Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Top Five Benefits to Having Children

As another mommy blogger got me thinking, I realized that there are a lot of benefits to having children that you don't read about in baby books. Here are my top 5:
1.  You get really good tables at restaurants when you have a stroller. Since the stroller needs to be out of the way, we tend to get nice, front corner tables with great views, out of the way of all the servers. Fine by me!

2.  They will pick things up off the floor and put them away / bring them to you / throw them away.  This benefit doesn't start until they understand commands, at about 18 months or so, but it's so much fun! And, it allows me to not have to bend over so much.

3.  (At least at my house) they LOVE to clean the kitchen with different electronic devices, and dusting is really fun! I'd never take advantage of this (insert sarcasm here), but if I did, I'd let them sweep with the Broom Vac to their hearts' content, dust bust the living day lights out of every booster chair and under the base boards, and dust the rungs of all 8 chairs in the kitchen. Oh, the joy!

4.  Come age 3, laundry is a lot of fun for them, and they can fold wash rags, bibs, burp rags, underwear, and some shirts and pants. With 3 kids and 5 - 7 loads of laundry each week (seriously, I think my neighbors are dropping off their laundry when I'm not looking!) it's a huge help!

5.  A whole new appreciation for holidays.  It's amazing to look at Christmas lights through the eyes of a 3 year old. It doesn't matter how crappy they look, how badly they were put up, or how gorgeous they are, they are all so cool in his opinion, and I love driving around the neighborhood that extra time just so he can check them out!

What about you, what are YOUR top 5 benefits to having children?

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Thousand Word Thursday

This guy...



has really kept me hopping lately. In the past 3 weeks, he has been in the ER twice, at sick call 3 times. He has had croup, bronchitis, pink eye, and now an ear infection (#5 since his tubes went in last April). To add to the fun, he's getting his 2 year molars AND going through terrible 2's. As I'm sure you can imagine, the fun just never ends! (insert sarcasm here).

During tantrums, he's been known to throw himself on the ground and purposely hit his head, just to get a reaction.
    He likes to put his feet on the table when he is done eating, again, for a reaction.
        He'll throw food to see what I say.
                 He tells me that he is going to hit "I mad, I going to hit", or that he is going to throw something. I find it very nice of him to alert me that the bad behavior is coming, though really, I'd just prefer it didn't happen at all. But I digress.

Yesterday was no different. He had been up crying for an hour the night before, and when I asked him what hurt, he said his ear. So, off to the doctor we went yesterday, and sure enough, it is a lovely ear infection.  As we are leaving the building, he wants to run. We start to run, he falls, and hits his head in the parking lot. (Again with not winning Mom of the Year award). We get in the car, he's crying, doesn't want to go to day care. I'm rationalizing with him at the stop light...and get rear-ended. Yep, all of these events happened within a 10 minute time frame.  Not sure if I should be thankful or not, but the car accident got him to stop crying. I told him someone had hit us, and for the next 10 hours, he kept saying Somebody hit US, in this adorable little voice.

So here's to life calming down with him over the next 3 weeks. We're hoping that he's just doing a big run of the illnesses now so that the winter can be a healthy one. Ha ha. Good one.


Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Wordless Wednesday


Oh how we will miss this dog!

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Mom of the Year

This week's reason why I will not win Mom of the Year...on Saturday, my own mom was down visiting, and was going to take the boys out for dinner.  She was getting shoes on them, and they both have the same pair of adorable Adidas shoes, but obviously in different sizes. Let me precede this by saying that earlier in the week, my husband and I had a conversation about their shoes, and how we thought maybe it was time to get bigger ones, so on Thursday night I had measured their feet and referred to the Stride Rite website and noted that Joey should be wearing a 9, and Jake a 7. I thought, oh good, Joey is currently in an 8, so we need a size bigger, and jake is already in a 7, so we're all set.  So on Saturday, I told my mom that Joey wears the 8's, and Jake wears the 7's. She puts the 7's on Jake, and then tells me that the other shoes are smaller, a 6. I'm confused, partly at the shoes and partly just a natural phenomenon these days. I search the house high and low, and then come to the conclusion. Joey has been wearing 7's, and Jake has been wearing 6's. And it's hard to get nominated as Mom of the Year when your kid is wearing shoes 2 sizes too small and you don't even know it. Duh. I have a masters degree and yet I can't figure out his shoes are too small?

So on Sunday, I loaded up the kids to brave shoe shopping alone with 3 children. We went to the SR outlet, and with help from the kind measuring lady, my oblivion for the obvious was confirmed. I let each boy pick out their own shoes, and Jake picked out some shoes with a firetruck that light up. And today, I'm thankful he did. You see, the boy is so excited about those darn lights. He played with his shoes for about an hour on Sunday afternoon,  just watching them light up. Yesterday, as we waited 2.5 hours at the doctor's office for his newly obtained pink eye diagnosis, he turned the lights off and would stomp his feet and watch the lights. He would put himself inside the cabinet under the exam table, and watch the lights. And those $30 shoes provided him an hour of entertainment at the doctor. When we got home, he realized that as he walked up the steps, they lit up. And again, those $30 shoes provided another hour of entertainment. The pure look of joy, and knowing that my 2 year old, who rarely gets anything new, is so excited about a pair of shoes, just warms my heart and makes me feel like, at least in HIS eyes, I AM mom of the year!

Monday, November 9, 2009

Oh what a week!

It's been a rough start to the pre-winter season at our home...between bronchitis, ear infections, croup, colds, and now pink eye, well, I'm ready for Calgon to take me away! But I've been having a great time home with my kiddos.  I learn all kinds of things from them when we are home sick. For example, Joey loves to make "deh signs" - which, when he says it, sounds a lot like DEATH SIGNs - as a mom of a 3 year old, this, of course, did not make me happy when I heard him tell me this is what he wanted to make.  I finally asked him to show me what he was going to make, and he pointed to the words in his book - Make Designs! Of course, when you are 3 and learning to read, Designs can also be pronounced DEH signs.

I've learned that Jake will repeat anything you say, and that his talking is getting so much better, as is his comedy skit that he's preparing for later in life. Our dog, who honestly,won't make it to Christmas, and possiblty not to Thanksgiving, was laying on the floor and Jake laid nose-to-nose with him and said What's the problem Nikko? Tell me, what's the problem? Minutes later, he was standing by the kitchen chairs and said I going to blow my nose on Joe's chair. I said absolutely not, which he didn't listen to, and then he decided he needed to blow his nose on his OWN chair.  He really is a sweet, loving boy, but the things that cross his mind that he then acts out, well, I fear for the number of times we will end up in the principle's office in about 5 years...

I've learned that no matter what, Mia wants her mommy, and she is very afraid of any loud noise. The neighbor's dog barked at her, and she flipped out. Her daddy made a funny noise at her, which he does to the boys all the time, and she flipped out. She surely is a 'sensitive soul', as our pediatrician calls her. Not sure how that will bode for her in the future.

Mostly though, I've learned that I"m not cut out to be a SAHM. I love being home with my children, I love spending time with them 1:1, and I treasure these times as I know as they get older they'll get fewer and fewer. But I do love to go to my job, and be challenged by things like erectile dysfunction and BPH (well, not me personally, but the studies I manage). And I love the flexibility it's given me to be home when I need to but be there when all is well. Now if only I could figure out how to be at work and have my house magically clean itself and my laundry magically put itself away.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

I have some confessions to make

Really today, I am just really flying in the wind.  I don't really have much desire to do anything at all, my most recent study has been cancelled (I work in clinical research), and really, I just don't feel like doing anything.  But I do have some confessions to make to you, my blog friends, about things on my mind lately.

Like the fact that after 3 children, I think I need a boob job - please excuse the language. But I'm tired of looking like a 12 year old girl. And so, this will be on my Christmas wish list this year. I wonder if Santa is giving these out?

And I'm confused as all get out by Mia's night time schedule, or lackthereof. The child has the same routine every.single.night, eating at the same time, bathing at the same time, etc. And yet one night she can sleep from 8 - 4 without eating, and the next night, she's up at 2 a.m. needing to eat. And talk. I'm not quite sure what the heck she needs to talk about at 2 a.m., but surely it can wait until the sun comes up?

I'm also floored by my 3 year old, who last night in the car blurted out, Mommy guess what 4 times 5 is, and then told me the correct answer. He proceeded to do multiplication facts on his Leapster for about an hour, and then this morning on the way to preschool.

I also must confess, while I've become addicted to both reading and writing blogs, I hate the way my own blog looks, and am in search of someone to design one that looks, well, nice.

We also got results yesterday from my husband's CT scan. They showed calcified granulomatous disease in his lungs. I'll admit, I'm scared to death. I'm a bit of a hypochondriac as it is, and this terrifies me. Was it passed on to our kids? How severe is it? Why the hell hasn't his doctor called us with results? Why did we have to call the radiologist and get the report for ourselves? Sigh. These are just a few of the things rolling around on my mind.

So in a twist on Just Wondering Wednesday, I just wanted to confess to you the things I've been tossing around lately.   You know, since I'm just so busy at work and all...

Wordless Wednesday - Lady Bug and her Train Gang


Monday, November 2, 2009

Not me! Monday

It's that time again, time to get off of your chest all the things you didn't do last week, because you are a responsible grown up who would never handle yourself in that manner! Just as...
I most certainly did NOT forget my baby in the car at Walmart on Saturday night, long enough to walk into the store and get a cart and head towards the food. I then most certianly did not run as fast as I could, faster than I have in my whole likfe, to get her, and feel like the world's most rotten mother, person, and human being.  And I have not lamented over it for the past 3 days. 

My husband most certainly did not ask me on Saturday while trick or treating if this is how dark my hair really is.  I mean, why would I dye my monotonously dark hair with some fabulous highlights? I'm most certainly not that vain.  And I absolutely did not crash my work computer on Friday reading blogs...only to require 3 hours of IT repair on Friday and another 3 hours today. Nope, not me. I spend all of my working time WORKING, not reading blogs.

I also did not run straight into Joey's bed last night with the laundry basket on my hip, only to take a huge gouge out of it and win myself a humongous bruise. I'm so much more coordinated than that! And right now, at this exact moment, I"m definitely not watching Kate: Her story on TLC and secretly wishing for a reconciliation, for the family and the kids. Nope, not me, for sure!