For the record, when I once fasted for 48 hours with a whole group of college students, I was the only one who was dry heaving & throwing up bile after 28 hours. I get nauseous when I am hungry. The hungrier I get, the pickier I feel about what I want to eat. I've been on hikes where I am starving, but just thinking about a power bar made me want to be sick and I waited till we could get some "real" food to eat. Usually when I am that hungry I only want protein & carbs, but real ones like pasta, steak, pizza, etc. No chips, candy or junk food.

So I guess its possible that Saben inherited his throwing up on an empty stomach from me.... Darn it.

Bravery

The other day, Saben was riding his bike down the big hill by our house, turned the wheel too sharply & crashed. He got up nonchalantly and said "Woah! I crashed!" and kept riding like it ws no big deal at all. I didn't even think he'd gotten hurt until later I saw his arm & palms had scrapes on them.

This, from the boy who is afraid of his frog sippy cup because they have big eyes.

In other news, Saben refused to eat his chicken fingers & sweet potato fries last night, even though he only got a few sips of his smoothie which he loves. (not to mention he LIKES chicken fingers and has eaten sweet potato fries several times - but lately he's only wanted yogurt for dinner. Plain, with granola & a tiny bit of honey)

He was promised more smoothie if he kept eating the rest of his dinner, but he decided to be done instead. This morning, he was so hungry he dry heaved again. Crazy child.

My mom started a blog and has some really funny pictures of trying to get a shot with her & the two kids where they all look decent....

Advice

Here's what gets me. The only experienced people at parenting that I know are our parents, whom I love, respect and think did an awesome job of raising us.

But everything you read anywhere in mainstream child rearing psychology tells us to do it differently than they did it. Don't force kids to do things, just offer them carrot sticks and let them choose what to eat. Don't let your kids cry it out. Don't spank them, just use timeouts.

Its no wonder I worry all the time that we're screwing it up because all I can imagine is my daughter someday asking me "really? you never let me cry it out? everything I read tells me to let the kids cry it out". Because all the instructions will probably be opposite by the time she has kids.

(this has nothing to do with the actual methods we have chosen to use for parenting, I'm just pointing out the dissidence)

What we've been doing

Saben - 3 yrs

• Loves balls, especially golf, pool, baseball & his marble tower race
• Rides his glider bike almost every day and has learned to pick his feet up and coast along.
• Would eat the exact same thing every day if we let him.
• Likes to watch Blues Clues the most
• Is afraid of "Scary Eyes" which is anything from Snufalupagus to certain stuffed animals w/ eyes. (and yes shauna, that alien stuffed toy with the giant eye ball on its head you got him for Christmas? Freaks him out. Sorry!)
• Thinks Annika is ok and likes to boss her around which is sometimes helpful...sometimes not.
• Really enjoys singing and can actually carry a tune now
• Has tremendous energy and loves to run

Annika - 9 mos

• Loves to crawl around exploring & pull up to standing on everything.
• Bops up and down to music, especially the one her lion riding toy plays
• Would eat everything in the house if we let her.
• Gets to watch Baby Einstein each day so that mommy is able to take a shower. She hates being stationary otherwise and does not enjoy the exersaucer at all.
• Is not afraid of anything. She went through a phase of fearing men, but I think its gone now.
• Adores her brother and is learning to play little games with him. She is also just starting to show signs of getting pretty annoyed at him when he takes things away.
• Has zeroed in on her ring of destruction: First, eat video cassette covers. Come to computer & try to touch the blinking light which happens to be the power button. Next up is pulling moss & dirt out of mommy's potted plants. Then head on over the electrical outlets and gnaw on the cords for a while. (that mommy has already unplugged)
• Has learned to shriek/scream at the top of her lungs. Just for fun, or if she's impatient. (like in the restaurant when mommy isn't feeding her quite fast enough.)
• Has suddenly had trouble going to bed, 4 days in a row now & wants to nurse for an hour every evening.

Kyle

• Finishing up the new building where their business will be.
• Ripped out the heating ducts downstairs after the furnace broke just a couple months before we planned to replace it during our basement remodel.
• Going on "business" bike riding trips in Colorado.

Mommy

• Joined a boot camp class that meats at 6:30 am every morning.
• Decided to try their crazy meal plan that eliminates fat & sugar except for one "fun day" a week. (if I'm getting up at 6am, might as well go whole hog huh?)
• Is designing & purchasing the landscaping for the company's new building
• Organizing the basement remodel estimate process half heartedly and dreading the day it begins. Except she will be happy to have a new furnace.
• Is laying low and struggling to finish potty training Saben & get Annika the naps she needs.
• Really really needs to figure out preschool for Saben in the fall but feels completely overwhelmed by the prospect.

The winner...

Thanks for all the fun stories! I laughed at all of them and they really made my days last week. Here is the one that made me laugh the hardest:

My son Jenson, was about three, and tucked into bed. I came up because I could hear him still playing around and obviously not sleeping. I came in his room and found him with tampon wrappers on his bed. Weird. Turns out he was thirsty... he'd gotten himself a cup of water. And a straw. Made out of a tampon applicator he found in the cabinet. Sipping away, and very proud. You can't make that stuff up.

Even though its not publicly embarassing, Shawn still wins, because her other stories were really funny too! Shawn, email me your address if you want the Wondertime subscription and I'll send it your way.

For second place, I drew names and came up with FiveDays as the winner! If you want the subscription, just email me.

Thanks everyone!

Of all the tasks I do as a mom, the hardest one of all is....vacuuming.

First, there's getting all the toys put away so I can even get to the floors. Then the second I get the vacuum out of the closet, Saben starts whining & crying. He's afraid of it. He goes in his room with the door shut, but everytime I turn it off for a second he is out whining again, trying to get me to stop.

Annika meanwhile wants me to carry her while I vacuum. Which gets extremely tiring. Everytime I put her down, she is bawling something awful. I wish I could do it while they slept, but that doesn't work for obvious reasons.

Lastly, the mechanism that keeps the vacuum handle upright is broken so everytime I set it somewhere I have to lean the handle against something or it falls to the floor with a loud crash and probably leaves dents in its wake.

So I only vacuum every 2-3 weeks. I sweep the wood floors, but getting the area rugs clean doesn't happen super often. Luckily the dog cleans up any food messes and we all take our shoes off at the door, (well, everyone except the dog) so it doesn't get too disgusting.

Please?

Ok, I know that 20 of you checked my blog yesterday and only 2 people told me embarassing stories. Thank you FiveDays & Vale!! Please please please tell me a funny story. It can be about anything. Anything at all. Doesn't anyone want a magazine subscription?

To give you ideas, here is my most embarassing parenting moment.

As if it wasn't painful enough that I was up at 6am this morning, getting dressed to go to my workout class, as I put on my sweatshirt a big, black spider the size of a quarter crawled out & up my chest. I squealed quietly - loud enough to wake kyle but luckily not enough to wake the kids. Thank goodness it wasn't a cockroach, no one would have slept through that.

Kari's Blog Giveaway Extravaganza!!!!

As we approach this blogs 2 year anniversary (ok, its still 1 1/2 months away) I have decided to do a little contest!

In the comments section, please tell me a funny story about your most embarassing moment with a child under your care.

(you know, like the time your child crawled under the door in the dressing room while you were undressed and nearly escaped, but instead stopped to crawl under someone elses door? This hasn't happened to me, but it'd be pretty funny and embarassing if it did. hmm.... maybe we should just make up embarassing scenarios. Do you think that would be funnier?)

Lucky for me the prize does not involve a trip to the post office since I despise going there. The prize will be a subscription to my favorite parenting magazine, Wondertime. I might even give away two subscriptions if lots of people tell me funny stories. I just started a new "meal plan" that forbids the eating of butter so I could really use some cheering up. Please, please, make me laugh.

If you are not a parent and don't want a subscription, then I will just send you my best wishes for winning and instead send it to the runner up. Or maybe I'll think of something to send you in the mail, but no promises.

Judging criteria: Whichever story makes me laugh the hardest. I will rate my laughs on a scale of 1-10 and then pick a winner.

10 on 10 theme

Give up? My theme for the 10 on 10 was things that were ugly, but then slowly grew over the day to include things that annoy me. And then I tried to create something nice in a picture with all these ugly annoying things. Like seeing the good in the bad. See? Aren't I a deep wise person? Do you want me to be your guru? I have tons more where this came from.

10 on 10

(10 points if you can figure out what my theme for the day was....)

I've had people ask me how I get the fuzzy glow in the center of my photographs. (see the picture of purple flowers above for example.) It's pretty simple actually. Get your camera out & try to take pictures of your 8 month old, while feeding her rice goop. With any luck, some of the cereal will get on your fingers and somehow make its way onto your camera lense. Ta dah! Fuzzy romantic blurs in the center of your photos!

In the event that I suddenly come down with rabies

Yesterday, I got bit by a mouse. A wee white one running in the grass that the neighbor convinced me was somebody's pet. Always up for an animal related challenge, I grabbed it and it leaped 3 feet up in the air & out of my hands. Unfazed, I caught it again and just as the realization hit that I had no idea what I was going to do with a pet mouse, it bit my finger. Down went the mouse. Nonchalantly, it wandered through the grass and was last seen nose to nose with a cat who did not know what to do with a wee white mouse that refused to run away.