Barbies and Ponies and bears, oh my!

I'm not one of those people who have a problem with Barbies, in general. I played with them as a kid and, quite frankly, I think there are much worse things kids play with out there. That said, I do have a problem with them when they are part of a bigger clutter problem.

I was trying to organize and consolidate and, yes, cull toys today. We used to keep Barbies and clothes, etc. in a large clear plastic bin with a lid that slid under my oldest daughter's bed. Lately, we can't get the lid on it. (Okay, in more ways than one!) I think I counted 23 Barbies (and friends) in the pile in the picture above. TWENTY-THREE! That's crazy. That doesn't even take into account the Barbies that are still in their boxes on a closet shelf somewhere. We could have our own Barbie Expo! I managed to wrest a whopping 8 away from my daughter for the "get rid of" pile.

In Marine terms, I haven't even started to tackle the company of My Little Ponies, the battalion of stuffed animals, or the regiment of Little People.

Memes

I'm flattered. I was tagged for 2 memes in the past week. Okay, not so much excited that I was tagged to do these memes, but definitely flattered to find out someone actually reads this blog!

OTJ tagged me first so I'll do hers first. I'm to list 5 blogs I read that I haven't linked to before. Since I'm usually too lazy to link or even to add to my list of favorites, this ought to be easy. Sure. Okay, so here goes:

1. Oh, the Joys!, yes, the very blog who tagged me because I read her all the time despite never linking to her. She's absolutely hysterical but has a soft side, too. She's had me laughing so hard I thought I would wet my pants and she's also had me in tears. She is, simply put, a joy.

2. Queen of the Mayhem. What can I say? She, too, is hysterically funny, sometimes in ways that are just so wrong. I relate so strongly to some of her posts, I could have written them... just not as well. This is a girlfriend with grit!

3. Military Mommy. She's sweet and funny. I often pop over just to see what she's up to.

4. C'est la me. A California girl who moved to Paris with her French husband. No kids, just lots of cultural challenges. Her life experiences right now are so different from my life now (although I relate from my previous life before marriage and kids), I like to live vicariously!

5. I'm an Organizing Junkie, because I aspire to be organized someday. Maybe. If only I wasn't such a procrastinator.

The second meme was from Where My Treasures Are. This one is the "8 Things You May Not Know About Me."

1. I grew up an Army brat and ended up married to a Marine. How did THAT happen?! So not in the life plan!

2. My mother used to tell people (like complete strangers!) that I'd attended my university for 7 straight years. I kept telling her it didn't sound at all impressive because she kept forgetting to mention I got two degrees in those 7 years: a B.A. and a J.D.

3. I went to the Soviet Union the summer before my senior year of high school as a student ambassador with the People to People program. It was still the Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall was still up. I think it was the year of Tienanmen Square. I don't know how my mother let me do it! I'm not sure I could in her place. But I am forever grateful for the experience.

4. Sam and I only dated 2 months before we were engaged. We were married within 6 months of our first date. Hey, when you know, you know! Besides, he was going to his next duty station. It was either get married then or spend a year in a long distance relationship before the wedding. This was before I realized how much of our marriage would be spent apart! I've never regretted it.

5. I started getting grey hairs as an undergrad. But I only recently started coloring it with any sort of regularity.

6. We've been married 9 years and I never bothered to change my name. I just don't see the point really. It's not like he changed his. Considering how radically my life changed direction when we were married, I think keeping my name is a pretty small thing.

7. I'm half Korean but don't speak a lick. This wasn't fun when we lived in South Korea and people assumed I did. I'd get that "deer in the headlights" look and gesture toward my tall, white husband who did speak Korean. Go ahead, laugh.

8. I'm a first-born, my husband is a first-born, and my best friends are first-borns. I think there might be a law against that. My sister still doesn't understand how that works. We all need to be right, but about different things so it just works. Mostly.

Well, it wasn't the mother of all memes like over at OTJ, but I'm still glad it's over. Bet you are, too!

firecracker update

David at Lim Twins asked for pics of the infamous photo shoot I blogged about below. This is supermodel L'il Sis:

At least her personality really came through in some of the shots. After all the pain the photographer and I experienced trying to get her to just look toward the camera, I'm grateful for that!

backseat driver

At 3, Lil Sis is already a backseat driver. Today, I got a steady stream of "Go! I want you to go!" while we ran errands, never mind red lights or those pesky cars in front of me. Then, as we were trying to get out of a parking lot, a car turning into the lot made the widest turn I've seen in a long time. Although he had the stop sign, not me, I stopped well away from the intersection to accommodate this turn. Showing great restraint, I just commented, "Dude! How much room do you need?"

From the peanut gallery behind me, Lil Sis admonished, "Stop talking! That's enough talking!" Well, excuse me!

Firecracker, indeed

This morning the girls and I had an appointment to have portraits taken. It seemed like a good idea at some point. I can’t remember when.

We decided that we would coordinate our outfits by wearing red, white, and/or blue. The outfits were picked out the night before and everyone was happy. This morning, I left the girls in their PJs while I got ready. Then, 30 minutes before we needed to leave, the TV was turned off and the girls herded upstairs for teeth-brushing and dressing. The eldest had issues with her shoes (not especially surprising but still frustrating for me). Then the youngest decided she had to get her dress off...yesterday. Fortunately, I had a back-up outfit for her. But maybe I was tempting fate, since her t-shirt read , “Lil Firecracker.”

We managed to get the pictures of all 3 of us first. Then I wanted shots of the sisters. Well, that sort of happened. Then, it was time for L'il Sis to have her close-up. She ran around, turned her back to the photographer, hammed it up, bared her teeth and grimaced when told to smile, ran some more laps. Even the promise of ice cream afterward if she just cooperated wasn’t enough. Toward the end, she actually said, "I. am. not. happy."

I think the photographer muttered, "We aren't, either!"

We did manage to get a few good shots but I think I lost years off my life that I will never get back.

The sad part is that EVERY time I take the girls to get portraits taken, I swear that it is the LAST time I will do so by myself. Clearly, it is a lesson I still haven’t learned. In my defense, the last time I did this was almost 3 years ago, so the memory wasn’t exactly fresh in my mind.

Thank you, Marines!

My daughter's school had an assembly today to thank their Marine volunteers who do so much at their school. Just their presence at the school, in uniform on a daily basis, is comforting to many kids who have a deployed parent. Some of the classes did little poems or songs. Big Sis' group (4 classes together) put on what can only be termed a production! A group of kids in cammies marched in, calling a cadence, followed by 2 kids (in cammies) in one of those toy battery operated jeeps with some tubes mounted to the back. The whole thing was painted camouflage. When they got to the stage, the other kids were all dressed in red, white & blue, waving flags and then they sang their song "The Great Defenders," complete with choreography. It was so cute!





*The Marines who volunteer at the school are often attending a school here or waiting to attend it. Some are recuperating Wounded Warriors.

If you give a mom a muffin...

If you give a mom a muffin
She'll want a cup of coffee to go with it
She'll pour herself some.
Her three-year-old will spill the coffee
She'll wipe it up
Wiping the floor, she'll find dirty socks
She'll remember she has to do laundry
When she puts the laundry in the washer
She'll trip over boots and bump into the freezer
Bumping into the freezer will remind her
she has to plan for supper
She will get out a pound of hamburger
She'll look for her cookbook
(101 Things To Do With a Pound of Hamburger)
The cookbook is sitting under a pile of mail
She'll see the phone bill, which is due tomorrow
She will look for her checkbook
The checkbook is in her purse
that is being dumped out be her two-year-old
She'll smell something funny
She'll change the two-year-old's diaper
While she is changing the diaper, the phone will ring
Her five-year-old will answer and hang up
She'll remember she wants to phone a friend for coffee
Thinking of coffee will remind her
that she was going to have a cup
And chances are . . . If she has a cup of coffee
Her kids will have eaten the muffin that went with it


(A friend emailed this to me and I had to share!)

Tough Girl

Our newly minted 3 year old has a new catch phrase. I am really not sure where she got it but would like to know because it is cute and disturbing at the same time. Grinning like a maniac while she (sort of) channeled Pacino, she chased her sister around the house saying, "You want a piece of meat?!"

update: Now it is: "Want a piece of meat? Yeah! Want a piece of meat? Yeah!" (repeat on a loop indefinitely)

Military Spouse Appreciation and Mother's Day

Today is Military Spouse Appreciation Day and Sunday is Mother's Day. I hope you all had/have great days. I got my Mother's Day present today. With assistance from my sister, my husband found someone who cleans houses and contacted her (from Iraq!) to arrange to have my house cleaned! How fabulous is that? He gets major brownie points for that!

my so-called celebrity look-alikes

I'm not convinced...

Just let it go...

We've been having a strange problem here in the land of "Now what?" Our youngest just turned 3. She doesn't particularly want to be a big girl or learn to use a potty. No, that's not the strange part. She has some serious bladder control. Just last month, she amazed both me and my friend that we were staying with when she held it for over 9 hours. But this hoarding of her urine has led to another nasty problem. It caused a UTI over the weekend. She was only going once or twice in each 24-hour period. So now she is REALLY afraid to just "let it go." The only bright side is that she seems to enjoy taking her antibiotics (knock on wood). But seriously, if anyone out there has any suggestions on getting her to drink more and "let go" more often, I'm all ears!

From the mouths of babes...

Big Sis brought home her journal from school the other day. Big Sis is a first-grader. There were some cute things in it so will share some excerpts:

• The beginning had a lot about her friend Elizabeth (in Korea). Then, there was a picture of an airplane with this under it: "I was sad win i lifeed her all alone with tia."

• Under a picture of a girl writing with a sad face: "Scool is pretty boring I say becase it's alway's write write writeing time I hate it very much I just hate it."

• The very next page, picture of playground: "We have fun at School a lot scool is cool"

• "I played with my dad and we played race my dad won."

• "I Love my dad. becase he is my goodest dad ever in the whole wied wourld"
  
• My dad Helps me when I am hert I am glad"

• "My daddy is strong and is not scard of enything one timeI came in my mom and DaDs room (?) do that. I said ok and ran away."

• "My DaD is on deplowment I am sad he misses me alot I hope he comes back soon."

Happy Birthday!

It's hard to believe the "baby" is now 3 years old. Of course, her refusal to cooperate in potty training doesn't help. L'il Sis had a small party with family and friends on Saturday. She had the "yellow" birthday (cake) that she wanted. When I brought it out, she started reaching for a plate. When I told her we had to sing to her first, she sang to herself: "Happy Birthday to Me..." Then she started to blow out the candles as I lit them. She really wanted her cake!