The Latta Family

I sometimes brag.  It's a really unattractive quality, but sometimes I am really proud of my accomplishment and so I share it loudly with anyone who will listen.  However, I am starting to think that the Fates are sending me a message.  While I can be a "bit" of a block head . . . I believe I will listen to them. I have decided that the only way to satisfy the Fates, is with a public apology of my bragert ways, and where better to make such a declaration?  There is none.  So here is goes:  I am sorry for bragging that I've never lost a kid!!!  I'll try not to brag about that anymore. I bet you were expecting something better.  Maybe something like, I'm sorry for being so fashionable (y'all know that's not true- unless wearing khaki's with Sharpie that Alexa rubbed on me, is now in fashion?  yeah, I don't think so), or I'm sorry I'm such a fast runner! (hah! a 12 1/2 minute mile hardly counts as fast- unless y...

At Alexa's 1 year well visit, I asked her pediatrician if he could recommend a book to me on how to raise a strong willed child.  I told him, "I typically don't believe in psychology books.  My mother and her mother and her mother and her mother . . .  you get the picture, figured it out without all that psycho babble, but I think I need one with Alexa."  And he said, "I totally understand where you're coming from.  My wife and I thought we were great parents and thought all of our friends who were struggling just weren't good parents.  Then we had my daughter.  It turns out we weren't good parents, we had an easy kid!"  That man perfectly verbalized my life with my children.  When I had Andrew, I was fantastic parent who knew EVERYTHING.  It was all those other people who didn't know what the heck they were doing, if they would have just asked me I would have been able to solve all of their problems.  Then I had Alex...

Jeez, being a mother is hardwork!  You think it's so hard when they're an infant (it is) because you're running on lack of sleep and adjusting to horomones and how psychotically you love your children.  Then you think it's hard when they're toddlers (it is) because you're setting the foundation for the limits and rules within your family.  You think it's hard when they're pre-schoolers (it is) because you're teaching them how to act appropriately in society and sometimes realizing, you yourself aren't exactly a model to follow.  And then when they're kids, you think it's hard (it is) because you're teaching life lessons and how do you know how much to push them or ease up?  I feel like we've done a pretty decent job laying foundations with Andrew.  He's fairly well behaved, mannerful, polite, respectful, and even tempered.  But, we're in the middle of one of those monumental moments.  He's moved from t-ball to mach...

Now that Alexa is getting older and turning more into a kid than a baby, I see how she and Andrew interact as siblings and here's what I've noticed: there is NOTHING like a sibling to make a perfectly, calm, peaceful child, turn into a raging psycho in less than 1 second.  I don't remember turning my sister into a raging psyscho very often.  I did turn my brother into a raging psycho, easily, and joyfully.  So, Mom, you'll be happy to hear, karma has come back to me again.  In the past few months, Alexa and Andrew have discovered the joy of . . . aggravating each other, fighting with each other, and playing with each other (it goes in that order too).  Sometimes all Alexa has to do, is simply walk into a room and suddenly Andrew is screaming, "ALEXA!!!!  GET OUT!!!!  YOU'RE RUINING EVERYTHING!!!!"  However, sometimes all Andrew has to do is walk within a foot of Alexa and she's screaming, "EHH!  NO!  BACK UP!!"  I...

I decided that I wanted to put a curtain over a few of my bookshelves in my classroom.  I have not Pinterested all of the "junk" on my shelves and therefore it's not all color coordinated in awesome fabrics and scrap book paper.  Plus, sometimes they can get a little messy, and so I really just want them covered up.  I figured I would just get some cheap fabric, hem it up, and run a tension rod through them to hang them up.  I saw some fabric at Wal Mart in the clearance section that I liked pretty well, but after doing some "Back- to-School" classroom/library designing with my mother, I decided I would just get white flat sheets from Wal Mart, hem them up, and spray paint them.  Let me just tell ya, that turned out cooler than I thought!  It wasn't necessarily cheaper or easier, but way cooler!!!  Here's what I've got: I meant to take a picture before I started spray painting to show the taped off sections, but I forgot, so you get to s...

Life can be so extreme.  Like I am a completely amazing, genius one day and a completely ridiculously, attrociously, stupid, moron the next.  There's very rarely an in between.  For weeks, possibly months, Alexa has been locked in a food war with us.  It's part of toddler-hood I suppose.  Yesterday I realized that I am probably 75% of the problem though.  We ate dinner at a friend's house last night.  I didn't ask Lulu if she wanted the yogurt and spaghetti noodles- I was at a friend's house, I didn't want to be difficult.  I figured if she ate, she ate.  If she didn't, she didn't.  Well, low and behold, she ate all the yogurt, and even ate a few noodles!!  I was stunned!  It wasn't a big disagreement, there was no excessive sighing on my part, and no stomping and screaming, "No!" at me.  This is what a typical meal exchange sounds like.  I walk into the kitchen with Alexa and I stand at the ca...

Today Alexa is officially 2!!!  We celebrated at Lake Keowee with family and friends.  She was taking the day to act as an official 2 year old: temperamental, contrary, and demanding.  What did she eat today?  Mmm, tube of yogurt, Goldfish, gummies, Whoopie Pies, and ice cream and that's it.  (Jeez, I wish I hadn't thought of that, now I am embarrased and horrified by myself, what a load of crud I fed that kid!) Couldn't you just eat her up??! This is not the cutest picture I have of her, but it's a perfect picture.  You can see her curls, the two fingers she sucks, and Lovey that she always always always has with her.    So here's some things you should know about my girl: 1. She knows her mind.  If you aren't sure, read the post about her picking out the Tiny Trike of Terror 2. She's my helper and she's a good helper.  Andrew left his wet swim clothes in a big heap on the bathroom floor yesterday.  Alexa found the...