Crazy Days & Food Stuff

CRAZY DAYS: So I've just been REALLY tired which is why I haven't blogged since I put up this week's Project365. On Wednesday night, Junie was up from 3am until 5am. We had let her & Mags sleep in the full-sized bed that we have in Snowdrop's bedroom on the 3rd floor. They'd never done this before and we were shocked when they actually fell asleep without us ever having to go up there. I was excited at the prospect of taking back their room and making it into an office/computer/reading/sewing/extra space for me to breathe room!

Much to my chagrin, Junie woke up at 3am and wanted to sleep in her own "little bed". Mags and Zizi (another nickname for Snowdrop) slept through it all. It took two hours for me to get Junie to go back to sleep ~ I finally got her to fall asleep when I laid down with her in the crib/toddler bed. It's a crib with the front taken off. You probably already know what I'm talking about. It was totally uncomfortable but I'm glad she went back to sleep. Anyways, so I got her to go back to sleep but then I couldn't fall asleep. :( Boo. So I was up for the day and went downstairs. Mags & Zizi woke up at 6am on the dot, right when I was contemplating slipping out to my car so I could grab some Starbucks. Of course.

I followed the news about Japan, the earthquake, the various tsunamis around the Pacific Ocean coasts. I probably knew about the earthquake before many of you. Weird. Anyways. So... Thursday I was just really tired all day. I just realized now that it is Sunday, not Saturday. I should go to bed early tonight.

I can't remember if it was Thursday or Friday... it was an early morning on Friday too... but I had literally just taken lunch out of the oven and was cutting it up, when Mags had to use the potty. Just prior to taking the food out, I had given Junie a second pair of big girl un.di.es.  (<-- writing it like that so this doesn't pop up in search engines etc) because she had wet through the first pair (that I had given her about seven minutes before  this). So Mags is in the bathroom doing her thing. I'm trying to get lunch while Snowdrop is screaming at me and trying to climb on me because she can see I'm getting food and she is ready for it! Junie starts walking all bow-legged (? like she just got off a horse ?) because she has not only gone pee-pee in her big girl un.di.es but there is now a large puddle seeping down the cracks of my hardwood and getting onto both my rugs and Snowdrop's Red Chair. I saved the chair, and ThankGod it hadn't soaked through to the cushions, it was only on the lining. Then Mags comes out of the bathroom wanting a new pair of un.di.es. for whatever reason.... I nearly lost my mind.

I'm not trying to complain here or anything like that ~ I know I'm not the only one who has had days like this. I'm just saying that these things happened and it drove me crazy.

And then later (or maybe it was on Friday?) they got some green stuff all over their hands, and it happened the next day again too. Because yesterday when their hands were covered in green and they wouldn't tell me what happened, I put all the toys in trash bags and threw them out our side door. The girls were in hysterics about it but I had "had it up to here" {hold hand above forehead} with this "green stuff". It wasn't just on their hands, it was on the couches, their shirts, some toys. SO weird, too, because it doesn't look like marker, and we don't have any ink pads laying around. We couldn't find any markers and no one was fessing up as to a location for one. Sometimes I just HAVE IT with all the toys and messes around here. I wonder if I'll ever actually take them to Goodwill or if I'll just continue to threat until I turn blue.

{Don't you EVER tell my mom that I am sick of the messes around here. She would get way too much gratification from knowing that the Queen of Messes wrote that!! Hahaha! I don't REALLY care about the toy messes. I was just really cranky. But you probably already derived that.}

All the toys are now back in our home because this afternoon we had Hubby's cousins come over for lunch. They brought their kids so we had quite the loud party going over here. I got pizzas from Whole Foods ~ which worked out nicely other than the fact that the veggie pizza had SEVEN thin strips of pepper on it. Very scant. I'm going to call later and complain ~ I'm frankly too tired now and was unable to earlier today ~ I added peppers that we had here to the pizza to make it look like a veggie pizza. I don't know. I just expected more pepper on there. Literally there were seven pieces of pepper. (It was like at least a 12" pizza, if not larger than that.) Anyways, the party went well. The kids had a great time!! And so did us parents.

FOOD STUFF: I got to talk with one of my husband's cousins who works for one of the school districts around here. Their school is part of this healthy eating program where they get lots of local produce, in addition to other exciting natural approaches to feeding like that they get whole chickens and cut them up instead of getting like chicken patties for lunchtimes. I'm really excited to learn more about what they do in that district so I can present these ideas to our school board. I think it's so important for people to know where their food is coming from, how it's made, and to support local farmers. Why should I be getting tomatoes at Sam's that are shipped from California if there's a farmer 50 miles from here growing and selling tomatoes? You know? {Hey, no offense to Sam's on that! The produce there is always quality! I can honestly say that we hardly ever have seen moldy berries when we purchase from there.} Same goes for the chicken thing. It's not actually total chicken meat that's going into those patties they serve in the school cafeteria, you know? It's not really that hard to roast a chicken and cut it up ~ and then you'd know your kids are getting REAL, ACTUAL, NATURAL food. Wouldn't that be nice to know?

Part of me feels called to make these sort of changes in schools ~ at least in the schools my kids go to! :) Not to say it's not important to me that EVERY child gets an opportunity to eat healthy, natural foods. It totally is. But my feet are just getting wet, and I'm new around here, so I'm not about to storm the PTA or anything. I want to do my research before I start piping up so they take me seriously! :) I guess, my basis in my ideas about food comes from the following three thoughts:

1. The most important time in life for brain development is Birth to 5 Years. {I'm pretty sure this is a scientific fact. I could be wrong though, I'm not a scientist. I did study Early Childhood Ed at one point in my life and I'm pretty sure that's where I picked that gem up.}
2. We know that eating fresh, un-processed, natural, "crap-free" food is best for your body, thus best for your brain. {Veggies, Fruits, Whole Grains, "Organic", etc.}
3. Based on #'s 1 & 2, then, it only makes sense {you won't be able to convince me otherwise!} that from Birth to 5 years, we parents have quite the responsibility to ensure our children are eating the best foods for them/their bodies and as a result, we are giving them and their brains the best start to development possible.

{I don't want to get into a breastfeeding debate; I'm just talking foods right now. I've nursed my children and I've fed them formula. I do not care to debate about "Breast is Best". My twins would have died if I had kept trying to tap-feed them instead of just giving them formula. In our case, "Breast was Death". Thankyouverymuch.}

ANYWAYS, I'm not going to climb onto my soap box today or anything but it is a topic I'd like to write about sometime and it is something that has become more... prevalent in my life as of late. Ever since we found out about Snowdrop's peanut & milk allergy, I've been so on top of what is in our foods. I have to read everything {not complaining} and as a result, I'm really noticing that we're eating all this stuff and I don't know what it is, or why it has to be in there. Why is there Yellow 5 in my pickles? Last I checked, Yellow 5 is not a necessary ingredient for pickling a cucumber. You know what I mean?

This has turned into a really long post, and for that I am sorry. :) I guess I had a lot more going on the last couple days than I thought.

One Quick Note: I have pictures opened in PSE right now that I need to watermark, possibly edit although I might just go with a SOOC post, and then upload. Then I'm totally posting pictures, mainly from Mardi Gras. They really aren't that exciting. {Way to go at getting your readers to come back, Meg! Promise them some really lame, un-exciting pictures, totally PG Mardi Gras pictures.... hahaha!}


I have to go sit down first for a little bit. Thanks to everyone who stopped by (or are still stopping by) for Project365! We had ELEVEN people link up today! Wait, TEN people link up! {I counted myself!} That's the most people that I've had link up for Project365 yet! That's totally exciting to me! I was thinking how great it would be to get more than ten next week so please tell your bloggy-friends to hop on over here next Friday and link up their pictures! I would totally love that! :)

Thanks so much for reading this entirely way too long post. Or for skimming it. Or for pretending that you read it. Sometimes it just feels so good to write. Thanks for coming over to my blog! :)