Little Moo Turns 7!

Our oldest son, Little Moo (I don’t know that the term “little” still applies, but we’ll go with it) just turned seven. For the past ten years I have worked with children from ages birth through six and I have enjoyed that I have a number of tools in my arsenal to care for young children. But now…now we are in uncharted territories and we all get to learn together!

I was feeling sentimental and thought I’d share some pictures of Little Moo through the years. Sure I could share the professional photos taken over the last 7 years but I really wanted to show him as he is, a wonderful little boy.

As you can see, he’s not so little anymore. While he can be a challenge some days we love him more than anything and look forward to growing with him!

Everyday Things

It is amazing how little every day things can make us so happy. Obviously I could be talking about stolen moments with your children or husband (which do make me very happy) , but actually I’m talking about things.  That probably makes me sound materialistic, but I mostly mean those little things. Like new socks. How awesome are new socks?! That can make my morning!  Or a blanket warm out of the dryer. There are so many little things that can really make our day, we all have them, and I bet a few of ours overlap. But how many of us sit down at our desk and think, “this is SO AWESOME!”?

This kid.

We had been searching for awhile for the perfect desk for his room and found it yesterday. We put it in his room, wiped it down and he spent the next hour “setting it up”. My Little Moo is a quirky kid, and I love that about him. He often gets excited about things that most of us overlook or take for granted.

And guess what, the desk came with extra prizes!

A used folder and half used legal pad that appears to have been bent. He didn’t care, he immediately ask for a pencil so he could write on his new pad of paper at his desk.

It  is even better  when those little things lead to memorable moments with our loved ones. So pay attention to those little things, let them make you happy and enjoy your day!

Some Days…

Some days just don’t start off right. What should have been a slow and relaxing start to the morning just didn’t start off slow or relaxed. Nothing major, just aggravating. Thank goodness Little Moo only has two more weeks of school left! I should know on such mornings there is no such thing as just doing something “real quick” successfully. I should know this, but do I listen to myself?

Ab-so-lutely not!

At a slow point in the morning I went out to move the sprinklers “real quick” and came back to this

Littlest Moo found the cupcakes left over from last night’s BBQ. And, you know, helped himself. I’d had enough this morning, but instead of yelling or getting angry I took a breath and said screw it, and went for my camera.

 

The damage had been done, so I let him eat his cupcake. How terrible would it be to yell, throw them out and no one got to enjoy a cupcake? Some days it is just not worth it, and it is best to just go with the flow. Our morning included an extra cupcake snack!

Enjoy your Monday like a delicious cupcake, attack it with excitement and have no regrets!

One for the Books

I waited a couple days to write this post. You know, so that I can look back and laugh. It took a couple days.

This post is about Mothers Day.

Since I always have to work on Sunday we celebrate Mothers and Fathers Day on the Saturday before.

I can go into the gory details. But I’ll give you an overview.  Mine started with Little Moo waking me sometime before 7am. Way before. He shoved a handmade gift in my face and said “Happy Mothers Day!” then asked to watch TV. Sadly we had been having a week long room cleaning standoff and he wasn’t allowed television until his room was cleaned. Any guesses on what this will mean for the day? Here’s a hint, he wasn’t happy about this consequence. And he let me know. All. Day. I was lucky enough to drop him and Littlest Moo off with Grammy for a few hours only to drag a zombie Zippercow around to local nurseries. Then have the kids shout at me some more, fight, not listen. Little Moo shouted at one point “Mothers Day is when moms are supposed to be nice to their kids!” At one point he threw a tantrum and slammed our slider door and managed to shatter the glass. Then yelled at me some more about his consequences. I cried (a couple times) that day. Sunday after work wasn’t much better. I can safely say the most pleasant time of the weekend was being at work.

It’s my own fault really. I thought that since things have been rough and I’ve had a lot  to deal with since Zippercow has been not well that maybe it might just be a little more special. But duh, he’s still not well so he didn’t really have the energy to pull off his usual magic (he’s usually really good at this sort of thing) let alone add that little something extra. I tried not to get my hopes up, but let’s be honest, I did.

Fortunately for my husband and boys, I know they love me. I know they appreciate me. And we can laugh about it now, the terrible mothers day. The post is not meant to make my husband or boys feel bad. The idea was to share that no matter what, I still love them. Even on the bad days.

Always.

Oh and next year, feel free to make it extra special!

Can You Feel The Love?

You all know how I feel about carving pumpkins at Halloween? Well addressing valentines takes a close second. It seems like it should be fun. Cute little valentines, red, pink, and purple everything, and sticker hearts, what’s not to love? It screams everything girly I adore. And as a grade school girl I remember sitting down to my list of nearly thirty classmates and picking just the right valentine for each classmate. But that was the later years, when all my parents had to do was buy the box I’d so carefully chosen and then I’d sit down to the list and do the work.

Yeah, we’re not there yet.

Now, it is just a painful exercise in patience. Really it is just a holiday themed homework assignment. “Don’t forget Uppercase “A” and lowercase “l” and “Use your best writing” This is the first year he had to address them to each student. At least last year all he had to do was sign his name on them (this cut down time on passing them out, man she was an awesome teacher!) but even that was painful. He was done signing his name after the ninth one, still eleven more to go son.

So this year his teacher requested no candy. I believe she said it is so the kids can focus on the valentines and not all the treats (when did Valentine’s Day turn into Halloween  Part Deux?)  So we picked some awesome Cars 2 Valentines that came with tattoos. Cool right? Right???

“Mommy, it’s kind of like a Valentine Factory!”

“This is hard work!” ~ Little Moo

Yeah…I have awesome fine motor skills and even I was struggling getting the little tattoos into the manufacture provided slits.

Sure Little Moo was excited to make them, but it took the ultimate parenting patience to complete them all.

Sigh….the things we do for love!

The Sometimes Useful Useless Stuff We Know

A couple weeks ago a coworker of mine started to recite Dr. Seuss’s The Pale Green Pants to wrangle and quiet a group of unruly 4, 5, and 6 year olds. She told it all from memory and the kids were quite entranced and some of my other coworkers were in awe. But I knew. My first question when she finished was “Was that your son’s favorite?” She laughed and said “yeah”. The coworkers in awe don’t have children so they don’t know all the useless things that fill your brain as a parent. Useless unless of course you have to wrangle a bunch of unruly children, which fortunately worked like a charm.

Today I was reading to a little guy and though the book was missing a page, it didn’t phase me, I know it word for word and probably always will.

This book is the best! I make sure every little one I get gifts for has a copy of this book! Not only do I know it, but both my kids do by heart. It was the first thing Little Moo recited, before any nursery song even.

These are a few of the other random books that will always rattle around my brain.

 

 

 

How about you? Are there any books that you could recite from memory while half asleep rocking a two year old?

I Want to Be a Dad!

The other day Zippercow says to me “ It is too bad you can’t  be a Dad with a baby”. I of course look at him funny because I’m not sure where this story is leading but he continues on to explain that whenever he is alone at a store with the boys (or just Littlest Moo) people are SO nice to him. They open doors for him, talk nice to him and the children, offer to help him and sometimes people offer to let him go first in line. I have noticed this phenomenon as well and all I have to say is…

WTF!?!

If I am a couple feet away looking at something and Zippercow is with the kids at the cart or people can’t  see me they get all kinds of smiles and friendly head nods. Even Zippercow admits that people are not ever that nice to him in public if he does not have the children but you ad kids into the equation then you get lots of people being nice. The equation goes something like this

 Dad+child+toddler= He must be the nicest man ever and how sweet that he has the children so we MUST be extra nice and helpful!

Don’t get me wrong, I love that people treat my husband and children kindly when they go out, I mean look at them they are pretty darn adorable. My question is why do moms out with children not get the same in return????  I can recall multiple occasions when I had Little Moo, barely walking Niecey-Poo and infant Littlest Moo out and we struggled to get through doors with the big double stroller or worse they were not in the stroller which meant I had the carrier, toddler on one hip and Little Moo who still couldn’t get the door open trying to get through a door  and people would watch (it wasn’t that they didn’t notice, they watched like it was a sport! “That’s right Bill she had her opening and was about to score but she fumbled the baby  and dropped the toddler and it was all downhill from there, WHAT. A. SHAME” ) or instead of offering to help hold the door they would use the other set of doors or even worse, stand behind me and give a loud exasperated sigh because I was holding them up. Then while in the store if a child starts crying you get dirty looks as if you are the worst parent in the world. Guess what, sometimes you still have to buy groceries, even if the kids don’t want to. But when Zippercow does it he gets sympathetic looks and offers of assistance or stickers for the kids.  It isn’t I don’t encounter nice people, because there certainly are, but I have heard stories from Zippercow about how people fall all over themselves to be nice and helpful when he has the kids. Even he seems perplexed by it. I know there are plenty of Moms who experience the same things I do and some who do it with far more children but I’m curious what makes Dads so much different?

So now when Little Moo says he wants to be a daddy when he gets older I tell him, “Me too!”.

Modest Mom

I wish! Since I can remember I’ve always been fairly modest when it comes to clothing. Not neck to ankle garb but I prefer to cover things up. Even as a teenager ( to my mom’s disappointment I think) I cared little about being trendy and just preferred a cute t-shirt and jeans. Sadly I didn’t take advantage of a fit body as a teen and now that I REALLY want to cover it up I find it next to impossible. Little did I know that becoming a mom I’d have to let go of some of my modesty.

It starts those couple hours prior to giving birth I think. There comes a point were you don’t care who sees what, you just want that baby out! They put you in one of those stupid gowns that don’t fit anyone right and despite all the snaps there still seems to be stuff a hanging out. Then you move on to nursing.

Nursing was a nightmare for me. I tried so hard but it went so poorly that I pretty much just sat with no top on because I was having to try that frequently, so while I would usually be mortified there were people (my Dad included) who saw me topless, I didn’t care. I just wanted to feed my baby. In the end it didn’t work out for either of my boys so I quickly was able to return to my modest ways, or so I thought.

Now I have a little boy who at every opportunity pulls my shirt down. When I’m carrying him he finds it most useful to grab onto the front of my shirt like his life depends on it and pull down.  I don’t think a day goes by that I’m not flashing someone. Hi bus driver! Hi doctor! Hi neighbor! Hi stranger….you get the idea. It doesn’t matter if I have a tank top on underneath to keep from flashing people. I could be wearing a turtle neck and he’d still manage to stretch the neck that far down. Okay, as I’m re-reading this I should clear up that fortunately for me and most of the general public he doesn’t pull down my bra, just my shirt. I’m sure I’m not alone in this, but I don’t see other mom’s bras everyday. Or maybe I’m just too busy trying to cover mine up to see theirs.