What to do....what to do....

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This week's topic:

Here in Cleveland (Erie!) we are snowed in but everywhere has days where cabin fever can creep in. What are your favorite indoor activities to do with your kids?

We're big into imagination here. Barbies, babies, school, shopping, super heroes, etc....really anything will do. Now don't get me wrong, Livi loves sitting down to a board game, or a puzzle, and I'm not going to lie and say we don't watch a fair amount of tv.....we do. But it's the imaginary games that arouse the most fun at our house. :)

Mike and Livi love to watch Powerpuff girls, Teen Titans, Batman, etc....so they've developed their own 'super powers'. Livi has ice, Mike has fire, I have air, and V (yes she's included as well) has water. Now for those who are wondering...everyone is on the same playing field....not one power is more powerful then the next. How to win? You have to outsmart your opponents. :) We'll make tents in the living room, have a safe spot on the bed, her bed tent is used as a hospital, etc. Whatever we feel like for the day. Then it's each for their own! (and usually poor "water", aka Violet, gets drug all over the place with either "fire" or "air" lol) We aren't concerned with being 'proper'....and couches become perfect for diving off of and hiding behind. Arms crossed in front of you? You block. Eyes shut? Concentrated power. It's become a very unique system that we all seem to understand quite well. And Livi? Well she has a ball and a half! :)

~Sincerely, Air

Parenting Kraus style

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This week's topic: What aspects of your parents' parenting do you want to continue in parenting your own kid(s)?

Well it seems almost like a loaded question to me....given that I am one of the most relaxed parents that I know! I feel like I parent differently in so many aspects of parenthood then my parents....but a lot I have carried over as well......

....and I don't mean to offend anyone....everyone has different ways that work.... :)

First let me start off by saying that my parents were strict. Very. Gosh I wasn't allowed to go to the mall with my friends until after high school! And some of this went over well growing up....I learned to absolutely love school, and *tooting my own horn* never saw anything less then an A my entire k-12 career. I had perfect attendance, and was on many academic activities...i.e honor society, debate team, model u.n., etc. LOVED school. Plus I had a job that I worked at every day after school, and on the weekends. But it never seemed to be a challenge to me....it was just expected. Now don't get me wrong...I was never the 'head in the books-no fun-boring' girl. Yes I was pretty naive up until I started working....then wow did I learn a few things! But I regress.....high school was fantastic, loved every minute of it! But then I went off to college several hours away....and BOOM! My world was turned upside down. I drank. I smoked. I had sex. I would lie. I would skip class. Etc. My perfect 4.0 GPA went straight down the toilet....to an astounding 0.86 GPA! Yes, I typed correctly. Here I was a Biology Pre-Med student with all the potential in the world, bringing a .86 GPA my first semester at college. (My parents still do not know to this day, oops!) Looking back on it, I can understand more of what it was that happened. (and not totally blaming my parents mind you, but these are the facts.....)
Things that we are going to change.....
1. My parents were uber strict. Uber....like completely ridiculous. I had a 9:00 curfew up until I was a senior....then it went to 10. (With the exception of work that was, then my Dad would be there waiting for me once the restaurant closed.)

2. We never talked about sex. Ever. So it was a taboo thing for me to test out and see what it was all about. Is it sad that the first time I ever went to the obgyn was my 2nd year of college, with my best friend, and I just cried the entire time terrified my parents would find out?? I went on the pill for about 3 months.....then stopped because I would have had to go back and get a refill. Nope, not happening. The next time I went back was about 6 years later when I was pregnant with Livi. Nice huh?

3. Favoritism. My brother is the middle child out of the 3 of us, and it was completely apparent in everything that we did, that he was favored by my Dad. I could go on forever quoting examples and different stories, but I'll spare everyone. But lets just say it was pretty bad.

I think when I went to college and could do my own thing, I exploded into new territories. Being so tightly reined in growing up never taught me how to be on my own. I wanted to experience everything that I haven't yet, and took it to the extreme. It took a llllooonnnnngggg time to make that GPA up let me tell you.....

So back to the girls. I won't be like that. I'm so afraid of sheltering them I was that I think I take things too far the other way sometimes.

* Livi has never had a bedtime. She goes to bed when she wants. Of course this has always been by 10pm, so maybe that's why it hasn't been an issue. But I'm not going to be strict about it. Not now at least. If we do tell her to go to bed, she does. Not a huge deal. But I won't be the parent that makes my child go to bed by 8pm.

* We have an open relationship. I want my girls to be able to come to me with anything that's on their mind, and any questions that they might have. I'm not dumb, I know they'll probably be having sex, and drinking while they're young. But I want them informed. I want them to feel like they can come to Mike or I and talk about birth control.

* We give them opportunities. This is one thing that I'm partly taking from my parents....let them be in activities. I was in so many things growing up and I loved it! And so far Livi has been in dance (hated it), and now does soccer, gymnastics, and swimming. And I suppose you can count piano...but I'm teaching her that at home so it doesn't really feel like an outside activity I suppose.

* We're not medicators. There are so so so many people that rush to the Dr for every little thing. Then they get their prescriptions and drug up their child. No way here. And you can tell if you are one of 'these' people because right now your thinking, 'well they had :insert random diagnosis: ' Yes they did. Because that's what you wanted the Dr. to tell you. Your child probably has a cold. And yes, they can get better without medicine. Maybe it was growing up with a Mom that was a nurse....but come on people! People medicate WAY too often anymore. There are several other alternatives out there....

* My kids don't act up in public. I'm sure everyone can relate to being out, and there's a kid misbehaving/crying/etc....and the parents just sit there. Do you not hear your child?? Or you have those that just threaten....over and over and over again. You know what?? Until you follow through on that, they are never going to believe you, and they are going to just keep on acting out. Drives.me.crazy. For this reason alone we don't like going out with certain couples.....

* My kids had (and will continue to have) bumpers in their cribs, blankets to stay warm, and be forward facing in their car seat before they hit middle school. (haha) If bumpers were so freakin dangerous, they would quit making them. If blankets killed every child out there that used them, they would ban them. And for car seats....well, I could go on for awhile. But simply put, look back at yourself growing up...did you even have a car seat. I didn't. And you know what? I survived. And so did millions of others. (and yes we use car seats....but they are not stuck rear facing for years upon years....)

I want my girls to grow up and be ready for the world. I want them to have parents that they can go to, and know that they are loved unconditionally. I want them to be happy and successful, and know that they can do anything that they put their mind to.

Food!

A local (non-local?) mommy group that I belong to is doing a Blog Hop....and this will be our first post of the hop....
I suck at keeping up my blog so hopefully this will give me the push I need to blog regularly.

This weeks topic: What is your child's favorite and least favorite foods? Are you Happy about it? What do you do to promote a diverse palate?

Ahhhhh food.
I love it. Mike loves it. Livi....well, not so much. Well I guess I could take the blame for her being so picky, since I am myself, but I won't. :) But boy-oh-boy is she! When we first started table foods, she was a freakin vacuum! Anything and everything went into her mouth, no care in the world if it was edible, clean, covered with dog hair. ::barf:: So when she started to ask for certain things, I was ecstatic! This little tiny person is actually expressing an interest in what she is shoveling into her face....I must oblige right? And from there it's just been a steady, downhill slope. And one that Mike and I just cannot agree on...or even really see eye-to-eye a lot of the time. See, I grew up a little, eh, spoiled, when it comes to eating. If Mom was making spaghetti, and I wanted chicken, she made spaghetti for the fam, and chicken for me. And if my sister wanted burgers, well, we had spaghetti, chicken, and burgers on the table that night. And we never had to finish. Clean plate?? What was that? I loved dinners in our house. :) Now Mike on the other hand, wow it was different. What was cooked was what was had....if you didn't like it, you had the choice of either just eating it to fill your stomach, or you just didn't eat that night. So needless to say, he is not picky at all. But I regress....

Livi.

So as she grew, she started "hating" certain foods. Ok, she "hates" all food that isn't mac and cheese, or cheese pizza. And the kid never got into condiments like other young people these days...Ketchup? Too spicy. Ranch? Yuck! Jelly? Icky. And the list could go on. And poor pepperoni...poor, poor pepperoni. She hates it. Like will.not.eat it at.all. How can you not like pepperoni?? And everything is "too spicy" Wha?! I eat hot sauce like it's going out of style, and Mike is close behind me. I'll make those raemen noodle packets with Franks red hot instead of water for goodness sake, and my child hates spice.

Her favs? Well, I think they fall in line with every other kids favorite foods....mac & cheese, cheese pizza, broccoli. Probably in that order too. Although she really does love perch. Really any kind of fish though, and steak. The girl loves her some steak! Now you can't put anything at all on the steak, except for salt, but still, she'll eat it up.

I think she's fine being picky. Afterall, I was, and I turned out fine. She doesn't need to eat exotic foods if she doesn't want to. Heck I never had my first hot dog until a few years ago and I survived. Mike's view? She needs to eat what we're having. To end this constant debate, and to have more peaceful meals, we've devised a equilibrium over this.....every meal Livi has to try it. She has to take 2 mouthfuls of whatever we are having, and make her decision. If she truly doesn't like it, fine, she doesn't have to eat it. And if she does like it, well, I guess you know the outcome of that one then.... And she's honestly liked more then she hasn't. So it's been good. I have no problem with what she eats, and doesn't eat. I'm not going to freak out because she didn't eat as much today as she did yesterday, I'm not like that.

Now should I include the V'ers?

I suppose her fav is the soy formula that she sucks down constantly, lol. We've started baby food, but honestly, she's not really into it. But she's my stinky soy girl. She would never breastfeed so I had to start pumping...and did that for 4 months before I went insane with it. I hated it. H.A.T.E.D. Now I know a lot of people get all up in arms because I didn't breastfeed my child, or because I started her on formula by choice, etc. And you know what? It's sad that I had to feel bad about stopping, because they look down upon you if you *gasp* formula feed your child. Blow me. We went to formula and we were all happier. Well, I guess to be honest, once we switched to soy formula we were all happier. ;) She didn't tolerate the regular stuff well, and had issues, but once we switched, it made a world of difference.

Oh, and babies do not like meat. Particularly when they are 4 months old and the meat of choice is pieces of turkey. This is what happens when a Nana gets a hold of such a creature and the face that followed....

I'm a slacker....

I've been so wrapped up in trying to keep up my project 365 project that this blog has gone by the wayside! Lol!!! So here's the new blog in case anyone wants to keep up with our boring life in another blog, HA!
I will update this one soon! I promise!!

Happy New Year!!!!

Yay for 2010!!! I'm one of the happy ones to see 2009 and go and to have a fresh start in 2010! The best thing of 2009 was Violet being born, but other then that, the year was really bad. So I'm hoping that everything gets better in the new year :)

I even made some resolutions for this year....and I think I'm going to bypass the ole standby of 'losing weight'.....lol.....(although I AM, it's just not going to be resolution per say)

1. SAVE BETTER: I'm really going to try to save money better, and not pull out from the savings whenever a whim hits me. We're dedicating $125 per pay from me (2x month) and $25 per pay from Mike (4x month) just strictly into the savings acct that we are NOT going to touch. So by the end of the year, that's $4200 that we should have, that we just do not touch. It's completely feasible and realistic, so we're going to try really hard (ok, so it's really me that needs to quit spending!) to make it work....

2. SCRAPBOOKING: I love scrapbooking. Love. But I have fallen way behind on them, and everyday that pasts, I'm one more day behind. So I'm taking this oppurtunity to start frest in 2010, and spend more time keeping them up.

3. RUN A MARATHON: It's something I've always wanted to do, but never have. I've always been out of shape, and lazy. :) But they have some smaller ones up here at Presque Isle that a couple of us from work are looking into. So let the training begin!

4. SPEND MORE TIME WITH FAMILY: This is something that I've slacked on....majorly. It seems like Mike and I have become hermits in a sense, where we like to just sit at home and veg. Not bad every once in a while, but it's all.the.time. So since we moved back to Erie to be with family, I'm going to make a real effort to spend more time with them.

And I think I will stop at 4. Can't overwhelm myself too much this early on can I? HA!

So HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone and here's to a GREAT year!!!!!!