“Mommy, I had a really bad day at school,” Big E told me when he came home the other day.

“What happened?”

“(Kid’s name) keeps calling me ‘Baby Girl.'”

This wasn’t the first time Big E had mentioned this kid and being called Baby Girl, but I had told him to ignore it.

“And he kept hurting me all day.” He whimpered.

“What?? What happened?”

“He kept pulling back my fingers and twisting my arm.”

I emailed his teacher and she told me she moved Big E so that he no longer has to sit with the boy.

Guys, I can’t stand bullies, and my kids have gotten the brunt of a few of them this year.

C comes home every day with a new story about one particular girl in her class that is her friend one day and then not the next. And when the girl decides not to be C’s friend, she is downright nasty to C. C has been talking about it for months, and while I am a firm believer in making friends and including everyone, I have told her to stay away from this one girl.

We are about a month away from the end of school and I cannot wait. The school has been very responsive to all of my concerns, but honestly, it’s just getting old.

On a happy note, though, Tim and Baby E met us at the beach this evening, and the kids enjoyed some nice outdoor time. The tide was low, so the sandbar stretched for forever. It was fun to watch them play and splash. Man am I glad the warm weather is here to stay!

I spent the day at home with my youngest. He kept me up most of the night with his tossing and turning and talking in his sleep. We both finally fell into a deep sleep around 4am. When I woke at 6, I knew I wasn’t going to be worth much today. I called it in and Baby E and I hung around the house watching way more tv than necessary. I think he is on the mend, and his complaints have gotten fewer and farther between.

I tried to sneak in a nap today, but he would have nothing of it, so I am extra exhausted this evening. I’m off to bed. Hopefully soon my posts will get a little more interesting! 🙂

I have a little fellow that is under the weather this evening, so I am letting him sleep on the floor next to my bed. In the past ten minutes he has been talking up a storm… while completely asleep. My favorite part was when he stuck his arm straight in the air, pointed at the ceiling, and exclaimed, “I’m all done, Mommy!!!”

Ok buddy, what ever you are done with, good job!

I’m heading to bed a little early in case he keeps me up with his talking all night. Enjoy your Wednesday evening!

This post is gross… you have been fairly warned.

I may wake up at 5:30 in the morning, but my body is not ready to eat for a couple of more hours. Anything sooner and I just feel nauseous. I keep a box of oatmeal at work so I always know I have breakfast waiting for me when I get there. However, one of the things that breaks up my commute is to stop and get an iced coffee and an order of hash browns. The coffee gets me over the morning hump and the hash browns hold me over until oatmeal.

This isn’t an everyday occurrence, but it happens pretty often. I ordered my food this morning and as I neared the store, I confirmed the order and that I’d be walking in to get it. Most mornings by the time I get to the counter, my food is sitting waiting for me.

This morning I pulled in and went inside. It was relatively empty and I was surprised that my food wasn’t ready, but I didn’t mind waiting a few minutes. I noticed that the food prep people weren’t moving very fast, but oh well. As I stood there watching them, wondering which order would be mine, I noticed that one of the workers took his gloved hand and scratched at his arm. It wasn’t like a slight brushing of his fingers across his skin, it was like he had a serious itch on his rather hairy arm. I watched him for a moment thinking it was odd behavior for a food service worker, but maybe he just hands people the bags… But no, not 30 seconds later he was scooping out the hash browns with the same gloved hand and putting them into a bag!! MY HASH BROWNS!!! Oh, I wanted to gag. He turned around and handed me the bag and I just stared at is like it held some kind of plague. Ugh. Gross. Blech. I was so caught off guard, I took the bag and headed for my van. I set the bag in the passenger seat and it just sat there. Nope. Can’t do it. Not going to happen. I will not be eating arm hair hash browns. No. No. No.

Now I am aware that gross stuff happens with food. Thankfully, most of the time we never see it. “What the eyes don’t see, the heart doesn’t grieve over,” right?!? But when it happens and I see it, I am reminded how much trust we put into other people when we eat. And I’m not just talking fast food or eating in a restaurant. All of our food is handled by someone. Even healthy, fresh food goes through various hands before landing on our tables and into our bellies.

Unfortunately my hash browns found themselves in the first trashcan at work- a waste of food and a waste of money. I also realized I had run out of oatmeal, but thankfully there is a tasty bagel place across the street from my office and they came to the rescue!

The moral of the story, my friends, is to always pay attention and just say no to #armhairhashbrowns

Do you have any gross food stories to share?

This was a good weekend. No, it was wonderful. For the first time in months I felt refreshed. I’m not sure what made it different, but it was. Our family lives at a breakneck speed most of the time, and it wears us down. We’re in the process of changing that, so maybe I feel the pressure lifting and this weekend I saw the shift. We all smiled… genuine, happy, real smiles. We laughed. We giggled. We connected.

All in all, it was pretty close to perfect!

Earlier this week I had a really rough morning. In fact, I actually cried after I dropped the kids off because it was that awful. The past few months have been hard with Tim being away so much, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel, so I find comfort in that.

In my frustration on that particular day, I got to work feeling completely defeated and upset. I knew we would be at the new house this weekend and my brain started running through ideas that would give me a little downtime. Let’s be honest, I’m ‘on’ from 5:30 in the morning until they go to bed around 8pm. I get to a point where I just need to be alone… or if not alone, at least not being constantly tugged at every 3 seconds. I remembered that Home Depot does children’s events, so I navigated to the site and saw they were doing one this weekend. I immediately signed Tim and the two older kids up, hoping that 1- Tim wouldn’t mind, and 2- the kids would actually enjoy it. That would leave me with Baby E, but I felt I’d be up for that.

Fast forward to this morning when Tim followed through with my plan. He wasn’t upset I had arranged him without asking, and they all seemed happy to get some time together. Today’s event at Home Depot was making windmill planters. Apparently the big kids absolutely loved their time with Daddy. They got to use hammers and screw drivers, and they assembled the cutest little planters, complete with some soil and bean seeds. They got an apron, a pin, and a certificate for completing their project. 

While the big kids were off having fun building, Baby E and I joined my sister and mom at the neighborhood library. They were having their annual book sale, which is a great chance to stock up on some books for the kids. I found a treasure trove of Boxcar Children books which will keep the kids entertained for a long time.

After that it was home and lunch, and then off for a date to see Avengers- Infinity Wars. (just us, not the kids.) I thought the movie was great and probably ranks as one of my favorite Marvel films.

We had a pretty busy day, but I do feel like I got the downtime that I needed. 🙂

We made it to the new house around 8:30 this evening. Tim had called me when I was still at work and said that he had gotten off early and wanted to go home and surprise the kids and take them out to the new place. I got there before him and I couldn’t wait to see their faces when he walked in the door. I wasn’t disappointed. When they saw daddy walk in and heard his voice all three kids squealed and ran towards him. I know he misses them dearly during the week and the feeling is mutual. Tim drove them in the van and enjoyed his time with them. When we finally got here it was time for bed. I just checked on the kids and everyone is asleep, even Tim, curled up next to Baby E. 🙂

There’s a peninsula at the end of our beach that we have never been around. As you can see from the first picture of Baby E, half of the beach is lined with cliffs. Over the years, the cliffs have eroded and the trees have tumbled one by one onto the beach below. The waves batter them and strip them of their excess, leaving bare skeletons of wood that the children love to climb and play on. If you follow the beach to the end, there is a secret spot, a small path behind the large roots of a fallen tree. The secret spot isn’t my favorite to be honest, because the ground ceases to be sandy, and the beach is replaced with a thick, clay mud that smells if the tide is low. But there is never anyone there, so the kids call it their secret lab and they love to explore. For the first time we have been in the secret area, the water was low enough for us to venture around the small peninsula. I wondered what lay on the other side, and to my surprise, there was a very small sliver of beach over there too. Very small. The water splashed up on it and nearly hit the cliff. There was also a small cave, the type of thing that would be fun to let the kids crawl in if I thought it wouldn’t collapse in on them. But really, one of the most fascinating things about the cliffs is that the water has been chewing on them for close to forever. Sticking out of the very hard, packed cliffside are huge shells being slowly revealed by the crashing waves. I wonder what the world looked like when those shells weren’t wedged into the side of a cliff and I wonder what it will look like long after we are gone. We spent nearly two hours on the beach this evening, only noting the passage of time when we realized we were the only ones left. I hope when my children are grown they will remember these moments and think back on their long childhood evenings with a sense of nostalgia and a continued desire to explore.

The cliffs behind Baby E reach about 20-30 feet in the air. Some old trees sit dangerously along the edge, their roots mostly exposed.

Baby E is steering his boat. 

This is the pathway to the secret area. Even the path itself was different last year, a testament to the ever changing shoreline.

Ankle deep in clay and waves. 

Touching the shells that are embedded in the cliff wall.

Enjoying some ‘friends’ in the water. 

The kids’ daycare had an ice cream party at a local ice cream shop this evening. We were all pretty excited to find out that all of their ice cream is lactose free, and that a lot of them were also vegan. We don’t get to eat much in the ice cream department, but tonight we gobbled up our dessert!

This afternoon I had a dentist appointment. I had a crown that wasn’t put in place correctly years ago and it needed to be replaced. Even with the novocaine, my mouth was pretty sore when I left the office. I’ve never been a fan of getting dental work done, but I’m trying to get it all done in the next few months. The best part about visiting my dentist is that they have tvs on the ceiling and you get to choose the program you want to watch while they are working in your mouth, so I got to enjoy an episode of Psych this afternoon during my torture session.

My daughter made this cute dinosaur in art class. I liked him so much I brought him to work to be my editing buddy!