My friends Danielle and Matt spent the weekend with us. After they left this afternoon, I asked Alyssa to take her laundry basket of clean clothes into her room and put them away, and to pick up the toys she had scattered this morning. She said okay, and about fifteen minutes later she came back out to let me know that she had finished, and her room was “all clean” — her exact words. I didn’t go into her room to check, but when I glanced from the hallway, it looked as if everything was in perfect order, so that was that. I was looking forward to dosing myself with Dayquil and taking a nap — the next best thing to seeing someone in a lab coat, since that’s kind of hard to do on a Sunday night.

About an hour after that I went into her room with her to set her up for some quiet time, and imagine my surprise and annoyance when I discovered that she had simply taken all of the scattered toys and the laundry basket full of clean, folded clothes and dumped everything at the foot of her bed (which is not visible from the hallway or even the doorway). When I asked her why she did that, she said it was because she didn’t like chores and didn’t want to clean up. I’m not going to lie… I kind of went a little batshit. I told her right then and there that she was not coming out of her bedroom for the rest of the afternoon, and when I was ready for her to come out she wouldn’t until everything was in its proper place. I also banned her from any video games and computer games for the rest of the day.

Argh… I was so pissed that she lied, and even more pissed at her defense of, “well, I didn’t want to do it”. As my grandmother told my mother and my mother told me, tough shit. There’s a lot of stuff in life that you don’t want to do, but will have to do anyway. Even now, as sick as I am, I still can’t take a break from being a mother, from changing Ryan’s diapers, from making dinner (though “dinner” was just re-heated pizza, a far cry from the homemade vegetable tuna casserole I was originally going to make tonight), even from doing a bit of laundry.

So yeah. That annoyed me, hah. To her credit, Alyssa did clean up her room the right way the second time around, she apologized for lying to me and making an even bigger mess, and she even helped me fold some laundry tonight.

Have you ever noticed that it’s on the days that you feel the worst that your kids will be at their worst? It’s almost as if they can tell you that you feel like death warmed over, so they’ll push your buttons and see how far they can go before your parenting skills override your desire to curl up in a ball and attempt to sleep away your misery.

Right now I’m counting down the minutes until 12:50pm. At that point I’m going to change Ryan’s diaper, instruct Alyssa to go to the bathroom, give them each a cup of water, and send them off to their rooms for quiet time/nap time. Or as I sometimes jokingly call it, I-don’t-care-what-you-do-so-long-as-you-remain-in-your-bedrooms time. Once they’re settled in, I plan on crashing in my bedroom for an hour or two. I can’t believe that I’m going on my THIRD DAY of battling a fever that won’t get below 100 degrees, even with taking full doses of liquid Tylenol or Dayquil every four hours. Although technically I suppose this is my FOURTH DAY of Precise Misery, because I started feeling feverish on Wednesday afternoon, and I was definitely feeling craptacular on Wednesday evening. I even went to bed early that night, thanks to my friend Jason coming over to take care of the kids until it was their bed time.

Since I don’t seem to be improving, tomorrow I’m going to call up my doctor coat guy and beg him for some kind of liquid relief. I’m assuming I have some kind of infection, since that’s the usual cause for a fever!

So for those of you on the east coast, how are you enjoying the snow?

Now that my husband and I have lived in our home for almost three years (I believe it’ll be three years of as March 25th, 2010!), we’re beginning to look for ways to improve it. Before we moved everything in we took the time to paint the bedrooms, and a few weeks later our kitchen floor was replaced due to the company we purchased our washer and dryer from damaging it during the installation. My husband has made various little improvements, we’ve upgraded the faucets in the kitchen and the bathrooms, we “traded up” to my grandfather’s high end, high quality refrigerator and stove (the ones that were in here were cheap and crappy), and more recently he installed a ceiling fan in the living room and another one in Alyssa’s bedroom (we also want to put one in Ryan’s room and then one in our bedroom).

But there’s still so much more we want to do. We have a few big projects that we’d like to tackle, including repainting our living room and kitchen, putting down new carpeting and much better padding in the living room, and eventually replacing the kitchen cabinets and counter tops. But those are extensive projects that will require both a lot of time and a lot of money. So while we work towards saving up for those projects, we plan on doing some smaller things first. There’s the two remaining ceiling fans to install, and I’d like to improve the look of our kitchen by putting new knobs on the cabinet doors. I’ve also been busy looking at a Home & Garden Directory and various home improvement blogs to get some cheap ideas on how to “upgrade” the look of our home.

A home is definitely always a work in progress, and it’s well worth every expense and hassle!

Being a mom is a full-time job that never stops. It doesn’t matter if you’re sick, tired, wanting to do other things, or are just in a mood where you’re not interested in doing the whole parent thing. When you have kids, they rely on you and need you 24/7. This is something that you’ll definitely want to think about if you’re thinking about having a baby. Speaking of which, I find babies much easier to deal with than toddlers. At least with small babies, when you put them down, they stay put. Once they’re mobile? Forget it. Nothing is safe, and nothing is certainly sacred, lol.

Being a mom also takes over every aspect of your life. Right now, for instance, my kids are asleep, and I have a reprieve until 9:00am or so on Saturday morning. Yet here I am, checking out a Kids and Teens Directory, seeing if there’s any useful parenting information I can brush up on before I turn in for the night.

Seriously, with how much work it takes just to keep after two children, I seriously cannot imagine having 3, 4, 5, etc. A few years ago my mom told me that if finances and such would have worked out, she would have happily had five or six kids. Seriously, half of a dozen kids? Nobody NEEDS that many kids. And if you have a need to have that many kids around, why not consider adopting? At least then you would be taking in children that need a home, and you wouldn’t have to go through the physical discomfort and pain of pregnancy and delivery!

Moms! I need your help. I have succumbed to the dreaded dishwasher hands. And then some. I don’t know what is going on with me this winter, but I have seriously dry skin. The skin on my forehead and cheeks is even flaking. Gross, I know. I’m going to take a look at Weather proof your skin and see if I can find some useful tips. I use warm water, gentle Dawn dish soap (the kind that’s good for hands), I wear gloves or mittens when I’m outside, and I frequently moisturize with moisture-rich lotion. So what gives? What am I doing wrong?!

Hmm. So maybe I just need to try a better lotion. I just stumbled upon some coupons for Bliss World, and since they were recommended by that article, and I’ve seen their name mentioned here and there, maybe they’ve got something on all of the store brand lotions. What do you think? Do you have a particular lotion that works really well for you?

So lotion may solve my problem with my hands, but that’s not going to fix my face. Or maybe I should add some synthetic moisturizer there, too. To be honest, I’ve always had “normal” skin, I guess… a pretty clear complexion, with only the stray 1-2 zits the week of my period. So I’ve never bothered to moisturize my face or use any special cosmetic products. Hmm… maybe now is a good time to start?

For once, appearance doesn’t matter. When it comes to attracting the attention of the major search engines, content trumps all. Of course, you should have a basic grasp of HTML/XHTML & CSS for the sake of your visitors, and your site must at least be functional, but overall, Google couldn’t care less about your site’s color scheme or if you chose straight corners or rounded ones. Content is king. And that leads me straight into the subject of this article: website content. Website content is the written stuff that really fills your site with worthwhile writing. I’m talking about articles. When written right, and when they contain keywords and phrases that are relevant to your blog or website, you’re bound to get noticed by not only human visitors, but by the bots and spiders that Google and other search engines send out.

If you’re going to write or purchase articles for use on your website, you’ll want to make sure that those articles somehow relate to the subject of your blog. Take this blog, for example. Mamahood.org is clearly a mommy blog, with subjects pertaining to motherhood, parenthood, preschoolers, toddlers, and babies. There are more specialized topics, of course, such as autism, money, cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc., but in general as a mommy blog, the focus is on all things mom-related, and the big ones are the kids, of course. And right after the kids comes money, since money unfortunately makes the world go ’round.

A great example of an article that would pertain to Mamahood.org is this one: Debt consolidation is a wonderful concept in trying to save money. I can’t think of any married/babied couple that doesn’t have some kind of debt looming over their heads. In the case of my husband and I, we have a mortgage, a car loan, student loans, and a few medical bills. Debt consolidation is a worthwhile topic to read an article about, because it provides you with information on what debt consolidation is all about. Quite simply, debt consolidation is a process in which you round up all of your various debts, combine them into one large debt, come up with a great interest rate for that debt, and then make payments on it. With just one loan and one interest rate to worry about, you don’t need to risk forgetting about a payment, or struggle with a high interest rate.
Debt consolidation is a great choice for many individuals and couples, and because so many common types of loans qualify for consolidation, you don’t have to worry about being left out in the cold.

And while we’re on the subject of money, let’s talk about investments. You may not give much thought to investments if you’re dealing with a lot of debt, but if you have a bit of money to put aside, then you would be wise to at least consider an investment or two. As the article The Benefits and Drawbacks of Real Estate Investing points out, real estate is an excellent venture to invest in if it’s a profit you’re after. As anyone can see with Forbes’ list of the 100 richest Americans, nearly 33 of them made their riches by investing in real estate. Real estate is flexible, and it keeps up with inflation, which is very important in this day and age. Also? There are many tax breaks to be had by investing in real estate!
Of course, there are definitely drawbacks to real estate investment, so be sure to weigh the pros and cons carefully before stepping into the world of investments.

So after swearing up and down that I was done with baby urges for life, I went to sleep last night and had the most incredible, detailed, baby-urge-inducing dream ever. I dreamed that I was pregnant again, and I went into the hospital to have the baby. I had to have him via c-section, but they got the meds right this time, so I wasn’t nearly as sick or weak as I was after having Ryan. He was a boy, and his name was Gabriel. He nursed right away, and I checked out of the hospital with him myself the next day. He took to a sling right away, he was a champ at breastfeeding, and he even slept for 4-6 hour stretches. Everything was just so damn real in that dream, right down to the sensation of him nursing and the smell of his skin.

Uterus, I hate you. You have me pining for a baby that DOESN’T. EVEN. EXIST.

I think I’m finally past the point of getting baby lust. Sure, little twinges may rear their ugly heads every now and again, but overall I can handle the view of nursing mothers, pregnant women, and teeny tiny babies without wistfully thinking about how fantastic it would be to have another baby. Being pregnant was an exciting and amazing experience, and newborns are just oh-so-precious, but now that Alyssa is five and Ryan is going to be four next summer, I’m enjoying that independence that having “older” younger children allows. We bid farewell to pacifiers and baby clothes and baby gear well over a year ago, and I donated all but one car seat and one stroller (they’re going this week!) this past month. Now we’re into booster seats and big kid toys and big kid clothes (well, 4/5 for Alyssa and 5T and some 4/5s for Ryan), and I am all about the growing and independence continuing!

I spent my morning with thirteen five year olds. Alyssa was one of them, and the other twelve were her classmates. Right before Christmas I volunteered in Ryan’s preschool class for his Christmas party, and ever since Alyssa has been asking when I could come into her classroom. So this morning was that morning, and off I went.

It wasn’t bad, but oh my god are five year olds ever loud and energetic. I’d kill for that kind of energy. The noise? Not so much. Seriously, it was just nonstop loudness from 9:15am until 11:40am. Preschool didn’t technically let out until 11:45am, but by 11:40am the kids were going apeshit since school was pretty much over but none of the parents were there yet, so I went ahead and collected Alyssa and Ryan and left.

Was it fun? Sure, minus the loudness and not knowing what kid was talking to me at any given moment because so many of them were talking. Would I do it again? Maybe. Alyssa acted like a flouncy little drama queen the entire morning, putting on a show for me I guess, since her teacher and the aide said she had never acted like that before, so I told her that if that’s how she plans on behaving if I’m there in her classroom, I won’t volunteer there again.