the simple life

THE WORST PAINFUL THING IN THE WORLD!!!

My little Annabelle is quite the dramatic child.  She never gets hurt, but rather is always within minutes of death.  Julian doesn't just push her down, but instead "THROWS her to the ground using ALL of his muscles, nearly breaking her bones!!".  Ezra didn't accidentally scratch her with his too long fingernails, but he does "try to RIP HER SKIN OFF with his CLAWS!"

Every pain is accompanied by eardrum shattering shrieks and screams of anguish, and as much as I want to be a good, caring Mama to her and help her feel better, I'm guilty of telling her to "STOP SCREAMING, NOW" before I even glance at her wound of the day. 

Yesterday, she tried to do better.  She has realized that screaming only frazzles me, and that talking through the pain gets my attention.  So when she fell from the swing set, scraping a layer of skin from a small area of her back, she ran inside with wide eyes, determined to not cry, but talk about what happened.

I wiped the dirt from her back and applied a thin layer of Neosporin to the area.  She asked me to blow on her skin to make it feel better and as I did, she yelled out in pain to soothe herself.

"THIS IS THE WORST PAINFUL THING OF MY LIFE!"

"I CAN THINK OF HUNDREDS OF BAD THINGS THAT I WOULD RATHER FEEL THAN THIS PAIN!!"

"I'D RATHER BITE MY OWN HAND OFF THAN FEEL THIS PAIN ON MY BACK!!", she screamed, while biting her fist.

"I'D RATHER CHOKE MYSELF (simulated choking herself with her own hands) AND THEN UN-CHOKE MYSELF THAN FEEL THIS PAIN!!"  (un-choke, because only death by choking could be worse than this pain)

"I'D RATHER BE OUTSIDE ON THE MOST FREEZINGEST DAY IN THE WORLD THAN FEEL THIS PAIN!!!!!"

And to be honest, that's when I knew that Annabelle was truly hurting.  You see, my kids have come to hate Winter.  Winter was no big deal, a rather fun season when we lived in the South. We got to wear warm clothes for a few weeks, experience one or two snowy days, and a few freezing days that allowed us to "ice skate" from sidewalk to car.  But now that we are here, in the land of 6 month long Winters, my kids hate it.

Last year, as we usually do, we went to Arkansas to visit family during Spring Break.  We left behind icy temps and enjoyed a week in the sunshine, grilling dinner and eating outside, rolling around in the grass, riding bikes in my parents driveway.  We returned home to Iowa at 2am one morning, greeted by large mounds of dirty snow along the highway and piled in our yard.  Julian woke up and realized that we were home, and grumpily said, "Why did Daddy do this to us?"  "THIS", being, move us to a land where Winter was a real season. 

While we try our best to make Winter fun, with frequent sledding excursions and lots of hot chocolate and building forts inside under covers on the worst of the snow days, in my kids eyes, Winter will always be just slightly better than "BEING THROWN FROM THE SWINGSET AND RIPPING ALL OF THE SKIN FROM YOUR BACK UNTIL YOU CAN ALMOST SEE YOUR BONES!!!"

At least, according to my dramatic daughter, who was stung by a wasp on the playground today.  Lord help us and her very patient school nurse.

*spoiler alert*

Julian recently learned the phrase "Spoiler Alert".

Tonight we were all on the couch reading a library book, "The Grouchies", that Julian had read on his own earlier in the day.  After reading the first page, which shows a little boy being followed around by dark grey "grouchy" clouds, Julian said, "Spoiler Alert!  At the end of the book, those grouchy clouds are smiley faces".  

Super quick reminder: two interesting new shows coming on tonight!
1. "Life" on the Discovery channel. The previews on my Dad's big HDTV looked amazing. Hope it can still be awesome on a crappy old box tv.
2. "Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution" This show is right up my alley. I'm a big Jamie Oliver fan, loved the Food Revolution book, and am totally interested in making over school lunches...looks promising. :)

hey, did you hear that I won an award?

Oh yes, it's called the "Lamest blogger EVER" award.  It's quite prestigious.   You only have to leave your blog unattended for well over a month, and not updating your "Blanner" helps a lot, too.

So, I'm here, and I've decided that I f I make a lot of mini posts (similar to Twitter or Facebook status updates), I'll appear as though I've got this blogging thing back under control.

So years ago, I started blogging, and created a cute little circle of bloggy friends, most of whom are quite crafty.  Craftastic, you might say. 

I have semi-successfully kept up a Crafty persona, without actually doing anything crafty for quite some time, now, so today I'm going to show you two things I've made.  One, for Julian's birthday party in January, and one for a crafty card swap that I participated in, though I've never made a card in my life.  Unless it was written in crayon.

 

These are my all-purpose "hooray!" cards.  Minus the exclamation point, because I couldn't find mine. 

These were SUPER simple, if you ignore the stupid part where I actually sewed the little banner to the card with my stupid sewing machine.  If you know how to sew, even the tiniest bit, this part will be easy for you.  I keep thinking that I want to be a person that sews, and then that pesky part where I hate measuring and detailed work comes into play and makes me a person that just likes the idea of sewing.

Anyways, I am so excited because in a few short days (or maybe a few long days, as I know that I wasn't the only one getting my cards turned in late) I'll be receiving 19 random cards from some of my online crafty friends, and I'll only cringe slightly at my own crude/simply but sloppily sewn cards, and just rejoice in the fun new ones that I'll never actually send out, but hoard for ever and ever, amen.

This was the easiest, cute birthday treat bag, EVER. 
I bought some cellophane gift bags and filled them with slightly inappropriate sugary treats for the Kindergarten and younger crowd.  (according to Dustin, who apparently took issue to passing out sugary, hard candy filled with red dye and other yuckiness that tastes sooo good)

Found a cute robot font, and printed some out on white cardstock.  Cut to random sizes (remember how I dislike measuring?), fold over and staple onto the treat filled gift bag.  I also drew little balloons and cupcakes into the robots little robot hands.  You know, to feel as though I made a *little* effort.

Cute as pie.  Or that mildly disgusting half-eaten blue cupcake in the upper left hand corner of the photo...sorry about that. I had to get this picture before the kids destroyed all my hard work. 

Finally:  Can I be honest here?  The real reason that I shared that robot treat photo is because I just celebrated my daughter's 8th birthday, and didn't feel like I could share a photo from that until I had shared a photo from Julian's 6th birthday party in January...because I've been the Lamest Blogger Ever. 

Hence the award.

Oh yes, one more thing.

 

A photo of a very  happy birthday boy, and the swirly faced kids who enjoyed the treats, but cared not one little bit for the treat bags themselves, as proved by the littered robot papers all over my living room after the party was over.  Punks.  They certainly won't be receiving any "hooray!" cards from me on their special occasions in the future.

p.s. was this post one gigantic run-on sentence, or is it just my imagination?  Because in my head, it reads that way.  Whatever.  There's my blog post for March.  See you in April!  :)