Sailor thought you all should know that her second tooth has cut through.
Growing teeth is NOT easy.
19
Jul
KATE’s hair
It seems we need to address the issue of Kate's hair….
This is not the first comment but this one just came in today.
Hi,
I love your blog, but can you please do something to Kate's hair? It's severely broken off in the front and the rest looks matted 
The damage might be from relaxers, so maybe you can let her go "natural" instead?
Just some suggestions, please do not be offended.
Even Kate's birthmom emailed me and said, "What is going on with Kate's hair?"
Here is the explanation.
Kate has Trichotiliomania.
We have not medicated her. We are trying the behavior modification technique.
She is getting better…maybe. She is trying hard.
But it's a mother's worst nightmare.
Especially when you are a white mother with black children.
It's so easy to assume that, because I am white, I don't know what to do with black hair. I will admit to not knowing how to braid, but I know how to take care of their hair. Almost all my little black girls have VERY long hair. You can't get that without knowing how to do it.
This nightmare began about a year ago. I started noticing long braids under her bed in the morning. When I would ask her about it, she would say that Pickle had pulled her hair and must have pulled them out. For all of you that know Pickle, you can attest that this was a believable explanation.
Then I noticed the front of her hair was constantly fraying up and coming out.
I thought she was being braided too tight and it was causing it to break off.
Then I thought maybe it was the relaxer that Pauline was using on her hair.
Then I noticed the HUGE bald spot on her left side. It had been easily hidden until I pulled her hair back into a ponytail.
She denied pulling.
She still denies pulling, but the pile of hair under her bed and the bald spot that grows, and moves around her head, says differently.
We have now taken her braids out. and cut a few inches off the back so she doesn't look like she has a mullet.
We are brushing and greasing and ooohing and aahing over how cute she looks and how great her hair is doing and growing. We are still taking oodles of pictures and singing the praises of how stinkin' beautiful she is. We are discussing the nightmare of it all in hushed tones and keeping her stress level to a minimum.
By the end of August, we are hoping we have grown enough hair in the front to redo braids. If not, Pauline will give her a short spunky hair-do, to match her personality, for school.
Send hair growth prayers our way please!
19
Jul
Is this OCD?
I do all of Brandon's laundry. I hang it up and he goes in behind me, within hours, and rearranges it so it's correctly placed according to color, collar, pants, shorts…..
Am I the crazy one or is he?
I do have to admit he has a pretty good looking closet.
If this is OCD I wish I had it in small doses.
So how many of you do this with your clothes?
17
Jul
Saturday nights at our house
The kids are out of the pool, dinner is over, and jammies are on.
The house is not clean.
But I don't care,
because it's time to turn up the TV and sing and dance.
This is my favorite thing to do on a Saturday night.
16
Jul
here we go again
I don't know if I should go to BlogHer.
I received an email today from our team.
The division finals for our swim league are that same Saturday.
I honestly don't know if I can miss it.
It's the CHAMPIONSHIP.
SHIT SHIT SHIT!!!
WHAT SHOULD I DO?
16
Jul
swim swim swim
Tis the season for meet after meet and I LOVE IT!!
The kids did amazing, fabulous, and fantastic!!
I am especially proud of Jayden for having the balls to compete. His very FIRST TIME! He swam in one event and took fourth place.
WOOT! WOOT!
Eye of the Tiger.
Jazzi took FIRST PLACE in the 100 meter IM. It is by far the hardest event and she opened up a can and blew them all out of the water…. Her little sister Kate was included in that whoopin"
Look at these legs. She is a powerhouse.
Kate swam in five events. Little mama is a competitor.
And by the time she was finished with five events…
Colby is going harder, better, faster, stronger every single meet.
He finished every race and seriously did really good. Most importantly, he came out of the water with the biggest grin on his face every time.
And last but not least, my Jace Carter is a force to be reckoned with….. except he continues to be DQ'd. Again it was in the 100 meter IM and it was because of his breast stroke. DAMN DAMN DAMN! If it's not one thing it's another. In his other two events, he took first place. But it's that IM I want a time for. Maybe next year.
I wonder if maybe his goggles are too tight and it's causing him some confusion while swimming? You never know.
.
We had a perfect afternoon at the pool.
Hanging out with Coach Ryley.
My big kids volunteered at the ribbon writing table. I was proud of that too. They are setting a good example for my little people.
Thank you Hunter and Shaylee!
Happy swimming to all and to all a good night!
15
Jul
doing something right
This rainbow went right over the top of our house. I think that God was telling me that it's okay if I don't go to church. I am going to take it as a sign that we must be doing something right.
Comments Off
14
Jul
A Pickle Post
Pickle swims everyday. She loves to float and hang out, and loves to watch and play with the other kids swimming in the water, but the thing she does in the pool that makes me crazy, that I haven't figured out how to control is, SHE DRINKS THE WATER! I am not talking about a sip here and sip there, I am talking she drinks so much water that I talked to my pediatrician and swim coach about water intoxication. (I was worried) When I lift her out of the pool, her tummy looks like a starving child from Africa. It's bloated past the point of comfort.
Things to mention right off the bat, we have a salt water pool, not chlorinated, and other than having her wear a lamp shade, like an injured dog, I don't know how to keep her face out of the pool. Ideas and suggestions are welcome on this post.
The thing about drinking that much water is it's VERY CLEANSING.
Pickle blows out a diaper everyday after a good swim.
Buckets of poop and pee!
BUCKETS!
I am used to it, I change her diaper, change her outfit, and then feed her a good meal. It's all in a days work.
Today life got a little crazy. Grandpa came home early. That right there evokes chaos, but today after he came home he used tin snips and pliers to get Dalin's cast off. (we have an appointment tomorrow but Dalin was hot and sweaty and itchy.) Picture if you will, ten of us gathered around Grandpa and Dalin to watch the procedure, Sailor crawling everywhere, Parker and Pickle chasing each other around the family room, Ellie screaming, the boys fighting over the playstation, and Brandon working away on the computer…. I finally decided I had had enough of the chaos, so I put Pickle in her room for some quiet time. She hadn't blown out her diaper yet, but I forgot that part.
Meanwhile, Jayden decided to play the "shit head" card and got sent to his room. I left him up there to think about all the things that he had done wrong. He was up there for 30 minutes before I went up to have the talk… you know the talk that starts out with, "I love you dearly, but sometimes I don't like you…." When I was in the middle of the conversation Shaylee started pounding on the door. I could tell by her knock and her hysteria that something big was going down.
This is the recap.
"Mom I am going to kill Brylee. She pooped in her diaper, took it off, threw it in the tub, sat her poopy butt on the toilet, with the lid down, and attempted to wipe her butt with the toilet paper that she has now strung all over the room!…"
She paused and took a breath
"…and when I went in the room, I found her naked under my bed laughing her ass off."
Sorry Shay, I am in the middle of disciplining Jayden, you are going to have to deal with this.
and for a split second I was grateful Jayden was being a monster!
….and this house is freakishly quiet and empty.
I need more kids I think.
The Benson boys returned home to Utah tonight. We had a PERFECT visit with them. Of all the times they have come to CA and all the times we have visited them in Utah, this was hands down the very best, the very easiest, visit. I don't know why. Maybe enough time has passed that now being a step mom is easy and unemotional. Maybe it's because we have a bigger house and nobody got displaced or moved out of their own bed. Maybe it's because the boys are getting older and less needy and less clingy. I don't know what it was, but I can't wait for them to come down again. There was ZERO drama, and ZERO conflict. Not once did it feel like YOURS, MINE, AND OURS! It was just FAMILY! YAY for US! YAY for ME.
Okay, I had a good cry after writing that little paragraph. I am truly grateful for the time we had with them. I am truly grateful for the healing that has taken place.
I have to share a few more pictures of the boys because their mom and Grandma read my blog and like to see pictures of the kids. However, they don't necessarily like looking at pictures of my boob so I have been told… but to each her own.
Hi Christine!!
Hi Becky!!
Sorry about your sunburned children. I am not used to having white kids that fry in the sunshine.
*******************************************
Our friends from Utah went home tonight too. We really need to make some friends in Orange County don't we?
Jodi showed up with her tweezers to dig the rest of my stitches out. I love friends. She did a great job. She had all of them out until this morning when I was in the shower and a huge stitch popped out of my nipple. Jodi told me not to pull on it because they could "unzip my incisions." Believe you me, I didn't pull on it after that little comment, (Can you imagine unzipping your nipple?) instead I made her do a little more snipping this morning. I owe her big time for working on vacation.
I sent Jodi home with strict instructions on sending the candy I needed from Utah. She is going to overnight me some sugar ASAP. I am still trying to figure out how to get a salad from Wingers down here. Any Utah readers flying to Orange County in the near future?Email me.
I have more company coming down next week. Yes, they are also from Utah. Only Utah people understand this insanity and want to hang with it. I am counting down the days until Tara and her four kids arrive. The only person more excited than me to see them is Ty. He loves company. More people to charm, wallets to go through, and cards to collect.
Speaking of cards..
They are everywhere. He doesn't leave them in his wallet anymore. He carries them loose in his pockets and he takes them out to look at them twenty times an hour and he leaves a little trail of plastic behind him. It's making me CRAZY!
***********************************************
Yesterday I went to LA with Suzanne to meet Jason. We had lunch at The Grove. It was a blast. Suzanne is a local blogger and lives ten minutes away from me…. But I met her in Chicago. Thank you BlogHer for bringing us two Orange County girls together. I adore Suzanne. She needs to come over and play with me more often.
You may remember that I went with Suzanne to see Ree at her book signing in LA. It was there that we got talking religion and I shared my rant about Prop 8 and the Mormon Church. She asked if I read Jason. She told me he was a former Mormon and that I had to go straight home and read his story, and I did and I am so glad. Jason is AWESOME! We speak the same language and grew up in the same area. It was FUN to talk church with somebody that understood.
I look exhausted in the picture. I can't even blame the traffic, or LA, or walking The Grove, because before I even walked out my door at 9:45 AM, my housekeeper said, "Are you okay? You look exhausted."
"Well, shit. I'm not okay now, because I clearly look wiped out and it's nine flipping thirty in the morning and I am meeting friends for lunch."
She pretended she didn't speak english and started washing my windows.
**************************************
In other news, Shaylee is doing much better after her wisdom teeth removal. She puked her guts out on Monday, took a sleeping pill that night, (which was provided by our Utah visitors) and felt much better today. She is still puffy and tender but not puking and not taking pain pills.
***********************************
Bronson and Heather haven't been seen since Friday. Yesterday, my dad had me convinced that they probably got into a knock-down drag-out fight and killed each other. I called five times before that little shit answered. I had his whole effing funeral planned. They are fine, they just have no reason to talk to me, or hang out with me, they are doing their own thing…. things that mothers don't need to be involved in.
**********************************
The sixth grade boys have successfully completed three weeks of summer school in the same classroom and haven't had too many problems. No fights at least. I am hopeful this continues.
**********************************
Last but not least…
Thank you all for hanging in there with me through all the pictures and very little writing while we were entertaining and being entertained. I will be back to regular blogging tomorrow.
*****************************************
I am blessed!
Do you all know how lucky I am?
I truly have an amazing life and I am so grateful to be living my dream. I am surrounded by people I love. I hate to always sit here and bitch and moan when my life is full of amazing happiness! But when I feel this way, so full of happiness I could burst, I get scared, like this is too good to be true, or something horrible is bound to happen. I want to just enjoy this feeling and not think I am going to die of a brain tumor tomorrow or my kids are going to get hit by a car, because this joy is fabulous. Maybe it's just Wellbutrin. maybe it's filling me with happiness and making me a little paranoid in the process. Who knows, but right now, at this very moment, I am bursting at the seems with LOVE!
I hope I don't die in my sleep.
11
Jul
week in pictures (part two)
This is Brandon's oldest son, Hunter. He happens to be the same age as my Hunter. He plays the guitar like his dad.
I lined up the Benson Boys for this picture…. Ellie couldn't figure out why she wasn't in the picture, so I sat her next to Hunter.
She had no clue she wasn't in the photo.
She smiled on the count of three just like the rest of them. She is so much fun!
Brandon's second oldest, Spencer. He is Hadley's age. He wears himself out daily in the pool and with the babies.
Ty and Grandpa on the tandem.
We have friends visiting from Utah again. (I am loving the company) The Jeff and Jodi Jones family came down to play with us for a few days. We went to the beach and Scooters Jungle today.
While we were at the beach the kids found two starfish. They made them a home in a beach pail so we could watch them for a few hours.
Jazzi and Emily saying good-bye to their starfish. They set them free before we left.
