Monday, March 14, 2016

The Post It Note Anniversary


My husband and I recently celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. We've been a couple much longer than ten years, but we dated for a while before my dear sweet hubby finally popped the question (yes, he was one of those "I'm never getting married" types when I met him). Over the years we've had some good anniversaries and some not so good ones. Then there are the completely forgotten ones, and yes, i'm also guilty of forgetting a couple of our anniversaries (men, you aren't the only ones who forget, or maybe you are and i'm just a really crappy wife).

According to tradition different anniversary years have themes.  The first year is the paper anniversary, second is cotton, third is leather, etc. These themes supposedly help you determine which type of gift to buy your spouse.  For those of you approaching your tenth anniversary, i've made it very easy for you to find the perfect gift because I decided the tenth anniversary should be called the Post It Note anniversary because if your husband is anything like mine, he doesn't remember a damn thing you told him. Ever. Unless it has to do with sex because then he totally remembers, but anything else, you might as well be talking to the dog.


Here's a classic example:
I had an ultrasound scheduled for 8 am on Monday morning to check on baby's growth, my fluid levels, and basically to see if he's ready to be born because my OB was thinking of inducing me this week due to some recent complications.  I've known since last Thursday that I needed this ultrasound. I probably told my dear sweet hubby no less than 50 times about this upcoming appointment. We've talked about it, i've explained my doctor's reasoning for it, and i've explained that he will need to take our daughter to school because I wont be back in time to drive her.  I made sure there was NO possible way he could forget about this ultrasound appointment.

Last night I informed my daughter that her dad would be driving her to school in the morning. Her reaction was, "Huh? Why?" but apparently she wasn't the only confused person in the room.  My dear sweet hubby turns his head and gives me that look. Those of you who have been with someone for more than five years probably know this look well. It's kind of a cross between utter confusion and the stink eye, mixed with the squinchy face, and add a little bit of constipation on the side. I gave him a chance to redeem himself, took a deep breath and said, "Babe, you know why. I wont be here. REMEMBER I have an 8 am ultrasound in the morning?" to which he replies, "Um no, you haven't said anything about that at all"

This is where I had to excuse myself from the room because spousal homicide is highly frowned upon.


I started to wonder if maybe it wasn't my husband's fault and perhaps he truly had a hearing problem and needed some medical attention, but then I remembered that the man can watch soccer, football and UFC weigh ins and remember every last detail for weeks so I don't think dragging him to a hearing loss specialist would be very useful. Besides who wants to pay hundreds of dollars for a doctor to tell me what I already know...."Ma'am, your husband's hearing is perfectly fine. He just apparently suffers from selective hearing loss whenever you speak."

 So ladies, save the expensive golf clubs for another year, forget about the stupid chocolates or smelly flowers (because seriously what man really wants flowers) go to Costco and buy an industrial sized box of Post It Notes. Write important shit down and slap it on his forehead (you can decide on the level of gentleness you place them on his head) so he cannot "forget".  Because if your husband is anything like mine, the next time you tell him about an appointment, a meeting, a birthday party, a sporting event, basically anything that doesn't involve him getting sex, he will look at you and say, "Wait, what? No, you never told me that."
 
















Monday, March 7, 2016

Growing Pains

Where do I begin? I seem to be averaging about a post a year which I know there is no excuse for.  For those still reading, I thank you. I will be better, I promise. Soon I will have more material than I'll even know what to do with. If you keep reading, you'll find out why.

So much has happened in the last year that I could not even begin to catch you all up. The shortened version is my oldest two teens had moved out to live with my ex so we were down to three kids at home which was very weird. Most would think three kids is plenty, but when you're used to having five kids and even one leaves the house, you start feeling like an empty nester (okay, that's a bit of an exaggeration but it really does feel weird).  Our youngest recently turned six so we were just getting to that stage where we could finally do adventurous activities as a family like roller skating, hiking, swimming, etc. I finally dropped the Depo weight and was feeling fabulous about my new body. I was taking dance classes and was starting to feel like an independent adult again with my own life.

The great part of being an adult ballerina...you can drink after class
Back to my pre-pregnancy weight and feeling great! 
I even found my collar bones again. I was pretty sure they disappeared forever
Oh and we even got rid of our french fried infested minivan and downgraded to a cute little SUV that I absolutely love!

Here are the younger kids giving our minivan a loving farewell. 
I had my own loving gesture...
My hubby and I even went on a much needed weekend trip to Seattle see one of our favorite DJ's, Adrian Lux. The last time we went on an overnight trip without children was over 8 years ago if that says anything about what it's like to have a small army of children and no family in the area.  I'm not sure if I previously mentioned this in a different post but my husband and I actually met at an EDM dance club over thirteen years ago. We both love EDM music (electronic dance music) and used to be quite the dancers in our younger years (at least the Long Island Iced Teas we drank told us we were good dancers. Luckily this was long before smart phones or YouTube might have painted a different picture). Anyways, we started going to EDM shows again and dancing the night away. I *almost* became a raver, minus the drugs and the crazy costumes because i'm not sure a bunch of 20 year olds want to see an almost 40 year old woman dressed in nothing but furry angel wings and a thong.

Then again we're not too shabby for a couple of geezers
so maybe furry wings and a thong it is (kidding)
 Another EDM show we went to in Tacoma..
Above and Beyond (best show ever) 
and no, that angel is not me. I would've fallen and ended up in the ER. 
Maybe next time....
Despite all of the fabulous adult things going on in our lives some things never change like my dog is still a giant pain in the arse who poops in the house whenever we leave, my boys are killing each other over the Roku remote as i'm trying to type this, i'm still basically a chauffeur who spends my entire day driving kids back and forth to activities but I don't get paid for it, Winco is still my home away from home and yes, they're still using the same broke ass shopping carts from 1949.

So, this is the perfect opportunity to announce that we (well technically me) are having another baby. Yes, we have officially lost our minds and baby #6 will be here literally any day now.  His name is Sean (we'll be calling him Seanie because we're really big into nicknames) and he'll be our 4th boy. Our youngest two are both boys so we were kind of hoping for a girl at first, and the ultrasound tech even told us at 12 weeks we were most likely having a girl, but genetic testing results came back two weeks later and said boy. And then I ended up needing an ultrasound at 16 weeks and any doubts I had that the genetic tests were wrong, were quickly laid to rest. He is ALL boy. Then we came home from the ultrasound and our 11 year old daughter started acting like Satan and we breathed a sigh of relief that this kid has a penis.

 Here he is kicking my butt just like the others...
this kid never stops moving so basically we're screwed when he comes out. 
Sleep is apparently something that only happens when you die and
knowing my luck i'll be put in charge of all of the children in the after life.
The only thing that made us somewhat relax was that we were down to three kids and felt like, "Ok, we've had four kids before. We can do this."  Sure, our new SUV would be a little tighter, but we would make it work. What's one more kid, right? Right.....

and then it happened. BOTH (yes both) of our older kids moved back home. Boom. Just like that we're back to five kids with one more on the way.  So, our house is once again pure chaos (not that it ever wasn't), our poor SUV already looks about 20 years old thanks to Peanut literally coloring all over his car seat, his new jeans, and the seat of my car yesterday (thanks assholes at Crayola who claim their products are washable), and although we have third row seating, I'm worried we'll have to start strapping kids to the luggage racks.

Much more to come so please stay tuned...