My Best "Girlfriend" Advice on How to be The Best Mom you can be.

I have been thinking about this topic for a while. Yesterday while reading the Parent Bloggers Network, I decided to participate in my first ever Blog Blast. They are trying to find out the truth behind Motherhood in conjunction with the Discovery networks new docu-drama Deliver Me.

I hosted a baby shower for a one of my oldest and bestestest friends ever and I even put together a little book where everyone at the shower was supposed to give their best mommy advice to her. My advice was super super lame, I think I said something about enjoying them because they grow fast. Not that it isn't true, but really she could get that advice anywhere.

When I thought about it the advice I would give a lot of things came to mind. Most of which I probably read before becoming a mom, but I have to learn everything the hard way, through experience.

Motherhood is tough, much harder than I ever knew.

I try to thank my mom all the time and grandmothers all the time. I use the mantra at least I don't have thirteen in reverence to my great grandmother all the time.

Motherhood makes you grow as a person.

I swear God is trying to work on all of my issues through my kids, because apparently you need to be mature to guide them. (Who knew?)

Motherhood is messy.

It hasn't helped me to become the neat freak I someday hope to be, with spilled juice, dirty diapers and toys strewn about. You will care more about poop than you ever imagined.

Motherhood is lonely sometimes.

You will probably feel like no one understands what you are going through or that you can't take one more second of it sometimes. We all do, we all get it and seriously just reach out to me or whoever you need. Okay? You are normal don't beat yourself up about it.

Motherhood doesn't really have any hard and fast rules.

What works for me doesn't always work for you. What worked with kid #1, won't work with kid #2. There will be times when you feel pressured to do something other moms around you at church, daycare or whatever are doing that doesn't work for you. It's okay.

Motherhood is hard to let go of.

Meaning leaving your kids sometimes is the hardest thing you will do, even if it is with mom or hubby. Do it. Trust me, hubby will figure it out given enough opportunity. If he is never on his own with them, he won't be able to take care of them. You need some time on your own on occasion.

However that wasn't the advice I really wished I had given either. This is the thing that continually pops in my head.

Don't fail to have sex with your husband.

Just in case you thought I meant with someone else. : 0

Doesn't exactly sound profound, progressive or even having to do with motherhood, does it?

I think what I am trying to say is in the midst of your body wildly changing, becoming a mother, your breasts being used for a purpose you may have never contemplated before. Not to mention the vjayjay being out of whack.

However I dropped the ball on this one. I think it profoundly affected the next few years. (Now I bet at least one person who reads this will think, no he was the jerk. He was, but the point is we lost a connection before he really got his jerkiness on.) Luckily we worked it out and yes intimacy played a big part in that.

I know what you might be thinking. I need a shower... tell him that, trust me, he will pitch in more readily if he knows what to do. My husband claims he cannot read my mind. Yeah I have noticed that honey.

I know what you might be thinking. Eww my body is fat and flabby now I don't even want to go near it.... imagine you have Cindy Crawford's body or whomever you like, I bet he doesn't even care.

I know what you might be thinking. I will scream if one more person wants to touch me. Get a breather, make sure you are getting some baby free time (see letting go above.)

Most importantly have fun and don't forget to spend some time with the hubby whether you get it on or not. Okay. Really it is that important, our kids deserve to have healthy happy parents.

Just one last piece of girlfriend advice though... don't forget the birth control unless you want another one right away. It happens more often than you might think.

Frugral Friday's Find

Staying home means a very limited budget anything I can do to buy less is great. I love ideas that turn something I am keeping around the house into more uses.

I have been making my own syrup this week. I really like those fancy coffee creamers but wanted to cut out corn syrup so I switched to half & half a while back. So then I used a commercial coffe syrup because it was made with sugar, water and flavorings, not corn syrup, and I could add just a teaspoon of the syrup and was happy.

As it ran out I remembered how my mom always made her own pancake syrup with sugar water and maple flavoring. So I heated up some water added some sugar and raspberry extract and almond extract. Excellent addition to my coffee, and I didn't have to buy anything I didn't already have in my cabinet.

Here is the basic recipe folks....

2 cups sugar

1 cup boiling water

1/4 tsp of flavoring of choice.

Next time I may try orange.. butter pecan... amaretto... the possibilites are endless.

March Madness

March is a busy month. A time of change, rebirth, first blooms of spring. The last few years it has been the moving on after a hard winter, ones that contained too many goodbyes to loved ones.


Three years ago at the end of February we said goodbye to my grandfather and my husbands father within days of each other. We knew March would bring about a big change because Bubbles II, as we called him back then was just waiting to make his entrance. Three weeks later he joined us on the 21st.


I admit to being surprised when I first saw him. The reddish blond hair threw me for a loop. He was healthy and beautiful and of course big brother loved him too.

While in the beginning I saw a carbon copy of Zach except with blond hair, his personality has developed to be quite different than Zach. Maybe it is being the little brother, but he knows how to assert himself a lot more. In good ways and bad. Fun loving and adorable he garners attention where ever we go. Daring he can be found repelling, jumping and climbing.

One sitter dubbed him "Frank" because of his brilliant blue eyes. He tends to be a bit more pensive at times and can be found staring out his window, when he will sit still that is. He is one busy guy. In fact it will take me all day to write this between his "help" and the things he gets into when I am otherwise engaged. In all ways a typical 3 year old boy.

I may have got more than I bargained for thinking Zach needed a baby brother. Together they are a force to be reckoned with. While Zach runs to me and cries, Max take care of the problem himself, and then runs to me and cry. We actually thought we would have to hold him back from beating the kid who pushed Zach down at a soccer game. That's not nice Jackie, raging from his mouth.

He looks more like daddy than his brother does. I think he acts most like my father, quiet but forceful. The pediatrician at his 3 year old well child check up thought perhaps he is behind on speech and ordered an evaluation. We will see, I just think he doesn't always feel the need to speak. My grandmother claims they thought my dad was deaf he could ignore so well, Max seems to have the same skill. However he will tell me what he thinks. The other day as I called him Max Attack, he informed his name was MAXWELL WHITE, OTAY?

Otay baby, oops I mean big boy, I know you aren't a baby anymore. However you will always be my baby. I am glad that I saw a catalog cover with a boy and his baby brother that made me think, I need another. You are my favorite first blossom of spring.

Can you please explain to me?

When did I get old?

I have been hurting badly this week. My hip went out. I know, it sounds like something that happens to an eighty year old. I was in enough pain to go the chiropractor and get a massage. Both of which I had never done before and quite frankly made me uncomfortable. Both of which were good experiences and not so bad. I may have to get a real job so I can afford the good life now.

Everyone who sees me painfully get up or sometimes walk asks what happens. Besides slacking on yoga and water aerobics, this is my answer...

Click on the pic to get the big version because while he looks cute and innocent I should tell you he refused to take a nap that day as is more and more the case. I swear he fell asleep in three seconds flat. Notice the one boot on, one boot off and the half eaten granola bar. Please don't notice the dirt on the floor. No really stop looking at it now and go on to the next section. I love him I really do, but I should hire him out to Hoover to test floor mates. I have been through two, maybe because I have to use it fourteen times a day for all the messes he makes.

What is the deal with the commercial for vitamin water?

I want to slap those jerks in the gym crying my water has too many calories. Because mine has none, zero, zip and I like it fine. Maybe I am overexcited because a lady the other day commented my kids were different because they liked water.

or

Now you know I am cheap and don't buy sodas or juice. You might also correctly assume I am jealous of people who actually work out, and whose hips work.

This isn't very timely but it has been bugging me for a while. I hate seeing people on my TV telling me to be green and save the planet when....

They completely change their sets to the color green to emphasize being green and then the next week are back to their old colors. Perhaps you have heard of Recycle, reuse and REDUCE!

or

Maybe I am just trying to justify the fact that I don't recycle glass properly. I have a Rubbermaid tub of it in the back and dream of buying a big machine to tumble into something pretty. Plus I would have to take it to Roswell or Ruidoso or something our city doesn't take it. Don't laugh that I just called Artesia a city, okay laugh it is funny.

Oh and to answer my new friend Weime's question. After all she was the inspiration since a list of these ponderings on her blog. Weeds actually do grow faster, because they outcompete the other plants, one of the characteristics that makes them weedy. They also usually outcompete the native plants for water, sunlight and nutrients. In some ways you could call them genetically superior, but really they are just invaders and usually non native. (I hope that question wasn't just rhetorical.) You thought when I told you I had a degree in Entomology, Plant Pathology and Weed Science it was funny. My mother still cannot say it without giggling.

Night all I am off to hobble to bed, actually I am getting better and better. I might walk like a 60 year old tomorrow. I plan on being thirty again next week or so.