Lost and Found?

Do you ever feel like people are always asking you where things are? The annoying part is that you know they haven't even tried to look on their own?

Here is a simple and sure fire way to get a person to realize they haven't even tried to look on their own. Then it dawns on them that they could try.

The key to this being effective is to try NOT to sound frustrated, annoyed or sarcastic.

YOU MUST answer in a calm and pleasant voice.

"Mom, where's my backpack?"

Mom: "Where'd you look?" you may need to follow up with an "I'm not sure where that is"

The key to this is sounding like you really aren't sure where the backpack is. It takes a couple times but the person will realize, hmmm they never checked anywhere and will have to try looking around for it themselves.

The next step is to let them look for a bit. It's good for them to keep track of their things and to attempt to be organized. It takes time but they'll catch on.

Don't forget NEVER to sound annoyed or your entire cover is blown.

Now obviously you don't want to be cruel so if they've given it a good effort... you can suddenly "have an idea of where they could look"

Good luck ;)

Where's the what?

So you know when a young kid will ask you really dumb questions? The really dumb ones that are super obvious or you know they already know the answer? Here is the end all solve all that will help you keep your cool and gets your kiddo to stop asking lame questions.

You are baking a cake.

John asks, "Are you baking a cake?"

In the EXACT SAME tone he asked the question, you ask it back.

The key is to use the SAME TONE in your voice so you don't sound condescending or sarcastic.

You reply, "Am I baking a cake?"

Your 2 year old is asking you where his train is and you know he knows where it is. He's just being a stinker.

John asks, "Where's my train?"

You answer "Where's your train?"

Get the picture? It works every time but the key is not to sound irritated or rude ;)

Giant Underpants!

It's great to have gotten so many calls and emails about my previous PJ post. Glad to hear everyone is happy and back on track. So now.... the final frontier....GIANT UNDERPANTS!

This is most likely not as common of a problem as the jammies but just in case...

I remember after my first baby, my sister Diana was helping me fold my laundry. She came across a rare sighting. Oversized, overwashed giant underpants. She gave me a talking to but I was so sloppy and unmotivated after the baby that I just ignored her.

It's just a heads up and the photo and video should speak for themselves.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAunpaO6XE0

Who dat?

I just realized this week that I hang out with my husband a lot. We talk all the time. The weird thing is that I noticed I rarely look at him. In the eyes. We talk and joke while doing regular daily activities. I'll look in his direction of course but I don't actually look at him in the eyes. I don't know about you but that is stinkin' nutso! Does anyone else do that to their spouse? You'll have to pay attention and see if you find yourself talking to them while you look at the sink, or at the laundry pile or the tv. I'm shocked I do this but am thrilled to have noticed it.

So today I overcompensated and while we were chatting, all I could think about was looking in his eyes. Then I actually said out loud, "I'm looking at yoooou" in this cute/funny/creepy way. I don't recommend verbalizing that you are looking at him. This is gonna take some practice.

That's better!

Ever notice your purse is always cluttered with junk? Receipts, wrappers, toothpics, pen lids, etc. Here is a sure fire way to keep your purse clutter free. It's so simple! Every time you are at a restaurant and waiting for the bill, clean out your purse! The waitress is clearing trash off the table anyways ;)

In the spirit of love

I don't really get what the big whoop is about the Royal Wedding tonight. Then a friend mentioned she saw a documentary on what a special romance Will and Kate have had. That's different. I am a big fan of romance! It got me wondering how many of the couples I know met. Royalty is fine and dandy and all but I think WE are much more interesting.

So I'm asking YOU. How did you and your sweetie meet. What's YOUR romance?

XOXOXO

"We're not doing that!"

First up, this topic is very situational and absolutely varies person to person. The only valid comments I can make are in regards to what I do. Scrap it, copy it, modify it, whatever.

Is it me or does all hell break loose when kids come over to play? I'm not sure if disciplining other people's kids is my favorite thing to do but let's be clear about one thing, I'll do it.

I think you keep your cool and be direct with kids. You don't have to lay down big speeches but you do need your "knock it off" one liners.

Here are a few one liners. They are usually accompanied by a serious look and direct eye contact by you. The more you talk, the more a kid won't listen. So make it quick. As you go through the one liners, keep in mind you can add " Do it again and you're leaving" to the end of each one

Anything naughty:

This is often all you need to do.

Eye contact and a firm "Uh Uh" now pause and keep eye contact. The kid usually finds something else to do.

A kid is winding up to throw something at another kid (This is the one I use the most)

"Don't you dare"

A kid is doing something at your house you don't like.

"We don't do that at MY house"

( you need kids to get the drift that they are playing by your rules)

A kid is talking sassy at your house.

"You're not allowed to talk like that over here."

A kid is screaming or yell talking.

"You're hurting my ears, stop yelling"

A kid was rude.

"You're not doing that over here"

A kid has done something over the top and totally inappropriate.

"No Way, you're going home for that one NOW"

I am the first to rat out a kid. One... because parents NEED to know if their kid is being a tool. Two...because the kid needs to know they will not get away with being a tool around YOU.

Ok so the neighborhood kids are always over.

Rule One: They go home to eat.

I don't provide snacks. Water is fine but that's it.

Rule Two: I don't let kids play all through the house. I don't need to clean up their crap. Designate where neighborhood kids can play and LET THE KIDS KNOW where these places are. The garage was set up like a play room and handball ct for my young kids and they knew that was where they could play. I can't stand reminding kids over and over where they can play so I made a sign and taped it on the garage door going to the house that read, "kid's in garage only"

Rule Three:

Keep in contact with these kids parents and ask whole heartedly that they always let you know if there is a problem with your own kid. If they are being naughty at your house and you're not getting anywhere with them....Take them by the hand, walk them home and tell the parent what happened. Then tell the kid they can come back when they are ready to be polite.

Rule Four:

Make sure you remind kids to say thank you and don't pitch hissy fits when it's time to leave.

It's tough when you have kids out front that you can't keep your eye on. In that case you MUST say, "I can't watch you all right now so you'll have to go home"

I have kids in the neighborhood who my kids know they can't play with unless they are outside where I can see and hear them.

Be prepared that sometimes kids will decide they can't get away with much when you're around and they'll stop coming over. They might start asking your kid to go over there and my advice would be not to let them.

YOU MUST be up front that safety and good behavior is a big deal to you. You have to admit and be open with the fact that YOUR kid can be the stinker too so you're never coming off as "the mom who knows everything and who's kids are perfect"

They tired?

I've had this thought often as I go from kid outing to kid outing. I see moms with their kids, sitters with kids and grandparents with kids often. Everyone does.

Why is it that when I see a grandparent (who obviously watches their grandkid regularly) I feel sorry for them. The grandparents I mean. It might be because that would be like ancient chinese torture for some grands, but these grandparents do it.

Is it because they feel like they should? They can't say no? They love it? They obviously love their grandkids but I often wonder if they WANT to be raising little kids again. I often see a grams with a car seat carrier, 2 and 4 year old, little toddlers, etc. They usually look exhausted especially if it's around 1 or 2.

Now I'm NOT talking about a grandparent that stepped up to raise a child permanently for whatever reason or spending time with your grams. I'm talking about a regular child care situation.

Part of me feels like grands should just enjoy the kids. Soccer games, plays, family dinners, outings, movies, swimming. Then again what a blessing for the KID to have family to raise them. Just like being the parent there are hard times and easy times but is it fair to ask your parents to take on that role?

I get it, childcare is expensive and family is a great place for the kids to be.... but is it fair to do to your parents? I don't have the answer or a solid opinion on this one. It just makes wonder if breaking up tantrums is really what a 50-70 year old would like to be doing.

P.S. I blurred out the people in the attached picture because I got it off the internet. I don't know them.

WARNING!!! This post contains my chubby pics. An NO I wasn't pregnant.

A girl from high school got me thinking about the last post I submitted about jammies so I posted this super nasty photo of what I looked like after child #3. Hells yeah I want to look cute as much as possible because if you let yourself go, glace back a the pics above. My husband didn't marry a 160lb girl with baggy hand me down clothes from her mom. He married a 115lb girl who dressed cute and had good hair. Yeah, I was the same on "the inside" but honestly didn't feel like myself until I'd had enough. Nothing good comes from being sloppy. The way you dress, hold yourself and feel often translates into everything you do in life.

About 7 years ago I decided to take baby steps and I mean bahahaybeee steps. I was physically and mentally in a pretty deep hole.

Here's what I did and obviously everyone is different.

Step one: Lose some lbs.

I went to jazzercise TWICE a day FIVE days a week. I couldn't make it through the class for at least two months but kept going anyways.

Step two: Splitzies

I spit a meal with my hubby or put half in a togo box as soon as my meal arrived.

Step three: The year of cute clothes

I painfully threw away all my sloppies. Sweats, xl t's, oversized jeans, etc.

Buying new clothes was really scary and nothing seemed to look good. So I went with long skirts with tanks until I felt ok in fitted pants.

Step four: The year of good hair.

I grew my hair out and bought a high quality flat iron.

Step five: The year of cute shoes and a nice purse

I have worn flip flops my whole life.... no matter what and I've been toting the same stupid black fly's mini backpack for close to forever. I went the boot route since I walk like Tootsie in heels. Used bday $ for a coach purse and wallet.

Step six: The year of trendy jewelry.

Never worn ANY bling. It makes a huge difference on how you feel when you do. I keep it simple and wear one nice item because I feel like an imposter when I layer and do a matchy matchy thing with the jewels. A little goes a long way with jewelry. Even wear something blingy to the grocery store!

Step seven: The year of make up.

Yup, I've had to ask for a lot of help in this department since I've never done more than wear mascara and lip stuff. Full boogie eye shadow is fun!!!

Step eight: Enjoy

Enjoy and be proud of all the work you've done and say "Thank you" when you get a compliment. That is hard to do when you spend a few years feeling so nasty. Revel in the stage you're at and high five yourself for putting forth the effort.

Step nine: Keep on keepin' on

Weigh yourself regularly and remember that feeling great is much more fantastic than eating too much.

Force yourself to look nice so you don't end up getting yucky again.

Figure out what your Kryptonite is. What triggers making you want to let yourself go and outsmart yourself. (Mine is bad hair. When I wake up and throw my hair in a pony I tend to dress like I'm going to paint my kitchen.)

Be happy and positive as much as possible.

Good luck ;)

Now ask me if I care.

I don't care how long you've been married, if you're single, how much weight you've gained, how frumpy you feel, blah blah blah. What you're gonna do is wear something cute at night. You're going to throw away stretched out sweats, loose the oversized logo t-shirts and throw away any sweatshirts that have been washed a million times. And you're never ever ever going to wear your husbands clothes to bed....ever.

Now I'm not saying you have to wear anything sexy (unless you want to) but you do have to wear something cute. It has to match AS IN the color of the top and bottom have to go together or it can be a jammie set. Your jammies MUST fit properly. Get a hoodie instead of a giant sweatshirt. Man socks are a no go. Buy a couple pairs at the dollar store that will go with your new nighty outfits.

Polar fleece is a no no and flannel is marginal. We are going for a comfy fabric with at least 5% spandex in it. Your new jammies should NOT be expensive since you will be buying night time cuteness at all times.

NOW.... go throw away nearly everything in your pj drawer and hit up Target or Kohles tomorrow. I recommend you buy at least three "outfits"

I don't care what you say..... cuteness at night is an absolute must. This simple step will make you feel better, feel more comfortable and cheer you up.

I shouldn't have to say this but just in case.....the key is to wear these clothes in the evenings and to sleep only. Don't you dare wear them all day or put them on in the late afternoon.

The photos are reasonable outfits....Now go hit the stores and find something similar!

Slow and steady yo!

There is a simple cure to letting your house build up dirt and clutter. It takes some discipline but once you make it a habit your house will stay relatively tidy and clean.

You will have to adopt the rule, "If you see it, you have to clean it"

It's pretty self explanatory. If you see a pee drip on the toilet, clean the toilet right away. If you see a dish in the sink, put it away right away, fingerprints on the window.... you get the idea.

Remember, slow and steady wins the race.

Get the sock out of here!

Oh my gosh. My husband played the funniest game with the kids over the weekend. It's so simple it seems lame but give it a try 'cuz it's hilarious.

Figure out who is the is "the getter." In this case it was daddio. All he does is wrestle around to try to get both socks off the kids' feet. That's it. It's so funny, try it.

Mama say what????

When your kiddo gets hurt:

DON'T ASK

"Are you ok"

DO ASK

"Did that surprise you"

For some reason this logic gets kids to snap out of their funk. Quien supo?

Get some sleep yo!

Can't fall asleep? Here's what you do. You'll have to get your sweetie to buy in to this at first but you'll both be sleeping like babies and begging for your new nightly ritual. It's called "The Double Scratch." I know your all, "Duh, everyone knows scratches are relaxing." But this is the double scratch yo!

You have to get into the proper scratch position. All I could quickly find online was a pic of snuggling cats. Just copy them though, they have perfect form. This is seriously the EXACT position you and your love bug need to get into.

So now your scratches can hit your back or your head, whatever you like. BOTH of you should be scratching at the same time...... until you fall asleep. Repeat every night for a week to infinity.

That's obvious.... isn't it?

So my pal Kelly Brian Paull recently told me about this and I think it's pretty wacked that I never thought of it myself. It's so simple. It's genius. It's so obvious.

I'm talking about one of my all time favorite things to do and all this time I have been doing it wrong? I'm talking about hugs. Yup, you read that right, hugs.

There is a rule that should be followed and you won't believe the results. It's actually kind of shocking. Here it is.

NEVER BREAK A HUG.

When you are hugging someone, especially someone you know well and love, let THEM break the hug first. You won't believe how big of a hug people actually need and want. Your kids will never let go as fast as you would. It's life changing. Now go try it.

Say it to my face

So Bella and I were unloading the dishwasher for the millionth time today. You know how you talk to yourself in your mind? Well I was saying things like, "I can't stand unloading the dishwasher" and "This never ends!" You get the idea. Then my mind chatter took a turn. I then thought about how most of the world would do anything to have dishes to unload. Dishes in a dishwasher represents so much. Things like the fact that we've eaten.... a lot. We have running water. The water is so clean we can drink it AND clean with it. We have dishes. A machine washed them for me. We have heat that heated them on the dry cycle. You get the idea.

Then I'm thinking about how Bella was probably thinking about how much it stinks to unload as well. So..... here's the important part..... we start to talk about how lucky we are and how we should try to never complain about all the awesome things we have.

I realized that most of the time, these conversations come up if kids start griping about doing work around the house. It's done in more of a disciplinary way to make a point. Why not catch your kid already being rad, thank them and put your "job" into perspective. I really think that Bella will be thinking about our "lucky" talk most times she unloads. Now for the other three kids ;)

You want them to share? Puhlease.

You really want to ask a kid to share? Sharing is just confusing. When you ask a little kid to share, what they think is happening is they are"giving up" a super sweet toy. Put yourself in a 1-5 year olds shoes. You bring this awesome dump truck to the beach. Other kids want to play with it so you have to give it up? Uh uh. Hey mom, you give that one a whirl. You're playing frisbee with Pops and another mom takes your frisbee. Then Pops tells you to share. That'd be a no go.

Here's my suggestion. Erase the word share from your vocabulary. Replace it with the word "trade." You want to play with a kids dump truck Johnny? Ask Steve if he'll trade it for your fire truck. At this point, if the answer is ,"No" to the trade then Johnny has to move on. If the trade sounds good to Steve... you've got a winning deal.

Sharing should be voluntary. You can ask your kid if they'd like to share but I don't think it's fair to force them. Sharing should be done because you WANT to give. Trading is just fair.

Their first "one liner"

So you take your kiddo to the park right? They will inevitably ask another kid, "Can I play with you?" The answers is almost always..... you know..... a big fat, "NO."

Here's the deal. In the adult world, this would be comparable to saying, "What's your phone number?" to a stanger. I have a fool proof one liner that will get your kid playing with anyone they want to. It's so simple it's almost funny.

You are going to give your kid the heads up that you have the perfect thing to always say around big groups of kids. If Johnny wants to play with Steve the opening one liner has to be, "How old are you?" This works on all genders/ages. Believe me, it's magic!

In the adult world this would be like asking someone, "Who's your favorite basketball team" or "Who do you want to win American Idol."

Try it and let me know how it goes ;)

By the way, all this punctuation is killing me.

Keep It Clean

Make your kids clean up any messes they make. My daughter came in with two jackets that had been on the trampoline for a week. They've weathered rain, snow and frost btw. She brings them in and clumps of dirt are now all over my floor. So what to do?

a) Pitch a hissy at your kid for making a mess

b) Send them out of the room while you sweep up the floor

c) Get angry and make them clean up their mess.

d) Let out a big, "Arrrrgh" then suggest they bring out the laundry basket, put the jackets inside and sweep up the mess.

I suggest going with D (this time at least)

If you have always taught your kids to clean up their messes then guess what? They always will. Keep your cool so your kid doesn't get freaked out but ALWAYS let them clean up. The older they get the better job they'll do but compliment the effort and feel free to say,"Oops, missed a spot" if they need to do better work. DON'T FORGET to compliment their great work and thank them for cleaning up their mess.

Here's the deal.

Even make your baby clean up their messes. You'll thank yourself down the road if you do. Remember, If they've always cleaned up their messes they always will.

How do you make a baby clean up their mess? You know when they launch their cheerios off their tray? Pick them up and with a quick and firm voice say, "Food stays on the table." Put them on the ground, take their hand in yours and pick up the food together. Put it wherever you choose. Calmly put the baby back in the chair and continue eating. Drop the subject.

Then when the baby begins eating say something like, "wow, you got it all in your mouth, thank you!" Don't forget the cheesy smile or high five.

This seriously continues forever. As they get older, cheerios turn into clothes, basketballs on the lawn, bikes in the driveway, empty milk bottles on the counter, etc. You'll always have to do refresher courses on cleaning up their junk but if you do this right, you'll get less resistance and they'll have created a good habit.

Kids need to know what you expect. (Firm)

They need to be responsible for their messes (Fair)

They need to feel you appreciate their help and you noticed their good effort (Friendly)

My Favorite F Words

I have always used my favorite F words in life and I find they are especially potent when dealing with kids. They are of course firm, fair and friendly.

Using these words, typically in order, will work every time. I consider these three words life's

little cheat sheet. They direct us in the right direction to do what is right.

If I give any tips I'll try to show how being firm, fair, and friendly works in to the equation.

Get ready 'cuz here one comes.

Hey hey hey

I decided to start a blog blabbing about the junk I think, what seems to work, places I like and cool things I see people do.... along with anything in between.

I often crack the code on random parenting blunders and I'll share some tricks with ya. A big shout out goes to Erin Fergerson for suggesting many times I give this a try. Here goes Erin.