This past weekend we did not celebrate one child’s birthday, no we celebrated the twins’ birthdays. It most certainly did not catch me by surprise.

Our Saturday morning did not start with an invitation to a movie night with our girl cousins, and if it had, I certainly would NOT have asked my husband to “sell” the idea to the twins in lieu of a friend birthday party, simply for my own convenience. I certainly would not have forgotten to bake the requested carrot cake on Saturday morning for Sunday’s post-church family dinner and party. That’s just not my style.

I absolutely did not throw myself out of bed early Sunday morning to bake the cakes before my workout. I would NEVER dream of yelling at my husband in bursts of breath in the most excruciating part of the workout “Cupcakes. Out. OVEN.” We never yell at one another at our house.

Even if our morning had started that way, we would not have had ZERO presents wrapped to present to the twins at the family party. That would be wrong. We certainly would not attempt to make it up to them by taking them on a shopping trip to Toys R Us and buying them the toys they wanted, sale or no.

That’s just not how this organized mom of four does it. < rolls eyes >

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

We started our journey Friday morning. While I had grand ambitions to leave between 8 and 9 a.m., we pulled onto the Interstate at almost 11:30. Oh well. We had a few stops between our house and the highway. One of those definitely paid off.

We stopped at the local library. We quickly scanned the available CD audiobooks and found a couple that were just a half hour shy of our journey each way. We don’t own an in-car DVD player because we can’t find a way that all four children can view it well from their seats. And no one wants to buy extra complaining on any road trip. Audio books, on the other hand, are nice because the car has speakers near each seat.

The other benefit, for us, is that the older boys can continue to play video games (without sound) while listening to the story. This really helps Yoshi, who is a very active thinker, and gives him a place to focus his thoughts.

My other secret weapon for a drive with conscious children is a brown paper bag full of snacks. Pretzels with cheese, fruit snacks, Cheeze-Its, mini-cookies are all favorites. Depending on the child and packaging, I will re-package hard-to-open or easy-to-spill items into my favorite snack containers. I overfill the bag so to compensate for the bored hunger, “Mom, I dropped my food!” and “I don’t like this” whine. I do limit what drink they have, keeping it to a minimum number of ounces, so that when (not if) they chug, it will hopefully make it through those no-man’s lands without an exit or truck stop without an accident.

Speaking of truck stops, I discovered my best tip yet on the return trip. When traveling alone and outnumbered, I’ll be skipping the major, interstate exit stops and looking for a store on the main street in town instead. Quite by accident, I followed a sign for a Casey’s General Store. The first sign didn’t have mileage on it, and after committing to the exit, I discovered it was 1.25 miles down the road. Just great!

It was a blessing in disguise. Just busy enough to be safe, the locals were kind and courteous, better than hurried travelers near the interstate. The bathrooms were “one seaters” in a small hallway where I could monitor both genders discretely. After grabbing mommy some coffee and checking out with the very friendly cashier, Luigi made the best discovery of the trip – a PAY PHONE! The cashier and I had a good chuckle as the children marveled over this technological wonder that they’d only seen in Daddy’s favorite childhood movies. It was quite the experience for all of us.

We packed ourselves back in the car and a few miles down the road, all four were asleep. We finally arrived home around 11 p.m. at night. Not my favorite, but definitely easier than listening to “Are we there yet?” for hours.

While it wasn’t easy, and I don’t recommend it, there are ways to make traveling alone with children much easier. Relax, be open to change, and have a good attitude. It works for me!

Here’s an old photo of my baby, when she still looked like a baby and acted like a kitten.

Being number four, we thought we had the whole parenting thing figured out. I thought I was content with only sons. We’d skip over hormone filled drama in the teen years. Be free to travel later in life instead of saving for a wedding. We thought we had it made. The day of the ultrasound when they said “It’s a girl” all I could do was laugh in my nervousness. Princess has challenged me to think and act differently. She points out my flaws without intending, like only a child can do, and inspires me to improve. I’m so thankful God knew better than I did four years ago when he brought this unique blessing into our lives. We needed her.

To celebrate, Princess (age four) and I (age thirtysomething) had our first manicures… together. I think it will grow into a tradition. Something to separate the girls from the boys in our family. She chose a vibrant magenta pink with glitter top to match and I chose center line yellow. Seriously, it looks like the double line in the middle of the road. So bright.

Princess is very girly. She loves dresses and demands I wear them on special occasions. I had intentions of buying a yellow sundress for her birthday party. But of course, when we arrived at the store, post manicure, the dress I passed up two days ago was no longer available in my size. So my yellow nails seem a bit out of place, but there are worse things in life. At least it’s a bold color to go with the bold memory of today. The day I started a new season in life. Diapers, nursing, disrupted sleep, all those things I thought would never end, now just a memory. A memory growing more faint every day.

Happy Birthday, Princess. Thanks for making me a better woman, and a better mom.

She didn’t have bangs a few days ago.

I love celebrating the first day of Spring Break with a visit to the doctor, don’t you?

]]> http://wistfulwrists.com/2010/03/oreo-breakfast/feed/ 1 http://wistfulwrists.com/2010/01/no-apple-ipad-mom/ http://wistfulwrists.com/2010/01/no-apple-ipad-mom/#comments Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:08:06 +0000 wistfulwrists http://wistfulwrists.com/?p=673 Seriously. If you are a mom blogger, you need to read this. The new Apple iPad is not for you. Sure, they make be marketing it with a catchy name that is sure to catch any woman’s eye <insert sarcasm here>, but I’m pretty sure this thing is really for the Kindle set, which is my politically correct way of saying the geriatric demographic. I was shocked when this link came across my Twitter feed this morning championing the iPad. So shocked I looked for the disclosure statement, apparently they didn’t get a free one, which is the only way I might consider recommending one.

Personally, I can’t imagine any mom, especially a stay-at-home, run of the mill, mom blogger such as myself, following the Twitter buzz, internet hype and a post like that and investing in one. It almost makes me want to cry. So as self-proclaimed Mac enthusiast and mom blogger, let me lay out my argument against (this version of) the iPad.

#1. It won’t multi-task. It’s not like your laptop, you can’t have 6 different softwares open at the same time. If you are like me, when on the laptop at any given time I may have a music player, Tweetdeck, an internet browser (or two) with numerous tabs each, e-mail, iPhoto and maybe even Skype all open. No, the iPad won’t do this. Yes, for the price tag, in my humble opinion, it should.

#2. No Flash. You know all those websites with the fancy photos on the front page? How about those games your kids play on all the network webpages? Yep, most of these are in Flash. When on the iPhone and you encounter a Flash application, a lovely blue cube with a question mark appears. Annoying yes, but can you imagine how much more annoying when the blank area takes up half of your 10 inch screen?

#3. Not for children. I’m not sure where people are getting this idea, but have you seen what my sons can do to a $7 paperback book? There is no way I’d hand them a $600 device to read a book or watch a movie or whatever. I think this is a completely ridiculous notion. And even if you do have older, more responsible children than I do, see note #2. Do you know how annoying it is when a child expects to see something on a webpage and it isn’t there? Yeah, that’s just a free ride to Whine City.

#4. No camera. Seriously? Not anywhere? Several of the design speculations about what the new tablet from Apple would look like had one on the front, so you could use iChat, Skype, etc. for video chat. Sure, it’s obviously too bulky to use as a regular camera like you would your iPhone, so it makes sense not to have one on the back. If Apple is the king of innovation, they really missed the mark here. All Mac laptops come with built in iSight cameras, so clearly Apple does not view this as a laptop competitor.

#5. Apps only. Not software, just apps. For instance, you’ve got a few minutes of time while waiting in the carpool lane, and you want to do some quick color correction on your photos. You’d have to have an app for that. So that thousand dollar suite of Adobe software you have at home, nope, can’t install it on the iPad. You’ll have to buy a new app, that’s likely far less useful to fix those great photos of the kids for your Christmas card. Sure, I expect the App store to explode with new versions of things with the new iPad capabilities, but it’s still just a glorified iPhone, not a real laptop.

#6. Hard drive size. Yep, they only go up to 64 gigs. If it’s bigger than an iPhone, more useful than an iPhone, why didn’t Apple give us more room to store things on it? If I really expected to replace my 2 yr old 160 gig Macbook Pro with this new cutting edge technology that is going to revolutionize how I view computers, it’s going to have more space. Again, the design shows that it’s clear that Apple is not intending this to replace your computer, it’s really just competing with the Kindle.

Don’t believe me? Check out this article from someone who knows more than I do and has actually seen an iPad: Gizmodo: 8 Things That Suck About the iPad

I’m really quite disappointed by Apple. It’s almost as if Apple set me up on a blind date and the iPad was waiting at the table for me. Sure, it’s quite the looker, but as dinner wore on, I grew weary of the shallow conversation. Clearly the iPad is all beauty and no brains. Apple, you told me you knew what I wanted in a partner; how great you were at pushing boundaries; how you’d revolutionize how we read, write and interact. I just can’t trust you to pick another blind date for me again.

All in all, I think I may ask my hubby to build me a hackintosh. So if I ever get to attend one of those cool blogging conferences, I’ll be the chick in the corner with a netbook with an Apple sticker on the lid.

I was seaming this beauty together on Christmas Eve. Yes, I am the queen of procrastination. I finished all the details and wrapped it somewhere after 11 p.m., resulting in a single, terrible lighting, iPhone photo. I was too caught up in the family festivities the next day to snag it back for a better, natural light photo. This just doesn’t do it justice:

It is the Little Luxury Kimono pattern from Lion Brand Yarn. It was a really quick knit and in my opinion a great first project if you are thinking about making garments or sweaters. It went quickly, was basic and gave me some practice on how a garment is put together. The down side is that if you are used to quick projects, like I am, it gets a bit boring at the end. Once you are finished knitting, you need to block, seam, maybe add some edging details, etc. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I liked learning and practicing some of these news skills. The pattern includes 5 pieces (back, front left, front right, and 2 sleeves) and the individual pieces knit up easily. This is a great evening, television project with the stockinette stitch pattern used. Easy decreases shape for the neck, so if you know knit, purl & decreases, any beginner can knit this project!

The yarn I used was Vanna’s Choice Baby in the Sweet Pea colorway. This was my second project using the Vanna’s Choice line from Lion Brand Yarn. My first project was the Luigi Hat. It took about 2 skeins to complete the project, with enough yarn left over to be comfortable (errors, details, edging, extras, etc.) I chose the green color because it is one of my sister’s favorite colors and it’s gender neutral. We are still waiting to find out if B.O.B. is a girl or boy. The Vanna’s Choice yarn is really soft and easy on your hands as you are knitting. It is one of the softest acrylic yarns I’ve tried. It is a worsted weight (weight class #4) which means it knits up pretty quickly. I believe this project was knit on size 7 or 8 needles. My only complaint about the Vanna’s Choice Baby is that the strands tend to separate a tad more easily than some other acrylics. Not too bad, but I’m just being completely honest here. The softness and the rich, almost jewel tone colors (compared to other baby yarns), and the fact you are likely using larger needles totally compensate for this issue. I loved the yarn so much on the next sale I grabbed one of each of the Vanna’s Choice Baby colors to play with and use in other projects. They are soft, yet vibrant, a nice change of pace from many chain store yarn brands.

It remains to be seen how well the kimono will survive in the wash and dry process necessary for newborns, but with $5 in yarn and only a few evenings worth of labor involved, it was a good trial into this sort of project. Sure, I wish I could make these for every new baby in my life, but I really don’t like seaming and blocking, at least not yet. Maybe once my children learn to feed themselves more often, or Mr. T builds that feeding trough for them, I’ll have more time and won’t mind the tedious parts as much. So for now, because of my life situation, not the pattern itself, this will remain and “family only and maybe not even them” project.

A quick note for all my fellow knitting and crocheting iPhone/iPod users: Lion Brand Yarn recently released (FINALLY!) an iPhone app that makes it much easier to cruise their listing of patterns while mobile. It’s an early version, has a few quirks, but it is so much better than having to use Safari to navigate the LBY website! It’s a free download too, pick it up here.

Now, back to the post at hand:

Let me just say it. I LOVE Conan O’Brien. Sure, I’m married to a witty red-head, mother to two twin red-heads well on their way to careers in comedy, so I’m clearly biased. I have fond memories of watching Conan off and on in my college years. I really began watching him regularly during late night nursing sessions with my first son, nearly 7 years old now. That’s when my love of O’Brien truly began. I was thrilled years ago when the date was announced when he would take over The Tonight Show. I patiently waited until the debut last June. I can’t tell you how many nights I stay up much later than I should to watch every minute of his show. So the recent stir has me in a tizzy. I truly don’t understand why there is such a disconnect between executives in corporate America and basic rules of decency and conduct. A contract is a contract, your word is your word. If you prove yourself unworthy of trust, what else is left? Anyway…

DIY Team Conan Tee
Originally uploaded by craftrocklove

What is better than internet frenzy + crafting? NOTHING, I tell you. I was thrilled to see this come across my Twitter feed, from one of my favorite crafters & red-heads herself, Vickie Howell. Her DIY “Team Conan” T-Shirt has so many possibilities! T-shirts aren’t a staple of my crafting arsenal and don’t own any of those fabric paint markers, but I’ve been plotting the various items you could embroider with the “Team Conan” logo. Think of it as if it was our generation’s version of collectible election memorabilia. A button, a set of cloth napkins, even baby Onesies! Heck, if you love Mod Podge, the possibilities are endless!

I think this will be my craft of choice for the weekend, I just haven’t quite decided what medium I will work in yet. Mr. T has even requested a t-shirt, which would require a trip to a craft store. That’s almost like him ASKING me to spend money on crafts!

< insert evil laughter here >

Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. Yes, I’ve caught myself reminding myself to breathe lately. Literally. When I set out to join the cast of our church’s Christmas production, The Story, I really wasn’t fully aware of what I was doing. I thought I was because I was on the tech crew last year, but being on stage is really another matter completely.

Reality is, we all get caught up in things this time of year, especially moms. Whether it’s classroom parties, progressive dinners, shopping, cooking, cleaning… there is much to be done. There is also quite a bit that can be left undone, or at the very least delegated. One of the benefits of participating in this large scale production is that I truly have to consider how important things are, who can do them, and when they can be done. There’s a fair amount left on the “not now” plate. I’m learning to be okay with that. I haven’t conquered my laundry in at least 6 weeks. And my definition of “conquering” is having less than 2 loads floating around. Yep, that’s how I roll these days. I have dead plants too, that should tell you something. But everyone has food to eat, a place to sleep, homework is done and we all have clean clothes to wear, even if they aren’t the exact ones we wanted. Surprisingly, everyone is happier than normal, which I’m sure has nothing to do with the Christmas tree they can’t keep their tiny little hands off of.

Our show starts this weekend, so if you are in the St. Louis area, click on this link & find a time to come. It’s truly unlike any nativity or Christmas show you’ve ever seen. If you happened to catch last year’s debut, don’t skip it just because you think it’s the same. There are some changes that really & truly set it even further apart from the traditional story we hear each December. Which I love, because it’s very thought provoking.

For my regular readers not in the Show Me State, I’ll share with you some of my survival tips over the coming days. Maybe you’ve heard them before, maybe not, but I hope you’ll learn something new.

I’m carefully & prayerfully considering how our family will approach the holidays this year. First, we’re trying homemade items. I should have started long ago, but I’m working on it.

Photo by Steve Rhodes

I’m also considering alternative methods, especially those that might be green. When it’s acceptable by the person (and for my kids), I’ll try to gift used, but still in great condition items like books & DVDs. Seriously, why does everything have to be new? There’s no need for us to cut down more forests so that everyone can have their own personal copy of Harry Potter or Twilight to sit on a shelf forever, never to be read again. Swaptree is your friend.

Lastly, I’m thinking about people. This means I’m really considering how & where my money is spent. Sure, I can save a couple of bucks if I go to the big box, but where does that money really go? Does it go to corporate greed or worse yet, China or other countries where children may or may not be stitching everything together in poor conditions? Or can I spend a few more minutes and a few more dollars and purchase from an artist or a crafty stay-at-home mom who understands the value of hard work, who is passionate about what they do, and most importantly supports charities or other artists with their well-earned dollars? Take a moment and think about it. Will your child even recall in 5 years what piece of plastic they are begging for this week? Will it be a treasured item that they’ll remember their whole life? Let’s get back to what’s important.

Now I’ll step off my soap box and put my money where my mouth is. As a continuance of the Handmade Holidays theme, I’m going to share with you some of my favorite people I stalk online and share with you their sales. If you have an Etsy shop or other online presence and are planning a sale, drop me a line at wistfulwrists@gmail.com. Tell me a bit about yourself, what you are passionate about; link me up to your shop, blog, Twitter & don’t forget to share the details of your sale (especially start & end dates). I’ll share them at the appropriate time.

Remember, each of us has the ability to make a difference. Small changes can have big impact. You can make someone else’s holiday brighter and create memories for your own family at the same time.