Sunday, March 28, 2010

Goobers? What the...

So, here I am once again, trying to blog about life, family and the pursuit of sanity.  

I'm Carrie, a 27 year old girl, living in New York (somewhere in between NYC and Albany, just in case you were wondering.)  I'm a daughter, sister, fiancee and mommy.  I'm the oldest of 2 children.  My brother is 4 years younger than me, give or take a few months, and is basically the total opposite of me.  I'm the rebel, left the church for a bit, had a goober, got married, had another goober, got divorced, got engaged, had another goober, and am now finding my faith in God and my Church once again.  My brother, being the total opposite, has never questioned his faith, even going so far as to answer his call to the priesthood.  He's currently in the Minor Seminary, and is going to college majoring in, yep, you guessed it.  Religion.  I guess it's technically Theology?  Not sure, but he's a good kid, anyway, and the apple of my parents eye.  Really.  I jokingly call him the Golden Boy, and I'm sure one day I'll have to be polite and call him Your Excellency or something.  But for now, he's just Golden Boy.  I have considered calling him Fr. Golden Boy once he is ordained, just for fun.  He reminds me all the time that I'll have to respect him more when that happens.  I usually laugh, poke him in the arm and roll my eyes, but you know what?  I have IMMENSE respect for the little bugger.  I just can't let HIM know that, KWIM?  

Anyways.  I've been engaged to the Chef since January 2007.  Yeah, I know, it's quite awhile, but we went through some rough patches.  We're currently, or should I say he's currently in the process of trying to get 2 weekend days off so we schedule our PreCana semianars.  Kind of hard since he's a cook, to get weekend days off, 'specially since they are already short staffed, but HE BETTER DO IT.  Anyways, he's almost 26, and we're exactly 1 year and 3 months apart (give or take a few hours), and he throughly enjoys reminding me that right now, I'm 2 years older. Whatev.  Chef is from a big family of 6 kids in Mexico.  His oldest sister lives there and has 5 girls, and is 3 months pregnant.  We're taking bets on another girl.  His brother is also a cook here in NY, and his wife had the adorable Princess in June of 2009.  She's definately spoiled.  I mean, c'mon, I have 3 BOYS.  A girl's gotta buy pink sometime!  We see the Brother and Princess usually once a week or so.  Not often enough for the baby goober not to be horribly shy with the Brother.  Anyways, back to Chef's family.  Chef is next in line after the Brother.  Then there's another sister who had a baby 6 months or so after our baby goober.  Yep.  A girl.  Then there's another brother, who like to act big and tough even though he's like 16, and the little sister AK.  She's 8 and totally adorable and in love with the baby goober, even though he won't talk to her.

Onto the goobers.

The oldest goober is Spawn.  Spawn is a New Year's Day baby...just turned 7.  Yeah, I'm still in shock he's 7.  Spawn is generally a good kid, likes school, has done good in first grade and is a big help with the minigoobers.  He's got a good heart and a bad temper, but it's being worked on.  He's totally into electronics, and I've been called the meanest mom in the world (Hey, I thought MY mom held that title) because he doesn't have a cell phone or an iPod or a PSP.  Tough bananas kid.  As the oldest of the goobers, he can often be found leading the minigoobers in some sort of make believe game, helping them get the hang of bike riding, reading them a story or teaching them a song.  He loves the minigoobers alot, although they do steal his stuff.  So he says.

The middle goober is Sweet Nut.  Sweet Nut is, well...um...nutty.  And sweet.  He's defiantly got that middle child syndrome.  He can usually be found scaling walls or doing something else to either give me a heart attack or make me laugh.  I'd go so far to say that he's the sweetest of the goobers, but I wouldn't want to play favorites or anything.  He loves giving what I call Kamakaze Love.  He comes out of no where to knock me over for a hug.  It's quite adorable, but kind of dangerous now he's getting older.  If you're not paying attention, he *could* knock a person over.  I'm not saying he has, but the possibility is there.  He's the silliest of the 3 as well, although he's teaching his baby brother to be pretty silly.  He'll get in trouble, and as you're yelling at him just do something totally off the wall, you struggle not to laugh in front of him, and then wonder what you were yelling at him for as he walks off with a smile.  Sweet Nut is almost 5 and totally stocked to start kindergarten in Spawn's school and ride the bus with Spawn.

The baby goober is Cute Boy.  He is pretty cute, if I do say so myself.  And so do the talent scouts in the mall.  Gosh, they are annoying.  Yes I know my kid is cute, but leave me alone already!  I think it's the eyelashes.  Seriously, the kid has eyelashes to here.  It does girls and women in all the time.  I was worried about Spawn and Sweet Nut being heartbreakers when they are older, Cute Boy breaks hearts now.  Cute Boy is the baby of the family, and uses it to his advantage whenever he can.  Usually his charm works wonders on the Chef and Spawn, but I've been known to fall for it once in a blue moon.  He loves to help in the kitchen, which makes Chef tired because when he's home he doesn't want to cook, but Cute Boy usually gets him to make some eggs or something.  Oh and if you were keeping tally with the grandkids that Chef's mom has the score is Girls: 7 Boys:1.  Which makes it easy for Cute Boy to be spoiled.  And makes me wonder if I'll ever get a girl.  I mean look at those odds, and I get the boy? The eyelashes make up for it though.  And Cute Boy has a slight obsession with pink milk.  Lord, help me if we ever run out.  

Professionally, I'm a service advisor at my family's repair shop.  It's an interesting job, although not an easy industry for girls.  I mean, cars are usually man's domain.  But I've learned alot working with my dad, and I'm annoying and ask questions.  I still get the stubborn man once in awhile that wants to speak to Dad or a mechanic while giving me that look like I don't know what I'm talking about.  Not sure if I'll do it forever, but it's a job, it's interesting, and I get a check every week.  Can't complain too much right? My dad has been in the industry, oh, like forever, and he's done everything from work in dealerships to owning his own shop and currently runs the Service Department at my uncle's body shop.  He's an awesome daddy, and a great grandpa.  My boys adore him.

My mom is a busy bee.  She handles all the bookkeeping and marketing at this shop, PLUS is mom to me and the Golden Boy, MaMa to the goobers, a CCD teacher to the demon spawn a 7th grade class, spoils the Golden Boy, a Rotarian (currently President Elect, will become President in June for a year), Parish Council Secretary, is on the parish design commitee for the new church,  spoils the Golden Boy, takes part in weekly Eucharistic Adoration...I mean seriously, she's like NEVER home.  Methinks she has Empty Nest Syndrome, but don't tell her I said that.

Oh, and they have cats.  (Luckily, they are inside/outside cats because Tristan is dreadfully allergic.  Did I just use the word dreadfully?  I'm going to think about where that came from later.  That's like something the Golden Boy would say.)  Where was I?  Oh, cats.  Patty and Michael Cat.  One's a cute nice calm gray tiger cat, and the other is a spastic, annoying, needy, slightly psychotic black cat.  Patty usually runs and hides when she sees me pull in (can't say I blame her.)  Michael Cat hangs around for some torture.  Spawn is under the impression Michael Cat is his.  Ask him, he'll tell you.  There were originally 3 kittens when Mom got them.  Patty, Michael Cat, and a little one.  Mom asked Spawn what he thought a good name for the kitten would be, and he commented how tiny the kitten was.  That kitten became Tiny.  Tiny eventually disappeared, as some of the other cats we had did.  I had a cat, Evelyn, aka Titten who was like the coolest cat of all time.  Seriously, this cat would try and jump deer.  She disappeared one day.  My parents figure there's some kind of animal in the woods near their house eating random cats.  I think we're up to 3 that have gone missing.

Anyways, I think I've rambled enough for one post, don't you?  Yeah, I thought so.