Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Family Traits

We all inherit traits from our family that we are proud of and ones that we try desperately to change or hide. As our children are born we wonder which traits they will be lucky or unlucky enough to have received.

One thing I am thankful for is that Maddy did get better hair than I have. I come from an long line of women who have very thin, fine hair. Maddy also got the ability and desire to negotiate. Some of the funniest moments are when she and the hubby go head to head.

She also has some traits from me that I am not so fond of, but I can say she comes by them honestly. First I am not Obsessive Compulsive, hang on a sec I need to go turn the light on and off three times. Ok, ok....I might have a few OCD tendencies but I try really hard to keep them at bay. Lately I have noticed Maddy doing a few things that I "would do" as well and trying to convince her not to is like convincing me not too. A perfect example is the Katy Perry post. Maddy has now decided that she has to have a play list just for Church! So I have spent almost every day approving songs that she can listen to before and after Church. The only problem is that the child has about 8 Bazillion songs on her I-pod.

The other trait she has come by naturally is being very literal. We have some great literal stories in my family. Thankfully most of the time we are literal, but can rapidly deduce what the message actually is. This also helps me in understanding how Maddy comes up with answers to questions or problems. The flip side is that is makes it very difficult sometimes to help her think around the questions to get to the correct answer.

One thing Maddy is great at is dressing opposite of the weather outside. She has always done this and I suppose always will. Living with it 24/7 I have just grown numb to it. My Mother however still struggles with this. Last week we were working in one of her Life Skills books and the section was discussing weather and temperature. I would give her the weather forecast and then ask her questions about what type of things would she wear and what type of activities could be done outside. We got to the last question and boy did it take us a long time to work around that literal answer. The forecast was warm, sunny and very windy. The question was could you fly a kite and what did you need to fly a kite. Well she starts right in with I would need to have a kite. I would ask what else and she proceeds to go down the ENTIRE list of kite accessories. Finally I had to break down and mention wind. Her answer was "Why would I worry about if it is windy out if I don't have a kite!".

Family traits gotta love em.

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Why I don't get things done.

I like to think of myself as an organized efficient person, but lately I don't seem to get as much done as I would like on a daily basis. The day slips by and even though I am busy, life keeps sidetracking me. Here are a few examples of why my To-Do list stays long.



Reasons one and two would be Bruiser and Maddy. He is very much a puppy and demands lots of play time. Maddy has decided Bruiser is her little brother and she torments him constantly as a big sister should. They get to playing and he is growling, acting all tough and she is laughing like crazy. He is a good smart puppy and he never bites her. He saves that for the hubby.




Spring and summer make me want to be outside. This house does not give us much opportunity to be outside so I tend to spend a lot of time with the roses I am growing. I have grown (no pun intended) quite fond of my roses and I like to check on the new growth, arrange them in vases. I declare my roses reason number three.


The kitchen seems to keep me very busy. I clean it at least twice a day. Between breakfast, lunch and dinner there is always something that needs to be done in the kitchen. I like to bake so when I have spare time I am trying to find something new to bake. That really makes the kitchen messy. So kitchen I declare you a distraction in my day as well.




Last but not least the biggest time vampire of my day is the Internet. I find myself constantly looking things up. I get an idea for dinner so I have to look up a recipe. A bright idea to help Maddy get a concept at school so I have to look it up. I decide on a project I want to do in my "spare" time so I have to look it up. Or maybe during the day I have to post on my blog instead of dusting like I should be doing right now.





Sunday, April 19, 2009

OMG MOM

"Thanks a lot Mom, you just totally ruined my whole day!"

One might wonder what horrible thing I did to the child. I had the nerve to tell her that Katy Perry's song "I kissed a girl" was not appropriate to play at church.

For those of you who are not familiar with this I present to you the jury Exhibit A and I rest my case.....




Friday, April 17, 2009

The King of all that is Great and Good

We are blessed and thankful that the kiddo has a great relationship and bond with both of us. She went through a lot when she was a little one and that reinforced those bonds. I am the one for times of need and Daddy is the "cool" one. However, in our family I am the "goer and the doer" so when the kiddo needs or wants to go somewhere it is the Mom Taxi that takes her.

Over the years I have taken her to the zoo, water park , Six Flags, Barney concerts, every freaking Disney on Ice, concerts and movies. As I have stated before I am easy to amuse so I have a good time when we go. Without fail, every time I do something like this with her either on the way there or on the way home she talks about how wonderful Daddy is . I am grateful that she loves her Daddy, but COME ON, I am the one hauling you around to all this stuff.

My guess is that she is sitting in the car with me and starts to think about Daddy cause he is not there and then she gets all warm and fuzzy missing him. It starts off with wondering what he is doing and then moves into how great Daddy is and how cool he is. I suppose it is a good thing I am pretty darn fond of Daddy myself.

We love our King of all that is Great and Good! I will make sure to mention how cool he is while I am taking her to the mall today!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Vegas

A few days late as we have been home from Vegas almost a week now, but here is a rambling, long post about the trip.

Everything went well here at the house. The kiddo did great! The puppy made them crazy and my Mom as always was wonderful.

Before I begin with the trip recap, let it be known I had a good time. I am very easy to amuse and can pretty much have a good time anywhere even if things don't go as I plan or think they will.

Living in Houston I am used to all the humidity we have here. By day two I would have spend $100 for some chapstick. Thank goodness I only had to spend $3.50. The chapped lips and dry itchy eyes I could have done without.

The first two days we spent time with my Aunt and Uncle, I had wonderful afternoons and evenings. Probably the best days of the trip by far. I learned how to play Pai Gow poker and it is a fun and enjoyable game. Most of the time you can play a long time before they take all your money. I did prove this theory wrong twice though. On Saturday night the four of us ate at Lupo a Wolfgang Puck restaurant and had the most wonderful meal. The food was fantastic, the service was excellent.

Sadly, the husband did have a lot of work to do during the trip and then he did not feel well so he spend most of the time either in class or in the room. When he did venture out to gamble he lost and lost quickly so he was not encouraged to venture from the room much.

While in Vegas I saw wonderfully amusing and silly sights. (Elvis is alive and well, I saw him twice in casinos) I made plenty of vacation friends ( I do this a lot, if people are around I will talk to them) learned how to play Pai Gow poker and learned how to play Craps. I left Vegas with a lot less money than I arrived with, but I had fun while giving my money to them. The penny slot machines are very deceiving and if you are not careful they have you playing a dollar or more without realizing it. Since I am very easily amused I really like the machines that let you play mini-games. A perfect savings account for me would be to put one of those machines in my house!

The spa at Mandalay Bay was just amazing and the two spa days were very relaxing and real treats for me. I had a special massage where they did something to my "shakra" and the second day I had a hot stone pedicure. The spa area itself was just beautiful and the second day I went down an hour early just to sit in the spa room and read.

Vegas is however incredibly expensive these days. The prices they wanted for things just amazed me. In the morning if we wanted coffee, we had to fork over 8.25. Yeouch! This was not Starbucks it was just the little coffee place by the elevator. We at wonderful food while we where there, but we definately paid "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" prices for the food. The last full day I finally had Kobe beef. The texture was very nice and it was more flavorful, but I think that is one thing I can just cross off the list and not pine for again.

Overall I had a nice time and would go back to Vegas to see all the things I did not get around to seeing, however I know I will need to go with my Aunt or Mom as the husband is not interested at all in going back.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Lunch conversation

Today at lunch the kiddo and I are talking about music. She loves music and so it is a topic of conversation quite often. We started with American Idol, the contestants and then the themes every week. She asked about the music that was on the radio the year she was born and the year I was born. We decided to look it up on the internet when we got home.

She then mentioned that "Banma" (my Mom) does not listen to the radio in her car, she listens to audio books. I told her that when I was growing up and going places with my mom we did not listen to the radio, we listened to classical music. After she stopped making horrible faces of torture she said, "Well at least you had your I-Pod you could listen to music on".

When I told her that I-Pods did not exist when I was growing up she looks at me with great sympathy in her eyes and states, "Oh my God Mom, it was so hard for you when you were growing up!"