peas in a pod

I'm currently in love, in love with being the mother of brothers. It is a relationship that is amazing to watch. They seem to understand each other on some level that I'm in awe of, everyday. Some days it is like being in the front row of a play performing on stage. I'm in the audience sitting on the edge of my seat anticipating the next scene, while they have each other's lines memorized.

After preschool today, Henry pulled up a chair to the counter to help with lunch by spooning peas onto the plates though he ended up eating the apple peels as I cut them off for Wyatt instead. As soon as Wyatt noticed this, he toddle/ran his way over to the kitchen table, pushed his chair all the way around the kitchen island and pulled up his chair next to his big brother. They laugh at each other, they poke at each other, they tease each other, they obviously love each other. They certainly are two peas in a pod.

Remind me of this post when they are sixteen and thirteen years old, respectively and not on speaking terms with each other because they happen to be related.

he is brave

Republican or Democrat. War or no war. All I know is that this weekend I packed up my little family and headed south to Iowa to say goodbye yet again to my brother-in-law who will be doing his second tour-of-duty in Iraq.

My heart has been breaking every time I picture him, not just him, but him and his little girl, together and not together. She was born 13 days before my little Wyatt; they are sweet, beautiful cousins. Every time I think about me having to leave Wyatt for 15 months this lump starts in my throat, I choke up, I nearly cry and then I remember that I don't have to leave Wyatt. He will not forget me, not not recognize me when I do walk through that door again. This soldier is indeed brave.

His little girl's name is Danielle.

Works-For-Me Wednesday

A day late, but you know I'm not a rule follower when it comes to that kind of stuff. I've never participated but well; I'm short on time this week, my computer got caught up in that fake anti-spyware and it was my birthday yesterday, so give me a break. (I know you all really don't care, I'll get to the 'what works for me'.)

This is not some contraption that my I-know-he's-a genius son made, this idea is mine (borrowed from some radio show several years ago). This is Henry's nightlight put on a timer. Though yes, my child may be a genius, he is yet able to read time. He use to get out of bed at 6 am thinking that it was morning, along with trying to persuade his parents that it actually was morning.

I have the timer set to turn on his nightlight when he is suppose to go to bed and turns off at 7am, a decent time to get up if he must. He knows he is not allowed to get out of bed before the nightlight turns off (unless he has to use the bathroom).

This is way better than any alarm clock because it just quietly clicks off, he's not forced to wake up if he's not ready to and I then don't have to deal with any super-grouchy-needed-way-more-sleep preschooler in the morning (which is after 7am if you didn't catch that~).

weekend in (stock) photos

I'd been searching for a retreat to go on for my birthday weekend since February. I went from a deluxe weekend away in Phoenix to a retreat 90 miles west of Minneapolis to booking a hotel for Saturday night and cashing in on my spa gift card that was originally a Christmas present (my lucky husband got a lot of miles out of that gift).

Let me recap my weekend in (stock) photos.

I arrived here at 10 am, meaning breakfast for the kiddos and I was out the door.

I asked to take a picture of the two very friendly men sitting with me while I waited for my massage. They agreed to 'look peaceful'.

After my massage, I asked if they wouldn't mind taking a picture of me naked in the whirlpool for the sake of my blog. They yet again, happily agreed.

After the massage, whirlpool and stream shower extravaganza. I headed to the happiest place in the world...

(I nearly died trying to get this photo from the fifth floor of the Macy's ramp. I'm totally joking about it being the happiest place on earth too, anyone that lives in the area knows MOA is definitely not heaven.)


After spending to my personally allocated $100 only heart's content. I checked into this fabulous hotel. I was greeted with an insane look by the staff as she yet again read over my address. Yes, that's right, I live less than 10 miles from here, I know. (I wanted to say, do you have kids? If so, you'd completely understand.)




I climbed into my king size bed and well, napped (and watched nearly 7 hours of HGTV, which we don't have cable so it was heaven).


And in the morning, I didn't eat in the breakfast area, oh no. I brought my continental breakfast with waffle maker stuff back to my room and had breakfast in bed.

I could end my post with something beautiful and romantic like that I couldn't wait to get home and see my children, that I couldn't sleep a wink at night without my husband by my side, but the truth is I loved every minute of being in the middle of the king sized bed, munching on my waffle that I didn't have to cut into kid-sized pieces and watching television that didn't include Super Why and his buddies looking for clues.


Happy Birthday to me (tomorrow)

Picked by Random.org, the winner of my giveaway is Mamasphere, ironic since she is giving away 3 gift cards to Target; one for $100, another for $50 and yet another for $25 to help her rename her blog. I love Mamapshere, so give her some bloggy love. (Obviously, her 'economy' is better than mine).

'satellite' for sale

For Sale from 4 year old Henry

"A satellite that shoots off to space for sending signals to us. The square thing on the other side of the button and pressures send power back to us - to call Daddy's work, he can call us too."

For Sale from the mother of four year old Henry

One 3 to 4 foot Styrofoam 'thing'. Unfortunately, storage at our home has a price and currently I cannot afford to store priceless mementos of childhood ingenuity in our already cramped entire house 'toy area'.

There are three kinds of tape holding this structure together and for your added pleasure, the Styrofoam structure leaves traces of itself (otherwise called tiny choking hazards for 17 month old brother) around the entire house; embedded into rugs and hiding under furniture.

Consider this as an investment of a one-of-a-kind work. You will probably be able to sell it for millions once 4 year old becomes that engineer/doctor/artist/politician that his mother dreams of.

(Sold as is, no guarantee is included)

check out my giveaway here

gripe and giveaway

I had this wonderful post written about how awesome it is when I wear this shirt.

A post about how people stop in their tracks (which forces me to stop in my track) and read across my boobs. I'm always in the position; do my pull the shirt away from my chest so they are more comfortable, do I thrust out my chest so they can read it better? It's simply takes people a while to read it and so, I stand and ponder my 'position'.

I thought what could be better than a post about how awesome these shirts are than to be able to give away one of these lovely tees to someone. I was once a buyer, I know mark-ups and actual cost. It would be nothing for them, so I begged, I pleaded, I emailed and you know what, they said... nothing.

Yep, I'm cool enough to not even get a response. I thought, when I anxiously sent the email, what's the worst they can say? (Apparently, the worst thing that can say truly is nothing at all).

So, I'm saying @$#% them forget them. I'm giving away a $10 Target gift card so you can get your own cool tee for the bargain price of $10. Leave me a comment, maybe tell me how 'cool' you are too. Just think, maybe you could get a tee like one of these...

or if feeling a little bit 'spicy'

I'm totally joking about this last shirt. Not in a million years would I wear this (well, maybe... now that I've looked at it for a while in this post, it's growing on me. I'm becoming such a denim-with-pleats sort of mom).

giveaway open until 10/22 - my birthday present to you.

PS- my 'economy' is as bad as the rest of the world, $10 is all I can afford

TMI TAG

I've been tagged. Tagged by the lovely (and young, just teasing you!) Kristine. I don't like to play a ton of games and rarely do I play by the rules, but whatever. This is my TMI tag.

1- Today I showed Henry how to shake the 'skin cells' off his scalp onto a piece of paper, otherwise known as dandruff.

2- I'm obsessed with all things that have to do with fertility, causing a complete 6 year addiction to 'wiping and looking'. I have to look at the toilet paper every. time.

3- When Wyatt gets caught playing in the potty, most times I just roll up his sleeves because it's clean and dry above the elbow and I'm not about to do more laundry unnecessarily.

4- I have bras in my drawer from high school. I imagine I'd have underwear from high school too if only my butt remained that of a high schooler.

5- When giving my boys a bath on Monday, I remembered that somebody needed to have their toenails clipped, I told Henry to remind me when we were done with bath. Needless to say, it was neither Henry or Wyatt, but myself, which I realized two days after said bath.

6- I bite my nails. Ahem, all my nails. (I'm totally joking, but I thought this would completely freak some people out. Yes, I do bite my fingernails, which I sure still has some people cringing.)

7- At thirty-something years old I still wear a retainer at night to keep the teeth straight. My poor husband knows 'nothings happenin' when the tin is in'.

bear/cub love

Her name is Sylvia. She is very smart, very sassy and Henry fell in love with her at art camp (a mere year and a half ago). There have been others who he has called his girlfriends at different times since meeting Sylvia, but his love seems to come back to her. Over and over again.

She's been going to McDonald's on Fridays for lunch, just as we do occasionally (you know I'm joking, I'm there like clockwork on Fridays). Henry gets so excited to see her, he asked as we are driving up if she 'will be there', if they 'can play together', will she 'be eating chicken nuggets like him'?

Luckily, she arrives shortly after we've nearly finished with our meals (and apparently doesn't have the same 'no playing until you eat most of your lunch rule' like we do, as she immediately started playing with Henry and a friend that came along). They disappeared from sight into the McDonalds tunnel of love (umm, play area).

A while later, I saw it happen, other mom intervention. Sylvia's mom was talking to my son with this momma bear face defending her bear cub. Henry and Sylvia came over to my table after the discussion. "What did you do, Henry?"' I asked. Sylvia perked up "He spat on me". I couldn't believe it, my son does not behave like this (at least very, very rarely does he). Of course, it was an automatic time out. 'Turn your back to the wall, I do not want to see your face'. Sylvia spoke up again, 'that's okay, my mom already talked to him'. I told her in ear shot of her mother 'that it was my job as Henry's mom'. (See, I can be a momma bear, too).

Henry sat in his time out, he turned and peeked, looking sad that he was missing out on play time. After his time was up, I talked to him. 'Henry, you never spit on someone, ever'. He replies 'I was just talking to her, Mom. I wasn't trying to spit on her'.

That's when my heart sunk. I squeezed my boy really hard and told him that I was sorry. I realized what had happened. When Henry gets excited, he drools; he's done it since he was six weeks old and continues still at almost five years old. Poor Henry was just so excited to be talking to Sylvia that he started salivating causing him to 'talk and spit', onto poor Sylvia, the love of my little boy's life.

(Let's just hope that this problem resolves before he's sixteen, otherwise dating for him might get a little more complicated.)

I love you...

because you helped me tie 125 miniature corsages with few complaints

because you let me buy sixteen huge margarita glasses and let me keep (for several years) these glasses in the garage because I thought we might have a huge margarita glass party someday

because I wore 5" hot pink platform shoes on our wedding day and you still married me

because I ripped my fake nails off on the airplane on our honeymoon (because there were a million raspberry seeds under my nails driving me nuts) and you said nothing

because we still don't know exactly what our first dance song was, that we still get to live everyday like we are dancing to our first song and the tune simply doesn't matter.

because of everything, you are my husband. Happy Anniversary.

a Diet Coke PSA

This is a Public Service Announcement.

Marketing geniuses have been working on ways that we consumers will believe we are still getting a good deal. For me, it started with Wrigley's gum changing from a 5 pack to a 4 pack, charging the same amount, thinking perhaps we wouldn't notice. (Perhaps some of you didn't, but being the cheap mom that I am, I did.)

Now they are messing with Mommy's elixir of the heavens, Diet Coke. I have to believe that they (Coca-Cola bigwigs) don't know who they are dealing with. I'm certain that they don't understand the importance that Diet Coke leads in the lives of so many mothers out there to purely function during a day.

I know that we, caffeine-charged moms, are not confused by marketing terms like "special" that make us think we are getting something really unique, like those Olympic cans or the Santa cans (though heck yes, those are wonderful and they do bring a little bit of cheer to my day), or by using the term "while supplies last" because we know that you (again, bigwigs) will continue to make Diet Coke as liquid gold, but reducing a case from 24 to 20 and thinking that maybe we wouldn't realize is just plain ridiculous.

Mothers unite, fight for those missing 4 cans. Your children will thank you for it (or at least be happy you are the normal, reasonable, highly caffeinated mommy they are use to).