The One Thing I Want More Than Anything In the World

At age 3, to please my parents.

At age 5, to make a friend.

At age 12, to transition from tomboy to teen girl smoothly like in all the movies where all I'd have to do is take off my glasses, let my hair down and put on makeup, and I'd be beautiful.

At age 16, to be kissed.

At age 18, to heal my first broken heart.

At age 20, to figure out what I want to be when I grow up.

At age 22, to find a job so I can stay in Colorado.

At age 25, to find a husband.

At age 28, to turn back time and erase the biggest mistake of my life.

At age 30, to be the best wife I can be.

At age 32, to be the best mom I can be.

At age 33, to get a decent night's sleep.

At age 34, to get a decent night's sleep.

At age 35, to get a decent night's sleep.

I feel like I should change the name of my blog to All I Want Is More Than Four Hours of Sleep a Night. Sigh.....

Interpreting Art

When I was working on the decor for S's birthday party, I came across these cute toddler calling cards on the Internet. I had never heard of such a thing, but my designer friend who told me the cupcake toppers were all the rage knew exactly what I was talking about. She was in mid-design on some herself. So I thought, what the heck? I'll make some for S to put in her favor bags. I thought it seemed kind of pretentious for a 3-year-old to have a business card, but at the same time, it makes perfect sense. At her daycare, I have to ask the provider to give her friends' parents my contact info so they can contact me so I can invite them to playdates/parties. Wouldn't it be easier to just have cards to pass out?

I set out on my little design project, and felt pretty proud of the result. Here's the basic premise with the names and numbers changed for security purposes:

I backed it to matching hot pink cardstock, and it looked super cute, if I do say so myself. I put the playdate cards in the favor bags. As the party was wrapping up, I was talking to my sisters, neither of whom have kids so were unaware of the purpose of these cards themselves. Apparently due to the phrasing, both my sisters thought I was starting a business where I coordinate playdates for other kids. My older sister even thought maybe I coordinate mommy playdates. What? That's not what it says? Surely they're just misunderstanding because they don't have kids. I grabbed a card and re-read my title:

mommy • playdate booking agent

OMG. Why did I choose to use such ambiguous punctuation and fluffy phrasing? It totally COULD be read that way. I...was...mortified.

My sisters were feeling pretty smug about teasing me, but saw how upset I was getting and told me they really thought it was actually a great business idea. I don't care if it is - it's completely inappropriate to advertise your business in your kid's party favors. It would be like I was a real estate agent and threw my business card in, and as I handed out the favors, shook the kids' hands and said, "Thanks for coming, and hey - let your parents know if they're looking to move, give me a call." Wink, wink.

My sisters told me all this at the end of the party, so I asked a couple of the moms who were still there what they thought. After looking at the cards, they said that's kind of what it sounded like, too, until I explained it. Nooooooooo! My fears were confirmed. One of them had seen other playdate cards so she knew what I was intending. I ended up putting a note in with the thank yous to clarify. And I'll be revising the wording on them going forward. Sooooo embarrassed.

Blog Purpose

When I started blogging, it was to keep a record of our first child's growth. I wanted to do a baby book of sorts, but I knew it would be easier for me to type it than record it by hand in a book, partially because I'm a much faster typist and have terrible handwriting, and partially because I knew I'd never be able to keep track of the dang book, or think of things to write in it when I was away from home.

The first blog was literally only about her with a few current events thrown in for reference. The site I used, Babysites.com, seemed inappropriate once she turned one in July and went from being a baby to a toddler (sniff!). I stopped writing until after the new year when I began a new weblog on Blogger. The premise behind KC BarrBQ Family was for it to be about our family, and I kept it private, using it mostly as a place to keep family and friends updated on our lives. The more I wrote, the more I felt I had to say about things that were beyond the scope of our family; kind of op-ed pieces. I loved creative writing when I was in school, it was my emphasis under my B.A. in English. Even though what I was writing wasn't fiction, it was great to be writing again. So in February, I submitted one of the aforementioned op-ed to Mamapedia, which they accepted! I was thrilled. I realized I needed to have a public blog if I was going to be submitting works, so I created Midwest "Mom"ments. It had identical entries to KC BarrBQ Family, I just changed the names. And omitted a few more personal anecdotes and growth details that I thought wouldn't be very interesting to anyone other than us. After a couple of months of that, I gave up on the family-only one, and redirected everyone to this public site.

So for the past three months, I've been trying to focus on writing interesting pieces about random stuff amidst the family info. I felt that was fine, but within the last couple of weeks, I've been rethinking my process. First of all, I have no subscribers. I know there are a few people who read it (they've mentioned it), but no one I don't know personally reads it. I'm not expecting a huge following or anything, or have grandiose ideas about making any money at this, but I do want people to be aware of my existence in the hopes that more of my submissions will be accepted for publishing. I found a couple of amazing resources, BlogHer and ThetaMom, as well as a couple of blogs, In Pursuit of Martha Points and KludgyMom. At first, I thought I would do a completely separate blog on BlogHer where I would start creative writing again. And then I found some great posts about how to be a better blogger, and it said you should have a specific theme so you can attract people looking for that topic. Hmmm, I'm a mess if that's the case. My posts are ALL over the board. So tried to think of what my "theme" should be. Since then, I've read lots of posts saying it doesn't matter what the theme is, you just have to be real. Find your voice and people will be drawn in. All of those suggestions were helpful, but I still wasn't sure what to do.

I had an epiphany on my lunchbreak. It led to me realizing I already have my theme. Midwest "Mom"ments is: A diary chronicling the joyful, overwhelming, crazy, sometimes frustrating, journey that is parenthood. Part of being a parent is maintaining your own identity while wearing your parenting hat. So those op-ed pieces are still pertinent to me, and therefore, to the blog. And In Pursuit of Martha Points inspired me to create a group of blogs that were creative writing, just for me. And the epiphany that made this all possible, was that as I drove home for lunch I was reflecting as I often do on my own mom. And how she's a fantastic mother, and I am sad to see her memory issues developing, and I don't know how to help, and I wish I spent more time with her. That's when it occurred to me - I should do installments about my mom's "mom"ments. So I'm hoping the blogging workshop I'm going to do with Kludgymom will help me learn how to set up folders or categories or whatever for those three things - op-ed, creative writing, and grand"mom"ments - plus some graphic design stuff . For now, just check out the tags. I'm excited to start this new path with my blog!

Kiddos

Friday Baby R pulled up on the bathtub to stand on her feet. I don't mean a struggling pull, I mean, one fluid heft and she was up. My baby is getting so big. I feel like I'm missing out on so much of her babyhood. I was so focused on S when she was a baby. Every moment, every detail. I would watch her for hours. Poor Baby R gets a cursory glance, and a, "Wow! Good job!" before I have to make sure S isn't drowning in the tub while washing mermaid Dora's "cradle cap". I was so worried about ignoring S when R was little that I focused on R when she needed me, but not much more than that. I'm hoping that I'll get better at splitting my attention between them as they get bigger and more equally independent. Is that unrealistic?

On a funny note, S has some new imaginary friends. They seem to have Chinese/Indian sounding names. I'm not sure where she's getting them from, but I'm glad to know that she's somehow being exposed to other ethnicities. We let her type on the laptop when the powe is off, so she was doing that on the coffee table Thursday when she suddenly collapsed in laughter on the couch. I asked her if she was alright, and she caught her breath and said, "Yeah, Sangdonghanong (sp?) sent me an email, and it was so funny I fell down!" And she erupted in peals of laughter again. I was cracking up. Inside, mind you. Though I was unable to stifle a small giggle.

Sunday has another cute S story, and a not-so-cute one. I'll start with the negative and end on a positive. First of all, keep in mind that we had a rough night, so I know she was really tired when she woke up. I don't even remember what started it, but she had a huge tantrum. I told her she needed to go to her room until she could calm down. She said she wanted to go downstairs. I told her she could as soon as she stopped screaming. She started throwing her books. I told her to stop and that she needed to pick up all her books and put them away, or I would take them away. The latter was the end result. I'm skipping A LOT; this was an hour - hour and a half process. I had planned to go to church, but I was so exhausted by the time we were done at 8:30am, I could barely function.

Thankfully the day got better. Later on, S said she was going to singing lessons and then piano lessons. She sang into the Baby R's toy microphone, and then had "piano" lessons on the xylophone. Very cute.

Unfortunately, today there was another tantrum. I don't know if she was hungry (hardly had any dinner) or tired, but we went for a walk after dinner, and she was wanting to ride in the stroller. We were only half a block from home. I finally put her in it and carried Baby R, and turned us back towards the house. She threw a fit because she didn't want to go home. And then when we got home it was worse. So I put her to bed - no snack, no video, no books - and told her I'd be back to finish her bedtime routine after I put Baby R down. She had wet her pants when I came back. That's something she's started doing lately. Not sure if she's doing it on purpose to piss me off (ha, ha), or if she literally loses control when she's that upset. Sigh.....

Celebrity Look-Alikes

I found a blog today through my new Theta Mom group called Kludgy Mom. She mentioned a site where you could find your celebrity look-alike, MyHeritage.com, so thought I'd try it on DH and me. The post was asking which actress we would want to play us in a movie. She mentioned the site to help if you were wanting someone who resembled you.

I actually had a guy tell me I looked like Jodie Foster once. I do like her as an actress, so that would be cool. I wondered if she would come up in my look-alike collage. She didn't, but at the time he told me, I was also younger, thinner, and had a bob haircut. And we were in a dark bar. And he was probably tipsy, so I'm going to rely on the website's comparisons.

I tried the collage on two different photos. The first picture I used matched me up with Jessica Biel, Hayden Panettiere and Katie Holmes as matches. Not bad, not bad. If I were to choose one of them to play me in a movie, it would probably be Katie Holmes.



The second one had Bette Midler and Helen Hunt. I didn't save it, because those were the only two people I recognized. They are probably a little more realistic choices, though. :) Helen would be my pick to play me.

Here's hubby:



I found this interesting because I didn't know who half of these people were, and I would never EVER think he looks like a Hanson. Topher Grace? Maybe. And Robert Duvall's not a bad guy to have next to me when I'm old. Although, I know exactly how DH will look when he's old. The family genes are very strong. He will look like his dad, who looks like his dad, who looked like his dad. If anything, I think DH looks like Hal Sparks, who wasn't even an option:



















Thoughts? Which celebrities do you think we look the most like? And who do you think would be good actors to portray is in a movie about us?

Good job!

When we were on our trip to Colorado last week, we stayed with one of my sorority sisters in Castle Rock (halfway between Denver and the Springs). Her husband is in the Air Force and she is a SAHM to a sweet 2.5-year-old girl. She mentioned to me that something that grated on her nerves when she would be at the playground was hearing parents tell their kids, "Good job!" We should praise our kids, though, right? Well, sure. But she's talking about when you say it for every - little - thing. "You're breathing! Good job!"

At first, I said I agreed with her. Over complimenting is a big source of why kids today are so darn egotistical. It's all about them. It's high time we started teaching them the world doesn't revolve around them. And they won't believe us anyway if it's empty praise. I looked good up on my soapbox.

And then, it happened. I heard myself tell our 3-year-old "good job" about ten times in the next five minutes. For stupid stuff. Yikes! Do I really sound like that? All the time? OMG. My friend and I laughed about it. She said she realized she did it more than she thought, too, and had worked at rephrasing it to be more specific, and really thinking before saying anything at all. Um, have we met? I'm not so hot at thinking before speaking. But I'm TRYING. Very hard not to say it. It's become a bit of a joke between DH and me. Whenever one of us says it, we point it out.

Clearly there could be worse things we say to our kids. And it's especially difficult right now because every time we turn around, our 9-mo-old is doing something new, so saying "Good job!" really does apply to her pulling up, taking steps, eating on her own, etc. But saying it to our 3-year-old who has said, "Mommy, Mommy watch me!" when she's jumping to the floor from the couch repeatedly is probably not the best use of praise. And it is really annoying to hear it coming out of your mouth once you've become aware of it.

So what's your "Good job!" phrase you're trying to eliminate from your vocabulary?

My Wonderful Husband: the Coke Rewards Fanatic

I'm a talker. And contrary to my mother's wonderful advice to only say nice things about people or not say anything at all - ESPECIALLY about your husband - I tend to rant and commiserate. Even about my amazing husband. Ok, often about my amazing husband. I don't think he takes it too personally since I'm like that in general. Not that I only say negative things, I'm just one of those people who says every single thought that comes into my head, often to the chagrin of those who know me (and myself). Because I'm sometimes (ok, fine, often) found whining about the things my hubby doesn't do that I want or does do that I don't, I'm going to take this opportunity to expound on one of the things I complain about, but secretly makes me love him in several ways.

He collects Coke Rewards points. I'm not sure you're familiar with this, so to explain, Coca-Cola has a redemption system wherein you create an account online and whenever you obtain one of their products that has a code on it, you type it into your account and earn points. You can redeem the points for things like gift cards or apparel or electronics or any number of things. To keep it simple, the original rule was you could only enter 10 codes a day. (Now there's a limit to 100 points a week or something, but for the purposes of my story, we'll just stick with the original guideline.)

When I say my DH collects these points, I don't mean this in a general, "Oh, I had a Coke today, so I'll keep the cap and enter the code in later" kind of way. I mean in a driven, obsessive kind of way. The man prints the high school football schedules for the entire city so he can strategize which schools to go to after games to try to score the most caps from the bottles the kids leave lying in the stands, and if he can time it to make it to two on Friday night and one Saturday morning before they're cleaned up. He can collect 500 or more caps in a weekend.

Why is this even something I would complain about, you ask? After all, he's the one doing all the work. I'll tell you why. Because it takes a lot of time. Time to collect them, time to clean them, time to enter all the codes. Time that could be spent doing other things like helping around the house, playing with the kids or hanging out with me. And this has been going on for four years. FOUR YEARS, people! In those four years we've had two kids and bought a house that was double the square footage of our old one. This is the source of my frustration with his hobby. Admittedly, he scaled back considerably with the addition of each of these new responsibilities. (At one point he had six or seven separate accounts. Ten codes per account times six or seven accounts - about an hour or so a day was spent entering them.) And to be fair, a lot of the prizes he's redeemed the points for have been for me (I heart my iTouch). So I shouldn't complain too much. And you know what? Even though I sigh dramatically whenever I see those dreaded caps, secretly I'm feeling quite proud of my man. And here are the reasons why:

1. His passion. Whether it's work or love or hobbies, he puts everything into what he does. He never does anything halfway. I like to think I'm passionate, but often I'm just a lot of talk. He's the hardest worker and most devoted friend you will ever find.

2. His ability to complete a project. I am notorious for starting something I find to be fun and creative and then getting bored and stopping. For example, I did a large cross stitch for one of my friends when her daughter was born. It was about 8x10, two bunnies with some quote about friendship beneath it. I actually did all the cross-stitching - it took months. I did all of it except the finished outline. So close to being completed. Her daughter just started her junior year of high school. SERIOUSLY?? Just finish the dang outlining already! My hubby not only started this four years ago and still does it at the very least every week (usually every night), but when he enters a code, he marks the back of it to indicate which account it belongs to, then places it in a box designated for that account. When the box is full, he dates it and stores it in the basement, neat and tidy. Which brings me to number three....

3. His organization. I like to be organized. I like for everything to have a place. But when I'm mid-project, I'm a mess. At work, my desk is a mess; at home, my crafting space (ie, the formal dining room table) is a mess. I'm good about cleaning up at the end of a project, but don't expect that to happen until I'm completely done. As I mentioned above, he keeps this project organized all the time. He stores the caps he hasn't entered yet in Ziploc bags of 100 so he can have small quantities to work with.

4. His problem-solving/compromising skills. The clean-up crew at the football stadium told him it was a pain for them to deal with half-empty Cokes that were missing their lids because they spilled everywhere, and asked him to stop taking them. He told them if they'd give him a trash bag, he'd throw away the bottles for them. Most people probably would have said, too bad, or fine, I'll find somewhere else to go, but my hubs found a solution they could all be happy with.

4. His compassion/thoughtfulness. When he collects the caps, he wears gloves and keeps the bags of caps in the garage until he has a chance to soak them all in the sink to clean away the dirt and germs which keeps his family healthy. And, of course, as I mentioned before about the iTouch, I've been the recipient of many wonderful prizes. Most of what he redeems the codes for are for the family, like a camcorder and a travel DVD player. Of course he gets some things for himself (mostly autographed sports memorabilia), but he shares A LOT.

5. His entrepreneurial spirit. He LOVES to find a way to make money/get a deal. I do my fair share of coupon clipping and a bit of bargain shopping, but am not motivated to take on something like this. (Don't even get me started on his insane ability to figure out and obtain the hot items at Christmas-time and sell them on eBay for a nice profit.) I am in constant awe of the way he can find an opportunity, set a goal and achieve it.

There are so many more reasons I love my husband. But these are the ones his Coke addiction brings to mind. Now if I can just keep them in mind tonight when I get home and want to snuggle on the couch and watch TV with him, and he says he's got to enter his codes.