Is it Summer yet?

I have the “end of the school year” mom blues. I seriously can feel the days dragging ass to reach June 8th. It’s only 7 school days away. Seven, seven, seven. If I repeat it enough, it should shorten the time .. right? I could only hope, sadly, it doesn’t work that way. I’m just ready for summer and I’m sure a week into summer vacation I’ll be wanting him to go back to school. It isn’t him at all, it’ll be all 3 boys together, all day, most days no car, Sanity. Gone, just gone. They get loud. We don’t live in a big place right now, so yeah, sound, loudness, boys, it gets draining after not to long.

I plan to actually do something this summer. Some time we should be gone for a week in Kentucky but the dates on that are unknown. I do hope it’s before school starts up again. It’s not really a vacation as we’d be going for my husbands work. But we only have one car and they won’t pay for a rental. We can’t not have a car for a week so we will be going along.

I won’t have the car every day but I will try to have it several times a week. That way we can either just go to a playground or to the Zoo. I want us all to go to the Henry Ford Museum or the Hands On Museum in Ann Arbor. I want to DO things this summer! We will be taking the oldest up state for a week during Cherry Fest it looks like. We would all go up the 1st weekend of the fest and then leave that Sunday and have him stay with my parents. Then they would drive down the last weekend of the fest and bring him home. It would work out. We went every year when we lived in Traverse City. It’s still weird to be back downstate.

I’m just ready to not have to wake up to an alarm on the weekdays, unless I am taking the husband to work. Oh summer, how I long for your sweet mornings but not for the bickering, yelling and screaming I know I am about to endure.

I will survive .. I hope.

Mothers Day photos pt. 1

I’m slightly behind on this, editing has taken me a bit longer. Life just kind of gets in the way. So here is the first half of the photos from Mothers Day and our trip to the Detroit Zoo. Since we now live back downstate and are about 20 minutes from the zoo, its where I wanted to spend my Mothers Day this year. I hope you enjoy part of our day. I hope in the next day or two, to have the other set up!

Follow the link below to see the rest of the part one photos!

My husband with the one track mind

I got him a freaking coffee mug. Thanks dear, thanks.

Happy [belated] Mothers Day

I haven’t written about my Mother’s Day yet, it was actually a very nice day. The week before the husband had asked me what I wanted to do and I told him “Go to the Detroit Zoo.” That is exactly what we did. We havent been there since May of 2009 when we met up with two other moms from my 3 year olds birth month group on a parenting forum. I wanted to go and spend the day with my boys, have them be more excited since they were older. Even the baby had a good time, well, for the most part. It interrupted his usual nap time and so he was crabby a bit of the way through. All in all, it was a great day. No major hang ups or arguments. Nobody crying or holding the silent treatment. No bumps or bruises, no I hate you’s or you’re annoying. For once, a holiday (even if it is a hallmark one) was still a good day.

I loved spending that time with my family. Lately I have needed it. The time with them all, just us, nobody else. Well granted there were tons of people at the Zoo that day as well, but it didn’t seem like it. We saw all the animals we wanted. A few decided to sleep though, so we missed out on the Tigers and the Polar Bears were off in the corner. They’re my favorite too! Darn them, they should have known I was coming. We saw lazy lions, lazy bears, lazy snow monkeys, lazy rhino’s. Come to think of it, even the flamingo’s were sleeping! We saw an 18ft recip-tisomething python and it was nasty. I hate snakes, reptiles, amphibians. We walked through the free fly aviary and it was both the husband and my first time going through. So neat! The butterflies were wonderful to be that close to, see the different kinds. We of course ended our trip with the one thing you must end any zoo trip with, the penguins! This was all I wanted. To spend the time with all of them. No need for gifts. No need for fancy meals or breakfast in bed. While I wouldn’t have turned any of it away, it just wasn’t what was needed. They are what I needed that day and to have it, was well worth it! They got along! Can you imagine that? The boys didn’t argue. It was heaven. A few “my feet hurt” did happen .. hey, what can I say, it was my day after all

I did get a sweet/silly card from them all and having a child in school makes for the BEST hand made gifts ever! You will see them below I am still editing our zoo trip pictures. I hope to have them posted by tomorrow. Till then, I am going to leave you with my fridge that shows my wonderful kindergartners gifts!

Our Fridge showcasing his lovely work. THe card from all my boys is on the lower right side!

A close up!

A wonderful magnet

Hand made card

One of the pages inside

A little card he made as well

 

One loss, is a new gain?

Not really sure how to put that, but it’s somewhat like that. I think. I believe I wrote about our cat Darwin escaping and basically running around our neighborhood having a gay ole’ time. He hasn’t returned and we’re nearing on 2 months of  him being gone. It sucks, he was my cat. He was our snuggler in bed (he’d seriously lay between us) and he’s gone. I hope safe. I hope some family snatched him up and are loving him and taking care of him. It’s the only positive I can see in this whole situation. I hope that is what happened, I don’t want to think of what could have happened.

Anyways, last week my MIL called my husband and asked if we could take his old cat. Things came up and they cannot have him in their apartment. He’s we believe 8 1/2 years old. His name is Jinx. He was my husbands cat and we didn’t take him with us when we moved because his parents wanted him to stay. Which is fine, they loved him. Now things have come up and he’s back with us. But that is 6 years of not being with us, being basically the only cat there. His parents had another cat, Nicki who was 21 when she died a few months ago. But she was old, frail and weak that she slept and kept herself in their bedroom. So yeah, he was pretty much the only cat.

Now he’s been tossed into our household. If you know us, it’s loud. Three boys, 2 dogs and 3 other cats (remember, we’re sans a stubborn runaway cat), it’s a lot for him to soak up. I couldn’t imagine being thrust into such a loud constant motion situation. I would be pissed as well! First two days he hid under the sink in the cabinets. I set him up with some food and water, we opened the cabinet doors when we knew he could come out and explore without being startled left and right. Today is day 3 (we got him late Sunday) and he’s slowly coming around. This is my facebook status today;

Jinx is slowly coming around, still a bit jumpy. But definitely understandable given going from no kids to 3 kids, plus dogs and other loud things within our house. I got leg rubs and was allowed to pet him for a few seconds. That’s more than yesterday where he just hissed and growled at me when trying to do laundry.

So I’m making some progress. We’ve had a few incidents with the kids, but they need to learn he isn’t going to allow them to use him as a pillow or bed like the other cats do. They’re used to kids, he isn’t.

I miss Darwin and in no way is Jinx a replacement, he’s an addition. I hope he can come around quickly and fit into our family. I believe my husband is happy to have his cat back.

I’m allowed to be upset

Our initials on the porch post.

Yesterday the husband finished moving the rest of the stuff out of our old house. It was bittersweet and in a way I’m glad I wasn’t there. Then again, I’m upset that I wasn’t. It’s a lose lose situation on that.

I feel like I should be allowed to be upset. Others seem to think differently. This isn’t easy on us, this wasn’t what we had planned OR wanted! I wouldn’t have fought like I did with the husband only to have to lose it all. We didn’t argue with each other, go through all we did for that damn house only to end up here.  We had our youngest baby there. HE BUILT THAT HOUSE! This was NOT supposed to happen!

Its obviously clear that the man we dealt with is cursed. Had someone else probably worked with on the house and such, it might end up differently. We have noticed by talking to others that it all fell around him. Others fell to the same situation when they dealt with him. We tried. Work up there is scarce and the job he had, paid shit. Applying else where. It didn’t end up good for us. We had to make the choice we did. It wasn’t what we wanted but it basically came to sink or swim. We chose to swim.

But now I feel like others think that since it’s done and over with that I am no longer allowed to be upset or sad. Why? Why do you get to think that way? Why can’t I deal with this whole situation how I feel best fit?

I get others are affected by all this but none are affected to the same degree that we are. I can be angry, I can be sad, I can be unknown. I just don’t get why anyone cares how I feel about all this. We had to make a change in our lives that wasn’t wanted. So why should I feel like this doesn’t bother me? That I’m not having a hard time with it?

Yes, since our move we have found we adjusted a lot easier than we thought down here. However it still doesn’t take away from our feelings from why we are down here. It seems like people seem to forget that. We moved, we’re supposed to be happy. We moved basically because we were forced. Stay and wait till we lose everything at once or suck it up, face what we know and try to get back on our feet sooner.

I didn’t want to take my son out of his school. Away from his friends. What else are you supposed to do? He’s found new friends and found his place in his new school. He had adjusted much easier than we thought. We didn’t want to take them away from my parents, but what are we supposed to do?! Nobody has a clear answer for us. We’re told we did the right thing and then told something else.

I’m tired of it. Let me feel how I want to feel. How I need to feel. Let us deal with this how we need to. We finally are able to get back on our feet. Move forward with our lives. The memories will be there while the house may not. But dammit, this is about us, not anyone else!

A New Adventure

I haven’t really been able to write in here lately, not quite sure why. Every time I do, I lock up and freeze on my thoughts. So I decided to try something I have been thinking about for awhile. Couponing. I have started a new blog dedicated to learning how to coupon and my fun adventure doing so. I’m sure it won’t all be fun right away.

So if you wouldn’t mind following me through all that, come on over! I will continue to update here. I hope I can finally finish one of the 3 posts I started very soon.

The Couponing Noob

We’ve been rather busy

Sorry for disappearing life has definitely taken a hold of us. The past week we’ve been dealing with one of our cats who escaped and took about 4 days total to catch. We caught him once and he managed to break out, again. Then caught him again and now he’s in seclusion.

But during all that time, my birthday happened on Friday. I’m now 26, oh yay .. note that sarcasm? Not really a fan of the idea of getting older. However I’ve given up on the hopes of being able to just freeze aging. No luck on that. So now I am now in the ‘decline of my twenties’ and I’m fine with it. I mean, I’m still in my twenties, so I really shouldn’t be upset, right?

Anyways, between the cat and my birthday and now my mom and step-dad are here visiting, it has been a very very busy week and weekend.

However, this is going to be short because really I don’t have much to say at the moment. Typical things going on here. Children are crazy, husband is crazier, I’m the sane one, baby is the cute one. Life is life at the moment

Being back downstate

It is still weird being down here after a month. The adjustment is getting easier but the differences still show. The biggest one is pace of life. That sucks major balls.

Growing up down here, living down here for 20 years of my life, you know nothing different. It all grew around me, the towns become small cities and you just grow with it. Then making the change a drastic one to move 4 hours away from everything we know and are used to. The pace of life as I said was the biggest change. It took us awhile to adjust up there to things being slower, more low key. That the city we moved to was known as ‘the big city’ up there. Where as when we lived downstate, we were able to access many big cities within 20-30 minutes no problem. Not drive an hour to get to the closest Target.

Imagine how hard that was having access to so much and if one place was closed there was always another place open, to going to a town where everything closes by 6 on Sundays and weekdays by 8. It sucked! I hated it, loathed it, I also made sure the husband knew this quite often to. It was his choice to move us up here and at the time it was logical. He had gotten a job, one he couldn’t find downstate. We were moved in with my mom and step-dad, with young bird at the time (8mo old) at the end of August 2006 and moved into our own place by Feb of 2007.

We moved from SE MI (by Detroit) up to Northern Lower MI. Which on this photo is only listed as Northern MI. We lived in and right outside of Traverse City for the 5 years we lived there. So for 5 years we lived up there (by your pinky!) and now we are back down by the bottom of your thumb. Nifty, huh?

So often I was told how awesome it was that we lived up there. I always told them they were wrong. Because in my mind, they were. It is gorgeous up there during the summer and color changes during fall. But then in summer you’re dealing with tourists. Which are always the people saying I’m so lucky to live there. Of course they’d say that, they visit and have a great time! They’re not a local living there, working there, doing the daily ins and outs of life there with all these out of town people running a muck.

We (the husband and I) came to our conclusion on living up there. Yes, it’s a nice place, I won’t doubt that at all. However, unless you’re born there and grow up there, or are very rich, it just isn’t the place to live. That is MY opinion. I never felt like I fit in.

Now that we’re back downstate in SE MI, I’m happy. I feel totally at home again. Granted we don’t live in the exact area we grew up in but we’re not far. We’re very familiar with the surrounding cities and can make it anywhere no problem. I have even learned back roads already for the city we live in and it was a place I was very unfamiliar with.

Lets talk differences;

 

Population there; 14,172                            .. Population here; 13,455

Snow fall there; 20in Avg a yr                      Here; 11in Avg a yr

 

The snow was the biggest thing I hated there. I hate winter, hate hate hate it. Did I mention, I hate it? I’m not  a fan of snow. Which is why I wanted to move to North Carolina, the change, the weather, it wasn’t Michigan. I still want to move there one day, I honestly do. But with the husbands new job, it will be awhile before that dream is met. I’m okay with it.

I’m happy to be back downstate. In cities, fast paces. Its where I am supposed to be.

It’s things like this

See this photo? Do you see what my child is doing? He is reading the book to us all by himself. We have been working on reading words at home and at his school, but out of no where yesterday he came up to me and said “Mama, I can read Green Eggs and Ham all by myself!” I told him that was great and to wait for Daddy to get home so he could read to the both of us. Being six, he wasn’t exactly happy with that response and wanted to read right then and there. I also knew my husband would be upset not being there. So I kept him distracted long enough for Daddy to get back.

Finally Daddy returned home and Young Bird was happy that he could finally read the book to us. So we sat down on the couch and he began reading. Now, I will be honest and at first thought since we had been reading this book several times this week he started to memorize it. But I was quickly proven wrong. He sat there page by page, word by word reading to us. Using his finger to guide his eyes to the word and ones he didn’t know or wasn’t too sure of, he did what we always told him to do – sound it out.

Towards the end of the book he started getting slightly frustrated but he didn’t let that stop him. The husband and I helped only when he absolutely couldn’t figure it out. Like the word ‘Say’, it kept getting him because he didn’t know the A was not said as ah. So yes, I helped him. I think aside from 2 other words, everything else he did.

It just amazed me that at six he could read that whole book. When we just had his parent teacher conferences earlier last week, she showed us the book that they have to be able to read by the end of Kindergarten. It was 6 pages, 2 sentences a page, much shorter than ‘Green Eggs and Ham.’ It’s a great start!

I love to read and hope to pass that love onto my boys. I believe my love came from struggling with a reading disorder when I was younger. I spent all of First Grade and I believe most of Second Grade in a special extra class specifically to help me focus and be able to read properly. It isn’t dyslexia, it is something else. The name is escaping me at the moment.

Here I am though at almost 26 (less than two weeks away, eeks!) and can read perfectly. Well, not out loud. I struggle there. However, I can whiz through a novel within a few days when given the chance. And having kids, that chance is much less then it used to be. So far  Young Bird shows his love for reading. I do hope it can continue. The husband and I were talking about taking him to a used book store and buying up a small set to give him his own. My Mother-In-Law also suggested a good idea on getting him a Library card, I think we’re going to do that as well.

I will definitely encourage reading. You should too