Costume Contest

Enter your little cuties in this great costume contest from the Kansas City Repertory Theatre and you could win $1,000! That'll buy lots of candy.

Go here for more details.

The kids got a carrot in his ear

Like most 2 year olds, my son loves pretending he is on the phone. He has used countless items around our house as a "phone" such as remotes, books, shoes, my arm and his very favorite, a big blue calculator.

If you are the person he is calling on the calculator the conversations might get a bit boring because they always go the exact same way:

Z: "Hi, what doin'?"

Z: "Nufin."

Z: "Okay, bye bye. Wuv you."

From my end however, it is really cute - well that was until he grabbed this particular household item to use as his phone: Now it is just getting weird - especially because he was using a dust pan as the part to speak into.

I'm not busy!

How is it that the last couple of weeks I have been extremely busy:
- traveling for work
- when not traveling, doing my actual work
- being the co-chair of the Entertainment Committee of a charity ball
- dealing with sick children
- one million other things
and I was able to write new posts for my blog?

Here we are this week
- no travel
- charity party is over (we raised $100K!!!!)
- work is pretty light
- kids are healthy
yet I have had not found one minute to write anything for my blog?

Makes no sense. Kind of like my life.

Hopefully I will get really busy again next week and therefore write several new posts.

Potty Training is going swimmingly

My daughter has been slacking in her duties of potty training her 2 year and 4.5 month old brother. I guess I can't be too upset with her since I have done NOTHING toward the furthering of his use of the toilet.

Yesterday my husband asked me to buy Z some big boy underwear with a character he really likes on them in hopes to get this whole thing kick started. I trekked to Target and got some pretty spiffy Elmo undies. I'm still not really ready to hit potty training hard core but I figured we could at least start talking about it with the little guy.

Brought Elmo underwear home and Z really liked them. We picked the pair he wanted to wear first and put them on. Z happily ran around the house yelling "Elmo potty!" about 1,000 times. Of course he had zero interest in sitting on the potty or going anywhere near it.










About 15 minutes later it was bath time and we hiked upstairs to get squeaky clean. I asked the kiddos to get their clothes off. Z refused to take off his undies. He had also gotten new shoes that day and I had to wrestle the kid to the ground to get those off. It was very clear that Elmo undies were not going to come off without World War III ensuing. I really had no choice but to let him crawl in that way.

I'm really glad he likes them but so much for my theory that having Elmo on his underwear will help with potty training since won't want to get his beloved Elmo wet...

The vortex of combs

We all know there is a tiny monster who lives in our dryer that happily munches away on socks. He only chooses 1 sock from each pair and has a great laugh when you spend time searching for it behind your dresser, on the top part of the dryer drum, under your bed, in your refrigerator, etc.

In my house we also have another place that things disappear to. It is our brush/comb vortex. I find it very strange because there are only two of us (the females) in this house who actually use a comb or brush but they manage to get sucked into this vortex almost on a daily basis.

Yesterday I had to travel to Milwaukee and back for work. Clearly in meeting with clients, I needed to have freshly brushed hair. It's not like my home life where there are days that the only thing that gets run through my hair is a race car driven by my son.

I showered, got all squeaky clean and was ready to do my do. No comb or brush to be found. I searched high and low and could not find any of them! I have several combs and brushes for just this reason. I never use my daughter's brush for fear that since she is a school aged child, one day she might bring home the dreaded lice and I DO not need that issue in my head in addition to all the other issues I have going on already.

But I was desperate and so went on a search through her stuff to find her brush. Couldn't find that either. Then I saw it, her pink princess vanity - there had to be something in there. And I was right! There was a huge pink plastic comb shaped like a heart with princess bobbles on it, gemstones, and stickers galore. Let me tell you it wasn't easy styling my coif with that thing but I made it work - I had to. I stuck the comb in my bag as I headed out the door to catch my airplane. Got to the Milwaukee airport, pulled out my large pink heart shaped comb in the bathroom and in my professional business suit and high heels, began to freshen up. I ignored the looks of the women around me who stared in awe at the ridiculousness of what I was doing. The 5 year old set looked at me with envy.

Had my meeting, everything went great. We were all standing around talking afterward and someone looked down and said "uh oh, someone lost their comb" - and there it was. In the middle of my clients, my bright pink princess comb was staring up at us. I kind of ignored it at first and then someone else walked to our circle and pointed it out. Of course I did what any grown up would do in this situation - blamed it on my daughter.

"Oh my gosh, how funny! My daughter likes to sneak things into my bag when I leave town so that I think about her while I'm gone - this must be what she put in this time! Silly girl!"

So tell me - what in your house mysteriously disappears?

Vroom Vroom goes his bed

I'm a dork. That is a fact. I have had the bedding for my 2 year old son's big boy bed for about 2 years now. I found what I liked, bought it and haven't wavered on my decision once. In addition, over the past few years I have spent many happy hours looking for the right accessory that will go in this spot or the perfect color blue lamp shade, etc.

Z is still in a crib but he is very close to learning how to propel himself out and break one or more body parts. That means room transformation time!!!

My husband really never gives much of an opinion on anything and normally he lets me interior decorate to my heart's content. Although he doesn't interject very often, when he does, 100% of the time it is annoying. His last strong opinion was when we got married almost 9 years ago and he had a major opinion on the weight of the everyday knives we were registering for. Here we are, a short 9 years later and he has another opinion.

This time his obnoxious opinion is on the choice of big boy bed for our son. He wants a race car bed. Let me repeat that - he wants a race car bed. Yeah, I do mean one of those very large, very plastic, very red race car beds.

I'm a snob - can't help it. I not that big on plastic toys for my kids and so you can probably imagine a race car bed is not in the design schematic I have drawn up for Z's room. Yes I'm not kidding, I'm that big of a dork I have a drawn up layout of his big boy room - did it for my daughter's room too.

So here we are. Every day I walk a line of "hmmm... he never insists on much, maybe I should let him have this one thing" to "Oh my God, there is no way in hell I am putting a race car bed into my design plan." I'm at the point that I'm considering paying someone $400 to build me a wood, chic race car bed for the little guy. Yes, I have gone so far as to price that option. I'd do it but I don't think that would satisfy my husband's race car fantasy.

I realize many a wee boy has been incredibly happy in a red plastic race car bed and I'm sure Z would absolutely love it, but let's be honest - it is all about me :)

My daughter summed it up best. We were talking about the bed and I was mentioning many cool and appealing to the eye options that we could get for Z. My husband asked our daughter which one she thought Z would like better. She said, "Dad, you know you are the one who wants a race car bed." Exactly!

Maybe I should get one for the hubs and let him sleep in it so he can get over never having one as a boy and leave me alone to design away.

Can't wait to see what she names her kids

You have probably gathered by now that my 4 year old daughter is totally crazy - but that is what I like about her.

Every Wednesday her class has Show 'N Tell and the item a child brings to share must correspond with the letter of the week. This week is the letter "E".

At first she was just going to take herself because her name starts with "E" which I thought was cute and clever - but that idea went out the door. After rummaging in her toy box for an "E" item she found a colorful stuffed Elephant that she got as a gift from her Aunt Hilary. The elephant came named and has a cute book that goes along with him. His name is Elmer proven by the fact that ELMER is sewn on his side in large letters and the accompanying book is called "Elmer the Elephant".

I'm sure her teacher and everyone stared at her like she was a bit nuts when she introduced her elephant whom she calls Walmart. Don't ask me why, I can't break into that brain of hers.

Can't wait until it is "J" week and she takes her pink, curly pig-tailed hair, female baby doll named Baby Jesus.

I'm going to let my 4 year old do the mothering for now on

We live in a split level house and my husband and I hang out on the middle floor while the kids often play downstairs. They rarely make the trek up two flights of stairs to their rooms quietly - there is always a pit stop involved where they come chat with us, etc.

My husband was watching TV the other day and heard the soft pitter patter of feet as the kiddos went up both flights of stairs quietly. In my house quiet = bad. 100% of the time that means they are up to something and 89% of the time that something is not good.

My husband went upstairs a few minutes later to assess. As he walked down the hall toward their bathroom where their voices were coming from, he heard:

E: "Pull your pants down Z."

E: "Good boy!"

Then he hears the familiar rip noise of each side of a diaper coming off.

E: "Okay Z, now sit on the big boy potty"

E: "Great job! Here is a book to read, now go pee pee, sweetie."

My husband walked into the bathroom at this point and couldn't help but crack up, be in shock and be a little concerned all at the same time. E then asked dad where she can find the stickers for the yet to be developed potty chart because "she was just so proud of Z for trying the big boy potty".

Of course my 2 year old did not produce anything - but my daughter is already more successful in her potty training lessons than I have been. So far my attempts have only yielded tears and a toilet seat around Z's head:

I'm thinking this is fantastic! Let the 4 year old potty train the 2 year old - she seems more motivated to do it than I am and she is easily bribed with toys, etc. Potty training your brother because your mom doesn't want to is totally worthy of getting a pony, don't you think?