A Friendly Reminder

So how are you guys doing? I'm doing well. Money is tight this week, but God has been blessing us. I should get paid tomorrow for a group of toddler skirts I made for a lady at church, and I have orders for a couple more from people I went to high school with. And my parents stopped by today with a HUGE load of groceries, which was AWESOME. 

Also in the awesome category (well, not so awesome at the time, but in the long run - and yeah, kind of awesome even at the time), I got spanked on Monday night. I wasn't expecting it. Nick went up to take a shower, and I went up with my laptop with the intention of showing him something funny I'd found when he got out. I was lying across the bed on my stomach when he came out, and he smacked my bottom hard with both hands. I squealed, and he pulled me back onto my feet and pulled down my jeans and panties. To be honest, I was expecting things to go in a different direction, so I was a bit surprised when he started spanking me, rather hard, with his hand. And then he started lecturing me on slacking off a little with some of the housework. And he asked me what happens when I do that. And that's where I made my mistake. 

See, during an actual, serious discipline spanking I have a very hard time with articulating just what's happening. During sex, it's a huge turn-on, but during a punishment not so much. It's embarrassing, and it also pushes hard on that little core of rebellion inside of me, and he knows this. When Morgan is defiant with me, I sometimes make her do jumping jacks. Not like a bunch of them, usually something like 10-15, certainly less than the average public school gym teacher demands in P.E. It doesn't hurt her, it doesn't impose a physical strain on her, but it brings home to her that she is the child and I am the parent, and at the end of the day, I'm in charge and she has to do what I say. And she HATES it, but it gets the message across, and it generally brings her back in line pretty quickly.

And it's with the same reasoning that Nick sometimes makes me admit out loud that I've done something wrong and I'm getting spanked for it. And I hate it just as much as Morgan hates those jumping jacks. So when he asked me what happens when I don't do my chores, my answer was a very noncommittal "Mmmm..." A couple more very hard swats and the question repeated prompted me to say "That!" To which he answered, "I can see that you're not taking me seriously. This was supposed to be a friendly reminder, but I can see that's not working."

By that point he was rummaging in the toy chest, and I was starting to panic. He pulled out the Cane-iac Jr. with holes, and I went into full on begging and apology mode. To no avail, though, because he bent me right back over the bed and began to paddle me. I'll admit that it wasn't a very hard paddling, but, and I think most of you know what I mean, slick, hard maple, especially with holes in it is very painful on a bare bottom at any force, just for the stinging alone. 

Before long I couldn't hold still at all, and I asked if I could please lay on the bed. He let me do so, and the paddling continued for a bit. When he asked me again what happens when I don't do my chores I wasted no time at all in answering loudly enough for him to hear, "I get spanked!" He gave me a few more swats, then put down the paddle and held me. 

It wasn't very long before I was eager to show him just how sweet and submissive I could be, and we moved on to the awesome part of the evening, which is best left in my memories. :)

Busy days

Coming back from vacation I always feel like there's so much catching up to do. That's not actually the truth in this case, even if it feels that way. Almost all of our vacation laundry was done before we left Texas, and we unloaded the car as soon as we got home, so it was just a matter of putting it all away. The dishes were done and the trash taken off before we left, and even most of the laundry that didn't go with us was clean (although maybe not folded).

But here it is less than 2 weeks later and the laundry is piled up (despite the fact that I do it constantly), the sink is full (also doing the dishes all the time), and the bedrooms are in chaos (despite the fact that I've worked on ours all week).

Part of it has to do with the fact that Jack has been crazy clingy since we got back, and Daisy has been an unusual handful. I think she picked up some attitude from Maddox, because she has definitely not been her usual sweet and compliant self since we got back. The other night she pitched an honest to goodness temper tantrum, something that has only happened once before in her life, and that was when she was about 20 months old.

The last couple of weeks have been full of errands, between back to school shopping, dentist appointments, a birthday party, a wedding, an order for a skirt for a lady at church, signing Morgan up for soccer, paying bills, taking the dog for a rabies vaccine, mailing back Morgan's old ipad, and getting the new one to log onto our wifi, a process that turned out to be a ridiculous hassle.

My mom called me yesterday to tell me kind of a crazy story. All my life my parents have loved to sit on the front porch during a thunderstorm. (No lectures please). They have two porch swings and several rockers, and my mom has a big fluffy recliner out there. So when a storm blew up that afternoon they sat out on the porch to enjoy the show. Then it started to get pretty bad, so they decided to go inside.

About two minutes later my mom was looking out the window at the deluge when suddenly lightning struck one of the trees in the front yard their hammock hangs from. The hammock is secured with a thick chain, and the lightning jumped from the chain to a shrub at the corner of the porch. The whole house shook, and the blast hurt their ears even with them inside. My mom had a ceramic frog shaped planter at the base of the tree that was struck, and it was blown apart. The surge fried their whole phone system, one of their TVs, the wiring to their cable and internet, and their well pump.

Once they got their nerves settled and the storm died down, they went out to check the damage. All of the bark on the tree had been blown off in long thick strips, and the recliner where my mom was sitting just a couple of minutes before the strike was filled with bark and sharp shards of shrapnel from the broken planter. If they had still been on the porch when it happened they would have doubtless been injured, quite probably seriously so. Thank God they had gone in!

They were without water until today when they were able to get the well pump replaced, but it will be another week or so before they get their phone and internet back.

We also got some family news last night - Grant and Kelly are (quite unexpectedly) expecting again! They're happy, but also more than a little scared, because Logan is only 10 1/2 months old. When the new baby comes he'll be just a little younger than Jack is now. All day today I tried to imagine bringing a newborn home right now and trying to juggle him/her and Jack. Honestly, Kelly struggled quite a bit with postpartum depression, so we're praying that she handles it well.

We are looking a bit forward to watching the new parent smugness fall away, lol. It's just within the last week that Logan has started to even army crawl, so they've not had to do any baby proofing as of yet, and they always seemed a bit exasperated with us and with Kate when Daisy, Jack, or Maddox got into something at their house. We knew that as soon as Logan started getting into everything they would understand, but now it looks like they're going to really be baptized into it with fire.

They've also had plenty of date nights, something that comes very rarely for me and Nick, simply because they have one (immobile) grandchild to watch, where we have 3 very active ones. Nick said several weeks ago that he had the feeling that once Logan was up and into everything that the baby sitting offers would dry up pretty quickly.

Kelly called me today to talk to me about getting the same maternity coverage I had with Jack since their policy doesn't have maternity benefits. I think they should qualify, which would be great, so she can keep her same doctor. Dr. E delivered all three of mine, as well as Logan, and she will deliver Faith's baby in November, our friend Melanie's in December, and Kate used to see her when she lived here. She also was Faith's doctor during her pregnancy last year that ended in miscarriage. She's really an awesome OBGYN, and I was a little sad when I went back for my six week visit after Jack was born because I knew she'd seen me through my last pregnancy.

I've been doing a bit of crafting lately, which is always good for me. I made Daisy nine little skirts to take to Texas with us, and a 10th one a couple of days ago. Then yesterday I made the one for the lady at church. It's actually for her granddaughter who lives out  of state. Her family will be coming in for a visit this weekend, and she'll try it on her then to see if the fit needs to be adjusted, and then she wants four more. My mother-in-law's birthday was last week, and I made her a necklace, bracelet, and earring set, as well as a couple of leather brooches. I also made a taggie blanket for my friend Elizabeth's neighbor, and I had a pillow cover order last week. My friend Denise just started an Etsy shop selling handmade earrings, and her birthday is coming up, so I've made her a bunch of earring cards in zebra print (her shop theme) to mail off to her. And Elizabeth's birthday was this week, and she's requested a couple of hair accessories, so that's next.

I'm missing Nick a lot. It seems like it's been ages since we've had any alone time, and if I'm honest I'm feeling the need to feel some boundaries. I'm at that too familiar place where I think the best thing for me would be a hard spanking, but I don't really have a way to make that happen short of purposefully doing something to make him mad, and I'm not willing to do that. There are surely things he could pick to deal with me about, but he's been really busy himself, and I'm trying to stay aware of that.

Anyway, it's time for me to head to bed, so I'll say goodnight.

Vacation

You guys, we had SUCH a great vacation! 

The original plan was to leave early Friday morning and take turns driving straight through to Texas. It's easily 15+ hours of driving, with the inevitable stops for meals and potty breaks, but we'd done it before. Then it turned out that we wouldn't be able to leave as early as we'd hoped. Morgan started 7th grade yesterday, and she had to have a couple of immunizations before she could start. I'd tried several different offices of the pediatric practice we use, but the only appointment available before we left was at 8:45 Friday morning. 

So I got all of my and the kids stuff packed, along with the snacks for the road, and once Nick threw his stuff together late Thursday night I loaded it all up in the car. Nick usually packs the car, but I was anxious to get on the road ASAP, and I knew he was tired and would have a few things to do while I had Morgan at the doctor, so I went ahead and loaded up, and I did a great job if I do say so myself!

Early Friday morning I loaded Morgan and Jack up and headed to the doctor while Nick and Daisy took off the trash and straightened up a few last things around the house. Morgan and I hit Chick-Fil-A for breakfast for us all on the way home, and I walked in the door ready to leave. When I got home Nick was on the phone with Kate. It turned out that she and Will had decided to meet us halfway in New Orleans to spend the weekend. They had already made hotel reservations for us. 

We got to the hotel at about 10:15, where they valeted our car for us. This is something Kate had told us would be happening, but we got a little lost getting to the hotel, spotted it about 5 seconds before we had to turn in, and were completely unprepared for the flock of valets that descended on us as soon as Nick stopped the car. They were incredibly polite and helpful, but it was a little embarrassing to open the back hatch to get out the luggage. Morgan had spent the whole trip in the back by the bags and had shifted stuff around looking for things over the course of the drive, not to mention scattered various snack wrappers about, so we felt a little like the Beverly Hillbillies when various bags and debris tumbled out, lol. 

The first fun surprise came when they took us up to our room. Will and Kate had booked us a double room, but the hotel had somehow messed up and didn't have the reservation. They had Kate and Will's and Grant and Kelly's, but not ours. So to make up for it, they put us in the penthouse suite! It was on the 30th floor of the JW Marriott, and it had an AMAZING view of New Orleans! It was far and away the nicest hotel accommodations we've ever had, even nicer than the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Honolulu, although the cottage we stayed in last year at Sea Island probably had it beat (check out photos 7 and 8 of the link up there to see an example of our suite). But it was a two story suite, with a ginormous master bathroom (it even had a bidet, which tickled Morgan and Daisy lol), a gorgeous master bedroom, and equally gorgeous double bedroom with it's own very nice bathroom, and an area with a game table. That was just the upstairs. Downstairs was a living room, dining room, coffee bar area, desk area, and another bathroom. The suite even had a doorbell! Here are a few strategically blurred photos, but they were taken late at night with my phone, so please excuse the quality:

When we got there Will told us to just order room service on him for dinner since it was so late. Dinner was delicious, and we headed to bed since we had to get up early for a delicious breakfast and the swamp tour Will had booked for all of us! That was a blast, something we really enjoyed. It was a company in Slidell, and a very nice man took us out on a boat through the swamp. We got to hold a snake (er, everybody else got to hold a snake - I wanted no part of that!), and we got to see and feed tons of alligators! What was so funny was that they feed them marshmallows! Who would have thought?

Anyway, after the swamp tour, we headed back to New Orleans, where we freshened up, then Will took us all to lunch at Huck Finn's, where we all tried fried alligator. Not bad, but awfully chewy. After lunch we went to the New Orleans Aquarium, which was honestly kind of a let down. We've got a couple of aquariums in our state that are much nicer, and the huge crowds of people we had to fight through didn't help matters much. But it was Shark Week, and we got to see an IMAX 3D movie about them, so that was neat. And Nick got to add to his collection of souvenir golf balls. :)

After the aquarium we went back to the hotel and napped for a little while, then Kate watched all three of our kids while Nick and I went out to dinner with Grant, Kelly, and Logan to a little barbecue restaurant called The Joint.

Quick funny story about that huge tub up there: It had whirlpool jets, and after Nick and the kids went to sleep I decided I was going to soak for a bit. The control for the jets was up high on the wall to keep it out of the reach of children. So I ran hot water, sitting in it until it came up above the level of the jets, per the instruction. Then I got out to turn on the jets. Obviously when you get out of a tub the water level goes down, so getting out dropped it just below the top line of jets, but no big deal, I was going to just turn it on and hop back in real quick, right? So I set the automatic timer for 10 minutes and hit start. Well, for some reason, (probably Maddox and Daisy when they were taking their bath earlier), all of the jets were pointed UP, so as soon as they came on they shot hot water all over the bathroom! So, in a panic, I jump back in to get the water level back above the jets. And I can't get the jets to point back down, I'm staring at all this puddled water everywhere, not at all relaxed, and the water must have been too hot, because I start getting kind of weak and lightheaded. But I can't get back out till the timer stops, because if I do it will spray water everywhere for the rest of the time. Finally, I decide to risk it, and I jump out again, and the water goes everywhere, but the timer lets me turn it to zero, so I got it stopped. But I spent the next little while using almost all of our towels to mop up the bathroom. So much for a relaxing soak in the jacuzzi!

The next morning we had another terrific breakfast at the hotel, then Kate, Will, and Maddox had to leave. Kate's daughter Kit had spent the previous week out of state with her father and grandparents, and they had to pick her up at the airport. The rest of us checked out a few hours later and spent the afternoon visiting the French Market. That was okay, although the kids were hot and tired, and Jack had a completely out of character meltdown. Nothing would calm him down until we happened upon a fresh fruit vendor and got him some watermelon, which he loves. That did the trick, so I think he was maybe just needing water, but too hot and upset to be patient enough to drink it from his water bottle. He usually drinks from a baby bottle, but it had gone missing (we later found it in the car), so we had purchased a kid's sports bottle to fill with water, and he wasn't used to drinking from such a hard spout, so that may have been part of what was frustrating him.

After we had seen all we wanted to see of New Orleans we got on the road to Texas. It was a long drive, and we arrived a little after 1AM Monday morning. Monday we just kind of hung out at the house, and everybody played in the pool. Jack is not a big fan of being in the water, but he loved the water table they had there for him and Logan to play with. Now Maddox is four, and pretty mischievous, and we had to watch him around Jack. Not that he was malicious, but he was used to playing with bigger kids, and he could be a little rough. Anyway, I think it was either that day or the next that he pushed Jack into the pool. Kate and I were inside, but all of the other adults were out there either in or beside the pool (or none of the kids would have been out there in the first place), so Nick scooped him up just as soon as he hit the water, but it was still scary. Kelly grabbed Maddox and spanked him for it, and he got it again when Kate came out and found out what had happened, so hopefully he'll never do such a thing again!

Tuesday we went to the mall, where Kate took Morgan, Daisy, Maddox, and Kit to see the movie Turbo. We decided not to put Jack or Logan through the movie experience, so Nick, Kelly, Grant and I walked around the mall with the babies. I got Daisy a few pairs of sandals and a sweater, and Jack a couple of shirts. After the mall we headed back to the house to get ready for the Houston Astros game Will had gotten us all tickets for. It was the first time Nick, the kids and I had been to a MLB game, so it was really neat, even though we ended up leaving early because Will had to work early the next day and the little ones were getting restless.

Wednesday we went to the Houston Zoo, which was a lot of fun, but it was HOT! The kids got to feed the giraffes, which was really neat. :) That night we had dinner at Mooyah's.

The zoo kind of wore us out, so Thursday we just hung out at the house till Will got home from work, then we all went to Rudy's for barbecue. Rudy's is a Texas tradition for us, and Nick has been looking forward to it all year. :) Afterwards we stopped at Academy, and Will bought Morgan some stuff for soccer (cleats, shorts, socks).

Friday we just hung out by the pool again till Will got home, then he took us to dinner at this terrific Mexican restaurant, Pappasita's, I think it was. Afterwards we stopped by the man made lake their neighborhood is built around and did a quick photo shoot with all of the kids. Kate had bought matching outfits for Jack, Logan, and Maddox, and a coordinating dress for Daisy, and we wanted to get some shots to give the grandparents for Christmas. Then we stopped for frozen yogurt, then went back to the house.

Kelly, Grant, and Logan left early Saturday morning, but Nick and the kids and I stayed till about 1:30 that afternoon. After we said our goodbyes, we loaded up and hit the road, but I talked Nick into letting me visit both the Goodwill and Hobby Lobby before we left Houston. :) He thinks it's silly that I always want to do that on vacation, since we have both stores at home, but you get a better level of donated merchandise at the Goodwill in the rich part of Houston than you do where we live, and every Hobby Lobby has different stuff in their clearance aisle - my main interest! I got a few things at both places, and we were on our way.

The trip home went okay until we reached Louisiana. We were just a mile or two onto the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge, which is 18.2 miles long, when traffic came to a standstill. At this point my parents' borrowed GPS unit was telling us we were still 10 1/2 hours from home. There was a wreck up ahead somewhere, and in 2 hours time we moved about half a mile. After about 15 minutes of us being stuck there, Jack got a piece of a fruit roll up stuck in his throat and started projectile vomiting, which seemed to go on for several minutes. I was driving (or sitting behind the wheel rather), so I couldn't do anything, but Nick was completely awesome. He made sure his airway was clear, and cleaned him up as best he could with baby wipes, even while he was still throwing up. Of course this all meant that both Jack and the car smelled super awesome for the next 12 hours, but what are you going to do?

It was seriously the slowest trip home ever. Even taking into account the traffic jam, it just seemed like we were making terrible time, despite the speed limit being 70 MPH most of the way, and us doing every bit of that. Sunday morning we rolled into Chattanooga, tired and hungry, and Nick declared that we were going to take the opportunity to have breakfast at Cracker Barrel and visit the Chattanooga Aquarium. Nick and I went to it once probably 15 years ago, and we were really impressed, so we wanted to take the kids. It was even better than I remembered. The trip really caught up with Nick about halfway through the exhibits though, so I got in the driver's seat when we finished up. I drove until I couldn't stay awake anymore, then we switched out.

By the time we got home it was 5:30 Sunday evening, about 30 hours after we left Will and Kate's house. We started unloading the car, and the heavens opened up on us. Within less than a minute it was pointless to try to stay dry, so we just gave into the rain, and by the time we were done we looked like drowned rats. Nick went and got us some pizza for dinner, and my parents stopped by after church to drop off our mail. Then we went to bed, and the next morning Nick went back to work and Morgan started school.

Just a few of the ways Kate and Will (and God through them!) blessed us on this trip:
*Paid for valet parking and awesome hotel accommodations in New Orleans
*Dinner twice in New Orleans
*Aquarium and movie in New Orleans
*Swamp tour in Slidell
*Watched the kids while Nick and I went out for dinner in New Orleans
*Had (all on their own) new pajamas for Jack and Daisy, swimmie diapers for Jack, diaper wipes, and lotion and body wash purchased specifically to treat Jack's excema waiting on us at their house.
*Purchased (without any input from us) sensitive teeth toothpaste for Daisy because Kate noticed she was showing sensitivity to cold drinks
*Purchased sandals and a dress for Daisy, and a swim suit for Morgan
*Tickets for a Houston Astros vs Boston Red Sox game
*Tickets to the Houston Zoo
*Paid for Morgan and Daisy to feed the giraffes.
*Will bought Daisy a Barbie doll and a Disney princess Play-Do castle, and some extra Play-Do
*Bought soccer cleats, socks, and shorts for Morgan
*Took us to a very nice dinner in Houston
*Stocked their house with all our favorite foods and sent us home with loads of snacks and cold drinks
*Paid for everybody's frozen yogurt
*Sent us home with some chalkboard paint and magnetic primer. Before we went on vacation, I had told Nick that I wanted to paint the bottom half of a short section of our hallway between doors with chalkboard paint. I've wanted to do this for a while, and had finally settled on the place I wanted it. When we got to Texas I noticed that the closet door in their playroom was chalkboard, and I complemented them on it and mentioned my plans for our hallway. Will immediately said that they had leftover paint that we could have, and the next day he got it out for me.
*Sent us home with an extra bottle of Rudy's barbecue sauce that they had because they knew how much Nick loves it.
*Paid to have Morgan's iPad (which they bought her) fixed. Several months ago she was getting out of the car and it slipped out of her hand. It was in its cover, but it landed face down, and the screen basically shattered. It still worked for a little while, but eventually the touch screen quit working at all, and we hadn't had the money to get it fixed. Will dropped and cracked his a couple of weeks ago, so he told her that he would take hers in with his to get it fixed. Hers was damaged badly enough that they just had to replace it (with us sending her old one back in), so they sent a new one to the house and it came today.
*Kate did almost all of our laundry all week. This was not my intention, and several times I went to the laundry room to do a load and found that she had already done it. The girl straight up loves to do laundry!
*Sent us home with a $1,000 check and several hundred dollars in cash.

That last one was really such a God thing. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Nick took out a loan from his 401K so that we could take this trip and pay off a few bills. There was a bit of a misunderstanding between us, because the amount I had mentioned us needing for bills was $1000, and he thought I had said $500. So when I paid $1000 worth of bills with it, he got pretty upset, which led to me getting upset, because I was only doing what I thought I was supposed to. Anyway, we still had enough left for the trip, but not as much as Nick thought we would have. So before we left, I prayed that God would somehow let us come home with money in our pocket. They obviously paid for a lot of stuff, but it was a lot of gas to get there, a lot of gas driving around Houston (not a small town!), not to mention meals on the road, and a few little souvenirs for the kids.

By Wednesday we were down to less than we needed to get home. That wasn't quite the panicky realization you might think, because I knew Nick would be getting paid Friday, and his vacation pay would make it a larger than normal check, so we could use that. Then Friday morning rolled around, and his check showed up in the bank - minus his vacation pay. This is maybe the 3rd or 4th time they've done this to us, and it makes me want to scream every time. Nick always does everything he's supposed to to insure that they turn his vacation in, but it never seems to help. In fact, they would have done it back in June when he took a week off for camp if he hadn't called from camp and had the guy double check that he had submitted it on his end. Worse news - they said they would make the correction on his next check - in two weeks!

As far as I know Kate didn't know any of this when she handed Nick several hundred dollars on either Friday or Saturday. She just told him that she wanted to help us out with gas since Grant, Kelly, and Logan had ridden everywhere with her and Will while Nick and I had had to drive our own car since there wasn't room for us too.

Just before we left on Saturday she handed Nick an envelope and told him to open it after we left. When we did, there was a $1,000 check signed by Will inside. Until then I had no idea how we were going to get home and still pay the bills that needed to be paid before they got around to fixing his missing vacation pay. God is so very good to us, and he has blessed us so much with family who love us so much!

Quick Check In

This will probably be a quick post, but I wanted to check in. Kate and her kids came in last week, and it was a very nice time. She took us out to eat a couple of times, and Morgan spent the whole week with them, mostly at Nick's parents' house, but 2 days up at the lake cabin with Nick's grandmother. Daisy and Maddox were inseparable, and they can't wait to see each other again. 

Speaking of seeing each other again, we leave for Texas Friday morning. We ended up doing a loan from his 401K to pay off a few bills and make the trip. Everyone always says, "Oh - that's such a bad idea!" But the way it works with his company is that we pay it back via his paycheck and pay interest on it (to ourselves), so nothing is lost, and it goes right back into the 401K.

It will be a long trip, around 14 hours of driving, so we appreciate your prayers for safe travels and no potty training accidents. About potty training - Daisy has completely mastered it now (knock on wood). It was back and forth and really sporadic for a while, but spending so much time with Maddox has really seemed to have done the trick. She's not had an accident in days now!

Anyway, I'm off to bed - lots to do tomorrow! Good night!