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It’s our 100th Post!!!

It’s hard to believe, but this marks our 100th post on Mommin’ It Up! Woohoo! Since we are a couple of ding-dongs and already posted 100 things about ourselves, (because in our bloggy naievete we didn’t know that you’re supposed to wait until your 100th post to do so) we had to think long and hard for an appropriate way to mark this momentous occasion. So we’ve decided to give you, dear readers, a precious gift: two pictures of us together and ten things about US as a dynamic duo! Here’s the first pic:
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This is from the summer of 1981, when our whole family went on a vacation to Myrtle Beach together. That’s Emily on the left in t-shirt and diaper, at about 26 months, and me on the right in the HOTT two-piece – I was almost four.

Now for the top ten things you need to know about Emily & Jenny:
#1: My mom and Emily’s dad are siblings, which makes us first cousins.

#2: We are really more than that however, because our grandma and grandpa are THIRD COUSINS themselves. However, they never actually met each other and fell in love until high school, so we don’t think it counts as inbreeding (does it?)

#3: As young girls, we were members with Emily’s sister Anna, of a super-popular girls singing group called “the Unlimited.” Of course, “singing” meant lip-synching to Beach Boys songs. Our “big hit” was “Fun Fun Fun”. It was very popular with our parents and our Grandma. Like every girlie super-group we had amazing stage costumes. Ours were Emily’s dad’s white t-shirts with the words “The Unlimited” stenciled on them. You just don’t see class acts like that any more!

#4: We both graduated from college early. I got my bachelor’s in 3.5 years, and Emily got hers in just 3! (Such a show-off!)

#5: We both got married at the tender age of 22.

#6: We worked together for about two years for the local chapter of a national non-profit. We were often left unsupervised in the same office. It WAS FUN!! It was at this workplace that we revealed our first pregnancies to each other. And did a lot of other things I will not post here!

#7: While working for this non-profit, we went on several business trips together, where we shared not just a hotel room but a BED, all in the name of saving the agency money! After we did that once, it was pretty much expected every time. Good thing we had all that practice from spending many nights at our Grandma’s! We made Em’s sister sleep with Grandma. Which is why she is the favorite granddaughter now.

#8: We both became moms for the first time in 2004 – eight weeks apart.

#9: We share the same OB-GYN, who delivered all of our babies (and hopefully will deliver Em’s current Bun in the Oven!)

#10: We have alter-egos. Together with Emily’s sister Anna, we are the Supercousins. We don’t really do anything super, we just like the way it sounds.

And now, for a final pic: this is Emily (on the left) and I at her sister’s (and my cousin’s) wedding in June 2005. We are both VERY proud that we got our bridesmaid’s dresses for a song on ebay. Woot Woot!
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We just want to say, in this our 100th post, THANK YOU FOR READING! It is a privilege to write together and so much fun, and it’s just the icing on the cake that you all read it and leave us feedback. We LOVE your comments and thoughts and getting to know you all. So THANKS and we hope you’ll read the next 100 posts too!

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An interview with Moi

I saw this at the Diaper Diaries and asked Jill to interview me, cause I just loove to talk about myself. Here’s the deal, if you want to be next!

Leave me a comment saying “Interview me.” I will respond by emailing you five questions. I get to pick the questions. If you don’t have a valid email address on your blog, please provide one. You will update your blog with a post containing your answers to the questions. You will include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

1. You share a blog with your cousin Emily. Give us some dirt. What’s one thing about her your readers don’t know that she wouldn’t hate you for sharing.
Well I have two things, since you asked, and inquiring minds DO want to know about Emily. One thing is that she seems to hit deer with her car a lot. Not on purpose, mind you. But if you’re a deer in southwestern Ohio, you might want to watch out for Emily and her silver Camry. The other dish I have on Emily is that she doesn’t use salad dressing. How gross is that? Every time we go out to eat and she gets a salad I just hope and pray that this time she’ll order dressing, but she never does. So sad.

2. The Big 3-0. You recently had a birthday. Share some “old lady” wisdom with us. What is one way your 30s are better than your 20s.
Well you know, I’ve had about three weeks of my 30s so I am pretty much a 30s veteran, and I am a LOT wiser. So that’s the first thing. I mean you turn 30 and it’s like the flippin’ Wisdom Fairy just casts a spell on you overnight. It’s great, really. Ummm, no seriously, so far what’s better about my 30s is that I have a better relationship with God than I ever did in my 20s. I am much more dependent on Him now. I let Him take care of stuff, and I know He’s got my back. I never quite got that until recently.

3. First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes…you know the rest. You married your high school sweethart. What was your first (6th grade) impression of him? Were you right or wrong.
My first impression was that he was really nice and had poofy hair. I was right about both! (He no longer has the hair but is still very nice!)

4. You have a vast history of musical theatre and say you love to sing :). If you could be in any Broadway musical what would it be and who would you be.
Ooh GOOD ONE! Probably I’d be Dolly in “Hello Dolly.” ‘Cause she’s sassy and got to wear great hats!!

5. So Jen-Jen, Jenny, Jennifer, whatever. You have lamented the fact that your name is too common if you were born in the late 70s. I feel your pain, there were 3 Jill’s in my sorority pledge class. Anyway, if you could change your name, what would you change it to?
Man, Jill, you are like Barbra Walters or something! That’s a HARD one! I think I’d just change everyone else’s name so I could be the only Jenny. But if I had to change it…I would have two names, like Mary Claire or something like that.

Wanna be interviewed by me? Email me or leave a comment on this post with “Interview Me” in the copy!

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WFMW: Fiber-iffic Fun!

You all know I LOVE talking about poop so I’m happy to have a poop-related post to share with you for Works for Me Wednesday. Even though Joshua is fully potty-trained and has been for about six months, he still has pooping issues from time-to-time. He has a history of being, uh, “plugged up”, if you will and recently that tendency has reared its ugly head, or more appropriately, tail. So, it’s been taking the kid 10-15 minutes to push out a poop. I don’t know why, but he always has to have an audience for the great event to occur (I am really, really, really hoping he outgrows this soon. This could have serious repercussions later in life!!) and so until recently, I’ve had to cage Sophie via Pack-n-Play or exersaucer every time her brother has to lay a deuce. So it goes like this: I run back and forth between the boy on the john and the screaming baby (did I mention she hates to be restrained in any way?) for ten minutes or so until Joshua is finally able to move his poor little bowels with me cheering him on and singing him songs. By the time his ginormous rock-hard turd hits the crapper, we are all exhausted.

Last week, I decided this had to change. Joshua is a very picky eater, and he obvisously wasn’t gettng enough fiber in his diet. So I took a cue from my friend Jill at the Diaper Diaries, who loves her some fiber, and I put a couple fiber-tricks in motion to get Joshua on his way to happy, healthier pooping. The first thing I did was head to Trader Joe’s to get some ground flaxseed. This stuff is great! It’s ground very fine, packed full of fiber, and easy to conceal in food. I put it in Joshua’s oatmeal, cinnamon-and-splenda toast, grilled cheese, and peanut butter sandwiches. He never even knows it’s there! I put it in dinners I make too – soups, casseroles, anything he won’t SEE it in. (I tried putting it in his ketchup once – no dice – he could see it.) The second trick I implemented is prune juice. We don’t drink much juice in our house, mostly milk & water, so juice is a treat for Joshua. Still, it’s a little much to ask for a three-year-old to down straight prune juice, so I mix it with reduced-sugar grape juice, about 50-50, and he gulps it down. Finally, I’ve found two snack crackers he really likes that are fiber-full. One, on Jill’s recommendation, is the Kashi TLC cracker. Yum yum! He loves them! The other are the All-Bran Snack Bites. I used to get these at Kroger’s, , but I’ve recently found them at Big Lots for a bargain price – just in time to get us through this Poop Crisis! They have a yummy cinnamon & brown sugar taste and 5 grams of fiber per serving! Yea!

Happily, we saw results in Joshua’s bathroom time within about four days. He now poops about every-other-day instead of twice a week, and he can dispatch a giant turd in about 15 seconds instead of 15 minutes! Yea for Fiber! Adding it surreptitiously to your child’s diet takes the drama out of bathroom time and it works for me (and Joshua!)

For more great Works for Me Wednseday ideas, head on over to Rocks In My Dryer.

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