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Top Ten Things I Learned on My Weekend Off

Posted on November 8, 2011 | 4 comments

When you’re a parent, you’re always on so the only way to get time off is to escape your family (it sounds much more dramatic than it actually is). This is what I did this past weekend – I escaped my reality and my family and headed north with one of BFFs. She had asked for the weekend off as a birthday present from her husband and I got to tag along for the ride (since I got my lovely birthday Kindle a few months ago – thanks, honey)! To say I was looking forward to the weekend would be an understatement.

Here are ten things I learned on my weekend off:

1. A three-hour car ride without kids seems to go way faster than a 30-minute ride WITH kids. I believe that is a scientific fact.

2. I have lost my ability to nap, even after a relaxing bath with a side of beer. Wah, wah. Poor mommy problems.

3. I’ve also lost my ability to truly sleep in… the moment I heard Tracey stirring downstairs, I was wide awake – the same reaction I have when I hear Jack coughing in the monitor. Kids have ruined me for sound sleeping; even when they are miles away, I sleep with one ear open.

4. I would happily give up seeing a movie in the theater for a margarita and good Mexican food – in the olden days, I would have done both.

5. Getting some Christmas shopping done over the weekend makes me feel very accomplished.

6. Diane Keaton’s character in Because I Said So is SUPER annoying. I hope I am never that kind of overbearing parent.

7. The stepdad-stepson relationship between Liam Neeson and the little boy in Love Actually is so sweet, and so much more interesting to me now that I am a parent. And I was reminded that Hugh Grant is unbelievably dreamy in that movie – you know I love an accent.

8. Tracey and I can handily put away a bottle of wine. And we find each other hilarious when this has happened.

9. When you’re a grown up, you bring sensible things on a weekend away – food like hummus and vegetables, quinoa and curry; bottled water and coffee filters; probiotics and digestive enzymes; three months worth of unread magazines and of course, lots of Diet Coke (that’s never changed).

10. A weekend off can completely replenish my patience levels, lucky for all of the boys in my life.

I’m happy to say I didn’t learn that my husband can handle the kids by himself for the weekend, but that was something I already knew! He’s a great dad and a great partner in our life together! Thanks for the weekend off, my sweet, I appreciate it more than I can say!

This post is linked to Oh Amanda’s Top Ten Tuesday.

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Posted in Top Ten Tuesday

Five Question Friday

Posted on November 4, 2011 | 1 comment

1. What movie do you love to quote?
The Princess Bride – of course – just like every other person who has ever seen it. “Wuv, twu wuv… it’s what bwings us together today…”

2. Have you ever ridden a motorcycle?
Nope. And don’t want to. I told Simon he could get a motorcycle if we had purchased everything else we could possible want. So never.

3. What’s your favorite thing to do on a rainy day?
In a perfect world, I’d love to hang out in front of a fire, reading and drinking hot chocolate. In reality, my favorite thing to do on a rainy day is simply make it through the day without having to leave the house, hoping the kids don’t mutiny.

4. Do you prefer a bunch of small gifts, or one really big, (expensive) gift?
Probably the big one, especially if the small gifts are all chintzy. Though, if my mom is shopping, the small gifts are awesome because really they are great gifts that she got good deals on (she’s a skilled bargain shopper).

5. Do you ever lose track of days and show up somewhere wrong?
Not in a while – though I often make it half way through the day and realize that I’ve been thinking it’s the wrong day. I’m pretty good about logging things in my phone and on my Outlook calendar and setting reminders so I don’t often forget appointments – really, not ever.

And now I’m off for the weekend – sleep, reading and more sleep, here I come! Don’t be jealous – your day will come, I promise! Good things come to those who wait!

Linking up with Mama M for Five Question Friday!

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And so it begins…

Posted on November 3, 2011 | 1 comment

Jack got in trouble this evening for not listening and he poured on the tears and said, “I want my daddy!” Over and over again, blinking purposefully while the tears squeezed out of his eyes. I thought this phrase would crush me, but I felt indifferent because I knew I wasn’t in the wrong – perhaps more serious-toned than I needed to be, but not wrong. It’s my job as a parent to correct my kids when they do something wrong, to teach them the right things to do in life and they aren’t always going to like it. In fact, as they get older, they will often hate it and sometimes even hate me (that might crush me a little bit). Yet, it’s these little moments now that will shape the parent I’m going to become and in turn will shape the adults my boys will grow into, which is why it’s so important not to give in to the tears and the woeful words. No matter how cute the pleading face is or ridiculous the point is that I’m trying to make (in this case it was that we don’t climb in the fridge and stand there while saying, “I have an idea… I want something.”) Because if I give in now, eventually I’ll give in to the bigger things and I’ll create two entitled little monsters and there are more than enough of those in the world. If you think about it (not too hard), my saying “no” now is really a public service for future generations. You are welcome.

P.S. It’s only going to get harder from here, God give me strength. Seriously, parenting is not for the faint of heart.

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Posted in Parenting

Forward Thinking

Posted on November 2, 2011 | Leave a comment

So, it’s November… two more months left in the year!? It hardly seems possible that we’re nearing the end of the year. But it’s also the time of year I look the most forward to so it seems fitting that it’s time for another forward thinking post! Here are some things I’m looking forward to in the next two months.

Going away this weekend with my friend, Tracey. We are leaving Friday morning and not coming back until Sunday and neither of us can wait! Whoot! I believe (though correct me if I am remembering incorrectly) this is the first time I’ve been away from all my boys for two nights since I went to Key West with my girlfriends when we turned 30 – that’s a long time. We have no big plans, sleeping in without being woken up by our children, going to see Footloose and exploring some cute northern Michigan towns. I’m hoping to get caught up on magazines and get at least one book off my Kindle. And I just love my husband for “letting” me go! I’m sure the boys will have lots of fun without me and if they don’t, at least I’ll be de-stressed and able to handle it when I get back!

The first snow of the season – I love winter (though I hate driving in the winter, every rose has its thorn) and I love the magical feeling of a first snow.

Conferences – Liam’s first school conference is next week and I can’t wait to hear what his teacher has to say – the good and even the bad. I enjoy other’s insights into my kids, especially the insights of those who are professionals because goodness knows I am most definitely a newbie in the parenting a 5-year-old arena.

Writing my thing(s) I’m thankful for at the Thanksgiving service at my parent’s church. This tradition has been going on as long as I can remember and everyone takes a paper leaf and writes their thankful thing and then a couple of families collect them and hang them on a tree at the front of church.

Also looking forward to Thanksgiving weekend in general… good food, good times with family and a long weekend!

Holiday parties – I love the festivities of Christmas and the added excuse to get together with groups of people to laugh and enjoy a plethora of good food.

Revisiting the real reason for Christmas with my boys – I love talking with them about baby Jesus and each year you can see it clicking more with Liam and that warms my little heart.

Christmas in Lansing with my family doing our normal traditional get togethers and late-Christmas in Australia with Simon’s family doing their traditional things – Simon’s sister’s been facebooking about making Christmas pudding and the recipe involves soaking fruit in Cointreau and rum for many days, I can only hope there will be some left for us!

Let the fun begin… but first, a nice, relaxing weekend to kick it off… that is just what the doctor ordered to offset all the tantrums that will need diffusing and the time-outs that will need to be enforced over the next two months because the one thing I do know about parenting is that fun times = inevitable meltdowns by the short set (and sometimes Simon).

Top Ten Halloween Observations

Posted on November 1, 2011 | 3 comments

1. Traditions are wonderful and I’m so glad we’ve got some for our kids – one such tradition is spending Halloween with our good friends and their girls. We’ve done this every Halloween since Liam and Keila were 1 and plan on continuing it long into the future!

2. My mom totally had the right idea about being the one to stay at home while my dad took me around the neighborhood trick-or-treating. Tracey and I send the boys off with the kiddos and we hand out candy at their house. It’s a perfect set up.

3. Halloween really is fun for the whole family – the kids get to haul in the candy with the illusion that they will get to eat it all and the parents get to sneak it out of their buckets after they go to bed.

4. I enjoy being able to make Halloween costumes – and I’m not at all being sarcastic about that. Though I feel like the Angry Bird costumes might be the pinnacle of my costume-making career.

5. The grown up costumes are way more entertaining than the kid costumes – all the teachers at Liam’s school dressed up for the parade but my favorite was the male teacher who was dressed like a blond Dorothy.

He at least should have gone the extra mile and shaved his legs, don’t you think?

6. If you are helping out with the class Halloween party and having to make a fool out of yourself by doing Halloween motions with the kids for a game (e.g., flap your arms like a bat, walk like a skeleton and dance like a princess), the least the other parents could do is avert their eyes and not sit and watch you.

7. Carving pumpkins is not worth the effort if your kids are too little to actually clean them out and do any of the work. We tried last year and completely skipped that activity this year but since I made their costumes (from scratch, without a pattern) I figure I can let it slide.

8. Parents at our school take the Halloween parade very seriously – I arrive 20 minutes early and still had to drive on the bike path to park out on the lawn by the road.

9. My kids make darn cute Angry Birds.