Go Vikings! Eeww.

I have always dreamed that one day my daughters would love what I loved in middle school~cheerleading! So far, so good. Caroline walks around the house doing cheers and would wear her cheer uniform every day. This week the ICHS (boo!) cheerleaders invited the middle school girls to come stunt with them. Caroline is a flyer and boy did she get to fly! They put her up in a full and even tried to do a liberty. The ICHS girls were really sweet and helped my middle school squad learn how to stunt. They can't wait until next fall to really work on it all! Caroline is bummed that she probably will never be a Viking. I'm OK with that.

The Family Meal . . . and other great pieces of fiction

ME~C'mon guys, dinner's ready.

RANDOM CHILDREN WHO CALL ME MOM~What are we having? YUCK! She touched me/breathed on me/broke my toy/hit me/kicked me/won't share! WYATT NO! Why do we always have chicken/beef/venison? Why can't we have hot dogs/peanut butter/pizza? I HATE this. How many bites do I have to eat to have a snack?

I love to cook. I love to try new recipes or just mess around in the kitchen until I find something I like. We have all read the studies and know that kids who eat at the family dinner table do better at everything from preschool entrance exams to nursing home longevity. Our church culture puts extra pressure on us to not only produce a healthy meal (well, at least one with meat and 3 sides with Velveeta in them!) but also have family devotions. These little nuggets of time where we impart great spiritual truths to our offspring. What "they" fail to mention is that these wonderful benefits of the family dinner come at the cost of a big fat ulcer for Mommy. Is a 2 1/2 year old even capable of sitting for more than 5 minutes? Well, mine is not. Everyone has an answer for how to get through dinner time with 3 small kids and I am not a fan of any of their easy answers. I am trying to let go of the guilt and embrace the idea that a 20 minute family dinner complete with devotions and pot roast with three sides is just a fantasy. Life is all about survival with small kids and I need to start letting go of the Pottery Barn catalog image of motherhood. We have all these "should do" ideas about how to plan every moment of our kids' lives. If I don't force Wyatt to sit and eat dinner, then he will do drugs in his teen years. If I don't force Greta to try 5 bites of everything, then she will grow up to be a person who only eat chicken nuggets. Wow. Once I put that in writing it looks really stupid. So today I vow to give myself permission to suspend the traditional family meal time until a later date. How much later? How 'bout college?

Go Fight Win

These are my girls~the middle school cheer squad. I have had such a good time coaching them and I love them all to pieces! This is there very first mount at a game. Caroline is the flyer on the far left. Go Crusaders!

SAHM I Am . . . .Or Not

I'm having one of those days. I have had thousands of them since I began my stint as a Stay At Home mom in 1998. I feel like a dog chasing its tail. I have a mountain of work to get to and all I can muster the energy to do is hold Greta on the couch with her Tupperware Barf Bowl. I do laundry. I make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I clean up gobs of toothpaste. I build Lego trucks. I untangle American Girl hair. And so on. I'm OK with all of that. It comes with the territory of the choice I made to stay home. My frustration lies in the fact that I seem to be the only mom who doesn't love her stay at home mom-ness ALL THE TIME. Or at least according to Facebook every other SAHM thinks they have the greatest job in the world and loves spending every waking and non-waking moment with their kids. Are all these moms lying or am I truly the only one who gets sick of being a human kleenex all day? I chose to stay home because I thought it was important to be the one with my kids. I wanted to make the choices for how they spent their time. Problem is I am the one to blame for how their spend their time. . .is there any defense for "Yo Gabba Gabba"?

I can't even complete the thought right now. Someone is screaming and I can't ignore it anymore.