It's Mary Jane silly!

While outside playing, one of the neighborhood kids came over & asked Davin what we had growing in our flower bed in the front yard. In all seriousness, Davin told the 10 year old that it was mary jane. The 10 year old girl did not catch the sarcasm and then responded, "Davin, that is a type of bread, so really... what are you growing here?" I have to admit that mary jane sounds much more interesting than the annual that was on sale at Lowe's for our front yard's tiny flower bed.

The boys have had quite a start to this week. Kaleo has been on spring break, and has been very busy doing boy things. The kinds of things that I have to ask "why would you do that?" and get the very familiar boy answer "I don't know". So the real question is... if he doesn't know why he did it, then who does? I would like to speak with this individual to try to convince whomever it may be that the strange boy things need to stop. There is a 3 year old and now an infant going to soon be following in his footsteps! Oh the humanity!

An Amazing Feat

Today was challenging. I've had a headache for nearly three days because on Tuesday, I managed to bang the side of my head against an open car door and then a few short minutes later, banged the back of my head against the top bunk of the bunk bed while tucking Samson in. My head has been throbbing for days. There is nothing that helps. A jolt of caffeine won't assist my throbbing head this time. Not for bruises anyway.

So this afternoon, I put the children to bed. Kaleo & Samson went straight to sleep at 1pm. They didn't even try to stay up and talk to one another or anything, since yesterday Valerie & Noah came over for a play date & we went to the movies, out to lunch, etc. So they were exhausted today. And then Kipani usually stays awake when they are sleeping. She never wants to sleep when they do. It's almost like she knows she'll get to have one-on-one time with me if she stays up while they sleep. But at about 1:30, she started dozing. I thought to myself... this might just be a miracle. And then, fussing a little, fighting the inevitable. And then it happened... she fell asleep.

So from 1:30pm to 3:20pm, I had time to myself. I normally don't let the boys sleep past 3pm but I had to enjoy the few minutes I had. Swept the floor, washed the dishes, and sat down & read 3 chapters of a book. And there were no interruptions. No fighting children, no screaming or yelling, and no one came behind me & made more dishes or tracked in mud. Well, not yet. But the point is... it's quite amazing when every child in the house goes to sleep at the same time.

Amazing, to say the least.

Funny things Boys Do......

So it seems that I may be a bit distracted lately. In the form of my two young sons behavior, I have been able to detect how consequential a mother's distraction can actually be. They seemed to innocently ask if they could have a picnic outside. Why not? I thought to myself. It would be better than them making a mess inside! And so outside they went with their pizza rolls & apples. They were soon knocking on the door for more. That's fine, they are having fun eating outside. Little did I know, Hoku was getting quite a treat as they threw her whole pizza rolls for fun!

And then while at the top of the playhouse part of the swingset, I caught a glimpse of what looked like Samson pulling down his pants. And a longer glance led me to believe that there was something bad about to happen. He was pointing his boy parts down the slide, and was creating a "waterfall" if you will. As soon as I opened the back door, the waterfall stopped and both boys stared at me as if it were me who had lost my mind.

Yes, it would seem that they've had too much time with a distracted mother. And I vowed at that moment that I would not let them out of my sight for more than an instant.

And then came naptime. Surely I cannot stay with them every second, and I need a nap myself because getting up 2 and 3 times each night with a 5 week old baby has not been a cup of tea for me! But I heard noises and went into their bedroom, where I see Samson chomping on a giant piece of bubblicious. Nice. I sent him to spit it out in the trash. I asked Kaleo where he got the gum, since Kaleo is the one who has access to gum. Oddly enough, Kaleo didn't have any in his mouth. He claims that, "Samson MADE me get him gum".

Maybe I am a bit out of touch. But how in the world does a 3 year old MAKE a 6 year old retrieve for him a wad of gum? I think this equation is backwards, and does not seem to fit into the laws of any physics that I ever learned.

Even with that being said, this tired mama is continuing to hound these little boys to make sure they are behaving, keeping their room & playroom clean, and fitting into the proper boy-hood equation.

Time to get back to it!

So here we are, new baby in my lap, and ready to get back into the swing of things. She'll be 5 weeks old tomorrow, and my excuses for not having the dishes washed or laundry done are not going to be accepted any longer (personal standpoint of course).

To describe childbirth, there was one contraction. And then there was an immediate urge to go to the hospital. Not necessarily out of pain but just the knowledge of what the urge to push actually means during childbirth. 7:44am this all began. She was born at 9:24am, after the hospital made me go through the normal vital-taking procedures, go through admittance since I was not pre-registered at this particular hospital, and then sent me into a triage room for what seemed like forever (Davin claims it was no longer than 5 minutes but what does he know?). And then they realized I was fully dilated & she was soon going to make her way into the world whether or not they put me in a birthing room or not. So they pushed the bed, quite frantically, down the hall into the maternity ward. (The nurse actually rammed the bed into the wall twice with me in it!)

Kipani is doing quite well breastfeeding. Her first two days were extremely challenging, because she had a bruise on her head from being in the birth canal, but after the bruise & swelling started going down, she started doing really well. We haven't had any trouble at all with it, other than me being STARVING! It seems like I'm just hungry all the time. Hopefully that will reside soon, because eating 8 times a day is fun and all, but its very time consuming.

The boys are doing well with the adjustment. Kaleo is helpful, and Samson is too. However, Samson is a little less than gentle. He claims he's being gentle even though his hands are doing something on the contrary. Hopefully he'll figure out what gentle means. We have gotten back into our routine this week. Davin had 4 weeks off, and this was my first week taking Kaleo to school and taking care of the daily things and dinner by myself. It went relatively smoothly, so I'm looking forward to another week!

A Charlie Brown Christmas

The title doesn't really refer to our children's Christmas-time experience. However, we do know the real reason for this season is the birth of Christ and not the commercialized event that it has become. I'll start by saying that... before I get into what funny things they have said lately.

We were watching "A Charlie Brown Christmas" which is a pretty common movie to watch this time of year. It has a great point. A child, we don't really know his age, has conflicting thoughts about Christmas. Why? Because of the commercialization and so many things that come along with it. For instance, questions like, "Why aren't we nice to each other every day, instead of just on Christmas Day?"

Anyway, Kaleo, my very sensitive sweet-hearted child, asked me towards the end of the movie, "Where are all their mommies & daddies?" I guess it had never dawned on me that there are absolutely no adults in the Charlie Brown holiday movies. I say this because I bought them the set of movies. The "great pumpkin" and the "Thanksgiving" and the "Christmas" movie all in one handy set. No parents. No adults. Very strange. And yet, I never noticed it.

So Christmas is truly upon us. I have friends who enjoy the hussle & bustle & get out & fight the crowds and go to the malls & do all of the shopping the last two weeks before Christmas. Not me. I had my shopping pretty much done in October. And most of it, I had done online with free shipping. I don't understand why people wait until the last minute, or why anyone would want to go out and fight crowds. It takes away from the joy of the season, doesn't it? Those angry Christmas shoppers do not bring joy, and when one of them bumps into you and yells into your face, for no apparent reason, that does not bring anyone joy. I say, stay home, shop on Amazon & get your gifts before or after the rush. Stores have clearance sales in February & in October. Why not do your shopping in the stores then? And then the expense is spread throughout the year instead of all in the last two weeks of December.

We got the kids their big gift in September off of craigslist. Who cares if it's used? Two 50's, a quad-runner & a little dirt bike. They needed a little bit of work, but Davin fixed them up and has tested them out (that was the highlight of my day... watching him drive around the neighborhood on those little 50's). And now we're just waiting for the big day. Other than that, we really didn't dive into commercialism this year. We did try to have a little something for each individual, especially those we knew would be buying us things! But there was a $10 limit. I am not sure if that was reasonable. But it was what had to be done.

"Merry Christmas Charlie Brown"

Finally!

So the roller coaster ride has almost come to a stop. It's kind of at a coast at this point in time, though. Basically, after many hospitalizations, I had to have emergency surgery on 9/22. I also lost my childcare license that day because although I was not at home, the parents that I do daycare for still left their children in the care of my husband, Davin! Obviously, this is not allowed by the US Navy's standards. He was doing the extremely nice, gentlemanly thing by taking a bunch of kids on when he knew I was at the hospital by myself having surgery. It was a very emotional time! I woke up with no one there. That was very upsetting, of course.

But not to get upset by these details... since then, I have gone before the Quality Review Board of the Navy to petition the charge they had assessed me with. They took back the charge and gave me back my licensure plus a bonus to boot. Now Davin is in the process of getting certified to do childcare so that he is able to help me when I need his help. We never want to run into a situation like this again.

I took a part time job working at the local Sears Dept Store. That was a huge mistake on my part. At the same time, it opened my eyes to what hourly employees have to go through. I have been a salaried employee for such a long time, and Davin has also. We haven't had to face the reality of what hourly workers go through to earn that little tiny paycheck at the end of the week. Even though I have a B.S. in Business & a M.A. in Human Services I took a minimum-wage paying position solely because the Human Resource Department gave me permission to make my own schedule around my husband's schedule. I figured... this is going to be so easy. Every dollar I make is free & clear, I'm not paying for any daycare, and I'm getting out of the house a little bit. Getting out of the house is something that I have been struggling with, as I have been locked in the house for the past 6 years finishing a Master's degree. I have longed to be a part of the outside world. That is, until I actually joined the outside world.

The experience taught me a lot of things. First of all, Human Resource Departments do not keep their word when they give permission for such things as a hiring agreement to "make your own schedule". After the first two weeks, I had one manager in my face yelling at me that if I couldn't work when she put me on the schedule, that she would have me fired. I gave her my availability, and she gave me the schedule the exact opposite of that. That would mean I was making minimum wage, and would have to pay $3/hour per child (2) for my children to go to daycare somewhere. Now, would you work for nothing? I tried to resolve this issue with the management team. I wrote two separate letters to the Human Resource office. I physically went into the store to talk to management on two occasions, and I called the Human Resource attendance line to try to resolve the issues.

I never used my degree to an advantage. I never talked down to anyone. But I will never forget how bad the experience actually was. Years ago, when I was working on my Business degree, I read a book called "Nickel & Dimed in America" about a woman who went from town to town as a single woman and tried to make a living on minimum wage. She tried it in various locations all over the country to gauge the differences in the cost of living, etc. However, minimum wage has since gone up. She wrote about how ignorant some managers were. She wrote about how, although she had a Master's degree, that she never used that education to get her a higher position. She wanted to see what it was like. Not so the case for me. I have applied to 80 institutions of higher learning. I have gotten 3 responses, but I cannot start teaching until the Summer 2010 or Fall 2010 semesters at any of them. Ideally, this is what I hope to do with my life. However, I am impatient. I applied at Sears one day when I was helping a neighbor's kid on snagajob.com apply for positions. I thought, "a pricing associate, how bad could this be?" And I found out upon being hired.

Although it's been a difficult thing for me to adult whole-heartedly, I will confess that doing childcare for the US Military is a whole lot less stressful than working for minimum wage under ignorant management. This is for many reasons, but mainly because the military lets you set your rules (under their rules of course), and keep your customers in line. I have maintained professionalism throughout the years (even though I'm working with children - and their parents), and could not believe how the outside world's professionalism standards have flopped into the toilet. Davin had previously warned me. I did not believe him. But I will say, that I will not forget. I will not forget anything that I went through. I will not forget that the paychecks after busting my pregnant butt all week long were not enough to pay for groceries for our family. I will forever be grateful to the freedom that I have had through running my own daycare. And although sometimes I feel that the Navy keeps childcare providers from having any privacy, I will be thankful because I am a salaried employee. I take additional children, I make a lot of money. They pay for food. They pay for the parents to get a discount, and they help to make sure parents do right by us. I couldn't ask for more.

I do long to change careers, obviously. On a scale of valuable employees from 1 to 100, childcare providers are ranked #22 by way of respect & by way of pay. However, minimum wage pricing associates aren't on the list at all. And so maybe I'll take that #22 position for the time being. My children are young. And I don't desire to juggle them. I long to teach at the adult level (or at least the teen level), but I know now that patiently waiting for the RIGHT door to open up, is likely the thing I ought to do, rather than taking anything that comes my way.

Thankful, is what I am!! :)

This summer has been quite a roller coaster! Between me being in the hospital, and having to bury a close friend, we've barely had time to realize how wonderful our children are as they are growing! Kaleo started school the day after labor day. Samson has been very upset every day when he is reminded that he will not be joining Kaleo at school. As we load into the car every morning, he packs himself a backpack full of supplies he deems necessary to bring. He has high hopes that I'll let him stay one of these days.

Samson has informed me that the baby in my belly is his baby. And that he is going to take care of it. Kaleo has stated that he will be taking care of the baby, and my job will be to tend to Samson.

Samson told me Friday, after we'd dropped Kaleo & Esias (one of my daycare kids who also goes to Kaleo's school part time) off at school, that he knows his name is Samson but he wants me to always call him Sammy. He shrugged when I asked him why, but I still thought it was pretty funny, and completely out of context to our conversation at the time.

We are watching Babe right now as our Saturday movie night. Samson chose it while Kaleo was outside working with Davin welding something together (Davin has the proper protective masks for them both), and Kaleo is very unhappy with the choice. He'd much rather watch Scooby Doo for the 867th time this week. But hey, I have a lot to be grateful for! At least he's off the Grinch phase!

Samson's new kick is changing his clothes every hour. He goes into his drawers and picks a new outfit for every situation. I don't understand it one bit. I do laundry every 4 days or so, and he had (no exaggeration) 17 pairs of underwear that were in the dirty laundry. And not because he has accidents or anything, but because he just changes his clothes so much. Because Davin saw the stack of laundry that Samson had to put away, he has made a new rule: Samson may not change his clothes during the course of the day. We've already had massive throw downs today because of this new rule being put into place.

Luckily, Davin dealt with it in it's first effectual day because I was at the Crisis Pregnancy Center doing some volunteer work today. And speaking of that, it seems so funny to me that the work with pregnant teenagers or any other unplanned pregnancy is less draining than my job running the military home daycare. Of course, it's only when I choose to do it, but I believe that speaks measures about the military's daycare policies.

Well I must get back to the husband & kids. They are watching Babe and eating some kind of candy that should probably be regulated by the female of the house. Otherwise, the children will never go to sleep tonight unless drugged with some benedryl or something of that nature. Haha, I'm kidding, I've never even administered benedryl to the kids, but I know it puts me to sleep! I'm tired myself already, and my feet are hurting.

The best news of the week is... I have vomited in 6 days. It is truly a record. I am now able to take prenatal vitamins daily, and am feeling so much better. I had forgotten what it felt like to have energy, to not have to walk around with barf bags in my purse, and to desire to eat! Finally an appetite! 20 weeks & counting. We go for more measurements to be sure of the due date in October. Right now, it looks like I'm due somewhere between Feb 1 & Feb 22. Hurray! I'm half way there!