Pet peeves

So my best friend from high school posts a bi-annual ??(or so) Pet Peeves List on her blog. I look forward to this. It is hilarious and I find myself agreeing out loud with all of it. Then I am sitting there trying really hard to remember if I have ever committed one of her offenses and praying I haven't!!! So, today I am going to thrill you all with two of my pet peeves based on my day:

• People who make any sort of unsolicited remark about my kids throwing fits, or really anything related to parenting. I could go on forever, but I will spare you the rant. Sadly, I feel like this happens too much, basically once is too much. Every kid is different and every parent is different and I am doing the best I can and what I think is best for my child. You may feel differently, and that is your right. What works for you or how your child acts is not going to be the same as me and mine. As I get older and experience more mom stuff I feel bad for offering any unsolicited advice to other mothers on how to raise their children. I try to be careful of this and is really something I work on because I am not guilt free on this subjest. Now if you ask me for my opinion, I will give you my thoughts and I expect the same when I bring up the topic of what to do with my children. That's maybe your bad choice to ask me!!!!
• People who work at stores, see me standing in front of them politely waiting until they are done making up fake work to do so they don't have to help me, and then act so put out like I have been pestering them for the last 20 minutes. Learn some customer service skills if you have to work with customers. I've done it. It can be annoying, but it's not that hard. Fake it if you have to. That's your job. And you better believe I will not visit a store again if I get poor service. As I get older, I am now so bold as to talk to a manager, fill out a survey negatively or call a customer service hotline so they can fix the problem. And I will tell everyone I know about my bad experience.
  

That's it for now. Maybe in 6 months or so I will have more.

UPDATES

Ben's flu was over in 2 hours!!!! Talk about lucky. By 4pm he was devouring everything I would let him get his hands on and running around no problem. And........drum roll please, I got the Jessie doll. I feel lame that I didn't even check the actual Disney store in the mall. I assumed that if the online store didn't have it in stock, why would the physical store?? Well, you know what assume means.......something about you and me!!! So, crisis averted. I snatched one of the last 2, paid a good price and got to be mommy of the year, until I had to pry it out of her hands to put in the closet until August. Mean old mom, I know. But I get to be mommy of the year a second time when I let her have it then. This day started out pretty horrible and ended pretty good thanks to milkshakes and Disney. Ahhhh. Is 5pm too late for a nap??

knock on wood

Last week my sister was telling me about my nephew having hallucinations from the flu and all the horrible sickies in her house. I was telling her how grateful I am that my kids rarely get the flu. Although Amelia throws up from her allergies and Ben is notorious for throwing up in the car after 15 minutes of driving, but aside from that, I can probably count on my hands the number of times her and Ben have been sick with the flu. Actually probably all their sickness. They are pretty healthy. Well, I am eating my words now. Ben was having a hard time sleeping last night, which is very unlike him. I thought it was strange. Then this morning he seemed extra cuddly. Only a little unlike him. Then about an hour ago he just laid on the floor and threw up. Poor thing. Luckily he was half laying in our dining room half in the kitchen and when I heard that unmistakable pre-throw up cough, I just slid him over to the tile. Got to minimize the clean up, right. Now we are snuggling up on the couch and Amelia is being Ben's nurse and getting him blankets, songs and toys while providing comedy to make him laugh so he gets better. His spirits seem to be lifting, so maybe we are on the mend. That would be awesome. The hour flu. I am knocking on wood again. But between you and me, I am liking the excuse for all of us to be in jammies and lay around. And I made chicken noodle soup for my freezer on Friday. Sounds like the perfect thing to go and defrost!!!

For the Birds

We planted some flower seeds in some egg shells last weekend for a fun spring decoration. I woke up yesterday to find them spread all over my backyard. Apparently the birds got to them. Amelia's response, "I am so angry. Those birds are SO rude!!!" She took it quite personal that they ruined her project. I don't blame her. She put a lot of love into those.

Cute things kids say

Ben said to Phil this morning, "Mom doesn't like your face!!" That made me laugh out loud. He meant I don't like that his face is always so scratchy so I don't like it to touch me because it feels worse than sand paper. Phil's good sport response, "I know. Does she like your face??" Ben quickly and with a huge smile, "YES!!". Guilty. I would snuggle up with that baby soft milky white skin of his cheeks all day.

Ben loves Bubbles

Just look at these pics. Need I say more.

Disneyland

I pretty much could recap the whole trip, but I think I will just post some of my favorite pics. It's hard to take pics and handle kids, so we don't have a ton. I have some videos too, but I am still deciding what to post. My brother came with us the first day to Disneyland and we had a lot of fun. Plus it was so nice to have another child wrangler!!! Props to anyone who does this alone with small kids. (actually when we were in California Adventure some random guy came up to me with his just turned 4 year old and asked if we would take him in a show with us because his daughter was asleep in the stroller. Uhhh. I just hoped he wasn't ditching his kid with us after I agreed. The little kids was so scared and on the verge of tears. Hello, complete strangers. I did my best to make him feel better but that was so weird. So no props to that dad)
We had a good time being nostalgic for Disneyland when we were a kid and literally got on every ride we wanted with almost no wait. The stars were aligned for us. It was great. We stayed until 10pm. The kids had had a little power nap and I think they could have made it another hour. I couldn't believe how great they were. Our favorites were for sure the Buzz Lightyear laser ride. Ben was literally trembling with joy to get to shoot Zurg. We did that twice. Amelia got to drive the car in Autopia and she loved that and we even took the kids on Pirates of the Caribbean. Ben was excited until we dropped into darkness then said, "I would like to get off now" but Jared convinced him that pirates were cool and he soon was having a blast. Amelia hid her head and covered her ears the whole time. We left to pick up Phil (who had to work Friday so he took the train down to meet us for Saturday) after the fireworks and and a few more quick rides on the teacups and carousel. Great day.
The next day Phil joined us for CA Adventure. Kids got a chance to see some of their favorite characters which made their day. Ben was so excited to see Woody and a army man until he got up there and then saw how big he was and changed his mind. Amelia was a little reluctant too. Then we heard Jessie was coming out so we sat and waited so she could see Jessie. We had a clear shot for her to give Amelia a high five and out of no where a little girl swarmed her and then people started coming up so she just walked away. It was a little disappointing to me, but Amelia was so happy that Jessie waved at her, I guess I couldn't be too bugged. In the pic you can see her next to her hat. She loves looking at that picture.

Amelia was getting to be a little daredevil. She was putting her hands up and loving it in this teacup ride. Ben on the other hand hated it. Look closely at the middle pic in this series. Sums it all up. Our favorite ride was also the Toy Story Mania ride. You get to go through in 3D and shoot carnival type games. It was very fun and it sprayed air and water on you and let you stay and play for a good amount of time. We were lucky to get on it right away so we didn't wait the first time, but the whole rest of the day it was a 45 minute wait. But it was so good we did it again.



Amelia's favorite ride was the Jumping Jellyfish. She did it 3 times and loved it. You basically sit on it and it takes you up and then gently drops you a little then back up and down 3 or 4 times. She had no hands and was looking over the edge laughing the whole time. When I went with her I wanted her to hold my hand and she said no because she wanted to put her hands up and feel like she is falling. What!!! Where did this come from. This child as a baby would scream if you pretended to drop her or throw her up in the air. Now she is putting her hands up on rides. Phil was loving it too.

We ended the night with some good seats to see the World of Color show (a water fountain and light show) The kids (and me) loved that. On our way out we got to see the fireworks from Disneyland again and thought about forcing the kids on some rides, but they were sleeping so soundly we just decided to go home.
I'll have to post some videos later.