Additional Awesomeness...

Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The Professional

Hey there! Howya been?  Same old same old over here in the crazy place.  Just thought I'd pop in and share another gem with you today.

Stanky & Piggy have a bunkbed.  After all the moving and the almost daily taking down of the ladder to ensure that Piggy can't access Stanky's cherished treasures, the brackets finally snapped.  There's just the teeeniest little lip over the edge so you can still hook the ladder on. 

Stanky informed me of this "problem" with the ladder the other night.  My totally appropriate response was, "well, just be careful when you climb up m'kay?"  His response?  'I don't need to be careful, I'm a professional.'  Imagine a kid in undies and socks, perched halfway up a bunk ladder, with the most pitying look on his face, and the most derisive tone in his reedy little voice possible.  Yeah.  I laughed too.

Friday, January 25, 2013

In the "news" today...

So I just read this article Minimalist mom vows to spend nothing on her kid in 2013.  Um, really Today?  This is news?  Why is it so newsworthy that a parent has decided to quit the kiddie consumerism?

I'll admit I've never vowed to spend zero dollars on my kids, but it just kind of ends up that way.  Or close to it.  And here's why:
  • We LIKE hand-me-downs in our family.  Our new neighbors heard that we party like that, and at least twice since we moved in September they have come by with a box of stuff for Piggy.  And most of it is almost brand new!  We even got two adorable little man-suits for him that I never would have spent my $$ on, but hey, if we've got em for free, darn tootin you're gonna take a school pic in that!  On that note, I think I might have bought PigPen a pair each of sweatpants and jeans, some socks and underwear, maybe a t-shirt or two since he was born.  He's 3 now.
  • I abhor video game units.  I'm not against the kids playing a few internet-based kids games, but I'll be damned if I'll spend $300 on a console plus extra controllers and games (really? $50 a GAME? Just, wow.) and and and and and.  It's a total racket. 
  • What's the point of buying a gazillion toys for my kids when they have aunts, uncles, and grandparents who spoil them rotten?
  • Brand name stuff wears out even faster than cheap crap.  Case in point: $45 Skechers shoes for each kid before school started in late August.  Those suckers were worn out (the soles had holes and the straps were broken!) before the end of September. If' I'm gonna buy $40 shoes for my kid, I expect them to last until their toes are cramping from being shoved in there!  Payless and Target are my besties now.
  • I adore Craigslist.  And the community pick-up.  And yard sales.  And thrift stores.  No really, I do.  I mean, why should I go shell out sixty bucks for a set of Legos that's only going to be put together as a set one time, when I can buy over a thousand bricks & assorted pieces from a nice lady on craigslist for ten bucks?  And why should I buy a fancy new desk when I can spend $20 to buy a solid wood desk and some paint, and give my kid a custom piece that can grow up with them?
  • Lunchboxes & backpacks.  Really people, there are almost brand new ones out there in the thrift shops and being cleaned out of some guys garage.  I bought new before school, and Piggy's is the only one I haven't had to repair (mostly because he doesn't use it all that much).  Lunchboxes get used until they are no longer repairable, even with duct tape.  I'm currently envisioning the lenticular thing on the front of an old one as cool wall-art in the boys' room.  I just have to wait to cut it apart until certain people aren't around to see what I'm doing.
Of course there are a few things I do buy new.  Like underwear.  Unless it's for the potty training kid, then I have no problem using hand-me-down (as long as it's in the family!) since they are gonna get narshty anyway.  And toothbrushes.  Who hands those down?  Icky.  Besides, I get 4-packs from the Dollar Tree.  Yeah, I'm cheap.

Now, don't get me wrong.  I can drop a dime on a really good piece of something just as quickly as the next girl.  I've definitely got champagne taste on a water budget.  Who doesn't?  But more and more often, I'm finding that I can DIY something just a nice for a fraction of a fraction of the price.  Granted, most of my project ideas make Grumpy's left eye twitch, but, in general,  those project turn out awesomely great, so he can't complain too much.  It's just that they might take a reaaaallllly long time to finally, um, turn out

Friday, January 11, 2013

A (almost) successful dinner out!

Hello there!  Long time no, um, see?  Whatever.  It's good to be back!  Hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed Christmas & has eased into the new year with few disruptions. 

We were blessed with a gift card to the local Olive Garden restaurant at Christmas.  I was a bit torn, because I wanted to hog it all for a nice date night, but, then again, I thought it was high time we attempted to take the meth-monkeys boys to a restaurant without a play place or order numbers.  And, last night, I couldn't face washing the mountain of dishes in my sink, and on the counter, so I decided that we should eat out for a change.

Of course, I didn't take into account that the OG is freakishly busy every dang night of the week.  At least we were there before 6, and our wait time was an estimated 30 minutes if we were ok with squeezing the 5 of us into a booth for 4.  Of course we were!

We comandeered a small table in the bar and ordered drinks for the kiddos.  The waitress was lovely and even brought out breadsticks and several handfuls of mints to keep the crazies occupied.  Stanky had brought in his wipe-off lap board and a book as well, so there was plenty to distract them with.

For about 9 minutes.

Pigpen had some meltdown when he started demanding fries and was told they do not exist at the OG.  Stanky just about went into heart failure thinking that OG would taint his beloved chicken nuggets with spaghetti sauce, based on the description of said dish.  And Drama sat quietly and Repeatedly.  The table next to us got reaaaaly quiet and they ate really fast after that.  And Drama sat, cozily ensconced in his jacket, with the hood up, lest anyone connect his face with the polluted air in the bar.

We finally got buzzed about 40 minutes in.  There might have been whooping, and a little happy butt-jiggle.  Maybe.  But nobody spilled, nobody made a scene, and everyone was still in a fairly good mood!

There was almost another riot during order-taking (I had to conspire with the waiter about Drama & Piggy sharing their meal, since I knew that not one of the 3 boys would finish an entire meal).  Thankfully, 2 kids meals were enough to fill up all 3 boys with some leftover spaghetti that was pronounced biscussting.

Of course, the kids plowed through the appy and their meals before Grumpy & I ever even sighted our plates, so we pretty much had to inhale our food without tasting it.  Which was ok I guess, given that my stomach was growling louder than the birthday partiers the next table over.

We were done.  Finished.  It happened!  Nobody screamed, spilled or otherwise caused embarrassment!  Oh Joy!  RAPTURE!  OH...Oh SHITE!  Piggy just spilled. 

Aaaaaaaaaaand that was the end of our evening.  Well, played Piggy, well played.

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Back-to-school BLISS

Is it just me, or it two whole entire weeks a bit much family togetherness for two young boys?  I can't tell you how ecstatic I was to pack lunches and backpacks the other night, knowing that all 3 boys would be separated and APART ALL DAY.  I may have giggled a little.  I know I did a happy dance in the kitchen.  At night.  In the dark so D wouldn't make fun of me.

And geez know what happened?!  There was 1, ONE, JUST ONE argument last night!  That's it!  It was sheer heaven.  Especially since, for the last two weeks, Drama & Stanky were apparently helpful little angels for Nana, but turned into slavering, rabid, disrespectful monsters every afternoon the moment daddy or I appeared.  Nothing was fair, he always got more of something, he was always hating, he was always calling names, he never shared.  You get it.

Worse, they unloaded on poor Pigpen when they got home!  And turned HIM into a rabid monster.  I swear, I spent more time yelling, putting kids in time-out, taking away privileges and grounding, (and, to be honest here, threatening to smack the crap outta their smart mouths) than I did having Christmas Spirit.  It was kind of disheartening. 

The last of Christmas will (hopefully) be packed away tonight.  After work, dinner & PTC, so then again, maybe not all of it.  I'm hoping that, with the return of our normal habitat, the boys will be less inclined to act like heathen meth-monkeys than properly behaved boys. 

Yeah.  Right.  And I've got a flying pig in the garage waiting for flight clearance.