New Years Resolutions

Well, if you were thinking you would see some NYRs from me, you are in for disappointment. They only get broken so I don't make them. I try to stick with attainable goals. Like, in 2010 I will not dance with elephants, I will not smoke, and I won't play the piano loud enough to bother the neighbors. All easy to stick with.

Luckily, the school system is trying to instill the habit of making NYRs. I don't have a problem with them, if they work for you - God Bless You! As has been previously documented, I have the will power of a monkey, so I don't even bother anymore. But anywho--- Megan came home yesterday with her NYRs. They are great -- and spelled like a kindergartener, so that makes them even better! I'll give her spelling and then the translation:

1) I AM GOE TO EKSRSIZ (pic of her doing a push-up) "I am going to exercise"

2) HLPIG MI MOM (pic of both of us next to the dryer --- SEE, I told you I do a lot of laundry) "Helping my mom"

3) I AM GOE TO ET KUPKEKX (choc cupcake with pink frosting and a flower on top) "I am going to eat cupcakes"

She IS my kid! And she totally gets it! And really, she had eating cupcakes directly after exercising but I told it out of order so as not to bury the 'helping mom' bit... :) I love that kid.....

My Office

I'm in the process of remodeling our "Study", which was once the nursery - complete with *3* cribs. Yes - holy crap - 3 cribs. Wish I had a picture of the commercial nursery that was my life, but I don't. Just picture it in your head - then multiply it by 3 and you have my freak out.

Anywho - about 2 yrs ago I moved all the kids upstairs into their own rooms (1 for the girls, 1 for Clay) and moved the PC into the 'Study'. In reality, it never really materialized as a "Study". It was really a storage room for our crap and it happened to have our computer in it. Now, I'm determined, it's going to be a bon-i-fide study, with a theme and everything. Of course, Texas Roots. (GT, don't groan! Tony is like 7th generation Texan, and I'm like 6th -- it's a big deal around here. And by 'here', I mean our family.) Hahaha! More to come on that, but for now, it means that what used to be our nice dining room is now holding all the crap that used to be in the 'study'. Chaos abounds.

Well, Landry decided that since Mommy was getting a study, she needed her own study - and she made it herself. She wallowed back to the corner of the dining room and set up next to an old end table, flipped an unused planter over and set up shop. She made a keyboard -- ABC's, left to right and 'boxed'. She has a monitor, a 'mouse', and a chair that she sits on. It's in the corner of the dining room:

I swear - I can't make this up.

And for bonus - I have a quick, funny Clay Story:

Ok - we are in Walmart and I've just paid for all our stuff and then decide I have to Potty. Of course, that means that I have to take the entire cart into the bathroom with us so it won't get jacked. SO - I start winding the cart through the entrance to the bathroom and I hear Clay behind me,

"Mommy - stop! This is the BOY'S bathroom!"

me: "Oh my gosh! Really?" backing the cart up to check the sign... "Clay - oh my gosh, thank goodness you saw that! We can't go in there! What would people say!?!?

Clay: (in his deepest voice) "Hello?"

Almost peed my pants in Walmart. I hope that translates as funny as it actually was!

Our First Day of School - READY-SET-GO!

Monday was the first day of school for us. Landry and Megan are in K from 7:55-2:55pm and Clay is doing "Learn and Play" from 9-2pm. They were all super excited, jumped in without even glancing back at us and have had a great first 3 days.

Some highlights:

MEGAN: Upon being asked by our friend, Naznin, about her lunch on the first day, Megan listed everything but her sandwich.
N: No sandwich?
M: I didn't get a sandwich.
me: Ham and cheese?
M: No Mommy, I didn't have a sandwich. (said just matter-of-fact)
me: Oh Megan - did you forget that your lunch box has a bottom compartment with a zipper?
M: It does? (as she is racing to the corner where she's thrown it)

She rips it open, finds the sandwich and yells "SANDWICH!" and proceeds to eat the entire thing in 4 seconds!

Today was the third day of school and Landry has already accumulated 2 "warm fuzzies", 5 "Bug Bucks" and has come home with her folder elevated from green (regular, good day) to BLUE (a great day - almost perfect). She is loving the reward system her teacher has in place. That kid will do anything for a prize!

Clay came home on the first day to report:

1. I made one friend, but I forgot his name.
2. I learned lots of stuff, but I forgot what.
3. I got hit in the belly.

On day two, this was his sole synopsis: (w/ mild sarcasm) "Well, I didn't get hit in the belly!" Which, I guess, is the same as when I say, "It's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick."

It's been a really fun week - will report more as it comes. Still owe the first year summary but I'm missing a pic I want to put in so it may have to wait a while. Gotta run - chaos in progress.

Here is my post in response to a friend's dilemma of 'to get a house cleaner or not':

Girl - You are crazy. Just nuts. Get the house cleaner. You are WAY over-thinking it, over-indulging in mother-guilt. Here is the deal:

1. You can get a house cleaner to do as much or as little as you pay her to. I'm cheap so I have a lady who doesn't do laundry, doesn't pick-up and put-away - she just CLEANS. Although, Sweet Mary, she will put on the clean sheets if I leave them out. And I love clean sheets. Esp when I didn't have to wrestle them onto the freakin' bed myself.

2. "Cleaning" so she can come is a necessary evil. I have decided that if I didn't have to clean for her, there are cluttered areas that would NEVER get picked up. I'm not really 'cleaning' for her, just picking up so she can get to the dirt.

3. I don't get to feeling too high and mighty for having a house-cleaner (mine comes every other week) - I still have to clean. My kids still make a mess at the table every night, my dog still slings water all over the floor near his bowl and my husband still leaves all his clothes on the floor next to the bed. Oh wait - I don't pick THAT up. If he wants it washed, it had better hit the laundry basket or he does it himself. But I digress... The point is - I am still keeping my own house, but now I don't have to SCRUB. And I normally don't have to do anything in the bathroom more than just the occasional counter wipe. That is totally worth it to me.

The only down side is I worry that my kids will have some kind of entitled attitude, like "Oh, Jackie will clean that". I hardly ever have her clean upstairs (kids/guest domain). I do those bathrooms when they need it (the kids still use ours mostly anyway) and will teach the kids to do it when they are old enough to swill the chemicals. I think I'll tell them that they can have Jackie come upstairs when they have enough money to pay her. At least that is what I'm thinking now. I'll let you know my plan when they actually start acting that bratty. Here is what I think about the Mommy-guilt. I'm sure that my Mom had guilt about not churning her own butter or killing her own chickens, but it didn't stop her from going to Winn-Dixie! If she'd had the money, and known any way to GET a house cleaner, she would have had help to clean the house, too!

Ask your friends who they use and get somebody in that house! It really does force the house clean at least every time they come -and it's only painful the first time.

Oh... and I quit my job, but kept the house cleaner. It was a package deal. I know I'm evil, I'm wallowing in it. :)

ADDENDUM: I have to admit, the part about my Mom was exaggerated for effect. My Mom's mother never churned butter or killed a chicken, to my knowledge. However, I'm sure my Mom felt guilt over short cuts in the kitchen or something (I can't think of any that she made, but surely there was something) but what kind of comparison would that have made, huh? And, as a matter of fact, during the window of time where my Mom was working long hours and making decent money, she DID have a lady come clean the house. So there.

Hopefully my Mom won't mind me taking some literary liscense with her life and my friend will hire a house cleaner before she finds out about my exaggerations. :)

Also - I have a One Year Of Staying Home Anniversary blog brewing.... stay tuned. Maybe I can get it posted before the second anniverary. Ha.

Clay's funny

We were going to the Target dressing rooms and I always get the biggest one so I can lock all the kids in with me.

Clay raced ahead and pointed to that dressing room:

Clay: Look Mommy - The Wheelbarrow Collection
Me: What?
Clay: Look (pointing) - The Wheelbarrow Collection

I looked and he was pointing to the wheel chair access symbol -- He meant "Wheel Chair Section" .... I think.

Raisins are to grapes as Peanuts are to....

At Costco the other day, I went into a long explanation of how raisins are dried grapes. Not old grapes, but dried grapes and how they do it on purpose.

Fast forward to this afternoon....

Clay: Mommy - can I eat this trail mix?
Me: Is it left over from yesterday? Uh - yeah, I guess so.
Clay: Is it old?
Me: Yes, but it won't hurt you. (That is what happens when you have the expendable 3rd kid. Sure, kid, give it a shot.)
Clay: Mommy, is a peanut dried up peanut butter?

PS - I REALLY like Costco much better than Sams! I've been 3 times now and they box up the groceries FOR YOU! I was through the line before I knew what hit me - and that is important when you are dragging 3 kids that are trying to open every item in the cart! Also, good samples - which also helps with the kids! :)

Round 2

Oh good - another Uber-Mommy story for you...

Dance class has a little room wher the Mom's can watch the kids through a 2-way mirror. Before class yesterday, all the little girls were 'hiding' from the teacher in there. Of course, Landry and Megan were the ring-leaders for this game. For some reason Megan left the little room and Landry went to close the door behind her so the teacher wouldn't see them -- well, Megan had just put her finger in the hinged side of the door frame. Don't ask me why.

Of course it was squished, and it looked awful. A deep, red crease at the first knuckle that depressed the finger to about 1/2 or 1/4 of it's regular diameter - kinda scary, really gross. I rushed her to the doctor, got the xrays, the splint, etc.... got the results this morning. It's broken. Of course.

Soccer has had one game this season and now we are out for 3 games --- again. Remember the broken arm from last season? Same story. And nobody is going to believe I'm not beating the crap outta this kid. Thoughts don't count. Really. I checked.

Right now we are off to see if there is some kind of splint that can be glued/melded/sautered/welded to her finger so she can't take it off and play with it. Wish me luck.

Clay is now a genius

Ok -

I wear out my entire family (and many of the extended folk) with trying to teach my kids Spanish. I know they think it's silly, but I really enjoy knowing what Spanish I remember and think it's important for the kids to learn another language, even if they eventually pick some other language. I don't remember near as much as I should but I remember basic conversation and lots of words. I can't really conjugate any verbs so I can only speak in the present tense, but I get by and can be friendly with the ladies at the supermarket.

SO... when we do go to the market, I make the kids make basic conversation and ask for tortilla samples in Spanish (Senora Maria is very understanding, patient and really works with them. She says they know more Spanish than her grandkids and that my accent is excellent - so there. :) HA!). Clay is so cute, and is still of a mind to make Mommy happy by humoring me It doesn't hurt that Maria takes him behind the counter so he can speak to the other women and they fawn over him. The girls have almost decided that it isn't worth it to eat samples if they have to speak Spanish to get them. Ho hum....

Anyway, I digress. I was giving Clay a kiss the other day and I told him "Te amo!" (I love you!) and he said it back to me and kissed me. Sweet, right? But wait - then he took a step back and said, "Mommy, Te amo es GRANDE!" and held his arms wide. HE MADE HIS OWN SENTENCE IN SPANISH!! Now granted, it was "I love you is big" but the point is, he knew the gist of both and put them together -- and I knew what he meant for sure!

I'm so proud of him!

Tooth drama

My kids have some jacked up teeth.

Last year, Landry's adult teeth came in BEHIND her baby teeth. The two bottom ones were about half way up before they finally pushed out the two baby teeth in front. For several weeks we had a very nice, showey shark smile. It was nice that she never had a gap though - the new teeth were right there to take the place of the old. Her top teeth have been loose for a few weeks but slow progress and no sign of shark teeth on these... but she did find some new molars coming in the other day. Good lord, that kid is going to have a very full mouth soon.

Then Megan found the beginnings of HER shark mouth last week. She has one bottom tooth that is almost all the way in and the baby tooth in front is starting to sag forward.... a great, snaggley look. I think she is avoiding the baby tooth though - b/c if it were me, I'd have messed with it until it fell out - like two weeks ago.

I guess I should go ahead and invest in a tooth fairy pillow - can't borrow their cousin's pillow forever and it doesn't look like I'm going to learn to sew in time to create my own. Ho hum.

I did take them to get their pics done about two weeks ago though -- my thought was I better get that done before they had gappy smiles. I guess it didn't occur to me that ALL of my kids would grow adult teeth before they lost their baby teeth. Constantly rejuevenating smiles.

We register for kindergarten on Thursday. Where does the time go? For God's sake... hurry! :)

PS - will try to post some of the pics from JCPenney - most are very good, but when you copy from the website the resolution is so bad that you almost can't make out the race of the children. We'll see if I can get anything to show up.

Food Detox Update

I figure after all the complaining about detox, I should at least update you.

Let me preface my update of the current situation with a flashback. Last March, Tony did this same detox on his own. I decided it was a scam diet and I wanted no part of it and he would have to fix his own veggie junk if he was going to do this scam. So I basically ate some kids food or a snack for dinner or occasionally join him once he was able to add chicken to his veggie junk. And as it turns out, if I don't have to worry about fixing 'dinner', I'm too lazy to feed myself. Now that is special kind of lazy and I had no idea I was THAT lazy. You sure couldn't tell it to look at me! Anyway - I lost about 10 pounds just being too lazy to feed myself (don't worry, the kids didn't suffer) and pretty much kept it off all year.

So - NOW, Tony bullied me/guilted me into doing detox this Feb, and I've lost a total of 9 pounds. So when I was thinking 'I've lost almost 20 lbs this year', I was pretty pumped. I had to wear a pair of khakis from my time at Countrywide and they were positively baggy - so I was pretty proud. But that was only until I realized.... I lost MORE just being lazy than I did suffering through the detox.

Now - don't get me wrong - I'm glad all 19 are gone and I'm hoping to loose another 10 before we go to Mexico in June - and I'm glad that I'm not addicted to Dr. Pepper anymore.

I'm just saying.... you know.... was all this really necessary? Then again, if I hadn't done it, what would I have to bitch about? And we all know I like to have something to bitch about! :)