The Five Things I've Learned In Preschool

Over at B-Metro today:

Those professional placemat decorators, craft lords and glitter warriors will always have a place for their "art".

I. Don't. Do. Hand Turkeys.

Or glitter.

Really, I've never been skilled in the art of table decorations, bulletin board design, or bubble letters. But those people have a special role in preschool (and most of school) and they will showcase their "talents" every chance they get. You bring a roll of red streamers to tape in sections above the door. They bring white tin buckets hand-painted with pink, purple and red spots brimming with pink "easter grass" with a small field of 8-inch suckers stuck inside for the "centerpieces".

To read the whole thing, click here. 

7 Quick Takes - I Haven't Done One Of These In FOREVER.

--1--

Have not done one of these in a while, but I have so many random things going on that I'd like to share or get comments back on that are too long for a tweet but too short for a full blog post. 7 Quick Takes is perfect for just that.

If there's anything in this post that'd you like me to expand on, just leave that in the comment section! I'd love to ramble about it, I'm sure.

--2--

Conner and Chase now sleep in Chase's room each and every night together and go to bed at a time that doesn't make a majority of friends, family, co-workers or strangers give the O-face (the bad version). It took a lot of work, more so with Conner, because we co-slept with Conner, moved around a good bit and in the process, he never fully learned how to sleep on his own.

We also co-slept with Chase, but Chase being the more independent child, it was obvious when he could handle sleeping on his own at night (around 12 months). This went hand-in-hand with when he could wean off night feedings, and then eventually fully wean from nursing all-together (get ready for another shock face when I tell you he was 16 months once completely weaned).

Conner spent a week or so getting up in the middle of the night, wandering to our bed, and in full steal mode, climbing in next to me without ever waking a soul.

But eventually, he just stopped. He is now even better than Chase about staying in bed once we put them down and doesn't give us one ounce of trouble. It's truly amazing and I have finally, after 5 years taken back my bed.

--3--

In taking back my bed, I'm taking steps to transform my ENTIRE bedroom (ballsy, I know). I have a "plan", one might say, for the overall look, design and even price range for this "transformation" of my less than appealing boudoir. I think I'll blog the change too!

This includes new bedding (for my birthday, thus "free"), the already purchased and in use sheets (60% off post-Christmas at Target = major score), fresh paint, new curtains (that don't suck), and ... (and this is SOOO not typical Amanda) MONOGRAMMED PILLOWS! Shocked, I'm sure. Oh! And maybe even a rug!! An envelope pusher, I am.

More info to come.

--4--

I've been drinking one (hahahahahaha. I should have just stopped this sentence here!), hot cup of green tea each day for a week now - for the antioxidants. It's yummy.

--5-- 

I'm writing for B-Metro now, so I have no idea why you haven't read it yet (unless you read it here too), in which case please take a look-see at their other bloggers and articles. Good stuff.

--6--

We are almost 2 full weeks into potty training for Chase. It's AMAZING how fast he is with it. To him, for some reason, it's just NO BIG DEAL.

I don't get it.
... but I'll take it!

He can go to the bathroom, throw on the training seat, plop down (no pun intended) and just... go. We've caught him doing it even when no one is around to "ooooHhhh" and "ahhhhh" and "OMG YOU ARE SUCH A GOOD BOY!!" at him.

Now, this means he's naked 90% of the time, with exception to at nap, bedtime, in public or with guests at the house. It's just the method that works for us (and probably very boy-centric) (although I'm sure many parents of girls have used this method as well).

--7--

Conner is signed up for speech to start in March after an innumerable amount of set backs with the in-house speech pathologist with his school. We are pretty confident about this new speech clinic and hopefully we can go full force into a summer filled with weekly speech clinics, fun workbooks and a reading program at the local library.

For more Quick Takes, check out the Conversion Diary.

Some Of You Are Missing Out.

Most of you are lucky (cough) enough to be Facebook friends with me (very elite group) (totally joking) and if you aren't following me on Twitter.. well... you are totally missing out.

For instance, you missed Chase's 2nd Birthday panda cuipcakes a-la me and about 7 years of my life that I will never get back from said cupcake baking.

And you are missing out on my Game Day tweets as well as .. um... yeah. Now that I think about it, just a truck load of random Amandaisms under 140 characters. Sometimes, you are missing run-on Amandaisms in 140 character spurts. I'm a professional Twitter feed spammer. Consider my resume updated.

On Facebook, you are missing the same Twitter feed (they are synced because my insanity is bound by a one social medium limit) plus some pictures. For instance, these of Conner:

 

... and us trying to figure out why it's SO DANG COLD AND WINDY!

Follow me on Twitter already. Sheesh.

Here I Am Needing Advice - Again. Read: HELP!

It's been a full year since I purchased this domain. Which is totally ironic since just last week I began to ponder "How much does my blog name suck?" while in a mad post-birthday party and pre-Christmas dash throughout my house.

Let me just add, for the record, that having a child with a birthday 4 days before Christmas, living in a city 2 hours away from all relatives (the No Where Land between Too Far Away For A Quick Trip and Not Far Away Enough To Be Considered "Too Far" Therefore Expected To Show Face), and then insisting that my children wake in our house on Christmas morning and having a husband who must work on Christmas Eve because "the market is open" is just a huge pain in my rear.

I think I feel better now that rant isover.

So to save me from myself, I debated my blog name, identity, "brand", etc while cleaning, baking, wrapping, mothering, chauffeuring and going insane.

My desire to re-vamp this site is multifold. For starters, I'd like it to appear more "professional" (stop laughing). I would still maintain my off-color humor and marginally less than sane content, but with a few less asterisks, all caps, and words made up by me. The run-on sentences are staying as well as my comma splices and incomplete statements (the latter two are more so by accident).

Second, I want the design to "do more". I have no idea what that really means. In my head, my ideal blog layout would be less "crappy" and more "awesome". I am oozing with vague here. You are all, surely, shocked.

Third, I think the site name, my "identity", should reflect more of what readers have come to expect (read: avoid). For instance, I'm sure many have stumbled onto this blog, looked up and realized it seems a lot like being lost with Alice in Wonderland on a bad day. Even worse, it could be just like watching that extended version of Alice in Wonderland with the Jabberwocky and the trippy mirror scene.

Here comes a new reader thinking they've come across a lovely little mommy blog and then I smack them in the face with an "unusual" comment or topic. The reader never knew what hit them. After all, it came from something called "The Mom Job".

What if, hypothetically, my site was called...
UterusForSale.com
I think that would send the right message.

I am currently working on several projects that will expose my writing to a wider audience.

For one, as many of you noticed, I am now a monthly contributor to Birmingham Mommy; my feature is called "Amanda's Attempt to Entertain Us This Month". Yup. I'm creative.

The next is a local (to Birmingham) magazine (print) that also maintains a website. I'm not totally sure if it's safe to link yet, but there's no way you guys won't hear about this soon. I should be posting a several times a month (1-2 per week). The long-term goal is to work my way towards the print side and maintain my online position.

And lastly, I occassionally contribute posts to MomsWhoThink.com. (which all of you should visit because a) it's a great resource for "all things mommy" and b) they pay me)

My overall point here is this - I think it sends a more accurate message if someone were to read my bio on one of these sites and it were to say something like "Amanda Z., a Birmingham native, is a stay-at-home mother of 2 young boys and a graduate of the University of Alabama. She blogs on her personal site, UterusForSale.com, and contributes to YourWebsiteHere.com bi-monthly".

It's like a subtle warning I may make you blush, laugh or both.