Sing, Sing a Song

I inherited this strange family trait...it involves taking a popular (well, sometimes only popular to me) song and changing the words to apply to whatever situation is happening at the moment. Perhaps this is normal, however I have yet to run across many that do it (other than my dad, which again is why I believe it to be a family trait), but many times I myself even find it strange and annoying. It's even more bizarre because I cannot sing and would never think to try it in public. I couldn't carry a note to save my life and I usually save most family and friends from the torture of it...

I thought of this yesterday while I was randomly singing new words to an old song again and thinking "why on earth do I do this?"

The part that has become funny to me is that I think Kendall has inherited this family trait. Although perhaps more on the part of misunderstanding, she will sing "Are you sleeping?" with a wide variety of words and phrases. Unfortunately she usually does this in the car while I'm driving, so I have few opportunities to record her toddler sweetness, butchering the words to another lullaby.

What's your embarrassing 'family trait?'

Fruitcake

I've lacked a bit of creativity lately...cute things happen in life and I think "wow I should really blog about that" but then I lack the energy to put it into words. I've even taken a break from my 'mama-razzi' status in the house...I think it's due to a combination of a lot of factors ranging from the usual lack of time to our old pc flaking out and us having to switch over to a Mac.

At any rate, I had a moment of freedom with Leah snacking on finger foods in her high chair and big sister asleep, so I thought I'd share a quick update...fruit you ask? Well, because fruitcake has about every bit and piece of something all rolled into one, so I thought that might be an appropriate description of this post...

Kendall is starting to use complete sentences and it's so funny. One tidbit from the other evening...I was rocking her to sleep and asked her "Kendall, don't you want some daddy time?" since her daddy is normally the one who puts her to bed, to which she replied "no, Mommy, I want some mommy time." Another popular phrase in the house is "uh oh, Mommy, what happened?" and it's usually asked repeatedly - like a good 100 times or more. One great example was a couple weeks ago when I accidentally dropped a coffee cup on the floor. The cup shattered into a million pieces, as well as the residual coffee that splattered all over the floor and surrounding walls. For the next at least three hours, I heard "uh oh, Mommy, what happened?!?" Thanks Bee for the constant reminder of mommy's clumsiness...

Leah is getting more teeth by the day it seems...she has two on the bottom and getting 4 on the top! Her favorite food is Gerber Graduates 'lil crunchies (kinda like cheetos puffs) and she is taking to a sippy cup like a champ. Although almost 11 months, she still cannot crawl or walk yet but she finds her own unique way to get around...she has started making this 'snuffy' sound recently, where she will scrunch up her nose and snuff like a little piggy. She is still the Sleeping Champion of 2010 and if only I could get her to teach her big sister some lessons on that!

Someone recently said (in different words)...you always knew you would love your kids, but you never thought about how much you could love watching them love each other. This so true - nothing makes me happier than to watch Kendall give Leah a kiss or to watch them laugh hysterically at one another in the bathtub.

Password on Giggles

I've decided to put a password on this blog - I plan to do so by this Wednesday so if you would like to continue reading please let me know and I'll add you on the list to allow. FYI you will need a google id in on order to read going forward.

Thanks friends!

My Mother's Day Present

I received my Mother's Day (and probably my birthday as well) gift this week! It was a Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens...for non-camera enthusiasts (or camera ignoramuses like myself) this is basically a short lens for up-close and super personal. I'm still getting to used to a few details, like not having a zoom and just how small 1.4 aperture really is, but here are some test shots over the past couple days...

The Hooters Debacle

In one of the recent Facebook notes asking "have you ever," I responded to a question about "Have you ever marched/protested?" with a reference to my Hooters experience of the early '90s...since I had a couple requests to blog about this, here is the joy that was that day:

Being a pilot, my dad had an opportunity to visit many restaurants in different locations across the US and beyond. Over one trip in the early 90's, he returned talking about this place called "Hooters." The restaurant they apparently visited was family-friendly and even had male waitstaff, plus they served these great chicken wings.

So off my family goes, and I can still remember it was the Hooters in Arlington's Lincoln Square, my sister was roughly in her late teens and I was roughly in my early teens (maybe 12 or 13). We enter the restaurant and I have no doubt I will never forget the horror that my tween eyes encountered. Men were everywhere, leering at my sister, and the waitresses that had their t-shirts pulled up and back with rubber bands.

I was horrified and disappointed. Why on earth would a girl want to reduce themselves in that way?

I refused to drink even water from this establishment or look at the waitress the entire time. I would not eat and wouldn't even order.

So this may be why I have such an aversion to places of this nature...

Me from roughly the time period of the "offense"

My New Perspective on Mother's Day

I've been thinking about this post over the past week...a couple details remain the same - I still feel very grateful for my mother and all she does for my family and I. I still feel amazed by all the fabulous mothers I know and wonder how they seem to 'do it all.'

However, I had planned to go into how, having now been through 3 Mother's Days as a mom, instead of feeling like I deserved some huge, special day, I felt so grateful to be a mother. Because we were ready for Kendall almost 2 years before she was delivered, I always felt like I wouldn't take my children for granted. It definitely wasn't as easy as we perhaps thought!

And perhaps I should rephrase...I still do feel very grateful...I love little Leah's smiles and giggles...her 'deliciously chunky' baby-ness...I love Kendall's silly monster faces and her scrunchy nosed smiley face...but the past 10 days in general have been hard.

They are still feeling really hard right now. It's not that I need help. It's just not easy. Tantrums happen. Discipline must be enforced. Mommy is not so good with these two little details.

But maybe that's what makes a mom a mom, and not a dad (no offense Dad's)...you work all day (either in the home other otherwise), you might be sick (ready to not be sick at this point), but you keep going. Kids get baths and put to bed, dinner is made and dishes are cleaned, home is kept and laundry is done.

So early Happy Mother's Day to all my Super Mom family and friends! But now I'm thinking we should totally get more than just one day...

The Flip Side

This has been an eventful week in home...Daddy left for a work conference on Monday morning and I received a call around 10:30 from Kendall's daycare revealing her 3 bouts of poopies that morning and that I needed to come get her. Whatever bug she had was brutal - not just from the poopy situation - but it made her extremely fussy and needy.

Monday continues with no more bathroom incidents, so Tuesday morning I prepare her for preschool, sadly relieved because she was being so high maintenance and I have been struggling with some sort of sinus infection/cold that hasn't left me in the most patient of moods. We walk into her classroom and her teacher says "Kendall can't come back for at least 24 hours."

I almost cried...that's how bad you know it's become, when you'd rather work than stay at home. So I take her back home and we wash all the yuckiness out of the house from the previous day and make it to the store to pick up some pedialyte and other necessities...I felt really grumpy for about an hour...I'd invisioned how this day was supposed to go down, and this was NOT IT...but then something miraculous happened...I prayed about the situation and really got over it...Kendall had a gloriously long nap and I had the chance to continue my study of Proverbs in the merciful afternoon sun...this all again showed me that just because I plan something doesn't mean that 1) it's going to happen or 2) that I can ever have the best plan...because in this case, it was such a blessing that I ended up staying home that day. I had the chance to snuggle with my sick baby, mop up the pieces of my home, and give my sanity a much needed rest.