7 Quick Takes about How to Look Like a Marooned Sailor, Totally Winning at Curb Appeal, and The World's Tiniest Loaf of Bread

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

—1—

A while ago, I noticed that a few chunks of my hair were sticking out funny and looked too long. So I cut them. Smart, right? Except that every day after that, it looked really bad. I guess it was just that one day.

After weeks of debating with myself, I decided I should just try to dig out of the hole I'd gotten myself into and give myself an all-over trim. You know, to even it up with the part I cut off.

Because again, I'm that smart.

I cut Phillip and the kids' hair all the time, but never my own. And I have layers, which adds yet another element of "I don't know what I'm doing." I didn't even take pictures because if I ended up having to shave it all off and start from scratch I just wasn't going to say anything here.

It turned out just about as bad as I expected. You know how some haircuts have names, like "the Rachel" from the 90s? Phillip and I decided to call this one "the Shipwreck." It looked like I'd been marooned on a desert island for ten years cutting my hair with a jagged piece of coconut.

Before admitting defeat and going in to a hair place to have them fix it, I decided to watch some YouTube videos on how to cut hair and try one last time.

And... it actually turned out okay. It's been a few days and not only has my picture not become a meme on Pinterest (to my knowledge,) I even got a compliment on it the other day!

If anyone has tips on how to angle your camera so your selfies don't look like a reflections in a funhouse mirror, I am all ears.

—2—

We went to a Halloween party called Trunk-or-Treat at our church. First there's a chili cookoff dinner, then a costume parade so we can see all the kids' cute costumes, and then people line up their cars in the parking lot and hand out candy from the trunks. It's a pretty crazy time.

When they announced my son's name at the costume parade (he was dressed as an injured man with crutches and casts all over), there was silence. No one came out. It took forever for him to finally emerge and hobble across the stage.

Since irony seems to follow our family wherever we go, I shouldn't have been surprised to find out afterward that he took so long because he'd fallen down the stairs. Actually, I guess the real irony would have been if he'd really broken bones from the fall, so I should probably count my blessings.

—3—

What are your best methods for rationing your kids' candy loot after the big Halloween haul? I decided a while ago that I didn't like being the "no/yes" machine every time someone wanted to have candy for the next few months.

This year we're trying out the rule "you can have one piece of candy after every meal." (The part where Phillip I steal handfuls of it after they go to sleep is like the last paragraph of the terms and conditions that nobody reads.) So far, it's going pretty well.

My 9-year-old would also like to know why Snickers have tire marks on the back.

—4—

I'm super-practical to a fault, so even though I really like the idea of seasonal decorating, in practice I just never really get around to it. Just like I wish I were the kind of person who hangs fresh flowers from the porch to make the house seem really welcoming and inviting, but that also is something that I rarely do.

This year, though, the stars aligned for me because I just realized that:

1. I did have flowers hanging outside this summer, and
2. Said flowers are now a great Halloween decoration!

Double-duty decor: this hanging basket says "welcome to our lovely home" and also "BOO!"

Now that is what I call a win-win.

—5—

I realized how quickly you can come to take things for granted. Phillip has been cleaning up the kitchen every night after dinner almost every night because I'm still just too tired from this pregnancy, and I've sort of gotten used to that.

I woke up one morning after he hadn't cleaned up and was shocked. Dirty dishes were everywhere and spaghetti sauce remains were cemented to the table. A hardened lump of noodles was still in a pot on the stove. You mean if no one takes care of this stuff, it just stays there?

So this is how my kids feel.

—6—

One thing I try to do is make most of our bread from scratch, which can be dreadfully annoying when you don't have a bread machine and are doing it by hand. It doesn't take a lot of work, but my recipe requires me to let the dough rise twice without forgetting about it, which is assuming a lot out of me right off the bat.

The other time you can't forget about it is when it's baking in the oven. Unfortunately I put my daughter down for a nap and accidentally dozed off with her, sleeping blissfully through the bread getting burned to a crisp.

My older daughter noticed the timer going off every 3 minutes and took the burnt bread out of the oven (yay for 6th graders who don't let their mothers burn the house down!) but it was still hard as a rock.

Since the whole process takes hours, I wasn't about to toss two loaves of bread in the trash. I carved off the hardened magma exterior and found that the bread inside was still okay — so my kids are taking little Leprechaun-sized sandwiches to school this week in their lunches.

—7—

My son gets weekly visits from a therapist at Early Intervention to work on his gross motor skills, but this week she suggested that we come to visit her at their "movement center."

Imagine a big room covered in mats with swings and trampolines and every kind of ride-on toy there is, and that's this place. I've never seen him (or his 4-year-old sister, who was graciously allowed to play, too) so happy.

Things went great until the very end when the therapist opened a sensory table filled with dried beans and all kinds of measuring cups. I don't know if other kids have more self-control or what, but mine were so excited there was no way that any of it was staying in the table.

If anybody needs to know how long it takes to pick up a sensory tub's worth of dried pinto beans of the floor with your hands, let me know. I have a realistic estimate for you.

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This Is What Happens to the House When Mom Is Tired

It was with a wry look that Phillip turned to me on Friday and said, "We're one step away from going on Hoarders here."

He was right, almost.

Except it was mostly the kids' fault. Everything they'd touched for the last two days was lying crumpled on the floor in the exact spot where they finished using it.

I haven't felt well lately, and when you're a stay-at-home mom of 5 who doesn't feel well, the speed of the pristine-to-filthy transformation your house can undergo is shocking.

A week's worth of cleaning and tidying up is undone in a matter of hours.

If you don't feel up to following the kids around reminding them to clean up after themselves for a full day or longer, it will turn into a biochemical waste zone.

Not "can."

Will.

It doesn't matter that Phillip comes home at night and cleans the entire kitchen. By 9 A.M. it looks like a looted grocery store just the same. Because kids.

While I haven't felt well enough to stay on top of the mess, or on top of the kids for not cleaning up after themselves, I have made a few mental observations:

1) Mess begets mess. If some enterprising young child helps himself to breakfast and the table's already covered in Legos, pipe cleaners and dried fingerpaint, his bowl and spoon will immediately be absorbed into the mess and become one with it. It's like the clutter equivalent of a drug-resistant superbug.

2) The messiness of the house is directly proportionate to how I'm feeling that day. On low energy days, I'm pretty helpless to resist my preschooler's pleas to do incredibly messy craft projects involving glitter, paint, and possibly razor blades and blow torches. She knows this and will use it against me.

The toddler, too. His favorite trick is to get into the game cupboard, knock every game and puzzle off the bottom three shelves, and furiously mix up all the pieces. I can hardly clean that up 3 times a day when I'm feeling energetic, forget about it if I'm feeling low-energy. (He doesn't even have fun doing this, by the way. He just rips open the boxes, makes the mess joylessly in 10 seconds, and moves on. It's really rude.)

Anyway, after the Hoarders observation, Phillip and I rolled up our sleeves and got to work. First, we put a lock on the game cupboard. Then, we all spent an obscene amount of time cleaning. Even the kids — especially the kids.

(Unfortunately I have no "before" and "after" pictures to show you. This was a time that I was thinking of survival more than blogging.)

The sheer randomness of the messes, though, was overwhelming. What do you do when you look at a pile of junk, really look at it, and realize that it's made up of craft scissors, a 4T raincoat, a balled-up dirty sock, a pencil, 2 Lego people, a sippy cup, a roll of packing tape, a pair of American Girl doll tights, and 12 pieces of a My Little Pony puzzle (who knows where the other 13 went)? Each one with its own separate place in the house, to be painstakingly put away by you.

It'd be cool if it were just that one pile, but I'm talking similar heaps covering every square foot of the house.

When it comes to messes like that, I find that I can't categorize or decide the most efficient way to clean it up. I just have to grab the thing closest to me and then put it where it goes.

Over and over, a billion times.

In summary, I take two things away from this experience: one, it's hard being an adult.

Two, if the house is super messy, it probably just means you need a nap. Go easy on yourself. If worst comes to worst, we can be on Hoarders together.


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7 Quick Takes about Mediocre Housekeeping, Kayaking Tips from Someone Who's Done It Twice, and Going Back to the Future

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! That means we're summing up the last 7 days in 7 quick takes. How was your week?

—1—

This week I've had some energetic days and some days when I feel like I've been run over by a street sweeper. It's frustrating to try to keep up with life as usual when you just don't feel like yourself (if you're new here, don't worry: I'm not dying, just pregnant.)

The kids have been going to school in shorts on 60-degree days, I have no idea if they've been doing their homework, and my preschooler is drawing on every surface of the house. When the dentist's office called to say I missed my cleaning appointment on Saturday I had to try really, really hard not to burst into tears on the phone with the receptionist.

When I have good days, though, we've at least been cleaning up a few of the preschooler's art bombs around the house.

—2—

Generally speaking, it appears that my housekeeping skills could use some work. My preschooler walked in on me cleaning the bathroom the other day and asked, totally perplexed, "What are you doing, Mom? Mom?? What are you doing to the toilet??"

For the rest of October I'll probably just pretend the house is haunted by ghosts who scatter dirty socks and Legos everywhere.

—3—

Somebody in our house (I'll let you guess who) did a triathalon this weekend. If you guessed the one of us who wasn't lying on the couch eating Saltines and moaning, "I can't believe you're leaving me!" then you guessed correctly.

Anyway, the triathalon sounded pretty cool. A friend of ours did the mountain biking leg, and Phillip did the trail running and kayaking. All in all, they didn't do too shabby.

Tip: Phillip says that he recommends kayaking more than once in your life before doing a 5-mile race in one. Apparently going straight is kind of a learned skill, so he estimates he actually went about 10 miles to everyone else's 5.

—4—

My 2nd grader learned how to make origami cranes at school and is now filling up the house with them.

Even her 3-year-old sister decided to get into the action.

Paper crane, as interpreted by a 3-year-old.

This crane's name is pronounced muh-TEE-ox. I think it's Latin for "I don't know origami."

—5—

Did you know that Wednesday was Back to the Future Day? In the sequel, they went into the future to October 21, 2015. Some theaters around us were even playing it that night.

—6—

Weirdly enough, we'd actually just decided last Saturday to watch the first Back to the Future with the kids.

Watching a movie from your growing-up as an adult with your own kids is really weird. I definitely did not remember the amount of mild swearing, and the Libyan terrorist subplot had also gone completely over my head.

In summary:

—7—

This week we got a flyer in the mail letting us know about Kia's vehicle upgrade program. Nice offer, but I don't think we'll be participating. With the size of our family the only upgrade that really works for us now is "school bus."

But thanks, anyway.

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30 Slightly Insane Things I Do To Save Money

I've declared before on the blog that I'm a cheapskate but never really elaborated on it.

That's partly because a big chunk of our cheapskate lifestyle is just not buying stuff — and a 500-word blog post about that would be hard for me to write and boring for you to read.

But there are plenty of frugal shortcuts I take that, when I think about them, are a little wacky. Do you do any of these, or is it just me?

This post contains affiliate links mixed with links to hilarious stories on this blog. If a link takes you to somewhere outside of Unremarkable Files, it's probably an affiliate link which means I will get a small commission for purchases you make at no extra cost to you.

1. Buy ink refill kits online instead of new printer cartridges. For our printer, a refill kit has ink enough for two refills and costs $10. A new cartridge costs $30. I still recommend refill kits in spite of the ink explosion debacle back in August (I've been doing this for 10 years and that was a fluke user error.)

2. Join a rebate program. Whenever I shop online, I check if I can get cashback from Mr. Rebates. It's only a little if you buy something small like, say, an ink refill kit, but pretty cool if you're buying airfare for your entire family.

3. Use online coupon codes. Anytime I buy anything online, I Google coupon codes for that store first and half the time I find something.

4. Pay with cashback credit cards. We also got a hotel rewards card before we were planning a family vacation and ended up staying in a one-room suite for free for 6 days in Washington, D.C.

5. Send postcards instead of letters. When my kids mail out thank-you cards for their birthday presents, I give them 4x6" rectangles of posterboard for them to decorate and send as thank-you postcards instead. We save on cards and also postage — did you know that postcards are cheaper to mail than envelopes?

6. Another word on postcards: don't ever buy them. Postcards are a 4x6" picture. Write on the back of a photo and mail it (with the cheaper stamp) instead of buying one!

7. Cut your family's hair at home. Almost a decade ago I bought this haircut kit for under $20 and my husband and sons haven't been to an actual haircut place since.

8. Keep a stash of birthday presents. When I see good deals on toys, I buy them. Between my 5 kids, someone is always going to a birthday party.

9. I stock up on staples like shelf-stable groceries, diapers, toiletries, paper towels, and toilet paper when I see good deals. (Of course, that means you need to watch prices so you know what's a good deal when you see it.) Our basement looks kind of like a grocery store, but if there's ever a zombie apocalypse you can come over because we'll share (unless you're a zombie.)

10. Don't buy pre-cut vegetables, shredded cheese, or premade food very often. This is an issue where sometimes you're willing to pay extra for convenience, but in general I live by the rule that if I wouldn't pay someone to come over to my house and do it for me it doesn't make sense to pay for it at the store.

11. Cook breakfast! Cereal is expensive and not very filling, anyway. If you can convince your kids to eat a bowl of oatmeal or an egg and toast, it's way cheaper.

12. For a parent, pre-packaged snacks are a huge money suck. Seriously, look at the price per ounce of the little snack-size 6-packs of crackers versus the family-size packages. Buy the big container and have the kids portion it out into Ziplocs at home to pack in their lunches. Even with the Ziplocs you still save money.

13. Packets of microwave popcorn are the biggest rip-off in the history of rip-offs. A bag of loose popcorn kernels will last you 6 months and costs less than a few packets of microwave popcorn, and it's not hard to make. I once almost started a fire frying an egg; if I can pop popcorn, so can you.

14. Make your own laundry soap. You probably think no one but Ma Ingalls does this. Well, possibly no one but Ma Ingalls and me. But here's the recipe I use, which I just found on a Google search. I've tried a few other recipes but this is the best I've found so far.

15. Stop paying bills by mail. I die inside every time I need to use a stamp. Really. Whenever we get a bill, I always call the 800 number at the bottom to pay it by phone (or do it online if it's free.)

16. Greeting cards are a waste of money. I hate buying them; they just seem so frivolous to me. Instead, I save the cards I receive and use the elements to make new ones when a card is necessary. I already have a bunch of scrapbooking stuff from my other life when I had less kids and more time, so it doesn't take long.

17. I follow a coupon blog. Coupon blogs are regional and you can find one in your area with Google. If you live in New England I like Maven of Savin'. (Update Oct 2016: Maven of Savin' has closed up shop. I'm currently in mourning. Don't talk to me about it.)

18. Maintain a gift list for yourself. When people ask "What do you want for your birthday/Christmas?" my mind goes completely blank, every time. So I keep an actual list of stuff I think would be cool to own (I'm told that many people call this "Pinterest.") Then I actually have a useful idea if someone asks me what I want.

19. When traveling, buy meals at the grocery store deli. A rotissiere chicken and a carton of potato salad from the deli counter is cheaper than even McDonald's for a family. (If you absolutely must do fast food, however, we've found that the best value for a lot of people is KFC.)

20. Make your own curtains. I'm the world's worst seamstress, but I can sew four straight lines and that makes a curtain. If you price out the fabric and then compare it to the cost of the two panels you need to buy at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, curtains are crazily overpriced.

21. Join the mailing list for your favorite stores. Some place bury you with coupons if you get on their mailing list: JoAnn Fabrics, JC Penney, and Kohl's come to mind. I never shop at those places without a coupon, because they show up in my mailbox almost every other week.

22. If there's a special promotion to get a gift card for less than its face value, and it's a store I shop at anyway, I buy them and use them myself.

23. I skip school photos and get the kids' pictures taken every year at JC Penney (with a coupon, of course.) Maybe it's not as good as the hoity-toity portrait studio down the road that also does weddings and graduation photo shoots, but it's good enough for me.

24. Get books/magazines/movies/music from the public library. If you know how to use inter-library loan you can get whatever you want for free. (If I ever write a book, though, then by all means please buy it.)

25. Cut up your meat when you cook. Our family does a lot of vegetarian meals now, but even when we ate meat at almost every dinner we rarely had meals that were a slab of meat with some potatoes and veggies on the side. We always used half as much meat by always cutting it up and putting it in a stir-fry or casserole.

26. Join Freecycle. It's a global network of local groups where you can give away anything, as long as it's free. This is a gold mine for kids' stuff including furniture and toys, and all kinds of other things, too. We also have a local "give and take" thrift shop where everything is free, and a swap shop at our town transfer station with the same idea.

27. Avoid buying brand-new furniture. Craigslist is usually the best deal, followed by eBay, followed by kids' consignment stores. If you have a few months to wait and watch before you need the item, periodically check Freecycle and see if it comes up.

28. Learn what a rain check is. I didn't know what a rain check was until I was 30, and even then I was scared to use them. But they're great! If something's on sale and it's not on the shelves, ask the cashier for a rain check. You can come back later and get it for the sale price, usually within 30 days. You can still use coupons if you have them.

29. Never throw away food. The beauty of having babies and small people around is that if there are two spoonfuls of mashed potatoes or 6 green beans or a quarter of a waffle left over, it's a perfectly sized snack for later. My youngest kids and I have random leftovers all the time for lunch — we call this a "choose your own adventure" meal.

30. Join diaper loyalty programs. Since we've had someone in diapers for 11 years and counting, I make it my business to belong to the Huggies and Pampers rewards programs. If nothing else, I can use the rewards for baby shower gifts. (In a few more years, I'll have earned enough points to buy some lucky mom-to-be a new minivan.)

Leave a comment below with your best money-saving tips, and check out my article 30 More Slightly Insane Ways to Save Money. I promise you this is just the tip of the cheapskate iceberg.

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Dear Second-Time Mom Who Feels Like She's Drowning: It's Going to Be Okay

Dear Second-Time Mom,

It's totally overwhelming. You haven't showered in days. You're exhausted and you smell faintly of sour milk and both kids are crying. If they aren't now, they will be soon.

How can one person be expected to handle this?

You were probably a great mom the first time around. 

You learned on the fly how to manage diaper blowouts in public and what's the fastest way to clean up after the baby spits up in your bra.

You balanced learning time with playtime and took your first to all sorts of places.

You didn't feel like you got it all perfect, but you did your best and felt good enough.

I was that mom, too.

When my first daughter came along I was full of energy and excitement about it. She was my little buddy, going everywhere with me from Day One. It was like I'd been born to do this.

We were just as excited to add to our little family a few years later, when daughter #2 came along. I brought her home from the hospital with no idea what I was getting myself into.

I'm not even exaggerating when I tell you I cried every day for the first 6 months. 

It wasn't at all like it had been the first time around.

When my first baby was born, we spent the better part of the next few weeks swaying back and forth in our cream-colored nursing glider.

I never knew what time it was and didn't really care. I probably spent hours a day just stroking her hair and breathing in that new-baby smell and memorizing the grunts and sounds she made while she nursed (I also remember dusting sandwich crumbs off her head so I must've been eating at the same time.)

Bringing home my second baby couldn't have been more different.

I didn't even have time to glance at her while she nursed, other than to make sure she latched on correctly. I was too busy running around doing everything one-handed: trying to read to my toddler, trying to get my toddler a snack, trying to clean up the crusty dishes from breakfast when I still hadn't eaten lunch yet (no sandwiches for me!)

We rarely sat in the nursing glider except in the dead of night, because there wasn't room for my toddler to squeeze in next to us without elbowing me in the stomach or her sister in the head.

After a week of being home I looked down at my second-born nursing and thought, "Who is this little person?" I felt like I didn't know her at all. I was too busy trying to survive.

And it wasn't just that I felt disconnected from the baby. I was letting my toddler down, too.

Going out was hard because it seemed like both girls were only awake at the same time for a grand total of 20 minutes per day.

While the baby ate and slept, my toddler and I spent most of our waking hours sitting in the apartment killing time. She was getting seriously tired of the game "Do you want to help me get a diaper for your sister?"

I told her "not right now" all the time now, a phrase I'd tried to avoid before unless absolutely necessary.

Only it was always necessary now, because I was forever trying to get the baby to sleep or dealing with a nuclear diaper explosion or give her a bath or any of the other bajillion things a baby needs during the day.

Every time I did something for the baby, I was failing the toddler. Every time I did something with the toddler, I was failing the baby.

In short, I felt like a failure. I had no clue how to continue being the same kind of mom to two kids that I'd been to one. In fact, it was impossible. My time and attention had been sliced in half.

It wasn't until several months later that I happened to watch my oldest plop down nose-to-nose on the baby blanket on the floor next to her baby sister and just lay there, smiling like Princess Ariel had personally come over to sing "Part of Your World" for her. And her sister, too young to smile back, craned her neck to watch her with the most intense concentration I've ever seen.

I knew then that it was going to be okay.

I'd thought I was doing such a terrible job because I wasn't giving either of my girls what I thought a mom should be able to give her child. And to an extent, I was right — I had given up the ability to focus on each one 100% all of the time.

But I'd also given them each other. No matter how awesome a mom I'd been, I never couldn't given either of them that moment by myself.

From there on out, it was still hard, but it got better. 

After a hectic trip to the store the baby sat fussing in her car seat in the living room, and without a word my toddler pulled over her plastic lawn chair and started "reading" to her out of a Miss Spider picture book with words she made up.

The baby grew older and I noticed that she reserved her biggest belly laughs for her sister. My toddler couldn't wait to get her up from naps and play with her, even when the baby was too little to do much of anything besides sit on a blanket and watch her every move.

My toddler thought the baby was the best thing ever, and the baby was equally enamored with her. They were in love.

My two daughters are 9 and 11 now, and the best gift I ever gave them is each other. Of course they bicker and get on each other's nerves like siblings do, but they're best friends for life.

Things won't always be easy, but you'll get better at multi-tasking and trust me: it's going to be more than okay.

Sincerely,
Another Mom

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7 Quick Takes about the Genghis Kahn of the Restaurant Industry, Ordering Elf Parts Online, and One Ineffective Way to Raise a Safety-Conscious Toddler

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! (And I'll ask you to remember that Friday doesn't end until 11:59 P.M.)

—1—

Phillip's been listening to random history podcasts on his commute home from work and likes to share what he learned with us at dinner. He was telling us about the Mongol warriors the other night and my 7-year-old interrupted with, "Why do you know all about the Mongols?"

"Because Daddy used to be one," I joked.

Quite seriously, he looked Phillip over and said, "I thought you used to work at Pizza Hut."

Same difference.

—2—

Accidentally, I ended up falling asleep on the couch one afternoon and how's this for irony?

I woke up with a start 30 minutes later, thinking of how awesome it was that my toddler and preschooler had let me sleep and kept themselves busy without me.

Then I went and found those wonderful children: one with a red crayon and a guilty look on her face, and the other covered in Turtle Wax.

In a double layer of irony, my daily question on the blog's Facebook page had been: How good are your kids at entertaining themselves?

Cue the muted trumpet that goes, "Wa, wa, wahhhhh!"

—3—

Really, if you're not on my Facebook page you're missing out. Click here to visit the page and if you like what you see, you can:

1. Answer a question or leave a comment (you can do that even if you don't commit to the 'like' button)
2. Post to the page or send me a message to say hi
3. Hit 'like' (go under the 'liked' tab and hit 'Get Notifications' to be sure you get my status updates, because you know. Facebook.)

If it helps you make up your mind, I made the Today Show's list of funniest parents on Facebook again this week. At the very least, go read the list: they really are funny.

—4—

When he came upon me doing a Google shopping search for prosthetic elf ears, Phillip thought for a moment that I was having the strangest midlife crisis ever.

Not going to lie to you: I'm slightly creeped out by these fake rubber ears.

But that's only the beginning of prepping my kids' Halloween costumes. Buying the elf ears was the easy part.

—5—

As usual I'd gotten myself in over my head, but lucky for me, Phillip's mom was visiting this week and bailed me out. 

My energy level has been so low with this pregnancy that I basically need a nap after brushing my teeth, but for some reason I thought it would be a good idea to make an owl costume from scratch for my preschooler and sew a hooded cloak for my other daughter (the elf.)

I bought the fabric and helped cut out some of the pieces, but Phillip's mom basically did the whole thing. I really don't think Halloween would be happening this year for my kids without her.

She went home yesterday, leaving a few finishing touches for me so I didn't feel like a complete failure.

Look, honey! I glued on the beak! I did something!

—6—

At church, there was an art show featuring work from the kids ages 3-11, and it was awesome! The leaders set up furniture like in a real art gallery, and you could mill around looking at the matted artwork to some tasteful recorded harp music.

My favorite piece

My kids looked at the art but spent most of the time at the refreshment table scraping the last drops of chocolate off the chocolate fountain with broken pieces of crackers that were left when we arrived late.

Yeah, we're pretty classy.

—7—

We also went for the first time to the annual apple cider press party of some friends of ours, where my one-year-old loved putting apples in the press. When it was full we managed to redirect his attention to moving apples from one bucket of rinse water to the other.

I had to stop him several times from falling in head-first, despite the illustrated safety warning on the side of the buckets that he clearly did not bother to read.

photo credit

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Looking Forward to Halloween with Equal Parts Enthusiasm and Dread

As a mom, I struggle to find the right balance. For everything, really, but right now I'm thinking about Halloween.

I've never been a fan of just going to CVS and buying a $19.99 costume that they'll wear once. One, because that adds up to $100 (plus tax) for all five kids and two, because where's the fun in that?

I usually try to strike a balance: I'll buy a few small accessories, but then the kids either use things they have or we make something to complete it.

We've been everything over the years, from haunted houses to vikings to bunny rabbits to octopi. And because that often requires me sewing capes or stuffing tights with balled-up newspapers, I usually look forward to Halloween with equal parts enthusiasm and dread.

One year I conceded defeat and declared a "dress-up box Halloween." The rules were: anything goes, as long as I don't have to buy, cut, sew, hem, paint, or hot glue it.

(I'm not going to lie, that was a great year.)

However, this year we're back to our old "something old, something new" routine and it's going to require a little work on my part. My preschooler really wants to be an owl, so I'm going to sew a costume out of felt for her.

Sew a costume. Me. Out of felt.

If this isn't an ill-fated experiment, I don't know what is.

After spending hours in the fabric store finding what I need, I'll cut something wrong and have to go back for more.

I fully expect to find myself considering tossing my computer out the window and just using the felt to make a voodoo doll of the lady who wrote the owl costume tutorial I found online. (When really I should be making a straightjacket for myself.)

At some point I'll probably be weeping over a pile of brown felt and wondering why, oh why I ever thought I could do this.

But sometimes, that's what parenting is.

That's why there's a Mommy Tax for trick-or-treating candy. Because Halloween is hard work.

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Q & A with an Experienced Mom: How To Go Grocery Shopping with a Toddler

Between my five children, I figure that I've gone grocery shopping with a toddler in tow at least 1,000 times.

Maybe not that many times, but it sure feels like it.

So if you're at home pulling your hair out because there's no food in the house and you just don't know if you can handle taking your toddler to the store one more time... well, I'm doing that, too.

Here are the things I've learned about how — or maybe how NOT to — have a successful grocery shopping trip with toddlers.

Q: When is the best time to take a toddler grocery shopping?

A: If you're talking about the time of day, it's when your toddler is fed and well-rested — but everyone knows that toddlers are always hungry and any time you leave the house it's going to run up against naptime, so that advice does you no good. Sorry.

If you're talking about the age of the child, it's always exciting to shop during that window where he's old enough to pitch a fit if you don't let him get out and walk, but young enough to wander off without any concept of what it means to "stay by the cart." At that point he'll also just be tall enough to drop bottles of mouthwash into strangers' carts when you're not looking.


Q: What should I bring with me to keep my toddler entertained?

A: The great thing about taking toddlers on errands is, it really doesn't matter what you have in your purse. You could have a live clown in there to make balloon animals and play peek-a-boo with your child and he wouldn't even look at it. As a toddler, his one and only goal is to Get. Out. Of. The. Cart.

(Snacks might be helpful, but I caution against giving him your phone and putting on Team Umizoomi because he'll throw it on the floor faster than you can say "Everybody crazy shake!" He's no dummy. He wants out.)

Q: My regular grocery store doesn't have carts shaped like cars, but the place down the street does. Should I switch stores?

A: No. Or yes. You know what? It doesn't matter. If you get the car cart you might enjoy an extra 20 minutes of peaceful staying-in-the-cart time.

But now you've set the bar pretty high. Your toddler knows that such a thing as a car cart exists, so you'd better be prepared to move heaven and earth to get one every single time. Your day is pretty much ruined if the only one left is the one with the broken steering wheel, and if there are no car carts at all you should just go home and do your best to survive on ketchup and the crumbs from the bottom of your toaster.


Q: How should I handle temper tantrums in the middle of the trip?

A: You'll get plenty of unsolicited advice if your child has a tantrum in public, so I don't know if I really need to cover this one.

If your toddler is particularly vocal about his dislike of grocery shopping, you'll be told twice that he's too hot, once that he's too cold, and three times that this goes by so fast and you should enjoy every single moment. Every person you meet will inform you that he's pulling his socks off.

A nice lady in the ethnic foods aisle will see how frazzled you are and ask with a smile, "How old is he?" which means, "Why did you put your pet Tasmanian devil in a diaper?" to which you'll smile back and say, "18 months" which means "HELP ME!!!!" Then she'll push her cart away saying, "Aww, he's cute" which is code for "I really hope we don't keep running into each other in all the other aisles."

As for how you should respond to your toddler's tantrum? I don't know. All I can tell you is, handing him to the guy behind the deli counter and running away is frowned upon.


Q: What are your best tips to keep toddlers happy at the checkout?

A: This is where you really need to step up your game, because you'll be busy. First, you need to coerce your toddler to be still while the cashier weighs him so you know how much you owe for all the grapes he's been eating out of the back of the cart. Then you need to count and pay for the handfuls of York Peppermint Patties that he smashed in his fists while you were unloading the rest of your groceries.

At this point there's not a whole lot you can do, because your toddler has HAD IT with shopping. The best you can hope for is that the bagboy will lean in close and say something menacing like, "Hey, little buddy!" With any luck, he'll remain frozen with fear until he regains his senses in the parking lot and has a tantrum when you try to buckle him into his car seat.


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7 Quick Takes about Self-Improvement Tips from a Preschooler, Undead Drugstore Employees, and Ordering Your Life in a Restaurant

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday!

—1—

This past weekend was General Conference, a twice a year broadcast for Mormons (and curious onlookers) from the leaders of our church on different spiritual topics.

Over Saturday and Sunday, we spent a sum total of 8 hours sitting, watching, and listening. (The kids did coloring pages, ate snacks, and stealthily drifted away during the last session to play Legos somewhere.)

There were a lot of great talks that I plan to listen to again later as I'm working around the house, but one of my favorites was on seeking God's help to find what improvements you need to make in your life:


I sometimes like to ask my preschooler deep questions just to see what she'll say so I asked her, "What can I do to improve myself?"

I expected her to say "I don't know" and keep coloring because mom's a weirdo always asking her weird questions, but she actually gave me some pretty comprehensive advice:

"Don't starve and die of hunger. Eat lots of food and go to bed. Swat the flies before they, like, do something to you. And kill the bees before they sting you, because that hurts!"

And there you have it.

—2—

I'm enjoying Halloween more and more the older I get. Maybe I'm just more easily amused.

In Zumba (yes, I actually rolled out of bed and went to Zumba) we danced to this funny song:


And when I stopped at CVS on the way home afterward I saw that some of the employees have a sense of humor:

I've actually waited in lines so long I think this guy was the cashier.

—3—

Another perk of living in New England is the fall. I actually dislike the chillier weather because if it's less than 70 degrees I'm cold, less than 65 and I can't feel my hands and feet, but I do like the scenery.

I took this from the parking lot of the grocery store about 5 minutes from where I live.

It was a particularly soothing sight after my toddler had just broken a big jar of pickle relish and accidentally dumped out an entire carton of eggs all over the contents of my cart trying to "help" unload them at the register.

—4—

In my town and other towns across New England, as some of you may be aware, we are our own garbagemen. Every week I take the recyclables to our transfer station (Phillip is in charge of the trash,) and there's also a "swap shop" where you can just take or leave gently used stuff.

We've been talking about Halloween costumes lately in our house and when I saw some size small crutches in the swap shop I knew one of the kids could definitely use them.

Phillip was slightly alarmed to see that he'd missed several calls from me on his phone (I was calling because I forgot onions at the grocery store and wanted him to pick some up on his way home) and then walked in the door to see a pair of child-sized crutches lying on the floor.

My 9-year-old thought it would be particularly ironic if someone had tripped on the crutches and broken a leg, but it didn't happen. Yet.

—5—

What do your kids want to be for Halloween? 

Mine want to be a Lord of the Rings elf, Annabeth from the Percy Jackson books, someone injured in a catastrophic accident (the crutches, a fake cast or two, and some gauze around the head), and an owl.

Anybody got any cute costume ideas for a one year old who has absolutely no opinion on the subject?

—6—

Just a little update on how I'm doing this pregnancy:

Hey, I'm admiring the fact that she called first. That's doing something!

I've actually been feeling a little better the last few days. You know, like normal tired instead of the kind of tired where you wonder if you still have a soul.

—7—

And lastly, I just wanted to share something hilarious with you. Happy watching.




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A Tour of the First Trimester of Pregnancy

I lie in bed with one arm dangling off the side, face smashed against the mattress, wondering what time it is. Or even what day or year it is.

I'm exhausted. I'm starving. I want bacon.

Actually, that's disgusting. I'm so nauseous. I will never think about bacon again for as long as I live.

It's all coming back to me now... it's Tuesday, and today I'm 9 weeks pregnant. And I'm definitely about to vomit.

Welcome to the first trimester of pregnancy. Nobody can deny how incredible it is. Over the next three months, your baby will grow to 50 times its original size. It's a miracle, all right, but it's also gross, irrational, zombifying, and nauseating.

Allow me to take you on a little tour (don't worry, you still can use your copy of What to Expect When You're Expecting to bludgeon people who suggest you're acting "a little hormonal.")

First, you can forget about getting anything done. You'll be too tired and sick to even stay on top of basic hygiene, letalone reorganizing the basement. Do yourself a favor and throw away your to-do list, replacing it with a single Post-It note that says, "Don't die." You can stick it to the lid of the toilet so you'll be sure to see it every day while you're willing yourself to just throw up already.

Ordinary smells will suddenly bring you to your knees. A block of cheddar cheese might as well be kryptonite from the way it makes you recoil in horror begging someone, anyone, to take it far away from you. Preferably stored in a sealed container and buried in the backyard.

Grocery shopping turns from a routine chore into one long manic-depressive episode. One second you'll want to devour everything in the aisle immediately, and the next you'll be dry heaving because you saw a can of creamed corn. (Which, by the way, sounds delicious by the time you reach check-out.)

You can fall asleep any place, any time. You'll walk into rooms and forget why you're there. You'll lose 50% of your vocabulary and become extremely annoyed when people are too stupid to understand when you ask them to "bring me the, the... the thing."

Emotions go completely haywire, and finding that your husband has been eating the tortillas you were craving for lunch will make you seriously contemplate driving to his office to strangle him with the empty bag. The combination of your uncapped crazy and your pimply new T-zone will actually be like going through the teenage years all over again.

Except this time you're also bloated.

But in between the exhaustion, the nausea, and the epic mood swings, you really will be blown away by what's actually happening inside your body.

Someday the tiny little person you're growing will have interests and talents and friends and feelings and will sit at your kitchen table discussing politics and college admissions with you — all in the time it takes for you to blink.

Yes, pregnancy is the hardest miracle you'll ever experience. And I'm being both sarcastic and completely serious when I say, "Aren't we lucky?"

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