Toast 2 Mom

Waiting at The Salt Lick

Hubby has friends in town this weekend for a climbing adventure. We all met for dinner at The Salt Lick. When you come to Texas, you better like BBQ. This place delivered. Here are a few happy Friday shots while waiting for dinner.

 
  

Mother of the Year Award

Well.... I sure hope the Mother of the Year award scouts were not out in Central Austin today, because it's a sure bet I didn't get the award this year. I tend to use this little blog of mine as a space to share fun, cute, sweet stories about the ups and downs of motherhood and my children in general. Today is not going to be one of those stories...cute or fun. I think the level of smoke has finally gone down from my ears from our public humiliation today.

I am going to preface this story with how blessed I truly do feel to have well behaved children. Prior to having kids, I recall seeing episodes in Target of kids dangling outside of the cart, screaming for a Hershey bar or a rubber ball. I grimaced at the idea of having to deal with that. Actually what I probably said was, "man, those parents need to get a grip on that kid." 9.9 times out of 10, my kids are staring at the screaming kids in the cart saying, "why is that girl crying?" Today....ewww...hurts to say, it was my kid others were watching.

Our plans today involved meeting a couple friends for lunch. Cheekers was actually the child I was worried about. She's been down with a low grade fever for a couple days and fussy - teeth? Syd, I expected, would behave just fine. I was wrong!

I think I'll spare the detailed list of incidents except that it started with refusal of noodles and ended with a refusal to hold my hand to cross the street and resulted in me carrying her sideways, kicking and screaming, "Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, stop, stop, stop, stop".... all under the blazing southern sun!

At this point in the books, the approach is to keep a calm voice, get down at their level, calm them, or simply walk away. I attempted these things. But in between... I had to "place" her in the van, hold her back from jumping out of the van, take her necklace and bracelet before she pulled the beads all over the place and make it clear that not only was Kitty going to be in timeout this afternoon....all the animals would be in timeout this afternoon.

After we finally pulled away and out of public's eyes, I was fortunate to endure screaming and crying for eleven minutes. Midway through this eleven minutes, I had to pull the van over and inform her maybe Kitty would be in timeout forever!!

But you haven't even heard the worst part to this story...

Yes, the worst part was things beginning to calm down, a silent rest of the drive home, pulling into the driveway, quietly getting out of the van and then having Sydney tell me how pretty my shoes were as we walked into the house...then have her kiss my leg and then with a quivering lip tell me, "I think my animals probably need to go to timeout now, Mommy."  Melt........................  Come on...you can't write this stuff! For about 14 minutes my stress levels were through the roof. And with two sentences, I am a bowl full of mush.

So the house is now quiet. It is nap-time. Nap-time is always good. I hope we have a better evening than morning... I hope there's no You Tube footage of the morning out there!

Giddy-up Giraffe

These pictures probably won't show the entertainment of this...but when you can't ride a horse...why not ride a giraffe....

 

Steppin Out with my Baby

My baby is about one week shy of being thirteen months old...and today she took five steps! And thank goodness because now I can tell the masses that yes, she is one and yes she is walking.

I don't know how many people (except that it is everybody) have asked me since she turned one if the child is walking. And when I say no, they all say, "oh don't worry, she will be soon." Ummm, I'm not worried. I knew she'd be walking soon. But I find it so interesting that "people" have to create a comfort statement out of that....as if to make sure I know that my baby is not letting me down.

So at ease all....now it is time for the real terror to begin...walking to running to falling to bumping to bruising to crying. The joyous milestone has arrived.

It Says Right Here in my Story

As each day goes by, I am more impressed with Sydney's knowledge and overall understanding of her surroundings. Her observations in life amaze me constantly; and her improving skill at negotiation often leaves me speechless. The latest talent of my three year old is her craft at getting out of doing things by storytelling...and I mean literally storytelling. A recent example went something like this...

"Hey Sydney let's get dressed and go downstairs for breakfast."

"No Mommy. I don't want to get dressed yet. I want to keep my jammies on a little bit longer."

"No Syd. It's time to get dressed. We need to get ready for our day and getting dressed is the first thing we need to do to get started."

"Mommy, I just want to stay in my jammies a liiiiiiittle longer, please."

"Syd, Mommy wants you to get dressed and it's time..."

"But Mommy, it says right here in my story...Sydney does not need to get dressed. She stays in her jammies and eats breakfast." Sydney shares with great expression while running her fingers along the air of her imaginary book.

Well... I am all for a girl who can create a story...and a darn good one at that. Blueberry muffins are meant to be eaten with a princess nightgown on anyway!

The Domestic Fairies

I had magic fairy dust sprinkled all over my house this week. The ladies of my family came to visit this week and spread their domesticity. I was gifted with a painted room, clean windows, scrubbed floors, scoured tubs, dusted blinds, as well as many, many decorative touches and advice. And to top it all off, I got grandma's fried chicken!

It has been a busy but productive week in our household. Daddio has been off on a work ski trip. The ladies have been slaving away to create a new home feel for our new house. I truly loved our home in Omaha, but I am growing to love our new home very quickly.

Back to the skills of the women in my family. I am so grateful they came out and were able to help and share their knowledge. As appreciative as I am of what they did, it leaves me feeling pretty inadequate at the same time. It is clear after spending about ten minutes with them how I truly do not have the decorative gene. There is my bookcase for example, that was in my living room and is now in my family room. I could have spent weeks trying to figure out how to fill it stylishly. It wouldn't make the cover of Garage Sale Weekly after my time and efforts. A few moments with these ladies, it's ready for House Beautiful. Alphabetize, sort the books by color, stack them in order of size and chronology...these things I can do...and quickly.... Give it the trendy look, nope...

So, this evening as I look around the house, I am very pleased. The Hubby and I do not buy homes that are move in ready. We take projects and rooms one at a time (though sometimes many rooms and projects and chaos all at once). With magic assistance, I was able to knock down many projects this weekend. Thank you so much Mom, Grandma and Aunt Val! You were amazing help.

A Day to Spend With Loved Ones...Hmm

I have never really been very much into Valentine's Day. I was not high on the boys' lists in school, therefore not a lot of cards and candies showed up at my door. Later in life, when I did have a mate on the day, it became clear why I never cared about the day before. I was the Scrooge that wore black and said Valentine's is the Hallmark holiday for earning some more bucks.

I've been married almost seven years and with my Hubby for ten years. We exchange a card to acknowledge the day...sometimes. But really, it's just another day.

Now, though, I have two girls. I do remember what Valentine's was like as a little kid. I was so excited to make my box for school. It was so much fun to pick out the Valentine's for passing out, putting stickers on them, overusing my red markers. It was great fun.

When the thought of children entered my mind, other new thoughts entered my mind, like how much fun it will be to bake with my kids. When we were searching for our new house, having a roomy kitchen was one of my top requirements. I said, "I want a great space to spread out and bake cookies with the girls....oh what fun that will be!"

So on this day of love, I woke up and discovered the Hubby was taking off for the day to do a little rock climbing. No big deal...I'll get my card later...it's all good. I thought, hey, I know...the girls and I can have a little V-day fest of our own today...make cards, color stuff red and make some heart cookies! Yippee!

I hit the Internet for a good sugar cookie recipe. I tried to find a heart cookie cutter in my kitchen but was only able to find pumpkins, bats and ghosts. I remembered though that wedding gift collecting dust in my cabinets - the Williams-Sonoma Cookie Press. I was pretty sure it had a heart disc for our big day.

So away at work I went. I thought I'd do a little prep work on my own while the girls played. The beginning stuff is a bit messy. I got my sugar, butter, flour, mixer all ready for our day of fun!

Sometimes...though...that Cupid is more into pulling pranks than spreading love. My day, instead of hearts and joy went something like this...

Slaving away in the kitchen...
 
Trying to figure out how to work the *^*$  cookie press to shape hearts...
 
Realizing why this cookie press has been collecting dust...

And after many attempts to get help from my loved one....Natty stayed sleeping..and Sponge Bob was more important...

So, not quite the day I had in mind. The day is young, though. And I'm not in my twenties anymore. I don't have quite the disdain or pessimism that I used to about the day. Things could still turn around. And if not, I did enjoy my love fest sneaking a little cookie dough and nobody telling me I couldn't have it.

Happy Valentine's Day!