Get ready to vote!

Huh, I didn't know Joe the plumber lived in Connecticut...

They should make you pass a test....

to be a mother.
On Saturday I was a s-t-u-p-i-d Mom. I am pretending that by confessing my sins to someone I will somehow be resolved of them and then I can move on to the next parenting flub.
This weekend was a doozy. It just started out that way. On Friday night we decided to treat the girls to a movie. Actually, they were given a choice between going out to eat and going to the movie theatre...note to self: don't let my kids ever decide if I get to go out to eat or not, inevitably their decision will make me cranky. They chose a movie and unfortunately the only show playing was Beverly Hills Chihuahua...what child does not like talking animals? Hazel, who usually is dead to the world by 7:30pm was wide awake at 7:30, 7:45, 8:00, 8:15, 8:30, 8:45, 9:00, 9:15...she and I were well acquainted with the theatre's lobby and read every poster from top to bottom at least 20 times...they gave me my money back and I asked what happened in the movie (turns out that talking dogs don't really have that much important stuff to say in a two hour movie.) So my back hurt. Then we went home, threw the way-over-done-children in bed and I sat in my own bed stringing Halloween decorations for the ward party while my husband promptly fell asleep before 10pm in his sweater and jeans. Awesome Friday night.
This brings me to Saturday. (I will eventually get to the point, really.) Clark had duty so it felt like a regular weekday except that everyone was home and wanted to be entertained. Lucky for us I had a brunch to go to so I whipped up some Wassail to contribute, made my kids look presentable, tried to make myself look like I made an effort and got them to the party that was at a friend's house where her daughter had graciously offered to watch my kids downstairs. Hazel was cute and happy for about 10 minutes until she decided not to be anymore. I fed her a bottle...waaa!...I stood up with her....waaaa!...I let her crawl around...waaaa!....I bounced her and fed her little sweet potato puffs and talked to her and walked around with her (trying to be quiet enough to hear the game that the adults were playing and not disturb anyone...did I mention it was a brunch to welcome the new Commanding Officer's wife?)....waaaa! So I apologized, rounded up all the kids and their socks, grabbed some croissants, packed up the Wassail and headed out. I had two errands that I absolutely had to run knowing that dear Hazel was not going to stop crying...we would just plow through them. Not only that but we have a ward party tonight that I had to go help at (and have fun). This was not like her to cry so endlessly about something obscure. She did miss her morning nap but could not fall asleep so I assumed teething perhaps? I was feeling stressed until I stopped at our second errand and decided to pause and do a rundown of possible problems.
It was only when I removed her from her seat and took off her adorable little tennis shoes that it dawned on me....[insert me apologizing profusely to 7 month old.] Her shoes hurt. Really? I could have just spared the last hour of crying, the rush out the door, the first errand, the stressing about the rest of my busy day, the missing of the second trip to the table full of delicious brunch food and socializing with adults?...all because I put silly shoes on my baby.
Bad Mommy.

The ancient Chinese art of foot binding...bad.
Little bare baby feet...good.

The beauty is pain concept may be a little much for her at this point.
Let me just say that the moment I took the shoes off she was as pleasant as ever.
Forehead. Hand. Slap. Slap. Slap.
I'll spare you the details of the rest of the weekend...even though it did include an exploding vacuum and one very dirty family room rug...and the church party was really fun...who knew a Halloween family dance could be such a blast?


(I think that the concept of these little baby Louis Vuitton heels are hilarious but only reserved for celebrities who also think it fun to buy round cribs and designer diaper bags.)

Oh dear...too much.

I am sitting here in the office (morning is my efficient time, while baby is taking nap #1 and girl #2 is at morning Kindergarten...Mia usually plays near me while I accomplish some "me" things.)
Let me set the scene then: we are in the office, I am on the computer and she is cleaning up her little pet shop toys. I have not told her what I was doing on the computer.

Mia: Mom, when you finish your blog, can we go jump on the trampoline?

"Blog" is a normal everyday word in our vocabulary around here...interchangeable with "journal" (for the sake of making me feel better about it.)
And just so I don't leave you all hanging...I gave her a swift hug and kiss on the cheek, a pat on the bottom and said "no, it's freezing cold outside". (really, we woke up to frost this morning and she is still wearing her fuzzy footsy jammies with cowboy boots.)

Return. Tab.
At a much greater frequency lately I have felt the urge to bake.
What shall I bake today?

again, Return. Tab.
Is it wrong that I want to drive only 2 hours to NYC today so I can give this man a hug and tell him that he is amazing? I have to read his blog even though it makes me cry. His baby is the same age as mine but his life is very different. Bless him, bless him a lot.
http://www.mattlogelin.com/
(Warning: lots of strong language..but you know what? I'll let him have that.)

yeah, I think thats it.

These are some of the things that I just don't understand.

Round cribs. huh? Won't they be confused when they eventually move to a rectangular bed? (How can the inverted-corner be dangerous?) Do you just have to be a rich celebrity to understand? And try folding those sheets, what a nightmare?

The Backyardigan gal Uniqua...what is she and why is she the only non-distinguishable animal of the pack?

This guy. [shiver]

The gall bladder. Why? (Feel lucky that I spared you the real picture...it made me gag.)
Toe socks...talk about an irritating sensation between the toes, like I need that. (Please, I know there are millions of you out there that love the toe socks...your poor toes, why segregate them so?)or for those fancier occasions...
...and so much more...

oh kids.

I liked this idea from a friend's post so I thought I'd give it a go and see if my kids were smart, observant, cruel or just silly...OK, I didn't really have to do this to know the answer to that.

1. What does mom always say to you?
H: Be the best Haley you can be.
A: No
M: tickles

2. What makes mom happy?
H: When I say "I love you"
A: Nice words
M: not tinkling in underwears

3. What makes mom sad?
H: When I cry in the night
A: Mean words
M: tinkle

4. How does mom make you laugh?
H: By tickling me and going like this (scraping her knee lightly)
A: by tickling me
M: dandelions

5. How old is mom?
H: 30
A: 30
M: 60 60 40

6. How tall is mom?
H: um, as tall as a sunflower
A: 30 inches
M: 6-7-8-9-6-7-8-9-6-7-8-6-7-8

7. What does mom like to do?
H: sew
A: she likes to type on the computer
M: go tinkle (she's a little preoccupied with being 3, can you tell?)

8. What is mom's job?
H: sew
A: to clean the house
M: clean the house

9. What is mom's favorite food?
H: bananas
A: ice cream
M: noodles

10. How do you know your mom loves you?
H: Because she smiles at me
A: because she smiles
M: mint

On a side note, YES, we are well aware that the first three kids' names spell HAM. We racked our brains for weeks trying to come up with a name that could continue that word somehow but all we could come up with is HAMBURGER and NO, we don't intend on having that many kids (on purpose.)

I have officially lost my mind...

My husband had duty yesterday which means a 24 hour working shift back to back with a regular work day today...that means that I let the house go ever so slightly down the toilet. We eat plain noodles with cheese or frozen pizza and usually I let the dishes and loosely strewn clothing sit about the house until the next day right before he comes home from work. I typically don't like to leave a mess around...it's just setting up "future me" for frustration and irritation. (I have another post about that in the works...)
So this morning when I woke up I was thinking about how happy my long, classy Williams-Sanoma apron makes me. When I wear it in the kitchen it helps me do my work with greater satisfaction and a bit of enjoyment. What's better than getting your housework done? Why, doing it with style!! So instead of getting right to work this morning I decided that I needed a cute apron to do it all in...right now. And since I have no money or patience to wait for an adorable handmade apron in the mail, I rummaged through my fabric and made one. It may lack the cute ruffles or pom poms of a shabby chic rendition, but I'm not so good with patterns anyway.
So now I can put it on, skip down the stairs and make my children lunch, wash the urine-smelling laundry of yesterday, unload and load the dishwasher, vacuum the living room rug for the umpteenth time, and tidy up the bedrooms...all with a little more gaiety in my step.
I think I might just die of domesticity some days....and don't be sad, I happen to know a whole lot of you cute little housewives out there that would also be victims of "domecide" on a regular basis.
So ladies, strap on those adorable aprons and get things done...don't forget to whistle while you work and stop your skipping to pat those little kids of yours on the head whilst dancing through the rooms with your feather duster...or fancy Swiffer, whatever floats your boat.

Hello!?!

Am I the only one in the entire house that is capable of hanging up a hand towel after using it?! I mean honestly, are your arms painted on?
sheesh...sometimes not sweatin the small stuff gets boring.

Credit where credit is due.

There are a several things in my life that cause me to have recurring thoughts...certain actions that elicit a memory, if you will. Here they are, in no particular order.

Every single time I ______________, I remember ___________________.

1. Write a check--Mrs Moore, my 1st grade teacher teaching us how to write out numbers.
2. Do the dishes--My Mom who I remember always doing the dishes without rolling up her sleeves or getting those rolled down sleeves wet.
3. Say something like "Bob and I went to the store"--my Dad, lovingly correcting our speech/grammar
4. Say something like "She did that really well" not "good"...people are good, they do well--my 3rd grade teacher, Mrs. Becker
5. Saying "excuse me" after I burp---my Mother...no matter how hard she tried I would not stop burping. I do however, say "excuse me"
6. And thanks to Laurie, every single diaper I have changed for the last four years leaves me with this thought: wash your hands in the bathroom...keep fecal germs in the bathroom and salmonella germs in the kitchen.
7. Every single time I tie a ribbon: My friend Amy taught me to tie a ribbon in the perfect way so that the ends lay flat pointing down and only the cute design side is showing on both loops.
8. My brother Chip teaching me to spell friend...E-N-D at the end, because friends, never end. (Then there was that one special spelling test where I knew how to spell mouse from all those old Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes, thanks Annette Funicello!)
*Unfortunately I will never forget the opening stanza to Canterbury Tales in Old English...its one of those useless bits of information taking up valuable and limited space in my brain, no offense Coach Easley.

I'm absolutely positive that there are more...just give me a few more days and they will come to me.

Crispy, crunchy Fall and my rose colored sunglasses

When we drive down the road I literally cannot contain by amazement and excitement over the explosion of Autumn leaves. The girls have taken to yelling "fire tree" when they see one with equaled enthusiasm. And to make everything seem even a tad more breathtaking, my sunglasses have a rosy tint to them which makes all of the leaves look a shade or two more vibrant and alive, if that is at all possible.
Did you know that those amazing fall colors are the true colors of the leaves, unmasked by Spring's deluge of chlorophyll...sometimes when I drive down the road I am thinking of this and feeling happy that all of these trees get to show their true selves for a few precious weeks....and then I start singing my best Cindy Lauper "True Colors"....I see your true colors shining through, I see your true colors and that's why I love you so don't be afraid, to let them shoooowww, your true colors are beautiful...like a rainnnnbowww..doo doo doo dah doo....I'm sorry, I've gone off on a tangent and now I'm lost in the 80's (there may be no coming back, and would that be so terrible?)...anyway, where was I? Oh, Volvos.
If I thought we would be here for an extended period of time we might have to build a stone wall and buy a Volvo station wagon. I love New England and this time of year is precisely why.
Today we anxiously awaited Clark home from a day and a half of duty, did our chores with speed (ie slightly sloppy) and enthusiasm (ie a smidgen of nagging and a threat or two) and set off for a family outing to celebrate Autumn in Connecticut.
First stop, a well preserved and active steam powered cider mill. We watched them squish the juice out of thousands of unsuspecting apples and then took the girls pictures in front of a truck load of macintosh. While we were standing in line to buy our Maple Moose suckers, apple butter and hot mulled apple cider with caramel we lamented the fact that we cannot have it all...besides the fact that I just made it sound like we were buying it all. Then we topped of the day with a trip to the Apple Orchard for a very large bag of hand picked delight and a carton of raspberries (the wait for the wagon ride pushed us beyond patience...after an hour...) and we opted to close the day with a little pasta and ice cream.











Clark and I feel indeed lucky to have loved every place that we have lived. However, with the possibility of ending this nomadic Navy lifestyle, we are saddened that we cannot live somewhere that has all of what we love. This is what I propose...a state in the Union that can provide us with all of the following:
1. Springtime in Texas...perfect weather and Rodeo season with a downtown that includes a place much like Pike's Place Market in Seattle
2. A Cape Cod summer...a little sand nearby, classy, warm, quaint, and a little preppy
3. A New England Fall...crispy, crunchy, the smell of mulled apple cider with caramel...and the leaves, my gosh, the leaves
4. And anywhere that has a short lived winter...let's say, four weeks of brisk weather, two mild blizzards providing us with two to three school "snow days", hot chocolate with mini marshmallows and free heat.

Lovey Doveys

Forget about the fact my kids' room sometimes smells like the subway corridors of New York City. I like to think that someday the smell of urine will be nostalgic and I will long for the days of their youth. I might even cry when I walk through the kitchen without hundreds of unidentified little crumbs piercing the tenderness of my sole. I won't wonder where strange puddles in the bathrooms came from or why wads of wet toilet paper are stuck like paper mache to the mirror.
I have single handed put the children of the creator of Clorox wipes through college. And Clorox Anywhere spray allows me to sleep at night.
Motherhood comes with its own set of parameters...I like to call them superpowers. It's why I can be sitting in the office working on something and suddenly smell poop from four rooms away...the baby must need a change. Occasionally there is the mother mix up or mishap...like incurring the wrath of my 7 year old (in the form of a note) or zipping up my daughter's belly button in her footsy pajamas.
But I try...and I figure that the trial part of trial and error is sometime the most fun part about raising children...at least in retrospect.
I do have lots of moments that I wish I could freeze in my mind and heart forever. I am so terrified of forgetting those experiences, of how my children smell (on a good day) or the way their little voices sound or what they say...the dances they do and the looks they give me. It's painful to think of someday not having those. BUT there is hope. You see, I have gratitude. I believe that a deep and sincere gratitude for those things now will save me the regret later. I won't regret not taking the chance to appreciate the tinkle running down Mia's leg onto the exposed, open basement stairs and dripping down through onto the water heater and all over the concrete floor. I will be glad that I laid in bed staring at my daughter without talking, just making faces at each other. I hope I will always stare at them and think "was there ever anyone so beautiful?" I will be happy to have them play near me while I get things done...and they can follow me around and just be with me. I can remember how happy it makes me to hear them playing together from the other room. I will remember reading over homework (until they get old enough that I don't understand it anymore)...and watching movies, and playing games, and reading books. I love to watch them do all these things on their own almost as much as I love doing it all with them. We have so many photographs of them that I love, I could plaster four sides of an entire room...I just might.
Having spent so much time apart, in the last year especially, Clark and I have not gone on many dates because we hate not taking advantage of every moment together as a family...just being in the same place. We truly enjoy one another. But for the first time in many a months, Clark and I went on a date this weekend. Hitting the mark at four kids has made us especially hesitant to leave them all with a babysitter (throwing a baby into the mix just makes it even harder.) But we found a lovely couple who were nice enough to lend their much over qualified talents to caring for the bunch of monkeys for an evening (it helpst that they don't have kids, fresh meat)...it was time for a night out...is it tacky to confess that we chose this particular night out to go to a fancy wedding where there was free food and entertainment? I was so much fun to dress up and go out...The wedding was at a yacht club in Guilford, Connecticut (a charming New England community with lots of wealthy, retired people.) Their ceremony took place on a green overlooking the ocean on one of the last sunny, warmish days of the year. It was pleasant and the food was delicious. We danced and listened to slightly inebriated family members make very long speeches. We visited with each other and friends and came home to sleeping children and a very clean house.

Tuesday conquered Monday

OK, so maybe I let things sit for more than an hour...but I woke up on Tuesday with new resolve...and my husband helped tidy things a bit on Monday night.
Sometimes I just have to stall the bigger jobs with smaller ones to get me going...I spent a half hour organizing the girls' hair things (I just couldn't possibly mix the loose ribbons with the headbands anymore...) and finally put labels on all the bins in the basement that we organized a couple of weekends ago (no organizing project is complete without a before and after picture!) I even got grocery shopping done and made a delicious meal to end our day. So it's Wednesday and I am Queen of my castle again. I am caught up on laundry and dishes which means that I can sit and work on fun projects today, guilt free. I promised the girls a special treasure hunt for their pink diamond this afternoon (they are a tad into Indiana Jones at the moment...) so maybe I'll dally a bit with a treasure map. Now all I need is a shower and I will feel ready to conquer the rest of the week.
Wishing you all the best of luck with the rest of your week...