My Own Private Barbie Hell....

I very much enjoyed my Barbies as a child. Aside from a short period in my teen years, I never got into that "ban Barbie because she is unrealistic" thing. After all, she is just a toy. My teddy bear didn't resemble real bears I had seen all that much, why should my dolls really reflect an accurate human shape? Besides, it wasn't about Barbie, it was about the clothes and fixing her hair. I really liked dressing her up and trading doll clothes with the neighbor boy.

Anyway.


I never really got any Barbies for Big Sprout, though. She was still a little young for them when Mr. Barefoot and I got together, and then his girls (who are almost 10 years older than Big Sprout) were outgrowing
their Barbies. Big Sprout just inherited theirs. She seemed fine with it, so I never really thought much about it.






Until recently. See, just in the last month or so, Little Sprout has discovered Barbie Doll. Little Sprout is infatuated. So fights became a part of the daily routine here at Barefoot Manor. Little Sprout would sneak into Big Sprout's room and steal a Barbie. Big Sprout would come home and throw a fit because Little Sprout was stealing her stuff!!! Then I would throw a fit because Big Sprout rarely plays with her Barbies, and if she isn't going to play with them I see no reason that Little Sprout can't. On the other hand, they ARE Big Sprout's dolls, and she has the right to say no.


Ugh.


This past weekend, a coworker gifted me a huge.....and I mean HUGE rubbermaid tub full of Barbie dolls and accessories. All for Little Sprout. Little Sprout is in heaven. The tub literally takes up an entire wall in our living room, and is full of Barbie stuff I didn't even know they had! There is a trampoline, for crying out loud. Horses, a carriage, kitchen stuff, a fire pit, bikes, a bath tub, Barbie baby stuff.....wow.


And it is ALL. OVER. MY. HOUSE. There are barbie shoes, and barbie hats. Barbie marshmallows to toast over the barbie campfire. Barbie sunglasses and barbie crowns. I am gonna lose my mind. I mean, it was cool the first little bit. The gal who gifted us these Barbies is compulsively neat, and each separate set was in it's own little baggie. It was fun to open the bags, look at the neat little things that Barbie can play with, and then put them back. I enjoyed pulling out the pretty dresses, and thinking about what activity Barbie would wear it for.

Now I am just done with the whole thing. It has been two full days of Little Sprout taking every single item out of the tub, asking what it is, handing it to me, and running back for yet another itty bitty little Barbie accessory. She sleeps with her Barbie dog, and stuck one of the Barbie's heads in her cereal milk. The Barbie carriage and horses have been running over my feet all morning.

I don't know whether to bless my coworker for making my little one so happy...... or kill her and hide the body in a swamp for saddling me with this hassle and mess.

*sigh* The joys of parenthood, right?

I Am Such A "Bad Mom"

K. Really.

Little Sprout has this issue with eating meals. She won't eat them ~ I mean AT ALL ~ then expects that she will be able to snack all day. It is partly my fault, because she usually wants something healthy like an orange or apple for snack. I mean, what Mommy doesn't want her kid to love goodies like that? So we have instituted a new rule here at Barefoot Manor: No snacking between meals. I have been dealing with tortured screaming all day because she is "SOooo HUNGWEEE!!!" Then, come meal time? The child ate three (yes, count them, THREE) bites of supper before telling me that she was full.

GAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

We also have a rule for Big Sprout, where if she gets late assignments at school she is grounded for one day per late assignment. Harsh, even I think so, but it is the only thing we have found that works. She is so incredibly bright that it sickens me to see her throwing away good grades because she is too lazy and unorganized to do her work.

So, of course, she came home today with one late assignment on her weekly report. We had to ground her for tomorrow, since she cleverly managed to avoid showing us the paper until 8pm. Silly child! If she would have shown it to us right away, she would have been grounded for the rest of the night (4pm till bedtime), and that would have been the end of it. NOW she has to deal with being grounded (which means massive chore loads, no TV, no puter, no games, no books, no radio....she just might die from the deprivation) for an entire Saturday. And we are the evil parents because "it was ONLY 2 minutes late!!!!!"

Too bad, kid. If you couldn't cut a deal with your teacher to keep it off the weekly report, then you can't cut a deal with us.

I tell you what, folks. I love my kids, truly I do, but there are many days when I wish I was rich enough to afford a nanny. Someone to actually do all the WORK involved with children, and someone who actually gets paid to listen to their tantrums. Cuz ya know what? Right now the sweet little hugs and kisses I get just aren't enough payment to make up for this hassle....

Nothing Says "I Love You" Like A Clean Toilet When You Have To Throw Up

Seriously. Too bad Mr. Barefoot doesn't do toilets, huh?

I have picked up (yet another) bug from work. I am blaming the newest client, since I have worked there 5(?) years now, and NEVER got sick this much or this badly. Of course, it could just be that I am getting old and run down. Maybe my body is just tired of fighting off all the germs and has gone on strike.

I dunno.

I DO know that I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. As I slept on the living room floor AGAIN last night (so as to not disturb Mr. Barefoot with my moaning and groaning), I decided that I would rather be unemployed and starving than ill all the time from my job.

Anyway, that's about all I have to say about that....

Just Wondering

Is it bad that it is after midnight and I am getting all weepy cuz I miss you guys?

It's Beginning Again

Yes, folks, the gardening bug has bit this little Barefoot Backside once again. The seed catalogs keep rolling in, and I keep looking at all the beautiful pictures and reading the amazing descriptions of scrumptious veggies and gorgeous flowers.

I am doomed. It seems that once you are infected with this addiction called gardening, you need much more than a 12 step program to give it up.

So the graph paper has come out, and the colored pencils. I am planning out how I can fit all the goodies I would like in my little yard, and conveniently ignoring the fact that the budget just will not support my dreams.

I keep looking around the house, trying to find a place that is warm enough, out of the way enough, and yet handy enough to set up a seed starting operation. I have the lights, etc to handle a small setup, and would love to get something going... the problem is that everywhere in the house that has enough room is just plain too cold! We keep the thermostat set pretty low (it gives us a chance to USE our sweaters and slippers), but in an old house that means that some areas of the house just don't warm up enough for seed starting.

I have thought about heat mats, or setting up a portable heater....still thinking about that.

As usual, the moment "garden-lust" started a deep resentment towards my job resurfaced. I am grateful I have a job (especially with all the folks out of work right now), and usually enjoy the work. But it interferes with what I REALLY want to be doing, which is running my home and garden. So I have been fighting that, as well. I have to keep telling myself that the job I have is perfect for me right now, and that I need to just be happy with what I have.

I am not so good at that.

Anyway. Xmas decorations are still up here at Barefoot Manor. Usually they would have come down last week, but being as sick as I was destroyed that notion before it even got started. So I am sitting here trying to ignore my HUGE Xmas tree that takes up half my living room and the snow village at my elbow. Hopefully over the next few days I will start feeling a little better, and I will find the energy to get some of this stuff taken care of.

HOPEFULLY.....

I just might survive this...

Well, folks, I took some of your advice about the cold thing. Some of it made me laugh (I am looking at YOU, Fr. Peter!), and some of it I had forgotten (how could I forget to put the garlic in the soup! *headsmack*). I have been through 3 boxes of tissues, and finally resorted to TP. I have consumed approximately a gallon of orange juice. I have slept upright in Mr. Barefoot's chair for two nights running. Today, I feel almost.....ALMOST like it would be worth it to survive this sinus pressure.

Right now my focus is on finding some way to moisturize the air here at Barefoot Manor. We have two vaporizers, but either my bedroom is too big and drafty or they have just started to go kaput after 3-4 years use. They just aren't putting out the steam they used to, and I really can't even tell the difference if they are on or not.

I would like to just boil pot after pot of water on the stove, but I am afraid my gas bill will be outrageous if I try that.

If we had old fashioned radiators, I would put pots of water on them to help...no such luck. :(

So now I am stuck trying to figure out what to do. Humidifiers are expensive and noisy (besides being a pain in the butt to keep full and clean). Getting a new vaporizer or two would be cheap, and I like the warm mist more than the cold. That wouldn't necessarily help in the main part of the house, though. They just aren't powerful enough to handle big rooms. I have heard of folks who hang dry their clothes inside to help with the humidity, but my laundry area is in the basement, and I have a hard time believing that the moisture would affect the air on the main level of the house. Besides which, I really don't have the space to line dry everything inside the house. Barefoot Manor is a small place, despite it's grand name.

I have resorted to taking several long hot showers a day just to breathe the steam. I am probably the cleanest person in creation right now! I am flat out of ideas folks...really. And my nose and throat are loudly demanding a solution.

Any ideas?

Barefoot the Red-Nosed Gardener

Little Sprout has learned the fine art of sharing, and started practicing her new skill with the world's most miserable cold. So here I am with nose raw and red, blowing my nose until my ears pop and worrying that my left eyeball is going to just abandon ship due to the pressure in my sinuses.

I am not a happy camper.

Normally, I try to be stoic about being sick. I have kids. I work in a situation where germs are EVERYWHERE. I don't take really good care of myself, so I am vulnerable. I figure there isn't much reason to get upset about the various illnesses that come my way. This one, however, is truly awful, and none of the meds I have tried so far are doing a single thing to relieve my misery.

Which brings me to the question of the day: I wanna know what the HECK those idiots in the field of medical science have been doing for the last couple hundred years. Seriously.

We can turn men into women (and vice versa), we can take organs from one body and put them in another, we can re-start hearts that have stopped. We have lasers and robots and machines that take pictures of our insides. We can have painless childbirth. We can clone sheep. And yet THERE IS NO REMEDY FOR THE COMMON COLD!

I am tellin' ya folks, I think someone has their priorities all messed up. I mean, I understand the whole "gotta let the virus run it's course" thing. Really I do. But couldn't we have a decongestant that actually works? Or tissues that don't rub all the skin off my nose? Or at least something that stones me out enough that I don't care I am miserable? With all the medical advances we have made, there is not one single product out there that actually helps with my colds/flus/whatever. I wanna know why.

So, medical scientists....how 'bout you get on that, huh?

kthanxbye