“I want to be a princess when I get big,” Edie says with her mind made up.

“A princess?  Really?”  I’ve never liked how little girls (particularly mine) are inundated with all the princess stuff these days, but it’s pretty much impossible to escape.  “Why a princess?”

“Because they get to wear pretty dresses.”

“You’re right they do, but I’m not sure princess is a good goal for you.”  Even though I’ve always told her that she can be anything she wants to be, I’m really thinking we’ve got to nip this princess thing in the bud, and now is as good a time as any to start.

“Are princesses real or pretend?”

“Well, there are real princesses in the world, but American little girls don’t really grow up to be real princesses.  That’s really in other countries.”

“But I could be one, right?”

“Not really, honey, and besides wouldn’t you rather grow up to be maybe a teacher, or a mommy, or a doctor?  Those are all good things to be.”

“Nah, they have too work to hard.”

Well, she got’s me there.

So the next morning, after I’d just pulled myself out of the bed and shuffled into the kitchen, barely awake, Edie stands in the doorway bright eyed. “Mommy, I was thinking about it last night, and I’ve decided that I don’t want to be a princess when I grow up…instead, I want to be an artist.”

I thought to myself, “Well, that’s a little better than princess.”

“What made you decide that?”

“I was thinking about princesses, and well…princesses have to clean up  after everybody ALOT.”

I thought, “Well, then mark being a mommy off your list as well.”

He’s started giving kisses to everyone these days. It’s really very sweet.  All I have to say to him is “give Mommy some sugar,” and he mindlessly leans towards my cheek with his mouth wide open.  I always repay him sugar for sugar even though mine don’t include a lick with the tongue.

Since I dedicate so much of this blog to expressing how much I love being a mom to my two precious kids, I think you will humor me with what I am going to say next…sometimes motherhood stinks.  Especially on weeks like this one when I’m sick and just want to lay in bed all day and can’t because there are little people around that need my help (or in Roark’s case, need constant supervision to be kept from dangers that lurk within his arms’ reach).  That to me is when motherhood is it’s hardest…when I’m not on my A game.  I mean, if we are being honest, it’s not a walk in the park even when I’m feeling my best, but when I’m sick, it feels nearly impossible.

Before I had kids, I hardly ever got sick.  And now that I’ve got them, it seems I’m never well.  This is definitely not a “chicken or egg” situation.  I know exactly what’s making me sick…these kids with their little germ infested hands and showing no remorse after eating food that’s been found on the floor (despite my gagging noises afterward as I try and fish it out).

I just can’t help but think this motherhood gig would be a lot easier if I weren’t sick all the time.  I mean, wouldn’t I be better at cleaning up my child’s puke off the floor if I didn’t have to stop in the middle and empty my stomach contents as well?  And wouldn’t I do a better job of feeding and clothing them if I wasn’t shivering from fever chills so bad I couldn’t even make a coherent sentence?  I guess these fall under the category of “Thing’s I will ask God when I get to Heaven.”  At the rate I’m going, that doesn’t seem too far away.

This month has been a hard one for me with stomach viruses and fever bugs, and my family has been very patient.  As my sweet husband will attest too, when I don’t feel good I like to make all those around me miserable as well.  What can I say…it’s how I cope.  When I’m sick, I find myself feeling resentful that I’m so needed around here and wishing for a day when my kids are self sufficient and don’t need me for every little task.  This kind of pity party is good for no one, and only causes me to feel worse because I’ve been, shall we say, less than loving to my sweet family who has done what they can to help.  So maybe this post will serve as my official apology to them for the way I’ve been acting.

I’m sorry for being short and snapping at you for no reason.  I’m sorry for wishing things were different in our stage of life when I spend so much effort trying to cherish these days.  And I’m sorry for overlooking what you’ve done to help only to point out what you haven’t.

I think for Lent this year, I’m going to give up being a jerk.

My vacuum cleaner sucks, and not in the way that a good vacuum cleaner should.  I mean, it’s terrible, and even though I go through the motions of running it over my carpet every so often, I have very little hope that it’s actually picking up anything. 

I’ve been hinting to my sweet husband that we need a new one for awhile now, but my hints have been a little too vague because he heard, “Honey, will you please fix the broken one?”  And while I do appreciate his effort, that wasn’t really what I meant.  

But for some reason, a new vacuum has just never been purchased.  Not because we didn’t have the money, but because it really hasn’t been a priority or even an issue except maybe once or twice a month when I actually vacuumed.  Ok…once a month (in a good month), but I blame this primarily on the fact that my vacuum causes such frustration that I would rather not deal with it and live in filth than bring it out and cuss it.

So now that I have set the stage with my lousy vaccuum, let me tell you about the other day at work.

One of the guys brought in some homemade pickled eggs (stay with me here, I promise you will see the connection in a second).  I find boiled eggs to be one of the foulest foods imaginable, not so much for their taste but more because of the texture.  First there’s the squishy white part that doesn’t really break down in your mouth, and then that’s paired with the mushy yellow part that feels like sand on your tongue.  I don’t know how people can eat these things when they aren’t pickled, but why you would let them set in a jar of vinegar for days on end and think that would improve their taste just baffles me. 

So we are all standing around the office talking about what would possess a person to do that to a boiled egg and then bring it into the office to share with others.  I mean, people actually think pickled eggs are a good thing? Gross!  I guess since I’ve worked with all men for awhile now, what transpired next really shouldn’t come as a surprise, but dares started being thrown around about eating one.

And that’s when Ken looked me dead in the eyes said, “I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you eat one.”

I wavered for a second as one of the guys started trying to get in on the offer.  “A hundred bucks?!  I’ll do it right now for a hundred bucks!”

“Of course you will.  You’re a bachelor, but she HATES boiled eggs.”

Now I know what you are thinking, “Isn’t his hundred bucks, your hundred bucks?”  And normally you would be right, but Ken and I have special blow money we are allowed every month to spend on whatever we want, no questions asked as long as it’s ethical.  Ken’s money almost always goes towards camera equipment, and mine goes towards knick knacks for the house.  But in my current state, I want furniture for my new den, and I start mulling over the thought of an extra hundred dollars going straight from camera to den.

“Go get me a fork,” I said as I swallowed hard, trying not to gag at just the mere thought of eating one of these eggs.

The guys crowded around as I took the first bite, and it was as disgusting as I expected.  I immediately thought to myself, “I could have never done this when I was pregnant.”  They started to all laugh as I drew in a deep breath and swallowed the next bite.  That one came back to get me, but I choked it back down and continued on. 

More guys started to emerge from their offices to see what all the laughter was about.  I looked over at Ken who’s laughing hysterically at this point, covering his mouth with his hand.  I swallow the next several bites concentrating on the hundred bucks and trying not to think about how disgusting this egg was.  I finally got the last bite down, only to gag on it one last time.  I have to tell you.  It was one of the foulest things I have ever eaten, and for the rest of the day it set heavy in my stomach.  Of course, the fact that I wasn’t even 48 hours out from a recent stomach bug didn’t help matters either.

I went back to my office to mull over my victory and get some work done, and there was already a message in my inbox from my husband.  “I can’t believe you ate that egg!”  I started to think about how weird guys are.  Ken had just spent a hundred dollars to watch his wife eat a pickled egg, and he thought it was worth the money.

I went into his office  to pose another deal with him.  “I’ll let you out of the hundred bucks if you give me the go ahead to walk out right now and buy a new vacuum cleaner, no questions asked, and it doesn’t have to come out of my blow money.” 

“You got a deal.”

So that evening as the pickled egg set festering in my stomach, I vacuumed our entire house, doing a little dance as I sucked up dust and cat hair that had been embedded in our carpet for far too long.  I marveled at all the working attachments and the automatic cord rewind, and in hindsight, that egg didn’t seem to taste too bad.  Of course, that vacuum will forever go down in history as the appliance I had to eat a pickled egg for, but what I lost in appetite, I gained in cleanliness…not to mentioned the new found respect I’ve earned around the office with the guys.

Ken has never been a “flowers on Valentine’s day” kind of guy.  He always says it’s expected, and therefore, robs him of some of his flower giving glory.  He is more of a spontaneous giver and will sometimes randomly come home with a bouquet for no specific reason.  However, this year Cupid must have hit him with his love arrow because on my kitchen table is the most beautiful bouquet of flowers I have ever been given…seriously.  (No joke, those guys at ProFlowers know what they’re doing.) So for Valentine’s Day, I thought I would share a little of their beauty with you…and maybe brag on my husband a bit for being so thoughtful.

So on Monday, I took Roarkie to his third doctor’s appointment in three weeks. He’s fine really.  Just some bowel related issues that he can’t seem to shake.  Monday’s appointment though was not because of this, but rather for a routine twelve month check up (at 13 and a half months old).  

That’s kind of how I feel like I’m doing everything these days…a month and a half late.  No matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to catch up.  I feel pretty sure this is a universal feeling among Mommies everywhere and not unique to me, but it still gets me down at times. 

I am constantly reviewing my list of priorities, deciding what needs to be done right now and what can wait an hour…a day…a week.  The list changes by the minute sometimes. 

And it doesn’t help that I am this over-committing, perfectionist, control freak either.  Well, maybe I get more done that way, but as my sweet husband likes to remind me, “You don’t know how to relax.”  I should know a thing or two about it from watching the master over the past nine years of marriage, but I guess I’m a slow learner.  (I say this partly in jest because if you know Ken at all, you know that he is one of the hardest working men you will ever meet and everything he does, he does well…and that includes relaxing.)

So we are at the doctor’s office and the place is just crawling with people.  They finally call our names, and we take our seats in the little room.  While we wait, Edie colors and Roark eats some crackers.   The pediatrician eventually taps on the door, and we decide to give Edie a routine check up while we’re there.  She measures and weighs each of them, looks in their ears, and listens to them breath. After five minutes of poking and prodding, she gives her diagnosis: two healthy children. 

So even though I’m ten steps behind where I want to be, have laundry that needs to be put away, and forgot to put tonight’s dinner in the crock pot before leaving, things are pretty good at the McKibben house.   Sometimes I just have to be reminded of what’s really at the top of that priority list.

(So I will have record of it, Roark weighed 24.6 pounds and was 31.25 inches long.)

So the other night I escaped to the only quiet place in the house to read…Edie’s room.  Go figure.

However, it didn’t take long before Edie realized that I was missing and came looking for me.  When she discovered what I was up to, she climbed in next to me and asked that I not make any noise because she needed to concentrate on reading her Bible.  Sometimes she is so cute I just want to squeeze her ’til her eyes bulge.

Then several minutes later I hear a camera clicking from the doorway.  I guess Ken happened to pass by Edie’s room, and even he couldn’t pass on documenting the cuteness of the moment.  Oh well, so much for trying to escape for some alone time.

On a side note, my book club just had it’s third gathering yesterday, and I couldn’t be more pleased with the turn out.  We’ve got a great group of ladies coming each month, and I really think we are learning a lot from the books and our spirited debates that follow.  Again, I want to invite anyone who would like to participate and join us each month.  For more info, contact me on FB, and I can send you to the group’s page.

I’ve never been one to get that excited about cars.  Like most areas of my life, I’m pretty cheap responsible when it comes to my mode of transportation, and for the most part, I feel that as long as my ride doesn’t leave me stranded on the side of the road too often, then it’s a decent car. Which is really just a nice way to say that for the past several years, I’ve been driving a piece of crap, and quite frankly, it never really bothered me that much.  I mean, who really needs a working gas gauge when you can just set the trip-meter every time you fill up.  And even though I’ve come across looking like I suffer from road rage because the horn would randomly honk while turning, I always thought of that feature as giving the van some personality.  However, this past week has taught me something.  Things like broken interior lights and mis-matched side mirrors can be worked around, but the transmission is a integral part of the car-driving equation and can turn a clunker into a junker overnight.

So last Thursday, we dropped the van off at the mechanic’s for a tune up before we left town for our kid-free, weekend getaway.  I’d been noticing some new quirks and jerks while driving it and just thought the ‘ole van would benefit from a little pampering herself.  Ken called the shop the next day to check in and see what the damage was going to be when we were hit with the news.  The van was on her last leg, and it was time to put her out of her misery.  Basically, there was so much that needed to be repaired (including a new transmission)  that it was more or less totaled.

We started to scramble.  We had a lot going on during the week including being out of town, and I just didn’t see how we were going to cram buying a new car into our schedules.  However, our mechanic can be pretty convincing when he needs to be and told us that if the transmission went out before we were able to trade it in, then we were going to be paying somebody to take it off our hands. ( On a side note:  We knew it wouldn’t be right to sell it to an unsuspecting individual.) I didn’t like the idea of buying a car from a dealership since I rate car salesman right up there with blood sucking leeches, but I also don’t want to be stuck until the end of time with a mini-van in my already cramped driveway.  So we dove into the whirlwind process of buying a new car before the clock ran out on our old one.

The two things I wanted:

1.  Another mini-van because lets face it, I AM their target market.  A mother with two small children.  They have specifically designed this car for me, and say what you want about how uncool mini-vans are, it’s hard to deny if you’ve ever tried to load kids and groceries into a car at the same time, which is something I do almost daily, sometimes hourly.

2.  Automatic sliding doors that open with a key fob.  I know, I know…after the first paragraph of this post, I am sounding like a prima-donna, but even my clunker had one automatic door…and it was sent straight from heaven.

So Sunday afternoon after church, we started the search and spent the entire day going from car lot to car lot peering inside windows.  We went to bed that night with a plan of attack for Monday morning and a dollar amount that we weren’t going to budge on.  I will spare you all the details of deals that fell through, except to say that we didn’t start out trying to buy all the bells and whistles.  But by 2:00 Monday afternoon, we were headed up to Jasper (about an hour’s drive) to look at one final van.

We spent the entire drive rehearsing our negotiating skills, deciding who was good cop and who was bad.  I got this pit in my stomach as the thought occurred to me, “Ken, what are we going to do if the van breaks down while we are at the dealership?”  Again, a hour away from home.

“Shut up!  Don’t you even talk that way! Now…what was my starting bid again?”

Well, we arrived safe and sound, and since they knew we were coming, Heath (our leech salesman) had already pulled the van around for us.  Within minutes of our arrival, we were pulling out of the car lot for our test drive.  Ken never should have let me sit down in that car.  I had forgotten our negotiating strategy before I’d even buckled my seat belt.  If you want a feature, this one had it…automatic doors, stow n’ go seats, DVD changer w/ wireless headphones, and the list goes on and on.

We came back to the dealership to start the song and dance process.  You know the one where we write down a number and then Heath shakes his head and has to check with his manager.  He comes back with another number, and we shake our heads.  Add to the mix, a thirteen month old baby who’s climbing the walls and diving into trash cans, and that pretty much sums up the negotiating experience.

I guess all our practicing on the drive up paid off though because we walked out of there having stuck to our guns…or should I say, we drove out of there in our new mini-van feeling like we got a pretty good deal.

In hindsight, I guess the reason I never minded driving my old van was because I had no idea what I’d been missing.  Yes, it was a piece, but it never left me and my kids stranded so I didn’t let it bother me.  Having said that though, I will have you know that I am totally gaga over my new set of wheels, so gaga that it has even surprised me.  I get in my new car (that I can start while standing INSIDE my house!), and I feel spoiled, more spoiled than I’ve felt in a car in a long time.  I want to shout it from the mountain tops, “MY NAME IS LEIGH, AND I LOVE MY BUTT WARMERS!”

Earlier tonight Ken was trying to tell me about this video clip he saw today and he couldn’t even finish the description because he was laughing so hard.

I don’t normally post internet video clips on this site, but this one had us so tickled that I really thought it’s a shame not to share it…plus, it’s really short.  (I do feel sorry for the girl though, just not sorry enough keep it to myself…)

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1928096

We are so close to being finished with the downstairs den that I can’t hardly stand it.  The only things left to be completed before we can start moving in some furniture are painting doors, tiling the fireplace, finishing touches on the mantel, and carpet.  Going our current pace, we should be in there sometime before June.  I’m just kidding, but I am sitting here while my children sleep in front of the computer posting pictures of the project instead of downstairs working on the project.  Maybe that’s why the end of our home renovation projects always seem to drag on into eternity.

Anyway, here are some updated pictures to show how far we’ve come:

Painting the walls. Yes, that's Edie over there in the closet. Working on this room has been a family affair. We even had Roarkie do the electrical.

She actually thought this was fun...to be four again.

Ken built the mantel and shelves himself. Now that I know he has this skill, his "honey do" list just got a lot longer.

It's current state. You would not believe the amount of caulk used in the making of this picture.

Again, what it looks like at the present. I'm so excited about my built-in shelves that I've already started decorating them. Over the fireplace is the spot for the TV, and all over the place will be speakers. When it's all finished, we'll have you over to watch a movie!