Today turned out to be such a good day. It was looking as though things were quickly heading south for Vance at work, and that he was going to be grouchier than usual when he got home. Oh man, these surprises and how they pop up both when you least expect them and most need them.

Vance got a promotion! He is now the “Fulfillment Supervisor!” That looks good a resume, though it doesn’t seem like he’s going to have to fill one out for a while. He also got a raise and some of the icky stuff that it looked like he was going to have to do have been officially delegated elsewhere. The relief is tremendous. He’s finally being given what he deserves for all of his hard work. They realize that he is truly an important member of their staff. He’s not only very smart, but he’s also incredibly efficient. They would have been stupid to let him go. Oh, and we would have been screwed.

If only this meant that all of our troubles are taken care of. He got a raise, but not a huge raise. He still doesn’t make enough to afford our extravagant lifestyle (Which includes no cable, and ground meat that comes packed in a tube.) I still need to look for a job. The only difference now is I can take a job for slightly less money if it means I can get necessary experience from it, or if it’s something I would actually enjoy. Since I’m going into the medical field as an Ultrasound Tech, it seems like a clinical job would be the best option. I need a Nurse’s Aid certification, which I can get if I am hired as one, or I can do reception or clerical work in a Doctor’s office or something. Let me think, cleaning bed pans and dodging punches from old ladies in nursing homes, or filling out paperwork and taking calls… Tough call.

Of course, this means we’ll have to find a daycare for Deven. That’s been the hardest part of all of this. I haven’t been in a huge hurry to find a job because I know it’ll mean my baby boy and I won’t get to play during the day. We won’t be able to go to play in the sprinklers at Brushy Creek Lake Park, or watch the Office, or play with his “blops.”  He needs to go to daycare though. He needs to become more socialized and learn the skills necessary for preschool. He’s going to flourish in daycare; he’s going to learn how to share, and his vocabulary is going to expand exponentially because he’ll be listening to other kids, and he’ll learn to use scissors. He’ll love the crap out of it, but I can’t deny that I’ll be sad. He’s my BFF.

I’m grateful that I’ve been able to be home with him for the last 2, almost 3 years. Not very many parents get that opportunity these days.

Life with Deven, the 2 1/2 year old we currently host in our home and hearts, has been rather eventful lately. More eventful than most people would want things to be. Deven is turning into a messy, defiant, DESTRUCTIVE little boy.

For a while, things were looking up. He was eating his dinner quietly at the table, as long as there was plenty of ketchup. He was letting us brush his teeth with little resistance, and he was even being quiet and sluggish in the mornings, you know, LIKE A HUMAN BEING. We were thinking maybe this terrible two’s thing was beginning to fade, that maybe he’d be a perfect little angel by his third birthday, and in that case, we’d be HAPPY to keep him!

This must be one of those cases in which things get worse before they get better. It just HAS to be.

So, Deven went right back to immediately jumping out of bed in the mornings and ripping everything in his room to shreds. Okay, that is an exaggeration, but he does make an effort to misplace every single thing in his room. We no longer keep his clothes in his dresser because we got tired of gathering them off of the floor and then folding them twice a day. We keep them in a hamper in our bedroom. I had started giving him juice in a little cup with a straw, as a way of preparing him for drinking it straight out of the cup. It worked great at first. He would take breaks from playing to go sit at the table and drink his juice or milk. I recently had to switch back to sippy cups, because on a whim he would pour his drink out onto the floor. The sippies STILL aren’t fool-proof; he likes to take sips out of the cup and spit them out onto the floor.It doesn’t end there, my god, I WISH IT ENDED THERE. After every meal, the parts he doesn’t want go onto the floor by the table. The vast majority of our blinds needs replacing. Every diaper change involves a chase. He locked me out of the house AGAIN last week. Every day is full of NO’S! And SCREAMING FITS! And TEARS! And KICKS AND PUNCHES! Time-outs are completely ineffective. He laughs at our attempts at shame and intimidation. He feels no pain on his backside, I am convinced.

Just yesterday his reign of terror hit a new high:

This is his bedroom window. The little shit broke his bedroom window.

Amazingly, I resisted the urge to so much as YELL at him, though I did consider hurling him through the hole in the glass. I was in too much shock. How? Why? What? I had been listening to him on the  baby monitor and I didn’t hear glass shatter at any point. I would like to think I would awoken by the sound of glass breaking.

Every time I tell someone about some new horrible thing my son has started doing, their answer is always something along the lines of “he is definitely a little boy…” People tell me their stories about their sons locking them out of the house, or unintentionally keying their cars. When I was a kid, I certainly don’t recall being this destructive. The worst thing I ever did was drink a bottle of my mom’s perfume when I was 2. Explains a lot, eh?

Little girls do seem a little more calm than little boys. I’m not saying there aren’t cases of little girls who trample through mud, or smear poo on the walls, or shove potatoes in exhaust pipes, but you definitely of those behaviors coming more frequently from little boys.

My cousin Samantha just found out she is pregnant with her second daughter. She comes from a family of ALL GIRLS. She has 2 two sisters, and she and her older sister both have girls. If any member of their family had a boy, I don’t know what they would do with it. They should count their lucky stars.

I’m not saying I regret having a son, because he can be adorable and sweet. He’s very gentle with other little kids, and he’s very smart and observant. He’s musical and loves to sing and bang on his little toy drum. He knows the words to the national anthem. He is a typical little boy, but he is also very much an individual.

And after yesterday, he’s damn lucky he’s so cute.

So a lot of things have been happening this last week or so.  And we expect EVEN MORE stuff to happen during this week and over the course of the next 3 weeks. Really, it’s pretty cool.

I just finished the Spring semester with 2 Bs, both counting toward my major GPA. That’s not bad, considering that I already had 2 A’s. As you know, originally I was convinced I was going to have to take a C in my English Comp I class, but my English teacher corrected me by saying “your writing is too good for your grade not to reflect it.” So I went ahead and turned in the B paper. I went ahead and told her I couldn’t do the A paper because I was sure I’d hang myself from a tree if I had to do anymore writing this semester. She accepted the B paper, and was so enthused by it that she put at least 3 o’s in “so.” As in “sooo good!” My English teacher was so excited about my work, she butchered the language in the same way a  teenage girl would. She’s still awesome, and apparently so am I.

My birthday is on Thursday (ahem) and my gift to myself was a new bike. Of course when I told Vance about my new bike, he immediately had to have one too. Then we couldn’t both go biking without Deven, and he can’t ride his tricycle yet, so we had to get a trailer for him to sit in. And then Vance read this story about a guy who hit his head and had to have half of his head scooped out, so we had to get helmets (duh), and water bottles, and then he just absolutely NEEDED to know how far it is from here to the park and back, so we had to get an odometer. Yeah. Expensive hobby, but FUN AS SHIT. It’s a little hot to bike during the day, but we’re waiting for it to cool down so we can go for an evening ride. I didn’t even tell you the best part about my bike: IT’S A GIRLS BIKE. It’s for older girls, so no princesses or Hannah Montana, but it’s still pretty girly. I am very short, too short for the full 26″, so I had to pick a more ambiguous looking 24″ girl’s bike. It’s blue and it has purple and white swirls. I find it rather attractive, but you’d probably laugh at me. I’ll post pictures later.

I’m going out to dinner on my birthday at my favorite Mexican restaurant with my friends. I vow not to get sick and cancel on them at the last minute. I also vow to have fun and drink a margarita or two. I don’t plan on doing anything during the day, unless I have some money. I might go buy an outfit, or just my text book for the summer. Or I might just stay home and chill until dinner.

Lots of cool events coming up: Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage starts is showing here in Austin on June 10. I already bought my tix. Of course, being a huge Rush nerd, I am shaking with excitement. June 12 is Iron Maiden and  Dream Theater in San Antonio. And then Sept 23rd is Rush in San Antonio. I know that has nothing to do with the next month, but I AM TOO EXCITED NOT TO MENTION IT. We got good seats. Presale seats.

And then the summer semester starts June 1st. Intro to Psych. One class sounds like a freakin break to me.

Vance and I have taken on positions in the Williamson County Libertarian Party. Watch yo self!

Exciting stuff.

1. My child is OBSESSED with flags. It all started with his grandparent’s American flag they had hanging off of their porch. They let him play with it once, and ever since then it’s been his passion in life. I finally ordered for him a few miniature flags to play with. I got him a Texas flag, an American flag, and a German flag. I got him the German flag because he’s like 1/2 German, quantitatively, with my husband and mine’s blood put together, and it pairs perfectly with the Texas flag because my dad’s family is actually German Texan. I gave them to him today and he seriously WOULD NOT PUT THEM DOWN. He is asleep with them right now.

2. Babies. Very cute documentary film about 4 babies from 4 different parts of the world. Vance took me to see it this evening. Sweet movie, but not one I would recommend seeing in theaters, especially if you are bothered by other people adding dialogue to movies.

3. Family. We loaded up the van and drove down to Houston for the weekend. We hung out with Vance’s mom and step-grandmother. We ate rich, delicious pork, watched premium satellite, and got drunk. And Deven played with flags.We returned home early this afternoon, and we are EXHAUSTED. It was fun.

4. Restaurants are impossible on mother’s day. We ate at Chili’s. All I wanted was a bowl of soup, and I swear, Chili’s CANNOT do soup. All they have are these funky southwest-style soups that are just gross. All I wanted was a bowl of Minestrone or something light for my ailing tummy.

5. My hubby is not feeling well, but he still managed to make Mother’s Day a good day for me. I know he would have preferred to see Kick-Ass or Iron Man 2, but he didn’t even so much as protest when I told him I wanted to see Babies. Other than that, he’s just plain great. I’m so very lucky to have him around

Happy Mother’s Day, y’all!

The weather this spring has been amazing. It only rains in the evening, and the days are full of clear skies and high temps. On Tuesday I was THRILLED to find  out that the Brushy Creek Lake Park sprinklers opened again on the 1st of this month. It’s been hot enough to remind you of how awesome it is to be completely drenched in chlorinated water.

I packed Deven and all of our supplies into the van and headed down that way. I didn’t take any pictures, because I am an asshole, but I will try my best to the day justice with just the written word.

First off, once you pull into the parking lot,  you notice how many mini-vans and SUVS there are. And then you realize, duh, this is where bored stay-home-moms and homeschoolers take their kids when they are desperately clinging on to their sanity (like me!). Since it’s barely May and school is still in session, hardly anyone was there. There are still several little boys and girls running around the sprinklers like meth heads. Like last time, several of those little boys tried to stop the fountains with their butts. I still don’t understand why.

I also didn’t understand, at first, why I am usually the only mom who jumps in there and runs around with my kid. All of the other moms are off on the benches or on the fence watching their kids, but I am the only one who is soaking wet and chasing a two year old. But on this day, the weather was only about 90 degrees outside, which is still hot, but not quite hot enough to warm the water circulating through the sprinklers. That stuff was COLD. It felt nice to just find a sunny spot to try and warm up again. Also, once you’ve gotten over that whole “helicopter mom” phase, it’s kind of cool to just sit off to the side and read while your kid burns some fuel.

But for the love of God, that does not mean you should stop watching your kids! I swear, some parents just dump their kids off just so they can zone out. I get the appeal, but some kids need watching. One little boy, about 8 or 9 years old, actually filled a bucket with water and dumped it on my 2 year old’s head. Just came up behind my baby and dumped water all over his head. I couldn’t scream at the kid, although God knows I wanted to. All I could do was try to comfort my kid who was shocked and choking on the water. Luckily, Deven isn’t a wimp and got over it pretty fast. I was the only one with hard feelings. But seriously, WHERE WAS THIS LITTLE SHIT’S MOM? My kid would never pull a stunt like that on another small child without serious consequences, because, you know, I WATCH MY KID.

Another little girl was digging around in the mud, like she actually dug up a part of the park’s grass, and was dragging the mud into the play area. She was getting mud into the water, which everyone is playing in, potentially exposing everyone to God knows what. And then she took her little muddy hands and rubbed the mud off onto the bars of the fence. Here’s the kicker: THE LITTLE TURD’S MOM WAS RIGHT. THERE. She was watching her kid drag mud all over the place and not doing a god damn thing about it.

Okay, so the obvious downside of this place is other people’s kids. But when do you not have to deal with that? I was really proud that my kid was one of the best behaved little ones there.

But other than that, the park is an excellent alternative to the community pool, especially if you have little ones. They have the room to run around with their shoes off and play in the water with other kids, without the risk of drowning. Deven doesn’t get a whole lot of socialization, so this is an excellent way for him to learn to interact with other kids. I have to admit, there is something about the way the sprinklers are set up that totally just makes me want to jump in them and run around like a crazy person too. It’s an awesome way to spend an afternoon that would otherwise be spent watching netflix and pulling a small child out of knife drawers. Now I know our summer won’t be so boring.

Why am I writing this and not my b-paper?