Kiss the Girls and Make them Cry

So it turns out my Big Man is a little Casanova. Yesterday when I was going to pick up Big Man, another mother said, it was so cute, he was kissing her daughter yesterday. I laughed and said, we should watch out, I had the same report from another mother last week! 9 months old and already a play-eh. LOL. If I were those little girls, I would watch my nose. When he "kisses" me he usually is trying to bite (gum) my nose off.

Can't really help the girls though, he is such a CUTIE!

Kids and Television

So a new study shows that American kids watch too much tv. I believe that. I am guilty of that. I don't think I let my kids watch a lot of tv -- they get about 10 minutes a day m-f (as we get ready to leave, only after they are fully washed, brushed and dressed) and about 2 hours a day each on Saturday and Sunday (more if we let them watch a movie). But we are lucky. We have 3 kids. They can spend a lot of time playing with each other. When we had one, she probably watched more than this, even as an infant. We would put her in front of Baby Mozart videos so we could make dinner, do laundry, eat, etc. But now that they have each other, we just tell them to go play, and we can get stuff done.

But the part of the study that really scared me was the determination that 20% of kids under 2 have their own television in their bedroom. Are you kidding me??!! The study also said that 43% of 3- to 4-year-olds have TVs in their rooms. I am flabbergasted. I remember getting a little 5" black and white tv from my Grandfather when I went to college. I was so excited. It was my first tv, and I couldn't belive how lucky I was to have it. 43% of 3-4 year olds??!! My kids would watch tv 10 hours a day if they had a tv in their rooms. Seriously. That is nuts. Who are these people?

Like I said, I am not all doom and gloom about tv. I think the choice of programming is imporant. There are appropriate shows for kids and LOTS and LOTS of inappropriate stuff. Parents should be the decision makers on what they let their kids watch. Hard to do with a tv in a kids room.

Ewwww! Food issues.

So I'm flipping through a magazine last night and see an ad for Wheat Thins. Except it was for Cinnamon Wheat Thins. YUCK. I like Wheat Thins. They are yummy. But they are savory. Not sweet. Don't put cinnamon on them. I mean, I know cinnamon is a versatile spice. I love cinnamon in chili. I've even had it on chicken. But cinnamon wheat thins sound like they are trying to be graham crackers. That grosses me out. I hate when foods try and be something they aren't.

Of course I hate more when foods pretend to be other foods. Turkey bacon? I'm sorry, a pig and a turkey are VERY different animals. I know it is healthier, but I'd rather have bacon less often than have turkey bacon at all.

I have the same problem with shelf-stable dairy. That's just wrong. If it has milk in it -- refrigerate it! I won't eat shelf-stable pudding or milk if you put a gun to my head. At least pretend to refrigerate it. Are there less chemicals in Jell-o brand pudding? I doubt it, but they sell it in the refrigerated section, and that's where I like it.

My exception is Velveeta. Love the stuff. I fully acknowledge its a chemical stick -- but its a yummy, melty, creamy chemical stick. I also bought some of the shelf-stable milk to keep in the diaper bag from the kids. But it grosses me out.

What types of weird foods gross you out?

Sometimes we underestimate our kids...

So last week was my oldest birthday..she turned 5. We had a birthday party and invited her whole class and our friends. There were upwards of 25 kids there. It was NUTS. Luckily it was outside at a picnic pavilion we had rented nearby a playground. The kids were like a giant freight train on that playground. They would climb up all the equipment and go down the slide in one big continuous line. If you were one of the smaller kids you simply got trampled. It was insane. But everyone had fun (even the trampled ones).

DD got SO many presents. It was horrifying, really. I thought of my playroom, and the complete lack of empty rug surface, that I couldn't bear the thought of any more toys down there. So. I told her (and her sister) that before we brought the presents downstairs they had t fill 2 trash bags with toys we could give away to children who didn't have so many. They were like "GREAT!". They happily tramped downstairs and filled three trash bags within about 10 minutes, with little prompting. It was amazing. They were so excited. I figured they didn't understand we would really be getting rid of this stuff. Nope, they got it. A few days later we all went on a "secret mission" to Goodwill to drop it off. They loved it. I loved it!

I'm going to try and institute the same thing about once a month!

Tiny Fertility Rant

So I had fertility treatments with my first two kids. We tried getting pregnant on our own, drs could find no reason we couldn't get pregnant, but it simply wasn't working. We did stimulated IUIs and got pregnant very quickly with both girls. Then I got pregnant all on my own for my big guy. I was relating this story recently to a coworker. She said, "that happens all the time, once you aren't stressed about it, you get pregnant." To all of you out there who haven't faced fertility issues -- DO NOT SAY THAT. It is offensive, like it is my fault I couldn't get pregnant because I was too stressed out. For the record, we weren't stressed for the first year. You only get stressed after it isn't working for a while. So that entire first year we weren't stressed, we just went off the pill and waited for nature to take its course. We only got stressed when it didn't work after a year.

So, anyway, for those of you not in the know...please be sensitive. Every time someone says that (and it is ALOT) it really pisses me off.