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Oklahoma

For this New York girl, tornados are a totally foreign concept. I remember having to head down to the basement of the barracks when I was in Basic Training because of tornados in the area. It was scary to me that the best plan we had was to sit in a basement, play cards, and hope for the best in the world above. But all my fellow recruits from the Plains states laughed at my uncertainty- they were used to this and just said, “At least there’s a basement!” It barely seemed real.

I have such a hard time wrapping my brain around the idea of tornados. It’s just so harsh and so wild a phenomenon. Don’t you think that 100 years ago they were thinking that in a century we would be able to predict them or even stop them?

But for the families of at least 24 people in Oklahoma*, the reality of tornados (and our poor ability to predict them) is too cruel to imagine. Nine of the victims were children. Kids readying themselves for a summer of fun. I just… can’t.

So I’m thinking of all of those families, especially those that lost kids. If you’d like to help those affected by the horrible tragedy, here are a couple of articles I found: one from the Huffington Post and one from USAToday. Also a friend and fellow San Antonio blogger, Colleen from San Antonio Mom Blogs, has a post up about how to help.

If you have any other links to share of ways to help, please leave them below.

 

*The medical examiner just revised the death toll. Originally they were reporting 51 dead, including 20 children. They’ve since revised that to the numbers currently cited here. 

 

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On Why I’m Not a Nutritionist

This morning I had a Jello Pudding Snack Cup for breakfast. Along with a probiotic. And I decided that this combination is basically the same thing as having a yogurt for breakfast. Except it has less sugar and fewer calories. I mean, sure… it also has less protein and calcium. But who needs those things anyway?

Justifications like this are why I will never be a nutritionist.

It’s also why I sometimes wonder why they let me have children.

But, in case you too were worried about that last point, the boys actually had eggs and oatmeal for breakfast. No pudding for you! And it was even plain oatmeal with only a tiny bit of sugar added, not the pre-packaged stuff full of crap. The use of plain oatmeal was more a pantry-based decision because it was the only oatmeal I had on hand, but it makes me sound like a more health-minded mother to say that I don’t give them oatmeal packets.*

So I’m not entirely devoid of nutritional principles. It’s just that I only apply them to my kids and not to myself.

 Vanilla pudding and a probiotic capsule basically equal yogurt, right?

 

I think I should feel bad about my pudding/probiotic breakfast, but mostly I just feel like I (kind of) found a (delusional) way to have yogurt without having to actually eat yogurt (which I, personally, find disgusting… I know I should like it, but I can’t bring myself to do it).

Tomorrow I’ll go back to green smoothies.

Today I’m calling it a win.

 

*I totally do give the boys oatmeal packets when I have them in the pantry. DON’T CALL THE HEALTHY MOTHER POLICE. 

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Mother’s Day or Fire Safety Day? You decide…

I am basically the world’s most lazy human being. Given the choice, I will almost always choose sloth. I exercise because people tell me I should (and because I like dessert) not because I get any kind of enjoyment out of it. At all. So on “my” days- birthday, Mother’s Day, whatnot- I pretty much always choose to do nothing at all.

Luckily for me Sergeant Handsome knows this about me and indulges it. He and the boys made me delicious banana pancakes for breakfast. They were sooooo good. He even made the maple syrup glaze I like to add when I really want to make it clear that I’m having dessert for breakfast instead of, you know, actual breakfast. They looked a lot like this:

If I'm not going to lose weight dieting, I'm going balls-to-the-wall in the other direction. Banana pancakes with a mocha maple glaze.

Except those are from a few weeks ago. The ones my men made I ate before I took a picture of them. Oops!

I followed up my carb-loading breakfast (and some hang out time with Sergeant Handsome and the four lovely boys that me a mother) with some reading and then a nap. Seriously, I wasn’t kidding about the whole “laziest human being ever” thing. After my nap, my happy little self went to the movie theater. To see Iron Man 3. Because in addition to being lazy, I’m also apparently a 13-year old boy.

On the way home from the theater we saw a rather large house fire. Which led to a lot of… interesting… discussion with the boys. First, we talked about how it wasn’t “cool” and that we needed to hope that there were no people in the house and that the firefighters on their way would be safe. Then talk turned to what if our own house was on fire. Where it quickly became clear that I haven’t done enough to talk about fire safety.

Obviously we’ve discussed not to play with the stove, that only grown-ups can use matches/lighters, and about fireplace safety (why we clean it and such)… but we’ve never discussed what to do if there’s actually a fire.

So my Mother’s Day turned into telling the boys to leave their toys and teaching them how to unlock the window in their room. This is also turned into a chat about home owner’s insurance because Mini-Me was really concerned about being unable to replace any toys he lost. The house itself he was less concerned about. We also had to tell them over and over again not to get anyone else but to just help themselves get out.

The level of concern they had for who would get baby Spike out of the house was adorable. You know, you worry that they’ll be annoyed about the fourth brother and not want him in the family. But already, only halfway through the kid’s first year, they were yelling at us that “but someone needs to get Spike!”

So now the older two boys know how to unlock the window in their room. They all know to go across the street and get far from the house and tell a neighbor that they need help. (To which point Fidget objected, “But what if the neighbors are mean?!” Dude, you’ve met them. They’re nice. And also? Your house is on fire in this situation, don’t worry if they aren’t your favorite people) They know to crawl because smoke rises. They know to leave from whatever window or door is closest. They know not to wait for us or worry about their stuff.

It’s not exactly how I thought I’d spend a chunk of time on Mother’s Day, but anything that helps keep these kids safe, right? Hopefully we’ll never need it but looking at the house fire was pretty scary.

And, not to worry, I quickly returned to my day of sloth after our little foray into fire safety. Then Sergeant Handsome made me some filet mignon for dinner. Laziness, carbs, and beef = my happy place.

A good day all around.

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