Wednesday, January 31, 2007

I Don't Want To Hear You Eating!

I was going to start this off by saying I don't have many pet peeves or annoyances, but I don't think that's really accurate, so I'll just start by saying that this is one of my largest annoyances: People....chew your food with your mouth closed and eat with some class!

I'm sitting about 20 feet and one cubicle wall away from our admin, and I know that she's eating chips right now. She chomps them so loundly, and I can hear every.single.chew. just like she's sitting right next to me. It's annoying and gross and she needs to stop now before I go crazy.

But she won't stop. All I can hope for is that the chips are almost gone.

Chomp...chewchewchewswallow

Chomp...chewchewchewswallow

Chopm...chewchewchewswallow

I Have Nothing To Say

I really don't have anything to say, so for the sake of remembering this when my kids are grown, I'm going to tell you about a little game we play with our 19 month-old son:

When he starts getting fussy and whiny and says "No Mommy" I turn it around and tell him "No Son" (I use his real name here), and then he tells me (while we put our hands out like we're saying "stop") "No Daddy" and then I say "No Sissy" and then he says "No Grandma" and then I say "No Train" and then he says "No boose" (caboose) and then I say "No train tracks" and he says "No tain tacks". We continue on naming everything we see around us and he completely changes his mood and forgot that he was ever telling me "No" :)

The other game we play with him, and he actually usually initiates this, is "Excuse me". He'll say it like this "Ecuse mmmmmmeee", and then I'll say "No, excuse ME" and then he'll say "NO, ECUSE MMMMMEEEEE" and then I'll say "No, excuse sissy" and then he'll say "No, ecuse MEEEEE!" Each time he emphasizes a different part of "me" to get his point across. It's so funny and I laugh every time we do it!

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Nothing Too Exciting....

Random tidbits about last night:

-I’m up for bad mother of the year again (watch out all you competitors) because last night was my daughter’s second (her first was way back 1 ½ years ago) night of gymnastics. We signed her up for the local rec class (which as a prior gymnast killed me because she should be at a big gym with real balance beams and bars and trampolines! But this class is $35 as opposed to $170). Why I am up for the award? I forgot my memory card at work. I had used it to post the pictures yesterday and I didn’t bring my computer home. I will just have to take pictures next week.

-She was so excited about the class until she went to run with everyone and she had a complete meltdown. As I’m sure you can tell from my previous posts we don’t tolerate this so we started putting on our coats to leave and I told her we would not come back to the other classes if she didn’t go out there and participate. She changed her attitude right around and joined in with the other kids and had a smile on her face the rest of the ½ hour class.

-We then went to watch hubby’s flag football game. I hate football. I hate men pretending they’re still in college playing fake football even more. But I AM a supporting wife, and my son LOVES football! All was going well until my daughter said she had to go potty, really badly. So I load my son up and we walk down the 30 stairs to the first level where the bathroom was and after 10 minutes in there realized that she had bad diarrhea. We spent about 30 minutes of the 60 minute game in the bathroom. The worst part is that there wasn’t anyone else there that could watch my son, so he always had to go with us and trying to occupy a 19 month-old in the bathroom is not very easy! I do have to admit though, he was much better than he could have been!

-At home hubby gave the kids a bath while I got to watch 15 minutes of Grey’s Anatomy from about 1 month ago. Then my daughter came down and we snuggled on the floor in front of the fire and watched…what else? Doodlebops :)

That’s about it, nothing exciting…oh, yesterday I did go to Pier 1 to buy some things for the house with a coupon and my gift card from Christmas…I got $210 worth of stuff for $70! I’m trying so hard to make our new house feel homier, but it’s not easy, especially for me who is lacking the creative design genes.

Monday, January 29, 2007

What a Wonderful Weekend!

It’s Monday already?? Seriously, what happened to the weekend? I feel like it was Friday yesterday.

Friday night we just hung out and my mom ended up staying over because she was going to Cleveland to get her hair done on Saturday (we used to live up there and she swears this lady she goes to is the only one who knows how to do her hair right). So we decided that my daughter and I would go with her and have a girls’ day! So I get up Saturday morning and start getting ready, and hubby informs me that he had planned on working, so me leaving my son their with him was an inconvenience. Now I know that sounds really horrible, but if you knew my husband, he only works outside of his normal 45 hours per week when he REALLY has to (he’s a partner of a technology firm, so he runs the joint and if work needs to be done, he has to do it). I was just annoyed that he had waited until the last minute to tell me. So I loaded up both kids and off we went to Cleveland. We dropped my mom off and then we headed to a mall that I used to go to as a kid. It had a merry-go-round in it and my daughter was so excited to ride it. Then we actually went in the mall and saw that not only did they have a merry-go-round, they also had those jumping things where they strap you in and you jump on a trampoline and the bungy straps make you go higher. My daughter wanted to do that! I told her that I thought it was only for big people, but then we saw a little baby doing it, so I told her she had to pick between the jumping thing and the merry-go-round. She wanted to jump! So we ate, walked around the mall a little, and then it was time to jump! I wish I had brought my camera, but I didn’t, so I don’t have any pictures of her jumping really high! She was jumping so high it was kind of scaring me! The best part was that my son got to jump too! Remember, he’s only 19 months, but he had an absolute blast! Then we picked my mom back up and did some more shopping and headed home.

Sunday my mom offered to watch the kids while we went and tried a new church so we wouldn’t have to worry about getting them settled into childcare for one service. Our current church is 1.) 25 minutes away from the new house and 2.) has a lot of things going on that we don’t agree with and practices that we don’t feel are in the best interest of the church body as a whole. So we tried this new church and it was OK…I just hate looking for a new church.

Sunday afternoon my daughter and I baked cookies to take over to our new neighbors (and our good friends from our old house) because they have just moved in.


















She did such a good job with everything! She helped measure and stir and everything. I love my little girl!


It was so nice being about to walk two houses down and hang out with them again! We are all enjoying our new houses so much and I can’t wait until we get even more settled and into routines so that we can spend more time with each other.

And the new thing that my son (and kind of my daughter) is into is TRAINS!!! We have a train that goes by our house about 5 times per day, and each time he hears the whistle blowing he runs up to us and says “tain, tain”, “dowstairs” (we have a window in our playroom where we can see the train going by, so he wants us to take him down there to see it). So my dad got him some Thomas trains and track sets and he played nonstop all weekend with his trains!
















Is it Friday yet????

Friday, January 26, 2007

5 Weirdo Things About Me :)

I’ve been tagged by Danielle Meehan (Mom). Once you have been tagged, you have to write a post with five facts about yourself. Then choose five people you want to tag and list their names. Then leave a comment on their blog letting them know they’ve been tagged.

The problem? I think that everyone that I read has already been tagged. So I will do this because it’s fun, but I don’t have anyone else to tag.

1.) I like to have everything neat and cleaned before I can sit down to relax. I’m trying really hard to work on this, but like after dinner, I can’t run and play with the kids until all of the dishes are done and everything is cleaned up. So hubby goes downstairs and plays with them while I clean up. I think it stems back to the fact that growing up our house was always a disgusting mess (my parents’ house is still this way). The worst thing is that my parents blamed us kids for the mess, so we had to clean (and yes, I mean bathrooms and kitchen floors) every week. They don’t like the fact that I point out to them that their house is just as messy now and we no longer live there. I also know that this is going to make finding a “chore” balance for the kids hard…I resent my parents for making me do as much work as they did, so I tend to want to do everything for my kids. But I am working on that!

2.) I like my ice cream melted a little. If I get it right out of the freezer I put it in the microwave for a couple of seconds so that there’s a little “ice cream soup” in the bowl.

3.) I love to do a lot of things that I’m not very good at :) I LOVE to cook, and while I’m good at it, I’m not very creative, so everything has to come directly from a recipe. And on those lines of weirdness, I usually never make the same thing twice (unless we’re talking sautéed chicken with vegetables or something like that). But it’s something my husband hates…I find a recipe that we all love, and I never make it again. I figure there are so many recipes out there for me to try, why do the same one over again? Anyway, back to the love and not good at…I love to style hair and put make-up on – but again, not very good at it. I also love scrapbooking, but I just don’t feel that I’m creative enough to do the really good books, and I love sewing but I’ve only used my machine once because I really don’t know how to do it. I could go on and on, but you get the picture!

4.) I hate wearing shoes in a house. Which is why my parents’ house kills me…I don’t wear shoes and my socks get all gross, but I HATE WEARING SHOES INSIDE. So the first thing I do when I walk into someone’s house is take my shoes off, and they are all polite and tell me that I don’t have to, and then I tell them that no, I really want to. And then I hate it when people come over to my house because they see me in my socks so they take their shoes off and I tell them they don’t have to, I just like my shoes off and they don’t believe me. OK, secretly I’m glad they take their shoes off because my house stays neater :) I do however no longer enjoy not wearing shoes outside, so even in the summer I have to have shoes on when I’m outside the house.

5.) I’m cold all of the time, and I hate it! BUT….I like it to be cold when I’m sleeping so I can snuggle under the covers without getting hot. Hubby programs our thermostat to go down at night and then back up during the day. But seriously, I’m always cold, and so are my sisters…which makes me wonder….does where you’re born affect your temperature adaptability? We were all born out in Las Vegas…hmmm?

6.) I know I’m only supposed to do 5, but I’m on a roll!!!

7.) My daughter was conceived in Las Vegas. My whole family went out there for a vacation and we had been trying for about 4 months after the miscarriage and I was always so good…no drinking or heavy caffeine or anything like that. But while we were in Vegas we said “screw it!” we were going to have a great time. It just happened to be that magical time of the month and even though we were sharing a room with my sister and her boyfriend, we managed some time in it alone and ta-da, we have a baby! We called her “Lucky” throughout the pregnancy because we always said that we came out of Vegas the luckiest people in the world :) My dad got a picture frame in Malaysia that’s carved with “Lucky” and it has a picture of me in the hospital holding my daughter…one day she will ask me why she was called “Lucky” and will be so grossed out when I tell her :)

OK, I’ll stop now, but I seriously could keep going :)

It's A.......

GIRL!!!! I will be having my first niece!!! (good guess Kellie!). Her name will be Mya, and my son is so cute when he says "baby Ma". It was such a neat experience...there were 10 of us including the kids and the mommy-to-be. They take us into this nice room with the ultrasound equipment and a HUGE plasma TV on the wall. There is a very comfortable sectional sofa for all of us to sit on, and other chairs in the back of the room. The tech kept switching between 4-D and the regular 2-D one so we could see different things. Of course she's not allowed to give any medical information, but to a mom of two, things looked pretty good (because I'm such an expert of course :) ). Then the tech told us it was a girl, which is what pretty much everyone was thinking (except me, but when I looked at my sister-in-law at her house for dinner I realized she was carrying really high, so I changed my guess). The funniest part about the whole thing was my son kept pointing up at the TV and saying "football". So baby Mya is a football. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law thought it was hilarious!

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

TMI From My Daughter

I'm so tired...almost fell asleep driving here multiple times. Before I take a nap...er I mean get to work...I thought I would share this story: We were at the car dealership last night and when I walked in from test driving one of the vans my daughter runs up to me and very loudly announces with a big smile on her face "mommy, I went yucky poopies and that's why my belly hurt".

I didn't even know what to say, but thankfully, everyone in the dealership was laughing. I was mortified.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

A Muscial, Car Shopping and Snow!

Phew, work is getting really busy, so forgive me if I’m not posting as regularly as I used to :)

2 Tickets to Annie - $140
Snack at theater - $10
Parking - $2.50
My daughter’s first grown-up musical – priceless!

On Friday night I took my daughter to see her first official musical/play in a grown-up theater. We went to see Annie. She has been watching this movie nonstop and I think she has most of it memorized, so when I hear that it was being put on in Columbus, I had to take her. We were supposed to go to dinner beforehand (the show started at 8:00) but my dad, who was watching the kids that day, didn’t make them take naps. So as soon as hubby got home he made my daughter take a nap. Now I love my dad, and he loves those kids more than anything, but I was so mad at him because he knew how important this was to us. The problem is he can’t be firm with them…they get whatever they want (how come he had no problem telling me “no” to everything I wanted as a kid???). So I got ready and then woke her up and got her ready. She wore her Christmas dress and I curled her hair (she has naturally curly hair and I enhanced those curls with a curling iron). She looked amazing! We left and there was horrible traffic because some road was shut down, but since we weren’t going to dinner we had plenty of time. We actually walked into the theater about 5 minutes before they would even let us go to our seats. While we were waiting, I purchased our dinner…2 chocolate covered oreos, 2 chocolate truffle things, 1 chocolate covered pretzel (getting the common denominator?) and a bottle of water for….$10. I think I was ripped off, what do you think?

The show was great…my daughter sat on my lap the whole time and kept asking me why it was different from the movie. I was with her, I liked the movie much better…they added songs and changed some of the “facts” and we didn’t like that! I know she had a wonderful time and in the end it was worth every penny! I was going to take her to dinner afterwards but she said she wasn’t hungry, and she had fallen asleep by the time we got home :)

Saturday we went to lunch and the mall to play with my sister (yes, the same sister from here…things are better and it was so nice to spend the afternoon with her!!!) and then we went to look at new vans. Right now we have a Town and Country, oh wait, no, our Town and Country has been at the dealership getting fixed FOR ONE MONTH NOW. They don’t understand why we’re upset. They have given us a loaner (after tons of begging and pleading) and it’s a piece of junk as well. We are either going to get a Toyota (which is offering 0% on 2006 models and we have found a loaded one that would be great!) or Honda (which is offering 3.9% on 2007 ones). I drove the Honda one and it is so nice! OK, as nice as a minivan can be (I hate them and never thought I would drive one, but the automatic doors are so nice with kids!). I still have to drive the Toyota one. We have just had nothing but problems with ours since we got it two years ago. It has been in the shop more times than I can remember, and even though we bought the extended warranty, everything is a fight. Our other car is an Infiniti and I can’t say enough wonderful things about them. If they made minivans we’d buy it in a heartbeat! We bought the extended warranty with them as well, and everything is covered, no questions asked! We had a button on the radio that was sticking and we took it in…they replaced the entire radio! No charge, nothing. It just makes me mad that Chrysler can’t stand behind its product. We’ve had it with American cars…back to all foreign!

And here are the pictures of the kids playing in the snow! My daughter was so excited and my son was trying to figure out what it was!

And here are some pictures of the kids playing in their new play room (I also took some pictures of just the room itself…I will get pictures of the rest of the house up, someday.) Please ignore the bare, white walls :)
This is hubby teaching my daughter how to play football :)


Do you think the kids have enough toys??

Friday, January 19, 2007

Mommy-Adapting

I hate depositing checks…it’s such an inconvenience. We have our paychecks directly deposited, and I do most of my banking and bill paying online. But once in a while we have checks to deposit, and since my husband won both of his fantasy football leagues, I had a check to deposit (the one league he won $375!!!) but I could never get to the bank. I have had in it my purse for a week now but I have never been near our bank. So last night I finally made it to the bank, in our rental van, which of course has nothing in it, and guess what? I pull up to the ATM and I.DON’T.HAVE.A.PEN. I couldn’t believe it. And the stubborn person that I am would not let me leave without depositing this check. So guess what the mom in me thought of? I have a diaper bag, and in that diaper bag are……………..crayons! So I filled out my deposit envelope in blue crayon. I am sure that the tellers in there this morning are having a great laugh at my little envelope :) Good thing I got a receipt in case they can’t read my lovely crayon-writing!

One of the benefits of moving to where we did is that we are now 5 minutes down the street from my sister-in-law and my nephew that is 11 months older than my daughter. Last night she invited us over for pizza and for the kids to play. Hubby was playing basketball, but we trucked ourselves over there and had a great time! It’s hubby’s sister, and she is the one that does all of our hair (she’s such a talented stylist!) and we had hung out with she and her husband when we were in college and they had first moved up to Columbus from our little hometown of Athens. I had a really good time last night and I know the kids did as well!

We sat and talked about our neighbors that are moving in within the next two weeks (we have two) and how interesting the people and their plans are. Our one set of neighbors (and our friends from our other neighborhood) plan to close on the house on Friday, and be comfortably settled by Saturday afternoon. I think they are freaking nuts, but hey, who am I to judge? I just did this a month ago :)


Here's a picture of hubby's family...the back row goes from the left: my daughter, hubby, me, my son, hubby's one sister, her husband, hubby's other sister (twins with the other sister and who does our hair), my nephew, my brother-in-law. Front row from the left: hubby's brother and hubby's parents.


Thursday, January 18, 2007

I Was Denied!

Thanks for all of the comments on my posts…I’ll have to think about some more interesting topics to keep the action going :)

For now just a life update (boring, but the true purpose of this blog). Last night we went and signed up my daughter for a tumble class through the rec department of this wonderful new city that we live in. She is so excited! For some reason she loves going to classes and learning gymnastics from other people, but heaven forbid I or my sister, who were in gymnastics for our entire childhood and teen years try to teach her…she will have none of that.

Then we went to dinner and the most embarrassing thing happened (and I know this happens a lot, it just has never happened to me). We went to Culver’s which is a fast food type place, and we went to pay (with a line behind us, of course) and our credit card was declined. She ran it again and it was declined. I knew right away what the problem is, and as I tried to explain it, I just looked like one of those people that was trying to make an excuse so they didn’t look like an idiot. I wanted to scream…”I really have money, this isn’t just an excuse” but after my husband and I loudly conversed about it (hoping people behind us would hear and believe us) we just moved on and waited for our food (of course after paying with a different card).

Here’s what the problem was: Our wonderful bank (that really isn’t sarcastic, except for this dumb thing they decided to do I really do love them) decided that they wanted their ATM cards to be accepted at more places, so that did some agreement with some company yada, yada, yada, and the end result was that they had to issue us new cards. They told us to activate them and go about with life. The problem was that they had new expiration dates, and I had a bunch of automatic payments set up and current charges out there, that if I activated this new one (which in turn deactivates the old one) then all of my payments would be declined. So I ignored it and stuck the new cards away. Fast forward to about a month ago and I got a letter from the bank stating that they have noticed that I have not activated the cards yet, and to please do so because in January the old cards would automatically be deactivated. Guess what happened? So last night I’m rummaging through papers (our office still isn’t put together) trying to find the cards, and luckily, I find them. All is good again.

New topic: American Idol. I’m addicted. I’ve been addicted since about season 3. And my daughter would watch it with me every night when she was 1, and now she’s back into it with me. We love laughing at the bad singers…even my son will laugh along with us (even though I’m sure he has no idea why we’re laughing!) Although I’ve been disappointed because all of the “bad” singers are so staged, and it’s not the William-Hung-bad that I loved. Oh well, I will have the TV on that show in the background for the next couple of months so that I don’t miss any of the drama!

OK, I need to get to work…maybe something exciting will happen at work today…oh wait, I work in accounting, no it won’t.



This picture is from New Year's Eve. We all had a big sleepover in the play room with the projector as our TV (which = Huge Picture!). It was so much fun!



Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Working or Staying At Home?

I started an interesting topic yesterday and I think I’ll continue on with it…just because I’m a glutton for punishment. No, really, I like debates and my blog can be too sweet and nice and uck sometimes. So here we go……

Why do you work or stay at home? Honestly? I first want to start this by prefacing my thoughts so that no one gets the wrong idea. I have no opinions either way for any other family by my own. I personally believe that people choose to work or stay at home based on what’s best for themselves and for their families. And I truly believe that if you are secure in the choice that you have made for your family, you would not be knocking the other side. So if you are very secure in your decision to work (not saying you don’t have those days you change your mind) you have no reason to put down SAHMs, and visa versa. I have known some women that make off-handed comments to me about working, and are sure to make their points about how staying at home is better for the kids, but you can see in their eyes that they aren’t completely comfortable with the choices they have made for themselves…so they take it out on working moms.

I was this way for a while, only the opposite. I felt so guilty for working that I would think that SAHM had the easy life, and they were lazy, and every chance I got I would make some type of a comment to my husband or anyone that would listen about how much better it was for the kids to have the social learning and separation from parents because I worked. Then a couple of years ago it all clicked. I was very comfortable in my decision about working…I knew that it was best for my family. All of the hardness that I had in my heart for SAHMs disappeared, and I was able to appreciate all of the work that they do and the difficulties they encounter without feeling bitterly jealous.

I knew that I wanted to make my choice very carefully…no doing something just because, it had to be right. I always thought that I would stay home when I had kids…we started trying to have kids when I was at a job I hated (good old public accounting :) ). I got pregnant and thought all of my problems were solved…I would work until the baby was born and then quit and stay home! We had even purchased our first house on hubby’s salary knowing that I would stay home, so it wouldn’t have been a hard adjustment to live without my income. This is where God comes in with other plans. I had a miscarriage (I’m not in any way saying God did that, but the events that followed were led by Him). The whole process was absolutely devastating to me, and when I finally came out of my depression about losing the baby, I started to realize that my plans were messed up, and there was no way I could stay at this job any longer. So I started the process of looking for another job. I found a great one with McDonald’s/Chipotle. Right before I started working with them, I found out I was pregnant. I was so worried about telling this new job, “oh, by the way, I’ll be out for 12 weeks next spring”. But they were great! It was such a family friendly atmosphere and they were so supportive. So after I had my daughter I realized that I loved my job so much, and I had found a wonderful babysitter for her to go to everyday (she was the only one the babysitter was watching at the time). So that’s why I went back to work. When that job turned bad, I looked for another one, and now I work at a wonderful place with a boss that has two kids pretty close in age with mine, and her family is her top priority as well. And our controller (my boss’s boss) is a woman with 4 kids, so family is top on her list as well. I hardly ever work overtime…even during our busy time, and if I do, it’s at home on the computer that my company gave me so that I won’t miss out on any family time.

I look at it this way, for me, and thankfully I have a wonderfully supportive husband: I was me and working before my kids came along, and I’ll be me and working after they’ve left me. In my profession if I were to stop working for a long period of time it could end any career advancement I might have. So I compromise…I work, but my kids come way before any job or career, and I’m very comfortable in my decision.

So how about you ladies??? Why do you do what you do and how do you deal with yourself when you start questioning whether it’s the right decision or not?

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Why Stay at Home if You Don't Want To?

WARNING!!!!! I’m about to go on a rant, so watch out!

I know a lot of the people that read my blog are working moms, but I also know that there are some SAHM. For you SAHMs, please don’t find this offensive or a soapbox on working women…it was just my personal observations that have led me to these questions.

I went to the store that I despise most of all stores yesterday during lunch…Wal-Mart. I do have to preface this by saying that the particular Wal-Mart that I went to is not in the best area of town. As I’m walking in the door, this is what I see: a lady in a t-shirt (we were only in the high 40s people) pushing a cart talking on a cell phone. Not bad, right? But then I hear her yell “come on”, and I see walking a little ways behind her (and they are all crossing the busy street at this point) two little kids holding hands. The boy had to be about 6 and the girl maybe 4? I seriously wanted to cry right then and there. Those poor kids were not important enough for this lady to stop talking to whomever she was talking to, and take their hands to make sure they safely got across the busy street where cars were in a hurry to get on with their errands. I also want to say here that going anywhere during my lunch hour is hard for me because I see kids everywhere and I wish at that moment that I could quit my job and run home to them. So what I saw didn’t help at all.

Then throughout the store I hear moms yelling at their kids, not paying attention to them, etc. However, I can tell that a lot of these moms are the moms that didn’t want to be moms in the first place (no wedding rings, shopping with a bunch of girlfriends talking about different men, parties they’re going to that night, looking barely over 23, etc.). But as I’m checking out, I’m behind this one lady and her two boys (I was behind them a long time because I was at Wal-Mart, and they don’t know how to have short lines). I personally thought that the boys were behaved…they were looking through magazines and asking questions, but that’s what kids do, isn’t it? And they both wanted to help her so much! They were unloading the cart and asking if they could push the cart out, etc. They were older, probably 10 and 7 maybe? But this lady looked like she hadn’t smiled in ages. This was a familiar scene to me as I have had my own children. The worn out mom (but the mom who wanted kids and is married), no smiling, snapping at her kids and just overall looked like she would rather be anywhere else but there with her kids.

This led me to a question: Why do moms stay home with their kids if they don’t want to? Now don’t get me wrong, I know everyone has bad days. However, I can’t think of a time that I have been with my kids that someone would not see me smile, even once. I then started thinking of my friends. I definitely have friends that I think maybe should be working instead of staying home…all they do is whine about their kids, and all the crappy things they had to do that day because of them. I like to think that I do very little whining about my kids. Like the other night when I got only 4 hours of sleep? I only complained about it here, because that’s what this blog is for – venting and support. I love my kids too much to even think about complaining to anyone else about them. After all, they are just being kids, and kids sometimes wake up multiple times per night for no reason at all.

This also brings up another question…is quality time better than the quantity of time? In this case (and my case as well) I would have to say “yes”.

Don’t get me wrong…I know that there are SAHMs out there that are doing exactly what they should be doing! I have some other friends that are that way, and when I hear all of the stuff they do with their kids each day, I get exhausted! And they have nothing but good things to say about their kids. Those are the moms that should be staying home!

So what are your thoughts? Why do you think moms stay home if they would much rather be anywhere but there? Just like I couldn’t imagine working if I would rather be at home with the kids (although I totally understand that there are mommies out there that have to for various reasons).

If nothing else working mommies…this is the conversation that plays out in my head when I’m feeling guilty about choosing to work rather than staying home with my kids.

Oh, and I had this conversation with my daughter last week:

Me: Are you excited about going to Miss Connie’s tomorrow? (her babysitter)
Daughter: Noooo, I don’t want to go to Miss Connie’s tomorrow!
Me: Why not (I’m always concerned when I hear her say that she doesn’t want to go
there)
Daughter: Because I like you better
Me: Good, that’s the way it should be. But mommy went to school for a lot of years,
and took a really hard test, just so that she could go out and use everything she
learned everyday, which is what she wants to do. Some day you will do the same thing!
Quizzical look on daughter’s face
Me: How about when you have a job and are working, can I come and watch your kids
for you?
Big smile on daughter’s face
Daughter: Yes, that would be a great idea!

Monday, January 15, 2007

Going On 4 Hours of Sleep

Wow, another fabulous weekend! Friday night hubby went to the grocery store, after picking up the kids, and picked up everything we needed to make tacos. After dinner I went over to a friend’s to scrapbook, until midnight.

Friday night was bad…my son was up a lot, and finally ended up in our bed. Saturday hubby took my daughter into work with him while I got to sleep in for a little while. Then I got up and did some work in bed while my cute little boy slept. When he woke up he had a big smile on his face…we went downstairs and ate breakfast…he wanted oatmeal and he wanted to eat it by himself. Half of it ended up on his shirt, and he kept wanting me to clean his messy hands, but I would tell him he had to wait until he was done. Finally he told me “all done” and I stripped him and led him to the bathroom where he stood on the stool and played in the water. You know what he did next? Typical of my boy, he told me “Buckeyes, moon, paci”. Yep, he went back to bed for a two hour nap! This was around 10:30. I think he gets so hungry that he wakes up, but his body is not done sleeping yet, so he wants to go right back to bed after he eats.

So then I worked some more and then hubby called and said that he and my daughter were coming to pick us up to run some errands. Then we went to eat, and then we came home and worked around the house and played.

I will win mother of the year because of this:


























OK, so I will win by votes cast by my kids, not the actual adult panel…since we ate lunch so late (3:30), we weren’t really hungry for dinner, so at 8:00 when the kids were hungry, we made milkshakes and popcorn. They worked on the ice cream for a good 10 minutes until finally my daughter asked me to take over :)

At 12:00 I fall into bed with both kids asleep. Until 3:30. My son wakes up and my daughter wakes up. So hubby and I are back at trying to get them to go to sleep. I rock my son, and he finally calms down and I lay him in the crib and get all the way back to my room, and then he starts crying again. So I get him and bring him back to our room where he falls asleep. Then he wakes up screaming…it scares me to death. I give him some Motrin and ask him if he wants my room or his room, and he tells me “Joshie’s room”. So I take him up there, he takes a drink of water, and I finally get back into bed around 4:30 (did I mention that my alarm goes off at 5:30?)

I’m really surprised that I’m even functioning right now…however it is 8:45 and I have yet to do any real work. I need to start it since I’m so busy and I have to leave here at 4:30 so that my dad can get home for poker night :)

Here are some pictures we took yesterday afternoon:




Friday, January 12, 2007

I just happened to be reviewing my profile, and for some reason, it had my age as "250". Wow, where did the time go?

:)

I Need A New Design

I'm a little depressed...everyone seems to be changing their blogs into these pretty designs full of personality and creativeness. Mine is still plain and boring (maybe I can blame that on the lack of comments lately?? I like that better than blaming on my sucky and boring writing. I need to redo my blog, but I kind of refuse to pay for it, so I'm stuck. See hubby works in computers, so I know if I talk to him about this he'll set me up with everything I need to do to have a pretty blog. But then I feel like I don't have time for that, because the time he would be spending teaching me what to do, we could be playing with the kids. So then I'm back to square 1. I need to do some more thinking. I also have no idea what I would want this thing to look like, so even if I was going to start, or pay someone to do it for me, I have no idea where I would start.

At least I'm enjoying reading all of the new pretty blogs that everyone else is putting up :)

Thursday, January 11, 2007

It was a long night....

So at 1:30 this morning my daughter came down to our bedroom crying and it turns out that she fell out of her bed and hit her head on her nightstand. Poor little thing. It was all downhill from there…I snuggled with her, and then took her up to her room where she seemed asleep. Then, because I’m a stinking mom, I go in to check on my son, who’s coming down with a cold. He’s all tangled in his blanket (no where near his head of course) so the mom in me tries to pull him out without waking him up. Do you think that happens? No, he wakes up and cries for “Daddy”. I tell him that daddy is sleeping, then he says “Sissy”, and I tell him that sissy is sleeping. I tell him it’s night-night time and he says “no”. So I try to rock him, but he keeps crying, and I’m afraid that he’s going to wake up my daughter, so I take him down to our room. I lay him down in our bed and he’s happy - hubby snuggles with him (this is where I don't tell him that I am actually the one that woke him up). But then I hear my daughter’s door open, so I come out of my room and ask her what’s wrong and she tells me she wants more water, so I get her some more water. She lies down and looks like she’s going to sleep (ha!).

I got back to my room and my son is now sitting up whining and saying “juice”. I tell him I’ll get him water, but since he’s brushed his teeth he can’t have juice. He wails at this. So I tell him I’ll put ice in his water and he liked that idea. So I go down and get him some ice water. He drank that so fast! So then I tell him it’s time to go back to his bed with his water and he says “OK” (have I bragged lately about how really good my son is with bed time and sleeping and how spoiled I am??) I hear movement in my daughter’s room so I go in there and she is on the floor picking up all of her stuffed animals and putting them back in her bed. She looks at me with a very sad face and says “I’m having lots of bad dreams mommy”. My heart breaks! So we climb into her bed, but then she says that she’s getting too hot in her pajamas, so we change them, but then she has to go potty. Then she wants me to put socks on her so that when hubby takes her to the sitter’s her feet aren’t cold. I grab the wrong socks. “I want Jo-Jo socks mommy”. I put Jo-Jo socks on. Finally we climb into bed and she falls asleep and I go down to my room. No 30 minutes later I hear her in my room, so I pull her into my bed…I’d had enough. Around 5:30, right before my alarm goes off I wake up and take her back to her bed.

I’m really tired now (I feel your pains Amy W!). I’m so glad that it’s Thursday, and almost Friday!

Guess what? My company has brought us lunch in everyday this week so far…it’s been so nice! We had Donatos on Monday and Tuesday – pizza on Monday and subs on Tuesday, we had Chipotle yesterday (for those of you that have never had Chipotle it is amazing! I actually used to work there before where I am now…I miss the business a lot – I don’t miss the people!) and then today they’re bringing in Panera for us. It is year-end and I know the accountants are working their tails off, and I will be working my tail off as soon as they close the books! I will probably have to work Saturday, which really sucks (I know, all you people that are in public are like “what? I have to work every Saturday from now until April…but in my job I rarely work over 40 hours, very rarely, so a Saturday is a big deal!). I’m going to try to do it from home; it all depends on what I’m working on.

OK, time to take a nap...err I mean get back to work.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

My Windows Look Great!

THE.WINDOWS.LOOK.FANTASTIC! I can’t get over how good they look (ok, they really should look this good for what I paid for them). The kids’ rooms look amazing! I meant to take pictures but completely forgot. My daughter’s princess blinds look so great! And my son’s Buckeye blinds look fabulous too – I actually did two different designs on his because he has two windows, and I was worried how it would look but they look wonderful. Our room looks very classy. We put these in our room http://www.hunterdouglas.com/hdg_product_detail.jsp?id=1 and then these in our bathroom above our Jacuzzi http://www.hunterdouglas.com/hdg_product_detail.jsp?id=6 see how you can raise them up or push them down? It’s great because we leave them about half down all the time so that light can come in but no one can see us since we’re on the second floor.

I was cleaning up after dinner last night and I heard the kids playing really well together so I got out the video camera and snuck downstairs. I have to sneak because as soon as they see it they start “performing” instead of doing the cute things I was trying to record in the first place. I got some good video, but my son saw me sooner than I wanted him to. I ran out of tape shortly thereafter and I rewound part of it to show hubby. The kids loved watching it, so I rewound the whole thing and we started watching it. Then I realized that we still have hubby’s projector from work (he brings it home so that we can watch tv and movies on the wall in the basement, it’s huge!) so I hooked it up to that and we watched home movies for an hour. What amazed me the most was that my 18-month son sat and watched the whole thing on my lap. He was in awe…and I think he had a hard time figuring out why he was on the wall, and why he wasn’t able to walk or talk. I did see something that made me realize I have to be very careful from now on…there was a lot more video of my son than my daughter. Now of course, there’s a lot of video from when she was a baby, but she didn’t see that. And it is hard, because he’s at the age where he’s doing a lot of cute things and she just acts all crazy when the camera is on her. But from now on I will make sure I get just as much of her as I do of him. She kept asking me last night “where am I?” I felt horrible!

My dad’s watching them today so I get to call home and check up on them :) My son was awake and crying this morning, until he saw Pappaw…then he was fine sitting with him on the couch, eating Cheerios, watching The Doodlebops (yes, my son is part of the cult as well).

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Weekend Update

What a great weekend we had and we really didn’t even do anything! Friday night we went to Wal-Mart (have I mentioned how much I hate that store, and yet, we are always drawn there :) ). I got stuff to make homemade pizza, recipe courteous of this wonderful chef http://www.smittenkitchen.com/, and if you ever have extra time in the kitchen, which of course, I know most of us are moms and don’t, but if you do, she has some FABULOUS recipes.

Saturday hubby let me sleep in a little which was just what I needed! Then we spent the day organizing/playing with the kids. We’d rotate on and off…when they wanted someone to play with them, we would, and then when they were happily doing something on their own, we’d do some of our work. The day lasted forever! I can’t remember the last time I stayed in all day on a Saturday…it felt so good. Our old neighbors, soon-to-be new neighbors stopped in to borrow some boxes and they ended up staying most of the day, which was great because he helped hubby do some cabling and their 5 year-old played with my daughter most of the day. After they left I made the pizza and it turned out wonderful! I made a cheese and black olive one for the kids, and then for hubby and me I added spices to the dough and then on top before baking, and added pepperoni and mushrooms. I was so proud of myself for making a pizza that tasted better (only because it was a little more gourmet) than any delivery service. However, hubby and I agree that Pizza Hut is still our favorite.

Sunday we went to church and then came home and tried to take a nap. The problem is that my dad came over so I couldn’t really sleep (even though he’s my dad I feel rude sleeping while he’s there. Once he lives next door I won’t feel so rude anymore). Then we spent some more time cleaning and organizing while my dad played with the kids. They absolutely adore him! We had some friends from college come over to watch our great Alma Mater www.ohiou.edu play in their bowl game and were thoroughly embarrassed. Our friends actually left during the third quarter because it was so bad. And they brought this wonderful dessert (pudding, cool whip, peppermint patties, brownies, all layered) in this really neat dish. When they were leaving she told me the dish was mine to keep as a housewarming present. I was so excited because when I had seen it I had actually thought to myself “wow, that’s cute and I don’t have anything like that, I should get one”. I thanked her profusely because of course there was no need for a gift!

Then last night…oh last night. The disappointment; the sadness. You really would think someone important died by the way this city is acting. Why Buckeyes? Why did you have to let us down? We cheer you on all season; we defend you; we travel hundreds of miles without a ticket to the game just to share in your game. I really don’t like football, but I really like the Buckeyes, and after the opening drive and a touchdown by us in the first 16 seconds of the game I really thought we had it. But alas I was mistaken. I couldn’t take it anymore so I went upstairs and watched “the bad kids” (super nanny) with my daughter.

That’s about it…nothing too exciting. It finally feels like winter here…cold and snowy (still no accumulation though). Oh, we had all of the window treatments for the upstairs installed today…I can’t wait to get home and see what they look like! Especially the kids’ mural ones!!!

I know everyone else is saying this, so I will too - delurk yourselves all you lurkers! I know I have more people reading this that don’t comment :)

Friday, January 05, 2007

Fun Night!

What a fun night! Jerry (the cleaning guy) did not come over. I re-scheduled him to come over next week. Instead, hubby invited one of his friends to play basketball with him last night, so his wife and 3 kids came over to the house while they played. We had a great time! I cooked dinner, and then the kids played and played while I got to talk to my friend. She has two girls that are almost 5 and almost 3, so they play very well with my daughter who’s 3 ½, and then she has a son that’s almost 1. Unfortunately my 18 month-old son wanted to play with the big girls, or by himself. It was about 10:45 by the time they left and I swear it felt like they had only been there an hour. It’s nice to have another family that doesn’t worry about putting their kids to bed early and working on things and are able to just sit back and relax with friends.

This weekend we really don’t have any plans. We have to unpack our room and office, but other than that I want to catch up on my sleep! Maybe we’ll go over to the YMCA and reinstate our membership so that we can get back to working out. We teach Sunday school on Sunday and I’m sure we’ll be going to the grocery store at some point.

Wow, that’s a pretty boring post. I wish I had something more exciting to talk about…maybe something exciting will happen while I’m at work that I can post about (yeah right).

Thursday, January 04, 2007

Three Very Separate Topics in One Post

I am so tired I can barely keep my eyes open…for real. I keep nodding off while I’m trying to read something. I’m scared to death my boss is going to walk by and see me sleeping. I have no idea why I’m so tired…it must be just getting used to the routine again…actually getting up at 6:30 as opposed to 8:30. I was good and went to bed at 10:30 last night, but it must not have been enough. I’m also seriously lacking energy. I went to Whole Foods last night and got some energy pills…we’ll see if they work. I need something…do any of you take any certain vitamin that boosts your energy? I was really good with the kids though…as much as I wanted to lie on the couch, I didn’t give in…my daughter and I played in the play room for a long time but after she was in bed, I crashed. I tried to pick up the house a little and do some dishes, but it definitely took a lot longer than it should have just because I was so worn out.

I’m excited because our cleaning guy (yes, guy) is coming over to the new house tonight to give us an estimate. I know that it will go way up since the house is bigger, so we might have him come every three weeks as opposed to every two, or we might have him clean only the kitchen and the bathrooms. I was reading an article about how to decide if you should hire someone to do something or do it yourself. The first thing they said is to figure out your hourly rate when you work outside the home, because let’s face it…your time is money. Then compare that to how long the task would take, and then how much it would cost to have someone come in and do it. It made us really realize that first of all, it was cheaper to have someone else come in and do it, but also that our time with our kids on the weekend was worth far more than the money spent to have the house cleaned. And it was definitely confirmed when I got my raise…it’s going to Jerry (our totally awesome cleaning guy).

Here’s a question for all you moms out there: My daughter has cradle cap, and she’s 3 ½. She got it a lot as a baby, and ever since then she’s gotten it about once or twice a year. Everything that I’ve researched says that only babies get it, but I know it’s cradle cap by 1.) the face that every description of it I read matches what she has and 2.) when I use the cradle cap kit it cures it. I don’t think it will hurt her…I definitely plan on asking her doctor about it at her 4 year check-up, but that’s not until May. I never thought anything of it until someone commented that they thought only babies got that, so now I’m concerned. Have any of you heard about toddlers getting it too? Or do you think it’s concerning enough to call the ped.’s office or just wait until the well visit? I really hate calling the office unless it’s something I’m really concerned about.

Thanks!

Wednesday, January 03, 2007

I Forgot.....

I forgot to talk about how the kids did with Christmas this year. Our daughter didn’t wake us up until about 9:30 (yeah!!) and she opened her stocking on our bed with us. I took a quick shower and got ready while she and hubby went downstairs and looked at the tree. After I was ready my son and everyone else that was there was up and ready to open presents (of course there was still way too much tension to really enjoy everything). My daughter ripped through things and pushed them aside. She lingered on the Baby Alive doll, but even that got pushed aside because there were more boxes wrapped in wrapping paper. My son on the other hand opened one present and told us to “open” the box. He was done. He was happy with the one toy he opened. I can’t even remember what it was! I think my daughter finally finished opening his presents for him on the Wednesday after Christmas. After all of her presents were opened my daughter had a lot of fun playing with them…she loved the pooping doll! She fed her and then changed her diaper. We then hung out until we started cooking dinner around 3:00. We had prime rib and it was the best one I had ever had! It was such a great meal! I think we only have a couple of the leftovers left, and let me tell you how sick of them I am! I’m not a leftover person to begin with (unless it’s from a restaurant), so the last week has been absolute torture – I could never throw the food away, but I’m just not creative enough to come up with different meals to make out of the leftovers.

I promise to try to post pictures soon…we got our professional pictures back and they look amazing! But hubby needs to order us our new computer so that we can hook the scanner up (he’s trying to wheel and deal with his Dell rep to give him a better price – good thing he’s in the computer business!)

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Very Strange

For some reason, I'm now able to blog at work again. I will not complain, but I really don't understand our IT department. They've done this before...some things are blocked and then all of a sudden, they're fine. Oh well, more hours of unproductiveness.

So Freakin' Tired!

Stressed does not even begin to explain the emotions that I have been feeling the last two weeks. I can’t even really put it into words, which I think is subconsciously why I haven’t posted. But enough of that! It’s now 2007 and time to post more!

We closed on the house and got right to work on painting and moving. The painting took a lot longer than I had thought it would, but the results are amazing! I definitely need to take pictures of it to post. My son’s room is a Buckeye’s theme and he is so cute when he’s tired because he says “Buckeye’s”, which means he wants to go to his room and go to sleep. My daughter’s princess room turned out beautiful! I think any little girl would love to have it! We ordered them blinds like these: http://www.3day.com/Collections/dis/DisCollectionDetail.aspx?licId=1&Sort=square&PageButtonId=6 (it’s the one in the middle of the top row) and http://www.3day.com/Collections/coll/CollCollectionDetail.aspx?licID=226 (the last two). So when those are up I’ll take pictures to show all of you their beautiful rooms!

It sucks being back at work today, but we’re in our super busy time (so please forgive me if the posts are short or spread out; again) and I love it! I love it when I’m working and look at the clock and it’s already 5:00. I also got a raise today! I work for a wonderful team and our controller decided to have HR do a market study and decided that my salary was not at the market level! What a great way to start the new year!

I hope all of you had wonderful Christmases and New Years!!!!