Awkward

I mentioned in my last post that a mom of a classmate of Sam's stopped me today. Our conversation went as follows.

Other mom: my son is having a Halloween party a week from Saturday and really would like for Cassie to come.

Me: That's really nice. Except mine is Sam.

OM: *blank stare*


OM: What? Really?

Me: Yep.

OM: Well then, who's Cassie?

Me: She's got the curly hair

OM: Yeah. You sure she's not yours?

Me: Pretty sure.

OM: Oh, well maybe he wants Samantha there too. I don't know exactly what his plans are. He's got the invites with him.

Me: Oh, what is the policy of handing out invites at school. You know, when the whole class isn't invited? (I actually want to know for when Sam needs to do it)

OM: Oh, I don't really know. If we had been on time today I would have asked the teacher.


Really, the kids have been in school for 2 months now and we see eachother EVERY morning. We've even parked in front of her house some mornings. And she doesn't know which child is mine?

It doesn't really matter because Lexi's 4th birthday party is that day, so she couldn't go anyways. But I really, really don't want to see my baby girl come home with hurt feelings because she wasn't invited. Not that seeing the mom this morning would have changed that, but to know she doesn't even know which kids she's inviting to her house. Not encouraging.

Feels Like A Monday

But after I checked the calendar, it really is a Friday, so I guess that's good. But this day needs to turn around. And quick.

I didn't sleep well last night. I don't know why but I hate nights where I toss & turn. And I think I fell into a deep sleep about 10 minutes before the alarm went off. Because that's the way it always works, right?

Then I woke up to the news that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize. Umm, what??? I'm not normally one to get into political discussions on public boards, blogs - even my own - but this I can't let pass by without comment. What has he possibly done to deserve this award? Especially given than nominations were due in early February, meaning he hadn't even served a full month of his term. I hope the board or whoever hands these out realizes they just made this "honor" on par with any of the entertainment awards. It no longer means anything.

I do have to say, that is refreshing to see the attitude change on Facebook since election day, which everybody knows is the measure of everything. There are a handful of people who are happy by this news, but the majority are walking around like me - saying WTF?

Off my soapbox now and back to reality -which is that I had it so together this morning, that I left my purse at home on the school run this morning. The kids told me not to worry - if I would just stay under the speed limit, I'd be fine ;)

However, by the time we got to school, I was seriously considering selling my kids to gypsies. No alarmists please - I haven't Google.d how to go about that....yet.

Then as I was leaving the school a mom stopped me and even though we see eachother every day and our kids are in the same class, she thought I was the mother to another child. I know Sam likes to act like she doesn't know me when we get to school, but she does acknowledge me enough to say goodbye. Most days.

But now, the baby is napping, the girls at school and I have one glorious hour left to myself. Think it's time to catch up on Grey's.

Run For Our Money

In our experience, easy babies = hell on wheels as toddlers. Samantha was our "hardest" baby, if you could even call her that. I'm sure other parents would laugh at us because in all honestly, she was easy. But in comparison to her sister & brother, she was our hardest. Alexandra was easy. So easy. Unbelievably easy. To the point where I was scared to have another because I was confident we had used up all our good baby genes. And then she got mobile. While she was sweet as ever, she was into everything. Climbing on furniture, jumping off the couch. I even found her standing on the dishwasher door when I stepped away in the middle of loading it.

And now we have Jack. Seriously the EASIEST baby ever. Always happy, always smiling. Even when he's sick and/or teething, he's still happy. How we got so lucky with amazing babies, I'll never know. He's been truly mobile for a little over a week now (he was rolling for a month before that though). In that time he has learned to crawl, get up onto his knees, pull up to standing and get into a sitting position. He loves everything about it. Also, in that time he has managed to...

Get his hand stuck in the VCR - and pull the VCR off the shelf trying to free himself.

(I actually freed him before taking the picture)

He has found computer equipment his father was sure he had hidden well enough to not be played with

He pulls the receiver off the shelf daily.

He's pulled the fireplace door off it's hinges. It had already been tied shut at the top because Lexi was famous for pulling on the doors to. Luckily, the door didn't break.


He is nothing if not helpful though! He climbed over Nacho to "help" take the handles off the fireplace doors.


Obviously, we need to take another look at our baby proofing technique. Because I'm sure he'll manage to find more to get into than his sisters did. However, it was Samantha who managed to figure out how to open the cabinets in 30 seconds after Nacho and I spent all day installing those under the cabinet locks. So who knows?!

Have you ever seen somebody so proud of what he can do?

Fright Fest

Today we surpised the kids with a trip to Six Flags. Ok, not so much a surprise because we have season passes, but we hadn't been for awhile and Nacho did have them convinced that we were going to Target for awhile. Except my kids have a great sense of direction and knew the minute we pulled the wrong way out of our development that we weren't going to Target.

Our day started with Lexi wanting to go on Tony Hawk's Big Spin. Because Nacho doesn't like rides that spin, I got to go on with her. Today was the first time she was tall enough for it, so I had to let her do it. The ride broke down half way through our wait time. Except it didn't really break down. Somebody threw up and they had to clean it up. That should have been warning enough for me, but Lexi was so excited about that we waited it out. And I found my dad's look-a-like in line, so not all was lost. But I can say this:

NEVER. EVER. AGAIN.

Apparently I'm getting old because I just can't handle those rides anymnore. Roller coasters - fine. Even teacup style spinning rides - fine. Put the two together. NOT FINE! I was able to do the ride and I didn't actually get sick, but I walked around with a horrible headache the rest of the day. Now I know how my mom felt all those time we made her do rides, even when she warned us how they'd make her feel.

We didn't participate in much of Fright Fest because it's geared towards older childen, but we did take advantage of the trick or treating they were offering the kids. They were handing out full size candy bars - Holla! They even let us the baby trick or treat (What? Everybody knows you only take babies TOT so you can eat the candy.)

On a totally unrelated note - hey it's my blog, I can do that - how is it so few parents seem to have to control over their children? Sure mine make mistakes, but if I see it happen I address it and make them apologize, even if it was an accident. But some of the parents I came across today didn't care that their children cut in line, or pushed over other children or were just general bullies. And in some cases, actually encouraged it.

I don't want to end on a sour note because it really was a great day. So I'll end this with saying that I think a return trip next weekend is in order...you know, for the chocolate!

Oh and Lexi loved Tony Hawk's Big Spin. Yay for me :-/

He's Mobile!

The baby has figured out how to crawl and is everywhere! He had been rolling everywhere he wanted to go, which was so cute, but he decided this past weekend to upgrade his skills. While we had warned the girls time and time again what it would be like, I don't think they took us seriously. As a matter of fact, I know they didn't take us seriously. Because they're already over it. Now I'm warning them how this is nothing and just wait until he starts walking ;)

It feels like he's grown up so much in the past week. I knew this milestone was coming, but it still hit me like a ton of bricks. He's gone from my baby to this little boy. We're having to think about his 1st birthday. How did this past year go so quickly?

We Clean Up Nicely

if I do say so myself!



My brother got married last weekend at the beautiful Cliff House in San Francisco. Nacho & I were both in the wedding party and the girls were flower girls. Little Man was just plain adorable! Nacho's sister graciously did our hair that morning, so many thanks for that.


And of course I would be remissed if I didn't show a picture of the happy couple, right?




Congrats to the new Mr & Mrs! May you have a lifetime of happiness.

Is It Really Fall?

Today is the first official day of Fall. But if you lived where I do, you'd find it hard to believe. We're supposed to hit triple digits today. Seriously? When I hear Fall I think of hot drinks, falling leaves and warm clothes. Yet here I am today in a tank top & carpis and with it already too hot to enjoy a hot cup of coffee or take the kids to the park. Samantha's teacher has already warned them that it will be too hot for them to play outside at lunch today.

I'm not really a summer person. It has it's own highlights like BBQs, swimming & longer days, but winter is really more my speed. Or it was before I had kids. I love bundling up under a blanket, with the fire place on and just relaxing. With kids, it just makes everybody stir crazy.

But Fall? It's the perfect compromise. Cool enough to bundle up, but still warm enough for the kids to actually go outside and play. It also is the start of the holiday season, which I LOVE. Ok and I'll be honest, "warm" clothes cover flaws much better than summer clothes.

Luckily today is supposed to be the hottest day of the week, so hopefully we just continue cooling down. Because I've already started planning for the next few months and hot weather isn't included.