progress report 4/9/09

i just wrote a very clever post and now it is erased. I'm sad.

what glue?

I have just come unglued at my children. both of them. Simultaneously. Now I have that guilt where I want to chop my face off and pour lemons all over it.
They're just soo.......
so......
ahhhhhhhrrrrggghghhh.

Just humor me.

Dellah now says things to Ruby like, "I wish you were never born" and "if you don't give me that toy I'm leaving you and never coming back".

she's 4.

NOBODY told me preschool and high school produced the same attitude problems.
So then there's Ruby who Heavenly Father actually spoke to before coming to our house and gave her some uncanny ability to care more about others than she does about herself (probly to safeguard her against all the animiocity people feel towards her for crying and whining 90% of her existence). Her mind thinks like this....'dellah is sad...there is something I can do to help her....by jove, I'm going to do whatever it takes to make her happy!' 'dellah wants the Belle paper doll because she just tore the arm off of the Cinderella paper doll that she was pouting about having to play with in the first place and she already has a Belle paper doll but with plastic clothes instead of magnetic ones so I guess she really wants mine...I'll take the Cinderella with one arm like Dellah is telling me to and be happy with that because I am an angel and I worship a false god named Dellah.
'
heartbreaking really.

So, of course, the equality activist that I am does not allow me to watch this injustice 2 feet from me and not make a comment something like, "who in the world do you think you are? if you went to school and acted like this no one would want to be your friend. Ruby is a better friend to you than you are to her and you never ever ever ever ever think of anyone but yourSELF! when Jesus sees things like this He feels so sad because he always thought of others...." that's right, I threw the Jesus card out there. 'what happened to the Dellah that used to be so fun to be around? you're just grumpy and pouty and mean! why are you mean?!"

I just can't understand that much selfishness. It's about everything. snacks, toys, movie choices, pajama choices and Ruby always lets Dellah win. I feel it is my duty to make Dellah understand that nobody else but Ruby will ever be that cowtow-ing to her, especially not me.
Dellah has mad talents and qualities that I admire but this stinky trait almost overpowers them all.
Then of course after I played Ruby's advocate it was time for quiet time so I asked them to help clean up the paper dolls and put them in their respective places. Dellah helped because Dellah always is helpful and Ruby sat and ignored me and sang and played and laughed at me when I told her more firmly (almost yelling but not yet...) to stop wallowing on the carpet and come help clean her mess....
she kept laughing and at that point I did what any prideful, self-important, unhumble, lame parent would do....
"OH NO YOU DI'IN JUST LAUGH IN MY FACE WHILE I'M TRYING TO TALK TO YOU, STAND UP AND GET OVER HER RIIIIGGGHHHTT NOWWWWWW! RUUUUBBYYYY....RIIIIGHHHT NOWWWWW!

i suck. I should know that at 2:30 every day we need to disburse to our own rooms before the carriage is a pumpkin and we all fall apart.
I should get that they are small and they want to see what all they can get away with and let them live and have consequences quietly given to them with a calm, unfeeling voice filled with remorse for their bad choices and what must now come to pass....I should be Claire Huckstable but i am just erin.
I get it.
it's just so hard to doooooooooo!

moving on.
I got $130 of groceries at Albertson's today for $57. I saved something like $70 with coupons and in store promotions. I even got a five dollar shopping voucher for buying 5 boxes of our favorite cereal....
in sane.
there is a high associated with buying cheep food very much akin to the high achieved by finding Oilily or Catimini or Petit Batteau at DI for $1....scarily similar and one might even say, more productive on the whole than buying clothing for children that i so obviously am yet to conceive and probably shouldn't even think about because of the caliber of mom-ness I am currently producing...everyone has to eat, right?
All of this coupon saving has almost inspired me to want to cook things.
at least I have a list of things I would ideally like to cook this next week if all goes well.....which it sometimes doesn't....
now it's on to Target for more funtimesavings and inevitable things for myself that always hop into Target carts unannounced but not uninvited.

"Terrible mother saves big money at the grocery!"

I know that's not gonna fly with saint Peter. i got to pray just to make it to day...please Hammer don't hurt um...

catrachos

Hondurans are called 'Catrachos' and Costa Ricans are called 'ticos', Guatemalans are called 'Chapines' .....i don't even know why. what are Americans called?....jerky? fat? crass? smelly? we should think of another little charming word that the world can refer to us by.....cantcatchus?, toocuties? or just go the route of the central Americans and have a nonsense word...rarakis?
I ponder these things as I sit in front of my large television beside my husband who is extremely enamored by soccer as per his Mexican-ness. Mexico is playing Honduras. I love me some Honduras so it's a bit of a toss up here. Mother land of my husband or mission land of my corazon....
it's all fun and games until the game actually starts and then it's like, 'there he went....que te vaya bien...you could try to talk to him about something or ask for his help (if you were his child) and he would appear to be in the room with you but he is actually playing soccer on a far away grassy field called 'winding down after work'
Upon sensing that I must have been complaining about his inattention to mountain standard time to the great void, Gabriel just leaned over and gave me a smooch and said, "this shows you how much i love you, Mexico is playing and I am looking at you"
that's over now. Honduras just scored and there were several technical mistakes that now have to be illuminated.....and he thinks their uniforms are not cool because they have an H on them because they are from Honduras....even though H's as a rule are silent and not pronounced at all in Spanish....

moving on.
I have recently begun to think that I should be saving hundreds of dollars a month to spend on myself by becoming undeniably and heartbreakingly frugal and coupon-ish and responsible with the money I get bi-weekly....i have found a new obsession.....clipping along the little dotted lines of the little coupons with some really sharp scissors.....sccccchhhhhp, sccccccchhhhpp......so beautiful....and then there are the little newsprint ones where your scissors slide when they're in that perfect open-ness position and you just feel so efficient....so productive....so frugal!!!
I'm in my pajamas from yesterday at 8pm today and I never left the house and I didn't clean anything although I did make some dinner (in the rice cooker)....
i did clip coupons though, people. I made serious plans to be very financially responsible in the coming days....Barbies are 50% off at KMart and Crayola is buy one get one free at ToysRUs.....you know, just the staples....bare essentials for these hard times....
Nordstrom Rack opens tomorrow 5 minutes from my front door.
there are bright spots in the haze...

I seemed to have remembered that 'Farewell My Concubine' was a pretty, while tragic, film from my days with the International cinema at BYU that was worth the while.....yeah....I'm lucky there weren't any straight razors or revolvers around when that got over. and no it's not naughty you naughty people...that's the name of a famous Peking opera like 'Carmen' or something for us.

The movie that was pretty stunning visually is new to Blockbuster this week called, Azur and Asmar the Prince's Quest...it's animated and rated PG (although there are some animated boobies breastfeeding some animated babies in the beginning but who hasn't seen that in reality?) that was a seriously beautiful little movie.

ummm...it's 2 to 0 and Honduras is ahead so we've changed the channel and I should probably interface with my spouse.