A 4 year old's view on money

It's funny because my daughter knows what paper money is and can spot it a mile away, but what she doesn't know is how much any of it is worth or what you can buy with $1, $20, $100, etc.
But apparently she knows about credit cards!!!
She comes home from an afternoon at the movies with my mom and goes to her room to play. Moments later she emerges with a look of concern and tells me that she needs new jeans. When I asked her why, she says, (in freak-out mode),"Because my credit card won't fit in my pocket! I need big pockets! If I loose it, I can't buy things!" What credit card, I asked. She pulls out a Barnes and Noble gift card that she got for Christmas! It was so funny!

I think I've gone crazy...

Last week I signed up for 3 classes at the local community college. Not just any 3 classes...my FINAL 3 classes!!!

I just can't wait to be finished with this crazy degree. After all, it only took 10 years!!! Hoping the next one can go a little faster. It will just feel awesome to finally check this one off the life to-do list.

Although I have to get there first. Trying to fit studying and class time into our lives will be difficult, but it's worth it. Right?

Vacation

For the next two weeks, I'm on vacation! Usually I am responsible for 3 children during the week, but now I will just have my 2. It's weird to say that 2 is a vacation, but it's true. Kids are very time consuming. I will attempt to be productive in a different way than my normal day-to-day. I'm hoping to use this time to purge and organize my home. It needs it desperately! Our home and life are cluttered with "things". My goal is to get myself and my family to realize what is truly important and precious in life...and I'll give you a hint, it has nothing to do with stuff! It's hard enough for me to except this reality, so I imagine teaching it to my 4 year old will be a challenge. So my plan is to lead by example and go from there. Here's to simplistic living in the new year!

Roomba Tales

We just got an iRobot Roomba vacuum. For anyone who has been living under a rock lately, iRobot is a company trying to make our lives just a little bit easier by inventing awesome, (and adorable) little cleaning machines. Roomba, is the robotic vacuum and can go anywhere, even under beds and sofas, (and I'm here to tell you, you should really be vacuuming under those things, it's alarming what collects there! I now know this because of Roomba, not because I move large furniture to vacuum...please). Scooba, is the washing vacuum. She vacuums, wet scrubs the floor, then sqeegees the area with her back end. All this while you are in another room doing another task! It's like a cleaning miracle has happened while you were away!!! This is especially true for someone who hates dirty floors, but equally hates cleaning them. (And by "someone," I mean me.)

We have had Scooba for about a year now, and my husband has been wanting a Roomba too. Well, we picked up an older model a couple weeks ago. She's good....she's very good.

Anyway, the machine only has one button on it labeled "CLEAN". It's rather large and in plain sight, I guess, because my baby will not stay away from it!

Our youngest is crawling around and will NOT stay away from the pretty little circle on the floor! We always know when it is turned on because the vacuum does this little chime before it starts cleaning...but this time the baby started yelling and crying. We found our child half on top of the little vacuum, just trying to do it's job, after all. Keep in mind that the entire family was in the room at the time...we just weren't thinking, "Save baby from the Roomba!" Or is it, "Save Roomba from the baby!"? It was funny for all the wrong reasons.

Now Roomba has a cute little corner space in our laundry room all to herself. I thought for sure after the first time that happened the baby would be so tramatized that she would never want to go near it again...not true. After the second run-in, we decided to move it to a new location, yet the minute all the commotion is over, our child tries to go at it again!

This one's gonna be trouble...

Popcorn. Act 2, Scene 1

My sister's comment from the previous blog entry is true.

I was too tired to finish the popcorn nightmare the first night and went to bed. The next day it was a bit easier to pierce those little kernals, and I finished the project. I estimated it took 20-25 popcorn kernals to string 1 foot of garland. I did about 21 feet for my 4-foot tree. It could stand a little more, too...but....NO THANK YOU!!!

Maybe next year if I'm feeling crazy!

A Warning About Popcorn

For those of you who have never decorated your Christmas tree with popcorn strands, I have something to say...DON'T DO IT!!!
We decided to buy a small table top Christmas tree this year for two reasons: First, our 9 month old is crawling around and getting into everything possible, as it should be...and we felt a large tree on the ground could be bad. Secondly, I just didn't feel like struggling with the 9 foot monster tree and the lights and the ornaments, blah, blah, blah. (Just call me Scrooge.)
I felt bad about having such a small tree that I thought it would be fun to string it with popcorn and have my 4 year old do it with me. Not wise. Popcorn doesn't actually want to be strung on fishing line, nor does it want to have a needle piercing it. Also, with the needle and popcorn at war like they were, not a good activity for a 4 year old, or for anyone who likes their fingers...or for their blood to stay inside their body.
Do you know how many popcorn kernals you have to string to decorate a 4 foot tree? Ask me tomorrow. I hope to have the project completed by then.
The only entertaining part of the entire experience has been having my carb-crazed daughter help me pick out the biggest kernals to go on the tree, and watching her eat all the rejects. According to her, there were a LOT of rejects. That was pretty funny.

This blog is for you...

I would like to dedicate my first blog entry to my pushy cousin, Christopher and his crazy sidekick, a.k.a., my husband. For without their constant nagging, this would not have been possible.

I suppose these entries will be mostly about my children...and also the thoughts of this stay-at-home mom. Yes, I have my own thoughts...sometimes.