You're Not Welcome Here

Tuesday is a daily mass day for me and the under five crew. You never know how it's going to turn out. While we haven't had an incident where anyone has needed to pray for me lately, I do have to stop the chit chat of No David. Then there is the Baby Hulk who may or may not like the priest celebrating the mass.

Today was nearly perfect as far as mass goes with three young children. The baby didn't make a peep, the Baby Hulk sat quietly beside me on the last row and No David wandered between the pew and the door without making a sound. Until I burped Baby Z...two people turned as I patted her on the back.

I was feeling good about myself, the day and full of love and then this lady informed me in Spanish that I should use the cry room during mass for the kids. Although I understood every word she said, I couldn't answer her in Spanish. No problem, she told me the same shit in English.

Really???

Oh, the benefits of a cry room: you can hear the mass and your kids can run around the entire time. Just what a mom that goes to daily mass wants, children who don't understand the importance of mass and don't take it seriously. Have I used the cry room before? Yes, and had my children needed to be in there, I would have gone. As laid back as I like to think I am, I am hyper-sensitive about some things. I hate when my kids don't share, talk too loud and so on. I have to be reminded to let them be kids. Often. Ask my parents, I so don't think my kids are perfect despite what they think!

I wasn't rude to the lady, but let her know that I wouldn't be using the cry room. Her response: "God bless you". And if you can make that statement in a crappy way without any heart, she did it.

I immediately found the grandmothers that love me and asked if my kids had made any noise. When they also told me how great they were today, I tattled on the witch. They were appropriately horrified for me.

Then I went to the priest who told me how happy he was to see the children at mass and thanked me for bringing them BEFORE I even told him about the lady.

You know this isn't the first time I've been made to feel like crap for bringing my kids to church. It happens all the time. I'd like to say it's mostly old people who have forgotten what kids are like, but it's not. It's people my age, my parents age and so on. For a church that opposes ABC and is so pro-life, sadly, a lot of them can be pretty crappy when it comes to kids.

Valentine's Day

The start of my day...Eggs in the shape of a heart.

And the end of my day.

Despite the CBs below, our day was nice. Squirt's nasal surgery went well, supposedly we're/he's fine, but we will see in about two years. Lance surprised me with breakfast in bed. I stopped by Pete's for filet for dinner. Glad to celebrate US. Thanks, Hallmark.

Pissed because they were kicked out of the dining room.

Do Over

This afternoon was not a great one. I sent Lance to College Station to attend a football clinic for the afternoon thinking it wouldn't be a big deal. He was only going to listen to one speaker. I just failed to account for his drive time. No biggie though, I figured they would nap, we'd make a Valentine's project, watch a short movie about St. Bernadette and have dinner.

The project sits unfinished, and the movie is still in its case.

I was so frustrated with the kids for various reasons: No David for his continued mischievous nature, The Baby Hulk's continued inability to do one thing I ask of him, and Goose's failure to read any of his school work this week. (Blog entry on that to come later.) And then my little girl: she continues to cry unless you hold her. While I don't believe in letting babies "cry it out" at this stage, there have been times that I have to put her down and let me tell you, the girl has stamina. She is relentless.

You could safely say that I was more than annoyed by bedtime.

And the boys knew it. It took every effort to say prayers and give kisses and tell them I love them. And that I expected more tomorrow. As I closed the door, I promised myself tomorrow would be better. I would do better.

Less than ten minutes later, Goose was in my room bawling. Earlier when No David was turning the television on and off (one of his new moves), Goose had seen something that scared him.

Here was my chance, and thank God, I didn't miss it. Thank God I was a mom instead of a drill sergeant. Hearing my reaction to Goose was enough to bring the Baby Hulk into the room. He decided that he was scared too. Then No David climbed out of his crib, telling us he was scared and wanted to snuggle. How could I turn that down?

I'm not usually a fan of holdouts during bedtime. We have long days, and the boys need their sleep. Period. Everyone has bedtimes, including Squirt, who just asked us when he would get a new time. We wouldn't survive without bedtimes. But for tonight, I'm grateful for the chance of a "Do Over" with the boys. They, no WE all deserved it.

Snow Day

All week long we've been preparing for snow and ice. Today was the day and what a bust. No Snow. My poor kids have been talking about building a snowman all week. Now their play date has been cancelled because mom doesn't drive on ice and they are stuck inside. Oh, to be like the mom next door who threw her kids outside by 8:30 this morning so they could check out the ice.

I decided to set up stations for the day to keep us from going crazy. Really, I can't take listening to Caillou any longer. Goose has decided he doesn't like "learning shows" anymore so instead he watches the most annoying show around. Somehow he managed to hit record without our knowledge so we have more than ten episodes with more popping up each day. And let me tell you, Caillou is the biggest baby around. This show explains the Baby Hulk's sudden inability to walk down the hall by himself. I really don't let my kids watch television very often, but I must admit with sick ones and me being super tired, I have allowed a bit more television than usual.

Today we are making a St. Brigid cross, reading on the couch, having a snack, doing a chore, having lunch, silent reading and puzzles. We'll end with popcorn and a family movie. Not bad, but still not the same as building as a snowman.

Here are some pictures from Wednesday. Squirt's surgery went well, and he should be able to actually breathe out of his nose soon. The doctor assures us that he will be fine after this surgery, but since this is the third surgery of this type, we're not convinced.

I often find Baby Z with toys surrounding her from the boys. The boys were really worried about Squirt and thought their animals would help him feel better.

We didn't make it to Mass on Wednesday to have our candles blessed so Lance did a blessing at home for us. No David LOVES his new candle. We, and by we I mean Lance and I, made candles over the weekend and I bought the cheesy ones at HEB for the kids. They were so excited about them!

FB Stops Child Abuse?

Okay, if you read my blog, you know I'm somewhat of a bitch. Here goes another...please explain how changing your profile on FB is going to help stop child abuse? I almost didn't want to write this b/c I am now basically talking about my FB friends who all changed their profiles. I kind of think donating time or money to an abuse or outreach center would make more of difference. But then again, that might just be the social liberal in me.

SPEAKING of being a social liberal....I was so proud of my boys the other day. I donated a coat to a homeless man (yes, dad, the boys were in the car) the other night. They were so upset about this man not having a home. Their solution: take him breakfast the next morning.

We Are Thankful

It's been one of those days where I just wanted to go back to bed. And to make matters worse, nothing bad even happened. I just didn't get enough sleep and was tired and sore from my work out yesterday. Poor Lance, he kept getting text messages during his show about why my morning was so, so bad.

I read something about having an "abundant life". I like how that sounds and generally think like that. It is busy and there is always something on my list, but that doesn't take away from the joy. And there is so much joy in our lives. These boys are truly a gift to us and my hope is that we treat them as such.

The picture was taken this morning and it's our grateful tree. Every one in the family contributed, some more than others. It took us a while to get here, my plan was for us to write something every night in November and talk about what we were thankful for during dinner. Nobody was interested. Finally, the Baby Hulk and I started our tree yesterday and had things ready for the other boys when they came home from school. I had to bribe No David with food to let me trace his hand. Lance didn't understand why he had to trace his hand, and the Baby Hulk said "I guess I'm thankful for my family."

Looking at what everyone wrote, we are grateful for a lot of things, but mostly each other. I am so grateful for my amazing husband and four beautiful sons. I'm grateful for the chance to hold another baby soon. We're grateful for friends, two special girls in our lives, grandparents, cousins, football, Snoopy and my favorite from Goose and the Baby Hulk...God, Jesus, Mary and the Saints. Abundance is a good thing.

Happy Thanksgiving from The Zierlein Family

My Boys

This morning I was telling Squirt about last night's mass and how awesome it was. How moms are so important that God even gave Jesus Mary for a mom rather than have him descend from heaven. Such a nice moment until a black corvette drove up next to us, and I totally lost him. I wanted to say, "dream on".

While I get giddy over Goose reading nonstop and talking about going to reading camp, Lance's proudest moment was this week when Goose wanted to watch football on the drive home Sunday and today when he wanted to watch football on TV.

Today the Baby Hulk and I were making pumpkin bread, and he told me he wanted to learn how to make it for his baby sister. Could he get any sweeter? Now if he could just stop his fits...

And No David...let's see, he hasn't hit anyone this week, made super ugly faces. Okay, really, I have a cute story. The kid LOVES pillow pets. These things are a bigger racket than silly bandz. Every kid wants one and then two, (I will admit they are super soft), and No David is no exception. I bought one for Christmas, which he found. I hid it again only to have him find it again, and Lance gave in and gave it to him.

Correction: No David has taken the time to throw all the magnets off the fridge at me for not giving him piping hot pumpkin bread. Another time for me to think how lucky these kids are that I don't believe in spanking.

Field Trip

Today was Goose's scheduled field trip at school. Since we went to the same place last year, I decided to pull him out so we could take a day together. He wanted to visit the Dinosaur museum and Chili's for lunch. The museum fit perfectly with the Baby Hulk's science for the past two weeks. We had the best day ever. After dropping Squirt off at school, who couldn't skip due to testing, we went to visit Lance at the station. We went to Chili's and Party City in search of costumes. We found something for the baby, but it will literally go into the donation pile next week because it barely fits him now.

Despite the fact that the boys have been to this museum several times, they never get tired of it. We spent a lot of time in the gift shop. So many books we could add to our library. Lance held me and Goose to one book.

The Pendulum at the museum...I have been going here for years and waiting and waiting for one of the pegs to get knocked over. Today was the day!!!

Afterwards we played in Hermann Park until it was time to pick up Squirt.


Tonight, Goose went with me to Mass for expectant moms at our parish church. It was a beautiful mass for me, and Father Troy presented all the pregs with St. Gerard medals to wear. I loved that Goose went with me tonight.

And on the way home from mass, I stopped at Party City and found his costume! Yay for him, bad mom on my part considering it was after 8 pm. But you know what, I loved every second I had with him and for today, that is all that counts.

Texas Fight

We took the boys to the UT game on Saturday. We had been planning this family event all summer. It would be the Baby Hulk's first football game. Then Lance didn't get tickets. I was so upset, but not so upset that I was willing to pay for these tickets. Not to be a total Texas snob, but this was just Rice we were playing. I realized that it would only cost more once we were playing better teams, but I didn't care. I wasn't paying for tickets to this game. Finally, Lance came through late Friday night with tickets! So we found a babysitter for the baby and took off.

The Baby Hulk was a total bust. I hate when that happens. It's not that I expected him to be into the entire game, but five minutes would be nice. We had to bribe him with food to get him to watch the game. And let's be clear, the other boys were just as bad. Between one texting and the other one goofing around, this is their last game for the year. I know Lance and I weren't watching entire football games at the younger boys ages, but we at least watched part of them and cheered. Lance even said that our little nerd will probably end up at Rice. Fabulous. Anyway, we did get some cute pictures so that one day we can lie about what fun we had at the game.

The Baby Hulk- ready to cheer!

An Inspired Game

Mom and her boys

Boys and Cars

Squirt is obsessed with cars, has been for years and is now passing on that love to the little boys. Today, I had to take everyone to the doctor with me and all I heard the entire time I was driving was "look, a Honda", "there's a Chevy", "a Cadillac" and so on. Squirt is so proud of himself for teaching his brothers how to recognize cars.

He started slow teaching them about sports cars. Ferraris, Porsches and Bugattis. The boys are even learning where these cars are made. Of course, it drives him crazy when the kids come home telling him that they saw four Ferraris AND a Bugatti. (I don't even know what that damn car looks like!) When I asked him why he gets so upset when they think they see a certain car, he just said that he wants them to be accurate. I can't say I blame him. Hopefully, they will all realize that a sports car is not in any of their futures until they are buying it themselves.

Music Time

I love living in Houston because there are so many opportunities to expose the kids to the arts. For the past two days, the children and I have enjoyed performances at Miller Outdoor Theater. Yesterday, young children from throughout the city performed on various instruments. There was one girl who was six years old playing the violin. Goose could not get over the fact that someone his age was playing the violin. Today we saw the symphony. The boys picked out the various instruments and recognized some of the more popular classical songs.

I really like exposing the boys to classical music, opera, plays, musicals and art. Do I think they are going to love all of it? Probably not, but they can sit through at least forty-five minutes of an hour performance without fidgeting too much and can talk about the music afterwards with me. I would love for one of the boys to really get into classical music and especially opera because my best friend has a library of music that would make most jealous. One of my kids has to inherit this one day!

So far this summer we've seen a musical and an opera, in addition to the last two days of music. Goose liked the opera a "little-lot", which probably means not at all, but that is okay. I am just happy that he is exposed to things like this at an early age. So despite the unbearable heat, we will continue to flock to this wonderful outdoor and free theater the rest of the summer.

Fruitables= BAD

Goose and the Baby Hulk have been asking for an orange burst all day. I finally told them if they had a fruitable, (juice box that contains a serving of veggies), they could have one. Goose took one sip and said he would rather have a bowl of broccoli. The Baby Hulk gulped his down, but still got stuck with some broccoli for his afternoon snack.