mean girls

2 things I'm obviously admitting:
1) There are 2 sides to every story.
2) My daughter can have a strong personality and I have seen her direct others during their play ie: you be the doctor, You be the teacher, you say this... etc etc

But:

on the way to school today, my daughter, who typically LOVES school started saying, "I don't want to go, I just want to stay home with you.  My first thought...Oh no, just when we are moving her up to 4 days a week because of my new work schedule.

"Why" I ask.

"Because", she says, "Nasty girl said HAHAHA to me and told me that I couldn't play with her."  (note: she actually said the name of Nasty girl but I don't feel like it's appropriate to share)

Now, because of the above reasons, I thought it was necessary to see if there was a precursor to the statement.

answer:  "She said my new hair cut was ugly and no one could be my friend anymore."   (sidenote, A. did have her bangs cut a few days ago, none of her other hair because she wants to grow it out to look like her best friend R."

I fought every urge in my body to tell her to go and cut that girl's hair into a truly ugly haircut and tell her no one wanted to play with her.  Instead, I went with, "some girls say mean things and the best thing to do is prove that they aren't going to hurt your feelings.  You are a smart and beautiful girl that has plenty of friends to play with and people that love you."

"But, then Nasty girl told follower girl not to come over and play at my house and not to play mermaids with me anymore."  (We had recently talked to follower girl's mom about scheduling a play date)

And, my heart broke a little more.  Looks like we are going to need 2 pairs of scissors for ugly hair.

Again, I didn't say that, I went with the more correct thing.  "What did you do?"  I walked away but then no one came up to play with me.  But, I wasn't a tattletale." (aahhhh... another conversation that we've had in the past few weeks is coming back to confuse and haunt us.)

So, here is the question... Bullying is such a hot topic right now.  There has always been bullying but now there are even more ways to bully, texting, facebook, the list goes on and on.  I think its even more important to start educating and teaching coping skills now.  But, what is the dividing line between tattletale and actually telling an adult when you feel sad and hurt.  Shouldn't I encourage her to talk to an adult to help her with her feelings?

Together, A. and I decided that she would ask her teacher to help her find someone else to play with when her feelings were hurt.  Then she wasn't tattling but she wasn't walking away by herself feeling sad either.  That was the plan at least.  I don't know what will actually happen except, someone may have to restrain me from cutting mean girls hair!

what if

The " why" has now been replaced with "what if" in our house.  A. no longer asks us "why" every 12 seconds, but now has a million what if questions instead.

Last night at dinner, B. had to leave the table for a few to answer the phone.  For some reason, he went outside to finish his conversation.  While he was gone, this was our conversation.

A. What if Daddy could never come back inside?

me: well, he would probably get cold since he didn't take any blankets and he might get tired since he doesn't have anything to sleep on out there.

A. What if we could never go outside to see him.

me: well, we would get really bored because we would run out of things to do if we could never leave.  And, we would get hungry if we could never go to the store to buy more food.

A. What if we only bought apples at the store.

me: I would get hungry because I don't really like to eat apples that often.

A: and K would be sick because apples make him poop.

not even the today show

B. and I really don't watch TV, with the exception of sports and the Today show, while the kids are awake.  However, we recently put a TV up in the bathroom so that we could watch while we get ready in the morning.  B. watches the weather and traffic at 5:25 in the morning, and I let Matt Lauer tell me what is going on in the world.  It's on for an average of 10-15 minutes before rushing around to dress kids and feed breakfast before heading out the door at 7:15.

On February 27, a sad teenager killed 3 people and hurt 2 others in small town Ohio.  Of course, the nation was talking about it and good ole Matt Lauer was no exception.  His report, in summary between my hair dryer and kids talking, was focusing on kids having guns in school and how dangerous school can be.  In my haste, I didn't notice that A. was taking all of this in.  15 minutes later, on our ride to school, A. pops up with, "What is a gun?"

and...

Another little piece of innocence was gone!

my response (well not my exact words since I don't remember them)
"It's something that a very sad and mad boy used to hurt other people.  Instead of talking to an adult like he should have, he decided to hurt other people to tell them that he was angry."

A: did he punch them, or pull their hair?

me:  no, he used the gun, (I guess a picture would have helped).  Its something that a person points and then it a bullet comes out and can hurt or kill.

A: Megan E. (her sometimes friend, sometimes enemy at school) pointed at me one time but it didn't hurt.

me: (thinking, well this is not going in the right direction)  Megan E. didn't use a gun, only her fingers.  This boy made a really bad decision and used a gun to hurt others.  How about we pray for them and their families so that they start to feel better.

So we did.  And we have now every day in the car because it's obviously something she's still working through and my fearful little one asks about it each day on the way to school.  Now, my 3.5 year old knows about guns, and not by way of hunting like I'm sure her southwest PA grandfather would have preferred.  She knows about school shootings and a little piece of my heart hurts.  And, a little piece of my morning is missing since I can't even watch the Today show without worrying what my little sponge will pickup.

we did vegas

I love my children but I loved my husband first.  Right now, the love/ hate relationship that I have with B.'s career is in a loving phase.  I love that we got to go on not 1 but 2 awesome vacations because of the hard work that he does and the people that want him to do that hard work with their products.

B was gone for 11 days, 4 to Palm Springs and 7 to Vegas.  I joined him for the last 3 in Vegas.  We hit the ground running and didn't stop until we got on the flight home for K.'s birthday party the next day. In those 3 days we
1. went to a reception for our region immediately after I had worked half a day then flew 6 hours.   ( 4 people from our high school were there.  Who would have thought that OHS breeds grass growers?)
2. went to dinner at Lavo following said reception.  B. would not tell me what time it was during the entire trip but I'm pretty sure that this homebody was up at least 24 hours.
3. won some money to fund the rest of our trip.  Well, B. won money, I stood at the Craps table very confused and excited when we were winning money and sad when we lost $125.  I'm told we ended up ahead by $400.  I have no idea when that happened but I'll take it!
4. had an AMAZING pedicure at the Aria spa.
4. went to Hoover Dam.  Huge bridge, huge dam, gross dam food and a nice dam walk.

It's a cheese and veggie sandwich.  Can't you tell?

 5. Dinner at the Stratosphere
6. A long search for breakfast.  I guess that no one wants to eat breakfast in a town that never sleeps.  No one except the people that are used to getting up at 5:30 so sleeping in is 7:15.  The hunt led us to a delicious buffet for $22.

7. A walk around Vegas to see the amazing hotels right next to the cards with women's hoo has hanging out.  

8. a date to see Vegas, The Show- a fantastic variety show in a not so nice theatre.  It was actually inside of a mall.  So, do all Vegas show girls have other jobs?  How about the tap dancing twins.  I know that they can't make that much money performing next door to Forever 21.

9. Finally, Hanging out with some of our favorite people at Tao, the night club with 32 bachlorettes as well as their friends and in some cases their mothers/ old aunt Kathys.  

 What an awesome, jam packed, kid free 3 days.

not my battle

I know that this can not be comfortable but my little one says that she likes them on the wrong feet.  Whatever!

trying it on

We are in for some big changes here.  We are trying to move.  We've decided that joining my family in out west probably isn't going to happen so we might as well love our life here.  We want quiet.  We don't want 2 huge grocery stores directly across the street.  We don't need 6 lanes of traffic to cross to get to said grocery stores so that we are unable to walk.  We want a yard and sidewalks.  Mostly, I want to ride my bike with a basket on the front and the kids trailing at the back to the produce stand.  Apparently, I want Mayberry in 1960.  But, since time traveling isn't an option, I'll try for B.'s mom's old bike from 1960 instead!!!  I'll post a picture when that little piece of beauty becomes mine!

We haven't found our house yet and we are still dragging our feet for a few unanswered work questions but, we decided to try the location out for an afternoon.  Here are my happy kids that can't wait for Mommy to stop talking about our new life and to start living it!

Too cold out for our picnic so we had a tailgate instead 

running the bases at the baseball field

 Home sweet quiet home that will be close enough for the all important Bunko and family dinners but too far to keep my job.  I start my new one on April 4!

the birthday cake adventure

Every year I get this grand illusion that I'm going to make my children's cakes.  I think, this year will be the year that it works.  I think, this year it will not look like a preschooler made the cake.  Every year, I am wrong.  But, I will keep trying and until they are too embarrassed to let the preschoolesque cakes be seen at their parties. I bake the cakes from scratch and I have now learned to make at least 2 because something will inevitably go wrong.  This year, my dad helped me pour them into a cupcake pan, loaf pan, and mini cupcake pan that we needed.  Lets just say that we were a little heavy handed and we ended up cleaning out the oven and starting over half way through.  Good times...

It's a John Deere tractor, can't you tell?  What makes it worse is that it isn't just for my 1 year old, but for my 31 year old husband.  He's so proud ...

What is this odd thing, Mommy?  

Maybe if I poke it a few times, I'll figure it out.

It's ok

Maybe better than ok

Yep, its fantastic!

Just in case you want to hire me for your parties.  Here is the fabulousness that we call birthday cakes...

The lady bug for A.'s first birthday

A monkey for A's second birthday.  I was actually pretty happy with this  but I made the  mouth out of the 1st cake that crumbled instead of coming out nice and pretty and round.

A.'s polkadot cake with the dripping icing.  Not cute!

its been so long

It has been awhile and a lot has been going on in the Collins family household.  But, we'll start with the most important event.

1 year ago today, i was walking around the mall hating every person that already had their children.  I was stopping every 4-5 minutes because I couldn't move yet I didn't want B. to acknowledge it because, well, I'm not sure why.  So, we kept walking and stopped to have some sbarro pizza before driving a gazillion miles per hour to get to the hospital where K. was born 3 hours later.

That sweet little bundle was the most calm, chill baby ever created.  He is still quite the cuddler and toddles up to us a few times a day just to rest his head on a shoulder for a few minutes before he is off getting into something again.  He loves his sister sooo much that when she is gone he crawls up to her room just to look for her.  He's starting to like rough/tumble play and laughs and laughs when she crawls on him and tickles him.

Our little guy doesn't say much partly because he couldn't hear for 9 months and partly because his sister doesn't shut up.  But, he gets his point across.  He signs "more' and "all done" and goes to get whatever else he needs.  He crawls up the stairs when he starts to get tired and crawls to get a cup when he is thirsty.  He's pretty self sufficient for a 1 year old.

the artist- after getting his own markers to color 

Sleep, ahhh sleep, just started happening again about 2 months ago.  He still wakes up about once a week during the night. But sometimes I like to cuddle with that little guy when no one else is awake.  He's so soft and sweet then and there is the bonus of the weird neighbors that walk their dog at 3:00 am every morning, he in his shorts only and she in her nightgown.  Yes, this even occurs in the dead of winter.  

Our boy can eat!  He eats everything and he wears about as much of his food as he eats. B. thinks that he eats more that I do, this may be fact but half of his is on his clothes!  

Happy Birthday Sweet KCo