MWF: Seeks sanity and peace...

For those of you who don't know me and haven't bothered to read my bio, I am a married mommy of four children - two natural born and two that I've known since 2002 that came to live with me in 2008.   I have a full time high pressure job as a purchasing agent for a large food manufacturer.  My four children range in age from 11 to 17.  They all have outside sports activities (for school and more) that keep me in my car after work until around 8.  On the weekends after attending Little League games/Track Meets/Cheer Leading competitions, I also help out at my daughters' cheer leading gym every week to help off set the cost of tuition.  On top of all this, I also grocery shop, do 80% of the cooking, 40% of the cleaning, manage everyone's schedule and even pay the bills when I have the money.  I update this blog on occasion too.

I'd like to say that this makes me super woman.  I would like to say that this is something special, but the honest to God truth is that there are millions of women out there just like me, who do the same thing day in and day out - hell, they might even do more than me!  (Not that it happens often, but it could.)

"Oh now, just wait a minute," all you guys say at this point.  "Don't I treat you good?  Don't I work hard and still take out the garbage?  I even pick up my socks!"

Look, I'm not downing you guys in this blog.  Yes, you do a fabulous job taking out the garbage/drinking a beer/mowing the lawn/drinking a beer/starting the BBQ/drinking a beer/fixing the pipe that's been leaking for years... and on and on.  Good job.  I am, (as I'm sure all of your significant others are) very, very proud of you!

(Pat on the head here.)

All I'm trying to say is that we, as women, do just as much if not more and rarely get the credit we should.  I mean, there should be a hall of fame just for us!  Real true to life super heroes cast in wax with giant plaques below stating how after the mortgage crash of 2008 we not only kept our jobs (and our migraines) but managed to use coupons and the internet to save us $400 per month in groceries, all the while finding time to keep our appearance up for our husband/boyfriend/significant other.  Now that's true heroism in my book.

With that, I will step down off of my soap box.  My youngest just came down the stairs and can't sleep (it is storming outside) and I need to make sure his fears are quelled.

Just another day in my crazy, insane life.

Just another hole in the wall...

I must have watched Pink Floyd's "The Wall" a few hundred times in the course of my life, but until today, I don't think I've ever truly understood it.  For the longest time I thought it was the plight of a boy raised in a war torn country and the fight to hold onto sanity even as the last bricks of insanity were caging him in... WRONG!

Turns out "The Wall" refers to exactly what it says - in my case, the tiled bathroom wall of my upstairs shower in what we refer to as the "kids bathroom".  It was once whole and held waves of water (or at least large splashes) at bay from more important parts of the structure like drywall, insulation and wall beams.  It's carefully sealed tiles kept it's occupants warm and safe from spiders and ants that are constantly looking for a way in. I do live in an older home, but I'm sure that wall could have stood for another ten years if I didn't have children.

(Now don't get me wrong, I love all four of my brats, but when they are home alone after school it seems that all of them are capable of some ultimate stupidities.)

So after a long day of work, kids, grocery store, and dinner making, I find out that a giant hole has magically appeared in the wall of the shower.  Now this is not a small "oops" hole, but a large "holy-crap-that-hurt" hole.  Not only did someone break through six tiles, but the drywall behind it as well.  A cocker spaniel would easily fit through this new shower entrance, should one happen to be hanging out nearby.  According to all of my children (ages nine thru seventeen), nobody saw or heard a thing.  One admitted chasing another into the bathroom, one admitted to being in the bathroom, one said he was yelling at the other two to shut up and one admitted he was totally oblivious with his headphones on playing WOW.  Out of four reasonably intelligent children, not one knows what happened!  I even had one child suggest that "Maybe nobody did it.  Things just happen sometimes, you know..."

(Yes, and pigs fly and I'm going to win the lotto and my son is going to MIT - are you kidding me?!!)

I can now see parallels in what Pink Floyd was trying to convey and the insanity I felt cursing through every brain receptor.  I know in my head that yes, someone did it and I'm even fairly certain of who, but can I punish without proof?!  There was nobody to witness, there was no hard evidence!  There wasn't a child hinting at blame to another.  I watch Law and Order - had I gone to trial, I would have lost!  The insanity of it all makes me dizzy as I realize that my beautiful, loving children are slowly breaking me - they are turning the lessons of logit I taught them to their own advantage - they are poking holes in my mommy bubble!!

It is at this point, just before the blackness closes in, that I take a deep breath and pour myself a glass of wine.  I am determined to rebuild my mommy bubble, but until such time my finances can stretch to re-tile the shower, it will be with Visqueen and duct tape.  Not the prettiest fix, but that is their problem.  It is after all, just another hole in the wall.  :)

Time goes by so fast... Vancouver in Whirlwind-Vision

Certain things make you feel old.  Not just the general feeling of waking up a little bit more achy than you did yesterday, but things that put the exclamation point in your ailing knee, or the extra "slight gray" in your hair-  there are things that drive home that not only are you older than you were yesterday, but you are infinitely older than you ever pictured yourself in your teen years.  Viewing the pictures of all my kids in this Blog made me feel that old, but looking at the time progression of Jade and Forrest between the two pictures in front of the same fountain five years apart I think effected me deeply.  My children have gone from small, cute and slightly niave, to tall, confident and slightly sexy.  This really drives home the fact that I have aged just as much as they, in what seems such a short amount of time.

I must say, though I am taking it in stride, I can definitively say that I am not one to go "quietly into the night."  I will, in most certainty, fight the aging process with every tool I have.  It started in Canada during my daughters' cheer trip with a trip to Capilano Bridge.  I am incredibly afraid of heights in my "old age" and though I may have skipped across this bridge as a ten year old, I now faced it with fear and loathing.  I did walk across it (though in a very hurried fashion with no stops to take pictures) along with several other smaller suspended walkways and I am feeling younger for it already.  Just the first step of many... I hope.

Anyway - I hope you enjoy the pictures of our trip to Jade and Lily's cheer competition and the one adventure we had time for.  AND, if you have any tips for turning back the clock, please let me know.  :)

Love,

Shannon

Yep - we were definitely not in Kansas anymore...

Beautiful day in Vancouver BC.

Time Travel:  Jade and Forrest at the International Sea To Sky cheer competition 2007. 

Jade and Forrest, again in front of the same fountain, at the S2S Competition in 2012.  Not so little anymore...

All of my children in front of the fountain of lost youth...

I got it... I think... Talis - help me out man...

I'm just along for the ride - this cheer stuff is really boooorrring...

Oh!  I got it!  I got it!  Take the picture now!

Talis as a fountain...

Talis-Forrest Fountain

Forrest as a Fountain

I almost deleted this from the  blog, but Jade reminds me of that girl from The Ring here...

Success!!!

Sisterly love...

Talis:  What the h#ll are they doing??

I don't remember what the girls called this pose, but I call it "Dork by Design"

"Ok, I posed for some pictures, can we go home NOW?"

Jadey's team.  Third place finish - GoForce!

First time in Canada - TOURIST!!!

Justen thought the gas station in the middle of the bay was way cool...

Giant pile of sulfur.  Though I don't understand the significance I posted the pic for my honey.

City view from the Convention Center

KathyAnn, Jadey and Taylor - I love these girls!!!

Last Day in Vancouver:

Capilano Suspension Bridge, Vancouver, BC.  Beautiful  area, but heights are just not my thing...

Yep - this one is definitely going in the Christmas picture book...

Waiting on the boys...

My eldest children

The Girls

My youngest - He's so cute...

Have I told you that I'm deathly afraid of heights???

The kids and Hubby had no problem "sauntering" across the bridge.

Entrance to the tree linked suspension bridges - these weren't as high and I  managed to cross all without a pill or shot of whiskey...

Such cutie pies - now if only they didn't talk...

Entrance to the Cliff Walk - This picture was taken right as my children were telling me that if I didn't follow they would come back and push me across.

Yep - I crossed that!!  Yay me!

Jade and Forrest posing on the glass bottom view point...

I must say it took some coaxing to get me to do it, but I did walk out and pose for a picture.  I received applause from no less than 12 tourists after this pic was taken as I ran to the safety of the wooden walkway...

Pictures just don't do it justice...

Finally on our way home...

Lil and Jadey working off some pent up energy in the middle of the freeway while we were stuck on the pass for an hour... (no children were harmed in the taking of this picture - we all made it home safe and sound)