peelosophy

Let me preface by saying, I know I say stupid things without thinking of the full ramifications.  I am not without fault especially when it comes to opening my mouth.

So here’s my deal, without fail when I run errands with the kids,  strangers fall head over heels for George.  I can’t really blame them.  Yes – he has two perfectly placed, deep dimples on his chubby cheeks, yes – his clear blue eyes mimic waters off the coast of Bali, yes – he’s at that darling age of 2 1/2, and yes -  he flirts relentlessly from the cart.

Strangers stop us constantly and complement him (or me never know which) on all the above characteristics, that’s all well and sweet.  But it’s how it is said in front of my other children that drives me mad.  The conversation is usually only complementing George, nothing is usually said about my other children.  It’s not my feelings that are being hurt – I think all of my kids are the cutest in the whole world right?  It’s when I glance at Henry when all of this is being said about George.   I can’t imagine what he feels. Ugh, it makes me sick.

One of the things I get all the time is “I will take that one (pointing to George) home with me”.  I mean can we single the kid out anymore?  Obviously, I’m more sensitive because I am their mom.  But it has made me more sensitive when I am complementing other people’s children – I usually check myself if they have siblings.

So the point of my rant is the next time you are doting on that cute kid smiling to you in the frozen food aisle -  take the extra minute to complement his brother or sister too. I guarantee you that that cute younger kid gets noticed a lot more than his older brother or sister counterpart.

Thanks for letting me vent here- it drives me crazy.  It makes me almost as nuts as when someone asks John and I, “Don’t you know how that happens?” referring to our number of children.  People can be so dumb.

p.s. This picture was taken before summer haircuts this year.  It was taken at Sams, I was so excited that their new carts could fit all 4 of the kids – I had to send a picture to John.  It’s the little things like being able to restrain all my children in the cart that I’ve come to appreciate these days – so great.

Many changes are on the Fall horizon for the Peel family….

• JJ will be in school all day- man I miss him.

• Henry will be going to preschool- JJ never went so preschool is all new to us.

• Emma will be joining George at Kids Day Out once a week.

• My sister Katie and her family moved back home- not only to STL but into our neighborhood!!! AND Tootie, my niece, will be going to Hudson with JJ.

• Kara, whom I have babysat 2 days a week since she was 9 weeks, is starting Kindergarten and won’t be a part of our Mondays and Fridays anymore. Totally bittersweet.

• I started watching my niece, Rosie and it is going so great! Her and Emma are BFFs..check out the picture.

Wow, I didn’t think it was a lot, but writing it out it is ALOT!  My current mental status is Monday -Friday I’m fine, it’s the transition to our weekends I have a hard time with lately.   Weekends we try to balance getting things done with relaxing and I’m not good at the latter.

What do you do on the weekends?  Do you find it hard to balance?

My friend Greta is doing a giveaway from her awesome ETSY Shop…check it out.   You have until this Wednesday the 26th….

Click here for more information!

We had an end-of-the-summer water gun fight in our backyard last week.  It was great fun – 11 boys, 100 degrees and everyone of them armed with some sort of water artillery.

We did a couple of games which just meant a slightly more organized chaos.  They were:

• Freeze tag – the person who was “it” tagged by shooting their water gun at the person.  And, subsequently, a player could unfreeze another player by shooting them again.
• Alka Seltzer Tag.  We strung Alka Seltzer tablets on a string that the boys wore around their neck and you had to shoot the other players Alka Seltzer tablets. The object of the game was to keep your Alka Seltzer from disintegrating.  We referred the Alka Seltzer to your “life” like on a video game…it seemed to make sense to the boys more.
• Target Practice.  We set up empty soda cans on the clubhouse deck and the boys shot their guns to see how many they could get down.
• And then we played “zombies”.  This was tag but when you got tagged, you turned into another it.

It’s really amazing how much big and small stuff I learn and re-learn and sometimes re-re-learn throughout my day.

Here are today’s random lessons….

• If I prep an “undesirable” food item differently, George will not only try it but may end up liking it.  This was demonstrated with the yellow pepper today at lunch, I chopped instead of sliced and he ate a whole pepper!
• Striving is not what life is all about.  I battle striving in one form or another frequently.  Today, it was in relation to material things and after examining my motives for purchase and our goals for our family, I learned again that I don’t need it.
• If Emma wears her red Polo tennis dress and is in her car seat (so you can’t tell its a dress) people will mistake her for a boy.
• After spending time with God, the things that were overwhelming or I had anxiety about are not bad at all.
• I was finishing eating an ice cream novelty tonight and really wanted another one…and realized I could have another one because I am an adult. Not sure why this was such a revelation.
• I love putting Emma in dresses but now that she is almost crawling, I was bummed thinking that I couldn’t anymore.  But then I did this and it works great…

Today was JJ’s first day of 1st grade!!! I always get undue stress about things like the first day of school.  I thought I had to have a lot of silly stuff ready or perfect… like this was the first day of the rest of our lives or something!

On the other hand JJ was the normal one, he usually is,  just calm,  cool and collected.  Although he did get upset because I was rushing him out the door and he still wanted to tell John about the dream he had last night…which explains the sad pictures.  Honestly, I didn’t have any compassion for his case,  but John did and decided that he would drive him so he could hear all about his dream- good dad.

New school year resolution #1…This year I will try my hardest not to be a stressed out Drill Sargent trying to get the kids to school in the morning…ahem

Here’s another post about what we have done to pass the time until dinner.  Like I said before, after 4pm over here is more often meltdown city, so I’ve been trying to come up with things to get through it.  It’s funny though the unplanned things (or acts of desperation) we do tend to do end up being the real winners as opposed to something “planned”.

For example, a couple of days ago, I put some cardboard, masking tape, crayons and paddle sticks in the middle of the table and ask, “What can you build with these?”.  An HOUR later JJ is done and here’s what he came up with…

He grabbed the Army and space guys when he was done and played with his camp set-up until dinner was ready.   He’s amazing.