Whatever Happened to Construction Paper Turkeys?

This is a post that is primarily about me and Nadi-B. She missed school today because we were supposed to be going to the dentist to have some cavities filled as well as a couple of teeth pulled. However there was some kind of mix-up in the scheduling so what ended up happening is that we got up at 4:30 am and drove for 2 hours to the nearest pediatric dentist to end up rescheduling.

Just to get this out of the way, I feel like a big fat failure as a Mom for NB's teeth having any cavities in the first place. I mean, it's not like we allow the child to consume obscene amounts of sweets or sodas. I would feel pretty confident that she doesn't get any more of those things than any normal kid. In fact, I would feel pretty confident saying that she probably gets less than what is "normal." The only thing I can figure is that we started letting her brush her own teeth a little too early on in the game and she just wasn't prepared to do a good job. I mean, at least these are her baby teeth, but it still makes me feel like when that dentist hygienist is looking at me she just sees words like: "Irresponsible Parent" or "Fail"


In any case, we drove all that way for nothing more than a frustrating hour spent alternating between waiting and explaining over and over again what we were supposed to be there for; followed by a few back and forth phone calls between Tim, myself, and NB's regular dentist. I *think* we finally have it all straightened out, but I'll know for sure when she goes for her cleaning in December.

We are still having issues with Nadia's behavior at school. I don't really know how to explain it. She's not behaving badly really. She just can't focus or be still or stop talking so much. She was doing really awesome for a good while, but all of a sudden over the last month or so, she just can't seem to concentrate on anything. Well... that's not entirely true.. it's like she can only focus on one thing. If she's concentrating on not talking or playing during class time then she isn't doing her work. If she's concentrating on doing her work, she's getting in trouble for silly behavior or playing during class time.

If she comes home from a bad day and we talk about it, the next day she does great, but every day after that she goes back to the same behavior. I am pretty much at my wits' end. I don't know what else to do, having exhausted all parenting things I can come up with, or approve of. It just seems not to sink in. I'm quite frankly, tired of having the same conversations every day.

And while I'm at it, I am also kind of bummed about her school's curriculum. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think it is AWESOME to see NB sounding out and reading words and so forth, but whatever happened to the fun stuff? When I was in kindergarten we were coloring pictures every day. At this time of year we were making construction paper turkeys and hand print turkeys to bring home to our moms. I was so looking forward to NB bringing home a turkey or a Popsicle stick reindeer to hang on the tree or SOMETHING for crying out loud! But all we ever get are worksheets, worksheets, worksheets. Do they even get to do things like that at school anymore? As far as I can tell, no.

I actually think that might be part of the problem with NB's behavior. There doesn't seem to be any time cut out in their day to create anything. She gets to draw on the back of her worksheets if she finishes on time, but other than that they haven't brought home a single art project of any kind. It makes me feel sad and even jipped on her part.

So today, after our nice road trip, and our nice lunch out, just us two; NB and I made a construction paper turkey. I have already started researching any and all holiday art projects I can find for us to do in the afternoons when she is home. I'm hoping that the creative stimulation might help curb her enthusiasm a little at school. I also have ONE more thing I'm going to try with her for behavior, and that's meditation.

I don't mean anything lengthy or structured or anything. Just simple transcendental meditation, which is simply sitting quietly with one's eyes closed for a short amount of time. I am thinking 5 minutes in the morning after waking up and 5 minutes in the evenings before bed. I'm going to do it with her. I think it will help her "practice" being still and calm and quiet, and that it will also teach her to still her constantly turning mind so she can focus better. I am excited to see how this will do with NB and with myself. In the meantime, we are making our own construction paper turkeys and popsicle reindeer.

Mundane Update:

Wow! So things have finally slowed down enough that I can post a little mundane family update. Well... they aren't really slow at all, actually. I'm just forcing the time. The last few weeks I have been working part time at my favorite discount fabric store to fill in for one of their employees who got bit by a brown recluse. *shudder* Anyway, she is now back at work, even though she isn't quite at 100%, and I'm a little bummed. I really enjoyed filling in there. However, they are considering having me come in on Fridays from now on just to help out with their busiest day! I hope that works out because I really do/did LOVE working there.



Yesterday I hosted my very first Pampered Chef cooking show for a friend and it was AWESOME! We made homemade pizza, a cheese torta, and mini tirramissu cakes using all the fancy shmancy pampered chef gear. Then we got to eat the outcome while shopping. It was a fairly good/entertaining show and we did pretty well with the sales too which means more free stuff for me for hosting! Whaa-hoo! I'm so excited! Mom also ordered me a pizza stone for my birthday, so that's one thing I don't have to spend my free on.


Okay! Enough about me, moving on to the important people: the kids.

Lena is 2 months old, as of November 1st. She is all smiles these days and just today started rolling over from her tummy to her back! At her 2 month check up, she was a little over 8lbs. She is still small for her age, but since she's been small since birth, developmentally, she's right on track. Our pretty girl is somewhat of a miracle baby. At 2 months she already sleeps the majority of the night. Occasionally, she will get up once during the night, but about 5/7 nights of the week she will sleep the whole night. It's pretty awesome to say the least.

Calvin is getting bigger by the day! He is now 15 months. He is a little jabber box these days. Most of it is just cute baby jibberish, but there are a few words he's getting really good at. He now recognizes us in photos. He likes to point at NB's picture on the fireplace and say "Sisser?!" He also knows the baby, Daddy, and Momma. I think he also says "Papa," for my dad. He can also say "Uh oh," and "tank u!"

He is my little heart throb. I am so in love with this kid, I tell ya. He is so goofy and silly and sweet. Most of the time. He has a temper though when he isn't getting his way! But he is growing super fast it seems. It's already hard to imagine him as Lena sized.

And here's my other pretty girl! NB is modelling a dress I made her this past weekend. NB is just her own kind of person. She is doing well in school, but every day is a struggle for her to get a "smiley face." It's not that she's a bad kid, by any means. It's that she's over imaginative and sociable and silly, so her greatest offenses are often just forgetting herself and talking too much at times that are inappropriate. We've also been having a little issue with her rushing through her work so she can spend more time drawing kitty cats. NB is OBSESSED with cats. Her teacher sent me a message informing me that NB now insists on being called "Nadia Cat." *laughs* See what I mean about being her own person?

It has also become apparent that she is very sensitive. She gets it from her momma, so she comes by it honest. Yesterday she got her feelings hurt over a few other kids laughing at the name she calls her Gigi. Apparently "Gigi" sounds funny to a five year old, but NB thought they were making fun of her Gigi. So instead of doing her work, she spent her time making a necklace for her Gigi. Oh geeze! So that was a whole other discussion we had to have with her. Nothing is ever mundane or boring with NB around, that's for sure! My biggest challenge as a Mom has been to balance correcting her without crushing her spirit and individuality, which are the things I love in her.

My life is a Mom's life. But it's a happy one!

Wabbit Season

This is an actual jar on an actual shelf, inside my actual house, and if I get one more phone call from one more political candidate for whatever.... I'm going to start putting people in it.

Let me explain how I feel about politics/politicians: I HATE them. I don't just hate this party or that party... I hate them all. I don't watch them on the news. I don't read about them in the paper. I don't listen to their pre-recorded phone calls. Ugh.. mostly this time of year, I just try to avoid them as much as possible.

Seriously?! Don't call my house, during dinner time, and chirp to me over the phone about your "traditional family values!" Really?! If you're such a stand-up family man how come you aren't at home, I dunno, eating dinner with your family? And why are you annoyingly interrupting other families' dinners? I don't want to take your stupid survey. I don't want to listen to your campaign. I just want you to shut-up, stop calling my house, and leave me alone so I can listen to my daughter describe the entire plot line of Marmaduke one more time, K?

OH! And what is with all you creepy politicians squatting outside of my house?! This is no exaggeration: last week, I noticed a huge red SUV, emblazoned with posters and American flags, parked outside on the grass right in between my next door neighbor's yard and my own. It, and the guy inside of it, sat out there for 30 minutes. Just sat there, staring at our houses. It was right at the time I always go pick up NB from school. He sat there and watched me as I carted Calvin out, strapped him into his car seat, came back inside, grabbed the baby, strapped her into her seat, came back inside, grabbed my purse and my keys, and as I'm trying to sit down in my car, he GETS OUT and walks over to my WINDOW and starts tapping the glass trying to hand me a damned political pamphlet!!!! The old man is lucky I didn't run him over with my car. He is lucky all he got was a slammed car door in his face and a very blunt, "I don't have time for this now!!!!" before I quickly backed out of the driveway.

The very next night, I noticed, yet another car parked across the street facing our house. It and the man inside sat there for a good while. I noticed it when I was leaving to go pick up some dinner (dinner time, again). I had enough time to drive into town, wait in line for 15 minutes or so, stop at the grocery and get drinks, and drive back home, at which point he was STILL SITTING there. As I get out and start gathering up all of my grocery bags and such, he gets out and starts making his way over to my house. I could see the pamphlets out of the corner of my eye. It was like one of those horrific dreams you have where you are trying to run away from a monster and you just know you aren't going to make it. But I did, and I closed the door and locked it before he made it halfway across our yard. He must have knocked on the door a good 5 times before he gave up and realized that even though we were in there, we weren't going to answer it. So he just shoved his pamphlet into the door and FINALLY left.

The next time I see some creepy politician perched out on the street I'm calling the police and reporting them for loitering. Even if nothing comes of it, maybe they will at least move along.

It's politician season, folks. And the little buggers are everywhere!!!!

Halloween Costume Photo Dump!

So. Every year, I have the same grand idea: I will MAKE the kids' costumes! They will be awesome and better than store bought crap costumes that are way overpriced! I will get lots of cute photos!!

And every year: I FAIL. Usually one of two things happen: I run out of time and energy to get them completed, OR I mess up the costume and am unable to fix it due to time constraints or there not being enough fabric to start over. And then I'm always rushing around trying to get out trick or treating and snapping crap pictures that barely show the crap costumes I had to run out and buy at the last minute. *sigh*

But this year?! I DID IT! I made 3 costumes! Three. Whole. Costumes. And they are all awesome (IMO). AND they all match a theme! Yay! AND! AND!! I got lots of super cute pictures! So here they are:

Here is Nadia, all decked out as the Cheshire Cat. I made her dress and her ears and did her make-up, but we bought the awesome pinky-purple hair.


This is my favorite photo of NB. Apparently, the trick to getting her to be all smiles for the camera is to paint her face like a cat! She would wear the make-up every day if I would let her.


Here is the Baby! She is the Queen of hearts, obviously. I like to imagine that in the above picture she has just said "Off with their heads... bleh" in a very bored tone.


I made her tutu, stenciled her onesie, and made her head poof. The center of it has a sparkly red heart, but it's kinda hard to see it in this picture.


And here is Calvin, giving ole' Johnny a run for his money! He is such a handsome Hatter!


I made his hat and his bow tie and vest. The rest is just a white shirt and black pants.


Like any toddler, he wasn't a big fan of leaving the hat on for very long and kept yanking it off, which is why Tim's hand is in the photos.

I don't believe I'm going to dress up this year myself. If I decide to, I have a closet full of things like peasant dresses, witches' hats, coin scarves, etc. But I'm really thinking I'm just going to enjoy the kids this year.

I am so proud of myself for completing these costumes! I even made costumes for OTHER PEOPLE'S kids! I made a Wicked Witch of the West, Wicked Witch of the East, and Dorothy costume set for three little girls, a Tinkerbell tutu for my niece, and a purple fairy tutu for my other niece. I don't have any pics of them in their costumes yet though.

So what you doing for Halloween? Are you dressing up? Going trick or treating? Staying in?

Aplin Farms Pumpkin Patch

Yesterday, Tim and I loaded up the kidlets and drove up to see my sister a couple of towns over. After meeting up with them for lunch at their place, we took a family trip over to Aplin Farms for their annual pumpkin patch. It was AWESOME. It was hands down the BEST pumpkin patch I've ever attended.

When you arrive, the very first thing you see is a huge produce pagoda where they sell pumpkins as well as other produce from their farm such as: apples, zucchini, squash, tomatoes, etc. You can buy pumpkins from that area, but it's much more fun to do the "You pick" pumpkins. They load several people onto these huge tractor-pulled wagons, and then drive you up into the fields where you can pick your own pumpkins, fresh from the fields.

One of their other features is that they also grow large fields of sunflowers! Which they let you pick: FOR FREE! They are SO pretty, but they start to wilt almost immediately after you pick them. We brought home a few and I have them in a vase now. I'm hoping they will start to perk up a little, so that we can enjoy them for a bit longer.

I took quite a few pictures of the sunflowers, but this one with the bee inside of it was my favorite. They also kept a few bee-hives on the farm as well and were selling jars of honey in the produce pagoda. I unfortunately didn't get any, but I'm definitely purchasing a jar next year!



I love this picture of our whole family coming back from the wagon ride. We rarely get any of these, since I'm usually the one behind the camera. There's me, holding Lena; Tim holding Calvin, and of course, NB who is not looking at the camera (typical) but is at least, smiling! I'm going to have this one blown up and framed for above the fireplace. Speaking of fires, another feature of Aplin Farms is that you can arrange to have a bonfire after dark on their property! We've already decided that next year we are going to plan it where more of the family can come so we can have a bonfire and smores after our day of pumpkin picking!





All around the front end of the farm, they have hay bales "dressed up" in costume! We saw spiders and pumpkin hay bales, but our personal favorites were these piggies. (that's my sister, Allie and her b/f's daughter, Haley).

There were also the obligatory "face in hole" photo opportunities, inflatable bouncy slides, a corn maze, reasonably price concessions, an animal barn or two, and train rides. Needless to say, we had an amazing afternoon followed by this:

on the way back to Allie and Jeff's. You can't see Lena because she is rear facing (we're legal that way), but she is having a screaming melt down too! Apparently wedging three tired, cranky, hungry kids into the back seat of a small vehicle brings out the worst in them! I can't WAIT until we get the new car. Only a couple more weeks!!! Anyway, we took them back to my sisters where she was gracious enough to cook all of us an awesome dinner, after which we headed back home. The kids slept most of the way on the home trip, except for the last 20 minutes, in which Calvin woke up and screamed the rest of the way home. I can't wait to go back next year! But, before I go, here is one more sunflower pic.

This one has a grass hopper on it!