I should note that I am taking an Early Childhood Studies course at Ohlone in the ECS departement. First of all, this is an amazing department for not just teachers, but parents! I cannot imagine being a teacher, none the less a parent, without the inspiration and guidance from the 2 courses I have taken thus far. Granted, some people are natural parents, I on the other hand, can always use some guidance and our parenting has flourished after learning the skills and developemental guidelines! Anyway.....

So I am trying to do a few Developmental Appropriate things with my kids and offering new ways of learning through play. Play is so powerful, even into adulthood! How else do we as humans practice and experiment with the things in our world?!

Right now, I am huge into gardening. If anyone has any gardening ideas for young kids, I am open to ideas. I'd love to get Mendelevian and do a few Pea Plant experiments, just not sure how that would translate with a 3 yr. old. I am thinking of heading to a few hardware stores and nurseries and asking if they have any plants they would be willing to get rid of for a few planting experiments. The fine motor skills, the enrichment of the senses (tactile, visual, olfactory and hopefully not taste!), the awe of creating something, would be so educational and just plain awesome for kids to be able to plant their own garden using flowers and a few other plant as well as some yucky soil and a few good earth worms. Incorporating how other species in Nature help flourish a garden as well would tie in our interdependance on eachother in nature and ecology (i.e.: Birds, lady bugs, earthworms, etc.) how all of these species come together to help a garden grow and flourish. I would love to do the whole Plant-grows-from-a-seed lesson, but that would hopefully come up as we do this garden lesson. At least here they would see the final product and then wonder where all of these plant/flower species come from. It might be a little early for the whole flower reproduction cycle, but we'd see where the questions lead us:)

Anyway, always up for ideas and ALWAYS up for personal stories!

Ta ta for now.

Ok. First story of this blog happened recently. There are so many I have to share, it's not even funny. However, I figure I will try to share the most recent first. Please leave comments of stories in your own life that these remind you of. The purpose of this blog is to share, relate, or just be glad it didn't happen to you! Either way, myself and other moms want to hear about it!

Ok. So this week, I am on the mend from pneomonia. Yes, I got my first case and luckily caught it early enough and didn't give in to the "you can beat it with rest" that I was hearing from my mind-over-matter spouse (honey, I love you for so many reasons....) and went to the E.R. (another hilarious, yet, peaceful blissful story, which is that way because I actually got to engage in adult conversation without 3 kids demanding my attention at the same time. I actually read my text book! I actaully was able to look out of a beautiful window on a drizzlly day and not have a single thought other than how beautiful the rich green foliage outside looks! I loved my "me" time at the E.R.!)

Anyway, I am recupperating from pneumonia, still taking the antiobiotics and still very short of breath, thank you micro-organism that has invaded my lung space. Well, I decide to put the kids in the bath early and then take them on a drive to get them to fall asleep early (I had an errand to run). It's around 6pm, and all three of my little angels are playing in the tub (water is everywhere). The girls (I should mention they are 10-month old identicals) want to be done, so I pick them both up and wrap them in an expensive, snuggly, over-sized, orange towel, and am peacefully nursing both of them, kissing their fuzzy heads, feeling their warmth against their rightful place on my achey rib cage. They are each making little grunts of what I think is satifaction. So cute. Mmmm...mommy heaven...UNTIL! DUH NUH...A WHIFFFFFF!!!!!!!! PEEE UUUU!!!!! WHOA! I look down, and oozing out of Cayden is a sludge of creamy diarhea! Aghh!!!!!! I scream and try to gently put her back in the tub with out distrubing the muck that has consumed the middle of this blissful towel! I place Eva next to her, and Lincoln is glad to have his bath toys back.
ok. Towel in hamper to go downstairs immediately. Well, I guess I'll just lay down on this plushy, shag-black carpet we love and stretch out my back. I am laying on my tummy and watching and listening to the mayhem. I glance down at my iphone quickly to turn on some tunes. SUDDENLY!!! I hear a scream!! Lincoln has jumped onto the bath tub rail (what do you call that piece that you lean over?) and is screaming at the top of his lungs, "Poop!! Poop!!". I get up, expecting to see a tiny chunk floating because what could be left inside that tiny body after the towel has been distroyed. However! The whole tub has turned diahrea yellow and there are chucks and pieces EVERYWHERE!!!! Now I am screaming and frantically lifting babies out of the tub!!! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO?!?!?! I need to clean them but how! Not in the sink that I just cleaned (used to be clogged, but I, strong female warrior of a fixer, unclogged it myself and cleaned it to a shiney state with home-made product! I don't have energy to do that again!). I am standing there, staring at my tub, staring at the two babies crawling around the shag carpet and amongst our clothes that should have been discarded into the proper laundry reciptical, and listening to Lincoln jump up and down in the hall screaming. He is like a monkey at this point. What am I going to do? As I am standing there, I glance back, and Cayden is sitting in a muddy puddle of creamy beige muck contrasted to the black, plushy shag carpet and Lincoln's ode-to-steve-jobs black turtle neck!!!!! Agh!!!! Lincoln and I scream even louder and now I screaming, "I need help! Anyone come help me! Help!!!! HELP!" Cayden is moving around in this puddle, and starting to bring her poopy hands to her mouth (hear myself make gag sound) and Eva is trampsing through it like it's nothing. What?!?!?!? What is going on here?!?!?

And here is where I have that wierd out of body expereience..."is this really happening to me?". Am I really all alone with two poopy infants, a frantic toddler and now 2 poop messes to clean and 3 kids to dress?  

I have to figure out which emergency to deal with. Ok. Cayden is the worst. Luckily, instead of the neighbors that I thought for sure would hear me and might come running in thinking there was an emergency, my mom walks in after I sent Lincoln to go get her. She thought he was playing wolf, so I am now also covered in various assortments of excretement.

The situation was handled; we juggled a baby while I held each one under the faucet in the tub, making sure not to let her touch the water that was slowly draining from the tub (thanks to all the brown little plugs), got all three in footsy pajamas and all was wellI was finally able to throw them in the car so that I was off to my errand. After they fell asleep on the drive home, I pulled up and sat in the car to debrief and catch up on a book on organzing. I get all the kid inside, one at a time because it is an art trying to keep them asleep as I carry them through the house and into their beds and lay them down without waking them up. Everyone is down, except Cayden. She wakes up and starts playing around. Why? oh nothing...she just had 2 more blow outs! The time was 1:30am when I finally laid down on my pillow, curled up with my heavy blankie, and started to cloe my eyes, when Lincoln wakes up with a tummy ache. Oh well. That's being a mom of 3!

 In the next 24 hours, Cayden had 7 more blow outs and Eva only had 1 that required an outfit change. So I have an entire new load of laundry designated to the High Soil mode on the washer and plenty of work to do! Looking on the positive side....um...uh...well? I guess at least they all had it at the same time! I'll still be able to look back on this and laugh, and be thankful it is a new day! (And thank you to laundry detergent and washer machines! Like thank you seriously, mommy gods....I had enough close interaction!)

So how does this story make you feel? Are you laughing? Cringing? OR reminded of a story that happened to you  or luckily not you and someone you know? Feel free to share. Then we may not seem like only the craziest moments happen to us!

Happy Parenting

"Did that seriously just happen to me?" you might be asking yourself as you step out of your body for a second and think, "wow. That's something they don't tell you when you decide to become a parent!".

Sound familiar? As a mom, hilarious things happen all the time. There is even a website out there titled "Shit my Kids did" and thank you to Pinterest, I have laughed heartily at things other kids have done to their parents!

This blog will be a recount of stories of things that have happened to me where either in the thick of the situation or later, I laugh in amazement about the absurdity of what just happened or is happening. Finally, I have a platform to share those situations and I hope you as a reader are either able to relate or able to have a moment of "gee I am glad I am not her!" and feel better about your own life. Either way, these crazy stories have to be shared. They might be sad, ironic, beyond crazy, just plane stupid or absolutley pants-wetting hilarious. I hope it's the latter and you  laugh because that is all you can do with these situations! I know I eventually ended up laughing (which hopefully brought my blood pressure down!) becuase life goes on and whatever it was, we survived! So let's take those lemons and turn them into lemon drops or martinis or whatever and laugh about it!

ENJOY!