Help Wanted: $100/mo

I'm fairly certain that if someone would volunteer to pick my son up from school for me three times a week and take him to my house (and not even have to watch him) that I would pay $100/month.  It's about 12 times a month, that's nearly $10 for 10 minutes a dollar a minute!

I love the feeling of walking away from my office, getting in my car and driving my 26 miles home, but about 3 miles away from my son's school, I get this horrible sick feeling in my stomach, and I dread walking in to pick him up.  To make things easier this week, I have started to grab his stuff out of his classroom before I get him from the gym.  This way, he gets a couple more minutes in the gym, AND I can carry his ass kicking and screaming straight from the gym to my car with no real detours.  Damned cold weather makes me stop in the atrium to put on his coat while he screams, cries and tells me he hates me before I can get to the car though.  That will change when the weather gets nicer - or, I should just make him deal with the cold outside.  (On the plus side, yesterday, about 3 minutes after he settled down (we were already at home) he did apologize to me.  Not once did I tell him or ask him to apologize, he actually did it on his own - so at least he KNOWS saying 'I hate you' is wrong.)

I hope Adam can find a new job to apply to soon.  I'd LOVE for him to be able to get an earlier schedule to help me out in the evenings, because, hands down, there's nothing I hate more than after school pickup. 

Splinter

... and not the Ninja Turtle's Sen say  - rat guy.  Ares came home from school with a band aid on his finger, and told me he had a splinter in his finger.  (1) Ares REALLY behaved himself well when I picked him up from school and at the supermarket.  It was really nice.  (2) Splinters are Adam's specialty.  I do baths and hair and nails, Adam does splinters (which, while this is only Ares' second in entire life, is far more difficult than baths, hair and finger/toe nails).  At first, Ares was really afraid of the needle (we let him choose - big needle (sewing) or small needle - he chose small.  It took 2 minutes to actually get his finger to Adam, but once Adam started 'digging', all was good.  The 1/4" splinter came out in three different sections, the third one being pretty far in there.

Adam rotated between two different sized tweezers and the needle, back and forth, back and forth, and I bribed Ares with a Thin Mint Girl Scout cookie (which he has never had before) so the excitement was enough for him to sit still for roughly 5 minutes while Adam did this needle work:

Every day this kid amazes me.  He's makes me proud of him for millions of different reasons each day.  (Can you tell, it was a good day for us? haha.)

Batman!

Wow, a lot has happened this past weekend.  FYI, this will be a long post:
Friday night Adam picked up Ares from school (he had it easy, as all his friends had already left, so he was ready to go, however) it was nice to not have to do it myself.  We then met Darah, Devin, Davis, Mario, Renata, Lukas, Chrissy and Colt at a Burrito joint in Kent.  The kids actually got along quite well.  After we ate (and provided some comedic relief/annoyances to other patrons) the men went out to celebrate Devin's birthday at some local bars and the ladies and children went to Darah's house to enjoy cupcakes and for the boys to play with lots of new toys. 

Saturday I got to pick up my car!  Yay!  I missed my car.  It was cleaned! Inside AND outside.  Beautiful job repairing the damage as well.  It got an alignment, but it still veers to the left for some reason.  We then went straight to Lowe's for Ares to build another monster truck.  This time he did most of the building himself, and he did a REALLY-GOOD-JOB being a good listener, aside from one time while waiting in line.

We cleared the two boys' rooms of furniture and I vacumed and steam cleaned while Adam made lunch.  I tried to get Ares to take a nap in the afternoon - that was a bust, but the 'quiet time' gave me time to cut out (with the Silhouette) shapes for the capes for Ares' birthday party.   He had mentioned wanting a Batman cape for him a few weeks ago, (even though he's never seen an episode, cartoon or movie) but he knew the character and logo, so I made one for him.  When he 'woke up' I gave him his cape and we went outside to play in the GORGEOUS sunshine and 50* weather.

"Mom, don't call me 'Ares' anymore - call me BATMAN!!"  I was told this all day Saturday - AND all day Sunday.  In fact, the Batman cape was such a HUGE hit, he wore it both days, and asked for a Batman shirt.  So Sunday morning we went to JoAnne's and bought a $3 black t-shirt. 

We had a picnic snack in the playhouse in the yard.  It was starting to get chilly out at this point, and Adam had returned from his 2 hour bicycle ride.

Saturday night we put all the furniture back into the bedrooms - except we switched it up so Ares would have a big boy bed and the baby stuff went into the baby's room.  I'm not sure why I was so worried about Ares moving to a twin bed, he loves it. So much he brings his toys into the bed during the day to sit on top and play.   Score!  Two nights now and he's done great! =)    (Where's the picture?   Bad mom.)

Sunday we awoke to some more sun sun sun.  Adam went for a run while Ares and I showered and got ready to get a shirt for his Batman shirt.  We then hit up a few other stores for odds and ends for the birthday party and then to my parents' house to celebrate my brother's birthday.  (And apparently Ares' birthday too.)  He slept on the way home and once home we cleaned our our garage and took down the Christmas lights from the roof of the house.  It was the first weekend where it was warm enough to not wear a jacket and to get up on the roof.  I'm glad it's done, but oh boy my feet were hurting so bad and I was exhausted by 7:30.  So tired that I made milkshakes and Kraft Macaroni and Cheese for dinner - and Ares went to bed immediately after he ate.  (Bad mom!)

But I'm the 'best' mom so long as I let him wear his cape for two days straight and remember to call him 'Batman'.  =)    The house is a mess, but what a great weekend.  I think (and I hope) that all of the outdoors and nice weather is worth the catch up cleaning we need to do this week.  Wait until you see this cake I'm going to try and bake.  Eeeks!!

Day at Grandma's

Ares is always happy to be outdoors.  He loves the hot weather, loves the snow, and even doesn't mind cold weather.  Here's him today, while at Grandma Venus' house.   Nothing like a morning in the sandbox at 29*. Apparently he doesn't even notice that he's not wearing sandals and only has thumbs.

 Grandma is a genius.  My kid hates to color, hates to draw, paint, you name it, he is NOT a fan of art (funny, as his dad does all things art).   Color by number - more than one color is on the page at one time!  My kid!  Good job Grandma, best piece of coloring he's ever done. 

Lefty

 And to follow up with a nice hot bath (with bubbles!) in the early afternoon.   No wonder he doesn't ever want to come home with me in the evenings!  I love getting pictures throughout the day. =)

=(

I know this is beating a horse with a dead cat - or something like that, but I absolutely HATE picking my son up from school.  There is nothing I enjoy less. I'd rather stay at work another hour than deal with this child.

In other news: Grandma/Jim, is that offer still open for the snow blower or do you  no longer have that?  This winter is killing us.

Even though Adam is always in a foul mood, I try to stay in the same room as him.  So today, while he was running on the treadmill, I decided to paint the curtains.

On paper, they look great.  A few places the paint bled, but it's not really noticeable, roughly 1mm down or up, so when they hang up, it won't be noticeable, especially if they're pulled back. 

But then you hang them up.  I hung it up because the orange started sticking to the cardboard as it dried.  That made me notice how terrible it looks.  Not the bleeding, but the way the paint went on.  It looks so splotchy.  I hate it.  Hopefully when it's completely dry it will even out, but I don't see it happening. =(

And because it's been an overall crappy day, (aside from work, it was a VERY productive and successful day in the office) here's a nice picture of things I need to get ready for next weekend.  This party is going to just be thrown together.  At least they're only 3 and 4, but there will be so many parents!

Sooo Productive

Look at me, another post, that deserves many pictures and here I am, with one - that has nothing to do with the post. I wish my camera recognized my camera card.  *sigh* If only I didn't already have my eyes on new bar stools for the kitchen or a Kindle (mine broke a few months ago after years and years of use, and mom will want hers back soon - understandably.) or maybe a new cell phone, as my phone actually loses battery while sitting on 3 of my chargers - even if it says it's charging.

WHAT  a productive weekend we had!  I call it a success, Adam, on the other hand feels like he didn't have a weekend.   We started by putting a total of 4 coats of Polyurethane onto our dining room table, so NOW we can actually USE it!  Yay!   We did this over two days, with the proper drying time in between - but the table is more shiny now and looks even more fabulous than it did before -  if that's possible!

We painted the baby's room.  Adam loves the color, (I went with 'dust bunny') a brownish tan, but I think with the sun shining in, it looks more like a mauve.  I hate it, but it's FAR better than what it was before (builder-white with lots of marks) and I'll never get Adam to help repaint, haha. 

We cleaned our bedroom - I mean, put away ALL the (clean) laundry.  Mine (just a little bit) Adam's (about 3 months worth), Ares' (a lot) and all the bed linens that had been littering our sitting room for the past six couple months. Get this.  I even. Got. To. Vacuum!  Eeeks!  So exciting.  My room looks big now, like BIG-BIG.  The grossest thing I've done recently - I sat down with the brush of the vacuum cleaner and cut away all the hair and threads and crap that made it not rotate and smell like burned rubber.  With my long hair, I have no one to blame but myself, but egads that was disgusting!  I feel like I have a brand new vacuum cleaner again! I was worried I'd have to carry the main one up and down stairs (first world problems) but alas, I do not. 

Oh, we also took Ares to the library for the first time.  I cannot believe, as obsessed as my kid is with reading books, (he only has about 200 of them in his room) that we've never taken him.  Unfortunately, the library is only open from 1-5 on Sundays, so we went during nap time, which was bad when it was time to leave (because he did NOT want to, and was 'NOT happy' as he told us), but we read 5 books, 3 relatively long ones, and his favorites:  Pirates and monsters.  We also got an airplane book, a Dr. Suess book (which I. HATE) and a monkey book.  I think I'm the only one in the world who does not like Dr.Suess and Eric Carsle books.

crappy cell phone pic, but this is what Ares
and I did all Sunday morning =)

(Does anyone else spell vacuum like vacume?  I do, and spell check went cray cray with that.)

Silver Children

Ares speaks:
Hey - whatdya know?!
Let's get this party started!

The library story:
As we're leaving the library, Ares is whining and fussing and being an overall pain in the butt. (What? My kid? Nah!)  The entrance to the children's part of the Twinsburg Library (which is larger than most entire libraries) has a statue of two children sitting on a bench.  Adam mentions that he better start behaving or he'll end up like those two kids.  Just as he said that, another mom walked by carrying kids' books, but no kids were around.  She looks at us, then looks at Ares and says "Yep, those kids on the bench are my kids who didn't behave." without missing a stride.  Ares was shocked.  'Really?! 'Mom, how does she do that?'  I responded 'Magic'.  Three times since then Ares has either mentioned 'That lady who turned her kids metal' or 'Those silver kids at the library' or 'lady who does magic'.  hahaha.  It's funny what kids retain.

On that note, Ares just ate TWO sandwiches.  He asked for a third, but I said 'no'.  I'm such a mean mom.  The first sandwich had salami, pepperoni, lettuce, banana peppers and mustard (on two pieces of wheat bread) and the second sandwich was the same thing with pickles instead of banana peppers (because he finished the last of the peppers).   Let me say that again - my not-yet FOUR year old ate that.  He's not even 40 lbs yet!  Thank GOODNESS he has his daddy's metabolism!

20 Weeks!!

Last night's breakdown was due to him dropping a jar of strawberry jam and it shattering into a million pieces.  Hysterics because he couldn't eat a jelly sandwich with that jelly. Seriously child. 30 minutes of hysterics? For jelly?  Oh this kid may be the end of me.  We had 3 years of perfect child.  Good in public, good in private, great sleeping (still have that), great personality, awesome eating (still have that), and then this almost 4 age came up.  All I have is a grumpy-good sleeping and eating kid.

On the plus side, I'm 20 weeks now!  Halfway done with my last pregnancy.   I've been doing awesome although, I've gained 9 lbs already!! (With Ares I had only gained 3!).  Aside from last night, I have energy more often than not, but I'm ready for the warm weather to hit.  I don't have enough long sleeve maternity shirts, and I'm tired of wearing cardigans (that don't fit).  Not worth buying anything since it's going to be warm soon (right!?!). 

I have lots of projects to do this weekend.  I'm excited to start them! I hope I have more energy than I did last night, where I couldn't even put Ares to bed or raise my arms to reach for the TV remote.  The TV stayed off the whole night, Ares had cereal for dinner, and Adam put him to bed.  At least I got to use the food perks before they expired and went grocery shopping!


20 weeks!!

I'll Admit It

I'll admit it, I sure will.  Most of last week, up until Saturday around 7, I didn't like my kid too much. I loved him, but man oh man, I did NOT like him.  He was the most defiant, awful tempered, horrible mannered kid I'd seen anywhere.  It started on Monday, picking him up from school, Tuesday was HORRIFIC trying to get him to leave Connor's house, Wed/School - bad, Thursday wasn't terrible, but it wasn't a walk in the park, and Friday, again, not fun trying to leave school.  Saturday morning Ares was carried over Adam's shoulder to the car from Lowe's amid a massive temper tantrum when he was supposed to be putting together a fun Monster Truck.   I followed 2 minutes behind carrying pieces and parts of this truck so he could put it together at a later date. 

Saturday night, he slept on his way to the furniture store (his second nap), and then acted like a butt when we walked around the store, staying 50 feet behind us while mumbling to himself (yes, he acts JUST like a teenager!!!)  Finally, we found a couch, and he got to sit on it while he woke up and got into a better mood. Which he did, and hadn't left since then (the better mood - not the couch). 

I was so frustrated with him, I didn't know what to do.  It seriously took all of my muscle power to not smack his butt as hard as I could and send him to his bedroom for 3 hours.  New rule in the house: No More Avenger Cartoons.  They're too old for him, and too violent.  If he wants to watch the Avengers, he can watch the toddler version of the cartoons or nothing. 

I was surprised to find the couch we wanted at our first furniture stop.  We were so picky with our first couch and our bedroom set, that I thought we'd visit 3 different stores.  After a good 25% off cash sale plus some negotiating we left a happy family.  Except it won't be delivered until MID-APRIL!  OMG, I can't wait that long!!
Here's our couch - except we had an extra section added to both sides.  So instead of 3 sections between the chaise and the corner, we'll have 4 and instead of 2 after the corner on the right hand side, we'll have 3.   The couch is going to be something like 15'x12'.  The size of our last living room, maybe even bigger.  The orange pillows and stuff on top of the ottoman are not included.

Yeah Yeah You Ugly!

First - We've had some really odd weather as of late. 

Saturday/Sunday - we got about 6" of snow.  It was NOT in the forecast.
Monday - 50+* temperatures.  Sure made it easy to shovel the driveway, it was wet snow, but was only about 0.5-2" deep because most had melted
Tuesday -  got colder, but nothing terrible
Wednesday - first half of EVERYONE'S morning commute was fine.  Then complete FREAK snowstorm during rush hour.  I mean, no precipitation at all until I was about 4 miles from work.  Then, all of a sudden, I'm on 77 and I get to Wallings Rd, and BAM! Complete white out.  SOOO RANDOM.   Anyhow, it took me 25 minutes to get to my exit (remember, 4 whopping miles) and by the time I got to the exit, I had 3" of snow piled on my car.  This may not seem odd, but I had been driving for an hour by that time, and my car was very warm. How the snow didn't melt on the hood of my car boggles my mind.  It was snowing THAT HARD.  And it was a very wet snow. 
Insert Wednesday fun.  Y-U-HATN hit me.  BAM! Hit the back corner of my passenger side and slid ALL.THE.WAY to the front of my car.  No kidding,  4 panels.  Only one is bad, the passenger door.  It likely needs replaced (according to my auto-insurance-adjuster husband).  He pointed out a few other 'ripples' on the door and the back door, but his eyes are better than mine.  Which is good, as he's doing his job. 
Fortunately, only my lower back hurts a little bit (my neck did for a few hours, but that subsided completely).  If I wasn't pregnant, I'd totally be taking some Ibuprofen and a hot hot bath.  Oh, how a bottle of Motrin makes me drool right now.   The ONE plus side, is that I had another ultrasound done to make sure the baby was OK. (He is.)  I was only a little worried, but it's nice to have piece of mind now, plus, he was cooperating and actually waved to the camera.  I have good ultrasound pictures now, last week I didn't get good pictures at all.
Thursday - cold, but a lot of the snow has started to melt.
Friday- as I drove to work this morning, the rain was freezing to my windows as soon as it hit.  Until my defrost was warm, it made for a very difficult and scary mile or two.  The rest of the day should be warmer, 40's maybe?

OK, the title of the blog makes more sense with this story - and if you kind of sing it like you're an inner city cheerleader it's more fun.
Ares:  What are you doing?
Me: I'm putting makeup on, so I don't look ugly. (My makeup consists of a dab of cover up on a zit I just got - that's it.  I'm lazy simple like that.)
Ares: *when I'm finished* Nope, you're still ugly.
Me:  *fishing through my drawer to find mascara*  OK, how's this?
Ares: You're not ugly anymore, but you need  D  odrant.  (two words in his mind).
(Note: I didn't smell, but he likes us to put deodorant on while he's around so HE can use it too - been doing it for years. I REALLY hope he does this when he's in Jr High!)


Aaaand, just because my kid is cute and funny.  What's the definition of a good time to an almost 4 year old?  Letting him run around a store.  What's his favorite store to run around (ie: What's the only store we let him run around)?   Dicks Sporting Goods!

Believe it or not, this is the BEST picture I got of him running.