A few weeks ago I went to pick up Ethan from Mother’s Day Out. One of his teachers was sharing with me that he enjoyed the story of Peter Pan that day and was one of the few children in the class that recognized Tinker Bell. I laughed as I told her that didn’t surprise me since his older sister is a ‘princess’, so at our house we know all about princesses and fairies and such.
His other teacher overheard our conversation and started to laugh with us. She knew Kate from school last year and she added her take to the story. She said,
Oh, yes. Kate is most definitely a princess. She’s always wearing her tiara. You may not always see it, but it’s always there.
After laughing hysterically, I came home and told Shawn this story. He also laughed his butt off. We decided then and there that this was most definitely the best description of our daughter, ever. She is always carrying herself like royalty, constantly reminding her siblings of how things ought to be done (she told Ethan that he wouldn’t be invited to her tea parties again because he was not using his manners), but also constantly generous to those around her.
So now, whenever Kate does something particularly ‘princess-y’, Shawn and I just look at eachother, laugh, and say, “You may not see the tiara, but it’s always there!”
Karis’ 2nd birthday was the Wednesday after Hurricane Ike hit. (I know. Happy Birthday to her, right?) We had already decided long before Ike that we were going to have a low-key celebration with just our family and maybe an additional small playdate at a local park with a few friends. So, Ike just confirmed those plans for us.
One of the traditions I like for my kids’ birthdays is to make a cake or cupcakes or cookies for them for their big day. (Not because I’m good at it - I did NOT get the baking genes passed down from my grandma and mom - but just because it’s something special that I don’t normally do throughout the year.) With the entire city out of dairy products, though, that was going to be impossible. Every cake mix requires eggs or milk or both. Since I was already having a little bit of a difficult time accepting my baby becoming a toddler (I wouldn’t allow Shawn to even use the word toddler around me during that last week.), this just added to the emotion for me.
Somehow, my sweet mother-in-law found about my little breakdown and went to a store 20 minutes away that had dairy. She bought me a cake mix, eggs, milk, and even the icing for on top. That has to be one of the most thought-full things someone has done for me in a long time. I made the cake with great thankfulness and didn’t even get upset when it broke a little coming out of the pan. I iced it and then decorated it with mini-marshmallows from my pantry that I then colored with food coloring.
It was not the most beautiful cake I’ve ever made. But, it was definitely filled with the most love. Karis will probably not even remember anything about this birthday, but I will remember that someone special paid attention to the smallest of details to make it memorable for me.
I’ve been away from posting for the past few weeks due to a beautiful little storm named Ike. And by ‘beautiful‘ and ‘little‘, I mean destructive and HUGE. One might even say ‘Texas-sized’…
During the past few weeks, we’ve been without power (much shorter than most, though!), without water, without internet, and without dairy. Any one of those things is a daunting challenge in and of itself. Add all of them together and you’ve got the makings of a really interesting story. :)
My husband wrote our story of Hurricane Ike beautifully, so I’ll post it here. But, being a mom and a woman, I had to add one thing to the following story. After you read Shawn’s post, click here to read my addendum…
We spent all day Friday preparing the house (and yard) for Ike. I took the reflector from my satellite dish down, since it had the biggest potential to be torn off in high winds. We setup a shelter in my garage office, since it is the most secure part of our house. Had an air mattress, the kiddos’ sleeping bags, battery-powered lantern and other goodies in there. Continue reading…
Since so many of you who read my blog are my friends, and so many of you are asking how our first day of school went, I thought I’d answer you all here instead of retyping it in 12 different emails. :)
Ethan's 1st Day of Mother's Day Out
Ethan (my 3yo) did great at Mother’s Day Out at the church around the corner from us - it’s also where Kate went last year and loved it. He has a huge class of about 12 kiddos his age and 2 teachers. They said he did great and only got weepy at nap time when they wanted to help him take his shoes off. He, of course, would have NO one touching his new shoes and got defensive and whiny for mommy at that point. Too funny what kiddos will get hung up on, huh? Other than that, he seemed to have had a great day and he said he liked it and had fun. His favorite? The kitchen play area. Hmm. Do we have a future chef on our hands? Continue reading…
When you live with a budding artist, you live with piles and piles of artwork. And ALL of it is special. And NONE of it can be thrown away. At least, that’s what my 5 year old tells me constantly. And as gung-ho as she is about recycling, I still can’t manage to convince her that we can recycle some of her artwork, too.
So, instead of living with the masses of piles everywhere, I started looking for ideas of what to do with it all to help contain it and keep it from taking over my entire house. I came across several great suggestions like these:
This is a photo that Kate took on Shawn’s iPhone recently. She obviously blurred whatever she was looking at, but the resulting image was just too pretty to delete. What’s amazing to me is that Kate’s a better artist on accident than her mommy ever is on purpose!! :)
(Many thanks to my friends for the below exchange. This is why we ALL need a support group of other moms to rely on!)
Q: Any tips for handling a 3yo boy who likes to call everybody silly names? (pumpkinhead, pottyhead, poopoohead, boogerhead. I could go on… LOL) We’ve spanked, we’ve done timeouts, we’ve taken away toys, we’ve ignored it, we’ve laughed at it, and we’re all out of ideas. We even resorted to calling him the same name he calls us, (that was short lived as he thought it was the funniest thing he ever heard) and nothing seems to work.
A: We’ve set the rule of no name calling at all, just in case you hurt someone’s feelings when you are just trying to be funny.
AND we’re only allowed to use bathroom words IN the bathroom (which has stopped the embarassingly loud announcements of “I have to poo!” in restaurants, but has also spawned numerous toot and tee tee bathtime songs). To me, this was a safe way for them to get to enjoy those funny things about their bodies which all little ones find so hilarious without shaming our family in public.
But you know, since my girls aren’t allowed to say, “I gotta go poo!” in public any more, we’ve had to come up with acceptable alternatives. Wouldn’t Ethan look so sweet and precious with, “Excuse me, I need to go freshen up.” Priceless.
At one of our last Moms’ Night Out gatherings, we were all discussing babies (duh! We ARE a bunch of moms!) and their cries. Several of us had heard of the ‘baby whisperer’, Priscilla Dunstan, who was on Oprah, but only a couple of us had ever tried it. My sister-in-law has tried it with her baby, Grayson, and is swearing by it! She said she’s been able to figure out his cries pretty easily and is having a much easier time with him than with her other 2 kiddos. Just thought I’d pass it on…
This is not my list, but when my friend, Karen, sent this to me, I laughed so hard that I just knew I couldn’t keep it to myself. Tell me which one had you rolling in the comments section below! :)
You know you are in TEXAS in AUGUST when:
1. The birds have to use potholders to pull worms out of the ground.
2. The trees are whistling for the dogs.
3. The best parking place is determined by shade instead of distance.
4. Hot water now comes out of both taps.
5. You can make sun tea instantly.
6. You learn that a seat belt buckle makes a pretty good branding iron.
7. The temperature drops below 95 and you feel a little chilly.
8. You discover that in August it only takes 2 fingers to steer your car.
9. You discover that you can get sunburned through your car window.
10. You actually burn your hand opening the car door.
11. You break into a sweat the instant you step outside at 7:30 a.m.
12. Your biggest bicycle wreck fear is, ‘What if I get knocked out and end up lying on the pavement and cook to death.
13. You realize that asphalt has a liquid state.
14. The potatoes cook underground, so all you have to do is pull one out and add butter, salt and pepper.
15. Farmers are feeding their chickens crushed ice to keep them from laying boiled eggs.
You know you are in TEXAS in AUGUST when:
By Kay on Sun, Sep 28, 2008
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