I hope I’m not asking for too much, but. . .

I think I need a break.

One week would be nice.  One week away on vacation somewhere warm and I could have a week off from doing laundry.  Ahhhh, that would be great.

Although a week off from laundry probably isn’t possible.  What would everyone wear?

6 Days then.  I’d like 6 days off from cleaning the house.  No vacuuming, no dusting- how awesome would that be?

Of course, no one would be cleaning in those 6 days, so I’d just have a lot of catching up to do.  6 days break is asking too much.

5 Days- for 5 days I would love it if the kids would stop fighting.  No pushing someone because they took your toy, no rough-housing resulting in tears.  It would be so quiet here.

But how would I stop them from fighting?  Sure, Little Miss is fine, but it’s in boy’s blood to fight- I don’t think it’s possible to contain it. 

So 4 Days it is.  For 4 days I don’t want to have to clean up from a single meal.  No highchair trays dumped to the floor to signal “I’m Done!”, no peanut butter sandwiches turned into table art, no more spaghetti sauce in hair. 

I think that’s asking the impossible though.  NO way that could ever happen.

How about 3 days?  A long weekend- maybe The Dada and I could go away for a long weekend and just relax.  Marvelous.

Except that I know the minute I leave the house I’d miss my kiddos too much and I wouldn’t enjoy myself at all the entire time.

So a long weekend away is expecting too much of me.  How about 2 days?  For 2 days I’d love it if I didn’t have to pick up a single toy.  No rooms looking like a hurricane or tornado just went through them.

Of course I DO have a little hurricane and tornado living in my home. 

So one day.  For one day could no one please ask me for food?  No more eating full meals and then 15 minutes later crying to me about how hungry your tummy is.  No hanging on cupboard doors wailing about how you need to “eat, eat, eaaaattttt!”  No opening the fridge door and climbing up inside. 

But that’s never going to happen, I have a house full of boys.  Endless guts.

So maybe just a few hours?  Could I have a few hours to maybe work on “The baby’s” scrapbook?

Fancy paper, markers, nifty scissors, glue, stamps and endless piles of stickers- what on earth am I thinking asking my little boys to stay away from that tempting spread???

Ok, so if a few hours is too much, how about a minute?  If I could just have one minute to run upstairs and use the bathroom without “Little Hurricane” pushing a bar stool over to the kitchen sink, climbing up the stool and onto the counter, then crawling into the kitchen sink and drinking the old liquids out of the dishes sitting in there; if I could just do that- it would be the best thing ever. 

You know you’re the mom of little boys when. . .

Your dining room table is actually a fort

  

 

If necessary, you could feed a small family out of all your baseboard heaters.

You open up your window to get some fresh air, and find that it is actually a carport. 

Your kitchen cabinets…

 

…are harder to get into then Fort Knox.

 

Your baby gate…

…is being held in place with cable ties…

 

…because someone worked overtime to pull it out of the wall.

 

You pull back YOUR bed covers and find this:

 

More of lunch ends up on the floor…

…then in this tummy.

Your sound system and DVD player have to be barricaded. 

When you manage to clean one room….

 

…only to pay for it in another room,

  

…and another. 

I Love You Guys!

    

-------------------------------

Edited to add:  I’m so excited because today I received an email from the SITS girls telling me that I am the Sits Girl in the Spotlight!!!  If you have NO idea what I’m talking about, then you have to check out the SITS website.  I love them!

And if you’re interested in the blog post that the featured picture prompted, here it is.   

 

How many people get to play Wheel of Fortune?

Last night my brother hosted a Wheel of Fortune/Jeopardy party.  He’s been working MONTHS on this, and it was an absolute blast!  He built the entire setup himself, it was incredible.

    

See?  I kid you not, it was a life-size replica of The Wheel. 

 

And here’s the man of the hour! 

A couple of hours before we headed over there, I was making cupcakes to bring.  CamCam LOVES cupcakes.  What little boy doesn’t???  He kept walking in and out of the kitchen, “Mom?  Cut-cakes ready?”  He could smell the sweet aeroma and thought for sure I was holding out on him.

He watched me bring them out of the oven and asked if he could have one.  I told him no, they were too hot, and plus, we were bringing these with us to Gickey’s house. 

He kept an eye on them for me while they were cooling.  “Mom!” he said, while poking one in the top.  “Cut-cakes not hot anymore!  Can I eat one?”

He came running into the kitchen when I was frosting them.

“Mom, can I have one cut-cake?”

”No CamCam, we have to bring these to Gickey’s house.”

“How ‘bout this mom?  How bout this- you give one cut-cake Gickey’s house, and give one cut-cake for me.”

Little CamCam, he has a solution for everything.

As I get older, my shadow gets younger

 

Aren’t we all just a little bit nosey?  Don’t we all wonder about the people around us, wonder what’s going on in our neighbor’s homes?  Well, today I've decided to satisfy your nosey side and let you see a little bit more of me.  Here’s a little taste of my day:

Good morning!  Here’s the view I wake up to:

 

It’s time to eat breakfast!  Here’s who I eat with:

Now we’re getting a little more personal,  it’s time for me to take a shower.  Here’s my view:

 

Naturally, after my shower I need to get ready.  Here’s what I see while I’m doing my hair and makeup.

Obviously, with a family of 7, a lot of my day is spent in the kitchen.  I’m lucky because a lot of people do not have any help in the kitchen, but I ALWAYS have a helper.  Here’s what I see when I’m cooking:

 

And at the end of a very long day, who doesn’t like to relax in front of the TV?

 

Of course, more often then not, my view of the TV is a little more like this:

 

Whew, what a day!  I’m exhausted, and as much as I love my children, it’s time for me to have some kid-free time and some much needed rest.  Here’s my bed:

I Don’t Even Know What to Say About This One

Exhausted from being woken up by a sick baby all night long, in desperate need of coffee, I stumble down the stairs in the morning and am greeted with this view:

I just had to crop this and get a close up of the amount of animal crackers CamCam had in his little fist. 

It’s quite impressive.

I Bet This is Why Cash Replaced Bartering

As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, and many of you have commented on, my blog has a whole new look.  I just love the new header at the top that I was lucky enough to have my sister make for me.  It perfectly captures what my blog is all about.  I had wanted to hire her to do this, but once all was finished she said just to make her some cookies or something. 

She said she missed my cooking.  How sweet is that?

So I made 2 batches of cookies yesterday.  I only had a chance to bake one, and I put the other in the fridge to bake today. 

This second batch of cookies said it needed to be chilled, but I know from experience if I leave the dough in the fridge too long, it becomes impossible to roll out.  There’s A LOT of butter in it, and so the dough hardens up really fast. 

Overnight was definitely too long.

After it took me like 30 minutes to get only 15 little balls, I decided to leave the dough out a bit to warm up.  I had to put “The Baby” to bed anyways.

While I was up there I decided to pick up all the dirty clothes from off the floor.

Since I’d done that, I might as well throw in a load.

Walked by my bedroom door and realized I hadn’t made my bed yet.  Decided to make it.

And pick up my room a bit.

And then I walked downstairs to see CamCam kneeling on a stool next to my bowl of dough. 

He had cookie dough running down his chin. 

I caught him mid-chew.

“Yum, it’s good mom,” he said.  I scolded him, “CamCam!  What on earth are you doing!!!  You can’t eat that"!” Images of raw egg and all the horror they could do were running through my head. 

And then, in true CamCam fashion, he did the only reasonable thing he could do in a situation like this. 

He spit the mouth full of cookie dough back into the bowl.

   

 

    And slyly slipped away.

 

 

 

 

 

Look at all the dough I had to throw away. 
(I scooped out the spit-in part for the picture so it wouldn’t gross anyone out)

And so, my dear sister, that’s why you only have 15 of these cookies to thank you for all your fabulous work.  A second batch of goodies will be coming, I promise.

What’s your answer?

If you just so happen to be eating a bowl of cereal, and before you finish the entire bowl you decide that you are full, do you:

A:  Bring half-full bowl of cereal to the kitchen and dispose of it,

or

B:  Grab handfulls of the milk-soaked stuff and chuck across the dining room table until the bowl is empty.

Here’s a little secret, CamCam and I respond to this question differently.

Watch out, there’s a Two Year Old in the kitchen!

Our CamCam LOVES to cook.  Every time I’m in the kitchen, he starts pushing over one of the bar stools and saying “I see ma, I see.”  He likes to have his chair directly in front of whatever it is I’m cooking.  Which makes cooking kinda difficult, but I figure that if I encourage his love of cooking, maybe it will continue on to an age when he can actually do some of it for me.

One can dream, right?

So the other day I decided to make a big Italian dinner.  Spaghetti and meatballs with homemade bread.  And once again, I had my little helper:

 

Really, I should have been standing in front of the mixer since that’s where the center of attention was, but CamCam wasn’t budging.  Plus, he had very important things to do.  Like stacking the measuring spoons into various configurations.

 

He was having a great time.  He loves to watch all the ingredients going into the bowl, he loves it even more when the mixer spins.  “Circle ma, circle ma, it go circle ma,” he says the entire time it’s mixing.  Then I needed to measure the wet ingredients and went to get the measuring cup, forgetting that it is kept in the Forbidden Cupboard. 

CamCam is way to big, in my opinion, to be drinking out of a bottle.  But he LOVES bottles.  When he’s really upset over something and needs comforting, I’ll give him one.  And he’s been known to swipe the baby’s.  But I keep them up high and hidden.  He flipped out when I opened up the cupboard, he wanted one so badly.  I tried to distract him by letting him help me put the flour in the bowl. 

OOPS.

At least measuring flour for bread isn’t an exact science. 

Then I had to stir the meatballs, CamCam was very interested in this. 
“Hey ma! Whatcha doin’?”
”Mixing.”
”What is that?”
”Meatballs.”
”Eatballs?  No, it’s chicken.”
”No, it’s meatballs.”
”No eatballs, it’s chicken.”

That little stool of his kept inching closer and closer to the stove.  I told him it was hot and very dangerous so he needed to stay away, but he wanted to see.  I think my kids believe I make this stuff up because I’m mean.

The entire time I’m cooking, it’s a constant stream of conversation from CamCam.  He wants to know every detail of what’s being done.  I assume he’s filing this info away for when he’s older and takes over the cooking responsibilities.  Right?

 
“Whatcha doin’ ma?”
”Putting this in.”
”Cheese?!?!
”No, this isn’t cheese, it’s butter.”
”No, not budda.  Cheese!  I wike-it cheese.”

Huh, he’s not very trainable.

We had a lot of fun together, he really does love the whole cooking process. 

But then I decided cooking time was over.

 

At least if I wanted to make food people could actually eat.

Cookies!

Who doesn’t love cookies?  Adults?  Kids?

Two Year Olds???

Oh yes, our CamCam is a big fan of cookies.  I really do enjoy baking, but I do not bake cookies often.  This is because my kids act like they have been deprived of cookies their entire childhood when I make them. 

“Leader of the Fab Five” slyly grabs a handful everytime he walks into the kitchen.  It’s all done in one fluid motion, walk into kitchen- walk to cookies without looking at them so as to appear uninterested- do not slow down as you pass the cookies- quickly reach one arm out and grab whatever your hand can hold- faster then the human eye can see tuck arm back into body hiding cookies- quickly make your escape to your room. 

“Little Miss” always asks first.  But she takes her asking to the extreme.  One of the other kids will ask if they can have one, and I’ll say yes.  Then, in her sad-I’m-absolutely-wasting-away-to-nothing-from-starvation voice she’ll quietly say “Mom?  Can I have one?”  Sometimes I like to mess with her and say “No, He can but you can’t.”  I have a sick sense of humor.  And of course once they’re all gone, she always cries about how it’s no fair, she hardly got any.

“Mr. Trouble” does a combination of asking and sneaking.  If I’m in the room, he will ask.  He’s on a schedule like this:

10:00  Mom, can I have a cookie?  No.
10:01  Mom, can I have a cookie?  No.
10:02  Mom, now can I have a cookie?  NO!
10:02 1/2  Mom, can I have a cookie now?   Grrrrr!!!

But of course if I’m not in the room, he will grab whatever he can and eat and eat until I get back in.  And, stupidly, I always ask him if he ate cookies.  And, innocently, he always replies no.  Guess the crumbs hanging from his face and hands are from something else.

CamCam just follows along with whatever everyone else is doing.  He tags along like a little puppy, waiting for the leftovers. 

Today though, he woke  up before everyone else and had the house to himself.  I thought I heard someone downstairs, and then there was CamCam, at the edge of my bed, holding his hand in that special way he holds it when it’s dirty and needs to be washed.  I didn’t have my glasses on, and so was a little concerned about what mess his little hand got into considering it was being shoved into my face.  But I smelled sweetness, and knew all was ok. 

“CamCam, did you eat cookies?”
“Nnnnnope!”
“Do you need to wash your hands?”|
“Yyyyyyup!”

So I went downstairs with him and “Mr. Trouble” followed.  As usual, “Mr. Trouble” went over to the counter to where the cookies were.  Then he cried: “uhhhhhh, no fair!  Someone ate all the cookies!”

And little CamCam, over at the sink washing up, laughed and said in his best “na-na I got it and you didn’t” voice:

“Ha-haa.  I ate all the cookies!”

Which, I gotta admit, made me smile, but I put on a good show and said: “CamCam, that’s not very nice!”

Which he replied to by rubbing his tummy. 
“Yum, yum, yum!  It was goooood!”

I’m Confused

I think CamCam is messing with me.  He has been so whiney lately, and every little thing is resulting in him having a meltdown.  I’ve reached my “Whine Limit”, and so try to avoid his fits as much as possible. 

If he asks for a particular food or drink, and you give him the wrong one, he has a complete fit.  So I try really hard to decipher his toddler babble and what he wants.

But I think he’s purposefully trying to drive me nuts.

Today he wanted a drink.  He came to me and said:  “Ma, I milk.”

Me: “Ok, you want some milk.”

CamCam: “Yes”  (wait 10 seconds) “A-ju, a-ju, Aaaaaaa-juuuuuu!” 

A-Ju is his word for apple juice.  So as I stood up I asked him, “You want apple juice?”

He said yes.  We started to walk towards the fridge and he clapped and said: “YAY!  Milk!”

Huh?

We get to the fridge and I asked him if he wanted apple juice or milk. 

He said yes.

So I had a smart moment, opened the fridge, and told him to show me what he wanted.  He pointed to the apple juice and said “A-Ju”.  That seemed pretty clear to me.  I pulled it out, which got another round of applause, set up the cup and started to pour.

I was mid-pour, the juice was actually in mid-air, it had officially left the jar but hadn’t yet touched the bottom of the cup, when I hear a little voice next to me exclaim:

”MILK!”

Now It’s Your Turn to Be Two

 

You wanna know what’s cool about having a baby brother?

Pretend for a minute that you’re two.  No, not that there’s two of you, that YOU are TWO. 

You there?

Ok.

Now pretend that your belly is insanely large for your body size, and it’s been like 5 whole minutes since your mom fed you lunch.  You’re starving.  You can hear the grumbling.  You know if you ask your mom for food, she’ll probably say something dumb, like, how she just fed you lunch and so no more eating.  She doesn’t understand the grumble in your tummy.  It doesn’t care that you just ate lunch, it wants more. 

Now.

So knowing that your mom will say no, you wait for a moment when she’s distracted. 

There it is. 

She’s busy typing on that machine.  Probably writing about you.  Humph! 

So you sneak walk your little two year old self over to the “Keeper of All That is Yummy”. 

There it is.  mmmmmmm

And you’re in luck!  Someone foolishly left it unlocked.  You open it, and right in front of you is a box of goodness.

It’s a rather big box for your little two year old self.  So you grab it with both hands and turn.  The box is really big, and you can’t see through it.  You try to lower it so you can see over it, but your arms are short and the box is big.  There’s only one other way to go.

Up.

So you raise the box way up over your head and you begin to walk to the table.  It’s a bit top heavy, so it’s practically upside down.

Suddenly your mom notices you.  She’s acting crazy.  You get a confused look on your face.  What’s her problem?  She runs over to you and grabs the box out of your hands.  You look down and notice that the floor is covered in cheerios.

Oops.

A whole box of yumminess wasted. 

Uh, oh, mom’s really upset.  She tells you that you are picking up every single one of those little o’s by yourself and throwing them in the garbage.  There’s got to be bazillions of them!  You tell her “No!”, but she’s pretty insistent. 

And then, who comes crawling over, but your baby brother.  You look in amazement as he crawls right into the middle of the big mess and starts eating like there’s a shortage of food or something.

 

 

How’d he know you needed help? 

Sometimes it’s pretty cool to have a baby brother.