Irresponsible parents

For those of you who haven't already heard...enjoy a little story and laugh at our expense.

I'm sitting at work yesterday, it is just after 12pm. My cell phone rings. I recognize the phone number. It's coming from my house. We decided a few months ago to go ahead and add a land line for emergencies-up to now we just used our cell phones. Yesterday, that home phone came in handy and I am thankful for the decision we made to get it!

So I look at my phone and think that maybe Kris went home. And then I got this sinking feeling. Why would he have gone home, and why didn't he just call from his cell phone? Yeah...he didn't go home.

I answered the phone and to my surprise, I heard Katherine's voice. She said "Mommy, I'm sorry, I forgot to tell you we had a half day today."

Now this could have been much worse. It wasn't but maybe 6 months ago we finally got extra house keys made and entrusted one to Katherine, in case for some reason they ever got off the bus before we got home. Between that and the house phone, we were fortunate to have even found out about it before I got home at my normal time!

What happened to the little half slip of paper they usually send home warning parents of the half day? Do they actually expect us, as parents, to read the kids folders EVERY day? Yes, well apparently they do. It was right there, on Abbey's folder. Wednesday, April 28th, half-day. I blame the children. :) You see, at the beginning of the year, we got four rather large, magnetic calendars and I stuck every one of them on the fridge. These magnets showed all the half days and days off for the school year. Somehow, through the course of the school year, all of these magnets have disappeared thanks to said children. But let's be honest...I still wouldn't have known about the half day had the magnets NOT disappeared until after something like this happened!

Kris and I, obviously, are not the best at schedules and calendars and organization!! But the funny (and kind of sad part) is that Katherine knew us well enough to feel like SHE was responsible for reminding us there was a half day! They know us all too well and they know that if they don't tell us, we probably won't know. I hope there isn't another half day today that I don't know about!

Sympathetic? Not me.

I have a problem. I cannot seem to sympathize with sick people or people in pain, unless they are my kids. Sick people annoy me. Let me clarify...sick people that I am around on a regular basis annoy me-while they are sick. Not sick, not a problem. Kris had two teeth pulled yesterday. I had been gearing myself up for it since Friday. The weekend itself was a battle because SOMEONE didn't tell me about the appt. or give me any details until after the businesses were closed for the day (same SOMEONE didn't check with me before scheduling either so I had to wait until Monday to cancel an appt. I already had scheduled for Kaleb). I also had to wait until Monday morning to find out details, because as most men seem to do, Kris forgot to ask anything which made me anxious throughout the entire weekend.

So I got home yesterday and saw the kids safely from the bus to the house. Then we went to the library, returned some stuff (ON TIME!) and checked out a few items as well. After that, we went to Subway and picked that up for dinner, then to Walgreen to get chips to go with our subs. Then it was off to pick Olivia up. We got home and dished out dinner and put something on to watch and the kids got to eat out in the living room, which is usually only reserved for movie night.

Kris came home shortly after and of course, annoyed me. You know why? Because he started talking. And he had gauze in his mouth. And the sound annoyed me. What is wrong with me? There is NO rational explanation for this. Instead of being kind to him and making sure he didn't need anything, I told him that he should stop talking. As I began with, I have a problem! I told him to stop talking, not once, but twice. He and Kaleb went downstairs shortly after (I wonder why...) to watch a movie and the girls for the most part stayed upstairs with me.

Around 8pm Kaleb came upstairs asking about something, but I told him it was time to get ready for bed. He sat down on the couch and I said "Is Daddy sleeping?" And Kaleb said "He's resting." And I think I said something like, "Yeah I bet he's just resting." or something sarcastic...as resting and sleeping are synonymous and I hate when Kris tries to distinguish between the two. And what does Kaleb do? His jaw drops in shock and I wish I could remember exactly what he said, but he basically gave me a lecture on how Daddy NEEDED to rest because he had teeth pulled. It was humbling, kind of. I just laughed. I told the kids that it was good that they gave him sympathy since I didn't!

I put the kids in bed and proceeded to clean the kitchen and living room. I made the kids' lunches for today. I washed Livvy's school blankets and was extremely careful not to make any noise and wake Kris up. That in and of itself was a BIG DEAL for me. I wouldn't even let the kids go downstairs to give him hugs and kisses because I didn't want them to wake them up. So at this point I am feeling pretty good. I haven't tried to get his attention, I haven't asked him to help me with anything...I have been supportive and understanding and let him rest downstairs. While this might come naturally to everyone else out there, it does not come naturally for me. I have to work really hard to have a good attitude about that kind of thing. And though I started out negatively, I got my act together and left him alone...and to top it all off, I didn't sit upstairs mad about it either, which is unlike me also. I'm bearing my soul here people...I'm not a nice person sometimes.

So I finally sat down and found myself glad that I had grabbed Mystery Science Theater 3000 from the library because with Kris sleeping downstairs we wouldn't be watching any of our shows together. So I stuck that in and worked for a couple of hours. It was funny too by the way. I watched "Attack of the Killer Leeches"-I think that is what it was called. And then I took my medicine, read a chapter in a book and went to sleep.

All in all I would consider it a success! I felt good about how I had handled the whole thing, as sad as that is. Ok...I didn't feel good about the part where I told him to stop talking...but after he went downstairs...I handled it all very well. I don't foresee God calling me to be a nurse anytime in the near future though! You know those mean nurses you sometimes get in the hospital? That would probably be me. I'd probably be annoyed every time a call light came on. I mean, how dare that person who just had their gall bladder out need a glass of water? Yeah...I'm not sure why he married me either sometimes. Feel free to feel sorry for Kris. He puts up with a LOT! He's a very good man and I am blessed to have him in my life, even though sometimes I do not know how to show that to him, especially when he is sick or in pain!

Enjoy my stupidity!

First of all...let me just say that one of the things I love about the phone that Kris got me for my birthday (Samsung Instinct) is how simple it is. Everything about it is simple. Texting, taking pictures, sending or uploading pictures, checking email or Facebook, listening to music, etc...it is all really simple. I had a fancy smart phone previously (Treo 750w) and there were so many features I didn't use. So it was great to have a phone that I loved, that was super easy to use, and still did what I needed it to do.

With that being said, please see the picture below. I am going to show you just how simple it is, even to charge my phone, or to charge the spare battery. There are arrows for everything. The arrows point you in the way to go. It can't get any simpler, right?



Ok, so let me first say that I did not get a lot of sleep last night. I didn't go to bed until almost 1am. Kris came to bed around 3am, tossed and turned for what seemed like 5 hours, though in reality I think it was probably only about 15 minutes. He FINALLY went downstairs and I fell back asleep. I got up before 7am (right around 6:55am!). So I suppose I was tired. At least that is what I am blaming my stupidity on!

I got to work this morning and needed to charge my phone. I have two batteries. I usually have one charged and one in my phone. So I swapped out the full battery and put the one that needed charging into the charger. I plugged it into the USB slot on my laptop. The little light flashed, and then it went dark. Normally when it is charging there will be a solid red light on, and when it is fully charged the light turns green. So no light was on, and I was perplexed. It didn't help that I have a new computer and I thought maybe one of the USB slots was messed up. So I'm switching everything around. I keep headphones and a wireless mouse plugged in via USB and over the next few hours I kept switching things in and out, trying to figure why my battery would not charge. I finally decided there was nothing wrong with my computer therefore there must be something wrong with my sync cable.

So I was chatting with Kris on Gmail, telling him I was frustrated and couldn't get it to charge. And while I was doing this, again I was fidgeting with it trying to figure out what the heck was wrong with my charger. I decided I would take the battery out and put it back in, hoping this would help. Now mind you, I had done this at least 3 other times prior to this. However, on this occasion when I took the battery out, I realized that I had put the battery in backwards.

Now that you have read that-look back up at the picture. A child could figure out which way the battery was supposed to go. So there you go. I am a 30-year-old, semi-intelligent, working mother, married for 10 years and raising four adorable children. I have a good life, AND a very SIMPLE phone to make my busy life easier; and yet, it took me a good three hours to realize why my battery wasn't charging. Apparently I cannot follow simple PICTURE instructions!

Have a good laugh at my expense!

Bedtime update

Since we implemented our new 'rules' concerning bedtime, the kids have actually taken really well to it. They've each had a warning from time to time (Livvy about every night) but that's it. No one has had to have their door shut since my last blog. This is HUGE!!! I am very excited and hope that it continues. Every night we remind them of the rules and make sure they are clear in what will happen if they break the rules. So far, so good. I will keep you posted.

A family meeting

Last night we called our first official Bishop family meeting. Knowing us it will probably be the last, as inconsistent as we are! Although the meeting was to talk about expectations and consistency, so hopefully we will start to see some changes.

Those of you with small children, I don't need to say more than BEDTIME for you to know what that entails. Excuse, after excuse, after excuse! It's getting SO old and we spend two hours every night after putting the kids in bed dealing with excuses from at least one or two kids at a time! I guess that's our fault for having four kids but that is beside the point.

In addition, there has been a lot of attitude and mumbling under their breath-primarily from Katherine and Kaleb. On the Kaleb front it is usually yelling at me and grumbling about every little thing or just flat out refusing to do what I said. It is exhausting, having kids.

So our meeting last night was to address those two issues in particular. We wanted to sit down with everyone and talk to them about being respectful of others-to my surprise every single one had an example of being respectful (my three year old included!) and examples of being disrespectful. Apparently they know what respect is and what it is not, which made the conversation a lot easier. The older kids said it is one of their 5 expectations (or something to that effect) that they do at school, and it is obvious that Olivia knew what it meant when she said that not getting up at nap time was respectful and that not listening was disrespectful. The conversation overall was very insightful-it is amazing to me how much these kids understand. I don't give them enough credit!

Anyway...my whole reason for explaining all of that is to document something funny that Abbey said. Those of you who have met my lovely, free-spirited Abbey Rose understand what I say when I say "Abbey is Abbey." She's just...well...Abbey. And she has been asking me FOR DAYS when she can wash dishes again. I let her wash dishes about 3 months ago, and I'll be honest with you-she did NOT do a good job! I had to rewash them all-this was at a time when our dishwasher was not functioning. So lately we have talked about keeping the house clean, and so perhaps this is what has renewed her interest in dish washing. Now that we have a new dishwasher, I don't have to wash anything by hand except my PC cookware, stones and knives. And all of those are either too sharp or too heavy for my six-year-old to wash.

A few days agao she asked me again when she could wash the dishes. I kept telling her soon. So a couple of days went by without her saying anything else about it, until last night at our little meeting. When we asked her what is something she has done recently that has shown respect she answered "Being patient waiting to wash the dishes again." My point is this-Abbey is dead set on washing some dishes! It was really funny.

Katherine, always thinking, has already made a mental list of about 10 things she would like to address at our next family meeting.

It is going to be hard to be consistent, seeing as how Kris and I don't have much practice in that area! But I know it will really cut down on a lot of these 'issues' we have at home.

Patience...

...I don't have any. At all. Especially with people who annoy me. Sometimes I can tolerate things. On a good day, I can get by without too much annoyance. On a bad day, there is absolutely nothing that DOESN'T annoy me. Noises really annoy me. Certain ones. People clipping their fingernails. In church, at work, at home. I don't care where-I cannot stand that sound. Though it does make me slightly more agitated when people clip their nails in church or in the cubicle next to me. I cringe just thinking about it now.

Other sounds that annoy me:

Jingling change-here's my question on this one. Do those who enjoy putting their hands in their pocket and feeling around, moving the coins around fill their pockets every day with hundreds of dollars in change just so that they can jingle it?

Coughing-I KNOW people can't help it. I KNOW people don't do it just to annoy me. I KNOW it isn't a personal vendetta against me. But I HATE coughing. Ask my sister. Ask my husband. Shoot, ask me-I can't stand myself when I cough! I annoy myself. That's pretty bad!

Breathing-not just your normal every day breathing. I mean, that would just be a really stupid thing to be annoyed at, wouldn't it? But what about breathing where you are sitting near (not right next to) someone. The TV is on. They are reading a book. You are trying to concentrate on LOST. And all you can hear is heavy breathing. Loud breathing. Louder than the TV. And it isn't just a once in a while thing. It's all the time!

I've been annoyed a lot today. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

Almost the weekend.

I am glad tomorrow is Friday. I love Fridays. They are the end of the work week - well sometimes! They are the beginning of the weekend - regardless of whether I choose to work on Saturdays. Friday means I get to wear JEANS or capris now that the weather is getting better. Side bar-Kris has sneezed about 20 times consecutively and is now officially annoying me. Back to Fridays. I love Fridays.

This last week was finally calm after a crazy week/weekend prior to now. Livvy started having problems with her asthma LAST Tuesday night. Ended up in the ER Thursday night. Her steroid had kicked in by the time we got there so we were just sent home. The next day she was feverish and stayed home with me. That night she began coughing so fiercely we could not decide if we should call 911 or just take her to the ER ourselves. She coughed for 30 minutes straight. It was scary-we opted to drive her to the ER and by the time we got there (due to the cold air we would later learn). Turns out she has croup. You can tell she is still fighting it. She has had trouble dragging herself out of bed all week...but then again, that's me every day so maybe that is more biological than some sickness!

Saturday night I am having some friends over for a little gathering. My sister will be here to do Henna on anyone who wants it. She's really talented. Check out her website: www.kalaofindia.com for more information. I should ask her if I said it right-I mean, do you 'DO' Henna, or do you 'GET' Henna, like you would get a tattoo? If she is doing it, is she giving it, and not doing it? I don't know. I'm not current on the Henna lingo.

Kris and I spend our evenings together (after the kids finally quit making excuses and go to sleep!) playing on Facebook on our laptops and catching up on favorite shows. We have recently started watching Lie to Me (I think it's ok/enjoyable), Kings (we've only seen the first two episodes and so far I am not liking it-not hating it though), and my newest favorite is Life on Mars. Big Bang Theory is GREAT too! If you have not seen this show-check it out!

Things I am currently enjoying on Facebook:

I am ALWAYS up for a game (or 5) of Scrabble.

Mafia Wars is strangely addicting...and I get just a little bit anxious if I run out of energy and am kicking myself for not choosing the 'character' that regenerates energy faster.

Texas Hold 'Em - fun game that I am loving learning to play!

Things I think are dumb or just do not understand on Facebook:

YoVille. It is so limiting. When you have played every Sims game (PS and PS2 for us and now Wii) it's hard to really enjoy YoVille. There is so much you can do in the Sims games and I find myself bored and annoyed with YoVille. Kris just checked it out too and agrees that it is stupid. I apologize to those of you who like it. I just don't see the point of it and thing it is too basic and there is too little that you can actually do.

There's my boring Bishop update.