Queen of the Juggle

“sit the potty”.  Not much luck with potty training. 

Lots of chatter and sentences. 

Ryan is Mr. Policeman.  Gary and Ben have tantrum issues.  They jump up and down and scream.  It’s AWFUL.

Ben sat on the potty tonight and little, itty bitty poo ended up in the frog potty. It’s very humorous really, but he was wailing like crazy because daddy slapped him on the pot when he appeared to be trying to poop. It’s crazy around here where poop is concerned. Each boy judges the other as to whether or not they “took a dump” “so and so has a nuuuuuuuget”. Sometimes RyRy just has a “tail”. Daddy has made it a game and it’s funny. What’s not so funny is the diaper rash and the constipation that we continually suffer. We should have bought stock in the MiraLax company.

We are so proud of Ben for sitting on the potty, but man he wailed the whole way. Even when we rewarded with M&Ms and a Hershey bar. Holy crap he had melted chocolate all over his hand, still crying and it became sorta comical. Ryan was crying with sympathy and Gary was hurrying right out of his diaper to get M&Ms. It was so funny but yet mixed with mayhem and chaos all at once.

Before all of this, Chip went to get them up this morning and since we’ve changed the room into toddler beds only. I mean just toddler beds, a couple of blankets, one stuffed animal and milk cups. Somehow they managed to move the beds to the center of the room. The beds no longer have wheels on the bottom. I couldn’t believe it myself.

So back to bedtime we go. Boys go to bed and screw off. Slamming the blinds open and closed because that’s all there is in the room. Flipping the mattress over to the wrong side. Again, because that’s all there is in the room. No dresser, no nothing. So Chip goes up when the noise level was getting elevated. What do you know…beds in smashed in the corner and 2 of 3 boys with full diapers. Now it’s only been about 1 hour since they went to bed. Everyone clean, blankets and goodnight kisses.

Chip and I look at each other and wonder what the hell we’re doing. It keeps us so busy it’s exhausting. Throw in jobs, the girls who aren’t here and one more on the way…oh MY goodness. It seems almost too much for us. We wearily eat dinner, which is usually cheese and crackers, cereal, or some frozen thing and vegetate in front of the TV. Here it is almost 10:30 and we’re in bed, trying to geek out, watch TV and rest a little before we start again tomorrow. Every day is very similar to today. Sometimes they are so much worse. The whining and crying drive me crazy and hauling my pregnant self around makes it pretty unpleasant.

I still believe without a doubt that I would not change a thing. Every day is a challenge some days worse than others. I love having this family, but man. I need to vent…thank you blog for my little place in the world to talk it out of my head.

First week of May. Changed my mind from getting a tubal. Chip will get a vasectomy. I communicate this to him via IM from the bedroom to the office. Sorta funny, but it’s just the kind of geeks we are.

5/5 – Meme meets the boys! I was so excited and really appreciated the effort of my aunt Joyce, who is always busy. It was very important to me that since Meme is 94 years old that she meet her great grandsons. She’s still amazingly active. They stayed about 20 min. It was so good to see her.

5/5 – Contacted our real estate agent Maria to see if it’s prudent to short sell the Vegas houses. She indicated we’d have to tell our renters, which for Sweet Jewel was fine, but our other house is rented by a nice but young family who signed…but not really signed because they had issues with one clause…an 18 month lease. It bothers me to have to tell them. We opt to put it on hold for a little bit and figure out what we really want to do. Barely treading water and trying to pay everything will not continue to work long term. The home owners association is after us for mega fees for a “dead” lawn that we have pictures of it not being dead. What a mess.

5/6 – See a FBook post of Ron visiting Kristy. Ugh…I can’t stand that guy. I have such strong feelings about him too. None of it good. Seems like more and more Reno trips from Kristy, but she never stops to visit. It’s disheartening to know we moved here and that our adopted families from out of state come visit more often than my family that is either in town or at the very most 3 hours away.

5/7 – Christina surprises me with arrival for Mother’s Day weekend. AWESOME! It was so great to see her. Always is. She’s amazing and definitely a sister to me. The boys are incredibly happy to see their ‘Nina. We take boys to the playground which was really windy, but still fun. It was great that Christina and Chip could play with them since it’s harder and harder for me to move around as my belly continues to grow. The only hard part was seeing Christina go. Our visits are so fun and the boys are just so excited to hang out with her.

5/9 – It was a lovely Mother’s Day. Chip brings Tuberose stems from Costco with great Mexican food and Costco CUPCAKES! Those cupcakes have been an obsession during this pregnancy. Definitely not healthy, but boy were they YUMILICIOUS! We had a wonderful night. My life is blessed with my wonderful husband. He does so much for our family and for me. Takes care of me during pregnancy and wrangles the little guys. We all do a lot, but he REALLY does a lot. I could not function without him and feel so fortunate to be married to him.

5/12 – Lunch with The Nugget girls. Amanda, Michelle, Christine and Audrey. Great gifts at Great Basin. We had a lovely lunch and nice little “Nugget Baby Shower”. So many wonderful gifts. I so enjoy living here and having such good true friends. I do miss the few awesome friends I have in Vegas, but have met some really good people here. All these ladies are good eggs! Those are hard to come by.

34 wks, 5 days appointment…see next post.

It’s been very crazy and stressful on top of pregnancy. These posts are brief, but I want to be able to hit the high points. This blog is my “diary” of sorts. Things I want to remember, yet sometimes want to forget. I hope that in the future when things improve I can look back and be proud we made it through the situations.

4/08 – Kaitlyn and her asthma meds, hospital experience. Had to fly to Vegas, but could not get a flight until the next morning.

4/09 – Kaitlyn at Siena, transferred to Montevista. J.F. and I pull her out of Montevista. Nurses and quack doctor refuse to let us go. Nurses have had about 5 minutes with her and the doctor just “decided” that she shouldn’t leave. He indicated he would get CPS involved to come after us. We leave with Kaitlyn after the staff had told her we had left without even saying goodbye! Kaitlyn was “integrated” right away. It was a cold and somewhat uncontrolled place. It just seemed wrong and that it wasn’t the solution. It took a call and much political correctness to convince the chief of staff (Doctor) that we were OK to leave. We went “against the advice of the doctor” but we got the hell out. For once, despite our unspoken child support fight, J.F. and I came together to make the best decisions for Kaitlyn. I could not believe we were dealing with this situation. It worries me. I learn during this visit that J.F. and Kaitlyn are fighting all the time. Of course I was never clued in, but now it’s crisis and Kaitlyn won’t discuss it, but John has plenty to say about her potty mouth and defiance. Part of it is that she’s 14 and maybe she’s discovering that her dad isn’t full of the magic she once thought. Maybe it’s depression…yep, that’s it according to her dad and because I’ve fought it for half my life, it’s from me. He doesn’t come out and say this, but it’s very clear. I think…OK, whatever. The main issue is to help our daughter, whatever that may be.

I end up staying at J.F.’s house and overnighted, which was not my plan. I stayed in Gillian’s room, Gillian bunked with John and Kaitlyn in her room. I told both the girls that this was a rare occurrence for a specific reason and that I had no plans of getting back together with their dad. However, after spending the day with him and despite our coming together to help Kaitlyn, I realized (for the millionth time) why we were never good together and never should have been. We are such different people. I could go on for days about it, but I won’t. ‘Nuff said.

4/12 through 4/15 – Last trip before delivery to the Dallas office. Met Carrie for the first time. Still attempting to get a grip on all the processes and options for my Sabre customers as well as dealing with pregnancy brain. It was an exhausting 4 days, but so great to meet Kristin in person. I attached to her hip all week and she was WONDERFUL! I also spent a bit of time with Carrie chatting and that great. Connie is wonderful too. Also met Will and David. It’s a fabulous group and again, I’m so grateful to work at home and for a good company such as SHS. Not sure about my director. The micromanagement frustrating. I feel like it’s more of a peer relationship vs. director to manager. There’s a lot that bugs me about it. I’m not the only one. Our team has all expressed (to each other) our skepticism.

4/15 – Returned from Dallas to a notice from child support office notifying me of revoking of driver’s license. Due to lack of payment. Never mind the fact that the NV child support office indicated that they would be garnishing my wages, which they never did. Then I faxed the sheet back that notified of the drivers license revocation indicating I wanted a payment plan. They still have the amounts wrong. I also have faxed the schedule of payments that John had provided. I still cannot get my caseworker Ms. Carpenter to talk to me. It’s so frustrating. However, I am not excited about getting John involved and begging him to get the state off of my back. When it rains it pours…I swear to god!

4/20 – Our taxes are now late. We’ve discovered we’re facing a 6k tax bill due to “making too much money”. Thus we are unable to write off 16k in loss from the houses. It’s funny (not haha) that we seem to make so much money and we really have to think twice about ordering a pizza. We can’t even think of doing anything else. There just isn’t any extra money. None. Nada. It’s very depressing. We keep chugging along. We are revisiting the short sale option. Maybe it’s even bankruptcy. I don’t know. I’m not even sure where to begin to talk to someone. More worries…more worries.