waiting for snow

I love living in MN. The seasons are constant, yet unpredictable. This year we have been oscillating between unseasonable cold, and way above normal highs. This is the perfect breeding ground for colds and allergens, and apparently they are all attacking me! Last night I had to bow out on our families 'second Thanksgiving' because I am uncertain as to whether this is a bad cold and allergies, or something worse and more cynical. My eyes itch, my throuat hurts, for the last week and a half my voice has been debating if it wants to stay or go (often times set to The Clash), my throat hurts, I am sneezing constantly and painfully, and my intestines seem to be anarchists. I figure that until I can get into the doctors office (I might have to do urgent care if I want to be seen in the next week, damn not having a standard doctor, but since I was pregnant with Buddha, if anything came up, I went to my Ob/Gyn, and he would refer me to a DR based on my issues, now that I'm not preggers, I need to get a doc) I'll just try to stay hydrated, rested, and chock full of vitamin C.

Today, I am going to let Thor run around the house naked as much as possible, I have the potty seat stragically placed, and have to clean anyways, so if he decides to use the floor instead of the potty, no big loss.
Thor will now tell us how old he is, if asked, and will also show you how many fingers old, but varies on which two he will display. Sometimes it is the normal "bunny ear" fingers, sometimes the middle two and sometimes the last two-but it's always two next to each other, and always consistently two. My heart just melts when he looks at me and says "Two! MMMM Two!" Since we have been having play dates for Hermes with kids in his age group, Thor is trying to talk a little more. He is still playing parallel to others more than with others, but any positive change is good right now, any positive change is something I can report to his doctors fairly worry free, even a little proud.
Hermes was sooo happy to be going back to school this morning, I have never seen a passion for learning like that before, and hope it never gets extinguished.
Buddha is trying very hard to stand. He can kneel, and he can "stand" with his hands touching the ground-think yoga-downward dog pose. He is also trying very, very hard to talk. Part of me hopes that as Buddha talks more, Thor will talk more. They jabber at each other all the time in their own language, it would be nice to be included in their conversations.

Holiday time

Growing up, the holiday season (from just before thanksgiving, till after new year, and easter) were always pretty stressful. My parents divorced when I was young, so I got to do the Holiday shuffle. Every other major holiday, alternating yearly, and if you had me x-mas eve/x-mas morning one year, the other parent had me overnight the next. In the most part this wouldn't have been too bad, but I also had to see all the family, every year, and things never worked out as planned. I don't remember how old I was when people on my dad/step-mom's side quit demanding that I have a little something to eat at every get together, but I do remember, vividly, that it came about after vomiting rutebega stew over everyone after what I am fairly certain was my tenth meal in two days (on the eve I had two formal holiday dinners, two and a half hours apart, plus breakfast x-mas morning, plus food with my mom, plus food with my moms family, plus food with my dad's family, plus food with my step-mom's family, plus various and sundry meals sneaked in) My mom never pushed me to eat, but to this day I swear that my step mom believed I was lieing about being fed previous, and "If nothing else, eat a little bit so as not to offend anyone"
Until I was working, which was shortly before everything went to hell-in-a-handbasket with my Dad's family (the first time) I generally had my christmas broken into two hour increments, not including drive time, and felt like a burden to everyone. Meals and gift opening were scheduled around when I would be with who. I remember Step-mom freaking out if I happened to need 15 extra minutes with mom in the morning, but Step-mom had no problem dropping me off late, and blaming it on traffic. When I started working at the toy store, I was thrilled to work x-mas eve, and know that due to vehicles, I wouldn't have to be shuttled to quite so many places by Dad on x-mas day, when I was working at the gas-station the following year? Heaven! I could work all the holidays and not have to be there when Dad didn't call.

Now I have kids of my own, my mom and step-dad are awesome, as are the siblings, and I only have to deal with my family and the in-laws. Last year we only did half of the in-law celebrations (always x-mas eve) and it was liberating. I spent time with the people I wanted to, and had fun. My family's celebrations were hosted at my house, and were not nearly as stressful as I thought, I think a good time was had by all. This year, we have things worked out a litlle smoother yet, and even have time for friends x-mas day night. It is my driving goal to never have my sons feel anything but a sense of excitement and joy for the holidays, never to be dreading the fights, the backhanded comments, the stress ball that forms in your stomach and makes you ill, because if something doesn't go as planned, you'll have to overhear your step-mom bitch to your dad about how much better everything would have been if they didn't have to drive you over hell and highwater, or bitch about your mom dropping you off ten minutes late, when the food and gifts weren't ready yet anyways, and you were on the phone so what do you cere?, the arbitrary rules on sharing gifts (step-mom felt that if one child recieved money as a gift, that child(generally me) should share that gift with the other kids...to be fair, but the other kids always got more presents from step-mom and dad, so how was that fair? When an aunt on my dad's side found out what step-mom was doing, she chewed her out, and made a point of only giving me cash before I went back to my mom's)

I would like to take a moment to thank my mom for rarely talking shit about my dad infront of me during the holidays, for trying to make everything smooth and enjoyable, and for putting up with years of bullshit at the hand of the Evil Step-Momster, just to try and keep the peace. I was aware of some of what you did, and thank you. I would also like to take this moment to tell any divorced parents that I may have as readers-Please, do not bad-mouth your childrens parents in front of them EVER, especially not at christmas or thanksgiving dinner. Do not try to make your kids take sides in something that is already dificult for them, and please realize if you do act like a shithead-it is only hurting your child, and making you look bad-if your ex-spouse is hurt by anything you say/do, it is more than likely because you have upset your kid, and they cannot make it better. No one needs to know that you think their mom is a bad person, just because she divorced you current husband-a man, I might add, you wouldn't even have been able to marry had they not split up.

Playdate!

Hermes is going to have a friend from school over for a while this afternoon. While they are playing, his friend's mom and I will talk, and his friends sister will, hopefully, play with them or with Thor...moreover Thor will hopefully want to play WITH other kids, and not play at them. The Housewifeland social experiment is about to begin. If this goes well, it will lead to more gettogethers, even possible on a weekend day, so our Husbands can play, too! This is the first ever actual 'playdate' Hermes has had, everytime he's played with others it's been fairly informal. Hermes friend is a lot like him, so it will either go well, and they will keep each other occupied, with only a little prompting from the parents, or, worst case, when SistahGirl gets home from work, it will look like the Hindenburg went BOOM!!!!!!!!! in my livingroom.

feeling better

For those who may be wondering, I am feeling much better now. I am much more calm and level, and have my schedule a little more back to normal. Thor Hermes and Buddha are doing good, as is Hubby.

whelmed

I am feeling in over my head at the moment. The rental office informed us, by note, at 5 pm last night that starting at 8 am on wednesday they will be giving all the units their annual review-heating,plumbing and what not-so will need to be in the units, with access to all they need. What is funny, in the 15-16 months that we have lived here, this is the first annual review. So i have to clean, everything, and I know it is my not keeping on top of it that let it get bad in the first place, we had it clean, but I keep letting it slip and slide into a mess. I am worried that there is not enough of me to go around to all my boys and Hubby. Now that we have a tentative diagnoses for Thor, he has a therapy/evel/testing damn near weekly, and not on a regular schedule yet, plus Buddha is developing rapidly, and Hermes is in school, and I fear I am not giving anyone the attention they deserve. When I get overwhelmed I want to crawl on the computer or into bed and curl up with a book, but I cannot do that because that just limits what I have for other people, but I know I need to give to myself as well. I don't talk to HUbby about this as much as I should, because he would just worry, and I know that ultimately, I am fine, just overwhelmed right now, and once I get a schedule figured out it will be fine...honest.

We just got back from a beautiful vacation in mexico, we are getting new cell-phone in the next week-for free(yay upgrades) Hermes' conferences are wednesday night, and his teacher is glowing about him, so no worries there, and Hermes has no school on friday, so we can just chill, and have time just for us when the little brothers are napping. Thanksgiving is not at my place, we are actually going to the in-laws, and X-mas is over a month off-I am fine, I have all the time in the world, and I am sure I just made everyone worry about my mental health unnecesarrily-just needed to vent.

Oh, to be two again!

Thor processes things differently from most children. This is the first year that trick-or-treating was fun for him. He wasn't excited about it beforehand, as dressing up in a costume isn't out of place for him. There are days where I will let thor where whatever he wants, as long as I can put the damn clothes on, so if he decided that he needs to wear his Blue's Clues costume every other day for two weeks leading up to Halloween, who am I to stop him? When Hermes went trick-or-treating at two, he was ready to go, he knew what to do, and what to expect, but there are some key differences between Hermes at two on candy day, and Thor. Hermes' birthday is a few months before halloween, Thor's is two weeks, and in toddler time, devolopmentaly, a few months is HUGE. Hermes was doing everything early, sometimes we forgot he was only two-Thor, though huge, isn't like other kids, so it is sometimes hard to tell if he 'gets' something. Wll, let me tell you, all it took was the first person to open their door, comment on how cute he was, and drop candy in his bag for everything to click. We only went around the block that my in-laws live on, because Thor burned himself out! He was sooo excited that all he had to do was knock on a door, and they gave him candy! We never got a "Trick-or-Treat" out of him, nor a "Thank you!", but most adults figured out he was happy when A)his brother said thank you twice, once just for Thor, and B) When Thor would jump up and down afterwards grinning and saying(well, shouting) "CANDY!!!!"