Category: Jenny is neurotic

Well, Joshua’s not even technically out of school yet (his last day is tomorrow) and I already can’t wait for it to start again.  The big kids are at a point where the dynamic betwixt them is very difficult to bear.  Joshua delights in letting Sophie know how stupid she is and in getting on her nerves, and Sophie delights in screaming like a banshee and grossly overreacting to everything that he does.  OH, and Joshua also delights in tattling on Sophie who delights in doing whatever-the-hell-she-wants-no-matter-what-her-mom-told-her.  As you can imagine the tattling also sends Sophie into hysterics.

And all these hysterics from them send me into hysterics of my own.

I’ve made very few plans, besides buying a pool pass to the local pool, which I hate, to survive this summer.  I really do not like being on the go that much and three days a week at the pool is about all I can stand. I have no money for kids camp or a nanny. I also apparently, have no mothering skills for navigating this time in our lives.

When I was a kid, my mom had a job and my dad was a teacher so he was home with us in the summer, but he was constantly building something  so you know, if we got on his nerves he could just hammer something.  And anyway, we were free to run around our very safe neighborhood and come home when we were hungry for a JELL-O Puddin’ Pop and then leave again for hours on end, so I think it was just an easier time to be a parent.  This is not the world I live in.  Partly because of choices we’ve made that are for our family and partly because the world is just not as nice and safe and easy now as it was thirty years ago.

So, what will we do this summer to pass the time?  I think I’m about to go sign my kids up for every possible daytime VBS in our area.  Well, every daytime VBS run by good Christians that is.  I’d like the kids to stick with Jesus and all. I LOVED VBS as a kid and Joshua and Sophie loved it last summer.  They can have fun, be apart from each other, and learn about Jesus.  And Jonah and I can have some alone time. Win-Win-Win-Win.  Yep, VBS and the pool.  Children’s museum once or twice…I don’t know what else.  I still  have toddler nap times to work around!

I’m sure you all judge and/or hold me in contempt, but I am not looking forward to this summer at all.  But hey, I’m going to be in LA for the first three official days of break!  Which means my official summer with the kids will start with jet lag, but I think it’ll be worth it. And I’m setting my expectations for the summr low, so they’re sure to be exceeded, right!? RIGHT!!????

How are you keeping your kids busy this summer?

So remember that time I was complaining about my gallbladder? Well you all convinced me that I needed to get it checked out. Soooo I went to the doctor, who said, “sounds like it’s your gallbladder.  Go have an ultrasound.”  So I did.  But after waiting almost a week for the results, I found out that the ultrasound didn’t show anything wrong.  Yet, I am still having these classic gallbladder symptoms.  So, as you read this, I will be preparing for a gallbladder SCAN.  Which, will be expensive AND require me to lay still on my back for TWO HOURS.  And hopefully show something if there is something to see.

I am totes freaking out about the two hours thing. The idea of it just flips me out!!!  I am taking my phone and my headphones and have downloaded an audio book to listen to. I hope it works!

But anyhoo, when I was endlessly waiting for my ultrasound results, I decided to take matters into my own hands and do a natural gallbladder “cleanse”.  I know, I’m totally nuts.  But my crunchy friend Laura kept telling me to do one involving drinking olive oil and grapefruit juice, and I got so desperate from the pain and the waiting that I DID it.

I cannot believe I did it.

Not just because it’s weird, but because I am a total wimp.  And yet, I drank THIS:

8 oz of fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice and olive oil.  It took me about 10 minutes to get it all down! I really cannot believe I did it.  The worst part was drinking two 4-0z glasses of water mixed with Epsom salts before hand.  That stuff was NASTEEEEEEEE.

It definitely cleansed a whoooooole lot of stuff, but unfortunately it was not the cure-all for the ol’ gallbladder.

So it’s off to the hospital I go for the scan.

And hopefully, some answers.  Wish me luck!

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So what are you doing with your Friday?  (If you need something to do, why don’t you go take our survey and enter to win a $25 Lands’ End gift card!?)

My earliest memory, which plays jerkily in my head like an old 8mm filmstrip, is of going to see the house where I grew up as it was being built.  I remember sitting in my parent’s car in front of the house, seeing wood framing with that black paper in between the wood.  You know what I mean?  I was only three.  Yet, I remember it very clearly.

Do you know what else I remember about being three?  Nothing.  So I think that one memory of that one year of my life is kind of a cool one.

Joshua and Sophie love it when I tell them stories from my childhood, and I try to think up the really exciting ones, like when my Dad saved an injured bird on a pond one day when he took us kids fishing, or when my brother Andy locked me in the garage (in the dark) when we had a babysitter over.  You know, the epic snapshots of my childhood.  I could tell my kids a couple dozen or so of those stories, but then I’d run out…it’s simply amazing to me how much we can experience and not remember.  How much of my life is lost in this way?

Some of my the childhood memories I savor are of my mom rubbing my back when I was sleepy, playing outside on Silverbell Court with my friend Erin, the sun-warmed pavement so hot beneath our bare feet.  I remember spending the night at Grandma’s with Emily and Anna, making up dances and playing lots of rummy. I remember going fishing with my Dad and “helping” him build a deck on the back of our house.  I remember going to Disney World when I was six, but the only thing I remember about it is that Captain Hook scared the bejeebers out of me and my dad was about to deck him, and that it took forever to wait for my brothers to ride Space Mountain (sorry, Em.)  I remember meeting my friend Sheila on the first day of kindergarten.  I remember being baptized.  I remember my dad returning from a fishing trip and cleaning fish in the garage, GROSS.  I remember always making a huge mess out of the patch of dirt on the edge of our driveway that I’d stir into a giant mud puddle when it rained.

Maybe I remember more than I think.  Maybe I have no idea.

When Bobby and I were first married, for 14 months we lived in an apartment on the 7th floor of a building near downtown Dayton.  I spent my first year of marriage there and yet I remember almost nothing about living there.  It was like a “blip” – it went by so fast.  It’s just so weird to me that I don’t have more specific memories from that time.  I feel the same way about Sophie’s first year of life – really almost her first two years.  I guess I was a little  incredibly overwhelmed by the transition from one kid to two, from working part time to staying at home, and from starting the blog during that time.  I know I was exhausted, as she didn’t sleep well until she was 15 months old.  I look at pictures and they jog memories, but her babyhood is pretty much a blur to me, and it makes me sad.  But she was so crazy and I was so worn out  – all those  months of sleep-deprivation were detrimental to my memory for sure.  Momnesia definitely set in.

Since Jonah’s my last baby, I want to try and re-mem-ber as much as I can about these times.  About us as a family of five.  I want to take the time to recognize a moment and say, “Oh! I have to remember this!”  and then do it.  And I want to give my kids those special memories…will Sophie remember me rubbing her back at night?  Will Joshua remember making fun science crafts with me on spring break? Will they remember seeing their baby brother in the hospital when he was born? I hope so.  I hope that most of all, even if some of the details slip away, they’ll remember what I remember most about my childhood…being happy, loved, and secure.

What’s something you’re so glad you remember, or something you wish you remembered more clearly?