Dudes. This was really hard. I want to give you all a stroller. Okay, that’s not true. But I want to give at least 5 of you a stroller and the rest of you all big hugs.
In the end, the stroller goes to Carrie. The stroller goes to Carrie mostly because she called me an amazing mom but also because she needs it and she used visual-aids in her post.
Congrats and I’ll try to give you all more free stuff soon!
Anything can become a computer.
My favorite things about these pictures are her fabulous impression of my posture while typing, her intense concentration as her fingers fly over the keys and her fuzzy pink Hello Kitty slipper mouse. It must be an optical, because she’s not using a mouse pad.
I came back from a late church meeting last night a couple of hours after Laylee and Magoo should have been sleeping in their beds. I closed the door behind me and turned around to see Laylee at the top of the stairs grinning down at me in the last pair of footy jammas she owns, the fuzzy pink ones I can’t bear to part with yet, the ones that are 2 sizes too small.
My first thought was consistency. We’ve been really inconsistent this summer with bedtimes, snacks gone wild, discipline, and pretty much every aspect of parenting and family life. This week we’ve been really focusing on getting back into routines and teaching our kids that because we love them, we give them limits and now we’re finally gonna get back to actually holding them accountable to those limits.
So my first instinct when I saw her up out of bed was to say, “What do you think you’re doing? Bed. Now.” But I just couldn’t do it. Looking at her sweet face beaming down at me, I thought, “She just wants to greet me. How does she want me to respond? How would I want my mom to respond? What will she remember about me when she’s grown and gone?”
I let my face break into a very sincere grin and exclaimed, “Oh LAYLEE! I’m so glad you’re still awake! I’m so happy I get to see you before I go to bed.” I rushed up the stairs and gathered her in my arms and could feel her face squishing joyfully against my shoulder.
“Why don’t you head back to bed sweet pea?”
“Mom,” she whispered in my ear, “I’m making a copy of my Jesus book for Ellie. I’m working so hard and writing and drawing and do you wanna see it?”
I looked at the black pen on her freshly bathed face and hands and considered for a second. Again, my instinct was consistency. “She should already be asleep and she’s up coloring in her room. We have to get up really early for church and she’s covered in pen and if I go look at her picture, I’m encouraging her to disobey her dad and stay up late when she should be sleeping.”
Again I looked at her face, so eager to please, so excited about her project, not at all calculating or manipulative (Trust me. I know what those faces look like too.) and I told her to run quick and get her picture to show me.
She’s just beginning to really enjoy writing letters and she has latched on to this little tiny book and wanted to copy it for her friend. I was overcome with cuteness and sent her off to sleep. A few minutes later I walked by her room and saw her hunched under the nightlight, carefully transcribing. I remembered late night games and books read with flashlights under the covers and I smiled and left her to her fun.
The products of last night’s adventure were a snuggly and happy preschooler today who was patient with me when I did tell her she couldn’t do certain things, and this little book that’s sure to be a family treasure. Looking at the outrageously happy faces on the pictures she drew last night, I realized that love is the most important thing I need to be consistent about with my kids.
“I think God made us so we could toot because that noise is HILARIOUS!” [Read more from Laylee at Parenting.com]
Chicco is giving away strollers like they’re going out of style. I’m all for giving things away and for helping make strollers go out of style so I’m pleased to promote the contest going on at Chicco where one stroller will be given away each day in September (4 more chances to win!). I’m also excited to announce that one Daring Young Mom reader will win a stroller as well (that makes 5 chances to win!).
To win at the Chicco site, you have to answer a couple of easy questions. To win at Daring Young Mom, you need to do a bit more work but the winner will be chosen from a much smaller group. It’s a really cool stroller that retails for about $150.
Here’s what you need to do:
Convince me that you NEED this stroller more than my other readers. You can do this through photos of your current nasty dirty stroller, poetry, song or interpretive dance. Dan and I will judge all entries in a completely biased and unfair way, choosing whichever one we happen to like the best. I will be accepting entries through this Sunday, September 30th at noon PST. Send me an email with your plea and someone will be getting a free primo stroller. I’ll announce the winner Sunday night!
(Oh, and if you like The Office and you like free stuff, go check out Eve’s giveaway. You have to hurry. The contest ends in a few hours when the season premiere airs.)
The Contest is Closed. I’ll let you know as soon as we have a winner!
I’m late but hope this still counts. Shannon has been doing Works for Me Wednesday for ages. I think it’s a fabulous idea but I never quite get my stuff together on the actual Wednesday so then I feel silly posting something that works for me on a day that the alliteration wouldn’t work as well.
Then Wednesday comes around and nothing seems to be working for me so I don’t post anything. Now I have read and loved Shannon since long before she became the mighty force of internet rock-stardom that she is today and it tickles me pink to present my very first WFMW 3 minutes before midnight Pacific Standard Time.
It works for me to have diapers, hand sanitizer and fruity cheerios on hand when I need them. If you don’t think you could ever NEED fruity cheerios, then I think you should check your kids to see if they’re cyborgs or hippies or something.
I usually keep the essentials in my giant diaper bag of an excuse for a purse, but every once in a while we’re out on the town and I notice I forgot to remember to restock my bag. Never you fear because I have everything I need right at my fingertips in a little plastic basket beside the driver’s seat.
Today I was driving around and Magoo said, “Here you go mama!” and gleefully tried to hand me a rather ominous booger. I pulled a piece of toilet paper from the basket, snagged the goob and disposed of it in my very own suspended garbage receptacle, an item that also works for me quite nicely.
Dan was the first to install one of these in the car and I find it simply ingenious. Instructions for installation are as follows:
1. Make a grocery list.
2. Gather up the children and rubber lizards from your house, put them in the car and drive to the store.
3. Unpack the kids, force them to hold your hand across the street and take them into the store.
4. Jam their writhing wriggling legs into a shopping cart and strap them in.
5. Buy milk, at least three things from your shopping list, Diet Dr. Pepper and cookies.
6. Just say no to 3 types of high fructose insanity in the checkout line while reading about all the celebrities who may or may not be pregnant.
7. Pull the money out of your shirt and pay for groceries.
8. Head for home.
9. Let your kids pull all but one bag of groceries along the cobblestone driveway until the bags shred and the food spills all over the place.
10. Remember to put the milk in the fridge within 4-6 hours of arriving home.
11. Smell it each time you drink it until you imagine it’s probably rotten and then throw it out, even though it just smells like milk.
12. Take the one grocery bag you saved from certain death back out to the car.
13. Thread the handles over the arm rests of the front captains’ chairs.
14. Fill it with debris, wrappers, boogers and polly pocket shoes.
15. Repeat.
These things work for me. And it’s Wednesday.
