Why Would You?

I bought Eddy Haskel a recorder because at school they are learning how to read music, keep time, and care for an instrument. So why in the world would he put Silly Putty up inside of the recorder? The recorder was not expensive, but what possessed him to put Silly Putty inside?
Well here it is:
Me: "Eddy why did you put Silly Putty into your new recorder?"

Eddy: "Because I wanted to see if it would come out of the holes when I put in there," pause--- "but that did not happen."

Really, did you really think that the Silly Putty would just come out of the holes, like the Play Doh toys, really?? Thanks Eddy

Speaking of putting things were they do not belong I have another story to tell on Eddy

When Eddy was younger, I often thought that there was something in his ear, he rarely ever wanted me to clean out his ears, but those who know me, know I am like a mama monkey and I am constantly picking and preening on my kids.
There came a point in Eddy's life where he developed a stall tactic when it came time to getting dressed and ready for the day. Well that kid reads me like a book sometimes; and he knew if he brought me some Q-Tips or the nail clippers this would stall the dressing process. One day while he was stalling he brought me the Q-Tips and as I was cleaning, I noticed that the Q-Tip was really not going in to his ear very well *(I know all about Q-Tips and ears, and how nothing should enter the ear canal and all, but I enjoy the way a Q-Tip feels inside my ear), I grab a pen-light and look into his ear, where I spied something!! I called my MIL because she had an otoscope and medical training. She told me she would try to get whatever it was out, but if she could not that I needed to call my ear, nose, and throat specialist. When we got up to her house, she looked in his ear with the otoscope, and removed a pearl from his ear. A real live freaking pearl. Come to find out he was playing in his Grandma Crabby Patty's button jar and wondered what would happen if that pearl went into his ear, this happened as far as I can tell when he was two years old, the pearl was removed when he was 7. The pearl was in his ear for over 4 years!!!
The pearl had a hole in it so he could probably hear, and the way the ear canal is shaped it must have just lain out of sight when the doctor would check his ears on his Well Child Visits. This was the summer that Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl was released, so for a while we ended up calling Eddy, Captian Pearl.

So now you know please do not put pearls into your ears and Silly Putty into your recorder!!

I do not want to loose my milk

I am a nursing mama, I am under an enormous amount of stress right now, and I do not want to loose my milk. I need to focus on the family right now. Here is a short list of why I really should focus on the family and my milk supply:

• I am working on my Master's Degree right now and the teacher and the assignments are stressing me out

• We recently sold our house and I need to pack and then move

• My eldest has some behavioral issues we are trying to work out

• My husband supports all that I do, but for crying in a bucket he is just a man ie. (he cannot multi-task)

• If it snows one more time, I think I'll just cry

• This whole teacher and assignment thing is my true hang up, I think?? I just think this person has no business teaching this class, oh and did I mention the next class too. She is pretty much wasting my time and money, but these are my last two classes before I student teach

I am staying hydrated and eating a pretty balanced diet, I just do not want these stressful situations to wreck havoc on the whole nursing thing, I need to and the babe needs me!!

Thanks for reading, EBM

I Can't Stop

On Friday Auntie K came and babysat for Baby Gnat, as I had some school work that I needed to wrap up. Well Thursday Night Auntie K called and told me she was still planning on sitting for us on Friday and that she had this book for me to read. She said "oh I could not put it down", so I thought nothing of it and went about my business as usual on Friday. Well she left the book and Friday night I dove head first into the book,The Red Tent by Anita Diamant. It is the Story of Dinah, told from her perspective, rather than the gratuitous rape scene of Genesis 34. I love stories that empower women, and this was no exception.
I know this book is not new, but I really could not put it down. I read until the wee hours of the morning starting Friday night. The next day I awoke, with ten thousand things to do on my To Do List, and all I could think of was that book, so alas I read. I read all day, in between nursing the babe and my eldest's requests for food, I read, I read until I finished that book. Not because I could, but because I couldn't. I couldn't STOP, I was compelled to read. This sometimes happens and I know better, I know I should make better choices, I know I should be doing my To Do List. I also know the let down I feel when I finish a good book, I know that the next few books I read will pale in comparison to the GREAT book I just read. I have several books that have bookmarks in them sitting on my night-stand right now, and I know they are good books but they do not make me feel like neglecting my Duties. So thanks again Auntie K, I loved the book, and the escape. Thanks again, it was a Great Book. Looking forward to a book discussion over a bottle of wine sometime.

Again

Dear You Know Who You Are,

Your nails are "done up" again. Did you not just lose your job last week? Are you not on public assistance? Were you not the one saying at the last family function that you were upset that you were on public assistance? Yet your nails are done, you have nicer clothes than we do, and your baby always has on a new outfit. WTF?
Please go get a job at Wal-Mart or something, I am not judging you but you are healthy and you can work, go get a job, any job. I know that your family did not impart you with the WORK ETHIC that my family did, but you have a very very sick baby that needs a transplant, please go and get a job, so that when you look back on this time later in your life you know that you were not draining the system.
You drive newer automobiles than Mr. Anti Hippie and myself, and we work combined like 4 jobs, you work combined like 1. You are from that ME Generation, the ME Generation that expects someone to "help" you out, give you a hand out, if I was in your shoes I would be working like 6 jobs, you have a sick baby at home and tons of people willing to help you take care of that baby. This does not mean that they are supposed to give you hand outs or money, they will help you take care of the baby the rest is up to you.
T and B get a job! Quit living out of your means, this means start budgeting, start EATING at home, now that you are home start cooking. You got all the cookware for your wedding (20K wedding).
For those of you who have read this whole post, I know this sounds like sour grapes, but I have a job, when I could not afford certain luxuries I went without them or I worked my ass off in order to have them, and my kid came first, not my nails. I worked so that he would have the best, the best education, cause believe me TTLC (Eddy's Child Care Center) was not cheap. I drove my Ford Explorer into the ground, 250,000 miles, I gave up many things so that he could have, and it was not the best but he (Eddy Haskel) CAME FIRST. These two that I am complaining about always put themselves first. Nails, new truck, new car, new this and new that.

Please grow up, I know Baby M is on the Transplant list, but do her a favor, go out and be productive, even if it is just a job at Dollar General, quit using the system. Budget, budget, budget. Give up those luxuries, they will come with hard HARD work and determination. I vowed that Eddy Haskel would not be raised in poverty, that I would rise above it, and I did. I went to college, and went back to college, and graduated, and went back again, and in December I will graduate, again. No, I will not have a Playstation 3, nor will I own Rock Band, nor will I have a stroller or Bedroom set that matches, but I will not be on public assistance. I will own my own house, I will own 2 vehicles that are paid off, even though they are older models, I will cook dinner at home ALMOST every night, and I will love the one I am with for who he is, and I will love my kids.
I am sorry life has dealt you what it has dealt you, but remember I still love all of you and I will help you, you just need to help yourselves right now, and getting your nails "done", is not helping any of us.

Love,
EBM

SOLD

My house has been on the market since September and this past weekend it finally sold. I am bittersweet about this whole thing. I love this house, albeit is too small for our expanding family, but I love it. We have a huge yard, front and back and a fenced in portion for our dogs to run. We have an above ground pool which makes Midwestern Summers that much more bearable, I have a garden, and and a wonderful recycled clothes line (we salvaged from a neighbor's yard).
Our new house is wonderful, this will be the first house I have ever purchased, and I am excited. But to get to the heart of the matter, I am resistant to CHANGE. Yeah, that six letter word scares the bejebbers outa' me. I am a creature of habit, and change makes me anxious. We have 4 weeks to be out of this house, and I had already moved some of the clutter out when we put this house on the market, and I have already begun packing, but I am scared. I am scared, really scared, I am leaving my fire department, I am moving nearer to Mr. Anti-Hippie's family, and I am moving farther from my good friend Earth Muffin. It is rumored that this new town we are moving to, does not allow girls on their fire department and that also makes me anxious. The fire department that I am leaving, is wonderful, they are supportive of all the women on the department, since we are a farming community I have been to plenty of fires where the majority of us were females. Once a guy even commented on the fact that there were 5 women on scene, and he asked if there were any men in our department. My Chief told the guy that yeah there were but the five of us were tough enough to put out any fire, and we were efficient and got the job done, but I digress. I want to be a fire fighter in the town we are moving to, but I might have to file a sexual discrimination suit first, and that also scares me.

Our new house has more square footage and it is in a nice neighborhood. We have a Koi fish pond in the back yard, and a custom kitchen with an ironing center, but I will miss this little house here in BH, and all the memories that were made here.

• Having a first date here with Mr. Anti Hippie

• Moving in with Mr. Anti Hippie (Eddy Haskel got his own room and bathroom)

• Mr. Anti Hippie proposing to me in the kitchen August 25, 2005

• Getting married (at my parent's house really close to here November 5th, 2005)

• Movie Nights

• Mother's Day (my favorite Holiday, in fact the only holiday I really celebrate)

• Preparing for Baby Gnat's arrival

• Bringing home Baby Gnat

I know that change is inevitable and it too will bring about good things, but I am a Leo I am stubborn and resistant. Over the next few weeks as I pack up our lives and prepare our new house to become our new home, I will become very sentimental as I go through boxes of memories. As I reflect upon change and changing, I hope to become less resistant over the next few weeks and with the prospect of Spring on the horizon, I can only hope that many more memories are to be made with in the walls of our new home.

You've Come A Long Way Baby..

So this Monday I will mark my 8 year anniversary that I started becoming the woman I am today. On that day 8 years ago I left the "Sperm Donor", packed my baby in the truck and took off. I got the truck and the babe out of that deal and I think it was the best deal I have ever been dealt.

I call him the "Sperm Donor" because that was his only job, that is all he did. When I got pregnant with Eddy Haskel I was 3000 miles away from home and he kept telling me that he would take care of us, well while I was pregnant he was not the one that was working, nor was he the one that was paying bills, no he was the one with the illegal job. He kept telling me that we could make a ton of money and that this is what he was meant to do, and that I needed a real job as sort of a cover so that no one would assume that he was really doing what he was doing. Well Eddy Haskel was born one very very cold December morning and the next thing that I knew, the Sperm Donor was calling me from jail telling me he was incarcerated, for something he really did not do, he did not know that there was an arrest warrant out for him. He had no clue.

Well hind sight is 20/20 but after Eddy and I were discharged from the hospital we went to the jail to bail him out, meanwhile I had to get rid of his illegalities in order to have enough cash to make his bail. I should have left his ass in jail, but like I said 20/20. So by this time I am so home-sick that I just want go back home and see my family and become grounded in reality again. So we jump bail and I bring him back here to the mid-west thinking this climate would make him want to be more responsible and actually have a job. RIGHT??

Well it did not work out, needless to say when we got back here it just lead him to do other illegal stuff, he did get a job. He was not the upstanding citizen he should have been nor the father that I really wanted for our babe. He was a scammer, always looking for an easy way out. This was not who I wanted to raise my baby with, so that Monday I left not thinking about my future, but certainly not wanting to waste anymore energy on him, while I had this baby to raise and set an example for.

So over the past 8 years I have raised one terrific boy child, graduated from college, found the Greatest Guy in the world the Anti Hippie, had another baby, Gnat, and learned many important lessons. I am a strong woman who can accomplish many things and who made some wrong decisions, but who worked her ass off to right those wrongs.

Happy Liberation Day, Monday March 3rd!!!

Love, Earthy Birthy Mama

Photo Shoot

I recently purchased matching shirts for my kiddos and since my dad used to take our annual family Christmas Photos I asked him to take some shots at the kiddos. These were the best and they totally capture my kids.