Mommin' It Up!

March 15, 2013March 15, 2013

Feel-good Friday

crazy Lucy — Trust me, she comes by her craziness honestly.

UPDATE: The class reached their goal around 8 pm tonight! I know about $70 for sure came from our readers! And I bet some of the anonymous donors were probably you guys, too. THANK YOU!!!! You rock!! There is joy in 3rd grade tonight!!

This is Lucy. She is a totally cool, crazy 3rd grader. She’s also my life-long friend Lori’s daughter (if you ever read the comments here you will know Lori as a faithful commenter. You should also check out her new blog. You should also know tht I don’t remember life without her being in it AND she got married in Vegas at a drive-thru, with a coupon. And I didn’t even know she had a boyfriend. Awesome!)

So not only is Lucy cool, she also has a very cool 3rd grade teacher, Mr. Shaw, who has inspired his students to raise money to buy iPad minis, cases, and accessories to be used in small learning groups in their classroom. These kiddos and their teacher have raised $4,357.00 in just TWO months!! They’ve been using an online fundraising tool as well as collecting offline donations and raising money themselves through bakes sales, doing extra chores, and all sorts of other 3rd-grade entrepreneurial techniques. The kiddos are workin’ it – not just going door to door asking for cash.

But today is their deadline! And they are $643 measly bucks short of their goal.

I would really like to help them get there, and so Emily and I have already donated. Now I am looking to resurrect some of my $5 friends!! You guys helped out by raising over $2,000 in ONE DAY when my friend E was battling cancer, because you’re amaaazing! And if you have $5 today, I’d love for you to help a bunch of 3rd graders see that hard work coupled with human kindness can make dreams come true and open new doors to learning.

You guys know how I feel about iPads for learning. I believe they are amazing classroom tools, particularly in special ed and therapy, but in small learning groups in a regular classroom, their power can be phenomenal! Kids learn in different ways. Having an iPad mini in the classroom will certainly level the playing field for some children who don’t learn as easily in traditional ways.

And there are SO many FREE educational apps and books available! To reach this goal would be amazing for this class.

So, if you have two minutes, and 5 bucks, click here and do something that will have an impact not only on these third graders but on all those third graders to follow them for years to come. I already feel that this effort is epic – let’s help complete this legacy that Lucy’s class will be leaving for the other students at their school, not just for themselves.

Click here and donate. :: hypnotic eyes::

And have a wonderful weekend! I’ll keep you posted on the total via Facebook!

March 13, 2013March 12, 2013

I officially give up

So a few days ago I wrote how my family keeps getting sick and we can’t catch a break and it’s totally HORRIBLE.

And then last week both big kids went to school on Thursday and Friday! And we had a good weekend! And they both even returned to school on Monday! Five glorious days of wellness.

And then yesterday, Tuesday, the big kids headed off to school again.

Jonah has been “sleeping in” since the time change, so he wasn’t awake when Bobby and the big kids left. After I heard him wake up, I opened the door to get my sweet baby boy…and was greeted by the unmistakable odor of vomit mixed with diarrhea. And so much more, but I’ll do you a big fave and not describe it all for you. A lot of laundry and a bath (and he HATES his bath) ensued. Good times. And by good I mean bad.

And then of course 30 minutes after coming home from school, Sophie, who just finished her FISHING antibiotic yesterday, blew chunks with the force of 10 men. Puke-o-rama. Sophie has now been sick 3 times in 4 weeks.

I am not amused. Well, I wasn’t. Until Emily and I shared this series of text messages.

Then I was slightly amused. But soon I went back to being completely unamused and just plain pissed off that I’ve spent most of 2013 with a sore back or sick children or both.

I swear we are clean, hygenic people. I don’t know why we can’t fight off these illnesses. Tonight I went out and bought the kids probiotics – any other advice?

I’m thinking running away to somewhere tropical is my best bet right now.

March 11, 2013March 20, 2013

Seventh Generation Baby Wipes review & giveaway

My baby Jonah is 26 months old (what!??) so he’s getting big, but…he’s still my baby in lots of ways.

He likes to take selfies, like his mama.

And he looooves his blankie(s) – they came in a set of 4 and he loves them all!

But one thing he does not like is talking about going to the potty. He, like, his brother and sister before him, won’t even acknowledge when he’s obviously doing the deed. It’s nothing buy deny, deny, deny, up in here!

So, I’m still buying diapers and wipes.

One thing that does set Jonah apart from his older siblings in the diaper department is that his little buns are super-sensitive. I swear, with Joshua and Sophie, I didn’t use a tube of diaper rash cream between them. But with Jonah, I have used approximately 20 billion tubes of cream, mixed up my own special concoction a few times, and bought him special extra-strength ointment from behind the pharmacy counter twice! Shew! It wears me out just thinking about it.

One time in desperation I turned to Facebook for diaper rash help, and some other moms gave me some great advice. A couple mentioned sprinkling cornstarch in his diaper at every change, and I’ve been doing it for a few months now, and it has helped TREMENDOUSLY. I took the suggestion from my friend Beth, of filling an empty spice container with cornstarch and just keeping it at the diaper-changing station. It works great, I use it just like baby powder and it helps keep Jonah’s sensitive little buns dry and rash-free. Yes!

Another thing that helps is wipes that are good for sensitive baby buns, so I was very happy to try Seventh Generation’s Free & Clear baby wipes when my friends at the Motherhood asked if I’d be interested in reviewing them. They’ve recently improved them, making them bigger in size and more cloth-like gentleness and performance. AND, they now use 70% LESS plastic than their old wipes through the use of plant materials. Wow! Obviously, Seventh Generation is a waste-conscious company, and I can honestly say with these wipes, I’ve used less than with other brands. They seem to be able handle more mess per wipe than the wipes I usually use! True story! I’ve been really pleased with their performance and I know they don’t contain any fragrances or chemicals that are going to irritate Jonah’s skin. I’ve been using them to clean up his messy face and hands after meals as well and I can get the whole mess cleaned up with just one. (And Jonah generally scrapes the inside of his yogurt containers clean with his fingers. Ahem.)

So, I’m a fan of Seventh Generation Free & Clear wipes! You can find them for sale at Target, Whole Foods, and Diapers.com. AND you can enter to win a pack here! Holla!

All you have to do to enter is leave me a comment on this post with your best baby care tip! One winner will be chosen at random on Monday, March 18th.

Good luck! And thanks to Seventh Generation for letting Jonah and me try out their wipes.

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I was provided wipes to facilitate my review and I am being compensated for this post by the Motherhood and Seventh Generation. All opinions are my own.