How did Stella get her groove back?

I really do have lots to say, you know. Being home with three kids gives me a ton of material. For instance, I met a woman a birthday party recently who's five year old son has never thrown up. Never! I found this little tid bit fascinating. She's never been woken up in the middle of the night to change pukey sheets, or had her kid make it to the toilet, but not in time to lift the lid. Can you imagine? What's her life like?

There was also the conversation I had with my daughter's friend about how us "old ladies wear your pants so high. It's gross." Hello! It's called your waist. The last thing this town needs is more over weight soccer moms bearing a muffin top for the world to see. Freakin kids.

And T-Ball! Did I mention I sorta made my husband the coach? Eh, all he does is lay in bed on Saturday mornings anyway. And on the ball field, I thought I met a great group of parents with two year olds for my little one to play with. All hopes for playdates may be dashed, as my sweet baby girl ran up to the other babies and used a nice deeeeeep monster voice to proclaim "MY daddy MY ball MY Tee I PLAY!" Don't scurry to your cars too fast moms, you forgot your kids' mits!

Oh, there's lots more. Like Jasmine just turned twelve last week, Lila is losing teeth faster than Augustus Gloop in the chocolate factory, and potty training Violet has been - interesting. And it seems that every time I start writing deeper into any given subject, reality comes crashing down with, well a crash. Or an overturned cereal bowl. And when I settle back down to finish, I just can't get my groove back.

So one of these days I'll be able to finish a thought, flesh out an idea, or sound out a proclamation. I hope. Those kids have gotta sleep sometime, right?

Music to my ears..

"I wad YOU you wad ME! Gray big HUG!"

There's been quite a bit of joyful noise around the house lately. For no other reason than the fact that baby girl has discovered she can sing. It's really rather cute. So cute, in fact, that I can forgive that she prefers to sing the Barney anthem most of the time. Caillou's theme song is also a big hit around here too, and Elmo makes an occasional appearance.

The really interesting songs come when she thinks no one is listening. That's when she makes them up herself. Armed with her little piano, she'll find a quiet place to sit so she can play and sing. Not too long ago I was in the kitchen making dinner when Violet wandered in and plopped herself on the floor with the piano she got for christmas. Completely oblivious of me, she began to play a song and sing.

"AhhhOOOO! OOOOoooo. To to to to to! OOOOOO!"

I crept over to the phone and called my mom. "Hey, listen to this." I whispered and held the phone out.

"AAAHHHooooo OOOOaaaahh OOOOO!"

"What is that? Are you playing a whale song tape?" My mom asked.

Nature sounds and kid show theme songs are not the only things on her repetiore. She can riff off her family too. Just the other day, alone in the Sponge Bob fort, I heard her playing the piano and singing a sweet little gem:

"Lila too, We We too, Mommy too, Daddy too..."

Ahh..baby. So sweet you are. Almost makes me forget the upside down bowl of cereal on the living room rug and purple crayon on the wall. Almost. Play it again, kiddo. I'll get the cleaning supplies.

Candy cigarette anyone?

Things have changed since I was a kid. I remember one of my favorite candies when I was a kid was the candy cigarette. Remember? There was the gum kind that was wrapped in paper and if you blew really hard a little puff of "smoke" would come out. The other kind were little candy sticks that had red ends to make the cigarette look lit. Both came in a realistic cigarette box. I thought they were so cool. Can you imagine buying a treat like that for your kids now? You'd be shunned from the playground in no time.

School work has changed too, you know. Parents are way more involved with kids projects than they used to be. When I was in school, if I had a paper due it was all up to me. I wrote it, I dragged out the old typewriter and typed it (it was electric, I'm not that old!). If there was any kind of diaorama or poster required, my mom passed me the glue and walked away.

These days, parents spend just as much time in threnches as the kids, sometimes more. A friend recently told me that her husband spent five hours with an erector set for her eight year old's "machine" project. My own sister typed (and possible wrote) every paper for her now grown son. I bring this all up because I have joined the ranks as well. I spent my evening typing and editing my daughter's health paper last night. And after she went to bed, I watched Law & Order and colored in the poster of "Tuberculor Bob" - an informative and entertaining visual on the disease that ravaged the 1920's. I probably wouldn't have done so much work, but darling daughter mentioned at 7:30pm that her report was due today. She thought she had more time, got confused when it was due, told me and I forgot- pick your excuse. At first, I told her tough luck. She didn't budget her time and was going to have to suffer the consequences. We didn't even have any poster board! I soon calmed down and sent her to her room with her notes to write the report. While she was doing that, I quickly scared up some facts from the internet on Tuberculosis to add to the report. I wasn't going to let her take the F grade. She deserved it, but I couldn't let her show up unprepared. Jasmine works hard for her grades, but she can be very forgetful. I need to remind her of due dates constantly so she can stay on schedule. This is my child. When she moves out in her own, her electric and cable will probably be shut off more than once. Not for lack of money, but simply because she forgot to mail the check. I know she's only twelve, but she's the kind of kid that has to learn everything the hard way. She's always been like that.

So hubby ran to Walmart for poster board and drew her a lovely Tuberculor Bob. Jazz filled in the facts on the poster and wrote her notes for the oral presentation, and I typed and edited the paper, and colored in Bob. It was a group effort to get our kid the best grade possible. But there are consequences for not being prepared for project worth a test grade - Dad just happens to be chaperoning the dance in a couple of weeks. And if that wasn't already punishment enough, he's going to make a special song request "to my darling daughter Jasmine, from her Daddy". She chose that idea. Her other option was having the last dance of the evening with her dad. She'd rather be brutally murdered by a grizzly bear than have that happen, so song dedication it is. Boy, now that I think of it, disipline has changed a lot over the years too.