Let's Teach Together: The ABCs

Ok parents. We all know how hard it is to try and teach our kids everything we want to because of well, life! You have more than one kid or your house is dirty or you need to go to the gym or you work full time...lots of not valid, but real excuses! Maybe you have the best intentions, but you get overwhelmed with trying to teach your child ALL the letters or ALL the colors at once.

This is what I do at home and I thought you may all like to join me as we are just starting over!

I do a letter a week. I go in alphabetical order and then start over. I have these super cute Nerdy Baby ABC Flashcards for Very Young Scientists that I use along with your standard magnet alphabet letters. You can by nice ones like Melissa & Doug Magnetic Wooden Alphabet or the cheap ones from your local Dollar Store (just don't let your younger children play with the cheap ones because they have exposed tiny magnets in the back that can pop out and be a chocking hazard).

This is how you do it. Monday morning you show your child/ren the flashcard and letter of the week. Tell them the letter and have them repeat. Say a few nouns that start with the letter (think airplane instead of amazing...much easier for young children to understand nouns, parents). Put it on the fridge and continue your life. Every morning point out and say the letter. Every time you see that letter (ok, maybe not every time) throughout the week on a sign you are walking by or in a book you read, point it out.

Next week, go onto the next letter and so on.

No child is too young for this. You read to your newborn, may as well engage them more by pointing out some letters...plus it might keep the new, first time mom from going as insane! If your child is older, consider adding a vocabulary word or a multiplication family (think 2 x 1, 2 x 2, 2 x 3 etc).

Teaching your child in this non forceful, no stress manner will give your child the knowledge they need to succeed and the confidence they need to thrive without the pressure to preform. It is the least we can do for our children.

My Morning: Too much shopping

So today, like any other stay at home mom, I had to take the kids with me to run a few errands (so makes me miss my lunch breaks at work).

First stop Sam's Club, a warehouse membership store in my area. Kids did great. Well, Boo did great and Bubbi tried to stand up in the cart a few times...nothing too bad.

Next stop BabiesRUs. We tore the place up. I let them check out every isle of toys and cleaned up after them (though I must brag that they mostly put the toys back where they belonged when they were done...however most still leaves 49 out of 100 toys for mommy to pick up). Again, a little hectic but nothing too bad. Worst thing was probably Boo begging for stuff, something he just now started to do. Yuck.

Onto get new shoes. Why? Well, Boo lost ONE shoe to the brand new $30 ones I just bought him. So I bought cheap $5 ones...that TIE with LACES! STUPID! Now he can't do them by himself and he thinks its awesome to knot them. Bubbi like to completely unlace them every chance she gets.

So 2 weeks of having one pair of shoes that fits with laces, time to buy some new shoes.

Back to the store. The lady whips out the shoes sizer and Boo says "sissy first". Bubbi does like its, well, as painless as getting your damn foot sized. Boo? He runs away screaming and f-ing hides! Find him and try to get him to physically place his foot on the apparently flaming, man eating metal foot sizer while, you guessed it, Bubbi runs and hides. WTF?

Not even close to getting an acurate messurment for Boo, I drop him (oops, literally) and run to chase Bubbi down. I'm no joke that screaming mom in public that should never have had kids. I promise frozen yogurt to any child that sits in the stroller and behaves. So now everyone is in the stupid stroller.

I grab some flipping Crocs, try them on his feet and check out. Bubbi wiggles free and is again running a muck while I ditch my wallet and Boo to go chase her down, yes, again.

We leave. Thank god.

At this point I would have literally had to beat and bend the crap out of Bubbi to get her back in the seat so I let her walk holding my hand to the car. Almost there she pulls a fast one and runs to the curb to balance walk on it! AGAIN! AWESOME MOM!

Grab her shove the kids and the shoes in the car, warning Bubbi that if she has one more bad behavior she will not get her treat. As Boo tries to slide past her to get into his seat she dead locks him between her shoes and the chair. He's flipping out, but not screaming yet because she has the wind knocked out of him!

BUBBI! NO NO! NO TREAT!

She lets go and they both cry in unison. Yes, I am getting dirty looks from the old people who just parked next to me.

We drive through McDonald's to get Boo's "frozen yogurt" (really a fruit and yogurt parfait). Bubbi cries when she sees I really didn't get her one. I cry too because I feel so bad, but know she needs to start taking me seriously.

So I look back and this is what I see...

AHHH! What a mess! The really stupid part? I gave this to the kids just a few days ago in the car and they did the same thing! Why would I be so stupid as to do it twice, I don't know. I don't know.

And of course, here is Bubbi with her sad face sans her treat...

Recipe: Super healthy tukery pasta

In case you're a little dense or this is your first visit to my blog, I am not an awesome fifties housewife that cooks from scratch and keeps a perfect house. So recipes will be far and few between on here...and probably will consist of compiling several ready made ingredients! There's my disclosure.

Most young kids need a good high fat, high calorie meal here and there. By high fat, I mean high monounsaturated fats...not saturated animal fats from meat, butter and dairy. That is why I buy the leanest meat I can then add fat and calories with good fats such as olive oil and avacados.

Here is my super healthy turkey pasta! I make a large batch of the sauce and freeze it in two or three large portions so we can have it once a week without a huge hoopla and mess.

Ingredients:
~One package of super lean ground turkey
~Lots of olive oil
~One standard sized bag of frozen veggie mix
~One jar of your favorite pasta sauce (that you hopefully bought on sale and stocked up on)
~Barilla Plus Rotini Pasta (I get this kind because it has extra protein & omega-3s plus is multigrain...and rotini picks up lots of the sauce which is what you really want the kids to eat in this recipe)
~Ground flaxseed (I buy Spectrum Naturals - Essential Flaxseed Ground Organic, 14 oz granules)


1. Start cooking your ground pasta in a huge pan with LOTS of olive oil (you bought the extra lean to avoid the bad animal fat, now you must add the good monounsaturated fats to keep this a nice healthy but high calorie meal for the kiddos)...lots to me is around 1/4 cup or more.

2. Start your water boiling for your pasta.

3. Defrost your whole bag of frozen veggies (I usually put them in a colander and run hot water over them) and then throw them in a blender (or your food processor if your husband recently broker your blender...grrr).

4. Add a little bit of your fave jarred pasta sauce and turn that sucker on. Keep adding the sauce until you now have blended the whole jar of pasta sauce and the entire bag of vegetables into an unrecognizable reddish orange mix.

5. Add a few tablespoons of ground flaxseed and blend more (this does add a bit of texture to the sauce...if you  have super picky eaters, consider buying flaxseed oil to add instead).

6. I hope you have been stirring your turkey...stir the turkey!

7. Once the turkey is FULLY COOKED (I cook the crap out of any ground meat...so nasty...ground meat goes through a variety of machines etc to get ground which gives it extra chances to get exposed to botulism etc...SO COOK THE CRAP OUT OF IT PLEASE!) add all of your blended sauce and simmer until your pasta is cooked.

8. I hope you remembered to add some pasta to your boiling water! If not, do so now...then wait the extra 7 minutes you could have saved by doing it a few steps ago. Don't go sit on your ass, clean your kitchen or something.

9. Serve and enjoy!

Take the extra (there should be a lot unless you have a large family) and freeze it. Consider making a double batch next time as this recipe freezes very well...all you need to do is toss a frozen container of it in the fridge the morning you plan to serve it and heat it up, serve over freshly boiled pasta.

Beware adult eaters! This is calorie (and nutrient) dense...not something you, as an adult, want to chow on regularly unless your one of those people everyone loves to hate that can't keep weight on. Give yourself a small portion with a large salad or something. Great for kids though!! Much better option than unhealthy treats or even whole milk or cheeses (anything high fat from animal products is not a great fat) if your child is underweight or on the lower end of the charts like mine tend to be.

Diary of neurotic mom: Alcoholism, please

Let me quickly start that I would like to call this section "Diary of a neurotic mommy", but Boo, Mr. J Cool himself, calls me mom more than mommy...so mom it is. Another note, I am neurotic. If you know me well, you will have thought "no shit". Thanks for the love.

Wikipedia defines Neurosis as a class of functional mental disorders involving distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations, whereby behavior is not outside socially acceptable norms. OMG I really am neurotic?!? Hard for me to believe most moms aren't to a certain extent, but that's just my opinion.

Ok, to the post.

Ever since I was pregnant with Bubbi, my second, I often found myself having to consciously choose to not be an alcoholic. Of course it wasn't an option when I was pregnant, but I did think several times a week, "thank god I'm pregnant because this would be the ideal time to become an alcoholic".

Now that my body is mine, the option to become an alcoholic is continually appealing. Especially after last night! Boo, my long-time champion sleeper, has been waking up at night and keeping me up for an hour plus (long story not meant for this post...this one is about the mommies dammit).

Wake up this morning at 8 am after being awake from 2:15 am to about 4:30 am. Grumpy and feel what I can only describe as hungover (no, I took no meds or drank no booze in the last 24 hours). First thought? Oh how wonderful it would be to pop a xanax and chase it down with a fish-bowl sized glass of red wine!

Now there would have been a time when I kept this desire (that's all it is...a desire that will never be acted upon because, well, I enjoy having custody of my kids...usually) to myself. However, a friend posted a jest on Facebook yesterday referring to stay-at-home moms taking valium. The responses were hilarious ranging from calling valium "mother's-little-helper" to stating "I'm on the wine train" and "choo choo"!

My point? If you wake up and find yourself ashamed that you want to start the day with a hardcore sedative and/or a bottle of tequila, don't! Not saying you should act on it...at least not every day.

Great Tips and Tricks: What baby book?

If you're anything like me, your kid's baby book isn't much more than a messy stack of doctor reports and a baby shower invitation. Or maybe your second child (or third...) is the one with the POS for a remembrance (poor Bubbi).

Think those special dates and memories are lost forever in a mind that fails you in remembering to pack a a few extra diapers? Well, they are in your poor excuse for a brain, but they aren't in cyber space! Go back over your emails and Facebook posts and you will find TONS of fabulous info regarding lots of milestones and funnies your precious little one/s made over the years! An added bonus will be some cute candids you uploaded as well...

Here are a few memories from my personal Facebook history:



3/5/2011
 "always know I'm driving a little too wild when bubbi throws her hands up and shouts weeeeeeeee"

2/7/2011
"omg sooo sweet! mason is singing "hello to mommy...I love u" over and over again to the tune of the music together opening song! too bad he's supposed to be napping"

Poor Boo!

3/11/2011

Where's Bubbi?

2/24/2011

Play Lipstick!

2/9/2011

Two Peas in a Pod

2/14/2011

Lolipop Monster

2/15/2011 

Just Call CPS: Bubbi in the airport

I forget who I am sometimes and like to play supermom. So, being supemom and all, I flew alone with both kids to Arizona to visit with my parents and grandma last November.

No, you read that correctly, I FLEW ALONE WITH AN 18 MONTH OLD AND A 2.5 YEAR OLD. I'm stupid, you can say it because it is so true.

Going there was tough, but we made it ok. I got lots of laughs as I trolleyed the kids through the airports on their ride-on suitcases attached to each other like a train. Boo has Trunki - Terrance Blue and Bubbi has Trunki - Trixie Pink.

Yes, they both fell off several times. The best fall was when we were getting off the moving sidewalk at the Skyharbor airport. Bubbi, being closest to me, made it off fine. Kinda just kept going on my way instead of waiting to be sure Boo made it off well...oops. Mom brain. Well, he somersaulted head first off the end of the dam thing. I died laughing of course. He cried for a second and laughed too.

That was that as far as drama on the trip there.
We get there basically no problem.

Ok, so now time to go home. Because I had my supermom hat on (don't worry, I don't really have one let alone wear one...if you do, well, I won't judge...publicly) of course I booked the flight for the perfect am return between breakfast and nap.

Getting through the airport to the terminal was a bit rough. They fell off a few times and everyone was tired from 5 days away from their own bed. We paid three times more than we should have for some pizza and sat ourselves and the Trunki's down at a kiddy table. Bubbi booted to a boarding flight so I quickly weighed my odds and ditched the crap to go grab her. Boo followed because he's like that (oh hell no you aren't leaving me here alone...I know this could take awhile).

I start walking back to said kiddy table with one kid's hand in each of mine. Bubbi decided it would be comedic to drop her feet out and slow our short journey back to our stuff. As a reflex, I squeeze her hand and pull upward to try and prevent her from dropping to the floor.

A pop. A scream....more screams and cries from Bubbi. Ugg. That must have not felt very well and/or she's being her snooty self and mad she can't drop to the floor and crawl away back to the boarding area. 

A minute passes and she's still crying. My kids are rockstars and get over even the worst owie in a few seconds. Something isn't right. OMG didn't something make a pop sound when she dropped to her feet? OMG I BROKER HER ARM! OR HER HAND! She isn't moving her entire left arm, fingers etc at all and she's still screaming.

Ok, gather our crap and waddle over to the nearest person who is working here. They walk me over to the customer service counter. They call 911. The paramedics show up and can't do much but suggest we go to the nearest hospital in an ambulance. But my flight leaves in 5 minutes! CAN'T YOU JUST FIX HER! And yes, we were almost going to board when the poop hit the fan...

I try to call my husband, but he can't hear anything over Bubbi's screams. They put me on the stretcher holding hysterical Bubbi and plant my superhero Boo, who is just being amazing well behaved, between my legs. Then they wheel me through a small portition of the airport and right down the TARMAC (yes, the "road" the airplains cruise on)! Mortified, but Boo was loving his upclose and personal airport tour.

We get to the closest emergency room that happens to be a children's hospital. The doctor touched her arm to examine it, she screamed, he said, "there". Her elbow had been dislocated. Thank god no brakes. 

OMG I dislocated her elbow?! 

Turns out the common name is nursemaid's elbow or arm. Its fairly common until children reach about age 5 when their bones are fully developed.

Even though it was a totall accident (I wasn't even mad or being rough when it happened), I swore CPS (Child Protective Services) was going to come question me. When I spoke to our pediatrician, he just laughed at me and reassured me its common. I'm still waiting.


The aftermath:

My mom picked us up from the hospital and we spent a few extra hours with her and my dad. She brought us back to the airport and recieved a special pass to actually walk the kids and I to the plane gate until we boarded (think standard process pre 9-11).

The flight had a stop so it was twice as long as our other flight. The kids didn't nap. It was hell. They were devils. They rubbed lolipops on the man next to us while I cried. The man was in a suit. We lived.

In hindsight, this was a blessing in disguise. My daddy died two weeks later. I cherish the extra time we spent with him while we waited for our later flight.

Plus I was kindly reminded I'm not supermom.