So I knew it would finally come. You know, that day when having kids really pays off. I know, it paid off from the beginning…all of that lovey stuff. I mean finally my boys are old enough to help me in a time of need. Yep…at 3 years old. A little background – potty training takes a lot of toilet paper because little kids like to flush things and drop squares of toilet paper into the john. I know, “the trees and water”, but whatever it takes to keep naked 2 and 3 year olds from touching toilet water. We have been using up a lot of toilet paper which explains how I found myself in the bathroom with no toilet paper. Guys can just shake and drip…doesn’t work that way for women. So, it is an emergency to not have some paper. There were several rolls in there. Empty ones…where you could pull just that little bit of paper that is stuck with glue off. So…I told my son that he needed to help Mommy. Yes, they are in the bathroom with you. If you don’t have toddlers, I have to put that in because you’ll imagine me calling to my son in the other room playing Xbox. The kids are right there every step of the way. They don’t just watch, they comment on everything that goes on. That’s what you get for encouraging their speech development. Anyway, I realized that there was no way for George to get into the other bathroom to get me some toilet paper since that door has a childproof lock. Then I remembered that there was a box of tissues next to the couch, well within reach of a 3 year old. Yes! So, I asked my son to go get Mommy some tissues. He replied “No Mommy, Jack gets tissues.” Jack- my eager to please 2 year old looked really excited about being sent on a mission. I know that he would have been distracted with something shiny or would have come back with his My Little Pony. So, I made a more convincing “sell” of how fun it would be to get the tissues. Now with a game and a mission George set out to save Mommy. Jack was so excited by all of the “Let’s play a searching game” that he ran in circles in the bathroom while George was gone. He arrived back with the tissues in hand. We had a party in the bathroom - dancing, singing and all. Woo hoo…

Aw man…I’m listening to my iTunes. Indigo Girls, Matchbook Romance, Norah Jones…then guess what starts? Blues Clues theme – when you buy something it just sticks it on the playlist. What else struck me as funny today…oh yeah. Jack tasted not one, but 3 Styrofoam cups. I had some craft supplies set up and he takes a cup and bites a big chunk out of the bottom of it. Spits it out. Yes, it must not taste good. He was determined to find the one that tasted good because he took a chunk out of two more of them. I only had three out. I’m not sure if he would have just continued.

Posted: September 30th, 2008 under Kids.
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Apparently, I started a Word document of blog entries about a year ago. I found this while cleaning files out of my computer. Maybe I should just do the blog online like a normal person. Hmmm…I should post these entries anonymously. Isn’t that what people do? Make up names of their kids and parents and spill the dirt. Virtual therapy. I have decided that it is a good idea to organize. This is the kind of organizing that procrastinators/perfectionists do. There is a whole bunch of work to be done both for my job and my business. I see piles of papers, tons of emails, scraps of papers with “ASAP” notes and Post-its. Gotta love the Post-its. When you’re really busy and under a deadline, it is a good time to really organize papers and research a totally new filing system. This way, you can spend all of your time shuffling papers and not actually accomplish anything. Then, you run out of time and have to just take all of the stacks of papers and throw them into a box under your desk. If you’re really lucky, your cat will at some point pee in the box and then you can throw the papers away and pretend that they never existed. I am one of those super busy, super mom types. I have a full time job working from home teaching online, I take a Masters class each semester online (I have 49 graduate credits and no Masters degree yet…that’s another post), I have two toddlers – 2 and 3 and I have a network marketing business. So, in order to do this, I don’t watch any TV and I read time management and self-help books constantly to make myself as efficient as possible. I’m a motivated person, but yet I still do stupid things…like researching a filing system when I have more important things to do. We all have a bit of stupid in us. If you don’t, there is something wrong with you. You have to do something that’s a total time waster every once in a while so you can give yourself a good kick and the butt to start moving again.

Posted: September 26th, 2008 under Time.
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9/1/07

Warning! Kid brother on the move.
Top 10 ways to keep your kid brother from touching your stuff.
By George, Age 2; Kid brother Jack, Age 11 months
10. Scream his name repeatedly until a parent takes him away. It is helpful if it is a screech…the higher the pitch, the better.
9. Distract him with something shiny. Cat toys work well.
8. Throw a toy in the opposite direction and run!!
7. Put stuff higher than he can reach. This may involve scaling furniture or throwing toys onto a high shelf. You may not be able to reach it yourself, but sacrifices must be made.
6. Put toys into your pants or if you’re really desperate, your diaper.
5. Trade. If your kid brother happens to snatch something, get another toy and trade. Luckily, kid brothers are not great negotiators and you will always walk away with the better deal. Just remember to remain calm. They can smell fear.
4. Convince your parents to buy doubles of certain toys.  
3. Hide toys until your kid brother is distracted with something else. Following the cat around or banging on a wall will usually keep him busy for a little while. Remember, make sure he can’t find your hiding places. That would be chaos.
2. Put toys into containers that your kid brother cannot open. Hiding out in the open! After banging on a tupperware container for a while or trying to unhook a latch, even the most stubborn kid brother will give up and move on to easier prey.  
1. This last one is to be used only in cases of an extreme emergency. Lay on the floor, face down, cover your face and pretend to cry. Barely make any noise at all. It works better if your kid brother is sitting next to you hitting you with the toy he took. Just remember, use this one sparingly and don’t forget, it could always be worse…you could have a kid sister!

Posted: September 26th, 2008 under Old entries.
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8/31/07So some days have a theme. Just like

has a number of the day or a word of the day. Today the theme seems to be poop. When I was a kid, my brothers and I used to listen to a record that my parents had called “Why is there Air?” It was the audio of Bill Cosby’s stand up. There is a segment when he talks about how when babies are born, you’re so excited about the little pooh and it is such a cute little pooh and there is no smell to the little pooh. Then something happens, and all of a sudden, parents pay each other to change a poopy diaper. My brothers and I used to laugh about it, but I never really got it…until now. From the moment you have kids, sane people become obsessed with pooh. Sometimes, you’re waiting on a poop and you’re wondering if this is just a normal skipped day… or will baby need some flax seed oil and some help…or will it go to four days…then baby poops! YEAH! You cheer like your kid just won a gold medal…well, at least like he just won a spelling bee. Well, this morning both my boys gave me big poops before 8am. I thought to myself, this is going to be a good day! I used to have good hair days or skinny jean days…now I have successful pooping days. I know that I am obsessed with poop because a friend of mine told me today that she might get two kittens and I found it important to remind her about how much two cats can poop. Is that really the appropriate response? Not for a sane person. Sane people say “oooh, kittens are so cute” or “what are you going to name them?” Parents (aka insane people) calculate the poop to benefit ratio. In addition, I’m sorry to say, Jack managed to grab some poop today. Here’s the story that only another parent can understand… I needed to go to the bank this morning to deposit some checks. In order to deposit checks you have to sign the checks, put them on the deposit slip and add up the total. Seems simple enough, right? Whenever a parent needs to do a seemingly simple task like this, a child’s “mischiefsensor” starts to blink. The “mischiefsensor” is located on a child’s chest, right between their nipples. Where a third nipple would likely be if your child has a third nipple. (mine do not have third nipples) Jack was playing happily next to the couch with his drum while I quickly made out my deposit slip, etc. I could see him with my peripheral vision. He was happy as can be. I could hear the drum, see the movement. However, Jack is apparently ambidextrous and has a good amount of rhythm because he was able to continue pounding the mallet on the drum with one hand, while he reached over and took the poopy diaper I was so proud of out of the garbage bag. He apparently gave the diaper a quick shake and had his very own modeling clay. He at least chose his own diaper and not George’s. I looked down and he was still pounding on the drum. He had the diaper hidden behind him and the poop clenched in his fist. (I didn’t see it.) Then he started to crawl and I noticed that he had something in his hand. He saw me coming and started his super speed crawl. He looked like a three legged dog trying to crawl on one hand and one fist away from me. I picked him up and he tried to stick his fist in his mouth. Ahhhh.. Don’t worry, I caught him in time. How does this happen to a Mom who is so crazy about this kind of stuff? I have come up with three things that I did wrong: 1) I forgot to bring the poopy diaper bag out of the play room right away, 2) I can’t add fast enough, 3) Peripheral vision is pretty much useless when 1 year olds are this sneaky. So this is my poopy day so far. I expect for there to be bird poop on my windshield and to step in dog poop at some point today to make the day complete.

Posted: September 26th, 2008 under Old entries.
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8/30/07

This morning my email was not working. Was it outlook? NO— Was my computer not plugged in? NO— Was my password incorrect? NO— It was a server error. Aw crud. Tech support must be called…or “Live Chat”…24 hrs a day, 7 days a week. I put myself in the line of frustrated people by opening the chat box. Every few minutes a message pops up that says “An agent will be with you shortly, thank you for your patience.” It should say, “We don’t give a crap that you’re waiting, please refrain from throwing your computer against the wall, we’ll be with you when we get around to it.” So, the chat box was up for an hour and a half. Then I had to get the kids dressed in the other room. That’s when the agent comes…no response…oh well, I guess they didn’t need help anyway. Had to start a new chat box where I got more reassurances that they would be with me shortly and that they thank me for my patience. The reason I know that the tech support people are aliens is that they KNEW that I was eventually going to leave my computer and that was the moment they responded. Aliens are cruel. They like to torture us with their games. The other reason I know is that the picture of the girl on the “Chat” box is wearing a microphone headset. We’re CHATTING…on the COMPUTER…with a KEYBOARD. So she does not need to talk to us. So, it isn’t really a headset….it is the zipper that holds the human face on. The aliens are not pretty, so they don’t do Geek Squad stuff, they do online and phone tech support. So Alien Winston finally came to help me. He apologized for the inconvenience that the server problems have caused me and apologized for my pitiful human existence. (Yet another clue that we might not be dealing with someone from

Boise). He proceeded to tell me that the problem was temporary and that I should try the email again in a little while. I asked him how long I would have to go without receiving my emails before it was considered a problem. He didn’t like my tone apparently, because he said a “specialist” would have to handle my concerns. I’m pretty sure a “specialist” is a “special alien” that comes to your house, sucks out your brain and then replaces you with a robot. So, if my house all of a sudden gets really clean and I stop looking absolutely exhausted…you’ll know that I’ve been replaced with a robot. I’m not sure how I feel about that. If their technology is good enough, I guess there are worse things. I won’t age and I’ll end up being my husband’s trophy wife. I’ll have to sleep with my aluminum foil alien repelling hat tonight. Just thought I’d include what we all already suspected. Tech support people are aliens. My email isn’t working still. Bugger.

Posted: September 26th, 2008 under Old entries.
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8/29/07

Today I am starting my blog about the clown show of my life. This program isn’t what I wanted to use…but it will have to do because I don’t have the time to figure anything else out and it is free. I have always been a journaler because I like to make up my own words (like journaler), I love sentence fragments, and I REALLY love to use “…” instead of correctly punctuating my sentences. I just can’t find the time to write in my journals anymore. Since the computer is attached to me now, I will start to blog my entries instead of journaling them. It is mostly to keep a record of all the adorable and crazy things the kids do and of all of the crazy thoughts that fill my head and keep me awake at night. I managed to make a peanut butter sandwich during lunch. No, you should not be impressed with my culinary ability. I was attempting to make a peanut butter and JELLY sandwich. I was so distracted watching George attempt to pour water from a cup back into a plastic water bottle. I not only didn’t put the jelly on, I put peanut butter on both sides of the bread. Why would I let George attempt to pour water into the water bottle when there is a 90% chance he will spill water everywhere? Because when he spills water he says “Oh Man!!!” and it is hilarious. He actually managed to spill only a fraction of the water. Lucky day! I’m holding Jack right now. George just woke up and I’m attempting to rock Jack to keep him asleep another 15 minutes. How does little Jack boy repay me? He just groaned, shivered and let out a silent, putrid puff of rotten cabbage with a hint of fish. Good thing I was smart enough to take a second whiff to make sure I correctly placed the smell. Babies do not smell like flowers. Ahhhhh…second round of attacks. Ok better go get some fresh air. 

Posted: September 26th, 2008 under Old entries.
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