How did this happen?

Thanks for the photo, Auntie Kendra.

The key to making perfect sugar cookies

with your two rambunctious boys:

1/2 c red wine




scandalous, I know. But now the flour all over the floor isn't a big deal.

Boys and Christmas

Everything is, "Merry Poop-mas" and "Jingle Toots" and also sorts of potty-themed festivities. I'll brighten your holiday with the oldest's version of "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer":

...Rudolph with your butt so bright

Won't you fly backwards tonight?

Then all the reindeer tooted

As they pooped around and peed

Rudolph the red butt reindeer

You'll get flushed down the potty!

Clever, huh? I bet the next time you hear the original song, these lyrics will overpower the real lyrics. Just don't sing them out loud.

A Haiku about pinkeye

Mandi reminded me...

eyes crusty, goopy

hand sanitizer galore

eyes drops make me scream

And another:

contagious and gross

house-bound, kids fighting, I'm done.

Lysol is my friend

The middlest gooped up on Sunday and the Mr. and I have had some major hypochondriac eye-itching going on since then. The oldest got all pink in the eye this morning (along with the pukies) and if the baby gets it I will scream.

Here's a helpful tip: Drop the eye drops in the corner of the kid's eyes while they have them closed. When they open them, the drops run into their eyes. That way you don't get kicked in the stomach when you drop them directly in. :)

Never fails.

A mathematical equation:

Daddy going on a business trip + mommy having to work= someone becoming disgustingly sick/ Daddy returning to once-again healthy family.

He's gone for 5 days which is just enough time for this nastiness to cycle through the 4 of us. Hallellujah.

Off to wash sheets...

The way God gets through to me

is usually pretty immediate if I'm going to let Him get through at all.

#1
Tonight was a rough night with the middlest. After a lot of unpleasantness (and MAJOR grumpiness and meanness on my part) he ended up in his bed sobbing. I had planned on leaving him in there to fall asleep and I sat on the couch. I felt terrible pretty quickly and got up to check on the kid. I sat on his bed and without even turning around to look at me he said, "I love you to the stars and back. Twice." Yes, I started crying.

Here is a tiny kid who was lovin on his mean, mean momma despite the fact that she was just a raging jerk to him just minutes before. I thought about how as a Father figure, God wants us to come to Him after we've been jerks and He'll tell us He loves us to the stars and back. Twice. But here it's the child so willing to do the same thing to his mom. Maybe this doesn't sound right- I can't fully wrap my brain around it tonight. I learned something tonight- or re-learned it. I hope I don't soon forget it.

#2
Within seconds of sending a snarky e-mail in response to one I'd received, I opened another e-mail with a daily bible verse. It was an immediate smack on the hand.

"But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned." Matthew 12:36-37

Dang. God-smacks. Sometimes they're necessary.

Things I want to remember for a million years:

I swear, there are at least seventy really great things my kids say in a day that I think I should write down but I don't. Here's what I've got swirling around in my head at the moment:

The oldest:
In a discussion about why Christmas is called Christ-mas I explained to the oldest that Christ is another name for Jesus.
A long silence and a few minutes later he came up with, "Maybe I'll just call it Jesus-mas then."

I am dying for him to reply to Department Store Santa, "Yeah, merry Jesus-mas to you too."


The middlest:
The backpack on Dora the Explorer frequently says, "Yum, yum, yum, deliciouso!" The middlest's translation is something like weddisauso- as in, "Mom the quesadilla is so weddisauso."

Quesadillas remind me that he told me the other day that they were out of season and that I'd have to think of something different for lunch.

And just tonight as we were playing a game of Memory (Or Renembory) he made us say a magic word before we chose cards on our turns. With a wave of our hands and a chanting of "Zuckerman's Famous Pig!" we'd almost always choose the wrong card. And then team Daddy and the Oldest would steal our match.


The pink baby:
At nearly a year this girl is a hoot. She's almost walking and has a few words down pat. She knows mommy, daddy, more, areyou? (which comes out just like that-oneword). She has her own version of her brothers' names and loves, loves, LOVES to sneak in their room and play Legos.
She's like the little puppy we've never had (and never will have). She is always crawling around with something in her mouth and she chews up everything.

Rock the vote!

This kid is rad.

They must have done something in kidergarten to celebrate the election because the oldest came home asking if "his guy" was winning and could I please turn on the news so he could see what the vote count was.

I asked him who "his guy" was and he had me name both candidates. I told him that there was a man named Barack Obama and another named John McCain. He said, "Yep, that's him, the first one you said."

"Obama?"

"Yep, Obama."

Really? I thought it was cool that he had his own little reasons for choosing of the two. So I asked him.

"Why is it that you like Obama?"

"You know Mom, he has a really nice sounding name."

Then we turned on CNN and watched for a few minutes to see that Obama was winning the popular vote. The oldest cheered, stole my "I voted" sticker and then went in the other room to play. Got to love kindergarten logic.

A note about our presidential election:

So yeah, I'm not the one that is quick to let my relationship with God show that much. It's there but I'm not comfortable being that vocal about it. Sometimes I get brave but mostly I'm a scaredy pants. But I feel that this needs to be said in light of tomorrow's events.

I know a few people who have a real strong conviction as to who needs to be in office. I'm not like that. I don't really subscribe to any one political party and I feel that the person who is supposed to win will and that God will use that person to do what HE wants to have done. Anyway, I worry about these people (and I'm related to a lot of them) that they might have some serious issues when their candidate is not elected.

Our pastor said something really cool yesterday that hit me. It was one of those DUH! moments; I already knew this but I guess my brain never really formed it into a concrete thought. Pastor George said that we shouldn't overinvest ourselves in the election, propositions, candidates: they are simply mechanisms of governance that GOD uses on earth. Don't worry about the choices set before us. They aren't our only choices. We are citizens of heaven which is neither republican nor democrat, liberal nor conservative. Don't be discouraged, do your best and pledge your allegiance to God in heaven. If your candidate doesn't win, pray about it, dust yourself off and move on.

God is sovereign and He will work things out.

Check out the first 5 minutes of the sermon if you want to hear George's actual words since I probably botched them up in my paraphrasing of them.

http://www.theshoreline.org/content.aspx?id=308

You will probably get this in e-mail form today. Sorry. :)

Will this do for now?

I am attempting to break my non-blogging streak by at least throwing a picture of the buggers at you. More to come...

Oh coffee, how do I love thee?

To my beloved cup of joe,

'Tis true my love for you was not born at first taste, rather it has grown with the years. I was naive and young and lacked depth of mind to partake in your aromatic goodness. Now that my love for you has matured, I am able to see the errors of my ways; the coffee lover has emerged from my old self.

You have warmed my soul on a frigid day and given me energy when I have been sluggish. You have awakened understanding in a way that therapy and medication could not- I now have total awareness of why my mother was such a raving lunatic until she had that first cup of morning wonderfulness.

Thank you for keeping me sane, giving me the pep I need to clean the house, pay the bills, blog about foolishness and to play with my children on days where it seems the couch has been coated in super glue and I have become its captive. To you, I am grateful. And so are my children.

The end.

Hottie at Wal Mart, aisle 9

or, you may call this post "Game Time at Wal-Mart" because I brought my camera into the super store and made a game out of it. I take pictures and Husband gives me the look. Take pictures, more dirty looks. :) I won the game.If you've never taken your camera into a Wal-Mart, I suggest it. The lighting is terrible and the customers have obviously been bussed in from Middle America but you'll have so much fun these things won"t bother you. The middlest totally fitting in.

Negotiations over the Pringles that are "made with real pizza in dem"

We won the argument over why we needed this packaged pastry. Luckily, this was food for horses, not people. (White lie but BRILLIANT parenting tactic. Also try: "No this candy at the check out counter isn't for us. They use this space for dog treats. Bummer, huh? They do look kinda good.")

The highlight of the day for this guy was finding the new Cool Whip can has a top that looks like swirled Cool Whip.

The highlight of our shopping experience for me was not the one armed man with the stickered prosthesis or the Middle American-ish women flirting with my husband in line. It was following this around the store.

The witch has an itch!

Holy man! I have several bug bites on my right foot and I am pretty much ready to either a) gnaw my foot right off with my own teeth, or b) have someone else gnaw it off with their teeth. At this point, I don't care. I wake up in the middle of the night because, HOLY BEJEEZ, this is the worst torture ever!

Reminds me of the time I got stuck in a patch of fire ants in Florida. Floridian fire ants are particularly itch inducing. I cried myself to sleep at night for a week and dabbed bleach on them to make them stop itching (by the way, I don't recommend this because it didn't work). I think I counted at least 15-20 on each leg.

No picture on this one. I might send a subliminal itch over the internet.

Animal lovers we are not

No offense and I certainly don't want PETA mad at me but our genes do not breed animal lovers. I can tolerate them better than the rest of my brood, except for the pink baby. She loves animals but I think it has more to do with trying to get her mouth on them than actual like.

Anyway, today we had an encounter with a Praying Mantis. I went to close the sliding screen and there it was on the handle. I almost screamed a very bad word but the filter kicked in and it came out a very muffled "ffffff". Score one for mommy brain. The boys flipped their stuff. We do not like animals but we DO NOT like bugs even more (or even worser as it was today). The boys quickly devised a plan while I used a stick to gently guide the critter to our hibiscus bush.

Unfortunately for the boys (and luckily for the mantis) the only plan they conjured up looked exactly like the plan of attack Mommy has for spiders when Daddy's not there. 1. SCREAM, 2. Smash with shoe, 3. Toilet paper pick up and flush. This was a large bug. Mommy's bug default plan should have been tossed out.

Little brother, you get the long toilet paper and I'll get Dad's shoe. When I whack it, you grab it! On second thought, I'll watch while you whack and grab. Sound good?

Screw the TP, we're doing this my way. I will whack and smash and whack again.

Never mind, toss and run! Toss and RUN!

The logic here is that the mantis will crawl under the shoe and smash itself. Perfect!

And the mantis gets to live another day which is a good thing for all involved. The thing was so big that it would have been a nasty mess if it had actually been smashed. Ick.

*** Critter lovers: I was in no way going to let them smash this thing. I have issues with smashing anything larger than a dime.

My husband gets to keep his job.

(Hi Baby!)

Not because he was in danger of losing it or anything. No, He's rocking the communications dept. in a major way (along with a real cool chick :)). I don't think they can afford to lose him at this point. I decided he gets to keep his job. Yes, it's completely up to me, what major life-decision concerning this family isn't? Sure it's a long commute and costs the GNP of all of Africa to fund the fuel for so many miles. Yes, he's asked to travel- sometimes at the drop of a hat and maybe he has to do some crazy illegal 18 hour drive days across country and pee in a Gatorade bottle. He does have to (I say gets to) travel to London and Italy and Spain in the next few months without me (BOO!).
His job can be a real pain in the butt for scheduling family life around and he's always home later than he'd like to be. But! Yes there's a But!- when you are pulled across stage by a (guitar, keyboard, bass, drum?? tech?) in front of thousands of adoring fans waiting impatiently for their favorite band to come out- and THEN get to stand on-stage for the entire set because your husband made friends with the guitarist through work? You don't mind the commute so much. And when you spend the day in the tour bus of the same band (for the second time!) and drink their beers (water for me) and cool off with their A/C and watch their direct TV while they sign autographs, you don't mind the travelling. And when you are invited to see them again in a few months because they are touring with a band you've loved for years and years, well, pretty much anything goes with Husband's work and it's all good.



So, Mr. Man can never quit, even if he wants to. MY perks are just too good!


Thanks to these two for joining us and for providing these pictures. :) Hopefully Wendy's new love interest and Jun's business contacts gained are enough to keep them friends with us.


*This guy had Wendy in a tizzy (j/k) and will hopefully make Jun look good at work. :)

Fun at the lake

We visited the lake with some friends last weekend and had a blast. All the kids get along really well and always have a great time together. We are so fortunate to have some really great friends with even cooler kids. We bbq'd some hamburgers and hot dogs and stayed until the lights came on. It was a great opportunity to shoot some pics of all the kiddos. These kids are pretty gorgeous so I was having a good time

the dreaded accronym

I schlepped the kids to the Dr. for regular visits today and discussed the middlest's behavior. The pediatrician's face started turning upward into one of those awkward almost-smiles. "Well", she said, "he's three so it's hard to say anything definite. The sleep issues coupled with the anger and the hyperactivity... well, it's raising some red flags for me." ( I knew where she was going and could have almost said her next sentence for her), "Does anyone in your family have ADD?"

I wasn't shocked at the mention of this, the kid is part monkey. Angry monkey sometimes, without the poo flinging. And yes, he is a bear to get to sleep. It's the same thing every night. But, I had thought of his behavior as normal hellish three year old antics. Times seven at least. He gets cranky and wiggs out when he's tired and has a hard time following directions (although the Dr. commented on how well hid did listen today). But again, totally normal three year old.

But it was mentioned. ADD. She said that we'd have to wait for kindergarten to know for sure, until then we wait. I flashed to all my classes and my mind zeroed in on all the ADD and ADHD labeled kids I've had over the years. Some were nutso and some were fine. Some were in the process of diagnosis and some were trying out meds and some parents were dead set against meds and behavior was either being managed through diet or not at all. Huge spectrum.

I have always had opinions about medicating kids with attention problems and have concluded that there is no one way that is the one right way to treat this. I have seen kids that couldn't sit still and were making C's turn around and end the year at the top of my class because they found meds that worked. Their self esteem increased as did their social skills. I've also seen kids become zombie-like versions of themselves. It's a crap shoot, I think, until you find something that works.

So with the middlest, we shall wait. I plan on educating myself a bit more in the next two years before he enters school. Maybe we'll try some diet and behavior modifications until then so that he has some sort of chance at success once he starts school. I feel bad because I know how kids are labeled and how that label precedes them into the next year's classroom. I've had class lists where I thought, "Oh man, I got the ADD kid." Terrible, I know but the perspective I'm gaining is incredible.

The Collins, in olivine

We were in my cousin's wedding, Tim and I, and had a great time. The difficult thing about being in a wedding together when your kids are not in the wedding is, well, the kids. Even getting ready for the wedding proved a challenge. What DO you do with 3 little monsters while you're stuck up front for an hour, not to mention the hour for pics, the reception duties... Luckily I have wonderful parents and step-parents that towed the line. They sat in balcony seats then rushed outside when the middlest's peeps were too loud and echoey. They fed dissolving baby puffs to a squirmy baby girl to keep her satisfied (and quiet). They even rushed out the doors with poopy baby in hand to save the other wedding guests from the wafting smell of a nasty diaper. They're saints.

The kids always seem to put on their best snarkiness when we're unsure ourselves of the day's events and how they will play out. The middle kid shaved his head by himself while Daddy was busy getting ready and had to have his head shaved again before they left. The two boys kept disappearing up the steps to the choir balcony at the church and shouted NEVER! when asked to come down. The baby did well. She doesn't have fully developed snark yet. We have some time with her.

(the real Collins)

Anyway, this is us in olivine. I say green but according to the bride, it's olivine. I guess it sounds more romantic to say olivine. The olivine dress was tight and gave me a bad case of back fat overflow but it zipped so who's complaining. The Mr. looked very handsome in his tux and olivine vest. The bride was stunning, of course. I managed to get a few shots of her while out taking bridesmaids shots. All in all (snarky children and all) it was a great day.

Bummed about my situation.

I have to find a job. I am putting the kabosh on my career as a teacher, well, at least within my school district. I lose my position every summer and I stress and stress that I need to find a job only to be called back to yet another school and usually just days before school starts. That's getting used to a new staff, new school policies and guidlines, a new boss, yadda yadda EVERY YEAR. I shouldn't complain, at least I've been called back but still. It takes its toll.

So now I am searching for work. Only it isn't as simple as finding a job I might like and applying. I have parameters and restrictions not on the type of job but the hours. My husband asks, "Well, what do you want to do?" Man, if it were only a question of finding what I want to do, I wouldn't be such a nutcase about this. I would love to find something I want to do only I have all these things holding me back, namely:

Not that they are keeping me from doing anything because I'd rather be with them than have any career in the world. But, when you need to make mortgage payments Momma's gotta bring in some dough.

I thought about working an early shift at Starbucks or something but husband leaves for work early and there's no way we're dropping the kids off somewhere at 6:30 in the morning.

I thought I'd find a job working in the evening but husband doesn't get home til after 7pm most days and he travels- sometimes last minute. Makes childcare difficult.

I could work while the kids are in school and have my mom watch the baby but that gives me Tuesday and Thursday from 9-12. Hm.

I know my best friend is in a similar predicament so I can't be so lame as to feel too sorry for myself. Heck, most moms I know have faced these challenges. I would like to find something I could do from home but most things like that seem like scams. Oy. I trust that the right thing will come along but if that job could hurry up and reveal itself to me, that would be great.

chubby knuckle dimples

Man, I love this baby. Her hands are so sweet- a very different sort of delicate hand than the boys had. Theirs were comparable to small catchers mitts, even at birth. Hers are tiny and sweet and just as capable as her brothers' hands were. I especially love the dimples where her knuckles are supposed to be.

I am usually knee-deep in "Oh my gosh, I have three kids!" and feel like I miss out on the little things a lot. I try and catch as many details as I can but I'm sure there are a million bazillion sweet moments that pass me by daily. I had a rare chance to sit with my baby in the grass the other day and watch her explore.

It was a sweet moment that made me realize that I don't need to worry about catching the missed moments, it's about making the most of the moments I happen to catch.

Just to be fair...

Tuesday night I flew the coop and escaped to the OC fair with my best friend, Kendra (hi girl!). She picked me up and we hit the drive thru at Taco Bell and gorged ourselves on frijoles and headed to the fair. I had entered a photo and it got accepted so Miss K graciously agreed to go check it out with me. Of course we brought our cameras because 1. We're both amateur photo nerds, 2. We had no kids. 3. WE HAD NO KIDS! There are 6 kids between the two of us so we rarely get to finish a conversation let alone work on our photography skills.

We always have a great time together. That may be a result of the fact that we have known each other for 25+ years. I've known her longer than one of my sisters, my step-dad, step-mom, my kids, my husband- you get the point. She's seen me through it all.

So anyway, she posted a lovely post about me and our time together and she challenged me to put some of my fair pics up here so there you have it. I always try to be fair, especially when it comes to the fair. :)

I like this image for three reasons. First, I took it on the sly- these two didn't even know I was there which wasn't a difficult task since they pretty much didn't know there was anyone at the fair at all. Second, The background looks as though there is motion of some sort, spinning maybe? Third, I noticed the kids shirt says something about Jesus. I hadn't seen this until I worked on the image. Cool.

This is the standard Ferris Wheel
picture. Everyone has taken one,
right? Looks a little flat in black and

white but I dig the contrast.

These guitars were prizes for a game. Cool prize but I'm fairly sure that to win one that you would spend more on tickets to play than for the guitar if you were to buy it yourself.

Oh, the picture I entered in the Visual arts exhibit at the fair? It's the feet picture on the heading of my blog. :) It was cool to see it hanging among other great black and whites.

Man, he's good.

The middle child has found that if he prefaces his admission of guilt with, "Oh mommy, I'm reery, reery sorry. It was reery just an accident." that I will not go into default mommy freak out mode, regardless of the offense. His little brain cooked up the scheme once and he tried it out with major success. Now it's standard.

Adds to my theory that manipulation might just be innate.

The Moozle

She has terrible hair


her daddy's eyes and mommy's lips,

a fair amount of sass

and two of the best brothers a girl could have.

She is blessed.

Sad realization

I was out washing the car today. I was feeling pretty cute- we had just come back from the waterpark and I had on a sundress and my Astars hat. I kept thinking,"Maybe I'm not such a frump." Then it hit me like the soap-filled sponge that the middle kid kept throwing at me:

I am 30 years old.

I have 3 kids.

I am washing a freakin mini-van!

Reality check. No one is cute when washing a mini-van unless you are one of those bikini models but even then you'd look like a hot bikini girl WASHING A MINI VAN! Cute days are donezo.

Sweet baby Jake...

I'm an aunt again. This child's entrance wasn't quite as traumatic as the last time I became an aunt, but it was full of angst and worry nonetheless. I don't know why my sisters feel the need to scare everyone out of their ever-loving (Tim would say liver-loving) minds. I mean, everyone has to be somewhat on edge when a new baby is being brought into the world anyway without the mention of death and emergency surgery and the NICU.
The newest addition to the ever-growing gaggle of grand babies spent the first 3 days of his life hooked up to a respirator and then was extubated but was hooked up to machines making it very difficult to see him and hold him and kiss on him. I was able to sneak into the NICU with my sister and peek at the little guy for a quick 2 minutes. He was fussing in his little plastic bed with IVs and tubes hanging out everywhere. His mommy picked him up and sat in a rocker with him. He immediately settled and melted into his mom's arms and blinked his little eyes. I was so happy to witness such a sweet moment. I couldn't take my eyes off of him and his sweet little face. I kept trying to get my feet to move toward the door but my eyes and heart wouldn't cooperate. I'm smitten. The fact that Dad was waiting patiently outside the NICU doors to see his boy made my feet move.
I'm impressed by the way my little sister and her husband handled the tiny baby and the medical junk and the nurses. They were meant to bring this little guy into the world and they did a great job. He's perfect.