Out to Eat?

Have any of you tried to take your young family out to eat? HA HA,that’s a blast! Before we ever sit down at a table we are ready to throw in the towel! Call it a night, turn around and go home. DO NOT PASS GO, DO NOT COLLECT $200!

First things first, we have to wait to be seated at a restaurant. It’s not like McDonald's! Try to get all the kids to understand we have to wait till a nice lady or gentleman takes us to a table! We can’t just go and sit down anywhere we want to! Baby Sage and Luigi have no PATIENCE. Then I’ve got Abby and Mario pulling on me doing the Mommy song…..you all know that one…Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, MOMMY!!!!! As Mommy is trying to keep her cool, and explain that we have to remember to use our inside voices in a public place such as this. Thank God a waitress came and sat us at a table.

She hands us the menu's and walks away.  When she returned she asked what we would like to drink, I started to reply, but Mario and Abby responded for me, “can we have some food please?” I just smiled back at the waitress, and tired to talk over the two kids,  She says “sorry I didn’t hear you ma’am, you want to repeat that please!” So I pulled one of the Grandma moves and lightly tapped their knees under the table! I thought MAYBE they would get the hint to be quiet, like I did when I was kid. Everybody knew what was coming next if you didn't  straighten up and fly right with the first warning! After the waitress left the table I gave all our kids the look and said, “we must remember our manners, and remember that we are to use our inside voices, and most of all, if we didn’t start to behave better that we were gonna leave without eating!” That’s right I pulled the golden ticket rule! After I said that I immediately thought that I was turning into my Mom and Grandma!!! WOW, the flash backs!

Waiting for food was agonizing! After you have given your kids the paper and the colors, then what can you find to amuse your children in the mean time? As I’m looking around, I see that there are small liquid creamer and butter packets on the table, here’s the first BIG mistake I make. I give Sage and Luigi each a packet of creamer. They both roll it on the table, squeeze it, and shake it. Which lead to Luigi throwing it across the restaurant, and Sage thought it might be a good idea to bite it and see what happens. Needless to say we had a messy Sage and a puddle of creamer to wipe up. Now our napkins were gone! I got up to grab more napkins and all of the kids started screaming bloody murder! As if the mess and the loud kids weren’t drawing enough attention!

FINALLY I saw our waitress with trays of food! I don’t know who was more relieved, us or the other people trying to enjoy their meals! I don’t know what I was thinking going into a restaurant with four children ages 6 and under. Once the kids had their food, things started to settle down. People around us stopped glaring at us and started to enjoy themselves, instead of the circus act!

All in all it was a very good time, and nice table conversation between us and Abby and Luigi. Very good food, and some good laughs. Would I do it all over again? You bet I would!

Mommy what does Home mean?

Our family recently moved. If you have ever moved a family you know how much work is involved. When you move it’s not just the moving of belongings, it also entails giving your children a since of security. It’s also making BIG decisions.

We started to pack and get things ready. We had talked to the kids about moving to try and get them used to the idea and letting it sink in. Home....have you ever thought about what home means to a child? I really didn’t either till my five and six year old asked me what home means! So like an automatic reaction, I answered with our new address. It was Mario who said,”No Mom, what does home mean?” I was just as puzzled as he was at this point!

The dictionary defines home as relating to or being where one lives or where one’s roots are. I took out the dictionary and read what it said to the kids. I didn’t need a dictionary to tell me what home meant. So I gave them my definition of what home means to me. No matter where we are, as long as we’re all together that’s where home is! It could be 150 miles from where we are now, but if our whole family is there then we are home! Home is where the heart is, and my heart is with my family. You are all my family. Abby and Mario’s little faces lit up with joy!

I love memories like this one. I hope you all have wonderful memories to look back on with your own family!

Mom

My Family, My Life

I think by now everyone knows that my family is my life……..and if you didn’t you do now! When I decided to start this blog it was only a passing thought, but when I started putting it together it all just fell into place.  I enjoy writing about my family and what goes on in our lives to share with all of you. I am hoping by putting my real life stories out here for people to see that it will some how reach out to other mothers. To help them to know that they are not alone. Most Mothers at one point or another go through some of the similar situations that I write about. It can help to know that you are not the only one out there that has discovered you are raising monsters, instead of children! I know, some of you that just read that last sentence, are probably shocked! However I think sometimes its true our children do turn into little monsters. Let me give you an example.

We decided to go to our friend Eve and Ben’s to let the kids play. They absolutely love play dates with their kids. When we went it was a beautiful day, naturally we went outside when we got there and the kids went WILD. Ran around like perfect little kids do, played ball, Frisbee, rode bikes, and wrestled with the Daddy’s. Then they all played nicely on the swing set. It really was an enjoyable afternoon!

All good things must come to an end, and when we went in the house it ended. The kids needed refueling, after that they REALLY wanted to go up and play, yes in a completely different level of the house, not the play room. It was ssssoooo cute to see there puppy like faces with the big lip and the whining of “pretty please Mommy.” We decided to TRUST them, HA! A few minutes went by, all was good, loud kids, the normal. Next we heard a rather BIG CRASH….went to check on it and all we could see were pillows and blankets all over the stairs and a few Lego blocks! Us Mommy’s picked up the mess and gave a very stern warning to all the kids,”NO MORE THROWING!” Well that was a VERY dumb thing to do on our parts! No more then 5 seconds of Eve and I being downstairs, we hear something shatter on the stairs, yup that’s right Eves favorite snowman globe fell victim to the babies wrath! Poor mister snowman went for a trip over the stair railing and landed badly at the bottom of the steps. All the kings horses and all the kings men couldn’t put the snowman back together again!! At that moment I realized that I was raising little monsters instead of children! I was very embarrassed! I know that both of our kids took part in it, Abby, Mario and Carter told us that Gus, Luigi, and Sage all had a hand in the death of the snowman. I couldn’t tell you how many times I apologized to Eve and Ben, I felt just horrible! Thank God they are very understanding.

Some famous guy said:When children are doing nothing, they are doing mischief.

                                                      Henry Fielding

I hope you all got a good laugh outta this one, at the time I was sssooo not laughing…..looking back at it I do let out a little chuckle. More importantly I am just glad that it was an object and not a child that fell! I think Eve and I were both grateful for that!

Mom

 

Mondays YUCK!!!

Happy Monday....NOT! I think Mondays should be outlawed everywhere, and completely taken off the calendars! Monday should just be another day in your weekend, and work should be optional that day! Its name shouldn't even be allowed to be said any wear in the united states! That dreadful day always seems to be the most dangerous at our house. I'm sure its like that all over, I know I'm not the only one. However it seems to me that on that particular day I am watching one of those mid day comedy movies, except when I go to turn the channel for something different or attempt to shut it off, I'm stuck!! LOL

Well so far this first day of the week is going especially well for us here at the Zoo! It started first thing this A.M when Luigi had Mom up a full 1/2hour before my alarm was supposed to go off! So it begin, I tired reasoning with him, telling him it was WAY to early to be up. That didn't go so well. Started the coffee and tried real hard for Luigi not to wake up the whole household! Before I knew it, it was time to rush, rush, rush! Feels like someone shot off a gun and opened the gates to let the horses out.

"BREAKFAST" I called to the troops and like a stampede they came running! Cheerios,fruit and pumpkin bread was on the menu this morning. I had finally found a way to keep them quiet for 5 minutes, FOOD! So I thought I would have some time to take in the morning and have that first sip of refreshing coffee.....I was wrong, I was only out of the kitchen for a matter of maybe 1 minute tops. When I herd laughing, it got louder and louder. Naturally I got up and checked on what was going on...."OH MY GOD" were the first words outta my mouth. I was in shock at what I was seeing....of course they seemed to be oblivious to Mom having walked in the room, considering they didn't stop! Yup you guessed it, FOOD FIGHT!!! Mommy was NOT a happy camper!There was Cheerios and milk EVERYWHERE! Although Baby Sage looked the best out of them all, she was covered from head to toe,with her cheerios! That's not just it, she wasn't even throwing it at anyone.....just herself! Yup she got the biggest kick out of covering herself with milk and Cheerios! Once I got the kids to STOP throwing their food every where, WE cleaned it up, yes I said we. The 4 little monsters had to help, funny thou they didn't like the clean up! HA! After it was all said and done I was wishing that I had taken the time to stop and film that little moment of criminal activity, later on in life to go back and see that would have been precious! I guess they say hind sight is 20/20.

Anyway the day only got better from that point on! Like I said it was like I was watching my own life in slow motion on the big screen. I'm sure you have all had those moments, where you think only in the movies. Well if we have children we can live some of those moments! Today was a test of this Mom's patience. Some famous guy once said: You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.
 
Franklin P. Jones.        


Good luck to all of you other Moms out there today! May the force be with you all!! LOL
Mom

Packer Sundays

My favorite day of the week right now is Sunday! I love to watch the Packers play football. WOWZERS what a game it was this Sunday! Go Pack Go. We destroyed the Broncos, some REALLY good plays this week! Have to absolutely love that Rodgers smiles on the field even if things aren’t going his way!

This weekend was our weekend to go to our good friend’s house to watch the game. We usually switch off weekends to watch the game and host the party. Our kids are real close in age, they enjoy playing together before the games! This weekend it was all about the music for the kids, they decided to make a band with all the musical instruments in the house! Then it was time for the parade to start, Mamma’s were asked to sit and watch as the parade went on. It was great, if they keep this up they will be band pros by the time they get there first recorder in school! It is usually a fun time. Not to mention that there is usually wine involved for the adults. Plus the kids like to have any excuse to have or go to a party! They don’t know it yet but they are also learning about football at the same time. On a good day usually they come and sit down with us at some point to watch too!

 As soon as it hits 10 minutes to game time the yelling begins like a warning whistle at the ship yards! We all sit down to watch the game, with great food and good company. Our husbands would rather sit outside or in another room to watch the game because us Mamma's are sooo loud! Yelling at the TV is in the blood, and my grandma’s spirit seems to be lingering around to make sure that we don’t miss a thing to yell about! Tim says its backwords the women are supposed to just sit and watch the game and the men are supposed to be up and jumping around and whooping and hollering! Needless to say Tim and his friend think that we are strange and obnoxious, he says we can’t lose the surround sound because otherwise we won’t be able to hear the game! The yelling consists of: get him, go go, touchdown, that a boy, WAY TO GO, and GO PACK GO!! That’s just the tip of the ice burg. Our friend Eve likes to open up the front door after every touchdown or interception and scream at the top of her lungs AND THAT’S HOW THE PACKERS ROLL! Eve and I like to jump up and down and scream at the top of our lungs over pretty much any good play, or even a real bad play or bad call, depends on what going on at the moment.

 From the moment of conception I was a Packer fan, it is in the gene pool in our family. If you weren’t watching the game and cheering for the Packers you were out in the barn! Grandma made sure that it was all about the game and learning all about football, and of course church! Everything had to be done before kickoff that included homework, and chores. In our house growing up we were not allowed to do anything when the Packers were playing, if you even attempted to open your mouth to speak while the game was on you got the evil eye! Had to make sure if you had anything important to say it was during the commercial! As we got older you didn’t dare even think of cheering for another team. Grandma would tell her Ice Bowl story and the love of the home town team and how because it was a small home town team they had good morals in the game and didn’t play dirty. Then she would go on to say that you can’t be a fair weather Packer fan and expect to go a game when we were old enough! I was lucky enough to see a game, totally an awesome experience! One I will never forget! Today I am appreciating all that my Grandma and my Mom taught me about football, I hope I can pass that same appreciation on to my children. Love those family traditions, the memories stick out in my mind as I am raising my own little family!

 I hope you all enjoyed your Sunday as much as I did mine! GO PACK GO!

Hello Wisconsin

My name is Megan(A.K.A Mom). I am married with 4 beautiful children. I have a 6 year old daughter, a 5 year old son, a 3 year old son, and last but not least a 2 year old daughter. Needless to say there is never a dull moment in my life, and EVERYDAY is an adventure.

I guess I should introduce my family to everyone here. My first born is Abby-(not her real name) She is now 6 years old and in the first grade. She FINALLY enjoys going to school, thank God. Abby is my mother hen in the group. She likes to help me a lot and that includes helping me with all of her siblings! She likes to be in the kitchen with Mom to help cook and clean. Abby likes to play dress up, put on makeup, and play with dolls and Barbie’s. She likes to write, sing and dance. At times she can act her age but really most of the time she is 6 going on 16!

Then there is my second born Mario. He is 5 years old and in Kindergarten, whole days! He is always active, and very talkative. Mario is not a morning person, especially when I have to wake him up at 6am every morning to catch the bus for school. Mario likes to play with his trucks and cars, and make them crash or go really fast! He does everything fast. Mario always says he is SUPER fast! He is your typical boy! He loves to make everything a competition between all of us. He really likes to wrestle with his Daddy. He still likes it when Mom sings him to sleep (mom really enjoys this).

Then there is my third born son Luigi. He is 3 years old and going to early education this year for half a day. He is VERY strong willed and was just recently just diagnosed with Autism. He is my shining star. Luigi just started talking this past April. He has come a long way since then and is now speaking in three or four word sentences! I am VERY proud of his accomplishments. I knew Luigi was different from the time he was 6 months old. It took me awhile to come around to the fact that he was going to need some extra help. It also took some other people from my side of the family to help me see these things. Luigi attended the Birth to Three program when he was not quite two. He really liked his therapy girls! Luigi loves to play with play doh,cars,and trucks. He also loves to wrestle with Daddy. He likes to play with his other siblings, and try to help Mom too.

Our fourth born Sage is 2 years old. She is my little spit fire! Sage is very good at making her presence known! She has just started to use more words, so sometimes I need the 6 year old to interpret! Sage likes to pet out kitty, and play with cars and trucks. She loves to be outside, and lets us know that she is not happy when we have to come back inside! Sage likes to dance around, and play hide and seek, although she is not that great at the hiding part considering all we hear is her laughing! She is always on the go, and only has one speed with no breaks.

My hubby and I have been happily married for 7 years. We dated on and off throughout our high school years. We have known each other for about 12 years. We weren't exactly what you would call your typical high school sweet hearts.....It was more like a love you one day, and on my X list the next! Lets just say now we have a very unique, but loving relationship! Tim and I were polar opposites straight outta the gate. They do say that opposites attract. When we met we were only 13 years old, and when our eyes met for the first time it was like all the planets aligned, and the stars fell from the sky. Love at first sight!

Now you have a little inside information on the Zoo and the keepers. The names of the rest of my family have been chaged to protect the guilty, but I'm not guilty, so my name has not been changed! I think its feeding time here, so I will say good-bye for now.
Mom