Muppets and Potty Training...

So the time has come that I have to try to, at least, start steering Ryan towards using the toilet.  I'm not one of those moms that is sad or down about this because it means he is growing up.  I just have absolutely no patience for this at this exact moment in my life.  I would rather just keep changing diapers.  Its predictable and quite frankly, I am really good at it.  We have had a bit of success with peeing in his little potty, but we all know that pee diapers aren't the problem.  Right???
The thing with Ryan, is that he could care less if his diaper is dirty.  He would sit in that thing all day long.  This doesn't seem to be the case with Corey.  He fusses the minute he is soiled.  But we will talk about that in the not so distant future.  Because he is a boy and that could change at any moment.
I was shopping for Ryan's birthday present the other day and I stumbled across something that combined mine and Ryan's latest obessession.  It's a dvd called, "Elmo Potty Time!"  I was like Dang!  Who knew muppets crapped???  So I scooped it up and paid $10 in hopes that Elmo could do what mommy hasn't been able to do.  Get Ryan in the bathroom.  Stay tuned to see if Elmo has anymore luck than I did.

God spoke to me this morning.  Now for anyone that knows me, I don't go around subscribing to this kind of stuff.  It's not that I don't believe in this.  I believe we all have what we need internally, we just need to find the solutions and it isn't going to be as simple as a deep voice from above.  For the first time in my life, I am in the midst of a journey.  A journey that is testing everything about who I am and will ultimately change who i a becoming.  Nothing quick or easy about it.  This has been hard.  This has been lonely.  This has been very very painful.  I read a ton a half dozen blogs everyday.  They give me insight from the best diaper deals to the struggles of being a mom.  Today, I visited one of my favorites and began reading about how mothers in the mormon faith have a true devotion to their kids and how they see it as a calling by God.  This got me thinking about how present or not present, I have been in the last few months.  Just surviving isn't good enough but it is also where I am.  There are only two things that right now can snap me out of self pity and the crying jags that I seem to go on.  One is Ryan and one is Corey... 
There is something very pure about a conversation with a 3 year old and even more so how those conversations get clearer over night.  Oh, and having an infant.  Well there is no time for any pity when your feeding, burping, changing, and wiping spit up off your shirt.  Often, I do all of these with tears in my eyes.
So?  You ask what God said to me?  Well while watching a video about a mom who had been badly burned in a crash a huge wave of emotions came over me.  She said "She just knew that everything would be okay."  Suddenly.  I knew too...

Lost AND Found...

After a week of contemplating it and watching the final episode twice, I am happy to say, that I am still, happy with the ending of LOST.  I know that lots and lots of viewers were disappointed.  Wanting all the questions of "the island" answered.  But that my friends, was never what this show was about.  LOST was about being okay with the unanswered questions and in the end realizing, that the show was never about the island in the first place.  I could go into all my theories here.  All about how the island was a metaphor for all the twists and turns that life throws at us.  The crap that tests our faith and makes us wonder if there really is a plan. Or if we are just flailing around, hoping to survive.  This show was about people and their connection.  If you felt that from the beginning well then, LOST never confused you and you never needed it explained to you on Wednesday morning.  You accepted each episode.  Without question and without worry.  You had faith.  If it never quite was there for you.  Well then you were living a Jack Shepard life in a John Locke world.  (tsk tsk)
I believe in the journey.  I believe that every moment of everything is a means to get there.  Notice that I didn't say end?  I have never believed in an end.  I started watching this show five years ago.  Right before what was the biggest turning point in my life. (plane crash)  I started going with the flow at that time.  Knowing that I needed to let life guide me or I was going to be swallowed up.  (smoke monster)  I made my choice and chose to survive.  I did things, that I am still being told, weren't the right things.  (leaving the island)  Only to find out it was exactly what I needed to lead me back. (Ajira 316)
Revelation.  Acceptance.  Redemption.  Letting go...
I am not at all sad that LOST is over.  Everything is over eventually and we move on to the next thing.  Its the unanswered questions that kill us in the end.  They make us tired and they make us worry.  Where are we going and when will we get there?  Am I making the right choices and will the people that I want there, be there?  No matter your beliefs.  No matter where you come from.  You can't argue that we are all connected.  Everything is effected by who we are, good and bad.  It may not be logical to think this way.  But faith.  Faith makes us human.  Faith makes us believe there has to be an answer, even with out it being clear and even with out ever seeing it. 
I am sorry if some loyal viewers weren't happy with the ending or didn't get it.  But ask yourself.  Did you ever get it fully?  I knew that lots of people didn't get it by the blank stares, I sometimes got when trying to compare the show to great literary works or obscure philosophers.  Yep.  I am a nerd.  But I am connected to a lot of random things that I read.
Lastly.  Hats off to great writing and even better acting.  I mean come on.  These actors will probably be type cast for years to come.  Amazing.  And even if the show didn't give you the big pay off in the end that it gave me.  It successfully had you coming back.  It made an hour of TV seem like 10 minutes and just like everything in pop culture these days, it took on a life of its own.  I personally love the hoopla surrounding something that really is left up for interpretation.  LOST was about people.  It was a character driven show and the "island" was just one of the characters.  Not unlike other characters that were left unresolved, the island was left unresolved.  Hurley stayed behind, perhaps there is another thousand years of story there.  Waiting to be told.  Maybe his consequences sunk the island?  Okay to deep?  Not the first time that I have been accused of that.  Hey!  At least I won't have to try and explain it anymore.  But in life.  Our world is so inconsequential to what is really important.  Our tangible world  is just a character not the answer or just the setting. 
The journey of LOST moves on and now I can only hope that my latest journey is coming to an end.  I definitely feel like I have come to a clearing, but I am not out of the woods yet.  Yeah.  I could pray for someone to come rescue me and be whisked off to safety.  But no one is coming.  I have to rescue myself...

See ya in another life, brotha....

Namaste

I realized today that I probably post and respond WAY to much on Facebook.  This is solely the fault of my handy dandy "smartphone" that my husband insists that I have.  So if you are the the recipient of my posts or comments?  I'm sorry.  But know this.  I love you and find an amazing amount of happiness, in knowing your happy...

xoxo

I sit here this morning really down.  What a fine line we walk as parents between making a decision based on financial security and emotional happiness.  Chris and I are so frustrated that we can hardly speak.  After wasting our time with a buyer that obviously had no intentions of paying what we need for our house, we are faced with the huge reality that we might be fooling ourselves to think we can get out of this with anything extra.  I regret nothing. (Well maybe the Dairy Queen Blizzard, that I had yesterday out of depression.)  We would be be in the exact same position if Chris had never appled for his promotion.  Staying here for him would have meant a big cut in pay and the risk of a very unhappy man.  So on we went.  He left and I stayed behind.  To have a baby, to wrangle a 2 year old, to sell a house, and miss what was our perfect little family.  We are faced with so many questions today?  Questions that, from watching the news, I know we are not alone in making.  When is enough enough?  Will we know when to throw in the towel and just take what we can and run?  Is it okay to go from owning a great house to renting an okay one, so we can be together?  There is a lot in the news right now about people having nothing.  I mean being bankrupt, no money.  We did what we needed to make sure we didn't go under.  And we are now staring at the fact that we may have to start over.  Everyone is struggling right now.  Everyone...

This whole moving thing has been horrible.  In fact, I have been living in a perpetual vacuum that last few weeks.  Doing nothing but obsessing about moving and crying for Chris.  Its not really that deep of a funk.  But unbearable for me.  None the less.  I say everyday.  "Blogging will help me.  Blogging is therapeutic!!!"  But I just don't do it.  F it!!  I'm back and I will try to stay engaged.  HELLO OUT THERE!!!!  DOES ANYONE READ THIS!!

Your full of it...

Being the mother of two in diapers, 3 dogs, and 2 cats, (I know.  I know.  WTH?) has brought tremendous amounts of poo into my life.  I mean seriously, we should start a fertilizer company.