Eddie's hard day

This is my Eddie

He is too good of a kid for words. Sweet. Loves so hard it hurts. Damn smart, gonna be a rocket scientist some day.

But a lot of the time, life is not fair to Eddie. He has had to deal with a lot of loss, broken trust, abandonment, and heartache in his 8 short years he has walked this earth. My heart breaks for him on a regular basis.

We try our best to give him stability and structure, but sometimes, it just sucks being an 8 year old. Especially one who basically was abandoned by his dad, has a very visible scar for people to make fun of, and after almost 6 years of being the only child/grandchild/nephew, had 3 siblings uproot his life 3 years in a row.

Last night we had a tough night with him, and it helped us learn a little more about him, ourselves, and the right path to parenting a fragile heart like his.

He currently shares a room with Dominik, who is 19 months old. They have a bunk bed, he is on top, Nik on bottom. We had set it up that way because Jonathan is both too small for the top bunk, and does not share a room well.

Well sweet little Nik is going through the phase of losing a nap, or in his case, going from 3-4 snoozes a day, to 1-2, depending on the day. And he is so darn stealthy, I don't always realize he has woken up from a nap, so he sits and plays in the room. Unfortunately, some of Eddie's things are now accessible to this little billy goat boy.

So 2 nights ago, Eddie cleaned his room to 85%, which for a kid his age is completely acceptable most of the time. He went to bed, got up, and went to school. The human wrecking ball Nik destroyed it all again. When it was time where we wind down and kids pick up rooms, Eddie went in and started throwing a classic Eddie tantrum.

>>>Insert note. Eddie is amazing at pushing Justin's buttons. I always assumed it was because he was contesting Justin's right to tell him what to do, or was so worried he was going to leave, he drew attention to himself, even if it was negative, but was told by my mom that my older brother used to push my dad's buttons all the time. Eddie is a whole frickin lot like Jason, so might just be him challenging the status quo because he can.

Tantrums in our house do not go unpunished. He was put on time out, then sent back into his bedroom to finish cleaning. This is when he discovered the crayons.

Santa had brought him a brand new box of 64 shiny new Crayola crayons. He was saving them to use on a big project he was planning, and had them stashed in his stationary basket on his desk. Nik had apparently learned to climb up on the desk, had gotten the delightful brand new crisp wax smelling crayons, and had scattered them, breaking quite a few, and even nibbling on several choice colors.

Well, Eddie did what most any 8 year old would do when a treasure such as new crayons is discovered ruined. He burst into tears and started flailing about, full on uncontrolled tantrum of emotions and hurt in full steam. Justin, hearing what he thought was another usual fit, went in to find out what was wrong. In a fit of anger and sadness, Eddie declared, as loud as he could without screaming

"My life was so much easier before Jonathan and Dominik were here, sometimes I wish they were never born!"

I give credit to Justin. He did not show how mad or hurt the statement made him, just sent Eddie to sit on the lower bunk to calm down until one of us could talk to him. Then he came out, looking like a truck hit him. I am sure his mind was making the not so distant jump from I wish my brothers were never born to I wish you never came to live with us, because Daddy could come back, and I wouldn't have brothers to wreck stuff. I saw how upset he was, sent him out for a cigarette, and went in to talk to a partially calmed Eddie.

After a long discussion about people being more important than things, family love, babies ability to understand right from wrong, he came out of his room, much calmer. He hugged both of his brothers, apoligized, and then did the same to Justin.

Out of this mess, we have decided that we are doing musical rooms. Eddie will be moved with the top bunk portion of the bed to Jonathan's room (the bunk beds are more loft with another bed underneath type deal) Jonathan and Nik will be living in the big room with the 2 regular twin beds.

Poor kiddo. I wish his life was easier :(

Thought of the day

You dont have to always like your family,

But you do have to love them.

Til later!

The Addition (with a capital A)

Alright. This is what one of the main topics of the blog actually should be, so I thought I would show the plans, so we can have some constructive criticism.
Reminder- I did the plans on a free website. They are not professional. Give me a little leeway.....

On that note. Here is our current house. It was built in the 1950's to be a workshop for the patriarch of the family who owned the house in front. The 2 properties started out as one, and the man was a carpenter by trade. When his oldest son hit hard times and needed a house for his family, he took his workshop, threw on a few additions, put in a bathroom and kitchen cabinets, and Voila! Our house. When I purchased it, it was a 2 bed 1 bath with 900sf of livable space, with a full unfinished basement, a giant unattached (technically, about .5 ft between the roofs) garage, a shed, pavilion shed, and the shanty, where my dad lives now. (And yes, my dad's house is livable, we just call it the shanty because we do. For a long time it did not have plumbing, and he just used our bathroom. But when he had some health scares, the plans to put plumbing in were fast tracked, and he has a bathroom and the start of a kitchen. Would be done, if it werent for crap recommendations of contractors who steal money and do crap work, but Justin will get it there. Just needs a little more time to do it with a full time job.) We turned the weird office/diningroom not attached to kitchen/den/previous owner decided to put fancy tile in a room with no use into another bedroom (read tiny!) So we currently have 3 bedrooms. Technically we could make it work, move Magpie into the tiny room, and have the 3 boys in the one bedroom, but we want to add on. And with that, the prints from our house as it is currently.....

In my house's defense, it does have a huge kickass kitchen, with handmade cabinets by the original owner.

Completely off topic, I hate the word original. I misspell it every time. I think origional. So if I misspell it again, I apoligize.

On to the two addition plans!

We are extremely lucky to have the giant garage that could fit 4 cars and have wiggle room. But it is extremely unecessary (unless you ask Justin lol). What our plan is is to take that wee little space where the garage bathroom used to be (crappy walls and add on roof+pa winters=collapse but plumbing and foundation still there) and just extend the garage into the house, split it in half, and put in 2 fair sized bedrooms, a second bathroom (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and a laundry room ( on the first floor!!!!!!!!!) In doing this, we take away Justin's workshop space, so he will be finishing out the basement, with one room being his workshop, one being the mancave, and the third being a playroom.  (Yup, toys not in bedrooms anymore!!!!) We will still have room for the cars during the winter, the tractor will be moved to the pavilion shed.

We aren't sure whether we would keep Jonathan's current bedroom a bedroom, because it is soo small, or if we would change it back to an office. We had tossed around ideas of connecting it to the bathroom, and moving our bedroom there to make a master suite of sorts, and turning the current master into a dining room, but structurally, everything would be pretty much staying the same. I think the little room is too small for our bed and dressers, but we shall see.

With this plan, we already have fixtures to remodel the current bathroom, and enough to put into the new bathroom. Just would need tile, little bit of pipes, and elbow grease. The biggest concern is figuring out how to get the roofs together, because the original ( :O*) additions were not necessarily done the way that would be easiest to add to. I digress.....

Now, if we were to say, win a small lottery, or find a money tree, or something, this is what we would then do......

In this scenario, we would definately turn the old master into a dining room, and I would get my suite :). Pretty sure the money won't be there this year, but its just the first addition plans amped up, so it isn't completely impossible that it could happen in the future.

In addition to the addition (hahahahahah) we would probably close in the current porch to become a mudroom, and bring a deck across connecting the mudroom entry to the side entry. I didn't think to draw those in when I did the plans, so use your imagination ;)

Any suggestions/ideas would be awesome!

Thought of the day- Looking for a place to put books but unsure where to put it? We had a lot of damaged paneling when we bought the house, so instead of replacing it in areas, we built bookshelves in between the studs. Takes a few 1x4's, and a little planning, but I love mine.

Til Later!



Monopoly City

So since the Northeast corridor, especially near the lakes, was lucky enough to get a nice little snowstorm today, school was cancelled. Eddie spent most of his morning hanging out with Papa, but got bored and came up to the house.

After about the 500k questions, explanations, requests ect, I finally gave in to his request to play Monopoly city during the little boys' nap.


Man, I can't decide whether I love it or hate it. I am going to break it into pros and cons, because there are solids of each

Pros:
A more advanced version of the origional.
Much more strategy involved.
Helps teach decimals in money (1.4 mil = 1mil 400k type deal)
Adds an element of chance with the beepy machine

Cons:
It says 8-up. I think thats pushing it a little. Eddie is a pretty damn smart kid, and he got about 75% of the point to the game.
You dont have to own all of one color group to play. WTF!?!?!?! Thats monopoly blasphemy
Every time you roll the dice, buildings scatter everywhere
Railroads basically are gone (yeah they exist but are useless)
The first color is no longer dark purple but brown. blech.

I think I may have to challenge Justin to a game tonight, to test how I feel about it with someone I wouldn't feel bad about screwing over with hazard buildings and blocking color group. Oh wait, I forgot, that doesn't matter anymore.



I think I just might take my monopoly too seriously.......


Eddieism- (Eddie and I are sitting at table playing Monopoly city, Jonathan wakes up, and brings out a dino)
Jonathan- Mama!!! Dinosaur wanna pwaaayyy!!
(crashes through city with Godzilla like skills)
Eddie- Well...I would call him the human wrecking ball, but I cant. After all, a dinosaur isnt human.

Well then......

So here it is.

I listened. I am writing a blog....does that make me an author? A rambler? A teacher of sort? Someone who suffers from extreme insomnia, because after all, who has time with kids to raise and houses to rebuild?

Yeah, that might be me trying to talk myself out of it. I mean.....who really gives a flying hulahoop what I have to say?
Well, if you do.....the general goals/outline/hopes of this blog.

1) I want to post 1 funny, 1 serious/thoughtful, 1 kid oriented, and when we get further into the remodel, 1 contruction entry a week.

Yeah, I have excessivly high expectations for myself

2) I want to include little quirky things, like things my kids say, phrase of the day, instructional pamphlets on important life things, and fyi or need to know tidbits.

Easier....I am the vat of useless knowledge, and I have always had a knack of talking a line of bs that is both pretty sounding and impressive. I can do verbal vomit like no ones business lol.

3) I want to inspire people. And be inspired. Or something like that. Even if I just make someone giggle during a bad day, that will be good enough for now.

This one I will have to watch my own moods, because I kinda have a tendency to get down on myself and things I cant control. So if I start getting all woe is me, kick me in the head please!

4) I want to give myself accountability. If I say I am going to have the ugly paneling down in the bathroom by day x, if its in writing, I kinda have to lol.

Yup. Gonna happen!!!!


Ok. In closing, I have a few fyi/need to know tidbits to start out with (Look at me, already hitting one of my goals for the day!!!)
- If my posts seem broken up and my train of thought seems interrupted, good chance a little person came up and needed me more than this.
-My keyboard has had several coffee baths lately, so if I seem to miss letters or spell worse than my 3 year old, 98% of the time its because the keys are sticky.
-As I get more comfortable, my opinions/beliefs may come out a little bit stronger than I have done previously. I apoligize now if you are offended, but I don't apoligize for who I am or what I live. Nor do I expect you to.
-I am not a contractor. I have no construction background. My fiance has some, but I may be learning along the way. Its not nice to giggle in comments about the piece of drywall on the bathroom ceiling that falls on me during my first soak in the deep tub. Hasn't happened, but is it possible? Yes. Will it be funny? Hilarious I am sure. Might I get a tidge bit touchy about projects that don't want to work the way I had hoped? Maybe more than a tidge. Will I still share pictures and details? As long as we all laugh only a little bit, and let me lick my wounds.

Advice for the day:

Go google or YouTube Noah Gundersen. He rocks my socks. If I was forced to pick a fave song, might be Winter today, but its so hard because he is so Darn GOOD!

Until Later!