Why Do I Do This To Myself?

So a couple months ago I let #1 & #2 sign up for Soccer, it was a good experience and really helped out with #1's self esteem issues, which helped his anxiety and depression, not so much with the possible ADHD, but hey, I'll take what I can get. Soccer got over and life went back to normal... kinda. Except a week or so later, I started college, and EVERYONE in the house got sick, the last month has been SO crazy around here!

Last night we had parent teacher conferences... they went well over all, so that was good, minor issues, but each teacher came prepared with a plan for tackling or at least learning to cope with each one (Tourette's Tics especially!), which was nice. I like having other people suggest things instead of telling me "We have this, this and this problem with your kid, and we need you to do something about it."... nope, I like hearing "... but, I came up with a plan today and I'm going to try it out and I'll let you know how it goes!" - LOVE a good proactive teacher! Of course, she was #1's teacher last year so I think she was prepared with how to deal with us, hehe.

After conferences we walked around the school and checked out the Literacy fair they had going on, it was really cool to see some of the information about reading that they had available, and made me want to encourage the kids to read every night even more than I already did.

In the Gym they had Basketball sign-ups. #1 really wanted to do it, and it's free, so why not, right? RIGHT?!?!

Except I've already got a lot on my plate...
For example:

1. I work full time, and I work for myself, so I can't just take time off (See This Post For More On That)
2. I'm a full time college student. Yes, it's online college, but still, You have NO idea the workload associated with that unless you've done it, and let's just say thank GOD I have an understanding hubby!
3. I have 4 kids... two of which have strict sleep schedules and we get to live through HELL when those schedules are disrupted.
4. My husband doesn't drive... Long story behind that, but he doesn't. So I am the taxi driver of the family, which means from 4:30-5:30 Monday - Thursday, I'm occupied, no rescheduling of that.
5. I have special needs children that see multiple specialists of different types... that takes up a LOT of time!
6. As good as my husband is about helping around the house with cooking and cleaning... HE needs help with it all sometimes, so me being this busy is NOT good for his sanity!
7. #1 did sign up for Basketball... *Sigh*

Looking back over this list, it's easy to see why I have no sex life as of late!

Swine Flu?

So a few days ago hubby and I suffered celebrated our wedding anniversary.

Yeah, "Congratulations", Thanks... NOT!

Not saying I'm not immensely thrilled to add another year to our history, I LOVE being married to the man, but OH... MY.... GOD!

The ordeal started 4 days before our anniversary, and then a couple days after still...

Day 1: I get a phone call that hubby is getting out of work early... in an ambulance. He's having severe pain he thinks may be related to a procedure he had done months ago. I'm freaking out and meet him at the ER. They do an ultrasound, everything looks ok except he has severe bruising and some swelling. Prescribe bed-rest, anti-inflammatory and pain meds.

Day 2: I wake up completely and utterly sick. I'll spare you the details but I spent the majority of my day sleeping and/or in the bathroom. Conclusion: Hubby got absolutely NO help all day.

Day 3: I wake up feeling better, hubby is in more pain, we assume due to not being able to rest the day before. As the day progresses, his condition gets severely worse. BACK to the ER. Dr examines him and agrees with prior prescriptions, but also prescribes an antibiotic and a different pain med.

Day 4: I wake up feeling slightly ill again... just in time to hear the sounds of #2 running to the bathroom to repeat the day I had on Day 2. #1 has a majorly nasty sounding cough and a fever. I proceed to call the sitters we had lined up to let them know the kids will not be coming... and find out that it's probably a good thing because both sitters families are sick as well.

Day 5: Our Anniversary. Hubby still not feeling well, and resolved to stay in bed no matter what so he can get better. He tells #1 that HE will be staying in bed with him because he refuses to rest in his own room, hence being sick for a week. Call third sitter to see if she still wants to take #4... her son woke up with the flu.

In the end, our wedding anniversary was spent couped up with sick kids, a sick hubby, and nothing to do.

I resolved to join the sick bed and gave myself a severe case of SWine Flu.

New Hair!

Quick post, I got my haircut, and LOVE it! I was nervous, SO nervous, and had my friend come over to cut it while hubby was gone so he couldn't talk me out of going short.

It's shorter than I had planned but It is so awesome!!!!

#4 wasn't quite sure what to think, being a baby when Mom, who supplies the FOOD, makes a drastic change to her looks... it can be a bit confusing, especially when she still SMELLS the same, so I got strange looks from her for the first day or so, but I think she has come around. She actually smiles when she sees me now!

Hubby wasn't sure what to think at first, he wouldn't even look at me for more than 2 seconds at a time for the first day, but after he had a chance to adjust to it, and it relaxed some he has decided that he really does like it after all. Which makes me happy, I was worried he was going to absolutely hate it and then I'd feel really bad. He keeps joking that "it will grow back some day" but he says he really does like it :)

Blog Makeover

So Ive been playing around with the layout, look, etc of my blog for DAYS and DAYS and DAYSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.... still have some more tweaking to do until I'm completely happy... but it is what it is, what do you think?

Sleep Sex

I was browsing some blogs I found recently and got hooked on this one called "Thystle Says", going down through some of her blog entries, I come across this one:

Thystle Says: What the? (Click it, it's a link, just doesn't look like one!)

Talking about Ambien and the side effects, and I quote:

"Ambien has warnings like "may result in amnesia". No shit. Among reported side effects are "sleep eating" (not awesome) "sleep driving" (kind of awesome) "sleep sex" (awesome for the spouse) and so on. Basically, if you were doing it, or even thinking very hard about it when you fall asleep, you run the risk of doing it while you sleep.

And not remembering it."

And I posted a comment:

"Sleep sex... I can do that without Ambien! That's how my husband and I had sex the first time LOL! No seriously, now I may have to go blog that story... right now..." (Quoting myself, that's great!)

So here I am, blogging the story..

I won't go into all the details of what happened BEFORE the first weekend we spent together, but let's leave it at, we had never had sex (It's TRUE!)

So we made plans to spend the weekend together at my house (it was a long distance relationship, which probably contributed to the lack of adult activities), and the first night we had dinner (or he did anyway, I was still anxious about eating in front of him so I starved), watched a movie, listened to some music, and then it was bedtime.

He was all ready to sleep on the couch, but let's be honest here, my couch was REALLY old and had about 2 inch thick padding with PLYWOOD underneath (second hand of course, and smelled like the storage unit it had been in too), so I said "No, don't be silly, I have a KING SIZE bed, you can sleep in the bed with me, I'm not gonna make you sleep on THAT."

So we went to bed.

And we went to sleep.

Sure, there was some cuddling, but that's it!

About 4am the next morning, I wake-up, and we are TOTALLY going at it!

Apparently he had the same wake-up call I did.

Since then, we have mastered Sleep Sex, and let me say once again:

THANK GOD FOR VASECTOMIES!

When Do Parents Have Time For Sex?

Seriously, I don't think I remember the last time my husband and I had sex. I know it was sometime in the last year cause well, it's been a year since our youngest child was conceived, but after that fact, I can't honestly tell you anymore.

I may have to do something to rectify the situation, which probably means it will happen when we are completely exhausted, and so neither of us will enjoy it all that much, but at least no one can say we aren't trying!

Hormone Free Birth Control

There was just an Ad showing on my blog for hormone free birth control, I think it was advertising the sponge... I prefer hormone free birth control myself, though I can't honestly say I have ever tried the sponge, so don't take the ad being on my site as an endorsement for the product, or any other ad that is, unless I let you know specifically that it is something I can endorse!

Personally for hormonal birth control, what I rely on the most at present (while waiting for my husbands vasectomy to be proven effective!) is Natural Family Planning (charting your cycle, tracking cervical mucus, all that), I know it sounds complicated and gross, but its pretty easy and comes naturally once you learn how to do it... We do also use Condoms and Spermicide most of the time, but having the NFP as a backup in case condoms fail or we forget to use the spermicide, etc. was effective in preventing pregnancy for about a year and a half, until we decided to go ahead and TRY to get pregnant, and it's worked for multiple months since we had #4.

As for Spermicide, I like that VCF - Vaginal Contraceptive Film, sometimes I will use Encare, which are these bullet shaped spermicide things that kind of "melt" after they are inserted. I prefer the VCF cause its less "Messy", Encare leaves you feeling kinda gross after...

But yeah, there are my recommendations for hormone free birth control!

Things That Help Me Think....

1. Driving
2. Arguing
3. Sex
4. Reading
5. Trying to fall asleep
6. Watching TV
7. Taking Pictures
8. Driving
9. Sex