Gotta' Work Smarter, Not Harder

Stephen's life motto is: "You have to work smarter, not harder."

I was peeling peaches today for jam, and complaining about how long it takes to get all the dang skins off. Stephen came in and looked at the minuscule pieces I was getting with my fingers and paring knife and innocently asked, "Oh, the peeler doesn't work??" I said, "What peeler??" To which he answered, (with that 'I gotcha' twinkle in his eye) "The one you use for carrots and potatoes." Hmmmm, why is it always him that has the GREAT ideas?!? I pulled out that ol' peeler and by dang it worked like a charm!! Seriously, for eons of time, women have been doubling the time it takes to prep peaches for canning, burning the tips off their fingers trying to pull the HOT skins off, and making a much huger mess than needed. I WILL NEVER BURN MY FINGERS, WASTE EXTRA TIME, OR MAKE THE MONSTROUS PEACH PEEL MESS AGAIN. I had those things ready to pulverize into jam in no time.

At least he's nice about all the ideas he has that are WAY smarter than harder. {=-P Now, that this is out in cyber-space, when ya'll see this handy little tip in a How-To canning book remember they stole it from me, well actually from Stephen. I'm thinking I could re-work a peeler, put a cute peach doo-dad on top and call it the "Amazing Peach Skin Removal System" and get my retirement in place. I'm calling the Patton office now...

Just a phase....I hope

This cute little thing HATES food...well, except tomato soup and melted ice cream. Tomato soup gives him yucky poo, and melted ice cream is just flat out not healthy. He's growing very fast and and gets hungry....constantly! Since he hates food that means that he's back to nursing every 2 hours. I think I'm gonna go a little crazy.

He's also very busy doing things like pulling to the standing position anywhere he can. This would be fine if he'd developed the balance for crawling already, but he hasn't. Don't get me wrong he's VERY mobile...via a weird looking frog jump. So, he frog jumps to to something, then climbs up to stand. If we're not right there soon he falls straight backwards...SCARY. I hope he soon figures out how to balance on his knees so he can then balance on those feet of his.

"Wrestling" with Daddy and Gabriel are fast becoming favorite activities! The other day Stephen got on the floor to play with him and he frog jumped away as fast as he could. Stephen "caught" up to him and he frog jumped away again. I didn't know 7 month olds played tag. Probably means he's a genius. {;-D ha ha

Some things, like Garrett's bed, are easier to stand next to than others.

After a long day of so much excitement a little guy gets all tired out.
**EXCEPT**
He doesn't sleep at night anymore. He wakes up at least 3 times a night, most nights it's 4, and on occasion, when we're really lucky, it's 5 times. I'm going crazy!! I had been just nursing him quickly so he'd go back to sleep and I could "sleep" (lay there with my eyes closed waiting for him to wake up again) too. Recently we've started letting him fuss back to sleep so he learns how to settle himself. He's still in our room so nights are not a whole lot of fun these days, which in turn, makes work not a whole lot of fun. I feel like I'm clawing through every job I get. I'm always exhausted so thinking I'm more tired is nothing new. However, the morning Stephen got up and said, "Man! I'm tired, that Lincoln needs to sleep more." I knew it was getting bad. Stephen neither needs nor tends to sleep for many hours a day, so when he's getting tired you know something's gotta change. I keep thinking he's just hungry so some nights we fight with him till he eats actual real food thinking he'll sleep better. Nope doesn't do a darn bit of good. His cuteness during the day usually makes up for it, so we'll just keep enjoying that....and maybe start sleeping on the family room couches so he doesn't wake us up.

Garrett-ism

"Cars and dirt are pa-tas-tic!!"
Translation: "Cars and dirt are fantastic!!

He's learning new words and trying them out....as long as he keeps it to cool words like pa-tas-tic, not the naughty words, we'll be alright.

"I went pee in the POT!" We're not sure when or why it changed from potty to pot, makes him sound a little uncouth.

"Winken is crying, poor wittle feh-wa". Right after he gets done laying on top of him or poking his eye. Gee, I wonder why he's crying.

This kid is an early riser! He's usually already awake and talking in his room when Stephen leaves to play basketball at 5:30 a.m. I know, insanity on both their parts. Each morning when we go in to get him he asks, "Do I have pre-school today?" If we say yes he throws his little fist up in the air and yells, "YEESS!! I love pre-school!" On the days we say no he asks if he can go to kindergarten yet. Poor kid is going to be so sad next year when he's still not old enough for kindergarten and has to do another whole year of pre-school. Although, he may never get to go to kindergarten if he doesn't start using that "POT" regularly and for nasty poop too. He now gets to clean his own poopy rear end up. As long as he's not wearing a pull-up to his high school prom I guess we'll be ok. Stubborn kid makes his stubborn momma look like a docile, compliant, push-over.

"Mommy/Daddy cuddle me". Us: "Ok come over here". Thump, smack, jab with a sharp elbow, flop one way, flop the other, "Mommy I love you so so much", thump, smack, kick...I'm thinking, "Ummm, we're supposed to be cuddling right now". Then, he jumps down and says, "Ok I'm all done cuddling now".

After sneaking a drink of my Dr. Pepper, "Whoa yours juice is SPICY!"

Gotta love it!

Already ?!?

Gabriel and I were riding in the car and this is what transpired...

Gabriel: (with all the attitude of a 13 year old) Mom, why don't you give me a phone?!

Me: What kind of phone?

Gabriel: (same impatient 13 year old attitude) A phone like you have.

Me: A cell phone? Why do you need a cell phone?

Gabriel: (more attitude like this has been an ongoing issue for a while) Yeah, a cell phone; I need to make calls.

Me: Well, maybe when you get older you can buy a cell phone and make all the calls you want.

Gabriel: (new attitude of oh, you're such an uncool mom and don't get it) No, I need to make important calls nooowww.

Me: (seeing that this is getting nowhere fast) Ok, talk to Dad about it when we get home.

*Pat myself on the back, now it's Stephen's problem.*

Perspectives of a 3 year old...

Garrett loves to tell me about all the things he's gonna do when he becomes a "gril" (girl).

He can't wait to go to water ro-a-bics (aerobics) and blow bubbles and jump.

The other day I was nursing Lincoln and Garrett came in and said, "When I a "gril" I going to feed my baby too." I asked, "Oh yeah? How are you going to do that?" He had the answer instantly! "I going to get LONG boo boos, so he can drink milk."

Seriously?!? Did he really say long? --NO--NO--NO-- They sure have a way of making you feel...well...deflated. No pun intended.

Poor Me.

Ahh, The Best Plans

The following conversation was heard in the Maskey house at the end of a long day of, much welcomed, last minute work that was picked up. We were getting ready to crash for the night.

(Just so we're all clear... this place is a wreck right now)
"Man, I had some big plans for this place today; I was going to get the kitchen cleaned up, make banana bread, vacuum the living room floor, and gets the kid's rooms cleaned up again."

"Eh, who cares, we'll get to it sometime....maybe."



Ok, who said which quote??

Give up??

Stephen was the one with the big plans for the house. Talk about a role reversal! We were both lucky enough to get work on the same day. I'm blessed that he actually makes plans like that. I'm also blessed that he has the know-how to pick up side work and supplement our income. I'm the tortilla winner these days because I have work, but not enough to be an official bread winner. :-D

I couldn't do anything but just laugh when I heard him say that. At one point I would have felt like a failure as a wife, and mother; keeping up with the house is my job. I guess technically I kinda am a failure, but I'm so glad that Stephen isn't mean or rude about my lacking and just helps pull it together when he can.

His philosophy of how to pick a spouse is:
No one is perfect so just find someone who's imperfections don't bother you that much.

While we were dating he saw all my unfolded laundry, moved me and all my junk twice...well three times if you include after we got married, never got a meal cooked by me, and saw how feisty I was; yet, he married me anyway. Am I lucky or what? Due to recent financial changes he now gets meals cooked by me, and seems to like pretty much all of them, which is more than I can say about our ungrateful children. However, I still don't fold laundry and still have a lot of junk...much of which is now available on craigslist. Funny how long you hang onto stuff just to realize YOU DON'T EVEN NEED IT. I am eternally blessed to have found such a good man that takes good care of me. I didn't make it easy for him to date me, and it's not easy to be married to me. Boy, am I glad that I didn't chase him off.

He makes a great banana bread I'm excited for when he gets to it. {;-D

HE WON ! ! !

I can't figure out how to get rid of the darn underlining...I just love technology.

This afternoon Gabriel came home with this on his back. The kindergarten he goes to doesn't use backpacks because the rooms don't have the room. His school had a big "get free stuff" kick off this morning. They collect box tops, campbell's soup labels, ink cartridges, cell phones and other electronics, throughout the year and turn them in for money for the school. Well, this little boy is being raised by a mother who is a pack-rat in recovery...sort of, and has grandparents that trained his momma in the fine art of pack-ratism. This morning he had a baggie full of box tops, several capbell's labels (there is only one kind of soup without soy so we don't usually have much of that stuff around) 5 ink cartridges and 6 old cell phones. The kid that brought in the most stuff won this backpack filled with goodies. I thought he did pretty good, but didn't really think he'd win. I WAS WRONG! Pack-ratting pays off I guess. :-D

Contents of the Backpack:
Recycle Folder
Planet Earth coloring and activity book
Animal Planet coloring and activity book
Crayons for the books
Notebook
Choose to Reuse tactile book
Wall-e (the movie which he's watching for the first time right now)
Glow Bracelets (what kid doesn't love those ?)
A real watch he could hardly wait to put on
Giant bag of Red Vines (soy free)
Box of Skittles (soy free)
Wall-e ring pops (soy free)
Nature valley granola bars (with soy, he said he'll share those with Garrett)
Box of Goldfish (with soy, also shared with Garrett)
3 Bags of Popcorn (not sure if there's soy, so he requested to eat them right before bed so he can sleep the soy off if there is any)
2 little pots with flower seeds
2 little pots with herb seeds
Certificate from the school for a FREE Yearbook
Certificate for a Free School Shirt
Certificate for FREE wristband and the District Fall Festival

I know he was pretty excited about it all and said, "I'm going to write a note that says Thank you, Thank you, Thank you for my cool stuff." He's a funny boy. The principal and one of the ladies that works in the front office presented it to him. He just loves them and always yells hi. The first time he gets sent to the office in trouble, he'll just be crushed to realize that the same cool guy he always says hi to also sees you when you're in trouble. For now though, we'll all just enjoy the delight of a 5 year old that earned something "awesome". Right now he's wearing the backpack filled with his babies and cup, stretched out on the couch watching Wall-e, checking the time every 5 minutes. He looked up and reported, "it's 3:42 or 5. He's transposing 2 and 5 a lot lately and still likes to write his name from right to left.

Yeah Gabriel!