Sugar Detox is Just as Fun as it Sounds!

The week before Christmas I was doing great at eating healthy and avoiding all sugar and processed carbs. And then my husband brought home a goody basket from his employees filled with homemade candies and cookies. The white fudge proved to be more than I could withstand, and I at it. I tried to get my husband to fire the one who made it on principle because nothing before that had tempted me enough to consume, but he won't. Something about protocol for termination doesn't include giving yummy treats. Whatever. Since then, I have been on a steady diet of fudge, divinity, and cookies with an occasional slice of pie-a-la-real whip cream. My bloodstream couldn't possible have room for any nutrients in it at this point, and it's clearly time to detoxify my system before I become an unstoppable sugar fiend. I could live with being addicted to the sweet stuff if my clothes would also fit in the meantime, but there is definitely a cause and effect relationship between the amount of fudge I eat and the size of my butt. Not exactly rocket science, but it's a fact that's easy to deny until it smacks you in the too tight jeans. And so today begins my renewed commitment to eating right and working out so at the end of January I can wear my new formal gown without worrying about it fitting too snug. For you that means my blog during the next month may be littered with irritated rants as I fight the urge to ingest bad carbs and scream at the people who live closest to me. (Pray for them!)

My mom used to tell me it's never ok to give someone a living thing as a gift unless the giver lives with recipient and is willing to accept full responsibility. I think that is the best Christmas advice I have ever heard!

 I grew up in a virtual menagerie. (That would be a collection of animals for anyone who flunked SAT vocab and thought that word meant something naughty) At any given time, our family's back yard was filled with exotic pheasants, rheas (they're like ostriches), rabbits, chinchillas, tortoises, an opossum named Pansy, and sometimes, even a cat or dog. What I learned from that time in my life is that animals stink, they're noisy, and they're expensive.
Once in high school, my dad brought my grandmother and I a pair of finches. (tiny birds that don't do anything entertaining) She liked looking at them, but I was in charge of caring for them. It's important to  note that he didn't live with us and broke the cardinal rule of gift giving. I didn't have the heart to tell my dad that I didn't want anything to do with the little birds. That was my first mistake! Eventually I forgot to feed and water them, and did you know that finches can only go about a day without eating? You can test this if you want. I killed a bird. My father who loves me and didn't want the lone finch to be sad brought me a new one to replace the one that "mysteriously" died. They had an egg, made a family, and one by one, they all suffered the same fate. I forgot to feed them! I have to confess though that I blamed second hand cigarette smoke on their deaths, and this is the first time I am openly admitting my role in their demise.
Skip ahead a decade and a half(ish). My 7 year old bought a betta fish with his own money a while back, but wouldn't you know it, I am the primary care giver of said fish. My husband wouldn't allow the fish to live in the kid's room, which was good for the fish. On the other hand, it's on the window sill in my kitchen where I see the dirty water and attend to it, and our child has learned nothing about fish maintenance.
That's what happened two days ago when I almost committed another act of petocide (not on the SAT b/c I made it up, but I bet you know what it means). I was going to pour some of the gross fish water down the drain and refresh the bowl, but I poured the fish out with the water. Right into the disposal. Having just poured out the water, I had to pause and refill the container before my rescue mission could commence. Thankfully, I was able to gently fish him out and get him back in the bowl alive. The poor little guy was not looking good for a while, and I was sure he wouldn't make it, but I am pleased to report that he is just fine today.

Let this serve as a cautionary tale to anyone considering buying their kid a pet for Christmas. What are you willing to commit to the pet because it will be all yours! How often do you think you'll remember to feed it? Reptiles can go much longer without eating in case you're wondering.

Please Santa, Bring Super Glue

I'm borrowing most of this from an article I wrote for something else last week, but since it's mine, I guess I am allowed. After all, it's relevant to the season, and as I am just about to super glue this pitiful victim back together, I need to vent, or re-vent about the pitfalls of decorating with kids.

As I’m writing this, my husband and I have just come in from putting up our lights. This job always takes twice as long as we think it’s going to and leaves us frustrated as strands randomly flicker off or don’t fit where they’re supposed to go. And somehow there are never enough stakes to fasten lights around the perimeter of the grass, and we have to go buy more. Every year!

Tonight while we were intensely driving wire stakes into the rock hard ground and carefully removing busted bulbs from their sockets (swearing under my breath when I trip and squash yet another bulb), a silver Christmas ball bounced off the porch and rolled down the sidewalk. It had fallen off the wreath on the door after the children had opened it and shut it for about the 90^th time to see if we were done yet. At least it bounced instead of shattered.

We have a designated spot that we call the “ornament hospital” where I keep super glue handy for repairs. I’m pretty sure we have more ornaments on our tree that have been glued back together than ones that have yet to need glue. It's gotten so bad that next year I think we may wrap the whole tree in bubble wrap. Wait, then all I'll hear for weeks in popping. Never mind.

We even have a wise man that had to have his hand reattached after an unfortunate incident where the nativity set was tossed out of the attic. Don’t ask, we don’t like to talk about it.

It’s not so bad to have to a house full of repaired Christmas decorations though as long as I refrain from gluing my fingers together in the process. Sadly though, I seem to do it every time. Besides, House Beautiful is unlikely to come photograph my holiday décor. If they did though, the saggy gingerbread house would be a must see. It was the messiest thing to make, and I will still be sweeping up sprinkles in a month, but my kids are so proud of their little house. It doesn’t matter to them one bit that the roof slid halfway off, the door is crooked, and they got more icing on the table than on the house. They loved making it, and the memories they will have of fun Christmas traditions will mean so much more to them as they grow up than having a perfectly decorated home. Who cares if a Lego man has to stand in for our missing Baby Jesus? This reminds me, I still need retrieve a shepherd from above the cabinets where he was launched last year.

Confession time: I'm currently using the back of my child's latest art project from school as my grocery list. Shhh!

Everyone in this house has a conniption when I throw away any drawing, coloring page, or graded paper. To them, it's a sign that I hated whatever prized page I discarded. To me, it's an act of love to keep us off that show Hoarders. After all, we have three children. By the time they all graduate high school, they will have been in school a combined minimum of 7,560 days. Provided they only bring home one paper a day for me to save, that would be a LOT of papers. Can you imagine the refrigerators I would need to display all that mess? But the truth is, they each come in from school every day with a huge stack of papers and no less than two art projects. If I saved everything, mathematically speaking, we would be buried alive and miss the youngest kid's graduation in 14 years. And so it's with love that I save a select few masterpieces, recycle the projects I can (hence the grocery list), and sneak the other 45 into the garbage.

Are you not supposed to wash your cell phone?

If smart phones are so smart, then why don't they hold their breath under water? I had a Samsung flip phone not so long ago that survived an entire washing machine cycle in the pocket of my jeans, and after a day of drying out, it worked great. I was torn between being bummed because I was kind of hoping for a new phone and being relieved because if I killed the lesser phone, then I would never be able to convince my husband to invest in something more expensive for me to destroy.

But I'm thinking if that phone could manage the washer, then the iphone ought to be able to withstand a quick dip in the pool while its owner fishes out a child who has fallen in. True story that happened to a friend. Glad he chose the kid over the phone! And in case the hubby reads this, no, I didn't immerse my phone. Had a close call with the bath tub last night, but it was just sprinkled. Does that mean it's a Methodist?

There has to be something phone manufacturers could do to protect their product better from water. After all, you can buy all sorts of shock-absorbing covers to protect it from falls, a fact I'm relieved to note. I've had a few split second moments in between the feeling of my phone slipping out of my grasp and the sound of it hitting the tile where in my mind I see shattered pieces of my hot pink and black iphone exploding everywhere only to open my eyes and find it undamaged and in one piece. Today, it fell out of my bag, and I didn't know it until I heard the crash and saw three pieces on the ground. Breath, Honey. One was the unbroken phone, and the other two were the halves of the cover.

I think it's all a conspiracy. The companies who make the covers are making a killing. So are the phone manufacturers because as they make flimsy, water-fearing phones, people must replace them frequently. cha-ching! Then to protect their replacements, owners buy better, more expensive covers. It's a win-win for them.

Moral of the story: if you listen to your ipod in the bath, and if you leave it on the side, TAKE OUT EAR BUDS BEFORE STANDING UP.

Please Don't Call Me Narrow-Minded and Intolerant

I have been reading about the trend of young women morphing from liberal-minded voters into conservatives as they become mothers. It's as if the media believes we moms have lost all ability to be open-minded and tolerant as we sink into a closed world of diapers and laundry. This is ludicrous, and I would argue that as moms, we women become obnoxiously tolerant of things for which the rest of society has no tolerance at all.

Take Barney and The Wiggles for example. They could drive a grown man to suicide, and I don't see why they didn't just make terrorists in Guantanamo Bay watch The Wiggles for about 5 days straight and play the "I love you" song from Barney all night long. They'd be ready to talk in no time. Perhaps this method was deemed too cruel by the Geneva Convention, and I can understand that. Yet, you park an irritable 2 year old in front of either of those shows, and he will sit still and become an angel for the 20 minutes it's on. Magic! What mom couldn't learn to tolerate something so detestable in the name of 20 minutes of peace.

Another example would be screaming children in general. I have friends who will quickly hang up the phone if they hear my kids yelling in the background. I also have a few well-meaning individuals in my life who have commented that I should discipline my kids better so they aren't so loud. How intolerant and prejudice can you get? I mean, kids are loud, and us mothers have become open-minded enough to accept that fact and not judge another mother when her children are banging on pots and provoking the dog to bark while she's on phone with us. We've all been there.

I'm not even going to grace the topics of religious and political tolerance with my high horse today, but I defend the position that us moms are the most tolerant people on the planet. And on that note, I'm going to clean up yet another potty puddle. See, who besides a mother would tolerate the same kid peeing and puking in her house more than once?

My two year old is having his first sleepover at Grannie's house tonight, and I am so thrilled! The dog hasn't figured out where the baby is, and when we came in from eating outside earlier, she whimpered a little and kept looking inside the tent we had played in. I assume she thinks we left him outside, although he had gone with Grannie before that.

Gran may be less than thrilled and the one whimpering in the morning though. #3 just emerged from a phase of waking up at 5:30 every morning. Not only would he wake up before the sun, but he felt obligated to wake up the other children and both parents as well. It got old very quickly, and I have to say, I am relieved to have had a couple of weeks in a row of peaceful slumber until a more reasonable hour. For Gran's sake, I hope the streak continues, but he'll be in a strange bed without siblings for the first time, so he may not sleep well.

When we are away from home, we put him in bed with a brother or sister, mainly because no adult wants to sleep near him. He's the cuddliest baby when he's awake, but in his sleep, he flops around like a fish out of water. We had to put toddler rails back on his bed after removing the crib rail because he kept falling out of bed. I'm sure it's normal, but after #2 who hardly moves in her sleep at all and #1 who prefers still to wedge himself firmly against the closest warm body (which inevitably leaves me with a solid 4 inches of space in which to get comfortable when he ends up in my bed), the erratic tossing of the third child is exhausting.

I'm sure though that tonight while he's not here to keep me up or get me up too soon, he will sleep like an angel. That's about how it goes.