September 29th is the feast day of the Archangels Michael, Raphael, and Gabriel. I only know this because I have one of those calendars given to me by my parish hanging on my cabinet...beautiful, informative, and free!
Anyway, after I read this I tried to take note of any angelic- type behavior from my 3 boys for the rest of the day. ( ...always looking for blogging material ). Here are a few pictures.
Top-bunk admittance is by invitation only around here, but Tommy asked Ann to come up and read with him.
Matthew stubbed his toe and Billy ran downstairs to get him an ice pack.
Angel in a white towel....just add wings!
Ok, I know these are a bit of a stretch for angel material. However, the great thing about blogging is that I'm always looking for material to write about. So, I tend to notice all the little blessings everyday so I can accentuate the positives in my posts. Make sense? At the very least, hopefully their cute faces make you smile.
After one month in to the new school year, I've actually acquired some tips that are helping me keep it together. None of these are rocket science and I should have learned them long ago. Before you read any further, don't think you'll be enlightened by any means.
1. I feel like a better mom when I make my kids pancakes in the morning. There is something about the "WOO-HOO" that I hear from their mouths that makes me feel like super mom. Is that really all it takes? Apparently!
2. If I wear my sneakers ( rather than flip flops or heel shoes ) I get a lot more housework done. Add in a pair of sweatpants and I could work for Merry Maids.
3.If fruit or veggie snacks are the ONLY thing offered to the kids after school they will eventually give in and eat them. For years I gave in to their cries of starvation and would give them pretzels or bagels and the like because they fought me about the fruit and veggies. Then I'd be mad at dinner when they didn't eat. They still aren't eating my dinners, but at least I know they had fruit or vegetables before and not just a "filler".
4. Make dinner before they get home from school. After school time is crazy enough without having to worry about getting dinner started. We eat at different times every night because of extra-curriculars. I was always throwing snacks at them and starting dinner while they were eating and doing homework. Now, I sit with them and hear about their day and help the little ones get through their homework at a less hectic pace. This is a WAY better system.
5. I nap when my toddler naps. There, I said it. The truth is out. C'mon....you do it too.
6. I can eat a whole can of Pringles in one day. It's really not hard.
Ok, that about sums it up. Do you have any tips you'd like to share?
This past week Bill finished his 18 month Master's program. I honestly don't know how he did this. It was done mostly online, with 2 weeks of classroom work every 3 months out in California. He worked so hard and had it impact the family as little as possible. He often had his face in the computer, but he was here for every event and every good night kiss.
I wasn't able to fly to California to see him graduate, but I was able to watch it via live feed from the computer. Here he is receiving his degree. I should have turned the flash off.
Bill got home Saturday morning after a long red eye. Because of the rain our sports activities with the kids were cancelled. We had a relaxing day at home with nothing to do. We decided to play Scrabble. I won't tell you who won, but let's just say you don't need a Master's degree to win.
Here's our finished product. That word "jive" got me 66 points. Impressive, huh?
The kids made a great welcome home sign and I made a cake.
I worked painstakingly hard to decorate this cake.
Late in the afternoon we had a suprise visit from my brother and nephew.
It was great that they were here to celebrate with us! Thanks for the pop-in guys!
Congratulations Bill. You never cease to amaze me with all you are capable of. I'm so proud of you!
Good friends of ours had an extra ticket to the Phillies game tonight. They invited Billy to go with them. You would not believe how happy this kid was today. He left right after school and won't be home until after midnight. Homework at 6am I suppose. Oh well, I know he'll think it's worth it.
Since Billy got such a special treat, I took the other kids to McDonald's for dinner. ( I know, you can see right through me. It's really a treat for me to not cook ). We went to the Dangerous McDonald's. You know, the one with the Play Place attached to it. Let me explain where the danger comes in:
1.) In 3 days at least one of them will be sick, then it will spread through the rest of the house over the next month!
and
2.) For the 20 minutes they're playing, I'm stuffing my face with every last nugget and french fry left on the table. UGH! I thought about texting a friend while I was sitting there waiting but I hate can't stand when parents aren't paying attention to their kids because they have their face stuck in a phone. So instead I shoved food in my mouth like it was going out of style. I wonder how that looked. Someone there probably had their face in their phone texting about me and how gluttonous I was being.
Bill is away this week. The kids and I were talking about missing him and Mary Kate said, "I guarantee that our Dad is the best dad in the whole world." Oh Mare, you are so right.
We like to video chat with him when he's away. This is what it looks like:
This is them giving him a fist bump:
Back to Mary Kate. Tonight she was practicing her piano. She's working on the song What Child Is This for her recital in December. I could tell she was getting frustrated. At one point I heard her shout out "C'mon" and bang the top of the piano. It instantly reminded me of Don Music from Sesame Street. Remember him? He was a piano player and had a hard time rhyming songs and would always shout, "I'll never get it, never!" and then bang his head on the keys. Please tell me you remember. I'll refresh your memory with the video below. Look familiar?
And last but not least, if you need a few extra minutes to do something give your toddler a pad of Post-It notes. This bought me about 5 uninterupted minutes. Nice!
Today is my Mom's birthday. She would have been 72 years old. She's been gone for 12 years now. It's still so hard to believe.
Here is her high school photo back in 1957:
Words won't do her justice, but she was the most special person I have ever known. She was beautiful, kind, selfless, happy, genuine, graceful, attentive, forgiving, silly, hard-working, loving....the list goes on. She loved our family so much and it was evident in every action she made.
I was blessed to have her in my life for 29 years. She taught me so much. Two of her biggest lessons was to never settle and to always stay true to yourself. I think that advice helped me become who I am today. I often wish I was more like her, but perhaps she gave me just what I needed to beme.
Looking back over the posts that I've made so far I realized that I paint a very happy- go- lucky picture of this family. We are happy, don't get me wrong. However, there are many incidents that I do NOT cover on the blog that are not so wonderful. Some are bad and some are downright ugly.
Last night was an ugly. We had a group of friends over for our monthly prayer group. A bunch of the kids were playing in the basement. I went down there to discover kids beating the heck out of each other in a lightsaber fight, including my kids with Matthew looking like the ringleader. The worst part....another parent witnessing the entire thing. I was embarrassed.
Since I couldn't get the incident out of my head for the rest of the night and most of today I ended up dissecting my parenting skills (or lack there of) all day long. Basically I tortured myself on all the things I do wrong instead of remembering the things I do right. I feel like I am on top of my kids and their behavior all the time. And they STILL AREN'T COMPLETE ANGELS who never talk back or say "ok Mom" to everything that comes out of my mouth.
But alas, kids will be kids, boys will be boys, lightsaber fights will go on. And I will keep trying my best to keep them in line. But it can get ugly around here. Just so you know.
