Regrets?

"Listen earnestly to anything your children want to tell you, no matter what. If you don't listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won't tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff."

~Catherine M. Wallace~

I'll get right into it today....
I have a friend that had a 9 year old grandson that recently was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor. DIPG is what it's called. No survivors yet. It's a rare, aggressive, cancerous brain tumor that they cannot do much for besides prolong life by a couple months via radiation and steroid treatments.
Boy, what a decision that is to make!?  As a parent, I can't imagine being in that position. It's worst case scenario.
For as long as I can remember I have been the type of person that, when asked if I regret anything, I would always say no. Heartache and tears, hard times and choices I've made that others may say they regret, I would always say that these are the things that made me, well...ME! So no, I don't have any regrets..... Until now.
As I sit and think about this amazing family and the pain and loss they're enduring right now, I wonder if I was in their shoes if I'd have any regrets...?  Yes, I would...   That time my daughter wanted me to read her just one more book or talk for just five more minutes and I was too tired to give her that time...? I regret that. The times she wanted me rub her back before bed and I said no because I wanted to go to bed myself-I regret that. The nights when I couldn't get enough sleep and was grouchy with her because of it....I regret that.
My point is-hold those close to you very tightly always, because you never know when this moment could be your last with them.  Don't be so selfish...  And is that argument really that important??  I don't want to have children that are spoiled brats but I do want children who have "enough". Enough food in their bellies; enough smiles in each day; enough support on their cloudy days and enough love that when I am gone they will remember me as a good mom and loving mom and know that I really did do the best I could!  Not a wife or mom who was too selfish or too "tired" to give them "enough". How do you want to be remembered??  I think we all know when choices we make may not be quite right for whatever reason, don't we?  Don't wait until it's too late.  Make a fresh start today.  Make sure you really are doing the best you can so that you won't ever have regrets!


~"The attitude you have as a parent is what your kids will learn from more than what you tell them.  They don't remember what you try to teach them.  They remember what you are."  Jim Henson~

Me and the family and our furry friends

My name is Mrs. Boss (I wish) and I’m married to my best friend, Mr. Sexypants, who I want to choke one second and make out with in the next….marital bliss people!!! We just got married in July by the way but we are coming up on 4 years together later this year! YAY US!!!  I have one step daughter who is 12, soon to be 13. (AKA-Miss sassypants) and one daughter with my ex-husband, who is 6 (AKA-Miss wanna-be sassypants). We would like to have another baby together but so far, no such luck. We are only 6 months in though.  All we have is time right?! At least a few more years until my eggs shrivel...  ANYWAYS-We also have 2 dogs-a pit bull that’s 3 years old and a cocker spaniel who is 1 year old. We recently acquired a guinea pig that has crazy cow-lick hair and is super cute. He belongs to our girls but Mr. Sexypants and I like him better than they do…Probably due to the fact that he isn’t our responsibility.

That brings me to our pet stories....
Mr. Sexypants went to the pet store to get Miss Sassypants a cat (I'm allergic by the way) for her birthday about three years ago, with his best buddy.  The animal they came home with was not a cat, but a pit bull puppy (much to many people's dismay-not mine though)!!  Now, I adore this dog. He is sweet as can be to all people but he does not like other animals one bit. He gets quite jealous! Ok-getting off track already...
So as we all know, puppies can be quite destructive. Thunder was no different... We put an old recliner in the garage for him to sleep on and he had it completely chewed apart and destroyed within a few weeks. Material on the outside, foam inside, boards inside, staples and all... He has a stomach of steel, I tell you! Not even one puke from all of that! Somehow he managed to destroy a trampoline in the back yard and dig about 40, 6" deep holes all over the back yard too.  As time went on, his destructive tendencies became less and less though, thank God!
We are hard learners unfortunately, and decided Thunder needed a friend plus Mr. Sexypants was feeling a bit nostalgic for his childhood pet. I was a bit uneasy about this decision but beings that I am the boss and all, I just told everyone that they will all be pitching in to help take care of the new puppy (unlike Thunder), so off to a strangers house we drove to buy a cocker spaniel straight from the "want to sell" pet ads in the newspaper.  It was love at first sight. Sadly, we didn't all love the same one.  Miss Sassypants liked the little wild pup and Miss Wanna-be Sassypants liked the calm, fat one.  After some minor arguing the one we settled on was the calm, fat one- much to Sassypants' disappointment.  Off to the pet store we went feeling pure bliss and love for our new fluffy family member.  We got him a new collar and a cute little bone-shaped, manly name tag  labeled, "MAX". Everyone just adored little Max...except for his big brother, Thunder.  It took 6 long months of putting them together and trying everything youtube and my friends told me to do before they could be together for even a few minutes without worrying one would die.  Max was and still is a chewer.  He is much smaller though so things he chews aren't completely ruined at least. Usually...
The biggest issue with Max is that within a couple months of having him he got a "cherry eye". Google it. It's ugly.  It was an expensive surgery we had to do to fix it and the aftercare was excruciating.  After all of that happened, along with the early morning howling, the sassypants sisters lost interest in him and it was up to Sexypants and me to take care of the dogs.  I'm sure you're really surprised by this!!  Months went by like the speed of a snail and now Max is 1 year old, nobody likes to clean up his land mines in the yard (along with Thunders) or train him and we just had to do surgery on his other eye for cherry eye too, along with neutering him so he can't reproduce anymore cherry eye dogs.  I'm talking nearly $2,000 in 2013 for Max's problems only.  I'm not talking food and general dog items.  Just so we are clear....
Now don't get me wrong-I love my dogs like crazy.  But come on people, dogs are WORK and they ruin nice things!!  Who knew?!?
We recently took our boy Max to get a new hairdo at the doggy salon. While he was busy misbehaving for 5 hours for them, me, Sexy and the sassy's wandered the pet store.  We now own a 7 week old Guinea pig named "Bruiser". Or is it "Blaster"??  This is still up in the air...
Of course, beings I'm Mrs. Boss, I made sure to tell the sassy's that Blaster-Bruiser is THEIR pig and neither I nor Sexypants will be taking care of him because, "unlike the dogs, I don't care if he dies"!  Now, I know this sounds evil but I had to get my point across for crying out loud!!! Plus, I AM a stepmother so I use the title to my advantage when I see an opening.  So far sexypants and I have been snuggling Bruiser-Blaster nightly and everyone likes him and thinks he's just the cutest thing on the planet.  Today is only day 4 though....
By the way, remember how Thunder is jealous? He had a nervous breakdown the day after Max got his haircut and Blaster-Bruiser came to live with us, and tore up a 4'x5' square of vinyl siding on the house.  I guess his destructive days aren't over. How disappointing!!!  Please send happy thoughts so Mr. Sexypants doesn't stay mad at him forever!
To be continued.....


Thanks for reading!