Greece!

No not the movie. Dancing is so not my thing. I am one of those who have absolutely no rhythm hence I keep my butt where it belongs, that is on a chair. I don't want to be the one everyone is talking about after an office christmas party and imitating and laughing their heads off...noo i'm too aware of my out-of-tune dance moves. Anyways, so not the point of this post. Yesterday I took out a book with maps and stuff for my 4 year old, I thought it would be good for her at this age. So I tell her a few countries and itty bitty things and guess what? she told me how to say 'hello' in about 5 languages. Where are these kids coming from? I mean I was like 'wow, Goddammit'. Then to add to my utter confusion of should I be over the moon or should I be concerned, she comes to me after 15 minutes and says "Look Mommy here's Greece". Well all I could say at this point was 'what the....'. I mean I was loosing my mind. Where the heck did she learn about Greece of all places. We have no family connection, never ever talked about it, and haven't seen her play any games involving the country. Help!!! I mean people looking for intergalactic alien species, stop! and look at these kids these days. I mean I felt like she was giving me the geography lesson rather than the other way round. okay wait! she just came around, stood in the back and said "Oh no she didn't". Should I stop typing because now I think she knows I'm writing about her. How much can she read, am I in trouble? Ahhhh, running away, will be back tomorrow, If my 4 year old doesn't sell me to a stranger without me knowing about it!

Nutty Mommy Drink

I wrote this blog during the summer & since I never got the chance to post it I thought i'd share it now, so enjoy!

We had this amazing block party today with water balloons, inflatable bouncies, bubbles, barbecue and believe it or not it turned out to be one of the hottest days this summer. I really don't know whats wrong with the weather but man its gotten me to recycle more and reuse bags and get rid of batteries properly. The winter was brutal with snow totals of 50inches and now summer, more than few days way over a 100F.Gets you thinking about global warming and severe weather changes. Anyways with heat wave galore there were also drinks and with drinks I mean Booze. Yes people apparently the ladies weren't taking this block party lightly. We had beer, wine coolers, margaritas, some innovative mixes and some questionable orange soda bottles. Now my neighborhood is crawling with little kiddies. There are atleast 2 to 3 women pregnant at the same time. So with young kids come crazy mommies. And apparently crazy mommies need to take the edge off more often than not. Well since I do not drink I was just standing and listening to all the waste-plans that were brewing (pun intended). They were planning to make the hubbies put the kids to bed while the ladies stayed around and gulp till the wee hours of the night."PARTAY!!!". Everything you grabbed and every cup had some kind of gin, rum, something in it. One of my neighbors son came holding a bottle of lemonade and her mom goes: 'give that to me, you can't have that, who knows what kinda nutty mommy drink that might be'. I swear the kid was so confused grabbed a popsicle and ran. 

So for all the dad's out there please give the mommy's a little break so block parties can end up being rated 'E' than 'PG-21' !

My Day...

Okay so I don't exactly know where the "day" is supposed to begin but lets say 12am-12am is my 24hr. Around 1:26am the baby monitor started talking or might I say thing#2 starts babbling, for what reason, only God knows. So since I put both my girls in the same room I start freaking a bit while laying in bed that thing#2 might wake up thing#1 and if that happens HeLLO 5:30. Anyways when 10minutes turned to 45 I went and gave her a bottle so she could sleep again. Well an hour and a half later thing#1 walks in to the room and wakes me up so she could go pee. I thank her and ask her to go to bed, which she does thankfully. 3am and I can finally sleep. 7:30am is the normal wake up time for both the kids so we get up and have our milk and breakfast. As the day goes toys are flying, paint is splashing and water is spilling. I'm cleaning so fast but somehow the house seem to look like a pigs sty anyways. After mopping and cleaning the house I decide to not look back and head to the post office to pick up a letter for my hubbs. After rolling around the post office floor, and putting fingers inside the heating ducts we get our envelope and leave. On my way I realize I have to get my cars oil changed so I pull up at the mall to drop off my car at Sears. A box of Tic-Tac and strawberry-flavored dum dum later the guy tells me to come pick it up in an hour or so. We head in to the mall and I realize I gotta go pee. So I drag a 3 year old and a very big stroller in to a very teeny bathroom and a series of crying and yelling later we head out. As soon as we come outta the restroom there is a display of Sesame Street characters which thing#1 has to have but can't decide which ones to pick up so 5 trips back and forth the display I manage to make her put down all of them. We head to the other stores but first thing#1 decides I should try to play catch with her and she takes off. Imagine running with a stroller with a baby in it, lets just say people were smiling.Well we enter a baby clothing store and I let my one year old off the stroller to roam around a bit, she walks around comes and stands by the stroller and guess what???? Poops! Ai Ai Ai !!! So the next mission on the list was to find another clean rest room to go change the diaper. I start telling my 3 year old to get a move on so we can get the little one clean and she enters the stores and decides to individually jump on every square tile and hop her way to the restroom....took so long that you could read this blog 15 times over. There was yelling and crying and in the end bribing involved to get the job done. Anyways we get in do our thing and leave. Since the bribe included french-fires and coke (as if more caffeine was required) we head the Mikky D's yaay woohooo, fun for mom. Half hour of munching chicken nuggets and french fries and fighting with 15 straws in one cup of Sprite later (yes I decided -caffeine=loose my mind) my Hubbs calls and asks me to stay there another 45 minutes so he can come drop his car and we can leave together. Well I clean up and decide to walk in to the 4th store with any luck, then my 3 year old announces 'Mom I need to go pee' Kid You NOT!!! So guess what we did....need I repeat the process. We come out and I decide to go and atleast sign and get my own car keys before Hubs gets here. So a strange old man playing Peek-a-boo with my little one and one $1.80 candy baby bottle for the 3 year old later I get my keys. At this point I decide to sit on a bed in Sears and let the kids bring the store down infront of me. Dad comes in and we Finally leave. On the way back he says he wants to go to the Gym and since I needed a gosh darn break I tell him i'll go when he gets back. We get home and discover that thing#1 opened up the candy baby bottle and spilled the powered part all over her car seat, clothes and the back seat. While I go change her clothes and dust of her seat my hubby got the vacuum to clean the car. We get in, I start to cook dinner because before I leave for the gym I need to get everything set out so daddy dear can feed the kids and himself. Dad gets home but first we all have to go together and pick up his car. I take his car and head off to the gym, he takes the kids home. I work-out for 40 minutes and head to Target for some groceries. I get back and kids are done with dinner Thank God. Me and Hubs have our dinner. He cleans up while I put the little one to bed. Its about 9:30pm at this point. I am almost to the point where I cant move but the older one says she wants to go to bed too so I do the whole bed time routine and take her to bed. Finally, Relaxation! .....not!!!! she walks down in 61/2 minutes. I am about to pull my hair out. Hubs goes to bed and i'm stuck with her downstairs. 11:00pm and I turn off all the lights and tell her i'm going to bed and you stay down here, she decides moms not joking and goes to bed. And there goes my 24hr. Anyone tired of reading this yet !

Oh The Drama!

With girls comes drama. Period. That's why I think life is more colorful in many way if you have' sugar and spice and all things nice' in your home. Here there key word is "SPICE". I think I never really thought about it before recently. My older one has come in this world with a built-in 'NO' clause. Few of her grandma's have been known to start any conversation with the word, hence my little drama queen has to get it out of her system before anything gets done. Well today was the day where the No-Game went on so long and bargaining became like selling something to a thrift queen or my mom that I completely snapped!!!! Totally made her clean up the entire room cluttered with toys like a hurricane had hit it by herself...which she usually somehow makes me do while she puts away a one toy and makes me sing the clean-up song with her the rest of the time. Today was a different day..I had to retain my Mommy-Ness and that was the end of it. No bargaining this time, it was my way or the highway. Felt good. Don't tell. Oh yeah and the little one, when she wants something i'm not giving her, just to annoy me in to giving in, she make her lips in a circle like tweety bird and goes..AhhaH, Uhah, Uhah. Totally fakes it and smiles if she gets her way after. I swear sometimes I think they are ganging up on me man. Two girls both spicy more than sweet, my brain's almost fried today.

Who can spell ADD?

Oh blog i've missed you...the place to vent and not feel bad about it or have anyone feel the burn to stand and listen to all this crap. Okay so today me and the Hubs decided we'll spend some time doing things around the house. So that means the kids would be on ignore for a bit, needs will be met no doubt. Here's what I found out, They HAVE too many NEEDS. UGH! I swear about every 15 minutes there was something extremely important that had to be tended to. Talk about putting up a single gosh darn nail. First they were fed, then one wanted something to play with and the other wanted to play the same, fight fight fight!!! so after creating diversions of sorts I tried to go back and help the Hubs....half a tilted mirror later, MOM! I wanna paint! okay okay so the whole old t-shirt, brushes, papers, paints mambo jumbo comes out and laid on the table. Picaso goes at it for 10 minutes, little one pulls the paper from below and knocks down a bottle of paint and Voila! CLean up on Aile 5! After half an hour of clean up the older one wants to play with play dough and it's the little ones nap time. Bucket of playdough and a bottle of milk later I get the chance to see whats going on around the house. This time I get an hour. Time for lunch, so there goes another 2 hours. In the meantime the baby wakes up and needs food, minus another hour. So as usual the hubby is doing 90% of the work all by himself even though i'm right there in the house. The kids then start coming in the part of house where we were working so I had to stop and go play with them and get them out of the tools and nails. It never ends!!!!!! Time for dinner and another round of crayons, playdough, cartoons and food. And I look like more of a mess than my significant other even though technically speaking he did all the heavy lifting that day.

How old am I?

Okay so lets see....trust me when I say, this was not THAT long ago...what I remember from my childhood is playing hide-and-go-seek, tag, patti-cake(i'm a girl, its allowed), video games: hand-held was a 2 inch black and white screen with a single built-in game and computer interfacing games were on a system called 'Attari' I swear i'm not making it up...the games used to take 20 minutes to load and it had this cassette player you had to insert a cassette in for each individual game. Other than that VCR's were used not DVD players....cd's and dvd's came in the picture right infront of me. Then came the internet and E-mails...how cool was that. Took about an hour for dial-up to connect and 15 minutes to send the mail after hitting the 'SEND' button. What's next..oh yeah the invention of Wi-Fi, laptops and the whole Shabbang!!!..no wires no nothing...WHAO!! Oh yeah TV's that hang on the wall...I remember people going and looking at their back sides with disbelief comparing them to the gigantic giants that weighed about a ton Atleast that they had at home (still talking about televisions people...keep your heads in the right context). I mean as i'm writing this it's starting to get more absurd and I think i'm getting a few grey hairs in the process. One of my aunt sometimes says to me, you guys were born in the refrigeration era...and I always used to think big deal...I mean wasn't it the Ice-Age when they didn't have these things in existence ppsshhh. But now I think when my kids grow up i'll be saying to them...you know what when I was young you couldn't rewind Live TV you know...and they'll be like, 'Mom that was like when Dinosaurs roamed the Earth'. God how fast is the world moving. Okay here's another one, who remembers watching 'The Jetsons' and thinking that those Video Phones were the coolest things from the future and like that could ever happen, SKYPE anyone???? aaaaaaaaahhhh I feel about 150 years old right now. This is becoming ridiculous I think I should stop writing...... 

Allergies Shamallergies

Well guess who's mocking who now? The allergies won this season. I swear I used to think it's a made up disease, people popping allergy meds seemed addicts to me, guess who got a kick in the butt!! Well now I can say that I am officially a citizen of the West. You don't become totally American till you get to say 'These Allergies are killing me this season'. The only thing that tingles my taste buds these days are 'Sour Patch Kids' yummm who thinks they are totally awesome!!! me me me. The stuffy nose and headaches are so bad, I think i'm up to 4 cups of tea (yes yes no coffee yet, I love my tea, can't give it up for the West just yet) now. You know that commercial where they show you this guy sneezing outside under the tree and the song in the background 'It's A Lovely Day' but the guy is having a horrible time. That's exactly how I felt at the park the other day. I had never ever even payed attention to that commercial but now it's ringing in my head. Ah, pollen pollen go away come back some other day. The End.

Who taught her?

Okay seriously who told my 10 month old that emptying out a drawer full of clothes is an awesomely cool thing to do.

And apparently HilArioUS. This little rascal was giggling through the whole drawer busting episode. I mean come on who tells these kids that this is fun, and she knew she was doing something sneaky because she kept on looking at me with this cheeky smile. She even reached for the second drawer but when I  said "No" she started crying, giving me tears and all. Making me feel guilty for a mess she made, genius. This kid is gonna rule the world.

Have my cake and eat it too!

So me and Miss A. made a cake for no apparent reason. She had found this no.3 candle in the drawer from her birthday a few months ago and kept bugging me to get her a cake. So I thought i'd get some cake mix and frosting and have at another attempt of mother-daughter bonding time in the kitchen. We did actually manage to make it with probably half a roll of paper towel to spare, which is pretty awesome. But here's the thing, guess who played and guess who ATE!!! aaaaaaahhh the poor girl only wanted to light the candle and blow on it ...probably lick a little bit of the icing like she does off cupcakes but not eat it. I ended up with a scrumptious Hershey chocolate laden fluffy yummy mountain of cake. Ah what to do, dilemma, dilemma, so I did what had to be done....yum yum yum. Apparently I have put my dieting back a few months and as of right now I am in the middle of a severe sugar crash...someone help me!!!  Anyone out there who can take this thing and run coz I might try to come after. This plan totally back-fired in a way I did not anticipate. I am just so sleepy right now, not funny. Cake anyone?

Bribery

I recently realized, when kids get out of diapers, the diaper budget is replaced by the 'bribery budget'. My shopping trips have become a tug of war of mommy gets 20 minutes if toddler gets 2 bucks of stuff. So i'm paying this kid by the hour to do "my" work. Who's the boss here? So before this kids starts generating an income from me I have to come up with an evil mom plan or something. God I tell you these kids are the most manipulative beings you will ever deal with in your life. It's just too easy to fall for them, so cute, so innocent, NOT! I think they should make Dollar Stores next to grocery stores, I swear they'll do more business. The balloon lady at the grocery store now knows us and the only question she asks and not me, my toddler is, what color would you like? She knows what color string, how long it should be, everything. The thing is though that it works. Rather than dealing with the drama of crying and wailing and tantrums every 32 seconds it's good to have an incentive for them to behave, something to look forward to. This lady has moped pretty much the floors of Giants, Target and Walmart with her tantrum episodes but since bribing has come in to play I get hardly any of that. It goes like 'Do you want to sit on the floor or eat popsicles?' guess which one she'd go for. So for a $1.89 I can have a decent shopping trip without too many hiccups and leave without making 15 people swear they won't ever have children. Mom's know its a freaking deal. The only flaw in this oh-so-perfect plan is that bribe money is proportional to the age of the child. Even now my 3 year old would ask to get atleast 4 things out of which i'll agree on on. Every few feet she picks up something and says 'mommy go home now?'. All she knows is that we are there to buy her crap. So now for every trip i've decided that two bucks is the limit. Let's see how long thats going to work. Things kids make us do,tsk tsk.

Supermoms....

I hate you. No kidding make us regular kind feel bad. So bad. Ah! the guilt. I woke up around 7:45am (well technically never slept much in the night..little one has been fussy for the last three days..teeth, weather...who knows), rolled out of bed, tumbled downstairs to get both the kids their morning milk, flopped back in bed for just 10 more minutes, blissful 10 minutes. Got back up and opened the blinds with half my eyes open and an oncoming headache just to see my neighbor who has four kids under the age of 5, all of them dressed up, hair done, fed, playing outside in their driveway. I stood there for a while thinking what time did she wake up, what did she give them for breakfast, when did they take baths, so many questions. I don't know man it's usually 9:30 or 10 that my morning routine is done to a T. Anyways after looking at that I think it inspired me enough to take the kids out to the park all fed and dressed by 9:45am and force some supermom pride in me. Tomorrow I might not pull up the blinds of my bedroom window...lamp light gives a much more guilt-less glow.

My baby can read!

I'm talking about a 3 year old not like a 6 month old they show in the commercials, I mean comeon!!!! really? between diaper changes and sleepless nights these people had time to show their babies flash cards to memorize. I'm not saying babies don't have the ability i'm just saying it's a bit ridiculous don't ya think. Talk about pressure building, in the next ten years they'll want us to read the Encyclopedia Britannica to babies in the womb so they come out reciting Shakespere. I do believe in enabling, providing them the tools and having progressive playtime with them . They learn things faster than you can keep up but there are always signs of readiness they show for any kind of learning. Miss A. knew how to count to 13 and knew the entire alphabet by the time she was 18 months, she showed the interest, I just enabled, never forced always fun. Beginning of reading started when she became interested in memorizing spelling of words she liked. Obviously first you read to them and point out words and show them that they consist of a buncha letters, that's the effort I did put in knowing my child's own abilities and readiness to understand when the time was right. I wasn't expecting much but she caught on really fast and seemed very curiously interested. Then started asking me spellings of different colors because at that time that's what she was in to, colors, colors and colors. She would keep on asking till she knew them by heart. Repetition people, an amazing tool for babies and toddlers. Anyhow, that's how it started. So recently she got in to playing computer games, so as soon as I came across the website www.starfall.com I got her hooked on it. People if you have a toddler around the same age its an Amazing tool. They have these silly songs that teach you the sounds all letters make and rhyming stories with funny characters. Love It!!! So here and there she has started recognizing familiar words and I just get so excited everytime she picks up a word off a billboard or cereal box. So if this is helpful information for anyone out there i'm beyond glad and I know a few more websites I can provide if you'll leave me a message in the comment box. Cheers.

I'm Dirty.

I know what you're thinking, get your head out of the gutter you're better than that. It's a PG blog dear. By dirty I actually mean filthy, grimy kind of. I know eww but don't stop yet I can explain. You see kids get in to all these messes (I know blame the kids how original) but they do. How many have had a three year old painting for 2 hours and a 10 month old eat pasta with tomato sauce and banana by hand....trust me all squishy, ooey, gooey. Then these things magically start ending up on your own clothes. Today I looked down at my jeans and pure white T-shirt I couldn't believe I went grocery shopping like that. It had pasta sauce, red and green paint and spilled tea. And that's just the stuff I could see. The pasta splatted on me while I was cleaning the floor, it came from above, highchair anybody? Then my older one painting dropped the bottle of red paint on her own clothes and while I was cleaning that I knocked over the green bottle. The comes the tea. Yes people I was drinking it not the kids but my 10 month old decided it was a good day to try to walk and was about to fall flat on her face, so there goes that white "tea"-shirt. I swear I feel like a mop sometimes. The other day I made french fries for the cuties and Miss A. (3 year old) finished her plate and came to give me a Big Hug...oil stain galore. I feel like I have to change clothes three times a day to look all sparkly clean by night time but can you imagine the laundry load I would have everyday if I did that. Ah I just hope i'm not the only messy mama in the neighborhood. The sad part or good part which ever one is is that my kids are always squeaky clean at the end of the day, I think I need a mommy too.

The Deep Blue

No no not the movie or the actual thing but the thing inside a building. Yes people we took the kids to the Aquarium. Well technically kid because the 10 month old was just along for the ride. She's such a glory seeker I swear, the older one was ranting fishys fishys while this little thing was trying to get attention from whoever happened to lay eyes on her. One lady who was pushing a stroller herself started looking at miss Z and she smiled first then waved her hand, the lady was so aw struck that she pushed her own kid in to a wall. The husband came running told her to pay attention, poor guy probably thinking ''women can never be too satisfied with anything". Anyways as my older one laid eyes on her first fishy tank with all it's glory waterfall and all and she started to do the ugly cry. I mean come on! I don't know I guess she was kind of under the illusion that we were joking or the fish would be plastic, no idea sometimes even if she likes something too much she starts crying, confusing to some but that how it goes in her world. Well by the fourth tank I think she got the idea and started enjoying the whole process. If you ask me man marine life kind of freaks me out. I have a phobia of the deep sea anyways, I hate any kind of boating, open blue water, or water body's I cannot see the bottom of. If anybody ever told  me that jellyfishes and octopus are creatures from another planet I would so believe them. Any land animal doesn't look as foreign as these sea creatures. Well anyways we went from fish to penguins to seals to hippos was quite the journey for her. I think the only thing she actually hated were those stinking mascots. I don't know about you but they 'Freak Me Out' and they freaked her out too. There was this one dressed up as a Hippo and when he walked it sounded like he was wearing stilettos. Every time he came around you could tell he's coming from a mile away and she would jump on me 10 minutes before his entrance, ugh! only if I could just push him over or something. Anyways as all trips end we dragged our kids to the car, one crying 'more fishys more fishys' even after four hours and then falling asleep in 20 seconds after sitting in her car seat. Pooped and pooped we drove back home, all in all a good trip.

"Mommy You're Heavy!"

Oh no you didn't. Three minute time-out for you little missy. Yeah don't look at me (my blog) like that, it was called for, I know you all are giving me the bad eye, the guilty eye and the mean eye. Well I know you're right that time-out happened only in my head but hey sometimes the truth can't be taken in all at once. It's like going through the stages of mourning (mourning your old waist line and hip size). First comes denial, no man i'm not fat, please I kind of fit into almost all my clothes. Then comes anger, how dare you, are you kidding me, you're fat too. The comes bargaining, I can definitely eat 4 cookies I mean better than eating 10. Then depression...Oh God i'm so fat, I hate you mirror. Then comes acceptance (after gaining atleast 6 more pounds), okay better buy a bag of grapefruits instead of yummy gummys. I hate talking about dieting but when you're baby comes up to you and wants to play soccer for an hour and you're done in 5, time to go out for some serious stroller-running, crunches and lunges. Wish me luck.

The Monster Roar

Have you ever noticed a kind of spooky, scary, hair-in-your-neck standing, pee-in-your-pants voice come out of yourself. I hadn't till I became a mom. Oh dear Lord I think first time I heard it come out of me I jumped myself. I love my kids to death and I have quite a bit of patience mind you and I can stand fussing for a while but there comes a time when you are on the edge and cannot take it anymore and they just keep on going, pushing you and pushing you. I swear they just don't hear the sweet, kind sounds that come from you when you're telling them, that's enough now, cut it out, time-out ring a bell?, but then there comes this ROAR!! and all of a sudden things are quiet and you have their attention. Lo and behold mission accomplished. But that roar is something like an outer body experience because you don't know yourself that you had it in you. I think every mom has it, I remember when I was a kid I knew it by the tone in my mothers voice when fun time was over and I would be better off crawling under my bed. I think it's border line hilarious, creepy and sad at the same time but people sometimes its the only thing that works.

Recipe Time Again

Fish In Foil

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

Fish - Tilapia, Salmon or Red Snapper

Garlic - 3 cloves

Dried Thyme - 1/2 tsp

Butter - 1/2 stick

paprika - to taste

lemon juice - to taste

salt & pepper

scallions (spring onions) - 1/2 cup

Method:

Take a piece of foil and put the fish fillet in the middle. Now take a small sauce pan and heat  it up, add butter, thinly sliced garlic, dried thyme and let it warm up with the butter to infuse butter with the flavor. Take off the heat in a few minutes.

Season the  fish with salt, pepper and paprika. Squeeze on some lemon juice.

Now pour at least 2 to 3 tablespoon of the butter with garlic slices onto the fish.

Sprinkle a tablespoon of scallions if you want.

Now roll-up and pack up the fish in the foil and put it in the oven at 350F on a baking sheet. Let it cook for about 20 minutes, depending on the size of the fillets adjust the time.

Fish comes out juicy and delicious. Serve with mashed potatoes and a side of spinach.

I Got My Cool On!!

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH, and that's what I did on the weekend. Yes people I picked up my mama-butt and went to a concert. After four years for the first time went and did my thing without my kids or hubby in tow. Thanks to my peeps who dragged my sorry ass to this exhilarating concert otherwise I could have easily just sat at home and changed diapers and folded laundry in my sweats. I came back home high on the experience and now when i am cleaning poo and scrubbing orange juice off the carpet I have a spring in my step. I probably did not realize how much it means to 'get a break'. I might not be complaining for a while I guess and that kind of gives me a lot of free time, hm.. what do I do now. I think I used to be nervous and guilty leaving my kids even for a few hours. It was hard for me to let go and trust that they'll be okay even with their dad. Thank God for my husband that he forced me to go to this thing. I guess he did it for his own sanity as well as mine because I was about to loose it. Dancing on chairs is good for you moms, should go do it once in a while.

Packing for A Two Day Trip

Feels like i'm moving, really does. If only you could see the amount of stuff I have to pack to go on a two day trip your eyeballs might pop out. Apparently I'm going so I could have fun but as of right now it feels like work. I've been getting things ready since yesterday believe it or not and I have to leave today in the evening and i'm thinking even then i'll be running around like a chicken getting everything together. Writing this isn't helping my time management but procrastinating seemed to be logical at this time. Whenever I go somewhere I think it takes me three trips to the car to get everything inside, and then we are the first leave because 3 or 4 hours is the maximum time they give us. I guess the smaller you are the more stuff you need to compensate for your size. Anyways enough chatter got to go back to my packing, two carry-on's and a diaper bag left. UGH!

Encouragement Vs. Criticism

As I sat researching about behavior issues of toddlers it hit me, my baby is actually a tiny person. I know you always think about them that way but to actually act and respect them as little persons is something at least I wasn't doing.The more I read the more I became conscious of the fact that I better mind my words and my attitude in front of her.I went in to this blog thinking how I'll write that kids need more criticism than the ridiculous encouragement band-wagon everyone is getting on. But guess what the first thing I come across is, a poem by Dorothy Law Nolte, a few lines in respect to this blog are:

If children live with criticism, they learn to condemn

If children live with encouragement, they learn confidence

That made me instantly realize that's how I am, I am a person who condemns since I come from a place where criticism is the integral part of your upbringing. Confidence I lack and the reason is apparent. I apparently have to change a very basic and engraved part of my personality in order to give my kids the confidence I desperately want them to have.

Encouragement is easy coming but criticism and by that I mean constructive criticism or behavior-correcting stances that you have to take are tricky business. First of all if a kid breaks something or does something wrong, we have to stop our reflex action. Kids get in to trouble at least 50 times a day and if every single time I get frustrated, say demeaning words and criticize her for her actions it will be devastating for her personality. Now I know I have to stop, calm myself down, gather my thoughts and make an act-consequence routine.

I think I related criticism with rejection. But I realized one had nothing to do with the other. My point is to teach kids what rejection is and how to deal with it. It is an integral part of growing up and I want my kids to know how to accept and deal with it without getting depressed. 

Encouragement however, I realized the more the merrier. Like us adults, if someone says something nice and if we get appreciated even for the smallest thing, it stays in our heads for the longest time and makes up happy happy happy. 

So everybody out there great job and well done for all the good work done. Keep it up.

Yard Work

It's not like I do any but it makes me mental!! The thing is it's my husbands all-time favorite, back-breaking, labor-intensive, muscle-pulling pass time. So the minuscule time he is at home and can take care of the kids in any way he's got a long long list of things to do in the yard.I mean I definitely enjoy a lush green lawn but hey am still stuck with my diaper-changing, baby feeding, behavior-managing duties. I just want to do something other than what I do 24 hours of the day. And after he's done he's pulled at least a muscle to have a genuine reason to plop on the couch and be served painkillers and food. I told him well how about I do all the yard work instead, he thought I was being funny. I mean it would just tank his reputation in front of the neighbors. So now it's just become yet another thing the wife nags him about. Darn this nagging tag that we poor women have to deal with...i swear husbands nag the same its just called 'reasoning' when they do it. I think if I can somehow manage to get involved in the work I'll be very happy. I do enjoy the yard work if he lets me touch it, I just don't wanna end up running after the kids. I think when he says 'honey will you watch the kids while I do this' makes me loose my head because i'm thinking 'what the hell do you think I was doing with the rest of my time'. I guess it's sort of their escape, like golfing, but you have to teach them the concept that we need time off too. Being a stay-at-home-mom does not automatically mean break-time 24/7. I guess I need to go shopping more often.

Why God should give mom's a pass on the Flu

Here's the thing when moms get sick.....nobody cares. That just about rounds it out. You could have 103F fever, chicken pox and a stomach bug altogether and still no one will get you a glass of water and a cup of soup. Except you will hear Mommy!!! where's my milk, honey where are my socks and the baby throwing food at you instead of eating and dirtying 5 diapers instead of 3. I swear if only, only if, however many ways  you can say it, can we Phulease get a day off. Try throwing the day-off idea to the husband and he'll look at you like you've asked him to give birth. I know I complain alot but whats a blog for. One of my aunts once told me pre-kids that the only people who will ever genuinely ask you how you are doing are your own parents. Those are the only two people who would ask if you feel better, if they could come over and feel bad for you. I think it's what she told me that keeps me from going loco on Mr.Z and the kids. This darned Flu that i've had the past few days has tested my limits of patience and my driving skills. Try driving with a migraine and two screaming kids and i'll ask you how far you get. Well you'll make it home from the grocery store but don't try to do more. Here's to taking care of yourself.

Flopsicles

Okay so has anyone ever tried making Popsicles with a 2 or 3 year old. Well this dude Zefronk (mom's who watch Playhouse Disney know who i'm talking about) let me on to it. So I decide why not, sounds like fun and my kiddo loves them so much she can go through at least four in five minutes. So I set up the table and bring out this popsicle holder thing with colorful sticks and things, my new carton of orange juice, a new paper towel roll and a spongy sponge. So we started pouring juice in the little sections and sticking the sticks in. The darn thing took about more than half the orange juice carton. Then my daughter thought that dipping the sticks in and out in and out in and out and licking them was just toooo much fun and ooo soo yummy. So we did that for about 30 minutes and i think dumped about a cup of juice here and there. Anyways, after a fight and some resistance I talked and bribed her into putting the thing in the freezer and explained to the best of my abilities how this juice will turn into a Popsicle stick which will be the awesomest thing in the world. Well she bought into the whole deal and I had to pull and push to close the freezer door. Now about 20 seconds later she's like mommy are they done yet? I'm like no girly you have to wait, I swear if she could talk better she would've said...what the hell does 'waiting' mean. So I tried to explain the concept of time and space and how the hands of the clock go one way and what the numbers represent (woooff). well 10 seconds after I was done she said, mommy are they ready yet? I was about to pull my hair off,not really but you know if mom's pulled their hair out everytime something like this happened we will be bald by the time the babies are 3 months old. Well I was like lets play this that and the other she agreed. After 2 minutes she comes and says so mommy can I have ice cream instead...I was like ohhkay so as soon as I open the fridge she crawls from under me and pulls out the popsicle tray...sneaky sneaky kid. One more cup of juice on the floor and in the freezer. At that point I just took it out and let her lick the sticks till the juice was done. So ladies and gentlemen I suggest this...unless your kid knows what "waiting" and "freezing" means do not attempt to make popsicles. Thank you.

O Sleepless Nights

man O man how many sleepless nights can one take. Well after two kids I realized quite a bit. I mean you won't be the sweetest pumpkin pie on the block but you can survive. My older one always had sleep issues so I read almost anything and everything on how to make babies sleep better was even tempted to order a fifty dollar book but dear lord O mighty the words 'baby' and 'sleep' do not go together in atleast my dictionary. I used to bathe and massage her every night before bed and she still got up every hour and a half to two hours.  The first year you might get a full nights sleep once in probably 3 or 4 weeks. With my older one though I got a continuous 4 hours of sleep once in 13 months. The only thing that helps is if you teach your baby to fall asleep on their own without any aid...no bottle, no binky, no rocking, no singing, no dancing. For alot of mom's out there you know that sometimes you don't have a choice and at one point you want the darn thing to just go to sleep (I say that with all the love in the world). With my second baby my mom suggested a binky to help sooth her to sleep, now I wake up three, four times a night to go find it for her and give it to her. Seriously, one time my neighbor, she has twins by the way, told me the twins took 4 hour naps and slept 12 hours straight at night, I thought she was taunting & teasing me. Who are these people and who are those kids man....what am I doing so wrong.  

Any hooo, the best solution to this problem I found was to let the baby go to sleep on their own and they'll do that after crying and whimpering a bit becasue da da da rein...they know as little tots how to manipulate and blackmail you into picking them up and being there for their every illegal need. Well sometimes the crying is a bit much so do go and sooth them because they have to know you are around. And as i'm writing this my baby has woken up in the middle of her sleep so..back to my 24 hour shift. Good luck to the other moms out there.

Recipe Time (Great for Lunch)

JUMBO SHELLS WITH SHRIMP & ALFREDO SAUCE

Prep Time: 10 minutes   Cook Time: 15 minutes

Serves: 2 to 3

Ingredients:

Jumbo Shells -  15 to 20

Shrimps - cooked, small (20 to 30)

Alfredo sauce - one bottle (any kind)

Cajun seasoning - to taste

Directions:

Bring a pot of water to a rolling boil, add salt to taste and the jumbo shells. cook till aldente'.

Add 1 tablespoon of butter to a frying pan, add the shrimp and season with cajun seasoning and a pinch of salt. Cook till done and set aside.

Take the cooked pasta shells arrange then in an oven-proof serving dish and put 2 shrimps in each shell. Pour the entire bottle of alfredo sauce on top. Sprinkle cajun seasoning. Bake at 375F for 15 minutes.

Serve with garlic bread.

You can easily add more to this dish, but this is the basic spin on it. It's easy, quick and yummy. I always have these things in my pantry and a bag of frozen cooked shrimp in the freezer so it's a quick meal any day.

Hope you guys enjoy.

First Park Day

It was the first nice day of spring and who wants to stay home right. Lo and behold a plan for a trip to the park was made thinking what a good idea. For some reason completely being oblivious to the fact that it might be everyone's idea. Let me tell you the darn park was so crammed that I had to park on the street. It was like people had been put off of of house arrest or something. Anyone who was anyone was there at this teeny little park having lunches and mommy play groups and what not. Tough winter is all I can say. The awkward thing though is that you make small talk with every mom you stand with while giving your child a push on the swing, or trying to keep them from going up the slide instead of down, during all this time you know how many kids they have, how old they are, what they do for a living, how their husbands are and then not even know their name.Then all of a sudden you go well Bye, see you again sometime (maybe). Is it just me who feels weird because i'm always thinking should I have given my phone number, she seemed so nice, should've atleast told my name etc etc. Anyone with a better send-off edition please let me know.

Busy Food

For a baby pasta is like the best food I think you could give. I mean screw the nutritional value they can easily kill an hour just playing with the darn thing. Anyways make it with a little bit of ground beef, tomato sauce and garlic powder I guarantee your baby will eat it and it will be good for him.
The older one is now into computer games. She plays for a coupla hours at a time. It was well quite exciting at first that she could open the laptop, enter the password, open explorer and go on her webpage all by herself and play. Now it's been a week and i'm thinking do I restrict it, do I limit it, I don't know it seems kids get a bit isolated playing these games and they seem so darn addictive. I can give her this much as of right now when I ask her to click on the red 'x' and close the computer she listens. Wonder how long that will last. Spring is here so thank God we can take them out to play, really really looking forward to that.
By the way the previous poop issue seems to be settling down, sorry for talking about it in the first post, but people it's not only mom's who are so interested in poopy business i mean Oprah doesn't have kids and see how excited she gets.
Would love comments from anyone reading the good the bad or the ugly, here anything goes.

Here go's

I'm a stay-at-home mom of two little girls. One is three and one is nine months old. Let me tell you the things I encounter with my three year old sometimes boggle my mind. For some odd reason the baby is less trouble. Either I think parents are too hard on their first-born to begin with or its just me. The latest thing in the book is "mommy my tummy hurts". UGH!!! it just drives me nuts because I really don't know whats going on with her and what I should do about it. I remember as a little girl I had the same thing I think I must have bugged my mom for about 6 or 7 years with the tummy ache problem. Now I know why she just lost her poor mind when I said the same sentence pretty much 5 times a day every day. Well my 3 year old was having bad poopies for a month and then few weeks ago she caught a stomach bug so I did ask the pediatrician and she put her on the Lactose-Free milk so now i'm in the testing phase. Gotta run that for about 2 weeks and then we call for poop cultures. And mom's out there only you can know how its gonna go when it comes to taking a sample. By the way people it was such a relief for me to know I had an alternative to milk and I didn't have to cut it out of her diet because you can't take them off milk that easy.Hmmm.. wonder if we could do the same for infants, give them that lactose-free formula when the catch those bugs here and there. Well sweet dreams to all the mommy's out there, we know how rare sleep-full nights are.