Posts Tagged ‘kids’

August 17th, 2011

It Took Me Three Kids To Pick Up Coffee

It seems like coffee is a really popular trend among virtually anyone who has kids. Dunkin’ Donuts, Starbucks, whatever goes… And for me, I always hated coffee.

I thought it was gross and the closest you would ever see me get to it was a Coffee Coolata from Dunkin Donuts because it was basically frozen goodness, and didn’t imitate coffee well.

But in the months before Addison was born, and the fact that I had two toddlers already, and a newborn was pending at any moment, I invested in a Keurig machine. I figured with the right amount of sugar and french vanilla coffee mate, I could make something similar to the Starbucks frappuccino’s my husband had got me addicted to.

But it didn’t strike me till months later.. like now, that it took me three kids, in a little under 4 years to actually pick up coffee… something most parents rave about before they are actually even parents. I guess I must have had some kind of super energy, or maybe I just function well on a serious lack of sleep because that is what my life has dealt me.

People would ask… How do you do it?  Um… I just do?  I didn’t have a magic formula or pixie dust that I could direct them to. I just thought that is what motherhood was?  Color me confused!

Then I not only picked up making coffee at home, but I finally discovered a flavored coffee at Dunkin’ Donuts that I shortly became obsessed with.  Carmel Mocha iced coffee… drool!  Then they came out with a new caramel turtle flavor… I believe at this point they were specifically targeting me ad my love for all things which include caramel, nuts, nuts and chocolate.

Now when people ask me how I do it?   The answer is… lots and lots of coffee!   But I am kind of proud I can say it took me till my third child to actually pick the habit up!

What is your favorite coffee?

April 27th, 2011

Wordless Wednesday: Mess? What Mess?

No… little boys are not clean little creatures… especially this one!
I could give him a bath, and within a half hour he is filthy!
This has turned into the nickname “Pig Pen” in our house… Poor Ben!

September 20th, 2010

Mommy There is a Ghost in Your Room!

For those who follow me on twitter, you know that my toddler has been scaring the living bejesus out of me lately, but it has started to escalate in the past couple days. It started out with hysterical toddler talk of ghosts. I assumed Camden had seen it on a cartoon of some type, and shrugged it off. He remained adamant about it, until it turned into there being a man in my bedroom.

For those who don’t know more about our family as a whole, I should explain why this really freaks me out.  In 2007, a month before Camden was born, my husband’s brother Chris passed away in our home. At the time, we didn’t live here, it was only Chris and my husband’s aunt Donna living here, and after that happened Donna decided to move out, and really wanted little to do with the house or being in Connecticut at all, completely understandable.

We moved in here in April of 2008, with our oldest only being a couple months old, and we re-designed the bedroom where Chris passed into the room that became the nursery for our children. Eventually since it was the largest room in the house, we moved out bedroom in there. Which is now where our bedroom still remains.

So you can imagine my level of…. freaking the fuck out at this point.

Now it has escalated to the point where my toddler refuses to come into my bedroom (where he typically sleeps) and won’t even walk passed my bedroom to get to his OWN room.

Thankfully Lorraine Warren, the famous ghost hunter is very close with a friend of our family, and I have put out a call to have her come to the house, because seriously, it is starting to cause me an insane amount of fright, and stress.

We have tried talking to the “ghost” and saying that he is scaring the kids, this is our home now, etc… but I need some kind of piece of mind, not only for me, but to show Camden that it is ok.

Lovely, only me… seriously…

August 24th, 2010

Temporary Tattoo From Hell

If you have been reading, you already know that when I went to BlogHer, I really made out like a bandit. One of the gifts I won was a $300 toy basket from the Litzky PR Firm during my night time tour of New York City with NYCityMama. She was a great host, and I was a lucky winner of one of the prizes via the Twitter Trivia contest they ran on the bus. Thank you Blackberry for the Ubertwitter app!

Anyways, we got a ton of toys, and one of the things in the basket that my toddler immediately took to was temporary rub on tattoos. I can’t imagine why! LOL Buzz Lightyear, and Woody to be exact. The first tattoo he demanded was Buzz Lightyear.

“Camden, where do you want the tattoo?”

“My face”

“Why don’t we put it someplace else, maybe your arm, or tummy, or your leg?”

“Nope, Mommy, I would like it right here!”  As he points to his cheek.

That’s fine, I mean really, how long could a rub on makeup type tattoo last?

ETERNITY Apparently!

It was almost comical. After I fought with the toddler to not have the tattoo put in the most noticeable place on him, I found myself trying to scrub it off before bed, and it wouldn’t come off!  I got most of it off, but there was the outline of Buzz Lightyear hanging out on my child’s face looking like a patch of filth.

This can’t be happening right?  After my concern about where to put the tattoo, it is going to get back at me like this?!?

I go back to read the instructions of the tattoo again, for the fifth time that day, and there it was “Tattoo will come off with makeup remover”  really?  Because we all know I just have a ton of that hanging around my house!

I guess the moral of this story is, skip the temporary tattoos, even if they look to be washable. They will haunt you for a minimum of two days.

July 22nd, 2010

My Kids = PermaBirthControl…

Camden "A.K.A. Beast & Amanda "A.K.A. Panda

I have a friend named Amanda… She is younger than me, 22, and is pretty successful in her own way. She is an awesome hair dresser, and an even more awesome friend. Her brother is on the fire department with my husband, we we tend to spend a ton of time together, and it turned into an amazing friendship.  You see one of us, and there is the other probably 50% of the time.

Today we took a trip to the beach. I knew it was going to be rough as it was rough just getting the kids out of the door this morning. We have always talked about kids, and she is one of those girls that really could live a happy life without the poopy diapers, spit up, and runny noses. Most of us Moms have had that burning desire (as she puts it) to have children at some point in our lives, which has lead us on the path that we are on.

Her?  Not so much.  It is certainly up in the air for her. Or at least until today when my youngest decided to whine (not cry) the entire time we were at the beach. From the moment we got on the beach, till the moment we got back in the car.  All total?  About 90 minutes.

I tried EVERYTHING.

Going in the water, playing in the sand, washing the sand off, feeding him, burping him, going for a walk, playing with toys, reading books, giving him a drink, giving him something else to eat, and try to put him to sleep. Until finally, we decided to pack up and head back to the car.

AS SOON AS we got back in the car, he was cool as a cucumber, and proceeded to relax enough to go to sleep. We looked at each other with utter disbelief. Really child of mine?

In the mean time, while we were trying to work on our tan, the family next to us on the beach assumed Camden, my toddler was Amanda’s son. She was running on the beach with him, scaring the seagulls away, playing in the water, and overall helping me while Mr. Fussy Pants threw an all out riot on the sand.  I cracked up hysterically when she came back to the blanket and goes

“They think I am his mom!!”  I cracked up… “They said ‘Camden, that is such a unique name!’”  Of course I thought this was more funny than she did.

Chicken nuggets, a big mac, and a subway sandwich later, we were back at my house sunning on the back deck while Ben was happy at home, and Camden snacked like a pro.

Needless to say, I don’t think Amanda will EVER have children after that.
And it is all my fault.

LOL

July 2nd, 2010

But… What Will I Say?

Her name was Benji, and she wasn’t just a dog. She was a human, I still swear to this day. She had her own chair in our family room, had to have her dinner heated in the microwave, and enjoyed a cruise on the bike in the summer when I shoved her in my handlebar basket. We would drive all over Lordship (The water front community I grew up in) and when she had enough she would let me know and off home we went.  My best friend growing up.

We got Benji when I was 7. A friend of my parents had adopted Daisy from our local pound, and came to the conclusion that he didn’t have enough time to keep the small mutt mix. I begged and pleaded with my parents to take her home. I never had a real pet before. We had a bunny, goldfish, hamsters, but never a dog!  I almost felt like the last kid in the neighborhood to get one too. But when we brought her home she was mine, all mine, and I treated her like my little pound puppy had probably never been treated in her life.

I am sure she could have done without being dressed up like a baby, or the occasional trip in the pool, but for every ounce of child like play, there was a hundred hugs, kisses, loving, and of course some puporoni dog treats.

When I was in high school, and Benji was getting older we added Spike to the mix. He is a black Chihuahua and they became best of friends. Spike kept Benji young in her late years. Until she had a deadly encounter with the Petco Pet Grooming services in our home town. Benji had gone in for her every three month puppy cut, and they cut her neck open. She had to be rushed from there directly to the emergency vet to be stitched up.  She never fully recovered, and less than two months later we needed to put her down.

I protested my parents, I cried, I rebelled, threw fits, called them names like pet murderers and did not deal with it well at all. I knew she was in a better place, and she wouldn’t be suffering anymore, but it didn’t make it any easier. She was my dog and I never got to say goodbye.

Last night in a foolish before bed move I was flipping through the movie channels we get and caught the beginning of Marley & Me. Mistake #1 : Starting a movie at 12:15am.
Mistake #2 : Watching a movie where the beloved pet dies.

It dredged up the feelings I had from my Benji, and there I was at 1:15am bawling my eyes out in bed.

I started to think about our own children and the connection they have with our pets. We have two dogs the boys love. Sox & Fenway. Both are Cocker Spaniels and are beyond amazing with the kids. Sox is the oldest and we got him when I was pregnant with Camden. He was my side kick during those late nights my husband would work. He was my baby, and I took him everywhere. Once Camden was born we couldn’t take him as many places but still always had him in tow.  Then we got Fenway. We got Fenway to be a friend for Sox because we didn’t feel as though with the new baby, he got enough love.  They are best friends. I can’t even describe the bond between the two of them, it is amazing to watch.

With this movie, I started thinking about my own kids, and what is going to happen when our pets, and children are older and pass away, or need to be put down. It is truly something I am dreading as a parent. There is no real right or wrong way to handle it. There is no standard, no instructions, no guidebook.

It got me thinking about this, and while I know we have a good decade before we even need to start thinking about it, at the earliest, it still doesn’t calm my fears, or concerns for that day.

I know this is totally an off topic blog, and completely uncharacteristic of me, but I think I am going to continue to write about these kind of parenting moments to include them and diversify my blog a little more. I don’t want to be restricted to a certain type of writing, or topic. I hope my readers enjoyed today!

May 7th, 2010

I Love the Beach!

I always tell people, I could never move away from the beach. When I was 19, I moved to North Carolina.  Fayetteville to be exact, inland, and not near the beach. I was itching for the beach mere weeks into my move.

Now that I am settled back in Connecticut, where I grew up on the water, I could never leave again.  The other day during one of our family travels, I took the kids to the beach.  Both of my boys love it as much as I do.

Benjamin and his shell

Since I got my new Nikon earlier in the year, I am obsessed with my camera, even more than I was before. I have always felt it is so important to document, and keep pictures of the children. But even more so now.

Camden at the Beach

Besides taking a million and three pictures of the kids, I have taken to nature, and different scenic type pictures. I have always admired others work, and now putting my own together feels like a real accomplishment. I have been working with photo editing software recently and trying to understand and learn it on my own.

One of the local beach roads

Just another scene from the beach

My mother always calls this “her” part of the beach. When she saw there was a chair there she insisted someone was invading her beach. LOL!  Till she realized these are the new Life Guard chairs posted.

Are you into taking pictures?
What kind of camera do you have?

March 24th, 2010

Illness in the House

Late Saturday, early Sunday both of my children started with slight runny noses and a small, dry cough. Thinking that it was probably allergies as I was feeling the same way, we took typical slight cold precautions and continued with life as usual. Sunday night I woke up a little after midnight to my toddler throwing up all over my bed. Lovely!  I got my sheets changed, the kid changed, and the sheets into the wash in time to get a whole 4 hours of sleep myself.

Monday morning I called DH at work and asked him to take a half day because at this point I was just as sick as the kids. Who had gotten worse over night. He came home and took the boys and I went straight to bed. I hate sleeping during the day, I feel like I totally wasted much of the day but it was really needed. I was able to call the diner for my favorite creamy chicken and rice soup and DH ran down the street to get it.

Fast forward to yesterday. I called DH to have him come home to take the boys to the pediatrician because their cough has been progressively getting worse. Well all in all, they have croup. This is the first time either of them have had anything of this serious nature and it has become horribly scary for DH and I.  Though it is good that my oldest is 27 months and free from any major issues till now.

Both were prescribed steroids which I am not too happy about, but anything that is going to make them feel better or be more comfortable at this point is what they need.

Having sick children beyond sucks!