Morning Accomplishments

So I am going to take a moment and pat myself on the back for all that I managed to do today.

1. Avoid getting up with the kids at 6:30 (B.A.R. handled it nicely before he went back to bed)

2. Get locked in Tiger's room while dressing Blanket and Tiger.  (B.A.R. rescued me)

3. Feed my children and myself breakfast.

4. Read my email/blogs/facebook while watching SportsCenter.

5. Shave legs and get dressed.

6. Allow Tiger outside to play while I load the dishwasher.

7. Clean up the cereal/milk Blanket has spilled while trying to poach Tiger's half-eaten breakfast and make off with the spoon.

8. Allow Blanket to go outside and play in the back yard with Tiger while I do things in the house in peace.

9. Put off doing laundry until tomorrow.

10. Renew library books online.

11. Take Tiger potty and change him into clean pants/underwear.

12. Deep clean my stove.  This  includes: lifting the top off and removing 10 year old grease-coated former foods and making my range hood sparkle on the outside and be 50% cleaner on the inside.

13. Clean my counters twice.  Once before I cleaned my stove and once after.

14. Vacuum my kitchen (this is sooooooo much better than sweeping).

15. Lock my children out while I Cinderella scrub the kitchen floor to make sure I get all of the messes/stickies/goo/sand off the floor.

16. Notice that it took Tiger 15 minutes to tear the clean pants he has on.  Big tear, not sure if I will patch them or put them in the recycle pile.

17. Put all the toys back in the sandbox.

18. Apprehend Tiger for going into the kitchen before being decontaminated from the sand.

19. Decontaminate Tiger.

20. Use 4 baby wipes to decontaminate Blanket of sand.  It should be understood here that he has a runny nose, so he had boogers, and sand in his boogers.  

21.  Use 2 baby wipes to get all the loose sand out of Blanket's hair.  

22. Feed boys and myself lunch.

23. Vacuum the kitchen again.

24. Remove Blanket's shoes/clothes in the bathroom to ensure that all remaining loose sand stays contained in the bathroom.

25. Wash Blanket's hair for 5 minutes to make sure there is no more sand, thus ensuring his bed will remain uncontaminated.

26. Put Blanket down for a nap.

27. Put on movie for Tiger so that I can check out for a few minutes.

28. Enjoy not being productive for 90 minutes.

Tough subjects

I've been wondering how to tell my kids about tough subjects.  You know, the ones that are really important, but hard for me to talk about.  I've been wondering how to tell my kids that they have an older sister.  How to tell  them that the grandpa they know is not my father.  I don't think that they are in a "need to know" place in their lives. But, then, where is that "need to know" place?  When will they be old enough to get it?  And when will meeting someone in photographs become meaningful?  When will I be ready to tackle those subjects with them?  Honestly, this scares me more than the birds and the bees!

You know you're a mom when. . .

. . . you find Hot Wheels cars on the cookie sheet when you go to make cookies, and magnetic letters under it when you take it out.

. . . keeping interested parties out of the kitchen while you cook is for safety reasons, and not because help wouldn't be appreciated.

. . . you measure time in laundry units. For example.  I need to stop at home between this and this so I can change the laundry over, or I can be at the park until the dryer is done, or I can watch (show x) while I fold the laundry.

. . . your toddler unpots a plant 4 times in 4 days, and all  you do about it is repot the plant, vacuum the floor, and exhort your preschooler to leave the plant OUTSIDE!!!

. . .you're in love with the warm weather and your kids love of the sandbox.  You're just not in love with the entropy of sand.

. . . dry underwear is worth celebrating. 

. . . you feel a great milestone is reached when your preschooler turns off the light before he falls asleep, instead of falling asleep with it on.

. . . you look forward to having your VT over so that your kids will make a huge mess and have fun while you are having adult conversation. Meanwhile you have a  great excuse to ignore the mess that is being made.

. . . you tell yourself that a slow 20 minute walk with your kids is "exercise."

. . . you have to remove cars (or dolls) from your sewing table before you can sew.

Yes - Man

So Blanket is becoming quite the talker. His favorite word is "yesss." This is funny because Tiger rarely says "yes" (see the post below). Blanket used to do this thing where if you asked him to say "yes" he would, and then if you asked him to say "no" he would say "yesss." I tried to get him to say that on the video, but it didn't quite work that way. He has too much of a mind of his own now. He says whatever he wants. He will repeat you if he wants, or he will try and predict what you will ask him to say next so he doesn't always say what you want him to. He spent much of this video trying to touch the camera, he is so fascinated with it that movies are never quite what it is like without the camera.


A transcript of Blanket's part of the movie:

"Uh. Oh. Down. Uh, Oh. Please. Please. Jesus. Jesus. Yes. Yes. Moo. Dog. Book. Mau (meow). Yes. Dad." That covers about 30% of his vocal vocabulary. Other things he can say well : guck (truck), car, quack, cat, woof, ba (with a sign that means airplane), ball, more, done, up, go, out, mom, bye, buzz, wa-wa, waa (walk), woo-woo (train), tractor, cracker, cookie, lo (hello), hi, shoes, socks, eyes, nose, bath, and a few others. He also signs (without words): eat, sleep, music, phone, and maybe one or two more.

He is much more of a problem-solver than his brother. He won't really ask for help until he is in trouble. All of this at 16 months. Now if we could just get him walking!