Wanna hear something hilarious? Only it’s really not.

I’m not divorced. No, really, you read that right: I’m not yet divorced.

As my friend said: “This is like the marriage that WILL NOT end!”

The day of the hearing my lawyer did not have the correct permanent parenting plan submitted to the courts. This means that (1) he, again, did not do what he’s been paid to do, especially since that parenting plan was revised for the last time in JANUARY and (2) he would have to get the paperwork submitted to the courts in order for the chancellor to make a judgment regarding my proposed visitation schedule (which is no schedule for visitations). If he grants my request, that means child support would also changed as it’s based on the number of days allotted to each parent for visitation. (Since he doesn’t visit anyway when he’s more than welcome - and even asked and invited - to, why give him certain days and weeks for visitation, thus lowering his financial obligations to the children?)

On June 23 my lawyer told the chancellor and I that he would get the paperwork submitted as soon as possible. The chancellor granted an absolute divorce based on the grounds of inappropriate marital conduct. When my lawyer joined my dad and I in the lobby after his other client was divorced, I asked him flat-out, “I’m divorced, right?”

He stuttered, but said yes. I was divorced. And I was thrilled.

Wednesday morning I had a meeting in the court complex, as I do every week, and decided to stop by and ask the chancery court clerk if any decision had been made. And one hasn’t. That paperwork that was supposed to be submitted ASAP? Has not been submitted.

I jokingly asked, “So I guess I’m really not divorced then, right?” Ha ha. “If I wanted to get married today, I couldn’t?!”

“Nope, you’re not.” She launches into legal explanations and I hear something about a final decree and why there was none. Basically: my lawyer is a douche bag (see definition 5). (Sorry for the language Grannie, but that’s putting it nicely. I have more colorful words, but I’ll keep those to myself.)

I really think there is some sort of conspiracy involving my lawyer, my husband (oh my hell, I hate saying that again) and … well, the entire world. It’s like in the movies - I just cannot kill this marriage and bury it, it keeps coming back from the end, taunting me. “Ha ha! You aren’t divorced!”

It’s really frustrating. I didn’t know that vowing to love him ’til death do we part’ was going to be taken so seriously. (I mean, really, vows are actually taken seriously these days?)

And I haven’t told him yet. That he’s still my husband. And I’m still his wife.

Maybe by the time our sixth anniversary rolls around next May we’ll have resolved this. Because the only other thing I can think of is getting back together with him. Why not? He got the seven-year itch at year one … it should be smooth sailing from here on out, right?

Hanson told me last week that my life is like a soap opera. I’m beginning to think he’s right.

Yesterday morning I threw a stinky Jenna into the shower to play (and clean up, but don’t fill her in on that secret) while I got ready for my day. After “making” breakfast and cleaning up afterward, Jaylen and Jaiden came upstairs and were getting into the shower with Jenna. They removed their clothes and open the shower door, only to discover Jenna had a surprise: she’d pooped in toilet and the terd was lodged in the drain and the tub was beginning to fill with water. She always finds a way to plug that drain, whether it’s with her butt or a wash rag or whatever.

And in case you haven’t been fortunate enough to try it, fishing a slippery piece of poop out of the shower drain is not exactly easy if you use a wad of toilet paper. It’s not exactly a sheet of Bounty (hint: use something else).

I’m sure she’ll hate me for this in the future, but let’s keep going. Because she did.

While I was gone (I was second-shooting a wedding with Ms. Emily), she pooped in her baby soup (like Sherry, I hope my wee ones keep some of their mispronunciations). I don’t know if they were in the pool or not, but either way I’m glad I missed that one. (She also did that at school on Friday. lol.)

Once I got home from the wedding, I more or less fell into bed. I was so tired for some reason. And before I could really get comfortable, my dad is yelling for me to come downstairs and take care of Jenna. She’s made a mess. (They told me she was sleeping, silly me for assuming she’d be doing so in her bed, not in the playpen in the guest room.) Can we guess what this mess consisted of? I was sure it was something like scattering papers or something like that. But no. She’d pooped in her Pull-Up. A LOT! And she took it off. And poop was all over her (including her forehead!). It was all over the blankets and pillow. It was on the walls. And it was on the playpen, too.

And to think, some parents walk out on their children. Why would they do such a thing when they could spend their days scrubbing poop out of carpets and blankets and off of walls and foreheads?

But after that was done and we’d eaten dinner, we made a video of Jenna singing Jesus Loves Me. (For my dial-up friends and family, I’ve just linked to the page rather than embed the video.) She’s too cute, even if she is full of poop.

I can’t leave my other two out, so here are videos we did at the end of May during our (hell-ish) vacation week - Jaylen singing about the wise man and the foolish man and Jaiden singing her song about money and “Gray Squirrel”. Make sure you watch my babies!

What is this all about? My state press awards, of course!

See the rest of the story here!

Also, big shout out to the Feisty Momma who included me on her list of 10 Influential Female Bloggers today! Thanks so much!

“Not two!” she shrieked, her cheeks stained with salty tears, her tiny little kissable fingers grasping her blanket. “Not two!”

Tell me about it.

She was talking about babies and I was, too; she, the number of baby dolls she did not want in her bed and me, the age in which I was ready for her to escape.

Two is nicknamed “terrible” for a reason - and it should extend to three as well. As much as I hate that they are getting older, I just can’t stand two sometimes. And three.

The last several days my two-year-old has been whiny and clingy and even more stubborn than usual. I don’t know why, maybe she’s teething or maybe she’s just fully embracing being two. Just because she can. It’s very annoying and very stressful, having a child who does nothing but cry and whine and flail her arms if you come near her and ask her to do something other than cry and whine and flail.

But I love two. Her little golden curls. Her pudgy cheeks. Her baby-sized hands. Her legs and feet that remind me of The Little Mermaid, when Ariel becomes human. She still sucks her thumb and twirls her hair. The funny things she says make me smile. And her smile, it’s just absolutely gorgeous. I love that she can tell me when she needs to use the bathroom or when she hasn’t quite made it to the toilet. She is spunky and stubborn and saccharine sweet. She loves to sing “Jesus Loves Me”, but tells me to stop singing if I join her. (Yeah, I know, I can’t sing. Even she knows.)

I know I will miss this stage terribly when it’s gone (reference last post about babyhood being over), but some days I just wish it was less stressful. Less whiny, more funny.

Not two. And not three, either. I am definitely not looking forward to that.

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This morning in the car Jaylen buckled himself in more quickly than usual. I was proud of him, so I let him know.

Me: “Jaylen, thank you for buckling yourself right in! Mommy appreciates it!”
Jaylen: “I buckle wight in!”
Jaiden: “Yeah, Jaylen, but Mommy doesn’t appreciate you talking like a baby!!”

She can be such a buzzkill sometimes, but funny nonetheless. lol.

Last night after the dishes were put away, the older kids and I ventured to the back of the backyard to pick Granny Smith apples and blackberries.

And despite the thorns, they had a lot of fun!

At one point Jaylen said, "This a lot of fun. It make me happy."

And that? Makes me happy.

View the other photos here.

As a mother, when your children reach a certain age, you feel like the milestones are few and far between. Gone is the first year filled with the first everything, but that doesn’t mean the milestones are also gone.

There’s the first use of the potty, the first lost tooth, the first date. (Thankfully that one’s still seemingly a world away.)

In our house we are celebrating a milestone. Almost a little bitty one, but I guess it’s a milestone nonetheless. Jenna is now sleeping in her very own bed, a bed all her own, a bed that’s not been handed down from an older sister and an older brother.

As the third child in four years, she often has hand-me-downs. But this new bed? She’s the only that’s ever slept in it. It’s an inexpensive cherry sleigh-style toddler bed and the mattress is from the crib that her older sister and brother slept in as infants, just like she did, but the bed part is brand new. See? We have a milestone.

And for the first time in more than six years, the white Jenny Lind crib that I bought for my first baby is sitting in the attic, disassembled. It’s a strange feeling, not seeing that crib set up. I remember picking it out and bringing it home, then setting it up for the very first time. There were no tools, I remember thinking, and it was so easy to put together. I put pale yellow sheets on the mattress and carefully tied the white and sage green bumper around, my protruding belly in the way.

The crib grew with the babies, from baby bed to toddler bed. Then back to a baby bed and into a toddler bed again, twice more. And now that the babies are growing up, it has to go. We have to move on … to big girl beds, big girl “pinnies” and to whatever else life has has in store for us. And the crib will move on too. It will be set up in a room that is waiting for my very first niece, Khloe Marie.

Moving past this stage, the baby stage, is a difficult thing to do; this is time we’ll never get back and a time we’ll never come back to. It’s not about the crib going, it’s about the end of an era that was a truly sweet, but sometimes stressful, part of life. I know it’s cliché, but they really do grow up entirely too fast.

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P.S. - I have started a new journalism blog, The Journalistic Mama. Today’s post is interesting - on the scene of a fatal accident this morning, a meth lab bust in the afternoon. Read it!

So much has gone on that I don’t really know where to start, so I guess I’ll have to do it chronologically …

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy with work and life and all of that. We had my dad’s mom, brother and sister come to visit just before the Fourth, and Darin’s family had a reunion as well (we’re back “on” again, by the way). On Friday, the Fourth, the kids and I picked up Caiden and met Darin’s family (his sister, her friend, his step-brother and his wife and their three kids, plus Darin’s parents) at the Memphis Zoo (pictures are here, those are also photos from two years ago when we first visited the zoo). It was HOT. And crazy with my three kids, Caiden (Tyrel & Katie were moving and getting settled into their new home), Emma and Darin’s three nieces, plus the adults, so … yeah. BUSY! But fun!

In the evening we went to watch fireworks in Munford, but it wasn’t the whole crew. Instead, it was Darin and I and the four kids, my mom, Katie, Caiden, my aunt, Darin’s ex-wife and her mom. Like she (Stephanie) said on her blog, sounds like an episode of “Reba”. lol. But I like Stephanie, we get along and follow each other on Twitter and MySpace and such and are getting to know more about each other. I think it is really great for Emma, and everyone, if we’re all acquainted and friendly. And so far, so good. Anyway. Fireworks were great. We were simply exhausted by the time we got home.

Saturday we hung out at home in the morning. I discovered our A/C was “on the blink again” (as Grannie would say). Yes, AGAIN! Last year we had issues with the A/C - first it wouldn’t work, then it leaked and the ceiling fell over my bed. Oy. And two or three times so far this year, it has stopped working for one reason or another. My uncle got to work and found that we had circuit breaker box issues and ended up having to replace the entire box and re-route where we had our pool hooked up and also fix one of our garage doors. lol. I don’t think he knew he’d be put to work, but I doubt he cared. And it really, really helped us out. (Yes, because it was more than 90 degrees upstairs - not cool, pardon the pun.) My mom, aunt and grandmother went shopping and the kids and I went swimming. Darin ended up coming over. A big dinner had been planned, and Mom and Darin ended up having to cook it on the grill since we had no electricity. lol. We ate outside and got a ton of mosquito bites. I think they got the power back on about 11 p.m. or so.

On Sunday I skipped church again. Darin, the kids and I ended up going to the mall and Target down in Memphis (really it’s Bartlett, but if I said that you wouldn’t know what I was talking about). We spent the day looking at clothes, clothes and more clothes. We walked the entire mall and I left with only a hot pink summer sweater, a camisole top for underneath and two necklaces from Wet Seal (I think the total was $37 or so?). Oh, and a battery charger for my camera because I thought I’d lost mine (though I could use another one, since I am ALWAYS looking for that stupid thing). That’s IT. We went to Macy’s, Charlotte Russe, Forever 21, J C Penny and a ton of other stores. I couldn’t find ANYTHING. But we went to Target and it was game over. I found two dresses and two shirts there that I liked. Go figure.

Monday our company left and it was back to work for everyone. We had a busy day because we’d been off on Friday. Somehow we got it done, though. Tuesday and Wednesday were filled with breaking news. SO MUCH went on, my goodness. This week the Grand Jury met and we had a constable, a parks and rec employee and a former candidate for county executive all indicted on theft charges (separately, not working together). The candidate for county executive tried to get the DA and Asst. DA indicted (by the way, my DA is the same DA that prosecuted Mary Winkler) and ended up causing a huge scene in the court lobby. lol. He also called 911 from the court lobby, saying the “nazi” deputies were arresting him illegally or whatever (trying to get transcripts of that call). Tuesday we also had a big protest in downtown Covington from a group claiming police brutality after they were allegedly pepper-sprayed “for no reason”. (No comment.) I had a meeting that night, too. Our Starbucks is also one of the 600 which will be closing - and it’s only 15 months old. Sucks.

We’re also in the middle of planning our first National Night Out here in Tipton County, which I was nominated to help chair. But we have a big group of participants and everyone’s helping, so all I will really have to do is get those press releases out from now until the big day (Aug. 5). And like, you know, die from all of the stress. lol.

Yesterday my favorite co-worker and I took a road trip - for work. We went to Henderson and then rode with the regional publisher to the town of Waynesboro to help bring them into the 21st century. They are just beginning to lay their paper out using a computer, they still wax and paste and do not design modularly. OMG. It was frustrating to me because I did not learn to design papers the way they do and so several times I had to walk away. My way is not their way and is not the way they like to do things. My way, our way, is the modern way. Very nice people, but very set in the way they do things. We left Tipton County at 7 am and didn’t return until 730 pm or so. The drive to Henderson is an hour and a half, then it’s another hour and a half or more to Waynesboro from there. Another exhausting day.

This morning I had a photo shoot on the square for a family reunion. This was booked several months ago and was a group of 24 people, so it was challenging. It was also my first paid portrait sitting and my first portrait sitting with people I didn’t know. I was so nervous! But I think I did a pretty good job, especially for 24 people. lol. Before the shoot, the kids and I went to the AT&T store with the intent of replacing the air card (the way in which I get on the Internet) I damaged on Wednesday night, but that didn’t happen; they wanted $250 for a new one! Yikes. No way. So we went across the street to Starbucks, ate breakfast, then went to Wal-Mart. I got a new air card through Verizon and it is much faster, though it’s seemed to cut out a lot (could be the storm, don’t know). The best part was that my plan will be the same price and the card is free, where I paid $99 for the last one through AT&T. The kids went to the park with Darin while I worked and then we met up with Tyrel & Caiden, ate and did a few other things. And we’ve been home since.

The kids are all doing pretty well. Jenna is progressing slowly, but surely, with the potty-training. Jaiden has some sort of discoloration around her mouth again. I don’t know what it is, but it’s getting better now that we’re applying cream to it. Jaylen is just typical, hyper, sweet, silly Jaylen.

Tomorrow we’re headed to church and … nothing else is planned afterward. I don’t know how busy this week will be, but on Friday I get to go to Nashville and see where I placed in the Tennessee State Press Association awards. I won in the Best Headline Writing and Best Education Reporting categories, but I won’t know how I ranked until Friday afternoon. So exciting! And then Saturday, I’m excited to be second-shooting a wedding with my newly-pregnant friend, Emily. She announced this week that she was pregnant, I’m so excited for her and for her husband, Zach! While I was on vacation at the end of May, the kids and I had lunch with her and Jaiden asked if Emily was going to have a baby. It was the second time she asked that month. lol. So I texted Emily and told her what Jaiden had asked, then added, “Is there something you’re not telling me?” Well, there was! She had found out the day before, I think she said, but waited to share the news until they’d heard the heartbeat. Congrats, guys!

And now I must go and save Darin. I think the kids have him watching High School Musical 2! lol. We love the movies, but Darin does not share in our sentiments! I have also become addicted to Webkinz World and Sonic’s Banana Split Blast. YUM! Anyway, if you ever miss me, you can catch me on Twitter - I update that pretty regularly as it’s easier than blogging.