My favorite smoothie shop Jamba Juice is not quite as prevalent in Atlanta as it was on the west coast. Thankfully they have a book that gives recipes for some fantastic smoothies. Jamba Juice Power doesn’t have a ton of recipes in it but the key thing is you can get the ratio of liquid/solid/frozen in order to get an absolutely delicious smoothie.

I’m trying hard to stick to this healthy eating and because sweets are something that I’m still unable to control myself on (I am proud to announce I’ve kicked my Nutella habit) I can’t keep them in the house. Smoothies are a good substitution for now though so I’ll be using my blender to hit my sweet tooth so I can to hopefully continue to shed these pounds (I’m down 8 pounds so far by the way!). Its actually good that I don’t have a Jamba too close to me- their new Green Tea Blast looks so good but is so bad calorie wise.

I’m happy to report that preschool is going very well now. During week 2 EBoy would have a bit of a meltdown about an hour before it was time to go home. The teachers asked me to work with him on it and I got some great tips about role play from reading the toddler book on Positive Discipline. I never would have thought of doing a role play exercise to help him practice how to respond to situations but it worked great. I’m typically not one for following any parenting books as law or anything but I must admit Positive Discipline has been very helpful for not just him but also for me. Learning not just ways to react to him but instead learning why he’s doing specific things and how they are connected to his physical, mental and social development is really making a huge difference. I’ll definitely be investing in the other books.

Eboy told me that he made his teacher laugh today. I asked him how and he said he told her the following knock knock joke:

“Knock Knock”
“Who’s there?”
“Peanut”
“Peanut who?”
“WATERMELON!”

Lots of wild giggling upon completion of joke. Hopefully he’ll explain his jokes to me somday but until then I can’t help but to laugh anyways because he’s just so proud of himself.

Picture done with cutouts:

Book all about EBoy:

I’m having an all new parenting issue- I think my HSP is going to make this Mom thing more difficult than I realized. EBoy has always been a bit of an alpha male. In our playgroups (much to my total mortification) he was the one who would push around the other children. We tried everything to get him to stop- time outs, removing from the situation, offering treats for good behavior, but finally realized he honestly thought the whole falling down thing was funny (if anyone pushes him even now he’ll typically laugh and crash to the ground). I spent the year from when he was about 18 months old on contantly worried that my child was never going to break out of this bullying behavior and I’d never be able to allow him to play anywhere with anyone. Well suffice it to say he’s finally gotten beyond that and is nice to play with.

Because EBoy has always been well liked even with his WWF ways- I had an especially hard time the other day when he was playing with some dear friends. These two girls(ages 4 and 6) I hold personally responsible for socializing my dear bully son. After their influence he learned to not only play well with other children but began to desire social interaction (we couldn’t pass by a playground with children without him begging to go play with the kids). This particular day they had a friend over to play (another 6 year old girl) I saw something I’ve never seen before- they wanted nothing to do with him. “Get away”, “bad boy”, “do I HAAAVE to play with him” were the phrases I repeatedly heard from my sweet girls mouths as they rolled their eyes. My heart was so hurt- why don’t they like my baby? What has happened?

So I spent the afternoon feeling that Mama bear urge well up inside of me. I can remember how bad not being included felt when I was a child (heck it hurts even now). I just wanted to grab him up and take him home so he’d never have to be exposed to such things. Then I realized a couple of things. First, he was completely and totally unphazed. No matter what they said to him it certainly wasn’t ruining his good time. Secondly, this behavior resonated so deeply with me and I couldn’t place my finger on why. I finally realized what the familiarity was- they were treating him exactly as I used to treat my pesky little brother. Since I do consider these friends to be a part of my extended family I realize I can’t be mad since honestly they were only acting as siblings tend to do.

I felt quite a bit of relief realizing that this situation was not as extreme as I originally thought but it opens up a whole new world in my eyes. One in which I have this child who will interact with other children that may or may not be kind to him. I am fiercely overprotective of those that I care about - I’ve always said if I were any animal I would be a lioness because though I appear sweet and gentle you don’t want to see me if you hurt someone I love. I’ve been actively learning about homeschooling in case he doesn’t respond well in a school environment (plus we won’t place him in any school but the local charter- if he isn’t admitted there the other public school is severely overpopulated and understaffed no way would I send him there) but now I’m wondering if I should just homeschool from the get go to try to save him from ever being hurt.

Its definitely not realistic to think that EBoy can make it through life without ever getting his feelings hurt but I sure wouldn’t mind if he got hurt less than I did as a child. I still remember the difficult transition I had from the German kindergarden to the American school in Texas. I’d come home from school and ask my mother why was the color of my skin so important in America while in Germany it had never even been brought up. I’ve always thought of raising my children in another country- first Europe and then I was enchanted with Trinidad just because race is not such a major obsession in other countries. But now I realize even without race in the equation kids will be kids.

Now I have even more appreciation and respect for all of you mothers out there with older children. Yes having babies is hard but to deal with real little personalities and outside influences has got to be one of the most difficult things to endure. I pray that I instill good values and confidence in my children so that the damage that others may try to inflict will hopefully bounce right off of them. If not Mama Bear might come out and that’s just not going to be pretty!

3. Lived in Baltimore, Maryland then Hartford, Connecticut then Frankfurt, Germany

I decided to look at how many states I’ve visited in my lifetime. I’m counting every state I’ve set foot in (a couple were just layovers for plane flights but I did step foot there!) so far I’ve visited 37 states (72%)

I guess you could say I’m very well traveled in the southern U.S. Although I’d love to someday say I’ve visited all the states in our lovely country I can’t lie I just don’t see how or why I’d wind up in most of them. The Dakotas? Montana? Randomly flying through there just doesn’t ever occur. I do have family in Wisconsin I’d like to visit someday. I also have a very sweet and wonderful friend in Idaho who I have to make a trip to see eventually. Oh and a cruise to Alaska is high on my list of things to do- its so cheap from Seattle we just never managed to get a trip together while we lived there.

EDad and I definitely share a passion for travelling. Our dream would be to someday have a business or jobs that would allow us to travel together as a family. The company he currently works for has lots of offices in Europe but American employees are unable to transfer at the present time. We certainly wouldn’t mind a position which would allow us to live in Europe for a few years. We would also love to volunteer with Geekcorps someday to assist in Africa.

I got the map from this site.

There is also a map for visited countries but I’ve visited so few countries (around 10 tops) that it would look really blank and boring.

How many states and countries have you visted?