What was I thinking?

Say hello to the newest member of our family!

Isn't she sweet??

I've been having puppy fever for awhile now and we've just been looking for the right dog, breeder, price, time. Finally, we came across Amber in Sycamore and her huge litter of 11 puppies!!!

We've named our newest arrival "Shamrock". She has become "Shammie" or "The Rock" depending on who's talking and what she's doing.

Shamrock is growing like a weed and has gotten bigger in the two weeks we've had her. Having a puppy is a lot like having a toddler that gets into EVERYTHING!

That was the Poinsettia that I've managed to keep alive for two years! OH well. Thank God dad got me a new carpet cleaner a couple months back.

Training is going well and we love her to death already. I'm sure there will be more updates soon.

Why?

Why do people think that just because they know you and something about your life and situation, that they can comment on it?

Why does family think they have more right than anyone else to give you their opinion?

Why do people outside your situation think that they know better than yourself how to deal with a difficult situation?

Why?

On the flipside...

Why do I care so much that they comment?

Why do I put value on their opinion just because its family?

Why does someone else's comment make me second guess how I'm dealing with things? I'm the one that has to deal and live with the situation, not them.

Why?

Most of all...

Why am I so pissed off about it?

Potty Training Tips

So I've been a mom now for 8 1/2 years. And all my kids are still alive. Pretty impressive, huh? So I've decided to share some tips from my vast stores of knowledge about potty training. Potty training boys specifically.

First and foremost - wait until they want to and that probably won't be until sometime after they are 3 because boys are lazy.

Two - The hardest thing for boys to learn is the idea of "tucking". For those out there with girls, this means that there are certain parts that need to be pointed into the potty when boys are seated and attempting to go "#2".

Three - Since boys generally don't get this concept until about age 6, keep paper towels in your bathroom. Some of those flushable toilet wipes wouldn't hurt either which leads me to...

Four - While helping your son learn to use the toilet, stand to the side of your boy. Sitting in front of them is not a good idea as pee shot into the middle of your chest is NOT a good way to start the morning.

Five - Ladies, while it may seem perfectly reasonable to us, boys are not to take a square of toilet paper and blot after making pee-pee in the potty. If you teach them to do this, the first time your husband/baby daddy sees this, he will freak out. This is followed by the lesson in "shaking it off'. Self-explanatory I guess but you may want to refer to number 3.

Six - Do not distract a boy who is standing up and peeing. If you do, you run the risk of being peed on (along with the toilet, the walls, the sink and anything else in the path of the flow) as the boy turns his whole body to see what's going on. They have short little attention spans!

Good Luck and Happy Potty Training!

Ahh... Spring is in the air. I love this weather. I love the smell of things coming to life again. I'm seeing neighbors that I haven't seen since Halloween. Babies that were newborns in the fall are practically walking now.

But the thing that says spring most for me is....

BASEBALL!!!

It's that first crack of the bat that lets me know that Summer is close. The home opener of the White Sox is my first day of spring. It's a tradition in my family and something I've missed only a couple of the last few years. Poor Branden was there just before his birthday with a double ear infection! Some things are just too important to miss. No matter what the reason.

This year, it was my mom, my sis Eileen and my friend Julie. My other sis was supposed to go, but duty called and she had to bail. Amy is the junior partner in her medical practice so she gets all the crap heaped on her.

So the four of us headed to the park with out hopes high. There was cold beer in the cooler and a brand new grill (since I forgot mine at home) for making some hotdogs.

We did our best to put the thing together considering it required wrenches and screwdrivers and all we had were keys and fingernails. It got the job done anyway!

We were in nosebleed seats for the game, but that's ok. I don't care where I sit as long as I'm there. Here's a view of our seats.

Not too bad. I've definitely had worse. The game was great, if a little cold! The temp that day topped out in the mid- 40's but I'll live with it. My guy Crede scored a nice home run down the third base line and we won the game so I'm not gonna complain!

For you poor souls who have never been to "The Cell" here is the view of the city as you leave the stadium. Nice, huh? Love Chicago!

Grinder Ball Rule #1 Win. Or Die Trying.

The Grinder Ball Rules were the ad slogans for the 2005 (AKA World Series) Season. They are now posted around the stadium. This is one of my favs.

The next post is about another important part of the opening series this year along with the reason I was crying like a baby before the game.

Food Courts Suck

So we are on day 2 of "Spring Break". Why the quotes? Because it's freaking cold and those idiots at the Weather Channel are predicting more snow for Friday. Ridiculous!

I digress.

So day 2 of "Spring Break" was spent getting 1st Communion Pictures at the Mall. I called the Portrait Studio last week and they told me that they were "wide open" for every afternoon so I schedule my appointment for 1:20 on Tuesday. One might imagine that I left my house around 1:00 to make it to the mall with time to spare.

But no.

First we had to go to the shoe store to get nice black shoes to match the suit. Then we had to run into Lemstone because we have no special rosaries in the family making me feel a little bad for my kids that they have no traditions to carry on and no story for their rosary except for "My mom ran into the store because it was next door to Payless and she figured they'd have one."

Mother of the Year!!!

Anyway, we get to the mall with plenty of time to spare and the place was freakin' packed! I mean, people in every room, and more at each computer stand looking at their pictures. There was no where to sit with 3 kids and all our winter gear. We get in, thankfully nearly on time, and the pictures went really well. He looked adorable and like such a little man.

Here's the problem. I had to wait 30 minutes between finishing our session and being able to look at our pictures. So I had to venture into the wide open mall with my children.

*Shudder*

The first obstacle was getting past the little play area, filled to the brim with children. We navigate that hurdle and made it all the way to food court without incident. Once we hit the food court, however, all hell broke loose. I told them that we weren't getting any food, but by 2:00, I was woozy from hunger so I caved.

Once upon a time, when i was young and childless, the food court was a great place. No matter who I went with, there was something that we all wanted to eat. Even Bryan who is super picky. Now that I have kids, the options are an absolute nightmare. Why? Because I have 3 kids, none of whom want the same thing. I want Subway, Caden wants Sbarro, Meghan wants Chinese food, and Branden will accept nothing but McDonalds. Kill me now.

A good mother would probably just go from place to place and get them each what they want, but I never said I was a good mom. I went and got my Subway (pat myself on the back), and made the rest of them get McDonalds. Why did Branden get his choice? Because I simply did not want to listen to the enormous temper tantrum that was going to ensue if he didn't get his way. Simple as that. I now know why my sister was such a spoiled brat. My mom just didn't want to hear it and she figured the rest of us were older and could just deal. I'm assuming this because this is pretty much what i told Caden and Meghan.

I know choice is a good thing, just when I'm the one making the choices. Thankfully while I hold the purse strings, I AM making the choices for them...like it or not. Someday it won't always be the case, but for now I'm enjoying my power trip.

First Communion and Hooters

So this is my second attempt at this post as the first one got some nasty error and then lost in cyberspace. So instead of the thoughtfully introspective first one, you are going to get the abridged version.

This past Sunday my friend Julie and I took our boys to Woodfield Mall to get them suits for their First Communion coming up in May. To say that they were reluctant to get their suits was an understatement. We thought that going together may alleviate some of their anxiety and whining about the jacket and tie.

Caden had been whining so badly over the last couple of weeks about wearing a suit that I finally screamed, er I mean commented, that Jesus said all kids had to wear a suit. Yep that's right. I pulled the Jesus card. It shut him up, didn't it? (This blog isn't named Mother of the Year for nothing!)

So we pull up to the mall and the excitement begins. When we get into JCPenney, the boys first ran here:

To any fellow Catholics out there, this should be amusing. There is no church on earth that would allow shirts and ties like this at a First Communion ceremony! The uniform is white shirts and dark ties. That's it.

However, my boy likes the yellow shirt and tie while Joey preferred a nice dark grey one.

We finally got them to get back to business and look for a suit. Thankfully there isn't much choice at that age. We had to go to another store in order to get shirts and ties. Caden wanted no part of the zip tie and headed straight for a solid black silk tie.

Here is the result:

Isn't he handsome?

This almost made me cry. He's not my baby anymore.

I looked at him and wondered where had the time gone?

Where was my newborn, too small for any of the clothes we'd bought? Or the 15 month old who Finally learned to walk? Or the preschooler who didn't want to go to school twice a week because he loved his mommy too much to leave her?

*sigh*

Good Lord! What am I going to be like when he goes to Prom or heaven forbid get married?

Since the boys were so good and happily tolerated trying on jackets and ties, shirts and belts (not to mention my incessant picture taking) that Julie and I decided to take them out to a nice lunch. One where people served US! So off we went figuring on going to Red Robin or Chili's or something until something caught our eye...

Yeah Yeah Yeah! I don't want to hear it. We brought our 8 year old boys to Hooters for lunch.

Julie had never been there and I LOVE Hooters. They have the best wings around regardless of what the waitresses might (or might not) be wearing!

The boys loved it.

Especially because of this:

Our waitress was very sweet to take a picture with the boys.

Their dads were very proud of them. (Idiots)

I hope the boys always remember this day, and I don't mean Hooters! I hope they remember spending the day with their moms and each other buying their first suits for a big occasion in their lives.

Though they'll probably mostly remember Hooters.

LOL

Back from the Dead

Holy Cow! Has it really been over a month since I've posted???

Time flies when you are on your death bed.

My house was gripped with the horrible flu epidemic of 2008. It's symptoms included a horrible hacking cough (Not a good thing, especially after 3 kids), completely stopped up sinus cavities, high fever, achy body so that sweet hugs from my kids were painful. Even bryan took time off work and that NEVER happens. I think he's taken 2 sick days in the 14 year we have been together.

Since my recovery, it seems that I have merely been spending time catching up on everything that wasn't done during the 2 1/2 weeks that neither of us could rise from the couch. Overflowing laundry baskets, a disgusting kitchen floor, furniture so dusty you could write your name in it etc. etc.

But here's what gets me when, as a wife and mother, you get sick:

My lovely husband made the comment to me that he didn't think I was as sick as he was because I was able to get up and move around.

I didn't dignify that with a response. It would have been filthy if I'd said what I was thinking.

The cleaned up version is that I was just as sick as he was, I'm just not allowed to wallow on the couch. I have 3 kids who aren't sick (which makes everything worse) who still need to eat, go to school, get taken to activites, finish homework and on and on. As a mom, I don't have time to get sick. They need me and don't really care that it takes every bit of the energy left in my body to rise from the couch and microwave yet another chicken patty for dinner. They don't care that helping them with counting money hurts my head so badly that I want to dig my eyeballs out with a spoon just to relieve the pressure. All they know is that I'm mom and I need to help them like I always do.

The next comment was how come I got to stay home from work when he felt bad too, but had to go in. My response to that, besides calling him a great big whining baby, was because I am a substitute. They send teachers home for looking and sounding like I did. If I walked into a school looking like the walking dead, I would certainly not be appreciated. Now, If I had my own classroom, i would have been back sooner, but I don't, so I didn't.

All of you in my district can thank me now for not infecting your children.

Happily, I am back in fine form now.

Right in time to start my next (and last!) online class!!!

Wish me luck. I'll need it.