Superpaige's Pad

The Trials of a Busy Mom

Category: whining and complaining (Page 8 of 12)

piano wars

February 26, 2009 / / 6 Comments

me: Get your piano books, it’s almost time to go to piano lessons.
her (laying on the floor): I’m not going to piano.
me: Yes, you are. Get your books, please.
her: Why do I have to go to piano? I already went this week! I’m not going!
me (trying to stay calm and not end up in a shouting match with her): You did Not go this week, you switched lessons with your brother. If you do not go and get your books and get ready, you will get to pay for your own lesson, and there will be no soccer tomorrow.
her (begrudgingly getting up off the floor): Why do I always have to go to piano? It’s not fair!
her (from the other room as she’s getting her books): Why don’t I ever get to skip piano! It’s not fair!
me: You skipped last week, remember?
her: I don’t like piano. It’s not fair that you make me take piano lessons (and on and on and on while she gets her shoes on).

In the car
her: Why do you make me take piano lessons? You must hate me. You Hate me! And I hate piano lessons and I hate you. I can’t wait until I’m 16 and then I’ll NEVER have to take piano lessons ever again.
me (turning up the radio) I am not listening to you.
her (louder): Because you Want to Make my Life Miserable. You Hate me and you want me to suffer. You want me to live a painful life.
me: Here I am putting up my soundproof invisible barrier so that I cannot here you. I’m singing along to the radio as loud as I want because now I’m the only person in the car and I can sing as loud as I want. La La LAAAAAAAA!
her (shouting): I CAN STILL HEAR YOU! YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY PERSON IN THE CAR! I’m not going in. I’m not getting out of the car. You can’t make me!

pulling up to piano lessons
me: I’m putting down my invisible sound proof shield, now. Here we are. Hop out.
her: I’m not going.
me: Yes, you are.
her (getting out of the car): I hate piano lessons and I hate you.
me (rolling down the window): You’d better apologize. You cannot speak to me that way young lady. Apologize or I’ll leave you here. You can live here and have piano lessons every day.
her (quietly): I’m sorry. But I still hate you.
me: Not going to fly. Apologize again right now or you’ll be staying here.
her: I’ll just run home.
me: Fine with me. See you later.
her: I’m sorry.
me (driving off): -sigh-

Does this sound familiar to you? This is really how our conversation went today. And I’m tired of it. I’m tired of the fighting and the whining and the complaining. It would be so much easier to give up and let her quit. But I will not. I will stick to my guns and persevere and she will take piano lessons for 3.3 more years, even if it kills me. And it might.

I wasn’t going to post this, but when I told a friend this story, she laughed and laughed and insisted it was SO FUNNY! And looking back (this happened a couple of weeks ago), I guess it was kind of funny, if you remove yourself from the situation. But sometimes it’s just not possible to remove myself far enough.

When I checked my email this morning, I got this message from my husband:

FYI.

“A certain child” (only he didn’t say that, he said her name) is not allowed to play Wii or XBox or play on your computer tomorrow.

If she is mean to her sisters, that expands to being TV as well, through
Saturday (which means no XBox during Jenna’s baptism party… — Mean
Dad!).

and this one:

Oh, I forgot. She’s also doing her sister’s jobs tomorrow. Trash and Hall
Bathroom.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

The morning breaks, the shadows flee

January 29, 2009 / / 1 Comment

Oh, it’s a rough morning here at the Erickson house.

Wednesday nights are rehearsal, which is great. But it’s exhausting, and I came home with an aching back, partly from ringing bells all night, and partly because I used 8 pound weights in my workout class on Tuesday instead of my normal 5 pounds weights. When I came in the house, I started the dishwasher, and then went to say hi to Ryan in his office. Only he wasn’t in his office. He was in bed.

Seems he’d had a violent reaction to something he ate for lunch at Apolo Burger (let’s hope it wasn’t peanut butter), and he’d been in and out of the bathroom all evening. Enough said? So, he was in bed not feeling happy. Well, I got ready for bed, too, and came to bed to try to sleep.

Here’s the thing. Ryan doesn’t usually go to bed at the same time as me. He is a night owl and I’m usually crashing into bed at the earliest possible moment. Seriously. If we don’t have anything going on that night, as soon as I get the kids in their pajamas, I get in my pajamas, too. Then once they are in bed, I’ll crawl in bed to read or watch tv and go to sleep. I’m not one of those people who say, “I get SO much done after the kids are in bed!”. Nope. After the kids go to bed, I breathe a sigh of relief and say I’m done for the day, and enjoy the quiet. But Ryan is one of those putterers, who works on projects at midnight or 1 am. I’ve tried to convince him that it’s not healthy to stay up so late, and he gives me the story that he’s not sleepy, and why go to bed when you’re not sleepy? Whatever.

At any rate, we’ve gotten into this routine that I usually go to sleep alone. In the quiet. With no one breathing or coughing or changing position to try to get comfortable. Get my drift? I like to sleep in the quiet. And when it’s not quiet, or someone happens to be there sleeping at the same time as me, I can’t go to sleep. I can try. I can pretend I’m asleep and hope that it happens. I can lie there thinking of all the things I need to change or work on in my life while silently hoping I’ll get so bored that I’ll eventually fall asleep. So, that’s what I did. For an hour or so. Until Ryan got up and visited the bathroom.

“Great!”, I thought, “now I’ll fall asleep while he’s in there, and then I’ll be asleep, hooray!” But, no. Sleep didn’t happen. I just lay there listening, wishing I knew where my earplugs were, and wondering how long he was going to be in there.

Eventually I gave up. I said goodbye, that I was going to sleep downstairs, but I would reheat my wheat bag so he could have warm toasty feet. Wasn’t that nice of me? I was sacrificing my own warm and toasty feet so he could have warm and toasty feet. Really, my feet were already warm, and he had cranked the heat up to -like-69, so it was plenty warm. I grabbed some blankets and went to go sleep on the couch. Nice plan that it was, I couldn’t really sleep on the couch, either. I must be getting old and stuffy because I want to sleep in my own bed. Sigh.

I did eventually sleep, but when one of the kids woke up to use the bathroom at 5:30, I decided I might as well haul myself back up to bed, so that when they all get up they won’t come and poke at me. I think I also must have turned my alarm off, so that it wouldn’t wake Ryan up when it went off. Oops.

I woke up at 7:26 with an “Oh, crap.” I hobbled down the stairs hoping that my kids had been responsible without me there telling them what to do. Sure enough, they were all gathered around the counter in various stages of getting ready for school. I told them I was so sorry I had slept in and wasn’t up helping this this morning. “That’s ok, Mom,” Megan said, “you were up late last night.” Wow. I had time to brush some girls’ hair, sign some homework, write a check for lunch money and have a prayer before the first group left for the bus at 7:30. I was impressed that they got up, got dressed and got breakfast without me. At least I think they got breakfast. I hope they got breakfast. The Jr High kids left a few minutes later and I breathed another sigh of relief. They did it without me.

That makes me wonder, what am I getting up for? They could just get ready and go to school on their own while I languish in my nice warm bed, right? Ha, ha, ha, ha! Things do not always go so smoothly.

But today I’m thankful that my kids can be responsible enough to get ready (at least today) without any prodding from mom. And I’m hoping that my sweet husband gets feeling better soon. So that I can sleep.

diet coke, please

January 16, 2009 / / 3 Comments

I’m a diet coke girl. Yes, I am. I am not exclusive in my choice of drink, though. I also enjoy a nice diet Dr. Pepper, or Fresca, Diet Root beer or even diet Shasta. If I’m at a restaurant and they say, “are pepsi products ok?” then I will of course say yes, and take a diet pepsi instead. But I would prefer diet coke.

That said, however, when there’s a screamin’ deal on Pepsi, I buy it. My husband likes the icky cherry flavored colas, and so if Pepsi is on sale, I’ll try to pick up some cherry pepsi for him. One thing Pepsi did have going for it was that they carried the vanilla diet whereas Coke no longer carries that flavor. I even talked to my sources at Coke (hi, Scotty!), and was told that they discontinued that flavor. Why? Why? Why would you discontinue the most luscious flavor? With no warning, I might add. I could have stocked up and had a nice cache of vanilla diet in my food storage.

Deep breath.
Moving on. Pepsi may or may not still carry vanilla diet. I haven’t seen it in a while, but I can still hope, right. *snif*

BUT– I was talking about the great deal on Pepsi, wasn’t I? This week if you buy five 12 packs of Pepsi at Walgreens, you get a $5 register reward, so it’s like paying $10 for your five 12 packs, which is a GOOD deal. Well, to make it an even SWEETER deal, you can buy a couple of frito lay products along with those Pepsi’s and then send in the old rebate form and get $15 in coupons back. (details here) So, it essentially makes those Pepsi’s free, right?

For free, I’ll drink diet pepsi instead of diet coke. Even though it doesn’t taste as good.

So, yesterday, I was purchasing said 12 packs of Pepsi at Walgreens, and on the way out to the car, one of the 12 packs slid off the bottom of the cart onto the ground. That’s a distance of –what would you say? — three, maybe four inches? Not enough to do any damage. So, I picked up the carton and put it inside my cart (lest it try to jump out again). When I got to my car, the carton was making a strange hissing sound and dripping. Dang! How does a fall of three inches cause a can to break? How? I pried open the carton and got out the damaged can and put it on the ground. I can’t have a dripping fizzing exploding can in my car. So, I loaded my purchases into the back of the car and got in. As I was pulling out, I thought I heard a hissing sound. (How I heard a hissing sound over the car sounds and the radio sounds, I’ll never know, but I guess I have extra special hearing powers or something.) I put in in park and got out and checked the back. Sure enough, hissing and dripping. I had to take EVERY. Single. Can. out of the carton to find not one, but two more cans that had sprung leaks!

What is up with the flimsy cans, Pepsi? This is NOT the first time I’ve had pepsi cans break or explode on me. Do they use thinner aluminum than their competitors? Is pepsi just more volatile than coke? What is up with that?

So, I ended up with a Nine pack instead of the standard twelve pack, and some pepsi drippings in the back of my vehicle. Thankfully it was diet.

And that’s why I chose Coke over Pepsi anyday.

Arizona’s lookin pretty good about now

January 6, 2009 / / 1 Comment

I don’t want to say outright that I hate the snow, because really I do like snow.
In the mountains. On the grass. At the ski resort.

But my driveway? Not so much. Three of us have been out there for the past hour or so and we haven’t quite cleared a path from the truck that is stuck in the driveway to the street. And it’s still snowing. That’s at least a foot of snow today.

Grrrrr. (insert various cuss words here)

I miss my four wheel drive.

Well, if I can’t get out of the driveway to take Megan to piano lessons in 1/2 an hour, I guess she’ll be happy about that.

Christmas Highlights

December 26, 2008 / / 4 Comments

Snow, snow, and more snow.

The snow has been lots of fun to play in, if you enjoy freezing your extremities off, that is. The problem, however, lies in the fact that it takes about an hour to find everyone’s snow stuff, see if it’s dry from the last time they went outside, and get them into it. We’ve had cousins staying with us, and at one point had 10 kids to outfit into snow gear. And once we get them all outside (and lock the door–no, not really), they are only out there about 20 minutes before they are inside complaining of how cold they are. Then they leave all those wet, snowy clothes all over the place to “dry” out, and they demand hot chocolate.

And I’d like it stop snowing sometime, so I can go out and find my after Christmas bargains, thank you very much.

The Neighborhood Party.
We have some neighbors who host a party every year. There’s tons of food, and you get to talk to your neighbors without any kids pestering you. I haven’t been able to go for the past couple of years, but Ryan will go to this one by himself. This year, however, they did it late enough that I could attend, and it was super fun. And even better than a party? Leaving my brother and sister-in-law in charge of the masses at home. They had 10 kids to send to bed, but hopefully it wasn’t too bad. They let them watch movies and play games until bed time. The highlight of the party, of course, is the white elephant game. I thought my gift was cool but kind of weird, but apparently, it was just weird. Not the worst gift, though. I think the pre-flyed fly paper was the worst. Or the viagra. Thankfully we didn’t come home with that one.

The annual Christmas Nativity Puppet show.

The kids enjoy the Nativity puppet show each year. We read the story from Luke and they act out all the parts with puppets. It’s easier than coming up with costumes (or bathrobes, rather) for them to act it out, and they love it.

Screaming Monkeys.

The kids got Webkinz and flying slingshot Monkeys in their stockings. Who wouldn’t love a flying monkey? I think these might be good gifts for the neighborhood white elephant party next year.

Rock Band Surprise.

I was thrilled to give the kids an X-Box and Rock band. It’s doubly nice when I didn’t have to pay for it. Had I known I was going to be winning an X-Box, I might have bought less presents for them. But they were very surprised and pleased, since I would normally never buy such a thing. We finally got it set up today and are rocking out. And just so you know, Tina, I suck. But then, we all suck, so I’m in good company. I’m sure after the kids spend hours playing it and I still have only played it 5 times, they will totally smoke me, but right now we’re on a pretty even playing level. Except for Cole, who’s played guitar hero a lot more than me, and Megan, who actually plays the drums in the band at school. But since there are 5 kids and only three instruments, John is having a total melt down right now.

Chaos. And Mess.

I don’t know about your house, but our house is pretty much a mess after all the present opening. I wouldn’t say the mess is a highlight, really, just an unavoidable part of the eqasion.


Faster, Stronger, Better than it was before.

Ryan got me a new computer for my Christmas/Birthday present. The old one was the “free” computer he got back when he was fired from Intel many many years ago. It was old, slow, and frequently refused to do what I asked it to do. Now it has like eleventy times the memory and ram and all that computer language. So far, it’s working out nicely. Can you tell just by reading the blog how much faster it uploaded? Good job, new computer! And he secretly transferred all my old crap onto the new computer without me knowing what he was doing. He’s pretty sneaky that way. Ryan and I also both got new phones. Yes, you heard right. Ryan now has entered the 21st century and has a cell phone. Or, as he calls it, a leash. So I can call him. And you can call him, too, if you want! Everyone can call him! Hooray for phones. And yes, that does leave one extra phone for the kids to share. We haven’t worked out the details of that, but they haven’t seemed to care, yet.

Giving a Great Gift
We decided to give my sister and her family a gift that they really really needed this year. A van. Our van. They have three kids and can barely squish into their truck, plus my sister was left without a car most of the time when her husband went to work. We had been talking about it for a while and trying to figure out if we can survive with just the suburban and the little truck, and decided it was time to take the leap. We gave them the present a month early, and they have been enjoying it since. It really makes us happy to give something that is really going to be appreciated and used. And we hope it lasts for a long long time and they get many years and miles of use out of it.

Family Time.

We went up to my parent’s house on Christmas day and had the fun and folly of being with the whole family. Except for my sister’s family. Now that she’s got 10 kids we may never see her again. But even without her, we had something like 22 people there, and it was fun. It was actually the quietest Christmas celebration we’ve had in quite some time. Most of the kids stayed downstairs or watched a movie, and we’d call them up one family at a time to get their gifts from Grandma and Grandpa. The picture above is my brother actually blowing out his birthday candle that is there in the birthday pie. Yes, his birthday is on Christmas. A fact that I try to remember when I’m feeling picked on by the unfortunate timing of my birthday.

Food, Goodies, Sweets, Temptations.
I think I’ve eaten my weight in cookies, candies, chex mix and goodies. Seriously, people, don’t bring any more yummy food to our house ever again. Or at least until my birthday.

Singing Silent Night
Ryan and I sang Silent Night for our talent portion of his family party, and it was fun to sing with him. He actually played the guitar (my guitar that I don’t play), and I sang, and it was nice to sing to a guitar. I think this year I really DO need to learn to play the guitar. We also sang Silent Night with our family on Christmas eve before the kids went to bed, and then in the morning before we opened presents, John said, “I want to sing the PEACE song”. So, we sang the peace song together and it was nice. It’s one of my favorite Christmas songs, and if he wants to sing it anytime, I’m game.

Since I hadn’t yet watched Rejoice and be Merry with the King’s Singers (last year’s concert), I made the kids watch it on Christmas eve with me. You would have thought I was torturing them with hot pokers or something, to hear them complain. I mean, come on, people! Who doesn’t love the Twelve days of Christmas? You can see the video from that song here. I think I might just watch it every day just to make them crazy. Right after Rock band.

Christmas letters.
I know I was late in getting my Christmas card and letters out this year, and I may have inadvertently forgotten some, and didn’t have addresses for others. I felt very disorganized in my card sending. But I do enjoy getting those letters from friends. For some, this is the only communication we receive all year, so it’s especially fun to see pictures of their families and read what they’ve been up to. And even if I have to hear all about their perfect kids, I still enjoy the cards. (I know that their kids can’t be perfect ALL the time, right?) My sister and brother-in-law actually send out the funniest letter, and I really look forward to reading about their mishaps and adventures.

That warm Christmas feeling.
I love everything about Christmas. And I love the feelings of love and peace that we have each December as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus. I almost didn’t want Christmas to come because I don’t want Christmas to be over. But, yes, it’s come, and now it’s over. It’s up to us to keep those feelings in our hearts even when we don’t have people telling us Merry Christmas, and we aren’t hearing beautiful Christmas music on the radio. It’s up to each of us to keep Christ in our hearts.

I don’t think I’ve complained enough

December 3, 2008 / / 2 Comments

For the amount of work I’m doing for this PTA job, I really should have been complaining more. Because we all know that complaining makes EVERYTHING better.

After my horrendously busy week a few weeks ago, I kind of just ignored the pile of reflections entries sitting in my office. Until yesterday, when I found out that they were all due to the council level on Friday. So, I began the long and arduous process of recording and getting them ready. The worst part is calling all the parents who didn’t sign a Media Release form, which they could have easily printed off the internet. Now I have to call them, have them go into the school or bring it to me. Ugh.

I think I need some chocolate and a diet coke to help me get through the morning.

On the upside, though, I won a nice little prize on Monday. I’m not going to say what it was here, but if you go to this advent calendar, and scroll over the number 1 (because I was the first), you’ll see what I won. Even though that’s not the most useful gift in the world and I would have preferred cash (Gosh, how ungrateful I sound! Those reflections must really be bringing me down!), it’s a fun thing, and I’m sure the family will love it.

So, I will go now and plod through some more entry forms, call some more parents, and eat some more chocolate.

Dang

November 12, 2008 / / 10 Comments

Note to self: Seven gallons of milk DO NOT fit on the top shelf of the fridge. Even if they are on sale for 99 cents a gallon as part of the Smith’s grand opening week sale. They just don’t fit.

Note to Ryan: We probably need to move the fridge out from it’s cubbyhole tonight and clean underneath it. Unless we enjoy that rancid horrible curdled milk smell.

Grrrr

October 24, 2008 / / 3 Comments

How is it that my printer KNOWS when I’m in a hurry, and just need to print out this ONE paper so I can run off and do my errands? Why? Why? Why does it then pick that moment to jam, leaving me to have to take the back out and rip out that paper and then HOPE I can get the back on right so that it will print? It’s like Santa Clause, only in a mean and nasty way. It knows when I need printing. It sees when I’m in a rush. It knows that it can drive me to the point of tearing my hair out and then I’ll bet it’s over there on the desk laughing. (It’s not facing the monitor so I’m pretty sure it can’t see what I’m writing about it right now, but just in case, don’t read this out loud, ok?)

What? Use the other printer? The new printer I bought because I can’t stand the 10 year old printer on my desk? Well, I would use the new printer, if it weren’t out of black ink already. Again. And when I DO remember the model number to look for ink when I happen to be at office depot (which is pretty close to never), they seem to always be out of that ink. (Ok, twice. But still–twice!) And since I had just bought a large two pack of black ink from Costco for the old printer, I’m not giving it up until I USE ALL THAT INK. You know what I’m sayin? Grumble grumble, snap, snap, snap.

Well, I feel better now. I think I just needed to get that off my chest.

Ah-choo!

October 23, 2008 / / 4 Comments

You know that feeling when you have to sneeze, but you also have to go to the bathroom, and it’s a race to see if you can do one before the other, or else they will both be happening at the same time?

Oh. You don’t.

Well. This is awkward. Never mind. Forget I said anything.

But that’s where I am today. I just took a Dayquil and I’m hoping to snuggle back into bed as soon as the kids are gone and have just a little tiny nap.

Oh, Thursday, don’t let me down

September 25, 2008 / / 3 Comments

I used to LOVE Thursdays. It’s the night of all my favorite tv shows and they are all on the same night! So, actually, that means I really like FRIDAY, because that’s when I get to watch all my recorded shows. But still, just knowing that there’s some Office love or some Gray’s Anatomy broadcasting on the air and I can watch them as soon as I have time brings me joy. And I’ve been a faithful ER fan for all these years. So even if I don’t watch every episode of ER this season, just knowing that Abby and Dr. Kovach and the others are around brings me a comfort.

But I’ve grown to hate Thursdays. Because of my kids. And all the stuff they have going on. I guess people don’t want to schedule things on Fridays because, well, it’s Friday. Mondays are FHE, so that’s not the best day, so Tuesday, Wed, and Thursday are fair game. And on Thursdays we have it all. We’ve got:
3:00-3:30 piano lesson
4:00-4:30 piano lesson
4:00-5:00-ish activity day
5:30-7:30 soccer
6:00-7:00 volleyball practice
6:00-9:00 marching band
Since none of my children are of driving age, that means that either I or one of my carpool moms gets to drive these children to all of these activities. And sometimes, like last Thursday, we also have parent teacher conference and band fundraisers to attend.

And sometime in there I’m supposed to feed them all dinner? Oh, yes, and they are all supposed to do their homework between activities, too.

So, tonight I’m handing the baton off to my sweet and capable husband. I’ve got to go to a rehearsal of my own, and he will get to drop off and pick up and feed dinner and supervise the piano practicing. So, I guess, in a way, my Thursday is looking up just a bit.

Well, tonight, I hand it over to Ryan

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