My funny little girl...

I am Irish and love St. Patrick's Day. As soon as we realized that it fell on a Saturday this year we made plans to head to Chicago to see the river dyed green. Despite living in the area for 2 years we had yet to go see it. I told A all about how the leprechaun's were being tricky and dyed the river. She thought it was so neat and kept looking on the bridges for leprechauns. Here is a picture of my little family at the river... Ignore A's cranky face... she hates pictures being taken (and it was 80 degrees) but she was actually having a good time.
So fast forward to Monday. We were out to eat and she needed to go potty. We got in there and the water was blue. She had never seen this before and was fascinated. She said "Mommy it like the river but blue! Was it leprechauns?" I said "Hmm maybe it was smurfs!" She said "Yeah I think its smurfs! I pee in it and make it yellow!" Nice right? So after she hopped down to see if it was yellow and was shocked it was green! A lesson in color mixing right there in Firehouse Subs! Then she looks at me and said astounded "Mommy leprechauns no dyed the water! Smurfs and people PEED in it!!!" LOL I tried to stifle my laughter the best I could! How their little brains work! I almost died! Any hilarious revelations from your children?

Owls, Owls, and more Owls

I have a friend, one of my closest friends, who has just gotten her design blog up and running. You have to check her out here... It's AWESOME! Not just because the first few blogs are about ME... but because she is awesome! Her baby girl Penelope is exactly one month younger than Kinsey so we are going through a lot of the same things right now. She is my best friend from high school and although we live in different states I love that we have this new bond to share! Her blog today is about projects you are proud of and also happens to be an adorable sock owl mobile for Penelope. Ashlyn decided Kinsey's "nursery" should be owls too so I thought I would show off a few projects I took on to decorate. Now all of a sudden there are owls EVERYWHERE but when I decided to do owls I couldn't find ANY! I searched high and low and eventually made my own art and stuffed animals. My mom made her cribsheet. Here are a few pictures!
In this one you can see the few owls I did find but I really wanted to show off the crib sheet mom made! So cute!

The little owl in the front is one mom and I made! We made her a couple. Im very proud of them!

I couldn't find any artwork I loved so I made this one... I'm not super happy with it but I was 9 months pregnant and nesting and needed it DONE! The owls are pretty cute though!

So do you have any projects your proud of?

We all need a little support...

As moms I think it is soooooooo very important to have a community that you can rely on... Whether that is your church, friends from childhood, friends from a mommy group... it doesn't matter who it is as long as you have a group of people you can turn to who value you and you don't feel judged. There is enough judging going on in the mommy world... we need a safe haven.
I have joined several meetup mom groups in my area and met a couple of nice moms who I call friends. I have a TON of friends with babies that I connect with over facebook but the group I am most grateful for right now are my friends from the digi scrap world. If you know me you know how important pictures are to me. And you know how much I love to scrap them. After a year and a half I am still a relative newcomer to the digital scrap world but I LOVE it. I have really found a scrap "home" in www.scraps-n-pieces.com although there are several other communities I frequent since alot of them overlap in designers and members.
We meet through message boards. We know each other through the pictures of our children. There are several scrappers I know its their layout purely from the pictures of their children. Others I know its one of their layouts just from the way they scrap. We share our lives through digital scrap book pages. We encourage each other. I'm not sure if it's something about women that scrapbook but I feel like kindred spirits. We also gather in chat rooms with the excuse of "speed scrapping" but really we are just chatting... or at least I am. In these chats we may discuss scrapbooking techniques and share kit ideas but more than likely we are discussing things like how everyone's kids sleep, how old everyone's kids are, how the weather is where everyone lives, the health of ailing parents, the health of our children. I love that it is a safe environment for us to share. I am now friends with several of the ladies on facebook and really looking forward to meeting quite a few in April at a scrapbooking retreat! I hope you have a safe place you can be a mom!

Appearances are everything...

aren't they? I received a call from a friend who wanted to pay me a compliment. She said they were talking about mothers and trying to come up with what a "good" Mother would look like. Her husband said... "You know Ann... She always throws great birthday parties for her girls, she has a can do attitude, and .... " basically he saw me as the ideal mother figure... Um wow! Me? It's funny to me to think about this image that family has of me. I see them at church, and for the awesome birthday parties, softball games in the summer, and various other events. I personally think his wife is one of the best wives and mothers I know. She is so patient, sweet, and thoughtful. I feel bad because I feel like she doesn't see this and I know she doesn't see me at my low points. She doesn't know that my dishes pile up in the sink for days at a time, laundry doesn't get done until people are completely out of socks and underwear, and that for those birthday parties to come together I am a NIGHTMARE to be around the week before! Family photo shoots stress me out so badly that the entire family DREADS them and I have a feeling a few of them self-medicate before showing up. My oldest loves to sleep in her clothes and go to school in them the next day (often her Monday morning clothes were her Sunday clothes). Yet they see me as the ideal mother figure?
I think the lesson to be learned here (besides the fact that I need a maid) is that we are much harder on ourselves than we need to be. We are always striving to look perfect to others when really we already do... there is no need to compare ourselves to the next family because we are all doing what is best for our families at that point in time. So kick up your feet, grab a glass of mommy juice, and relax... the dishes can wait :o)

A 3 year olds take on skin color

I promise this conversation actually took place on the day celebrating the great Dr. Martin Luther King jr. I would like to take credit for it and say we we're having a thought provoking conversation about skin color but I can't. It was completely spontaneous and completed came from A's 3 year old brain.
A: "Mommy what color you skin?"
Me: "Um, I don't know... Maybe peach?"
A: "OK Mommy, then mine be pineapple!".
Wouldn't it be nice if everyone thought of skin color as no more complicated than fruits belonging in the same food group. They are all delicious in their own way, everything contributes equally to an awesome fruit salad, but they are all simply yummy fruits. Is this truly any different than people? We are all delicious in our own way. We all contribute equally wonderful things to the world. And most importantly we are all PEOPLE! I absolutely loved this conversation. It really made me stop for a moment and think. I love the innocence of her young brain. I love her questioning nature. Right now is our chance to mold the youth and their views. If we allow them to think skin color is no different than different kinds of fruit and let them know it is important to challenge anyone who thinks differently wouldn't it be a better place? It's not realistic to think they won't encounter prejudice and ugliness but if we put love and equality into their hearts we give them a fighting chance to make this a better place.

What are your thoughts?

Cause and Effect in the Preschool Child

This is usually the relationship between my girls. A is very into baby dolls and loves to help with her sister. She tells us throughout the day "Be careful Mommy, her a baby." The other morning I came out from brushing my teeth to see this picture. A said, "Mommy, her was crying so I give her a bottle!" She is such a big helper!
I am going to blame the next story on the full moon. A was never a biter. On a few occasions she tested the waters but it was 2 years ago and lasted a week tops. Imagine my surprise when baby K started screaming bloody murder and A ran to hide, only to find out she bit the baby's toe!!! She didn't break the skin but you would have thought she did the way the baby screamed. All I can figure is that her new love of the movie "Lilo and Stitch" influenced her since she ran around all weekend pretending to be Stitch.
Later that day we caught her feeding a goldfish cracker to her 12 week old sister. She knows K can't have food yet and tells us over and over but I think she is now at the stage that she wants to question our authority and find out WHY we say things can't happen. I love her inquisitive nature but I wish we could find another way to explore the laws of cause and effect without practicing on our baby sister! That was definitely a wine and bubble bath kind of night! Anyone have any suggestions to help with this situation???

More thoughts from me...

- I love losing weight with my husband. We totally motivate each other and it's easier to stay on track because neither one of us wants pizza or something the other can't have... Ok I REALLY want pizza... But since he isn't eating it neither am I. Pizza is totally a gateway drug for me so I have to avoid it entirely... And I didn't mean gateway food it really is like a drug to me... It's intoxicating, addictive, and life altering... And it leads to things like coke (coca-cola of course) and from there it's all downhill... Many a diet has been ruined by a single slice of pizza!
The problem with dieting with my husband is that he has lost 6 lbs in the time I've lost .2... It's truly not fair how easily men lose weight. I guess I can look at the bright side and know in 2 weeks I will have an in shape, sexy hubby to motivate me to lose another .2 lbs.

-Baby A never watched cartoons... At least not this young. She loved to watch sports with daddy but that was just coincidental...
Everyone has told me baby 2 will do things faster because they want to be like the older child. It has already started! Our morning routine consists of breakfast while watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and Jake and the Neverland Pirates. Baby K loves it! She will lay on her blanket and stared mesmerized at Mickey. I know I should move her somewhere else and read books to her or do some flashcards while listening to classical music but it actually gives me a few minutes to brush my teeth or make a cup of coffee! So they watch together. I love how I come back from the bathroom and A is telling her baby sister all about the show, narrating it for her. It really is sweet.

-It's funny it's only been 3 years since A was this age but I find myself forgetting what to do to keep K entertained. I was looking through old pics on MySpace today (that's where most of A's baby pics are... Can you believe it, it really hasn't been a century since we were all active MySpace users) and I saw a pic of me reading her a book at 2 mo. I remembered that it was her favorite book and if I recited it she would quiet and smile... I realized I haven't picked up a single book to read to K and at this point I had several memorized for baby A! So of course I ran straight into their room and grabbed all the board books I could find to make up for lost time. And wouldn't you know it... K smiled and laughed through them all. I went to make another cup of coffee (don't judge) and came back to A reading the books to her sister! How sweet is that? Which brings me to my next point...
-The good thing about a second baby is that the first child takes some of the entertainment responsibilities off your shoulders. Big sister is much better at dancing silly, singing songs, and overall entertainment of the infant crowd. Baby K already looks up at her sister with big open eyes in awe of everything she does...

- The downside of this adoration of her sister is that she recognizes even the slightest whisper of her sisters voice. When the baby is sleeping if A says one thing baby is wide awake. If anyone has suggestions for preventing a 3 year old from talking for 2 hours I would greatly appreciate them!

- Lastly, What is colic? Everyone tells you it will pass but when you are already thinking of how to make a sling that will support a 25 year old because clearly this child will still be screaming it's head off in 25 years... You might already be looking up mental institutions because it's pretty much guaranteed you will be committing yourself in the near future... If nothing else just to get a good nights sleep... And then you realize... It's been a week since you've had to take out any of your 3 slings (yes I have 2 Sleepy Wraps and a Moby Wrap)... Is my baby still cranky in the evening? Yep. Does she prefer me to be the one to put her to sleep? Of course. But does she smile, coo, and laugh as she wakes up now? Can I see the light at the end of the tunnel? Did we survive colic??? Yes, Yes, and Yes! And you will too my dear friends that have been suffering with us!