Mommy of Many®

Life has seemed pretty fast-paced lately. I have several projects I’m working on for the kids and the paper work seems endless.

Things happening at the Lang-house;
I’m getting paper work together to have one of the children tested for a possible learning disability.
I’m starting the potty-training process with Luke-Xavier.
I’m finishing financial-aid applications for one of the schools.
I’m making travel arrangements for JJ to visit family friends and come home for the summer.
I’m setting up summer camps.
I’m getting ready to have one of my sisters move in for a few months (yea!).
I’m setting up interviews with great women for the series.
I’m writing and sticking to the budget.
I’m trying to figure out where we’ll keep the iguana that JJ is bringing home.
I’m trying a new (and earlier) morning routine (I need more hours each day!).
I’m trying to recover some of the 12,000 pics that got lost from my computer.
I’m meaning to mail things to several people.
I’m missing my husband and praying for his safety.
I’m going to play Bunco Friday night.
I’m thinking about all the house and yard work that need to be done and feeling overwhelmed!
I’m being thankful for the great people in my life who make all of this stuff possible.

Well, there’s an overview of what’s on my plate right now. I’m breaking it down into pieces and trying to tackle it. “one step at a time”.

I hope you each have a manageable load in front of you and that you have a great day~

After returning from running errands, I was greeted at the van by Mariah, who had been babysitting the little ones. She came to warn me about the state of the kids’ bathroom. Apparently Max and Gabi decided to take out all the cleaning products that they could get their hands on and mix up an experiment in the toilet.

When she was telling me, I was thinking back on my own days of this sort of experimenting. I must have been about 3 or 4 (because I remember the house and not being able to see the top of the stove) and my grandparents had a small bathroom that my grandfather kept all of his shaving items in. Oh, how I loved to take all of his good smelling things and mix them into the toilet and watch the reactions. Bubbles were always exciting!

So, as I trudged into the bathroom to face the mess, I couldn’t really do anything but smile!

Kids….they’re great!

Have a great day~

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This week I was able to speak with Casey Sprague, a military spouse, mother of 3 and a successful Silpada Designs Independent Rep.. I am inspired by Casey and her accomplishments because she started her business while her husband was deployed on an IA (Individual Augmentation) to Bahrain for 1 year. She’s another shining example of the strength and resilience of military spouses. I hope you too are inspired by her story.

This week’s show is sponsored by Aveeno Baby. Please take a minute to visit our sponsor.

Thank you for stopping by and for listening to the show!

Mom27 [ 18:56 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (265)

Whew! I know it’s been more than 48 hours. Believe me I know! Think of this as me calling home on my friend’s phone, just to let you know I’m ok. I dropped my computer off, thinking that everything was running fine (though it was a little slow) and have since found out that my hard drive was damaged and needs to be wiped clean and everything be reinstalled from scratch.

Now, I have to take a minute to say, once again, how awesome it is to work with the guys at the Apple store. They’ve been patient at every turn and have explained each step. I really appreciate how well they have worked with me and all the time they’ve put in.

So, I’m on a journey and I’m learning as I go.

Don’t forget to stop back by for the weekly show.

Please take a minute to visit our sponsor.

Have a great day~

But, I will continue to check in here. I appreciate you checking in on me! In the next day or two I’ll have to tell you about my Mommy of Many-Mushy Brain Moment! I need vitamins and brain enhancement capabilities!

Don’t forget to check back for the show. I just finished a great interview that will be up soon.

Thanks again for stopping by and don’t forget to visit our sponsor.

Have a great day~

First of all, I want to thank everyone for doing such a GREAT job of remembering to visit the sponsor!

Secondly, I wanted to let you all know that I am being forced to take a 48 hour break. I’ll probably be rocking in the corner from withdrawal by the time it’s over, but I have no choice. It was time for my computer to go in for it’s annual tune-up. This means that my computer is now 1 year old. I am absolutely AMAZED at what has happened in the last year, since buying that FABULOUS MAC!!! Prior to owning it, I hadn’t ever blogged, let alone THOUGHT about doing a podcast. After Clay brought it home I resisted using it for 3 whole months because I was so angry that he was making me change. Now….I can’t thank him enough. Truly, it changed my life!

Thanks to each of you for being on this journey with me! I’m having a great time sharing with everyone! I’ll be back Thursday. Hey, leave me a comment or two to come back to. And, if you’re new to the site, it’s a great time to catch-up! You can scroll through, or you can click on “Mommy of Many Podcast” (to the right) and listen to each of the shows.

And….don’t forget to visit our sponsor!

Good night~

This week I was able to talk to Pilar Hari who is a military spouse, mother of 3 and the co-founder of Focus Families. I hope you enjoy her story of how the military has touched her life and the life of her family.

This show is brought to you by Aveeno Baby! Don’t forget to visit our sponsor.

Thank you for visiting MommyofMany.com and for listening to the show.

MOM 26 [ 14:23 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (229)

Yesterday morning, Gabi woke-up just as I was going out the door for my class at the Apple store. I kissed her good-bye and told her I’d be back soon.

When I pulled into the driveway, she came running out, flung open the side door of the van, looked around and said, “where are the apples?”.
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Alright listeners and readers, I hope you’ve been keeping those clicking fingers in good shape because you’re going to need them starting tomorrow! That’s right-all the “hurry up and wait” has been changed again. I’m super excited for this opportunity, so help me by making sure you visit our sponsor. You still have a whole day to get your finger in shape if you’ve been slacking over the last couple of weeks. So, this week’s show will release tomorrow and I thank you in advance for your support!

Have a great day~

Over the last few days I was able to get phone calls from Clay while they were in port in Singapore. It was so nice to hear his voice and to make that connection. The kids each got to talk to him a couple of times. Even Kateri received a phone call. The kids and I have all been doing very well through this 1st month of the deployment (we are one month down!) and have worked out a routine and are rolling with life. But, when Clay is able to call and especially being able to hear from him for a few days in a row, made me realize just what a hole there is in our lives right now. We are able to cover it over and walk around it, so as not to fall in, but when we hear his voice we can look around and see the pit in the corner. No matter how well I do with the kids on my own, there’s no denying the fact that it all works best when we’re both here, working at it together.

While the Det was in port they did some volunteer work. They did a beach clean-up where Clay unearthed a snake. Thank goodness we don’t have snakes to unearth on San Diego beaches!
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So, it’s Saturday morning and I’m heading to the Apple store for the first time in a couple of months. I have a few things I want to learn and I need to have my computer looked at. I’ve missed going in on Saturdays! I love the people I’ve worked with there. They all have a great sense of humor and they’re very knowledgeable. I love my MAC, so it’s always great to go in and learn something new! I’ve said it before and I still mean it..MACs Rock!

I hope you each have a great day~

Finding myself in the bathroom with no paper, I started to yell for any one of the kids to come to the door. No luck! I started to bang on the wall. No luck!

Ah ha! My cell phone was with me. I called the home phone. Max answered and I started right in, “go to the kids’ bathroom and get a roll of paper from under the cupboard and bring it to my bathroom door.”

His response?..”Who is this?”

Have a good day~

On Sunday I received an email from Clay letting me know that the computer connection on the ship is too slow for him to be able to finish up the taxes and that I would have to do it. I knew that he had put in all of the important information and that I just had a few things to take care of. When I got to the end of the return there was one item I couldn’t figure out. I emailed Clay, but it was the middle of the night for him and I was afraid that with the midnight deadline that I wouldn’t hear from him in time. I made a couple of phone calls, but still had no answers. Finally, I decided my only option was to look at the computer and cry. So, I cried and thought of what life in prison would be like (and of course I thought about what kind of shows I could do in there and that it just might make for good blog).

I don’t often cry, so when the kids do find me crying they are sure that something must be wrong. So, Max, Gabi and Luke-Xavier came to the computer and tried to comfort me. Gabi started singing a beautiful song called, “Baby Don’t Cry” with volume and conviction. Luke-Xavier came and rubbed my leg and looked at me wide-eyed. Max asked what was wrong. I said that I was trying to do big people work and that it was very hard and that I didn’t know how to do some of it. In his infinite wisdom, he said, “Call the people in charge and tell them that you tried and that it’s just too hard”. Well, I had to stop crying at that!

What I did was put in a call to the ombudsman. She is a wealth of knowledge and called base legal and was able to talk to the tax sub-department. She called me with the good news that we have 60 AFTER Clay returns to file without penalty. Whew!

So, ultimately, Max was right! Just call the people in charge and let them help. To be 5 again~

Like I had said, there are those times when it comes in handy. Consider this-

A couple of nights ago I was woken up by my phone going off around midnight. I was receiving a text that said this; “I’m scared”. I keep the phone next to the bed so I can dial 911 if a crazed, mad-man breaks into the house while we’re sleeping. But instead of having to summon police, I was being asked if I could share my bed. Apparently one of my older kiddos has been reading Dracula and was afraid that a hungry vampire was lurking in the corners of their room.

So, I wrote back, “come sleep with me”. I threw a garland of garlic around each of our necks and we slept peacefully for the rest of the night.

Have a great day~

This week’s show is my take on the whole texting thing. I see where it comes in handy, but more and more it’s becoming the way that our kids are communicating with each other. I feel that kids who are younger than high-school age still need to build social and personal relationships before taking on the nuances of the language of texting. Being able to say things to people in the impersonal world of texting, where the tone and, often, meaning of your words can be misconstrued opens the door for kids to feel “safe” in saying things to each other that they wouldn’t normally say in person. I know that there are other arenas where this is also true, ie; email and IM, but it seems that texting is the preferred form of communication right now, so that’s what I chose to focus on.

As always, I welcome your comments. You can also email me at Jen@MommyofMany.com or use the “contact” form to the right.

Thank you for listening to the show~

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Hooray for answering the phone! If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have been invited to take the kids and join a friend and a couple of her kiddos on the Seal Tour. The Seal Tour is a BIG bus/boat that takes you on a 15 minute downtownish tour of San Diego and then drives right into the water for an hour of touring the greater San Diego bay. This is the 2nd time we’ve taken this tour and both times there have been lots of stinky sea lions sunning themselves near Point Loma. The kids LOVE it! If you’re ever in the area (or you live here and haven’t gone) check it out!

Here are some of our pics from the day

The kids are watching a helicopter (the same one Clay flies) flying from Naval Air Station North Island.

Me with my 3 little ones next to the tour bus/boat.

What a great way to spend the day! Here’s to great friends who think to invite us to fun things!

Good night~

I think that after 3 1/2 weeks of deployment that today was the day that I got into a good groove. One of the things I’ve wanted to do while Clay is gone is to get back to going to the Y. I felt challenged by the idea because Luke-Xavier hasn’t ever lasted there for more than 15 minutes. He throws himself on the floor and screams until they come get me. But today! Today he threw his fit and they just let him throw it until he was done and then he got up and went outside and played. Whoo Hoo! I’m glad that they finally took my approach to the whole fit-throwing thing. So, now it’s up to me go keep up a good routine of going so that he knows it’s just part of what we do. So, don’t tell anyone, but I haven’t actually worked-out there in about a year (maybe longer). Instead I’ve used it (all 15 minutes at a time) to think about show topics and get some writing done. But in the next few weeks if he keeps being good, I’m going to have to find a class and start working this on this body of mine!

After the Y, Luke-Xavier was beat and fell asleep in the car. When we got home I put him in bed and then was able to catch snails with Gabi. Let’s just focus on the “with Gabi” part of that sentence. Icky snails! It was a nice time with her. She’s definitely surrounded by brothers, because for all the wishing she does to become a princess, she LOVES bugs and snails!

Then it was onto a new show idea! Today I was able to record the first of a series of interviews that I’m doing about women and the military. I’m talking to different women who have been touched in some way by the military, whether they are spouses, have or have had a military career or maybe were children in a military family. Today’s interview was with Pilar Hari. She’s a Navy spouse of 19 years, the mother of 3 and the co-founder of the non-profit organization Focus Families. The show will be up in the next couple of weeks. I hope you find her story interesting!

So, after the excitement of trying something new for the show, I was back into the “M.O.M.” routine and picked kids up from school, took Mariah to an appointment (with time enough for a little bonding stop) and then back home to make dinner. I feel like it was the first night since Clay has left that I really embraced the whole nighttime routine as mine. Usually Clay brushes the kiddos’ teeth, reads the stories and tucks them in. It’s funny to say “usually” because his schedule varies so much, but it just seems like it was “his” thing. But tonight I didn’t drag my feet or assign tasks to the older girls. I gathered everyone around, read 2 stories, said prayers, led them to the bathroom, brushed teeth, clipped nails and tucked them each in. Go M.O.M! It’s just after 9 pm and I feel drastically different than I did last night.

Let’s hear it for the routine! Let’s hear it for the whole “deployment reality” finally sinking in! Let’s hear it for M.O.M getting in the groove!

Good night~

You know, I started writing this post with the intent of being witty. Nope! It’s too late and my head is too full of the check list for the next few days to come up with anything witty.

Honestly, I’m just out of patience at 9:30 (remember I said 5pm before, so my nerves are pretty raw by now). I’m a little sick of being the “bad guy”, no matter how much or how little I try. Now, that’s nothing new. It’s the way it is with kids. But by this time of night and knowing I have things to do, I’m just fed up.

Alright, I know it’s no fun to read my rantings, so I think I’ll say good night.

P.S. Not sure about the player below (still learning lots of things). So, ignore the player. It does nothing. All I did was link the “5pm” comment to an earlier show (#16) where I said that I hit a wall around 5pm each day. If you’d like to hear that show, you can click the phrase in blue. Hmmmm……..

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