What I Learned in 2011

On this New Year's Eve I find myself reflecting on all the wonderful things I have learned this fine year.

1. I will never be part of the "Cool Mom Club" at the school and I'm actually okay with that. I'm proud of the fact that I like to bargain shop, that I drop the kids off at school and pick them up without putting makeup on (oh the horror). I talk about how my kids aren't perfect and how I'm not the perfect mom (double horror).

2. Turns out I am one crafty bitch and a damn fine cook. I've taught myself how to crochet, taken on a few home improvement projects/crafts and been baking and cooking up a storm. Sure my scarfs turn out a little lopsided and the hat I crocheted for Dylan ended up being way too big, but I did it. On the day I made my tree coat rack, I also baked banana bread and made meatloaf for dinner. Suck on that Martha Stewart.

3. After about 3 years of complete denial, I've accepted the fact I will never look like my children. I'm just not destined to be a blonde. I will happily remain a brunette from now on...dark ash brown to be exact. I've had to hear, "Oh they look nothing like you" for the last 5 plus years, guess I better get used to it.

4. Through the magical powers of You Tube I have taught myself how to do a lot of things (like dye my own hair, crochet a hat and a few other things). In fact I'm going to write my memoirs and I'm going to title them "Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned on You Tube." If I ever need to perform open heart surgery on an alligator you bet your ass I'm going to You Tube that first.

5. Being healthy and exercising isn't really all that bad. To be perfectly honest, this theory is only about a week in the making. I figured I'd start my resolution early this year. Amazingly enough I haven't died yet after running so that equals a win in my book.

6. I am completely and totally 100% obsessed with zombies.

7. Being an Aunt is so wonderful! I love my little nephew so much and I can't wait for the rest of my family to give me more babies! This woman has closed up her baby making shop for good.

8. The biggest shock for me was that I'm actually okay with not having any more kids. I mean come on, having another kid would probably push me completely into the pits of insanity. Although if Alexander Skarsgard ever offered, I'd open the shop right back up.

9. I used to vow up and down that, "I Will never get a Kindle. What's the point? You can't hold the book, keep it on your bookshelf, it's just not the same." Well I got a Kindle for my birthday this year (thanks Mom) and it changed my life. I admit here and now that I was WRONG! I love my Kindle and I can't imagine my life without it. I'm pretty sure Bryan is glad the book hording has ebbed, at least for the time being.

10. I have an identity other than Mrs. Jenni. I spent so much of my life as a teacher, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to stay home. That I wouldn't know what to do, I'd be bored or I'd scar my kids for life. Turns out, it's the best job I've ever had.

Happy New Year everyone. Bring on 2012 and the zombie apocalypse!

Diarrhea of the Brain

It's been a little bit since I last posted, so please bear with me while I purge the contents of my brain.

~15 days ago I found my first gray hair. I'll be damned if I was going to let that bastard continue to take up residence on my lovely head, so I plucked it. Then, I went and hunted down my children, waved the hair in their face and told them they were turning me into an old lady. I do feel that there is something cosmically wrong if I'm getting gray hair and yet, I still get acne. One or the other universe, one or the other.

~The same night as the gray hair disaster we decorated our Christmas Tree. We had a great time. We listened to music, the kids had hot chocolate and I of course had wine. Then, we decided to let the dogs in. Dexter, for whatever reason, decided to run under the tree and wreak havoc. We all stood in horror as the whole thing crashed to the ground. Broken ornaments were everywhere and two kids were screaming and crying, "This is the worst Christmas ever!" They even put Dexter on the naughty list.

~Two days before we were set to take pictures for our Christmas card Dylan got kicked in the eye at school. For whatever reason she was standing in front of the swings, not paying attention and BAM! A shiner that lasted a week. Luckily I had a brain storm while in the shower (where all the best ideas are hatched) and came up with an amazing card idea.

~I can't wait for Christmas to be over. I'm so sick of all of the idiots that are out and about. They drive like morons, are totally oblivious to everyone else in stores and they are total assholes to the retail clerks for no reason. If I see one more cart parked drunkenly in the middle of an aisle, while some jackass is looking at the shelf, I'm going to take a running start and slam right into their cart then just keep on walking.

~Justin had his Christmas Program the other night, he was not a fan. He sure looked adorable though.

~In closing, I have to actually give myself a compliment for once. I know, it's very rare and I don't expect it to happen again for awhile. I have found that I am actually very crafty. I saw a towel rack on Pinterest and decided I was going to create a key/coat rack by my front door. It took a lot longer than I thought it would.

The morning after I drew and then traced the tree the neighbor boy, who always comes to bum a ride, insulted my tree, "It looks crooked." Little jerk. Next came the taping followed by painting of said tree.

The finished product!

I've also been baking and cooking up a storm. I think my body has been taken over by Pod People.

I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe Christmas. Cheers!

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A SoCal Bucket List

Before I exit this world into the abyss of the unknown great beyond, there are a few things that I'd like to see/do/achieve.

Obviously I want to live to a ripe old age. I want to see my kids graduate college, get married and have kids of their own. I figure these milestones are a given and therefore aren't included on this bucket-o-mine. So, without further ado, here are the things I'd like to accomplish before I make my own Jet Blue exit out of this world.

~Be in a flash mob.
~Read an entire novel in one day.
~Go on a hot air balloon ride.
~Write a novel.
~Sing Karaoke in a dive bar.
~Ride a bull. Not a real one, one of those mechanical contraptions will be sufficient.
~Make my own wine.
~Go on a cruise.
~Get a tattoo.
~Learn how to crochet and actually be good at it.
~Run in a 5K and finish without dying.
~Learn a foreign language (French or Italian).
~Travel to either France or Italy and totally butcher their language as I try to put what I've learned to good use.
~See the Grand Canyon.
~Take a road trip with the family in a RV. This is one I'll probably end up saving until last. Otherwise we all might kill each other and then I won't be able to cross the rest of the crap off my list.
~Swim in the middle of the ocean.
~See a volcano.
~Learn how to fix a leaky faucet.
~Meet somebody famous. I stood next to Bob Barker on the Price is Right stage, but I need more than that.
~Meet some amazing friends of mine who I've never "officially" met before.

Let's Get Ready to 5K!

I'm going to start this off by saying I absolutely despise exercise. Any shape/way/form of exercise, I loathe it. I used to love yoga until that was ruined for me by a pair of extremely loose fitting shorts. Zumba turned out to be a once a week, ass kicking embarrassment.

Don't even get me started on the embarrassment that is going to the gym. I'm afraid one of these days I'm going to have an aneurysm trying to figure out how to work all of those damn buttons on those damn machines. However, I'm a lean mean biking machine, at least I am on the bikes at the gym. I tried going for a bike ride through my neighborhood and I thought I was going to have to call Bryan to come and pick me up. I would of called him if I'd of had my phone on me. Instead I had to hop off my bike and schlep it home.

I have found some motivation for my lack of exercise love. A few months ago I made a bucket list (which I will unveil in a few days) and on that list I said I wanted to run in a marathon.

The other week I stumbled upon an add for a 5K called Run for your Lives. They describe it as, "A Zombie infested 5K obstacle course race." At first I got a good chuckle out of the idea, but the more I thought about it I started seriously considering running in the race. A couple days after first looking at the site, I decided I was in! Really what better motivation to help you run a race than having a zombie hot on your heels. Plus it's going to be great training for the future zombie apocalypse.

The race is a year away, which is good because I'm going to need every minute of the next 11 months to get into zombie running, ass kicking shape.

Yesterday we went to a birthday party in kiddie hell 2, I mean Pump it Up. I used this opportunity to begin my training. After all, running through an inflatable obstacle course, trying avoid a sea of children, is pretty much exactly like trying to avoid being eaten alive by zombies. Despite the fact I kicked a ten year old in the chest while trying to slide under the inflatable wall, day one was a giant success.

On a side note, when the zombie apocalypse does happen and if I do fail and get turned, I might be okay. Especially if I look like this as a zombie:

I make one damn fine looking zombie, if I do say so myself.

Big Fat Liar

That's me alright. The other day I was waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store and I noticed the lady in front of me was working up a sweat while getting her groceries onto the counter. She had a toddler in the cart and a baby in the carrier at her chest. I was totally fixated on her, couldn't take my eyes away. I started at her, all the while secretly enjoying the fact that since my kids are now in school I can shop without them.

It is so glorious to walk through the aisles of my supermarket without having to yell at somebody to stop touching things, to stop whining and "No! For the millionth time you can't have that! You don't get anything!"

She caught me looking at her and I felt bad, for a split second. Then I started grinning like an idiot again while thinking of my blissful childless shopping. She looked back at me once again with a look of total defeat on her face, so I decided to snap out of my fantasy and talk to her.

Me: "How far apart are they?"
Other Mom: "A little over two years. Do you have any kids?"
Me: "Oh yeah. Mine are 23 months apart."
OM: "Please tell me it gets easier."

She looked completely lost, exhausted and ready to throw in the towel. She had the smallest little glimmer of hope in her eye, I couldn't extinguish it. So I bit my tongue and tried to hide the sarcasm in my voice, "Oh yeah, it sure does get so much better."

The cashier, clearly a motherhood combat vet as well, looked at me like I was nuts (which of course I am). She knew I was lying to this poor woman. I looked back at the cashier and shrugged my shoulders. Come on lady! Was I really supposed to tell her all the thoughts that were fighting to escape my mouth:

- Yeah it gets easier as they get older. That is until they join forces, form the ultimate kid alliance and start voting you out of the family (just ask Bryan how many times he has been voted out of the family).

- You'll never again get a moment to yourself in the bathroom. You aren't even going to be able to pee without somebody screaming outside of the door wanting to know what you're doing in there.

- You're going to develop a serious wine habit, or as I like to call it a new found appreciation for wine. You'll become well known in the wine aisle next to your good friend "Two-Buck Chuck."

- You may as well quit cleaning now. No matter how much you clean, your house is always going to look like a fucking category 4 hurricane went through it.

- For some unknown scientific reason, the second you reverse out of your driveway something is triggered in your kids. This phenomenon causes them to start yelling and fighting with each other. The main argument is going to go something like this: "Stop looking at me, stop looking out my side! MOMMY he/she touched me!"

- The fights that start out in the car will spill out to your final destination; Target, IKEA or the library. These are just some of my kids favorite places to embarrass the hell out of me.

If any of those thoughts would of escaped my mouth, she would of run from the store screaming like a maniac, never looking back. Instead she smiled at me as she walked away, a little more hopeful. I smiled back and muttered "good luck" under my breath.

Happy Monday

6:00am this morning I hear blood curdling screams coming from outside. After watching The Walking Dead last night, that is not exactly a good wake up call. I jumped up thinking the zombie apocalypse was upon us. I go over to the window, take a look outside, fingers crossed I don't see zombies stumbling up and down the street. Instead of zombies I see lights blazing like the 4th of July in the house across the street. The screams were coming from their precious children as the chased each other around the house trying to beat each other to a pulp (I'm just guessing). I then hear more screams, this time from the mother "you two knock that shit off!" Way to go lady, next time your devil children are going to raise hell before the sun comes up you might want to make sure your windows are closed first. Mental note, no play dates with that family.

Although, I have to thank them for the early morning shenanigans, this now means my family is not the most obnoxious one on the block, for that I thank them.

While the human folk in our house may have been spared the "Most Obnoxious Award," my dog clearly has won that title hands down. Yesterday afternoon Dexter was barking once again, and I stuck my head out the door to get him to shut up. Justin came running up to me and said, "those kids who went by on their bikes just said 'stop barking Dexter!' It was so funny mommy, how do they know Dexter's name?"

Well Justin that is because Dexter doesn't have a brain in his head and I probably yell at him close to 5 billion times a day to stop barking. I don't know, just a thought.

From Football Insults to Rogue Tampons.

I completely thought that not working I'd be more on top of my blog. Turns out I like procrastinating blogging as well, who knew? I have at least 5 posts backlogged in my brain, ready for writing, but that's where they seem content to stay. Collecting dust in my brain (with so many other great ideas of mine). Here are some of my favorite the most memorable moments from this week:

*While watching Monday Night Football I started yelling obscenities at Jay Cutler (a common occurrence anytime football is on). Justin then decided he was going to join in, "Yeah! Go home and color a picture for your mommy!" He came back up to me a minute or two later and said he had a better one, "Go ribbon dance for your mother!" At that point Dylan decided she was going to throw her insults out on the table as well, "Go home and put your pantyhose and makeup on like your mother!" They are now invited to every football party/game/event for the rest of eternity.

*That same night, not long after the football insult party, the kids scurried off to the backyard to bother the neighbors for awhile. Soon after I found myself sticking my head out of the back door yelling and the dogs and my kids to stop barking! "But mom, we're dogs like Dexter and Chloe!" Really?!

*A/C broke two weekends ago. Hubby said not to worry because at least it was October and we wouldn't need it anymore. Yeah, okay. Tell that to the lovely SoCal hot ass October weather. 100+ degrees yesterday and today. Hello Mother Nature, I'd like to introduce you to my friend Fall. These temperatures are not acceptable for October! Thank you!

*Topping off the excitement for the week happened this morning. After checking out at the grocery store today, I reached into my purse to grab my sunglasses. Somehow a tampon had twisted itself around and wedged itself in my sunglasses. The best part was I stared at the damned thing for about 30 seconds first before I could figure out what the hell was stuck in my sunglasses. The cashier looked at me with disgust. You would think I had a head full of tampons.

Cheers to the excitement of the week. Son of a bitch, it's too damn hot to drink wine. Guess I'll have to stick to water...for now ;)

Week One

Last week was my first week in my new job, stay at home mom! A phrase that strikes fear into my heart. I'm going to be around them all day long! Well, except for those four glorious hours while Justin is at school, I'm with them all day after that.

The reason the phrase SHAM paralyzes me with fear is because I feel I'm not cut our for it, I can't live up to the title. Here are examples from the last week that support my hypothesis:

* Day one: Justin tumbles down the stairs outside (from three stairs up) scratching up his face, side, elbow and knee.

* Day two: I make myself the black sheep of the SHAM kindergarten mom club by calling out another kid. He was spinning around like a total moron and slammed into Justin. Justin apologized to him and I piped in, "Don't you dare apologize, you did nothing wrong. You're following the rules." Insert evil SHAM glares here.

*Day three: My son dropping his first F-bomb and me trying to hold a straight face while I scold him and tell him that is the ultimate of all "grown-up words" and he's never allowed to say it again.

*Day four: Barely holding my composure when my favorite wine glass is shattered.





*Day five: Cursing the neighborhood kid who showed up at my door at 8:30 am requesting a ride because his mom is too liquored up on Vodka. Then having to pick up said kid from school while both parents are clearly home probably too busy with an afternoon freak session to pick up their own kid from school. Sure I don't mind, I'll just get the word TAXI tattooed on my damned forehead!

I guess looking back on it, it wasn't too bad of a week. It could be worse, I could be working. And hey, nobody died...at least not yet!

They Just Keep Growing and Growing.

Today was a pretty tough and emotional day for me. Today is Justin's 5th birthday, which of course I'm already an emotional mess about because he's growing up way too fast. The real kicker for today is that it was also his first day of Kindergarten. That was just the icing on the emotional cake for me.

I was nervous all night and woke to my stomach doing major back flips this morning. Dylan and I woke him up this morning by barging into his room and singing an extremely off key Happy Birthday. Cue the water works.

Getting him ready for school, watching him put his backpack on, walking out the front door, I nearly burst into tears at every moment.




If he was nervous he didn't show it at all. He was amazingly hyper. I thought he was going to bounce out of his shoes and I had to ask him at least eight hundred times to please be normal.




Poor Dylan, she's never going to have a normal brother.





She's taking it well though.





We drop Dylan off at her class first and then it's off to Kindergarten we go.









When we get inside his class that's when I get really nervous. He's hanging on my legs and hiding behind me not talking to his teacher. To my relief he joins his classmates on the carpet when it's time.





A little Birthday celebration Kindergarten style.





Then it's assignment time.













Oh how I love this kid!

Turns out we all survived the first day of Kindergarten. We'll just have to wait and see if we survive the rest.

Excessive?

Clue number 326 that I've been watching too much Criminal Minds lately:




I found this while planting in our garden and I immediately thought it was a human rib bone. Bryan grabbed it from me, turned it over in his hands and told me it had numbers on it. Turns out it was a cable. Oops!

So Neglectful!

Dammit! I can't believe I've been neglecting my blog. I jot down all sorts of ideas in a little notebook, but I never actually put those ideas to blog. So here's 5 quick updates for inquiring minds.

1) I effing hate summer. I'm over it already. Yeah so what if it's only July, I'm done!
2) I taught myself to crochet basically through watching You Tube videos. I still pretty much suck at it but I really enjoy trying. Dylan's barbies have a crap load of crocheted blankets, next project is a scarf.
3) I have a new obsession with Criminal Minds and I'm incredibly pissed off that it took me this long to discover my love for this show (and Thomas Gibson). So I'm trying to catch up on seasons when I can.
4) Without wine I don't think I'd survive much at all.
5) I have yet to fulfill my New Year's Resolution of telling somebody to fuck off. So if you have any volunteers/suggestions, I'll begin taking those now!

The End is Near...

...if you believe this gigantic bag-o-douche, then this Saturday we will all either meet our maker or rot in the bowels of hell for all eternity.

I have to admit I can be a bit like chicken little when it comes to these end of the world shenanigans. Not so much that I'm concerned with "the rapture" but facing my own mortality. I have trouble accepting the fact that one day I'll be dead...rotting in hell for the rest of eternity, I think I can cope with that. The last few weeks I've been making jokes about Judgment Day 2011, even thought of planning an end of the world party and joined quirky groups on Facebook. I have to admit though that come Saturday I'm going to be drinking heavily and gnawing my fingernails down to nubs.

I have parent teacher conferences starting on Monday, I brought all the work home to complete over the weekend. Do I really want to spend my last few days on Earth doing work? If I don't complete my work I'll look like a pretty giant idiot showing up for work saying I didn't get it done because the world was supposed to end on Saturday.

Well that ends this particular rant. I better go stock up on canned goods and zombie warding off gear. See you in hell.

Adventures in Childhood

"Don't fuck with the babysitter."

Or her crazy little Thor wanna be brother.

Dylan has been wearing this thing on her head all night and it totally reminds me of Adventures in Babysitting.

Gone for a Hike

Yesterday we decided to take the kids out for a hike. Get them out of the house and busy in the fresh air. I didn't know what to expect, every time we go anywhere it turns into a Griswold type of adventure.

It took a good 30 minutes to get everybody dressed properly. I stopped fighting with Justin when he came out of his room in his "Chucks" and snow hat.



Eventually everybody makes it to the car. Ready or not, here we come.

Bryan: "I packed a knife in the backpack."
Me: "Why?"
Bryan: "In case I get my arm caught in a boulder and I have to cut it off."
Me: "I guess you never can be too prepared can you now James Franco?"

After that gem of a conversation I was wondering if we were going to make it at all. Thankfully we did make it.

After a brief stop at the most disgusting bathrooms EVER, we were off.

It was a perfect day for hiking. Thankfully it wasn't 90+ degrees like it had been the day before.

Me: "Justin you are one of a kind."
Justin: "Yep, I sure am one of a kind!"

I spy with my little eye...

"I'm ready to take a normal picture now mommy."

Justin's homage to all those who rocked!

A beautiful day with those that I love. I am a very lucky lady!

A Low Point

Tonight I feel as if I've sunk to a new low. I feel I have always been very real and honest to people about how I feel about motherhood.

While I love my kids more than anything there are days, today being one of them, that I wonder what I got myself into. I can't stand people who act like being a parent and having kids is the most wonderful precious thing ever. What pisses me off even more is when they act as if parenthood is all rainbows, unicorns and rays of beautiful sunshine everyday. I'm here to tell you all it's not! Parenting at times is completely hellish!

Does that make me evil, ehh I really don't give a flying fuck right now. We have been having serious issues with Justin lately. He has so much anger and rage lately it's really starting to scare me.

It started a few weeks ago with him just screaming, yelling and stopping his feet when he'd get mad. Then it progressed to tantrums, bad ones. Now it's progressed to him actually acting on his anger. Last week he put a hole in one of our closet doors with a play hockey stick. He said it happened because one of Dylan's friends (who was at the house at the time) was being mean to him and kept annoying him. So he got mad and wanted to hit something.

He's also been talking to me in this tone that I'm just not okay with. Demanding things of me and then screaming and yelling at me if I don't do it. He's even started doing it with Dylan too.

Now I know you're sitting there thinking to yourself how bad can this be coming from a 4 year old. Well let me tell you, it's bad. I'm seeing an extremely controlling alpha male in the making here if we can't help him get this under control.

All weekend it was him screaming and yelling at Dylan and me. Now I don't want you to think I just sate idly by while he went exorcist on me. Oh no, mommy don't play that!

What's worrying me is that whatever punishment we doled out to him, didn't phase him in the least. So tonight as I put him to bed, in the midst of yet another tantrum, I had to go scared straight on him. I pulled the military school card on him.

I told him if he couldn't get himself and his anger under control then I was going to send him away to school. I can hear the groans going up across the bloggersphere as I type this.

I went through all the horrors of military school for a kid. No mommy, no daddy, no tv and you know the list goes on and on. Call me a bad mom for playing on my child's fear of abandonment, at this point I don't give a shit. I'm a mom at the end of my rope and I'm afraid if I can't help him now I'm only going to fail him.

T-Minus 5 Months

Today I registered my baby boy for kindergarten. I was WAY more emotional than I thought I would be. My friend Brenda told me I was going to cry, "I know you Jenni, you're going to cry." Damn her, she was pretty close to being right. I did have to fight back a few tears, but I maintained my composure pretty well (I think).

It's so hard for me to cope with the fact that my kids are growing up. It still seems to me like only a few months ago I held them for the first time. Just weeks ago I watched their first time rolling over, scooting, crawling, first steps and heard their first words. Just yesterday I was wiping away their tears. Oh wait, that probably was yesterday. I'm sure one, if not both of them, threw some sort of tantrum yesterday.

I stood in the Elementary School's office today just bewildered, wondering how time had slipped by so quickly. There is NO WAY, my baby is old enough to be going to kindergarten in five months! In fact on August 10, 2011, Justin's 5th birthday, he will be starting kindergarten. 5 years to the day after this:

He will officially be a "big boy." Excuse me while I wipe my tears and go steal a kiss from my sleeping babes.

Proud Mama

I opened my email today and noticed I had received one from Dylan's first grade teacher. This is what it said:

I just wanted to let you know that I've chosen Dylan to be my Student of the week for this week. I know she was already honored as Student of the Month earlier in the year, but she continues to do such a great job and she really deserves to be recognized again. It's supposed to be a surprise, so please don't tell Dylan, but I wanted to let you know in advance in case someone from your family was able to come to our flag assembly this Friday morning and wanted to bring a camera. Congratulations on raising such a remarkable little girl!

Mrs. S

My eyes welled up with tears. I can't even begin to tell you how proud I am of my little girl. Of course I think she's amazing, but to hear somebody else (who doesn't have to say those things) have such praise for her melts my heart.

My heart grew three sizes today. I'm so proud of this girl:

Simple Saturday

A simply beautiful, wonderful and blissful Saturday with the two loves of my life.

We started off our day with a trek to the park. We first conquered our fear of heights:



















One decided his fear was too great to conquer on this day.













Excavation time.





















Time for more climbing. This time on a smaller scale.



































Can't spell park without s-w-i-n-g!







Talk to me baby.















After a lunch break and some errand running, it was time to visit our favorite Temecula hot spot...the good old duck pond.




























These are my favorite ducks there. They make a whistling type sound rather than quack.













Duck versus turtle. Who will be king of the rock?





Our ducks wear wigs.















After we had our fill of ducks (in other words we ran out of stale hot dog buns), we were off for some frozen yogurt.

It was a reward for Dylan doing so great on her report card. She definitely did not get her academic mind from me, I hated school growing up.












She's going to cause so much trouble with those blue eyes of hers.





This yogurt gets two thumbs up!


Tomorrow I'm off to a baby shower for my sister in law. While folding up the tiny baby clothes I found myself smiling and remembering the days when my two monsters were that small.













I also got excited when I signed Auntie Jenni to the gift. I'm so excited that I finally am going to be an Aunt!




How this very tired mom is going to wrap up her Saturday night. The Iron Man helmet can wait until tomorrow.