Day By Glorious Day

Living Room Makeover!

2011-08-19T01:11:00.006-05:00

So I've been on a little bit of an organizing kick lately. I've been getting overwhelmed with clutter, and I realized that part of the reason I spend my whole day cleaning up is because we have too much STUFF to clean up! The less stuff you have, the less you have to clean, right? So I've been getting rid of tons of stuff and it feels AMAZING!

I also think that living in a neat, organized place can do a lot for your mental health. For example, I feel much less frazzled in the mornings when I give the kids breakfast in a neat, clean kitchen as opposed to a dirty kitchen with dishes in the sink and Cheerios all over the floor. And when I look around at my house and everything is nice and neat, it puts me in a nice, organized, neat mood and I'm much less likely to snap at one of the ~~hooligans~~ children.

The problem is that I'm busy. And lazy. Really I'm both. I don't want to spend all my "down time" after the kids are in bed cleaning and organizing, but I also don't want a messy house. So I have found a solution to this problem......

Sleep less.

Nope. I'm not kidding. For the past 2 weeks, maybe longer, I've been going to sleep really late. Like...around 2 AM. Baby E still wakes up at least once a night and then gets up for the day between 7 and 8 so I'm not quite sure how I'm functioning but I'm not questioning it! I'm just running with it! So...let me show you what I've been doing all night long. I'm so happy that I'm twitchy.

Here is our sort of cluttered living room. Note the bare walls. They've been bare since we had the walls pained exactly a year ago and I've been having commitment issues about hanging pictures back up.

Note the books on one table, andHubby's exercise stuff on another. No coffee table. (It was in the den where it was being used as a sort of second couch. The kids like to sit on it to play Wii).

We don't have a garage. Or a mud room or anything of the sort. So our bikes, and strollers, and other such stuff lives in our living room. (not pictured...off to the right side of this pic). It makes me crazy, but we don't have a choice, so I need the living room to be void of other unnecessary clutter so I can feel better about the strollers and bikes.

So I decided to go on a mission. I went to Michaels and bought a gazillion bins. Luckily, there were a ton of bins on clearance so it worked out well. I came home and got right to work. I was so excited.

First I put Hubby's exercise stuff in his bin and stashed it under one of the side tables.

Then I moved the coffee table back into the living room and put three bins underneath it. Those are for the books that used to live in full view on the other end table.

And then I did my biggest project.....I finally hung pictures on the wall. At Michaels, I bought 8 identical frames. Then I picked my favorite pictures of the kids and sent them on over to Walgreens, where they're having a nice sale on prints. Then I went right on over, picked up the prints and brought them home to frame and hang up. Walgreens photo center is good for my instant gratification issues.

Hello, my pretties.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Final picture. Please ignore the teeny problem of the pictures not being hung perfectly symmetrically. I can't think about it. It makes me feel anxious.

So, whaddya think? Worth losing some sleep over?

Swimming lessons

2011-07-24T21:32:00.005-05:00

During the 2 weeks after school ended before camp started, I took advantage of the unstructured time to schedule some swimming lessons from the boys. The lessons were wonderful and the boys learned a lot and had a great time.

I, on the other hand, didn't have the best time....because I spent the entire lesson trying to keep a certain 3 year old and 10 month old from jumping into the pool.

T was soooooo jealous of her brothers' swim lessons. Unfortunately, she was too young to take lessons there, and she gets lessons in camp, so I wasn't going to sign her up somewhere else. So she had to sit there and watch them. Of course we ate snacks, and colored, and played games....but she really wanted to be in that water.

In any case, after the two weeks of ~~hell~~ lessons, the kids started camp and all was good in the world.

Now, you may remember from last year that I have a happy place in the summer. It's called the pool. I love the pool. The pool is divine. And I take the kids to the pool after camp a few times a week...basically every day that it's sunny and hot. Which isn't always the case in this crazy city, but we usually get at least three afternoons a week at the pool.

The boys like the pool, but T LOVES the pool. She could seriously stay there ALL DAY.

In the beginning of the summer, she didn't really swim. She just played. She's only three, and swimming lessons for three year olds basically cover

1) Getting in the pool without crying

2) Putting your face in the water without crying

3) Letting the swim teacher drag you around in the water without digging your fingernails into her arms in fear

But now that the summer is more than half over (SOB) and she has spent a lot of time in the pool, she has become much more comfortable in the water and jumps in, puts her face in the water, she can front and back float for a few seconds, etc...

But still - she doesn't know any strokes or anything like that.

Except for last week, she said to me, "Mommy, watch me swim!"

And then she did this:

Apparently, she was watching those swimming lessons the boys had, because T seems to have taught herself the front crawl. Her front crawl sort of makes it seem like there's a shark chasing her. It is quite possibly the most frantic and least effective front crawl I've ever seen. She uses all her energy and moves maybe three inches.

But let me tell you, it never gets old watching it. I cry from laughter every time. And then I say, "Awesome swimming, T!" And then I post it to Facebook so everyone else can laugh too.

Oh, T. She's so cute.

Family planning with the experts

2011-07-14T19:46:00.001-05:00

At the library one afternoon, with all the kids....

D: Can you carry me?

Me: No, sweetie. Sorry, but I have to carry E. And anyway, you're 7 years old, you're not a baby!

D: I want to be a baby.

Me: You know, you got to the be the baby of our family for the longest of all the kids. You were the baby for 3 1/2 years. K was only the baby for a year and T was the baby for a little less than 3 years.

K: I bet E will be the baby for longest.

Me: Oh yeah?

K: Yeah. I dont think you're going to have any more kids.

D: Yeah, me either.

Me: Why not?

D: You've already got a lot of 'em. I think it's enough.

June, in pictures

2011-07-07T11:48:00.000-05:00

A little bit about June

2011-06-29T11:19:00.002-05:00

So I survived the month of June, which was basically a whole lot of days of the kids having no school, with a lot of guests for Shabbos/Shavuos thrown in. It was basically a month of

cook.clean.cook.clean.entertain children.cook some more.rinse.repeat.

on top of all the regular cooking/cleaning/stuff around the house that needs to be done on a regular basis.

I'm proud to say that I can now report to you from the other side, AKA CAMP STARTED,!!!! and all of us have emerged from June (relatively) unscathed.

Of course, today is Wednesday, the THIRD day of camp, and this is the first day that all the (non infant) children are attending because of various sicknesses that almost sent me over the edge, but finally, today, the children are in camp, and I am breathing my own air for the first time in weeks.

Like, eating my own food without it being taken, going to the bathroom without anyone banging on the door, and sitting in silence for more than 20 seconds at a time.

Of course, having the kids home wasn't all bad. It was actually kind of fun. Just complaining is more fun than telling you about the fun.

But just to be fair, I'll tell you a little bit about the fun.

We went strawberry picking. We went to an amusement park. We went swimming. A lot. We played at the park. A lot. We ate a lot of junk food. We ate a lot of take out dinners. We jumped on trampolines. We BBQed. We played mini golf. The big boys ran their first real race. We played soccer. We went to swimming lessons. We went to the museum. We went to the farm. We went grocery shopping. We went to the dentist. (Those last five were all in one day. That was a long day).

And by WE, I do mean that the kids did this, while I took care of Baby E and tried to prevent him from eating woodchips/drinking pool water/eating grass/eating dirt etc.....

But it was so fun! Here is one picture...to hold you over until I upload the rest. I'll do a whole post of pictures tomorrow!

Today

2011-06-14T22:06:00.002-05:00

Today I....

...woke up after 5 non consecutive hours of sleep to a crying baby

...packed lunches

...fed, clothed, diapered, and cleaned up after various children

....did two loads of laundry

...gave T a manicure and pedicure

...vacuumed the car, during which I found the source of the moldy banana smell...moldy bananas

...made a deposit at the bank

...went to the mall and rode the escalator for fun. For T. Not for me.

...watched T hug a mannequin in Old Navy

...then watched her peek under the mannequin's skirt

...bought 7 bathing suits....none for me

...then giggled while T held my long receipt up to her tush and told the cashier it was her tail

...took the little kids out for pizza

...let T order a Dr. Pepper

...took the little kids to Target

...went to the park with D's class on a field trip

...took the big boys to swimming lessons

...got in trouble with a school security guard for propping open a locked door with a Hershey bar

...saw a lady pushing her dog in a stroller

...took all 4 kids grocery shopping

...cooked two dinners simultaneously in under 15 minutes while holding a baby

...kissed E on his smushy little face about 200 times

...figured out that I put T and E in (and out) of their carseats 17 times today

Today, I fell asleep at 7:30 PM while sitting up in a chair. I wonder why.

Willy

2011-06-07T10:50:00.002-05:00

The older kids are playing in the basement, and I went upstairs a few minutes ago to put baby E down for a nap. I came back downstairs and was cleaning up the kitchen when I heard crying. I went to the bottom of the steps to listen but didn't hear anything. It happened again a few minutes later, and still, I didn't hear E crying.

Finally, I went into the basement, where the kids were playing happily, and said, "Was someone crying down here?"

"Oh," said K, looking a little guilty. "Do you mean this noise?" He then proceeded to make a sad, pitiful whining noise.

"Yeah, that one." I said. "What are you doing?"

"I'm pretending to be Willy when he was captured!" was his reply. (If you haven't seen Free Willy, click on the link)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2uJiW1oo6Y

Sometimes, my children are so strange it makes me giggle.

2011-05-01T10:39:00.000-05:00

It's tough being a curly haired girl

especially

on a windy day

my baby

2011-04-29T09:25:00.001-05:00

I love my new camera. Even though I don't really know how to use it yet.

I also love my baby.

My baby loves to swing on unseasonably warm days.

He likes it on unseasonably cold days, too.

As for these cheeks, I'll eat them any day. I don't discriminate.

The big Three Oh

2011-04-28T14:20:00.003-05:00

Let's play catch up!

Since I last blogged, much has happened. I really need to get back into regular blogging. I keep telling myself that I'll do that after life calms down, but what I'm starting to realize is that life never calms down.

Today was the kids' first day back at school after Pesach vacation. AKA Mother's Day. That Sunday in two weeks is just ridiculous. The kids are home. I have to make them breakfast, lunch, and dinner, break up fights, take them to their soccer game, and clean up after them all day. How is that Mother's Day? Today, they are all in school, for the first time in 2 weeks. THAT, my friends, is the real Mother's Day. Don't believe the retail industry. Mothers don't need flowers to celebrate. We need peace and quiet.

In other news, the weather here has been ridiculous. I realize it's kind of pathetic to talk about the weather but literally it has rained almost every day for a month and I'm ready to pull my hair out. I am starting to think that maybe summer will never come this year. We will skip it all together and just go right into fall.

SOB. I NEED SUN.

In other news, I bet no one reads my blog anymore, because I barely blog anymore, so I am probably just reporting my own news to myself. But that's helpful, because I am getting old, and I might start to forget things soon.

Because today is my 30th birthday. Yes. I am THIRTY.

I don't know how that happened, because I feel like I am still 20, but then I look around and realize I have a husband and a house and a minivan and FOUR CHILDREN and I'm like, "WHOA THERE, when did this all happen?!?"

The only redeeming factor is that when I went to Starbucks to get my free birthday drink, the young male barista said, "Is it the big 20?" And I said, "I love you."

The end.

We're baaaack!

2011-04-04T14:37:00.001-05:00

We just got back from the most amazing two weeks in Israel. We are very tired. There is still much to unpack and put away. After days of waking up at 3 and 4 AM, the children are back on schedule. I am still tired. But it was incredible. Here are some pics. I'll write more later.

Did I really just say that???

2011-03-28T18:11:00.002-05:00

Today I am re-posting an entry from 3 years ago. Add your own quotes in the comments!!!!

Before I had kids, I had all these grand ideas about what kind of parent I would be. I observed people with their kids and thought to myself, "I will never do that." I was going to be so patient, and nurturing, and fun, never lose my temper, and never be sarcastic or say hurtful things.

Then I actually had kids. And realized, damn, it's a lot harder than it looks.

In honor of, well, really nothing at all, here is a short list of things I have said to my kids that I would never have believed would come out of my mouth. There are tons more but in my sleep deprived state (the aforementioned children woke me at an ungodly hour this morning) this is about all I can conjure up right now.

The toilet is not a toy
If you're going to play with that knife/stick/other sharp object, can you at least go do it over there so you won't hurt the rest of us?
If you get hurt and cry, I'm not going to feel bad for you
If you do that again, the police will come and take you to jail
Please go wash that poop off your finger
Your fork is getting very lonely
Why is there underwear on the ceiling fan?
Now go under the kitchen table and finish all the food you dropped
Hey! Who moved the baby?
We do NOT pish on other people.
You're right, I am so mean. I'm the meanest Mommy in the whole world. You should really go find a better one.
Don't wake me unless someone is bleeding
Why is there shampoo all over the living room floor???
I will ask you twice, and then I will start to count, and after that, well, um, it'll be bad
Why is there a beer bottle cap in your pocket?
Can I suck on your lips? Please? (sorry, but baby lips are just about the tastiest things in the world)
Who put my shoe in the fridge?
Stop sucking on my toes!
No, you may not climb out the window
If you jump down from there you will break your leg and then I won't take you swimming
Please don't build a dam with your bedroom furniture
How would you feel if I bit your nose?
Your puninshment is that I will not tell you how I got the Sharpie off the dining room table
Who turned the air conditioning up to 100 degrees?

And finally, one of the most classic lines ever...

No, it's not doody, it's cholent!

my present

2011-03-15T08:25:00.005-05:00

It's almost my 30th birthday. And I use the term "almost" loosely.

But it's almost my birthday, so I bought myself a present. Something I've been wanting for a long time.

I went back and forth Nikon vs. Canon vs. Sony for a long time. Before I realized that if I kept doing that, my children would be adults before I got the camera and I'd have nothing to take pictures of except the walls. Which would be sort of exciting, since the walls will probably be clean at that point in my life. But still.

So I just took a deep breath, closed my eyes, stuck out my finger, and spun around in a circle. When I stopped and opened my eyes, the man at the store was looking at me strangely, but my finger was pointed at the Nikon, so I promptly bought it (after I haggled down the price, obviously) and walked out the door.

Okay, maybe that's not exactly how it happened. But I do have a Nikon!

I have no idea what I'm doing with it. I'm not even an amateur. I'm whatever is a step below an amateur, because I haven't even read the manual yet. I've just been playing around with my camera for the past two weeks. Of course, that hasn't stopped me from buying a new lens on Ebay. And I've already taken 300 pictures.

My hard drive is not happy with me.

I've gotten some great pictures of the kids. So far they have been good sports, mostly because I have bribed them with candy, and because my main subject can neither walk nor talk. He's convenient that way.

He's also very drooly, but that's not really relevant information, is it?

I love this picture. Could you just eat that face? I could. I do.

This reminds me that I have no idea where that hair clip is. Sigh.

It only took 455 pictures to get one of them all looking and smiling.

I love my new camera. I bet I will love it more when I learn how to use it.

Happy (almost) 30th birthday to me!

Mommies

2011-02-27T21:14:00.004-06:00

Shabbos afternoon, I was laying on the couch and the kids were in the basement, when I overheard D say, "Daddies are more important than Mommies!"

I didn't know what the context was but OH BOY I did not care. I called for him to come upstairs, and while Hubby giggled, I had the following conversation with D.

Me: D....what did you just say about Daddies and Mommies?

D: I didn't mean it!!!! I wasn't talking about you! We were playing a game!

Me: (Hiding head under blanket) I'm so insulted

D: (Laughing) I wasn't talking about youuuuuuuuuuuu!

Me: (acting insulted) Whatever

D: Giggles nervously

I was really just kidding and I told him so - but a few hours later, he said something that totally redeemed him.

We were sitting at the table and T said to me, "Who was your Mommy when you were little?"

"Bubbie," I replied.

"Is she still your Mommy?" T wanted to know.

"Yep!" I said.

And then D turned to me and said lovingly, "Mommy, you will always be my Mommy, and you will never fade away!"

And then I couldn't decide whether to laugh or to cry.

Why coffee is better than hot chocolate

2011-02-05T20:54:00.002-06:00

I am a deep thinker, and this is clearly evidenced by the fact that I recently spent some time contemplating why coffee is better than hot chocolate. Here, in no particular order, are my reasons.

1) Coffee has caffeine

2) There are hundreds of different varieties and flavors

3) You can drink it as a morning "wake me up" or as a nighttime "calm me down" (in decaf)

4) When it gets cold, it doesn't get gross- just throw an ice cub in it and call it iced coffee

5) It's good in the summer or in the winter (iced chocolate milk is just NOT the same as iced coffee)

6) You can purchase it at almost any convenience store, kiosk in the airport, in the mall - EVERYWHERE

7) You can buy it at a drive through (ie WITHOUT TAKING THE KIDS OUT OF THE CAR)

8) There is NOTHING like the smell of brewing coffee.

9) You can have coffee when you're fleishig

10) Your husband can also pronounce it cow-feet, which brings endless entertainment to children.

And that is my official list. You can leave comments that disagree with me or try to show me that you know more than me, like people often do on blogs. That's okay. I won't delete them. But I will think you're really annoying and I'll probably complain to my friends about you.

Alright, that's it. Now I'm off to brew myself a nice big cup of coffee. Have a great night!

In which I post about diapers

2011-01-20T11:28:00.003-06:00

Yes, I am about to do the ultimate MOM thing. No, I'm not going to talk about my child's poop in public. But I am going to write a post about diapers. But really, it's not about diapers. It's not about which ones leak or which ones work. I'm not interested in a Huggies vs. Luvs vs. Pampers vs. Store brand debate.

This is about how to get them for CHEAP. And I think that's a language everyone can speak, right?

Alrighty then. So this is how it works. I've shared this with friends but I feel like there might be others out there who don't know this and it's just too good to keep to myself.

In the olden days, I used to buy diapers at full price. I mean, I bought them when they were on sale, and I'd use a coupon from the newspaper, but diapers were a large cost for our family. There were occasionally very good coupon deals, and I would stock up on diapers, but somehow I would always underestimate how many I was going to need and never buy enough, because honestly, we use way more diapers then we ever realize, and then one day we would run out and I would be forced to go and buy for full price - because really, diapers are not optional.

But then, this summer, I discovered something SO exciting about diaper purchasing. And I haven't looked back since.

It's all through Amazon.com, which makes it all the more exciting since you never have to leave your house to get diapers. Which, if you live where I live, is particularly exciting, as I think the high today is 11 or something like that.

So you sign into your Amazon account and you sign up for a program called Amazon Mom. Just type the words "Amazon Mom" into the search box and click on the link that says "save with Amazon Mom." Follow the directions to sign up. It's free, and it automatically gives you 15% off diapers and wipes when you use Subscribe and Save, which I will explain in a minute! it also give you free two-day shipping through Amazon Prime for 3 months.

After you have signed up for Amazon Mom, go to the Amazon Baby home page and search for diapers. On the left side, there will be an option to search for certain sizes, brands, etc... You want to search for the ones that are Subscribe and Save eligible.

Select the diapers (or wipes) that you want - for example, I chose the Pampers Cruisers Size 3 - 160 count - for $39.75 - 25 cents per diaper.

On the page of the diapers you have chosen, you will see a blue rectangular box that says "Save an extra 30% with Subscribe and Save and Amazon Mom."

Subscribe and Save is a program where you sign up to receive regular shipments of diapers. Like, they will send you the diapers every month, or every 3 months, or whatever you choose. As an incentive to get you to sign up with this program, they offer an additional discount of 15%. So this means that your 15% savings from Amazon Mom plus your 15% discount from Subscribe and Save gets you a total of 30% off of your diaper purchase. In that box, it will show you what your new price is. For these diapers, my new price is $27.82, which is 17 cents per diaper!!!

You will be able to cancel your Subscribe and Save subscription VERY easily and still get your discount, so don't worry about that.

So on the right side, where it says "subscribe" pick one of the options - I suggest picking the 6 month one in case you forget to cancel your subscription you will have more time before the next shipment goes out!

Then look under that blue rectangular box and see if there is an option to add a coupon. For some diaper brands, Amazon has their own coupons and will let you add one to your order with just a click. On these diapers, there is a coupon for $1.50 off. I "Clip" the coupon by clicking the link, and it says that my discount will be applied at checkout. This drops my price to $26.32 which is even better!!

Now you're ready to proceed. Click the 6 month option, then click "Subscribe now."

You will be taken to the address/payment option page. Choose your address and your form of payment, until you are taken to the final screen where it says "Review and submit your order."

You will see that you have free shipping (another bonus of Amazon Mom - diapers that come to your doorstep in 2 days or less FOR FREE!) and your total should show the 30% discount, plus your coupon discount if you have one.

Now here is where you can get even more money off, if you have the coveted Amazon codes. These codes are good for 20% off of diapers, which added to your already 30% savings, means you are saving 50%. These codes are on neon green postcards and can be found in baby and parenting magazines. There are also codes for $10 off your baby purchase, which is even more incredible and could probably get you a large box of diapers for only a few dollars. They are hard to find if you don't have a subscription to these magazines, and the codes sell on Ebay, but for ridiculously inflated prices, so I don't suggest doing that unless you really can't find your own.

Currently, they are supposedly in the February issue of BabyTalk magazine and the Dec January issue of Fit Pregnancy. These coupons are also often in American Baby, Parenting the Early Years, and Parents magazine, so if you subscribe to these or you come across them, make sure to flip through carefully and look through the postcard.

Even better, I believe that if you find BOTH of these - meaning one 20% off and one $10 off, you can use them both on the same order and probably get your diapers for pennies.

This is a picture of what it looks like, so you know what you're looking for.

If you are lucky enough to find one of these coupons, enter the code on the back into the spot on the Amazon Check out page that says "Enter Promotional Codes Here." (It's under your total). Then click "apply."

So, for example, when you apply the 20% off code, your total will be 50% off of that original price. So mine would be $19.88, minus my $1.50 coupon, which makes my total 18.38 - approximately 11 and a half cents a diaper - INSANE, right???? Even more amazing if you find the $10 one.

After your diapers come in the mail, just go into your Amazon account information, and click on the link that says "Manage Subscribe and Save Orders." Then you will have the option to cancel your subscription. Just cancel - one click is all it takes - and you're good to go! It will make your subscription "inactive" and you can do this as many times as you want. I do this every time I order diapers and I have like 17 inactive subscriptions right now. :)

Please post questions if you have them, although this is really not as hard as it may seem! The hardest part is finding those 20% coupons (and the rare $10 off ones!!!). But even if you don't find the coupons, the diapers are still crazy cheap and even better, they don't require you to go to the store!

Enjoy your cheap, door to door diaper service!!!

The Mystery of the Missing Snowpants

2011-01-13T14:29:00.003-06:00

A few weeks ago, Hubby went to Target and purchased snowpants for the two older boys. They had outgrown their old pairs, and in this neck of the woods, you can't get through winter without a good pair.

The boys used them once, to go snowtubing.

Yesterday, my friend Rivkie called and asked if she could borrow a pair of snowpants for her son who is the same age as K. I said yes, found K's pair, put them in a plastic shopping bag, and hung them on my front door for her husband to pick up.

Then I went to take T to school and went on some errands. While I was out, Rivkie called and asked me if I could just take the snowpants to school, where I was headed to do hot lunch anyway at around 11 AM. I said sure.

When I got home, the snowpants were no longer on my door. I looked all over the porch, and the front lawn, but they weren't there. The bag was gone.

I called my Rivkie, who then called her husband, but neither one of them had picked them up.

I called Hubby to see if maybe he had stopped by the house and taken them inside, but he hadn't. It was a mystery. The Mystery of the Missing Snowpants.

I figured that someone must have stolen them. But that was really strange, because who steals snowpants off of someone's front porch?

I went to school to serve hot lunch and forgot about it for a few hours. But when I got home, I started thinking about it again. Honestly, I was really annoyed. I wanted those snowpants back. They were brand new and I didn't want to have to go buy K another pair.

I was sitting on the couch, feeding E, thinking about it, when suddenly, I knew what had happened. I remembered getting a postcard in the mail a few days earlier that said the Vietnam Veterans of America Donation Truck was going to be on my block doing pick ups....and I remembered the date....Wednesday, Jan 12th.

Then it all made sense. The truck came down my block, saw a bag on my porch, and assumed it was for them.

THE VIETNAM VETERANS STOLE MY SNOWPANTS!

I bet I'm the only person in the world who can honestly make that statement.

It would have been really funny had it not been so annoying. I called the hotline and left a message, and a woman called me back and said they would look for them, but I'm not holding my breath.

But I was really proud of myself for solving the mystery.

And at least I got a good Facebook status out of it.

Dear Vietnam Veterans of America,
I appreciate your service of picking up items on my block as donations. Just one request - next time, can you not take the bag sitting on my front porch?
Sincerely,
Rivkie wanted to borrow those snowpants

P.S. If you are unfamiliar with the Dear Blank Please Blank phenomenon, please educate yourself here.

Mr. E Man

2011-01-11T12:02:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone! I thought it was about time I did a post about baby E. He's hardly gotten any face time here and he's really very cute so I think it's about time you meet him.

Baby E was born on August 17th, approximately two hours after I got to the hospital. It's a good thing I went when I did, or else I might not have gotten my epidural.

(Please note that my fear of not getting to the hospital in time has nothing to do with not wanting to give birth in the car, and is all about making sure I get that epidural). I have my priorities, thankyouverymuch.

Also, please note that while I was in labor with E, Hubby actually used the phrase "next time" at which point I asked the nurse to please throw something at him. Funny thing is, every time I have used the phrase "next time" ever since, Hubby seems to have a small inner panic attack. Funny how that works. Anywhoo.

Baby E is just an awesome baby. Jewish words alert. Bli ayin hara, he is just lovely. He is cute and sweet and happy and doesn't do that whole "screaming for no reason" baby thing.

E is pretty much the drooliest baby ever, except for D, who was so drooly I had to change his shirt 3 times a day.

But he is definitely my happiest baby - he smiles at anything with a face, including strangers, toys, and Dora sippy cups.

Baby E is also fat and has awesome cheeks. My arm goes numb after holding him in the infant car seat for more than a few minutes, but his chubby thighs are worth it.

Baby E, you may be the 4th child, and I may have just taken this picture two minutes ago because in the midst of writing this realized I hadn't taken any non-cell phone pictures of you in a month, but it's not because we don't love you soooooooo much, you mushy, mushy, cute little man!

Her So Called Life

2010-12-22T23:54:00.006-06:00

I have one sister. She's a lovely, wonderful sister, but unfortunately, she lives across the country and I only get to see her a few times a year. I used to have a really hard time keeping in touch with her, because we are both busy people, and even though we talked on the phone regularly, we still were leading very separate lives. I used to tell her that she needed to move back home and buy a house on my block, and then I could be a part of her life.

But then, something better happened.

I friended her on Facebook.

Every day, I checked in on my sister's life. Luckily for me, she and her friends pretty much put it on Facebook every time they sneeze, so it made it really easy for me. I looked at the pictures of her parties, and the wall posts between friends, and slowly, I began to get to know my sister and her mysterious life across the country.

Then I started friending her friends - her roommates, her co workers, even her boyfriend. I think it was a scary day for my sister when she opened up her Facebook and her News Feed said, "Shosh and Gabe are now friends."

In fact, I know it was a scary day for her, because she commented "Nooooooooooooooooooo!"

Her life is so intriguing to me, and I love to spy on her from afar. Her friends, while certainly real people, seem more like soap opera characters to me. They have relationships, and jobs, and birthdays, and parties, and interesting conversations, all of which I stalk on a daily basis, and I follow their lives - even though I've never met any of them in real life.

Sometimes I get confused, but a quick phone call to my sister sets things straight. A typical conversation will go like this.

Me: Ilana, I was looking at your album from your birthday party, and I have a few questions.

Ilana: Okayyyyyyyy.......

Me: So, first of all, why is Rachel sitting so close to John in like three of the pictures? Are they dating?

Ilana: No!

Me: Why, is he gay?

Ilana: NO!!!!

Me: Well, is Rachel dating anyone?
Ilana: Why are you so abnormal?

Me: Whatever, I'm just saying, I think he likes her, I could tell from the way he was looking at her in the pictures.
Ilana: You don't even know how ridiculous you are

Me: Okay, next question. So this guy Daniel (and I only know his name because he is tagged in a picture) - is he a friend of yours?

Ilana: Yes, he lives down the hall.

Me: Why didn't you tell me about him?
Ilana: Why would I tell you about him?

Me: Because it's important that I know about all of your friends. Now I have to friend him.

Ilana: Don't FRIEND HIM.

Me: Too late. Next. Your friend Dana, is she the one that's from Boston?
Ilana: No, that's Emily.

Me: Shoot, I always mix them up. But Emily is the one that's dating Ben, right?

Ilana: Right.

Me: He is awkwardly taller than her. Is it awkward in real life, or just on Facebook?
Ilana: SHOSH! (Screechy laugh)

Me: Okay, now there's another guy who has a mutual friend with someone I know and I think I recognize him from the Maccabeats video.

Ilana: Yeah, he's in it

Me: Does he have a girlfriend?
Ilana: I don't know

Me: I bet he does now.

Ilana: I really have to get back to work.

Me: I'm not done yet. I saw you just posted an event for someone's birthday party.

Ilana: Yes.

Me: Invite me. I would like to attend.

Ilana: You're going to come?

Me: No, I'm going to attend on Facebook.

Ilana: Um okay.

Besides for having daily conversations like this, I also regularly comment on her posts on her friends walls, her friends posts on hers, and also I sometimes even tag her friends in my status.

I'm starting to learn their personalities, their likes and dislikes, their jobs, their families, who they are dating, and who likes who. Basically, I watch a soap opera on Facebook, but it's my sister's real life.

It's AMAZING. The story never ends, it's totally realistic (BECAUSE IT'S REAL!) but since I don't know any of the characters in real life, I can freely comment on their lives without any worry about insult or backlash - because I DONT KNOW THEM AND IVE NEVER MET THEM. I'm not sure how they feel about me, or what they think about a married mother of four who comments on their lives regularly. Really, I don't care what they think. I'm having too much fun.

So I would like to dedicate this blog post, for a first time ever dedication - to the characters in my sister's So Called Life.

247ers - you know who you are! Your endless alcohol consumption, and your posts about Oregon Trail fatalities, your building of IKEA furniture, and your strange posts on each others walls like "YOU ARE THE STICKY GUM BETWEEN MY TOES" - well, it all puts a smiley on my face and makes my heart go pitter patter.

Maybe we will meet in real life one day, but until then, my so called friends, please, continue your antics, and please continue posting them on the internet for strangers to see. My days just wouldn't be the same without you.

P.S. Rebecca, your eyebrows looked awesome in those pictures you posted last week.

Regressing

2010-12-09T12:41:00.003-06:00

Poor baby E is a 4th child and therefore gets none of the special treatment that a first child gets....namely, having pictures taken of him. I have some...but certainly nowhere near the amount I have of the other kids. I also have never taken him for a professional portrait.

One night a few weeks ago, Hubby had taken the older boys out and T was asleep, so I decided to take some pictures of E. It was Saturday night, and he was still wearing his cute Shabbos outfit. The outfit has a hat, so he looked especially adorable, because as we all know, babies look adorable in hats.

Let us ignore the fact that the reason I put him in an outfit with a hat was because I couldn't take him to shul with his head exposed, because I had forogtten to cut his nails and he likes to scratch his head when he stretches while waking up from a nap and the top of his head looked like he had gotten into a fight with a large, angry cat.

Anyway.

So I took some pictures of him. I got this cute one.

When the boys got home, they looked at the pictures and loved them. Then I left them alone with my camera. Which is how I got this picture.

Drive Thru World

2010-12-04T23:09:00.000-06:00

So winter is finally here, it seems. It's cold outside. It's windy. There is snow on the ground. I have to wear gloves to even touch the steering wheel of my car, and getting remote starter is number one on my Gift Wish List, even above a massage, a new pair of boots, and pretty much everything else.

Winter is nice, in some ways. Like...um....oh, wait. No it's not.

Unfortunately, a serious portion of our year in this city is freezing cold. And getting kids in and out of the car repeatedly in this weather is not very fun. So I've been thinking....someone really needs to invent the Drive Thru world.

Like, where everything is a drive thru. Put your baby in the car in the morning and get all your errands done without having to take him out until you get home. Not to mention your toddler or preschooler who may be along for the ride and insists on buckling and unbuckling herself every single time while you stand there and freeze your tush off.

So we already have drive thru to get coffee, and a drive thru pharmacy, which is amazing. Seriously. I love it.

But what about drive thru grocery store? Make your order online and then drive up and they come out and put it in your car? AWESOME.

Or drive thru doctor's appointments? Pull up to the window - the doctor checks the kid's ears or gives a strep test while the kid is strapped in, which makes things much easier on everyone - no more dragging sick and crying children into the doctor's office in the snow.

Aren't I on to something here? Come on....

perspective

2010-11-18T21:02:00.003-06:00

This story is not my own. But I figure it's not really considered stealing since it did happen with my children, so I have the rights to it. Right? Anyway.

This summer, after baby E was born, the boys slept at my parents' house one night. Well, actually in their backyard. They camped out.

Yes, my mother is one brave Bubbie.

I love this story because it totally expresses the different personalities of the boys. It is SO THEM. It's classic. If you know my kids well, this will crack you up.

After sleeping outside for the night, my Mom asked D, "What sounds did you hear when we were in the tent?" He said, "I didn't hear any sounds!"

She said it was true, he did fall asleep pretty quickly, but even while she was reading to them before they turned off the flashlights, the crickets and the cicadas were nearly deafening. But he apparently didn't notice anything.

Later she asked K what sounds he heard. He just rolled his eyes. "Crickets, cicadas, airplanes, cars, trucks, trains, car alarms, fire engines..."

he said what??

2010-11-16T18:00:00.003-06:00

At K & D's school, there is a lovely social worker who, among other things, visits the classrooms a few times during the year to talk with the students.

D's teacher reported to me that the social worker visited their classroom last week to do some talking about "feelings." Apparently, she showed the class some pictures of people with different feelings - a boy who looked happy, a girl who looked surprised, a boy who looked scared, a girl who looked angry, etc....

At one point, she pointed to a picture of a girl who looked sad and said to the boys, "What do you think would make this girl feel better?"

And D called out, "A million dollars!!"

Anyone think that I best be preparing myself for a call from the social worker?.....

candids

2010-11-12T10:24:00.004-06:00

With kids, it's really tough to get a good picture. Well, maybe for some people it's easy, but for me, it's impossible. When I say "Smile!" my children interpret it as "Stick out your tongue!" or "Cover your eyes!" or other obnoxious things like that.

I've found, then, that some of the best pictures with kids are the candid ones - when you catch them being sweet and they don't even realize.

Even though it was taken over two years ago, this picture is still one of my favorites ever.

K and T

While we were on vacation in Florida recently, I got another great one. This particular scene took me about 20 pictures to get the right one - I just kept snapping away. And I don't have a fancy camera. Just a regular Canon powershot. But my work paid off....

kind of cute....

one kid is looking....

baby E seems to be sleeping....

GOT IT!

Embarrassing stories

2010-10-25T12:21:00.003-05:00

I don't usually like to poke fun at people on my blog.

Ok, who am I kidding? Of course I do!

So here's my story.

A few weeks ago, I went to my 6 week post-partum visit at my OB.

The thing about this visit, for those of you who aren't familiar with it, is that it's actually called a 6 week postpartum visit, which all women who have given birth are required to make. Six weeks after having a baby, there is a standard follow up visit to the doctor's office.

So. I was at my 6 week visit. And the doctor walked into the examining room, looked at baby E sleeping in his carseat, and said, "Wow, he's getting so big! What is he, 3 months now?"

To which I responded, "Um....no.....he's six weeks old."

To which she responded, "OH! Right! I'm not sure what I was thinking!"

And then she felt like a moron for the rest of the visit and kept referring back to it, muttering to herself, "What was I thinking?"

I felt a little bad for her. But that didn't stop me from calling all my friends the minute I got into the car and repeating the story. It was just too funny. I couldn't help it.

It's like when K's preschool teacher asked the kids what color the White House is. And the teachers told me that all the kids yelled out colors like, "Green!"

"Purple!"

"Red!"

And that K was looking around the room in disbelief, and finally said, in a disgusted tone, with an extremely bored look on his face, "WHITE."

Haha. Still makes me laugh. I love when people say stupid things. Gets me through my days.

Even when it's me. Like when I ran into someone and couldn't figure out who she was, but I knew that I knew her. And in our conversation I told her a story about what the doctor (a different doctor, not the OB in this story) had told me, saying, "The doctor told me this, the doctor told me that." And then I realized five minutes later who she was. She was that doctor's WIFE.

Ha. Sometimes, it's really fun being a moron.

We're baaaaaaaack

2010-10-20T23:17:00.005-05:00

We just returned from a crazy whirlwind of a family trip/vacation.

I guess it technically was a vacation, but since we took our four children with us on a trip that involved three flights on three different airlines, two rental cars, 3 different cities, two weddings, and a lot of packing/unpacking/repacking, I now need a vacation to recover from the vacation.

I'll post more about it after things are a little less hectic around here (hmm...maybe in 18 years?) but here are a few pictures from our adventures.

I'll be back soon!!!

disconcerting

2010-10-03T11:39:00.002-05:00

I used to take the boys every 7 or 8 weeks to get their hair cut. It was annoying to remember to make the appointment and then take them all out to the store, and it was expensive, but I didn't mind, because we had the best barber ever, and the kids and I really enjoyed going to him.

But after our beloved barber Joe died, we were left without a barber, and I ended up taking them to the local Supercuts or such stores, and it was just getting really annoying. Not to mention expensive - including tip, it would be about $25 each time for both boys. Plus, the kids didn't like it, it wasn't personal, and I had to chase T around the store the entire time while I worried that the lady would butcher the boys' hair because I wasn't paying attention.

So I went out, bought myself a pair of clippers, and announced to anyone who would listen that the days of paying for haircuts were over. I was the new barber in town.

I had never cut hair before. But I went to Sara's house one afternoon, and she showed me how she cuts her boys' hair, and that was enough training for me. I haven't looked back since.

For about a year now, I have been cutting the boys' hair every 6-8 weeks, in the comfort of my own home. Sure, I have to clean up the mess, but it's really not that hard, and it certainly saves a whole lot of time and energy. Not to mention money. The clippers cost 20 bucks. They've paid for themselves ten times over.

The only problem is my children. In the sense that they behaved impeccably for the barber during haircuts. For me? Not so much. They wiggle, and squirm, and tell me the hair that has fallen onto their faces is itchy, and ask if I'm done yet, etc....

But we get through it, and it's fine. The complaining is worth the time and money I save.

This morning, I was giving K a haircut, just like we always do. And he was squirming, moving his head, and complaining every 4 seconds. So it was a pretty standard haircut 'round these parts. But then, as I used my lovely clippers on the back of K's head, he yelped, "OW!"

"WHAT?" I asked, alarmed. "Did I cut you?"

"Yes," he said sadly. "My hair. It has feelings."

"K!" I said, exasperated. "Don't do that! You scared me!"

He giggled, very proud of himself.

Then he said "OW" about 20 more times during the haircut, which I managed to ignore, but it was slightly disconcerting to hear my child say "OW" repeatedly as I held a sharp tool near his head and face.

At one point I said to him, "Stop it, K! It's not so bad! It's just a haircut!"

As I finished up, K started singing to himself.

"Seven dollars to get tortured," he sang softly. "Seeeeveeeeen dollllarrsss! Just seven dollars for torture........"

This is the same child who appeared next to me the other day as I was standing at the sink, washing dishes, and said to me in a robotic voice: Greetings, earth female. My planet. Is dying. We need cookies. To survive.

I am pretty much living in my own personal Calvin and Hobbes comic strip.
I used to love reading that comic. It was hysterical.

Let me tell ya - it's not quite as funny when you're living with Calvin.

the importance of enunciation

2010-09-27T23:06:00.005-05:00

Today was the first time I took all four kids on a full day outing by myself. I've done full days with them, sure, like to the grocery store and the library and low key things. But today I took them on an entire day's outing to a crowded place and I SURVIVED! And I didn't lose any of the children. And no one cried! Not even the baby. He's my most well behaved child these days. Mostly because he doesn't hit, spit, or talk back.

But anyway.

The point is....I did it...and I survived....and then I came home and cooked dinner....and now I'm exhausted.

So I will leave you with a short story that occurred in the car with the children today.

K: When I was in first grade, my class went to see a play. It was called "Diary of a Worm." D, maybe you'll get to see it this year.

D: EW!!!!

Me: What's so gross about that?

D: I don't want to see the diarrhea of a worm!!!!!

Dinner table talk

2010-09-13T20:08:00.002-05:00

K: Mommy, you can't have a baby before you're married, right?

Me: Um...well....

D: Yes you can! Hashem can give you one even if you're not married.

K: Well, fine, you're right, you can - but it's very rare. As rare as frogs falling from the sky.

adorable

2010-09-02T22:08:00.005-05:00

The boys went back to school this week (wahooo!!!), and it's just me and the little ones at home now. (By the way, the baby will now be known as "E" on this blog. I'll add him to the sidebar soon!)

So T, E, and I have been hanging out at home, and I've been trying to rest a little bit and recover from last week, when the boys were off of school and I had a 1 week old baby and things were...um...hectic.

So this week, I've been chilling, but an unfortunate side effect of that is that T has watched more Dora the Explorer episodes online this week than she has in her entire life. She totally has Dora on the brain. Walking around all day saying things like, "Swiper, no swiping!" and other things that make no sense unless you've watched an episode of Dora.

And I was getting a little antsy, and I was suffering from a severe case of coupon withdrawal. Between the construction this summer, being 9 months pregnant in an August that was unseasonably hot, and then having a baby, I hadn't done any serious couponing in a while and I was starting to feel the symptoms. I needed to do some couponing in a bad, bad way.

So T, E, and I ventured out to the grocery store today. T has actually responded very well to having a baby in the house, and besides for being extremely clingy and wanting to be with me all the time, she has adjusted very nicely. I figured the clingy thing would be helpful in the grocery store, since she would have to walk now that E's carseat would be taking over the front of the cart.

T picks out her own clothes and dresses herself every morning, and then she accessorizes. Before we left for the store today, she accessorized herself with a pair of rainboots that are 2 sizes two big and a pair of plastic binoculars, which she wore all through the store as she walked next to me.

T often attracts attention out in public because people love to comment on her crazy, crazy hair. But today she got even more comments, I'm guessing because she looked like a small version of a bird watcher. Wearing bright pink rain boots.

People kept stopping me and saying, "She's sooooo cute!" T was kind of embarrassed and acted shy and kept hiding her face from all these admirers.

But then one lady stopped and exclaimed, "She is so A-DOR-able!!!"

And T turned to her and said indignantly, "I'm NOT Dora. I'm T!"

And then I giggled.

And that's my story for today. :)

It's a boy!

2010-08-18T15:21:00.000-05:00

Introducing...Baby Boy!

Born 8/17/2010

at 3:35 PM

7 lbs 11 oz

All the boys!

im on the warpath...watch out!

2010-08-16T21:27:00.003-05:00

In general, I try to be a pleasant enough person. I try to smile at people, hold doors, not beep my horn at them even when they are spacing out at a green light, and I try to remember that the cashier in the store is just working a minimum wage job and it's not her fault that the store is out of stock of the one item I came in there for.

I don't yell at customer service people, and I don't lose my cool with strangers.

Rather, I didn't. Until today. Ohhhhh...........today.

In my defense, I am about 100 months pregnant. I'm hot, and fat, and tired, and my children are home with me all day long and school doesn't start for two weeks and I have just about had it.

I would say, not that all that gives me an excuse for being rude, but actually, I believe pregnancy does give a woman an excuse to act however she wants. So let's just clear that up first.

Anyhow.

Today I went on the website of a particular online photo sharing website which I will not write here because I don't want to help them get any business. But it sounds like catfish. So don't say I didn't warn you about them.

I went on this website and saw, on the front page, that they had a special offer featured. This was after I waited for the website to load because its the slowest site in the world. But I digress.

So the special offer was that the site was offering free shipping, plus a free 8x10 collage print, through August 17th. There was NO MENTION of any other purchase required in the fine print, all that was necessary was to have the 8x10 collage print in your cart for the free code to be activated for the free print and free shipping.

So I made my lovely 8x10 collage print, and added it to my cart. I put in all my information, including my credit card, and entered in my free code. The total came to zero. It showed at $2.99 deduction for the print, and a .99 cent deduction for the shipping. The total showed zero.

So I clicked on the button that said "confirm order."

And it took me to a page that said, "Thank you for your order" but NOW all of a sudden my total had switched to $3.55

THEY SWITCHED MY TOTAL AFTER I SUBMITTED MY ORDER!

That has to be fraud, right? I mean, seriously. If my code wasn't valid, it should have said that, but to show that the code worked, take my total down to zero, and then AFTER I confirm my order, decide the code isn't valid?

Ohhhhhhhhhh was I mad. I was a mad, bad, pregnant woman who was already in a bad mood because some of my children were being evil.

So I called customer service. I sat on hold for 25 minutes, while I listened to awful, torturous hold music and played Backgammon with the boys.

After 25 minutes, someone picked up the phone. Someone very, very unlucky.

At first, I was nice. I explained what happened. And his response to me?

"Ma'am, if you read the fine print, you will see that this code is only valid if you also purchase something else."

Uh...say what??? I politely responded, "No, sir, if you read the fine print on your website, you will see it says nothing about needing to purchase something else." And the thing is, I can read. In fact, English is even my first language. I could understand the fine print. And I was right. It didn't say anything about buying something else. If it had, maybe I would have! But there was NO MENTION of another purchase being required.

For some reason, this moron of a man couldn't comprehend that such a thing was true, and continued to inform me that I must have misread the fine print.

Then, I went on to tell him that even if the code wasn't valid because I wasn't using it properly (which I was, but whatever) then it should have reflected that in my total, but switching my total price AFTER i pay is just totally ridiculous and unacceptable!

His pretty little head just could not wrap itself around the issue and all he kept repeating was, "Ma'am, you should read the fine print."

At this point I was mad. Madder than mad.

So I said, "SIR! YOU READ THE FINE PRINT! AND THEN YOU REFUND ME MY MONEY AND SEND ME MY COLLAGE PRINT!"

As the boys sat and stared at me with their mouths wide open.

In the end, I won. He refunded me my money, although he did try to get the last word in and ended the call with, "Next time, read the fine print." But because I am a nice person I let it go. And also because I had already taught my children enough bad manners for the day.

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is. Except that you really, really shouldn't mess with a large, pregnant woman. And if you see me walking tomorrow, and you cross the street so as to avoid me - I'll totally understand. I would be afraid of me too.

The story of a basement

2010-08-11T23:38:00.003-05:00

Once upon a time, there was a basement. It was a pretty large space, and since it was so large, it became the home for many, many items. In fact, its previous owners treated it the same way, and when they moved to a different continent, they left many of their belongings in this basement. And the new owners just continued the tradition.

So for years, this basement was filled with junk. And anything that didn't have a home. And more junk. And more junk. After a while, it looked like this.

The owners of this basement could not handle its clutter and ugliness. To the point of almost killing themselves to hide it.

Until, one day, they decided to do something about it.

Never mind that this day happened when one of them was 8 months pregnant. They decided to do it anyway.

They cleared out the basement, put all the junk on the first floor of their home, pretty much filling up the living room and dining room with bins and bikes and boxes and junk, and hired a builder.

Five weeks went by. Five weeks of loud noises, and breathing in dusty air, and picking out paint colors, and tiles, and carpet, and doorknobs, and light fixtures, and grout colors, and about 100 other things that the owners never knew even existed.

Five weeks of family outings on Sundays, not to the pool, but to Home Depot to purchase things like towel racks and toilets.

Five weeks of suffering the pain of having to pay for things, because, alas, the builder does not take coupons.

Five weeks of wondering whether the construction would be done before the baby was born, and living in a state of utter chaos and wondering whattheheckwasIthinking.

Weeks of being too overwhelmed to blog, to cook dinner, or to really do much of anything except run from Home Depot to Lowes to the carpet store and try to calculate how early exactly the baby might be born. And then panic a little more.

Then, in the fifth week, a particular crazy lady decided it would be a good idea to add to the chaos by getting the first floor of the house painted. So the chaos doubled. And the panic ensued. And the crazy lady wondered why she couldn't just nest like normal people, and organize a bookshelf or bake a cake or wash newborn clothes or something like that.

So she had to pick paint colors, and take all the pictures of the wall, and say to the kids 489 times "Don't touch the walls!" and then when all was said and done, the walls looked great, but the pictures needed to be hung back up, and by this time she was thinking that she really had a screw loose.

PHEW. It makes me tired just to write about it.

As of right this second, the house is about 75% put back together. There is a whole list of things that need to be done - pictures hung, toys organized, furniture purchased, beds made, shower curtain hung, etc.......

not to mention a baby that needs to be born at some point in the next week or so, G-d willing.

I am crazy.
I have missed blogging.
I have missed normal life.
I have learned my lesson to not take on large projects at 34 weeks pregnant. Or maybe I have learned that the only way I can possibly get things done is to have a pressing deadline.

Either way, I seem to have survived. So hello, blog world! I think I'm back! And look! My basement is done! Who wants to come over and play?

And....I'm sorry...but I must include a picture of the new home of my pride and joy...the stockpile.

sharing is caring

2010-08-08T21:20:00.003-05:00

A few months ago, I bought one of those fancy electric toothbrushes because it was free with a coupon I had. You know, the kind that spins by itself when you push a button, kind of like the ones at the dentist's office.

So now we own one of those Spin Brushes. One of them.

You may be able to see where this is going...

Tonight, all three kids brushed their teeth before bed, something that might not have happened in this house for longer than I'd like to publicly admit.

So what if they all used the same toothbrush?

I say, the family that brushes together, stays together.

full circle

2010-07-29T20:17:00.003-05:00

You know when you were a kid, and you were bad, and your parents said to you, "One day, I hope you have a kid just like you!!"

I should only be so lucky. I was such a good kid.

Anyway. That's not that point of this.

The point is that when you're an adult, your parents still say it. They watch your kids misbehave, and they say, "It all comes full circle! You made me crazy and now your kids make you crazy!" And then they giggle.

But it's not so funny.

Well, I have yet to tell my children that I wish for them to have children exactly like them one day, but I am getting a small amount of satisfaction tonight.

Tonight, I told K it was his job to put T to bed. He took her upstairs, read her books, helped her brush her teeth, and turned out the light.

But she wanted another pacifier. And then she was thirsty. And now she's hungry so he brought her downstairs and is sitting with her at the table watching her eat string cheese. And when she comes to me and asks for something, I tell her to go ask K.

He's beginning to become exasperated with all her tactics and excuses for pushing off bedtime, because he wants to get in bed and read already because he is totally addicted to Harry Potter, which I just introduced him to yesterday, and cannot put it down for a second.

But instead, he's dealing with T, and I'm sitting here at the computer, giggling, thinking of all those nights that K pulled all these tricks on me, and thinking that there's no reason the full circle has to wait until he's an adult. Let him suffer the wrath of a whiny 2 year old now.

Mwhaaa haaa haaa haaaaaaa.

I only wish I could wake him at 2 AM when she wakes up crying that there's something scary in her bed.

Lucky for K, Hubby is home at 2 AM so he's there to take over. If Hubby goes out of town...well K had better watch out. I think I'm on to something here.

There was a little girl...

2010-07-27T11:39:00.006-05:00

who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead...and when she was good, she was very very good, but when she was bad, she was horrid.

The reason I've been a delinquent blogger lately isn't for lack of material. It's for lack of motivation. This summer has been a little bit crazy. I'm 9 months pregnant and our house is under construction. I'm pretty much on the verge of a panic attack every single day. I have a strong urge to nest and organize, yet I can't, because

a) The house is filled with bins and boxes of stuff that really belong in the basement, but the basement isn't finished yet, so it just has to stay in my living room

and

b) I am 9 months pregnant, so I can't lift things, can't go up and down the stairs a hundred times, and every time I spend an hour organizing something, I need a long nap to recover.

So. I could blog about my anxiety. About how this baby will G-d willing be born in the next few weeks...and be brought home into a construction zone. Oh well.

Or I could blog about how I stubbed my toes REALLY hard and two of them are either badly sprained or broken, and it's a good thing it's summer because all I can wear on my feet are flip flops. And how I look like a gimp walking around all 9 months pregnant and fat and limping.

But I think instead I'll blog about my evil children. Since I'm having another one and all....

Or one child in particular. The 2 year old. The cute, innocent looking one. Who again is up to no good. I know it's cute when girls have spunk. I know people think it's adorable when girls are a little naughty, as opposed to boys, who just get written off as wild. But I'm sorry, people. There is spunk, and then there is INSANITY.

T used to just be spunky in a really adorable way. She was totally in control, but she just had this awesome, sassy personality. But in the past few weeks, she has crossed over from sassy into insanity. The girl is the devil. She beats up on her older brothers to the point of making them cry. They will be sitting there innocently and she will come up to them and pull their hair or scratch them or hit them. Now, in her defense, sometimes they do harass her. But more than half of the time, her attacks are baseless.

Every single time they get in and out of the car, they have to walk in front of her carseat, and guess what she does. Yep. She kicks them. Hard. In the stomach.

The girl doesn't know it yet, but she's about to be banished to the backseat.

The icing on the cake came yesterday when I picked her up from camp, which she absolutely loves, and I love, because I get a little break for a few hours a day.

I came to get her in her classroom, and her teacher, who is a friend of mine, said, "We need to have a little chat."

Those are the dreaded words that all parents fear.

Turns out little T seems to have this idea in her little head that she can do whatever the heck she wants whenever she feels like it. Independence is a lovely quality, but only to a certain point when you are only 2 years old.

She has been walking out of her classroom on her own to go to the bathroom without permission, or running ahead of the teachers when she is supposed to be in line, but yesterday, she left the playground by herself! She went inside the building, walked up the steps, walked down the hall, and went to the bathroom. They found her at the sink washing her hands.

I felt so bad! My naughty little daughter freaked out her counselors and she didn't even feel bad about it. She just gave me her evil little grin.

So I did what any good parent would do. I told her all about the scary men who steal children and take them away from their Mommies and hurt them.

I don't think she believed me, because she said to me, "I will just find a nice Mommy to bring me back!"

So then I told her she wouldn't be allowed to go to camp anymore if she ran away again - that I would come pick her up in the middle of the day and take her home . That's the worst punishment for her, since she loves camp. So far today, I haven't gotten a phone call, so I'm hoping that means my child is where she belongs.

But really, people. Anyone have a kid like this? My boys were soooo not like this! They clung to my leg when I dropped them off, listened nicely - were WAY too scared to ever go anywhere on their own. They very slowly gained their independence. Still, to this day, if I ask K to go up to the counter at a restaurant to get something from the waiter for me, he wants D to come with him because he is too scared or shy.

T would happily run up there on her own, not to mention the fact that she would probably go home with him too.

Girls are supposed to be easy until they become teenagers, and that's when the drama is supposed to start! But this girl? She's giving me gray hairs already. It's a good thing she is very, very cute, and says cute things to me like, "Mommy? Can I do your hair?" and "Mommy? I love you so much!"

Because otherwise? Not sure what I would do.

Have I mentioned I'm having another baby in a few weeks? What happened to the calm before the storm?

In this house, it's more like the tornado before the storm.

Dethroned

2010-07-11T21:52:00.006-05:00

With approximately six weeks left until this baby makes an appearance, G-d willing, I've really hit crunch time.

My normally lazy self has suddenly moved into overdrive, and all I want to do is organize, and decorate, and clean. Unfortunately, I can't bend at the waist, I have no decorating skills, and my stomach is so large that I can barely get close enough to the sink to wash the dishes.

But my frustration is lessened by the hysterical things that my children have said to me about this baby.

Perhaps the most entertaining conversations are the ones that have to do with the fact that T is about to be dethroned in a big, big way.

She's the baby of our family. The only girl. She's got blond curly hair, big blue eyes, and a hysterical personality. She's a ton of fun, and the boys fight over her. We have a schedule about who gets to sit next to her in the car, who gets to sit next to her at the kitchen table, and who gets to put her to sleep.

It's all very cute, except that T has a little bit of attitude. And when I say a little bit, I mean a whole lot.

The girl has sass. She talks back. She beats up on the boys. She smacks them, and kicks them, and screams bloody murder if they touch her stuff. And yet they still kiss her and tell her she's cute. And then she comes to tell on them, whining, "K & D said I'm cute. I'm not cute."

So the fact that T is about to be dethroned in a big way is really probably a good thing. All her cuteness has gone to her head. But the boys are old enough to remember the sweetness of newborns. They remember the fun of holding and cuddling a little baby, a baby who doesn't pinch you or pull your hair when you kiss its cheeks.

Lately, conversations have gone like this.

K: D, When the baby is born, you can have T. I'll take the baby.

D: No, you can have T. I want the baby.

K: No, I want the baby!

D: No, I do!

Poor T. Her days as queen are slowly coming to an end, and she has no idea. It would be kind of sad...if it weren't so funny. This girl has got it made. Look at the abuse she dishes out! The time has come for dethronement.

a conversation

2010-07-02T11:50:00.002-05:00

The following is an actual, real life, conversation that took place between my husband and I a few days ago.

Hubby: I have a meeting at Dunkin Donuts. I'll be home around 10 PM.

Me: Call me before you leave there, I might want something.

Hubby: Okay.

Around 10 PM, my phone rings.

Me: Hello?

Hubby: Hey, I'm about to leave, what do you want?

Me: Hmm...I don't know.....you know what? Forget it. I don't want anything.

Hubby: Are you sure?

Me: Yes

Hubby: Ice cream? Donut? Coffee?

Me: No, really, I don't want anything, just come home.

Hubby: Okay.

Five minutes later, Hubby walks in the door.

Me: Hey! What did you bring me?

Hubby (Looking confused): You said you didn't want anything!

Me: I know. But you were still supposed to bring me something!

Hubby: What?!?!?!

Me: Um...just kidding. Never mind.

Hubby (Speechless. Probably thinking something like, what is wrong with women and how did I get stuck with this crazy one?)

Me (Giggling to myself. But only a little bit. Because I was only kind of kidding.)

what we've been up to

2010-06-28T11:17:00.006-05:00

Camp started today. It's so quiet in my house I almost can't believe it. I haven't had an empty house since the summer of 2007, when I was pregnant with T.

I should probably do something constructive with these precious few hours.

But instead I will show you some pictures of some of what we've been doing since school ended.

We've had crazy weather here. Hot and stormy, for the most part. Tornado warnings, crazy thunderstorms, and temperatures in the high 80's.

But we managed to dodge the rain and really enjoy the hot weather. We live in a city where we wear boots for a good portion of the year. So I appreciate some good heat and humidity when we get it.

We went strawberry picking...

Painted each other with shaving cream....

got muddy....

ate snacks outside with absolutely no manners...

visited the Jelly Belly factory and consumed ridiculous amounts of sugar...

and went swimming. We've done a lot of swimming.

My house might look like a hurricane has hit, and there may not be even one clean towel in the linen closet, but I have to say....I love summer.

my version of recycling

2010-06-24T08:32:00.003-05:00

Last Sunday, I went to a beautiful Bat Mitzvah that Rayli, bloggy & real life friend, made for her daughter.

It was seriously gorgeous and to make it even more impressive, Rayli did it herself! Yeah, she's totally planning my next party. Their family is really cute and it was so nice to be there.

So since everything was beautiful, of course the place cards were too. But they weren't really regular place cards. They looked like this.

And there were chocolate pretzels inside. YUM. T is still mad at me that I didn't save any for her.

Anyway, the second I saw those flowers, I thought, "I cannot throw this away! It's gorgeous!"

So I did what any self respecting mother of a little girl would do. I turned it into an accessory.

So what's the vote? Am I weird, or creative, or a little bit of both?

Either way, thanks, Rayli, for an awesome day (and a hair clip too!)

waterpark fun

2010-06-18T17:02:00.005-05:00

I figured I haven't posted pictures lately about any of our fun activities, but now that summer is here, this is a good time to start!

Memorial Day weekend, for us, is always a working weekend. The youth group I work for has a convention that weekend every year, so we are never home. Instead of chilling at home and BBQing or whatever, we are roughing it in the woods of Wisconsin. I use the term "roughing it" very loosely, mostly because I'm fairly certain that an air conditioned cabin plopped down in the middle of the woods is really considered roughing it. Does it count that it's really dusty inside? Or that the dining room is always ten degrees hotter than the temperature outside?

Anyway, we're lucky enough that the convention is right near Wisconsin Dells! So I try and sneak away from work for a few hours to get some fun time in with the kids. Usually, it's not warm enough to do any water activities outside, so we end up buying day passes to an indoor waterpark at a hotel. But this year it was hot! We found an awesome waterpark that was perfect for our reads. (Awesome=small, trashy, and incredibly cheap).

It was $6 per person. Yes. $6. Spectators were free. (Like me. Because I certainly wasn't going on the slides). Oh and under 3 was free too. So we had to pay for Hubby and the boys.

It was an awesome way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

K did the ropes course thing. Yes, I promise, I feed him. I feed him a lot. He eats more than D & T combined. The child is just skinny.

Look! He did it!

Hubby and T had a great time together in the wave pool. Although it appears that they are trying to bite each others noses off. Hmmm....

T was also crazy brave. And she went down this water slide. She loved it. The second she got to the bottom she said, "Let's do that again!"

Oh look! There's me! Spectatoring. That's a real word. I just made it up. Now it's real.

In the very least, it was a successful day because we got these things clean.

How nasty is that? Remind me to never move to the woods.

How you know your children have been playing with your cell phone

2010-06-16T22:57:00.004-05:00

UPDATE:

There is an important update to my original post this morning. All I knew was that there was a contact listed in my phone named "Fart." I had no idea my lovely children had added a phone number as well. I discovered that this morning, when I called my cell phone from our home phone because I couldn't find it. Imagine my surprise when I picked up my phone and saw the name "Fart" on the Caller ID. Yes, they connected the name Fart to our home phone number.

Remind me not to lend out my phone to anyone. Or my children. Or let them come in contact with anyone's cell phone.

ORIGINAL POST:

While scrolling through your contacts, you come across an entry entitled "Fart."

do you have a daugther?

2010-06-13T09:48:00.000-05:00

Friday morning, K climbed into bed with me and began massaging my shoulders. Every so often, he stopped and asked me, "Does this feel good?" He kept it up for about 5 minutes.

He should be of marrigeable age in about 15 years. I will now begin accepting bids.

when you gotta go, you gotta go

2010-06-09T09:07:00.004-05:00

As I mentioned in this post, a few weeks ago, I decided it was time to potty train T. She is very verbal, totally mature enough, and kept asking me to change her wet diapers. Pretty much all the signs that she's ready. I put it off for a few weeks because...well...I just really didn't want to do it. Diapers are so convenient. I didn't potty train the boys until they were over three. But girls? We're just so much more advanced. :)

I figured I should be a responsible mother and let my child pee on the toilet if she really wanted to. Not to mention the fact that I wanted her trained far enough in advance of the baby being born, to hopefully lessen the chances of her regressing afterwards.

But I hate potty training. I really do. Mostly because I have a fear of public bathrooms. I avoid them at all costs. But public toilets become a necessity when potty training. For boys it's not so bad, but for girls? EW. Whatever. It had to be done.

In anticipation of the big event, I got T a DVD from the library called "Elmo's Potty Time" or something like that. She watched it repeatedly, and it was quite possibly the most amusing video I've ever seen. The songs are hysterical. Really. I highly suggest watching it. There's nothing like watching a stuffed animal sing a song called "I Really Have to Urinate."

But I didn't watch the whole thing with her, just overheard a few songs.

So last week, we were in Dunkin Donuts. I was getting T a treat to keep her occupied because I had to take her with me to the hospital while I got some blood tests and my Rhogam* shot.

She kept playing around in the store when I was ready to leave, like putting her little stuffed monkey on the shelf with the bags of coffee and trying to take 100 straws. Finally, after asking her a bunch of times, I said to her, "T! We really have to go!"

And she said to me, "When you gotta go, you gotta go!"

And walked out the door with me.

It was only later that she informed me that this was a potty reference from the Elmo video.

This is now a classic T line in our house. She says it all the time.

But Elmo - he speaks the truth. When you gotta go, you gotta go.

*Can't find a good link to explain this...but it's a shot of Immune Globulin given to pregnant women who have an Rh negative blood type but the father of the baby is Rh positive. Has to do with the possibility of the baby having positive blood, and then the mother's blood builds up antibodies against it. Or something like that.

spacey

2010-06-07T09:03:00.000-05:00

I may have forgotten to mention this.....

I'm pregnant. Yep. Due in August, G-d willing.

Sorry for the abrupt news for those of you who didn't know.

But let us carry on. Because I have a story for you, and you needed to know for the purposes of the story.

This story could be called "Why it's Good to Have a Spacey Child."

D is kind of a space cadet. He is also a bit of a chatterbox. While K is a much more typical "male" type, in the sense that he doesn't talk much, is very athletic, competitive, eats a lot, ~~and cannot multi task to save his life~~, D is more of a free spirit.

He sings to himself in the shower, he colors pictures, he makes up stories, and he has a sensitive soul.

He also gets lost a lot. Like when we were at a convention last weekend for the youth group I work for, and he walked from our cabin to the dining room, which is just a short walk in the path through the woods. I didn't have a problem with him walking it on his own during the day. That is, until he appeared at one point and said, "I tried to walk to the dining room, but I knew I went the wrong way when I saw like 22 cars!"

Yes, D walked the wrong way down the path, and instead of walking into the camp towards the dining room, walked out to the highway.

Ooops.

D also chatters a lot. K can tell a story in 10 words. It takes D about 1000.
You get lots of details. Both necessary and unnecessary. It's cute.

Anyway, we were in the car on Monday, at the end of a very long drive, and D was chattering in the back, asking all sorts of questions. It went something like this.

"Daddy? Can we go to your office? Can I play on your computer there? Can we all go in? K and T can come too. And when our baby comes, can it come too? How did we get a baby anyway? Who decides when someone gets to get a new baby? How did it get in Mommy's tummy? Who put it there? And how exactly is it going to come out?"

I'm pretty sure that it was at this point that Hubby whispered to me, "This is all you. All you." And I shook my head violently at him.

Now, I have to say that this is a question we've been asked before by the boys, even back when I was pregnant with T.

The conversation went like this.

Boys: Who put the baby in your tummy?
Me: Hashem. (G-d)
Boys: How will it get out?
Me: The doctor will take it out.
Boys: Yes, but how?
Me: A special opening.
Boys: Can I see the opening?
Me: Who wants ice cream?

Thankfully, they were young enough, and we didn't have to revisit this topic. But here was D, asking again, 3 years older and wiser. I ran through the options in my mind for a minute....and then I realized that D was still chattering. Questions unanswered, he was on to asking questions about what clouds are made out of and how they got in the sky.

Oh, how I love spacey children. They make life so simple sometimes.

Quote of the day

2010-06-04T08:22:00.002-05:00

Courtesy of the phlebotomist who took my blood at the lab yesterday....

"Oh, you were born in 1981! So was my nephew! And he's turning 30 this summer!"

Then she proceeded to go on and on about how 30 is such a milestone, and the gifts she's going to buy him, etc...

All I could think was, "Honey...don't quit your day job."

the perils of the potty

2010-06-02T13:42:00.002-05:00

I'm in the midst of potty training T, and as anyone who has ever potty trained a child knows, it's not for the faint of heart.
The truth is, the boys were very easy to train, almost doing it overnight, but they were older than T is now.
Also, back then, my life was less busy, so I had more time to sit around the house trying to make sure no one peed on the floor.

But now? We don't have time to sit around. We have to be out the door at 8 AM for carpool. I just started the potty training yesterday, and the way I do it is cold turkey. Underwear, bye bye diapers, the end.

So just because we have to drive carpool doesnt mean I'm going to put T in a diaper, even though she has only peed on the toilet approximately 3 times in her entire life.

So, this morning, as I was making lunches/getting dressed/packing backpacks/answering the phone/finding raincoats/serving breakfast, I had to put T on the toilet in the hopes that she would pee there and not in her carseat on the way to school.

I asked D to watch her while she went, just to make sure she didn't do anything naughty, like put the entire roll of toilet paper in the toilet. So he stood in the hallway of the bathroom, eating his bagel, watching his sister.

Then I heard him say, "Uh oh."

"What?!" I called from the kitchen.

"T's pacifier fell into the toilet!" he called back.

At this point I began to ponder the following things.

1) Why did she have a pacifier while sitting on the toilet?
2) Would we ever make it to carpool on time?
3) How the heck was I going to get it out? Must. Find. Rubber. Glove.
4) Could I just leave it in there until we got home from carpool and deal with it then?

Lucky for me, I am the mother of boys, and none of my thoughts mattered, because D appeared a second later, still holding his bagel in one hand, and holding T's pacifier in his dripping wet other hand.

Disgusting? Yes.
Awesome? Yes.

I love having boys. I will never have to kill a bug, plunge a toilet, or take out the garbage ever agian.

I'm never letting them move out.

I heart Facebook

2010-05-23T00:06:00.005-05:00

Today it was in the 70's. This entire week we are supposed to have 80 degree weather. This is what I have to say about that.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!

I could not be more excited. I am ready for some heat and sweat.

Anyway, today was beautiful - really perfect weather, and we spent about 4 hours in the park this afternoon.

T played in the sandbox for a while, and when it was time to leave, she didn't want to put her Crocs on her sandy feet and I was all out of wipes so I put her in the stroller, threw the Crocs in the stroller basket, and walked home.

When I got home, I realized there was only one Croc in the basket.

Oops.

By this time it was already dark, Hubby wasn't home, and there was no way I could go looking for the Croc. Also, the park is about a half a mile from our house - retracing my steps would take a while, especially in the dark.

So I did what any self respecting person would do. I immediately posted it as my Facebook status.

Shosh lost a little pink Croc somewhere between the park and home!!!!! was broadcast to all 644 of my friends.

Now, lest you think I actually have that many friends, you should know that most of them are not actual friends, but teenagers who are a part of the youth group that I work for. Even after the kids graduate, they are still my Facebook friends, so my friend list just keeps getting larger and larger as I meet tons of new kids every year.

Anyway, anyone who went on Facebook tonight at around 9 PM saw my desperate plea.

Within 5 minutes, a girl I know who is a senior in high school posted that she had seen it, and she wrote exactly where it was.

The minute Hubby came home, I jumped in the car and went to that location, where I immediately located the poor, lost Croc. In one minute. Without having to search around with a flashlight or retrace my steps back to the park.

HOW AWESOME IS FACEBOOK???????? HOW AWESOME ARE TEENAGERS WHO CHECK THEIR FACEBOOK EVERY TWO SECONDS?

And that's all I have to say about that.

why last minute preparations are smart

2010-05-14T17:53:00.007-05:00

Hubby works really late hours this time of year, often coming home at 8 PM or later. This is also true on Fridays, with Hubby running in the door just a few minutes before Shabbos. This kind of makes it difficult for me to get ready for Shabbos every week.

For this reason, I try to at least get a lot done on Thursday night or on Friday before the boys come home from school.

I've found that it works really well to bathe the kids Thursday night, so that on Friday, only 2 of us need to shower, and we don't have to worry about running out of hot water. Or running out of time. Or both.

Currently, the house is clean. The food is cooked. And I gave the kids baths last night.

But this is how K came home from school. And this is where D and T currently are.

And as I sit here at the computer, K just walked by me and out the back door with a big bucket of water.

Weren't those Thursday night baths a brilliant idea?

One of my children....

2010-05-13T12:49:00.003-05:00

...is a little bit sneaky.

One of my children looks very innocent. But looks can be deceiving.

One of my children comes home with things in his backpack every single day that I have never seen before. Things that did not come from this house.

Things like staplers, and beads, and $3 worth of quarters, and cell phone cases.

This child claims that other children give him these things.

I'm not entirely sure why other children are giving him things.

I'm not entirely sure that I want to know.

One of my children, every time I send him down to the basement to bring me an item from my "pantry," comes up with something else in addition to that item. Things like candy and pudding and cans of soda.

He thinks I don't notice, but I do.

Yesterday, one of my children was sent to the basement to bring up a bag of peas. As he came back up the steps, I called to him, "Whatever you're holding that isn't peas, go put it back."

"Hey!" he exclaimed. "You can't even see me! How do you know I have something?"

"I'm a Mommy." I replied. "I know everything."

That child of mine went back into the basement and put back that item.

And that was the end of that. Or so I thought.

One of my children should thank his lucky stars that by the time he gets home this afternoon, it will have been approximately 6 hours since I discovered that my basement freezer was left open overnight after someone removed a box of Popsicles and then didn't put it back well enough for the freezer door to close. A freezer that had recently been stocked with ice cream bars and cones and Popsicles for the summer.

One of my children should be very, very happy that my anger generally abates in 6 hours time.

One of my children is very, very lucky that he is at school right now.

And all of my children will be eating misshapen, nasty, refrozen Popsicles all summer long.

Happy Mother's Day To Me

2010-05-10T10:06:00.001-05:00

I should have known better. I should have known that publicly complaining about my daughter's craziness would come back to bite me.

Oh, did it ever.

Sunday morning. Mother's Day. The day that should offer me relaxation, a break from my normal crazy schedule, and a day to just kick back, relax, and be showered with gifts and affection from my dear husband and offspring.

HA. HA. HA.

It all started out innocently enough. Hubby let me sleep in until 9 AM. When I got up, there was only one picture frame that had been shattered on the floor, so I considered the morning a success and got ready to move on with my day.

The boys had their regular Sunday soccer games, so we ate breakfast, cleaned up, and got ready to go. Hubby was in charge of dressing T. I gave him her clothes (he has a mortal fear of picking the wrong outfit) and he got to work. Dressing T is much like wrestling with a slippery, giggling, pig.

She makes you work for it.

Usually, I dress T, so I have to say, it was kind of fun to watch her pull her normal craziness, because this time, it wasn't my problem. It was Mother's Day. It was Hubby's problem. So I just stood there and giggled. Sorry, Hubs. Gotta get my kicks somewhere.

Anyway, I was in the den, innocently reading blogs or looking at Facebook or some other very important activity, while Hubby wrestled the slippery pig to put her pants on.

Then I heard T crying. Which wasn't so strange, because she's 2, and she cries. Until Hubby walked in, holding her, with a nervous look on his face.

"It's her arm," he said.

Remember last summer, when T got her elbow dislocated? Yep. Same arm. Same cry. I knew right away.

I tried not to panic because the boys were standing there watching and T was screaming and I had no choice but to be calm and try to fix it. When it happened last summer, the doctor in ER told me that once it happens, it's more likely to happen again to the same arm because her joint is loosened. So he showed me how to fix it in case it would happen again, and it's really a very simple process. Well, for him it is. He's a doctor. I was just hoping I wouldn't have to actually ever use it.

So yesterday I had a million thoughts running through my head. Is it really dislocated? What if it's broken and I make it worse trying to fix it? Should we go to the ER? To the doctor? Why is this happening to me? Can I just go hide and someone else will deal with this?

I sent K to get some Motrin and candy and he came running back in with it. I held down her good arm and asked her to reach for the candy with the hurt arm. She refused to move it. Hubby explained what had happened (he'd pulled on her arms to pull her out from where she was hiding). Poor Hubby. It stinks when you injure your own children. He couldn't even blame it on one of the boys like last time.

I knew it was dislocated. I popped a Motrin in her mouth, took a deep breath, took her arm amidst her screaming, and did what the doctor had showed me. I did it twice, just to make sure, and a minute later, she stopped crying.

My heart was pounding and I was sweating but I was pretty sure I had fixed it. Then I called the doctor's office. I'm not sure why. I think I just needed someone to tell me I did the right thing. Thank G-d for Sunday morning hours at the doctor's office. I explained to the nurse what had happened and asked if I had to bring T in to the office or not. She said that as long as T was using her arm normally, it was fine.

"Well, she's using it and she stopped crying, so I think she's okay," I said.

"Well, then great! Nice job getting it back in!" said the nurse. Then she giggled. "And Happy Mother's Day."

And then I giggled too. It was kind of funny, in retrospect. And all was good in the world.

The boys went to soccer. I took T to the library. All was calm on the homefront.

It was too good to be true.

At around 4 PM, an hour before we were supposed to go out for dinner, T was sitting on the floor of the den playing with playdoh. She got up and walked out of the den, and seconds later, I heard a scream. I ran into the living room and saw that there was blood gushing out of her mouth. Like, gushing.

Hubby and I ran her into the bathroom and inspected her mouth to make sure her teeth were still there. After this incident, that's pretty much all I think about when we have mouth injuries. Anyway, her teeth were all still there, but there was blood gushing from her lip and gums. Eventually, we got it to stop, and got a good look. She had cut her lip - the outside, the inside, the gum underneath - it wasn't pretty.

All I could think of was, "It's good we didn't take her to the ER for the elbow this morning, because if we'd taken her this morning, and then again now for this, Child Protective Services would have her by the evening."

Then we asked T what had happened. Please, hold back your laughter. My insane, insane 2 year old daughter had put a bucket on her head when she left the den. She had been running with it on her head, couldn't see where she was going, tripped, the bucket flew off her head, and she banged her face on the coffee table.

Seriously, I couldn't make this stuff up if I wanted to.

Thankfully, we have a nice friend who's a dentist. He came over and checked it out and said she looked okay.

Poor baby. Poor Mommy. Poor everybody.

This morning, T woke up looking like she'd been in a bar fight. All she's eaten in the past 20 hours is some chocolate milk from a straw.

But I guess I should be thankful, right? Thankful for not so serious injuries. Thankful for avoiding the hospital, even if it is because I just perform the necessary medical procedures at home.

(By the way, I kinda felt like a rockstar after that. I popped my kid's elbow back in! It was kind of awesome).

But do you think it's okay if I hope for a calmer, less bloody Mother's Day next year? Husband? Children? Are you listening? Popped out elbows and bloody faces are cool, but I prefer watching them on TV as opposed to experiencing them in real life.

Next year, how about just getting me a pedicure?

A little bit about T

2010-05-06T13:38:00.000-05:00

T is a really cute, sweet child. She's funny, and adorable, and generally really fun to be around.

She's also two. She's a toddler. An evil, evil, devil toddler who looks really cute but has so much devilish spunk in her that it takes you by surprise.

You know that poem about the little girl with the curl right in the middle of her forehead? And when she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad she was horrid? That's T. And she does have a curl in the middle of her forehead. It's really weird but she has this one curl that is longer than the others and falls right into the middle of her forehead. Strangers have pointed it out to me, noting how it reminds them of the poem. If they knew her, they'd know the curl isn't the only thing she has in common with that poem.

Today D had a doctor's appointment in the morning and so I took him to school late. I walked into the school building to bring him to his classroom, with T trailing behind. You'd think it would take a minute or two and then I'd be on my way, right?

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

T ran into D's classroom, pulled his chair up to the table, and started chatting with the other kids in his class, who were all eating lunch. I told her we could stay for one minute. After a minute, I told her it was time to go. She took off running, looking over her shoulder and laughing hysterically. Telling her that I'm leaving and walking out the door doesn't work. She would happily stay there without me. So I went and took her by the hand to lead her out the door.

But that doesn't work. The second I take her by the hand, she makes her body limp and falls to the ground. Then I am left to pick up a limp, yet flailing 2 year old from the floor of the classroom. I finally got out of the room and into the hallway, and I set her down. So of course she takes off running again. The water fountain? Check. She's got to drink from it at least 8 times every time we walk by it. The lockers? Check. She's got to open every single one.

Every time I tell her to hurry up, she laughs and runs the other way, and every time I take her by the hand, she falls to the ground and laughs.

Carrying her would be an option if she didn't pull on my hair every time I held her. Every time T is in my arms, she immediately starts messing with my hair, which is actually a wig, and I don't even want to think about the scene that would occur if she pulled too hard. Those are my nightmares. I don't care to actually live them.

"Stop it, T!" I say.
"I'm doing your hair so pretty!" she responds.

So I put her down again, hoping to at least keep my wig on my head for the duration of the time inside the school building. So she takes off running again.

Do you feel tired yet? Do you feel glad you're not me yet?

I finally got her to the front doors of the school, and was about to walk out the door when we bumped into K. He was coming to the office to see the nurse, because he had just had his fingers slammed in a door. "Oh, good!" says his teacher. "Perfect timing! I was just coming to call you!"

Yay.

So I spent five minutes with K, making sure his fingers were okay, and walking him back to class, all the while chasing the devilish 2 year old who was running in circles in the school lobby and knocking into boys 3 times her size.

By the time I walked out of the school building forty five minutes after dropping off D, I was ready for a nap. Of course, it couldn't be that easy. T insists on walking down the ramp in front of the school. Then she has to climb on the ramp railings. Then she has to run back up the ramp. Then she has to sit in the dirt next to the ramp. In the end, I carried her down the block to the car, which resulted in a very insulted T who cried repeatedly, "I wanted to walk by myself!"

A woman riding by on her bicycle who witnessed this exchange actually laughed out loud.

When I finally got T strapped into her carseat, which is pretty much my favorite invention these days since it's a really good excuse to restrain your child in the name of safety, I abandoned all my plans for errands on the way home.

Instead of stopping at the fruit market, we stopped at Starbucks, where I got myself a coffee with an extra shot of espresso.

T begged me for a sip, and when I said no, spent the rest of the car ride home guilt tripping me by saying things like, "I love coffee. Coffee is so good. I love coffee soooo much!"

I may need an artificial dose of caffeine, honey, but you? No way. I think you have enough on your own, thankyouverymuch.

I must end this post now. Because my sweet little 2 year old, who was in her crib supposedly napping, just ran into the room and greeted me by exclaiming, "Hello, there!"

I used to judge parents who bought those kid leashes. Now I think those parents are just smarter than the rest of us......

foreign policy

2010-04-20T13:37:00.004-05:00

If you've ever spent a significant amount of time in a foreign country, or even in a neighborhood with lots of foreigners, you'll know that their cultures can be drastically different than what we are used to as Americans.

Americans are sticklers for the rules.

You cannot bargain down the price of an item in an American store. No one bends the rules just because they can. It's all about policy.

And while sometimes policy is good, lots of the times it's just really annoying an inconvenient.

I've spent some extended periods of time in a foreign country, and this country's culture is all about bending the rules. It's considered strange to not attempt to bargain in a store, there is no concept of minding your own business - you know old lady who tells you that your baby isn't dressed warmly enough? In this country, it's not just old ladies giving you a piece of their mind, and it's considered perfectly acceptable to voice your opinion to a stranger.

Honestly, I kind of like it. The whole American "it's not my business" mindset, while very polite, is not very helpful when someone sees your child wander out of a store or a park, but doesn't do anything because "it's not their business."

I don't want to bash the American culture. I am American, after all. There are many amazing things about living here. But you have to admit that we, as a culture, are kind of cold and straight laced.

Luckily for me, although I live in America, I live in a very diverse neighborhood. When I go to a local playground, it's entirely possible that I will be the only native English speaker around. If I sent my children to the local public school, they would be in class with many, many children whose first language is not English. The restaurants in my neighborhood are not burger and fries type places, and I only have to drive a few minutes to get to a neighborhood where none of the signs are in English. A few more blocks, and the language changes.

Not to English. To a different foreign language.

Suffice it to say, I live in a very diverse area.

Which really came in handy for me this week.

Backtrack. I have terrible seasonal allergies. This year, the pollen in the air is supposedly the worst it's been in years, and oh man, am I feeling it. My nose will not stop running. I can't see straight.

Over the weekend, my eyes were so itchy that I couldn't get my contacts in. So I decided it was time to call the eye doctor. I pay him a visit every spring, like clockwork, where he proceeds to tell me that my eyes are having an allergic reaction to whatever it is int he air that I'm allergic to. Then he gives me eye drops and tells me not to wear my contacts, and then I go home and cry because I hate my glasses.

But then my eyes get better and I'm good until the next spring. It's a nice little routine we have going on. He says it won't go away unless I move to Arizona, so I'm guessing we'll be continuing this routine for a while.

Anyway, yesterday I realized it was that time. So I called the doctor's office. The receptionist in this office is....you guessed it....a foreigner!

This is how the conversation went.

Me: Hello. I'd like to make an appointment with the doctor for tomorrow.
Lady: None of the doctors are in tomorrow.
Me: Um...none of them? (There are three).
Lady: No. They are busy.
Me: Um...well...I think I have an eye infection. I'd really like to see a doctor.
Lady: Well......one of the doctors will be here in the morning.
Me: Great! What does he have available?
Lady: He doesn't have any time available. He is busy.
Me: Oh......umm...okay.....
Lady: What time do you want to come tomorrow?
Me: What?
Lady: Tomorrow. What time?
Me: I thought he has no openings.
Lady: He doesn't. But you say you are coming, so what do you want me to say to you? You are coming. Just tell me what time.
Me: Um...how's 9:30?
Lady: Ok. I tell him you be here 9:30 tomorrow.
Me: Thank you. Goodbye.

Um.....what just happened there?

What happened is that the awesome foreign lady bent the rules for me.

If it had been an American office, the conversation would have gone like this.

Me: I'd like an appointment.
Lady: Sorry, we are booked through June.
Me: Um...but I have an eye infection!
Lady: I'm sorry, ma'am. There's nothing I can do. Would you like me to pencil you in on the June calendar?

I went to the office this morning at 9:15. They took me in right away. Looked at me -gave me a sample of eye drops from the closet - and sent me on my way.

Oh, how I love my foreign doctor's office. It works well with my irresponsible ways. There are no policies. No rules about not getting to see the doctor if you're more than 15 minutes late. That's happened to me before. At a doctor's office 45 minutes away. It wasn't fun.

Don't get me wrong. I love me a burger and fries. I love the red white and blue and the freedom of speech and all that other good stuff.

But for such a free country, we're kind of sticklers for the rules...don't ya think?

GMTA

2010-04-14T15:04:00.002-05:00

I feel like sometimes my kids don't say anything funny for weeks, and then all of a sudden, the funnies start spewing. The problem is that I usually forget what they said about 10 minutes after they said it, which is why I have my other top secret blog where I write down the funny things my kids say. I highly recommend starting a blog like that. When your kid is driving you completely batty, you can go back and read about how cute they were when they were 2 and 3, and it makes the feelings of "why did I have this child anyway?" subside, at least temporarily.

But this blog thing only works if I'm near a computer when they say funny stuff. Otherwise I forget by the time I get home.

Maybe I should start sending myself texts.

Or get a Blackberry.

Maybe not. I think one person addicted to Brickbreaker in this house is enough (Cough cough ahem).

Anyway.

I've written a few things down this week, and they're too good to not share.

Today we will highlight K, who at 7 years old, still manages to say ridiculous things that allow us many opportunities to laugh at his expense.

The first one happened on Pesach as we were walking to the park. K is a smart child who loves to read. The fact that he reads at a high level means that he reads lots of words that are really advanced words, so even if he can figure out from the context what they mean, they aren't words he normally hears in conversation. Sometimes, he's never heard them at all.

Which became clear when, walking to the park, he scraped himself on a tree branch and exclaimed, "Oh, no! I've wounded myself!" Except he pronounced 'wounded' as if he had wound himself up, like a wind-up toy.

Hubby and I couldn't hide our laughter and K quickly realized the error of his ways. He spent the rest of the walk to the park trying to convince us that we had heard him incorrectly, which of course, only made us laugh harder.

Poor child. He has such mean parents.

The thing is, though, you can feel bad for his parents too. Because this child is a handful. Oh, boy.

This is the child that immediately develops ailments whenever he has to do something he doesn't want to do. Every time we walk somewhere on Shabbos, he develops a knee or ankle problem. When it's time to clean up, his stomach hurts. When it's time to sit at the dinner table after he's finished eating but hasn't yet been excused, he suddenly has a terrible headache. And no matter what he ate for dinner, he is famished every night at bedtime.

It's really quite concerning, don't you think? I'm guessing some of your children have similar mysterious diseases.

Unfortunately for K, he has a very unsympathetic mother, who instead of saying, "Oh, poor baby, you don't feel well?" says things like, "K, if you're going to come up with an excuse, at least make it a good one. Kids have been using that one for centuries. It's really pathetic, honey."

So the other night, when K was laying in bed, and had already called me in 3 times to tell me that

1) He wasn't tired
2) D's breathing was annoying him
3) He was hungry

I was pretty much done. So I said, ever so kindly, "GO TO SLEEP!"

To which he repeated, "But I'm hungry!"

And I replied, "Too bad! You'll eat in the morning!"

And then K countered back, "But what if I die of starve overnight?"

And then I laughed my way down the stairs and K wailed behind me.

If he's going to be annoying, at least it can be a source of amusement for me, right? Every cloud has its silver lining.....

Okay, one last K story. Because it's just so cute.

Hubby said something to me on Sunday morning, pretty much at the same time that I said the exact same thing to him.

"GMTA!" he said to me, which I immediately recognized as Great Minds Think Alike.
Does that make me a big nerd?

K immediately left the room and came back 10 seconds later holding a tissue, which he handed to Hubby. "What's this for?" Hubby asked.

K said, "You said GMAT! Get Me a Tissue!"

??? Where did this kid come from?

Poor, hysterical child. Most of his life is spent listening to his parents laughing at him.

Hopefully he will make it through his childhoold relatively unscathed emotionally, and then one day he can complain to his wife about his mean parents and how they laughed at him.

And then she will giggle because she will notice that he's wearing one black sock and one navy sock.

It's just the way life works.

An Ode to CVS

2010-04-12T13:43:00.000-05:00

Besides for blogging, other things in my life have been on hold recently as well. It's partly the Purim/Pesach craziness, it's part laziness - but I haven't been couponing like I usually do.

Last week, Pesach ended, the kids went back to school, and I decided to treat myself to a little reunion with CVS.

There were some good deals last week, and I had a $5 off $20 coupon, so I went in to have a little fun.

I had an idea of what I wanted to buy, but then I walked past the clearance section. And there was a package of Huggies swim diapers for $2.25. Which is an amazing price - they are normally around $9 or $10 a package - but I didn't really need them. I'm hoping T will be potty trained by the summer, plus I had a bunch at home already. So even though it took a lot of self control, I left them on the shelf.

Before I checked out, I decided to scan my Extra Care* card at the kiosk in the store, because every time you scan your card, coupons print out. And even though they are usually stupid coupons (like $1 off shampoo that costs $10 or things like that) sometimes good ones will print out, so hey, why not, right?

And guess what printed out. Oh, yes it did. $2 off any Huggies swim diapers.

G-d was watching me. It was a gift from above. I practically skipped over to the clearance section to get my package of twenty five cent swim diapers!!!! I wonder who will be the lucky recipient of these diapers that I don't need....I'm thinking either the food pantry or someone who I really, really like. Or maybe I'll have a contest and give them away later this week. :)

Let's pause here for a moment and not discuss the patheticness (that's not a word) of the fact that a $2 coupon can bring joy to my life. Thank you. Let us now continue.

The other coupon that printed out was a $5 off A & D baby item. FIVE DOLLARS! That's like, um, crazy. I went and grabbed myself a tube of diaper rash cream, which was $6.49 full price.

Here's what I bought:

Contact solution - $8.99
Head & Shoulders shampoo - $4.99
Head & Shoulders conditioner - $4.99
Can of cranberry sauce on clearance - 42 cents
Huggies swim diapers on clearance - $2.25
A & D diaper rash cream - $6.49

My total was $28.13 before tax. Used my $5 off a purchase of $20 or more, the $2/1 Huggies, the $5/1 A & D cream, and the Buy one Get One Free Head & Shoulders coupon that was in the newspaper a few weeks back.

My total was $11.14 plus tax - it was like $13 total I think. Paid for it with my CVS gift card that I got for transferring a prescription.

The contact solution was free after Extra Care Bucks ($8.99 in ECB) and the Head & Shoulders was $1 ECB for each one, so $2 total.

So I paid $13 and got back $11.

For all that stuff. That was Friday.

This morning, D woke up with stuff leaking out of his ear. Perforated ear drum! Yay! Off to the doctor we went - got a prescription for antibiotics....and promptly went to CVS where we paid for his prescription with the old gift card and got a new $25 gift card for this new prescription! Then I paid for his Motrin and a few other things with my ECB from last week....and we left CVS with all of our stuff and a profit of around $11.

I love CVS. It makes me heart warm and happy on an otherwise bleak and bleary day. It brings joy to my life.

Oh, CVS. What would I do without you?

*If you don't know what an Extra Care card is, know that you are missing out in life. Then go read this.

(Attention FTC - I am not getting a commission from CVS for this post. They have no idea who I am. And if they did, they would probably ban me from their stores for life).

Don't worry....

2010-04-09T14:07:00.001-05:00

So....I'm here! I'm still alive! I made it through Pesach! And rather than bore you with what I did over Pesach, which pretty much consisted of cook, clean, cook, clean, deal with grumpy off-schedule children, drag said grumpy children to over-crowded zoos and parks, and then cook and clean some more - I will share a funny incident that happened.

This one happened when we were driving home from the zoo. That's a whole story in itself and I'll spare you the gory details but suffice it to say it involved more hours of driving than actually being at the zoo due to insanity of spring break crowds.

By the time we drove home, it was close to bedtime, the kids had spent over 3 hours in the car, and they were exhausted.

And T was done with sitting in her carseat. She started crying and asking to get out, pulling on the straps and trying to break free. She kept saying, "Let me out! Open the door!"

I told her she had to stay in her seat, we tried to distract her, but nothing worked.

Finally, D said to her, "T! You cannot get out of your seat here! If you get out and open the door here, you will get run over by a car and get smushed and die."

He paused for a second, thought to himself, and continued, "But don't worry, if you do die, Mommy and Daddy will get money, because they have life insurance."

T may have still been crying, but I didn't notice, because I was laughing too hard.

I love when children try to wrap their minds around adult concepts that they just can't comprehend. It's too adorable.

A Prestigious Award

2010-03-25T18:07:00.004-05:00

Every year before Pesach, the local Yeshiva boys offer a car cleaning service. I like it because it's convenient, they do a decent job, it's reasonably priced, and I'd rather give them the money than a gas station.

Obviously, I have no interest in doing it myself.

Have you seen my car? If you have, you will understand.

My car is, to put it mildly, disgusting. Crumbs, garbage, unidentifiable objects, mysterious stains....nothing is too horrifying for my car. We eat in our car, we play in our car, we leave moldy fruit in our car for weeks on end. It's scary.

Last year before Pesach, when I dropped off my car to be cleaned, I warned the boys that it was awful. They brushed off my warning and said, "Oh, don't worry. We see lots of messy cars."

When I picked it up an hour later, I said to them, "So. Now do you believe me? Was it the worst car you've seen all day?"

They tried to be polite, but I could see the truth in their eyes as they stammered, "Yeah, um...it was pretty bad."

I was proud and honored to have the most digusting car in the city, and I reveled in the glory for the entire year.

Today, I dropped off my car to be cleaned again. However, this year, I cleaned my car for 30 minutes beforehand, including scrubbing the cup holders with cleanser, throwing away two moldy bananas, and filling up an entire garbage bag worth of Slurpee cups, candy wrappers, old sippy cups, and other nasty assorted items. I was feeling generous.

When I dropped the car off, I offered my yearly warning. The initial assessment was, "It looks pretty bad, but it's not the worst we've seen." I wondered if I should mention the fact that I had cleaned it for 30 minutes already, but I decided to stay quiet and watch the events unfold.

When I picked it up an hour later, I asked the boys if I had yet again won the prestigious "Worst Car of the Year" award.

The boy in charge looked at me and said, "Honestly, this hour of cleaning was the worst we've seen. Your car plus these two over here are the worst yet!"

I looked to one of the cars he was pointing at and noticed it belonged to my best friend. "Oh," I said. "That's my best friend's car."

He looked at the cars, looked back at me, and said, "I can see why you guys are friends."

(The other car belonged to someone named Yair. I don't know who that is, but if for some reason it's a blog reader, then please identify yourself so you can let yourself be known as the third special person in the prestigious Disgusting Car Club).

Anyhow, I tipped him generously, got into my fresh smelling car, and immediately called my friend.

We laughed hysterically for the next 10 minutes.

And I'm still basking in the pride.

a typical morning

2010-03-23T09:00:00.005-05:00

It's crunch week. Six days until Pesach. So much to do. So little time.

I'm not really panicked, because I have my spreadsheet with five tabs and I'm sticking to my schedule. So far, everything is going as planned.

But still. I have no mental energy to spare on blogging. So I will leave you with the rather boring story of my morning.

This morning, I woke up at 6:45 AM to the sound of T yelling, "There's a lion in my room!" over and over again.

She wasn't crying. She wasn't scared. She wasn't laughing. It was just a very factual statement of, "There's a lion in my room. Just letting ya'll know."

Seeing as there are no stuffed lions, no pictures of lions, or anything of the sort in her bedroom, I'm not sure where that statement came from, but she was certainly smart to yell it repeatedly, since it did get me out of bed to get her. Not because I was worried about the lion situation. Just because I needed the yelling to stop so I could go back to sleep for 15 more minutes.

Then D woke up (no doubt from the lion announcement as well) and took her downstairs to play, and I fell back asleep. I woke up 15 minutes later to the sounds of T shouting, "K, get out of bed and get dressed for school!"

Then she came and reported to me that he wasn't listening to her.

How old do you think she has to be before I can just stay in bed all morning and she'll take care of everything?

Then T insisted on brushing her teeth.

And the boys got dressed.

And everyone ate breakfast and T insisted on brushing her teeth again.

And then I noticed that D had $3 in change in his backpack. And I asked him where he got it from and he told me that other kids pay him because he is in charge of two clubs at school and they pay him and then he allows them to be second in command in the club.

And then K asked me to look on Amazon to see how much a foosball table costs. And when I told him there was one for $150, he told me that he and D could afford one. And when I asked how, he said that D has $60 (true) and that the other $90 was going to come from a boy at school who had promised to give it to him.

And then carpool came so I had no more time to ask questions about that one.

I'll deal with the numerous problems of my kindergarten child taking cash bribes after my couches and pantry are clean.

And if K does come home from school with $90 - well, then we'll just take the money are run all the way to the foosball table store.

Just kidding.

Now I go clean. And confiscate my coffee from T because I just noticed that she already drank half of it.

Yep, just a typical morning around here.

P.S. If you are reading this and you don't know what Pesach is or why I would have a spreadsheet or why I would feel compelled vacuum my couches and you want to know...then please ask. I will happy to explain....at some point in time...after the pantry is clean....

the salon

2010-03-18T13:27:00.003-05:00

Being a work from home/stay at home/whateveryouwanttocallit Mommy means that I am with my children....well...all the time.

Of course I do get breaks, like every other day when I call my Mom or my Dad and say, "Can you watch T for an hour so I can go to a meeting/serve hot lunch/doctors appointment?

And then they oblige and I have a precious few moments to myself.

But I don't like to waste my precious babysitting time on unnecessary outings, so I try to take T everywhere that I can, and save the babysitting for when I really cannot take her.

So today T came with me to the salon. Don't get too excited. Nothing exciting. Just a little eyebrow threading.

Anyway. It was quite the experience. T was really well behaved for the first 20 minutes. Unfortunately, the first twenty minutes were spent sitting and waiting because there was only one lady working and 5 women with bushy eyebrows waiting. I spent that time answering T's question of, "What is she doing to that lady??!" over and over again (Taking hair off her face. Taking hair off her face. T, I told you. Taking hair off her face.)

When I wasn't repeating this to T, I was listening to the woman sitting next to me, who I got to know quite well, and I now know that she has custody of her 7 year old grandson, and that her grandson watches a lot of TV, and that his grandmother doesn't like it when he watches Viagra commercials and then asks her questions about the male anatomy and its performance levels.

Thank you, lady, for a very, very entertaining 20 minutes.

Anyhow, it was finally my turn. While I was being tortured, T nicely sat on my lap and stared in horror at the lady who was abusing her mother, but with about 2 minutes left, T ran out of patience, and she climbed off my lap. She then proceeded to run around the room, throwing a ball and then chasing it, attempting to climb into the tub part of a pedicure chair, and playing with the Purell dispenser on the wall. I couldn't really do anything to stop her, and anyway, she wasn't actually breaking anything, so I just sat there and hoped it would be over soon while the woman threading my eyebrows barked things like, "Baby! No!" over and over again.

When I was finally finished, the woman who had been working on me turned to T and said to her, "You are very pretty, but very naughty too."

I figure that coming from a woman who removes people's body hair for a living, that's a pretty nice compliment.

I mean, torturing people with Brazillians on a daily basis is kind of naughty too, don't you think?

Pop quiz

2010-03-16T08:19:00.005-05:00

UPDATE:

I once wrote this post about how Hubby and K are twins. Well, I have my own twin now too! I always knew that D looked like my side of the family, but until my father emailed me that picture of myself last night, I had no idea how much we really resembled each other! Michal is the official winner - which is very appropriate, considering she is also first in line to be D's mother in law.

When I showed the kids the picture of me as a child, they all immediately said it was D. When I said that it was actually me, they couldn't believe it, and T was very insistent that it was NOT Mommy, but it was actually D.

I don't know about all of you, but I think the resemblance between the two pictures is insane.

ORIGINAL POST:

Identify the people in these pictures, and you win a prize! The prize may be the glory of being the winner, but still - it's a prize.

kind words

2010-03-11T09:11:00.005-06:00

I haven't forgotten about posting my Purim theme! It's just that my computer has a virus so I can't upload pictures right now. As soon as my poor little computer is fixed (or trashed and we have a new one) I will do that post!

Today I have a little story to share.

T and I spend our days together, just the two of us. Which means that 90% of the errands I do, we do together. I hate doing errands on Sundays - the stores are so crowded, and I'm so tired at night, I hate doing them then - and so I prefer to get them done during the week, even though it means T comes with me.

Sometimes she's pretty well behaved in the store, other times she's downright impossible, but still - the errands must be done.

On Tuesday, I took T to the grocery store with me. I had a big shopping trip planned, lots of coupons I was planning on using, and I had a very specific list. It was an intense shopping trip that required concentration, not one of those trips where you just throw things into your cart.

T was being a little annoying. She kept changing her mind about where she wanted to sit in the cart, she wanted me to hold her, she dropped her snack on the ground, and then at the self checkout she wanted to scan every item herself. She didn't have any meltdowns or tantrums or anything, mostly I think because I promised her if she behaved we would go wherever she wanted next. You know where she picked? Target. To see the vacuums. Yes, my child is totally abnormal.

Anyway, it was exhausting, and by the time I left the store I felt like I needed a nap. I walked out to my car to put away the groceries, and of course it was raining. T wanted to climb in through the back of the car instead of getting in through the door. Of course she did. Why make it easy for Mommy?

I was on the verge of being really annoyed but I manged to be patient, I let her climb in through the back, and started to load my groceries in the car. The woman in the car next to me, who was also loading her groceries, suddenly turned to me and said, "I just want to compliment you on your daughter's behavior in the store. I was watching you in there and she just behaved so beautifully! It was so nice to see, because you don't see that every day with kids in stores, and it's a really tribute to what is obviously very good parenting. So good job!."

I was floored. Seriously shocked. My first thought was, "Um...did you see her? She was soooo annoying!"

My second thought was, "Um....good parenting? You should meet my other kids!"

But I thanked the woman for her kind words, and I got in the car, and I thought about it more for the rest of the day.

Here's what I think.

First of all - this woman put my afternoon into perspective for me. Sometimes we think things are so bad, or so annoying, or whatever- but if we take a step back it becomes clear that maybe things aren't as bad as we think. I was annoyed at T in the store because she wanted to scan every item and she wanted to be held, but truthfully - it wasn't bad at all. She was being a normal 2 year old. She wasn't laying on the floor, throwing a tantrum, or running around the store and pulling things of the shelf. Truthfully, she was behaving about as well as a 2 year old should be expected to behave in a grocery store for an hour when she hasn't had a nap. I realized that T didn't need to adjust her behavior - I really needed to adjust my expectations and my attitude. I should look on the bright side and think, "Wow! It's so great that we got through the store without anyone crying or anything breaking!"

And then I had another thought. I didn't know this woman. She didn't know me. I'd never seen her before in my life. It was raining outside. She was probably tired and wanted to get home and unload her groceries as well. But she took the time to stop and give a compliment to a stranger. And it might have been something small, but look what it did for me - it totally changed my attitude and improved my day!

It's amazing what a few kind words can do for someone. How often do we go out of our way to compliment strangers? There's no reason that we all shouldn't do things like this regularly. The same way that a few negative words can totally ruin someones day or their self esteem, positive words can have such a wonderful effect.

Later that night, I shared this story with a group of women who I go to a class with. We were all impressed with this woman, who went out of her way to say kind words, and we all took the lesson from the story of stepping back and adjusting our perspective. Now, all you readers are hearing the same story. When this woman stopped for 15 seconds and spoke to me, she had no idea how many people she would be touching with her words!

Parking lots and grocery stores and places like that are usually spots where people give each other evil looks, honk at each other, try to beat each other to the best spot, and generally are selfish and rude. This woman was totally different, and she totally made my day.

I'm going to try to be like her a little bit more. Maybe I'll still silently judge people in my head when I think they're being obnoxious in public, but I'll go out of my way to find something nice to say to someone.

It's truly amazing how far a few kind words can go.

Things you don't want to hear your 2 year old say...

2010-03-09T18:29:00.001-06:00

...in response to the question, "What's that on your shirt?"

"It's toilet juice, Mommy!"

Snippets

2010-03-05T00:02:00.004-06:00

I am not stuck under something heavy.

I have not broken my computer or lost internet service.

I've just been stuck under mounds of work. My poor little bloggy, suffering while I neglect it for other things, like work, and dishes, and children.

I have little time to blog but I'll leave you with some funny quotes from my children in the past few days. Hey, at least if I'm not feeling creative, they can cover for me, right?

So I got a manicure today for the first time in at least a year. I had a rare hour to myself and decided to take advantage. When I went to pick up the kids from my parents house, T said to me, "Mommy! You have nail polish like me!" (T gets manicures way more than I do).

And I said, "Yes, I do."

And she said, "Where did you get it?"

And I said, "The nail polish store."

And she said, "What did it smell like in there?"

?!?!?!?

Then she insisted on her nail polish touching my nail polish so I had to sit there for 3 minutes while T rubbed her nails against mine, in a sort of nail polish mating scene.

She's an interesting one, that T.

And then tonight I was sitting on K's bed at bedtime. I was on the phone with a friend, and she was telling me the code to get into her house because I was sending some guests her way. (Long story. Whatever).

K overheard and said, "Now I know the code to her house!"

And I said, "Yep, it will come in really handy if you're ever lost on her block or need a place to hide." (I was tired, alright?)

And he said, "Yes, like if the Red Coats are chasing me."

And then I dug into the recesses of my mind to try to figure out what the heck the Red Coats were so as not to embarrass myself in front of my 7 year old with my serious lack of historical knowledge. Thankfully, I got it right when I tentatively said, "You mean the British Army?"

"Yes," said K.

I just sat there speechless while my friend laughed her head off on the phone.

These children. Really, I do not understand how their little minds work.

Stati

2010-03-01T13:52:00.003-06:00

So...it's the day after Purim. The morning after. I feel like a truck ran me over, but at least the kids are in school and the house is almost back to normal, minus my dining room table which is covered in piles of cookies and candy and cans of Coke and all the other foods that came in our Mishloach Manos packages. (See earlier blog posts about Purim if you don't know what that is!)

I'm sitting here and inhaling chocolate and cookies and jelly beans and donuts and all other sorts of really healthy foods, and I think it's doing something weird to my brain, because I'm having one of those days where my mind is racing and I have a lot to say. I'm in a creative mood, which is unfortunate for all my Facebook friends, because it's 2 PM and I've already updated my status four times.

So I figured that instead of further harassing my Facebook friends, I'll just harass my bloggy friends instead.

Here are all the statuses (stati? Is it like the plural of cactus?) that I already posted today, plus the other ones that I thought of but didn't write because it was just getting ridiculous.

Eating junk food...trying to distract myself from the fact that pesach is in 4 weeks...convincing myself that eating chocolate is pesach cleaning....I'm getting rid of chametz, right
T: Where did you buy these diapers? Me: Walgreens T: Were they on sale?
Why do I feel hungover even though I didn't drink?
I heart nap time
I fell asleep last night at 9 PM in K's bed, stumbled to my bed at 11, and woke up this morning to find that Hubby had cleaned the house, packed the lunches, and done 3 loads of laundry. What's this gonna cost me?
Hmmm....what to eat next
To eat more popcorn or not: That is the question.
T just told me that my hair smells like a bathing suit
Note to self: White costumes and 2 year olds are not a good match

Hmmm...hopefully that got it all out of my system. Until tomorrow at least. Now I'm off to go switch the laundry, so when Hubby comes home he'll think I might actually be pulling my weight around here, instead of updating my Facebook status all day.

Hubby...if you're reading this.....oops.

Where we've been

2010-02-24T14:11:00.002-06:00

Some pictures from the last few weeks, complete with informative captions:

The Snowstorm

Alternately titled: Child Labor: It makes the world go 'round

Playing in the yard

Alternately titled: The desparation of winter leads to using a swingset in the dark with 10 inches of snow on the ground

Swimming

Alternately titled: Thank the Lord for indoor swimming pools

Fun at the Zoo

Alternately titled: T gets into the cage meant for stuffed animals

The difference a recipe can make

2010-02-20T20:56:00.005-06:00

Oh, man. It is not fun to be sick. But thankfully, I think it's over. I don't know what was wrong with me this week (strep test was negative) and my doctor claimed it was just a virus but I'm certain I had The Plague. I could not function for three days straight. Shout out to my parents who pretty much took care of T for a good portion of the days, and to Hubby, who totally took over and became Mr. Mom for the week, including doing a gazillion loads of laundry, making dinner, driving carpool, making lunches, and doing baths and bedtime by himself.

Thanks guys!

Well. Now I'm better. Phew. Glad that's behind me. So we can move on to more exciting things than laying in bed all day staring at the ceiling and wondering if my glands in my throat could get any larger.

So. I had a thought this week while I was laying around doing nothing.

There are all different types of cooks in the world.

There are some people who are great cooks, who love to share their recipes so others can enjoy as well.

Then there are some people who are also great cooks but act as if their recipes hold the secret nuclear code and refuse to share.

And then there are the evil, evil people (and I really mean this - I think these people are totally obnoxious) who tell you that they'll share their recipes, and they claim they gave you the real one, but really, they leave out an essential ingredient because they really didn't want to share their recipes.

I totally understand why people wouldn't share their recipes if they, for example, have a business that revolves around that particular recipe. But other people who won't share? I think they're just kinda mean and selfish.

There. I said it.

Well. I'm happy to report to you that I'm not one of those people. When I have a good recipe, I love to share it! I have a healthy enough self confidence that I don't need to be the only one who can make a good pizza, or cake, or whatever. I'm happy to share the love.

Even though this has backfired on me before. Like when I shared an awesome recipe with someone, and the next time I ate at that person's house, she had made my recipe, except she left like 4 ingredients out and changed another one and it tasted kinda awful and she announced at the table to all the other guests that it was "Shosh's recipe!!!!!"

Oh well. Can't win 'em all.

But even despite this, dear readers, I have decided tonight to share a recipe with me that has totally improved my life. Just do me a favor? If you mess it up and it tastes raunchy, please don't give me the credit. Thanks.

So I've been searching for a good Hamentaschen recipe for a long time. I've tried a bunch. And unfortunately, most of them turn out with the Hamentaschen looking like this.

Yeah. Not pretty, huh? It's very frustrating to go through all that bother, especially when you have kids "helping" you, and then you get ugly results. I mean, I guess it's kind of good, because then you have an excuse to just eat them all, but it's still really disappointing.

This is what happened to me last year. But I refused to give up. I searched for another recipe until I found one that claimed to be the best ever, or something like that. And I tried again.

And this is what I got.

Look at that!!! They didn't fall apart in the oven! Joy! I was beside myself with happiness. So were the boys.

Actually, I'm not sure it was the Hamentaschen that made D attack K in a fit of love that afternoon last year, but the non-fallen-apart Hamentaschen certainly made me want to kiss somebody.

Last Monday when the boys had no school I got all ready to make Hamentaschen with them, and then I realized that I am a big idiot. I had two recipes in my cookbook....and I couldn't remember which was which. Normally, when I make a recipe that fails, I write on the recipe, "BAD! DO NOT MAKE!" or something like that. Unfortunately, I didn't do that last year, so this year I was stuck with making an educated guess.

Thankfully, I guessed the correct one. You cannot imagine my relief/joy/exuberance when those freakin Hamentaschen didn't fall apart in the oven.

The boys were slightly disappointed. They kept hoping for "ugly ones" because they knew the more ugly Hamentaschen there were, the more likely it was that they would get to eat ungodly amounts of them.

My children have learned the hard way that I don't part with pretty baked goods easily.

But we made our Hamentaschen, and they looked all gorgeous, and I was happy! And I have since shared the recipe with three friends this week who posted desperate Facebook statuses like, "Help! I need a quick and easy Hamentaschen recipe!" so I figured, why not share it with you guys too?

I'm going to make it kind of detailed for those of you who have never made Hamentaschen before, but if you're an old pro, you can just take the list of ingredients and run.

P.S. I cannot take credit for this recipe. I stole it off the internet last year.

3 eggs

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup oil

1/3 cup apple juice

5 - 5 1/2 cups flour

3 tsp vanilla extract

3 tsp baking powder

Jelly/jam/preserves

Mix eggs and sugar. Add oil, juice, and extract. Add baking powder. Gradually add flour until dough is good consistency. Roll out on a flat surface, using more flour if necessary. Then take a wine glass or another cup with a large round opening to use as a "cookie cutter." Press down on the dough, making cutouts of circles.

Put excess dough back in bowl.

In the center of each circle, drop a dollop of jam, (I LOVE THE WORD DOLLOP!) whatever flavor you like. I prefer strawberry and raspberry but there are weirdos out there who like apricot and lemon and other gross things like that. Put enough jelly that you will get a nice, filled, Hamentaschen, but not too much that it will leak out. This is a trial and error type thing if you've never done it before but I would say 1-2 teaspoons is a good start.

Then. Fold up the corners. This is the hard part. You have to squeeze those corners nice and tight so they don't open up in the oven. Fold the top corners in and squeeze together, then bring up the bottom and fold again. Sorry I have no good picture of this. I didn't know I was going to blog it when I made them! But I'll throw in a picture here from last year. I hope this makes sense!

Put on parchment lined cookie sheets and bake for 10 minutes at 350.

If you like your Hamentaschen crispier you can leave them in for a few minutes longer but I prefer mine nice and soft with a lightly browned bottom.

Then repeat with the leftover dough!

I would show you the picture of the ones we made this year so I could show off their beauty, but I'm too lazy to upload the picture off my camera right now.

I hereby award myself two points for honesty.

Enjoy everyone! Have a great Week Before Purim!

2010-02-18T22:04:00.001-06:00

I havent decided to neglect the blog again. I've just been in bed for three days straight feeling insanely sick.

Tomorrow I get to find out if I have strep. Yay!

Today while I was laying in bed half comatose I wrote a little blog post in my head about the wonders of our medical care system in this country. Specifically, why I got an overnight strep test but they wouldn't give me a rapid one. And other assorted goodies. Stay tuned, because once I'm feeling better, I'll share it all here.

See ya...gotta get back in bed before I collapse.....

Themes of Purim Past

2010-02-16T12:53:00.000-06:00

I wrote this post last year about Purim, so if any of you need an explanation of this awesome Jewish holiday, check that one out first!

But this post is going to be about a different aspect of Purim.....Mishloach Manos!

Jews are required to do 4 specific mitzvos (commandments) on the holiday of Purim, and one of those mitzvos is to give a package of food to a friend. It's called Mishloach Manos, which literally means "The sending of food."

Now, in the olden days back in Europe, I'm guessing that most families gave their neighbor and egg and a potato from their farm and called it a day. Or something like that.

When I was growing up, we gave friends packages filled with baked goods, some candy, and a fruit or two, all wrapped up on a paper plate or in a brown lunch bag, and we called it a day.

Nowadays, the standards have risen, which really should not be shocking since the standards have risen in so many other areas as well.

These days, people don't just give out random foods - they do a theme.

Now normally, I'm the type of person who is totally against this stuff. I hate how the standards have been raised for so many things. I hate how weddings and Bar Mitzvahs have become so fancy, how people buy $100 shoes and coats for their 2 year olds, and how going on a fancy vacation is a yearly expectation.

But for some reason, it doesn't bother me when it comes to Purim. Well, actually, it would bother me if people started giving out really expensive Mishloach Manos, like ones that obviously cost them an insane amount. But if you get all creative with your "theme" and it's not gaudy and overdone -well I think it can be really fun!

I'm all for making the holiday more exciting and enjoyable. After all, it's a holiday, and we're supposed to be joyous, and I think it's a good thing to put effort towards making the holiday more exciting and joyous for family and friends.

And personally- I am such an uncreative person. I never do anything creative. So this is my one time a year when I can have a little fun, and it's all for a wonderful cause. My children and husband couldn't care less, but it makes me happy, so gosh darn it, I'm going to do it.

So. I thought it would be fun to take a little trip down memory lane and recap all the "themed" ideas we've done in the past.

Purim 2003

I don't have a picture of this year, because we didn't have a digital camera then. But I took one of those small aluminum pans that has different sections and I put in guacamole, salsa, and chips. It was cute, but honestly, it was so annoying to make all that guacamole! I don't recommend this unless you 1) Have very few friends 2) Have a lot of time on your hands 3) Want to buy store bought guacamole

There. That should rule out pretty much all of you.

Purim 2004

This year was the year that D was born. He was about 6 weeks old on Purim. But I still managed to make these cute ones!

It's a 20 oz bottle of coke with a salami sandwich attached. In the bag is a mustard packet and a pickle. Hubby, K, and I dressed up like football players. I'm not sure why. I think because we really didn't have the energy to find costumes and Hubby already had the jerseys. Or maybe football players like salami? Who knows.

Purim 2005

Our Chinese Purim.

There was Chinese chicken salad inside this container. The red thing is chopsticks and the white thing was a poem I wrote. The poem is too long to write here but it was all about Purim, and how Hashem saved the Jews, and we are all one nation even if we are separated, all the way from America to China and everywhere in between.

Purim 2006

This was our Purim card. I cannot, for the life of me, remember or find a picture of what we gave out. Oh well.

Purim 2007

This was the year that my Mom made the boys these awesome mechanic costumes. They had the personalized outfits, the tool belts, and everything. Hubby and I borrowed mechanic shirts from a friend, and we gave out toolboxes.

I printed this picture as a label and stuck it onto the sides of each toolbox. Each toolbox had candy, snacks, and some toy tools inside, and I wrapped each one up with a piece of a measuring tape.

I'm not sure why I didn't take a close up. I think I'm bad at this picture taking thing.

Purim 2008
The boys wanted to be policemen, so all the kids dressed up as policemen and Hubby and I dressed as prisoners. Becuase, let's get real people - we are our children's prisoners.

I put a donut and a Frappacino in a Dunkin Donut's bag, with a picture of the kids stapled to one side and fake parking ticket to the other. I briefly considered leaving the tickets on the windshields of all of our friends, but decided that just was too mean. :)

Oh, and by the way? Getting those Dunkin Donuts bags? NOT EASY. The Dunkin Donuts ladies wouldn't give them to me, wouldn't sell them to me....took a lot of effort...but it was worth it in the end!

Purim 2009

This year was kind of a free for all. D was insistent on dressing up as a Dalmatian, yet K refused. He wanted to be a parrot. T, obviously, had no opinion. So I decided to do a "P" theme. D was a "puppy," K was a "parrot," and T was a "princess."

I bought little pails and put things in it that started with the letter "P."

This was the card I attached. It said something like "Purim is brought to you this year by the letter P" but I'm not posting that one here because it had all our names on it and I'm tired of blacking that out. :)

It wasn't very creative or cute but I did it because there had just been a great coupon deal and I'd gotten tons popcorn and pudding for free. So I figured why not?

But I was a little sad to not have done an especially cute theme that year. Also, for some reason I am a huge slacker and didn't take a picture. What's up with that, Shosh? Huh?

Purim 2010

This year I'm going back to a fun theme. But you'll have to wait and see what it is! Purim themes are treated around here much like women treat the genders of their unborn babies.....they aren't revealed until the big day!

fear

2010-02-10T15:20:00.004-06:00

Do you think it's wrong for me to instill the fear of strangers in my children?

What if the fear is totally not based in reality and is just to make my life a little easier?

Let me explain...

Sometimes, when I'm out in public with my children, they want to do certain things that I don't want them to do. For example, last week I had to take T into a very fancy restaurant. I only had to be there for a few minutes to do something, but nevertheless, a few minutes with a 2 year old in a fancy restaurant isn't the best idea.

Within the first minute she had already almost pulled a mirror off the wall and was climbing on chairs. When she started to take off her boots and socks, I had to pull out the big guns.

"T," I said. "You cannot take your socks off in the restaurant."

"Yes," she said, in her snotty little 2 year old voice.

"T," I said. "See that man over there?" I pointed to a waiter. "He's going to yell at you if you take off your socks."

This was enough to intimidate T into stopping the boot and sock removal process.

Was it a lie? Yes.
Did I get what I wanted? Yes.

Today I went to the store and bought some candy bars. Why? Because they were very, very cheap, and I very, very, very much like candy. For me. All for me.

T wanted one of the candy bars. And 10 minutes later, when I pulled up at Whole Foods again, T grabbed one of the candy bars out of the bag and wanted to eat it.

I didn't want her to eat it. So I told her that no candy is allowed in Whole Foods and if she eats it in there, the lady will yell at us.

Honestly, this one wasn't such a lie. I was a little afraid of the glares I might get for letting my 2 year old eat a Three Musketeers bar in Whole Foods.

But still - I got what I wanted! No candy for T. I bought her organic yogurt instead. :)

So...what do you think? Is it wrong to instill the fear of strangers in your children, even if completely not based in reality, to get what you want?

In other words...is it acceptable parenting to totally and needlessly traumatize your children if it makes life a little easier for you?

I'll let you decide for yourselves.

Obviously, I've already made my decision. :)

my exciting, exciting day

2010-02-08T22:27:00.004-06:00

I've been in kind of a blogging funk lately. I don't know why. There are certain times where everything that happens to me during the day is already being formulated as a blog post in my head. And there's other times when I feel totally uncreative. Like now. :)

So I'm just going to post about my shopping experience today. Riveting, I know.

I was in Whole Foods today for the first time in my life. And Ohmygod is that place insane. I called Hubby and told him we should go there on a date sometime. I was with T and I was in a huge rush so I didn't really look around, but my initial thoughts were as follows:

-This is totally not a grocery store. This is a grocery experience
-If I didn't keep Kosher and had an unlimited source of money, I would shop here every single day
-OMG this place is expensive
-Are people from my neighborhood allowed in the store?
-Are people who don't recycle allowed in the store?
-Wow I didn't know that many varieties of nuts even existed
-I wonder if they sell Oreos and Dr. Pepper here? HAHAHAHA
-Do they know I'm an impostor? (ie. do they know I only came here b/c I have a coupon for free yogurt)
-Bath salts? Sea salts? What? Is there really a "salts" section to this store?
-Will my car be towed from the parking lot because it's not a hybrid?
-If I ask for plastic bags at the checkout will I be booted from the store?
-Why have I never been in here before?
-Hahaha now I realize why it's no competition to have Jewel and Whole Foods across the street from each other....oh man...it's a different world

Well. Those were my thoughts. Seriously, though, that place is insane. I think anyone who shops there regularly for their groceries is also insane, though, given the prices, but hey, if you're one of these "Eat Organic or Die" people, then I guess I hear ya.

Oh and the cashiers were so nice and friendly! T had a stuffed animal with her that she insisted on "buying." She put it on the conveyor belt and the cashier was nice enough to "scan" it for her and then the bagger even bagged it. And then T was happy. And then I was happy.

Oh and also? It was nice to not have to pry T away from the candy at the checkout, like I have to do at every other store.....since there wasn't any!!!!

At least not that I noticed....I was too distracted worrying about the fact that I was seriously the only customer who didn't bring in a reusable shopping bag.

Yeah. I was an impostor and they totally knew it.

his sense of adventure

2010-02-03T15:40:00.002-06:00

One of K's favorite series to read is The Boxcar Children. In fact, he loves it so much that he had me print out a list for him of every single book, and he makes a check mark next to each book as he reads it. Then, I have to take that list with me to the library every time I go, and check out those books which he has not yet read. He said he was getting tired of me bringing home books that he had read already. Well excuuuuuse me.

Anyway. He loves the Boxcar Children. Which, as many of you will know, is a story about 4 children whose parents are dead, so they live with their grandfather and go on all sorts of adventures and solve mysteries.

This week, I checked out the first book in the series, which K had never read before. It's the story of how the kids came to be the Boxcar Children, and it's basically the story of them in the first few weeks or so after they became orphans. It talks about how they manage to take care of themselves by finding a boxcar to live in, washing their clothes in a river, eating milk and bread and wild blueberries for meals, and using dishes that they find in a garbage dump.

It all sounds very exciting and adventurous. When I read the book last week (because I was bored at the library while T was playing and it was the most exciting book I had in the bag)

I felt myself feeling kind of exhilarated for the Boxcar Children. Their lives are so adventurous. It's so much fun to live in a Boxcar with no parents and have to fend for yourself!

And then I also checked out the book Pippi Longstocking for K. Which, as you may know, is also the story of adventures of a girl who has no parents. (And is also a book, by the way, which K giggled at when he first picked it up because he thought it was pronounced pee-pee).

But anyway. I thought about those two books and then I started feeling worried, and I wondered if maybe I shouldn't encourage these books. Would K feel worried that his parents will also die? Even worse, would K feel excited by the prospect of his parents dying so that he too could have these exciting adventures?

And then I wondered why authors write disturbing books about children who are left on their own after their parents die. I mean, really. It's totally unrealistic. These were kids living in America in the 70's in a normal town with normal people and their parents died and no one took care of them? I mean, really, come on.

Would my son start to glorify the idea of being an orphan? Would he think to himself, "Wow, these kids had so much fun! They go on so many adventures! I wish I was also an orphan and lived in a boxcar!"

And then I realized I was sitting in the library, in full public view, reading a 3rd grade reading level book, and then analyzing it. I felt sort of embarrassed for myself, put the book away, and went to play with T.

Later that day, when K came home from school, he saw the new book and immediately started reading it. By dinner time, he was halfway done, and he came to the dinner table eager to discuss what he had read.

This is the child who answers my questions about school in grunts or nods, so when he's eager to discuss something, you'd better believe I jump at the opportunity.

"So, K," I said. "What do you think of the book so far? Isn't it interesting to read about the lives of the Boxcar Children before they went to live with their grandfather?"

"Yeah," said K. "It really is."

And then I wondered...was it coming? Would he say something about how cool it was that they got to live on their own?

"And you know what, Mommy? They didn't have very much food so they ate bowls of milk with pieces of bread in it for breakfast. Isn't that disgusting?"

And then I breathed a sigh of relief. Apparently, my child is way too high maintenance to be excited by the prospect of adventure if it doesn't include gourmet meals. I guess I can file that worry away and move on down my list of worries.

Next!!

easel fun

2010-02-01T15:55:00.006-06:00

At the beginning of the year, I went back and forth about whether I should send T to school. For many of you, it may sound crazy to entertain the thought of sending a just turned 2 year old to school.

For others, you might think it's insane to even think about not sending her.

It's so interesting how different cultures think in different ways.

In many circles, even if they both work full time, parents wouldn't send a 2 year old to school. They would keep the child at home with a nanny or babysitter.

In other circles, even if one of the parents is a full time stay at home parent, they would still send their 2 year old to preschool.

I happen to live in the latter type of community. T is one of the only 2 year olds I know who doesn't go to some sort of preschool/morning program.

Some people send their kids 2-3 days a week, but many send their children every day.

In the end, I decided not to send her at all this year. I'm not going to share all the specific reasons I made that decision, but I will say that I'm happy with it. I'd also like to point out that it saves me a ton of money. Which, as we know, always makes me happy. :)

However, even though it's nice to have T home with me all day, it kinda puts a damper on her social life, because all the other kids are in school!

So I have to think of lots of interesting ways to entertain her. So, we go to the fruit store, we go to the grocery store, we go to the library, we occasionally go somewhere fun like the children's museum, she comes with me on coupon expeditions, and we hang out at home.

But I still want her to get the experiences that kids in school get, minus the whole getting hit over the head with a truck by another kid experience. And while it would be easy to stick her in front of a video for hours on end, I can only take too much mother guilt.

So we do puzzles, and play with Play-doh, and read books. And every once in a while, we descend into our scary, scary basement, and we have our little preschool time with the easel. I got it on Amazon.com a while back when it was on a good sale. And of course, it shipped with free super shipping saver or whatever that promotion was called where they shipped everything over $25 for free.

Now, our easel is certainly not as exciting as preschool. I give her the same 4 colors every time, on the same boring white paper, with the same paintbrushes. Oh, and I never clean the easel. I totally wouldn't make it as a preschool teacher.

But come on, seriously. She's two. And anyway, she's creative, and she comes up with all sorts of ways to make painting more exciting.

Like today, when she found a roll of paper towels, and used half of it to "clean" her painting after she was finished.

It entertained her for 35 minutes. That is a long, long time. In fact, it's pretty much an eternity in 2 year old land.

It also entertains me, because she calls her smock a "mock" and I could listen to her say that about 100 times and not get tired of the cuteness.

She can't say certain double consonants, especially if the first one is 's.' It's adorable. Snow is "no," smock is "mock," and sprinkles are "pinkles."

Oh, and totally off topic - what do you think of the humongous picture? I just learned how to do this. It would be really cool if I actually took decent pictures, don't ya think?

It's simply divine

2010-01-27T10:13:00.002-06:00

I haven't posted a dinner idea in a while, but I made something awesome for dinner last night, and I just have to share the wealth.

Please believe me when I tell you that this chicken recipe will change your life.

It has changed mine.

I am a different woman today than I was yesterday, and all because of the chicken I ate last night for dinner.

I got this recipe from my lovely friend Brooke. While I don't proclaim this recipe to be healthy, I do proclaim it to be insanely delicious, and it will cause your chicken to be instantly devoured by your children, your husbands, and any other picky creatures you may have living in your house.

My kids could not get enough of it.

Coke chicken
(Or, as my children call it, caffeine chicken. Caffeine is usually off limits so the prospect of getting it in their chicken is very, very exciting).

1 regular old chicken. You know, kind with 2 legs, and 2 thighs, etc......
3 onions
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 cup duck sauce
1/2 cup Coke
1 Tbsp soy sauce

Slice the onions, and place them in the bottom of a pan.
Place chicken pieces on top of the onions. I skin my chickens, but that's just me.
Sprinkle 1 tsp of garlic powder over chicken.
Mix soy sauce, duck sauce, and Coke together, then pour over chicken.

Bake at 375 for one hour.

Hide a piece for yourself because it will be gone 10 seconds after you put it on the table.

Serve to your family with a side dish or two. I served it with rice and Ceasar salad.

Hope that it lives up to the hype.

Enjoy!

P.S. The delicious sauce and onions from this chicken are awesome with any kind of starch - rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc....

a joke

2010-01-25T13:55:00.002-06:00

I hereby introduce you to my daughter T, telling her first joke.

Her delivery isn't exactly perfect, but please, cut her some slack. She's an amateur.

Telling a joke might be something anyone can do.

But saying the word "interrupting" with your mouth wide open? Now that takes talent.

thoughts

2010-01-22T12:51:00.001-06:00

Ever since the earthquake in Haiti, I haven't been able to get it out of my mind.

And while I normally don't love to post about things that are political or controversial in nature, because honestly I really don't like confrontation or controversey or any of that fun stuff, today I just couldn't hold back. :)

I've watched countless videos and seen hundreds of pictures. I've read all the articles. I've prayed for the people there and have donated towards the cause.

But beyond that, there's not much more I can do to help.

I mean, I guess I could join some sort of mission and go there and help. And I'm not going to make excuses about why I'm not doing that, but I think most people would agree that actually traveling to Haiti is kind of pointless for most Americans. I'm not trained in anything medical and Haiti doesn't need a ton of Americans flocking there and trying to help out but really not having any skills to do so.

So I do feel bad that there's nothing more I can do. I really do.

But here's the thing. Haiti was in terrible shape before the earthquake. And guess what? There are about 100 other places on Earth that are also in terrible shape right now. Places where children are killed on a daily basis, where no one has clean drinking water, where babies die of malnutrition, and where people sleep on the streets every single night.

Somehow, we all manage to forget about these places as we go about our daily lives. Not that we don't sometimes think of them, or donate money to the causes, but let's get real - these people's plights are certainly not the first, nor the second things on our minds on a daily basis.

Well, truthfully, I can't speak for everyone, but it's definitely not the first thing on my mind on a daily basis.

I do think about, on a regular basis, how lucky I am to have been born into a middle class family in America. Seriously, I am blessed. So much of the world doesn't have the basic things that I have, like food and shelter, not to mention all the extra luxuries that I have - like a car, a house, a cell phone......the list could go on and on.

But the rest of the world is not this lucky. Most people in the world are not as lucky as I am.

And I don't really do anything about it. I'm not one of these people that sells my house and moves into one half the size and sends the extra money to Africa, like the people who were featured in this past Sunday's Parade magazine. I havent even ever traveled to a place like that.

But I think that people who do that are amazing. And I wonder, if everyone in the world did that, if we could solve the worldwide problem of hunger.

It's probably a little naive to think that. There are many social problems that contribute to poverty that money can't fix. But maybe it can. Who knows?

The thing is, we all sometimes forget how much of the world is suffering.

Which is why the article that I read yesterday really got on my nerves. It was about how there is a cruise line that has a stop on the coast of Haiti, and they are still taking passengers there, even though just a few hours away, people are suffering. There is outrage about how it is insensitive to be letting people enjoy beaches and luxuries in Haiti, while people just miles away are dying of thirst and hunger and lacking basic medical supplies.

But seriously - I find that logic to be SO flawed.

Honestly - I know it might seem in bad taste to be lounging around on the beach so close to where people are suffering.

But we do this all the time. We do this every single day. It just feels worse because the earthquake was so large and so publicized. But people were suffering in Haiti long before the earthquake, and no one complained about the cruise line stopping there then.

There are homeless people just a few miles away from me. There are people suffering in every city, in every country. I am certain that there is no one who reads this blog who doesnt have someone who is living in serious poverty, or suffering from lack of medical care, very close to their own home.

And do we feel guilty about enjoying our lives? Going out to eat, watching movies, lounging in our comfortable beds, sitting on the couch and drinking a cup of coffee?

No. We generally don't.

And I'm not saying that we should. We are human. We are wrapped up in our own concerns most of the time.

So it doesn't necessarily bother me when people indulge in luxury.

But what irks me is when people go all holier than thou and start saying that other people shouldn't enjoy their cruise. Those people not going on their cruise isn't going to help anyone. In fact, the cruise will probably help, because it brings tourist money to the country.

So unless you are someone who never enjoys luxury when people close by are suffering, unless you are currently in Haiti, elbow deep in dead bodies, then you should probably just keep your thoughts to yourself.

And that's all I have to say about that. :)

Wordless Wednesday - with some words

2010-01-20T14:09:00.003-06:00

They say that putting your baby to sleep with a pacifier is better for the baby - it calms them, helps them to sleep better, and even reduces the risks of suffication.

I'm not sure if that applies to stuffed monkeys.

Poor things. They look like they may never recover from this nap.

Last week it was this, and now, suffication by pacifier and a bed made of a Monopoly box.

These monkeys can't ever catch a break, can they?

a letter from school

2010-01-19T08:27:00.003-06:00

This may or may not be an actual letter that I received in the mail from my children's school.

Dear Mr. & Mrs ______,

Your son ____ is progressing very well in his Math Enrichment class. He is well behaved and polite. However, because of his inquisitive nature, he is going into drawers and cabinets without permission. Please discuss this with him and ask him to respect areas that are not his personal possessions. Thank you for giving this matter your attention.

Sincerely,

The Teacher

Let's discuss. If, in fact, this is an actual letter, then I have the following comments/questions.

1) There is NEVER a boring moment with my children. Never.
2) My child is hysterical. And so strange.
3) How much do I love this teacher for blaming it on his "inquisitive nature."
4) Why the heck is my kid opening drawers during Math Enrichment?
5) What, exactly, is Mr. Math Teacher hiding in his cabinet that makes it so interesting?
6) How am I going to keep a straight face as I discuss this with my child?

Well, I don't have answers to all of these questions, but I can tell you this much.

The child in question, when asked why he looks in the teacher's drawers, responded with a guilty smile, "Because he has cool stuff in there!"

So then I launched into a discussion about how Enrichment is a privilege, and even if there is cool stuff in the cabinets, if the teacher tells you not to open them, you can't, or you will no longer have the privilege of going to Math Enrichment.

And then I said, "Do you know what a privilege is?"

And my son said, "Yes. It's like going to the bathroom during class. If you ask too many times, you lose the privilege."

Which, after being in his classroom yesterday and watching boys ask to go to the bathroom every 10 seconds and one boy went twice within 5 minutes - well yes, I can see how going to the bathroom during class could become a privilege.

G-d bless my children's teachers, who somehow manage to not strangle all the children by the end of the day.

And G-d bless my lovely children, who never leave me without blogging material.

They like to move it move it

2010-01-14T09:47:00.002-06:00

If you're comparing them to a typical American child, my children are really very sheltered. No, we don't (usually) keep them locked in the basement, and we don't (always) cover their eyes when we take them to the grocery store, but for the most part, my kids are blissfully unaware of many things that are considered "normal" in today's culture.

They have never seen Nick Jr or the Cartoon Network or any TV show of the sort.

They don't listen to the radio.

They don't own a Nintendo or a Wii or a game system of any kind.

The closest they've come to seeing a movie is the Mary Poppins movie that was made in 1964.

I know, right? My poor, disadvantaged children. But the thing is - they're all right. They don't even know that they are "missing out." And in my humble opinion, they aren't actually "missing out."

But that's just my opinion. It's okay if you don't agree with me. That's why you have kids of your own. And if you don't have kids of your own but you have opinions....well then, get crackin.'

Sometimes I say things, and then I regret having said them. Things like reproductive suggestions for others.

Anyway.

The thing is, no matter how much I'd like to shelter my children from what I deem inappropriate and unnecessary in the world out there, we don't live in a box. And I don't necessarily wish to live in a box. I choose to expose my children to certain things, I make a strong effort to expose them to the values that I believe in, but at a certain point, I have to realize, I'm not in complete control. In their lifetimes, they will see, and hear, and be exposed to things that are not in line with our family values, and they will have to learn how to deal with that.

But at their young ages, I don't really expect them to truly be able to filter things properly. Which is why i see it as my responsibility to control what they are exposed to. The same way that I insist they go to sleep at night, and eat healthy foods, and take showers (occasionally). They wouldn't do that on their own. I'm guessing that if I gave my children free reign, they would fall asleep sometime around 11 PM with a box of Fruit Roll Ups in their beds, and they wouldn't shower until they had a thick layer of grime on their bodies.

That's why young children need parents to guide them.

Still. I am not always in control.

Which is why I am not shocked that my children know naughty words, like "stupid," "shut up," "butt," and most recently, "weiner." Ew. That word makes me cringe.

Oh, and they also know a bunch of those silly "I hate school" songs.

Oh, the lovely things my children learn in school. I learned those exact same songs in school, 20 years ago. Funny how some things never change.

But it did catch me off guard one day when I overheard my children singing, loud and clear, "I like to move it move it, I like to move it move it...."

Now I don't know what "it" is referring to in the song, but I'm guessing it's nothing nice. I don't know the rest of the song. I don't even know who sings it or what it's about. I do know now, after inquiring, that my children learned it while waiting in line at Great America last summer. That's also where they learned that there are apparently some 12 year old couples in the world who feel it perfectly appropriate to eat each others tongues while waiting in line in public.

Yeah. It was disgusting. Can't we just ride our roller coaster in peace without being exposed to children exploiting themselves in public?

Anyway.

So my kids learned that song. And honestly, it's kinda funny when they sing it. It's a catchy song. It stays in my head the whole day after they've sung it. And there's something kinda endearing about hearing little kids sing the words, "I like to move it move it" .....

I don't say anything when they sing it. They have no idea what it is. It's not like they're singing "I kissed a girl and I liked it" or something really offensive like that.

Which a child I know came home singing after she heard it on the bus on the way home from school because the driver was blasting it on the radio.

But I digress.

So when my kids sing it I stay quiet. I don't object like I do when they say bad words. Like "shut up." Which they don't even properly know how to use, because they don't really know what it means, so they say it kind of as an insult, but with improper usage. It's actually very amusing.

But bad words always get them some sort of punishment.

I like to move it move it? Not so much. I choose my battles. And believe me, there's plenty to choose from.

The other morning, I was in my room and I overheard K singing to himself as he got dressed. He was signing to the tune of "I like to move it move it" but with his own words.

It went like this, "Oh T is a cutie. Oh T is a cutie." (Her name is 2 syllables long. So it even sounded kinda good.)

Oh, how I love my children. Their creativity. And their innocence. How they can take a bad song and make it better without even realizing it.

It kind of makes up for when they sing the Barney song, but with the lyrics about pointing a rifle at Barney's head.

That one really disturbs me. It's really violent sounding.

You have to wonder about the wacko who made that one up. What kind of childhood did he have? Was he forced to watch endless episodes of Barney against his will? Did his parents pipe the "I love you" song into his bedroom at night, like the sounds of crying babies were allegedly piped into Guantanamo Bay to torture the prisoners?

Really. It makes me wonder. What is this world coming to?

People are singing songs about maiming large purple dinosuars and kissing girls and they liked it, and middle schoolers are pretty much reproducing in public while waiting in line for the Demon.

Oh, the horrors.

Makes me want to lock my children up.

Gotta go look for the basement key.

Young love

2010-01-13T07:57:00.003-06:00

So I was at the boys' school the other day, just dropping something off, when I saw a classmate of one of the boys. We'll call her *Sarah.

"Guess what?" Sarah said. "D is going to marry **Rebecca!" D smiled and looked very pleased with himself, but he didn't say anything.

Then Sarah went on. "Yep," she said. "They're getting married. They even kissed on the lips!"

D looked horrified. "No we didn't!" he exclaimed.

"Oh," said Sarah. "Maybe they didn't. Maybe they just bumped into each other when their lips were wet."

?!?!?!?

I decided I should leave before I heard anymore information from this talkative little girl. I didn't want to start hearing a running commentary of what her parents do or whatever else she knows about. Cuz she seemed to know enough already.

By the way, if Sarah's parents knew she was talking this way they would be mortified. Knowing her parents made it the whole thing even funnier. :) I'll allow Sarah to remain anonymous, in order to protect her innocent parents.

But the best part? The intended bride, Rebecca (again, not her real name) is the child of a blog reader.

Rebecca was blissfully unaware of the entire encounter, in fact, I didn't even see her when I was there. So I'm not sure what her opinion was on the whole matter, or if the feelings are even mutual.

But here's my question. Are Rebecca's parents brave enough to attempt to identify themselves? Come on! We're future in-laws!

*Not her real name
**Also not her real name

2010-01-12T13:06:00.003-06:00

I have this crazy thing and I have to know if I'm the only crazy one out there.

So please, blog friends - tell me - am I the only person who cannot watch TV shows or movies that are the least bit scary because I get soooo freaked out?!?!

Seriously, I cannot handle any sort of show where bad stuff happens. There are movies that Hubby wants to watch that I refuse to watch with him because I know I won't sleep that night. There have been movies I have watched, but only after I read the entire spoiler page online so I was prepared.

There have been times where I have run out of the room and told Hubby to only let me back in when the scary parts are over.

And people, I'm not talking about horror movies. I'm talking about your basic TV drama where the car crashes or the doctors make a mistake in surgery on Grey's Anatomy or something like that.

Am I the only crazy person whose heart pounds with anticipation, who can just sense that something bad is about to happen?

And who then says to herself, "What is wrong with you? It's NOT REAL! It's TV!"

But I still can't handle it.

So this is pretty much why Hubby and I never watch movies. I won't watch anything where anyone is scared, hurt, or suffers in any way. Which pretty much eliminates all movies Hubby would want to see.

Not that he's some sort of freak who only likes scary stuff- but literally every movie out there is scary except for chick flicks, and yeah, well, you can guess how he feels about those.

Someone told me I should watch a certain TV show because I'd really like it. I was watching it online the other day and I knew something scary was going to happen (because I looked up the episode on Wikipedia, of course) and I could not watch it. I kept pausing it, going back to it, watching it without the sound- anything to lessen the scariness.

I don't know why I do this to myself.

Most people would say I'm ruining all the fun for myself, but for me, suspense of any kind is not fun, it's just downright painful.

And honestly, the world is sad and scary and horrible enough. Do I also have to watch movies about it? I prefer to watch nice, happy stories. Like The Blind Side. Thank you, Shira, for that recommendation. I loved it.

So, who's with me? Am I crazy or can any of you relate?

Paper pianos

2010-01-11T08:50:00.004-06:00

I'm sure all the Mommies of school aged children out there can relate to the following problem.

What the heck to do with all the ~~junk~~ gorgeous artwork your children bring home from school.

When the kids are in preschool, some of the projects are actually pretty cute, and they make it up onto the fridge or the wall. But as the kids get older, the projects turn into worksheets, or coloring sheets, and they seem to reproduce at a frightening rate.

Over the years, I've saved a lot of the kids school work and art work, but even if you save just one thing a week, it piles up very quickly. Not to mention the issue of what to do with the other 185 things that came home that week that you have no interest in saving.

Now, most Mommies will tell you the trick is to throw the stuff away when the kids aren't looking. You put it in the garbage when they're asleep, and then you cover it up with other garbage, because G-d help you when your kid wakes up the next morning, goes to throw something away, glances in to the garbage can, and then, with a horrified look on his face, pulls his artwork out of the garbage and cries, "YOU THREW AWAY MY PROJECT? I WANTED THAT!"

Some Moms are braver, and they immediately dump the contents of their children's backpacks into the garbage as soon as the kids walk in the door from school.

Other Moms aren't really brave at all, and end up saving tons of stuff, until they realize that they have run out of room in the house and they have to choose: The furniture, or the papers. Something has gotta go.

I've also heard lots of creative ideas, like taking a picture of every project and then throwing it out, but making an album of the pictures.

It's a nice idea- but it's not for me. Sorry. Waaaaay too much effort. I can barely keep track of the pictures of my family, let alone an art project album.

But I'd like to think that I have a healthy balance. I throw most stuff away, but I save some of the more important things. Projects the kids worked really hard one, especially those with their pictures on them, are harder to part with. I'll save an occasional paper that has their writing on it, like the cute paper from 4 year old nursery where K wrote "Rainbow" backwards and it took me about 10 minutes to figure out what he had written. (It took me the first 5 minutes to figure out what language it was written in).

But all those coloring sheets that come home? Straight into the garbage. Spelling tests make it onto the fridge. Then they go into the garbage a few days later as well. The cute projects that D makes that aren't even on a piece of paper, so they can't be hung up on the wall? I hate those! They float around the house for a few days and then I throw them away and hope he won't notice.

For the most part, this works out well, and generally doesn't backfire on me.

But. Ohhhh, there's always a but.

About a month ago, K came home from school one day with a piano made out of paper. The music teacher taught the kids how to make them and K was enthralled. The second he came home, he made another 8 pianos, and proudly displayed them on our kitchen counter.

D quickly joined in on the fun, and by the time bedtime came that night, there were 25 paper pianos in my house.

The boys had big plans to sell their pianos. They decided that the more they made, the more money they would make at their big Piano Sale, (like a lemonade stand, but with pianos), so why not make as many pianos as possible?

The next night, my friend Rachel and her kids came over for dinner. Rachel's daughter jumped on the bandwagon, and by bedtime that night, there were at least 50 paper pianos in my house.

The kids put them in a big Target bag and went to sleep.

You can't really tell from these pictures how many pianos are in there. But there's a ton. Take my word for it.

I let the pianos sit in the house, in the Target bag, for weeks. They just floated around the house, moving from spot to spot as I cleaned up.

The sale never happened, because, well, it's freezing cold here. It's not exactly ideal Piano Sale weather.

So one day, while the kids were at school, I threw the bag of pianos away. I figured it had been long enough and they wouldn't notice.

Thankfully, Hubby is the one who takes the garbage out in this house, so the bag of garbage sat around all day, and was still sitting by the back door when the kids came home from school and noticed their pianos were missing.

YES. They noticed.

I managed to retrieve the bag of pianos out of the garbage and thankfully, my secret was not discovered.

But I still have a bag of pianos in my house.

I guess I should just make peace with the fact that it will be here until spring.

And then I'll have to figure out how to break the news to the kids that people aren't going to be paying them for their paper pianos.

We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

Winter fun

2010-01-08T09:20:00.005-06:00

We've had a nice amount of snow fall in the past few days, and what better way to enjoy the snow than....sledding!!!!

Taking children sledding is one of those activities that takes longer to prepare for than the actual activity. And only half of the actual sledding is fun because the other half is spent dragging children up the hill. But it has to be done.

Yesterday afternoon, when there was lots of fresh snow on the ground and the temperatures were hovering in the high teens, Hubby and I decided that it would be a perfect day to take the kids sledding.

Yes, I do realize that it's sad when temperatures in the high teens are considered good weather.

In any case, the boys don't get out of school until 4 PM, so by the time we all got bundled up and to the sledding hill, it was dark. Shockingly enough, we were the only ones out sledding in the dark and freezing cold on a school night.

So we enjoyed some sledding in the dark, and we had the hill all to ourselves. We chose a small hill, you know, to minimize the dragging the kids up thing.

It was T's first time sledding.

Does she look like she enjoyed it?

K is in there somewhere.....

Whoa. Check out those reflective mittens.

My mother came with us too. She's not your typical grandmother, obviously.

We had a great time. For about 15 minutes. Then T started crying that her hands were cold. So I hung out in the car with her until the boys were done.

I think I have to get her some little baby hand warmers or something for next time.

But still. Cold or not, it was a great first sledding experience for T. Here's a video of her going down the hill the first time.

Winter might be cold. And winter might be depressing. And winter might be loooooong. But we can still have a little fun with it once in a while!

For a few minutes, at least, until our fingers and noses start to freeze.

And then we can drink some hot cocoa.

And then we can go back to dreaming about spring.

In which I converse with God about tights

2010-01-07T10:01:00.004-06:00

Dear God,

I know that you have given me everything that I need in this world, even though it may not always feel that way.

I know that we shouldn't want for more than we have, and that not only are material things not important, they can also sometimes be doubly negative as they can hold us back from all things spiritual as well.

I know that I want to be someone who cares less about what is on the outside, and more about what is on the inside. I strive to separate myself from people who encourage judgement based on appearances and try to surround myself with those who hold your values. I try to teach my children that we should always reach out to others, no matter who they are, how they look, or what crowd they are in. I hope to internalize the truth that having things will not make me happy, no matter how much the world tells us that that's not the case.

But God? Sometimes, I can't help but feel happy from something material and physical. For no good reason other than that it looks nice.

Like today.

Little girl clothes are so cute. And I can't help but love them.

I hope that's okay with you.

Sincerely yours,
Shosh

P.S. Thanks for the snowstorm. We're all going sledding later today.
P.P.S. Do you think I should paint my walls? Or in the very least, wash them?

Wordless Wednesday

2010-01-06T14:26:00.001-06:00

The Story of How I Exercised By Accident

2010-01-04T09:35:00.001-06:00

Part of the reason I have been a naughty, delinquent blogger in the past few weeks is that I had a big youth convention to attend for the organization that I work for.

Besides for the work involved in packing up our family to be away for 5 days, there's the whole work aspect of it - getting the kids to sign up, working out the details, making sure everyone has transportation, planning parts of the program, making rooming assignments, blah blah blah.

Yeah. So even before it started I was already exhausted. I am only beginning to recover now, since I came straight home from the convention, exhausted beyond belief, my body adjusted to what could only be called either TST (Teenager Standard Time). Which, by the way, would be all fine and dandy in my book, if only my children had also gotten that memo.

But alas, they did not, so my body had to adjust back into a normal time zone, and then my body had to drag my children all sorts of fun and exciting places since it was their winter vacation. Except my body did not do that. I took them one fun place and called it a ~~day~~ vacation.

The end.

In any case, the convention itself was a success, but of course, it wasn't without its excitement. In the negative sense of the word. Is it possible to take 200 teenagers somewhere for 5 days and not have anything happen? I think not.

The first day, we took the whole group ice skating. Hubby, D & K came with, since D & K are now ice skating experts, you know, since they have now been on the ice a total of 6 times in their lives.

Men. They think they know everything.

In fact, K & D are not really ice skating experts at all, and the only reason they have not left every ice hockey class in an ambulance is because of all the safety gear they are required to wear.

Unfortunately, traditional ice skating does not require one to wear all that protective gear. And unfortunately again, my children have no fear. Or common sense.

So they skated as if they had all their gear on. And fell. And got up. And skated again. And fell. They were not content to slowly skate along, cautiously working on their skills. No, they took off at full speed, skating as fast as they possibly could until they abruptly met the ice. And then they got up and did it again.

Which is how D ended up with a concussion. Good times, good times.

At the time, he said his head hurt, but that he was fine. And he acted fine. Fast forward approximately 8 hours later, when he abruptly threw up in his plate at dinner. Thankfully there was a doctor in attendance, and D turned out to be fine, but it was kind of a scary night. Especially when I woke him up in the middle of the night to do a little neurological check and I asked him his name and he said, "I don't know."

It's okay, D. Don't feel guilty. I only died a little bit right then and there.

And thankfully, besides for some apparent name amnesia, which may have been attributed to the fact that I pulled him out of his bed at 1 AM and began interrogating him, D turned out to be just fine.

But this is not even the story about how I exercised. I'm way off on a tangent here.

My point was that you cannot take a large group of teenagers/children/anyone somewhere without someone getting hurt.

Which leads me to the next story.

We took the group skiing/snowboarding/snow tubing. I joked that we should order the ambulances in advance. But I wasn't really joking.

Approximately 10 minutes after we got there, the teenagers were on the slopes and I was comfortably settled into my chair, playing Bananagrams in the nice, heated lodge. I wouldn't ski if you paid me. Are you kidding me? I can't afford to break my leg, thankyouverymuch.

It was then that a member for the ski staff ran into the room and announced, "Someone from your group is hurt. We called an ambulance."

That was all the information they had to offer.

Immediately, I and one other staff member jumped to our feet. As his or her legal medical guardians for the weekend, we had to accompany the kid to the hospital, which meant we had to beat the ambulance.

"Where's the kid?" we asked.

The helpful staff member pointed out the window, down the slopes, to a small building which looked so far away it could only be described as "off in the distance."

"See that light?" she said. "That's the medic building."

We had no choice. We ran out the back door, pushed aside a fence, and took off running down the mountain. It had snowed 6 inches that day, and I was wearing my new cute gray sweater boots. I don't recommend them for this particular activity.

He and I ran down the mountain, trying not to be killed by the skiers on all sides of us. When we finally made it to the bottom, having managed not to fall and injure ourselves as well, we had to climb up a small slope to get to the building. As we trekked through the snow, I said to the other staff person, "If it's a girl, I'll go. If it's a boy, you're going."

As we kicked open the door to the medic building (Literally, we kicked it. It was stuck), I breathed a huge sigh of relief to see a conscious, not bleeding, boy.

Yay!

The kid was not seriously injured- just a broken collarbone. And I didn't have to go to the hospital with him. Wahooo! This was very exciting for me, because I spent the last youth convention in the ICU with another kid and it wasn't exactly fun.

A second later, the paramedics walked in, took the kid, and a minute later, I was left alone in the medic building. I was relieved. Until I realized I was standing at the bottom of the mountain.

It was the bunny hill. There was no chair lift. Just a rope. Which isn't helpful for people wearing gray sweater boots. So I trekked back up the hill, trying not to be killed by the inexperienced bunny hill skiers. It was a big hill. It was cold outside. It was snowy and slippery. Have I mentioned it was a big hill?

When I finally got to the top, squeezed back through the fence, and arrived at the back door, it was locked.

By this point I was certain I was going to die.

Thankfully, a nice woman let me in. I made my way back to the lounge and collapsed in my chair, hoping my heart rate would quickly return to a double digit number. Which it did, thankfully. And I didn't die. I even got to eat some snacks.

So that is my story of how I exercised.

It wasn't fun. And it wasn't pretty. And I don't hope to do it again for a very long time.

Why Children Should Never Be Allowed to Take the Stand

2010-01-03T10:11:00.002-06:00

T: Mommy, I'm mad at you.

Me: Why?

T: Because you hit Uncle Eli. (Hubby's 20-something brother who lives in New York)

Me: No I didn't.

T: Yes you did. He cried.

Hi!

2009-12-31T12:25:00.002-06:00

Just checkin in to point out that I'm still alive. I'm just taking a little blog-cation.

Hopefully when the boys are back in school I'll be able to reignite my creative energies, which have sort of withered up and died in the past week and a half.

However, don't you think I have just been wasting my time while not blogging. I have taken my kids fun places, read some books, cleaned my house, exercised (not on purpose, don't worry - I'll explain that later), drank a lot of hot cocoa, and watched so many episodes of the Office online that I am now all caught up, even though I only watched my first episode 3 months ago.

If that's not an accomplishment to be proud of, I don't know what is.

Anyway, that's all for today. Just wanted to say hi! Catch ya'll later!

a good laugh

2009-12-24T18:15:00.001-06:00

T was whining at my feet, crying for me to pick her up. I was busy with something but after a minute I picked her up.

Apparently, she was so deep in the whining mode that she couldn't snap out of it, because while she was in my arms, she whined, "Mommy, hold me!"

Then she stopped. And said, "Oh, she is holding me!"

And then I laughed.

And then T said, "That was funny!"

It's good to be able to laugh at ourselves sometimes, isn't it?

the goodness of people

2009-12-22T13:27:00.001-06:00

Want to hear a crazy story? Well, do I have one for you.

About a month ago, I went to a store to buy something. It was a small store, but it's a store that is part of a national chain.

I made my purchase, paid with my credit card, and left. That was around 5 PM.

At 10 PM I checked my home voice mail, and I had a message from 7 PM, from a phone call I must have missed when I was putting the kids to bed. The voice mail was from a man I know, not really a friend, but definitely an acquaintance.

The voice mail went something like this:

"Hi, Shosh, this is *Jon Smith* (haha not his real name obviously) and I have kind of a weird question for you....my mother in law was in a store tonight and she found a credit card on the ground. She thought she recognized your name on the card because it sounded like a Jewish name, but she wasn't sure so she gave the card to the cashier to keep for you. So, just wanted you to know, that if it is your card, it's there at the store waiting for you."

The store he named was the store I had been at earlier in the evening, and I checked my wallet, and indeed, my credit card was missing. I realized that when I put it back in my purse it must have fallen out. I was so thankful that his mother in law had recognized a Jewish sounding name, and that she had taken the time to call her son in law, who happened to actually know me, and he took the time to call me, because I totally wouldn't have noticed the card was missing and I would have freaked out when I did notice.

And really, the whole situation was amazing. It was a store I have never gone into before, in a neighborhood I do not live in, and amazingly, the person who found my card knew me! This is a big city, not a small town. I was so thankful and the hashgacha (Divine intervention) of the story was not lost on me.

But by this time the store was closed so I couldn't go get it, so I figured I would just go the next morning. But Hubby was nervous. He thought I should cancel the card. I thought he was being ridiculous because the card was at the store, so why should I go through the trouble of canceling it when I could just pick it up the next morning?

But around 11 PM I decided to call the credit card company, just to make sure. And guess what?

My card had already been used at three gas stations.

Yep. The cashier stole my card.

I was in shock. I seriously could not believe it. I assume that what happened was that the cashier had this credit card in her hand, but she had no idea that the woman who returned it to her knew me. So she had no way of knowing that I knew the card had been handed to her. And it's true- unless this nice woman had called her son in law who then called me, I would have had no clue where I lost the card, and the cashier could have denied ever seeing it.

Does that make sense?

I canceled the card and went to sleep much less confident in the goodness of the human race.

The next day, I called the store and asked to speak to a manager. I finally got through to a district manager and told him the whole story. He was very upset, and he told me that the police were already looking into this employee. I couldn't figure out how that had happened, since I didn't call the police, and honestly, the manager was kind of an idiot and English was not his first language and I couldn't understand half of what he said, so I have no clue what really happened. I think, though, that this wasn't the first time someones card had been stolen, and another customer had already called the police.

In any case, my card was canceled by that point so I didn't really care.

But I did call the woman back to thank her, and I told her what had happened. She was SO ANGRY, because apparently she shops at this store all the time. She went to the store and described the cashier to the manager and repeated the whole situation and told me she would be happy to take care of the whole mess. She reaffirmed my faith in people. :)

In the end, the district manager told me that they would penalize the cashier, an that he would get back to me with the details. Of course, he never did, and he doesn't return my phone calls.

And I decided to just let it go. It's not worth my time and effort. My card is canceled, hopefully I will get refunded for the gas charges, and I can move on.

But isn't that a crazy story? We live in a scary world - but people who look out for each other, who go out of their way to do nice things for people, like this woman who took the time to help me out, make it so much easier to bear.

The Vacuum Aisle

2009-12-17T12:01:00.002-06:00

Remember how I mentioned that ever since T got over her Scary Monkey fear, she has been obsessed with vacuums?

She's so strange. She has a love/hate relationship with vacuums. She is simultaneously enthralled by them and terrified of them.

On Tuesday I took her to Target. When we walked in the front doors she saw a vacuum and immediately started begging to touch it. I promised her that if she behaved while I shopped, I would take her to the vacuum aisle and she could see lots of vacuums.

That was enough of a bribe for her, and few minutes later, we were in the vacuum aisle of Target.

I could not get her out of there.

It was so funny. And so strange.

Please enjoy this video of my weird, yet hysterical daughter.

An Embarrasing Caterpillar Story

2009-12-15T13:22:00.003-06:00

Way back in July of 2005, the following situation occurred:

I was laying on the couch, and I said to K, "My stomach hurts."
K looked at me sympathetically and said, "You need a nice green leaf?

Anyone who has children, has taken care of children, knows children, or was once a child themselves (read: everyone) will know that this is a line from the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

It's always cute when kids quote a line from a book. And the caterpillar book is still a favorite in our house, except now it's T who is obsessed with the book.

Yesterday, the boys had a day off of school so we all went to the library. Our library has pop-up books which are only to be read in the library, not to be checked out. (For reasons that everyone who has children, has taken care of children, knows children, or was once a child themselves should understand).

One of the books is The Very Hungry Caterpillar in pop-up, and T loves it. Every time we go she wants to read it. Yesterday was no exception.

I read the whole book to T, and to the very friendly little girl who also plopped herself down next to my chair.

When we were done reading, T went to play. A minute later, I heard her yelling, "Look, Mommy! A dinosaur!" I looked and saw that she was pointing to a little boy who was probably around three years old. She ran up to the boy, pointing and exclaiming, "A dinosaur!"

The boy was very insulted. He looked at T and said, "No, I am not a dinosaur. I am a big boy!"

T looked at him and said, "You're a big, fat dinosaur!"

K started laughing hysterically, and I started planning my escape route should the boy's mother decide to attack.

Thankfully, we got out of there with no harm done. Except to the boy's self esteem, obviously.

I still don't know if T was trying to be mean or trying to pay him a compliment, you know, by agreeing with him that he really was big. Nor do I know why she thought he looked like a dinosaur in the first place. Although he did kind of have spiky hair.

What I do know is that T can take a lovely children's book and turn its quotes into insults.

"He wasn't a little caterpillar anymore. He was a big, fat caterpillar!"

I will now stop reading books to T in order to protect myself from future embarrassment. I will also stop playing the game "This little piggy went to market."

Because last week at the fruit market, after the cashier gave me my receipt and I started to walk away, T called to her, "Bye little piggy!"

Please, readers. Share all your stories of your children/siblings/babysitting charges embarrassing you. I'm sure there are a few good "Mommy, why is that lady so fat?" stories out there. I want to hear them all!

A prestigious award

2009-12-10T17:48:00.004-06:00

I have nominated myself for the Mother of the Year award on numerous occasions. Like when I sent D to camp without breakfast, for example.

You can read about that here.

Or when I was so insensitive to D that he called me out on it, and he was right.

You can read about that here.

Today, I have put myself back into the running for this coveted, prestigious award.

T is afraid of vacuums. Now that she has conquered her Scary Monkey fear, she spends her days talking about how terrified she is of vacuums. Every time I go upstairs, which happens to be where the vacuum is stored, she frantically calls out to me, "Don't bring the vacuum down!!!!"

And when I tell her we are going to my office, or Hubby's office, where she has seen the vacuum being used by the cleaning crew on two occasions, she starts panicking. "No vacuum! I scared of it!"

Today, I took her to a meeting at my office. Of course, this was only after I reassured her that the vacuum wouldn't be there today.

After the meeting, she spilled her snack on the floor of someones carpeted office. I helped her clean it up. Then she spilled it again. On purpose.

I told her to clean it up. She said no. I asked again. She smiled at me and said, "No! You do it!"

That's when I pulled out the big guns.

I said to her, "T, if you don't clean those up right now, I will vacuum them up."

You can bet that T was on her hands and knees in two seconds, cleaning them up with her little hands, fast as she could.

Threats. Specifically, threats that play on your child's biggest fear. Disturbing threats like, "If you don't stay right next to me in this store, a scary man will grab you and take you home with him and hurt you and you will never see Mommy again."

Ah, mean, disturbing, scary threats. They are such lovely parenting tools.

And they are why, on this cold, wintry, December day, I hereby nominate myself for the Mother of the Year award.

Now please excuse me while I go pick out a dress for the occasion.

for the love of winter

2009-12-09T10:47:00.002-06:00

So, winter has finally arrived. Amazingly enough, we held off until December this year for our first official snow accumulation.

But now it's winter. Real, legit winter. Mornings now take 15 minutes longer because we need to do things like put on boots, look for lost mittens, shovel the front steps and sidewalk, clean the snow off my van, and then load all the children into the car through the trunk because the sliding doors are frozen shut.

It's so much fun!!!

Well, that's not so true.

But there is one thing about the winter that's fun. And I'm not talking about sledding or ice skating. Those are not my ideas of fun. Anything that makes my toes cold isn't fun.

I'm talking about the real best part of winter.

BOOTS!

Oh, how I love boots. A girl can never have too many pairs of boots.

Yesterday, I posted this as my status on Facebook:

So....hypothetically...for a woman who lives in a snowy, cold climate, how many pairs of boots is a reasonable amount?

I must have the best friends ever. Or at least the best Facebook friends. Because they all left comments that validated what I was really going for - permission to buy as many boots as I please.

Comments like, "100?" or "You can never have too many boots" or "Fancy boots, fancy warm boots, waterproof warm snow boots, rain boots, everyday comfortable warm boots....and each one in black and brown."

I couldn't agree more.

My feeling is, if we have to live in this climate, suffering on a daily basis, at least we should get to have lots of nice boots to make us feel better about it. I may be strapping my bundled up child into her car seat, which is more like wrestling with a slippery pig, and my hair may be frizzy, and my fingers might have frostbite, and I may slip and fall on the ice at the library and embarrass myself in front of the men stringing the Christmas lights, but gosh darn it, I will be wearing trendy boots.

It's the little things.

And there are so many wonderful boots to choose from....everything from comfy Uggs to fancy uncomfortable boots and everything in between.

And now I'd also like to pause and give a shout out to all the wonderful websites, whose names I will not list here because I'm afraid of spammers, but who offer free overnight shipping and free return shipping. There's nothing like ordering 7 pairs of boots online and having them show up at your front door the next day.

Not that I would have done anything like that. Ahem.

Oh, also - (hypothetically, of course) if someone were to order boots online, it's a really fun activity to track the order online. It's so fun to watch how a package can get from Kentucky to Illinois in under three hours in the middle of the night! How do they even do that?

Honestly, it's kind of creepy. I mean, when I mail a letter, I'm lucky if it gets to the person within a week. Sometimes it never shows up at all. But boots and shoes can travel across the country overnight? In just hours? I feel like there must be some sort of secret underground mail system for these things. And I'm starting to wonder what else is going on down there.....

Once, I ordered a printer online at around 10 AM, and it was at my front door by 4 PM. It's cool, but it seriously creeps me out. I feel like I'm being watched.

Although it certainly helps with all instant gratification issues.

Anyway....I now am the proud owner of many pairs of boots. Some of which will be on their way back to the company tomorrow, courtesy of free return shipping. But the others will live a happy life in my closet. And I will have a little bit more skip in my step tomorrow as I traipse out into the freezing cold and snow tomorrow.

Ah, boots. They make winter ~~totally worth it~~ a little bit brighter.

Words to live by

2009-12-07T11:35:00.000-06:00

This is one of the many (okay, three) reasons why it is a waste of time for me to organize my cabinets.

My official new quote to live by is "Cleaning your house while your children are still growing is like shoveling the walk while it's still snowing."

Thanks to Phyllis Diller and her wise words, today, I will not be cleaning. Nor will I be shoveling.

I will be doing something else. Anything else. Like watching T experience snow for the first time. Last year, she was too young to enjoy it.

Organizing is just not worth my time these days.

That's my motto, and I'm stickin with it. At least for today.

losing the battle

2009-12-04T09:06:00.005-06:00

T has developed a new habit recently. Or maybe she has perfected a talent.

It's called manipulation. And drama. A combination of the two. We really should name it.

Let me share the following scenarios:

I give T a bag of crackers. She proceeds to throw some of them on the floor. I tell her that if she does that again, I will take them away. She promptly dumps them out on the floor, so I take them away. T lets out a shriek as if I have ripped her fingernails off. She runs out of the room, sobbing, straight into the arms of her brother who has just walked in the door from school.

"What's wrong, T?" asks D.

"I want my crackers!" she sobs, leaving out the minor detail that Mommy took them away.

D proceeds to give her the crackers.

T - One , Mommy - Zero.

Later, as I'm cooking dinner, T sees a lollipop in the cabinet. She asks for one. I tell her no.
A minute later, she asks me if she can call Daddy. She asks to call him all day long, but I think it's cute, so I oblige. I dial his number and hand her the phone.

Can you guess what's coming? Yep. My sneaky little 2 year old says in a sweet little voice, "Daddy? Can I have a lollipop?"

Daddy, safe at his desk far away from sneaky little 2 year olds, unaware of the events that have just transpired, says, "Sure, sweetie!"

T - Two, Mommy - Zero.

My mother walks in the door of my house, having stopped by to drop something off. At the sight of my mother, T drops what she's doing, runs to my mother, jumps into her arms, and says dramatically, "Bubbie, take me away from here!"

My mother laughs, but I wonder if she's really thinking, "What is my daughter doing to her when I'm not here?"

T- Three, Mommy - Zero

At bedtime, I call to T, "T, come here! It's time to go to bed!"

T says, "No!!!!" and then runs into Hubby's arms, shrieking dramatically, "Save me, Daddy!"

T - Four, Mommy - Zero

T wants a permanent marker and I tell her no. She runs to K, sobbing.

"What's wrong?" he asks.

He can barely understand what she's saying through her cries but he can make out something about wanting something.

"Come, T," he says to her, and takes her by the hand. "Show me what you want. I'll get it for you."

T- Five, Mommy - Zero

I am afraid for the future. Very, very afraid.

Scary Monkey Take Two!

2009-12-02T13:12:00.003-06:00

Remember when I wrote about Scary Monkey?

Well, guess what?

Today, you can buy him for free!!!

Go here

Add him to your cart. Then use the Coupon code Freebefore2000 and you will only pay shipping, which should be under $3.

Haha! This makes me laugh.

Enjoy Scary Monkey! He's the best gift ever!!!!!

I'm back!

2009-11-25T14:39:00.003-06:00

I haven't posted in a week. A whole week. That's the longest I've ever gone without blogging, I think.

I am such a delinquent. Please accept my deepest apologies.

There was so specific reason for my absence. Well, unless you consider laziness a specific reason.

But now I'm back! And I figured I'd start my day back with a whole lot of random information.

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Here is a rule I've learned in parenting.

You can never do something only once. If you do it once, there will be whining for you to do it a gazillion more times and you will regret ever having done it in the first place.

Last week, I was trying to get something done and T was being especially whiny. So I found an old Barney episode on YouTube and put it on for her, hoping it would entertain her for at least 2 minutes.

Ever since the, she whines for Barney all day long. And she doesn't even really like it that much. When I put it on, she watches for a second and then starts destroying everything on my computer desk. But even though she's not really watching, G-d help me if I try to turn Barney off.

And when Barney is over after 6 minutes and 11 seconds, the whining begins. Girls are good at whining. That's what I've discovered. Also, whining makes me want to tear my hair out.

Please smack some sense into me the next time I mention trying something like this again.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

K & D do not know how to ice skate. But Hubby loves skating, specifically ice hockey, and has taken the boys once or twice. Since soccer season is over, we decided to sign the boys up for ice hockey lessons for the winter.

Their first lesson was yesterday. It was one of the cutest, most hysterical things I've ever seen. Imagine 25 little boys, completely decked out in hockey gear, looking like very, very short hockey players, stepping onto the ice and immediately wiping out. Rinse. Repeat. 100 times.

The other Moms and I were alternating between calling to the boys, "Great job! Awesome! You're doing so well!" and then collapsing in hysterical laughter as one of them hit the ice again.

But K & D had a great time! They were really good sports, and by the end of the 30 minute lesson, they were able to skate from one side of the rink to the other without falling! I was so proud of them. And they were proud of themselves as well.

I highly recommend teaching your children to ice skate while they are completely decked out in hockey gear. With the knee pads, elbow pads, helmet and gloves to protect them, you can leave aside all your worries of injury and just spend your time giggling as their little feet slide out from under them and they hit the ice once again. It makes falling fun!

I don't have a good picture....I was too busy ~~laughing~~ encouraging my children with lots of praise to take a picture. I'll try to get one next time.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

T's hair has continued to grow. Unfortunately, instead of growing down in the back and getting longer, she seems to only be growing hair on top of her head, and it grows up. I can't contain it anymore. I'm not sure what to do with it except to put it in one big ponytail on top of her head, which it kinds cute but kinda weird looking. And then she inevitably ends up pulling the ponytail out which results in even crazier looking hair.

Do you see the resemblance?

Gorilla babies

2009-11-24T09:56:00.004-06:00

K: Mommy? I'm really glad I'm not a gorilla.

Me: Um....what? Why?

K: Because gorilla babies leave their families when they are between the ages of 7 and 10. And I'm 7 now! So if I was a gorilla I'd have to leave our family soon!

Me: Oh! I'm so happy you're not a gorilla either!

----------------------------------------------------------------------

D is home sick from school. Again. Today is the second day of fun!!!!

He has no symptoms except a low grade fever. So with a little bit of Tylenol, he's been acting fine.

We have actually been having a little fun. There's something really nice about not getting dressed and just hanging around the house. (Thanks to my awesome carpool who has driven both days for me!!!!)

There's also something really awesome about D entertaining T for me. Right now she is sitting in a garbage can and he's dragging her around the house. I am certainly not that much fun. T is in heaven right about now.

---------------------------------------------------

Yesterday, we did some Chanukah art projects. I am not talented artistically. At all.

Every project I do with my children looks nothing like the example did. It looks more like a 2 year old did it. And I'm not talking about the one the kids do. Even the one I do is always lopsided and weird looking. Is anyone else also frustrated by that? Like when you try to cook something as it looks in the cookbook and your result looks nothing like the picture next to the recipe?

I should really stop reading cookbooks and craft books. They're not good for my self esteem.

-------------------------------------------------------

Even though I have been a little bit of a negligent blogger, things are still pretty much the same around here.

T is still crazy, as usual.

Yesterday she disappeared for a minute and then I heard shrieking.

I found her in the basket of the stroller. She dove in head first and got stuck. Of course, I grabbed the camera, because I love to be entertained at my children's expense. She thought it was funny too, for about 30 seconds. Then she got kind of upset that she was stuck, and she started to panic. So I got her out.

And then she went back in. Like 7 times. And I had to rescue her each time because she kept getting all frantic when she realized she was stuck. Isn't her brilliance overwhelming?

After the 7th time I got annoyed and put the stroller in the basement.

Let's see how long it takes her to find somewhere else to get stuck. In the time I have been writing this, she has climbed out of the garbage can and is currently inside one of the kitchen cabinets so I'm guessing it's not going to be that long.

So. What have you and your gorilla babies been up to lately?

Guess who I met?

2009-11-20T07:09:00.002-06:00

So....last night I did something kinda crazy.

I waited in line. For almost 2 hours. To meet someone who I met on the Internet.

The line was pretty long. Look at all those people up on the balcony! That's like 5% of it.

Okay, it's not as creepy as it sounds. It was really awesome.

I met Ree, the Pioneer Woman!

And she was really as nice (and trendy!) as she seems on her blog!

Her husband and boys were there too. Her boys were hysterical. They reminded me of K & D. Since, when I left the house to go to her book signing, K & D were wrestling on the living room floor, I felt very much at home as I stood in line and watched her boys poke Sharpies into each others backs. Made me feel all warm and mushy. :)

No really, they were adorable. We couldn't stop laughing, watching their babysitter try to corral them. The best part was when she tried to pry one of them off a railing. You know what it's like when you try to remove a kid and they just hang on with all their might as if they have sticky insect hands.

I love little boys! Life is never boring with them around.

At one point Marlboro Man (her husband) had to discipline them a little bit. It was terrifying. Now I see why the cows listen to him.

No. That's a lie. He was not scary at all. Marlboro Man was really nice too! We chatted with him a little bit and he gave us our free tshirts!

Anyhoo. Back to Ree. (It's a good thing she has a short name, by the way. Her hand must have been cramping up after the first 50 cookbooks. Some people had piles of them!)

Her cookbook is awesome. I bought it on Amazon a few weeks ago and brought it last night to get signed! I've only made one thing from it so far but every recipe looks amazing.

And Ree was so nice! The book store was all like, "No pictures, just get your book signed and move on" and Ree was all like, "No! I want to meet everyone and take a picture with everyone! I don't care if it takes all night!" She was really great.

We had a great time waiting in line. We got cool t-shirts that say Pioneer Woman on them. We met some very nice people, some of whom drove really far to be there! And we only had one incident where we accidentally dropped something over the balcony and almost injured an innocent bystander below.

Oops.

Thanks, Ree for coming to Chicago! Thanks, E, for coming with me and being a crazy blogger stalker in real life. And thanks to Hubby, who missed two hours of a football game he really wanted to see so that I could go stand in line at Barnes and Noble. It is truly, truly appreciated.

P.S. Talking with a Southern accent is my new favorite hobby

Today's project - UPDATED!

2009-11-19T11:25:00.009-06:00

UPDATE! 11:40 PM

Okay. I'm posting my current refrigerator/pantry status. I think a lot of progress has been made. From my comments, it seems that people don't really think it was that bad. Well - here's the thing. Some people didn't comment. You know why? Because they couldn't figure out how to politely say, "Wow. That's disgusting. I am horrified and I never want to step foot in your kitchen again." Or something like that.

And those of you who really don't think it's so bad? Thank you. I love you. I will think of you in a week when my fridge is messy again. And then I will feel happy.

Anyway....here it is!

I think the front of the fridge looks a lot better. Unfortunately, D did not agree. he was literally almost in tears when he saw it. The conversation went like this.

D: Mommy? Where are all the magnets?
Me: Oh. I threw some of them away. We had too many.
D: You threw them away? I LIKED THEM!
Me: Oh. I'm sorry.
D: You should have at least sold them. Not thrown them away.
Me: Sweetie, no one will buy our old magnets. We got them for free, anyway.
D: Well, then we should have at least given them to someone!
Me: Ok. Next time I promise we'll give away our old, dirty magnets.

I think the freezer looks great too. All nice and organized. And clean. Only took an entire roll of paper towels to get the nasty stickiness that was congealed in every single shelf.

Nice neat pantry.

Yeah...so....I didn't get to clean the fridge. I was busy. Doing something much more fun than cleaning a fridge.

I can't tell you what it was.....but I'm blogging about it tomorrow. So check it out then!

ORIGINAL POST

I have something really scary to show you.

Are you ready?

Brace yourselves.

I know. I know.

Look at T. She's clearly thinking, "Woman, when did you let yourself go? How did it get to this point?"

Please check back later tonight for an update. I have a busy afternoon but I'm hoping I can get it done because it's just scary. It needs to be done.