The Unknown...

With the fall season approaching and the horror movies starting to overwhelm the box office, I feel that I must inform you all that I hate ALL scary things about halloween. Seriously! I do not like being scared, and that is the entire point of halloween. Why does this sound like a good idea to anyone? "Hey lets devote an entire month to scaring the crap out of people, just because." I just don't understand. Every single year Derrick asks me to go to a 'haunted maze' or 'haunted house' with him. EVERY single time I have absolutely refused. I hate surprises, of any kind (good or bad)...so the thought of having someone chasing me through a corn maze with a chainsaw just doesn't sound like good, clean fun. Go figure. I get that it is just regular people in cheap plastic masks with chainsaws going ''boo,'' but I just can't get used to the idea.

I was serious when I said I don't like surprises. One of the greatest things about my marriage, is that I have my husband figured out. I know when he has something up his sleeve, and most of the time whatever he has planned, I have thought about first. So in reality, it's not really that surprising. Some might think that's boring, but to a control freak, it is very comforting. I have always been this way. I can remember when I was younger and my sister and I would be chasing one another through our old house, causing way too much trouble. I would stand on the toilet and wait for her to come running through the bathroom and jump down and scare the crap out of her, but when she did the same thing to me I would become irate. Lol. Ahhh, the good ol' days.

So, I'm KIND OF contemplating breaking out of my comfort zone and doing something different this year. Maybe a corn maze, or haunted house. Who knows? Maybe I will go to a horror movie and not stare at the floor the entire time. Of all the things in life that could scare me, these all seem kind of miniscule. Maybe I won't break out of my comfort zone...maybe I will just kind of slowly drift out of my comfort zone. Scary movie anyone?

Transparency.

The kids just woke up from a 3 1/2 hour nap. This kind of nap is kind of like groundhog day. It happens approximately once a year, you never really know when it's coming until it's happening and you never quite know the outcome. Either way, it was great. The kids woke up very cheerful and it gave Derrick and I, a chance to lay in bed and watch Marley and Me again. We have seen the movie once before, and I thought it was good the first time around. When I watched it today, it was like watching it for the first time. For any of you that haven't seen it, or don't have children your probably thinking..."what the movie about the crazy dog?" The movie is much more than that. Specifically, the part of the movie when they find out that they are about to have a second child. I don't know what I didn't see the first time around, but today I felt like the movie was a script taken right out of my life. I found tears streaming down my face. Why? I'm not exactly sure. I think they might have been tears of relief. I think we have trouble admitting when things become difficult. Let me rephrase that. ''I think I have trouble admitting when things become difficult.'' Jennifer Aniston has a line in the movie and she says "no one ever tells you how hard it is. how hard marriage is. how hard parenting is. i feel like i have given up so much of what made me me, but this was a choice." This is so true. When you get married and have children, your life changes. Completely. I'm not saying it's always bad, because it is not. The great things that marriage and children provide, far outweigh the difficulties. The only problem is, everyone is afraid to speak of the difficulties that they face on an everyday basis. Everyone is so busy trying to save-face, that they are afraid to open up and speak the truth. We all have the same arguments, we all have the same stresses, we all have the same irritants. That's part of life. We all just have to find ways to adjust so we can get out alive. Or cope...however you want to look at it. Saying I am human, I make mistakes, I am a shitty wife sometimes and by all means I could be a more patient mother, does not make me crazy. It makes me honest, both with myself and anyone who cares to find out. None of us are perfect. I am not Cinderella. My husband is not Prince Charming, but he is someone that has vowed to live with me and put up with my emotional, ever-changing self for the rest of his life. That makes him pretty phenomenal in my eyes. I think we all need a more realistic view on life. I can only be as great as I chose to be.

Don't sweat the small stuff...

Addi is entering into a new phase of independence. I can accept that. I am trying to foster this new trait as best as possible. I have recently started letting her use the bathroom and wash her hands by herself. She is not the greatest at either task, and usually there are messes to clean up after she is done. That just goes without saying when dealing with a 2 year old. She enjoys washing her hands, because it usually means 3-4 minutes of playing in the water and creating a sink full of bubbles. I get that fascination, if only I were 2, and bubbles still amused me...(sigh).

Tonight Addi announced to the entire house (as usual) that she was going to go pee. She ran into the bathroom, and slammed the door shut. After about 10 minutes passed, I decided to go check on her. Right as I was getting ready to open the bathroom door, she comes out and asks me where the hand towels are. I lead her into the linen closet so she can choose a towel of her liking. I walk back over and open the bathroom door expecting to find a large mess, but there was no apparent destruction. Score one for me! Then I realize her sponge bob toothpaste is out and the cap is off and sitting on the top of the vanity. I peer around the corner to find blue toothpaste still dripping down her chin. I asked her what she had been doing. She informed me she had been ''washing her hands, that was all.'' I said ''hmmmm, well your toothpaste is out...do you know why that is?'' She replied with "oh yeah, and I brushed my teeth. yep, I brushed my teeth and washed my hands." I then asked her ''why her toothbrush was dry, if she had been brushing her teeth?'' She looked up at me, with that sweet little twinkle in her eye and said "oh, don't worry...I just used your toothbrush."

Life lesson #437: Don't sweat the small stuff.

Enough of my writing. Now I will engage you with other brainy quotes. I posted some that I like, hope you enjoy them also.

“The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A Death! What's that, a bonus? I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you're too young, you get a gold watch, you go to work. You work forty years until you're young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play, you have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating...

...and you finish off as an orgasm.”

-George Carlin.

“There is often less danger in the things we fear than in the things we desire.”

-John C. Collins

“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.”

-Oscar Wilde

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children...to leave the world a better place...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

“No matter how calmly you try to referee, parenting will eventually produce bizarre behavior, and I'm not talking about the kids. Their behavior is always normal.”

-Bill Cosby

I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken -- and I'd rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.

-Margaret Mitchell

“If the essence of my being has caused a smile to have appeared upon your face or a touch of joy within your heart.Then in living - I have made my mark.”

-Thomas L. Odem Jr.

“Time has a way of demonstrating that the most stubborn are the most intelligent”

-Yevgeny Yevtushenko

“Anyone who has a continuous smile on his face conceals a toughness that is almost frightening.”

-Greta Garbo

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.

-John Lennon

Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breathe more; talk less, say more; hate less, love more; and all good things are yours.

-Swedish Proverb

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

-Leo Aikman

The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself.

-Alfred Lord Tennyson

“Still, I know of no higher fortitude than stubbornness in the face of overwhelming odds”

-Louis Nizer

“You write to communicate to the hearts and minds of others what's burning inside you. And we edit to let the fire show through the smoke.”

Arthur Polotnik

Interesting quotes. The last one brings up an interesting topic for myself. As I get older I find myself grossly needing independence, lacking the ability to effectively communicate, shying away from any unneeded confrontation, and guarding my unaccomplished hopes and dreams in the most stubborn way imaginable. I think this is part of growing up. I don't really know, since I have never grow-up before. Growing, evolving, and always adapting.

Conversation.

Strange things happen when you have children. Well maybe not strange, I don't know what a good word for it would be. Before you have children, you live in this blissful, little self-involved world. A world in which you don't have to worry about what others will and will not like for dinner, or about what others think about the music your listening to on the radio, or about scheduling errands in- between nap times.

I've recently found myself missing adult conversation. A conversation that not only involves no cartoon characters, but is also uninterrupted. I can not tell you the last time I had an actual conversation with someone. Crazy, right?! My conversations usually start off ok, but two lines in my mind starts wondering...'where is Addi' or 'gosh Conner's right eye looks really red, I wonder what that's about'...then I try to meander back into the conversation, but by that time I'm completely lost and so I politely exchange 'good-bye's' and chalk that one up to another incomplete conversation. You would never imagine that being a problem before you have children. I mean, it's basic...we learn to communicate starting at the age of one. I can't multi-task to save my life. Well maybe to save my life, but that's another story.

It's crazy the way kids change your life. For instance, when a Justin Bieber or Miley Cyrus song comes on the radio, Addi makes me listen to the song. It drives me crazy. I'm fairly sure that she doing this to punish me. I dislike all Justin Bieber songs, especially the ones involving the difficulties finding love. Shut it, Justin Bieber...your what, 12,13,14, idk, you have a great head of hair, and your worth millions. Finding love should be the last thing he is worried about. If he sang about the difficulties surrounding the purchase of a Bugatti, I would be more apt to listening to it. I'm getting off-point. I knew having children would make life....'interesting,' but I can honestly say I had no idea how life would continue to change with everyday. Children make you slow down, speed up, prioritize, and contemplate your very existence. Crazy.

Our generation.

Today I realized another big pet peeve of mine...(are you ready for it???) It's parents that pay zero attention to their children! We went to the park today for a family picnic, and there was a gathering of adults and children on the opposite side of the playground. The parents were all sitting around talking, while their small children were playing on the playground equipment with no supervision. If you are a parent and your child is under the age of 6, you should at all times be attentive to that child. The playground is a foreign environment with strangers all around. The entire playground thing kind of freaks me out, playground+magen (as a child)=ER visit. Every single time I take the kids to the playground, there are children running around climbing all over Addi and Conner. Trying to run over them to get to the slide they want, or the stairs they just have to climb on. There are no 'excuse me's' or 'sorry's'. They just figure they are faster, so they will just do whatever they please. Well not while I'm around. If your parent can't find the time to discipline you, then I will be more than happy to teach you some manners. It absolutely blows my mind. It makes me wonder, if they take their children to swimming pools and just let them jump in while they sit in their chairs and sunbathe. Probably, I mean, c'mon there are lifeguards at swimming pools...that's practically a babysitter, right?! I get so tired of watching kids practically falling from 12 ft high ladders, while their parents sit on the bench and text on their phones. Or better yet, there was a small boy, probably 3 years old swinging tonight on the playground. He was terribly upset that he couldn't get off the swing (his legs weren't even long enough yet), and he kept crying out for his mom to come to him. She apparently heard him, but didn't come over. After about 10 minutes of this, Madison finally stepped in and asked the child if he wanted some help or if he wanted her to help him over to his mom. He was kind of stunned that someone was trying to help him, and he grew quiet, but the tears were still streaming down his face. One of the other kids that was in his 'group' went over and told his mom, and she replied with ''you can tell him to get off it by himself, and put his shoes on and then he can come to me.'' What kind of b.s. is spewing from her brain to make her believe that is ok?! He is afraid to get off the swing and his own mother won't come to help him? Or his father, lets not forget his father. I have to say, my generation is terribly disappointing when it comes to rearing children. I'm not saying I am perfect by any means, but when my children call for me, I am there. Here are my stances as a parent. 1.) children must wear clothing when going into public places. At the age of 5 they should not be entering Wal-Mart while only wearing underwear. That is ridiculous. 2.) children should be watched at all times when in a public environment. You should be allotted a number of children that you can watch, just like a teacher is allotted a number of children she/he can teach. 3.) children should understand discipline and know respect for themselves and others. apparently our next generation is going to have the biggest problem with this. 4.) text messaging while around children should be strictly prohibited. it's just as bad as driving while texting. i've noticed that i can't pay attention to anything else while i text, so i have started leaving my phone in another room so that i can devote all attention to my children. a text message is not a high priority conversation, i don't care what you say, it's not. if someone can't take the time to call you and tell you something over the phone, it's not important enough to take time away from your kids to read and respond to. plain and simple. 5.) anyone under the age of 6 should not even comprehend what pop is. i hate it when my parents give the kids pop, but no matter how many times i ask them not to, they laugh it off and do it anyway. 6.) people should be given an i.q. test before they are allowed to bring home their children. or some sort of test, maybe a test of attention span...idk. either way, if you don't pass the test than you don't get to raise your children. you should have to study your ass off to pass the test, you are going to be responsible for another human being for the next 17 (in Missouri) or 18 years. That's a long time! That is a lot of decisions to make!!! That's a lot of ER visits and parent teacher conferences. It's a lot of work and parenting shouldn't be taken lightly. 7.) children should have a strict bedtime routine enforced. they thrive on routines and guidelines, that's how they learn. so nap time, dinner time, and bedtime are three routines that should be in place and adhered to as best as possible. That's all I can think of right now, but I have plenty...trust me. I just get so sick of the way I find younger individuals raising their children today. All you have to do is devote some attention to the children that YOU are RESPONSIBLE for. IDK, people are crazy. Different kinds of crazy... I can't change the world, but at least I can raise two children that will grow up to HOPEFULLY be responsible, respectful, and independent adults. That's really the only objective to parenting. UGH! lol. I will now step down from my soap box.

Balmas Family Vacation

So, we tried the whole Branson weekend vacation with the kids...it was pretty much an epic fail. I guess we kind of assumed that would happen, but not to the extent that it actually played out! We finally made it up to Branson at about 3 in the afternoon, after many tears and lots of screaming (by both myself and the kids!). So much for getting up there early the first day! Oh well. We successfully found our hotel after only one wrong turn, and one pit stop to look at the directions. We checked in and everything was great for a little while. Upon arriving to our room, Derrick said he smelled 'wet dog.' I of course did not smell 'wet dog,' 'wet paint' maybe, but not 'wet dog.' We carted all of the luggage up to the room and layed everything out. Addi marked her bed, while Conner ran around the room trying to size everything up. We started calling around and almost every attraction we wanted to take the kids to closed at 5, so we had to put off everything until day 2. That was fine, because we were planning on being up there for 3 days. We found a k-mart, bought everything we managed to forget to pack. We then drove in a very large circle around town to try and look for a spot to eat dinner, only to end up right back across the street from k-mart at Montana Mikes. Dinner was fine, except for the mini-meltdowns happening every 3 minutes on opposite sides of the table. Conner tossing his onion rings across the restaurant like he was training for the next Olympic frisbee team, and Addi opposing any food what-so-ever. After we packed up dinner, we ran across the street to buy milk for the kids. Addi of course had to go to the bathroom, so we made our way to the ladies restroom. It smelled absolutely disgusting!!! I could've sworn someone with a UTI just got done peeing all over the floor. YUCK! Anyways, I said "yuck, it smells disgusting in here!" Addi then said "mom, no, that's just how bathrooms smell, like pee." Thanks Addi, for pointing that out. Anyways, after our nasty trip to the restroom we headed back to the hotel, to get suited up to head down to the pool. We jumped in the pool and it was freezing cold. I started laughing, because Derrick couldn't get his teeth to stop chattering. So we ventured over to the hot tub, the kids liked it, but ultimately it was too hot to keep them in it for long. We found ourselves back up in our hotel room at 8:30 with absolutely nothing to do. We started trying to put the kids down at 9:30. Needless to say, it didn't work. The kids and Derrick went down about 11:00. I finally got to sleep sometime right after midnight, only to be awoken by Conner at 12:30. I put him back to sleep, layed back down and fell back to sleep at about 1. Addi woke up at 2, complained that she was scared and I let her crawl into bed with Derrick and I. She woke up again at 2:30 saying that she heard tigers outside our hotel room door. I tried to explain to her that our hotel had a strict 'no tigers allowed' policy, but ultimately she didn't buy it. She was wide awake listening for a roar, when Conner cried out again at 3. He was now wide awake. I was exhausted!!! Derrick was trying to get Addi to fall back to sleep and I now found myself rocking Conner for 2 hours to no avail. At about 5 am he finally passed out on my chest. I layed him down in bed with me, and he snoozed away. He was apparently dreaming, because he kept hitting me in the face or pinching the backside of my arm for almost an hour. Addi was fast asleep curled up in Derricks arms, and I was laying there wide awake watching the sun come up. I fell back to sleep around 6 and of course Addi woke up at 7:30. Only long enough to say a couple of words and drift back to sleep. I heard her wake up, and of course I was wide awake. I layed there in bed for at least another hour, before I made my way down to the front desk, begging them for a refund on our second night. They understood my predicament and waived the 24 hour cancellation notice, and gave us 15% off our next stay with them. Thank goodness. I couldn't handle too much more of that! Addi and Derrick slept in until almost 9. Conner slept in until about 10:15, until apparently we made too much noise packing our bags to leave. We went and checked out Butterfly Palace, which was a lot of money for little entertainment. Addi loved it though. Then we took went on 'ride the ducks.' That was a lot of fun, only a couple meltdowns on that excursion...so I chalk that one up to a 'win.' We headed back home at about 4 the next afternoon, after we had only arrived 26 hours prior. It's funny, I had this cute little trip planned for the family, and not a single thing worked out like it was supposed to. That's ok though, I will have plenty of memories of our first family vacation, and ultimately Addi doesn't think there was anything wrong with our trip. Next year, maybe we will try two days, but until then, I'm ok with just venturing up to Branson for the day and sleeping in my bed at night!!!