night I decided to do more of the same. I’d grounded him for deliberately disobeying me (I’d told him specifically not to get in bed with his dad). I didn’t last nearly as long this time. James had come in for the millionth time, this time for a kiss. We told him we’d already done that, and now it was time for bed. I told him if he was going to cry, he needed to do it with the door shut. So for literally 15 minutes straight, we listened to James moan, “but I DESERVE a hug and a kiss! But I DESERVE a hug and a kiss!” over and over and over and over. I finally shot out of bed, grabbed the bathroom trashcan, went in his room, opened one of his toy drawers and started putting toys in the trash. Each time he made any peep I put another toy in the trash. Just kept doing it over and over. Finally he realized the cause and effect and shut off the noise. Never heard another sound out of him that night. And other than a couple VERY small blips, we’ve been able to sleep all night. I felt TERRIBLE throwing away his toys but dude, it was so worth it.
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Speaking of my son, did you know he is a nerd? I took him to buy some new clothes. Being the cheapskate that I am, we went to the children’s resale shop. I told him to pick out some pants. Some cool pants. I held up this cool pair of tan cargo pants that were adorable. He wrinkled his nose and said, “naaaaah. I like these.” And proudly displayed the goobiest pair of black corduroy, PLEATED front pants. “THESE are cool pants, Mom.” I tried to talk him out of the pants for five minutes before I gave up. Oh well. He makes those pants look GOOD.
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As I was leaving for work, James said, “I wish we had all the money we need so you didn’t have to go to work.” And that, my friends, is exactly the kind of thing that allows me to deal with just about anything the boy hands out.

My Aunt Karen and her Boobs

I started this post on Oct. 30 and never finished it, and never published it. So here it is...why not?

I love my family.

My immediate family, my extended family, the family I see all the time and the family I don’t see enough. I have a fabulous family. My sisters and I are best friends. We’re all close to our mother. Our dad is adorable. My nephew is insanely cute and brilliant, and my son and daughter are as near to perfection as you can get. We spend a lot of time together, and have dinner together nearly every single Sunday. I can’t imagine life without them!

Last weekend, I went to visit another family member of mine. My Aunt Karen! Aunt Karen has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. She was having surgery, and I rode with my mom for the five or so hour drive to Odessa, where Karen lives. Waiting for us there were Aunt Karen, Uncle Jerry, my cousin Amy and my cousin Jerilyn.

Jerilyn and I spent hours talking the first night I was there. We stayed up way too late and drank way too much wine. At least I drank way too much wine. I have no idea where Jerilyn was on that – I was just trying to stay focused on our conversations. We hadn’t sat down and talked for probably years and years. The last time I saw her was at her wedding, so of course we didn’t have much one on one time at that point, and before that, I honestly don’t remember the last time I saw her off the top of my head. OK I’m lying because she came to town summer of 2008 for a pool party. I think that was the date. Either way…please don’t jump on my case. It’s been a long time since Jerilyn and I actually hung out HUNG OUT. That’s my point.

Anyway, like I told her, it was as if we’d just pushed a virtual pause button on ourselves, and the second we saw each other and started talking, it was as if we’d only seen each other the day before. It was wonderful and we had a great time. The next morning came very early. Uncle Jerry had taken Karen to the hospital at some ungodly hour, and Mom, Jerilyn and I were up before 7. We headed to the hospital by 8am and remained there for a good part of the day. Aunt Karen’s surgery was delayed some because of an emergency, but we spent our time leading up to the surgery taking turns being with her, in pairs as the hospital only allowed two visitors at a time.

Finally, Karen was wheeled back and we spent some pretty tense time in the waiting room. Jerilyn honed her Diner Dash skills, I surfed the ‘net, Uncle Jerry furiously chewed Nicorette, Jason read magazines in the corner, Amy played on her iPhone, and Mom even began to try her hand at Diner Dash.

When the surgeon finally came to tell us that everything went well, Uncle Jerry’s eyes welled with tears immediately. He announced that he thought he might cry, and as furiously as he was chomping his Nicorette before the good news, you should have seen him concentrating on that stuff, just trying to keep himself together. It was BEAUTIFUL, it really was.

Once we found out that everything went as well as we could have hoped, Amy headed to get prescriptions filled, Mom and I headed to Target for various supplies, and Jerry and Jerilyn stayed with Karen until she was released.

I think we all kind of enjoyed taking care of Aunt Karen. She’s usually the one taking care of us. Cooking or cleaning or buying gifts or whatever. But this time – we cleaned, we cooked, we ran errands. The person who touched me the most was Uncle Jerry. He doted on Aunt Karen like I’ve never seen. He hovered constantly. There was a steady stream of conversations such as:

Karen: Thank you for my (2nd) breakfast, it looks delicious.
Jerry: You’re welcome. Do you want some more toast? Or bacon? There’s more!
Karen: No thanks, I don’t know that I can finish what’s on my plate.
Jerry: OK. ***Then walks over with a piece of bacon and piece of toast and drops it on Karen’s plate***
Karen: Thanks, honey.
Jerry: You’re welcome. Hey, I’ve put on another pot of coffee and when it’s ready, I’ll get you a slice of that cheesecake with some fresh coffee.
Karen: Well, maybe later. I am just really….full right now.

Too cute!

My Aunt Karen's going to make it through this. That's not just positive thinking, that is a fact. She's got a pain-in-the-you-know-what (the boobie, of course) road ahead of her, but she's going to be fine. Even better than before. Know why? Because her husband is never going to NOT appreciate her ever again. Because I adore my cousin Amy and we text silly stuff back and forth. Because she has an entire army of family who will be at her beck and call and there for anything she needs. Because I reconnected with my cousin Jerilyn and got to see that as adults, we have as much in common as we did when we were children and super close. All these, and other things. I told her I was so sorry she had to be the one to deal with this BS, but that I couldn't ever have imagined all the good that would come out of it.

I love you Aunt Karen! We all love you so much!

WASTED DRUNK SOBER TIPSY

Because of our crazy schedules, our family rarely eats dinner together. Usually, James eats in front of the living room tv, Clara eats in front of the tv in her room, and I pick at James's I try to get him to eat. I know - so dysfunctional, but it works for us. Then, Scott gets home around 9pm (most nights) and we eat dinner together. So...not only do I pick at James's, I eat my meal at 9pm. But that is another story.

I decided that since Scott gets home at a little after 7pm on Wednesdays, we should sit and have dinner together. I had made chili mac in the crockpot, and I set the DINING ROOM (not kitchen!) table with napkins (paper), plates with bowls on them (fancy!) and covered the lazy susan (is that capitalized??) with such goodies as sour cream, freshly grated cheese, sea salt, bread (white and wheat) and butter. Only thing missing were the beverages. I hated to put cold beverages on the gorgeous dark wood table, so I went on a hunt for coasters.

The only coasters I could find were the novelty coasters that someone had given to me (I'm so sorry that I've forgotten who!) along with some shot glasses. Well, they would just have to do.

So, when Scott got home that night, I had country music playing, NO TV, and our family was sitting waiting at the table for him. And most importantly, we all had coasters.

Each coaster has a different term and its definition. Mine said "WASTED: Adg. Invincible but incapable. Suffering from extreme loss of balance, co-ordination and sex appeal. Liable to sleep anywhere. Babbling incoherently with loss of most bodily functions." Perfect!

Scott's said: "DRUNK: Adj. Suffering from vision, hearing and speech impairment, witn an insatiable appetite for pizza. Will do anything that moves. Possessing an illogical belief that he/she is gorgeous despite dribbling and slobbering." Beautiful!

James's said "SOBER: Adj. Possessed of iron will but often lacking a sense of humor. Helpful with doing dishes, finding cds, and lifts home. Probably in need of several stiff drinks!" How appropriate!

And finally, Clara's said "TIPSY: Adj. The usual signs are a flushed face, stupid grin, loud voice and a profound love for mankind. The sufferer is incredibly deep, intelligent, and insightful but prone to giggle." That's my girl!

Apparently, no matter how classy and grown-up I always try to be, there's always something I miss. I'm just glad that James can't read and that Clara is a mostly self-absorbed pre-teen who doesn't notice anything if it doesn't have to do with her.

Can I just say that I am SUPERSAD that I haven't blogged since September? Yes? Well, I am SUPERSAD that I haven't blogged since September.