Not Me Monday - 19th Edition

Not Me Monday's host, MckMama, might be off on a much deserved cruise, but Not Me Monday lives on thanks to Blogger's cool little scheduling trick.
Returning visitors will probably remember my historic Not Me Post from last week.

Spoiler alert: This was not one of those weeks.

You can't tell from the TV screen but the kids are watching a movie with PapaBear. This is not a daily occurrence. Nope. Not in this house! We play with our kids, we encourage creativity....we do not let our two and four year olds watch bits and pieces of Jurassic Park, especially not the part where the T-Rex is trying to eat the children in the jeep. PapaBear and I agree 100% on this topic.


You might be wondering who's sitting to PapaBear's left since that certainly doesn't look like my curly-locks, but it IS Julia. It was a one time occurrance. I would never let her hair get that messy every single day. Not me!
See? I keep it neatly combed, conditioned, detangled, defrizzed, and accessorized properly.

It does not look like this every day except on Tuesdays and Sundays.

I do not let my child out of the house looking like this or take advantage of winter and hide this rat's nest under a hat. Not me!

I'm always on the ball. I'm not lazy. I always stay on top of things. (Like keeping the cat alive. )

Except when I'm not and get my camera instead of getting Houston out of the dog food.

I turned 32 yesterday. At my age I know better!

What haven't you done this week?

Wordless Wednesday

Houston, YOU are the problem!

Not Me Monday - 14th edition

Christmas is almost upon us and unlike last week, I'm not nearly as stressed out about all I have to do yet. I'm down to two small gifts to purchase and a couple to wrap. My cards are in the mail or have been hand delivered at church or at Christmas parties.

The hot topic around here right now is the weather. When we awoke at PapaBear's parents house Sunday morning it was -37 with the windchill. The air temp was -12. Ouch. We only live fifteen minutes from their house but PapaBear made the wise call to spend the night instead of driving to and from their Christmas party Saturday. That morning we packed up bedding, clothes, snowsuits, the dog, and gifts and headed out before the storm got any worse.

Before the guests arrived at the party it was not me who bribed BrotherBear with five cookies if he'd take a nap....in the pack-n-play. He's four for crying out loud!

I made good on my offer and since he followed through on his end and played so nicely with the other kids, I let him have pretty much anything he asked for.
He didn't stay up until 11pm because of all the sugar. That is not three hours past his bedtime.
He did not eat so much that he made himself puke in the middle of the night and again first thing in the morning.

What else didn't I do this week? Let see.... Could this be the week that I only have a couple of Not Me moments?

I suppose making dentist appointments for 3 of us at the same time wouldn't help my cause at all, huh?

It all started a couple of weeks ago when I tried to get to the dentist, but a train stopped on the tracks and there wasn't time to detour around it. I did not see a semi truck (and trailer!) turn around behind me because of the delay.
I called the clinic to reschedule. I was secretly relieved. Now we could ALL go. At least then I wouldn't be outnumbered. On Thursday we made the hour drive for our 6pm appointments. PapaBear's name was called first and I tried not to worry about my name being called before he returned.
Nobody will believe the following series of events. Which is fine. They are completely fabricated. Isn't that the point of this post anyway? The things that didn't happen to me?
In that case: They didn't call my name 5 minutes into BrotherBear's cleaning.
He didn't have to look at me with scared eyes from across the room while I was also flat on my back trying to decipher the thick Russian accent of my hygienist.
SisterBear did not sit through half my cleaning with her chin propped up with her hands while contained in the sling - while I was in the dentist chair - flat on my back.
They did not squeeze SisterBear in for a cleaning at the last minute - not the dentist that takes four weeks to get an appointment with!
SisterBear did not take her turn in the dentist chair across the room while mommy was being examined by the doctor.
That was not my two year old getting her first teeth cleaning all by herself.
I am not devastated that BrotherBear has five cavities. If that doesn't qualify me for the bad mom of the year award, I don't know what does!

Oh wait. I know! Sloooowly killing our cat. That's what!
Let me explain....My good friend from college, Courtney, is a doctor - an animal one. She and I had plans to get together last weekend, but the icy roads made that impossible. During our phone conversation we got to talking about our new kitty, Houston. I mentioned that we are trying to keep him as an outside cat as much as possible so he'll be a good mouser. We give him some of our dog's food from time to time, but for the most part he's on his own. That's when she told me that a cat's diet that is made up of mostly dog food can kill them. They'll develop a heart condition and die. (Too much of a certain ingredient that's ok for dogs, but fatal for cats)

Hi, my name is MamaBear and I'm not killing our cat.

Courtney drove over an our on icy roads yesterday to spend the afternoon with me. How sweet was that!?!


Here's the rest of my list for the week:

See this beauty? It's not mine.Because it isn't mine, I can't be super excited that it only cost $25.
I didn't offer $40 for it after I heard I was second in line to purchase it. The guy didn't say "$25 is fine. I just want it out of my basement."

I did not feel like a complete outsider at the mall Wednesday night. I was just like all the other shoppers out buying buying buying. I didn't get anxious driving in all the traffic or being in an unfamiliar place. Not me! It's the mall. I used to work there. I took the kids there all the time. I'm was not like a fish out of water now that we live in the country on a tighter budget. I'm totally used to the hustle and bustle. It doesn't freak me out one bit.


PapaBear does not ever use my camera for mischief. There's no proof. None what-so-ever.








If you thought I was exaggerating about the snow getting inside our house, think again. This is not what we came home to find in our breezeway. I do not shudder when I think about how much snow there'd be if we didn't stick a towel along the bottom edge!

As for the snow in our dining room...it isn't melting - really it's not. Our house is not that cold and drafty. It's a warm 62 degrees in here! I'm not going to call the furnace company again in the morning. Not me!

SisterBear did not fall asleep in our bed in the two minutes it took me to get her brother out of the tub and into his pj's at nap time. (I'm not saying it's jammie day around here almost every day. Nope. I'm not admitting that.) She is not firmly planted in the dent wrote about in this post.


BrotherBear's Christmas program was Sunday afternoon. PapaBear ran the video camera and I snapped some pictures of the group. It was the cutest thing to watch.
I'd tell you why BrotherBear (red sweater vest) and a few of his friends are bending over, but there isn't a reason. It's just what they were doing while the teacher narrated the scene. To keep SisterBear from running down to the front to be with her brother I did not whisper loudly, "DO YOU WANT MONEY?" to get her back in the pew with us. Nope not me. You will NOT find that on video no matter how hard you look. You most certainly won't find four pennies in her denim jumper either. I don't give toddlers coins!


For more Not Me Monday fun, check out my friend MckMama's blog or to view the main page of my blog click here. I'm not adding that last link because when I visit some blogs of other Not Me participants I don't secretly wish I could, with a click of my mouse, see the rest of their blog without having to delete text in the address bar. Nope. Not me! I'm not THAT lazy!

Conor fought the cat

and the cat won.




















This happened on Monday.

Tuesday he had a fever.

Wednesday was a better day, but he didn't eat much and puked once.

Today I can tell he's got a low grade fever and he doesn't want to eat.
He has to eat so he can start taking his meds again. (The vet wanted him to take a 24 hour break since he was throwing everything up.)

We'll see what the day will bring....

Not Me Monday - 12th Edition

It's that time again. Time to fess up to the things that we might otherwise sweep under the rug. The things that aren't glamorous, but are still a part of life. Embarrassing, silly, gross...you name it - the are too many Not Me Moment in my life to count some weeks, I just can't remember most of them by Monday morning . Check out what hundreds of others are writing about in their Not Me Monday posts over at MckMama's blog.

I did not tear up when I saw Lonesome Dove was on TV yesterday. Twenty year old Western mini series don't have that effect on me. It isn't because that was one of my dad's favorite's.

PapaBear and I did not have the following conversation following his trip to the mall:
Me: Did you buy anything for me that you hid somewhere?
PB: Oh yeah. I meant to tell you but I forgot.
Me: Where did you hide it?
PB: In my top dresser drawer
Me: Good thing you told me! Sometimes I put your clothes away!

We don't have an arrangement where he tells me where he hides gifts so I can make sure I stay away. Is that weird?

I did not fuel the fire when Julia was screaming at me from her carseat by screaming back at her. I would never act like a two year old. I am not at my wits end with what to do about the kids who think just because I'm only two feet away from them I should be able to drive and tend to them.

I did not cry at work when I read the sad news about Lindsay's dog, Maggie. I didn't quickly wipe away the tears when a Boy Scout troop leader came into the office.

I did not mess up the easiest candy recipe of all time - Chocolate Covered Pretzels. They didn't turn out hard as rocks.

We didn't get so fed up with the kids Saturday night that we sent them to bed at 6:20. Not us! We have better ways of dealing with Sam whining at the table for an hour without taking a bite of dinner and Julia's defiance about everything.

I didn't find PapaBear putting a Veggie Tales movie in the DVD player the other night after the kids were in bed.

I would never out my husband for watching Lord of the Bean by himself.

I did not catch our dog trying to lick the peanut butter off a mouse trap. We don't have mice. Nope not us!

I did not have to go out in the dark to see if the dead cat in the road was our cat. (My sister-in-law had called to say she saw a dead cat on the way home from our house Thursday night.) I did not at that moment know for certain that I have grown attached to the cat we only let in the house to catch the mice.
Houston is safe and sound for now. It was a cat I didn't recognize.
My heart didn't sink last night when I saw cat tracks in the snow that led to the road. *sigh*

There isn't a breeze blowing into our house through every outlet in our kitchen. Our house isn't that drafty.

I did not keep a dentist appointment for Sam and I after I found out PapaBear had to work and wouldn't be able to help with the kids while I had my teeth cleaned.

We were not delayed in getting to that appointment when a train came through town. I didn't laugh when the receptionist said "If you're still sitting there at 3:00 call me back." A train that takes over a half hour to pass? Never. I did not give up and turn around when the train stopped on the tracks and didn't move for over ten minutes.

We do not have new appointments for a day when PapaBear can come with. Thirty minute delays are not a blessing.

We didn't make the most of our trip to town and play at Target with MckMama and her MSC. Who does that? Not me!

What didn't you do this week?

Not Me Monday - 8th edition

Today is a good a day as any to talk about the heating issues we've been dealing with. When else could I throw out the following info?

Our house was not 80 degrees on Saturday afternoon.
It didn't get that hot despite having 6 windows open.
We didn't have to bother our landlord on a weekend.
We didn't have to turn off our heat even though it was in the 20's outside.
We don't have to wait three days for the replacement part to be shipped.
It is not 52 degrees in the house when we wake up in the mornings.
(We can turn the heat on for a couple hours at a time but then have to turn it off or the radiators will overheat.)

We escaped the hot temps in our house on Saturday by dropping the kids off at Grandma and Grandpa's and went out on a date. These things did not happen while we were out:

I did not drag my hubby into BabyGap just so I could see in person the cute outfits Brittany was talking about in this post.

I wasn't subjected to 5 minutes of profanity while I waited in line to use the restroom at Macy's. The mother who used the f-word every other word did not have a 6 year old in the restroom with her. She didn't allow her daughter to cut in front of me in line. That same mom didn't say the following, "What's taking so long? Is someone pooping?"
I did not spend those 5 agonizing minutes praying for the well being of that six year old.
We did not spend the first hour of our date just trying to find restrooms at the mall. What's the deal with department stores not having both restrooms in the same place????
We were not sent on a wild goose chase before we left the mall when the sign for the restrooms sent us up one floor only to find out that the men's restroom was located two floors down from the women's.
We were not completely annoyed, frustrated, and mad about restrooms. Nope. Not us.
This is not the second time I've written about bathrooms this week. That's plain gross.

I was not excited to find The Flight of the Navigator at the movie store. Who gets excited about cheesy kid movies made in the 80's? Not me!

Other things I didn't do this week:

I didn't let my kids have play food straight out of the box from the lady I bought it from on Craigslist. I washed and sanitized it all first. Since it's so tempting for them to put their lips on it I made sure it was all germ free first. I wasn't too lazy to avoid getting them sick.

I did not go out to lock the gate twice....in my robe. (I was wearing other clothes too, but the robe offered extra warmth in the cold, cold night.)

Julia didn't come downstairs after her nap wearing a dress, tights, pajama pants, and one sock. Not my little fashion diva.

I have not been treating a yeast infection as if it were diaper rash. Nope not me. I didn't let my poor baby girl suffer all week when the diaper cream didn't work. I took her in to see the right away. Not 6 days later.

I did not turn around and sell a LittleTikes Vanity for more than twice what I paid for it. The lady who bought it didn't live a quarter mile from our old house. The world isn't that small.

Brian did not have to spend an extra hour in the car yesterday driving home to retrieve my work stuff that I forgot to bring to church with me. oops.

We did not sit together as a family in church for the first time in six months. The suckers suggested by my nice readers didn't work like a charm.

I did not lose my cell phone again. It didn't ruin my whole Sunday afternoon. I did not find it in the yard 30 seconds after sending up a prayer for help. (I had dropped a receipt and when I bent down to pick it up the phone must have fallen out of my pocket.)

We didn't revel in warm temps at the apple orchard, splash in rain puddles, and build snowmen and go sledding all in the same week. Not here in Minnesota!

What did you not do this week? Join the fun at mycharmingkids.net

With a Capital "F"

Freedom - I went downstairs to let the cat out and feed him his breakfast this morning an could not find him anywhere. Brian searched. I searched. I searched again. My mind started racing through all the senarios...was there poison in the basement that we didn't know about? Is there a hole somewhere that he got out through (would help explain the mice getting in!), was he stuck somewhere? Finally I went outside and sure enough, there was the cat, trotting up to the front door to get his breakfast.

Fresh Air - We have radiator heat in this house and so far it had been working just fine. I'm bracing myself for the day our built in china cabinet doubles as a freezer. Until then we are experiencing the opposite problem - it's flippin' HOT in here! Two mornings in a row we've woken up in hot, stuffy rooms. The termostat is set at 67, but it is 76 in here. I have always struggled to breath in hot air. Maybe there's a nurse or a doctor out there who could tell me if that's related to my low blood pressure and low pulse (50-55 beats a minute)???
We turned the thermostat WAY down (50) and have a number of windows cracked to reverse the sauna effect.

Free Time - Brian's mom has graciaously accepted our request for a spur of the moment babysitter. After naps we'll drop the kids off at Grandma and Grandpas and head into the 'burbs in search of something fun and free to do. We haven't figured out yet what we want to do with two precious hours of kid-free time. If it's anything like the two hours I spent wandering around Target yesterday (mostly in the toy aisle), it will be filled with talk about the kids, but at least we'll be able to talk in complete sentences and without interuptions. :)

Freaked out - You know all those doors I talked about in our house? Well FOUR of them lead outside. I think our front door is pretty obvious, but the man who was peaking in the door next to the library thought that particular door looked like a good option. I was sitting here at the dining room table blogging away when the dog went balistic. I looked up to see a beared man looking into my house. Talk about freaked out!
I kindly explained to the mailman that he could leave packages by the other door if we weren't home. I hope he got the message.

Head, shoulders, knees, and toes

Here's the rest of the snowman we made this morning.
You can see a close up of the head in
the post below (minus the pine needle hair).



Bearing no hard feelings after his night in the basement,
Houston stayed warm on my shoulders while the kids went sledding.


Both kids, but Julia especially, liked adding snow the snowmen.


Over and over again Julia would get down bend down and pick up snow to add.




Once we pulled out the sleds Sam was done with snowmen. He tried all variations of going down the hill. Feet first, on his belly, and my favorite as a kid - on his knees.





It wasn't really that cold out (I didn't have socks on inside my boots and my toes were plenty warm), but hot chocolate seemed appropriate with snow piling up all around us. I didn't get an argument out of the kids. :) We had a snack and watched Jack Frost (after the part where the dad dies). While it might have been nice to sleep in this morning it was also nice to have the house cleaned, two snowmen built, the sidewalk shoveled, a movie watched, a toy sold on Craigslist, and a meeting with a client all accomplished before lunch.

Things that go bump in the night

Houston has been in the house since we let him in with us this morning. That shatters his previous record by...oh.... 11 hours. I don't want him to go soft on us though. With a dog in the house and all, I don't want to play referee all hours of the day or night. He appeared to enjoy the basement when I checked on him throughout the day. Given the alternative (driving rain and swirling winds) I'd take the basement too.

Usually when we let him in he gets anxious to go back out after 30 minutes or so, but tonight when we brought him up from the basement he was all lovey-dovey with me and lounged in the chair instead of sitting on the radiator and looking out the window. At bedtime he followed us all upstairs and despite being rather playful (I forgot how sharp cat claws are!), he showed no indication of being upset with his new digs.

We have a ton of doors in the house so it's easy enough to keep the cat upstairs and the dog downstairs...for now. Ideally they'd switch places, but we're taking it one day at a time. So when I heard a loud thump coming from upstairs I ran up to see what the cat had jumped on, toppled over, or who knows what. But first I glanced at the video monitor and saw my Sammy sitting on the floor. Poor baby fell out of bed. At least twice when I've gone in for my final check of the night I've found him curled up on the floor, but those times I think he rolled out of bed since I never heard anything. The morning we left for the Boundary Waters I found him on the floor with his face touching his clock radio (with the radio on!) He takes after his mom. We can sleep through anything. Yesterday he slept through the weather alert test that blared at 1pm.

So more things don't go bump in the night I'll be putting the cat back downstairs before I go to bed and cross my fingers that he catches himself a midnight snack.

I don't mind the rain

Not when it has this effect on her curls.








Julia had fun jumping in puddles this morning after we dropped Sam off from school. If I hadn't needed to get to work on finishing up a proof CD for a client we would have stayed out much longer.
Instead, we all came in out of the rain and got to work*.











* For Julia, her work involved curling up on my bed to watch a Baby Einstein video. My work involved preparing proofs. Houston was sent to the basement to get to work on catching mice.

Not Me Monday - 7th edition

This past week was a blur. I hardly remember what we did except of course meeting Stellan.
His Mama is the one who created Not Me and the subject of my first Not Me of this past week.

I did not leave my four year old in charge of my two year old out in the hallway of the special care nursery so I could meet Stellan. That would be irresponsible of me.

The dog did not puke on Monday.
He didn't puke on Tuesday either.
He had NO puke left for Wednesday....or so I thought because it was NOT dog puke that I slipped in early Wednesday morning.

I did almost die when I saw a mouse run into the room I was in (living room) and hide under the love seat. I did not scream bloody murder even though it was 12:30am and everyone was asleep. I did not think I was going to have to spend the rest of the night standing on the couch because the mouse might run out from under the love seat while I was running to the stairs. (The mouse made the first move and left the room.)
I did not sleep with the light on and a movie playing the rest of the night.
I didn't let the cat in the house the very next day.

I did not accidentally let the dog and the cat meet in the kitchen with no means of escape. (In my own defense, we have no less than 19 doors in this house. I was bound to forget about one of them.) The result? The dog did not end up with scratches all over his face. There was not blood. I didn't feel terrible about my mistake.

I did not miss the memo about daylight savings time. It was not 5 minutes before we left the Halloween party that I overheard someone talking about an extra hour of sleep that I found out that we almost wasted the ONE TIME A YEAR we get to sleep in.

I did not come very close to showing up early for two different meetings on Sunday.

I did not come up with my Halloween costume when I was rifling through my sister's good will box.

This is not an outtake from an impromptu family photo session*.



* The term session is used very loosely: Turn on the timer, put the camera on a bucket, run back to the family, and try not to make a fool of yourself







I did not get stood up by a woman who was suppose to meet me at the children's museum to buy a winter coat that never fit Julia.

I did not have an antique table ($75) posted on Craigslist for 3 months without any takers.
I didn't get five inquires when I changed the posting to "Make an Offer".
I never would have accepted an offer of $125. Nope not me!

I am not at a complete loss as to how to get my kids to sit in church on Sunday mornings. No, not me! My kids are perfect angels. (That's the hardest part. They ARE good, well behaved kids - until we slide into the pew at church. Anyone have good ideas on ways to keep kids quiet, consequences for misbehaving at church, reward for good behavior etc. ?)

I do not reserve the right to update this post as I remember more of the crazy things that happened at our house this past week.

on the catwalk

After a day filled with photo shoots in the unseasonably warm November air, I took the kids out for a walk on the boardwalk. Houston decided to join us. It was fun to see the reactions of people who were out walking their dogs when they saw the cat trotting alongside the kids.








Huey is really a nice kitty. Sam adores him. All week at bedtime it was Houston that Sam was thankful for.












"I love Houston really really much," he says many times a day.














I think the feeling is mutual.





















Julia was a little jittery about being on the boardwalk again. She hadn't been on it since she fell off and ended up covered in green algae.

Not very many people can understand what she's saying, but that doesn't stop her from getting her point across. She talks and sings all the time. I love that about her.
(Happy 25 month birthday sweetheart.)