So, last night Mr. Fix-It, The Cheerleader and I were playing Rock Band and she wanted to sing Livin' on a Prayer, so we played it. And while I was rockin' the drums (watch out Don Henley), I had this memory flash...

I was about 10 years old when Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet came out... and Livin' on a Prayer was the song of the minute. I remember singing it and doing stupid little dance routines to it in my friend's front yard... of course, can't remember the friend's name, but I remember us being goofy little kids in her front yard.

It was just a little weird... when I was that dorky little kid, I never would have guessed that 23 years later I would be sitting in my living room with my man and my kids, playing simulated drums on a gaming system to that very song. And I think it is super-cool that my Cheerleader knows all the words. And that Queenie was doing a little dance for us while we were playing. :)

An Articulate Post for Friday

AAAAARRRRRGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tension breaker, had to be done.

Mortification at the Hands of The Cheerleader

I love my "tween" daughter, otherwise known as The Cheerleader. She is energetic and fun... she is also nosey (she calls it being curious) and wildly inappropriate.


I woke her up yesterday to get ready for school, then went back downstairs to get myself ready enough to stand at the garage door and wait for her bus to arrive (the preparation is minimal at best). After completing this daunting task, I open my bedroom door to find her standing RIGHT OUTSIDE the bedroom door (note that there is nothing else there... just our bedroom door... not even a hall, so there was no reason for her to be standing there). And she says, "Mom, what were you DOING in there?"


Now, how do you answer a question like that? I told her I was getting dressed and brushing my teeth. She says "Yeah, right. I HEARD stuff." Gasp!! I know for a fact that the only thing she could have heard was me and Mr. Fix-It talking while we were both in the bathroom. So, I told her that what happens in my bedroom is none of her business and left it at that.


That afternoon, she and her little friends come bounding into the house to play Rock Band and as they are settling in to play, she says (in front of her friends), "Really, Mom, what were you doing in your bedroom this morning?" Argh! I had to control myself, because I really wanted to grab her by the ear and yank her upstairs for a gripe-out, but instead I said, "Julie, this is not the right time to talk about this." I was furious - I was just sure that these little girls would run home to their mom (who is allegedly friends with The Dark One - Mr. Fix-It's exwife) and tell a convoluded version of the conversation. You know, like, Julie's parents were "doing it" on the kitchen island... that kind of thing.


After the girls went home, I sat down with The Cheerleader and asked her to tell me what privacy is. She told me, and she was right. I told her that if a door is shut in our house and she needs something, that she needs to knock. If she doesn't need anything, she cannot stand by the door and be nosey. I asked her if she had any questions, because next time there would be no discussion, just action. She says, "But I thought I heard... nevermind."


I am really struggling with this... I don't want it to be a conversation about sex because, well, it isn't really about that. It's about privacy and respecting other people's space. I NEVER would have said any of these things to my mother... I mean, ew.

The Perfect Saturday Afternoon

I am not usually all "whiskers on kittens", but when I have a nice day (or few hours for that matter), I feel the need to share.

This past Saturday, it was just me, Mr. Fix-It and The Cheerleader. After a morning of shooing away The Cheerleader's slumber party friends, a harrowing trip to Wal-Mart (which is a whole other post) and various other small shopping trips, we settled into a harmonious Saturday afternoon.

Mr. Fix-It assembled the newly purchased futon for the children's play area and put plywood down in the attic for storage purposes... something he has been trying to do for several weeks. The Cheerleader stayed upstairs and amused herself (I am still trying to get over that). I stayed in the kitchen for hours... listening to our music collection on random, singing at the top of my lungs, making guacamole, chopping various veggies for dinner on Sunday night and preparing the side dishes to accompany a delicious medium-rare ribeye steak cooked perfectly by Mr. Fix-It. I even made a mushroom cream sauce to top the steak without using cream. That's right people... I made a roux with flour and butter and then added milk to make a sauce. Giada would be proud.

Sometimes it is the simplest things in life that make me happy...

The Year In Review

Well, technically I guess it would be the last 14 months in review, because I had some real humdingers during the end of 2007. And I guess I should have posted this on New Year's Day, but life doesn't always work out that way.


So, getting on with it, in the last 14 months, the following things have happened in this order:


1. Left husband (hereby known as The Donor) because he was horrible to me and subsequently ran to the arms of Mr. Fix-It.

2. Moved into my parents' house.

3. Moved into an apartment with Mr. Fix-It.

4. Found out I was pregnant (the same day as #3).

5. Was "fired" from my job because I was having a relationship with a co-worker.

6. The Donor kept Queenie from me for over 3 weeks and tried to take custody of her in court a week before Christmas - the judge put him on his ass.

7. Moved into a rental house with Mr. Fix-It and our gaggle of children.

8. My father had unexpected double by-pass surgery.

9. Our house was broken into (the same day dad got out of the hospital).

10. I went into labor early and Little Man was born (same day as Mr. Fix-It's wedding anniversary - now, that my friends, is karma).

11. Started looking for a job in August - still got nothin'.

12. Endured the initial "blending" of our families a mere two weeks after giving birth to Little Man. What a GREAT time to introduce new children into a household... Mr. Fix-It's ex is a real brainiac (and she will heretofor be referred to as "The Dark One"). This blending resulted in The Brooder stealing items from The Cheerleader and generally being a pain in the ass.

13. Two episodes of The Brooder having a complete meltdown - one resulting in police presence and admittance into an in-patient psychiatric program for a week.

14. Mr. Fix-It's divorce was final. Yay!

15. Mr. Fix-It being out of town for 7 weeks straight.

16. My divorce mediation (while Mr. Fix-It was out of town).

17. Househunting. Enough said.

18. The Cheerleader's father and his troll of a wife (Meatball & Mrs. Meatball) freaked out over us moving although I am well within my right as far as our custody agreement goes.

19. Buying a house and moving into it. Again, enough said.

20. Still looking for that job.

21. Still waiting for divorce to be final. (Although I did receive the first draft of the decree in the mail on New Year's Day... a little karma again... kind of like Little Man being due on Independence Day).

Yes, a lot of crappy stuff happened in 2008. But, a lot of great stuff happened too. I got engaged. My beautiful, healthy baby boy was born. My dad's heart problem was discovered early and fixed. And as a result of my breakaway from The Donor, I have rekindled many friendships that I thought were long gone (you know who you are).

So, I spent part of New Year's Day on the back of Mr. Fix-It's bike - one of my favorite things to do. And I know that everything that happened last year was just work we had to do on our road to happiness.

Happy New Year!

Intuition

From time to time, we are all reminded of this special sense that we have (some more than others) that lets us know when something isn't quite right, or something should be avoided, etc. Intuition.

Last Thursday, we were invited to a going away party for married friends of ours that are moving to China. We had a babysitter lined up for Little Man and all was good. The sitter had to cancel, so I figured we could just take him with us. Then that day, I just had the feeling that maybe we shouldn't go - Little Man wasn't feeling well and I just, well, had a feeling. But they are very good friends and we will miss them terribly... so we went.

The party ends up being a bunch of people that we didn't know and had never heard of from our friends... we get sat by the least desirable people in the room (think about "the mutants at Table 9" in The Wedding Singer) far away from the guests of honor.

We finally get our food and just as the waiter finished saying, "This plate is really hot", Flash (otherwise known as Little Man) reached out and grabbed the plate that felt like it had been in a 400 degree oven for about 10 minutes. Needless to say, his little hand and between his fingers got burned and blistered. And he screamed and screamed and screamed. And The Mutants at Table 9 kept offering up all this lame-ass advice - put butter on it! put honey on it!.

I think the only reason I had even a hint of control was because I didn't want to go uber-bitch in the middle of our friends' party. (That, and I knew that the baby was fine... and he is. Healing just fine.)

So, I blamed myself - I thought to take Little Man from Mr. Fix-It because I was further away from the table, hence further away from the plate, but I didn't do it. Plus, I had the feeling that we shouldn't have gone at all.

Then again, maybe our going stopped something else from happening... now we are just getting into karma and that is a whole other blog entry.

Incidentally, at Pei Wei last night, my fortune cookie said "Trust your intuition." Coincidence? Karma? Who knows. Maybe I will listen to it a little more often...

What happened in Vegas came home with me on my back...

So, Vegas was fun. Got to hang with The Bride and The Groom, spend some quality time. Mini-Elvis sang "I Can't Help Falling in Love with You" at the ceremony. We ate $25 hamburgers at The Burger Bar - FABULOUS. We went to bed by 10:00 p.m. every night we were there. Yes, we are old, tired and sad.

Oh, and I got another tattoo. What?!?

I couldn't help myself. We were on vacation. Inhibitions were lowered by 1/2 a pitcher of Blue Moon. The shop was right there in Mandalay Bay... it just seemed like the right thing to do. I have been wanting to cover up the "thank God I'm not pregnant" butterfly tat I got on my shoulder when I was 18, but hadn't gotten around to it. So, now I have a butterfly/flower thing with vines behind it that look like an infinity symbol covering the offending butterfly. And the new one covers about 10x more of my shoulder. It is lovely, but I am still a little shocked at myself for getting something so large.

I guess now I can start wearing a tank top when I'm "riding bitch" on the bike. Woohoo!