Being Thankful

Yesterday I took my girls & our troop downtown to deliver warm items to the homeless. We made 100 lunches and tied over 200 fleece blankets to give away - we hit the areas where folks are set up fairly permanently and visited those under bridges. It was quite an experience for the kids....ended up taking 12 girls along. The attitudes washed away and the girls spent some quality time talking to the people who we served. I've got tons of great photos, but can't share them because of the girls in them. They all gained a new respect for the comfort they live in. A great way to enter into the Thanksgiving season!

Packing Heaven

I've mentioned before that I really do enjoy packing....or even more - planning. It's not the thrill of putting things in a suitcase that I love, but the whole idea of gathering, shopping and planning for all the fun stuff I can organize with. Then I really do love putting it all together neatly and "just so".

My kids are going away to camp in a week and the prep and lead up time to this has been absolutely fun for me. My kids, quite frankly, could probably not care any less. If I sent them to camp with a trashbag full of t-shirts and shorts they would both probably be just fine. In fact, last year my oldest daughter refused some of my 'bunk set up techniques' because one of the other girls called her a "fancy camper". Sadly, this made me feel very accomplished.

At any rate, I only have a week left to find all the perfect little things to get these kids off to camp. I spent this morning at one of my favorite place - The Container Store - and I spent way to much money on organizational tools for packing. I bought my oldest daughter things that I know she probably will not want to use, but things that I just could not resist. Luckily my younger daughter is all about the "set up" and she thrives on taking an idea to the limit. There's still hope for me as long as no one teases my younger child about all her accessories. If she gets the minimalist attitude I'm going to have to enter a program or intervention.

If you'll excuse me I've got a trunk to organize......

Random nothingness

Nothing to see here - just waiting out the last two weeks of school so that I can SLEEP IN! In which case I am certain that my body will awaken me by 7am regardless. I have never been one to sleep late, even when I was a teenager I was always up very early. My dad used to say that sleeping in was wasting daylight, and I kind of agreed. I just really hate to be forced to get up early, which is what school does to me, therefore I complain. It's a mental issue really, the wanting what you can't have.......

I'm feeling kinda weird lately because I don't seem to have a lot to do - it's like I was jam packed busy for a very long time and then, now....nothing. I don't have a lot of work going on, the sports are finishing up, school and scouts are ending. I'm trying to decide if I even WANT to work with my sewing anymore. I mean, I LOVE to do the fun stuff, but I'm just pretty irritated with the "have to" and all the shithead people I have to deal with as a business owner. I'm just feeling a little bored with the whole set up. Perhaps I need to go to a business related conference to get my creative juices flowing and to renew my love for what I do. It wouldn't hurt if it were somewhere awesome like Hawaii or Vegas or S.F! I usually scoff at conferences and their credibility/necessity, but I think I need to eat those words. So who wants to organize a trip in the name of sewing??!!

I have not planned out the summer, which is a first for me. We have a trip at the very end of July, but beyond that we aren't doing anything spectacular. Both of my kids are going away to camp for the same week, and I would be very excited to have an entire week of solitude, but I'm 99 3/4% certain that my youngest child will not enjoy her first experience away. I have a strong feeling that I'll be picking her up early. I hope not, I hope she has a BLAST, but I'm just not too optimistic. I planned for them both to be at camp the same week and I hope that having her sister there will be a comfort for her. It was her idea to go to camp, but I just know her personality and I know how much she loves to have 'her space' - something that she won't get at camp. I do feel a great amount of relief that her big sister will be there and that she has such a GREAT big sister. As much as they can fight and bicker my oldest daughter loves my youngest like she is her child. It may have a lot to do with the 4 year age difference, but she is very protective of her and takes such good care of her. But all of that is not until July.

What a boring post. But that's just how I feel. Boring.

Dinner

Okay, I realize I sounded like I was whining for comments - I really wasn't! I was just thinking out loud about what other people would think......onward!

A few months ago I decided that our family needed to do some charitable work - we are usually pretty involved and like to volunteer, but I just felt like we needed something new for our plate. Something we could do as a family. So I signed us up to cook dinner for the Ronald McDonald House.

I chose some specific dates that would work, or that had meaning for us, but nothing was working out for the volunteer schedule. I ended up taking a random date that meant nothing to me, but according to my calendar I was available. February 7. I am a horrible football wife.

Many of you know that Feb. 7 was Super Bowl Sunday - and I didn't even know it. Better yet, I signed up our family for a 4-5 hour commitment between 4-9pm, which is smack in the heart of Super Bowl kickoff, pre game, etc. GO ME!

Fortunately, Hunk decided that he would DVR and catch up when we got home - even though I gave him full liberty to stay home and I would handle the dinner with just my girls. THANK GOD! I had no idea what I had gotten myself into and having him there was quite a relief!!

I did a lot of pre-cooking for the meal to try to make it easier on myself, but my goal was to serve a well thought out, no corners cut meal. After all, these folks could get cafeteria food at the hospital - what they needed was well prepared comfort food.

Our evening started out very stressful - I had incorrect directions and I was on edge about my portions, constantly second guessing myself on whether or not we had enough food. We got lost on the way there and were then 30 minutes behind the "start time" that I had planted in my head as the only road to success. I was freaking out that the food would not get done in time and the world would end. Hunk was on edge because, well, we were lost and he was driving (though not his fault, I had the directions). And he's a man. We finally made it, though behind schedule and found ourselves in the biggest kitchen I've ever seen in my life!

If you don't know what the Ronald McDonald House is, it is a place for families of children in the hospital - a place to stay, two meals a day and it is located right near the Children's hospital. It alleviates stress on families who don't live near the hospital, plus saves all the money that a hotel would cost. It's like a small home away from home, with lots of support to help them through a time when their focus should be on their child's medical health. It is a dream come true for families in medical stress. Thankfully we have never had to use their services, but both of my kids have had their fair share of medical needs and had we needed Ronald McDonald House, they would've been there for us. There are TWO Ronald McDonald Houses in Atlanta, obviously since we were lost, this is the location I had never been to before!

Our meal consisted of Pot Roast - mostly because it is my number one comfort food, and secondly because I knew that I could start it in the crock pots (I borrowed crocks from everyone I knew!) a day early and let it cook over the 24 hours leading up to the dinner. We also made twice baked potatoes, broccoli casserole (vegetarian option), green beans w/almonds and garlic cheese bread. Since it was Super Bowl Sunday I also decided a good appetizer would be a 5 layer mexican dip - and by the looks of the licked out pan I made a good choice!! We made cookies for dessert so that we could fill the house with the fresh baked smell. It turned out great - one woman commented that my cooking reminded her of her mother, another man was a chef (for a very famous TV personality) and gave my Pot Roast rave reviews and came back for seconds!

I left the dinner feeling great - we had done something wonderful for families who aren't as fortunate as we are at the moment and I left feeling like the greatest cook on earth from all the compliments I received. I didn't do it for my own satisfaction, but I certainly got a lot from the experience.

We are now on a volunteer schedule and I plan to cook for them as often as I can - it's time consuming and expensive (meal for 80+ people), but I think we've found a great outlet for our family to work together helping others - something that we are all equally a part of and all interested in.

Piggie Fun!

I am super excited about tomorrow! I'm a person who doesn't like "routine", so I really don't hold fast to traditions. I can't stand it when someone freaks out because "we always do it this way...." I'm really easy going and I don't really mind when things change, or happen differently than they used to. But tomorrow.....

Tomorrow we are going to do some fun stuff that we try to do with our kids every year during the holidays. Things that just make our holiday so much more fun, and I can't imagine not getting to do them every year!! First we are going to ride the PINK PIG! Granted, my legs go numb from being crammed into the ultra small seats, but the Pink Pig is an Atlanta legend and it's in a big tent outside of Macy's and they project pink lights everywhere and it is just a Pepto Bismol explosion of awesome!! After the Pink Pig, we will be spending the night downtown and then we will go to The Fabulous Fox Theatre to see The Nutcracker, performed by the Atlanta Ballet. Nothing puts me in the mood of Christmas quite like watching the Nutcracker!

I'm really looking forward to getting away from the house (even if only for one night) and just having FUN! I had visions of taking my little girl to the Nutcracker before she was even conceived, and now that we have TWO girls (though they aren't ballerinas, or even very girlie) this is such a fun thing to look forward to every year. I hope they will look back someday, when they have their own little girls, and have wonderful memories of this "tradition" with their not so traditional mom (and dad)!

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas!!

Your kid annoys me...

I have kids. Like most parents, I think my kids are pretty amazing. There is a distinct difference in me and many parents (that I encounter) - I live in REALITY. You see, even though I think my kids are pretty amazing, I also think that my kids can be really annoying. Every kid on earth has the opportunity to be really annoying, on many levels, on many occasions and it is up to me, and others as parents, to STOP THAT SHIT, immediately.

We went to see Santa last night. This year, the mall did this wonderful new trick where they no longer take reservations to see Santa - you just have to wait in line, for an hour and a half. With no benches. No wi-fi. No fountain to drown yourself in......


We had the option to go see a different Santa, however, THIS is OUR Santa. We've sat on this man's lap for the past 12 years, there was no chance I wanted to find a new Santa. It would totally mess up our entire photo collection. So, we waited.

Hunk offered to let me take the kids to dinner and he would hold our spot. I didn't take him up on that offer because I feared for the kid behind us. In the 1 and a half minutes that they had been behind us in line, the kid had bumped, rammed or otherwise touched me 5 times. I DO NOT like to be touched. I was on the verge of losing my cool, and let's just say that when it comes to obnoxious kids I am about 8 million times more patient than Hunk. I stayed for the safety of that kid.

When I get in a line, I strategically stop well before I get close to the folks in front of me. I don't like to be crowed, I don't like to be touched by strangers and I have limited patience for ignoramous people. I compensate for my known issues and I leave a buffer zone. The people behind us were reasonably buffered, for about 10 minutes, then they began to "inch". I have no earthly idea why people in a line must "inch" - especially when the line is NOT moving. See, Santa was away on his dinner break so we were just standing there, and yet people continued to "inch" forward as if it were going to help them get to Santa faster. By the time we reached the 45 minute mark the people behind us were literally rubbing up against me with every breath they took. I was seriously on the verge of a break down. But, I had my buffer in the front. I saved at least 3 feet between me and the people before me......so I scooted up a little. They CONTINUED to "inch". There was no escaping these people behind me and their obnoxious kid.

And it wasn't just them - it was a myriad of obnoxious kids. I don't understand how people let their children act so utterly annoying in public. There was a kiosk next to use where you could print off a coupon for your photos, well since there wasn't any entertainment for those kids waiting in line lots of kids thought the kiosk was a great thing to play with. In an hour and a half we waited there were about 6-8 kids who managed to print off about 856 coupons, and only to leave them in a pile on the floor. WTH? I realize that little kids need to be occupied, but here's a newsflash - you are going to WAIT IN LINE for Santa, what part of that shit does a parent not understand? Hello?! Bring a bag of tricks, a DS, a book, WHATEVER it takes. There has never been a Santa without a line, do you people not watch movies??????? Have you ever been to see Santa?????? There is ALWAYS a line!

The icing on the cake is that the obnoxious kids have such pathetic parents. It literally makes me ill to hear a parent giving their child exactly what they want when the kid is being a total douche. I want to kick the parents in the shins who have no balls to tell their kid to cool it.

But, hey, we got to see Santa. And the 30 seconds we spent with him were totally worth the 90 minutes of excruciating agony spent with your annoying kid shoving his face in my crack. And then we were treated to a wallet assassination by the photo people. MERRY CHRISTMAS!

40 hours

I only have 40 hours until I leave for vacation! Kidless vacation! Yaaaaahoooo!

We went to see UP this weekend, so that my kids would not have to wait until we returned to see it. I had NO idea it would be such a romantic story. I was crying before the lights were all the way out!! I'm not a cryer, either. I can usually control my urge to cry, but tears were POURING in the first 15 minutes. Perhaps I was particularly in tune to the romanticism due to our anniversary being this week - we've been looking at "old" photos and reminiscing about our past together. I still like Toy Story the best, but UP was remarkable. I really loved it.

In order to curb my guilt for ditching my kids, today we just returned from the Children's Museum of Atlanta. We spent 3 hours playing with stuff and learning about trees. In reality, my youngest daughter is on the very edge of being too old for this museum, but we have been there before and they still think it is a fun place to go. I had different ideas, but I let them decide where we would go for fun today. You do get to paint on the walls there, which I have to admit is a fun thing to do...

We then went to The Varsity for lunch. I got my standard "FO" and a slaw dog. My older daughter got fries, which I normally LOVE the fries at the Varsity, but today they were all limp and really greasy. This is not a bad thing for someone who shouldn't be eating fries - I certainly was not tempted by them today. We ate in the car (they have car jockeys) because the place was PACKED inside. I was done with dealing with crowds and rude people (from the museum) so the car was the best choice for my sanity. Besides, the car jockeys are cute mostly older gentlemen who are always fun to talk to.

Now, I'm off to try and get all the work done that needs to be finished before leaving town, not to mention the packing. Oh yeah, and the kids - even though they are not going I still have to pack for them to stay with their grandparents. It's actually HARDER to pack for kids staying behind, because I have to think of every.single.possible.occurance that could happen where I would not be there to just know what to do. When my kids are with me, I can make anything work for what they need.....when someone else is there they may not know how to interpret, therefore I feel like I should prepare. I always over prepare. This is what makes me insane, yet I continue to do it.

I look good

Today is a good day - my 8 year old looked at my driver's license and said, "You look really good in this picture!"

I said, "Whaat?" because I was half reading an email. And she said, "I mean, you always look good, but that's a good picture of you, Mommy."

Can you say.....FAVORITE CHILD?????? :)

In other news, we are volunteering at a community camp this week - I'm running the food portion and I'm working with the same volunteer from last year that gives me the willies. She is still giving me the vibe, and it is more so this year. I'm feeling a bit less uncomfortable about it because I have HUNK with me, but still. There is just something about this person that I just don't get.

Once this week is over my oldest daughter will be working on her camp counselor training. She is working with 3 camps this summer, helping as an assistant counselor and she is super excited. I'm helping her get her get ready to teach a class next week to a group of 20 younger girls. She has them for 3 hours and gets to teach them about Geocaching. We think this is going to be fun to do - hopefully they will all "get it"!!

THEN, the following week I am OFF. We are going to Key West for our anniversary. I can.not.WAIT!! I can feel the salty air, I can picture myself by the pool (the whitest person there, no doubt). I can literally taste the Sex On The Beach...... Oh wait, is that a drink, or a suggestion? Anyway, I am already there, mentally. So bear with me in my absence of mind for the next 12 days.

Zilch to blog

I've got nothing.

I'm literally just surviving these last 3 weeks of school. I can.not.wait to be freed from the school schedule!! I really don't have a problem getting up early in the morning, unless I am FORCED to. It is then that it becomes a chore that I loathe. I just can't get myself moving. I'm seriously thinking of home-schooling my kids, just so I don't have to be somewhere at a certain time every single day of the week. How pathetic is that?

I'm so against doing the same thing over and over. I have never been a good conformer to routine. I like to get things done and then do something new altogether. Luckily, this didn't hit me until a few years after college. I used to be a school teacher and had my life laid out on a schedule all the way to when I could pee. Once we moved and I was forced to get a 'different' job in the interim I realized that I HATE SCHEDULES! Therefore, I never went back to teaching. I kept my office job which allowed me to do all sorts of different and fun projects. I was also able to stay home one day a week. This completely spoiled me and I have not been the same since.

So, I've got nothing to blog, except that I am living for May 23. A day where I will likely wake up at 6 am, but I won't HAVE to. :)

Minus One Appendix

We spent our weekend and the first part of this week in the Children's hospital. My oldest had to have her appendix removed....of course, unplanned!! Does anyone have a planned apendectomy?

Today was her first day back at school, and she only went in at 11:00 a.m. I've already gotten a call from her that she needs pain medication and it is currently 1:15!! I have strong reservations that the doctor should've given her more time to recover. He suggested that she attend school on Wednesday this week, but I didn't send her - we are all exhausted from trying to live in a hospital room and keep up with our younger child, so we needed a day off. Plus, it was her BIRTHDAY!! I figured the kid deserved a day off after having been sliced open right before her birthday!!

In retrospect, we were pretty lucky that we were only in the hospital from Saturday evening until Tuesday. There were so many people around us that were in there for much longer periods of time and for much more serious ailments. The thing that made me so sad was a little boy who was on our floor, he was all alone most of the time. His parents had to be at work and so he spent his days alone, playing Nintendo or hanging out at the nurse's station. We were lucky enough to be able to have one parent with our child at all times. I can't even imagine how crushing it would be to have to leave your 6 year old all alone at a hospital. Knowing that if you don't go to work, you could lose your job and insurance, knowing that healthcare can cause you to be in financial ruin. Knowing that you had to make a choice to be with your child, or to secure your group insurance. Ugh. It is just not right.

But we are home now, and my child is doing better. I'm still trying to catch up on the sleep that was lost, a hospital is no place to get any rest!!

Money and Movie

The latest update on our money is that WE GOT IT ALL BACK! Paypal completed their investigation and we got a full refund. Yahoo!! The thing that I'm dying to know are all the details!! I have no idea if they found the jeweler to be a part of the whole case, or if they got a credit for the cost of the diamond. It just grates on my nerves when I don't have details!! I'll get past it though, since I have my moolah back!

Speaking of money, last night I dropped a nice chunk of change on my daughter's birthday party. I try not to spend tons of money on birthday parties, I don't rent out the jumpy houses for $400, we don't hire zoos, mascots, etc. But I do like to have a fun party. Our ill-planned party (due to my lack of planning ahead) went off really well......it just cost more than I ever thought it would. We met at Chick Fil A where I purchased a nugget tray and fruit cups - instead of getting everyone a single meal. This turned out to be about the same price, but at least we were able to forgo the french fries. While I knew the kids were going to eat a lot of candy, I tried to sneak in some better choices...i.e. fruit cups. After dinner we walked over to the candy store and I allowed each of them to get the equivalent of one scoop of candy. Silly me, I thought this would amount to about $3 per child, but since I could not police them - they were going batshit crazy - some of them filled their bags with more than the allotted amount. I gave too much credit to other people's kids, I fully expect my kids to follow direction and not act like an animal in public. Other people, apparently, do not teach their children these policies. Not to mention that these girls were all 11 or 12 years old, they SHOULD have some level of responsibility and grace. Eh. What I expected to cost $30 ended up being $60! Yes, I purchased $60 worth of CANDY. That makes me want to hurl. But once you scoop it out, you can't really put it back, so we were kind of stuck with it. I definately learned NOT to turn a kid loose in a candy store......heh.

Our next stop was to see Race to Witch Mountain. I have fond memories of watching Witch Mountain movies when I was a kid, so I was excited for my kids to share the fun. It was okay, but it was not as much about the kids having powers as it was about car chases/crashes. My 7 year old was not impressed with it at all - she got in my lap and tried to sleep. It was shaky filming which I can not stand and it just wasn't all that interesting. The older girls seemed to like it, but I thought the kid actors were weird. Maybe my memory is all messed up, but Tia didn't act like a frickin' robot in Escape to Witch Mountain. The classic movies featured the kids having fun, but this release gave them virtually no personality whatsoever. They were all sad in the end when leaving "The Rock" (Dwayne), and don't get me wrong, I would be sad to leave that man behind, but as the movie went, I didn't really see them make a familial connection to him since they had really no emotion at all. So, either the movie was just okay, or I'm just ass old. Probably a little bit of both! By the way, both of the child actors from the original movies had small parts in this release - I thought that was cool.

One last thing about money is that when one of the mom's dropped off her daughter (I do not know this family), the mom pulled me aside and stated that her child had picked out the gift on her own. The mom thought that the daughter did not spend enough money on the gift, so she wanted me to know that she dropped a $20 down in the gift bag so her daughter wouldn't look cheap. HUH? First of all, how did the daughter go shopping without an adult? Second of all, the little girl gave my daughter 2 new tops, both of which were very cute. ?? I'm not sure where this mom was coming from and how much she feels you should spend on a gift for a kid's birthday - a kid that is just a casual friend from school. Unless it is a really special occasion I see birthday gifts as gestures of kindness, not to be measured by worth. Maybe I am the cheap one? The funny thing is that my daughter just went to this girl's birthday a few weeks ago - I suppose she thought we sent a cheap gift because I let my child pick out the gift. She chose to give the girl a set of colored art pencils because the girl really loves to draw. The set was $9.99, we threw in a cheap sketch book and that was it! She chose something she thought the girl would really love based on her interests, not by price! I wasn't sure how to take that comment! How do you measure what is appropriate to spend on a birthday gift?

Funny

My 7 year old came running into the kitchen and exclaimed, "MOMMY!! I found the perfect thing! It makes the house smell good AND it babysits!!" WTH? I'm kind of half listening, but then I realized what she said. "Honey, you heard it wrong". She insisted that she heard it as plain as the nose on her face - "no, REALLY, it's a smell good thing that watches KIDS! It's a commercial and it's really real, I promise!".

Ok - my full undivided attention is now on this kid. "Honey, you must be mistaken, that sounds a little crazy".

Enter Tivo*. Rewind, find the commercial. Play it.

So there's an Airwick air freshener commercial that features an Owl and she has all these little Owl kids running around. She states that she's too busy to keep an eye on everything all the time, but that her Airwick plug in is always on duty, it can even sense when a stinky kid walks by - or something to that effect. I can see where she gathered her conclusion and I just about wet myself laughing. It shows the air freshener perking up when the kids are around, so naturally my kid thinks that it is watching the kids!! And it's always on duty!!

So, if my kids are home alone, but I have an Airwick do I have a case against DFACs??

*Thank heavens for Tivo, or I might have had my kid tested for weirdness*

Difficult

5 theme parks, 4 tired people, 3 days, 2 ten dollar balloons, 1 dollar left and ZERO sightings of Mickey Mouse in person. Really, who goes to the Magic Kingdom and does NOT see Mickey Mouse - we do, that's who.

We had a great time in Orlando, but I can say that we did not see Mickey Mouse in character the entire trip. Granted, we only did Disney parks on one of our 3 days. We were on a tight schedule and we were completely focused on cramming in every ride we wanted to, so doing character meetings was not important to my kids. In fact, we skipped A LOT of the Magic Kingdom. They would have stayed in Frontierland the entire time if we would have let them - it was Splash Mountain and Thunder Railroad that were the big tickets.

We started our trip with Sea World which they loved, and they were really only interested in seeing the animals, not riding anything. We had to drag them on to the Atlantis ride, upon which I got completely soaked from head to toe. I was one of those people coming off the ride that people laugh and point at for getting SO WET. We stayed until the park closed and we finished it off with the Miracles Killer Whale show in the Shamu theater - it was awesome.

Day two took us to the Magic Kingdom where we went straight to Splash Mountain. The park had been open for 2 hours prior and oddly enough the ride was not yet open. It opened just as we walked up and we were able to get right on. The best part is that upon exiting we were "winners" of Dream Fastpasses for the day. We were able to Fastpass 10 rides, many of them were the most popular rides, so this made for a great day for us. I feel kind of like a slug passing people who are standing in line for hours, but this really helped us fit this park into a half day trip. We were then able to go to Epcot for the rest of the early evening. Lines at Epcot were horribly long and we only rode Test Track and then wandered around the World Showcase. The kids loved Japan the most and we spent most of our time there.

Day three took us to Universal Studios and Islands of Adventure. This was a very cold day, which made it hard to really enjoy Islands - they have a lot of water rides and at 40 degrees there was no way we were doing it. There were plenty of crazy people willing to get drenched, and we laughed and pointed! We really wanted to ride the Hulk coaster, it has always been our favorite, but HUNK was afraid that we would end up with SNOTCICLES it was so cold. We ended up skipping it. In fact, we did not really do much at all by the time we got to Islands, it was really cold and we were all just pooped.

We tried to cram too much into a short time, and while we thought the kids were big enough to handle the all day time frame we were wrong. They just couldn't take the 14 hour days were were pushing. We will do it differently next time, but we did have fun.

We came home and had a great holiday with family - some came into town and some we took a road trip to visit. The kids had a fun, but small Christmas morning (the trip was THE GIFT). And now we look forward.

Monday morning my youngest will have surgery, yet AGAIN. A proceedure we had done in May of this year just isn't cutting it, so we are trying something new. While I hated to use her school break for surgery, this recovery is two weeks, so this way she will only truly miss one week of school......but it sucks for her. Luckily (I think) we are pet sitting for our friend's hamsters and guinea pig. This should keep her occupied once she gets home, something new and she can hold them and they will run around on her!

Think of us on Monday and send some good vibes. She is excited to go back because Children's Healthcare of Atlanta makes her feel like a rockstar. She doesn't even remember the pain, just the awesome staff and all the fun distractions that are there. I, however, will be on the verge of mental breakdown. It's difficult - to watch your child's body go limp as they put her to sleep. To know that her little body needs help and that you have no control over any of it. But I do realize that we are lucky, that this is our only problem, that there are so many kids that have so many more difficulties. And we are blessed with near perfect bodies and so many opportunities....it is still difficult.

Not a princess...

Cowboy Boots - that is the dress code of the day around here. They look particularly smashing with the blue shorts she has chosen to compliment them. I try to let my kids determine their own style most days. It keeps everyone happier around the house and it provides mounds of entertainment for us adults. My little girl will mostly wear only "cool boy clothes". Which I indulge her. Her combinations are less than appealing sometimes.

Around Mother's Day her school took photos to make a gift for us moms. They framed it and wrapped it and it was a really cute gift. The problem is that on that particular day my little girl wore boy clothes to school - like most days. Whoever did the photos didn't like what she wore so they took a giant bow off of another little girl and topped my child's head with it. They figured she needed to look like a girl, but what I got was a picture of my cute little tomboy with a giant bow on her head. I love the picture, heck I love any picture with my kids in it, but when I look at it I see everything that she is not because they tried to make her into something she is SO NOT.

What is it with the world and stereo types? My friends can't believe that I actually mow our lawn (gasp!) and can run all of our power tools. Meanwhile my husband does the dishes almost daily and does laundry whenever the pile gets too big. I guess I'm lucky that I found someone that can appreciate me and my ideals. I would not say that I'm a feminist, but I just don't think that because I'm a female the inside of the house is my job and the outside is his job. That just seems so archaic to me. If it is a pretty day and I want to be outside, well, why not get something done? Last time I checked you don't need to have a special license to drive a mower.

So I'll continue to mow the lawn when it is convenient for me and I'll let my kids determine their own style. I'll try to teach them that they can do whatever it is that they want to do, and it has nothing to do with whether they are a girl or a boy. Sometimes I look around and think that our world has come a long way and other times it seems that we are on a treadmill and getting no where. There are opportunities for my girls in so many areas, but changing the way people think and treat them will never be fully changed. Not every girl loves pink and wants to be a princess!!

Sweet Freedom

I love my kids. Period. No question.



I CAN NOT WAIT UNTIL SUNDAY.....both my kids will be gone for an entire WEEK!!



Whilst I love them dearly they are driving me nuts and I totally just need to be able to go to the frigging store without having to gather two less than happy children, various mismatched shoes and just enough toys to make the 2 minute ride bearable (meaning 352 Littlest Pet Shop bobble headed animals). I'm usually easygoing, laidback and pretty well calm, but lately I just want to go to Eckerd and not make it a full on broadway production. I'm feeling a little tied down, a little restless and I need some freedom.



My friends with kids who have no family nearby and who take their kids with them everywhere they go think I'm spoiled. I get a lot of free time from my kids, my mom is close and I am lucky. However, I am the type who needs massive amounts of total freedome in order to feel normal. There are people who think I am less of a mom because of this. I get really cranky if I don't get my required "alone" time. I think that since I know this about myself it actually makes me a better mom. I know when I need to get away from them - other people think they are a better mom because they never leave their kids. I know people who NEVER go out without their kids and that makes me want to scream at the thought.

So, who cares what anyone thinks - I'M FREE!!! Yipee!!