Really Random Things

I'm not going to call this an advice post because, first of all, I know that every family and every kid is different, so any parenting "advice" that is ever given or gotten may or may not work, depending on the child.  Second, I like to quote my Granny, who once stated, "I've never taken any advice, and I'm not about to give any..."  

So these are random things (and I truly mean random) that have worked in this household for the past two years.

1. If you use fresh herbs when cooking, buy a basil and rosemary plant.  I use basil A LOT, mostly because I make lots of wraps for lunch, and I like to toss basil in almost all of them.  It can add up if you keep going to the store and buying pre-packaged basil, but I got my plant at Trader Joe's for $2.69, and it regenerates at a crazy rate.  Plus, I feel super cool using fresh basil from my, er, garden.  I don't use rosemary as much, but for the few recipes I do use it in, it's worth it and also grows back fast.

2. When going grocery or Target shopping with your children, it can be dangerous to set the you-can-walk-and-not-ride-in-the-cart precedent.  Mike and I learned this one weekend, about a year ago.  I had pretty much always kept Riley in the cart when we went out, but it was the weekend, Daddy was there, and we had a one-to-one ratio thing going.  Roughly 75% of the way through the outing, Riley was getting kind of unruly (or something... I don't quite recall), and we tried putting her back in the cart.  I'll spare you the details, but the event ended with Mike carrying Riley out, football-style, while she shrieked like he was ripping her eyebrow hairs out,  one by one.  The next few trips out during the week were a little bit of a battle, but Riley eventually readjusted to the fun that is riding in a shopping cart.  But I really shouldn't gloss that last part over.  Again, this may be just the Riley-Heather dynamic, but I've found that in many situations, we have to go a few battle rounds, but if I hold firm, things get WAY easier in the long run.

3. Grooveshark is amazing, and I can't get enough.  If you're a stay-at-home mom, and you have a computer that's close enough to your play area, I've found music makes my life roughly 80 times better.  We have music on throughout most of our day.  I have a Disney, Muppets and VeggieTales playlist, and I even have a Mommy mix that I can occasionally sneak in.  Music provides some backdrop to my conversations that usually go like this...

Riley: So... what'd you do today?

Me: Well, not much yet.  I woke up, got you and Noelle breakfast, read some books with you...

Noelle: Yeah!

Me: What did you do today?

Riley: I woked up, played with toys...

Me: Cool. 

(Silence)

Riley: So... what'd you do today?

And music also often brings on spontaneous dance parties.

4. Use the library.  Yes, as I recently mentioned, I have been a library-avoider up to this point, but it’s a great rainy or winter day outing.  See that post for more details.

5. When moving your little man or lady from a crib to a toddler bed, try to convince him/her that he/she still cannot get out of bed without your help.  This one will probably work for only maybe 50% of the people who try it, be warned.  It worked for Riley, though.  When we first transferred her, we still picked her up to get her out of bed.  We never really had a problem with her getting out of bed in the middle of the night or during naptime.  (That came later.)

6. Do not ever turn down free Starbucks.

7. The crockpot is an amazing device, and whoever invented deserves a big smooch on the lips.  Here’s a recipe Celeste gave me that I made yesterday.  THREE ingredients, and it’s awesome:

Put pork tenderloin in the crockpot.  Cover with Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce.  Dump can of either apple pie filling or chopped pineapple (partially drained).  Cook for 4 hours on high. 

8. If you have kids and a shedding dog, your house will never be clean.  It will have toys and indescribable amounts of hair strewn everywhere.  There’s nothing you can do about this.  Fight the guilt.  I often lose the fight, but I still try.

9. Get yourself a ginormous Rubbermaid container to “hide” toys in. Sure, it’s still painfully obvious that you have too much stuff, but at least it’s all in one place.  And besides, when you dump every single toy out, you can have this kind of fun, too.

10. Buy Simply juices.  Oh man, we love Simply Apple Juice and Simply Lemonade.  The girls only drink apple juice that’s about 50% water, 50% juice, but Simply is so good that they don’t mind in the least.  I like using the lemonade to make Passion Tea lemonade, a la Starbucks. 

11. It’s okay to not like numbers that end in 5 or 0.  That’s totally normal.  Top Ten lists are way overrated.