Surviving the Domestic Jungle

Sorry I have not written in a while. I just do not have all that much too say…surprisingly! Its New Years Eve today and it has me looking ahead to the upcoming year as I have been anticipating this year since I was a child. 2012 will be interesting for so many reasons. First of all, it is an election year which is always an interesting experience. I personally am not into any of the candidates. I may be controversial for saying this but I wish Donald Trump would run! He seems to call it like it is and I like that. I’m not sure if any person is ever qualified (or knows what they are getting into) when they become President. Anyway, so the upcoming year is shrouded in fear and uncertainty thanks to the Mayans and their calendar. The thing is, just because a certain time period ends, it does not mean we are all going to die on a particular day. That is just ludicrous and a little narcissistic to be honest. There has been life on this earth for a very long time and the fact that we keep thinking it is going to end during our lifetime is a little ridiculous. I look forward to the upcoming year and the transitions and changes that occur. I don’t know whats in store but I know I am looking forward to the year ahead. I look forward and welcome changes in the right direction, whatever they may be, and I hope that as the clock strikes midnight tonight, we all enter into a year of new beginnings and understanding.

When you are a housewife, you have moments of feeling totally isolated. It is not fun and in fact can be really hard to deal with. What helps me deal is being outside and getting exercise. The truth is, the feelings of isolation can occasionally be overwhelming and you need to do something to prevent feeling sad. I don’t find going shopping or being out in public helps as spending money stresses me out! I got invited on a walk today and it just perked me right up after having a down day. I personally do much better when I get fresh air and I actually wish I lived in an environment more conducive to outdoor activities. Right now the weather is perfect for outdoor stuff but give it a few weeks and we are back to the fiery pitts of hell. I’m not sure how many more intense heat summers I have left in me before I pack up the kids and head for the snow covered hills! I would love to see some mountains out of my bedroom window. Thats one landscape I have never lived by but I think is beautiful. I wish that being a stay at home mom wasn’t so isolating but it is and there are ways to deal with it. You just have to figure out what works best for you. Sometimes I wish I had more alone time but that certainly doesn’t help with isolation feelings now does it?! Well, tomorrow is a new day full of potential so we shall see what it has in store.

When you step into a doctors office nowadays, there are multiple flat screen televisions, laptops and pretty much very expensive stuff that your extremely high bills are paying for. I love my children’s pediatrician. She is just this adorable person who exude warmth! The office is very plain and there aren’t even toys in the waiting room! Not your average pediatricians office! The exam rooms are just as simple. Also, the doctor has a diamond ring smaller than mine (not trying to brag about the size of mine or anything! Lord knows I am not a doctor with a doctors salary!) which is damn near shocking for most doctors. Because of all of this simplicity in the decorating, the office visits are very affordable. I like that a lot. The dentist I take my kids too has at least 10 televisions attached to their ceilings. When I was a kid you sat in the chair and stared at the ceiling. Your teeth got clean regardless. Either way, I am glad I have found an exceptionally wonderful, genuinely concerned for my kids well being, doctor whose priority is the children and not creating some three ring circus. Next time you go to a doctors office, pay attention to your surroundings (this is totally my opinion and potentially not true) as you are the one paying for all of it. Well, you and all of the people sitting next to you. I have big issues with the American healthcare system in general and the amount of unnecessary stuff on the walls is just one aspect of it.

Because I have a child with chronic constipation problems I decided it was time to try and alter her diet. She is extremely picky about food (like most toddlers) and my husband and I have indulged her because we are just happy when she eats at all. When she is constipated, she is so full of poop that she generally doesn’t eat. She then goes to the bathroom and is starving. So, I remembered a cookbook I had heard of years ago called “Deceptively Delicious” by Jessica Seinfeld and decided to pick up a copy. It is all recipes where veggies are hidden in the meals. I have been thumbing through it this afternoon and I have to say it looks awesome! I will need to buy a Magic Bullet which is fine with me because I am going through a bit of a cool kitchen things phase! I got my Slap Chop yesterday and it came with a free Graty! Anyway, you basically puree whichever vegetables the recipe requires and mix them in with the meal and the kids have no clue! I cannot wait to try some of the recipes! I hope so much that this helps. So much of our health can be controlled through our diets but the good foods never taste as good as the bad foods! I try to eat healthy and for the most part do but I have a husband who does not like to eat healthy so there is a bit of a struggle. Thankfully, my oldest and youngest seem to eat everything and operate properly. My middle child will one day work and eat properly too. She just needs a little help getting there but I will get her there soon enough.

I havent really gone anywhere for the last few days and today it was a necessity to go to the local Walgreens. As I was in line checking out, the register died. They had scanned 3 of my 6 items and then the whole system went kaput. Well, let me tell you the ridiculousness that ensued. Just as this computer mishap happened, a flock of old ladies in dire need of cigarettes flooded the store and all had a serious attitude when they did not get what they wanted the moment they wanted it. One lady must have been on drugs because she couldn’t stop moving and her mouth was moving but she wasnt saying anything. She got so angry and was huffing and puffing and rolling her eyes and was basically ridiculous. Another woman went behind the counter in an attempt to grab her cigarettes and take them to the photo or beauty departments as their registers were working. I could not believe these people. A man was holding his beer saying what bullsh*t it was and had a very bad attitude. I would like to add that all of these misfits were in sweat pants or worse and were obviously not in some huge hurry. Just acting like asses to the poor guy behind the counter. I will never understand behavior like that or being annoyed when waiting in line at the grocery store! If that is your biggest problem in life then you are lucky but I choose not to stress out over the checker taking too long. Get a life, chill out and recognize when things go wrong that it was not done to YOU on purpose. Quit treating the people behind the counter as some sort of punching bag for your shitty attitude! Have manners! Have patience! Have CLASS!!

I wish kids could potty train themselves. They teach themselves how to crawl, walk, talk. How come they cant potty train on their own? I am not good with potty training. I dread it actually…especially with my middle child who has a lot of issues just using the bathroom. Once my oldest was trained, she never had an accident, which was nice. With both of my girls, I find/found that they worried about making a mess more than anything else. They both seem/seemed so uptight when training first started. The only problem with my youngest daughter is her issues with constipation and how I am going to deal with that while trying to train. My husband is constantly making comments about how she needs to potty train, and while he is right, he does nothing to help. It just annoys me. I cant even think about when I have to potty train a boy!!! I will cross that bridge when I get there I guess. For now, I am attempting to get Hailey potty trained with yet another visit to the doctor to try and figure out why she has such issues. Im beginning to wonder if it is a food allergy…..Anyway, if anyone has any tips on how to make potty training easy, please feel free to bestow your knowledge upon me!

Christmas is over! Thank God! I love the holidays..the music, the food, the presents, the merriment…but I love it when it is all over and we are at the dawn of a new year and new possibilities. Im still avoiding all retail stores as this week is the week of returns and the lines are just as long as the lines to purchase! No thank you. The kids had a great Christmas and that is all that matters to me. We did nothing (and I mean nothing) yesterday which was nice but now I feel like a useless slug and I need to get outside and get some exercise! STAT! I am going to bundle up the kids and go for a long walk. My neighborhood sucks for walking but I may venture out in a different direction and live on the edge! There is a park a few minutes down the road and it has trails through the woods which I could walk on but all of my spider senses start tingling and I imagine rapists and murderers lingering behind every bush. Ridiculous I know but I think as a woman, with her small children, you never put yourself in situations where something could happen. You are a sitting very vulnerable duck when you are walking alone with your children along a wooded trail so, it is neighborhood strolls for me. I dont know how the progression of long lines to murderers and rapists in the bushes happened but there you go.

Considering this is the eve of Christ’s birth, I have a couple of questions on the whole Jesus Christ topic. I was raised a Catholic and have a belief in a higher power (whatever it may be). I do not, however, think the Bible is the end all be all of the Truth of what has occurred or what God has said. I have my own opinions on the Bible and I believe it came into circulation when it was needed the most. Anyway, I have a few questions about the birth of Jesus. First of all, what the heck did Joseph think when his wife was carrying another ‘mans’ baby? Did it bug him that he had never even had sex with her and she was basically a ‘ruined’ (by the standards of those days) woman? Did it bug him that this was not his child yet he was expected to raise him without a dime of child support from God? It seems so ludicrous to me! No man would just be like “Okee Dokee” about HIS wife being impregnated by someone else only to have to raise this child. Was Joseph the worlds first step father? Then there is the science aspect that immaculate conception is not even possible! There is artificial insemination but immaculate conception? None of this makes any logical sense yet here we are, year after year, not even questioning anything. How the hell does something non human (God) even have sperm? Does Jesus resemble his Father? I could go on and on about this but I don’t celebrate Christmas because of Jesus nor do I celebrate Easter because of Jesus (HELLO! Raising from the dead??? Anyone find that weird?). Isn’t there even an argument that Jesus was Jewish which would mean he wouldn’t even celebrate Christmas? Just a few thoughts…..

I mainly have this blog to document my not so exciting stories and I figured I would tell about my favorite Christmas from when I was a child. It was 1993 and that was the year my mother only allowed orange lights on the tree. She thought they looked better than the multi colored ones and this may have been before white lights were everywhere! Don’t quote me on that…..Anyway, we had a beautiful tree and one of the best parts of that particular year was that as we were coming out of Christmas Eve mass, it started to snow. It snowed as we walked home (the little church was down the street and was a church that was NOT an auditorium. It was a tiny white chapel) and by the time we woke up that morning, there was a perfect layer of snow on the ground that covered everything. As it was around 5am on Christmas morning, no one had driven on it. It was perfect, white snow on a perfect Christmas morning around a perfect orange tree!  Anyway, my brother, sister and I sat around talking and playing/eating the contents of our stockings waiting for my parents to get up so we could actually open the presents. I will never forget that I got the snowsuit I had been wanting. I dont remember anything else I got but I sure remember that snowsuit. It was the best childhood Christmas that I can remember! As an adult, I have had some great ones with my kids but the lack of snow just never feels very Christmasy to me. One day I want to take them to where it snows to celebrate Christmas!

Well, tomorrow is Christmas eve and I haven’t wrapped one present. Fabulous! I don’t have a moment where I can…The kids are always with me! I’m going to have to find the time either today or tomorrow…or else! I think I found a new cookie recipe which has been saved to my inbox and if it is good, will be printed and framed! If you didn’t read the post where I lost my favorite sugar cookie recipe, I did and I was sad! They were soooooooooooo good!!! I think tonight we are going to go see some Christmas lights in this adorable little town. This town is straight out of a storybook. The streets are lined with old buildings (And not torn down to put a Walmart!!!) and they have a great Christmas lights walk through thing. Then tomorrow, Christmas Eve, we are having our family get together..sigh. It was best to do it on Christmas eve because Christmas day everyone is usually scattered at various in-laws. We are having a big Italian dinner which I am kind of looking forward to. I don’t know if we are going to have a real Christmas dinner this year…I hope we do but that remains to be seen. Should be an interesting time as it always is! These are special times and regardless of family drama and nonsense in general, it is all about the kids and making sure they have a great time!