Because He is SUCH a Rule Keeper

Today I picked the boys up from school and Little J was doing the potty dance and said he "had to pee since he got to school." I asked him why he hadn't gone in the 3+ hours he was there and he replied,

"I kept raising my hand, but she kept calling on someone else!"

Now Don't Go and Get All Political on Me

So, I admit I have not been overly thrilled with either presidential candidate. I don't feel like I fully align with either of their economic or social views. But I was hoping McCain would choose to run with Romney because I know that for me, this would have helped me feel more like standing behind him. (And, no, not because I'm Mormon. I just like him and his moderateness.) Instead, he chose little-known Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. This is either complete genius or he just shot himself in the foot. Either way, I have to admit it was a gutsy move.

The little bit I know about her and the more I read about her and her past record, however limited, I like her and think good things could happen. But then I put it into perspective and think if I was elected to the city council this year and then two years from now I was sitting in the spot as the vice presidential candidate would there be any way I was ready for that? Hell no.

What do you think?

Please Read and Help If You Can

I don't know these people, only through the blogoshere because of a friend's link on her blog. I have been a quiet lurker on this blog, and if you've ever read it at all, or her sister's blog recently, there is no way you could walk away unaffected by the terrible tragedy that struck their family recently. Because of that, I am passing along the contents of an email I received in hopes that it will help get the word out a little more:

We have some friends who were horribly injured in a plane crash this month, and we are joining forces with a number of others who are trying to raise funds to help them and their family of four small children as they go embark on many months of intensive trauma treatments, surgeries, and recovery in a burn center in Phoenix. The children are currently living in Provo with family while Stephanie and Christian remain in the hospital. To read about the situation, click this link: http://www.reachelandrew.com/NieRecovery/Home.html (Stephanie often is referred to online as Nie Nie, which combines her names: StephaNIE NIElson -- you can read her own blog at http://nieniedialogues.blogspot.com/ .)

My friend Gabby writes a blog called Designmom (http://designmom.com - named by The Wall Street Journal as one of the top 3 Motherhood Blogs) which is read worldwide, and Gabby has declared tomorrow, Thursday August 28th, Nie Nie Day. Many people will be hosting an online auction with all proceeds going to the Nielsons' Recovery Fund. Please consider going to the DesignMom website tomorrow for links to these auctions to see if anything strikes your fancy as something on which you'd like to bid. The individual auctions are run independently, so you'll have to check to see how long each auction will run. (As for myself, I am auctioning off a giftcard for the salon/spa where I worked last year, and as most of you live out of state you should know that the girftcard is only good at the location in Orem, Utah.)

We are praying that you will want to get involved in this as well as other fundraising efforts for this beautiful family in need. Many auctions of crafts and services around the Web will begin tomorrow, Thursday, August 28th, 2008.

Hug your family members a little more tightly tonight, and let them know you love them.

I checked out the DesignMom website just now, and over 90 bloggers will be hosting an online auction! I'm sure there is something that would interest you. So please, take a few minutes tomorrow, and with a grateful and generous heart consider helping this family in need.

The Little Garden That Could

Admittedly, I have neglected my pet project written about here. I went out of town for a month. I haven't weeded or watered it, except on a few very rare occasions. I don't even have those silver tomato plant holder-upper things around my tomato plants. And yet, somehow, my ghetto-fabulous, neglected garden has produced it's first crop.

Behold, the cucumbers:



There are more little cucumbers on the vine and there are also quite a lot of tiny cantaloupes growing. My super huge tomato plants (I don't ever remember tomato plants being 5 feet tall!!) are starting to produce some tomatoes, as well. When all is said and done, I might actually have garnered about $6.25 worth of produce from all my (lack-of) hard work. Way to go, Mother Nature!!

Logical...

I think one of the hardest things about being a parent is understanding the line between being a dictator and being the person in authority. I also think it is sometimes hard to define the line between discipline and punishment.

Overall, I think I have great kids, but for a while I had been feeling like I didn't like how some things were going in our home and I wanted them to change. Me changing my perspective and reactions is what I felt mainly needed to be the key ingredient, because if you think about it, kids behave in certain ways because they have either been trained to act that way or allowed to act that way. Now I know parents don't wittingly train their kids to be brats or smart mouths or lazy bums or to ignore them, etc., but depending on the kind of environment we allow, they will become such.

I am not a permissive parent, if anything I lean too far to the authoritarian side, but I wanted to find a happy balance in between. And the main area I wanted to change in our house was the "broken record syndrome" as I like to call it. Please tell me I am not the only one who has had a conversation like this before:

"Please go pick up the toys out of the living room."

2 minutes later....

"I asked you to go pick up the toys in the living room. Go do it, please."

4 minutes later...

"Why haven't you picked up the toys in the living room?! Go do it now!"

3 minutes later...

"Get your butt in the living room and go pick up those toys or they're going in the trash!"

The broken record. They ignore you until they know you mean business, which in my opinion is a total lack of disrespect.

Anyway, that was the biggest thing I wanted to change. As I've talked about before, I am always interested in learning from other people parenting styles or ideas they have implemented in their homes that have helped create the kind of home I think everyone strives for. So I started talking to people and then I started reading some more books on the subject. And I got some great input!

One friend I was talking to suggested a way to curtail a weekly battle - getting ready for church. It never failed that by the time we were out the door, I was sweating and flustered and yelling at the kids that we were late again. She said that when her kids were young, she would put (or have them put) everything they would need to get ready for church in the living room the night before and then when they got up from breakfast they headed straight into the living room and got ready before they could do anything else. I've tried it the last 3 weeks, and it has worked like a charm. No more last-minute shoe searches, no more repeating myself telling them to get ready, no more griping about their playtime being interrupted.


I also found two really great books I highly recommend by Dr. Kevin Leman called Have a New Kid by Friday: How to Change Your Child's Attitude, Behavior, and Character in 5 Days and Making Children Mind Without Losing Yours. I think any parent with large or small battles could learn a ton from these books. I really like his style. It is Christian-based and it has none of the fluffy "you're going to damage your child's psyche" crap you find in so many other books.

He is a big proponent of "reality discipline" which basically is to let the natural consequences of your child's actions be the teacher. He also stresses the basic rules of "Say it once, turn your back, and walk away" and that "B doesn't happen until A does."



I feel like in a lot of ways many times I would think along the "reality discipline" line, but in some situations I didn't know what an appropriate response would be to that situation. Either that, or I was too wimpy to enforce it.

For example, last week Big J was playing his 30 minutes of computer time. He knows that when the timer rings, that's it. It just so happened that this time when his timer rang, he had just gotten to a brand new level, and it was also time for dinner. He was told to get off and come eat. He didn't. Normally, I would have told him several times to get off and then been upset at him for ignoring me and he would be upset at me for making him get off when he got to the cool part.

This time, however, I told him once, and then went about getting dinner ready. We all sat down to eat. No Big J. We ate. No Big J. We cleaned up the kitchen. No Big J. This whole time he totally knew what was going on and probably thought it was so cool he was getting extra time. I came in and said, "Big J, it's time for you to go take a shower and get ready for bed."

He got off the computer and came in the kitchen and said, "But I haven't eaten dinner!" To which I calmly explained that he had been told to come and he had chosen not to, so I'm sorry dinner was over and it was time to get ready for bed. He countered with, "I'll just make myself a hot dog," to which I had to say, "No, I'm sorry. The kitchen is closed." Believe me, there was weeping and wailing galore from him, but he went to bed that night understanding that when he is told to come to dinner, he needs to come - the first time.

Did I feel guilty? Yes, a little bit. More like a tiny twang of guilt, only because the kid can wolf down food like there's no tomorrow and I know he had to be hungry. But I also knew he wouldn't die from not eating dinner one night and that in the future he would come the first time he was told to.

Just trying to think about what a natural consequence to the behavior should be has really helped me take a lot of the emotion out of it and has opened up some better teaching moments. I've had to sometimes hold off responses to their choices until they needed or wanted something from me and then say, "Sorry. We're not doing that today because you didn't do what I asked you to do earlier."

I definitely think it is easier to give "one more chance" or to just let things slide or even just do it for them, but parents are responsible for teaching their kids to be independent, self-motivated, responsible people, and if we are always stepping in and rescuing them from their problems or giving in to their whines and guilt-trips then what does that say to them?

I think they will have the greatest self-esteem and ultimately success when they are encouraged and guided, but not glorified or coddled. It's definitely a process that takes energy, but it is a positive energy as opposed to the negative energy that nagging, etc., takes. I know I've felt better for it.

I love my boys so much and I really pray every day that I can be the best possible mom to them. I know that sometimes that takes me being humble and willing to change and sometimes that takes me giving them a good kick in the pants. I hope that one day they will realize it was all done in love.

Happy Birthday!!

Everyone sing "Happy Birthday" to my mom and my nephew Sebastian. Sebastian is two today, but as the old adage goes, "if a woman tells you her age, she will tell you anything," so I won't be telling you how old my mom is and just be content with the fact that most people think she is my sister. Happy Birthday, Mom! I love you!

I Don't Think So...

The boys have never really gone overboard on any lists for gifts they want for birthday or Christmas - until now. This is Big J's wish list for his upcoming birthday:

1. Indiana Jones the videogame (for the XBox - I think it's like $50!)
2. Starcraft II (I don't think they even make this yet)
3. A cat
4. Lego Star Wars - The Complete Saga (apparently the 2 Lego Star Wars games he has that cover all the episodes you can't play with General Grievious in all of the levels, but this one you can)
5. Nintendo DS
6. Treehouse (nice idea, but despite our many trees, I don't think any of them are treehouse worthy. Plus, I don't know how to build a treehouse)
7. Wii
8. Laptop OR a regular computer, whichever we think would be better for him

He's going to be 8. Keep dreamin', buddy....

From the Mouth of Little J

--Yesterday I got back from running and went in the back to play on the trampoline with the boys. Little J wanted me to play a game he called, "1,2,3 Mummy Come Alive!" The person who was the mummy ("it") layed in the middle of the trampoline with their eyes closed, and when they were told to come alive, they had to keep their eyes closed, but try to touch the other people on the trampoline. One time after he got me he goes, "It's easy to find you, Mama. I can smell your sweatness!" (Not to be confused with my sweetness ;-)

--Little J was playing in the living room and had all the lights on. JC came in and started turning them off, to which Little J protested. JC said, "You don't need the lights on" (since it was daytime and we get natural light in the living room), to which Little J replied, "Why did we even buy a house with lights then?!?" Yeah, Light Nazi!

Man-Hands

Today I finally bit the bullet and took my wedding ring that I haven't been able to wear for, oh, about five years, and had it sized. Why the wait? Mainly because I kept hoping that my hands would return to their previously less-man-handedness size. That, and I figured it would cost me an arm and a leg to have it sized, or my ring would be ruined in the process.

I've always had man-hands - never dainty, thin, long fingered, cute hands. Let's put it this way - I can palm a women's basketball easily and almost a man's basketball. Thankfully, they aren't hairy. But with each child, my hands have done the same thing as my feet and increased in size. (All you skinny, normal-looking-when-you're-pregnant people can just shut up right now. You don't understand).

Anyway, over the years I have been able to either 1). squeeze my ring on and barely be able to get it off, 2). squeeze my ring on and then look down to see my finger turning blue, 3).not even be able to get it past my knuckle, or 4). just wear a $30 ring I bought myself at a jewelry party to signify I really was bonafide.

I am not materialistic, and I'm not even really that sentimental in a lot of ways, but as of late, I had really started to miss my ring. So I finally took it today and to my surprise, it was not that expensive to have done, and they even had it done in one day! So I am now wearing my wedding ring. I called JC when I left and was all emotional about it.

I had to have it sized up 3/4 of a size, which doesn't seem like tons, but it makes a world of difference. What is sad is when you know that the previously referred to ring that I bought myself during my last pregnancy was 2 sizes up from my original wedding ring size and then 3 weeks later, in my last trimester, I couldn't even wear it anymore. That's how much I swell, and I don't think it ever totally goes away or something. I think my fingers got stretched out like my feet. But that's beside the point...

I am so happy to have my original ring back and I feel like a newly engaged person because I keep staring at it!! I'll invite you all over sometime so we can giggle over it.

Bye Bye Summer Slothitude

So the boys started school Thursday of last week. I officially have a 2nd grader and a kindergartner. We were pleased with both the boys' teacher assignments. Little J got the same kindergarten teacher that Big J had, and Big J got the only 2nd grade teacher I remember meeting before and I really liked her.

Here is a synopsis of their first day:

Little J liked it and thought his new light up Spiderman shoes and Spiderman backpack were the bomb. His class is too big right now (a concern the principal heard about from me and other moms), but they are adding another section, so it should go back down to a more manageable size. His only complaint (and I quote): "There are so many dumb rules! There are rules about everything. There's only like one thing that there's not a rule about. It's soooooo dumb!!!!" That statement pretty much sums up my second child's personality.

Big J's synopsis of his first day can be summed up in two words: guinnea pigs. They have two pet guinnea pigs, Mocha and Snickers, in their classroom, and I got to hear the life history of both of them. That and how they sniff each other's butts when they let them play together. Big J is growing up! *sniff sniff* All the comments from people who hadn't seen him over the summer were about how tall he is. He is also into fixing his hair this year (see picture below). When I took him to get new tennis shoes he insisted on getting the tie kind, not velcro. AND he went from a size 2.5 to a 4!!!! Holy huge foot.

In other news...

The Friday before last we went to the Royals game with a big group of people and it was a really fun atmosphere. Because we had a group of 20, we got the $13 seats for $8, and it was buck night so all the hot dogs and drinks were just a $1, AND there was a great firework show at the end. But the highlight had to be when all of us got up on the big screen. We had been trying to get them to pan up to us, and so my friend Heather and Little J turned around and started shaking their booties during one of the songs. That must have caught the camera's attention! Big J and his friend that came along and Heather were up the longest, but I enjoyed my .009 seconds of fame, too.

I ran in a 5k Saturday morning and actually placed second in my age division! My goal was to beat the geriatric patients that I was pretty much keeping pace with the whole time. Seriously - they were like 70 and almost kicked my butt. It was a really nice run I enjoyed, even with the 3 short but steep hills right at the beginning. Overall, I came in 141/283, and 2/22 in my age division for females.

Little Man has been expanding his vocabulary by leaps and bounds as of late. He has always had the comprehension of what words are, for example, if you ask him to do something or to point to his arm or anything like that, he knows what's up, but he has been how Little J was and not prone to actually speaking a lot. But lately he has added a lot more random words.

"Bye bye" is a new one, but he says it like "die die." He also says "nine!" for "mine!" His multi-purpose word is "high." It means "lift me up" or "I can't reach that." And we have Dada, Mama, and "Mom" which refers to everyone else. His favorite phrase is, "Here you go." He'll also bust out with "Mama bye bye car, " or other words strung together every once in a while.

But the best has to be the occasional words he'll say that shows me he's just holding back. For example, the other day he came to get me and kept saying something that I couldn't quite understand because it was out of context. Then he points behind the piano and I see a Spongebob ball behind there that he couldn't get. The word he was saying? "Spongebob!"

He is definitely going to be the ham of the family. He loves to mug for the camera. He thinks he's so funny when he pretends to burp and then busts out laughing about it. He will play games with us like point to something and say, "Car?" in this teasing voice, and we'll go, "No, that's not a car. That's a ____." Then he'll go, "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOhhh!" all dramatic like he didn't know that. He's a pretty funny kid:

Well, it's time to get crackin'. School's in, flag football is about to start up, Big J will be starting Scouts soon, etc. etc. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't excited for the fact that every afternoon now I will have a few hours of solitude while Little J is at kindergarten and Little Man is taking a nap. What to do? What to do?

I've Got the Fever

I love the Olympics. Especially the Summer Olympics. I love seeing people who have mastered their bodies through so much hard work and discipline perform at incredible levels. I love how the world comes together even though everyone wants their own country to win. I love the competition! And I love having a DVR to watch (or choose not to watch) the Olympic events.

(Except tonight - when it cut off right at the end of one of my favorite events - the Women's Gymnastics Finals - but we won't go there).

As a kid, I remember my sisters and I playing Olympic gymnastics in the living room. We had an entry way that led right into a cleared area in our living room, so we would do the whole raise-your-arms-when-you-are-ready thing and then bust out our best floor routines of cartwheels and round-offs to be judged by our siblings. (With the 1 - 10 point scoring system, I might add). Then we'd get really creative and make a "beam" from two jump ropes placed 4 inches apart and do beam routines. And, of course, we had the vault, as well. We'd start back in our hallway and run to our loveseat and flip over the arm of it. We'd even go so far as to have each of us represent multiple countries, so if we didn't want one of the countries we had to represent to win, we'd purposefully make a mistake or not do our coolest moves.

When I was on my mission in England, I remember the second summer I was there the Olympics were on. I never had a problem keeping the "no outside influences" rule of not watching TV, except during that time. We'd go into people's houses and the Olympics would be on and I couldn't help being enthralled. It took a lot of will power to ask them if we could turn it off while we were there.

Big J was born during the 2000 Summer Olympics. So I don't remember much of those. But I do remember the 2002 Winter Olympics when they came to Salt Lake City, because we lived in Utah at the time. We were there when the torch ran by and we got to go to one of the skiing events, which I honestly don't even remember what it was, but it was just so cool to be in the ATMOSPHERE of it all. It was electrifying, and this wasn't even an event I cared about. I remember I was freezing to death but thankfully one of our friends was working security at that event and gave me some of the foot warmers they gave the volunteers so I could put them in my shoes.

I don't know where I was the last Olympics, because I hardly remember anything about them, but this year I am addicted. Here I am staying up late again to watch them. The other morning I watched the events from the night before for 2 1/2 hours! I never do that. Never. Ever. I don't even watch TV for 2 minutes during the day, and here I was sitting in my pajamas at 10:00 in the morning watching - and making my kids watch the stuff I thought was super cool! And then I felt all empowered or something and went out and ran for an hour - without my Ipod, because it needed to charge. Yeah, I am so tough like that because I watch the Olympics.

So far my favorite thing to watch has to be the Men's 4 X100 swimming relay where the Americans, or should I say, Jason Lezak, pulled it off at the very end. I seriously started crying. That was amazing. Everyone's singing Phelps' praises (which they are well-deserved - history in the making!), but in my opinion, that last leg of the race swam by Lezak was the greatest swim in history. Ever. That was the epitome of mind over matter and the definition of giving it your all. SO AWESOME.

My second favorite thing has to be the Men's Gymnastics team getting a bronze. Two of their stars down and all Olympic virgins and nobody thought they could do it. I love underdog* stories and they didn't disappoint. I loved the determination in their eyes.

*Speaking of underdog stories, and totally off the subject of Olympics, I saw the most awesome movie called Facing the Giants. I am going to have to get it to add to my sports underdog movie collection. Has anyone heard of it? Such a great movie! For those of you who have seen it - can you say death crawl down the football field?!? I was bawling. And contrary to what it may seem like - I am not like my sister and cry at every clip of anything on TV. (Just kidding, sis!)

And I have to say one of my most favorite singular moments was when that last Chinese gymnast (who I swear is 10) did her uneven bar routine and did that funky flip-over-and-grab-it-backwards-and-then-go-back-into-another-flip thing. If you saw it, you totally know what I am talking about. I had to rewind it and watch it in slow-mo it was so full of awesomeness.

I also have to give two cheers for the opening ceremonies. I didn't even watch the entire thing, but holy cow!!! The Chinese know how to put on an incredible show. I loved those drums at the beginning.

I am really looking forward to the next week of sleep-deprivation and unproductive hours. You just have to do it, though. It's the Olympics!

Midnight Visitors

It was more like 2:30 - 5:30 a.m. visitors. I kept hearing something last night outside that I tried to ignore for like 2 hours, convincing myself it was a tree limb scraping the side of our house or some heavy raindrops hitting the gutters (even though there was only a light sprinkle). Finally, around 4:45 a.m. I got up to see what the heck was going on because someone was either trying to climb into our house or I didn't know what...

So I peak out our window and see what I thought was at first a cat. Then another one. Then another one. Turns out it was a mama raccooon with 3 babies. And then I saw why they were on our roof - there was a fox in our driveway circling around. I went downstairs to see if I could scare the fox away, but since everyone was asleep, and I really didn't want to go outside with the fox, I just turned on our porch light. I don't think it cared much about that, but it did eventually go away. But the raccoons didn't.

The mama went down while the babies kept walking around on our roof. I think they were trying to claw their way into our house or something, so I'm scared to go see what kind of damage was done. One of them even kept peaking up into our window. One kind of scared me once, because it just all the sudden was there right in front of my face like boo!

Finally, the mama comes back and she was so big that from the window, I couldn't even tell that it was her strolling back across the driveway. I was thinking, "What now?" So I run downstairs to get a closer look and realize it is the mom. It was really interesting - she went to the end of our porch and kind of walked back and forth under the railing a few times. She must have been calling her babies, because all of the sudden here they come, head first, sliding down the railing on our porch attached to the roof. Once they were all down, she led them into the bushes.

We think they must have a den under there. It has been known to house foxes in years past. We think we need to finally call the pest control and have them put up a fence under there to keep everything out, as entertaining as it all is. What's funny is that you'd think we lived out in the middle of nowhere with all the wildlife that comes to visit, but we are in a neighborhood right in the middle of town, a mile from 3 different major highways or interstates. Go figure.

Vacation Recap Part 2 - FLORIDA

After a week in Texas, we drove to Destin, Florida, for a week of vacation. Destin is in the panhandle of the state, and the beach there is a natural anomaly. The sands are white and the water clear, like in the Caribbean. Most mornings we would head over to the beach, and then rest in the afternoon, and then head out again around 4:oo or so to beat the crowds at the restaurants. There was always something fun going on at night so lots of times we would head over to the little "village" right there on the resort for the free concerts, carnivals, sandcastle building workshops, fireworks, etc.

Little Man was not converted to the beach. He hated walking in the sand. Every day when we first got there, this was him:

Eventually he would warm enough to the idea that he would sit on the edge of the sand where the water would touch (I guess this was more compacted so it didn't bother him as much) and bum rides out on whoever would take him out into the water:

The boys kept themselves entertained in various ways. The beach is a great low-stress vacation if you have kids.

They can dig holes:

They can bury themselves:


They can build sandcastles:


They can splash in the waves:


They can boogie board:



They can make up stuff to do, like throwing sand back into the ocean:


Here are some shots from the "village" and the nighttime fun:

Destin has a lot of fun restaurants to eat at and good seafood to eat. One of the fun places we went was called Fudpuckers (don't even get me started on that name - and don't try to say it three times fast). They had live alligators you could feed:

Some other fun things we did included a day at "The Track". We played miniature golf, rode go-carts, etc. The boys totally gained up on me on the bumper boats. They cornered me and were out for blood! Poor Little Man just kept his face hidden the entire time. And after riding the go-carts, Little J declared, "I didn't wreck one single time! I could totally get my license!"

We also went to the Florida Gulfarium. It is like a mini Sea World. I saw one of the best multi-species shows I've ever seen there, and also the hugest sea turtle I have ever seen. If you look really close in the picture below you can see us at the rails right behind the dolphin.

It was a really fun week that went very fast. We drove the 13 hour drive straight through back to Texas because the next day I was due at the Mary Kay Seminar in Dallas. All of the boys did great! It helps to have Grandma and Grandad's car to rotate into. :-)

I went to Seminar for 3 incredible days while the boys and JC partied at my parents and with their cousins. Eventually, we made it back home and this has been the fastest week ever since I've been busy playing catch-up after being gone a month. The boys start school in two weeks, so basically our summer is over. I can't complain, though. We've made lots of fun memories!