Swooshi

so my husband came home yesterday afternoon to relieve me from my flu misery. i went to bed and he took the 2 out on errands. when i was giving them a bath in the evening my daughter said to me: "Mummy...we went out and got you some SWOOSHI today!!" They got me a strawberry Odwalla drink so I thought she was referring to the SMOOTHIE. I said "oh I know you got me a strawberry smoothie!" she said "no Mummy...we got you some veggie SWOOSHI!!" hahahaha...they got me some veggie SUSHI!!! LOL!

just when i thought she couldn't get any cuter...

LOL

i was just helping my daughter to put on her pantsand ive taught her that the tag goes in the back

so she lined it up and said:

"Mummy...the tag goes in between my buns!"

i burst out laughing at the one...

she's just ridiculous...

Beyond Sweetness

Kendall is now 3 1/2 which presents all things lovely as well as EXTREMELY challenging.

But just now I went and gave her a hug...'just because' and she leaned over...took my face in her hands, looked me in the eyes and said:

"Mommy...you're my BEST friend"

I could die right now and be the happiest Mommy in the world.

sigh...

The Experts

This is a forward that my darling friend Jen sent me. It rings true to me on so many levels...every day I rage against myself in trying to 'get stuff done'. And some days I realize that I've barely sat down...nevermind sat down to play with my children. I'm trying though...and most days are better than the one before.

Enjoy and thanks Jen for sending this along!

By Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow, but in
disbelief.

I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults,
two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the
same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me
in their opinion of them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me
laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and
privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like.

Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move
food from plate to mouth all by themselves.

Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at
its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible
except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once poured over is finished for me now.
Penelope Leach, T. Berry Brazelton, Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling
rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education -
all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things
Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you
flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books
taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and
the well-meaning relations - what they taught me, was that they couldn't
really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then
becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it
is an endless essay.

No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive
reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a
timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on
his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my
last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on
sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent, this ever-shifting
certainty is terrifying, and then soothing.

Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research
will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's
wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three
different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking
for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there
something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong
with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically
challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China. Next year he
goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling. Believe me, mistakes were
made. They have all been enshrined in the 'Remember-When-Mom-Did' Hall
of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language - mine,
not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed.

The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare
sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came
barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I
responded, "What did you get wrong?" (She insisted I include that
here.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker
and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all
insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons
for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while
doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly
clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There
is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in
the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I
wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how
they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I
had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath,
book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the
getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and
what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought
someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I
suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in
a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be
relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over
the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three
people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to
excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me.
I was bound and determined to learn from the experts.

It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

Over A Year!

I can't believe...well...yes I can believe that it's been over a year since I've posted here. Phew! A lot has gone on!! Well I'm excited to get back into it. If for nothing else than to be able to have a place to look back on and smile at the memories that we're making every single day.

For instance...if I didn't write it down in 10 years I doubt I'd remember that my 2 year old son busted out with Octopus yesterday...only he says "Appletoast!!".

I can't believe he'll be 2 on Saturday.

Amazing...especially when I read back on this post. I wrote it 2 days before my son was scheduled to be born.

if i had to build a resume...

it would read:

• wife
• mother
• daughter
• sister
• grandaughter
• sister-in-law
• friend
• chef
• maid
• housekeeper
• nanny
• artist
• member of a hazmat cleaning crew
• dog trainer
• dry cleaner
• chauffer
• personal assistant
• party planner
• event coordinater
• referee
• personal shopper
• musician (i never said i was GOOD at all of these jobs)
• nurse

so i was given gift cards to ac moore for the holidays to help support my crafting habit. i'm considering starting another blog devoted to that...however, i vowed to spend my gifts on me...not my kids..but me...

so i ended up spending about 50% of the gc's on me...and the other 50 on my kids. i can't help myself!!

i go into the store knowing that the kids stuff is on the right and the scrapbook/stamping supplies are on the left. so the SMART thing would be to head right to the left of the store. but no. i offered to pick up some foam hearts for a friend so i NEEDED to be on the right hand side of the store to do so. so NOW the smart thing would be to head directly to the left hand side of the store. but no...i got stopped by a display of $1 coloring books...and The Boobah is obsessed with coloring...she colors every single page. so who am i to stop her? right...but i digress...so i pick up 2 coloring books and head to the ribbon section...which is in the middle. i get about 20 spools of ribbon...(mmmmmmmmmm...ribbon) and then remember i wanted to buy some play-doh to replace the super dry stuff that they have in the meetinghouse playroom. SO i get sucked BACK into the kids section. no playdoh...but i do find...a new Handy Dandy notebook and Melissa and Doug stamp set. so now i PEEL myself away from the kids section AGAIN...and head to where i need to be...

so i paruse papers, stamps, stickers, embellishments, and the like. i pick up some stuff...put back other things...around and around i go.

so then i find some fun, fake gerber daisies. The Boobah loves flowers so i get 4 in a variety of vibrant colors. so then i drift back to where i want to be and can't seem to find anything further for myself. which is ASTOUNDING. cause i can find shit to buy anywhere and i mean ANYWHERE. nope...besides the outstanding amount of ribbon...i bought some replacement blades for my paper trimmer, some adhesive (woo hoo), a rubber stamp cleaning pad and solution, glitter and some Mod Podge. oh and then i found a pack of 3,000 reward stickers...again...for the kids.

it's just more fun buying for them!!! oh and mind you...the supplies that i purchased, most of them are for scrapbooking pictures of...you guessed it!! my kids...

sigh...i love being a mom...

Marker Up The Nose

so i got her these old school 'smelly' markers...she just "accidentally" shoved the licorice flavored one up my nose...

she just constantly cracks me up...

so much, so much, so much

things to write about...eventually:

*therapy - and the wonders of it!
*working out...its so good for the soul...and my patience level!
*my beyond amazing children...terrible twos? huh? not in this house!
*my brother moving home...i could cry just thinking about it
*all things big and little...i have so many projects in the works...im chipping away at them slowly...

new words II

pokey stick - how she likes to eat her peaches / banana (pokey stick = toothpick)
applepus = octopus
puddingstone
iguana
newt
koala

bye you = love you
mano = tomato
tough one = hard to climb stairs or anything else she has difficulty with


we brought a crack chicken, american chop suey and cupcakes over to sheree's today. today is the first day alone after having ciaran. so far, so good. im keeping my fingers crossed and throwing many blessed and wonderful thoughts into the universe for her that it stays this calm.