those stickers can suck it

We were outside, doing this sort of dump truck themed day at the library. Wyatt was pretty much in Heaven; climbing into the dump truck, turning the steering wheel, feeling like he was the construction worker he claims he wants to be when he grows up. The only problem was the line of kids waiting for him to get out. I told him we had to leave. He actually leaves willingly, but I should have known better – he plants his feet on the ground and demands 'another turn after the next kid is done'. I tell him we can't do that.

He screams, he throws his body on the ground, he pretty much starts to convulse.

Now, when it's just my family, I can handle this pretty well – walk away, pretend that I'm leaving and let him freak out a little bit...

but when I have my two boys and the other two little ones that I watch it's a nightmare.

I pull the youngest one out of the stroller and push Wyatt in the seat instead. I attempt to buckle him in as he contorts his body to not be restrained.

The littlest ones, a two year old and the three year old, decide to hold hands and start walking across the parking lot by themselves. Not OK.

I call them back, probably something more like “Get back here NOW!”. Henry rushes in to pull them back onto the grass.

Finally, Wyatt is strapped into the stroller, still screaming. The other two boys hold hands with Henry and walk across the parking lot with him...

until the three of them, in chain reaction, fall to the ground and of course, the chain reaction of crying continues. The two boys start crying in unison with Wyatt. Henry, at least, is able to wipe of his fall and continue on towards the van.

I'm sweating by this point, frantically just trying to get everyone to the car. I need to clear the scene as quickly as possible.

I pick each of them up, tell them they 'look OK' and that we 'have to get into the car'.

The doors slide open and I get crying children, 1,2 and 3 into their seats when along comes the librarian.

She comes rushing up “Let me get you some stickers”.

I try to be polite 'no thank you!' I'm thinking this all started with a tantrum, I'm not about to hand out stickers for all that just happened.

She insists (or isn't listening) “I'm just going to run in and get those stickers”.

I'm talking to her back “No, really, no thank you!”

I strap the last kid into his car seat (hoping to make that quick escape) when she arrives with 8 stickers in her hand like she's the hero of the day. She tell Henry “You look like the big boy, you can give them to everyone when they calm down”.

I'm so mad at her at this point, I can't say anything. She's lucky I have my sunglasses on because I'm giving her my death be yours glare. All I can think is 'those stickers can suck it'. What I needed was a sympathetic look and nod of knowing, not some freakin' stickers.

She smiles and heads back towards the rest of the group still in line for the dump truck.

I pull away with my van full of crying kids just wishing that I could throw those damn stickers out the window.

A Sweet(light) GIVEAWAY

I'm jealous. When I get asked to do a review or a giveaway, I alway chose a giveaway because personally, I don't like it when I read other people's blogs about stuff they got and how it's awesome and well... you can just go out and buy it for yourself (tongues sticking out = too bad for you). So anyways, I giveaway stuff instead of getting stuff, but honestly, if I was given the option here I would have said - the heck with my readers, I REALLY want this.

And what is this that would make me drop you all like a ton of bricks, a giveaway from Sweetlight Studio for a free photo session. You can choose from either the baby/child session for 1 hour valued at $165 or the newborn session for 2 hours valued at $215. Check out the beautiful photographs from the lifestyle section. I'll wait...


Gorgeous, huh?



Now for the details: easy enough, for an entry, go and check out their website and tell me what you love (because there's a whole lot to love!). For a (2nd) entry subscribe to their blog (you will get updates on cool things they are doing, like mini-session for $80 in August). For a (3rd) entry twitter about this giveaway linking this post. Last, because you all feel sad for me not being able to enter, you can follow me for a (4th) entry and make me at least *feel* loved.

Good Luck.



End 08/02 - and I didn't get compensated or anything like that

WW - please, take my free money

Handing out free money should be easy.

Last week, I helped with 77 Kids Do Good Day. It was awesome, as Mary from It's a Wonderful Life would say: 'I felt like a bootlegger's wife', handing dollar bills out to the left and the right. Kids would follow behind me, I could her them whispering 'that's her, wait until she turns around and ask her', in hopes of getting that not so elusive dollar.

But some kids didn't get it. A young boy handed it back to me and told me that he 'didn't want it'. I told him, 'no, go ahead and take it, we are asking that you try to do something good with that dollar, but there are suggestions on the back to do some things for free too', I winked at him and told him again it was fine. He ended up shaking his head, handing me back the dollar and leaving with his head down.

Two other girls came up to the table, twin sisters. They looked like I did at 10 years of age or so, not quite fitting into the skin of a little girl and not quite filling out in the curves of a teenager. I handed them both a dollar. Their eyes widened. I explained to them that they can do something good with it and they agreed. I invited them to write down an idea of theirs for 'doing good' so we could stick it on our map of Minnesota. Of course, like most 10 year olds, they instantly couldn't make up their minds.

I suggested 'maybe you could make your beds in the morning to help out your mom or your dad?'.

One of the girls peeped 'we don't have beds, we sleep on the couch'.

(I think my heart stopped a little at that moment).

I then suggested 'maybe you could share your toys with eachother?'.

I don't know what I was thinking, perhaps something along the lines of: what child doesn't have a toy or two... but the other sister responded 'we don't have any toys.'

(I wanted to hand over all the dollar bills I had to them at that very second.)

I tried one last time 'maybe cleaning up after breakfast, you know, clearing the table?'.

The sisters chimed in that 'we eat our breakfast from a box so cleaning up would be easy!'.

I think my heart broke a little.

No, handing out free money wasn't all easy.



*I'm cheating on Wordless Wednesdays, I'm such a rule breaker... it's another one of those 'I'm wordless moments' though.

I'm ready for a job change

I just received my social security statement for the year. Nothing make me feel like a complete economic failure more than seeing my taxable income written in dollar signs and on actual paper (and the fact that I made way more money when I was fresh out of college than of current).

It makes my mind start to wonder (yet again) what wonderful job opportunities might be out there:


Everything about this umm, position appeals to me, how can it not, it's a NUDE YOGA dvd; filmed in the forest and my favorite part, you need to send a sample of your work to apply. (Personally, my downward dog needs some attention before applying, perhaps I'll wait until after I deliver this baby.)

Next...


I'm really interested in this job because I consider my self an organized, calendar-friendly type of person, plus - it well pays awesome and on top of it, I'd get my hair done. I'm bothered that they say 'very sexy' calendar though, I'd prefer that they were just be straight up and said 'naked' or 'all your stuff better be properly trimmed 'cause we're only doing hair and makeup'.

Another potential opening...


As much as I love to share my weird tendencies to do things like eat toilet paper with my readers, I'm pretty sure that my life is not television worthy. I'll stick to letting it all out on my blog.

I'm so boring.

fuzzy bunny

There was a dead rabbit in front of our driveway the other day (and when I say dead, I mean obviously dead like his insides were smushed outside of him - sorry if I made you throw up a little in your mouth, but it's details that make stories interesting, right?). Now when I was a little girl, if we saw a dead animal on the road, you drove around it and kept going, but I lived in the country with 20 acres of woods and a huge a$$ satellite dish to keep me company. We do *not* presently live in the country, (in fact, we are only three blocks away from a Walgreens, thank you very much!) so I'm left to devise what to do with our newly dead animal.

I opened up the garage and headed over to our bucket of shovels. I grabbed the garden shovel and brought it over to the deceased. I attempted to scoop up the carcass, but he was just too, well... spread out. His whole body just would flop back onto the cement every time I attempted to scoop him up.

So I headed back to garage for larger artillery. I picked the snow shovel (for you people in the South you suck you may have no idea what a show shovel looks like, but it's about 18" across and ours has this ergonomic handle so you can really heap on the snow (err, rabbit) without straining your back).

On my first attempt; I scooped the rabbit up, walked/ran with him in my snow shovel and threw him way under this hundred year old pine tree in our front yard. (I know, maybe you would have thrown him in a garbage bag, but that just wasn't happening and I figured it's an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of thing). I turned around to grab the hose and wash all the evidence of the bloody scene away when I saw Wyatt standing there in the middle of our driveway.

"Look Mommy, I'm catching fuzzies in the air".

Umm, yeah, those were fuzzy (dead) bunny hairs he was catching in the air.

*

My kid grosses me out too.

infectious

You lose a little bit of yourself all the time in the game of motherhood. I can lose a little bit cutting up my kids' waffles at breakfast, a little bit at giving them a bath; scrubbing between their toes. It's not just stay at home mothers, it's all mothers, you give up yourself a lot in motherhood. I think that's something we all can relate to.

That's why I started blogging.

Just like you, I've found this outlet, this place where I can be creative again, talk about my kids or not; write about my frustrations, my fears, my loves and my not so lovelies. I find camaraderie in blogging. I have teammates in this game of motherhood.

Honestly though, blogging isn't great all the time, it takes away my attention, my time. I can get caught up in the moment, of whose life is better or worse than mine. So when I was contacted by TheMotherhood.com to participate in a 'Do Good Day', it was easy to answer 'yes'. This is the good part of blogging. That part where this community exhibits good, does good, is good. No - great.

Motherhood.com and 77 kids by american eagle are coming together, along with 7 bloggers from 11 cities across the United States (easy math for you, that's 77 bloggers), to 'Do Good' all on the same day, July 14th. I'm joining a group of fabulous bloggers.

Doing good is infectious. After I was a surrogate, I struggled to find this place where I felt I was living a life with purpose, I donated my breast milk, I volunteer and finally, four years after the birth of my surrogate son, I've come to realized that it's not these gigantic things that change people's lives, it's the everyday, little things.

Now, go and do a little good. July 14th, 'Do Good Day' is a great start.

Like I said, it's infectious.

*

The Minnesota team will be at the Science Museum of Minnesota, from 10am to 1pm July 14th 'Doing Good in our Neighborhood'. If you'd like, come say 'hi'. We might be infectious, but we won't bite!

good 4 a laugh

Our local paper. (And by local, I'm not saying that I live in Plymouth or Richfield... come on over to my house and steal my television or my George Foreman grill, it's not that local.) Anyways, it's free and it always seems to be good for a laugh or two.


- 55 years of accumulation: because my 33 years of accumulation just isn't good enough?

- and you take the time to print out an advertisement and actually spell out the word 'accumulation' instead of stuff or let's be honest, junk *but* chose to print the number '4' instead of writing out the word 'for'.

Thank you 4 the laugh, Sun Sailor. I'm happy that you are free and delivered to my doorstep.

(Now stop trying to get me to pay for a subscription, it ain't happening).

a public service announcement

Perhaps not really a public service announcement, but when we bought our house we must have walked through it with rosy colored (umm, smoke hazed) glasses. I can't say that I've never smoked a cigarette (and I will delete this post the minute my oldest son learns how to read in English and deny anything was ever written like this) in my much younger years, but this completely makes me sick to my stomach.

This is the farthest bedroom from the living room, the place where the previous owners smoked all. the. time. In fact, there were two smoke rings on the ceiling from where they sat on counter stool watching their 9" television.


I'm slightly embarrassed to say we will be here for 5 years next month and we just didn't realize how yellowed everything was from the their smoking or we just got use to it (but I'm happy to report that this was the last room to paint).

So PSA - don't smoke. Alternative PSA - don't buy houses that are dimly lit and smell like what you think is just that 'older people smell'.