My Daughters - Oh My!

I have 2 beautiful daughters, ages 13 and 12. They are just starting their teenage years, which reminds me of all the trouble that I got into when I was a teenager. I can still hear my dad now, "just wait until you have girls, paybacks are coming!" Yep dad, they sure are! First, they are always on the phone. What can you possibly talk about for so long? Then their love for boys. Already?! The 12 year old, G, is a lot like me, which is really scary. She already tried to lie about her age to a boy, and then found out it was her older brother's friend. Thank God for the older brother! I still talk to my ex from high school, and told him about how she tried to lie, and he said, "Gee, I wonder where she got THAT from?" Hmmm...I guess I did lie to him about how old I was when I met him. Luckily, I have a pretty good relationship with the girls. They always tell me what's going on at school, who likes who, and all of that "girl" stuff. Sometimes it can be pretty overwhelming because they talk ALOT, and they both talk at the same time, which, as you can imagine, is always interesting because it's really hard to follow the stories. I guess I'm in for lots of fun - just pass me the tylenol....

The Embarrassing Mom

I have finally become that mom - the "embarrassing mom". How did it happen? Well, it started when the girls started dressing like me - jeans, tshirts or tank tops, hoodies, flip flops or tennis shoes. I could swear that I dressed that way first, but now it's, "oh mom, why do you have to dress like us? It's so embarrassing." I also like to sing in my car to the music that they listen to, and I know ALL the words too. They hate when I sing when I'm dropping them off at school - "when I grow up, I wanna be famous, I wanna be a star, I wanna be in movies" So embarrassing! I also can't scream out the window to little J as he's walking to his class, "bye baby, I love you!" Their friends think that I'm "the cool mom", which makes it worse. They all tell their friends, "she's really not that cool." They hate it when their friends first meet me, and they say, "oh, that's you're mom, I thought it was your sister." The looks on their faces when they hear that is classic.

My Boys

My little boy, J, is turning into quite the character. He loves bothering his older sisters. My daughter, G, had a friend over the other day. He walks over to her, looking so sweet and cute, and says, "would you like this jawbreaker?" She says yes and pops it in her mouth. It turns out to be a dissolving bath cube, and soap starts pouring out of her mouth. I felt really bad for her, and of course, he was laughing. He also likes to stick stickers on their back that say, "Large".

My older son, M, also likes to bug his sisters. One morning, the girls got up to get ready for school, looked in the mirror, and screamed. M drew clown faces on them with ink.

Boys will be boys.

How is she REALLY doing?

The big question probably is, "How is she REALLY doing?"

The last few years have been the hardest of my life. I was so devastated when everything first happened. I loved B with all that I had, and I really thought that we would be together forever. I went through a lot of how can this happen? Why would he do this? How can he throw it all away? I felt broken, like I was drowning, it hurt so incredibly bad for months. So I basically just shut down. I didn't talk to anyone. I did manage to make it to work every day, because really, that's all I had going for me at the time. Imagine that! I lived alone for a few weeks, then was lucky enough to get little J back. Then slowly, I started pulling it together. During that time, I found a better job and started making more money, I lost some weight (27 pounds to date and still going), I started family counseling with the kids, and honestly, I started to figure out who I was and what I was missing. Now I have all the kids back so something's always going on.

I'm happier now than I have been in a very long time. I am so lucky to have amazing friends and family. The kids and I are getting closer. I have a fun job that I love. I work out 5 days a week. I'm dating a great guy. I can honestly say that I am loving life! Is it always easy? HELL NO! haha! It's a struggle, on a regular basis. But honestly, raising 3 teenagers and a little guy isn't easy for anyone. I appreciate the good, deal with the bad - what else can you do, right?

Here's some quotes that I love and live by:

If I were asked to give what I consider the single most useful bit of
advice for all humanity, it would be this: Expect trouble as an inevitable
part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high. Look it squarely
in the eye, and say, "I will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me."
--Ann Landers

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling,
but in rising every time we fall.
--Nelson Mandela

So I guess you can say that I'm like that Chumbawamba song, "I get knocked down, but I get up again", and trust me when I tell you that I will ALWAYS get back up. wink~

Mohawk Party At Work

We had a Mohawk, hair dying, beer drinking, scrum party at work on Friday. I work for a dot.com, and we're doing really well, so a bunch of the management team and engineers said they'd get mohawks if we hit a certain number last month. We hit it, so they did it! It was so much fun. All week, one of the engineers said he couldn't get one because his wife would kill him, but after a few beers and watching everyone else do it, he stepped it up and got one too. I didn't get a mohawk, but did wake up the next morning with a huge bump on my head. I have no idea how I got it. No more wine and vodka for me at work.

A Few Things I Learned...

During my brief breakup, I learned a few things about men that I thought I'd share. It's more like things that guys shouldn't do if they want to date a girl. I know there's tons, but here's a few that I have learned. Guys, pay attention....

• If you are trying to get a date with a girl, don't ask her to be a friend on Facebook and have your profile say "Married" or "In A Relationship".
  
• Don't talk about yourself in the third person. It's extremely annoying to hear you say, "Joe Smith's going to get a drink tonight" or "Joe Smith thought he'd call you to see what's up." Nothing will be up if you keep talking like that - trust me.
  
• Don't send the same myspace comment to 10 different girls. When we notice that you're receiving a bunch of "thanks for the comment" messages, we may just click on the girl's profiles to see what you wrote. It's one of the few times when copy and paste is not a good idea.
• Don't spend an hour on the phone talking to me about your crazy ex girlfriend. All I can say is, get over it.
  
• Try really hard to remember what you talked to me about on the phone before. I don't want to hear the same stories over and over, especially when you just told me that story 2 hours ago.

Those were just a few that I thought I'd throw out there since I was thinking about it.

Roses from my "bodybuilder boyfriend"

On Friday the 12th, I received the prettiest red and pink roses at work. Corie and I had gone to pick up some snacks for a work meeting, and the roses were sitting on a table in the front. I rarely receive flowers at work, and was surprised to see that they were for me. I opened the card and the card said, "From your bodybuilder boyfriend".
I guess I should back up a bit. So, my boyfriend and I have been having problems lately, mainly because things haven't felt really solid and we haven't been able to spend a lot of time together. He has a very demanding job, we both have children, etc., etc.. We briefly split up, but pulled it back together. Anyways, I am also trying really hard to get back in shape, and started talking to a personal trainer about it. My personal trainer happens to be a good looking body builder. When I told my boyfriend about the trainer, he was fine with it, but jokingly said, "oh that's good, as long as he looks like a troll. He does, right?" I told him he was a former bodybuilder, but didn't make a big deal about it, and we started talking about something else.
I guess he must have been thinking about it that week because I got the flowers on Friday. I called him to thank him for the roses, and he teasingly said, "oh, did you get flowers from your bodybuilder boyfriend?"