TGIF

Today was a good day because when I got up I decided it would be. The power of positive thinking!!!
I have had a few stressful days and not about to have another. Around lunch time I just decided that this day needed to be carefree. So I took the babies to breakfast at noon. I didn't give them naps. Then I went to my friend's warehouse to pick up some awesome finds with an unfortunate past. There were trunks full of new kitchen and bathroom accessories as well as furniture. They had been there 3 years, unshipped and unclaimed. It is the belief that the woman who owned the belongings had passed away. So finally it was time to get rid of all the stuff and I was lucky enough to get invited to see if I could use anything. Of course I can! If you have ever seen my basement you would know that I am somewhat of a hoarder. I am a closet hoarder. The rest of my house is fairly put together and neat but the basement is a different story. Rubbermaid totes line the walls, shelves are overflowing. I made the mistake of letting some people see it and now it is kind of a tourist attraction. I justify this with the fact that I never turn down hand me downs as well as I keep the girls clothes to pass down and all the baby gear. However at least 15 tubs are full of little men.(starting line ups) My husband used to think this would be his retirement money. Yes, quite humorous. Now I am not sure they are worth much money but every time I suggest he part with them he looks as if he just had a vasectomy. And never ever suggest you actually take one out of it's packaging! So among the clutter I will find room for some more treasures. Thanks Kris and Bernie!
Tip of the day: As well as college funds I think a savings acct for fashion is in order when you have girls. Sadie is very into her style and LOVES TO SHOP. Especially shoes and bags. OH NO..not already. Since boys are born with selected hearing do you think girls are born with a need to shop?

Lunch duty

I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, apparently. Charlotte wrote on herself and my wood floor with a blue sharpie. She did this in the amount of time it took me to take out the trash. WOW this chick is fast!  I had a plan for the day when I woke up. I should know by now that things don't always go as planned or should I say never as planned in the Golden home. I put on a happy face and then I had lunch duty for second grade. Aaron is always so excited when I have lunch duty. At age 7 they are still so happy to see Mom at school. Lunch duty can sometimes be a challenge, kind of like letting all the monkeys loose at the zoo. It is funny how intimidating 30 second graders can be. I always leave with a great respect for the teachers that deal with these kids all day long. It is amazing that they actually are able to teach them anything. Well today I actually had a little girl pull her pants down at lunch. I have done many lunch duties through the years and this was definately a first or maybe I should say a second since she did it twice! I actually ended up punishing this kid after she scratched another child by making her stand by the fence for the rest of recess. AHH, the pleasures of private school. You can discipline any way you see fit! If someone complains the worst thing that can happen is you are banned from lunch duties. Oh, what a shame! All I can say is teachers are very under paid to babysit our offspring. 
 When I woke up I thought my biggest challenge of the day was going to be to pick up all the shit around my house for the cleaning lady. This is a pain but not nearly as much of a hassle as cleaning my house myself! BTW.. the house only stays clean for 5 minutes after she leaves. Someone always spills something or comes in the house with muddy shoes after I told them to take their shoes off about 100 times. Let's not forget that the potty only stays clean for about 3 minutes after she leaves.
Tip of the day: Murphy's law..If there is a clean toilet then someone will need to take a dump! I suggest you rush to be first.

Working Mom

There are days that I wish I was a stay at home mom...for about a minute. It is usually early in the morning when I have to get ready for work and don't feel like it. Then all the kids get up and I quickly get ready to get the hell outta there! Part time work is the best of both worlds. It is just enough time for me to get away so that I can be nicer and appreciate my kids when I come home. Besides, I like having money!  Two days a week Joey watches the kids while I work. He acts like this is easy work. I think it could be easy if you remove cooking, cleaning, laundry and grocery shopping. I have to say that he does do laundry occasionally.  When I get home I get the usual" they were still wet so I threw them back in the dryer". The translation for this is "oh shit, she just pulled in so I better run down and throw them in". I just want him to admit that he is frazzled when he is here alone with the kids and maybe I wouldn't pick on the other things he doesn't do!
BTW..Cowboys are playing tonight. It is only the pre game and he has already cursed at the TV. Maybe a glass of wine or 3 so I sleep through his ranting.
Tip of the day: Potty training your child early doesn't mean they will be a child prodigy. It only means that you will be visiting every bathroom in the tri state area that much sooner as you utter " Do you have to go potty?"

Baseball?

Baseball..America's favorite past time..
Could you imagine if you tailgated at every home baseball game. They play so much that you would need a new liver.
My dad loves baseball. He is here for the weekend and when he is here baseball is on Tv all day.. This is really quite annoying. This may be the only sport that you could actually play after a big mac and a few cold ones. You can even be overweight and close to middle aged and still have a long career ahead of you. BTW, I have never been invited to a world series party. Have you?
Do you remember when everyone played baseball and if you had brothers you spent hours at the field watching a slow moving game? Well Thank God lacrosse became big. Woohoo..at the field for all of an hour. 
No offense too all the baseball lovers out there, I am just not one of them. 
I like football season. Games are only a few days a week and every Sunday you have a reason to party with friends and neighbors. I would love football even more if my hubby wasn't such a nut about his team which happens not to be my team. I like it when the Ravens win but it doesn't ruin my day if they don't. Joey is hard core. If Dallas sucks then he isn't pleasant to be around. I find this RIDICULOUS. Almost as ridiculous as the fact that he lives here and roots for a team in a different time zone but I married him regardless of this so guess I have to put up with it! 
When football season ends I think we try to keep up the momentum and maybe even watch Nascar for a bit. This gets old quick. Garage parties and tailgating are not quite the same when you are just watching cars go in circles really fast. This is when it is time to just wait for summer. There never has to be an excuse to have a party in the summer!
Tip of the Day: Why is it that magically at 6 months of age it is ok to use sunblock and bug spray? I think this means don't take your child under 6 months in the sun or around bugs. Maybe put them in a bubble? I used sunblock and bug spray all summer on Violet and she is just now 6mos. Her skin looks great and she doesn't have west nile..just sayin!

Chiefs vs Indians

Sometimes we are Chiefs and sometimes we are Indians.

Today I had to be somewhat of a chief. As bossy and opinionated as I can be I really don't like being the chief. Family decisions are tough. You know the old saying..you can pick your friends but not your family. Wow that hits home sometimes. Who says we have to put up with family that does us wrong? I mean should we all be like Casey Anthony's mother and defend our blood no matter what? I don't think so! Let's just blow the lid off of this one..." I don't always agree with the things ----- does but I have to love ----cause ----is family."  Bullshit!  Family or not I am not bailing anyone out of jail that has the bloody knife in their hand.
Can I just say that my family that reads this need not be offended. You all rock!
Tip of the day: When your two yr old asks you to go potty and you so proudly take her pants and diaper off you should probably do the sniff test first. I believe at two you can really mean "I went potty already." WHAT A MESS!

Date night/ Tip of the day

Every couple of months Joey and I have a date night. Tonight is date night. We are going to the Darius Rucker concert. We have 4th row seats. I am just hoping it doesn't rain although there is a 60% chance. A concert is a good choice because when you remove the kids from the situation there is usually a lot of silence. It is funny how you can forget how to be a couple once you are parents. So I am wondering what to wear so my husband will think his 40 yr old wife with a few pounds of baby weight still, is sexy. The ironic thing is that I am sure he could care less what I wear as long as he gets lucky when we get home!  Much like the weather there is a 60% chance that a kid will be in our bed when we get home. Maybe we will luck out and it won't rain and our bed will be empty!

Before date night there is still everyday things to be done like grocery shopping, laundry, pick up kids and then homework. Oh and had to clean Char's hands with acetone since she wrote all over them with a sharpie marker. Babies were pretty good today. Charlotte only threw her shoes in the bread aisle but she told me and I went back for them.

Tip of the day: If you are only grocery shopping with one child, PLEASE do not take the car cart. You know the one your kids scream to ride in so you allow it. Well moms like me cannot fit their children in a regular cart. When I show up at the store and it is being used with one child in it I have cart rage. I always hope that particular person feels like an ASS when they see me with a baby bjorn and a cart.

Char bites/ sleep deprivation/ tip of the day

Charlotte Bites!
She doesn't just occasionally bite. She bites several times a day. She leaves marks. We handle this similar to how you would handle taking your kids around a strange dog. We say " don't get in her face" or "get away from her". I have tried time outs, biting back and even spanking. Nothing works. A few months ago her friend bit her. After this she didn't bite for quite awhile but I guess the memory of the pain faded and she is biting once again. Charlotte also throws things. (not sure where she gets that from..check out last post) She didn't like the cup I put her milk in last night so she threw it at me. When she didn't make contact she chucked it at me again. Since her antics also include feline torture, I found her pulling the cat around in a plastic garbage bag this morning.

Sleep deprivation
I like sleep. I haven't had a full nights sleep in 10 days. Violet is the last to catch the sickies in this house unless Joey and I get it. I am hoping for sleep within the next 2 days. If 4 children are sick for 12 consecutive days then the Duggers would be sick for 60 days if their house got this. I am pretty sure you would find me rocking in a corner if  I didn't sleep for that long. I may be speaking jibberish by tomorrow.

Tip for the day: Who cares if your husband likes crockpot meals or not. It's practice season and if you eat Mcd's every day you will have a fat ass and he will dislike that more!

Anger management

I just spent $56.99 on a used DS. This will be Aaron's fourth DS. The reason I bought a new one is that I threw his DS across the room and broke it today. Yep.. no mother of the year award for me. I am sleep deprived and Aaron was whining over doing his homework and I just lost it. Immediately I realized that guilt would overcome me and I would be buying another. This just pisses me off that I did it in the first place. Of course I told him he wasn't getting another but here I am sitting at the computer at 9 pm ordering a used system off  Ebay. How many times do I tell my kids to think before they do something and then here goes hot headed mama throwing things. Sadie says I may need anger management or a good nights sleep.

And here is a tip for the day:  Keep your old set of silverware. You know the ones that have all the spoons but only half of the forks and knives. You can use those to put in the kids lunch boxes. This will keep you from being pissed off when they throw away pieces from your new set.

Sundays in the Dena

Football Sundays rock! Always an excuse to get together with friends and neighbors and watch the game and have good eats. Garage party yesterday at the neighbors. Good times! Hope to be invited back after Charlotte wrote with magic marker on the brand new recliner. Thankfully most of the time we were in the garage since my family spilled about 5 drinks by riding their scooters into them. We will see if next weekend they say"Hey let's just come to your house".

I woke up this morning in Sadie's bed with Char. Nothing unusual about this since bed hopping happens often in the Golden home. Sadie and Vi were in my bed.  Well let's just say I slept about 15 minutes of every hour. Charlotte was coughing and yelling at me not to touch her blanket for most of the night, I heard the alarm go off and Violet wake up saying"dada" over and over again. Why is this always their first word? Then once they learn "mommy" you never stop hearing it ever again! I wonder when I will ever sleep straight through the night again. Probably never since even if they sleep I have to get up to use the bathroom. The pleasures of being over forty....



No fevers luckily!

 Joey would like me to add that Tony Romo had an awesome game and played with broken ribs. It's funny how now that it is football season it is important for him to be home on Sundays with the family. I guess the restaurant can run without him from September through January. Better luck next time Ravens!

Ahhh. Saturdays, Time for relaxation...in some homes...not mine!

Charlotte got up at 5:30 this morning and so did Aaron and his friend Ian. Violet woke up right after. Really kids..it's SATURDAY! 9am I was on the road to pick up Sadie from a sleepover. Off to soccer at 10am but not before I made a pit stop at home to pick up forgotten cleats for Sadie. Soccer from 10 til 11 and then off to field hockey. Home for 2 hours and then back out the door for choir.

I spent mass as usual, in the gathering space since Charlotte acts crazy and is sooo loud. As if it wasn't enough that I was there with all my kids, another little girl decided to stay by my side for the whole mass. She was very cute but I really didn't need another kid in diapers hanging with me. Violet spit up on me about 8 times and Charlotte rolled around on the dirty floors and just acted like Charlotte.

Moms like me are definately adding to the air pollution by driving 40 miles in one day but yet never getting further than 3 miles from my house and repeating it again and again and ......

Ahhh. Bedtime. That's worth a celebratory drink!

My friend told me today that is is a sign that we are old when the weekends become harder than the weekdays.

Charlotte

A Typical Day with Charlotte

No chocolate syrup this morning. Now she is just pissed off for the day so watch out fellow siblings and pets!

                                   



First time actually on the cob as she insisted "Char eat like this"



Yesterday was beautiful outside. All the kids and their friends played in the yard. Char wanted to swing. "Ms. Stasty...Ms. Stasty Golden..swing now". Of course she got her way! After climbing on the table, demanding Kris to color with her and then using her cell phone to randomly call people, she also misplaced her brother's ipod. After asking her several times "where is the ipod?" her response being"ipod, ipod". Sadie then face timed the ipod and we found it.... inside the gas grill! Oh and just like everyday she go into my lotion about a hundred times today. Those kids need to learn how to shut the bathroom door or next they may find  their kitty flushed down the toilet. Luckily the cat escaped her antics since she has used up about 8 of it's 9 lives. I think the cat is hiding since she got ahold of him a few days ago. "What did you do to the cat?"  Char: " bite Rico"

OOPS

My husband is going to take me to a concert next week. Sadie asked to go.
Me:" If Daddy can get cheap tickets then we can all go."
Sadie:" If not are you and Daddy going to have a date and kiss like when I found you naked?"
Me: "We were not naked. Daddy had on boxers and mommy had on a nightgown"
Sadie: "It looked like you were naked."
She will remember the day she found us having relations and I am sure her and Aaron will discuss it one day!