Halloween Open House!

Thanks Chilihead for tagging me for your Halloween Open House. I know you won't believe me but I DID try to upload pictures (all two of them) of my Halloween decorations, but Blogger is not cooperating. Ugh!! You will be happy to know that in addition to my 97-cent window clings from Wal-Mart I did get the boys pumpkins. And I put stickers on them. And I put them out on the front porch and looked at them for a long time.

If you haven't seen Chili's awesome decorations, go there now. Or she will haunt you!

I'm back...and with some very useful information!

Whew! I have, for one reason or another, been freaking busy lately. Oh, I've thought about pecking the keyboard a time or two, but a lot can happen in the 16 steps on the way upstairs.

One thing burning a hole in my pocket is this PSA: check your cabinet for expired spices! I ran across this ad in the Sunday circular a week ago:

"What?!?" I say to myself. "Who could possible allow a container of any spice reside in their cabinet for FIFTEEN YEARS before using it all??"

Uh, well, that would be me. Here's what lurked in the deepest recesses of my cabinet:

It's interesting to think this "valuable" item was worth packing up and moving from apartment to house to apartment, etc., about six times.

So please tell me I'm not the only one. Please go check your cabinet and let me know if you found any similar relics!

Bittersweet

My little boy didn't nurse today. He's two days from being 13 months old. I've been wanting to wean him since he turned 1 but somehow I just wasn't ready for it either. I think it's a little that I hope he still needs me as much, and a little that it just means he's growing up.

I don't have anything profound to write about this; maybe I just think it's a milestone that ought to be acknowledged. I'm proud of the fact I nursed both boys for a year. I do feel like there are precious few things I KNOW are right with my parenting skills, but breastfeeding is one thing I never doubted...

Foxed in?

Yes, I live in Oklahoma. No, I do not live in the country (or a teepee or a log cabin, if you're really clueless). I live in the middle of town, in a neighborhood, in a city with ordinances such as all dogs must be fenced in or on a leash.

Apparently the foxes of our city do not have to live by such rules.

This one has been roaming our neighborhood for the past several days. I caught a pic of him on the way out of our backyard. Isn't he nicely camouflaged in the first picture?

Now this little critter is about the size of a beagle, but for all I know he could have the personality of a tasmanian devil when provoked or tempted by the sight of a small toddler. Yikes. I think my little guys are going to be playing indoors for a while...

A would-be anniversary I'm not sad to miss.

Today would have been my 8th anniversary at my corporate job. The job I quit almost three years ago to stay home with my first son. The job that paid me quite handsomely then, and I probably would have gotten a couple of raises by now. And maybe I'd have gotten a promotion or two. And I'd probably have a better wardrobe.

Staying home pays me nothing. In fact, it cuts my husband's nice salary in half to support me. Eating out a lot and shopping on a whim are distant memories. My "promotion" was having another baby to raise. More diapers, less sleep, etc. And my wardrobe? Well, we just won't go there.

But I am not a bit disappointed I'm not celebrating today's would-be anniversary. Staying home with my boys has brought me more joy than I could have ever imagined. It is a gift I thank my husband for as often as I can. Every day one of the boys does something that makes me want to pick up a phone to call someone and tell them about it. And then I think, if Son One and Son Two were in daycare, I would have missed that moment. I know, I can't be with them to witness ALL their genius, but I want to drink in as much of them as I possibly can.

I'm an older mom, and I listen to a lot of my friends talk about their kids' early years so fondly. And they say things like "they're only little for such a short time..." and "it goes by so fast..." You know, almost like they didn't savor it enough. I don't want to look back and feel that way. I want to savor every delicious day of their little lives.

So anyway, today's the anniversary that wasn't, and I'm thrilled to not celebrate it. Maybe my two little bosses will give me big sloppy kisses instead...

WFMW: Buying fewer trash bags

I got tired of buying tall kitchen bags so often. Now, during every meal prep, I hang a plastic grocery store sack on the knob by my sink and use it until the meal is over. Then I trash it, full or not, at the end of the meal.

I used to take the tall trash bag out nearly every day but now it's about every third day. This little tip has really cut down on how often I buy the "real" trash bags.

One thing: I sometimes make them "paper only" bags, so if there's a hole in the bottom then I don't have to worry about leakage. It is surprising how much paper a family of four can collect in one day!

My First Meme!

My good friend Chilihead tagged me for this meme (somewhere there is a definition of the word, but the short meaning of "meme" is a bunch of get-to-know-you questions). Here goes:

1. Favorite memory of your mother? I remember how soft and warm she felt when she hugged me, which was all the time. And I remember rocking with her in the rocking chair, even after I was probably too big. And I remember how she would always tell me I was the "sweetest little girl in the whoooole world!!" (And I have 10 siblings!) In spite of our big family, my mom never didn't have time for me. I remember some of her sayings that she had me believing when I was a teenager: "he's not good enough to date my daughter..." which was usually true, and "your car runs better when it's clean..." Good one, mom.

2. Favorite memory of your father? That's hard because I only knew him a short time: he died from cancer when I was four (liver cancer, though he was a non-smoker and only a casual drinker). Anyway, I really just remember him lying down in bed. But if you listen to my mom talk about him, you would think he could walk on water.

3. Favorite memory of your sibling(s)? Wow, a lot there, too. Recently? Florida, Florida, Florida. Several of us and our families have made the trip to the panhandle every summer for ten years. Some of my happiest memories are about the beach. It has brought us closer in so many ways... And my nieces and nephews. They are glue when it comes to keeping the sibs together.

4. What one skill would you like to wake up tomorrow and be able to do (though you'd never learned it)? Figure skate. Olympic-quality. I figure if I have the skill for it I'll also have the body for it.

5. Which one of your dreams has come true? Marrying my husband. He makes me feel like I'm the only person that matters. And becoming a mother.

Burning Questions of the Day

Since I know no one else who can answer these questions, I'm stepping up on the podium of Blogville to ask them:

1. Why doesn't anyone ever say "wait...you have an EYEBROW on your cheek..." and then ever-so-gently brush it off for them? Everyone uses that pretty word "eyelash" when they really don't know where it came from. Is it because no one wants to think of one's eyebrows falling out. Wasn't that in "The Wall" or something?

2. Why do I have to pay a waiter a bigger tip for a $15 steak than I do for a $7 hamburger? Don't they come on the same kind of plate? Doesn't she still have to visit my table to bring it to me (and fill my Diet Coke glass at least twice)? Is it because the steak weighs more? Or maybe it's the risk factor: the steak is a more valuable item so she must take extra care to not drop it. If you're a current or ex-member of the restaurant world, please enlighten me!

OK, I feel better now. I might make this a regular feature since I tend to think these random thoughts a lot. I hope that now, answered or not, I can purge them from my brain and make room for something useful.

WFMW: Giving sippy cups to their proper owners

My tip today may be a no-brainer for some of you seasoned moms, but for some of us the lightbulb takes just a little longer to come on.

I have two sons currently "on" sippy cups. At the end of the day I find myself in sippy cup hell. I don't know whose is whose or what's in them. So I make new ones and before I know it I have six or seven cups in the fridge and I have no idea which one to grab. I tried assigning each son a color but I don't have enough different colors for that and I'm not buying more and besides I'd just have to remember who has what color.

So I came up two simple rules:

1. One cup per kid, per day. And they have to finish whatever's in it from breakfast before they get something different to drink.

2. I put a sticker on the top of Son One's cup; he's 2 and old enough to not try to eat it. I know at a glance which one to grab from the fridge, and he does, too. It only takes a small sticker and by the time it starts un-sticking, the day is nearly over anyway.

Like I said, it's simple, but when both of them are screaming for something to drink, every second counts. And one more nerve of mine is left intact.

For more WFMW tips, check out the queen.

"Mommy, my tummy hu..."

Yeah, that's about all the notice I got on Saturday before I got a second look at Son One's breakfast. All day Saturday I just stared at his face, trying to make out any change at all that would indicate "sick" was about to happen. Sometimes I was successful, sometimes not. It's our sons' first bout with a stomach virus, ever. Luckily the other symptom that usually accompanies it didn't happen for either of them, which I am ever so thankful for since husband left on a business trip Sunday.

Son Two only had one incident and I happened to be holding him and standing near the kitchen sink. Lucky me. Not lucky sink.

Husband and I tried not to panic when our little ones were surprising us like this, but we must have looked a little like Lucy and Ethel at the candy factory. The first time it happened we didn't talk about it until about two hours after everything and everyone was cleaned up. I think we were in shock.

Everyone's all well now, and the plan is to post more frequently my mundane little entries for all the world to see. Hope they don't make you sick.

Crafty, but I won't make you sick

My littlest turned the big O-N-E on Saturday. I wanted to post this pic for all you who think you have to buy a cake to have a decorated cake. This was so easy and it had good centerpiece presence. Unfortunately, I can't take credit for the design, but my best friend Betty Crocker can.

Also, the little bags on the right were favors filled with M&Ms. Yes, it was a bit of a theme. I bought the bags at my local craft store for $2 and the ribbon for $1 on the clearance rack. I didn't compute the cost-per but it was cheap and original and fun to make.

So yes, it's a little crafty, no it's not nauseating. I think the little guy will love the pics when he's old enough to not try to eat or tear them.

Overheard from Son One

(Son One is 2.5.) I love reading other people's "overheards" so here are Son One's contributions:

Me: "What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Son One: "A four-wheeler."

At Mother's Day Out:

Teacher Megan: "Who loves you?"
Son One: "Ms. Megan!"

(Apparently this statement melted Ms. Megan's heart...and mine, since he has been, uh, shall we say slightly apprehensive about MDO lately.)

What, do you blog like you brush your teeth?

I sure hope you do not have my blog first on your blogroll, like this poor woman, because I'm thinking about now you are regretting it. There are several reasons for my post deficiency:

1. I have two little kids.

2. I have two little kids.

3. I have nothing of worth to write about.

4. I have two little kids.

Yikes, I have really got to think of a better list of excuses, since, helllooooo...One of the major reasons I started this blog was all the neat MOM blogs I was reading.

So here's my assignment fooooorrrr YOU! (Sorry, my boys are at Mother's Day Out today but Elmo lives on). I need to know your tricks for finding time to blog. Do you have a list of go-to topics? How long do you spend on a post? Are you people night owls or early risers? My aforementioned friend up there has some posts worthy of college term paper material, people!! Where do you find time in your mom-days to do it?

Tips appreciated...the jar is on the table.

My day off yesterday and a movie review

I wish I could say I impersonated Abe Froman (sp.), The Sausage King of Chicago, but my day off yesterday wasn't quite so adventurous. The best way I knew to relax without spending $100 for a massage was to go to a movie. I can't actually remember the last movie I saw in a theatre, so even if it had been "To Justin from Kelly" I think I would have loved it.

I saw "World Trade Center" with Nicholas Cage and a host of unknown actors. I had a lump in my throat almost the whole time, but this movie wasn't nearly as moving as the actual news footage from that day, as I remember it. It told the story of two Port Authority cops who were trapped for many hours under many feet of rubble between the two towers. While the movie gave a great idea of what it must have been like to be buried like that, I didn't get a real sense of what was going on outside. I was prepared to see mass confusion and chaos, people running around screaming, tons of people exiting Lower Manhattan on foot...the movie showed none of that. Maybe they avoided that on purpose, I don't know. Anyway, Nick was awesome in it, does he ever really fail at a movie? It was very entertaining and I would recommend it as a rent or a matinee. (By the way, I saw it at 11:10 a.m. and paid $4.00!! I am thinking pretty soon they will start first-run movies at 8 a.m. and they will be $.50).

The rest of my day was spent at a real-live toy store shopping for my little boy who will be ONE in a couple of weeks. I am up to my ears in party planning and I cannot wait!

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...

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!

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.

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.

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...

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?