Woe's Of The Pee Pee Princess And The Sleepy Queen: Guest Post by The Momisodes

Woe's Of The Pee Pee Princess And The Sleepy Queen

By Sarah @ http://themomisodes.com

It's an honor that, my first guest blog spot is on Peanut Layne. When Karen at Baking In A Tornado said she was helping out, it was just natural for me to offer a hand. Peanut Layne is an awesome blog, so I hope that this doesn't take away from it's awesomeness. If you are stumbling upon this blog for the first time, please don't judge it based on my post, k?

First thing's first.....My name is Sarah and I'm the owner of The Momisodes, a blog where I talk about my life as a stay at home mom to 8 year old boy/girl twins and a 3 year old little girl. It's the 3 year old you'll get to meet today!

We started potty training last month. Well, if you want to get technical, we started trying to potty train at about 18 months, but back then, she was more interested in eating out of her potty chair (I kid you not, there is a video of her giving my husband cereal that she had stored in the potty bowl!). We held on to that darn chair for a year until we realized she just WAS NOT going to use it.

By this time, we realized she was intensely interested in Mickey Mouse....more Minnie than anyone, so we bought her a Minnie Mouse potty chair that said "Hip, Hip HOORAY" when you pushed the handle down.

SHE WAS TERRIFIED OF THE THING!

I swear, thinking she was going to have to sit on it sent her into a panic that had her snotting and crying her eyes out, trembling and huddling into a corner. She was absolutely PETRIFIED to sit on it, or any potty.

Great...I was going to have THAT kid.

Let me backtrack a little here and tell you that I did not potty train my twins. Day care potty trained my daughter A. She was about 3.5 when we ditched diapers and almost 4 when she stopped wearing a pull up to bed. My son, S, was potty trained at about 4 years old..maybe 4 and 1 month. My Dad potty trained him and he went another month until he wasn't wearing a pull up at all. So, to say I had no idea what I was doing would be a fair statement.

Fast foward to October of 2012 and I say "Ya know what C, we are going to do this potty thing!" So we tried and she did it about half and half. Then in November, we stopped wearing diapers during the day and she went potty, for the most part, about 75% of the time. In December, we didn't buy ANY diapers and she just started wearing panties at night.

She MIGHT have an accident about 4 times a month now. Unless she has tummy troubles, she makes it to the potty all the time during the day. Night time.....once she has woken me up to take her potty. IF she pees the bed, you'd think that she'd just shot herself in the foot. She will wake up SCREAMING and saying "I pee my bed!!!" The poor thing….

Last night, she had an accident, so I did the sleeping mom shuffle (it WAS 2 in the morning) to her room and she was trembling and just crying her little eyes out. I'm not sure how much she'd peed, but it wasn't a whole lot. You'd have thought she'd seen a ghost or something. I think it's more an embarrassment thing than anything. I stripped her bed (a few weeks ago, we switched her to a twin size bed and I had the foresight to put a garbage bag under her...I'm smart like that!) and did the shuffle back to my room to get the spare sheet, put it on and she just jumped up in the bed and went back to sleep like it was nothing.

Me? I tossed and turned.

Needless to say, I'm exhausted this morning....but hey, she's well rested right?

A post by me

They say blogging is like riding bike. Once you learn how, you never forget.  Okay, I lied. No one actually ever said that about blogging because, well, that would be stupid.  I should probably also mention that it IS possible to forget how to learn to ride a bike, especially if you never learned how to properly ride one in the first place. For example when I was a little kid my best friend and I decided to race invisible monsters around the culdesac only my tire got a little too close to the curb and I flew out into the street, using only my face to catch my fall. That was a super fun ER visit, complete with getting my chin stitched back together by one doc, while the other one scrubbed tiny street particles out of my cheek.  If racing invisible monsters was an Olympic sport, my medal would've been made entirely out of dog poop.

Anywho, my point is that if I don't blog something (anything) soon, I will never remember how to blog again.  Don't get me wrong…i'm eternally grateful for Karen at Baking In A Tornado for organizing an amazing, talented slew of bloggers to keep my blog alive while I take some time away to ice my vagina (more on that later) and squint like a pirate because my vision is being invaded by uveitis and i'm seeing spots (and not the cute kind of spots either), but I miss blogging.  I do. Like a lot. I'm sure some of my readers have already given up on me and have flown ship over to Pinterest where you can learn how to make a birdhouse out of toilet paper and twine.  I don't blame them. I can never compete with that.  Ever.

There's not a whole lot to update on my condition.  Still waiting for the dumb doctor's office to call me back with referral info.  I did call them today to find out what the hold up was, only to be told they are still waiting on my insurance company.  I think that say that to everyone who calls no matter what the situation, but whatever.  I'm still freaking exhausted but if I lie down then i'm a useless turd, so I have to stay moving.  And since two toddler boys don't understand what "Mommy needs to rest" means, they are no help.  I could be barfing up blood and they would still be yelling at me to get them a "peanut bunner and jelly sammich" as Peanut calls it.

As if my life isn't crazy and nutty butters enough, i'm officially homeschooling my 5 year old son for Pre-K as he missed the kindergarten cut off this year.  I promise I wont turn this into one of those homeschooling threads even though i'm a little obsessed about all things home school right now.  Feel free to post your favorite home school blogs in the comments.  One thing about homeschooling though is i've learned that I really should've been born an octopus.  I need more arms. And legs.  And just everything.  More sanity.  More junk food so i'm not so grouchy.  More coffee. More diet soda at my disposal.  What the?  Geez, talk about getting sidetracked!  EEEK!  Anyways, today I caught myself leaning over the computer helping my 5 y/o with one of his lessons, and then pulled in the opposite direction by Peanut who was still attached to my boob like a baby alligator. Do you ever have those moments where you're like, "What the hell am I doing?" Yeah, I had one of those.  I'm trying really hard to get Peanut off the boob. If anyone knows how to wean a toddler who is a boob obsessed maniac please let me know.  Other than chopping off my nipples (YEOWTCH), i'm at a loss.  And yeah, in one short post i've already mentioned vagina, dog poop and nipples.  Run to Pinterest people, RUN!

Okay so to avoid mentioning nipples again, i'm going to switch gears to the weather. It is wet, nasty and pouring down rain outside.  Gross.  Yesterday as I was trying to carry Peanut to the van, while trying not to drench the bottoms of my pants, I made the crucial error of squeezing my buttcheeks together in an awkward way (yes, i'm sure this would only happen to yours truly), and felt a rip that went all the way up my hoohaw.  Nothing like pulling your vaginey muscle in your driveway.  So there you have it.  Life at our house is still crazy, i'm still exhaustipated (exhausted and constipated from the pain meds but i'll save that gem for another post) and you're probably wishing you would've made that birdhouse right about now.

Guest Post from A Grace Full Life

Guest Post from A Grace Full Life

By Kari @ http://agracefull-life.blogspot.com/.

Wait!
I didn't know this was a humor blog!!
I mean, I knew my friend here at Peanut Layne was funny.
By the way, I know her real name.
But wasn't sure if I should share it here or if she does.
So she will be "Peanut" for the purposes of this post and the Witness Protection Program that she may or may not be a part of.
Anyway, I am a little nervous with me guest posting at a cool funny blog.
Because my blog, is more about diy, and cheap ways to make your house look, well...less cheap.
So I hope I do "Peanut" proud today.
Because I really like her so I know I would really like all of you as well.
My name is Kari and for the past 2.5 years I have been blogging over at http://agracefull-life.blogspot.com/.
Like I said above, I blog about crafting on the cheap, decorating your house on a budget and just basically getting throughh life in a tough economy.
I met "Peanut" through Twitter this fall and we have become fast friends and now are IRL (in real life) friends by crossing over to the Facebook personal page realm.
There is only one other blogger that I did that for that I hadn't met in real life so that tells ya something.
About my irrational fears.
And my instinct that "Peanut" is one amazing lady.
We have established she is a female on here, right?
Please say I am not giving THAT away.
I am totally in awe of anyone who has more than 2 children.
I have two and it is haaaarrrrd at times.
So I give huge props to her and all you other 3+ kids mommas out there.
Hell, if you have only one, I am in awe.
Mom's rock.
And when I found out "Peanut" was struggling with some health issues, I was more than happy to help out.
Now for the dilemma about what to write about so as not to turn away any of her readers or make them feel like they are getting their money's worth.
Not that you are paying for this post or any other for that matter because I am pretty sure you would ask for a refund after this one.
So I thought I would write about what I know best: being a cheapskate.
And a big part of that is making dinner for my family while trying not to break the bank.
I started a series at my blog called Four Ingredient Recipes about 2 years ago and it has been a huge hit.
Four ingredients.
Thats it.
And usually under 30 minutes prep/cook time.
Here is a recipe I have never shared before.
I found it in a cookbook years ago at a garage sale, of all places.
I can't remember for the life of me what exact book it is from but this is a huge hit in our home.
Asian Beef and Noodles

Ok the only thing that makes this sorta Asian is the Ramen noodles.
I know.
Just go with it.
And I swear its delicious.
1) 1 pound ground beef
2) 2-3 oz. packages ramen noodles, divided
3) 2 C. h2o ( water doesn’t count so there are actually 5 ingredients)
4) 1 package frozen broccoli (it calls for 2 C. but you could use more or less depending on how much you like broccoli)
5) 4-6 green onion, chopped
Brown the beef then remove from the pan with a slotted spoon and place in a bowl. Season the beef with one of the seasoning packets from the Ramen. Set aside. Wipe the drippings from the skillet with a paper towel. In same skillet, combine the broccoli, ramen noodles (broken up) and the remaining seasoning packet. Bring to a boil and reduce heat, Cover and simmer 3 minutes or until noodles and veggies are tender. Return beef to skillet and add green onion. Heat thoroughly and serve immediately.
Thanks so much for humoring me and reading all the way to the end here!
I hope to see "Peanut" back on the blog soon and it was so nice to meet all of you!

Most Mean Musings to my Menacing Menses: Guest post by A Mother Life

Most Mean Musings to my Menacing Menses-An Open Letter

Hey there, I'm Molley from www.amotherlife.com. Today I'm helping our friend Peanut Layne out, She's having some health problems and we have gathered around like a good blogging family does to help her keep things going here... Today I'm writing a letter to my period to discuss the fact that it's not really working out between us....


Dear Period,

We've been together now for 33 years, that's along time. That's 12 times a year for 33 years minus the pregnancies of course.........(12x33)-(2x9) is a whole lotta math and I'm not that committed but we have to co-habit this body for a little while longer and I'm starting to get really annoyed. You used to be short and to the point, regular and oh so considerate...... Pain was not part of your repertoire.

These days you're a real bitch, it's like you are deliberately out to get me, you threaten for days then fail to arrive, then when I think you're not coming and begin to rejoice in my next chapter....BAM you are right there loud and proud!

Bringing your heavy artillery with you, ALL your nasty tricks. What is it with you and the donkey punches from inside? Oh and how can that much solid/liquid come out of one small space? Isn't my uterus the size of a grapefruit?

Then you stay, like a bad house guest, way beyond your welcome.....

The King is mighty frustrated too. My constant state of flux is making it difficult with our boudoir action, well his.....my '5-7 days' mantra is making me look like a liar....Not to mention I'm pretty sick of giving blow jobs.

Why are you doing this to me? Is it your last ditch effort to assert your authority before I kick you to the curb and swap tampons and liner for depends? Oh wait... I already have those...

You are no longer my friend. Not that I really consider you one. Just an annoying neighbour perhaps, that wouldn't move away.

This may be hard for you to hear but I'm breaking up with you. I don't need you in my life anymore.....My need for you has ceased. You've worn out your welcome. Sure you helped me get my babies, and I am grateful...but the last one of those was almost 9 years ago. You can't make me have any more, I got that sorted years ago, so consider this your notice.

You are unemployed from this body. Go find someone else to fuck over for 30 odd years....

Thanks

Molley

Screw You Jetsons: Guest post by Momaical

Screw You Jetsons

By Tracy @ http://Momaical.com

 Being sick sucks.  Being sick while Mommying – that’s a whole new level of hideous slapped on a pile of illin’. Because on top of trying not to ruin yet another pair of pants to a bout of coughing – you have tiny people who want you to do super important things for them any time you take 37 seconds for yourself.  “Mommy!  I need you to sew this hole in this princess dress that I haven’t worn in so long that I forgot I own it! And I need you to do it NOW.”  All you want to do is lie in a pile of your own self-loathing and cough syrup and have everyone LEAVE YOU THE EFF ALONE!  But, no one does.  Except for the times that they DO.  And, that generally is even worse.  You sit through one peaceful episode of Hoarders and realize – Oh. Crap.  It’s too quiet.  You somehow claw your way out of the infirm and discover that the kids are running around the back yard trying to play parachute with the train of your wedding gown.  You want to convince yourself the scene is really a fever induced mirage – but it’s not.  And then they let the dog escape, leave the refrigerator open and have dipped into your hidden stash of Girl Scout cookies instead of eating “yunch” that you somehow scraped together.  Then your husband has to work late and comes home with a sniffle and retires to bed, leaving you in your fever stupor with a house full of assholes that you can’t get rid of because you gave birth to them.

Now, trade that out with a mystery illness.  It’s like that episode of Go Diego Go when they found the mystery fish.  She was lost and didn’t know how to get back to her kin so they had to follow the clues to discover she was a whale shark.  Except your clues are like a fucked up treasure hunt of body parts breaking down.  And, you don’t have time to go to the doctor’s because you still have those aforementioned kids that want peanut butter sandwiches without the crust but NOT ON THAT BREAD! YOU KNOW I HATE THAT BREAD!  And the others are wrestling around and breaking crap. And you’re bitter because it wasn’t supposed to be this way by the time we got to this point in our lives.  This was the FUTURE dammit.  And the future was supposed to have all this cool stuff in it.

If the Jetsons taught me anything, it was that we are going to have Rosie the Robot to take care of our houses, children, chores, etc.  The closest thing we have to that is a Roomba.  And, unless you enjoy munching on dust bunnies it does NOT do the job that Rosie would have done.  And there is supposed to be a machine that you put your kids through and they come out freshly pressed, fed and sparkling. None of which we have: no automatic dog walkers, no flying cars, no pills that turn into a four course meal.  Which is crap, Jetsons. Crap.

Since the future did not follow through as promised – I’m taking you back to a time when things were more selfish.  More delusional.  More narcissistic.  Clearly I’m talking about high school.  A time when you still believe that Orwell’s prediction about Big Brother was still possible. So, sit back, grab a cough drop and remember how something as silly as a sweater can be an obsession for you.

If I was to write a song – this would be it.  The Sweater Song by Meryn Cadell

Feel better soon Ms. Layne.  We love you! xoxoxox

Guest Post by Karen at Baking In A Tornado

Can I have the microphone turned on? And the spotlight over here please? (squinting) Thank you. Hello? Hello? Can everyone hear me now? Oh, good.

I know my voice is a little shaky, but I’m really nervous. This is the big leagues and today is opening day. I’m visiting here on Peanut Layne and I want to do my friend proud. At the very least, I hope to do no harm.

OK, introduction: my name is Karen and I blog over at www.BakingInATornado.com. Let me start off by apologizing. I know it’s disappointing to expect to see the Star and end up with the Understudy, but lucky for me you didn’t buy your ticket so I won’t be responsible for your refund.

So Peanut Layne is out of commission for a while (no, I did not hurt her to get a spot on her blog). In her place, I’m offering you a smorgasbord of posts and bloggers. We’ll try to hold down the fort until she returns. Stick with us I’m just the opening act, warming up the audience, as it were. It’ll get better, I promise.

Peanut usually tells you about the goings on in her home, which are always hilarious. My kids are now teenagers, and as much as I love embarrassing them in their current life forms, the story I’m sharing today is from years ago.

Let me start by telling you that we live nowhere near any family. We’re from the East Coast, but my husband was recruited by a company in the Midwest, so ten days after we got married, and on the promise that it would be only for two years, I packed up two years worth of make-up (in case you can’t buy make-up in the Midwest) and moved. Two years is now around 20, but that’s a whole other story.

Ever since moving here, family visits went from the Saturday afternoon barbecues of my youth to a two week stay . . . in my home. It’s an adjustment. When YOUR family comes, you sort of know what to expect because, well, you’ve lived with them before. When the in-laws come, that’s a whole different can of . . . something. What I learned is that when my in-laws were here, it was a good idea to have something scheduled for my husband and father-in-law to do to keep them busy.

When my kids were a baby and a toddler, my Mom bought them their first swing set. It was right before my in-laws were due for a visit and I couldn’t have been happier. My mother-in-law would help with the baby and my husband and his father could build the swing set.

It was a metal swing set and had all the bells and whistles. Each day the men would go out back. My father-in-law would squint at the directions, my husband would search through 7 billion pieces that looked nothing like the pictures of enclosed parts, and my toddler would grab hammers and wrenches and take turns banging on the metal, banging on his father’s toes and banging on his grandfather’s kneecaps.

For five long days my mother-in-law and I watched out the window, laughing till we cried, as the older men tried to get that thing standing and the little one tried to kill them. 

And on the fifth day, the sun rose in the East, and as it set in the West, 3 tired men approached bearing gifts. OK, it was the leftover bolts they couldn’t figure out what to do with, but the swing set was up. And it was a beauty. They were so darn proud of themselves.

The next morning while admiring our beautiful new swing set, we noticed over the back fence, the neighbor and his Dad putting up a swing set. The exact same one. Two hours, three tops. I bet there were no pieces left over, either.

So that’s it for today. Please come back often to see who’ll be filling in next. And if you’re still looking for a refund for today, I’ll get Peanut Layne’s address for you . . .

One of those posts where I try to explain why I haven't been around

This is one of those lovely little posts where I explain why I haven't been posting.  Do you really care?  Probably not, but since I love my readers and I feel like a giant hairy butt crack for disappearing, I figured I owed you guys an explanation.  It's probably way too personal and too much information, but I feel like it's silly to hold it in because really it's nothing I did wrong.  It's just something crappy that happened to me and I know there are millions of people out there struggling with chronic illness, just like myself.

That said it's no secret my health sucks.  I've posted about my IC (Interstitial Cystitis) before.  I wish I could say that IC was the only thing i'm dealing with, but it's not.  I've been pretty much bed ridden this past week and not with the typical crapola that everyone else is dealing with.  I wish it was as simple as the flu, or a cold.  Trust me I would love me some bronchitis right about now!   I have always suffered with mouth ulcers (canker sores). Not just any old canker sores.  I'm talking sores so big and painful I can't eat or sleep for days, sometimes weeks, and I get them all over the inside of my mouth and even inside of my throat.  I started getting them when I was 5 and I always have an ulcer.  My outbreaks vary in severity but they are always there.  Sometimes I only have a few, other times (like this recent outbreak), they have pretty much destroyed my life with the pain and severity.   They are not contagious at all, but they sure do hurt like hell.  Again, these are not your typical canker sores. I've done everything I can to try and prevent them.  I found an SLS free toothpaste, I cut out acidic foods, I have tried every kind of home remedy and vitamin treatment out there with absolutely no results.  Aside from the mouth sores, i've been in pain.  Mind bending freaking pain.  All over body pain that feels like I ran 10 miles or have the flu.  It's a very deep pain, all over my entire body that is hard to describe. Ibuprofen doesn't touch it.  And then there's the fatigue that's so bad I can't get out of bed sometimes.

Now that I have built this post up all dramatic and you're probably at home eating a donut and reading this and yelling at your computer screen  "Hurry up and just SPILL it lady", I went to my doc to talk to him about my suspicion of having a disease called Behcet's.  It's an extremely rare autoimmune disorder, but also a type of vasculitis.  It was first brought to my attention by an urgent care doc last spring when I went to urgent care because my right eye was throbbing and he noticed my mouth ulcers and said, "You know there is an autoimmune disorder that causes both eye problems and mouth sores, right?"  I did not know that, but I went home and used Dr. Google and about fell out of my chair when I read about Behcet's.  I ran into the living room and started reading the symptoms off to my hubby who at first was reading something on his iphone and only pretending to listen to me, but after a few seconds was like "Wait, what did you just say? Read that last part again." Even my hubby who is a true skeptic was convinced I had Behcet's.  You're probably wondering why I didn't go to the doctor to be diagnosed last spring, but I have 5 kids and life got in the way.  Plus when you have lived in chronic, daily pain for 30 some years, you just kind of get used to it.  Sad, but true. In my defense, I actually did try to make an appointment with the only Behcet's specialist I could find online, but he doesn't see new patients without a physician's referral, so I put it on the back burner.

Then these past two weeks happened and i've been dealing with painful, hideous ulcers all over the inside of my mouth and throat (please don't try to Google them.  You will seriously regret it), I went to my doctor on Monday.  I was half expecting him to roll his eyes and tell me I was looney tunes to suggest I had such a rare disease (Behcet's was featured on TLC's Mystery Diagnosis), but he immediately started nodding his head and then spent about 20 minutes digging through my chart.  He seemed to be very deep in thought and was just reading through my chart and writing things down. My IC, IBS, fibro, chronic gastritis, skin problems such as daily hives, migraines, blurry vision, eye pain, vertigo, etc, they are all connected.  After an unusually lengthy appointment, my doc agreed that it does appear I have Behcet's.   I'm going to be referred to a rheumatologist once he can find one who even knows anything about Behcet's.  Behcet's is so rare that not many specialists are familiar with it.  There are only about 15,000 people in the United States who have Behcet's.  Lucky, lucky me.  I have so many mixed feelings about my diagnosis from relief to having that confirmation that i'm not crazy, to sadness that this is something that's not going to just go away because it's a doozy of a disease.

My doctor gave me some pain meds and those have been helping me sleep, but I still feel like poop.  I'm so tired that I haven't touched my computer in a few days.  I have barely touched my iphone.  Every little bit of my strength and energy is being used up taking care of the kids.  My hubby has been awesome throughout all of this.  He hasn't said a word about the fact that he has no clean laundry for work and that he will probably have to use a hand towel to dry off with after his shower.  He's actually doing laundry for me tonight because he's really a saint in disguise.

I don't know when this flare will pass and when i'll feel human again.  Sadly there is no cure for Behcet's, but hopefully I can get seen by a good specialist and find a treatment plan that helps me live a somewhat normal life. I need to rest. I have to rest.  It's not a choice anymore, it's a necessity.  I love you all and when I think of something really funny I promise i'll be back to post about it, soon!

A friend of mine with chronic health problems of her own posted this and I love it