Hands

Everywhere I look I see my grandmother.  I see her in the hand sewn things we have around our home.  I see her in her beautiful penmanship in the letters she wrote to me in UT. I see her in my children when I make her fudge.  I see her in my cooking without measuring.

It stinks and is wonderful all the time.  I can tell stories about her.  I can remember her.  But I can't go talk to her. 

Not a day goes by that I do not think about my grandmother. 

Kids are people too!

Princess is growing up.  The other day a friend posted on Facebook a picture of her when she was a flower girl in a wedding-- she was 3. The picture seemed like a different lifetime ago. 

Now she is interested in grownup things.  She discusses social injustice, books, news, history etc with me.  It is a new experience to have a kid that I am relating to on an 'adult' level.  I have always given my kids the space to be who they are and make their own choices, giving her this respect has allowed my kids to grow into a their own people.

Princess is now a person I would happily hang out with and be friends with aside from a mother/daughter relationship. 

She knows that she does not need to seek my approval- that her approval is good enough.

Go back to the pole- back to the basics

I had a really bad experience at pole a while ago- it drastically turned me off.  It was not an injury or anything, I just was taken by surprise and my feelings really hurt.  It hurt me so deeply for a while I stopped going to pole for a few weeks.  I felt like the joy had been ripped away from me.

This is not nearly as flat as I want it to be-- but I need to get back into shape.

Thankfully- a great gym offered me a job teaching classes there and allowed me to come and practice there.

I got back on the pole and at first was really grumpy.  I had been away for a bit, had a major surgery, and then a minor surgery.   I hadn't fully come back from the first surgery and with all the time away I was not as strong as usual and certain tricks (some of my favorites) were not working for me.  That is maddening. Absolutely maddening.

But a great person, a great woman, a great poler- talked to me and in the end I had a great time again.  My tricks aren't back yet but soon.  

Giveaway time!

I am giving away a $50 Amazon gift card.  Sponsored by me.  I love having my readers email me and then become friends so I want to give something back.

Entering is easy:

Mandatory-

a) comment on this post.
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Optional
a) follow me on Twitter @almostsinglemom
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c) share this post with your friends on Facebook
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At 11:59 pm (central time) on December 14th, I will pick a random comment number.

Please leave me your email address either attached to your profile or in the comment- otherwise I can't get you your prize!

The winner will have 3 business days to get back to me and claim your prize or I will donate the gift certificate to charity.

Quiet around here lately

I haven't been blogging a lot lately, I apologize. I have taken on a lot of freelance projects and some longer term work so I have not had a lot to say here.

You can tell what stage of life I am in because we got a new dishwasher and I am thrilled.  I am giddy about a dishwasher.  What has my life come to?  Excitement over an appliance?

Our old dishwasher was on its last legs of its last toes for a while.  It needed to be hip checked to get the door to close.  It was really a rinsing machine not a dishwasher.  It was pathetic.  I think Pixie could wash the dishes better- in fact she has done a better job that the old dishwasher. 

Hooray for appliances making life easier!

The Kids Speech

Each of my kids has had his or her own word to mean breastfeeding. Princess called it "Ba Ba", Stinky called it "Nummies", Peas called it "Nursies", Pixie called it "Milky", now LittleDude (Scooter) calls it "Na Na".

Each of the kids came up with these names on their own.  How adorable can you get?  When a little kid comes up and looks up at you with big eyes and asks for milk.  Which is asking for closeness and snuggles, how can I say no?

Did you tell my 18 month old baby to shut up?

Sitting in the car for several hours is not on the top 10 list of fun activities for a lot of kids. Sometimes it is just a necessity.

We were driving home and stopped at a Culver's in an attempt to delay a mutiny.

Little Dude was tired. His routine was messed up. He was out of sorts. He is 18 months old.

He threw a tantrum.  LittleDude (or Scooter) is pretty skilled at tantrums.  He has learned from the best.

I tried to calm him down while B got food. I sang, I danced, I jumped, I tried a game on the phone, I tried nursing, I tried a big boy chair, I tried sitting on my lap, a high chair, and the other kids tried peek a boo etc., and I had NO SUCCESS. He cried. He wailed.

There were three people sitting at a table near us and they were not thrilled with the tantrum (neither was I- thus trying to comfort him)

The lady told my 18 month old baby to shut up.  Not to be quiet. Not to calm down. But to shut up.  I picked my jaw up off of the floor and tried to calm down. If I said something to her--- I would have ended up in jail.

So I told B what had happened and he looked at me aghast.  "Are you serious??" he asked.  Yes, I said. He walked around the corner and got ready to approach her- again making sure he heard me correctly..."Really??" Yes really.

He confronted her,  her rudeness knows no bounds: she was rude to Brian too.  Thankfully, B is a lot more level headed than I am. He was stunned.  I thought about how I could be the most offensive possible to her--- whipping out superboob and convincing Pixie to have an amuse bouche with LittleDude? Tell all of  the kids to lose it and tantrum? I decided to take the high road.

She did tell B that she was a teacher and she did not want to have to listen to crying children when she was not at work. OMG- then don't go to a restaurant that caters to families at 5:30 pm.  If we had our kids at a nice restaurant and there was a behavior issue that's another thing.  If I was not at least attempting to comfort him- again that is another situation.  I feel really badly for kids she teaches. 

The tantrum wasn't even that long. Maybe 10 minutes at most.  The big kids were being very polite and sitting nicely.

While we were eating (the tantrum had ended) they got up and moved to a different section; leaving a huge mess in their wake- really it was disgusting.

We finished eating and cleaned up after ourselves- like normal people- and left.

What do you do when someone says something out of line? Was she out of line? Was I out of line? Was B out of line?

Besides even when having a tantrum LittleDude  (or Scooter) is really cute.