Bamboozled By The Baby

We caught the little rugrat red handed. She was inching closer and closer to the trash with her clutched fist outstretched. Inside the thief's hand were my keys and her goal was to properly dispose of them.

In and of itself it's just another night in parenthood but for our family this week, it's much more. For the last week and a half our living room satellite dvr remote has been missing. I had, as always, set it down on the arm of the chair when Joshua and I went to bed. Of course since I was the last to have it, I'm the one responsible (blah, blah, blah) and I must have forgotten what I really did with it.

Whatever.

At lunchtime the next day, I begged Joshua to check the trash-which he had diligently taken out before we knew the remote was missing. I knew the trashman was on his way and to his credit, Joshua did at least a superficial exam of the bag but he didn't see it so we assumed it was still in the house. 

For the record, I'm not a great fan of housekeeping but my house is clean and organized so after not finding that darned remote for over a week coupled with the circumstantial evidence of tonight's attempted key-trashing, we're convinced the little one did it.

To be honest, not being able to watch TV in the living room other than movies on the Bluray didn't totally suck. It meant no TV cartoons. It meant no cartoon channel commercials. It meant less time in front of the TV as a family. Something else I've noticed, our son's attitude has been better. It didn't seem to matter that the shows we allowed him to watch were age and topic appropriate. Shows that had a good message-a moral message often did so by introducing a negative concept first. For example, Phineas and Ferb (love me some Phineas and Ferb, don't get me wrong) introduces concepts like bullying in an attempt to explain to children how to avoid  or even put an end to it. Well, since our kids are homeschooled and still young, bullying isn't a concept they've ever had to encounter and quite honestly, I'd rather they stay ignorant and innocent of such things as long as possible. In my opinion, naivete is under-appreciated.

Before you start rolling your eyes because I'm turning into one of those organic food lovin', anti-TV, homeschooling moms, keep in mind that turning the TV off was the last thing I wanted but it seems to be working out to be one of the best things for our kids and that's all any parent wants.

Will we stop watching TV altogether? HECK NO. TV helped me stay sane during deployment.

Will the children ONLY be allowed to watch movies? Probably not. Maybe. For now, yes.

Do we have a problem with other people watching TV? Not at all. If your kids are less sensitive to it, I applaud you (and am a little jealous). 

Will our children be allowed to watch TV at their friends' houses? Of course. We have rules for our home. We have friends who have different rules and that's ok too...as long as we agree on the big issues.


So that's how our one-year old bamboozled us into turning the TV off and we're good with it...although I ordered a replacement remote tonight, just in case (besides the living room TV is bigger than our bedroom one and the kids do go to bed before us).

Confession.

I am super excited about watching Prince William and Kate's wedding on Friday. Yes. I know it's just about the dorkiest thing in the world to be excited about but I am. I had a huge crush on William as a little girl...had to be the prince factor because he's physically not my type at all.

I want to see it all. I want to see the dresses...what the guys wear...all the pomp and circumstance that surrounds it.

I am a reasonable person, however, so I plan to DVR the event and watch it when I wake up.

Feel free to mock. My husband already has.

Deployment Schedule

Well, we're getting back into the swing of our version of a deployment schedule. No one in our family is really a morning person except maybe my husband and even then, I'd just say he's more average than an actual early morning. Meanwhile, the boy, the dog and I all feel that anything before 8 or even 9am is pretty much wrong. As time progresses, at least the boy and I will have to adjust...first to baby girl and then in a couple years to the boy starting school (although we plan to send him to a blended private school where he'll actually be home-schooled all but two days a week). I sincerely doubt the dog will ever adjust. He doesn't even go out to do his morning thing sometimes until nearly noon. No accidents so I don't push it.

Anyway, we're living it up, night owl style. We usually have breakfast around 10am...or our version of it...again, not morning people and although the mother in me would love for my son to eat some homemade waffles or an omelet and turkey bacon every morning, it doesn't happen. I'm lucky if I can get him to eat a pastry, some yogurt and fruit but it's all about picking your battles and since even my husband's not a big breakfast person, I'm not surprised the boy isn't one as well. Lunch is usually early (to mid depending on the morning) afternoon and while Joshua's gone, it's quickly becoming our big meal of the day. Something I couldn't have done with Joshua here...his schedule just wouldn't allow for it. THAT is the one big benefit of deployment. The schedule is all mine. I don't have to clear things or arrange things according to my husband's civi job, the guard or his plans. It's all about whatever I want (well, whatever I want that will also work with the boy). Dinner usually starts with me staring in fridge and ends with leftovers or a quick sandwich and veggies.

Meanwhile, TV has become essentially non-existent at least in live form because I don't really believe in watching television, especially any sort of adult (meaning How I Met Your Mother and Criminal Minds, not bow-chica-wow-wow adult) television. I would never get to watch anything but cable news and late night hosts if it weren't for the DVR. A big ol' THANK YOU to whomever invented it...words cannot say how much I appreciate you-you have kept me entertained and somewhat sane. So instead of television in the evenings before the boy goes to sleep, I've been doing all the basic household stuff, shopping online (another sanity savior) and becoming more and more domestic. I have made baby girl's first tutu. It's pretty small and I hope to use it for her birth announcement pics but we'll see when she gets here. Here's a pic (sorry about the quality...camera phone pic and the dog decided to investigate the tutu-read: got his nose in and pushed the tulle around a bit...just as I took the pic).

This weekend, I'm hoping to clean out the bathroom cabinets (not a small project) and sew baby girl's new curtains. Like I said, this deployment schedule (and this pregnancy) are upping my domesticity.

LOST

NO SPOILERS-I PROMISE!

I was never a HUGE fan of the show and I must admit when Charlie was killed off, I started to drift in and out of watching the show but tonight I was sure to watch all FOUR AND A HALF HOURS that they broadcast...to be fair, the first two were just commentary and catch up which I appreciated but the way the show was wrapped up disappointed me. Again, NO SPOILERS HERE. I just feel like it was the easy way out and still have a couple of questions which will never be answered (and as type A as I am, that's a problem). If you're a fan, I hope you enjoyed it more than I and if you're not, well, the show's over so maybe something new will come out that you do enjoy with some of these fantastic actors.