So Close!!!

I have a confession. I am a blog hopper. I don't know if there is a real word that describes jumping from blog to blog through other people's blogs, but I think blog hopper is a good word. Anyway, through other people's blogs I found one that was having a contest on the worst parenting advice ever given to you. There was even a prize. Now I love prizes and competition. I have always wanted to win something, and I thought this was my chance. So today I popped on the other blog to see if they had announced a winner, and sure enough they had! My heart pounded with excitement, thinking I might have won.

Nope, not me.

I really want to be a winner. Especially of a gift card prize.

Maybe someday.

I Have the Gimmies

Growing up, we loved to read the Bearenstein bears books. My sister collected them in fact. There was one that was called "The Bearenstein Bears Get the Gimmies" or something along those lines. It is where Brother and Sister want everything imaginable just because. Now I don't even remember how they came to get rid of the gimmies, they probably saw other bears who don't have as much as they do or something like that. But I think I need to read that book again. Because I have the dreaded gimmies.

I don't know why, but there are so many things that I want right now. The Hub got his TV, I feel entitled to get something cool too. Unfortunately I have a list of things I want, none of them being necessarily practical. One of the things I want is a Canon Rebel XTi. I have wanted one for a couple years, but they were out of my price range. But when I went to Amazon.com the other day, they are at a more reasonable $600. Not that $600 isn't a big chunk of money to spend, but I also cashed out my credit card points for a $100 gift card to Amazon, making the camera only $500. But after the big TV purchase, along with the fact that I just got a new point and shoot camera last year, I'm not sure I should make such a big purchase, at least not right now.

Another thing I have been wanting is yarn. Yes, you read right, yarn. I have been knitting for a couple months now and I love it. It is so relaxing and fun to make something out of yarn. We really don't have any good yarn stores around here so I look at yarn online. I am sad, I know. The yard I want is a bit pricey, but it is nice stuff. All the knitting books say you should knit with the nicest yarn you can (I'm sure they get some sort of royalty or something from the cashmere and alpaca people). One day I loaded up a virtual shopping cart with just a few balls of yarn that I was interested in and the total quickly surpassed $50.

I could go on and on about more things that I want right now. Good thing my birthday and mother's day is coming up!

My Little Shrimp

Mackenzie is 18 months, but she is tiny. Whenever we go out and people comment about her, I know they think she is much younger than she is. This is actually sort of nice. They think she is really smart because she can talk and understand direction when really what she can do is average for her age. (Not saying 18 month kids who don't talk are dumb.) Also when she is running around, her size is deceiving. People are impressed that she can walk and run around. Honestly it isn't impressive. It's just the way it is! Most 18 month old kids walk and run. Whenever I tell someone how old she is, they either look at me like I am lying or miscalculated her age, or that I am not feeding her enough which is why she is so small. Let me tell you, she eats like it is going out of style! She likes healthy stuff and some not so healthy things. She eats very well, as anyone who has watched her eat can attest to.

I always had the same thing happen with Bailey. He is still small for being 7, although he has been growing a lot lately. It is an advantage when he is acting good like a 7 year old should be able to and other people observe, and to them, he is a 4 or 5 year old acting exceptionally well behaved. About 6 months ago we were walking around the neighborhood and we ran into some neighbors in the area we had never talked to before. They had a little boy who was about 4. The mom stopped and chatted with me for a minute or two, talking about how they didn't know there were other kids in the neighborhood around her son's age. So she turns to Bailey and asks him how old he is. He says 7, the mom's mouth drops open, she says, oh, well nice talking to you, and that was the end of the conversation. Bailey understood what had happened. He said "I know I am small, but I'm not THAT small!" He is small but pretty mature for his age. At least I think so.

An Intruder!!!!

Last night before I went to bed, I made sure I locked the back door. It is my job after putting the dog in her kennel for me to do this. Of course my darling, slightly OCD husband asked me, like he does almost every night when I kennel the dog, if I locked the back door. Of course I did, was my reply. I didn't check the front door because I wasn't the last person to use it, and I figured Mr Obsessive surely locked it.

In the middle of the night, we woke up in a panic. Someone was banging on our bedroom door!!! It was heart stopping. Luckily my brave boy scout of a husband leaped out of bed, yelled "who's there?!" then paused for a minute, considering whether he really wanted to see what was on the other side of the door, then threw the door open. Nothing. He goes from room to room, checking to make sure the intruder did not rush into one of the kids' rooms to steal one of their toys. Nothing again. I got up and checked the front door, knowing I hadn't checked it earlier in the night. It was locked. At this point I was stumped. I went back to bed and thought "the only other logical conclusion was there's an evil spirit in our house!" I have no idea how I did it, but with this thought I fell back to sleep, although I did have some strange dreams about scary stuff.

So when we awoke for the morning, we turn on the TV. Guess what? At 4:36 am there was an earthquake that shook the midwest. Guess what time we were awake with our "intruder"? That's right, 4:36 am. So our house is safe, it was just an earthquake. A big one for here, but no damage done.

I grew up on the East Coast so I have an excuse for not recognizing an earthquake. My husband? He lived for 6 years near the Bay Area.

My New Job

Lawn mowing expert! OK, so maybe not an expert, since I have just mowed grass one time in my whole life and it was yesterday. No, that isn't exactly true. When I was 13 or so my mom tried to teach me how to use the lawn mower. It was not good. I ran over her shoe (yes with her foot in it but I missed the toe) within the first 5 seconds of riding the mower. A few years later I tried again, but I was a horrible driver at the time and did a bad job. Not to mention that it takes a skilled person 1 1/2 hours to mow my parents' yard with a ride on mower, so for me to do it would take a whole day.

So who would hire someone like me with a track record like that? The good old in laws, that's who! I had my darling hubby, who was sick and tired of being at the beck and call of his dad when it came to the grass, give me some lessons, a little Lawn Mowing 101. And I think I did a pretty good job for my first time. I am quite proud. No toes were almost run over and all the observers were able to live and tell about it.

For someone who is sort of wussy, I have had the strangest jobs. I have babysat a lot, which isn't strange, but some of the other jobs I have had are string bean grater, custodial arts specialist, T-shirt folder. There are a few others, but they are generally good ones for a wussy girl like myself.
I bet you are wondering what the heck a string bean grater does. Well, I will tell you. It is the most boring job ever. If you think you have worked a boring job, you haven't, unless you have been a string bean grater too. What you do is you stand along a conveyer belt as string beans come down it and you pick out the bad ones, rocks, stems, hop toads, and sometimes snakes. Once there was a dead muskrat, but I didn't touch it. Sometimes the conveyer belt would go on for over an hour. You can't take a break during this time, you just have to work. And the noise of all the farm equipment is so loud you can't even listen to music. There was no air conditioning in the building which made it so hot, and I was standing the whole time. Ah, the memories!

I think everyone should have to work as some kind of custodian sometime in their lives. It makes you appreciate simple things being clean in a public place. I will NEVER touch the window of a door. I know how much work goes into cleaning the windows and doors. I worked in the dorms at the college I attended, and let me tell you, people are slobs. I will just never understand how gross people were. I have actually had a few other cleaning jobs after my college days, my in laws again being my best customers.

I Lost

I had one of those "bad parenting" moments yesterday. I'm sure you have seen other parents make this mistake, and maybe you have made it yourself as well. Child sees something they want, parent says no, child whines and says please, parents still says no, child gets pouty faced and angry, parent still says no, but somehow before the day is over, child gets exactly what he wanted in the first place. But for me, it wasn't one of my children who were getting upset that I was denying them just what they had to have, it was my husband.

We were going through the whole TV thing again, and he thought it would be fun to spend the afternoon going from electronics store to electronics store looking at TV's that are all way more money than we need to spend on such a thing. Oh and don't forget the toddler who we had to take along who has mastered the "death roll" like crocodiles do (this is where you grab on to her hand when she is going in the opposite direction and she crumples instantly to the ground and is able to roll away from my grasp. It is actually quite a talent). TV after TV that all sort of look the same with prices that I just didn't want to pay. After leaving the 5th store empty handed, someone started to get all sulky again, and by this time I'd had enough. Just get a stupid TV, but if something goes wrong (it breaks, we need the money for food, etc) he will be blamed 100%.

One of the stipulations of this TV was I wasn't going to help take all of the stuff off the old entertainment center and move it to the basement. That didn't happen. I can have quite the bossy husband sometimes when he has something that needs to be done.

But we have a new TV. 40 inch Samsung LCD. Hopefully, his life is complete. Well, it will be once he doesn't have to drive a 1995 Neon for work!

Don't worry, those out there who hate Best Buy. We bought this TV from Ultimate Electronics.

Morning person or night owl?

I am neither. How did I get so lucky? I'm not sure. When Bailey was a baby, he was definitely a night owl. I remember when he was 4 months old and we were living in my in law's basement, it would be 1 AM and he would still be awake. At the time I was one of those mothers who thought it was mean to have my infant cry at all, so as soon as I would put him in his crib he would wake up. I would start trying to have him go to sleep all over again. During this time I was so tired. I just wanted to get in my nice warm bed next to a snoozing husband who had no idea that I wasn't even in bed. But the one thing that I enjoyed during those 1AM times was HGTV. At the time I didn't have a house, but HGTV made it possible for me to dream. Even today I still love House Hunters. What a great show. Although I could smack the annoying couple with no children who say the 4,000 square foot home they just toured was "too small".

Anyway, I digress. The nice thing about Bailey going to bed later was that he would sleep in. It seems that no matter what time I go to bed, my body would like to naturally wake up somewhere around 8:30 or 9. The older Bailey got, the earlier he would wake up. I think this is mostly because we got smart and started making the child have an actual bedtime. Now that he has to be at school by 7:50, he naturally wakes between 6 and 7. Mackenzie thinks this is also a great time to wake up. In fact, this morning she was awake and calling for me at 5:56. I have to mention that she went to bed at 8, which was later than usual, and woke up 2 times in the night, the stinker. And it would be one thing if Mackenzie just enjoyed spending time with me in bed. No, she has to say "milk, milk, milk, milk, milk" until I get up and get her a drink. She drinks until her thirst is quenched, then says "up, up, up, up, up, up" pushing on me to get me out of bed, telling me she wants to "eat, eat, eat". I finally give in and feed my poor starving child who eats like a human garbage disposal. She sure can pack it in for only being 19 pounds (she lost some weight with her sickness). This morning, we walked into the kitchen, where she said "na, na, na, na" which in Mackenzie speak means banana, which we didn't have anymore since she ate the last one last night right before bed. I thought maybe if she ate before going to sleep she wouldn't be as hungry when she woke up. Yeah right.

So the point of this whole post (if there even needs to be a point) is my children are trying to make me into someone I am not. And it isn't a bad thing, although I have been a little more tired lately. I am just excited because tomorrow hubby will get Mackenzie in the morning so I can sleep in!!!

I Heart the Mall

One of the nice memories that I have growing up is going to the mall with my family. My mom worked on and off through my childhood, but we always had time to go to the mall together. Where I live now, the closest mall is only 5 miles or so away, but growing up, the mall was about 20 miles away. Many times when we would go to the mall we would invite either my Aunt Jo Anne or Nanny, my grandmother. We would always go early to get there by 10 and beat the crowds, and we would walk around and shop. We would usually go out to lunch somewhere, which was nice when I was younger, but when I was around 10 or 11 I developed a food phobia (that's a story for another post!). I do remember one time Nanny let me order an ice cream sundae instead of regular food for lunch (oh how I miss Friendly's).

I just have a nostalgic feeling sometimes when I go to the mall. I went today, because what better place is there to go on a rainy day than the mall? I walked into Sears, and saw some clothes that reminded me of something my Nanny would have picked out. She died 18 months ago, just 3 weeks after Mackenzie was born. I miss her so much, but I am so glad to have those memories of being at the mall together as an extended family.

I am pleased to announce that while I bought stuff at the mall today, I actually came out a dollar ahead because I returned something. Go me!

I am so disgusted

Maybe disgusted is a strong word (that's how I felt the last two weeks cleaning up puke, but I will not talk about that again), but honestly that is how I feel.

I would love to be rich. I think most people would. For the first time ever, I have felt sort of comfortable in our financial situation. Sure, it could be better, but for someone who stays at home with the kids all day and hubby does not have a degree, I think we are doing well.

So tonight I was looking at our bank statement online. I do it often to make sure the money I think is there really is there. I decided to take a closer look at our savings account. Would you like to know the interest rate? It is .35%. That is outrageous to me. How can you save with an interest rate like that? I can put it under my mattress or in coffee cans in the attic and I would almost be better off. At least I wouldn't have to have a minimum of $1000 in there or I would have to pay a fee. Poor Bailey's little $100 savings account earns only 3 cents in a quarter. Pathetic.

ING Direct, here I come with all my money!

Yes, I am an addict

I am sorry to say that I have an addiction. A bad one. I am addicted to shopping at Target. It would be bad enough if I just went in and looked around, but no, I have to purchase something every time. And lately it has been that I have to buy a lot of somethings.



Today I go to Target just to buy some juice. Last time I checked, juice did not cost $71, which is how much I spent. There is something that just draws me to Target, like a bug to the bug zapper. I always buy things I absolutely need. Like Doritos. Can't live without them, right? And I bought Mackenzie a potty. And diapers that I had coupons for. (I had to be realistic, I would love for Mackenzie to use the potty all the time, but I know that we will still be diapering around here for awhile). This was one of the better trips, because I didn't buy loads of crap. I was able to go through the express line with the small amount of crap I purchased.

Anyone know of a Target Shopper's Anonymous group? If not, maybe I should form one! I hope I am not the only Target junkie out there!

Silly Me!

To think everything was on its way to normalicy (is that even a word? If not it should be). All better Mackenzie turned into puking Mackenzie once again, sending hubby hurling just from the sheer disgustingness of the whole thing. Unfortunately, he also made a big mess and had to call me to come home from a church meeting. Nice. On Friday Bailey is sick with a cold and just feels rotten. I send him to school (he didn't ask to stay home and it was just a cold) and I get a call from school saying he has pink eye. Nice. Actually my nonmedical degree has diagnosed that he really didn't have pink eye, but he just had drainage from his sinuses. Anyway, I pick him up from school and give him some pain meds, but he had an upset stomach so all of that ended up in the toilet. It just so happens that everyone in our family but me puked in less than 24 hours, and none of it was caused by a stomach virus.

All of this happened right before we were planning on leaving the kiddos with the in laws. In fact, it was the first time I had ever left Mackenzie all night. So I was a little worried about it at first, but with them puking and being sick I was even more nervous. We had gotten a hotel room (with a cool whirlpool tub, I had always wanted a neat room like that!) so really there was no turning back. The kids ended up doing great, Mackenzie slept all night and no one puked, although Bailey wasn't feeling too good most of the time he was there. We had a nice time too, the bed was nice and comfy and huge, and it was nice to sleep in until 8 for a change!

This week BETTER be normal! I will go crazy if anyone else gets sick! Yes, this means that I am not crazy. Yet.

All Better!

Thank goodness our lives can get back to normal!!! Mackenzie is better and I am so happy. I figured out that in the past three months there have only been 5 weeks that someone hasn't been sick. I don't know how I haven't gone crazy.

Denae, the picture is just for you!

Not Again!!!

Mackenzie seems to have a stomach virus. AGAIN. Didn't we just go through this last week? It is almost like deja vu. Exept this time she seems fine for the most part. Happy and playful. So I just don't know. This morning she somehow got herself covered from head to toe in regurgitated milk. Nice, I know. I almost took a picture of it, because it was quite a feat, but I refrained.

At least she is sleeping all night and taking long naps!