Wordless Wednesday - Baby Goggles

Zach started swim lessons this week, and Aaron had to wear Zach's goggle around the house.

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Why Did I Have Kids?

A conversation from today:

Me: "Zach, you need to go clean your room. Clothes need to be folded and put in their drawers, books need put on their shelves, and toys need put in their bins. I'm tired of stepping on your toys when I put you to bed. One night I'll probably get mad and start throwing your toys away that I've stepped on." (keep in mind I've let this slide for at least a week)

Zach: (think angry and indignant teen voice) "Well then you don't love me if you're going to throw my toys away."

Stomps off to bedroom to clean because I started counting to 3.

3 minutes later he comes out and stands at the top of the stairs and says "You don't want to make me mad because-"

Me: "You don't want to talk to me like that because I hold your happiness in the balance. Go clean your room. I'm tired of stepping on your toys every night."

Zach: "You don't love me!"

Me: "You don't love your toys THAT much if you won't clean them up!"

He didn't slam the door because we've had that discussion where I'll take the door off its hinges and he may or may not get it back. I guess that's one thing where he actually figures I'm serious. Never mind that my husband and I follow through with everything else and have all of his 8 years. Evidently the rest is negotiable in his mind????? Frustrating to say the least.

Oh, AND, cleaning his room is part of his weekly chores that he gets his allowance for. We don't normally get after him to do his chores, but rather mention it once, and if he does them, fine, and if not, then no allowance. He knows they're there.

I also thought by having boys we'd avoid all this PMS-like behavior- the tantrums, the mood swings, the general acting like an ass. WRONG! And he's only 8. The next 10 years should be just brilliant.

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A Mini Roadtrip

The boys and I took a little road trip Saturday. We went to Lancaster, PA because I needed to go to the bank, and that's where our nearest branch is. You know you're in farm country when you're cruising down the highway and there's nothing but corn, barns, and cows (in no particular order) on either side. You can also tell by the smell. Or as Zach put it, "What IS that smell?" I told him it was fresh air. He wasn't buying that cow manure was what fresh air should smell like.

We went to the bank, then we drove around Lancaster to see what we could see. We didn't see much. There was a lot of traffic, so the situation didn't really lend itself to browsing downtown Lancaster for something to do. We did find a neighborhood yard sale, but we didn't have the ambition to get out, put Aaron in the stroller, and browse other people's stuff.

By this time it was about 11am, so we headed back towards home and stopped at the Sonic that's along the way. We'd never been to Sonic, so we were a little excited after seeing all the commercials on tv. What a let down. The food kinda sucked. I suppose maybe they're better for shakes and slushies, but that's not what we were there for this time.

We took the scenic route home and ended up driving right next to Three Mile Island. I don't know why, but it was interesting to me. I've driven by nuclear plants before. I guess maybe because it's such a well known one.

Then we drove along the eastern shore of the Susquehanna River and hit the highway to come home. It was an anticlimactic end to an anticlimactic day.

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JumpStart Virtual World for Kids - Review & Giveaway

My 8 year old son, Zach, and I had the opportunity to try out the JumpStart website for kids recently. I thought it would be something he'd enjoy because he liked their Reader Rabbit games when he was smaller.

We started our experience by logging on then downloading and installing the plugin. This didn't take too long. Then we logged in to the site and got started. Zach started by making his Jumpee. He chose to make one that looks similar to himself. I tried to navigate the different areas on the map a little bit, but I found using the arrows on the keyboard a little difficult. That's where I got up and told Zach it was all his. Zach played the Adventure Island section, but there are other sections as well for kids ranging in age from 3-10. The slide and the hang gliding were two of Zach's favorite things to do on Adventure Island, and he kept going back to do them over and over again.

Zach's opinion is that after playing the Adventure Island section, he had fun even though it's a learning game. He asked me if he could play again another day. And when I asked how it was to control the character, he said "medium," but that "Frankie tells you what to do when you're stuck."

We were both a little bored with waiting for the game to initially load after we downloaded the plug in and tried to play, but it got faster the longer Zach played. I chalked this up to the fact that I had an IM running, and our computer is circa 2004 which is ancient in computer years.

Zach and I also took some time to surf around the JumpStart website. We saw that there is a Jumpstart Wii game to be released at a future date, and that's something that grabbed Zach's attention. He's not one to really sit in front of the computer, but he does enjoy earning time on the Wii. You can also visit the Jumpstart blog where there is lots of information for parents and kids alike as well as links to follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

If you're a blogger attending BlogHer '09, JumpStart will be there, and Frankie may even make an appearance himself.

Giveaway:
I have a 3 month membership to the Jumpstart site to give away to one (1) lucky reader!

Mandatory entry: Please visit the Jumpstart website and tell me why you as a parent like the site for your children or why your kids would like it.

Additional Entries (1 entry each):
1. Follow this blog
2. Subscribe to this blog
3. Add my blog button to your blog
4. Favorite this blog on Technorati
5. Blog about this contest (leave link in comment)
6. Follow me on Twitter and tweet this contest with a link to this blog post.

Rules:
One winner will be chosen by Random.org on Sunday, July 26, 2009. Entries will be closed at 11:59pm EST July 25, 2009. Winner has 48 hours to respond after posting before a new winner is drawn.

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Wordless Wednesday - Toddler Tantrum

This is what happens when you get mad at your mom, you throw your Leapster down, and it hits your toe. Silly me didn't want him to take it to bed for his nap.

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How Does Your Garden Grow?

It's taken me until July to FINALLY get into our flower beds. I just took the weed eater to the large weeds, turned the soil, added weed killer, and laid landscaper fabric. Then I put out new soil and planted some new plants. Hopefully my plan will work. I'd like to get some mulch too when I'm all finished. I've gotten one bed completely done, and I have 2 more to go. I also got 2 buckets planted to put out. I got a lot accomplished. Then, as my dumb luck would have it, a bee got stuck under the strap to my flip flops, got squished, and stung me. So I was done. I took care of my bee sting and cleaned up. Here's what I got done:

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To Covet

I've been coveting the Tag Junior from LeapFrog since it came out. Why didn't they come out with this when they launched the Tag? I got a really good deal on a Tag at Christmas time and put it away for my then newly turned 2 year old since I didn't trust him with books that have actual paper pages yet. NOW they come out with the one with board books, and I want one for him. My 8yo is an avid reader, as am I, but the 2 year old isn't sold yet. I think hearing the stories read by someone other than boring ol' Mom might help spark his interest. So, I'm entering to win one. You can to if you hop over to Chefdruck Musings.

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Your Tax Dollars at Work

You want to know the latest waste of your tax dollars and the stimulus money? Army housing renovations. Now normally I'd be all for them. There's a lot of old housing that needs renovating or replaced. Here's my beef. There are houses like mine, slated to be torn down block by block until they're all replaced by shiny new doubles. They've already completed one block of these new doubles for the new families that will be moving on post later this month. Then someone had the bright idea to renovate all the houses like mine that are facing these new ones because they have to walk out their front doors and see those new ones every day. Um, so do I and the other families that are still here by us. There's nothing obstructing our view of them either, but I digress. So they're gutting the kitchens, as evidenced by the cabinet and counter pieces I see being flung onto the back patios of these vacant homes. They're putting on new exterior doors, and installing carpeting somewhere (We've seen them carrying the rolls inside). I just can't get over renovating houses that will be torn down. That's piss poor logic even for the Army.
"Smurf" Houses

New Houses

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Holding It Together

This post isn't meant to garner sympathy at all. It's just meant to be informative because if other bloggers and blog readers are like me, they're slightly nosey. Let's face it, my blog has sort of sucked lately. The posts have barely been cohesive, and I haven't been posting every day like I was. I thought I'd be able to keep up the rhythm I had going once school let out, but I was wrong.

School let out in June, and I gave you a glimpse into what's been going on in my head. I have some giveaways that I'm behind in posting, and I need to get those up ASAP as well. It's just been easier to sit an do a quick stream of consciousness post for 15 min and post rather than the hour or 2 it takes to do a review and/or giveaway post. And I'll bet you're sitting there reading and thinking "2 hours? WTF? Why so long?" Well, by the time you write a nice and coherent post, add in the pictures and links, and then promote it, you've spent a good 2 hours in front of the computer. And that's just the day it goes live. If it's a giveaway, other blogs host linkys where you can post and promote your giveaways. There is at least one every day of the week if you can remember to post it and who's hosting on what day. Sometimes it gets so overwhelming I just shut down. It's a thing of mine I need to overcome.

Then I'm trying to co-launch a new support site for parents of kids with various syndromes, disorders, etc. Stefanie and I are trying to make a better version of The SPD Life. It'll be launching just as soon as we get it all pretty and the bugs worked out.

Ironically through all of this, Zach's oppositional defiant disorder has reared it's head in its ugly form and I've been dealing with that more intensively. It takes away from what working computer time I had carved out for myself. Again, you may be saying "But I've seen you online. We've chatted/e-mailed/facebooked." Yes, we probably have. The computer is right here in the living room. I often sit here and scrapbook, hang on the forums, or surf while the boys play and don't want me to join in with them. It keeps me from falling asleep from the mundane kids' shows since there have often been times I cannot leave Zach alone in the same room as his brother lately. I can't make my 2yo follow me around the house as I do my household chores, and it's not worth the battle of making Zach do it. That's part of the ODD child - choosing your battles. I can chat, converse in an e-mail, and do other things that don't take a tremendous amount of concentration when the boys are awake. Even writing a blog post these days is like trying to determine the theory of relativity for me with my fibromyalgia flaring up. The boys and I have had to go shopping every day this week because I keep forgetting things we actually need at the store - and I have a list.

So, if you're a skimmer and find yourself now at the bottom, I think I'm going to quit beating myself up if I don't post to my blog every day. I'm going to buckle down and get caught up on the things I need to, and then let the summer take its course. If you stumble on my blog and like what you see, please subscribe or follow me. Then you won't miss out when I do post since it may not be daily anymore.

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