What’s Lurking Under My Bed

The question shouldn’t be what is under my bed right now, but rather what ISN’T under my bed right now.  Since we live in a townhouse with next to nothing closet space, no attic and no garage, I’ve had to make every possible available (unseen) space into storage.  So what’s under my bed you ask?  Lots of crap stuff:

-       air mattress

-       shoes

-       luggage

-       my  Wedding Dress & Veil (all boxed up)

-       more shoes

-       serving platters that are used 1-2x a year for big parties/holidays

-       sleeping bag

-       tent

-       covered roasting pan (I kid you not this was the only place to store it)

-       did I mention shoes?

You may be asking, how the heck does that all fit under my bed?  For starters we have a king size bed so that makes for lots of square footage underneath and second, we put bed risers on our bed to lift it up a few inches and give us some extra room. 

I cannot wait for the day that we buy a bigger house and I can have a proper closet (or :::GASP:::  a garage)  to store these things in instead.

This post brought to you by the Working Mommy Wednesday prompt from Julia over at Work, Wife, Mom….Life!   What is under your bed right now?

Getting a little Wild

It’s been a while since we took a trip to the Bronx Zoo, so last weekend we took A on a spur of the moment outing.  Although it was HOT HOT HOT we went first thing in the morning when they opened and were able to see what we wanted and get out just as it was getting really crowded (and unbearably hot) later in the afternoon.

A’s favorite part of the zoo (and mine too) was the Children’s Zoo.  I had been waiting 3 patient years for him to be old enough to truly enjoy this part of the zoo and this was his first experience through it.  SOOO MUCH FUN!!!!  He had a ball running around checking out all the animals and exhibits.  I have to say I got a little nostalgic taking these pictures as I was remembering being there when I was his age and the pictures I have (somewhere) of myself in these exact same exhibits.

Summer Goal #2

If you remember back to my Summer Goals post, goal #2 was to finish transforming A’s room to a ‘big boy’ room.  A has gotten too tall for the toddler bed - poor kid pretty much reaches end to end when he stretches out. The crib that we bought was one of those “lifetime cribs” so it transforms into a full size bed.  Our plan is to convert his toddler bed to a full size bed, which will require us to buy: (1) a new mattress (ugh) and (2) new bedding.

So the search was on for a new bedding set.  I asked A what he wanted and the answer I got was Toy Story!!  However, when I looked up the Toy Story bedding sets most of the blankets had HUGE sized characters plastered on them and they all looked kind of scary looking in my opinion.  We’re just getting over the nightmares so I wasn't about to get him something that in the dark might look scary and restart those nightmares.  I tried to see if Cars or Thomas would be acceptable but they were vetoed.  

My husband and I fell in love with a Yankees set we found and figured it was something that we could get many years out of vs a character set that he may outgrow in a year.  A loves baseball and I already have a few baseball items in his room so it seemed like a perfect fit for a new big boy baseball room.   So we compromised a little.....  The Yankees set and a set of Toy Story sheets :)  When I told A and showed him the picture this is what he had to say: 

Me:  “Check it out.  How cool is this?”

A:  “I love it!!  But Mooooom, if you get Toy Story sheets with the Yankee blanket it won’t match”

Me:  “That’s ok if it doesn’t match.  You said you wanted Toy Story so we can do both baseball AND Toy Story”

A:  “But if it doesn’t match it won’t look right”.

I couldn’t stop laughing for about 10 minutes.  The way he said it he seemed so serious that if his blanket & sheets didn’t match that the world was going to end.  ….apparently my kid is an interior designer now.  LOL

Here is the way the room currently looks.  Plans are to change the bed, curtains, get rid of the stuffed animals (or at least most of them) and buy new door knobs for the closet.  Possibly change doors on the closet too.

Bedding Choice:

The Yankee set we chose. 

The least scary Toy Story set I found.  Was a close runner up.

Another set I had found that I thought was really cool.  It's called "Rock Anthem".  Didn't end up choosing this one because it didn't match the colors of A's room.

100 Posts!!

After blogging for almost 9 months, I’ve finally reached 100 posts!   Pretty awesome.  When I started writing I didn’t think I would have kept up with it as long as I have.  I know I’ve slowed down a bit in the last couple months due to work overload, but I’m trying to get back on track.

If you’re new to my blog (and I hope some of you are) I wanted to share my top 5 favorite posts from the first 100. 

10 Things I Believe In

It Smells Like Christmas

What Nobody Ever Tells You

Three, Could it Be?

This One’s For You Daddy

Thanks for reading.  Here’s to the next 100!

 

 

Baby You’re A Firework

It may be one of A’s favorite songs, but this year he just wasn’t into fireworks.   Sparklers were great and lots of fun, but the real thing with their loud explosions were only good for their colors.

The whole afternoon at the 4^th of July party we attended went a little something like this:

:::fireworks exploding; boom, boom, boom:::

A:  “Mommy, I want to go home now”

A:  “Mommy, I miss Layla”  (Layla is our dog)

5 minutes later….  :::more fireworks exploding; boom, boom, boom:::

A:  “Mommy, I want to go home now”

A:  “Mommy, I miss Layla” 

This went on for HOURS.

Then he discovered if he had to use the potty we would go inside our friend’s house to use the bathroom.  So every time a firework went off the conversation switched to:

A:  “Mommy, I have to use the bathroom”

A:  “Mommy, I have to poop….NOW”

Yeah…he’s quite the smart kid.

After a little trip to McD’s for a happy meal he was a much happier boy and was ready for the big color fireworks.  I have to give him credit because they ARE loud.  He was great and sat on my lap, held his little ears and watched the fireworks with us, all the while singing Katy Perry’s “Firework” as they went off :)

You Spin Me Round & Round

It’s been a while since I’ve participated in Julia’s Working Mommy Wednesday posts.  That’s because I’ve been working a LOT more than I should and sadly my blogging has fallen a bit behind.  Today I’m trying to break that cycle.

As a working mom, routine is my middle name.  During the week we’ve settled into a schedule that ensures we all get out of the house on time, and in one piece :)  A has a very structured day at preschool so at home I try to keep a schedule/routine as best I can to be consistent with what he is doing at preschool. 

Weekdays go something like this:

6 am ‘ish – A wakes up (and wakes us up)

6:10 – my alarm goes off, if I make it that long

6:15-7:00 – I shower and get ready for work while A eats some cheerios and watches TV or plays trains in his room

7:00-7:15 – Walk the dog and get A dressed for school

7:25 – Leave for work (and wake up hubby before I go)

8:30 am – hubby drops A drop off at preschool

5:30 pm – hubby picks up A from preschool

6:30 – I get home from work (on a normal non working late day)

6:45-7:30 – cook & eat dinner (maybe a little playtime with A)

7:30 pm – bedtime process begins

After that it’s anyone’s game.  Do more work…watch some TV….blog…surf the web/facebook….pack A’s school bag for the next day….make lunches to take to work….

….sleep, wake & repeat.  Round and round we go.  Routine, routine, routine.

Now weekends…..that goes a little something like this.

Wake up when we get up

Stay in our PJs until we feel like changing

Play with toys

12:00 – lunch time for A

12:45 – nap time for A

Play with some more toys

Maybe run a few errands

Go outside & play

6:00 – Dinner time

Wind down & cuddling time on the couch

7:30 pm – bedtime process begins

That is if we don’t have a party to attend or something else going on that day.  Then every schedule I could imagine goes out the window, which is fine with me.  We have way too many schedules during the week that we deserve a day off!!

This post brought to you by the Working Mommy Wednesday prompt from Julia over at Work, Wife, Mom….Life!   How important to you, as a working mom, is a schedule/routine for your kids?

A Weekend Getaway

Last weekend we took a trip to Lancaster, PA and met up with my sister, brother-in-law and nephew.  On the agenda:  a day at the amusement park Dutch Wonderland and a stop at the Strasburg Railroad for A Day out with Thomas!  We didn’t tell A that we were doing the Thomas adventure until Sunday morning; otherwise I know he would have been bugging us about it for weeks before we left.

Getting out of the NYC area on a Friday night (during the summer) was NO fun at all. What should have been a 3-3.5 hrs car ride ended up taking us 5 hours!  Thank goodness for in car entertainment and dvds ;-)  A was a trooper and have to give him tons of credit for making it through the long car ride (with minimal complaints).

Saturday we hit Dutch Wonderland as soon as they opened.  SMART move.  No lines and the kids got to ride what they wanted.  We stayed until around 2 then went back to the hotel for a nap and came back at 6 & had dinner at the park.  Again, there were NO lines at that time so it was perfect.  We basically cut out the entire part of the afternoon when it got crowded.  I was surprised at how brave A was on all of the rides.  I had fears of him screaming his head off through all of the rides, but nope.  He LOVED all of them, especially the bumper cars and of course the train ride they had.   He must have ridden the train ride 4 or 5 times.  A and my nephew were like 2 peas in a pod all weekend.  They held hands everywhere we went and A was being a great older cousin by watching out for him….although he did almost walk my nephew into a door a couple times while they were holding hands.  LOL

Sunday morning after we had breakfast we told A the surprise that we were going to visit Thomas who had made a special stop at a nearby train station.  He could barely contain his excitement!!  It was so cute.   

Our tickets were for the first train ride of the day, and when we arrived they were still setting up a lot of the tent activities so we just wandered around and looked at the trains…and of course searched for Thomas.  He couldn’t wait to see Thomas and when we found him at the end of the rail yard, he yelled out  “THOMAS!!!”  After the train ride through the PA countryside, we went to visit Sir Topham Hatt in one of the tents.  I was fully expecting A to scream and cry when he saw this person dressed up as the character, but instead we got the complete opposite.  He ran right up to him and gave him a huge hug.  It was so adorable!    The event had so much to see and do – rides, music, food and of course TONS of Thomas things to buy.  We of course couldn’t leave without adding a new train or two three to our collection.

It was a great weekend and I highly recommend a visit if you’re looking for a fun weekend getaway with the kids.