What would you do?

Today I am asking, "What would you do?"  What would you do if you were the first person in line to get some work done at a hospital lab, and you ended up being the last one seen even though you have three kids waiting with you?  I usually allow my children to play within the bounds of civility.  In this circumstance there was an open area where they were running around chasing each other. While I had just asked them to keep their voices down a bit, a man came up to them and told them to "stop running or you will hurt yourself."  I was standing within a few feet of them when he said it.  When my two-year-old son didn't immediately stop running he told him again to stop and this time put a little of the authoritative voice in the mix.  Now, I ask:  "Should he have told my children what to do when I was standing immediately there watching them run around?"  "How would you have handled the situation after an hour of waiting for a ten minute blood draw?"

Why Sleep?

Gee Mom, I don't wanna go to sleep.  Why is it that children have this aversion to getting the one thing that they need?  I know it is hard to believe, but out of my four children, I don't have a single one that is a decent sleeper right now.  Screaming and crying until their little bodies are so exhausted that they can do nothing but cry themselves to sleep.  Why?  Why is it so interesting to stay awake when really our bodies are yelling for us to stop.  Let's just continue to be miserable instead of taking the cure?

Oddly enough, as I am writing this I see a lot of similarities in adults.  Why do adults continue to do things that are bad for them?  Why do WE stay up to watch the Late Late show with Craig even though it is already Tivo-ed? I am sure there is a correlation there somewhere.  Maybe my children just are normal human beings--just small ones.  I guess I should go try to save my seven-month-old from herself.  I'll go lye her down....again.

Who says life is boring?

As a stay at home mom, I am constantly being asked:  "How do you do it all day long?  Aren't you bored?"
And I ask you:  Where can you be so much in one day?  In one day I can be a nurse, meal preparer, food critic, referee, laundress, project manager, editor, teacher, bread maker, couture fashion designer, and CEO decision maker.  I shop, research, and dish out kisses by the dozen.  Why! this morning I was hiding from pirates, searching for lost treasure, and learning addition and subtraction.  And that was just the fun stuff I did. 
I bet you didn't know that as a mom you have to wear so many hats (true most of them have just been cleaned out by four-year-old hands) that your own head spins.  This weekend I was a party planner, interior designer, weatherman, grounds crew, and chef. 
Bored?  You have GOT to be kidding me.

Birthday Party Prep

Who would have thought that a four-year birthday party would be so much work?  If you thought that a small gathering of friends was enough, you are sorely mistaken.  There are goodie bags, invites, decorations, creative moms trying to constantly one-up the other moms.  Who would have thought that involving my little one on her birthday party would have been a big mistake.  If I had just planned the whole thing without any "help" then I wouldn't have to try to do EVERYTHING she saw in every shop, website, or book.  Wow, you live, you learn, and you plan the party without input from the soon-to-be four-year-old.

Surround Sound

Alright, so that Golden Day I had yesterday?  It came back to bite me in the butt.  Didn't you know that would happen?  I am a sports fanatic; I should have known just saying that I was having a Golden Day was tempting the Karma Gods just too much.
Have you ever stood in your home and wondered if the kids are programmed for surround sound?  Well, if you haven't, you should come to my house today.  The "big girls" (almost 4 and 6) decided their little seven-month old sister needed to be "rescued" from playing happily by herself.  They picked her up and moved her to their room, where she started (in my six-year-old's words) "started screaming bloody murder."  Seeing as she wasn't happy, they decided to pick her up some more. 
Just as I was starting to really find out what was going on and pick up the wet-faced baby, the boy trips up the stairs and begins to wail. 
The two oldest don't want to be in trouble so they start whining; the baby, although content, is still sniffling, and the boy is coming up the steps behind me crying.
Yep, surround sound.  I am not quite sure why my husband thinks it is such a marvelous miracle of technology.  God built it into my day without even thinking about it.

Let the Spoiling Begin

So my Daily Dose hasn't been very daily.  In my defense I did say it was an experiment.  This weekend was a marathon.
When my mother came back from her whirlwind trip of Paris and Rome, she was supposed to leave the next day, but her flight was canceled.  Cue more spoiling time!  Movie night, shopping, and a special dinner for our July birthday girl.
She left the next day, but we had a friend come into town . He read to the kids at any sign of weakness.  He must have read every book in the library two or three times over.  Rookie mistake--never start reading a book without setting up exactly when the reading time will be over.
The next day my husband's biological grandparents (adoption is a common word in our home, so if this seems weird to you, it is common enough here) came to spoil them some more.  Gifts, dinner, late night, and yet again more movie and books. They live in New Mexico so we don't get to see them often enough for this to be obnoxious, but by now my kids have had three late nights and counting.
FOURTH OF JULY, I hope you all had a safe and happy fourth.  We allowed the older three to stay up and watch the firework display for the first time this year.  So today, you can imagine just how my day had the potential to be.  Surprisingly enough, no such thing happened.  My kids have been GOLD; they even took naps today without the usual fit fanfare.  Hot Dog!  My kids survived the spoiling and continue to live to tell the tales!

Fancy Nancy

Grandma came back from a Make-a-Wish trip (LOVE Make-a-Wish and cannot say enough about how wonderful they are) to Europe.  She went to Rome and Paris, but of course the highlight of the trip (at least for her grandkids) was EuroDisney.  She brought the two oldest girls pink Mickey Mouse ears with princess tiaras on them.  Our four-year-old puts it on and swings her hips, "Look, Mom. I am.. . Faaaancy Naaancy."  I couldn't get over just how giggly cute she was.