"Smart Fish Swim in Schools"

That is the slogan for Swimtastic.

They are amazing!

My big fear for Samantha has always been drowning. While kidnapping, choking, running into the street are all things that I am careful of, drowning is where I step into the realm of paranoia. Mix in a child who loves water- but has no idea that she needs to hold her breath- we decided to splurge and signed her up for classes. She was the only one in her toddler swim class, so it ended up being private lessons!
She has become quite the little fish, spending more time below water than above it. Her teacher, Hannah, says she'll say, "Bye Miss Hannah!" and let go. When she pulls Samantha back up, her face will still be under water, looking at all the toys on the floor of the pool.

Bath time no longer involves toys.

All she wants are these.
I do realize that there are toys in the bathtub. They were tossed in but never played with.

Yes, they are more expensive than other places, but they are worth EVERY penny.

A Taste for Torture

Jer left for Spain today for 17 days.

Sam went from 2 hr naps to flat out refusing to nap. Yesterday.

Jer got a part-time job at the High School where I'll be working doing tech support 2 days before he left.

School starts in 11 days.

MY classes start here soon...I should probably figure out when exactly...

Jen is visiting for 2 weeks (SQUEE!!).

Sam will be doing trial runs at "day care" this week.

During my last shift at the restaurant I somehow managed to pick up 2 shifts the next two weeks.

And all I can think about is "Boy, I'd love to buy a house and have another baby..."

It's like I ENJOY torturing myself.

Quotes from this Morning

"Can Mommy help you with that?"

"No, I by SELF!"

"Are you ready to go bye bye?"
"No, I busy."

"Daddy isn't here."
"Oh, Daddy garden."
"No, Daddy went to ride his bike."

"Samantha, whatchya doing?"
"I poopy."

"Would you like some strawberries?
"Um, yes, I think so."

Did You Know

That coloring on a sliced apple with a dry-erase marker will cause it to stop working? Permanently???? No? Well, now you do. So when you give your child a dry erase marker, make sure all apples are out of reach.

My Two Cents

Although I've cut down our grocery bill from $120/week to $80/week (would be $60/week if it weren't for the darn packets) I've been waaaay busy and have gotten behind on my couponing. My goal is to get the bill down to $60 a week once the school year starts. That being said, a fantastic scenario fell into my lap today and I had to take advantage of it, busy or not!

So, here's how it rolled out:
Back in May I bought 40 Duracell batteries for roughly $18 from Staples. It was AFTER the purchase that I realized I would be getting a $20 store credit, not a mail in rebate. I was annoyed, as we never shop at Staples, but whatever. We needed the batteries and I figured we'd buy toner there when we needed it.

This past weekend I had seen some awesome items for sale at Staples but was annoyed that I hadn't received my rebate yet, as this would be the time to use them.

Fast forward to today, Staples sent me a $20 rewards coupon in the mail. Now, I have to really give kudos to Staples here. Apparently they'd already e-mailed me the coupons, but I hadn't redeemed them yet, so they sent me paper copies telling my they were about to expire!

After doing some quick math, I made a list of everything I could get without having to pay out of pocket (ie under $20), loaded up Samantha and headed to the store.

Now, can you pick out the error in that last sentence? No? It's the part where I loaded up Samantha. She could have stayed home with daddy, but I decided to get her out of the house. I need to remember that this is my hobby and doing such silly things as bringing my daughter along makes it stressful. Like giving me many false alarms so I'll race her to the bathroom, only to have her sit on the toilet with her hollering "No!....No!....No!"

She's not peeing, protesting, or even answering a question. She's just fascinated about her echo in the stalls.

Anyway, where was I?

So I loaded the following in the cart:

and the total was $20.02

That's right! My .02 really is worth something!

All along I was thinking this was only going to give me more store credit- but when I got home I realized that I'm actually going to get a rebate check for $13.98!

Summary: 40 batteries, 2 reams of paper, 2 paper hole punches, 4 highlighters, 2 dry-erase marker boards, 200 note cards, 5 RSVP pens for $4.04 out of pocket.

Lesson Learned: do not take child to Staples

What I Say vs What She Hears

"Samantha, don't take mommy's pen. That's rude." All pens are called "rude" now.

"Here, let me put a pin in your panties." Now she thinks panties are fair game to use her pen on.

Three Years of the 4th

'09

'10

'11
(Look how healthy Jeremy looks now!)