tiffany's spot

My kids are best friends. They play together all day. Where one goes, the other goes. Usually Jordan is the ring leader and lures him off to do whatever it is she wants to do. He's happy to oblige, he loves being with her. But, as any friends, and especially as siblings - they fight. They'll go from happily sharing toys to each wanting the same toy in about 2 seconds flat. This results in then tugging a toy between them and Jordan yelling and squealing at Tennyson, and him just shrieking and trying to get a cry going to help with sympathy from Mommy. Depending on my mood, my reactions vary. Sometimes I step in and nicely try to redirect their focus and get them playing nicely together. Sometimes I ignore it, at least until they've been at it on and off all day and I'm tired of the shrieking. Sometimes I admittedly yell a little at them to knock it off and play nice. Sometimes I take the toy and toss it up on top of the cupboards and nobody gets to have it. Tonight I w...

I was reading Heather's blog post about her daughter piercing her ears . I was about to respond to her post by telling a couple of my own body piercing stories, and then I thought "heck, that could be it's own blog post!" Piercing Story #1 This one is much like Heather's. I don't know how old I was, but I was old enough to remember. My mom took me down to one of the many local hair dressers in Austin. In small towns hair stylists do everything - hair, piercing, waxing, paving streets, etc. The lovely lady loaded up the gun and aimed it on my ear. I'm not sure what happened, but it only went halfway through and then fell out of my ear and onto the floor. I sat in the chair while the piercer crawled under the vanity to retrieve the stud. She then put it back in the gun (I'm hoping she rinsed it off a bit or something, that part is hazy) and re-pierced the same half-hole. That was so fun. Piercing Story #2 I had just moved to Portage. My roommate/landlor...

...so I don't feel too badly about not having posted a LOT this Christmas! Christmas was hectic this year. We squished 7 events into 4 days. I had full intentions of coming home each night and posting a few pictures, but after running around like crazy all day and then coming home and trying to get three little guys off to bed (way past bedtime) I was more than happy to just go to bed myself. If you would like to see a few of the pictures I took this holiday season, check out my facebook link . You don't have to be a member to see that page. I had intended to take a lot of pictures too, and I didn't. I even had picture ideas in my head as I made my way through the gatherings, but I kind of slacked off on it. Some holiday highlights? Steven gave me piano lessons as a Christmas gift. Three months of Wednesday night lessons to be exact. I'm looking forward to it. Mitchell's first Christmas. I know I should have taken a ton of pictures of him, but I didn't. There a...

I can't believe Christmas is here! Okay, well I believe it, it always comes at roughly the same time every year. The kids were pretty excited this morning and tore through their presents in way less time than it took to wrap them! My mom and Steven's dad and step-mom Doris came to have Christmas lunch with us today, and to lavish our kids with love and presents and of course LOTS of hugs, kisses and a few goodies. We're now off to spend the evening with Steven's mom, sisters and grandparents. Here's hoping that everyone is having a wonderful Christmas day!

I bought a book. It's full of writing exercises and stuff and I'm debating whether to post my writing exercises on the internet. If I post them on the internet I wonder - am I just looking for validation from a group of friends who I know won't say anything mean? Or should I start a completely anonymous blog and put them on there, never to be found by anyone I know? Or should I just leave it off the net entirely? Suggestions?

I once read a criticism about blogging that went something like this - People blog when they're bored and have nothing to do, when they're busy and their lives are interesting they don't feel like it, or don't have time. Isn't that kind of true? I'll put little conversations on here, or a picture of the deck or something about work, but as soon as life picks up a bit we tend to overlook the blogging. That's when we aught to have something to blog about! It's been kind of crazy around here lately - trips to the city, dinners with friends, Christmas shopping, cleaning, cooking in preparation for gatherings, shopping, wrapping presents, shopping, Christmas parties. You name it. It's not even Christmas yet! I actually even put up the Christmas tree. Next year I'm waiting until Christmas eve (roughly). Jordan keeps taking the decorations off to play with or eat. The other day I noticed that it was looking a little extra naked (it's pretty naked to...

I bought a new scale yesterday. I don't know what bothered me more - that the new scale said I was fatter than the old scale did, or that the new scale gave a different weight every time I stepped on it. I don't mean each day, I mean four seconds after I last stepped on it. I returned it today, and picked up another scale. I think I may have to return this one too. I'm pretty sure that my actual weight is somewhere around 108 pounds, and this scale is way off. WAY off. I shall continue to wallow in my rice krispie cake and hot chocolate while I ponder what to do about this.

J: All the peoples' heads are stuck on their heads. M: You mean they don't come off? J: No. M: That's good. J: Yeah. If they come off you couldn't see things. M: That wouldn't be good. J: If you don't have a head then you just have feet and arms. Then if you just have feet and arms and you can't see where you're going then you fall down. ***** J: Mommy, Auntie Angela's boys don't eat chicken. M: No? J: No. So I don't want to eat chicken either. ***** T: (after biting his finger while eating dinner) Owie... M: you kiss it, kiss it better! T: No. J: Mommy? M: Yes? J: When little tiny kids get owies, then their big mommies and daddies kiss it better. M: Oh yeah. J: So you have to do that to Tennyson !!

1. meatabot - meatball 2. adieu - i do 3. joof - juice 4. pitapot - pizza pop 5. f*ck - truck (no matter how many times we try and get him to say it right!) 6. moke - milk 7. kot - sock 8. jojo - jordan 9. amma - grandma 10. teef - teeth 11. vink - drink 12. eggo - diego 13. coth - cloth 14. neenee - noodles 15. apo - apple (or orange)

This idea was posted by another interesting blog I read. I'm copying and furthering the challenge . If you are a blogger you now have a mission. As soon as you read this, drop everything, grab your camera and take pictures of where you blog from. NO CLEANING !!! THEN, tag some lucky ducks and spread the love. I'm tagging Ange , Lyla , Candice , Heather and Sonya . I'm hoping that at least one of them has a mess comparable to mine!

Here's a little quiz for ya. Tennyson says many things - yet he's still in the stage where many of his words are understood by only those he lives with. I'm going to list 15 of the "words" he says, and if you wish, you can guess what the English version is! 1. meatabot 2. adieu 3. joof 4. pitapot 5. f*ck 6. moke 7. kot 8. jojo 9. amma 10. teef 11. vink 12. eggo 13. coth 14. neenee 15. apo Good luck!!

Um, I've been checking for comments, and there are none. Has nobody noticed my absolutely fabulous ticker? It dropped 4 points!! FOUR!! I have to say, I was pretty pumped this morning. I'm hoping I don't plateau for a while again. That saddens me. Speaking of plateau - Christmas is coming. I have six gatherings in four days. I think I may hide the scale over the holidays again, try to slip in a couple of work-outs, and eat a little bit of everything in moderation. After all, it's Christmas. And my blessed blessed Grandma Q is making her absolutely, spectacular, to-die-for perogies. The moderation thing may be ignored in the face of perogies. I intend to indulge on many of them. Let's not forget to drown them in strawberries, and then coat the entire mess in the very decadent, very over-the-top, very delicious-in-every-way cream gravy. It's like dessert. Only it's not. Dessert comes after...

Only 23 days until Christmas! Remember when we were kids, and Christmas was all about time off school, lots of treats (chocolate, candy canes, oranges, turtles!), new Christmas dresses for the church concert, lights, music, decorations, noisy and exciting gatherings at Grandma's house, Christmas episodes of our favorite tv shows and of course presents! The list goes on and on. I still find Christmas exciting. Yet, now the season holds more than just the "fun" stuff. Now we have to worry about scheduling in all the different families and parents, buying gifts we can't necessarily afford, making dishes to bring to the different gatherings, hoping that people will understand that we need to share the holidays with many others, and hoping that nobody will be hurt if our time with them is short. I wonder if I'm doing a good job of making the holidays fun and enjoyable for my kids, and if I've bought the right gifts. I worry about what five days in a row of late ni...

Not so long ago , I was quite angry. I had started watching my food intake and lost 6 pounds in a couple of weeks. Then I added exercise, continued watching the food and gained two pounds! Unfair right? Right! Candice (you remember Candice right?) was nice enough to give me the following pep talk: The short version: muscle weighs way more than fat. Loose fat + gain muscle = overall net gain in weight. BUT this is a great thing! Muscle is way more metabolically active than fat. Meaning, with more muscle, you burn up more calories all day long even when you are just sitting around. Or sleeping. Please, PLEASE keep in mind that the scale does not provide you with a number reflecting health value - just a number that reflects how much gravity wants you. The scale does not have the authority to measure your success. Instead, take note of your energy level, the way your clothes fit, etc, and *you* measure your success that way. Aim for greater health. Not lower weight. The true beauty of t...

Being a mommy is great - hugs, kisses, smiles, drawings and paintings from nursery school. However - there are times when the mommy gig is not so glamorous. There are days when I change my shirt two or three times due to spit up or poop-throughs. There are noodles on the floors, lost shoes when we're in a hurry and ten levels of mess. Yesterday was interesting. I'm sitting on the couch nursing Mitchell. Tennyson is beside me. Steven and Jordan have gone off to nursery school. Suddenly, Tennyson throws up everything he had eaten that day all down the front of his shirt and into his lap. I quickly go to put the baby down to help Tennyson and realize that Mitchell has liqui-pooped all out the legs of his diaper and into his sleeper. I get everyone cleaned up (including manually picking bits of chicken off of the couch) and resume nursing. Steven comes home, and we give Tennyson some gingerale. He's very excited for this treat and drinks it. Fast. He then turns and barfs it all...

Something terrible has happened. I gained 2 pounds back. Somebody please tell me how this is possible! I weighed myself on Friday, and then on Saturday I was 2 pounds heavier. I always weigh first thing in the morning for consistency. I weighed again the next day - still there. Tell me if this makes sense - I've been dieting the past couple of weeks, and I lost 5 or 6 pounds. I then add some crazy treadmilling and ellipticalling and the first thing I do is gain weight. I haven't been eating any more. In fact, most days I'm well below the 1770 calorie limit. What I need is for someone who knows something about this, maybe having studied this type of stuff in depth (hint hint :) to tell me that it's because I'm toning up my leg muscles in a big way. Anything along those lines would suffice. I complained of this to Ange or Steven or someone, and it was suggested that I'm not eating enough calories for the workouts I'm doing, and my body is desperately hanging o...

J: Mommy, can you phone some of my friends and tell them to get me a Cupcake Maker? M: Why should they get you a Cupcake Maker? J: Because I want to make cupcakes. M: Yeah, but why should your friends get it for you? J: Because I will share some with them. At least her heart is in the right place, sort of.

I almost hate to write a new post, that picture of Mitchell is so cute! Okay, so I've been using MyFitnessPal.com in a big way - tracking all my food and the calories consumed and burned throughout the day. It's been working pretty well, I lost four pounds last week! Today I joined the gym. I figure it's the next best step. It'll force me to set aside blocks of time to actually work out. Steven's very supportive. He told me to go ahead and sign up for a year and not feel bad about it. I have a little guilt: Mom-Guilt. I honestly felt really guilty today about leaving Steven and all the kids and going out to do something totally self-serving. I should be spending the time with him when he's home right? Financial guilt. It's a little expensive. This ties in a bit to mom-guilt I think. I never feel bad about spending money on the kids - kid stuff, kid clothes, kid "events" (nursery school). Yet if I spend a few dollars on myself I feel pretty darn gui...

A lot happens in three months. Three months ago today I was plodding along behind my double stroller, pushing Tennyson and watching Jordan run along the sidewalk. She was racing. I'm assuming that she was winning, since she was the only participant. We walked a mile. We then came home and played in the backyard, running around with Jordan and playing "Superhero" and pushing her on the swing. Tennyson was quite amused by all this. My water had broken at 7:30 that morning and I was trying to encourage contractions to start. It was a beautiful August day. Steven was napping because he had just gotten off work that morning. I had called my mom and Angela and they were waiting for me to let them know that I needed someone to come and watch Jordan and Tennyson so I could go in and have the baby. I did my normal stuff. I cleaned the house a bit, did dishes and scrubbed the bathroom. I talked on the phone with friends. At some point during the day, Auntie Christine stopped in. Sh...

That's right, the scale budged! Did you check out my ticker? I'm down four pounds this week! Seriously, I'm on cloud nine this morning. It's like Christmas, only without all the food. This actually gives me motivation to keep being good. For example; we're having penny rolling today. Steven's dad's side of the family saves pennies all year, and then sometime in November they all get together and roll them all up and donate them to charity. Of course you can't (usually) do something like this without lots of chips and pop right? See what I mean, I need the motivation! Some of my favorite tools right now: www.myfitnesspal.com - You can track your weight, exercise and diet on here. It counts calories for you. It's awesome. http://caloriecount.about.com/cc/recipe_analysis.php - This website lets you type in a recipe, and how many servings there approximately are, and it'll give you the nutrition information for that recipe. Both of these links are ...

It's funny how we see ourselves in a totally different light than others do. Thanks to everyone who apparently doesn't think I'm sumo-wrestler material. Not that I don't still want to skinny-up a little! Totally unrelated: Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month ? Me neither. Steven knew, but he apparently always forgets until the middle of the month. It's not about getting published, or writing anything that anyone would want to read more than a few lines of. The entire point is just to let the words flow and try and beat the clock, and write 50,000 words in the month of November. Since there are only 17 days left in November, we decided to do our own competition. If either of us actually finishes a 50,000 word story in the next 25 days or so (we started a few days ago), the winner gets to pick a movie and a restaurant of her choice (i'm assuming the win already) and gets an entire 3 day weekend with no diaper changing. Dinner and a movie? Pe...

It's official. I'm a heavyweight. I should really take up a heavyweight sport. Maybe women's sumo wrestling. I can picture the look on my mom's face now. She'd be so proud. If you'll notice the ticker on the right of this screen, you'll see that I joined My Fitness Pal. You can click it if you're interested in the website - not my website, one of your own. It's suggested a skimpy, scrawny daily diet of 1770 calories. Apparently the internet thinks I'm fat too! I managed to stay under yesterday. I was pretty proud of myself, until I woke up at 3 to feed the baby and then lay awake for the next hour because I was so frickin hungry! It's okay, I'll get used to it. I figure I have to diet because I don't have a lot of time during the day to exercise, and by the time the kids go to bed at 8 or 8:15 I have no motivation to slap in the aerobics tape. Wish me luck!

Jordan carefully lays her blankets out on the living room floor. She pulls the edges and corners tight so that there are no wrinkles. She pesters me for a pillow, so I fetch her mine. Hers is in the bedroom, and Tennyson is sleeping. She lays for a while, watching tv, and then she gets up and starts running. She runs in circles around the blankets on the floor. I tell her to calm down, she responds by informing me that she has to run because the monsters are chasing her. I go back to my book. Eventually she comes to stand beside me. I put my arm around her in a hug. Her cheeks are flushed, her breathing quick. I can feel her heart beating in her chest. I take her hand and lay it over her heart. "Do you feel that?" She nods, eyes wide. I don't think it's occurred to her that there are things going on inside her. "That's your heart." Her big blue eyes widen more, a smile plays at her lips. "My heart?" I nod. "It goes faster when you run arou...

For a mother of three young children who is very often housebound, a good and successful outing consists of the following: a trip to the library in which nobody leaps from the stroller, nobody pees their pants, and I find the next three books of the series I'm reading. a stop at the gas station where I instantly spot and grab the single copy of a new release I've been wanting to see. an extra large French Vanilla Cappuccino from Tim Horton's. It doesn't get any better than this.

Not to get all political in blog-land, but... I've been watching some of the talk shows this morning, and it seems that America is abuzz over the win of Barack Obama. And they should be! It's very exciting for African American people. It wasn't that long ago that they weren't allowed to vote, weren't allowed to sit at the front of the busses, weren't allowed to eat in certain diners or use public washrooms that were designated "white" (among many other things). Now Barack Obama has become the first black president. Lots of people say that this election wasn't a "race issue." I hope it wasn't. I hope that people voted for the platform, and that party that they felt would do the best job for America. That being said, it's still a big deal that a black man is the president. Ask yourself - 43 years ago, would Americans have voted for an African American and ignored the colour of his skin and focused on the platform? Doubt it. It'...

Last night after our kids were finished trick or treating, and we had run out of candy, I thought "hmm, I should bring in that pumpkin." Not that I'm all sentimental about the pumpkin, it'll probably be put on the curb next week or the week after. It's more that I'm worried that some prankster is going to smash it against my house. For the same reasons, I made sure the van was parked inside the garage. You never know what kinds of things the neighborhood kids are going to do once the lights go out. Not that I mind good clean fun. Then I got thinking of the stuff we used to do. When I say "we" I mean "Leigh Ann and I." Sorry Leigh Ann, I'm going to drag you into this! When I still lived in Austin, Leigh Ann and I were on the fire department together. It was only a year or two, and then I moved to Portage. Every gate night and Halloween, the fire department was in charge of patrolling the town to make sure bad things weren't happening...

Okay, I seem to be under some fire and scrutiny. I seriously plan on blogging again. Someday. Maybe tonight! There have been some things come and go and I've kind of missed them. Steven's grandparents were here the other night and I wanted to take a picture of them with the kids, but I forgot. The other day I was going to bring Chili over to Jan's restaurant and take a picture of the group there and post about it, but they came here instead because the restaurant is still kind of a mess [for those who don't know, it's not a "dirty restaurant" it's a restaurant under construction. she's opening anew, and redoing everything inside first. more on that later.] , Jan and I got our brows waxed and it was a very eventful and entertaining time, but I have to make sure she doesn't mind if I stick that on here, etc. Wouldn't want to embarrass anybody! Well, maybe just a little. What else? Steven's cousin Estelle had her baby yesterday. After thr...

It's been 10 weeks since Mitchell was born. It's funny, on one hand it doesn't feel like it's been that long. On the other, it feels like it's been forever since I've had 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep. About the clothes; when Jordan was a baby I'd take her out of her crib every morning, change her diaper, and immediately put her into a new outfit. She had LOTS of new outfits. First babies really have it made - baby showers, crazy people who bring gifts forever, and mommies who can devote all their time and attention to the one special little person. By the time baby #3 comes along, well let's just say that if a sleeper is clean in the morning he stays in it. After all, he just had a bath the night before. None of this washing a sleeper after only half a day's wear nonsense. And outfits? Today is the third time Mitchell has worn an actual outfit. In my defense, he has some really really cute sleepers. A hint of an actual smile in this next one. He...

Lately television commercials have been making me feel guilty. You know that commercial where it shows different kids trying different tactics to get the orange juice out of the orange? One kid is using a toy hammer to try and smash an orange down onto a manual juicer, another kid is trying to crush the orange with his toy dump truck, and a few other kids had a few other interesting ways to bust into an orange. There are no mothers around anywhere. The commercial is light-hearted and fun, with the "kids being kids". It's an orange juice ad of course. There's this other commercial too, where a couple of babies (toddlers?) are eating baby food out of little bowls. The baby food is some sort of strained, green confection, and there are no spoons in sight. The kids are licking the bowls, using their hands, smearing the sludge all over everything, and making a horrible mess! In your home, how would you respond to these kinds of situations? TV moms are perfect. It's a w...

I was the biggest fan of Tennyson's curls. I loved them really. When he ran they actually bounced, when his hair was wet it went down onto his back. His hair was longer than Jordan's! But lately, it was almost getting too fluffy, long, and well, pretty. This is the "new" Tennyson: See, he even has an actual neck now! Yet, even as we are making the one son into a boy, this happens: It's not my fault! Wal-Mart doesn't have something of this quality in blue! I just know that Auntie Jan is shaking her head at this right now. And apparently, I cannot get away with taking a picture of one of the kids on the stairs without snapping one of the other. I think she was a little offended. So . . . heeerrree's Jordan!

... check out this link and then click on "play web game" and you don't have to download anything. I'll admit, it's horribly addicting and yes, extremely dorky. Give it a shot and let me know what you think!

Remember how I said that my kids are beastly in the computer room? Well, turns out that they're at least as beastly when they're locked out of the computer room. For the record, Steven is home, and they could go upstairs and find him, they're not actually unattended (much). Tennyson is in 5 states of furious right now. I've got the computer room door shut, and he's not impressed. He's literally pounding on the door with something, I think it's a toy. The door is actually shaking in the door jam. The toy now sounds like this "it's lea... it's lea... it's lea..." instead of "it's learning time!"

Did I mention we bought a laptop? Or - to be more specific - Steven bought a laptop. Not a brand new $800 laptop (we're way too cheap), a used one off Portage Online. Now you'd think that buying a used one would be a good idea right? Except for the few "minor" issues: the battery does not hold a charge. You can have it charged right up and if you unplug it for 5 minutes (no exaggeration) the charge is GONE. If you're going to have a laptop, isn't the idea that you aren't plugged in to the wall? it doesn't have the hardware for wireless internet. I called the local computer guys. It's about $75 for that. it doesn't have Microsoft Works, or Microsoft office. Hence, no typing program. You may think these things are minor. However, once you add the cost of adding all these things to the computer, as well as what we paid for the computer, we could have almost bought a new cheapish laptop. Men. As of yet we haven't done any of these things or hoo...

Yesterday at church someone was talking about operation Christmas child. She was letting us know the little details, and the goals of the church. She then said to the kids to make sure to help their parents buy little things for the box. Jordan had been standing in front of her chair listening to all this talk about Christmas presents. Then she climbs back up, sits really tightly against me, hugs my arm and says "Mommy, I don't want to go in the box." She was very concerned. I hugged her and told her not to worry, she didn't have to go in the box if she didn't want to. The people around us had a good chuckle. Then, later at home she says to me "Mommy, Jamin calls his mom 'Mom'." I told her that was okay. She then goes on to say "I want to call you Mom too, just like Jamin." I don't know if she'll be allowed to play with that Jamin anymore. Back to Christmas child, I definitely want to do a box this year, maybe two. I wanted to l...

We had a mouse. I didn't want to post about it earlier, because mice are kind of yucky and I was afraid you'd say "ew, they had a mouse. Guess she's not been cleaning." I know, I know, anyone can get a mouse. But you know how it is. It's like lice - any kid can come home from school with lice, but it just seems so yucky. I hope my kids never get lice. That being said - if any of you ever have lice, or your kids do, rest assured that I won't think you're yucky. If you have a mouse I will not think it's because you aren't cleaning your house. The mouse had been running around in the ceiling of the basement. You could hear it scampering across the tiles. I was actually beginning to think it was more than just a mouse because it sounded huge! I think it's the cheapo tiles. That's also part of why I didn't blog about it. My readers may forgive a mouse, but if you thought we had rats? I can't count on your loyalty that much. I went t...