Where did the time go?

No seriously…where did it go…LOL. I hope everyone is having a great start to the New Year and had an awesome holiday. We had a super hectic and busy holiday, but it was awesome.

I don’t even know where to start. We went out of town for Christmas this year and that brings on a whole other set of stressors with trying to figure out logistics. How does Santa do it? I finally had to just simmer down and come to the conclusion that if this Christmas wasn’t all that great…that at least the older ones were on their last year of believing and Hailey wouldn’t remember it past this year.

I was thankfully stressed for no reason. It went waaaayyy better than I thought it would. We got to Florida the week before and were able to get all of our shopping done and wrapped with NO issues…thank god!

It was really nice to be able to spend time with all the fam right at Christmas instead of before or after...not to mention all the yummy food and desserts that went along with it.

As for New Years Eve the hubby and I stayed home...you couldn't pay me enough to be on the road with all the drunk and crazy people (not to mention we were recovering from the drive home).

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out the window!

It doesn’t matter what you have planned or how organized you are….when your kids get sick everything else goes out the window! As most of you are probably now guessing yes I had sick duty today. Livie has an Upper Respiratory Infection and Hailey has a stomach bug….JOY.

Needless to say mommy had the sick sister watch today. My poor little pathetic babies…. They were a sight to see and YES I do have pics (is that evil of me or what?). LOL, they don’t care Hailey even hammed it up a bit.

So in other words ya’ll get a last minute post, but at least you get pics…right?

 

Now mommy's main goal is to try to avoid getting either child's ailment...we'll see how this goes!

 

Long weekend wrapped up

For those of you concerned that I was going to miss my post today….you can breathe a sigh of relief. I know I left it down to the wire for sure!! But here it goes…figured I’d wrap up that long weekend (speaking of wrapping….who has started on that one yet??).

 

I hope everyone had a great time and spent time with friends and family. I know we got to see all kinds of friends and family and had lots of great food. As you can tell from the pics…the kiddos had so much fun they all pretty much snoozed all the way home today (I need to figure out that panaram pic thing so I can get all the sleeping beauties in the pic).

 

 

One too many

Today is one of the days…I like to call it a recovery day (aka not used to drinking), Call me a light-weight if you will and I’m ok with that!

Source

We went to two great parties last night (with NO KIDS). Can we say a woot, woot to that one? First we went to a wedding reception of some friends of ours. They had this beautiful destination wedding in the Dominican Republic and then had their reception a couple weeks later so those of us not able to go could get a glimpse and help them celebrate. It was in this quaint little restaurant/event location…it reminded me of some small restaurant in the French Quarter in New Orleans. The food was delicious.

Source

Next we hopped over to my best friend Ami’s house for her husband’s 40^th birthday extravaganza. We had a great time there as well. I knew almost everyone between the years of knowing them and then going to so many activities in their neighborhood. Ami went all out this year…DJ, someone doing drinks and all. Jason was totally surprised. Funny thing was, Ami had a bunch of the same food at her house that they did at the reception (her and her mom are awesome cooks). Thankfully Ami’s mom and co. were there to help out with clean up.

We were so thankful to have someone to watch the kids and actually get out of the house childless for a bit. Trust me I love them….but we’ve gotta have some adult time! I hated having to split time between the two events. Both of these girls are awesome and there was no way I could say no to either one of them.

Hope you guys are having/had a great weekend!

There’s a bug among us

The average American school aged child contracts 7 to 10 colds a year. Their teachers aren’t surprised by this number. Due to decreasing funds, teachers have to buy their own sanitizing supplies and clean up the classroom. Teachers are already strapped for time and can only do so much in this area.




obtained from US Kids

As you and I know…our kids can be little germ bags and when you group a bunch of them together you get a petri dish of illness waiting to happen. Why am I spouting off about something we all know? Well, there are things we can do to help each other in preventing additional illnesses from entering our homes.

Just like with forgetting the school routine, kids forget those important things to do to prevent bugs. Below are some helpful tips on helping to keep the bugs at bay:

1)     Make sure your children are up to date on their immunizations.

2)    Remind them on how and when to wash their hands. If there is visible dirt they need to use soap and water. (A disinfectant is fine with no visible dirt) Making hand washing fun can lead to them doing it more often. Have them sing a song while they wash or use super bubbly soap. Hands should be lathered up for 15 seconds. (The perfect amount of time to sing a little ditty.)

 Peter Cade/Getty Images

3)    Have them bring their own pens, pencils, crayons etc. to school. Sharing these items can lead to the transfer of germs.

4)    It’s not being stingy to not share bugs…have them not share food, drinks, lip gloss, etc.

5)    Help them to build their immunity by making sure they have enough sleep, plenty of exercise, avoid stressors and eat a healthy diet.

6)    You could ask their teacher if they need additional disinfecting supplies or a hand in helping with clean up. Many teachers are now asking parents for help in cleaning up the classroom as opposed to classroom activities!

In addition to these tips, teach your children to sneeze or cough into the crook of their arm and not to touch their eyes, nose or mouth unless they’ve just washed their hands. And PLEASE don’t send your kids to school sick!! I know attendance is important, but not to the detriment of the rest of the class.

You might wonder why this is at the forefront of my mind right now (other than the fact of working in the hospital for years has made me a total germaphobe). The whole household has already gotten the first cold of the school year… Woo hoo!

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On the countdown…

It’s the last few days of summer and I think EVERYONE is a little antsy!

 I love it when the kids are actually excited about school starting. The 11 y.o. starts middle school this year and she is super excited, while the 19 y.o. is signing up for his first college classes today. Woo hoo! (We shall see what he signs up for…eghad)

The 13 y.o. is kinda meehh about the whole thing. Hey phoned it in on the whole school clothes/supply thing and was like eeehhh….get me whatever. Allrighty then…ye shall get what ye ask fer! Like my mama always said (or somebody important like that); “ya get what ya get and ya can’t pitch a fit!”

JCPenney

In preparation for the first day of school, we went to get haircuts today. He, he…I had to do a sneak attack of the 13 y.o.. WHY do boys this age NOT want their hair cut? (He had a near coronary at the beginning of summer when I cut his hair short.) Well guess what…it’s that time again! Bwa, ha ha.

I heard about the JCP special the other day...if only I were that organized to have planned it in enough time to get them in....sigh...

It actually went pretty smoothly. We were in, out and done in a flash with minimal resistance. Then off to lunch.

Now to get the mini munchkin to take her nap WITHOUT taking her diaper off!

Screaming Mimis

And this is what I did on my mini mom-cation (the baby is asleep and the rest of the family is at the movies)...anyways, on to the post....

Uh huh… the older kids thought it was funny to yell at the baby any time she would yell because every time they’d do it…she would copy them. That was until yesterday! We were driving to the shoe store and Target and they got it in their heads that if the baby was yelling in the store that mommy wouldn’t want to stay very long. Well, they got what they wanted, but they didn’t stop to consider that they wouldn’t be very happy with the outcome either! (The oldest tried to bail and go to Starbucks…I was like oh hell no….you started it, you can deal with the outcome with everyone else)

All I kept thinking as we were walking through the store was: OMG, I’m one of those moms with one of those children that everyone looks at and shakes their heads.

Needless to say....they won't  be yelling at the baby again any time soon! (So maybe this little outing from hell was worth it)

What I’ve gradually come to discover over the last couple days is that my little darling (who likes to do EVERYTHING early) has decided to grace us with the terrible two’s early. Joy…joy.

I’ve been so excited every time Hailey would do her milestones early; however, this is one I could do without…. Please, for all that is holy let this be a very short phase in our lives! J Where oh where has my little angel gone? Just in the last couple days she’s turned into an even bossier and independent little tyrant. How exactly do you reason with a 15 month old…..problem is….YOU DON’T!

Slacker

I know, I know….I’m a slacker! I’m posting this a day later than normal. Who’d have thought that staying home with the baby can be so tiring? I ran my booty off all weekend trying to keep up with her (which would also explain the name of this blog)! She’s become quit the little speed demon (and my husband wondered why I baby proofed the whole downstairs).

Speaking of baby proofing; just today Hailey ran into the dining room and came back into the kitchen with outlet covers in hand (I think she can get those puppies out faster than I can). She’s been able to get them out for a while, but thank goodness she doesn’t normally mess with them. Obviously mommy isn’t allowed to do anything else when she’s up…or she’s looking for trouble in order to get my attention. I mentioned to my friend on the phone what she did and what did little missy do next…she went hunting around the downstairs to find more outlet covers to pull! I’m thinking it’s probably time to just take the ineffective outlet covers out. I would love to be able to put these expensive ones throughout the house, but with my luck she'd figure those out too!

On a brighter note, I think little bit is going to have a green thumb like her mommy…we went and got flowers for the flower pots by the front door and planted them on Saturday. She loved playing with the dirt and flower pots…the only problem was…she kept wanting to take the flowers back out! It’s so cute, every time I turn around she wants to go outside and look at the flowers. Just wait till mommy gets really motivated to work on those flower beds and then she’ll have all kinds of pretty flowers to look at!

Diaper Dice

I’m raising a little nudist…the child will not keep her clothes or diaper on. I do understand that she’s becoming more familiar when she is getting ready to go to the bathroom or when she’s just gone. The problem is, she wants that diaper off right then and there!

One time, I came into her room to find her doing downward dog to get those pants off….no lie!

I can’t even tell you all the things I’ve tried to keep her pants on when I lay her down for a nap or for the night. Just an example; putting her diaper on backwards, packing tape over the tabs (YES…I did it!) and my latest is having to staple both tabs down. I just recently had to do two staples on each tab to keep them on. (My only fear had been with the staples is they might scrape her, but the tabs are in a place where it’s been fine)

I love that she’s so darn smart to be able to figure these things out, but I’m about out of ideas on what else to do with her diapers. Y’all don’t even want to know about some of the messes I’ve come in to find….it is literally like rolling the dice in a game of craps!! (He, he)

If anyone has any other suggestions…I’m up for it!

I'm WHAT?

I never thought I’d be here again; heck I was almost done raising my kids! The older kids were 17 and 19 when I found out I was pregnant with Hailey. So it had been a very LONG time since I had been pregnant. (With our combined family we have a 9, 11, 17 and 19 year old.) Our newest addition officially made us the Brady Bunch.

The pregnancy, birth and so far her first year has been like doing it for the first time all over again. It’s amazing how differently you see things as a 40-something as opposed to a 20-something! It’s amazing all the little things you forget that you swore to yourself you never would. Of course all the medical things were way easier and not as scary (I worked in critical care pediatrics for 10 years before I had Hailey and with adults for years before that) but there were so many new gadgets that they didn’t have when the older kids were little. Thank god I have friends that have little ones not much older than Hailey! People automatically assume you know everything when you have kids…especially if you work in Pediatrics! Ok, I’m raising my hand saying….I don’t know it all and am still a mom-in-progress…