Tuesday, November 16, 2010

My eldest daughter

Kaylee woke up Friday morning to go to school. It was cold and snowy on Thursday, so she had to sweep the snow off and scrape the windows of her car. She comes back in to inform me that she bent her car key and it wouldn't start her car. I told her to take my key (for her car). I look and she has taken ALL my keys. Go outside to tell her she needs to leave me the rest of my keys. She just needs to take the one for her car. Turns out, she has locked my keys in her car. Go and get Chance's keys. Open the car. Ask her why she didn't start the car while she was doing the windows. She says she did. No, you just turned on the radio.

Saturday, Kaylee has State for Ulitmate Frisbee. She gets up and heads to the school by 8am. Then, she calls. She has locked her (or MY) key in the car. Drive to the school, give her the key, she unlocks the door to her RUNNING car. I think the child needs a key implanted in her forehead.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Christmas cards brought to you by Shutterfly!

Have you seen the new Shutterfly cards for this Christmas? I have used Shutterfly in the past to make photo books of our vacations. Digital pictures are great, but there is nothing better than having a custom, hard-back book with all of those vacation memories. And, when I saw the new Christmas card styles, I was sooo excited!!!
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Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Parenthood

Whoever says parenting is easy LIES! It is not easy. And, one of the hardest and most frustrating parts is the fact that you don't know the outcome until 20 years down the line! That's a lot of investment and a long time to find out if you messed up or not.

If the kids are having trouble with friends do I say something or ignore it? If I say something, does that draw attention to it and make it worse? If I ignore it, is that silently saying, "It's ok" (if they hurt your feelings..or you hurt theirs) ...thereby, making it worse?

How much parental guidance is just that, guidance, and how much is being a "helicopter" parent? Is being a "helicopter" parent bad? Is being  an absent parent better? Is there a balance in between? How do you know where that balance is?

If I don't feed my children organically grown, antioxidant rich, good for you food ALL the time, will they question their up bringing later in life?

What form of discipline REALLY works? Time out? Taking things away? Grounding? Extra chores? And, if NONE of those work, what do I do?

When two of them are fighting with the, "Alora" "Arionna" back and forth, do I say something? Yes, it is a life lesson, but since it is a LESSON isn't it my job to teach them how to work these situations out?

Does my child need to have play dates every other day to be successful socially? Or, can I be my true self and just be a hermit?

When they are sick, or injured, how much sympathy is too much? How much extra leeway do you give?

I honestly think there is no black and white in parenting. There are only differing shades of gray. What works for one parent may not work for me...and vise versa. What works for one child, may not work for another. What works in one life stage may not work in the next stage.

I sometimes wish you could pinpoint the "what went wrong" in parenting when you see a parent dealing with a difficult child. I think, "If I knew the mistake they made, I would make sure I didn't make it, too!" But, as a good friend pointed out, I may not make *that* mistake, but I am bound to make others.

All I know is, I probably should just scrap the college funds and start investing in future counseling instead.

Friday, August 6, 2010

(Neverending) Drive to WY

My grandparents celebrate their birthdays 4 days apart. This year, my grandma and grandad celebrated their 89th birthday!!! Of course, the girls and I had to come up to spend some time with them! If it hadn't been this VERY special reason for our trip, we probably would have turned around and went home as soon as we entered WY!

Yesterday morning Kaylee reminded me that her headphones had broke. Can't drive 5 hours without music to listen to. And, I didn't want to have to listen to her playing her DS, so headphones were a must. I agreed to take her to Target. On the way home, I noticed the tire pressure light had come on. We looked at the tires and none were noticeably flat. I figured we would drive home and have Chance take a look. He couldn't tell which tire it was either. His thoughts were the same as mine..take the van to Big O and have them look at it.

Got it there and they said it would be 45 minutes to an hour...so much for leaving at 10am...it was already 10am.

It was indeed 11 by the time they finished, but it was a well spent hour. I found Kaylee a prom dress for next year for $20!!!! and there was a screw in the tire. If we had not noticed the light before leaving, we would have been stuck along I-25 somewhere.

Get home, get the rest of the stuff ready, and in the car...it is almost noon by the time we hit the road.

Get about 1/2 hour from home and see an electronic sign that says "I-25 closed ahead due to accident, use alternate route." Since this is not an area we frequent often, I didn't know an alternate route. So, I called Chance. He can't find anywhere it says the road is closed. By the time he finds the info I need, I have passed the last exit before  the accident. So, we sit in traffic and join the rest of the cars exiting. The detour really wasn't too bad. About 3 miles of small town Colorado. It was good thing Chance had given me directions, because there were no markings for the detour.

Finally make it to Cheyenne after 1pm and stop at the rest area for lunch. Get out food for the girls and realize, my lunch was not packed. Kaylee had gotten it ready while I was dealing with the tire, and she had forgotten mine. So, I headed to the McD's drive through (oh, delicacy...not!). After eating, ask Kaylee if she wants to drive now, or wait until we get to Wheatland. She said she didn't care, so I moved to the passenger seat. That is when Kaylee noticed she had left something behind...her purse...with her permit. So, no driving for her.

I drove the rest of the way.

Made good time until we got to the Campbell County line. Then, construction flagger. They had everyone pulled over onto the shoulder. Found out why about 15 minutes later...the bed of a haul truck was being transported on the back of a flat bed truck. For those of you not familiar with a haul truck, they are LARGE! When I drove them at the coal mine, they were the size of a single story house. That is small compared to the trucks of today. The bed of this truck took up the ENTIRE road! Wouldn't want to meet that wide load on a hill!

Finally, it was our turn to go. It took over an hour to drive the 20 miles to Wright. Stopped at the rest area and there was a LINE for the bathroom! The town of Wright only has about 1,200 people. I have never seen a line 6 deep for the bathroom.

Leave Wright and make great headway. We follow a grass fire truck that is headed into Gillette for the fire meeting and he is moving. Decide to take the "short cut" to mom's house rather than go through town. Great idea, until we turn onto Highway 50 and see...another construction flagger!!! Get stopped for another 5-10 minutes. Finally make it to my mom's street, and her neighbor across the street is moving things from one pick-up to another. So, he is stopped in the MIDDLE of the road...completely blocking my mom's driveway.

Make it and eat dinner...at 7pm. We would have been here by 5:30pm...6 at the absolute latest.

Then, this morning, wake up to no water. There is a water break a few streets down. We are meeting my bf from growing up at the Chinese Buffet (the girls INSIST that we eat there every time we visit) and then we are going to the county fair. Please let it be better than yesterday and the start of today!

Thursday, July 22, 2010

My eldest daughter

Yes, my eldest daughter (who is in the last months of her 15th year) makes me twitch occasionally. Like when she did not have clothes to pack for our weekend in Breckenridge because they were all dirty...and she didn't realize we were leaving the next day (though we had talked about it for weeks). Or when we got to Breckenridge and she didn't have a sweatshirt to wear to the ice arena because she had "forgot"...despite the fact that I had given her a packing list of what she needed to bring.

But, today's post is not about the things she does that make me twitch. Today I write about what she does to make me say, "I have a fabulous teenager!" Last week Kaylee went to CU at Boulder for an Engineering Camp. She believes she wants to be a Mechanical Engineer and we want her to have as much exposure to what that means BEFORE we start paying for college classes. This camp is AWESOME! An entire week spent at CU. Living in the dorms, eating at the cafeteria, designing and building in the Engineering labs. I will admit I was a little jealous when I dropped her off in the lab.

The night before she left for camp she said that the worst part of going to camp for a week was the fact that she would not be able to have dinner with her family. ahhh

Then, Monday the younger 2 girls and myself  headed to dinner by ourselves (Chance was headed to gaming and wasn't going to be home for dinner). Kaylee called because she was also going to dinner and then to the local rec center so she wouldn't be home until late. She wanted to make sure she told her sisters, her dad, and I good night before then. ahhh

Kaylee called home EVERY night she was at camp. Just to chat. Tell us what she had been up to that day and to tell her sisters that she loved them and good night. ahhh

When we were eating dinner at the parent workshop portion of the camp, another daughter was telling her mom all about the week. I smiled. I already knew it all, because my teenager had called every single night.

I have a fabulous teenager!

Monday, June 28, 2010

Cures

Normally, my posts are about things that make me twitch. Not today. Today I am posting something that helped with the twitching...Frozen Hot Chocolate. I first heard about this divine invention on Oprah. My friend and I were tempted to find the restaurant in NY where they serve this delicacy, but we were never in the right area. Lucky for me, a magazine (Woman's Day) was delivered into my mailbox today with a recipe for Frozen Hot Chocolate. Just what I needed on a hot summer day!

Frozen Hot Chocolate

1/2 cup chocolate syrup
1 cup fat-free evaporated milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups ice cubes
Garnish: whipped cream and/or chocolate shavings

1. Combine chocolate syrup, evaporated milk, vanilla and ice in a blender until smooth.
2. Pour into glasses. Garnish.

ENJOY! Feel those twitches disappear.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Barnes and Noble

The other night Chance asked if I wanted to go to Barnes and Noble with him. He had heard from fellow gamers that they were selling all of their games as 75% off. (For those of you who don't know my husband, he is a big time gamer. We have several bookshelves full of games in the basement.)

I asked Arionna and Alora if they wanted to join us. They both agreed. On the way their Arionna asked if there was anything she could by with her money. I told her there wasn't because she only had a couple dollars. I told her the next time we went to Target, she could look in the dollar section.

We park and she asks, again, if she can buy something in the dollar section. No, we are at Barnes and Noble. There is NO dollar section.

Walk in, go to the game section...all games are still full price. Sigh. Look around for 5 - 10 minutes and head back home.

Oh well, at least it got us out of the house for a little bit!

Monday, June 21, 2010

Girls Sleeping in Same Room

Normally, Alora and Arionna have separate rooms. This is VERY good because they have totally different likes in their sleeping environment. Alora likes it pretty dark (just has her door open so the light in the hallway shines in a little). Arionna likes it daylight. My mom always jokes that the planes landing at the local airport are going to think it is the landing strip.

This weekend we had a full house. My parents were down for the weekend. They normally sleep in the basement, but this weekend my nephew and his two friends were also here. So, the boys got the basement and my parents got Alora's bedroom.

The first issue we had was (of course) with the lights. We compromised. We turned off the big lamp next to the bed and the flower lights on the wall .
SMILA BLOMMA Wall lamp light pink Depth: 3 " Diameter: 13 " Cord length: 8 ' 2 "  Depth: 7.5 cm Diameter: 34 cm Cord length: 2.5 m
I moved her blue light from across the room to right next to her bed. Alora felt the light coming in from the hallway was still too bright, so we closed the door to a crack. Lighting issue solved.

Later, I hear the calls of, "Mom, mom, MOM!!" Arionna wanted me to "rewind" her CD. She always listens to the same CD each night. Alora wanted a local radio station. Since Arionna had listened to the entire CD once, I put on the radio station for Alora. Arionna was sobbing that she wouldn't be able to get to sleep without "her" music. I told her we would wait 10 minutes and if she was not able get to sleep I would switch it back to her CD. I came downstairs all proud of myself because Arionna can't tell time. It was going to be a REALLY long 10 minutes...like until the next morning.

When I went up to bed I hear Arionna, "Has it been 10 minutes?" Drats! I switched on the Cd and went to bed.

Next time, I think I will have Arionna sleep on Kaylee's floor and give the parents Arionna's room. At least Kaylee and Arionna both like it daylight when they sleep!

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

OSF Part V

In the middle of OSF sits a train car. There are tables in the train car. Arionna has yearned to sit in the train car for YEARS (yes, I know she is only 6).

When we were seated, Arionna was very disappointed that we were not seated in the TRAIN. I explained that to sit in the TRAIN there could be no more than 4 people at a table. But, when Kaylee went to college (is that really on 2 years away??), we could sit in the TRAIN.

Half-way through our meal, we are once again discussing the TRAIN and Alora pipes up with, "Oh, I thought it was a bus." ????? "Oh yeah, now I see the track."

Ok, so really, the "train" is a trolley car (hence the mascot of the children's menu being Walley the Trolley). But, that is not as funny...so we are sticking with train.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

OSF Part IV

Ok, so we have now all ordered. Alora ended up choosing her typical: Spaghetti with Browned Butter and Mizithera Cheese.

Fast forward to our orders being delivered. The waiter says, "Italian Meatloaf?" This goes to my eldest, Kaylee. I was rather surprised when she orders this, because she is not a huge fan of meatloaf. She will eat it, but it is not something she would request.

She looks at her plate and states, "This isn't exactly what I was expecting."

Me: "What did you think it was?"

Kaylee: "Spaghetti and Meatballs."

??????????

Lesson: When the menu states: MEATLOAF ITALIAN STYLE
Homemade meatloaf prepared with ground beef, sun-dried tomatoes and mozzarella cheese topped with marinara sauce and grilled mushrooms. Accompanied by spaghetti with Brown Butter and Mizithra cheese.

It, indeed, means MEATLOAF!

Kaylee: "But the description on the menu made it sound like meatballs."

Yes, being the good parent I am, I looked up the menu online and showed my 15 year-old the description. Yep, sounds like meatballs to me. WAY more than the description of the dish: Sicilian MEATBALLS.

The waitress must have thought we were lunatics. We were laughing hysterically each time she walked past.

Monday, June 14, 2010

OSF Part III

Ok, so Chance and Kaylee have ordered and we have established the fact that there is only one soup option...minestrone.

It is now Arionna's turn. Soup or salad. Arionna, "Soup or salad."

no, no, no. It is a CHOICE. That is why it is soup OR salad. The OR means one OR the other. Oh, our poor waitress.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

OSF Part II

For those of you who have never been to The Old Spaghetti Factory, it is an Italian restaurant (shocking, I know) that offers a complete meal: bread, soup or salad, a choice of beverage, and (my favorite) spumoni.

It is time to order. Chance starts and the waitress goes through the list: soup or salad. Chance inquires about the soup choices...there is only one... minestrone. Chance selects this and places his entrée order.

Now, on to Kaylee. Soup or Salad. "What kind of soup do you have?" REALLY??? Really, really? It didn't change in the 20 seconds it took your dad to order. It is still the same... minestrone. Yes, I was twitching.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

Welcome!

I have thought of blogging for awhile, but just couldn't figure out a "theme." Tonight, while eating dinner out with my family, I figured it out! When my girls (6, 10, 15) do something that drives me crazy or just makes NO sense, I tell my husband that I am "twitching." With all that went with dinner, there was a lot of twitching going on...and the blog was born!

So, what happened at dinner? This is going to be a mini-series.
Part I
Alora (10) looked at the kids menu and said she wanted to "try" a grilled cheese sandwich. This is a child who does not LIKE melted cheese. Besides, paying for food at a restaurant is not a good time for a child to "try" a new food. At home where I have Kraft singles and a loaf of bread? SURE! Paying $4.99 to "try" it? No.
Alora then got the forlorn look on her face that many girls here age seem to wear. Being good parents, we inquired about her misery. The restaurant only had spaghetti and we had eaten spaghetti the night before (actually it had been her night to cook, so she is the one who made the spaghetti). Chance and I looked at each other and I said, "But you are the one who suggested eating here?!"
Alora responds with, "But I forgot what they have here."
The restaurant: The Old Spaghetti Factory
twitch, twitch