Why, Oh Why...  

Posted by: Crystal

...That it the question. Any of you that have children have either already gone through, are going through or soon will be going through the ever so fun "why" phase. Now I am a mother of three and with my daughter who is now 8, I don't remember her going through this phase this early in age. But my son Kaden, at the ripe old age of 3 has found that "why?" is the perfect response to everything, and I mean everything!

Now you may think these are simply the questions of a healthy, growing, curious child and in some instances you would be correct, but in most situations, this is not the case.  When telling my son 'no' for anything he asks me "why".  Sometimes I can see why he might wonder, but on other such occasions it just baffles me that he has to ask.  For instance, when I caught him jumping off of the arm of the couch with his blanket tied neatly around his neck as his cape, I gasp and yelled from across the room "NOOOOOOO" while envisioning a night in the ER for a broken arm.  As he calmly regains his balance and looks up at me with this look like I must be crazy and asks in his tiny little voice "why mommy?".

If you could have only seen the look on my face at that point!  I was thinking seriously?  Was he actually asking me this?  Well, I guess that's why God gave kid's parents!  I love my babies, even if they do drive me crazy with their senseless questions!

Oh, and Carol, I'm sorry I drove you crazy when I was 5 and asked you "why" about everything!  I love you!




Boys And Their Toys  

Posted by: Crystal in , , , ,

Alright, I've been pondering...I was outside playing with the boys the other day and realized that nearly every toy they pick up they bring it to me and say "it not work".  Ok, so I'll admit, they don't work because I'm to lazy to replace the batteries, but this isn't my point.  My point is, whatever happened to good old fashioned kickball?  Why is it that our kids have come to a point that everything they have has to do something in order for it to be fun?  


My children have all sorts of toys including balls, bikes, ring-toss and several other things that you actually have to put manual labor into in order for it "work" (What a concept!), but no matter what they always pass them up for something that makes noise and has pretty lights.   It has even gotten so bad that on the rare occasion that my kids get a happy meal, they want  the toy in it to do some sort of amazing trick.  Just recently my kids were treated to one such occasion and the toy happened to be a Hot Wheels car.  My older son brought it to me and asked "what it do, mom?"  Are you kidding me?  It's not enough to get a toy with your food, but you need it to do something all on it's own too?  Are they really so lazy and hooked on technology that they can't even use a finger to push a Hot Wheels car around?  I took the car, put it on the floor and pushed it across the room and said "that's what it does, you push it, it rolls".  You simply had to be here to appreciate the look of disappointment on his face.

So now that I've taken note of this I've begun to frightfully take a peek into my future.  If my boys are like this at ages 3 and 19 months, what lies in store for me when they become teenagers?  Dear Lord, please don't answer that!  Let me just bask in the joy of their technologically dependent childhood.

My Shower, My Sanctuary  

Posted by: Crystal in , , , ,

Alright, things have gotten waaay out of control!  I was doing some thinking last night (and yes, it hurt my brain) and realized that I hadn't showered for a day and a half.  Gross!  So this thought naturally led me to wonder where things got so out of control that I don't even shower everyday.  Have I seriously given up so much to raise my kids that even my showers are far and few between?  

If you're a SAHM, I'm sure (at least I'm hoping anyway) that I can't be alone in this.  I miss my private shower time!  My showers are the only place that I seem to be able to have one continuous thought from beginning to end.  Normally my train of thought gets derailed by a spilled glass of sticky something or a fragrant butt running around.  

It's so nice to be able to stand in there and just, even if it's for 15 minutes, be by myself.  I often find myself standing in there under the running water daydreaming.  You know those thoughts that we all have that always start with 'what if'?  Like what if I hadn't met my husband and had kids, what would I be doing?  What if I put the kids in daycare and went back to work?  What if I lost 100 lbs, do you think I could wash down the drain and make a clean break for it?

It's always somewhere around this point that reality slaps me in the face in the form of an empty hot water heater.  Darn it, do I really have to get out and hit the ground running again?  Oh well, at least I got my shower!

A New Bra Or Is Something Else In Order???  

Posted by: Crystal in , , , , , ,

I recently have become not so fond of this thing we call 'gravity'. Gravity is not my friend! I was getting dressed the other day and realized that I had not bought a new bra (other than ones that have peek-a-boo flaps for nursing) in quite a long time. In such a long time in fact, that I can't remember the act of actually purchasing a bra. This is sad. Very, very sad. So, being that I leave the house as little as possible due to the circus of acrobatics it takes to get myself and the kids out of the house without somebody being hungry, poopy or having an absolute meltdown, I waited until I had several things to get at the store and then went to my fave store, Target! And just for clarification, I'm normally the one having the meltdown, not the poopy one.



Anywho, I picked out a few practical (non-husband pleasing) bras and went to try them on. First let me tell you how incredibly wrong it is to put mirrors on 3 of the 4 walls in the dressing room. There are parts of myself I just don't care to see, thank you very much. A man clearly designed the dressing rooms. He also decided that along with the 3 mirrors, it would be funny to accompany them with florescent lighting. At this point I'm still fully dressed and already scared and can't believe I left the house with this face on!





I figure I'm here, I may as well do what I came to do. So I take off the pathetic garment I dare to claim as my bra and.....there they go....right to the floor. Darn Einstein and Issac Newton for discovering the principals of gravity! (As if they hadn't my boobs wouldn't be bruising my knees.) Now I knew that after my having three kids that things weren't where they use to be, but this is down right ridiculous. Curse these mirrors and florescent lights! Yes, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!



So I stand there for a good minute or two just looking at myself in awe, and not a good awe, a bad awe, a very bad awe. It was at this point that I started wondering, is it a bra I should be shopping for or possibly tube socks to tuck them into? Or even worse, perhaps I should be looking for a bra labeled like men's pants, 34W 36L? That should work...right? Maybe for the winter I can have my grandma knit a giant tube to tuck them in and I can just wear them around my neck to keep warm.



After I'm done gawking at myself I pick up the first bra and start thinking of a plan of attack. After all, this bra isn't broken in (worn out) and use to my tetherball boobs. This is a new one and it has no idea what it's in for, poor thing. So should I start with the fail safe bend over and let 'em hang and scoop them up with the bra or go with the more hands on approach of the firm grab, lift and plop it in? I chose the latter of the two. The entire time I'm trying these bra's on, my two toddlers are just staring at me. No words spoken, but their faces said it all. My oldest, Kaden had to be wondering 'why mommy's naked in this little room grabbing those jiggly things' and my youngest, Cameron was just staring at the jiggly things trying to concoct a plan of attack for grabbing one.



I tried on several bra's this day with results ranging from the wonderful uni-boob we all know and love, all the way to Madonna on her Blonde Ambition tour with the world famous pointy bra. Needless to say, I left the store with copy paper, milk and a roll of pink duct tape. Perhaps I just found useful purpose #6 for pink duct tape.

Like A Fine Wine, I Have Aged Yet Another Year  

Posted by: Crystal in , , ,

Well, it's pretty much come and gone...my birthday! Yep, I'm officially one year closer to the big 3-0 and while I can't say there's anything nostalgic about turning 29, I can say I'm happy to still be a twenty-something. And to answer the proverbial question of "do you feel any older"? As you all know, of course you don't feel older simply because it's your birthday.



I will say that I don't even feel 29. When you think about it, what is age other than a number? What if nobody ever kept track of your birthday and when you were born? How old would you say you are if the only thing you had to base it off of is how you feel? If I had to put an age on me, I'd have to say I feel about 23.



I often joke that I can't believe I'm in charge of raising kids, but it's true. I still feel so child-like myself that the very thought that I have been handed the gift of raising children is almost frightful. I guess on the upside, feeling young means that I still enjoy playing and running around with my kids and that in and of itself is irreplaceable.



Well readers, it's time for me to get my old butt in bed. Goodnight all! Have a blessed night and a beautiful morning!

A Good Day It Turned Out To Be  

Posted by: Crystal in , , ,


Well, I'm back from my self-pity sabbatical and ready to ride the blogging waves once again. Tonight's the night before my birthday and although the day started off a little rocky, it ended up great. My husband took me shopping and then out to dinner and now back home to watch a couple movies. I'm contemplating a glass of wine and then some snuggling with my hubby.


The last few days of feeling quite useless and down right depressed has showed me just how much I truly depend on my husband to gauge my mood. I'm not quite sure why it is that I feed off of him so much, but I seem not to be able to control it. It seems as though if I don't get enough of his time or attention it puts me in an odd place. It makes me miss him like crazy which in turn makes me depressed. Part of me thinks this must be somewhat normal being that I love him and if I didn't miss him, that would be more of a problem. The other part of me thinks that I'm a grown woman, not a 13 year old girl. What business do I have getting all depressed when I can't see my husband? On the other hand, it is nice that I still get those 13 year old butterflies in my stomach when he comes home and know he's all mine. I just wish I had more of those times.


You know something, my husband isn't perfect, but neither am I and if he were perfect, I wouldn't want him anyway. Sometimes he pisses me off like nobody else can, but most of the time he loves me like nobody else ever could. I love him like no other and if I could remarry him everyday for the rest of our lives, I would.

Overwhelmed And Under Appreciated  

Posted by: Crystal in , , , , , ,

Well today has been kind of a mixed bag of emotions. It's just been one of those days when all of the stresses that you've been pushing aside come tumbling down on you. Generally I do as all SAHM's do and slap a happy face on and go about my day despite how I may be feeling physically or emotionally. Today I just couldn't. I was incredibly short tempered and it took all I had to pry myself off the couch to care for the kids.

Cleaning the house was a whole different story. I could have swore the kids were secretly plotting and working against me. They thought it would be a good idea to dump the crumbs from the cracker box all over the hardwood floors. Just freaking adorable! So I took that opportunity to vacuum. I started in one area and was working my way over towards the majority of the crumbs. It was at that point my little genius's decided to come running through the crumbs right over to the area I just vacuumed. They're so lucky I love them! I then moved on to their room. This normally goes pretty quick since I have little bins for everything. Today I noticed it to be going quite a bit faster than usual which was strange since their room was an absolute mess. No complaints from me, the faster the better! Whew, all done...going to sit back down now....or so I thought. My children have become looters! The entire time I was cleaning their room they were sneaking toys out into the living room. The living room in which I had just cleaned! I gave up!

While I was cleaning the house I did happen to notice that when my lovely husband made cinnamon rolls this morning he couldn't walk 3 steps to the right to throw the packaging away. Nor could he remove his tennis shoes or work boots from the middle of the living room (which I'm almost sure he had to of measured to get them in the exact right spot to ensure maximum trippage). When installing the boys new DVD player the other night he knocked over just about every decorative object on their entertainment center and didn't bother to even attempt to put them back. Things like this make me wonder if marriage is just the governments glamorous idea for adopting grown men out to responsible women to keep them under control. You've got to admit, most, if not all men are just over grown teenagers.

Now please don't get me wrong, I love my kids and my husband dearly. Today was just the day that I happened to realize just how much I run in circles doing and redoing things for other people while I have a lot of things on my to-do list that never seem to get done because everybody else always comes first. This brings me to wonder why is it that I find everybody else so important that they come first and foremost before anything and everything, but I have yet to find one person to put themselves aside for me?

I have so many things to do, no energy to do it and to be quite honest, when I think about it I get so overwhelmed that I just say screw it, tomorrow's another day. It's a vicious cycle which I can't seem to get out of. The support of my husband is imperative right now and he's just not there for me. Bottom line is that my life is heading down a road I don't like and I can't turn it around alone.

Let's hope tomorrow's a better day!