Holidays!

I absolutely love this time of the year. Is that cliche? I don't even care. Three fantastic holidays happen one month after another and it is just so much fun - especially when you have a kid. No joke. There are times (think - trying to go shopping for presents and accidentally walking into the toy aisle) when it is way more difficult to get things done with a toddler in tow, but that ceases to matter when you get to watch your child trick-or-treat for the first time (and actually know what's happening),

Exhibit A: the cutest cowboy you'll ever see.

This is Exhibit B: doesn't really have anything to do with kids, but I had a really awesome costume and just had to make sure you all saw it.

 play in leaves, stuff their faces with food, and - yes - open presents. I know, I know. Christmas isn't about presents. I completely agree! That doesn't mean that it isn't the best feeling in the world to watch your baby rip paper off of something you know they are going to love to play with. It's a beautiful thing.

You know what's the best part about holidays? Family. It doesn't matter what kind of family you have (and believe me - I know all about all the different types of families thanks to my Psychology of Human Development class)...it only matters that you spend time together. I've lost several family members in the past few years, and it never really hits you until the holidays. That moment when you look around and realize who is missing or how you've changed your traditions since their passing. It's sad, but it also makes you want to hold your remaining family a little tighter - enjoy them a little more.

No, we didn't plan the black shirts. Yes, we are absolutely weird.

Me, my mom, and my Booger. We were stuffed full of food.

Some traditions are great no matter who started them or who you continue them with. Ever since I can remember, my parents took my brother and I to the Fantasy of Trees here. It's a big to-do where people have decorated trees and gingerbread houses and donated them to this cause; there are a lot of little areas sectioned off with shops, crafts, areas for kids to play; there's a stage where various shows are put on; snacks a plenty; and a carousel. It is a fantastic and beautiful event. We always, ALWAYS made thumbprint ornaments and miniature trees we could decorate. My parents split and so we started going with one parent or another. The past few years, we've gone with my dad and step mom and company.

This year, though, I went with my mom, my son, my husband, his dad, his dad's girlfriend, and her son. Quite a mix up of the norm! I'm here to tell you: it doesn't matter who you're used to doing these traditions with - as long as you're around those you love, they are great!

We painted our faces like always.

My son got to make his first mini-tree. I was so proud!

Me and the Hubs rode the carousel with the Booger. They always make funny faces.

See? I can't take them anywhere.

Needless to say, we all had a whole lot of fun.

And now that I've updated this blog with the oh-so-important musings of my head, I'm off to watch more Vampire Diaries. What? You don't watch this show? -gasp- Why not?

There's three good reasons right there.

-Mommy Michelle

Go Outside

Catchy title? Nah, I didn't think so either.

BUT IT'S TRUE.

The past few weeks it has been rainy and cold (because apparently Tennessee is too good for Fall - lame) and not really good "play" weather. I've been studying and writing ridiculously long essays for midterms at school. The Hubs has been rushing around doing odd jobs and looking for a better full-time job to support us. I've recently joined this awesome program-type-thing to de-clutter and keep the apartment clean and awesome.

Needless to say, we've been busy, busy bees.

However, that doesn't mean that not taking my son to the park for weeks is okay, because it isn't. We weren't stuck in the house 24/7 by any means, but we were both getting some serious cabin fever.

In the past several days, he got to play in a barn, went to two different parks, and had SO much play time out of the apartment. It has completely changed his behavior. (Well, mostly. He's still a toddler, after all.)

I was shocked. The benefits of playing are not new to me. I've read all about how it aids their physical and mental growth. But to see it in action was kind of mind-blowing.

So, lovely readers of mine (of which there are so few...Ha!) I challenge you, whether you have kids or not, to go outside and play. Do you think you're too old for that? Do you think you have more important things to do? You're not and you probably don't. Stop sitting there making excuses to stay inside like I was. Don't worry about anything. For at least half an hour, go. Take a walk. Go for a jog. Swing on a swing set! Find a peaceful place and just look around.

The leaves around here are changing. Go to the mountains, even if you just drive around Cades Cove, get out and get some fresh air. It doesn't matter how old you are. Everyone can use an uplift in spirit sometimes, especially when winter is approaching and we all know it's about to get really, really cold.

Seriously. Beautiful.

 So, just go.

-Mommy Michelle

What To Do When Everyone Has The Sniffles

Being sick sucks. That's no surprise or revelation.

But do you know what's worse?

A sick toddler.

Do you know what's worse than that?

Being sick at the same time that your toddler is sick.

It.

Is.

Miserable.

Addison isn't quite old enough, yet, to be able to blow his nose properly, so I have to use one of those stupid suction bulbs to clear his nostrils out so he can breathe (and doesn't snot all over himself - and me, by extension).

Seriously? These things suck. If your child is an infant who can't really move or defend himself, fine. Try using one of these on a two-year-old who doesn't want it to happen. It's super fun.

Then you've got to get him to take his medicine, deal with his fussy attitude, and meet his every whim - which changes by the minute considering he's so sickly he doesn't know what he wants. And heaven forbid if you have to chastise him for something he KNOWS he's not supposed to do. Oh, god. It's horrible.

All of this while you feel like you've been run over by a garbage truck, half-drowned in sewage and left out to dry.

So! I've comprised a list of things to help you (and mostly me) get through these horrible, awful times:

1. Take a nap when your kid naps.

Sure, that sounds self-explanatory, but I'm serious. Don't worry about the pile of dishes in the sink, or the laundry that's growing a mind of its own as it climbs out of the dirty hamper. All of that crap will still be there to take care of when you're feeling better. A tired, sick, and distraught mommy is not what your kids need to have. And, Mommas out there who have newborns, you should be doing this anyway!

2. Junk out a little bit.

Eating healthy is awesome and something every family should try to do, but don't beat yourself up over a bowl of ice cream (or two, or three...) when you're feeling blah. It'll help your sore throat and make you feel better. Trust me. Unless you're super against sugar for tots, give your kid some, too. Chocolate does WONDERS for temperament. At least, it works on mine. Ha.

3. Enlist the aid of your S.O. (or family member - whichever)

Unless they're sick, too, in which case, I am terribly sorry. The Hubs has the sniffles right now, too, but he still lends a hand when I need it and sometimes that's all I need. Just a few minutes to yourself to take a bath, to read a chapter in a book, to veg out on facebook, whatever you do, can be priceless when you're sick.

4. Indulge in a guilty pleasure.

Alright, maybe watching "How I Met Your Mother" isn't so much a 'guilty' pleasure since that show is freakin' awesome, but you catch my drift. Do something, read something, watch something, you don't normally let yourself do, read, watch, eat, whatever. Spoiling yourself when you're sick is a-okay, so don't feel guilty about it!

5. Bribe your children.

Does that sound bad? I don't care, and you shouldn't either. Who doesn't like getting fun things to do when they're sick? Trust me. My mom got my son a couple new cars yesterday and he has played with those things for a long time today...and left me to my own devices! He's not neglected, of course, he's just playing. New things will catch toddlers attention (at least for a little while) and let you get some stuff done (or not) while you're down.

These are just a few things to help you get by.

Now go, drink some tea, eat some chocolate, play some video games, watch your soaps, do whatever it is you lovely people do. I'm going to go give my snotty, fussy son a bubble bath.

-Mommy Michelle

You Just Gotta Laugh

In and around Knoxville, today is known as Booms Day, the day around Labor Day when this HUGE fireworks show is put on down by the river. It's amazing, breathtaking and so great!

This is from 2008.

The Hubs actually proposed to me in 2009 during the finale "waterfall." They used to shoot them all off the Henley Street bridge, but since that's being worked on for the next couple years, they've had to move it around.

Kinda hard to shoot fireworks off a not-bridge.

Anyways, our apartment is at a pretty awesome locale. We can walk to a couple different spots and have a clear view of the sky. So, we got our stuff together, got the boy's Radio Flyer wagon out of his closet, and headed up our hilly parking lot...right as it started to rain. No big deal, we figured. We've got an umbrella and it's not raining too hard. Ha! Before we even got out of the apartment complex it started doing something like this:

Then, there we were. My husband being pulled by our dog (who isn't such a big fan of getting wet) and pulling the wagon, me trying to keep pace and keep the umbrella over the boy, and the boy sitting in his wagon talking about going to see the fireworks. Haha!

Needless to say, we decided to opt out. A bit disappointing, but it's certainly not the first fireworks show I've missed and it won't be the last, I'm sure. More than anything, it asserted something I've been figuring out for a while now:

Sometimes, you just gotta laugh.

Things don't always go the way you want them to. Plans fall through, weather changes, and things just don't happen the way you expected. That's life. It happens. You know what makes it worse? Getting mad and upset over it. You know what saves your night/day? Laughing.

Yes, I wanted to see the fireworks. I wanted to watch Addison's face light up as he watched the giant colorful explosions in the sky. And that didn't work out. But I just laughed as I ran through the rain with my family and I'm having a great night at home with my loving husband and my happy son and I couldn't ask for anything more. :)

Sometimes, you just have to laugh.

- Mommy Michelle

End-of-the-Month Dinner

You know what that is. Don't lie.

It's the end of the month and you're broke. You've got a hungry family waiting on you to fix something mind-blowing (or maybe just edible) for dinner. You walk into your kitchen and are, quite frankly, appalled at the lack of healthy sustenance available. So, you scramble together what ingredients and pieces of meals you can find and hope to god it turns out okay. Sometimes, you get lucky. Sometimes, you find new and amazing ways to combine different foods for a GI-tract pleasing meal. Other times...not so much.

This is how my "end-of-the-month" dinner went two nights ago:

Thanks to my sweet mother, there was a pound of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the refrigerator. "Awesome," I thought. "I've got some flour, some Crisco, milk and eggs. I can fry it!" Several hours pass, the Hubs gets home from work and it's time to start cooking. When I wander back into the kitchen and seriously think about frying the chicken, my conviction pales. I am going to get flour all over everything. I am going to have more dishes to wash afterward. That's not happening. "Alright, alright. I can just bake it. That's healthier anyway."

Now, to find some sides.

Check the cabinets: more cans of beans than I want to admit, no-boil lasagna noodles, Gerber Graduate snacks for the boy, muffin mix, tea. "Hm. No biggie. I'll just check the freezer."

Freezer: popsicles, waffles, more popsicles, a mostly empty bag of Pillsbury biscuits, half empty bag of frozen corn and a partially empty bag of carrots. "Biscuits always go great with chicken." Turn the oven on to pre-heat for the biscuits. Check.

Once I've assembled the desired seasonings for the chicken from the Hubs (I think I'll start calling him "Flavor Master." That's kinda sexy.), I season the chicken and then go back into the freezer to grab the corn. When I open the bag and look inside, though, I see the corn is over a year old and, even though its been in the freezer and should still be good, it clearly isn't. Slightly disappointed (I really love corn), I toss it and go back for the carrots.

These carrots were so old and so freezer-burned that there was absolutely no way to save them. Ever. Dejected, I toss them, too. A meal just isn't complete without some sort of color, in my opinion, so I open the fridge in desperation.

Applesauce.

"Better than nothing, and at least it's good for you!" I figured.

By this time, the biscuits are done cooking. Apparently, the biscuits weren't good anymore, either, because they were...grey. A rather nasty shade of grey. (No Fifty Shades of Grey looks good on biscuits...trust me.) There were biscuit icicles coming off the sides, too. I didn't take a picture (for some reason) so I can't show you what biscuit icicles really look like, but trust me when I say that they are completely unappetizing. Even the Hubs didn't want to touch the biscuits - and that right there says more than anything else.

But you know what? Despite all of the fail of dinner, that chicken was delicious.

And at least we had applesauce.

And leftover wedding-shower cake (congrats to my sister and her fiancee, by the way).

Mmm. Cake.

-Mommy Michelle

True story.

(In a totally unrelated note, I tried to make my own biscuits from scratch last night...without self-rising flour...or baking soda. Let me tell you what, I thought they would still be alright - just flat. I can handle flat biscuits. I love bread in just about any form. I wasn't banking on biscuits so hard I could knock them against the wall without hurting the biscuit. Just don't do it. Learn from my baking fails.)

When Silence is Scary

Parenthood is full of irony.

For instance, it is ironic how, when you have a newborn who is asleep and awake on their own random schedule, all you want is for them to sleep through the night, yet the first time you wake up and they are still asleep you freak out and immediately think all the worst things possible. SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) is a very real and very scary aspect of having an infant. Though a ton of research is being done to figure out what, exactly, causes SIDS, the exact cause is still unknown. (There has been recent evidence that it could be a pre-existing condition in certain babies or an as-yet-undetectable birth defect.) New parents are swamped with information and a huge list of "dos and don'ts" to try and minimize risks: put them to sleep on their backs, don't use cushioned bedding or crib bumpers, don't have extra blankets or stuffed animals in bed with the child, use a pacifier at night, etc. It's overwhelming.

But once you pass that one year mark when the risk of SIDS drops dramatically and THEN your child sleeps through the night...you rejoice. It's very similar to the irony of wishing your child would play by themselves for a moment so you can clean or sit down and have some quiet for a change, only to freak out a few minutes later when you realize there is no sound coming from their room or the area they were just playing in.

I've seen awful pictures of a child who has smeared poo all over their room and themselves. I have heard horror stories of children pulling drawers from dressers onto themselves and being trapped underneath them. (Incidentally, not many people tell you how paranoid a lot of parents become throughout their children's lives. I never thought I would worry about half the things that cross my mind every single day. It's maddening!)

So, when this gem showed up on my Facebook news feed the other day, I knew I had to write about it and share it:

Once again, credit cannot be given because I have no idea who made this originally.

This is so accurate it's almost laughable! What is that toddler doing? Has he gotten into the fridge and is spreading sour cream all over the cat? Is she chowing down on the dog's food? Does he have a sharpie and is he decorating all of his appendages? Has she choked on something in the hallway and you just didn't hear it?

Needless to say, this has happened to me on several occasions. I'll be sitting in the living room reading, on the Internet, or maybe I'm in the kitchen doing dishes or in the bedroom folding laundry when suddenly I notice a distinct lack of noise. I race into my son's bedroom and find a myriad of situations. One time, he was playing quietly by himself with his play-doh. Another time he was hiding out in a pop-up tent and covering his legs with all sorts of markers. The worst instance, he was in the kitchen and had sprayed himself in the face with oven cleaner.

Everything was fine. Didn't even get a scar! :)

There are times, though, when silence is just as sweet as it can be. My husband and I have passed our Nintendo 64 down to our son and Addison's got a pretty sweet set-up on top of his dresser. He absolutely loves to play "Crusin' the World"; he calls it "Race Cars." A lot of times, he'll ask me to turn the game on for him, and he'll sit on his Corvette bed (he's so cool) and play. I will, usually, go about my business while he plays (unless he begs me to sit on the bed with him and watch him race - he's so cute that it's hard to say no - and who would rather wash dishes than watch a child play and laugh? Weirdo's, that's who.) Not that long ago, this very scenario happened. After several minutes had gone by without him yelling out, "check point!", I freaked the freak out and raced into his room to check on him, my paranoid parental mind taking me to dark places no parent ever wants to visit.

Do you know what I found?

This absolutely cuteness.

Life is so rough on toddlers, isn't it?

-Mommy Michelle

Hateful People Shouldn't Have Children

The only thing more annoying than a fussy toddler who has had to sit in one spot and wait for twenty minutes before he/she has had a nap and who is unable to play with his/her favorite toy at that exact moment is a rich, spoiled, west Knoxville mom who has an all-too-important hair appointment she simply can't miss, even if it's for something as enriching for her child as story time with a bunch of other kids at the local library. A story time that lasts for a little less than half an hour.

I can understand having engagements to keep. I wouldn't want to be late to an appointment, either, but don't take your frustrations out on your child, the story teller or the parents around you. None of those people have done anything to cause or exacerbate your situation!

You may have already figured this out, but this is what happened last Tuesday at the library.

This woman comes in and sits next to me and I can already tell she's agitated. Her perfectly manicured nails are tapping on one perfectly tanned arm while her crossed leg is bouncing up and down causing her high-fashion sandal to flop back and forth over her perfectly painted toes. Most parents who arrive early (myself included) will do one of a few things: 1) let the kid go pick out a book and read to them, 2) let their kid go sit in the middle of story area and play with other kids, or 3) give your kid your phone and let them play angry birds. (Probably not the best or most educational choice but holy crap does it work!)

Do you know what isn't so helpful? Making irritated sighing noises, looking at your watch with exaggerated movements every few seconds and complaining in ridiculous stage whispers about how late the story teller is or all of the incredibly important things you need to do. If it comes to that, then go. The rest of us who are there to actually enjoy ourselves and share a super fun and healthy interaction with our children and other people in our community certainly don't want your negativity all up in our space.

Was I irritated that the story teller was twenty minutes late? A little, but I know how important it is to have these fun group activities with toddlers and I would gladly sit and entertain my son for a half hour in order to have the joy of watching him enraptured in a story, answering questions when he's asked and dancing around in a shower of bubbles while he stares with glee at his new sticker.

There is just no reason to be in a crappy mood when you can do something to change your circumstances; and there is certainly no reason to inflict your crappy mood on other people. How ridiculous is that! Misery may love company, but my company certainly doesn't love your misery.

What's even better is that when I, rather nicely I thought, told the woman that if she was so upset and busy she could always leave, she looked at me as if I had grown horns out of my head. Seriously? Is that such an outlandish notion that you have to glare at me like I'm the one who is complaining and whining? Please.

It's such a shame that her child has to be in her company for the majority of his life at present. He was a cute little boy who was only too happy to sit in the floor and play with the other kids there.

That's my boy in the red shirt with the adorable blond curls. He's so cute and attentive.

I do want to congratulate that mom who, like me, suggested that if the story teller didn't show up within the next few minutes we should go and pick out some books and read them to the gathered children ourselves. I'm going to school to be a teacher. I am certainly not intimidated by a gaggle of toddlers staring at me expectantly and, you can ask Addison, I can read stories in funny voices better than most.

That is definitely an awesome mom super power.

-Mommy Michelle