Mommy & Me Tea Party

Put on you best dress, your fancy hat and join UPTOWN KIDZ as we celebrate outstanding Mothers and their amazing Daughters at our Mommy and Me Tea Party. We are paying tribute to some of the most amazing mothers and daugthers in our community.  The afternoon will include guest speakers, arts & crafts, snacks, tea awards, and prizes for the best Mom & Daughter outfit. For more information contact us at Uptownkidzmas@gmail.com

Don't put the hamper in the kitchen.

It's 8pm Sunday night. All the kids ate dinner, took a bath and are sound asleep. The toys are put away, living room and kitchen are clean. But for the life of me I can't figure out where I put the kids dirty clothes they had on today.

Lets retrace my steps...
I woke up at 5am to give Ari a bottle. Before she could fall back to sleep Tonio was up playing with his toys. He requested soup for breakfast and I just wanted some coffee. Ari finally went back to sleep so I had 20 mins to make breakfast and eat. The rest of the morning was a blur. I checked the time every 10 minutes hoping that it was much later than it really was. The afternoon was filled with laughs from Ari, tears from Tonio, Skype from my sister and a 2 minute visit from my older son.  As the sun started to set I cooked dinner with my two youngest in the kitchen with me. After we ate I and I cleaned up the disaster that was left on my dining room table I gave Tonio his bath. When he was in his bed I gave Ari her bath. HMMMM, I do recall changing Ari on the couch, picking up her diaper,  clothes and blanket and putting it in the OHHHH NOOOOOOOOOOO. I put the clothes, and blankets in the trash but the dirty pamper in the washing machine. This is what happens when you husband goes away and you have to handle 3 kids at bed time by yourself. Well at least this time I didn't break down crying. (WHO KNEW????)      

What's for Dinner MOM????

Dinner time in my house is usually pretty easy. Everyone tells me what the want to eat and I cook what I feel like cooking. My motto is "If you can't cook it, than you can't eat it".

 A usual week night menu consist of one of the 8 meals below. (In any given order)

Stew Chicken w/ rice and something green
Curry Chicken & Potato w/rice and something green
Stew pork w/rice and something green
Chicken Alfredo
Shrimp Alfredo
Baked Ziti
Pelau (Cook-up Rice)
Corn Beef/ corn w/rice or spaghetti

Now, I cook dinner at least 6 days out the week. (Who Knew??) But there are some days that I'm really not in the mood to cook. And on those days I use my super creative powers to whip up some quick meals. Most of the time my family doesn't care what they eat as long as I'm in the kitchen cooking something. My mother tells me to cook enough to last a few days but that never works out. I live in a house that's dominated by males. If you leave your food unattended for too long It might not be there when you return. Below I listed some of my crazy meal ideas.

Cornbeef w/hops bread
Pancakes w/ ice cream
Spaghetti w/Vienna sausage
Grilled Chicken w/bread
Hotdogs w/coleslaw
Hotdogs
A bowl of Cereal
Lipton Noodle soup/w potato

I'm sure some of you have even more quick crazy dinner recipes. Share them please.

Second time around.

Good night everyone. Hope your weekend was filled with Play dates where you just had to drop your child off, stain free cream carpets and grandparents who visited with food. My weekend definitely wasn't like that, but I hope at least one parent had it so easy.

A lot of soon to be 2nd/3rd time parents have been asking me how was I able to transition my 3 year old into being a big brother.

My first son (Anthony) is 10 years older than my middle child (Antonio) so that transition from being the only child was pretty easy. Anthony always wanted a sibling so when we told him that he was going to be a big brother he was surprisingly excited. We included him in mostly everything we did from picking out baby stuff to taking him with us the day I delivered his little brother. NO HE WAS NOT IN THE DELIVERY ROOM. But he was in the waiting room and was the first person to see his little brother in the nursery. He was and still is a GREAT help when it comes to his little brother.

Now Antonio we had to treat differently. He was only 2 when I became pregnant with baby #3. So his understanding about what was going on was totally different from his older brother. But we decided to do the same thing we did with Anthony and include him in every aspect of my pregnancy. At least once a day I would have some alone time with Antonio and talk to him about the baby. We showed him sonogram pictures, took him to doctors appointments to hear the heartbeat, allowed him to rub my belly and encouraged him to talk to my growing baby. When we found out it was a girl and figured out her name we made sure every time Antonio spoke to my belly he called her by her name. He became so attached to my belly that he would point to my belly and tell people "That's my Ariana in there".

The days leading up to my delivery we explained to him that the doctors where going to take "His Ariana" out of my belly. When he came to visit me at the hospital he knew right away that the baby in my hands was the baby that was in my belly. Even after Ariana was born we made sure he was still involved as much as possible. Even to this day he gets her pampers, wipes, and makes sure to tell me when she is ready for her tea (Baby Formula). I even caught him telling her that she was his best friend. (AWWWW WHO KNEW????)

So my advice to second/third time parents get those older siblings involved in your pregnancy. Don't keep your pregnancy a secret from them.  You would be surprised at how helpful and loving they are when you keep get them involved. There is nothing worst than you showing up one day with this little screaming human who has to share your room.

Meet me outside at 3PM

Do you remember sitting in class at the end of the school day just waiting for 3PM. Not because you want to go home, but because you heard there was going to be a fight after school???? Even though times have changed I still use most of the old school terms. Mainly because I don't understand what most of these new terms mean. (Who Knew???)

Even though I am now myself a married mother of 3 kids I still find most of the old school quotes very useful. Especially when you have a 13 year old who is starting to test your patience.  While he is a smart, helpful kid most of the time it seems like these days he gives me a little more attitude than usual. I guess it's all in the first phase of him becoming a teenager. Having to repeat myself daily about taking out the trash, cleaning his room or spending time with his little brother I have become the crazy lady in the house.  Mind you I am the only lady in this house (Not counting our sweet baby Ari). Now don't get me wrong I don't mind being the crazy lady around here because in every household someone has to sign up for that job.

At this point it's time for me to think of some new strategies in order to get through to my teenager. I gotta think of something fast before I really ask him to Meet Me Outside at 3PM so we can fight it out.

Snacks, What Snacks???

So the Easter break is finally over (THANK YOU SWEET BABY JESUS) and I can now bring my snacks out of hiding. For about 12 days I had to sneak around the house to eat my snacks. Usually between the hours of 8 am-3 pm I'm able to sit in my living room and eat a Snickers with a side of Sour Powers, or sit on my bed and eat a cheese doodles washed down with a giant glass of Ice Tea. But since the kids have been home on a break I find myself eating M&M's in the bathroom closet or Doritos outside by the mail box.

Why should I have to hide?

Why can't I just tell my kids they can't have any?

Well that's simple. First of all I have a lot of kids (4 if you include my husband). If I give some of my snacks to one then I have to share with all. And I honestly don't like sharing my snacks. I buy my kids snacks every Sunday and by Monday night every thing is usually finish. So if they find out that Mommy has her own stash I would no longer have a bag of Skittles to eat while I'm writing this blog. Hence the reason why I haven't been blogging for the past week. (Who Knew??)

I ain't missing you at all

I'm back and well rested.

Were did I go???
A spa weekend? A girlfriends getaway? A mini post honeymoon?

NOPE, I was on a STAYCATION right here in my house, NO KIDS, NO HUSBAND. For 2 nights it was just me, my TV, a bottle of wine and some fried chicken. And guess what, I LOVED IT.

While my husband went on a business trip my father in-law (god bless his heart) surprised me by taking the kids with him for the weekend. When he came in and said "Pack their bags", I nearly cried.  I never packed their bags so quickly. I mean I love my kids and husband but sometimes we all need a full on break.  For the first time in months I went to sleep at 10pm on a Saturday night and woke up at 9am on Monday morning. I only left my room for food, and to use the bathroom.

Now, did I miss my family??? HECK NO and I'm not ashamed to say it.
Ladies and Gentlemen we have to stop thinking that if we don't miss our kids/mates for a few days than we are bad parents/mates.  It's perfectly OK to NOT MISS someone (Who Knew?). They did say that Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Did you wash your hands?

So the bathroom walls are scrubbed to perfection, the sink is shining like a diamond and the toilet is clean enough to eat out of (well not really). Any-who, after 45 minutes of hard labor my bathroom is clean. I stand back and look at my handy work in amazement. "Who did that Alicia, You DID". (That's me talking to myself)  The final step is to put down clean bathroom mats and a new hand towel set. PAUSE!!!!!!!!! This is when I begin to sweat.

How is it that every time I put up a clean set of hand towels by the end of the day they look like a rag that you use to wipe down a muddy bike. WTH are these boys doing with my hand towels?
Why is it that you wash your hands (with Soap and Water) and your still able to make the towels your suppose to dry your hands with more dirty????? They use the soap because I have to buy a new bottle every week and they use the water because my water bill is out the roof.

Oh, I've got it....... Maybe they end up falling into a alternate universe that's filled with muddy puddles. The only way out is to use your hands to dig your way through the dirt and they have to hold onto my clean hand towels to lift themselves out of the alternate universe. YEAH, That's it. That has to be the reason my hand towels look like old mops. (Who Knew????)