Momology 101

The real menace in dealing with a five-year-old is that in no time at all you begin to sound like a five-year-old.
~Joan Kerr, Please Don't Eat the Daisies, 1957

This is so true.

I don't even want to know how many times I've ended an argument with one of my kids with 'because I said so'. Or my favorite...'you're not the boss of me'. *hangs head shamefully*

There's just something about arguing with someone I can't reason with that brings out the five-year-old in me. I get the urge to stick my tongue out at them and then run away.

I don't.

Not usually, anyway. ;)

Friday Mythology

I've noticed that many of the books I read have some kind of mythology mixed into the story. My favorite stories to read are paranormal and fantasy.

I thought it might be fun to learn more about mythology. I'm not going to teach a whole class here. I'm not qualified to do that. But I'll pick a new deity each week and post a little tid-bit about them.

I thought we could start with Greek Mythology. And we might as well start at the top. Or close to it.

We're starting off with Gaia. Gaia is the personification of Earth and is considered a primeval goddess. Primeval Gods and Goddesses are thought to be the basic components that the universe is made of.

Now here's where it get's fuzzy. There are several different stories about how Gaia came into being and what her role is in everything. Some say she had the ability to foretell the future and that she was the first Oracle of Delphi.

She's the reason we say 'Mother Earth'.

Momology 101

Every newborn should come with an instruction manual.

Babies. A woman spends a full nine months growing one. Her body expands as the months go by, getting larger than she ever thought her body could get.

At first we're so excited just to be pregnant we don't even mind putting on a few pounds. In fact, we relish stepping on the doctor's scale and seeing the number go up because that means the baby is growing. Getting bigger equals getting closer to being here. When our baby bump finally emerges, the first thing we do is go put on maternity clothes. Women don't mind being larger as long as people know it's because they're pregnant. Not because they've just inhaled a dozen Krispy Kreams. There's a difference, you know.

Yes indeed. Life is good. The baby is growing, our appetite is growing, our bodies are growing.

Somewhere around the end of the seventh month, things start to get irritating. We can no longer see our feet, the maternity clothes we were so eager to get into now look like a tent, and if one more person touches our stomach without asking, they're going to end up walking funny. Our doctors tell us to get plenty of rest, and we would, if we could just get comfortable. Sleeping...you try to sleep with a watermelon attached to the front of your body and see how much rest you get.

Around the eighth month our attitude starts to look up. We're getting so close we can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We get parties thrown for us. People are nicer to us. Our hubbies are extra attentive, even when we don't want them to be. We've given up on fighting the stretchmarks, realizing it's all worth it.

We start birthing classes and finally get a good look at what we're in for. No one told us our bodies were going to do that. No one mentioned we would end up with stitches in a very sensitive place. Ouch! We study every book we can get our hands on to find out about labor. We scour every possible source of information to decide on a name.

For me labor wasn't that bad. I went into the hospital fully dilated and a few hours later, we were done. I'm not going to say it was easy. Any woman who's been through labor would just laugh. Labor is called labor for a reason. It's work. Hard work. Our body does most of it on it's own, whether we want it to or not.

Our first son was this tiny, perfect being, as most babies are. He had ten perfect little fingers and ten perfect little toes. Yes, I counted them. He never cried. *sigh* He was just perfect.

The first night at home with him, he started crying as soon as it got dark. Nothing we did would sooth him. I think we both started crying with him. We hadn't even had him home for three hours and we had broken him. No one at the hospital had bothered to tell us that our perfect bundle of joy had colic. Honestly, I didn't even know what colic was.

Most women spend so much time preparing for getting the perfect little baby home, we don't think about what happens after labor. Oh sure, we know to have the room ready and to have a car seat installed.

The hospital didn't give us an instruction manual. They should have. All babies should come with one. That way when they cry for hours, we know why. Or at least what to try to help them stop. It would have been awesome if someone at the hospital would have mentioned that colicky babies might get relief in a wind-up-swing. Or that a hair dryer running will soothe them at times. Or about the dryer trick where you turn on the clothes dryer and put your baby on top of it in their car seat.

No. I bet the nurses laughed as we walked out the door with our perfect little bundle of joy, ignorant of what the night held for us.

Wouldn't life with a newborn be so much easier if it came with an instruction manual?

Books and Such

I think you can tell a lot about a person just by looking at their bookshelves.



Are they neat or messy?

What kinds of books dominate their shelves?

How organized are the books?

Do they have items they find important near their books?

Are the spines of the books abused?




All of these can give you a clue as to what type of person someone is.

What do mine tell you?


Besides the fact that I'm a bookaholic. ;)

Monday Word Of The Day

Happy Monday!

Today's word comes from Dictionary.com.

Scion - (sī'ən) - noun
1. a descendant or heir
2. a shoot or twig used for grafting

Momology 101

I find myself slipping back into my five year old self way too often. There are times when the only thing a mom can do is let go of her adult self and revert back into the girl she once was.

It's ok, you can admit it. We all know it. It's just more fun to be a kid.

Kids aren't inhibited the way adults are. They don't care if the whole store sees them acting like a dragon in the middle of the chip isle while their younger brothers pretend to be race car drivers by making loud car noises.

The t.v. show Friends comes to mind. The episode where Pheobe is running in the park. Here's a reminder just incase you've forgotten. Or if you've never seen it.

It's good to let the inner child out to play sometimes. It keeps us young.

When was the last time you really played with your kids?

Do You Always Finish The Book You're Reading?

I usually do. Once I start reading a book, I'm committed. I have to finish it. Very rarely do I give up and put the book aside.

Last night I started a book and had to absolutely push myself to get to page 50. I put it down with thoughts of picking it back up this morning, but I just couldn't do it. I couldn't make myself pick it up and read it. Setting it aside, I picked up the next book in my to read pile, promising myself I'll go back and read it. I won't though. It took me all day to work up to admitting that, but the truth is...the book was just that bad.

It's really disconcerting to give up on a book. Especially since, I've read other books by this author. I dug them out and instantly remembered how I had to push through them too. They were difficult to read, but the story was fast paced enough to keep me trying.

We've got an excellent book store that buys your used books and actually gives you money to purchase new books. It's amazing. I have a feeling my unfinished book will end up there.

How many chances do you give a book? How far into the book do you push before you throw in the towel?

Monday Word Of The Day

Happy Monday!

Now that we've all had our morning cup of wake up, let's get the brains working!

I found our word on Wordsmith.org.

Today's word is...Dissimulate.

Dissimulate - (di-SIM-yuh-layt) - To disguise one's intentions, thoughts, motives, etc. by pretense.

Just so you know, this is what the bad guys usually do. They dissimulate in order to gain your trust. When you write a story, you'll have at least one character that will do this. Pesky bad guys and they're dissimulating ways.

Constant Vigilance people!! ;)

Momology 101

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
~Phyllis Diller

My son was maybe one and a half when he got into the diaper cream.

He'd been too quiet (we all know that means trouble) so I was searching for him. Well, I found him alright. In front of the t.v. with what had been a brand new tube of diaper cream. The now empty tube was clutched in one hand and the other hand was smearing thick white cream on the television screen just as fast a his little chubby hand could go. I think he knew his "art" time was limited.

I should mention here that he was standing in it as well. He must have started out finger painting the cream on our brand new dark blue carpet and moved up to the t.v. at some point. He'd done a good job with it. Not only was it on the brand new carpet, it was all over the t.v. screen and it looked like he had taken great care to make sure it got into all of the little speaker holes on the side of the television. It was also in his hair, on his face, squished between his toes and his diaper was hanging on by a string.

I hate to admit it, but my first reaction was anger. I was so mad I could have spit nails. Our brand new carpet was a mess and I was sure the t.v. was ruined. But when he turned around and I got a good look at him, all my anger just faded away. He was so proud of his "art". And honestly, his looks saved him. (You didn't know cuteness was a defense mechanism did you?) His hair was spiked straight up in front with big globs of white goo stuck in here and there. It was his first experience with finger painting. Needless to say he loved it.

It took us a good hour to clean it all up. To this day you can still see a bit of white in some of the little speaker holes on the television. The image of his angelic, smiling face covered in thick, white goop will be with me the rest of my life. It's the little moments that make lifetime memories.

And yes, for those of you wondering, my son still loves to finger paint. :)

A Love Of Books

I'm a reader.

I've always been a reader. It runs in the family. My mom is a reader, she could stock a library with the books she's read. I don't think I've ever seen her without a book nearby. My Aunt Claudia is a reader too. I used to stay with her during the day in the summers. She would take me and my stinky cousin up to the library every week to check out books. I would walk into that library and just inhale the scent of books. It was heaven. So many books just sitting there all organized and ready for me to read. My stinky cousin and I would peruse the shelves in search of the perfect book. My good ole' Aunt Claudia would "make" us read fifteen minutes everyday during the summer.

My mom and my aunt are responsible for my love of reading. They helped form the foundation of a long and rewarding passion for great stories. For me there's almost nothing better than grabbing a book and settling down for a long read. Not that I actually get long reads with three young boys in the house.

My hubby and I have tried to install a love of reading in our boys. Hubby and I both love to read so it just stands to reason our boys will too, right? Nope. If you want your kiddos to read you have to read with them. Turn off the tele-tube, shut off the video game, walk away from the computer and read to your kids. Read to them everyday. Read them the same stories over and over when they ask you to. Then listen to them when they "read" those stories to you. Make reading a part of your lives.

You can imagine how pleased I was to walk into my oldest boy's room and see this.

All three of my boys are developing a love of books.

It's a family thing.

Monday Word Of The Day

I thought it would be fun to have a word of the day on Mondays.

Perhaps it'll ease you into the mental harshness of returning to work after the weekend. Probably not, but it'll be fun.

Today's interesting word of the day is: Confabulate To me it sounds like I'm saying something dirty. *giggle* But I'm not!

Here's the low down from Merriam-Webster Online.
Confabulate:
Pronunciation: \kən-ˈfa-byə-ˌlāt\
Function: intransitive verb
1 : to talk informally : chat
2 : to hold a discussion : confer
3 : to fill in gaps in memory by fabrication

So, there you go! A brand new word to start off your week.

Now go forth and confabulate!! (see, it does sound a little dirty)