Dinnertime with Dora...

You are all well aware of my struggles at dinnertime as I try to make dinner for our family while being hung on, chased and whined at by our lovely little toddler. It has gotten to the point that I just don't make dinner a lot of nights because I just don't have it in me anymore to go the rounds with her. We are spending WAY TOO MUCH money on eating out! I have been trying to come up with some ideas on how I could entertain her and thus maintain my sanity while I make dinner. The other day I came across a little Dora Play-Doh kit at Target and thought it might buy me some time when I need a few peaceful minutes.

Can I just say hooray for Dora?! It is a darn good thing that freakishly large headed little girl's neglectful parents let her go roaming in the jungles with only the supervision of a squeaky little primate because that's what put her on the map, therefore landing her on my table to buy me a few minutes of much needed sanity!  I have tried to only bring out the Play-Doh when I need the munchkin occupied so I can get things done and so far it is working. Now the question is what else can I get to have in reserve for when she loses interest in her Nickelodeon playmates?

Any ideas?  


            

I'm Tired...

Today's one of those days. You know the ones. Where you feel worn out, discouraged, unmotivated? I feel like I am always 2 (or 27) steps behind where I should be as a mother, a wife, a homemaker. I feel like our family has little direction as far as goals and routines and traditions. I feel like my life is a never ending cycle of laundry and dishes etc...and complaining that I get no help with any of it.

My kids (and Matt and I at times too) watch too much TV and eat too much junk food and don't get enough exercise or do enough work or constructive activities. It's hard to balance the letting them just be kids part with the learning and teaching them to work part, ya know? I want them to better recognize their talents and do more things to refine them and serve others with them (and I want to work on mine too!). I want them to know how to clean the bathroom right the first time...and do it!

I've kind of lost enthusiasm for the spiritual side of things in the last year or so also, and have not attended church as often as I should. I have let my habits of regular prayer and scripture study go and have therefore not encouraged my children as I should to pursue their own habits in these areas. It's not that I don't believe in my religion anymore, it's just that I have become well, to be honest, lazy.

So how does one change all this? How do I change not only myself, but help guide my entire family towards growth? I don't like change you know. I like to stay right where I am, where it's comfortable, and I think my kids have inherited that from me. On the other hand, Matt is very goal oriented and it probably drives him crazy that I lack ambition and stick-to-it-ivness (yep, I made that one up). The problem is, he is rarely home during the week and therefore I am the one that has to find the drive to enforce any knew routines, habits, or projects that need to happen in order to get our family where I would like us to be. *sigh*




But I am tired.


And change is hard.

Lagoon....So many pictures!

So we hitched up our camping trailer and headed to Lagoon! We decided we would stay the night there in the camping area so that we wouldn't have to drive back that night exhausted and so we could save money on food by coming back to the trailer for meals. The kids of course asked every few minutes how close we were and the anticipation nearly killed them while we parked and leveled out the trailer before heading into the park.

We headed in and the hot, exhausting, but fun day began. Matt went with the big kids and I headed towards the "kiddie rides" with Em. It was fun this year because she was old enough to really get into the rides and tall enough to even ride some of the bigger ones (The Tidal Wave!). Most of the time she was on the rides was spent with her hands jammed in her mouth in her signature "I'm terrified!" look but each time the ride ended she wanted to go again!

Her favorite rides were probably the little boats, the carousel and one of the new rides that had cars shaped like bugs and animals. She LOVED that one and insisted on riding it over and over which worked out because by that time it was about ten o'clock and there wasn't a line. I'm pretty sure at that point she was "sleep riding" anyway after having no nap and it being 2 hours past her regular bedtime (she finally got to sleep that night at 12:30!)

She HATED getting sprayed with water on the wetter rides and tried to climb in one of the fountains that wasn't for playing in...silly girl!

(No way was she goin' into the splash area and voluntarily getting wet!)

(Time out for a granola bar-way cheaper than amusement park food!)

The big kids meanwhile LOVED getting sprayed on the wet rides and their motto was "the faster, the higher the better!". They went on The Cliff Hanger 5 or 6 times. Wicked saw them repeatedly too. The Wild Mouse was Thomas' favorite and he went on it three times in a row (if it was me I'd have thrown up!).

One of the not so fun things that happened involved T and his beloved Cookies n' Cream Dippin' Dots. He had finally gotten a cup of them after waiting all day and was walking while eating them and like most kids didn't watch where he was going. Some big guy wasn't watching where he was going either and knocked the Dots right out of Thomas' hand and all over the ground. He just kept walking, didn't apologize or anything! Of course Matt's inner Papa Bear came out and he confronted the guy and asked him if he noticed what he had done. The guy said, "Yeah. The kids wasn't watching where he was going. Whaddaya want me to do about it?" What a jerk! Anyway, Thomas was partly at fault and although he was pretty bummed he handled it well and didn't make too big of a deal out of it. The second day we were there he finally got another cup of Dippin' Dots and was SO happy!

Of course when at and Amusement Park one should always try to win a prize right? When the older three wanted to go on The Cliff Hanger again....and again....and again....and Thomas didn't want to I let him play the water gun race game and he won a bear. Of course he wanted to try again for a bigger prize and when he won that one too he had the choice of a bigger prize or another small bear. He chose to take another small bear so that Em could have one too. What a great big brother! I love it when I get to watch my kids love each other!

Of course when the others got off their ride they wanted to play too and each won a bear also. Cute Alyssa actually won twice and could have gotten a bigger prize as well but let Madison have a small bear so that she could have a prize too. What sweet kids!

(Notice the wet backsides form The Cliff Hanger!)

One of my favorite things about our Lagoon days was how proud Emilia was of her hand stamp. Every time we got to the front of a line she would hold her little fist up proudly and show her stamp to the ride operator. Sometimes she would just randomly hold it up to me and with a proud smile she would say, "Mommy, stamp!". After it washed off in the tub she held it up and asked, "Stamp?" with obvious disappointment at it's inevitable demise. 

To sum it all up, it was an exhausting two days but SO fun! I may be too old for many rides myself now but it's so fun to watch my kids have the time of their lives, and remember when I ran from line to line with never ending energy! I know that in a few months Thomas will start asking when we will be going on our annual pilgrimage to Lagoon again and it will be fun to look back at this trip and relive the memories until we can return next year on another hot summer day.

Like all good things our Lagoon trip came to an end and so did our visit with Alyssa. It was hard to let her go, and harder to comfort Madison after she left. I admit, I cried a little with her, my own heart breaking at the thought of my girl being without her bestest friend again for awhile. Hopefully one day soon we can fly her out to Texas and they can catch up again but until then kids are resilient and there's cell phones and Gmail. Thanks heavens for modern technology!

Reunited and It Feels So Good...

Well, I'm back. After coming here each day to click on links to my blogs that I read, and seeing your encouraging comments while here, I have decided that I shall keep blogging and stop worrying about the fact that I am not exactly changing the world while doing it. I see those bloggers out there who have like a thousand readers and I think about my lil'ole blog and it's 5 or 6 readers and I think  what's the use? But the "use" is that I enjoy writing, I enjoy taking pictures, I am a terrible journal keeper and I like that my kids will have this to look back on as a journal of our family and my thoughts, so blog I shall! Anywoo, on to bigger and better things...

A couple of weeks ago we had a very special visitor here. Last year Madison's very bestest friend in the whole wide world moved to Texas. It was heartbreaking to watch and although they did see each other around the holidays last winter, they had not seen each other since. They talk on the phone a lot and chat on Gmail but it's just not the same! So when we found out that Alyssa's family was going to be here for a few weeks this summer we reserved a couple of days with her and Madison chose not to have a birthday party back in April so that she could go to Lagoon with Alyssa. When the big day finally came Madison was counting down hours and minutes until her "soul sister" would arrive. When they got here she was SO excited! Heck, so was I! It has been SO hard to watch her be without a true best friend while they have been apart and even though I knew it would only be for a few days it was so wonderful to have them back together.

Alyssa was so sweet and brought Madison a birthday gift since this was technically her "birthday party" for the year and it turned out to be the Mystery Date Game and the cutest pajamas plus a shirt for Lagoon. The best part was that the PJ's and shirt matched Alyssa's! I remember wearing matching clothes with my friends when I was young and it was so fun that Alyssa's mom had put so much thought into that gift...especially seeing as Madison is a head taller than Alyssa!

Like I mentioned, the girls had been planning for months what they wanted to do once they were together again and one of those things was going to the Ice Berg for dinner for burgers and shakes. The shakes there are so yummy and HUGE! Of course I brought my camera along and thoroughly embarrassed them by documenting the entire excursion!

After dinner the kids all wanted to try out a new car wash that had opened near us (I know....right?!) so we took a trip through and it was fun to see their enthusiasm as the brushes scrubbed over us.

Emilia wasn't as amused by the whole thing and looked quite terrified but made it through without any major dramatics. After that we headed home to play outside for a while and then get a good night's sleep (the girls in matching jammies!) before a full day of roller coasters and junk food (and wouldn't you know it I actually forgot to get a picture of the girls in there beds)!


To Be Continued...

Pickin' Feathers Outta My Teeth...

So remember how my son got a teacher that nobody seems to say anything good about? Well yesterday the school called and said that Thomas could finally change teachers. Even  though things had been going well I decided to still take them up on the offer. When Thomas got home I told him and he kinda freaked out. He told me that he really liked his teacher and didn't want to change. I thought about it all night and really just kept going back to the thought that really I just want him to be happy. I also thought about how I can't always rescue him from different personalities in life. In the end I decided that he should just stay where he is if it's really where he wants to be. The hard part though was that now I had to go back to Marilyn (one of the office ladies) and inform her that although I had caused a mini ruckus about him being in that class and called to check on how far he had to go on the waiting list just a few days ago, now I wanted him to stay. So I drove the kids to school today, threw Em in the stroller and marched in to eat a little crow. Marilyn was coming out the front doors when we walked up to the front doors and I explained what had happened and told her that we would be staying with T's teacher after all. She was happy that all was well and told us that she had already told both teachers about the change and his stuff had been moved to the new class. She told me that I would need to go inform his teacher that he would be staying after all so they could get his things back. Oh, I'm sorry, did I just say I would eat a little crow? I meant a GIANT one! Now I had to go face his teacher who now knew that I didn't want him in her class and apologize for thinking badly of her...GULP!

Through the halls we walked with me praying inside for courage to apologize. I HATE confrontation of any kind and I especially hate hurting others' feelings and I felt awful that I had listened to gossip. Really though, for all I know she's still going to turn into a wicked witch after a few months of this and I was just trying to protect my little duckling from having his enthusiasm for school crushed...but, I digress. So, through the halls we went on our way to my feathered snack. When we walked in she greeted us with a smile and I told her that Thomas has loved her so far and would really like to stay in her class. I told her that I had listened to gossip and had worried when I heard that her personality and Thomas' personality together would be well, somewhat explosive and not a good combination. I apologized for judging her without really getting to know her and thanked her for the effort she has put in as a teacher to make her classroom a fun place for kids. She thanked me and told me that she knew about the things people were saying about her (ouch!) and that she has really tried to make the necessary changes to make her classroom a pleasant place and explained that when she had first started teaching 2nd grade three years ago, her family had been going through some significant trials and were also in the process of moving while she was trying to adjust to teaching a new grade. She was under a lot of stress and admits that it was not a good year. She said last year was great and hopes this one will be even better. She's sad that some people still judge her from that first year. Honestly, I don't know what to think but I feel bad that I judged her. I feel bad that I didn't just give her a chance in spite of the gossip. Oh well, I guess the mama bear in me was just trying to protect her cub. It's hard to just chalk it up to experience for him when you know it may not be a good one. I guess if nothing else it was a good opportunity for my kids to see that I can admit when I'm wrong and I can apologize to someone when I have misjudged them.

Well, there you have it. He's staying. I've learned a valuable lesson and maybe, so have my kids. So next time you see me and wonder what those black things are in between my teeth you'll know that they're bits of crow feathers, and although that bird didn't feel good goin' down, I'm still alive and a better person for it. Now, I'm gonna go find me a toothpick...bye!