Mamadom: Bite me

One thing as a mother that you have to learn to overcome is the feelings you go through when your kids get hurt, and I mean little accidents. They're going to fall, bump, get scraped and cut, among other things.

Today was one of those days. The whole thing happened too quick for me to run over and stop it from happening. I was getting the dog's water bowl to refill. The boys were playing with their toybox. P, my 2yo, was sitting in the box, while R, my 9mo, was standing, holding on to the edge. Yes, those kids will play with anything but the toys most of the time! Word of advice, just give your kids the tupperware to play with and they'll be occupied for longer than the pricey stuff - forget toys! Anyway, R starts putting his finger in P's mouth, which he does a lot. It's just something babies do - they have this fascination with faces. Before I could come over to pull R's finger out, P bit it...hard. Needless to say, R starts bawling bloody murder, his face contorted in complete agony, red, upset. Daddy, who was on the computer, runs over and yells at P and promptly puts him in time out, while I scoop the babe in my arms to comfort him. I rocked R and held him tightly for a few minutes, but he still wouldn't calm down. He cried so hard, that cry where no sound comes out bc he's crying so hard, his mouth wide open, eyes squeezed shut. Aye..I hate the feeling that goes through me when one of my children are like that.

P is in his time out corner bawling from us yelling at him, "Why did you do that?! You KNOW not to bite! Do NOT bite! Stay in time out!"

I then checked R's little left pointer finger. It was already turning red and purple. The bite mark was extremely deep, especially on such small, squishy fingers. I could see blood vessels were broken, but no blood came out. I nearly cried myself seeing such pain on him. Daddy then put an ice pack on it. At this point, the babe has stopped crying, sniffled a bit, became amazed by the ice bag and immediately started chewing on it. Ah, that's my boy. (Putting ice on a kid's boo-boo doesn't have much success.)

P, on the other hand, was still upset in his time out corner.

"Don't bite your brother, Preston! You know not to do that! Baby ouch!" Daddy and I exclaimed.

"Mamaaa..Daddaaaa..(wwaahhhh)..baby..bite..oucchhh!" Preston cried.

"Preston, come here, now!" I yelled.

He runs over to me as I hold his little brother.

"Now tell baby you're sorry. Say sorry, baby Richmond."

"Sowy baby Rumon," he sniffed.

"Now give him a hug and kiss."

He hugs baby and kisses him on the nose with a "muuaahh!"

I couldn't help but give him a hug and kiss, too. "Don't bite baby, ok, Preston?"

"Uh-huh," he nods.

"Now go play on the mat please."

He goes to the playmat, smiling away.

R is completely recovered from his pain and crawls over to his brother on the playmat.

Sigh, how am I going to handle it when they're wrestling and choking each other out as teens? Can you imagine 15 year olds in time out? Haha.

Mamadom: Update

I stopped blogging because everytime I thought about something to blog, I would forget what it was as soon as I got to the computer. The only thing I can remember these days is what goes in the diaper bag and what's for breakfast/lunch/dinner.

Being a SAHM isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sure, we get some down time, aka nap time, but that's when we REALLY get down and dirty with what we gotta do, ie. cleaning, making those calls, working out. Oh yeah, and even blogging is in little spurts here and there. For example, it took me five sit-downs to finish this post!

Now that the reality of being a SAHM has sunken in, I have to find something to pass my passtime. I've dived into my hobbies, sewing, scrapbooking, finally putting together that easel I got two years ago from the hubby (but probably not picking up the paintbrush for awhile because it would be too tempting for P), the list goes on. Not to mention I've been working out about 5-6 days per week. (Getting rid of that prego skin is virtually impossible I tell ya..sigh.) But there's nothing like sitting your arse down in one spot, not thinking too hard, and letting loose on the keyboard right?

Anyway, here's one for the road (preview of next update - San Antonio). What's a funny caption you can think of this:


"Um, I guess this time they were serious when they said they were leaving me."

Angleton, TX

My dad has always wanted a get-away house, somewhere beachy. Fortunately, his coworker knew someone who was selling their place down in Angleton (straight down 288-S for those Houstonians who don't know). So my parents went down there to take a look and bought it pretty much on the spot! It was a deal they couldn't pass up, but needed quite a bit of TLC. They managed to fix most of it up.

Until Hurricane Katrina came along. Let's just say insurance gave them a hefty five-digit check to fix it again. And get this, that amount wasn't enough! So, they're scrounging to get it fixed with whatever means they could to get it done over. The intent is to sell it though, because...

In the meantime, my dad eyed this other house, if you could even call it that back then, down the street three houses over. It literally looked like a two-story shack, because whoever owned it all but abandoned it. It was filled with junk from bottom up, where no sunlight was even peeping through. It looked like something straight out of a horror flick, smelly, moldy, old, dark, depressing, and did I mention smelly? I was picturing torturous happenings occuring in there..*shivers*. Needless to say, my parents bought it! I gave them mad props for tackling such a huge project. They had so much ahead of them, what with fixing the first house again and now tearing this sucker apart to rebuild it.

The first house...

It has recently been listed to be sold. Let me know if you know anyone interested!






^^Close up of the side decking my dad did himself. I was quite impressed! It leads up to the master bedroom.


^^Part of the back decking. It's a working boat lift.


^^More of the back decking.




^^The stairs that lead up to the master bedroom.






^^Master bedroom.


^^Main bathroom.



...As you can see, it still needs some work, before getting sold. Now onto the second house...


^^Interior after it was cleared out and frame put up. I wasn't able to get any photos of when my parents first bought the place. But let me reiterate, it was scarryyy!













Now here it is after all the renovations. Talk about a lot of work...phew! Good job, Daddy!


^^Lil P going up the stairs.






^^Feeding the birdies with Grandma and Grandpa.


^^Front decking.




^^Argghhh, matey! I need to eat me some mo' spinach so I can get as big as me little brother! And I also like wearin' me papa's shoes..aarrgghh!












^^Scenery on the back deck. Pretty relaxing, minus the 300 degree weather and 112% humidity.




^^A view of the entire back deck.


^^Crabs galore! We have seven crab cages along the front and back of the house in the water. Everytime we go down there, we stuff our faces with crabs we catch. Yum!

Here's the interior...




^^Kitchen. What you see when you walk through the front door.


^^Dining area + kitchen.


^^Living room. Don't mind the big white man laying on the floor. He just happened to walk in and asked for money and a place to sleep and a clean bathroom. OK, seriously, he's my parents' sponsors from way back in the day. Him and his wife, great people they are, took my parents out of their refugee camp, where they lived upon arriving in the USA after the fall of Saigon. We are forever grateful they took my parents in and helped them get back on their feet when they had nothing but a few items of clothing. And now here they are visiting my parents at their lakehouse. We've come a long, long way, thanks to them!


^^Bathroom 1.


^^Master bedroom.


^^More living room.

Discovery Green with My Four Boys

So, I'm gonna do a n0smoking and start blogging my gazillion photos. Nothing impressive like her's but I know she's my numero uno fan (and perhaps my only). Much love!

Some days I feel like yanking out my hair and screaming at the top of my lungs for hours on end. Some days are good, where I don't yell "No!" every five seconds and P isn't throwing something at me or wanting my every ounce of attention and R is sleeping during his scheduled naps (which is probably the only problem I get from him - he's so freakin' easy!). But 5% of the time, the 5% I cherish, the 5% I realize this is why I walk this earth, the 5% I'm content with all that I've sacrificed, I feel the cliche mama-hood love that childless people hear about and can only understand once they have children of their own.

I'm a usually mellow person, not often sentimental or bitter, but when it comes to blogging, I'm either gaggingly lovey dovey or exceptionally crabby. Today I'm definitely not the latter.

Anyway, so here we are at Discovery Green in Houston. I give it a thumbs up for design because it is definitely architecturally pleasing. For entertainment purposes, not so great (unless there's some event going on of course) - it's simply something to run around in for the kiddos and something to relax in for the people who don't have kiddos. But there are a few things to see.










^^This was one of the things to see, or should I say hear. You and someone else stand across from each other in each structure facing one another, then you carry a normal conversation (even whisper) and you can hear each other's voices crystal clearly!


^^Of course, when P sat across from you, all you hear is hysterical laughter or a form of Japanese/Arabic/Portuguese/(insert random language here) blabbing.

^^R thoroughly enjoyed himself.

^^"Ready, set, hut!" minus the football.



^^Awww, they're in for a serious reality check. I should've warned them. Kidding. I think.