Insanity

Ok it's official my oldest child is going to drive me crazy. I realize that it's not a long drive but still it's the point of the whole thing. Today has been another one of those days where half the day I was ready to strangle him and the other half I was like aww isn't he cute. I really do think cuteness is a survival thing. Anyhow I'm not going recount all of my day I'm just going to share with you one thing I learned today. Child safety locks are on cars for a reason and they work better if engaged. Had thought about this a the fact that I have a insane two year old prior to tonight I might not have thought I was going to die. Let me explain... Tonight we had to take Jared to the airport and on the way back I stopped paying attention to Ethan and he got very board, this is never a good thing. I was talking on the phone when I hear "what I do" and all the sudden there is a gust of wind from behind me. For those of you who haven't guessed it Ethan opened his door. Now normally this may not have been to big of an issue but going down the highway at 70 in the middle lane of a three lane highway it was a major issue. I thought I was going to have a heart attack and if my some miracle I survived that I was sure someone was going to hit us. Someone was really watching over us is all I can say because when I switched lanes as calmly as I could the door gently shut. It didn't latch just hung there almost closed until I could get off at the exit luckily only a few feet ahead. I was able to get out a close the door on the exit ramp. So in case any of you have not done this engaging the child safety lock is a good idea, I just never really thought about it. I really wasn't kidding my kids will drive me insane but I hear that can be fun some days.

Death stream of Consciousness

Life is funny sometimes, not haha funny just really strange. For instants my family always dies in sets of three usually with a month of each other. I don't know why that is. I don't know if we all pick the time we will leave this earth before we come but that's just the way it seems to work in my family. A few weeks ago I lost my great aunt and my aunt within 24 hours of each other. Today my grandmother died and right now it all just doesn't seem real. I was planning on going over to see her on Saturday to say good bye. I wanted to let her meet Daniel but I messed up and waited to long. I knew it was bad but I thought I had a little more time. I think deep down I thought she was to angry to die but I guess not. My grandmother and I have never seen eye to eye on things. I would like to say I have found memories of her from my childhood but I just don't. I wanted to make my peace with that when I said goodbye but now its to late in a sense. I'll have to find a way to deal with that but not tonight. Ok is it really sick that right now the song that keeps playing threw my head is Another One Bits the Dust by Queen: "and another one gone and another one gone, another one bites the dust..." Going off in a completely other direction lately I've been thinking a lot about what happens when we die. Not the are there really big pearly gates and someone standing at the front with a book to see if your name is wrote down like in the movies but the finer details. The promise of a perfect body and how really great that is. I guess I never really thought about it before but after seeing the suffering that my aunt went threw before she died. I don't know how to explain how great it must feel to get that body to be able to run or do a million things you may not have been able to do here on earth. I think we go threw some of the things we do so we can appreciate that body when we get it and don't just take it for granite. I've also grown to appreciate my church a lot more of late. We believe family's can be together forever. That is such a precious gift that I can't even begin to explain. I'm not very good at putting spiritual thoughts down on paper but right now I'm really appreciating my church and the strength it lends me. I would write more but I think I'm just burned out now and need to sleep to try and get some kind of grip on this crazy world.

God must have a sense of humor!

I really think God has the best sense of humor or else there would not be days like today. Our day started off with the kids sleeping in the 6:30 hurray!! However the cat woke me up at 6 with an upset stomach, hows that for annoying. Afterward Jared decided he wanted to go out for breakfast to spend time with us. Great, I don't have to cook...or more accurately put together cereal and milk. There was one little glitch however shoes. You see Ethan only really has one pair since its really hard to find any that fit him and last night he "took care" of his shoes all by himself. So this morning when I went to put his shoes on I could only find one. Jared and I looked everywhere but still no shoes and after 45 mins we were getting pretty hungry and cranky. So we put him in flip flops and out the door we went. Ethan decided he really didn't want to wear shoes so when we got to coney he took them off and put them on the table. Since the boy has tons and tons of energy he proceeded to run around the table in a game of catch me if you can while everyone in the restaurant looked at us like whats wrong with your child. Thank goodness for understanding waitress who just laugh and distract him. After breakfast we took Jared home and started another round of lets looked for Ethan's shoes without any luck. Feeling utterly defeated I decided to go to the library for story time and to return the movies we rented last week. In order to go to the library we had to go back to the friends house were I had left my purse the night before. On our way from there to the library Ethan and Daniel fell asleep so it was home again home again gigity gig. The boys did sleep for almost 2 hours which really was a blessing since I needed a break and was able to get some work done on photos. I really didn't want to look for shoes that at that point I was thinking Ethan had thrown away for us. After naps the boys were up to full speed again...Ethan took bright pink kite sting and wrapped the living room kitchen and dinning room up for me so that it look like something out of the parent trap. Then he tried to play football with his little brother with real tackles. You all can imagine how that turned out. After getting that all sorted out we tried to make dinner with Ethan going is it done yet every 5 mins. I was ready to scream after the first 50 times but managed not to. After dinner it was off to the library to try and get there before they closed but of coerce I forgot they were doing construction on the Baker Rd bridge so we went a round about way and just made it before they closed. Ethan picked out a new movie which I'm sure we will be using tomorrow to distract if tomorrow is anything like today. At any rate back home to do some more searching for that shoe with the decision made that if I couldn't find it in the next 30 mins I was going to the store and buying him another pair. After a few mins of cleaning/searching I can't seem to get Ethan's plane out of my mind. Ok I decide I'm going to go look at his little plane its one of these ride on toys that has a compartment under the seat for whatever reason. If you haven't guessed it the shoe was right there inside his plane all day...whenever I had been looking for the shoe he had been playing with his plane so maybe that's why it didn't occur to me earlier but at least we found it. At this point Jared volunteered to take him outside for a while, thank goodness. After a few moments I hear our door bell go nuts...Ethan is repeatedly ringing so much so that the cover fell off the ringing part of the doorbell inside. I was kinda funny. He then brought me in a toad from the garden so that I could see him. He named him hoppity. We convinced him that hoppity could live in the garden and we would visit with him latter. I'm really not looking forward to the first snake he finds I know he's going to want to show it to me. At 8:30 I decided he was to tired so off we went for a family car ride. Now the boys are peacefully sleeping. I really love it when they are sleeping...there are so few things they can get into when they are sleeping.

Photography update

Photography stuff seems to be picking up. I'm taking more and more pictures which is great. I'm learning more and more of what works and what doesn't. Jared is pressuring me a little to start charging people so I guess I better come up with a price list. It should be pretty easy right? Well I'm going to at least calculate how much everything will cost to do and we'll go from there. I am going to try and order a portable backdrop off of e-bay I think. I think that will make things more professional looking along with a few solid backdrops. I have a friend who is willing to buy one of the backdrops as payment for doing family pictures for her. Its a really sweet offer. I'm also going to see about getting some reflectors since I want to work with natural light and they really aren't to expensive. The up side of this is being totally portable so if I wanted to stuff at someone else's house I could as long as there is enough space. I need to find some time to work on the website as well. I think I've settle on True Emotions as the name for the photography business but need to double check that its not already in use.

The little things

I don't know how many of you even know who Three Dog Night are but I have to quote them tonight because it just seems right. "Mama said there would be days like this". Its so true, of coerce its usually followed by laughter and just wait until they do such and such and lots of sighing on my part. Anyhow today was just one of those days were nothing went quite as planned and the kids were just driving me up a wall. But sometimes the little things make it all worth it.

This evening I tried to run and errand. I have these jeans I bought Ethan that I thought would fit but are way way way to big so I need to return them. I have been trying my hardest to return them all week but something always pops up. So tonight determined to make that work I loaded to screaming children in the car and off we went. Our car ride was less than peaceful. At first Ethan screamed that Mommy needed to drive since Jared was driving. Then after 5 mins of that we pulled over chines fire drilled it and got to listen to the exact opposite for another 10 mins until we stopped at a friend’s house to drop something off. While dropping the item off my husband volunteered to take both Ethan and her little boy for a walk. It was so nice to just sit down and talk for half an hour while the boys played outside. I didn't know how much I needed it until just then. I had forgotten to get the chicken we were suppose to have for dinner out of the freezer so after this we got in the car and I wondered what we would do with Ethan hungry. Jared to the rescue, we went out to dinner at my favorite burger joint. Then home for bath time, which had a slight incident, which will require the cleaning of the bath toys. After all this I decided we need a peaceful evening so I popped Herby in and made some popcorn. It was such a simple thing and at the time I felt like I was giving up a little but it really was the right thing tonight. Ethan cuddled on my one side Daniel climbed on my other. Side note Daniel pulled himself up to a full standing position tonight. I’m not sure if I should be happy about this or terrified. Anyhow it was just nice to sit there with my kids. Not yelling at them to stop doing something or trying to keep the newly mobile one out of something. We enjoyed our movie and then the boys went to bed without winning or crying or coming out of their room 5 million times. Some times those little things make everything just right so tonight I’m thankful for movies and caring husbands.

Ethan

Today Ethan had to "fly" up the street to go see the fish in our neighbors pond. I think he really just wants to go throw rocks in the water but he always says he wants to see the fish. I also learned today that you can go fishing in a mud puddle with a stick. The things you catch may look like leaves but really they are fish or so Ethan tells me.

We interviewed a preschool today for Ethan and I think we are going to stick with it. I think they will be able to handle him there and he really liked all the different things they had to do. We talked with the person who will be teaching his class and he seemed to like her. They have lots of trips and special things they do with the kids like they take them to a pumpkin patch in the fall and have special puppet shows that kind of thing so I think Ethan will really enjoy it and it will give me a little bit of a break.

Life

Pictures of the day. I took these while I was waiting for Ethan to wake up from his nap. I thought turned out pretty cute so I would share. Daniel said Mama for the first time today. He's been saying Ma for a while but its the first time he's said Mama and was looking strait at me when he did it to so I'm counting it. He also said baba and grabbed a bottle so I think that counts too. He seems to have been a little traumatized by the whole falling down the stairs thing. He won't let me leave the room without crying right now and I'm not really sure why that is unless he's cutting teeth again. Hopefully its just a temporary thing. For those of you who don't know Daniel fell down seven stairs on Friday night and we spent the night at the ER. He's fine but got some pretty good bruses out it and a pretty banged up nose. It really is a good thing babies heal fast and I hope I never have to go threw head x-rays with an infant ever again.

Just for your amusement on Saturday I was making our grocery list. We tend to sit around the table as a family and do this and Ethan decided he wanted to help. When I read off the list and asked what else we needed Ethan informed me we needed an alligator...so I wrote it down because he kept repeating it until I did. Then he informed us we needed to get the alligator food and a house so he could play in and out. It was really cute. Maybe for his birthday this year I'll get him a little stuffed alligator.

On a not so happy front I just got another call from my mom about my grandmother. She is really not doing well and they called in hospics today. She has stopped eating again. This last month she has lost 30 pounds. I know shes in a lot of pain I just wish there was something I could do. She misses my grandfather so much that I don't think she can stand living anymore without him. He died when I was still in middle school but she's never been the same since. I think she's just done. I hope she finds peace soon.

Photography

Photography is fast becoming something more than just a hobby for me. Eventually I would like to do it as a business provided I'm good enough but I'm not sure now is the right time. Sometimes I sit here and think oh my goodness what am I doing. It's kind of like the feeling you get right before you get sucked under the water and can't breath for a few mins. Then your head breaks the surface you gasp for air and life is ok after all. I had to give up the photography class that I was going to take this summer because Jared is going to be traveling a lot and it just wouldn't work out. Overall I'm fine with this but it makes me wonder if we can't make a class work will we be able to make a photography thing work? I guess time will tell. I really love photography and it’s become my outlet in a way. Whenever Jared leaves town I just follow the boys around and document there day, sometimes I take over 150 in a day, which is a little insane. Whenever the boys are driving me nuts out comes the camera and suddenly I don't care if they are destroying the house or if they are into everything because when I look threw the lens I'm not a mom. It's hard to explain but I've found that taking pictures of my children makes me appreciate the people they are, something I'm not always good at. With Ethan my oldest especially its hard because everyone is always telling me what a handful he is which is true but it makes me think there is something wrong with him if he's so much worse than other kids. But when I follow him around and see what he's seeing I mean really see it’s amazing. I love the way he gets so excite and all the expressions. At any rate right now I am taking pictures of friends kids and families and really really enjoying it. I'll post my favorite pictures so far and if anyone wants pictures taken let me know I can always use the experience. Right now I'm thinking of maybe starting to charge in the fall but we'll see how that goes. I still need to come up with a price for everything, which seems to be the hardest part of this whole your own business thing. You don't want your prices to low that you don't make a profit but to high and no one is interested. Well I have faith it will all work out the way it's suppose to I'm just not sure it will be complementary to what I want. If you want to see more pictures my page in progress...which i need to make time to work on now that I have a better idea of what I want is http://puck.nether.net/~smiles/photography1/

and here is a recent photo shoot I did for a friend

http://puck.nether.net/~smiles/Elders/

Insomnia

I should be sleeping right now but I just can't seem to find the ability to do so. All the men in my house are peacefully snoring away but no not I. I'm here staring at a computer screen since I can't turn my brain off. You know if anyone ever invents an off switch for the brain I think I might be first in line. It's not like I'm thinking of anything that can't wait until tomorrow when the boys are awake and I have to be anyhow. No right now I'm sitting here thinking were almost out of milk I've got to remember to get that tomorrow or the next day we won't have milk for cereal. And did I remember to bring in the trashcan or is it still out next to the road. Sometimes I just need a mute button cause if I could just get my brain to shut up for 5 seconds I could go to sleep. If you haven't guessed I suffer (hmm maybe suffer isn't quite the right word but I'm not sure what the right word is plagued maybe) by insomnia. I don't think there can be anything more annoying than insomnia well except maybe a bad haircut. So what do they tell you to do about insomnia get out of bed so you don't get so frustrated with the fact that you can't sleep and compound the problem. Only problem with that is I tend to do really weird things at night when I can't sleep...mop my floor at 3 in the morning with the stereo going until my husband comes down stairs and say "honey are you ok" because I'm singing along to veggie tales...ok so it was left in the stereo from my kids and I was to lazy to change it. Besides if you've ever been up at 3 and doing some simple task it’s always good to have background noise otherwise you start talking to you self or the wall. So anyhow this bog is hopefully a more sane way for me to deal with my sleep issues and maybe if I write about my life I'll see a little more humor in some of the things my two year old does.

Two year olds are the most wonderful and exasperating creatures on the earth. I love my son with all my heart but there are moments when I really wish he were someone else’s child. To give you an example of this my son has an obsession with our fireplace. He has always love fire a trait he gets from his father but it's been taken to a new level this week as he has turned into cinderfella. No that's nothing like the movie. Let me explain while I was changing my 7 month olds diaper the 2 year old decided that it would be great fun to play in the fireplace. At first it was just a finger that edged its way in just to test the area and see if it was safe. Then a large gust of air flew in and as he discovered that the ashes would move around quite readily. I will not bore you with the details of that clean up but as I was trying to get this mess under control he found the baking powder that I had left on the counter from an earlier project. He proceeded to dump large amounts of said substance on the floor so that he could run threw it and make footprints on the rest of the floor. Then he discovered you can slide threw it and its really fun...it was at this point that I turned around and stopped his fun. He was sentence to time out again. A short time latter while feeding the seven month old I hear giggling coming from the kitchen area which is were our fire place is but decide he's not hurting him self I'll let it go and maybe its not bad right. To make a long story short he was in the fireplace again and had dumped a large amount on the floor. Figuring he would get in trouble for this he had gotten the broom and dust pan out and tried to clean things up resulting in the opposite effect. We have also had ashes sifted in a flour sifter as he ran threw our house this week.... in case anyone is wondering the fire place is now I hope cleared of all forms of ash. In retro speck it really is quite amusing and I suppose if I had cleaned out the fireplace instead of waiting for my husband to do it we wouldn't have had so many incidents but as they say hindsight is 20/20