With this type of show, you actually start the “performances” with your first full-dress rehearsal. We had TWO of those. So last night was actually our third night this week doing the entire show in costume. That means we’ve been VERY BUSY this week. And my home life is barely stabilized.

I’ve done a really good job of having food “ready” for Donnie every night. Either something in the crockpot that only requires a few additions for a meal, or supplies for something easy like spaghetti. I’ve kept up with laundry and packed lunches every day. Even with being partially incapacitated with my endo, I’ve done a decent job keeping everything afloat.

I think the key for me is knowing my “needs” to stay sane in my home. Some people need to have clean toilets, or folded clothes. Some need to have clean dishes or vacuumed floors. I went into this week knowing that I need to make time for a few household chores every day in order to foster my sanity under stress.

• Laundry needed to be rotated. Everything didn’t need to be washed and folded and put up every night, but I needed to make sure I was rotating clothes through the process so nothing piled up. One morning I might fold one load and start a wash. Then that night I might dry one load and put up the folded load from the morning. Just enough so that we have plenty of clean clothes but I don’t fret about making sure everything is actually put up and clean at any one moment.
• No dirty dishes in the sink. They may be dirty in the dishwasher, or drying on the towel, or soaking, but nothing dirty in the sink when I go to bed at night.
• Miscellaneous items from the day put up. Since we’re not home, this isn’t much, but things like jackets on the floor or notepads on the kitchen table need to be put up.
• Garbage out, recycling in the bins. This is another thing that would pile up otherwise.
• Clean microwave. This is a weird one. But when I open the microwave and see that something had “splattered” on the interior, even something small, I get stressed. And I feel crappy until it’s cleaned.

So…yeah. When stress hits the home – Beds are never made. Toilets and tubs are filthy. Floors need sweeping and/or vacuuming. Shelves are covered in dust. But none of those things ADD to the stress, so they’re easily ignored until things calm down. But the list above? Important to maintain sanity WHILE under stress.

What about you? When things are busy in your life, what domestic chores still MUST get done to maintain some level of peace in your home?

It’s SHOW WEEK! Since E is a Junior, he was able to audition for and participate in the winter straight play. This year it’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and E is Tweedle-Dum. They also needed a few heart children for a few minor moments on stage and guess who happens to have brothers and sisters the right size? E! So, somehow, I ended up with THREE kids in this show! And I’m so proud! EEK.

The tech rehearsals started yesterday. That means when they run the show mapping out sound and lighting cues. It’s a tedious process so the little kids didn’t have to be there for that. However, they’ll be at rehearsal every night this week and the show opens on Thursday. This process has been fun as I’ve gotten to be there for a lot I wouldn’t normally be there for since E doesn’t really need hand-holding. And since I still find so much of this fascinating, I have been trying to help our more often as well. Like on Saturday when I got to watch and help hang some of the scenery drops for the show.

These shows are so amazing, how they all come together in the end. And these teenagers are taught and trained well. I just observed some of the hanging yesterday until E encouraged me to come help. I have watched them do it enough to understand the system. For example, when the students controlling the pipes (Long metal pipes going across the length of the stage that hold scenery back drops or teaser curtains or scrims) have to move it up or down they’ll yell, “Pipe coming down!” The 20+ teenagers on stage helping all say, “Thank you!” in unison meaning that they heard the warning and they’re aware. That way no one gets hurt.

The first time you’re around the stage when that happens, and you don’t know what’s going on? (Which is me most of the time since this is not my world.) It’s very cool. The teens are all very professional with these very expensive drops and scrims and everything and they know how to take care of it. It’s really amazing to watch and I was TERRIFIED that I’d be the one that screwed something up. BUT I DIDN’T!

I’ve said it once, and I’ll say it again…E’s discovering this “hobby” has changed the life of EVERYONE in our family. For the better, of course. But look at all of the life experiences we’re all getting just because he chose to take drama as a freshmen! My kids are in another show, this is actually Nikki’s SECOND show thanks to E. I’m hanging scenery drops and producing musicals…it’s just amazing and I don’t know if he’ll ever understand how grateful I am that he lets us be so involved in his world.

And if you’re local? Come see the show! It’s going to be AH-MAH-ZING.

BACK OFF KID…I KNOW YOUR TRICKS.

But lately, man…he has had some great hysterical moments of cuteness. I wanted to try to document them for posterity and to share them with you so that you can see what I’m dealing with over here. PURE, UNADULTERATED EVIL. Some of these statements or questions seem innocuous when you first read them, but imagine them spoken by an adorable boy with giant blue eyes and big blonde girls and you’ll see exactly what I’m dealing with over here.

• “Nikki! You are not old enough to dance sexy like that!” While watching his sister dance during GLEE. She wasn’t ‘dancing sexy’ for the record but I have gotten on her for that before.
• “We don’t say, ‘What the hell?’” At family dinner. Of course.
• “Momma, you look beautiful.”
• “Did you have a good run?” Another variation: “Did you have a good boot camp?”
• “I’ll rub your head for you…” In response to my regular headaches. His headrubs are actually quite good.
• “When I grow up, will I get boobies too?”
• “Nikki! Come see Momma’s big muscles!”
• “Momma…I don’t really like wereworlves.”
• “Can I have some privacy?” When he feels like he doesn’t really want company in the bathroom with him.

Don’t let those big blue eyes fool you. He’s pure evil with big floppy blonde curls.

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I mentioned recently that Wes’s behavior been SO MUCH BETTER as he gets closer to the age of 4. I even took him to his first rehearsal for “Alice in Wonderland” the other day (He and Nikki are playing heart children in E’s play) and I was TERRIFIED that he’d be awful. But he wasn’t! He obeyed first time and amped up the “cute” factor so much that the director of the play had to coach the cast and remind them, “You will have to hold for quite some time because the audience will be Oooooh-ing and Aaaaaaahh-ing over the kids.” He was perfect!

I also mentioned there was not enough wood to knock on for that entry. THERE WAS NOT.

I went to pick him up from daycare and there was the dreaded Incident Report waiting for me. I hate those things because 9 times out of 10, my child is the one causing the incident, as opposed to the victim. Sure enough…”Wes bit one of his friends today…”

HE BIT. We stopped biting years ago…HE BIT.

Evidently this friend was at the computer and he wouldn’t give Wes a turn. So he BIT HIM. *sigh* Of course, because he is almost 4, the first thing the entire class did when I walked into the classroom was say, “WESLEY BIT SO-in-SO!!!!” Because they’re all plenty old enough to understand the severity of the incident and want to TATTLE TATTLE TATTLE about it. So, just a few short months after we (hopefully) finally lived down the reputation of having the kid that talks about the proper names for private parts ALL DAY LONG, all of the parents are now going to know our kid as The Biter.

Just wanted to share the story lest you think we were out of the woods. We are obviously not.

E’s birthday went well and he was beyond thrilled with all of the Twitter birthday messages from you guys. Thank you so much. My favorite gift TO him was a puzzle I made at Shutterfly from a photo that one of his Photographer friends took. The downside is since she took the picture, she wasn’t in it and she’s a good friend. But, apart from stalking them and photographing them myself; (Can you say “Creeper Mom”?) it was the best I could do. He loved it, but the puzzle itself isn’t that great. The pieces come apart fairly easily. It’s still super-cool and he loves gluing puzzles together to hang on his wall after he’s completed them, so it won’t matter in the end. It’s just a little frustrating while he works on it.

I ran 8 miles Saturday morning – by myself. I haven’t done a long run by myself in MONTHS. It just didn’t work out that I could run with any of the groups and still handle my busy weekend. IT SUCKED. I used to run by myself all the time. I mean, I even did my first 13-mile run in my half-marathon training by myself, but that was back in October. Now, it BORES THE SHIT OUT OF ME. I want someone to talk to! WAH. But I did it, and my knee did okay. I think it’s just a thing I’ll have to deal with now, that knee. I’ll have to work on my IT band more but I’ll live. I just don’t want to run alone anymore. I NEED MORE RUNNING FRIENDS. I definitely thinking finding a good group to run with is what has kept me active. And it doesn’t matter that on paper we’re different speeds. When you’re trying to get miles in, you’ll run with just about anyone. I’ve done 5 miles and averaged 8:27 pace, and I’ve done 5 miles and averaged 10:35 pace. I’ll take either over RUNNING ALONE.

I made four different kinds of cake poppers/truffles for the tea party this weekend. I did the standard Red Velvet cake, then I did Strawberry Cake and pink vanilla covering, then I did Funfetti with a bunch of different colors covering, and then I did Oreo Truffles pictured to the left. (Heard of them from Sarah who, of course, found them on Pinterest.) I am officially Poppered-Out. If I never ball up another bit of dessert again, I’ll be happy. It ended up totaling over 300 of the damn things. But they were a hit! As always. I just won’t be making them again for a VERY LONG TIME. But – for the record? Several people now think the oreo truffles are their best over the Red Velvet. And the oreo truffles? Are about 90% LESS effort so, you know, WIN/WIN!

This guy was perched on our fence this weekend and he just hung out there while we all got very close to him, taking his pictures and examining his features. He’s a Barred Owl (My lovely husband might have been a bit shocked that I knew that. Sometimes he forgets that I did get a Biology degree where I studied a lot of Ecology and dreamed of being an Ornithologist.) and he seemed completely apathetic about our presence. He hung out in the yard until later that night when Donnie “saved” a bird that was stuck on our screened porch. The second the bird got out, the owl ate him. Circle of life, and all.

Of course, I posted his picture on Facebook and everyone made the Harry Potter references I so wanted to make myself. Nice of them not to let me down.

The Tea Party went really well. We made a decent amount of money, not as much as we hoped, but the value of having that event to force us to get costumes/makeup/hair ready this far in advance of show week (in 2+ weeks) made up for any unfilled dreams of profit. The little kids loved all of the characters, while I think Tweedle Dum was the BEST. There were only a few errors during the day, most of them due to my lack of sleep as I was up until 1am that morning wrapping Tea Cups as party favors. (Then I ran my 8 miles at 6:30am. I WIN ALL OF THE AWARDS.) My brain does not function well on minimal sleep so I’m more prone to errors. But none of my errors were catastrophic so…Why cares! Successful tea party!

Sidenote: I feel I should explain my dependency on instagram lately. Over the last year the frequency of my photos being used from flickr for Orkut Fakes (Hard to explain, if you’re curious just Google it) got out of hand so I’m depending on Instagram from now on. The resolution is crappier so they don’t steal those. That’s the same reason why I had to dump a lot of Facebook friends if I wasn’t 100% positive that I knew them and they weren’t stealing my photos. I’m sure I dumped some harmless people too, but I was so sick of it all the day I cleaned that I just unfriended over 200 people in one mass fit of anger. I also made almost all of my photos on flickr private. Sorry for that to those of you innocent victims in all of that purging. Hope you can handle the instagram for awhile until I think of a better solution.

He turns four in May but lately? He has been SO MUCH BETTER. The threats of time out actually work and nip bad behavior in the bud. He apologizes for misbehaving. Reminders of, “When do you obey?” actually illicit the proper response, “First time!” followed by: ACTUALLY OBEYING. But above all else? He has gotten SO SWEET.

On top of just the improvement in behavior, he has become a snuggle bunny times A MILLION. He has always been a lover, not a hater. He wants to be held and – while mostly shy around strangers – if someone offers to hold him? He’s all theirs. He’ll let them pick him up and then he’ll snuggle with them. Which, of course, wins him the hearts of many unsuspecting women.

But lately? It’s been more than that. He just wants to LOVE on everyone. And it’s WONDERFUL. Granted – a lot of the time it’s because he doesn’t want to walk, but STILL. His new thing? “Momma, will you hold me? I’ll keep you WARM.” I’ll pick him up and he’ll wrap his arms around me SO TIGHT and keep me warm. He also wants to snuggle in bed (“I don’t need a nap, just a hug.”) and he wants to sit in my lap WHEREVER we are.

And yes…if this was all still accompanied by the dreadful “AGE THREE IS FROM THE DEVIL” behavior? It would not be as welcomed. But with this new and improved, maybe-I-won’t-sell-him behavior? I can’t get enough of it.

The best moment was yesterday. I was scrubbing the sink in his bathroom and he just came in and was talking to me. Suddenly he said, “Thank you, Momma, for cleaning our bathroom.”

SHUT THE FRONT DOOR.

That’s unusual behavior in a child at ANY age. Hell…I admit to sometimes asking my husband to notice and appreciate those type of things.

In conclusion? I am in love with my child again. Not that I ever didn’t LOVE him, but sometimes – when his behavior was so awful and my patience had grown so thin – I might not have liked him all that much. But now? And I’m not even lying: I sometimes wake him up early just so I can enjoy more time with him before I go to work.

5:10am is luxurious. This is my life.

I’ve had to be up at E’s school three nights this week so it’s been a little hectic. These last two mornings, having time to do stuff before waking the kids up? Has been nothing short of MIRACULOUS. I forgot how much I can get done between 5am and 6:30am. And this morning? I really need to make a Publix run. I’ve been out so many nights this week that I didn’t realize we were out of milk AND orange juice. So, in a few minutes I’m going to run down the road and get them. BECAUSE I HAVE THE LUXURY OF TIME.

This was my life pre-boot camp. And while the benefits of boot camp far outweigh the perks of time, I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that these last two days, those extra hours? Have made all of the difference on this super-hectic week. I get to take more time with my coffee, I get to have some extra snuggle time with the kids, and I get to check out the interwebs for any Glee spoilers. (WHAT? I HAVE NEEDS, PEOPLE.)

When we bought our house last year, we knew we couldn’t use our older (huge) artificial tree because our ceilings weren’t tall enough. Donnie took that opportunity to INSIST we get a real tree. He liked them so much better…blah blah blah.

We went to get one for the upstairs, putting my smaller (sentimental) artificial tree downstairs. That’s when I learned the first lesson of real trees: THEY ARE RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE. We paid almost $100 for ours last year! And yes, I know it’s cheaper to go chop one down somewhere but the timing issues never work for us. But…BUT…a week before Christmas I saw the place was selling trees for $25 a pop! WHAT? That’s WAY better!

So this year, we waited. We wanted the tree to stay up into the New Year since that is when we’re having company, so we used that as an excuse. Unfortunately, once they put the ($35) sign up, they cut the hours drastically and they weren’t open at night. I went by Tuesday on my lunch break and they were open so I bought the tree by myself. I got it home and with E’s help we got it set up. It fell on me: TWICE. This is the SECOND reason I hate real trees: THEY ARE STICKY AND HEAVY AND CRUSHING.

Donnie came home, investigated the tree in the base, and we decided to leave it up for 24 hours to make sure it would stay up before decorated it. Last night? We decorated it. And for a few hours I thought, Okay. I like real trees. They do look so much prettier.

And then I was reminded the FINAL reason I hate real trees this morning. MY CATS LIKE TO KNOCK THEM DOWN. I had to get it back up again all by myself (HEAVY. STICKY. NEEDLEY.) because I thought Donnie would hate me if I woke him up at 4am just to help with the tree. Water had spilled on some presents and ornaments were broken. Including the one Nikki made this year. *sigh*

And all of this for my husband. Who didn’t have to lug it home because they were closed when he went. He didn’t have to decorate it because we did it while he went running. (He did not object and the kids were desperate to decorate it.) And he didn’t have to beat the cats with flogs when they tore it down and broke some of my favorite ornaments.

THE THINGS WE DO FOR THE PEOPLE WE LOVE. Let’s just say that Santa better bring me Just Dance 3 for Christmas because I have been A VERY GOOD WIFE.

On one of my many entries recently ranting about the evilness of my children (So sorry about the frequency of those rants, by the way, I try not to be the Snarky Anti-Mom so much) someone very kindly said that maybe the kids were acting out because they weren’t getting enough time with me.

Insert Kim’s Proud Mental Response Here: WELL! I DECLARE! I do NOT like the implications of that! What a horrible thing to say! I am a GREAT Mother who gives my children PLENTY of time! TAKE THOSE WORDS BACK!

But you know what? When I shelved my ego and pride for a minute and looked back at my life rationally I thought: She might be right.

I am busy. So, I can’t give the kids more time. That’s just my life. BUT…I thought: Let’s make those minutes be worth more than their actual value on the clock.

I spent the last several days trying to do more with the minutes I was with the kids. Now, sometimes I can only do so much because if I’m with the kids and we’re at home, there’s also laundry that needs to be done and dishes and baking and…what’s that holiday coming up in six days? OH YEAH. Christmas.

But I made a deliberate effort to put more attention and affection into those moments. I started more conversations. I gave them more spontaneous snuggles. I squeezed in bedtime stories which I had gotten out of the habit of doing. (I KNOW! HORRIBLE!) And you know what?

They’re still just as evil.

BUT! They’re not, really. They still got in quite a bit of trouble, but I felt like the mindless tantrums just disappeared. When I got onto them they took their discipline and then got back into the swing of the day instead of pitching a fit and turning one quick 5-minute time-out into an hour of fist banging and screaming. They also seem to be sweeter, giving me spontaneous, “I love you”s and warm embraces on a whim.

So, yeah. I’m glad I shelved the giant ego I have and the pride of, “I AM AWESOME. LEAVE ME ALONE.” to hear a very good and kind suggestion. Stop. Take a breath. And maybe sometimes it’s good to realize that you COULD be doing better and that sometimes, doing better? Makes your life EASIER. Because, let’s be honest, in a battle between Super Awesome Proud Mom and Super Lazy Shortcut Mom? Lazy Mom will always win out. So, once I shut the pride up and realized the comment might have a point? Lazy Mom got ALL of the benefits!

I thought I’d show you guys how I make my poppers Christmas-ready since I don’t have the made skillz for decorating. First? SPRINKLES.

I don’t use the translucent sugar sprinkles because they tend to melt if I try to put them on the hot chocolate coating. And they just don’t look as vibrant. The little sprinkle balls are the BEST although I did mix a few different kinds together this year. Including some snowflakes I found. You have to apply these QUICKLY. Your window of opportunity changes based on what type of candy-coating you use and whether or not you add any oil to thin it out. Using the brand I use with no oil? I can only coat 2-3 at a time before sprinkling or they harden and won’t hold the sprinkles on.

Also? PACKAGING!

I use little cute see-through goodies bags for single-serving gifts. Or for “add-ons” like when I included some with the teacher’s gifts. This is also great for leaving in the mailbox for or mail carrier or having on hand for when the UPS guy comes buy. We still haven’t caught him this year and I’m getting worried. It’s like catching Santa! He’s quite sneaky! He even pops by when we’re home and we don’t even know it. I need to just leave a note: HEY! UPS GUY! WE HAVE TREATS! SLOW DOWN FOR A MINUTE!

And for the bigger gifts or to a larger group like a family or a school: The Magical Tin. These things jazz up ANY edible gift!

I get the cute little mini-cupcake liners and can always squeeze in two layers of poppers by putting a folded up piece of tissue paper in between the layers. I actually use this technique often as gifts any time of year because Hobby Lobby has great miscellaneous tins that have a see-through spot at the top! But the tins combined with the cupcake liners seem give a presentation of the poppers which makes the gift more thoughtful which is good because those poppers ARE LABORS OF LOVE. If you ever get poppers from me for anything then I must really like you. They take forever and they always stain my hands read for about 24-hours.

So far I’ve made 2 cakes worth this year. My hands may be stained until 2012.