After my post last week where we all fessed up to our serious Internet addictions, I’ve decided to help you in your effort to GET OFF THE COMPUTER and spend more time with your children.  

I know my children would benefit from the attention. *ahem*

Enjoying some dirt while mommy checks her email for the 20 billionth time.

First of all in order for you to actually DO any of the things on the list you’ll need to prepare.  You’ll want to get one last fix so start by looking at your email ONE more time, checking your stats ONE more time, reading those last few twitters and then *gasp* SHUTTING DOWN the computer.  Simply putting it in sleep mode or shutting the laptop isn’t going to cut it…you already KNOW that you will peek and get sucked right.back.in.  Now.  Once it’s turned off, put the power cord in a really hard to reach place, like in that ridiculous cabinet over your refrigerator or have a trusted neighbor babysit it. 

The power cord suggestion may seem a little much, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

“So what am I supposed to DO without Internet access?”  you moan.  Here are a few ideas!

1.  Bake!  Cookies, brownies, whatever.  No, this doesn’t help with losing any extra pounds, but is sitting on your ass twittering really helping?  I didn’t think so.

2.  Water Balloons!  Sure the throwing of water balloons between siblings will cause World War III, but think of it this way…all that arguing is killing time.   Be sure to do this OUTSIDE.  That’s the place on the other side of the door where the sun shines and it’s hot.

3.  McDonalds Playplace/ Chick Fil-A Play area!  The great thing about this suggestion is that it’s really a two-for-one outing because within a week after letting your kids play at a place like this, you’ll be leaving the house again to take them to the pediatrician when they come down with some terrible malady.

4.  Library!  This place is so awesome!  They let you borrow books for –get this–FREE.  That’s right!  FREE!  (Also they have time-limited Internet access there.)  (Yes, I’m an enabler in your attempt to break your addicion.)

5.  Crafts!  You’ll be cleaning up glitter and wiping crayon marks off the walls and cutting glue out of your carpets for MONTHS to come.  Think of all the time you WON’T be stumbling and commenting!

6.  Clean the house as a family!  See above.  (Vacuuming also drowns out crying.)

7.  Use your navigation system to go on adventures!  This suggestion will sadly use entirely too much gas because you are certain to get lost, but think of the adventure!  For extra educational value, have your navigation system speak in a foreign language, I especially enjoy British English.  VERY foreign.

8.  Play Hide and Seek!  You hide in the bathroom (door locked) with some ice cream, OKAY, WINE and have the kids try and find you.  (iPods can drown out the crying in this scenario.)

9.  Take lots of pictures and video!  Let your kids ham it up!  What a great way for YOU to come up with even more fodder for the ol’ blog.  (Me=Enabler)

10.  Go take a walk to get your power cord back from your neighbor!   You’ve earned it with all this “family enrichment” crap.    You can even make it a FAMILY activity to go retrieve your power cord.  Win-win situation!

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Tags: Pictures, Quirky Me, blogging, confession, my stream of consciousness by Jennifer
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Some days I’m completely at peace with the way things are in my life.  I’ve more or less chosen this life, the one where I’m a stay-at-home mom of two kids and I’m a supportive and loving wife.  In fact, when I imagined my life while growing up, I wanted to get married, make babies, and cook dinner.  My Barbie dolls were forever pregnant, hanging around the Barbie house, driving the Barbie purple corvette, all paid for by Ken.

But with accepting my life the way things are, means accepting that the bulk of home related tasks rests upon my often weary shoulders.  It means that I do laundry, and pick up all the water bottles someone leaves all over the house, I plan the majority of meals, I know when we’re out of diapers and Teddy Grahams and soy sauce.  These aren’t necessarily bad or unfair responsibilities, but things that occasionally make me feel bitter and overworked.

I hear my husband talk about his career and we discuss his plans for the future.  They really are our plans for the future, but with the way things are, it means that I agree to move, uproot our family, and lose my safety net of friends every few years for his career.  In other words, I don’t really feel like I have any control over my own future as it’s completely based on what happens to Tate.  I haven’t pursued getting licensed as a Speech-Language Pathologist in nearly three years because I’ve been the devoted wife who’s agreed to move twice and put my career on hold to raise our children.  But I do realize that the way things are, are because I chose this.

Tate has two business dinners and a softball game this week, which he didn’t have to think twice about since he didn’t need to worry about childcare for his two kids.  Of course I’ll be home to take care of them, that’s what I do.  I stay home and tend to the children.  But when I have an opportunity to go out in the evening with friends or when I plan on going out of town for a little blogging conference, I have to make sure Tate will be home or ask my Mother-in-law to come watch the children.  I don’t get to just make plans and go and be free.

I don’t mean to sound like Tate is a modern day neanderthal that comes home and pounds his chest and demands dinner and his woman stay home, care for children.  It isn’t that way at all.  If I weren’t generally happy with the way things are, he’d be fine with me pursuing my career, though I doubt the household responsibilities and childcare arrangements would change if I were working outside the home.  

This is just one of those days when I have a hard time feeling content with my chosen lot in life, despite it being EXACTLY what I always wanted.  

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Tags: Happy Homemaking, Mommydom, Randomness, hole-y matrimony, my stream of consciousness by Jennifer
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While watching the Today Show this morning, I saw this story about a boy who died as a result of “dry drowning.”

Immediately I was taken back to my five-year-old self as I stood watching my dad blow air into a classmate’s mouth, a little boy, whose family was from Africa.  I can still picture his mother wearing gorgeous orange and red robes and hats.   But I can’t even remember the little boy’s name.  Yet, he always slips into my thoughts, nearly everyday, for 28 years.

The details aren’t even clear, as they are the memories of a five-year-old.  What I do remember is asking my mom if I could go to the little girl’s house and sit by the pool.  I remember dangling my legs in the pool and wanting ever so badly to jump in and swim.  Slowly, I’d hold my body on the side of the pool, dropping my legs in, almost getting my shorts wet.  But I didn’t get in, my mom had told me not to.  I made sure not to let my shorts get wet so my mom wouldn’t know I almost got in.

I remember there was supposed to be a babysitter watching us children by the pool, but she was inside.  My mom wouldn’t like that nobody was watching us.  We were supposed to be watched.

There were older boys horsing around the edge of the pool.  I remember thinking how old they must be, but were probably only third or fourth grade boys, but at the time they seemed so big and old.  There was also a little boy, five-years-old, like me, and my classmate.

It was warm.  I really wanted to get into the pool.  I wanted to swim.

Suddenly there was a commotion.

“He can’t swim!  He can’t swim!!!”  His older brother was yelling at the boy who had pushed his little brother in the pool.

Why wasn’t he just swimming to the side?

Yelling.  The older boys were arguing and yelling and accusing.

There were bubbles.  Lots of tiny bubbles, spreading over the surface of the water.

WHERE WAS HE?

Why isn’t the little girl going to go get the babysitter???

Isn’t anybody going to help him?

I jumped up and ran all the way home and found my dad sitting outside in the lawn chairs talking to our neighbor.  I remember the lawn chair falling over and hitting the pavement with a clanging sound as my dad jumped and ran back to the house with the pool after I told him that a boy had been pushed in the pool.

Why didn’t I go sooner to get my dad?

He was lying there, just in his underwear, stark white, against his brown skin.  I’d never seen a boy in his underwear before.  His hair had beads of water in it, it looked like a spider web to me.  I was so confused and scared.  My dad and other dads tried to save him, but he died.

Crying. 

We went home and watched on the news what we’d just witnessed in person.  I sat on my dad’s lap, watching.  A boy, five-years-old, had died in a swimming pool after being pushed in.  He didn’t know how to swim.

Why didn’t I go sooner to get my dad?

Where was the babysitter?

Why did he push that boy in the pool?

How did his mother survive?  What happened to that family?  What happened to the boy who pushed him in?

I think about him everyday.  And I can’t even remember his name.

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Call me picky, but
restaurants that remind me
of barns, poop are gross

Do I look like a 
pig, horse, goat, cow or sheep?  Hey!
Wait! Don’t answer that!

As I promised the other day, here is my thought-provoking post on my aversion to restaurants that remind me of barns or poop.

Let’s begin, shall we?  Poop seems as good a place to start as any.

1. The Little Nugget Steakhouse, located somewhere between Springfield, MO and Indiana.
Nugget?? Seriously?? Who thought this was a good idea? Nugget=poop, obviously. No can do.

2. The Feed Lot, with many locations across the US and Canada (why?)
I’m not a farm animal and would prefer not to eat in a place that sounds like I’ll be eating from a trough.  Oink.

3. Sirloin Stockade, located throughout the US and Mexico (O.  Le.)
There is a picture of a cow on the sign. Um. No thank you.  This somehow does not apply to pictures of pigs on signs for BBQ restaurants, unless of course, the BBQ restaurant has a barn-y or poopy name. 

4. Golden Corral, located wherever old people congregate
I will admit to having eaten at one and thoroughly enjoying the mac-n-cheese. This was YEARS ago, though, prior to developing a severe aversion to all things “buffet.” I do not eat at places that require sneeze guards AND attempt to make me feel like cattle.

Moo.

On a sidenote, when I was doing a little research for this post, I stumbled across a restaurant called The Pink Taco.  Go ahead and add “vagina” to the list of things I prefer not to be reminded of when eating out.

To play along for Haiku Friday, follow these steps:
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3. Pick up a Haiku Friday button to display on the post or in your sidebar by clicking the button above.

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Hi!  Did you miss me?  I mean, I didn’t post anything yesterday, veering way off course from my usual daily posting.   It’s just that I’ve been a bit busy, traveling ALONE with my two children.  (Yes they are both still alive and KICKING and SCREAMING, but barely.)  I spent the last few days visiting my parents and in-laws back in Missouri and have just returned to Indinanna (Carson’s spin on Indiana.)

While driving home, I attempted to drown out the wailing of my children in the backseat by coming up with some really great topics to discuss here.  I had hours and hours to contemplate possible subjects.  Since most of my topics fall under the categories of either “lame” or “who the heck cares,”  I truly wanted to come up with something that would knock your socks off and make you say, “Wow, that Jennifer came up with a topic that we will all be talking about for minutes to come.”

Luckily I was able to come up with a topic that fell into both the “lame” AND “who the heck cares” categories.   It’s my little gift to you, my readers.  This is what I came up with…my confusion about year-round mega fireworks stores.  I’m sure you’ve all seen those, right?  They are typically located along the Interstate and are huge buildings with flashy colors, advertising FIREWORKS!  FIREWORKS!  FIREWORKS!

This is what I wonder…How does a place like this remain open?  Why do people need Black Cats and Roman Candles in April, or any days besides July 4 and New Years’ Eve*?  Who shops at these places?

And then it occurred to me…maybe I’m naive.  Maybe these “fireworks” places don’t sell fireworks year round at all.  Maybe “Fireworks Store” is code for “Young, hot babes, twenty dolla!”  Or!  OR!  Maybe, it’s code for “buy your illegal drugs/weapons/contraband in our basement!”

I considered not even talking about this, just in case I accidentally stumbled upon a private, underground industry and have inadvertantly outed these “fireworks stores.”  It’s almost like I’m some sort of investigative journalist on Dateline NBC or 20/20.  Almost.

Don’t worry, I also came up with another topic to discuss later in the week while driving, “Why I don’t like eating at places that remind me of barns or poop.” 

I am clearly on my way to being a popular mommyblogger now with topics like these!  (Is that my subscriber count plummeting??)

PS.  Fireworks on New Year’s Eve is a very annoying southern thing.

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I had made up my mind that we were finished having babies, while driving and enjoying the sweet, sweet deliciousness known as being ALONE.  Something about the first warm day of the spring, an open sunroof, and thumping music made me certain that we were out of the business of making babies.  Of course, twenty minutes prior, I had been trying on baby girl names for possible future daughters like Avery,  or Leah, and Emeline, remembering only the good parts of pregnancy, childbirth, and life with a newborn…ahhh, the joys of selective memory.

But anyway, right at this moment, I was sure.  No more kids.  I felt the freedom that only comes as your children are old enough to be left for more than 2 hour segments. 

“I’m almost free,”  I thought to myself.  “In just a few short months, I’ll have my body back all to myself!  I’ll finally get to throw those nursing bras away!  I won’t have to carry the enormous diaper bag, I’ll actually be able to carry a purse!”  The decision, for the time being, was made. 

I got to my destination, Tar-zhay, and began my much anticipated solo quest for nothing.  I was simply going to wander around the store, with no need to worry about the possibility of having to change a diaper or rushing to get home to save the precious nap.  Not two minutes into my aimless stroll, I saw the first baby, a newborn baby, being held by her very exhausted looking mother.  This baby had to be fresh out of the womb, she was impossibly tiny, with wrinkled feet and ankles.

“Look away.  Just look away,”  I told myself.  “We’re DONE, remember???  Done!”

A good three minutes passed before I saw the next one.  Another newborn baby, that also looked to have come straight to Target from it’s birth at the hospital.  The parents were fussing over the baby, who was so tiny and completely enveloped by it’s carseat.  The baby had that unfixed stare and googly eyes that only newborns have and appeared to be drifting off to sleep.

I realized I had been staring with my head cocked to the side and my mouth slightly open in the shape of “aaah.”  But I couldn’t help myself.  I closed my eyes and shook my head, getting the image of that darling baby out of my head.  “Keep walking.  You’ve seen plenty of newborn babies, including TWO of your own.  Now skedaddle,”  I silently thought to myself.

Luckily I got a good twenty minutes of browsing in before I spotted the last newborn.    During those glorious twenty minutes, I had purposely browsed in the lingerie section at pretty, non-nursing bras and dreamed of that day when I could where them again. 

“Yes, I’m certain.  No more children.”  I smiled contently as I left the lingerie section.

Of course, though, as I left the lingerie section, I saw the baby.    Her daddy was cradling her in his arms as she slept.  He gazed upon her face and appeared to study her every feature.  His free hand gently touched his daughter’s wee fingers as he bent over to kiss her tiny face.  After the kiss, he paused and sniffed her wee newborn smell.

Right then and there, I ovulated.  I simply cannot resist a daddy sniffing his baby. 

As I finished my shopping trip, I imagined a future baby boy and tried on a few names for him…Keegan?  Chase?  Sean?  Ryan? 

Then I arrived home to this face.  Ella, my eleven month old daughter, who charms me with nothing more than her soft cheeks and her gummy, slobbery grin.

[picture removed]
It’s no wonder I can’t help but fantasize about all of my unborn children.

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Tags: Little Monkeys, Mommydom, Pictures, my stream of consciousness by Jennifer
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I woke up this morning feeling foul.  It’s one of those days that I must monitor my every word and every action, knowing that I could explode on the nearest offenders.

Tate is lucky he’s at work today.

My children are lucky that I know how volatile my mood is today.

I’ve been keeping a running dialogue of self-checking reminders in my head all morning. 

Don’t throw the green spoon at Carson, simply hand it to him and take the purple spoon away.  He’ll stop crying if you do.

Ella will be napping soon.  Don’t scream at her to shut up.  She’s just a BABY.

You don’t even believe in spanking!  Keep your hands to yourself.

Grow up!  Act like the PARENT, not the toddler.

I don’t know what, if anything specific, set me off.  Tate and I went on a date last night that was almost as fun as taking both kids with us.  Almost.  It is actually supposed to be in the 60’s today, but both of my kids are sick so we are stuck at home for what feels like the 873rd day in a row in exile.  Maybe it’s the 8th day of Aunt Flo’s visit.  Maybe the upcoming “vacation” home is stressing me out.  Maybe I’m just tired.

I don’t want to feel like this.

Don’t drink all the alcohol in the house.  The authorities would frown upon that.  It would also cost thousands of dollars in therapy for the children.

Forget about baking those brownies to self-medicate.

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