Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Happy Birthday......

To Me!!!!

Yep, today’s my birthday…I turn 28 at 4:something Las Vegas time, so that translates to 1:something Eastern Standard Time.

What will I do today for my birthday you ask?


-I will have my annual birthday lunch – I was really good friends with a girl I used to work with, and even though we don’t work together, we still try to have lunch as often as we can (we work about 15 minutes from each other, so we try to meet in the middle somewhere). We always take the other one out on their birthday and pay for lunch and get them a little gift.

-Next, I will be in a meeting, and then we have our quarterly conference call (feel free to listen in at
www.mihomes.com :) ).

-When I get home, my sister, who is doing a part-time internship up here, has graciously offered to baby-sit so that hubby and I can go out to dinner! I can’t wait!

Unfortunately, my mom and other sister are in Michigan (where she’s doing her residency), so we have decided to celebrate both of our birthdays (my sister’s birthday is August 16th) on August 11th at
Cedar Point. I’m super excited about that because my parents will take the kids to the kiddie park area, and hubby and I can actually enjoy an amusement park together! I haven’t been able to ride a roller coaster in 5 years! That will be a fun weekend!

**As a side note, I’m sorry to all of you that I have not commented on…I’m still super busy at work, and while I try to read what’s going on with you, I don’t always have time to comment. I am also having trouble with Blogger and sometimes I can comment and sometimes I can’t. I will look more into this when I’m done being busy, which should be in the second week of August!

Monday, July 30, 2007

FUN MONDAY - YOUR REFRIGERATOR POST

I have jumped on the bandwagon!! I am finally participating in Fun Monday because everyone looks like they have so much fun with it!

Here is the assignment: We saw everyone's kitchen one week (just can't remember which week). Now I want to see INSIDE your refrigerator. And DO.NOT.CLEAN.IT.OUT. We want to see it in all its glory. However empty or full. And if you don't have a refrigerator? Show me your cooler, or whatever container you use to keep things nice and cool.


I actually emptied out all the old stuff Thursday night and was amazed at how empty our refrigerator was. Seriously, it looked like we hadn’t been shopping in months! My daughter even made comments about how “we have no food.”

We went to our local market on Saturday, so there is actually some food in their now. I got tons of fresh fruit and veggies that I am seriously dying to go home and cook with tonight!


I hate refrigerators that are messy on the outside. However, no matter how hard I try, I can't get away from it. I have a bunch of the kids' Sunday school crafts on there, a couple of pictures of the kids, a Pampered Chef party invitation, and the kids' toys. We have the Sleeping Beauty dress-up doll magnets and the Thomas magnets, along with the Leap Frog alphabet and word games. Those Leap Frog games get the most attention and I swear they're responsible for my kids knowing their ABC's so early.






I have a big pitcher of lemonadethat I just made (I love my lemonade). We also have a ton of fruit and the veggies are in the drawer. Not a whole lot in the freezer.

Go check out all of the other participants here!

Friday, July 27, 2007

Pictures....

I'm still so busy and I don't have anything earth shattering to blog about, so here are some pictures of a couple weeks ago when I was outside playing with my son. He loved putting his hands in the water when I was watering the plants and then he would run to the side of the house and "fall down" and roll all over the place.

















Thursday, July 26, 2007

Unwanted Advice

After going through two pregnancies and having two kids, I thought the days of “unwanted advice” were over. Guess I was wrong. The new issue that everyone and their brother think they can put their two cents in about? Preschool.

Hubby and I were not really “school” people. He actually hated it, and me, well, by the 4th year of college I was so ready to be done. No Masters degree here. I was done! In order to sit for the CPA exam I had to basically be in college for 5 years, and that didn't fly with me, so I crammed it all into 4 years because the thought of that 5th year made me want to shoot myself.

So the thought of my kids having to go through all that school too makes me kind of sad. It seems like such a long time to learn so much stuff that you forget by the time you’re 25 (or for me, after the test was done). I always did great in school – I was homeschooled until 7th grade (don’t get me started on that one…that’s a post for another day) and then in private school from 7th – 10th, and then we moved and I went to public school for my Junior and Senior years. My parents had a rule that I had to get all A’s and B’s in order to stay in school or else they would pull me out and homeschool me again. There was no way I was ever going to get below a “B,” let me tell you!

Anyway, so when I think about my daughter starting school, I have had my mind made up for a long time that I want to keep her out of school for as long as possible since she’ll be in it for so long. So that equals no preschool. I got lucky and have a very smart daughter. She was talking sentences at 18 months and never did the “baby-talk” thing – everything that came out of her mouth was clear and concise. So teaching her to count and now read has been fairly easy because of that. She is also a very social little girl…every night she plays with the little girls in our neighborhood and every couple weeks we try to have friends over that have kids as well. I’m not worried one little bit. My mother-in-law was an elementary school teacher and told us that she absolutely has no need to go.

Besides the fact that she goes to a sitter everyday with 4 other kids, and I would be paying for the sitter and for preschool…that doesn’t make much sense to me when she doesn’t need it.

But apparently I’m the only one that is not worried. Everyone seems to think that it is OK to harass hubby and me about why we aren’t sending her to preschool. I can’t believe that people have the nerve to try to make us change our mind about it. Isn’t there anything anymore that is just a family matter? The only time we'll change our mind is if our daughter comes up and asks us if she can go...then I will consider it - not because some stranger on the street told me I need to take her!

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with preschool at all, and I know that for tons of families it’s the best thing in the world, so don’t think I’m slamming it or anything. I just hadn’t realized that it was climbing the ladder of “important parenting issues” and seems to be catching up with “breastfeeding or formula” and “working vs. staying at home.”

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Very, Very Busy!

This is my desk. It's actually pretty clean right now because it's only 8:30 in the morning. Give me a couple of hours and it will be much worse. Needless to say there won't be much blog reading going on.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

A New Sitter = A Lot Less Stress!

Yesterday was the first day at the new sitter for my kids and I’m happy to report it went very well!

Hubby and I both dropped them off and they laid on the couch and watched Disney until the other kids woke up. I didn’t want to bother them but I did want to check up on them so I called around 11:30 to see how they were doing. She didn’t answer, so I just left a message. Around 1:00 I got a very extensive e-mail about everything they had done all morning and a report that all of the kids were sleeping. I got another e-mail around 4:00 saying that she had my daughter on her lap and was teaching her about how e-mail worked and that she could send me a message. This morning I got an e-mail stating that they were dancing to toddler songs and getting ready to have a picnic at the park.

Can I tell you that I am spoiled? The detail she gave me in each e-mail made me feel like I had been with them the whole time. It was fantastic!

Did I mention that this lady is actually cheaper than our previous sitter? We’ve always had a policy that money would not determine who we chose to care for our kids, so this is a complete bonus for us!

Yesterday the kids could not stop talking about how much fun they had and that they couldn’t wait to go back! Hubby was home a full hour earlier since it’s so much closer and actually had dinner started when I got home.

I could really get used to this!

Monday, July 23, 2007

A Wedding Like No Other....

My dad’s sister has 9 kids, and they all live up in Rochester, NY. For the past 14 years, we have been traveling up there periodically for each wedding as my cousins have gotten older. We very much look forward to these weddings. We get very excited and pumped up as the date gets closer. This family is the family I try to so hard to have. I have never met a nicer, more thoughtful person than my aunt; and she raised each and every one of her kids to be just like her. My daughter this weekend even informed me she wished she was one of my aunt’s grandkids because she is so sweet to everyone. Even though they have a lot of money, you would never, ever know it when talking to anyone in the family…they all work extremely hard and are thankful for everything they have.

The first wedding I went to was that of the oldest, who happened to be a girl. They had a gigantic tent in their front yard filled with tables and chairs, multiple bars and flowers everywhere. The stage was at the front with a live band. I don’t remember a whole lot of it, except that this wedding clearly took place in the early 90’s. Yes, that is me at barely 14.
Each wedding since then has been at various country clubs and hotels around the city. There were all exceptional! Even the weddings in which my cousin was the boy (therefore, not my aunt and uncle paying for it) were fantastic!

This past weekend the last of the girls of that family got married (there are two boys left to get married out of all 9). She had hers in a tent in the front yard again. Of course it was spectacular. My aunt had arranged for a baby-sitter up at their house while we ate, and then my two kids got to come down and join in the dancing and fun. It was so great to see all of my family on that side.



We stayed in a gorgeous hotel (at which we left our clothes hanging in the closet – they will shipping them out to us soon) and got to relax between the ceremony and the reception at my aunt and uncle’s summer house on Lake Ontario. The car trip was a little tough, but at only around 6 hours with stops, it wasn’t unbearable.


I asked hubby when we were at the reception how many more clients he needs to bring on in order to have a wedding like this for our daughter (and any possible future ones), and he just smiled at me :)

Thursday, July 19, 2007

There’s a country song out there (yes, I do like country music. New stuff only. Not old stuff) by Montgomery Gentry called “Lucky Man.” For those of you that don’t know it, here are the lyrics (pay special attention to the chorus):

I have days where I hate my job
This little town and the whole world too
Last Sunday when the Buckeyes lostLord it put me in a bad mood
I have moments when I curse the rain
Then complain when the sun's too hot
I look around at what everyone hasAnd I forget about all I've got

Chorus:
But I know I'm a lucky man
God's given me a pretty fair hand
Got a house and a piece of land
A few dollars in a coffee can
My old trucks still running good
My ticker's ticking like they say it should
I got supper in the oven,
a good woman's loving
And one more day to be my little kid's dad
Lord, knows I'm a lucky man

Got some friends who would be here fast
I could call em any time of day
Got a brother who's got my back
Got a mama who I swears a saint
Got a brand new rod and reel
Got a full week off this year
Dad had a close call last spring
It's a miracle he's still here

Chorus:
But I know I'm a lucky man
God's given me a pretty fair hand
Got a house and a piece of land
A few dollars in a coffee can
My old trucks still running good
My ticker's ticking like they say it should
I got supper in the oven,
a good woman's loving
And even my bad days ain't that bad

Lord knows I'm a lucky man
I'm a lucky lucky man


Every time I hear this song I really stop and think about how lucky I am. I have my wonderful husband; I have two wonderful, healthy children; My husband and I both have great jobs; we live in a wonderful community; I could go on and on. And while my life is no where near perfect, if I make myself stop and think about those words, I realize that I have everything I need…God has given me a GREAT hand, and for that I’m truly grateful.

Last night it was about 11:00 when the kids were finally bathed and ready for bed. I didn’t care how late it was…I took my son up to his room and I rocked him. I haven’t done that in at least a year. I wrapped both of us in a huge, soft blanket and we cuddled. I started singing to him, and he sang with me (we sang “hush little baby” and “Twinkle Twinkle” which he knows all the words to). Then he closed his eyes while I continued singing to him and he fell asleep. It was the best 15 minutes I’ve had in a long time.

One more day to be my little kids’ mom
….

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Please Pray For This Little Boy.....

This little boy needs so serious prayers, so please, pray for him! If you have the time, go back and read the history…it’s just miracle after miracle! This boy should not be alive today based on “expert” opinions, but God had other plans, and right now little Ethan needs all of our prayers. Just put yourself in their shoes…a 7 month-old that is battling cancer…I start to cry every time I think about what this poor family is going through. Their son has been in the hospital since he was 8 weeks old. Go read. And pray.

Supernanny To The Rescue!

My daughter and I absolutely love to watch Supernanny (my daughter calls it “the bad kids show”). So last night she and I watched the one from Monday night. I have to say that each time I watch that show I am more and more appalled! I cannot believe that there are actually parents out there that are like the parents on these shows!

Now some of the families on there are legit…I saw one about a woman that had four sons and her husband and just recently died. You know those kids are going through hell and acting out. But if any of you saw the one from Monday night, you will completely understand what I’m talking about! The parents literally sat around and did nothing! All day, just sat and looked around. The mom got down to play with the youngest one once during the whole day. They didn’t even watch TV…nothing! And their two boys (10 and 4) were bored out of their minds so they fought with each other. The little one had cuss words coming out of his mouth every two seconds, and he also got away with biting and hitting his brother because, by her own admission, his mom was too worn out to deal with them. In the interview with Jo-Jo she admitted that it was hard to play with them, hard to discipline them, etc. Jo looked at her and said “don’t tell me it’s hard…parenting’s hard work!”

As soon as Jo introduced games and things for the kids to do, there were no more problems. It was the first episode that the “naughty corner” was never used (wasn’t even mentioned, and you know how Jo loves the naughty corner!). How sad is it that all these years the parents just sat around and had they remembered how to play, their boys would have never had any problems. Oh, and get this…the dad was a cop. He was so freaking passive I just couldn’t believe his job was to be forceful because at home hi barely said two words…just sat there!

OK, I didn’t mean for this to turn into a review of Supernanny, but I’m constantly amazed that there really are parents out there like these. Watching this family, I have to ask myself…why on earth did they have kids to begin with?

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Completely Random Tidbits

Random bits of info:

-Amy W awarded me the Rockin' Girl Blogger award (like forever ago) and I have yet to say "Thanks!" I really appreciate her thinking I rock!

-Sunday night hubby did the nicest thing ever – he laid a blanket down on the floor up in the sitting room in our bedroom and lit candles all around it, and then melted chocolate and cup up a bunch of fruit for us to eat. Then he gave me a wonderful massage! It was perfect! He said he wanted to help me relax, which he definitely did!

-My neighbor brags about working 12 hour days and that she’d never, ever want to be a SAHM. I don’t understand why you would brag about that stuff…I think it just makes her sound like she doesn’t like her kids very much.

-Twice this week I have been chastised because of my age. I’m not kidding. Last night we met some new neighbors and when my friend told the new lady that I wanted to have 4 kids, she looked at me and asked me how old I was. After I told her she flung her arms up in the air and said “shoot, I’ve got 10 years on you girl.” So? I really have no idea what she was getting at…I wasn’t even the one talking to her. I’m very happy with our decision to have kids young (and that we were able to do that), so it doesn’t phase me…it just seems so weird that it would happen twice within two days (the other time it happened at church on Sunday).

-Work is going to get crazy busy…the books were supposed to be closed on Friday (I have to wait until they’re closed to start my work) but they are still not yet closed. Dang bad housing markets…I really wish the market would turn around, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen until late next year as of now.

-Rihanna’s song “Umbrella” is on right now…I really like it and always sing along when I hear it (in the car…not at work :) ).

-I get to get my hair done tonight!!! I love getting my hair done…I love anyone touching my hair. My daughter loves to play beauty shop and I just sit there, in heaven, as she plays with my hair.

-I get to go to dinner with my friends from my mom’s group tomorrow night. While I hate that I’ll be gone two nights this week, I do love going to dinner with everyone!

I think that’s it…totally random stuff. Have a great Tuesday!

Monday, July 16, 2007

It’s funny to watch who my daughter picks to play with. It might be the girl with the prettiest dress on, or it might be the girl with the cool hair, or it might be the girl that has the neat toy. But what I’ve learned is that basically it varies from minute to minute. As we were teaching Sunday school yesterday, I watched her as she played and jumped from friend to friend (there were about 7 girls in the class). But as I watched closer I began to see the part of socialization that is sad, hurtful, and mean: rejection.

There are a couple of little girls in the class that I have always wanted my daughter to be close to. Looking back I’m not sure why…I think it’s because they always seemed like such sweet girls and they always wanted to be around me and sit in my lap and hold my hand. I knew their parents (OK, actually I know pretty much all of the kids’ parents) but it seemed to make since for them to be friends. However, my thoughts have since changed.

My daughter was running around, having a good time and she actually had two little girls following her and doing whatever she did. When I took them to the bathroom, there were two girls holding hands, and then my daughter was holding hands with two other little girls that had been following her around. My daughter reached out to hold the other girls hand to make it 5 total girls, but the girl pulled her hand away and said “noooo.” OK, let me just tell you how much the childish and protective mom in me wanted to tell that little girl to be nice to my daughter and hold her hand. But I didn’t and it didn’t seem to phase my daughter at all. Then we were back in the classroom and the kids had to sit at the tables for their snack. My daughter wanted to sit next to that little girl that didn’t want to hold her hand, so she was moving her chair, and the other little girl said “nooo” again and moved her chair away from her. My daughter complained to me, and this time I had to say something….in front of everyone I just said “why would you want to sit by someone or be friends with someone who is mean to you?” My daughter looked at me and took in what I said, and put her chair by the other little girls that wanted to sit by her.

Obviously I know this is only going to get much, much worse. And I know my daughter will get through all the years of middle school and high school and the popularity issues, but I also know it will be a tough battle for her. I just pray that I can teach her that there are always friends around, and sometimes the best friends are not the ones we initially want as our friends.

Friday, July 13, 2007

Bedtime.....

I am having the hardest time with bedtime every night. It’s not getting the kids to go to sleep that's hard, it’s getting the kids in the house to take a bath, and then actually getting them into bed. And it’s not because they’re giving me a hard time and won’t listen to me, it’s because I have a hard time making myself tell them to come in and take a bath.

Since it stays light outside for so long, we usually don’t come in from playing until 9:30. Every morning I swear I’m going to bring them in at 8:00 and start the bedtime routine earlier, but every night I fail to do so. Then once they come in it’s immediately up to the bath tub. After bath I get the usual requests: “Can I watch one Mr. Roger’s?” or “Can you read me a book?” How can I say “no?” OK really, I could, but I just don’t want to.

We have so much fun with the kids that I dread putting them to bed because I feel like I can’t get enough of them. And thankfully, the way we have the sitter set up (the new one will be this way as well) we don’t wake them up when we take them in the morning…so they stay asleep until 8:00 or 9:00 every morning. I’m pretty sure they should be getting more sleep (they do both still take naps, thankfully) but I just hate the thought of putting them to bed when they want to stay up and play with me, and I want them to stay up and play with me.

I heard from a speaker at a conference that working moms talk to their kids an average of 11 minutes per day. Yuck! Then she went on to say that stay-at-home moms talk to their kids an average of ½ hour per day. Double Yuck! So I figure that while my kids might be losing sleep, at least they get a good 5 hours of me every day, and that has to be a benefit, right?

What about you guys? Are you having a hard time with bedtimes in the summer? Do you talk to your kids more than the averages? (please say you do :) ).

Thursday, July 12, 2007

A "Member Of Our Family" Will Soon Be Gone

It’s sad when someone that you have loved and trusted turns into someone that you can’t get away from fast enough. Unfortunately, I’m talking about our baby-sitter.

Hubby had told the sitter that the kids would be with her through the end of July, which was hard because the new sitter wanted them to start right away. This makes me think back to when we started with our sitter…my daughter was 7 months old and we were sick of daycare. When we met her she fell in love with my daughter instantly. We had to give our daycare two weeks notice and they had a ½ pay policy where that if you weren’t there you still had to pay ½ your normal fees. So we told the new sitter that my daughter would start in two weeks. The next night we get a call from the new sitter who told us that she really wanted my daughter to start right away, and that she would only charge ½ so that we would end up paying the same amount as if she were in the daycare. I was excited by how much this lady wanted my daughter.

Over the years I watched my daughter grow and be loved, which was so important to me. The sitter would tell me how smart my daughter was and how well she was talking. But this past year has just been a battle, and I have no idea why. Maybe she has too many kids for her personal limit; maybe we did something to tick her off and she never told us; maybe she decided she really doesn’t like my kids…I don’t know what it is, but something has really changed. I’m not good at digging into people to find out if something’s wrong…I’m much better at listening when they open up to me. So while I tried to ask if everything was OK once in a while, it just wasn’t something I was good at.

Last night we were cleaning my son up from dinner and he showed hubby his boo-boo, which was a cut on his hand that was not bleeding, but that warranted finding out where it came from. He told us “ooey bite me.” “ooey” equals “Louey” their new dog. Of course we were livid because the sitter didn’t say anything to me when I picked them up.

So this morning hubby asked her about it, and she told him it was from scratch, not a bite (ummmm…still not seeing a big difference here), and that she didn’t think it was that big of a deal. Remember, it was a fairly deep cut and I had to put ointment and a band-aid on it last night, and my son screamed in the bathtub because the soap and water hurt it. Then, for some reason, she goes into a speech about why my daughter should go to preschool next year. Now I have nothing against preschool, lots of kids go, no big deal. But our sitter knows that we have decided that it’s not for our family. I am comfortable with my daughter starting in Kindergarten in 2008. She’s sat and told me multiple times that my daughter does not need to go to preschool at all and it would be silly for us to spend money on that on top of paying her. So I kind of feel like she was trying to start some type of argument or something. Hubby informed her that we had found somebody and that next week was the kids’ last week with her.

I’m just really, really sad that it came to this. I look at our childcare provider as a member of our family, and I feel like that just went away on her part. And like I said, maybe we did something, I have no idea…but I wish she was open enough to talk to us about it, but unfortunately it has come down to her not caring my son has a bad mark from her dog and making snide comments about my daughter and me praying that she’s not taking any of this out on my kids during the day.

Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Update on Sitter Search

I think we have finally picked a new sitter for the kids. We interviewed a bunch, and pending the background check goes through OK, it should be a go beginning in August. It’s a lady that has 3 kids that are around my kids’ ages and she seems to genuinely love children. When we went over there to see her, our kids played great for 3 hours and didn’t want to leave, so we took that as a great sign.

We have given our current sitter notice and kept it short and sweet by saying that the ½ hour drive each way was just too much for us…we had tried it for 6 months and it was just too tiring. She understood, especially since she drove it when she came to my daughter’s party.


I’m excited that the new sitter will only be 10 minutes from our house, on our way to work. She also offered to baby-sit the kids on weekend nights so we can go out, and mentioned trading services for that (we would watch her kids some nights as well so they could go out). I really think this will be good.

Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Thank-you cards – I believe they are now a lost art. Growing up my mom made us write thank-you cards for all of the birthday presents we got. We had to thank the person for coming to our party (if they did) and then thank them for the gift and tell them why we liked it (i.e. I used the gift card you gave me to buy new school clothes, etc.). I have followed in her footsteps…every party my kids have I send out thank-yous to everyone that comes and gives a present. Apparently, I’m the only one.

My mom would always make comments about people not sending thank-yous…”I can’t believe I never got a thank-you from so-and-so. I never understood her obsession, and honestly, most of the time, I never pay attention as to whether someone sends me a thank-you or not. I was always really bad about sending mine out, but they did eventually get sent out. I think my wedding ones went out about 4 or 5 months after the wedding, and some of my baby ones were really late. The only time I get annoyed that I don’t get anything from someone is when I’ve shipped something, or ordered something online for someone, because I never know if it go there or not…so I’m not afraid to ask someone if they got it. I think they feel kind o embarrassed, like maybe they should have said something, but that’s not my goal…I just want to make sure the thing I paid for actually arrived!

I have really realized that no one seems to send them anymore, and I’m wondering if our kids will grow up less grateful because of it. I know when I was little I had to thank the person each time I opened a gift and then as they were leaving. But I honestly don’t think that if I didn’t have to write those thank-yous I would have truly learned what it meant to show thanks. Obviously me writing my kids’ thank-yous isn’t teaching them anything, but I decided that next year when my daughter is 5 she’ll start writing her own (with some help of course).

I’m probably old fashioned about this, but I can’t help it. Some, unfortunately, stick out to me…we went to a party for a little girl a while ago and bought her a really nice little gift and never heard anything from her. Now I don’t think any worse of them or anything like that, but, well, it’s hard to describe…it just would have been nice to even get a little something from them thanking us.

What do you think? Does your family write thank-yous? Or has this day and age moved past them?

Monday, July 09, 2007


My little girl loves to run with the big girls in our neighborhood (the 8 ½ and 6 ½ year-old girls that moved with us and who she has known since the day she was born). She proved that to us and made it easier for herself on Friday when she learned to ride her two-wheel bike (aka – no training wheels)! I came home from work (hubby had taken the day off with the kids) and she was so excited to show me what she and her daddy had worked so hard on. I can’t describe how happy I am for her! And of course, it’s also a little sad as my baby really isn’t my baby anymore (I know, she shows me that every day!).

I had told her a couple of months ago that she would be riding by herself by the end of summer…and that made her all the more determined! So we raised her training wheels and she was uneven for a while now. Something just clicked with her (much like her very easy potty-training) and she’s doing it very well. She still needs our help to start (psychologically only – she really doesn’t need us at all) and she needs to practice on the sidewalk (the curve going around our court throws her off), but she rides around in the middle of the court like a pro!

At the same time my son has officially learned how to drive his powerwheels jeep by himself as well (no more running into the curb :) ). Life and the kids has gotten pretty easy lately…hubby interprets this to mean that it’s time to have another baby :)

Friday, July 06, 2007

I believe my new next-door neighbors think I’m a bad mom…all because of one night.

Hubby and I took off work yesterday and had such a blast with the kids. We went to breakfast, played in the house and went to the park. Then hubby had to go to basketball last night. I fed the kids, and we headed outside as all the other neighbors were finishing dinner and coming out as well.

The first incident happened when I was talking to my good friends. My daughter had run off with the bigger girls and was playing on the trampoline and in her Power Wheels jeep. My son was playing soccer with another little girl who’s 4 and her mom. I was watching him kick and he was doing great. Well, I must have gotten too engrossed in my conversation because all of a sudden I look over and see my next-door neighbor carrying him over to me. He wasn’t crying, but she said he had fallen. Incident #1.

My son was playing with his toys and I saw him go up into the garage (the space where hubby’s car was gone) and I started talking to my neighbors again when I heard a huge BANG! My son started crying and I ran up there to see what happened and I saw that he had knocked over the cornhole board. He was fine (nothing hurt)…the sound just scared him to death. At this point, my new neighbor (the husband) actually comes up into my garage and moves the cornhole games and says “I’ll put these over here so they won’t fall again.” I was livid because I hate it when people try to correct me on anything when it comes to parenting or taking care of my kids. But I smile and go back down to hang out with the neighbors (with my son firmly attached to me now!). Incident #2.

I’m pushing my son around on his bike and playing with him while still talking with everyone, and all of a sudden our new next door neighbor says that one of the girls is crying. I run over to the empty lot with a huge hole in it (my parents’ lot, their house had just dug) and my good friend’s little girl was sliding down and was scared (just to ease your fears, the hole is actually only about 6 feet deep, so even if she had fallen it wouldn't have been bad...she was just scared). I run to get her and at the same time notice my teeny-tiny little 4 year-old down in the hole with all the other little girls. She just calmly asked me if I could help her out. I of course reminded her that she was not allowed anywhere near this hole and asked her why she was in it and I got the first of the responses that I will hear over and over again for the next 14 years: “The other girls were doing it.” Incident #3.

By the time we got all the girls away from the hole I looked around and realized that our new next-door neighbors had already gone inside and locked their house up tight. I don’t think I’ll ever be asked to baby-sit their kids :)

**As a side note, someone from our neighborhood (we don’t know who) actually called our city offices and complained about the hole because they were worried that kids could fall down into it. The city calmly explained that we live in a “construction zone” due to all the new houses going up and that they should supervise their children better. We all laughed about it and made jokes about watching your kids. How ironic is it that each and every one of our kids ended up in that hole?

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

Lost: If Found, PLEASE Return!

I would like to know what has happened to my creativity. It really hit me yesterday…I think it’s really and truly gone.

I think back to before I had my own kids – I was so creative when it came to playing with other people’s kids! I would come up with all kinds of games, and unique ways to do things. But now I’m so proud of myself when I just think of a new game – how come it came so easy to me back then? I feel like I’m really cheating my kids. When we play games we play by the rules (not because I’m being a stick in the mud, but because my brain doesn’t think of new ways to play them).

I read in magazines and hear from friends different things that moms do to have fun with their kids, and I think to myself “I could have done that,” or “why in the world didn’t I think of doing something like that?”

Does anyone else have this problem? Is it because now I have all the mommy stress that I didn’t have before since they weren’t my kids I was playing with? Or am I just going downhill as a mommy when it comes to fun games to play? Has anyone been through this and come out being creative again?

Monday, July 02, 2007

Random Bits For Monday Morning:

- I had Friday off and had a wonderful day with my kids!

- We interviewed a potential sitter Friday night. She seemed really great and seemed to really love kids.

- The weather was absolutely gorgeous over the weekend.

- Saturday we had a potential nanny come to the house. She was good but had some issues that I just don’t think I can see past (she smokes, but assured me that it would never happen while “at work”).

- Saturday night hubby and I went and saw Evan Almighty. That was the funniest movie I have seen in a long time. We are going to try to take our daughter to see it while it’s still in the theaters (can you believe it, a movie that’s not a Disney movie that we can actually take our 4 year-old to???)

- Yesterday my daughter and I actually took a nap on a blanket in the grass outside. I couldn’t believe she fell asleep, but she did, and really quickly too!

- Hubby told our current sitter this morning that we were looking for a new one. To prevent any bad feelings (especially towards the kids in the next month) he told her it was because of the drive (now ½ hour each way, not on the way to work). He said she seemed to understand. We are giving her until August 1st until we switch – is a month good for someone that we’ve had for 3 ½ years?

- I only have to work 3 days this week – YIPPPPEEEEE!!!!!