I can be a good mom too!

I'm a big supporter of Pinterest. I truly enjoy finding new recipes to make for dinner, DIY crafts that I need someone else to do for me, tips on how to take good pictures of babies, Halloween ideas that I can't afford...etc. Seriously, I do love me some Pinterest and I have wasted spent many hours browsing.

Besides recipes, one of the things I search for are things to do with Danny. I want to do things that keep him busy so that he doesn't have time to eat dog food or sit on Brandie (which seems to be a new favorite thing. Ugh!). I have pinned many ideas and done...very few of them.

No really. I have started. I decided to go for sensory bins. When Danny was about 9 months old, I saw one that talked about letting babies play with the pom poms to help with fine motor skills. I borrowed a few random ones from my mom one Sunday. Danny loved them. He would pour them from one container to the other. Then they became a ball to carry around...and suddenly they were all gone.

A friend showed me some of the sensory bins she made for her son. She dyed rice different colors, filled a bin and gave her son some measuring cups, spoons, funnels...etc. She encouraged me to go to Dollar Tree-since everything really is a dollar. So I headed off and bought a ton of stuff!

Now, I didn't want to overwhelm Danny with tons of new sensory stuff (aka: I was lazy and didn't want to make everything at once!), so I started slowly. I bought a little storage bin (which I actually wouldn't recommend buying from Dollar Tree. While it's only a dollar...it's a little more flimsy and Danny can open it himself-which can be good and...not so good), two packs of colored pom poms, measuring cups, and a large spoon. $5.

And he has seriously had so much fun with this. He will play, then get bored and want his Legos. After awhile, he will see the container, and want to play again! I decided to give him a large spoon to help him learn to scoop and showed him to drop the pom poms into another container. Not many

make it in there, but he is trying very hard to do it. I decided to do the spoon transfer to help him learn to scoop food on a spoon into his mouth. Yes, I know I could just let him use food...However, it's a less of a mess to clean this up.

The next idea I had was to color some noodles and let him play with that. I found a recipe that said to pour a cup of noodles into a ziploc bag, add 1/4c of rubbing alcohol, and a few drops of food coloring. I didn't have any bags. So...I decided to

grab tupperware containers. They didn't stain! Yay!! So I dumped in the cup of elbow macaroni noodles, and pretended to measure the rubbing alcohol and the drops. Shook up the container! This is the first batch. Red, green, and blue (I added more drops of blue after I took the picture). I let them sit all day soaking up the color, then laid them out on newspapers to dry overnight.

The second batch is soaking as we speak I type. It's a lighter green (ran out of green food coloring), blue, and my attempt at orange. I'll let those dry over night as well and tomorrow we can play! I bought the noodles from Dollar Tree too. I'll add little cups and maybe a measuring cup. So $4 for more something that will keep Danny from enjoying a tasty bite of dog food. Score! :)

Months ago when I tried this, I became very discouraged. It bothered me that these blogs don't mention how long it held their child's attention. Not saying they need too, but I'm new to this toddlerhood stuff. Danny is my first baby. When I read blogs like those, I believe that their child spent hours working on the sensory bins. Then when I pull it out for Danny and he plays for ten minutes tops...I wonder what went wrong.

Truth be told,(if there's even anyone out there reading) it doesn't hold Danny's attention for very long. And while it's irritating to be helping him scoop pom poms into the back of his dump truck one second and then the next he is off doing other stuff, that's just how it is. I get Danny to help me clean it up, he pulls over his Legos, we play for about 15 minutes and then he is done. It keeps me on my toes that's for sure!

Please stop crying...

When I was pregnant with Danny, I cried constantly. The Thanksgiving Publix commercial with the Pilgrim salt and pepper shakers comes on and I'm bawling my eyes out. A fight with my sisters, my husband, my dog and I'm crying. I even burst into tears once because I was brushing my teeth, sneezed and spewed the mirror with toothpaste. Yea...

I called it 'being a hormone' because it made it a little more comical to me and didn't make me want to kill someone who called me hormonal.

Now baby number two is on the way. I am happy. I am sad. I am weepy. And I am tired. Seems so unfair!

To top it all off, Danny has reached what I can only assume is the terrible twos. Yes, I do know he isn't even 18 months old yet! So when he is screaming, stomping those little feet, and throwing his food off the high chair it takes EVERYTHING in my power not to burst into tears.

My 'power' is rarely strong enough.

We loaded up the car this morning to head to the doctor for a checkup on baby number two. The doctor's office is now located in a new building next to the new hospital (which looks amazing!). The office was clean, brand new, very modern looking room. There was tons of women in there. Only two dads and two babies. I checked in and then sat down. Danny was quietly playing peek-a-boo with me, popping out from behind the chair.

The receptionist loudly screams out "Lisa" and when no one else budged, I went up. She checked my address, phone number...etc then rudely told me that children are no longer welcome in the office and that Danny and Daniel had to leave.

Guess who cried?

And I cried when I complained to my doctor about it. I cried when I told my sisters. I even contemplated changing doctors! Most people work during the hours they are open. I can't ask people to take off work to watch Danny! And I think it is VERY wonderful (and extremely important!) that my husband wants to be there at every appointment! While I do understand that they can't make an exception to their stupid rule so that my husband and son can come, I think it's unfair.

The receptionist even told me "It's a good thing your husband is here because you would have had to reschedule your appointment". All I could think was "Nope... I wouldn't have come back."

She told me it's because mothers would come in with their kids and leave them in the waiting room during the appointments and then the kids would destroy the place. I am NOT that mother nor is Danny that kid! They have a sign that states "Childcare is no longer provided". That's fine. That's why I brought my husband!! You should have wrote "Children are no longer allowed!!"

Oh well. There's nothing I can do about it. I guess I must find a babysitter from now on. That won't be hard to do at all...

I need to find a funny show to watch so I can get my mind off this.