Do you mean that you do not sit on the couch and drool all day?
Pre-school for a one (almost two) year old is a place where you learn….um. Okay, it is where you achieve…riiiiight. It is a place for people who need to work to put their children. Now don’t get me wrong, there is NOTHING wrong with that, hell I was one of those people six months ago. However, I do not appreciate the implication that The Son is not learning anything at home with me. In fact I would challenge anybody to find a more verbal, more kind, more funny, more active, or smarter child than him. (Yeah, Yeah, I know I am biased, but I would welcome the people who know him to give their input)
I can pretty much guarantee that there is not a pre-school teacher in the entire county who has the level of education that I do. I also am confident that The Son gets a lot more interaction with his teacher than he could anywhere else. Can you tell I got my first hate mail because of my blog? Can you tell they insulted my parenting skills? Does this mean I have ARRIVED in the mommy blogosphere?
Not because I have to, or because I think this person deserves any kind of explanation from me, but I will give you a glimpse into what it is that The Son and I do all day, if for no other reason than to show you some cute pictures. I will also promise to tell the truth and nothing but the truth. The Son wakes up at about 7am. The Husband picks him up, takes him potty, and deposits him in our bed. Once there, The Son sleeps and nurses for about 45 min. Many times I will roll over and turn on Little House on the Prairie and all three of us will watch in bed. (What? That show is totally educational, well it could be.) We then get up and I watch exactly five minutes of The Today Show while fixing us breakfast. We all sit at the table and eat together, or if The Husband is working away from home, The Son and I eat together at his little table. We then go to his room where we read a book or two and then get dressed. Four days a week we either go to the library for stories and crafts, or to gym class, or in the summer we go to swim class.
After we get changed we sometimes nurse, sometimes not. Then it is off to the park or to run errands. We either have lunch with someone, pick up something and eat it at the park, or come home and watch a little Elmo and eat sandwiches here. Afterward we will do crafts, or work on one of our projects, like his container garden. He planted them, he waters them, he replanted them when they got blown over in a storm. The bonus science project is the cocoon that popped up on the side. We even saw the day that the moth broke free and was sunning itself on the side. Cool huh! (Take that, you pansy anonymous emailer 
)
We then read another book, are you counting? We are up to four already. Nurse, yes, again. He takes a nap for a couple of hours and then we will read another book as he has a snack. When he is chock full of goldfish, we play cars, or trains, or blocks, or put together puzzles. I do admit to turning on a Mighty Machines or Elmo for him to watch while we play, but never is he just sitting on the couch drooling and staring at the TV.
When The Husband comes home, we figure out dinner together, pray together, eat together. Then we play together, outside or in. We give The Son a bath together, we sit on the futon in his room and all read stories together. The Husband lays next to us as The Son and I nurse, we both give him kisses and put him to bed. Through the whole day we are talking, talking, talking, never using baby talk, or watered down vernacular.
There, for those of you who think I plop him in front of Nick Jr. (we do not even have cable!) and blog all day, you are wrong. I am a Mommy first and a blogger about tenth or eleventh.
“I will tickle you into submission you mean, anonymous emailer! ”
Filed under Parenting for Dummies, Soap box | Comments (15)Cheap in the Wal-Mart discount bakery case
Watch it or Whine: Wall-E
The first movie we ever took The Son to go see was Horton Hears a Who. He liked it okay, but was going through a phase where every time he saw a bird he crowed like a rooster. Horton had a large vulture that had loads of screen time, which meant that The Son spent much of the movie crowing. We gave it six months and tried again. On Saturday my dad, Gabs, The Husband and I went to go see a movie starring a futuristic tree-hugging robot with an extremely limited vocabulary. Caution: spoilers are below. Well, as much as can be spoiled by a movie with a pre-school target audience.
Earth has been abandoned because it is covered in trash, pushed over the edge by the evil mega corporation B&L. Wall-E (Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) is a trash compacter living (existing?) on earth all alone. He has been busy working, hoarding, and watching Hello Dolly. One day a shiny giiiirl robot lands. Eve (Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator) They hook up robot style. She finds a plant and goes into lock down. Eve is then zapped up by a spaceship and is followed by Wall-E. They are taken to a cruise ship that contains all of the ancestors of the humans that abandoned earth. They have all gotten so fat they can’t walk, and live in front of mobile TVs. Skip forward an hour’s worth of hiding and chase scenes, They go back to Earth and recolonize based on the finding of that one teeny weeny weed. Wall-E and Eve hold hands and robot kiss.
The Son stayed still through most of it, he seemed to like it alright. My Dad really liked it, (I guess he just chose to ignore the liberal agenda behind it?) and Gabs, The Husband, and I were moderately entertained. If I could do it over, I would say Netflix this one, and save it for the pre-school left wing set. Oh, and their Grandpas.
2 and a half starry thumbs up or whatever. Not a Watch, or a Whine, but an Eh.
Filed under Watch it or Whine | Comments (6)Huckablubber: week FIVE of six (plus a day)
This is gonna be quick because the screen is whirling in front of my eyes. I am thirty minutes away from taking my alloted meds and crashing. Those of you participationg in the Huckablubber contest will have until 11:59 pm cst next Sunday (7/13) to email me your total weight loss. This is the honor system, so if you lie to me, I am going to get a voodoo doll in your image, and feed it a pile of Snickers. The person with the top weight loss will get a ZUNE, and the runner up will get a $20 Subway gift card.
Time for your weekly pep talk, eh, insert inspirational talky speak here. Blah, blah, work out. Yada, Yada, don’t consume your weight in refined sugar. Good Luck. Hand me the pill bottle. Good Night.
ka thunk.
***Hey You’s head hit the keyboard when she passed out***
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Happy Anniversary CAT and TARK! (NINE?!?)
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Make sure you mention that you love to work weekends, and are never sick on your interview JHJ! (Did you get your present The Son sent you?)
Filed under Uncategorized | Comment (1)Hupdates: the excuses post.
Thanks for hanging with me through my light posting this past week, ready for a secret? I am slowly weaning myself off of Lexapro. I have been on it for 15 months now, and most of the things that were causing my anxiety have passed. I hate taking drugs, and they do have some side effects that I could live without, so I am going to come of off Lexapro over a two month period. I hope to be fully drug free by The Son’s 2nd birthday.
Since I have now had two separate episodes of serious depression/anxiety ( the other was when I was in Grad school when we lost three relatives in a four month period), according to my doctors I will probably have another one at some point. If I do, then they will recommend that I am on some kind of SSRI for the rest of my life. I will just cross that bridge when I come to it. If I come to it.
You want to know what some of the super cool side effects of coming off of this drug is? Sure you do. No? Well I am telling you anyway.
- General malaise
- Chronic lethargy
- Crying spells
- Dizziness accompanied with “electric brain zaps”. (By far, the most persistent symptom for me)
- Irritability and unreasonable aggression
- stomach upset
It is pretty hard to look at the computer when the room is spinning. I hope that my body will adjust quickly, but it may be a rough couple of months. If you are a praying kind of person, then feel free to add me somewhere towards…oh, let’s say the middle of your list.
Also, The Son and I have crammed in as many hours with my Ma (maternal Grandma) and cousin Gabby as possible while they were visiting this week from KY (the state, not the jelly). Gabs, The Husband and I took The Son to a water park on Wednesday, and had so much fun. I brought my camera and never even took it out of my bag. I tried my hardest not to think about all of the germs running around rampant, or that we were walking barefoot in a puddle of candida infested sludge in the locker area. In the land of a thousand tears (aka the Toddler Zone) I turned a blind eye to the sagging swim diapers of thirty rude children. The Son loved it, and was having a grand ole time til his daddy scooped him up and stomped off after having watched our baby get shoved for about the twelfth time. He cried, but a float in the Lazy Cesspool cured him. Half way around he decided he needed to Nur-Nur. I tried to assuage him, but he would not be pacified. So I popped out a breast and nursed floating by dozens of teenagers. The Husband was mortified. I was….kinda proud of myself, and kinda wishing he was weaned. I do not think any one noticed, but they could have.
On the fourth we went to my parents house (all the way down the street) and were joined by my grandparents, Ma and Gabs, and MMiL and FFiL! We feasted on baby back ribs, fresh corn, baked beans, seven layer salad, fresh bread, home-made ice cream, blackberry cobbler, fresh peach shortcake and gallons of sweet tea. We then all rolled ourselves up the hill to the country club to watch fireworks, and see the people behind us sit in a sprinkler zone! All in all, a lovely day. All that was missing were our baby brothers. The Husband and I agree that sometimes it sucks to be the oldest.
I have switched the ads so that they have to be approved by me before they are published on the site, hopefully that will get rid of the mail order wife ads. I am sorry if you were hoping to find an Asian subservient bride here, you will just have to try somewhere else.
One last update. It is in regards to my son’s toilet habits, so if that kind of thing does not interest you, then move along. He has used the potty 100 times! He received a special truck (instead of a car) sticker, and then got a Hot Wheels truck thingy (the name painted on the side of the truck? Big Dump. Make your own joke). The three of us shouted and clapped and danced around the five square foot bathroom. Being a parent rocks. Who needs Lexapro.
Filed under Boy is my face red, Breastfeeding, Family-blame the DNA, lexapro lexplains it | Comments (3)Happy Fourth of July
A Year ago today……
The grass is always greener. Er…Shorter.
It is really not his fault. Those damn allergies are to blame. I am sure that if he was allergian free The Husband would mow the yard on a regular basis. I fully plan on doing it myself once The Son can be left inside by himself for awhile. We used to pay someone to do it for us, but of course that went the same way as decent haircuts. I sure as hell am not going to pay $30 for the lawn to be cut, and $4 for my hair.
This has left our yard looking…..horrific. It has not been weed-eated (really? is that a word?) since last year. Tonight as our boys frolicked on The Neighbor’s stunning grass, I took the opportunity to capture the stark differences. Oh, how lucky we are to have such first world problems.
The Boys did a little Yoga while I stared at the Jungle in our front yard.
