The New Bean Bag!

The other day, Kelli, toddler boy, baby girl, and I all went to Wal-Mart for our weekly shopping trip.  However, lately it’s more like our bi-weekly shopping trip because we now coordinate it with Kel’s paycheck!  Since we hadn’t shopped in about two weeks, we seemed to be out of EVERYTHING!  As usual, Kel grabbed a shopping cart and put Toddler Boy in, and I grabbed a shopping cart and put Baby Girl in.  We find it’s easier and faster if we separate the kids – plus we usually need both carts these days.  

 

Our very first find was not on our list!  It was a GIANT, red bean bag.  We’ve been casually looking for a bean bag for about a year now.  Our criteria was that we wanted it to be somewhat big, made of fabric that can be wiped off, and a color that would match toddler boy’s new room.   Well, we found it!  Although now is not the best time financially for us to make a purchase like this ($50), we did so in the fear that we wouldn’t find one this great in the near future.  Because this was the ONLY red one they had left, we had to take it with us to do all of our shopping.  The bean bag took up my whole cart and then some!  I’m pretty sure I knocked several items off shelves as I tried to maneuver through the aisles. 

  

After Kel’s cart was full (which didn’t take long), we had to lift the bean bag up each time to put items in my cart.  This, in itself, added on at least an additional 15 minutes to our trip because we had to delicately stuff the bean bag back in the cart each time without smashing our groceries.  Once we checked out, we were relieved to finally have the akwardness of the bean bag behind us…or so we thought!  

 

After we found our car, we unloaded the kids and put them in their carseats.  It wasn’t until we both reached the back of the Vue to put the groceries in that it hit us…how are we going to fit everything in here?!  We just stood there for a moment laughing at our stupidity.  Even some people walking by us chuckled at our dilemma.  Although it was fairly clear that not all was going to fit, I thought I’d try just the same.  I picked up the monstrous bean bag and tried to shove it in the back.  It, alone, would not fit in the car.  At this point, I began to put our other items in the back of the Vue while Kelli called her mom to bail us out!   

Have I mentioned lately that I have the best mother-in-law in the world?!

No...the bra and clothes on the right were not just purchased...they were from a previous swimming adventure!

In order to get out of people’s way and to seem a little less inconspicuous, we threw the bean bag on top of the car.      

Did I say a little less inconspicuous?!

Since it was about 100 degrees outside, we turned on the AC for the kiddos and gave them some cookies to munch on.     

Baby Girl & Toddler Boy content with cookies!!

Kelli’s wonderful mom arrived and we loaded the bean bag into her car before heading home.    

We've determined the Ford Edge has more room than the Saturn Vue!

It swallowed Kelli as she attempted to take it in the house.    

Attack of the killer bean bag!!

Needless to say, I hope this is a mistake we only make once!!!    

eBay

Well, my goal for blogging once a day has completely failed.  Not for lack of stories, mind you.  Rather, due to lack of time!  Any spare moments I’ve had these last two weeks have been spent working on eBay.  In the last 20 days, I’ve listed over 100 items – mostly Allie’s summer clothes from last year and some of mine.  I wish I was faster at listing them.  It’s so time-consuming and I still have SO much to list!  My plan for this being our supplemental income isn’t working out too well.  I’m finding that everything I’m making is going right back into paying the eBay, Auctiva, and PayPal fees.  The only good thing is that we’re finally getting rid of some stuff!!  I guess the other good thing about it is the little money I do make from eBay is paying for the kids’ clothes I buy on eBay!  I’m a total bargain shopper!  Rarely do I pay more than .99 for an item.  But then there’s the shipping/handling charges that hike the price up a bit.  But it’s still better than paying full price at the store!!  With two little ones, they outgrow their clothes every few months!  Until I figure out a way to make more money working from home, eBay will have to do! 

If you know of anybody who has a little girl who wears anywhere from NB to 12 months, or a little boy who wears 12 months to 2T, please send them my eBay link!  I’m selling things really cheap!!   http://shop.ebay.com/kansasgirl/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

My eBay Page

Blog Frustrations and Peeing

For the past few days, I’ve been trying to find a way to make the appearance of my blog more “me”.  There are not many choices for themes with WordPress, and the ones they have don’t really mesh with what I want.  The way I see it, I have three choices.  I can just deal with it and keep the boring layout; I can switch to another blog site; or I can pay to upgrade this one so that I can design my own.  I’ll let you know what I decide.  

I have felt pretty confident raising kids without an adult male in the house.  Don’t get me wrong…we love to have our kids around lots of positive male role models…especially since toddler boy got a raw deal with his very first male role model.  And we are lucky enough to have lots of them in our life.  Kelli and I have enough stereotypical masculine influences between ourselves that we have never ‘missed’ or ‘wanted’ for an adult male in the house.  For example, both Kelli and I are good with tools and fixing things.  Kelli likes to rough-house with the kids.  I love to put things together (like the kitchen toddler boy got from Santa, the baby beds, etc).  Kelli’s good with cars (well…not fixing them, but buying them).  I don’t mind taking out the trash.  Kelli kills the spiders (if I beg her).  I can usually lift heavy things or open really tough jars.  Kelli loves to mow now that she has her beloved John Deere lawn tractor!!!  For the most part…we’ve got it covered.  Until now.  Which brings me to my topic for today…toddler boy and peeing.  Standing up that is.  

We have been potty training for a couple of months now.  We are nowhere near putting him in big boy underpants yet, but we do use pull-ups most of the time.  We first taught him to go potty on his potty chair – which took some getting used to (he sat on it for about three months before EVER actually pottying in it).  Now he has moved on to the big potty, which he just loves.  However, up until now, we had only taught him to go sitting down – constantly reminding him to tuck his pee-pee in!   Today, at lunch, he asked me if he could “stand up like Avery” when he pees.  Avery is his six-year old buddy.  I thought about it for a moment, and gave him a resounding “yes”.  As much as I don’t want pee covering our floors and toilet, I know that he’s probably ready for it…especially since he has obviously been thinking about it and asked so nicely!   

 

Here’s the problem…I’ve never peed (is that how you spell it?) standing up!  I’ve also never written the word peed.  Hmmmm.  Just looks so wrong.  Anyways, I know you don’t necessarily have to be able to do something yourself in order to teach someone to do it…but I think there’s an amount of credibility that comes with it if you do!!  I quickly remembered the fruit loop trick that I had read about.  I told toddler boy that we would make it into a game by tossing a fruit loop into the toilet and trying to aim for the center.  He thought that sounded “so awesome” as he said.  In preparation, I put baby girl safely in her pack-n-play, moved all objects surrounding the toilet, and put a step stool in front of the toilet as toddler boy is very little for his age.  He stepped up, and as he tossed the fruit loop into the water, he announced  “I’ve got to go poopy”.  So much for the fruit loop!  Relieved, I helped him sit on the toilet to do his business.  I know I’m not out of the woods.  He will have to pee again.  So I put a stash of fruit loops on the bathroom sink for later, and told myself “we can do this…without a man…I hope!”  But just in case, men in our lives beware….we may be calling YOU for some “hands-on” (pardon the pun) advice if we find our bathroom spray-painted with pee.  

The target!

Am I Really Doing This?!

This is my first attempt at blogging, and I’m feeling a lot of pressure about this initial post.  I think I’m afraid of so many things, that I’ve been psyching myself out of starting a blog for several years now!  I’m afraid of not having interesting content, I’m afraid of my grammar being less than tolerable, and I’m afraid of putting my foot in my mouth (which I often do)!  So consider this my official apology in advance, as I have decided to temporarily put my fears aside and just jump in!

I have decided to blog for three primary reasons.  The first is so that I have some sort of a diary of my life for my kids to read years and years down the road.  Not that my life is incredibly interesting, it’s just that my mom passed away when I young, and I would give anything now to know more about her – her fears, her hopes, her frustrations, her passions, etc.  The second reason for this blog is to hopefully make myself publicly accountable.  My reasoning is that if I have the gumption to write about something, I will be truer to myself and follow through on things so as not to disappoint others.   Yes, I know it’s sad…but I DO care what you think!  My last reason for wanting to blog is because I can’t afford therapy!  Seriously though, this is a place where I can have a voice and let it be heard read!  Hopefully I can not only catch friends and family up on our daily lives, but I can also connect with others who will encourage and inspire me, and for whom I can hopefully do the same.  

My goal is to post at least once a day.  My posts will most likely be about my foster kids (identies will be kept private of course) and the foster system, my eBay business (or lack thereof), my wonderful partner in life, our four-legged family members, crafting, and maybe a few lessons I’ve learned in my forty years!   

Please feel free to share your opinions or just say hello.  This blog has offically started!