Has Anyone Seen My Brain?

There is something wrong with me...I think I am losing my mind...and I am blaming my children for this loss. I've been super forgetful as of late and it is starting to make me really angry with myself. On, Thursday, I left my purse at my mother's house after celebrating Thanksgiving there. She called me to let me know, but my phone was in my purse which means I didn't have a clue until 4:00 a.m. on Black Friday rolled around and I got the inclination to go shopping since I couldn't seem to sleep. After searching everywhere for my purse, I reluctantly returned to counting sheep and wondering if I was losing my mind.  Then, after another family gathering on Saturday, Ricky received a call from his Aunt letting us know that I left our camera at her house and since she lives really far away from us, it won't be a quick and easy return. Moving right along to today, I left my purse at church and thank God realized it right before driving away. 

  How hard is it to remember a purse and a camera and many other things which would take much too long to list here, you may ask? VERY HARD, when you have two babies. You see babies do not make for traveling light. Wherever we go, I have to make a mental checklist of meals for two babies, milk, formula, toys, 2 changes of clothes, about 12 diapers (two different sizes), a nighttime diaper if we go somewhere late, sun block for summer, blankets, sweaters, snacks, a camera, wipes, pacifiers, and my purse. Most of the time, I forget to bring a sweater for myself and end up freezing unless it is summer time. When I am toting all of that stuff in an over sized ginormous diaper bag and pushing my behemoth double wide with two children, it is easy to forget things because no matter what I forget, I still feel like I am carrying a house! So there you have it, I am losing my mind, but it's okay because I have an excuse!

Good-Bye Thanksgiving and Hello Christmas!!!

I don't think I've ever been in such a rush to get Thanksgiving over with! To tell you the truth, I usually love Thanksgiving as much as I love Christmas, but this year is different.  I've realized that life itself is so much more colorful and vibrant once you have children. My friend Angela says that once you have kids you see life in color instead of in black and white. I find that to be so evident as Christmas approaches. I get to start my own traditions that my children will look forward to every year, I get to teach my children about Jesus and the true meaning of Christmas, I get to watch Noah's eyes light up when he sees Christmas lights on peoples' houses no matter how simple, and I get to watch him get excited about Santa Claus even though he has no clue who Santa is! I am giddy as I write this post thinking about how Noah will react when he wakes up from his nap and sees the Christmas tree that daddy set up while he was sleeping and all the other decorations that mommy put up. I know that he will be fascinated by the garland on the mantle and the little Santa Claus holding up his stalking. He will marvel at the tree itself and the lights that garnish it.  I am also excited that we got the flashing lights for our tree because they will hypnotize Maia and keep her entranced so I can get stuff done around here!

  Even though, I am sure that in the near future I will be telling you how Noah knocked our tree down and ended up cutting himself with a shattered bulb, I thank God for my children and the joy that they bring to my life this Christmas season. I am so blessed to have the privilege of seeing the world in color. 

Ricky's Purse

I'm really not into man purses but today my son broadened my views on the "murse" (man-purse).  This morning Ricky was getting ready to go dirt-bike riding with his brothers. He loaded up his massive dirt-covered (equivalent to a medium suitcase) dirt-bike riding gear bag with his boots, pants, shirt, helmet, and protective gear and lugged it down stairs and into his big manly truck. Upon his return upstairs, Noah who was waiting for him at the top of the stairs with a puzzled look on his face, threw out his arms in a questioning manner and asked "Whey is daddy's purse?" I couldn't help but burst out in uncontrollable laughter which caused my husband to shoot me a murderous glance and tell me he was going to kill me for telling my son that his macho dirt bike bag was a purse. I was laughing too hard to respond but once I gathered myself, I assured him that I did not tell our son that daddy has a purse. In Noah's little mind he figured that the bag that Mama carries on her shoulder is her purse so the bag that daddy carries on his shoulder must be his purse. Duh! It makes logical sense daddy! Maybe I can embroider the letters LV on it and make it a fake Louis Vuitton. Hmmmm...I might be onto something. I think the dirt-biking crowd would totally buy into my "murse" idea. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to get to work on my idea before one of you tries to steal it.

Kids + Christmas Shopping = Disaster

This morning I thought I'd take advantage of the great sales at Kohls and got up early to get myself ready and get the kids out the door. The getting ready part is a story all by itself, but I'll spare you the details. 

  I decided to take the single stroller instead of my double wide because it is quite embarrassing trying to push a double-wide through those clothing aisles. I put Maia in the stroller and had Noah walk beside me. Of course on our way into the store, Noah stepped in front of the stroller and I crashed into him.  He fell and got black stains all over his shorts. Great! We hadn't even stepped foot into the store and I already had a crying kid (whom I injured) with dirty clothes on at 9:00 in the morning. Maybe the double wide was the way to go. The first thing Noah spotted when we walked in was a Curious George stuffed animal which he asked to hold (this is our routine when shopping. He finds something to carry around with him for the duration of the shopping trip and then puts it back before we check out). I let him hold it but realized that I would have to keep an eye not only on my son but on the Curious George doll as well, because when Noah spots something else that he wants he attempts to stuff the doll in the pocket underneath the stroller, and if I don't remember that it is there before we leave the store the beepy thing will beep as we leave and I will get arrested in front of my two kids for attempting to steal a Curious George doll but I digress...We headed to the kids clothing and toy section and I looked for items for my nieces and nephew while calling out Noah's name every two seconds to make sure nobody had taken him and that he was not knocking over any of the mannequins. He is fascinated by mannequins.  He periodically would come over with a new stuffed animal and put in the stroller and I would ask hi to put it back.  As is always the case, about 20 minutes into my shopping experience, Maia Belle started crying and would not take the pacifier. I realized that I didn't have time to be picky and grabbed a few items that I thought would work while receiving "shut-that-kid-up looks" from people. As I searched the clothing section for one last thing, I heard loud grunting from a few clothing racks over. My constipated son had gotten the urge to go poop at that moment and was grunting like a grown man benching 500 lbs and and saying "poop, puuuuush" in between grunts. I couldn't really shush him because he needs all the help he can get to poop. So, I just let him hold on to my legs for leverage and grunt away while my other child continued her screaming. When his urge to go passed, I took Maia out of the stroller and put Noah in it to give everyone in the store a much needed break from her crying and to keep Noah from grabbing anymore stuffed animals and placing them randomly all around the store. I checked the pocket in  the bottom of the stroller for any loot that Noah might have stashed there and I headed up to the register. The problem was trying  to maneuver with one hand my stroller  which had 4 bags hanging from the handles and an unbuckled kid in it. Many clothes racks were crashed into and stuffed animals run over on my way up to the front. But, we made it, I paid and we headed home. When we got home, I changed the kids, fed them lunch, cleaned up a huge spill (courtesy of my son), and put them down for their naps. Then I went to check out the presents I bought...OH CRAP! What was I thinking? The clothes I bought are really not that cute at all and the toy that I got for my 4 year-old-nephew says for ages 8 and up! Looks like the gift receipts will be put to good use. Moral of the story: Don't go shopping with your kids. It makes for a super stressful experience and poor taste and judgement. 

Random Confessions

One of my biggest pet peeves is picky eaters...I know that sounds mean but it's true.

One of my biggest fears is running out of toilet paper at my house. There is no place to store the excessive amount of toilet paper that I purchase on  weekly basis.

I was craving buffalo wing sauce a few minutes ago and since it is not something you can consume by itself and I really had nothing with which to eat it, I pulled out the left over fried rice I made last night and poured buffalo wing sauce on it and ate it...my husband might never speak to me again because he was so disgusted. I satisfied my craving and I have no regrets.

I still get really irritated when people feed my son things that are processed or contain sugar. For some reason people feel that I have lightened up on this issue, but I haven't. 

At the time my babies were born, I thought that they were so cute and beautiful...now, when I look back at pictures, I realize that I was blinded to their not-so-cuteness and that they really weren't cute newborns at all! 

I am sad that the Making the Band 3 girls (Danity Kane) broke up. I loved watching Making the Band only because of them! What lame reality show am I going to replace that with?

I have no idea what to get my husband for Christmas and I really need to redeem myself since I got him absolutely NOTHING for his birthday. I am so bad at getting gifts and am very stressed out about this.

I wish I could afford to buy a Starbucks Latte every day twice a day. A little piece of heaven for me would be starting my day and ending it with a Starbucks latte.

I feel a little sick now from my buffalo wing sauce smothered fried rice. 

 

Inappropriate Owies

Okay, quick post...My kisses are magical! My son thinks that mama's kisses heal any "owie" that he may have. Sometimes I have to kiss it several times because the scab lasts for days and so he remembers it daily and asks me to kiss it. I think it's so cute how after I kiss him, he says "all better." Lately though my kisses have had to take a backseat to Elmo's kisses. Now when he gets hurt he says, "Elmo kiss Wo-wah's owie?"
This morning as I was changing my son's diaper I noticed a bit of a diaper rash, and Noah scrunched his face and said "Butt hurt. Mama kiss it?" Oh crap! Why couldn't Elmo take care of this one? Needless to say, I did not kiss that particular owie and tried to ignore his repeated requests for me to kiss his little behind. My husband, of course, got a kick out of this and told Noah to ask "Pub" to kiss his owie when he got to her house. Poor Pam! Maybe she'll be able to explain to my 1 year old why we can't kiss his butt owie. Moral of the story: Don't let your kids think that your kisses heal their owies, it could get ugly.

My Wo-wah

This is my little man! He calls himself "Wo-wah" and talks in the third person unless he gets really excited about doing something by himself, then he says "I did it." He has such a tender heart already and loves all three sets of grandparents ("Guck" and "Bup" are the third set) and all his aunts and uncles to pieces. My heart is so thankful that my little boy is surrounded by so much love. Although, he has whining issues and on rare occasion selective hearing, overall he is good boy. He is very clever and observant listening to everything that people say around him and surprising us by repeating things weeks after hearing them. For example, his favorite song is "Undignified" by David Crowder which he calls "Ya Ya." A couple of week ago, after listening to the "Ya Ya" song twenty times in a row, I tell him that we are going to listen to song #2 instead to give myself a break from the monotony. Then, yesterday on our way home, he asks for "Ya Ya." I tell him that mommy does not want to listen to the "Ya Ya" song right now and he says, "Song number 2?" I was shocked that he remembered and I put on song #2 for my little genius! He tries really hard to put phrases together and makes me feel like I have a pet parrot repeating everything that comes out of my mouth. Upon hearing him repeat the words "crap" and "stupid," I've made mental notes to clean up my potty mouth. 

  He loves his baby sister and makes sure she never gets left behind when we go anywhere! He also is protective of her and gets a little uncomfortable when people he does not know hold her. He loves to hang out with her in her crib and make her laugh. We are working on his tendencies to steal her toys from her and eat her food. 

 I am so thankful for my little curly-haired cherub and I love him so very much. I pray that he will grow up to be very secure in who he is in the Lord and will not feel the need to be like the world. I pray that God will be very real to him and that he falls in love with Jesus like I have. I ask God to protect him from harm and to give me the wisdom to raise my little boy to be a man of God who will lead his own family some day. I pray for God to use my Noah in a mighty way to change people's lives. He has already brought so much joy to those closest to him and I pray that he will continue to do so to many others throughout his life. Thank you Lord for my precious Wo-wah. 

Yuck

I've had quite an eventful morning so far. Kids make life very entertaining. My life must have been very boring and sanitary before kids, but I really don't remember. 

As those of you who are mommies know, going to the bathroom is a group event. This morning Noah followed me as usual into the bathroom saying "mama pee pee." I can always count on my son for a play by play. As I grabbed the toilet paper Noah says "paper" (he sounds French when he says this word) and "wipe" and grabs for some toilet paper himself. I let him have a square and he wants to throw it in the toilet so I get up and tell him to throw it in...surprise, surprise, another rookie mom move by yours truly. My son throws the paper along with his hand into the pee-filled toilet. I scream and grab his arm to immediately stop him from contaminating anything especially his mouth. Of course the bathroom sink has Maia's bath tub and toys in it so I can't wash his hands there. I lift him with my free arm and shuffle my way (pants still around my knees) to the kitchen sink as Noah shouts, "Yucky, yucky, wash it!" I pour the entire bottle of soap onto his little hand and proceed to burn him with the extremely hot water to make sure I kill all the germs...okay I didn't really burn him, but he thought the water was hot. I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed and finally rinsed and dried him off. I think I might have reacted a little strongly because he was scared of his own hand for the rest of the morning. Oh well, hopefully I scared him enough so that he won't ever stick his hand in the toilet again! 

My Excessive Pee-er

I have a problem...my son pees way too much. Lately he has been peeing through his diapers and last night he peed so much that his nighttime diaper exploded. So, we had to change his sheets and clean off all of those little crystals (the stuff that is supposed to soak up the pee) off of the poor kid. What a mess! Yesterday, "Bup" said he peed through two of his diapers and Noah let her know that he was a little disturbed that his shorts were wet. Now the question is: What is the solution to the problem?
1.) Stop giving him liquids altogether. He does drink a lot of water. CPS alert! They would come take him away for sure if I dehydrated my child for the purpose of keeping him dry.
2.) Put him in adult diapers. Are Depends more expensive than baby diapers?
3.) Potty Train him...this might drive me into the insane asylum.

Oh dear! What am I supposed to do?

A Smelly Day

Today seems to have a theme and the theme is Nasty Smells. This morning when I went to get Maia Belle out of her crib, she was soaked with pee and smelled really strongly of chemicals...I can liken it to a gallon of Desitin diaper rash cream. However I do not use diaper rash cream on her so I do not know why her pee smells so bad.  

The next smell kind of veers from the theme just a little bit. I went to Wal Mart to buy groceries because my neighbor told me that I would save a ton of money.  In the produce section I looked for cilantro which is a staple food in my house and when I found it, it smelled like nothing. If you are familiar with cilantro, you know that it has a really strong fresh herbal smell to it. The stronger the smell, the better the cilantro. I must have stood there for 5 minutes picking up every bunch of cilantro and holding to my nose to smell it. People probably thought I was a drug addict fiending for drugs but settling for snorting cilantro. To my surprise and dismay, out of all 50 bunches, I found none that put off any sort of cilantro odor. Was it fake? Or is this just the quality of Wal Mart food? I bought it anyways. 

 The next odor involves Maia Belle again...poor girl. Before putting her down for her afternoon nap, I caught a whiff of the nastiness that dwelt in her diaper. You would think that the girl had eaten a gallon of spicy chili from how bad her diaper smelled. It was so bad that I gagged while changing her and to make matters worse, she was not yet done, and pooped more while I was in the middle of changing her. 

 Can you handle the last of my theme stories...while putting the groceries from Wal Mart away, my sense of smell was piqued again. As I smelled each of the things I was putting away, I found the culprit to be the chicken I had purchased. I think my nose hairs were singed by the putrid odor leaking from that chicken. It smelled like it had been killed over a year ago. Again my gag reflex came in to play and I decided that the great prices at Wal Mart are not worth it. Not only do they sell fake herbs, they sell old rotten chicken as well that has a sell by date of 2 weeks from now. Can you imagine what it would smell like in 2 weeks? 

 Needless to say, I am over my theme for the day and will be returning the decomposing chicken. I hope you are all having a nice smelling day, unlike me!  

So Many Things To Do...

I am feeling a little overwhelmed...but I am not really doing anything about it. When I get overwhelmed, I tend to do nothing and it really drives me crazy. Like right now I have a ton of laundry to do, a house to clean, 2 phone calls that need to be made, 2 Christmas projects to start etc. etc. I always say that I will get to my to do list when my kids are asleep. However, they are asleep right now and I am sitting right here at my computer not marking off anything on my to do list but rather blogging/ complaining about it. Is there therapy for this kind of problem? Maybe if I talk about it a lot the things will magically get done. Obviously I'd rather talk about them than actually do them. Shoot! My son just woke up...there goes my plan! 

Precious

I just thought I'd share a picture of my little cutie with you. This was right after she had eaten some prunes! She is so cute even when she is a mess! She will be 6 months this Tuesday. It is amazing how time flies when you have children. I feel like it was just yesterday that I was crying on the bathroom floor after taking a pregnancy test and finding out that I was pregnant again. I couldn't believe God didn't follow my plan. Didn't he know that I just had a baby 4 months before? How was I supposed to handle another one so soon? 

 Now I am glad that God didn't follow my plan...His is much better! I love my Maia Belle and it is such a joy watching her and Noah interact and love each other. She is such a sweetheart and such an easy baby. I pray for her daily and am so thankful for her sweet spirit.  She brings a smile to everyone she comes in contact with and I hope that she will change many lives for Jesus some day. 

A Quick Confession

I just put my babies down and I have to get this blog done before my hubby gets home. I need to look like I've been doing dishes or something when he gets home not sitting at my computer for hours...anyways back to my confession...I am super embarrassed to admit this but I feel like I have to. 

  When I returned from my Honeymoon 3 1/2 years ago, my mom had given me a bag of stuff that was left at her house on the day of my wedding. In that bag was a pair of jeans that belonged to my really good friend and bridesmaid Breanne. Breanne is absolutely gorgeous and she is super skinny and the girl can sport a paper bag and make it look good. Anyways, I decided to do what any girl would do...I tried on her jeans...just to see if they would fit and look as good on me as they did on her...bad idea. I couldn't get them to go over my thighs. From that moment I declared Breanne's jeans "My Inspiration Jeans." You know that pair of jeans that sits in your closet forever that you swear you will fit into someday but never do? Yup, I never returned the jeans, and never told my friend that I had them. 

 Yesterday, I was digging through my closet trying to find something to wear since my hamper is stacked all the way to the ceiling. What did I spot in the very back corner? "My Inspiration Jeans" from 3 1/2 years ago! Since I have been faithful to my Sugar Busters diet, I felt confident enough to try them on again. Guess what? They fit!!! It was one of the happiest moments of my life to know that I fit into a pair of Breanne Wood's jeans. I totally disregarded the fact that I could not breathe or really move in them. All I knew was that they zipped and buttoned and didn't tear! Oh shoot my husband's home...gotta get to the dishes!!! Thanks for listening to my confessions and please don't judge me. Sorry Breanne! You can have your jeans back now! 

Prune Juice Wisdom

My children have issues with constipation. I know that they will be pretty embarrassed when they get older and find out that I talked about their poop issues on my blog. Anyways, this past week, I have felt like a horrible mother as I've watched them both grunt, push, turn red, and make the most painful faces as they try to poop. Yesterday, I decided that I had to do something drastic...So Ricky and I went to the market and cleared it of baby food prunes and bought some "no sugar added" prune juice and a nifty new sippy cup for Noah to make it exciting for him to drink the nasty stuff. In the parking lot of the market, I opened Noah's new sippy cup and poured the prune juice in it along with some water and gave it to him. I thought I was going to have battle on my hands to get him to drink it but to my surprise, he downed it, and asked for more "goose" as soon as we got home. So, I refilled his cup. Then, my husband got to work on Maia sitting her in her chair and feeding her the baby food prunes despite her disgusted faces. We were both determined to cure our kids' constipation.

  Maia's remedy proved to be a complete failure. She nearly popped the veins in her neck pushing later that day, but Noah...well...let's just say I probably should not have given him two glasses full of prune juice. I went to take a quick nap and of course as soon as I fell asleep Noah woke up from his nap. I heard Ricky get him and take him to the living room to play. About five minutes later I hear Ricky freaking out and Noah starting to cry hysterically. Noah comes to my room crying and Ricky is yelling at him to stop moving. I come out of my room and Ricky yells "look at your son's socks." I look...they both contain brown stains and I can see brown liquid running down the inside of both his legs. I put my gag reflex in check and put my "Phased by Nothing Mom Face" on and went to work on removing the poop stained socks and shorts and the overflowing diaper which was holding way too much poop for a nineteen month old kid to have in his body at one time. Although I did end up with some on my hand, I kept my cool and tried to calm my son and let him know that mommy will never try one of her bright ideas on him again. I spent the rest of the afternoon, disinfecting my carpet, Noah's clothes, and the changing table and asking myself what I was thinking giving my son two glasses of prune juice. Another "Rookie Mom" move for Taleah. 

Halloween

Noah's costume lasted as long as it took to take one picture! He looked so cute but wanted the Elmo head "osss." Maia was not too happy to be my little chicken and I decided that Halloween at this age is much more of a hassle then it is fun. My kids don't know or care about the candy nor were they very interested in the other costumed kids. And they both were hot and upset at me for making them keep their costumes on! But I wanted everyone to see how cute my kids were in their costumes that I made them suffer and spent the entire night having to deal with whiny very hot children who probably thought I was crazy for making them go around and say trick-or-treat for a bunch of "yuckies."