Summer in my 5 year old's eyes

I completely stole this idea from Yankovich 6 Pack and I am really glad I did.

I asked my daughter to make a list of 30 things she wanted to do this summer and I have shared it below:

1) Go swimming (sweet! we have already done that like 7 times!)

2) Go to the spray park at Uncle Bucky's. (Note: My brother is Uncle Bucky. Bucky is not his name but that is how she said "Uncle Brett" when she was little and it has stuck. Also, Uncle Bucky lives in Washington DC and has a spray park 3 houses down from his house. This one is probably not gonna happen.)

3) Have a little jog

4) Buy special kid jog clothes (what is with her and jogging?)

5) Go to the park (again DONE!)

6) Take a walk in the stroller (We do this all the time. Maybe we have not done it since it was technically "school is out for summer summer time" but we can check this off really easily)

7) Paint

8) Collect leaves

9) Go to the neighborhood park. (There is a tiny little thing I guess you could call a park at 75th and Mission - a major intersection by our house. There is literally a bench there and that is it but since we drive by it 1,435 times a day she really wants to go. I can accommodate that request - maybe we will even walk there in the stroller. Look at me killing lots of birds with very few stones.)

10) Go to the beach. (Hmmm. Oh wait we are going to my parents lake house and we can totally find a beach there. It will be an Oklahoma beach and I don't think that is probably what she is wanting - but it's not my fault she wasn't very specific.)

11) Get the mail (We will do this 5 times a week for the entire summer. She is going to be in hog heaven.)

12) Got to a garden to see pretty things. (Is that a diss on our landscaping?)

13) Have a bike ride (Super simple to accomplish numerous times. This kid is easy!)

14) Buy another snow globe when we go visit Uncle Bucky. (I just visited Uncle Bucky when on my business trip this past weekend. I got her a snow globe and her brother broke within 24 hours of us having it. But yeah, we still aren't going to DC...)

15) Help daddy build a lemonade stand. (Strangely she did not mention actually selling lemonade)

16) Hug and kiss Z. (Seriously how cute is our kid?)

17) Go shopping, like for toys (I knew it had to show up somewhere)

18) Drive to Pump It Up. (Ummm... do we have to go in?)

19) Plant some flowers (again dissing our landscaping)

20) Have a nice, cozy summer. (Oh my gosh. Heart melting. Cute kid)

21) Play the farmer in the dell. And then she said: "Don't worry I will teach you."

22) Get more nail polish. (This kid has like 12 bottles of polish but heck her summer wish list is so easy I think I can accommodate this one.)

23) Buy some sunglasses (Good plan)

24) Cook with mommy (Fortunately she is too young to realize I CANNOT cook.)

25) Do a secret for mommy because you are such a nice mommy. (Aaaah. Probably buttering me up so we can do #17)

26) Make a rainbow. (I mean wow, she is so stinkin' cute)

27) Do the outside exercise. (She loves it when I come home from a jog and I bench press her in our front yard.)

28) Take gymnastics

29) Get my own candle in case my room smells stinky. (Huh??)

30) Play pretend

This has got to be a new tradition. I am going to ask my kids to make this list each summer and see what they say. This was too cute and I am going to to feel like a rock star mom by the end of the summer because we can do just about everything on here!

What do your kids want to do this summer?

My first Award!!

I have been crazy busy with work for the past two weeks. By far the busiest I have been in quite some time. Of course those were the exact same two weeks my kids had a break from "school" before their summer session started. On top of the craziness I had to leave town on Saturday morning for work and got home Monday night.

I got to stay at my brother's house though which made the trip infinitely better. His darling house, great wife and adorable kids were a huge perk to my travel.

Anyway, I got home late Monday night and my kids had me up at the crack of dawn. I was exhausted but imagine my surprise when I came home to the coolest thing ever - an award for my blog!

Jenny has a cute blog that I have really enjoyed finding. She has a ton of children and handles it all beautifully. In the small world it continues to be, we actually live very close to one another!


There is the award - isn't it pretty? It truly made my day.

Now there are instructions that go along with the award. I must pass this along to some amazing bloggers and I have to share 10 things about myself that you do not already know. I must say that I do not expect the blogs I list below to do all the instructions that come along with it - I just want to let you know that I love you guys!

1) I am allergic to cats. Boring but true.

2) I have turned into a crier. I cried at the Kindergarten Roundup meeting for my daughter, I cried last night at the rehearsal for her ballet recital. I cry a lot. I was NOT this person before I had kids.

3) I am the youngest of three children - and the only girl. There were definite advantages to that. I was a bit spoiled and I loved it! But I turned out to be a nice person, so it's all good.

4) I have no natural instinct for cooking. My husband can throw things together and make something fabulous. I can follow a recipe to the T and make something mediocre.

5) Although I make fun of him a lot in my blog, I am very proud of my husband. He works really hard for our family and is an amazing and wonderful partner.

6) I know of 11 people whose birthdays are on April 23. I think that is strange.

7) I share the exact same birthday as Nick Lachey - same year and everything. I spent a summer at a school in Switzerland and spent a lot of time with Robert Di Niero's son Raphael. Raphael and I have the same birthday as well - although not the same year.

8) If I could do it all over again, I would have gone to school for interior design. People keep telling me it isn't too late, but I'm entirely too lazy to start all over again.

9) I never missed not having a sister as I was growing up because I had really cool brothers who were very good to me.

10) I just did a post a few days ago about all the tid bits you never wanted to know about me. You can find it here.

In addition here are some great blogs that really deserve this award and places you should definitely spend your free time checking out.

Acting Your Age. This is my dad's blog. It is so cute and he is even more adorable. The blog chronicles his walk to stardom. I do not expect him to pass this award on as I am sure he doesn't read any blogs other than mine and his but I have to give him a shout out!

Momma Amma. Another person who I found that lives very close to me. She is very creative and has super cute kids.

The Mother Load. Another person who lives by me. Kansas must be chalk full of talented blogging ladies. She is funny and has really interesting posts.

Alabaster Cow. This girl is funny, really funny. Enough said. You have to check her out.

Penny Pinchin Mom. She always has the latest deals and coupons and because of her I've scored some great stuff!

Little Green Notebook. She posts such beautiful items that I am in a constant state of stress on choosing which direction I should go in completely redecorating my home!

Live Off Groupon. I'm a Groupon junkie. If you don't know what Groupons are, go here. This guy is living solely off Groupons for a year and it is pretty fascinating. What a fun thing to do!

Lex Loci Lori. Like me, she is originally an Okie but she currently lives in Colorado (we lived there for about 3 years) so she must be cool.

Enjoy!

The sensitive father

Like most kids, my kids are picky eaters. But because we live in Kansas City and because my husband recently purchased a new Smoker and has not stopped smoking things for more than a 5 minute period since, my children love BBQ. Gates sauce is a favorite in our household and my daughter will eat it on anything. It isn't normal how much our 5 year old likes it. She loves anything and everything BBQ'd and I know this because I think my husband has smoked every kind of meat known to mankind since he got his new toy.

Today we were driving past a graveyard (bet you are wondering how these are related) and my daughter was really fascinated by it and asked where her great grandfather's graveyard is. I looked at the hubs and kind of gave him the look of why don't you take this one. You see my husband's grandfather was cremated and I was just not sure of how to explain that to her in a delicate manner. I can now for certain tell you how NOT to explain it.

D: "Well honey, when they die some people's bodies are buried like the people in this graveyard."

E: Getting impatient. "I know that dad, I'm asking where Grandpa's grave is."

D: "He doesn't have a grave. His body wasn't buried, it was BBQ'd."

It's unfortunate that we live in the BBQ capital of the world. I'm pretty sure my daughter is never going to eat it again.

I've outdone myself this time

Tonight is Jazzoo. It is a super fun party at the zoo that we go to every year. The dress for the evening is "creative black tie"- which puts a lot of pressure on me. Creativity is in my blood, no doubt about that. See the posts here. However for some reason I choke each year. Unlike my mom who as I wrote here last year would probably be able to skin a kangaroo and make it look adorable as her attire for the evening, I freeze when it comes to ideas for the party.

But this year I have really outdone myself. This week and last week have been insanely busy for me with work - I mean insane! And of course to top that off, the kids were on a two week break from school. With these variables I have not had time to come up with anything for Jazzoo -but someone was watching out for me and made it happen anyway.

See:



Sorry for the disgusting picture - of my pale white legs.

Isn't that perfect? I think it is very zoo-like. I'm gonna tell everyone I got in a tussle with a lion! But of course, just like finding the perfect dress for a party and then someone else shows up in it - my friend Lindsey apparently yesterday went out and got the same accessory for herself. She REALLY committed. The lion scraped her wrist, knuckles, both legs and her feet. Geez, my friend group is clearly clumsy!

Sometimes I actually get it right

Our daughter is on swim team. I use the term "swim team" loosely as my daughter doesn't know how to swim. At this level it is basically swim lessons.

Our pool has two kiddie pools and one big pool. Totally my fault but because our little guy has to stay in the kiddie pool our daughter spends her time there as well. Because of this her swimming skills are not what they should be.

Yesterday was her first "lesson" and there were about 15 kids in the class. The kids started in the big pool holding onto the side with one hand and holding onto the kick board with the other. They numbered the kids into 1's, 2's, 3's and 4's. E was a 1.

They asked each group to use their kick boards and kick to the other side of the pool.

1's took off. E stayed.
2's took off. E stayed.
3's took off. E stayed.
4's took off. E stayed.

She was the only child left.

I'm a rule follower. Always have been and so I was a bit taken aback that E had not done what was asked of her.

I went up to one of the coaches and said "She is a 1 but she didn't go." He said, "oh this is just for fun, it's okay."

I think he thought I was a bystander tattling on her. I went on to tell him that I am her mother and I think she needs some extra help as she is scared. I walked away feeling like a despicable stage mom.

A couple of coaches went to her and helped her across. I could see her fear begin to turn into a smile. By the end of the lesson, the coaches had convinced her to actually let go of the side and swim to them a few feet away. Stage mom was on the sideline in tears.

I was so proud of her for taking that leap of faith. She struggled a bit and I had to resist the urge to plunge into the pool fully clothed and swim her to safety. She went under water for a second and came up coughing and crying - but she did it! The coach held her and calmed her - but who was there to calm me? Thank God big sunglasses are fashionable.

At times I get so frustrated with her because I know she can do so much more than she is willing to try. She is a cautious child and even though I was a rule follower, I was willing to try everything. Although she was literally the only child in the group that could not swim, I was beaming with pride when she kicked her little legs and held herself up unassisted for about 3.6 seconds.

I cheered and hugged her and made a huge deal about how she swam.

Her response? "No I didn't, I sank."

I pointed out that before she sank, she did swim and we now know that she can do it.

Although she walked away from that lesson never wanting to swim again I was able to turn it around and make her proud of what she accomplished. She is actually looking forward to her next lesson tomorrow and so am I. Even if she is behind her peer group she is working harder and trying harder than any of them. For that she is my little hero.

Most of the time I totally screw things up and give my children oodles of ammunition for the therapists they will inevitably have but this time I think I really got it right.

You search and you come across me - that has got to be a disappointment

I'm the kind of nerd who LOVES spreadsheets and such and so I find Google Analytics thoroughly entertaining. One part allows you to see how some people ended up on your website by the search words they put into their search engine.

The people who stumble across me fall into 3 categories as you will see below. I think I am safe in saying that 100% of them were disappointed that they ran across a mom blog.

Category 1: Tech N9Ne
For those of you who don't know, he is a rapper for which my husband directs music videos. I have written a few posts about things related to him (here and here) and here is what Google Analytics told me people typed into their search engine and unfortunately for them came across me. Being the wonderful person I am, as a public service I have added some notes in green italics so these people do not walk away without the answers they need.

1) What to wear to a Tech N9NE concert (From what I noticed, not a lot of clothing is necessary)
2) 16 year old at Tech N9NE concert (Probably not the best idea)
3) A mom rap w/ two kids (Not sure what to say about this one. I can't rap, but I have 2 kids)
4) How long does a Tech N9NE concert last (Not long enough)
5) Is a Tech N9NE concert crazy (Yeah, crazy fun)
6) Tech N9Ne concert what to wear (See #1)
7) What should I expect from a Tech N9NE concert (See #5)
8) What songs have they played at the Tech N9NE concerts 2010 (rap songs)

Category #2: Robin's Nests
1) Ants in a robin's nest (That sucks. Try Orkin.)
2) Do they have higher nest for robins (I can't answer this question without more information. Who is they?)
3) What to do when robins mom is gone (Rest assured, my mom has not gone anywhere. I mean she could have left and gone to the store or something but then she will be back.)

Category #3: Miscellaneous
1) KC Parents magazine (It is a rocking magazine that has this amazing freelance writer named Robin. You should totally check them out.)
2) Put cake in ass tube (HUH? Which one of you was searching for that?)
3) Sprained her ankle (ouch. elevate it and put some ice on it. Have two glasses of wine and then go to bed)

The laziest post ever

I'm beat from working like a mad woman yesterday and so I'm going the lazy way out on this blog. This is a cut and paste from one of those things people make you do on Facebook. I did this in January of 2009.

Here are all the things you never wanted to know about me:

1. I had no middle name until I got married
2. I traded down on last names when I got married.
3. I love to clean out closets and have no qualms about throwing anything away
4. I can cross only one eye
5. Some of my best friends in the world are people I have known since I was about 3 years old
6. I do not know how to make a pot of coffee (update May 2010- I have now made a few pots of coffee. Not sure why it took me so long, it is quite easy)
7. I hate painting my toenails because my feet always freeze when I do it
8. I cannot sleep without a down comforter on me no matter what the time of the year is
9. I may have been involved in a drunk late night mugging of a passed out college guy (I did not take the money)
10. I have read about 2 full books since my oldest child was born more than 4 years ago (update May 2010 - daughter is 5 1/2 years now and haven't read any additional books - lots of PEOPLE magazine though)
11. I have never had a cavity (update May 2010 - I had 2 cavities about a year ago. How did I go 30 something years without them and now have them? Not cool.)
12. I never had braces
13. I never ever want my husband to write a song for me or sing to me even though he is the lead singer of a band
14. I love interior design and constantly think about redecorating every room in my house over and over
15. I really hope my children have as great of a life growing up as I did
16. At the time, I was the youngest patient Dick Story had ever put in contacts. Had to get rid of those glasses
17. I recently found out that my mother was actually highlighting my hair when she told me she was doing a "conditioning treatment" on my hair. That started when I was in 5th grade.
18. I can make the most annoying noise on the planet with this fake laugh I do. It drives my husband insane - hence the reason I do it.
19. I did not fill my car up with gas myself until I got to college.
20. I have never gotten a speeding ticket
21. If you give me a word, I can immediately say it back to you backward
22. I once saw Pink Floyd in Venice, Italy
23. My first car was a yellow 1978 Country Squire Station Wagon with fake wood paneling - even though my father owned a car dealership.
24. I was one of the only 2 people who did not get accepted in chorus when trying out in 7th grade.
25. I was an extra (along with the rest of OKC) in the movie Surviving with such stars as Molly Ringwald, the guy from Gremlins (Zach Galligan), River Phoenix, the girl from Poltergeist, Marsha Mason, Paul Sorvino. I wore my brownie uniform in my scene.

Love notes to my guy

Yesterday was the dog's day for their annual visit to the vet and apparently in order to see the their entire picture of health, the vet needed their morning delivery.

I went for a run in the morning and left this note for my husband who was still in bed at the time.




The good news is his day could only get better from then on, right?

P.S. When did I start writing like a serial killer?

Super cool give away - on someone else's blog

I saw this on Momma Amma's blog and I just thought this give-a-way was too cool not to mention. I haven't been reading this blog until now but with the name of it (Let's Have a Cocktail), I'm sure she and I will be fast friends!

This give away is really awesome, I just wonder if I could ever find a photo where my kids are doing something as cool as her kid is in that one! Most of our photos have one if not both of the kids doing a combination of crying/hitting/screaming/picking a nose/etc.

Go here and check out how you can win some personalized art for your wall.

The things people will do so they don't have to hang out with me

I'm training for a 5K. Yes, I do realize how pathetic it is that I have to train to run 3.2 miles but that is my reality. I exercise quite a bit but I just don't run long distances (not that 3 miles is a long distance) - until now.

My friend Erica and I decided to run it together and we decided to train together - eventually moving toward training for a 1/2 marathon. This is going to be so much fun especially since the 1st 5K we signed up for is at night and there is drinking involved afterward. I will totally run to a summer brew/glass of wine/etc.

5K signed up for, running schedule and plan in place, music list downloaded to ipod, cute new shoes and running clothes, we were ready to go. Yay!

Next day, Erica broke her ankle.

See:


She did have a cute pedi going on there though, didn't she?

Geez, if she didn't want to be my running partner she just had to tell me.