First I Lost Track Of The Days...

I think I can officially say that I'm losing it.  A few weeks ago I lost track of what day it was.  For three days I thought it was Wednesday, but I was only right on one of the three days.  Only that wasn't good enough.  On the day when it was, in fact, Wednesday, I forgot that I was supposed to be lunch mom at Ellie's school.  Not my shining moment.

Fortunately since that screwy week where I had no idea what day it was, I've been pretty good about knowing what day it is.  I thought I was chugging along just fine, until I came to the startling realization this evening that I apparently don't know what year we're in.  Now maybe you'll think I got confused and thought it was still 2010.  No, I knew full well that we have said goodbye to that dreadful year where family members dropped off left and right.  Would you believe I thought we were already in 2012?

I was once again browsing some homeschooling sites and I was getting annoyed that so much of the content on their sites was dated.  Honestly, am I supposed to enroll my children in a home study program where they have last year's information up on their site as if it's current?  I simply could not figure out what the problem was with these places.  Then I tried to figure out what happened in 2011 since I hardly had any recollection of it.  A few minutes of me being perplexed and a little more browsing online brought me to the conclusion that 2012 hasn't happened yet.

I'd love to know why I thought it was already next year.  This, dear readers, is how I totally disorient myself with little to no effort.

I just gained a day!

I was responding to an email from a fellow blogger this morning and I noticed that she sent the email to me on the 24th, but my email program was saying it was sent yesterday.  I couldn't reconcile the discrepancy.  How could June 24th have been yesterday when today is June 26th?  I pondered this question for a minute before looking down and noticing that my iCalendar was displaying the number 25 on it's little icon.  I was dumbfounded that this was displaying yesterday's date.  How odd. After taking a closer look at the calendar I discovered that today is in fact the 25th.  You would think I would have caught this yesterday when I wondered why my NFP chart was behind a day, but no, I just figured that I had forgot to fill it in that day and course corrected.  I guess days one and two of summer vacation just felt longer than they should.  I'm going to try to enjoy my extra day of summer that I just discovered.

Carrots

Sure, they seem like such unassuming vegetables, but did you know they can make you lose sleep?  How?  Well, if you sign up to provide carrots for your child's preschool class and you realize that you didn't buy them the night before the morning when they're due, you can lose sleep obsessing about how you once again forgot something for your child's class.

I'm not sure why I'm always forgetting the stuff I volunteered to send in for Ellie's class.  Maybe I don't like 3 and 4 year old kids.  Or, maybe I don't want the teacher's lesson plans for the edible alphabet to go as planned. Or, maybe I just need to learn to write this stuff down on my trusty Mom's Family Calendar.  I do, in fact, like Ellie's cute little Busy Bears class and their wonderful teacher.  I'm fairly certain that Miss Susan probably thinks I'm a ditz.  Then again, she's probably just really grateful that I remember to pick Ellie up at the proper time each day.  I was relating my forgotten carrots story to the director of Ellie's school today and telling her how I never forget anything for Madeline's school, but if it's for Ellie's class I always remember at the last minute.  She's kind and tells me it's because Ellie only goes two days a week and Madeline is at school all week long.  I think I only have the capacity to manage one kid in school.

So this morning I pawned Madeline off on my neighbor (not the ones the give me random ingredients or birthday pies).  I called her up and explained that I forgot carrots for Ellie and that I couldn't drop Madeline off at school,  stop at the grocery store for carrots and still get Ellie to school on time.  She kindly agreed to give Madeline a ride.  It's so nice to have good neighbors.  I don't think Madeline was too thrilled that I opted out of taking her to school.

So the carrot crisis has been averted.  And do you know what I did as soon as I dropped off the carrots?  I signed up to provide the cupcakes for the preschool graduation.  Will I remember the cupcakes at the last minute?  Your guess is as good as mine, but I think I'm going to go write it on my calendar right now!

Sometimes birthday parties can be fun.

I'm the kind of person who generally dreads going to birthday parties for my kids' friends. There's always the loud volume level and the painful small talk with the parents who, in most cases, you don't know.  I actually try to find excuses not go take my kids to these parties, but sometimes, you just can't get out of going.  Today we had to go to a party for Madeline's friend Mary.  We know Mary and her family since they live around the corner from us.  Her mom and I are good friends and since we really like them, I didn't try to make up an excuse not to go to the party.  This party was at a toy store called Learning Express, so I was skeptical that this would actually be a fun party. I figured that I'd wind up with two kids begging me to buy more toys that we simply don't need and we'd be going home with crying children.  Turns out that neither one of them asked for a single thing and they both left the store smiling. I found a toy that I wanted, but Bryan wouldn't buy it for me.

I wound up having a lot of fun.  The toy store had this neat glider thing  (this is the toy that Bryan wouldn't buy me) that you sit in and when you move your feet back and forth you propel yourself forward.  I was scooting all over the store in it.  My neighbors all found my antics rather amusing. The toy is a great work out for your legs.

The only part of the party that wasn't to my liking was the craft part.  When I read craft on a party invite I imagine something that isn't going to create a permanent mess, but often that's not the reality.  This party had a tie-dye craft. Both of my girls have this wipe my hands on my shirt reflex that drives me crazy.  On an ordinary day I'd just deal with it, but when fabric dye is involved I can't help but go into frantic Karen mode.  Madeline was wearing a cute new outfit today that had a white shirt and there she is dripping dye dangerously close to her shirt.  She wound up with two tiny purple stains on her shirt.  I'm hopeful that I'll be able to get it out with some bleach.  Ellie was ready to go in for the kill of one of my favorite shirts on her as soon as she came in contact with the dye.  She was desperate to wipe her dye colored plastic gloves on her shirt.  I was going into a small meltdown as Bryan stood by taking pictures.  As I'm freaking out on the inside I realize that I'm coming close to having a Kate Gosselin moment.  So I wound up doing Ellie's tie dye shirt for her and told Madeline to put the dye down and step away so I wouldn't cause a scene.  I honestly don't know how I missed the part where Kelly, Mary's mom, told me about the tie dying.  She's knows that I'm a maniac when it comes to keeping the girls clothes nice so when she warned me this Wednesday I guess that was my cue to dress them in play clothes. Obviously, the paint fumes from earlier this week killed enough of my brain cells to make me have yet another Mommy Brain moment, because I didn't make a mental note about the tie dying.

The cupcakes at the party were another highlight for me.  Kelly made puppy cupcakes and her girls decided to decorate the cake box before the party.  When they moved the box it rocked the puppy cupcakes' world.  As a result the expressions on the cupcakes were priceless.  If they had been done by a professional baker I feel confident that they would have made it on to the Cake Wrecks blog.  Cake Wrecks confirms all the fears I've had about cakes for my kids' parties going wrong.  Bryan always tells me that I worry over nothing, but that blog confirms that sometimes cakes just don't go as planned. 

Poor Cupcakes....they look so concerned.

Attack of the Mommy Brain!

Before I had kids, I had an amazing memory.  Tell me something once and I'd never forget it.  After I had Madeline the memory was still pretty good, but I'd have Mommy moments here and there.  No big deal.  Now I'm lucky most days if I can remember my name let alone my kids'.  Ask poor Ellie.  That child gets called "Madel-Oh that's not your name!-the other kid" all the time.  Such a sad state my poor memory is in these days.

I realized around midnight last night that I was supposed to bring in a 22 or 23 ounce bag of marshmallow's for Ellie's class, but couldn't remember when I needed them.  Then I sat there in my paint fume induced confused state, no doubt, and thought it was odd that the ounce of the marshmallow bag was specified on the sign up sheet.  That's when it occurred to me that I must have had another Mommy Brain moment (Mommy Guilt, that was your entrance cue).  Yeah, so I take a look at the calendar and realize that the MWF class needed the marshmallows for the 22nd and Ellie's class needed them for the 23rd. The only marshmallow items in the house are peeps and there was simply no way I could get the marshmallows before school since I have to drop Madeline off first.  This isn't the first Mommy Brain moment of the week.  I also forgot to remind Madeline to take her library books to school on Monday, so I'm expecting another late notice from the school any day now.  And as I type this, I realize that I never emailed Madeline's teacher to let her know that Madeline needs to leave her glasses at her desk for P.E. today.  I told Madeline to tell her teacher to check her email in an hour because I wanted to explain the situation.  School gets out in 50 minutes so emailing the teacher now would just be pointless.  

I even left the dog out this morning when I took the kids to school!  Mr. Furkins always gets locked in his crate when we go out.  Today, in my rush to get the kids to school on time, I forgot about the dog. Oscar clearly thought it was odd and he put himself in the crate.  He was sitting there looking all confused when I came into the house with the groceries.  Any other day, and I would have been home 5-20 minutes after leaving, but not today.  I went grocery shopping and was gone for more than an hour.  I'm very proud of Oscar for behaving himself. 

I'm losing my mind and I don't like it.  I hope I don't forget to pick Madeline up from CCD tonight since someone else is taking her there.

Teeth!

Apparently, today is a tooth day.  This morning I had to trek down to my dentist's office in Stone Harbor for the second Monday in a row.  Last week it was for Madeline and I to get our teeth cleaned and today was filling day for me.  I had a 4 year cavity-free streak.  I'm hoping to go at least another 4 years before the next one hits.  I'm running out of cavity free teeth at this point, but it's probably all due to my candy addiction.  I can't get enough of candy.

Madeline lost another tooth today.  That brings her lost tooth count up to five.  This child is not going to have any teeth in her mouth by the time her First Holy Communion rolls around in less than three weeks.  She lost her two front teeth within the past 6 weeks and now she's missing another bottom tooth.  She's all smiles today since she's been anticipating the imminent loss of this tooth for about two weeks.  Looks like the tooth fairy will be visiting our house tonight.  I hope she doesn't forget like the time before the last tooth.  Madeline was devastated but Bryan managed to convince her that she didn't look hard enough in her tooth box for the money.  I think the tooth fairy, realizing that she forgot to claim a tooth when she woke to the sound of a disappointed seven year old, waited for her to go downstairs to watch TV on Saturday morning and then sneaked into her room and traded money for tiny tooth and went back to bed.