Mellipotomus

Ahhh! the life of a mellipotomus. This is how I feel righ now, but not as pretty.

Did I dream that? Am I really that unlucky?

There is no way all that could have happened in one night.

I have had bad night before, but I can not remember one time in the last 6 years of being a mother one being this bad.  When I woke up this morning (and trust me I didn’t want to)  I said to myself I have to write that down because there is no way I could remember it all later.  Justin didn’t come home last night. He had been working at his parents house 40 minutes away. When he called at 8:30 and said he would be home after he ate dinner and that he had to be back over at his parents at the butt crack of dawn I asked him to spend the night over there.  It made sense.  I wasn’t going to go into labor and I could handle things alone.  What I didn’t know is that I would soon be experiencing chaos!!!

10:30 PM - Lilya is still a awake.  She wants to come sleep with me on “daddy’s side”  I tell her to go to sleep and she does.

11:30Pm-  I fall asleep

12:00am-  Lily wakes up screaming I go and grab her and bring her in to my room. 

12:15 am - still screaming mommy is tired and wants to sleep.  I break down and give her a binky.  When she calms down she insists on telling me all about the binky and wants to know what color it is.  She also lets me know her bottom is itchy.  I put medicine on her poor itchy bottom and she falls asleep at about 12:30 am.

1:30 Am - Thunder and lightening start in.  I decided to get up and close all the windows. They have fans in them so I go around and take out the fans and close the windows.  In quintons room I drop the fan on top of Quinton’s toy chest scaring the crap out of him.  It takes me 10 minutes to calm him down and get him to fall asleep.

2:23 AM-  I wake up before the huge lighting crack hits.  I always do this I don’t understand it but I do.  I know it is coming.  It is like one of those fireworks that are just noisy and not pretty.  I hate those.  Lilya sleeps through it , but because I had just woken Quin up Quinton Screams out and is in my room in an instant.  I couldn’t convince him to sleep in his room and the lighting was so bad I couldn’t blame him so we grabbed Lily’s crib mattress of her bed and brought it in my room. I got him all settled on the floor but of course he needed a teddy bear and then he wanted to keep the flash light close so that if the power went out he wouldn’t be afraid and then he had to pee.  The moment he was settled The storm went crazy and so I decided to run out to the living-room and check the  internet for any tornado warnings. 

2:45 - I walk out into the dark living room and kicked a glass that was on the floor.  The kicked glass slid into another glass and exploded into a million pieces.  I remember sighing “go ahead Justin spend the night nothing is going to go wrong” Sarcastically under my breath.  After I checked the weather I walked over broken glass to get back to the bedroom.  Quinton was gone when I got back.  He was peeing again.  I was getting frustrated of course and I was so tired.  Quinton went fell a sleep Lilya was asleep I was up listening to the storm.  I fell asleep at about 3:45. 

4:00 AM - Lilya Rolls over and her arm smacks me in the face like a whip.  Am I an candid camera.  Really is this happening because I don’t think it is funny. 

4:30 AM - Lilya begins to whimper and cry every 2 to 3 minutes.  I can’t figure out what is going on.  She is moving all over the place.

4:45 am - Lilya has decided that she is going to wake up for the day.  I am just about in tears.  I tell her it is not morning and she needs to be quiet because she is going to wake up Quin.  She wants to talk about her binky.  “This one is pink mommy”  “I like my pink pasy, It is my mommy passy.”  It was lost and I found it.  I love it my beautiful pink passy.” 

5:30 am - I give up and turn on the tv. 

6:00  am - Quinton is up and he joins us in bed I Pass out!!

7:20 am - We all get up I spend 30 minutes trying to pick up all the glass and get breakfast.  I realize at this moment that Lilya ate only a 4th of a piece of toast last night and she was hungry all night.  This is most likely why she was up all night and if I had given her a gram cracker at 12:00 she would have gone back to sleep.

Present time-  I AM ON STRIKE!!  until I get a nap nothing is going to happen today.  Nothing at all.  Do you blame me. 

How I met my best Friend

Motherhood was not an option for me.  At a young age the lord had laid the immense desire to become a mother, and know that this was an outcome that had to happen some time in my life I began trolling for husbands at an early age.  The funny thing about God is that he rarely throw things in your lap.  “Here Amelia,  This is your husband.”  Was never heard by my lovely ears, but after many years of praying, and wishing and hoping and searching and maybe a little obsessive stalking I finally gave up on everything.  Wife and mother went down the drain and i decided to work on just being human.  I believe that it was that this moment that God said, “Ok she’s ready.”  Nice,  Thanks God. 

Justin and I went to College together.  I had seen him around campus a few times.  I remember at one point after seeing him close up saying to myself “ I could marry that.”  I really wasn’t obsessing about him or following him or collecting his toe nails like I was other boys on campus, but I think at that moment God marked Justin and I for each other.  I saw him again in my home town while Christmas Shopping.   How strange it was to see someone you don’t know from a place far away in a place where you grew up.  Even after much prodding I couldn’t get up the guts to go meet him.  He was a boy, he was really good looking , and he was with his family and there was no way  I was going to go over there and be my super silly self, and be rejected again. 

God was far from done with Justin.  After returning to campus in January, I saw him almost every day.  I was aware of him.  Justin with his friends at dinner, Justin walking across campus, Justin here and there and everywhere.  I was curious I must say, but I was “being a human”  I was not interested in trying to find a man anymore.  I was done with boys and love.  

Do you remember moments where you have meant people for the first time.  People that end up affecting and changing your life forever.  I always expected this lighting bolt when I met my husband for the first time.  A bright shining light and a dove descending from heave say “Amelia this is your man!!!!”  When Justin and I first met it was awkward and frankly he hated me. 

I was walking up to my dorm and he was walking right behind me.  It was open house hours in our all girls dorm and he was heading up to see some friends. He was alone for the first time and something came over me.  As I walked up the side walk I knew I had to find out who he was and where he was from and at that moment I quit being human and I turned into a lunatic.  I unlocked the front door to my dorm and promptly slammed the door closed.  Justin was ticked to say the least.  I stood there and looked at him through the window.  He looked at me kind of mad and confused. 
“It’s open house hours isn’t it.”
“Yes”  Amelia you can say more than that can’t you.  Don’t be an idiot.
“Soooo..can I come in?”
“Yes as soon as you tell me why you were in the Galesburg mall over Christmas vacation?”
“We were shopping...for Christmas.”  He was puzzled probably cursing me for keeping me from what ever female awaited him up stairs.
I opened the door and let him in and explained that I was from around there and I thought is was strange that I would see someone from Greenville in Galesburg.  Justin explained that he lived in Peoria and for some strange reason his mother had decided that instead of shopping in the 2 huge malls in their home town, that they were going to go to Galesburg and shop in the smallest mall he had ever seen. 

We didn’t have sparks, there was no bright light or singing angels, but at that moment Justin, even though I was a strange crazy lady that locked him out a dorm, became aware of me.  Over the next few months we met again here and there and then he would follow me around.  By the end of February were spending every Tuesday evening together in the Union talking about life and everything we had in common.  We talked about love and how much it sucked.  We talked about past relationships and how they had failed.  We talked about our faults and our families and what we wanted in a spouse.  He was flawed, and so was I.  He was a goof ball and so was I.  He was different. 

Tuesdays turned into everyday and By the end of March he was in love, and I was scared to death.  I was so afraid to invest myself in someone because I just could not stand the thought of being hurt again, but God wouldn’t let me let Justin Go. 

“This is the one Amelia that I have written on your heart.  You are the one that I have written on Justin’s heart.” 

I married my best friend  on May 11, 2002.  I love him deeply and I thank God everyday for placing Justin in my life.  I would never ever tell people that marriage and motherhood are easy.  I don’t believe God ever meant them to be easy.  Marriage is work.  Marriage is something that a husband and wife have to work at everyday.  Communication and Compromise are difficult for Justin and I.  Money and parenthood is stressful, but he and I know that we will never be perfect and we plan to be less than perfect together for as long as God allows us to be together on this earth.  I am shooting for 75 years.

Mommy we can't keep the baby.

Lilya pooped on Quinton Floor Today.  Quinton called to me and showed me the little prize.  After I had disposed of it.  Quinton called for me from his room and said in the most grown up voice I have ever heard, "Mommy I don't think we can keep this baby."

"What!"
"I don't think we can keep the baby."
"We Can't keep Lily," I said in disbelif.  He loves Lilya and he has never asked to send her back.
"Why can't we keep her?  Do you want us to give her away?"  I asked him. 

"No but I do think we need to get her trained."
"Trained?"
"Yes mommy, she needs to be trained."
"I am working on it Quinton, but it is going to take awhile  to get her potty trained."
Quinton sighed and said,"But mommy,  if we don't get her trained she will poop on other floors and we just can't have that."  
He Cracks me up.

Cat-astrophic

I am not really an animal lover. I do like animals, but I would rather that they live at other people’s homes and not mine. Pets are expensive, and you spend a ton of money on them only to have them be eaten by a coyote a week later. I wasn’t always this way. I had a cat when I was in school that I loved. His name was Garfield and he was a beautiful orange and white Tabby cat. Justin and I tried to have an indoor cat when we were first married. It was ok at first, but after awhile I started sneezing and she was so messy that we decided to give her away. Justin never forgave me for that. He gets really attached to animals. He may not show it on the outside but he is a softy when it comes to cats and dogs.

When Quinton was one we decided to try again with two kittens. Beauty and Socks were brother and sister and they were really cute kittens. We kept them in the basement and let them upstairs when we were home. By spring I was a mess. I decided that they would be outside cats and we could keep them in the garage at night. Beauty went and got her self pregnant. She had a beautiful set of kittens. They were so cute and most of them were adopted very quickly. I was keeping them in the basement and letting them out for small amounts of time to play on the deck. I kept a close eye on them. We had only three left when one of the kitten drowned in the pond out front. Justin and I were both devastated. I couldn’t believe how quickly it happened and it really affected us. A month later our momma was pregnant again. We had kept one of her kittens and the three cats were getting along great. Otis was a little orange kitty. He reminded me of my cat Garfield so I had to keep him. Beauty had three more fuzzy bundles and we began the search for new homes for the new arrivals.

Right before the new kittens were ready to give away we had a really bad month that changed my feelings about Cats and Dogs forever.

The first week we lost Otis to a pack of coyotes. I was so upset. I had left door to the garage open for socks who was MIA and Otis who was out prowling bit the big one.

The second week Beauty got hit by a car and we had to put her to sleep. Justin went to pay the vet not realizing it had already been done and he sat in the lobby and cried. (that still chokes me up to this day) The death of Beauty left me to feed and bathe the three kittens she left behind.

Week three was Justin’s breaking point. On my way to school I noticed Socks laying dead on the side of the road. He had been missing for a few days so I figured that this is where he had been. I called Jus and let him now that I had found our Socks and he was gone. Justin was almost all the way to work, but he called his boss, turned around and came home to make sure. He came back and checked him out and found that it was Socks. Heart broken he pulled him off the road and buried him in the ditch. I found homes for the kittens and our 6 cat family was now a zero cat family. For the next two weeks we cleaned our house of any sign of a cat. I threw out all the cat things and cleaned up all the cat mess.

You may be asking yourself why am I telling you this sad sad story of my dead cats. The reason may shock you. You will never guess what happened next. I got a frantic phone call from Justin about 3 weeks after we buried Socks. I thought something terrible had happened.

“Socks is Alive!!!” He said over the phone
“I buried someone else's cat. I saw something in the bushes and I thought I was seeing things when out popped socks. You aren’t going to believe this. Something rubbed the white patch off his nose. He has no hair on his nose. He brought a friend with him pick up some cat food.”

I thought he was crazy surely this wasn’t our cat. You can’t rub a white patch off a cat’s nose, but sure enough there was Socks with a naked nose sitting on my porch. He had brought Jasmine with him (Quinton named her) She was a wild kitty and really only liked us for the food. Sock’s nose fur grew in black. I was really suspicious about this cat, but Justin swore up and down that it was Socks.

Now you might think that this is the end , and I did too, but about a week later I got another frantic call from Justin.

“Amelia there are two Socks on our porch!”
“Who left a pair of socks on our porch?” I asked confused
“NO I MEAN THERE ARE TWO CATS THAT LOOK LIKE SOCKS ON OUR PORCH!”
We now had the black nosed Pod Cat impostor Socks that had duped my broken hearted husband, the magically resurrected Socks with the correct markings, and the dead Socks buried in the ditch that belonged to God knows who. I looked from Socks to the pod cat to Justin slightly dazed. “You know... They really don’t look all that much a like,” Justin Mused.

I don’t remember how I responded to Justin , but I do believe there were quite a few “I told you so’s” and a few “I can’t believe that you convinced me that that pod cat was Socks.”

Jasmine is the only kitty that has stuck with us. Pod Cat and Socks ran off together a few weeks later and never came back. Justin and I really had no desire to keep Jasmine, but she really hasn’t given us a choice. We finally caught her, fixed her, and now she is a friendly healthy, slightly gimpy kitty. We have had her for over 4 years. She will be our last.

French Horn...... OF TERROR!

Things happen to me. I am not sure why, but I’m a magnet to the unimaginable. I am never safe. Home, work, the car I can not hide from all the craziness. I never really chose to be a music teacher because it was a “safe profession”, but who would think you could be injured by a musical instrument. I bruised my lung playing the trumpet, dislocated my thumb on a bongo, I have had a piano and a file cabinet almost tip over on me. Last year a tuba fell off the shelves and nearly squished one of my students. Being a band teacher is painful at times, but it is almost always really gross. Spit, oil, musty instruments, did I mention spit. It is a dirty, germ filled profession.

Case in point. I had a student , we’ll call him Tom, my first year of teaching that played french horn. Tom was playing an old school instrument that had many holes and he sadly sounded more like a unhappy moose than a musical instrument. I took the horn home and patched the holes, and he improved some, but after playing on a broken horn for 4 years it was hard to fix what was wrong when he wouldn’t practice out side of school.

The french horn wasn’t my best instrument either. I started playing the French horn in 5th grade but when my teacher found out at the end of my 6th grade year that I wasn’t using any of the correct fingerings but still playing the pitches correctly she switched me to flute. Now that I was a teacher and had access to the instruments during the summer months I decided to bring the French Horn home with me to practice and learn how to play it correctly. I also happened to have a young boy start taking summer lessons with me. I wanted to play the French Horn with him so we could learn together.

It was only our third lesson when I pulled out the French horn....OF TERROR for the first time. I didn’t realize that I had brought home the French Horn ....OF TERROR. I thought I had brought home the french horn that I had painstakingly repaired and cleaned for my use. What I didn’t know is that Tom had found my instrument and switched his for mine.

My little student “Nick” was very talented and for the first few minutes I just held my instrument not really looking at it. I had no idea what evil I festered in my hands. After a few songs Nick’s horn began to pop. This is a sign that it was time to drain the spit out. He had never been taught to do this so I spent some time showing him what to do and told him that after a few spins the spit would drain out the mouthpiece hole. Nick held his instrument above his head and began to shake it. I hollered at him. I said “Nick never ever ever hold your horn upside down above your head. All the spit will drain out onto your head and that would be gross.”

I don’t know what came over me. I knew better, but I grabbed the horn of terror and lifted it upside down above my head anyway. A lot of things happened in the next second. First as I looked up and the horn my mouth fell open( I think i was trying to be funny.) Next, I realized that this was not my horn but Tom’s. I then realized that I had never taught Tom how to empty his horn of all the spit and I bet that neither did his previous teacher. Finally, four years of nasty stinking spit and who know what else poured out of the French Horn....OF TERROR and into my mouth and down the side of my face. I ran to the sink and spit and sputtered and washed my mouth out with scalding hot water. Nick was in the dinning room yelling “I PROMISE TO NEVER PUT MY HORN ABOVE MY HEAD EVER!!! I PROMISE.”

I promise too Nick I promise too.