January 23rd, 2012 by Jen Hen under The Busy Life. No Comments.
I may or may not have shared with you in the past, but every Sunday is Granny Day. We go to Granny’s house for lunch around noon and usually try to stay a couple of hours. Let me preface the next part with: I love my family. I truly do. They are some great people. Now that I put that little disclaimer out there…
Sundays are driving me freaking batty!!!! I think I have to take a little break. By break, I really mean I might just skip one Sunday in a month even though I keep fantasizing in my head about going once every three months. On a typical Sunday there are no less than six 18-80 year olds, plus my three boys. It’s really not uncommon for us to add another four adults. My grandparents have a modest home they built themselves back in the 60′s. It’s sturdy and sound, and it doesn’t shake or rattle when the boys are bouncing. Everyone hangs out in the living room which can’t be more than maybe 8 by 12 and the kitchen with about the same dimensions… but mostly the living room… 8 by 12. 9-15 people on a given Sunday. Now… add to this… Lil’ C is a ball full of energy who is typically on the go non-stop. And talking. Add to that Baby M has begun climbing, reaching, grabbing, and generally exploring. Add to that the 5 oldest grown ups in the house are the type to ask non-stop questions (shit! That’s where C gets it from!), there’s a gas furnace that would be super hot to the touch, and it’s definitely on Baby M’s level, add to that I don’t do well with a lot of sensory stimulation for extended periods of time = Jen wants to chain smoke, take some blood pressure medication, strap a muzzle on a few people, duct tape a few people, or generally just run the f’ away.
I’m a quiet person. When the kids go to bed for the night I like to drink my coffee and read, or chat online, or watch a movie, or maybe even play a game for a bit. Most of the times the kids have been gone for the night and I’ve had the freedom to do as I please, I’ve gone for coffee with a friend then come home and done one of the previously mentioned quiet activities. This is how I like to live. I realize not everyone is quiet. I get it, really I do.
Here’s what I have trouble dealing with: without fail Baby M gets tired and is ready for a nap by around 1pm on Sunday. We’re at Granny’s at this time. Most people would be able to get their kiddo to take their nap and continue visiting. It’s IMPOSSIBLE at this house. Cue the following in rapid succession:
What’s wrong with the baby?
What’s the baby want?
He looks sleepy, Momma? Want me to rock him?
Want your bottle?
Want his blanket?
Mom, I need more apple juice.
Mom. Mom. I have a question.
Want me to hold him?
Is he hungry?
Does he need more to drink?
His eyes look tired.
(Different color text depicts different people, and this was just my best typing rendition of how it goes. lol)
At any rate, I love my Granny and all of my well meaning family. They really want to be helpful and I honestly don’t think they realize how much of an overload that is to Baby M and me. I just wish I knew how to tell them without coming off like an itch with a capital B. haha. I’m really not good at that whole tone thing when I’ve already reached this point of frustration inside. It’ll be okay. Really it well.
Now… onto my next rant. It’s THAT week of the month for rambling rants. 
January 22nd, 2012 by Jen Hen under The Busy Life. No Comments.
Like the title? Me too. It’s one of those days.
So, it’s Sunday afternoon. Baby M is napping, Lil’ C is glued to the Xbox for the limited time he can steal each day (nap time only because Baby M likes to push the power button the rest of the waking hours), and X-man is probably sticking his nose in his 3DS. The hubby is getting his sleep before working a 12 tonight and me? I have my laptop sitting on the kitchen island, while I’m periodically turning around to stir the ground beef I’m browning. It’s 2:30pm Central time and I’m doing the most tedious part of my dinner for tonight…. and a few nights later this week. 5lbs of ground beef is much easier to brown 1) at once and 2) while there is no 13 month old lovely tugging at you and whining because he’s positive you should be holding him up so he can see everything going on in the world around him. The actual meal plan for tonight is Manwich (insert Adam Sandler impression of “Lunch Lady Land”). Later this week I’m sure we’ll end up using some of the other 3lbs for Hamburger Helper. Or perhaps I’ll finally get around to making Shepherd’s Pie (if only I could cook up mashed potatoes a few days in advance in a moment of opportunity). Oh… and really important, I’m drinking coffee. It’s necessary even if I have built a tolerance to caffeine so high that they could inject it directly into my heart and my pulse wouldn’t increase a beat.
Okay, anyway… off that ramble and onto another ramble…
January 11th, 2012 by Jen Hen under The Busy Life. No Comments.
Hey folks! I know I’ve been MIA since early December, for all practical purposes. Let’s see if I can pull of a recap.
X-man had a sleepover Dec. 16th to celebrate his birthday which is Dec. 27th. If you want some entertainment, invite 4 of your 12 year old’s friends over to spend the night. My husband and I STILL giggle at some of the conversations we heard that night. I guess you have to have a certain sense of humor to enjoy these conversations, but we definitely have it, so after a few weeks of nervous anticipation of how we were going to manage 5 pre-teens, we wouldn’t even hesitate to do it all again next year.
I cheated and threw a joint party for Lil’ C and Baby M. They’re 5 and 1 now! AHH! Where does the time go? Seriously. We just had family over for this party. I’m just not the mom that can pull off a well thought out and planned party for a bunch of little people. I’m better with the middle school aged kids and up. Little people, not so much. Kudos to those who are. I mean, when X-man turned 2 I actually had a birthday party for him, complete with pin-the-tail on Eeyore, printed coloring packets for all the kids that came, etc. But I only had one kid of my own then. BOY does it make a difference when you have more kids. Unless you’re one of those aforementioned parents that just totally has it together with little people. (Secretly, you disgust me. lol. I kid, I kid.)
Christmas Eve was my paternal family. I cooked a full spread complete with both a ham and a turkey. Hubby had gotten one of those big fryers so he could fry the turkey, but we found out last minute that he was going to have to work the night before and the night of Christmas Eve (luckily only a few hours on the latter), so he was out of the running for cooking. I did, however, manage to rope him into clearing out the insides of the turkey for me before he laid down for his snooze after working 12hrs. overnight. I was super thankful for that because even he had a little trouble. Everyone seemed to really like the turkey! I was, admittedly, quite proud of myself because it was my very first turkey ever! 
(14lb turkey, 300 degrees, 3.5 hrs. Inserted in the turkey: 1 apple quartered, 1 orange quartered, guess work amount of rosemary, sage, and thyme. Margarine shoved in the skin of the turkey. Turkey on a bed of onion and celery, cooked upside down in the roaster. Rest for two hours after coming out of the oven before carving.)(If you want clarification on those really sketchy instructions, leave a comment. I’ll put it together in a way that actually makes sense.)
Christmas Eve, after all the family left except my sis (Auntie Em), and the kids were all in bed, Em and I started loading the presents under the tree from their hiding spots. When hubby got home, he set the big Santa presents out in the living room that I wouldn’t have been able to pick up, let alone carry in from the garage.
Oh yeah! For fun, a few days before Christmas Eve, the spring for our garage door snapped leaving us without use of the garage door… the garage where we had stashed the big presents. Good thing my hubby has some muscle. He makes carrying a Power Wheel look easy. lol.
Christmas morning: Hubby had apparently not slept well that night, so he was already awake and he woke me up. Just as he woke me up though, we heard kids rustling so I whispered “lay down! Close your eyes!” so the kids could come in and “wake us up” to tell us Santa had arrived. Lil’ C rustled down the hall to look in the living room, X-man got Baby M out of his crib, and all three came in the room. C: “Mom! It’s Christmas! Santa came! It’s time to wake up!” Huh? What? Santa came? Really? “Yeah! Come on mom!”
There’s more to write, but I think I need to break this up into two or three entries for the sake of going to sleep at a decent time tonight. How were your holidays??
December 5th, 2011 by Jen Hen under The Busy Life. 2 Comments.
Fellas,
This is for you. This is a How-To of sorts I suppose. If you’re a father, don’t forget to tell your wife, or the mother of your child, that she’s a good mother. That you’re proud of the son or daughter your child is turning into because of the hard work she invests. So what if she doesn’t get everything perfect… chances are she is trying with all she has and she’s probably constantly beating herself up when she makes mistakes, or feels like she is falling short of the mark. It doesn’t matter if it’s your ex-wife, someone you were never real seriously involved with, or the love of your life… give her the compliment. Remind her regularly. Criticism is so much easier to dish out than compliments. I know. Trust me, I know. But we all need compliments more than we need criticism. Perhaps she isn’t dishing out the compliments she should, but try to extend the olive branch first. Maybe it will ricochet and you’ll get some compliments too. Maybe it’s hard to compliment, but do it anyway. Each time you say something nice, it gets easier. Parent as a team, whether you’re together or not. Communicate, communicate, communicate. You don’t have to be best friends to be able to say “Hi, how are you?” even if you don’t particularly want to know the answer. Confide in each other just a little, whether it’s that you’re questioning how to approach a topic of discussion with your child, or a lack of sleep. Small talk. It’s cheap, but underrated. Suck it all up. Suck up whatever it is you’re holding onto and think about the kind of man or woman you want your child to become, the kind of relationship you want your child to have in the future, because the examples you set today, or the lessons they are taking with them. Children watch adults; everything they say, everything they do, and the kids mimic adults. If we think about it, that’s where we learned a lot of things. Sure, we adapt, change, and do things our own way as we grow older, but even still it links back to something we observed in another person that gave us the idea to change a little bit. Just… send a text, or an e-mail, or next time you see the mother of your child say, “You are a good mother. I know you work hard to raise our child and you try to do everything right.”
Ladies,
This is for you. Everything I just said to the fellas? It applies to us too. Recognize effort, change, and the things the guys do right.
Signed,
Momma Hen in a moment of emotional discord
November 30th, 2011 by Jen Hen under The Busy Life. No Comments.
I did it! YAY! I made it! I posted for thirty days straight for the first time in the history of my participation in NaBloPoMo! I’m running through the finish line tape and I’m ecstatic that I can honestly say I completed a project that took 30 days of commitment. You know, aside from keeping house, changing diapers, and feeding the army of male stomachs in my house. Woo-hoo! Dance a celebratory dance with me for a moment. *tap tap, wiggle, and a jig*
A kudos to my friend, B., who periodically checked in on my progress even though she doesn’t blog like I do. She was motivating me quietly on the sideline.
Now, if only I could say I had been so successful with NaNoWriMo. HA! It’s all good. I’ll get around to the novel writing one of these years, NaNoWriMo or NoNoWriMo (get it? huh? Yeah, I’m full of nerdy today).
November 29th, 2011 by Jen Hen under Random, The Busy Life. No Comments.
A pair I selected
I really must share this fantastic find I came upon this week. I received a $500 prepaid gift card in the mail today. COMPLETELY and utterly unexpected. I thought it was a hoax since it was from a company I’ve never heard of before, but as it turns out it’s a promo from a company most people have never heard of before. RedStarWorldwear.com How about them apples? Personally, I’m not in the market for their products and there is a fee attached to the giftcard (but it’s not a hidden fee, and it IS an understandable fee for a new company when they are going to such great lengths to get the brand name out there). The fee was going to be the equivalent of just over $87 for shipping and service charge, but go to RedStarWorldwear and see what I would have been getting for $87-ish (I had 6 pairs of the sunglasses and a watch in my cart). As it turns out? YOU can get in on the action too! Just go to their website, click on “Giftcard” in the top menu, enter your e-mail address, and voila! You get $500 in your inbox!!!! Only good on their site, but still… $500!!! The sunglasses in the picture right up there? They’ll be sold for $210 when the brick and mortar stores open. The price that shows up in your cart to be deducted from your giftcard, however, is less: $126 (so you’re getting even more for your free buck). The 9% fee is based off the first price though… you should note that if you’re good at math because when I saw the fee total my first thought was “These people don’t know what 9% looks like!”… then I remembered the not-hidden detail that is posted on each item. Anywho… check out RedStarWorldwear.com.
Tags:aviator sunglasses, cheap, Free, giftcard, new product, polarized sunglasses, RedStarWorldwear.com, sport sunglasses, watch.
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