I LOVE YA TOMORROW

A certain little somethin' somethin' gets delivered back to me tomorrow from a far off land. And I can hardly wait. I have been longing to have this item returned for over 4 months. We are making signs. Yay!

Questions, never ending questions

Mostly Jessica but Katie too have discovered they can ask questions upon questions and never get bored at all.

On the way to my Mom and Dad's:

Mama, did you know the opposite of wet is dry? Me Yes
Mama, did you know that the opposite of day is night? Me Yes
Mama, what is the opposite of midnight? Me Mid-day.
What is Mid-day? Me noon
What is noon? 12:00 in the daytime
What is daytime? When it's light outside?
But it didn't get light today. Why didn't it get light? Me because it was cloudy and gray.
What is gray? Me the sky
Why is it gray? Me Jessica I can't keep answering your questions.
Why Mama? Me Because you are asking too many.
What is too many? Me More than 5.
Oh.
Silence.
Is Silver (our van) a boy or a girl? Me I don't know. What do you think Silver is?
A boy. Me well I guess silver is a boy.
And Rocket (my Dad's truck) is a big boy. Me Yep
Mama, why is Silver a boy? Me Because you decided Silver was a boy.
Mama, why did I decide silver is a boy. Me Jessica I can't answer all your questions, please be quiet for a little while.
Mama, do you want me to be quiet or can I sing and talk to Katie? You can sing and talk to Katie.
Mama, play Happy Working Song on the radio. (she means CD and the soundtrack to Enchanted) Me I push play
Mama, can we listen to this when we go back to our house too? Me No, because I will have cemented your mouth shut by then. If you are still alive.

I never thought the word Mama, or Mommy or Mom would bug me. But my life is just all questions. All day long. Questions. And more questions.

I'm workiing on fixing the color

Happy Birthday Marilyn

It's Mike's Mom's birthday today and I wanted to wish her a Happy Birthday from all of us. Mike has no internet or telephone connection right now so he can't call out. I had a great lunch with Marilyn on Tuesday at my favorite restaurant Boulevard Bistro in Elk Grove. If you live anywhere in the area you need to dine at this festival for your taste buds of a restaurant. The girls and I spent some time this afternoon making a card and then we gave it to Marilyn along with her present of a pastel pink cozy robe just like the girls'. The girls favorite thing they got for Christmas was their new robes. They love them so much they asked if they could wear them to preschool. So they were so excited that Grandma was getting a robe just like theirs. They sang Happy Birthday to her and gave hugs and kisses before she and my father in law went out for dinner. Happy Birthday Marilyn/Grandma and if Mike were here he'd add "Mom" to the mix as well. Hope you had a wonderful day.

Cable Guy

I have a hate/hate relationship with my cable company. I have my home phone, internet and cable TV all hooked up by the same cable company. Today, the 9th technician came to my house to trouble shoot another problem. That is 9 cable guys since July. Also 5 different times, I had an appointment scheduled with a technician and they never showed up or showed up 3 hours late by which I was long gone doing better things with my time than waiting 5 hours for the cable guy.

I am confident that the dude who is here right now, will not be able to fix my problem and will most likely create new problems that did not exist before he got here. That's what happened Saturday when the tech left. He killed my home phone which wasn't even having a problem. He didn't fix the problem I was having with On Demand which my kids and I rely on for our sanity. When the girls want to watch The Wonderpets I better deliver. So now this guy has been here for THREE hours. He's been fiddling with my phone and internet modems, he's been in the garage, he's been on the street...you name it. So today I had to surrender my DVR box which had like a million programs saved that I have yet to watch or are the kids' programs that I've been saving so Mike could burn a DVD when he gets home.

I reeeallly want to switch to satellite television. But we had it in Maryland and the signal was always going out. Just when you wanted to watch TV because it was a snow storm or a thunder storm the signal would go out.

So Dear Internet, here's my question. Do you like satellite television or should I stick with the cable guy. And while I am on the subject of cable GUYS...I am positive I would never have had these problems with the first place if there had been a cable GAL in the first place.

Bossy & The Geek

Chapter 8 has just been posted. It is by far the most humiliating chapter that I have written. Teenagers just should not be allowed to have big drama in their lives because they handle it with even more drama. This chapter was fun to write though because it reminded me of the overwhelming pain I felt during this time along with overwhelming happiness and overwhelming guilt and overwhelming confusion. Writing this made me feel those feelings again. Because let's face it, when you are 17, everything is overwhelming. Enjoy! (You can get to Bossy and The Geek with the link on the right hand side of this blog.)

Holiday in Retrospective...

It all started with the night before Christmas. We got dolled up and headed for my Grandma's house. The girls had velvet and taffeta dresses and looked really cute.(Above) Jessica lays under the tree waiting for presents to start. (Below) Jessica loves my cousin Rachel so much!

(Above) Katie loves Rachel too! (Below) We awoke Christmas morning in our new pajamas and Jessica was so excited to see her stocking from Santa.

(Above) the wonderment in Katie's eyes as she begins to go through her stocking. (Below) Jessica asked Santa for a yellow race car. Santa came through!

(Above) Katie also asked Santa for a race car, a purple one. Santa delivered on this wish as well. (Below) We left cookies for Santa the night before. Here is evidence that he ate our cookies, drank our milk. He even left a note.

(Above & Below) We were so glad to spend Christmas morning with our Grammie and Papa!

(Above) Jessica carefully gives the croissants an egg wash while Katie plays with her slinky. (Below) Me & Katie...her face sums up how we all felt on Christmas Morning.

(Above) Jessica is SO excited to get Madagascar because it has a zebra in it. (Below) Jumping for joy after opening new Leapster games from Grammie.

(Above) Grammie gets turquoise pajamas with pink elephants all over them from Jessica. (Below) Katie gives Jessica a kiss to say thank you for the toy horse Jessica gave her.

(Above) My favorite picture of the year. Grandma Bea gets a zebra hat and gloves from Jessica who was so proud to give out this present! (Below) Jessica claps for me as I open a present.

(Above) Every morning the girls ask me to put RED lipstick on them and I reply, I will put light pink lipstick on you because I don't have any red. So they unanimously voted to get me red lipstick for Christmas. In fact, the color is even named Christmas Red. (Below) After Christmas morning presents were done, the girls got into Grammie's bed to play their new Leapster video games and Grammie Bea fell fast asleep. It was so cute because when I came into the room, the girls told me in a whisper "sssshhhhh Mama, Grandma Bea is sleeping. She is so so tired." Then Katie patted her on the arm and pulled the covers up over her to tuck her in.

(Above) The girls favorite boy that is small (their words) came to visit during the holidays. Cayden and Emma and the girls get along so great. They LOVE each other a ton. (Below) New Years Eve. We gave bubble baths and then played "Beauty Parlor" where I was the beautician and Jessica and Katie were my customers. We did their hair with a blow dryer and curling iron, I did their makeup and then they got mani's and pedi's. Here they are blowing their fingernails to dry the polish.

(Above & Below) After the salon makeover we got dressed up in fancy clothes. Katie chose her Snow White dress and a matching yellow purse. Jessica chose to be a Flamenco dancer with a dress my parents got her in Spain. Soooo fancy!

(Above) Once we were all fancy, we had a tea party where we served air and actual cookies. (Below) Katie Snow White waits for her air tea to be poured and her air cream and air sugar to be stirred in.

(Above) Jessica Miss Flamenco Dancer takes her turn as the hostess and serves everyone at the table perfectly brewed and blended cups of air. (Below) Katie Snow White loves this party and cracked many jokes and ate three cookies and several cups of air.

(Above) This is the final 10 seconds before midnight. We were waiting for the ball to drop in Times Square on New Years Rockin Eve (Below) The girls INSISTED that balloons drop from the ceiling at midnight so they "can FALL on us". So I blew up a bunch of balloons and loaded them into a fitted mattress pad and Mom and Dad held it up super high and launched the balloons over the girls' heads at the stroke of midnight.

(Above) Jessica gives her Papa a New Years kiss. (Below) Katie bangs on pots and pans and yells HAPPY NEW YEAR.

(Above) Jessica bangs on her pot while tossing balloons in the air. (Below) Sister Happy New Year's kisses after our sparkling cider toast. Jessica made the toast "to a Happy New Year" and we all clinked glasses. From then until now, 4 days later, every time the girls have something to drink, they have to make a toast and clink glasses.

(Above) This cute little girl, along with her sister, did not go to bed until after 1:30 a.m. And here I thought they would be asleep at midnight. Not even close. Naps and bed times have been a nightmare since New Years Eve.

All in all we had a wonderful holidays. We missed our Mikey so much but it's like he was with us. Maybe Santa sprinkled magic sand from Afghanistan over our little family so we could have a wonderful Christmas even though we weren't all together. We can't wait to share our Holiday in Retrospective PART 2. We are leaving our tree up and having a whole 2nd Christmas morning, Christmas dinner and maybe even another New Years Eve once Mikey gets home. I will post pictures from his homecoming to all of our celebrations once the time is here. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year!

The Good Ol' Days

When I grew up, you MIGHT have needed batteries for a new toy you got for Christmas. But probably not. Star Wars action figures? No batteries. Barbies? No batteries. Light Brite? It plugged into the wall. Dolls, stuffed animals, bicycles, art supplies, Donny & Marie record player, boom box? You get the idea. All of these were either self or child powered or they plugged into the wall. The boom box and the Sony Walkman were my first real toys that needed batteries but only if you needed the devices to be portable. If you were going to use them at home. you could just plug them into the wall.

This Christmas helped me to truly understand that this is not the case any longer. Not only do you need batteries for EVERY toy imaginable, you also have to install software on your computer to connect the toy so it will work. The girls got two Leap Frog Tag reading systems. This is a pen like device you hold in your hand and it will either read you a book that goes along with the system, it will help you read the book yourself if you are ready for that, it will play all sorts of games with you on three different levels and it will do all this in the actual voices of the characters. In other words when Ariel or Thomas the Train or Diego speaks, it's their voices that you hear. It took like 45 minutes to download the software and set up both tag pens and download all the audio for the books we have. Oy Vey. They also got this super cute dog from Cayden and Emma's parents. The dog grows from puppy to full grown over a 4 day period. It sings songs with it's name in them and sings songs with your child's name. In order for this magic to happen...you guessed it! Batteries are needed and a degree in computer science is needed. What the freak? Now, don't get me wrong. These toys are RAD and my kids LOVE them but in the good ol' days, parents just had to buy the present. The kid could unwrap it themselves and actually begin to play with it right then and there. I am sure by the time the girls are tweens, I'll have to download software for their lip gloss to be activated and I'm sure they will need $3,000 lap tops in order to do their homework and take notes in junior high school. I just needed my trusty Dr. Pepper Lip Smacker and my erase- A -mate ball point pen.

In summary I am old, I miss the olden days and I will be dusting off my boom box so I can listen to my old tapes that I recorded off the radio. Ipod shmypod.

She Tipped Her Hand Too Soon...

Mike always tells me that the number one mistake I make in life is that I tip my hand too soon. When he and I are about to bet on something, I let it slip that if I lose the bet, I'm just going to welch on it anyway. When I used to have to go in and ask for a raise from my boss, I would say the amount I wanted, then before the boss could say yes or no, I'd lower the amount because I was nervous. Mike is always telling me to keep my cards close to the vest, don't tip your hand too soon, don't telegraph where the next punch is coming from etc.

Jessica asked for safety scissors in her stocking. She got them. They are still unopened but I was going to open them today so we could do a little art project. She came over to me and said "Mama is it almost time for our safety scissors?" I said "Almost." And she said "I'm glad I'll have safety scissors so I can cut my OWN hair and give Katie a bob just like MINE!" She's had this planned all along I think. Guess what Jessica? You shouldn't have tipped your hand so soon my little pumpkin pie angel. Now you get no safety scissors unless Mama is sitting right there with you the whole time.

You Can Feel Free To Use These At Your New Year's Eve Party Tonight...

I'm sure you have fancy parties to go to tonight full of glamorous and chic friends where they'll be serving gourmet food and the conversation will be stimulating and thought provoking. Well, I didn't want you to have to go into that environment without some jokes and little ditties you can keep in your back pocket in case you get stuck for something witty to say. Stick to these and you'll be the hit of the party. Oh, they are brought to you by Jessica and Katie who are three but who also seemed to do very well at THEIR holiday party. So maybe these can work for you too?

• Do you know how to tell if a train is eating? You can hear it go choo choo.
• Sing this to the tune of the sugar plum fairy piece from the Nutcracker. "Strawberry YUM, strawberry YUM, whipped cream YUM, I got some on my BUM."
• Knock knock. Who's there? Poopy. Poopy Who? Poopy poopy. (it helps this joke go over big if you laugh yourself super hard and hysterically)
• Did you know that all of the reindeer used to laugh and call him names? (you can just go up to someone and say this sentence then walk away. They will think you are super cool and subliminal and know something they don't)
• If you are in a group, just start being super quiet and get a concerned pensive look on your face. When someone asks you what's wrong, just look really worried and say "do you think Santa likes to DUNK his cookies in the milk?"
• When drinking your champagne or sparkling cider, laugh really loudly every time you take a drink and exclaim in the loudest voice possible "ha ha ha it is tickling my boogies inside my nose!!!"
• When your hostess serves you dinner, look down at your plate and start crying super hard and say "But I can't eat all of this food!!!"
• Always ask your host or hostess if you can lick the beaters after the cream is whipped.
• If there is a lull in conversation or the party just needs a little pick me up...announce to the group "let's play the Baby Jesus game. I will be the donkey and you can ride me into Breath-le-ham!" Then get down on your hands and knees and wait for someone to jump on.
• Last but not least (and this is a classic), stick black olives on all of your fingers and chase your friends around screaming "I'm a MONSTER, I'm a MONSTER!"

Good luck tonight you guys. I'll be attending a dinner with my in laws at their church then going over to my Mom and Dads at about 8pm for the rest of the night with my chicks. I will be kissing my girls at midnight whether they are awake or not. Happy New Year!

WHEATIES...

I bought a box of Wheaties today. I got all teary eyed and emotional and joyful as I reached up and picked up a box with a picture of Natasia Luikin, our gold medal gymnast in the Beijing Olympics. For those of you that know us, you already know why the need to buy Wheaties would cause me to cry with happiness. But for those of you unfamiliar with our family's cereal preferences I will share this tid bit of Meeker family factoids: A. Amy eats healthy cereal OR Frosted Mini Wheats. B. Jessica and Katie eat Mini Wheats, Raisin Bran or Fruit Loops on Saturday mornings. C. None of the people listed in A or B are Olympic freakazoids.

Did you guess?

Resolved...

I made it a point a few years back to stop setting New Years Resolutions. I made it a goal to see my life as a continuing circle and as a whole chunk. Instead of putting off goals until January, I tried in earnest to work a little bit harder each day. Yeah, you guessed it. That didn't work either. I came to the conclusion that goals are HARD. Especially the hard ones. I'm so enlightened I will burst into flames at any moment.

So this year, I figured I would set some small goals, stick in the word TRY and STRIVE, then set a percentage amount to each goal of how likely I think I am to stick to them. Here they go.

• STRIVE to cook more at home instead of eating out. 45% likely to happen.
• TRY to make it to church every Sunday and on time. 87% likely to happen in my heart.
• STRIVE to answer my voicemail more often, charge my cell phone and return phone calls. 5% likely to happen.
• TRY Keep the house picked up an organized. 12% likely to happen.
• STRIVE to not get frustrated and irritated when people point out the things that are wrong with me and the things I need to change about myself. 2% likely to happen.
• TRY and enjoy my kids and husband and spend time together as a family. 92% likely to happen especially if #1 does NOT happen.
• STRIVE to eat healthy, exercise and set a good example to my kids. 5% likely to happen if my Aunt Flow is visiting, 22% likely to happen if I'm tired, 64% likely to happen if I get sleep and if #1 does happen.
• TRY to have another baby. -97% likely to happen. That's NEGATIVE 97% likely. In other words, not a chance.
• STRIVE to be a more awesome chick. 0% likely to happen because I'm so awesome already.
• TRY and not ramble like an incoherent crazy lady on blog. Ummmm.... you tell me.

Happy Birthday Mikey Meeker

There are two types of guys in the world. You have your bad boys, who ride motorcycles, drink single malt scotch, smoke cigars, belong to gentleman clubs and have secret cell phones and email accounts. They would rather spend time playing cards all night in Vegas vs. riding rides all night in Disneyland. They know how to cuss, spit and fart in just the perfect way that girls could never master. These sorts of boys have a place in the world but they just aren't my type.

The perfect guy for me makes sure Santa doesn't have a cold so he will be sure to make his deliveries on Christmas Eve. My perfect guy looks cute in blue scrubs and is happy to make a joke out of the fact he is away from us at Christmas instead of getting all bitter about it. My perfect guy is in the picture above and he's not the one in the red suit. I love this guy. He may like to drive fast, but his favorite drinks are coca-cola and chocolate milk. The only gentleman's club he belongs to is the Air Force and he would LOVE to play video games all night but NOT gamble. And Disneyland would win out for him every time. He's a really bad cusser but he actually CAN spit pretty good. And farting? Well that's just a natural ability that comes along with the Y chromosome.

Today is my favorite Y chromosome holder's birthday and I miss him and I love him and I hope he has a great day! We miss you Mike...Happy Birthday!!!!

Dear Jessica and Katie

Dear Girls,

I just wanted to take a moment on this Christmas night to tell you how thankful I am that I got to spend Christmas with you today. This was the first year that you both understood what Christmas was sort of about and you couldn't wait. Our celebration started yesterday morning where we had a big "GIRLS ONLY" morning of bubble baths and playing beauty parlor. I let you both wear so much makeup you looked like one of those kids from those toddler beauty pageants. I curled your hair, we spritzed, sprayed, lotioned, lipsticked and twirled our lashes. We all put on RED lipstick. You had velvet and silk dresses in black and cranberry red. Katie had a black organza bow and Jessica had on a black velvet french Beret hat. Your white tights had lace bottoms and you both looked so cute I could hardly stand it. We went to your Great Grandma Oliver's house. We joined Papa's family for Mexican food and presents. We had a talk before Christmas about how important it was to be excited not just for your presents but also for other people. Everyone would get presents and you wanted to be sure they knew how happy you were for them. So every time someone would open a present, you would stand up and yell "Goooooo CHRISTMAS!" like cheerleaders for a football team. You were so excited and you ran around so hard I was sure we would end up in the ER again. But you were just fine. We got to talk to Daddy on the phone. We then made our way to Grammie and Papa's for the night. Great Gramma Bea spent the night too. You got new night gowns and fuzzy pink robes. You put out cookies and milk for Santa. I told you that he would be here very soon so you had to go right to bed. Katie told me she changed her mind about what she wanted from Santa. Instead of a purple race car she wanted her Daddy to come home. I love you for that Katie. You went to bed and we slept together in the big bed. You woke up at 8:30 and wanted to see if Santa came. We did your hair in bows that matched your jammies and put on blush and lipstick and went out to greet Christmas. Your first stop down the hall was Great Grandma's room to wake her up and wish her Merry Christmas. Then, we all got our stockings. Santa brought you your race cars and safety scissors along with what would be your favorite toy so far...a slinky. Then we baked Croissants from William Sonoma and had a wonderful Christmas morning. I was so proud of you because you never demanded anything like being the next one to open a present. There were no shouts of "MINE MINE" or the normal self interests of 3 year olds. You loved everything you got, everything you gave to others, everything period. Daddy called and you were happy to stop opening presents to talk to him. We missed him so much, all of us did. But we all managed to remain happy and in a Merry Christmas mood so we went back to presents and fun. Your eyes were so bright and you guys were so excited and loving. We went to Grandma and Grandpa Meekers after and you got to see Uncle Ron and Uncle Steve again. You got to give your presents out and clap and sing and give hugs and kisses. We went back to Grammie and Papas and the three of us "tried" to take a nap. I sang a song to you about Christmas and we collectively decided that we were too excited to sleep. So we got up and helped prepare Christmas dinner. We had ham and all the fixings and both of your Great Grandmas came over for dinner. We went around the table and shared our favorite things about Christmas and also our New Years Resolutions. Jessica, your resolution is to not climb on the couch anymore and Katie, yours is to mind your mama. You made Papa promise his resolution would be not to pull your toes off.

We had lots of chocolate for dessert and made our way back to our house so we could climb into my big bed, snuggle and play Leapsters and watch Sleeping Beauty. It truly was a great Christmas. Thanks for making what could have been a sad day for Mama into a happy one. I love you both and you were my favorite part of Christmas.

Love,
Mama

Yes, I said that right.... TWENTY YEARS.

So I was having dinner last night at Mike's family's house. Brothers Steve and Ron were in town for the holidays so the girls got to bask in the light and fun of their uncles. I was talking to Steve about something and I mentioned that we were going to Hawaii this Spring because our 20th High School Reunion is sometime this summer and we want to be sure to be in town since we have always lived away for every reunion. I went on about some other thing or another and Steve got really quiet and said "twenty?" in a whisper. All of a sudden, I too realized how old that sounds. TWENTY YEAR CLASS REUNION. I GRADUATED FROM HIGH SCHOOL TWENTY YEARS AGO. As I looked at Steve's wide eyes, I grabbed his arm and said "yeah, I know, it's bad huh? But we're cool right, we haven't lost it?" He stuttered for only a second bless his heart and assured me we were still hip. But I sort of have this feeling we might not be as hip as I think.

We have little kids so other Moms I am around are usually younger. Do they look at me and think wow...look at that poor old lady and her kids. My cousin who just turned 40 is becoming a Grandmother in the next few months. She is the cousin who I LOVED playing with when the cousins got together. She was a cheerleader and cool and had a hot boyfriend. She was three years older than me so she still liked me but was way cooler. And now she's going to be a Grandma. Sorry Rondeine, but that was a shocker to my system. I really think I'm fooling myself in this whole thinking I'm hip thing. I have hips but AM I hip? I'm thinking no. I'm thinking for a 37 year old I'm totally hip. But 37 year olds are I think by nature not hip. Unless you are Bono, Cher, Tom Cruise (who let's face it has lost it) or Wil Smith. Those guys are hip. But hey come on, I could hang out with Bono right? I mean, I know all the songs.

I'm so irritated that there is a slim possibility that I'm not as cool as I thought I was yesterday morning.