Eat Your Words

Isn't it so rewarding to prove someone wrong after they have said something not-so-nice about you. Perhaps you overheard so-and-so mention your less than stellar housekeeping skills, and then the next time they visit your house happens to be in impeccable order. Those are always good days.

Monday was not one of those days. Someone recently asked me what the biggest challenge has been with adding a 3rd child. My answer was immediate and definite - going out. It is a juggling act to get myself and 3 kids ready, into the car, with everything we need for the outing, into the store, around the store, through the check-out, and then back home. And since Xander is only 3 months old, I am still in the trial and error stage.

Oh the choices - keep Xander in that awful infant seat, only to have something else to drag around after he has woken up and is crying because he hates the thing. Or put him in the sling, knowing that at some point I will probably have to carry a kicking and screaming Naomi because I didn't let her run wild (as her heart so desires.)

I know now that the first time to a new place should be thought of as "training" and I shouldn't go with the expectation of actually accomplishing what you would expect to accomplish at said place. But knowing this and doing this are 2 different things. We took a trip to the library on Monday. We have gone often enough that the girls now know what is expected of them. However, we hadn't been in a few weeks - just enough time for them to forget. To top it off, I had forgotten the sling, which means I was down an arm at all times.

It all started out decent enough. I held Xander as my 2 darling daughters held each others hands and walked gracefully into the library. On our way in an older woman looked at me and said, "How sweet, we could all learn a thing or 2 from you." I told her she may want to reserve her praise until the end of the trip. And boy was I right. I spent the entire time chasing Naomi, putting her into time-out, telling Annalia to stay in the kid's section and not follow me as I stop Naomi from pulling every book off the shelves. I don't think we were in the building for more than 5 minutes before I decided we needed to leave. Of course, that meant dragging a very resistant Naomi through the checkout line (where of course I had fines to pay, because it was just that sort of day) and out the door.

I don't know if that nice lady was still in the building, witnessing my desperate attempt to discipline a 2 year old in public, but I am sure she was ready to eat her words.

A Coffee Can of buttons

You know how you have these memories from your childhood that seem so simple, yet so beautiful. Climbing a certain tree in your backyard? That one place on the playground that you and your friends always hung out at during recess?

One of mine is a coffee can of buttons. I know it sounds silly, but my mom had a coffee can filled with random buttons under her sewing table that I loved to play with. I loved the feeling of digging my hands deep into the can. How all the buttons were so smooth. I loved looking at all the different types of buttons there were, sorting them out. Does this make sense to anyone else besides me? I don't know what the draw was, but I loved it.

But how do you get a ton of buttons? Have you ever checked the price on them? It is ridiculous. You can spend over 1 dollar for 2 buttons. At that price, it would cost a pretty penny to fill up a whole bucket.

So when I say my friend's tub of buttons at sewing camp, I went a little bizerk. All those same childhood feelings came rushing back as I dug my hands into the buttons. I guess Andrea pitied the look she saw on my face, because she let me take them home.

And of course, as soon as I get home, I want to share my childhood memory with my girls, and let them play in this big ol' bucket of buttons.

WHAT IN THE WORLD WAS I THINKING? Buttons - EVERYWHERE. It was a nice memory - but now I feel bad for my mom having to pick up after me all those years ago. Although, it is cool to see that Naomi seems to have the same fascination with a bucket of buttons as I did. And I can already see her, 28 years old, chasing down rolling buttons as her 2 year old indulges in her mommy's impractical, nostalgic whim.

Never a Dull Moment

Sometimes a long day can lead to tired kids, an early bedtime, and some much needed R&R for Mommy. But more often than not, a long day leads to exhausted children, a chaotic night, and a mommy wishing her glass of wine was a stiff drink.

Anyone wanna guess which night I had tonight?

Justin and I knew it was going to be a long day for us and for the kids, so we planned accordingly. And amazingly things went very much according to plan. We didn't forget

anything at church, we got in and out of a sit-down lunch in less than 45 minutes, and Naomi even took a nap in the church nursery during the whole memorial service.

I finally took the kids home to feed them supper and put them to bed. Justin, unfortunately, had to stay at church for a meeting. So it was all up to me. The kids needed a bath, so - silly me - I decided to give them one. Not that big of a deal, now that Xander is old enough to be in the big tub (in his little infant sling, of course.) As I am sudsing up Little Man, Annalia is in the tub helping me. I had already stripped Naomi down, all ready to toss her in once I got Xander out.

All is going well, even though I seem to be smelling Naomi's previously poopy diaper quite strongly. I make a mental note to take out the diaper pail - I figured it must be pretty full and that is why I am still smelling her dirty diaper. Until I look over, and see that Naomi apparently wasn't finished filling her diaper. She had taken a nice-sized dump on the floor. And since I was so intent on making sure my 3 month old didn't sink below the water, she had enough time to step in it multiple times, and then try to wipe it off of her foot on various things.

Poor Xander had no idea why he was left to scream on my bed, wrapped only in a towel (I sure hope he didn't pee and I just don't know) while I hastily got Naomi clean enough to dump her in the tub. Eventually, I got everyone clean and in bed (well, almost. Annalia is still going potty - in the toilet, thank goodness, and not on the floor.)

On the plus side - my bathroom floor is now spic-n-span.