I have 2 funny things to share with you … One is a story and one is just a haha you’re so unlucky everyday of your life kind of thing.

1. This is the unfortunate happenings one, obviously. I look like that character in the Goonies. You know Sloth. The one that Mama apparently dropped on his face when he was a baby and locked in the basement of Fertelli’s restaurant. Uh huh, I am UGLY! I have shingles all over the right side of my face, from my eye to my cheek and the swelling has created a baseball size pocket of black and blue fluid (I guess the skin is thin there so it has bruised).

I am a beauty to say the least. People don’t know what to think. They just stare and I can tell that half of them think I was on the loosing battle of a fist fight and the other half are disgusted. Oh well, I guess what it is, is what it is, but it is very gross indeed. And this crap hurts like I don’t know what. It feels like there is a match on my face! Good news is it will slowly go away and I will be my beauteous self again, hahahaha!

2. Picture this… My 3 girls and I at the doctors to have a kindergarten check up for M3. She is handling everything wonderfully, even answers all those silly questions right through the age of 7 years old, which is good since she is 5. And to think I used to worry. Anyway, back to topic… She needs 4 shots. Holy mother of pearl that is alot I say. She is my toughie though and takes it like a champ. That is until The Boss has to be physically removed from the room due to her hysteria.

” Moooooommmmyyyy, Nooooooooooo, they are hurting her, Noooooooooooo, No needles, make them stop, run, noooooooooooo, booooo hoooo boooo hooooo!!!!!!”

Here comes the extra office staff running in the room to find that it wasn’t even the one receiving the shots but her older sister in the corner of the room, dry heaving over the trash can and screaming like a maniac. OMG is all I can say! I didn’t know whether I should laugh or get upset or hold M3 or hold The Boss or hold The Babe that was now in hysteria as well.

The receptionist took the other 2 out and we calmed them down only to return to a visibly shakin’ 5 year old that was waiting for her shots. So then I had to hold her down while the “nurse” missed 3 times on 1 arm and once on the other. Dude, if your gonna give 4 shots, have them ready to go and bam, bam, bam. Give them quick and get er’ done, you know?

It was such a fun trip. And by the way as I was leaving the office there were 2 lovely, caddy ass, snobby, brats of women in the waiting room discussing my kids and my very ugly swollen face. They had assumed that my hubby had hit me. Oh I felt the fury go through me when I overheard that. First he would NEVER do that, and second if he did, he would look WORSE than me. So I turned and simply said…

“It is herpes on my face, I don’t know where I got it and it is very contageous, so keep an eye out”

Hah, that’ll show them, hahahaha. I felt a lil’ bad for putting the fear of the ol’ herps in them, but sometimes you gotta fight dirty!

Picture this… my sister and I had the 5 kids at the beach, my 3 girls and her 2 boys.  A few days of group baths and washing sand out of cracks that we didn’t even realized existed.  We even got the good ol’ commentary from my older 2.  You know, “your ninnies are smaller than my mom’s but your ghina is bigger.  And there is always, “mommy, why is your butt so much bigger than aunt J’s, and it has more smiley face dimples”.

You got to love kids.  But the best was when I turned the corner to the back bedroom and I saw my youngest having her first gynecological exam.  Now that is a bit of an exaggeration.  The other 4 kiddies were about a foot from her private area just looking away.  And she was giving commentary, “this is my ghina and this is my sweet cheeks and this is my other hole that poopy comes out of”.

Needless to say I stopped the anatomy lesson right then and there while holding back my “holy shit that is so damn funny” laughter.  So everyone goes on their merry ways and we get dressed, do dinner and decide to walk across the street to make a sundae.  And that is when we heard it.  It was clear as day.  It was as loud as a bomb and as funny as I don’t know what.  My youngest lil’ nephew, not even 2, decided to share a little something with the whole damn store…

“My ghina is as big as mommies.  My ghina is right here”

And as he is pointing, we are trying to sush him up.  The whole store is staring and half of the people are laughing.  The other half is looking at us like we should be in jail.  My sis and I are laughing our very tired asses off and when we suggest to my nephew to quiet down and that he is a boy and doesn’t have a ghina.  He becomes louder and more persistent. After 5 minutes he is screaming…

“I want a ghina like my mommies.  Mines a ghina tooooooo!”

Kids are great.  Oh the joys of parenting.  All we could do is laugh and walk the kids back to our place and drink a very big ass bottle of wine!  Ahhh… vacation.

Well hello y’all! I am so happy to be back. I had to take a little break for a bit but I am back in full force now. I have been trying to catch up on all your lives. I have been slowly getting back in the blogging game here on my lil’ ol’ site.

So, I hope you are having a kick ass summer! The kids are a bit of a handful at times, but all in all, it has been a damn good summer break. Did you like how nicely I just said my kids are really GD bad sometimes without sounding like an evil mommy?  Haha.

The Boss finished up her swim season and she placed in the top 15 for both free and back in her age group for the county, which is about 100 kids. Proud mommy moment indeed! She had a blast and both her and M3 can’t wait for the fall/winter season to begin.

And The Babe… she will be 3 tomorrow. I can’t believe my baby is 3 years old. She is so damn cute! Although she has picked some nasty habits up from her big sissies this summer. Like telling me “no way mommy”. Yeah, not even flippin’ funny. And she has learned all the High School Musical and Jump In songs. She is too funny sometimes. By the way, she only gets half the words right when she sings them, but that doesn’t stop her from dancing and shaking her “sweet cheeks” as she puts it.

I took The Tribe down the beach, not really down but that is how we say it around this neck of the woods, this last week. They wore me out. I missed The Big Guy to say the least but we all know that absence makes the heart grow stronger.. and the ol’ sex drive, haha! Good times had by all.

I am so looking forward to getting all caught up on your lives and will be posting daily again about all my crazy ass life happenings. I have missed y’all. It is funny how you grow to know each other without ever laying eyes on each other. It’s pretty cool when you think about it!

Here is a tidbit of my summer fun… in pictures.

My head is full of thoughts, and I can’t put any of them into paragraphs that make sense! I am really down at the present, sometimes life is just a little too much to handle. Then I look at the girls and I think, I don’t have it bad at all, 3 great kids, an incredible hubby, wonderful family and friends, but still sometimes that teary eyed crap prevails. Much like it is doing tonight. Well shit!

* surgery might not happen on Friday for my knee because it is so damn arthritic and has such severe degenerative changes that the surgeon isn’t sure anything less than a knee replacement will help. Damn it!!!!

* people are too ding dang nasty on the interenet and across emails, I am sick of being nice and kind. So help me…. let one more person show a nasty side and all hell will break lose. Not really, I am all talk!

* I don’t feel well, I mean I feel like a Mack truck hit me. Ugh!

* I have no sex drive, I mean I want it in my head, but my body doesn’t follow along. I am too young for this shit!

* I can’t stop crying over stupid ass stuff. What the hell is wrong with me? Come the hell on, I need to be stronger than this!

And that is just the beginning. I won’t bore you with the rest. You get the drift. Do y’all ever get like this? Please tell me someone else does! I need a room at the hotel, motel, holiday inn for about 3 days or so. Life sure does move and groove, sometimes I feel like I need a breather, but I guess that does not come with the territory so I should get over it. Ok, I feel better and have composed myself now. I hope y’all are having better weeks than me!

Interview with The Boss who is 6 1/2 years old…

Mommy: What is your fave part of summer time?

KJ: “Swimming alot and playing in the warm sun.”

Mommy: What do you miss most about school?

KJ: “Ms. Gaeng, my teacher!”

Mommy: What do you think you will learn in school this year?

KJ: “I will learn different kind of stuff, like reading first grader’s books and more about numbers and singing a lot of new songs.”

Mommy: What do you want to be when you grow up?

KJ: “I want to be a…. hmm…. a golfer and a swimmer and I want to adopt a kid and be a mommy.”

Mommy: Really, no babies in your belly?

KJ: “Nope, and I won’t change my mind!!!”

Mommy: Okay, who do you think your personality is more like, mommy or daddy?

KJ: “Daddy, we like to do the same things, we go on the ‘puter at the same time, and we love to play video games, play golf and we like to swim. I am smart like him and we love doing cannon balls in the pool and we love to watch tv and movies, and you don’t. ”

Mommy: Do you think you look like him?

KJ: “Yes, my eyes do, but the rest looks like my pretty mommy!”

Mommy: Anything else?

KJ: “My sisters and I love our mommy and daddy!”

Mommy: I guess you gets points for that one!

KJ: “Hahahahahahaaaa…”

Proud Mommy Moment, my eldest, The Boss is kicking some mean arse in the pool this season. Uh huh! She is doing great on her team and loving every moment of it. And she is now in the top 15 in the entire county, about 1000 swimmers overall, for her age group for both 25 Free and 25 Back. Her Breaststroke is coming along, she got DQ’ed last meet for a flutter kick after her entry, and she would have finished 6th overall, but you can’t win em’ all. Oh well, they are young and learn from their mistakes.

And then there is her Butterfly, how cute they are swimming down the pool with their little butts going up and down while they try to perfect their “Fly”. She won’t be swimming that one this season, just the other 3. And she insists she wants to do the Medley, but that will have to wait till next season as well.

And you know what? Swimming is a big commitment, and quite $$$. Practice every stinking morning of their lives and 2 meets a week. It is a hell of a lot for youngin’s, ya know? But she loves it and has said she wanted to be a swimmer since she was 2 years old. And then there is her sissies… They won’t be far behind.

So yeah, a proud parent moment indeed tonight! If only the 100 degree weather with 100% humidity wasn’t around. Ugh, all the parents were dripping with sweat, sweat rings around our pits, sticky and smelly, but smiling away! What a great group of kids and parents. So supportive of ALL the kids, it is a great lesson for the kids. A sense of team and belonging as well as involvement from the parents.

By the way, I have never seen The Big Guy look so proud as when he watches her down the lane, he is so damn cute! He loves his girls sooooo much!

I’m headed towards a “blogging breakdown”. My head has been hitting the pillow with thoughts of “I need to get on my Gaga site and write, I have something to share and why isn’t there more time in the day”. I know that you can all relate!

Y’all are in the same boat I am sure. Your lives have hit a little bump called summer break. So on top of all your duties and everyday life, you have to cart kids around, entertain their friends, supply 100 lbs of snack foods a day, listen to bitching and moaning, and break up fights of siblings that are use to their time apart. Ahhh….. summer!

Beautiful, right? No, I do love summer, the pool, the sun, swim team, my kids and their friends laughing in the backyard and I can’t forget grilling. But, oy am I dragging ass. My kids get up sooooo early everyday and go, go, go much like their mommy. I guess I can only blame myself. Why couldn’t they get The Big Guy’s sloth like personality, hahaha?

So, yeah. My blog has been hurting. I guess because I have a requirement and contract to keep up on my professional ones and 800 emails a day that go along with the whole editor thing, this is where I will drop the ball every once in a while. But I don’t wanna!!!!!

Keep me straight my fellow mommy blogging friends. Yell at me or something. Kick my ass into high writing gear, please? I miss y’all so…. And let’s start a petition to make 30 hours in every day, hahahhaha :p.

So, I’m gonna give you 5 reasons that I feel like putting my head through the wall. And I mean all the way through! Some days really suck…

1. The Babe’s 2nd set of tubes have fallen out and her right eardrum ruptured yesterday, which means I was up from 1 till 5:45 AM and she is a real f’in’ treat today. By the way, this was the 4th night in a row of less than 3 hours of sleep! And she can’t hear shit so she has been screaming all GD day.

2. The Big Guy is on day number 3 of a 4 day stretch of Golf tournaments , which means he is non-existent around the house and when he does get home at night he is, “sooo tired he just wants to go to sleep. Don’t I know how tired it can make you?” Yeah, you dumbass, tell me how tired you are from golf! Wait… and then if I have it correct father’s day is on Sunday. Shit, he has used that right on up already!

3. I have to have yet another operation. Nothing major. Just my 8th left knee surgery, but come on. I was a dumb shit and fell down the steps 2 weeks ago and tore whatever cartilage I have left in that very old arthritic knee, not to mention my MCL (medial collateral ligament). Yee-ha! But the Dr. and I have a deal, no crutches and do what you can with a scope and no more.

4. It is 2 in the afternoon and M3 has been in time out about… 15 times already and there has been 2 blowouts between her and The Boss in the last hour. They are restling over crayons right now in the kitchen. Sad part? I am typing this while listening to them. No mommy of the year yet again!

And Finally

5. I am so hormonal today that I want to cry at everything. The Boss’ last day was today, half day, and I felt like crying because she is done her first year of school. M3 has made me want to cry about 10 times today because she isn’t listening and told me that she would rather have someone else for her mommy, “someone who is fun and nice, like Mom Mom Mary”, that would be my mother in law. Talk about hitting below the belt! And The Babe and I have been up since like Monday, and she still doesn’t feel well. I feel so bad for my little boo boo. She has such a rough time since she was born! Icing on the cake would be that we have to be at a swim meet in the morning by 7AM, which means 5:00 wake up call and very tired children. And where will The Big Guy be you ask? Fu%&*ng golfing!!!!!!

I’m still alive!  I will back in full tomorrow.  It has been SO DAMN busy around these parts.  I miss your everyday happenings and hope to catch up on all tomorrow.  I have a lot to share too.  So, see ya on the flip side.

Ok, so my words were harsh last night, well a bit. I love The Big Guy, but is so damn hard when dealing with family, kids, work, everyday stresses AND his depression. Sometimes, he is where my patience stops, which isn’t always totally fair, you know?

I wish there was a magic pill that would allow all of our bad memories and past happenings disappear. But I guess as they say, everyone has skeletons in their closet, right?

I was proud of how I have been handling everything, especially the hubs, lately. The old me, years ago, would have flown off the handle, screamed and cried and said tings I would have regretted. None of us are perfect! But now with some years under my belt, 3 kids, confidence, and a sense of this being MY family, I know to let some things go, which is why you see me on here writing, and let things evolve over a bit of time.

There was a lot of TALKING done at our house last night, very late. I think I finally ate something around 11:00 or so, and we did get so much accomplished. The Big Guy knows were I am coming from, I know where he is coming from, and we both know that what we share together isn’t go anywhere. There may be a lot of shit that we have to weather, but it will damn well be together!

I do get pretty angered and pissed off at him when he CHOOSES not to take his depression medicine and he allows himself to fall down so deep that it is painful to get back up, but that is his choice, and I do the best I can dealing with it. Hence my ranting! I absolutely dispise watching the man I adore and love suffer from depression. Chemical, physical, situational, nature or nurture, whatever it may be it is very REAL and positively SUCKS!