Bottles, Bottles, Where are you?

You know you are tired when you make two milk bottles and then you pace around the kitchen trying to find the bottles you just made.  Since you can't find the bottles, you decide that you maybe didn't make them after all and you make two more bottles.  You open up the microwave to warm your bottles only to discover you other two bottles.

Re-gifting just got funnier...

Anyone who knows me, knows that I hate to shop, unless its through Amazon.  I order diapers for the twins, wipes, baby food, and all sorts of household items on Amazon. I have an Amazon Mom membership (which is free) and it saves me time, money and lots of energy.

Well, recently, I had ordered swimsuits for the babies (aka: twins) and they were not the right size.  I got the package ready to ship back.  At the same time, I was wrapping my daughter's birthday present (that I had ordered from amazon).

Fast forward a few hours and we are opening gifts.  I tell my daughter, "This is from Mommy and I'm so excited to do this with you..."  I get the camera all ready to take a photo and as she opens it, she looks up and starts to cry...."You gave me baby clothes?"

OH NO.  I didn't.

Um, yes, I did.  I wrapped the wrong box.  Not only that, but the real box was in the car ready to go back to the UPS store.  Thankfully one of the babies had a colossal blow out just as my husband was leaving with the packages to return/ship back.  I suddenly remembered he didn't take this box because I was interrupted by a diaper issue and hadn't finished taping it yet.  I ran out to my car and grabbed the package and had her open it.  It wasn't nearly the climatic moment I was hoping for, but she was excited by her gift.

Mother of the year award goes to....me.  Who does this?  Me.  My crazy, wild life with 4 kids and a husband who works hard to provide for us (and is hardly every home).  Just as I'm about to say in my negative 'in my head voice" , "I'm such a loser Mom...way to go"  Instead my daughter says, "Thanks Mom, I'm so glad you didn't give me those swimsuits.  They never would've fit me."

I LAUGHED.  WE LAUGHED.

I gave her a big hug.  We started to get the cake ready for candles and that's when I promptly forgot that I hadn't bought candles for her cake.

OOPS!

Thankfully, we found some old number candles and by the magic of math, we made an equation on her cake that equaled 7.

This night could have been a real downer for me, but instead, we laughed (I actually got the hiccups from laughing so hard!).  Who does these things?  Well, at the moment, it seems I do. Re-gifting just got funnier.

The 7 year old Birthday

We do big friend birthday parties every few year and "7" is one of those years!

This year my toothless 7 year old decided to have a party at a local bounce/jump house.  I piled up 7 girls in my minivan and we started off the jaunt to the party place.  It was about 15 minutes away.  As we neared our location and exit on the freeway, I noticed there were construction cones near the exit.  All of the sudden  I see a sign, "EXIT CLOSED FROM 10a-2p."  Oh great, I thought, her party starts at 1:30.

Deep breath

Ok, I can do this.  As my GPS starts a rant of 'Re-calculating, Re-calculating'  I continue on to the next exit to circle back around.

We make it 1/2 back to the original street we wanted to exit on, only to find the traffic signals were out.  There were police hand-directing traffic on this busy, congested street. Oh great, the exit is closed and now the power is out...

Deep breath

Girls in back of car, "When are we going to get there? Will we still have enough time to jump?"  7 year old (the birthday girl), "Mom, I'm going to miss my party" (insert all sorts of drama and crying here).

More Deep breaths

We finally make it to the street we wanted to get to, the same street the party place is located on, about 1/2 mile West of our direction, and guess what....

A parade goes by

I'm not kidding.  A parade, with marching bands, baton twirlers, you name it. And, guess what, the street is CLOSED.

Deep breath.

This only happens to me. Who tries to go to their child's bday party to only be stuck in traffic by a neighborhood parade?  Me.  It's my life.

Well, 13 months ago I would have been a complete disaster, but now I just take a deep breath (notice the pattern!?) and I took time to ALLOW MYSELF TO LAUGH

Instead of getting all stressed out like I used to, I just laugh.  At first, I had to CHOOSE to laugh.  Sometimes it's easier to choose something else (anger, frustration, negativity, you name it...).  You have to admit, there is something pretty funny about this.  One day, when we laugh hysterically about this, we will remember this and that we finally  made it to the party.  The jump place was very gracious and wonderful and let the girls jump a bit longer that we were supposed to.

The girls didn't care when they opened their drumstick ice cream cones which had melted and refrozen to one side and looked like a "cliff of peanuts" instead of an ice cream scoop on top of the cone.  It was all good.

To laugh or be stressed out.  I choose to laugh.  What a great day it was because I choose to laugh.  Happy birthday to my sweet 7 year old who made me promise not to post pictures of her and her friends on this blog because, "That's so embarrassing, Mom!"

Let's Get The Party Started!

Somewhere between delirium from surviving the past 4 days with less than 8 hours sleep total, I decided to start a blog to record all the funny, crazy, and completely outrageous moments that I've experienced as the mother of 4 kids, including a set of twins.

After I gave birth to the twins (who are now 13 months old), I became depressed and started taking medication to help treat postpartum depression (which is no laughing matter by the way!).  After feeling terrible about my body, and feeling like a failure as a mother with my older girls (6 and 8 yrs old), I began to sink into a dark hole which contained way too much fast food, diet coke, terrible thoughts, and complete and utter withdrawal from life and unhappiness.  It's a pretty bad place and I hope that anyone reading this never has to experience the lows that I have felt in the last year.   

Fast forward to 13 month later, and here I am, still unhappy with my body and still riddled with all kinds of Mom guilt.   The only difference is now, I am out of that hole of darkness and despair.  Want to know my secret?  Nope, it wasn't the anti-depressants I took for months or that baby weight I have yet to lose, or the crazy and unpredictable sleep cycles I keep.  

The answer was simple.  It was laughter and LOTS of it.   

They say laughter is the best medicine.  It started from a book my sister in law made for our family this past Christmas.  It was a "funny" book with lots of funny little quotes she'd seen online.  I recognized some from pinterest or facebook.  They were hilarious and I couldn't believe how a simple gesture could make such a difference.  Then, I started thinking of my own situation and how crazy things happened to me.  

I sometimes would txt a girlfriend who had recently had her fourth child and tell her my crazy life and she and I would laugh and laugh and laugh. I suddenly didn't worry so much about the dishes that never get done, the floor that always has a spare gerber puff stuck to it somewhere, the endless laundry pile, and all the other "MOM" stuff, and I started to reflect on how much I love being a mom.  How much I love my kids.  How much I love to laugh and enjoy my kids and enjoy my life as a mom with little ones.  I might even enjoy the laundry someday (well, that's pushing it...!).