Wow, this story is everywhere this morning.
Time magazine’s story about attachment parenting has turned into a huge debate over older children breastfeeding, or why they put a 4 year old nursing on the cover..to be honest I’m not sure why people are so upset at this one single image.
You can read more about it here….even celebrities are saying that Time has mothers a disservice by printing this picture.
I don’t think Saturday Night Live has made me laugh this hard in a long time. If you haven’t heard about the “mommy porn” craze called 50 Shades of Grey…
click here and head over to Amazon to get your copy.
I suggested buying a Kindle version to discreetly read on your phone/Kindle/etc. This book is so hot right now (literally) that there have been stories of mom’s forgetting to pick kids up from school because they are so deep into this story. No pun intended. I of course, read it purely for research purposes only to share with my fellow moms.
SNL did a perfect and hilarious spoof on what moms really want for Mother’s Day this year.
I cannot believe this harebrained scheme I came up with worked..but it did and feel a certain responsibility to share. The original idea came from somewhere on Pinterest and to whomever I jacked this from please accept my most sincere thanks. I now have a six year boy who will eat sushi willingly.
We made a bright yellow poster board with double columns and 15 lines on each side. We filled a few of the things that we already knew he liked like chicken, burgers and the very fruits and vegetables he ate when we started this.
Over the next 2 1/2 months we added new things in that he tried and LIKED. Meaning, things he would eat again. He didn’t get to add things he tasted but balked at such as a green salad with ceasar dressing. Go figure..the 19 month-old girl BEGS for salad off adult plates but the boy acts like it’s poison on his lips.
It took a while…but we finally got the entire board filled out and he earned the reward of his choice. A trip to the movies with daddy…no girls allowed.
Normally that would secretly hurt my feelings and I would harbor a tiny mommy resentment against both of them for a while..but I’m so giddy that he will eat lima beans now that I have let go and moved on.
Don’t forget to follow me on Pinterest if you wanna see more of my ‘what was she thinking’ mommy ideas about food, fashion and the occasional wish for a grand vacation somewhere very far away with no kids.
I’ve mentioned before that my soon-to-be 6 year old boy-child thinks every single holiday…no matter how small…should have decorations and gifts. Mostly because I decorate and give him gifts every holiday. Since I’ve created the holiday monster I have to feed it…but cheaply.
Luckily when your 6 a little money goes a long way. I’ve already posted about the leprechaun trap we will be building on St. Patrick’s Eve…I know…it’s ridiculous when you have an “eve” for a holiday that holds no religious or cultural value. But it is fun. I’m all about little spurts of childhood magic they can look back on later and remember.
Our St. Patrick’s Day Eve celebration will begin with a green bubble bath and then setting up the leprechaun trap. St. Patty’s morning we will have lucky charms cereal with green milk and green juice and then we have to track down the sneaky leprechaun by following the gold coins he dropped and green footprints. At one point we will be led to the bathroom where will see green leprechaun tee-tee in the potty! The next stop will be a green plastic beer mug full of gold (rolos) sitting beside the kids shoes…which will also be stuffed with tons of green stuff.
Don’t ask me why Lucky the Leprechaun is going to stuff the kids shoes with goodies…he just is. Apparently I read it on someones blog in the middle of the night recently and it stuck in my head.
Here’s a list of things I’ve got to stuff the little’s shoes with….I am either the coolest mom ever or completely nuts to go to so much trouble for St. Patty’s Day. I choose the former. Erin Go Bragh!
Green juice box – green dino fizz bath egg – giant green pencil- Emerald coco nuts in small green bag – green Spongebob socks – green glow stick – misc. green candy.
This centerpiece cost about $5 to make. I had the green beads and the green scarf. The sign was $2 at Target and the little hats and pots of gold were from a $2 wreath I bought at Target and busted up.
Sometime in the middle of the night while wasting precious hours I should have been sleeping I saw a post on Pinterest with a Weight Loss Jar. This one had glass beans in it representing either the pounds lost or pounds needed to lose. It was cute and I can see how that would motivating.
But not as motivating as CASH.
So I made my own version. I cleaned sterilized a cool looking spaghetti sauce jar and turned it into my Earn and Burn Jar. Yes it would have been cuter with one of those fancy labels…but personally I like seeing the cash stuffed in there better than a girly pink label.
For every time I complete a workout, which at the moment is the Insanity series, I pay my jar $1.00. I’m thinking about upping it to $2 for the Insanity workouts because they are seriously killing me.
I started the second week of January and I have over $40 in there now. I’m saving for a new hot red storage ottoman for my closet. Oh and also I need about 200 velvet hangers. So….in another year of workouts I might have enough money for my closet redo.
Want to step outside your mom comfort zone a bit? Try this hot new color.
Green and teal are THE on-trend colors for this Spring/Summer. So are school bus yellow…Easter egg purple and crazy glitter polish that really belongs in da club but that my 18 month old was mesmerized by. I originally went on a search for a new Essie Bubble Bath-like color to replace my go-to winter grey but when I saw the rainbow bright rows of new spring colors in the store I grabbed up a yellow, a blue and a teal and asked the girl which one she liked best.
It may have been the sweet plastic heart ring that came with the Hard Candy Just Nails Frenzy polish that made us both fall for the blue color….I mean who doesn’t love a teal plastic heart ring? But for whatever reason I picked this color and brand and I’m glad. Hard Candy is a great polish. Goes on easy and even and covers great.
Essie has another green color I want to try soon that is much lighter but I have a hard time paying $8 for nail polish. Another plus for the Hard Candy….$4 a bottle plus you get a ring! You can check out more of Hard Candy’s Spring 2012 line here.
side note: Painting my nails is actually at the very bottom of my priority ….list even though I always feel more pulled together and calm when my nails are painted. (I’ve actually surprised myself by spending this much time talking about it.) I can’t stand chips..at the first sign of chipping I run screaming to the polish remover to get that **** off my nails. I find if I use this stuff right after painting and then a clear shiny coat over that the next day, I have a manicure that will last for 5 full days. That’s impressive. I don’t have the luxury of the time to do this every five days but I make an effort to paint my nails when we have anything special or fun going on. It usually gets done once a month.
It’s hard but you have to remember that along with being Mom: The Keeper of All Knowledge and Head Diaper Changer that you are still a GIRL and as silly, self-indulging and superficial as it sounds….lipgloss and nail polish can sometimes change your day.
The boy seems to think that every single holiday requires some sort of special thing that results in him having some kind of sweet. And I’m ok with that. I’m all about making memories…… and letting him believe their is some magic in the world before he grows up and gets all cynical like his father. Ha.
I told him the other day I was going to need his help building a leprechaun trap for St. Patrick’s Day. His little face went all soft and awe-like and he said, “Leprechauns are REAL mommy? Like the Easter Bunny?”
And I cracked up in the middle of Kroger and immediately gave him like a thousand kisses. He is awesome.
He is so awesome that I am going to be covering a shoe box with green paper, leaving some green cookies under it and then pretending the next morning that “Lucky” got away, but that if we follow the green footsteps he left all over the house we might find his “pot of gold”. Which of course to a almost 6 year old means CANDY.
Or possibly a cute St. Patty’s Day hat instead….
Lucky will also be leaving a note that reads, “Good try! You almost got me! See you next year, Lucky.” He may be turning the baby’s milk green too…but I’m not sure if I want to chance wasting her insanely expensive organic milk. She’s a bit picky.
Here are a few pictures I’ve found doing some research just so you’ll have an idea. I’ll post my pictures after the magic happens.
Everyone else besides me seems to use their smart phone calendars and reminder apps with success. Not me. I use my iPhone for literally every other facet of my life, but not list making.
I am an old-school-die-hard To Do Lister and Sticky Note-aholic. I make a new To Do List every night before I go to bed on a piece of paper that I carry with me while I run errands. I use sticky notes for everything…doctor appointments, tax filing, school reminders, recipes, and various and sundry other important dates. So when I saw this on Pinterest I HAD to make it right away. I have stacks of sticky notes and markers so putting off getting supplies for the project as I normally do was not an issue.
I made mine on cardboard and used an edge of a envelope to draw my lines….unbelievably easy. I even have notes stacked under the ones you can see for next week.
I hung this on the side of my fridge where I can see it 24 times a day to keep my mommy-frazzled mind on track.
So thanks to Cornflowerblue Studio I can now continue on with my sticky note obsession, but in a much more neat and orderly fashion.
Ya’ll can laugh at my low-tech-ness if you feel the need…but I won’t forget to get the boys teacher a birthday card this week. So…take that!
I always try to remember to do this..I love seeing other mom’s post their Oprah-like Favorite Things. Motherhood, working or not, is a major challenge and sometimes learning about a few things that make your life a little easier and your nerves a little calmer is a game changer. (In full disclosure this should have been my December Favorite Things post…but who has time to work in the month of December?)
We should all share our secrets. That’s my philosophy. Oh, and we should all stop getting Botox and just play fair. ***Credit to Kyle Richards on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills for that one
So here is what I can’t live without this month:
FairyDrops Scandal Queen Mascara – A Japanese cult favorite and it rocks. Want baby doll eyelashes??? Use this.
Dukan Diet Protein Only Days – I bought this book when the US version came out a while back. I don’t follow diets per se, but I like to read all the theories. The thing I like about this plan is the Attack Phase aka Induction is only three days. After that add in veggie to your protein. One you reach your ideal weight just eat normally with one Pure Protein day a week. Easy way to beat Holiday carb/sugar bloat. Just one day a week of nothing but protein. It works.
Water – and lots of it. Not enough sleep and too much sugar = bloat. More water = less pouch.
GelaSkin’s Union Jack iPhone stickers – I live and die by my iPhone. It’s an extension of me. And Geleskins are cheap and hip.
Kenneth Cole Reaction Little Girl Boots – The girl cannot get these off her feet and she is like the Houdini of shoes. We get at least 12 compliments on these every time she wears them and I’m not exaggerating. The best part is watching my dumbfounded husband trying to understand why so many people care about our baby girls boots.
Fitbook Black – This is the be all/ end up fitness and nutrition tracker. I am OCD when it comes to tracking what I eat and my work outs. I used to track everything in a small lined notebook, but Fitbook makes it so much easier and impossible to forget anything. Plus it’s compact size makes it easy to stick in your bag to take with you. Now you have no excuse to journal. Or obsess as I like to call it.
So that’s it for this month…I already know what my favorite things for February are going to be..but I can’t tell you yet. Always leave ‘em wanting more. Ha!
If you are a mother and you don’t know what ScaryMommy is you need to click here and go into the light sistas.
It’s online anonymous confessional for moms and its AWESOME. A place to admit that you sometimes want to run out of the house screaming and never come back. A place where you can safely admit what you really think about your bitch of a mother-in-law, your over-achieving friends and you can out every single disgusting habit your DH has. It’s like wonderland, really.
I just found the APP for my iPhone yesterday and I am so addicted. Reading the other mommy’s confessions I can tell you this, there are a lot of cheaters out there and A LOT of freaky chicks that do some freaky stuff when their hubby’s are away. There are also a lot of women out there that feel bad about themselves and an online HUG or OMG Me Too! could change someone’s outlook on life.
It’s not just mom’s whining and cheating. There are some funny mo’fo’s out there raising kids and frankly I’m glad I’ve finally found them. There is absolutely no political correctness here.
Check it out and leave a comment about what you think. Telling your deepest and most embarrassing secrets with no consequences is liberating.
