The mirrors they put in the kids dressing rooms at department stores are pathetic. At least the one in the waiting area just outside the rooms is. The one I saw had bipolar disorder. I’m a convex mirror, no I’m a concave mirror, no I’m a convex mirror. I guess they think it will be more entertaining for kids to look at themselves in a clown mirror since they usually aren’t the one making the decision about buying the clothing. I, however, found it VERY disturbing since the only one being reflected in the mirror at the time was me.

With the holidays fast approaching (Mother’s Day and Father’s Day) I find myself hoping my husband doesn’t get anything for the former because I stink at getting things for the latter. Sure it’s fun to get a tie for my fellow “from the kids” as a joke but I know he’d rather have a….

And there’s the problem. I REALLY don’t know what to get him. In a few years I know I’ll be able to just take him to dinner and let the kids do the real work but for now it falls to me. And he always does a very good job of it and I always stress about it and then my stress make sit fall flat not because I’m too stressed to plan. I KNOW it’s a self fulfilling prophecy but I seem to have no control over it.

I’m open for suggestions though.

When you’re out looking for baby gear for a new baby you need to find high quality stuff. You don’t want to have to go through a new play pen for every child you have (at $100 a pop) so you have to find materials that will last a VERY long time. When it comes to a stroller you need to go the same thing. Look past the cute, hard to follow names like “Baby Jogger City Mini” and focus on the weight and whether or not you can push it on rocks (you’ll be surprised how often that can actually come up in our well paved world). For these things the ability to endure is more important than with clothing. A baby will grow out of clothes every few months and reusing the clothing is easy because the baby has so little time to use them.

Remember that paying more for a high quality product can end up saving you money if you plan on having more than one or two children and reusing the same items.

Finally there are enough blankets on the bed. Three for me and one for my husband. For some reason – even though he never really gets warm in the winter – he never feels cold. But he doesn’t stay warm enough to keep me warm (hence the need for three blankets) But of course it has just spiked to 80 degrees and even I can’t sleep under three blankets in 80 degree weather. It’s a normal catch 22.

One of my poor kids is sooo cute. He hasn’t been allowed to watch TV in about two weeks (did something annoying/wrong and got into a heap of trouble by not stopping after the first 5 punishments). He told me that he was crying because the other kids in the family are addicted to TV and he never gets to see them anymore. He’s resolved to do whatever it takes to get off punishment so he doesn’t have to miss his siblings anymore.

The clever boy almost made me cave! But I already know he can cry whenever he wants because he pulled a joke on me that way once (giving away what could have been a mighty weapon in this battle called child rearing).

My poor four year old daughter gets the voice of an 80 year old smoker when she doesn’t get good sleep. And last night she did NOT get good sleep. My other daughter had been crying a lot and since they share a room the four year old caught quite an earful. My boys also didn’t get sleep for awhile. Since I went to a movie and came home to a silent house well after bedtime, I didn’t know about this until this morning when I asked each of them how they slept. The chorus of “Not very well” was broken only by the voice of the crier who replied in her light fairy voice, “good”.

My son told his classmates today that it takes him 2 and a half hours to fall asleep each night.  I said he was exaggerating to make a point and that technique is called hyperbole.  He said, “Oh, I thought it was called lying.”

Yeah, that too.