You may want to grab a bucket because here is where I go on and on (and on and on and on) about my amazing daughter. Really, it's nauseating....

Okay, yeah, I know I promised to tell all about my extended stay at Club Med. But now that I've been out of the hospital for a month, I've grown weary of talking about it. I was too tired and then too busy to write. And now, it just annoys the crap out of me that it happened at all. I'm sure I'll finish that post sometime soon. It WAS a pretty significant event in my life. I think I'm just trying to process it all. I mean, I nearly died. TWICE. Yeesh.

What has had me preoccupied the past couple of weeks is the very act of counting my blessings. I have the most amazing children on the planet. I look at them and wonder how I got THREE great kids. It's like hitting the jackpot on the slots. They are truly miraculous. Those boys....oh, they are such boys. They do everything with such a ferocity and intensity. Loving, playing, beating the holy hell out of each other. Even the intensity of their apathy is impressive -- if that makes any sense at all.

But my sweet girl. My SugarPlum. She is what has me baffled and filled with joy and pride and anxiety and dread. She is 14. FOURTEEN. And she is just the best teenager in the history of ever. She is such a little bundle of contradictions. She has a wisdom and a maturity beyond her years. She carries herself with such confidence and self-assuredness and she really doesn't care what people think about her. When I was fourteen ALL I cared about was what people thought of me. I remember being so horrified that my mother wouldn't buy me Calvin Klein jeans. FIFTY DOLLAR JEANS! In 1984!! I won't even spend $50 on jeans now. Heaven forbid something came from KMart or some other discount store. Oh, the horror. My poor mother. But all I cared about was what the popular girls were wearing. And I swore then that I would do everything in my power to make sure my kids had what was "in style." But my girl just really couldn't care less where the clothes come from or what the label says. As long as it's comfortable and it fits her style, she's happy. I have actually offered to take her shopping and she says "no, I have enough clothes and shoes, I'm good." WHUCK? I got her a Vera Bradley purse last summer (which she does love because it's got her school colors) and now she finally carries a purse. But recently, when I asked if she wanted to look at some purses, she looked at me like I was crazy & said "I have a purse."

She has the coolest group of friends who are like her. They are all great girls, good girls, who are sure of themselves and don't feel the need to put anyone down to make themselves feel good. They are funny and smart and high-achievers like SP. They each have a wicked sense of humor, which I love. They don't feel the need to act out in any major way or use coarse language (like one of their moms who has a potty mouth that makes sailors blush at times....ahem). In fact, at any given time, I can open SugarPlum's email and if one of the girls has a reaction to anything they simply reply "STRONG WORDS!" instead of cursing. When they see the acronym WTF, while they do know what it actually stands for, they say "Wow! That's Fantastic!" (Try it. It's even better than saying What the F^*k!), and when they see BS, they choose to interpret it as "Bacon Strips" or "Bible Study."

Which leads to one of my favorite things about my sweet girl. She is so mature that she actually actively tries to maintain her innocence about the world. And I don't mean in a sexual way (although that too), but just in everything about the world. It's like she knows that there are situations and scenarios out there that once revealed will change her forever, and she tries to avoid them. Sort of an "ignorance is bliss" attitude, only in a healthy way. There are certain TV shows that I don't let her watch. And she's okay with that. She told me that she appreciates that I look out for her that way. This has led to me loosening the reins a bit and previewing some episodes of House and Big Bang Theory for instance that can sometimes have quite a bit of sex and adult situations, but also sometimes are very good TV and okay for her to watch. We talk a lot about what is on the episodes she doesn't get to watch and she is good with not seeing them. I know that many of her peers get to watch whatever they want on TV, but she is happy to work within the boundaries I've set.

She is also VERY athletic. Something she certainly didn't get from me. I mean, I did ballet and modern dance until I was a junior in college and I loved it. And I played soccer for a few years as a kid, but I did not love it. This girl LOVES sports. This year, she played volleyball, basketball and did track & field. All the while she played on her competitive soccer team. And she is GOOD. She is a goalkeeper - you have to have a lot of self-esteem and a pretty thick skin to play goal keeper. (And an even thicker skin to be the keeper's mom!) She is planning on limiting herself to soccer next year in high school. (HIGH SCHOOL!!! Oh. Em. GEE.)

She is also a big choir geek like her mom. She LOVES choir. She was in the honor choir and the show choir this year. She has been blessed the past three years with an amazing choir teacher who has instilled in her a love of music and vocal skills and just the artistry of it all. So, she is planning to pursue that next year as well.

In addition to all of that, she is ridiculously smart and is an officer in the Nat'l Jr Honor Society and the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. PLUS she was asked by one of her coaches to start and lead, along with her best friend, a girls' Bible study on Wednesday mornings. I can go in her room at night, after she should have turned out the light and she is reading. Her Bible. For real. I walk in unannounced and there she is, deep in the Word.

When I was in the hospital all that time and after I got home, she looked after me and her brothers. She is the best big sister in the history of ever. She loves those boys without reservation. Oh, yes, they make her insane. But she still loves on them and makes up games for them and will remember to tell me all the funny, crazy things they say & do while I am gone. I was never, ever that good of a big sister. When I have been out of energy and laying in bed (because this whole recovery thing has been much more taxing than I ever imagined), she will make supper for the boys and has even on occasion put them to bed. And that doesn't count all the hundreds of nights she's spent babysitting.

Why am I telling you all of this? I have no idea. I've just been overcome with how remarkable this sweet, amazing girl is. Through all of the turmoil of the past couple of years, she has kept her composure better than I. And she has been an amazing example to all of us. Is she going to therapy? Oh, yes. Nobody, especially someone 14, can deal with all she has dealt with and not need an outlet. But she's fine with that too, and acknowledges how much it's been helping her. And she talks to me. That is so amazing to me. She talks to me and she likes me. She tells me so, unsolicited. And her friends do too. Because they are awesome. Also, she does do the moody, eye-rolling, heavy sigh, slamming of the door thing. But when I step back, I am so grateful because it just reassures me that she is a REAL teenager and not some teen-bot.

So, I'm sorry for gushing. It's not even her birthday. But I am so thankful to God for this perfect child. There will never be enough words to thank Him for my Angel Girl. I wouldn't want to navigate this world without her. She's fantastic. For real. Please don't let me screw her up!

This post is for Peaches...

...who is tired of seeing the book review that has been up for a week now.


I have about fourteen blog posts in my head about various things that I can't seem to form into actual coherent posts. So, you are getting a list of sorts of the randomness that is my life. Otherwise, I have no idea when I will sit down and do this again.

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School started Monday. With as much bitching as I have done about the children driving me crazy and how in the hell could they have pushed school back two weeks, I was surprised to find myself feeling a little sad Sunday night. I really do enjoy my kids. Except of course when they are beating the crap out of each other. Or whining. Or waking me up at five o'clock in the morning for no reason.

SugarPlum and Bear both looked so grown up Monday morning! While I was a little sentimental seeing them, I was stunned when SD had to leave the room so overcome was he by the appearance of our oldest two. My sweet, marshmallow husband was brought to tears!

As expected, SP loves the fifth grade and the fifth grade seems to love her, so far. She has some good friends in her class, though not the child with the batshit crazy momma (whom I have decided not to expand on here because the woman really is mentally ill and it seems cruel and in bad taste to pick on her. If things get out of hand, however I reserve the right to rant about her!) She is really looking forward to being able to do PE again after missing the last six weeks of it last year after the broken collar bone.





I was a little apprehensive about Bear going into first grade. Mrs. Kindergarten had both of us worried about how Bear would do in first grade. Fortunately, Mrs. Firstgrade seems to love our Bear and said that, so far, he has been very well behaved and that he has done really well on his work. He got a 100/A+ on the first paper he did!! I like her so much. Honestly, it was all I could do not to hop in the car, drive over to Candyland Early Childhood Center, stick out my tongue, and say "Nyah Nyah Nyah!" to Mrs. Kindergarten. But, as I AM trying to set a good example, I chose to just walk around with a look of smug satisfaction on my face. And, of course praise Bear lavishly. Isn't he adorable?!

Bug, on the other hand is pissed. His school doesn't start until next week. And he doesn't understand WHY?!! Personally, things would have been much easier this week if he had been in school. I have about eleventeen appointments and other things to do. But we're managing.

Bug had a cavity in one of his molars a few weeks ago. He has something called hypoplastic enamel on a few of his molars (SugarPlum has it on her permanent molars - joy). So, Tuesday he went in to have a silver crown put on that molar to save him from further decay on that tooth. We decided to make it a cool thing for him to get a "silver tooth." Gray Gray told him that he would be like a pirate, which was just about the most awesome thing he had heard in a long time! He did pretty well. He was mostly mad that morning because he had to be NPO after midnight. That really wasn't a big deal in his mind until he woke up and he was hungry! Then he decided that perhaps we should do another day. Too bad for him. He looks cool now though. And he has told everyone he sees that he has a silver tooth.

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Well! Look at that! I guess I did have enough for a blog post. So I guess that now you will have to wait to hear all of the other exciting stuff that has been going on. Like how I had another freaking car accident. Yes, really. WTF is wrong with me?

And how we had a bunch of people over here for a party after SD rode in a bike race that morning and I was suffering from PTSD after that accident the day before.

And how, even though she doesn't want to play on a competitive soccer team, SugarPlum is traveling without us to a tournament as a guest player on the club team that is pursuing her. This should be interesting...

All I want for Christmas...

Here's a question for you: Do you try to influence what your kids ask Santa for or do you use that Santa visit to find out what your kids want?

I'm more of the former. I know what my kids want. Or think that they want. I also know what they will actually play with. And what sort of things I want (and DON'T want) in my house. So, as the time for the great Santa con-fab nears, I start to propagandize (aka "brainwash") my kids as to what to ask for. That way they won't be disappointed on Christmas morning. And there won't be a bunch of noisy crap in my house that might make my head explode.

To wit: Bug started before Thanksgiving telling his friends that Santa was going to bring him a Transformers' Costume. The hell? First, no. Also....nuh-uh. He has about forty three different costumes and even if I DID want to get him a Transformer costume, those are only available at Halloween. Yes, I checked. But still. No. So, I have convinced him that he wants a VTech Nitro Junior Notebook. Because I know that he will actually play with that and that it won't encourage hitting siblings or playmates in the spirit of "being a superhero." Or whatever.

Bear wanted the Lego Mars Mission set. And, at first, I was not at all opposed to it. It has the whole space theme that seems to dominate our lives of late. Then I got to thinking....all those little pieces. Well, not really the pieces, because Legos don't really bother me (unless I step on them in the middle of the night - OW!). But, with the kits...or sets...or whatever...they only get put together correctly with the help of Daddy. (Mommy sucks at Legos.) When Daddy isn't around to facilitate the construction, there is much whining, frustration and angst. And I can't handle it. Consequently, I have brought Bear around to the virtues of the VTech Nitro Notebook.

BUT I have also convinced him and his brother that they want a couple of new buckets of Legos - but just the general, non-committal Legos that can become anything rather than a "kit." Due to the even distribution of Legos throughout my house (seriously, you can't lift a cushion or check a pocket in this place without finding at least one Lego), we are down to about fourteen Legos in the bucket. Fourteen Legos that are the catalyst for one brother to beat the shit out of the other brother at least once a day. So, Santa (or Mommy) is bringing Legos, by golly.

SugarPlum? Is getting to play soccer. She played in a tournament this past weekend with the competitive team that she played with in the fall. She has decided that she wants to play with them next season. So, I got the financial info for the team. And.....Holy Mia Hamm!!!! It ain't cheap to play for a club team. But, honestly, it's a good thing. She is happy playing with this team. And she is really improving. And the girls on the team are such good girls. And the parents are just cool as you can imagine. Not a bunch of snotty "soccer moms" like I was afraid of. So, it'll be good for all of us. Also? Her Christmas present. And birthday present. And Valentines Day. And Easter. And....Arbor Day present.

Me? I'd just like a little, tiny bit of sanity. Less chaos and uncertainty. To know maybe, just maybe, what in the hell is going on in my life and what is going to happen over the next few months and years. You know....omniscience. Is that too much to ask? Can the elves handle it? Please Santa? Pretty please?

Oh, and a month at tropical island resort wouldn't suck either.

If you're blue and you don't know where to go to.....

So, we are back from our weekend of partying (she said, tongue firmly placed in cheek). This was supposed to be a relaxing weekend, spent visiting friends and family. Instead, like always, it felt hectic, over-scheduled and somewhat disappointing.


Now, to those of you I visited this weekend, don't get me wrong. I had an absolute blast seeing everyone and don't regret a minute I spent with you.


For everyone else on the planet (high expectations here), I went home for the 20 year reunion of all my high school friends. Confused? Well, you're not the only one. With one or two exceptions, my best friends from high school all graduated a year before me. So, when it came time for their reunion this year, I was delighted to have been invited to the reunion by a friend who thought it would be nice to have the gang back together. I had every intention of attending all of the reunion events. But over the summer, my grandmother was diagnosed with lymphoma and started chemo. So, I tweaked my plans some and decided that we would still go to Candyland West this weekend, but I would just go to the dinner and the get together with all of the choir gang on Sunday. Those plans were further altered when several of us realized that the dinner was going to cost $120 per couple. For barbecue. As much as I wanted to attend that dinner, I really didn't want to spend that much. For barbecue. So several of us decided to go out to a nice dinner at one of the better restaurants in Candyland West.

I was really looking forward to this trip. I was so excited to see some of these people I haven't seen in years. And some I hadn't seen in weeks. But Wednesday I started feeling nauseous and it didn't go away all weekend. I don't think I ate more than three bites of anything for several days. On the upside, I lost a few more pounds, so at least there was a silver lining. Of course the cloud inside that silver lining included the migraine that wouldn't die. I'm not sure which the cause and which was the effect, but I had either a headache, a tummyache or both all stinking weekend. Ugh.

THEN! We awoke Saturday morning to the dulcet tones of barking coming from the boys' room. More specifically, from Bear's bed. Crap. It's croup. While SD steamed up the bathroom, I found some benedryl and motrin in the medicine cabinet at Gram's house. Had I brought the nebulizer? No. Of course not. It's summer! He doesn't get croup in summer! Also? I never even thought about it. The steam seemed to help (no ER trip!), so I decided to pull myself together quickly and get up to my old high school for the tour.

I don't recommend this. A high school can change a LOT in twenty years and not all of it will make you happy. By the time I got there, the tour was headed out to the gym. Which has been expanded a great deal and is now two gyms plus a lot more stuff that I didn't see. We started to go into the "old gym" - the one we all remembered - but there was a volleyball game going on and we couldn't go in. But the poor little Student Council (class of 2009!) rep was happy to show us the new gym! Um, yeah. But that is not a part of our past. It's not where we had our pep rallies and saw our beloved basketball team get trounced time and time again.

Back inside. We go through the door back into the school, look to the right and see that the dance studio no longer exists! It appears to have been turned into a janitor's closet. Sacrilege! Then? We learn that the gymnastics gym? Is now the new library. What is wrong with these people. The gymnastics team was the only team we had to brag about!!! And little student council rep/tour guide? Seems PROUD of the fact that the gym was ripped out to make their new state-of-the-art library! FOR SHAME! Why look at all those computers! Back in my day, we had to make an effort to do a research paper. We didn't have computers to look up stuff. We had do dig through microfiche and plow through the stacks to find the articles and books we needed to get that one perfect quote! These kids today have it so easy....

::deep cleansing breath::


That's better. { /rant}


We made our way up to the choir room. Sure that that would satisfy what we came for. But it was locked! Oh! The disappointment. We were all so pathetic standing on tiptoe, peeking int he little windows on the doors. Noticing the what changes we could see. There was much sadness. Luckily, we all made our way down to the auditorium, which still looked and smelled the same. That was happy. We climbed up on stage and forced out significant others to take photos of us as we tried in vain to remember the words and steps to some of our show choir numbers. I think little student council boy was very impressed! You know, if a bunch of old people singing off key and fumbling around on a high school stage is his idea of impressive.

Other tour highlights:

~ Student Council boy telling us how the bell tower is haunted since a person was murdered up there in the mid-80's (you know, waaaaaaaaaay back in the 80's). We told him that we thought we probably would have remembered that.


~ They have elevators now. We reminisced about how we used to sell "elevator tickets" to clueless sophomores. "Now where are the elevators?" "Right next to the swimming pool." Oh, yeah. We were clever.


After the tour, the rest of the gang (read: the people who actually graduated in '87) went tot he picnic. SD and I planned on going over to visit my grandparents, but a wave of nausea gripped me and turned me green and I decided that I didn't need to expose Maw Maw to that or to Bear's cough, given that she has zero immune system after two rounds of chemo. I promised that we would go over Sunday, after the choir gathering.


Dinner Saturday night was good. And, if SD's veal chop alone hadn't cost $42.95(!), it might have been less expensive than the reunion dinner. But the conversation was great, and they had amazing creme brulee which made one of our group declare, "This is what the gods bathe in!" We had a lot of fun, so I suppose it was worth it. Sadly, later that night, my stomach rebelled again and I didn't get to enjoy the fun at the hotel with everyone. This also precluded any visits to see my grandparents Sunday. Much, much sadness.


Our choir party was even more fun than I had hoped! I was happy to see everyone who showed up. I am proud to say that among us, we have the most beautiful, well behaved, smartest group of children in the world. It must be something in the water in Candyland West. It makes for good genes to pass down!


Meanwhile, back in Soccer Land.....SugarPlum played as a guest player for one of the uber-competitive club teams in our town. They have been pursuing her for a while, but she hasn't wanted to make the commitment that the team requires. She had a lot of fun and the team won second place in their tournament. SP is thinking that maybe she would like to play for them next season. I'm not AS opposed as I once was. They only practice twice a week and they are a great group of girls. The parents are pretty cool too. I suppose that the only thing holding us back will be whether we can get a second mortgage on our house to pay the astronomical fees that are required to be on the team. Plus the tournament fees, travel expenses, etc. *sigh* She's ten. I don't know if I'm ready for this. Seem like it's gonna happen whether I'm ready or not.

So..how was YOUR Labor Day??