Learning to Leap

Today is one of those days I just want to be a kid. I want my life to be all about excitement over finding a penny in the street, teasing my sisters, and riding piggy back on my dad's back. Today, folks, was "update and re-evaluate all your insurance day". Life insurance, homeowners' policy, umbrellas, deductibles, premiums...yadda, yadda, yadda. Grown-up stuff. I kept thinking, "I cannot really be old enough to have to listen to this stuff." And then I thought, "Wow, I still really am THAT immature and my attention span is THAT short when it comes to boring topics." There were no flashing lights, no games, not even any fun fonts written on the policies I needed to sign. Just questions and more questions about my health, about my activities, about my lifestyle in general. We opted to increase my life insurance policy. I'm worth a considerable little sum should my number be up one of these days. This makes me feel much better about the c...

Mothers get a bad rap. At my house, I am quite frankly the most loved parent (most of the time). We've talked about how my children have all gone through big time "mommy stages". Actually, it would be more accurate to say they have gone through big "mommy YEARS" instead of stages. Just tonight, we drove as a family to dinner and then needed to pick up my hubby's car at his office on the way home. I jumped at the chance to drive the 5 minutes home ALONE (especially after spending the last 3 hours at a pumpkin patch). I wasn't even buckled into the driver's seat before my youngest lurched out of the van, desperate at the thought of riding without me and insisted she was riding home with ME. "I don't like Dad," she said quite plainly. So here's the paradox: although I am the most loved parent in this home, I am also their biggest enemy sometimes. Why? Parent roles in accordance with the laws of the universe. Case in point, me...

Okay, readers, hopefully by now most of you know that I have three young daughters. Loves of my life. Sources of endless joy. Treasures beyond compare. Drainers of the bank account. One area my daughters are quite adept at spending money on is the clothing industry. My oldest daughter would be quite happy to wear things just like this every day for the rest of her life. Fashion is not high on her list of priorities. My middle daughter is a little scary. She is REALLY into coordinating outfits with accessories, having her nails done just so, and is always pining away for new shoes whenever we walk past them at Target. The youngest. Well, if you read my blog two days ago, you are aware that she doesn't like clothes at all (http://webberstories.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-09-25T18%3A39%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=1) . However, we still must at least purchase them and keep them in her drawers for show. So, with all these different tastes in clothing styles, we spent...

I remember quite distinctly when a few things were simpler in my life. Laundry. I had an actual "laundry day". You've heard of those. It's when you have one morning of your week designated as the day you will tackle your dirty clothes and have them all washed, dried, folded, and put away before the day's end. I had one of these once, and typically I did just two loads of laundry for my hubby and me for the whole week! It creeped up on me, the loss of this special day. It happened slowly at first. I can pinpoint the exact time I lost my official laundry day. It was when THIS arrived... Instead of a "laundry day", I switched it to "laundry days" twice a week. I did a couple loads on each day and that was it. Not too bad, just a small increase. That lasted a couple of years before the real increase in volume occurred. Happened about the time THIS came along... We bought a new washing machine about this time. Ours just died. Overworked...

Sometimes I think cavemen had it right when they just went barefoot with a club and some kind of animal skin for clothes. Simple. Quick to put on and take off. Durable. I guarantee cavemothers did not have the issues we modern mothers have today in getting our young dressed and out the door. I mean, really. We have so many accessories and different items of clothing it's no wonder we are nearly always late everywhere we go. Even with a child who is totally agreeable to donning all clothing, it can be a big task to get them appropriately dressed. And now, with the change of seasons upon us, there will be even more clothes my children will have to wear. Tights, leggings, socks, coats...it's a small irritant to my older girls. To my youngest child, it is downright torture. Cruel and unusual punishment, she'd say. Now, I don't know what her deal is. Perhaps she has a problem with the different textures and the feel of the clothing against her skin irritates her....

Sleepovers. Aren't they fun? I am not a big fan and here's why: 1. nobody settles down to sleep no matter how much extra time you give them to talk and 'get it out of their system' 2. the younger children feel left out because the older children get to have all the fun, so you try to include everyone in the sleeping in the fort adventure. This NEVER works. 3. they stay up super late and get up super early, too excited to have their buddies with them to waste time snoozing. 4. mom and dad pay for all this fun for the rest of the day with cranky, overtired children I have a new reason to not love sleepovers. I just discovered this one last night, or rather, this morning at 3am. Sleeping peacefully, dreaming of a time when my home knew some peace before Hank joined us. It was a lovely dream, really. Suddenly I was awakened by the sound of crashing and banging and stomping on the stairs. When I heard the unmistakable sound of the jingle of dog tags, I knew at once th...

I am a cheater of the worst kind. I cheated at a children's race to benefit kids with cancer. I'm sure there is a special place in purgatory reserved for people who do things like this, but at the time, I just did not care. You see, I was forced into this ethical dilemma by my own children. They begged and pleaded for me to take them to the Autumn Fun Run so they could run in their first race and get a t-shirt and ribbon. "Mom, I always win...I can totally handle a race." My kids wanting to exercise? Begging to participate with about one thousand other children in something worthwhile? YES! I tried to explain to the girls that they would be running a whole mile and that they might get pretty tired. Perhaps they should pace themselves. You know, a little running here, a little walking there, just to make sure they weren't exhausted halfway through the race. Little girls have this thing against listening to and heeding the advice of their old mama. And ap...

There is no shortage of little girls in our neighborhood. We are almost guaranteed a playmate or two between the hours of 3 and 7 on a school night. It's pretty great. On this day, we'd finished up school, had our snacks, and the weather was perfect, so I talked the girls into taking the dog for a walk. His level of "puppy cuteness" had been pretty high that day and he needed some healthy outlet for that excess cuteness. I sent the girls out just ahead of me to wait in the driveway while I collected my shoes and phone. We're talking less than a minute, folks. When I made my way out to join them, I discovered that our little walking party had grown from three young girls and one puppy to seven young girls and two puppies, and they were begging for us to pick up one more girl who has TWO dogs (sadly, she still had homework and couldn't come). We have a fairly clear goal during our walks: The walk should ideally last at least a tiny bit longer than the amou...

I will openly confess: I have the worst attention span EVER. This has been a source of great frustration to my husband, who has many times thrown his hands up when I've grown weary of listening to him answer a question I ASKED him to explain. Such topics as technology, restaurants, anything to do with the latest Apple craze, and business plans pretty much lose me within the first 10 seconds, 30 on a really good day. I sadly seem to have passed this trait on to my children. I am noticing it popping up more than ever these days. Case in point, the other day my eldest child purchased a tiny dragon toy which was supposed to grow up to 600% if placed in tepid water. Sounds fun, right? Here's the catch: the dragon takes TEN days to complete his growth spurt. TEN! That's like 9 months in kid time! The first day, she couldn't watch that dragon enough for signs of change. She carefully measured the water temperature, carried him around with her in all kinds of conta...

We all need breaks sometimes. Last Friday was one such day for the girls and me. After finishing up schoolwork, the girls and I loaded up and headed for a nearby walking/running trail that has a playground and a wooded creek. They love it there. I instructed this child that she may walk around in the water and throw rocks, but please to not get her clothes wet. You can see how that worked out. Someone else also loves it there. The dog. Of course the girls would not even consider leaving poor Hank at home and make him miss our adventure, so the canine hopped up into the van with us and happily rode along. And I suppose, if you have to take a dog somewhere with you, this would be the ideal place to visit. It has a huge fenced area designed for dogs and owners to mingle and scamper. The fence keeps the more “frisky” puppies (and let’s face it, some “frisky” owners), from escaping to the playground nearby and terrorizing the children minding their own b...