The Tee*nage Years in Two Minutes

This is a very informative video about discipline in the tee*n years of a female.

OK, so she needs some voice lessons, but this is pretty darn funny! And in case you wondered, the music is from Rossini’s “William Tell Overture”.

** Music teachers out there~ Wouldn’t this be a great addition to a lesson on this piece of music? I can’t wait till I teach Middle School General Music again. Wait…I take that back.

PS Did y’all really think I had the key to discipline?

This post will appear in the Mothers and Daughters Blog Carnival hosted right here on Monday! Submit your post about being a mother (of girls) or a daughter, or in the case of Lynnae, BOTH!

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Why I Am Not Having Any More Kids

I found this Eb*ay Item through ClassicMama’s Thoughts. You have to read this if you have ever taken all of your children to the grocery store! This is the funniest thing I have ever seen being auctioned off on Eb*ay. It’s becoming quite a web phenomenon. Scroll down to the description.

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Elmo Groupie

Why is it that toddlers love Elmo so much? Is it the blinding red fur? The cute as a button, slightly nasal voice? The annoying giddy laugh? What is it that makes my toddler scream “Mamo!!!!” every time she catches a glimpse of him, and why is he the only show she will sit and watch while I take a shower? Maybe it’s because he gets to color on his walls and furniture.

Somethings in this life I will just never figure out.

Remember…Elmo loves you!!

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Mom Profile: The Don’t-Stay-at-Home Mom

I am honored to be called a Stay-at-Home-Mom. I believe there is nothing more important than raising the next generation. A couple of the job titles I could put on my business card are:

• Head Chef and Nutritionist
• Financial Manager
• Sanitation Specialist
• Child Development Expert and Child Psychologist
• Acquisitions Manager (aka professional shopper, and a frugal one, at that!)
• Chauffer
• The list goes on

So when people ask me if I feel bad for not using my college degree, I just laugh.

Anyway, one day, I mentioned that I was a Stay-at-Home-Mom(SAHM). My husband promptly replied, “You are not a SAHM!”

“EXCUSE ME?! Don’t I stay with your 3 children pretty much 24/7? “

“Oh, you stay with the kids, but you’re never home! You’re at the store, the gym, playgroups, mom’s groups, park, pool, need I say more?”

“Oh, well, in that case, you’re right.”

And there you have it – The Don’t-Stay-at-Home-Mom (DSAHM)

• The DSAHM wants to be a full-time mom, wants to be there most of the time while the kids are in their formative years. She just doesn’t necessarily want to do it at the house.
• The DSAHM begins to feel the walls creeping in after two full days at home, say stuck in a snowstorm or with a car in the shop. In this case, if the Husband doesn’t let her go out alone to meet her friends, the family will have to endure a psychotic breakdown.
• The DSAHM crams her schedule so full of activities that even she, Mrs. Active, gets overwhelmed sometimes. It is helpful to have a strong Husband who will occasionally say, “Are you CRAZY? You cannot fit another thing into your schedule!” At which point the DSAHM will mope a little while, secretly elated that her husband nixed her newest endeavor.
• The DSAHM is a little jealous of the true SAHM, who is peacefully content in her own world at home.

So, are you a true SAHM, or a DSAHM like me?

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Mommy Brain

My hairdresser once said to me, “Can I please dye your hair blond so you’ll have an excuse?” (an excuse for being so air-headed, that is!) Not that blonds really are air-headed; a lot of my best friends are blonds, really. Anyway, that was before I had kids. You can imagine what happened to me after the miraculous arrivals of three brain-sucking aliens, ahem, beautiful babies.

Thus, I was introduced to the condition commonly referred to as “Mommy Brain.” In researching this article I found some interesting information on Mommy Brain. First, that it is actually called Mommy Brain. In fact, there were 159,799 results for it on Good Search. Phew! I’m not alone! The website AHealthyMe.com cited “one small study [which] looked at images of the brains of healthy pregnant woman and detected a temporary slight shrinkage in the overall size of the brain during the latter stages of pregnancy as well as an increase in the size of the pituitary gland.

AHA! I’m not insane! I’m not stupid! (well, at least not stupid-er) I am only temporarily brain-size-impaired! Can I get a special license plate for that?

Journalist Katherine Ellison’s book is called “The Mommy Brain: How Motherhood Makes Us Smarter”. Well, she has never met me! I could tell you a few stories! In fact, why don’t I do that right now. You don’t have anything planned for the next three hours, do you? No, really, I thought it would be good to let other brain-size-impaired moms feel better by sharing a few anecdotes.

A good example is 10 seconds ago, while I was trying to type “anecdotes,” I combined it with “antidotes” and wrote “antecdotes”. Hey, mommyhood has made me smarter: I just invented a new word!

Antecdotes: Personal stories shared between moms, which combat feelings of inadequacy, by highlighting the fact that you are not the only one who feels like an idiot sometimes!

So here goes. Shortly after my youngest, Little Pea’s birth, my daughters were invited to a Princess birthday party. When I got the invitation, I wrote the date on the calendar, threw away the card, and promptly called to RSVP. BTW, one of my pet-peeves is when people don’t RSVP, so I was doing great.

When the day came, my girls were beside themselves with excitement. They carefully dressed in their finest princess dress-up dresses, little plastic high-heels, jewelry and accessories. I did their hair and even a little glitter make-up. My girls would be the belles of the ball. We drove around to the back of the house where everyone usually parks, and – wait a minute – where are all the cars? Where are the party hosts? NO-BODY”S-HOME!! OMGoodness! I had written down the wrong date! The tears began to roll. The sobbing began. “We want to go to a princess party! You said it was today!” My favorite was the,” You ruined my life!” from my middle child, aptly nicknamed Princess.

Well, I took them out to lunch in their Princess get-up, so they would be properly “oohed and aahed.” The only problem was that when anyone asked why they were dressed up, they said, “We were supposed to go to a party, but Mommy got the day wrong.” Come on, can’t we lie, just this once?

Then there was the time I mysteriously found the cordless phone in the deep freezer, or when I went to the grocery store and realized forgot my wallet – after I got all my groceries. Then there’s- well, I think that’s enough for today.

A friend made me feel better today when she told me her mommy brain story. After getting home from the beach with her husband and three brain-suckers children, she had a job as a professional photographer at a wedding reception. She got all the way to the reception, only to realize she had left the memory card in the other camera – at home. The rest of the story would only happen in a sit-com:

• She raced home to get the card, and got back to the reception just in time.
• She raced to the baby-sitter to pick up the kids.
• She raced home, and fished for her house key, remembering that she took it off, and brought it in the house while she picked up her memory card.
• And, yes, had locked it in the house.
• Since the only two people who have another key were at the beach, she had to meet her husband (who was working 3rd shift) to get the key.
• And, yes, it was already 11:30.
• She finally got home at 1:00 am, slid the kids into bed, and collapsed from exhaustion. After all, she had woken up at 4:00 am that morning to drive home from the beach!

At least I didn’t do that, right? Well, moms, help me feel better. Leave a comment and share your Mommy Brain stories. You know you have one!

This post appears in TopBlogMag in the reader submissions. The topic is “stupidity.”

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How To Get Great Customer Service

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone said, You just can’t get good customer service anymore!” Well, actually, you can if you just know how to do it!

I was talking to a friend today about a certain office she needed help from. “Every time I call,” she said, “they tell me the person I need isn’t here and to call back later.” So I told her:

Here’s what you do. Instead of calling, just go to the office, go in and ask for what you need. Be sure to take your 3 year-old and your 1 year-old with you, preferably at nap time. When they say, “So and so isn’t here right now,” you say, “OK, I’ll wait.” Just plop right down in the waiting chair, get out the noisiest toy you have, and wait. If you still don’t get a response, you might try telling the 3 year-old that her sister just said she was a poo-poo head. There’s nothing like a toddler cat fight to get people moving! If all these tactics fail, bring out the orange cheese-crackers-with-peanut-butter-inside, and watch the office-workers dance. They will have you out of there in no time! This works for banks, insurance agencies, cell phone stores, you name it. However, it is not necessarily successful at doctor’s offices because they have those windows and they can just shut you out.

Now, a tip for when you call someone and get those annoying automated “customer service representatives.” Here’s how the conversation went last night.

Robot (on speaker phone): Hi, welcome to ______ Mortgage Company, your call is very important to us. If you would like account information, please say, “yes.”

Me: (silence)

Robot: I’m sorry, I’m having trouble understanding your response, If you would like account information, please say, “yes.”

Me: (a few snickers with my husband)

Robot: I’m sorry, I’m having trouble understanding your response, If you would like account information, please say, “yes.”

Me: (come on, don’t say anything, hold out one more time!)

Robot: Please wait while I transfer you to a customer service representative.

Me: Woo hoo! Jackpot! (high five with Hubby!)

See? I get to speak to a real person, and it only took 2 minutes of resisting the urge to follow directions! I hope these tips make your life a little easier today, and help you get through your to-do list a little quicker!

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Playing With Fire

What is it with men and fire? I don’t mean striking a match and watching it till it burns their fingers. I don’t mean counting the number of times they can run their fingers through a candle flame. I don’t even mean setting paper on fire and holding it till the last possible moment. No, I mean real fire… a brush fire! Men CANNOT resist a pile of brush cleared form a plot of land, just sitting there waiting, asking to be burned!

Picture me in the kitchen doing dishes. My husband comes in, and nonchalantly says, “I think I’ll go ahead and burn that brush pile.” What sparked this desire to ravage the pile? The neighborhood developer is burning brush on several other plots today. Something about the smell of the smoke invokes an innate desire to burn more stuff! It’s encoded in men’s DNA, and futile to try to resist. Just what does the brush pile look like? Well, see for yourself. My husband is the speck with the white shirt on.

Our conversation went like this:

S: Are you sure you can burn a pile that big safely?
J: Yeah, it’s not really that big.”
S: Still, why don’t we just split it up and burn it each time we have a campfire?
J: That would take too long. (Translation: it’s not as much fun. growl, growl)
S: I’m just not sure we should burn that big of a pile near the house.
J: It’ll be OK, I’ll stand right here with the hose.
S: (in a matter of fact tone) OK, but if the new house burns down, it’s your fault, OK?
J: OK
S: (sneaks back in to get the camera, then sneaks out to take pictures)
J: THIS BETTER NOT SHOW UP ON YOUR BLOG!

Sorry, honey, it’s just such an interesting study of the male psyche. I have to do it for science’s sake!

A few minutes later, the pile looked like this.

Then, this.

That’s him with the little hose standing in front of the TOWERING INFERNO!

Before you get too worried, it died down quickly, my husband got his fire fix, then went to mow the lawn on his new riding lawn mower. (grrrrr) Then, he chopped down two trees with his chainsaw. (grrr grrr) I’m not kidding. Ladies, he’s all man, and he’s all mine!

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Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

We have to leave the beach tomorrow. I never told all you bloggers I was at the beach, because Hubby was afraid all you criminals that read my blog would know we were gone for the week and clean out all the riches from the house. I’m surrounded by paranoids. Besides the fact that we have no riches, really, and I’m not just saying that so you won’t come steal them!

This year, we’ve had a really great time at the beach, thanks to my MIL and her fiance, who let us stay at their house. We are so thankful and they are so generous. This totally beats the year I was 7 months pregnant (you gotta love those maternity suits), or the year we had a 4 month-old with us! Our favorite aunt was also here this week, which made it even more fun. My two older kids are finally getting to the point where they will make friends and play with them, instead of constantly crawling all over us with wet, sandy bodies. Little Pea still gave me her fair share of sand/seaweed body masks. She has a great future in esthetics. My skin is much softer, now.

I am truly sad that we have to leave, so in order to cheer myself up, I thought I’d make a list of all the reasons I’ll be glad to get home.

• I miss my dog, Nigel.
• My friends miss me. (Just kidding, I miss them) I can’t wait to get together again, maybe I’ll have a “hey, we’re home” party. Any excuse to have a party!
• Maybe I’ll poop again soon. I’ve gained 4 pounds and it ain’t all fat, know what I mean?
• I don’t know if it’s hormones or because I’m half Italian, but my upper lip always gets more tan than the rest of my face. It looks like a mustache; I’ve got to get out of the sun and get rid of that!
• The new park in town is opening, and I can’t wait to pawn off take the kids there.
• Last, but not least, to sleep in my own bed! Although the one here is pretty comfortable, too.

Well, next time I write, I’ll be safely ensconced behind my own computer desk, and a couple of pounds lighter…I hope.

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In the Words of the Governator…

I’LL BE BACK!

I’ll be away from the blogosphere for about a week, although I might peek in mid-week, or so. When I return – the long-awaited and very late conclusion to Praying the Blessing of Asher. I know, bad blogger! While I’m gone, look around the archives or Favorite Posts .

Now, I’ll leave you with some pumping-up advice from the Governator himself.

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Toddler-to-English Dictionary

The writers at TopBlogMag, are writing on the theme, “What did you say?” Go over there and read other great posts! If you’d like to join in, you can get a link to your post on the TopBlogMag site.

I’ve never considered myself fluent in any other language than English. In college, studying voice, I learned to translate and pronounce Italian, Latin, French and German. I can carry on an elementary conversation in Spanish, with phrases such as:

“Donde esta el bano?” (Where is the bathroom?)
“Tu bebe es muy linda!” (You’re baby is very pretty!)
“Quiero el numero vente dos con refritos, y no arroz, por favor.” (I would like number 23 with beans, and no rice, please.)
And no, I did not look these up before posting today!

Just recently, I realized I am fluent in a foreign language. I can speak perfect Toddler-ese! My toddler, I call her Litttle Pea, after the Princess and the Pea, completely understands everything she says, while no one else has a clue. So, I find myself translating often. Here are a few entries in my Toddler-to-English Dictionary.

bubby: (n.) Baby, poopy, boobies, bra, or pacifier. You must recite the list back to her until you get a nod. (Don’t ask me why she would want a bra, but one time I found her waddling around with one around her neck like a scarf.)

wah wah: (n.) Water, juice, milk, or any other liquid suitable for drinking. Actually this also applies to moldy juice or congealed milk left in the car for any number of days.

nana: (n.) Banana, crackers, pinto beans, yogurt, or any other type of food. Banana was the first “food” word she said, so now she thinks all food is “nana.” Reciting the list of plain-view foods is the only way to decipher this word.

nnnnoo!!: (adv.) no, used to express refusal, denial, disbelief, emphasis, or disagreement. She picked up on this one very quickly. Go figure! (And yes, I did have to look up the part of speech for “no.” Well, did you know it?)

huh me: (full sentence) hold me. Beware, if this request is not accommodated, it will be repeated at ever increasing volumes until satisfied.

duh doo: (sentence) thank you, love you, or maybe tattoo, I’m not really sure?

“Ah ba bubby de da wah-wah do dah nana” This passage is open to interpretation. Some common translations include:

“The baby wants some juice and a banana.”
“I threw your bra in the toilet water with some crackers.”
“I poopied in the bath water because you fed me too many pinto beans!”

As you can see, Toddler-ese is very subjective and takes years to master. I hope this has given you some enlightenment in the area of this dialect. You may just surprise your friends by understanding their toddler’s ramblings.

Buh-Bah! I mean, bye bye!

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