My Sore Arm...and Detroit and Chicago....

Storms were all around us last night and for the second night in a row, I didn't get much sleep so am heading up early tonight. Fortunately everything passed north and south of us and we had no damage.  
Figured I'd share a quick story first.
Spent a good part of the day trying to figure out why my left arm is so sore.  Feels like I worked out yesterday but it's only the left and not the right arm.  I keep touching and poking and twisting and turning it to see where it is most sore and it finally hit me.  I went shopping yesterday morning at a thrift store half off sale.
You have to get there early or you don't get the best stuff.  You also don't get a buggy (not sure why if I'm in the thrift store or Target it's a buggy but at the grocery it is a cart.)  
I arrived 2 minutes after they opened. All buggies were gone! No big deal I figured, I'm just there to get some shorts for my boys.  As I pulled them off the rack I threw them over my left arm.  19 pairs of shorts later, my arm felt like it was going to break and I headed up to the registers to see if anyone was checking out. Unfortunately only one person was and there were 3 people waiting on buggies, so I went back to shopping.  As I got to the end of the rack, one of the store employees who had been gathering empty buggies just happened to be walking by and asked if I needed one.  Which meant that I could spend another hour in the store! That's about all I could handle.  Between the woman who was talking to herself as she jerked men's plaid shorts off the hangers and held them up to herself to see if they would fit and the woman who was letting her son sit in the floor in the middle of the aisle playing with toys while her daughter rammed the stroller into the clothes racks and the smooshed banana and cookie crumbs all over the floor, I was ready to go.  20 pairs of shorts, 14 t-shirts, a sundress, and half an upper body workout for $65.  Definitely worth it.
11:00...see told ya I was going to bed early!
Edit 11:05...my boys took the Social Studies portion of the CRCT today.  I asked 14 year old Twin B how it went.  He said part was easy and part was hard.  I asked if there was anything about Detroit and Chicago on the test.  He said "no, but guess what? Detroit and Chicago are both cities!" Yes! Finally he's got it. He then went on to tell me "yeah Chicago is in Colorado."  Ok, so maybe he needs some more lessons.
And I need to go to bed.

And the Diagnosis is.....

Friday afternoon, 45 minutes before the boys' dad was to pick them up, my 8yo began moaning and groaning and complaining of stomach pain. Spending time on the potty and burping didn't seem to be helping and I knew if I sent him to his dad's that way I would never hear the end of it.  So 15 minutes before scheduled pick up time I sent dad a text, left the other boys with oldest ds to await dad's arrival and headed out to the immediate med center with my youngest.  Amazingly, there are no other patients at 6pm on a Friday evening.  We went right back and by 6:15 had a diagnosis.  
Appendicitis? Nope. 
Food Poisoning? Nope. 
Stomach Virus? Nope......
Constipation!  Yep, my 8 year old who had informed me an hour before that he had gone "number 2" after school both Thursday and Friday afternoon admitted to the nurse-practitioner that he hadn't actually gone in a week!
She gave him a laxative, he went to his dad's, pooped, and is all better!

17

I was all set to write about our appendicitis scare last night until I woke up this morning to a slew of emails from my boys' father.  17 to be exact.  He and I don't have one of those friendly relationships you hear about some ex-spouses having.  I guess if we could still be friends after 18 years of marriage, we'd probably still be married.
He spent last night reading 2+ years of my Facebook profile. He doesn't like some of the things I've said on there and he's threatening to use it against me because I'm friends with my kids and they can read my profile.  He can read it because he has the kids' account information and used it to log into their accounts and read mine.  I'm not sure my kids would stay up until 5am and take the time to repeatedly click on "older posts" just to see what I've said over the past 3 years but guess you never know.  
I'm scanning back through to see if i said anything really bad.  I don't know why I'm doing this.  I don't have time for it and it isn't going to accomplish anything.  I'm not really worried about it, but I guess I am or I wouldn't be doing it. I should probably stop reading but I wanna remember what all I've said because he has misread or misunderstood or just plain made some stuff up.  
OK, I made it back almost a year.  I'm tired and have gotten nothing accomplished today....but I did enjoy "reliving" the past year.  Somehow I doubt my ex enjoyed it quite as much.
Oh yeah, My 8year old had a horrible stomach ache last night to the point that he was in tears clutching his stomach.  So I loaded him into the van and headed off to urgent care.  About halfway there after burping about 50 times he announced "I feel much better now, we can turn around." And so we did.  

Waiting for the school to call

It's been a rough couple of weeks around here....actually it's been a rough few years but things were getting better for a while...  
Dropped the boys off at school and then held back tears all the way home.  
Twin A was angry because he thinks Twin B took his pants and did something with them so he has decided that he is going to "Christmas Tree" his CRCT today.  Also being in the mood he was when I dropped him off and being the impulsive child that he is, I would not be surprised if he ends up getting in trouble in school today.  
So I have showered and put on decent clothes and makeup so I'll be ready if the principal calls and needs me to come up to the school.  
You know how it never rains when you remember to bring your umbrella?  I'm hoping it'll work like that and nothing will happen since I'm prepared.  Oh wait, does just saying (typing?) that out loud make it not work? My desk is wood, I'll knock on it...

You can't moon the school bus...

So Twin B got in trouble at school....AGAIN.  
He mooned the school bus after he got off yesterday.
I am torn on this issue.
He shouldn't have done it. I know that.
He wasn't even on the bus when he did it.
The bus driver does not like my twins.
I know...he shouldn't have done it.
But now he can't ride the bus anymore this year....that's 23 days.
Guess who is being punished?
I have kept them off the bus for most of the year so that they wouldn't do something stupid and get suspended because there are days when I NEED them to ride the bus.
Yesterday was one of those days.
Next year I NEED them to ride daily.
They'll have the same bus driver next year. 

Detroit and Chicago

Several months ago on the way to school, Twin B asked where the Metrodome was and I told him it was in Minneapolis.  He then asked if that was in the same state as Detroit. To which Twin A replied "Detroit IS a state." He promptly turned around and said "No it's not Detroit is in Chicago!" As we pulled into the drop-off lane I said that they were worse at geography than I was and Twin A says "wait, isn't that a type of math?" Twin B responded "No, that's geoMETRy" and then questioned "right?" Well at least he got something right.
Fast forward to last night when Twin B had been studying for CRCT.  He walks in the kitchen and tells me I can ask him anything about the states because he knows everything about them.  So I ask "Is Detroit in Chicago?"  His brother walked in about that time and said "No, Chicago is in Detroit."
Twin B says "no it's not because Chicago is a state" then he thinks for a minute and says, "Detroit and Chicago are both states!"
I have decided that prayers might be necessary for the CRCT...

Peace and Quiet?

My oldest son took the other 4 to the park today.
I got 2 hours of peace and quiet.
There was a fight and one child came home with a bloody nose.
It was not quiet anymore.
Oldest son is not taking the boys to the park anymore.
I'm not sure the quiet time I got was worth it.
3 boys are in their rooms and 2 are in the showers.
It is quiet again.
Still have to deal with the behavior.
Another calm before the storm?

I want my socks!

Today was not exactly a normal day in my house.  First off I remembered to set the coffee pot last night so I awoke to the smell of fresh coffee brewing from the kitchen.  In addition to that I could hear the sound of showers running.  This is extremely unusual as I almost always have to wake all of the boys up at least twice to get them going in the morning, but 2 of my kids actually woke up with their alarm clocks today.  By the time I got up to get my 8 year old up and ready, those 2 were almost completely ready for school.  We actually left the house on time – maybe even a few minutes early!

When I arrived back home 14yo E was sitting at the table eating breakfast ready to start his day. He is home today because he has had OSS for the past two days for telling his teacher that something was BS.  He used the initials and not the actual full term so this may sound a little extreme but this was the 8^th time he had been sent to the office this year.  That’s once for every month he’s been in school… which is actually an improvement from last year.

So today he is doing chores and patching holes he put in the wall this week.  Pretty happily I might add except for the fact that he is convinced his twin brother stole his socks this morning and wore them to school and keeps saying he is going to punch him when he gets home.  I have no clue which socks belong to whom, I just put all socks in a big basket when I do laundry and let them dig them out as they need them.  But I make sure to let him know that if he punches his brother there will be consequences.

On my way to pick the boys up from school I get a phone call from one of them asking if I have left the house yet and if I’m alone.  Yes and Yes.  Ok good because friends T, H, R, and RB all need a ride and he wants to make sure I have enough room for him, his brother and the 4 friends.  It is not unusual for T and H to “miss” the bus and need a ride, but R and RB don’t even live near me so I ask where they need to be taken.  Fortunately they are all going to T and H’s house right down the street, so I agree.  I did however draw the line with dropping my son off at T and H’s to hang out with the other 4 and no adult supervision, which he was not too happy about.  I also let him know that his brother thinks he has his socks and that he is going to be responsible for his reaction when his brother questions him about it. 

Before arriving home he decided to take the socks in question off and put them in his pocket.  Not because they belong to his brother, but he says “because they are mine and I don’t want him to try to take them from me.” Interestingly, he is wearing another pair of socks underneath them.  This turns out to be because the disputed socks have holes in the heels, but that doesn’t matter because they also have a swoosh on the side…

And this is how I ended up sitting in the house contemplating ordering the Total Transformation while one of my 14 year old twins was chasing the other around the neighborhood screaming “I want my damn socks!”

As far as I know, no punches were thrown – and my toilets are all clean - so I consider this day a success…

Here We Go

I decided I was gonna start a blog.  Easy peasy, right?  Then I got to the part where it asks for a blog address…

Something short seemed best so… Iamasinglemomof5boysandtheyaredrivingmetothepointofbeingcommited seemed a little much.

Thought about calling it treadingwater but that name was taken,

so I checked dogpaddling since that was close even though I didn’t really like it. 

It’s taken anyway. 

EndofmyRope…taken, as is LastResort. 

So I thought maybe I should try a more positive name. 

Butterfly and Flutterby– both taken. 

Of course LiveLaughLove is taken, as is WineandCoffee. 

I tried JustAddCoffee and JustAddWine, and also JustaddWhine. 

Even plain old Momof5Boys is taken. 

So I’m left now with 2 choices – momofmice and addsandwind. 

Momofmice, the cuter of the 2 names is something I used a long time ago and it doesn’t really fit me anymore. 

So that leaves addsandwind which is not at all what it sounds like. 

Actually it isn’t what it looks like either. 

It’s not add sand wind but rather adds and wind, which I’m sure makes no sense to anyone…unless you’ve ever texted someone using T-9 on an alpha-numeric keypad to tell them you are going to get beer and wine. 

Since I can’t use WineandCoffee and BeerandWine makes me sound a little too alcoholic (and was taken anyway,) I went with addsandwind.  I can always change it later – right?