Mistakes in Motherhood

Matthew says to me today “We don’t want Sophie anymore, she’s TOO crabby!!” He’s smiling the entire time, it’s a joke of course, but man oh man is it true. Lately she has been a great big ball-o-fuss.

I blame the two teeth that have just poked through, but another theory is that they have awards similar to the Academy Awards, and Sophia was trying her darnedest to get a nomination.

The way I figure it, the perfect fit has several key elements. Let me break it down:

• The Face: Must be red, crimson, or maroon.
• The Eyes: Tears or no tears… eyes must either be closed tight, or have a distant, far off crazy look.
• The Arms: The best fits include dramatic arm action, flailing, pounding, or waving will suffice.
• The Hands: Must be balled into fists.
• Vocalization: This element is most important, the best fits include many different vocalizations, from yelling, screaming, growling, crying, howling, gasping, and breath holding…aka the buildup.
• Other Dramatic Effects: These vary greatly and can include throwing the body backwards, rolling, kicking, stomping, running, climbing, writhing, etc and all are dependent on the age and maturity of the child and severity of the tantrum.

On the fit throwing table, the fit Sophie just threw wold have been an 8/10 (for an infant of course). She had crying, wailing, breath holding, arm flailing, crawling up all over me, etc. I hated to break the news to her that she was about 3 kids too late for much sympathy. By the 4th child, their little tantrums are almost comical. Of course they still get the same amount of comfort and love as the earlier children, but inside you are thinking “Aww, she is trying so hard, and I am trying even harder not to burst out into fits of giggles”.

I found that when I first was a parent, fits were sad, scary, and frustrating because I felt so helpless. As I got more hours of experience under my belt, I removed the blame and guilt and they become a part of parenthood; at one point you start to admire their effort, tuning it out.

Thankfully after some Orajel and infant Tylenol, Sophie decided she was more tired that she thought and is now laying down for a nap. Matthew also fell asleep… he’s laying next to me on the couch snoring away. The older two kids are at friends’ houses. The silence is both deafening and exhilarating. I think I will grab myself a fresh made-from-scratch brownie, another cup of coffee, and watch my Netflix movie. Could it be a more perfect afternoon??

1 Comment | In: A lot about nothing, This is how I roll | tags: Add new tag, Family, Humor, Parenting, Sophia. | #

I just ran upstairs to grab my Kindle and found a very naked Matthew sleeping in my bed. After walking him to the potty I put him back into his bed where his radio was playing softly on some AM talk radio station. I asked him if he wanted his radio on or off and he asked me to find him a music channel. First I put it to a classic rock station and he turned his nose up at that. Next I passed by a modern hits station and he said he did not like that song right now. Next was a station that was either playing Christian or Country music, I could not tell…. I asked him if it was OK, and he replied “That is my breakfast song!” Not sure if that was a yes or a no, but I let him keep his breakfast song.

No Comments | In: People, Places & Things | tags: Humor, Matthew, Silliness. | #

I just have a moment to enjoy my last sips of coffee & write this down before I forget before the little miss is tired of eating Kix in the kitchen.

This morning I was making my rounds, emptying the dirty clothes hampers in the bedrooms into a basket to take them to the basement to sort and wash, when I smelled pee in Matthew’s bedroom. He was hot on my heels, curious about what I was doing so I asked him if he had an accident in his bed. He told me he did have a “water dream” as he calls it and did pee in his bed. I told him that it was okay and all that jazz while I stripped his sheets. I finished getting the rest of his bedding and dirty clothes and moved onto my room where I started stripping my own bed.

Matthew lit up and got a huge smile on his face and asked me “Mommy? Did you have a water dream too??” I told him that no, I just needed to wash my sheets because it had been a while since I washed them and he puts his hand on my cheek and said “It’s all right if you had a water dream, no one will be mad if you went potty in your bed, accidents happen”; then he leaned forward and hugged me and patted my back. I was laughing too hard to convince him that I did NOT pee in my bed, but what does it really matter if he believes me anyways?

2 Comments | In: People, Places & Things | tags: Domestic Diva, Humor, Matthew, Me, Silliness. | #

Matthew has suddenly become extremely picky. Monday night he would not touch the manacotti I made for dinner. Tuesday he would not touch the chili I made. Today I made tuna fish sandwiches for lunch and he turned his nose up at them, claiming he did not like tuna. He wanted a peanut butter sandwich, but I am not a short order cook so I told him he could eat the tuna fish or he could go without. He kept insisting it was peanut butter day, not tuna day. During the peak of his fit, he suddenly start paying attention to the news which is on in the background in the other room and they are doing a story about the salmonella outbreak in Nut King peanut butter and then exclaims “SEE! The TV said today is peanut butter day, not tuna day!!”

Rolling my eyes I explained that the news story was about peanut butter containing salmonella making people sick. With much disdain he starts moaning “my tuna fish….. it’s making me sick…. it has SALMONELLA in it!!”, it took every fiber of my being to keep from busting a gut right then and there.

Tonight was leftover night for dinner, Matthew decided he wanted the rest of the tuna fish for dinner and was ready to fight his brothers for it. Austin decided that chili without listening to his brother throw a fit sounded tastier than the tuna sandwich he had just finished making for himself and gingerly handed it over when Matthew asked.

No Comments | In: People, Places & Things | tags: Family, Humor, Insanity, Lame-o, Matthew, Silliness. | #

After Sophie’s appointment with the Dermatologist (he gave her an all clear), we drove up to Denver for our mini-vacation at the aquarium. It was amazing!! There was a tour guide there, an elderly gentleman, who was very sweet and helpful, you could tell he loved his job.

There was a snapping turtle that was gigantic, he was super cool and graceful:

They also had a “flash flood” area with reptiles and a display on what would happen if there was a flash flood (click on thumbnails for a larger view):

In the shark tank, the tour guide said it was the sea turtles that were the agressive ones, not the sharks, not the puffer, not the saw fish.

We also saw a large assortment of corals, and sea horses in the tropical area:

We also got to pet the rays, surprisingly they were super soft.

But my favorite exhibit was the tigers, yes, tigers at an aquarium.


One of these guys was so close he was fogging up the glass, another guy jumped off of a rock to get a toy and was nose to nose with Bobby and I, literally just a couple inches of glass stood between our faces touching, it was incredible!

For lunch we ate at the restaurant surrounded by a tank that was probably 20 feet tall and spanned the entire length of the restaurant.

We ended up exhausted and decided to head home early, skipping a second destination, so it was time to drive home.

Christopher was the only one who did not fall asleep on the drive home… Matthew eventually fell asleep, that is after a 30 minute cry-fest when he realized we were not taking him to the dentist. He cried again when we pulled into our driveway and not the parking lot of his dentist. Silly boy!!

2 Comments | In: People, Places & Things | tags: Austin, Bobby, Christopher, Family, Fur Babies/Pets, Humor, Matthew, Me, Photography, Sophia. | #

Tomorrow we are going to the Aquarium up in Denver as a Christmas gift from my mom (she sent us cash to spend, we decided a mini-vacation would be how to spend it). But because of the weather we decided to ditch our plans of hitting the zoo in addition to the aquarium and were looking for a secondary place to visit.

We have already gone to the museum of science & nature, a cool robot zoo was closed on Mondays, the children’s museum is too juvenile for the pre-teens, and about the only thing left was a theme restaurant with cliff diving & shootouts, or a bug museum. Matthew was still up so we were bouncing ideas off of him to see what HE wanted to do, this is how the conversation went down.

Me: “Hey Matthew, tomorrow we are going to see the fish at that aquarium!”
Matthew: “Oh no, the fish will BITE me!!”
Me (laughing): “No they won’t… how about we go to the zoo??”
Matthew: “Nooo mommy, the birds will bite me!”
Me: “Ok Matthew, how about the butterfly house?”
Matthew (wide eyed): “MOMMY! The butterfly will bite me!!”
Me (laughing harder): “Ok then son, where do you want to go. What do you want to do that’s fun??”
Matthew: “I know! We can go to the dentist!!”

It took Bobby and I a moment to compose ourselves.. he is such a goofball.

1 Comment | In: People, Places & Things | tags: Humor, Matthew, Vacations. | #

Sorry for the lack of posting, I have my hands full with my fourth now being mobile and getting the most out of hubby’s last two weeks here in town. I do have a lot of mini updates though I wanted to share with you all.

On the 22nd I took Sophie to Children’s Hospital in Aurora to meet with one of the best pediatric rheumotologists in the state, he was amazing and super sweet. He told me that Sophie is healing well from her reaction to my antibodies and she should outgrow her neonatal lupus really soon. He did tell me new studies suggest that she is at a higher risk of having Lupus sometime in her lifetime (10% chance) and that will become a 20% chance if I am diagnosed with Lupus myself.

Last week, Matthew reminded us that Bobby and I are setting a bad example in our play talk. He was wanting some cereal and Bobby was finishing up something and I was busy with the baby and so it took him a couple minutes to get Matthew is cereal. When Bobby got into the kitchen, Matthew responded “thanks for getting your ass up to get me some cereal” in the sweetest and most chipper tone. We had him repeat it because we thought we must have misheard. Once it was clear he was using trucker talk (and apparently mommy & daddy talk) we told him that was a naughty word and not to use it again. We then proceeded to bust a gut as soon as he was in bed for the night.

Christmas went well, the kids not only did not seem to notice the scaled back amount of gifts, the also did not care and seemed to enjoy their gifts even more this year than normal!! Cash Christmas all the way from here on out!! We got some lovely family gifts that will allow us to have a great “staycation” when we go visit a nearby aquarium and zoo in a neighboring city as a family. It will also afford us a membership to the local zoo. We also get to go pick out a new game for the family and my sister made us an incredible photo album from my visit up north this summer. I have a very thoughtful family!!

Bobby’s passport came without incident even though we did not expedite it. I give them props, they were SUPER fast! Now all that is left is an updated drivers license, and some legal paperwork.

Sophie got her first babydoll today (well, technically yesterday), it’s a darling little plus baby in a pea pod. She ADORES it. She also got to ride in the cart at the grocery store sitting all by herself and balanced very well. She loves to babble and her favorite sound right now is “da-da”. It melts our hearts.

We had our annual New Year’s gluttony feast too this year. Apparently my children think “get any kind of junk food you want, this is the one day of the year you can eat junk food” translates into getting a fruit salad platter and a cheese tray. Don’t get me wrong, they did get fried chicken, and doughnuts, but overall I was very impressed with their choices when allowed to have “anything in the store”. I am just glad this is once a year, my poor grocery budget for the next two weeks almost DOUBLED! YIKES! Junk food is expensive!

No Comments | In: People, Places & Things | tags: Family, Finances, Health, Holidays, Humor, Insanity, Matthew, Parenting, Ramblings, Silliness, Sophia, Updates, Vacations. | #

Last night, Bobby was upstairs reading Matthew his bedtime story and he farted, he promptly exclaimed “That was a mouse!!”

Matthew looked at him and laughed and said “Daddy, you got a mouse in your butt!!”

Kids say the funniest things.

No Comments | In: People, Places & Things | tags: Bobby, Humor, Matthew. | #

Today, before I took Bobby to the airport for his interview tomorrow, we had to stop by his work to get his phone chargers and print out some driving maps from the airport to the hotel, etc. We had finished at his office and were getting ready to go to the car, when Bobby had to run back in to get his maps that he forgot. Three year old Matthew looks up at me and says “what did daddy lose mommy??” and I told him “he lost his marbles”. Matthew thinks a second and says “where are his marbles mommy?” and I said “they are in my purse, Matthew said “oh, ok” and that was the end of that.

So we are walking towards the van when Bobby spots a co-worker he wants to show off Sophie to, and she is talking to Matthew and admiring his boots and Matthew says to her “you know what?? My mommy keeps my daddy’s marbles in her purse!” All three of us were laughing so hard and Matthew totally did not get what he had said, but none the less was super proud of making us laugh. She also agreed that her husband’s marbles were also in her purse.

1 Comment | In: A lot about nothing | tags: A lot about nothing, Humor, Matthew. | #

This is a true ad that I found the other day while surfing the net, I have removed the information identifying the product or website, but I just had to share this screen-shot with you guys.

Wow, what an amazing product where your “before” can be that an overweight black woman, and your after can be an overweight white woman… LOL Were they in such a rush they did not proof the pic to make sure they were not using two before pictures before using a lookalike to claim to be an “after” of the first person??

Normally, this is how they look, with the before image looking nothing like the after.

Oh wow, it really must work!

Quick PSA recap…. if you are going to try to sell us bull, at least pay attention to your ad before you pay someone to advertise it!

No Comments | In: Uncategorized | tags: Humor, Lame-o, Public Service Announcements. | #