My weekend

This one is Shelby finishing up her picnic lunch at the lake yesterday.

Is anything more cute than this……I dont think so!

This weekend was beyond hot and miserable. How can it be this hot already! On Saturday my dad came over for the second weekend in a row to put up Shelby’s swing set. Its one of those big wooden ones that has a million pieces. It is finally together but let me tell ya, we probably lost about 10 lbs each just from sweating while putting all those millions of pieces together. It was all worth it in the end, Shelby loves it! It has one of those wavy slides and she wanted to go down that thing over and over. I think lifting her up to the top of the slide a hundred times is a pretty good workout for my arms. After we got done with that, I hate to say it but the rest of the day was spent inside. It was just to hot. The heat index was 102 and that is just to hot for me and my baby girl to be out in the sun. We played with puzzles and blocks and when Shelby took a nap I actually painted my nails (as a single mom, this small task does not often fit into the agenda).

 Sunday was great! Shelby, my sister and I packed up and went to the lake. It was hot but not as hot as Saturday. We had a picnic and then I slathered Shelby in sunscreen and we were in the water. It felt great! My sweet girl had a blast. She is such a water baby and had a smile on her face the whole time. She squealed every time my sister would swim under the water and pop up right in front of her. She watched all the other people with intense interest and laughed at the other little ones running around. What better way to spend a hot Sunday! Shelby fell asleep on the way home without much hesitation and only woke up briefly as I took her out of the car and into her bed. One downside, I got a major sunburn! I put sunscreen on but i guess some of it washed of in the lake…so much for waterproof! This only makes the sunburn look worse, its all splotchy and some areas are more red than others. I look like some kind of sick lobster. I had to take some Tylenol pm last night so I could sleep and when I got to work this morning I had a lady that sits by me put lotion on my back………ugh!

 Oh, one more bit of news, remember that new kitten that we got, well I changed her name. At first it was Addie but it just didnt seem to fit her. Her new name is Cleo. Its because she has these makings on her face that remind me of Cleopatra.

 I must go do some work now but I missed you all and I am so glad to be back!

Its been a while!

 So, I am back!! So sorry that it has been so long but I have been beyond busy. Mostly with work. Me and another lady at my office have been doing the work of 4 people for the last two weeks and I cant even begin to tell you how much my brain needs a rest.

 I wont get into all the boring details of my job and why two people are doing 4 peoples work. I will say that I have missed you all and I am so glad to be back!!

sooo busy!

I know I have been mia for a few days but i promise to be back to normal by the end of this week. Life has been crazy busy! Work and drama of all sorts have kept me preoccupied. I just wanted to check in. I miss my blog and cant wait to get back to it daily again.

So I had a flood at my house last night.

 This week will probably go down in my books as one of the worst weeks EVER. There has been so much going on, family drama, work drama, Shelby’s dad drama and to top it all off, last night we had yet another storm, my back yard turned into a pond and then the water started coming in the house……….GREAT FREAKIN WAY TO END THE DAY!!!

 I had my eye on the news all evening and I knew that another big bad Oklahoma storm was rolling my way. I cleared out the floor of my hall closet, for like the 10th time in three weeks, threw in my purse, shoes, flashlight and a bag with diapers and such things for Shelby. About 8:30 the tornado sirens started going off and I swear I stopped breathing for a second. No matter how long you have lived here and heard those sirens you will never get used to that sound and what it could possibly mean. I threw both cats into their carrier and into the closet, ran to Shelby’s room (where she was sleeping like an angel) and grabbed her out of bed. We all got in the closet and I shut the door as quickly as I could. As I was sitting there in the closet with everything that is important to me, all the reasons that I have to get out of bed each day I started to pray. Asking the lord to please let the storm pass quickly and protect every piece of my heart that was huddled in that tiny closet with me. Maybe I am being a little dramatic, but to me not much is scarier than those tornado sirens and knowing that I could possibly have only seconds to grab Shelby and my fur babies and try to protect them.

 The sirens stopped after maybe four or five minutes but I didn’t want to get out of the closet yet. I called my mom to have her look at the news and then I called my sister to double check that everything was ok and there was no tornado. We finally crawled out and I put Shelby back to bed and tried to calm my nerves. The storm was still pretty bad, but mostly rain at this point so I thought the worst was over and I could go to bed. This is when I noticed my neighbors walking around outside in the dark and rain with flashlights. I walked out on my front porch to see what was going on and realized that my entire neighborhood was flooded and people were out trying to redirect the water away from their houses. I ran back in through the living room headed to the back door and as soon as I flipped the light on in the kitchen I saw the water. Water coming in under my walls, under my back door….water everywhere. I stood there in shock for a few seconds before I continued on my path to the back door. When I opened the door and looked out at what had been my back yard and couldn’t see one piece of grass under all the water, my heart dropped. My back yard looked like a lake!! I noticed that the pieces of Shelby’s wooden swing set (still not put together) were floating all around the yard and a bunch of them had been pushed up against the side gate by all the water. Because of this the water was not moving out of the yard, the wood created a dam thereby forcing all the water to seep into the house. I grabbed Shelby’s princess flashlight and literally waded into my back yard, in the rain to try to move the wood so I could open the gate. It took about 15 minutes for me to move it all and get the gate open but as soon as I did the water started to flow out the gate and away from the house.

 You can imagine what I looked like when I stepped back in to the house. I was soaking wet and freezing, that water was freakin cold and I was out there in yoga pants, flip flops and a tank top…..not exactlywhat I would call rain gear. I started cleaning up all the water I could with towels and anything that was absorbant. The laundry room was flooded and the carpet that is in the eating area of my kitchen was like a wet sponge. I had planned on pulling that up soon and actually have the tile for the floor in the garage (I bought it the weekend I moved in, which was 6 months ago) but still, having a room full of wet carpet is not a good thing. I called my dad and we made plans for him to come over on Saturday to help me pull up the carpet and put the new tile down. I am a little excited about that but I could have done without the flood.

 It was a long night, I think it was 12:00 when I went to bed which is late for me considering my alarm goes off at 4:00am. I am tired and stressed and just wish it were Friday. I am trying to look at the positive in all of this…..at least there was no tornado and all the people I love are safe and by the end of the weekend I will have my new kitchen floor.

I am sorry to all the mothers I ever judged.

 So we didn’t make it to the park yesterday. Shelby was in a BAD mood. I needed to go to the pet store and pick up some flea/tick prevention stuff for my fur babies and that is where everything unraveled.

 Shelby was in a decent mood when we walked into the pet store. We walked over to their huge bird cage and she was happy and smiling and fascinated with the birds. We stood there for few minutes and when I tried to get her to walk away she had a melt down. She yanked her hand out of mine and stepped closer to the bird cage so I picked her up and carried her over to the isle with the hamster stuff (I wanted to get hamster man a little something for his cage). In order to look at the different cage accessories I needed to put Shelby down but still had a hold of her hand. I swear her feet were on the floor for no more than 3 seconds before she once again yanked her hand out of mine and took off running down the isle. Now i am chasing after her saying “NO MAM” and “SHELBY STOP” and “SHELBY NO” but do you think she stopped….of course not. She proceeded to run as fast as she could away from me and right into the path of another woman and her dog. Shelby almost tramples this poor woman’s little dog and I was mortified. The dog barked and Shelby finally stopped running and then this sweet stranger actually apologizes to me for the dog barking at Shelby. I said “No, no, I am sorry”. By now I am sure that every person and animal in that pet store are looking at me and thinking “I wish she would control her child”.  I get Shelby by the hand and have the following conversation in my most firm voice ”Shelby Lillian Ruth (yes she has two middle names) you DO NOT run away from momma and you DO NOT run in the store. When momma says NO or STOP then you need to stop”. Shelby’s reaction to this is to point to some random thing on the shelf and start laughing at it…….OMG!! I turned around with Shelby in tow and went straight to the counter got the hamster thing, the flea stuff and headed out the door. Then at the car another battle takes place. I am trying to get Shelby in her car seat and she very obviously does not want to be in it. She is arching her back and crying and screaming. I have never felt like such a horrible mother. I felt like every person in the parking lot was wondering what I was doing to my child. My face was getting red and I was actually starting to sweat! Some how i got her in the freaking car seat and shut the car door and just stood there for a minute. I don’t yell at my child, I don’t think that is an appropriate way to react to a two year old and I needed to take a time out because I felt myself getting very frustrated. I knew she was probably just tired and wanted to go home. So I get in and all the way home Shelby is crying and throwing her blanket on the floor of the car and then freaking out because she wants it back and I cant reach it because I am driving and on and on.

 We finaly made it home and Shelby was taken straight to her room and put in her crib with no book. She likes to take books to bed so as part of her punishment for the afteroon adventure she got no book. This made her mad again but I gave her a kiss on the head and walked out of the room. 10 minutes later she was sound asleep and I was exhausted.

 I used to be one of those people in a store who would see children throwing a fit and think to myself why cant that child’s mother make them behave or if i were that child’s mother I would do this or that. Now that I am THAT mother I totally understand that you do not always have the ability to control your child’s behavior 100% and others should not judge you as a mother because of this. Everyone likes to think that their child is a perfect angel and I am very lucky because 99% of the time Shelby is very well behaved but children are children. They do not always have the ability or understand the appropriate way to express when they are frustrated or unhappy. We just have to be patient as parents and understanding as outsiders viewing a situation between an unruly child and their parent.

 Yesterdays experiance made me want to find all the mothers I ever judged before I became a mother and apologize to them. To all of you mothers out there that I ever judged……….I AM SO SORRY, I now understand.