High Pitch Eric

As most everyone knows I have 2 sons and 1 daughter. Zachary, my eldest, is the creative one. Elizabeth, my youngest and only daughter, is a delightful mix of girly girl and tomboy.

And then there's Lucas. He's the manly boy. He likes fishing, monster trucks, car races and football. He likes to get dirty, play in the mud, shoot hoops and pretend he is any one of a menagerie of superheroes. He has stuffed animals, sure, but they are a stuffed alligator who's ferocious and a huge stuffed dog named Boomer. He keeps his hair super short (typically...right now it's touching the tips of his ears) and usually wears it spiked in the front...by his own choice.

But then there's one part of Lucas that doesn't fit at all. His voice. Chuck calls him our "high-pitch Eric". It's usually part of Lucas' charm that is him; but then there are the times when he whines when I swear his voice could shatter glass.

However, even with his high voice (and he is only 4 1/2!) NO ONE has ever mistaken Lucas for a girl. Not even as a baby.

Until this weekend.

We went swimming at our local aquatic center on Saturday afternoon. We've been trying to make this a regular habit as it gets us out of the house, active and playing together as a family. And for only $10 for the entire family, it's cheaper than most things we can do out there right now when it's so bitter cold. Per usual, we got ready in the family changing rooms (easier to have both parents on hand to corral the kids), got the kids into their life jackets (my kids sink like stones), and out into the warm exercise pool. There was only one other family in there. Awesome!! I love having room to move around and play.

Lucas wears a red life jacket and blue/red Hawaiin flowered swim trunks. No shirt. He and Daddy were playing football when Chuck said "Lucas, it's coming to you!"

A grandmother from the other family pipes up and states "You named your girl, your daugher, Lucas?"

Chuck and I stopped and kinda looked; I'm sure we were looking rather confused. Chuck explained that no...Our daughters name was Elizabeth, his name (pointing at Lucas) is Lucas and his name (pointing to Zachary) is Zachary.

The woman looks at Lucas again and states "Ohhh, he's a boy?!"

Now, I understand that he has a rather high voice. But seriously? He's wearing no shirt, short hair, boy trunks and his name is Lucas. Hmmmm...that seems rather self-evident to me.

I kinda hope that his voice catches up with his attitude and demeanor before high school....kids can be really cruel.

Good Samaritan--Kiddie Style

I was reading a magazine this morning that Zachary brought home yesterday from school called "Parent & Child". (I think it's from Scholastic not that that makes any dang bit of difference.) I found it on the kitchen chair this morning and thought I'd do a little perusing while I was waiting for the shower to warm up and the kids were still sleeping.

They had a really interesting article in there about teaching your children good deeds and thinking about others at even the earliest of ages and tips/ideas on things to do that are age appropriate.

I found the article inspiring and thought-provoking. In the past, we've introduced the idea of thinking of others and giving of ourselves by having a yearly pilgrammage to buy toys that they pick out and give to "Toys for Tots" during the Christmas season. The last couple of years we haven't done this...I guess the excuse is we've been too busy. But I think it's really important to teach the kids that we are very fortunate to have the things that we do have. And I'm not just speaking of material things....yes, it's nice that we have the house, car, etc. But I'm talking more about family. There are so many kids out there that have no one that care for them. No moms and dads or moms and dads that could give a shit less about them. THAT is what I want the kids to understand....how incredibly important the relationships of family and good friends are. One of the lessons that we've been working on in therapy with Zachary is looking outside of himself. Apparently children like Zachary are very, very focused on only themselves so it's important to push him to think of others. Why? Well, some simple reasons that root themselves in socially acceptable behavior....like not *ALWAYS* having to be first in line. Asking questions when others are speaking to you. Things like that.

Some of the suggestions were simple and easy to do...and everything was age appropriate. Such as:

* On their birthdays, picking out a toy or donating money to a local children's home.
* Making sandwiches and decorating the bags/boxes and dropping them off at the local homeless shelter.
* Volunteering at the humane society feeding and watering or just playing with the animals.
* Putting some of their allowance each week into a jar and when the jar is full they get to choose where to donate it.
* Walk with the kids in a 5k race for a charitable organization. Explain to the kids what its for and why its so important.

There were a bunch more, but those are the ones that stuck out in my mind. I googled the topic "kids doing good" and tons of references came up including this book: Doing Good Together. So I encourage you to find time to teach your children about charity. And if you do charitable deeds with your kids, what do you do?

25 Things about Hubby and Me

I wanted to get a post out there today for all my loyal readers. (The 2 of you I know that read...) and I have an idea but honestly I'm so irritable and attention deficited today that I can't focus enough to write the blog I want to write. So hopefully you'll get that tomorrow.

For now...Enjoy 25 facts about hubby and me, as seen by my side of the relationship. I'm sure he'll tell you something different! This is kind of like the 25 things - except there are pre-decided questions and it's about you and your spouse, not just you. Come on, play along - inquiring minds want to know! ;-)

♥ What are your middle names? Marie and David

♥ How long have you been together?Together almost 12 years and married 7 1/2 years

♥ How long did you know each other before you started dating? About 2 months, if you can call what we did dating.

♥ Who asked who out? Um...well, I guess he was the one who suggested it.

♥ How old are each of you? Hubby is 40. I am 31.

♥ Whose siblings do/ did you see the most? My brothers. We see his sister as little as possible.

♥ Do you have any children together? All 3.

♥ What about pets? As the boys informed me last night we have 7 pets. 5 fish and 2 dogs.

♥ Which situation is the hardest on you as a couple? Being in a house that's too small for all of us and it's constantly cluttered.

♥ Did you go to the same school? Nope, not at all.

♥ Are you from the same home town? Nope, but close. Our parents only lived about 5 minutes from each other.

♥ Who is the smartest? Chuck. But I'm pretty smart as well.

♥ Who is the most sensitive? Me. Hands down. However, Chuck is very sentimental. Not that he lets everyone see that.

♥ Where do you eat out most as a couple? A couple. Hmmm. Claddaugh's Irish Pub.

♥ Where is the furthest you two have traveled together as a couple? London, England for our honeymoon.

♥ Who has the craziest exes? Well, that's gotta be him because I don't have any exes.

♥ Who has the worst temper? Me, without a doubt.

♥ Who does the cooking? Chuck. Every day I come home to a hot dinner on the table.

♥ Who is more social? Definitely me. If it weren't for me, he'd be a hermit holed up somewhere.

♥ Who is the neat-freak? Depends on where the cycle is at, but usually Chuck.

♥ Who is the more stubborn? Me. Ask anybody in my family.

♥ Who hogs the bed? Jake (the dog) or Lucas. If neither of them are in bed, Chuck....

♥ Who wakes up earlier? Chuck on the weekdays (5:30 am); Me on the weekends (7:30 am)

♥ Where was your first date? First date was at Don Pablo's (YUM!) but our first hookup was at my house at a party.

♥ Who has the bigger family? Me, hands down. Chuck has a hard time understanding my ties to a big family.

♥ Do you get flowers often? Zachary gets me flowers sometimes (he did yesterday). From Chuck....never anymore.

♥ How do you spend the holidays? Traveling from one set of grandparents to another.

♥ Who is more jealous? I used to be, but not anymore. Now neither of us is jealous, really.

♥ How long did it take to get serious? About 2 months, I guess. By 8 months of dating we moved in together.

♥ Who eats more? Hubby

♥ Who does/ did the laundry? Me.

♥ Who’s better with the computer?Him. Unless it's typing...then, me.

♥ Who drives when you are together?Usually he does. But I will occassionally.

So, I'd be curious to hear about your relationship!!

Big Owie=1, Elizabeth=0

So after 3 children and nearly 7 years, last night was the closest we came to taking a child to the hospital for a broken bone. Luckily, we didn't have to, but Elizabeth went from a walking and running child back to a crawling, crying baby in the blink of an eye. All thanks to a big "owie!". It was clean sweep time for the boys (they have 30 timed minutes to clean the bedroom, living room and hallway. If they don't complete their tasks to my inspection, they don't get to watch t.v. for the evening.) Lucas apparently didn't want Elizabeth in his room, so he put the kids' stools in the doorway. Why he didn't just shut the door, I have no idea. Probably so he could continue to monkey-around with his brother instead of clean.

Elizabeth, being the smart girl she is, climbed onto the stools and was standing there, just inside Lucas' room. Lucas decided that he didn't like that and pushed her off. Landing wrong on her foot/ankle and subsequently screaming incessantly. She pushed herself up and wobbled/half crawled to me and I saw that something was majorly wrong from the way she was limping. I had her try to take a couple steps towards Daddy and it was no better. He picked her up and felt her leg and the look of concern on his face made me more than a little worried. Chuck doesn't get that look too often. But, in retrospect, Elizabeth is his little girl.

We took off Elizabeth's pants and pushed and prodded and twisted her leg and nothing much happened other than an occassional smile from a ticklish spot. Her foot though...that was a different story. When you pushed on it, you'd get a wince or a loud "ow, ow, ow!" After we decided we'd take the wait and see approach as nothing appeared broken, we put her back on the floor where she tried to run and instead screamed and fell to the floor to crawl. She couldn't quite get it figured out that she just couldn't run yesterday...or jump off the counch.

Luckily, this morning she was gingerly walking on her foot; after I encouraged her to walk and she realized she could. I'll be curious to see how she's acting tonight when I get home. Elizabeth seemed to be soaking in the attention, so she may milk this for a couple more days ;)

Me, the sex-pot consultant

Well, the state of the state address is tomorrow and we’re all very anxious to hear how two-penny Jenny is going to fix our problems. I’m of the mind that she’s not, yet, again. We’re ready to hear how she’s going to basically squander the 3 billion dollar federal monies that is being given to Michigan all the while more and more people lose their jobs and they layoff state workers or as the rumour may infer they cut our pay by 10%. I figured it out and with the 5% mandatory paycut I took when they moved me to days along with Chuck and I both losing 10% if she does this along with 13% of our income that we pay our sitter, we’ll have lost 38% of our combined household income in just about 3 months. Wonderful, isn’t it?

Why do I bring all this up? I’m thinking of taking on a part-time job as a Pure Romance consultant. It seems like the women I know and talk to are still into going to parties and buying “marital aids”; probably to relieve stress and depression. I have a huge conglomerate of friends that I think would have parties, too. I’ve had a couple of different consultants over the last few years try pretty hardcore to recruit me saying that I’d be an excellent consultant since I know my toys and have a passion for women being open with their sexuality and finding the inner sex-pot even if it’s more tame than mine is.

On top of possibly making some money, I think it’d be so much fun to talk about sex with women as a part-time job. It’s something that I know a bit about and have a lot of fun with. It’d allow me an outlet to be a fun, lively woman and not just mom all the time. You’d think my job with the government would do that, but honestly I come to work and babysit a bunch of old people. It’s not all that much different than being at home, for the most part. Except for the fact that I love my children and only mostly like the people at work.

So, I’m thinking about doing this. There’s a slight start-up charge in order to get the product to showcase at the parties and I’m a little hesistant about that. What do you think? Have you ever done any in-home parties? What’s the pro’s and con’s?

Oh, and btw, I was HEAVILY discouraged against the supervisor position. Why? Because apparently there is some major discourse among the employees and the department manager above that position is HORRIBLE to work for. So, I’m going to pass on that. I don’t need more stress in my life.