Multiple Choice Test

Just one question. Pick one:

a) dishes
b) laundry
c) paperwork

Mother's Day

I was driving with the kids. (Incidentally, you can fit three carseats in the back of a 2006 Honda CRV.) Annie, 3, starts talking about Mother's Day. She states her intention to make a card for me. Elizabeth, 2, chimes in "Me too!" to show her ethusiastic willingness to also make a card for Mommy. Annie, thinking that Elizabeth has volunteered to help Annie with her card, tells Elizabeth very firmly that no, she can't help. I clarify that Elizabeth wants to make her own card, and Annie is molified. Annie asks if she can make the card when we get home. I informed her that Mother's Day was several days away and she had plenty of time to make a card for Mommy. She then asked if I would help her make the card. I told her that Daddy would be happy to help her. She then asked why Daddy would help and not Mommy.

Mommy: Well, Honey, you're making a card for Mommy.
[Lightbulb going off in a three year old's head]
Annie: Oops.

Dress for me, Dress for you

Today the family was getting ready to go to church. I put on a maternity dress. It was blue. Annie was thrilled to see Mommy in a dress and wanted to but on a blue dress too.

She put on one of her summer dresses. It was too cold to wear such a thin dress outside and it got nixed in favor of a warmer, pinker dress. Ordinarily the little princess would be thrilled, thrilled, thrilled to wear a dress in her favorite color. Not on the day that it didn't coordinate with Mommy.

Since I plan to make good use of out this dress for the next few months, I saw this as being a reoccuring problem.

Annie was consoled with going out and finding a warm, blue dress to coordinate Mommy. I don't know what kind of fashionista I'm creating, but I consoled myself that she did need a few more warm things for the winter.

P.S. Be on the lookout for our blue dresses next week.
P.P.S. Oh, and just wait and see what we turn out for Halloween. There will be a preschool parade and everything.

Compliment for Mommy

Tim's just headed out of town on a business trip. I was getting the girls ready for bed. Annie was putting on her night gown, but had it twisted and was struggling to put it on.

I asked, "Annie, can I help you with that?"

"Oh yes, Mommy! You know how to help. You always help the best. You take care of me."

Rotten Stinker

Stress has been piling up around here the last month or more. We've been riding out Tim working long hours, taking business trips, family medical emergencies and the girls being ill. Today The Mama wasn't feeling well, and my temper was unusually short all day. As we finished up bathtime and I grumped my way through picking up the towels, I had the most suprising interaction with Annie.

She reached up and took my face in her hands. She gazed in my eyes and said. "Mommy! I love you. I love you even, even when you are grumpy." She really caught my attention. I stopped mid-grump and smiled.

Hmm, where has she heard something like that before? Surely not, "Annie, I love you, even when you cry." Knowing that she had my attention she continued,

"I'm sorry you're yelling at me. Please don't yell. Let's love. Let's huuuug."

She was so full of grace and kindness for her mom, especially when mom was being a rotten stinker. It was such a wonderfully charitable moment.

I apologized. She gave me huge bear hugs, where the shoulder drives into your throat and threatens to crush your larynx. one of those hugs.

Quotable Quotes

At dinner I had a apple cider.
Annie: Drink your beer mommy.
Drink it all up.
There you go. Thatta girl.

Cheap Media

I was at Target the other day. In case you didn't know, Target can kind of be a bad mommy fix in the mommy world. You go in for one thing, then spend some time browsing, shopping, looking around and keeping the kids entertained while you entertain yourself shopping. There is a whole thread devoted to this topic on the parenting forum I belong to. Anyway, I was in Target. They had DVDs for $5.00. Makes me really glad that I've neglected keeping up with home media...I was able to get Sense and Sensibility and About a Boy each for $5. Tim was like "I'm happy if you're happy--but you know everything is moving to HD and Bluray right?" Whatever. $5 for great movies is a great deal. When both the girls are down in the afternoon for a nap--I pop in Sense&Sensibility and fold laundry. *Sigh* :)

A Few Things That ARE Kid Related

1. I've nursed since August 2005. I had a four week hiatus between weaning Annie and having Elizabeth
2. I currently have no plans to wean Elizabeth. She doesn't like not-nursing. I'll probably wait until I"m pregnant. The milk changes and I imagine she'll be less interested in drinking it.
3. I know how to climb from my deck across the decks of a few neighbors and get to the ground. I know this because my daughter locked me out of the house and I had to climb down to let myself back in through the front door. I had my other daughter with me and my husband was out of town at the time.
4. I got in a car accident and had staples in my head. My head got cut because I had just puchased a high chair & it was in the passenger seat next to me. The baby was in the back and I didn't want to leave the hospital until a doctor explained to me twice how they were certain the baby was OK.
My car was totalled. The other driver was at fault, but the officer on the scene didn't ticket him.
5. I hammered a hole in the door to the bathroom because the baby barricaded herself in there.
6. I know the theme song to Elmo's World, Barney, & Strawberry Shortcake.
7. I know the villians' names in most of the Barbie movies.
8. Ask me my opinion about laundry pre-treater
9. Both my feet are injured from playing with the kids
10. I consider a cup of coffee my daily treat to myself. A way to take care of myself in the mornings when the kids are their most needy

Twenty or so things about me that AREN'T kid related

Ok, it's been a while since I posted so to break the drought, here are 20 (or so) things about me that aren't kid related--

1. My brothers used to jump off the roof of the house and the deck all the time and would also encourage me to do it. I feared getting hurt so I never did.

2. That didn't keep me from jumping off 50 ft rock faces into water or going in waterfalls or swimming under this rock formation because they encouraged me to do something dangerous.

3. Growing up, we had all sorts of pets-- cats, dogs, ducks, snakes, fish, turtles, frogs, squirrels, hamsters, gerbils, mice, lizards, a rare bird, and a guinea pig. The last pet I had died when I was in high school and I haven't had a pet since.

4. The longer I go without having a pet, the harder it is to imagine ever having a pet again. I'm glad that I don't have the responsibility of taking care of a pet.

5. My SIL thinks I'm anti-pet because I don't like it that her cat jumps on the dining room table owners, really I don't dislike pets.

6. I often wonder if a person's attractiveness is an attribute or an attitude

7. My best feature in college was my long hair, I think.

8. I met my husband during a rummage sale--it was a fundraiser prior to our pilgrimage to the Holy Land (Israel, Palestine, & Jordan)

9. I made two pilgrimages to the Holy Land. The first when I was 16, then a year later at 17.

10. I developed an intense, multi-year crush on my husband's friend, who was also there when I met DH.

11. I attended the wedding of the guy I had a crush on, and that's how I re-met my husband. I hadn't seen him in two solid years before that

12. My husband is the best match for me, even when we don't see eye to eye.

13. I wish my house was broken enough, cluttered enough, or plain ugly enough to get on one of those re-design shows. I think it might be ugly enough.

14. Even though I don't have cable, and never watch anything but the PBS kids channel, I loved "What Not to Wear", even when Stacey London was so hyperly-critical of what the people wore

15. Another show I have a soft spot for is "Star Trek Voyager." I used to watch it with my mom. I only cared about the show because I got to watch it with her. So I've seen the entire serious, start to finish, because of her.

16. My sister is in Seattle, and I really wish she were living somewhere in Northern Virginia so we could go shopping together and convince each other to buy unnecessary, but beautiful, flattering clothes.

17. While I don't consider myself attractive, I do think I've developed a good sense of fashion (not high fashion, but making clothes look pulled together)

19. My biggest failing at looking good is that I have no clue how to style my hair apart from putting it in a pony tail.

20. My mom died this summer, and it blows me away as I realize how much my mom did for us children as we grew up now that I'm a parent. I wish we had more time to enjoy our relationship now that I was an adult and parent

21. I sucked big-time at every job I ever had...except when I was a waitress. I rocked being a waitress

22. I don't have any career apart from being a stay at home mom. My husband has even said that when I'm done with raising the kids, I'm free to do anything I want. He hopes that I choose to continue putting up with him , but he consideres that freedom to choose to work, not work, putter, garden, dote on grandkids to be his gift to me for raising our children

23. I really want to do some major renovation on my house, I'm trying really hard to restrain myself from getting started without consulting the Husband.

25. I'm 26 and turning 27 this year. I was born in the year of the rooster.

Girls' Night Out

Happy Birthday Kate!

To celebrate her birthday, Kate, Nicole, and I went out to dinner. Just us. No husbands and no kids.
Guess where we went to dinner?

Quotable Quotes

"Mommy, do you like me?"

"Yes, I like you, Sweetie. So, do you like Mommy?"

"I like craisins, Momma."

Walmart acted like I was lying about my mom DYING

I went to Walmart today. I went to try to return some items of clothing my mom had puchased before she was hospitalized and her health deteriorated. They still had tags and I had the receipt. It was the only reason I was there.

The clerk said it was past 90 days and she couldn't process it. Essentially the manager said the same thing, and so did the supervisor. The supervisor was the worst though. What a rude, unkind, uncivil woman. Event hough they still sale the exact same items (color and everything) she refused to do anything to issue a refund or store credit. She talked down to me, to the point I actually told her, "please don't talk to me as though I were stupid." She refused to help, treated me like I was lying about why I was there with the return, was R-U-D-E the entire time she spoke to me, but then said, "we like to try to help people" after she absolutely refused to hear me.

I walked back out to the car with my girls, put my head down on the steering wheel, and just cried. Why would I lie about my mom dying just to get some help from Walmart's indifferent CS?

Stay at Home Mom

My husband and I were discussing the future a bit...where we see ourselves, what we'd like to do, how we would get from here to there...and we started talking about after we raised our kids (with the plan being for me to stay at home until the youngest no longer needed me at home be it kindergarden age or college age). I just assumed I'd re-enter the workforce since it would help financially, when I mentioned this, I found out that my husband and I were thinking different things.

My husband said, "Your job is raising the kids. That will take years. After you are done, you can do anything you want. Work or not work. Take a class. Babysit grandkids. Please consider keeping up the work of taking care of me. But I consider it my responsibility, my gift to you to let you do anything you want to do after you've raised the kids."

What a generous gift.

Beauty Redefined

http://www.jpgmag.com/photos/69556

Check it out. Wow.

Grieving

I've been getting sick a lot lately. A little bug here, a little bug there. I've been to the doctor's office a lot. The nurses love seeing Annie and Elizabeth. Annie gets stickers and the nurses hold Elizabeth and coo at her. Recently one of the doctors pointed out that I had been in several times recently. She asked if there had been any significant changes recently. "My mom died." After expressing her sympathies, she said, "Yep, that would make you ill." I guess this is part of the grieving process.

Another part of the grieving process is that I get so angry. Usually really big, strong emotions are difficult and exhausting to sustain, so they subside. Not this anger. It's big, strong, exhausting and ever present. The husband forgets to clear his dishes from the table and I seethe all day. Annie dumps her drink on the floor and I want to storm out of the house like a hormonal teenager. And while I'm feeling so irrationally angry, this small still-rational portion of my brain speaks to me and tells me that it's not a big deal. Annie is just being Annie. So I try so hard to maintain the positive discipline and not fly off the handle. Reigning in the anger seems more difficult than even feeling the anger. Acknowledging that I am feeling it helps diffuse it though. I wouldn't mind moving through this stage a bit more quickly.

Slowly Coming Back

My mom died and we held her funeral. I feel like so much more happened but that really does sum it up.

My brother and his wife have been brilliant throughout all of this. My brother was appointed medical power of attorney and was listed as an executor of the estate. He and his wife have kept things organized and moving and I appreciate them so much for doing that, because I must confess, I would probably let it sit and sit.

Mom Update

Mom not doing so well recently. She's in the hospital and in critical but stable condition. Amid other serious issues, she had an episode where she was not breathing on her own. Doctors are taking blood work, cultures, and administering other tests to try to form an official diagnosis and prognosis. Please pray for her.

Quotable Quotes

"Mama?"
"Yeah?"
"I like your nurses. I like 'em."
"Um, thanks."

The Family Bed

I've been getting both of the girls settled to sleep in bed with me while Husband has been away.

Tonight, around 4:30 am Annie was snuggled on one shoulder and Betta was snuggled in on the other. From a sound sleep, Annie giggled. From an equally sound sleep, Betta giggled in reply.

The Evolution of a Babywearer

So when I was pregnant with Annie, I saw the Snugli's and the Bjorns at Babies R Us. I'd recently gotten a hands-free device for my cell phone and when I saw those carriers, I thought, "A baby hands-free device is brilliant! I will so need one!' And I registered for a Snugli. I got the Snugli at a baby-shower.
The idea of a hands-free device for a baby is brilliant, but a Snugli not-so-much. It wasn't comfortable to wear and the material that was responsible for keeping the baby attached to the straps kept coming undone. It was fundamentally unsafe.

My pediatrician recommended the Dr. Sear's Baby Book as good reading on the care and raising of a newborn. Dr. Sears goes on at length about his NoJo baby sling. The sling seemed to make sense, so I got one of those. It worked so-so for awhile. Here's one of the few pictures of me wearing the NoJo, although there are loads of the Husband using it.

Then a distant relative noticed that I was trying to wear the baby and turned me on to babywearing and all the wonderful options that are available out there. I stumbled across both thebabywearer.com as well as NINO. She helped me find a mei tai of my very own. A mei tai is an Asian-style baby carrier. It has a peice of fabric to support the baby's body, and long straps to comfortably and safely tie the baby to the mama's body. Below is a picture of Annie and I at Merrifield Garden Center.

I got pregnant around the time this picture was taken. I used the mei tai for another six months, until Annie started to walk and my belly popped. Once Annie could walk, she wasn't interested in being carried until she'd perfected her new skill.

With the second baby on the way, I knew I wanted a better ring sling than the NoJo. I picked out an Ellaroo lightly padded ring sling in Lilac passion and my mother in law purchased it as Elizabeth's birth gift. I have lots of pictures of the Husband wearing it, but none of me. It's currently on loan at the moment. When it makes its way back to me, I'll post a picture of me wearing it.

During the same time that I acquired the Ellaroo ring sling, I was looking at a forum called The Baby Wearer. I was learning lots of information about babywearing and parenting in general. There are avid babywearers on this forum, and some people even develop collections of carriers, or at least keep an eye out for beautiful carriers. I think the carriers are nice, but nothing ever made me think, "OOOh I want that" until I saw a Sakura Bloom ring sling.

The Sakura Blooms are double-layer duponi silk. The color combinations are eye-catching and breath-taking. And the silk is so luxurious. I sighed over these for months, thinking I would never have one. My mother-in-law offered to make me a double layer silk ring sling for my birthday (can you tell that I have a great mother-in-law?) and I busied myself looking at fabric samples to choose a great color combination.

The Husband suprised me with my very own Sakura Bloom as a birthday present. I wear it everyday.

You would think getting one of the most lovely things you've ever seen would create contentment, yes?

Weelll, the summer is upon us, and we'll be at the pool and at the beach. Doesn't it make sense to have a carrier that's waterproof? I've ordered a solarveil ring sling and it's on it's way now...I'm sure there will be more to my evolution as a babywearer as I continue having kids.

Maybe one day I'll even wrap my kids up in a long peice of fabric.