Delurking

It's National De-lurking Week! What is lurking? For all you un-internet lingo savvy people, here's what wikipedia says it is:

In Internet culture, a lurker is a person who reads discussions on a message board, newsgroup, chatroom, file sharing or other interactive system, but rarely participates.

Still don't understand? It's when you read my blog regularly and never comment. The point is this week you should comment on the all the blogs you read but never comment on.

Tell me a little about yourself! Yes, I wanna know who you are! Go ahead, tell me i'm a terrible writer/parent/crazy loon.

P.S. I fully understand that this will tell me that a have a total of 1 regular reader and I'm ok with that.

Back on the Binky

I'm sad to say the Babe has relapsed into his binky addiction again.

He was very much a binky baby. When he was fairly little, we restricted the binky usage to bedtime only. We didn't want him to be one of those kindergarteners who takes their binky to school the first day.

After a while, we tried taking the binky away during bedtime. It was hard! He'd find an old binky here or there. He'd hide it. If he didn't find one, he'd cry at night till I'd finally give in.

Finally, I cut the rubber part of the binky off so he could hold the binky but there wasn't a sucking part. He did realize it was "broken" and we'd throw it away every night. Then after he was asleep, I'd get it back out of the trash and put it away from the next day he'd ask for it. He finally stopped asking for it.

After the Little Lady was born, it became clear that he wanted her binky now and when we got the Little Foster Man, it got worse!

We've tried to address it and be firm with a no-binky policy. That didn't work. Now we're trying a let him have it approach in hopes he'd lose interest. It's not working and the bad part about it is he's got a little rash under his lip from sucking the binky all day.

There are lots of binky lying around our house with 2 little babies.

We don't know what to do now. Any suggestions?

Ohio State Loses

Today's a sad day. The Buckeyes lost the big game tonight. I'm pretty disappointed. Even Congress was out of session for the game today. The Buckeyes were undefeated. The Gators (who beat them) had lost 1 game this season. So it was a great match up! But my buckeyes choked. It was pretty bad too with the final score of 41-14. We had to go to the gym to watch the game and our babysitting time was up so we didn't even get to watch the pathetic beating.

We'll get it next year.

P.S. Bet you didn't know I was soccer fan.

Car Seat Opinion

I have stayed away from the car seat issue because my opinion is far from typical. Recently, in this article, they found that 10 out of 12 car seats failed their testing. The tests were done about 5-8 miles above the federal requirement of 30 miles per hour. Let's hope that we're not driving any faster than 38 miles an hour if we get into a car accident.

Before I get onto my soapbox about car seats, the part about the article that bothers me the most was this quote. It was from the CEO of Evenflo, which is the maker of the car seat that performed the worst in the test.

"Over decades of doing testing, we know that unless every variable is strictly adhered to - from the way the seat is strapped in to the crash test dummy used - the variables can affect the result."

This doesn't make any sense! Now he is simply pointing the finger at us when in reality he needs to stand up and take the blame. Car seats shouldn't take an engineering degree to install and use properly! It shouldn't be the fault of the user when moms are trying their best to install those things properly it's just too complicated!

Now for my soapbox. For a long time, I've struggled with car seats in general. I understand the concept that it protects our children but I can't understand how it's humane to strap our children down to anything. If I strapped my child to the bed for 6 hours in my home, CPS would be out here the next day if someone found out. Even if I did it for 15 minutes, they'd take me to jail.

I do put all my children in age/weight appropriate car seats even though I don't quite agree with the concept. I also realize that they do save children's lives.

Squeals of Delight

Thankfully, the Little Lady has been doing a ton better this last month! Yesterday, she turned 4 months old! She's started eating rice cereal twice a day is loving it! She's also grown out the colic a little. Or maybe it's just that we're understanding her better.

As anyone who has called me recently knows, she has started the cutest thing. I'm pretty sure the Babe never did this, it's a girl thing. She's squeals! Not just a normal cooing type squeal but a high pitch hurts yours ears squeal. She does it all day long. It's pretty cute.

Pirates of the Restaurant

Today's gem comes from the Babe when we were eating out the other day.

After we were finished eating, a few construction workers came and sat down in a booth next to us. One of them happened to be wearing a bandana around his head.

The Babe looked over and said loudly enough for them to hear, "Look Mom, a Pirate!"

This is the part where I climb under the table and die from embarrassment.

Is there a Professor in the House?

The hubby is have an incredible week! Today he finally got the answer that he is going to start teaching a class at UNLV! We are super thrilled! He's always wanted to teach but didn't want to become a teacher because they hardly make any money (not that we currently make any money). So he's always had this dream of teaching at Junior College on the side while still being an Engineer most of the time.

We're going to see if his dream is really all that he's built it up to be.

Usually to teach at the University level, you have to have a doctorate degree (which he wants but I would never let him get). But a lot of times they will allow adjunct teachers to come in and teach a class here or there. He'll be one of those. He's only teaching 1 class and it's going to make his work schedule CRAZY! But we'll survive and see if he likes it.

He assures me that I can be his secretary/grader/slave. Yeah! But supposedly out of the deal I am getting to take a ballet class this semester. I'm super thrilled about that!

Is there a Professional Engineer in the house?

Today the hubby got his letter saying he passed his Professional Engineering Exam! So he's not technically a professional engineer yet because he has to work for X number of years. His time will be up in May. He was super excited because he hardly studied for the test and he took it just after the Little Lady was born.

Another exciting bit of news today. I sold the baby grand piano today also! It was a little big for our house and it wasn't really the piano I wanted. So I sold it for a profit and I'm happy about it! We'll see how it plays out but if everything goes right then the people will come pick it up next Tuesday. We'll be a 1 piano family again.

We should have went out to dinner and celebrated or something.

2006 in Numbers:

Posts: 181 (with November winning with 22 posts)

Children on January 1^st: 1.

Children on December 31^st: 3.

Pets acquired: 37 (25 of which were tomato caterpillars)

Attempts at Potty Training: 9.

Potty Trained Kids: 0.

Sewing Projects Completed: 9

Bruised/Bloody Accidents: 4 (all of which involved the Babe)

Raises: 2.

Vacations: 9 (NO, I did not count the trip to the hospital when I had the Little Lady)

Children killed (by parents) on vacation: 0.

Baseball Games Attended: 2 (and no that is not enough)

Posts About Fighting with the Babe to get him to eat: 10.

Recipes I listed: 18.

Pictures of Success from the Garden: 4.

Complaints about Doctors: 6 (can you tell I love Doctors)

Posts I wrote about wanting the Little Lady out: 31.

Times I’ve wanted her back in: number is too large to be determined.

Note: I went through all my archives today and these are just the ones that I chose to blog about. I'm sure there were more that I didn't blog about and can't remember.

From Baby to Young Girl

“I think I’m sick,” you said.
“I don’t think so but how bout I sit with you for awhile.”
“Ok.”

In the next few moments, I noticed how much you’ve changed in just 3 years.

My how you have grown in 3 years.

When you came into this world you needed me so much-everything depended on me. You were my world and I was yours.

Life continued like that for 14 months.

Then you discovered the freedom that came with walking, you found friends, and DORA. You were still my world and I was still your world but I had lost a little piece of you.

Then you turned 2 and the next 12 months were filled with toddler beds, shapes, colors, counting, pottying, dressing yourself, and more DORA. You were still my world but somedays I didn’t feel like I was in yours.

Now you are 3 ½ (almost), you can spell your name (eyes closed even), tell me every letter of the alphabet, reach the sink- without a step stool – and you still
L O V E DORA…

…but you have been (for the first time) choosing other things over the character that has brought joy to you for so long. With all the changes you have had, Dora has been there steady and strong. There was a time I said “I am sick of Dora” but the last few weeks watching you and realizing you are growing up I have been thinking “Where is Dora?” She, like me, is still there but not needed as much as she once was.

I don’t know what changes the next 3 years will bring but I am glad I get to share them with you.

This post was written by Adymommy. She blogs at http://www.adymommy.blogspot.com/ where she writes about her life with 3 young kids and a wonderful husband. They plan to homeschool so they do lots of crafts and "homework" with the kids and she is always looking for fun educational things to do with them. I have a post about Becoming a Mother over at Adymommy's blog today. Please check it out.