Squarespace Blog / "swinger sunday"
Swinger Sunday - "The Mommy Thing"
Welcome Brooke - from Brooke Van Gory to the stage... i love Brookie... and im sure you all do/will too..
Most days, I wake up in the morning, and want to shove the blankets over my face, and go back to sleep. But I drag my butt out of bed, and get to doing what I do. Which is be a mommy. Now here is the kicker. I have some friends that are mommies, and they have kids no older then 3, and they cannot for the life of themselves understand why I have such a tough time on a day to day basis.
Well, here goes the gist of it. With a baby, you get 12 hours of sleep out of them after they start sleeping through the night. OK, I have that, Gory is almost 1, so that is doable. And I work from home, so that would allow for me to have time after 8pm to work, and I could work during nap time, and life would be dandy! But Evan, on the other hand, well, now that is a whole other different story. I wake up at 6am to get Gory out of bed, then wake up Evan to get him ready for school, I feel Gory a bottle, while making sure all Evan's homework is in his backpack, drive him to school, and come back real quick to feed Gory breakfast. At 2pm, I load Gory BACK into the car (nap be damned at this point) to pick Evan UP from school. Get home to start his homework (did I forget to mention that Evan is special needs, and ADD, and it sometimes takes up to 2 hours a night for homework!??!) make dinner, and then try to clean up a bit. And now that Evan is almost 10, his bedtime is 9:00. So that is hard, It is hard finding time to balance a school aged tween with an infant. It is hard for Evan to understand that Gory sometimes needs things, and I need to help him, and put Evan on the back burner for a minute. It is harder then I ever imagined. But you know what?
I have the best 2 sons I anyone could ever wish for. Evan is the most caring brother to Gory, and having him be older, makes him respect Gory even more, and he is patient to a fault. Gory loves Evan, and calls for him each morning to come see him in his room. The bone between them is magical, and on the days when I feel like I am about to lose it, it is the love of these two brothers that makes me realize that I am doing this mommy thing right.
Keep Rockin' mama... we talk daily... we rant daily... sometimes we laugh, sometimes yell... sometimes wanna cry... but your right... were working our asses off and doing this mommy thing right...
Read more →
Most days, I wake up in the morning, and want to shove the blankets over my face, and go back to sleep. But I drag my butt out of bed, and get to doing what I do. Which is be a mommy. Now here is the kicker. I have some friends that are mommies, and they have kids no older then 3, and they cannot for the life of themselves understand why I have such a tough time on a day to day basis.
Well, here goes the gist of it. With a baby, you get 12 hours of sleep out of them after they start sleeping through the night. OK, I have that, Gory is almost 1, so that is doable. And I work from home, so that would allow for me to have time after 8pm to work, and I could work during nap time, and life would be dandy! But Evan, on the other hand, well, now that is a whole other different story. I wake up at 6am to get Gory out of bed, then wake up Evan to get him ready for school, I feel Gory a bottle, while making sure all Evan's homework is in his backpack, drive him to school, and come back real quick to feed Gory breakfast. At 2pm, I load Gory BACK into the car (nap be damned at this point) to pick Evan UP from school. Get home to start his homework (did I forget to mention that Evan is special needs, and ADD, and it sometimes takes up to 2 hours a night for homework!??!) make dinner, and then try to clean up a bit. And now that Evan is almost 10, his bedtime is 9:00. So that is hard, It is hard finding time to balance a school aged tween with an infant. It is hard for Evan to understand that Gory sometimes needs things, and I need to help him, and put Evan on the back burner for a minute. It is harder then I ever imagined. But you know what?
I have the best 2 sons I anyone could ever wish for. Evan is the most caring brother to Gory, and having him be older, makes him respect Gory even more, and he is patient to a fault. Gory loves Evan, and calls for him each morning to come see him in his room. The bone between them is magical, and on the days when I feel like I am about to lose it, it is the love of these two brothers that makes me realize that I am doing this mommy thing right.
Keep Rockin' mama... we talk daily... we rant daily... sometimes we laugh, sometimes yell... sometimes wanna cry... but your right... were working our asses off and doing this mommy thing right...
Swinger Sunday - "Oh Noes!!"
Welcome this weeks Swinger, @fentonslee!
In raising Snapdragon, I have done a lot of "greening" of our daily routine. My goal is to spend less, give him less exposure to nasty grosstastic chemicals, keep his carbon footprint as small as his little foot, and set a good example.
So we breastfeed. We use cloth diapers. We use cloth wipes. We hang dry when it's sunny, and sometimes when it's not.
How many trees have been clear cut for his baby? I thought none.
But he has a runny nose.
An icky gicky squicky runny nose.
A sad bad and definitely not rad runny nose.
And what am I to do? Wipe it of course.
Well, then I kissed and loved and hugged on him too much. Now I have a runny nose. A yucky mucky unlucky runny nose.
Now, if you breastfeed, I'm sure you're familiar with being pinned beneath a nursing baby and needing to blow your nose. Well, I couldn't reach any tissues or even a friendly roll of toilet paper. But I could reach the cloth wipes, and in a moment of desperation, I used one to wipe my nose.
News flash. It worked. It worked, didn't hurt, and since then has washed up just lovely.
So the runny nose has a new thought running through my head.
Bring back the hanky.
Oh, and I'm a little embarassed that we got sidetracked with the whole disposable thing to start with.
So we're going to do this, and if you think "ew, cloth nose wipes, that's gross..."
No, "it'snot"...
Thanks so much doll for your post! I have SOO been there before too :) Hence, the reason Booger Bashers were born... Ill have to send you some... that way, your not accidentally wiping boogers with poo, lol cuz that would be just yucky. ;)
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In raising Snapdragon, I have done a lot of "greening" of our daily routine. My goal is to spend less, give him less exposure to nasty grosstastic chemicals, keep his carbon footprint as small as his little foot, and set a good example.
So we breastfeed. We use cloth diapers. We use cloth wipes. We hang dry when it's sunny, and sometimes when it's not.
How many trees have been clear cut for his baby? I thought none.
But he has a runny nose.
An icky gicky squicky runny nose.
A sad bad and definitely not rad runny nose.
And what am I to do? Wipe it of course.
Well, then I kissed and loved and hugged on him too much. Now I have a runny nose. A yucky mucky unlucky runny nose.
Now, if you breastfeed, I'm sure you're familiar with being pinned beneath a nursing baby and needing to blow your nose. Well, I couldn't reach any tissues or even a friendly roll of toilet paper. But I could reach the cloth wipes, and in a moment of desperation, I used one to wipe my nose.
News flash. It worked. It worked, didn't hurt, and since then has washed up just lovely.
So the runny nose has a new thought running through my head.
Bring back the hanky.
Oh, and I'm a little embarassed that we got sidetracked with the whole disposable thing to start with.
So we're going to do this, and if you think "ew, cloth nose wipes, that's gross..."
No, "it'snot"...
Thanks so much doll for your post! I have SOO been there before too :) Hence, the reason Booger Bashers were born... Ill have to send you some... that way, your not accidentally wiping boogers with poo, lol cuz that would be just yucky. ;)
Swinger Sunday - To hell with "normal"
**Hey everyone! Welcome to another Swinger Sunday! Duke from Righteous Duke Designs has graced us with a most amazing post this week. You should really take the time to read it... he's a great writer and I enjoyed giggling aloud this morning while drinking my coffee... maybe if I ask him nicely, he will make me some more... ;) Duke - you are most definitely invited back any time... Thanks... Readers... PLEASE comment w/ your opinions... he has earned them...**
We all like blogs that are juicy and self-revealing. (I don't know why it is, but any blog article I personally read I feel like there is this unseen grandstand full of fans, "GOOOOO FOR IT!!!!!" , and reveal every last detail, racing across goal-line of TMI. No one likes the awkward feeling of too much info --until we can read it in print. "Oh! An article titled 'All My Dark Secrets of Quirky Personal Issues Revealed'?? Don't mind if I do!!!"
If there is a first "Unspoken Rule For Spouses", it would also be that same rule that also makes a blog deliciously fun to read; you gotta be ready to embrace embarrassment. That writer is hanging themselves out there over the abyss of ridicule and hilarity, and God bless 'em, we hang on every candid word. So, with that -I feel a slight draft, because a'danglin' I go.
I've got some jacked up view of roles, brother.
Its funny when you think about it; all our lives, all of us learn to live in and fulfill certain "roles". We have a certain role we perform when we "do this", a role we play when we "do that"; we are a certain way when we talk to our friends - and usually a completely different way we talk to our parents LOL or our boss. We ignore and pass on prospective people to date because they are "not right for the part" of the 'role' we need them to play. We need -or more likely, we think we need- them to fulfill "this" role. Best friend, assistant, wife/homemaker, breadwinner, stay-at-home mom, knight-in-shining-armor.roles we mentally audition people for, all within the unspoken confines of our own minds, with the candidate none the wiser. These roles, the parts people we know play, and that we perform with them in turn, are rarely ever discussed, but yet they govern so much of our interaction with everyone around us.
When things get serious -"roles" collide at top-speed in a fantastic wreckage of talent, argument, areas where we're gifted, areas where we are weak, and best-laid-plans. In a marriage everyone starts out all "Wow & Fireworks!". But when you say "I do"... all the covers come off and your closet full of "roles"gets examined by that other person. Yep -guess what; that hot dude or fine babe --they are gonna see all your mess, smell your not-so-nice odors at the most inopportune times... or want to come in and have a "serious talk" while your stuck on the toilet, helpless and with no dignity. Yeah, just another one plucked at random... you know, out of thin air. Not that that's happened to me.
My wife and I enrolled in the crash course of marriage hell, meeting and marrying in just under 3 weeks. Sailing along on clouds of utter bliss and passion, we finally hit 5 months. The fight was on. Bliss and passion became mortal combat, and when we'd run out of emotional barbs and artillery, we'd pull out our left-over plastic cutlery from Wendy's and proceed to fight on, to the death -metaphorically speaking. We'd fight about such earth-shattering topics like the toilet seat -up or down- or how she leaves wet towels hanging on door-knobs. Truly worthy causes for modern non-bloody warfare? Not so much.
Well; my wife's patterns -or "roles", her ways of doing things, and mine -led us to live in a running gunfight of verbal and emotional chaos for about 6 months. All due to patterns and roles we thought the other person "was supposed" to play. I was "in-character", performing my "role" the way I was used to -"supposed" to be reacting, and she was turning in her Oscar-winning role, arguing the way she was used to arguing. We just played out our "Roles", leaving destroyed progress, smoldering in our wake. She'd make a statement, and uncannily, my "scripted dialogue", how I thought I was supposed to respond, would let fly from my mouth a split-second later, and BOOM! There went the heavy artillery, before I even had a chance to cease fire or raise the white flag of peace.
Admittedly, I still treat counter tops as horizontal storage units, amassing a literal museum of clutter in a seemingly instantaneous moment. She still leaves her jeans... right where she drops them. And they stay. right.there. She pours heaping amounts of French Vanilla creamer in her coffee after she's already poured her coffee into her cup, while I rail against the heavens to her that it will taste better if she would just put the creamer in before she pours in the brown liquid gift from God into her cup. **Duke, I do the same thing... for you - i will try to change, lol except mine is Fat Free French Vanilla, ;)**
So, after 7 years, and 2 kids; we now work together, both professionally, and privately. Professionally, we own and operate Righteous Design; a graphic design & web-development firm, while privately we referee our sons, Batman and Robin, from taking over the world -and all of it combined utterly baffles our relatives. Why? Because we fit no pattern of what is "normal" to them.
We don't look normal. We don't work normal. We don't live normal. But, to bring this to a conclusion; what is normal? May I say again."To hell with normal!" I have spent the last 2 years building @RighteousDesign while my wife worked her Network Engineering job of 10 years playing the role as "bread winner" for our house. My wife, with her Jedi-like ability to fix anything with a power cord and draws electrical current, installs any appliance we get in the house or office. Me.I cook. I do the dishes. I do the laundry. Now, before some of you kindly send me an apron and a hair-net, I also make forays out into ice-storms for comfort food, I kill the spiders and other wee beasties found here in the mid-west that cause my courageous, world-traveling wife to scream for help, as if we were being invaded by zombie hordes. She'll lay out a problem, challenge, dilemma or list of options, and the lightbulb will go off over my head and I'll catch what she needs to do with what. Sometimes it is just a change in a color palette, or a tweak to a graphic, a change in approach. Whatever. Somehow I just "see" it, and we're off and running again.
If you are good at something; run with it. If your spouse is good at something; let them run with it. If your co-worker, your junior vice-president, your office manager, your assistant -your kids -if they show an aptitude, let them run with it. And you should too.
Goal number one: survive -whatever it is, however long it takes- with the important relationship(s) intact. (There are, of course, exceptions to this, as sometimes people show their true colors under stress. Or, we finally are enlightened enough to actually see those colors- and we must separate ourselves from these unhealthy persons.) But the relationships we know to be important to us; where there is a mutual commitment, an investment of time, where both trust and a degree of personal feeling of some strength is present -we must find a way to survive. Together.
Taking proverbial hammer in hand and whacking those around us into metaphorical holes that are not their "shape", due to the fact that that's just the "role" we ' know' and unconsciously operate by, and want them to operate by -is counter-productive.
My wife does what she's good at, I do what I'm good at. She changes diapers, I explain things to our boys about why their private parts "do funny things". Best "man" (and by the word "man", here, I mean that in a gender-neutral way) for the job does the job, and the other backs him or her up.
The next time you're at a stalemate, and its time to divvy up assignments - remember this scenario --- We (my wife and I) were installing the HD-TV/Surround Sound/Blu-Ray "Trifecta of Awesome" in our first "real" apartment. My wife had her head buried within a cabinet of cables and wires while I was flipping through the instruction manual -which, true to our abnormal roles, she of course completely ignored. I finally, feeling useless and frustrated just asked her "What can I do?"
"Make some coffee?"
**Grrrrooowl.**
Read more →
We all like blogs that are juicy and self-revealing. (I don't know why it is, but any blog article I personally read I feel like there is this unseen grandstand full of fans, "GOOOOO FOR IT!!!!!" , and reveal every last detail, racing across goal-line of TMI. No one likes the awkward feeling of too much info --until we can read it in print. "Oh! An article titled 'All My Dark Secrets of Quirky Personal Issues Revealed'?? Don't mind if I do!!!"
If there is a first "Unspoken Rule For Spouses", it would also be that same rule that also makes a blog deliciously fun to read; you gotta be ready to embrace embarrassment. That writer is hanging themselves out there over the abyss of ridicule and hilarity, and God bless 'em, we hang on every candid word. So, with that -I feel a slight draft, because a'danglin' I go.
I've got some jacked up view of roles, brother.
Its funny when you think about it; all our lives, all of us learn to live in and fulfill certain "roles". We have a certain role we perform when we "do this", a role we play when we "do that"; we are a certain way when we talk to our friends - and usually a completely different way we talk to our parents LOL or our boss. We ignore and pass on prospective people to date because they are "not right for the part" of the 'role' we need them to play. We need -or more likely, we think we need- them to fulfill "this" role. Best friend, assistant, wife/homemaker, breadwinner, stay-at-home mom, knight-in-shining-armor.roles we mentally audition people for, all within the unspoken confines of our own minds, with the candidate none the wiser. These roles, the parts people we know play, and that we perform with them in turn, are rarely ever discussed, but yet they govern so much of our interaction with everyone around us.
When things get serious -"roles" collide at top-speed in a fantastic wreckage of talent, argument, areas where we're gifted, areas where we are weak, and best-laid-plans. In a marriage everyone starts out all "Wow & Fireworks!". But when you say "I do"... all the covers come off and your closet full of "roles"gets examined by that other person. Yep -guess what; that hot dude or fine babe --they are gonna see all your mess, smell your not-so-nice odors at the most inopportune times... or want to come in and have a "serious talk" while your stuck on the toilet, helpless and with no dignity. Yeah, just another one plucked at random... you know, out of thin air. Not that that's happened to me.
My wife and I enrolled in the crash course of marriage hell, meeting and marrying in just under 3 weeks. Sailing along on clouds of utter bliss and passion, we finally hit 5 months. The fight was on. Bliss and passion became mortal combat, and when we'd run out of emotional barbs and artillery, we'd pull out our left-over plastic cutlery from Wendy's and proceed to fight on, to the death -metaphorically speaking. We'd fight about such earth-shattering topics like the toilet seat -up or down- or how she leaves wet towels hanging on door-knobs. Truly worthy causes for modern non-bloody warfare? Not so much.
Well; my wife's patterns -or "roles", her ways of doing things, and mine -led us to live in a running gunfight of verbal and emotional chaos for about 6 months. All due to patterns and roles we thought the other person "was supposed" to play. I was "in-character", performing my "role" the way I was used to -"supposed" to be reacting, and she was turning in her Oscar-winning role, arguing the way she was used to arguing. We just played out our "Roles", leaving destroyed progress, smoldering in our wake. She'd make a statement, and uncannily, my "scripted dialogue", how I thought I was supposed to respond, would let fly from my mouth a split-second later, and BOOM! There went the heavy artillery, before I even had a chance to cease fire or raise the white flag of peace.
Admittedly, I still treat counter tops as horizontal storage units, amassing a literal museum of clutter in a seemingly instantaneous moment. She still leaves her jeans... right where she drops them. And they stay. right.there. She pours heaping amounts of French Vanilla creamer in her coffee after she's already poured her coffee into her cup, while I rail against the heavens to her that it will taste better if she would just put the creamer in before she pours in the brown liquid gift from God into her cup. **Duke, I do the same thing... for you - i will try to change, lol except mine is Fat Free French Vanilla, ;)**
So, after 7 years, and 2 kids; we now work together, both professionally, and privately. Professionally, we own and operate Righteous Design; a graphic design & web-development firm, while privately we referee our sons, Batman and Robin, from taking over the world -and all of it combined utterly baffles our relatives. Why? Because we fit no pattern of what is "normal" to them.
We don't look normal. We don't work normal. We don't live normal. But, to bring this to a conclusion; what is normal? May I say again."To hell with normal!" I have spent the last 2 years building @RighteousDesign while my wife worked her Network Engineering job of 10 years playing the role as "bread winner" for our house. My wife, with her Jedi-like ability to fix anything with a power cord and draws electrical current, installs any appliance we get in the house or office. Me.I cook. I do the dishes. I do the laundry. Now, before some of you kindly send me an apron and a hair-net, I also make forays out into ice-storms for comfort food, I kill the spiders and other wee beasties found here in the mid-west that cause my courageous, world-traveling wife to scream for help, as if we were being invaded by zombie hordes. She'll lay out a problem, challenge, dilemma or list of options, and the lightbulb will go off over my head and I'll catch what she needs to do with what. Sometimes it is just a change in a color palette, or a tweak to a graphic, a change in approach. Whatever. Somehow I just "see" it, and we're off and running again.
If you are good at something; run with it. If your spouse is good at something; let them run with it. If your co-worker, your junior vice-president, your office manager, your assistant -your kids -if they show an aptitude, let them run with it. And you should too.
Goal number one: survive -whatever it is, however long it takes- with the important relationship(s) intact. (There are, of course, exceptions to this, as sometimes people show their true colors under stress. Or, we finally are enlightened enough to actually see those colors- and we must separate ourselves from these unhealthy persons.) But the relationships we know to be important to us; where there is a mutual commitment, an investment of time, where both trust and a degree of personal feeling of some strength is present -we must find a way to survive. Together.
Taking proverbial hammer in hand and whacking those around us into metaphorical holes that are not their "shape", due to the fact that that's just the "role" we ' know' and unconsciously operate by, and want them to operate by -is counter-productive.
My wife does what she's good at, I do what I'm good at. She changes diapers, I explain things to our boys about why their private parts "do funny things". Best "man" (and by the word "man", here, I mean that in a gender-neutral way) for the job does the job, and the other backs him or her up.
The next time you're at a stalemate, and its time to divvy up assignments - remember this scenario --- We (my wife and I) were installing the HD-TV/Surround Sound/Blu-Ray "Trifecta of Awesome" in our first "real" apartment. My wife had her head buried within a cabinet of cables and wires while I was flipping through the instruction manual -which, true to our abnormal roles, she of course completely ignored. I finally, feeling useless and frustrated just asked her "What can I do?"
"Make some coffee?"
**Grrrrooowl.**
Swinger Sunday - Pizza & Movie night by NiftyNappy!
So I am a guest here but I wanted to let you into our homes on a typical Friday night! Even when we are away from home we have to have it. We are away this weekend staying with my sister. Fortunately they like to have pizza and movie night also. Only tonight we are going to eat pizza and then go to a movie! Fun huh? the kids are way excited! Funny how traditions stick no matter what huh? My kids get upset if we say we are leaving town on the weekends. Even to go visit family!! "What about pizza and movie night?" or "We have to have pizza and movie night!" You'd think they would be excited to go see grandma or play with their cousins. We really hope this tradition sticks though AND that it is still cool when our kids are teenagers. They can have friends over and we can bake like 6 pizzas, but we will know what our kids are up to and be able to have fun with them. That is the end goal of this tradition!Want our recipes? We have 2 that are the backbone of our tradition!
first the pizza the kids love:1 c. warm water1/4 c. sugar1 Tbsp. yeast(if it is active dry yeast it needs to sit and bloom here for a few min. -instant yeast press on!) 1/4 c. oil 1 eggmix all together, add1 tsp. salt3-4 c. flour till soft doughlet rise to double, roll out. Makes 2- med round or 1- 13X15 cookie sheetbake @400 for 12-15 min. until crust is golden brown
Sauce recipe8 oz. can tomato sauce1 tsp. garlic salt1/8 tsp. chili powder1/8 tsp. onion powder1/2 Tbsp. dried oregano1/2 Tbsp. dried basil1/4 tsp. peppermix and spread on rolled out pizza dough
we use the regular toppings: olives (lots of these)pepperonisausagebell peppersmushroomscheese
This other pizza is super yummy! We found it here online while looking for a healthier pizza, since we do eat pizza once a week! Chicago Deep-Dish Pizza with Mushrooms, Peppers, and Onions*we also like to add a tiny bit of Italian sausage to spice it up! :)
SO, gonna try to have Pizza and movie night next Friday night? maybe you don't like movies, try pizza and game night! Our friends have "Fun Fridays" they have Pizza and then watch a movie, only they have popcorn too! But they mix in mini marshmallows with their popcorn! (it is YUM!!)So, Party Friday night? HeCk YeAh! Thanks lady! What a rad post! (its me, amber again by the way...) What a great way to start off Swinger Sunday! Feel free to comment away... show us pics of YOUR pizza nights... and if you decide to try the recipe you MUST come back and share your thoughts with us!! Heres a pic of our pizza night (different recipe, but still yummy, and loads of family fun :)
Note to Self Saturday: SWINGER SUNDAY!
Note to self... YOUR TOO BUSY! so I have decided to combine a few ideas that have been thrown my way... i love blogging... LOVE blogging... but sadly dont always have the time... so i was thinking about about a Swinger Sunday, where I swap out from writer to reader and have guest bloggers write in a post!? I think itll be ton of fun... Ill start a schedule... (starting tomorrow, so hurry). I dont care who you are... i dont care what you wanna write about (just keep it semi-clean...) parenting, heath, punk rock, tattoos, etsy, handmade, WHATEVER... I really dont care.... Just want to give others a chance to spread their advice... opinions... etc. Interested? Get ahold of me on twitter... email rockerbyebaby@gmail.com or leave a comment! Still need someone for tomorrow... and then we will book in weekly slots after that!
Thanks!!
Amber
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Thanks!!
Amber
