Digging for Gold

Sometimes I do things I am not so proud of. Sometimes I do things that I am so proud of that I want to shout it out to anyone who can hear me. And some times I do things I am not proud of, but still want to tell people about. This one falls under the third of these categories.

This is going to be a story about my middle daughter, Izzy. Izzy is a very special little girl. She loves to sing and wear bathing suits even when she is not going swimming. She likes to color and watch t.v. She hates going to bed and listing to anything I tell her to do or not to do. This one, again, falls under the third of these categories.

Like I said, Izzy hates to listen, and the most difficult of all, neither punishment nor reward convinces her to do what she has been told to do. She either wants to do it, or she wont. She doesn't like to be spanked, but she gets them anyway, and then continues to misbehave. She likes to get a toy at the dollar store, but not more than she likes to do whatever she wants to do.

Izzy is the most loving of my children. She wants to hug and cuddle, give you kisses, and praise you for things. She is the most considerate of my feelings and the things I need from her. But.... She doesn't really care about her older sisters feelings or just the general rules of sanitation. ( You are starting to catch on now, huh?)

Izzy picks her nose. She picks in the store, she picks on the floor, she picks in the car, she picks near and far. She wipes it on the seat, she wipes it on her sisters feet, she wipes it on the floor, she wipes it on the door. We have insisted she use a tissue when she picks her nose. We have tried supplying tissues at every location in the house, spanking her, praising her, sticking her in her room, telling her she is going to make her nose bleed, etc. Nothing has worked. She wants to pick her nose and put it on things.

Last night she picked her nose and wiped it on her sister's blankie. And thats when I did it. I sat her in her bed, put my finger in my nose, then wiped it on her. She looked at me with a disgusted look on her face and I told her. " Now you understand why you need to use a tissue. This is gross."

It has been less than 24 hours but I haven't seen her finger in her nose.

"Why aren't you wearing a bra?"

As a mom of 3 I have virtually no privacy. I go to the bathroom, someone walks in. I take a shower, Emma screams at the curtain until she gets to come in. I lock the door, someone bangs on it until I open it up.

I also get very little sleep. Izzy wakes up about 4 times a night and every time she wakes me up. Gwiny wakes up 2 times a night and every time she wakes me up. Emma. Well she is my only good sleeper. Averaging 1 wake up a month. Last night was the best I have gotten in a long time 3 times being woken up in a 7 hour period. The worst 9 times in 7 hours, that was last Saturday.

Sometimes the two of these things couple up and get the best of me. Resulting in a very grumpy mama. Here is how one of my talks with Izzy went last night:

I had just stepped out of the shower that at one point all three of the girls had been in the bathroom. Here comes Izzy again " Why arn't you wearing a bra? Me: " Cause I just got out of the shower, why aren't you wearing one?" Izzy : " Cause I don't have big boobs, I have little ones."

And thats how it goes with three daughters.

My last couple posts have been mostly about me. But this blog is not supposed to be mostly about me, it is supposed to be about my girls and my relationships with each of them. So today I am going to show you how many crazy things we do and say. So here is a little sample:

Izzy has been unbuckling her seat belt and today I decided she needed to be spanked. So we re-buckled and I told her she would be spanked when she got home. She worried and worried all the way home. When we got home and I took her out of her seat Gwin says to her " Just pretend you're at the beach and you just got a little bug that stings your butt." I had to hide my smile because I thought it was so sweet.

"Izzy, stop wiping your boogers on your car seat. Here is a tissue."

Izzy after eating a whole king size m&m in one sitting. ( I tried to take it away but couldn't reach because she was in the back of the car) " My tummy hurts. You shouldn't have gotten me the King size. I need a Princess size."

Emma: " Mama, Mama, Mama, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mama, Mama, Mama. Puppy"

Me: " Don't cry Gwiny. He doesn't mean to hurt your feelings. You hurt his and maybe you should say sorry." ( as a side note, it never helps to tell a little girl with hurt feelings that they may have done the same. It just makes them cry more.)

Husband: " Izzy just asked me why boys and girls are different. I told her to ask you." Thankfully she forgot. I guess I better practice my answer for when she remembers.

Gwin crying: " I don't want to wash my hair." Me: " I don't care, get your stinky butt in the shower."

Emma: "Mama, Mama, Mama. Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, woof, woof, woof, puppy, puppy. Meow"

Me: "Emma, I know I wanted you to say mama, but can you give it a rest."

Recharged

When I last left off, 2 months ago, I was on a quest to find myself. I am proud to tell you I have both failed and succeeded at this task. I wouldn't call it a disaster of epic proportions, but a disaster none the less.

I started by deciding to become a cake designer. I made a couple cool cakes, but I am no Buddy.

I tried my hand at vacation planning. I scored four, 4 day tickets to Disney World and 3 nights in a hotel off property that provided breakfast for a total of $820.

I tried extreme-couponing. I bought Tangled 4 disc combo pack for a little over $6, bought a pair of jeans for $1.24, saved over $90 on my grocery bill, and even found a coupon on my recipt at Disney and saved 10% on our entire souvener purchase.

I tried laying in my bathtub drinking apple wine.

That is until I was interupted by x, y, or z.

And after all of these attempts at finding what was right for me. I realized that I am good at all of these things. Good, not great. And in the end I realized that all of these things have something in common, they are things that make for a good mother and a good wife.

And because I don't like to be that sappy, I would just like to end with one of my recent Izzy quotes. " I can't eat my dinner tonight." Me: "why?" Izzy: "Because I don't have any teeth." My husband " Really, your gonna go with no teeth?" Izzy curling her lips around her teeth. " Yep, I don't have any teeth so I can't eat this food I don't like."