Better Than A Baby Gate

I hate baby gates. But alas, they are needed in my house. seeing as we have a baby and all, and places/steps to keep the baby out of. I have a funky short stair case in our basement, that is impossible to gate off because there is no wall on one side. J LOVES to run to these steps and climb them as soon has his little knees and hands hit the floor. Its an exhausting game he likes to play and I was putting up barricades made out of the toy box and ottoman's to keep him from them. But he usually finds a way to get around even my best attempts. What is a mama to do?
Enter the Zhu Zhu Pet


My big boys love Zhu Zhu pets. They are mechanical little hamster rodents things. J has somehow developed a huge fear of the things. I'm not sure how. They big boys were playing with theirs one day, and J got panicked and scooted quickly away from the Zhu Zhu, screaming and with general fear/panic written across his face. This happened sometime ago, and I forgot about it. Until, last week, as the toy box was barricading the steps and J was standing next to it, the Zhu Zhu started making noise from the depths of the box. J freaked and made a bee line to my side. Hmm. An idea struck me and I experimented. I placed the zhu zhu pet on the second step, and J refused to go near the steps at all. I enjoyed 20 minutes of bliss sitting in the basement without having to get up a thousand times to get him off the steps. He just stayed away from the steps. (I'm wondering if it is wrong for me to capitalize on my baby's fear of a mechanical toy). But anyway, I tried it on the upstairs stairs and it worked as well.

So for now, my zhu zhu pet (named Rocky), is my new, very effective baby gate. I'm thinking about purchasing a couple more to make Christmas tree barricade.

On the Road to Organization

I might be on my way to organized. I'm afraid to say it, cause I'm famous for saying things like, "I'm really going to start exercising regularly." "I'm going to go on a diet." "I'm going to be organized." Well today, at least there is about 1% of my life is organized as of now. Last Saturday, I organized my linen closet (all by my self!). I so wish I had taken before and after pictures. It is a thing of beauty to me, and I want to live in it. I got rid of at least a dozen bath towels. I had to part with them, they didn't match my decor in either bathroom, and they were as old as my marriage. We prefer white bath towels that you can bleach anyway. Once I got rid of my collection of bath towels, the rest was easy! You can even find a wash cloth! Yippee!
And the biggest bonus, when you open the door, 5 floor mopping devices don't attack you. (I also threw out 4 mops--I have tried everything for my wood floors, and nothing does a good job, so I just stuck with the one the floor manufacturer recommends).
Its so exciting to have something look organized. I keep walking past it and opening the door and peek in. Just for a sense of accomplishment. AND it has stayed organized for a whole week! And it got me in the mood to do more. On Wednesday, I even turned down a friend's invitation to come play so I could work on my kitchen. Well, I did the kitchen and the whole great room and it looked GREAT! For about 2 hours. It made me sad to see the mess happen again. But that's what happens to a kitchen when you have a family. One day it will all be a nice, clean, organized space all the time, and I will be a sad, lonely, mama in her empty nest.
(But I can still try not to live in complete chaos right now right?)

Organized? Wha?

Me and the word organization are not two words that ever appear in a sentence together. I am not organized in the least bit. My words are not organized, thoughts aren't, I dream in unorganized craziness. When I see an organized home, I want to mess it up, just to mess with the organized person. Not really. But I would want to see what would happen if something got out of place with an organized person. I rebel against organization, I like to fly by the seat of my pants, unplanned and roll with it. Well, I should say, I USED to like to live this way. Lately, I find myself craving organization. My life is chaos everyday now, and I don't really like it anymore. In fact, things get a little too fly by the seat of my pants, and I feel like I'm doing everyone (including myself)a disservice by clinging to my old way of life. Now, thanks to pintrest and its plethora of pictures of beautiful-organized laundry rooms, I am craving to be organized, but where do I start?
By recognizing the organization that I have come into on my own and how it makes my life easier.
Such as,
-Only buying white socks for the kids, so finding pairs is easy peazy.
-Having a day designated to doing grocery shopping and laundry.
-Meal plans.
-making lists.

My husband happens to be the engineering type personality and is or used to be extremely organized. His system for laundry is so great, that I submitted that responsibility over to him years ago. His spaces (his closet, dresser, garage and shed), are organized and pretty to look at (at least until I am cleaning up for guests and just shove all the superfluous junk laying around the house into his beautiful organized spaces and then it looks like the rest of the cluttered mess that is my house). He's just better at it. In fact, he is the one who will, upon me asking him to help put away groceries, start purging and organizing all the cupboards and pantry. (I should re-work my grocery shopping so he's home all the time when I bring them home, it would make things easier, right? If only.) He has offered to organize the linen closet, and I will angrily say "NO THANKS!" Taking it as an insult to my homemaking skills. As if they are stellar, and I am actually good at it.
Maybe I should start there. Ask for his help. It is his strong suit. And that linen closet is bad. You can't open it without stuff falling on your head...and you can't close it all the way, due to the vacuum just thrown in there. Yes, I think that's a good jumping off place.

Birthday!

The Cake! Because my awesome sister convinced me when Q was a year old to do themed birthday parties, I now do them every year. Every birthday party, I always get stressed making the cake. I ask myself why I do it every year, but when its done, I'm mostly happy I did it, and I will continue to make them themed cakes, till they ask me not to. I do enjoy baking and planning the cake, but I always am rushed when it comes to decorating. This time was no different. I did learn from my mistakes and I made my own icing and that is ALWAYS worth it. With B's monster truck cake, I used canned icing and it was a certifiable cake wreck.








This is the first taste of cake our J has had, and he loved the icing. When he made it through the layer of icing to the cake, he spit it out like and looked at his hand like, "what the...?"
Scott made the food which was yummy. He grilled marinated chicken and made sandwiches with feta cheese and bacon on top, on a ciabatta roll with some fresh spinach. It was delicious. It was also hilarious, because we were in the middle of a snowstorm with some really heavy, wet snow and my precious Scott was out back grilling chicken. I felt bad for him. He is a man dedicated to good food. If the food were left up to me, I would have tossed it on the griddle inside and crossed my fingers that it turned out OK.
J got some cute toys that he played with that day and loved. However, he has not touched them since. He continues to enjoy racing me to the stairs to climb them, and opening my cupboards and emptying them. Also another of his favorite activities is opening the lazy susan and pinching his fingers in there, multiple times a day.
The best things in life are free, right?

It was a fun day! I am still in shock that I have a one year old!!