Be Nice, for God's Sake

So, on Valentine's Day I spent the day refereeing between my 4 year old and our 3 year old neighbor. I really don't know what it is, but they sure do have a love/hate relationship.

 

I am fairly confident in saying that Kyle isn't an aggressive kid. He went full time to daycare up until this year and his nick name was "The Lovebug". And although Jack and Kyle do a lot of wrestling that inevitably ends with someone crying, they don't beat the crap out of each other out of malice or anything. In fact, for three years apart in age, I think they play pretty well together most of the time.

 

But there's just something about this neighbor's son that turns Kyle into a real jerk and it worries me a little. The kid can be a little annoying, but not any more than any typical three year old - he looks for attention by doing things like standing right in front of the tv so nobody can see and then he'll smile & refuse to move until the fourth or fifth time he's asked to. Or he'll want to play with anything Kyle has in his hands but he'll refuse to let Kyle play with anything he happens to have his hands on. Again, typical three year old behavior, in my opinion.

 

But, I feel like Kyle's reaction to this boy's little annoying tendencies is a little extreme. Kyle spends most of the day trying to get away from this boy, which of course causes the boy to try harder to pursue Kyle. He'll actually get physical with this boy, I've seen him push and kick him away from him when the boy tries to lean into him or sit next to him. And before you start judging me, it's not like I'm just sitting there watching this without intervening - I have done a lot of "You guys have to learn to share", "Please take turns, guys" or just plain "Be nice, for god's sake!".

 

In the end, I guess what I'm most concerned about is that Kyle doesn't turn into a bully. I hate bullies. I was bullied in both elementary school and middle school and I would be so disappointed if one of my kids did that to someone else. As bad as it made me feel, I would much rather my kid have to go through the bullying than to find out that he's the cause of some other kid's misery. I am hoping that this will be less of an issue with boys than it is with girls - everyone knows that girls are so mean to each other, although it's not like boys can't be bullies. But, I gotta have some kind of advantage for not having girls right? I keep getting told, you just wait until they're this or that age, then you'll be glad you don't have girls. So I'm hoping that their gender will pay off in school with nice, uncomplicated relationships with their friends - you know, the kind of thing girls can't seem to manage without back-stabbing, belittling and the general serious psychological damage that females can do to each other.

 

But, from what I can see so far, it's just a poor dynamic with this particular child, so I'll just keep my eye on him and try to keep reminding him to be nice, for God's sake. In the meantime, I managed to make 29 Valentine Owl puppets for Jack's classmates. Yes, there are 30 kids in Jack's first grade class. But I'll save my complaints about the poor state of our educational system for another post.

 

I got a bag of felt Valentine shapes - hearts and flowers and words like "kiss" & "love"- from the dollar store. God bless the dollar store.

I cut foam into the shape of a heart and glued it upside down to a craft stick.

 

The little note on the back I got off of my friend Jenny. Dunno if she made it up or got it from somewhere else.

 

When we move into our new house, I definitely want to make a decent, well-organized crafting space.

 

 

I didn't include any candy, which I suppose I could have but I decided not to. I mean, I honestly do not remember getting any candy with my valentine cards when I was a kid. When did Valentine's day become another Easter?

Daddy-Fest at Casa de Bad Mom

I am starting to get horribly jealous about how much my boys worship their daddy. For the first time in the history of my motherdom, I find myself wishing I had girls. But, to be honest, knowing my luck, the girls would prefer Rob over me, too.

It's just so frickin' frustrating. I spend so much more time with them, and quality time too. I'm constantly carting them around to this or that event - bouncing, playdates, ice skating, you name it. And I'm the one that feeds them, buys them stuff, cleans up after them. Really, the only thing Rob does for them on a regular basis is put them to bed.

And yet it's a constant Daddy-Fest at Casa de Bad Mom. Especially Kyle, the four year old - everything's about daddy, daddy, daddy. I try not to express my bitterness, especially considering that Rob never had a dad growing up and all he ever wanted out of life was to be a good father. But I do catch myself sometimes saying things like "Daddy doesn't make you dinner, mommy does" or "When was the last time Daddy took you to Chik-Fil-A?". And then I just sound like an ass.

Anyway, this past weekend we had a huge storm so it was time for stuck-inside-all-day-let's-do-a-craft-so-that-we-aren't-watching-t.v.-literally-24-7. My mother (the Good Mom) had gotten the boys mittens that they had considered "too girly" to wear - they were covered in skull-and-crossbones but the eyes of the skull were heart-shaped so that was just too feminine for my little homophobes. So, I broke out the hot glue gun, a pack of colored foam sheets that I got from the dollar store, some googly eyes and a black marker. Here is the result:

Unwanted Mitten Finger Puppets

Kyle requested animals.
Despite what it looks like, I am not an artist, so I had Jack on google images bringing up pictures for me to use.

Jack is very into monsters - we just rented Hotel Transylvania so I think that's where this comes from.  My Frankenstein and Wolfman are inspired but my Dracula is just awful - what's with his hair?

They really did seem to enjoy playing with these puppets and it kept the television off for a good hour so that's something. 

 

Meanwhile, my diet has been completely sidetracked by events that came up in the past two weeks - Superbowl, Moms' Night Out, celebrating a friend's birthday - so, I put back on 2 of the 15 pounds I lost since I started the diet last month. *sigh* I wanna buckle down and get back on the horse but Valentine's Day is this week plus we have a big snow tubing event planned for the weekend, which means drinking - because that's how Bad Mom rolls - which means diet-out-of-window for another week. *reiterated sigh* We'll see how it goes....

 

 

5 Signs That I Have Been Married Too Long

Don't get me wrong, I like being married. I love my husband. His contact info is stored in my cell phone under the name "True Love" so that's irrefutable. And nothing makes me appreciate my marriage more than my single friends. Oh, the horror stories I hear from them about the dating world, if my husband heard them he'd never doubt my faithfulness or commitment ever again, not that he does now. But, after a decade of marriage, there certainly are signs that we ain't newlyweds no more. So these are 5 of them.....
 
1. I have not owned a set of matching bra and panties in years.

In fact - as I have what the biddies call "an ample bosom" - all of my bras are the matronly, underwire, three-pronged kind. All undergarments are reasonably colored in either black, white or beige, without any patterns or lace. I have a basket of lingerie somewhere in the back of my closet of frilly, flimsy things that are gathering dust.

2. PDA is strictly done to gross out the kids.

I try very hard to remember to kiss the hubby when he gets home from work, but I admit that even that doesn't happen some days. Certainly, when we are out and about, there is rarely any public displays of affection. Even the hand holding - I mean, really, is it necessary? I don't need a sweaty palm in mine to know that my husband loves me. However, giving a big smooch just to hear "OHHHHH GROSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! That's so disgusting!" when we are in the middle of a packed restaurant, now that's priceless.

3. Farting.

I remember an extremely short amount of time in our dating history - perhaps no more than our first 2 months together - in which I "held it in". When the farting in front of my dear one actually happened, I remember feeling - and I still do feel this way - that this really could be "the one". Yes, my test of whether or not it is true love is the ability to fart without hesitation. 13 years later, however, it is getting to be a little ridiculous. Especially in the car or in bed - Rob's farts can be so bad in a confined space that my eyes will actually tear up. Mine, of course, smell like perfume.

4. Open-door Bathroom Policy.

This is along the same lines as reason #3 but carried to the extreme. We have one bathroom and it is closet-sized, no exaggeration. I remember distinctly the night - approximately three years ago - while I'm putting on makeup at the mirror, which is inconveniently located inches from the toilet, and Rob is taking a whizz. And I realize that I am getting splashed. *sigh* Rob is also a "lazy flusher", so even the "if it's brown, flush it down" rule doesn't seem to apply to him. I am even at the point in my marriage where pooping is not a private affair. Rob has to take a long, hot bath every night to relieve his joint pain and it's just the one bathroom so, if you gotta go then, you gotta go. But it is definitely a sign that there is no shame left in me whatsoever.

5. Forget Santa, I buy my own presents.

It's a matter of practicality but it's also a clear sign that I've been married too long. In our first few years together, he would get me presents but they were not to my taste, and therefore, a waste of money we don't have. The next few years, I tried the giving-him-a-list thing but he still managed to f*%k it up. At this point, I don't ask him to do anything in terms of presents - why bother? I know what I want/need & I know where to get it. For my birthday, anniversary and Valentine's day, all I ask for is a card with something personal written in it - and he does that. For Christmas, I buy my own stuff, wrap it myself and put his name on the label - he doesn't even know what he got me until Christmas Day. Hell, at least it's a surprise for somebody. I, of course, still buy presents for him though. The man would be naked if it weren't for me.

So there you go, 5 signs that somewhere along the line I became very, very comfortable - some would say complacent - with the person I love. It would be nice, I suppose, if we made a concerted effort to change some of these things. If, say, I ask him to buy me a nice matching set of undergarments for Valentine's day, that could actually knock out signs #1 & #5 at the same time. But here's what I envision: he gets me some ridiculous outfit from Victoria's Secret that doesn't fit but I squeeze myself into it like an overstuffed sausage & then I look at my reflection with ass fat and back fat and side boob all bursting the seams of this stupid lacy piece of fluff and burst into tears. And really, who needs all that? So, instead, I will add the moniker of "Bad Wife" to "Bad Mom" and be done with it.

The Moustache is Back

I think I'm officially calling this one - the moustache is back. Finished my sixth and (supposedly) final round of laser hair removal on my upper lip from a Groupon I got a while back. It's been about a month and, yup, looks like I'm gonna have to dig back out the hot wax. Luckily, my faith in lasers was not as solid as my last big weight loss and hence, unlike last year's bag of fat clothes, I did NOT throw out my unwanted hair removal accessories. *sigh* One of the many trade-offs of being a half Middle Eastern sasquatch - bimonthly, I must layer up so much wax on my body, you could stick a wick through my skull and light me like a godd@mn candle.

I am, however, delighted with my highlights - yes, another Groupon or possibly Livingsocial deal, ah who the hell knows? Anyway, one of the few positive genetic gifts passed down to me from dear old dad is the lateness in life in which my hair will turn gray. I have to this date - I'm six months away from 40 - only had three gray hairs. This is the God's honest truth so shut your cakeholes. I gleefully lord this over my younger, thinner, smaller-nosed sister regularly, she who would be fully nanny-gray if it weren't for expensive dyes. Tee hee hee. But, for the past three years, I have decided that some blonde streaks would do me nicely. And my hair is extremely thick, like a brillo pad, so it takes a good 2-3 hours normally to get my hair did. Despite my bad-momishness, I can really only justify 2-3 hours of "me" time once every six months. Got the deed done last weekend and, as I said earlier, my happiness with my hairdo does balance out the realization that I will be ripping hair from my upper lip in the very near future.

Last night, in an attempt to NOT have the boys spend the night a) watching tv or b) wrestling/ beating the crap out of each other or c) spending money buying toys that they will destroy faster than you can say "What the f&ck was THAT?!", I broke out the hot glue gun. I really think I'm going to edit my blog to read "Bad Mom" with the subtitle "How a Hot Glue Gun Keeps Me From Killing my Kids". I was putting away laundry and decided that the unmatched socks I was keeping in a little basket in the kids' room had gone unpaired for long enough. So we made these:


 SOCK MONSTERS (I wanna call them SOCK INSECTS but spiders are ARACHNIDS)

The idea itself was NOT mine. I got it from frugalfun4boys.com - wonderful website, I highly recommend it - although I didn't follow the same directions as that mom suggested (as she suggested sewing which I DO NOT DO).

 

All I did was cut the socks in half, cut up the one half of the sock into strips and stuff the other part of the sock with them. Does that even make sense? Then I hotglued the sock closed, glued some pipe cleaners for legs and cut some felt to make eyes & fangs. We made two spiders and two ants.

 



Believe it or not, the boys played with these sock animals for an hour straight without fighting, turning on the t.v. or destroying them and scattering the ripped-apart pieces all over the house. Go frickin' figure.

I am now going to get in the shower to get ready to go to the Bottom Dollar to get supplies for the meals we are bringing to Super Bowl at my sister's. I am making my awesome guacamole and my cousin's awesome buffalo chicken dip. Yes, I will update with pics and recipes later. For now, Bad Mom must wash....



I Guess it's Better Than Eating Them

Just weighed myself - 207.4. So, if I keep losing a pound every other day, it will take approx. 4.5 months to reach my goal weight. Not bad. Gotta start exercising though, I'm not doing any of that so I'm really flabby right now. Signed up for two 5K's in June (insanity!) so I've gotta start running. As soon as the weather gets better.....

Today I had both boys at home 'cause Jack's school had an inservice day so we did a bunch of chores in between a few crafts and watching a movie. At one point, while the 2nd load of laundry was in the dryer and we had finished the valentine wreath, I sat down with the kids on the couch and put on the movie we'd rented the night before. Kyle was next to me and he was stroking my leg. After a while, I looked down and realized what he was really doing. He was wiping his boogies on me. I guess it's better than eating them. Which he also does. *sigh*

Here's the Valentine Wreath project. I got all the stuff from the Dollar Tree - four bucks.



The boys were a little put off by all the pink. What a bunch of homophobes!

The bag came with 20 of these for $1. Kyle took them all apart while I was gathering up the rest of the supplies. So Jack & Kyle's whole contribution to this project was putting the hearts back together.
 





Hot glue is my best friend.

Not bad huh? Now, could I have bought a Valentine wreath like this for less than the $4 I paid for dollar store supplies? Perhaps. But how much does that smug feeling of accomplishment cost cuz I made it myself? Priceless, b*&ches. Priceless.

 

I am going out for a girl's night with my mom's group tonight so I'm gonna take my dinner in liquid form. And, because I am low on funds, I will be filling the purse with mini-liquor bottles of flavored vodkas. No, I do not consider this cheating the club out of any money because

1. I tip the bartenders really well even if I'm just ordering diet soda and

2. I bring a lot of ladies with me (who are much less frugal than I). 

 

These girl's nights out are essential for my happiness & sanity because

1. They only come once a month (as decided in the Huge but Inevitable Married Couple Battle #103 wherein I may go out and get plastered with my friends even though I am almost 40, married almost a decade and have two children BUT only if I do so once and only once in a month's time, hereto ever after).

2. I LOVE TO DANCE

3. I have a reputation as "the life of the party" that pride and immaturity dictate I must uphold, regardless of the stray gray hairs that I have plucked out of my head lo these many years.

 

We also managed to bake some cookies today. It snowed for about two hours in the morning so we made some snowmen.

 



Baked some sugar cookies after using different sized glasses to cut the dough into circles.

Jack & Kyle spent most of the time eating the decorations and I spent most of the time yelling at them for eating the decorations. I knew it was time to quit when Jack said "Just take a picture for your blog so we can go back to watching the movie." Little f*%ckers!

 

Tomorrow I gotta get up extra early (after my girl's night out, don't forget) and drive to the city with my boys, my mom, my sister, her two girls & my inevitable hangover and see a children's show at the theater. But for now, time to make dinner for the rats. Bad Mom goes dancing tonight!!!!