It was just an ordinary working at home sick as a dog with a sore throat…

When I finished up work at around 4pm and started going through my long neglected Google reader and it was about the time when I *should* have gotten up and gone and picked up my kids, when I got caught up on Arjewtino, a fellow DC blogger, who was running a contest for whoever is the 100,000th visitor to his blog.

Suddenly, I wasn’t going ANYWHERE. I could smell VICTORY!

So I kept my ass on that couch and clicked. AND CLICKED. AND clicked!

What would my efforts yield if I won? Why several items featuring Sir Arjewtino himself, the first being a baseball card from his time at the Dodgers fantasy camp, and the second being a picture of his buttocks. No… not just any picture of his buttocks… An AUTOGRAPHED ass picture. NOW WE’RE TALKIN’!

THERE WAS NO GIVING UP NOW! Because you know, I HAD to have those buttocks! There is a deep dark corner in my closet, which I keep locked, because all the porn, guns, and crack is in there, and yes, that corner is just BEGGING for a framed butt picture!

So yes… I did win. I sat and watched the stats climb up to the 99,999 number, and then swiftly loaded up the site. That’s right people, if you want to WIN, you’ve got to PAY ATTENTION AND DO WHAT IT TAKES.

And so, I give those that did not win these parting words.

SUCK IT, LOSERS!

I asked Arjewtino to please shoot the non-fuzzy side.

When I told James I had won a MAJOR AWARD! he asked if it will say “FRA-JEEEE-LAY!” on the side when it arrives.

Just go see it yourself. Safe for work, will only take 40 seconds. CLICK!

So I posted the “see you on the other side!” posts (on both old and new), and the “you made it!” post (only on the new) and then tweaked all the name servers and database tables I needed to and then had to wait until today before I myself saw my own new website. DNS takes forever for me, I guess!

But finally I can get to my own space! Yay! I’m still working out a few kinks, but that’s just me, everything should be working fine.

Over the weekend, I saw that The Sound of Music was going to be showed a few times, and I promptly told our Tivo to record it, because The Sound of Music is one of my favorite movies EVER.

On Sunday afternoon, I settled in to watch it, though it’s a long one, and so it became a somewhat sporadic watching. Jocelyn fiddled around on the couch for most of the time, watching it with me and loved when they sang. Ethan was playing in the next room, but everything there was a song, he would come running in to watch for it. the puppet show was also a hit. “Edelwiess” is a song I have sung to the kids at bedtime since they were babies, so of course they ate that up as well.

So all in all, they liked the movie and watched a lot more of it than I would have thought. We stopped it Sunday and then yesterday I tried to finish it up. I thought that after the festival at the end they would be totally done with it, but boy did I underestimated them. I started to explain that there was a war, and the nazi’s wanted Captain Von Trap to join them in the war, but he didn’t want to because they were bad people, and so he was going to have to get away from them.

It’s as if I flipped a switch, and Ethan was completely and totally MEZMERIZED. First, he was all, “Yeah! I want to see the WAR!!” and I had to tell him that they don’t show any war, or shooting, or blowing up or anything. Just the dad trying to get away from the soldiers.

So then the festival ended, and the family won the first prize and the spotlight went to the empty archway, waiting for the family to appear and let me tell you, my kids were on the EDGE of their seat.

Ethan: I KNOW WHAT THEY’RE DOING!
me: what?
Ethan: They’re TRICKING THEM! They’re ESCAPING!

Then of course, the breathless search through the abbey, the family hiding behind the crypts (i think those were crypts) and the eery silence broken only by the loud crashing as the soldiers shakes each iron gate to check if it’s locked. These kids were wide eyed and staring and had to be reassured repeatedly that no, they don’t find them. And then Ralf came up the steps and just as all the soldiers were leaving, hid until the family came out of hiding, and then JUMPED out! The captain opened the gate and ran out and Ralf drew his gun, and Ethan nearly lost it. He was pretty nervous and uneasy through all this already but when the gun came out, Ethan jumped up off the couch and ran behind it. He didn’t hide, but he stood behind it and watched from back there. I couldn’t quite tell HOW frightened he is, so more reassuring that there is no shooting in this movie helped, and then the whole family watched with bated breath as the Captain edged closer and closer until he took the gun away from Ralf.

All seemed well until the Captain made his last comment, “You’ll never be one of them.” which Ralf took offense at.. and immediately shouted for the other soldiers.

The family sped away in the caretaker’s car and we watched as the soldiers tried and tried to start their own cars but to no avail. They laughed and laughed when the nuns confessed their “sins” of taking the parts out of their cars, and then insisted that we go back and watch it again and again.

Finally, the family is walking over the mountains to switzerland, and we emphasized that they got away, they escaped, yay! and Ethan and Jocelyn were just tickled to DEATH.

After James had put them to bed, he came downstairs and I commented, “I really did not think they would be interested in the end, but boy was I wrong!”

Boy was I!

These are the new digs. Yay! You made it!

I’m switching the site over to a new host.. and I am thinking it may disturb the feed. If this is the last post you see for a few days, you may want to go to http://www.crazymokes.com/ and resubscribe to the feed — be sure to refresh to make sure you’re at the new digs!

I of course took the opportunity to install a new theme, because I am nothing if not fickle. So if the side bar is on the RIGHT – OLD host. If the side bar is on the LEFT… congrats, you’re at the new digs 🙂

This was a few weeks ago.

Our usual dinner table configuration has me and james at opposite sides of our small round table, and jocelyn and ethan opposite each other.

On this night, Jocelyn had decided she wanted to sit in Daddy’s spot, and she also wanted her chair scootched over until she and Ethan were sitting right next to each other.

Crazy cute sibling cuteness ensued.

Just in case I mislead you with the previous post, I took the day off entirely and me and the kids had a nice day. It’s nice when you don’t have to try to work at the same time. I got some housework done, we played on the Wii, we baked cookies, movies were watched.. fun was had by all. I wasn’t REALLY misleading you – it was a classic mistake! But I didn’t mind, and staying home wasn’t the “chore” I made it out to be. I wouldn’t have let Ethan stay home, otherwise. I was playing it up bloggy style because hey, that makes for a more interesting post! Anyway, we had fun!

Which really came home to me tonight at dinner, when out of the blue, Jocelyn said, “Mommy, I had fun with you yesterday.”

Doesn’t sound like much, but when you’ve been interupted for the 27th time while trying to communicate with your spouse and can’t get it out because of all the

“Mommy! MOMMY!!”
“what??”
“I want some more!”
“I’m done with my dinner now!”
“My bowl is in the sink now!”
“I’m leaving the room now!”

and that’s just the dinner related interuptions, we haven’t even touched the surface on school related, toy related, tv related, clothes related, fart related, butt related, doughnut related, wiener related and of course fart and butt related some more, because there’s a lot of fart and butt talk in our house lately.

So when she interupted me AGAIN:

“So I was trying to call him back when–”
“Mommy. MOMMY!”
“YES?!!”
“I had fun with you yesterday.”

It makes me realize that all the interuptions are a plea for attention, it makes me remember how these precious little souls just want to connect with me, and have me look at them, right into their eyes, have me smile at them and talk to them, and it makes me overjoyed that I blew off work and didn’t bother trying to work from home to spend a special hooky day with my kids, just cutting out paper dolls, baking cookies, watching movies, playing video games, reading books and being there.

So I stopped trying to finish my conversation with james (let’s face it, finishing that was like hoping an icecube won’t melt in hell what with all the poop-fart-butt interuptions) and asked her what her favorite part of yesterday was. It was baking cookies. Ethan’s was playing on the Wii and cleaning up.

Now to not make another classic mommy mistake — forgetting all this and getting all irritated all the time from all the interuptions and not recognizing the not so subtle pleas for attention.

-amy

I went into the kids room yesterday to get them up and ready for school. Ethan was awake and fiddling around in his bed and Jocelyn was still fast asleep. Her nose was stuffed up with dried boogers and her face was flushed and hot. In short, she didn’t look good.

I sat down next to her and she barely fluttered her eyes. I felt her head = hot.

“Good morning sweetie, how’re you doing?”

“Not good.”

“Tired?”

“Yes.”

— Notice right here, I start off with leading queries. Never, under ANY circumstance, ask if a child under 18 is tired, when it’s time to get them up and ready for school.

“You don’t look so good, are you feeling sick?”

— GAH! HAVE I LEARNED NOTHING IN ALL MY YEARS OF MOTHERING?

“Yes. I feel SICK.”

I make her sit up and try in vain to peer into her throat. I probe her neck and feel palpable engorged pea-sized glands.

I go and talk to James. I tell her that she is flushed with fever and looks like death. She’d better stay home.

I go back to the room and inform her that in my professional mother opinion, she should stay home from school today. And since Ethan is on spring break (no school, daycare only) and informed us yesterday upon arriving home that he was “totally bored,” I thought I’d let him stay home too.

30 minutes later, they are both running around like maniacs, Jocelyn looks totally normal (nothing that 10 minutes AWAKE and a good face washing didn’t cure) and I am banging my head against the wall.

I took her to the doctor anyway, but she confirmed that it was viral and nothing to worry about.

You would think I was a ROOKIE! NEVER diagnose a child when they just wake up and are known grumpy wakers! NEVER lead the child down the “you look sick, are you sick?” line of questioning! AT LEAST wait 20 minutes to see if they’re still pissing and moaning and to see if the fever sticks, and most importantly.. never… NEVER mention the “stay at home” phrase until you are ABSOLUTELY CERTAIN that they need to stay at home, because once that one is out, THERE’S NO TAKING IT BACK.

Rookie mistake. I am ashamed.

Oh INTERNET! How I’ve MISSED YOU!

But enough about that. Let’s get right to the birthday business, shall we? This post has been waiting for a long time, but I’ve finally got photos up on flickr, so let’s getter posted!!

Jocelyn wearing her fairy dress up clothes given to her by the Danforths

The birthday party was a smashing success. And I was not stressed! That has NEVER happened, people! However, I need to stop having birthday parties at 10am, because that’s just a smidge too early. The balloon place didn’t even open until 10 (but the order was ready RIGHT THEN, so it was ok) and we were getting a bit close with the pizza and cake as well.

Jocelyn with pizza sauce on her face.

Despite the fact that we put “No presents required,” everyone brought presents, but I am happy to say it didn’t seem to be an overwhelming amount, and there were some really cute crafty things (stamp set, and necklace making kit) and games (dora dominoes) that evened out all the brightly colored plastic (lots of which I was responsible for getting her, so I’m not blaming anyone!). She was over the moon to have her friends there. We did a paper doll craft which held the kids attention for a while, and then it pretty much turned into kids running everywhere and screaming with delight.

Jocelyn opening presents.

HITS: the paper doll craft – everyone did one, I used up some old fabric I didn’t really like, and googly eyes bought at JoAnns were a huge hit. Unfortunately, I did not get any pictures of these 🙁 But here is the paper doll I printed and the kids used.

MISS: carrot cake from costco – had nuts on the side, nuts & raisins in the cake, and honestly, just really wasn’t all that good. It almost tasted like a spice cake rather than carrot cake, and several of the kids just did ice cream with no cake, and james and I weren’t even tempted to have some more of it later. When I made carrot cake for my birthday, my kids couldn’t get enough. This cake – they ate off the frosting and didn’t touch the cake. Next time we’ll be sticking with the generic chocolate or white cake.

The kids were all super cute and sweet, and we only had one girl get weepy becuase she wanted to open a present too. She became my “helper” and handed the presents to Jocelyn and cheered up a bit.

I must say, the funniest part of the entire party was near the end. Andrew, Tamara, Adora and Leia all came as the party was winding down, and Leia, who just turned 1 in January, got an adoring fanclub kneeling at her feet, before she got out of our entryway.

Leia with her entourage in our entryway.

Even my son Ethan continued to follow her around trying to make her smile for a while. It was nice to send everyone on their way and then be able to relax with our friends, chat, play with Jocelyn’s toys, and watch Leia being cute as a button.

More gratuitous cute Leia pictures.

So the birthday party was great, and Jocelyn thoroughly enjoyed herself.

It’s hard to believe my little baby is so grown up.

Jocelyn at 2 days old.

I realize that I haven’t written in forever. And I even have a jocelyn birthday post all half-written waiting for photos to accompany it. But I’ll just do a quickie here before I forget the whole thing (as James relayed it to me).

About a week ago, the toilet in the master bathroom broke. Easy fix, it was just this piece of plastic that hooked the flusher up to the suction cup thing that lets the water out and flushes the toilet. So after a few days, James got the part, and I sent the kids in to “help daddy fix it” while I worked on dinner.

I don’t know about your bathroom, but in my bathroom, the *ahem* feminine hardware goes on the back of the toilet for those certain times of the month when they are needed. So all that stuff is on the floor, along with the toilet cover, and the kids and James are peering into the tank to hook up the new chain, when Jocelyn gets bored and wanders over to pull a tampon out of it’s box.

She examines it for a minute, and then asks, “Daddy is this a popsicle?”