Not Me Monday....

These "Not Me's" are just for me, since MckMama is taking a day off for Memorial Day from her "Not Me" blog carnival.  

I would never leave my child in his pajamas all day long because he was getting over a cold, and myself and the husband were in the thick of it.  I definitely would not leave him in those p.j.s all day when I myself got dressed and went to the store to buy oranges, OJ, and soup!  Surely since Josiah was sick, I had those things already!  

I definitely called my friend Susi who was visiting with us last week to tell her that Joey got sick the day after she left and he probably got it from some germ infested place that we took the kids to and to watch out!!  (And also to very courteously check to make sure they were all still healthy).  

I have not let this weensy cold get the best of me and completely given up on my cooking and cleaning causing me to witness an actual fur tumbleweed blow across my kitchen floor.  

Out of sheer exhaustion from not being able to use my nasal passages for more than 24 hours I have not repeatedly told my toddler to "play with your toys" instead of hang all over me, because I just want to sit and relax.  I also have not checked my watch and wondered what in the WORLD I am going to do with him for the next 2 hours until bedtime and considered a bath just to take up time, even though he had one last night.   

I have not considered counting how many times my "child of few words" says "Momeee" in a given day and then blogging about it.  I would never even think about telling him to call me something else, so I don't even need to mention that!

And lastly I am DEFINITELY not going to do absolutely NOTHING after Joey goes to bed, except possibly going to bed at some unmentionable hour like 8:30.  Because of course there are fur tumbleweeds to be swept and laundry to be put away and various other things to do.....

Canary Green

Right now, our guest room is a weird shade of canary yellow. In the daylight at least it is yellow.... dark, bright yellow. But at night something happens. When you turn on the light, the room looks like it is neon green. It is truly an ugly color. U*G*L*Y, ugly. seriously.

So right now I am painting. Not right now, persay, at 4:00 a.m.....nope, right now, I am recovering, but earlier I was painting, and while I could make this post a million paragraphs and bore you to tears, I will keep it short and sweet and explain why I was painting at 3 in the morning, and what I am recovering from.

As practical as it would be to paint the guest room (because it is u*g*l*y) I am painting the "boys room". We have never really done anything for poor Joey since we moved in. No paint, no pictures, no time, no nothing!! So since we found out we were having another boy we decided to boy it out!! Blues and greens and bright and colorful and I can't wait to show it off when it is finished. Which is not now.

I'd like to be finished by Wed. Right now, I have the entire walk in closet finished (which was hard because it was dark blue and had to be primed and painted twice (thanks for your help Lexie!!!). I have 2 walls painted completely, trim and all and I was priming the remaining 2 tonight when..... after using 1/2 a 2 gallon bucket on one wall I finally figured out why it was SUCKING in the primer. Someone at some point had glued up a GIANT picture mural (actually Matt ended up figuring this out, which is why I am writing this post). I primed and primed and finally used up all the primer (hello Home Depot again tomorrow *sigh*), when I noticed that the wall was starting to bubble. oh crap. Literally there are these giant air bubbles forming under a layer (that we thought was plaster!) ALL over this wall. Turns out someone had painted over this wallpapery-picture kind of thing, with some kind of textured paint or something. There was no way to even tell that this had been done. So the wall is molting off in front of my eyes....

oh crap.
oh crap.
oh crap.

Did I mention that I am having company on Friday and I don't have time for this (hey Sus! I'm sure we'll have this under control by then... hehehe) and I would really really REALLY like to be done by Wednesday!

OH CRAP!

So I called Matt in and through the course of discussion....and a little peeling it obviously cannot stay on the wall. Matt has his last final for the semester tomorrow (well, today now) and has been working like a dog and is EXHAUSTED and trying to advise me with what to do..... Finally instead of watching me pull and and scrape and try not to cry at the HUGE SETBACK, he gets on some work clothes and does the hardest scraping for me, for 45 minutes. At 2:30 in the morning. When he could be sleeping.

Did I mention that today on Home Depot run #73 I locked the keys in the car with the diaper bag, and myself and Joey out of the car. Matt was in the city, at a final and left to race back home and let me in the car and then back to class to present his portfolio.

I'm not sure what is going to happen with that wall tomorrow. I'm not sure what is going to happen with that wall in the next 3 days. I'm not sure why someone would paint over wallpaper, or door hinges, electrical sockets, or window latches, but I won't go down that path right now. I'm especially not sure what I did to deserve a husband as dedicated and loving as I ended up with. I'm not sure that I could have left my final exam and driven to help him in the same scenario. I'm also not sure that I would have forsaken sleep (had I been as tired as he is/was) to help with a project that could have been abandoned until the next day.

What I am sure of, is that Matt is truly loving me "as Christ loved the church, and gave himself up for her." Ephesians 5:25 He is giving up his own needs and desires and taking, in their place, my own. So instead of sitting here and thinking about my 3 great walls and 1 DISASTER wall, downstairs, I am thinking about Christ, how He loved His children, and how my husband is able to love me. I didn't ask him to come save me at Home Depot, or to help me tear apart a wall. He just saw my need, and treated it as his own.

My prayer tonight (along with extra rest that I won't get from a full night's sleep) is that somehow through my actions, someone will think of Christ and how He gave himself up for us all. I hope I can learn something from Matt tonight because I think that his sacrifices for me, will mean more to me and last longer than whatever ends up on that wall. (if it even sticks)

Thanks for listening, and think of Matt today (Tuesday as he finishes his last final, which he has juggled while giving me a sweet mother's day and wonderful birthday, all in the same week).

And Mom, and Dad, and Kay and Tom..... (and all you other family and friends who will darken our doorway this summer). I'm really sorry about the canary neon green guest room walls. They are still going to be canary neon green. Because it scares me so much to think about what might be under them!! And I don't think I am going to be doing any painting (scraping, sanding, cutting, spackling, edging, priming, climbing, or anything else) for some time.

Embrace the ugly!

One Beautiful Beardsley Momma

Here she is, the beautiful blogger herself!

I am so fortunate to have a loving and caring wife

who is, without any doubt, the best mother ever.

She's the perfect compliment to my many weaknesses

and the strength of our happy little family.

Joey is the best-loved toddler in the world

and loves his MAAMAA!! more than anything.

Much love and many blessings for a

Happy Mother's Day!

WFMW: Cloth Diapering...... or Not.

The theme of this WFMW is supposed to be "being frugal", so in that spirit (sort of), I'll talk about our diapering! Since shortly after Joey was born we have used cloth diapers. So we're going on 2 years of cloth!! Matt and I decided to do this to save money (supposedly it is over $2000 to diaper a child through "fully-potty trained", but can be as much as 4 or $5,000), and sadly I can say it had little to do with our concern for our environment. In case you are interested you can find out more from: http://www.naturalfamilyonline.com/5-diap/45-diaper-cost.htm which was an interesting article I found on cloth diapering (very pro, so beware, it's not an objective viewpoint). We use Fuzzi Bunz and will use them until they fall apart, with the money that we invested in them.



BUT.... I didn't set to brag about cloth diapering...actually that's not the "Works For Me" part.....the works for me part is cloth diapering when we can.... Let me explain. Cloth diapering is great in theory, a little harder in practice. For example, you really have to have the money to make an initial investment, (that you might not see a return on for some time!). You also have to have the time and diligence to be responsible for your diapers. Cloth diapering takes time! You have to:
*wash the diapers very specifically
*wash the diapers on time, if you aren't just pulling out the next pack of disposables you have to have the load done when that last diaper is coming off, or you have a naked baby butt running around (very dangerous)
*change diapers quickly
*deal with keeping odor and detergent from building up on the diapers
*Have a system worked out for wet/dry storage, a way to get the yucky stuff off BEFORE the diapers are washed, and have everyone in your household onboard/and informed!
*plan on how many diapers you need for an outing and remember that the dirty ones can't simply be thrown away, you get to cart them back home! yea!
*Always have a back-up plan for rashes/emergencies/babysitters, which usually means: buying disposables.

I would say grand total over Joey's life that we've used cloth between 60 and 70% of the time. We definitely haven't gotten a return on our investment yet. There are a WHOLE bunch of reasons, but the easiest to explain is, that for us, it just doesn't work all the time. Joey is EXTREMELY prone to diaper rash. He can get a pretty severe rash in a matter of 15 or 20 minutes (like if we didn't know he had a dirty diaper and couldn't smell it) that will stick with him for days. At that point we have to switch to disposables and diaper cream, and sometimes it will take nearly a week to shake a really bad rash! We've also done a lot of traveling which involves buying more disposables, and with arrival of BBB#2 I've purchased enough diapers for Joey for several weeks so that visiting family, (and tired parents) can use disposables without worrying about cleaning/and caring for expensive diapers.

What works for me, is using our cloth diapers when I can and NOT feeling bad about it. We have another little guy coming and no diapers to buy!! We already have what we need! Because older (more than 1 year) fuzzi bunz are not one-size-fits-all, we have a full supply to fit a newborn to 1 year old without digging into Joey's diapers. They aren't overworn, and were well taken care of and it might have taken us a little longer to get a return on our investment, but hey, it worked for me! ;-)

So if you are thinking about trying out cloth but don't think you can keep up with it all the time, don't worry..... you don't have to be supermom/dad, you just have to do what works for you!

To find out what works for other Moms, visit: http://www.wearethatfamily.com/

Fatty

Our Puppy, Officially weighs more than our toddler....

Actually, we figured out that Joey won't ever weigh more than Ziggy again. It's unlikely that Joey will weigh 120 or more lbs before high school, I'd say, and the oldest Bernese Mountain Dog (ever!) lived to be 15 (really really old!), so....this week was like the eclipse for us, with Joey starting out on top, a short overlap, and then Ziggy surging to the lead, where he shall remain!

We are all (and our backs are all) adjusting to this GIANT baby! He still loves to be petted and held. Unfortunately he is growing out of laps (and I don't really have one anyway) by leaps and bounds!!

*Blah Day

You know those days....

Blah blah.
You sit down on the toilet. Paper's gone.
You spill your coffee.
Your child spills.....everything.
You have to pay bills.

Nothing seems to go your way.
And it's raining...

And then you realize that the videos you checked out of the library are due that afternoon, in 18 minutes to be exact and your child is napping. Your husband is out. So you contemplate $3 in late video charges, vs. grumpy child for remainder of day.

Good time to wonder why you are blogging when you should be waking said grumpy child to drag him to library since you paid bills and know that there isn't a spare $3 anywhere. ;-)

I'll be going now...