These are the days I know will fly by like the landscape passing by a speeding minivan.  I am making many mistakes.  I raise my voice too often, I am too quick to get irritated, I say no more than yes  and I am often filled with mommy guilt at the end of the day.

But then we have moments when it all feels right.

Moments when my heart feels so full it might burst out of my chest.

Moments when no one is snatching a toy out of someone’s hands and no one is screaming because their world is coming to an end.

Well maybe the no screaming thing was taking it a little far.  Let’s be real.  Someone.is.always. screaming.

I guess that just comes with the territory.

And we do have peaceful moments occasionally.

A very special thank you to Elmo, Barney, Nemo and naptime for all the quiet moments.

This morning my friend Elizabeth called to chat on her way to work.  I was working on my first cup of coffee, the Wiggles were blaring annoyingly and I was just gearing my patience up for a day at home with my 21 month old and 8 yr old girls.  As soon as I got on the phone it was as if some signal was transmitted to their brains that prompted them to start using their outside voices and running crazy around the house with the dog.

Mass chaos ensued.  I tried to avoid yelling in Elizabeth’s ear.  We were having a lovely impromptu conversation and I really wanted to proceed uninterrupted. I scolded and threatened.

And then out of desperation I hid in the bathroom.  I grabbed my coffee and closed myself in.  But they were being so loud that I couldn’t concentrate even while hiding in the loo.  UGH  I was getting mad at this point. I don’t have enough patience most days.  It’s one of my greatest weaknesses.

So I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a wooden spoon and silently threatened  the older culprit.  She was the instigator.  She was obviously in need of attention…and she didn’t care if it was the negative type.  That was all it took.  I saw the look of understanding in her eyes.

I motioned with the wooden spoon for her to take her little self upstairs.  She nodded and climbed the stairs.  Behold the power of the wooden spoon!

One day last week she felt the sting of the spoon on her bottom after an episode of incredibly bad behavior.  I don’t spank often. I yell. (another weakness)  I do time out and I take things away. But those things are losing their effect on Addison.  Sometimes  she will do something she knows will get her in trouble and accept the time out. Sometimes it appears she thinks it’s worth it.

So that is why I spanked her with a wooden spoon last week.  Nothing else was working.  I wasn’t mad and I made her go in my room and wait for me.  I calmly walked in there and gave her 3 good swats on the bum.  She sat up on my bed looked me straight in the face and yelled “I HATE YOU!!!”

OUCH.  That one hurt.

I told her to stay in there until I came to get her and not to think about turning on the tv.  I closed the door and another “I hate you” was hurled in my direction.  That one hit the door and didn’t pierce me as deeply.   I called my friend Aimee to talk about it and soothe the mommy guilt that was quickly setting in. She has an 9 year old son and is familiar with this age group and it’s challenges.

Addison needed something to jolt her.  She needed a reminder that I am to be respected and obeyed and I am pretty sure the wooden spoon incident made an impact.

After we had both had some time apart I went in to talk to her about the actions that had caused the spanking in the first place.  I also explained the definition of the word hate.  I don’t think she realized how strong of a word she was using.  She asked me if we could start over and apologized to me.  We hugged and reassured each other that our love is unconditional.

She is a really good girl.  She wants to behave and for the most part she does.  Honestly parenting has been hard for me at every stage.  I have read countless books and tried many  methods.  Which may be the root of the problem.  She is my first child and earlier in her life I probably wasn’t as consistent as I could have been.  But she is loved immeasurably and I know she feels that.

And I know she loves me because she helped me put away towels the next day.  And I have a picture to prove it.  Oh and I left it like this for days until we put the house on the market.

*I think spanking has it’s place in the world of discipline.  And obviously it is a very controversial subject with a lot of parents.  I respectfully disagree with people who believe spanking is wrong and somehow damages a child’s self esteem.  If you are one of those people feel free to comment at will.  But please be nice.

12 days ago I started the BIG SPRING CLEANING PROJECT.  Otherwise known as clean out every dresser, closet and drawer and throw the junk in the dining room.  It was horrible nightmarish process.  There were piles of crap everywhere.

There were goodwill piles, consignment store piles and trash bag piles.  I finally got rid of the last load of things a couple of days ago.  I looked around at the house and it was FILTHY DIRTY!  It looked like a pack of wild dogs lived here. It was a pigsty.  Or a dogsty.  Whatever… I am not kidding.

So I spent the last few days vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing and Clorox wiping.  Mr. 007 and I even washed the windows inside and outside.  Actually he did the outside and I stood inside  scrubbing the  inside of the window yelling” You missed a spot”!

Hey I am nothing if not thorough.

So this morning I woke up to a spotless house and it felt so nice that I decided to make homemade sweet potato muffins for breakfast.  I honestly don’t know what I was thinking dirtying up my beautifully clean kitchen like that but I guess it was just one of those domestic impulses that I later regret and bitch about cleaning up.

While I was mixing up the batter for the muffins Alivia let out an ear piercing scream and Addison called out in a panicky voice “MOMMY IT’S STUCK IN HER HEAD IT’S STUCK IN HER HEAD I AM SO SORRY IT’S STUCK IN HER HEAD!” All the while Livie is crying and crying as Adam and I race into the room.

Then I saw it.  An electronic motorized gerbil was stuck in my baby’s hair.  It was attacking her head.  It had wrapped it’s little wheel feet things around and around her hair and she was freaking out.

It may look innocent enough...but this is the rare, hair eating, toddler attacking gerbil of North America. Approach with extreme caution!

I honestly breathed a sigh of relief.  As I found the off switch I was just so happy it was only her hair and not as bad as I was picturing.  When Addison said something was stuck in Livie’s head I honestly pictured blood and an emergency room visit.  Adam took the gerbil apart and we only had to cut a tiny bit out of her hair to detach it from her head.

just minutes before the attack

They didn't even see it coming...so innocent.

Anyway after the motorized gerbil attack I finished the muffins and waited for them to bake. When they were finished I thought I would sprinkle a little powdered sugar over the tops for a bit of sweetness.  I only did this because Addison had groaned about how GROSS sweet potato muffins are even though she had never even heard of such a thing. I figured powdered sugar would make them a little more appetizing to her.

I have one of these Pampered Chef flour/sugar shaker things so I found the Ziploc bag filled with the sugar, put it in the shaker and sprinkled the tops of the warm muffins.

I got a little sugar on my finger in the process so I licked it off.

Something was wrong.

%&#@!!! ACK!   It wasn’t powdered sugar!  It was cornstarch! $#@$!!!

And let me just tell you I was IRATE.  I was so mad I could have SPIT NAILS!  I might have said an ugly word or two.

Enter Adam who actually saw humor in this situation.  He grabbed the camera and started taking pictures of the muffins despite my EXPLICIT OBJECTIONS! He told me that I needed to laugh at myself.

Yeah that's not powdered sugar.

You know what?  I have no problem finding humor in my stupidity.  I just need a buffer of a little bit longer than um 30 seconds after I do the stupid thing.  I need a buffer!

I was able to get most of the cornstarch off the muffins with a wet paper towel and sprinkle the real powdered sugar on top.  We added a little butter and they actually tasted pretty good.  And now I know that you should label your Ziploc bags when you put unidentifiable white powders inside.  Because cornstarch tastes like you licked the bottom of a shoe.  I am just saying.

So the bottom line is if you haven’t blogged in 12 days all it takes is a baby eating gerbil crisis and a ridiculous baking blunder to kick start your writers block.

Yay me!

Today is our beautiful Addison’s birthday.  We have an 8 year old!

It just seems like 5 minutes ago that she looked like this

And then she looked like this…

she keeps growing…

growing…

and growing…

I  know it’s a cliche but I  honestly can’t believe how fast the years have passed.  Adam and I started out as parents at such a young age.  We have practically become grown ups while trying to learn how to be parents.  I think we are doing a pretty good job. We are raising an amazing and dynamic girl.

She doesn’t like us to call her a little girl anymore.  She wants to be older than she is but she doesn’t realize how short her childhood will be.  I want her to stay as young and innocent as possible.

She surprises me all the time.  She knows more than I think she knows.  She is beginning to understand things better when I explain them to her.

Adam and I read Bible stories to her at bedtime.  One  particular night Adam was out of town so she wanted to read to me.  She blew me away.  She read smoothly and added dramatic inflection at all the right parts.

She is goofy and silly and she loves to sing.

Addison is a genuinely caring person.  She loves animals so much she sees them as our equals.

Addison was an only child and grandchild for 6 1/2 years.  When Alivia was born I worried she would be jealous.  Although Addie still requires a lot of attention she has been an awesome big sister.  She tells me how much she loves Alivia all the time.  I can’t even tell you how full that makes my heart feel.

Addison has a heart for the Lord and I pray as she grows her faith will grow along with her.

Her favorite bible verse :

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding

Proverbs 3:5

Favorite bible story:

The Parable of the Good Samaritan

Addie is a good Samaritan. At 8 yrs old her spirit is sweet, her heart is kind and she has her whole life ahead of her.  I can only imagine who she will become.  Until then…she is ours to love and ours to guide.  I thank God for blessing us with her life.  It has changed us forever and for the better.

Happy Birthday Addison Makenze.  Mommy and Daddy love you!

I sat down to write my Wordless Wednesday post.  Then I realized I have stuff to say.  And stuff to say means words to type and well that’s not really cohesive with the whole Wordless Wednesday vibe.

The oo7’s have been busy lately.  In the past couple of months we have gone to GA twice, survived a tornado, watched Charlie Daniels play ‘The Devil Went Down to GA” at our church’s Easter celebration, had an argument about pizza on the hippie bus at Mellow Mushroom and Alivia turned 18 months old.  Whew!

I have several half written blog posts in my draft folder and I have been trying to figure out why I haven’t been posting very many blogs.  Then BAM it all made sense to me.

Did I mention Alivia is 18 months old?

Yeah 18 months is the best age ever.  I seriously LOVE it!  Addison hasn’t been that age in oh let’s see 6 1/2 years so I kind of forgot how time consuming babies are at this age.  Wonderful and hilarious and enchanting and adorable but time consuming none-the-less.

She naps really well for me but to be perfectly candid while she is sleeping I am usually sleeping, showering, twittering, cleaning, folding laundry or shuffling around the house trying to decide where to start.

So that is my story…Livie is a busybody and I am too busy trying to keep up with life that I haven’t had too much time to write about it.

Last weekend we went to the American Girl Store and Bistro in GA to celebrate Addison’s birthday  a little early.  Like a good mommy blogger I took lots of pictures and I have even started writing a post about it.

BUT…I also bought myself something a couple weeks ago and I am just about to start it.  Like as in as soon as I finish writing this post.

I am nervous about sharing it because then I will actually feel like I have to follow through. UGH  Accountability can SUCK IT!

So yeah I am a big fat fatty and I need to lose weight in the worst way.  It’s time for me to do something serious and I think this is a good start.  I will let ya’ll know how it’s going.

Ok so now I think you are all caught up…did I forget anything?

Do you know how hard it is to take a picture of a kite on a windy day?  The things I do in the name of blogging!

She looks like she is having fun right?

After I took this picture she handed me the kite and didn’t touch it again.

Apparently she has inherited my mom’s irrational fear of flying a kite.  Sorry to out you mom but it is too funny and I have a blog.  Gotta keep it fresh!

Alivia had fun running around even though I didn’t let her hold the kite.  I mean it might carry her off to the next town or something.

It’s hard to get good pictures of her because she is constantly in motion.

She did think the basketball made a good place to sit so I took advantage of the seconds of stillness.

Addison stole her idea and shrieking soon followed. Then a few moments of sisterly love happened.

I love these girls!

Filed under Momservations, family | Comments (6)

Apprehension

ok THAT was fun!

Tears of frustration

Perseverance

For more Wordless Wednesday fun go here

I have talked a lot about how I got pregnant with our oldest daughter when Adam and I hadn’t been dating very long and how that has affected the dynamics of our relationship over the past 8 years.  I am not even close to being finished telling that story and I am planning on writing Part 6 of  The Truth Is series very soon.  If you haven’t read it and you are interested then you should go catch up.

It’s ok I will wait.  No really go ahead….I will totally be here when you get back.

So yeah we were very young and scared and we were having a baby.  Toward the end of my pregnancy my blood pressure started to rise and my doctor advised me to stop working.  I was swelling and he was concerned that I might be heading into preeclampsia.  About 2 weeks from my due date which was May 11th, 2001 we went in for our prenatal appointment.  I was so ready to have our baby even though I had no idea what to expect.

People tell you things that you should listen closer to and you hear them, but you just can’t know how you will feel until you experience it.  That day at the doctor’s office my blood pressure was dangerously high and I was so swollen that I didn’t recognize myself.  So my Dr sent us home to get our stuff and told us to get to the hospital for an induction.

I won’t go into the whole birth story, but to make a long story short I was in labor for what seemed like 12 yrs and everyone thought I would NEVER dilate.  But I finally did and the epidural worked so well that you could have sawed off my foot and I wouldn’t have felt it.  I was so numb that the Dr had to put this suction cup thing on Addison’s head and help me get her out.  It was traumatic to say the least.  But finally she was here.

I had been watching TLC’s A Baby Story for weeks so I knew this was the part where the baby was supposed to cry.  But she didn’t make a sound.  She was limp and sort of a purplish color and I knew something was wrong.  Adam’s mom immediately dropped to her knees and started praying and I was just in shock.  A whole team of people came in and they were rubbing her and suctioning her.  She started to wiggle around and she was trying really hard to cry.  She was making these little sounds and her chest was filling up and collapsing and you could tell she was struggling to breathe.

After about 15 or 20 minutes they let me hold her for like 30 seconds.  Then they whisked her away to the NICU.  A few minutes later a woman came in to talk to me about Addison’s health.  She was a pediatrician  and she was very direct.  She told me my baby was very sick but they weren’t sure what was wrong.  She said she was pretty sure Addison had inhaled fluid and it had gone into her lungs.  She said it could be pneumonia and that they were giving her oxygen and medicine.  I asked her if she was ok and she told me simply and honestly “no”.

I remember being shocked.   It was one of those moments that doesn’t feel real and you are sort of outside of yourself.  The hospital where she was born has an excellent NICU and she was in really good hands.  There were babies in there who were much sicker than Addison and although it was a serious situation for us I couldn’t help but feeling slightly thankful.  I prayed very hard for our baby but I also prayed for the health of all of the other babies.

Looking back at the pictures I realize how rough she looked.  I only remember thinking that she was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen.  I don’t think I will ever forget the smell of the soap that you had to wash your hands with before you could come in or the sound of all of those machines beeping.

We were young and totally unprepared, but I think the experience brought us all closer as a family.  Addison coming into our lives made such a positive impact on us and changed our future forever.  She made a full recovery from her traumatic beginning and after 6 days in the hospital we took her home.

And literally 5 minutes after we got home with her from the hospital she gave me another kind of shock…..

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry….so I did both.

It was just her little way of saying welcome to motherhood.

For more Fro’ Me to you posts visit Kristen at We are THAT family

This is why we are not sending Christmas cards this year

We have only one bathroom.  It sucks.  But we live in an older home that was built in 1962. It has a certain charm, but the one bathroom part just isn’t part of the charming character.

Tonight I was peeing while my 7 year old daughter Addison was brushing her teeth.

Addie:  “Mommy why are you wearing a diaper in your panties?”

Me:  ” heehee it’s not a diaper”

Addie:  ” well it looks like a diaper what the heck is it?”

Addie again: “mommy…why is there pink on your paper towel?”

Me:  “You mean toilet paper?”

Addison : “well yeah”

Me (completely caught off guard): “well it is something that happens to grown up girls.  It’s called a period”

Addie:”….”

Me ( in my head) :  ” she thinks I am talking about a dot…she thinks I am referring to punctuation. Oh jeez”

Oh and I was right

Addie: “a period?…like at the end of a sentence?”

Me: ” it’s actually called a menstrual cycle.  It’s something God gave women so we can have babies”

Addie: “YOU”RE HAVING ANOTHER BABY?   I don’t think I can handle it!”

Seriously that’s what she said….

Me:” no I am not having another baby….not for a couple of years”

Apparently when we had Alivia, Addison’s whole world turned upside down.  And now she thinks I have punctuation in my panties.  I am probably gonna hear from the school counselor on that one.