Mommy said I'm not beautiful

My oldest daughter turns 3 next month. And as many girls her age she is obsessed with all things princess, and girly. She would prefer to be dressed in a princess dress 24 hours a day and always wants to pretend she is going to the ball. And of course by nature of the dress that is worn, marriage is a big thing on her mind these days as well. She's always talking about wanting to get married and about how I should share daddy so she can marry him, etc. Last week we went to a birthday party at build-a-bear for one of her friends and when it came time to choose an outfit for her bear, nobody was surprised when my little Pumpkin headed straight for the wedding dress with matching veil. So today in the car her dad was surprised when he said "Do you wanna get married?" and her answer was no. I was in a store at the time and not present for the conversation where she told her dad that she didn't want to get married because she wasn't beautiful. He asked her why she thought she wasn't beautiful and she told him that I said she wasn't beautiful because she had bumps on her face. Here is the actual conversation I had with her:

Me: Sweetie help me remember when we get home to put some lotion on your face.
Her: Mommy why do I need lotion?
Me: Because your cheeks are dried out
Her: No they aren't
Me: Yeah they are. When your cheeks get dried out they get little bumps on them. Can you feel them? (I put her finger up to her cheek)
Her: Oh I feel them
Me: When the bumps come that means your cheeks need some lotion so help me remember and we'll put some on when we get home.
Her: Okay

So imagine my surprise when my husband related to me her interpretation of that conversation. Apparently what she heard was "honey you aren't beautiful because you have bumps on your face." It broke my heart to think that I had made her feel not beautiful. I of course did my best to clarify to her that she would always be beautiful to me. When we returned home she immediately asked for some lotion for her face. As I was putting it on I talked to her about what really makes people beautiful: being kind, sharing their toys, helping others. We've talked about that before and we'll talk about it again because I really believe it.

I have been thinking about this all day. I remember really loving when Dove came out with their definition of beauty campaign and all the advertising about true beauty and their emphasis that there is not one kind of beauty. That's what I want her to get. I'm just so surprised at how the most subtle things can send specific messages to our children and that at less than 3 years old I am already stressing over this with her. Oh how I wish I could raise her in a bubble of praise and support and love and not have to let her out to get influenced and beaten down by the world. What's a mother to do? Can I skip the teenage years?

I ought to mention

If the renewed urge to post on this blog is going to continue, I ought to mention one small thing.........something to do with being up several times a night, spending a lot of money on diapers, and glaring back at the women who think I'm using a recalled sling. Yeah, I've got another pumpkin in my house. Born in January, nicknamed PolkaDot and probably the reason behind me taking another vacation from posting if that happens.....not that that's going to happen. Anyway, just thought you should know. Oh yeah, one more thing. She's pretty cute.

Don't judge a book by its cover

I picked this up the other day at the Salvation Army. (I love that place, half price clothing on Wednesdays makes my heart happy because this OCD mother doesn't care when her toddler completely ruins a $3.50 outfit. Okay, I still care but I care less which is good for Pumpkin. Wow - tangent.) You can imagine hubs face when he pulled it out of the car. He asked how much I paid for it. I'm not sure it would have mattered what I said, I could have said that they gave it to me and he still would have thought it was a waste of space taken up in our garage.

But I'm hopeful that I can make it look great. I've been searching Craigslist for months and months trying to find something to put in my dining room to store all Pumpkins craft stuff and some other stuff of my own and this thing is perfect. Well it's perfect minus the bright red doors and psychedelic tape squares. Can't wait to post pictures of the finished product. Here's a hint..........2 colors or less.

Motherhood: Enter at your own risk!

Although birthing two children and taking care of them on a daily basis is enough proof that I am, in fact a mother, sometimes you have those experiences that make you really stop and realize. I had two of them this week.

I took my 2 1/2 year old to the ER and ended up spending a week sifting through her stool. Sifting may not be the right word here. More like smashing I guess. You know when you are trying to get those lumps out of the brownie batter so you smash it up against the side of the bowl? Yeah, this experience was similar except that the aroma wasn't quite as sweet and the lumps weren't made of flour. Oh yeah, and I was looking for a dime.....that she had swallowed. TMI? Yeah I thought so but sometimes the truth is poopy.

The other thing that made me really remember that I am a mother? Well when I took her to the ER, I was driving this:

Some of you may know it as the "Swaggerwagon." To me it's a minivan, the kind of car I swore as a teenager that I would never drive. But I'm eating my words. And you know what? They taste great! This thing is awesome. I'll totally trade any cool points I may have earned from sporting some cool SUV for all the convenience that comes with this baby. I realize that this confession makes me an even bigger dork than what I would have been just driving the above but deep down there's a dork in all of us and I've just decided to let mine shine. And it's shining a beautiful red, with seating for 8, and a DVD player, and this really cool cupholder/table thing that moves out of the way when you need to buckle your todderl, and and and...okay I'll stop now. But just for the record, I'm a mom.

Random Things That I Love

I was thinking the other day about some of the odd things that I get a kick out of and then I figured we probably all have them. So since I am thinking about it, I thought I'd share them with you.

I love the smell of Scotch tape (talking about it makes me want a sniff right now)

I love exclamation points !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (My old boss was an English professor and told me that people did not know the real use of an exclamation point and that a person should use maybe a total of three in their entire lifetime. I say you don't know my life, it's very exciting!)

I love Crazy Core Skittles (I eat handfuls of them daily. It keeps me skinny. :)

I love closed captioning/subtitles (I make my husband watch every movie/television show with them on. I'm addicted. You'd be surprised at the things you miss without them.)

I love houses that smell good. (Like mine - it smells like Black Raspberry Vanilla - yum!)

I love free babysitting (Enough said - who doesn't?)

I love making handmade gifts for other people (well, people that I like at least!)

What are some random things that you love?

My balanced diet

So a friend of mine recently told me that she was missing my posts on here. Which is funny because I didn't realize anyone actually read the posts on here. Besides me, of course. But since I've been enlightened I thought maybe I'd put a little Sunday goodness on here. This is for your Marie. Unless of course you're disappointed by the content and don't at all enjoy reading it and in that case, it's just a random post and the next awesome one is for you.

I guess I haven't been blogging on here because there hasn't been a lot that's "blog-worthy" going on with me. Although, I think I may have a new Laundry Chronicles edition for this week. Right now I'm sitting here trying to figure out how to get myself to stop eating these little bad boys. I had one when I made them, one as a pre-dinner snack, one as a post-dinner treat (a compensation if you will for eating all those vegetables in my salad), another one to reward myself for putting Pumpkin to bed successfully (sometimes I wonder why I don't weigh 300 lbs), and two more because................................hmmmmm when you run out of reasons maybe it's time to stop eating them. Although if you can come up with 4 reasons, maybe you're in trouble to begin with. And yet here I am, wondering how I could justify one more. Although it's just now occurring to me that I need to back away, back far away. Because there's only two left.

If I don't stop soon, what will I eat for breakfast?

I'm just sayin...................

If you're going to buy a 10-pack of Baby Ruth's and you don't want to eat all of them, you probably shouldn't hide them in a secret place that only you know about. I'm just sayin..........