Lent

Lent is coming up and it has me thinking. Although I know what Lent is, I really didn't know all the "rules". Growing up, we did not eat meat on Fridays during Lent but that's all I remember about it. We stopped going to church when I was in the 6th grade. Now that I'm an adult and going to church regularly, I really want to try to observe Lent as I should. Last year I learned a few things and I abstained from meat on Fridays but I didn't fast. I really didn't know what that meant last year. The minimum the Catholic Church expects is fasting on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday, and abstinence on the Fridays of Lent. Ash Wednesday is next week so I really have to mentally prepare for this.

I know most people try to give up something for Lent. This sounds horrible, but I'm really having a hard time coming up with something. I feel it needs to be something difficult. I've thought about computer time but I use the computer for other things besides entertainment...like paying bills, etc. I would like to give up washing dishes, does that count? LOL. Seriously though, at the top of my list is t.v. but I'm really having a hard time giving that up. I guess it's supposed to be hard or I wouldn't really be making a sacrifice. Decisions, decisions, at least I have one more week to figure it out.

Some people make additions during Lent and I really like this idea. Being Catholic, I would say that I'm a bit Bible challenged. We always had a Bible in the house but it was never a habit to read from it each night. I'm a little bit ashamed to admit that I haven't gotten much better. Being part of the MOMS sharing group at church has helped a little. If the book we are currently reading references a particular passage, I will go and look it up. I also listen to Spirit FM in the morning and they have a scripture reading each day. Anyway, for Lent I'm going to make the addition of reading scripture every day/or night. I've already signed up for an online course called "The Story In The Bible" There was a little blurb in our church bulletin about it and since it is Free for all St. Stephen's parishioners, I had nothing to loose.

Changing the subject now, we took the top bunk off the bunk beds this morning to prevent Joshua from climbing up there. Shawn was a little distraught about the whole thing. He doesn't do well with change. I bought him the biggest night light I could find and he seemed pretty happy about that. Tonight is the first night in about a year that he's sleeping with the light off. This should help save on our electricity bill, lol. With both beds on the floor, there is not much room left. We need a serious storage overhaul. The only space left is against the wall by the foot of Shawn's bed. Right now there is a small computer cart but we are going to have to replace it because we really need the space right there. Here's my idea of what to replace it with: this shelving unit from the Container Store That way we can use the vertical space for extra toy storage and still have a place for the computer and we can also utilize the space underneath. I'm not sure how long it will be before we move Joshua into the room with Shawn but that is my goal. I really like the idea of having their toys separated into different bins that they can't reach, lol. That way, they have to clean up all the toys before I'll bring down another bin. Don is trying to find a cheaper way to do with the same results so we'll see if we actually end up with that unit or not.

Something in the air

There must have been something in the air at the clothing swap because now Joshua and I are both sick. Joshua has been a miserable little boy with congestion and cutting teeth at the same time.

Yesterday at church was absolutely horrible! Joshua is so loud. He was constantly saying Mommy really loud. It was one thing that he was loud but if I try to get him to do something he doesn't want to he throws a temper tantrum...more loudness. Shawn wasn't quite as bad but he wasn't the perfect little angel either. He was arguing with me about a book I told him to put down. Oh the joys of training kids to behave in church (NOT!!!). I know that consistency is the key and Joshua will get it eventually. Lord help me in the mean time. Oh, and whoever is my Secret Sister, please pray for me on Saturday night that the kids will behave in church for me on Sunday, lol.

I've Been Tagged!

10 Things I've done that others likely have not:

1. Installed a Storm Scope on Harrison Fords Cessna.
2. Landed on an Aircraft Carrier.
3. Taken a Cat Shot off of an aircraft carrier.
4. Escorted through the Tel Aviv airport by gunpoint.
5. Driven up Mount Etna.
6. Flew in a helicopter around St. Lucia.
7. Was in Cuba for 5 months (Navy Base).
8. Been to the Hard Rock Cafe in Tel Aviv.
9. Stopped on a road in Sicily to wait for a herd of goats to pass.
10. Stepped into the Dead Sea.

Curacao

When I was in the Navy, we went on deployment to Curacao. Nice, huh? Here are some of the things I remembered about this deployment...

Drinking lots of alcohol. The hotel we stayed at was the same hotel that the crew from KLM airlines stayed in. KLM was the primary airline so there were always lots of crewmen there. The bartenders would cater to them and we were left standing there for quite a while to get served except for one bartender. He always served us and we became good friends with him. I asked him one particular sunny day to make me a drink. He asked me what kind of drink I wanted. I didn't know but saw a tall skinny green bottle named Pisang Adoe and asked him what kind of liquor is that. He told me it was banana liquor and I told him to make me a drink with that in it. The drink he made me was the best tasting mixed drink I have ever had in my entire life! I let all my friends taste it and they went up and asked him to make the same drink for them. He ended up calling it the Steel Jaws drink. Steel Jaws was our call sign.

The other bartender I remember was Dino. He was a bartender at some hole in the ground. I don't remember how we found this bar but it soon became a favorite. Dino was originally from Netherlands. Curacao is owned by the Dutch. He had a great way to keep us there longer then we intended. If there were three or four of us there and we need to leave, he would give a free drink to the person who already finished their drink and waiting for the rest of us to finish. Well since that person got a free drink, we now had to wait until he was finished so we would order another round. He was pretty sneaky like that. He offered me a job. I told him that I had always wanted to be a bartender and he said when I get out of the Navy, to come here and he would give me a job, lol. Sorry, but I'm not that much of a risk taker. The night before we were leaving to go back to Puerto Rico, we went to Dino's bar. This was a very bad idea, lol. Every one drank way too much and me and another guy got left behind. Instead of calling for a cab, Dino said he would drive us back to the hotel after he cleaned up. I feared for my life driving home with Dino. I was in the front seat with him and was very surprised we made it to the hotel alive. He put on some Techno music and started driving really fast on the wrong side of the road. When a car came in the opposite direction, he would just move over like it wasn't a big deal, lol. When we got back to the hotel, I found my roommate sleeping on a bench in the hallway. When I tried to wake her up (she had been drinking also) she said to just leave her there. She didn't have her key and couldn't get inside the room. Me and the guy that was still at the bar with me had to carry her inside. We all fell asleep and I don't know what time it was but I know it was after 3am. We did not wake up when the alarm went off in the morning. We woke up when someone knocked on our door. I shot up like a rocket...it was 7:30am and we had to be downstairs with all our bags at 8am. Neither of us had even packed yet. I never packed so fast in my entire life. I did not get a shower but I did brush my teeth. I don't think it did much good though I could smell the alcohol oozing from my body, lol. Ahh, those were the days, lol.

Ok, enough drinking stories. Curacao was beautiful and I really enjoyed being there. Snorkeling was great and it was the first time I came face to face with a barracuda. I was having problems with my mask leaking and I was trying to fix it. My friends swam ahead and I saw them up ahead above the water and not moving. Once I got closer, this fish with lots of teeth appeared right in front of my face, I came up and asked what kind of fish it was and when my friend said a barracuda, I swam away and turned around and the barracuda was right there in front of my face again. I was freaking out. I didn't know much about barracudas but in my mind, they were in the same category as sharks. Finally, my friend charged him and when he did, I just swam to the shore and didn't look back until I got there. We were really far away from the beach too. I was so tired when I finally got there.

Ok, one more alcohol related story...the island is named Curacao, Hello! We went on a tour where we got to taste several different flavors of Curacao. I bet you didn't know there were other kinds besides the Blue, did you? Well, I fell in love with the Chocolate Curacao and bought two bottles to take home with me. I had a lot of good Hot Chocolate that winter, lol.

One thing about Curacao is the size of this island is very small. You could drive around the entire island in about an hour. One day we rented a jeep and went all over the island. This was the same day I met the barracuda. We also visited some caves/caverns. It was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I don't have any pictures because they wouldn't let you use a flash and if you didn't use a flash, the picture wouldn't turn out. This is before digital cameras by the way.

I have so many more memories of this deployment but I'm tired of writing so I'll save it for another day. Oh, and if your wondering why the navy would be on deployment to Curacao...my squadron was involved with drug ops. Curacao is off the coast of Venezuela and the airplanes that I worked on were Radar planes. They would fly high altitudes and track drug boats or other unmarked planes and give the coordinates to the chaser boat or plane.

The Terrible Two's

I'm treading on new water here. Shawn rarely threw a temper tantrum and when he did, I just ignored it and after he saw that it didn't have any affect, he would stop. Joshua has turned into a different little boy this past week and I'm not liking it one bit! He is cutting teeth right now. He only has 8 teeth right now and I've been feeling around and I can feel all 4 molars coming through. We've been having a problem with hitting, throwing toys, and falling over screaming and thrashing arms and legs about, lol. The other day I run into Shawn's room after I heard him screaming to find Shawn holding the top of his head and crying and Joshua standing next to him with a wooden train track. Can you guess what happened?

I think it's only natural to compare your kids when you have more than one. Now that I have a half way normal kid, I am really concerned about Shawn. Shawn has never been tested for Autism and it's not that I want him to have it but in the back of my mind I've always wondered about it. There is such a huge spectrum for Autism so it's hard to look at him and say "oh yeah, he's definitely autistic". One of Shawn's friends from his EELP class has been diagnosed as a highly functioning autistic. I would have never known he was autistic if his mom hadn't told me. Mikey socializes ok and that's what comes to mind when you think of Autism but there are many signs, including speech delay. When I think back when Shawn was a baby, I can pick out several signs of autism. When he was crawling around but not yet walking, I would try to play with him but he really didn't want anything to do with it. If I sat down next to him to play with him, he would crawl away and play with something else. He always seemed like he was in a world of his own...once he was focused on something, nothing else distracted him. Of course the whole speech delay is definitely a sign but another sign is sensitivities. Shawn has always had trouble eating and not just because he was picky but he has a very strong gag reflux. I had a very difficult time transitioning him from Stage 2 baby food to Stage 3 and other solid foods. It was like he didn't know how to chew or he didn't want to. He was about 15 months old before he stopped eating baby food. I had to cut up his food really small and give him things that would slide down easily if he didn't chew his food. He still has a problem with chewing. I strongly believe he must have some sort of sensitivity in his mouth. I don't know if it has to do with taste or texture but I watch him chew certain things, for an example: every once in a while I try to get Shawn to taste a fruit or something, this particular time it was an apple. It looked like he wasn't chomping down all the way and just gnawing it like he didn't have any teeth. Another sign is having to stick to a certain routine. The first thing I think of is Rain Man but Shawn does have a routine that he needs/wants to stick to. His morning routine has to be the same or he gets upset and it's the same thing for the evening routine. If you try to have him do something out of order, he won't have it and gets upset. Of course it's no where near as severe as the movie Rain Man but he still has his routines. Part of me feels guilty for thinking there is something wrong with him. He makes friends easily and so far he's doing well in school but if there is a problem, I just want to get him the help he needs before it starts to affect his school work. I'm a little disappointed in his speech progress this year. He still sounds like a 3 yr. old talking. He still says " I hungry" instead of "I'm hungry". He still gets him, his, she, and her mixed up. I just don't think his vocabulary has improved much even though we read every night and he's practically reading himself now. He just looks like he really has to think of what to say instead of just saying it. I need to make an appointment for his 6 yr. well check and I'm definitely going to talk to his doctor about it and see what he says.

Caught in the act

Joshua loves to slide the chairs around to get to what he wants. We have to keep anything we don't want him to have (like phones) either in the kitchen or our bedroom. Today I caught him playing with the thermostat so I decided to take a picture. After he saw the flash, he turned around and posed for me.

The Great Space Coaster

Reminiscing about The Great Space Coaster:







This one's for you Scarlett:

Is That Better?

Ok, Julie...is that better, lol? No more mountains in the background.

Cleaning out the car...

How do you know when it's time to clean out the inside of your car? A clue would be when your kids foot gets caught on a plastic shopping bag and pulls a bunch of trash out of the car when you're dropping him off at school. Seriously, that happened to us today. I was so embarrassed!

The kids drove me crazy today. More on that later.

Organizing

Has anyone else been to the Container Store or at least been to their website? I've never been to the actual store but I think I would have a hard time going in and not buying anything. I can't stand Shawn's room! No matter how I try to organize it, it always seems messy and unorganized. We bought a cheap computer stand for his room but I would love to replace it with this. I just think it would give him some extra storage, have a place for his computer, have a place to do his homework (when he gets a little older and can do it on his own), and its shelving that will grow with him. I could easily see this in a teenagers room. On this same topic, one of my friends posted a picture of a new storage cubes/shelves that they put in their kids room. I'm jealous, lol.

We were without heat this weekend. No biggie for me. It was 64 degrees this morning when we woke up and it only got to 68 degrees when the A/C guy came out to fix it. We were getting no power to our A/C but the breakers weren't tripped. After some troubleshooting, Don found a blown fuse inside the A/C handler. After he replaced it and turned the breaker back on, it blew the fuse again. It ended up being the UV light ballast. We just had that installed a little over a month ago so it was still in warranty and we didn't have to pay to have it fixed. I wonder though if it had anything to do with us loosing power last Tuesday. They had to change out a transformer across the street and turned off power for about 10 minutes. I didn't notice us not having problems until Saturday morning when I walked past the A/C handler on my way to the washing machine. I noticed that our new filter system lights weren't on and then I noticed the UV light wasn't on either. I have no idea how long it had been like that.

Jumping

Joshua just learned to jump. It's so funny watching him. We took some video of him last night. Enjoy!

I love my chiropractor!!!

Today, I broke down and went to the chiropractor. Don't get me wrong, I love my chiropractor but it can get a little expensive. When I was pregnant with Joshua, our co-pay was $15.00. Last year it was $20.00 and this year it increased to $25.00. When you go to the chiropractor for a problem, you usually have to go twice a week for at least 2 weeks. That's $100.00 we don't really have. It's worth it though not to be in so much pain. I was really hoping the drugs my doctor gave me would work and although it helped, it did not get rid of the problem. Oh, and if anyone needs a recommendation for a chiropractor, I would highly recommend Dr. Sage Campione. Her office is in the same building as the Chamber of Commerce off of Pauls Dr. and her number is 643-1242.

For some reason Joshua woke up at 4:30am and wouldn't go back to sleep. To my surprise, he fell asleep in the car on the way home from taking Shawn to school. He woke up as soon as I unbuckled his car seat though. When I brought him inside, I put him down on the couch and 5 minutes later, he was asleep. He slept for about 20 minutes. Totally messed up our morning! By the time his actual nap time came (12:00pm), he was so hyper (for some reason my kids get hyper when they are tired) I had a hard time getting him to sleep. I basically had to pin him down so he couldn't move and then he was out. I noticed at the chiropractor that he was finally getting another tooth. He doesn't have any molars yet but today I felt a little sharp bump on the bottom left side. It's about time!

Makes No Sense at All

Sometimes I wonder about Don. Last night, Don said he was going to do the dishes. Well, at about 9:30pm I decided to unload the dishwasher for him. I thought I was doing a good thing. Even if Don didn't finish the dishes, that would be one less thing I would have to do before I loaded the dishwasher back up. When Don found out, he got mad and told me if I wasn't going to load the dishwasher back up then I shouldn't unload the dishwasher. Uhh???? First off, I could care less if he loaded the dishwasher up last night or not. We had enough clean dishes for in the morning. If he didn't load the dishwasher then I would have done it first thing in the morning. Why in the world would anyone complain about someone doing half the job for them? I'm over it now.

Today was a pretty boring day. I wanted to get Joshua out of the house today but since the weather was crappy, we stayed in. To keep him busy, I broke out the play-doh. He loved it of course but we spent most of the time pulling out one color and then putting it back because he wanted another color, etc.

Florida Manatees

Today I met a friend at the Florida Manatee Viewing Center. What a perfect day to go! There were so many manatees out. I have to admit though that they are one of the ugliest animals I have ever seen. Joshua had fun running down the pier and stopping at every speaker to hear the music, lol.

Thank goodness Heather took pictures because my camera is on it's last leg. I never know when it's going to work. I realized this one night when I tried to take a picture of Don's hair after Joshua stuck silly putty in it and even though I thought I took 2 pictures, they never showed up on the memory card later. I was soooo bummed that I didn't capture that moment, lol.

Here's a few pics that Heather took-







Shawn was supposed to start CCD again this week and I forgot all about it. Don called to ask me about it and when I looked at the clock it was too late to take him. Oh well. I'm not sure how much he learns from that class anyway.

Changing the subject...I have no idea what I'm making for dinner. This is where I fail at being a mother and a wife. It's definitely my weakest point. I do not plan out my meals for the week even though I've tried several times in the past. If I won the lottery, the first thing I would get is someone to come prepare my meals for me. Or if I could afford it, I would love to go to Let's Eat or Dinners Done. Both kids are hungry now so it looks like it's going to be frozen chicken nuggets and left over mac and cheese for them. Don and I can fend for ourselves. I'm making a vow tonight to figure out what I'm going to cook for dinner tomorrow night and make sure I have all the ingredients, etc. Wish me luck.

See, I would have so been out by now!

Well, since I didn't post yesterday, I would have been out of the blog contest if I was part of it. And that's why I didn't join! I knew I wouldn't have been able to blog every single day no matter how hard I tried. Oh well.

Yesterday was Kindermusik day with Joshua. I love Kindermusik and Ms. Aimee! It breaks up our day and lets Joshua expel some energy. I was really impressed with how well he did yesterday. He actually did some of the movements and repeated some of the sounds. There is no doubt in my mind that Kindermusik has helped tremendously with his speech.

After Shawn got home from school, I let them play out back for a little while. There was still some water on the chairs and in buckets so it made for some messy play. They had fun though.

I did have a small victory last night...I made a turkey meatloaf for dinner. It is called brown sugar meatloaf. Shawn actually ate it and asked for more! I think because he thought he was eating sugar, lol. So I'll definitely be making that again sometime. Joshua didn't eat any but I think it was because he drank a sippy cup of milk around 4pm and he just wasn't hungry. He's not as picky as Shawn is though so I'm sure I'll be able to get him to eat it next time.

Church Training

I did it...I got myself ready and both kids ready for Church this morning by myself. Don is in Crystal River so I had no help this morning but we still made it to the 8am mass. I've been leaving Joshua at home so I could concentrate on getting Shawn to be still and be quiet. He's been doing great! A couple of weeks ago, Father Bill's homily was about family and one of his points had to do with going to church as a family. I felt like he was looking at me when he was talking about it, lol. Anyway, it made me feel guilty enough that I've decided that Shawn is done training and now it's time to work on Joshua. Even though our church has a cry room, I've decided not to use it for several reasons. The other people in the cry room let their kids walk around, play with toys, etc. Just because you're in a cry room doesn't mean you're not supposed to act like you are in church. When I've sat in the cry room with the kids, Shawn thinks he can do what ever he wants because another kid is trying to get him to play with him or something. So I've decided to sit out in the church and just deal with Joshua. Shawn does great when we sit in the church but Joshua is a different story. I hope it just takes some consistency of going to get him to be quiet. At least he's not screaming/crying but he's still loud. Shawn did great today so I went to Dunkin Donuts after church and got some Munchkins.

My mom came over to visit today. She can't go a week without seeing the kids. Julie came over with the kids also around 3pm. Shawn loves playing with Alex and Aiden. They get so loud and rough but I guess that's what little boys are supposed to do. I feel very blessed that we live so close to them.

Typical Saturday

I'm so tired right now. For some reason, Joshua woke up in the middle of the night and I had a hard time getting him to go back to sleep. No breaks for me today either. Don left at 6am to drive up to Crystal River for a craft fair. He's going to spend the night in his truck so we won't see him again until tomorrow night. I'm praying right now that the kids play together nicely this weekend.

I've got so much to do right now I don't even know where to begin. Because of my neck pain, I'm behind with my laundry big time. And even though Don tried to help out by loading up the dishwasher, the kitchen counters are a mess! I did manage to clean off the dining room table yesterday so now it's not full of mail and newspapers. I was thinking about taking the kids to the park this morning but I'm waiting to see how the weather is. They both need baths so I figure they might as well get really dirty first, lol.

Well, it looks kind of wet outside so I'm not sure we'll be going anywhere today.

Jumping on the Band Wagon

My friends have inspired me to be a better blogger. They are in a contest to see how long everyone can blog everyday. I've kind of enjoyed reading their blogs so I've decided to jump on the Band Wagon. As if I don't already have enough to do with my life, right? Even though I'm not part of the contest, I'm going to try and keep my Blog updated.

Changing the subject now...I've had some neck pain since Monday. It's not your ordinary stiff neck pain either. It's muscle spasm pain. Normally, I would go to the chiropractor but I know I'll have to go several times and I can't afford the $20.00 copay each visit so I went to my doctor (whom I dislike very much). I keep telling myself that I need to find another doctor because I can't stand this one but then something happens where I need to get a same day appointment so I go back to the doctor whom I dislike because they already have my record. I still have some pain but it is getting better. At least now I can move my head a little more than before.

I'm not sure how much longer I'm going to be a stay at home mom. We can't afford to live off of Don's salary. We've been going downhill ever since Don quit working at Lowe's. We depended on that extra income. So I've decided to take things into my own hands and look for a job. I applied to Geico and went in for the testing on Tuesday. I passed all the tests and had a screening interview so far. I should hear back from them soon to see if I move onto the second interview. Although the pay is good, I really don't want to work all the way out there. I also applied to Progressive but I haven't heard anything from them yet. I was really hoping to work there since it's closer and the facilities look really nice. They even have a gym for their employees. I'm sure my neck pain was a result of me worrying about going back to work and having to put Joshua in daycare. If I do get a job and we have put the kids in daycare, I'm going to look into a babysitter/nanny to watch them at the house. We have major transportation issues. Don can't fit both car seats in his truck so there would be no way for him to pick the kids up from daycare. So I would have to get the perfect shift or find a nanny. What fun!