Mommin' It Up!

September 2, 2010

Take Good Care of my Baby

Next Tuesday, I am sending my baby girl off to preschool. And although I have been really excited about it allll summmer (I mean really! TWO WHOLE MORNINGS A WEEK to myself…you know, until December.), I am now in the throes of a panic attack. I know Sophie’s two teachers have probably “seen it all” – one of them has been teaching thirty years. But like every parent, I think my child is “special”. And I will admit, Sophie is pretty different from most kids she hangs with. So, dear preschool teachers, here is what I need you to know about my girl.

She is shy. Too much attention embarrasses her and makes her cry. Please don’t make her the center of attention! We don’t even sing the “Happy Birthday” song to her on her own birthday, because she hates it.
She likes to watch for awhile before she joins in. She doesn’t usually just “jump in” to activities she’s never done before. So it might take her a couple weeks to warm up to preschool in general.
She has a speech delay. She says a lot of things really, really well, and I can understand her almost all of the time. But when she wants to converse with you, her speech is often unclear. She knows what she’s saying, but you might not have a clue. She’s getting speech therapy for this and has made lots of progress. Be patient.
She doesn’t like to answer questions about certain subjects. If you ask her her name, or how old she is, she won’t tell you – even though she knows. But if you ask her what a certain letter is, what sounds it makes, what colors something is, or what shape something is, she will talk your head off about that. Because those are things she loves! She picks and chooses what she wants to talk about, and what she doesn’t.
She’s tempestuous and stubborn. Has been since she was a baby. She’s either happy or sad, there’s not much in-between with Sophie.
She has the most beautiful smile.
She is sweet as sugar and loves with her whole heart.
She is passionate about letters, McDonald’s Happy Meals, Pepperidge Farm Goldfish, and watching her brother play Mario Kart.
She loves to sing, but she doesn’t want YOU to sing to HER. She may not be on board with all the singing that goes on in preschool, but she’ll come around. She deals with it at church!
She loves books, and after she knows a story well, prefers to “read” it to you.
She’s mommy’s girl, and I’m going to worry every minute those first few days.

So, please, take good care of my baby girl!

Oh, and, she tries to get away with a lot more when she’s with me than she does with anyone else..so you’ll probably be fine. Me?? I’m not so sure that I will be!

September 1, 2010September 1, 2010

And I thought a hairdryer couldn’t get any better!

You may recall last year that I fell in love with a certain hairdryer, the Remington Emi. And I told you about it and told you about it and many of you went out and bought one!

Well, I didn’t believe it was possible to improve upon the Emi, but Remington has done it with their new 3-in-1-styler! They sent me one to review and I *love* it every bit as much, if not more.

It looks like a normal dryer, but it comes with three fabulous attachments!

First, the curling/waving attachment.

This is the piece that made me fall in love with the Emi in the first place, and it works just as well as the original, actually even better! I think it works a bit faster, unless it is my imagination. It got my hair nice and wavy in no time flat.

Secondly, the straightening attachment. This works AWESOME. Really, if you blow your hair out straight every day, or even often, you want this.

It really focuses the heat of the dryer on the particular part of your hair that you are trying to work on!

Thirdly, the attachment that was new to me, and that I was quite afraid/skeptical of, the Volumizer.

But I LOVED it. Now, my hair doesn’t particularly need much extra volume, but if yours does, you will love it even more! What I loved most was that the bristles on the attachment allowed me to blow my hair out pretty straight with one hand – just using the dryer, not the dryer AND a hairbrush! Since my left hand is usually cramped and sore fron holding the hairbrush after blowing my hair out straight, this is awesome for me! Really, it’s a great attachment for not only pumping up the volume, but one-handed styling! And I was still able to get my hair dry pretty quickly.

The 3-in-1-Styler also has Eco-friendly heat and speed settings. If you want to save the environment and dry your hair at the same time! Which I, of course, DO.

So, I am gonna give the Remington 3-in-1 styler TWO enthusiastic THUMBS-UP! If you didn’t get the Emi last year, you definitely want to get this one now! It’s only $26.49 on Amazon, that’s a price I can live with!

If you want to see more life-changing Remington products, head over to their newly re-vamped Facebook Page where you can find videos and tips from celebrity stylist Richard Marin and soooon – you can get exclusive coupon codes! Me likey!

Remington totally gave me this hair dryer to review. That’s all that changed hands. I know, bummer. All opinions are totally mine! Because really, I’m not THAT cheap!

September 1, 2010

Back to School: Thing I Missed.

On Monday, my Kate went back to school. This time, she’s a first grader.

Her first couple of days went really well overall. However, as with any transition, there have been a few bumps in the road, so when Target asked us to write about things we missed but will remember for next year, I was all over it. Had they asked us to write about what brilliant tips we had for making back-to-school season seamless or how to keep homemade bread fresh in a BPA-free hand-knit lunchbox, Jenny and I would have had a good laugh and then told them they’d better go find themselves some other bloggers. But screw ups? We’re your people.

*ahem*

Without further ado, I bring you my list of things I will ~~try to~~ remember next year.

1) Regardless of when our school year starts, I will go shopping early. Like I said, Kate started school this Monday, which was a solid week (or two) behind most of the districts in our area. I thought I was relatively ahead of the game by taking her to Target for school supplies 10 days or so before she went back (it was NOT the night before, I swear!), but I failed to take into account that all the other ~~prepared moms~~ kids had already done their school shopping, and by the time we got there, the school supply aisle looked like a war zone. We still found everything we needed, but the selection wasn’t what it would have been had I been a little more on the ball.

2) I will have a camera on hand for the obligatory huge-backpack-on-a-little-kid first-day-of-school picture. Our camera died while we were on vacation, and I’ve yet to replace it. Fortunately my sister took one for the team and got up early to be our photographer, but it still meant that I took crap pictures with my cell phone once we were actually in the building. However, I would like to point out that I at least remembered to take the pictures, unlike a certain co-blogger/cousin of mine who shall remain nameless.

3) I will buy bread. Kindergarten is half-day in our district (which is really super handy for working parents, but that is a story for another day), so last year she ate lunch after school at her sitter’s house, which required no effort on my part. This year, however, she is there from 9-3:15 and for whatever reason won’t agree to just wait til she gets home to eat, so I have to deal with school lunches. I thought I was all ready to go – she had a new monogrammed Lands End lunchbox and matching thermos (am I good or am I good? Oh wait, Grandma ordered those for her) but when I got ready to actually pack her lunch, I discovered I had no bread. Awesome. So I had to convince her that buying her lunch on the first day would be super exciting. Miraculously (because we never, ever have cash) I was able to scrape together $2.50 to put in her backpack. And while I’m on the subject – $2.50? Seriously? When I was in first grade, lunch cost 90 cents and if you were cool and had a dollar, you could get a cookie with the remaining dime. (I ranted about that to my dad last night, who said that when he was in school, lunch cost 2 cents. I don’t really believe that, because really unless they were serving tree bark with a side of rain water, what good would 2 cents do? You know, the whole “up hill both ways” routine.)

4) Finally, I will realize that the “I walk home!” badge is meant for her locker, not to be used as a name tag. See photo above. That thing I taped on Kate’s chest? Definitely not a name tag. Of course, I didn’t realize that until we got to school and to my horror none of the other kids had their mode of transportation brandished on their person. I slyly ripped it off and I don’t think she noticed, but I’m sure her teacher did. I am all about making good first impressions.

This is totally the story of Kate’s life – she is the guinea pig in our grand parenting experiment. Hopefully we will have these things down by the time Sam is in first grade. But who am I kidding? I’m sure I’ll screw up plenty of things for him as well.

So let’s hear it – what did you miss in the back-to-school craze this year?

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This post was sponsored by Target, but the idiocies described are completely my own.