Made to be a Granddaddy

Today's Sincerely 'Fro Me To You picture is one that has been taken at least ten times before. My dad, standing at the edge of the Atlantic ocean with one of his grandchildren, just taking it in.

I'm fairly certain my sisters could pull out several shots just like this one with their own kids and every single one of them makes us all smile.

My dad lives for his grandchildren. I'm not sure there has ever been a man who is willing to do more for his grandchildren. He bought a condo on the beach so they would always have memories of the beach with their family. He bought a house in the mountains so they could remember family vacations in such a breath taking location. He takes us on amazing tropical vacations every year just so we can all be together and so his grandchildren have incredible childhood memories.

He would stop at nothing for them.

Goober's birthday is Friday and today I called my Dad to ask him if he had gotten a present for him yet. We'd gone to Toys R' Us today and after we had gotten some things for him from us, I noticed something else I thought Goober would like and wanted to give him an idea if he needed one.

But of course, Dad had already gone shopping. As I listened to my dad read off a list of at least four perfect for Goober things he had purchased (including the very LAST Wall-E remote control robot that I know he's just going to blow his little five year old lid off for), I couldn't help but smile at how much he loves to spoil these kids.

I sure hope they learn to appreciate him some day.

For more great Sincerely 'Fro Me To You posts, check out We are THAT Family!

PS - Whoa, I'm really getting sappy lately, aren't I? Hopefully the wit and sarcasm will return soon...

Sure, it's unconventional... but so are we!

As my blog name implies I am a Spaz. I mean, seriously, I just never can seem to get it all together. I forget everything, I'm severely disorganized, and I'm consistently late. It's really bad. It has gotten to the point that when my family plans an activity at 10:00 they tell me it starts at 9:30. No joke.

I have had to drive Bug to school on more than one occasion since school started less than a month ago because we missed the bus in the morning and I've picked Goober up from his preschool late twice. In a month. Because I'm a basket case.

So you can imagine how school mornings might go for us here at home. You'd think maybe my kids would be able to make up for some of my failings and get themselves dressed and out of bed on time but unfortunately being really disorganized seems to be passed on to children.

Who would have thought?

I know, I know... you're saying I should make lunches and lay out clothes before I go to bed because then my morning will be so much easier. Except for the fact that at 10 PM I realized that the kids didn't have enough clean socks and I had to do a load of laundry which I will only be awake long enough to put in the dryer and go to bed and I can't find Goober's lunch box ANYWHERE and I have a suspicion that it might be located in the mini van that The Man has taken out for the evening. Oh, and I think we're out of bread. Yeah... see? That's my life.

I have figured out one way to help me, though. One little thing that has so far made my mornings go so much easier.

I have not allowed my children to put away their school uniforms. Nope. Their dresser drawers only hold play clothes. (Actually, I'm kind of laughing. I think their dresser drawers hold half eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and perhaps some underwear they've outgrown and sweaters that we never wear in Florida. But you don't need to know all that.)

Their school clothes are not so neatly folded in a laundry basket that currently is sitting in our living room but will some day have a home of it's own. I'm pretty sure I'll be keeping cub scout and brownie stuff in this basket as well.

Now I don't have to lay out their clothes in the evenings because they're all right there in one basket. All the little collared polo shirts and khaki shorts and pants and all the socks. Nothing gets lost in their rooms and I can constantly see exactly where we are on inventory. I know every morning if Munchkin is running low on lace trimmed socks or Bug has no more navy blue collared shirts and I know what laundry needs to be done that day.

When they come home, their school clothes go in a specified laundry basket for school clothes in the laundry room so they all get washed separate from all the other clothes. Now I actually have time in the mornings to guzzle a cup of coffee before we leave for the bus stop!

It may not be the way my mom would have done it, but it works for us!

For more Works for me Wednesday posts, check out Rocks in my Dryer!

Back away from the keyboard and no one gets hurt

I've sort of been neglecting my blog lately. I realized that Domestic Spaz was beginning to become a bit of an obsession with me. I stopped working and started reading and writing and loving it. Everything in my life became "blog worthy" or "not blog worthy" and I became agitated if I realized I'd forgotten my camera at home.

I had to step back a bit.

I had to tell myself it's okay if I don't post a blog entry every single day and it's okay if I don't post about every little thing that happens in my life.

It took a few days of backing off but I think I feel a lot healthier about my blog now. :) The other day when we went through the drive thru at Burger King and there were two horses in the line behind us and I couldn't get a good picture of them to post on the blog I absolutely did not have a conniption about it.

It really happened, folks. You'll just have to trust me.

I hope to find some sort of balance in my life that will allow me to accomplish all the things I need to get done every day and still find time to blog and read blogs. Some day... some day when I figure out how to get myself together.

What kind of title do you give to a post like this?

I posted about Julian back in December before anyone really read my blog. I still can't believe how touched I was and still am by his story. Maybe because my Goober is only a few months younger than Julian, maybe because they both loved Cars and Lighting McQueen. Maybe because anyone, parent or not, would have no choice but to let such a beautiful light into their heart. Julian left our world in January of this year and Mimi, his mother, continues to update his Care Page and continues to fight. I am awed by her strength. Truly just awed.

Because when I read about Julian, when I see pictures of Julian, when I hear Mimi's words about Julian and the battle they waged with cancer my heart crumbles. I simply can't stop crying. I simply can't fight back those tears, that lump in my throat, that searing pain and anger at the injustice that is cancer.

I want to do something and then I realize that there just isn't much that can be done. Other than telling everyone about Julian, other than encouraging other people to read about him, to read about all victims of pediatric cancer. It is gut wrenching.

And here I sit, with my three beautiful healthy children who have barely known the pain of a common cold, while Mimi goes on fighting for Julian and every other child who has to endure this battle that no child should ever have to endure.

Dawn posted today about the Stand Up 2 Cancer telethon that was on television the other night. I had no idea it had even been on and that Julian had been shown. Check out her blog for the link to it. It is truly powerful.

What is "I'm not that old, Alex"

If you watch Jeopardy, you know that they're currently running the College Champions. In the past I've always sort of liked it when they did college and high school tournaments because I would occasionally actually know an answer (question).

Last night while sitting at my mom and dad's house (avid Jeopardy watchers) there was a category selected called "Pop's Music" with the premise being that all of the answers pertained to music these kids parents would listen to. These college kids.

And I knew every - single - one.

The Beastie Boys, Flava Flav, Led Zeppelin...

How is it that my music is actually considered some college kid's dad's music?

Sometimes life is just a kick in the mouth.

I think it was called goldenrod...

Today's Sincerely 'Fro Me To You post is brought to you by the letter O for "OMGosh why is that baby on the counter" and the color yellow for "what the heck was the 70s thinking when they painted a kitchen appliance that horrid color"!

There I am with my hair in a kerchief at 2 years old. Why was my hair in a kerchief? I have no idea. Perhaps I wanted to look more like Aunt Jemima? Maybe I was spending the day doing hard housework?

Apparently I was trapped against my will on the counter and quite horrified. Perhaps I was just horrified about those wretched cabinets or maybe that scary mushroom canister. Who knows?

I just wanted to show off those cute little legs.

For more Sincerely 'Fro Me To You posts, check out We Are THAT Family!

Little Fish Changes

Hey y'all. I went ahead and changed the whole Little Fish nomination and voting process. From now on it'd be handy for me if everyone nominated to the same post and I'll have a regular old poll on there for voting.

Little Fish will be awarded once a month on the first Tuesday of the month.

You can read more about it all at this post and nominate some bloggers there, too!

You can always find this post from the footer at each and every one of my posts or in the Little Fish corner found in my sidebar. :)

Those gifted kids are big babies!

Here in the middle of the third week of school I think I've finally got a bit of a routine going as far as transportation goes.

7:15 AM - Watch Bug board school bus
7:20 AM - Drop Goober at Pre K
7:25 AM - Drop Munchkin at school
7:35 AM - Home and back in bed starting work

The afternoon is a little more chaotic.

2:15 PM - Walk 1/2 mile to Munchkin's bus stop
2:25 PM - Grab Munchkin and walk 1/2 mile + 20 feet to Bug's bus stop
2:30 PM - Wave as Bug's bus passes us on the street
2:35 PM - Arrive at Bug's stop and wait as bus loops around entire huge neighborhood and gets back to his stop because school district doesn't believe an 8 year old can walk 20 feet on a sidewalk to his home all by himself. Whatever.
2:45 PM - Melt into pool of sweat on sidewalk. Get Bug and walk the 20 feet home as a group.

Then we do our homework and I clean up the house a bit and before I know it it's 5:00 and time to drive up to the pre-school and grab Goober. At home I throw together dinner and we all eat.

I'm sort of starting to see some organization here! Exciting, indeed.

Today, I was feeling a little under the weather and I took the van to pick the kids up at their bus stops.

Both stops are pretty active ones. Traffic is fairly light and similar at both stops and about 10 to 15 kids get off at both stops. Both stops are for elementary school children.

At Munchkin's stop all the SUVs and minivans line up on both sides of the road, the bus pulls up, the parents all sit in the vehicles with them running, and the kids go right to their respective cars and get in all by themselves.

At Bug's stop all the SUVs and minivans line up on both sides of the road, the bus pulls up, the parents all spring joyously from their vehicles and grab their children by the hand and walk them to their cars making sure each child is buckled securely before leaving the stop.

I was sort of surprised when all the parents got out of their cars to walk their children from the bus. These are not kindergartners, either. Most kids appear to be at least in 2nd grade or older. The difference, however, is that these children are all in the gifted program.

At first I figured it was just a product of parents being sheep. You know, one mom got out of the van to run to the bus and all other parents followed suit because we all have that innate fear inside of us that we're not doing a good job and that we need to be veritable June Cleavers.

But then I wondered if it had something to do with the type of parents that end up with gifted children. Are parents of gifted kids more coddling than parents of non-gifted kids? Are parents of gifted kids more protective? Are they better? Are they more hands on?

I'm not more of a coddler and I'm definitely not more protective. I'm of the mind that if they're screaming they're still breathing. Does that make me a better or worse parent? I don't know... I think it just means I'm raising my children more independently. I hope that they don't expect to be babied for every little boo boo they get in life, yanno?

So Bug ran to the car all by himself. He made it just fine.

It's a novel little navel

Hey y'all! I've posted over at Mommy Matter today about how my kids are growing up at an insane rate of speed. I'd be thrilled if you'd head over there and check out the site! Mommy Matter is a fantabulous community. If you haven't perused the site, you don't know what you're missing!

In other news, today we scheduled Goober's umbilical hernia surgery. My baby's going under the knife.

He's going to hate doctors by the time this month is over. Not only did he have to get four shots just last month, but now he has to go back in two weeks for more shots and then surgery on the 23rd! How do you tell a five year old that doctors are there to help us when all they do is cause my poor little guy pain?

Goober is brave, though. He's excited that his button is going to look just like everyone else. I'm sort of sad, though. I always thought his little hernia was just a cute little outie.

And then the doctor said "See how that's blue right there?" (referring to a little spot on his cute little outie that I've always assumed was a vein) "That's poop!"

Orly? Somehow Goober's little outie just got a little less cute. Slice him up, Doc!

Oh, but I jest.

Even though this little "procedure" takes only about 15 minutes and Goober can come home with us after a few hours of recovery time and will probably even be cleared to go to school the next day, there's just something a little nerve wracking about handing my child, my baby, my youngest and last over to the capable hands of a surgeon. Oh I know, it's not a big deal and he'll be fine in no time at all. I know it's so much better to do this type of thing now than to wait until he's an adult because his recovery time is faster and all. I know he's a super healthy little guy and this surgeon is absolutely wonderful and he'll be fine.

Of course he'll be fine. He'll be better than fine. He'll have a new button!

I can't help but worry. I'm not so worried about him during the surgery or during the recovery time at the surgical center. It's when he gets home that I'm going to freak. I mean, can't they please keep him overnight for observation? Shouldn't professionals be handling his recovery? I'm expected to bring him home to this chaos and keep him quiet and calm for days while his siblings jump around and wrestle and create general mayhem?

Are you guys thinking it's time for Benedryl or is that just me?

Little Fish Award Time!

This week there were two amazing nominees for the award.

Be The Cake
and
Domestic Accident

It was again a tough decision. It absolutely always is. I am amazed at how many incredible blogs there are out there!

Domestic Accident is a laugh out loud funny type of blog. I mean, who can't relate to a mom with a thing for adolescent TV and rags on her man's tardiness in finishing home projects? It's definitely an add to reader type of blog!

But it was Be The Cake that stole our hearts and edged out the competition for the award. This blog has heart and humor, two things that put a nice bloggy smile on our faces during the reading. Besides, everything is better with cake!

Congratulations Be The Cake! Here's your badge!


<a href="http://slackermomof3.blogspot.com/2008/09/little-fish-award-time.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://domesticspaz.com/blog/goldfish.jpg" /></a>

There are going to be some changes to the Little Fish award! Previously the award has been given weekly, but that is going to change. The award will now be given on the first Tuesday of every month. I am also looking into changing the nomination and voting process to include more bloggers!

For now, nominees can still be made to this post.

Qualifications for the Little Fish award:
1. Nominees should not be featured on Alltop
2. Nominees should have an Alexa ranking of 1,000,000 or higher. (Here's a quick explanation.)

If you're not sure if a blog qualifies, nominate them anyway! We'll check for you. :)

If a blog has already been nominated previously and did not win, nominate them again! If you won the Little Fish award, we hope you'll wear your badge proudly on your blog to spread the word about the award. We also hope you'll nominate some of your favorite lesser known blogs.

Nominate blogs to the comments section of this post or tweet them to me on twitter!