Merce's Late Birthday Post

Better late than never, no?

26 Reasons To Why I occasionally Love My Sister, Merce

1. Her compassion
2. Her huge heart
3. The way she gets everything I say, without explanation
4. Her 'episodes' wherein she laughs until she is blue from lack of oxygen
5. The way she will stick up for me
6. Unless she is mad at me and then she will take me to task, rather quickly
7. The fact that she loves my child as one of her own
8. Our drives
9. Her taste in music, which is really the mirror of mine, eclectic
10. Her strength
11. The fact that she doesn't even know the beginning of her own strength
12. The way she refuses to believe in herself
13. The fact that she was always up for playing "town" on our bikes
14. How she is when she is very drunk and so forlorn because she threw up
15. How she talks me through every single fucking thing in my life
16. The fact that she hasn't given up on me and my super melodramatic ways
17. Did I already talk about her giggle? Infectious.
18. The way she cries
19. Her love of all baby animals
20. She has the most awesome legs of any person I have ever seen
21. For teaching me to play pool
22. For teaching me to bartend (my most favorite job, ever)
23. For bartending with me
24. For sticking with me, even when she figured I was wrong and would only admit it to me in private.
25. For always having my back - with the skinny, little girls
26. For all the laughs we have shared, for the tears and the hugs, the fights. For teaching Miss and I patience and how to be a big sister. For the bond that makes people ask if we are twins.

Thank you for all of it. I don't know what I would do without you and I hope that you know whenever you need me, I'm here. I know that we go through our phases and on the off chance that we fight, we always say terrible, hurtful things to each other. But I also know, no matter how hateful and awful the words were, we'll be best friends again, within the week, complete with sheepish looks and reassurances that we love each other. God, how I love our make-up sessions. I could never live without you by my side, rooting for me every step of the way. I could never be who I am today if it weren't for you there, lifting me up and occasionally, dragging me by the hair, with a fork in my knee.

I love you, forever, Murph.

MISSING: My sanity

Things are busy, busy around the house.

My older sister and her three kids are here and since Merce's kids came home, our house population has grown by 7. I am constantly tripping over a body or having some kid run into me, bumping their knobby little foreheads into my belly. I love having them all here. It's like one big sleep over and I get to take half days off of work to recover! Really, I have 7 days of vacation to use by the end of August or I lose them, so I take half days here and there (like every day this week, almost!!).

Next week, I will be using 2 days. We are going to the family reunion. It is in Utah and we will be camping. Most of my family has not met, nor seen the greatness that is Ty, so it is my mission to introduce them to the loveliest child on the face of the planet. However, I forget that these days, he's really not quite so lovely and is actually quite the most embarassing of spoiled, rotten badness that other people, when they see you on the street or in the store, with said awful child in tow, usually laying on the floor and screaming at the top of his lungs, they avert their eyes and quickly run in the other direction.

My god, the fits. The fits!! They are slowly chipping away any chance I had at sanity. I pray, for real, every night, that the child I love will win out over this little shit head monster that is inhabiting his self for the last couple of months.

Really, how do you know that you are doing a good job as a parent? Is it in the grades when they get to school? Is it in the company they keep as they get older? Is it in the number, or lack thereof, of the times that they go to jail when they reach adulthood? What is it?

People tell me I do a good job with him and he is a damn good kid. I stare at them open-mouthed and think to myself "Are your standards really so low?". Does the fact that he bathes regularly and dons clean clothes (when his 'non-holey' pants are all clean, otherwise, he's been known to recycle pants every once in a while) make me a good mother? Or is it that he can dig deep and find the manners that I have tried to instill in him and he puts them to good use every once in a while, just so they don't get rusty?

I don't know. I know that he must put to use a completely different persona with others when I am not around because if he didn't, these people would be telling me, "You are nice and I really like you. Please don't take offense, but PLEASE, DO NOT bring that Satan child back here for me to watch over. He is exhausting and bratty. He says bad words and grins devilishly as he spouts them. The other children are afraid of that fit throwing thing he does where his head spins around on some axis and he vomits all over the walls. Please do not bring him back for daycare, he is not allowed and we will have a security guard on detail to make sure he does not enter these doors again." You laugh, but you don't know how close to true this is. I expect it every time I get to the door.

Instead I get: "He is so good and such a good little helper. He always tries to engage the babies in some sort of activity and he is so good at sharing with everyone and reminding them of their manners." To which I always reply "Thank you but I think you must have the wrong parent. The angel whom you have described is not my child, but I wish he were!".

I jest, really. But some days, like the last two, he is such a complete nightmare when I am around. Why do I bring out the worst in my kid? He really is a good kid, when it's just the two of us, hanging out. It's when other people come around that he is constantly trying to bring home the title for the world's best brat. He's rather upset at losing the belt to that kid last year.

Coors Light, take me away.

This weekend, we pay tribute to our city bird, the Mosquito. And we will all spend too much time in the sun and drink way too much beer.

Happy one day late birthday to Merce!!!! Your birthday post will be coming soon, which you won't know about since you never get on here and read this anymore.

Take care, all. I shall return, maybe not sooner, more than likely later.

i put in a new link

This is by far, one of the coolest sights I have seen in a long time.

Go have a look, especially if you are a mother and dealing with body issues over what bearing a child has done to your body.

I have to say, there are stories in there that are so awesome, some that are just easy going and frank in what they say. But they are all so incredible and I cried more than once, reading it.

I also have PMS and should NOT be watching (or looking) at anything slightly resembling a Hallmark commercial around the holidays.

Hello. My name is Lori, and when I have PMS, I cry over EVERYTHING.

pray for me

Approaching 100's. No air conditioner in the office. I might melt. I think my boss has my welfare in mind and will let me escape the oven that I work in. He is, afterall, my dad and has my best welfare at heart.

If this blog ends up abandoned, know that I loved it and probably thought of it while I was slowly suffocating at work.

at long last

Here it is, almost a full month later and I am just getting around to the birthday post for the boy.

Back in January, I started a five by five challenge with myself to lose five pounds per month for five months until Ty's fifth birthday. It didn't work. I lost momentum and then I lost the ability to care whether my ass was fat or not. In honor of that failed attempt, I'll do five by five for Ty.


#1: Five things I love about you:
1. I love the way you can get me to laugh at the slightest provocation.
2. I love the way your nose scrunches up when you laugh.
3. I love the fascination that you have for babies, all babies and how the world stops when you see one.
4. The way you stand with your thumbs in your front pockets, imitating all of the adult males that you see.
5. Your 50 year old logic, combined with a five year old's spin on things.

#2: Five of your physical traits that I adore and can never get enough of:
1. Little boy fingers. Need I say anything else?
2. The perfect curve to your full belly.
3. Naked pure white, little boy butt, running through the house after your shower.
4. Gangly arms and legs.
5. The feel of your knobby knees and elbows when we're wrestling or snuggling.

#3: Five things you've said that are burned into my soul:
1. "I like to make you laugh, Mom!"
2. "If you don't let me.... I'll tell people that you don't wear underwear!"
3. "You ground when you sink underwater to the ground."
4. First sentence - "It's a hat" - said in a truly reverent form
5. "Last night, I dreamed that I was riding on a train to see God" Scared the living shit out of me seeing as how at that very moment, I was reading a book about a little girl who develops a stigmata and is talking to an angel and slowly dying, inch by inch.

#4: Five things you will grow out of as you get older that will break me when it happens:
1. The need to be close to me
2. Blankie
3. The way you press your face into my neck when you are scared
4. Your funky chicken strut dance
5. The way you run to me, terrified by thunder and lightening, like I am the only safe place in the world.

#5: Five things I hope that you never grow out of:
1. That full-out belly laugh
2. Your quest for knowledge and natural curiosity
3. Your love of books
4. Your cowboy ways
5. The natural, open affection you show for all of us that know and love you.

I love you, baby boy, more than any words will ever tell. Some days, you are the only thing right in my life. Every day, you are the heart and soul that drives me. I live for your smile and when I see your little blondie head at the end of the day, I breathe a sigh of relief that we are together again, without mishap. My world is a much better place since you've arrived.

Happy late, late birthday, cowboy.

weekend warrior

The boy and I worked our rear ends off this weekend on house cleaning and general sprucing up of the outside.

I have a lawn mower, but guess what? It's not motorized and is an old fashioned reel mower. With no grass catching nifty bag bringing up the back. So we mowed and mowed and raked and raked. And fertilized and weeded. And my god, I am so tired, I sit here with eyes half closed.

Then, we went swimming.

Is there a more perfect exercise? You burn a crapload of calories and you get to do it in water! I am a total water baby and love, love, love it. You can tell by the state of my hair.

In addition to the river (our kind of river, more like a creek to all you Easterners), we have a chlorinated pool on the ranch and we spend a bunch of time in it and will spend even more once we get the solar cover on it. At the moment, it's a tad bit chilly.

I am teaching the boy to swim and once he got over the skin-tearing of mama's arms kind of fear that he might "ground" (his version of drowning; because you sink to the ground), he is a little otter. I'll try and get a pic of him in his trunks, hat and boots - precious.

Take care.

more apologizing, it's summer, for god's sake!!

SO here it is, Friday, and Lori is a bad, bad blogger. All week long, I've been meaning to post, but for some stupid reason or another (like being exhausted and worn out from the heat, not to mention getting overly drunk last evening) I just haven't got it done.

There are tons of things to blog about:

Like the execution by electrocution of many rats during a mighty thunderstorm a few weeks back. It was something that you would have to see to believe, and although I profess to love taking pictures, I didn't. Mostly because it was hideous gross and most of you (Rose) would have nightmares about it. I was also so stunned and in utter shock over it that I forgot I owned a camera.

Merce and her bf live together now and I am trying to learn to let her just live her own life. (Funny note, I was going through this, looking for the hundred mistakes I always make and noticed that I typed "let her liver her own life" Most won't find this as amusing as I, but Merce will get it) I can't go around guarding her like the most ferocious mama that I feel like I am, at times. She needs to live it and learn from it. And if he hurts her or the kids, he will go missing and I will go to jail (Note* I seriously wouldn't kill him, just in case you are wondering. I'd chase him off, though).

All three of her kids are gone, visiting their Dad. And I am missing them, tremendously. Not only because I love their smiling, sqooshy little faces (especially Boots, in all of her Latina ghetto glory) but because my son is milling about, lost, without them and bugging me constantly. Pestering me about this and that and whining that he has nothing to DO - "all of my toys are so boooorrrrrrinnnggg!!" and no friends to do nothing with. My god, he's turned into a teenager.

It's hot and my air conditioner at work broke. Which is a soggy, sweltering, sweaty hell. I often feel like I am breathing in and out of a paper bag. When the paper bag develops a hole, a wet washcloth is put over it.

I am working out with a vengeance, in front of my air conditioner at home. And as a result, I am feeling healthy and happy, which in turn leads to a very neglected blog; I have no whining to do. It also leads to more sleep, a nice hard ass and rockin' legs, so I'll continue doing so and I'm sorry that I am neglecting you all. I will either find a way to live with the guilt or I will post more. No promises, though. It could go either way.

I will sit down sometime this weekend and try to think of something that is charming and cute and witty and so like me. *note heavy use of sarcasm here* Really, I will try to think of something that is longer than 3 paragraphs and will enrapture you all.

there once was this blogger...

... who was a TERRIBLE blogger, especially in the summertime when it's too busy, too hot and another 501 reasons why she hasn't posted.

I really am still alive and recently kicking (think working out right smack dab IN FRONT of the air conditioner). Rose over at the rowhouse posted this morning that it's strange that when you are happy and full of sunshine instead of moody and angst-y, you don't get a whole lot of posting done. Why? A person would think that anyone would rather read a post full of laughter and sunshine than one full of dark clouds and fat raindrops. But, I suppose, that's the nature of the beast, really.

I promise, I will sit at work and think up a witty, charming post to post here tonight.