Stuff In My Head

A few times in the last couple of days I've thought, "That's something I want to put on the blog" but now I'm here and none of them are coming to mind.

When I have to get up at a certain time in the morning, sleep is always a little more stressful during the night. I went to Scout Day Camp with Bo yesterday and by bedtime, I was pretty wiped out (boys are obnoxious by the way---I've never seen such handsy, annoying, pestering little creatures in all my days). I wanted to sleep my life away, but I had two other kids who hadn't been with me all day who were all up in my grill and knew I had to be up early to get him off to his last day. I think that's why I had weird dreams. I want to tell you about one.

I woke up (in real life) at 5:30am and was thrilled to realize I could go back to sleep. So I did. But then in my dream, I decided to actually go for a walk. My dream self is totally fit and active. In my walk, I was suddenly in my hometown, walking around the "historic square" that is about a mile from my childhood home, and when I was younger the only thing there that I utilized was the post office and a cheap movie theater, so I didn't spend a lot of time there. I was walking around checking out the little shops when suddenly I was made aware that it wasn't 5:45, it was actually 8:15, which is 15 minutes past the time Bo was supposed to be at camp. And then I realized J had a test, so he wasn't at home with the kids, and I was suddenly frantic to get home---a, I left my children home unattended, and b, we were now late. I started running--and I was awesome at running, by the way, and suddenly the ground was flooded with rainwater and there were lower points of water I could get through, but I really had to navigate kind of carefully and in advance. There were other "dream-like" obstacles that popped out but I don't remember them and they were probably weird, since they were dream-like.

I was really happy when I woke up at 6:45, in my bed, totally unfit and a bad runner still.

Probably the dream was getting out some of my feelings of being overwhelmed and out of time--all the time. Either that or it was a sign from God that the end is near and I better get my act together. We'll see.

This morning I was making apples and peanut butter for Danyo for breakfast. He's kind of demanding and insistent at times. It totally gets on my nerves. He was bouncing around the kitchen barking orders at me and said, "Is the peanut butter on my plate yet!? Get it on my plate!" I said, "Wow Danyo, I'm not really interested in making breakfast for a little boy who's speaking so rudely to me. I think you might want to try that again." He lowers his tone a bit and says, "I don't think this is any of your business." That = awesome. I love bossypants kids who repeat your bossypants phrases, inappropriately.

I wrote on Facebook yesterday how I shivered my tail off at day camp and STILL managed to get a sunburn. I think we saw the sun a total of 8 minutes yesterday, and that's not an exaggeration. How did I get burned!? It wasn't like cold and sunny, it was bleary and rainy and windy and cold. Anyway. One of my friends wrote, " But you are not a jedi yet..." and it made me laugh out loud. Mostly because I doubt she's a Star Wars nerd junkie fan as the comment might indicate. I read it to J and he replied bitterly, "You aren't allowed to laugh at that." Which totally made me laugh. He's really given it a valiant effort to get me to watch and enjoy those movies and it just hasn't happened. Some days he's just incredulous about that. To make our marriage work, we just have to agree to disagree. I know them's fightin' words for some. I'm sorry.

Yesterday one of the classes the scouts went to was building little birdhouse-bird feeder things. It was simple enough that the kids could navigate it on their own and they loved it. The leader-dude who presented this class was kind of...I don't know the word. He too was an order barker, to small children and grown adults alike. It was rubbing the other den walkers the wrong way and might have me too, if I cared enough. Anyway, Bo and his buddy finished their houses and this guy kept walking around hoping, almost insisting that there was more we needed to do. All nailed, screws in, wire on, colored, etc. After passing by a good 5 or 6 times he stops and says, "Do you have a 7th nail in?" He flips the house over and points to a spot at the bottom of the board. He grabs a nail and slams it into the back of the house while informing us, "This is BANG just a little BANG trick BANG to make it extra secure BANG BANG!" I'm thinking, yes, for those obese birds that fly around our house...

Turns out he just slammed the nail straight through the back of the house. It didn't secure anything. And it wasn't like, really close and he just missed by a hair, it was a good two inches away from any other board he may have been trying to "secure" it to. And he didn't even check his work--he banged it in and walked away.

Now, there's something you might not know about me. I have been told since I was a little girl that I have a very expressive face. I really think I'm being discreet or not showing much, but I've been told over and over, it's all over my face. So--I'm pretty sure that how dumb I thought what this guy did was all over my face. Only, I remain certain in my head, that I'm discreet. This time though, the 8 year old busted me. Bo looked across the table at me, mimicked my expression, and burst out laughing. His expression made me laugh because I didn't initially realize he was imitating me. He looked down at the table, looked up at me, and his face said, "Did I really just get to witness that stupidity first hand?"

It took us like 5 minutes to get the nail out too. We were laughing the whole time. I felt bad that it was at the expense of someone else, but it was kind of fun to have this little "inside joke" with my 8 year old. I also probably better watch myself a little more closely. He's a sharp one, that boy.

I have one more full day class of school, one more regular class and a final and I am home free. I'm technically home free because aside from the final (which I'm certain I will ace) I have nothing else required of me but my time. Yeehaw! I'm so excited about a school-free July and all the fun stuff we have in store. I hope we run into a gravy train in all our travels because that's really the only hitch to all the plans I have. :) That and laundry.

In my ethics class we have to do role plays of unethical or poorly handled counseling sessions. Since there's only 15 in my class, we are all kind of forced to participate on a "voluntary" basis. This last week, it was kind of falling on me. Only this time, instead of having the counselor go out and be "surprised" by the dilemma, he sent me, the client out. I thought I had been safe volunteering to be the client.

Well, the dilemma was the counselor hitting on me and basically he had to handle whatever my response was. I tried to really experience it, so I expressed my concerns and how creepy I thought it was, etc, etc. Well, this guy was really good at being the creepy counselor and was persistent, and kept putting it back on me. "Do you think it's wrong? Do you see any reason we couldn't make it work?" I finally kind of ran out of things to say and there was a long pause. I had hoped the professor would intervene and say, "okay, that's good" but he didn't. So I said, "Well...you are kind of cute..." The whole class roared and I saw the professor throw up his hands, laughing, "No no! Stop! You aren't supposed to do that!" I figured it effectively ended the role play, so it was the right move. I kind of love being old in college. :)

Well now I have to go face my day. Au revoir.

Middle O' June

I gots some catching up to do! I'm probably going to be back dating some posts, for the boys' birthdays, Bo's baptism, etc---so if you see random stuff popping up, pay no mind to my beautiful procrastination/cram session. It's how I do.

Last night we were at some friend's house watching a movie in their backyard with their new projector. It was really fun. As I was sitting there snuggled up with J, Avee, and Danyo every other minute, I was thinking what a wonderful weekend we'd had. I love to get things accomplished, but I REALLY love to relax and unwind, and this weekend was a perfect combination of both. Another friend threw an amazing pirate party for two of her kids at our house. Probably one of the most creative and fun parties I've ever been to. Heh, I didn't even have to go to it, she brought it to me. So, out of that party we got a delish lunch, I got a cleaned up yard, and the house was in great shape. Yeehaw! All our work was done by 10am. Beautiful.

This morning Bo started a "Kids University". He's going to a magnets class and an H2o class. He was so cute this morning. He was so tired from our late movie night, but so excited to start his program, there was a very long pause between anything I said and any response he gave. At one point he even said, "Hang on, I need to let those words go through my head a little longer before I can answer." I had noticed that all of his thrusters weren't firing yet, but to hear him describe it was particularly enjoyable for me.

I am halfway through a really hectic month. I'm taking a 3 credit class and three 1 credit classes, all in the month of June. The one credit classes I don't have to buy texts or take any tests, but they are all day, for two full days. I think school has abolished my social life. Sometimes that makes me sad. Mostly I just want to hunker down and get through this. I'm learning so much great stuff, I don't want to miss the experience for too much hunkering down. :)

Lately, just in the past week I've felt disenchanted with the "counseling industry". I always do stuff like this, and then I get over it. In one of my classes there are two students who are doing continuing ed credits, they've already graduated the program and are counselors in nearby schools. And they are totally rude and condescending to other students and disrespectful to the teacher (she's a bit of a flibberty-gibbit, I'll admit), and all in all, just really embarrassing representatives of the profession. In my humble opinion.

Yesterday in my ethics class I, and another girl who started the program with me in January, had to do some role-playing scenarios. Everyone else in the class is either done with the program or quite close to done. Pretending to be a counselor, facing an ethical issue doesn't phase them a bit. It terrified us. My classmate did a really good job with a fake scenario of a client asking to borrow money. In my opinion, a client that isn't clear on that boundary would actually need to be spoken to pretty directly, which she did. She was kind and direct. I thought she did an excellent job. And truly, neither of us know a thing about how to conduct a session, what approaches should be taken, how to word things "properly", etc. I watched two girls in front of me basically ripping her up one side and down the other for her not saying, "oh sweetie, I'm sorry money is tight, I understand things are hard, I empathize with you, but..." She simply said, "I'm sorry, I'm not able to help you, I have a code of ethics as a counselor that I have to adhere to and...." First of all, IT'S FAKE and second of all---how is being all judgmental and catty to a peer any more professional or educated? It made me sad. I made a very deliberate comment about how I felt a more direct response was necessary with a client that unclear on client/counselor boundaries. I hope they burned in shame at my indirect condemnation.

Heh. Just kidding.

I shouldn't be surprised though. The one making all the faces of horror during my friend's scenario, was the same girl who thought a 13 year old boy engaging in random sexual acts with older men had a right to privacy and his parents didn't need to know. Another classmate referred to his behavior as Russian roulette and she told him that was "a little overly-dramatic". Um, remind me never to send my child to you, crazy-every-body-is-equal girl! Whoops? Am I being judgmental? My bad....

June 29th is my final, J's birthday, our anniversary, and the day we head out of town for our family vacation. It's really the first one we've ever taken, in 9 years. Two years ago I drove to Utah with the kids, without J. We were gone for over two weeks and during that time, J got 1 of 2 reactions from people when they heard I'd taken the kids and gone to Utah without him. One was, "Oh wow, are things okay?" and the other was, "Dude! How did you score THAT!?" Mostly other men asked the latter.

Maybe I'll go work on my backdated posts now. It's now 6 am Tuesday morning and I suspect I have the house and solitude all to myself for at least another hour.

The Story of My Life

I think I've mentioned before, I do a preschool co-op with 5 other mothers and their cute little preschoolers. It has turned out to be an AWESOME little venture. I thought it would be a great little social outing for Danyo and a good little break for each of the moms. Danyo has learned so much, and remarkably, all 6 kids get along really well. I have loved being a part of it.

The last time I taught, I did the letter L and we did some ladybug crafts.

I found this great little craft idea online that would take more time, but fairly simply steps, and a really cute end result. I had the kids paint little flower pots red, then I modge podged black spots and a very feminine little ladybug face onto the pot.
They would ultimately be cute little wind chimes, like this.

I had the kids paint the pots red, we let it dry, and then while they had snack, I quickly put the faces on six little pots. As those were drying on the table, I gathered the children onto the carpet and we did stories and singing. During one of our songs, I glanced over at the table and spotted this:
It took me a second and my heart just sank. I was sick, realizing I had just ruined six little flower pots that six little 3 year olds had just painted, with great effort and patience. I had looked all over town for pots those sizes, there was red paint all over my table and most of the kids, I had cut out dozens of eyes and dots...I was just so sad.

Turns out I only messed up one. And I know myself well, so I had purchased 8 pots total.

This really is the story of my life. Anything crafty, creative, or requiring step by step following of instructions, the only thing I do consistently, is mess it up. It's funny to me that I can be that consistent at not doing something right. I don't know what it is. Maybe I think it should be easier than it is, and I just rush.

It reminds me of a time my mom was visiting me and I dragged her to an all day craft party at church. I had signed up to decorate a cute little shelf, presumably for Bo's little nursery. I sat down and started chatting with my mom as I worked. I painted and wiped and painted, and cleaned up, and painted. It was a tiny little shelf with two little knobs to hang things on and I could NOT get it painted for the life of me. I kept trying and kept chatting.

Finally I sighed and threw the shelf down on the table and said, "I don't even know why I try---this stuff never works out for me!"

I half anticipated my mom's usual supportive, "Oh, you've done much better than I ever could have" or something along those lines. She started laughing almost uncontrollably and said, "I can't believe how long you kept trying---it was so obviously not working for you from the beginning. I've just been sitting here wondering when you'd realize that!"

I love her honesty. Really.