I Am Back, Baby

May 5, 2008 / Dawn Kasal-Finley / 3 Comments

Well blogworld. I have surfaced from the vast deepness that is the end of the semester. I turned my last paper in today. I taught my last class of the semester today and now all I have to do is sit and relax for the next 3 1/2 months until the school madness starts again….

Reality: Peepers’ court date is next Tuesday–yes that is right only one week away. Then we will travel about 4-5 weeks after that. Holy shit. In about six weeks, I will be the mother of two. What have I gotten myself into? I am exciting and I can’t wait to post pics of our little Peepers. She is a beaut and I am so totally in love with her. Minnow talks about her being in Ethiopia and knows that Mommy is going to fly and get her. He knows where her room is, etc. I am not kidding myself by thinking for even one minute that he really understands what it means the he has a sister and she is going to live with us. But I am so very excited and cannot wait to meet her.

There is so much going on here this week I don’t know when I will see straight again. I am happy to say that most of my sickness is gone—praise antibiotics–and the only writing I have to do over the next 3 1/2 months is blogging. I am excited. I have some pics to post from Jazz Fest and from the last weekend with Minnow. So please humor my photo craziness…I am just using thumbnails as it would take entirely to long to resize them all…So just click on them and you will get to see the full picture.

At the Fest Need A Tie?

Just to clear up the rumors. Really?

Ponchos are back. Rain!!

BILLY JOEL! Breakfast of Champions!

Jackson Square.

Ketchup of lunch. So much faster.

I love bubbles. I love swinging.

I can blow bubbles. Look at me.

How cute am I?

Just because he is so darn cute. See why I can hardly punish him for anything!

Let Kids Be Kids

April 15, 2008 / Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

We went to story-time today at one of our local Borders stores. I am not a big fan of story time, because quite frankly my toddler cannot sit that long and he has the attention span equal to the life span of a gnat–about 33 seconds. So being in a confined space surrounded by shiny objects that do nothing but distract with a bunch of other highly distracted kids isn’t my idea of family fun. But to Minnow’s credit, he did a really good job. He flirted with another little girl in our mom’s group and looked at the book being read.

After story-time, the kids made a little bear. They colored, etc. Minnow was coloring (well not really coloring–he was drawing with a small golf pencil). He was standing next to a set of sisters and the girls mother was standing behind them commenting on their coloring. Her one daughter–I’d say she was about 3–was starting to color outside of the lines. The mother pointed to the color outside of the line and told her to watch what she was doing and then preceded to tell her to look at how good her sister was doing.

I felt really sorry for the little girl. The tone the mother used was not one of jest but of pure seriousness. Really, kids can’t color outside of the lines? Kids can’t work it out for themselves? Kids can’t explore and take risks? Kids can’t be creative? Do we really start to indoctrinate our kids that there are rules and lines in life that should not be crossed? I hope to let my son color outside of the lines–at this point I haven’t even really given him lines to draw in.

Let the child explore and try and color outside of the lines to test the waters. Let them stretch their wings and see what they hit.

How do you encourage your child to stretch their wings and color outside of the lines?

Please Make It Stop

April 7, 2008 / Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

I don’t think it is possible, but it doesn’t hurt to ask. I thought for sure we would make it through Minnow’s twos unscathed. We were beginning to see mini-tantrums starting at about 20 months or so–but they were really mild and he was super easily distracted. I have to say that overall we have been pretty fortunate as our little Minnow is an extremely happy child. He laughs lots and loves to have fun. He listened pretty well and was happy to do any suggested activity and also liked hanging out in his chair reading and watching the occasional tv show. He slept until 7:30 on most mornings and had a general sunny disposition. Have you noticed I started talking in the past tense?

Something happened on the morning of March 31, 2008. My cute little boy woke up a full inducted “terrible” two-year-old. I didn’t even get an invite to the induction ceremony that must have happened in the dark cover of night while the old parents were passed out and dreaming of peaceful days. Yeah–that is so totally a dream.

Minnow woke up on his second birthday a completely changed little boy. He has a fresh supply of endless energy that cannot ever be satisfied–except with hours playing outside–starting at 7 in the morning while everything is still covered in the thick morning dew. Did I mention that unless Minnow is in the bath or playing in the sink–he doesn’t like to be wet. He also doesn’t like anything on his hands–play-dough was a total bust.

He is quick with his frustration, as I should clearly understand his strange requests spoken in that foreign language that sounds like perfect English in his own head. He will stand at the back door and cry for what seems like an eternity until I let him go outside–where he will kindly let me push him on his swing for an hour or two. Because, I absolutely have nothing else to do.

He also has decided that he really doesn’t need any sleep and that daylight is not to be wasted. He woke up this morning at 4 am ready to go outside and play. He didn’t want to miss any sunlight. He waited for it. We had tried to transition him to a toddler bed–that so didn’t work and he so wasn’t ready. Bedtime shouldn’t take 4 hours. He is back in his crib, but he now knows what freedom is to be had. It certainly was nicer when he didn’t know freedom was an option.

I am hoping this stage of terrible–and let me clarify it isn’t terrible for him it is terrible for the parents–ends soon. All, I can say is Minnow is lucky that I love him beyond measure but also that he is absolutely the most beautiful/cute child and his smile melts everyone in his wake. Including me, the disciplinarian.

Oh Mama Spears What The Hell Were You Thinking?

January 11, 2008 / Dawn Kasal-Finley / Leave a comment

Okay, so I am a little bit behind in my celebrity gossip, but nonetheless I am no less disgusted by the actions of the senior spears lady. I have to admit that I don’t pay that much attention anymore to the popular media, because frankly I just don’t care who is dating who and who had plastic surgery and who the kids like more Mama Nicole or New Mama Katie. My life has gotten too busy and the media has really pissed me off lately with its absolute disregard for children involved in all of these things. It is bad enough that the paparazzo and reports hunt and stalk adult prey but when they start going after the children…I am done.

Well, I was the gym yesterday and picked up an US weekly (it was either that or Muscle Fitness or some Fishing magazine making list of magazines I hadn’t read yet). It was a couple weeks old, but it covered the Jamie-Lynn pregnancy and the selling by Mama Spears of the story to OK magazine for a cool 1 Million dollars. I don’t believe everything I read so I don’t know what the truth is behind the reality of it. By Mama Spears is Jamie-Lynn’s manager and her guardian. How in the hell could she think it was okay to sell her daughter out for money (which she gets a large percentage of)? I mean really. As parents we are suppose to protect our children and not use them. It is no wonder Brittany cut ties with her mom the money sucking leech. I know you can’t blame parents for everything children do–especially as children get older. But young Jamie-Lynn is still young enough that her mom and dad (where the hell is this guy?) bear some responsibility.

I can’t believe that a mom who loves her children would sell one out for a buck. It makes me sick.

Holiday Recap

January 2, 2008 / Dawn Kasal-Finley / 1 Comment

Well, the holidays are finally over. I am certainly happy for things to return to some semblance of normacy. Travelling is done and now we can just hang out and enjoy life again. Minnow was spoiled with 4 days of Christmas fun and now I am ready for him to settle back into our family routine. This year Christmas was much more fun with the little guy, but I know that it will only get better.

Minnow cleaned up at this first Christmas celebration with my bonus mom’s family. He got this really great chair and books, and ornaments, etc. It was really really great.

He was exhausted by the end of the evening.

The following day Minnow got to go ice skating with his uncles for the first time. My mom run’s an outdoor ice rink so we felt it was time to get Minnow out on the ice. He wasn’t really a big fan of the whole ice skating idea.

Christmas eve brought 2 celebrations and a lot of gifts and merriment.

Christmas day brought with it more fun. Minnow loved many of his presents but on Christmas morning the clear winner was the wagon…

We went to visit family the day after Christmas and Minnow had a lot of fun with his second cousins.

We spent our New Year’s up in Indiana at my brother’s house in Beverly Shores (on lake Michigan). We had a great and relaxing time. We played with our new Wii, Minnow played with his uncles and we even got some New Year’s Snow.