HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS on the ROAD

I took the babies on a little road trip the other day and to keep them from squabbling I try to come up with games to play in the car with the older two. To make a long story short, I think I may have created a monster.

One of the games we play is to count the cell phone or microwave towers or road signs. I figure that this is a good way to begin teaching the older two about counting as well as their surroundings. Since it is so close to Halloween time I made an attempt to adapt our popular car counting game to cover Halloween decorations; pumpkins in particular.

The way we play it is that each time one of the kids spots a pumpkin of any kind they count it AND before they do they shout BINGO. On that particular trip I considered myself a virtual genius for coming up with this as it seemed to be so festive and entertaining they forgot about complaining about who was touching or leaning on them for a little while.

The problem is that between now and Thanksgiving we will not be able to ride through our neighborhood without having BINGO ringing in our ears. Is it just me or was this a bumper year for pumpkins?

HEY EVERYBODY! Please Can the Racial Slurs and Hate.

Mom still refuses to come down here and after I broached the subject of humidity being a lame excuse, she came forth with a few more details of why she doesn't want to visit "down here".

When I quizzed her, she said that she knew people who wouldn't even ride through some of the southern states to get to another location. Apparently they would rather go hundreds of miles out of their way rather than risk riding through the cradle of racial inequality. It's obvious that she's been convinced by somebody that the state song for all southern states is Dueling Banjos straight out of Deliverance and that all the citizens are snuff spitting backwards inbreds.

This is very insulting to me (as well as the area) as I've been telling her how much we enjoyed our time here and how many wonderful friends we have made. Has she been secretly harboring thoughts that our family was being joyfully recruited into one of the racial hate groups? Maybe she really doesn't feel like hopping on a plane and flying into Memphis and seeing the Home of the Blues up close and personal and doesn't want to tell me. That would certainly make a lot more sense than the garbage that she's spewing.

I have seen just as much racial bias in the northern reaches of this great land as I have in the southern areas. But, you know what? I have not seen much....PERIOD! People of all colors and races are hating crime and drugs and terrorism, etc. but very rarely each other! At least in the circles where I am.

On that subject, mom needs to get that racial bias can be all colors. I was floored when I watched Queen Latifah's movie Beauty Shop with Alicia Silverstone and Kevin Bacon. The racism coming from the characters of color was shocking and unpleasant. The whites in the movie were reduced to uncool social misfits or stereotypes and some of the racial slurs coming from the African Americans would NEVER have been tolerated coming from white people. In fact, most white people I know wouldn't lower themselves to that level. I love Queen, but EVERYBODY needs to can the hate!

LOOK MA NO WILDFIRES - THANK HEAVEN FOR HIGH HUMIDITY

We are down south right now and look to be here for awhile. For once we are southerners at the right time of year! I have mentioned to my mom that it would be nice if she came down and spent some time and we'd make it a point to do some sightseeing and travelling (that SHE loves to do) while she's here.

She got down right snarky about it and said no thank you, I doubt there's anything that I'd care to see down there. DOWN THERE???? Where does she think I am? In another country or in Hell? I have told her time and time again just how lovely the countryside and the people are here and she's completely ignored me. You know what she said this time along with other negative remarks? "It's so damp and HUMID down there" Again she's with the "down there" thing.

Well, I talked to my poor cousin in California today and she sent me pics of the wildfires raging within sight of her bedroom window! She said she would ADORE to come here but didn't feel she should leave her home. I told her she was welcome whenever she could come and told her the reason mom wasn't interested in taking me up on my invitation for the winter. She laughed and said that the entire state of California and many others would be thankful for more good old fashioned humidity. In her book, humidity is preferable to out of control fires any day of the week.

My feelings are hurt that mother uses humidity, which is only an issue in summer anyway, to not come. I plan to clear my mind by going to some of the charming towns that I've heard about while I'm in the area. I've been to Oxford many times, but may make another trip. You would be amazed at the movie stars, writers and famous musicians that are on that square at any given time. I've stood side by side with John Grisham at Square Books and chatted with the director/producer of some Cameron Diaz movie (Something About Mary?).

Hear that mom? Even famous people love it "down there".

A WAHM BRAINSTORM QUESTION

I'm always brainstorming for WAHM ideas and last night when talking to one of my friends who manages apartment complexes, an idea hit me. I suppose it's not really WAHM, as you have to leave the house to do the work but it's a business that would be easy to start with little if any at all start up cost.

My buddy, Marie, was fussing about how every time an occupant moved out of one of the units she had to go in and clean and repaint. The apartment complex has a painting crew but the cleaning has to be done before they show up to paint the walls.

I think that it would be an excellent home-based business to provide cleaning services for unoccupied or recently vacated apartments only.

The reason that I think a cleaning service for unoccupied apartments or homes would be preferable over occupied homes is that there probably would be no need for bonding or insurance. Right? I mean the reason those home and office cleanup crews have to have insurance is due to the risk of damaging a homeowners belongings so if there ARE NO furnishings in the space why would you need insurance?

I picked up a few houses to clean once and frankly it was a headache. One lady supplied pictures in each bedside drawer of how she wanted her pillows arranged on the bed and I had no problem with that, in fact it helped! But, there was just no way that she was going to pay a reasonable fee for how much time it all took. Maybe I tried to do things TOO well? I know that for awhile I had more houses lined up than I could do. I think it was because I was (a)Thorough (b)Too cheap

Which brings to mind, how much should one charge for occupied home cleaning vs. empty home cleaning services?


Anyway I would love to hear some thoughts on the apartment cleaning thing, since my friend would be happy to throw business my way if I ever wanted to jump in and start a business. DH wouldn't mind keeping the tribe at night for a few hours and it would be a super way to get some extra money for emergencies.

Meds for MRSA or the Plain Old Stomach Flu?

Well, we started on meds for the MRSA condition for the littlest one, the middle one started complaining of a headache and the oldest one said that she jammed her finger. Well actually what she said was that she was sure her pinky finger was "splintered".

Then about 10:30 last night the little one who was getting in a little sympathy co-sleeping time woke up throwing up. It was very strange in that I became aware that she was wiggling through the fog of my sleepy exhaustion, but assumed that she would settle back into sleep. To make a long story short, she did not. She began to vomit up what she had eaten for LUNCH ten hours earlier! I know this is gross and disgusting, but what would cause food (chickpeas to be exact) to just sit in her tummy, undigested for that long a period of time? Would it be caused by the antibiotics they are giving her?

MRSA - Did the Gym Staff Give My Baby a Staph Infection?

I should've called this baby and family blog "Just When You Think" cause just when I think things are going pretty well life blindsides me and proves me wrong. Life with a house full of children and a demanding husband can really get my goat sometimes but I keep telling myself it's the journey not the destination and try to find something to enjoy and treasure about each and every day.

TODAY I'M NOT GOING TO MAKE THE EFFORT!

Any mom worth her salt will understand the reason for my negative attitude; I just found out that my baby has MRSA and will have to take all these powerful antibiotics, etc. etc. to deal with it. I completely admit that I don't know all there is to know(or all that I SHOULD know, or all that I WILL know before the day is over) about staph infections of any kind. There was some chat recently at the gym where DH goes that some of the staff members had developed or come down with cases of MRSA. Does this mean that my DH brought it home to baby?

This baby has had a time of it from the day she was born! She has allergies that were completely misdiagnosed by the pediatrician as eczema that caused to be covered in hives for the better part of her first year. She's allergic to peanuts, eggs, dairy and all the usual culprits and I have to watch her like a hawk for fear she'll pick up something she's not supposed to. And then there's the asthma and now this!

Sweet Jesus! We'll make it, but forgive me my Friday afternoon pity party, ok?

Has anybody else dealt with MRSA? I would love to hear from you and how it's affected your life. I believe that forewarned can be forearmed and I really need the support! Thanks for reading. C

WHY IS MY BLOG LOADING SO SLOW? WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY BLOG?

For the record I'm loving the contact and comments from other moms in regards to child discipline versus child abuse etc. etc. I can still close my eyes and see that lady that I felt that I admired swinging around to hit her child in the back seat. Yes, it was that disturbing to me.

Okay let's move past that unpleasant event on to something else that's bugging me. My blog is acting crazy. My computer is relatively new and runs like a top so long as I don't type in the address to my very own baby blog! Yes, I'm having difficulties getting this blog that you are reading right now to load without locking up the whole system!

I have several ideas of what could be causing my blog to run so slow but I would appreciate some feedback from the rest of you who are more experienced in the world of blogging. I saw that one poster had had the same experience after she put some items in her sidebar. I have several items in my own sidebar, but how do I know which one is causing the problems? Plus, I really don't want to delete my blogrolls do I? I was about to install a "Do Follow" emblem but I'm afraid that it will cause a complete system failure!

I see lots of other mommy and baby and women empowerment blogs with many more widgets, links, advertisements and blog rolls than I have that same to load much faster than mine. Is this something that's commong with blogger templates? If anybody has any ideas, tips or tricks to fix this problem I would appreciate your help and suggestions.

Good Child Discipline or Child Abuse?

I'm always looking for ways to make the house run smoother. I pay close attention to the ways other parents seem to make this happen in their homes. I confess that sometimes I get really envious of moms with quiet, obediant kids when my babies are whining, sassy or just plain hard to control! I find myself wanting to ask total strangers their secrets of dealing with the strong-willed child and what forms of discipline they find to be successful. The only thing holding me back is that I'm afraid that the wild look in my eyes might frighten them!

I try to think of creative, kind and effective methods of mob control, but I'm telling you that there are days when nothing seems to work. On those occasions I feel like such a blooming failure at parenting. I love these children so much and I want them to be functioning members of society, but how do I do this if I can't get them to behave?

I typed all of that in order to rat another mom out, I'm sorry to say. Here's what happened and y'all tell me if I'm wrong to be a little disturbed.

Today as we were leaving homecoming at church I met a lady that I knew from one of the civic groups I belong to on the four lane that runs through this small town. This lady is one of the women that I consider to have an orderly well-behaved brood. This is a person to whom I would (before this incident) have paid a reasonable sum of money for a blueprint of her methods of making her kids behave.
Churches all over town were letting out and traffic was moving slowly in all lanes.

This lady was going north and I was travelling south. She was conversing with one of the kids strapped in a carseat while looking at him/her through the rearview mirror. I was waiting for her to turn her attention back to the road ahead so that I could raise may hand to wave in greeting (laying the groundwork to weasel my way into her graces to obtain her secrets) when she swung around and started whaling the tar out of the baby in the back seat's little legs with one arm while driving the mini-van with the other.
Not to mention that she was swerving on the road because she was so busy meting out punishment to the passengers!

Parenting is a tough job and there is SUCH a fine line between child discipline and child abuse! I'm trying to remember more about a video that was taken of one of those Travellers awhile back. It seems the mom might have had her child taken from her because of a home video that caught her standing in a parking lot whipping her little girl, if I recall correctly. Well, this was the moving traffic version of that kind of spanking and I wonder what might happen if somebody HAD taken a video.

I tell you my friends, this makes me feel MUCH better about my rambunctious bunch! I'm not judging this woman, but it's my opinion that I was NOT watching a productive form of child discipline. In fact, (here I go judging when I said I wouldn't) it seemed more like child abuse!

BABY DON'T GET NO GAS TODAY

Well, just when you think the week's gonna fly by with no real problems, hubby blows through the door asking what I'd charged on the credit card. I'm sure I looked kind of like a fish gasping for air for a minute, standing there with my bright yellow playtex gloves dripping from the dish water that I'd been happily swishing around in until I turned in shock.

Quickly making a mental credit history, I thought to ask him exactly WHICH credit card to which he was referring. He dug the offensive piece of plastic out of his wallet and began reading the numbers off of the front. After firing them off like a drill sergeant he stood there expecting an explanation. Like I memorize all of our credit card numbers? Peeling off the gloves, asked to take a look.

The numbers still were sharply raised on the cards so I knew that it had to be one of the newer credit cards in our inventory. Sure enough, it was the most recent credit card that we had received and I had reserved it specifically for expenditures related to advertising my blog on a few paid directories on the net. Last week I submitted this very blog to several of the less expensive directories. Don't ask me why he chose this particular card to gas up the car but here we were having an apparent standoff over the charges. Guiltily I explained to him that I had charged a little advertising for my blog. He then informed me that my "inexpensive advertising" had maxed out the credit limit to the point that the gas pump had kicked the card back.

I was in total shock because I knew the credit on the card was supposed to have a higher limit than what I had charged.
I got on the phone and called the company that had issued the card to find that they had put a lock on the account due to suspicious activity. The activity in question were charges coming from overseas. One in particular that really hacked me off were charges from Scotland to pay for what appeared to be a vacation in the UK!
The good thing is that even though I didn't pay for the pricey credit card insurance, they caught things before they got out of hand and are sending me a new card.

My question is, where did the thieves get my information? Could it be that some of the directories that I had paid passed my numbers around?

Baby Loves Potty Training her Baby Dolls ....Or Not?

Cass has always enjoyed playing with baby dolls. In fact all of the girls still enjoy playing mommy with their special dollies from time to time. I would have thought that the older girls would have made the transition from newborn infant baby dolls funky fashion dress-up dolls, but they still will engage with the little one in the occasional pretend diaper changing and bottlefeeding (Cass still pretends to breast-feed her babies by asking if baby wants ninny! Who on earth did she get that term from? It's my grandmother's word that I've tried to get past but Cass latched onto it with the vigor of the obsessed!

For practice and basic childcare they all prefer are the realistic looking baby dolls. Most of these baby dolls are so real looking back I'm having a hard time explaining to the little one that babies don't come from the toy aisle at Wal-Mart. I've tried to point out tummies of our pregnant friends for the purpose of telling her that the baby was inside. This approach didn't make much headway because on the way home she inquired as to why on earth Susie would swallow a baby doll after she bought it at Wal-Mart. Back to the drawing board!

This is not to say that soft infant dolls are the only victims of Cass's brutal attempts at baby care, for potty training she prefers her potty training Elmo doll. There are days when I feel that if I hear Elmo announcing one more time that he has to go to the potty I will snap. I think it gives me an anxious feeling when he says he has had an accident and didn't make it to the bathroom on time. I have enough stess in my day without worrying over Elmo soiling his diaper!

BREASTFEEDING and BUNKO

I don't know if moms in your area enjoy playing the dice game, Bunko, or not, but in my area it's written in red on most gal's calendar. There are more Bunko clubs around here than you can shake a stick at! It's the perfect opportunity (and excuse) for eight women to get together and see everybody's new home decorating project and eat somebody's cooking besides their own. Some clubs dress up and really put on the dog decking the tables and themselves out in fine style. Some serve cocktails and finger foods and say to "come as sloppy as you like". I want the best of both worlds and DH doesn't mind babysitting twice a month so I belong to one of each.

It's more or less understood that this is a mom's night out, but we do make exceptions for breastfeeding moms of newborns. Plus we love passing those sweet infants around right along with the dice used to play. We have NEVER had the first uncomfortable incident and laughed our tails off at all the uproar of breastfeeding in public, (With all the boobs in our faces for no good reason, where do they get off criticizing and censoring a mother feeding her baby?) but now we are having a problem with a breastfeeding mom. The issue is not that she is extending the unspoken breastfeeding acceptance within our club, it's that she is obsessed with breastfeeding to the point that when the dice are passed to her for her turn, she takes that opportunity to hog the dice and tell us about how many men (or people) that she has shocked that month by breastfeeding in public.

I'm afraid our club that's been together for several years is going to split over this! We are all pro-extended breastfeeding advocates, but this situation really has nothing to do with that. I feel it's an issue of selfishness and the need for one person to have the complete center stage!

More on this later. My timer just went off!

TAPING KIDS MOUTHS SHUT. IS THAT OK?

Did anybody else hear a news story about an afterschool program that allegedly (don't I sound all legal?) taped a child's mouth shut as some form of discipline? Was this as a personal sanity saver or what?
If I heard correctly, it was judged that taping a child's mouth shut is not a crime and the case was kicked out of court or some such nonsense.
My thoughts on this are that while it might not have been a crime for the daycare worker to do the taping, the tailkicking I gave HER for doing such a cruel and heartless thing to my child probably would be prosecutable to the full extent of the law.
What do y'all think about this mess? What would YOU do if a person left in charge of your children taped one of their mouths shut?

I suppose this hits close to home because I'm the mother of lots of little jabber jaws and while I've been pretty close to snapping and sticking cotton in MY ears at times, I would never do something like that to my own child or anyone else's!

Come on, tell me what you think about this!

JOINING THE DOFOLLOW BABY BLOG MOVEMENT

As a mommy blogger with very little time (like all moms), I don't like the idea that parents who read my baby blog and take the time to make comments don't get the benefit of their comments being credited by search engines. Therefore, I searched and found (I hope) the way to make my mishaps of family and parenting blog a blog with dofollow coments.

I can moderate my blog and keep the spammy junk out, but for the rest of you moms that want to chat, please enjoy the dofollow comments feature and type away!

If you have a dofollow blog whose subject has anything to do with babies, pregnancy, family life and parenting I would love to hear from you!

PICTURES are WORTH...WELL YOU KNOW

For those of you who read my blog entry and asked how the trip to the zoo went in spite of the troubles jamming the stroller in the car and dealing with the clicking and clacking along with the complaints of the kids in regard to the stroller I thank you for your sympathy and questions.

One sweet sewing mom from the great State of Texas asked whether or not the trip to the zoo was enjoyed in spite of the stroller fiasco and others wanted to know if I had to wag the middle sister on my hip all day.

Well, a picture is worth a thousand words as they say and here we are with my middle one on my hip with the stroller behind the photographer. One baby on the hoof, one on the hip and another in a baby carrier.

PRACTICE FOR LATER

For the moms like myself that don't have much time to watch the early morning shows or search youtube for goodies, here's the Mom's William Tell Overture seems perfect training for when baby gets just a little older. This lady shoots all the directives in the span of a few minutes that moms of school age children parcel out during the course of any given day.

I don't have to deal with Ipods or problems with the little ones texting at the dinner table yet. My little ones are not old enough to know much more than cellphones are the way we call Mawmaw to tell her something wonderful we saw at the park or the zoo. But, the rest of the stuff like eat what's on your plate, don't sit too close, etc. etc. all ring true.

I will have to listen to the video again when I have a little more time to focus to see if there are other lyrics of her Mom's take on the William Tell Overture that apply to me and the average day in the life of the mom of many.

I noticed on the program where the mom was interviewed that her children were in their early to late teens. This gave me pause as I wondered whether I would still be telling the kids to comb their hair and don't be late when they get that age!
I wonder if there are ways to teach and discipline while they are young that will get that out of their system before they get to high school! I certainly hope so, big kids are so much harder to intimidate!

So, what do we do to avoid having to commit ourselves to a constant stream of orders until the kids leave home to go to college? Suggestions?

DON'T FORGET THE STROLLER

Against all odds we managed to make a zoo trip yesterday. It was the last day of that some of the exhibits were open and I was determined to make the trip. It was Cass' first time to stroll through and Lyndi and Allyson had not seen the exhibits that I mentioned.

The umbrella stroller was at Mamaw's house (of course) so we had to jam the BOB into the hatch. The danger in this was that even in the collapsed state, it was impossible to keep some of the frame from being lodged against the glass of the door. The prospect of hauling one and possibly two solidly built little girls through the zoo was not appealing, busted door glass or no. The BOB had to fit one way or the other. I wound up dumping some of the other contents in the middle of the carport (they're still there) and engaging in plenty of pushing and twisting to get it wedged in place, but ultimately I was able to slam the door shut without hearing anything crack.

Things started off well enough, but 30 miles into the journey there began to be signs of stress from the three sisters in the back seat. The complaints ranged from the usual "She's hogging the seat" to "Her finger is too close to me". Her FINGER?

Then the biggest one started to complain that the oversized stroller was pushing her seat into an uncomfortable position. I explained to her that there was no easy fix for this and she would just have to make do. Then the middle one started to say her head was beginning to hurt and she was sure it was from the stroller tapping and scraping against the hatch door every time I hit a bump.

Finally, we arrive at our destination! I wrestled the stroller to the ground and loaded the underseat storage area with everything but the kitchen sink. I went around the vehicle to unbuckle the littlest one and place her in the stroller (which operates like a dream, it's just big or my hatch is too small)raving about all the cool stuff she was about to see and then.....

she starts to scream that she doesn't WANT TO RIDE IN THE "CROLLER" she wants mommy to carry her!

And wouldn't you know, I had left the aspirin at home.