Can I reprimand your child?

So this morning as i was driving into work they posed the question "Can I repramand your child? And if I can in what situations can I?". They were posing all sorts of sernarerios from in your own home (the child comes to your home and is running a muck) to a restaurant, to a store. Then factors were added in on whether the child was with you (their parent was eating lunch with you) or if it was a complete stranger.

Now I know there's going to be MANY points of view on this but here is mine.

Is my child miss behaving? Not just pissing you off but REALLY miss behaving? Is she talking back, breaking things, being mean? If your answer to the question is yes, then HELL YEA discipline her! I mean give me a chance to first but if I'm not around or didn't see, etc, then handle it BY ALL MEANS! As much as I try to stay on top of things with my child, I might have my back turned when she whacks your child over the head with her play frying pan. If she does tell her "NO" and make her apologize and bring it to my attention. If I'm not around, throw her in time out yourself!

Kinsley will grow up KNOWING to respect ALL adults and to listen to what they say. I will teach her what is right and wrong so if something is amiss with that adult hopefully she'll have the knowledge to come to me and ask, but bottom line, it takes a village sometimes.

That's what i think is often wrong with our youth today. Their parents are teaching them that no one else has to be respected. Many parents send their children off to school expecting the teachers to be "parents" to their child, yet when the teacher steps in to discipline a child for being bad the parents gets all Parentzilla on the teacher because how could she POSSIBLY think to discipline HER child! Well HER (the parentzilla) child was being a little turd because the Momma is a turd and she learned that she can be a turd because nothing will happen, because if something DOES happen then her Momma will come down and raise hell so that the teacher is then scared to ever discipline again! So then the classroom will be in utter disarray, no one will learn, the test scores will go down, and then no one will get into college, we'll blame our "bad" teachers, when the problem is the Turd of a parent that refuses to back a teacher up when she's trying to do what the parent won't do!

WOW, i didn't realize i had that much passion in me about this! But yea, i want Kinsley to know that if she does something bad that her teacher/relative/family friend WILL take action. Whether it's timeout right then and later they will tell me what happened so that i can have a talk with her about what happened. Or they'll just tell me later so then i will take action at home. I want her to be good all of the time for fear that I will find out and she will then lose her baby doll/Wii/telephone (or whatever she's into at the moment) privileges. But i also want her to  know that when i hear she's done something good (share, helped a friend, made a good grade, made a responsible decision) that i will praise her and if it merits it, reward her (hell yeah if my kid sticks up for someone being bullied i will reward her with something freaking awesome so she'll be like, SWEET lets do it again... i mean unless that "sticking up" was fighting, then maybe I'll just pat her on the back and have a talk about using our words rather then our fist, lol).

So bottom line in my book, if Kinsley comes to your house and is trying to break something or beat your kid because they looked at her baby doll wrong. Tell her No and put her in timeout. It's OKAY! I promise. AND I'll be HAPPY to do the same for you!

Being a stay at home mom is SOOOO HARD

No i didn't lose my job, it was a government holiday! YEA! So Kinsley's daycare was also closed! So we had a Mommy-Daughter day! And I'm freaking tired! Yeah here's a run down of all we did today

1. A million loads of laundry (or at least 6)
2. Picked up the kitchen, a few times
3. at 3 meals and 2 or 3 snacks
4. took two naps (thank the dear dear lord)
5. had a dance party
6. marched like soldiers
7. Had a few bubble parties
8. threw baby dolls around in her tent
9. read a few books
10. made animal sounds and pointed out our body parts CONSTANTLY (we need to be up to par at the 15month apt!
11. had a melt down
12. cuddled a lot
13. Got lots of around the neck hugs (i didn't know she did this yet!)
14. had a few wrestling matches (yea she kicked my butt)
15. did a some Thirty-One stuff.

oh man... I'm dead! Keeping up with a toddler, trying to clean, trying to put laundry away, and work on my new consultant job, and who knows what else... I'm tired!

Y'all i know I've always talked about wanting to be a stay-at-home Mom, and i still do, and I'm sure it's a little different if you're doing it every day because you're maybe more prepared, etc... but i KNOW it's not any less exhausting! WOW.

Hats off to YOU stay-at-home Moms!

PS, while Kinsley was sitting on the counter helping me cook, she decided it was a good idea to try the raw chopped onions... and she KEPT eating them... weirdo!

Kinsley

Has another tooth, yet still no molars, even though they look like they can bust through at any moment, though they might have, she won't let me in her mouth to see, i saw the previously mentioned tooth because, well, it's in the front and i make her laugh deep belly laughs because, beside the fact that it makes my heart smile, i can see her teeth... i love to count them! yes we watch a lot of sesame street... hence the obsession with counting...

The hubs took her to school TWO days this week! Stop the presses! I know! How fabulous. On the bad note, he's been getting home pretty dern late. So i told him if he's getting home late no matter what he can do morning duty with Kinsley~ Worked 2 mornings!

I have to say though that I'm selfish. I LOVE getting to pick her up. I'm sad if I'm not the one to pick her up. Knowing that you got to make her smile so big you might just get a peek at the molars makes my heart smile!

Oh and no more bottles for us! YEA! Kinsley has not had a bottle in the morning (that was our last to go) ALL week and it's actually better! She stays asleep longer, i think because she know even if she does wake up, it's not coming!

Kinsley can also sign "please", sort of, and "eat", in addition to her other words (finished, thank you, more). The problem is when we are on the way home from daycare and she wants to fill up on cereal bars but I'll only allow her one and she's in the back seat flapping her arms for take off as she goes through every sign she knows in hopes that one of them will get her another cereal bar, but it won't because I'm a mean Momma that wants her to eat her dinner so then she cries, while staring me down. Awesome.

Kinsley is a pro a kisses too, whether it's giving them or blowing them.... love her!

Now if that wasn't a good enough update with long enough run-on sentences, then i don't know what you want from me!

Days like today make it hard...

A day like today, Friday, the end of the week. I'm SOOO tired, i just want to relax, i just want to take it easy AND I'm reading a book that I'm REALLY in to... Days like today make it hard to go and workout at lunch when ALL i want to do is shut my office door and read my book during my lunch break.

But i can already see a slight difference in my body. I mean when it's been as long as it has for me since i last REALLY worked out and ate right AT THE SAME TIME, you see mini gratification moments. LIKE some bloat is gone and i can tell that my belly and boobs are in fact two SEPARATE (well technically three, but you know what i mean) lumps on my body, not just one continuous lump! My jeans that were hurting me two weeks ago only slightly hurt today! And mostly I'm freaking proud of myself! That's a difference that i don't want to lose!

OMG I can't breathe!

i know, dramatic much? I am back from the gym where i walked/jogged for 25 minutes and then did a circuit of weight machines, going back and forth between my upper and lower body so i never took a break and now I'm very.very weak. BUT i did it! that's 3 days this week I've worked out! GO ME! I can just feel that fat dripping off of me... okay not really. Is it bad that i wanted to destroy government property (the mirror hanging on the wall in front of my treadmill)? I'll be feeling so good about myself and then i get to watch as my thighs jiggle and rub together and my shorts creep up into a very uncomfortable looking crotch wedgie while the sweat pours down my face and my boobs which are now a single boob in my sports bras, bounce so hard I'm practically getting slapped in the face with each step... so yes, Uncle Sam, if you notice a broken wall of mirrors, it was me. Though knowing my luck, they would just leave the broken ones up and we all know what a broken mirror looks like, rather then one of you there will be a hundred of you. AND who really wants to see a hundred uni-boobs slapping me in my face while i dig out my crotch wedgie?

But hey, at least i worked out!

My uterus hurts!

It feels like a big empty black hole right now that I NEED to fill! Last night i went to the hospital to visit my bestie and her new baby boy! OMG! I forgot how tiny they are, how they love to curl up on you, how they smell SOOOO good, how when they stretch in their sleep their little eyebrows raise with the strain of it.... OMG! The goal is to wait until later this year to start trying for number two but MAN that little guy is making it hard!

But i have priorities people and not just filling up the ol' uterus. I have weight to loose! I've been going to the gym at lunch, eating healthier (hey last night i got a salad at McDonald's... yes it had the Fried chicken BUT i used my OWN fat free dressing at home! and NO quarter pounder!), and joined my work's biggest loser club (actually i started it too!).

Another priority? I'm going to be a 31 consultant! I'm so excited because I LOVE this stuff! I mean how CUTE is this???

And the quality is awesome! I LOVE it! So if you or a friend wants to host a party either at your home or a catalog party (since not all of y'all live in Maryland) then give me a shout because the new catalog that is coming out in February is AMAZING! I'm SOOO excited about it!

Mixed emotions

So this morning i woke up and took a look in the mirror and wasn't completely disgusted with myself. That's a HUGE improvement. I mean I cringe at the thought of naked time with the hubs because if i can't stand see myself naked, how can he? Well this morning wasn't too shabby. I mean i have a LONG LONG way to go but i can kind of see the stomach roll becoming more of a barrel then a hanging basket!

But then this morning at work, I weighed in. 171.8. Dum dum dum. Yeah, i know... i know. So that's where I'm at, good morning in the mirror, terrible morning on the scale. Awesome. BUT i did better (again not great) with my eating last night so there's one small step for Erin!

On other news, I'm already thinking of what to do for Kinsley's 2nd birthday... I know she JUST turned one... I'm not setting anything in stone BUT i would like to do something along the lines of a baby doll theme since she's well, OBSESSED. Thing is that she'll have little boys there too... got any ideas that can help my wheels turn?