Carpet Gets a Haircut

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Sometimes trying to be a cool mom doesn't always pay off. Today I tried to be a cool mom. Maddie is into pink, princess, pink, lace, pink, ribbons, pink and other girly things like pink. I was cleaning up the clutter on my vanity when I ran across some pink fingernail polish. I knew she'd love to have her toenails painted, so I offered to do it for her. She was sitting on the rocking chair watching a show on tv and I figured it was the perfect time because she wouldn't be too wiggly. I sat on the footrest and painted her nails. Then she wanted mine to be a "match match" to her. I started painting my toenails, but she started kicking her wiggly (and wet paint) feet around. I lifted my weight from the rocking stool and tried to scoot it backward away so she didn't ruin the fabric with her wet toes getting paint on the footrest. I stumbled slightly in my effort to move the foot stool. I lost my grip on the OPEN bottle of bright pink fingernail polish and it tumbled to the floor. I had no idea what to do. I was in serious trouble. I should NEVER have painted over carpet. Ugh!!! I didn't want to smear the color and make it worse. I didn't want to spray it down with cleaner to make it all a diluted pink all over. I quickly grabbed the laptop and googled "fingernail polish spill" and found a site that said to go ahead and get it up ASAP. Don't ever let it dry or it would be set. It recommended hairspray to help remove it too. I grabbed all my supplies at lightening speed and got to work, constantly spraying it to keep it moist so nothing would be set in pink permanently.

For the size of mess I had, it was a reasonable success. The bottled had sprayed out a double line almost 4 feet long and at the base where the bottle had landed it was all over. I got the majority up with rags, water and hair spray. When I had to finally admit defeat for the remainder of the pink in our blue carpet, I was sad to see the line was still detectable. Then I commenced the hair cut. I spent over an hour with fingernail cutting scissors, lifting each individual fiber of carpet, cutting out the pink blobs that were left. I figure after the hour I spent working, I was nearing halfway of the carpet haircut project, but was out of time for the day. I hadn't exactly planned on spending two hours of my time painting nails, scrubbing carpet and giving a haircut. Now I have to find some time to finish up the other half. The worst part of the whole thing was that I figured if I just didn't bother Maddie and let her keep watching her show it was my best bet to keep things clean. When I ran downstairs for the laptop, she got off the chair and trampled through my pink mess. She made a few extra footprints for me to clean. I grabbed her and tossed her on the bed without thinking. We have a tiny bit of pink on the bedspread now. I've also found spots of pink on my shirt, the bathroom counter, the bathroom rugs and the soap dispenser. Cross contamination is a bummer.

Lesson learned: Only paint fingernails in the bathroom over tile.

April Fools Day 2009

We've never done much with the whole April Fools Day tradition, but Ben is getting old enough to appreciate and enjoy things like that. This year I saw a fun idea to make a fake dinner in Family Fun magazine (see picture above) and knew it would be the perfect way to introduce the holiday to Ben. I took him shopping with me to buy the supplies (sugar wafers and air head candy). We enjoyed our special date to Wal-mart to do secret stuff together.

The afternoon of April Fools Day I got Maddie and Jacob napping and we got to work "cooking" Brian's special dinner. Ben even wanted to name our house "Ben's Restaurant" so I decided we should go all out. Ben made a menu. He drew pictures of everything we were serving, which included fish sticks, ketchup, green peas and punch. Then he wrote the names of all the stuff on the menu. It took a long time and he was really proud.

Here is the finished meal (minus the apple jelly with red food coloring "ketchup"). We had fish sticks made of creme filled wafers coated in peanut butter and rolled in bread crumbs, green peas which were rolled up Air Heads candy and strawberry punch made of water and red food coloring. Ben thought it was hilarious that Brian would be so confused when he got home.

To help make the restaurant extra nice, I got out our nice red table cloth, some placemats and linen napkins. Ben wrapped the silverware like they do at real restaurants (or at least his best approximation of it). When Brian finally came home Ben was beaming as he acted like a greeter would at a real restaurant. He showed Brian to his table and motioned with open hand to have any seat he would like. Brian was smiling as he played along with our game.

Ben gave Brian his menu and Brian selected his dinner, but not before Ben had arrived with his plate full of food. He used a cardboard box as a server tray and covered the meal with an extra placemat so Brian couldn't see the dinner until he "chose" what he wanted from the menu. Then he uncovered it like a magician revealing a grand surprise from under a silk. It didn't take long before Ben was covering his mouth and laughing while Brian tasted something, then went wild telling Brian what everything was really made of. It was great fun.

To end our night off properly, I had real fish sticks for dinner. I love to see Ben proud of something he has put time and effort into. He loves "Joke Day" and is already planning what he will do to me next year.

My sister made a fantastic dinner for her family. I think I'll do it for mine next year. She made cupcakes for dinner. They were meatloaf covered with mashed potatoes colored with food coloring. Their drink was pre-poured into their cups, but turned out to be jello instead of punch. I'm already excited!

Bribe #2 of 3

Ben got two of four cavities filled yesterday. It was an experience he won't soon forget I'm sure. Maybe Brian will blog about how the actual procedure went. I just know that Ben said he didn't like it at all. Luckily he could keep the prize in mind. We flat out bribed him to behave at his dentist appointment for his regular cleaning with the McDonalds across the street from the dentist office with a playland. We offered the same deal this time, but at the Burger King right next door. It was tons cooler too.

They had a regular old BK. Then there was this lonely, echo-y staircase leading up to another floor of the restaurant. It was totally awesome. There was a seperate play place up there with tubes and slides and such to play in. The eating area was totally like a trendy coffee shop in a metro area. They had couches galore, flat screen tv mounted to the wall, comfortable chairs, drink refill machine and bathrooms all in addition to the play place. Since it was 10 am on a Wednesday, we had the place almost to ourselves. It was like a private play place that a parent could enjoy too!!

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

Jacob has rolled over three times already. He'll be laying on his back and curl his body up because he's excited, then wiggle quickly and it flips him right onto his stomach. Sort of surprises him every time and makes me laugh when he finally gets that last bit of the roll and flops over.

I never check the development charts with my kids. I figure I'll notice if they are having trouble. Jacob turns 4 months on Sunday and I guess I didn't remember them rolling this early. Oh well. Maybe they do and he's right on target. Maybe they don't and he's ahead. Maybe it was a fluke and he won't be able to do it again for another month or two. One thing I know is that it won't make a bit of difference on his college entrance exams. It all evens out over time.

By the way...that shirt Jacob is in at the top of this post is yet another one from Ben at 9 months. (see below) heeheeheehee

Society Begins to Meddle with My Family

The other day Brian and I planned out our summer to ensure we would do some fun things this year. Last year was a total wash. We didn't do much of anything at all other than a trip home for a wedding. We didn't camp, picnic, go downtown to see the sight or go to the beach. That precipitated our last minute trip to Hershey, PA two weeks before Jacob was born because we felt guilty for neglecting our kiddos and not taking time to enjoy life and nurture family relationships. So, we wrote out all the cool stuff we want to do, made reservations for camping, bought tickets to the circus and to go up the Washington Monument (something Ben has been asking about for over a year) and wrote in all the free Home Depot Kid Class days, etc, etc. With all the planning I realized we will, for the first time, be enslaved to the public school calendar. Yuck. We've never had to care what everyone else was doing or had any fancy schedule or ruling power to be subject too. We came and went and always did what we wanted, when we wanted. No drop off or pick up time every single day, no school buses or book reports and homework. Finally, I resigned myself to the inevitable, printed out the school calendar and wrote it up on our family calendar. It was all color coded and Ben was mesmorized. He would touch the printed school calendar with such tenderness. It was magical to him. He is so excited. I am only just beginning to see ho society is bbeginnig to meddle in my business. Yucko.

Cherry Blossoms

It’s cherry blossom time again. The season when Washington DC turns into a gorgeous spring wonderland with white and soft pink blossoms envelop every inch of the trees. Walking the Tidal Basin just off of the Mall is a particular treat. The Japanese gave the trees to the US as a gift and they are stunning to behold. Seems to me that we always choose particularly cold days to go down and see them. One year it was miserable beyond description. We knew it would be cold and dressed for it. Maddie was about six months old, so she sat in the back of the double stroller in her carseat, snug as a bug in a rug. She napped the whole time. Ben was bundled up in two pairs of pants, a sweatshirt and a coat with gloves and a winter hat. Still, it was cold and the wind was nasty. We walked the entire circle that year and he was in a terrible mood. Not only was he really cold, he was incredibly tired and irritable. He cried as he was strapped down in the buckle of the stroller. At one point, I took my freezing cold fingers out of my gloves to snap a few pictures and fell behind Brian and the stroller a few paces. When I started walking again, I overheard a couple walking past me say, “Those parents are terrible. I can’t believe they would take their kid out in this weather and freeze him like that.” Of course, they had no idea I heard or that I was that poor abused kid’s mother.

This year, the weather was windy, as it always is on the Tidal Basin, but pleasant temperatures. That made the day so much more enjoyable. We picked Brian up from work and drove to the Metro station to take the train in to town. Even if the kids were stinkers about getting good pictures, we really enjoyed the time playing there. We made the wise choice to only walk half way around that way, we all stayed happy. The kids were cute playing on the walk and despite their best efforts to look rotten in every picture, we still got a few cute ones. One of Ben’s favorite things was to see on the Tidal Basin was about 50 of those green port-a-johns in a row for all the cherry blossom festival goers. What can you say? You take a kid to enjoy the blossoms and all of God’s beautiful creations and he only cares about the toilets. Oh yeah, as always, they both LOVED riding the metro train in.

Spacial Relations Specialist

I know parents are bias. My kid will always be the nicest, kindest, funniest, cutest child in the world. You know, just like yours is. Honestly though, I'm not sure why, but it had never occurred to me that Maddie might be smart until about a month ago. Not sure why. I guess I just never thought of it. When I finally noticed she was learning stuff, I mentioned it to Brian with amazement. I could tell by his response I was a little slow. In our "Church Bag" of quiet books and toys we take to church with us for the first hour of services where we're together as a family, we have some puzzles. They happen to be much more difficult than I originally thought when I bought them. Ben and I have trouble putting them together sometimes. During the service, Maddie put them together mostly on her own. If I showed her the general region the piece might go, she would quickly place it without any trouble. I was dumbfounded. She seems to have a real aptitude for spacial things. Move over Aunt Kristie. We have a new Spacial Relations Specialist in the family.