It is just cookies!!

Since my husband and I first got together, he has made fun of the Girl Scouts out selling their cookies every single year. "Ankle biters" he calls them. In truth, they are pretty zealous in their efforts to sell you a box of cookies. Then again, it seems like some people go crazy over the cookies? Why all the hype? It is just a box of cookies!!

Anyway, this year, our own child is now one of smock and vested throngs out selling cookies in their uniforms. She will not be selling at store fronts, due to age restrictions, thank goodness, but none the less, she is selling.

Now that we are in the thick of things, I am beginning to understand why the girls get to crazy about selling. I have often heard Mary Kay representatives as belonging to the "pink Bubble" where their world revolves around MK. Well, I suppose in this case, these girls are in the cookie bubble. There are pep rallies, cheers, songs, parties, you name it, they do it to get hyped up to sell. I find it a little disturbing, honestly.

The thing that I find the most disturbing, is that they are given prizes for selling. Now, don't get me wrong, I believe in teaching children that there is a reward for hard work, but we are talking about selling cookies here, not mowing the lawn. The prizes are really crazy, too. This year, if you sell 2009 boxes of cookies, you get a helicopter ride. Yes. A real one. I believe that this is a lunch with the Girl Scout CEO, and a ride in a helo at the Operation Thin Mint kick off. That would actually be pretty cool. In fact, I think that last year they used a military helicopter for part of it, which would be super cool since her Daddy flies in helicopters for the military. Of course, it would be a little odd to watch her in a helo like his, with him being half way around the world, but I think I am How realistic is that for most girls? How do you sell that many boxes of cookies? If I had Donald Trump on my speed dial, or anyone who could afford just under 8k in cookies, I would be all over this, but alas, I don't.

So, we are going to be very realistic about all of this. We are going to set a reasonable goal for our first year selling, and I am going to show her how that hard work and dedication can also be paid off by knowing that you have done the best you can, and being proud of yourself, even without a helicopter ride.

Unless, any of you happen to have the Donald's number, and you wouldn't mind passing it on.

And, of course, if anyone wants to buy some cookies, please let me know. For just 95 more boxes, she can get a t-shirt. Then, when her dad comes home, I'll put her in the t-shirt, take her to his work, take a pic of her in the t-shirt in his helicopter, and call it a day. Hey, when you have the hook up, you have the hook up.

They Just Keep Coming

One day, I am going to show excerpts from this blog to whom ever my oldest daughter chooses to be with. After all, not only are her actions hilarious, but I think this person may need fair warning as well.

Today she came down stairs in her t-shirt and underwear, what she slept in. After a while she got off the couch, and started roaming the house. She roamed into the back room where I was doing laundry.

"Here. Put these on." I threw her a pair of capri length yoga pants just to run around the house in.

"Mom, these aren't my size."

"Yes they are, they are just short pants."

"But they are baby pants." She was referring to the tight knit as they were stretch.

"No. They are yoga pants. That is the style. Just put them on."

She pull on the pants, checks the out for a minute, then walks out. I kept doing the laundry. A few minutes later, I hear a strange "Ommmm...." sound.

I looked n the living room, and see her sitting in the floor.

"What are you doing?" I ask in her general direction. I got no answer only more "Ommmmmm... Ommmmmm".

I look a little closer, and she is sitting cross legged in the living room floor, hands posed just right with her fingers in a circle, chanting "Ommmmm" repeatedly.

"Lilly, what are you doing??" This time there was a bit more force behind my query.

"My yoga. You said these are yoga pants. So, I am doing my yoga."

Ahhh. I see. I'll just keep doing the laundry. Let me know if that works for you, though, and I might just have to join you.

Please, don't make me potty train!

Please allow me to clarify before I begin this post. I am potty trained. Very well. In fact, I would dare say that I am potty trained the best of anyone in my house, including my husband. Many of you understand that.

In my house, there is only one person left who isn't potty trained, my nearly 2 year old. I know she isn't 2 just yet, we still have a couple of months, but she is realisticly showing tons of signs that she is ready. They are so obvious, they aren't even signs, so much as a smack upside the head telling me that I need to potty train her.

The problem is that I don't want to. I know. Bad mom.

I would, of course, love to no longer buy diapers and wipes. What a financial boon that would be. I would also love for her to be a a little more independant that way, and I know she really wants to as well.

The problem, though, is that I don't want to be chained to a potty for months and months. If you have ever potty trianed a child, girls in particulr, you know jsut how much the idea of being chained to a potty is true. The first few weeks it seems nearly literal, what with you being forced to put them on the potty every little bit, to make sure they don't need to go, and all that. Even, after they get into underwear, you always have to be aware of where the potties are, and be able to drop everything and run to them the second your child utters "I need to go". I remember well all the times that I had to literally drop things and run with the big one because she needed to go, and needed to go then. It takes kids a while to learn to hold it. Those muscles have to grow stronger, and that takes time.

Now I have 2 children. I am not ready and willing to be out shopping with both the girls, and have to drop everything, shopping cart included, and run with both girls to the nearest bathroom. Not the mention the fact that I hate public restrooms, anyway.

I suppose I really don't have a much of a choice. Yesterday morning, while changing her diaper right after we got up, I found a wipe in there. Apparently, if I am not going to potty train her, she is going to do it herself. I don't think that would be pretty. I have seen poo smeared all over my walls before, and I would like to avoid that if at all possible.

So, it is back to potty trianing for me.

Thankfully, this time will be a little different than last. This time I have a laptop and a wireless connection. Maybe I will actually be doing my work in "the office" for a while. Ehhh...not my best joke.

Anyway, here's to potty training for the last time. I hope it is quick, painless, and as mess free as humanly possible.

It Seemed so Innocent.

Children are a trip. By that, I mean that they often take you on an unexpected and wild journey.

Today, my oldest daughter ask me a very innocent seeming question. The conversation that ensued left me feeling like I was rehearsing a warped 5 year old version of "Who's on First?".

We were walking into the park to play, and she looked up at me with those big blue eyes, and ask "Mom, who is your grandfather?"

Ahhh...such an innocent question.

"Which one?"

"The one that died."

"Both of my grandfathers are dead."

"You know, (insert 5 year old attitude here because I am being slow) the one that talked to me."

"Oh. You mean the one you met when you were a little baby?"

"Yes! What is his name?"

"Earnest."

"What is his other name?"

"Compton."

"Oh. Well, what was your other grandfather's name?"

"George Washington Carroll."

"Your grandfather was the president?"

"No. He was named after a President, though. Do you want to know why?"

"Why?"

"His father had just come to America from another country, and he was very proud to be an American. So, he named his son after the first President here."

"I thought the first President was Bush."

"No. Bush was the last President."

"Well who is the next President?"

"Barack Obama is the President now."

"Ok, but who is the next President?"

"Obama just became President."

"Oh. So he is the second President?"

"No, Lilly! He is the President now, but he wasn't second. He is the 44th. We have had over 40 Presidents."

"Oh. Wow. 40! That is a lot of Presidents."

"Go play. Now."

Oh my. What have I started?

My husband is currently deployed. We are making it work.

As I was doing laundry the other day, I came across one of his dirty shirts that had ended up in the clean pile. No idea how that happened. Well, actually, if I were to guess, I would say that the little one, in her zeal to "help" me, carried dirty clothes from the laundry room to the clean clothes I was folding on the couch.

Anyway, I smelled it, and it smells like my husband. Ohh. I love that smell, too.

So, I call the little one over, and tell her to smell the shirt. First of all, she doesn't know how to intake air and make the loud sniffing sound. So, she smells, then blows air our of her nose really hard, just to make the noise. Cute.

"Who does this smell like?"

"Daddy-go!!" As an aside, yes, she does actually call my husband Daddy-go. I think it is because anytime we were out shopping, my husband would wonder off, and I would have to ask over and over again, "Where did your Daddy go?". It just stuck that way.

So, she is very excited to smell Daddy.

I call the big one in, and have her smell. At first, she looks at me like I am crazy for telling her to sniff a shirt. Then, she does it, and yells "Daddy!!". They loved it.

Well, Ava took it a little further. She has decided that she needs to sniff everything coming and going. At first, she was sniffing all the clothes, the clean ones, of course, that have no scent besides detergent and fabric softener.

She grabs every one's clothes, names the owner, does the sniff, then blow out, and says "Ahhh".

For example, she grabbed one of Lilly's shirts.
"Lilly shirt." She said.
Sniff. Deep force full air blown out the nose for sound effect.
"Ahhhhh."

Again, cute. We go through momma clothes, Ava clothes, anything she could grab. I did, however, draw the line at my clean panties. That just isn't right.

From the clean clothes, she has started to sniff any clothing she could grabbed. She sniff and "ahhh"ed Lilly's dirty pajama top as soon as Lilly took it off yesterday.

Now, she is sniffing just plain old anything. This morning, it was the stairs. Yes. Our stairs. Which, by the way, I can't imagine smell good. I may vacuum them, but I haven't cleaned them since we moved in. Yuck.
"Stairs."
Sniff. Deep force full air blown out the nose for sound effect.
"Ahhhhh."

No really, she did. What can you do. As long as she isn't sniffing anything too harmful, we will mostly go with the flow, and try, very gently, to direct it's path to things that are better to sniff than others. I imagine this will pass soon. I mean, how long would someone be willing to sniff dirty stairs? That has to be a phase that they grow out of. At least I hope so. In the mean time, we will continue to keep all the school glue put safely away. = )

The Hardest Line

Sometimes, life is a very difficult balancing act.

You have to find a way to balance the needs of those around you, your needs, your family's needs, and so on, to make things work for your life like they need to and should.

As a young person, it is easy to allow your life to be totally out of balance. You don't care what happens, you just do what you do to have fun, and be young.

As you get older, and hopefully more mature, though, keeping things in balance becomes so important. You find you really can't quite function with out it.

Keeping that balance, making your life what you want it to be, sometimes requires very difficult decisions.

Tonight, I made a very difficult decision. I had to say no to a friend whom I love dearly. As a friend, she wears the title of best for a reason. However, as much as I love her, and I do, I can not in good conscious say yes to something she ask. It isn't a little thing, and I don't say no lightly. In fact, no is a very painful word for me right now. However, I have to look at all the things in my life, and see where my decision falls. I took some time, a lot of time, and looked at how this decision would throw things out of balance for me. If I said yes, it would affect my family in a negative way, and frankly, I can't afford to do that anymore. Saying yes, even though I desperately want to, would cause more harm for us, than it would good for her. The teeter totter would be sitting with her in the air, in the good seat, and my family stuck on the ground, legs all bunched up around them, just waiting to get up, at least to the middle ground again.

I also have to keep a very precise mental balance. My life is full of so much stress right now, that I border on being off balance at any moment. In fact, the stress of just her question alone has tipped the scale in a way that I can not allow to continue. Some of the things that cause my stress I can not change, no matter how I want to. They are the facts of how we live our lives, and so I must deal with them. I have to take a very careful look at all the things that are weighing on me, and decide what I am able to cut. This is the one thing I can cut. While tonight, I am deeply saddened, and have shed many tears over my decision, I know that in the long run, it was the only thing I could do, to even attempt to regain my mental balance.

I did make an attempt before saying no. I tried to find a way to make it work, but both people on the teeter toter have to work together, and be willing to sit in the mid position, for it to be able to stay like that. She wants to be up in the air right now, and maybe she has earned her turn to be there. I just can't keep my family down, in order to keep her up.

If I were younger, I would have said yes, without thinking. I would have moved mountains to say yes. Come hell or high water, I would have been there. I can't do that anymore, though.

I have to make the hard, grown up decision. I have to look at my girls, and know that I am doing the right things for them. The right thing for all of us, even if it isn't the easy thing.

So, I say no. With a heavy, sick heart, and very sincerely hope that she enjoys her time sitting high as much as she possibly can. I hope she loves every minute of it, and when she is ready to come down again, I hope she can find her own balance.

Technology, Smechnology

You know, sometimes, things that are created to make our lives easier, actually tend to cause more problems or harm than they do good.

Fir Christmas, I got a GPS thingy. I have wanted one for a while. For mother's day, my husband had a GPS application put on my cell phone, which is nice. It is a little slow, but has a ton of features. The real problem is that it costs $10 a month! Way too much. So, I kept telling him that I wanted a hand held GPS instead. For Christmas, my mom actually got me one. Well, she gave me money, and I went to Wal-Mart well before the crack of dawn on Thanksgiving day, and got one.

I like it. It isn't as good as I hoped, because of the cheap model. It does, though, help me get around, and I need that.

The problem is that like many other pieces of technology, we come to rely on fallible machines, instead of using our own brains sometimes.

Today was one of those times.

I had to run by one of the very few military pharmacies to pick up a prescription refill I had called in. I couldn't go until the afternoon. I met a friend for lunch in the area of the pharmacy. I'm not all that familiar with the area. I have only been there a few times, and only been the medical clinic where the pharmacy is one other time.

So, of course, the handy, dandy GPS gets to me our lunch spot.

Lunch was nice. I really enjoyed getting to hang out with a friend and eat a meal, and have some conversation.

At the end of lunch, I told her where I was going, and she pointed in the direction that my clinic should be. I thought it was that way too, but regardless, I had the GPS, and had written down the address before I left.

So, I turn on my device, and at first, it can't even find me. Great. I cut it off until I go out to the car. Once I was close enough to a street, it picks me up, and sends me on my way.

Immediately, I think the directions sound a bit off. I, though, am directionally challenged, and rarely trust my own instincts in this regard.


My GPS tells me to take a left out pf the parking lot. So, I do. Hmm. I know the area that I need is to my right, and behind me. Maybe, I think, there is another street just a block or so down that will take me back to where I need to be. A turn here. A turn there. Suddenly, the GPS is telling me to turn into a military base. Now, I know I am going to a military building, but it isn't on base. It is in a redeveloped area that used to be on base. Not good. I'm not going on base. It must be confused. So, I pass the gate to base, and as soon as I hear "recalculating" I think surely it will find the mistake, and take me to the correct area. Not so much. I end up circling the airport.
The whole time, my little one is in the back seat yelling "Let's Go!", her new favorite phrase.
"I am going, baby. Mama is a little lost, and I need to find my way. Please be quiet for just a few minutes so that I can figure this out."
Wrong thing to say.

"Lost?"

"Yes, lost. Well, I can't find what I need to, but we are ok."

"Let's go!"

"We are going!"

Repeat this conversation to the point of insanity, and you start to get what I am feeling. My time is running out. I have been driving around forever. I have to pick up my other daughter from school in a hour and a half, and I don't even know where the stupid pharmacy is yet!

A supposedly brilliant idea hits me. I have another GPS! I grab my phone, turn on the GPS, and pray this one will get it right. I enter the address while trying to drive down the road. I know it isn't a good idea, but I am getting desperate here. I hit enter, and pray. My hands free devise is in my ear. So, I start hearing the male voice say "Calculating route". Yes! I think this is going to work.

Then, almost simultaneously, I hear the male voice in my ear, and the female voice of the unit in my hand speak my next direction together. No! No! It can't be! Maybe they will change when we are supposed to make that left onto base, I think. So, I keep driving down Harbor drive, with 2 different people telling me how to get somewhere I don't want to go. Finally I have to admit that neither of them is going to help me.

I cut both of them off, nearly flinging the hand held into the floor board.
I mean, how hard can it be to find this place?? I've been there once. I have a vague idea of where it is.
I decide to retrace my steps from right after where we left off at lunch. Maybe that should have been a right and I will be able to find it.

I pass the exit from the parking lot, and almost immediately there is a 4 way stop. As I approach, I notice that the area on my right is fenced in. Could it be??

I turn, see the gate guard building, and can't believe it. I show my ID, pull in, and park. Then, I look up. I am sitting there, looking at the restaurant I left, over 40 minutes ago. That's right, the pharmacy was right behind me. Maybe 50 yards. It took me 40 minutes to go 50 yards. That is one seriously scenic route.

On the bright side, I had a great lunch, I now know how easy this place is to get to for all of my future refill pickups, and my friend from lunch got a kick out of my story.
On the down side, I think I'm going to have to start carrying a Thomas Guide (local map book) along with the 2 GPS units every where I go. This way, I can at least make getting somewhere a three way argument between the male voice in my ear, the female voice of the GPS, and me with the Thomas Guide in hand.