When it Rains it Pours.

Yesterday, like most days, was full of good intentions. Intentions to clean, lose 5lbs, play with The Child, catch up on emails, pay bills, cook, laundry, write a blog post, etc etc etc....

Amazing how weak my Good Intentions are when it comes to nap time. The Child goes down (yes, I still have a child that naps. If I have my way, he will nap until he's a teenager. Then he'll just sleep-in right until nap time. Works for me) and I have approximately 2hrs to complete all my Good Intentions for the day.

Then I walk past my bedroom.

Start thinking about how soft my bed is... how warm it is....how droopy my eyes feel...

I can do a lot of things during the day with The Child and when he's awake. But what is the one thing I can't do?

SLEEP

Dear friends, as good as my intention was to post a blog yesterday, it was not as good as my overwhelming desire to sleep.

So here is my Not Me Monday.

Really, it is the epitome of a Not Me Monday as I am writing it on a Tuesday.

Our Summer has been incredibly busy. Filled with traveling, company, yard work, events here and there, so last weekend... we finally had a Saturday to ourselves, as a family.

What's a person to do with an entire free day?

First we stopped by the park near our house as they were having a big community day celebration. The Child and I both did not pick the Fire Truck exhibition as our favorite. Although I'm sure my reason was much different from his. If you don't catch my drift.

It was not my husband that then suggested we go look at TV's as there was apparently a huge sale on. I suppose we could have left the park, returned home to clean and do our dutiful, Saturday chores. But looking at TV's did not sound so much more appealing.

The electronic store was not a personal heaven for The Child, who does not love TV. I thought for sure he would just plunk himself down in front of the largest one and stay put, while The Husband and I decided our TV fate.

Boy, I was wrong.

Why sit and stare at one TV, when there are hundreds of all different shapes and sizes?

It was not my child that was running like a crazed madman, through the entire store, not climbing up TV stands, and definitely not trying to push the 'buttons' on the screens. See, the only thing that is HD on our TV at home, is the layers of dust that it collects. This doesn't mean we don't use it on a regular basis, it just means its old and very small. So for The Child to see a network logo on the bottom of the humongous picture, in HD, of course it looks like a button.

I was not the crazed Momma, chasing said crazed child, all over the store while The Husband did not proceed to purchase a very large and in charge TV.

Every so often we would pass The Husband and he would ask me "Is this ok? What do you think? Should we do it?"

Do you know how hard it is to make a large purchase decision while your child is climbing up the screen of a 52"?

Of course, all of my answers to the above questions were not a flustered "Sure. Whatever you think. Ten-twenty-p... huh? CHILD.. NO!! Get down!"

Finally, The Child found the row of display cell phones (which thankfully are attached by a long, elastic-type cord), this did not keep him busy until The Husband finished wearing out the credit card.

And as a celebratory gesture, to honor our new (and very large) purchase, The Child most definitely did not communicate in a very physical way that he had not had way too much apple juice and water at the park earlier in the day. I did not try to catch it in my hands.

I'm pretty sure our salesman will not remember us forever. Not only did we increase his commission, we also tipped him with one large, golden puddle.

Fast forward a week. A week of not watching way to much TV on our shiny, new family addition that I have not nicknamed "The Really Really Big Cartoon Babysitter". The Husband was not driving our car, only to have it not overheat and break down on the side of a major highway.

I suppose we don't really need to go anywhere when we have such a large, shiny object to hibernate us from all of society. Or at least that is how I am now justifying our smoking credit card.

When it rains, it definitely does not pour.

Wordless Wednesday

Who says Child labor is wrong?!

Vanilla

Today, I was hit with a nice wave of "Good Mom Guilt".

If you're a Mom you know exactly what I'm talking about. The internal dialogue sounds something like this:

"If I was a good mom, I would have daily craft activities with my child, completely organized and beautiful.

If I was a good mom, I wouldn't feed my child grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch every day this week.

If I was a good mom, there would be no way that I would let my child watch two movies back to back, let alone have a TV. Because I would be doing daily crafts, letter recognition, music and dance activities.

If only I was a good mom....".

Today I felt that I should pass on my love for cooking and baking to my child. It is very important to me that he grows up with a love and respect for cooking and food. So he can whip up many delicious meals while he attends Harvard. Or Yale. I'm not picky.

It occurred to me that we had marshmallows in the pantry left-over from camping a few weeks back, and while at the store, noticed the Rice Krispies were on sale.

1+1= 2 aka Rice Krispie Squares!

Of all the things I could bake with my son, I figured that Rice Krispie squares were probably the easiest and most harmless. He was over the moon to help, especially as marshmallows are one of his most favorite things.

I am a bit (ok, a lot) of a kitchen control freak. You want to help? Set the table, do the dishes and clean up after dinner, but don't try and help me cook. It is a big stretch for me to have The Child in the kitchen with me and I am constantly learning patience, and that its ok if he tastes Baking Soda.

So there we were, melting marshmallows, measuring Rice Krispies, anticipating the yumminess to come. So far the whole experience was going along quite smoothly. I was also pretty excited to make a double batch and take some to a client meeting I was going to later that evening. Those little crisps of rice were all marshmallowy coated and ready to be smooshed into a pan, when I realized that I didn't have the pans out and ready to be filled. Dang. I turned my back for literally a matter of 2 seconds to grab the pans, to return and see The Child holding the bottle of Vanilla over the big pot of marshmallowy goodness.

"NO!" I scolded. "No, no, no... we don't need to add any of that, Mommy already added plenty!"

I breathed a huge sigh of relief, grabbed the bottle out of his hands, thanking my lucky baking stars that I had caught him before he poured.

Or at least I thought.

Just as I was about to put the marshmallow goodness into the pan, I was hit with a huge waft of Vanilla and alcohol. See, I don't just use the plain ol'vanilla extract. No, I purchase the real stuff. The Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla... the stuff that could make a happy hour, extra happy.

As I stirred the pot, I noticed at the bottom the huge puddle of Vanilla settling into the bottom. That's when I realized the bottle on the counter was not so full anymore. Amazing what children can do in the matter of milliseconds. Sigh.

Guess these were going to be "Adult Only" treats now and it didn't look like I would be taking them to the client meeting either. Nothing says "Hi, I'm your Doula" than handing a pregnant Mom alcohol-laden marshmallowy treats.

If I was a "Good Mom", I probably wouldn't have yelled at my Child for dumping in 10 times the amount of needed Vanilla.

And if I was a "Really Good Mom", I probably wouldn't have let him eat the extra Vanilla'd treats either.

So much for alleviating "Mom Guilt".