Snow!

You may think that the title is pronounced with excitement like when you say "WOW!" or "Holy crap!", but actually it is pronounced more like "You've got to be kidding me!" or "Why, why me?"

Carson does not want to go play in the snow. She thought she did, but upon exiting the house she assured me that she no longer wished to subject herself to the bitterly cold, jaw locking, ear piercing snowy weather. That's my girl! (said with excitelment like "WOW!" or "Holy crap!")

Cody on the other hand wanted so badly to make a snow angel that no amount of the pain that comes with leaving the house in this kind of weather could deter her.

She looks so happy that I might think about tolerating this kind of weather. Once a year.

Christmas wonderfulness

We put up our Christmas tree this past Sunday. That's right, I said Christmas tree. Not holiday tree, not non-denominational day of greed and present exchanging tree...Christmas tree. Ok, I got that out of my system. Now, on with my original story.

I was pulling out the decorations and I came across a box of ornaments that my mom and I made on Cody's first Christmas. They were little wreaths made of starlight mints and miniature candy canes hot glued onto red poster board. Last year Carson was only 20 months old and just starting to understand what candy was. I went into a rather lengthy conversation with both girls explaining that these candies were very old and definitely inedible. Carson apparently thought inedible meant perfectly ripe for consumption. I was setting up our nativity set when I heard an odd crunching sound coming from behind our Christmas tree. Upon investigation I discovered my smallest daughter who was smart enough to hide while eating candy, but not yet smart enough to realize that sound travels. She was eating one of the candy canes, hot glue and all. It was a proud moment.

Needless to say, I'm not using those decorations this year. I just really do not feel the need to display things that I will constantly have to remind the children not to eat.

Yoga-rific!

Recently, I've been experiencing a lot of migraines and my mom suggested that I may be stressed, imagine that! So in an effort to bring some relaxation to my life, I purchased a yoga dvd. I thought it might even be fun. Ha ha.

When it arrived you would have thought that we had received the new Elmo video. The kids were so excited.

For the next 30 minutes we all did yoga in the living room.

Everything was going just fine, well pretty much, when the headstand portion of the video came. There we were. All three of us, attempting headstands and falling all over each other. I think I may have been able to do it if I hadn't been laughing so hard. It was funny enough to watch my girls attempting downward dog, but the headstands were just too much. It's pretty bad when your abs get a better workout from laughing than exercise.

The poses only got stranger and more complicated so we all ended up laying in front of the tv watching the yoga dvd as if it was our favorite movie. I made popcorn.

Unbelievable!

I have been very disturbed lately by all the fallout from the incident where the woman was kicked off of an airplane for breastfeeding her baby. Now before you get all uppity with me, I know the baby was 22 months old (so what!) and I know the lady refused to cover up. I would have refused too.

It has been suggested that we don't know how she was acting on the plane, but I firmly believe that had she been flagrantly displaying her breastfeeding (which is not illegal, by the way) she would not have complied when they told her to deboard the plane. This woman was simply feeding her child.

It has also been suggested that her right to nurse ended the moment it infringed upon another's rights. Well this is just stupid! I'm not trying to be funny, it really is stupid! Since when are there limits on a child's right to eat? Since when does a stranger get to dictate when it is or is not appropriate to feed a child?

What are new mothers supposed to think here? If they make the decision to breastfeed their babies they may be punished for doing so. On the other hand if she decides not to breastfeed, she is guilt tripped by the hospital staff. Who do these people think they are? Is this not America? Do these children not belong to us? Am I supposed to let strangers decide what is best for my kids? Not this mom. I will continue to nurse my son for as long as we both want to and I will nurse him where ever we happen to be when he gets hungry or needs to be comforted.

Those of you who feel the need to make parenting harder on those of us who are doing our jobs: Put your efforts into locating baby rapers and child abusers. Find all the online pedophiles. Leave the rest of us alone.

Good, Clean Fun

I've always known that Carson is obsessed with funny noises especially those of a flatulent nature, but lately her interest has expanded to include her sense of smell. This is a conversation she had with my mother this afternoon:

Carson: Do you smell something?

Nana: No, do you?

C: I think you tooted.

N: Me!?! I did not!

C: Yep, you tooted.

About now my brother can be seen squirming with barely controlled glee, partly because he was the true culprit and partly because Carson said "toot." Ahhh, good quality family time.

Mom Always Wins

Cody may just be the most dramatic five year old in existence. The child just does not do anything mundane. Everything must be a production or it is just not worth it. Case in point: It took me two hours, yes I said TWO HOURS, to change her earrings today. I know that I exaggerate a lot, but if anything, this is a conservative estimate of the amount of time it took.

It has only been the last few weeks that she's been allowed to remove them and she was convinced that the process of taking the earrings out would be comparable to having her toenails pulled out one by one. Poor thing, it must be exhausting having to make a huge scene out of every run of the mill situation.

I really thought that if I could just get them out then I could clean her ears really well and replace the earrings without a fuss. This is where you will realize that one of my faults is that I NEVER learn. I continue to make the wrong assumptions over and over again. It got so bad that at one point, this child was begging me to let her holes close and take her back to the earring store and make them shoot the earrings back into her ears. What? I must have said some variation of "That's so silly" or "You're being unreasonable" a thousand times.

She is not only the most dramatic, she is the most stubborn as well. But, she came by that one honestly and having a few years more experience, I won. Oh yes, I got those earrings back in those ears. And guess what? She LOVES them more than anything in the whole, wide world!!

The Best of October 2006

Wow, I took lots and lots of pictures this month. Memphis' personality is in full bloom so the camera must keep on clicking. Cody has Carson all riled up about Christmas already. I seriously think it's all the kid thinks about. Anyway, on with the best of October.

Cody has started taking ballet very seriously.

Memphis has become Cody's new doll.

My favorite shot this month

Memphis thinks Carson is so sweet. :)

They love a parade!

Cody is convinced this is one of the deer from Snow White.

Could've been a great picture, stupid van.

A couple of knotheads

Cody who? My name is Pocahontas.

I tried to think of something eloquent to type here, but I must be too tired. It's a real nice picture though.