For The Moms...

Who sometimes get discouraged.

What Have I Done?
What have I done in my life, I ask,
What have I done that is grand?
I have not dazzled unnumbered crowds
Or starred in a chart-topping band.
I’ve not made speeches of grand design
Nor inspired numbers untold.
I’ll never travel the world around
Or win an Olympic Gold.

What have I done in my life, I ask.
No doting fans shout my name.
Or even whisper it soft and low
And reverence the awe of my fame.
I’ve never done anything great in life,
Never been better than good.
I am not best at even one thing.
What I’ve done is what anyone could.

I wash dishes, sweep, wipe noses all day.
Read stories, stop fights, and brush hair.
What have I done in my life, I ask,
As I yell for the twelfth time to SHARE!
I hear others talk of the things that they do,
The great goings-on of their lives.
They walked the Great Wall, danced at the ball.
I put away forks and knives.

What have I done in my life, I ask,
As I tuck in my toddler to rest.
He reaches up and kisses my cheek,
And says, “Mommy, you’re the best.”
No trip round the world, no medal of gold
Match up to those four words sweet.
My life can’t be measured by what I’ve not done,
But the lives that I’ve tucked in to sleep.

Friday Five

Dear Charlotte,

I've decided to start adding some kind of list of five to my blog every Friday. Okay, it might not happen every Friday, but I'll try...

So, in honor of Mother's Day, this week's Friday Five is:

5 Reasons I Love Being a Mom

1 - How could you not love those sweet faces in the post below this?
2 - Watching my kids learn new things is so exciting!
3 - All the hugs and kisses I can steal.
4 - The sound of children's laughter often fills my home.
5 - The joy and excitement they have in the simple things of life help me to remember what is important and makes me so happy!

Introducing...

Dear Charlotte,

Introducing Little Baby Ray (who has yet to be given a nickname):

Confessions:

Dear Charlotte,

Ricochet has been sporting the same hairdo for three days. Not that I've done the same hairdo on her for three days, but that I never took it out.

The dishes have been waiting to be washed for the same amount of time.

Yesterday we all stayed in our pajamas until Ben called and said he was coming home from work soon.

Ssshhhhh! Don't tell my kids I'm a bad mom and they'll never figure it out, right?

My husband thinks I'm crazy....and you probably will too

Dear Charlotte,

I don't really know what's gotten into me, but I got this idea and now Ben thinks I've gone off the deep end. Maybe I have, I don't know. So I was thinking, why don't we use cloth diapers on this new baby? Not the takes-20-minutes-to-fold-them-and-have-to-be-careful-not-to-stick-your-kid-with-a-pin cloth diapers of years ago, but modern cloth diapers. Did you know they make cloth diapers now that are practically like disposables? Diapers like bumGenius and Mommy's Touch and Kissaluvs. I think I'm even open to doing plain old prefolds with covers sometimes. There are several reasons I've been considering this, like:
1 - Even to buy the nice ones, it is cheaper than using the cheap disposables. (Although it's an up-front cost instead of spread over the months and years) Plus, if you have more children, the cost is even lower because you can use many of the same diapers and products.
2 - It's better for the environment.
3 - It's better for the baby. It's crazy how many harmful chemicals there are in disposable diapers. I was amazed at the things I learned when I started looking into it. Seriously - google it and see for yourself.
4 - For some reason, it doesn't sound that bad! =)

Ben thinks I couldn't handle cleaning the poop off, but guess what? I have to wipe the poop off the kid's butt anyway, right? And you can hook this sprayer thing - basically like a vegetable sprayer for the kitchen sink - up to the plumbing on your toilet. No dunking, just spray it off and wash them every couple of days! And if you're out and about, use a flushable liner and whala! the mess goes down the john!

See? I knew you'd think I'm crazy! So now's your chance to make your opinion known - take the poll on the side of my blog to let me know if I have really lost it or not!

For Those Who Haven't Heard...

Dear Charlotte,

Turtle has an announcement:

"I going be a big brudder!"

Kids...

Dear Charlotte,

They might be naughty, but they sure are cute!

The hardest thing I've ever done...

...is to help pin my little man down while he was screaming his head off so he could get stitches in his chin. Seriously. Nothing I have ever done was as hard as that. He was all wrapped up on a papoose board so he couldn't move and when the doctor put down the cloth to keep the cut sterile, it covered his eyes, so he couldn't see and I was helping to hold his head steady and looking the other way because I couldn't watch while they sewed it up. I also hadn't eaten much, so I even started to get nauseous at the end there. I usually don't have a problem with blood - I even considered a career as an ER nurse at one point - but something about the combination of a cut on the chin and someone I love make it too hard for me to watch. When Ben got stitches in his chin last year I couldn't watch either. And now they'll have matching scars - oh goody! OK, so you're probably wondering what happened. Ben was carrying Turtle up the stairs to my parents' house this afternoon and tripped, so Turtle cut his chin on the edge of a step. Fourteen stitches later, he's doing just fine and I'm slowly recovering.

Potty and other funny "Turtle"isms

You know you're toddler has an older sibling when....he uses needing to go potty as an excuse to get out of bed -- and he's not yet potty trained. Turtle's new favorite word is "DON'T!" as in don't put me in my carseat, don't change my diaper, don't tell me no, don't, don't, don't, don't. The cutest thing in the world is when he says his prayers at night (with help, of course). But if you tell him to say anything about something he recognizes, he has to point it out, like if we're thankful for daddy, he has to run into the other room and find daddy; if he asks to "help me (Me! Me! Me!) sleep well in his bed (Bed! Bed! Bed!)" he jumps up and down and points them out. Another cute thing is if I say "Kapeish?" He says, "Peish." It's a good thing he's so cute too, or I would have killed him by now for all the trouble he gets into. (Of course I wouldn't REALLY kill him!) He sure keeps us on our toes!

Booze and Hookers

Kids say the darndest things, don't they? The other day Ricochet told us that when her little brother is sad she cheers him up with "Booze." "You do what?!" I asked in surprise. "I say BOO! And it makes him happy! I give him boos." So that was boos, not booze - good thing too since she's only 4 years old! A few days later she says, "Look Mom and Dad, I'm being a hooker!" Now I'm not totally sure, but I'm thinking that 4 is a little young for hookerhood. "See, I'm using my hands to hook onto this thing. I'm a hooker." OK then! "Um, where did you learn that word, Ricochet?" I ask without giving away the fact that it is totally and completely inappropriate. Both times when we asked where she learned about such things, she said it was from "Sister Squirrel," who happens to be her imaginary friend. We're gonna have to have a little chat with Sister Squirrel. Who knew an imaginary friend could be such a bad influence? :)

Not Just Luck

So lately I've had a number of people tell me how lucky we are that I get to stay home and be with my kids all day. What I say is, "yeah, we are." But who knew that what I've been wanting to say is that I DON'T feel lucky to stay home with my kids. Are you crazy? you may be asking, Are you admitting you don't want to be home with your children? The answer is no, that's not what I'm saying. I don't feel lucky; I feel blessed for a commitment that my husband and I made before we were my husband and I. To me, LUCK does not play a part here. We decided that it was important for our children to have a mommy and not a babysitter long before we decided to even have children. It is not something that fell from the sky one day with a note saying, "IT'S YOUR LUCKY DAY!!! NOW YOU, TOO, CAN STAY HOME AND BE A MOMMY TO YOUR CHILDREN!!!" Is it easy? No. Most of the time my kids go to bed early because I'M tired. Do we have everything we want in life? No. We have one car. My husband rides his bike the two miles to work. (Well, he used to until last week when he rendered both himself and the bike inoperable - but that's it's own story. Now he walks.) Do we wear designer clothing? No - unless it came from a thrift store! The point is, we give up a lot, but we get a lot in return. Lucky? Nah, I call it blessed (and planned, too).