So I'm thinkin'...

... I'm not really the best mom around. I know, you are all going "what are you talking about? you're great with kids, you love kids!" Yes, I know. This is precisely what makes me not the best mom. Let me give you some examples.

Kayla is told to clean her room. She says she would rather dance for a while first. Now, the correct good mom response would obviously be "No, hon, clean your room and THEN we dance." But, like Ellen, I think dancing is necessary every day, and for crying out loud, I would rather dance than stand in Kayla's room making sure she cleans it properly, so dancing it is. Does the room ever get clean? Yep, while she is in the bath I clean it for her. What does she learn from this? 1. If I ask to dance, I can get out of anything, cause mommy likes to dance. 2. If I can keep from cleaning my room until bathtime, mommy will do it for me. She also learns some groovy 80's dance moves, and some slammin' songs, and how to work Fred through the stereo, but I' not sure any of that counts as good parenting.

Charlie is told that it's time for dinner, and therefore he must turn off the Xbox. His reply is that he just wants to finish this level he is on. This makes perfect sense to me, I know you can't save your game on some of these until the end of a level, so OK. Next thing you know, he can't get the level finished and wants me to help him. Fine, whatever gets it done so we can eat, right? Except... I like to play the video games too, and this almost always ends with him and me playing some two player thing for half an hour while Kayla is wondering what happened to dinner. What does Charlie learn from this? 1. If I want mommy to come play video games, I should pretend to need her help. 2. Even mommy would rather play xbox than eat whatever crap she's fixed for us tonight, so it must be bad. Also, he gets some hand-eye coordination and knows how to defeat the evil Dr. Cortex, or gain kudos points by slamming his car into the other guy's - but again, not sure it counts as good parenting.

Oh, another thing - if my kids ever tell me that they "need to tell me something" or that they "just want to lay with me", guaranteed they are not having to go lay in their own beds. I can talk 4 year old to Kayla for hours, because I just love the things she says. And if Charlie says he wants to lay with me... well, let's just say he's not your snuggliest kid and I'll take it wherever I can get it. Of course they know this. So half the time Todd comes home from dealing poker and finds me on the couch, Charlie at one end, Kayla in my lap talking about something, and gets upset because it's like 1130 and they aren't in bed. I know, I know. But dang, they are so cute. And so fun. What's a mom to do?

I'm sure in my kid's eyes I am like THE best mom ever. I play with them when I shouldn't, I let them stay up when I shouldn't, they don't have a whole lot of chores, and we really do have a marvelous time most days. Not to mention when someone says "Where should we go on vacation?" I am the first one to say "Disneyland." But I guess I should really make them follow some rules or something. It's not gonna be easy, because among other things, I think "questions authority" is a GOOD thing to see on your report card, and my kids can be both devious and painfully logical when debating things, but it needs to be done, and it's not fair of me to make Todd be the bad guy all the time.

But anyways, we started this rule thing last night, when Todd was here and not at work. Wednesday's new rule: Eating is only for the kitchen. I took it a step further and actually turned off the TV's too - I'm not sure Todd was thrilled with that, but it did keep the kids in their seats and not bouncing up to see what they were missing on American Idol. Charlie was not a happy guy. He kept telling us we were disabling the rules of the house, and that he was NOT taking it well. Also that we were limiting him. Kayla kept saying she would be careful with her food in the living room, until the TV went off, then she didn't care anyway. Today's new rule will be that without question ALL of school has to be done before there are any video games. We will still take breaks, but honestly, once he starts with the xbox it is a pain in the ass to get him to stop and do school again, so he can watch TV or play computer or read or something during break time. Kayla's new rule for the day will be that (sad as it is) there is no dancing unless the room is clean.

In other news... well, there isn't much really. I am sick, I have Todd's cold. With a fever, so I get that cool chills morphing into a cold sweat kind of thing, so not only am I pale as death but I smell funny too. Everytime I get up I feel like pure crap, so I'm just not getting up much, so my house is kind of a disaster. I'm going to attempt to keep it in some sort of order today, at least good enough that we wouldn't get thrown out if the health department stopped by. Kerri has just crowned me Queen of the Dorks, and I would like to thank all the little dorks out there for your votes, I wouldn't be here without all of you. ;) Looking forward to Kayla's birthday this weekend, we are going to Build-A-Bear and she's going to the beauty shop with Grandma. Should be fun. And that's it.

Disclaimer - this entire thing was typed while I was in a nyquil induced fog. If there are typos or it simply makes no sense, it's cause I am drugged.

She Lives!

Ok, so it's been quite the while since my last entry here. I'm sure all 6 of my readers are desperately waiting for this entry. :) But, I got busy and life got in the way, as it tends to do.

Right after the last update, I got busy on those HOF entries. I got them done with a whopping 28 hour lead on the deadline, and then proceeded to shock my poor Todd when I tried to explain just WHY it was neccessary to spend $44 overnighting a bunch of copies of scrapbook pages to Utah. They are all there now, hopefully still in a stack labeled "look at me" rather than one labeled "what was she thinking?". I enter this every year, and normally during the period between shipping my entry off and the announcement of the winners, I am just wondering why I bothered. This year I am pretty darn happy with my pages though. I still think the best I can realistically hope for is an honorable mention (hey, that prize money may cover the shipping costs!) but even that would be just too cool. I sure do wish I could post up my pages though. One more month. On a side note, the rules for the Hall of Fame crack me up. They tell you the last 4 of the 10 pages you send in should be your "favorite layouts". However, nothing you send in can ever have, well, seen the light of day. No posting online in your galleries, no submitting it for anything else, and certainly no published work. I don't know about you other scrappers out there, but if I have a "favorite" layout, I for sure am at least putting it in a gallery, ya know? Anyway, enough of that. Other things I've been doing:

I have a new favorite store, and it is the Dollar Tree. I can't remember the last time I was in a dollar store of any kind, but I remember there being a lot of crap in there that I normally wouldn't pay a quarter for, let alone a dollar. Well, my friends, the Dollar Tree is a whole different penguin. There's real, actual, useful stuff in there. Food. Soda. Plastic organizing thingys. Dishes that I just really think are so so cute. Cleaning stuff, oh the cleaning stuff. A whole wall of cleaning stuff... that I have actually heard of, and use even. And scrapbook things. I'm sure I am the last person on the earth to hop on the Dollar Tree bandwagon, but just in case that's actually you - go forth and find one, it's marvelous.

I have new favorite shoes, and they are Crocs. Ok, I'll admit, they are whatever knock-off version of Crocs they sell at Walmart. But they are the most comfortable shoes I have ever worn. I will be buying some actual Crocs soonest. I just had to try the Walmart version first so that if I hated them I was only out $8 rather than $30. Because really, if they don't feel good on your feet there is just NO reason to be wearing them, as they are without a doubt the ugliest footwear ever. This was definitely a conformist move on my part - I have been hearing good things about these damn shoes for a year or so, and when I saw how many people were wearing them at the school (cause we all know 8 year olds know what is "in") I had to get some. Got some for Kayla too. (cause the 4 year olds MUST keep up with the 8 year olds). I'm sure she won't be allowed to wear them to school, but we will give it a shot. On a warm day, if we ever see those again. (4 below right now, and this is supposed to be the high desert.) So, here's a list of cool things about Crocs, so you will go buy some too, cause I can't be the only one wearing them, they're too ugly. Come, conform with me. We can wear our Crocs to the mall and buy some of that mineral makeup everyone is using now. :)
~ Totally comfortable. Kind of like those "space bed" mattresses on TV must be, they kind of mold to your feet.
~ They weigh hardly anything.
~ They have holes. This could be a downside if you are walking in a lot of sand or something, but mostly it keeps your feet cool and dry, and if you step in a puddle, the water will drain right out.
~ Since they are strange plastic things, you can just rinse them off to wash them. You can even bleach them, I hear, without any color damage, but you shouldn't need too, cause I also hear they are bacteria resistant. Which should translate to odor free, in the world of shoes.
~ Come in a variety of colors. Kayla and I have matching pink ones, and I also got myself some black ones. You know, for more formal occasions. :)

I have a new organizational plan, and it is FLYlady. Well, sort of. I looked at FLYlady's website, and decided that was a bit over the top for me - not the getting things done part, but the part where I have to do my hair and my makeup everyday, and wear shoes all day long. Although, now that I have the Crocs, maybe... :) If you don't know about FLYlady, go check it out, it's all about establishing routines for household stuff, and getting rid of clutter. Very cheesy, I might add, but if you cut through it you can get the good stuff out and make your own routine schedule. I now have a morning, afternoon, and evening routine for keeping the house straight, and after the first 3 days of getting things clean that hadn't been clean in months, I now can do my morning routine in 30 min and the afternoon and evening routines in 10 min each. And most of the day, my house looks good enough to actually invite people in and all. Plus I am spending about an hour a day doing deep cleaning and decluttering in preparation for our move in May. I just think of that all as "packing" which motivates me to do it, cause I sure am ready to get out of here.

What else is new? Not a lot. There's a new heating element in my dryer. Charlie has a new DVD player. Oh, we got a wireless controller for the Xbox - no more tripping over the cord and either unplugging it or jerking the console onto the floor. We are gonna have to get another one of those, and a couple for the PS2 as well, cause that is HANDY. I finally got the cord to hook the iPod to the stereo, so now during dancing time at night, I can pick songs instead of trying to find a station on the radio, or listening to the same 5 songs on the one CD that is upstairs - we are way too lazy to go downstairs and get anymore, plus the CDs are all in stacks on a table as I go through to make sure I have everything I want off of them on the iPod. What's that you say, why do you have CD's if you are too lazy to go downstairs and get them, and all your songs are on Fred anyways? I don't know, ask Todd. Apparently I am not allowed to get rid of them for some reason, maybe a vital need to take up space in our crowded house, I don't know. ;)

Speaking of Fred, he has a new look. His name should probably be changed - at least till I take those clothes off him. I made the skin myself, btw, and about 10 others just playing around. If you want one of your own, tell me what you want and I'll try to accomodate. Kerri - I keep trying your suggestion, but unless you want him headless, or you don't care if his head is covering up Jack's screen, I can't get him in a position I like. ;)

I've got nothing else. I have not scanned any pages in except those HOF entries I can't post here, because I am lazy scrapper. I am thinking of going to a smaller size of scrapping though - tell me what you think. I do 12 x 12 now, but I'm thinking maybe 9 x 9 or 8 x 8. 9 x 9 would actually be perfect, except that scanning them in would still be a 2 step process, where with the 8 x 8 it would all fit in one pass. I do a lot of one picture layouts nowadays anyway, so I think smaller would be easier, and cheaper on the prints too - the way I figure it, a 4 x 6 picture on a 9 x 9 page would be about equal to a 5 x 7 picture on a 12 x 12 page, right? Tell me what you think.