Just BS

Good morning everyone. I have absolutely no motivation to do any housework right now, so I thought I'd post some life updates for those of you who care.


The everyday stuff


Woke up this A.M. to find 3 ASK.com toolbars on my desktop computer. My kids have a thing about installing anything that happens to pop up. It's always fun trying to uninstall everything that they put on here. So I was able to uninstall (1) of the toolbars, but was unable to uninstall the other 2. So now if I want to see the very top of any screen I have to go on my laptop. 


Switched over to the Nook tablet to play a quick round of ad-free Words with Friends to find The Fart Factory, The Fart Siren and The Fart Mobile installed on the Nook. Consequently, my laptop is now hidden from little hands and every web-capable item in my house now requires a password to install anything. But on the bright side, I have about 115 different fart noises I can make in any Barnes and Noble or in my house. Juicy, gassy, you name the fart, my Nook can make that sound.


Babies babies everywhere


I am floored by the amount of people I know that could give birth any minute. Three of those people are naming their girls some version of Sophia. We came super close to naming Lily Sophie. However she has a rubber giraffe from France called Sophie so we opted out of that one. Although I think she would've made a really cute Sophie.


Congrats to Christie Stankovic who had a beautiful baby boy she named Tristan. Thinking of her pushing out that baby brought me back to the lovely memories of my own experience with Lily. No offense Christie, but I'm glad you were the one pushing and not me.


The Lilster


Hard to believe in less than 2 months my Lily will be a year old. She went from being the world's most miserable baby to the happiest, most social butterfly you've ever seen. She cracks up at everything her big brothers do and is rolling around on the hardwood floors like there's no tomorrow. She's got a pretty extensive vocabulary for a little baby, but can't figure out how to crawl to save her life. I no longer refer to her as The Beast, because really, she is no longer a beast. I still can't believe that.


Now, instead of screaming at the top of her lungs when someone approaches her in the grocery store, she puts her arms out for them to pick her up. I have had more old ladies hold this baby in the past month...I can't even tell you. And yes, if the old lady strangers want to hold my baby, I totally let them. Holding a baby just makes people so happy. It's when she starts smacking them in the face and pulling off their glasses, that they're not so happy anymore.


The effing cat


As if it wasn't enough that Alan was the most miserable human being on earth last night, the effing cat decided to sleep at the foot of our bed last night. Anyone who knows me, knows that I'm a dog person, not a cat person. But really, Hershey doesn't bother anyone and she's outside more than she's in. But don't ever try to touch her. She will claw your eyeballs out, which scares me. 


So she planted her calico ass down on the foot of my side of the bed and proceeded to get as comfortable as possible. After 5 minutes of trying to coax her out of the room, I decided to just deal. Well in the middle of the night, I guess I was moving my feet. It only took a split second for me to feel fur, freak out, and have my left foot clawed like you wouldn't believe. To boot, I'm allergic to cats, so the top of my left foot swelled up like a balloon. Good times.


Furniture arrangements


So I have this issue with constantly having to rearrange furniture. Could be my mentally unstable nature, but who the hell knows. So at 2:30 A.M. when the cat decided to claw the shit out of me, I got out of bed to assess the damage. Well I rearranged the bedroom 2 days ago. I got out of bed in the pitch black and proceeded to walk right into my dresser because I had forgotten that I rearranged the furniture. I just couldn't win last night. Moral of the story, don't rearrange your furniture so much that you can't remember what wall you put things against.


Jake


Over the course of the past year Jake has lost 50 pounds. He finally realized that eating an entire sleeve of Chips Ahoy in one sitting might not be a good thing. He was never obese, but he certainly doesn't have my skinny genes. (lol of course) Everyone who sees Jake tells me how great he looks and how proud I must be that he changed his entire lifestyle. Proud of him? Absolutely. However, since he began shooting for the 6 pack, he has not stopped looking in the mirror. EVER. At any given time at my house you can see Jake flexing in the mirror, posing, etc. If I hear him coming up from the basement I literally have to run out of the kitchen so he doesn't make me feel his biceps. "Ma, feel this, feel this." "Ma, check out this line down the middle of my back." "Ma, can I go to the gym with you tomorrow morning? I gotta get my cardio in." "Ma, are you really gonna eat that? Do you have any idea how many carbs are in that rice cake?" 


Proud? Yes. Driven crazy by the new physique? Yes. I love him dearly, but I really don't want to feel his biceps or drive him to GNC one more time. 


Wrapping it up


I still have more chins than Chinatown in spite of going to the gym. Perhaps Jake is right. I really need to stop eating all those rice cakes. 


Love you guys,


CarrieAnn

TMI

For those of you who can't deal with "too much information" please do not read any further. I'm in a "no holds barred" kind of mood tonight. I am not trashy, but far from classy, and I share what I want to share. So here goes my spontaneous blog post. It's kind of out of order, but everything is within the last 2 days.

Jake


Well my oldest baby officially got his permit today. He completed his 6 hours behind the wheel and passed everything with flying colors. I ran outside with my camera at 7 pm tonight, only to find out that my flash wasn't working. I took numerous pictures of him in the school's drivers ed car only to find out that you could only see his glowing eyeballs in the actual photos. Nevertheless, the instructor was ridiculously happy with how comfortable he was behind the wheel. Wahhhhhhh. I took the permit, looked at Jake, and said "well lets go. Keys are in the car." He ran inside to go to the bathroom and the instructor (who was a woman in her 50's) looked at me and said "What a wonderful kid. You've done an incredible job with him. You should be proud to have such a personable young boy." I've been told that before, and I'm never one to brag because I LOATHE bragging mom's, but for some reason, it just really meant alot coming from the school secretary/drivers ed teacher who had just met him 6 hours prior. He pisses me off on a daily basis, but he's a damn good kid. 


Alek


So Alek will be 7 years old on the 23rd of this month. His obsession with Angry Birds is beyond comprehension. I realize all the kids are into it, but this boy takes it to a whole new level. He literally starts sketching Angry Birds from the second he gets up at 7:00 am until the bus comes at 8:25. He tests me on Angry Birds colors, personalities, (WTF, they're cartoon birds, they have personalities?) and to see if I know his high score in the game. So we are having an Angry Birds birthday party with 15 of his closest friends. I will be shooting myself through a slingshot right to the local bar by night's end I'm sure.


The Gym


Haven't been back to the cycling class, nor have I ventured back into elliptical territory yet. However, I AM kicking ass and taking names on the treadmill. Felt really good in my old, ripped, stained t-shirt and black, bleach stained capri leggings this morning. My new Nike's are no longer ripping the skin off the back of my feet and I can get my incline up to a 4.5 without feeling like I'm going to die. So there I am feeling freaking awesome. There's nobody on equipment around me for miles as I put my playlist on and begin my usual routine. Within 10 minutes....BAM! fat girl sandwich (and I was not one of the slices of bread). There had to have been 25 free treadmills on the 2nd floor alone, but 2 of the hottest-bodied women I'd ever seen got on either side of me. Really? You would think that would be motivation, but listening to Don't Cha by The Pussycat Dolls just takes on a whole new meaning when you're sandwiched in between 2 women who do an incline of 4.5 for a warm up. 


Lily


Took my Lil for her 9 month checkup yesterday. I mentioned to the doctor that her feet are occasionally VERY cold and turn purple. This also happened in the hospital the day after she was born. The nurse took her into the nursery, they put her under the warmer, and the purple was gone. It still happens every now and then, but I just assumed she was cold, or that because her legs were so chubby, that maybe in certain positions the diaper cut off circulation. 


Well apparently purple feet can be a sign of a heart/vascular problem. My pediatrician immediately wrote out a prescription for a chest x-ray and told Alan and I that Lily needed to see a cardiologist. I'm happy to report that the chest x-ray showed perfect lung placement and perfectly normal heart placement/size. Alan and I (because he ended up being OFF FROM WORK...grrrr) took her today. Just when you think the girl is going to scream bloody murder, she laughs through the whole x-ray. Women are so damn unpredictable (even at 9 months old). She still needs to see the cardiologist, but I feel much better knowing the x-ray came out good.


The Condom Incident


So Alek won a Barnes and Noble gift card at Dr. Suess Day at school today. What does he want to go buy? The biggest stuffed Angry Bird they have. After that waste of a giftcard was done, I needed to stop at Shoprite for a few things. So my little Angry Bird-loving Lovey's and I made a Shoprite pit stop. As I strode by the pharmacy, I remembered Alan telling me that we were out of condoms. Noone else was around and Alek was totally preoccupied looking for TY beanie baby angry birds, so I decided to go for the big condom purchase.


Since when are condoms behind the counter? Really? I'm not buying a fucking gun. Anyway, the pharmacy "assistant" was like a 19 year old guy. So I walked up and said in a slight whisper, "I need a pack of condoms." So he says "what kind?" OMG...are you even kidding me? I'm 35. I haven't bought a pack of condoms in freakin ages. Looking behind me, to make sure Alek was still far away, I said "Listen dude, I have 4 kids, I just want something to prevent a 5th kid." Well, the pharmacist (a woman closer to my age, obviously not seeing my complete embarrassment) intervenes and says "well, we have sensitive for her, lubricated, unlubricated, colors, ribbed..." well you get it. The list went on and on. She proceeds to take all the different ones off the hooks and display them in a sweet fashion on the pharmacy counter. I look behind me to see what Alek is doing, only to find a man completely encroaching my space. People, there is a PRIVACY line for a reason! I looked him dead in the eye, turned around to pharmacist and said "just give me whatever's lubricated, KY Jelly isn't in my budget." I turned around and suddenly that man had found the "privacy line".


Chesterfield Update


I know everybody knows about our bus accident. While the accident took place one road over from mine, I refuse to drive by there. I purposely go out of my way to NOT drive by. I hate the media and I am so sick of it being in our faces everyday. But I would like everyone who isn't local to know that Sophie (the critical triplet) is now in rehab :), and Jon is also expected to go to rehab very soon. I am so thankful to live in Chesterfield with such amazing families. We support these children in ways that I cannot even begin to explain. There's alot to be said for living in a small town. 


Love you all,
Carrie

Up in the gym just working on my fitness

My Humps 

After much personal examination of my lifestyle, I decided that it was time to either join a gym, or stay on blood pressure meds and Zoloft for the rest of my life. It was a tough decision, after all, I would be giving up Giorgio mozzarella sticks, toasted melted cheese subs with creamy horseradish sauce from Wawa, mashed potatoes with extra cheese and butter and my beloved homemade 6 cheese mac & cheese, for a life of vegetables, egg whites, boiled chicken & fruit. So, I bit the bullet, and with a tiny bit of coaxing from a fellow newbie gym member, I stopped at WOW gym in Robbinsville and am now driving around Chesterfield with the "JERSEY STRONG" magnet on the back of my car.


The Assessment


It was a requirement to go for a personal assessment of your body, health, weight....etc. I brought Jake with me (being that he is obsessed with working out). I made him wait outside the room while the trainer asked me about my lifestyle, (apparently "sedentary" does fall into a lifestyle category.) So after finding out I weigh 20 pounds more than I thought I did, squeezing the bmi calculator and finding out that I probably deserve to be on the "I weigh 600 pounds" show, the trainer proceeded to tell me my "health age" and my "real age". It turns out in real life I am 35, but my body thinks it's 55 (which would probably explain why I get along so well with my mother these days). The trainer proceeded to show me an avatar of my true body on the computer and then an avatar of what I would look like if I met my "goals". Avatars are stupid.


Morning of First Day


With Jake totally stoked about being able to come to the gym for free everyday, he decided to wake me up at 4:45 the day after my assessment. Needless to say I wanted to strangle him, but I forced myself out of bed, grabbed some bleach-stained yoga pants out of a drawer, put on my sneakers that my baby toe sticks out of on the left foot, and searched high and low for a sweatband. (According to Jake noone wears sweatbands or baseball hats to gyms.) Good thing I didn't have luck with the sweatband, because, yeah, I would've been the only froot loop there wearing one.


Getting there


So we walked in the gym at 5:15 A.M. There is a staircase to the ellipticals, treadmills, bikes, etc. Well this staircase is about 30 stories long and super steep. I suggested we take the elevator, Jake said no. After climbing the stairs I decided that would be my warm up. 


The Elliptical


"Ma, start off on the elliptical." WTF was the boy thinking? He got me set up, I turned on my ipod and almost had a heart attack 1.5 minutes into it. Gasping for air and my legs giving out is not my idea of fun. The elliptical? Not my friend. Jake found me sitting in the lounge area checking FB on my phone. I pretended to be texting. "Ma, who the hell could you possibly be texting at 5:30 in the morning? Just go on the treadmill".


The Spin class


That same day that I almost died on the elliptical, I saw the trainer who told me I was going to die of a stroke within a year. "Hey, there's a cycling class at 12:00 that I really think you should try. I'll introduce you to the instructor, so come a little early." So being the good example parent that I am, and not wanting to try the spin class alone for the 1st time, I texted Jake at school and told him that I was coming to pick him up from school early so he could come to the class with me.


At 11:40 I run into the locker room to pee. Standing there by the sinks is the trainer & the spin instructor. The trainer introduces me, tells the instructor that I'm brand new and that I may need a little help. Yeah, thanks for that. I love a class full of advanced bikers knowing that I'm the new person. Jake and I get bikes in the back of the room and the class starts filling up. The woman on the bike in front of me must've been like 80 years old in the tightest spandex I've ever seen. So of course I'm thinking, if SHE can do this, I can do this.


The instructor dims the lights, puts on her headset & the music starts pumping. She announces to everyone that there is a 1st timer in the back of the class & her name is Carrie. Fabulous. Jake starts cracking up, takes a swig of his water and starts pedaling like there's no tomorrow. I too pedaled my ass off for a good 10 minutes, wondering when this class would be over. Just as I thought the cool down was coming, the instructor yells into the mic "and that was your warm up ladies & gentlemen!!!!" That's when I realized that I was in my own personal hell. 


About 1/2 way through the class, while staring at the 80 year old woman's crotch sweat in front me, Jake announces that he's "going to check on Lily in the childcare room." He left me there to finish the class by myself. I made it through, but I will never, ever do that again. It felt like I had bruises on my ass for 3 days after that.


Getting in a routine


It only took me 2 days of actually going to build up some endurance. I even wake up on my own at 4:30 and get to the gym when it opens. I'm also home before anyone is even out of bed & get to enjoy my coffee in peace. I've realized that the elliptical still isn't my friend, but the treadmill & machines are. I already have so much more energy it's not even funny. I can't believe I didn't do this sooner.


Love you all,
A soon-to-be-skinny beeeeooootch.

So I had my usual 9:00 Monday morning appt with my OB/GYN. I ran around like a chicken with it's head cut off so I could leave for the doctor as soon as I got the kids on the bus. My clothing options are EXTREMELY limited these days due to the fact that I refuse to blow money on maternity clothes. My usual black stretch pants with the bleach stains were not clean, nor were any underwear that I could actually get over my ass. I opted for my other foolproof bottom option, a knee length stretchy skirt that folds down at the waist and fits me perfectly. (Well as perfect as clothes can fit when it looks like your smuggling baby elephants and a midget family under your shirt.)


I put the kids on the bus, stopped at the post office and ended up at the doctor by 8:45. My OB is located on a main road in Hamilton right next to a YMCA. While walking up the ramp to the office a fellow pregnant woman jumped out of her car. "Oh my God. I don't know how to tell you this, but you have a HUGE rip in your skirt and your butt is completely exposed." Now I did notice a slight draft as I walked up to the office, and it did occur to me that my skirt was brushing against my calves in the back, but in no way shape or form did I think that I was mooning commuters on a main road in Hamilton. I did what anyone would do and reached around to feel how much exposure there was. Yup, my ENTIRE ass was sticking out. It was like someone took a razor blade and sliced the skirt right at the top of my butt. While I'm standing there feeling my own ass and wondering why I picked TODAY to go commando, the fellow prego was frantically searching her car for something I could put on. She ended up walking RIGHT behind me so I could get back to my car without mooning anyone else. Needless to say I ended up 30 minutes late for my appt and had to call and explain what the deal was.


When I got back to the office at 9:30, my doctor and his nurse had been told about "Carrie Krupa's Dilemma." My doctor walked in cracking up and said "Carr. Why would you NOT wear underwear with a skirt?!" I explained that I would never do that to go to Shoprite, but I figured there was nothing there HE hadn't seen before and that it wasn't a big deal.


It's still a mystery as to how the skirt ripped clear across the back. But it was an interesting start to my Monday. Just wondering how many kids on Dill & Alek's bus will be in therapy from seeing Mrs. Krupa's ass this morning.


CarrieAnn

Hello everyone, So I've been busy, sick and trying to figure out how to create a new blog on this blogging website. It also doesn't help that I have not been in the working/computer world for 8+ years and have no knowledge of computer crap whatsoever.


What do hernia, tendinitis, bronchitis, broken blood vessel spots, diabetes, anemia, joint pain, sciatica, nausea, high blood pressure, swollen glands, swollen tongue, asthma and back pain all have in common? Yeah, you guessed it, they are all ailments that I have.


By the time June is here I will have been to an internist, a sonographer (not only for my belly, but for my neck), a chiropractor, an Obstetrician, a dietitian, a hematologist, an endocrinologist, a pulmonologist, a dentist, an oral surgeon, a general surgeon...well, you get the point. I've pretty much had it and I am convinced this pregnancy is going to kill me. I have never had so many ailments EVER. It could always be worse, but really I'm just not sure how much my body can take anymore. I've had a nasty cough for 2 days now that is only getting worse, and my iron levels are going down instead of up. But on the bright side, so far the baby is doing well. (Probably because she is sucking every single bit of life out of ME.) I really hope this isn't an indicator as to what my birth experience is going to be like. God help me. I pray that being the 4th, she just slips right out. However, I couldn't possibly be that lucky.


Tomorrow is Alek's 6th birthday! Woo Hoo...big shout out to my boy. However he was not getting a big shout-out on Sunday morning when he was busted trying to make a giant paper airplane out of Jake's school project poster board. Just a good thing he was caught before this house was meltdown central. But anyway, big shout out to my baby.


Trying to figure out what to eat has been interesting. I go to the dietitian on Thursday morning for some meal planning. Thursday cannot some soon enough. Little Snooki and I have been living on red leaf lettuce and Polly-O string cheese for 4 days now, oh, and hard boiled eggs. Let's not forget those. They make for some unforgettable evenings at bedtime. I think Alan is probably having a harder time with my diet change than I am. When you don't eat fish, chicken or meat, what's left? Pasta, rice, potatoes....what I've been eating the past 34 years of my life. Those are now all the things I am unable to have.


Anyway, this was purely a bitching blog. My belly is getting bigger, but I'm not really putting on any weight. Weird considering I gained 80, 65 & 40 pounds with the other 3 pregnancies. But like I said, so far the baby is doing okay. So I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to everyone for my recent statuses. I've just been so bitchy and sick, and quite frankly my mother is the only one that doesn't seem to tire of hearing about it. Sorry guys. Hopefully come June I'll be sending out some more positive messages!


Love you all,
CarrieAnn

As usual, issues of a bizarre nature continue to plague us. It's never anything simple like the dog ran away. No, our dog runs away and then gets brought home in the back of a police car. It's not "Mommy, Dillon took my pencil. Tell him to give it back." It's Dillon took my pencil so let me take this matter into my own hands and beat the hell out of him and then stab him in the hand with said pencil. It's not "Ma I forgot my lunch." It's "Ma, I forgot to e-mail my essay to my teacher so I need you to log onto every account on the computer and see where I saved the file and then e-mail it to my teacher. It won't take you long and you're not doing anything anyway." Anyway, you get the point.

This brings me to our new and exciting issue. About a month ago when we were getting hit with snowstorm after snowstorm Alan got up at 5:30 one morning to start the shoveling out process. He started in the backyard by our detached garage and was working his way up to the road. As he made his way to the front of the house he spotted a strange pickup truck parked in the shoulder across the street. Someone had gotten out of the truck and began walking towards the house, only to be surprised by Alan, and got back in the truck and sped away. Alan told me about the incident and then blew it off.

That night (a weeknight) about 10ish someone rang our doorbell multiple times, left us an empty Snapple bottle on the front porch and then took off. I really didn't think much of it. I was under the impression that it was the teenage girl next door fooling around and blew that off as well.

Fast forward about 10 days....Jake was up at 6 getting ready for school. He opened the front door and the same pickup that Alan had described was in our driveway. Apparently when Jake turned lights on and opened up the front door the truck took off. He ran frantically into my bedroom and proceeded to explain to Alan and I what had happened. Jake is known to embellish the truth a bit, so once again we just blew it off.

All was quiet around here for about 2 weeks. We chalked the truck up to being the newspaper guy and hadn't received anymore Snapple bottle gifts on our front porch. Until yesterday morning....

Jake was up getting ready for school. When he opened the front door to catch the bus he was greeted by a 2 -foot plastic Frankenstein doll. It was in a standing position and purposely put down so it would be facing whoever opened the front door first in the morning. Around 7:00 I went outside to get the paper and the doll was there laying face down on the front porch. I yelled inside to Alan asking him where the Frankenstein came from. Of course, he had no clue what I talking about.

When Jake got off the bus I interrogated him about where this thing came from. He thought the kids put it there to scare the hell out of him. Well, that wasn't the case. None of us had ever seen this doll before. I absolutely refused to bring the thing in the house. It sat on the front porch until 5:45 yesterday when Alan, Jake and Dillon were leaving for Basketball practice. Jake decided to kick the doll down the front porch steps. The second it hit the ground the top of the head popped open and a small note (written like a ransom letter mind you) popped out. This is exactly what it said PUSH MY BUTTON, TURN MY WHEEL, GUESS WHO.

So what do you think Jake and Alan did? I watched from the house in horror as they pushed the button on the arm of the doll. When they did that, 2 doors on the chest of it popped open revealing some gear-like things, a fake heart and some sort of internal speaker. (All of these things were basically supposed to be Frankenstein's guts.) When they tried to figure out how to get the thing to make noise the batteries had already been drained so you couldn't make out what it said. They put the doll down and went on their merry way to practice leaving me and Alek alone at the house wondering if the "Frankenstein/Snapple bottle bandit" was sitting somewhere watching the house.

I proceeded to do what any woman who is out of their mind would do. I called Chesterfield police to report what's been going on. Every cop in Chesterfield (all 2 of them) showed up at my front door like there was some kind of hostage situation in progress. I let them in and told them what's been going on. At one point my 5 year old chimed in "she thinks there's a bomb in Frankenstein." Yeah. Thanks for making me look even more nuts Alek.

I explained how I thought the opening of the doll's chest may have symbolized that my entire family was going to be gutted in the middle of the night. With our hi-tech security cameras down and the night watchman on vacation, I couldn't be too careful. I then asked them if they could take it to the station and dust it for fingerprints. (Yes. Really.) They said because Alan and Jake had also touched it that they would need to fingerprint them as well.

When Alan and Jake got back from practice I explained that I had called the police and that I made them take the note and the doll. The police chalked it up to me having a kid in high school and one of his "friends" trying to play a joke on him. I suppose this wouldn't be a far-fetched idea except that none of Jake's friends drive, and because our HS is regionalized and the townships are so spread out, someone would have to drive quite a distance in the middle of the night of early morning to get to our house. But, I'm not saying this isn't a possibility at all. Nevertheless Alan and Jake cracked up and made fun of me all night for calling the police to escort the battery-operated doll away.

About 9:00, while I lay in bed reading Jake continues the jokes and comes into my bedroom. He laid on my bed and just wouldn't knock it off. At which point I kindly reminded him that his bedroom is the one closest to the front porch and that he would probably be the first gutted. He continued to laugh, went into the litchen and made the sign that you see at the top of this blog. And yes, he taped it to the front door. Before he went to bed for the night I gently reminded him of when he and I watch "The Strangers", the movie that gave him nightmares for an entire week. I told him that when he's tied to a chair, writhing to get out of the position our Frankenstein bandit had put him in, that I'd just sit there and crack jokes.

Love you all,
CarrieAnn (there goes my "Mother of the Year" award once again)