MoMonkey MoMonkey

Season Opener

Last night was the Season Home Opener for the local hockey team - the Reading Royals. Mo was a very serious little girl throughout most of the game. For the first period, I couldn't get her to smile at all. She was being a perfect angel though, so I wasn't going to push my luck! Perhaps she was content with watching the game? I dunno.

During the second period, I broke out the iced Animal Crackers and let's just say the sugar kicked in. Then my little girl was full of smiles and giggles! Too bad I don't have any pictures of that, but it was kind of impossible to break out the camera when the kid was in her hyper mode.

The pic below is her buddy Ethan. He's only a few months old. It was actually his first game and he was awesome throughout the whole thing.

Addict in Da House

My kid is addicted to Sesame Street. Literally. Any room she enters that has a tv in it, she points to the TV with a whine...asking for Elmo. Most people wouldn't recognize what she's asking for because Elmo sounds more like uh-oh. She also likes Grover, but I can't quite explain how she says that one! Anyhoo, it's gone to a whole new level of addiction. She woke up this morning asking to see Elmo. That was the first thing on her mind.

Is there an "Elmo's Anonymous" group out there? My kid really needs it.

Tonight's Conversation

Mommy: Mo, did you go poopy?
Mo: Yeah.
Mommy: Can you get a diaper so Mommy can change you?
Mo: No.

End of discussion. She promptly left the room!

Who Needs Electric?

I got this letter in the mail yesterday from the electric company saying they were going to shut off our electric service on 11/1 because we hadn't made a payment since June and the total owed was nearly $800. Being the perfectionist bill payer that I am, I pick up the phone ready for a fight and as the phone is ringing on their end, I'm going through my checkbook so that I can arm myelf with the information needed to challenge them.

Turns out that they were right. I haven't paid them since June. What the freak??? I think I'm losing it.

Oh, and is that really how it works? I don't pay a bill for 4 months, and the first notice I get is that they're shutting my service off? Hmmmm....

One of Life's Conundrums

Why is that I can spend $200+ on groceries and the cupboards and fridge are filled with food, yet there's still nothing to eat in this house?

Lately, I'm hungry, but not for anything in particular. So I skip meals. Or I eat cereal. A lot. Every night the hubs asks what we're doing for dinner because he, too, thinks there is nothing to eat in this house. Every night I answer him with a resounding "I don't know." Then he asks if I want to go out and I dread answering that question as well because I know what his next question will be... where do you want go? Since I never seem to know what I'm hungry for, I never seem to know where I want to go. And surprisingly enough, the hubs never knows what he wants either.

I'm usually very decisive about all things, but when it comes to food, it's nothing but blah. It's like I'm bored with all food choices. I can go to the grocery store and find absolutely nothing I want to buy. So I buy stuff that I think I should buy - like food for the Mo-meister, bread, milk, eggs, and various other sundry. Then I bring it home and don't want any of it.

I wish I could afford a personal chef - one who would cook all kinds of yummy food from scratch, clean up (along with the rest of the house for that matter) and do the grocery shopping too! Yeah, I'm a dreamer...

Oh, and please don't suggest I cook. I don't do that!

Spending The Morning With Daddy

Hockey season for the Reading Royals starts next Saturday and here are some pics of Mo testing out the ice! She has to make sure it's safe for the players to walk on and also safe for their tushies when they fall!!

Rainy Day Antics

Rain, rain go away and don't come back another day. You ruined the day we planned to spend at the pumpkin patch!

On a positive note, though, I got to spend the morning doing some work. Not housework. Work work. I have had 3 months to respond to a bogus EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) claim of discrimination from one of my former employees. It's due on Friday and being the procrastinator that I am, I just started it today. Good news is I finished it today too - and it only took 5 hours (with the help of Mo spending part of the morning with Daddy and the other part blissfully napping). Yipppeeee!

So rain, perhaps you're a blessing in disguise. It's now 3:45 in the afternoon and I suppose I should take a shower and get dressed!!!

One Pill Will Solve Everything!

I was flipping through the tv channels the other day and came upon this infomercial for a vitamin called "Iceland Health Omega-3". They claim that taking it will improve your health and longevity, will increase your energy, improve your sleep, improve your memory, thin your blood and reduce inflammation in the joints and blood vessels (thereby reducing the strain on your heart), enhance your blood flow to the brain, relieve aches and pains, and increase your “good” cholesterol which helps to unclog arteries.

Now c'mon people. Can one pill really do all that?

So it got me thinking about vitamins in general. I take a daily multi-vitamin and cranberry pills to help prevent urinary tract infections. (Yeah, I know ya'll wanted to know that, right?) My doctor seems to think the cranberry pills are necessary, but the daily multi-vitamin is a waste of time and money. I haven't listened to him because taking the vitamin seems to make me feel better about my horrible eating habits. There are days when I skip meals, or eat the wrong foods at meals because I don't have the time to prepare anything healthy. I realize that the vitamin isn't a fix-all, but at least I'm getting the bare essentials, right?!

Grocery Shopping Adventures

I LOATHE grocery shopping. I will avoid it whenever possible. I especially hate it when I have to drag an active toddler with me. But when there's no milk in the house for the Mo-meister, alas... it's time to go.

So tonight I tried one of those shopping carts with the kiddie car up front. I strapped Mo in and she was as happy as a clam... steering the car, laughing, talking and waving to everyone we passed. I was so relieved that she was behaving that I concentrated on shopping, reading labels, etc.... (you know, all the stuff we Mommy's avoid so that we can hurry and get the kid out of there). I shopped for nearly an hour... all happy that my child was being a perfect little angel.

Then I get to the checkout line and start unloading the cart. I peek in at Mo and notice she had some loot on the seat next to her... things on the floor and some things even in her pocket. It turns out my "perfect little angel" was stealing all kinds of stuff off the shelves while I happily shopped. She managed to get some crackers, cookies, cream cheese, and an empty cardboard yogurt package. I have no idea what happened to the actual yogurt that was in the package.

I can't believe I didn't notice this. She's sneaky, I tell you. As for the kiddie car, let's just say... I won't be doing that again any time soon!

Old & Decrepit? I Think Not.

Mo is on her way to the big "2" and I've been thinking about baby #2. The hubs and I always wanted at least 2 kids, but since it took us 8 years for the first kid to come along - the idea of having 2 faded away. For those of you who know us, you know we had completely given up on having kids after years of struggling with infertility. In fact, we not only had given up on the idea; we grew so accustomed to life without kids that it no longer appealed to us to have any. Then surprise, surprise... Mo came along.

Now that we have one child, I definitely want another. But I don't want another until Mo is at least 4-5 years old and getting ready to start kindergarten. That way when the kids are older, we only have to pay for one college education at a time!

Here's the problem... I became pregnant at 30 and gave birth to Mo at age 31. The hubs is exactly one year older than me and he thinks we were way too old to just be starting our family. So to have a second child at ages 34-35 appears to be out of the question to him.

I, however, have a very different view on this. I don't think our age is a problem at all. In fact, I think it's an extremely positive thing because we're at an age where we're mature (I only speak for myself here!!) and financially stable. In our mid 20's, we wouldn't have been able to afford a child at all.

So feel free to chime into our debate. Do you think we're too old to consider having a second child in the next 3-4 years?

Book Recommendation

This book was given to me for reasons I won't get into, but needless to say, it's a good book and I highly recommend it to you. It's called "The Epidemic - The Rot of American Culture, Absentee and Permissive Parenting, and the Resultant Plague of Joyless, Selfish Children" (written by Robert Shaw, M.D.).

Yep, that's one long title.

Anyhoo, it's quite a controversial book and since I love controversy, I'm going to bring up a topic that might make some of my readers upset - or even downright angry.

Here I go...

I strongly disagree with parents who allow their children to sleep with them at night. Since I can't say it nearly as eloquently than Dr. Shaw, I'm just going to quote him.

"Proponents believe that babies will feel more secure sleeping next to their parents, and mothers will have less of a problem with nighttime nursings if they don't have to do anything more than roll over and accommodate their child. This is a very intense controversy - the only other topic that evokes such passionate feelings among parents is breastfeeding, or the lack of it. Yet there are a number of things that seem questionable to me about sharing a bed with your child. Children develop resources sleeping alone that are essential for adaptation in our complicated culture. Sure, they're going to be happy about being equal participants in what is essentially the core of the marital relationship. But in allowing them to maintain that delusion, we only postpone the day when they learn that they are not the center of the universe, and not on par with their parents in power and presence. They are children, and cannot inhabit an identical world to ours. Also, learning to be alone leads to increased ability to self-soothe, to tolerate frustration, and to recover from disappointment. Sharing a bed with your child clearly thwarts or delays this process."

I couldn't have said it better myself. This is not to say you should NEVER let your kid sleep with you. There are times I find it necessary - like the occasion where Mo threw herself out of her crib head first on to the hardwood floors. That night she joined the hubs and I in bed so I could monitor her closely to ensure her concussion didn't cause other complications. But every other night she sleeps alone and she's grown so accustomed to the routine that if we tried to sleep next to her or even touch her while she's asleep, she grunts and pushes us away. So our discipline has paid off. She is definitely a self-soother.

I realize that not everyone agrees with this approach, but I felt somewhat validated by reading this snippet of information. Do you agree/disagree? Talk amongst yourselves!!

Mo Firsts

Mo said her first complete sentence tonight:

"Mama, can I have a cracker?"

Then shortly thereafter, she shoved a pile of cheerios in her mouth (that she had proudly stolen off the shelf) and said "Mmmm, good" in most dramatic form.

Yep. All my kid talks about is food.

Word of The Day

After all the babysitting shenanigans we've experienced over the last couple of months, we finally resorted to sending Mo to daycare. Actually, it's not really a daycare - it's more like a nursery school. The person in charge of her class is a certified teacher and there's all kinds of learning activities throughout the day. So I'm really pleased with how things are turning out. She started on Tuesday and other than the separation anxiety thing in the morning (which breaks my heart every time), she seems to be doing really good. The teacher said she already made friends and she seems so happy when I pick her up in the evening. So this may have all worked out for the best afterall.

And her new word of the day? Baboon! Yep. Don't know what those kiddies were talking about today, but she can't seem to stop saying that word tonight!

Moving Up

I'm getting a lot of flack from family and friends about why we'd want to leave the house we live in. We love our house. No doubt about it. But it has a major drawback. The bedrooms are tiny as hell. And we're a bit land-locked, so building on really isn't an option. Building up isn't much of an option either as we're already using 4 floors of living space. You wouldn't think 3 people need so much space, but I guess we do. Especially when the hubs demands that the entire attic be devoted to his office/hangout space.

So here's the dilemma. The kitchen is UGLY and is in serious need of renovation. The cheapest quote we got came in around $35k - and that didn't include flooring, painting, etc. So should we put $35k into this house if the bedrooms will never meet our needs? Things are ok now, but if we ever had a second child, the kid will have to be stuffed into a shoebox room and sleep in a crib his whole life!

So we're just looking at houses to weigh out our options. We really don't want to move. We love our house, we love our neighborhood, we love the school district we're in, and we most expecially love our neighbor "Saint Bob" - who likes to keep himself busy by doing things like staining our deck, mulching around our house, taking care of our trash and the like. Giving all that up seems downright silly. But pouring $35k into a kitchen (and another few thousand into a much needed second bathroom renovation) - then possibly needing to move a few years down the road also seems silly.

So I'm thinking we should get it over-with right now. The hubs isn't so enthusiastic. Although if we find the house of our dreams for a price we can afford (based on the profit we can make on our current house), he'll grow enthusiastic really quick... I think!!!

Oh - and thanks everyone for your comments on the city house. You brought me back to reality. What was I thinking?

Question of the Day

When considering a house, how important is the school district to you? I saw this BEAUTIFUL house last night in a BEAUTIFUL neighborhood. The moment I walked in, it felt right. So cozy and nice.... lots of character. Needs just minor cosmetic work to conform to my taste (such as painting the stark white walls, removing wallpaper from the hall, etc.). The house is in excellent condition though. I love, love, love it.

But the neighborhood is within the city limits, which means Mo would have to go to the city school district. The high school has a horrible reputation, however, in its defense, they have over 4000 students crammed into one building. There's bound to be some crime, huh? People think suburban schools are so much safer, but let's face it...there's just as much drug use and other crap going on there. It's just not as publicized. Sounds like I'm making excuses, huh?

Weekend Update

Is it Friday yet? Yet another busy weekend in the Mo household. We started a furniture hunt on Friday for a twin size bed for the Mo-meister and, of course, I didn't find anything I liked. All the girl stuff is just too girlie if you ask me. Who wants a bed with flowers engraved all over it?

Although Mo isn't quite ready for a bed, I'm thinking she will be by years end. And it looks like we're going to have to put her into a bigger bedroom. The bedroom she's in now is just too darn small for a growing kid. The other bedroom, however, is filled with nasty girlie flowery wallpaper. (If you click on the pics of our house to the right, the room I'm referring to is what we currently refer to as the music/guest room). So over the next couple of months, we'll be ripping down the ugly wallpaper and paving the way for a nice paint job! The funny thing is that I hate all the girlie stuff we currently have, yet I want to paint the room pink. Not an ugly pink (like neon or some wimpy pastel color)...more like a really vibrant pink. Her nursery is purple and I don't want to paint her new room in the same color, so pink would be my next choice. (Yeah, I know... pink's girlie). See, here's my dilemma. I want a new color that's not already in some other part of the house. And pink is definitely not a color we have anywhere in our house. I was also thinking about a really cool green apple color - but I'm trying to reserve that for our family room (if I can stop being lazy about home improvement stuff). So for now it's pink! (At least until Mo can tell me she hates pink and wants her room to be all black or something... eeek).

Anyhoo, our weekend was filled with all kinds of running around, which included a community thingie - where Mo got to ride ponies, go on a hayride, and all kinds of other fun stuff. And I forgot my camera. I'm a dufus.

Anyone want to remove some ugly wallpaper for me?