screen time

signs your two year old may be watching too many cartoons:

you are walking through costco and see a lady trying out a recliner. your two year old starts yelling at her to "get outta my thinking chair - haaay dats my thinking chair lady!!!"

you are on your way to the grocery store and she asks you in all seriousness
"do we hab to go through crocodile lake and ober seashell bridge to get to the store?"

you are paying for your groceries and hand the lady your shopper card. she
yells out "oh man, that lady swiped our stuff."

i do try to be the good mom who always lets her children play outside, i do. but sometimes you just need a break from cleaning this stuff up everyday.

who loves ya

things that go on while i am away at work.

they get to eat pizza and pretzels for dinner
they get to play outside in the dirt and sand as long as they want
they get to take an hour and a half bath with lots of bubbles and bath paints
they get to stay up until 10 oclock and watch tv
the baby gets to sleep on mama's pillow snuggled up next to her daddy and the big kids have slumber parties in each other's rooms

then i come home.

they have to eat veggies with their dinner
they get fussed at for getting in the sand and dirt
they take quick showers or a very hurried bath with not too many bubbles (we dont want any skin irritation, and don't even get me started on those darn bathtub crayons - did the creator of those ever see a tub after children have used them?)
they go to bed by 8:30 pm
the baby is put to sleep by dad and then moved to her bed and the big kids sleep in their beds

so it should come as no surprise to me that maggie woke up from her nap today wanting her daddy only. she looks at me and says "no mama i want daddy" and runs to him, hugging on him, kissing on him and flashing me dirty looks. he tried to reason with her and tell her to love on her mom, that she was making me sad, but she really would have nothing to do with me.

i scooped her up and rocked her and she arched her back and screamed for her daddy.

seriously baby? i hate to go here, but in addition to catching your puke in my bare hands, i carried you for nine months, my leg looks like i have elephantitis from the horrid varicose veins you caused me and i can no longer sleep all night because you and your siblings turned my bladder into a punching bag, requiring me to visit the restroom more than my grandpa.

how quickly they can turn on you.

i give her a womb to grow and thrive in, nourishment to live on, and more love than an army of angels could house, and she chooses the one who lets her eat dirt and scribble on my bathtub.

go figure!!


(editors note: please know, my husband does not really let my children eat dirt and he is a fantastic dad who can manage all four like a true rock star)

the bank

i feel that when you are a parent it is the hard days that deposit money into the "parenting bank" i think when you just think you cant do it for another minute - but you do, thats when it really counts.
i think you get extra deposits added in for the sleepless nights, catching puke in your own hands... etc...

here are some ways i earned a few extra bucks this week.
~holding maggie down on the treatment room table while she was getting her blood drawn and cathed for a ua. even though i wanted to cry with her, i just kept singing to her, loving her through it.
~letting her puke bile on my shoulder three times the next morning
~not hauling off and whipping my son for running through the house in dirty cowboy boots. trying to remain calm and tell him that makes mommy very sad, to please remember to take his shoes off outside.
~holding ashton through his enormous tantrum last night, not losing my cool, but talking him through it, even when he was yelling he didnt like me anymore.

i may have lost a couple dollars when i did happen to
~whip the same little boy who ran through the house again in his dirty cowboy boots
~yell at that same boy when he stole his sisters fireworks, tripped his little brother and caused great chaos through an already tired house
~fed my children mcdonalds instead of cooking something more nourishing

as long as i keep breaking even, i will never go broke.

sunshine at bedtime

instead of sleeping my little sunshine is up singing to me.



how do i get mad at that?

selling out

we decided to put a few things out this year for the neighborhood garage sale.
i just wanted to make a little more room in the garage. i gathered up a changing table, three strollers, a baby dresser, exersaucer, and many more things of that variety. i did not want to mess with selling clothes or any other little thing that had to be organized on a table. only big things.

i love and hate having garage sales. i love chatting with the nice neighbors and people who peruse your things. i love making extra spending money and cleaning my house up a little. i hate dragging all of your stuff out to the driveway and back in to the garage. i hate the people who come and argue prices with you.

my youngest children really really hated the whole thing. both maggie and ashton begged me not to sell their things. mind you, these are things they haven't touched or probably even knew still existed. i guess it would bug me too if somebody started dragging out things i once loved
and essentially giving them away to strangers.

i sold this tiny little stroller which maggie's bottom didn't really even fit in. she never once rode in it, we only owned it for a few weeks. when she saw the mom push it back to her car, my 2 year old starts screaming at her, "NO NO NO - DAT MY STROWER. NO NO NO - GIVE IT BACK!!" she chased her all the way to her car door and tried to shove her booty in the stroller.
i just smiled and waved bye to the nice lady while maggie lay in the driveway screaming about her stroller and how much she wanted it back.

another lady came and loved all of my things. she loved them so much she wanted pretty much everything i had out. she bought my big fancy pink stroller, my cute little pink pack & play, my bassinet, and my changing table. my changing table that my dad bought when i had molly.
the same changing table that all four of my little newborns got their diapers changed on, got lotioned up on after baths, and had their cute little newborn things stored in.
she bought it all, didn't argue with me on prices and carried it off to her car.
the whole time i wanted to chase after her, to scream at her to give me back all of my stuff, that im not ready to get rid of it after all.

and then it was gone. the driveway was empty. yay we are done. hooray - no more clunky baby crap taking up space. i don't have to drag anything back into the garage!!

i hate garage sales. i really hate them.

more disneyworld

the rest of the trip was amazing in a lot of ways. amazing in the sense of how much fun every day is in disney. amazing in the sense of how much work every day is in disney, and amazing in the sense of how tired you can be at the end of each day in disney.

outside the american idol experience i found these little idols


sweet little mouse


fun in the tiki fountains


birthday party at Ohana, we had cupcakes at every meal - it is so much fun to have your birthday in disneyworld.


making wishes with the fairy godmother


the most fun ever, mickey's backyard bbq, the kids got to dance all night long with the characters and eat all the ice cream their bellies could hold.

the biggest thing i learned in disney was that it is okay to not follow the tour books plans and to realize with four children you will move a little slower, not see everything, and take a few more breaks.

Bring on Survivor : Disney trip part 1

After spending a week in Disney with my family, I feel like I could totally smoke Survivor. Bring it on, eating bugs, sleeping on the ground, withstanding the elements. Simple compared to what my husband and I accomplished this past week. First of all, just making it through airport security these days is a task. Get in line, take off your shoes, empty your pockets, walk this way, put that in the basket but not that, walk in a single file line, speed it up, dont touch that unless you want to lose a finger, move quickly, you get the picture. Add in four small children and it gets a little stressful. Then have a mom who decides to wear a sundress that day. They need to put you in a little glass box and frisk you - but they have to wait for a female guard to do it, so you wait, and wait, and wait while your children are running wild and your husband is wondering why you are in the box, but you can't talk to him because you are behind the box. Fun fun. Don't ever wear a loose fitting dress on the airplane, lord knows what you may be hiding under it.

But we made it on, and all was well. The flight went smoothly, except I get motion sickness on any sort of moving object (including planes), and the family in front of me began opening up bags of food. Not just snacks but 3 dozen chicken wings, biscuits, sausage, cheese, crackers, cookies and drinks. It is a 7 am flight people!!! The smell was killing me, but did not seem to bother my children.

We landed, got to our hotel (Pop Century) which was fine, nothing fancy, but lots of Disney theming and the kids loved it. We unpacked and headed straight to the Magic Kingdom.
One stroller, one being carried and two running along after us. I give them credit, the children were troopers everywhere we went. We messed around a little and then took the monorail over to the Contemporary for our dinner at Chef Mickey's. It was good food, lots of character interaction and in general pretty smooth. By this time, we had all been up since 4 am and were beat, so back to the hotel and to bed. Maggie got to sleep with daddy every night because he is the baby whisperer when it comes to sleeping. We were in bed by 10 pm, all still together and all still smiling at this point.