Doin' What Comes Naturally

Last year we planted our first garden. Despite some rookie mistakes, it was a rather successful endeavor. All winter we planned and plotted, started composting and got excited for the new gardening year. 

We planted our seedling less than two weeks ago. Last week they looked like this. Just one week later here they are!

I'm almost worried that they'll grow too big before they are able to go into the ground! 

While I'm excited about all of the tasty food we'll have come summer, what's really got me jazzed is how involved the kids want to be. Sam has been all over me to help plant seeds and help dad dig in the dirt. I asked his advice about what to grow and he actually suggested something! Peas! We're growing peas at the request of my child! Beyond growing our own veggies, we're also thinking about joining a co-op, or donating our excess to a local food bank. 

There is a lot to do, and there is a lot to think about. I'm glad I have the company of my family to accompany me on these journeys. 

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This post was brought to you by SC Johnson's Nature's Source and The Parent Bloggers Network! 

Houseplants Beware!

This is my cat Simon. He is awesome. He loves people, he is insanely patient with the kids, he's neat and clean and doesn't shed too much. His one and only negative quality is plant eating. I could buy this guy all the cat grass in the world and he turns his nose up at it, but if I bring home as much as one little house plant it gets devoured within minutes. So it follows that his favorite place to sleep isn't on the furniture, but as close as possible to the newest addition to the buffet! 

Luckily, I care more about my out door plants than I do the indoor varieties!

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This post was brought to you by the Pledge Fabric Sweeper - Show Off Your Shedder contest and the Parent Bloggers Network. 

All Is Busy, On New Year's Day

Every year my husband works on New Year's Eve, which means that most of the time he is off on New Year's Day. Since we are those people who decorate waaaaaaaay back in early December (or late November, occasionally) our tree is usually crispy by the 24th. With two kids and one cat, bits of wrapping paper are tucked under and in every little nook and cranny. Toys are strewn about and the animatronic Santa in the front yard is half burnt out. 

It's really quite tragic. 

So we spend the day sorting and piling, packing and filing. He's in charge of the outside and I take care of the inside, with a little (and I mean a little) help from the kids. Once everything is safely stashed in the basement in their big red and green tubs we haul out that vacuum and start sucking up the needles. Luckily, the kids like this part and are quick to point out any strays that I missed. 

Once everything is finally clean and the kids are in bed we enjoy the champagne we missed out on the night before!

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Avoidance: It's the Only Way

Here it is, plain and simple: when we go back to visit our families of origins during the holidays the drinks flow a little too freely. My mother-in-law loves champagne, as do I. My parents always stock up on Mike's Hard Lemonade over Christmas. As soon as five o'clock rolls around (technically, it's actually when the kids go to bed) the libations begin flowing. And sometimes they keep flowing late into the evening. And sometimes early into the morning. Which only leads to sorrow the next day when someone is calling for 'Mommy' at 7:05am. So this year, to control at least some of the chaos, I am going to try to avoid the booze. Maybe not every day, or maybe not 100%. Let's just be honest here, some occasions necessitate a drink. 

Just maybe not three. 

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How the Good Lord Helped Me Learn About Finances

When I had my first communion I received over two hundred dollars in gifts. To a seven year old it was like hitting the lottery. My parents took me to the bank and helped me open my first savings account. They also let me keep ten bucks out to buy myself a toy, which made handing over the rest of the money a little easier. They explained how the savings account worked, and even though the interest I was making amounted to less than a dollar a year I was enthralled. 

As I got older I worked as a baby sitter, a bingo waitress and at McDonald's. Every time I got a paycheck I went to the bank and made a deposit into this same savings account. 

I started thinking about that day a few months ago when Sam became aware of money. Coins, to be exact. While I'm not sure he understands their specific value, he seems to grasp that you can exchange it for goods and services. When he uses the potty he often requests a quarter for his potty prize in lieu of a stickers or candy. As soon as he gets the money in hand he darts upstairs to put it in his bank. Unfortunately he doesn't quite understand about paper money. This became immediately apparent when we took him to trade in his full bank of coins for paper money. He pitched a fit of epic proportions in the bank lobby. As he gets older we plan to let him start buying a toy or treat for himself with money he saves in his bank.

We often play grocery store and use pennies to pay for our baskets of pretend apples. I've bought him a play cash register for Lucy's birthday (although I never did give it to him because so many other people brought him gifts!) and once we break it out I'm hoping he'll get a little better understanding of things. 

Once they both get a little older we'll start assigning some simple chores that they can do in order to receive an allowance. Then the savings accounts will be opened, and allowances and birthday moneys will be deposited with great gusto. 

I think my parents did a pretty good job teaching me about money and savings. I can only hope I can do the same for my kids.

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One way I can help to save money now is by winning and iphone instead of buying one! Capital One and The Parent Bloggers Network are giving away THREE iphones this weekend! Just write a post about how and when you taught/plan to teach your kids about money and then email the post to the folks over at PBN. 

Reality Bites

The one and only piece of advice I give first time parents is that they should try and eat out as much as possible when their new baby is born. With the baby. Why? Because until that baby is, say, 4 or 5 months old eating out with him or her is a snap. They are too young to require any food of their own, even when crying they are relatively quite, they are uber-portable, and if you are lucky, they'll fall asleep in the car seat on the way there and remain so for the duration of your meal.

But once you hit a certain age, all bets are off. We learned this the hard way with Sam when he was about 7 months old.

In Atlanta, at least for a while, we didn't have a babysitter. We tried to eat out early so that we could take Sam. Plus the restaurants usually don't get busy until 7-ish, so if you show up at 5:30 there are fewer people for your kid to potentially annoy. 

One night we were feeling bold and decided to try a new, upscale causal place. SOB had heard from a friend at work that it was family friendly, so we packed Sam up and headed out for our early bird special. With traffic and parking difficulties we didn't get into the restaurant until almost 6:30. We were nervous, but they staff was kind and seated us way in the back. Unfortunately the place filled up right quick and soon Sam was terrorizing the hell out of us and everyone nearby. He was throwing puffs, toys, spoons, anything he could get his hands on. 

Needless to say, we took our desserts to go.

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This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by Burger King Corp.

Truth

Before becoming a parent, I wish I had known that the things that I fear myself would be magnified by a thousand percent or more for my children. I knew that having kids would open up a whole new world of fears and phobias, but I never realized how many nights they would keep me awake. It's so much more difficult to manage these anxieties when you know that, ultimately you have no control. I may stay out of the ocean because I'm scared of it, but I can't make my kids do the same. The loss of control makes things terrifying to the Nth degree.

Perhaps if I had realized this earlier I would have done some preemptive therapy!

This Blog Blast was brought to you by Discovery Health and The Parent Bloggers Network! Click on over for details on how to participate and check out the prizes!

Mah Preshus Boi

We all love our children and think they are the most beautiful/intelligent/athletically gifted people in the universe. After all, aren't they a perfect blend of you and your partners' most glorious traits?

Don't you want to just eat him up?

But recently we've been dealing more with where Sam is lacking rather than where he is excelling. It took all this time, but we finally have a speech therapist coming next week to start working with him. For the duration, I was so focused on this one negative. But guess what? Sam has a lot of positives. He can sing along with any tune. He can finger paint with reckless abandon. He can whip up a mean plastic food soup for lunch. But the thing I think he's best at is loving.

Yes, he may have trouble with telling me how much he loves me, but he shows me in a million ways every day. First of all, one of the only words he speaks clearly is 'Mommy' which he calls out all day. Frequently he says 'Mommy' while he makes the sign for 'I love you.' Talk about heart melting!

But it's not just me. He loves everyone. When I pick him up from school it takes us 15 minutes to say goodbye because he. Must. Hug. Everyone. Including Max, who never wants to be hugged. Then he must blow everyone kisses. Then he must say 'Bye bye' to every single person. And they all love it! Except for Max.

I frequently hear him mumbling to himself while playing. When I listen closely (and because I know his secret language) I hear him naming all the people he knows and loves. It goes like this most of the time:

Mommy
Dada
Yanni (Aunt Allison)
Pop-Pa
Nana
Yeow (our cat)
Oose (Baby sister Lucy)

And repeat.

So my little guy, while not the most talkative boy in town, might be one of the most lovable.

And god damned if he isn't cute!

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This post was brought to you by the Parent Bloggers Network and Jennifer Fox, the author of Your Child's Strengths. Visit PBN for all the details!

Backyard Bugs

When I was in college I did an internship at the Philadelphia Zoo. The duration of my summer was spent inside a small rotunda with about 75 different kinds of bugs. Like African hissing cockroaches, scorpions and tarantulas. Part of our 'job' was to become very familiar and comfortable with the animals on exhibit because the kids were allowed to hold most of them, and we had to be able to transfer them from the terrariums to their arms.

Yeah.

So I got over my fears of scorpions pretty effing quickly.

After a few days I realized that these creatures, who most people treat with scorn, are really quite exquisite. After that, my love of insects only got more intense. (Except for bees. I HATE bees.) I ended up doing my senior project on crayfish, which are like insects that live underwater. And all of this was because I was pressed to move beyond my comfort zone and really learn to appreciate creatures totally different from myself.

I hope one day that I can do the same thing for my children. When they come home with worms or lizards, snakes or rodents, I'll do everything I can to foster and encourage their interest. Maybe one day they'll write a paper on the combative nature of Orconectes obscurus.

Warning! Not For Use By Idiots!

The previous owner of our house was kind enough to leave us a fire log in the fireplace.

Isn't he sweet? This is the type where you simply light the paper bag the log is contained in and then sit back and enjoy. However, the manufacturers want to make sure that you understand that by lighting this paper log on fire, you could be at risk of....starting a FIRE!

Really? Because it hadn't occurred to me that lighting a fire log could create a fire. Also, the flames on the bag don't really communicate 'fire' well enough. Luckily I have the fine makers of Pine Mountain Giant Size paper logs to set me straight.

Have you seen any ridonculous warning labels lately? The folks at Sick of Lawsuits and the Parent Bloggers Network are just dying to give away some cold hard plastic cash to the blogger who finds the best one by Friday! Get the details here! And get your cameras clicking!

The Wheels In Mommy's Head Aren't Spinning Quite Fast Enough

One day Sam came home from Jesus School twirling his arms madly. He seemed very insistent on performing this task, but he was angry that I wasn't participating in some way. The trouble was that I had no idea what I was supposed to be doing.

The next week, he came home and put one hand on his hip, stuck the other arm out and walked around crooked. I tried copying his actions, but that wasn't the right thing to do, apparently. He would get noticeably frustrated when I couldn't figure out what he wanted, and meltdowns would ensue.

Finally, a friend was over and noticed Sam doing the arm twirl thing again. She casually asked if 'The Wheels on the Bus' was one of his favorite songs. I must have looked at her like there were lobsters crawling out of her ears, because she went on to explain that to her, it looked like Sam was doing the arm motions that go along with that song. Well, no sooner than the words left her lips Sam started dancing around like a wild man. We started singing and he was deliriously happy.

It still took me a few more days to figure out that the other dance was 'I'm a Little Teapot.' Rhodes scholar I am not.

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Scholastic wants to know, 'What are your kids learning in school?' Click over to the Parent Bloggers Network to find details on this blog blast and to read about what other kids are learning in school!

The Dog Faces Downward Because She is Ashamed of Her Wardrobe

Despite watching waaaaaay too many repeats of What Not To Wear and Project Runway (I totally missed Tim Gunn's Guide To Style last night, but I am hoping that TiVo will save me!), I am 100% guilty of succumbing to mom-wear. If you add up all the pairs of 'yoga pants' I own, I'm betting the total would be more than the actual amount of yoga classes I've ever participated in.

So when PBN announced their big blog blast, wherein the winner gets $250 to spend at Coach, (where I have been drooling over this little darling) I almost died. Because I just took 17 bags of clothes to the donation center last week. As in the day before I got this announcement in my in box. And this time I did a really good job, clearing out all but maybe 15% of my wardrobe. So I have no embarrassing stuff left to show you. Two weeks ago I could have shown you my creepy-crawler dress. Or the combat boots I've been holding on to since 1995. Or the pair of pants I got at French Connection on sale that fit me for one day. Seriously, it was a comedy gold mine in my closet.

But alas, and alack, I cannot play along. So you do it! Win yourself something pretty. Then maybe since I inspired you, you might pick a little something out for me when you're out shopping!

Shake Your Booty

My parents and I took Sam and Lucy to the mall on Wednesday. The place was almost deserted, so they let him run free of the stroller while Lucy and I ambled along behind them. Sam L-O-V-E-S to dance, and whenever he hears music he immediately starts breaking it down. Well, since the mall was so quiet he could hear the music playing in every store. He'd run from door to door, listening for the beat. He'd dance for a few seconds at each shop before he run looking for the next tune. My father managed to capture a bit of this insanity on his camera. No one in our house is big into dancing, so I guess he picked up these moves at Baby Loves Disco!

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Click here for details on this PBN Blog Blast. Free shoes, people!

Family Fun Time!

Since we've been living in Atlanta, family time has taken a hit. We don't have a dining room or a proper table, so we don't eat together. Sam eats in his high chair and after he goes to bed we eat at the coffee table. We used to take walks together almost every day. When Sam was very wee, SOB would carry him in the bjorn thingie. Then we started strolling him around. Once he got to walking, we would stroll him to the park and let him play all crazy-like. But now? It 107 degrees every damn day, and I can't go outside for more than three seconds without collapsing into a molten puddle of progesterone. At this point, I consider it good family time if we go to the grocery store together.

I'm hoping that once we move (and we have a fun new kitchen!) we'll start eating more meals together. Sam is getting older and we can eat more of the same foods, so meal prep won't be as complicated. And the baby will be on the tit exclusively until sometime in early 2008, so her meals should be a cinch to prepare. By the time the weather starts warming up again, we can resume our family walks to the park, too, since there is a playground nearby.

And maybe, just maybe, Sam and SOB can start playing boy games together. Like catch. And Phantasy Star II. Or, if we're lucky, Boogie!

This post is brought to you in conjunction with Parent Bloggers Network & EA's Wii-Boogie, a family gaming experience. Shake it. Sing it. Create it.