If this is a circus, where are all the clowns? Oh wait, that's me I guess.

Since my memory is just about as short as the time it takes me to get everything ready and get outside some days, I usually try to write myself a few notes to remind myself what exactly I want to do. If I don't, I'll end up going outside and bouncing around the yard like a pinball from plant to plant only to realize a couple hours later that I'd totally forgotten to do what I'd originally gone outside to do. Usually it's just things like "potatoes need hilling", "these seeds need to go into the ground now" or "does this need to be watered/mulched/deadheaded, etc..." you get the idea.

Today I went outside with a game plan. A few weeks ago, I forgot all of my melon seedlings out on the front step on an insanely hot day. Five different kinds of melon seedlings all dead. I'm not going to lie, I kind of wanted to cry. I'd been daydreaming of having this big patch of melons and pumpkins. Yeah, I killed the pumpkins too. Out of them all I only have a couple kinds of melon seeds left. I realized last night that they don't take as long as some of the others so if I were to get them into the ground today they might actually have a chance.

So my list for today was:

• plant melon seeds and mulch the area they will be growing in.
• check plants in the garden and water them (only at the roots, tomatoes are looking a little blighty)
• hill potatoes

Not a long list right? Seems pretty reasonable doesn't it? Well, after getting the kids dressed and covered in sunscreen and gathering everything I needed I went outside to do these things. While I checked on some of the plants in the garden, my four year old thought he would help me out and water the garden. I have one of those sprayers with a bunch of different settings. It's really very fun for a four year old, but not so fun for the plants that are getting blasted with water. If my little basil plant comes back I'll be amazed. Same goes for the carrots he blasted. He was only trying to help, but he ended up drenching just about everything in the garden including me.

Meanwhile, my eight year old shows up with his dirt bike, notices a patch of dirt and decides that it looks like a fantastic place for him to do burnouts with the back wheel. That patch of dirt just so happened to be a patch of dirt because I planted seeds there a few days ago. Did I have it marked? No, but I shouldn't have had to. He knows he is not supposed to do burnouts in the yard.

By the time I got a phone call from my sister in law wanting some information, I was so glad to have a reason to give up and go inside. So the plants are watered. That's it.

Sometimes I feel like all I am doing is running around trying to avoid disaster after disaster. One mess is cleaned up, another is made in another room. One thing is planted, another thing is being destroyed a few feet away. Soon I realize it's late afternoon, I feel like I've accomplished absolutely nothing, but I'm exhausted. By the end of the day, my husband gets home and it looks like I've done absolutely nothing because my house (on a good day) looks exactly like it did when he left that morning. I on the other hand, look and feel like I've been wrestling tigers, or alligators or...trucks.

If I could draw, I would draw a comic strip of myself today and I would be a circus clown running around frantically trying to put fires out all over the place but the hose would be kinked. Then when I would look at the hose it would un-kink and spray water all over my face. Then you'd see that my kids are the ones kinking the house because they are playing the "who can push mom so far over the edge she hides from us and eats hot fudge out of a jar with a spoon" game. Yep. Today I'm like a deflated clown. At least that would explain my huge feet...

I wonder what would happen if I...

You know those people who know just enough about things to have enough confidence to get themselves into trouble? That's me. With just about everything I do. I can't say I'm really fantastic at anything, but I'm mediocre to good(ish) at a lot of things. Apparently, I lean towards the mediocre end of the spectrum when it comes to tinkering around with blogs. I seem to have deleted all of the comments. This makes me sad!

So friends, your comments have not disappeared because I wanted them to. They disappeared because I like to push buttons to see what happens. Please keep the comments coming, they make my day! I promise to try not to get too clicky with the buttons from now on!

So, if we both have ADHD then who the heck is supposed to keep track of...wait...what were we talking about?

(eta: I've tried to fix the font of this post several times but apparently blogger hates me this morning. My apologies)

My son's school had a book-a-thon...er....read-a-thon? One of those thing...a-thons..where you try and get people to sponsor you for every hour you read. Well about a week and a half ago, the folder went missing. I figured I'd just misplaced it because that's what I do. So I've been looking for it off and on for about a week without any luck. This morning I tried looking for it again since it's due TOMORROW! With no such luck again. When I mentioned to my son that I was looking for it he said "oh I already turned that in" wait...what? So basically since I just assumed that I lost the folder, I didn't even ask him if he knew where it was. Sweet.

So here was the plan. Since I bring him to school in the morning I was going to have him go into his classroom, grab it out of his desk all smooth like and hand it off to me. Piece of cake right? Did I mention that we both have ADHD?

Here's how it really went.

We leave the house right on time, like right on time if you don't want any extra time to get to school because
a.) he kept getting distracted by the tv while trying to put his snowpants on.
Yes, I know I should've turned the tv off but then my younger son would've had a meltdown once he realized that I was leaving the house without him.
b.) I went downstairs for my keys and came back upstairs with my glasses and a hat so I ahm...had to go back downstairs for the keys.

So we finally get outside and I see that my husband who is so sweet and incredibly thoughtful has washed my car. It's so shiny and pretty and...oh yeah...school. So we go to get into the car and the doors are frozen shut. I'm eventually able to get the driver's side door open so I have him climb through. He thinks it's fantastic...I think that my butt is going to be wet and cold from him stepping on my seat with snowy boots.

We get to school and get him out of his boots, coat and snowpants and into his tennis shoes. I watch all of the kids with organized parents walk into the classroom and place their homework folders and book(read?)-a-thon envelopes on the shelf. I remind him of his mission. "Go into the classroom all stealth like, grab the envelope out of your desk and bring it back to me."
"Okay mama" he says with a sideways glance and a little nod of his head like "no problem. I've got this." Partners in crime that's what we are...me and mister T.

I quietly stand in the doorway to watch. My partner in crime walks up to his desk...yep things are going good...then he glances into his desk sees his friend and starts talking to him. Oh no! I'm losing him! Then he sees that the teacher is making hats of some sort out of paper and heads over to her. NOOOOO!!! The mission!!!! Don't abandon the mission!

"Did you look?" I ask him
"I didn't have time" He says

wait...what?

So the teacher asks if she can help me. Doh! I've been spotted.
"I ahm...well...he uh...said he turned his read (book?) a thon folder in already."
"oh yeah he turned that in about a week and a half ago."

awesome.

So I asked him to check his desk again and she goes "you might want to check his desk"
ahhh...I instantly knew what she meant.

I went over to his desk and immediately flashed back to 2nd grade, watching the other kids with clean desks eating smarties candies left by the desk fairy while I stared into my messy desk feeling ripped off.

Oh yeah, this is my son alright.

The kid's desk was packed. I'm talking filled with paper. I don't know how he can fit anything in it. I knew that's exactly why she said I should probably look. That's why he glanced into his desk for a second. He saw the black abyss of worksheets that is the inside of his desk and got overwhelmed. I dug around for a while, found the envelope, gave him a hug and a kiss and slinked out the door.

I drove home thanking my lucky stars that he's as smart as he is. He's a damn smart kid....but I'm pretty sure his teacher still thinks I'm a moron.

The difference five minutes makes

This morning I woke up to my son going

"BEEEEEEEP!"

"BEEEEEEEEEEEEP"

"BEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!"

"BEEEEEEP!!!!"

It was 7:25. My alarm clock goes off at 7:30.

When he is older, you bet your butt I will be calling him or waking him up five minutes before his alarm goes off so he can see how very precious that five minutes is.

Have I mentioned the fact that I'm not a morning person?

I'm not a morning person.

Then I rolled over and some how managed to jam my hand into my knee and bend my fingernail backwards. Why??? Why couldn't it just have broken? Man that hurts!

So then I got up to head to the bathroom, passing a mirror and realizing that in the morning, my haircut slightly resembles Robert Smith from The Cure's hair...or Edward Scissorhands' whichever. That thought was of course cut short when I stepped in my son's pee. Aim? Who wants to do that in the morning? I was wearing socks...stepping in wet things while wearing socks is just gross.

Then my alarm went off.

I'm so ready for naptime today!

Apparently 28 isn't what it used to be...

About a year ago, I noticed a weird little spot on the white of my eye. At first I thought maybe my eyes were just bloodshot or something so I didn't pay much attention to it. One day I was talking to my mom and she asked me about it and told me I should get it checked out. That night I did what every person does when they feel like scaring the crap out of themselves. I googled it. My google search gave me two possibilities. One was a freckle that happens more frequently with people that have a little more pigment in their skin as they get older. The other suggestion was of course cancer. Now here is where I learned quite a bit about myself.

Faced with these two possibilities... getting older or having eye cancer...which one was easier to wrap my brain around? Yep. I was convinced that I had eye cancer. I mean me? Getting older? HA!

So of course the more I thought about it the more that eye hurt and the blurrier it seemed...by the time I went to the doctor I was convinced that I was doomed. Before I saw the doctor they took pictures of my eyes. When the doctor came to get me he was very nice and quiet. I was positive it was because he felt sorry for me. When I walked into his office there was the big picture of my eyes and he had circled something and written something on it. Ooooh crap. I knew it! My legs shook the entire time he checked my eyes.

Then the news...

I have an eye freckle. No, make that two eye freckles. One on the outside which is the spot that I noticed and one on the inside which is the thing that he circled. Other than that, he said that my eyes look really healthy and that I should wear sunglasses more often because of the pigment...thing...with the getting older...and what not. Then he gave me my new prescription and sent me on my merry way.

My husband of course thought this was hilarious and took every chance he could get to make fun of me. I hate to admit it but he has every right. This isn't the first time that I've googled some sort of ailment and convinced myself that I or one of my loved ones has cancer of some sort. It's even worse that I had just assumed that it must be cancer because there's no way I could be getting older, plus my eyes were blurrier and that was one of the side effects. No, it couldn't have had anything to do with the fact that I hadn't had my eyes checked in four years!

Get this, the very next day I kid you not I got mail from AARP!

I'm 28 years old!

*on a frugal note, since I still like the glasses that I already had. I just had them replace the lenses and I saved about a hundred bucks!

No More Cheese Sandwiches!

So after Mister T's first day of school where he decided to leave the lunch I made for him in his locker and eat school lunch, I decided to just have him eat school lunch every day. I could do lunches for cheaper...but if he keeps pulling the "leave my lunch in my locker" stunt and getting food from the cafeteria...that would add up fast. I also figured it would be a good lesson in choosing foods for himself and having to eat what they have or going hungry. So every day he'd come home and I'd ask him what he ate that day. "cheese sandwich" Whaaat?!?!? Okay kid...I can make a cheese sandwich for you for lunch. In fact I can make a darn good cheese sandwich for him every day of the week and it certainly wouldn't end up costing 1.75 a day! So I talked to him and told him that we give the school money so he can eat anything he wants that they have there and that we'd really like for him to try other things. So on Wednesday he said he had spaghetti and yesterday he said he tried a taco and it was "yummy!" I really hope he continues to try new things at school or at least find a few things that he enjoys other than cheese sandwiches. I don't mind paying for a hot meal for him in the middle of the day but if he's going to eat cheese sandwiches, I'd rather do that myself. He's just too funny...it's always something!

He zigged when I thought he'd zag!

Today was T's first day of first grade! He did half days last year so I wanted to make sure that he had a really fantastic day. I went to the store to get a few surprise goodies for his lunch box, made his sandwich just the way he likes it and I even wrote a cute little note with a drawing on it to surprise him and make him feel special. I put a lot of love into that lunch box!

So today he goes to school...looking so cute in his new clothes. I could tell that he was nervous and I don't blame him, I was nervous for him! He started a new school this year! We brought him to school and walked him to class making sure to stay in the hallway. With him we've learned it's always better to let him leave us than have us leave him. So we took a picture of him by his locker, gave him hugs, told him we loved him and to have a great day and he went into class.

When we came back in the afternoon to pick him up, the first thing he said to me was "lunch was AWESOME!" Inside I was doing a happy dance...yeah that's right who's a mama that makes awesome lunches? Me that's who!

"I had pizza!!!!!" Wait...what? Yep...the kid left his lunch box full of love in his locker and had school lunch! I'm pretty sure that you could literally see my head deflating when he told me that! So of course, since we had planned on sending him to school with his lunch box we haven't deposited any money into his account. So yeah that little stinker already has a negative lunch account! 1.75 by the way...which for some reason shocked me. I guess I thought it was cheaper!
So...I think I'm going to go ahead and have him eat school lunch from now on. I think it'll be a good opportunity to make choices for himself and also learn how to eat what you get when not every single option is pizza! It's not exactly the most frugal thing in the world to do...especially not with all of that super cheap peanut butter and those fruit snacks that I got paid to buy... pizza... the kid eats pizza...

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