love letter to maggie

A girl who stole my heart from the beginning. I find it hard to be away from you. Even though sometimes you and I fuss, I think its because we're so much alike. That's what Mom Mom keeps telling me. You really are like me, but I can tell already a much more awesomer version of me.

I love how you love to dance and aren't embarrassed to do it in front of people. I love that you love to try new foods. Today you asked for carrots and artichoke and garlic hummus for lunch. Your eating style is so sophisticated. I know you are 4 years old today but I told people who you were 3 right up until the last minute. I think that's my way of holding on to every day that I get to spend with you. I love how you are still so cuddly. Some days you can't get enough hugs and kisses and I'm totally fine with that. You're getting to be such a big girl and are staying in your bed all night, even though I still don't mind to find you in my bed on the nights you don't.

I have waited forever to have a little girl to play Barbies with, and now our, I mean your new dollhouse. I could play with you for hours. It so cool that we love the same movies. The curls at the end of your hair frame your face so beautifully. Your eyelashes are a gift from your father. You can thank him later when you understand this gift. I think its cute that you and I have our own language, meow meow. You're my best friend. I love you to pieces and I cherish you. Happy birthday my princess.

Summer Dayz coming to an end...

What's that I hear, is that, a roar of cheering going on across America. A cheer that the kids are going back to school? Well I can actually say that we had a wonderful summer, even though we didn't get to go on vacation. I'm bummed about no vacation this year, but it makes me happy that we had so much fun that no one here noticed. Here's a recap of our summer:

Went to the Hiwassee River

VBS at Barfield Baptist

lots of swimming and Jacob learned to swim under water, can now do flips in the pool and loves to cannon ball. He really solidified his swimming skills. Maggie still wears her swim vest and is quite confident going all over the pool in it. She now jumps in the little pool which may not sound like much but we have had a set back with her in the pool so her excitement for the pool is growing. We even got to squeeze in a swim lesson from Ms. McKenzie, the best swim teacher ever!!

Went to the Sports Com pool where Jacob discovered slides for the first time.

Splash Pad

Trinity VBS

Discovery Center

Lots of movie nights- one night even lasted til 12:30!!!!

Going to the library weekly

Lots of play dates

Went to see Cars 2 and if we don't take Jacob to see Smurfs I think he may run away.

Football camp and football practice for Jacob- that will be a whole separate post. We're so dang excited about this adventure for him.

A visit from Mom Mom and Pop Pop at 4th of July.

Oh yeah, fireworks.

which brings me to dance parties

and baking parties with friends- learned how to make cake balls

Yes, I must say we made the most out of summer. My goal was to do something planned with the kids every single day. I can honestly say that I did that except maybe 2 days where we just stayed home so I could catch up on housework. Those few days we had unlimited amounts of movie watching, wii playing, and lots of made up games. Maggie and Jacob had such a good time together making up games to play. I love that imaginative play. Reminds me of when I was little.

I like this idea of grace

In case you thought you were the only one who felt like everyone else around you was the perfect mom and you are still here struggling... After almost 6 years of parenting I would have thought that I'd have it down by now. And most days I do. I'm proud of the decisions, sacrifices, devotion, dedication it takes to be the mom I am. But I'm a firm believer in always looking for ways to improve. I don't beat myself up, but there are some days I think, you could have done that better. I'm glad I reflect. How else would I be able to make changes and improve. I hope my kids think I was the perfect mom, but I would never want Maggie to think that I thought I was. Because I don't want her to think the perfect mom is who she needs to be.

I love this mom's perspective of being a mother. Its nice to know that we don't have to come from a perfect place to start a legacy. I can still influence what comes after me, no matter what has come before me. Yeah. I like this idea of grace. I think I will start to use a little more of it.

Baby you're a firework!

I'm a believer. In cake balls that is. We love this little modern day version of the cupcake. The kids love to help make them, as it reminds them of play doh when making the balls. Then comes the dipping and decorating with sprinkles. These red white and blue ones are a tribute to our country's independence. Happy 4th of July America! We live in the greatest country ever.

Speaking of the greatest country, that reminds me of one of the greatest states ever. That would be Tennessee. We have the Smithsonian channel and there is a series called Aerial America. Its a show that documents and tells the history of a state which showing shots of the state from the air. It highlighted from the Great Smoky Mountains, the battlefields of Tennessee, Country Music Hall of Fame, Beale Street, Graceland, as well as many other landmarks. It sparked lots of discussion about our state and Rick and I both realized how much of our nation's history is here in Tennessee, like the birthplace of 2 genres of music: country music and the blues.

While we were watching it, I got out my journal and jotted down all the places the show highlighted and we will attempt to visit as many places on the list as possible. So in honor of our country you should check out the show's website and see when your state is showing. I think we should all take in as much history of the state we live in. It gives you more of sense of pride where you live when you can appreciate the land and what took place long before we were here.

that's the good stuff

Tonight Rick was on a man date with his BFF. So I was flying solo at bedtime. Usually Rick puts Jacob to bed and I put Mags down. Well tonight Jacob was being a pain about bedtime. At one point of going back and forth from Maggie's room to Jacob's room, Jacob looked up with big ol crocodile tears in his eyes. I couldn't help but rush over and throw my arms around him and put him in the tightest hug possible. I said what's wrong. He said so teary that his voice was quivering, "I miss my daddy." Well then we were both boo hooing. He sobbed in my arms. He missed his bedtime buddy. And he's a big boy and can go one or two nights with a different routine, as we would this night. But that didn't change how much he genuinely missed his dad. In that moment I was so grateful that God blessed him with a good daddy. There are a lot out there that aren't so good and aren't worth missing. But this one is.

Went to Maggie's room and I got the same thing. Her cry is a bit more dramatic (what else would you expect) I sob sob sob, miss, sob sob sob, my, sob sob sob, daaaaddddddy! Oh for Pete's sake, I can't take two of these. So this is what happened next.


Sleep over in sissy's room!

Update on Jacob

I know I have blogged before about some developmental issues/delays that Jacob had. He went to Kindergarten much to my dismay this year. Because of his late birthday (Sept 2) I didn't want him to go to kindergarten this year for maturity reasons alone. He was 4 when he started kindergarten. In my opinion that's just too young. Kindergarten isn't what it was when we were young. I remember playing, having books read to us, singing, and maybe a little bit of learning to read thrown in. They are full blown doing math problems I probably didn't do until 1st grade. I know every parent struggles with their baby going to kindergarten but mine was for different reasons. However, due to needing speech and occupational therapy he didn't qualify for k-readiness. His only option, other than staying home for a year with no services, was to go to kindergarten.

Even though I love his school and teacher, this year has been a mess. You could tell all year he wasn't ready. There were times when he would get lost just going from his class to the gym where he would be picked up from school. Bless his heart.

When a child recieves services through the school they have to be re-evaluated every 3 years to make sure they still quailfy. This year was that third year. The results of that eval showed that Jacob is totally in the normal or average level in language. This is such a blessing because since he was 2 he has been a year behind in his language and this year alone he got completely caught up. So this year wasn't in vain. It was acutally pretty benefical for him. The team all agreed that he would benefit from repeating kindergarten for maturity reasons alone. Academically he could be promoted to first grade. Which if you think about it is pretty cool. That means he gets to have a year to mature. He'll be more on the level with these kids. He'll be older than all of them with 2 years down at Barfield, including preschool. And we know that he has the knowledge of everything in kindergarten so that won't be a struggle. He gets to have this year of kindergarten without the need of any services. Which is what our goal was all along.

I'm so proud of the progress that little boy made between his language, and behavior. He's had some kind of service for 3 1/2 years and won't need them anymore. Its quite possible that he may never know that he needed them in the first place since he was so young. And that my friends, is the goal of early intervention. There were some people who told me that he didn't really need speech therapy, that all boys talk late, yada yada. With all the hard work on his part, he got completely caught up so that he can go to kindergarten with no services. Hallelujah!

No more bedtime battles

Ok, I have no idea what I did to my blog. Please excuse the mess. I was trying to widen the margins so the posts don’t seem so long. Somehow I didn’t get wide margins, and managed to delete my background. Awesome!

I wanted to update you on my last post. I was talking about a new bedtime routine for Maggie. Let me visually walk you through the old routine. Let’s say bedtime starts around 7:45. By 8:00 we have teeth brushed, went potty, said our good nights to brother, and are in bed with book. We would read 2-3 books (I know!) then we would turn lights out, turn soft lullaby music on, say our bedtime prayers, and I would lie down in the bed with Maggie until she fell asleep. This has been our routine since going to the big girl bed a year ago (2 ½). Let me insert here that I was a Baby wise mom and raised both kids to self soothe and not depend on being rocked or anything else, so the fact that here I was laying down for an hour with a 3 yr old was astonishing to me.

When I first started the RIP program I told my case manager that this was an issue for me and I wanted to change the routine. The problem: I had stuff to do like clean dinner dishes, straighten up, get things ready for the next day, and if all went well, watch some TV with Rick. When I would lay down with Maggie it was sometimes an hour before she would go to sleep. I have a theory that she would fight going to sleep b/c she knew that as soon as she did go to sleep I would leave, so to keep me there longer she would fight sleep. When I would first lie down, I wasn’t tired, thinking of all the things I wanted/needed to do. But by the time she was asleep, 7 out of 10 times I was asleep too and ready to go directly to bed myself.

We attempted to do a bedtime program, much to my case manager’s dismay. She told me that she thought it wasn’t a good time since bedtime programs are the most difficult and Maggie was a little too young in the process of the behavior modification it would take to correct this bad habit. I insisted that Maggie and I could both do it so we tried. I did the method of every time she got out I would pick her back up and escort her to her room without speaking to her, aka the super nanny technique. Remember I said that we had to do counts to see if the behavior improved. Well, that night I had to take Maggie back to her room 64 times. I know because I counted! By the time she fell asleep, I had a migraine and Rick was sick to his stomach. Disciplining ain’t for the lighthearted. Or the grammatical inclined folks!! Needless to say we discontinued that program. (they call individual interventions to a particular behavior a “program”)

With two weeks left in the program, I asked if we could attempt the bedtime routine. This time we tried a different way, in which I had some more eye rolling. This time Maggie had learned that when she displays certain behaviors she gets rewards. We started the bedtime routine by getting her to pick out a book and getting in bed. After she had stayed in bed for 3 minutes I would come in and read the book to her, or she could read it to me. (Remember- we’re training her to stay in bed) After book time, I would turn off the light and tell her that when she stays in bed for another 3 minutes, I’ll bring blankie (which she absolutely can’t sleep without). After another 3 minutes of staying in bed, I would come back in to turn her music on. The reinforcers can be interchanged according to your child and what floats their boat. Usually by the time I turned the music on she was either asleep or nearly there. Meanwhile during the 3 minutes while I was waiting to take something to her, I’m cleaning, getting things ready for the morning, etc. So, by the time she’s asleep I’m ready to have some QT with my cu-tie.

I have to say that this program has worked amazingly. It takes a lot of discipline to be able to pull this off. Especially during those first few nights when she was crying mommy, please, I need something to eat, drink, need to pee, poop, give you a hug. I’ve got one word for you- MANIPULATION. The payoff- every night I have time to pick up the house before bed (which makes for a good morning) and almost every night get to watch TV with Rick, or chill and read a book. My evenings are completely different and I love them.

Potpourri

That's what this blog is. A little bit of this and a little bit of that. I like to write about my kids, my experience as a parent, my "projects" around the house, my faith in God, and any others experiences that I think would be helpful to others. From time to time, I may tell you about a product that I like, should you be looking for such a product. I am not telling you to use it, but its up to you to decide.

I don't think I've blogged about this but some of you may know that I have been going through a parenting class. Now back in the day, I thought people who take parenting classes are people who have done something abusive or neglectful to their children and they need to learn a new way to parent. Remember, I worked at DCS for 6 1/2 years, so that's my line of work. I was the kind of parent who would read a book on ANY topic of parenting. If my child was having a need, rest assured there was one or more books on my bookshelf related to such need. I even took an 18 week intensive course on parenting that was written by one of my favorite authors in the subject of parenting. However, just because you may have lots of knowledge, doesn't mean you know how to use it.

Jacob from the age of 2 had a speech delay that was later diagnosed as a language delay. (there is a difference, I now know) This caused him to have behavioral issues that none of the books I picked up could help me with. When he was around the age of 3-4, I knew his needs were greater than the skills that I had learned so I sought out some help from the Regional Intervention Program (RIP). Here's my plug for this program. It was originally created for autistic children, however, it was quickly recognized as a program for any parent who had a child with any level of behavioral issues. With that being said and having been through the program, I believe that this program should be a requirement for anyone with children. After all, if we are required to take a test to have a driver's license, there should be some requirement to be able to parent.

It is successful because it not only teaches someone parenting skills, it requires them to practice those skills in an environment where you have professionals to assist you. I am definitely a hands on learner and I think this was the key aspect for me. Its a free program and the way it is offered at no cost is because you "pay back" the sessions by teaching the classroom. You then model for other parents what you have learned, which is such a good way to solidify those skills. It is a huge commitment time-wise, however, that gave me time to work out kinks in my practices. One of the biggest challenges for me was to throw out all the parenting theories I had and be ready to do it a different way. I will be honest here and say that there were techniques that I thought to myself "that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. There's no way this would work." Only to be eating my words a week later when not only did it work, but they darn near worked at the first implementation.

The first thing we addressed at RIP was Jacob talking back. The intervention used was to give him this rule "Jacob, your job is to use your nice words." I know, too simple right? I'm sure my eye-rolling was received well by my case manager. This would have to be repeated to him at least 5 times a day. We often tell kids what not to do, but rarely do we tell them how we WANT them to act. This is the basic principal of RIP. Tell the kids what you want their behavior to be. So instead of telling him not to be disrespectful, or not to talk back, I would literally tell him at breakfast, before being dropped off to school, when I picked him up, and certainly before we went to some one's house to use his nice words. The program is data driven for statistical purposes (so you can prove something worked or didn't). He went from talking back 9 times a day to 1 or 2 times a day from the first day we implemented the intervention. How's that for statistics! I was shocked. At that point, I was like, ok, maybe these people CAN teach me something!

The reason I'm writing about this today is because today is our last day of the program. I'm not sure if we will welcome the break, or miss it, but I do know that it was a life changer. I know that I went from a mom who yelled, to a mom that (almost) doesn't anymore. And THAT I'm sure my children will be glad for, if for nothing else. I have another example of a successful intervention, but I'm waiting for it to be a little bit more successful and then I'll share. It has to do with possibly the most dreaded area of parenting.....bedtime battles. Dun Dun Dun.....

Stay tuned- yard sale find

I'm so excited about a yard sale find. I will post pics when we get this thing installed. But before I get into what it is, I think I am going to start a series on my yard sale finds. I'm often asked how I am able to stay home with my kids. Let me just say that one of the big contributors to making this a possibility is my ability to buy a lot of what we need/want at yard sales.

I have always been a yard saler though even before my kids. I'm such a tightwad with money that I never really understood paying more money for something that I can get at a yard sale for 1/4 of the price. All of our lawn equipment has come from yard sales, MUCH of my home decor, and nearly all my kids clothes are from yard sales. And here's the thing, my kids wear Gap, gymboree, old navy, children's place. Most I only pay $1 or less for. I just recently scored a whole bunch of gymboree outfits for Maggie for .50 each. Hello- those outfits probably cost $35 a piece.

The secret, one of them, to finding a good deal, is to go every. single. weekend. Every Saturday I'm up and out at 7am. I have a mental list, and sometimes a physical list of what I'm looking for. I don't feel like I have to come home with something either. If I don't see what I'm looking for, I keep on moving. Here's an example of a list. One day I dropped the pitcher to my Mr IceTea maker. Can I just tell you that I don't know how to make tea any other way? I went to Walmart to find a replacement and my Mr Ice Tea maker was old so they didn't even have replacement parts. I would have had to buy a new one for $18. Nonsense. I got up that Saturday and told Rick that I would come home with a Mr Ice Tea maker pitcher. That's pretty specific don't you think? I'll be darn if I didn't find not one, but 2 that day. A lady had 2 pitchers and her maker broke so she was selling the pitchers. SCORE! I think I paid $1 for both.

So, back to what I'm excited about. Since I'm a stay at home mom we're broke most of the time. But you know what, one day I'll be working full time and we'll have more money to do whatever, but right now, I get to be with my kids while they are home and NO amount of money is worth it. But that doesn't change the fact that I hate the fluorescent light in my kitchen. I hate florescent light period. End of story. First of all, it shows dirt in my already white kitchen like crazy. Light fixtures are like at least $100. Yard sales are a great place to find them. If its not the finish you prefer, get a can of spray paint and voila. I'm a big fan of Oil Rubbed Bronze. Rustoleum makes a really good spray paint. I have done a lot of the brass fixtures in our house with the ORB. I found a light fixture this weekend for $5 and its really nice. Don't know how it will look in the kitchen but if it doesn't look good there I will put it above the fireplace. We're putting it up tonight so I'll post before and after pictures tomorrow.

Heavy Heart

I try to share any experiences I may have with anyone if it will help others. I have one of those little, well, big life's lessons today. I am so sad. The sweetest neighbors ever are moving away today. We have lived 2 doors down from them for 2 years. They have 3 boys right around the same ages as Jacob and Maggie. Our kids love them and theirs love ours. We get along so well with the whole family, something that is kinda rare. We have the same values and even similar life experiences.

Around Christmas time we found out that they were moving. We tried not to think about it but as the thier time was drawing near, we started spending more time together, especially the last week. We spent their last night in town by eating Mexican, having some tasty margaritas, then followed by a big sleep over. It is so sad that Jacob doesn't really realize that when he hugged them goodbye today, it would be the last, for a while. It will kill me when he asks to play with them in a few days. I truely hope that we have neighbors like them again one day, but I seriously doubt there could ever be better ones than that...

Please learn a lesson from us and not take for granted the friendships that God blesses you with. We totally didn't appreciate this family like we should until we knew they were moving. Rick and I actually prayed that the Lord would bless us with a family just like theirs, yet we didn't recognize it. Maybe we recognized it but like many gifts the Lord blesses us with, we just don't appreciate them until its too late.

As they left today, I snapped a picture of the kids. I realized that is the only picture of probably Jacob's first best friend. I have memories of my first best friend from before kindergarten. {insert memory} "Hello little girl, those rocks in your parents landscape look like they need to be removed. They do? Well here let me give you a hand."

Please learn from my mistake and appreciate any of those friendships in your life that you think will always be there so you don't maintain them like you should. You never know when they will be taken away. We're lucky in our case that they are just a 6 hour drive away. One that I know we will take one day.

Warning

I am warning you that I can see many posts in the future are going to be about how much money I have saved (not on car insurance) but in the society of women who coupon! My awesome friend Angela transferred her knowledge of getting a weeks worth of groceries for a family of 4 for under $75 onto me. I have heard people on tv trying to give tips but I guess since I didn't know them I didn't trust them. I think I thought they secretly worked for the grocery stores and it was all a scam. That's how my brain works. I guess its from working at DCS for too many years but I think you are all up to no good!

I would rather scrub YOUR bathroom then make a grocery list and go shopping, but I can almost see that grocery shopping will result in a buzz from saving so much money. I KNOW I'm gonna kick myself in the pants for wasting so much time not doing this. Its almost silly now to shop without coupons. I always thought it wasn't worth the effort but I see the light now!

Thanks Angela!

I'll share you mine if you share me yours

I was watching Beth Moore and her husband on James Robison's show this morning. They were talking about a common misconception about marriages. Beth said that she and her husband fight a lot, she called it heated discussions, whatever you want to call it. Even as seasoned as they are as Christians, Betty and James Robison said they still have fights. Beth said beware of couples who act like or even brag that they don't fight. She said, now there's a marriage with no communication, no passion, just 2 people co-existing. She said she refuses to become that couple so she and her husband "risk" that by having heated arguments. By now, they've established rules for their arguments that make it conducive to get some resolve to their argument.

So don't feel bad if you and your spouse argue. It doesn't mean that you aren't a perfect couple. I've got news for you, you aren't the perfect couple. GET OVER IT!! None of us are! Being able to have heated discussions is a by-product of not settling for a blah marriage. I think the more constructive thing to do is to come up with ground rules before heading into said discussion.

For example, James Robison said that if your spouse says something that hurts you, we know that a loving spouse would never intentionally hurt the other. So assume that you misunderstood what they said and ask them to clarify their point another way so you can understand it without getting hurt.

So do us all a favor and share (don't hide) any revelations or experiences that another married couple would benefit from. I wonder what other ground rules would help keep an argument from going south?

Milestone coming up

Jacob is known for saying random things. So I tend to tune him out sometimes, although I'm making a conscious effort not to do this. The other night I was was laying down with him and he told me his tooth was loose. (he says this a lot if he's around another child who has a loose tooth) so I started to disregard him but thought I would do some investigating first. And sure enough, wouldn't you know it one of his front top teeth is loose. Not really loose, but you can tell it is getting loose. I know this day would come. And to tell you the truth, I'm quite upset that after all those nights staying up with him when he would be cranky from teething, are you serious, now its falling out? It is a rite of passage. One that makes me realize how fast he is growing up. It scares me sometimes because little moments like this catch me off guard and that's when I have time to think about bringing him home from the hospital.

The good thing is that it makes me really appreciate Maggie and where she's at developmentally because its a reminder to hold on to times that maybe I let slip through my hands with Jacob.

scratch those new year's resolutions

I saw this post on thenester.com. I don't care what my new year's resolution was. The topic of this video is my life's resolution. I somehow had this, how do you say, quality of living when I was a college kid, and even post college. Life was all about the little things, toilet papering friends houses, going camping, floating on a tube down a river, taking a walk on the greenway, picnics, just exploring what life had to offer. Somewhere in the middle of having kids, and its totally understandable, I lost that.

Its funny because today Rick and I set a timer for one hour to clean the house and then we would devote the rest of the day to playing with the kids. On Saturdays our day often becomes about the "projects" that we have around the house. Then Maggie and Jacob are left to find something to get into all day, asking for us to play with them but we're usually too busy to stop whatever we're doing. Today would be different but it wasn't the kind of different I was looking for. When we were done cleaning we played for a little bit, then it was lunch, then I looked around and the house was getting messy again. I saw this video and showed it to Rick. We both felt it. IT was a desire to reach out and touch something that the One who made me, made for me. and for you. and your kids, and my kids. We have gotten caught in that stinkin rat race of buying our kids things they don't need when all they needed today was their mom and dad, a football, and two neighborhood kids. Did I mention it was 45 degrees outside? Didn't stop us. The first thing they did was go down to a creek and look at the different shapes that the water had frozen in. Then they picked out sticks and ran along the rocks. They played an hour long football game and they were totally covered in mud. And for the first time in my life I didn't care. I just took in that moment. Threw the football, stole kisses from my love while the kids were tackling each other. It was awesome. Actually, awesome wasn't even in the word. I'll get back to you when I think of one. Yeah, life will be going back to the way it was. Starting now.

ZUMBA!!!!!

Tonight, in the spirit of new years resolutions and trying to be more healthy I started back at zumba class. Last year I hit those classes hard from January through May. I was intrigued by this logo "Ditch the workout join the party". I LOVED the class. Then one thing after another with my health came. Bad gallbladder, infected incision cite, back pain that was near crippling and lasted waaaaay too long, then to top it all off, a freaking sprained ankle! It seemed like every time I felt motivated enough to get back to the workout routine, something would happen to derail those efforts.

But I know that once I get back to 1 zumba class, that's all I need. Memories from my skating days at Hot Wheels, my dancing days at the club in college, and salsa dancing in Spain all come back to me at one time during a class. Not to mention, since becoming a mom of two, my days for the past 3 years have been pretty much controlled by the little ones. I'm completely out of it when it comes to top 20 songs. So getting back to zumba helps me to get in touch with that. It gives me one hour that I don't have to think about kids, a husband, what I didn't get done on my list that day, etc etc. Because come on, if you've ever been to a zumba class, the only thing you can think about is the music that gets you moving and just trying to keep up with everyone else.

No matter how tired I am by the evening when class comes, when I get out I feel reenergized, in a good mood, and totally committed to healthier eating since its such hard work. I can honestly say that I have never been that excited about working out. I don't ever see much results from anything I've tried. I used to run 2 miles a day and didn't lose a single pound. What's up with that? With zumba, I don't even care if I lose weight, though you do, even if you don't care.

One of the best things is that you get to take a lot of aggression out rather than do it on someone more deserving. Its like exercise, therapy, and entertainment all wrapped up in one. The devil may have gotten me off track last year by throwing me some curve balls, but he better watch out because this year, I'm throwing them all back!