Mommin' It Up!

December 7, 2011December 6, 2011

Be, all that you can be.

I feel like I am at a place in my life where I’m either on or off. When I am “on”, I can do it all – parent, keep the house clean, do the shopping, run the kids to their appointments, help out friends in need, blog, and even make dinner five out of seven nights (hey, Thursday’s Joshua has swim lessons and we always get fast food. The other night of the week I’m just inept.)

And then, there’s my “off” times. When I work as hard as I can during the 6- 8 hours or so a week that I have two kids at school and one kid napping so I can keep the house organized, and I can never get it all finished. ( Not that I can’t do housework when they’re all home, but…let’s just say when they are all home and awake I get adult ADD from the constant “MomMomMomMomMomMomMom” and the “waaaaaaaaaah” and my productivity plummets.) These are the times when getting Sophie and Jonah ready and out the door for morning preK drop off either has me on the verge of tears or screaming by 8:30 a.m. When I can’t do anything but the bare-bones, basic stuff my family needs to survive. When I don’t even have two seconds to text, email, or call a friend in need. Those times, I’ve got nuttin’.

There really seems to be no in-between. I can say, that always, I am doing my best. It’s just that sometimes my best is super-great and sometimes it totally sucks. This week, and last week, too, I am totally sucking. I kind of have a bad feeling that it is going to be this way through the fa-la-la-lidays. As a matter of fact, I am already looking forward to the week after Christmas because Bobby has that week off and the kids will of course be off school and Jonah’s 1st birthday and Christmas will be over and I think, oh, Bobby will be here, maybe I can breathe that week. Maybe I will get caught up on the housework. Maybe I will even get an hour or two to myself. Maybe I can flip the switch back to “on”.

Or maybe, the switch will be flipped before that. I sure hope so. At this point, I’m longing for a switch to mediocre.

December 5, 2011December 5, 2011

Adventin’ it up

So far in my stellar career as a mother, I haven’t yet done anything super-special to lead up to Christmas. But this year, I got bit by the Advent bug. I think part of it has to do with Sophie’s being fully excited and involved in the holiday thing this year. Because of her speech language delay, last year was the first year she really “got” Christmas, and this year she really is beginning to understand the WHY of Christmas. About eight times a day she says, “This is going to be the BEST…CHRISTMAS…EVER!” It’s so cute! She and Joshua are bouncing off the walls excited, and part of the reason is because this year, I decided to get my ADVENT on. I started thinking, “Do I really wanna do this? It might get to be too much for me…” but then I remembered Emily’s advice from last year’s Advent season: Just do it So, I did. And I am!

May I present, the Advent section of our dining room:

From left to right, we have: Little People Nativity (minus two wise men, this is what happens when you leave it out all year and let your kids play with it!), Hal the Moose from Build-a-Bear, who you know, has everything to do with Jesus’ birth, our Christmas tree calendar that has an advent activity that we will do as a family every day leading up to Christmas, our chocolate advent calendar which combines two of my favorite things, Scripture verses & chocolate, a random puppy dog dressed for Christmas, and finally, the ol’ mouse advent calendar that was in my house as a child.

WHEW!

We are having great fun doing each of our three calendars each day. The kids are sharing the chocolate really well, we are learning from the Bible verses, and we are having a great time with the activities. Most of the activities I just made up, like today’s “read the Christmas story from the Bible”, and some I have found online, like “make and play Christmas tic tac toe.” They range from watching a Christmas movie, to reading a Christmas book, to making Christmas cookies.

I must confess, I am loving it! I am loving doing these things with my kids, teaching them about Jesus’ birth, and adding some purpose and fun to the anticipation of Christmas morning.

I’m practically a fun mom!! Eek! Well, ’tis the season! What are you doing to celebrate this season with your kids?

December 3, 2011December 3, 2011

Bringing Pony Back

Recently, much to my delight, Sophie has gotten into My Little Pony. I say “much to my delight” because I L-O-V-E-D MLP as a child. As a matter of fact, my favorite pony was named Morning Glory and I would not purchase her for a friend’s birthday party until AFTER I myself owned her, because I was a selfish little twit! But I digress. The point is….

ponystyles — Sophie and I are pony hairstylists!

It all started a couple of months ago when I got her the My Little Pony app for my iPad. I like it because it has a storybook with games and activities. There is a My Little Pony TV show but we don’t have the channel it’s on, however, the iPad app and some MLP books we’ve bought or received got her excited about the product. So for her birthday, as soon as she got some birthday money from great-grandma, she bought herself some MLP! We went to Target and picked out this:

It’s a very cute playset. Nothing earth-shattering, but very fun for pretend. Sophie loves putting things in Apple Jack’s cart, conversing with Apple Jack’s farm creature pals, and of course, stylin’ her hair!

pinkie pie car — She likes to do donuts on my dining room floor

Sophie also got a couple other My Little Pony things for her birthday – Pinkie Pie’s remote control car, which is LOTS of fun, and I think, a great value for the money, and this super-awesome fashion Pinkie Pie that comes with a TON of hair accessories and is really very fun for any little girl who likes to PILE ON the hair barrettes. It’s been lots of fun!

So those are some things Sophie got for her birthday, and then because she is such a sweet little girl :), my friends at Hasbro sent her a couple of other MLP surprises! She is now the proud owner of her very own Princess Celestia:

Princess Celestia, is featured prominently in the My Little Pony app that Sophie loves so well, so she is pretty excited about her! Plus, she TALKS and her wings move! She lights up! She is pretty much the IT Pony to have. The Morning Glory of this generation, if you will! Now I hear that some freaks called “Bronies” (a.k.a men or “Bros” who are rabid fans of the My Little Pony tv show – yes, I am being serious) have their boxers in a bunch because this Celestia is not the same color as she is on TV. To them I say, “Get a job and move out of your mother’s basement.” I think the doll Celestia is super-fab just the way she is!

Lastly, Hasbro also sent Sophie another playset, which is great because she loves to pretend with the playsets so much! It’s the Ponyville Schoolhouse, which is awesome because Cheerliee and her teaching skillz are also prominently featured in the MLP app so Sophie can re-enact scenes from it with this set!

ponyville schoolhouse — All teachers wear glasses! Even Pony teachers!

So, my little girl and I sure are enjoying My Little Pony. If you’re shopping for a little girl this year, put some of these things on your shopping list! And get her what she really wants, so that unlike me, she won’t still be pining over the MLP stable she never got to house her ponies in 25 years later! Ahem.

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Hasbro sent me two items to review. My opinions about them and about all the other products mentioned are my own.