Thursday, August 31, 2006

My day off tomorrow can't come soon enough

My dear DH (redundant? I think not) has given me a vacation day tomorrow. I get the whole day to myself while he and his mom and dad entertain the boys with lunch out and a visit to the park. I'm still trying to map my route for the day...I guess I should get busy!

I've been pretty tired lately and yes, I need a break, but does exhaustion cause one to be just dumb? Take a look at the bottom shelf in my pantry from yesterday:




Yes, that would be a package of Virginia ham in the basket. In my haste to clean up lunch I must have forgotten that, uh, lunchmeat has a home called the 'fridge, and it should never stray from its home for more than two hours (DH looooves that little rule). I discovered it when I started to prepare dinner about 4:00, so into the trash it went.

So looks like first on my list to do tomorrow to be smart. Or at least fake it really well...

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

WFMW: Easily Changing Crib Sheets

After two and a half years I've finally found an easy way to change the sheet on my sons' crib mattress.

Lift one end of the mattress way up, leaving the other end in the crib. Put the sheet around the top end and then lower it back down. Then lift the other end of the mattress and put the sheet around it. Put it all the way down. Pull and tug on the sheet in the middle until it's taught.

Let me tell ya, if someone would have told me this early on, I would have been a lot happier. Instead I wrestled that stupid mattress like a 10-foot alligator, in the crib, out of the crib, etc.

Oh, and while I'm on the subject of cribs, the breathable bumpers are wonderful! You can find them at www.onestepahead.com. They are not bulky yet they still protect baby from bumping up against the hard rails or getting a foot stuck in between. And they are cheaper! And they match everything because they're white! I wish I'd have invented them...

Both of these ideas work for me!

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

The real reason I waited so long to have kids.

Let's just get it out there: I'm 40 and I have two kids under 3. At first I thought God was just making me wait so long to meet their father for his own amusement, then last week I realized He was doing me a favor. He was making me wait for all my friends and family to go through the many rites of parenthood so they could pass along their lessons learned to me.

Case in point: last week I took my kiddos to my very good friend's house so she could watch them for a couple of hours. When I returned it was time to clean up the toys and we're all like, "OK, time to clean up toys!" My two-year-old started getting that angst in his voice, like cleaning up toys was the last thing on his mind.

(I should say, the toys we were about to put away numbered in the bazillions...little army men and other like-sized items that were kept in a plastic bin. I am still questioning my friend's sanity when she let her son have these, but I must defer to those with the experience. Maybe someday that will make sense to me. Even when my son dumped them out all over the floor, my friend was unfazed.)

So my son's voice is rising and his eyebrows are knotting up and I'm thinking I'm gonna have to pull rank on him, when my friend swoops in and says "I bet I can put these toys away faster than you!!!" and commences to throwing the little men in the box very rapidly. Yeah, you guessed it, my son shrieks and happily follows suit. I just sat there in awe. I expected my friend to say "...ah, grasshopper, soon you too will learn similar tricks..."

I think I will keep this friend around a little longer...like till my kids are 18.

Monday, August 21, 2006

The Boys in the Church

Yesterday morning at church I was inspired, like I am every Sunday, but in a different way. When Mass started, I found my way to a pew with my 2-year-old, praying he would stay quiet. (DH was on his way with the little one.) Anyway, in the pew in front of me was a mother with a six-month-old and a 2-year-old. She was by herself. Her boys were behaving as you'd expect, active and chatty, and the mother was barely able to look up to hear the service.

I started thinking to myself, how much enrichment could she possibly be getting when she's hearing about every tenth word? I didn't berate her for not putting her kids in the church nursery, though, because I don't really like to put my kids in there either. All this would have probably kept me at home had I been alone with my two kids that morning. I sat watching my content son playing with his toy tractor in the pew and thanked God for that, that I could hear the readings and participate. I thanked Him (in advance) that my other son would be entertained by his dad for a while, and I'd be able to hear some more of the service. I thanked Him for my peaceful feeling at the end of Mass, not exhaustion or frustration. I thanked God for all these things because I realized that He doesn't always work in big ways, that sometimes His presence is felt in smaller ways.

(All that said, my husband ended up taking both my boys home since we live next door to the church, because they were getting out of hand. I thank God for him, too!)

Anyway, I'm sure that woman will continue bringing her boys to church, with or without her husband, and month by month they will get easier and easier during Mass. And pretty soon she will be able to hear the whole service while they sit quietly beside her. (I, myself, am anticipating that day!) And she will be glad she brought them to church yesterday and all the Sundays in between, and didn't stay home.

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Hometown Hotel

I just returned home from a three-day, two-night stay in beautiful Hometown, Oklahoma, where my mom lives. DH was on a business trip to Canada.

I love going to mom's but it is so hard to stay on my eating plan there. I get in a vacation mode where I give myself license to eat anything in sight. And the boys are into everything (one is 11 months and walking and the other is 2.5 and running, climbing, swinging, etc.) It is wonderful having mom to help me with them but it is still stressful enough to drive me to her cookie jar, which, I might add, is one of those clear ones with the metal lid. Ya know, come to think of it, I bought her that blasted thing a few years ago for Christmas!

No exercise today. I'm really having trouble in the motivation department where that's concerned. My little one is up at 6 a.m. every morning. I got a million excuses...

Wednesday, August 09, 2006

Here goes nothing...

Don't you hate it when people say that? And here I am among them. This is my first attempt at a blog and I hardly know what to do so right now I hope not many people stumble across it. I read a lot of blogs, mostly of other stay-home moms like me. I figure, if they can write entertaining stuff about their daily lives so can I. Some of these women are so hilarious that I have laughed out loud at their posts. I doubt I can elicit such a response from anyone but I can sure put two words together to form a sentence so that qualifies me, right?