Nothing like discipline and spilled cereal in the morning

A long, LONG time ago I used to wake up to an alarm clock, getting me out of bed for school and then work. I always hated and resented this intrusion. But still, on the weekends, I slept until I was ready to wake up. Then, as a mother with babies, I was awoken to the sound of cries; sometimes happy sounds and sometimes not, but still, waking up to a baby is NOT the same as waking up to an alarm. There is some degree of pleasantness to it since it means I did, in fact, have a baby and that has always made me happy. This summer has marked the beginning of my children not needing me immediately when they wake up. I LOVE IT. This means that on most days, they get up around 8ish and go upstairs to play and leave me to rest in bed until close to 9 (I know, how luxurious is that?!?!) But today, I woke up to screams---I mean screams---from both Ethan and Jaylie from upstairs. I cam up here and they were on opposite sides of the room. The problem was that Jaylie was playing on the computer and didn't want Ethan to watch her---from across the room. Jaylie has become quite the yeller recently. Eric says it might be because she's the littlest with the smallest voice and needs to compete using volume. It might be because her best friend (also the youngest with 2 big brothers) has a loud voice (we love you Ella B). Whatever it is, she yells---frequently. So I run upstairs, assess the situation and ban Jaylie from the computer for the rest of the day. She goes downstairs wailing. Isaac (who is banned from computer, game cube AND TV for the day) decides he'll fix her and himself breakfast---rice krispies. Marvelous. I go and lay back down and let my ears stop ringing. All is well in the kitchen until Isaac moves Jaylie's booster from the kitchen table (where "It's too sunny." she says) to the bar and in the process spills her entire bowl of cereal. I hear him say,"Oh, man!" followed by the sound of dripping. He comes in and is very apologetic which is fine. I try to never be mad about spills---it's just an accident, but when I go take a look at the damage, I had to take several deep breaths. I don't know when the last time was that I cleaned up that size of a mess. It was a big bowl of cereal, complete with sugar sprinkled on top, and there was none of it left in the bowl. Sticky milk was dripping down the wall, the bar stool and puddling on the floor. Isaac did help me clean it up...but I will be mopping today. I HATE mopping. Nevertheless, everyone did get fed, clothed and now, I'm in a super mood to go to Walmart for groceries and school supplies. (there is no font or anything to make the word 'super' actually look sarcastic...but I think we all know that no one is ever in a super mood at walmart. Especially when shopping with 3 kids)
Pray for me

Have a fantastic day


PS. I just have gotten home from our 2 1/2 hour trip to walmart. I'll let your imagination run wild with that. We had no potty accidents at least. The kids did eat half way through a box of 'Nilla Wafers and then I had a moment of weakness and bought a bag of Ghirardelli chocolates to keep me sane.

What a Thrill

OK
So I had not planned to post again until tomorrow but am so THRILLED by my whopping 6 comments that I thought I'd put another little something up in blogland.
It's no doubt due to something from my child hood but I love visiting with/catching up with/keeping up with friends. Since my dad was in the Air Force and I moved every 3 years, I had friends spread out all over the place. Before the days of unlimited long distance, there were months that I got NO allowance because it had all been spent on phone calls to far away friends. 2 very close friends of mine (still) were awesome letter writers back then and I knew that on Mondays I would get a letter from Dana. And I knew that Shanda would write as soon as she got one from me. Now, as grown-ups with kids writing is out of the question, phone talking is difficult due to the yelling and interruptions, but blogging...WOW! I write a few sentences and presto! 6 people have indicated how wonderful it is for me to be communicating in this fashion. What a super boost to my ego, folks! Thanks!

Now one of the things I look forward to as Christmas gets closer (did you realize Christmas is, in fact, getting closer? I know it's July, but still, it's never to early...) is the fat LTD commodities catalog. It came while we were at the beach and so I got to look at it (it takes me a couple of days to go all through it) and came across this gem:
http://www.ltdcommodities.com/home/catalog/cat_item_pg.asp?G=600&P=203&Rec=1&Ntt=fart+underwear&N=37&Nao=0&R=443264-7UNWXLG1

(Since this is my 2nd post and I've never inserted a link, there does exist a possibility that it won't work. I'm sure I'll hear about it if it doesn't and will fix it so it does)

Now, what I want to know from y'all (yes, I say y'all. I'm from TX and live in MS. I am definitely allowed to say it) is whether or not you have in your family someone for whom you would actually buy the above gift. I don't want to know the names of those family members (especially if it's someone I know and see quite often!) but I just would like to know if this is a product that is going to be sold.

There, the end of the 2nd post. This isn't so hard.

Enjoy the day!

Hello????????

This is my second go at my brand new, very own blog. I set it up yesterday but it was under Eric's account so it was a cute pink blog with my name on it but with Eric's picture in the sidebar. So, here I go again.
Just about every person I know has a blog or a myspace page or a facebook page. I haven't seen the need to spend more time on the computer than I do already and so I have avoided creating one for myself, limiting myself to looking at Eric's on a regular basis. But, I decided that I think I can blog and still take care of my kids and house. I'll make no bold promises about how frequently I will post stuff, but you can be sure if I disappear for several days at a time, it's because I'm doing some domestic thing that has been neglected.
Blogging is funny to me. I'm not sure what the motivation is for most folks; do we post thoughts/ideas just to get them off our chest--like a diary? Or do we post and WANT people to read them. If it's the latter, why do I think what I will write will be of any interest to any who will read? Am I that certain of my day-to-day thoughts that people will flock to my blog wondering, "Wow. I can't wait to see what she's doing today! Her life is so fascinating!" As a stay-at-home mother of 3 kids (2 sons-ages 7 and 4 and 1 daughter-age 2) wife of 13 years to Eric who's a worship minister at our church, I fail to see how my day to day activities are all that exciting. But, from time to time I do have the odd thing to say about various things so I hope that you'll visit often, and leave comments.
As I suspected, one of my kids needs me so I am now done with my very first post. Thanks for reading. See ya tomorrow