Birthday Surprise

So it was my birthday last week and my husband tells me he is going to take myself and the children out to dinner to celebrate. Yay!! Sounds great. The kids are good most of the time so what can go wrong?? A LOT!!!
Earlier that afternoon I went shopping then stopped at the gym. The two thing's I love! I come home and my husband was busy doing some yard work. He tells me that the kid's just went inside to watch cartoon's. I went inside to see that my 4 year old is M.I.A., I searched and found her hiding under her bed. She hides there sometimes to eat things she is not supposed too. You see, she is lactose intolerant, and after years of dealing with her digestional issues she is now obsessed with poop and everything related to POOP! So I wondered how this dinner was going to play out now that she has helped herself to a bad lactose snack!
We went to the “Iron Chef Restaurant”. It's a Japanese Steakhouse similar to Benihanas. Several strangers are sitting around a table…. The waitress comes to the table to take our drink order and gets to my 4 year old and she yells “POOP”! The waitress looked confused and the grey haired lady sitting next to me starts snickering. Great! that is going to fuel her POOP fire! I quickly reprimand her and ask for apple juice. The cook then comes out and I have to take her to the potty. We get back and sit down to eat and the POOR waitress comes back to see if we need anything else. My daughter starts to tell her too much information about her issue and that her butt now hurts. Everyone at the table is all big eyed staring at us as I am grabbing the key's for my embarrassing great escape. As we walk out she of course disrupts two other table's yelling "My butt hurts!".
This is why I do not like to eat out with the kids. Happy Birthday!

Mommy "Me Time"

Sometimes I have to ask myself how it’s possible to juggle two kids (one in school, and one at home), a house that constantly needs cleaning, a husband that needs clean clothes and my own need to hit the gym. When I look at all the things a stay-at-home mom has to do in a day, I wonder how I keep my head straight. That’s why I promised myself I would make more time for “me” this year. This is such a mommy thing to say, but in the middle of packing lunches, putting fairy wings on my 3-year-old, doing laundry, and listening to my other daughter yell at me for brushing her hair too hard, I realized I was still in my pajamas. After the hustle and bustle, I try to think of any excuse to get out of the house. Sitting down with a cup of coffee to watch the morning news isn’t cutting it. I need to find something more proactive that will make my soul smile. Will it be the gym? Shopping? Meeting a family member for brunch? Taking a walk on an unseasonably warm day? Why isn’t this “the list” I think about when I have an hour to spare? I guess my message to all the other stay-at-home parents out there is to remember how important you are for at least a fraction of the day. I won’t think any less of you if you still have dishes in your sink, laundry baskets of clothes waiting to be washed, or floors that need tending to. These things don’t define who you are. It’s the experiences in your life that make you amazing. What’s on your list of things to do today?