-It really sucks being sick when you are a mom
You all are very fortunate to be getting this post today. I finally succumbed to the 34897 different sicknesses that all my children have been passing around amongst themselves. Layla had a 24 hour stomach virus in the beginning of the week, Olivia still had a cough from her last cold and then decided to go for round two. I then got a legit call from the school nurse on Friday... Summer had apparently thrown up in the hall. (I felt so utterly bad for her and was slightly worried because those kinds of things can follow you around for years. Fortunately a friend was walking her to the health room so there was only one witness. Phew. Kids can be cruel). I have to say I do enjoy the "she hit herself in the eye with her zipper" call much better than the puking one. So on Sunday, it got me. Everything at once. I felt like death and barely moved from bed all day. I couldn't have been happier that this happened on a weekend so Matt could take care of the girls. There are few things worse than feeling that miserable and having to be mommy through it all.
-I have found a passion for laminating
My sister saw this shirt and made a very specific phone call just to tell me about it:
Story.Of.My.Life. I become obsessed with organization, labels, etc... but then I never keep it that way. I like to, I'm just too scattered... but then that drives me insane. It can be tough living inside my brain. So on my continued quest to provide some independence for the girls around the house, my next mission was to eliminate all excuses for not putting their clean clothes away. Enter: clothing labels. So before I began this project, I had an irresistible urge to buy a laminating machine. I don't know why, I just really really wanted it. Amazon (obvi) brought me to the perfect, amazingly reviewed, budget-friendly beauty that I would receive in two days with my fab prime membership. I mean I don't know about you, but there have been what seems like upteen times that I have thought to myself, "I really need to laminate this." So after the excitement of the laminator delivery, I then scoured the internet in search for the perfect clothing images... far harder than I had anticipated. After saving a trillion to my computer, adjusting them, printing them out, re-outlining them myself, and pasting them onto adorable paper (Layla- green, Summer- purple. I had to switch them after depression ensued)... my laminator went into action. Here are the results:
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| Shirt Types |
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| Leggings/Sweatpants or Jeans |
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| Pajamas, Underwear and Socks |
I attached them to their drawers with an adhesive velcro coin so I can change location of things when I want or with changing seasons. Good news: Layla and Summer put every last piece of clothing in the proper drawer, easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy. HOORAY!! My stupid work paid off, but now if I can just get them to put their DIRTY laundry where it belongs...
-My kids need to learn to PLAY BY THEMSELVES!!!!
With this recent colder weather, I have come to the unfortunate realization that outside is just not going to be an option for much longer. I know they would be fine, but let's be serious... I don't want to freeze my butt off. We spend A LOT of time outside during the other seasons, so to have them cooped up inside all winter is sort of a nightmare... unless I want them to watch TV all day. My sister had told me about "busy bags" years ago, but the girls usually just played with each other. Now with Livi totally alone three days a week (totes not what she is used to), she epically sucks at playing by herself. Layla isn't great without their fearless leader Summer either. My work commenced. So I started off with a semi-ghetto puff ball situation from a yogurt container with a hole in the top.
I don't know why pushing those puffs through the hole and dumping them out is entertaining, but it is and that is ALL that matters.
Next up was a matching picture game. My printer is basically out of ink so I will be redoing these, but I just printed a few animals pics, cut them in half, laminated them (obvi), and voila.
I then decided to order a few items to make things more interesting.
Velcro Craft Sticks. Literally just stuck the velcro coins on them.
Clip the clothes pin with the number that corresponds to the dots (More laminating! And educational!! Bonus!!):
Match the upper case top part of the egg to the lower case bottom part:
And a felt board situation:
Okay I bought the last one... do you know how annoying it is to cut out all of those shapes?!?! And judging from the dog hair visible in the picture, they have already played with it.
I have a few more in the works (stringing beads, dry-erase shape/letter tracing, etc), and I have been figuring out different age-appropriate ones for Layla vs Olivia, but the point of these is to bring them out, have them play with them for a period of time, and then put them away. Don't let them get sick of it. Since I have been working on these I feel like they have been watching more TV than normal, but you have to reach your goals somehow... I am just searching for more things to laminate.
-I use curbside grocery pick-up because I DON'T want to put myself through the hell that is known as shopping with my children
I have previously discussed this fantastical service that Harris Teeter provides. I shop online at home (my specialty in general. Lucky Matt), select a time to pick it up, they load it into my car, and perfection. No tantrums, screaming, sweating, forgetting things, buying extra things, 57 cookies, mania that is shopping with small children. There are few things I hate more. So the night before I pulled up all of my items, chose the pickup time for before I drive carpool for Layla's school, and went to sleep at peace knowing that the next day we would actually have food in this house. Now the customer service at Harris Teeter is beyond exceptional. I actually regret each time I go to Safeway because despite the convenience of beer and wine, someone always does something that is just so irritating that I internally re-avow my allegiance to the Teeter. So prior to this time, I have never had a single issue with an order. My produce is always phenom, meat fresh, and all items accounted for. Now there is one employee at HT who is just a little... shall we say, odd. Very nice, just different. First bad sign: I received four phone calls the morning I was supposed to pickup my order, asking about substituting the things they were out of, giving me bigger cans of this, that, etc. She was rambling on but I did hear her say something about a bigger can of tuna and a bigger can of pumpkin puree. No prob, whatever, I can deal. When I opened my trunk for my groceries to be loaded, I see her and immediately become concerned. I become more concerned when she makes a side comment about how heavy my meat is (pork tenderloin... should be 2 1/2-3lbs). I am increasingly concerned when she has me sign two different receipts, with the main one significantly more (like over $20) than I had been anticipating (the second one was for items she had added later. I know, I was confused too). Unfortunately I had kids to pick up from school, so dissecting my receipt was not a possibility at that moment. When I got home and started to unload the bags, I am met with the meat... and yes, she had every reason to make a comment about how heavy it was. Instead of giving me the small, normal package of pork tenderloin as I had ordered, she gave me a ginormica of a pork loin that had to have been three feet long. I mean it was as tall as Layla!!! It also weighed in at nearly TEN pounds. Hereeee is the extra $20 on my bill. I still got it half-price, but paid $27 instead of the $8 I was supposed to. So oh well. We have the mammoth meat. Matt looked up how to cut it up and we essentially will get like 10 meals from that one behemoth. The next morning I get up and go to make the girls breakfast and that is when I discovered: no bananas. I requested six bananas and they are nowhere. I checked the car too. Okay so mammoth meat and no bananas. I fish out my receipt to check everything else. I find that I also paid for an extra can of tuna and I was given a large can of pumpkin pie filling instead of 100% puree. Not okay considering I was making a dessert that day with the pumpkin puree that needed to be chilled overnight.
Due to these fatal errors (and the fact that I was nearly out of deodorant and didn't want to use Matt's for three days again), I did the last thing in the world that I wanted to do (which is why I use this service), and packed up Layla and Livi to go to the store. I kindly explained all of the issues to the home shopping manager person (who was off the day before, natch), and she proceeded to make corrections. She gave me money back for the can of tuna AND another $20 for the difference in meat. I got my pumpkin puree (they were NOT out of it... look with your eyes and not with your mouth, as my mother would say) and my bananas. All the while my kids are snotty, whining, crying, and miserable.... and I am sweating, trying to explain the problems, and chucking cookies at them in hopes of silence. Meltdowns started happening and I was spastically trying to get out of there, so as I was turning to go the woman yelled after me that she would add another $5 credit to my account. While it doesn't erase me having to come into the store, they did try to compensate (and I got my deodorant). I don't blame the odd woman (total lie), but I hope they make sure she stays in a position that she can succeed in (aka not picking out my groceries). Maybe other people have the luxury of not caring, but I am not one of them... I have too much laminating to do.
-This is my blog so I get to have a proud mommy moment
I had my parent-teacher conference yesterday for Summer and she started out, "Before I get into the specifics can I just tell you that you have the sweetest, cutest little girl." :o) I knew that, but hooray. Nothing but advanced and proficient in absolutely everything. AND she has slept in her OWN bed ALL night for FOUR nights in a row. YESSSSSSSSS!!!! I had Layla's parent-teacher conference a few weeks ago and I will say, it was the first one I have ever been nervous for. Not that Layla is bad, she is just so completely different and one of the youngest in her class. I wasn't sure how she really was in school. My worry was silly because she got 100% raves as well, and it was from the same teacher Summer had last year. So basically, my kids are great for everyone else and total hellions for me. At least it isn't the other way around.
The madness continues... Wish me well.
Happy Wednesday!
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