Well Hello Again....And a Bath Story

Hello old friends! 

You may be surprised to hear it, but we do still exist. After the break of 2014 (blame it on the 3's), we've decided to give sharing our stories about our oh-so-angelic children a whirl again.

So how better to start off my stint at capturing these moments forever and ever than by sharing yet another bath story? Yes, it appears there is a pretty consistent theme in my kiddos lives around baths. 

The hubby was out of town for work -- so my aunt came over for some adult company. After dinner, I had to go through the usual routine of "choices" for bathtime with T. The common options were tossed out: "Do you want to take a bath with P?" "Do you want to take a bath after I'm done putting P to bed?" and I threw out the 3rd option: "Or, do you want Aunt E to give you a bath?" He's been really into taking a bath with P lately (probably because he likes to try to balance rubber duckies on her head), so I was pretty surprised when he choose option 3. 

I think my aunt was too. 

She fessed up to him that she had never given a kid a bath before and didn't know how to do it. So I told him he'd have to tell her how. His response? "Just wash what's dirty."

Well when you put it that way, yea, I guess it really is that simple.

Finally. A bathtime success story. 

Toddler musings

My most-recent favorite need-to-write-down-so-I-don't-forget-them lines by T, 3.5 years old:

1. “Namaste, mommy.” Full with pressed palms. As I sat down for a one-on-one dinner with him one evening. Mommy doesn’t do yoga, so mommy wasn’t sure of the correct response. “Namaste, T?
2. “Is she sitting on your phone?” His totally literal response to my comment that his sister was really FEELING the music (Which just happened to be “All About That Bass” by Meghan Trainor) since she was going all crazy clapping and bobbing her head to the song.
3. "North America." When asked what a baby cat was called. And they say kids today don't know their geography. 
4.  “I really missed you when you were gone, mommy.” My greeting when I got back from NY this past weekend. Heart melted. To be followed up the next day with a conversation: “Did you miss us, mommy?” Yes, T. Did you miss me? “No, I was very busy having fun.” Guess he was over it.

Considering this is the first time I've actually gotten my act together to jot down these must-remember conversations and he's 3.5 years old (and that his sister is fast on her way to having her own) -- and these are the only ones I actually remember after swearing I'd never forget them....I think I need to keep a pen with me all the time. Or at least a phone to jot it down on. Oh wait....

Musical Mom Fail.

Since I’m big into singing along in the car at full volume and – ask my husband – car dancing when the music hits me, I’ve been very careful over the past year or so about the music I download. You know, being cognizant that little human beings are driving along with me and listening to the same music I am – so I am trying to watch the words.

This means I’ve taken extra special care to search out and only download the “E” versions of songs on iTunes.

So I’ve been thinking lately, “Wow! I know we’re getting immune to seeing and hearing lots of stuff these days, but they are getting away with saying MORE AND MORE bad words on these ‘E for Everyone’ songs.”

What’s that, you say? “E” isn’t for “everyone”? It’s for “Explicit”?

Oh.

The Green Tiger

T has a ton of stuffed animals. Lots of cute ones. Small, medium, huge, dogs, fish, sharks, you name it, he's got it. And could care less. He doesn't seem to be a stuffed animal person.

Until a girl won a funny little green tiger from one of those cheapo stuffed animal claw machines at our local Fuddruckers. She didn't want it, so she gave it to him. This little action may just have made his life fully complete. He has slept with it - and not just with it -- but cuddling with it -- every single night since, for 3 months now. He talks about the green tiger, he loves the green tiger, he wants to take it to soccer practice with him.

That 5 cent stuffed animal is worth its weight in gold. Who'da thunk it.

Winning Parenting Advice

I know, it's been forever since I sat down and wrote anything about life. Rest assured, we are still plugging along, my three year old is still fiesty (to put it mildly), and the newbie isn't so new anymore. In fact, as of today, she's 5 teeth into life. Crazy.

Despite the fact that this story is not from yesterday, its mommy-winning aspect is good enough that it's still worth sharing. So here I go.

I get a little worried, probably because I'm a mom, about my kiddo sometimes. When he's not tantruming, he happens to be pretty mild and quiet - so I worry that his shyness is going to work against him and he's going to end up being one of the kids that gets picked on. I was a quiet, passive kid and I turned out ok (right?) but somehow it seems harder to me to be a boy who doesn't stand-up for himself than a girl. So anyway - he came home a couple times from school recently saying he'd been getting picked on and I wasn't sure if it was something to take with a grain of salt (apparently all the kids like to throw sand at each other daily in the sandbox -- just lovely) or start to worry about. I asked the teacher's assistant and she didn't seem to think it was a big deal -- but I'm a mommy and mommies worry. 

So I ask around for advice and get some advice that I thought was really good from a friend. I start telling T to use his words if a kid isn't being nice to him. I tell him he can use his "outside" voice to tell the meanie to stop, and if the kid continues to be mean - he has to tell the kid that if the kid keeps up being a meanie, he won't want to be the kid's friend anymore. That seems to be pretty sound advice for a 3-year old traversing the crazy ins-and-outs of post-naptime playground politics right?

Flash forward to the very same week. Maybe 2 days later? Maybe the very next day? I arrive at school to pick T up and get greeted by the TA. They are letting all the parents know that there is basically a new EPIDEMIC on the playground of kids yelling at each other that they don't want to be friends with each other anymore. They don't know how this behavior got started, but they're coaching the parents - telling them to tell their kids not to tell others they don't want to be friends. Oops.

So, what does this momma do? I fess up. I tell them that the "I don't want to be friends with you if you do that" was my very own advice to my child. Apparently, he does stand up for himself since his entire class was spouting my advice to one another within 24 hours.  And I might be a bad parent for thinking it -- but I still think it was good advice. I mean, really. What better way to tell a fellow 3-year old you mean business than threatening to not play trucks with them? It actually seems like it has some meaning to a toddler, unlike teaching him to hit back or follow the TA's advice that they tell each other "they needed a break." 

Apparently though, I have some teachable moments to learn.

Last week

Last week was an interesting “mom of a 3 year old” week while the hubs was out of town. Let me state for the record that my child has officially entered into his 3’s, which so far, seem far more terrible than the terrible 2’s. See below:

1.  During an afternoon pickup at school, T decided to call something a “poopyhead.” Yes, I know all 3 year old boys probably love talking about poop with a passion, but I also know my hubby also seems to thoroughly enjoy making T laugh by using the word “poop” or ahem, “poopyhead” in a sentence. The teacher hears T use the “poopyhead” word and says, “We don’t say that word at school, T. Just like I am sure you don’t say at it home.” To which he promptly answers, “Yes we do.” The teacher then follows up with, “Well, I am sure your mommy doesn’t like when you use that word.” To which my lovely child again answers, “ Yes she does.” Thrown under the bus by my own kiddo at school to the teacher for something my hubby does. Life is so unfair.
2. We’ve been having lots and lots of weather delays and so far, two school closings. That’s more in the past 2 weeks than we’ve had the past 5 years I’ve been working down here. On one 2 hour delay day, T woke up especially cranky, which amazed me because he was actually able to sleep in for a change and not be woken up when it’s still dark outside. Fast forward to the garage, 25 minutes later than we were supposed to be leaving, after he has thrown an epic tantrum because “he wants to put on his coat all by himself” but would rather scream for a solid thirty minutes about it than actually put it on. I made the decision that it would be nice to not get fired and show up to work sometime that day, and decided my child would have to be manhandled into his car seat (no easy feat to get 40 pounds of kicking and screaming toddler strapped into a 5 pound harness, thank you very much) without his coat on. And cringe as the neighbor I’ve only met once witnesses me deny my screaming child his coat “I want to wear my coat!!” as we get into the car on a lovely 20 degree weather delay day. I swear, I keep the thermostat blasting at a balmy 80 in the car….but still….that awkward “Hi Neighbor! I promise I’m a great mom!” moment – it happened. 
3.  I’m assuming it’s the same day because the week all blended together – but yet another proud moment happened last week. It happened when I was trying to explain to T that even when he’s bad and mommy is disappointed at him, mommy still loves him. Even when he’s in a lot of trouble, mommy loves him. To which he looks at me and says, “I don’t love you, mommy.”
   Thank you, sweet 3 year old.

I did discover something else last week during one of our non-tantrum moments. My kiddo has a crazy memory. (Which is a little scary in itself, as I thought he wouldn’t be to remember any of these parenting fails I mentioned above.) While we were in the car, he started talking about the boat ride he was on “yesterday.” (“Yesterday” is any time in the past for him…”Tomorrow” is any time in the future…”Pizza Day” is Friday. Got it?) He’s giving me all sorts of detail about this boat ride – that he saw a balloon in the sky, that the boat had 2 levels and stairs, that a man was talking to us on it, that we looked for dolphins on it (and sharks, according to T). Mommy and daddy were on it, but P wasn’t. This boat ride – was on our summer vacation LAST JUNE. Seriously, amazed

Oh, and P during all these goings-on? Since I seem to never mention her? Just sitting there, happy as a clam smiling. I know I will have enough stories about her turning into a crazy child soon enough, but for now, she’s my happily content, happy-go-lucky, always smiling little thing. Good thing she’s so mellow!

Spending less

The hubs and I have decided to make 2014 the year of spending less and saving more.  Like most people, we have a budget but don't always stick to it and every month we seem to have "emergencies" pop up that require extra money we hadn't planned on spending.  A friend motivated me to take a hard look at our finances after she and her husband went through the Dave Ramsey program and it's pretty eye-opening.  This will be an on-going process, obviously, but my goal is both to lower our monthly expenses while also "reclaiming" some money from items we have sitting around our house collecting dust.  For anyone else interested in doing something similar, here's what I did -

Sorted all receipts for the past 60 days

- The purpose of this was to see what I had purchased over the last 60 days that was a "want" rather than a "need."  Anything that was still returnable went back.  In my case this was some clothes for the kids, some expensive shower gel I have a weakness for, and a handbag I had found on clearance and had to buy because of course it was an awesome deal (I am a sucker for "deals.").  Savings = $225

Reviewed all monthly subscriptions/bills

- By doing this I discovered that we're paying for an extra cable box we don't use, a cable package that's higher than we need, and a gym membership my husband started when he was training for the Mud Run last year.  Monthly savings = $75

Cleaned out the garage

- Since we don't have a basement our garage tends to be the dumping ground for random items we aren't using.  Why not try to get some money back for these things?  I found an old stroller, a few kids' accessories, and a coffee table, put them all up for sale on Craigslist and there you go - $150.

Cleaned out the closets

- This has been the biggest job.  I cleaned out everyone's closet and sorted unused items into 3 piles - trash, donation and eBay.  Trash is obviously the broken, stained, unusable stuff.  Donation is the gently used but not-worth-selling stuff and then eBay is anything with the tags still on or brand name stuff in good condition.  Think clothes, shoes, handbags, unused health/beauty stuff.  This is an on-going process but so far my cash intake = $500.

Looked up value of old savings bonds

- I don't know about you guys but my grandparents always gave us savings bonds growing up.  My parents socked them away and then gave them to us when we went to college.  I cashed a few in as needed while I was single but then stuck them in a lock box and pretty much forgot about them.  Thing is, once they mature they stop accruing interest so it makes sense to cash them out at that point and put them in another interest-bearing account.  So, I checked my remaining bonds online and what do you know 2 of them had matured.  Savings = $425.

Obviously this process takes work and I've been doing it slowly over the past 6 weeks when my kids are actually both asleep for 20 minutes at the same time.  But it's motivating to "find" almost $1,500 just from doing the things I listed above.  My next experiment will be grocery shopping exclusively at WalMart for one month to see if I save anything compared to what I'm currently spending at Kroger.  Stay tuned!