Restarting the Attitude Makeover

It’s time to restart the makeover.  I was so much happier when I refused to get upset about the little things in life.  Whatever happened, I just let it roll off my back and moved on.  Like so many other things, stress built up and knocked me off course.

Monday morning, I’m going to start over.  Tomorrow, I will not let anything step in the way of me having a good day.  I will address anything that needs to be addressed in a positive manner.  I will ignore anything negative, I will not dwell on it.  One day at a time, it really works.

Every day, I will make a list of five good things that happened.  I’ll start that tonight:

1. I had a great time at the races with a friend I hadn’t seen in 13 years.  I hadn’t been to the track in even longer, probably 15 years.  We had a great time introducing Khaila to stock car racing.  It won’t become an every week occurrence, but it is something we can add to our list of things to do close to home.
2. While we were there, we ran into Khaila’s first daycare provider and her husband.  Millie and Grandpa Donnie took care of her from 4 weeks until she was almost two, and then again for a few months before she turned three.  Even though Rick is at home with the kids, I’m almost tempted to ask if she’d watch them a couple of days.  Khaila remembered them and obviously misses them!
3. Three times in one week, I’ve spent time with friends.  There was a time when I felt friendless, but not anymore!
4. Got a great phone call from my Sysco rep.  I love having a good relationship with him!  It makes doing little bits of work on my day off not so painful!
5. I’m shutting my computer as soon as I finish typing this so I can snuggle in for the night with my husband and my daughter.

I dare anyone who reads this to list five positive things and leave a link in a comment here.  Mondays seem to be the international day of gloom but it doesn’t have to be.  Take the first step to making Mondays great days!

Not My Child #2

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

It was not my child who cut her foot at a friend’s birthday party last weekend.  She also did not almost track blood on their beige carpets trying to tell us what happened.  And it most certainly was not my daughter who tried telling me her father’s socks were the only thing that could keep her foot from hurting.

It was also not my child who threw the tantrum of tantrums when it was time to leave.  No, my child understands that all good things come to an end!

It was not my child who spilled an entire box of spaghetti trying to help me make dinner!  She knows to wait for me to get things off the top shelf and would never climb on her stool to get something.  And it was not me who told her to stay there long enough for me to take a picture!

It was not my child who told me to not feed her baby brother.  Nope, she knows that he’s just a baby and sometimes he needs attention first!  She also did not tell me that I shouldn’t change his diaper, shouldn’t hold him, and shouldn’t give him a bath!

My child would never be critical of the lack of birthday cake at an adult’s birthday party!  Nope, she was a perfect angel for both birthday parties this week!

My child would never go running down the street without telling me where she was going.  She knows that even though her friend lives two doors down, she needs to tell me when she’s going down there!

The Spectrum of Customer Service

I can remember when I first started working as a waitress at the age of 14, providing good customer service wasn’t just expected, it was demanded.  As a child working among adults, I was told more than once to quit whining, put on a smile, and I’d better not let my work suffer for whatever petty, teenage problems were going on at the time.  I try to live by that philosophy to this day.  It’d be easy to be down or crabby, but my customers aren’t paying for my attitude.

Lately, it seems like customer service is going the way of the 8-track.  We’ve blacklisted many restaurants after bad service ranging from lack of attention (and being in the restaurant industry, I’m very lenient on this, so you know it’s bad) to forgetting to bring Khaila’s meal with ours to being blind to members of our party.  Yes, I’ve had it happen twice, once the server only spoke to me, wasn’t even going to take hubby’s order, and the other the server asked what we wanted, and we had to flag him down to order for Khaila.

The other place I experience horrendous service is with a certain cable company.  In the past week, I’ve had THREE awful experiences.  The first was the woman who told me we needed to hurry up and get this resolved because she was off in 5 minutes.  I hadn’t even told her my issue when she said that!  She continued to tell me throughout the call how she didn’t want to be late getting home.  Finally, I told her that if she quit talking about wanting to go home, maybe we could get my problem solved!  Then, after Ms. In-a-hurry was too rushed to enter my payment arrangement properly, I had to call in after being disconnected.  The person I spoke to kept apologizing and saying that they couldn’t do anything about it.  When I didn’t cave and wanted her to get a supervisor, she said, “Ma’am, when are you going to make a payment, IF EVER?”  When I asked her to repeat it, she actually did!  If this is an issue with out of the country call centers, they need to educate the employees!  So, when the supervisor got on the phone, she spent 5 minutes telling us she couldn’t override the system and that it wasn’t worth it to transfer us because no one else could either.  During this time, hubby called a different cable company number and had it worked out within a minute!

On the other end of the spectrum, I had some of the greatest customer service experiences this week as well!  On Monday, I went to Nicki’s Diapers’ new location in Madison.  I was excited when we were researching cloth diapers and found out there was a website that was based in Wisconsin and I was almost giddy when I went to their site last Monday and saw that they had opened a store in Madison the Wednesday before!  Naturally, I had to go that very day to see the fluff!

Lori, the employee working that day was beyond helpful.  I told her I’d been doing some research and knew a bit about using cloth, so she didn’t start at the very beginning.  She gave me enough information that my head was spinning, but she explained it well enough that I felt much more informed when it all soaked in.  I got to see and feel everything before deciding which route I thought was best for us.

Two days later, I was back.  Lori remembered me and we continued our conversation.  Again, she filled my head with more information in a very helpful way.

Yesterday, I stopped in to get the last few diapers we needed to fill our stash.  Now that we’ve been doing this for a week full time, we’re starting to develop preferences, so it was easier to buy.  As I checked out, a woman started asking questions and mentioning that her husband is resistant to the idea of cloth.  I butted into their conversation and told her how I’ve gotten Rick to come around.

After she left, I wound up talking to the two employees for over an hour.  They didn’t seem annoyed by my rambling, I’m sure they get plenty of moms who are anxious to talk to people who are into cloth!  After a while, I realized that the one woman working wasn’t simply an employee, it was Nicki!  As if being a local company wasn’t incentive enough to shop there, her friendliness and knowledge put me over the edge.  She is one of the nicest business owners I’ve met!

Seriously, if you’re in the market for cloth diapers, slings, wet bags, or anything else, check out Nicki’s!  If you’re in southern Wisconsin, she has stores in Madison and New Glarus.  If you’re further away, check them out online.  You won’t be sorry!

A Welcome Change

Being unperfect, I have no problem admitting that there are times I miss my pre-baby life.  I wouldn’t trade being a mom for anything in the world, but it stings just a little when friends are going out to parties and I’m at home with the kids.  Tonight, it was a high school friend coming to town.

On my way home from work, I had an overwhelming urge to get home to my kids.  I worked six days this week, they were stressful days, and now I’m done for the week.  I have one day off, and then another six day week, including four days at an event we’re catering and two days finishing up the planning.  There’s some family drama going on right now that has me stressed. I have a package that’s MIA, somewhere in the USPS system (so much for 2-3 days!).  All of this combined to make me want nothing more than to get home to snuggle with my kids.

I do feel guilty for not going out with my friend, even though I would have been horribly late.  On the other hand, there’s nothing better than giving the little man his last bottle and having him fall asleep in my arms.  Well, unless you throw eating pizza, snuggling, and watching “Enchanted” with the four year old!

I’d much rather experience friend guilt than mommy guilt.  It wasn’t always that way, I used to feel I deserved the break and had no problem with the occasional night out.  Now, I can’t stand having Khaila away for more than a day (as I learned from a recent 2 night overnight with Nana) and I’d rather be home with them than out with friends.  This is a cool feeling!

Tackling the Dresser

My son is only 3 months old, why should I have his room organized?? Yes, I know it’d look nicer, be easier to find things, and every other benefit to having it organized, but this is what his dresser has looked like since before he was born:

This week, I decided it was time to tackle the budding clutter before it got out of control.  Plus, I needed somewhere to put his stash of cloth.  We have been changing him in his crib with the diapers at the opposite end from where he sleeps, but he’s getting more mobile and I didn’t feel safe having a stack of cloth diapers in his crib.

And to make things more challenging, this was behind me when I was trying to clean:

The first thing I had to do was sort through everything.  I found bassinet sheets, we don’t have a bassinet.  There was a 12 month coat sitting up there, RJ’s nowhere near needing that.  Buried under the bag of clothes, there was a pack of construction paper.  Doubt he’s going to be doing any craft projects for a while.  It’s amazing what all I found!

At first, I was going to shove the bassinet sheets in the bottom drawer until I figured out what to do.  Then I remembered that my brother and his wife are having a baby in October and there’s a bassinet in their room.  I took the bag that had clothes in it and started packing it up for them.  There were some size one diapers from before I dove back into cloth, a few girl outfits, the sheets, and two pairs of shoes.  They can move on to bless their family rather than burdening ours.

Once I got everything cleared off, it was time to organize the stash.  This sounds like an easy task, but it really wasn’t.  I get compulsive about weird stuff, and this was one of those times.  Even though they’re just diapers, I want it to be as simple as possible for hubby to grab something easy for him to use so he doesn’t reach into the cubby for a disposable.

This is the end result:

The best part, it was all accomplished without waking the sleeping baby!

And as a bonus tackle-it, here’s how you do laundry when you have a fussy baby who doesn’t want you out of his sight:

Not My Child Monday

For the first time, I’m taking part in “Not My Child Monday”.  Be sure it’s not because this is the first time I’ve had something to contribute, but because it’s the first I’ve seen it.  Since it’s been a somewhat uneventful week in our home, I’m going to include some NMC’s that are sure to haunt Khaila for life!

My child most definitely did not announce to a dining room full of strangers at Pizza Hut that Bubba needed to be fed and that I feed him from my breasts.  Nope, she knows that some things are a bit private.  While I’m glad she understood the concept of breastfeeding, I didn’t care for EVERYONE to know about it while they were trying to enjoy dinner!

It certainly wasn’t my child who shoved an Eclipse cinnamon mint up her nose on the way to daycare, causing a slight panic and call to the doctor to make sure she wasn’t going to have issues.  No, my daughter would know how insanely uncomfortable that would be!

My child didn’t tell her Nana that I run away and go to jail!  Okay, so I did say I was going to run away when I was pregnant and hormonal, but JAIL??????

And for a quick “Not ME”….

I didn’t accidentally was a (clean) disposable diaper this morning!

This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

Where Has the Time Gone?

 It seems like just yesterday that this picture was taken.  It’s the night Khaila was born, over four years ago.  You hear parents say to cherish every moment because it’ll be gone before you know it, but somehow, I think we all brush that off a bit, especially when daily life is taking its toll and it feels like they’ll never move on to the next phase of life.

I’m realizing now how right “they” are.  My “baby” has actual conversations with me, sometimes conveying her feelings in ways that make me laugh because of her little sophistication.  Just this week, she corrected herself after saying she had to tell her Nana something, she said, “I mean, I need to ask her….”  She knows how to use the computer better than many adults. 

Recently, I realized that she no longer looks like a toddler, she looks like a girl!  I remember the punch to my gut when she lost the baby look for the toddler look, and this time was even worse.  She’s tall for her age, she’s lost her baby fat, she’s growing up on me!

Yesterday, I was talking with a mom friend of mine about the first day of school and I realized this is the last year I have to spend with her before she’s off to “the big school” as she puts it.  I’m already dreading that day next year when we pack up and take her to the first day of Kindegarten.  How can this day be just over a year away?

Without a doubt, I’m cherishing every single moment with RJ.  I’m wiser this time around, I don’t get frustrated when he wants to sleep all the time, I’m not going to rush him to do anything.  Every day that passes is one less day of having a baby in the house, and as content as I am with our family the size it is, it’s sad to think we won’t have these days again.

The Lottery, but for Cloth Diapers!

Everyone’s heard the warnings about how addictive the lottery can be.  There are specials on cable almost weekly about how the lottery has destroyed lives.  Well, I have a new addiction that is free, is unlikely to destroy my life or those of my children, and it’s somewhat in line with other things I do in my life.

Have you seen the cloth diaper blogs?  I’m finding many of them do giveaways on Fridays!  I get to read blogs about something I want to learn more about AND I can have a chance to win some free diapers to add to our stash???  Oy, just what I needed!

Here are some of the cloth blogs I’ve found, giveaways or not:

The Cloth Diaper Whisperer
Cloth Diaper Blog
All About Cloth Diapers
The Diaper Jungle
Cloth Babies
Cloth Diaper Mamas

**I’m not vouching for the accuracy or quality on these blogs.  Remember, I’m still learning about this cloth world too.  This is more of a list of blogs I think are useful so I won’t forget where I’ve been!

Feed Your Stash Friday

Beginner’s luck????

I stumbled on this blog tonight.  It’s a cloth diapering blog AND they have weekly giveaways!  How can you lose???

First Canning Lesson