JAM-July Awareness Month....

The month of July has been full of random life lessons and new discoveries.... Here are some of the random things I have come to realize, learn, or unearth this past month.

Never buy value sized anything when you have small hands and are single.  Not only do I have kid size hands, they hold the strength of an 85 year old woman. Opening any sort of large jar or container is now a thing of the past for me. Somewhat of a bummer seeing that value sized generally is a better deal moneywise. We all know how I like to get the biggest bang for my buck.

There's another type of value sized/biggest bang for your buck when one is single, but that's an ENTIRELY different kind of blog post folks.

I was so proud of my biggest little for learning to pee in the woods last week. It's a right of passage that all kids must learn this at some point. Shoot, I grew up playing in the woods so it was imperative that I knew how to properly squat. That proud moment faded just slightly when we were playing outside in our front yard over the weekend with some of the neighborhood kids. I told Kaelyn to stop playing and go potty. Her reply- Sure Mom, which tree?!?

I guess I should explain that we only pee in the trees when public bathrooms are locked or we are on a wilderness adventure. Or if you happen to be playing in the woods with your friends and they are pretending to hold you hostage for your pickles. That last statement is pretty random.....but that did happen to me as kid. Pickles are the shit, so I don't blame my friends for wanting them.

I always thought it was so precious to see parents carry their kids to bed after they fell asleep in the car or on the couch. They NEVER seem to wake up, and the act of carrying them looks so graceful and effortless. Insert me- borderline midget Mom. If Leah falls asleep, I can easily transport her but once I get to the crib i'm not tall enough to gracefully lay her in there. This usually doesn't end well. I gently whisper "just tuck and roll sweetie" and hope for the best! Kidding, I don't really say that... I think it.

Kaelyn fell asleep on the sofa the other night and I attempted to carry her to bed. I'm only 5ft tall and she is probably only a foot and a half shorter than me. So instead of the effortless looking carry to bed, it looked like I was pretty much dragging a lifeless body down my hall. Her feet were almost touching the floor and I think I tripped over 3 things during my struggle walk to her room. I saw those items earlier, prior to bedtime, but in true parent form....didn't clean them up then. By the time I dumped (yes dumped, there was nothing effortless about this) her on the bed, I laid down next to her out of breath and pissed off for stubbing my toe. Grace and not in my vocab. Well it is, but only because that happens to be the Grems middle name!

Smokey Robinson- AKA- My soon to be lifeless Jeep has recently been smoking out of the exhaust. I know-I know, I need to get it to a mechanic. New motor....blah blah. In the meantime, the only perk is that nobody tailgates me anymore! If they do they get a nice plume of smoke when I take off from a stoplight. I'm like that mean friend in high school that would blow smoke in your face if you chose to not partake in smoking your parents old cigarettes that you would find outside. However, my best friend and I did smoke my moms half used cigarettes as teens...in the woods....where we had to squat to pee. Pretty sure doing that back then is the reason I don't smoke now. Gross.

Anyhoo- July awareness month has been really peachy so far.