Little Einsteins

Dolly has been obsessed with pulling her pants down lately. I don't know where this came from but I hope this phase fades quickly.

We visited Hollywood Studios and had a character lunch with the characters from Disney Jr. The girls were thrilled to meet Special Agent Oso and Handy Manny but Dolly was particularly excited to meet June from Little Einsteins. So much so that she had something special in store for her. As June approuched the table next to us,  Dolly told me "I want to show June my bum!" It was at that point that her observant mother finally noticed that she was completely naked below the belt. I frantically pulled up her pants and again discussed proper dining etiquette with her. Luckily she was between me and the wall so I don't think many of our fellow diners had the opportunity to see her special gift to June.

Vultures

We rode the safari at Animal Kingdom. The girls loved seeing all of these beautiful animals but my Birdy was particularly intrigued by the vultures. I told her that vultures eat dead animals as part of the circle of life. With panic in her face she had the following question after I told her that.

Birdy "So if they eat dead animals do they eat dead humans?"

Me "Well I guess they could but they probably don't find many dead people laying around, just dead animals."

Meanwhile I still haven't remembered that we just buried one of our grandma's a few days before we left for Disney World.

Birdy "Oh no, the vultures are going to get Grandma Afton and Grandpa Harrison's bodies and eat them."

I tired to explain caskets and 6ft under but she was still concerned during the remainder of the ride. I think she forgot about it though when I bought her a Mickey shaped ice cream bar. I know that always makes me feel better about life too.

Sometimes the truth hurts.

While we stood in line for the rides we had time to do some people watching. Unfortunately for me, the only people watching/criticizing my 3 yr old did was of me. She told me over and over again that I have a fat belly and asked when is the baby coming (there's no baby and hasn't been since she occupied that space). I tried to ignore these comments but eventually had to address them and discuss what is not appropriate to say to someone. Ultimately she was threatened with timeout if she said it again. These incidents left me to conclude that:

1. My husbands child needs some manners

2. I need to do a few more crunches and sit ups.

3. The shirt I was wearing wasn't nearly as flattering as I thought it was.

and finally

4. Even though I was walking my butt off while pushing a double stroller around Disney World it didn't make up for all the churros, jalapeno pretzels and Mickey shaped ice cream bars I was consuming.

The gifts that keep on giving

I received an email from the girls school stating that they needed to bring a shoebox to make a Valentines box in class. So I began my hunt for a shoebox (or two in our case). First stop was the children's fathers closest. I recalled seeing some in there and was doubtful that he had been hit with a cleaning bug and thrown them out. As luck would have it, I was right. I quickly discovered two shoeboxes that will be perfect for his little Valentines to make their own Valentines boxes (what a good Daddy).

 

I opened the boxes to make sure they were empty and to my surprise discovered they were not. This is what I found in one of the boxes.

 

 

These are the gift cards that I had given their daddy over a year ago for Christmas along with the new shoes he received.

 

There are three interesting things about this discovery.

 

1 - It just goes to show you how often he cleans out his closest if he had an empty shoe box sitting on the floor for over a year.

 

2 - It just goes to show you how much these gift cards meant to him if he never went looking for them or tried to use them.

 

3 - I know have my Valentines day shopping done for the children's father.......he's getting a gift card to Subway and itunes. It's the gift that keeps on giving.

 

Serves him right! I wonder if he'll use them this time or let me recycle them again for Christmas 2013.

My little Pony - MacGyver style

Who needs a Swiss army knife when you have a My

 Little Pony from a Happy Meal.

 

Today was one of the rare moments when I locked my bedroom door. I'm tired of being interrupted in the shower and decided to lock my door for 20 minutes while I showered and got ready for the day. My husbands children didn't like this very much and decided to start their criminal careers at an early age with some breaking and entering.

 

I walked out of my bathroom to discover two little children standing in my room, next to my previously locked door. The little one was holding my car keys, the 6 yr old was holding this little tool in her hand. She was so proud of the fact that she found a tool (the ponies wing) to open mommy's locked bedroom door.

 

 

 

I give them credit for creativity but didn't appreciate my unlocked door. We may want to give the Juvenile Criminal Justice System a heads up that they have three smart ones headed their way in the next few years. Let us pray that they start to use their gifts and talents for unlocking the worlds mysteries rather than unlocking doors of things that don't belong to them. Or I may be visiting them in Cell Block C some time soon.

Been a while

I haven't been writing on my blog as much as I'd like lately. Things have been a little rough around here and free time has been scarce.

The children's father as moved out and moved on. He has moved to another state to start a new job. We're hoping to join him in a few months. In the mean time we're sticking around to finish up school and wait for the new house we're buying to close so we'll have a place to live.

Being a single parent is much harder than I ever ever thought it would be. I love being with my girls, love being a stay a home mom and generally love my life. But I didn't realize how much I depended on the children's father for support. We Skype daily, talk almost hourly and still have know exactly what's going in each other's lives. But it's still painfully difficult to be away from him.

This weekend I had the opportunity to go to Vegas with a family member to see Tim McGraw and Faith Hill in concert. We coordinated everything so I would fly out and a few hours later the Daddy would fly home and take care of the girls while I was gone. Everything went just about as smoothly as it could. He had a great time catching up with his girls (he hadn't seen them in two weeks) and I had a great time getting some much needed rest in my own hotel room in Vegas.

My family picked me up from the airport tonight and we decided to go out to dinner. The girls decided on McDonalds (we're fancy like that) and had a blast. In fact all three cried when we made them leave 1 1/2 hours later. I had a chance to talk to Cricket for a few minutes while we were there. I asked her how things had gone with Daddy while I was out of town. Her response struck me in the heart, "Good, it's been fun. And we haven't made him cry." Ouch, apparently I have been shedding a lot of tears since the children's father left. I had noticed it but was hoping not everyone else had. Not the case. But I would bet $100 if the Daddy was left alone with his children for 14 days straight, 24 hours a day, he would be crying too.

The daddy leaves again tomorrow and I'm trying hard to limit my tears. I need to be stronger for the girls, stronger for the daddy and stronger for myself. If anyone has any great ideas on how to do that please let me know. In the mean time I'll be in the closet crying and eating ice cream.

Meanest mother ever

Last weekend the girls and I did some cleaning of their toys. We mothers are all too familiar with the endless piles of toys that no one wants to clean because it has now become more than anyone can handle. The girls won't play with the toys any more because they can't see what they have or find what they want. THE TIME HAD COME TO CLEAN.

We spent a few hours in the basements cleaning, thinning out and organizing their toys. I had trash backs to sort the trash & donation toys. Every time I put something in one of those two bags the girls freaked out. Tears were shed, words said that can't be taken back and tantrums thrown. But in the end the room was cleaned and organized.

At the end of the painful but now beautiful process Laila turned to me and said "Mommy, when I'm a mommy I'm never going to make my kids clean out their toys, it's just mean and makes us sad.

Someone please call DCFS and report the terrible injustices that take place at our house. It's borderline abusive.

But in the mean time know that the girls are incredibly proud of their clean toy room, love spending time down there now that they can find what they want, and show everyone that is willing their  new clean toy room.

Mission accomplished.

I like the way she thinks

This is a conversation that my 6 yr old and I had after we got home from the dentist this week.

Cricket "Mommy, are we going to have a yard sale this year?"

Me "Sure"

Cricket "Good, cause I have some things to sell."

Me "Oh yeah, like what?"

Cricket "My old toothbrush. I don't need it anymore cause I got a new one at the dentist today."

Me "That's nice that you want to sell your old one but I don't think people want to buy used toothbrushes. That's just something you want a new one of."

I did appreciate that she was thinking of things to sell but she might want to be a little more generous than her old toothbrush. We'll keep working on it.

Strange things happen in the middle of the night

A few nights ago I got up at 4:00am to check my little diabetic daughter's blood sugar. Middle of the night blood checks are a daily ritual at our house because her numbers are still so unstable. On this night she was overly high and I was afraid there was a problem with her pump site for her insulin pump. I wanted to rule that out so I decided to quickly change her site. I changed it, gave her more insulin and went back to bed. In the morning she was still high so I continued to give her more insulin. Throughout the day she had some of her worst numbers yet, despite my constant administering of insulin. Finally that evening I decided to change her site one more time. It was then that I discovered my poor site change from the night before.

 

 

Please look closely and you will see the needle that goes under her skin is bent. Why is it bent? Because I inserted it with the plastic safety cover still on so there was no where for it to go besides bend.  So she got no insulin all day. I would think poorly of myself if I had done this at some point in the day besides the middle of the night. But I'm giving myself a pass for the night and promising myself to do better next time.

What's wrong with Birdie

The following conversation just took place between by 6yr old diabetic and her twin sister. It was in regards to her hospital stay (3 yrs ago) when she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes.

Bird "Remember when I was in the hospital and you got to sleep over at grandma's

and I didn't?"

Cricket"Yeah, I'm sorry you didn't get to sleepover. Why were you at the hospital?"

Bird "Something was wrong with me."

Cricket "What was wrong?"

Bird "I don't remember."

Cricket "When you remember, tell me."

Apparently the only traumatic part of that fateful weekend was the fact that her sister got to sleep at grandmas and she didn't. She still doesn't even know there is something wrong with her. I'm not going to be the one to tell her.