Stop the Mommy Wars petition

MomsRising has a petition up to sign:

"We are calling for a ceasefire in the so-called "Mommy Wars." All moms are in the same boat. We all need better family-friendly policies. It's time to focus on real problems in need of real solutions."

MomsRising is partnered with Mothers Ought to Have Equal Rights (MOTHERS).

Pass it on.

The cows were in the meadow, eating buttercups

...ashes, ashes, we all stand UP!

Well, not really. Natalie went to soccer practice and spent at least 75% of her time picking buttercups "for my Mommy for her birthday". And all I could do was watch her across the field.

I think her soccer career is over, at least for this year. Photo Day is May 6 and the league has registration for the Fall season at the same time. I asked Natalie if she wanted to do soccer or dance in the Fall. Without question it was dance.

Happy Birthday

Yesterday was my birthday. For my birthday Nicholas sang Happy Birthday to me at 6:15 am. Natalie then told me that she only loves me on my birthday (and she later clarified herself that she loves me on every day that someone has a birthday).

Later in the morning we went to the local garden center to pick out some plants and buy some mulch. While both children were napping, I planted four butterfly bushes and laid down 29 bags of mulch. I need at least another 20 bags of mulch to finish the yard. Thank goodness we have a wheelbarrow or my back would be toast this morning!

But we did go out to dinner and had cupcakes (with Ben & Jerry's) at home.

Movie meme

Following on Elizabeth's post, which is following a movie meme from The Republic of Heaven. The list is Ebert's 101 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Bold the ones you've seen.

"2001: A Space Odyssey" (1968) Stanley Kubrick
"The 400 Blows" (1959) Francois Truffaut
"8 1/2" (1963) Federico Fellini
"Aguirre, the Wrath of God" (1972) Werner Herzog
"Alien" (1979) Ridley Scott.
"All About Eve" (1950) Joseph L. Mankiewicz
"Annie Hall" (1977) Woody Allen
"Bambi" (1942) Disney
"Battleship Potemkin" (1925) Sergei Eisenstein
"The Best Years of Our Lives" (1946) William Wyler
"The Big Red One" (1980) Samuel Fuller
"The Bicycle Thief" (1949) Vittorio De Sica
"The Big Sleep" (1946) Howard Hawks
"Blade Runner" (1982) Ridley Scott
"Blowup" (1966) Michelangelo Antonioni
"Blue Velvet" (1986) David Lynch
"Bonnie and Clyde"(1967) Arthur Penn
"Breathless" (1959) Jean-Luc Godard
"Bringing Up Baby" (1938) Howard Hawks
"Carrie" (1975) Brian DePalma
"Casablanca"(1942) Michael Curtiz
"Un Chien Andalou" (1928) Luis Bunuel & Salvador Dali
"Children of Paradise"/ "Les Enfants du Paradis" (1945) Marcel Carne
"Chinatown"(1974) Roman Polanski
"Citizen Kane" (1941) Orson Welles
"A Clockwork Orange"(1971) Stanley Kubrick
"The Crying Game" (1992) Neil Jordan
"The Day the Earth Stood Still" (1951) Robert Wise
"Days of Heaven" (1978) Terence Malick
"Dirty Harry" (1971) Don Siegel
"The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" (1972) Luis Bunuel
"Do the Right Thing" (1989) Spike Lee
"La Dolce Vita" (1960) Federico Fellini
"Double Indemnity" (1944) Billy Wilder
"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying andLove the Bomb" (1964) Stanley Kubrick
"Duck Soup" (1933) Leo McCarey
"E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial" (1982) StevenSpielberg
"Easy Rider" (1969) Dennis Hopper
"The Empire Strikes Back" (1980) Irvin Kershner
"The Exorcist" (1973) William Friedkin
"Fargo"(1995) Joel & Ethan Coen
"Fight Club" (1999) David Fincher
"Frankenstein" (1931) James Whale
"The General" (1927) Buster Keaton & Clyde Bruckman
"The Godfather," "The Godfather, PartII" (1972, 1974) Francis Ford Coppola
"Gone With the Wind" (1939) Victor Fleming
"GoodFellas" (1990) Martin Scorsese
"The Graduate" (1967) Mike Nichols
"Halloween" (1978) John Carpenter
"A Hard Day's Night" (1964) Richard Lester
"Intolerance" (1916) D.W. Griffith
"It's A Gift" (1934) Norman Z. McLeod
"It's a Wonderful Life" (1946) Frank Capra
"Jaws" (1975) Steven Spielberg
"The Lady Eve" (1941) PrestonSturges
"Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) David Lean
"M" (1931) Fritz Lang
"Mad Max 2" / "The Road Warrior" (1981) George Miller
"The Maltese Falcon" (1941) John Huston
"The Manchurian Candidate" (1962) JohnFrankenheimer
"Metropolis" (1926) Fritz Lang
"Modern Times" (1936) Charles Chaplin
"Monty Python and the Holy Grail" (1975) Terry Jones & Terry Gilliam
"Nashville"(1975) Robert Altman
"The Night of the Hunter" (1955) Charles Laughton
"Night of the Living Dead" (1968) George Romero
"North by Northwest" (1959) Alfred Hitchcock
"Nosferatu" (1922) F.W. Murnau
"On the Waterfront" (1954) Elia Kazan
"Once Upon a Time in the West" (1968) Sergio Leone
"Out of the Past" (1947) Jacques Tournier
"Persona" (1966) Ingmar Bergman
"Pink Flamingos" (1972) John Waters
"Psycho" (1960) Alfred Hitchcock
"Pulp Fiction" (1994) Quentin Tarantino
"Rashomon" (1950) Akira Kurosawa
"Rear Window" (1954) Alfred Hitchcock
"Rebel Without a Cause" (1955) Nicholas Ray
"Red River" (1948) Howard Hawks
"Repulsion" (1965) Roman Polanski
"Rules of the Game" (1939) Jean Renoir
"Scarface" (1932) Howard Hawks
"The Scarlet Empress" (1934) Josef von Sternberg
"Schindler's List" (1993) Steven Spielberg
"The Searchers" (1956) John Ford
"The Seven Samurai" (1954) Akira Kurosawa
"Singin' in the Rain" (1952) Stanley Donen &Gene Kelly
"Some Like It Hot" (1959) Billy Wilder
"A Star Is Born" (1954) George Cukor
"A Streetcar Named Desire" (1951) Elia Kazan
"Sunset Boulevard" (1950) Billy Wilder
"Taxi Driver" (1976) Martin Scorsese
"The Third Man" (1949) Carol Reed
"Tokyo Story" (1953) Yasujiro Ozu
"Touch of Evil" (1958) Orson Welles
"The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" (1948) John Huston
"Trouble in Paradise" (1932) Ernst Lubitsch
"Vertigo" (1958) Alfred Hitchcock
"West Side Story" (1961) Jerome Robbins/Robert Wise
"The Wild Bunch" (1969) Sam Peckinpah
"The Wizard of Oz" (1939) Victor Fleming

Have to wonder where Brazil is on this list, but hey, it's Roger Ebert. :-)

Mommy Wars

I posted about Leslie Morgan Steiner's blog last month. No, I have not had a chance to read her book yet, but came across a review at The New Republic. They just made a magazine sale. :-)

And no, Night 2 did not work well. We'll see how this weekend goes. I may be moving to the guest room come Sunday.

Sleep in the Big Boy Bed, Night 1

I have a confession to make. Our son Nicholas has been co-sleeping with us. Yes, he's 2 years 4 months old -- but who is counting? -- and he has not made it out of our bed yet.

Things are changing tonight.

DH is asleep next to him right now -- DH on the floor, Nicholas in his Big Boy Bed -- and let's hope that Nicholas stays put in his bed for a while. I doubt he'll make it through the night, but at least he has started there.

This is DH's doing as I said MANY months ago that Nicholas had to move out, but DH has been the resistant one.

So we are trying it tonight. And I don't have to do jack. (Snoopy dancing)

Belated Happy Easter!

Yikes, it's been absolutely hectic here!

Saturday was the neighborhood Egg Hunt. It went really well and we had a great time. About 25 children showed up and they all had fun. It was glorious weather here -- perfectly clear blue sky, and quite warm. Note to self -- fill the eggs with something other than Hershey Kisses next year. ;-)

Sunday was Easter (of course) and Natalie woke at 6:15 am (*yawn*) to announce that she saw candy all over the living room floor and eggs all over the front yawn. Nicholas got up 45 minutes later, and off they went with candy and eggs and toys. Natalie and I left the house at 9 am to go to Mass and we got there with two minutes to spare. The priest invited all the children and any parents to sit behind the altar in order to make room for adults to sit in the pews. Good thing Nicholas wasn't there!

After Mass was over, we headed back home and took some "all dressed up" pictures. I could only manage candids with Nicholas because he did not want to take pictures. Oh well -- at least he kept his sweater vest on.

Belated Happy Easter!

Soccer practice, take two

Natalie actually stayed on the field this week!

There was soccer practice tonight despite this being Spring Break week here in Virginia. Practice was very good as there were four children and two coaches (the coach and the asst. coach). I think it was the best practice that Natalie has ever had - not that she has had that many practices! Nicholas kept me running all over -- I have to come up with some fun ways to occupy his time while we watch Natalie at soccer.

I'm the new coordinator for the family directory at our elementary school -- yes, the elementary school that Natalie starts at in September. Nothing like getting involved with the PTA too early!

The weather here is just beautiful. Now to take some time to attack my Chia Pet-like weeds in the lawn!

Visit to the Easter Bunny

We visited the Easter Bunny today while we were shopping at the Fair Oaks Mall.

More on Jack Bauer

We have DVR in our house and I faithfully record 24 each week for DH, who has seen I think 2 hours of "the day". He asks me to explain to him the plot for this day/season and I can never sum it up well. So, if you are confused by the plotline, go check out DC Media Girl's post and the excellent comment by Anonymous Reader Guy -- sums it up all in one concise paragraph.

Ear checks

I took Nicholas to the pediatrician yesterday for an "ear check". This "ear check" visit was requested by our pediatrician back in December when we took Nicholas in for his 2 year well-visit. He (yet again) had fluid in his ears, so she asked that if by some "miracle of miracles" (my phrasing, not hers) we were not in to see her over the winter for a cold or something, that we should come in around early to mid-April to have an ear check.

So we did. And of course he had fluid in his ears. But it was clear and his eardrums were pink, which apparently means it is "fresher".

We go back in another month for an ear check. HOPEFULLY his ears will be clear then.

Soccer practice -- involves walking off the field?!

Sometimes I turn to Daddy to step in on parenting dilemmas.

I picked up Natalie for soccer practice and was thrilled to hear that she had "excellent listening ears" all day. I thought that this would bode well for soccer practice, combined with her excitement about Saturday's game, and the pictures she was showing her friends, etc. Got her all dressed in many layers, got her shin guards on, the long socks, the cleats -- and she was showing her friends her "soccer outfit", and she seemed very excited to be going to practice.

We get to practice a little early (5 minutes) and we sat on the bleachers waiting for her coach. At practice I have to amuse Nicholas -- not an easy thing to do. Coach shows up and Natalie heads out with her team. About 10 minutes into the practice, Nicholas is tired of sitting and asks to "walk around". So I take him for a walk away from the field. We start to head up some stairs, and I see Natalie following us, calling "Mommy, I want to go to the playground" -- a good 50 yards away from her coach, team, and practice field! So Nicholas and I turn around to go back down the stairs, and I tell Natalie to go back to her team. She says, "I want to go home." I tell her that she cannot go home, that she has to stay at practice, that she just can't walk off the field like that, and she says she doesn't want to play soccer.

Now I am admittedly starting to see red. I send DH an email saying that she just walked off the practice field. By now we are near her practice field, and I send her back on to the field. She stands there and won't go back to her team. So I tell her we are going home and she can tell her coach that she is quitting soccer. She refuses to move.

I tell her we are going home and we head towards the car and I tell her I really don't like that she is a quitter. She says she is not a quitter and she wants to go back to soccer.

We turn back around to head towards practice and she manages to get back on the field. 10 minutes of hardly participating, and then she says she needs to go potty.

Like there is a bathroom next to the field. (!)

So off we go again -- back to the car -- and I told her she could wear one of Nicholas' diapers to do her thing. I did not think that this would go over well, and no, it did not.

We managed to get her back on the field again. She is standing around looking at her teammates practice.

I am seeing red again so I call DH on the phone and tell him to talk to her.

We went round and round with her for about 10 minutes. No, you can't go to the game on Saturday if you don't go to practice today. No, it is not fair to your teammates if you just walk off the field. No, you can't just walk away from your coach. Etc., etc.

She gets back on the field again and this time she practices. A little. For about 15 minutes total.

I didn't know what to do at this point so I tried the "positive reinforcement" approach and took her and her brother out to dinner at their favorite restaurant, Silverado. I told Natalie that we were going out to dinner to celebrate that she was not a quitter and she went back to practice and listened to her coach. I have no idea if this was the "right" thing to do, but I was running out of ideas. And we discussed at dinner that she would NOT walk off the field and she would NOT walk away from her coach and she would NOT let her teammates down.

Heaven knows if all of this will make any sort of an impression.

Spring Soccer - week 1

The day we all have been waiting for -- the First Soccer Game!

Here are pictures from today.

We are in the Braddock Road Youth Club Soccer league, and, believe it or not, there are 12 teams in the Under 5 (U5) division. Each team plays a "no scoring" game each Saturday, where the teams are divided up so that there are two games of 3 on 3 going on at the same time. This was the children get lots of time touching/kicking the ball, and there is not a lot of "bench warmng".

Natalie got hit in the nose by a soccer ball BUT SHE WAS A TROOPER and took a short break, got some water, and went back into the game.

The trick is to get the children to score into the right goal, and to keep them on the field -- after a while they don't see the lines and just keep going after the ball!

The coaches and assistants do a tremendous job with the kids. I am VERY impressed with the league and how everyone is there for the kids.

We ALL had a blast today!