Moving On

So if you visit this site regularly, I apologize that posting here has been very light since the beginning of the year. With the start up of my milwaukeemoms.com blog, One of Each, it has become apparent to me that I possess neither the time nor the attention span to maintain two blogs simultaneously. So, most of my attention went to One of Each and La Casa de Sara was left untouched.

I felt badly about that, but again, I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep up with two blogs that dealt with essentially the same topics at the same time. I also felt like I had begun to outgrow La Casa de Sara. After all, much of the content of this blog deals with single parenthood, dating while raising a child, working outside the home, pregnancy, and childbirth. I have moved out of those parts of my life and into stay-at-home motherhood and raising children instead of bearing them.

At the same time, I was feeling a little stifled over at One of Each. That blog is posted on a site where several other blogs are published and I just didn't feel like I could express myself as freely as I wanted to. I want to make it clear that no one ever instructed me to edit my content or anything of the sort...it was purely my own perceptions and, maybe, paranoia that prompted me to feel that way. I wanted to be able to feel like I could say whatever I wanted to say whenever I wanted to say it on my blog, and unfortunately I just never felt very comfortable doing that on One of Each.

It became clear to me, then, that I needed to get back to one blog on a site over which I had control. And since I felt like I had outgrown La Casa de Sara, the only logical choice for me was to discontinue writing on La Casa de Sara and One of Each and start a new blog for myself. That blog, Diary of a Midwestern Housewife, has been started and can be found here:

http://www.diaryofamidwesternhousewife.com/

You will be able to access the content of La Casa de Sara and One of Each through links that I have posted on the side menu of Diary of a Midwestern Housewife.

I hope you will enjoy reading my new blog. I hope you visit often. Thank you, thank you, thank you for reading La Casa de Sara over the years. I hope you will follow my journey.

Sara

Happy Birthday Princess

Today is Grace's 6th birthday and I have a post written all about it over on my other blog at Milwaukeemoms.com. Here is the link to that post if you'd like to read it (and weep, because boy, I sure did while I was writing it):

http://www.milwaukeemoms.com/blogs/kitchentable/95021614.html

Ok, I'm not being lazy by not posting the entire entry here at La Casa de Sara. Really. We at Milwaukeemoms.com are trying to boost the traffic over at that site and so there you go...go read this post and any of the others that strike your fancy.

Happy birthday, little Gracie. Mama loves you so, so much.

PSA

Ok, yeah, yeah, I've let over two weeks elapse AGAIN between postings here on my poor, sad, neglected little personal blog. My other blog for milwaukeemoms.com has been the recipient of the lion's share of my creative juices lately, but it's paying off...I've been invited to appear on a local morning show here in Milwaukee this coming Friday to promote my blog a bit more and talk about some of the topics I have discussed on there. My biggest crisis about the whole thing is that I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO WEAR!

But that is not why I am here today. I am here today to tell you all one very important thing: It really IS essential that you floss. You're welcome.

I am not a fan of going to the dentist. I think I have discussed this here before, but just the thought of some masked person all up in my business and wielding needles, drills, and other scary pointy things makes me feel sick to my stomach. I just don't like people getting too close to my face and when you add that to the vulnerable feeling of lying flat while someone is working on my teeth above me, it's enough to make me not go to the dentist for a long time. In fact, since my most recent cleaning, I think it had probably been about five years since I had been to the dentist for a regular ol' checkup.

But OH! I would go in to see my friendly neighborhood dentist if something major happened, like a tooth breaking or major throbbing toothaches. And I took such good care of my teeth that why should I need to go in every six months for a cleaning? Why indeed?? Well, this is why...when I went in for my most recent cleaning, about a month ago, I had SEVEN cavities. Not one, not two, not five. SEVEN. So, over a series of four appointments, I have to get them all fixed, and without the benefit of nitrous oxide to get me through. (Ok, yeah, I could have done sedation dentistry and had all seven cavities filled at once while relaxing in a drug-induced stupor, but I'm both too cheap and too stupid to shell out the several hundred dollars for the procedure.) Oh yeah, and two of the cavities were so bad that they might still potentially need root canals. *shudder*

Here's the thing. I don't floss. I brush my teeth really, really well but I just don't floss. And my dentist, in his nice, friendly, non-pressuring way while he's elbow-deep in my mouth, has reminded me about eight thousand times that had I flossed, none of this decay would have taken place--all of my cavities are between teeth.

So, let my pain serve as a lesson to you. Floss, people. Do it. Last night as I was getting my third injection of anesthetic to numb my teeth, and after I went home so numb that I chewed the inside of my cheek till it bled, I wished that I had listened to my dentist all these years. Again, you're welcome.

Baby Bjorn

Harrison turned 14 months old today. Can you believe it, 'cause I can't.

And no, he's still not sleeping through the night. Whatever.

We were visiting some dear friends down in the Chicago area yesterday, and they remarked that Harrison, with his almost-white blonde hair, looks like his name should be Bjorn. It's nice to hear that, although Baby Bjorn has all of his daddy's facial features and looks like he will have his daddy's body type as well, some of his mommy's Norwegian genes made it through...And you will never, ever be able to convince me to cut that beautiful boy's hair.

Grace-isms

Out of Grace's mouth, within a span of about 10 minutes this afternoon:

Grace: (pulling me by the arm into the living room as I was cleaning up the kitchen) Mama, pretend you REALLY love it when me and Harrison make a mess. Because I have something to show you that you will LOVE...

Then, a few minutes later...

Grace: Mama, do you know how to do the "Hand Job"?

Me: *spits out coffee*

Grace: *blank stare*

Me: (recovering) I'm sorry...do I know how to do the what?

Grace: The "Hand Job"

Me: (cringing inwardly) What do you mean?

Grace: (demonstrates the Hand JIVE) See, this. We learned this in school.

Me: Oh, the Hand JIVE. Yes I do know how to do that.

Then we practiced saying "Hand JIVE" over and over again until I was sure Grace would never make that same mistake again.

Post-It Note Art

We found a long-lost stack of pink heart-shaped Post-It Notes in a box that I was going through this weekend, and Grace had a field day drawing little pictures on the notes. Today, as I was speeding around the house, cleaning up before my Monday got started, I picked up the pictures to throw them away (I mean, to put them in my treasure box to hold on to and, well, treasure for the rest of my days), but then I stopped to look at them a little closer. Two things became clear to me. One: Grace is a far better artist than I ever was as a young kid, let alone at age five. Two: Wow...Grace is a really good, even gifted, artist in general. Look at the detail on some of these. Bangs fall in front of the person's eyes in a few of them. Some of them have freckles. A couple of them have beauty marks. There are different hairstyles, different facial expressions...

I know every parent thinks their Little Picasso is the best, but I gotta say, I'm pretty darn impressed. I might hang on to these after all.

Wordless Wednesday: Our Trip to the Milwaukee Art Museum