Kitchen table talk....

Have you seen the blurb "I am not friend I am your parent" here is the link for you to take a look       http://pinterest.com/pin/24206916716658835/ Okay so here is the thing with this blurb, IT IS ME. I have told so many that I will have no problem hunting my kids down if I think the situation calls for it and that most likely I will then proceed to flip out on them for making a choice that caused me to have to 'hunt them down'. If you know me you know I am constantly worry about my children, not saying that you don't I just seem to be a bit more anxious about things that haven't happened and anxious about what I can do now as a parent to prevent those "bad" things from happening. I am a people watcher by nature, people are very interesting to me even the crazies at the local big warehouse store-it seems to really pull the crazies out. More often now however, I find myself watching others parent and wonder if my kids react to me the same way t

We have a sick kiddo in the Whelpley house. Brodie has some form of a stomach bug that has pretty much destroyed his appetite and has also seemed to prevent him from keeping too much in his system.  Luckily, we have been able to keep fluids in his tummy but his interest in food is nil and we have to remind him to drink. I have taken to offering him only BRAT diet items Bananas--had no interest Rice---didn't actually offer this I knew he would say no Apples--had no interest Toast--ding ding!!! the only winner in the group He would only eat about one bite of the toast but it was still a bit of something solid in him and better than nothing (I think :/). He has kept down his Gatorade and water....his poor little face is so pale and he complains that his tummy hurts, sick kids are the worst. I am sure that tomorrow will bring a day home from school with most of the day spent laying around watching Disney Jr. and pushing fluids into him. The purpose of the post was to remind

Does anyone else enjoy watching old TV?  I have a fondness for 80’s shows like Murder She Wrote, Magnum P.I., Columbo, Diagnosis Murder, Father Dowling Mysteries, Threes Company and Dallas.  I am sure at this point you get the point that I am a big fan of old school programs and many times prefer those to shows to anything that is on TV now, don’t get me wrong I enjoy a good episode of Survivor, Scandal and Parenthood as much as the next guy but there really is something about the simplicity of TV from back then.  My favorite of all the old shows is definitely Murder She Wrote, my brother and I watched this show every Sunday evening with my mom and it is where I believe my love of a good murder mystery took root in me and the desire to live in Cabot Cove, Maine.  I wonder is there really a Cabot Cove, Maine. Going to have to look this up on Google. I believe that the simpler times are something that I long for, as in previous posts I noted that I was born in the wrong era that I

Okay, so I have a recipe for you, or shall I say a recipe that I want to keep you from. This is going to be a very short and to the point post, I am going to give you the recipe right under this sentence. Orange Chicken in the crock pot Ingredients: 2 lg carrots, peeled and sliced 2 lg red or green bell peppers, cut into chunks 3 cloves of garlic, finely minced 4 boneless/skinless chicken breasts 2 tsp. ground ginger 1 tsp. salt 1/2 tsp pepper 8oz OJ concentrate 2 cans mandarin oranges, undrained 2 green onions, chopped 2 cups hot cooked rice Directions: put carrots, bell peppers, garlic then the chicken, ginger, salt, pepper and frozen OJ in crock pot.  Cover and cook on low for 4-6hrs.  Serve chicken on hot rice, top with orange segments and green onions You may wonder why if I say the recipe is bad I would give you the recipe, I want to ensure that you know the exact recipe that I am talking about. I am not sure why it was so bad, maybe the OJ, I still cannot

Well we didn’t make it to church on Sunday, I really had good intentions of getting the entire crew their however a few little barriers stepped in the way. First, Brodie stayed Saturday night with my mom (he normally stays at least one night on the weekend with her), and she had mentioned that evening before they headed out that she wasn’t feeling great, so about 6:15am on Sunday morning I heard my phone ringing in the kitchen, knowing that it was her I didn’t get to excited about getting out of bed to run out to the kitchen to answer it, I figured she was just calling to make sure we were up and getting ready and that nothing had changed.  However, when I finally did get to my phone and call her back I could tell by her voice she wasn’t calling to give me a hard time about having to get up early she was calling to tell me she was not feeling well at all.  She said she had been up a good part of the night and needed one of us to come and get Brodie because she wasn’t going to make i

I am going to go to yoga this morning and then get back right before the craziness gets into full swing, it seems like the boys get louder and the house a bit crazier every day.  We will also be doing the daily and weekend cleaning that is required which isn’t that horrible compared to what it once was, we have switched over to a daily cleaning schedule, which means on a daily basis I am wiping down the bath room counters, doing a load of laundry, sweeping the kitchen and dining room floors and one extra daily task that is connected to the day of the week.  I am trying to stick to this schedule as much as possible as it seems to really cut down on the cleaning that we have to do on the weekends.  Kyle still helps with the dusting and vacuuming (both which I hate to do) and Brodie is getting pretty good at picking up his toys without too much arguing and fussing and is an even bigger helper when it comes to vacuuming. This may seem like a ridiculous idea to have a list of

Do you ever do something and then think, "Why did I do that", that was me tonight. I totally went off the deep end over something that was so insignificant in the big scheme of things. And I am now sitting here trying to figure out how to rectify the situation. Here is what I did, you are going to laugh and roll your eyes, we ordered pizza for dinner and when the order arrived and the driver left we realized that an item was missing, this always makes me angry but tonight for some reason it struck an extra sensitive nerve and I called the pizza place and demanded resolution. I was not going to be satisfied with them bringing out the item that was missing because by the time they drove it back out we would have been done eating, I did not want a store credit because we rarely order from this company so I had no idea when the credit would be used. To put it plainly I wanted a refund put back on our credit card for the amount of the item that was missing approximately $6.00 do

“Just wait, pretty soon it will be hand to hand combat”, this is what Kyle’s boss said one time either to a FB post or in person or maybe both when we were talking about how well Brodie and Keaton seem to be getting along. Keaton is just now getting to the age where he and Brodie can play together a little, this mostly consists of either parallel play (that side by side play where they are each playing and interact  just a bit) or wrestling both of which end up with one of the two crying, normally Keaton because the playing turned rough.   It is more often now that I will hear the two of them in Brodie’s room playing with the thousands of trucks, cars, hammers, screwdrivers etc., I normally realize after about 2min of quite that they must be content and try to leave them be so that they can learn to play with each other and so I can enjoy the bit of quite.   The quite normally only lasts at the most 5min, normally Keaton finds it necessary to bring me some toy that he is playing with

I have been dealing with the fact that we are quickly approaching the age at which we will need to begin the process of taking the bottle away from Keaton…. This entire process seems to bother me much more than it ever did with Brodie. I think that with our first child I was so caught up in doing everything by the book rather than doing what I felt was right for the child, and that makes me a bit sad.  As I write this post I wonder, do many first time parents do things “by the book” to later realize after having another child or two that the books and the so-called professionals that write them are not always correct.  I mean seriously how can someone whom has never met myself or my child possibly be able to tell me what the best course of action is for my child? I wish I would have realized this with our first child much sooner and wish I wouldn't have been as concerned with how the professionals say to handle situations, or when the next big milestone (taking the bott