A little zoo.

Yesterday, we took the kids to Aloha Safari Zoo.  We've been there once before, about 2 years ago when I was pregnant with Tanith.  We went with a group the first time, so it was a bit crowded.  This time, it was just the 5 of us (it still seems odd saying that) and we had a great time.  The staff acted like regular people, which seems to be a rarer and rarer occurrence as far as customer service goes. As we were walking through the building housing the reptiles, the employees mentioned that they were getting out the Burmese python, so my darling husband and oldest daughter were busy playing with it for a couple of hours.  I'm not exaggerating. 

 Ronin was able to observe many different types of poop.
"Wook mama!  Ho-wass poop!" That's horse for those of you who don't follow Roninspeak.
"That snake pooped on the gwound!"
"Wamb poop wooks wike waisins." That's lamb and raisins.
"Derr's pecans in da poo-da-potty! I can pee on da pecans!"
"Fish poop in da waddah?"
 Forgive me, but I took no photographs of this poop-venture.

Kaiya and Ronin fed a giraffe that was rescued out of someone's garage.  It takes a special kind of person to look at their garage and say to themselves, "You know what's missing?  Not an expensive sports car.  Not a new tool.  A giraffe!  A freaking giraffe would look great right about here.  And when he gets tall enough, he'll add a skylight for me."

 Tanith was able to tell us about milk.

"Mama.  Baby.  Ninny.  Mee-yoke."

"Cow.  Meee-yoke"

And, at the very end of our visit, after I deposited the camera inside the car, we were able to bottle-feed lambs.  I wish I had gotten a few shots of the kids, especially Tanith when she tried to sneak a taste of the sheep formula.  She enjoyed the taste of the lamb food, so why not the milk?  It's white, animals love it, it's in a bottle.  Seems legit.

Unicorns

I recently let it slip that unicorns and pegasuses (pegasi? Every time I try to spell it, I get squiggly red lines.) aren't real.  I didn't know it wasn't common knowledge in my house.  Kaiya said something about wanting a pet unicorn, and I told her something like maybe she could get a pony and some superglue, but a unicorn wasn't going to happen.  Boom!  Three crying kids.  The older two started it first, and then Tanith had to join in on the waterworks.
We had about three minutes of hysterics before I remembered that animals with random horns sticking out of their heads had been discovered or modified to have a single horn.  We agreed that unicorns were real, but very, very rare, and that was that.
Now Ronin wants a rhinoceros unicorn.

image via Lair2000

new-mom-itis

There's this thing going about.  If you have a child or are expecting your first, you probably caught it without even knowing.  New-mom-itis usually sets in around the middle of the second trimester, sometimes sooner, and manifests itself with unrealistic parenting expectations and verbal outbursts such as these:
"My baby will sleep X hours every night."
"I will ALWAYS use a nursing cover."
"My child will never do/eat/say that!"
"I don't want the baby to get too attached to me."
"My child will always sleep in a crib and never come into my bed!"
"I'm going to TRY to breastfeed"
"I'm going to breastfeed, but Daddy needs to bond too, so he'll give bottles every night."
"I'm going to let Daddy formula feed at night so the baby will sleep longer.  I'll need a break."
"My mom said to start putting rice cereal in the baby's bottle from birth to make him sleep longer.  She did it for me and I turned out fine."
"We will NEVER use a pacifier"
"My child will be fully potty trained before his second birthday."
"My child will have perfect table manners and always use a spoon."
"My baby will learn to self-soothe and will sleep through the night from birth."
"My house will be spotless."
"We're going to do everything we used to do.  The baby will fit right into our lifestyle."
"I'm going to give my baby a bath every night."
"Bald babies are ugly.  Mine will have hair.  I know it because I have heartburn."
"My baby won't have a bald spot on the back of his head.  Only neglected babies have bald spots."
"Babies who cry are just being manipulative."

The only known treatment for new-mom-itis is exposure to reality.  For some victims, the disorder is gone before it is noticed.  For others, it lasts for several years.  I was a victim of new-mom-itis.  Many people close to me have been affected by this disorder.  The most we can do is have hope that we can find a cure for new-mom-itis.

Kaiya was my cure for new-mom-itis.

Special thanks to fellow blogger Mama.

How to have your cake and eat it too

We have a problem here. It's one of those cold, boring, rainy days. I really want to bake a cake, but have no special occasion.  If I bake it today, I'll sneak a piece when it comes out of the oven, eat another while decorating, another with the kids, a fourth one while cooking later on tonight, a fifth one for dessert, and two more after the kids are asleep.  I'll eat another one for breakfast while I'm folding laundry in the morning, and eat another with the kids after lunch.  Then it will be all gone and I will miss my cake.

Now that I've planned that out, it looks like an even better idea.  It sounds even more delicious when I see it in writing.

By the way, I don't like the title phrase.  What's the point in having cake if I can't eat it?  I understand that in olden days, have meant keep, but why would you want to keep cake?  It gets all moldy and gross.  It still doesn't make sense, even after Wikipedia explains it.

Darn you, Pinterest, for making everything look so tasty.

If I make that cake, I'll look like this for a while.

Are you a bad parent?

Are you a bad parent? Are you? Really? I find myself having these doubts almost daily.

Have you ever asked yourself that question? If you have, chances are that you're not. Bad parents don't doubt themselves. They march along, Marlboro Red in mouth and sippy cup full of Mountain Dew in one hand, yanking a child up by one arm with the other, while yelling something to the effect of, "just cuz you put yo' baby in a carseat don't mean you love them more'n I love my brat!" They are sure they're doing an awesome job.  They prop the baby's bottle of Pepsi in an infant seat so they can text about what a great job they're doing because they found out at the WIC office that their kid gained 10 pounds this month thanks to a steady diet of McNuggets and Cheetos.

If you've ever doubted whether you're doing a decent job, chances are you're awesome.  You care enough to put some thought into how you are raising your child/children.  You stop to consider how you will affect them. Stop beating yourself up because you're not a perfect parent and just take the time to enjoy being a good enough parent.  You don't have to be perfect.  I doubt your kids will remember the minor imperfections as long as you try.

Homeschool Rant #2

Homeschool kids are weird.  It's true.  If you start typing "homeschool kids are," it pops up.  If Google says something, it has to be true.  Right?

Oh, I see.  So you've met someone who was homeschooled.  They were weird.  That means that all homeschoolers are weird, right?  Of course.

I've met a lot of public schooled children who were ignorant little selfish twits.  That must mean that all public schoolers are ignorant little selfish twits. 

Harsh generalizations are. . . well, harsh.  For lack of a better word, they're harsh.  

My kids are weird.  Not because they're homeschooled, but because they're mine.  I'm weird.  By your standards, at least.  

Cafe Press has some pretty funny stuff down there, you know.
 

Horrible Mother

Kaiya and Ronin both love Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  Kaiya says it's a tie for her favorite with My Little Pony and Invader Zim, but Ninja Turtles is still a little bit better. Little Britain and Doctor Who are up there in the top five as well.  Ronin can't pick a favorite because he likes everything, from Super Mario Brothers Super Show to Thomas and Friends.  Just not Doctor Who.  He likes to pretend he's a Dalek, but he's afraid of everything else on the show.

Anyway, they love Ninja Turtles.  Anytime the show comes on, they absolutely MUST jump around, dance, and practice their ninja skills.  If I don't intervene quickly, it's a sure thing that someone will get hurt.  Minor injuries are very common.

I let them watch some Netflix so that I could put my bed back together (that's a whole 'nother blog post) and heard the new rap-tacular theme song, but didn't say "oh crap" until it was too late and Kaiya was screaming.  She said she had been jumping around and "just fell" off the ottoman onto her face.  Since she was crying, her whole face was swollen and I couldn't tell what was happening.  We put a bag of frozen corn on her nose, which Tanith thought was hilarious.  My darling husband said there was no way it could be broken.

This is how she looked the next morning, Easter Sunday:

So I took her to the emergency room at our little town's new hospital.  Lovely place it is.  When asked about what happened, my Kaiya told the nurse and later the doctor, "Got into a fight with the floor.  The floor won."  She got to ride in a wheelchair and pretend she was Andy from Little Britain. It's broken, but already mostly healed and shouldn't make too much of a difference in her face.

 And here's what she looks like today: