It just baffles me what our children in today’s society are required to do and know at such an accelerated pace!  For example, the area we live in requires the children the following to be placed into kindergarten:

1.  write their first & last name
2.  write their full address
3.  know their phone #
4.  be able to read (R.E.A.D) out of a book
5.  they begin to journal “sentences” in kindergarten!!
6.  etc etc etc

Whatever happened to knowing the alphabet (or the first 15 letters) your primary colors, and some animals?  Pa’leez people!  Do we really think that every child is going to be a genius?  And I’m NOT saying our kids aren’t smart.  I’m NOT saying every child in the world can’t accel, but there are realistic goals, at least I thought there were. 

If the child does not know the following they are put into a “special class” until they learn everything and then end up back in their (would be normal) class.  Now what does THAT do for your ego? 

Which brings me to my next rant.  With all of the above I can tell you that my child more likely won’t be starting kindergarten.  Ok ok, she PROBABLY WILL, but still… Not probably, she will, but c’mon.  Ridiculous!  A favorite thing I like to say is, “My child plays.  My child is outside, getting dirty, and being a kid”.  That’s it!  They’re JUST BEING KIDS!  Let’s let our children be children and stop forcing them to be these miniture versions of Einstein.  At some point they’ll all be on the same page anyways.

Sure my child can say her ABC’s and count to 20 at three years old, but she can’t speak Spanish, or French, or Russian, and doesn’t write up her own presidential election speeches, or sit down to read a novel.  Sorry, she plays.  Plain and simple.  We’re talking, dirty feet, filthy clothes, smiling faces, and tanned skin.  Do we as parents teach and work with her and read and help her to learn?  You bet!  We’re just not forcing it down her throat as the “only” option in life.

This week’s PhotoHunt theme is wrinkled.  I’m stretching it!

*Video* Do you suppose child labor laws exist for this??

Originally uploaded by Mohaloaloha

Do you suppose the child labor laws would come after me for putting my daughter to work? She LOVES to help with the laundry, so better yet, let her do the “dirty” work and pick up the clothes, and put them down the shoot! Hey, don’t complain, she likes doing it. I think it gives her a sense of accomplishment, and that of helping her lovely, wonderful, bestest mommy ever!

It’s true, when your child reaches the point past the “terrible 2’s” (or 3’s for some) you enter into the “why years”. What is this you ask? This is the point when your child is curious about everything and asks why for every answer, response, question, noise you make in their life. Part of me thinks it just comes out of their little sweet mouth out of habit vs. actually having a question. Why you ask? Because of this:

“Momma, what are you doing?”

“I’m putting on my make-up”

“Why?”

“To look pretty”

“Why momma?”

“So I can go to work”

“Oh. …why momma?”

At this point it’s shut off time from the answering. Or better yet, try this trick:

“Why momma?”

“Why (child’s name)?” You’ll see a tid bit of confusion on their part. You just asked them their question. Which usually ends up with another:

“Why momma?”

THEN you turn it off. The best thing to do 1/2 the time is ignore the question all together. But if you really want to have fun you can try this:

“What did you do today?”

“(child garble)”

“Oh, that sounds fun!”

“Why momma?”

“Well, because your left ventricle is connected to your heart which has atriums, and the earth rotates on an axis…”

Hmm, usually stops it in it’s tracks b/c they’re thinking about it OR you get:

“Why?”

Ugh!! Hahaha Again, sometimes the best thing you do is ignore it and they’ll eventually move onto something else.

“Can I have more chochy milk?”

Peanutopolis \pE-nut-a-pu-lis\ (noun).  A state of mind making you feel very strong and powerful, almost mayor-like.

Girls eating dinner

Originally uploaded by Mohaloaloha

Hmm…funny, I always thought the food went in your mouth? Nope! Seems the hair needs nutrition as well. Kids. Such kids, aren’t they? Of course, as you can see, the little one follows suit. In fact, I think it was the little one that started the whole thing and the big one joined in! Now, can’t leave big sister out right? This is what happens when you have your back turned for a minute to clean up dinner!!

Hubby’s at the Brewer game with my step-dad, which leaves me with two toddlers, a needy dog, and the cat.  Let me start by saying once “da boys” left, for something to do we went for a walk.  The girls spot a “puppy, puppy…(five more million times)” and we pet the puppy, Ginger.  Off to the school grounds b/c, vuala! they have a playground none-the-less.  Plus, can’t keep the sights of it away from the 3-year-old anyways.  So, here’s my first point:  I’m seriously considering scoping out the play area of my children’s future schools.  Parents *disclaimer* what on earth is wrong with our playground equipment??  For Heaven’s sakes they don’t believe in stairs going up to slides anymore?!?!!  Since when???  Now your children have to monkey bar it up to the tippy top, or (gasp!) balance along some funky curved monkey bar jobby that you actually WALK on!!  Holy crap, my heart is pounding.  Seriously, our kids are doing this stuff at recess?  Uh ugh, no mine!  My heart is in my throat.  Ok, doesn’t help that my “3 year old” is actually getting up to the slide by (gasp!) actually going up the walking monkey bar jobs, and…let me add, she CAN do it, but to a mother’s…Oh My, need I go on?  Freak out!  Then we have 1 1/2 yr old.  If you’re not watching in a split second that one is now going up too!  NoooooOOOOooooo!!!!  “Get down from there”  Uoofda.  They’re quick too.  These kids we have… they’re fast.  1 1/2 yr old makes it to the top of one of the slides and (might I add I’m deathly afraid of heights…sweaty palms as I type) ..so she’s up there with the other one and I’m freaking out..b/c even “I” cannot get to the top of my fright.  OMG what if she stumbles and falls through that “open space”  Yes, OPEN SPACE!  That high up (who are the manufacturer of these things by the way?  3 yr old notices my nervousness, and thank God for her being 3 going on 30 sometimes, she gets her sister back to the edge by me, I do a snatch and grab and (ugh) we’ve on our decent back to earth.  Whew!  I should have taken pictures, but parents, you prob. know what I’m talking about.  Again, what ever happened to good, old fashioned stairs, to go up to the slides??  So, case in point, my children will not attend a school which requires acrobats on the playground equipment.  Maybe I should keep them in the house??  This probably is sounding like the paranoid mother who freaks when her child falls down.  Nope! That’s not be my any stretch.  Kids are tough, and their heads?  You’d be amazed at how much banging and falling it can endure!  Try a just-learning-to-walk toddler on hardwood floors.  Yeah, it’s not pretty.  OUCh! 

So back home we are, safe and sound.  God, I never realized how much I just want to keep the doors locked and keep my kids inside.  What’s going to happen when they drive?  Definitely by that time cars will be made of marshmallow.  Haha! 

Anyhoot, I’m home, we eat dinner, and I’m just hanging out watching Dora the Explorer, and winding down ’til bed time.  The thoughts start rolling.  I would never want to do this alone.  OMG, what if something happened to my husband and here we are.  This is our life!  Like this.  So sad :(  I know that’s terrible, but it happens.  Please God never to me!! My mom raised my brother and I by herself.  OMG, it’s hard.  Just the emotions of it.  My heart goes out.  Granted my hubby’s only at a BASEBALL game, but this is what it could be like.  Hats off to those single parents out there.  You must be so strong!  And even if you’re not, you are for your kids.  We’re all human. 

For a woman who doesn’t get her monthly you know what I am seriously going through some strange hormones.  Perhaps post-partum still exists a year and half later??  We all know I had it the first two go arounds.  It’s not fun. 

Goodnight.  May sugar plums dance in your heads.

To my long awaited heart to get a laptop, hubby finally agreed that now’s the time.  Well, financial him thought we should still wait longer, but it’s almost like a baby.  There’s never really a good time.  You just have to do it and be done with it!  You make do after the fact.  So, after asking techie guys at work where a good place to get one of these jigs is, Best Buy was still the answer.  I wanted to make sure we didn’t go to a “chain” of commonness to get a decent one, but Best Buy prob. had the best selection. 

So, we go to one on the other side of town and look around.  A young guy was kind of helping us.  He was decent, and we saw some awesome deals on them.  We hemmed and hawed over it.  Hubby still wasn’t satisfied with everything so bummed as I was we left the store.  I felt terrible to feel (and look) so bummed over it, but the reality is… I was super let down.  I was sad!!  He said that he only said, “We will go look at them”, not buy one.  I know, but you can’t tell a women you’ll go look at something she’s wanted for YEARS and not have her expect that you’re ready to buy!  (men take a hint on this, it’s one of those women secrets you just have to know) 

On the way home my little ha’rt was let down and the dearest hubby I have knew it and it was eating him alive.  So we take an exit to go back into Appleton to hit up the other Best Buy by the mall.  w00t!  Ok, excited again, I’m elated.  Giving hubby neck rub in the car and a nice kiss on the cheek.  Oh gosh, I’m such a slime ball!  Ok, so maybe now I don’t really need one, yes I do, no I don’t…  That guilt feeling you know? 

So we’re there, at Best Buy, and a nice guy is helping us out, and we’re taking our time to learn about the different MB, and GB, and RAM, and this and that.  We look around and hem and haw again.  Eventually another guy helps us and we’re still deciding.  Ok, cut to the chase, we’re ready to get one and pick one out.  We tell guy #2 which one and he goes in the back to get it.  He brings it out and we walk over to check out (which is back by the computers now?) and he can’t log into his screen. So he calls “grease ball” guy over to help.  Before all that I laid the ground rules:  WE DO NOT NEED THE EXTRA PROTECTION PLAN, WE’RE FINE WITH THE 1 YR. MANUFACTURER’S WARRANTY, AND WE DO NOT NEED ANY EXTRAS.  Cool, the guy’s OK with that.  Now comes grease ball over to the register, he logs in, and starts to do the whole PROTECTION PLAN schpeel to us and we stop him, “No, we don’t want that, we’re fine”.  He backs up and is like, “Whoa whoa… let me tell you about my experience with Vista…”.  What?  experience, you took a class for Vista..and he proceeds to tell us that it’s a different progam unlike anything we’re used to with Windows XP yadda yadda.  Ok, I know computers but at this point we’re not sure if he’s 100% legit or if this is trying to be sales.  He’s really pushing the “Optimiazation Plan” and basically told me that if I took that computer home and took it out of the box, turned it on, I would literally break it!  He said I would go through the set up and it would break.  BREAK!  He said it takes a good 4 hours to get a computer up and running and those are the GEEK Squad people that do this everyday and know what they’re doing.  (For a fine tune of $159 might I add).  Let’s not forget the part where he did a little caveman dance and waved his hands behind his ass butt and said, “We’re just (wave hands) covering our tracks”.  What the H- was that??  At this point he made us feel uneducated about computers and we  just weren’t sure. 

Hubby and I say, “hold off” on the computer and we leave.  We’re needing to get more educated about everything AND most of us feels this guys full of crap-o-la.  Hubby’s appauled to even go back in that store ever again and we’re anxious to ask my friend at work and IT guy what he really thinks.  While in the car we’re thinking (and saying) Wait, Wal-mart sells computers…do you mean to tell me/us that THEY have a team of people optimizing and working on computers?  NO!!!  So at this point we’re now leaning 99% towards the fact that this guy was a sleezy greaseball trying to sell us on this plan.  Yuck!  We pull into my office (and I’m on vacation…yeah right!) and ask the IT guy what he thinks and he said the guy was full of crap.  There is no need to do that additional stuff what-so-ever.  And I am NOT going to break the computer!  OMG.  Nice as he is he even offered to come with us to buy the thing, but that was ok.  We can manage.  Now we’re armed with knowledge about what’s really right or not.  And on our way out we talked with our new Marketing guy, fresh out of college, and he said he’s got a lap top with Vista and it works no problem! 

Hubby & I feel victory and head home.  Hubby ended up going back to the store to get the lap top (again) while the girls and I ate dinner.  He came home and this is his story:

When he got there he asked for a manager and explained everything to her.  The manager was sickened and walked back to the computer section with him.  He got the lap top, AND she thru in free anti-virus, AND a wood lap desk thingy.  Plus, the sleeze ball had to apologize.  For God’s sakes, we could have had this all done and over with in the first place, but truley the guy wasn’t letting us buy that computer without the dreaded PLAN. 

As myself and my family and everybody I email and am online with today, you can witness that I’m using this lap top and to this day it hasnt’ broke.  I haven’t broke a thing!  And to a shocking surprise…OMG, Vista works!  Holy cow, who woulda thought?!  And for anybody that’s had the same scare, Vista is pretty much the same as Windows, the one you’ve always known.  Sure it’s newer and updated and things are little more rounded and fun, but for the most part, you can navigate and use it just like before.  You don’t need a CLASS or a PLAN to use it.  Geez… 

And that, Mr. Best Buy, is my answer.  True Story!

Our New Deck Furniture!

Originally uploaded by Mohaloaloha

Check out our newest purchase (today). The patio furniture for our newest deck hubby built! The best part, table = $40, 4 chairs = $25/ea. Everything’s on sale. Now’s the time to go get it!!

Ahhh, let me just add that I we are super relaxed after celebrating Hubby’s birthday today.  At first I was going to buy him a retro Ryan Braun jersey, but then something just “clicked” in my head.  That is just a thing, let’s do something…like, rent a boat and go on the lake!  Fabulous idea.  Google, my best friend when in need, search for “pontoon rentals” and vuala!  We found one, and should I add not a bad price either.  Four hours $75, whole day = $125. 

So we shoosh the girls off to day care, I’m rushing to just throw on my new bathing suit tankini.  I’m coming to terms with this “momma” body.  It’s not the 97lb girl I used to be, but it’s not anything to bawk at either.  It’s just..different, and I’m slowly but surely accepting it.  However, no need for the full 2-piece either.  Uh heh, no way Jose!  Hey, and a good deal, Wal-mart has their suits on sale, $8 can’t go wrong even if it’s not the fanciest.  I’m not picky!  When you see the pictures, it’s cute.  Really.  It’s not that bad!

Low and behold the place isn’t that far from home.  A vacation away from home, not far from home *smile*.  Off we go setting sale on Lake Winneconne.  Not a small lake by any stretch either.  Hubby was looking for fishing spots and I’m content to just float around and read all day.  No bother.  I’m a pices, but not the kind that would jump into the lake and swim around.  Nope, not this fish.  This girl has seen what kind of fish are in the “Wisconsin Lakes” acquarium at the zoo.  Yep, educated…  Not going in.  but it’s fun to boat on! 

Without further adu (and still feeling a little rocky in my head from the boat) I’ll share with you some of our photos:

Here’s our captain (a.k.a Hubby a.k.a.a. birthday boy)

Next up, here’s me trying to captain (but to tell you, I have no interest in driving a boat.  I have NO idea what’s below me.  What if there’s weeds?)

The Oshkosh, WI EAA Air Show is going on this week, and instead of paying over $30 to get in (we sound cheap..I know..but I assure you we’re really not) so, instead of going there, we got our very own show over the lake today!  We saw planes doing loop-t-loops, and swirlies, and here is something suppose to be word art/letters.

And just some other Wisconsin scenery. 

And golly, before I close this up, haha, hubby’s fishing and “toss” in goes the pole and everything!  Thank goodness for the bobber else the thing would have sunk.  A sunken treasure, a’hoy!  Anyhoot, we got the fish next and scooped it back up.  Now how many times that THAT happen?  More so than we think I bet!