Other Mom Blogs

What is Valentine’s Day?

Posted on by Amy
When I was much, much younger, I thought Valentine’s Day was a sweet, romantic day for flowers and gifts and professions of undying love.  Then I grew up a little bit, and I decided that Valentine’s Day was kind of a silly, overly-commercialized “holiday” that was nothing more than a way for card companies and jewelers to make lots of money, and that one should really try to show love every day, not just on Valentine’s.  Then I grew up a little bit more, and I revised my opinion of this holiday a bit.  I now think of Valentine’s Day as a nice enough day.  There’s nothing wrong with a day that encourages people to show their love for one another.  I don’t think it’s necessary to show that love through expensive gifts, but showing love?  That’s cool.  I still think it’s much more important to show how much the special people in your life mean to you every day.  An “I love you” and a kiss before leaving for work, or the store, or the basement.  A kiss before bed every night.  “I love you” and holding hands or giving a kiss for no reason at all but to remind someone they are essential to your world.  That’s the good stuff.
Now that I have kids, Valentines Day has become something even more.  It has become yet another way to have some fun with my girls.

I like home made gifts for days like Valentine’s Day.  I make stuff with my girls for this holiday.  To me it’s a great way to have fun together and it helps to neutralize the messages out there that your man must buy you big diamonds or a trip to Aruba to show that he really loves you on Valentine’s Day.  Not that my girls see or hear these messages now, but someday I’m sure they will. So we’re starting early to make a point of showing love through special gestures and thoughtful, simple gifts, rather than flashy stuff.

We made little heart-shaped crayons for Miss to give to her friends at school, like the ones shown on my friend’s blog here, but smaller.  They were inexpensive and pretty easy to do.  The hardest part was getting the paper off the crayons (even soaking them in warm water didn’t work for many of them).  The girls loved breaking the crayons up and putting them into the molds.  Miss specially chose which crayon each of her friends would receive and she was very excited to go to school yesterday and give these special gifts to the other kids.  Mission accomplished.

Miss had a great time at her school party, as did I.

She made another craft at her party, a potpourri ball.  She also gave me another school-made gift that is made with paper hearts, her thumb prints, glitter, and her attempt to write her name, all laminated into one big beautiful work of art that currently hangs in a place of honor on our sliding glass door.  She was so proud and excited to give these gifts to me that she had made.

When we got home, she and Lass had fun going through her box of Valentines from the other kids in her class.

Then we made special Valentines to give to Daddy, which they excitedly ran to give him when he got home from work last night.  And as we do every day, we gave lots of hugs and kisses and “I love yous” and “You’re my wonderful girls,” etc.  Just because that’s what we do.  I always want my girls to know that, on Valentine’s or any other day, showing your love for someone, and thus the genuineness of their expressions of love for you, is always about what you do, day to day, not how much you spend or how grand your gestures on one day of the year.  A happy life is made up of lots of small moments, not just the few big ones that tend to get lots of attention.

And speaking of showing your love through the things you do, last night I attempted to make paleo-friendly brownies for Miss to take to school today.  Since her birthday is on Saturday and she won’t be back to school before then, I wanted to send her with a special birthday treat to share with her friends at school today.  She requested brownies.  I wanted to make them myself and make them relatively healthy, though still a “treat.”  I had the best of intentions.  Unfortunately, last night I had a bit of a mom failure, because the brownies just didn’t taste that good.  They turned out how I think they’re supposed to.  They’re edible, and not horrible.  But they don’t taste like brownies.  And if I’m going to send my child to school with a treat to share with her friends for her birthday, I’m going to make sure it’s yummy, for pete’s sake.  So, I made a run to the grocery store last night, when I otherwise would have been composing this Valentine’s Day blog post, and grabbed some grocery-store-bakery-made mini cupcakes.  They’re good, and I think they were a hit with the kids.  So even though I totally flopped in my Mother-of-the-Year-all-natural-gluten-free-super-delicious-brownie attempt, the late night trip to the grocery store saved the day.  I feel like a dolt and it sucked to make a run to the grocery store at 9pm, but that’s okay.  And that’s why my Valentine’s Day post is a day late.  Hope you had a Happy Valentine’s Day.  We did.

Feeling Crafty

Posted on by Amy
We went to the park on Friday for a play date.
Before I talk about how much fun we had, I must make note of the fact that these pants were the worst possible choice to put on Lass to go to a park where the ground is covered with mulch.

They’re not just fleece pants.  They’re extra fluffy, nubbly, super-fleecy fleece pants.  Watch, and take note.  Don’t put super duper fleecy pants on your kid if there’s mulch at the park.

A little while after I took the photo below, I put Lass in the sling so she could have a little snack.  The whole time I was holding her I was picking mulch off her pants.  I didn’t even make a dent in the matted, embedded mulch stuck in these things.  The big pieces came off, but the smaller fibers seriously got matted into the fabric and will not come off.  I took them off her the minute we got in the door, tried a little while longer to de-mulch them, and then put them in the trash.  They are that far beyond saving.  Who knew?

We did have a wonderful time at the park.  It was a great park.

And we were there with great new friends.  I just have to say how much I enjoy finding a new mom friend with young kids who is easy to talk to and fun to hang out with.

When we first moved here I hated that I didn’t know any other moms for so long.  It’s hard to be a new mom living far away from family and not really having any friends.  Over the years I have gradually met some really cool mom friends.  It helps more than I can explain to have other moms for support and just hanging out.  Friends who understand that when we get together, conversations will necessarily be fragmented, between corralling kids, wiping noses, answering questions from curious two year olds, excusing oneself to change smelly drawers, etc.  Friends who will grab your kid before she falls off the teeter-totter if you’re distracted for a second with another kid running the other way.  It’s an extra special bonus to find a friend with whom I have things in common besides just being moms.  The kind of friend with whom I laugh a lot and can talk about just about anything.  I have a few of these treasured friends.  Sometimes I don’t see them as often as I’d like, but I’m thankful to have them.  Friday’s play date was with a new friend (and her kids!) whom I think is going to be this type of friend.  It was a good day.

On a completely unrelated note, I have been feeling super crafty lately.  The other night, while watching Chopped, I made Miss a new tutu.  This weekend I finally finished a yarn wreath (I totally got this idea from another mom blog, Mrs. Priss) I have been working on for months.  This was the wreath in June.

I really struggled with getting the wreath covered with the yarn.  The straw wreath was not the best choice for this type of project.  I chose it because it was half the price of the foam wreath, and I thought it might be kind of cool and rustic looking.  It turned out looking fine (though not especially cool or rustic), but the extra hassle of getting it covered completely was not worth saving $3.  And I have to say I do not know the trick (is there one??) to working with yarn.  The above pile of tangled mess started out all nice and neat.  It repeatedly got tangled beyond untangling, and I had to cut it and start again more times than I’d like to remember.  Anyway, even after I finally got the wreath covered, I was so fed up with the project that I put it away for two months, until this week, before finally finishing it.  It took some nice crisp fall weather and a desire for a pretty fall-ish wreath for my front door to prompt me to pull it out, along with some great fall-colored felt.

I made a bunch of felt flowers.  Check out Mrs. Priss’s tutorials for these pretty and absurdly easy rosettes here.

Find Mrs. Priss’s pom-pom-looking flower tutorial here, and yarn wreath tutorial here.  I told you I got the ideas from her!!!  I’m totally giving credit where it’s due.

I love how it turned out!  I swore I wouldn’t make another yarn wreath, but I like this one so much, I just might.

Next time I’ll get the foam wreath though…

A Baby Named Cliff

Posted on by Amy

Oh boy. I read about a baby boy named Cliff today. He’s an orphan. He has Downs Syndrome. He lives in a crummy orphanage in Eastern Europe. You can read more about him HERE. His story breaks my heart. Jeannett, the momma who writes the blog Life. Rearranged has taken on the task of raising money for little Cliff to help with the costs of his adoption so that, hopefully, it will be easier for a family to adopt him. This is a cause I felt compelled to give to, and to share with others. So, there it is. The button for the blog post about him is on my side bar to the right, so you can see a little photo of him too. Again, a glaring example that I have so, so much to be thankful for. I’m hugging my girls extra tightly today.

Greased Lightning

Posted on by Amy
About a week ago I started noticing that I was having trouble getting my hair clean. I would wash it and it would still feel dirty. I attributed it to our hard water. I was thinking that, since we hadn’t put salt in our water softener in a while, the water must have gotten really hard and wasn’t washing all the shampoo and conditioner out of my hair, naturally making it feel greasy and dirty. I mean, it was really gross. It looked greasy and flat. It felt greasy and dirty. Even immediately after washing it. So I got salt and had my hubby put it in the softener. It didn’t help. I washed my hair twice, scrubbing my scalp and the roots of my hair until my arms hurt, and then put conditioner only on the bottom of my hair, not on the roots at all. It didn’t help. Two days ago I prompted him to put another bag of salt in. Still didn’t help.
So I started to wonder if maybe the problem wasn’t the water but my hair or my scalp. I have heard of women having things like postpartum acne or other skin issues. I experienced for myself the oh-so-common postpartum hair loss a few months after Miss was born. My hair is really thick right now because I haven’t yet started to shed my pregnancy mane this time. So I started to wonder if maybe this was another weird thing that can happen after having a baby. I had never heard of postpartum grease-head before, but why not? So, naturally I turned to the internet to so some research.

(Notice the flat, greasy-looking hair. I did take a shower and washed the heck out of it!!)

Well, from what I have read online, it looks like my problem may very well be related to postpartum hormones and scalp changes. One mom put it this way on the Alphamom website:


I had the double whammy of my scalp deciding to go haywire around the exact same time [as her hair falling out]. . . starting around two or three months postpartum my scalp became RIDICULOUSLY oily. My hair would not come clean, product build-up galore, greased up like a 90s grunge rocker, etc. (italics added)

So what’s a mom to do?? I talked to my mom about it last night. Though she had never heard of such a thing either, she suggested maybe trying to rinse with vinegar. So I did. It didn’t work either. Though I will say that I didn’t do a very good job of it. I kind of sloppily poured the vinegar over my head (which was coooold!!), when I think, in my case, I should have targeted its application a bit more. So I’m going to try again using a squirt bottle to get it down in my roots and onto my scalp a better. If that doesn’t work I’m going to try vodka cut with a bit of water, which is another suggestion I found online. The mom quoted above eventually solved the problem by buying super cheap shampoo rather than her fancy salon stuff, but I already use super cheap shampoo! Anyone else ever have this problem or have any suggestions how to fix it?? I know it will eventually go away on its own (probably around the time my hair starts falling out in clumps) but I really don’t want to wait that long. It’s gross!