Out Of The Mouth Of A Two Year Old

I am sure that everyone on the planet has heard the term "Kids say the darndest things"...and I am sure that everyone on the planet who has ever come into contact with children would agree with this statement. I personally believe that between the ages of 2 and 3 kids say even darnder things! I have a friend who has a three year old little girl who I absolutely adore and this kid literally cracks me up every time I am around her. She says the funniest most off the wall things...I just told my friend this week that I will be sad when she grows up a little more and quits coming up with funny stuff. I think it is awesome how kids possess the ability to be 100% silly and people think it is funny. Paige is right at that age where just about everything that comes out of her mouth is funny. Some of my absolute favorites are this new thing she has picked up where she blames EVERYTHING on the dog...and no the dog doesn't even have to be there...we could be at the store and if something happens she goes "UGGGHHH Jake-E!!!". I don't know where she got that but it is hilarious! She also says to everyone "ton't doo dawt" which is translated to mean "don't do that" but somehow when a two year old says it it suddenly becomes funny...and it is so cute and funny that she has become like a trained monkey because I make her say it all the time :-) She is also right at that age where she picks up on things that we have said and then stores them in her little memory bank and when you are least expecting it she just blurts it out...inevitably making me have to try to hold back the laughter. For example the other night she wanted her daddy to watch cartoons with her so she told him..."You come watch Jonnie Tutu NOW!!!...and when he did not respond she proceeded with....1.....2.....I gonna get a belt.....I almost died laughing because I say this to her on a daily basis...of course I never have to get a belt because she always compiles with requests at the very mention of a belt so I imagine she was a little confused when this trick did not work on daddy. Another one I am not so proud of is "I sick of it!"....that is me all the way...I am generally sick of everything by the end of the day so if you were to visit my house you could count on hearing me (OR MY TWO YEAR OLD) say "I am so sick of it." We also have a tendency to yell at the dog to "Shut up" when he barks his head of at nothing at all...which is another thing she has picked up so now when he barks its shup up Jake! That poor dog gets blamed for everything and yelled at all the time :-) We are learning to be careful about some of the things we say and we try to sit back and listen a little more because you never quite know whats going to come out of the mouth of a two year old!

Meet Me In The Medium

I am what they title "hot natured" as I tend to find myself hot the majority of the time. This is an interesting aspect of my life because while one would think that my hot nature would affect only me it is quite ironic how it actually affects everyone around me. For example, the weather is changing (FINALLY!!) here in Texas.....last week we were in the 90's and this week we will be in the 70's.....fall is right on the tip of our noses and there is finally an end in sight to the miserably hot days....I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE fall it is my MOST favorite time of year....I love the cool weather during the days and the even cooler weather at night....what I tend to dislike, however, (since I have become a mother anyway) is the transition between summer and fall. For a person that is hot natured this transition time is wonderful to say the least....but as a hot natured mother who is responsible for dressing others it can become quite confusing and rather easy to either over dress or under dress my children. My girls are not hot natured...matter of fact they are generally complaining about being cold (which may have something to do with the person dressing them :-) This is something I try to remember and keep in mind when picking their clothes for the day, but I inevitably misjudge which clothes to choose during this transition time and am usually the mom that gets "the looks" for sending or taking her children out on a cold day without a jacket or putting them in shorts because there is not snow on the ground. I have also found that being hot natured tends to be worse at night....I LOVE to be cold when I am sleeping...I want to have to snuggle up under the covers.....I love to have the fan on full blast blowing cool air all over the room.....but since I am married to someone who is cold in nature and has allergies this rarely happens....my husband HATES air blowing in his face and he HATES to be cold....well too bad for him he married me and I am HOT 90% of the time. We argued about the fan in the beginning but I think we have both learned to compromise and meet in the middle (or medium in this case) as we usually sleep with the fan on medium (well sometimes I patiently wait until after he falls asleep so I can sneak and give that sting an extra pull....I can't help it...I am hot!) But I guess I can live with medium air...after all it's way better than no air at all....now if only my children were old enough to dress themselves some of life's problems would be solved...and the summer to fall transition would be a little easier for people like me.

Bringing Down The Baby Gate

Every since Paige became mobile we have had to watch her like a hawk and the majority of the time she has had to be confined with a baby gate. We have completely "Paige" proofed her room....I say Paige proofed because this little Houdini child of mine can undo any kind of baby proof contraption on the market...but in her room we have locked her closet door....bolted the TV and the dresser to the wall and moved everything to the highest shelf in the room. So when we are not outside playing or watching her every move she spends A LOT of time in her room behind the baby gate where she is safe...basically from herself...and able to play as she wishes. I know this isn't the ideal solution, but guaranteed one afternoon with this child would prove my point. She gets into everything...things you would never think she would get into or even be able to get to for that matter and she is quicker than lighting. She is like Dennis the menace on a sugar rush. Yesterday alone I caught her running with scissors (that were put up on the shelf that she used a kitchen bar stool to get to) and before we could get them put up I caught her with a thumb tack in her mouth (that she climbed on the bed in my room to reach the bulletin bored to find) all within a matter of two minutes. I think it would be completely impossible to Paige proof the whole house and I can't watch her every single second...well I suppose I could....but that really is beside the point I am trying to make here. The point is up until now you really couldn't reason with her, but she is just now getting to the age where she actually understands and comprehends that what she is doing is generally wrong (and still does it anyway) so I think it is time we can bring down the baby gate and instill some discipline instead. I am not sure how things are going to go without a baby gate, but with any hope at all I can keep her unharmed and keep my sanity all at the same time...or is that just wishful thinking on my part...well in any case, today I will bring down the baby gate and unleash the wrath that is Paige! We may have to pad the walls and throw away all our belongings but somehow we will make it out of the terrible two's alive. Wish us luck...I think we are going to need it :-)

It Was A Blue Star Kind Of Day

Brooke brings home a "communication folder" everyday and that is my way of knowing how her day went. They get a certain color star in their folder every day based on their behavior. Most days are "green days"...green means that they had a great day....so I am always VERY happy when she brings home a green. Lately, however, she has been getting color changes to yellow (which means she had an "okay" day) for talking. Everyday when she gets in the car before we even pull out of the parking lot I check her folder. I can always tell what she got before I even look because on green days she hops in and proudly exclaims "Go ahead look at my folder" and on yellow days she hops in and it is more like a "You don't have to check my folder today"....she has even "forgot" to bring her folder home on one of her yellow days!! Well yesterday I go to pick her up from school and I just knew she had a good day because yesterday was grandparents day and my wonderfully awesome dad went and ate lunch with her in the cafeteria...it was all she had talked about all week...she was so excited. So yesterday she hoped in the car and before I look in the folder or anything I ask her how lunch with grandpa went and she says "It went really good, but can you PLEASE look in my folder!!" She didn't want to talk about ANYTHING until I looked in that folder so I was excited and just knew that she got another green star.....BUT when I open the folder and look at her star it's not green at all....IT IS BLUE...blue just happens to be one star UP from green and pretty uncommon...it means that she was commended on her behavior that day. Her folder said that she got a blue star for being a very, very kind friend. She said that a little boy fell out of his chair and she ran over and helped him up and made sure that he was okay. Talk about a proud mommy moment!! She was bursting from the seams with excitement because she just knew that I was going to be SO PROUD of her....which of course I was!!! So in appreciation of my "proundness" and her BLUE STAR we went to McDonald's for ice cream...we all got an ice cream cone but she got hers dipped in chocolate, which to her was the coolest thing ever. What an awesome day to be a mama!!

Oh Cataracts How I Loathe You

It happened about four years ago...my vision started to slowly decrease and I made an appointment to go get my eyes checked and hopefully some contacts. I had chalked it up to staring at a computer screen for all of my days...or sitting to close to the tv...all the cliche things you hear people talk about. So I figured I would get glasses or contacts and whola it would all be better. So I walk into my appointment and sit down in the chair when the doctor looks into my eyes I am a little disturbed by what he says...it went a little something like this.... "Oh my gosh...unbeleiveable...I just can't believe that.." All the while I am thinking....hey buddy I am still here and now I am just slightly starting to freak out so do you think you can fill me in on what is going on in my eyes that is so unbelievable?!!!?!!! He then tells me that I have what is known as Posterior Sub capsular Cataracts and all the oohing and aahing is because I am the youngest person he has even seen have it. Well first things first I made him write that diagnosis down because obviously I had never heard of it and first thing when I got home I was going to have a question and answer session with my dear friend Google. I then asked him...so what does this mean..what do we do about it? He says...well I don't do anything about it you will have to see a specialist and based on how quickly it is progressing you are going to have to have surgery, BUT (of course there was a but this is MY life after all) I typically see that doctors like to wait until you are about 40 to do the surgery because your eyes are not done developing and I am not sure how it will affect them...plus you will forever be in reading glasses. Now tell me that's not a lot of information to process at the age of 23... not only can I not see, I will have to have surgery (ON MY EYES NONE THE LESS!!) and now will forever be in a pair of reading glasses...not contacts that you leave in and forget about reading glasses that you have to carry with you every second of the day just in case you need to read something. So I of course procrastinated (that's what I do) just hoping that maybe I would wake up one day and it would be gone but to no such avail matter of fact it actually got worse...much, much worse...so I made an appointment with a specialist. She looked at my eyes and confirmed what the last doctor had said and promptly went into the hall way to talk to her co-workers about how she could not believe it and I was the youngest one she had seen with cataracts at this stage...all the while I am sitting on the other side of the door thinking to myself...Hey there lady I am going blind not deaf and I can hear every single word you are saying. So anyway when they were finished gossiping she came in and she said that yes I will have to have surgery but she was not in a hurry to do it since it was only her first time to see me and she wasn't real sure how fast it was progressing. Fast forward a few months and it got even worse although I wasn't sure it could. I wanted a second opinion and went to a wonderful doctor who didn't scare the crap out of me or go in the hallway to talk about me. What he did do however was schedule my surgery...like right then for like one week away. I remember sitting in that chair asking if there was any other way, anything else we could try. All of my questions were promptly answered with a no. It had progressed to far and the only fix was surgery. So surgery it was...one eye at a time mind you about a month apart, so I just kept thinking...Lord let this go smoothly because if not when it comes time to do the second eye I will be like trying to get the dog in the bathroom to take a bath...clinging on to the hospital doors. Well surgery day came and went and then I had the next eye done....and believe it or not for someone cutting your eye open it really wasn't to bad. :-) It has now been two years this month since my cataracts surgery and my vision is no longer cloudy, but it will never be the same. You see when they took out my lens and replaced it with a what I like to call "fake" lens, my eyes essentially went from bifocals (being able to see far and close) to being monofocal...which means I do need reading glasses but since I hate them I try to slide by without them which inevitably means I can't read most things clearly. Not being able to see up close turns things like plucking your eye brows or trimming your childs finger nails into very interesting tasks. I also can't see at night, I used to LOVE driving at night with the windows down and the radio up...now I don't drive at night unless I absolutely have to and when I do there is a lot of praying involved. I was the youngest one they had ever seen with cataracts and to think I was only going in to get some contacts!

Car Seat Turned Roller Coaster

First of all let me just say that this summer here in Texas has been HOT and that may be an understatement! We have been in the triple digits for what seems like an eternity and as for wind well that word has just kind of fallen out of our vocabulary here this summer. Well over the last week or so we have seen the end of the tunnel and are starting to realize that fall will be here soon...(THANK YOU GOD!!)...the weather has started to cool off, we have had some much needed rain...and the wind has peaked its little head back into our days. So we were driving to church the other night and for the first time in forever I switched the AC off and rolled all the windows down and even opened the sun roof...it felt SO good. I was driving minding my business when from the back seat I hear (over all the wind) muffled screaming..but it wasn't the scared or hurt kind of screams it was more of a joyful fun kind of screaming so I turn my head real quick to see what is happening to find Brooke with both hands in the air screaming because she is pretending that she is on a roller coaster. I am pretty sure I almost wrecked my car from laughing so hard. This little girl has NEVER rode a roller coaster BUT she brings either me or her dad the tape measure about once a week on a regular basis and asks to be measured because she is "patiently" awaiting the day when she is tall enough to go to six flags. She just can't wait to be tall enough, but I suppose until she is tall enough her car seat will just have to suffice.