Holiday Break

As with everyone's home, things are crazy around here right now. I just realized I only have 2 weeks until Christmas and although I am very very good about shopping early, there are always little things that I save for the last minute. I just realized today that today is officially beginning the "last minute"!

I'm going to take a holiday break from blogging. Between finding a the perfect gifts for those last few on my list and living out my dream of being the perfect mom by baking up a storm of cookies, Chex Mix, more cookies, and many more things with my kids by my side, I cannot give Mr. Blog the time he deserves.

Happiest of Holidays to your family and I'll see you soon!

Lions and Tigers and Bears Oh My!

Last week we went way up north in Minnesota for a family reunion with my husband's family. They have been going to this area for like 25 years or so. His aunt and uncle have a beautiful vacation home and normally we stay there. Due to a leak, dumb insurance agencies, etc. their home is gutted and we had to rent a place.

His aunt and uncle got there first and had gone to bed by the time we (me, husband, kiddos) arrived. This was the middle of the woods, it was late at night and we couldn't tell all that much other than it was a huge new log cabin. Without turning on many lights we grabbed a loft bedroom so as not to awaken anyone and went to bed.


Sunlight rolled around and scared the crap out of us. There were HUGE dead animals all over the walls. I'm talking bears, a bobcat, large fish, deer, mooses - or is it meeses, moosai? anyway - a freaking warthog, kittens (okay not really) and many other things that once innocently roamed the woods were mounted everywhere.

Let me state that I really don't have many thoughts either way on hunting. I personally wouldn't do it but I understand the need for hunting deer as they get over populated and run into the highways posing a danger to drivers, etc. I do however know that I do not want to stare at a large dead animal as I try to sleep or eat dinner.

For an entire week my 2 year old walked around saying "hi doggy, hi polar bear!" (NOTE: there were no dogs nor polar bears on the wall but if you read my blog with any consistency you already know that my son is animal challenged).

Poor little Z kept asking the animals to come and to play with him - like he does with our dogs at home. The difference is that our dogs love to play with him when he asks because they are not stuffed and hanging on our walls.

The really odd thing is that after a week all those carcases actually start to blend in and you don't notice them as much, which is almost more disturbing.

Road Trip #2 - Barfing Boogaloo

We got back from our 2nd road trip of the summer last night. The drive back home was just fine (well that is after the emergency room visit from my son playing with rat poisoning - but that's a whole different story). The kids were exhausted after two nights in a row of not getting to bed before 11:30 PM (fantastic parenting on my part) and they sort of just stared out the window quietly. The trip there wasn't exactly so easy.

Before we left, the kids and I went to the library to get some new videos for the road. We got a few of the old regulars, Max & Ruby and Maggie & the Ferocious Beast. But my daughter picked out a new video that we have not seen before - it is a little blue animated guy and the title says "Hi, I'm Todd" - I'll tell you right now that Todd is a jerk.

We were on the road for about an hour and the kids were acting completely insane. They were screaming at the top of their lungs and laughing really hard. It was clearly great fun for them however my husband was about to drive off a bridge on purpose so I went to the old road trip standby and pulled out the video player.

Trying to be different, I pulled out the "Todd" video. Big mistake! All was fine at first and the kids were quiet and watching intently for about 30 minutes. All of a sudden my daughter let out a blood curdling cry and said, "I'm going to throw up!" - I hurriedly dumped everything onto the floor out of a plastic grocery bag I had and threw the bag to her. She just kind of laid there and groaned and complained about her tummy. Of course we were in the middle of nowhere Kansas and there was no place to stop.

My son contently watched the video and ate iced animal crackers, all the while I'm constantly asking my daughter if she wants us to pull over to the side of the road or if she could wait until we found some hole in the wall rest stop.

We were going like 100 miles an hour to find a suitable barfing location. The millionth time I turned around to ask if my daughter was okay, I heard my son cough so my eyes naturally went to him. At that precise moment he projectile vomited everywhere. No warning, no upsetness, no nothing. He then went on to continue to eat his animal crackers.

Strangely my daughter never got sick but she felt terrible for a few minutes. We turned off the video, pulled over, cleaned everything up (well I cleaned everything up, my husband does not do vomit, which works out fine because come to find out, I don't do rat poisoning very well) and went on our way. Everyone was fine from then on. After much discussion about what the kids had eaten, drank, any flu viruses going around, etc. we came to the conclusion that it was that stupid Todd video. What a little blue putz, Charlie and Lola have never made my kids yack on a road trip. I don't know what kind of crazy animation he had going on there but Todd is no longer welcome in our home - err - car.

Glad the road trips are over for the summer - oh, well except that little one we are taking to northern Minnesota - only about a 9 hour drive... Ahhhhhh the memories!

Road trip!

The kids and I are going down to visit my parents for a few days. We are super excited about it!

I'm sure my husband is more excited about our trip than anyone as he will have the house to himself. I know he loves us but I think he likes us a lot better after we've been away for awhile. You know, the whole distance makes a heart grow fonder thing.

For him I think it is more of a sleeping in/not breaking up fights over the fuzzy dice we got at a party last week/not stepping on 300 Legos on the way to the bathroom/no one putting sticky hands in his hair/no one making snide comments when his boxers don't make it into the hamper makes the heart grow fonder thing.

Although we have such a great time at my parent's house - the getting there part is kind of a nightmare. Preparations begin about a week ahead of time. $284 worth of items from the $1 aisle at Target usually help quite a bit. Distractions galore are really the only things that get me through the 5 hour drive to their house. I could fly but really it isn't all that much easier to pack and get through an airport with two children - one of who is a complete maniac - on my own. At least in the car they are strapped in and I can't lose them - well probably can't lose them.

As a product of a mother who has written a newspaper column on packing for the past 15 years, you know I am an efficient packer. Just the essentials - a dop kit filled with every sunscreen known to man, several varieties of insect repellent and whatever the stuff is that fixes you up if you do actually get a bug bite, 4 packages of Band-Aids all with differing cartoon characters, Children’s Motrin, adult aspirin, Neosporin, an ear and oral thermometer, cotton balls, nail clippers, alcohol rubs and a suture kit.

Normally my husband is along for these road trips like when we go to the lake. In those circumstances I have things down to a science: We stuff our car with a cooler the size of Texas, 2 dogs, 2 kids, enough clothes for rain, shine and anything in between, 4 bathing suits per child because they can never decide what they will want to wear when we get there, water skis, life jackets and a lot of beer we are on our way. Sitting with my knees up to my ears, as there is no room on the floorboard among the sea of DVDs, new toys for the road and coloring books, we zip along the highway. I perfectly time the snacks for the changing of the 87 videos for the car ride and we only stop about 11 times for potty breaks in the 3-hour drive.

But this one is a solo mission and the drive is 2 hours longer than the beloved lake house. Since it is probably a good idea for everyone in my car and on the road for me to keep both hands on the wheel, the kids are going to have to fend for themselves back there. This is uncharted territory for me here. I'm thinking it might be a bit like Lord of the Flies.

UPDATE: So we made it here in one piece which is very exciting. Eight minutes into being on the highway I called my mother to let her know we had left and were on our way. At that point my kids had already eaten Scooby Doo graham cracker snacks, 1 blue Twizzler each, 1 Rice Krispie treat each, shared a bottle of water and had two separate arguments about the zebra striped towel that happened to be in the backseat with them. At that point I was scared to death, this ride was gonna be hell.

But amazingly I didn't even have to turn the video player on until 2 hours into the drive and the only times we stopped were to get gas (no one got out of the car but me) and to change the video. I'm sort of annoying like that and hate to stop on road trips when I'm on my own. My son is in diapers so he can take care of his business on the highway and I didn't let my daughter drink anything after that first bottle of water. Of course that didn't matter because about 30 minutes before we got to my parents' house she really had to go to the bathroom - but really 30 minutes? Surely she could hold it that long, there was no way I was stopping at that point.

When I called my mother to let her know we were about ten minutes away my daughter made me relay this message to her:

"Tell Happy I can't hug her or Poppa until I go to the bathroom because I don't want to get peepee on them."

Poor kid, I'm really the worst mom ever.

We're on Vacation

We went to a wedding in my hometown over Memorial Day weekend. It was the perfect scenario as my parents live there and it was my father's birthday so it was a great chance to see the 'rents, go to the wedding and celebrate dad's big 68. Three birds with one stone - my favorite!

On Friday night we attended the rehearsal dinner and so my parents volunteered for kid duty. I find it hilarious how grandparents do things differently than parents do. As the story was told to me, our 4 1/2 year old daughter did all the regular bedtime things: potty, put on pjs, brush teeth, bedtime story, etc. However, apparently her night did not end there.

The first mistake my parents made was asking her what her bedtime was. To be honest I was beyond surprised she came up with a number that is actually a time. My best guess to her response would have been "twenty eighty" because that is her favorite number, but she confidently told my parents it was at 8:30 since she was on vacation. That is actually an hour later than her real bedtime but not too bad considering she has no idea what time she goes to bed. Lord knows where she got that "on vacation" thing.

A better parent might teach their children their bedtime but I like to keep my options open. On days where my kids are driving me crazy I'm a fan of going with an earlier bedtime (I have been known to put my kids down at 5:15 PM but in my defense it was daylight savings and I got completely confused as to what time it actually was) and on nights when we have friends and their kids over my little monkeys stay up obnoxiously late.

On regular evenings with nothing crazy going on I am kind of a bedtime drill Sargent. In our household the rule is that you have a one-time limit on coming out of your room after bedtime unless there is a true potty emergency (Let me clarify, that is for my children only, my husband is allowed to get out of bed as many times as he wants). I should have relayed that information to my parents because apparently our daughter went over that limit by about 17. The excuses ranged from the mundane of needing water, having to potty again and again and monsters on her ceiling. Up to the more creative, blood on her finger (upon inspection my mother found the smallest of dots that was probably from a marker), sleeping bag was too noisy, shoes were walking around the room by themselves, her eyeballs were itchy and what was the evacuation plan in case of fire?

My parents knew she really needed to get to sleep but they were so impressed with how inventive she was that they anxiously awaited what she would come up with next. About an hour and a half later my father coughed twice to which she softly said, "Poppa, you okay?" and then louder "Poppa are you OKAY?" and after hearing no response she shuffled into their bedroom to ensure that he was in fact not choking. He said "Yes, I am fine honey, thank you" and off she went to bed not to be seen again. That is until she crawled into bed with my husband and me at 5:22 AM to ask why cows are brown. We had gotten home just a few hours before after numerous adult beverages and weren't exactly thrilled to see her sweet face at that early moment. I asked why she didn't wait until the clock had a "7" on it before she came into our room (another one of our rules) and she chuckled and said "Mom, we're on vacation." New rule, next vacation kids aren't invited.