Milk required

It's kind of irritating how much milk is pushed in school, especially when your children are lactose intolerant. Of course, they have the option to drink water, if they bring a water bottle from home and fill it at the drinking fountain. This is inconvenient, at best.

Getting personalized water bottles would be the most economical and environmentally friendly for children who prefer water. I hate buying expensive bottled water to send to school, then it could get mixed up with bottles that other children bring. As long as they don't lose their bottles, they could be refilled and kept at school all week, coming home to be washed on the weekends.

Better late than never

When my children were babies, I did the research and I knew that cloth diapers were healthier and better for the environment. But when there is a newborn baby in the house, disposable diapers are just so much more convenient. I wanted to spend all my extra time catching up on sleep, not doing laundry. I did have a set of cloth diapers, but they were only used as burp rags.

Fast forward four years from when my youngest was born, and I have found a use for those old cloth diapers! My son has been potty trained for a year now, but he still has occasional night time accidents. As such, we have kept him in the pull-up style diapers at night, every night. They can be reused a couple of times if there was no accident, but they get a bit fuzzy after that. Pull-ups cost much more than diapers, even if you buy the generic brands, so I was anxious to find an alternative.

So I came up with a homemade pull-up. I take a cloth diaper and fold it over to make a thick strip. Then I have him hold it on himself, covering from under the belly button on down between the legs, while I help pull up his regular underwear on top. Then he wears a pair of plastic over-pants, topped of with the pajama pants. So far, this has worked quite well, and the clean up isn't as bad as I thought it would be.

If he wakes with wetness, we soak the items in a bucket filled with water and a splash of bleach. I swirl it around for a minute, then dump the water. Then I rinse everything with plain water, wring out, and hang it to dry. When they are dry, I put them in the hamper to be washed at the end of the week with the rest of the laundry.

Reading bug

Thanks to the library summer reading program, my daughter "caught the reading bug" and ended up reading around 200 books last summer. Now that school is back in session, I am proud to report that she has been classified as reading above her grade level. Reading is so crucial in all parts of school, and I'm so thankful that she picked it up as well as she has. I can only hope we are as lucky with our younger son. I have a gut feeling that he will have a harder time, but maybe I'm just stereotyping him because of the other typical "boy" behavior he has been exhibiting lately.

Maybe he will learn young, simply because big sister is doing it and his competitive spirit will take over. Only time will tell. The important thing is that both of my kids love school and we will continue to foster that because when there is love for learning, everything else just falls into place.

Make-up, part deux

I do understand the need for make-up coverage during puberty, when skin flares up, oiliness rears its ugly head, and acne products become a necessary part of the daily routine. I remember having such bad break outs that sometimes I wouldn't even want to show my face at school.

The only thing a girl can do is cover it up with make-up. Then you feel like you have to accentuate your eyes to get the focus off the zit on your chin, and that's were the heavy eye make-up starts. The problem is, make-up can make breakouts worse and it becomes a vicious cycle in skin care.

The make-up debate

My daughter is seven years old and has recently become very aware of her appearance. She wants to pick out her clothes for school in the morning and brushes her hair and wears headbands and necklaces. Yesterday, she got out her kiddie make-up set and started putting eyeshadow and blush on. That's where I resisted. I didn't wear make-up until middle school, and looking back on it now, that was probably even too early.

The hard part is that when she sees me applying make-up, she says, "I thought you said we don't need make-up to look pretty, Mommy." True, I did say that. I believe it too. But some days, Mommy feels she needs a little coverage and a little color. I'm not a huge make-up wearer. I only wear powder on top of my daily sunscreen, and mascara on my top lashes. I'm not the type of person who won't have my picture taken, or have a passport redone because I don't like the way it turned out. I truly think that most women look just as good, and some look a heck of a lot better without so much make-up on.

Back to the cell

Now that both of our kids are in school full time, we are considering getting rid of internet service at home and spending time at the library with our laptop picking up the wifi signal. This would save us about $75 per month, and we were planning to do this in the near future anyway, so why not try now?

We already picked up a cheap cell phone before our summer roadtrip for emergencies, and we have 500 unused minutes on it. So we would use only the cell phone for all our calling needs, and add minutes as we go. Of course, my husband (the family techie) has figured out most of the phone's features already just by tinkering around with it. As for me, I have figured out how to lock the keypad, because unlocked cell phones have a tendency to either make a call from my purse, or get into the hands of curious children who have just learned how to dial "911" for emergencies.

Life and death

It's no secret that I am a super-frugal person. I am always looking for ways to save money and cut back on purchases. There are a couple of things that I feel are necessary that some people may overlook. One of those is life insurance. In the event that a spouse dies, life insurance is such a relief, both financially and emotionally. If you get life insurance when you are young, the monthly premiums are very affordable.

The second necessity is a will, which I am ashamed to admit we haven't written up yet. Add that to my "to do" list from the previous post. Having children really changed how I view wills and it is so important to specify who will take care of them and where all your valuables will go. Well, I'm off to research wills on the internet...

You know you're a Mom when...

...you enjoy the feel of your son rolling a Hot Wheels car over your back more than a massage at a spa.

...you lower your standards of what you consider "clean".

...your favorite smell is the top of your child's head.

...you lick your finger and wipe something off a kid's face.

...you can watch your child sleeping for hours.

...you find yourself repeating the same thing 100 times a day.

...you start humming theme songs from kids' movies.

That's all I could think of right now. Please add more if you think of any!

My best friend

The other morning at breakfast, my husband proudly states that the night before, when he was finished reading a bedtime story to our three year old boy, he said, "Dad, you're my best friend." Aaaawwwwww, how cute.

Then, my daughter rains on his parade by stating, "Dad, he told the dog she was his best friend the other day." Upon seeing the disappointment on daddy's face, she said, "I mean, you're special too. He's been telling us all that we are his best friends."

In drastic contrast to the "terrible two" attitude we dealt with for over a year, all of a sudden our son has become very affectionate. He will just run up and give out hugs and say "I love you" all the time. I remember this stage with my daughter as well. Just around the time you enjoy spending time with your toddler is when it's time for them to start going to school.

For parents in the midst of potty training...

This one's for you!



My husband saw the video on another daddy's blog and just had to share it with me since we are just starting to get serious about potty training my son. He's actually doing very well. Once we put the training pants with "Cars" characters on them, he knew we meant business (literally!). He has sat on the potty several times, and been productive on the potty once so far. I just finished reading Potty Training for Dummies, which helped a lot to put things in perspective.

The one point that really stood out for me was their reminder that potty training is just like any other milestone in your child's life and should be treated as such. For instance, when babies learn to walk, we cheer at their first steps, but don't get angry or frustrated when they fall. It's because we know they will get it eventually. It's the same with potty training. Be your child's coach and cheerleader, but don't be a preacher or a nag and keep the mood light. Treat accidents in a "matter-of-fact" way and don't make a huge deal about it.

Shattered dreams

I was all revved up for a wonderful day of potty training after I read "Toilet Training in Less Than a Day" which I picked up at the library. The technique made sense and I thought for sure it would work for my son since he is within the age group recommended. Well, several things went wrong and let's just say that he is back in diapers and won't even put underwear on now.

When he sees the little potty, he says, "Mom, I'm not on the potty train anymore." I guess when he heard us talk about "potty training" he thought it had to do with an actual train. So now my husband and I are trying to come up with some sort of "potty train" game to get him to wear the underwear again. Any suggestions? He has used the potty a couple of times so we know he can do it and will just take more time.

He must be trained by the time he starts pre-school next August and I'm sure that will be no problem. We just really wanted him trained before our trip to Disney World in January so we don't have to worry about bringing diapers or buying them once we are there. So we have three and a half months to work on it before then. Wish us luck!!

One of life's little annoyances

Insurance is just one of things that you must have, but never seem to function smoothly. The only insurance I've never had a problem with was term life insurance. Of course, I never tried to make a claim with them so you never know.

Today I took my daughter to the doctor and their system still shows our old insurance, which I canceled six months ago. I have already faxed the necessary information to the new insurance back in June to remedy the situation, but of course I have to follow up because nothing can be done right the first time.

I used to work at an insurance company, and I can honestly say that I don't know how these companies stay afloat. There were so many office systems in our company that could have been improved upon and the lack of organization was staggering. Actually, that company ended up outsourcing the underwriting to a company in another state and laying off 80% of the employees in our office, so there you go.

Anyway, I am waiting for a call back right now to clear up my current insurance mishap, so we'll see how that goes. Wish me luck!

Furniture updates and changes

Along with our wish list of improvements to our house, we also have a list of home furniture we would like to update. On the top of the list is a dining room table. The one we have now has been with us for seven years and it is very small. It was fine when it was just my husband and I, but now we are a family of four with two children who like to kick while they eat at the table. Several bruised shins later, let's just say we have definitely outgrown the table.

Our plan is to move the current table into a corner of the basement, where I would like to create a "homework station" for my daughter. She will be in first grade next year and she really needs a place of her own to create artwork and to complete school assignments. Plus, I would like to hang shelves down there so she can keep all her art supplies together, instead of tucked in different cabinets in the kitchen like they are now.

The "techno" generation

While technology sometimes gets a bad rap for all the health problems it causes for kids: bad eyesight, laziness, lack of sunshine, attention span disorders, etc. I believe there are good things for the kids of today as well. For example, my daughter loves watching the "special features" on DVDs. She enjoys learning how movies are made and especially how they do the make up on characters in movies like "The Grinch" and "Planet of the Apes". Also, if the movie is a little scary, we can show the kids that it is just a mask or animatronics. I would've loved that as a kid, since I got scared of movies lots of times.

The other side of the coin is this - do they lose the magic of the movies? If they know that everything is made up, can they truly enjoy the film? I believe my children still enjoy the movies very much, and we only watch the special features after viewing the film in its entirety.

Weird sicknesses

There is a strange sickness going around right now. Last Wednesday, my daughter suddenly got a high fever at school and was complaining of head and stomach ache, so I had to pick her up. She slept most of the day, threw up once late in the afternoon, and felt better almost instantly after that.

Yesterday, my son woke up from his nap with a very high fever of 103. I gave him Tylenol and it went down in a few hours and he seemed to feel better. Then at dinnertime, he started feeling hot and acting crabby again. He wanted to go to bed right after dinner, so we let him. He woke up a couple of times during the night, but that is nothing unusual.

This morning he was fine, then this afternoon he woke up from his nap with a high fever of 103 again. This is so weird, I've never seen only a fever with no other symptoms before. I hope he recovers as quickly as my daughter did.