Ah...The Long Weekend Is Over

It's always sad when Grandma leaves...

Who else decides to do wacky things like buy 3-year-olds their own tomato and basil plants?

They'll be dead in a week.

Just kidding, Mom!! Well, maybe not.

In Case You Were Wondering...*** Updated

This is where I will be for the next four days with no kids, or Hubby, for that matter. Going to a girlfriend's wedding in Banff Springs, about an hour and a half West of Calegary, Canada.

Disney Obsession

My 2.5 year old is really into Disney shows, and the usual gamut of Nick shows, but recently she's been very interested in Hannah Montana. She'll sit quietly and watch the show for almost an entire episode and she'll laugh at all the appropriate times (although I really think she's laughing because the laugh track is on). It's the funniest thing in the world to see a baby looking at a pre-teen show - I'd love to know what it is about this show that's attracting ALL the kids:)

Scene & Heard 3: In the Elevator

Scene:
This morning in the elevator on the way to my office floor, Starbucks cup in hand.

Heard:
Woman: "What are you doing drinking coffee?" Flashes fake smile.

Me: "Actually it's not coffee - it's decaf tea." Flashes fake smile.

Woman: "Actually, tea is just as bad as coffee." Flashes fake smile.

Me: "Not if it's decaffeinated." Flashes fake smile. [Thinking: Why are you all up in my cup??]

Woman: "Good luck with your pregnancy, dear!" Flashes fake smile and waves.

Maybe I need to start looking mean. Apparently my demeanor gives people the idea that I'm approachable and they can just tell me whatever they want!

My Very Own Visa Commercial

Bubble machine: $7.99

Watching your kids' absolute delight over dishsoap blowing in the wind: Priceless

So Tell Me How You Really Feel...

Yesterday I was leaving church and (of course) had to make a pit stop in the ladies' room. My church is relatively small and I pretty much know everyone, but there was an older lady in there that I hadn't seen before. She smiled and asked if this was going to be my first child and I told her that it was actually going to be my third. She was congratulatory and all the rest, and then started asking how I was feeling, etc. Anyway, somehow I ended up telling her that I worked full time and that's where the conversation went down hill...

She immediately said "OH. You work." And that's when I knew where the conversation was headed. She then went on to say "People usually get angry with me for saying this but, I don't understand why women who work have children. It doesn't make any sense that you would leave your child with a stranger. My husband and I were married 14 years, until he passed, and I am proud to say that my children never spent a day in anyone else's care." And on. And on. Of course I'm paraphrasing based on what I remember, but you get the gist. She even went on to say that she knew of a woman who had a baby and returned to work after 6 months. She told the woman "Well, what was the point of having a baby if you were going to leave her after 6 months?" She also said that "if every woman did what the Bible said and took care of the home like she is supposed to, she would not need to work."

Yup. She did.

So at this point I'm deciding whether it's worth defending my position, or if I should just be polite, smile and leave. It was odd because on the one hand I don't necessarily disagree with her. On the other hand, I wanted to explain to her that all women don't always have the luxury of not working outside of the home (not to mention those who just choose to). So I basically told her that, while she was blessed to have been able to stay home with her children, not everyone can afford to do that and that just because a woman must work doesn't mean that she should not experience the blessing of having children. I didn't want to be rude (even though I thought that she was rude), and I left it at that. She said that she would "pray for me" that one day I could stay at home with my children. I thanked her and got out of dodge.

Sheesh. Next time I'll just hold it until I get home.

Never A Dull Moment...

Giggles' new favorite pastime is playing with all of the door locks in the house. Usually, she locks a door while she is in the room with someone and we can get the door open easily, but on Monday she decided to change up her M.O. and turn the lock, exit the room and pull the door in behind her. Which meant that the door was locked and there was no one in the room to unlock it. She did this while hubby was home and I was on my way home from work, so by the time I walked in the door, hubby was beside himself trying to figure out a way to unlock the door. He tried everything - the hinges weren't exposed; a paperclip in the lock didn't work; he even went outside to try to break into their room through the window (which fortunately, for safety reasons, he could not). And so he decided it was time to pull out HIS TOOLS. He was convinced there was absolutely no other way to open the door expect to cut a hole in it. And so "Project Destroy A Perfectly Good Door" was underway.

Allow me to illustrate:

Exhibit 1: THE CULPRIT & HER TRUSTY SIDEKICK

Exhibit 2: DARLING HUBBY SAWING THE BIG HOLE AFTER POWER DRILLING STARTER HOLES INTO THE PERFECTLY GOOD DOOR

Exhibit 3: DARLING HUBBY REACHING IN THROUGH THE BIG HOLE TO UNLOCK THE DOOR FROM THE INSIDE
Exhibit 4: SUCCESS! Please - a moment of silence for the RUINED DOOR.

But wait! There's more! The next morning I was telling the nanny the story of why the PERFECTLY GOOD DOOR was destroyed and she couldn't believe it. She said that Giggles had locked the doors before and she used one of my extra large bobby pins to get the door open. She showed hubby how she did it and he was in disbelief. It was hilarious.

I think the whole ordeal was a great example of how men approach situations differently from women.

But wait! There's still more! As luck would have it, the door is NOT a standard door that you can buy at Home Depot. It is a custom size. Naturally. So instead of $45, the door would be quite expensive to replace. Hubby swears he can fix the door himself and so Phase 1 of "Operation Repair What Was Once a Perfectly Good Door" has begun. I will keep you posted with his progress.

I know you're holding your breath with anticipation.

Play at my house - why don't you?!?!?

I have a similar situation that Justice Jones had a few weeks ago about playdates - in this case, it's not really a date - and therein lies the problem!

There is a little boy who lives a couple houses down the street from us and he's about a year older than DD. The little boy "J" is ALWAYS outside. It absolutely drives me crazy - 10 am in the morning, he's outside, 3 pm in the afternoon, he's outside, 9 pm at night - J's outside (are you sensing my annoyance yet????). Anyway, because he's always outside DD always wants to play with him. It was fine during the winter because they would see each other periodically and play outside for a few minutes because it would eventually get too cold for DD and she would come inside. Anyway, now that the weather is great, we are greeted at the car by J - literally! Before I can even get out of the car, J is standing there...waiting. It's a little inconvenient because there are times that DD has not yet eaten and J is there waiting for us. And of course, as soon as DD sees J she forgets that she's hungry or needs to be changed. So, it definitely is hampering my ability to get my child in the house to start the evening routine. What really bugs me as well is that his family says absolutely nothing about it (Gripe # 1).

At first, DD and J would play outside and call it quits after about an hour or so -- That was totally fine with me. Sometimes, I even encouraged J to join DD is her playroom in our house because that gave me the flexibility to get dinner started or watch the news or whatever my heart desired. I much preferred them playing in the play room than outside because of all the safety issues that can occur when they are outside.

Anyway, DH allowed DD to go to J's house to play. A decision that had me uneasy, but not necessarily upset. I was never allowed to go to other people's houses to play when I was a child - so I'm a little tainted in my view of this practice. But because DH was not as 'protected' as I was, he didn't really see a problem with the home-visits. So, I let it go. But, recently I started feeling more uncomfortable with it - mainly because I don't particularly like the fact that J's family will let him come over to our house without asking any questions or even checking on him. I don't agree with their parenting style and I wonder what kind of supervision my 2.5 yr old is getting when she goes over to their house. So, I talked to DH about my concerns and although he doesn't agree he said he would refrain from allowing her over there.

Now, back to the issue...because I don't want DD at J's house, J has been invited to our house. However, J has an older cousin "JJ". She's about 5 years old and they are always playing together. JJ does not live with J but she visits almost every afternoon. So, now we have the issue of not only J coming over to our house, but JJ is coming too. To be honest, we have never really invited JJ - she just tags along because J is coming over. The problem is that JJ is much older than DD and she tries to boss DD around and she wreaks havoc on our playroom. She trashes a lot of the toys and she plays with things that we restrict and then she tries to go walking through our house rather than playing in the playroom and we don't allow that. (Gripe #2).

I know this sounds like I'm over-reacting but I don't want to be mean to a child, but JJ just doesn't listen and is a little harder to control than J. Of course, there is always a little bit of hesitation in exercising control over someone else's child and as a parent, I don't want to be forced to be too firm with JJ but that's what it's coming to. Also, with JJ around J becomes more difficult to handle as well. So.....JJ really changes the dynamic of the playtime. I don't want to be mean, but I don't want her coming over to my house. What do I do? How do I handle it? Any advice......

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Teenage Angst. About 12 Years Too Soon.

Ok, so I expected to run into the drama and misery of my daughters' teenage years sooner or later...just not when she was 3 1/2 years old. Lately, Chatterbox is unhappy about, well, everything. I noticed that it began a week or so ago when she started insisting on wearing the same pair of jeans every.single.day. Also, I bought a brand new pair of adorable shoes and she absolutely refuses to wear them, but only wantes to put on her broken down old shoes from last fall. So getting dressed in the mornings became a battle. Then came Alexa.

Alexa is an older girl in Chatterbox's class that had "big ties" (meaning braids) in her hair. Oh and Alexa wears flip flops to school. Well, between those two fashion statements, Alexa has quickly become Chatterbox's fashion muse. She was upset (and I mean UPSET) everyday last week when I did her hair and it did not look like Alexa's. And she was further upset by the fact that I wouldn't let her wear flip flops to school. I mean, not only are they impractical for running on the playground, etc., but I believe that there is a time and place for flip flops and school isn't one of them. So on Friday I had the woman who braids their hair on occasion come over to see if we couldn't hook Chatterbox up with some "ties." She was excited and I was relieved. Only to find out that the braids the woman gave her were not "BIG!" "LIKE ALEXA'S!" And so we were back to the sour face. Then she kicked and screamed when we were getting ready to go to brunch for Mother's Day yesterday because she didn't want me to put any bows in her hair. Nor did she want to wear the outfit that I had picked out. And of course, she wanted to wear flip flops too, but aside from the fact that she would have looked nuts, it was cold and rainy and that wouldn't have made any sense. Really, it was so bad that my morning was almost ruined. Hubby had to have a talk with her to calm her down like only he can.

And don't get me started on the regular meltdowns we have in the kitchen over what she does and doesn't want to eat.

Just what on earth is going on with her? I spoke to my mom and a couple of friends about it and they all seem shocked that she is so opinionated and looks-conscious at such a young age. I'm going try spending some more one-on-one time with her and maybe talking to her teacher to make sure nothing out of the ordinary is going on at school. I'm hoping it's a (short) phase, because Lord only knows I can't be going through this for the next 12 years.

Maybe I can move in with Alexa.

First Dances

First, let me start by showing off two of the three handsome boys in my life. That's Hubby and Oldest. I found a suit just like Hubby's and Oldest wore it to a wedding we went to in Miami. Don't they look sharp! I still can't get over how much they look alike.

Now on to the more exciting news. Oldest had his first dance at the wedding. He looked so sharp he was able to snag him a couple of the flower girls. He danced so much he had to take his jacket off.
Of course I started snapping tons of pictures right away. Oldest was embarrassed but he didn't mind too much when I asked everyone to pose for a picture.

That's Oldest, his cousin, and the girls. I love how the girls "posed" for the shot.

All That Gooey Goodness Gone to Waste

What happens when you leave your beloved Gummy Cola Bottles in your glove compartment on a sunny day...






So, so sad.

Playdate Blues *Updated

Oldest has a playdate tomorrow at our house with his best friend. We're still getting our feet wet in this area so I don't know all the etiquette yet. My idea was that I would pick both boys up from school and have Mom pick her son up a few hours later. I wasn't sure if she would be okay with this since they have never been to our house and she's never seen me drive. We've been to their home, though. When I spoke to Mom she said she would drop her son off and "they" would stay for about an hour. This means I have to entertain her for an hour. She's very nice and pleasant, for sure. She entertained me for an hour at their home but it was small talk and I felt uncomfortable and wanted to avoid that this time around. I don't like small talk. Now I have to do this again. And I won't be able to catch up on folding laundry, that was my plan. GRRRRRRR.


I did find an interesting site on playdates though. It has tips and ideas for fun playdates. I'll have to check it out and see if they have any ideas on how I can entertain my guest.

I am pleased to report that the playdate actually went better than planned! Actually, I think it went great! In anticipation of avoiding the uncomfortable small talk, I had three planned activities for everyone. First, we made smoothies (Oldest loves cooking), then the boys planted some seeds in pots that Oldest picked. And last but not least, we were outside riding PowerWheels. We were so busy, there was no time for the awkward silences. Most importantly, the kids had a great time.

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