My Real Life

March 13, 2012

Truthful Tuesday

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 6:00 am
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Well, I’m not answering any questions today, but I am still sharing with you something that I might not normally have shared.

I was looking through my iPhone photos, the other day, because I’m now over 1,000 photos, thanks to some help from Baby Monkey who thinks he is the next Annie Leibovitz.

I came across a photo that I desperately wanted to delete, but then decided not to delete because it might be cool for Tiny to see someday.

When I was pregnant with Monkey Girl, I took a picture of myself every month to show the growth of my belly.

I did the same with Monkey in the Middle and Baby, but, as you can imagine, they were lost with the great computer crash of 2009.

With Tiny, I’ll be honest, it never crossed my mind.

And then I came across this picture and realized a few things:

1.  Thank God that kid was 3 weeks early.  I don’t think there was any more space in there for him.

2.  The last month of pregnancy is exhausting.

3.  Boy babies suck the beauty out of you just as much as their girl counterparts do.

4.  Perhaps people weren’t as out of line as I thought they were when they asked things like, “Haven’t you had that baby yet?”

5.  It doesn’t matter how many monkeys I have (and I will only have 4 for the rest of my life) I will always want more.

6.  I loved being pregnant.  (This isn’t news…I just remember how much I loved it when I look at this picture, even though this is, apparently, what I look like when I am pregnant.)

7.  Pregnancy is a freaking miracle and although I know the science behind it and how it all works, I’m completely amazed (and endlessly grateful), all the time, when it goes right.

8.  I’m a very, very lucky woman.

So, here it is.

I’m normally not a sharer of things like belly pics, as I think they are quite personal.

And this could be one of the worst pictures ever taken of me, which is why it made it to Truthful Tuesday, which is about the good, the bad, and the water retention.

However, I’m all covered up here, so I’m going with it.

And that’s the truth.

 

March 12, 2012

Liebster Award

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 6:00 am
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There’s a community out there.

It’s a virtual community, but it doesn’t make it any less real or cohesive than one in the “real world.”

It’s the community of bloggers.

Those of us in the blogging community visit each others blogs and comment and become connected to each other through the sharing of our lives.

And sometimes…sometimes…

We send each other awards.

One such award is the Leibster Award.

As Mad Hen at Fluff and Feathers (who was gracious enough to bestow this award upon me!) puts it:

Liebster is a German word, meaning dearest or beloved, but it can also mean favorite.  The idea behind the Liebster Blog Award is that it is given to talented and/or loved bloggers who have less than 200 followers in order to create new connections and to bring attention to these wonderful blogs!

There are some conditions to accepting the award.  One is to acknowledge and thank, through a link, the blogger who was kind enough to nominate you and to cut and paste the award onto your own page.  Another is to pass the award on to other deserving bloggers.

And so, I’d like to pass the award on to the following bloggers and ask that my readers check out their blogs.  These are blogs that I read every day and that inspire me in one way or another.  I hope you enjoy!

thismummaslife which is written by Krista and is just a great blog about mothering and living and being real that brings a smile to my face every day.

beauty that moves which is written by Heather.  I just want to crawl through my computer screen and go live in her house.  The photos she takes of her home and surrounding area are simply gorgeous.  (Out of the guidelines, as she has way more than 200 followers, but I want you to go see why…she’s earned every one of those followers!)

Dear Mr. Vernon which is an entertainment blog written by Shane, an old friend from high school.  It is extremely creative and SO well-written.  It’s a new favorite.

You’ll have to excuse my nepotism with this last one…it’s my sister-in-law, Alicia’s, blog, Why we yell  It’s a bit of this and that and is a glimpse into the mind of a mother of 7.

So, please visit these blogs, even if it’s just for today.  Good stuff, all of them. 🙂

March 11, 2012

Doors

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 6:00 am
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As I make dinner each night, Tiny plays with the doors between the kitchen and the dining room.

I have given him toys.

I have given him books.

He wants to play with the doors.

He swings them back and forth, back and forth.

Until he accidentally closes them.

Then, he’s like a caged animal.

“Mama! Mama!” he yells.

“Who dat?  Who dat, Mama?” he yells.

“Who dat,” is what he says when the phone rings or the doorbell rings.

I think he’s using it, in this context, to ask me to look on the other side of the door, see who it is, and open the darn thing up.

So, usually, I wind up finishing what I’m doing, because I know he’s not going anywhere, then going all the way around, through the living room, into the dining room, and sneaking up on him from behind.

I pick him up, move him away from the doors, re-open them, plunk him in the middle of his toys and by the time I’m back at the stove, he’s back at the doors again.

And it’s a safe bet, within the next three minutes, I’ll be responding to the call of “Who dat, Mama?” once again.

March 10, 2012

Spring has Sprung

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 6:00 am
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It may go away again, as Mother Nature seems to be teasing us relentlessly this year, however, for a few days, at least, spring has sprung in Northern Jersey.

My favorite part about spring?

Seeing these adorable little arms and legs and Barney Rubble feet in sandals:

Seeing the lankiness of this guy, all arms, legs and bones, unfettered by the sweats that he insists on wearing all winter:

Seeing this girl drop the iTouch and get excited about going outside and playing with her brothers.

Not everyone is digging spring.

SOME people can’t play outside until Mommy is done making dinner and it makes SOME people very angry.

Of course, if SOME people would learn how to walk, they’d have a little more freedom to play outside because they’ll be less likely to put everything in their mouth because they won’t be at mouth level, but that’s a post for another day.

However, overall, the windows are open, the breeze is flowing in and life is good.

March 6, 2012

Truthful Tuesday

Filed under: Truthful Tuesday,Uncategorized — Amy @ 6:00 am
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Today’s question comes from reader Jen.

Jen writes:

You, like me have 1 girl and 3 boys. Do you feel you have a different kind of “bond” with your daughter? Don’t get me wrong, I love all my children equally, but for some reason my daughter and I share something different. Maybe it is because she is the only girl, but we have a Mother/Daughter relationship and then a friend relationship. As her mom she respects me, but as her friend, she tells me everything, and isn’t scared to share things with me.

I don’t want to wimp out and not answer the question, but I think I’ve already somewhat explained it with this post from 2009.  Please click the link and read that post and click on the link in that post to get to the answer.

Sounds convoluted, but I swear, it will answer the question and be worth it.

(And if you still feel like I haven’t answered to the best of my ability, I’ll be happy to expound further at another time.)

March 5, 2012

Twins?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 6:00 am
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I think all of my kids look very different from one another.

They all have the genetics of my husbands family and they all resemble that side of the family, but in terms of really looking alike, I have always thought that the only two who really look alike are Monkey Girl and Tiny.

I’ve always thought that Monkey in the Middle looks the most different from everyone.

My Dad used to say that people had two types of faces:

Pig faces and Fox faces.

My Dad and I had Pig faces.

My Mom had a Fox face.

Every single one of us, in this house, have Pig faces, but Monkey in the Middle has a Fox face.

The next part to this post involves explaining how our computer crashed when Baby Monkey was about two.

We lost all of our photos of Monkey in the Middle from birth to age three, and all photos of Baby Monkey.

We hadn’t backed anything up, and had only a few photos that we had sent to other people and they sent back to us.

So, I really don’t get to remind myself what Monkey in the Middle looked like as a baby very often.

(Baby Monkey looks exactly the same…just bigger.)

Except, I guess I just forgot, or got used to seeing until it blended into the background, we have a family photo at the top of the stairs from 2005.

I was pregnant with Baby, so technically he is in the picture, but it’s basically just the four of us that made up family at the time and my parents.

Anyway, for some reason, I noticed this photo yesterday and stopped dead.

Compare.

I don’t know…maybe it’s just me.

Granted, Monkey in the Middle was about 5 months older than Tiny is in his picture, but in the grand scheme of things, not too big of a difference in age.

But, it’s nice to think that Monkey in the Middle looks like someone around here, and to think that I might have a glimpse into what Tiny might look like when he gets a bit older.

March 4, 2012

The Cow Says Woof

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 6:00 am
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We like books.

It’s a simple fact.

And so, we spend an enormous amount of time reading books, whether we are 40, 11, 8, 6 or 1.

Our hope for the books we read to our 1 year old is that they might help him make some kind of contextual sense of the world around him.

That they might help him learn.

So, imagine my disappointment when I opened up this book to share with Tiny.

I’ll admit…I didn’t actually browse through it when I bought it.

It said both “John Deere” and “ABC” on the cover.

Around here, either one of those terms makes a book golden.

Saturday night was the first night that Tiny was going to bed without being nursed to sleep.

It was time, and although I wasn’t ready, I thought he might be.

However, I wasn’t just going to dump him in his crib.

We started the ritual we have with the other monkeys, which is books, songs, then bed.

I picked this book out of his bookcase, as we hadn’t cracked the cover on this one yet.

We sat in his rocker and I opened and began to read.

First page went by just fine.

He was pointing at things, I was reading, there was learning going on.

(Okay, in MY mind, there was learning going on.)

Then we turned the page.

Farm.

Okay…I can get on board with that picture to describe the word.

However, while I realize this is a book manufactured by John Deere who has a product to sell, my guess is that the majority of children who will read this book will not make the connection between the letter “G” and this farm machine.

Yes, it happens to be called a “Gator” but, really?  There was nothing else on a farm that started with the letter “G”?

Like, maybe a Gate?

We moved on.

I was somewhat stopped by the picture of “Ice Cream” on the opposite page, but I let it go.

Not really farming terminology, but my Grandma grew up on a farm, and I visited many times as a kid.

There WAS ice cream.

So, okay.

However, the next page made me pause, once again.

I see a barn AND a silo, and if I’m a little one, I’m focusing on the bigger part of the picture which ain’t the silo.

They couldn’t just put a picture of a lone silo in there?

Would that have been so difficult?

Here’s the one that really got me going, though.

Really?

Udder?

You can barely see the udder!

That girl is barely a A-cup.

I’m not sure how this is a picture of an Udder.

I think we all know who will be to blame when hundreds of kids go to nursery school, and when asked “What sound does this animal make?” call out “Squirt! Squirt!”

It was udder-ly ridiculous.

I’m sorry.

So sorry.

I couldn’t resist.

Finally, we came to “X.”

It was at this point that I realized the author, (and I use that term in the loosest sense of the word), wasn’t even trying.

It even took me a minute to figure out that it wasn’t the row of doors that was important in the picture.

It was the design of the “X” ON the door that mattered.

Whatever.

Lessons learned:

1.  Look at the pictures in a picture book before you buy it.

2.  Forget the whole novel writing gig.  Apparently anyone can publish a picture book of ABC’s.

3.  Tiny is only 1.  He probably wasn’t going to learn anything from that book anyway, so I should just calm down and not have an udder about it.

March 3, 2012

Tell ‘Em

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 6:00 am
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I believe I’ve mentioned before my undying love for the series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

An excellent show that was a lot deeper than most people gave it credit for.

One of my favorite episodes was the senior prom episode.

Buffy just wanted to go to the prom and be a normal girl.

However, all that slaying gets in the way, Angel breaks up with her so she can have a better life, and so Buffy sends her friends ahead to the prom and takes care of that night’s threat to the world by herself.

Eventually, she changes into her dress and heads to the prom, alone.

They give out the class awards, and after they have all been given out, recurring character, Jonathan, asks if Buffy is there.

He brings her up on stage and gives a speech where he says that whether or not she knows it, the whole class knows that whenever something awful if about to happen in Sunnydale, Buffy is there to save the day.

They give her a special award that they created just for her.

“Class Protector.”

He says, “”We’re proud to say that the Class of ’99 has the lowest mortality rate of any graduating class in Sunnydale history.”

Love that line.

Anyway, I “Like” Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Facebook, and they put up that quote on Friday as their quote of the day, and it reminded me of this favorite episode.

It just always makes me feel good that, even though she didn’t realize it, she was noticed.

She passed through her days, going to class and saving the world, and outside of her group of Scooby Doo evil-fighters, just figured no one noticed.

But they did.

They should have told her LONG before this.

With every stake of a vampire heart, someone should have been there to say “Thanks, Buffy!” but they, like most of us, just took for granted that she was there, taking care of business.

How often do you say thank you to the people around you?

I don’t mean to your close friends and family.

I mean to the support staff in your life that work behind the scenes.

And I mean taking a moment for a sincere, heartfelt thanks.

Not just a passing “Thanks.”

They guy who pumps your gas (for those of us in NJ), the bagger at the grocery store (whether or not he/she bagged your groceries exactly the way you wanted), the man mopping the floor in your office building, the cab driver who just safely got you to your location.

From now on, I’m going to make a point to thank these people in a way that lets these people know I really mean it.

Because I think too many of us go through our days feeling unnoticed, unappreciated, and unimportant.

And I’d like to let someone know that I notice.

Anyone with me?

March 1, 2012

5 Things I Love Today

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 6:00 am
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1.  The thought of seeing TItanic in 3D.

This movie is a huge guilty pleasure of mine.

It is so grand and majestic in its cinematography.

I know it is the butt of many jokes, particularly the music, but I don’t care.

I loved it.

So, the thought of seeing it, again, on the big screen, in 3D??? 

Loving it today.

2.  2 Broke Girls

I love this show.

It makes me laugh until I need my inhaler.

It’s not for everyone.

It’s raunchy and completely inappropriate.

And I love it.

3.  These guys:

4.  My closet.

Seriously, I could spend quite a bit of time just hanging out in my closet.

I’ve never had a closet like this, and it was a huge selling point for me when we were looking at houses.

I’ve even got my shorts and t-shirts hanging up in there.

Maybe I’ll put a little desk in there and make it my writing room.

Maybe not.

It fits my shoes, my clothes and my Archie comics.

Seriously, what more could you ask for?

5.  Speaking of my closet, I love my shoes.

And, these days, these are my favorites.

Those little hearts on the side make a neat clacking sound when I walk and they are super-comfortable, even though I’m on my feet all day.

I’d wear them every single day if I could.

Love them.

When Spring gets over its identity crisis and decides it’s here for real, I’ll be loving these again:

But, for now, it’s the boots.

February 27, 2012

The View

Filed under: Uncategorized — Amy @ 6:00 am

This is pretty much the view that I have every minute that I am at home.

If I’m not at work, I’m watching this baby tush crawling away from me.

The stairs are usually his destination, and once there, he will go as far up as he can, before he wants to turn around and chat, at which point, I catch him before he plummets to the ground.

This kid, more than the others and probably because of the others, thinks he’s 5.

He pulls himself up and starts to take a step before he remembers he doesn’t know how to walk.

He screams when we give him food in little pieces, because he’s convinced he should be allowed to hold a whole sandwich in his hands and be trusted not to shove the whole thing in his mouth.

And he crawls.

Like lightning.

Everywhere.

Just a baby, and already the kid is always leaving me.

But he always turns around, calls for “Mama!” and comes crawling right back.

Helena, his babysitter (and the other love of his life), quite accurately says he’s like a bulldog, because as he crawls around, he’s dripping drool.

I imagine catching it on film one day and then playing a slow-motion montage of him shaking his head, much like a bulldog, and watching the drool fly everywhere.

That would be the post that would go viral.

I just know it.

Anyway, I can think of a lot of worse ways to spend my time at home than chasing Tiny around the house, with a dishtowel so no one else slips and falls in the drool.

As his tiny tush says in the picture above, Life is Good.

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