Smoothest Sweet Potato Puree

Today was a busy one. Tomorrow is not really looking any better either. The only positive is that I got through today unscathed, so I can probably manage tomorrow as well.

I had a schedule full of meetings for the day and then I ended up not going to the last one because the previous meeting ran long and I would have been two hours late. So I was able to get myself all caught up (well at least organized and up to speed) so that I am ready to rock after Spring Break.

After school, I got a haircut and was going to go get my eyebrows, nails and toenails done, but then ended up going to church with Lukin and Sonny (and Carin and Dan) for supper. Then Sonny and I came home to whip up some batches of baby food. I would like to say we were on a super role, but then we ran out of ice cube trays and had to stop. That's fine though because we got 4 done: Apples with Cinnamon, Mango, Peas, and Sweet Potato. I was in charge of veggies and Sonny was in charge of fruit. I have to say that we were pretty darn efficient too. I think it won't take me long to finish the last two tomorrow night: Pear-Strawberry and Cauliflower.

Well, I am getting a headache and am ready to head off to bed. Better go take care of the last things to do from my planner before heading off to beddy-bye land.

What's the hold up?

My dear listeners,

As the title of this email suggests, I have not been very faithful in blogging the last couple days. My job gets in the way. There are things that I want/need to get done before spring break which basically gives me today and the morning prep tomorrow since I have a meeting right after Shannon Park and then I have to leave that one a little early to get to another meeting late at another school. So really, I shouldn't be wasting my time blogging and eating Cocoa Puffs, but what are you gonna do? I'm not much of a morning person.

So we are going to Las Vegas next week and I wanted to buy a cute skirt and shoes to wear while down there. Well, Sunday I bought a shirt/dress. I say it that way because I don't know if it's a shirt or a dress. Good thing that it's stylish to wear pants with a dress nowadays...that's still cool right? Anyway, last night I bought another little dress. This one is a baby doll dress and it's going to be very cool (as in lightweight and airy). The only problem is that both of them needed Carin to give them each a little stitch in the front because otherwise, the girls would be on display, if you catch my drift.

Okay, I am finishing up the Cocoa Puffs now and then I will get to work on cleaning off this desk of mine. Have a terrific Tuesday!

World's Worst Mom

Now, I know that I can't exactly claim this fame legitly. After all, I have never done anything that has landed me on Dateline for being a bad parent. I just sometimes feel like I am. For example, today was Saturday and as with all Saturdays, I have the 'opportunity' to spend the entire day with Lukin. Of course, being a full time parent on Saturdays can be rewarding because you get to be part of the things you normally miss by being at work, but it can also be exhausting.

Side note: I was supposed to have plans today with a lady from work. I don't know what happened, but we never got together or anything. Well, my plan was to go and do something girly and leave the boys at home together (even though the lady from work wanted to meet Lukin). Well, I suggested that we ask Sonny's parents to watch him over night so I could go out to dinner with my friend and he could get a nice nite's sleep.

When everything fell through, then I was a little downhearted. I wanted so badly to have plans. So when Lukin decided that he didn't want to go to sleep, I felt like such a horrible parent because I wanted a break. How horrible is that?!?

Long story short, my husband took Lukin to bed with him, even though he should have been asleep already so that I could take a break and I laid on the futon in Lukin's room for like 30 seconds and then went to lay with the boys in our room. Moral of the story: I don't want to be the worst mom, and I want to be there for my son, but sometimes my patience runs out and I need a breather to get back on track.

Mom's Birthday, Tuna Casserole, Lesson Plans, and a Partridge...

in a pear tree.

So I managed to get all my lesson plans completed today. However, beyond that, nothing. I was trying to clean out my work email account ( and was able to delete 195 messages from my inbox). That and I was trying to get my mileage up to speed and much, much more!

Tonight for supper, we are having Tuna Casserole. Sonny says that he doesn't like warm tuna. I told him that he needs to just try it. Although I do feel bad that he is having to make the casserole that he may not even like. I invited the inlaws. That way there won't be as many leftovers for the two of us to eat through.

Today is my mom's birthday. I hope she is having a good day. I wanted to call her and wish her a happy birthday at 7 am this morning. However, she must have thought that she should get to sleep in on her birthday and not answer the phone. I want to sleep in on my birthday. Sheesh. That's so not fair. Anyway, I was supposed to buy her a birthday gift at the MOA this weekend, but she didn't really let me take her to any stores that weren't for babies. She did go into the store that I wanted to take her into, but she went without me and I didn't get to force her to pick something for a birthday gift. But I will next time I see her.

Loyal Readers Unite

If you are a reader of my blog, you have probably been sad during the last week. I have been busy getting ready for my parents coming (oh, and sister too!) down for the weekend. That and I was trying to get all caught up on stuff at work. Although I do have some good news: I finally got all the boxes that were around the house emptied, sorted and put away. Yay! I said to Sonny yesterday, "Now what am I going to have to worry about getting done?" He said, "Rest." I didn't much like that answer, but I assume he is probably correct. It wouldn't hurt for me to rest a little bit before Lukin is totally mobile.

My weekend was really fun. I hate that my family lives so far away. Although, I made the comment that if I wouldn't have moved down here, I wouldn't have as good a husband or an adorable son. My husband thought that was an insult, but it's actually a compliment. Someone explain that to him, please.

So now we have this clean place and I guess the next project would be working on Lukin's baby book and/or working on our wedding album...over a year later...whatever.

I guess I should talk about my weekend a little because Stacie will read this and probably want to be mentioned.

On Friday, when I got home, I wanted to get some tickets to Saturday night's game, but was vetoed by my mother, who told me that she didn't come down so we could go to the games all weekend. So we didn't go. But that was Saturday. On Friday night, we went to Panera for supper, because by the time we wanted to go eat it was after six and we didn't want to wait 2 hours for a table. Then after, Stacie and I took the Aztec and then because we didn't have the parents, the husband or the baby, we went to Byerly's so that she could say she had been there. It's pretty fun, for a grocery store. I had to show her all the different types of cheese and the meat and the produce. It was fun to get to just spend some time with only my sister.

On Saturday, we went to the MOA for lunch at the food quart, and then spent the afternoon shopping. The only person who came out of the mall with anything was Lukin. Grandma bought him some jammies and an Easter outfit. Stacie bought him some jammies and sunglasses. After the mall, we went to Olive Garden for supper with Sonny's parents. Then we all went home and played three games of Marbles. Sonny and I against Dan and Jim. The parents beat the kids every game. Meanwhile, the game was on. Although, we were all on the couch watching by the end of the game and holding our breath. We were pretty sad when the Gophers got a sloppy overtime goal. Jerks.

That's about it. Sunday we ate lunch and then they left and we went to Target then went home to nap. Yay.

Are you feeling overwhelmed?

So today we had this meeting on a student that I see at Dakota Ridge. The meeting was to discuss his language skills and to decide what to do next for him to increase his abillity to communicate with others and to make that interaction with others both receptive and expressive. Anyway, so the meeting goes on for about an hours time and then afterward another speech path that was there came over and asked me if I was feeling overwhelmed with everything that was going on. I told her that I wasn't becuase even though communication is an incredibly part of a person's day, or even life, I didn't feel like I was doing the kid justice when I only see the kid for 15 minutes a day three times a week. But the meeting gave me some good ideas of things to work on with the student and a good idea of where to take his therapy.

What else do I know? Well, I am doing my blog online at home from my work computer. That's pretty cool. I don't know how it's working but, it is and I am pretty happy.

My family is coming down this weekend and I feel like there are a bunch of things that I want to do before they come. I don't want to clean, I mean, I want the place clean but I know that Sonny will do a bang up job, but there are other things that I want to do. For example, there are two paper boxes in my room to go through. I want to get my nails done. I want to get to Target to pick up some things that I have needed. And so on. None of it is totally necessary, but I would still like to get it done.

Up and Running (literally and figuratively)

So, I have been on a bit of a hiatus from my blog. I know it has only been a couple of days but it has seemed like forever. The reason is quite simple really. Our computer has been naughty over the last couple months and then I called to get it fixed and I ended up having to dump everything from the computer and reconfigure the whole thing. So, this entry is my first since I got it up and running only a couple hours ago. (Technically, it was up and running on Wednesday but I wouldn't use it until I had purchased some software to make it safe to use the computer. In other words, a virus had been the culprit of the problems we were having.) Needless, to say, now I am way overprotective. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

'The Boy' has been sick. And in typical baby fashion, it doesn't involve the upper portion of his body (although he did have a runny nose a couple days ago) but rather messy pants several times a day. The kind of messy pants that ruins an outfit, or at least makes him change outfits three times a day. I'll just start calling him Basir Tareen, because I think he used to change outfits three times a day (not at school mind you, but anyway.)

So, he was up a few times during the night last night like at 10:00 pm, 2:20 am, tried to put him back in his bed at around 3:20 am, but that just woke him back up and he had to come back to bed with me. I woke up at 4:30 am, and put him in his bed and then collapsed back into bed for that last, albeit crucial, hour of sleep before the alarm. Alarm goes off at 5:30 am, think to myself, just nine or ten more minutes, wake up at 6:30 am. CRAP! I have to be in a meeting at school at 7:30!! Needless to say, it was the fastest I have gotten ready in a long time, although I am sure no one could tell I rushed, except that I used hair gel instead of mousse. The bad thing was that I didn't have time to feed Lukin, or change him, or dress him, or even play with him. I was sad. But we got a chance to play after school and so it was okay. I was just amazed that he made it through the night without pottying through his clothing...again...

That's about all I got. I am exhausted. Must go close eyes now. I think I have a ton of things I want to do this weekend and I won't get any of them done with no sleep under my belt.

Naturally Defensive

I am, by nature, a defensive person. I don't know why this is. There has been no single event that I can recall that has led to this defensiveness. I think it is just something that has built up over time.

(For those of you who are regular readers, this is the explanation for why I was exhausted the other day.)

The other night, I was talking with an old friend online. And in that way that people get when they take a trip down memory lane, you begin to have a conversation that takes place entirely in the past with practically every sentence beginning with, "Remember the time..." Well, in talking with this friend, we remembered a lot of fun, old memories. But in our talking, there were a couple comments that made me realize that I am a defensive person.

We would be talking about high school and then my friend would compliment me and I don't do well with compliments. And my friend was very quick (and intelligent to do so) to point this out. We continued talking until almost 3 am and then we logged off. But for the next day or so, I couldn't help but remember the conversation and the fact that I don't take compliments well. It occurred to me that every time my husband says something like, "Your hair looks nice today." Instead of accepting the compliment, I will quickly reply, "Oh, so my hair doesn't look nice everyday." In this way, I have shifted the focus from the compliment itself to making his head spin because he thinks that he has insulted me. Therefore, I don't have to accept the compliment.

Maybe I have a hard time accepting compliments because I am my own worst critic. Isn't everyone their own worst critic? And one time I read somewhere that when someone compliments you like, "I really like that sweater." And you are quick to say something like, "Oh this old thing. I couldn't find anything I wanted to wear today so I threw this on." That defeats the purpose. It's like you are saying to the complimentor, that they compliment holds no merit to you.

Which brings up another point. When someone at work compliments me, I say thank you. Why can't I always do that? Well, with the people at school, I have nothing vested. Those people don't really care about me, they just like my sweater. It's a pure compliment. That's not to say that when a loved one or friend says something nice that it's not a pure compliment, it's just all in my perception.

And if you are not confused by this entry and want to try to give me your drive-by psychoanalysis, I would be more than happy to rebute it, I mean hear it.

In case of emergency...

I may have already wrote about this but when Amanda was here babysitting, she came to the 'troubled yoot' school for a tour. I was showing her stuff and explaining why things are set up the way that they are and she was like, "if I worked at this school, I would beat the kids' asses if they were bad." And I replied, "and that is why you don't work in education."

But, the point is, she had a point. There is a different standard today than there was even 15 years ago when I was in school. Allow me to provide an example. Last week, I was leaving Shannon Park when the DAPE kids (a form of Adaptive Phy Ed for students on IEPs, and no, I don't know what the D stands for) were in the entry way listening to the DAPE teacher tell them about the rules for sledding. One of the kids blurts out "NOOOOO!!!" because he doesn't want to take turns. As if this was an option. But that's the problem. Kids nowadays think that they get to have a say, and because parents are too busy trying to be friends with their children, the children don't know that this is not 'supposed' to be the way the world works. Parents/Adults make the decisions and children go along with it. It's not a child democracy. Seriously.

Then there was this woman on the radio who was talking about how she found pictures of her daughter in her bra and panties on her phone. She wanted to say something but she was worried that the daughter would get mad. Hello?!? Who's the parent? If you, as the parent are paying for your 17 year old daughters phone, then you should have every right to check what she is doing on it and if it's not what you consider appropriate, then you have the right to say something. It doesn't matter if your child gets mad because they are not your friend, they are your child. Children get mad at parents, and amazingly enough, they usually get over it.

Growing up there were several times where I was told to go to my room and I did so and was mad at my parents at the time but I love them to bits now. I don't think back and resent them for it. If I could remember anything they ever sent me to my room for, I would appreciate that they were my parents and not my friends then. This is why we are good friends now.

I say all this because even though he is only 298 days old, the stress of knowing how to raise a child and discipline him 'correctly' already is in my head. I don't want to raise a child that ends up going to the 'troubled yoot' school. I don't. And that's really all I have to say about that...for now.

T. B. T. N. S.

Lukin got sick from Mommy. Well, I think he got my cold. But I also think that he is teething. Therefore, he has the nickname (that Amanda gave him when she was down here babysitting): The Baby That Never Sleeps.

He was over at Dan and Carin's for the afternoon while Sonny and I went shopping for a new rocking chair. (The one we have was my Grandpa Norbert's and I can't remember how long he had it before I got it, but I have had it for at least 5 years, so it's quite a few years old. My best guesstimate is he got it in 1990.) Anyway, we finally settled on a nice La-Z-Boy that we can pick up on Tuesday. I guess La-Z-Boys can be broken down and transported, even in Sonny's Focus.

The chair cost a pretty penny but I was trying to comfort Sonny's buyer's remorse by tellling him that: a) it will be a good chair and we can keep it until Lukin moves to college and then we can send the chair with him, and b) it was our anniversary gift to each other, and it was over two months late, so we deserved it. I don't know if it helped him at all, but nonetheless, it will nice to have a new chair.

So last night, I was trying to unpack some more of the boxes downstairs, and I actually did unpack one. So I brought two more up and I was going through them a little while ago and some of the stuff is from high school and it all makes me smile so I don't want to part with any of it. I know I have to, and none of it really holds any relevance, but I want to keep the stuff just to make me smile when I need a smile.

I think I got off-topic with the whole T.B.T.N.S thing. Since he is not feeling well, he wouldn't go to sleep over there. We came back around 7 pm and decided to play a game of marbles. We played one and then went to get Dairy Queen while Grandma rocked Lukin to sleep. When we got back, he was asleep, and we ate our ice cream and played marbles until he woke up. Then he cried and cried and cried. He cried until we brought him home. He drank two ounces of milk and then snuggled in with me and fell asleep. I just hope he sleeps through the night because I am exhausted tonight. I will try to elaborate on why in another entry. I gotta go. I need a nap...and since it's nearly midnight, it if lasts til morning, that's fine with me.

A snow day.

We had a snow day today. We even got out of school one hour early yesterday. It was a snow day extravaganza. The kids were screaming something fierce. You would have thought that we were being dismissed for the summer or something. It was so loud.

So I went and picked up the Sonman and we went and go dessert for dinner at the in-laws since he was over there snow blowing the driveway. Then we played three games of marbles and Carin and I finally won the third game. Then we stopped and Carin made us Spaghetti for supper and we had Angelfood cake with Cool Whip and strawberries for dessert. Yum!!

And this entry is really lame...

So, what can I write about that is more interesting than this? I have an idea.

Today, I was cleaning out the eternal stack of boxes that will never completely go away. I came across a bunch of pictures, in frames, that I haven't seen since I lived in Grand Forks. They were even still in the Grand Forks newspaper!! That was fun. It was like a trip down memory lane. Granted it was not that long ago, but I'm really not all that old.