Cute Stuff

1. The Baby says "zip it" like this, "Yip it!" I love putting on her jacket for this reason alone. :D
2. The Boy woke up Sunday morning and asked for muffins. Then he said, "First, I'm going to eat muffins, and then pop-eyes and then go trick-or-treating and then to sleep. Wake up, eat muffins and pop-eyes AGAIN and the go to sleep again AND trick-or-treat again!" I think this is funny, because he NEVER wants to sleep. 
3. The Boy LOVES singing time in nursery. He does all the actions to the songs and sings very loudly. He's pretty much the only kid that sings during singing time. He's gotten quite good at memorizing. 
4. The Baby has started to take turns saying prayers. She's very good at it! The Boy gets reasonably upset when it's her turn, but I think he's catching on that we all get a turn at some point, even if it's not right then

Halloween 2010

     I don't care which major holiday it is, it does NOT start at 4am (NOTE: my birthday being the major exception. Say, for instance, you bought me a surprise trip to Cancun for my birthday. I would cheerfully get up at 4am to make the airport on time.)
Can someone please tell my son this holiday rule, because he did not believe me when I informed him of this fact...at 4am. He wanted breakfast. He wanted oatmeal. He wanted to watch a show on the wii. He wanted to go trick-or-treating. I wanted to go back to sleep! Finally we told him to get some grapes from the fridge and be happy we weren't locking his bedroom door with him inside.

He left us alone... for 4.2 seconds. 

Then he started playing the piano. 

Loudly. 

At that point I caved and turned on Caillou via the wii, changed The Baby's diaper (because she too, found it hard to sleep through the bad piano playing) and settled my kids on the couch with a sack of grapes, and went back to bed. 

It was 5:30am. 

We attended a seriously lame Halloween "Carnival" at the local community college where my kids picked up just enough sugar to make the ride home bearable. 

After naps we tricked everyone out in costumes and headed to a chili feed and trunk-or-treat. I think next year we will just eat at home and trick-or-treat in the neighborhood. 

We did a Wizard of Oz Theme, obviously. The Hubs is the Wizard. Brother-in-law one is the Scarecrow, Sister One is a citizen of Emerald City. Niece One is Dorothy. The Boy as a Cowardly Lion, The Baby as Glenda, me as The Wicked Witch (it was a stretch to really sell the role) and Sister Three as a flying monkey.

At one point the Hubs says, "Don't believe anything The Boy says tonight." I asked why, of course. 

The Hubs says, "Because, he'll be lion."  

This cape is totally vintage. My mom wore it when she was little. It's from Germany. 

(Mom, I'm so sorry Zsa Zsa got chocolatey drool on your super awesome cape. I will have it dry cleaned!)

My sweet baby niece who totally likes me better than almost anyone but her mom and dad. :D

This may be the only pudgy-cheeked photo of one of my children you will ever see. Sadly the cheeks are artificially puffy due to the tight hood on this super sweet cape. 

Ah well. 

Also, this is the perfect photo that captures what Halloween is all about.

You can see it in the sugar-glazed eyes and the intense focus on the chocolate in her hand.

HIATUS

ATTENTION:

This blog is on Hiatus until such a time as I regain my sanity 

or pass the Anatomy Lab Practical, 

which I suspect will be at about the same time.

LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Idaho Becky

PS If you see my brain (or bits of it) please mail it back. I need it by Friday morning, at the latest.

It's a Tuesday

Some stuff about today:

• I may just have an over-developed sense of irony, but isn't it a TAD silly for the aerobic portion of     The Bikini Workout to be swimming? Isn't the point of a Bikini Workout getting your body to a shape you'd feel comfortable WEARING a swimsuit, even for laps?

• I'm trying to help The Hubs be healthy, since he's almost 30 25. Today at the store I looked for vitamins. The only gummy adult vitamins were prenatals. I figure as long as I change the label before The Hubs sees it, we're golden. A little extra Folic Acid won't hurt him any. 

•  Walking across campus through 30mph gusts in mesh tennis shoes got me thinking, I need some boots. And a new belt.

• the Hubs and The Boy got on my blog while I was oven-shopping with Mom. Here's what they wrote. My son totally hacked my blog, which is way embarrassing after making fun of my sisters when I hacked their facebook11111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111111. When I got home, I asked The Boy why he only typed numbers. He said he didn't like the letter k. It was ucky. 

• Off to do my math homework. These quadrinomials won't factor themselves, you know.FYI, spell check doesn't like the word, "quadrinomial". It wants me to change it to "quadriplegic" which I totally can't spell without the help of spell check. 
• Did I totally just spend 20 minutes adding a bikini model picture to my blog so more people would follow the link from Facebook? Yup. 

Stressed

I am SOOOOOOOOOOO stressed out!!!!!!!!!

Seriously.

1. School. I have a lab practical this Friday. It's over FOUR of the 11 systems in your body, but only 40 questions. Seriously? That is SO much material for 40 questions. Where do I even start studying? Did I mention there are only THREE lab practicals the entire semester? No? There are. Ack. Oh, and I have a math test that same day over stuff I don't get. Uh huh.

2. The Hubs job is seriously SERIOUSLY stressing me out. He's the lead programmer on this massive project that from my perspective doesn't appear to be going all that well. He's working until 11:30 some nights, weekends, he gets up early to work on it. It's probably that he's super in to doing a good job, but really, I never see him, even though he works from home.

3. Some other stuff I can't really talk about. This might be the thing that's stressing me out the most. Some income we count on to make the ends meet each month is not there, and it's making some other stuff look shaky at best and plus there's personal stuff mixed up into all of it and it's just a giant mess and pretty much all my fault, but I can't DO anything about it and I HATE stuff I can't do anything about and stuff that's my fault. How's that for a run-on sentence?

4. AND to top it all off, I'm not ready for Halloween. What kind of a mother AM I, anyway? A lousy one, that's what.

5. Also, BYU won this weekend, but barely. What the heck, Cougs? What the heck? Don't you know I have ENOUGH to worry about?

ADDENDUM: The Hubs just emerged from the dungeon basement and said all is well. He fixed the massive problem. The project is golden.Sigh of relief.

Sunday

1. Zsa Zsa spent the afternoon putting her kitties in timeout. It's kinda funny. "Yabadabadaba TIME OUT! Naw-ee!"

2. Today was the Children's Program in Sacrament Meeting. It's pretty much my favorite Sunday of the year and this year was the best ever Children's Program, except for the years I participated, of course.

3. I got to be *alone* at home with The Hubs this afternoon. Mom was taking my sister back to school and the kids were napping. We totally watched TV the entire time. "Psych" is just that compelling.

4. Can a day still be someone's birthday if that someone is no longer living? Because if so, today is my dad's birthday. I totally made his favorite meal.

5. We're an entire WEEK past the middle of the semester.

6. It's supposed to snow Tuesday.

It's Over

My Stat counter and I seem to agree, people are over me telling the internet how awful my life is and what a terrible person I am. Back to delusions of perfect-ness!

That being said, I have one last thing to add. Today I went to library after lab. My big toe *MAY* have turned off an entire bank of computers. Several students may or may not be very angry with said toe, depending on whether or not the above scenario took place. I say, if in fact the aforementioned event DID occur, I performed a valuable service. I'm pretty sure from now on they will all hit the save button more regularly. You know, assuming I *actually* turned off 30ish computers...

OK, back to how I'm *so* fabulous.
Got a math test back today.

99%

 Yeah, I'm rocking my inner geek. I really needed it after last week's 88%.

The Hubs picked me up from school and we grabbed a pizza from Costco. Even though we called ahead to order, they gave us an old pizza. I was seriously hungry while picking up the pizza so I decided to order a churro as well. It was speaking to me. It said, "don't buy me. I'm old and crusty!" It turns out churros don't lie. It WAS old and crusty. Next time, I will listen to the churro. You'd think he could have given me heads up about the pizza...

We went home and that's when I noticed it: The Baby has started to talk in sentences! I KNOW! I'm so excited! We can start treating her like a real person now! I'm going to put her on next week's dish-washing rotation. She said, "I want pee-za!" Which I think means, "I want mommy to take me to Italy." It's a good thing The Hubs has me to translate. He thought she meant she wanted pizza. 

After dinner, The Hubs and I were feeling guilty about our plans to ditch our kids and go on a date, so we took them (and two of my sisters) with us on our "Race The Sun Hike". The Boy thought it was great fun to try to finish our hike BEFORE the sun set. I'm not sure he fully understood the concept. The Boy thought if he kept telling the sun he was winning, he would win. Um...yeah. The sun won. Thank goodness for twilight! (Not the kind with sparkley vampires.)

Not Perfect-Day Five

This morning I woke up to trails of vomit off both sides of The Boy's bed where it pooled on the WHITE carpet. Today also happens to be our once-a-week-preschool-day to which The Boy looks forward all.week.long. He's sick enough I don't think he minded missing it.
Because he was sick and I had some important Facebook school business to attend to, I broke my own "no TV, ever" rule. PBS was on all morning. And Veggie Tales played all afternoon. He hasn't left the couch except one time after I gave him aloe vera juice, to barf it up. (at least he made it to the toilet first.)

I decided to stay home today because I didn't have any clean bras because my son was sick. I remoted in to my class. It's not the same with Sesame Street on in the background.
The upside of staying home is I got lots of (barfy) laundry done. :)

The upside of today was that I got through my math homework without yelling at The Hubs even one time. Trust me, this is an improvement (and something I've been working on). It's a really good thing he's my math tutor, because I would get kicked out of the math lab if I yelled at their tutors, and sometimes, math just makes me angry.
I think our marriage will survive Algebra, but I'm not taking bets for it we make it through calculus (shutter).

Not Perfect-Day Four

Today I decided to take a slightly different approach to parenting; it was basically the same as yesterday, except I paid even less attention to my kids, which could be why The Boy hit The Baby in the head with a screw driver.
I guess it's back to the drawing board...

To even it out, The Boy spent nearly the entire day singing "The wise man built his house upon a rock" over and over and over... repeatedly. I kinda don't think he knows what this song is about, because in his version, the foolish man also builds his house upon a rock. I believe this relates directly to The Boy's love of pounding his fist into his palm while singing the word 'rock', not that The Boy believes in relative morality.

The Baby and I got to practice letters while The Boy was sleeping. She's pretty good at 'T' but everything else is fair game. You're just as likely to hear 'B' for 'A' as for 'B'. The REAL fun part of play time was putting everything in the toy bucket, taking it out again, putting it away, well you get the idea.

The Baby spent the day caring for her baby. She told the doll that she (Zsa Zsa) was the momma, and the doll was a baby and here was her "han" (hand) and "no" (nose) and wrapping the doll in a blanket. She alternated all this cuteness with yelling "NO!" at the kitty, which I think was supposed to be the doll's big brother. I'm pretty sure this counts as a parenting fail.

When my mom got home she discovered that The Boy had found another use for her brand new Christmas decoration blocks that spell out the word "PEACE". He used them to trace his letters. At least it was with pencil, right? And how could we get mad when we ask him to trace letters once or twice a week? Blocks...paper, they're both wood products.

***

I didn't make dinner tonight. I told my family it was because our fridge was absolutely full of left overs and we needed to eat what was in there, but really, I just wanted Peanut Butter Puffins for dinner. The Hubs roasted some veggies, but I think only he and my mom ate any because by the time I felt guilty enough about not making dinner and got around to making sure the kids got at least one serving of vegetables today, they were gone. Ah well, there's always tomorrow. Assuming we've fixed the glass top stove we cracked yesterday, that is.

Following "dinner" we took everyone on a walk. Afterward you'd think we were trying to send our kids to the gas chamber, but really, we were just trying to get them to bed. Our son was SO upset by the injustice of not drinking a gallon of water right before bed that he wet his pants while crying. Yeah. This would be later on the same day he wet the bed during naps. The Hubs is so frustrated with all the night time wetting that he's threatened to go out tomorrow and buy actual diapers. Honestly, because it's EVERY FLIPPIN NIGHT, I'm leaning toward agreeing. He used to be dry 5 out of 7 nights.

Honestly though, my kids have their moments. Today The Boy took the front half of my jogging stroller, basically a wheel and two metal polls, and was running around the yard pushing it in front of him and calling it "riding my motorcycle". I'm not sure how that qualifies as a motorcycle OR riding, but he was having such a good time. Both the kids came in covered head to toe in mud. The Baby had mud in her ear. I think that takes talent. Want to know what else takes talent? Writing about how awful your day was, when really it was pretty fantastic. I got to spend most of it with my kiddos, and the parts I was away from home were short and filled with exercise. Not a bad day, really

Not Perfect-Day Three

How do I describe today? 

Barf. 

That pretty much sums it up.

Things started out OK with me rushing out the door before 8am (just in time to be late to my first class). We talked for two hours about how to be honest and do your best (honestly I still can't believe this class is worth two credits) and then I hit study group, which is when things started to go south.

I got nauseous. Then, well. You know.

So I left study group, went home and laid in bed for the majority of the day and pretty much ignored my kids.

In the afternoon I felt better, so I ran a few errands and started to feel nauseous again. Came home, rested, helped my kids host a Katydid funeral (pictures soon, promise). I'm pretty sure the only reason I suggested helped and took pictures was so that I could show what an awesome mom I am.  But hey, it was family activity.

While eating left-over soup in the car, I picked up my visiting teaching partner. 

I'm so awesome I did my visiting teaching before the last day of the month, or even the last week. I'm not so awesome because I did my visiting teaching AT a Relief Society Activity. In the foyer. In an effort to save time, we taught two of our ladies at the same time. (Don't you feel better about yourself already?)

I had to leave the activity early, on account of the smell of the treats they were having made me puke.

I'm SO ready to kick Mrs Estrogen to the curb. Every month she's a pain in my...well...stomach. 

Oh, and while I was gone, apparently my son said, "God" again. Twice. The Hubs sent him to time out, but something tells me we should have washed his mouth out with soap. Don't worry. It would have been vegan, recycled and environmentally friendly soap. 

Not Perfect-Day Two

DAY TWO-The Project Continues...
Not to brag or anything, but today was pretty darn perfect.

Just kidding. :)

So today started off with me rushing out the door just as the kids got up, which was nice for me, but kinda miserable if you're my kid. At least, they thought so.

I used to feel bad for leaving, but since this is my second semester back in school, I'm pretty much cold and heartless at this point. Plus, my kids don't bawl when I leave anymore; they give me smooches. :D
It's like they finally figured out I come home again. Like, EVERY TIME!
Anyway, after class the kids and I picked up the house and vacuumed. The Boy likes to take turns with me vacuuming. His turns are ALWAYS longer. We have a system. He randomly gets large swaths of the middle of the carpet and I get the edges and the parts he misses. I don't think he knows about this system, he's just happy to be in charge of the thing with a motor.
Then The Baby told me she was ready for nap. No really.
She said, "Zsa Zsa seepy. Zsa Zsa go ni-ni". Pretty much the cutest thing ever.
The Boy and I played Checkers. He won. It may be because he's a shameless cheater. Or that he doesn't know the checkers only move forward, and only on the dark squares.

The kiddos helped me make a cake, a cake that looked like a pumpkin, because that's what The Boy wanted. I accidentally doubled the water and added it to the dry ingredients before I noticed, so we had to double the recipe. I don't think anyone minded, but now I have to buy eggs again. 

Moving On, then I had to leave for study group to which only one other member of my pathology project group showed up. (Yeah, my group sucks.)

When I got home we made dinner, The Boy helped. He loves to stir hot things on the stove. I let him. So far he still has all his fingers. He also likes to wash dishes, but I don't let him do the knives...usually. (That was a joke, for you people who have CPS on speed dial).

We had a guest for dinner and my kids didn't say or do one embarrassing thing. I think that was my miracle for  2010.

I tossed everyone under four feet in the shower and took off to yet another study group. (Don't worry, I let the other parental unit know his kids were in the shower. He came right up stairs to take over.)

Got home after The Baby was in bed.
Maybe today was a good day because I wasn't around for much of it? We shall see. I'm not scheduled to be home tomorrow evening, either.

Again, Not Perfect

There has been a rash of recent mommy-blog bashing wherein everyone is sick of the "perfect mom" pose people are taking when writing their blogs. The notable exception among blogs I read regularly being Erin over at Things I Learned Talking To Myself. (Erin I really hope you don't mind me sending traffic your way or referencing you in my blog, dang girl, you are funny and I totally feel all your new mom pain. It's only been three years since I went through that but it DOES get better, promise.)

So in an effort to alleviate the pressure everyone feels from reading how perfect *I* am (commence laughing now) this week is going to be "Not Perfect" week. I'm going to document all the stupid things I do and/or caused through shoddy parenting. Starting with today.

Today the boy said, "Oh my Go" and the end really sounded like 'd' but may have been 'sh'. Did I mention we were in CHURCH NURSERY?!?!?! NO? We were. I would like to point out that he has never heard this particular expletive from a parental unit, but I *may* have exposed my son to another kid who uses, eh hem, *salty* language on occasion. Oops.

I have a strict "No Homework On Sunday" policy, Sunday is a FAMILY day. Today I did homework. Lots of it. For all the classes I'm currently taking. In my defense, Saturday was spent traveling to and from Utah for my aunt's funeral. I brought my books. Heaven knows why because I get sick if I read in the car, but I brought them!

The Baby thinks its funny to blow raspberries with her tongue sticking out. During Sacrament Meeting. No amount of tongue-pinching deters her. She also thinks it's effective to throw a major hissie-fit any time she doesn't get EXACTLY what she wants EXACTLY when she wants it. She may be right. I have absolutely no idea what to do about this or WHY Cheerios, or the absence thereof, can cause such drama! I also do not remember anything even remotely similar when The Boy was nearing two years old.

I think I just figured out why people never write about the stuff that goes wrong in their lives. I'm feeling a bit depressed...

An Announcement

Glory Be! is that ALL you people think about?
No. There's not a baby in my belly (although based on it's size, I could be hiding six babies or a small rhinoceros and not know it).

What I have to say is going to astound everyone. Promise.
But first I need to preface it with some information:

I am the world's youngest snowbird.
I am probably the ONLY snowbird with my original hair color.
The only snowbird getting regular visits from a certain red-headed relative.
The only snowbird with toddlers, for pete's sake.
I am a vagabond in the truest sense of the word.
I am, (Mom quit reading here, skip to the next paragraph) dare I say it, a GYPSY.

Which is why it came as kind of shock yesterday when I realized it was time to put down roots.

(That's the part where you should be astounded, or at the very least, mildly surprised.)

I'm ready to grow up, be part of a community, make the world a better place, all that garbage.
The question then, is WHERE do I do it?
This is the fun part. I'll give you a list of requirements, and YOU get to make suggestions! The Hubs and I will spend the next couple years checking them out (hello, recovering gypsies can't be expected to put down roots right away, plus you may have noticed the housing market tanked and we own a house in the second-worst state to own a house: Arizona.) and this will be THE LAST TIME I MOVE. Seriously. Quit laughing Stina people. I mean it!

REQUIREMENTS:

• Less than two hours from an LDS temple
• Established community (Attn Arizona, you do NOT qualify. Most of your houses were built in the last 20 years. How lame is that?)
• At least two seasons (hot and hotter are NOT two seasons)
• Strong Crunchy Community, but not so crunchy that I can't shower daily or use the occasional disposable diaper without being ostracized
• Town of at least 80,000 within an hour
• Sunny lots of the year
• Active Craigslist community, honestly I've about died without Craigslist this summer
• Reasonable property prices so we can have a bit of land and some animals
• Has an institution of higher learning, because I'm NEVER going to stop educating myself
• Has a good midwife
• Not in Utah County, lets face it, those folks are strangely addicted to multilevel marketing 
• Reasonable job market for programmers

Well, what do you think? 

Things That Make Me Happy

1. There are only 9 more Sundays wherein I will be attending Nursery as a leader. :D

2. My children are, eh hem, brilliant.
Yesterday on our after-dinner walk, The Baby counted to SEVEN...twice. Nobody taught her this directly, no one coached her on the walk, she just did it! Brava, Baby. Brava.
The boy came up to me Saturday while I was studying for a test on the immune system.
This is what he asked, "Do white blood cells eat 'teria?" Yes, son. White blood cells eat bacteria. My son, the future doctor. <tears of happiness>

3. We paid $3,000 on our auto loan this week. That's over 1/3 what we owe. This makes me EXTREMELY happy, because we are closer to out of debt. Just the car and The Hubs student loans. Happy Day! If you haven't checked out Dave Ramsey I suggest you give him a once over. It will be worth your time, promise.

4. I'm on the Dean's list. No, not THAT list. The List of all the good students who have A's. THAT list.

5. And lastly, I'm considering the possibility of maybe, maybe starting a preschool when I get back to Arizona in December. The only thing holding me back? I'm So Pro homeschooling I fear it's a TAD hypocritical to ask parents to send their kids to me for education.  What do you think?

Not Perfect

So it turns out I'm not perfect.
I know.
I'm JUST as shocked as you are.
Today I attempted to be Super-Mom. I woke up early, showered, got my bag ready for school and started my prep work for the preschool lesson I taught today. In my rush to get everything ready and "perfect" I sorta forgot to feed my kids. I remembered 15 minutes before the other preschoolers arrived.
Oops.
15 minutes is NOT enough time for my children to eat a grape, let alone a full meal. The Baby ate one egg, the boy ate one egg white.

Seriously. 

Even though there were two perfectly good yokes on the plate, he ate the white. And we wonder why he's skinny.
In other non-perfect news, I also briefly considered using feminine hygiene products in underwear instead of pull-ups on my three-year-old who has yet to consistantly wake up dry every morning.
What? You say. You use DISPOSABLE pull ups? Why yes. Yes I do.
If it makes you feel better I have extreme guilt about it.

So much so that I ordered THREE resuable cloth pull ups from an Etsy shop last week.
They came today. We got to try them out already.
The Boy was SO upset at having to go to bed at a reasonable hour that he wet them, with them around his ankles as he stood NEXT TO the toilet and cried about how HE DIDN'T HAVE TO GO!
The evidence says otherwise, son.
Good thing I got three.

Homeschool vs The Bullies

Recently I landed at Dan's blog, Single Dad Laughing, and his post on bullying.  It got me thinking, because I was bullied from third grade through ninth grade.
Dan talks about getting bullied from the day he moved into a new school mid-year and how he went from a happy kid to a kid full of self loathing and hatred by the end of the year. It only took seven weeks.
I've had a lot of therapy, but we never got into the bullying too much.
It does explain in huge part why I was so mean to my younger sisters.
Dan does a great job explaining the mind of kid who's been or is being bullied and how to go about correcting the problem so I won't go into that here.
What I want to explore is how this is affecting my children.
I hated school. First, it was boring. Second, I got picked on. Nobody likes that.


We have already decided to home school our kids, but I've started to wonder how much of that decision is based on my (and The Hubs) experiences in public school.


I've explained to lots of people why we are making this choice.


Reason One: America's Public schools are based on the Prussian Educational System, a system designed to create a complacent and mediocre populous. My children are not mediocre. I want my kids to be able to fully explore all aspects of things they find interesting. We recently spent TWO MONTHS on volcanoes. The Boy knows more than most adults on the subject. He can identify igneous rock at thirty paces. He can tell you all about how The Snake River Canyon was formed and spot a shield volcano from a moving car. Did I mention he's three?


Reason Two: The current public school system teaches to the lowest common denominator. (if you can't remember what a denominator is, thank your public school)
School has been dumbed down and dumbed down and dumbed down to the point we no longer expect anything from our kids, and so nothing is what we get. I expect my kids to perform to their highest potential. I expect my children to complete the current high school curriculum by age 14. I think this is an attainable goal for ANY kid of normal intelligence.


Reason Three: Current public schools trap kids into thinking ageism is OK. By having them interact only with kids their own age, they only learn how to interact with kids their own age. How is that helping anyone?


Reason Four: If children study what they love, they will learn to love studying. We will cover all the basics at home with our offspring, but if I need to change the way a subject is framed so my child can grasp a concept, I can.


Reason Five: The School District is not my child's parent. I am my child's parent. I have a sister who was HORRIBLE at spelling so the school placed her in special ed. The school got LOTS of funding for special ed. Want to know how they "fixed" her spelling problem? They only gave her HALF the words the other kids her age were learning to spell. My dad nearly hit the roof by the time he found out (18 months later). Turned out it was impossible to remove her from special ed, so he enrolled her in a learning center after school.  She's still a terrible speller. The only thing our family found special about special ed was that it wasn't especially helpful and, in fact, harmed my sister.


Reason Six: I want to teach my child to be a good person. My child should learn morals, not tolerance, not about how Jimmy has two dads, M.O.R.A.L.S. 
Morals are what frame a society. When a group of people start thinking each individual gets to say what's right for that individual, no amount of police officers and judges and laws will keep us safe. Case-in-point: A girl in North Carolina is suing her school district (courtesy of the ACLU) for the right to wear a nose piercing in school. Her parents say she belongs to The Church of Body Modification. Seriously? I belong to The Church of Your Stupid, then. It would not surprise me one bit if this girl has spent her whole life learning to be entitled, and if next year she finds herself "entitled" to someone elses wallet or car.
Does that make me an Absolutist?
Absolutely.
Some things (most things) are VERY black and white. Either it's right or it's not. (I would like to point out that just because we don't agree with someone’s actions doesn't mean we don't love them as a person.)


By now you're asking what this has to do with our having been bullied at school. I wonder how much of the above reasoning is cover for a bigger question.
How big a part did our experience with bullies play in our decision to teach our children at home? 
We all want what's best for our individual children. We all want them to be smart, funny, caring, well-liked and safe. Can a system that tolerates, and in some cases encourages, bullying really be a safe place for my children? Since I'm the parent I get to say no, it's not.
So I do.

Public School isn't a safe place for my children. 

  

Maybe later we can talk about why. As always, I have MASSIVE opinions about that, as well.

RIDDLED with A.D.D.

So I stole a phrase from Glenn Beck, sue me (not you Glenn, you'd win).
I have ADD. Bad. I used to be medicated for it, but then I kinda decided pills were dumb (and expensive) oh! AND I got pregnant (not now, with The Boy), so I quit taking them.

Turns out life IS possible without pharmacopia, but MAN is it easier with it! I do OK out of school...

But I'm IN school right now...

Luckily there are coping mechanisms I use to deal with having an EXTREMELY easily distracted brain.

LOOK! A Bird! 

What was I saying?
Ah yes, coping mechanisms.
I walk to school. It takes an hour. That's enough to "get my wiggles out" (yes, I'm still in nursery school) and I can sit through class.

Is that Superman?!?!

It's been raining for two days straight. 

This means I did NOT walk to school either yesterday or today.

That cloud looks JUST like Albert Einstein!

I made it though a two hour Bio-Ethics class, a math test at the testing center, and 2/3rds of Human Physiology.

Then I had to leave. 

A.D.D. MUCH?

And that's why the sauce was burnt and we had cheesey tortillas for dinner instead of flaked salmon.

I Wear Designer Babies

I'm a Babywearer. No, that's not a brand like Jimmie Chu or a weird cannibal version of clothing. I wear Custom Designed Babies specially crafted by God, The Hubs and me (we're a team).
They are wonderful, these Designer Babies.
With The Boy, I had a ring-sling designed by Dr. Sears I wore CONSTANTLY. It was great for mad dashes through airports or getting the vacuuming done before The Hubs got home from work or school. It fell short in the hands-free arena, though.
So with The Baby (who is now nearly two) I use a Wrapsody by Gypsy Mama. It's WONDERFUL.

 Us on a recent hike (it was WINDY!)

 NOTE: I don't have to hold the baby with my arms, this sling is totally hands-free.

But now the government is trying to legislate yet another aspect of our lives and tell us something that is totally normal, totally loving and yes, ancient is in fact harmful to our children. Sound familiar? No? I'll give you a hint: they did it with birth. 

This is some pretty good info on the current legislation along with the people  you can call to make a difference.

So I'm writing this post to tell you that I never feel closer to my children than when I'm wearing them. For me there was a learning curve to baby-wearing, but it wasn't modeled for me and people think it's weird that I wear my children (especially as they get older). I had a grandpa stop me in Costco Saturday asking how it worked. He thought it was a curtain. 

Visit this blog for more information on the government's attempt to dictate how we parent our children. Maybe baby-wearing isn't for every momma or every baby and that's OK, but don't you want your children to have the CHOICE?

Also go here for ways you can help.
And one more awesomely well-written blog on babywearing.

Backyard Camping

Ever since the fiasco that was taking-The-Boy-camping-when-he-was-just-over-a-year-and-I-was-hugely-pregnant-with-The-Baby-and-we-didn't-actually-sleep-because-The-Boy-didn't-sleep-and-it-rained-THE. ENTIRE. TIME. and-our-tent-nearly-floated-away-and-we-packed-up-and-left-at-2am-because-we-weren't-sleeping-anyway...

that time.

We've (read: I've) been scared of camping (with kids).
The Hubs took The Boy to a Fathers and Sons overnighter in May and he did alright (he LOVED peeing outside) but I'M still scared.
So instead of a full-fledged camping trip, we set up the tent in the backyard! It was great.
Setting up the tent was interesting. The tent is OLD. It came from my grandpa. It's at least 50 years old and I LOVE the way it smells. It smells like summer to me. I camped in this tent every year of my youth until Dad got too sick to tent-camp and we switched to hotels.

(It's kinda lop-sided)

The Baby thought it was great fun to lay on the tent while we were trying to get it to stand up. This could be why it's lop-sided.

We called some friends over to roast marshmallows and make s'mores. The Baby enjoyed sitting in the dirt-filled wagon we used for our fire.

The Boy roasting sugar...I mean marshmallows.

Doesn't she look like she's just entered a sugar coma?

The Hubs is SOOO Handsome

(Me, trying to work marshmallows out of my teeth while The Hubs had the camera)

Then we snuggled up in the tent (after a VERY good tooth scrubbing) to watch Dr. Who on the laptop courtesy of Netflix.

A GREAT night, other than the part where we actually had to sleep in the tent.

Felt Food: The Pictures

 A while back I wrote about making felt food. This weekend was General Conference for our church so I had several hours of (quasi) uninterrupted time in which to craft while I listened to the words of the Lord. (YAY!)
And I have about 15 minutes until the dinner rolls are out of the oven so...
Here are the pictures of the kids' Christmas Presents. I'm still in awe of how cheap the materials are for such CUTE toys!

This ear of corn was my first attempt (hence the need to tell you what this is). I'm super excited that the kids can shuck this ear of corn since that's one of their favorite summer-time activities! You can't tell (because I'm really awful at operating a camera) but I stitched on kernels with embroidery floss.

Next were eggs. Eggs are easy. VERY easy. 

 Yesterday and today I made Ravioli.It's SUPER easy.  

 Bread and swiss cheese. 

 An ill-conceived attempt at a carrot. 

And for dessert...

CAKE!