Mmmmm

I love cookies. I really do, my favorite is oatmeal chocolate chip. However, there has to be a little added extra flour to make sure the cookies stand up instead of go flat, they need to have about 2/3 of the sugar called for, they have to be slightly undercooked so they don't get tough and crunchy and the chocolate chips have to be Ghirardelli Chocolate 60% Cacao Bittersweet Baking Chips.  See?

Those ones. They used to only be sold at Savemart for $4 a bag, and I was known to buy 3-4 bags at a time if I was lucky enough to find them on sale.  But now Target and their blessed new grocery section has them for half that price and I am elated! Yes, I really love them that much. 


Cookies are my down-fall.  I am generally a very healthy eater. I mostly cook meals that I would consider on the high end of "good for you" (though when Kaylee is fussy that high-end moves a little downward due to my lack of hands. It is harder to cook in general without hands...even harder to cook healthy. boxed becomes much simpler) and I am good at controlling my portions. I can pretty easily say no to cheap out of the box desserts, or have just one and be content.  But homemade cookies, especially of the chocolate chip variety have me helpless. I have some in my frig now, hold on and I will get one.  You see, after talking about it so much I have decided I need one.  Be right back....................................................................................... ..........................................................................................................I got two. You see, they were sticking to one another and it seemed sad to just rip them apart...right? 


I am eating these cookies now as a demonstration to you of my addiction. Why you ask? Well, just in case you didn't believe me. I needed too....right? If I had just written down that I liked cookies you would have nodded understanding and moved on.  But now you know I REALLY like cookies and you are looking at me with your head cocked to the side and your eyes a little squinted. See now you shake your head just slightly and smirk a bit...starting on my second cookie.  I must re-unite him with his lost love lady cookie! It is for the sake of the cookies that I eat them.  We can't have a depressed cookie on our hands, that just wouldn't do! Now your eyes look up for a moment as you smile in pity and shake your head again, it is almost a laugh, but could also be taken as a guffaw.  Admit it, you did!

I have been on a weight loss mission since Kaylee was born.  I was my ideal weight and in pretty good shape when I got pregnant. I had worked hard to get there losing to 30lbs below my pre-pregnancy weight after having Ayla. I then got up to that weight again while pregnant - and added a few more. I gained 15lbs while pregnant with Taylor, gained 25 with Ayla and this time I gained close to 45. I think I better stop with three kids or who knows how big I will get! So after Kaylee was born the first 20 came off right away and then stopped. So I was faced with 25lbs still to go. 6 weeks pp I decided I needed to work a little to get the extra off or it would stay put so I started working out and watching very close to what I eat. Weight started to come off. I am proud to say that in three weeks I have now lost 8lbs and I am starting to feel more like myself. There is still a bit to go, but somehow 15ish lbs seems much more doable then 25. 


Goodness I am distractable today!  Is that a word? Firefox doesn't think so and he just put all those squiggly red lines under it. Makes me feel like I am being yelled at "BAD SPELLER! You wrote that word wrong! See? See? See those lines? That means you spelled it WRONG!" And yet none of his suggestions are correct. You see, I am a sight reader which means that I may not know how to spell a word, but I will recognize the correct spelling when I see it which means that spell-check is my friend - including Firefox and his wiggly lines. Well for now those lines will just have to stay there! 

You see what I mean by distractable? I joke that I have the attention span of my youngest child in order to keep-up with them.  That means that at the moment I can only pay attention for the same amount of time as a 2 month old.  I would also like to claim that this means I need a 3 hour morning nap and will possibly cry this afternoon for a few hours for no apparent reason.  I'll claim that is why my house is cluttered. I was busy crying...and possibly had eaten too many chocolate chip cookies....


Well I just caught myself staring for several minutes at a toy bear on the floor so I believe my blogging abilities are limited this morning - and you, my reader are probably very bored.  Would you like to see some pictures of my babies?

Here is Ayla on her first day of school - and just for good measure I will add one of Taylor on her first day too: They both feel so huge to me! Taylor is starting a bit of an awkward stage, which for some reason I love. It means she is getting bigger and we have some of our best conversations then. Her mind is just growing by leaps and bounds and I am shocked every day by her cognitive abilities. And Ayla? This morning out of the blue she said "Are you thinking what I'm thinking Mama?" I had to laugh, where had she heard that? But when I asked her what she was thinking she got all embarrassed and would only say "I don't know"and ran off to play elsewhere. She doesn't like being laughed at.

At one week old Kayle was just over 5lbs

See how big her newborn clothes were on her?

Kaylee was 7lbs 3oz and 20inches at one month old.

Almost a smile there. We got her first real smiles at just under 4 weeks

You can see the clothes fit her a little better. She rolled over for the first time at exactly 6 weeks. We were shocked! She did it three times in a row and now does it often when she is put on her tummy.  She rolls tummy to back, hasn't yet rolled back to tummy but hey, we have have time!

She just had her 2 month and now she is 9lbs 6oz and almost 22inches. The girl is huge! 

 Now we get smiles all the time and sometimes a chuckle that sounds very close to a laugh.

No wonder most of her newborn clothes don't fit her anymore! Now I need someone to give my newborn girl clothes too, anyone need some? I like giving my baby clothes where they are truly needed instead of just dropping them off at a thrift store. If I don't have any takers I will likely donate them to a shelter.

Now the little miss has woken. But I will add a few more one handed just because I like them. Enjoy!

All for now. Be well!

what do I want to be when I grow up?

When Taylor grows up she wants to be a ballerina astronaut.  I wasn't sure what Ayla wanted to be, so I just asked her and she answered "Captain" which means she wants to someday be in charge of the star ship Enterprise.  Yes, both my kids are crazy about Star Trek.  Blame my husband, it certainly is not my doing! 

My little brother used to want to be a dragon. I think he has since changed his mind...but I have not asked him recently so I can't tell you for sure.

When I was Taylor's age I wanted to be a Vegetarian (excepting pork products, I liked ham. Yes...I know) Veterinarian, mostly because I was a picky eater and loved cats. I can remember my mom asking me with that funny smile (which meant I was the butt of a joke I didn't understand) to tell people what I wanted to be when I grew up. I now understand the joke...and I am embarrassed for my 5 year old self.

Funny, as adults we like asking this question of kids.  And I am a little afraid that we don't ask it for any other reason then our own entertainment.  After all, how many people actually become what they say they want to be at 5 years old? I'm afraid the numbers are fairly low, and for those that actually do follow through, I believe it is more singular focus (or perhaps obsession?) in their life that keeps them on track.

But then I also wonder how many firemen said at 5 they wanted to be firemen?  How about spies? Taylor has been very into spies lately.  Honestly if asked now she might say she wants to be a ballerina/astronaut/spy. Because at 5 years old you really can be anything you want to be, so why stop at one profession when there are so many good ones out there?

As a parent, one thing you are told is to encourage the big dreams. "You can do/be/accomplish anything you set your mind to!" The skies the limit, the world is your oyster...errr...you get the idea. My question is: at what point is it too late?

I decided I didn't want to be a veterinarian one day when I discovered that it required the same amount of work (if not more) then a regular doctor - this means 8 years of school plus all the experience training.  At the time, all that school seemed like it would get in the way of all the playing I was planning on doing as an adult once I no longer had someone telling me it was bedtime. I never came up with another "when I grow up" idea. Not a real one anyhow.  I would jokingly tell people "when I grow up I want to be just like you." as a compliment of sorts.  I would see jobs I thought I would enjoy and think "maybe" but I entered college taking a major that was about as basic as I could discover, because after all, it is just the degree that matters right?

Next year I will be 30. Kaylee is still little so it will be a few years before my kids are all in school and I can have a "real" job. But I can honestly say that at almost 30, I still have no idea what I want to be when I grow up. Is "you can be whatever you want to be" still true? Has my freedom expired? The problem with thinking this way as an adult is that to often logic gets in the way. I am all to aware that if I want to captain a star-ship I am living in the wrong century.  Of course, so is my 3 year old..but she is allowed her dreams.  I would probably just be written off as insane...

When I was a pre-teen I thought the best job ever was to be the person that chose the order songs appeared on an album. I would program my boom-box (yes, that is what I called it) to play different albums in different orders then they were originally designed because I thought they sounded better that way.  I loved making "mixed tapes" because it allowed me to make that executive decision and I would get a thrill when I would listen to it and the transition was just perfect.

For the most part I enjoyed college, and as I am technically not finished yet...I intend to go back and complete a degree.  Of course the question is, do I finish the degree I have already started? Do I pick a more specific one that is more interesting to me? Or do I choose a career first and focus that direction getting the school needed for a real-life job?

My almost completed degree is in Communications with a theater cognate and an emphasis in musical theater (highly useful in today's cooperate world?).  I finished after 4 years (and $30,000 in student loans) with 158 units.  You need 160 to graduate. I was missing one class. College algebra. Yes, I am THAT person. I attempted to finish the class the summer after but with the stress of working, new marriage, new life and finishing school, it ended up being too much and the deadline to complete the class passed me by. I tried again this last summer to get things finished, but on calling APU (my college) I discovered that I was now missing 6 classes, one being language (that I didn't have to do then, but the requirements have changed) and that the university required for graduation that the last 24 units be taken through apu (could not be taken at a jc or another college and transferred) And each unit was $1300.00.  So somehow I had to figure out how to take Spanish (for $5200.00) correspondence, when they offer it 3 miles from my house at the nearest jc.  I asked how that was going to work and the counselor at my school told me to "take the other classes first and we would figure that would when we got there."  Yeah, not good enough for me. I gave up on that one.

Half way through my junior year of college I discovered I should have listened to my mom and been a psychology major.  I LOVE watching and learning about people and their actions, the reason they do things and how life experiences and personality affects actions and re-actions.  Problem is, I cannot see myself as a counselor.  The reason being I have no patience for ridiculousness.  I could not listen week after week to the same thing and not yell "suck it up and get on with your life!" to the client.  So I am not sure I am supposed to be a psychologist...I am not sure anyone would pay me. I know there are different psychology avenues one could take, but I am afraid that it would be a bit of a repeat to my Communications journey - lots of school in an area I am interested in, but with no real end in mind. 

So somehow I need a career that involves people, because I get bored all alone...but not where I have to deal with stupid or lazy people... 

I taught High School for a few years before I had kids and some of the time I loved it.  But parents that had not done their job and had resulted in raising weak, lazy and disrespectful children that had no faith in themselves drove me INSANE. I wanted to take the kids by their shoulders and yell "YOU ARE BETTER THEN THIS" every day of every week. Because they were, but they couldn't see that.  And the result was me sending off an adult into the world that was not ready, that was foolish and stupid and it made me want to curl into ball and cry. And yes, there were the smart ones too that had amazing parents and would make such amazing things of themselves, and have...but the lost ones that could do so much, but either chose not to because it was boring and they didn't care...or theyt didn't believe they could so they didn't try - tore me apart inside and I couldn't do anything about it.

Some people, like my amazing sister in law and several of my wonderful friends can teach everyday and come home and shake it off.  They can focus on the ones that they can help and say a prayer for those they can't and move on.  I can't. Perhaps that is why I will never be a counselor. I get overwhelmed by all the things I can't do that I get lost, and miss my chance to help the ones I can. I STILL ache for the kids I feel I failed, even though there was nothing I could have done.  At least not that I can think of.

Technically I am all grown up now.  Though I am not sure the growing up ever stops, so I suppose it should be ever present tense.  I am all "growing" up now. I like being a mom - most of the time. And finally now that I have three, (and after many many "learning" situations, that continue every day) I feel I am basically pretty good at it. But I don't feel that will be my final job.

I do know that someday I will go back to school. I will take college algebra and Spanish and get good grades in them - even if I am not sure what my ending degree will be. I do think that someday I will be able to say I was/had a career in _____________. But for now, I am still not sure what that title will represent.

You know, if I am being perfectly honest, you know what I really want to do when I grow up? I want to read. I want to read out-loud.  I want to read stories out-loud to people who really want to hear.  I love it, and I have been told I am good at it. I want to captivate an audience by just sitting still and reading - not acting, just reading. Perhaps I could do books on tape? Perhaps I could volunteer at a kids hospital or a retirement home or be the old lady at the library reading to a group of kids every Wednesday at 10am.


Or maybe I will go turn off the TV in the living room, curl up with my three year old and we will devour a mountain of books together. 

Yes, yes I think that will do nicely.

My Tom

If you remember a few weeks/months ago I wrote about how much Taylor, from her red hair to her red rimmed eyes reminded me of Anne.  Please be patient with my posts.  I rarely get more then a few minutes to write of late, so I don't get to go back to proof meaning this post will likely be riddled with errors.

One thing I have learned as the parent of 3 girls is that every child is so very entirely unique.  Now, that concept is not hard to come by, everyone knows that right?  But when you are the mother and you are so very aware that these kids all came from you and daddy, the same parents, the same dna and yet they are so entirely their own person it makes you stand a bit in awe. 

Taylor is my Anne, she is emotional and wants so very much to please, but tends to un-wittingly get caught up in whims that turn disastrous all too easily.  Ayla is not like Anne, she is not emotional, she could care less if she displeases you. After all, adventure is far more important to her then any parental approval. 

Taylor is like Anne.  Ayla? is like Tom Sawyer.

See? She even looks like him!

The girls and I have been reading Tom Sawyer together lately.  I never noticed before just how BAD he is! Funny how something can be just an endearing story, until you read it with your children and all of a sudden you notice all the little evils that you barely brushed past before.  Rather like watching a movie with a parent, you remember it as simply being a good movie, until you watch it again in their presence and realize it is riddled with sexual jokes and bad language that you had not even noticed the first time around.

Tom?  Well, as we know:  "He was not the Model Boy of the village. He knew the model boy very well though--and loathed him." And that about sums up Toms personality!  He lives on a whim, he will commit a crime and although punished, he will look on triumphantly through the lashings because he completed his crime, it was well worth it and no punishment can take that away!  I have no doubt he was constantly dirty and covered in bruises as is Ayla despite my best efforts. 

No tree or rock (or dresser or bookcase) left un-climbed. No dirt left un-touched, no noise left un-made.  Shoes? Who needs them! Mud? Pure heaven. Sticks can be anything you put your mind to and bugs can be the best friend you never knew you were missing. She can and will beat up her big sister, especially if she tattles (which she often does) and yet once cleaned up she has the face of an angle.  Who would suspect such a lovely creature of such mischief, it can't be.  She looks so sweet!

 See?

Last night Ayla and I had a battle of wills.  She came into the livingroom, her face covered in make-up. My make-up. There was no question, she got into my make-up and put it onto herself. But when asked, "what did you do Ayla?" Her answer was an innocent "nothing."

Why do parents always have to ask that question?  They KNOW the answer so they are just baiting. Daring the offender to add further offense to their crime.

But like most parents I wanted to hear the true confession from her and not just inform her of her offense and resulting consequences.  So I asked, "where did you get that make-up?"  She looked me square in the face and said "it is Matthew's (her imaginary friend) make-up and he let me use it." 

Now as the parent I am faced with a dilemma.  I have asked her a question, she has lied to my face.  What now? Do I punish the deed and the lie now? Or do I continue to pursue the truth? I chose to find the truth (and felt as I did the wonderful stubbornness God has graciously given me rising up in response to My Tom's challenge).  "No, that is not Matthew's make-up. Ayla is not telling me the truth. I want the truth NOW or you will receive a spanking."

Now, spankings are few and far between in this house. Usually reserved for the biggest offenses with the intent that they NEVER happen again. Usually the threat of one is enough.  Not this time. Ayla was insistent that it was Matthews make-up (to the point I started wondering if she could be telling the truth...) and received several spankings while bravely standing her ground. After going in circles for a while, I knew I had to change my tactics.  I WILL win this, but this method is not working. All I want is for her to tell me where she got the make-up from.  All I want is the truth that I already know.  But I want to hear her say it, I want a confession. 

At this point, it is no longer about the offense. That is long gone. Now it has become a pure battle of wills.  I want her to tell me the truth, she wants to get away with her lie no matter now outrageous it has become. 

Battles like this must really be comical to the on-looker.  Especially as I am trying to keep from laughing myself.  I do not want to spank my child again, in this case it is obviously not effective so I stand and look around the room; pausing to plan my next course of action. I am trying to find the correct currency as Ayla stands, hands on her hips in defiance. 

Let us try stuffed animals, "if you do not tell Mama the truth your big tiger (her "Nini") will go in time-out." she glares at me, "I want Nini to go in time out!" So away he goes. "Ayla, I need you to obey now and tell me the truth.  Where did you get the make-up?" "Matthew gave it to me!" she again insists. "That is not  the truth.  I do not like it when Ayla lies to me.  Lying is not acceptable." (looks around) if you do not tell me the truth ALL your stuffed animals will go in time-out." "I want them to go in time out!"

Alright, I need to change tactics again. Think....think....yes! "Ayla, I will count to three. And if you are not on your feet showing me where you got the make-up from, all your dresses will go away." (Howling) "BUT I NEED THOSE TO BE PRETTY!" Yes! Success, I made my child cry louder, I have found her currency!

How terrible is that? The louder she howls, the more successful I feel. I now feel terrible for feeling so good.  But I started this and I WILL end it victorious.

I take down all of the dresses and put them into a basket so she can see her empty closet.  "Ayla, do you want me to take these away or do you want me to put them back? All you have to do is obey and tell me the truth and they will go right back into the closet.  Are you ready to tell me the truth?" She stands, sniffs and nods. "I took your make-up mama."

Oh thank God, the ordeal is over. 

She takes my hand, walks me to my room where she points out her folly. She is completely calm now, just the occasional sniff. "I'm sorry for lying Mama." I forgive her, she gives me a hug, we talk about how we need to tell the truth.  We are both exhausted. The tiger and other stuffed animals will remain in time-out until tomorrow. Other then that I think we have both suffered punishment enough. Let us now celebrate telling the truth with hurrays and cheerfully return the dresses to their proper place!

I won. That is all that matters.

Lucky for Tom he didn't have me for a mother, or the stories would have been different!

I am glad I have my Ayla.  She certainly keeps me on my toes!  Life would just be boring without her right? And I have learned many lessons from her.  She is very much like me, and we learn some of the best lessons while looking into our child mirrors. I stubbornly hold onto my stories sometimes as God tries to teach me.  How foolish must some of my stories sound to him? About as foolish as obtaining make-up from an imaginary friend? And yet I stick to my guns no matter the consequences.

I have never been a huge fan of Anne. I cannot identify with that character.  Tom on the other hand? I laugh so hard while reading those books, because I understand!  I know the pain of sitting still, the pleasure of manipulation, the joy of being free to run around and get skinned knees and covered in dirt.  That was me as a kid.  Perhaps that is why I am hard on Ayla, I know she can take it.  Because I needed it myself at 3 years old, I got it, I survived and I am a better person for it. 

Ayla will be ok. She has lots of adventures ahead, some painfun and some exciting.  I am only glad I get the privilege of watching her grow. But for now? I have no doubt that the adventures and therefore, the stories will keep on going!

As the author wrote about Tom:

"When one writes a novel about grown people, he knows exactly where to stop--that is, with a marriage; but when he writes of juveniles, he must stop where he best can."
                                                                                               - Mark Twain