I'll Admit that I...

In the interest of keeping it real, I'll admit that I look at myself my reflection every morning in this window near the entrance to the building I work in... and if that makes me vain, then I don't want to be un-vain.

A Helping Hand

Sometimes when your little brother drops his lollipop and starts to cry, you lick the dirt off and say, "here, Brother!" and hand it back to him.

But when Brother decides to drop it 5 more times and your parents aren't looking, you get tired of handing it back, so you stick it in his hair.  There, now it will not be dropped.

Obsession

I'm obsessed with-a-many things.  It goes in patterns or waves.  It used to be Pinterest now, it's Wanelo, it was Facebook, and now, it's Twitter; so, you get the point, my tastes are ever-changing.  One thing I have become obsessed with recently (as you can tell from the ole' blog) is "action series" shots of my boys.  I love every time I get a great picture and by having a rapid succession of them, it means that there are more for me to look it.  To be honest, I even downloaded an app on our iPad called Fast Camera, which takes pictures really fast.

I'm particularly obsessed with jumping.  Cullen does a lot of jumping, like a lot, a lot (he even likes to watch video of himself jumping!) of jumping, so I've been trying to capture those in air moments.  The other day when we were at the park, Cullen conquered his rock and then decided that he wanted to jump off.

Here's how that went:

When to Push it

Recently, my once fearless little head chef has become a timid little line cook, not that there's anything wrong with that.  As a parent, I think it is my responsibility to take calculated risks when it comes to encouraging my cubs to participate in things; I'd never intentionally prompt them do something that would make them have nightmares, but when I think they're missing out, I'm gonna push.  And it just so happens, we had one of those, whether to push or not?! moments the other day.

One of Cullen's newest sayings is, "it's too scary for me!" which, as a fray'd-cat myself, I can relate to.  Bungee jumping- no thanks.  Skydiving- I'll pass.  High Dive- that scares Mommy!  But if it's a pretty mundane activity that I have no reason to fear, I'll push myself.

So, that's what I decided to do the other day at the park when Cullen was adamant that everything was, "too scary for me!" I decided that he was going to try it, he may not like it, but by golly, he's going to try it.  And just as I had suspected, he liked everything that he reluctantly went on.  The Swings (which he used to enjoy)- loved it.  The Big Boy Slide- conquered it.  That Big Rock- climbed it.

I guess this is par-for-the-course of parenthood.  Your kid says no I can't and you remind them that, yes, in fact, you can; and maybe, just maybe, those can't moments turn out to look something like this:

Reaction

Most of the time, my babies don't pay any attention to what I wear or what I look like- thank goodness!  However, that all changes when I wear red lipstick.  Arden is fascinated and Cullen likes to have me kiss his hands to leave "red lips" behind.  It has become a real obstacle course trying to get out of the house without my face or the kids' faces being smeared in a lovely shade of red.

Free of Charge

It started as just something that I wanted to do and has become something that I do.  Everyone in our family is known for something, be it an outrageous moment, a good recipe or a both.  Well, I've become famous for my chocolate covered pretzels.

So, just a little toot of my own horn at the product from this weekend, which I consider to be a great quality for the price (free of charge to the recipient) since I just Googled the price and it's about a dollar a pretzel online.

3 Pictures

Here's a nice little moment I captured the other day at the park.  

He's so proud to be motoring around on the big kid park equipment- 

and truth be told, he's going to be more fearless than his brother!