Two may actually in fact be better than one.

Today was "dress up as a hero" day at Shaylin's school. Guess which mom forgot? Yea, that's right.. this one did. My mom picked up Shaylin from school who was evidently pretty devastated about her mommy forgetting to dress her up. Supposedly she was the only one in her class who didn't have a costume on.. and since this is a private school, where all the parents are over-achievers.... I wouldn't be surprised if she was the only one in the whole little school. Bad Mommy. I felt HORRIBLE!

Then after I pick up the kids and am halfway home, the PTC calls to remind me today is the pick up day for the fundraiser cookie dough. I somehow managed to miss this on the calendar as well. It becomes apparent to me at this point.... that I either need a personal assistant or a man in my life. I'm leaning toward the personal assistant... better yet: a manny

On a bright note, Levi was one of the best sellers for the fundraiser. This almost makes up for my lack of ability to dress up my child on "hero day". I said almost okay.... I'm sure I'll dwell on it at least for the remainder of the week.

cooties dot com

First off, I would like to state the fact that this is the first time since I've gotten home that I have sat on my butt for longer than 3 minutes. That detail paired with my freshly poured glass of pinot grigio... makes me all sorts of content.

Levi got in trouble at school today. Today AND yesterday! Which is nuts because yesterday was the first time all year his teacher sent a note home about him misbehaving. I gave him a long lecture last night when I found the note and reminded him this morning when I dropped him off to NOT get in trouble again or there would be hell to pay (yes I did actually slip and use the word hell.. which he corrected me on, but I ensured him it was ok to use it in this context and that the rules of not saying "hell" didn't apply to me). So of course today he would have to get in trouble again only this time he even got "written up"! This is the first time we've had that happen. I felt the need to get creative with punishment. Of course I started with a lecture... this time I took the guilt route since evidently yesterday's "mean mommy" lecture held no long term effect. Success.. I made a breakthrough when the eyes began to water.. then I followed up with lots of love. When he got over his 5 minute emotional moment he was told "no toys, no tv, nothing fun! you're going to do your homework and when you finish... you're going to write lines!" 25 lines of "I will obey" (its a short line.. I'm not that mean). It was great because after each line he wrote he counted how many he had left.. punishment with a learning twist. I like it. We'll see how well that worked.. if he comes home with red pen notes tomorrow I might have a breakdown.

Shaylin only had 1 meltdown today, which is a huge improvement. Its always something unpredictable with her. You never know when that cute little girl is going to bust out her psychotic monster personality. The magic is in the "later". I read somewhere that parents use the word "no" more than any other word but for me I think its "later". Its a much safer word. "can I get a new toy?"... "later".. "can you read this 35 page long dora book?"... "later"... "can I have a cookie"... you get the drill. Even now when I say no this is how the conversation goes:
"mommy, can I have some candy"
"no"
"later?"
"no"
"after later?"
"no"
"monday?"
"no!"
then the meltdown. I should have ended it with the first later.

Happy Birthday, Girl

So today is Shaylin's 4th birthday. 4 years of raising a girl.... 14 more to go. Well, I guess really it will be longer than that but putting it that way makes me feel like the chances of going completely nuts seem a little less likely.
Who am I kidding... I'm obviously already half way to the nut house.
Lately Shaylin has been completely obsessed with all the ridiculously girly stuff. I used to think that she wouldn't ever be a girly girl because she was always so dirty. I mean, any little girl who enjoys getting food in their hair, spitting, and biting their toe nails just doesn't strike me as the princess kind. However, she has managed to somehow pull it all off. She loves getting her nails painted even though shortly after she begins the process of biting all the nail polish off.... then begging me to re-paint them the next day. She's a mess... perhaps the acorn doesn't fall far from the tree after all.
I was going through some of her baby pictures to reminisce..... so here's some to share:

I love them :)

Happy 4th Birthday Ms. Shaylin 

"you're the best mommy ever"

My favorite sentence. Anytime Shaylin gets new clothes or shoes, or in this case a Halloween costume, she goes on for a good hour about how I'm the "best mommy ever". Its great that she's learning these skills at such a young age. I got her a fairy princess costume. This is because she couldn't decide whether she wanted to be a fairy.. or a princess. Thank you Old Navy for solving my crisis situation. It even said so on the tag.

Here's the lesson I learned this week. Always open the back-pack on Friday. I am absolutely disgusted by the smell of old pop-corn. Do you know what I'm talking about? When you throw it out but then forget to take the trash out and the next day it smells like burnt butt hole meets butter. Well I made the mistake of opening Levi's back-pack tonight and getting that awful wiff. Why is there a bag of pop-corn in there? I didn't send him to school with it. I don't understand. Nor do I appreciate it.

I decided to take some pics of Levi's artwork while I was cleaning out the bag. This way I can cherish them forever but not have to keep all of them, because let's face it, I'm like the extreme opposite of a hoarder... (I googled a term for anti-hoarder and came back with only one result: an  "over-exuberant sparseness nut". I can handle that.)

baby levi (kind of creepy.. but cute)

(his house..)