Getting Through the Next Couple of Days....

Tonight is the wake and tomorrow is the funeral for my grandfather. I hate going to funerals (really, who likes them?), and thankfully I’ve only been to a handful so far. I’ve been trying to think about why I hate them so much…I mean I’ve come to peace with my grandfather’s passing (which of course doesn’t mean I’m still not very sad), so why am I dreading it?

It hit me while I was driving back to work yesterday…I hate funerals because everyone is so sad. Seriously. I’m a very happy person most of the time…when I was little my dad would call me “smiley” because I smiled all the time. I don’t deal well with sad situations. I understand that we all have bad times, but I have a hard time being around people that are sad or miserable all the time (which makes being around my severely depressed mother very difficult when she’s not taking her medicine). And of course you won’t find any happy people at a funeral (if you do, the dead person must have had some serious enemies).

It’s also hard for me to see people that are usually happy so sad. It’s also very hard for me to see people who have been so strong in my life sad and crying (my dad, my uncle and my aunt). I understand they have emotions…it’s just hard to see my dad, whom I’ve only seen cry a handful of times, crying. That might sound messed up but it’s how I feel.

I will get through the next couple of days…we are having a picnic tonight with all the family, and then tomorrow after the funeral there will be a reception. It will be very nice to gather with everyone and remember Beepa.

Thank you for all the well wishes I have received…it’s been so nice to write my feelings here and get the support you all have given me!

What a Good Weekend!

This weekend was so nice! My mom took my kids to Michigan to visit my sister for her birthday on Thursday, and they didn’t get back until yesterday! Hubby and I didn’t know what to do with ourselves!

Friday night we went out with some friends to dinner and a comedy club. The comedian was really funny and we had a great time. We came home and watched a movie (Click…I thought it was so boring and dragged on). Then Saturday we did some organizing around the house, went to breakfast and got a bike rack for our SUV so that we can take our bikes places. Then we went on a 9 mile bike ride. It was so much fun to be able to go as fast as we wanted and go anywhere we wanted! When we go on rides with my daughter I have to be so careful because she swerves and doesn’t go as fast as we can…so the adult bike ride was very enjoyable!

Then we went to Whole Foods and hubby got some catfish and I got a steak and we made a very nice dinner and ate it outside. Then we had a fire with our neighbors and sat outside for a while.

Sunday we went to church and then came home and watched a movie (2 movies in one weekend is a record for us since we’ve had kids!). We just relaxed until the kiddos got home. Then my aunt and 3 of her kids (she has 9) came in from New York for the funeral and they all came over for dinner. It was so nice to just hang out with them…we hardly ever get to see them. The rest of their family is coming in on a busy on Tuesday (I’m not kidding…they came in a bus to my wedding!).

I actually felt like I had gotten enough sleep this weekend, and hubby and I kind of ran out of things to talk about! But it was wonderful and much needed. The funniest thing happened because of our break…I remember what it was like before I had kids and how my parents and sisters feel regarding the kids…I actually wanted to give them a bath, and brush their teeth, and read them multiple books. It’s funny how those things become “chores” when you do it every night, but when you get a break, you long to do them again!

I missed the kids a ton and am so glad that they are back!

A Sad Day...

My grandfather passed away yesterday.

I’m such a mixed bag of emotions right now….

I was never super close to any of my grandparents. We lived far away from all of them at some points, and then even when we lived close to one of the sets, we still didn’t see them a whole lot. I lost my mom’s mom and dad in middle school and college. I was the closest to my mom’s mom, but she passed away when I was in 8th grade.

When hubby and I moved to Columbus, we were physically closer to my other set of grandparents – my dad’s parents. This is the city where my dad grew up, so we were also closer to my dad’s brother and his family (hubby actually works with him now). The problem with these grandparents was that my mom despised them. I guess they were pretty horrible to her and overall, my grandmother was a very bitter person. I always heard about how bad they were. But my dad loved them…and they were nice to us, especially my grandpa (who we called Beepa which to this day no one in the family knows why).

I remember visiting them in the summer and them taking us to the zoo, and to the pool. Beepa took us to the bookstore and bought us books (something my dad does often with my kids). There was a huge tree by their house that we loved to go down and climb. Their house smelled funny. Beepa was diabetic, so the only treats in their house were sugar-free. They loved to shop. But only clearance items…they would go to the huge Lazarus downtown (which is now Macy’s) and shop the top floor where all the clearance items were. They go really good deals and their whole apartment was always filled with stuff. We would always joke about getting “Beepa presents.” I got a lot of dishes and knife sets from him…they were great bargain hunters!

They moved into an assisted living community about 6 years ago. It’s one of those that starts you off in your own apartment and you’re completely on your own if you want to be, but you don’t have to mow or shovel sidewalks or anything like that. The winter after my daughter was born my grandmother passed away. It really wasn’t that hard for me because she was such a bitter person and not fun to be around at all.

Over the past 4 years Beepa has been at our house most Sundays…my dad comes up and visits him and then brings him over so he gets company and so my dad can see his grandkids. I have pictures of him holding both of my kids after they were just born.

He went into the hospital about a month ago and was recently moved into the hospital at his nursing home. We all knew this was coming, yet it’s still hard. I think the hardest thing will be seeing my dad and his brothers and sister over the next week…losing a parent is difficult, even when you know they won’t be here much longer.

The worst part about this whole thing is thinking about the future when my parents pass away, and thinking about how I will deal with it, and also, how my kids will deal with it since they are so close to my parents. Death is hard and scary. Even though I know that everyone in my family will be reunited in Heaven one day, I’m still dreading dealing with it because unfortunately, while still on earth, there are tears and sadness over loved ones lost.

Our Weekend at Cedar Point

As soon as we dropped off the extra kids we had on Saturday, we headed up to Sandusky for a super fun amusement park called Cedar Point. We were staying at the Hotel Breakers which was really fun…it’s right on the beach and has 3 pools as well as a couple of restaurants and walls filled with pictures of the park in the early 1900’s.

When we got up there my parents took the kids to dinner so that hubby and I could go to dinner for our anniversary. We went to this really nice restaurant that had great food and a wonderful view of the marina.

The next morning we got up early and headed into the park. My parents were fantastic and took the kids to kiddie land so that hubby and I could ride the big rides. My sisters and their boyfriends arrived shortly after we got there and we headed off to ride these rides:

Maverick
Millennium Force (our absolute favorite)
Mantis
Skyhawk
Raptor
Power Tower

We had so much fun! The last time I was at Cedar Point was 5 years ago when I didn’t know I was pregnant with my daughter. Thankfully riding the roller coasters that early didn’t hurt her :) We had so much fun!

After those rides we went back to the hotel to swim for a minute because it was so hot! That was the nice thing about having our hotel right in the park! After we were cooled off we went to dinner and then my sisters and their boyfriends went off to ride more rides and hubby and I went with my parents and the kids to ride more rides with them. My daughter loved the Jr. Gemini…she even went on it by herself! We ended up riding right up until the park closed at 10:00. Then we headed back to the hotel and packed up and left. We got home around 1:30 Monday morning. My daughter and I started watching High School Musical on the way home and even though she fell asleep I kept watching it…it was really cute! I can’t wait to see the second one that comes out on Friday!

I realized when we were up there that there is so much to do up there! I never remembered that (we went there all the time when we were kids). I could easily make that a vacation one year…especially since there’s a beach there!

Here are some pictures:

Waiting for the train:

On the train:

Hubby and my son in line for the bumper cars - he loved them!!!

My son couldn't handle it anymore...napping on the hotel floor



"I want to ride this ride next..."

Memories....

Sunday was our 7th wedding anniversary.

Hubby and I met in high school. My junior year I was kind of friends with a girl that hung out in hubby’s group, so in the fall, I tagged along with them to a football game. I remember him driving his parents van on the school drive with someone hanging out the door. Anyway…I remember that they were fun, but not a group that I would hang out with a lot.

Then I realized that hubby was in my math class. Hubby is a math genius. We were in honors math with a horrible teacher and I hated it. He sat on the other side of the room and always seemed to have a huge crowd of people around him. I remember hanging out with his group some other time (spring maybe?) and he told me how much he hated our math class and how hard it was. It made me feel so much better because I kept thinking I was an idiot because I wasn’t getting it.

I started dating a guy in the middle of my junior year and halfway through my senior year. I thought we would be together for a very long time (we went to visit colleges together and everything) but unfortunately a little freshman with big boobs came along and screwed that up. It actually wasn’t bad…I stayed friends with him and shared a locker with him all year. So it was February of my senior year and I’m dating a bunch of guys that aren’t really anything special. I was always used to having a boyfriend. Not dating, an actual boyfriend. So I started looking around school and I thought “hey, hubby’s (obviously not then :) ) really cute. So I put the word out that I thought he was cute and my friends did their thing. Remember that girl I was sort of friends with that hung out with him? She went up to him and said “I know someone that likes you” (gotta love that high school wimpiness and cheesiness of not being able to talk to a guy myself). His response? “No, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.” He later told me that there was another girl that hung out with him that had told him she liked him and he had no interest in her, so he thought this friend was going to say it was her. Luckily my friend got through to him and all of a sudden he kept coming up to my locker and closing it when I was trying to get my books out. He was such a cute flirt! The best thing was that he would leave flowers in my locker and my ex-boyfriend would see them when he came to get his stuff :)

On our first date we had to go to the OU basketball game to look for some of his friends to get his wallet that he had left at basketball practice. We then went to Dairy Queen. When he took me home he walked me to the door. As he was talking to me, I looked in the driveway and said to him “ummm, your truck is rolling backwards down the driveway.” He had forgotten to do whatever needed to be done with a stick shift (put the clutch in?) that would prevent this. He was so embarrassed and I never let him live it down.

On March 3, 1997 he asked me to “go out with him” and we’ve been together ever since. He would come over to my house every day and play on my computer (and I don’t mean games…he would be getting into the actual computer and fixing it and figuring out how it worked and that sort of thing). I used to get so mad about his obsession with computers, and thought about breaking up with him over it many times. But now I realize how much he was learning about them, and now he’s an absolute genius when it comes to computers so I’m thankful for his passion and his ability solve any computer problem that comes along.

We always knew we’d get married…on the back of his senior picture that he gave to me he talked about the different types of houses we were going to have (he wanted one in the country and I wanted a beach house…oh those innocent high school days). We went to prom together and had a blast…despite the fact that our mothers showed up to take our pictures (thankfully since it was our senior year I did not care at all what anyone thought of me anymore).

We went to the same college and I think that was the toughest part of our relationship. By the time we got to sophomore year, our classes were getting tougher and he would spend 60 hours a week in the computer lab. We spent so much energy trying to see each other daily that it was exhausting trying to work around our schedules. We finally realized that in order to see each other, we really would have to live together, and since we didn’t want to do that before we were married, hubby proposed to me on the beach during vacation with his family the summer before our junior year. We were married 1 year later and had a cute little apartment our senior year. There were many nights that hubby didn’t come home (Valentine’s night being one of them) because he was working on programs in the lab, but we got through it!

I already had a job lined up for the following September, so in April of our senior we traveled up to the city I would be working in and looked for a house. Some crazy mortgage company actually approved us for a loan based on an offer letter for just me to start 4 months later! So in May of 2001 we purchased our first house. Hubby eventually found a job in October (talk about God being there to help us make the mortgage payments until then!) and our wonderful and happy life began.

We’ve been through serious ups and downs, issues with both of our families, friends coming and going, job changes, moves, and two wonderful kids. I can’t even begin to imagine how I would do anything if I didn’t have him right by my side. We share the same passions and dreams for life and our values and morals are identical. We know that we will be together forever and that makes all the difference in the world when going through rough patches.

Thank you for being there for me and standing beside me all the time. You are my encourager, my strength, the best father in the world, and most importantly, my absolute best friend. As you often say, you know me better than anyone else. I love you so much!

I mean come on, what other guy would willingly look forward to having 5 kids for a week???

Fun Monday - Favorite Treat

Beckie at Give it a Try is hosting this week’s Fun Monday, and here is her assignment:

I want to know what your favorite treat is. Is it sweet or sour? Is it plain or salty? Is it candy or chocolate? Is it homemade or store bought? For instance, if your favorite is chocolate, tell us what kind specifically - sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes not so much. I have heard a lot of talk about Junior Mints, but is it your favorite or just a tasty treat? It can be anything, popcorn, peanuts, ice cream or chips, maybe you have more than one favorite - that is ok, just show us your favorite(s) and tell us why you like it so much. C’mon, what gets you all juiced up?

Hmmm, my favorite treat…that’s hard for me to say because I LOVE treats! My favorite would definitely be in the sweet category…but trying to pick my favorite is just mean!

I think it really depends on where I’m at and what type of mood I’m in. For instance, yesterday I was at this gigantic amusement park (Cedar Point) and I really love these when I’m at places like that:

AND

When I’m at home and having people over, my absolute favorite treat is cut-up fruit (especially pineapple) with this:

Lately though (especially after this last week with temporarily having 5 kids) my treat of choice has been this:


**Sorry for not having any real pictures…did I mention I had 5 kids this past week and was up in Sandusky this past weekend?

Day 5 of Having 5 Kids....

Yesterday was good…for me. Our interim nanny had an interview for a “real” job (one in which she would use the degree she went to college for) yesterday so hubby took off the afternoon and stayed home with all 5 kids. When I got home he asked me if I had a gun that he could use to shoot himself.

The thing that drove him over the edge was the screaming newborn. Finally, hubby took the vacuum cleaner up in our room and put it next to the pack ‘n play and let it run for 2 hours while the baby slept. It was the only thing that kept him asleep. Once he was down, it got a lot easier!

It was storming last night (which is hopefully supposed to get rid of all this humidity, thank goodness!) so again we couldn’t go outside. We decided to put on a movie and made popcorn. After that we put them to bed since they didn’t have much of a nap due to hubby coming home.

We actually had all kids in bed by 9:15. 9:15!!!! Do you understand that we have never done that before? But with everything going on this week, hubby and I have no guilt putting even our kids to bed that early. So hubby and I made some margaritas and sat down and watched CSI and Without a Trace. I haven’t watched those shows in years, and before we had kids we would watch that kind of stuff together All.the.time. So it was a really nice treat for us!

Then I gave hubby the guilt trip about how I have been up with the newborn every night so far and it was his turn. So sure enough he got up with him and I actually got a decent night’s sleep (I’m still freaking exhausted though!).

So one more day of work, one more evening, one more night with “little butt” (my nickname for the newborn) and ½ day tomorrow and we’re done. I’m still glad we did it for them…we made it through just fine and from what I’ve heard from them they are having a fantastic time in CA.

Oh, and after we drop them off at their house we are headed straight for Cedar Point!!! We are staying at their hotel, so we’re walking distance to the park and we get to get in 1 hour before the public. I can’t wait!!!!

Day 4 of Having 5 Kids....

It finally hit me last night why I’m finding watching these kids getting harder and harder and why I’m getting more and more frustrated. These kids seem to be so developmentally far behind my kids that I get frustrated with them. I’m not saying that to make my kids sound like they are so “ahead,” I just think there might be a different type of parenting style going on with the parents of these kids versus the style we are using with my kids.

Take last night at dinner for example. I gave the kids applesauce after they were done with their fish and I look over and the 3 ½ year-old is trying to eat it with his fingers. I tell him to use his spoon and he picks it up and proceeds to dump a whole bunch of apple sauce in his lap as he’s trying to use it. Then I look over 2 minutes later and he’s back to using his fingers. What??? He’s 3 ½!!!! My 2 year-old is using his spoon and eating his applesauce better! Seriously though, my son didn’t spill hardly at all – not near as much as the 3 ½ year-old did.

Then the 16 month-old saw that everyone was getting applesauce but him (I was holding the screaming newborn at this point and new that I would have to feed him applesauce if he was going to have it, so I was waiting for the newborn to calm down). He did still have food on his plate that he had been happily eating until this point. But what does he do? He starts crying. Now, I don’t know about all of your kids, but when my kids were that age and couldn’t talk, they would point to what they wanted and go “eeehhhhh,” which of course was annoying, but at least they were telling me what they wanted. This kid cried when he wanted applesauce (yep, stopped as soon as I started feeding it to him), he cries when you pick him up, he cries when you change his diaper. It’s almost like he has no personality.

When it comes to brushing teeth my son is a pro…all we need to get him to do is learn to spit and he’ll be set. I’ve been brushing his teeth since he was around 9 months-old, so he has it down. The 16 month-old? Every time we try to put a toothbrush in his mouth he just bites it. After a couple minutes of this I get so frustrated I give up. No matter how much hubby and I try to coax him and teach him, he keeps biting it!

The talking thing is really hard for me to get used to. I used to think that our daughter was just really smart because she talked so early…everyone told us to watch out because boys talk so much later. Well, now I’m starting to think that hubby and I are doing something right because our son talks way above the “norm” for his age as well. The kids we’re watching? Not so much. My son talks at the same level, if not better, than the 3 ½ year-old. It’s hard, because the 3 ½ year-old will come in and I’ll have to have him repeat a lot of stuff because I just can’t understand him. And then of course you have the crying 16 month-old…again, our kids were talking by that age. So if my son wanted more of something he would have said “more” when he was that age.

I really thought this week would be fairly easy because of how close in age everyone is. However, I had no idea that even though they are the same physical ages, their abilities are so very different.

If nothing else, this week has made me so proud of my daughter, my son, and of hubby and myself. My kids are fantastic! My 4 year-old daughter took a shower entirely by herself last night…I didn’t do any more than open the conditioner bottle for her! My son constantly talks my ear off, which I really enjoy! I really think that hubby and I are good at this parenting thing…our kids are happy, we’re happy, and life is good!

Day 3 of Having 5 Kids.....

Last night I thought it would be fun if the older kids helped me make pizza for dinner. So I brought out some pizza dough that I had made last winter and we got to work. It actually went pretty well! The only problem was that the kids hated having their hands messy!

Here are some pictures (sorry the one is blurry…I had to quickly take the pictures).

Since it was so hot outside and I didn’t feel like doing another round of baths, we kept the kids inside all night and it was pretty calm and relaxing. I got to bed around 10:45 which was very nice and the baby slept pretty well. Only 3 ½ more days to go!!!

Day 2 of Having 5 Kids....

And I’m so freaking tired! I really don’t know how much sleep I got last night, but I know it wasn’t very much (or should I say, it was very broken up).

I got home yesterday and made dinner, which thankfully, was already marinating in the refrigerator. I didn’t get to eat a good dinner because the baby was crying the whole time. I had fed him and changed him…he just wanted held. After dinner we took the kids outside to have popsicles – but it was like 500 degrees out there and the humidity was absurd! However, we had popsicles and we got the hose out and tried to have a good time. Notice I said “tried” because little baby is screaming his head off and the other baby (16 month old) hates grass. He doesn’t want to sit on the blanket, swing or play in the sandbox. And if he comes in contact with grass he cries. So I take both he and the littlest one in to give them baths while hubby stayed outside with the older ones who were playing wonderfully in the sandbox.

As I was starting to give the 16 month-old a bath, I found something that soothed the newborn: the water running in the tub! So I let it run the whole time and I was able to give the 16 month-old a bath and get him dressed and into the crib. After that I gave the newborn a bath…he was awesome! He just looked at me the whole time even though his little lips were quivering because he was cold. Once he was dressed I put him in his bed (on his back) and let him cry for a little bit and he fell asleep.

By now the older ones were coming in so I took my daughter into our bathroom and she took a shower while the other two boys got a bath by hubby. The two boys go to bed and my daughter comes down with us and hangs out on the couch…it was very easy to tell she was seriously missing the “mommy daddy time” that was being eaten up by the extra guests.

Finally by 10:30 I can’t keep my eyes open anymore and we head to bed. The oldest boy and my daughter are still awake, which I hate because I have a hard time going to sleep until everyone is asleep, but last night was a different story! I was out fast.

But not for long. Newborn baby woke up at 11:00 and so I went downstairs and made him a bottle and fed him. Apparently I fell asleep because at 2:00 I woke up and tried to put him in his crib, only to have him wake up 5 minutes later wanting more food. Fell asleep again and laid him back in his bed at 6:30. By the time I was out of the shower he was screaming again. With this sleep thing I have learned/remembered 2 things:

-I totally realize why they recommend you take a 12 week maternity leave. Getting up with him and going back to work is killing me!

-I remember now why I used to dread the night time when my son was a newborn. I feel that way now…just the thought of trying to go to sleep because I’m so tired, but knowing I will wake up a ton of times is horrible!


We are still having a ton of fun…those are just the tiring points :) We feel confident that we can have a lot of kids…this is hard because they aren’t our kids and we wouldn’t have our kids so close together. We can see that if it was our son and a newborn we’d be fine. But throwing the 16 month-old into the mix is hard.

I hope you are all having a great week and getting a ton more sleep than I am!!!

FUN MONDAY - APRON REVIEW

OK, so today’s Fun Monday topic is brought to you by ChrisB and the assignment was to talk about your favorite apron. I almost have to ask “what is an apron?” See, I don’t think I’ve ever worn an apron in my life. I probably should as I have a bunch of shirts with grease spots on them from cooking (actually, I think the one I have on right now has a grease spot…Darn it!).

I think the idea is a great one, but I just think I look kind of dorky in it, so I’ve never worn one. My daughter, on the other hand, loves to wear one :)

Day 1 of Having 5 Kids:

Wow…so far it’s easier than I thought it would be :) Our sitter dropped them off around 6:45 and by the time she left and came back to get a back she had forgotten, she didn’t leave until 10:00. The kids seemed to feel right at home instantly. Bed time was difficult because of my kids (go figure!). My son is sleeping on a mattress on the floor since the younger one has his crib. You would have thought he would love that, but he cried for a long time last night. Then my daughter decided she didn’t want to sleep with anyone so she went into the guest room by herself. But all in all they were all asleep before my kids would have normally been asleep on a Sunday night!

Here are some of the things that I have learned while having the kids so far:

-Filling 4 sippy cups with different drinks in each cup takes a while! So when you think you’re going to quickly get them a drink, you’re not going to be quick!

-It’s really hard to cook dinner with a 16 month-old walking around because you have to keep an eye on him and on dinner so it doesn’t burn. Needless to say we had some burnt grilled cheese last night!

-My views on breastfeeding have been reconfirmed! For totally selfish reasons, I will nurse any future babies I may have as I found out through experience last night the getting up and making a bottle and feeding it to him in the middle of the night sucks! I understand people come up with systems and hubbies help out, but as I was reminded last night…my hubby doesn’t hear a single sound that baby makes! For me, it was a lot easier to bring the baby over and feed it and kind of fall back to sleep and then put baby back to sleep than it was to make the bottle and feed him. But of course, that’s just my personal opinions.

-I don’t mean to offend anyone out there, but I’m shocked that there are actually people out there that still put their infants to sleep on their stomachs and with loose blankets on them. I’m super-duper obsessed and worried about SIDS. I was so worried with my kids and am again worried with this baby as I have him during the peak time SIDS occurs. His mom went up last night to put him to bed before she left and laid him on his stomach and put a blanket over him and casually said he hates sleeping on his back. Then she let him cry for ½ hour until he went to sleep. Now, I know my son was a pistol, and there were times that for naps I would lay him on his stomach on the couch by me, but I sat there and continuously watched him. I have no idea what I would do if I lost a child to SIDS, let alone if I had to call a mom in California to tell her that her child had died. So, I decided that I would sacrifice my sleep to make sure he’s on his back! Luckily, after his 1:45 AM feeding I laid him on his back and he went right to sleep! I hope the rest of this week goes that well!

-We set up “nanny cams” at the house and right now I’m so spoiled because I’m watching my kids play! Seriously, I need to get back to work but I’m so addicted!

I think that’s it for now…I will continue to update you as the week goes on! Here’s a picture I took last night of the “band” my daughter organized. They all had to have guitars and they all had to have sunglasses!

Next Week and DRAMA!

So we’re watching extra kids next week and of course there has to be drama surrounding this, doesn’t there? The nanny that’s coming to the house to watch the kids next week while we’re at work? DRAMA!

Supposedly (this just seems weird to me) someone scheduled her for an interview for a “real” job (what her degree is im) without checking with her first. So some lady is flying in to interview people on Thursday and she is signed up for it. She feels really bad and said she would tell them “no” if we can’t find anyone to watch the kids. Hello? This interview is for a “real” job…the one you went to college to get? What you want to do everyday? How on earth could I tell her she couldn’t go?

The other drama is that she thought the hours were from 7:30 – 4:30, when in fact they are from 7:00 – 5:00. So she has to leave early that day too because she has something that starts at 5:00. I know I’m painting her out to be a flake, but she really is sweet and nice…she just doesn’t understand that we work ½ hour away, so coming home during lunch while she interviews just isn’t an option.

I’ve also had a hard time dealing with wondering what I will get in return for doing this favor for our sitter…I hate that I keep thinking about it. My gut reaction to the situation was to help her out. But now I keep thinking “will she give me a discount for a couple weeks?” I’ve tried to talk to hubby about this and he’s helping me…I need to stop thinking about what people will give me for helping them, because that really and truly is not why I help people, but inevitably my brain starts thinking about it. She has made multiple comments about how she owes us and that if we ever need to go away without the kids she would be happy to keep them for us. Which is really sweet, but the problem is that if we ever went anywhere without our kids (which hardly ever happens) my parents would KILL me if anyone else got to watch them. They want those kids all the time, so I would probably never take her up on her offer.

So last night hubby and I thought of a solution and hopefully she goes for it. We decided to take a vacation with his parents in September, so I e-mailed our current sitter and asked her if as a trade-off, when we’re not there in September for that week, could we not pay (our agreement right now is we pay unless she takes days off for vacation or sick days)? I look at is like it’s not money actually coming out of her pocket, just less money coming in and she’s “on vacation” that week without my kids there. I haven’t heard back from her yet since I just sent it. I think it’s fair…what do you guys think?

Today We Are a Family of 4, Sunday We Will Be a Family of 7

I’m crazy, I know, but we will be having 3 additional kids staying with us all of next week. Our new babysitter has the chance to accompany her husband on a business trip to California and all she has to pay for is her food and her plane ticket. All of the sitters that she looked at wanted to charge her $1,000 to watch her kids for the week. Being a stay at home mom and a one income family, that was way too much.

So I got this crazy idea that if she found someone to come and watch the kids at my house, we would keep her three boys over night for them. Did I mention the ages of her three boys? No, oh, silly me. They are 3 ½, 16 months and 8 weeks. Yep, I go back to nighttime feedings next week.

We are actually very excited! We were going through the house last night trying to figure out where each kid would sleep and how we would accommodate three kids that need to be in cribs (I believe my son, the oldest of them at just over 2, will graduate to the toddler bed for the week). My daughter is excited because she gets to have a sleepover! Let me declare that this is the only sleepover she will have with a boy she is not related to :)

We did realize, however, how unprepared we are for the little ones. First off, I have no food in my house. It’s amazing how I can whip up dinners and such out of nothing for my family, but with 2 more kids that eat real food and a nanny coming next week, I have to really stock up! It’s also a hard adjustment for us to have “normal” kids in the house. By this I mean that the only safety measure we really took with our kids are outlet protectors. We didn’t need gates because we could close off the stairs down to the basement and our kids knew they were not allowed to climb up the stairs. However, in this house we will not be able to close off the stairs down to the playroom, so we’ll have to have a gate. We also have lots of little toys around because I had awesome kids that never put things in their mouths, so my daughter has the little Barbie shoes and that sort of stuff. I know I have exceptional kids, so now I have to baby-proof my house for kids that are actually normal kids and that probably climb, and try the stairs, and put things in their mouths.

So they will get dropped off on Sunday. And yes, I’m a nervous wreck. But I’m also really looking forward to having more kids around. Hubby and I want to have more kids, so next week we’ll get a taste of just how crazy it can be!

My Birthday....

Well yesterday was wonderful! I had an awesome lunch with my friend, had great cake at work, and then had a wonderful dinner!

When I got home I informed hubby that I wanted everyone to go to dinner. I said that I liked big birthdays, and that our anniversary is in a couple weeks and we would be going alone then. So when my sister got there I told her that we had changed our minds and that she and her boyfriend would be coming with us to dinner!

Hubby had me open my presents before we left. I opened the one from my son and it was a flashy-light thingy for the back of the pull-behind thing for the bike that we put the kids in. I was like "OK, ummmm, thanks." Then I opened my daughter's present and it was a speedometer for a bike...something hubby wanted! I was a little confused until I opened hubby's present.......a brand new bike! I've been using the same one I bought at K-Mart when we were in college. It was $100 and that was BIG spending for me back then. I've never complained about it, it works fine and we go on bike rides all the time. But hubby had taken the kids to an actual bike shop and picked out a fantastic bike for me!

After presents we went to dinner at Las Margaritas and I ordered a huge Margarita right away! We had a great waiter! When it was time for dessert all I wanted was so fried ice cream. He came back and said they were out of ice cream, but I could have flan or a shot of Tequila. I told him not to worry about it, I would get something somewhere else. Then all of a sudden I hear these loud drums and singing and they put this huge sombrero on me and start singing to me! Then right in front of my they put a double shot of tequila! And this whole time hubby whips out a little video camera that my dad has and told me that my dad had wanted him to take pictures for him of my dinner. So he's getting all of this on video. Since I had already had a gigantic margarita and I despise taking shots, I did a mini-shot so I wouldn't insult them and handed the rest over to my sister's boyfriend. Then hubby hands me the video camera and says "here, this is from your dad." So now I have a little video camera that I can always keep in my purse to get those "unforgettable" moments when I don't carry around our larger one.

So it was a great night! I decided to give my old bike the little girl that moved with us from our old house and she was soooo happy! She had even made me a birthday card!

I'm lucky because my birthday gets to be continued out for about 2 weeks! We'll celebrate and get more presents over the next two weeks as I see hubby's family and my other sisters!

Here are pictures of my presents:

Here I am opening my speedometer (can you tell I'm a little confused?):

My friend gave me the cool cookbook and the dish, which matches perfectly to a different one that I have and keep on my counter all the time. The camera my dad gave me is in front, and my sister gave me chocolates (she said she'll give me the rest of my present with my other sister).

And my new bike!!!!!

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!

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!

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.

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.”

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.

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!

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 :)

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….

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?

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!

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.

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 :) ).

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.

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.

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?

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 :)

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?

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?

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!!!!!