Consequated

School starts tomorrow, so today I made one last trip down to Grandma's house while I still had time for the 2.5 hour drive. We sat down to watch Dr. Phil together in the afternoon. I choked a little bit when Dr. Phil used the word (?) "consequated". As in "the girl needs to be consequated for her actions."

What bothers me, I think, is not that he's making up words. It is that he is making up words so he won't have to use other, perfectly good words. Words like "punished" or "disciplined". Really, are those such ugly words? Crime and punishment is a fact in adult life. Why are we so scared to use those with regard to children? If we don't teach them crime and punishment as children, they'll have a rude awakening when they become adults. That's my soapbox for today. Thank you.

Summer's over...time to start watching things

Well, summer is over folks. That's it. That's all you get. It has been an AWESOME summer. My friend Estelle says I overuse that word, but I don't care. It was AWESOME. Of course, I'll be paying for the awesomeness for some time to come.

This summer I've been bundling up large amounts of cash, say $200 a week, and lighting it on fire. Yes, folks, I'm talking about my grocery bill. I don't know exactly why I can't seem to get the grocery bill under control this summer, but steak and fresh fruit with Cool-Whip dip apparently adds up.

Another thing that adds up, apparently, is my weight. Don't try to tell me that there is a connection between the grocery bill and the amount of weight I've gained. That's just silly. Those two are entirely unrelated.

Seriously...I've packed it on this summer. It has been 6 months since my last weight managment effort and I've put on 10 lbs since then. That isn't maintenance mode. That is....I don't know...that is just...BAD. Especially when you consider that my last weight managment effort, during January & February of 2010, resulted in about 5 lbs lost.

So now I want to take off 10 lbs in the next three months. September 1st through November 24th...that's 12 weeks...and I get to end my diet the day before Thanksgiving. I usually just do some calorie counting, but this time I gotta step it up a little. I think my exercise effort is going to have to extend beyong my Wii. Running? maybe.

I think the BodyBugg is going to be my new diet "thing". I already calorie count like a champ, so adding the tracking of energy expended seems like a natural extension. Of course, I'm far too cheap to actually buy a new BodyBugg. They are $300, including 6 months of the website subscription. I've seen them on ebay and Craigslist for $75, but that is with no website subscription. I don't need a 6 month subscription though, three months should be plenty.

So, how 'bout you? Anyone else going to join me for some September 1st diet modification?

P.S. My husband is crunching tortilla chips in my ear. Several warning glances have gone unheeded. Someone may want to check to see if he is still living in a few minutes.

I'm just not 100% sure

Tonight I asked Sweetness to help me with putting dinner on the table. I didn't give her an actual task to do, and apparently that gave her the wise idea to disappear before the actual chore-dispensing occurred. This ploy might have actually worked if she reappeared for dinner. But no. I got dinner on the table and started calling in the kids. The Big Guy sat down. Spunky Girl sat down. No Sweetness. I called outside for her. I called downstairs for her. I yelled up the stairs for her. Then I screamed up the stairs for her, using my hands like a megaphone around my mouth (classy, I know). Still no Sweetness.

So I started dinner without her. 5 minutes later, I'm fuming. I'm certain she heard me and is refusing to come to dinner. I start considering what her consequence will be. Should it be a minute of chores for every minute that she was late to dinner? More than that? 3 minutes for each minute she was late to represent the three of us that ate without her? Should she have to eat every bite of dinner (in our household, that makes the kids cry. I don't know why. I swear I'm not that bad of a cook.) Then I start to worry...what if she's not just too busy ignoring me to come to dinner...what if she's hurt somehow? What if she slipped in the bathroom and hit her head? What if she was actually playing in the backyard and was snatched? So I go looking for her again. I check outside and then I heard it...a little sound like someone is upstairs in my bathroom. I head up there and find my daughter listening to my ipod, watching herself dance and sing in the mirror.

"I'm so sorry" she cries "I didn't hear you call me". Yeah right. You scoot out when you are supposed to be helping put dinner on the table. You ignore my calls to find you. You sneak into my bathroom and turn on my ipod (which you are supposed to ask for first). And I am supposed to believe that it couldn't be your fault because you had a mysterious fit of deafness?

But somehow, I can't seem to punish her. What if she is telling the truth? What if her ear canals suddenly did close up and she didn't hear my screeching for her? I know it wasn't because she had the ipod up too loud because 1) I don't use earbuds, only speakers and 2)she had it quiet enough so I couldn't hear she had it on. So I really know that she could hear me, that she did hear me and just chose to act like she couldn't. And it really isn't the first time that I'm fairly certain that she chose to ignore me and said "but I really couldn't hear you".

And I think her behavior suggests that she heard me. She is acting all upset that I'm mad at her, but she's not acting mad. There is no indignant "you don't believe me" emotion, just a please-i'll-never-do-it-again-please-don't-punish-me kind of guilty response. And yet...I'm not 100% sure.

I'm 90% sure.

maybe 95%.

Shall I do a test? If there was another adult in the house, I'd go upstairs and turn the ipod on and have them yell up the stairs. I'm certain that I'd hear. Of course, sometimes hubby claims that he can't hear me...but I don't believe him either. And so I'm not sure...


but I think it is things like this that make my friends say I'm a parenting weanie.

P.S. I took pictures of all three kids with their fingers in their ears so Sweetness wouldn't figure out that I'm blogging about her. Is it me, or does she look the most like she's enjoying the experience?

The Sanfords go Camping

This summer the Sanfords are getting out there. It is time to start tackling all the things we've wanted to do (or used to do) but thought would be too hard with little ones. The Big Guy, our youngest, is 3 now and we thought camping should be next on our list.

So off we ran this weekend to the state campground. Well "ran" doesn't quite describe it. I packed and prepped for two days for our one day adventure. Does this truck look like we're just going for one day?


Scott and I readily accept our limitations as parents. For example, we wilt under the amount of talking that three children do. And when you expose three kids to a totally new experience, you have to be prepared for a zillion questions. Very quickly, the number of questions became oppressive. "Are we there yet" was just the first of them. "Can we go to the river" "When can we have s'mores" "Are we going to cook our dinner on the fire" "Where am I going to sleep" "Why can't we play in the soot in the firepit" and on and on and on. I thought we were going to lose our minds. Our saving grace was that we were camping with friends and our girls were able to ride their bikes back and forth between the campsites while we got our campsite all set up. Once everything was set up, it seemed the question-train slowed and we had more time to answer the questions they did have. Then we tried to cook dinner over the fire.

Who thought it would be a good time to give three children poking instruments, a hot dog, and point them toward a fire? It was stressful. They had to get close enough to the fire to cook their hot dog, but not so close that they were falling into the fire. They have NO patience for actually waiting for the hot dog to cook. But what happens when you take their hot dog and try to cook it for them? Yowsa...lots of tears. Soon dinner was over...at least for them. I don't think Scott and I had even cooked our hotdogs when the girls were wondering what to do next. I think we threatened them with NO SMORES if they asked for some (again) before we finished our dinner.

The evening campfire was fun. We roasted marshmellows and made smores. It seemed like 8 pm turned into 10 pm before we knew it. It was time to break out the flashlights and take the kids down to the pit toilet for a bathroom break before laying down for the night. There is some thing so nostalgic for me about walking to the campground bathroom. It made me laugh; it is so not scary and I remember as a kid being frightened about every sound in the wood. We even had some german shepherds come up behind us on our walk to the bathroom and the kids couldn't see them until they were right behind them. I know that would have freaked me out as a child. It was fun to think of my younger self and what my parents (well, my dad anyway) must have gone through with me.

I really loved sleeping in the tent with my kids. The 5 of us were packed in there like sardines. It was great laying in the dark with them and listening to the raucous sounds of the campground. I loved hearing the kids ask "What was that" everytime an errant flashlight shone onto our tent. I giggled listening to Spunky Girl tell me her greatest fear was the river overflowing its banks and carrying us away. It was so great...and then we realized that our air mattress had a hole in it and our bums were hitting the ground. It wasn't long before both Scott and I were laying on the hard ground. We suffered until 2 am, united in our misery. Even that misery had a level of charm to it. Every contact point in my body hurt as I lay against the ground and yet the overall experience delighted me. It was almost as if it wouldn't have been camping if there wasn't some mishap involved.

Scott proved himself a hero when he began re-inflating the air mattress with his lung power at 2 am...with us still on top. I didn't believe he had enough hot air to lift our bodies off the ground, but he did and it was just enough time to get me back to sleep. By morning time I was in laying there in pain again, but I knew at that point I could solve the problem by getting my bum out of the sleep bag and starting breakfast...if I really wanted to.

It turns out that I didn't need to cook breakfast because our friend Lindsey cooked the whole thing. Bacon, eggs, coffee, water for hot chocolate...it was awesome. Apparently all that wasn't enough for the boys, though, 'cause they followed up breakfast with some early morning marshmellows. Lucky for me the kids were out on a bike ride and couldn't beg for some too.

We cut our camping trip a little bit short and left mid-afternoon on the 2nd day, but we had good reason! My sister gave birth to little Colin early Saturday morning and I wanted to go visit them all in the hospital. Of course, the little guy is as cute as a button!


All in all, camping was a success and we are looking forward to going again...but probably not til next summer. Can you believe it is only 28 days till school starts again? August is filling up and I don't think another trip to the woods will fit. I gotta start thinking about school shopping instead!

Thanks Mo Williams

Spunky girl had a hard time with reading this year. Her kindergarten class offered her a tutor and we worked hard every day on reading, but it was a challenge. One of the things that makes it the most challening is that children know they can't seem to get something that their classmates are succeeding at. They know they are in the last reading group. They know some of their classmates are reading chapter books. And that knowledge makes them feel bad about it and makes trying harder.

We got through the entire collection of Bob learning-to-read books (which are great) during the school year, but then found the jump into books available at the library a bit of a challenge. There are definitely books there for "beginning readers" but they still seemed a bit above her abilities. Often there was a lot of words on each page. Spunky girl would look at the 20 words on the page and not even want to try, much less read the whole book. Enter Mo Williams.

Mo Williams writes the Elephant and Piggie books and they are AWESOME. They are always about two friends, an elephant and a pig, and a conversation they have. Because the book is just a conversation, there is often only a handful of words on each page. The author tells the story not only with the conversation, but with the expressions on the faces and the different type faces he uses. Spunky girl can tell from the type-face if the character is yelling or giggling or sad. I Love That. She really enjoys being able to express what the character is feeling. And the characters are funny little buggers...just like her.

Spunky Girl has read 3 of the 7 books so far and she gains confidence every time she does. She'll tell people "I read this book and I read two other ones too". She is willing to read the book to other people and enjoys telling them the story. It makes my heart happy to see her delight in reading.


So, thank you Mo Williams, wherever you are. This grateful mom's got a kiss on the cheek waiting for ya...

Its been ages

It has been ages since I last posted. I think blogging feeds upon itself. The more I blog, the more I can think of things I want to write about. But here I find myself...sitting at my computer...with plenty of time to write...and no inspiration. Clearly I've been gone too long.

So, while I wait for inspiration to strike, I'll update you on my kids.


Sweetness turns 8 tomorrow. She is definitely working on a new phase of life. The "tweens" run from 8 - 12 years of age and I feel an eagerness in her to begin the phase. We allowed her to pierce her ears for her birthday. She assured me last year that EVERY OTHER CHILD IN THE UNIVERSE had their ears pierced. I wonder how many children she's met from distant planets. My guess is not many. I'm sure she would have said something about the encounter. She loves to talk and tell me about the things her friends have said. If I dare suggest that perhaps she shouldn't believe everything she hears at school, she is barely able to cover her obvious impression that her mom is so not "in the know". Despite the new glimpes of attitude, she is still a beautiful child in looks and in heart. She's become empathetic to how I can be pulled in a zillion directions at once and wants to help. If only that willingness to help wasn't followed by a "Mom, how do I...?"

Spunky Girl is 6 now. She has the cutest freckles in the whole wide world and they rest below her stunning hazel eyes. Sometimes I just stare at her in wonder, but usually I'm too busy trying to corral her to just stare. =) She is still the snuggliest thing ever. She loves to come into my bed in the morning and sleep together for the last half hour; she isn't content unless both of my arms are wrapped around her (which of course means that one of my arms is likely losing all blood flow). She is always giggling about something, and usually something inappropriate. It is hard not to encourage her, though, when she's so darn impish. Hubby and I just cross our fingers and hope that she doesn't ascribe whatever objectional things she's saying to us. Then we can pass it off with a "where do kids these days hear this stuff?".

The Big Guy is 3. He's my little man, my cry-baby, my sweet son, and my joy. Three goods to one bad...that's not too horrible, right? We're trying to potty train him right now. It is a big ole pain in the butt. He's stubborn like a mule (whoops, 3 goods to 2 bad) and so it is very hard not to turn potty training into a power struggle. It does melt my heart when he says "just like a big boy, right?". Yeah buddy, just like a big boy. He stopped taking naps about 5 months ago, but I really need a few quiet minutes a day so I still put him down for a half hour. He kicks the wall the entire time, just so I'm clear that he's waiting for me to come get him. I suppose that is smart, though, because I suspect if he was quiet I would be tempted to leave him up there a little longer. There's nothing like one of his hugs and his whisper "I really love you mommy". It definitely makes up for him coloring on my sofa with green marker, or hiding the drinking cups in the toilet, or getting into my lipstick.


I sent my girls off to overnight Girl Scout camp at the end of June. I can get stressed by all the people needing my attention at once, so I was excited for them to have an adventure and for me to have some quiet(er) time with the Big Guy. It turns out I missed them like crazy. It was so quiet in the house that even the Big Guy whispered when he talked to me...and I could hear him just fine. I complain about not having a nanosecond to myself but then it was a huge culture shock to be down to one child. I had to keep myself busy to not think about how uneasy I felt about them being gone. There is an irony there...that I crave alone time and then have to keep busy during my (sorta) alone time till my girls came back. I guess the lesson is just to find the treasured moments in every day.

I'll leave you with one last picture of my kiddos, taken after picking strawberries. Note that, as always, Spunky Girl just has to be a little different and holds her bag of strawberrries on her head.

Finding yourself in the strangest of places

Ahh...the popular romance novel. I must admit that while I love reading romance novels, I don't really "get" the people in romance novels. I'm as likely to be involved in a "I hate you, no wait, I think I love you" scenario as I am to fly to the moon. The casual arrogance of most the male characters (at least in the books I pick up) is nothing like my own husband and I bear little resemblence to the intriguing spitfire female character who has no awareness of her own attractiveness. I don't think either hubby or myself would ever run through an airport and onto a departing plane and declare "I just had to tell you I loved you before it was too late".

But, I have begun to find characters in books and movies that I relate to...my only issue is that they are either the parents or the grandparents of the main characters. I think that is a sure sign that I'm getting old. Hubby and I watched the movie Whip It last night. It was a Drew Barrymore production about a young girl (17) whose mom wanted her to compete in beauty pagents and she wanted to compete in the roller derby. She, of course, falls in love with some dude at the roller skate rink. My heart didn't identify with the love she felt for skate-park-dude. My heart identified with the love her parents had for each other. Two people who didn't appear to have much in common (he, a beer drinking sports enthusiast. She, an elegant, uptight, beauty pagent mom), yet were devoted to each other and defended each other when the child raged about the unfairness of her parents.

I saw a future version of myself in the novel I read this weekend too. The novel was called Love Mercy and it was about a teenage girl who ran away from a crazy love affair to the home of her estranged grandma. The girl was just looking for a place to go where her boyfriend couldn't find her, but the story centered on the love that developed between her and her grandma. I, of course, didn't related to the grandma in that story. Nope, I related to the great-grandparents. The great grandparents had lived together for 60 years and had been through endless tragedies, but weren't consumed with bitterness. Instead they provided a happy positive place for their families to come, to celebrate life's joys and to find comfort from life's sorrows. I would love to be that person in 40 more years.

I've been working my way through a bible study on Esther (using the workbook and DVD series by Beth Moore). She made a point in that study on that people can be grouped into 2 categories: those who believe they have a destiny in life and search for it, and those who don't. I think those who search for destiny are the ones that people write novels about. People like me, people that don't look for any greatness or defining moments in their lives, don't make very exciting main characters. But maybe we make good supporting characters...and that's all right with me.