Pretty in Yellow

Originally uploaded by blondemom.

Sometimes I forget what it’s like to have just one child. Just one blur of energy to chase down in a restaurant. Just one melodious giggle. Just one pair of jammies and one toothbrush to contend with at bedtime. And you know what? It is easier. But it’s awfully quiet.

Caitlin spent yesterday and last night with my mom and Amelia went to daycare for a half day until I picked her up for her 18-month well visit. She weighs 24.4 pounds and although she seems like a pretty good size girl to me, I looked in Caitlin’s baby book (yes she had an actual baby book that I actually wrote in!) and she was 26.4 pounds at 18 months. I still can’t quite wrap my brain around the fact that my baby girl is a year and a half.

So what amazing things is Amelia up to?

Saying thank you.
Brushing her teeth. She loves, loves to brush her teeth and I just bought her a brunette Barbie toothbrush. I think it’s actually more the love of the running water and making a mess that appeals to her.
Climbing, climbing, and more climbing and aging me just a little bit each time she nearly falls.
Bonking her head on any and all hard surfaces. Bonus points for sharp corners and glass!
Stalking big sister around the house.
Giving Bailey our dog more gray whiskers.

Any way, you’d think with a few hours of freedom from children yesterday I’d have done something fun like a lunch outing, but I tackled the laundry dunes before they completely took over our home and we’re featured on an Oprah special intervention episode on bad housekeeping. Yesterday I organized the girls’ closet and packed away bits of summer gingham and floral sundresses.

This weekend the hubby and I are going to attempt to go to dinner and a movie (we’re thinking of seeing Little Miss Sunshine….anyone have a review? Thumbs up? Thumbs down?) I’ve been informally surveying friends about date night. It seems like our random every 6 to 8 week date night is fairly pathetic considering we have free babysitting via the grandparents. And although they live a good 40 minutes away, it just takes a little planning to pull off a date night. So one of my fall resolutions (what, you don’t have fall resolutions?) is to start planning a date night at least once a month. What about you?

I tend to read blogs solely written by women, and if you break down the demographic even further, they are mom blog heavy. Being the nerd that I am (I was a print journalism/sociology double major in college), I know that I’d be all over doing a research paper on the demographics of blogging. Any way, one of the cool things about joining the BlogJolt group is that I’m reaching outside my blog familiarity zone a bit.

This week’s featured blogger is Rebecca, who blogs at An Irish Craftworkers Good Life. She is a mom to two little ones who is renovating an old farmhouse with her husband in rural Ireland. I’ve never been to Europe, but I would love to travel to Ireland some day. Rebecca wrote a post this week that I can relate to called the Iron Free Zone. Now I just need a backyard hammock. I’ve already banished our iron. I mean why deny your clothes the right to their God given wrinkles?

p.s. I also want to mention the second BlogJoltee (hey…made up that word) featured this week…Kelly at Blended With Salt. Kelly is a work at home mom who blogs for ClubMom and writes about the challenges of raising a toddler and a teenager in her second marriage. You must check out Kelly’s post from this summer about dealing with her 3-year-old’s tantrums. Not that I can relate or anything.

There was nearly a Jerry Springer type altercation in the daycare parking lot yesterday at pick up. The lot is very narrow with room for about four cars in front and about six more cars along the side of the building. If you don’t snag one of those choice spots you have to drive up a small hill and park in the back forty and haul your kid(s) and all their artwork, etc. Caitlin loves to park on the hill because we pass by her class playground and she can yell at her friends and teachers. She’s a ham like that.

Well yesterday it was the equivalent of a parking perfect storm. The only thing that would have made it more Armageddon-esque is if it had been raining. But it was a picture perfect fall day and portrait pickup day so apparently every parent came wheeling in at 5 p.m. on the dot and it was more crowded than I’ve ever seen it in the three plus years I’ve been parking there. I sat like a vulture waiting for someone to leave and finally ended up parking on the hill practically in the woods. As I was parking I overheard a mom getting out of a station wagon saying to another mom something along the lines of “That bitch wouldn’t move her truck and I had to sit here for 20 minutes waiting for someone to leave!” Luckily no kids were within earshot. I had to laugh because I automatically knew of which bitch she speaketh. There are two moms who have the obnoxious habit of chatting in the parking lot and taking up two spaces while their kids play in the bed of the truck and all the while other parents are hovering and waiting for their chance to whip in a vacant space. I told the frustrated mom that perhaps she should talk to the daycare owner/director about it and that I would also complain about it. Then I saw station wagon mom this morning and she said she’d left the director a voice mail message. She said, “I’m sorry I was so mad, but it was like that scene from Fried Green Tomatoes…I’m older and I’ve got better insurance!” I like her. She’s got spunk. I’m hoping the director sends a nice innocuous letter to parents to the effect of “Please be considerate when dropping off and picking up your children and do not socialize in the lot as parking is limited.”

Tonight at pick up I didn’t see station wagon mom or pickup truck mom. I’m preparing myself for a Jerry Springer throw down some time, though. My money is on station wagon mom. How ’bout you?

Last night was not as rough as Sunday night but I got on some sort of manic “MUST STRAIGHTEN THE HOUSE” kick and stayed up until nearly 11 and then of course Amelia woke up just once but it was right as I was falling asleep and then Caitlin peed a gallon in her bed about 4 a.m. and wanted to do artwork. Uh…no sweetie. It’s bedtime. But it’s a gorgeous day here and I just had a delicious lunch with my hubby so I’m a happy camper. Hopefully “hacking cough” and its evil twin sister “bed wetting” will stay far, far away from our house tonight. Caitlin has soccer practice at 6 (i.e. she’ll be exhausted tonight). And an exhausted child is a good thing as hopefully she’ll sleep well. Note to self: remind Caitlin to use the potty before bedtime.

Occasionally people ask me to review a product on my blog. While I don’t get a huge amount of traffic, I think advertisers and marketers are starting to get hip to the blogging womens of the world. I’m still holding out for free liquor, hardwood floors in my kitchen, and an all expense paid trip to the Caribbean, but beggars can’t be choosers.

A representative with About Your Time, LLC, the publisher of the BusyBodyBook Organizer, contacted me several weeks ago and wanted to know if I’d like a review copy of their organizer. And I was all, “heck yeah,” because I love calendars. And I love free stuff.

I don’t think I could ever use an electronic calendar because I love hand writing in a calendar and have since high school when all the girls carried those small monthly calendars with a cute kitten or puppy on the cover in their purse. The reality is I am not very organized any more since I’m quite often sleep deprived, but by carrying a spiffy organizer I LOOK ORGANIZED. Smoke and mirrors people. Smoke and mirrors.

Any way, I’ve been too busy to give a shout out about the BusyBodyBook! How ironic is that! The clever thing about this particular organizer is that it has a blank five-column grid format for each date. So you could have a column for each family member’s activities or maybe a column for your appointments and one for meal planning and one for the cocktail of the day. So far I’ve come up with four columns for my organizer, one for each family member, and that fifth blank column? The cocktail a day idea is mighty tempting.

p.s. I just noticed there is a free download for a large fridge grid for the month of September on the BusyBodyBook website that you may want to check out.

If you heard a toddler crying Saturday night because she stood up and fell off her changing table because mommy was distracted by child #1, there’s a good chance it was my child.

If you heard a toddler scream like a banshee out of the blue at Target yesterday, there’s a good chance it was my sweet 18-month-old flexing her vocal chords in the children’s shoe aisle because mama wouldn’t let her out of the jail cart. You’d think I’d remember that shoe shopping with kids never turns out to be a particularly fun outing.

If you saw a 30-something year old woman persuade her 4-year-old that it was just fine and dandy that all the giant kiddy car grocery carts were in use late yesterday (thank God for the Publix cookie club for kids as I was all over the “Let’s go get your free cookie!” angle), there’s a good chance that was me.

If you heard a toddler crying at 4 a.m. this morning because her mother was trying to force her to take grape Dimetap again like she did unsuccessfully at 1 a.m. in order to break the cough, cry, and wake up cycle, there’s a good chance it was my child.

If you see a 30-something year old mom at work today, her eyes glazed over and daydreaming of being back on vacation at the beach, there’s a good chance it’s me.

Our Little Scoring Machine!

Originally uploaded by blondemom.

Sometimes the apple does fall far from the tree. I was never an athletic kid. I was always chosen last for kick ball and was the guaranteed weak link during the dreaded masochistic recess game of Red Rover. As far as playground pecking order goes, I was down on the totem pole along with the nerdy boy who was picked on by the playground bully for his milk money and the kid who wore coke bottle glasses.

But today my girl made her first official soccer goal AND it was the opening goal of the game. Was I present to witness this athletic feat? No, I stayed home with Amelia who seems to be getting over her cold, but the hubby and his mom were there to see our little soccer star who went on to score yet another goal. Today’s game was apparently much more even handed as last week’s opponent uh…basically killed us out on the field. They had one Junior Olympiad type player who made score after score after score. It was like a scene from Groundhog Day. Luckily Caitlin and her teammates are too young to understand that they really got whipped, and apparently today’s game made up for the opener.

We’ve been really impressed with Caitlin’s coach. After each game he gathers the girls around to hand out drinks and a snack and he makes a point to praise each individual player and comment on their performance. He told Caitlin that she came out of nowhere and was a SCORING MACHINE!

At one point during a water break the hubby asked Caitlin if she wanted to sit down and rest with her team and she replied, “There’s no sitting in soccer!”

Edited to add: I nearly posted something about Caitlin’s monumental tantrums (two by noon!) today but I wanted to leave the blog all shiny and happy to end the weekend. Tantrums seem like a great topic for Monday. Mwaaa haa haa haa.

Hey, I’m a blogging Belle!

The Belles got together virtually last night, did a little dance, shook their ya ya sticks, downed a few shots of tequila, and dubbed myself and Nicole at Sitting Still the newest Belles. Go read the news on R*Belle’s blog, which, by the way, was one of the first blogs I discovered last fall. She’s from the South, too, and she will welcome you with sweet tea or maybe a Budweiser. You will have to settle for a Coke on ice, milk, or watered down Kool Aid here at my blog as the hubby needs to make a beer run this evening. Being the weekend and all, he’ll probably opt for a 12 pack or get some fancy foreign brew so you may want to pop in later. Excuse the laundry everywhere and the Legos and the plastic poker chips and My Little Pony’s, but I did just clean the kitchen floor and managed to sneak in a shower while Amelia was napping.

I think this makes up for not pledging a sorority in college and enduring braces off and on for years in junior high and high school. Amelia has a horrible cold so I’m hoping you fellow Belles will use your super belle power to send her feel good vibes for the weekend. Otherwise I think mama’s in for a long weekend.

I’m belated on this week’s BlogJolt and we were on the road home from Florida last week so I wanted to be sure and mention Jill Koenig at
GoalBlog.com: Goal Blog, Goal Tips, Goal Setting, Time Management for Superachievers.

Jill, an entrepreneur and motivational speaker, has a great quote on her blog that I thought I’d share…

“Today pick one person from your past who impacted your life in
a positive way and write them a HAND WRITTEN letter describing
your gratitude for their presence in your life. Mail it today!”
-Jill Koenig

I’m very bad about not handwriting correspondence any more, although I still write good old-fashioned thank you notes by hand. I use my laptop and office computer so much I sometimes don’t recognize my own handwriting. The only other time I seem to be hand writing is for bills and with electronic bill pay I don’t even do that very often. And it’s a shame to save handwriting for bills…blech!

Any way, if you are looking for some great time management tips, be sure to visit Jill!

Edited to add: I find it hilarious that I blogged belatedly about someone who is an expert on time management….only me.