I never knew......

Today I decided to play along with Mama Kat's workshop. Of course I chose the prompt about being a Mommy.....

List 10 things you never knew until you were a mom.
I never knew........

1. true unconditional love

2. I would say some of the same things that my mom used to say

3. How much fun it would be to play Santa/Easter Bunny/Tooth Fairy. I LOVE it!

4. That looking at your child and being happy could cause you to cry. Happy Tears!!

5. you could live life through someone else. M's spirit is so catching and makes me feel alive and child-like at times.

6. I would become less selfish. M comes before anything and I love that feeling.

7. that I wouldn't mind cleaning up after her when she got sick or rocking her like a baby even though she's 8 yrs old just because she doesn't feel well.

8. That every decision I made/make from the day she was born will also affect my baby girls life. This one is hard for me!

9. I am shaping an adult and that scares me sometimes!

10. That I could be mad at little kids over them hurting my baby's feeling. Yet I hide it and give M the tools she needs to work through her friendship problems. Who knew little kids had drama?

I love being a mom.....the good, the bad and the ugly.

Back by popular demand.......

I know you have been wondering where I've been and what I've been doing. The curiosity has been killing you, I realize this.
(ok, so it was only 2 people who requested I blog again, lol)

Hmm what's new with me? I have only blogged once since Christmas and that was about Spam. exciting stuff right there!

The last thing I talked about was my step daughter wanting to live with us. That took some horrible wrong turns and was a huge roller-coaster ride for my family. We just wanted what was best for her.....her mother pulled some tricks and has forever damaged the parenting bond her and The Husband had. They had never had a 'fight' over the kids before. It was great to have it happen over the holidays. This past weekend the other step daughter said she wanted to live with us one week and her mom the other. We aren't even telling her mom about it. These girls can't go back and forth and need to realize what they are saying. People get hurt over what is just simple words.

Enough of that. I've lost 8lbs. Yay me, right? It only took me 1 yr. lol The wii fit has a graph that I decided to look at last week. I went back to last January and saw the loss. I was very happy. So happy I ate McDonalds that night! Seriously though, I'm not even trying to lose weight now. I dont exercise but I have cut back on my soda. I used to drink 2 per day and now I only drink 1. I think it helps that I'm not sitting at a desk all day snacking away. I did that a lot when I was working.

Speaking of.......I am very hopeful that I will get a job soon. We will talk more about that later though. I know you can't handle too much of my words after not having them for a month.

Spam?

I have been blogging for over a year and have never encountered Spam until this past month. It started off one here or there but now it's a little obnoxious and I'm wondering if I should start moderating comments. I really didnt want to do that. Why would someone spam? Seems kinda pointless to me?!?!

just a random thought.........

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone has a very merry day!!

Liquid Plumber--Foaming Snake

This is a product review but I'm not getting anything to do it.....just passing along some info.

Our upstairs bathroom sink has had a slow drain to it. Like when you brush your teeth the water would build up and take awhile to go down.

I tried baking soda and vinegar and that worked for a bit but it would always go back to being slow again.

I tried the Draino stuff and that did nothing.

Last week I bought this Foaming Snake stuff by Liquid Plumber and it worked great! Haven't had any problems since. So if you ever have a slow drain make sure to try this!

(just saw the commercial which reminded me to pass on the good product review)

Are you surprised on Christmas morning?

I am a picky person, I know this about myself. This is nothing new.

I always know all gifts that I am getting and sometime it sucks.
For my birthday The Husband gives me money and I always go buy new clothes. It's like my own little shopping spree and I enjoy the day.

This year for Christmas I am getting a ring wrap for my solitaire. I have wanted one for awhile and we found a deal that we couldn't pass up. I am also getting a few other things from him that I have picked out here and there.

I was talking to my mom on FB chat tonight and she asked me what color I liked best and gave me colors to chose from. I quickly said don't get me a Snuggie because The Husband already did. She said it wasn't a Snuggie but went on to tell me what it was!! I didn't want to know.

I can't wait to get my snuggie and randomness

brrrr its so cold! Its only 21* out and I hate being cold. I am sitting here with pajama pants on, long sleeve shirt, hoodie, socks, slippers and a blank wrapped around me. The heat was set on 73 but I just turned it up to 74. The Husband bought me a snuggie for xmas.....maybe I should try it out to make sure its comfy???

This weekend we had our first snowfall and we got about 6 inches. That's pretty impressive for us. We used to get blizzards but the past few years we rarely get measurable amounts.

The cat is still driving me effin crazy with the tree. Next year he may live in the basement for the month of December.

This weekend we had a date night (supposed to be all weekend but the snow ruined that) we shopped Fri night, went to dinner and to a movie. This is only the second adult movie we have been to in 6 years. lol It was nice.

Saturday was my dads birthday so the day contained quite a bit of crying and sadness. I was hoping shopping would occupy my mind but the snow postponed that trip and we stayed home all day.

We have a busy week ahead of us and our first holiday celebration takes place this coming weekend. From now until Xmas we have some type of get-together/event every weekend.

Oh and I finally found a book that I can read. (I get bored with most) She's come undone.....I am half way through it and actually making time to read. love it!

Check out a new blog and maybe get THE toy

by this point everyone has heard about Zhu Zhu pets. They are the 'hot item' this year. They have been compared to Cabbage Patch dolls......and we have all heard some crazy stories about people trying to get their hands on those ugly dolls. Same thing here except its a rodent.
I posted about them the other day and my frenzied search for them. I have not been able to find a gray one though so I thought I would enter this great giveaway over at Girlz A Soul Sista!

Go check it out and maybe enter to win too.

Have a great weekend. This is our last chance to shop together before Christmas....so The Husband and I will be doing that all weekend. Yay me, sucks to be him!

My cat snores

and I love the sound of it. I had never heard a cat snore before.....or even knew they snored.

He is laying on the other end of the sofa and I can hear him.

He also loves to curl up on my lap and he nuzzles his head against something. He loves to have his eyes covered when sleeping. By the way, he is about 15 lbs now and quite bigger but he still tries to fit right in my lap.

I'm telling you all this because I love him and want you to know what a great cat he is...........

when he's not in the freakin tree!! I swear he is worse than a toddler with this year's tree. I may lock him in the basement until Christmas is over. (just kidding!!)

How do you decide what's best for a kid?

I have been trying to write this post all day but I would either get sidetracked or just feel overwhelmed with the thought of writing all of this out.......but I feel like I need to. My mind is going a million miles and hour and has been since Sunday.

About 6 months ago my youngest step daughter, J kept saying she wanted to come live with us. Her first reasoning was because she missed school. She was pulled from school because my other step daughter was having problems. Problems=they thought she was smarter than the rest of the kids in her grade, which she kinda is (I've never met a kid who loves to learn like her.... and this is coming from a mom with a kid on honor roll.....but she has zero social skills) anyway school teaches you many more things than book stuff......like listening, manners, respect, friendship, etc. So she went to the principals office 2 times because of her and other kids not getting along or some such nonsense. The Husband and I do not agree with their homeschooling. He was not asked about it, BabyMama did it and told him later. J cried about it and was very upset that she had to leave her friends. She loved school! BabyMama lied to them and told them that they would get to go back and play with their friends. That never happened, like you can just do that but it sounded good to the girls.

Let me give you the dynamics of BabyMama's house:
J (the youngest who wants to live with us)
older step daughter
then BabyMama and Poppy (what they call their step dad) have 2 kids, age 3 and 1.
Poppy has a daughter that is 16 (her mom died in a car wreck a few years ago so she was forced to live with them)

Obviously with all these kids they need alot of room, so they built an addition on to their house to make their 3 bedroom home into a 5 bedroom. Except it didn't really give them anymore bedrooms because 1 is Poppy's office and 1 is the home-school room. Why Poppy's office and the homeschool room cant be the same room we don't know. He is a youth pastor so its not like he needs tons of space. This leaves the adults sharing a room, Poppy's daughter having her own room and 4 kids in 1 room. J has to share a bed with the 3 year old......this kid is hell on wheels! J says she never gets to sleep and she always has circles under her eyes. So the 1yr old is in her crib, those 2 share a bed and our oldest SD is on the top bunk. J voiced this to us as reason 2 and that's what started the whole talk. The Husband told BabyMama what J had told us and that she said she wanted to live with us so she could have her own bed. Here we have 4 bedrooms.....ours, M, guest room, and the 2 SD's have bunkbeds in their room. So BabyMama said she would work on getting them another bed. and that was that.............

until last weekend! the girls were here and J was INSISTENT that she was not going home, she lived here now, etc. She told everyone this. If you talked about something in the future she said well I will be living here then. M called me mommy and J said 'and you will be my new mom too because I live here'. We were not encouraging her but at the same time we don't want to tell her she cant live here. She is more than welcome here......sadly I love her as if she was my own while my other SD is more difficult and the bond is just not there. Dont worry I fake it for her! M and J are inseparable the whole time the girls are here. They play so good together and J just idolizes M. The look in her eyes when she looks at M shows me what sister love is all about. (I don't have a sister) She will tell you that M is her favorite sister.

Another of her reasons is because she has nightmares all the time at her mom's and never here. She has actually told both of us about this at different times and we didnt put it together until we were talking Sunday night.

The Husband asked J if she wanted to talk to her mommy about this and she said yes. He asked her what she thought BabyMama would say and she said she thinks it would be ok. J said she would miss her grandma but she would get to see her and BabyMama on weekends just like she does daddy. I swear she figured all this out herself! We were just in shock. So we go to drop them off and The Husband was just going to mention that they need to talk soon. When he said this J said yeah mommy, I want to live with daddy and she was sooo excited. The other SD speaks up and tells all about J saying she wasnt coming home etc. M and I were sitting in the car, we didnt expect this to happen. So Poppy gathers the kids into the van so the parents can talk freely since its already started. BabyMama is almost in tears hearing that her child doesnt want to live with her. The Husband told her everything and she said she thought it was just the bed issue and that part of their Christmas gift is going to be a triple bunkbed. (yikes) He tells her its more than that and names all of the things J has told us. I wont get into everything........our life is night and day from their life. We are fairly mainstream while they are very much like the Duggars. They don't have cable, tell the kids how they have no money, very-very hypocritical religious people, and live a VERY simple life. I am not saying there is anything wrong with their life but its just not ours. We like nice stuff and we like to do fun stuff!
This was all Sunday at 12:30.
Sunday at 4:42 BabyMama posted on FB----is sad...meloncholy...heartsick...blue...depressed...glum...troubled...distressed...at a loss...
monday-J called The Husband while he was at work so he asked her could he call her later. She asked her mom and was told yes. J told The Husband that she got to spend time with mommy this morning doing crafts.
The Husband called her back around 4pm and there was no answer. J called back a minute later and said she couldn't talk because they were going swimming in the indoor pool. Now as you saw I am FB friends with BabyMama and I know that she posts how they never actually go to the YMCA and their membership was a waste etc. It sounds like they are kissing up to her, which I guess is ok but we aren't going to change how we do things....its not a competition. We know that will get old and wont last.
I feel so helpless. We don't want to take a child away from her mother. We only want whats best for her but how do you decide what is best? She loves being girlie and I let her wear makeup in the house as long as we aren't going anywhere.......her mom will not let her do this. We feel like she is being stifled at her house......she cant be her. No one asked how she felt about going to school.
Ok now I am rambling and this is long enough. I don't think this will turn into a full custody dispute because its very important for The Husband that they get along.......but he wants whats best for her and her future........not the adults, just her.
It was last left at J would spend more time at our house without her other sister so that she could get a feel for being away from them. This isn't going to portray our real life though. We have school, sports, daycare.
There is just so much and its all I can think about, yet there is nothing I can do.