Secular Confessions

[Gwenn]

L, sorry about what happened. It will blow over, and you didn't mean to exclude them.

I haven't had that unmentionable issue (at least not badly) but I do get a lot more GI cramping and gassiness at that time.

Chrissy, too bad you aren't in our office! Rumor has it there is an opening coming up...

The paperwork parents fill out and then receive from us during our assessment just makes their eyes glaze over. I kill a tree for every child I test.

Erin, how shall we celebrate 1000 pages? Seems like we need to do something big!

[Suja]

I don't have any calories left for the day, so celebrating better not involve food or drink.

[missychrissy]

Oh Mandy, how I wish!! I don't know if I'd do well with your other office staff though.

lol Suja! No food or drink here. I'm not feeling well.

Erin, here the physicals have to be done no more than 1 month before school starts (Wed after labor day usually) so the month of August is always booked full of kid physicals at all the dr offices. It's so weird.

[daylilies]

Yeah, I just had to call his doctor and they mailed me the records I needed. I didn't even have to fill out the medical forms the school gave me because the pedi has their own form they use.

[missychrissy]

You're lucky. Some dr office's do have various district's forms in their office, but each school dictates the form and I'm not aware of any that would take a generic one.

[daylilies]

So apparently I posted without hitting refresh and missed some stuff.

Yeah, I was suspicious that the school wouldn't accept it, but they did.
1000 pages woo!

I too am not feeling well (besides the issues this afternoon) I think I must be getting my period. I snapped at DH a couple times, which is not unusual but what was unusual was that I burst into tears the second time I went off on him. I was getting annoyed that he was watching videos on facebook when I wanted to watch something and get to bed reasonably early. I said "Can we go watch something instead of me having to watch you watch videos for an hour?" and then I stormed off to the couch and burst into tears. He was forgiving. I can tell he's thinking "Yup, she's getting her period."

[missychrissy]

That's really unfair. I don't think Rich has ever said anything like that to me. He may have thought it though.

I nearly missed my bus-I literally saw it turning the corner and go out of sight from where I was-and I sprinted to catch it. I have to say, it felt good. Really good. I might try to run again this weekend. I doubt I can do a mile, much less 3, but I don't think it'll take me long to get back up there. And when I ran all the time before, I found it really cleared my head. Some of you may remember my brother had gone through a horrible ordeal that resulted in his friend falling out of the back of his truck and dying, and then my brother served 8 months in jail for criminal negligent homicide...anyway, through that whole time I ran 2-3 miles every single day. I don't think I could have made it through without running.

[daylilies]

Well, I'd love to be mad at him for thinking that I'm PMSing whenever I act like this, but the problem is, he's usually right.

I do remember that ordeal, vaguely. How long ago was that?

[Bridget]

Ah, Kate. A smart man knows he **** well better not SAY that even if he thinks it! Worst thing ever is when you are pms-ing and someone asks you if you are.

Sawyer's been walking around! Randomly he will just walk across the room. He's a little stinker too. He fake gags to get my attention and then laughs. He's been hitting so we're working on that. Sometimes he gets really mad at me if I have to take something away from him, or move him away from what the big kids are doing and he'll whip his little arm in the air like he is going to hit me. I give him my mad face and say, "Don't you hit your mama.", real softly and then he starts tugging on his ear with his hand that was poised to hit me. It's totally like, "What? I was just itching my ear!"

I'm drinking a bloody mary. Weird thing to do at night but I found some tomato juice in the fridge and had a hankerin' for one.

[daylilies]

I wanted to go to bed half an hour ago but I'm lost in internet land. I need to go now before I'm up too late again. Night!

[missychrissy]

Oh Bridget, that's so cute!

Conner was about 9 months old when the accident happened (June 2007). Then he was in jail from early December to August 8th 2008. I ran for more than that stretch, but my running really intensified then and like I said, it just felt good. For many weeks, if not months, they were the only hours I felt good.

So I need some relationship advice. Or perspective. Or something. Rich got a truck all on his own through my credit union. One of my first issues was that it had to be automatically taken out every month, which he neglected to tell me. Then he told me about it 2-3 days before it was supposed to happen. You all know how bad I stress about managing my bills as it is. And it's not that we can't afford them, it's simply juggling them so that I don't have all the big payments coming out of the same check. That freaks me out like probably only Katy can understand. It's challenging, stressful, and horrible for me. I've cried about it many times (although not recently). Anywho, telling me about a medium sized bill that is going to come out with just a few days notice is nearly enough to make me have a panic attack. I spent no less than 3 hours reviewing our budget for this month and next, making sure everything was going to be paid on time and without overdrawing that account. I was a wreck.

The payment was due to be withdrawn on the 22nd. It's still in there. I mentioned late on the 22nd that it hadn't been taken out. I mentioned it again on the 23rd, and yet again some time over this past weekend. What is my roll in this? Do I just let him go and get his truck repossessed? Or do I yet AGAIN b!tch about how all this stuff is ALWAYS left up to me? imo, once I've had to turn it into a nag, then it's been left up to me. He won't do it otherwise.

[Gwenn]

Are you sure he didn't give them a different account? I would mention it but make it clear it's his problem.

[missychrissy]

Are you sure he didn't give them a different account? I would mention it but make it clear it's his problem.

Our other accounts wouldn't have enough money in them to cover that. He uses his for week-to-week $ and he doesn't give himself that much. Our other joint account is the family week-to-week $ and I spend just about every dollar of that.

I've told him about it 3 times and without getting witchy about it, I thought I made it clear it's his problem. He's still not doing anything.

[missychrissy]

Anyway, the way he explained it to me that was the only way he could get the low interest rate loan with them; if he agreed to auto-payments. I even asked him specifically if he was sure it was 3/22 and not 4/22 and he insisted. I really don't want to go behind his back and look at his loan paperwork, but I feel like I have to.

I hate to keep dragging this on (I really hate to hear my whining self ) but I've already had to 'mommy' him with this truck already. The dealership made a mistake with the insurance and he needed to contact them before 7:00 p.m. one night or the insurance would be cancelled (or registration? can't remember) at midnight. What did Rich do? He went joyriding with my brother and I found myself scrambling around at 6:30 making calls with the dealership and our insurance just to ensure it kept the coverage/registration on it.

[Gwenn]

I would tell him that he needs to solve it, and explain what the consequences might be for ignoring it (repossession, etc). You made that clear to him when he bought it.

[girlwonder]

Oh, Chrissy, your bank account story made my shoulders tense up just to read it. That would put me in bed with the vapors if I had to deal with that. I'm so sorry.

Lydia - I hope that they all have short memories. I hate when stuff like that happens.

Christina - Go eggs!

Gwenn - Go eggs!

I know I am missing some people. I have been lurking a bit but have not had the time to reply - I am teaching four classes before Easter and am busy with that AND my dh left for his trip to Peru yesterday. Today my daughter wakes up with pink eye so I had to cancel two school tours we had scheduled for today (I want to go back to school next year full time and her current daycare doesn't have a full time space for her). The doctor ended up just calling in a scrip for us, for which I am grateful because with our new horrible insurance plan, each doctor visit costs $145 as we have a $3000 deductible to meet before insurance kicks in. We also pay full price for medications until we meet the deductible, so her pink eye medicine cost $89!!! I am and and . That poor pharmacy assistant got an earful when he rang me up.

J has been challenging this week, ignoring me when I ask her to do things, etc. For instance, today I made her dinner (which is a challenge for me because dh is the cook) and I asked her to come in the kitchen and get her plate because dinner was ready. No answer at all. I go out to find out why she hasn't come after a couple of minutes and she snarls at me "When are you going to bring my pizza?!?!" I was steamed. I need to read some parenting books to deal with this new behavioral issue. I asked her if she can't hear me when I call her or ask her something or if she is ignoring me and she said she was ignoring me. And she will not stay in her bed at all anymore. Can you tell I am going a little bonkers?

And go 1000 pages!!!

[3andMe]

L, sorry about what happened. It will blow over, and you didn't mean to exclude them.

-----

Erin, how shall we celebrate 1000 pages? Seems like we need to do something big!

The way I would do it is offer to buy lunch for half of you and forget about the other half of you.

Happy 1000 pages!!!!! I seem to recall back when we made 1000 posts.

DD cried for 15 minutes solid, completely hysterical tears, because she had a drawing that she couldn't find when I was picking her up from school today. I pretty much could not get her out the door despite the fact that DH was already at home (an unexpected treat!) and my meter was going to expire and other kids at school kept coming up and asking what on earth was the matter with her. She was howling. I couldn't even budge her. We tried looking for it. I tried to talk her into doing another one. I tried some calming exercises. I finally told her she could keep being upset if she wanted, but she needed to do it more quietly because she was making everyone else upset, and that we needed to leave. I had to drag her out the door and force her into her car seat, no easy task with two other kids. She cried most of the way home, interjecting that with complaints about another girl not wanting to be friends any more and the markers at home being no good and not wanting the dinner I was making and blah blah blah. She finally cheered up in time to see DH, but cried off and on during the rest of the evening, for reasons including "because no one ever shares toys with me," which is complete nonsense because she is the main person here who has difficulty sharing. She ended up punching DH in the balls accidentally twice tonight, and each time he flinched and told her she hurt him, and each time she flung herself onto the ground and cried and said she was hurt too.

It was very difficult to be around. The crying was interspersed with a little bit of mania and shrillness. I am really tired of being around her. I almost hope that she is getting sick, or has some physiological cause to excuse this behavior, because I hate to think this is becoming part of her personality. She has been going through a whiny phase lately, but today was very bad.

[Cosmosmom]

L I'm sorry about the thing at work and hope that they all realize that it was totally unintentional.

Hmmm, Chrissy I don't have any advice for you. I am guessing I would probably do it myself if I had to. I don't know. Sometimes I feel when I see the complaints of the DH's that I can kind of feel them as I see a lot of those issues in me. I'm the one who drinks in the house, I don't pay any bills or deal really with anything money related except health insurance because it's through my job. Oh and taxes, I do those. It just seems easier to let one person be the bills person.....though in my defense, I do know HOW to pay the bills and would know where to find the info for things like account numbers and passwords. It would drive DH crazy if we had certain bills we each paid and he had to worry about if I did one on time or deal with multiple accounts so I just let him do it all.

Katy, check out walgreens. They have a membership program that seems to give some pretty good discounts for drugs. I'm thinking of joining myself as I have a high deductible HSA....I think that our deductible is 4800. My thyroid is pretty cheap but I'm paying $9 for 30 days at the pharmacy at work. I can get a 90 day supply for 12 on that program. And the cool part is you can use it for pets! So Cosmo is on eye drops for her sceleritis....I suspect she will be on them very long term, maybe for life... and a bottle at my work pharmacy was $36 and I think that it was $12 for the same thing on the walgreens program. I'm not sure that I can get her seizure meds there as they compound it I think. But mostly any human drug that they use also in dogs or cats (like not heartgard or frontline LOL), it works on the program. It's 35 a year for a family plan.

[Cosmosmom]

Oh L My BFF's daughter was VERY drama...still is in some ways but it's gotten sooooo much better as she's gotten a little older. I recall ages 4-5 being bad but after that it's just gotten better and she's 8 now. 7 and 8 have been so much better. I wouldn't tell bff but I thought her daughter was just a spoiled brat at that time. After that though, she's a lot nicer and fun to be around and the last couple of visits at ages 7 and 8 have been great. She's calmer and just doesn't have the drama tantrums like she did. It was rough on her and her parents for a while though.

[AmeriBrit]

SCUBJIAing....yay for 1000 pages!!!!! I'm going to drink some wine tonight to celebrate...I've got to go pick Travis up from school now; he wants to have a picnic in the garden when we get home.....woot woot!

[MashedUp]

Yay for 1000 pages!
L - I'm sorry you are having such a rough week. You were trying to do such a nice thing and it's too bad that people can be so petty that they don't see it that way. I hope that C comes around soon.
Bridget, sawyer sounds like such a little ham! oh, and now I want a bloody mary (and I'm at my desk at work!) For some reason we always end up having bloody marys at easter, lol.
Chrissy, If I were in your situation, I'd probably go ahead and look into it myself, but I'd be sure to give DH an earful once I figured it out.

I'm sure this has been discussed at length here in the past, but I'm curious as to how you all celebrate the "religious" holidays. I'm sure there is a wide range of participation. We celebrate the non-religious parts with a focus on giving and family. We celebrate "krismas", exchanging gifts, putting up a tree, etc, but just leave out all religious connotation. For easter we do an egg hunt and easter baskets and a big meal (and bloody marys, lol) and just spend the day with family. I grew up with santa and the easter bunny being a big deal (until I was like 12, lol) and have wonderful memories about those things, so we will continue to celebrate in the "magic" of these holidays and ideas until they are older.

[Bridget]

Lydia, that sounds like Savana when she is tired. She is like a different child.

We celebrate all the holidays as a season, really. Easter is the celebration of Earth's renewal. Christmas is a celebration of family and being grateful. Those are the main ones for us. It's all just fun and games around here. I don't know if you had joined this thread yet when I said I accidentally let me kids watch a Veggie Tales video that was about Easter. It went into the whole story about Jesus dying on the cross, coming back to life, ressurecting into Heaven. They were both in tears that night going to bed. Scary stuff!

We have Easter Bloody Mary's too! I remember I was on a roadtrip with my girlfriend's one easter. We going to Tennessee (no cancun for us! lol) and on Easter sunday we stopped and mixed blood mary's on the side of the road and cooked eggs and toast on our little grill and just spent the day hanging out wherever we were.

[missychrissy]

Oh, Chrissy, your bank account story made my shoulders tense up just to read it. That would put me in bed with the vapors if I had to deal with that. I'm so sorry.

I knew you'd get it!

I don't know if I'd bother paying insurance at all if our deductible was that high. Yowzers!!

The way I would do it is offer to buy lunch for half of you and forget about the other half of you.

You would not!!! bwahahaha!

Sorry about your little one I hope it's a phase that is soon past. She might always be a little more intense, but it's not likely this is how she'll always be. That's just my own mama experience talking. Syd could be a little intense at that age too, and still is more so when compared with her sisters. Not that they're not capable, but with Syd it's more frequent. It's manageable though, and not constant.

I'm sure this has been discussed at length here in the past, but I'm curious as to how you all celebrate the "religious" holidays. I'm sure there is a wide range of participation. We celebrate the non-religious parts with a focus on giving and family. We celebrate "krismas", exchanging gifts, putting up a tree, etc, but just leave out all religious connotation. For easter we do an egg hunt and easter baskets and a big meal (and bloody marys, lol) and just spend the day with family. I grew up with santa and the easter bunny being a big deal (until I was like 12, lol) and have wonderful memories about those things, so we will continue to celebrate in the "magic" of these holidays and ideas until they are older.

That's pretty much how we do it too. We call it Christmas though. I don't have any issues with having the word Christ in it. Maybe 'cause it's a good chunk of my name? lol

As an aside, I remember when I first saw people write xmas (on this board, actually) and i wondered to myself if they were so anti-religious that they're write my name xtina! lol

I did say something to Rich about his truck payment. I said it matter of fact and that he needed to deal with it or don't cry to me when it disappeared. Jennifer, it's not so much just about the bills, although I do want him to take responsibility for his own truck payment. It's about him leaving everything up to me. And I mean everything. I think I told you that he asked me what vehicle we were driving to his grandfather's funeral. He needs to make some decisions and think for himself.

[MashedUp]

We celebrate all the holidays as a season, really. Easter is the celebration of Earth's renewal. Christmas is a celebration of family and being grateful. Those are the main ones for us. It's all just fun and games around here. I don't know if you had joined this thread yet when I said I accidentally let me kids watch a Veggie Tales video that was about Easter. It went into the whole story about Jesus dying on the cross, coming back to life, ressurecting into Heaven. They were both in tears that night going to bed. Scary stuff!

We have Easter Bloody Mary's too! I remember I was on a roadtrip with my girlfriend's one easter. We going to Tennessee (no cancun for us! lol) and on Easter sunday we stopped and mixed blood mary's on the side of the road and cooked eggs and toast on our little grill and just spent the day hanging out wherever we were.

I love the earth's renewal idea! I'm going to incorporate that as well, thanks! We possibly participating in a beach clean up on saturday if it's warm enough to have the baby out, so I'll tie that in.

I didn't realize veggie tales were religious stories at first until I actually sat and watched part of one. We don't watch them anymore.

Sounds like a fun, spontaneous easter! For some reason, bloody marys and ham just go well together!

I don't necessarily not call it christmas, I just celebrate more along the lines of "krismas". For cards, I tend to choose "happy holidays" though. It's still a christmas tree though, not a holidy tree in my book!

[Ky'sMom]

I don't really celebrate Easter. My family is Christian and I grew up under that influence, but until I was around 14, my mom wasn't really religious at all. I remember her buying me a cute new dress and sending me to church with my great grandmother, which I didn't mind because my great grandmother was a wonderful baker/candy maker/cook and she actually made us baskets out of chocolate (meaning the basket was chocolate and edible) with colorful candy eggs inside. That was the highlight of Easter for me.

I did know the story of the resurrection. Many people I know, maybe not only black people but most of my family and a lot of my black friends do not and did not call Easter, Easter. They call it Resurrection Day. Ky knows the story of the resurrection as well. I gave him a synopsis and we read it in a children's bible. He also knows the story of Christmas, which we do celebrate, I just don't celebrate it as the birth of Jesus (especially since Jesus was not born at that time).

But religious holidays do not bother me. I also don't have any qualms about teaching my kids the religious meaning of a specific holiday. Ky also knows about other holidays from other religions, not just Christian ones as I want my kids to know that the world if full of religions/religious people and that we should be tolerant of others' beliefs. I also want them to know it is okay to not have a religion or be religious. I have made a point to Ky that I don't care if he believes in God or choses to be a part of a religion, I just want him to be mature enough to make that decision on his own and be respectful of other people's choice to either be religious or not.

Erin

[daylilies]

So last night I didn't end up going to bed when I said I was. I was going to, but I didn't want to take Bo upstairs that early and if I had gone to bed he would have just jumped the gate and come up with me (yes he can jump over our baby gate)

So I tried to get DH's input about it and he just kind of looked at me blankly, and said yes to a question that wasn't a yes or no question so I went back to the couch and watched tv until DH was done at 10:30. In hindsight I should have just taken Bo upstairs and gone to bed.

Sorry about the truck trouble Chrissy DH handles our finances so I don't really know what I'd do in that situation. DH wouldn't feel bad about getting mad at me for it. I mean he would feel bad, but not really.

Holidays are about family and food for us

[Smplyme89]

YAY for 1000 pages!!

Chrissy, honestly I would let him deal. It is ‘his’ truck; it is ‘his’ responsibility. Plus one missed payment isn’t going to cause the truck to get repossessed. If you feel up to mentioning that he needs to call the credit union (yay for CUs ) than do so, if not you’ve already mentioned it multiple times. You are not his mother. He is a grown man, got the truck of his own accord, and needs to treat it as such.

Bridget, go Sawyer!!! That is SO exciting!! I’ve been working on the hitting issue with Nolan, he thinks it’s a game (thanks Grampy ) Although he is starting to grasp when I say “Ow” and he will follow it up with giving me kisses Our newest thing is he waves bye bye. He’s been doing it for a while, but ony when someone was leaving the room and it would usually be a delayed reaction Now all I have to do is say bye bye or night night and he starts waving Still not walking yet, not that he couldn’t, he just doesn’t; I’m in no rush though

Since DH is a believer, the holidays will always hold some religious connotation for him. For the most part though it is about Family and being together, nothing more nothing less. I love Santa and the Easter Bunny, I think the childhood is so short and I want him to enjoy that imagination and innocence for as long as he pleases. I stopped believing when I was like 3 (which I don’t remember at all), my parents said I was sneaky and figured them out really quick

[Cosmosmom]

Chrissy, sounds like you did the right thing. You warned him and now the ball is officially in his court.

Normally we don't do anything for easter as it's usually just DH and I. This year my MIL is coming up to visit and she wants a traditional ham dinner so we are doing that. And than I invited my BFF, her DH and two girls over since I figured I was doing a fancy big meal anyway. I did not grow up with a religious family. My dad is pretty much an atheist with a touch of agnostic....but really he's just not a deep thinker kind of guy and just wants to think about things like music and his computer (or now he's all about his tablet and angry birds LOL). My mom is more spiritual. So we had easter baskets with some candy in them but mostly we got presents. Things like a new disney video and a new beach towel for the upcoming summer (we had a pool so went through a LOT of beach towels). And we almost always made cutout frosted cookies for all the holidays. I still do that....I have a huge bag of cookie cutters and easter egg ones are fun to frost and bunnies and chickies.
For Christmas, I do call it that and will say Merry Christmas. I will also write xmas as it's just faster. I do a tree of course (minus this past one because I had just gotten the puppy and didn't want to deal and we ended up going back home...five hours away for the holiday) and stockings (I'm actually making one now for the baby....it's got a lot of beading so it's taking me a while). I do all the music....and the religious songs tend to be my favorites. I'm also in the miniority I think in this room but I also put up a nativity. I have one that is really nice and a collectible and I just really like the little people in it and the animals. I don't believe the literal story but it's a nice story about a baby being born and I do believe that it was highly likely that Jesus did exist and was influential at the time (just don't buy the whole son of god virgin birth thing).

[missychrissy]

Oh I know 1 missed payment won't get it repossessed, but I'm not kidding you...if I left it up to Rich he would ignore it until it was repossessed.

[daylilies]

By the way, predictions were correct as far as the status of my um, womanly issues...
(because I know you all were dying to know that)