Just Eat The Cookie!

My husband, Brad and I got into......let's call it a debate.  It wasn't an argument because we were laughing at each other the whole time.  It was so stupid I have to share.  We do this a lot by the way.  Oh, we get into genuine arguments often.  But we more often have these "debates", where no one is angry, we're not really fussing, and most of the time we're laughing.  We usually try to get Connor in on these and take our side.  He'll side with whoever has candy, sometimes I think he's smarter than we are.

Anyways, back to our recent "debate".  I have this problem.  I guess one could call it an addiction.  I'll be going along fine, but when this particular item enters the house I lose all self control and over indulge myself.  It's called Chocolate.  I think a lot of women share this addiction.  I don't really know I'm craving it until I know it's in the house.  I have even hid the last Reese's Peanut Butter Cup from Connor because it was the last one and he would've just taken two bites and thrown it away and I didn't want it wasted!! At the time, it seems a legitimate reason, but later I feel like a bad mom!

Brad knows I have this addiction.  We've been married almost eight years, he has noticed how I dive into chocolate and before you can say "save me some" there's empty wrappers everywhere and chocolate smeared all over my mouth and hands!  So being aware of this problem he comes in from Dollar General about three weeks ago with a package of Chips Ahoy Chewy Gooey chocolate chip cookies.  I pounced.  He didn't know what hit him.  But we're not talking about any ordinary cookie here, these cookies have chocolate all through the middle!! You can even put them in the microwave and heat them up!

Needless to say these cookies didn't last very long.  In less than a week we were left with an empty package.  Connor ate about two of them, and Brad didn't get any.  I almost feel terrible.  When Brad came in and found the empty package he asked what happened to them all.  I fluttered my eyes up at him with my most innocent look and very nonchalantly shrugged my shoulders.  He didn't buy it.  His reaction was "Oh my gosh, girl! You ate all of them? You know they won't go out of date in one week right? I didn't even get any!"

It wasn't MY fault he didn't get any, they were sitting in the pantry in plain sight behind the cereal! He knew they were in there, he could've ate some at any time before they were all gone.  I told him "Fine, I'll buy another pack you can have some of them."  So the next time I was at the grocery store I bought a pack.  He messed around so long he didn't get any of those either.  And again I get in "trouble" because he didn't eat any.  I really tried to control myself with this pack! I'd eat one or two about every day or two.  I made them last as long as I could, and he didn't touch them once!  I couldn't just let them sit there.  Every time I opened the pantry to get cereal or chips or any of the things I cook with, they were there....staring at me....one time I even heard them calling my name, it was very faint, but I hear them.

So now we're on our third pack of these gooey chocolate chip cookies and only two are gone out of it.  I wanted a snack after my supper last night.  I showed them to him, I told him it was our third pack, please just eat the cookies so I don't feel guilty.  I'm not going to buy any more cookies after this whether he gets any out of this pack or not.  I can't keeping eating the cookies for everyone else!!

Lava Lamps and Pudding

I've been trying to find more things for Connor and myself to do that will keep him occupied so that I don't spend the day yelling at him and pulling my hair out.  So to keep myself from early baldness I turned to the internet.  We've been looking at different learning game sites for preschoolers.  We've come across a couple of them, not quite what I'm looking for but Connor's had fun just being able to play with Momma's computer.

On one of these websites a video was playing in the top corner called At The Craft Table.  The lady was telling how to make a homemade lava lamp with just water, vegetable oil, food coloring and kosher salt.  She demonstrated by putting food coloring in a jar of water, pouring in oil and adding the salt.  The salt would push the oil down to the bottom and as the salt dissolved it would release the oil back to the top in pretty bubbles.  I turned to Connor and said, "We can do that!" and he was all for it.

Now, I can cook, I know my way around a kitchen and know about different ingredients, but I'm not an accomplished chef.  I didn't have Kosher salt and thought, surely sea salt or regular salt would work just as well as Kosher salt.  I have no idea what Kosher salt is, but apparently there's a difference.  But I'll get to that.

So we start our experiment.  I found an empty jar, grabbed the vegetable oil, food coloring and sea salt.  After all the salt in the lava lamp ladies video looked big and chunky, sea salt is big and chunky.  

        So I drop a few drops of food coloring in the water and mix it up

        I let Connor pour in the 1/3 cup of oil and we wait for it to settle. 

         Once settled, we pour in the salt and watch for a lava lamp effect.  There are a few little bubbles, but nothing like what had been in the video. 

 So I thought maybe we would have more luck with the other salt.  So I dump that experiment in the sink, rinse out the jar and we try again.  Water, food coloring, green this time, oil, wait for it to settle and pour in the salt.  This time we get more bubbles, but still, not like what had been in the video.  Oh well, I guess it really does take Kosher salt to make a lava lamp.  Or I could just go plug up my old lava lamp I got when I was a teenager.

So when that didn't work I turned to Connor and said, "Let's make something I know will work: Instant Pudding". He like that idea too.  Of course he wanted to help with this 'experiment' as well!

 He dumped in the pudding.... (You can see our second lava lamp attempt sitting there too)

 Poured in the milk....

 And mixed it all together....

After we made the pudding, we had to lick the mixers, that's just part of making pudding.

We may not have gotten a home made lava lamp to work, but at least we got some good pudding out of it.  I love to do things with Connor and watch him learn how things work.  Sometimes, things don't work the way we expect them to.  All we can do when that happens is say oh well, and make some pudding!   I'm trying to teach Connor that sometimes it takes more than one try to get something right, and sometimes it's not going to work at all, but that's okay too.  As long as he tried.  

So all in all we've had a good day with lava lamps and chocolate pudding.   

Project: Chalkboard

Up-cycled Picture Frame into a Chalkboard

I've discovered the neatest product: Chalkboard Paint! How did I not know this stuff existed? And that I could buy it at Hobby Lobby? Honestly I did not know I could buy this and turn literally any surface into a chalkboard until I got on Pinterest.  Now I'm finding all these do-it-yourself projects using chalkboard paint. You can buy this in green and black.  At least, that's the two colors I saw at my local Hobby Lobby store.  The directions on the can make it very easy to use.  Shake the can, spray your surface, let it dry, spray it again for a chalkboard finish, give it 24 hours, and voila! Chalkboard! They're so reusable, and if it starts wearing out, you can resurface it with another coat of the paint!Some, not me, seem to think I'm a little obsessed with the chalkboard paint.  Simply because I see every surface as a potential chalkboard, like cabinets, walls, my fridge, I'm called obsessed.  I just don't get it.  

I've already completed one chalkboard project.  The idea came from here.  Understand, I'm a procrastinator.  Also my house eats paper and pens, and dishrags.  I can never find a dishrag to wash with when I need one! Anyways, since I can never remember to write things down right then, and since we never have paper or pens when we need them, I'm usually scrambling around the kitchen on grocery day trying to figure out what we're out of.  So this was one way to eliminate that.  Chalkboard paint on the inside of my cabinets.  Now when I reach in to get something and it's the last of it, I write on my cabinet door.  Then on grocery day, I hunt down a pad of paper my house missed and make my grocery list.  My pantry has three cabinets, one on top of the other, I painted all three doors on the inside.




For this project that I'm actually doing this blog about, I needed a fun potty training tool for Connor.  We've been doing the pull-ups and potty chair, and different things for about a year and he's still not consistent with it.  We tried different treats for peeing, pooing, and keeping his pull-up dry.  But once he learned he could have a piece of candy just for peeing, he was going all the time.  That was good and bad, cause now I was dealing with a three year old on a sugar rush! So we tried other, non-sugary treats, but he didn't like those, or we were running out too fast and having to buy them all the time.  I needed something non-expensive.
     I had seen different charts you could download and print out, but I thought, that's a lot of paper and printing.  I wanted something I could use over and over.  That's when the lightbulb went off over my head.  A chalkboard!! And I already had the chalkboard paint!  Now I just needed a surface.  This is where my borderline hoarding came in handy.  I dug around in my back closet and found an old picture frame I hadn't used since 2002.  It still had my high school graduation pictures in it.

So I took the pictures out, cleaned the glass with glass cleaner and started painting.

I let the first coat dry, it took maybe about ten to fifteen minutes.  During that time I busied myself by doing some laundry.  I'm sure there's an "as-fun-as-watching-paint-dry" pun in here somewhere.
Once it was dry, I sprayed on the second coat. And again with laundry.  After the second coat got good and dry I put it back in the frame.

When I was done I had a cute, framed chalkboard.
Right now I'm planning on using it for Connor's potty training, then probably Kenny's potty training, later on I plan on using it for something like a menu board in the kitchen, or a chore list for the kids.  There are endless possibilities.  I'm already looking for more unused frames I can turn into more chalkboards.  And if I can't find any more here, then look out thrift stores, here I come!

 I could put one in every room in the house!!

Kenny, the Baby

As I said in my last post, I miraculously survived my own childhood and became a mother myself.  It went so well the first time, we said "let's give Connor a sibling" and so now we have Kenny.  Kenny is now seven months old.  There's not a lot to say about him yet.  Although I believe he's going to be a whole different kind of handful than his brother already is.

Kenny was born about a week early.  But that's the only thing he's done early.  Everything else he doesn't do until he's good and ready.  It's really hard to keep to any kind of schedule with him because if he's not ready for his morning bottle, he refuses to take it.  If he's not ready to go to sleep for that much desired (by me) midday nap, he will just stare at me while I try to make him sleepy.  I could work with Connor, when I tried to give him a bottle a little early, he would take it, slowly, but he would take it.  Not Kenny.  He has actually thrown the bottle down as if to say "I'm not having it".  But when he decides he is ready for it, he lets me know by pretending he's starving to death and dying right in front of me.  If his meal is two seconds later then he thinks it should be he starts crying in a manner that would suggest I haven't fed the child for days.  And I know exactly where he gets all these characteristics from.  The impatience I must admit, comes from me.  The flair for the dramatics comes from my husbands mothers family, and the 'going-to-do-it-when-I'm-good-and-ready' comes from my mothers side. (She reads this blog, so I'm sure I'll get a phone call about that! heehee)

It's fun to watch him discover his likes and dislikes.  To watch a baby's personality emerge is an amazing thing.  I love giving him new foods.  The other night I tried him on some Gerber 2nd food Cheese and Macaroni,  I figured that had to be something he liked because I craved it while pregnant with him.  I was right.  He gobbled it down like it was going out of style.  If I was too slow getting the next bite to him, he'd lunge for the spoon himself.  Last night I tried him on Gerber 2nd food Chicken with Chicken Gravy.  He spit that out and wouldn't have anything to do with it.  I couldn't even airplane or choo-choo train it into his mouth.  Nope.  So we swapped to some veggies.

We have discovered he's a very jumpy little thing.  He can be looking right at us and if we make a sudden noise he'll jump two feet in the air.  Needless to say we've had a lot of fun with that! My dad thinks it's hilarious and tries to see how many times he can make him jump.  Kenny must think it's pretty funny himself because he laughs every time he jumps.  It's not hard to tell when he get genuinely scared.  He goes completely stiff and has this look of terror frozen on his face.  He won't breath for about four or five seconds and then wails.  That comes from my sister, I don't know how many of those roller-coaster snapshots we have where she's had that same frozen terror on her face.

Kenny is learning to crawl, which has been an interesting development.  He's been moving around, getting where he wants to go for about a month but is just now learning to crawl in the traditional sense.  He's been doing this inch worm thing for the past month.  He would get up on his hands and knees, push forward with his feet, and lunge to his belly.  He'd gain a few inches doing this.  He would do several of these in rapid succession and be across the living room  in no time.  But the other day he discovered he could pick his hand up.  For about two days he looked like was limping.  He'd do his knees forward, use the one hand like normal, then lunge to his belly.  But he's finally getting the hang of both hands.

From birth Kenny has been a pretty easy going baby.  We don't have to do anything more than look at him and he breaks out in the biggest grin.  It doesn't take much more than a silly face or noise to make him laugh.  Connor can get him to giggling hysterically.  I can't wait to see what other personality characteristics he develops as he gets older.  He's definitely going to be a sweet, loving boy.  I love both my boys so much and feel so blessed to have both of them and their daddy.

Connor, the Oldest

Since I never thought I would even make it to adulthood (I thought my own mother was going to kill me a few times during those teenage years, once in 8th grade for sure) being a mom myself seems a miracle.  It was hard to picture myself as a mom until I actually held that sweet baby in my arms.  I thought "I'm going to be the best mom to the best kid in the world!" Taking care of that precious child day after day, watching him sleep, learning to smile and coo, I thought there was no way this little boy could ever do anything wrong.  There would never be any reason for me to raise my voice at him, let alone spank him! He was just too sweet!

Well, he got older.  He's three now, and every bit of it! I'm not sure what happened to that sweet adorable baby I had three years ago.  He was replaced by an energetic, tantrum throwing, smartypants, monkey/boy hybrid thing!!  I wish I had half the energy he does.  He makes me tired just watching him.  Sometimes I have to just plop down on the couch and catch my breath, then realize I hadn't been exerting any energy.

I also had no idea a three year old could have such a smart little mouth on him! It doesn't help when his daddy is teaching him phrases like "That's how I roll" and "Chill out".  I didn't realize how many times a day I say "Stupid thing" when I get aggravated at something until he started calling his toys "stupid thing".  It's when he turns that smart mouth towards me or his daddy that he gets into trouble.  Telling me "No, I'm busy, you do it" when told to pick up his toys, or "Yea I can do it, it's making baby brother laugh" when told to stop a certain annoying or potentially harmful activity.  If I had a nickel for every time I said "stop, quit, get off that, get down from there, put that back, put that up, leave the dog alone, don't do that to your brother, don't throw that, what is that, what are you doing, I don't think so, hush," or some variation of any of those, I'd be rich.  And if I had another one for every time he had a smart remark to any one of those, we'd be living in the lap of luxury.

He's also at that age now where he thinks he can do everything himself.  Nothing makes me happier than to see him trying to put his shoes on by himself.  But then I hang my head in shame when the shoe goes flying across the room and Connor yelling stupid thing, when it didn't go on right the first time.  Unfortunately he gets the short temper from me.  So not only do I have to break him from throwing these fits, I have to break myself from them too.  It's not going to well.


Of course, nothing sets off my mom radar more than silence.  I remember my mom telling me that she always knew my sister and I were doing something we weren't supposed to when she didn't hear us.  When I can't hear Connor, I start preparing myself for a mess of epic proportions.  Like half a gallon of milk in the kitchen floor  because he was going to pour himself a drink, or melted scentsy wax splattered on the table, wall, and floor, because he discovered that stuff wasn't hot and fun to play in.  (Yes, these are actual messes I have cleaned up because I left him alone for two minutes)  And then there was the time I noticed he had my MP3 player, when I start toward him to take it away he took off running straight towards the bathroom.  Can you guess what happened next? I'll give you a hint: *splash* *flush* "hahaha" "NOOOO!" bye bye MP3 player.

And who knew little kids could turn into monkeys at will? I have seen him playing with things I know was put up out of his reach, and yet he still has it.  It started young.  He was a year and a half when he learned how to pull the dresser draw open and use it as a step to get to his daddy's change on top of the dresser.  Before his brother was born, he somehow climbed up into the crib and couldn't get out.  Climbing isn't the only way he imitates a monkey either.  There's the weird noises and a unique way he runs through the house that has me convinced he has monkey blood mixed with his DNA.  

Needless to say he can definitely get me going.  Never a dull moment with him.  And yet as bad as he can be, he can be just as sweet.  There's nothing more precious than we comes to me, puts his arms around my neck and says "I love you Momma."  Nothing brings tears to my eyes quicker then seeing him stand up in church and sing "The B-I-B-L-E" or "Zacchaeus Was A Wee Little Man".  Nothing is cuter than to see him playing with his little brother.  He likes to help me sometimes and although doing a chore with him helping usually takes longer to complete, it's good for him and fun to watch.



I wouldn't trade my Connor for any other little boy in the world.  I know he will be four soon and some of this typical three year old behavior will disappear and give way to new things, both good and bad.

I will definitely NOT have any illusions that his baby brother, who is learning to crawl, will be too sweet and precious to get into trouble.  Or any other babies we may have in the future.  I cherish these early days with my boys, soon they'll be going to school, having friends, learning to drive, graduating and heading off into their lives.  So while I have them here at home with me, I will hug them and kiss them and play with them and smother them and make sure they know how special they are to me and how lucky they are to have me and their daddy as parents!