He's Scared of the Potty!

A few days Ryker told me he had to go potty, I was so excited and took him to the potty. I was pretty proud of him until I saw his little fact go bright red and his bottom lip quiver and he started screaming. He was terrified of the big potty! This lasted all day when his older siblings used the bathroom, I'm convinced he thought the toilet was going to eat them. So, as much as I didn't want one I caved and allowed my sister in law to send us a tiny potty. It came last night and it was in a huge box, so he was beyond excited to open it. I let him open it and he was so happy with it that he wanted to try it out right away. Needless to say, his older siblings were so excited! They sang the potty song, gave him stickers, and high fives-he felt like a super star(or maybe he didn't he didn't say). Regardless, I'm very proud of my little man! He has improved so much since we got custody of him, he didn't even know how to roll over at one year old! Now he runs, rides his bike, talks up a storm, and uses the potty! His early intervention specialist was also very impressed with all of his improvement and said he might be able to stop the program soon. This is huge guys! This little man has been through so much in his two and a half years and he deserves some easiness for once. I'm excited to see what happens now that he's caught up to Skyler developmentally, now it's actually like I have two toddlers! Good job Rye guy, we are all so proud of you!

I can't do this

Single mom life has officially killed me. I seriously can not do anything right, I don't make enough to support my own family, I have barely any outside help and the people who live with me aren't helping at all. I emotionally, physically, and mentally feel defeated. Just once I want people to do what I ask of them, to have the dishes and laundry done when I get home from work-or at least started I'm not picky! I can't take the stress of raising kids, working, trying to keep my house clean, and everything else when I don't have any back up. When Jason was here he would make the kids do their chores and he would do a few himself, because we were a team and that's what we did! Now it's me against the world. I will admit, some people have stepped up to help with things like meals and I appreciate that so much! But, that doesn't help with the fact my laundry isn't done, I have a pile of dishes, the trash isn't taken out until I get home at 11, and all the rooms are a mess. Yes, I realize I have nine kids-six of which are perfectly capable of helping around the house and they do. They do so well for being six and five, but they are kids! They still don't do everything perfectly and that's okay, because adults can help them but no one is. I just honestly can't keep doing this, our living situation is not working anymore and I realize that and it's time for a change. I'm not sure how it'll change, like I said before I'm not making enough to support our family let alone move, but if it means living in a super small apartment until we can afford a bigger place I will do it. This current situation is making me cry every single night and my kids are realizing how stressed I am. I'm sorry this post is so depressing, but this is my life currently. My life is a huge mess and just seems to be getting worse. I am hoping tomorrow is better, but I highly doubt it at this point.

It's officially summer break!

I just picked my kids up from school-for their last day! I am so excited that we finally are on break, I need this. My kids had very successful years at school and I am so proud of every single one of them. This passed year has been super hard for them, yet they all did so well in school! I truly think part of it was because of their amazing teachers being so understanding about everything. Teachers are truly underpaid heroes and we owe them so much, so to all the teachers out there-Thank you! Thank you for making our kids smarter, braver, and kinder. Our summer is going to be filled with so many different activities that I don't even know which one to start with. I hope nine kids can agree on something fun to do, because I'm not up for dealing with fights about every little thing(I know-they will fight!) So, tomorrow we are going to sit down and make our summer bucket list, we did it last year and it was so fun and kept them busy so I know it'll be exciting for them to do it again. I'm sorry this post is so short, it's passed midnight here and I just worked all night, but really wanted to get this post up before going to bed. I love you guys and I'm so thankful for you, here's to an awesome summer and awesome memories!

Be Your Own Hero

My kids are seriously little versions of Jason and I when it comes to their taste in entertainment. They love all things nerdy, especially super heroes. If you know us, you know we have tons of super hero related stuff and it's spilling over into our kids, trust me my boys have tons of Batman toys and the girls are now getting their own collection going with the DC Super Hero Girls. I'm not sure where their sudden obsession came from, but they really love Harley Quinn and I wouldn't let them see Suicide Squad, so we compromised. We allowed them to see the "Hero of the Year" movie because it was a much more appropriate version of a Harley Quinn movie. While watching the movie we had a pretty awesome discussion about how we can all be our own heroes somehow. I feel like when you have a "different" child-transgender, diabetic, has cancer-you try to look for characters like them and they never seem to be represented, so sometimes they have to do it themselves. Callie of course took this mission to a whole new level and decided she is truly going to be a hero for kids who are different and feel left out. When I asked her how she was planning on doing this she said"I'm going to make one friend a day!", when you're five making friends is much easier than it is at my age! This conversation happened almost three weeks ago, so at breakfast this morning I decided to revisit it and see how she was doing. She told me she befriended several kids, but didn't make a new friend everyday like she had planned. Apparently some of the kids took more convincing then others, but I was proud to hear the kids she befriended were lonely and had no one to play with. This small action may seem silly to us adults, but I remember being the kid at the playground who didn't have friends. I remember my heart breaking when I would get picked last on every team, ever. To have my five year old daughter tell me she marched right up to a girl who was sitting alone at the park and looked sad to ask her to play on the swings-that shows me that heroes really do exist. Heroes are everywhere, they are in all different shapes and sizes, sometimes they're even living in your house. My five year old showed me what it means to be an everyday hero, a simple hero-and she didn't even need a cape! So thank you Callie, thank you for showing me that kids are the best kinds of heroes ever-maybe one day DC will write a comic book about you.