the boy was cold

Z is all about making waffles for breakfast (frozen ones, come on, he's 6).

side story: last weekend i was in the shower in the early afternoon when he came to tell me he was hungry so i told him to go get something to eat. (silly me, thinking he would go ask B to help him get some food.)
so can you guess what the boy did?
he already had 2 waffles at 7:30 in the morning when he first got up, then decided to have another round.

yup, 4 waffles in 1 day.

i'm waiting for the phone call from my mom on that one. about how i don't feed him & there's no food in the house. yup, it's coming.

SO, new house rule = no more than 2 waffles can be consumed in 1 day.

today when we (as in B & I) got up (hours after Z), Z tells us that his waffles were dark this morning.
they were dark because he toasted 2x.
he toasted them 2x because he was cold.

i asked him if 2x toasted waffles warmed him up, he said no & they didn't taste very good either.

boy's lucky we don't live in canada.

HONESTLY!!!!

so in my depressive state, i decide to cheer myself, i'm gonna watch me some Edward.

he really CAN make things better.

only he is GONE!

the site no longer has the twilight videos i've been watching for the past few months.
[sorry SM, had to do something while waiting for the dvd to come out. i didn't publish the link, i kept it all to myself in hopes that it wouldn't get popular & forced to remove Edward].

what is this world coming to?
what am i supposed to do now?
read the news?
more training?

crushed!!!!

anxiety about the upcoming future has exceeded exponential logrithmithic realms lately.

as in wtf are we going to do when B gets out & we are free?

grand plans of an awesome vacation went out the window a long time ago.

we decided to focus on B & school, so it was a matter of where in CA?
then we discovered practically all the schools are impacted & have waiting lists that may be YEARS long.
so i told me look at ALL the schools in CA, not just the ones where we think we would like to live - ANYWHERE [but here].

i kinda [yeah, right] got after him last weekend about the timeline really winding down, you know, if we're moving & he needs transcripts & enrollment stuff to do [because i'm the mom no matter what & sometimes i really hate that about myself].

he said he had completed additional research but still had not actually contacted anyone. so i told him he should find a few schools that he's really interested in & talk to the counselors or someone in the nursing program. i've always found counselors helpful to some degree & if the program is impacted all over, i'm sure someone somewhere has to know something beneficial that isn't stated online.

so he did it today.
what did he do?
he called the local community college.

he's trying to kill me.

they have a lvn to rn program that will take 3.5 to 4 Y-E-A-R-S to complete, but he can get in starting jan.
YEARS!
3.5 to 4
i don't know if i can take 3.5 to 4 more MONTHS [or DAYS possibly] here!

i'm going to have to get some form of anti-depressants in a drip & carry a bag around with me.

this isn't funny.
this hurts.
4 years here - ISN'T THAT ENOUGH?

thanks to the blog-o-sphere

dang it, i just realized today is ash wednesday...ie, the beginning of lent.

i'm the worst catholic.
ok, no, i'm not. there's a lot worse out there.
but that's part of it right?
the guilt!
haha, I AM a good catholic!

you know all this anti-church stuff is really messing with me & now days, they don't put 'Ash Wednesday' on regular calendars, what's a forgetful person like me supposed to do?

ugh, i had turkey for lunch.
& planned pork chops for dinner.
going to visit hades in handbasket i tell you...while picking leftover meat out from my teeth.

typically one abstains from something during lent, but i'm going to try to stick with an exercise routine -> therefore i'm giving up being a lazy ass person for lent.

no, i'm not giving up cussing.
i already do that when Z is around & as a matter of fact i'm quite impressed with myself. the other day we were outside & he hollered out "Lady!" & i asked him what she did & he told me she had put her nose in his butt.

SEE?

because normally when she does that to me i yell at her "stop putting your f'ing nose up my ass!" & that's not what he said to her.

good catholic, right?

UPDATE: my SIL made a fantastic point, but i accidently deleted the comment. fyi, Lady is our dog, not some random lady putting her nose in Z's butt, or mine for that matter!

mutant super powers ?

so after all the x-men & fantastic 4 watching we had a discussion:

what mutant super powers do you have?

i immediately named off B's supreme-all-fricken-day-after-day-ability-to-play-WOW & Z's aptitude for non-stop-talking-&-noise-making-until-any-nearby-brains-have-melted-&-oozed-out-of-everyone's-head-&-they-are-begging,-pleading-&-will-do-anything-for-a-moment-of-silence.

then i had to think about myself.

pondering.

i'm good at holding down the sofa, but that's not really a super-power.
oh, i can read vampire books really fast - how about that?
i read the twilight series (all 4.3 books in 2 weeks).
not really huh?

then B says - i'm sarcastic like no one else.
that is MY super-power.
i'm good with that.

can i get a job with that?
where's that in the classified ads?
yeah, i have a BS in business admin, but a PhD in sarcasm...self taught at that, impressive, no?

then the boys argued over who was gassier & who should have that as their super-power.

moment of truth

last week Z read "green eggs & ham" to me. he was a bit hesitant because some of the pages had a lot of words on them, but he did it! i'm not sure which of us was prouder of his accomplishment.

that's a lie.
i was.
all he cared about was if he got a treat for reading the book.

today he starts testing, the testing that 2nd trimester grades are based on. those grades will determine if we have him tested for individualized instruction. something i know the school will fight us on, but i don't want him to have to repeat 1st grade. if we do request testing i have a feeling they will drag it out & nothing will be done before the school year is over.

i believe he's on par with his peers; in jan they started spelling tests & he's scored 90s & above. last week he fell apart in class when he couldn't spell 'found, eight & February' - plenty of adults can't spell those words correctly.

when i spoke with his teacher she thinks her previous reservations about him not being ready for 2nd grade may have been wrong, but it all comes down to the testing he's doing over the next couple of days.

i hope he's a better test taker than i am.

x-men vs cops

when B watches tv, we watch cops (& i die a slow & painful death every single time).

yesterday he turned on the fantastic 4 movie while we had lunch. i've watched it probably 6 times (wow, i probably shouldn't admit to that, oh well). anyways, however many times i may have watched, i still managed to miss a few scenes...in the first 1/2 hour that i watched.

then later in the afternoon, after i had Z read a few little books, we found some cartoons to watch -> x-men with wolverwine. as in hugh jackman...ahem. Z lost interest after a few episodes, but i didn't.

so what does that tell you?

2 things - 1) WAY too much testosterone in this house, 2) i'm ok with it if i have somthing nice to look at.

why can't people follow SOPs?

a work post, it's been awhile has it not?

headache today. idiot person at work decides he's above the rest of the peons & he doesn't have to follow the rules.

so what does that mean?

it means doing his work takes 5x longer than it should.
that he has to stand over my shoulder & watch me work.
& question every flipping thing i do.
tell me the order i should do it in.
(like he even knows what he's talking about!)
that we have to re-do his work 3x because he didn't just sit down & look at it himself before starting the process.

i know it's very common for standard operating procedures to dull & cumbersome, but if they work & save time, you're a dumbass when you circumvent the system.

what's worse than spongebob?

for the record i dislike spongebob, very much.

in itself, i don't find it entertaining at all. in addition, i constantly have to tell Z "that's not acceptable, that's not right, you shouldn't do that" to make sure he realizes he shouldn't repeat what he sees, that it's all make believe.

but i discovered there's is something worse than spongebob (damn him, i'm writing a fricken spongebob post!):

having a 6 year old tell you a synopsis about spongebob....only it takes longer than the original story. something about spongebob dumpster diving. i blocked out the rest...or slept possibly.

that weird kid

sometimes it's virtually impossible to get Z out of the house, he loves stay-home-jammie-cartoons-all-day-long-day (shit, did i just admit to letting him watch cartoons all day? oops! no, we read all day & do math homework, ok?). well, anyways, yes, lately we've had many a jammie-day.

as previously stated in not so many words, the crazy was coming on & i needed a change of environment, so out of town we went. i was surprised little one didn't start faking an illness as we drove out of BFE just so he could go back to the sofa & comfy superman jammies.

so in the middle of one of our stops Z asks "are we getting a hotel?"

first we can't get him out, then he doesn't want to go home.

games, games

beings we had the nice long weekend, on sun we went to town. hit all the fun places - target, trader joe's, thai for lunch, kohl's & costco. um, so it was a glorified grocery shopping trip...but we did buy a few games at target to entertain ourselves at home.

on sun evening Z & I played a round of blockus. beings i have no gaming experience what so ever, he & i are about even on the playing field. he's definitely got B's genes though, he went straight for the kill, but in the end my offensive tactics won.

the next morning the 3 of us played. Z was out early & of course B won. then Z cried. i understand his fustration all too well. it's hard to be so competitive & completely suck at the same time; at least he's young & plenty of time to learn with his peers. Z told me "Poppa plays to rough" - haha, he thinks i'm taking it easy on him, little does he know how remedial my game playing skills are.

in the afternoon we played bakugan cards (i wish i was joking, but it's true). Z didn't understand the winner got the least points...so yeah, he lost that one too. however, it was f-ing excellent when i forced B's hand & made him get a point - HAHAHAHA!

i never said i wasn't competitive, i said i sucked...then i cry when i lose just like Z.

later the boys played a round of dominos, but i was done.
seriously, i've had my monthly quota of gaming.

what a valentine's gift!

sat was a quiet day, i was tired. we took Z to the park in the afternoon.
then B tells me that my hair is getting longer.

can you guess how he noticed?

he told me he woke up in the middle of the night & because my hair is dark & i must have had my chin up so my hair looked even longer, he didn't recognize me.

HAHAHA!

he startled himself because he didn't know who was in bed with him!

not only that, he did it twice!

i told him it was my valentine's gift to him!

thumbsucker

today Z doesn't have school & last night B wasn't feeling well, so they're sleeping in while i'm up early for work. before i head out i go say my goodbyes & kiss Z on the cheek.

i see his little left hand curled up in a fist near his face & notice he's sucking his thumb. i know at 6, it's no longer endearing, he doesn't do it when he's awake anymore, but once in a while i'll find him like this in his sleep & boy, does it remind me of the little baby that once was.

the other day at the grocery store he got the shopping cart for me & wheeled it inside the store; already he's taking care of me & helping out the best he can.

he's such a great kid!

the ferris (not wheel)

last night was left over night, but nothing sounded good so i decided to make some eggs. beings the boys had already eaten i wasn't worried about their opinions. i sauteed some mushrooms, wilted some fresh spinach & then Z walked in.

he saw the slices of cream cheese on the cutting board. he was supposed to be getting ready for bed, but when he saw me prepping a new option he said "good, i'm still hungry".

i asked him if that was because he saw the cream cheese or the spinach - both. he's the craziest kid, i can't believe how much he likes vegetables. i thought i would throw him off & remind him he wasn't included in this effort in the beginning & mushrooms were included, but he didn't care.

so i finish making what was supposed to be my dinner a bowl with now 2 spoons. he loved the spinach...& decided even the mushrooms were good. i told him "you know, most kids don't like spinach" he said he did & he stretched his hands out about a foot wide.

then i asked him how much he liked corn (i thought it was his favorite because he used to do a corn-on-the-cob-march to celebrate whenever we had corn) but that only got a wide arm stretch.

next i asked about artichoke & he said from those mountains over there to those ones over there. wow, more than i thought.

finally i asked about ferris (asparagus, come on couldn't you guess that?) & his response was a mere few inch gap. see momma messed that one up; it used to be his favorite, but one dreadful day out of desperation i served him canned asparagus. they say hell hath no fury like that of a scorned woman, well, steer clear of the child fed canned asparagus too, he's just as angry & unforgiving. that incident was well over a year ago & he hasn't forgotten about it.

8th anniversary

i can't believe it's been 8 YEARS since we eloped. i'm not one for tradition (hence the elopment) but i just looked up traditional anniversary gifts, for year 8 it's linen or lace, no big deal. next year is leather though...something to consider...

i got up in the morning & stumbled down the hallway to the kitchen to start the coffeemaker. (yes, it has an auto-start feature but i figure this little walk is a good wake up call, so i don't fall over in the shower & break the glass doors.)
on the counter B had left purple tulips & a beautiful card for me. (that was kind of difficult to read with my eyes still closed)

at work i anxiously waited for 8, when B would arrive at work & find the flowers & balloons i had plopped on his desk the night before. he was being a butt & didn't call me until after 9, by then i figured he probably had an offsite meeting & i was pissy about the effort i had expended to get the flowers into his office.

we went out for lunch & i told him about delivering his flowers...& explained why i hadn't set everything up better the way i had planned. we didn't go out for dinner, my cold is still keeping me down. hopefully it will be gone this weekend & we can get out of town for some fun.

what $60 worth of flowers, balloons & a smile will get you

into places your really not allowed, that's what.

tomorrow is our 8th wedding anniversary.
at lunch i picked up flowers & balloons, the easy part.
i didn't think delivery would be that difficult though.
wrong.

B's office requires access...that i don't have.
i thought it would be rather easy, i emailed a couple of people that work with him just after lunch.
& waited.

& waited.

nada.

at 4:30 i was getting nervous. i hadn't heard anything from anyone.
should i wait for morning?
i didn't want to. i wanted to get it over there & tie the balloons to his cubicle so they could be seen all over the office...you know maximize the embarrassment, right?

at 4:45 i tried calling someone else to no avail.
so i grabbed my bundle, headed out in the cold & walked across the street, unsure of the outcome but determined.

the first door, no problem.
now to get through the 2nd one.
i looked at the phone, called a few more people, no answer.
then 2 people came to the door, they weren't sure about letting me in, but i guess because of the flowers, they didn't say anything to me as i passed through the doors.

i didn't realize the 3RD SET of doors were also going to be a problem.

crap....

so i knocked on the glass, several times.

no answer.

i hear people speaking in a side office, but i knock some more hoping someone inside will hear me.

nope.

so i go over to the side office & ask if they can let me in.
at first he sad no, then i explained i just wanted to leave some flowers on my husband's desk. he tells me to use the phone & i tell him i've tried calling everyone i know but no one is answering.

he decides to go in to look around for someone who can vouch that i'm not going to blow up the building & really do just want to put the flowers on B's desk.
no dice. hence why no one answered the phone calls or emails.

he decided to let me in & walk me to B's desk, which was really nice only i didn't get to set the balloons up the way i wanted. i just shoved the flowers on his desk & made no attempts whatsoever to make it presentable. good thing i didn't have confetti hearts this time.

you talk to much

the other night when i put Z to bed i asked him what was the best part of this day?

Z - being with you (the standard, which i know it's not true, but i'll take it for as long as he's willing to dish it out)
me - i'm sure there was something at school or your after-school place that was better than spending your time with me.
Z - no, the kids were bugging me (said in a whiny, sad voice like he's about to start crying)
me - well what happened? were they being mean or teasing you?
Z - no they were talking

i pause waiting for the rest of the sentence....expecting some detail, an adjective please....but nothing.

me - so that was it? they were talking? they weren't saying mean things or anything like that?
Z - no just talking & i wanted it to be quiet, so they were bugging me.

i burst out in laughter (i just spelled that 'lafter' - wth?).
nana's dna is SOME strong i tell you.

happy about UN-happy x 2

yup, i'm actually happy about Z getting 2 UN-happy faces this week. the past few weeks he's been getting by with one a week, oh there was ONE week where he got happy faces ALL week - it was glor-i-us.

but not this week.
wednesday he brought home the 2nd unhappy face of the week.

darn it.

this morning B went in & spoke with teach & surprise - she said Z has been behaving SO well, that now, she's giving him unhappy for mere minor infractions, no punching or pencil poking!

can you believe that?
YEAH!

2001 - the year all hell broke loose

B returned from Japan sometime in December (2000), before Christmas is all i can remember.
[history on that - by the time B entered my life, i had given up on boys. i figured out i was going to be a spinster. things never seemed to go right in that arena for me. when we met, first date, first kiss i made a point of not making a mental note of it. i didn't want to remember it to only be painfully haunted by it in the future. i was tired of celebrating anniversaries that never happened. talk about damaged goods....onward, please.]

shortly after B returned he proposed & we were engaged. he had waited to see how we weathered the deployment, evidently quite a feat to have survived it.

while he was in Japan i moved back to my mom's condo. i helped her with the mortgage & she helped me keep my sanity between working full-time during the day & schooling part-time at night. [it was a fair-trade, maintaining my sanity takes a lot of effort.] so our immediate task was to find a new apt; however the rates had gone up dramatically in the interim & we started looking at buying a house together.

yeah, funny how we were all about taking the relationship steps slow & once we were engaged we moved at lightening speed, huh? just you wait, we're barely in january people. on superbowl sunday we found the house & put a bid in on it. i remember looking at it, thinking it was more than a girl from a trailer park could ever dream of. to this day B jokes about how the 95lb girl dragged the 200lb marine around the house to show him every room.

in february we eloped. we had the full intention of not telling anyone other than my mother until we were financially stable enough to have a real wedding. (did you notice the use of had?) it was a rainy day & we decided to get the formality over before signing paperwork on the house.

over the course of the next few months we moved into the house & i focused on finishing my final semester of college (it was a bitch). graduating in may was such a relief; B was so proud of me it made me cry. our original plan was once i finished college we would have the real wedding & start our family. so once my head wasn't swirling from business classes & presentation crap we were out looking at venues & i was trying on wedding gowns.

then 9/11 happened & 3 short weeks later i found out i was pregnant.
the pregnancy story gets it's own post at later point in time. i can't get into it now. i wish i had a blog back then.

we visited B's family for thanksgiving that year & sprung the surprise on them. although they loved the idea, i know it was a tough pill to swallow - eloped & pregnant. i'm sure his family wasn't too impressed with the mexican girl from the trailer park at that point in time.

Japan, finally together

i was sidetracked at work today, i had a little work to do & in between that i was reading book 2 of twilight (which isn't as good as book 1, because Edward so far only has a very minor role).

anyways, so yes, finally after this drama & that drama, i was in B's room...alone. i don't know how long it was before he finally showed up. when he did i was worried that i may have gotten him in trouble beings base was on lockdown & he wasn't supposed leave; he wasn't or if denied it if he was, then he explained how we crossed paths.

he managed to get off base & go to the teeny airport. thankfully it was that small because when he couldn't find me he asked the people there if they had seen me & they told him i had taken the bus with a group to base. when he tried to return the beater car was having electrical problems from the heavy moisture in the air, delaying our reunion even further.

finally we made it, we were together again, on the same island & in the same room. for a few days at least.

okinawa is very small island, we had a fun time exploring it. we went to the downtown shopping district (B said the women really looked at me, like not only was i american, but i wasn't military, a rarity indeed), visited remains of castles & military standoff points from the war.

we spent most of our time swimming though. in the ocean. yeah, me, in the ocean. the water was warm, like mexico, but clear, not like mexico. i snorkeled for the first time. it was VERY strange. the worst part, which i still remember vividly was listening to my heartbeat. it was so loud, eerily loud, like i was in a hospital unconscious & a machine was echoing it out for the entire floor room to hear.

a little tip for those of you who haven't gone snorkeling before - it's not a good idea to scream underwater. it doesn't work very well. the screams kinda get muffled by all the water entering your mouth. it took me a couple of times to get that one right. i would get so excited at all the sea life i couldn't control myself & i would scream out. i'm pretty sure i killed a lobster, poor little guy never heard such a thing before.

the best part of okinawa is that it made me think that it was probably what hawaii used to be like long before it became commerical. the ocean was so beautiful & you could pull off the road anywhere & hop in. you could have your own private beach access point.

before we knew it, it was time for me to head back home. the return trip was uneventful.

family history

i talk with my mom every sunday to catch up on the week & chit chat about family. i've learned to never ask my mom about history, there have been times in the past when my timing was off & the tongue lashing i received has severe. mind you there's no knowing when timing is good or bad, so i've just gone with don't ask...EVER.

today when we talked for some reason she went back & told me stories i've never heard about my family. i knew my nana was born in abq, texas 1920, we'll never know what brought her to california though. i now know nana's mom (nena) died at the age of 52 due to pancreatic cancer.

nena had a small house in imperial. when she died my grandfather only let nana take a few momentos from her mother's house. my grandfather ended up having to pay nena's burial expenses, this caused many future arguments between them.

my grandfather had stunning blue eyes & light hair, although he was of hispanic heritage. it's rumored he had another family in mexico, but we will never know the truth. nana's take on it - if he had another family, it wasn't going to change the way things were, he would never divorce her.

nena had come to california with her 2 daughters, nana & aunt jane. it's not known how she made money to pay for things, but she often translated & wrote letters for others. she was fluent in english & spanish, written & spoken.

nena's husband had worked for the railroads back in new mexico. they moved to follow his work. at some point she discovered he had another family at the other end of the railroad; she told him to leave & never return. we don't know why or whom she came out to ca with, only that it is said they were working in the arizona fields when haley's comet passed (1910).

nena was a good cook, she had learned things from the kitchen help in her mother's inn in san fran. nena's mom was from mexico, she met a red haired irish man who was in the merchant marines. he brought her up to san fran & married her. he set her up in a little place where she could rent rooms out for an income to live off of while he was away.

nena's mom left san fran after the earthquake hit in 1906. she said the city was on fire & i guess she thought it would burn to the ground, so she returned to mexico. somewhere along the way in new mexico nena decided she would stay. nena's mother's story is unknown beyond this point. it is assumed the red haired irish man returned to san fran at some point & was unable to relocate his family again.