I say what I mean and mean what I say

One of the things, my father took pride on in his life as a physician was a piece of advice one of his college professors had given him. This professor, obviously had been very wise, he said, "when caring for another person, if you truly listen to what your patient is saying, they will tell you what is wrong even if they don't have the technical knowledge to." This piece of advice stuck with my father and he instilled it in my sisters and I. I tend to utilize it in every fashion of life. Not necessarily for the "what is wrong" but "what is someone saying" and "why do they think this is important".

I live in a toddlers world. In that world, they do not understand inference. There is no guessing that mommy or daddy or whomever is being facetious; they understand the literal. So in all actuality... what it wrong with this method of thinking? Nothing. Many a man wants to understand the woman's world. So many women are so indecisive about things and understanding a man is easy. They say what they mean and mean what they say, or at least my husband does. I too, say what I mean and mean what I say. There is just no point in life beating around the bush and not living happily. This is how our marriage works. 

The nice thing about this, is it's just how, theoretically, life works. If you honestly express what you really want, there is no misconception on how you, as a person are and how others see you, viewing the world. This is one of the things we are striving to instill in our children.

The human race, no matter who you are holds the premise that "honesty is the best policy." But somewhere along the line, beit in my world it is black and white, however, the world outside of my bubble has made the gray bigger than the line itself. Why? I tend to blame this on political correctness and entitlement. We as a society, are spending too much time trying to tend to emotions and feelings rather than saying what we mean and other people taking it for face value. Too many are using "copouts". Why should I teach my child that life is a cakewalk and things will be given to you? It is total BS. I teach my children that if they work hard, be polite, and take a genuine interest in what others are saying to them, he WILL be successful. He might not be the monetarily wealthiest person on the planet, but he will be bountiful in other ways.

The fact of the matter is, we are so busy in our lives that we are letting too many "things" surpass our humanity. But when is it ok, to let humanity suffer and bow down to the whim of every emotional copout? It is not, so if everybody put on their big boy or big girl panties, we might just have a little less entitlement and a lot more understanding of the human mind.

Laundry Piles and Mind blowing Detergent!

So in a house of 4, laundry only seems to stop for all of 5 minutes. I have specifically taken note of this and tried my best not to let it get to me! I had to come up with plausible and possible ways to keep track of it. I have said in the past, I am kinda OCD. Well, not kinda.

Finally, last week I was at my wits end. I needed a plan. I was tired of forgetting that there was laundry in the wash, especially when it came to having to do dipes. Everything was carted down to the basement and I started the great laundry wash. When I first saw how much of it there was...I did 14 loads of laundry, I knew we had way too many clothes, sheets, towels and blankets. I wish I could say that the cupboards were overflowing, but in all actuality, they weren't and we don't have much storage space in this house. I was exhausted.

Having children means you have a lot of sheets. So I knew there was no getting around to getting rid of any of those, but how could I make sheets disappear? I already change our sheets every week because the thought of sleeping on dead flaky skin freaks me out! And this task was getting daunting. So, I brought out the old crib method! Layering them! So for the kids...repellant pad down, sheets on top, and again and again. So, not really a laundry saver, but a time saver for us. All in all, I only have to make the bed 1x a month! Plus if any accidents happen in the middle of the night, we are only up for a few minutes instead of awhile!

A couple of months ago, I ran out of laundry detergent. Previously, I had it in my mind that I was going to make my own laundry detergent to see how much money we could save. A neighbor of ours in NC has been making her own for years. At first, I thought it was a little odd, especially when she had to order supplies to do it at the grocery store. So, I still wasn't that enthusiastic about it and loaded the kids in the car and ran to the store. Well, let me tell you. It was the first time in years that I actually had to pay full price for laundry detergent and I about fell over. So no more. I got home, got out the supplies and well 15 minutes later I had a gallon bucket full of laundry detergent! It really wasn't hard to make, since I had bought...ready to make supplies. Soap already grated, washing soda and borax that just needed to be heated, poured and measured, dawn, and water. Simple really.

So how is it fairing against store bought laundry detergent? I am finding that it gets our clothes much cleaner and the house smells wonderful! For those of you interested in the recipe, which does it in small batches and there is no need for a 5 gallon bucket, check it out! Plus you can add Dawn, though this recipe doesn't call for it, but hey any grease fighter in a house of boys and southern cooking isn't bad in my mind!

http://whynotsew.blogspot.com/2010/08/how-to-make-homemade-laundry-detergent.html

Hush Bottles

Here in VA, I belong to an online mom's board where mom's can ask questions, share answers and offer helpful tips. On this mornings daily email, there is this mom that her husband just moved away, I don't know what for, but she works 3 days a week and is physically and emotionally drained with the behavior of her 2 daughters ages 2 and 4. Tantrums apparently are running amuck. So this particular "What do I do?" got me thinking about a post I had seen, where else but Pinterest, called Hush Bottles.

Hush Bottles work like a snow globe, but with glitter, water and glue. It's concept is that the wonderment of a child, whilst gazing into the bottle doesn't instantly hush and calm down but does it within about a minute watching the glitter whirl around the inside of the bottle before settling to the bottom. 

Pretty neat concept, if it works, but seems kinda "New Age". But hey, anything that keeps us calm, cool and collected is worth a try to me.

Warning Parental Failure: Yes, I'll let you be a Big Boy

Over the past couple of months we have watched our little Gator blossom into a sweet and loving little toddler, who wants to be just like his big brother. He wants to ride his big brother's bike, sleep in his big brother's bunk bed, and now try to use the potty like his big brother. So, one thing at a time.

We still do not let Monk sleep on the top bunk bed. This is a safety concern for us, of course we don't want him falling out, even though there is a rail, but more or less let's just say...we are not the best waking family on the planet. Meaning it takes all of us a good 20 minutes before we can function to even hear what is going on around us! That being said, when he wakes up at night to go potty, we need him to be able to function to get to the ladder and climb down, understanding that he can't just swing his legs over and sleep walk to the toilet. Reality: We still have the ladder hidden away!

So how does this fair for our Gator? Well, he saw all the hype that Monk displayed over his getting bunk beds.

Confession: We have had the bunk beds all along, we just never put the top bunk on until we moved and didn't have the space to store the pieces for the top.

Gator sees Monk in his new bed and wants to get in EVERY night. So he learned to hoist his little short heiny over the top of his crib. Yes, he fell out once, then tried multiple times again and one of those times he lodged himself between the wall and the crib rail. Yes, I stopped got out my phone to take a picture of this adventure. I know horrible mama not immediately coming to his rescue.

But the moral of my bed story is a 20 month old being able to climb out of bed every night is just not a good thing. We as parents know this and we also know that he just isn't ready for a big boy toddler bed yet and neither are we. Finally, just before he turned 21 months we got up the mustard to do it. Better to attempt to transition him, than him fall out break a bone or knock his pearly whites out. 

He is in love with the fact that he can get in and out of his bed on his own, but has absolutely no desire to actually sleep in it open. What is a parent to do? We tried for an hour and a half every night to get him to lay down and fall asleep. We even sent Monk out of the room and well that didn't work. We pretty much tried everything and got no where, then we turned the "bed" backwards against the wall! As you can see the sides of the crib are slanted so there is no hoisting capability, and he sleeps and so do the rest of us. 

So on to my parenting failure...

Our big boy, who isn't ready for a big boy bed yet, has decided that his new favorite word is POTTY. Everyone in the house goes potty in the toilet and well the other night he wanted to too. After putting him to bed, he started saying "POTTY, POTTY". What's a Parent to do? Picture this... Mr. BBH grabs him out of the crib, hands him over, goes running into our bathroom to get a toddler toilet ring that just never made it into a box when we moved, as I am ripping his footed jammies off and pulling his diaper off and then hoist this little barely 3 foot mini human onto the toilet where his legs barely hang over the edge. Then he is very uneasy on the toilet ring, why? He has a big booty and well the little potette ring just wasn't big enough. Well nothing happened but a battle of the wills. Gator swiftly trying to out smart BBH reaches for the flusher knob and woosh. Then again, but blocked by Mr. BBH. Now, the game has begun. 

We bought him some of his own Big Boy undies and let him try them out. He is very proud of his undies! I know blurry picture but the expression says it all!

So last night Mr. BBH, not wanting to have a toilet battle of the flushing wills take two, climbed up into the attic and searched for the box of Potties, since "Potty, Potty" came out at dinner time. We put him in his big boy undies and over to the potty he went. Nothing again, but hey it's a start. Not thinking Gator was still in just undies, the kids ran down stairs to the playroom to play for a bit before bed. Well, we called them up 10 minutes later and he was wet. Ok, so he just peed. No big deal. Upstairs to get ready for bed and clean jammies on. "Potty, Potty". This time, we put him in washable trainers and a vinyl cover, had a little potty in the bathroom, but footie jammies. Nothing happened in the potty, but his trainers were wet. We got him cleaned up, put a new pair of trainers on and vinyl again and off to lala dream land he went. Or so we thought. 

At 4 am. He woke up screaming. Now, not being those waking parents, Mr. BBH finally heard him and went in. I have been under the weather and well comatose at night. Finally 20 minutes later, Mr. BBH comes in and wakes me up, he can't figure out what is wrong and needs to go back to sleep. I go in. I reach into the mock crib for him, and he is soaked. Vinyl pants, you suck is all I thought. My poor little Gator, was freezing. So I call for Mr. BBH, "I need some help, I need a dipe!" We had pee, we had poop, we had a frozen little big boy that didn't want to take off his big boy undies and a wet bed. As I was ripping everything off, Mr. BBH felt horrible. "I asked him, I did, I checked to see if he was wet, he wasn't, I asked him if his teeth hurt and he said NO!" The Gator was just embarrassed he had an accident. Everything was alright we reminded him. We got him cleaned up and he was still hysterical. Mr. BBH took him back to our bed while I cleaned everything up. 

So much for our Big Boy, who needs a toddler bed... who just doesn't want one, and neither do we, but wants to potty train instead. What is a parent to do? Fail. Yep. We failed on our first go round of the big boy bed...our first potty training go round, by doing it at night. Hopefully, this doesn't deter him, but we are going to hit this full speed ahead this weekend and see where it lands us. We know better, I know better, but I wanted to let my child take the lead on this. So it's a dreary Wednesday and sleep deprived parents, our poor children who are all geared up for an awesome day are going to have to witness totally caffeinated struggling parents!

5 Things around the house that lead you to the loony bin that aren't your children, and friendly tips to help fix it

Around the house:

1. Flat Paint
Why oh why would someone ever want to put this on their walls. Wait we did before we had a dog and children. You just can't magic erase any blemishes. Save yourself some future headache and paint with anything BUT flat paint! What I have found that works, but doesn't leave you with those oily looking blobs, is Myers Cleaner. It is a natural cleaner that is sold in a concentrated formula and you dilute it. You need a spray bottle, put 1/4 cup of it in at a time and add water. This stuff is great at cleaning almost everything.

2. Baseboards and Crown Molding
These things just scream "Hello and and all dirt left around the house come and magnetize yourself to me!". I don't know about you, but it just doesn't matter how clean your home can be, but the second you see "yuck" accumulate on the baseboards (which in our house, only takes 30 seconds), it makes me feel like my house is dirty again. So I have tried the Bounce dryer sheet tip you see all over Pinterest and well, if your baseboards and molding aren't as smooth as a baby's behind, you end up with dryer sheet particles, so save yourself the aggravation and just bring out the good ole Dustbuster.

3. Stove Ledges & Hoods
Pointless in my mind. Yes, I love the convenience of not letting little hands play with the buttons and knobs, but come on, we all know it is just a reachable place rather than the ceiling of your kitchen for all the grease and nasties of cooking to gather. So, I tried the absurd tip of wiping it off with cooking oil and voila! It worked and actually makes life a whole lot easier because you only have to do it a couple of times in between cleanings!

4. Tile Grout
I hate it. I have found nothing that will act as a repellant from this getting dirty. I am a freak when it comes to bathing in a place that remotely doesn't look or feel clean. I would rather not bathe! I know no matter which way you look at it it seems gross, but hey, I am the person that left for college, knowing that I was going to have to share a shower (ick by the way) with a CASE of Scrubbing Bubbles! In the past, before children I discovered a cleaner sold only at the Dollar Store called Awesome. You could spray it on walk away for an hr and come back with a toothbrush and a little elbow grease and in 20 minutes you were done. Now with kids, I don't have that hour to wait nor the 20 minutes to scrub. So I came across a "recipe" that works almost as AWESOMELY and takes you're done in minutes. Spray, walk away for 15 minutes, rinse.

7 c. of Hot Water

1/2 c. of Baking Soda

1/4 c. of Vinegar

1/3 c. of Lemon Juice

5. Cleaning the Fridge

Now I am not talking about removal of old food, that has never been a problem for me since, I am an expiration date freak. I know some will argue that it is a sell by date, but nothing is worse than putting non-curdled soured coffee creamer in your morning cup of ever so needed STAT Joe. I am talking about that food particles that accumulate everywhere and well those pesky hairs that if you have critters in your house, you definitely know what I am taking about, sticking to the crevices of the sides/bottoms of your fridge. Cheap and easy fix...That box of Saran Wrap that supposedly sticks to itself that you just can't bear to purge, since you found out its crap! Well it actually sticks to the shelves in you fridge! Boom, clean fridge no scrubbing except for the sides and seals of the door!

These are my main pet peeves! What are yours? I am starting a new quest of moving through the tips and tricks around pinterest that can help with the main cleanings of the house and if they really work or not and how long they last! Today, after I finish cleaning the bathroom, I am going to try the wax paper trick. Hello new science experiment!

Operation: Register For School

It is almost time to register Monk for school.

In NC we had so many choices of different schools he would be eligible to attend...Traditional, Year Round, Charter, Magnet and "regular" school. It actually was pretty straight forward and if you got turned down for your particular selection you could always appeal.

Since moving here to VA, where the schools in our county are supposedly some of the top in the country, this is going to be a daunting task. From what we have figured out, we pretty much don't have any options but our assigned "pyramid" school unless we want to pay for public schools. We do not have the option of placement into a Charter or Magnet school until he is in the second grade and at that it isn't our choice to place him there. We have the option to decline, but that is all. Even at that, from my understanding, if we do not like his placement then, we have to pay. Quite ironic for public schools.

We have looked into private schooling here and well even at the preschool level, most of them cost more per year than I paid for out-of-state college tuition! So what is our family supposed to do? This is why we are starting Operation: Register for School. Incoming Kindergartener registration and open house schedules actually won't be out until March/April, but apparently we need to be ahead of this, especially IF we have to opt for private school.

As far as private schools go. Mr. BBH is a strong activist, I on the other hand, abhor the thought. We have different backgrounds on the subject. He went to private school, the same school for all of his primary education until college. I, however went to public school for grade school and then was thrust into private school for grades 6-12. Those formidable 6 years are why IF we have to place him into a private institution, it will be non-secular and he will not attend mid-education. Parochial school was just not for me. Plus raising anti-consumerist children, will be an uphill battle placing him in an environment where private entitlement supersedes humility and humanity. There are a lot of issues that I had and still harbor...you think!

There is a lot of work ahead of us and well, any helpful suggestions are welcome!

Simplifying life...Ways to OUTBOX

Having had to move three times in 4.5 months, has really made us attempt to learn how to re-evaluate what exactly we have in our home. Now that is completely easier said than done. Yes, we moved crap. Yes, we had that screaming 4 year old telling the movers..."WHERE ARE MY ROBOTS? (a.k.a. Transformers) They are on the truck right? You didn't leave them, right?". Though some of them were broken and missing pieces, this mini-human was not present at the packing of such beloved items, so before complete and utter melt down occurred, we needed him to be apart of the removal process. So, I have come up with 9 ways to help guide our mini-human to purge some of his things. 

Every month or two, I look through all of their toys, and then I decide...

1 Does this thing work?
2 Would I replace it if it were broken or lost?
3 Does it seem potentially useful—but never actually gets used?
4 Was I saving it?
5 Does it serve its purpose well? 
6 Has it been replaced by a better model?
7 Is it nicely put away in an out-of-the-way place? 
8 Does this memento actually prompt any memories? 
9 Have they ever used this thing?

If this criteria can not be met, into a playroom OUTBOX it goes. After a couple of days, I let the mini-humans in and we go through the box together. I do not tell them we are getting rid of it. I tell them that we are going to take it to the place where "SANTA's elves come and pick it up". I know crazy method, but hey, no one is taking the fall for the "Land of Misfit Toys". I have tried the "Since you don't play with this anymore, we need to give it to someone who doesn't have toys to play with" and well, in my ever-so smart, ever so remembering...Everything 4 year old way...I have gotten the witty retort, "But that toy is not perfect, and that is not fair to give someone a gift, that doesn't work." But my ultimate, take the toy away retort, was "Mommy, please don't sell my..." so better to have them involved in the process than have the toys just disappear. 

So what exactly is an OUTBOX? 
An OUTBOX, can be anything used for storing crap. It can be a grocery bag, a box, whatever can hold stuff. Even if you don't have children, this can be applied to everyday life. Implementing it is another story. The first step is to put something in. This "drop zone" doesn't have to be left where you can see it constantly, because the primary focus is to get it in there. Then after sometime, if you haven't pulled it out to do anything useful with it (I give it a week or two) then on your next errand out of the house, the outbox goes to and then POOF! Life is a tad bit simplified and you get a little tax write off. I first had tried dumping the OUTBOX immediately, but then after discovering that I still "had" that, I found something useful to do with it, but had gotten rid of it. Thus negating my anti-consumerist way because I needed to go out and buy it again.

Now, what is currently in my OUTBOX?
- Some Misfit toys (of course will make it to the trash, before going to be donated. I agree with my kid, who wants a broken toy!)
- Some Kitchen stuff (Since moving into our new house, our kitchen is ummm...a wee VERY large bit smaller than what I/we/us are used to...Plus, when you have learned that you can live without 2 graters, 5 colanders, and quite a few more pots and pans since you can't fit them in your miniature cupboards...)
- Baby crap that we have never used, like a door knob cover made for a certain type of handle that we have, but found out in the fine print that it is not to be used on exterior doors. 
- Some Christmas decor that we haven't put up in 2 years, that doesn't meet the above criteria

Things to Accomplish for 2013

2013 is going to bring some major changes for our family that our 2012 whirlwind will be just a blink and an interesting story to remember. So my plan is to try to implement some EASY changes into our daily lives that will make life go a little bit smoother for all of us!

Some of my January Goals...

 * Out is going to come the digital calendar!

    - need to get into the habit of using SIRI a bit more on the reminder factor!

 * Meal prep days are going to become more of a necessity rather than a convenience

    - the freezer is really going to get a work out!

 * Pinterest is probably going to see a massive increase do to needing to organize my IT life

     - apologies in advance!
 * Kids activities are going to have to be set up the night before rather than in the morning
    - busy boxes galore!
 * Mommy's filing system is going to be simplified...
   - Bye Bye Piles
 * Walgreens.com is going to see an influx in picture posting
   - I am not going to just be able to wait a month or two to post pictures to print
 * Create an OUTBOX
   - just a box where stuff can land that needs to be donated

OH and if you are in Harris Teeter Territory...Super Doubles are going on this week! All the way up to $2.00 will double and what is even better....IT's Chicken TIME!!! Buy 2 Get 3 Free! We went last night armed and ready! How did we do? Well, spent almost 2 weeks worth of money on groceries but...

$192.48 Spent, $217.83 Saved     =   $410.31 worth of Groceries for less than $200! Not Bad since we saved more than we spent, which is always the main goal! Over 50% savings!

Out with 2012

2012 was a whirlwind for our family. So for a year in quick review, lets see how it went!

Cloth Diapering became a success, well except the fact that we forgot to take teething into consideration and had our ups and downs! We bought a total of 5 packs of disposables since our quest into cloth land commenced.

Potty Training Success: We have completely trained day and night! Woo Hoo props to Monk for no more turds!

Getting Crafty: We implemented an entire month to doing crafts and using what was around the house, rather than going out and buying the stuff to do it. We had fun, the kids had fun and better yet...Michaels' didn't see a dime!

As for the goals for the Pantry, Freezer and Decluttering...

We moved three times! Once in June, from our humble abode in Raleigh which we had lived in for 6 years! Again at the end of September, from our ever so lead paint poisoning row house in Old Town into a storage unit. And finally, we moved into our new house in Alexandria, Virginia November 1st. Mr. BBH took a job in DC with ABC. Other than our housing mishaps, it's been a good move for us as a family. We get to spend so much more time together and his schedule absolutely rocks!

Moral of the story, we found out that we can fit our entire life of a family of 4 into a 10 x 30 storage unit and have plenty of room to spare. Everything but the freezer and pantry food stock went in. We successfully cleared out our pantry 5 times this year! Granted 3 of those times, were completely unplanned for, but success! As for the freezer, well we only have some soup and steak left in it, and well...it's still at my cousin's house awaiting pick up. Gosh do I miss it, I just don't understand how people can live without one. This has really made stocking up on meats and veggies more of a hardship. Why, one thing we did not take into affect was the cost of living increase with our grocery bill. We have had to double our monthly spending of $200 a month on groceries. I still can't fathom sometimes when I am grocery-ing how much things, even with coupons are here! Some items are double the price!

I know that some maybe curious as to how Christmas spending went for us... well the receipts have not been tallied, but we did so much shopping online! But as for my money saving adventures, I got ripped off by UPS and USPS for those packages we had to mail! But in my humble thrifty ways, I had to call a friend of mine and tell her not to let her son be around when our box of Christmas gifts came. We had them delivered to her house and well the company I ordered from who shall not be named...OOPS AMAZON, wanted $20 for Gift Wrapping, I asked her to wrap it for me. Corny and cheap I know, but that would have been 1/4 tank of gas to be able to go and visit them!

New Year New Beginnings

Happy New Year Everyone!

In our home we are making some interesting changes from our last 365. So the blog for 2013 will be filled with some new and interesting things!

SO, what did we do on January 1st 2013? Well, like usual families, we rang in the New Year watching the ball drop, hugged, smooched and went to bed. For those that have mini-humans you know how either detrimental it can be to let them stay up or how adorable they can get when they are rolling on the floor with laughter. We had all. Tired, Wired and Tantrum Central, but all in good fun with great friends to spend it with.

In the coming New Year, we hope that we can encourage our children more than in the past. This is our biggest goal set for the next 365.