Don't you realize I have a life to live?

...despite my girlfriends' best attempts to kill me. My two closest mommy friends have been hard core the last few weeks at their new gym. As they nibbled on their salad and I licked the pot clean at The Melting Pot this past weekend, they talked me into joining their gym. Zumba, water aerobics, pilates, yoga ... it has it all. And it's all included in the one exorbitant membership fee. Ok, ok ... truth be told - they had me at "spend money." So, tonight I attended my first class - kickboxing. I have to say I am pretty proud of myself for getting myself there only 2 days after joining. Me, who breaks out in a sweat at the site of cardio equipment. Me, who bought a bike while pregnant with Timmy and still hasn't ridden it. (It's Katie's fault....if she could get up the slightest of inclines we could take family bike rides.) So, I got through the class. And lived. It was touch and go for awhile as I took 10 minutes out of the 55 minute class to dry heave in the locker room, but I survived. It's water aerobics next time. Yahoo! I feel like I finally made it to the summer camp I always dreamed about.

As you can imagine, things have been a little hectic around here. There's been so much going on, really. Work, hours of playing outside, pizza picnics in the treehouse, random fevers and nebulizer treatments. Our Easter was terrific. We had a great visit with the Bouf family this weekend (minus mom and dad Bouf). Chris turned 34 this past week -although for weeks I was convinced he was turning 33 - since he's 2 years older than my 31. Except, after he questioned my logic and I did the math, I realized that I was in fact 32.

Among other reasons, I have pushed off writing a new post for 2 weeks because I have been extremely busy watching tv. In the prime of the spring season, both of my DVR's are filling up on daily basis faster than I can watch all of the new programming I am taping. I've had to let a few be deleted without watching. After I verified that they were available On Demand. Speaking of tv - I have 2 public service announcements. First, Army Wives had its season premier this past weekend. Did you know? I didn't. I thought it always started closer to summertime. Thank God for my DVR, that knew the schedule better than me. Secondly, and I will not disclose why I know this, but Skinomax currently has the most interesting array of On Demand movies ever available at one time. The subjects range from space aliens in Europe, female vampires at a strip club, sex hungry ghosts, and medieval warriors on a space ship (who happen to gain energy from um...) I can see that I probably should have devoted an entire blog post to that second PSA, but you know, who has the time?

I've been extremely hard at work scouring the stores and online shopping for the best deals on spring and summer clothes for myself and the kids. Oh, and shoes. And workout clothes. My tax return did inspire me to find some super cute outfits. Between the family time, girlfriend time, time spent outside absorbing a little vitamin D, tv programming*, and shopping - it's been a terrific 2 weeks. (*terrific tv programming does not include American Idol, which instead has been driving me to medicate myself this season; however, it does include Dancing With the Stars - which I have never watched before - but have been tuning in to this season just to see Kate Gosselin and her partner plot each others murders. In all honesty, I started watching this season due to my girl crush on Shannen Doherty - who once again left a show before she should have.)

So, how has my work/life balance been so far? What's it like when we get home at 6:15 every night? Chris's birthday card from the kids pretty much sums it up:

Special thanks to my friends and family who have harrassed me over the last week or so to get a new post up. Apparently you are all on pins and needles to read my lastest words of wisdom. Or really bored at work. (Note: Will post more often in exchange for friends and family who comment more often ;)

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And a new child actor is born...

I'm not shy. I never have been. I like to be liked. I love to be the center of attention. As a child and a teenager I enjoyed acting, especially musical theater. Some day, I'd love to be in the position to participate again. But in the meantime, I've noticed a little drama queen emerging.

A few weeks ago, when her daddy wasn't cooperating I sent her down to ask him "Daddy, don't you love me?" in an effort to get his help in fixing something for her. Her pouty lip and quivering voice were Oscar-worthy. She was quite proud of herself.

Last weekend, at a birthday party, the magician was asking for volunteers to try a line that his "assistant" would need to say. When it was Katie's turn she had the parents rolling with laughter. And she won the part.

In her excitement to play a role, I thought it would be perfect to have her say the required last line of my entry to the Wisk Pimp My Laundry Contest, which I'm promoting and offering a giveaway for here. She was thrilled. As long as I was willing to wait until after Dora was over to shoot.

She took her place, got into character ... and created this amazing reel of outtakes...

The first one on the video is actually the last one we shot and the one we're going with. I'll post my entire video entry as soon as it's done.

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Little Miss Smartypants

It's come to my attention that my 4-year-old thinks she's smarter than me. She has told me this a few times now, so when she sang a song to herself in the car tonight about it being 10 o'clock, I politely corrected her to tell her it was 8:10. (Her father may share in the irony of the time she noticed and the fact that she is obsessed with the number 18 and 80-10. We're our own Lost episode cryptogram over here at The Other Boufs.)

She then began to make up a song that included "It's 10 o'clock. My mommy is wrong, wrong, wrong. I know I'm right cause I'm the smartest." A little defensive, I began to extol on her the (very) long list of my accomplishments. But I settled for just laughing at her and telling her she was wrong and that although she is very smart, I am the smartest. That she is the luckiest girl because she has THE smartest mom in the entire world. She was actually very impressed with that. I quickly reminded her that her daddy is even smarter than me, though. (I'm not saying I'm not usually "right" more often than him - but his intelligence is pretty impressive.)

Feeling a little guilty about my competitiveness, I told her that right now I do know more than her, but that someday she may very well be smarter than me and her daddy. But that we won't really know until she gets older. She asked,"But how will I get smarter? How will you know I'm smarter?"

I replied: Always do your homework and your school projects . Pay attention in school and study for tests. Don't ever use drugs. Always do your best and you can be smarter than mommy and daddy.

DON'T smoke cigarettes. Don't get fooled into thinking they look cool. They're not. Whatever you do, DON'T sweetly shock the hell out of your aunt by asking her, "Hey, can I try one of those?" You'll get the same answer as when you ask if you're smarter than me yet. "No!"

P.S. To my pop, on the 80th anniversary of your birthday: I love you and miss you. Come visit me in my dreams tonight. I better not find out it's you whispering into Katie's ear to ask for a cigarette...

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I'm not a hypochondriac

First off, it really bugs me when I have my next post all planned out, but then something riveting happens to me to disrupt my whole schedule.

Yesterday I read this article, about a Kentucky woman who delivered a surprise baby. I also happen to have a disease in which everytime I hear that someone else has some kind of illness, I develop all of the same symptoms within a day.

So today, after I inhaled my lunch my stomach started hurting really, really badly. Like, if it doesn't stop I'm going to the hospital badly. Like, oh my freaking goodness what if I'm going into labor without knowing I was pregnant, too, badly.

Luckily I realized I had just had my annual OB visit a month ago. Surely, if I was pregnant then, the doctor would have realized it. But then my stomach started hurting worse as I contemplated why we always hear these stories about women going into labor without knowing they were ever pregnant. Where are the stories about unsuspecting women going into the annual OB visit and finding out they were pregnant? Doesn't that happen? I do suppose that giving birth in your house, cutting the cord yourself, driving over to pick up your other child from school, and stopping in at your mom's to show off the baby on the way to the hospital is a bit more newsworthy, but whatever.

So then I realized that maybe I had only been pregnant for a month. That perhaps I was pregnant with an alien baby that was about to rip out of my stomach, like on the original V (except that my husband tells me that never happened, that I'm thinking of the wrong show, even though I distinctly remember having a hazy memory of a sweet baby girl twin with a snake tongue being born, unexpectedly followed by her green alien brother breaking through the mom's stomach). If this truly didn't happen, let me know so I can edit poor Timmy into looking like a vampire instead of an alien. Because I could change this story into thinking I was having a super short pregnancy like in The Twilight Saga.

I did survive my one hour hysterical pregnancy. In case you were wondering.

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Letting it all hang out - Part 2

My take away from this portion of the tour is, what is wrong with my daughter? She is smart, really smart - but boy does she say some wacky things. Heh. But I actually have my next post dedicated to that discussion.

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Letting it all hang out - Part 1

It's no secret that I hate to clean. I learned at a very young age, as I dusted our furniture, washed the woodwork, vacuumed the carpets, cleaned the bathrooms, vacuumed under the kitchen table, mopped the kitchen floors, did the dishes, and cleaned my bedroom (not to mention the yard work involving raking up worm and bug-filled leaves) that a future of cleaning was not for me. I could do a good job, but it just took me SO long.

As we got busy with our first child and accumulated more and more stuff we were very fortunate to have 2 stable jobs and we hired a cleaning service. Along the way, we built an addition - putting the cleaning service on hold until the addition was done and our rooms were back in order. Unfortunately, we were unable to resume the cleaning service - as I will explain in the video below.

But guess what? As a side effect of being a failure of a housewife and being forced back into the workforce - we were able to hire those magical cleaning fairies again. For three days this past weekend we cleaned to PREPARE for the deep clean we purchased this past Monday. Even during the old days of the cleaning service we didn't have them clean every room because we just couldn't get the whole house up to snuff for cleaning access. Well, no more.

We (I) worked relentlessly (me mostly, since I am generally the cause of many messes). But, it paid off. After days of blasting cleaning music - including Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, The soundtrack from Cats, and Counting Crows we were ready. And coming home Monday night was even better than the waking up on my best Christmas morning ever. Except for the fact that my entire body was stiff and sore. Santa never worked me over THAT hard. Heh!

And without further ado, Part 1 of my clean house tour. Taped for prosperity to prove that at one point in time, for 15 minutes, my house WAS clean. I must apologize that some parts are a little darker than I expected. I also apologize for appearing as a frightful mess with my boobs popping out of my bra and my hair in disarray. Oh and for getting so close to the camera in the very beginning. I only wish that my grandfather was still here to see my house this clean.

I hope you weren't too afraid that my second chin was going to reach through the camera and attack you. If you're still hanging in there, though, stop back in tomorrow night for Part 2. I won't be here; I'll be at Bloggy Bootcamp in Baltimore, but I promise I'll have it all ready to go.

Oh, and if you doubt me at all that my house really WAS that bad before the big clean this week, here is a video containing the typical "before" mess. I should probably keep this one for myself, but I've already let my boobs hang out - why not shed a little more light on my Bouf mess. My son's absolute sheer cuteness does make up for the mess, though. Of course, that's just my opinion.

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What Would YOU Think?

I agonize over knowing how my kids spend their day and the lack of communication I get about it from my 4-year-old. Are they really happy? How are they dealing with the massive schedule change of attending a new daycare?

Katie has been spending a lot of time in the afternoon drawing with the grade school kids. Friday, she proudly presented this drawing to me. I didn't take a look until after she had gone to bed...and I was worried. I wondered what my sweet, mild-mannered, pre-schooler was picking up from the "big kids" that she is now spending her afternoons with. Incidentally, I had just finished watching a Private Practice episode on my DVR where 13-year-olds were sucking each other's blood like vampires. So, with that in mind - what would YOU ascertain from this photo?

I'll circle back and provide the actual artist's thoughts a little later. But seriously, wouldn't you be concerned, too? How creative can you be in your guess? I challenge you to be as creative as the actual explanation ;)

Commentary from the artist:

*The person in the top right hand corner (that looks like an alien or spaceship) is a person with spots on their face because they didn't know they were sick.

*The redish thing in the top middle (that looks like a boat) is a hat. You have to turn the paper clockwise and you will see it is on "someone's" head.

*The brown squiggles is the title of the piece. I can't remember what she told me it was "called" but don't worry, I'm pretty sure she made it up at the time that I asked her.

*The curved blue thing on the bottomish right is the letter J. Duh!

*The blue on the bottom is the street and the redish circles next to it are the sidewalk.

*And finally...the redish devil looking thing is a kid eating a popsicle. And the mysterious black figure is a kid flying a remote control airplane. The plane is the shape right above the kid, with the black line/tip. He also has spots all over his face. It may be because he is sick or they might be freckles. He is frowning.

Well thank goodness it's not a vampire killing the devil with a sword, with flying boats and spaceships like I thought.

Thanks to those of you that played along and provided a guess ;)

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