Playing Catch-up

First, let me apologize to my mother, sisters, and 3 other readers for the infrequency of lattes. Last spring when I talked about how great it is to volunteer and stay involved in your child's school, I forgot how crazy my life gets during the week of my 2 big volunteer commitments - wrapping paper sales at the elementary school and the consignment sale at the preschool. Both are now over with some degree of success, and, despite the fact that the girls are both sick, I'm going to try to catch my breath this week. A new latte seems like a good place to start.

Today's latte is going to be more of a few random observations which may make a full post at a later date (I welcome requests). Here goes, in no order, a few lattes to start the week:

1. Carpool line is no fun, avoid it if possible, but, as you may have heard, we had some rain in Atlanta so I put the stroller away and drove. If you must wait in line, bring some reading material because you may be waiting a while. Weather permitting, turn your car off while you sit in line. As someone who has pushed a stroller by many a line, the fumes seem unnecessary.

2. Fall cleaning and purging is just as important as it is in the spring. I have assured my husband that more stuff went out than came into the house for the consignment sale last week. That doesn't include money, my personal sales offset some of my purchases but did not cover them. But really, you should see the Talbots embroidered jeans that I got Charlotte for $7, as well as the 20 other cute things.

3. Redbook Magazine has a feature called "You know you're an adult when..." I realized today that "You know you're an adult when ...you and your spouse go on a double date with your Dad and his wife and have a great time without feeling like you're 16 again!"

4. While your adorable and sweet children inherit some great traits from you, they might get some not so great ones as well, that's ok. I am not a happy person in the morning before I get a latte. My son is miserable when he first gets up, we are a lethal combination from 6:30 till 7:45 but we're managing (I think).

5. Don't forget to live in the moment. We spend so much time planning for and worrying about the future these days, but the moments with our kids won't last. I keep telling mine to stop growing, but they don't seem to be listening.

More lattes to follow soon!

Why bother?

Tonight I fixed a new recipe for dinner. The fact that I was cooking at all is an event all its own these days. I thought it would be a kid-friendly meal, chicken triangles. Mason had fun helping me mix chicken with cream cheese and ranch dressing mix, and then we spooned the mixture onto crescent rolls to bake in triangles. None of my kids liked it, Charlotte actually gagged a little. Rob & I thought it was pretty good, but I found myself thinking "why bother?" Why did I go to the trouble of cooking a nice dinner for everyone when I ended up making toast, once again?

I guess that's not a very innovative attitude. I am constantly telling my kids to try new things (usually some sort of vegetable), and I should lead by example. Tomorrow night I'll feed the kids fish sticks while Rob & I eat leftover chicken triangles. Thursday we'll probably have spaghetti. Perhaps this weekend I'll feel motivated once again to look through cookbooks to see if I can find the next great crowd pleaser for my family, which, other than Rob, is not an easy crowd.

Today's latte is keep trying. The evening wasn't a total loss, Mason & I had 15 minutes of quality time preparing the meal, and Rob & I did like it enough to eat the leftovers.

Queen for a Day

I like to refer to Atlanta as a small town, but we all know that it's not. My husband, on the other hand, is from a true small town. A tiny little town in Northern Ohio, population about 1200. We just spent Labor Day weekend there with family as we have many times in the past.

Like many very small towns, I've learned, they have one weekend a year for some type of festival. In Rob's hometown, Labor Day weekend is the Melon Fest. Since I grew up in Atlanta, I never got to experience these festivals as a child. I think I missed out, and I can understand why our kids ask to go every year. There are carnival rides, games where you can pay $3 to win a plastic or stuffed prize, and festival food which is the best - brats, fries, tacos, funnel, cake, and the BEST corn on the cob I've ever tasted (sweet corn for those Ohio natives). Not to mention the cantelope and watermelon ice cream.

And then there is the parade. In all the years I've attended the festival, at least 5 now, I've been to the beer tent and two bars many times, but I've never made it to the parade until this year. Here's what I found out, each town in the area has some sort of festival during the summer, and at each of these events a queen is chosen. That queen then gets to go ride in a convertible or float at all of the other local parades. I'm pretty sure that Charlotte thought she was watching a parade filled with live princesses waving right at her. To top things off, almost everyone hands out candy as they pass by.

I don't know that I have a latte from all of this, it's more of a shout-out to the joys of small town America. I'm glad it's an experience my kids get to enjoy. I have quite a bit of fun myself, and even if they don't sell lattes from a booth at the festival, the corn on the cob is really out of this world!

Be Productive

A couple of weeks ago, as my husband was leaving for work one morning, he told me to "be productive." This was on one of the days that Mary Jane & I were on our own since the other two were already in school. A couple of hours later, I called Rob and asked if a trip to the zoo with friends was considered productive. I don't think that's what he had in mind, but my options are fairly limited if I want to keep Mary Jane engaged and not in front of the TV while I try to clean up. Don't get me wrong, we do that, too.

The whole thing did get me thinking about productivity. Most things that are fun and addicitive in my daily routine, are not very productive. Things like trips to Starbucks and way too much time on Facebook. Blogging is productive if I find a way to turn it into some sort of money-making endeavor, but, for now, it's more theraputic and, possibly, mildly entertaining for my mom, sisters, and 3 other readers.

There are minimum requirements for me to consider that my day was productive. When a newborn was in the house that didn't sleep and nursed around the clock, if I had a shower and did a load of laundry it was a great day. Times have changed. Most days do involve laundry and hopefully a shower, but there's now much more. Everyone needs to leave for school on the time with the correct work or provisions for the day, there are bills to pay, shopping to do, and a house to clean. If you've been to my house, you know that it's not always clean and the pantry is sometimes fairly sparse. I'm working on it.

I now consider it a good day if I make it most places on time, turn the TV off before we all start singing the Sponge Bob theme song, the kids all eat at least a few fruits and veggies, and homework is done before the last minute. Cleaning and organizing are going to take a while this fall. Yesterday, I tackled one of my drawers full of stacks of paper and I found out that Rob has a doctor's appoinment next week, and I also found car insurance cards that should be in the car. I did manage to get a handle on all of the beginning of the year papers for school, and I set up annual binders for Mason & Charlotte. I will end up purging most of the stuff they bring home, but I give myself a little time to enjoy.

The productive latte for today is to stay on top of things. Open a drawer or closet and clean it out before too much stuff piles up. If you have a productive day, you can reward yourself with a trip to Starbucks and some time on Facebook.