oooooh money, money, money.

i have always been of the assumption that if i had oodles of money, i'd be a super parent/person. 

somehow this additional money would grant me more motivation to do the things i wanted to do.
 i would get up every morning to work out because all of that money would invigorate me and i would therefore need less sleep.
i would make sure i was showered and entirely put together (if i had the money to pay for fancy products for sure i'd want to use them every morning and spend an extra hour of time i could have spent sleeping applying make-up and forcing my hair to do unnatural things) before waking my children up at an early hour (7 sounds about right).
i would make my kids a healthy breakfast of eggs, wheat toast, bran muffins, fresh squeezed orange juice (we'd have a juicer i'm sure).
they would play games while i cleaned up the breakfast dishes, loaded the dishwasher and maybe perused the newspaper?
actually, i'd probably also develop a strict devotional regimen and spend time while my children were playing nicely (they'd have such educational and entertaining toys, and be so well-behaved with that added weight in our pocketbooks) getting deeper into the Word.
we'd be on time to preschool--i'd give us plenty of time to put on coats, mess around with shoes, etc. because our additional cash flow also gave me uncanny time management skills. i mean let's be honest the day would flow from there. do you catch my drift? i have had dreams and hopes of one day being rich and being able to be the person i wanted to be.


what a giant pile of steaming bullshit. 

seriously, kate?
you thought money would solve these problems?
anything to take the blame off of yourself, right?
because when you hit the snooze seven times in the morning only to hop out of bed minutes before your additional charge (the day care boy) shows up, clearly the lack of motivation was due to financial distress and not, say, staying up too late the night before.
you don't work out in the mornings because you are still mourning the loss of your y membership, and are convinced that working out at home just won't reap the same benefits (nevermind that all you ever used of the y's equipment was a treadmill).
you don't make your kids a giant health-food filled breakfast because you're just too damn lazy most of the time and let's be honest if they enjoy frosted mini-wheats and cheerios and chex--why waste your time and energy concocting something that (face it) you don't even necessarily want to eat for breakfast? having a giant kitchen filled with shiny appliances isn't going to make your desire to slave over the stove early in the morning any more real.
no amount of money on the planet could make your children behave like angels 24/7--and so therefore quiet time in the morning "while your children played" was a total fabrication of dreamland. maybe after you wiped up the spilled juice, cleaned eggs off the chair,, swept up the bread crumbs and made sure every last sippy cup was in the fridge to avoid rotten milk--maybe (just MAYBE) you'd be able to high-tail it to their bedroom to prevent the next basket of diapers from being overturned.
and let's not pretend that the added money would give you any more motivation to sit down and read the bible--now that we've shattered the idea that more money = more time/energy, i doubt you'd be picking your "alone" moments to spend with God any more than you are now.  you'd still want your "me" time which apparently involves random strangers' faux pas via facebook/autocorrect/etc or the cast of characters from any number of prime time television programs (generously provided online now, thank youuuu internet).
additional wealth is not going to turn you into a saintly constant-prayer-and-devotion type of person.
money, albeit handy, is also not going to grant you the time-management skills you so greatly lack--as evidenced by the woman who drives up in her shiny mercedes suv five minutes late to preschool every day (thank you, reality check).
you will always be late until YOU decide to make the change.



so i'm going to work on these things sans the extra money--but if you feel the need to share your burden of wealth, please feel free to contact me asap.

technology, shmechnology.

i think technology has become somewhat of a disease. your phone was the coolest thing ever way back when and all it did was talk. then we added texting. and now...well companies have created this need for the latest technology that isn't actually a necessity. it was merely a year and a half ago that i needed to have a smartphone. i got the droid incredible by htc and it was blissful devotion from day one. i jazzed it up, i changed my background every other day, i downloaded apps and played games and checked facebook. slowly, however, the appreciation for the instant satisfaction wore off, and if my phone lagged for maybe three to five seconds i was becoming frustrated. i mean, this phone was supposed to be fast, right? so why did it take five seconds to load my facebook homepage? if i accidentally left my phone at home and couldn't instantly check the weather, couldn't shazam a new song on the radio, couldn't immediately update my status to my latest emotion--i was intensely frustrated. the novelty was becoming a necessity. and quite frankly, i'm disgusted with myself. thank goodness my husband finally came to the conclusion he didn't want/need his phone anymore otherwise i'm not sure i ever would have. i feel so much more independent, so much more alive and present in the real world. so much more involved. which i know, sounds crazy. but it's true.

i'd like to know why on earth we're wasting all of this money developing phones that try to be computers when who, honestly, complained about their computers and wished they were phone sized? if i recall, computers used to be entirely stationery. so the fact that we created a laptop--a mobile computer--is a wonderful accomplishment in itself. i mean who honestly complained, "gosh i hate having this laptop around. it's so inconvenient being able to have a computer with me wherever i go." like i said, things that weren't even in our realm of consciousness have now become necessities.

a nugget to leave you with: the most mind-blowing technology to me is the camera. think about what it's doing for a minute, and the fact that we somehow made it digital on top of that. blows. my. mind.

picky, picky.

the food diaries of the murphy family: donovan was eating avocados by the time he was 10 months old. he snarfed down pretty much anything we put on his high chair tray. now liam, on the other hand, who is 18 months old and counting, refuses to eat real food. the only "adult" food he will even touch is honey nut cheerios. not regular cheerios, honey nut. even then he will pick out the broken ones and put them off to the side and only eat the whole ones. similarly, we gave him "cars" cheerios (half red frosted, half regular colored frosted) and he picked out the regular colored ones and wouldn't eat the red ones. who is this child? i mean i'm a picky eater too, but even i have a larger palette than milk, baby yogurt, and whole honey nut cheerios. he won't even eat crackers anymore. we thought we were making progress, but no matter how many times i put new foods (regular noodles, green beans, bread, rice, etc.) in front of him, he immediately sorts them off to the side. in a recent development, he has decided he enjoys french fries-so we have something to feed him when we're out to eat. i tried to sneak in some pieces of chicken in with his fries once at culvers to no avail. he picked it out immediately (i think i even saw him sneer a little at the idea). if anyone has any ideas on how to feed an impossibly picky toddler, please suggest away.

let's not forget the antics of our nearly three year old, donovan. his culinary tastes are pretty wide-spread as long as it can be dipped in either ketchup or ranch, and sometimes both. he is a very big fan of jelly sandwiches--as long as you don't mention you've put peanut butter on it. he likes peanut butter, he eats it just fine, doesn't gag, anything, but he absolutely throws a fit if he sees you put peanut butter on his sandwich. "no! i don't like that stuff! not on my sandwich! just jelly!" and if you bring him his sandwich sometimes he'll pull them apart, point to the jelly side, and say, "i just eat this side mommy." i have to remind him at least eight times that he does, in fact, like peanut butter before he'll approach it. but once he does he eats the entire thing. another thing van loves is salsa. especially the chunky tomato kind from chipotle. he sits there with his chips and little cup of salsa and eats the whole thing. sometimes he entirely forgoes the chip and just uses his hand to shovel the tomatoes into his mouth. if only we could get liam to eat that adventurously!

when liam's in kindergarten, i'll be packing rice cereal in his lunchbox. how open to mockery is that? the boy who eats baby food. i'll probably have to send a note to the cafeteria staff requesting that someone please feed it to him because he's not quite sure how a spoon works just yet. we're working on that for first grade.

oy.

kids say the darndest things.

it's so cliche, but it's so true. i have an endless amount of comic material as a parent. "that's a hilarious joke johnny but guess what my kid said yesterday (insert quotation here) mhmm that's what i thought. winning." pretty much every syllable that comes out of my child's mouth is priceless.


case in point:
today i picked up a new package of pull-ups at target (oy vey, he's still not entirely potty-trained). i told van that he was going to like them, but i underestimated the sheer joy that these new pull-ups would bring him. as we were getting ready for bed after their bath and it was time to don the pull-up, this is what transpired:

to get the full effect i typed exactly what van sounds like, not the words he was trying to say.

me: okay donovan, you stay here and dry off while mommy goes and gets your new pull-ups.
van: oh, course mommy.
me: (bringing the pull-ups into the bedroom) here they are!
van: we need to open dem mommy, need to open dem.
me: yes donovan let me put them down.
van: (pointing to the box, getting excited) dat mater and queen mommy! (progressing to higher frequencies and panting in anticipation) open dem mommy, need to open dem!
me: i'm opening them sweetie, hold on.
van: (more squeals of excitement)
me: here they are donovan, who's that on there?
van: dat mater, dat queen!! deese are beautiful mommy, deese beautiful!
(laughter and incredulous looks by aaron and i)
me: look van, there's another design too!
van: anudder one mommy, anudder one! (gasps) mater!!
me: (holding out the mater and mcqueen design) okay van, step in sweetie let's get your pull-up on.
van: (screams) noo! i want dis one mommy i want dis one. (points to identical pull-up still in package)

and so on, and so forth. it was like i had opened up a box of puppies. i'd say well hey this is a cheap way to produce jubilation but have you bought pull-ups recently? they're ridiculously priced. but considering this was the highlight of our son's day and mine it was well worth it.

it's the simple things in life you treasure.

adddaaaadaaaa: the babyface.

so not only do we have a two and a half year old, but we've also put in some serious time with our fourteen month old. it's become abundantly clear to us that the second child develops at a highly different pace than the first. case in point: before age one donovan could tell you what a train says, what a puppy says, and what a kitty says. on occasion he would recite car noises for you. liam, however, at fourteen months can pretty much only say "aaddaadaadada" and spontaneously car noises when he's playing with them. donovan was eating people food by eleven months and chomping down pretty much anything you set in front of him. liam currently enjoys all forms of mush and ritz crackers. an infant staple, really, but we'd really appreciate it if he'd just buck up and feed himself. trying to explain to a two and a half year old why his food has to wait because his little brother needs his mush is a hard job. luckily, our first born (clearly the more advanced) chimes right in "oh, of course" whenever mommy or daddy explains something like this to him.

the idea was not for this post to be a comparison, and yet here i've turned it into one.
current accomplishments of liam:
a) knows what to do when you tell him to "say cheese!"
b) walks around like he's been doing it his whole life (aha...aha...hah).
c) drinks from a sippy cup!


there are certain things you don't expect to encounter when planning your second child. i mean sure, you understand it will be more difficult when the ages are close. what you don't plan for is constantly having to return big brother's toys because little brother refuses to let him alone. you don't expect potty time to be a group activity because once again, whatever big brother is doing is the coolest ever (needless to say we're hoping this will be evident later when liam potty trains in a day). you don't expect to have absolutely no baby toys about because no one in the house wants to play with baby toys when there are cars and trains and big boy toys around because (say it with me) whatever big brother is playing with is the coolest ever.

currently liam is crawling around on the floor grabbing everything in sight and stashing it away in the cars box. shortly after he's dumping it out and starting the whole process over again. sigh...the life of a baby. maybe when he's older he'll still hold the same joy for collecting things and putting them away? we'll work on organizational skills later. as long as he's cool with clean-up life will be a peach.

potty training, the middle chapter.

we began potty training my two and a half year old son about two months ago. believe it or not, he caught on immediately. "go potty get candy" was his preferred mantra whenever the subject was brought about. yes, we had accidents, but who doesn't? i mean i can't imagine what potty training must be like for a kid. what is the motivation to stop being able to urinate whenever and wherever? i mean sure, going potty on the toilet warrants candy and all sorts of praise but in exchange for having to actually FIND a place to relieve yourself? having to stop playing with whatever entertaining toy you've found? i would personally enjoy not having to get up in the middle of the movies after downing a sixty-four ounce soda. "did you see the part where...?" nope sorry i was potty trained as a child.

all of that aside, i'm insanely proud of my little boy. since those two months his chant has evolved into "go poop get lots of candy!" which isn't working out as well as we'd hoped, but hey it's only been a few months. don't most boys take on average a year or some crazy statistic like that? i suppose if i'm going to be a serious blogger i better do my research.

speaking of this newfound blogging thing, i have a few reasons for starting it up:
a) i miss xanga.
b) i need an outlet.
and c) i'm hoping i will quietly rise to fame and fortune and sell award-winning books and the like.

a girl can dream.

anywho, getting donovan potty trained is really our first parental accomplishment. i mean they're super easy when they're babies. they learn most of the important stuff all on their own. walking, talking, you don't have to put much effort into it. but potty training is a whole different story. if you don't take them constantly to the potty, it will never happen. and trust me, there are thousands of times (literally) when i've just wanted to stick a damn pull-up on and forget about it.  you can't, though, and it's a real test of your responsibility level as a parent i think. so honestly, i practically beam when someone compliments van on his potty skills. they're saying, "gosh your parents rock." (or something to that effect). okay, okay, so donovan should get some of the credit for being an insanely genius boy who understands the concept of not getting thomas the tank engine or lightning mcqueen wet (they don't like that, you know).

still, though...as parents, we rock.