Holy lost turtle!
Over three years ago my brother-in-law gifted my son with a baby turtle that he had found on a job site where they were getting ready to pour concrete. Not wanting it to get hurt, he handed it off to us and she has been a part of the family ever since. Although, she has to be cleaned ALL the time and I have tried to kindly give it away (no takers yet) and even though I cannot stand to have it in the house I will admit that I have become very fond of this little turtle. Or not so little turtle anymore!
One morning while Chase was off at school I decided that it was time to clean Miss turtle and since it was such a nice day out I thought how nice it would be for her to get some fresh and air and some good sun! So I got a rubbermaid container and set her in it out on the deck and felt pretty proud of myself for taking such good care of her since I have no idea how she survived this long since we had no clue how to take care of her!
I went out and began to mow the lawn when I realized that it had gotten awfully windy and that I had better get the turtle back inside in case the container blows over. I was too late~
I rounded into the backyard and that container was on its side and there was no turtle!!!! I thought certainly she didn't make it far! She's a turtle for goodness sake. I scoured the grass, on hands and knees amongst the dog poop mind you, and could not find her! Throughout the day I went out there thinking that I just missed her. But could not find her.
Chase came home and I broke the news to him and I thought that he would be ok with it but of course he was upset. Why wouldn't he be, his mother lost his turtle! The turtle!!! So I was upset because he was and even though I knew in my heart that she was gone I took Chase back to the pond to look for her. If nothing but to make him feel better. Of course, no turtle.
Then as we were coming through the yards to go back home my neighbor stopped me to chat. Then all of a sudden I hear Chase yell...."there she is!!" I thought no way! But I turned to follow Chase who was running into the street and watched him pick up a turtle! No way this was our turtle, we have ponds and creeks all around us, but our turtle has a part of her shell that sticks out farther than the rest and this turtle had it just the same!
So after 7 hours and lots of yard, the turtle made its way out and when she was crossing the road towards the creek and heard Chase yell the only thing I could think that was going through her mind was "damn I was so close!"
Needless to say.....she's here to stay!
Mom, Momma, Mommy (mother of 3, including 3 with 4 legs and fur, and one....turtle!)
Monday, June 11, 2012
A Little Recap
Well due to lots of goings on I haven't written in a few months so I think I'll just give a quick recap of the past couple of months.
Chase: Turned 10! WOW! Time certainly flies~ He's of course crazy busy with sports and such, mostly with driving his sisters nuts because its summer and that is how he entertains his boredom!
He has a "girlfriend", why I have no idea as I tried to explain to him that he really doesn't want all of that drama until he can actually go on a date! But what do I know! She'll forget she's his girlfriend by the end of summer anyway since they probably won't see each other again until school starts!
Liv: Liv had her first dance recital and with amazement, it went very well! No tears, a little pushing and shoving with the mean little girl next to her but hey~ We were still proud!
She is playing teeball. She doesn't want to but hey, I didn't necesa
rrily want to coach it but I am so we deal right! Anywho~ the poor girl can't keep hold of the bat to save her life and fligs it out in to the field everytime she bats which causes me to cringe as I wait for the day that it pops the poor kid who comes running for a ball that he/she only thinks has been hit only to end up with stitches! Maybe we'll try basketball or something else that doesn't require her to have a hard metal object! LOL!!
She also like to go to the "concussion" stand at every game and get a bucket of gum and today she told me that she could see Sidneys "butt crap". Took me a little while to realize she meant butt crack!
Sidney, AKA Sid Vicious: The one who will give me every grey hair I ever get! Fearless and sassy! She climbed the outside of our banister all the way to the top of the stairs! Ran and flung herself into a pool with no floaty while yelling "catch me!" By the way I was no where near her! She told Chases friend she was going to "kick his ass!" and has started to just put herself in timeout after completing a disastrous task that she KNOWS she will get in trouble for!
I tell ya, they are wild! Entertaining! Tiring! Loving! Exasperating! Mine!
Summer Break is here so stay tuned for what is sure to be entertaining!
Mom, Momma, Mommy
Chase: Turned 10! WOW! Time certainly flies~ He's of course crazy busy with sports and such, mostly with driving his sisters nuts because its summer and that is how he entertains his boredom!
He has a "girlfriend", why I have no idea as I tried to explain to him that he really doesn't want all of that drama until he can actually go on a date! But what do I know! She'll forget she's his girlfriend by the end of summer anyway since they probably won't see each other again until school starts!
Liv: Liv had her first dance recital and with amazement, it went very well! No tears, a little pushing and shoving with the mean little girl next to her but hey~ We were still proud!
She is playing teeball. She doesn't want to but hey, I didn't necesa
rrily want to coach it but I am so we deal right! Anywho~ the poor girl can't keep hold of the bat to save her life and fligs it out in to the field everytime she bats which causes me to cringe as I wait for the day that it pops the poor kid who comes running for a ball that he/she only thinks has been hit only to end up with stitches! Maybe we'll try basketball or something else that doesn't require her to have a hard metal object! LOL!!
She also like to go to the "concussion" stand at every game and get a bucket of gum and today she told me that she could see Sidneys "butt crap". Took me a little while to realize she meant butt crack!
Sidney, AKA Sid Vicious: The one who will give me every grey hair I ever get! Fearless and sassy! She climbed the outside of our banister all the way to the top of the stairs! Ran and flung herself into a pool with no floaty while yelling "catch me!" By the way I was no where near her! She told Chases friend she was going to "kick his ass!" and has started to just put herself in timeout after completing a disastrous task that she KNOWS she will get in trouble for!
I tell ya, they are wild! Entertaining! Tiring! Loving! Exasperating! Mine!
Summer Break is here so stay tuned for what is sure to be entertaining!
Mom, Momma, Mommy
Friday, February 3, 2012
The Truth
When I 1st began this blog I wanted to "let off some steam" so to speak. I wanted to be able to share this with my kids as they got older as a way to sort of chronicle their lives, but not necessarily the serious parts but the parts that would make them laugh, the parts that they themselves would remember. The humorous stories, the things that drove me crazy....the things that make them....them.
But tonight...I watched a movie called "I Don't Know How She Does It." If you haven't seen it I suggest you watch it. Because whether you stay at home, work full time, or even do a little of both you will find in that movie something that relates to yourself. That something being what every mother feels at some point or another. So...tonight I am going to share with you how that movie made me feel. Even though I didn't need the movie to tell me. So...for those of you who barely know me and even those of you who know me well. This is my FULL story. This is why I am where I am today. And if you find anything in it I hope you find "The Truth" and I hope that it relates to you in some way. So here it is.
After Scott and I were engaged (it was a long engagment) I was not finished with school yet and wanted to be. But the day...and yes I do mean the day I drove to Peoria to have my first formal fitting of my wedding dress was also the day that I came home and took 3...yes 3... pregancy tests. Well for those of you who do know me you will know that our son just turned 10 and we will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary this June! I was excited, scared, and unmarried, yet engaged to a man that I had dated since 15! Not as bad as it sounds I know. But my biggest fear was that everyone and I do mean everyone would be disappointed in me. For being "irresponsible." I was unmarried, I was not finished with school, and I was living with and off of my soon to be husband and father of my child. I worked, went to school but had I really made anything of myself yet on my own. The only answer I could come up with was NO. So shit. Knowing me.....I have never been the type to lay down and take what is handed to me so I gave my now husband an out just in case he wasn't on board and yet he was. By me the entire time! We had a baby, you know him as Chase and we married. Chase ended up being our 4 mo. old Best Man! But I wasn't satisfied. I was raised to believe that going to college and finishing was NOT an option. It was expected of me. So...with some help from my parents I finished up at Heartland with an Assoc. in Science and with the even greater support of my husband and then 2 yr. old son I graduated without ANY debt from the Health Information Management Program at Illinois State University. Both of them along with all of my much loved family watched as I walked across that stage and took my diploma. I was proud of it. I worked hard for it. I spent countless nights putting a toddler to bed reading anatomy books and medical records and the law as bedtime stories. I swear he'll be a doctor some day because of that! One can wish can't she! And just so you know... contrary to my belief no one was disappointed in me! Chase was the 1st male baby to born into my mothers side of the family in 51 years and he was and still is adored (by no one more than me!) and I did it. I graduated, married and with a child and put in lots of hard work and late nights to do it! But I had amazing support!
My first job was offerred to me before I completed graduation. It was with Carle Cancer Center in Urbana and I spent 7 weeks as Data Manager which is a much needed position but defintely not one you want to stay in forever and then I was promoted to a research coordintor. Even though these were the people I was plucking information in for I really had no idea what the hell they really did until I was offered a desk, a disease site (metastatic breast and obgyn cancer) and was told to GO! Okay so what I was doing was recruiting patients who fit a certain profile for a particular new oncology drug, telling them it could possibly help them and then started them on treatment. Never had I felt so scared but at the same time so amazed at what I was doing! I was making a difference in the medical community and I loved it...even though more often than not I found that it brought me to tears and was causing me horrible stress. I mean what an amazing thing but what an awful gut wrenching feeling it was when it didn't work. So two years into the job I found out that I was going to have another baby. That baby didn't come. A year after that I found out I was going to possibly have another baby again. Again...that baby didn't come. So after lots of talk with my husband I quit. I stayed home for less than a year and took another job. This time at a pain center. I loved it. I loved them.
The position I took was coming in as a research coordinator and my job was to do what I was doing at the cancer center only I was doing it for pain patients. Let me clarify again in lemans terms what medical research is...or at least the research that I was doing. So when you see an ad for a new medication and it comes across the screen with a list of possible side effects.....you know, dizziness, hypertention, diarrhea, vomitting etc. I was the person who reported this stuff to the FDA. My results helped get it passed or not to market. So anyway. I was brought in to help "build" the department. And I did. I did it and to my own acknowledgement I did it well. But in the meantime. I lost another baby and then had 2 healthy bouncing ones. But I was torn. Just like all women are. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you have worked and then stayed home, always stayed home or work full/part time now. You will all relate.
I was moving up. I was bringing in patients and not only that, I was bringing in money. I had an excellent Director, excellent physicians and an excellent staff. I would be wrong to say I did it alone. No one can do much alone. Yes it had its moments and the faster and farther along it got the more moments seemed to creep up. But....I was moving. I became the woman who I always thought that I would be. I carried a phone that I could be reached on 24 hours a day. I sat in an office and texted my boss and my docs when they were in the same building. I was going to dinner meetings and mingling and meeting amazingly smart people. I was traveling. I felt that I had to prove myself day in and day out to the people that signed my paycheck. And I felt that I had to do the same at home. I was exhausted. I started bringing work home and I would put my kids down for bed, kiss my husband goodnight and then I would grab my laptop and start working. Going over data and emailing physicians until late at night. I was utilizing every resource that I had being my mother, mother-in-law,baby sitters, husband etc. to cover for me when I had to stay late to meet with a patient or go to meeting. I felt crazed,alone, out numbered...but I also felt excited. Like I was beginning to live up to everything that i had ever dreamed and worked so hard for. I was making a name not only for myself but for those I worked for. It was a terrible and yet yummy feeling! I felt that I was doing it! I was making it happen! Until....my son had his 1st Thanksgiving feast in kindergarten. We had to send the grandparents. Neither of us could schedule around it. I thought to myself, "this is silly, there are lots of kids whose parents won't be there because they can't!" And I was right. I'm just happy that I had mine and my husbands parent's to go and be there. So I sloughed it off. No big deal! I can manage this, I am woman hear me roar! Then came sick days. My son or my 2nd child would be sick,I would work from home but it was a hassle. For work that is and for me, afterall I was making my way. So then it came to my kid having a fever or a sore throat and I suddenly found myself blaming them. "You'll be fine, here take some tylenol and get moving. You'll feel better once you're up and moving. All the while hoping that the tylenol would outlast the fever so that I could get through my work day and my patients without any nagging calls from school or from the sitter. Then came the day that the tylenol wore off, I got the call (it was a rotten day to start with at work) and I had to go get my kid. I told my boss, who was less than pleased no matter how hard he tried to hide it, I jumped in the car and half way to school I was frantically calling my mother to see if there was any way she could meet me at home to watch him so that I could go back. She could and she did. I went back. I was welcomed back with this...."I was really surprised to see you come back! That really shows me your dedication to this position and speaks volumes about your committment." I don't know that I have ever been so disgusted. And not with my boss but with myself!
I was killing myself. I was so caught up in what I thought that I should be and what I thought everyone else wanted from me that I had no idea that I was destroying my spirit and not just mine but my familys. But this still didn't get me down or stop me. I kept going! Sure that I was doing what every other mother out there was doing and IS doing still today. Making her mark! Isn't that right!?! Be strong, set your path, be a warrior! Everyone will be better for it in the long run. Right?!?!
Well I became pregnant with my 3rd child and I was more than irritated when people would ask me if I was going to stay home now... blah blah blah.. I really had no intention of doing so. But things began to get tense at work, people weren't getting along, things were crazy and I was caught in it. I still had no intentions of leaving. I was doing a good job, I was making things happen and even though I wanted to leave at times (what employee doesn't think that from time to time) I liked what "I" was doing. Then came the night that I sat down to dinner with my family and my son mentioned a function at school he was having in a few weeks and my husband and I started going through our mental calendars only to come to the conculsion that neither of us would be there. My son, 7 at the time, scooped up his spaghetti and said, "you guys never come to anything anymore." I sat there....and sat there...then as I was loading the dishwasher, while holding my 2nd baby I burst into tears. It wasn't right...not that people don't have to work or want to work or don't have the right to work or do whatever it is they need to do to support themselves or their families, what I had been doing wasn't right. Not for me....not for my family. I had become the mother that I didn't want to be! I knew that I never wanted to be dependent on anyone, I knew that I wanted my kids to look up to me and respect me for being successful. But that came with literally singing into the phone and saying goodnight from hotel rooms, to hurrying to get them to bed so that I could go right back to work after they had been in daycare since 6:30 in the morning and I had had only 1-2 hours with them and it was in a rush and not quality time at all, it came with sending them out of the house sick, etc etc and the list goes on. This is not the mother I wanted to be. So after a long discussion I put in my notice and have been home for almost 3 years. Now let me tell you.......there are days when I know that it was easier to head off to the office than it is to take on these 3 monsters. But I'm here! I also want to point out that I know that not everyone has the means or even wants to stay at home. Its a blessing and a curse truly, they both are. Women are amazing creatures, we truly do create and dominate whatever position we take on whether we want to or not. What I'm saying is that...working mother, stay at home mother, or any mother in between. We are not truly successful unless we are successful in the eyes of our kids. No matter how you take it on. God Speed! And no matter how you approach it, may you love every minute of it! Even the lipstick, nailpolish covered, dirty diaper, puke soaked, pull your hair out moments! Yeah it may take a village but to one child it only takes one special mother.
By the way, yes, I will go back someday, yes I do miss it, but when my kids are grown up I know I would have missed them more.
So there it is and now you know it....
Mom, Momma, Mommy (or....#1, #2, and #3 of the new grey hairs!)
But tonight...I watched a movie called "I Don't Know How She Does It." If you haven't seen it I suggest you watch it. Because whether you stay at home, work full time, or even do a little of both you will find in that movie something that relates to yourself. That something being what every mother feels at some point or another. So...tonight I am going to share with you how that movie made me feel. Even though I didn't need the movie to tell me. So...for those of you who barely know me and even those of you who know me well. This is my FULL story. This is why I am where I am today. And if you find anything in it I hope you find "The Truth" and I hope that it relates to you in some way. So here it is.
After Scott and I were engaged (it was a long engagment) I was not finished with school yet and wanted to be. But the day...and yes I do mean the day I drove to Peoria to have my first formal fitting of my wedding dress was also the day that I came home and took 3...yes 3... pregancy tests. Well for those of you who do know me you will know that our son just turned 10 and we will be celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary this June! I was excited, scared, and unmarried, yet engaged to a man that I had dated since 15! Not as bad as it sounds I know. But my biggest fear was that everyone and I do mean everyone would be disappointed in me. For being "irresponsible." I was unmarried, I was not finished with school, and I was living with and off of my soon to be husband and father of my child. I worked, went to school but had I really made anything of myself yet on my own. The only answer I could come up with was NO. So shit. Knowing me.....I have never been the type to lay down and take what is handed to me so I gave my now husband an out just in case he wasn't on board and yet he was. By me the entire time! We had a baby, you know him as Chase and we married. Chase ended up being our 4 mo. old Best Man! But I wasn't satisfied. I was raised to believe that going to college and finishing was NOT an option. It was expected of me. So...with some help from my parents I finished up at Heartland with an Assoc. in Science and with the even greater support of my husband and then 2 yr. old son I graduated without ANY debt from the Health Information Management Program at Illinois State University. Both of them along with all of my much loved family watched as I walked across that stage and took my diploma. I was proud of it. I worked hard for it. I spent countless nights putting a toddler to bed reading anatomy books and medical records and the law as bedtime stories. I swear he'll be a doctor some day because of that! One can wish can't she! And just so you know... contrary to my belief no one was disappointed in me! Chase was the 1st male baby to born into my mothers side of the family in 51 years and he was and still is adored (by no one more than me!) and I did it. I graduated, married and with a child and put in lots of hard work and late nights to do it! But I had amazing support!
My first job was offerred to me before I completed graduation. It was with Carle Cancer Center in Urbana and I spent 7 weeks as Data Manager which is a much needed position but defintely not one you want to stay in forever and then I was promoted to a research coordintor. Even though these were the people I was plucking information in for I really had no idea what the hell they really did until I was offered a desk, a disease site (metastatic breast and obgyn cancer) and was told to GO! Okay so what I was doing was recruiting patients who fit a certain profile for a particular new oncology drug, telling them it could possibly help them and then started them on treatment. Never had I felt so scared but at the same time so amazed at what I was doing! I was making a difference in the medical community and I loved it...even though more often than not I found that it brought me to tears and was causing me horrible stress. I mean what an amazing thing but what an awful gut wrenching feeling it was when it didn't work. So two years into the job I found out that I was going to have another baby. That baby didn't come. A year after that I found out I was going to possibly have another baby again. Again...that baby didn't come. So after lots of talk with my husband I quit. I stayed home for less than a year and took another job. This time at a pain center. I loved it. I loved them.
The position I took was coming in as a research coordinator and my job was to do what I was doing at the cancer center only I was doing it for pain patients. Let me clarify again in lemans terms what medical research is...or at least the research that I was doing. So when you see an ad for a new medication and it comes across the screen with a list of possible side effects.....you know, dizziness, hypertention, diarrhea, vomitting etc. I was the person who reported this stuff to the FDA. My results helped get it passed or not to market. So anyway. I was brought in to help "build" the department. And I did. I did it and to my own acknowledgement I did it well. But in the meantime. I lost another baby and then had 2 healthy bouncing ones. But I was torn. Just like all women are. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you have worked and then stayed home, always stayed home or work full/part time now. You will all relate.
I was moving up. I was bringing in patients and not only that, I was bringing in money. I had an excellent Director, excellent physicians and an excellent staff. I would be wrong to say I did it alone. No one can do much alone. Yes it had its moments and the faster and farther along it got the more moments seemed to creep up. But....I was moving. I became the woman who I always thought that I would be. I carried a phone that I could be reached on 24 hours a day. I sat in an office and texted my boss and my docs when they were in the same building. I was going to dinner meetings and mingling and meeting amazingly smart people. I was traveling. I felt that I had to prove myself day in and day out to the people that signed my paycheck. And I felt that I had to do the same at home. I was exhausted. I started bringing work home and I would put my kids down for bed, kiss my husband goodnight and then I would grab my laptop and start working. Going over data and emailing physicians until late at night. I was utilizing every resource that I had being my mother, mother-in-law,baby sitters, husband etc. to cover for me when I had to stay late to meet with a patient or go to meeting. I felt crazed,alone, out numbered...but I also felt excited. Like I was beginning to live up to everything that i had ever dreamed and worked so hard for. I was making a name not only for myself but for those I worked for. It was a terrible and yet yummy feeling! I felt that I was doing it! I was making it happen! Until....my son had his 1st Thanksgiving feast in kindergarten. We had to send the grandparents. Neither of us could schedule around it. I thought to myself, "this is silly, there are lots of kids whose parents won't be there because they can't!" And I was right. I'm just happy that I had mine and my husbands parent's to go and be there. So I sloughed it off. No big deal! I can manage this, I am woman hear me roar! Then came sick days. My son or my 2nd child would be sick,I would work from home but it was a hassle. For work that is and for me, afterall I was making my way. So then it came to my kid having a fever or a sore throat and I suddenly found myself blaming them. "You'll be fine, here take some tylenol and get moving. You'll feel better once you're up and moving. All the while hoping that the tylenol would outlast the fever so that I could get through my work day and my patients without any nagging calls from school or from the sitter. Then came the day that the tylenol wore off, I got the call (it was a rotten day to start with at work) and I had to go get my kid. I told my boss, who was less than pleased no matter how hard he tried to hide it, I jumped in the car and half way to school I was frantically calling my mother to see if there was any way she could meet me at home to watch him so that I could go back. She could and she did. I went back. I was welcomed back with this...."I was really surprised to see you come back! That really shows me your dedication to this position and speaks volumes about your committment." I don't know that I have ever been so disgusted. And not with my boss but with myself!
I was killing myself. I was so caught up in what I thought that I should be and what I thought everyone else wanted from me that I had no idea that I was destroying my spirit and not just mine but my familys. But this still didn't get me down or stop me. I kept going! Sure that I was doing what every other mother out there was doing and IS doing still today. Making her mark! Isn't that right!?! Be strong, set your path, be a warrior! Everyone will be better for it in the long run. Right?!?!
Well I became pregnant with my 3rd child and I was more than irritated when people would ask me if I was going to stay home now... blah blah blah.. I really had no intention of doing so. But things began to get tense at work, people weren't getting along, things were crazy and I was caught in it. I still had no intentions of leaving. I was doing a good job, I was making things happen and even though I wanted to leave at times (what employee doesn't think that from time to time) I liked what "I" was doing. Then came the night that I sat down to dinner with my family and my son mentioned a function at school he was having in a few weeks and my husband and I started going through our mental calendars only to come to the conculsion that neither of us would be there. My son, 7 at the time, scooped up his spaghetti and said, "you guys never come to anything anymore." I sat there....and sat there...then as I was loading the dishwasher, while holding my 2nd baby I burst into tears. It wasn't right...not that people don't have to work or want to work or don't have the right to work or do whatever it is they need to do to support themselves or their families, what I had been doing wasn't right. Not for me....not for my family. I had become the mother that I didn't want to be! I knew that I never wanted to be dependent on anyone, I knew that I wanted my kids to look up to me and respect me for being successful. But that came with literally singing into the phone and saying goodnight from hotel rooms, to hurrying to get them to bed so that I could go right back to work after they had been in daycare since 6:30 in the morning and I had had only 1-2 hours with them and it was in a rush and not quality time at all, it came with sending them out of the house sick, etc etc and the list goes on. This is not the mother I wanted to be. So after a long discussion I put in my notice and have been home for almost 3 years. Now let me tell you.......there are days when I know that it was easier to head off to the office than it is to take on these 3 monsters. But I'm here! I also want to point out that I know that not everyone has the means or even wants to stay at home. Its a blessing and a curse truly, they both are. Women are amazing creatures, we truly do create and dominate whatever position we take on whether we want to or not. What I'm saying is that...working mother, stay at home mother, or any mother in between. We are not truly successful unless we are successful in the eyes of our kids. No matter how you take it on. God Speed! And no matter how you approach it, may you love every minute of it! Even the lipstick, nailpolish covered, dirty diaper, puke soaked, pull your hair out moments! Yeah it may take a village but to one child it only takes one special mother.
By the way, yes, I will go back someday, yes I do miss it, but when my kids are grown up I know I would have missed them more.
So there it is and now you know it....
Mom, Momma, Mommy (or....#1, #2, and #3 of the new grey hairs!)
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Teas the season to be jolly!
2011 has come & gone but it certainly didn't go out without a bang! As usual in our house things become crazy in an instant. It began with our beautiful x- mas tree being taken out not just once but twice before Christmas even came! Once was the dog scratching his butt in it and the next was Chase trying to "shoot" baskets over it! It also included the peeing baby doll Santa brought for our 2 year old that he was obviously unaware of this feature until that baby peed all over my new couch! It also included dogs running off with gifts , kids throwing down over who was going to open what whether it had there name on it or not! It also had the added humor or horror of my 4 year old asking my 2 year old in the most serious way " what the hell" did you get Sidney! Then rang itself in with my girls placing every pair of underwear I own around their necks and dancing around yelling " we're dancing princesses!". So come on 2012! Bring it!
Mom, Momma, Mommy
Mom, Momma, Mommy
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