Things that make me happy #325

Carbon Footprint

You know that guilty feeling when your too lazy to wash the yogurt lid and put it in recycling? My husband has no such ecological convictions. This is what I find in the garbage on a weekly basis.

It probably has something to do with the fact that he didn't take environmental science at Wheaton. My life will never be the same after taking that class. I can't imagine that the professor was older than 30 but she still managed to use her life experience to make me feel guilty for everything from taking a bath to washing my hands too long. I can still hear her voice when I start the shower and then realize I have to pee. "Should I turn the shower off or just try to pee really fast? Maybe I should just pee in the shower. Dangit, now I've just wasted gallons of water trying to decide!" I still get panic attacks thinking about her diagrams of all the dried up fresh water reservoirs and how my children will have to figure out a way to make salt water usable. Whoever that woman is, she deserves some kind of award for her guilt inducing impact on the environment and the thousands of students who come through her doors.

A couple of sickies and Cake

We have had a busy week around here and after staying in our jammies until 4:30, taking a 3 hour nap, and an extended family clean up time I feel ready to play a little catch up. Ava and I have both been feeling pretty crummy with colds that don't want to go away. I finally brought her in to the doctor and after suspecting pneumonia and a few chest ex-rays, turns out she's got temporary asthma. And the albuterol inhaler is like the equivalent of shooting her up with speed so it's been an interesting few days. It's my turn to make an appointment so hopefully I can start feeling better. Ben also had a few days off this week so I could spend some time with my bff :) Amy. It was good for my soul just to chat and spend time with friends and family.

In other news I made the root beer cake from the cookbook "Baked." It was good and got better and better. I would put the recipe here but I'm too lazy and if you google it there are a million other women who have made it and put it on their blog. I do have a picture though, because I'm mean and want you to crave cake right now. Mwaaaaaahhhaaaaaa!!!!!! (that's my evil laugh)

Tantrum

I don't really know if I want to blog about this because I'm not sure I'm fully recovered but yesterday my daughter snapped. I took her to the mall to play with our friends and we had a great time. I even forgot my phone and she pleasantly walked back to the car with me to get it. She held my hand the whole time and I kept thinking what a big girl she was and how good it was to be out with just her. We decided to eat at a more grownup place and again I was wishing I had my camera to record the sweet kids eating so nicely. I should have just called it a day and left but I had promised that I would take her to look at the Disney store. And she was behaving so well. But after 20 minutes of looking at Beauty and The Beast books and trying on Rapunzel's wig it was time to go. I gave her 2 warnings but it didn't matter. She didn't want to leave and so I had to carry her. Finally she made a run for it in Sears. I found her hiding in the closed optical center under a desk and gave her a spanking. Then the wheels really fell off. You might be thinking, "Oh Rebekah it couldn't have been that bad. It was just a 3 year old tantrum." You might have this image in your head:

But let me assure you. This was no average tantrum. I looked into Ava's eyes and they were glazed over. Here are a few highlights.

Me: Ava you need to calm down before you make this much worse for youself.

Ava: I HATE YOU! I WISH YOU WERE DEAD! YOU ARE THE WORST MOMMY EVER!

Me: I'm sorry you feel that way. I still love you and need to make sure you don't hurt yourself.

Ava: I HATE YOU! I DON'T WANT YOU TO BE MY MOMMY ANY MORE! I'M GOING TO CUT OFF YOUR HANDS AND THROW THEM IN THE STREET!

I'm pretty sure every person in Sears was giving me a sympathetic look. And I keep eyeing the news to see if they've posted the security camera footage of the event. It was bad. I actually burst out laughing a few times because it was so crazy. I tried to stop myself knowing it would only make things worse but I couldn't help it. At one point I thought her head would start spinning around and green stuff would spew forth. Let me put a more appropriate image into your head.

She bit me, scratched my arms, spit in my face, screamed, kicked, hit, and pulled out clumps of my hair. I finally got her into the car and thanked God for child safety locks. I stood outside, called Ben for reinforcements and did some breathing and counting. It took six spankings to get her buckled in her car seat. I will never forget the look on her face, sweating, whimpering, powerless. It is so easy to see why there are so many screwed up people in the world, because parenting is so hard. I think of all the education, training, and experience I have with her age group, not to mention two amazing parents, and it is still this difficult. So just short of canceling Christmas, she has received every possible consequence and is now on day two of room confinement. I just hope that being consistent will eventually pay off and am realizing that God wants me on my knees with this girl. And a little sad that it took something this terrible to get that through my head.

funk, weekend adventure, and a reminder

Well I must really be out of it because I didn't even notice that I'd been hijacked. Life has felt hard these days and I'm exhausted, like I've got a dark cloud over my head and I can't seem to keep my eyes open exhausted. We had a busy weekend, mostly because I felt that I could shake the cloud if I constantly did stuff. It didn't work but was a good distraction. Here's some evidence that my children could use a little downtime.

We started the weekend off right with a trip to Mcormick's & Shmicks happy hour. If you have one of these near you, go tonight. It is amazing. I actually took a picture of my turkey wrap with marionberry spread because it was that good. And only $1.95! Ben and I started going in Chicago and were thrilled to find out we had one near us out here. It is something we always enjoy. Especially outside during an unexpected and thoroughly appreciated heat wave.

Then we decided to take the kids up to the Mt. Hood national forest for a hike. It was right along a river and we saw these huge salmon headed upstream. The kids did great and it was beautiful.

Nothing like fried chicken to complete a healthy day in the outdoors

These fish must have been over 3 feet long!

So I went to the first day of my women's bible study today and realized that I have so much to be thankful for. There are women who have lost so much and I am just experiencing some uninvited hormones. My children are healthy and my husband has a job and we have enough money to provide for our family and God is good. All the time. I can't stop thinking about the passage in Exodus where God is leading his children out of Egypt. They are so close to escaping and then He tells them to turn back and go to this land between the desert and the sea. He takes them to this place where they are out of options. All the people, of course, freak out and get mad and don't understand why God would put them in this terrible situation. God says that his plan is to gain glory for himself so they will all know that he is God. We know that God can change our situation but sometimes he doesn't and it pisses us off. I love what Moses says in 14:14: "The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still." I can't help but cry every time I read that. God will fight for me when I feel desperate and alone and sad. I just need to trust Him and be still.

Ben in Real Life: Guest Blog

Today we almost pressed our own cider at some kind of roadside pioneer festival. Alas, they were out of apples, so we just bought a jug for $6. Good times!

Weaning overshare part 2

So I think it's been about a week since Ian and my breasts have parted ways. First there were temper tantrums and unexplained crying episodes, then there were the sleepless nights and clinginess. And then came a trip to home depot to pick out paint samples for the living room. Oh you thought I was talking about Ian? No, Ian is the same sweet boy he always is, drinking his bottle happily and only boob lunging one time. I, however am a complete mess. You'd think I would have seen this coming but what could I have done anyway. I think I could move past this if my body wasn't constantly reminding me of my decision. I am so sore that I can't even hold Ian without shrieking every time he brushes against me. I know I need to go buy cabbage leaves and drink sage tea but I barely have time to put a bra on in the morning, let alone stuff it with vegetables. And the paint I chose for the living room? Poppyseed. I know what you're thinking. "Rebekah, that's just another word for black." And maybe it is but it doesn't matter anyway because Ben vetoed it and we settled on black orchid. Which really just turned out purple. I wanted black. But apparantly I'm not allowed to make anymore home decorating decisions until I've stopped spontaneously crying for at least a week.