So Shoe Me

On becoming a mom...

When I was growing up, I vowed that I would be a different parent.  I would be less strict, I would be "cool" and "fun."  I know I'm still a ways away from Amelia realizing how uncool I am, but I already see myself drifting to the way my mom was growing up.  What's on your list?

Things My Mom Did / Did Not Let us Do, That I Vowed Never to Do... and am now reconsidering:

1. We were not allowed to watch TV.  Unless we are on vacation and I'll do anything to keep peace, very rare TV in our house for Amelia.
2. We were not allowed to have candy/soda.  Yes, she's only 3, but I'm keeping her off sugar as long as I can.  When she was little, I told her frozen peas were a treat and she currently things that organic fruit leather is "candy."
3. We were not allowed to have shirts with our names on it.  This was because my mom was afraid that someone would see our name on our shirt and shout it out in a crowd and then kidnap us.  No one would intervene because they would have seen the person shout our name out and think to themselves "Gee, that kid being carried off seems unhappy and scared, but I just saw that person call out their name, so they must know them.  I think I'll go back to eating my corn dog."
4. We Did Fire Drills.  Friends of mine still laugh about how during slumber parties my mom made us do fire drills in case of a fire in the middle of the night.  While Amelia isn't quite at that age yet, I have already thought about fastest exits. [Through the french doors in our room, around the house to break the window to get into her room - of course, that's only if the fire is in the living/dining/kitchen/family room which divides the house... of course.

I'm sure this list will grow - what is on yours?

Mom? Do we live in a cow town?

What the ?

Taken at Picnic Day this weekend.

Also had a great visit with Grandpa Tom and Pat this weekend - They came at the last minute and joined us for picnic day and a little backyard golf.

OMG mom. Just take the picture already.

I got it!

Still recovering...

We're still recovering from our trip back from Rio.  Mike and I got to have a little bit of time away from Amelia where we went to a MOVIE and to DINNER and had this view from our hotel

Ipanema

I haven't posted since returning because I was frankly trying to find a way to humorously describe the Sao Paolo to Houston leg of the flight where Amelia had a complete meltdown at the exact halfway point of the overnight flight (you know, right when everyone is sleeping soundly) and screamed at the top of her lungs that we had somehow swapped out her "night night" bunny for another one.  The screaming went something like this:  "THIS IS NOT MY RIGHT NIGHT NIGHT!!!  THIS IS NOT MY BLANKET!!! THIS IS NOT MY BED!!! NOOOOO!  DON'T TOUCH ME!  DON'T SHHH ME!"  For approximately 10 minutes.  Seemingly more ike an hour.  I'm sure to the people around us.  Thank god we were flying coach so I could be like, "Well, this is what you get in coach.  Suck it up people." 

During our 20 hour flight, Amelia slept approximately 5 to 6 of those hours.  She finally fell asleep as we landed in Sacramento.  Of course.  She fell asleep so soundly as we landed she did not wake up when we got off the plane, got our luggage, went outside to get a supershuttle, got on the supershuttle, drove home and got off the supershuttle.  We finally decided to just put her into her bed when we got home.  She essentially slept from 11:30 am on Sunday when we landed until 6:00 am Monday.  Marathon sleeper! 

After the trip, we all felt a little worked over and are still recovering.  I'll let Cinderella give you an idea of how we all feel:

Tragedy in Cinderella land