If You Give a Mom a Muffin

I found this on a friend's blog. It was just too close to home not to post. Can you relate?!

If You Give a Mom a Muffin
(for everyone who’s read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie a million times!)

If you give a mom a muffin,
She'll want a cup of coffee to go with it.
So she'll pour herself some.
The coffee will get spilled by her three year old.
She'll wipe it up.

Wiping the floor, she will find some dirty socks.
She'll remember she has to do some laundry.
When she puts the laundry in the washer,
She'll trip over some snow boots and bump into the freezer.

Bumping into the freezer will remind her she has to plan supper for tonight.
She will get out a pound of hamburger.
She'll look for her cookbook. (101 Things To Make With a Pound of Hamburger.)
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail.
She will see the phone bill which is due tomorrow.
She will look for the checkbook.

The checkbook is in her purse that is being dumped out by her two year old.
She'll smell something funny.
She'll change the two year old.
While she is changing the two year old the phone will ring. (Of course!)
Her five year old will answer it and hang up.

She remembers that she wants to phone a friend to come over for coffee on Friday.
Thinking of coffee will remind her that she was going to have a cup.
She will pour herself some.
And chances are,
If she has a cup of coffee,
Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it.


Thanks Nikki!

And the day is not over yet

Sundays are usually so routine, so comfortable, so dependable. It just seemed like one thing after the next. I'll see if I can remember it all.

It started out great. We actually got all of us dressed and in the car at the right time. Praise team rehearsal went well. I filled in for one of our sopranos who just had back surgery. I got the kids to class. Sounds great so far, right?

Today was the blood drive at church. A few weeks earlier, I had signed up to donate during class time. Since I wasn't scheduled to sing on the praise team, I would have plenty of time to get back to church. Even if I did have to fill in, I should still have plenty of time, since I signed up for an early time.

I forgot that I had to have my driver's license in hand, so I had to run back to the car, which was locked. My keys were in the diaper bag in the nursery, so I just ran and grabbed John's. No big deal.

I returned, filled out my crazy questionnaire and held my breath while they pricked my finger to check the iron levels. There's always a part of me that hopes my iron will be too low so that I won't have to donate, but that's only happened once, and it wasn't the case today. 14.2. Yea me.

"Definitely my left," I answered nervously when they asked which arm. I had a bad experience with the right arm once in college, so I've done the left ever since.

I had a jacket on, so I asked if I should take it off. The lady asked, "Do you have a shirt on underneath?" Really? Would I offer to take my jacket off if I didn't?! I really wanted to answer, "Nope! Is that a problem?" but I refrained and just said "yes" with a smile.

The lady next to me was donating for the first time. "It's no big deal!" I reassured her, hoping to reassure myself as well. "We've given birth! This is nothing!"

The "blood sucker" prepped my arm and then I felt "a little stick." "Hmmm ..." she said as she turned the needle. I started feeling a little bit queasy. "Hang on a sec," she said as she went to get the person who really knows what they're doing. Why couldn't I have just started out with him?

He came over and took the needle and started moving it around some more. I started wondering if I had accidentally signed up for liposuction in my arm. I told both blood suckers that I was feeling pretty queasy, and the first one hurried over to get two ice packs and put one behind my neck and one on my chest. Then they flung my feet up in the air, because I guess that helps.

The second blood sucker said to the first, "I don't think this side is going to work. If she's willing," as if I weren't sitting right there, "you could try the other arm." The first shrugged and then went to work getting the needle out. "Do you think we could try the other arm? This one doesn't seem to be working very well." she said as if I had missed what the other guy had just said. "Sure," I said, and managed a smile.

Of course that meant I needed to gather my stuff and walk over to another chair for "right arm-ers." I hadn't lost too much blood at this point, so I wasn't light-headed, and most of the queasiness had gone away.

Thankfully, the right one seemed to work beautifully and my bag was full in about 10 minutes.

Unfortunatly, I was running late for church. Remember, I was supposed to sing on the praise team. I got in there as John was asking everyone to stand for the next song, so that made my entrance with two neon green bandages on my elbows a little less noticable.

But when I got down to the front row (we don't stand on the stage just yet ;)) Chelsea was filling in for me, which was great! But I didn't know what to do! She quickly slid out of the pew and handed me the mic and I tried not to be obviously light-headed. I had rushed out of the gym after giving blood without eating a snack or getting a drink to try to make it to church on time. Perhaps not the best idea.

Thankfully, I made it through the service without fainting, although I did have to take some pretty deep breaths when we "stood and sang" right after the sermon. I was seeing a lot of black there for a while, but got it to go away!

Then we went to Fazoli's for lunch. Yummy. What could go wrong there? We got water for the kids, but unfortunately there were no lids for the water cups. You see where this is going.

Two spills later I was regaining my composure when I tried to take the cap off of Jonas's bottle. Apparently the lid wasn't screwed down all the way, so the entire top came off and the botttle contents landed in my lap. I could hear Jonas screaming back at the table as I headed to the bathroom to fix another bottle and try to dry off my pants. John gave him a breadstick and all was well.

We finished up lunch and started heading home.

The bluebonnets in Tyler are just beautiful right now. Every spring since we moved here I have wanted to get a picture of the kids in the bluebonnets, but always forget or it's inconvenient for whatever reason, and then they're gone before I know it.

However, today, I planned ahead! I got my camera AND extra batteries so that after lunch we could swing by a pretty patch and take some pics.

When I got Jonas out of the van, I could smell the diaper. I couldn't see anything, so I just figured it could wait until we got home.

I told Johnathan to "come sit right here," as I pointed to the perfect spot. He did and then yelled out, "OUCH!" He sat down right on some really sharp sticker burs. We pulled them out of his pants and moved over slightly. No sitckers there, thankfully. Kalleigh sat down beside him and then I put Jonas in front. John and I make all sorts of goofy faces to get their attention. When I thought the time was right, I pushed the button and heard a weird "beep." "NO CARD," my screen said. Amazing.

We got back in the van and went home. By the time we got there, Jonas's diaper had leaked out and gotten all over his onesie. Of course it had.

It is now 1:40 pm. I think all of the children are asleep. John and I are going to play Batman on the Wii and chill out for a while before we head back into town for Life Group.

Wish us luck. There are still 6 more hours before we put the children back to bed and try to tell ourselves that it's okay to have three kids under 5.

The Nastiness In Our Yard

It was just a little hole like you would step in and roll your ankle when we bought the house. It kept growing, but we didn't think much of it because it never filled with water. I just thought it was a weird sink-hole. Every once in a while I'd put the leftover dirt in it that I had after filling the flower beds, but that's about it.

Recently it began filling up with water. I thought it was from having our sprinklers on when we got all that rain a while back. It had always drained in the past. But this time it didn't drain.

And it quit raining.

And there was still water in it.

And we turned the sprinklers off.

And there was still water(?) in it.

And then the smell ...

So we called Mr. Rooter himself. The guy who came had done the plumbing on the houses in our neighborhood from the slab up, but not underground. He said he had been back several times since to fix underground issues. Nice.

He pumped the, uh ... "water" ... out and then dug out the rest of the sludge. Wow. Poor man. Poor, poor man.

The hole ended up being about 3 feet in diameter and about 2 1/2 feet deep.

He found the sprinkler line, which ran above the sewer line.

Then he found the sewer pipe. Well, he found part of it. After digging another 6 inches down, he found the other part that was supposed to be stuck to the first part.

See? Skinny sprinkler pipe on top. Big sewer line underneath. You can't even see the lower pipe that should be to the left of the upper sewer pipe. The hole had filled back up that much when I took the picture a few minutes after digging it up.

Not cool. Not cool at all.

He then tells us that he'll have to come back with a tractor and dig back to our driveway, and hopefully no further, to try to pull up the lower pipe to the level of the higher one and try to reconnect it.

But he'd have to call his boss so he could come take a look at it and give us an estimate.

So the boss comes and says that it's too close to the other lines to use a tractor, so they're going to have to dig it back by hand.

Not poor, poor man anymore! Rich, rich man!

The earliest they can come out to fix it is Wednesday or Thursday.

I have a lot to be thankful for (as I grip the sides of my chair and grit my teeth and force a smile):

• A good, reliable plumber was at our house three hours after we called them.
• They treated us with respect; not like stupid people to take advantage of.
• They didn't charge us a service charge for today.
• I could talk to my dad, who just happens to be a master plumber in Dallas, about the whole thing and he reassured me that they were doing the right thing.
• We can still use our water. Hey, it's been like this for 3 years. What's another few days going to do?
• They won't have to dig up our driveway. Good. I like to park in our garage.
• We recently looked at our budget, went to the envelope system and had a cushion the size of one house payment. It going to cost about one house payment. We won't have to go into more debt to pay for the fix. And we'll work hard to get our cushion back.
• We're having steak for supper that I got for $2.47/lb today.

It's all going to be just fine. I didn't even cry. On the outside.

Phunny Phrases of Kalleigh

Yesterday at the zoo we saw the "birds that pray." You know, the ones that eat meat.

When Kalleigh eats a sucker, her hands get "skicky."

And right now, she's in the backyard pulling up the "weebs."

Goofy baby

I haven't given a whole lot of time on my blog for big baby Jonas, so this one is all about him.

He will be 7 months tomorrow. He can sit up on his own until he gets excited, and then he just falls right over. He never did roll over. I guess he just never really felt compelled! But he does some awesome baby push-ups!

No teeth, no crawling (thank goodness!) and therefore no pulling up. Kalleigh started crawling at 6 1/2 months, but Johnathan waited until 9. Maybe I'll get lucky and he'll wait until 10 months to crawl. I'm not ready to baby proof again just yet. Kalleigh was walking at 10 months, and that was awful! No, it was wonderful, of course, but I'd be thrilled for Jonas to wait, like Johnathan, until around 14 months!

He's truly a laid-back child and enjoys watching his older two siblings play, as all younger children do. Johnathan is the ultimate funny man and can make Jonas laugh so hard!


It's probably time to introduce the sippy cup. I just forget.

His syllables he repeats are "babababa" and "dadadada" with the occasional sad "mamamama."

He loves the jumpy seat we borrowed from Reagan. (Thanks!) He's outgrown his swing, though it's still in the living room. I should move that. :)

And one of my favorite things is that he sings himself to sleep. I just love that boy!

--Proud Momma