The only reason to have kids is to create clone humans to take your place when you kick off.

Any other reason to breed pales in comparison to nature’s need to reproduce your genes. Unconditional love, feelings of worthiness, premature ejaculation, and one-upping your sister all fall into a distant 2nd place for reasons to spawn.

Patrick and I are raising our girls for us to each have our own Mini Me, as you can see in this photo I took this past weekend at Star Tours.

We’re successfully raising goofball, Star Wars-loving, Disney World-going nerds who will do pretty much anything for a laugh to replace us when we die.

You’re welcome, universe.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anna, claire, Disney World, hollywood studios, instagram, star tours, star wars, walker

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I don’t often brag about living in Florida. Except I’m lying. Going to the beach in December is pretty effing Awesome.

Just be glad I didn’t take a picture of the margarita I drank while the sun set over the Gulf.

I’m slightly jealous of everyone else’s cooler weather. And I’m definitely jealous of everyone else’s summer weather. But days like today are when I feel it’s appropriate to flaunt my state.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anna, beach, claire, florida, gulf of mexico, nolan, paige, photos, sunset, tampa

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

It’s too early to decorate for Santa’s birthday, but it’s not to early to start shopping for the short people in this house.

Considering we’re not so good at the whole “saving” thing, we have to start buying for that cheap bastard to get all of the credit in early November. It basically gives us up until January to pay our bills 2 months late in order to shower the small people with way too many presents that were supposed to have been dropped off by some strange Jolly Man who entered the house overnight through the dishwasher*.

*If you’re a house like ours in Florida without a chimney, Santa sneaks in through the dishwasher. 

We took a trip to our BRAND! NEW! TOYS R US! this weekend, and using our fancy iPhones, we created gift lists for the girls. Needless to say, they wanted everything to be scanned to their Gift List and a few things put in the basket to take home immediately.

See: Leaving a toy store without buying the kids at least one thing would be a death wish for the rest of your happy day. No amount of discipline or parenting skills will negate this fact. 

The tops wished-for items on my Claire’s Christmas List? Hello Kitty anything, makeup, jewelry-making kits, and Squinkies.

The quintessential girl’s girl, thanks to the DNA-influence of her two aunts.

The #1 wished-for items on my Anna’s Christmas List? Books.

I’m raising a 7-year-old nerd. 

Books are expensive, yo. They may only be $4-9 apiece, but when the kid reads no less than 8 books a week, it gets pricey. Don’t start to tell me about the fancy library with its fancy free books, because we here in the Lynchipoo house are lackadaisical at best when it comes to actually returning borrowed books.

See: The $54 late fee charge from July I just paid in October.

We’re considering giving the 7-year-old genius child in our house a Kindle for Christmas.

Are we crazy?

Anna may be the next Doogie Howser MD, but she’s still a 7-year-old kid with 7-year-old kid accountability standards. She loses things, she keeps random papers for posterity, she forgets to hand in late homework.

If she had a Kindle, would she lose it in less than a week? Can I trust her to take it to school so she can read there?

Why are we considering giving the girl-genius a Kindle? She can borrow library books on the Kindle FOR FREE that don’t have to actually be returned, thus saving us an estimated at least $54 in one month.

We’ll try it out with her when I get my first very own Kindle in two weeks.

I’m kind of nervous that she DOESN’T do well with it, because if she doesn’t we don’t have a back-up plan for what to do about all these future library fees.

Again, are we crazy? No really, I’m asking for serious.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 28 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: amazon, anna, christmas list, e reader, kindle, wish list

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

How many posts can I publish in a row that are just pictures of my kids? This makes 4 (unsponsored) posts in a row where the main idea of my story is pictures of my kids.

This is telling of something, but I’m not sure of what, unless it’s just of me being extra super lazy while I write elsewhere.

Or, maybe I’m just doing you a favor by giving you a post that you don’t have to read.

Consider these pictures exercise for your eyes and not your brain.

These are the nice things I do for you people.

You? Are welcome.

But seriously, how cute are my girls running with their tongues out?

Yes, I am asking.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anna, ariel, claire, costumes, epcot, halloween, photos, rosetta

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Is there a better face to capture? I mean…

You know I’m not referring to Anna’s (the smiley kid in the blue shirt) face, right? The look on Claire’s face is perfection.

And if you’re squeamish at the word “moist,” this video is not for you. Anna uses it freely. She’s obviously my favorite*.

*”Favorite” as in “favorite 7-year-old.” I’m not one of those moms who picks a favorite child that I admit.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anna, claire, halloween, pumpkin carving, video

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Other than the memory I have of my first child exiting my body through my love canal after 39 weeks of gestation those 7+ years ago, which could have totally been put there by Leo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt during one of our sex dreams, I know this kid is mine.

Some say she looks just like the man everyone is told is her father, so we’ll go with that.

I know she’s mine because she worked her own “Cake vs. Pie vs. Brownie” questionnaire on me yesterday. After I convinced her that she would like the apple pie I was making her try, she confessed she loved it. Any kid of mine is destined to have a sweet tooth.

Unless her name is Claire and then she’ll just look exactly like me but have completely opposite tastes in everything, including food.

But if her name is Anna, she’ll drool at the mention of chocolate and eat every last bite of dessert put in front of her.

My child.

Anna: “Mama, which would you choose: a brownie or apple pie?”

Me, simultaneously falling deeper in love with my child while debating the choice: “Oh wow. That’s pretty much the toughest question anyone has ever asked me. Is it a fresh brownie and who made the apple pie?”

Anna: “A warm fresh brownie with fudge on the top, fudge in the middle. OR, warm apple pie?”

Me: “You’re killing me, kid. Is there ice cream on top?”

Anna: “OF COURSE!”

Me: “I give up. This is the Sophie’s Choice of desserts.”

I guess I need to get us this pie shirt so we match.

Pie, Right?

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 7 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anna, cake vs. pie, pie vs. brownies, shirt

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

While I was putting the air pockets into my bra this morning, I began to reflect on exactly what I have to appreciate.

I appreciate the air pockets in my bra that lift and separate my relatively itty bitties, because at least I have boobies and I don’t have a cup size larger than my head.

I appreciate the dog who leaves poo nuggets in my living room every day, because at least she’s not shooting diarrhea out of her ass.

I appreciate my 5-year-old who spends over 15 minutes every morning crying at her dresser deciding which clothes she’s going to wear to school, because at least she’s not 14. Yet.

I appreciate my husband who forgets to load the dishwasher from the previous night’s dinner, because at least I have a husband who kisses me goodbye.

I appreciate my 7-year-old who begs for new books every day costing me upwards of $50 a month in reading material, because at least she’ll someday make enough money being a genius to put me in a nice old folks home.

I appreciate the tiny pimples popping up in and around my nose that are a result of blowing my nose for the last 4 days, because at least I have a nose.

image credits ME; unknown

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 16 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anna, appreciate, claire, grateful, michael jackson, patrick

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I’m currently having an argument with myself in my head. That’s totally normal, right? I know I’m a touch crazy-head, but admitting I’m arguing with myself is another level. At least I’m not admitting that I’m doing it out loud.

Should I? Or shouldn’t I talk about my daughter’s struggles with anxiety?

On one hand, you people, my friends, can give me advice on how I can help her through. On the other hand, this is her story and not mine to tell. Only, it is part of my story, because as her mother, I’m her outlet, her protector, her rock, her stabilizer, her guardian, her nearly everything. I am a part of her story as she is a part of mine.

I understand the feelings she’s having, and I have learned how to help her by knowing myself better. At the ER with my first anxiety attack at 9 years old, my parents were told to throw me in the pool if I had another one. As far as I know, they weren’t told to do anything else besides, “shock me out of it.”

Oh, the 80s, and your yuppie health care! So funny!

Yesterday, Anna had an anxiety attack after I put her to bed. She was upset that I was throwing away her school work.

It’s special to me.

I worked hard to do my best.

I can keep it in a box under my bed.

Knowing this would eventually be an issue with her, I got an accordion folder over the summer for which to save “important” school papers for her and her sister. I choose what gets saved and what doesn’t. Tests, quizzes, projects, stories, artwork all gets saved. Daily worksheets, homework pages, and 1/2 completed “busy work” gets trashed.

To her, this is tragic.

She wants to save everything she’s ever “worked hard” at accomplishing. I get that. I SO get that.

I’m 3 steps away from being on Hoarders myself.

I don’t want that for Anna. I don’t want her to be like me where hold on to a costume jewelry necklace I wore in 10th grade or shoes that are too uncomfortable to wear or a bag of pretzels that expired two years ago.

But that’s what I’m showing her, and I realize that. I’m showing her that keeping three TV sets that don’t work in the front living room is OK.

No, we don’t have flattened rat skeletons, ceiling-high piles of newspapers, or a special box for candy wrappers, but I can’t say that will never happen.

I’m not sure if Anna’s hoarding tendency and anxiety is a case of nature vs. nurture, but we’d make for one hell of a Dr Phil episode.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 22 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anna, anxiety, hoarding, OCD

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

I was happy to see Anna actually talking to the Assistant Principal outside in the pick-up line last week. She was talking and using words and responding by looking at him in the eyes. For her and her history of anxiety, it was a milestone. Talking to a person of authority without being prompted by anyone else is something we’ve been working to have her accomplish. It was pretty much a Snoopy Dance celebration.

When she got in the car, I asked her what she was talking about with the Asst Principal.

“He wanted me to read to him.”

Read to him? Out in the car pick-up line? With cars driving by and me just seconds from pulling up to pick her and her sister up?

Odd.

Of course, I wondered what and why he wanted her to read aloud.

“He asked me why I was reading Harry Potter.”

Anna is a 44 pounds soaking wet, 45″ tall in shoes, 7-year-old 2nd grader. She’s tiny. Just like her daddy, she’ll always be the smallest kid in her class. We’re just hoping the tiny gene also comes with the abnormally high metabolism gene and not the bushy eyebrows gene. I’m still in denial that I’ve already had to pluck an eyebrow hair from her eyelid that was sticking straight out of her face, waving at me with every blink. She’s still having flashbacks from my tweezer sneak attack.

If you were to see a teeny girl reading Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, you might take pause as well. I don’t at all blame the Asst Principal for asking her about the book. His job is to make sure his students are learning, and when he saw a kid her size reading something so big, he wanted to make sure she wasn’t in over her head.

“I read him a few sentences and he said I was a good reader.”

“A good reader,” is kind of an understatement. He doesn’t know my Anna. She’s a voracious reader. Her dream vacations are to go to Pittsburg to see a Penguins game and to visit the Library of Congress.

Anna finished The Chamber of Secrets Tuesday night. First thing Wednesday morning at school, she took the AR (Accelerated Reader) quiz for the book. She scored a 90% on the 20-question test.

I thought the book was a level 5.something (5th grade reading level), but today, we see that the book is a 6.7. My 7-year-old baby read and passed a test on a book meant for 6th graders.

As a “retired” teacher, I’m at a loss for what to do next with her. She’s not yet mature enough to read the 3rd Harry Potter book, but she can obviously read books on that reading level.

Maybe I’ll hand her the first Twilightbook to expose her to quality literature and teen sexuality before she’s 8.

Or if you have suggestions on books she should read, I’ll take them.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 42 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: anna, harry potter, reading

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh

Today is Anna’s birthday.

On July 4th, 2004, she made us look like teen parents.

She’s amazing and beautiful.

She totally kicks your kid’s ass in cuteness.

© Angie [A Whole Lot of Nothing] for A Whole Lot of Nothing • Your Favorite Blog, 2011. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 4th of july, anna, photos, seven

Feed enhanced by Better Feed from Ozh