Mr. Modesty

So I got a call at work today from Randy. It went like this....

Randy: So, we have to remember to put Super Z's name tag on him when he goes to school.

Serina: Oh no! We forgot. Did he get in trouble?

Randy: Uh, I don't know.

Serina: Well, did somebody say something to you about it?

Randy: Yeah, a lady came out and said that he needs to keep wearing it.

Serina: Was it a big deal?

Randy: What?

Serina: Was she upset about it?

Randy: How am I supposed to know?

Serina: Gracious Randy. Was she smiling or frowning?

Randy: That doesn't mean anything. All women smile at me. They can't help it.

Serina: *snort* Oh, really?

He really needs to work on his self esteem issues, I think.

My Feathers Get Ruffled

When we brought Super Z home from the hospital I didn't realize that I would never be the same. Before I had children it was pretty easy to hurt my feelings. I could be reduced to tears at the slightest hint of anger. This made confrontation a little uncomfortable for me. I mean, confrontation usually involves some sort of anger (or at the very least an angry tone). It wasn't that I didn't have my own angry indignation, it was just that the only reaction I could muster in such a situation was melting into a puddle of tears. I may be wrong, but I don't think that crying your eyes out really lets people know that you mean business. (Back off, buddy or I'll sling some tears on you!)
Well, Super Z changed that instantly. I think it was the day after we brought him home that Randy discovered that Z had an ingrown toenail. He was across the room from me when he announced its presence. He then began to torture my child in an attempt to remove it. Or at least that is what Z's cries transmitted to the inner core of the Mother that I had so recently become. All I can say about that day is that we are all very fortunate that Randy is still alive. Everything in my body told me to do whatever it was that I had to do to protect my baby.
It is instinct of the rawest sort. When someone hurts my children in anyway my hackles go up. Hackles don't make me the most reasonable person. I would confront anyone to protect those babies. And I guarantee you there would be no tears.
I realize that sometimes this instinct makes me overreact to things. Like when the daycare that I took Princess H to when she was first born brought her bottles out to me at the end of the day and they hadn't been washed out. I mean, what the crap? What else did they not do? Did they even refrigerate the frozen breast milk that I had brought them or were they too lazy to open the refrigerator door? The fallout from that incident is what led to Randy being a stay at home Dad. I don't know, even now two years later that pisses me off. So I am not sure if that was an overreaction.
But a definite overreaction is the way I feel when the babies get shots. I have to hold myself back from grabbing them off the table and running out of the room. I have to chant in my head, " They need this..This is good..It is ok..." Every single time that they have cried from a shot I have cried along with them. I have cried because they are hurting and I am standing there completely helpless to stop it. I have cried because they see me there and they know that I am not stopping it.
Well today Super Z got his booster shots. Like always I wanted to throttle the nurse when she came in with the four needles...YES FOUR. But a miracle occurred. For the first time I didn't cry. No, my protective instinct mixed with inappropriate guilt did not vanish on me. But it was almost as good. My baby didn't cry. My baby was the biggest boy that you have ever seen. He argued his case, " I don't need a shot. I don't want a shot. Don't give me a shot." and then he sucked it up and just impressed the hell out of his Mama.
I guess as they get older they will be able to handle more. Little things will hurt them less. They will learn to stand up for themselves. They will learn to take a few knocks and keep on going. There is one thing that I am fairly certain of though, that raw killer instinct that I got when I had Z will never go away. Having to hold myself back and let them be hurt is never going to be easy.

Gosh That Seems Evil Two Hours Later

Just a disclaimer. If I came across as evil down there I am sorry. I had a bad day. I love many things too. I will do that one for ya'll next week. But three for now, just to cancel out some of that negative energy that I was throwing around. Woah. 1) I love the way my children smell when they get out of the tub. 2) I love the feeling of cool sheets. 3) I love it when you can really talk to someone and they just get you 100%. There, I feel better now. :)

At the risk of appearing negative....10 Things That Get on my Nerves

I don't have much time tonight, but I shuddered at the thought of not doing a post at all. I mean what would you be doing right now if I would not have posted this? (Reading another blog probably...or working, depending on who you are.) But I have hours of work to go before I can rest, so my post will be short and sweet ( well, probably not sweet), but at least it is here. That is how much I care about you. So tonight I am doing a list of ten things that get on my nerves. Most of these things probably happened today at some point, because that is the kind of day that i have had. I hope that yours was much better than mine.

The Top Ten Things That Get On My Nerves

1. Nosy nosy people who have to tell everybody's business to everybody else. (Especially if that person sits right outside of your office and you have to hear the story eight gazillion times.)
2. People touching (hugging, patting, rubbing) me. Unless that person is a member of my immediate family.
3. When my husband cannot find items that are sitting three inches in front of his nose.
4. People breathing in my face. (This goes for all people, even those under three feet tall who came out of my womb.)
5. Close minded people who just automatically assume that you share their beliefs and spew down nonsense all over your space on a regular basis.
6. People touching my stuff. (If it is mine and is on my desk, on the printer, on the floor, in my chair, on the table or on the file cabinet I see no reason whatsoever that someone else would think that I need them to move it.)
7. People who pass you and then drive really really really slowly in the no passing zone.
8. When couples fight in my presence. That throws me off. I really have no idea how to react in that situation. I just feel embarrassed and awkward. It is almost like a flashback to childhood when my parents would fight, so not cool.
9. Passive-aggressive behavior. (GRRRRRRRRR!!!)
10. When you are in public with two or more (very attractive, hearing abled) children and someone comes up and only compliments one. Yeah, that is the worst. It should be a rule. If you aren't going to compliment all of the children in the immediate vicinity, don't bother coming over at all.

Fun Monday

So I am doing this fun Monday thing that I found over at Lisa's Chaos.
She provided the following question, which I will attempt to answer with wit and grace. I am not sure if I am supposed to do some linky magic to go with this or not, but since I can't quite figure all of that out yet, I won't.

I’d like to know more about you, what makes you tick. I’d like to know how you started blogging. Did you keep a diary under lock and key safely hidden as a child? Do you still? Do you share the same things on your blog that you would have, or do, in your diary? Why did you start blogging and why do you continue? May as well throw in any roadblocks you have run into while blogging. If you still have your old diaries we’d love to see them.

Let's see, I first started blogging way back in June of 2007. It was such a long time ago, but I will do my best to drudge up the old memories. I actually started blogging on Myspace. I did that mostly to entertain my sister. I would write little funny posts that would make her comment and say things like, "I know exactly what you mean...what a pain in the ass" or " God, you are a nut. Why do you want people to know this stuff?" Those aren't direct quotes, because I am too lazy to go look at Myspace, but you get the idea. And when I read her comments I would think, "Haha she was laughing when she wrote that." That made me happy and it made me feel close to her.
So shortly after that I decided that I didn't necessarily want all of the people on Myspace having access to the inner workings of my delicious mind. That is when I started this blog. You can go back and look at the archives. It was a dismal start. I managed like 2 posts a month. And then...a wonderful thing happened. See, I am obsessed with Angelina Jolie ( I know, I can't help it though, I really love her :)) and I would read Pittwatch everyday (at work) in my free time. One day Sherry, the author of that informative blog, said something about a blogathon over at her other blog Chaos Theory. Because I love Pittwatch so much, I decided to check it out. I was addicted instantly. Here was this woman with children the same as as my children, with interests very much like mine, and she was so freaking entertaining. I loved it. I stalked her throughout her whole blogathon. And then I decided that it was time to get off my butt ( my lazy butt) and start blogging for real.
See, I have always wanted to be a writer, but somehow life got in the way of that dream. For the past eight years or so I have been too busy learning how to be a wife and a mom to have time to read, much less write. Well even though it isn't the novel that I dreamed of yet, blogging does have me writing everyday. More important than that, it has me thinking of other things to write. Together those two things make me feel like I am doing something just for me. And that my friends is something that we Parents don't get to do very often. I love blogging for that reason and because I have found so many other cool people out there that just thrill me with their wit, sincerity, and passion. This is just a great great community and I am thrilled to be a part of it.
As far as diaries, I would occasionally keep them. I still have one that lasted me from the sixth grade to the tenth grade. Obviously it was as pathetic as this blog was when I first started it. But it is funny to read all of the things that I thought. let me tell you, I was a crazy kid. One page reads, " I HATE YOU, MOM! I WILL NEVER RESPECT YOU AGAIN. I HOPE YOU ARE HAPPY. YOU HAVE RUINED MY LIFE!!!" Ummm, I have no idea what that was about. I obviously didn't feel that it was important to document why my relationship with my Mother ended... just the fact that it did was enough.
The one thing that diary tells me is that I do not want my children to learn how to write. Apparently writing makes you lose your mind and hate your Mama.

Why Does This Happen?

I am (almost) ashamed to show you this picture. I mean you don't want to go out of your way to tell the whole world that you are a lazy useless person do you? Well, apparently I do. This is Randy (the saint) cleaning up Super Z's room RIGHT THIS MINUTE. Of course he is doing this while I do important things like get the kids ready for bed (write this post).

But I wanted to show you this for a reason. Reasons make it a little less shameful, right? I wanted to ask some very important questions. 1) Do all kids make messes like this on a regular basis or was I just extremely good in a past life and thus earned children with this special ability? 2) How exactly do you teach kids to clean up after themselves?

I have been back and forth with Super Z over this room all weekend. Occasionally, he will do as he is told and pick up a few things. Occasionally, he will get excited when I come in to help and pick up a few more things than usual. But for the most part, the few things could be counted on one hand. I guess my biggest issue is how do I teach him to pick up after himself all the time so that this doesn't happen? I tell him to put his toys away constantly. I applaud him for a job well done when he does pick them up. I have thrown away toys when they weren't picked up. All of these things will work at the moment that they are executed, but nothing seems to change his habit of pulling out everything possible and putting nothing back. Do you think I should just throw away 75% of his toys? Is that mean and horrible? I don't know, I just know I don't want to raise a slob. So guys, any ideas are welcome.

Ride the Pony

So for some reason, Saturday mornings get my husband very ...excited. A Saturday morning can't go by without Randy making an oh so smooth move. It usually goes something like this...I am asleep and drooling on my pillow when suddenly I am awakened by the Wandering Hands.
"Uh, what are you doing? " I mumble. I am sure it sounds more like"whsdybaooiajdfuidhnnmoo?".
"Looking around.," he says. Yes indeed, that is his sexy I am in the mood line. He uses it frequently, because he is smooth like that.
Most Saturdays I will yell something nice like , "I AM SLEEPING!!!"
But every now and then my gracious side will kick in and his Saturday morning fantasies will be fulfilled.
Well this morning I reluctantly agreed to be seduced. I am not sure why...probably the looking around line. I am a sucka for poetry.
Anyway, about four minutes after the party is getting heated up what should I hear? The slight squeak that is my bedroom door opening. Oh, yes. Our super powers kicked in at that point. There was cover grabbing and repositioning at unprecedented speeds. The Flash would have been impressed. Then I slowly looked up into the smiling face of my daughter. She was absolutely thrilled...delighted...
"Ride the PONY!, " She squealed with glee. "Ride the pony, Daddy."
Ummm, there are no words to express how overjoyed I was by this little pronouncement. No words that can describe the sheer pride I feel in being deemed the pony.

My Mamaw

Next Saturday is my Mamaw's 85th birthday. My Mamaw has been a constant inspiring presence in my life for as long as I have been alive. She is a strong, stubborn, intelligent woman. I hope that one day I understand as much about life and handle it with half as much grace as she does now. So in honor of Mamaw's birthday I will tell you a few things about her, a few reasons that I am so proud to be her granddaughter:

1) She graduated high school as Valedictorian of her class. In my humble opinion she is where all of the smart genes in my family originated. So I am very thankful for that. Hehe, well, for what little bit of it that came my way.

2) She is the best cook in the ENTIRE world. I swear to you...she can take a seed, plant it, water it, grow it into vegetable of choice, and then cook it in a way that is so simple and wonderful that it is almost Divine.

3)She is a cancer survivor! She fought the fight when she was in her late 70s. She didn't give up for even a minute and as far as I know she never once referred to herself as a victim. She has always been a survivor.

4) She raised 5 boys and 1 girl...and she lived to tell about it. One of those boys was my Dad, who I am fairly certain was no picnic, seeing as he is a hard headed stubborn mule...hmm, maybe that's where Super Z got it.

5) She was a working mother in rural Mississippi in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. If that ain't progressive I am not sure what is. She worked at a sewing plant until she retired in the eighties.

6) My Grandaddy died in 1983 and she still talks about him and things that they did together like it was yesterday.

7) She lost one of her sons in the 70s. Uncle Mike was in a car crash. I am sure that it must have almost killed her. But again, her strength got her through. I swear she is one of the strongest women ever.

8) She can quilt like nobody's business. If I had one week that I could spend doing whatever I wanted, I would go to Mamaw's and learn how to quilt.

9) She is stubborn and opinionated. She can be brutally honest. One of my favorite all time quotes was, "Serina you are pretty even though you are fat." What else can I say about that?

10) She has 15 grandchildren and 17 great grandchildren and she knows the name of every single one. She also knows that her forth oldest granddaughter loves butter beans and she makes it a point to make them whenever I am around.

11) She is one of my heroes.

Serenity

After the adventure that was last night, what with the poop in the carpet and all, today has been relatively calm. Relatively calm at my house means that Princess H is still crying and stripping off all of her clothes every three minutes. This is a kind of protest that she does when she wants us to let her out of bed. She is very vocal about her demands. She may grow up to be an activist for the No Sleep Campaign of America. Relatively calm also means that Super Z has been out of bed 3 times in the last hour to tell me that his butt hurts. It hurts because the mattress is too hard. Apparently the 39 pounds of his body weight pressing against a measly eight inches of cushioney softness is enough to cause bed sores..after five minutes. His angle has always been creativity (deceit).
But other than the screaming and the whining, things are very calm and quiet around here. Oh, except for the T.V. blasting, because apparently my husband has a disorder which makes it impossible to for him to understand the words that are coming out of the television unless the volume is turned ALL THE WAY UP. Oh and the new squealing sound that my washer has decided to make ( I am trying to make that issue dissapear by not acknowledging it )...yeah, except for that I am perfectly relaxed.

Super Z's First Day of School

He was a bit nervous, but as you can see he was very excited. The best part though is that when I put him to bed tonight he said, "Mom, can I go back to school tomorrow?"

"Why yes, son. That is a great idea."