amommaslife

I fight sleep. I fight exhaustion. I fight bedtime. Why? Because I need some free time! Now that my daughter doesn’t nap nighttime is the ONLY free time I have. I sleep till someone wakes me up each morning because I’ve never been a morning person, so I don’t have free time in the morning. Luckily both my kids are in bed by 8:30 so I have plenty of time to myself at night…..as long as no one wakes up. I live for this time. It is time spent reading, blogging, chatting on the phone or just spent doing nothing! Being pregnant with baby # 3 and chasing two kids under 3 I find myself getting more and more tired at night but I don’t care I’ll stay up I just won’t do any housework!!!!

I’ve shared a lot of things in my life and borrowed a lot of things in my life. From family, friends, schoolmates, coworkers. Whether it was clothes, money, homework or great teaching ideas I borrowed a lot! Now more than ever I’m sharing and borrowing because I have found that moms are such great sharers!

When I get together with friends for kids’ playdates everybody shares with eachother or sometimes just one person. We share wipes, diapers, sunblock, etc. and these things aren’t cheap. When we have playdates that involved a pack lunch you can imagine how our kids all want to eat what everybody else eats and then we’re all sharing food. I have two closets full of kid’s clothes that somebody has handed down to my children, beautiful designer things it is so nice of them. I try really hard to take great care of these things so I can share them too. But the best things moms share are all the advice, information, recipes and strategies for being a parent in today’s world and moms have to be great sharers afterall they’re trying to raise little sharers!!

Recently my son’s crib was recalled by Jardine Enterprises, if you bought a Jardine Crib from Babies R Us you should check out http://www5.toysrus.com/safety/prodRecalls/jardine-crib.cfm . This is my second Jardine crib luckily only one is being recalled. After receiving an email title “stop using crib immediately” I click on the website to get my voucher to replace my crib and read the instructions on how to get it. Jardine Enterprises is mailing me out a form and a voucher a kit. A kit why you ask?  We have to remove the mattress support and bolts and mail it back to Jardine (in a prepaid box). It is only after they receive the matress support that they’ll mail the voucher which usually takes 1-2 weeks. All in all the process will probably take 3 weeks.  The instructions were very clear my only question is where is my son supposed to sleep for 3 weeks?  I’m supposed to stop using crib immediately but in order to get a new crib I have to be without an integral part of the crib and wait 2 weeks for a voucher to be used for a new crib. Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this? My son will only sleep in a crib, he will not sleep in a porta crib, pack n play, etc. and we definitely do not want him in our bed (especially since most nights our daughter ends up in it!). Luckily it doesn’t seem that there is immediate risk to him and we do have another crib that we could probably put back together but what about all the other babies and parents who only have that one crib? It is really unfair and Jardine Enterprises and Babies R’ Us should really be ashamed of themselves for how they are handling this recall. BTW it involves thousands of cribs sold for 6 years! Whenever I do get my voucher I will not be purchasing another crib from Jardine Enterprises.

OK, I admit it I talk about myself  in the third person to my children constantly!!!!!!!! I can’t help it.  I think it is the former teacher in me. Thinking back I definitely was one of those annoying teachers who spoke about themself in the third person but then again I taught kindergarten so this was completely acceptable.  With my children I try not to but it always comes out “come with mommy” or “can you please get mommy this” “look what mommy has for you”. God it must drive my husband crazy!  At least it hasn’t effected my daughter too much. When she was turning 2 she spoke in the 3rd person but she quickly outgrew it, so why can’t I?  I guess I just love being a mommy and I love reminding myself of the fact out loud !!

1- Many many many more baths!!  Between the sunblock, dirt, melted ice pops & chlorine (oh wait there’s chlorine in my tap water (see Itchy, Scratchy Skin Post) ) I feel like I’m always bathing my kids. Don’t forget more baths equal more laundry!!

2- Later Bedtime! Sunset is at like 9 o’clock, I don’t remember it being so late when I was a kid! Thank goodness for light filtering shades (try the temporary shades from Home Depot for $4).  and the sun still rises so early and those darn birds!

3- Guilt over sending your toddler to camp!  Mila is going to Day Camp! I never went to camp. OK she is only going for 2 weeks but I’m feeling guilty (but I’m also thinking of extending it……bring on the guilt!)

4- Fear of bugs return! Kids tend to forget about bugs all year until summertime! Then when that first fly flies in their house, that is it……all the fear is revived.

5- Smelling, I mean picking the flowers! From dandelions to my neighbors roses nothing seems to be off limits to my daughter. At least she hasn’t gone for my veggies!

Yes summer means all these things but it also means: long walks, picnics, bubbles, beach, carnivals, fireworks, vacations, trips to the farm, trips to the zoo and so much more including late night swimming with daddy when all the kiddies are in bed.    I love summer!

So everybody knows what Noggin is right? It is a Nickelodeon Educational Channel for toddlers and pre-schoolers and it is great.  It has a variety of shows that are so entertaining and stimulating and it has no COMMERCIALS!! Yes they do have breaks between shows but they are  not selling any toys, fast food or trips to Disney World! The breaks offer fun songs, games and tips for parents. I love this about Noggin.

I also love that they have multi-cultural characters just like the real world.  But my favorite thig about Noggin is that from 5 p.m.- 6 p.m. they have slow-moving shows on that draw my daughter in for the entire show while I make dinner! Now she isn’t watching TV from 5-6 but when I begin making dinner I’ll put it on and shes engrossed and then I just have one child to step over in the kitchen.

My poor Chris’ skin just keeps getting worse and worse. The poor baby now cries when I’m applying lotion to him. I had thought that switching to soy milk would improve his eczema but it hasn’t had any effect. Which makes me think that this is all because our local water department has decided to add chlorine to our drinking water….ugh!!!! When I fill up the tub it smells like a public pool when in fact it probably has more chlorine than a public pool! Upon researching the effects of chlorine on eczema I read that the EPA guideline for chlorine in drinking water is 4 ppm (parts per million) when the recommended chlorine level in swimming pools is 2-3 ppm. 

      The chlorine was added about a month ago and that is when Chris’ ezcema really turned severe.  I have been using a Brita Filter for drinking water but it hadn’t occured to me that they also make a bath tub filter that hooks on to the faucet and hangs down and the water goes through.  I am buying this tomorrow!! http://www.egeneralmedical.com/ne-splishsplashbathtubfilter.html I hope it works.  I also finally just found a green detergent for babies that is HE (High-Efficency) since Dreft is not HE I can’t use it in my High-Efficiency washing machine.  It is called Mountain Green Ultra Baby Detergent and you can purchase it online at http://mountaingreen.biz/babyproducts.aspx. 

If anyone has anyother suggestions I would love to hear them.

The ice cream man came by today and even though it was 5:15 I wasn’t cooking dinner yet.  I had gone upstairs for a few minutes to change Chris when those recognizable chimes starting blaring. It didn’t take long for Mila to blare “ice cream truck, ice cream truck, ice cream truck” at a pitch louder than the ice cream truck.  How does she even know about the ice cream truck? We bought ice cream from the ice cream man once last summer and I can’t imagine she remembers. It must be an inate instinct that kids have to hear & distinguish the sounds of the ice cream truck.  Needless to say I did not buy her ice cream. Mark my words I’ll never buy ice cream from the ice cream truck during the hours of 4-7! How dare these ice cream men (or women) come when we are working hard to make a nice nutritious meal that we want our family to eat & enjoy. On occassion we’ll buy ice cream from the ice cream man like on a hot summer day or a weekend afternoon. The truth is we are big ice cream eaters and right now our freezer is stocked with ice cream & ice pops. So as Mila was blaring about the ice cream truck I simply told her “the ice cream man is very expensive and we have plenty of ice cream in our freezer”.  So guess what she did? My not even 3 year old daughter opened the freezer and helped herself to an ice cream sandwich (remember I’m upstairs while this is happening).  I couldn’t believe it, but could I really be upset? No, she wanted ice cream and she got her ice cream and yes it did spoil dinner a little!

I’m starting a new regime today to get my two children to have more boundaries before baby #3 enters the mix in November and things get really interesting. My mom says I’m nesting early but I tell her it is just survival. I organized all the toys today. All legos went in the lego bucket, all blocks in the block bucket, all fake food in a bin, all arts & crafts in a bin and so on. All theses buckets, baskets & bins are now stored high up on a shelf in our pantry. From today on if Mila feels like using legos, blocks, play-doh, etc. she’ll have to ask. Prior to today these things were in our living room ready to be dumped by 15 month old Chris. Along with putting the toys away I have now enstilled some new rules such as one activity at a time, no activities if you’re having snack & before starting another activity you have to clean up your current activity. All these things needed to be done especially because Mila is turning 3 and going to Nursery School in the fall.  If I don’t do it now and stick with it toys are going to force us out of our home.  We have an upstairs playroom but at 3 yrs. & 15 months the kids are really to young to be by themselves up there and I always have a million things to do downstairs.  So for now it is all of us and all of our things on the main floor and come 6 months out comes the pack & play, swing, tummy mat, bouncy and more…oh boy or girl!

I just scheduled my level 2 ultrasound today for July 2nd. Up until this point I was certain I wasn’t going to find out the baby’s sex but I’m starting to crack. They make it so easy to find out……and so hard not to! I didn’t find out w/ my first and I was so surprised because I thought for sure I was having a boy. I found out with my 2nd because my psychic medium predicted my pregnancy and told me 100% that it was a boy so I already knew.
This being my last pregnancy I really wanted to be surprised again but even if I find out in 2 weeks it will still be a surprise just a bit earlier! My 3 year old daughter is certain that the baby is a girl, so certain that the fact that it could be a boy is something she won’t accept. She’ll say things like “we can’t have 2 boys” or “no more boys that’s the rule” or “the sign outside says no more boys”. I swear I don’t know where she gets these things we certainly do not have any signs or rules against boys in our house! She came with me to the doctor and told everyone she could (the nurse, sono tech, Dr. & phlebotomist) that “mommy has a girl baby in her belly”. It just makes sense in her little mind she has a brother so now she has to have a sister!
So for her sake I think I will find out so I can prepare her. I’m feeling boy but don’t tell that to my daughter!