You do voodoo? Who knew!

For the past few days, I've been wondering if someone in this house knows voodoo. I think I might have to start watching my step and make sure I am nice to the little people that live here. Unless it's the husband's doing and that is just not nice!


A few weeks ago, Little Dude had circus day at school. Each child took in a stuffed animal to train and the class showed off their animal's tricks to the third graders next door. There were other games and activities they did throughout the day, but the best part seemed to be the balloons. One of the moms in the class makes balloon animals as a side job.

Little Dude came home with these...

He did the face of the white balloon. The gray balloon attached to the green balloon is an airplane. I still say it looks like a dog!

The dog airplane is long gone, but the face stayed for quite some time. It was startling to see that white face peer out at me from beneath a pile of stuffed animals, but one morning I had the scare of a lifetime. The round happy face had turned into this....

Did you see the teeth on that thing?!

Again, I would really like to know who in this house knows voodoo. Whoever can make shrunken heads is someone I do not want to mess with!!



Until next time...

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The lesser of 2 evils - PMM

I always have proud moments when it comes to being a mom. Most times I truly am proud of something that my kids did. Other times, when I say I am proud, the words are dripping with sarcasm.

The past week or so has been rough. I've been crazy busy doing this and driving there. Add to that all the last minute things that come with the final weeks of school (help!). You would think I would be full of proud and not so proud moments, but I couldn't come up with a darn thing.

Until I decided to do some cleaning in the kitchen.





GG is 9 years old. As a 9 year old, I feel she is definitely responsible enough for some chores. Of course her (and her brother) are responsible for keeping their rooms cleaned, putting away toys in the living room, and making sure their dirty dishes are in the sink. But GG is ready for some extra stuff. Even if she wasn't ready, I'm tired of doing it all!

Her main chore is to wash the dishes. It really wasn't that hard to convince her to wash the dishes in the first place. This post explains what started it. Naturally after a few weeks, she became bored of doing the dishes and would protest. Every night! But then I bought an actual dish drainer. Her excitement returned. And just as that joy was about to disappear yet again, I returned home with a mat to go under the dish drainer. For the past 2 weeks, she has not complained about doing the dishes. Thank goodness!

However, just because she is not complaining doesn't mean I'm not complaining.

GG rarely gets the water hot enough. Heck, most of the time it's still freezing cold. Cold water accomplishes crap when it comes to grease. I'm always the one to notice the leftover grease because I am the one who puts the dishes away. Time and time again, I have to turn to handle to warm the water up. I thought we were making progress, but apparently I didn't catch her in time last night.

As I was putting away the dishes, quite a few of them slipped out of my hands. Luckily nothing broke. Some of our mugs are surprisingly bouncy! As I'm transferring the still dirty dishes back to the sink, I start mumbling to myself. "She really needs to wash the outside of the dishes, too".

This stopped me dead in my tracks. My own mom used to say those words to me all the time when I washed the dishes as a kid.

I'm not sure which is the greater mom fail here - the fact that my daughter still hasn't figured out how to wash dishes the right way the first time. Or the fact that I may be turning into my own mom!



Check out my post from earlier today, too! That is something I am truly proud of!


Until next time...

I'm green

The exact location of our house is both a blessing and a curse. We live on a hill. Our neighbor's house sits just a tad higher than ours. Our first summer here I quickly discovered that their house blocks the afternoon sun from reaching in through our windows. We don't have central air, so in the scorching summer months, this is definitely a blessing. The hill behind our house is covered with trees. It's a blessing because it provides shade for the kids to play. It's a curse because we have to rake the leaves every fall at least three times.

As much as I appreciate the shade provided to both our front and back yard, this proves to be a problem if I ever wanted to grow any kind of plants or flowers. Not that I'm very good at keeping things alive to begin with! How the kids are still thriving sometimes amazes me!

Over the years I have discovered that I am the master of impatients. Those pretty little flowers thrive in the shade! Outside of a few select flowers that I can manage to not kill, I've always wanted to grow a few vegetables or herbs. I don't have the patience for a full blown garden, but a few veggie plants would be nice. We all love fresh veggies!

A few months ago when the Easter Bunny was shopping, I she decided to pick up a pack of sweet peppers and a pack of strawberries. The kids were so excited about having their own plants and a few weeks ago, we finally got around to planting some seeds. I chose a few pots and we carefully placed the seeds in the moist dirt. I really didn't expect anything to grow. I'm lucky to keep plastic plants looking nice and new!

Every night the kids and I would diligently water all of our pots. Every night we would say "I hope something grows". Early last weekend, GG and I noticed some green in her strawberry pot! I'm a little upset that after all the seeds we planted, only 2 grew. But 2 are better than none. We rejoiced!





Her and I tried to be optimistic for Little Dude because his pots were still holding nothing but dirt. Until Monday! A teeny speck of green was starting to poke out of the dirt. My boy was so thrilled to finally see that he has his very own plant to take care of.




As of tonight we are just a tad more excited. We now have 2 strawberry plants and 5 pepper plants sprouting!


As if growing veggies isn't fantabulous enough, I also managed to have a geranium come back! I always thought they bloomed and were done. Something must have been hiding in the soil because I now have a baby geranium!



Who knew I actually had a green thumb? Certainly not me!



Until next time...

A call no mom wants to get

Karma is a bitch. Plain and simple. I keep saying things and those things keep coming back and biting me in the ass.
I had been bragging for quite some time about my kids rarely getting sick while all their friends were dropping like flies. BOOM! Ear infection with one and pneumonia with the other.

Yesterday really solidified that karma is definitely not my friend. I received one of the phone calls no mother wants to get. A call from the teacher can be bad enough, but a call from the school nurse is never good.

I'm sure the nurse explained everything that she knew, but I only heard bits and pieces. Your son. Bathroom. Head. Doesn't remember what happened.

Oh shit!

I took a few deep breaths before I got in the car. The last thing I needed to do while freaked out was drive! Luckily the school is only around the corner.

What we think happened was my boy banged his head on something in the bathroom. If it wasn't the bathroom, it was the hinge of his classroom door. Anything is possible with Little Dude! How this injury was discovered, since he doesn't remember, was by a friend. One of Little Dude's classmates pointed out that he had blood on his neck. When he went to wipe it off, his teacher noticed that it was in his hair as well. This prompted a trip to the nurse's office.

The nurse explained that his cut didn't look deep enough for stitches, but the fact that he had no clue how it got there was disconcerting. Concussion was where my mind immediately went. And I'm sure hers, too.

Since we were unsure about him needing stitches, I really didn't want to wait in the ER to have them send me home. I would if I had to, but I thought to call our pediatrician instead. My favorite doctor (he really is!) looked at his head, asked a few questions, and did some test to rule out a concussion. Thankfully stitches were not on the agenda. We were sent home with directions to apply antibiotic cream and avoid sports, pools, and washing hair for a few days.


We don't have pool passes yet and my boy is quite happy to not have his hair washed. But how the hell am I supposed to keep him engaged in calm activities? This is obviously not something a boy who busts his head open is good at!



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