That's what I think about that!

If only he had his tongue sticking out, then it would really be how he feels inside. It's better than giving me the bird I guess....

A messy mess....

My eye is twitching.
I want to strangle her.
Thank goodness she is back in school this morning, for both of our sakes.

Yesterday afternoon we came home from our big weekend at Aunt Suzy's. The kids had a glorious time playing and yelling and being obnoxious together. We were ALL ready for us to come home, a little downtime was much needed. So the kids quickly headed to the TV room to veg out and not speak for a good hour once we got home. When Jr. and I came downstairs a while later it had looked like a bomb went off in the basement. After all it was spotless only a few hours prior, and then it looked like it had never been cleaned. So Jr. had a mini-meltdown and had the kids clean-up their gigantic mess.

Fast-forward to this morning. As we were walking out the door to head to school I casually asked how the basement was. Ash quickly said "not good" she and Harris had spent some time playing with babies this morning, she assured me she would clean it up after school. So when I got home from dropping her off I checked-out the basement. Oh-my-God! She has 4 blankets spread out on the floor (on the new exercise mats I bought this weekend, must make the pretend babies much more comfortable I guess), both of her baby cribs and all the bedding for them, the stroller, 3 pillows and 4 babies laid out in the middle of the floor.

Now this probably wouldn't be that big of a deal to most people. She just made one simple mess, kids do that, I get it, really. It's just the fact that this happens ALL the time. It's like once something has left her hand she just totally forgets about it. Out of sight, out of mind. It doesn't seem to matter how often I remind her, she just just doesn't/can't remember. EVERY day after school, when we get home, I tell her to hang up her coat in her room. And EVERY day she walks into her room and chucks it on the floor. When she gets dressed in the morning the clothes land on the floor and don't get picked up until I specifically tell her too. When she heads into the kitchen to do some colouring and then she is done she just gets-up and walks away. No thought that maybe she should clean that up. Even though every time she does this we go back and ask her to clean it up.

How do we solve this? I'm at a loss. Really. I always hear, repitition, repititon, repitition, once they hear it enough they will get it. Well, with Ash and any sort of "stuff" it just doesn't seem to work. It's frustrating and maddening and I wish that I could get a better handle on it, have a bit better perspective. I am constantly walking into gigantic messes and I hate to pick on Ash, but 90% of the time it is her mess. Do I punish Dawn and make her help clean it up when it isn't hers? Do I just forget it and let the house go to hell because it would be easier? Do I just clean it up for her, because obviously she is incapable of doing this? I don't think these are the answers. But I'm so tired of having to say it. I want Ash to have a positive and happy childhood, but I feel like all I do somedays is hound her. I'm becoming this gigantic nag, and I hate it.

There is just no easy solution.

Sunshiny day...

I love it when the sun shines down on the snow, as the snow is melting. Ahhh....makes me feel like winter just might be over.

The kids are off of school for a week, and I'm feeling rather positive about it. We crafted on Friday afternoon, painted some cool little picture frames (I'm going to put their faces in it this week). Junior was off all weekend, the first 2 days off in a row since Christmas, it was really quite nice. Today my Dad dropped off his car for Junior to borrow but then I had to drive him back home. It was a 2 hour round-trip ride, and it was really nice. I enjoyed the quiet, the sunshine. I got to go on a quick grocery trip just by myself, limping around the store, but still it was nice.

I have also spent the weekend resting and icing my ankle. I'm still not sure what's wrong with it, it's still quite sore and likes to swell a lot when I stand at all. I think the half-marathon is out, at least for this summer, maybe in the fall I can try again. In the meantime I'm going to do my best to stay focused on doing weights and trying once again to eat less food. With this ankle pain and the disappointment that goes with it has sent me for a bit of a tailspin in the eating department. I need to get that under control again, and maybe have a few days with an actual deficit, what a thought! My whole family was SO happy tonight when we had a big fruit salad for dessert. I think they are all missing the healthy food too.

The highlight of this week off is heading down to my sister's house. The kids have been hounding me as to how many sleeps left. I think that's going to be the hardest part of this week, waiting to go. Only 4 sleeps left.

Phew.

Crapety, crap, crap...

So I've done gone and injured myself.

I went for a run on Thursday, after basically taking a week hiatus due to a cold with major athsma issues. I had tried to run on Monday night, but it just didn't work out that well so I stopped after 30 minutes. So anyhow, I completed my run feeling basically good. I didn't feel sore or anything. I went on with my day, did my ceramics class that night and walking downstairs from there my calf was a bit tight. I thought nothing of it, it's pretty normal for my calves to be tight from running. Then I woke-up on Friday with a major pain in my ankle/shin/foot area, I hoped that as the day went on it would go away. It didn't. It progressed quite nicely over the weekend, swelling up a bit at night and the pain keeps keeping on. It's not like it's debilitating pain, just annoying and always there, I can still walk on my foot and use the clutch on the car.

Anyhow, Harris had a Dr's appt. on Monday so I hijacked it a little and asked about my limpy ankle. My darling Dr. took a look at it and sent me in for x-rays. It could be a small tendon tear, which I can keep running and dosing with Advil and icing after every run OR it could be a small fracture in my ankle. The thing is that the pain is most persistent right AT my ankle bone. I'm a little concerned. I went in for my x-rays today and hopefully I won't hear back from anyone and it will be nothing major. If I do hear back from someone it will be in the next few days. Ugh.

In other news, I was surfing around the net last night and checking out some different blogs and I came across a link to a challenge to take a picture every day for a year. 365 days of pictures. Isn't that the coolest thing? I think it is and have decided to go for it. I mean, I'm a month into the year, but whatever. I would like to make a go of it and see what kind of pictures I can get out of it. I have already taken 3 pictures today! Seeing as we have buckets and buckets (well, not by NY State standards) of fresh snow so Dawn wanted me to take a picture of her making a snow angel. At least I can't hurt myslef doing it. Here's Dawn, Harris and our pissy cat Jessie.

Reading...

I've started a new book this week. The Memory Keeper's Daughter, so far I'm only a quarter of the way through and it is a fabulous book.

I'm not much for literature, I always feel like such a dunce when faced with any sort of "literate" book. I tried reading Pride and Prejudice once and just couldn't do it, I just couldn't get past the wording. This book is not literature, but it is a deep read. I have already been brought to tears by it once. I usually avoid books such as these, as I tend to get my emotions all tied up in them. I will read and read until I am finished, not able to deal with my daily stuff until I have completed the story and if it is at a very intense part of the book I can get rather snappy with my poor family. So that's why I tend to avoid these beautiful tales.

I like to go for the fluff books, I enjoy reading Jude Deveraux and Nora Roberts, pure passion and romance and nothing of substance. You can see the end a mile away, so I can put the book down and get some other things done without wondering what is going to happen next. Without feeling obsessive.

I'm doing my best not to get so fully engrossed in this book, because I can already see how emotional I could get about it. When I was at Costco a few days back, browsing the book isle, I was drawn to this book and decided I just didn't want to read fluff this time, I needed some substance.

Years back, right after I had Ash, I remember reading a book called She's Come Undone. To this day I can still break into tears thinking about that book. There were parts of it that were so close to what I had felt as a child (even though I have never suffered mental illness or an abusive parent or partner) and I could see why the main character had stuffed herself with food (even if I haven't). I still have that book in the house, I usually don't keep the books I buy (I really should use the library more) because I just can't seem to part with it. Nor can I read it over again, which would probably be a good thing being 7 years later and a bit older and hopefully wiser perspective.

I tend to be a bit embarassed in my reading choices, because I always feel so very dumb for reading them. I don't bring them out in public and don't share them with my friends. My mother-in-law usually gets my old copies, as she likes them as much as I do. Such a guilty pleasure.

This is one of the more difficult things about Ash having a learning disability with reading. I fear that she will never enjoy a book the same way I do. She will never want to read for pure pleasure or will be able to find pleasure out of it. I really hope she does. I hope that one day I can share my love of reading and books with her, even the fluff ones. I can already see that I will be able to do so with Dawn and that makes my heart glow.