Smart mouth = Smacked butt

Ok I am getting weary of the smart mouth and I lost it. I warned her twice tonight while getting her ready for bed...."I already went potty..." and then she does this Mimicky singsong repeat of what I just said...So she got spanked hard twice on the bottom.

I really didn't want to be a spanking mom. My mom spanked us a lot, first with her hand, then later with a firemans belt with a brass buckle. I hated that belt and I hated her for using it.

I hope I don't spank her very often. But geesh this child is challenging. I am just feeling like if we let her get away with BS now we are really going to be in for it when she is 13.

I hope she doesn't hate me.

Jamie's new Family

These 2 girls have become the sisters Jamie didnt have. We first met Emmie the little blonde girl who is 6 mos younger than Jamie at a library and they really hit it off. So I talked with the mom and we exchanged email addresses. A week later she tapped me on the shoulder at the church we had just returned to after a 3 yr hiatus.

That was a year ago. We have since me Kelseys family also from church. It's nice to have family friends who have kids the same age. Since we really don't have family here in the area, it seems like we have more of a connection when we hang with other families.

Church is really helping with this. I am really enjoying us feeling more connected.

In other news Jamie's recital is this weekend and my mother and brother in law will be coming to see her performance. Then we will have a bit of a get together afterwards. No photos may be taken at the recital so memories will have to suffice.

And work is going much better. Thank god. I am really trying to do my best and it's paying off.

I decluttered a bit today in anticipation of my mother in law sleeping in the guest room. It isn't perfect but it sure felt good to get out 2 boxes and 3 bags of stuff to the garbage and goodwill. (Good bye old vcr tapes of Cosby & ER - right in the trash they went!)

Life is good.

Mothers Day

It seems like a lot of holidays are becoming more than one day long. Halloween and Christmas has activities and events for weeks leading up to the actual day. Valentines Day has the anticipation leading up to it with preparing the cards/goodies for kids class.

On Tuesdays we usually take Jamie to ChikFilA for their kids day. Since I have been working late hours so much I don't always make it. (Which often means a load of Mommy guilt- One week I missed her first public vocal performance - they had a Karaoke machine that week!)

Anyway as we had just returned from our Weekend retreat, Mothers Day week was busy and I chose to do grocery shopping and come straight home after work rather than joining Jamie and Mike at ChikFilA.

She came home with the cutest clay flower pot painted by her (Mike said she worked on it for over an hour!) with flower seeds planted in it. Such a nice surprise for me and it wasn't even Mothers Day yet!

By Mothers Day morning when these photos were taken the seeds had sprouted!

Our weekend retreat

We stayed at O'Leno State Park for our weekend retreat and it was on the shore of the Santa Fe River. Alot of the structures including this bridge we are standing in front of were built during the great depression by the Civilian Conservation Corp.

The entire campsite which consisted of several cabins, a dining hall and a rec hall besides the river, and many of the structures were also built by the CCC. Before the CCC came along the site was a town originally called Keno named for the game of chance which was abandoned when the railroad bypassed the tiny town.

If you have never heard of the Civilian Conservation Corp go here for information. Briefly they were mostly young men that wer put to work by Roosevelt to build our state parks system. Most of the money they earned was sent home to destitute families. Truly an admirable venture for all. Maybe we should think of putting the unemployed to work in this manner again and perhaps rebuild our highways and biways, but I digress.

This bridge was truly amazing, it was a suspension bridge about forty feet above the river that swayed when you walked across it. The kids were fascinated. Parents were a bit wary of the kids getting on the bridge alone.

There were 8 of us that bunked together in a 2 room cabin, Our family of three, Stephanie and her 3 year old girl Emmie and Mason and Sara and their 5 year old girl Kelsey or as Jamie calls her Kellesy.

Jamie didn't get a nap on Saturday, she ripped and roared all day and by this time on Sunday (about 3pm) was really getting a bit cranky.

So we decided before breaking up for the trip back home that we wanted a photo of our group at the bridge. Jamie just wasn't wanting to go along with it. If you click onthe photos you can see her scowl and look straight down while we all we smiling. (Note the tipped heads of me and Sara - what's up with that?)

After the photos Jamie slammed herself to the ground and had a grand tantrum. I remember a story my mom always tells about one of my tantrums and decided to try it.

I had the camera in my hand and I said "I am going to take a movie of this tantrum, Hey everybody come and look at Jamie having a tantrum!" Boy it really made her mad, she got so mad she let out an enraged scream and then quit.

Later on the way home she napped most of the way home. I had told her if she was a good girl on the way home we would take a dip in the pool when we got home. So when she woke up from the nap she sang a song "I love mommy...mommy mommy, I love my mommy" It was really cute and she was just so darned cheerful.

We did swim after we got home. Later after the swim she said, "Mommy I think I am crazy, I don't want to be crazy".

Did she have an epiphany? She sure has been cheerful and more cooperative this week.

Weekend retreat was great

We went away to stay for the weekend in rustic cabins at a state park with our church group and it was great. A bit more rustic than we are used to but still so enjoyable. The cabin we were in actually had indoor plumbing though the shower leaked 5 gallons/per hour. How do I know it was five gallons? because it was leaking so bad it was splashing the entire bathroom floor, theen someone would go in there with dirty shoes and we had a mud puddle for a bathroom. So I took the wastecan and put it under the showerhead and we took a towel to create a dam to keep the splash from coming out into the other half of the room. That waste can filled up every hour!

But I digress...despite the ticks (I found one on me 3 days and 3 showers later! Mike found one on him in the pool on SUnday night and our friend Stephanie peeled one off of her on Saturday and had another on her last night)...the lack of Air conditioning in almost 90 degree heat and sleeping in the same room with two other families all of which was an adjustment let me tell ya...we just had the greatest time!

Friday night we had square dancing in an old fashioned rec hall made of log cabins with a tin roof. I missed the first round of dancing as I had Kitchen duty after the meal so when I came in Mike was already dancing. I was pretty surprised as he isn't much of a dancer. The next dance was a line dance and I got out there with Jamie and the kids and stumbled around a bit...during the dance all of a sudden we heard a rat tat tat!! I thought some kid had a cap gun, but no it was hail! and was it ever intense! It was the size of walnuts and went on for over 10 minutes. With the tin roof it was earsplitting loud. THe dance stopped and everyone had their ears plugged. Jamie cried at first, then I had her laughing, it was exciting! And what a memory! None of us will ever forget it!

The next day we went to a place called Ichnetucknee- and floated down a river that originates at a natural spring in inner tubes and rafts. it was beautiful and so relaxing.

Jamie had a great time with her friends - they got coated with shaving cream and ran through sprinklers together, ripped and roared on the playground and just basically spent time together playing outside.

Good times.