Laundry Avalanche

February 16th, 2010 . Posted in by Sarah, day-to-day life | No Comments »

          So I have to admit that lately as far as laundry goes; I have not been doing my job. I don’t have a laundry room and often fold the laundry and sort it on the couch while watching tv. Unfortunately sometimes what is on becomes more interesting than trying to find the second green sock with orange toes and I lose interest. My husband is becoming increasingly frustrated as the laundry takes over the living room. For some reason I don’t mind washing and drying the clothes just the folding, sorting, and putting away part. I have clothes on our blanket box, the chair no one sits in, the coffee table, 2 laundry baskets full and ok yes even in the chair the kids sit in. This morning I tried to gather the courage to tackle the laundry but as I went to lift the first t-shirt the laundry fell all over me. Now at 10:00 am like a coward I am here blogging about the laundry rather than facing it. I really need to catch up so i can start going through our summer stuff to pack for our trip but I can’t seem to find the motivation.

            Okay I think I am ready, I have gathered the courage. Well and it also helps that anyone following this knows my dirty secret and so I feel the pressure to do it. Ha, well whatever works right? Wish me luck! if I am not back in a few days I am dead and burried under the laundry of the four boys in my life!

Rabbits anyone?

February 11th, 2010 . Posted in Uncategorized, by Sarah, day-to-day life | No Comments »

About a month before my youngest was born my 2 year old rabbit suddenly died. I decided a few months later that I was ready to get a new bunny so that is what I asked “Santa” for. Jasper arrived a week before Christmas and I fell in love. So last week my husband calls me and asks if I want another rabbit because his friend is giving hers away. I was excited to take her because once Jasper is neutered he will have a friend. My husband came home last night and asked if I wanted another rabbit because another buddy of his took from a friend that didn’t want their rabbit anymore figuring I would want it.  Pretty sad this one doesn’t even have a name and they don’t know the gender. So in the last month and a half I went from zero  to three rabbits. I think I will have to build a rabbit hutch this spring.

Weight Loss

September 13th, 2009 . Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

I’m officially over a year post partum. I now weigh more then i did when i got out of the hospital after having Hailey.  It’s pretty embaressing to admit.

Last time i posted about my lack of motivation to clean, i got everything all cleaned up. I was way too lazy to take pics and post them though. Which is kind of sad considering it would have taken a whole 10-15 minutes of my time but oh well.

Point being i need to lose weight. My blood pressure is borderline to being high. I get out of breath way too easy, but most of all i feel really really gross.

WARNING! im super stretched marked and not all that pretty to look at. Hopefully this will change. I’m currantly weighing around 210 and i hope to make it down to 130 within 6 months. On thursday im starting a protein fast. My coworker did really well on it and has been able to keep the weight off for over a year now. I’ll be posting pictures once a month. I’m not proud of this first set but hopefully when i post next time i will feel slightly less embaressed.

 

 

Wish me luck :)

The Fight Against Fakers

July 31st, 2009 . Posted in YM, blogging/internet, by Kris, food for thought, teen pregnancy & parenting | No Comments »
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Have you heard about the person who faked her baby’s death?!

Here’s an article on the topic… I was sad and upset to hear about it, but unfortunately, not terribly surprised!

Over my past 10 years running communities and groups online, I’ve seen more fakers and lurkers and weirdos out there than I care to remember!!

We do get to enjoy meeting new friends and forge some wonderfully close relationships with our online mommy crew, but the darker side of the internet is waiting as well.

In the Young Single Mommies Community, we occasionally had a male member try to join to hit on some of the single women in the group. One time in the YM Community, we had a young women join and we found the link to her blog. It talked about soccer and her social life and everything except the pregnancy she was telling us all about (and included pictures of a slim young woman… hmmm, I find it hard to believe you are 7 months pregnant?!).

In the YM Boards, we have had more than our share of fakers, including one young woman who stole photos of her sister and nephew and assumed their identity. She tried to defend her lying because she had been pregnant herself but had lost the baby. While this is a sad situation, it still doesn’t excuse convincing a few dozen women that you are a real mom of a baby and wasting our time with questions and stories that turn out to be lies.

No wonder we’ve developed so much security and rules to try to protect those of us who *are* real mothers and are just trying to find support and advice. For example, on the YM Boards, we now post “Salutes” (pictures of us and our children that include proof of the date) to gain access to more personal forums and member photos.

What motivates young women to pretend to be teen moms? Is it a perception that it is “cool” to be a pregnant teen? Is it a way for girls to try out the experience of being 16 and pregnant without having to actually go through the reality of it all?

What do you think??

Tips for posting pics online

April 29th, 2009 . Posted in YM, blogging/internet, by Kris | No Comments »

Although sharing photos of your kids is easier than even thanks to photo-sharing websites, social networking sites, and online galleries, it also means that it’s easier for everyone to access your pictures (including some people you may not want to share them with).

Here are a few tips to think about when you’re posting pictures online:

1. Know your audience. Think about who will have access to the pictures. Check the privacy settings of your album – are you opening it up to friends and family, to a site or board of a limited number of members, or to the whole internet?
2. Protect your identity. Watermark your photos with your name, e-mail, or other ID. This can make it less tempting for a faker to try to pass them off as their own.
3. Choose carefully. Only share a limited amount of pictures and be aware of what information is on them. Even with a strategically-placed facecloth, that cute picture of your child in the bath could be used for purposes you really didn’t intend.
4. Maintain control. Try to make sure your pictures are stored in a place where you have (and will continue to have) access to them. Be aware of any rights you may be transferring over when you submit a picture to another site (e.g. baby contest).

I’ve posted some more specific tips for pics on the YM Boards as well!

Keep those pics coming, but keep them as protected as you can. :)

Well where’s the Water??

April 17th, 2009 . Posted in by Sarah | No Comments »

So last Wednesday I wake up to a muddy sink and I wondered what my husband had been doing at 5 am when he gets home from the overnight shift. Unfortunately after my morning pee and flushing the toilet I look down to my now black toilet bowl and realize it is my water and not my husband making the mess. I go about my morning using our drinking water to brush our teeth ect until he wakes up.

“Did you notice the water?” he asks

“No I don’t pee or wash while your sleeping” I reply sarcastically

“Our well is dried up” he responds

I laugh at his city boy assumption because of course in the middle of spring where we live there is no way that our well is dried up , but there  certainly is a big problem. I call my mom and after Brayden gets home from school we head to her place because Justin has work right before dinner time and we don’t even know where our well is.

You would think now would be the time to hire help but no while working a 12 hour shift and preparing for Easter Justin decides to fix it himself despite the fact that I don’t think he has seen an active well in his life being from the city and all.

So now a week and a half later he’s found the well and the broken part but he doesn’t know how to fix it so maybe next week I will have water again.

Somebody please call DIY Disasters to come save me!!

worth a look

April 15th, 2009 . Posted in YM, by Kris, freebies, women | No Comments »
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A couple links that are worth checking out:

Alicia Keys Superwoman video

I think this should be YM’s new theme song. ;)

Also, in case you didn’t catch the link posted on YM’s Facebook*, there is an offer for a free sample of Huggies diapers here (Canada & US only, unfortunately).

Yes, YM has a Facebook – add us!

YoungMommies HelpSite’s Profile | Create Your Badge
YoungMommies HelpSite's Facebook profile

Until next time,

~Kris~
(always a young mommy at heart)

pizza down the pants

February 5th, 2009 . Posted in by Lisa, day-to-day life, teen pregnancy & parenting | 1 Comment »

I remember baby sitting and actually being bored because the brother and sister I baby sat where so good, they never fought and behaved perfectly and as a kid myself back then I thought it was farely normal. Now as an adult and a mom of two now I am wondering if the mother of those children who are now teenagers has any of her majic potion left and if she is willing to sell it.

I am two of the most wonderful boys in the world but man between the “stories” and sleepless nights they can deffintily give other kids a run for there money.

Brennan is like a super baby, he never stops he go go gos, he power naps which is excellent for him but doesn’t give mama much time for a break. He also nurses at night every 1-2 hrs  at first I thought it was a growth spurt but a 3 months long growth spurt is not too likely, I think it is more of a case of having me rapped around his little finger :D

Now Riley my dear dear boy has clearly mastered a few arts, His curent passion is sneaking, he is 4 so I assume this is a normal phase if he doesn’t get his way or what he wants he will take it for himself. I could go on for days about the different things he has snuck but I will just give the highlights He tries his pockets sleeves even socks with whatever he can get his little hands on, pudding, cookies, chocolate and I hear you, you say silly woman keep it out of reach or out of the house, well it is not the things he sneaks that he cares about because the list goes on, an entire loaf of rasin bread (he hates rasins), yogurt,  cheese, fruit, random canned goods, oh and the big show stopper was last weeks pizza in the underwear I was honestly speach less and didn’t know what I should or could say all that came out of my mouth was “seriously? seriously? “ . Had he actually planned on eating his newly snuck undie pizza? .  I guess I am just happy I caught him 90
% of the time , And prevented the consumption of these scromptios and not so scrumptios finds.

that is the first chapter of our exciting and ever so eventful life at the Mclean house. Sorry it took so long.

 

Lisa

Dear Motivation,

January 30th, 2009 . Posted in by Jennifer, day-to-day life | 3 Comments »

Come back please. I miss you. Well my apartment misses you! I’m doing pretty well procrastinating instead of cleaning. I’ve got about a thousand things i should be doing but computer games. message boards and typing up this blog are way more fun then cleaning.
I’ll just go ahead and post pictures of my mess. Maybe i’ll be embarressed enough to clean it up in a reasonable amount of time so that i can post new pictures.

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This is Haileys change table… she’s 5 months old today and i have yet to use it to change her on. It pretty much just gathers dust and clothes, and shoes and socks and random toiletries and probably a bunch of other random stuff. If you’re pregnant and tight on money… don’t bother with the change table, your bed will work just fine.

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The floor is actually not that bad, its been worse. She has too much clothes, i went over board. I buy everything i find “cute” i really have to stop doing that. I’ll take a picture of her closet and post it with my “clean” pictures once im done. Shes grown too tall for her baby tub. Her feet stick out, i had no idea where to put it so i decided the floor in her room was a good storage spot.

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Random stuff hidden under the crib. You probably can’t tell but theres a safe under there… with the keys in the lock!

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My bedroom. I have so much stuff in my drawers that they don’t close. I should probably go through that and throw away the socks with holes and bras that dont fit. I don’t like throwing things out. You just never know when you might need it.

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The living room… doesn’t look that bad in this picture but it really is. Under the table hidden by the exercauser theres a pile of baby clothes.

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I originally opened up the futon so that Hailey would have more space to play and move around, and because i found the floor to be too cold… but now im starting to think that i did it so that id have more space to dump stuff on.

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The desk. I’m not looking forward to going through all those papers. I kinda have piles going on… important, very important, and dont throw out ever. And then theres all my school stuff that i need to go through and organize. Those papers on the floor under the socks under the desk are actually really really important theyre my nursing liscense papers…oops!
and gotta love the random breast pad just laying there. its clean though, i promise.

My camera batteries died, so i’ll do my kitchen, laundry room, bathroom and storage room later.

Hopefully i’ll have at least one rooms “clean” pictures by the end of the day.

Of Mice and Men

January 22nd, 2009 . Posted in by Sarah, day-to-day life | 1 Comment »

I live in an old farm house severed from the farm land but still in the middle of a farmer’s field. With the wonderful fresh air, open spaces and privacy also comes the unwelcome guests in our home. We have bats in the attic and mice in the walls and to tell you the truth up until construction began they didn’t really bother me all that much. We all lived in harmony with the occasional mouse caught in a trap and after a few failed attempts to remove them the acceptance that the bats ruled the attic.

Now what I am faced with is much worse than Logan’s first 18 months of crying all night.  I think I may have to institutionalize my husband soon if I don’t find a permanent solution soon. We’ve used the good old fashion snap traps with peanut butter, cheese and cheese whiz to have them licked but not set off. We have live traps that are ignored and the little electrodes that emit high frequency noises mice supposedly hate but have noticed a mouse actually lives in a hole beside one of the outlets they are plugged in to.

I find mouse poop everywhere and they chewed our phone lines, new drywall, old bed and who knows what else. I wont use the poison because a friend of mine’s mother was using it and when she came for a visit her dog got a hold of it ate some and they found her foaming at the mouth and seizuring so not a good idea with kids around. 

But back to my original point; just a few weeks ago I awoke at 2 am to find my husband with a mad look in his eyes drilling holes in our ceiling while laughing and saying I am gonna get em! Since then I often awake to him not in bed and find him obsessively resetting traps in the middle of the night and hammering the floor trying to smush them. If we do not get rid of all of them soon I am afraid he will lose it with the lack of sleep caused by what he believes is their taunting him.

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