10 Rookie Parenting Mistakes I Still Make

I've been a mom for 5 1/2 years now.  During that time, I've made a lot of mistakes.  One would think that 5 1/2 years and 3 kids later, I would have learned from my mistakes and would be a little smarter, but...

I have two words for you...Mom Brain.  

 
Here are 10 rookie parenting mistakes that I still make.  Frequently.  

1. Sweeping the kitchen floor while the baby is still eating in her high chair.  Even if, by some miracle, she doesn't throw all her food on the floor while laughing hysterically, it will rain mushed up food when I take her out of the high chair. 

Read the rest of this post here.

Random Monday-July 29, 2013

I got behind on my cleaning.  Way, way behind.  I hate it when that happens because I can't work efficiently because of the mess plus I feel guilty for not cleaning, but I can't clean because I know I need to work.  It's a vicious cycle that ends with me sitting on the couch watching reruns on Netflix and devouring chocolate.

I wrote about an awesome way to keep my house clean almost 2 years ago and I still believe that it's the only method to keep me sane.  However, I didn't feel like I could pick it up again because my house was so messy.  However, I forgot some of the most important Flylady rules...

“Your home did not get dirty in one day, and it will not get clean in a day either.”

"Don't try to catch up.  Jump in where you are!" 

Oh, yeah.  Those rules.

So today, I jumped in with the daily routine.  Instead of a quick clean of each room, I set the timer for 10 minutes and spent just that much time in each room.  They aren't done, but they're better and I'll do the same tomorrow and the day after and the day after until they're ready for the quick clean again.


I did manage to get a little work done last week though.  I had a custom order for this fun back-to-school outfit for a sweet little girl who's starting kindergarten this year.  I loved it so much that I decided to offer it in my Etsy shop as well.  The skirt has a fun buses and stop signs print on the main portion and a handwriting fabric on the border.  The shirt has a heart shaped applique that can be personalized with your child's name or left blank so your child can write their own name on instead (which I think would make it an awesome keepsake first-day-of-school outfit!)  

I'm thinking Princess needs one of these for her first day of kindergarten as well.

 

County Fair

Our county fair is this week and we've been through it a few times this week already, but today I finally remembered to bring my camera.  I'm not a in very "write-y, talky" mood tonight so I'm gonna let the pictures do the talking.  Besides a picture is worth a thousand words, right? 

Princess at her favorite booth, the MCCL Pro-Life booth, looking at the babies.

School time at the old school house!

Crafts at the ECFE booth

The girls loved the horse, but Little Man wouldn't go near them and didn't even want to be in the horse barn.

Sitting on the tractor wheels

Star enjoyed riding in the stroller

Little Man didn't want to go on any rides, but Princess went on the kiddie roller coaster.  She didn't smile the whole time she was on it, but after she got off, she said she loved it.

We shared a funnel cake and when we were done, the wind caught the powdered sugar covered paper plate and tossed it straight at Little Man.  He thought it was pretty funny.

Random Monday-July 22, 2013

Last week, I got my kids dressed for storyhour.  Then I realized that the two older kids were wearing these matching John Deere outfits I'd made them last summer.

Photo by the very talented Diane H Photography

Then, I realized that the baby didn't have an outfit that matched and Mommy Guilt set in so I decided to just whip up a John Deere bubble romper for her to wear to storyhour that morning.  So, 40 minutes before we had to leave, I was cutting fabric and sewing like a crazy person (which is how I usually sew, but it was even worse this time).  I got it done.  I didn't have a pattern so I winged it which is a terrible idea when you're trying to work as fast as you can as it turned out a whole size too small for her.  But I squeezed her into it and all 3 of the kids looked adorable and matched for storyhour.

I took the two oldest kids on a shopping trip to The Big City last week.  I left the baby at home with my older sister because it was stinkin' hot and there was a heat advisory in effect.  I tried to leave Little Man there too as he's very sensitive to the heat, but the wailing and gnashing of teeth and "But Mommy, I want to be with you! You're my favorite!" changed my mind.  One store into the shopping trip (we had at least 4 more to hit up before we were done) and he was whining that he was done and wanted to go home.  *eye roll*

But even if it was incredibly hot and the kids were whiny, they did say and do some cute-ish/embarrassing things while we were out shopping.

Like on the way to The Big Ciy when Princess was telling me all about something we did when she was 3 that she still remembers.  I asked her how she remembered so much and she said, completely serious, "I have books in my head and that's how I remember."

Or when we were walking through JCPenney's and Little Man pointed at a mannequin wearing a bra and loudly exclaimed, "Mommy, you have one of those!"

Or when Princess wanted to come in the changing room with me when I tried on a shirt.  When I took off my shirt to put the new one on, she held the bag she was carrying in front of her face and said, "Yuck! I don't like your tummy."

Okay, that last one kind of hurt a little...

Star and Little Man have been battling a bad cough for the last week or so.  Star has barely eaten at all since a week ago Sunday because of it.  I decided to take the kids into the doctor today (because doctors love all those walk-in, last minute appointments on a Monday, right?).  Star has pneumonia and Little Man is close behind her.      

And just to prove that I don't live under a rock and in case you do, the royal baby and heir to the British throne was born today and is a boy.  I plan to drink tea and munch on biscuits while changing my baby's nappy tonight in celebration.

        

Locked Out

Do you know what happens when you log onto Facebook from a different computer than usual, and it asks you if you recognize another recent login as being yours and without thinking, you say no?

You get locked out of Facebook, that's what happens.  Even if that recent login you denied was the one from the computer you use all. the. time.

That means that you get cut off in the middle of a conversation with someone you only know through Facebook so now she probably thinks you're a stuck-up snob who's too good to respond to her message.

Oh, and you get 4 blog views in 7 hours on your latest blog post because you haven't been able to post a link on Facebook yet.  Apparently Facebook is better for my blog than I realized.

The first thought that ran through my head when I got locked out was, "I should ask my Facebook friends how to get back in."  Except that my Facebook friends are ON Facebook and my real life friends who are also on Facebook probably know as much about this as I do. 

Here's hoping that tomorrow I get out of time-out and Facebook realizes that I'm not trying to hack my own account.

Star-9 Months

I know this post is a few weeks overdue, but I was waiting for Star's 9 month checkup so I could put her weight and height in the post.  First, the appointment was rescheduled by the doctor's office and then, thanks to Hubby leaving for the farm with the girls' carseats still in his truck instead of the van where they're supposed to be, I was late for the rescheduled appointment and had to reschedule AGAIN.  Anyways, I finally got her to the doctor for her checkup!  

Age: 9 months

Weight and height: 15 pounds and 27 3/4" long.  The doctor is concerned since she's gained less than a pound in the last 3 months and dropped from the 17th percentile to 1.3% on the growth charts.  I'm starting to give her Pediasure everyday to help her put on some weight just like we did with Little Man when he was losing weight.  I'm really surprised that my best eater is my skinniest baby!  We knew that the older two didn't eat well and that was the reason for their slow weight gain/weight loss, but Star eats great and always has so I assumed that we wouldn't have any issues with her weight gain.  For comparison, at 9 months, Princess was 15 pounds, 12 ounces and 27 1/2" long and Little Man was 18 pounds, 4 ounces and 30" long.   

Wearing: Size 3 diapers and 3-6 / 6-9 month clothes.  A lot of the 3-6 month clothes are too small for her (lengthwise-if I could add an inch to the bottom of her pants and onesies, they'd fit great!) so I just need to get my act together and pack them up so I can give them to my sister for her baby girl.  I did bring the 6-9 month clothes home, but it turns out that there's isn't much there for summer clothes since Princess wore that size during the winter months.  Another excuse to go shopping for cute baby clothes, right?  :)     

Likes:  Following me around the house, eating, playing with the big kid toys instead of baby toys.  

Dislikes: Being left behind by her bigger siblings, especially when they go outside.

Eating habits:  Star eats about 6 ounces of formula and 4 ounces of baby food in the morning when she gets up.  Around 10:30, she takes another bottle followed by another 4 ounces of baby food.  1:30 is another bottle and then she has one more bottle and 4 ounces of baby food at 5:30.  She has a strong gag reflex so I've been taking the table foods slowly, but I do usually share my food with her and give her Gerber Puffs and yogurt melts to snack on.  Her favorite food is string cheese which I break up into small pieces.  She prefers table food to baby food, but until she learns to eat better without choking so much, the table food she gets is mostly for practice.  She looks hilarious when she eats because she chews so widely and exaggerated that food often falls out of her mouth. 


Sleeping habits:She sleeps from 7 pm to 7:30 am.  She's still taking 3 naps a day and sometimes 4 if her afternoon nap wasn't as long as it was supposed to be. 
 
Milestones/Accomplishments: She's crawling!!  You can see a video of when she just learned how to crawl here.

Miscellaneous: She has 2 top teeth now!  She's also starting to talk already (earlier than the older two kids did!).  She says "Mama" and "Dada" and uses them in the right context.  For instance, when Hubby walks into the room, she'll get excited and exclaim, "Dada!" or when she's in her crib crying to get out, she'll cry, "Mama, mama" until I come get her.  

Comparison pictures from 8 months to 9 months:

Are we done with pictures yet?  Because there are toys that need to be played with.

Her "Stinker" face

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Tuesday Topics-Two Places You've Traveled

Okay, this one was kind of hard.  Between the ages of 16 and 21, I traveled a lot.  I went to Texas (twice), Germany (and many of the surrounding countries), England (twice), Kentucky, and Duluth, Minnesota (honeymoon).  And than I had kids and I haven't traveled since other than to visit relatives. 

I decided to go with two of my most documented trips so I could actually add a few pictures. 

When I was 16, I had a close friend who took a German language class in college.  The class was pretty small so when the instructor began planning a class trip to Germany, there weren't enough people to go.  My friend asked if my mom and I would like to come along.  Of course, I was broke, but my incredibly awesome mom lent me the money I needed (which I still owe her) so I could go.  Most of the 10 days were spent in Germany, but we also took day trips to France and Luxembourg and went through Switzerland.  We had a lot of fun and I would love to go back someday. 

On a train in France during the Germany trip.  I'm in the blue sweater looking down.

Our tour group on one of our first days in Germany.  I'm in the center of the back row, my best friend is on the far right of the back row and our moms are in the front row. 

After the 10 days in Germany were up, the four of us split up from the rest of the group.  Everyone else headed back to the US and we flew to England to meet up with my friend's mom's British friend.

About a year later, I was living with my friend and her family so she and I could more easily carpool to the local community college together.  Her mom was now engaged to the British friend we'd visited with during our last trip to England and was planning a wedding in there.  Because I was close to their family, she invited me to come to England for the wedding and even paid for my trip.  We found time for sightseeing in between wedding plans and festivities.  

My friend and I in English telephone booths.

My friend's mom and I at the Tower of London

The Tower Bridge

Where have you traveled to?

Tuesday Topics-Three Favorite Quotes

I have a book full of quotes I've collected since I was a teenager.  Luckily, I can't find it right now because that would mean that I'd be up all night trying to narrow it down to three.  I had a hard enough time as it was.

Without further ado, here are three of my favorite quotes:  

Source: skariann.blogspot.com via Hannah on Pinterest

Because let's face it, when a problem hits us, we reach for the phone first, right?

Source: ibibleverses.christianpost.com via Lewis on Pinterest

My favorite Bible verse.

Source: babygoodbuys.com via Hannah on Pinterest

I cannot stress this enough!!  I know too many people who are more interested in giving their children stuff instead of their time.

What's your favorite quote(s)? 

Random Monday-July 8, 2013

I was feeding Star a jar of baby food and when the jar was finished, she started begging for more.  I gave her some Gerber puffs and asked her, "Where are you putting all this food?!?"  Across the table from me, Little Man answered my rather obvious question...
Little Man: "In her mouth!"

I gave Little Man a toddler spoon with his applesauce.  He looked at it and said in disgust, "Mommy, 'dis a little spoon.  I not little, I big!"

Upon her request, I spread butter on Princess's waffle one morning for breakfast.  She looked at it and grinned, "It's like it has sunscreen on it!"

Today, Little Man was telling me all about his weekend.  Not what we actually did this weekend, but his own version which means he was basically making it up as he went along.  I wasn't paying much attention until this sentence..."I went on a trip and my friend went tripping with me!"
o_O

On a completely different note, I dare you to watch this video of Star and not at least crack a smile.

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Happy 4th of July!

Yes, I know it's July 5th today, but I opted to watch the fireworks on tv and go to bed early last night instead of blogging. 

We hung around the house all day until the parade started at 3 pm.  Here are a few of the pictures I took before we left.

My girls

Princess, Star, and Little Man ("Mom, put your camera away so we can just go to the parade already!!")

"It's a bug!! Get it off! Get it off!"

"Whew, that was a close call!"

Finally, I packed up my camera and we headed off to the parade.  Hubby was working, but his mom came with us.

Little Man picking up candy-when he concentrates, he sticks his tongue out.  And yes, those are purple Tinkerbell sunglasses he's wearing.  His sunglasses broke so he insisted on wearing his sister's.

We found a good spot on the curb to sit that was in the shade.  Shortly after we sat down, a group of smokers sat directly next to us (upwind, of course) on the right.  Then, a group of 8+ kids and 6 adults decided to squeeze into the 3 foot long spot to the left of us.  Several of the kids somehow worked their way over until they were right in front of me, and I ended up having to scoot back a few feet on the sidewalk with Star just so they wouldn't step on her.  Most of the kids were older (around 4th grade) and stood in the street so they could pick up the candy before anyone else could, which meant that they blocked our view and got to most of the candy before Princess and Little Man could.  It wasn't until quite a ways into the parade that their parents noticed what they were doing and told them to slow down on picking up the candy.        

Princess picking up candy

Despite the constant cigarette smoke that kept drifting into our faces and the rather inconsiderate group next to us, we still enjoyed the parade.  Star was thrilled with the horses in the parade and every time one went by, she just about catapulted herself out of my arms with excitement.     

You know you live in a rural area when a good portion of the parade looks like this.  That's 4 tractors there and there were several more that followed.

Just a couple of observations about the parade...

Adults throw more candy than kids.  I'm assuming it's because the kids are thinking that if there's candy leftover at the end of the parade, then they can have it.

A local bar had a float in the parade which mostly consisted of children.  Using kids to advertise a place that sells beer....classy.
 
One church had a group of adults and kids walking in the parade throwing candy and carrying signs like "God is love," "Jesus loves you," etc.  Not one person from the church had a smile on their face.  Most looked pretty unhappy to be there, and their demeanor didn't fit with their message at all.  I overheard several people around me talking about the church group.  One man sitting a few feet from us commented that based on what he just saw, he had no interest in ever visiting that church.    

A few of the floats threw Freezees.  Star couldn't get enough of hers!

Little Man picked a blue Freezee

When the parade was over, we headed to my in-laws' aka The Farm for supper.  The kids spent a lot of time playing outside.  It was over 80 degrees outside, but there was a cool breeze so it was a beautiful day.

As a bonus, at the end of the day, the kids were all so tired that they fell right to sleep which meant that I got to go to bed early.  That officially made it a good day for me!


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Tuesday Topics-4 Things I Have Learned Outside of School

This one is kind of tricky for me.  You see, I was homeschooled and so most of what I've learned in life, I was taught as part of my schooling.  When your mom is your teacher, and she's the one who taught you pretty much everything you know and believe as an adult, it can be hard to distinguish between what was learned "in" school and what wasn't. 

Somehow, I managed to come up with four things though.

1. Sew. 
My home-ec class one year involved me running the house (cooking, cleaning, laundry, shopping, etc) for one whole week.  Very educational for me and very smart of my mom who got a week off.  The one thing my home-ec class was missing was the sewing portion.  My mom can sew, but she doesn't like doing it so she didn't teach me.  I'm pretty much a self-taught sewist.  

Dress and shirt made by me and modeled by Princess and my nephew

2. How to drive.
My mom was too smart to get in a car with any of us kids while we were learning how to drive (unlike my dad who let my newly licensed brother practice driving a stick shift in downtown Minneapolis during rush hour).  Because we kids were required to pay our own way for the most part once we were old enough to have a job (this parenting technique not only saved my parents some money, but is a super way to teach kids responsibility and appreciation for things), I opted to wait until I was 18 before learning to drive so I didn't have to pay for the driving class.  At the age of 19ish, my then-boyfriend/now-husband and my dad taught me to drive so I could take the written test (twice) and get my license. 

3. Blog.
Okay, I don't know if I can actually count this one since I learned how to write in school, but blogging didn't exactly come up back then.  Was blogging even around in the 90's?  I don't know, but anyways, I didn't start my blog until 2009.  Of course, at the beginning, I assumed that blogging was just typing up a post and hitting the "publish" button.  Um, yeah.  If you want your blog to really go anywhere, you need to learn social media, html, networking and so much more.  Also things that weren't covered in school and that I have learned to utilize.

4. Choose Joy.
My mom will tell you that I've always been a definite a bit of a Negative Nellie.  In the past few years, I've learned that (just like my mom said!) I have the freedom to choose how I will respond to a situation.  I can choose to respond with worry, fear, anger, etc. or I can choose to respond with joy.  I'm not perfect yet, (although that's coming any day now!), but realizing that I have power over how a situation affects me is very freeing.     


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Random Monday - July 1st, 2013

Little Man LOVES to cut paper up with his little safety scissors.  Last week, I gave him a catalog to cut up.  He was thrilled until the first time he cut through a picture of a person in the catalog. Bringing the catalog to me and showing me the cut through the person, he sadly informed me that he "cut a people up and they are crying now." 

Because of some tractor rides with his Daddy and Grandpa lately, Little Man has really been into playing with his tractors.  When a trailer wouldn't stay on the tractor, he brought it to me and asked if I could put a band-aid on it for him.

Princess had kind of a rough weekend.  On Saturday night, she put herself to bed at 5:30 pm and only woke at 7:30 to take a nebtreatment before going back to bed for the rest of the night.  She had a pretty high fever, but no other symptoms so she spent Sunday relaxing on the couch.  Today, she's back to normal-which means refusing to sleep no matter what.

Speaking of Sunday...Star learned to crawl on Sunday!  I took this video of her crawling for the second time.  Sorry about the video quality-usually my camera does a much better job than that.  Oh, and that's Josh Groban singing in the background.  He was hanging out at my house on Sunday, well, at least in the form of a cd. 

My sister and I have been toying with the idea of starting a review and giveaway blog together for a while.  I've wanted to do more reviews and giveaways, but didn't want to turn this blog into a giveaway blog.  I like running occasional giveaways here, but for the most part, I'd like to keep this blog more personal.  Anyways, we're currently in the process of getting everything set up and are hoping to get the blog off the ground sometime in July!  We may even include our super stylish little sister to do some fashion posts.


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