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.