The Differences Between Kids

I know so many people with two kids - a boy and a girl. Often, I hear how different these two kids are, with the differences chalked up to the fact that the kids are two different species (if you consider boys and girls as different species, like I pretty much do).

I can see how that would make sense. Boys are different than girls because they are boys. And girls are different than boys, because they are girls.

But I have two kids, too. Both girls. And you know what? They are WAAAAY different from each other. As it turns out, when it comes to the difference of kids, sex of child has nothing to do with it. My girls have been different from the very first day, when they were nothing but little tadpoles inside me.

Gracie - made me sick as a dog in the 1st trimester/ Annelie - made me ten times sicker.

Gracie - never stopped kicking/ Annelie - never moved in my stomach.

Gracie - while pregnant, my body hurt too much to move/ Annelie - made me feel so refreshed that up until her delivery, I was hiking and mountain climbing (some would call it small-hill walking... I call it mountain climbing)

Gracie - never slept as a newborn/ Annelie - Didn't wake up until she was about 4 months old.

Now that Gracie and Annelie are 5 and 3 years old, the differences between them have only grown. Gracie lives in dreamland and doesn't interact with kids very much on the playground, preferring to pal around with her imaginary boyfriends, Harry Potter and Justin Bieber. Annelie only plays pretend when Gracie ropes her into it, preferring to run around with other kids at the park instead. And while they both love playing dress-up, Annelie is much more interested in running into the backyard and swinging for hours or catching bugs (and sticking them in her hair - but that's a story for another day).

And as to potty-training...

Gracie - potty-trained easily and without a hitch/ Annelie - a never-ending potty-training NIGHTMARE!

When it comes to learning, my girls are also VERY different. Gracie is able to memorize quickly, but doesn't find problem solving very easy and struggles to relay back what she's learned. Annelie doesn't memorize letters/numbers or words as easily, but excels at problem solving. Also, when she sees a movie, she can tell you everything about it in clear, concise sentences (she gets that from her dad... I'm too long-winded to have passed on that gene).

When Gracie sees the word STOP, she knows what it says because she's already memorized it. Annelie sees STOP and knows what it says because she knows that the 'S' sound combined with the 'T' 'O' and 'P' sounds can be smashed together to make the sound STOP. As much as we work on that concept with Gracie, it just doesn't make any sense to her.

Yesterday, I was playing Tic-Tac-Toe with my girls. 5 year old Gracie lost every time. She just didn't get it, no matter how much I explained the rules to her, and eventually gave up to play with her imaginary boyfriend. 3 year old Annelie understood the rules immediately and after only two games, was already kicking my butt.

Not to mention: Gracie - the sweet, sensitive kid/ Annelie - the temper-tantrum throwing hellion with a love for destruction and making her sister cry.

It never fails to amaze me how two kids - both girls, both coming from the same place and from the same two people - can be SO DIFFERENT in just about all aspects of their lives. When I hear other moms talking about their kids, how different their son is from their daughter, I can only smile and nod and say, "Yeah, I know what you mean. My daughter is WAAAY different than my daughter."

It's not just the gender that makes them different. It's the kids.

xoxo,

Toy Story 3 and a Pack of Tissues

When SweetPea took me to see Toy Story 3 on Sunday (that's right...she'd already seen it with Dad, so she came along with me so I could too), I hardly thought I'd need Kleenex.  Of course, it's not like I don't always have some on me with little noses around.  Good thing I did.

Let me start by saying, that under normal circumstances, I cry at the drop of the dime.  Sappy songs, corny commercials, soap operas, hell, I still cry at the end of Return of the King (yes, Lord of the Rings geek here) even though I've seen Frodo sail off with the elves on screen and read the book more times than I can keep track of.  For some reason though, I've never been overly weepy over the kids.  I have no idea why either.  I never shed a tear when either of them were born, though of course, I laid in my hospital bed beaming each time.  When I dropped SweetPea off for her first day at daycare when she was 12 weeks old, not a single drop.  Not the first time they both went off to preschool, not the first time I heard either say "Momma"...nada.  Imagine my surprise then, when at the end of the latest Toy Story movie I found myself, my little girl in my lap, all dolled up in her new pink princess dress, yellow Pinkalicious plastic crown she'd gotten in a Burger King meal, oh yes, and a pair of pink Chuck Taylors, completely losing it.  I'm talking big, fat tears rolling down my face in streams.  I had to fumble through my purse in the dark for the packet of travel Kleenex and pray that she didn't notice and ask why I was crying.  Luckily I was able to compose myself by the time we stepped out of the theater (thank goodness for a long, amusing set of movie credits).

So why WAS I crying anyway?  Without spoiling the end of the movie for anyone who still needs to see it, let's just say in the end, Andy, the little boy from the two prior movies is all grown up and about to drive off to college.  How he says his final goodbyes to his toy friends as he is leaving is what set me off.  For the first time in her almost four and a half years, I actually pictured SweetPea packing up herself to leave home.  I know sometimes, we'll joke about having the house all to ourselves again someday and how quiet and relaxing that will be, the truth is, I'm nowhere close to being ready for that day.  Of course, that's a long way off.  Or is it?  I still remember one of my good friends walking his six year old sister to school every morning when we were in high school...and now she's all grown up, has gone to college and even worked in the White House through an entire administration.  The Man's nephew, who was under a year old when I first met him just after we were married is in high school and is on the verge of releasing a CD with his band.  Seeing the movie finally brought home the point a lot of Moms with older kids have been trying to tell me...my babies aren't going to be this small forever and as frustrated as I get sometimes that they still rely on me to do so much, someday soon, they won't need me for much of anything...and someday, they'll go out into the world all on their own, without me there 24/7 to show them the way.  So, OK, I also don't want to have the kids who will live in my basement until they are 35, coming up to eat dinner every night or raid my fridge, but, I think you get my point.

In a little over a year, SweetPea will be heading off to Kindergarten.  If I got this upset over a freaking animated movie, I have a feeling the first day of school I'm going to need a box of tissue.  Maybe even two.

Mama Drama Mondays: Hitched

A few months ago, I was driving Peri to preschool and noticed that the car in front of us belonged to another family in her class.

"Look, Peri, that's Sean's Daddy's car in front of us."
"Sean?"
"Yeah, I think that's Sean."
"Oh, I like Sean."
"Is he your friend?"
"Yeah, he's my friend. He's my boyfriend. He's my husband; like Corpse Bride."

I wasn't sure how to respond to that. I was literally speechless. Part of me wanted to just giggle and the other part was a little offended at not being invited to the wedding. Apparently, my 5-year-old had gone and grown up. That's one heck of a preschool! Marriage ceremonies at no extra charge.

Once I got to the school, I asked one of the teachers if Peri and Sean played together a lot. I then told her what Peri had said in the car and we both had a laugh. She said they did play together often and sometimes they would even dance together in class, kind of like square dancing, during song time. It was all just too cute. Sean didn't speak English very well and paired with a not-so-social Peri, they were a match made in shy heaven.

What was funny is that four other kids had paired off into boyfriend/girlfriend couplings also, but that they actually held hands. Peri and Sean were more like inseparable BFFs and I'm not quite sure where the marriage came in, but now that preschool is over, I think the marriage is too. They'll both be starting Kindergarten in different schools, but who knows, maybe their paths will cross again someday. In any event, I certainly wasn't expecting the whole boyfriend/girlfriend situation this early on and I couldn't help but think... "and so it begins."

Want to share the Mama Drama with us? Write a mama drama post of your own (it can be about anything funny, cute, dramatic, etc), and then add your link to that post, to the link list below...

Roasted Chicken and Potatoes: My Personal Heaven

I think heaven will have smells alternating between freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and roasted chicken stuffed with herbs and bacon strips over the top. Like this:

(BTW - Roasting whole chickens are easy and require little effort, once you get past the heebie jeebies.)

Gorgeous. And those potatoes? They get tossed around in all the chicken and bacon drippings, put in a bowl and topped with crumbled bacon. This was one of those meals that attacked all of my senses (in a good way) at once and left me a very, very happy girl. As far as I know, the rest of the family liked it, too, but I was much too distracted to notice.

Another goodie from Jamie Oliver. Speaking of, has anyone else been watching his Food Revolution? It's brilliant. I'm so glad that someone with as much celebrity power as Jamie is doing this through a mainstream network. The ignorance of basic food knowledge (elementary school kids not knowing what a potato or a tomato was) and the ridiculous USDA regulations (french fries count as vegetables?) just blows my mind.

I could rant on and on about this topic (like I did here), but I'll spare you. Just try out this chicken. If for no other reason than to make your home smell like heaven for a few hours.

Roasted Chicken & Potatoes with Rosemary and Lemon
from Jamie Oliver

3-4 lb chicken
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
4½lb potatoes, peeled
1 large lemon
1 whole bulb of garlic, broken into cloves
A handful of fresh thyme
Olive oil
A handful of fresh rosemary sprigs, leaves picked
8 strips of uncooked bacon

Rub the chicken inside and out with a generous amount of salt and freshly ground black pepper. Do this in the morning if possible, then cover the chicken and leave in the fridge until you're ready to start cooking it for lunch or dinner. (This ensures the meat is seasoned well!) Preheat your oven to 375°F.

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil. Cut the potatoes into golf-ball-sized pieces, put them into the water with the whole lemon and the garlic cloves, and cook for 12 minutes. Drain and allow to steam dry for 1 minute (this will give you crispier potatoes), then remove the lemon and garlic. Toss the potatoes into the roasting pan while still hot so their outsides get a little beat up - this will make them lovely and crispy when they roast.

Take the chicken out of the fridge, pat it with kitchen paper and rub it all over with olive oil. While the lemon is still hot, carefully stab it about 10 times. Push the garlic cloves, the whole lemon and the thyme into the cavity, then put the chicken into the roasting tray and cook in the preheated oven for around 45 minutes.

Remove the chicken to a plate. Toss the potatoes around in the drippings and add the rosemary leaves. Shake the tray around, then make a gap in the center of the potatoes and put the chicken back in. If using the bacon, lay the slices over the chicken breast and cook for a further 45 minutes, or until the chicken is cooked and the potatoes are nice and golden. (You can tell the chicken is cooked when the thigh meat pulls easily away from the bone and the juices run clear.) A meat thermometer should read about 170 degrees.

Remove the bacon from the chicken and crumble it up over the potatoes. Then remove the lemon and garlic from inside the chicken, squeeze all the garlic flesh out of the skin, mush it up and smear it all over the chicken, discard the lemon and rosemary and carve the chicken at the table.

Goes nicely with a green salad. Serves 4 with leftovers.

Nat's Notes:
1. I don't have a roasting pan, but used my 9x13 pyrex baking dish. It's a bit snug, but it works.
2. I didn't smear the garlic over the chicken because we don't eat the skin, so I put it in a small bowl and used it as a condiment at the table.

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Originally posted HERE.

Happy (Belated) B-day, TMD!

First Birthday Hat - by Sweet 'n Sassy Baby
www.sweetnsassybaby.etsy.com

This just goes to show how affected by "Mommy Brain" I am. I swear my brain used to work better than it does now. Frequently, I wonder if my brain is just free-floating around my head, unattached to anything.

And the reason: I meant to do a whole HAPPY 1st BIRTHDAY, The Mama Dramalogues! post... but, 23 days later, it only just occurred to me that we started this blog a year ago last June. Way to be awesome. Hopefully I won't be forgetting my kid's birthdays, but I do have to admit I completely forgot Father's Day this year (um, yeah. I know. Poor hubs), so forgetting my own kids birthday is definitely a possibility...

Without further ado, let me conclude with HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY TO YOU, THE MAMA DRAMALOGUES!

And a very huge thank you to everyone involved in posting during this year and most importantly THANK YOU to all of you readers, who keep coming back for more! You keep us going and going and going and we hope you'll all be around next year when I will most certainly forget our second birthday as well!

xoxo,

I Am So Done

OK, so to start with...I want to tell Amanda...I thought of writing this before the post you wrote on Friday!  Pinky Swear!

So, where was I...oh yes...I..am...done.  By done I'm talking about kids...having anymore that is.  People making babies has been on my mind a lot lately because friends I know are either newly pregnant, having babies soon or had babies not so long ago, which always seems to bring the question back around to me.  "Are you having anymore?"  Hmm, that would have to be a big N-O.  Negative.  Nein.  Niet. Non.  Not that I would ever change having the two I already have, but as a friend once put it to me, I'm a "two and through" kinda Mama.  Had my two, now I'm through.  Why?  Here's a few reasons...

- I don't care to look like this again (though, the hormone enhanced, great hair was a bonus)

- Or do 15 hours of this again...

- I don't want little baby feet inside my belly pushing my stomach up into my ribcage and making two bites of a meal feel like I swallowed a turkey whole.

- I don't miss waking up every two hours to spend 45 minutes feeding someone who will wake up again in two hours...or have to watch Men's and Women's Olympic curling and/or luging while I'm doing it.

- I can do without swollen, leaking Mama boobs.

- Of course I do miss this, just a little...

and this too...

though, I prefer this...

Sure, back then I could get SweetPea to sleep by just sticking her in her baby swing while I took a nice, steamy, warm, shower and, sure, I could leave Lil Buddy in his Exersaucer while I ran to put wet clothes in the dryer and know for certain he'd be where I left him when I got back in the room...but now I have two little people who sleep through the night...who can brush their teeth by themselves (OK, with a little follow up from Mom or Dad)...who can go to the potty all by themselves (make that one can...and one is learning).  Best of all, they can play nicely together for small stretches of time so that I can fold laundry or make dinner or any of other things that need to get done.  Does it hurt my feelings that they need me (slightly) less?  Nope.  Will I cry when SweetPea walks off to kindergarten in about a year...OK, well yeah, but I'm pretty sure I'll get over it.

And that's that.  Our little family is complete and that...is just fine with me.

In Want Of

Everywhere I look, women around me are having babies. Some are beautifully round, with protruding bellies and bright eyes, while some are cradling their newborns, overjoyed. It's friends, family, cousins, acquaintances, blog friends, random women in the super market. It's everywhere. It's all around me.

When I was pregnant with Gage my OBGYN had asked me to consider what I wanted to do in terms of sterilization and/or birth control. Mike, my husband, and I skirted around the issue, too wrapped up with the little miracle that was growing inside of me. When the time came to decide I simply could not do that to my body, have my tubes tied, and do I went with a removable IUD instead. My children are a blessing, and my womb is a gift, and until nature says otherwise I just could not fathom doing something so extreme, especially being so young. I still had a lot of time left to bare children, and while at the time I had no immediate plans to do so, perhaps one day would come where I would change my mind. A day like today. A day like tomorrow.

I come from a big family. I'm the oldest of four children, and both of my parents come from large families as well. As stressing as it can be, I simply love being surrounded by children and family. It's who I am. It's what's in my heart. And really, it's all I've ever really known up until starting my own family.

Mike, on the other hand, is an only child, raised by just his mother and grandmother. His family is very small, but what they lack in volume they make up for in heart. He is content with what he has. He always has been, and it's part of what makes him such a good man.

I've been longing for another child to hold and love for some time now. Mike, on the other hand, says that he is done and that our two boys are more than enough. I know, with all of my heart that I should be counting my blessings rather than asking for more, but I am a woman, and lately I've been asking myself constantly, is this not what I was made for, to bare children and nurture and love them?

I admit, this is making me depressed, knowing that my husband doesn't want more children while I do. It's driving a wedge between us in other facets too. I love him with all of my heart, and I know that he is my forever. But what do you do when what your heart desires for the future and what your partners heart desires for the future don't mesh?

Give Dad a Break: Slow Cooker Island BBQ Chicken

With Father's Day coming around the corner (Sunday!) I thought about doing a burger or grilling post, but it's usually the guy who stand at a hot grill cooking for everyone else. I remembered these BBQ chicken sandwiches we had recently, and thought it would be the perfect thing for Father's Day. Dad won't have to stand at the grill, but still gets to munch on a big wad of meat. And Mom isn't stressed out because she threw all the stuff in the slow cooker that morning. Everybody wins.

This is probably the best shredded BBQ chicken I've ever had. The recipe suggests using a fruity (guava, mango, or pineapple) flavored BBQ sauce, but I don't like extra-sweet BBQ sauce, so I just used the regular kind from Trader Joe's. We paired it with a simple green salad dressed with Pioneer Woman's Homemade Ranch Dressing . I also added some coleslaw to the sandwiches, but that needed some tweaking. I'm still converting to coleslaw so I'm picky.

If you're (Dad's) not into salads, here are a few of my favorite side dishes (that would also go well with these):

Marinated Zucchini
Green Bean Succotash
Roasted Spiced Sweet Potatoes
Garlic Mashed Red Potatoes
Parmesan Roasted Broccoli
Ranch Mac 'n' Cheese
Smoked Gouda Chipotle Grits

Have a great weekend!



Slow Cooker Island BBQ Chicken
from Aggie's Kitchen

2 pounds chicken breasts (I used boneless/skinless)
salt and pepper, to taste
1 whole medium onion, sliced thinly
¼ cups raisins
1 bottle fruity barbecue sauce (18-20 oz bottle, guava, mango, or pineapple)
2 T balsamic vinegar (a couple of splashes)
6 whole Favorite Sandwich Buns

Place chicken breasts into slow cooker and sprinkle salt and pepper to both sides. Add sliced onion and raisins. Pour 3/4 of the bottle of barbecue sauce and balsamic vinegar over chicken and combine. Cover and cook on low for 6-8 hours.

When cooking is complete, take 2 forks and gently pull apart chicken breasts. Take remainder of barbecue sauce and pour over chicken and combine. (Optional: I added the rest of the sauce and it was way too saucy. Add at your own discretion.) Let the shredded chicken sit in crock-pot uncovered for about 15 minutes to warm up the additional sauce.

Add shredded chicken to your favorite sandwich bun and top with coleslaw, if desired.

Serves 6-8

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Summer Sprinklers

Today has been one of those completely exhausting days where my eyes have been twitching from kid-whining since I first woke up. So. Instead of a new post, I'm cross-posting this from my personal blog.
Summer is in full swing and in my opinion that means only one thing:

SPRINKLERS!

Okay, it means a little more than that, like ice-cream truck ice-cream, barbecues and hawk-like mosquitoes who seem to think I'm part of an all-you-can-eat buffet. But when the sweltering Texas heat melts my skin into a puddle, running through the sprinklers is the only solution to beat the heat that my sun-burned brain can come up with.

The girls, of course, do not object to my cool-down solution. When I was a kid, my brother and I ran through the sprinklers all summer long, but until we moved into our sweet li'l house last October, Gracie and Annelie had only ever lived in apartments, and running through the industrial apartment sprinklers would have brought on crazy-neighbor stares, not to mention full-body bruises from the blast of the water.

These are our very first Hopkins family sprinklers, and running through them for the first time was definitely a monumental occasion. There were no fights to be had, no temper-tantrums, no five-year-old's attitudes, no three-year-old's crankiness, no complaining from anyone... just wild laughing and best-friendness all afternoon.
Amazing how something so simple as water spraying from a hose can be 100% pure magic.


Go on... run through the sprinklers today. You know you want to.

Happy Wednesday, folks!

xoxo,

The Brotherhood of the Abandoned Underpants

So, we're potty training Lil Buddy.  It's going...well...meh.  Most days he can go for long stretches without an accident, but he hasn't been all that great lately about letting us know when he has to go (or at least not while we're at home.  Why he's better when we're not at home is beyond me). That is, until just after he's gone potty in his drawers.  "YUCKY pee pee", he'll run and tell us.  Yeah, no kidding.  And then there are the days where I walk into a room and find this...a pair of little, abandoned undies.

Obviously, he's not the first kid in the world to want to wander around with no clothes on.  I guess I just wasn't quite prepared to see him streaking through the living room out of the blue or find myself calling out, "Son, where is your underwear?" every five minutes.  It was a little different with SweetPea.  When she was potty training, we were the ones who confiscated her undies and made her go pantless until she'd use the toilet.  Not that I think she minded much.  The thing was, it only took two different occasions of her messing all over the place and on herself before she decided the experience was gross and that if she had no underwear on that she'd make sure she did her business in the toilet.  With Lil Buddy, I'm not convinced that peeing all over himself (or worse) would be much of a deterrent.  As it is, when he has his undies on, I've seen him stand there watching himself pee all down his leg, then tell me "yucky, gross" and tear his soaking drawers off.  Not to mention, with a complete different set of "plumbing" I worry about walking into a room only to find he's peed all over a wall...or a bookcase...or the TV.  With underwear on, at least there's something there to contain the spray.

I'm spending a lot of time and energy these days chasing down a set of bare cheekies and forcing them to keep under cover.  And still, he always finds a way to wrestle the britches back off.  At this rate, I may have to resort to duct tape.  Hmm...there's an idea.

Mama Drama Mondays: The Camping Trip

I don't know what possesses people to pack up all the comforts of home so they can spend the weekend sleeping in the woods, but we did it this weekend. In fact, it was the first time our family has ever been camping. It dawned on Jim and me, on the way to the campground, that the last time we went camping was when I was about 7 months pregnant with our oldest (I should note that I slept in a camper for comfort reasons). Personally, I consider myself lucky that I've managed to avoid camping for the last 6 years, but I should have known my time was up.

So, with much reluctance, we dusted off the camping gear and fishing poles and headed out to Promontory Park on the Clackamas River. At least the forecast was going to be nice for the weekend, although, I might have canceled if I'd know what the forecast was going to be for my kids: annoying with an increased chance of whining. Ooooo fun.

We went with a group of people, but we had the youngest kids (the only other child was a 10 year old girl). Most of my attempts at adult conversation went like this....

"Yeah, I went and saw the movie and... Peri where are you going? Stay here.... I thought it was okay... No, you can't leave by yourself, someone needs to go with you.... If you liked the show you'll like the movie although... Ryah, stop running, you're going to fall again.... there were some cheesy parts in the movie but overall... ARGH, Ryah I told you not to run, come here.... What was I saying?"

I should say that the kids were okay, for the most part, but when they were stinkers, boy were they. I don't know how many times I had to tell Peri to quit wandering off by herself or screamed, "What is that? Don't put it in your mouth!" However, they were delighted at having top bunks in the yomes we stayed in (yes, this is roughing it for me) and they enjoyed fishing, or at least, pretending to fish in Ryah's case. Peri also loved "driving" the boat and we enjoyed a nice long trip down the river. In hindsight, I think I enjoyed the boat the most because it corralled my kids for a short period of time.

The important thing is that Jim and the kids enjoyed themselves and if I have to "suffer" once a year, I'll do it for them. Besides, it is kind of gratifying when your 5 year old catches the biggest fish on her princess fishing pole and your husband has to be proud and envious at the same time.


Want to share the Mama Drama with us? Write a mama drama post of your own (it can be about anything funny, cute, dramatic, etc), and then add your link to that post, to the link list below...

When Yes means YES, Now Stop Asking!

5-year-old Gracie, bless her little heart, drives me insane. Not always, of course. But lately, conversations with her, especially ones in which she asks me a question and I give her an answer, are so exasperating, I'm not quite sure what to do with her.

A few minutes ago, we had a conversation like this:

Gracie: Mom, can I have a spoon to go with my ice cream?

(for the record, it was ice ream in a squeeze container and did not require a spoon)

Me: Yes.

Gracie: Really? I can have a spoon?

Me: I said 'yes.'

Gracie: I can get one? A spoon?

Me: Gracie, I said YES. You asked if you can have a spoon and I answered. I said YES.

Gracie: So, should I get a spoon for my ice cream?

Me: ARRRRRGH! GET A FREAKIN' SPOON BEFORE I LOSE MY MIND!

(I'm making that last one up. Although I did think those words in my head)

Every day, we have multiple conversations like this one. She asks a question, I answer, she keeps asking the question, I go completely insane, she asks again, my eyes pop out of my head, she asks again, and lather, rinse, repeat.

The sucky thing is this: she isn't doing it deliberately. I can tell. Sometimes she drives me insane on purpose, but in this case, nope.

So. Moms out there, here is your chance to dispense as much advice as you like. Do you have conversations like this? If so, how in the world to you keep your sanity whilst getting the point across to your kiddo that YOU ALREADY ANSWERED THE QUESTION and therefore it does not need to be asked a million more times?

Go on. Tell me.

Pretty, pretty please?

xoxo,

All Dogs Go To Heaven

This lovely lady is Sissy.  She's our furry baby.  I'd say she's our FIRST baby, but technically, she's our second.  Dakota, her brother, was our first, but he went to doggy heaven long ago.  OK, so maybe she's not a baby anymore.  She turned 14 this past February, which makes her a doggy senior citizen.  Lately she's been showing signs of slowing down and, sadly, has given us reasons to worry that the day might come in a not so distant future where we will have to make some tough decisions.  Worst of all, I have no idea how, someday, we're going to break it to two little ones that their big, fuzzy sister is gone...forever.

Yesterday was the closest this reality has hit home.  You see, years ago Sissy had to have knee replacements (Yeah, don't ask how much that cost.  Let's just say we're very lucky it happened when we didn't have kids!) in her back legs.  Ever since, she's been battling with arthritis of one form or another.  Yesterday, though...it was different.  I had let her out in the backyard for a constitutional.  A few minutes later, I hear a banging sound at the back of the house.  What I found when I rushed out to investigate, was poor Sissy trying to use the back of the house to stand up.  It was as if the whole right side of her body wouldn't work.  At first, I was afraid of the worst...had she had a stroke?  After checking her over, I realized her back leg had given out and she couldn't put any weight on it.  As I struggled to help her in the house, SweetPea wandered over and asked "Mommy, what's wrong with Sissy?"  I told her that Sissy's leg was hurt and she calmly walked to the toy room, then came back with her play doctor's kit and said to Sissy, patting her on the head, "Don't worry, ma'am.  I'll give you a check up and help you feel better."  All I could think was, "What if something is very wrong.  What if it's something we can't fix?"

Luckily, with an evening of rest and a second dose of her arthritis medicine, she seems to be doing better this morning.  That doesn't change the fact that one day, I'm going to have to explain to my four year old that Sissy's not going to get better...and that she'll one day go to the doctor's and not come back.  SweetPea is such a tender heart, I know that she's going to take it hard and I'm going to have help her understand what it means when someone we love dies.  Lil Buddy will have it a little easier.  One day, his furry friend who he likes to sit next to and jabber at and sneak doggy treats to will be gone...and maybe he'll wonder where his friend went, but at two, he'll likely not understand that she's not coming home.  But his sister will and that thought kills me...almost as much as it the thought of losing the only other being that has been with The Man and me for almost as long as we've been together.

I don't have any answers.  I just keep praying that I can hold off the inevitable for as long as possible.  I'm sure a lot of you have been in this situation and I'm hoping that maybe you can give me a little insight about how you have or would handle the same predicament.

Mama Drama Mondays: The Adrenaline Junkie

I could say that my 3-year-old is a daredevil, but that doesn't seem to tap into her need for a thrill. In fact, I think it's fair to say that my daughter is an adrenaline junkie.

I never had to childproof the house for Peri, but Ryah on the other hand has been curious from the start. If it can be opened, climbed on, jumped off of, she'll do it. Lately, she's taken to climbing halfway up the stairs and jumping down to the landing with a really loud thump. I don't always catch her doing it and I swear I'm just waiting for her to sprain her ankle or something.

Last weekend, Jim and I took our first big trip without the kids and my in-laws were kind enough to watch the chicklets. They took the girls to the local aquatic center for swimming and good times. Ryah likes to jump off the side of the pool in the deep end and my MIL had to constantly keep tabs on her because she'd just jump in when no one was around. When Pat would pull Ryah up she'd be all smiles and wanted to go again. She even tries to step to the side and jump in next to you so you won't catch her. She loves the thrill of it!

Then this weekend my neighbor was showing Ryah her garden. About 20 minutes later, they both came strolling down to my house and Ryah was carrying something. "Ryah has something to show you." A freakin' garden snake! She just picked it up and started playing with it by whipping it against the ground. By the time I saw it, it was dead. Not sure if she found it that way, but it looked recently dead. I couldn't believe it. After tossing it in the debris bin we asked Ryah if she was scared of spiders and she said, "yes." When asked if she was scared of snakes, she said, "no." Ack!

So, apparently I need to keep a closer eye on my adrenaline junkie or enroll her in a 12 step program. Yup, AA, Adrenaline Anonymous.







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Going Ooompa Loompa Green

Brayden is officially done with school for the year and summer is now in full swing at Casa de Oh Mandie. And with two little boys running through the house and yard all day long now wastefulness is abound. Our family summer project this year is to go green. Greener than before. I'm talking full oh Ooompa Loompa Green.

We're making changes here on the farm in how we live and how we consume. We've been a recycling family for awhile now, but beyond that there is a whole world of green goodness just waiting to be discovered. Here are a few, kid friendly, ideas to get your family to be green as well.


1. Switch out your light bulbs to CFL bulbs (the swirly kind). If every American home replaced just one light with an ENERGY STAR light, we would save enough energy to light more than 3 million homes for a year, about $700 million in annual energy costs, and prevent 9 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions per year, equivalent to the emissions of about 800,000 cars. I know, I know, but CFL light bulbs are so much more expensive, right? An ENERGY STAR qualified compact fluorescent light bulb will save about $30 over its lifetime and will actually pay for itself in about 6 months. It uses 75 percent less energy and lasts about 10 times longer than an incandescent bulb.

2. Start using reusable tote bags when you go shopping. Did you know that we use 500 billion plastic bags annually, which equals roughly almost 1 million per minute? Those plastic bags cause over 100,000 sea turtle and other marine animal deaths every year when animals mistake them for food, not to mention that it takes an estimated 12 million barrels of oil to make that many plastic bags.

3. Buy your produce from the Farmer's Market, not those fancy chain retailers. While produce that is purchased in the supermarket or a big-box store has been in transit or cold-stored for days or weeks, produce that you purchase at your local farmer's market has often been picked within 24 hours of your purchase. This freshness not only affects the taste of your food, but the nutritional value which declines with time. Not to mention that when you buy organic produce from those big retailers that the miles that organic food often travels to our plate creates environmental damage that outweighs the benefit of even buying organic in the first place. So support your body and your community.


4. Line Dry your Clothes. Dryers use up a lot of electricity — almost more than any other household appliance. The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that an electric clothes dryer accounts for almost six percent of a household’s annual electricity consumption. That may not sound like a lot, but consider how many items in your modern-day dwelling use electricity. If you average $100 a month for your electric bill, your clothes dryer accounts for $72 per year. That’s almost another month of electricity in your home! The sun is a natural whitener, so when you put thoroughly wet whites out on the line, the stains fade naturally. No need for bleach or other whitening chemicals that are harmful to the environment. Yes, dryers make your clothes softer, but they also weaken the fabric’s fibers much faster than if they had been air dried. All that lint after a cycle in the dryer? That’s fabric slowly wearing off of your clothes. It’s gradual, for sure, but in our family, we prefer buying fewer quality clothes, so I want them to last as long as possible.


5. Use cloth towels rather than paper towels. 99% of things that you would use a paper towel for would work just as well if not better with a cloth towel. Not to mention that a decrease in U.S. household consumption of just three rolls of paper towels per year would save 120,000 tons of waste and $4.1 million dollars in landfill dumping fees. Cut up some old shirts to make cleaning rags, or grab some fancy tea towel and linen napkins.

Reverse Psychology (biting me in the butt)

My itsy-bitsy baby Annelie (who is three and a half) never fails to shock me. Being the baby of the family, I find - and am ashamed to admit - that I treat her like one. So, when she does something only a big kid can do, it always comes as a surprise. My little baby can write out the letters of the alphabet? How it that possible? My little baby just rolled her eyes and gave me a smart aleck remark? No way. She's just a baby.

Miss Thang at age one

But she's not a baby as it turns out. She's a little girl and she's figuring life out and MAN if it isn't biting me in the butt.

Annelie's latest trick - laughing in the face of reverse psychology. Its not fair, really. Mom's are supposed to use reverse psychology on little kids. Its in the handbook. How do you get them to do what you want them to do when they are being obstinate? You challenge them with the opposite.

Well. Huh. Last night, Gracie and I were watching a movie that Annelie didn't feel like watching. So naturally, after discovering all the attention was not on her, Annelie decided to do whatever she could to get that attention back. She sang and danced in front of the TV. She pulled out an obnoxious toy High School Musical singing microphone and waved it under our noses until Gracie and I were both ready to throttle her. As it was almost bedtime, I did the one thing I figured would distract her (and um.. I'm about to reveal my incompetence as a mother as I admit this, I'm sure. Hey, no judging).

"Annelie," I called out. "Why don't you go and grab your bedtime diaper and show me how you can put it on all by yourself."

(Um. Yeah. My kid puts on her own diaper. Yes, I should take that as a sign that she's ready for underpants at bedtime, but... I did say I was revealing my incompetence as a mother, so there you go)

"I don't wanna," she said back.

"Oh now, come on. You always put on your diaper. Go get one and show me you can do it."

"No!" she shouted.

- Enter moment of reverse psychology -

"Oh. I bet you can't do it, can you. Its too hard."

Annelie, considered my words for a moment. "I can do it. I'll go show you," she finally said. Then she ran off and grabbed her diaper. Hurray. Success. She was distracted enough for me and Gracie to go back to our movie. A minute later Annelie was diapered and standing in front of me, hands on her hips.

- Enter moment when reverse psychology bites me in the butt -

"See, I told you I could put on my diaper," Annelie said. Her eye narrowed and she walked over to me, sticking her face directly into mine. She jabbed a finger sharply at my chest. "Mommy, YOU were WRONG."

My eyes widened. "What?"

"You said I couldn't do it, but you were wrong." Her hands were back on her hips at this point and my mouth had dropped to my chin. "I put my diaper on all by myself and you didn't think I could."

So. Huh. As it turns out, on this particular kid, using reverse psychology only makes me look completely incapable as an adult figure, and an unsupportive mother at that. And my three year old is officially smarter than I am.

What did I learn from this little moment in our lives? That I need to give my kid a little more credit than I do. She's smart. She thinks about things. And on top of that - after last night, Annelie has figured out how to use reverse psychology on ME.

This morning, after I watched her throw up a balloon and catch it for about five minutes, I went back to my computer and email checking/Facebook status updating.

"Hey, lookit me, lookit me!" she called out for a few minutes. I wasn't paying attention to her. I had, after all, already spent a good five minutes watching her. But then she stopped. The wheels were clearly turning in her head.

"Mommy, don't lookit me," she said half a second later.

Of course I looked up.

Man. Mothering this kid is going to be a wild ride.

xoxo,