Moving my rants over here -

Lest I piss off my facebook friends.  I think it's time to take my show on the road and share here instead.

First of all - I consider myself to be slightly left of the middle.  I'm not religious, I love the constitution and I have a strong need for things to make sense.  I'm a numbers nerd and I fact check everything. 

So watch this spot for more rambling.  Coming soon.

It's time for another pageant.  We are heading up to do the big one that whipped us into shape.

Last year we arrived without a dress or rollers.  This year we have a custom face dress and I own 3 sets (soon to be 4) of hot rollers LOL

Last year we had no routines or any idea what to do on stage.  This year she has practiced and practiced and practiced.

Last year she went in expecting nothing - and got nothing.  This year we expect nothing but hope for anything :)

Neglect

Looks like I've been neglecting my non existent blog readership lol! Let's see

1. Princess made GATE. Not that we are surprised - I actually forgot she took the test.

2. St. Patrick's day is coming at us fast. I love troops but I get a little stressed out each year.

3. Hubby is going to Va for a couple weeks for training. A precursor to the couple months he will be in Rhode Island this year :(. At least it's a gentle easing off of shore duty for me.

4. I hate the new cat so much. The bright side is she makes the old cat look so much better lol


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AT&T SUCKS

Each month we hand AT&T aprox $400.  That's right - $400.  Our TV/Internet runs about $200 a month.  This includes U-Verse and internet that is slow.  We've had our modem replaced, but we still have to reboot it a couple times a week.  Our wifi sucks.  There are times I need to switch my phone to 3g in my house because the wifi is so bad.  The TV is OK but not great.  We've had our recordings disappear a few times and we don't get the Padres, but it's easier to stay with them then change.

For our phone we have 4 lines on their family plan.  The lowest family plan has 700 minutes per month and rollover.  We use about 200 minutes between the 4 of us.  We have the family texting plan.  And 2 iPhones with unlimited data.

Each month my husband uses about 150,000 kb of data.  He could switch to the $15 plan but he never knows if the navy will send him somewhere where he will need to have unlimited data.  I made the stupid decision to put my music in the cloud with music match.  I suspect a lot of the backups they are doing are sucking bandwidth too

Well now I need to worry about being throttled.  I use over 3gb of data a month, which could put me in the top 5%.  I'm not happy about this - I have a deep committed love affair with my iPhone and I don't know if I can handle being throttled.

Three sheets?

When asked about the picture - she reviewed everything, pointed to the "H" in shit and said "that's supposed to be an 'H' mom"


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Wish us luck tomorrow!

Dani is competing in the Gold Coast sweetheart pageant!  It's on her birthday!  She's convinced she's going to win.  I'm convinced I'm nuts :)  We shall see how it goes - I am hopeful for her but not totally convinced she will nail it...

We are seeing her psychiatrist today (yes on a Saturday!) to review meds.  I'm interested in seeing how that works out for her.  I hope it goes good but we shall see.  The lack of focus is driving me nuts!

Medication Update

Here we are - a couple of weeks into our experiment with new meds for Aspergers.

I've seen a great amount of improvement with her mood.  We haven't had a single meltdown since she started on it.  She's been happy and carefree. 

The downside - she is happy and carefree.  Her tests are now coming back with 75% instead of 95%.  Her homework is back to taking her 2 hours to finish instead of 30 minutes.  Her teacher has noticed a significant loss of focus. 

Earlier today she was begging to take her old meds again.  She says she hates not being able to focus.  She says her brain feels like when we were driving up the freeway and all of the radio stations would get fuzzy.  Poor kiddo. 

Sometimes I get angry that she has to go through all of this.  I hate having to have my 7 year old taking all of these grown up drugs.  I hate worrying that they will have serious side effects in another 30 years that we just don't know about.   It's just not fair. I wish I could make it all go away.  Little kids shouldn't have to worry about all of these things. 

We go back to the doctor this weekend and she will see how Dani is doing- and  where we go from here. 

The reality of having a baby

There is a blog that annoys the ever loving crap out of me.  It's called "The Art of Having a Baby".  It features a narcissistic Russian (mail order???) bride and her ambiguous husband.  She apparently has everything figured out, from what language to speak to the child each day of the week, to what tube dress to wear home from the hospital.

Each day she posts heavily Photoshopped pictures of herself (apparently she has something against eyebrows?).  She is quite enamored of herself and loves to get praise from her blog readers, telling her how perfect she is.  She also has sponsors on her page who want her to model stuff to give away.

The part that scares/annoys me is that she portrays this perfect idea of how things will be.  She is expecting to walk out of the hospital in a tube dress, with a newborn that will have only soiled 5 cloth diapers in the hospital.  She will be hypnobirthing and everything will be perfect.

But lets face it.  It wont be perfect.  It will be messy.  Your perfect birth with the baby laying on your stomach for 2 hours until the cord is cut - all fine and dandy unless you are having after pains that are so brutal, you still think you are in labor.  This is assuming you didn't get any drugs for delivery.  Chances are if you need hypno therapy to get your cervix checked, you will need drugs.  Just sayin...  That tube dress will not hold engorged boobs under wraps and good luck breastfeeding with that on.  And the short skirt - expect your full on giant Depends sized ULTRA SUPER MAXI pad to be hanging out of the bottom of the dress. 

That beautiful perfect child could come out a screamer.  Some babies are just not born happy.  Every child has a different personality and you never know what you will get.  So you have this miserable ugly maggoty newborn who wont stop crying and you don't know what you did wrong, and you can't stop crying.  Or you have this beautiful perfect child and you don't know what is wrong because you keep crying.  Because no matter what, nothing will ever quite live up to your expectations.

But go ahead and post photoshopped pictures of your belly and make sure other moms feel inadequate because they can't be perfect too.  Because you are just strange that way.

When I grow up

I've reached a point in my life where I am feeling confused and a bit empty. I love my family and I have a good job, but at the end of the day I feel so unfulfilled. I'm not sure what is lacking in my day to day life but when I go to bed at night I wonder if I did enough. Did I make a difference today?

When I was younger I expected great things. After all, I am a genius. Opportunity was supposed to fall in my lap. I was supposed to have an amazing future with an amazing job and perfect family. So what went wrong?

Many many bad choices. I own them. I've screwed up big time along the way. It happens. You move on and get over it. I think I've done a good job of making lemon aid throughout the years. But let's face it, I really want a mimosa.

What is next for me? Not sure. I need to find my passion and make it my focus. The problem is that I have too many passions. And my passions get expensive.

Do I go back to school at the age of 38? It's tempting but I just paid off all my student loan debt and I don't want to take on any more. Do I start a company? I don't think I have the self discipline for that. So what do I do?

To be continued. Maybe.


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Our life on the pageant circuit

I realized that we are nearing the 1 year anniversary of Dani's first pageant.  What's happened in the last year?

1.  Dani received her official Aspergers diagnosis.
2.  Dani also received her official genius diagnosis.
3.  Dani has done almost 20 pageants
4.  Dani has had her hair and makeup done by 7 or 8 different people
5.  Dani has been spray tanned twice
6.  Dani has won countless "queen" and "division supreme" titles, mostly because everyone else in her group has pulled for a higher title.
7.  We have been ripped off by a couple of people
8.  Dani sees a coach at least 2x a month.
9.  We LOVE Dani's coach. 
10.  Dani has pulled one Ultimate Grand Supreme title
11.  Dani is much more comfortable getting up in front of crowds
12.  Dani has her worst meltdowns at pageants
13.  Dani is getting a flipper
14.  We have made amazing friends
15.  We have met a couple nuts - but there are a lot more nice people than crazies
16.  I have screamed "Sparkle baby" at least once
17.  Mikey has done 3 pageants - usually when there's a sweet family discount. 
18.  Mikey doesn't enjoy pageants nearly as much as Dani
19.  I spend a fortune on pictures
20.  I wouldn't trade the experience for anything

Mikey Monster

Mister Michael - the hell child - deserves his own update.  What's new with Michael?

1.  He has a girlfriend who he loves very much.  Her name is Kayleigh and he picked her up at one of his sisters pageants.  He's learning young.

2.  He is a smart little stinker.  He remembers everything.  And he argues.  He's destined to be a lawyer at this rate.  Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

3.  Mikey is the enforcer.  He has to make sure everyone follows the rules.  Maybe he will be a cop?

4.  Michael is the cutest little guy ever.  Actually, if you ask him, he will tell you he's sexy and he knows it.  Wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle wiggle.  Yeah.

5.  The leap pad is the most awesome device  ever.  It's like crack for 4 year olds.  But it teaches them, so you don't feel as bad about giving them crack.  After one bad day at school, I took away his leap pad.  He started to cry.  "Mommy - I need my leap pad.  It's EDUCATIONAL!  How will I learn without it?"  The same way you learned before honey.  Did I mention he's mouthy? 

 

BUT the most important thing to know about Mikey is that he is my sweet little love bug and I love being his mommy.

Pageant updates

After a pageant break, we are kicking things off with two pageants in February.  We will be doing Covermiss and Gold Coast.  Princess has been working on her routines and is in top form - well for her anyways.  :)  It is what it is and I am trying to do it all on a budget with reasonable expectations given her issues....

Sh*t my 7 year old says

Dani just asked me "during Ryan's knee surgery, did they take out a piece of his tibia?". seriously? Where does she get these words?


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We have pee problems!

I suspect new cat is peeing on the furniture.  I suspect it's new cat because old cat never peed on the furniture before. 

So the husband wants new cat gone asap.  He didn't want new cat to begin with so that's part of the problem.  I'm not ready to give up on her.

I'm going to buy an extra litter box.  I'm going to put that and the cat in the laundry room for a week until she's used to living here.  I'm not sure what else I need to do to make things work but I'm up for any suggestions.  Because I really like new cat.

Another sleepless night

Insomnia strikes again. I can't sleep because I'm thinking about work and money and needing more money and needing to work more and then I can't sleep lol!!!



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save save save

Ryan qualified to go dance at the Irish Dance world championships in Belfast this year.  Granted, he qualified by placing 2/2 and the top 5 get to go, but it's still an amazing opportunity.  So how do I make this work?  I'm saving everything I can.  Making coffee at home.  Bringing my lunch.  Feeding the damn pig.

But I feel guilty because I am pushing aside everything that Dani wants to do.  How do I keep things fair? 

I need a money tree!

Santa part two

Christmas morning Mikey goes running downstairs.  He sees his War Machine action figure.  He sees his Mighty Beanz.  He is so happy Santa brought him everything he asked for.  He starts to tear into everything.

"But wait" mom says.  "Here's a note from Santa".

The note reads
"Dear Michael,
I brought you the toys you asked for this year, but I heard you were very naughty at school.  You can't open the toys unless you are good at school.  Please try to listen better next year"

His face fell as the realization sank in.  Santa knew he had been naughty.  Just like the song says.

Mikey has been an angel at school since he went back.  His teachers have thanked us over and over.  The other kids who got their presents went back to being little monsters.  I know I'm not in line for mother of the year any time soon, but I'm OK with that.  I figured out how to keep the big man working for me all year long. 

Christmas hits and misses

This year we went to see the big man at the start of December.  Princess was having a hard day, her boots were too hot and her dress was too scratchy but she sucked it up.  We took turns distracting the kids and waiting in line for an hour and when we reached the front, Mikey went running up to Santa in typical Mikey fashion

"Santa Santa - I want a war machine for Christmas this year." 

Now Santa has been doing this for a long time and there is a method to the madness.  Step one is you take the picture with the kids, step two you chat them up while the sales people sell portrait packages.  So Santa tries to corral the kids for the picture. 

Mikey continues on

"Santa I've been good.  Can I get Mighty Beanz too???"

Santa gets the finiky princess into place

"Santa - my sister wants her two front teeth!"

We get them in for the picture.  Santa hands them candy canes and asks Dani what she wants.  She whispers to Santa
"A cat"
and then we are outta there.

...to be continued