Media Free Month

I gave my kids a few weeks notice. They shouldn't have been shocked. After all this is not the first time this has happened. But no, there were still tears of agony and pain. I looked at them as they were crying and said, "You act like we are taking away your birthday." "It feels like it!" was there agonized reply.

Media free month at the Van Patten's. That is what all the drama was about. June is our month we take off tv and video games to stretch our minds and spend most of our time outdoors. My kids find it terribly painful before we start. Funny thing is, they don't miss it a bit once we're into it. Their creativity suddenly blooms. They play hours together. They find toys they forgot they had.

It's so easy to default to electronics. When you're bored, it helps fill your time. Unfortunately that's the first thing my kids think of when they are bored. It's almost like they can't think to do anything else. Except during media free month.

Of course it's a challenge for me too! It's so nice to say, "Go watch tv." "Ahem, an educational show, I mean..." It gives me a much needed (or wanted)  break. But, I find I miss out on so much too. Instead of spending time on the computer, I'm reading books to my kids and playing games WITH my kids. I become part of their play. The other challenge is the mess. I've had multiple homemade tents in the family room, legos all over the floor, craft projects strewn everywhere, and books, Books, BOOKS!!! Oh the books! Everywhere. We must bring home 40 books everytime we go to the library. But, they're reading, and exploring, and learning, and NOT watching tv!

I love it.

They also get creative in not so good ways....

 Like the time I found my kids along with someone else's child in our pool fully clothed after I told them they couldn't swim. I'm sure they misunderstood my instructions. Surely they thought I meant no swimming only if they had their swimsuits on...... Of course I was in the middle of a piano lesson, so there wasn't a lot I could do except tell them to sit in their wet clothes on the porch until I was finished.

Or the day I found Kade and Elijah in the kitchen together. Kade had a straw in his hand and Elijah was crying. "What happened?" I asked. "Did you poke him?" "Yes, but it's ok mom," Kade said. "Look, he can already open his eye." "WHAT??!!" I freaked out. "You didn't poke him IN the eye did you?" "Uh huh," he nonchalantly said. (Maybe he should be watching tv!)

Or the time (actually two times, I'm embarrassed to admit) that I caught Elijah eating blueberries WITH the pet turtles. Is turtle slobber dangerous???? Because I'm pretty sure they shared.....

All in all, it's a great thing for our family. We do things we normally wouldn't. The kids play wonderfully together. I love to see them working on projects and figuring thing out.

In fact I'm enjoying it so much that maybe June will be extra long this year. My kids are still small enough I just might be able to pull that off........

A Wedding Dress, a Little Girl, and a Burp

My little sister is getting married! I'm so excited for her and her fiance. Pam has asked Rylie to be her flower girl, and I don't think anyone is happier than Rylie. It's like a dream come true for her.

Pam invited me to go wedding dress shopping with her yesterday. Rylie was very privileged to be invited to join the "big girls" for this epic event. She carefully picked out her cute bright pink sundress to wear the night before. She wanted me to let her just wear it to bed so she would be all ready to go the next morning. I thought she might look a bit more fresh if she put it on right before we were ready to leave. I talked her into wearing her pajamas.

We got to Springfield early and began our quest to find the perfect dress. Pam looked beautiful in all of them, so it was hard to choose. She finally found the perfect "one" though, and she looks STUNNING in it. It was not Rylie's choice as Rylie is into a bit more floof, lace, frills, and other such girly things than Pam is. But it is exactly Pam.

We decided to go eat lunch at Cheddars to continue our girl's day out. We had to split up our group as the restaurant was very busy. I let Rylie sit with my sisters at their table. After we had eaten, one of my sisters came up to me to tell me that Rylie thought she was going to throw up, and that she was in the bathroom with my other sister. Of course I jumped up to go and check on her. I was not terribly surprised as this is not the first time this has happened. Waffle House seems to have this effect on Rylie also.

 I arrived in the bathroom to find Rylie and Allison in the handicap stall with Rylie leaning over the toilet. She looked peaked and she said her legs were shaking. I thought, "I hope she's not sick." After a few minutes I got her calmed down and told her to come and sit with me. We started making our way through the very crowded restaurant to our seat. All of the sudden Rylie stopped. She began to gag. Right there by all the people eating their delicious lunches. The thought in the front of my mind was, "OH NO!!! SHE'S GOING TO THROW UP RIGHT HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS FULL RESTAURANT AND RUIN EVERYBODY'S DINNER!!!!" The thought in the back of my mind was, "At least I won't have to clean it up!" (I know...... that was terrible....)

As I was quickly deciding whether the best course of action was to pick her up and rush her back to the bathroom, risking her throwing up all along the way, or just keep it contained as much as I could in one spot, she finished her gag with the loudest, biggest, BURP I have ever heard! I didn't know something that large could come out of a child so small.

There she was - my cute little girl in her bright pink sundress, with a flower in her hair, BURPING. Huge. And long. In public! "Are you ok?" I asked "Are you going to throw up too?" I was really hoping not to deal with two embarrassing situations at once. I'm sure the people next to us were hoping that as well. "No, that was it," was her quick reply. She smiled. "I feel great now."  Nice.

After my initial feeling of relief, came the feeling that I probably should apologize to all the people in a 50 foot radius for the unsightly noise that just came from my child, OR duck my head and leave Cheddars on the spot! I hadn't had my dessert yet so I decided to go with the apology. I turned to the table we were closest to, to start my speeches only to see them rolling with laughter. Obviously the dinner show we had just put on was more amusing to others than to me. I skipped the other apologies and went to my table.

Dessert was great. If you've never had the chocolate cake at Cheddars, you need to try it.....

The Joys of Being Married to ME!

"Scoot over!" was the first thing my husband said to me in the wee hours of the morning. "You're squishing me!" "I call it snuggling." I replied. "Besides I'm half your size, I can't possibly be squishing you! I can't scoot over either, I'm on the edge of the bed!" "I know," Dan said, "you're on MY edge." Ohhhh. "Well, don't you like to snuggle?" I mischievously asked him. "When I'm in the bed too....." he said. I scooted over.

Poor Dan. I've raised all 4 children to be snugglers. The guy can't get a break. Where he sits, we all sit. He speaks of getting a recliner. I keep vetoing it. "You can't possibly want to sit by yourself!!!" I say. (He doesn't dare say he might want some alone time.)  Me? I'm in the market for a sectional. The bigger the children get, the smaller our couch gets. But we MUST all sit together.

Sometimes I try to be funny when I wake up in the morning. Dan doesn't much appreciate these antics because he wakes up quite slowly and would rather be left alone. Yesterday morning I woke up, got up on my hands and knees, stuck my face over his and said excitedly, and a bit loudly, "Aren't you glad they invented hair gel???!" Dan opened his eyes and looked at me with a wide eyed look that might have had a bit of fear in it. I didn't get much of a response besides that (I think he might have been in shock) so I got out of bed and looked in the mirror. Then I understood the fear in his eyes. HOLY MOLY!!!! Curly headed people should NEVER and I repeat, NEVER go to bed with wet hair. If you have curly hair you understand what I'm talking about. I would never have let my husband of 10 years see me in that state if I had known what I looked like! Words cannot describe the state of my hair. I went into the kitchen to take care of the very hungry baby. Rylie was sitting in there and she began to laugh. "Mom, you could be a clown in the circus," she giggled. My children do have a way with words..... "That's it," I said. "I'm going to wash my hair." "WAIT," Rylie stopped me. "Show Zackary first!" "Ha, ha" I said.  I washed my hair.

Kids say the bluntest things

Some kids say the cutest things. Mine say the bluntest things. All of them. From the smallest to the biggest.

My 5 year old walked in on me today while I was fixing my hair. "I don't like your hair, Mom," he said. "It doesn't look like you. It looks icky." Thanks Kade. Way to start my day. What does a 5 year old know about hair anyway.

 This is the same 5 year old who just yesterday on his way through the family room said, "Mom, I just pooped my pants." There's no beating around the bush with this kid! Of course I was in the middle of cooking dinner. Cleaning up poopy underwear while cooking dinner is definitely on my list of favorites.... I took a break from cooking to clean my child, his underwear, the toilet, etc. and then went back to cooking. I had dinner about half finished when I walked through the family room to do something. I noticed little brown spots all across the floor......" Oh no," I thought, "break time again..... " After cleaning the little trail of poop drops all the way from the family room to the bathroom, it's a wonder I fed my family dinner!

Rylie is probably my bluntest child. Before we go to anyone's house I have to prep her. "Don't say anything that might remotely be considered rude."  "Mom, why would I?" is her innocent reply. Because maybe you do it all the time..... Take this morning, Dan bought me a nice white leather purse for summer. I finally had gotten around to exchanging all my stuff from my winter one. Rylie walked up to watch what I was doing. "Do you like my new purse?" I asked sweetly. "No," she said, not very sweetly. "It looks like an old lady purse." "What?!! Daddy picked this out just for me." I told her. "He thinks you're an old lady." she said. Daddy and I are DEFINITELY going to talk about this later.....

One of my favorite's was the day I came home from having Kade. The first thing Zack said to me was, "Mom, I thought you told us your belly would be skinnier!"

Someday, maybe these darling comments will be funny to me, or then again maybe someday these kids of mine will have a few children like themselves. =)