Learning to Leap

Her screams could be heard halfway across the store. Walking by, I heard her mother say, "No!  We are not going BACK to the bathroom!  We're not going to spend all our time at the store in the bathroom." The screaming resumed with even greater intensity. "But I want to!  I have to go!  I HAVE TO GO!!!" I sped up my pace, not wanting my own child to be reminded that Target actually has a restroom. What IS it with kids and public bathrooms? Between the ages of 3 and 8, public restrooms are the mecca of their religion or something.  Their Holy Land.  A place of wonders and beauty indescribable.   For real.  I have spent approximately 68 hours waiting on my youngest child to finish up in the bathroom.  And that's just this summer. It typically goes something like this: 1. choose a stall and after several attempts, figure out how the lock works 2. change your mind and struggle with figuring out how to UNLOCK the lock 3.

*Sadly (for you, NOT me), I have no photographic proof of the incident I describe in this post.  So instead, I have scattered various pictures from the trip throughout the blog.  But trust me, I could never make up something this ridiculous and embarrassing to get myself into.  Every word is true.* I will be FUN. I will be spontaneous and step out of my box. These were the dangerous promises I made to myself and my husband as we began our kid-free cruise last week (Which, by the way, was fantastic.  The kids even started speaking to us again after a couple days when we returned.  Totally worth it.). Those who know me can attest to the fact that I can tend to be slightly reserved.   Okay, I'll just be honest.  I am pretty boring.  I'm not exactly what you'd call a wallflower though, either.  I love to be with friends and I'm not shy.  I'm just not the person who's going to be the life of the party.  I'm pretty happy to share the limeligh

The other day a friend and her kids were over to play.   Her youngest, a beautiful and very happy little two-year-old girl, has some hearing loss. In order to help, her mother wears this very cool little "FM transmitter" thingy around her neck, which is connected to her daughter's adorable pink hearing aids.  Whenever my friend speaks, it's as if she's right there with her daughter even if they're not in the same room.  It's pretty amazing, actually. Of course, this can prove to be messy when my friend forgets to turn it off and MAY say some things a two-year-old really should not hear when her daughter is not in the room.   That's a pretty funny story, actually, but I'll save it for another time (and maybe get permission before telling it since I'd prefer to keep her as my friend). This got me thinking. I have an entrepreneurial business idea for mothers of young children.   "Mama Surround Sound" I am

I would classify this one in the "things nobody tells you about motherhood" category. Once you're a mom, you will never, for the duration of your remaining years in this life, take a trip without your children WITHOUT enormous guilt.   Case in point: at this very moment I am seated in an airport terminal awaiting a flight to Orlando for my first EVER cruise.  My husband is sitting next to me.  We are totally excited for a seven night Caribbean cruise in the crystal clear waters of tropical locations.  It's going to be great! But in order to get to this point, we had to endure heavy attack.   Our oldest daughter, who is unfortunately mature enough to understand how long one week is, was crying 14 hours before we even dropped them off with their grandparents.  This lasted off and on the entire day.   To make it even worse, we are missing not one, but TWO of our three daughters' birthdays in order to go on this trip.   Our baby will be turnin