New Photos

Easter dress!!

Lost and Found

Just found some old pics that i thought deserved a second viewing...

Today, she's an angel.

There are days when I'm so ready to pull my hair out and yell and scream because of the disobedient nature of the 3-year-old in my care. But then there are days like today. It's raining and cold, and I'm exhausted from being awake all night with heart burn and my precious child has decided that today is the day that coloring has become the must-do activity of the year. She has been coloring non-stop from this morning until now and it is past 3pm. This has allowed me to do laundry, clean my kitchen, shine my sink, and still have time to lie down and mull over the annoyance of heart burn. I know every mother thinks her children are special, but mine really is. She has come to check on me a few times, kissed me and then returned to her coloring. What a day. Thank you God for small miracles.

Birthday and more

Hi everyone, I know, I know...it's been ages. Veronica's 3rd birthday has come and gone and with it her vocabulary has grown exponentially. She is a little chatter box. Some of the things that come out of her mouth are stunning. A few days ago we were out on the town together and a man asked her, "Where did you get those blue eyes?" and without missing a beat she replied, "God painted them!" and when I asked her who told her that (because it wasn't me) she looked at me and said "God!" in this tone that said "duh, Mom!"

Then we were looking at houses, on the same day, and we walked in the door of one and the stench of cats was so bad we both had to get out of there immediately. She asked me what that was and I told her, it's the cats honey. They stink! And she said, "Cats make us sick!"

Here's some photos I've been meaning to post.

My little protestor...sign says "Subsidized Ponies 4 All!"


Chopsticks...yet another way not to eat anything.

Birthday Girl!

Fun with the hair dryer

Smiley cousin Jon!

It wasn't just the kids who had fun on the trampoline!

Princess cake


Veronica loved her cake!

Fun foam pit!

Cadence on the balance beam with Dad

Katie and baby Iain


I'm so blessed with good friends (who have 3-year-olds and are as desperate as me to get out of the house)


Fun at the park
Where we spend most of our time...in the car!

Veronica the Ballerina!

We have been having so much fun at our new ballet class! I took photos yesterday and they're not very good because I had to take them from behind the glass. But she really loves it and all of the kids are sooooo cute! It's my favorite thing to do!

Winter Blues

So Christmas is over and now the only thing to look forward to is a long stretch of cold, barren, miserable winter. It's too bad Christmas isn't in February. I hate February. But here we are and we're bored and cold. We've been going to the McDonald's playland a lot but that has it's own problems too. One specific problem is WHAT IS GOING ON WITH PARENTS WHO DON'T WATCH THEIR CHILDREN? I'm sorry but it's driving me NUTS. Every time I'm at the playland, I am watching my child intently while other parents simply are not. Some of them even drop off their kids and then go sit in the restaurant where they can't see their kids! And, inevitably, these are the kids who go all Lord of the Flies and start terrorizing the other kids. And why aren't parents teaching their older children to watch out for and be considerate of little ones? I can't tell you how many times Veronica has been mowed down by 8-year-olds who should know better.

Look, if you are one of these parents, I'm just going to say it...STOP BEING LAZY. One day, your child is going to seriously hurt another child and you're going to get sued and wish you had been doing your job. Paying someone else's medical bills sucks. Not only was I saving my own child from the Ritalin-riddled rioters, but I ended up saving a 1 1/2 year old who started to climb the wrong way up a fast moving slide where big boys were flying down feet first (some of whom were wearing shoes when they weren't supposed to be). The mother of the baby I saved, barely acknowledged me when I told her what almost happened to her little one, after I had to find her on the other side of the playland far away from where her little one almost got kicked in the teeth. Then, the same mother gave me the stink eye when I asked her older son to stop blocking the slide so the other children could come down. She was standing there watching him do this and didn't say anything.

I'm speaking to parents who do these sorts of things. I want you to know that I am not going to stop policing "the village". Hillary is right. It does take a village...not because it's the ideal way to raise kids, but because some of YOU won't raise your own darn kids! I don't want anyone's children to get hurt. And there's something wrong with you if you think it's okay to just let your kids run wild. There are rules of etiquette and consideration that need to be taught to your children or they will end up luring helpless classmates to a beat-down session to be broadcast online for fun. Is that what you want? To create criminals? That's what you're doing. Your negligence is creating a generation of inconsiderate a**holes.

This reminds me of a "Dad story." My dad has some terrific stories. One time, he and my mom were out to dinner and at a table next to them was a teenage boy and his date. The boy was swearing loudly and acting like a jerk. Everyone was uncomfortable but no one said anything. Except my dad. He got up and walked over and leaned over the table into the boys face (if anyone knows my dad, you know how scary he is. He's a big guy) and said something like, "Son, you are in public, and you are on a date. Your behavior is disrespectful to your date and to everyone in this restaurant. If you don't stop it immediately, I will take you outside and kick the ?!@! out of you." (I'm not sure if he actually threatened violence...although that sounds like something he'd say. I mean, this is the same man who was escorted out of the Social Security office by a police officer and overturned an entire display of oil and then took a door off its hinges on the way out of a store that ripped him off. Overreaction? Maybe. Effective? Definitly.) Okay, so he might have some anger issues. But overall my dad is a very considerate and generous person. But disrespect and rudeness turns him into a high-blood-pressure-fueled force. And why shouldn't that kind of behavior make him angry? Sometimes, anger is exactly what we need to feel and act on when truly outrageous things are happening to us. That's why we call it righteous anger!

Needless to say, the kid stopped. And I believe there was applause. So I would like to encourage those of you out there to stop being terrorized by this kind of public rudeness and do something about it. You aren't alone. 90% of the people around you want to say something but are too scared. Public humiliation and shame can go a long way to keeping some people in check. My New Year's Resolution (which I never make) is going to be to stand up for what is right regardless of what people think of me. I'm not going to sit quietly by and watch children be endangered by unruly, unsupervised children. Next time, I'm going to go further and escort the offending child to his/her parents and tell them they need supervising. Maybe the humiliation of having a perfect stranger point out they are slacking will be enough to make them shape up or leave.

Dad, I think I've inherited your angry gene....

Rant

So, something is bothering me and of course I'm going to blog about it. I come from a family of petite people. Until I lost control over my weight after college I had a devil of a time finding clothes to fit me. Unbelievably, I was a size 0 for most of my teen years. I was finally able to stop shopping in the children's department around the age of 17 when a new store opened up at the mall called 5,7,9 that carried 0's and 2's. It was the only store in which I could find decent fitted clothing. Then there's the shoe issue. We also have narrow feet. We had to shop at one store that was the only store that would carry narrow shoes and most had to be ordered and they were very expensive. Yet, every Payless you go to carries double wide shoes. And every store you go to has a Plus Size section. (Okay ladies, don't freak out on me...I'm happy there are plus size options considering there didn't used to be) But what about the tiny people? It's very very hard to find decent clothes for small people! We were just lucky my mother knew how to alter clothes!

Veronica is going to have these issues. She is just like me. She's tiny. Very very tiny. She's 3 but she's still in a 2T (the hardest size to find btw.) And when I decided to sign her up for ballet class I was informed I had to get her a leotard and tights. Thus the hunt began. Every single store I went to (and I went to 3) and called (and I called at least 6 including specialty stores) only carry size 4 and up. I tried a 4 on her and she was swimming in it. I'm just wondering if the obesity epidemic isn't adding to my problem. Admittedly, Veronica is smaller than the average 3-year-old. But I can't help but think that the plethora of chubby ones are screwing up the shopping selection.

Thank God for online shopping. I did manage to find her size online and for a reasonable price (although I would have rather not paid the shipping). But here's my request. All of you out there with overweight kids...PUT THEM ON A DIET! Not just for my sake...for who really cares about my inconvenience except me...but for their own sake! Let them live past the age of 35! Why are we just making clothes bigger? Why aren't we just saying it? Put them on a flipping diet before they have a coronary at age 11 okay? Cheetos are not a food group! (And I'm talking directly to you, Angelina Jolie, who are going to have a half-dozen porkers on your hands if you don't trash the junk food. Every photo of those kids they're mawing a bag of chips and guzzling sodas. Ever heard of raisins?)

Admittedly, I could not be considered "tiny" anymore. And in the coming months I will be as round as a beachball, and after the baby I'll get back on the weight loss wagon...but the point is, I'm an adult. I was never a fat kid. My parents controlled what I ate....as they should. As an adult you make the decision about what you eat and what your weight will be. But to allow your children to get fat before they leave the house is just CRUEL. It's one thing if they do it to themselves in college like everyone does...but to start them out at a disadvantage is just dereliction of duty. You're setting them up for ridicule at school, social distress, and most importantly a crisis of health!

Happy New Year!