Dr. Emery L. Schultz

Okay, so I really wrote this blog a few days ago but I couldn't post it until now because I didn't want to give away my Mother-in-Law's big birthday surprise!  Now that the party is over I feel like it's okay if I give you a re-cap of a typical "stay at home mom" day. This should answer any of your questions as to why I have considered completing an accounting degree and strong-arming my husband into job sharing his career far away from Dora and Diego!

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6:55 AM:  "Mommy.....mommy...is it wake up time yet?  I think it is and I already woke Lu up too!"  Awesome.  You see, when you go to a job everyday you get to take a shower, get ready, eat breakfast (even if it's on the run), waltz into work, hang your jacket up, and THEN start your job.  When you stay at home your job wakes you up at 6:55. NO MERCY.*

Today's agenda is packed because it is the day before my adorable Mother-in-Law's (let's say) 40th birthday.  That probably doesn't mean much to many people, but it means something HUGE to me.  It means that I am about to get a good kick in the rear from the procrastination patrol because, truth be told, I have been ignoring my assigned portion of "operation gift for grandma" which is an incredibly organized effort to give her a sentimental present from all the little ones who follow her around like a pack of puppies because they know she's a sucker at Target.  Why did I ignore this seemingly small project?  Well, first of all, it's kind of assumptive of you to think it's a small project.  Second of all, it was because it involved mixing cement......and children....and me.  Okay okay, it was actually a GREAT idea!  Every grandchild was responsible for making grandma a very special stepping stone for her garden.  But I have one kid who is OCD and doesn't want to get his hands dirty, and another one who is barely aware that she has hands.  Translation: I was solely responsible for making grandma two very special stepping stones for her garden.

I'm telling you, I couldn't get Emery to press his little hand or foot into that wet cement for the life of me!  There was one "glimmer of hope" moment when I heard the door between the garage and the playroom open and saw his little bare foot standing right next to my hands as they worked diligently to create a meaningful mosaic that grandma would cherish for years to come (no pressure). 

Me:  "Emery...do you want to put your foot right here?"

Emery: "What do I get for doing that?"

Me: "What do you want?  You can have a jellybean"  (Sidenote:  I don't care how you feel about bribing kids. I'm not too proud to admit that jellybeans have bought me more than 5 minutes of sanity in my lifetime. I'll send you a trophy if you have a better idea and can manage to keep it to yourself.)

Emery: "No, I don't want to! Besides, I'm kind of cold out here."

Me: (looking up for the first time) "Emery!  Why are you naked??!!!"

Emery:  "My clothes are dirty! I want new ones!"

See, when I said my kid has OCD, that wasn't just for effect.  I was being very serious! I probably have the only kid in America who won't eat chocolate because it, "makes his teeth dirty."  I'm already checking out dental schools for him and imaging the mad amount of free whitening supplies I am going to get in about 20 years. Just the other night, for example, while having dinner at my husband's coworker's house he had a COMPLETE meltdown after dinner because we forgot to pack a toothbrush.  Thank the good Lord above that the hostess had a few extra lurking in her closet. Some kids have blankets and some have special toys.  Mine has his Wall-E power toothbrush.  I'd be more worried about it except it's obvious that Emery won't be needing to block out any dates in his 2021 calendar for the NBA draft so I'm not opposed to working on plan B starting now! Extrapolate that same level of personal hygiene awareness to his clothes and you can imagine how much laundry I do.

Back to my day: If mixing cement while watching two children wasn't enough to take my breath away, the threat of snow was looming over the city.  I could have swore this is what I heard the newscaster say:

 "A winter snow warning has been put into effect for  the Willamette Valley.  Expect snow beginning Wednesday night through Thursday afternoon. Do you hear me Jenny Schultz?  What I am telling you is that against your better judgment you need to get into the car NOW with both kids and brave the grocery store with everyone else who is panicking!  What if you can't get out of your subdivision tomorrow and you run out of pre-sliced apples and have to convince Emery that bananas are just as good (a losing battle)??  Are you ready for that level of armageddon?"

Heck no I'm not! Into the car we went. You already know how I feel about grocery shopping with my kids so I'll spare you that story.  Just know it involved Emery sitting on two loaves of bread and me trying to exchange them for unsmashed loaves while the manager was simultaneously restocking the shelf right next to me!  That took some serious acting skills and about two minutes of forgetting my morals....

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Regardless, now it's Thursday and the inch of snow is finally here.  You know what that means for me!  An hour of helping Emery get dressed for the snow followed by 10 minutes of him actually playing in it.  But hey, at least he has clothes on so that (I will accept) is a victory for today...

 

  Snow Day!

* I'm completely aware that working moms have it hard in an entirely different way!  Trust me, I was one for a long time! But instead of taking it as a personal attack maybe you can just relish in the fact that you have a few glorious minutes every day where you can go the bathroom in peace...

Bat-Cave ® Beats Construction Paper...

Okay, last redesign for awhile. The most recent one was driving me nuts....not really my style. I didn't want to bore you with the honest reason why I changed the look in the first place, but I'm low on material today so I'll give you the rundown: it was because of the birds.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock you know the new show "Portlandia" is all the rage. Well I was laughing right along with everyone else until they dedicated an entire 4 minute clip to people who think putting a bird on something is the very last precursor to opening your own successful Etsy shop.   After seeing that, I got a little paranoid about my simple little bird banner so I spent all of 20 minutes changing it.  But you know what?  I liked the birds.  Truth be told, the reason I had the little green and pink birds on my original blog was because it matched Luelle's nursery. I had just completed that room when I started my blog (she was 10 months old....timely, I know) and was feeling a sense of barely deserved accomplishment.  My in-laws had given her this insanely cute Pottery Barn bedding set (adorned with little birds happily sitting on branches) after they saw me drooling all over it one day at the store.  Of course, it wasn't the birds that drove me to that exact bedding set. It was the fact that this particular bedding had stripes of neon green calmed down with colors like "celery" and "rose petal."  You see, when we moved into this house, the room that is now the nursery was painted a neon green that dang near eradicated the need for an artificial lighting source! And after painting every last wall in my old house I was in no hurry to head to the Home Depot only to forget if I like eggshell or flat  paint all while trying to pocket some extra stir sticks.  So instead, I lazily planned an entire nursery around neon green walls and over a year later it finally looks like it was on purpose! It only took me 16 months of planning to save 3 hours of painting!  I'm a genius....I know!!

That was a little more long-winded than it needed to be - sorry.

So I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!  Luke and I aren't much for this holiday.  He gives me flowers and all....but I don't need the whole she-bang.  This year was going to be no different right up until Emery asked me, "Mom, what is Valentine's Day?" after watching 4 cartoons in a row that used the holiday as a background theme for teaching kids that biting won't win you friends on a playground.  Shoot!  Sometimes I forget that I am solely responsible for creating magical memories that will transcend any damage I've unknowingly done to my kid and keep him off the therapy couch for anything related to his childhood.  Naturally I spent the twenty minutes after his question combing my house for last minute craft supplies.  And when I say "comb" I should more clearly explain that short of a search and rescue squad I had to look in every drawer and closet in this house until I found pipe cleaners, construction paper, and glue sticks tucked way back in the garage underneath old wires that I will never use again but I am afraid to throw away just in case I find that 2 megapixel point-and-shoot circa 2001.  In any case, I got out my little plastic scissors and told Emery that we were going to decorate the dining room for a special dinner with daddy.  "What are you making for our special dinner?" he asked.  Rub in kid.....rub it in!  So you would be right if you guessed that I had Emery's attention for all of 2 paper hearts before he was back at his Bat-Cave ® leaving my broken construction paper dream behind him.  At this point I had committed to the project though and spent the next hour hanging paper hearts and crepe paper by myself to make good on my promise for a special Valentine's Day party.  When I was done it looked like the Dollar Store exploded pink, red, and purple. That's a home-run in my world!

I think Luke liked it when he got home and we were all waiting for him at the table.  And in true three year old fashion, Emery took all the credit like somehow he, Batman, and Robin had supervised my hard work and painstakingly stood by while I placed hearts uttering things like, "A little lower on that one...."

I bet some of you got jewelry.  I bet some of you got flowers. And I'm happy for you!  But I got something even better!  I got a little paper Valentine with a box of nerds that fit right into a tiny pre-perforated holder.  "I read somewhere you liked the kind that has candy inside, that those are what the cool kids give away?"  And that is why some people are just made for each other....

Put a Bird On It!

Hecho en Mexico

Does anyone know of a nice gift for an adorable little girl turning 3 that has at minimum 200 pieces? Preferably each piece would be critical for the toy to function properly so that if even one is lost it will result in a level 10 temper-tantrum and make it necessary for the dad to spend all day searching for something the size of a toothpick. I'm talking about a toy that will eventually reacquaint that same dad with every crevice of his couch only after leading him to discover what's been under his fridge, oven, and dishwasher. Does anyone know of anything like that? Because that is what I am going to get my brother's little girl for her birthday!

Let me back up....

This weekend was LuLu's first birthday party. Nothing big....a small family affair. Of course a small affair when both you and and your husband come from huge families translates into 25 adults in a standing-room-only kitchen that overlooks 7 little boys fighting over 4 trains while 3 little girls cry about who has what balloon. And smack dab in the center of it all is LuLu completely unaware that this entire spectacle is being painted as a party for her when in reality it's only purpose is to erase any sense of parental guilt that would be associated with acknowledging that a one year old has NO idea what their birthday is. Trust me. I tried to disregard the need for a big party this year. But 72 hours before the minuscule "grandparents only" dinner I planned, the intense feeling of motherly failure set in. Needless to say the next three days were a whirlwind of picking out streamers (that no one would notice), sending out invitations (that no one would read), and making a cake (that no one would eat.) So to those of you who thought I was kidding about shaping a Costco cake into a "1" - I wasn't. I'm no fool. This is diet season and even though everyone will "ooh and ahh" over a cake, no one is going near that thing unless it involves a photo opportunity! But the same guilt that had me sending out an Evite with only 3 days notice also had my gut wrenching at the thought of not making Lu's very first birthday cake myself. Of course by "myself" I mean having "Amber" supervise me while Betty Crocker and I relive the good old days when Cherry Chip cake reigned supreme and it counted as "baking" if you add two eggs and some vegetable oil to a mix and stirred.

Anyway, you know you have great families when you can pack a house on a Saturday night on very short notice. You also know that your twenties are a thing of the past when everyone around you has Saturday nights open. (Hmmm....how do I want to look at that one??) There was a perfect little crowd to sing Happy Birthday while Lu stared at her mini cake because, after all, she didn't want to eat a bite either. How was that even possible? My girl is a tank and she eats everything! Everything, that is, except my Cherry Chip masterpiece. Oh well. By this point all of the little cousins were wanting Lu to open her presents. Really what they wanted was to tear every last gift apart before Lu even set eyes on the giant pile of pink paper and glittery bows. But I'm so much wiser than I used to be....I now use this fact to my advantage! The best way to get presents opened fast and save everyone a big bore is to tell all the three year olds in the room that they can "help." 3 minutes.....done. Perfect. I kinda feel awkward for even allowing people to give my daughter presents when are already blessed in so many ways! But seeing as they all have good taste and it was mostly a pile of clothes I was able to let that fact slide for a few minutes. And just as I began to hold up the cutest pair of mini skinny jeans....I saw it.

No one else probably even noticed. But I did. I saw pink plastic vaguely in the shape of a barrel. I saw a grin on my brother's face and a glisten in his eye. And then in one quick swoop.....play...food...everywhere. 100 pieces of plastic play food to be exact. Ohhhhh......he had been waiting to do this for so long!!! With little cardboard boxes of cereal flying past tiny cans of corn my brother proudly shouted, "Everyone get some food! Play with it in this room. Play with it that room. Play with it all over the house!" Okay....Okay...I may have had this coming. Last year I bought his daughter the very same barrel of food along with a shopping cart for Christmas. It was an unassuming gift. My brother, however, likes to remind me that he spends every night picking up plastic french fries and miniature milk cartons that are all inscribed, "Hecho en Mexico." I keep telling him that at least it's better than China! Regardless, my gift was a gesture of love. His gift was a gesture of war. It's on Tim.....it's ON!

When in doubt.....distract with candy!

"Don't love it mom....."

I've Got My Eye on You, Valentine!

Well I was supposed to go to Bible study this morning but at the last minute Emery decided his digestive system wasn't in the mood. I don't think anyone needs any more details than that. You're welcome! In any case it left me some time to blog, but before I could get started I thought I would jazz it up a little with a new design. I have a confession to make. I really don't enjoy designing things for myself, but every once in awhile I just get sick of looking at the same thing. You would think that because design is my profession I would be all over trying to make this blog my calling card. But like a landscaper with weeds in his own yard, when I am all done with my real work the last thing I want to do is another few hours for fun. So instead, all you will ever get from me is a few 20-minute spruce ups here or there and I am going to consider that a victory!

On to more important things.....Yey for it being February! I don't know why I love this month so much. I think it stems back to childhood when we had those special Valentine's Day parties in school before parents went all crazy PC and gluten free. Remember when you got to make a little mailbox for your desk or when your parents took you to the store to pick out the perfect box of "insert cartoon here" valentines? The cool kids always gave away those lifesaver ones or the kind you could poke a sucker through. Not me though. I just got the plain old square ones with the perforated edges and flimsy envelopes. Wait a minute, I don't think it was really as stress free as I initially remembered it being now that I'm forcing a mental trip back. I totally forgot that just a very few (maybe 3) of those little squares were more rectangle shaped and slightly bigger than the others. Holy social pressure for an 8 year old!! Do you give your crush hoping he'll grasp the subtle enormity of your romantic gesture, or play it safe and give it to a friend knowing you may never ever experience 3rd grade love? And why did the creep in the corner give me a big one?! That can't be good! Furthermore, I think someone needs to intervene with the writers of those cards and explain that, "I've got my eye on you, Valentine" is not really a great written sentiment. Aside from the fact it's not possible that there was ever 8 people I wanted to say that to in my class, it's really just stalker creepy from the get-go.

Okay, scratch that. It wasn't Valentine's day that made me love February. I don't know what it was. Maybe it was just because that meant January was over and I think you all know how I feel about January. Looking back, God must have been on my side during my last pregnancy because as much as I wanted to wish away every single day minute second of being overdue with Luelle, it was all worth it when she was born on February 1st instead of January 29th like we had originally expected. I checked into the hospital on the 31st around 6:00 pm and remember staring at that clock willing myself to make it six more hours so she could have a February birthday. Truthfully, that's not how it happened. I mean I did check in at 6:00, but willing myself to do anything has never been successful and Lu, in reality, picked her own birthday. For example, I also willed myself not to gain more than 20 pounds during pregnancy. Without going into too many details let's just say that was about as successful as the time I thought I could do a level 3 Jillian Michaels video on my first try because I "used to be in shape" and I was sure that there was no way possible any of my endurance had left me after an extended cardio hiatus. Apparently working out 2 years ago doesn't do much for you now. Who knew?

Speaking of loosing baby weight, while I was pregnant I was positive that my postnatal diet was going to start the very second that little girl joined us in the real world. Well that was an epic failure too!! Not only did I spend more time looking at the hospital menu than my own daughter in the first 5 minutes after her birth, but I ordered a hamburger and fries like it was today's Fresh Catch and at any moment a white gloved waiter was going to walk in and say "I'm sorry ma'am, the hamburger is no longer available this evening." I don't think (unless you've experienced it first hand) that you can even begin to contemplate what that first food tastes like after having a baby. At that very moment I would have bet all my money that Bobby Flay was having a Throw-Down in the Providence Cafeteria and I was the lucky chosen recipient of his gourmet entree.

Why can I not write without going on a tangent? What I was trying to get to is that this is LuLu's birthday week and we have a little party planned for her that I am trying to throw together very quickly. Being a second child, she's not going to have the grand bash that her brother did before her. Really the guest list just includes enough faces to fill in the background of some 1st birthday pictures so I have something to send to the yearbook her Senior year. It was originally even a smaller party than that before "Amber" was dang near appalled and at least convinced me to try and make a cake. So that's what's on my schedule for tomorrow. Well truthfully....by "make a cake" I mean buy a Costco cake, shape it into a "1" and refrost it before anyone is the wiser. Eat your heart out Pamela Susan... :)


Have a great day!!

The crazy-eyed Birthday Girl!