Just fine....

When did my daughter grow up and become 9? For me, 9 is not fine.

I can't even believe that she is past 3 let alone old enough to be sporting braces and a cell phone. Just yesterday she was one of the chubbiest babies I had ever laid eyes on... SERIOUSLY... at 6 months, my chunk-a-saurus was sporting 4T clothes.

I fight with this little girl all the time. She is stubborn and hard to get along with and has her own ideas about how life should be lead. And I am thankful for that. She is not like other little girls that do everything everyone else is doing. She is one independent little chickie.

I feel so bad that she is tucked in the middle most days. We have had such a crazy schedule, at best, but she is adjusting.

So quickly, I will tell you, I love you more than life my little girl! We have tons planned over the next few weeks... so let's celebrate!!!! And I will update as we go!!!!

Fingers crossed, again

Ahh another Sunday.

One still sleeps. Which is probably better since he crawled into bed about 0530 this morning... and we were not exactly on speaking terms last night, when I went to bed.

I vented. Not about him or anything in particular..... yet everything under the sun.... just typical MOM stuff that everyone deals with and gets tired of and wonders when it will get through to everyone.......and how many times I need to repeat myself and ask to pick up this and that and, well, you get the gist. I vented... and it turned ugly and now, well, now he sleeps, and I finished my first workout of the day only to come in and find the dog chewing a pack of gum, my little munchies playing Madden '11, while eating everything that they shouldn't, for breakfast. It is Sunday so I will pick my battles wisely. I am going into hiding.................................and no one will care or miss me.

I retreated to Jaxi's hole of a blacked out room. Container of strawberries in one hand, rented movie and computer in the other. I can hide out here all day. No one will notice I am not in the room until there is a fight of some sorts over something inconsequential. For now I get to relax and re-evaluate and plan and plot. It was somewhat ironic that I read an article this morning about the reversal of jealousy that a mom felt about the stay at home mom that gets to spend lazy days of summer with her kids and how she would love to be able to choose a lunch date after the summer movie morning rather than trying to find every available summer camp, under the sun, to ensure her son was safe and having fun....... while she went to work everyday. I miss those days. I used to feel like I was accomplished and that I was balancing everything perfectly. I can't say that I feel like that I accomplish much of anything anymore. I have been told my balancing act isn't so spiffy and well...... my organizational skills are truly lacking, again and again I have been told. Makes for one happy Mom!!!! Funny thing is, everything and everyone else in this family is balanced and supremely organized, thanks to my dysfunciton of not being able to get my own act together.

The kids have all their school clothes in color coded order. Pencils are in color coded order, papers are filed, projects in the calendar, toothpastes in order of which child uses which paste, food is organized by snack preference, and backpacks are hung by the garage door with care. Daddy's clothes magically appear in drawers and on hangers, under armors are miraculously waiting on the railing to be carted to work....daily, food finds its way into lunch boxes and money into wallets..... and on occasion... the tooth fairy even remembers to make fairy dusted appearances.

They are all organized and ready to roll every single day. Maybe that is my biggest downfall. I organize them so well that I can't even fathom attempting to find a care in the world big enough to organize mine. I am figuring that it is about time I do that. We are finishing up three really, really trying weeks and things may just actually start to fall into place in this house.

A little dude woke me up this morning... again.
I took it as a sign that I needed to get moving in order to earn the lazy Sunday we all need.
The sweat felt really good this morning.
I was sucking air hoping that I didn't pass out.
It cleared my head and I am pretty sure it wiped out my bad attitude.
I hate running but it brought out the high I needed to kick my own self into days ahead.

I already feel like the week is in the bag and I can get another workout in tonight.

Keeping my fingers crossed that this all works out the way I am planning it.....

TEAMS AND WORK

I am Jax's team manager for his tackle football team. They don't call it the team mom because it is seriously a job. If I have the weights on the boys off, or their information is not correct, their pictures are blurry or anything... a game if forfeited to the other team. It is seriously crazy busy keeping all the stuff right on track for these boys. More so, the real problem, is keep parents on track. It should be pretty easy to figure out why I need your medical insurance paperwork seeing as that we have already had one lil guy go down with a broken arm. Alas, I have to chase down parents like a kindergarten teacher rounding up her students after recess. SAD.


So, a few nights ago, I got a phone call from a concerned parent, and it made me sad. His son is and or was, being singled out, for whatever reason, by two of the boys on the team. Dad felt more comfortable coming to me than the coach, which might be understandable... no not really. At any rate... the word TEAMWORK came up a lot in our house after I had this conversation with the dad and then at our practice. (SADLY, AFTER THIS DISCUSSION AT PRACTICE, THE SAME LITTLE GUY BROKE HIS ARM... PURE COINCIDENTAL AND ACCIDENTAL) I was somewhat angered that anyone on a team would intentionally hurt another child when he was working at being a better player. It happens all the time, I know.


I asked my guy about it. Had he seen anything bad going on or heard anything. His answer was no. He doesn't lie so I was sure that he wasn't really paying attention to anyone but himself during these times.

The truly ironic part about learning that there is no "I" in TEAMWORK, this week, is that my other biggest boy is dealing with this issue as well. And since I won't go into the dirty details. I will say that our family has really gotten schooled on this subject a lot in 4 measly days.

I stressed it to everyone since they seem to think that no one needs to pick up their school work, or their shoes, or worse yet, boy parts of their football uniform. I had to make threats (which I will go through with them no matter how gross it is going to sound) to put all their crap, junk, garbage and items that have kitchen cabinet item names.... (yep, I am talking my 10 year olds football cup) on top of them or on their face while they sleep... if I find them on my counters, kitchen or dining room table, in the downstairs bathroom, on any furniture downstairs or remotely close to food items in the pantry.

We either work as a TEAM or I will punish you all as your Coach.

In reality, I am too tired to care this week... but for the time being, they don't need to know that!~

~TASMANIAN MONDAY~

As you can see, this was a post for Monday. I AM TWO DAYS LATE AND IF THIS IS ANY INDICATION OF HOW THINGS ARE GOING TO CONTINUE WITH A NEW SCHEDULE AND LIFE, I AM UP A CREEK.............

I am pretty sure I am like any other Mom in my neighborhood when it comes to schedules.

Mondays... we don't veer off course at all. We have a system and it does not get changed in any way shape or form or Momma is nuts for the rest of the week.

The kiddos know.... if they are Jax, he wakes up anywhere from 0500 to 0600 to have his own time to do whatever he wants.... like play his video game uninterrupted or read or whatever.

Two other little crumbsnatchers get to sleep until 0705 since they took their baths on Sunday and we have breakfast and we are good to go and in phenomenal moods for the remainder of the day, unless big brother scares the living daylights out of little sister as she is walking to the staircase....half asleep and he screams "raaarrrrrrrr" at her from around the corner and she bursts into tears and runs back to me as I am tugging at the little man to get out of bed... and the dog is biting me for tugging at the little man........ and now barking because his girl is crying and she is confused as to who to protect..... GET MY JIST? We have our Mondays down to a science.

Until today's Monday.

Daddy is home. For all eternity, or until he is promoted, on Mondays now. And I am now considered the devil. Or the Tasmanian Devil, to be exact. He watched me doing the laundry and vacuuming and dusting and dishes and picking up after everyone and getting football gear and drinks ready.........

I can't deal with change very well. I admit it. I am an OCD human when it comes to that. I can't veer off course with Monday's either. It is too hectic and I have to play catch up to everything that slid by the wayside on the weekend... and this weekend...everything slid. we had 8 children here playing video games and swimming and jumping and spending the night and my house shows it.

Having Daddy home is gonna take some adjusting to on Mondays. Or I may have to chain him to the chair at the desk so he does his homework while I do house work, like the Tasmanian Devil, as he called me...............Can't wait for our first Tuesday of the new schedule!!!!

212 degrees - The Extra Degree

THE KIDDOS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL HAS SORT OF TAKEN THIS ONE ON AS THEIR MOTTO THIS YEAR. WE HAD THIS ON OUR BLOG 2 YEARS AGO FOR MOTIVATION IN OUR WORKOUTS. I THOUGHT THAT THIS WAS STILL EXTREMELY APPROPRIATE FOR ALL THE HARD WORK JAX HAS BEEN PUTTING IN ON THE FIELD, EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.

I half JOKED WITH HIM....... NO MATTER WHAT.. YOU PUSH FOR THE EXTRA DEGREE AND YOU WILL BE AMAZED HOW FAR YOU CAN GO!!!! WE WILL SEE HOW MUCH PRACTICE CHANGES THIS WEEK!!!

Facing the Giants

I was shocked at how amazing this movie was. In the beginning I could tell that Jax was not very into it. It was very "churchy" but Tommy and I told him to listen and to watch and give the words some real consideration.

By the end of the movie, I was in tears, Brinkley was actually liking the whole movie, and Jax.. Jax he "GOT IT!!"

I was so excited when Tommy randomly threw out there, "what do you think the meaning was behind the movie?"

Jax immediately said, "NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!!"

'nuf said!

Pity Party

Well, truth be told, I had one tonight, and I am so not proud of it. Seriously.

I acted like a kinder having a meltdown and no one really even noticed... seeing as that there was no one here to really notice and the ones still present... were too busy with friends to have any idea anything was going on so I am guessing it was really no big deal.

SWEET!

When I got my "smart phone" I never fathomed all the goodies I would get to do with it. My biggest lifesaver... the emails directly to my phone. I am horrible about checking my home computer email so I have one email that I give out to a select few, to send things directly to my phone..... for important stuff.. you know PORN... I am kidding peeps!

At any rate, the last two weeks have taken its toll and by Thursday, our kinder was beyond melt down. He had hit complete disaster mode and could no longer even function. He stayed home from football with daddy and had an amazing night. Brinkley should have stayed home but I let her come to hang out with the girls, who were not even at practice. She was beat down by practices end. I think the fact that I make her run drills with the boys and at the end, she runs the suicides with the boys as well, just adds to the sheer exhaustion at the nights end.

Today we fell out of bed and laughed at the fact that it is Friday the 13th. Jax keeps repeatedly reminding me that he wants to watch that series of movies. I am pretty sure I was about his age when I started watching them. It will take until he is in high school to even finish them since there are like 897 of them now. The day went beyond smoothly for all of us.

Tommy and I spent some much needed together time at Paradise Bakery having brunch and adult conversation about his new job and the kids and catching up, literally, on the past two months that he has been presently absent for. I am not exaggerating about that at all either. It is so easy to see why cops are amongst the highest divorce rates out there. Most women can't deal with the daily menage a trois of work and family and death and court and dirt bags and phone calls and everyone else's problems and text messages at all hours of the night and blah blah blah. Seriously... people really wonder if I exaggerate that I only sleep 3-4 hours at night... come play with me!!!! You will see. With my boys position at work I always joke, we have taken on 8 new families consisting of 7 wives, 19 children, 7 husbands, many animals, psychiatric problems, scheduling dilemmas that would make your head spin, court dates, conflicting court dates, car issues, blah blah blah. It is all fun and games around here!!! Until someone pulls out one of the cards that is keeping everything balanced and then we are up the creek!!!! But we keep it all together and pretty darn well!! Until I melted down today...

We had a new schedule to deal with for work, and then a new revised football schedule that was going to save some serious family sanity and I was already ready to handle the next two weeks with some serious energy.... until the email hit the phone.

I wanted to fall over. (Going from 5 days a week for the first two weeks to 3 days a week was like snow in summer in Phoenix. We were amped to drop down to that and then we were told there would be no Friday practices due to parks with lights constraints. SWEET. I could handle 2 practices a week for 8 hours gone from the house time frame. I was oozing happy.......) We were switching back to the regular schedule to enhance conditioning and ensure athletic performance.....5 days a week again....4 hours a night. AAAAGGGHHHH! I updated my calendar, which might scare some people to look at right now, sucked it up, did a workout, and got over it. I had to break the news to Jax. It went over like a lead balloon in a kindergarten classroom. We will survive.

Then, while waiting for the house to fill up with every ones friends for our very, very impromptu sleep over... I started watching Dr. Phil. Yeah, I felt like a total D-bag dumb ass for even thinking about a pity party, let alone having one. Of all nights to complain about anything, Dr. Phil has on a couple having marriage strains due to the fact that they are the only couple ever documented with triplets that are blind and deaf. They then explained all their struggles and the scheduling and teaching issues and inability to educate the girls on their own without the help of professional assistance, how the husband felt very inadequate as a father for not being able to fix everything and please his wife and remain completely successful at work. Basically he thought he was slowly failing and the house of cards was falling in around him as he spoke. I choked on ice as he was talking.

Yeah, I have no room to whine or complain, to bitch, moan, or be anywhere near disgruntled. Tired is fine, but I sucked it up and onward we move. We have it good. Seriously. I play single mom more days than not around here, but unlike one of my friends... she lives it. Her husband is preparing to deploy, yet again, to the most dangerous area in the middle east, to continue his job of loading and off-loading the bombs to the bombers and boats and planes to transport them. And by loading them, I mean he readys them to explode. Yeah, who's complaining now? She is single mom more than she is not. Her kids don't know what it is like to have Daddy around more than 30 days a year. Her boy doesn't get extravagant pay nor does he get hazard pay. Damn skippy, that boy keeps all of us safe at night, and day! 'nuff said, I'd say.

And damn skippy, this girl has no right to bitch that she gets to take her kids to football practice at a beautiful green park, in a very expensive Escalade with more t.v.'s in it than most homes, watching 2 of her healthy kids climb tress and laugh and play with new friends while big brother does drill after drill to expand his agility and knowledge of the game, four hours a night all week long. No right to complain at all that I am tired and my house is not spotless and someone left a dirty sock under the dining room table where we never even sit at, let alone take our clothes off at, or the fact that said kiddos have been eating fast food 3 nights a week because it is just to late to cook when we get home and they need to get their tiny tired rear ends into bed.

YEAH, NO WHINING HERE.

It is Friday the 13th here and to celebrate all our good fortune and fun and crazy madness, we opted into a very impromptu sleep over. It all happened so darn fast that I am still wondering exactly how it happened. Happy Friday night!!!

"TITANS"

CAN YOU GUESS WHICH ONE IS JAX????

(I have yet to admit to anyone but....alas, when the kiddo is all geared up and ready to go, he is taller than me. That has to stop!!!)

As it goes, the past two weeks have been nothing less than havoc in our family. Four hours every night has been devoted to football practice. MANDATORY football practice. The kind where, I as the team manager, takes roll and if you are absent, we choose days for make up practice, on the weekend, because they take it that serious this season, that you are in shape and prepared for the traveling and are ready to go at it.

It has taken its toll on us all in big ways this week, but last night I found myself oozing with Mom pride as one of the Dad's approached me, to talk about Jax. He introduced himself, although, I know all the Mom's and Dad's pretty much, and then he reminded me of his sons name. He wanted to let me know what a, "good young man" Jax is. I was happy with the statement and really didn't feel it would go much farther than that. Then he continued, first, he had to ask me how old he was again, just to make sure....TEN! Then he was overly curious about his shoe size.... mens 12! Finally he said, "I just want you to know what a good boy he is. Monday, when we jumped the gun and started full-contact hitting without the directors approval, Jax was teamed up with Dalton and hit Dalton pretty hard, twice. Each time Jax immediately went over to Dalton, helped him up, did the boys smack the back and asked him if he was ok. At the end of practice Jax again, checked to make sure Dalton was ok, shook his hand and complimented him on a great practice." Dalton then went to his father and told him how Jax was worried about him and repeated the story to his father and ended with, "Dad, Jax is really big and it hurts when he hits you... and I know he was no where near full speed."

I was so happy to see a parent that recognized that Jax is such a good kid. He hates when his own team mates get hurt, especially by his own doing, which is never ever intentional. I am so proud of how hard this kiddo is working at school and then giving 110% on the field every night. It is not easy to keep your cool when your core temp is reaching boiling 4 hours a night 5 nights a week, and then continuously getting 100% on your AR tests, reading to your little brother or your little sister every night, almost completeing that AR goal for the entire first quarter...3 weeks into school, trying to help around the house more, crossfitting with the Mom or Dad when they ask, getting enough sleep to not be a zombie, staying healthy, and growing so fast that in one night he polishes off 4 1/2 pound burgers like they were crackers.........

He is growing up way too fast, but is doing so in such a way that I love him so much more every day and am so darn proud of him I gush when I talk about him.

We can't wait for the big games to start!!!!

JUST DO IT!

JUST DO IT!

Bieber Fever

The night before the kiddos went back to school Brinkley and I had a girls night out to see her favorite little man on the earth, Justin Bieber. We left in time to hit PF Changs for our most favorite, lettuce wraps and won ton soup. And then onto our night of rocking out. I had the lowest of expectations for this little guy, but boy can he put on a great show! Between him and Sean Kingston, I was more than pleased with the money we paid for the tickets. We had bought 4 tickets in the beginning to go with two friends. They backed out and I ended up selling two tickets for what I had paid for all 4.. and then some....... BONUS!!!

We had amazing seats and had a blast. Brinkley passed out on the way home and did just as promised... no complaining about being tired for school the next day!!!! Just to clarify.. I normally never would have bought these tickets if I had known that school started the next day... but I bought the tickets more than 6 months ago before they even went on sale..... and we were not going to back out on this!!!! If my videos were not so long I could upload more... to show what a great Usher-esque with of mix of Michael Jackson moves, entertainer Justin Bieber really is!!!!

T3

CONGRATULATIONS TO SCOTTSDALE'S NEWEST NIGHT TRAFFIC DUI SQUAD SUPERVISOR.

YOU WORKED HARD FOR IT AND YOU SOO DESERVE IT BABYCAKES!!!!!