Can you tell my kids are deprived of sugary cereal? Although, in hindsight, DUH! It probably wasn't the best idea to hang this particular masterpiece on the fridge.
i hope they use non-toxic glue in preschool
misadventures
and then the store manager offered to help us to our car
Today I took the three kids out to run a few errands. This turned out to be one of the worse ideas I've had in quite some time.
We started out in
So we left
Then we ran over to the
So we left
Then (I know, right? DUH, MELISSA!) we stopped at the grocery store. Before we went in to the store, we had a stern talking to in the car. Because that was going to make a difference in their behavior.
Colin was tied down screaming sat in the shopping cart. Then we zoomed through the store, picking up everything we needed for dinner. Then we started waiting in line to check out. Then I noticed Colin had wiggled out of the shopping cart strap and was standing in the seat of the shopping cart. Then I took him out, since I was afraid he would get hurt. Then he decided that he needed to throw himself on the floor and scream. Then while I was unloading the cart, trying to ignore his fit, he tripped over his own feet and slammed his face into the metal shopping cart. Then he screamed some more. Then we noticed his face was red, bruised and bleeding. Then two employees rushed over to make sure he was okay and offer ice and bandages. Then the STORE MANAGER came over to make sure he was okay and offer to help me to the car.
Then we paid for our groceries and we left the store as quickly as possible.
Its a good thing I live in another state. Because I will not be going back to these stores any time soon. And probably will avoid going out in public with my son, who looks like he got punched in the face.
my apologies to everyone in target today
You know those leashes for kids? I always thought those were so horrible.
Until I had Colin.
Colin hates to be in the shopping cart. HATES shopping carts. He wants to walk around like his sisters, touching everything and trying to sneak thinks into the shopping cart when I'm not looking (our last grocery store trip I found a box of Toy Story fruit snacks under the cart!). So when I put him in the cart, he says "DOWN!" in an increasing loud voice until I put him "DOWN!!" Then he immediately gives me this huge grin… and runs away.
Today at Target, I was the lady yelling "COLIN, COME BACK HERE!" the entire time. Occasionally, I was yelling "I MEAN IT! COME BACK HERE!" or "NOW, COLIN!"
Not only was I totally losing my mind, but I actually lost HIM twice. TWICE!
The first time, after running around for several panicked minutes, I found him in the shoe section, hiding under a bench. That PUNK!! The second time, I swear mere seconds later, I found him in the intimates section playing with underwear. (Let us not even explore that one, okay?)
When he started to ran away the third time (but I caught him before he got far), I put him in the shopping cart and strapped him in. Then we became a Colin Siren walking through the store, which is always a treat for everyone!
SIGH.
This too shall pass.
and then the goldfish died
Almost exactly two and a half years ago, we finally caved and got the girls a pet. Two $2.50 goldfish from PetSmart. (What? That's almost as good as a dog!) They were promptly named
Background information: Our first attempt at pets was during Ellie's Nemo-obsessed stage. We bought her two goldfish. They lasted less than a week before they both died. Luckily, Ellie was only 20 months old, so she didn't notice and we decided to quit before this got expensive.
Anyway, I walked in the girls room to get their pajamas on Monday night and noticed one of their beloved goldfish was floating at the top of the tank…
Upside down.
CRAP!
Sidebar: I knew these dumb fish would die while my husband was out of town, so I would have to deal with it on my own. I just KNEW it!
You see, my girls are very emotional about saying goodbye. They cry for three days after Grandma leaves. They cry at the very thought of moving to a different house someday, because they would miss their pink bedroom. And its not unheard of for them to tear up a little when Daddy leaves for work. So you can only imagine the grief and the tears I was anticipating. And oh, the questions! "Is
The girls were busy playing in my room, so I quickly took the fish tank downstairs and cleaned up the tank (ew) and took the dead fish out and put it in a coffee cup (EWW!!!) and tried to decide what the heck to do with this stupid, gross dead fish i mean "
I decided against showing them the dead fish and having any type of 'ceremony.' These fish had an extraordinarily long lives for cheap goldfish, so we are unlikely to have this same luck again. And I do NOT want to start a tradition I'll have to keep up!
I sat the girls down in their room and had the dreaded conversation. They actually took it pretty well. Their faces were initially horrified and sad, but as we talked about what a long life the fish had, what a good fish she was, and how lucky we were that she was our fish. We talked about how thankful we can be for our wonderful
Tears were shead. Prayers for
Then, with zero ceremony at all, I snuck into the downstairs bathroom and flushed our dear pet fish, "
oh, that boy did NOT just eat my ring
So I spent the last 18 hours thinking that Colin might have EATEN my ring. MY TIFFANY'S RING, given to me by my husband after giving birth to my firstborn. EATEN IT.
He loves to wear rings and I was trying to keep him quiet for a few minutes while I finished something up. A nanosecond later, the ring was gone.
"Colin, where's Mama's ring?"
*smile*
"Colin, where did you put Mama's ring?"
*giggle*
"Colin, where is the ring??!?!"
*evil little smile, runs away giggling*
He never left my bed between the time I gave him the ring and he lost it. So I tore my room apart and couldn't find it anywhere.
Nothing.
Looked again. Nothing.
Then it dawned on me: "Did he EAT it? No. He couldn't have. No way. No. Did he? No, of course not. Did he?!?! OHMYGOSH, did he?!?!?!"
I was planning to call the doctor this morning to ask if it was dangerous for him to have eaten a silver ring, but I searched one more time. And I finally found it. He somehow got it in between the mattress and foot board and it rolled UNDER THE MATTRESS and was sitting there, balanced on the rail.
This kid is killing me. GRRRR!!!!
****
Please click over to my sister-in-law's blog today. She has to put her beloved family dog down this afternoon. Let's go shower her with some love.
Please click over to my sister-in-law's blog today. She has to put her beloved family dog down this afternoon. Let's go shower her with some love.
If you're in Philly, don't forget to enter to win tickets to Disney on Ice!
This week I learned… just how much water is in a watermelon.
So on Friday, we got a watermelon from the grocery store. YUM! We were so excited. Ellie's very, very favorite food is watermelon! After dinner, I went to cut it up. I put it on the cutting board, got out my huge knife and cut into it.
Kaaa-POW!!!!
Water squirted everywhere. EVERYWHERE. It was like a water-bomb went off. There was water all over the cabinets, the walls, the counters, the floor, ME, inside the cabinets… EVERYWHERE.
You think I'm exaggerating? I had to change my underwear. That is how much water squirted all over me.
Once the water stopped, I was able to cut the watermelon open – it was totally rotten.
Then, I had to wash my floors, counters, and cabinets FIVE TIMES before they stopped being sticky.
Did I mention that our house is on the market and needs to be clean, like, all the time?
So the lesson is: whenever possible, cut watermelon outside.
…and then i warned husband that there may not still be three children here when he gets home
Colin is teething.
Monday, I felt 95% poor baby, 5% annoyed. Today, I feel 10% poor baby, 90% annoyed.
Cry, cry, cry. Whine, whine, whine. Grump, grump, grump. Scream, scream, scream. He has been an absolute BEAR since Monday… he is driving me NUTS. Every single symptom of teething… he has it. Gah. What happened to my sweet little guy?
**********
Monday, the girls were supposed to be having "quiet time" in their room. Instead, they emptied everything out of their closet, put all of their bedding in the closet and broke the closet doors. Annoying, irritating, but not a huge deal.
Tuesday, Gracie came downstairs while they were supposed to be having "quiet time" in their room HOLDING A PIECE OF THE WALL. They MADE A HOLE. IN THE WALL. Insert Mama's head exploding here.
Need I remind you that our house is on the market?
They are seriously lucky to be alive right now.
**********
Why won't they sleep? Why?
selling your house sucks. selling your house when you have children REALLY sucks.
I realized I haven't posted much interesting stuff lately.
Having our house on the market is taking up approximately 85% of my energy units. The kids are taking up the remaining 50%, leaving a mere -35% left for blogging and other recreational activities. Except drinking wine, which I am still managing to squeeze in because it requires very little energy. Thank goodness.
Anyway… its going about as well as can be expected in this market. We've had about 7 showings and our open house yesterday was really well attended. We had a little nibble – one couple came back three times (Woo-Hoo!), but still haven't made an offer. (D'oh!) Everyone who has seen it "just loves it!" thinks "its so adorable!" or "just gorgeous!" and says its "priced just right."
Gee, thanks. So MAKE AN OFFER ALREADY! Don't just come to see it and then tell us how much you like it! There is a REASON we're letting you poke your nose into every crevice of our home! This is not fun for us, what with the three small children and all! And on that note, could you stop requesting showings every day at naptime? Would it kill you to come at a time when Colin is normally awake?
(Sorry. Its the stress. It makes me grumpy.)
Everyone is constantly asking, "Are you moving?" "Well, aren't you clever! Why would you think that? Our house is on the market, but we're planning on staying there after we sell it."
(Sorry. Stress also makes me sarcastic.)
Its KILLING us. Because we're only moving if we sell the house, so we don't want to talk about the new house very much just in case we don't end up moving because we didn't sell our house, blah blah blah, you understand. So we're trying not to get too excited about the new house, but we ARE because we LOVE IT, but we're afraid we won't get it….
Nevermind the stress of keeping the house spotless with three children bent on making as much chaos as possible wherever they go. The girls keep begging me to let them play play-doh. To which I reply, "Are you kidding me? Of course not! Go play with the vacuum instead." We're rarely at home these days. My new strategy is to banish them outside – usually to the car – while I do a quick clean before a showing. Its the only way I can keep them from undo-ing everything I just did.
And – are you ready for this? My mother-in-law is arriving from India in three days. To live with us for two months. So now we're going to have an extra person around to try and keep from making messes. The bright side is she is WONDERFUL and loves helping with the kids, so can hopefully distract the children while I clean. But, we were really, REALLY hoping to be done with this nonsense before she arrived. But, doesn't look like we will be.
Pray for us.
it’s okay. we’re okay.
We were all in our van driving up to Boston from Philly to visit family. I was driving on 95, the girls were watching a dvd, Colin was asleep and my husband was dozing in the passenger seat. We were making great time, there was very little traffic, everything was going great.
The car in front of me stopped suddenly. I slammed on my breaks and we screeched to a halt, barely missing the car in front of us. I glanced in my rear view mirror and realized what was going to happen about half a second before it did…
BAM!
We all slammed forward, everything not secured was flying around: the GPS flew off the window, the coffee I had just bought from McDonalds exploded all over – even the change in the coin holder was flying around the car.
My head hurt, my arm hurt, the kids were crying – Ellie said her head hurt, Grace said her back hurt and Colin was screaming at the top of his lungs. My husband and I just looked at each other, shocked.
Our well-planned itinerary, the luggage smashed in the trunk, our poor damaged van, the fact that we were somewhere in the middle of Connecticut (not even sure where) – not even an issue, not even a thought in our heads.
The fact that we were in an accident, on a highway, on 95, and we were all okay and able to drive our car away was a miracle. We were okay.
Nothing else mattered.
All of us were shaking, my heart was racing, my mind was going a mile a minute — I just kept saying "Its okay. We're okay." over and over. It wasn't until we were laying in bed that night that it truly hit me what had happened – and what could have happened that day.
All I wanted to do was to snuggle all of us together and not let go. Today, I have lost count of how many times I have kissed my kids and hugged them and said "I love you."
This was a screaming reminder that life is fragile. Everything can change in a millisecond.
Go kiss your babies. Love up your family. Leave no doubt in their little minds of your complete and utter devotion to them.