LOL/LOL: An introduction

Welcome to a new exhibit here at our zoo! My friend Jamey over at Zehlahlum Family came up with the idea to do a blog series, and I am so excited to be a part of it! The series is called Lots of Littles/Lots of Laughs (LOL/LOL for short). As moms with multiple young children, we often get “How do you do it?” kind of questions, and this blog series will seek to answer many of those without scaring you away. We will be posting every Tuesday, and we hope to add another mom or two to our series in time.  We also hope to have some of you play along with us--more on that later.

Today is an introduction. If you are coming over from Zehlahlum Family, thanks for stopping by! You can find a more complete introduction to our family at the About Our Zoo page, but I’ll give you a brief overview here. (If you’re already familiar with my family/blog, don’t stop reading here! There’s more after this…) Our zoo is made up of three animals. Lamb, 5, is our oldest, and just started kindergarten earlier this month. Monkey, 3, is doing some preschool stuff at home this year—not because I feel the need to start educating my children as early as possible, but because I feel the need to find things to do with him so that I don’t lose my mind. And our newest addition is the baby Kangaroo, or Roo for short. He is 5 months old, and was recently diagnosed with Down syndrome. He is the sweetest little guy I have ever seen. :-) My husband Jon and I do our best to tame the wild animals, and we usually have a difficult great time doing it.

Jamey is even crazier than I am, with three kids under the age of four!!!  She is candid and transparent and funny, and you need to head directly there and get to know her.  But please come back!

So to help you get to know us a little better, Jamey and I have chosen ten questions to answer. Go check out her much wittier introduction & answers after you read these...

1. What is your favorite kind of cookie?
I know this is rather boring, but I’ll take a good old chocolate chip cookie any day. Soft, though, not any of those crunchy non-cookie-like Chips Ahoy things. There is nothing better than a classic, homemade chocolate chip cookie.

2. Do you have anything hidden in your house? What is it?
I periodically hide chocolate from my children. Does that count? I don’t take their candy and hide it—I just hide the good stuff.

3. What's the rudest thing you ever did while you were pregnant?
Oh my word, I don’t know. I was extremely irritable in my first pregnancy, but I think I typically kept it to myself. And in my third pregnancy I was just plain MAD. A lot. But I can’t remember… expressing my anger. I’ll keep chewing on that one. If you’re reading this and knew me during my pregnancies, please feel free to remind me of my pregnant rudeness. :-)

4. What's your favorite and least favorite Christmas movie?
I’ll start with my least favorite, because that’s easy. It’s “A Christmas Story”—you know, “You’ll shoot your eye out!” I know, I know, everyone loves that movie. I just feel so darn bad for the kid the whole time, I can hardly watch it. It’s turning my stomach just thinking about it. My favorite one… oh my gosh, I LOVE all things Christmas, so it is really hard to just pick one. I guess I’d have to go with “How the Grinch Stole Christmas”, just a little 22-minute cartoon. I love it. I love the story, I love the animation, I love that it is still on every year just like it was when I was a kid.

5. How often do you vacuum your house?
Ummmmm… Supposedly, I vacuum it once a week. I have a scheduled vacuum-the-house day. It doesn’t always happen. Let’s just leave it at that.

6. Where do you most want to go on vacation with kids? Without kids?
I know how cliché it is, but I really want to go to Disneyworld with my kids. My mother-in-law and I had an opportunity to spend a day at Disneyland in California two years ago with Lamb & Monkey, and I think I was more excited than they were. I loved every minute of it. I think I could honestly spend a week at Disneyworld and not get tired of it. And having my kids along makes me seem less weird. (Disneyworld, the Grinch, chocolate chip cookies… I feel like I’m giving away too much of myself already…)

Without kids… Australia. I have always wanted to go there. Currently, my hubby and I are planning to do that for our 25th wedding anniversary, but with the recent news about Roo I’m not really planning that far into the future anymore.

7. Name one person, living or dead, that you would most like to slap. And why.
Eve. Because childbirth sucks.

8. How often do you wear makeup?
Let’s see… I go to church on Sundays and Wednesdays… so at least twice a week. I have gone through different phases in my five years of motherhood… The “I never leave the house so why bother” phase, the “Woo-hoo I’m walking to the mailbox, so let’s get dolled up” phase, the “I’m worth it” phase, and the current “if I have time and happen to remember” phase. I try to put it on when I’m going somewhere public so I don’t scare people away, but it doesn’t always happen.

9. What is your favorite hobby? How has motherhood affected it?
I have several hobbies that I don’t get to do as often as I would like—scrapbooking, playing the piano, reading, biking, and the list goes on. I think my favorite hobby, though, is writing. Motherhood has given me new focus and new topics for sure, while also limiting the time I have to put into it. Blogging has been a good “fix” for me, while also providing me with free therapy. :-)

10. What do you want be when you grow up?
I don’t want to grow up. So far I’ve managed to just keep having kids so I can put off worrying about that. But someday… Well, I love writing and speaking, and I really love being involved in women’s ministry—and especially ministering to moms. If I could mesh all of those into a single ministry/career, it would truly be a dream come true. I have a book or two rolling around in my head, but the thought of actually doing something with them makes me jittery.

So there we are in a nutshell!  Just a couple of nutty moms, trying to make it through our days with too many little ones.  Join us next week when we tackle more of those tough mothering questions.  And if you would like to play along, just answer these same questions on your blog and leave a comment here so we can find you--and if you don't have a blog, start one for goodness sake!  This is important stuff we're doing here!