I really do feed them, despite what they may say ...

Conversation between myself and Diva a few minutes ago ...

Diva: "Momma, what are you doing?"

Me: "Cleaning the table."

Diva: "So we can eat?"

Me: "Yes, so we can eat."

Diva: "Today or tomorrow?"

Ulterior motives

Ok, I admit it. Sometimes I buy toys that have potential to work to my advantage. When I was doing our shopping today, I found something I had been trying to find for a while. Diva loves to try to copy me and use our broom and our mop. The problem lies in the fact that they are twice her size and the top of the handle swings dangerously around as I hold my breath and hope she doesn't break anything before I can get over to her and take it out of her hand. Today I found a child size broom and dustpan set AND a sponge mop at WalMart. The best part was that each one was less than $3! The girls love their new toys for now - we'll see what they think when I have them sweep and mop the kitchen floor tomorrow. :-)

Those two are so funny anytime they get something new, though. I also bought them new toothbrushes today. We've all been sick throughout this week (thus the neglected blog) so I bought replacement toothbrushes today. (I have heard that you should always use a new toothbrush after being sick so you aren't putting the germs back in your mouth once you are better). They were so mad at me when I told them to hand over their toothbrushes while they were getting ready for bed tonight. That didn't last long, though. Their eyes lit up like it was Christmas when they saw the new ones. They grabbed them and ran into the bathroom to use them for the first time. If only it could always be this easy to make them happy . . .

Mission Impossible ...

to keep two little girls quiet while Daddy tries to sleep. Daddy is on nights this week because of a special project. He started this shift overnight last night. He was able to get less than an hour of sleep this morning before he had to head out for a day of jury duty. That lasted until after 6 pm, and exhausted doesn't even begin to describe how he felt when he got home. He ate dinner and crashed, leaving it up to me to entertain the girls and keep them quiet for the hour between dinner and their bedtime. Oh, did I mention that I'm getting sick, Bubba has been fussy all day, Imp was sick this weekend and Diva woke up from her nap not feeling well at all.

I am SOOOO glad that I bought an art easel with the last of Diva's birthday money when we were in WalMart on Saturday. This thing is absolutely wonderful! One side is a chalkboard and one side is a dry erase board. I just put each girl in one of Daddy's undershirts and let them have at it. Diva shocked me tonight by actually intentionally writing a letter "A" without any help! They quite happily colored with the dry erase markers, chalks and chalk paints until bedtime. They were having so much fun that the real challenge ended up being getting them to bed with a minimal level of screaming on their part. Now I appear to be the only conscious one left in the house, and my level of consciousness leaves a lot to be desired. Once Bubba gets his last bottle, I have a date with my pillow.

Worn out!

Saturday has become our normal shopping day. Shopping always seems to take a lot out of me, so I was expecting to be tired, but we really packed it in today. It started with our neighbor's yard sale. They started at the unthinkable hour of 6 am, so after Bubba had his morning bottle, I took him next door with me just to see what was there. They had some good deals and I had some cash in the house, so I went home and got the girls up. I got them dressed, handed each of them a pop tart and their water bottles and we headed over to shop. Apparently in their world, it meant that they would stand there and play with the toys that were for sale while Momma held their pop tarts and water. They eventually did each settle on a "new" toy to bring home. Imp got a new doll (she is obsessed with dolls right now) and Diva got a puzzle. I also got them each a generic MagnaDoodle knock off and a castle Duplo set and my real steal of the day was that I got Bubba's next car seat for $4!!!!

After that, the girls and I got our things together and went for our real shopping trip. We made a few extra stops today. I finally decided that it's time to really start to work on making our household and grocery budget stretch as far as it possibly can. First, we went to the farmer's market and picked up some fruit and vegetables. After that, we explored the Dollar Tree store here in town just so I could see what all they had available there. They actually had a few things worth picking up, so I got those while we were there. By that time, it was noon, so we stopped for lunch. We still hadn't hit either of our regular stores at that point. We finally got home close to 3 pm and all of us were totally exhausted. The girls went straight down for nice long naps and I really wished I could have joined them today!

She's a Slob

Tonight when we were playing outside, Diva asked me to lift her up so she could hang from a low tree branch. When she was hanging we had a conversation that went something like this...

Diva: Look, Momma! I'm a slob!

Me: You mean a sloth?

Diva: Yes! I'm a slob!

At least she admits it . . .

Multi-tasking

It's always nice when something can serve more than one purpose, especially when it makes housework a little bit easier. I stumbled upon this idea earlier this week while trying to make it easier for Imp to clean herself up after meals. I figured it was easier to give her the capability to do it herself than to deal with her screaming at me when I would try to do it for her. I recently had picked up a few of those Rubbermaid "shoebox" containers at WalMart. I got the bright idea yesterday afternoon to squirt a little bit of dishsoap in it and fill it with warm water. Imp LOVED it, but of course got water everywhere. I had actually kind of planned on that since the floor needed to be mopped anyway. (By the way, did you know that sponge mops fit into those containers quite nicely? I had always disliked mopping the floors with a sponge mop b/c those things just don't fit into any bucket I've ever tried with them. I'm seriously considering stashing one of those containers just for that purpose.)

Today both girls played in the water for a little while after their naps and had a wonderful time. Although, Diva seemed to think the goal was to splash as much water OUT of the container as possible. At one point she even asked for more water! Once they started getting too hyper and were at the point where they could get hurt from being careless, I just handed each a bath towel. Presto! The kitchen floor got cleaned two days in a row!

Discoveries

It's easy to forget that things that we take for granted may be something new and exciting to a child. Today I swiped a piece of bubblegum from Daddy's desk. I was absentmindedly blowing bubbles when suddenly Diva and Imp were in front of me, totally enthralled by the bubbles I was blowing. Each time a bubble popped, they both shrieked in delight. Diva would yell "Do it again, Momma do it again!" and Imp, who isn't really talking yet, would yell what sounded like "Blow! Now! Now! Blow!" They had me laughing so much at them that it was hard to blow the bubbles for them. Who knew that a simple piece of bubblegum could provide so much entertainment!

Preschool Politics

I'm beginning to think that Diva has inherited some of Daddy's interest in politics. I already mentioned her thinking she saw Barack Obama on my computer. This past weekend she saw a campaign commercial that began with pictures of Obama. She immediately stopped playing and exclaimed, "Barack Obama!" As the commercial went on, it turned out to be a McCain commercial. When they began showing his picture, she commented, "Oh, John McCain". I relayed this story to Daddy on the way home from church on Sunday. He teasingly asked her who she was going to vote for. She thought for a minute and said "John McCain!". Lest you think she will grow up a staunch republican, when her uncle asked her the same question later in the day, she proudly answered "Barack Obama!

Be careful what you wish for!

Did I seem displeased with yesterday being a normal, ordinary day? I wish today had started out that way. Instead, we woke to Bubba crying for his morning bottle. Daddy, wishing for a few more minutes of sleep before having to get up and start the day, gently nudged me until I could no longer ignore him or the crying and had to get up. After getting Bubba fed, I handed him off to Daddy and opened the door of the girls' room so that they could come eat some breakfast.

That's when I began to wish for uneventful and boring. Diva had apparently thought it was too much bother to tell us that she had to use the bathroom. She is potty trained and she knows that, although she cannot open her bedroom door from the inside, she CAN call to us to let us know that she needs to use the bathroom and we will oblige her request. When she came out of her room, she was still dripping . . . and that wasn't the worst of it. I won't disgust you with the nasty details, but she ended up getting hosed down in the shower.

After getting through that little bit of morning drama, it was approximately 8:15. Diva is in her underwear, just starting in on her poptart (I know, not the healthiest of breakfasts, but when time is of the essence, you do what you have to do), Imp has finished her poptart and is doing her best to be in the middle of whatever action she can find, Bubba is fed and burped, but not happy about having to wait in his bouncy seat. I have not had my shower yet and Daddy has not started to get dressed yet. Did I mention that church starts at 9? Thankfully, our church is not far from our home. Somehow we managed to get everyone out the door and walked into church just as the service was starting. I noticed as we were headed to the car that I had forgotten to brush Imp's hair, but at that point, it didn't really seem to matter.

Meet the clan

Today was just an ordinary Saturday - hyper children, too much time on the computer, not enough time on the housework. Because today was so ordinary and nothing particularly humorous or blogworthy jumped out at me today, I figured this is as good a time as any to introduce our crazy little family.

I will be known simply as Momma on this blog. I know, not the most creative bloggy name, but oh well. You all will just have to deal. :-) My husband's bloggy name will be on the same creative level - he will be known as Daddy in this little blog world of mine. The children's names have a slightly higher level of creativity. The oldest, our 3 yr old, will be known as Diva because, well, she thinks she is one. She actually went up to Daddy a few weeks ago and a little too proudly announced "I'm a drama queen!" after having donned a stray Burger King crown that had been lying around the living room. Our middle child will be known as Imp. This child has the frustrating and annoying capability to get her pout "just so" when being scolded, thereby making it extremely difficult to keep a straight face at times. The littlest one will be Bubba. For some reason, that's what I find myself calling him, and since it's not exactly easy to peg the personality of a seven week old, we'll just stick with Bubba. We may revisit his bloggy name at some point in the future if his personality warrants it.

I could introduce the cats as well, but I'll save that intro for another "ordinary" day.

My personal theory on evolution

Evolution cannot be true. If it were, mothers would be very different. We would have more arms and hands. Don't believe me? Then you try feeding a baby, chatting online with a friend on the other side of the country and taking the lid off of a toddler's cup so she can go fill it up from the tub faucet all at the same time! Don't even get me started on the extra pairs of eyes that we need . . .

Introduction

This is my leap of faith into the world of bloggers. I have been enjoying reading a few blogs for a while and things are always happening around here that I feel the need to just share with someone. Since I am a SAHM to three kids, ages 3, 21 months and 7 weeks (yes, I know I'm certifiable), I don't get much "grown up" time to share those things. I still need to come up with clever names for the children, but as soon as I have time to think that clearly I'll introduce the rest of the family.

Have you ever noticed how kids pick up on things that you had no idea they even paid any attention to? This afternoon my 3 yr old came up to me as I sat at my computer and said "Barack Obama is on your computer!" First of all, he wasn't, but there were a couple of politician pictures on the side because I was checking the Cal-Fire website to see if they had bothered to update the info on the fire close to us right now. Second, how the heck does a 3 yr old know who Barack Obama even is? Maybe it's because his wife was on Rachael Ray this morning, maybe I've been watching the news too much. I don't know. But it sure was fun teaching her to say Governor Schwarzenegger. :-)