Ah the Monday after spring, the quiet, the calm, the wonderfulness of it all. Aislinn was fussy a bit this morning, but that is to be expected. She has been staying up until like two am. That girl needs like 20 minutes of sleep a day. It's crazy! She walked around with bags under her eyes this whole week. I don't know how many times I was ready for bed, and I was like "Seriously, you HAVE to go to bed, you're brother will be up in like 2 hours, and I am going to be exhausted" I like to stay up late, but I usually only do it so that I can have some alone time, I found I was going to bed much earlier if she was still awake.

Having her home has been fun though. First of all, it's awesome because she has friends at home, and so I didn't get the usual "I'm bored!" thing. She was up and out the door at like 11 everyday with her friends. They'd run in and out, and ride bikes, and have a good ole time. Although by Saturday I was pretty fucking sick of it all, and was ecstatic that it rained yesterday. Although, the girl down the street WAS outside. Her parents are strange. They say they are strict but they let her do pretty much whatever they want it seems.

When she was home, that's when the magic happens. That's when she and her brother hang out, and that is usually good for a laugh. Although she is sporting two bruises on her neck where it looks like teeny tiny grubby fingers tried to strangle her. When she went to school today I told her that if anyone asks, you make sure to say your brother did it so that the school doesn't think your parents strangle you when they get mad. She said "You aren't that kind of parent!" which sounded weird like "You're not really a strangling parent, more of a push us down the stairs and then laugh kind of parent" I asked her what kind of parent I was then, and she said simple "A good parent" which made me feel all warm and gooey on the inside. As she was walking out the door she said "I didn't even complain about my shoes" (they were still damp) and I said "No you didn't, but by saying that, you ruined it", in a joking way, and she just said "Ugh!" and walked away laughing.

Now that she is eight, she is so different. I mean, yes she is still a kid, but it's like she's teetering toward tween-hood, and life has been so much simpler. We had one dramatic fit this week, and it was solved by sending her to her room where she promptly fell asleep and took a two hour nap.

I've been dreaming of a True Love's kiss....

Sigh.

We watched Enchanted last night, and it was wonderful. I have a feeling it speaks to the inner princess in every modern woman that watches this. This movie is for the little girls in us that dreamed of finding her prince charming, but then grew up realizing that was a crock of crap, and that would never happen, and those princesses need to wake up and smell the coffee.

I see it with a lot of women I know, or in various blogs I read, where women today find the Disney Princesses... distasteful. They're all "Oh come on, take your own destiny in your hands, ain't no man coming to save your ass, and you shouldn't be depending on them to do so." If we knew a girl like Snow White in real life, we'd roll our eyes and mock her, and send her books like "He's Just Not That Into You" and "Squelching the Inner Princess Within".

Yet, at one point in our lives, we did want all that in some shape or form. Maybe it was when we were little, or when we were still dreamy eyed tweens, hoping that when our prince did come, he wouldn't be too shy to maybe touch at our growing boobies, while "Tender-Roni" played softly in the background. I bet even the most hard core, man hating, Doc Marten wearing feminist at one point fantasized about her true love's kiss.

Even in our jaded culture, people still want to believe in love, and yet we know that love can't be all wine and roses, and wild passionate displays of love. Real life men aren't going to brandish and sword, and save the day, they can't even remember to take out the trash. As women of today, we know this, and that is not what we're looking for. But, that hopeless romantic in us still needs to be shown. I think all men should be emailed a copy of the song "How Does She Know" and use it as a guide to making us women happy. The things Giselle sings about are so simple, but would make any woman happy, and let us know that yes you DO love us.

That's why this movie is so perfect. It is the perfect remedy for the modern woman. The Princess smartens up, smells the coffee so to speak, while still holding onto her ideal of a good replationship and true love. She listens to both her heart AND her head at the same time which is what we as women try to do.

Not only that, but the movie is just pure entertaining, with music and it's very funny. You'll laugh at Giselle when she enters time square and is the doe eyed princess lost in a cruel world. Amy Adams is amazing acting like a true Disney Princess in all their dopey glory, with the lilting voice, the hands placed just so every time she speaks. One of the best scenes is when she calls all the animals to clean an apartment, and of course in NYC she gets rats, flies, pigeons (one with only one foot) and of course roaches, and being the wide eyed Disney optimist that she is, she takes a look at her new assembled animal friends and with some reservation says "Well, um it is always NICE to make new friends"

Plus, Amy Adams sings all the songs herself, which is pretty cool.

Tony is finally at work, and it's been a great week. I don't know why, but when he's here, I become very lazy. I don't know if it's just having someone else here, and thinking they will pitch in, or it's a matter of him being lazy therefore I'm going to be lazy, or if we just settle in to perpetual weekend mode. Whatever it was, was really wearing my nerves down, and I was really near being emotionally drained and having to retire to my bedroom and just sleep. It sounds dramatic, but I just can't express how much better I feel this week compared to last. I've actually left the house, bought a new brightly colored purse, and top, signed up for my transcriptioning courses even.

Yesterday, I checked out a preschool for Jonathan, and I really like it. He didn't see anything other than my jean covered ass the whole time, as he wouldn't move from behind me almost th whole time. If I had a skirt on, he would have been clutching it for sure. It's at a lutheran church, so Jonny will be getting some "Jesus Time" which at times is ok with me, and at other times makes me cringe a bit. But, overall I'm ok with it, as long as he doesn't come home and tell me I'm going to hell for not following the way of our Lord Jesus Christ, According to the Church Amen. I know it's not JESUS I don't want him to learn about, we actually talk about Jesus a lot, it's just the whole church thing that makes me a little barfy. But, that's my deal not his. Aislinn, will be jealous I'm sure. She is very interested in religion and when I told her that I was agnostic and what that meant, she was very offended. Did I mention the ONLY time this child has been in a church was when my sister married? Yeah. I swear, she just likes to be opposite of me. If I was a holy roller, she'd be slaughtering goats in her room. She's JUST THAT WAY!

Oddly enough though, I did get a little emotional when we got to the church. First of all, churches are just beautiful, and this one was no exception. It was more modern that I was used to, being a Catholic and all, but the ceiling was amazing. It was domed and made of wood left in it's natural color, and just breathtaking. It was tiny though. I couldn't imagine sitting so close to someone I really didn't know during church.

The Lutheran faith is close to the Catholic faith, and both Lutheran and Catholics are in small number here in this area. The lady giving the tour was very impressed I was from St. Louis. She said that was the Lutherans "holy land" because of the sheer abundance of churches for them.

The classes seem pretty awesome. They do preschool, pre-k and kindergarten. I checked out the kindergarten spelling tests, and realized that most those kids wrote better than Aislinn. It's the small class. The kindergarten class had maybe eight kids in it. This preschool is going to cost us though, a whopping 270 dollars a month, for five days 3 1/2 hours a day. I was expecting a M-W-F thing, but not so. It's also right down teh street from Aisy's school, so I can drop Jonny off, and come right home and be home in two minutes. Or I don't know I could go to the gym.. or back to bed. Whatever.

I also can't stop looking at cars. Sigh. I really want a new car, but with the whole preschool thing, and car thing I have come to realize one thing... I am amazingly scroogy. Especially when I have money (which now that Tony has been here awhile, we're better off financially) I don't want to part with it. Yet, when I don't I don't have a problem with it. Which is weird. Tony wanted to buy a new compound bow, and I was incredibly pissy about it. I just couldn't see spending $400 on something that he was seriously going to use like once a year. I guess I won't care if he actually shot a deer, but I am not holding my breath on that one. I guess it worked out though, since I saved $400 on my transcriptioning courses for being his wife. (Military spouses get a 20% discount)

Aislinn is well too. She is livign her life happily in her gauchos and tshirts. She loves girl scouts and even managed to sell 21 boxes of cookies, although we did buy SIX of them ourselves. She had her first lock in last weekend, and had a lot of fun. I mean it had to be a ton of fun becuase when I got there, she was missing her shoe. I wish I could have shoe losing kind of fun. She did miss her first field trip with them, becuase of damn phone not rining. In April they are having a daddy daughter thing, and the dads have to dress up like pirates. I can't wait!

So, I'm hoping I will have more time for this thing now that life seems to be settling in.

I've had a good couple of days. I think Tony realized that I was at my breaking point with everyone. I guess when I walk around clutching my head, and panting I. HATE. YOU. ALL over and over again, is a good sign to get everyone the fuck out. I don't know why everyone had been getting on my nerves, but the found my last one and all of them were just jumping on it.

It was one of those times where everything can fucking make or break you, and the coin had fallen on we're breaking you hoor. The stove still wasn't fixed, I had scraped the paint off the car with the bumper of the van, and to make matters worse, like I didn't feel like shit already, all the neighbors decided to congregate, point and laugh. Like the bully kid from the Simpson, all of them cackling "Ha Ha" as I tried really hard not to flip them all the bird, and burst into tears.


Jonny had the staples that needed to be removed and Aislinn was sent home for possible chicken pox, and I couldn't get either of them an appointment, which has been the only sucky thing about moving back here. If you're sick, oh well. The miltary DOES NOT CARE. I repeat... THEY DO NOT GIVE A SHIT. The phone once again stopped ringing, and we only found out when we missed the call about Aislinn and her maybe chicken pox (or as Jonny calls them chicken pops).

All of it was just AAAAAAHHHHH.

So, Tony took the staple headed kid, and the chicken pop girl, to the walk in clinic that the military has, and again they DONT GIVE A SHIT, so they sent Tony away without seeing the kids. Nice huh? But, a nurse give Aislinn a passing glance and said they were just mosquito bites, which is what we thought that's why we sent her to school. She had been playing at the creek over the weekend, and by creek I mean a very little stream of what is probably poo water, not to far from the house.

Instead of bringing them home though, he took them out. I know! He took them out ALL DAY and I got to sit at home in my pajamas and watch all the girly, adult shows I had recorded. It was so fun. I drank my coffee, folded clothes and watched tv. It was so nice not having to pause it to yell "JESUS BE QUIET" because that damn Jesus, always going on and on about turning the otehr cheek. How am I supposed to watch Celebrity Rehab with all that going on? Or having some dirty footed kid run through my neat piles of clothes. Or even worse having to wipe some kids ass while I'm cooking myself something to eat.

They had a lot of fun. Aislinn caught seven fish, and JOnny caught one. I told Tony "Aww I wish I had gone" but that was a big fat lie. I'm GLAD I didn't go, and when my kiddos came home, I couldn't get enough of them, and we had a good time, watching a movie, and wrestling on the floor.

Today has been nice too. I am no longer panting that I hate everyone and everything.

Jonny had his first ER visit yesterday. I made the comment on my Jonny board about having a boy is setting yourself up for a heart attack. It's true. There is something about boys that makes things happen that wouldn't happen to a girl. I swear it. I've seen Aislinn and Jonny do the same exact things, and Jonny come away wounded and a thousand times dirtier. If you don't have a boy, I would imagine you would think it's hooey, but I swear to you, it's not. I once saw Jonny, fall and smack his head on the floor. Nothing serious. Just a small head bump on the floor. Imagine my surprise when I saw his skin had SPLIT OPEN and was gushing blood. He wasn't even crying I don't think. He had done worse, like the time he fell from a step and sported a goose egg for a few weeks. This was much more innocent than that, I didn't even get up from my chair, when it happened. I didn't get that extreme mommy surge. But, it caused a huge split that he now has a scar from.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that of course the one time Jonny bangs into the wall, the clock on that wall would come crashing down on him, hitting him JUST right to cause a gash that needs three staples. Luckily, Tony was home, and I was not. He said I would have freaked out! He said it was gushing like a faucet! EW! Tony being a boy once (and at times, he still is a boy) calmly applied pressure. He was so calm, he even made sure he got an old towel, not a good one. Unfortunately, he grabbed an old towel yes, but my favorite bath towel. I won't complain as it was used to sop up my sons life force. One can not be bitter about it.

He took Jonny to the ER. Aislinn had a sleep over with teh girl down the street, so I met up with them once we got her settled over at Bethany's. We sat there for about an hour, but Tony and Jonny had been there for two at that point. Even though he had a gaping wound on the back of his head, that did not stop Jonny from entertaining the ER with his silly antics. He was making everyone laugh. Tony said he'd pretty much been doing that since he got there. I swear it, Jonny is going to be an actor or something. Everyone was just taken by him, the nurses were just loving him.

They didn't numb his head or anything to put the staples in. The Dr. said that the pain of the shots kind of makes them pointless. Just better to hurry up, get the stitches in, and be done. So they did. It took less than a minute, and boy did the CRY. He cried for about 20 minutes, and then stopped. He was even able to go to Target and pick out a few toys. Then we told him he could have a "sleep over" Mommy and Daddy in our bed. Which sucked, becuase usually he is a snuggler, but last night he was a sprawler. Tony said he had to get out of bed this morning, becuase he kept getting hit in the balls by Jonny's cold and sharp toes.

So, drama over. Today I just need to relax and get the laundry done. Tony said that his friends wife was going to call to see if we wanted to go to the movies, me and the kids, and honestly, I don't. I hate saying no, as I feel like I'm passing on a social thing when I don't get many chances, but I REALLY don't want to go. And really how social is a movie with four kids? No thanks! Now, if she wants to ditch the kids, and go have lunch and a drink, I'm all about that!