Friday Confessional: A New Guilty Pleasure

Ok guys... I don't hate to admit this. 

I probably should but I have no shame.

I love it THAT MUCH!

I was laughing so hard the first time I watched it that I was LITERALLY crying.

Not the overstated "literally." The literal literally! 

You can tell a lot about someone by what they laugh at...I'm scared 

to know what that says about me!

Common Sense Doesn't Apply to Laundry Detergent Pods...apparently:

I was surprised the first time I saw this on the news: "Another child is hospitalized for ingesting pods and the parents are mad at Tide!"

"Tide left their product within reach of your child?" I thought as the camera crew followed the child's mother to the top of the washer and dryer where she had left the container. I couldn't believe these people were actually blaming Tide. Now I am not a Tide fanatic. I make my own detergent but I couldn't believe they were blaming the company for the fact that they left the dangerous product where a child could get it. I hoped this blame projecting was going to be an isolated event...

It hasn't been. 

Just last week I saw yet another set of parent's upset at Tide because their child got to the pods and ate them. Where did the child get them? Again from on top of the washer. They've been making dishwasher pod type things for years now (I do use those!) and I haven't heard of anyone blaming Cascade or Dawn for accidental ingestion. We know to keep those locked under the kitchen sink, but laundry detergent for some reason doesn't get the same consideration.

"But kids think they are candy," the media screams! Kids think pills are candy, which is why they stay tucked away in a locked cabinet! That's what keep out of reach of children MEANS!
(Besides, anyone with kids knows that just about everything will go in those mouths regardless of if it looks like candy or not! Except veggies...)

Now parents, we make mistakes. Maybe they were having a hectic day and just didn't put the pods up. We do little things like that. Except the scary part of being a parent is the fact that little mistakes like that can end up with a hospital trip or worse. I always get really sad when I hear stories like this. It's unfortunate and I completely feel for the family. They are mistakes and I know the guilt that comes from it. But I also get irritated when the parents blame anything other than themselves. 

Accepting responsibility for our mistakes is PARENTING 101!!

If I were to leave a knife on the counter and my child got a hold of it, no one would go and a tirade against Cutco! What would make the news is how much a of a negligent parent I was.

Again, the scary part of being a parent is when we make little mistakes like that! I put stuff down all the time I mean to put away later but when it comes to the dangerous stuff, when we leave anything within reach of children, that says on the box we shouldn't, we automatically accept the risks and consequences.

You shouldn't have to read a warning label to tell you to keep laundry detergent out of your child's reach. To add insult to injury it is there just in case you couldn't put two and two together.

While I didn't believe it was really their responsibility to make any changes, Tide has since changed the container so children can't see the pods inside and they are working on making a tougher latch.

But the ultimate responsibility lies in the hands of the parents who buy the products and bring them into their home. Plain and simple.

(Disclaimer: I am not trying to make anyone feel bad if they have experienced something like this. What I am addressing are those parents who want to blame someone else. I've had to call poison control before because my son ate some berries that I knew were there but failed to identify if they were poisonous or not. Thankfully he didn't eat enough of them to cause any side effects. One of those treat the symptom type scenarios. I felt so incredibly guilty and still do. Mistakes happen and when they do we as parents have to take responsibility for them.)

Will is 5: PART-y One

I love my son. He is amazing! And he is also FIVE!!! 

Originally my husband was told he would get to come home on this little guy's birthday,

but you know how those things in the Army most of the time sometimes go :)

So I took the kids to visit Nonni and Papa so he could be around more people he loves than 

just me. (I'm already boring and he is only celebrating his fifth birthday...yikes!)

So my mom took him to pick out a cake and this is what he wanted: Drum rrroolll please...

Yes your eyes are not deceiving you! That is a blue slug bug car cake COMPLETE with Han Solo Angry Bird and finally topped with star shaped candles. 

This is pretty much exactly how he decided he wanted his bedroom decorated :)

Love this kid!

Kayli Moment: Spider Edition!

I know I can't be alone when I admit I am afraid of spiders. It's the number one ranked phobia! Even over dying. Hey, if it was rational it wouldn't be a phobia.

Since I've been married I let Clayton do battle with the eight legged freaks but obviously he isn't always here to protect me. So I ge t to handle the nasties myself.

A couple nights ago, I walk into my bedroom ready to pass out after watching several episodes of "Army Wives." When I noticed a big spider in that spot where the ceiling and the wall meet. 

Spiders love that place! As a child I would always scan the perimeter of this spot because that's where I would always see them. Then I would scream bloody murder till my father killed it. 

But that night it was just me...

Unfortunately it had decided to bunker down above my husband's dresser, which doubles as our office desk...which means clutter. I knew that if I were to get the spider with the broom and miss, it would fall and it would hide rather well in that mess. So I got the bug repellent and doused him good. That way I knew if he got away before I could finish the job it would only be a matter of time... Muahahaha! Before I could grab the broom the sucker base jumped from the ceiling into the mess. 

A little voice from the back of my mind whispers, "Hey remember that show on Animal Planet where you learned that not all spiders can be killed by your awesome bug spray?" Crap...there is no way I would be sleeping until I confirmed the creep was dead. 

I began to jiggle things on the desk to scare the thing out of hiding. Finally I spotted him sitting on my wedding photo. Obviously, the right tool for where he now taunted me was not the broom. I knew it had to be a toilet paper in the hand scenario. I hate doing this. Usually I don't pick them up until I've gotten them good with a shoe or broom and I know they aren't going to jump up my arm. Bravely I nabbed him with perfect ninja like precision.

And all the people watching were like:

If people had been watching...

I breathed a sigh of relief...but wasn't completely settled. Something wasn't right. 

You see, I watched A LOT of Animal Planet growing up. And while I don't like being near them in person, I am fascinated by spider shows. Maybe I was hoping that the more I learned about them, the less fearful I would be. So far, not working...

I remembered what the spider looked like before I mashed him too a pulp... How I had known instantly he was a male... a BIG male. And if you know anything about spiders, you know how big this HAS to make the female. That's right folks. In the spider world the female is drastically more macho than the males. In fact after they've mated the female will usually eat the male. The only time I have ever seen male spiders in my house is before or after I find the female. And I hadn't found her yet. 

I just knew this wasn't over. I managed to sleep that night, of course having nightmares of being cast in Arachnophobia: The Sequel. I didn't find her the next night. But tonight I walked in ready to zonk on my bed and sure enough there she was. Ready for her revenge. I had killed her dinner mate and she wasn't about to let that stand. She wasn't even trying to hide! She knew how big she was and she wasn't shy about it. The bug spray was still by my bed side and I quickly grabbed it. She saw this and got scared and ran to hide in the groove of the open window. I soaked the window sill. I grabbed a flash light because I couldn't see if she was still there and sure enough she started to dart back into the room. But I was faster and quickly slammed the window right on top of her. 

I opened the window back up to confirm she was dead.

She wasn't. I grabbed my keys which as a nifty self defense stick attached too it. And with some totally awesome jedi moves, squished her. Now my window is closed again and I totally have the hebejebes! 

Now to try and sleep...wish me luck!

Third Anniversary:

It's our third anniversary of being in the Army!

Three years since our recruiter was like:

And we were all like:

And now my husband is all like:

And I'm all like:

And life goes on!

Motherhood: The Mess of Silence

All mother's want is some peace and quiet...

But all we are really getting...

Is a Nesquick explosion. What this picture doesn't show you is his clothes which were COVERED and our poor couch :)