Today

1.  I am feeling very grateful for those who fight all over the world for our freedom.

2.  The desire to cook has completely left my body.  Not that it was that strong to begin with, but I really just feel like leaving bowls of cereal out for everyone and telling them to fend for themselves.  Alas, since my family will frown upon this after a while, I will continue to cook.  Dang this whole needing to eat business.

3.  It has yet to snow here this fall, for which I am very grateful, but I found myself thinking about snow and how much I used to love to go out and play in the snow when I was little.  I lived in Colorado until I was 13 and there were quite a few blizzards during the winters of my youth.  I remember one in particular when I was about 7 years old.  The year was 1982 and the blizzard was a big one.  My brother and I got all dressed up from head to toe in our snow gear and headed out into the peak of the storm to play in our yard.  It was incredibly windy and incredibly snowy and we loved every minute of it.  When the storm passed, there were snow drifts clear up the side of our house and the snow was as deep as our fence in some places.  If we thought playing in the snow during the storm was fun, playing in the snow afterwards was even better!  Oh the snow tunnels we dug.  It was a child's snowy wonderland.  I thought about this storm for several reasons.  First I was thinking about how fun it was to be a child and how much I loved playing in the snow, and about the fact that my view of winter is so much different now then it was when I was a child and how I need to find a bit more of that winter joy that I once felt.  I also thought about how it is such a pain to get kids all dressed up to go out into the snow and how I really need to be a better mom about my willingness to do this for my kids.  Note to self:  Kids love to play in the snow.  Finally, I thought about a mug that my Dad had that year.  It was a white mug and on the side of it was the phrase, "1982, a very good year."  I remember my Dad agreeing with that statement.  I have no idea what was going on in my parent's adult world at that time, but I remember talking about that mug and about the fact that it was going to be a good year.  Back to the here and now, I haven't really felt like this past year has been super great.  It hasn't been particularly bad, but it hasn't been great and a lot of that probably has to do with my attitude.  So, I have decided that I am going to take a lesson from that mug of my youth and declare that 2012 is going to be a very good year.  And if I declare it, than it shall be.

One reason why I love this boy

Every morning when I quietly sneak into his room to wake him up for school, I gently touch his head, he breathes deeply, gives his body a good stretch, throws the covers off and happily heads out of the bedroom to start his day.  No moaning, no whining, no trying to ignore the fact that I am waking him up, he is just happy and ready to wake up.  He is the only one like this in this family of mine (including myself) and I love him for it every day.  It is a gift that will serve him well in life.

Two Zombies and a Pirate

Ah yes, another successful Halloween has come and gone and now we are all laying around in candy comas, at least until I confiscate all of the candy tomorrow.  This year I informed Sparky and Woo that I would not be buying them costumes and that they had to come up with something from what we had at home. Woo was having a hard time and didn't like any of my suggestions and Sparky didn't really want to dress up at all. So, voila, Zombies. Easy for me, fun for them.

This boy was so funny. He gagged and gagged and almost threw up as I was putting on the white make-up. Just one more reason he probably won't do well in drama. 

 This girl owned her Zombieness

 When little Tiger saw me making the Zombie costumes he wanted to be a Zombie so bad. For two days he kept talking about how we needed to make his Zombie costume, but then he saw the other two getting make-up on and informed me that he was not going to wear make-up. "Sorry kiddo," I said, "no make-up, no Zombie costume." That made the decision pretty easy. Captain Jack Sparrow at your service. Of course it's the whiskers that make this a Halloween costume versus everyday wear.  That, and the smirk.  For some reason the whiskers bring out the smirk. 

My other favorite of the night: instead of saying "Trick-or Treat" like all of the other kids, Tiger said, "Trick-or-Treasure."  I love a boy who fully commits to his persona.



Pumpkins

Tiger just wanted an angry vampire.

 Sparky picked his from a pattern.

 The Woo wanted to do it all by herself and she did awesome!

 Voila!  Presenting Mr. Crabs, complete with crabby patties drawn down below.  Quite humorous considering I don't even let them watch Sponge Bob.

Happy Halloween!!

Determination

There is a website my kids like to play on called Poptropica.  Sadly, my poor little Tiger cannot for the life of him pronounce this word.  It usually comes out as Pop-poptrica.  Wrong, but totally adorable.  This is how he has pronounced this word for the last year or so.  Well, for some reason he has got it into his head that he is going to learn how to say this word.  What this really means is that he has been going around the house for the last three days saying this word over and over and over and over again in all sorts of variations, but rarely in its proper form.  I tell you though, his determination has paid off and with a little help he has actually pronounced the word "Poptropica" correctly quite a few times today.  Go little man, go.

Contemplations

If there's one thing I've learned about myself, it's that I just can't keep things inside. I am a sharer. If I don't share, then I find myself feeling extra cranky, extra emotional, and seriously lacking in patience. The side affects are very physical for me. With Doug gone so much these days (although technically this week has been better, but that will end again next week) and with my headache securely in place (sadly, I don't think this baby is going away anytime soon), I have had quite a bit of time to sit and contemplate this fact about myself. Since my head hurts so bad, I don't feel like doing anything but sitting in a dark room. Ohio has helped me out with this by ensuring that the days have, for the most part, been cloudy, dark, and rainy. Since I have been sitting around quite a bit in a dark room, I have had a lot of time to think. Usually Doug is my sounding board and gets to hear all about everything that is going on in this crazy head of mine (he loves it I'm sure), but since he hasn't been around much, a lot of that crazy has been trapped inside my person, desperately wanting to be released. This has once again led me to contemplate my need to share. Lucky for the two of you reading this, I am not going to unleash all of the crazy right now, but a little more here and there might start popping up. I just wanted to give you fair warning.
The crazy in my head today:
I have completely forgotten how to be a fun person. I feel like it started when I had kids and has just been slowly slipping away for the past 11 years. This is not helped by the fact that a lot of time I really just want to be left alone. Anyway, my goal is to figure out what I really like to do for fun. I think this is research that I can get behind.

Today

1.  It looks like my annual fall headache has settled in.  Blah!  I really thought that I was getting out of it this year.  No such luck.

2.  I was right.  My poor Sparky has walking pneumonia.  Microplasma Pneumonia to be exact.  It turns out that it is really going around right now and quite a few kids have it in his grade and in the school.  We still can't get his fever to go away and so he is still home from school.  He's also lost at least two pounds which is a huge amount for him.  He was already skin and bones to begin with.

3.  Sparky is quite bummed because I am making him do homework.  Sheesh.  The kid has already missed 6 days of school.

4.  I am quite bugged because my personal chef and maid have not shown up yet. 

5.  Little Tiger has an extremely sensitive gag reflex and has for several years.  I know it must be pretty miserable for the little guy, but it is frankly driving me crazy.  I can hardly get him to wear clothes since he was sick a couple of weeks ago because he feels like he is being choked.

6.  Tiger is totally adorable running around in his little unders.

Today

1.  I may have mentioned this a time or two before, but I love love love to be in my bed.  It is by far my most favorite place to be.  My ideal day would include being served every meal in bed along with a variety of movies and my computer.  Sadly, our winters are long and dark and so I am often found in my bed more frequently than I should be.  But today, the sun is shining a bit, the window is open allowing a lovely cool breeze to waft through my room, and I am snuggled up in my bed desperately wishing that my headache would go away.  I even have some new sheets on my bed, making it extra snuggly.  Aside from my headache, this is a perfect afternoon.

2.  I thought that I had avoided my yearly fall headache fest, but I may not be that lucky.  It has been three days of one painful head but I am hoping I can break it.  If not, I will definitely be spending more time in this snuggly bed of mine.  My family is all hoping that is not the case.

3.  My poor little Sparky has had a fever for a good solid week.  He also has one nasty cough and an ear infection.  I think he is working on a walking pneumonia.  Perhaps not, but I am pretty sure he is.  I am crossing my fingers that his fever breaks today because I just want him to feel better (and to be able to go back to school).  Also, I would love for his cough to go away.  Not just for his sake, but frankly, I am exhausted because his sad cough keeps me up all night long.  On the flip side, I am totally amazed that Tiger has been able to sleep through the coughing each night.  Kids are truly amazing.

4.  My love has been working so incredibly hard for quite a while and especially this month and we haven't seen him much.  This has just solidified the fact that I don't do well when he isn't around.  It just makes me grateful that he has never had to travel much.  The kids may go days and days without seeing him, but just knowing that he is coming home at night makes it much easier on me.

5.  I love Netflix.  That's all.

A picture I found

This summer when we were up in some Amish country we ventured into a general store that had hundreds of different kinds of sodas.  As soon as I saw this root beer, I knew my boy had to have it.  The best part was that the root beer was actually really good.

We've had a bit of illness around here

School has started and with that has come a lovely selection of illnesses.  Fortunately nothing too horrible, but unpleasant nonetheless.  First Tiger was down for a week with a fever and bronchitis and he is still coughing (dang those coughs last forever).  Now poor Sparky has been down for a week with a fever, bronchitis, and now an ear infection.  Yay for antibiotics.  Sadly nothing is helping with his cough, but he's a tough boy (insert snicker here) and seems to be hanging in there.  I have also been hit with a cold.  Fortunately it has been nothing like what the boys have had, but it has still taken everything out of me and had left me feeling like a bit of a zombie.  All I know is that Moms really should not be allowed to get sick.  Also, my love has been working lots of insane hours the past month or so and I miss him.  I know he misses us too and so that's OK.  Sometimes life is a little harder than you want it to be, but it could always be worse and so I'll take what I've got.