The Voice Is Winning

Again with the reality TV I know. *sigh*  I was watching the Season 4 Premiere of The Voice and I realized that I really love it.  More so than American Idol or any other music show.  I used to love AI, but it's been a while.  AI was fun back with the original 3 - Simon, Randy and Paula (yes, even crazy Paula).  But now...
And now, there's The Voice.  So much more appealing.  They know what they are doing on that show.  Very enigmatic famous musicians being kind (gasp!) to aspiring musicians.  And they make no secret of the fact that they are all about second chances, unlike some other shows out there.  Sure they find the cheesy sob stories (it is reality TV after all), but it's a little more of a feel good show and less of the cheese.
We're now into week 2 of the blind auditions and I'm still loving it.  I don't miss AI at all.  This is my 3rd season with The Voice (I missed out on Season 1).  And I have to admit that I'm enjoying this season more than previous ones.  A lot of that has to do with the addition of Shakira.  What a great choice to sit in on the Voice with Christina Augulera gone touring.  She is so kind and encouraging (and not catty to other females).  You still have the chemistry of Blake Shelton and Adam Levine, which let's face it is a gold mine for viewership.  And then they add Usher too.  Well done.  I do miss Cee-Lo as he is always intreguing to listen to and gets the quirky contestants.  But I really look forward to what this season has to offer.  
 

Happy Easter/April Fools

I got to celebrate Easter yesterday and took some gorgeous pictures of my kids outdoors. Unfortunately, the cord for my Macbook is shot and I am currently running on the generosity of my husband to use his instead. Therefore my pics are stashed into my iPhone. I just read that back to myself and realized what horrible grammar I used there. 
Ooh, I just went to upload the picture of my annual April Fools Breakfast via Instagram to Facebook (dyed pancakes and milk) and saw there was an option to upload from your phone.  Let me try it.  First, here's the April Fool's Breakfast:

Well, while Google+ is installing on my iPhone, here's a few snippets of our home for the long weekend.
It's been a mixed bag of good and not so good.  The not so good is that I've been recovering from a virus that kept me home from work for 3 days last week.  Weird virus, I still had energy to do stuff, but my doctor wanted me home so I had a sense of guilt of not being at work which translated into me doing a great amount of work at home.  I got my house cleaned.  I got my taxes (and my hubby's taxes) done - oh yeah me!  I got an insane amount of episodes of How I Met Your Mother watched.  (thank you Netflix)  Okay maybe that last one wasn't so productive in a good way, but it was productive in the way of my resting and wellness right?  By the end of the week, my hubby wasn't feeling all that great either which meant we cancelled our company for Easter.  :(  Not so happy about that, but we really didn't want to get anyone else sick.
In the good news, the weather out here has been fantastic.  At least in the sense that Maritime weather can be.  We had a couple of runs out to the beach (10 minutes down the road - love that!).  My dog loved that too!  Nothing like an empty beach for a dog to have a good run.
Easter services were great.  This is the first Good Friday service I've been too in years.  My kids are all old enough now that I can take them to a church service without Sunday School and have them sit (mostly) quietly and respectfully through it. 
Easter Sunday itself I spent teaching Sunday School.  I found a great little treat for the Sunday School Kids that tied into the Easter lesson...which I will post pictures of later because apparently Google + can't access my photos that were taken before the app was on my phone (lame).  Well I guess that's all then really. Happy Easter and Happy April Fools :)
 

Reality TV and The Amazing Race

The Amazing Race has long been my favorite reality show out there.  I love it.  There have been along the way a few moments that just make me shake my head.  The kind where I want to shout out: "You are on the Amazing Race people! What were you thinking"
There are a few things that contestants going on the Amazing Race should do before getting to the race and it blows me away that they don't come prepared.
1.  Get in Shape people.  I know I prefer sitting and reading to working out.  But if I ever got that call letting me know I was going to be on the race, you know I would be on that treadmill so fast.  Speed is key and you can't go huffing and puffing up a staircase thinking you are going to win any leg, never mind the race itself.
2. Learn to drive stick.  I don't know how to drive a manual car.  I learned on a automatic and have driven automatic for 20 years.  But I also know that most countries in the world don't rely on automatics.  And cars on the race are usually, if not always stick shift.
3. Learn to swim.  I can't believe how many racers to not know how to swim, or, have a fear of water.  Yet, there is almost always a water challenge.  This I could do.  I am a pretty decent swimmer.
4. Face your fear of heights.  Every race has a height challenge of some sort.  They have parachuted and skydived and ziplined around the world.  I admit this would be my biggest challenge, but I would work at it before the race so it wasn't such a big challenge during.
5.  Mind your manners.  This one really, really bothers me.  There have been some very rude, disrespectful contestants on the race.  You are going around the world, be prepared for things to be different than home.
 

21st Century Family Picture

My kids and my parents living on either side of Canada

The Kid Who Touches Everything Blog Tour!

If your kids are anything like my kids, they love to get right into their play. They get messy and that's okay. They wash. Unfortunately, kid washing (at least in my house) often leads to me needing to wash out the sink. You can picture it, the trail of dirt and muck leading from the push of the soap dispenser, onto the taps and into the sink. This past month I've had the opportunity to work with Mom Central Canada to help cut out one of those messy trail steps with the new Lysol No-Touch Hand Soap System.
Mom Central, on behalf of Lysol, sent us the Lysol No-Touch Hand Soap System to test out.  As an added bonus, they asked that we be creative and decorate the dispenser to help them kick off Lysol's exciting decorate your dispenser contest.  Between now and April 8th, they are giving away 21 Mini-Tablets to fans who decorate their dispenser.  Plus, you can save $5 on Lysol No-Touch. 

I sat down with my 3 year old daughter and told her that we needed to be creative and use our imagination to decorate. 

Hmmm...

She decided that whatever we did, it needed to be sparkly.

"I love this sparkly ribbon!"

Between my daughter's sparkly ideas and my glue gun - I put her ideas into use to create our little masterpiece. 

The materials all ready to go

Wow!

Our finished creative product, all ready to test out.

Trying it out

Pretty pleased with her new soap dispenser

"I did it!"

Our little masterpiece won't be a part of Lysol's contest, but yours can be!  Here's how you can go about it:
1.  Visit the Lysol Canada Facebook page here.
2.  Don't forget to get your $5 off Coupon here towards your own Lysol No-Touch Hand Soap Dispenser system.
3. Get creative with your kids and have fun!  Post your pictures and good luck!  I know I would love to win a Mini-Tablet!


“Disclosure – I am participating in the Kid Who Touches Everything blog tour by Mom Central Canada on behalf of Lysol. I received compensation as a thank you for participating and for sharing my honest opinion. The opinions on this blog are my own.”
 

Music and Kids

We revamped one of our old iPhones into an iPod for our son as a birthday gift. He's 6. With that we also gave him a pair of headphones.  This morning I heard him singing Moves Like Jagger  by Maroon 5 very loud and clear.  It's very different hearing those lyrics out of the mouth of a 6 year old isn't it?

Things I have learning about parenting

This past year or so I've had a few encounters and conversations with some first time mums. And I've come to realize that with my 8,6 and 3 year olds I've graduated past my relevancy point with the new mom crowd. They are all having those same conversations I had with my friends back when we all were new moms but really they aren't interested in hearing from someone who has already gone through those stages. They want to commiserate and ask for advice from people who are going through them right now.  I see the looks on their faces when I share and in the back of my head I'm thinking, wait a minute...my youngest is 3!  How is what I have to say irrelevant?  Is it because my advice and experiences don't gel with whatever parenting guru they are adamantly following right now?  So Ferber, Sears or Baby Whisperer here is my take on it all.
1.- there is no one right way to parent.  Some ways are better than others.  But for the most part if you are using common sense and doing what works best for you and your child you are doing great.
2. - babies, like people in general are all different.  What may work for one baby may not for another.
3. - once someone finds something that works for them they are convinced it is the best only way to parent - while this may be helpful for that parent, it can make another parent feel horrible and inadequate.  Case in point:  I was part of a baby feeding group put on by our hospital when my first was an infant.  At one meeting the issue of sleep came up (as it inevitably does) and one parent was so chipper to say, "My daughter started sleeping through the night at 6 weeks and has ever since, I don't know what the big deal is."  The big deal for the rest of us blurry eyed parents is that you really need to just keep that to yourself for right now.
4. - very few babies are the snapshot perfect babies who meet every developmental milestone at the exact right time.  Some babies walk early at 9 months, some a little later at 15 months.  In the big picture the when isn't a big deal.  Most of them will eventually get there.  The same goes with sleeping through the night and potty training.  I have yet to hear about a child who didn't get into university because they potty trained at 3 and a half instead of 2.
5. - telling a parent that this certain way will work (because it worked for them) is useless advice for a parent who has honestly tried it and found it not to work for them.  Trying to convince them otherwise  only creates feeling of animosity and inadequacy.  Why not take more time to reassure them instead?  Why don't we spend more time building each other up as moms instead of going into Camp Ferber and Camp Sears like a war zone.  I was an attachment parent before I even knew there was a term for such a thing.   A colleague of mine  found Cry it Out worked for them.  Great.  I was a long term nurser for each of my babies.  My sister in law nursed for a few months and then switched over to formula.  Another friend of mine used formula right away.  Great. 
6. - find what works for you and keep doing it.  If it isn't working, try something else and see how that goes.  Maybe you will find one method is THE method.  Maybe you won't.  Maybe you will find that taking a little bit of this and a little bit of that will be the thing.  You may also find that what worked with your baby last week has suddenly changed because your baby just got that much older that they need something else.  Just roll with it and keep on rolling with it.  I remember a friend of mine observing with her babies, "oh you are doing this now, and you don't want to do that anymore."  So true.  Those babies are amazing little people who are learning and growing at a phenomenal rate.  So stop worrying so much and take the time to enjoy it!
7. - Yes, you will be tired.  Yes, you will have moments complete frustration.  Yes, you will question yourself.  Yes, you will wonder what the heck were you thinking.  Yes, you will make mistakes.  But...yes, you will sleep again.  Yes, you will relax.  Yes, you will find successes.  Yes, you will realize that what you were thinking is that this little person is worth it.  You will find that you love deeper and more completely than you ever realized was possible.  You will find that place in the quiet of the night at 3am when it is just you and your baby.  You will find that in their first little smile at you.  You will find that when you see their complete trust in you as they take their first wobbly steps towards your open arms.  You will find that when they utter the syllables "mama" for the first time.  When they hold your hand and say, "I love you".  And you love them too.