Water, Coffee Creamer, Baby Carrot, Parmesan, Chocolate Sundae Anyone?

I'm used to my heathens. Like all kids, my children throw tantrums (yeah, don't tell me yours don't), smile wickedly when one of the other children gets in trouble... and their favorite thing to do? Play with things that are off-limits.

When they were little, the babies would open a gift (well, actually, we would open it for them, because they were born with ADD), and play with the box and/or eat the wrapping paper. No! They didn't swallow it. Sheesh! Give me some credit here.. I just let them gnaw on it a little. But they have always been more amused with household objects and packaging than an actual toy. That's just how they are. Give them a cardboard box, and some bubble wrap, and they're occupied for hours on end!

So, today is the last day of my 9-day hiatus from work. I laid the kids down for their nap earlier, and rather than tweeting, facebooking or emailing, I decided just to take a nap. The house is pretty much clean, I had chatted the hell outta my facebook and twitter friends, consciously decided to not do the work I brought home 9 days ago, and allowed myself to just veg. Aww... the couch...

I fell asleep quickly and woke up, what seemed like minutes later (it was actually 2.5 hours later) to Aiden yelling at me. I wasn't comprehending what he was saying. I'm normally a light sleeper, so those damn children must have tip-toed and whispered to do the damage I was about to see..

I heard Aiden yell at Joel. See, Aiden calls Joel, well.. Joel. He doesn't call him Daddy anymore. We think it's funny so we don't correct him (yeah, feel free to comment on our parenting skills. I can take ya. ;) Anyway, I heard him yell, "Joel, you can sleep longer if you want to, but Logan made a HUGE MESS!", and then I heard a door slam. Aiden was furious! I started laughing. He sounded like a miniature version of his mother & father combined.

So, I finally comprehended the twins telling me that Logan had made a "huge mess". I stumbled out to the play room/sun porch and about died! Then I started laughing like a full-on lunatic! ALL, and I mean ALL of the condiments (and many other refrigerated items) were sitting there. On the backboard of the basketball hoop, which they had placed on the floor, was a whipped up concoction of baby carrots, 10-12 bottles worth of water (we had NO water left in the fridge at all), hazelnut creamer (that kinda pissed me off, cause that's my favorite), Parmesan cheese and chocolate sundae syrup. See picture above.

Surrounding this lovely brew were emptied water bottles, ketchup, pickles and other various items which are off-limits, unless we are actually, well.. eating.

We decided the best punishment for such a sickening mess would be to make the children clean it up! The carrots were extremely slimy and gross, so this punishment did wonders! One by one, they carried carrots into the house. Aiden grabbed a jar of spaghetti sauce at one point, looked at me desperately and said, "Mommy, can you carry this? It's way too heavy for my little boy hands"... I laughed hysterically. He didn't find this funny at all. Someone had the strength to traipse out to the porch with the spaghetti sauce, so that person could obviously carry it back to it's home. He walked to the fridge like he was carrying a big box of horse dung, not a little sauce jar.

Aiden's comments left me startled. I was so amused, it was impossible for me to keep a straight face. Joel did the disciplinarian thing. He laughed in between, but unlike me, he was very careful not to let the kids see his amusement. I don't have that kind of control. And I certainly wasn't leaving! This was free entertainment!

Aiden screamed at Logan, "this is SO terrible. I'm SO disappointed!".. HA! As if he hadn't had a thing to do with it! So, we finally concurred that all three children played a part in this very organized, hilarious condiment scheme.

I couldn't help but spring some tears, and maybe a bit of pee, when Joel opened the window on the porch, and just threw the whole damn backboard outside... after the kids had cleaned it up. Joel doesn't get rattled very often, so this whole scene was extremely funny. The kids looked shocked. I know what they were thinking... "why did we just clean that up if JOEL was just gonna throw it outside?"... hehehehehehehehehe!

I asked Aiden why they did it... "cause it was fun Mommy"... and did you have fun cleaning it up? "Yes Mommy, I did"... wicked laughs! I couldn't take it! Joel says, "so, since you enjoyed making the mess and the cleaning up, will you enjoy the spanking you all are going to get?" Aiden: "No, but I won't cry"... Joel: "Oh yeah?" Aiden: "Yeah, cause you won't spank my butt, you can just smack my hand JOEL, Ok?" I couldn't hold it together at all.

Aiden looked over at me finally and said, "Mommy, I guess you're gonna have to go to the store and get some more of that cream for your coffee and water. I guess we can't eat tonight." Please remember, Abbi & Aiden are 4.5... they are twins... they are GOING to get into trouble. You know that saying, "what one doesn't think of, the other one will?" Well, it's amazingly true people! Logan, who is 2.5 is the tag-along. And the blamee. He doesn't talk much, so if the twins do something and they know it isn't right, Logan did it. They're learning... that we are a very smart Mommy & JOEL... not Daddy. Hehehehe!

Abbi sat on the couch pursing her lips, wanting a kiss. I laughed. Logan sat there holding his little tiny ass. I laughed. Aiden told JOEL he was sorry... I laughed. The kids were spanked. I didn't laugh, but I did as soon as they were done crying.

It was a fabulously entertaining evening here! No treats though. That broke their hearts more than the spankings. Aiden apologized several times tonight. He was very worried about the lack of water in the house. Little does he know we have faucets. He was also concerned about my morning coffee. I'm concerned too.

Tonight was, by far, the worst and the funniest event of my kiddos' lives. I'm glad it happened. I needed a laugh.

My Own Worst Enemy

At this very moment I should be in bed. It's 12:31am and, once again, I will be waking up tired tomorrow. Okay, I'm tired whether I have had 4 hours of sleep, or 10. I just love sleep. It makes me happy.... along with fancy coffee, flip-flops (or slip-slops as my Abbi calls them), Denis Leary and my family & friends, not in that order.

I have come to the realization that I am my own worst enemy. I will often tell a resident at work how pretty she looks, or how nice he looks in his new shirt. I often get the replies, "Oh, I'm so old... I'm not pretty", and they shrug me off with a chuckle. I always tell them that they are their own worst critic. WOW, I've never put MYSELF in that position before. Sure, I receive compliments now and again, but do I accept them with a simple "thank you" and move on throughout my day, a little spark in my step from their nice words? Hell No! I pick it apart, and wonder if they were just sucking up... to the point where I don't even enjoy it. Huh... I guess I should practice what I preach...

I am genuinely a nice person. When I tell someone they look nice, I mean it. As I've mentioned before, I see the good in people. The bad sneaks in every now & then, but that is just being realistic. I often wonder what people truly think of me? I won the award for the "Happiest Employee" at work last year. I wonder if that's how people see me... as "happy"? Most generally I am. I like to think people believe I have a kind spirit, and I'm fun-loving and easy to talk to. I like to think that my less-than-perfect physical attributes (I'm quite pale and practically blind) are less seen because of my sparkling personality.

The problem is... I may be able to figure out what others truly think if I allow them to think it... to me. If I stop pushing the kind words aside, and take them to heart. If I let the nice things people say get to me as much as the mean things they do and say, I'd be a new woman! Why is it we remember the bad remarks so much more easily than the good? Why are we honestly our own worst enemies, our own worst critics?

I may not receive a compliment tomorrow... but if I do, I'm going to take it to heart. I'll let it put a smile on my face, and an extra spark in that step. I may even say "thank you" without laughing or shaking my head.

I have learned something today... I need to allow people to like me... in order to like myself. I am a good person, and I'm going to let the world see it. And those who don't? Well, they have issues of their own, so they need not worry about mine.

Don't be your own worst critic or enemy... join me and mean it! You are wonderful, and so am I!

Bad Dreams, Hot Dreams, Daydreams & Never-ending Dreams...

I started thinking about dreams tonight. I sometimes have dreams so vivid, I wake up in a sweat, thinking they were true! If I have a really good dream ;) I often think of it throughout the day, proving the fact that women think about sex just as much as men do!

I fell asleep at 8pm tonight. I just couldn't make it to bed, so I slept on the couch... all kinked up and uncomfortable, but it was much easier than starting my bedtime ritual (read recent posts for details on this topic). I just ignored it all and went to sleep... nice, distressing, awkward couch sleep.

I woke at 11pm in a daze. I dreamt that I screamed at one of my friends... I screamed at her to the point we would never be friends again. It was real. It felt real. It took me a good 20 minutes to focus enough to realize it really wasn't real. What a dream! And before 11pm, too! I wanted to call my buddy to make sure we truly were still friends. But I didn't. I know now that I will be able to tell her the full, over-the-top story tomorrow and we'll get a good laugh out of it. But tonight it's real.

When I was little I had a recurring dream. I dreamt over and over that my sister and I were playing out in the front yard. Sis was swinging and I was doing cartwheels (God, I loved cartwheels!), and this man in a station wagon (a woody) would pull up and kidnap us. It was a very vivid, chilling dream. I bet I dreamt that same dream 30 times as a child. I never looked into my dream dictionary to see what it meant. By the time I got a dictionary I was onto a new, equally frightening recurring dream...

As a teenager I would dream that I was on a freeway... a never-ending freeway. There were 2 lanes, one going in each direction with a partition. There were no exits. There were absolutely no opportunities to stop. You were forced to drive forever... forever and ever... I still think about that dream occasionally when I'm on a freeway. Thank God for exit ramps and rest stops! They were nowhere to be found in my nightmare. That's a better word for these bad dreams.

I don't normally have recurring dreams anymore. I daydream a lot. I have huge goals... goals I think of frequently and with great expectation. I like to think I've replaced the good with the bad. I've heard several times that anything is possible if you put your mind to it. I tend to agree... although some days I believe it much more than others.

So, I just looked up my recurring childhood and teenhood dreams. Being kidnapped/abducted means you are in fear of something... losing your most familiar surroundings or something close to you. That makes sense. I'm a worrier.

My never-ending road dream signifies anxiety related to "my path"... that also makes sense. I've never been 100% sure of myself or my course. Maybe it's a good sign I don't have that dream anymore!

Driving dreams also suggest a pattern in your sex-life! WOW! I won't comment on that, but WOW! That's a lot of never ending love!

Dreams can affect us in so many ways. Nightmares may stick with us throughout the day, and have an impact on everything we do that day, only to be forgotten the following day. Sweet dreams may put a spark in our step and a smile on our faces for hours or even days! Daydreams can push us forward or hold us back, depending on the subject matter. Ex. Daydreaming you are going to have wild, passionate wall sex with a famous actor may hold you back... but daydreaming about the same type of wall sex with your significant other can push your sex-life to a whole new level!

I think dreams are amazing. They are like little movies in our minds. Some are rated G, family-friendly and generally clean. Some may be PG... there may be some innuendos, but no full-blown bad language or butts hanging out. Many may be rated PG-13, (these days) you may see a butt or a boob. Bunches may be rated R, depending on how dirty-minded you are. Some may be rated NC-17, just like my website.... and I won't go on, but you get my drift...

I will continue to dream... I'm sure of it. Without the dream that I may become an author, I would have never started a blog. Without the dream that I would be able to have children, I truly believe I'd be kidless. Dreams matter... big and small. I choose to dream big!

Kelly:0)

Confession: I sometimes feel like Izzy Stevens when I blog. LOL!