HG ... when you already have kids

Logic and motherhood, in my experience, rarely collide.

That could not be more true for me lately.  With how consuming my own health saga has been, I have a hard time not relating everything in life to it right now.  I thought I was the only one with this obsessive focus, and it made sense to me because what else do I have to do other than think about what I can't do or focus on the little, yet monumental task I can do -- grow a person.

But I am not the only one who has taken this whole journey to heart.

Recently the Beans has become obsessed with drawing.  He carries around a "handy dandy notebook" and seeks Blue's Clues all the live long day, and I may be prejudiced but for three he is pretty good.  Like I can recognize what he draws, usually with ease.

So when the other day he proudly told me that he drew his best friend, ME, I nearly choked up on maternal hormonal overload.  Then he showed me his precious drawing ... and it was like all his others, I could easily identify what was in the picture ...

Me.  With an IV and subcutaneous infusion pump.

Oh and bangs, I have messy hair and bangs.

Pretty accurate picture of me as of late.  In fact, it could pass for a photo except that my arms are entirely absent in this rendering.

Truth is I kept it and always will.  It is a precious representation of what he can do ... it also brought some other feelings to the surface too.

HG is pretty crummy all things considered.  In the interest of full disclosure I wrote three other words in place of crummy first and deleted and slowly stepped up the censorship each time.  My life, as I knew it, has stopped.  Nothing is the same.  I do not do anything the same way I did 5 months ago, I do not think in the terms I did five months ago and I certainly do not look like I did five months ago and that ain't just cuz I have the prego gut going on. Some of those changes will never leave me, some have a definitive time stamp, and while I hate giving HG credit for anything good I do suspect that I will be a far better person for having survived this.

All that said, I feel like the biggest failure as a mom, wife, person right now and that picture both was a positive affirmation and a damning bit of devastation ... didn't mean to rhyme there but lets run with it.

My child has not missed the pump, the IV.  I have actually been rolling my eyes a little at how similarly Beans seems to see me.  He still demands stuff of me, still has the same three-year-old standards even when I cannot meet them.  I joked the other day when he suggested that I clean up his toys that the IV pole was completely invisible to him.

Its not like I actually thought it was, but the fact that he drew a picture of me and didn't include clothes OR arms but did include the pump and IV ... its a part of me.  He sees it as a part of me.

That ... stings.

I was feeling a little awful about it.  I was dwelling a bit on how I haven't made dinner in an eternity, how exhausted my husband is, how independent my children have been forced to become, the fact that Meatball asks me about my ketones in the morning, how I have done jack doodle with kid's school, how messy the house is ... I can't even just be pregnant right, I have to be debilitatingly, freakishly, starving to death while vomiting bile and dependent upon modern medicine to even have a freaking baby.  Um, fail.

Feeling totally worthless and trying to pull myself out of the dark slump that seems to always be looming in the background I took a deep breath and thought about finding the humor in this.  Its what I do, it is what I blog about 99% of the time.  HG is like having the Nothing from Never Ending Story follow you everywhere, it is easy to feel isolated and depressed in the middle of your body failing you so miserably and at a time that should be filled with joy.  If I don't actively fight that dark pull, it will get icky up in here fast.

And I looked at that picture again ...

I'm smiling.

I have a huge grin on my face.  He may have included medical contraptions and completely ignored my arms ... but he drew me with a huge grin.

So while my illness is not invisible to him, my attempt to remain positive IS visible.

I believe it is okay for our children to see us falter or have weakness.  I think it is important actually, for them to see we are human and I think it is even more important that occasionally they know moms and dads have to struggle and fight for something.  It lets them know that it is normal and valuable to do so, enableing and empowering them to do the same some day too.

Beans and Meatball see my struggle.  They know this is hard, and they know that we will get through it.  They know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that is a precious gift indeed.  They also know that I smile and fight.  That is also important.

This may totally suck right now, but like I just said, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.  When we get there I won't have an IV or pump, but I will probably still have messy hair and bad bangs ... and a smile ... and three kids instead of just two.

And that is the greatest gift of them all.

EosinoWTF is that and why do we have to deal with it?

Yes, I am turning this into a whinefest for myself.

So I have totally sucked with the posting thing, again, but its been a little insane here.  Like more than normalish at least.

I have repeatedly tried to not make this become an allergy-mom type blog.  For one thing, there are lots and lots of them out there, with many of them far more knowledgeable and reliable than I think I am!  But there is a big denial thing there too, I keep hoping that we will not have to deal with it eventually which is uber dumb.  But life has a funny way of teaching you lessons.  I kept hoping that the Beans would outgrow his allergies because he is so little, and I can always ignore mine (until, you know, I can't) but then the other kid goes and screws things up.

Meatball has been having a really hard time with a lot of things, one of which is oodles of stomach issues.  Lots of medical bills, doctors appointments, pints of blood and confusion later we have a diagnosis of Eosinophilic Esophagitis.  In other words -- allergic esophagus.

Yep, more freaking allergies.  Of the rare and only just barely being understood in the medical community variety.  Oh yay, so glad we can be cutting edge.  We are soooo bad ass.  *Facepalm!*

This variation of sibling rivalry is entirely unacceptable!  Stop trying to one-up your brother dammit!!!

So we are standing on the precipice of an elimination diet because MY kid couldn't just bloody well test for his allergens.  Nooooo, he has to be difficult and even more rare than an EoE diagnosis is to begin with and his allergens don't show up on either a scratch test OR in blood work.  So the end result is an elimination diet of all of the Top Eight -- egg, dairy, soy, wheat/gluten, tree nut, peanut, fish, and shellfish -- for an astounding 16 weeks.  At which point they will re-scope his esophagus and biopsy for eosinophils (white blood cells that can kiss my youknowwhat) and if he is clean we can introduce one of the top eight foods at a time.  He will likely never get back to gluten or dairy, but the first thing we will try when we get to reintro is soy.  Because soy is in effing everything.  Seriously.

Anyway, allergy crap and recipes will likely just be a bigger way of life here.  I was trying to keep it off of here because I figured no one wants to read it, but the fact is most of my blog posts that get repinned are my allergy related ones.  I know when I find something that I can relate to I am about as all over it as I would be Tom Hidddleston if he were int he same room as me.  Mmmmmmmm ... sorry, got distracted! What were we talking about?  Oh yeah.  That.

As a side note, did you know that NONE of the cookies peddled by little girls sporting patches are gluten free.  WTF?

The good news is, I have ever more reasons now to get the Vitamix I irrationally keep hoping my husband will buy me.  I mean, there is no logical reason to assume he will purchase a $400 blender, I do our freaking budget, man, and short of him turning ricks or selling a kidney I just don't see it happening.  But I girl can hope right?  It is medically necessary for both children that I have a kick ass blender gracing my kitchen, right?  I say so.  

It is either that OR Tom Hiddleston.  I won't settle for less.

Quick explanation of EoE if you are new to the term, which is entirely possible.  Keep in mind, I am no doctor and I am still very much learning!

EoE is an inflammatory condition thought to be caused by an allergic reaction.  The eosinophils, or white blood cells that line your esophagus go crazy with reproducing and cause all sorts of lovely symptoms that can range from miserable reflux, difficulty swallowing or lots of pain.  It is usually diagnosed via endoscopy (an EGD which is an insanely long word that is fun to say but I am unsure how to spell so I will stick with the abbreviation) and they spot lines or rings in your esophagus that basically constrict causing some of those lovely symptoms.  Happens to adults, and kids, more common in males and is treated with GERD medications like PPIs (proton pump inhibitors), steroids, and avoiding whatever it is you are allergic to.  Which is really easy, if you can figure out whatever it is you are freaking allergic to.  

Apple Butter, Part III and done!

Well it is that time of year, you know the one where I find myself grumbling "how does the rest of the world not find 'Baby, Its Cold Outside' creepy as hell?!" while avoiding public in general.

Also known as the Christmas season.  Humbug.

But I wanted to wrap up those apple butter gifts I started a while back for the Meatball's teachers, so I did my best to be both crafty and festive.  A girl can pretend!

I had to get some smaller jars, mine were 16 to 24 oz and I really didn't want to give each teacher that much, so I got 8 oz jars and set the bigger ones in the sink to thaw.

I was impatient, shocker, and added some warm water to the sink which made the bottom pop off of one of my big jars.  That sucked.

The Beans happily stood on a chair next to me the whole time, spoon in hand, reminding me that I could "put it in the Beansies bowl!" because he adores the crud out of apple butter now.  He was quite horrified by my telling him we were *gasp* giving it all away.

I made little cards on the computer.  I found the chalkboard tags here, and just used Microsoft Word to insert some Word Art in white and made labels for it.

Cut those out, without losing a finger.  Yay me!

Made them little hemp thread loops on top.

Tied them on to the final product after Meatball wrote names on the backs.

Poof, done.

Too bad the rest of my Christmas shopping is going to be no where near this easy!

Halloween & Food Allergies

Food allergies suck.  No two ways about it, allergies in general suck.  It was really easy to get totally overwhelmed in the beginning with the Beans' diagnoses, and my own for that matter, to just be like "dude, we ain't goin' anywhere!" because the world is impossible to control.  When it is you, when you could die because of something that is invisible and common to everyone else, that totally stinks.

When it is your kid?  Man, I have no words to adequately explain it.

But it is critical to Bunyan and I that we teach Beans and Meatball (who has food sensitivities, though not allergies) how to navigate the world independently.

Then holidays like Halloween come along and its like someone punted you between the legs.

Too graphic?

Okay, how bout this, Halloween comes along and just fucks it all up?  No, still too strong?  Well my point is that we have a lot of food related holidays and celebrations in our society and it really does a number on my "don't want to face it!" head-in-the-sand wishes.

We navigated Easter, but Halloween is a doozey.

Or is it?

I was so anxious leading up to Halloween ... and I am not sure why exactly.  Maybe this year was just stupidly easy and I got lucky?

We did not buy any candy.  That was the first relief.  It sucked too, because it meant I had none to steal, but I supposed that may be a blessing in disguise.

Since we weren't handing out candy, I hit the dollar store for these bad boys:

Glow bracelets!  Seriously, we were quite the popular house!  No one was like "where's the candy?" Everyone, parents AND kids alike, loved the glow bracelets.

Meatball also dressed up as a haphazard scarecrow and scared the crap out of soccer moms who were escorting their kids.

Seriously, he scared more parents than he did children.

But that brings me to the second awesome point -- we didn't take anyone trick or treating this year.  Meatball was old enough to like scaring people and Beans has no idea it is even an option.

So I lucked out there, but I already have some planning in for next year if my luck runs out by then.  Since Meatball knew he was being denied candy overall, I promised him an exchange.  Net year we will actually swap any candy that is obtained if either kid trick or treats with a toy or small gift of some kind.  This year both boys picked Legos and were plenty happy with that.

Also, I plan to make use of this if we get candy and need to offload it in a good way.  How cool is that, our house stays safe and troops get some goodies?  Deal!

Overall, I think I am still new enough to the allergy world to panic when events crop up.  The holidays are a real witch to deal with, but for every frustrating situation I encounter there are another 10 supportive people who want to help and accommodate us if possible.  If I could tell the panicky me taht was convinced my child would be doomed to rice cakes and celery for life anything, I would certainly start with "chill, it will be okay.  Normal is relative, you will discover a new normal."

Our "normal" is glow bracelets and that just isn't so terrible.

No Hogwarts Cake this Year

So last year at this time I was busy posting would would eventually be my most clicked on blog posts.  All the Hogwarts stuff for Meatball's 11th birthday.  The cake, the letter, the (damn) owl, all of it was a huge success and Meatball loved it.

This year, I did not make him another letter.  I wasn't sure what I would do to make it exciting again, but I did find a link to make your own Howler which would be totally awesome.  Trouble is the instructions have dead picture links and for me that may as well render the entire thing in Greek because I cannot follow along at all.

So I did something completely different, and ultimately this is also a backhanded attempt at telling you why I have sucked at keeping up the blog.  I did make him something that had a Harry Potter theme, along with something from the Hobbit and something from Star Wars.  While I promise to keep this stuff mostly off of this blog, because it has no place here, Paul Bunyan and I are starting a little side thing that may turn into a business type deal.  But here is a picture of the Meatball's presents from this year.  

Yay, may look more complicated, but truth be told it was soooo much easier and less stress than last year's gift!

P.S. If you would like to check out some of the other stuff we've done you can like us on Facebook or follow us on Instagram or Twitter.  Aaaaaand I am done with the shameless plug now! ;)

is it over already?!

Amen. 

As the school year winds to a close it comes, again, that time where we need to brace our selves for the summer (yikes!) and thank the teachers who kept our kids out of our hair and educated the poo out of them for the last ten months.

Since I used to get "thanks for the great school year" prezzies people often ask me what it is a teacher really wants.  I always wanted Sharpies, but I have a small addiction to them which might not be wholly normal.  I have shared some of my previous teacher gifts with you before like how to mess up easy homemade hand scrub or the "thanks a latte" idea I blatantly stole-- er, um, borrowed from somewhere. *Cough, cough* Pintercrack.  We also used the glass etching stuff from Paul Bunyan's birthday project to make a jar for his teacher's last year at the end of the year, but I think I might not have posted about that ... well if I didn't just trust me, we did it and it was cute.

Anyway, as the school year winds down I find myself wanting to plan out the end of the year gifts better than I normally do.  This is two fold, one I would rather not be gasping for air while trying to figure out how to wheedle it into one week's budget because I forgot.  Two, Meatball is in 5th grade, meaning next year he moves on to middle school and will not longer be at the school we know and love and have been at since kindergarten.  While I am focusing on not sobbing about my baby growing up and me feeling wildly old, I am rather focusing on how we need to recognize more people than normal as a result.

A quick Pintercrack search yielded lots of cutesy things and this little gem: teachers love supplies as a gift.

Perhaps I was an exceptionally selfish teacher, but I would not have said that exactly.   Don't get me wrong, I wept with gratitude for every kleenex box, set of pencils and jug of hand sanitizer I was ever given.  But don't call it a "gift" for me, umkay?  It prevents me from spending my own money, as I would have had to, it is kind, it is generous, but it really isn't a gift for me.  It is a way to support me and my classroom and I am unspeakably grateful for it, but it isn't the same as a gift for me.  Make sense?

It depends entirely on what you are wanting your gift to be, no teacher will begrudge a gift that is for them versus the gift that is for their classroom.  However, since I donate supplies all year and do a big donation at the beginning of the year as a "gift" to the teacher who is setting up a classroom, I do not want to do this at the end of the year when they are busy packing their classroom up for the summer in the middle of everything else.  As the year opens it is an awesome idea to give your child's teacher a bunch of supplies they may need.  Awesome.  Giving it to them as summer is this --> <-- close?  Not as cool, in my opinion.  Teachers are just as eager, if not a billion times more so, for summer as their students.  They deserve a special, spoil-themselves type thank you that they can do whatever they want with, not 30 pencils to sharpen in anticipation of next school year.

I also don't want to laden them with useless crap.  So this is my solution this year.  Sheesh, that was a long round about way to get to the point ...

I shopped around for the cups, but found by far the best deal at Lakeside (I picked the blue ones).  At roughly $2.50 each this was a steal.

All the cups have the following inside:

• Some Bazooka bubble gum ($4.99 for a ridiculous bucket of it that I had to swat Paul Bunyan off of several times until I was done stuffing cups)
• Some lemonade, tea, and coffee packet thingies that I totally wanted to keep for myself.
• Some of the cups, for the teachers that have been with Meatball all six years of elementary, also have a $5 gift card to Starbucks.  Remember, Starbucks cards are teacher currency like cigarettes are to prisoners.
• His main teachers had a $20 Visa gift card, so they could spend it on whatever the heck they wanted be it dinner out, a pedicure, margarita, or some rocking school supplies.
• As it happens, every teacher that Meatball has had from kinder on up is still at this school.  So he also went around and gave all of them one of these bookmarks from tatertots & jello.  Current teachers also had one in the cup so he thanked everyone for being part of his story!  Isn't that  *sniffle* so cute?
• On the back of each was a personalized note to the teacher thanking them for teaching him back in whatever grade he had been in their class.
• I nabbed the idea for the cute little tags here via Pintercrack and made my own so they say "thanks a latte for the tea-riffic ade you've given me!" since there is coffee, tea and lemonade stuff in each cup.

cut out the tags and book marks,
I used a paper cutter so I could go a lot faster

cut the tags so that they can slip on the straw
like a flag

like that!

Meatball wrote messages on the backs
of some of his bookmarks.
This one was especially touching.

My plethora of cups before ...

now you fill the cups, slap on the lids and
BAM you are done!

 All told, when I add everything up and divide it out each gift cost me roughly $10ish max which is pretty good in my opinion.  I was scared it would be worse anyway so comparatively it feels better.

And with that ... now I have to accept that it is very nearly summer.  That, my friends, is entirely another post in itself!

Top 10 Things That Used to be MINE

Last night the Beans was being a two year old.  The nerve.

Paul Bunyan decided to read something on his Kindle Fire in order to tune out the baby death shriek and repetitive chant of "no no bed."  But the second he pulled out that electronic device a gasp rent the air, followed by approximately 2.7634 seconds of rare and precious silence.  Then came "BABY'S BIG PHONE!" and the Beans grabbed it from daddy and expertly jabbed the screen a few times until the Lorax cued up and began wailing "How Bad Can I Be?" on full volume.  Appropriate, no?

This made poor Paul Bunyan sigh and bemoan that he wondered when he would get to read on his Kindle again.  I had about 2.7634 seconds of pity when I realized that if all I was lacking was Kindle access I might be a shit-ton more sane.

 Top Ten Things That Used To Be MINE

1.  My boobs.  Bunyan likes to think of them as his, but a nursing baby wins every time.  No matter what, even when the milk bags are no longer feeding a little vampire any longer they aren't MINE anymore.  MY boobs had some life to them.  They were small, but they at least seemed to not lack filling.  Since nursing children I apparently lost like a third of my boob mass because they are still small but deflated and droopy looking.  What the eff?

They are actually *mine* ... well, they once were.

2.  My Wardrobe.  I used to get dressed because I liked an outfit.  Or I looked good in an outfit or it made me feel good.  Occasionally I dressed in something because it was comfy.  I would even go, dare I say it, shopping for clothes for myself ... and enjoy it!  Now?  I wear whatever happens to be clean, roomy enough to cover this expanding version of myself, and often provides easy access for nursing, running after children, or cleaning something.  Bonus points to clothing that can cover the ridiculous number of stains I obtain in a day without obnoxiously announcing "LOOK this is strawberry applesauce!" and "Yup, that's a booger" whenever you look my way.

3.  My Phone.  I have more than 72 apps on my phone.  I tried counting them but kept forgetting what number I was on, so there are at least that many.  I use 7 maybe 8 of them for myself regularly.  Lets make it a round ten apps for ME.  That means there are 60+ apps that are simply there because I need to put the food on the conveyor belt at the grocery store without Houdini baby trying to escape the cart.  My iPhone is so full of kid apps and pictures of kids that I actually only have room for one playlist of music.  Only reason I get that is because my children haven't realized it is possible to load any of their music on the phone yet.  They do know about my Pandora app though.

The ultimate Mom Purse

4. My purse.  Oh wait, that's funny I don't HAVE a purse anymore.  I have a backpack/diaper bag/first aid kit/snack storage/changing station/toy holder/crumb hoarder hybrid with a monkey hanging off of it that also carries my wallet and chapstick.  When I can find them.  Yes, it is actual one the one pictured above.

5.  My Jewelry.  I used to wear some.  I now wear a wedding band, and not the nice one either.  The other day whilst changing a poo diaper someone (AKA Beans) thought it would be hilarious to start bouncing his cute little baby butt all over the place.  Thus getting nasty baby crap all over my hand.  This had of course happened on the one day so far this year I wore the pretty channeled band Paul Bunyan bought me for Christmas three years ago.  If jewelry isn't an effective way to cause me pain while getting my attention (earrings and necklaces) then it means I am washing shit off diamonds.  Screw jewelry.

6. My Anything-Below-the-Neck.  Hell, who am I kidding?  I have grey hair, wrinkles, and raccoon eyes -- screw it being just the belly I don't want to claim and the varicose veins that make my legs look even worse than before.  What the hell happened to me?  Thank goodness children are cute, because the side effects that come with them are hell.

7.  My Bladder.  Perhaps if we are going for anatomical accuracy it isn't the actual bladder but the muscles of my pelvic wall or floor or whatthefrickenhellever.  I held out hope with the first pregnancy that the whole wetting yourself when you sneezed thing would go away.  Since child number two I am realizing that this is a pregnancy symptom that may never abate.

8.  My Sleep.  I used to have some, with complete cycles and everything.  I can almost remember back that far, but deprivation being what it is I may just be hallucinating.

9.  My Sanity.  I swear, I used to have more of it.

10.  My Life.  I used to have one that revolved around me.  Looking back, I am not sure that it was entirely enjoyable.  This may be exhausting, I might have lost of my sense of Self, and there are moments that straight up suck (anyone claiming otherwise lies) but this is a gift and I am grateful.

Again, I may be hallucinating here though.

kinda like the Hunger Games

Now that Meatball is out of school for the summer we have to start "homeschooling" because no matter how awesome he is, Meatball cannot have downtime or a flexible schedule.  The house would be ever more like Bedlam within a week than it already is.  Seriously, I am not exaggerating our absolute need for constant mental stimulation and scheduled control.

So you may see more posts about kid related activities here soon (I say may because lord knows there are a lot of things keeping me from posting lately!) but this was an unintentional learning moment.

See those eight hundred little pieces of paper?  It is a game that one of our local grocery stores runs from like February to May every year.  Monopoly.  Have I ever told you how much I hate REAL Monopoly?  Seriously, has anyone in the history of time every finished a game without cheating just to end the agony of boredom?  Well this isn't as bad as the board game, but it can be frustrating. They give you a game board with a bunch of prizes and you have to collect the ticket like game pieces and fill in the missing sections in order to win prizes that vary from $5 cash up to a million dollars.

Meatball was convinced we'd win something.  Something really awesome, like the X-Box with Kinect that he wants sooo very badly.  Or the million bucks, he figured we'd buy him an X-Box if we one that.

So whenever we went to this store (which is not the store I usually shop at) we would collect the pieces and eventually slap them on the board.  We had enough pieces so that every prize was one to three pieces away from winning.  On the last day of the game pieces being handed out Paul Bunyan ran in to grab something and instead of the couple he should have gotten the lady just handed him the rest of the stack.

That pile is the mess *I* was left with.  Well that and a totally neurotic 11 year old who was convinced we were just a couple slips of paper away from millionaires.

We slowly sorted them, which took over a bloody hour I might add, and I explained some lovely mathematical concepts to Meatball.

• Proportion: The amount of tickets produced in relation to the other tickets.  For example, if it takes 8 game pieces to win a million dollars they will produce a royal butt ton of about five of those tickets, a hundred of about 2 of them and maybe one of the last one.  
• Odds: The odds of winning a game like this are completely not stacked in your favor no matter how high the chances are according to the people selling you the dang game pieces.

After sorting them all and realizing that while we were "close" we had not even won "five stinkin' bucks" Meatball declared that the odds were NOT in our favor at all.

"Its like the Hunger Games, 

they say the odds are in your favor 

but all you are is 

hungry, broke and going to die."

My child, the optimist.

Its my Mommy!

I remember when my oldest started naming his toys after me.  I thought it was soooo cute.  All his beloved stuffed animals were affectionately called "mommy" and I thought it was precious.

Beans has however, taken a different approach.

First off, he names anything female after me, and everything male-like after daddy.  However, sometimes I swear the kid is messing with me and trying to break me via self-confidence-destruction.

Want proof?

These are "Mommy" and "Daddy" ... and no, I don't really want to discuss who is who.

I mean it was all fine when we were talking Hot Wheels.

Mommy.

Daddy.

I was willing to just take the whole chocolate bar themed car as Beans knowing his mommy well, rather than it being a comment about my exceptional and nutritional take on life.  But a muscular one-eyed, bearded dude?  Come on!!!

Feeling a bit miffed about the whole thing I packed Beans up and went about my usual errands, which this day happened to include a Costco run.

I don't know why, but the people at Costco who check your receipt at the door think that no matter how impatient and completely pissed your child is, they can cure them with a cute smiley face drawn on the receipt with a highlighter.  So while Beans is losing patience and our items are being counted, I take a deep breath as the gentleman at the door flips the receipt over and begins his Picasso moment.  He wraps it up and hands his masterpiece over to the Beans who takes one look at it and gasps.  Three people, plus myself and the Costco employee look down at him as he proudly holds the page up and yells

Its my Daddy!!!

Suddenly, I felt a lot better about being a bearded pirate.  

Allergy-free Easter

Easter.  I know, it was like forever ago, but I am also ridiculously behind so hang with me!

So, the whole may be deathly allergic to eggs and all the candy worth eating (*sob* Reese's Eggs, I miss you!) totally altered our approach to Easter baskets this year. We wound up wanting to do the eggs hunt and all that jazz  but craving a way to do it sans Epi.

So we needed to keep it allergy free.

This means, because our family is uber speeeshul, that we had to pack plastic eggs (the irony isn't lost) without any traces of real eggs, dairy, nuts, honey, latex, food dyes, soy, and wheat.

So basically, food wasn't happening because I'm pretty sure I'd have had a mutiny on my hands had we put grapes and radish bits in baskets.

Sooo, here is a list if ideas, completely worthless for this year as it is long over but that may be of some use to someone later.

How To Stuff Plastic Eggs Without Killing Anyone I Love, Myself Included:

1.) toy cars
2.) silly putty (dude, it's already in an egg!) *note: Play Doh is cool but be careful with wheat allergies!*
3.) sponge capsules that get slimy and might expand in the water
4.) magnetic letters or numbers
5.) Legos
6.) beads and string for a bracelet
7.) spare change
8.) fun shoe laces
9.) tattoos (do I need to say temporary?)
10.) stickers
11.) little bubble bottles
12.) small figurines, action figures, transformers
13.) tokens or tickets to a fun place (allergens may be present, depending)
14.) glow bracelet (make your hunt glow in the dark!)
15.) notes leading kids on a scavenger hunt

If I had children that liked that sort of thing, I'd have looked into things like hair clips, little nail polish bottles, jewelry, nail stickers, etc. As it is, I really didn't think my dogs deserved that kind if torture.

Ultimately, we didn't use all those ideas. The dollar store is a great resource all things considered here. The point isn't to spend a fortune in the name if bunnies (or even the Resurrection), rather I wanted to not make my kiddos feel like they had to miss out on yet another thing because our genes are a tad whack.

I can attest to this much, it worked. Kids had a blast, no one died. Yay parents!

its a passing phase

Productivity comes in cycles for me.  Sometimes I have like zero ambition, and that can even be an ambitious estimate, while others I seem to be a bit obsessed.

I have to make the most out of the obsessed times because they are usually short lived and often followed by stretches of lazy lostness.  Yes, I make one fabulous housewife.

At any rate, I've been more productive than usual.  I am referring to my in-person-life here because my blogging alter ego has been pretty much worthless lately.  In so doing, I have also developed an abnormally large sense of self confidence, which I figure will either translate to shit getting done or a whole lot of writing material.  I call it a win-win either way.

I have heard that in order to be really truly accountable you have to tell people what your goals are.  If you don't share them, then you never really need to admit you failed.  I usually have no problem castigating myself over my own failures, but what the heck, lets make a list here and see how I do with the public thing:

I have birthdays, summer, and in-law visits on my horizon ... I gotta get crap done ...

(in no particular order)

1. Clean ceiling fans, because I rarely have them off and notice how dirty they are
2. Organize the growing box pathetically labeled "pictures and keepsakes"
3. Finish the 11 year old's baby book *hangs head in shame*
4. Clean house thoroughly closer to visits, not halfsies clean
5. Finish the "measure the kids" ruler thingy that has been half-done for like a year and a half
6. Clean out Meatball's closet
7. Clean out the Bean's closet
8. Clean out toys ... purge the hell outta toys ...
9. Make a Goodwill and/or consignment shop run to ditch some crap
10. Make my kitchen cabinets look less blah
11. Make my/our bedroom not be the one with the door always closed in shame
12. Do something with the bathroom walls, b-o-r-i-n-g!
13. What are we doing for the Beans' birthday?
14. Hair cut, its pathetic and been like a year since I did that
15. Garage -- make the parts that are my problem look less like a bomb test site
16. Garage -- urge and support Paul Bunyan to deal with the rest of the garage
17. The backyard will only be a livable space for a couple months, make it look nice for them
18. Make my Command Center wall so I can at least appear organized!
19. Shave the dog.  Yes, I said that.
20. Come up with an item # 20 because you can't have a list of 19 things!!!

There, that is a start.  I have no real hope of accomplishing all of that in the ridiculously short time frame I am giving myself ... which is like 2 weeks ... but let's see what we can do, eh?

Insanity will commence in 5, 4, 3, 2 ... aren't you glad you don't live here? ... and 1 ...

the !@#$% chore sticks, done!

Okie dokie, so these chore sticks that never seem to get done and just hover in my semi conscious demanding I finish them with the intoxicating promise of being helpful ... yeah, I want them done.  I have mentally attached the completion of these sticks to the success and smooth running of this household, so I am feeling a smidgy desperate.

So I gave you the massive list of chores, and I showed you how to make the sticks, and how to take a really ugly picnic utensils basket and make it be something you'd actually want in your home.  So now, how to use it!

Here is the gist of it:

There is the section for the chores not being used this week.

Then there is the section for the regular chores that are always expected and never a commission.  This is the daily stuff that Meatball has to do every day.  We don't think that he should be paid to take care of his basic responsibilities and contributions to the house.

Then there is the section for the 20 chores that are available this week for commission.

I will put the chores in on Sunday and they will remain there all week.  We do not control Meatball on when he does the chores, when and how many are entirely up to him.  There are only 20 chores here per week because he can only earn a maximum weekly commission of $5.  This doesn't sound like much (as far as chore numbers) but with Meatball's other responsibilities -- his daily non-commission chores, school, sports, being a kid -- it really is pushing it for him to hit all 20.  At least, we think it will be.  Obviously we will adjust as needed, and I know that during school breaks we will have to develop a plan of some sort.

Each stick is worth twenty-five cents.  This may sound steep, but Meatball is 11 and we didn't want him to have a max earning of $2.  When the Beans is older and he starts getting chores the amount per stick will be much less and will grow with him.

The very last section on the basket is the "done" section, which is divided into two parts.

One is for the daily non-commission ones, the other for the weekly commission ones.  This makes it easier on Meatball to start each day by grabbing yesterday's done dailies and just putting them in the section he still is working on.  When they mix together it takes longer, which means he just skips it and defeats the whole dang point.

Oh and the container that Meatball insisted that he needed because four sections in the basket wasn't enough?

We have no use for it currently, so it is just sitting behind the chore basket with the "I'm Bored" sticks ... which I don't think I ever posted about either ... I will get on that.  So here it is at a glace, I didn't bother to label the dog kennel or my Scentsy warmer, but I think you get the idear!

So, now they're done, is my house clean and organized yet?  Am I hoping for too much?