Here it is, once again in all it’s glory.  This weekend we cleaned, staged and de-personalized to yet again try to convince someone to buy our house.  It’s sadly stark to see the cheap, generic art deco that has replaced our family pictures.  No one will ever know who we are by walking our halls. Just try to guess our race, creed or religion!  Bwa ha ha ha!

See those counter tops? Yeah baby.  I want to lay my naked body on that cold stone.  Too much? I don’t care.  I’ve waited a long time for granite.

We have upgraded the counter tops, the floors have been refinished.  The house is going back on the market!  It hasn’t all been rosy with the house selling so we’re anxious to get this done.  We took it off the market during the holidays because no one buys a house at Christmas, except for all the people who told us they sold their house on freakin’ December 23.  (Shut up.)

So here is our house that  I’m so anxious to sell, yet will cry when I leave.  This is where we loved and lived and it would be perfect for someone else.  If you are in the market for an adorable town home in Raleigh, NC with new granite, hard wood floors and a first floor master bedroom, then I have the place for you!  But, you better appreciate the granite!

Dear Daughter,

Your addiction has effected me negatively in the following ways:

• You can’t sit down to a meal at our home or go to a restaurant without getting a fix.  We as a family should be able to dine together without you having to have a drink every time.  
• When you drink you act differently, most often a hyper sugar high, followed by a tear filled-crash.
• I can no longer watch you fumble and get frustrated with the plastic straw in the carton.
• I have seen you scream and throw your carton on the Barnes & Noble train table, splashing your drink all over the Thomas the Tank Engine.
• I find cartons in your car seat and by your high chair.
• Your addiction makes me feel like I am failing you as a mother if I don’t give you what you want.
• If you don’t get a drink you throw a fit and cry until you do.  As your mother, I can no longer listen to your wails for “chokate milk!”

I am here today asking you to get help.   I will no longer be an enabler.  I will not be the person who fuels your addiction any more.  I can’t stand by and watch you douse Thomas & Friends in a sugar-fueled rage.  I no longer will let you pick a carton from the Starbucks cooler thinking it is “just this once.”  I now know that Ovaltine is not any better, it just made me feel better to give it to you because it had “vitamins.”

Sometimes I blame myself because I breast fed you for a year and I have to think the only thing as delicious as my milk is chocolate milk.

Please accept the gift of help we are offering you today.  We are now a “dry” home, free of sugar laced milk.  You will now only drink plain milk and water.  I know sometimes they give you juice at school and I can live with that, but we will no longer have chocolate milk in our house.

I love you and I want what is best for your teeth and our sanity as a family.

Love,

Mama

P.S. If this is ever really for drugs and not a tongue-in-cheek blog post, I will drag your butt to rehab.  If you refuse, I will send you to jail because I’m not putting up with that crap.  Consider chocolate milk your warning.

I don’t know what it is about Southerners, but it seems we like to put our initials on everything.  If there is enough room for a monogram, then by God, stitch and/or screen print it somewhere.  Ya’ll don’t hang your towels without your name on ’em, you gotta let everyone know they’re yours!

No surprise that when I had a baby I put her name on anything I could.  We worked hard to find the perfect name for her, so we were going to make sure “Charlotte Eva” was on every blanket, piece of decorative wall art, picture frame and sippy cup she owned.

So when I found Luna B. Tee I did the little squeal I do when I land on an Internet site selling products I adore.  This company is based out of Knoxville, Tennessee.  The south naturally, because they specialize in personalized children’s clothing and everything monogrammed.

Luna B. Tee sent me their Original Tee for Charlotte.  She loved it!  The Original Tee has the child’s first name initial with their first name all around the circle.  After we told her what it said she kept saying “C for Chalette!”  Even in North Carolina it has been chilly this February so I paired it with a hot pink undershirt to go with the pink/hot pink design they sent me.  She rocked it with the skinny jeans, furry boots and pigtails for school this week.

As two-year-old’s do, she came home with a bunch of stuff on her new shirt.  I put a little stain remover spray on it.  Voila!  No stains.  This shirt is seriously soft too.  It’s thick and high quality.  I have washed it twice and it has not shrunk up or gotten all misshapen the way a lot of kids clothes do.

This weekend we paired it with navy and hot pink leggings and a jean skirt.  Please excuse the blurry cell phone action shot of us in a restaurant.

After her nap, Charlotte decided a shirt this fantastic didn’t need pants.  She just rocked her snow boots with it.  These boots have only been necessary twice this year.  We got about an inch each time.  Okay, so in the South we do monograms and overreact to snow.  That is what we do.

You can show off your kid’s awesome name too with The Original!  Luna B. Tee is giving one away to a lucky Somebody’s Parents reader!  Get one for your kid, a present, whatever.  Entering is so easy and you don’t have to put on pants to win it, right Charlotte?!

1. Leave a comment here telling me which color you would like, and what name you would choose.
2. “Like” Luna B. Tee on Facebook.
3. Follow Luna B. Tee on Twitter.
4. Do the same for me here and here.
5. If you Tweet about the giveaway or share it on Facebook you get another entry.

That’s it!  I’ll pick a winner next week.  I promise you’ll see a ton of gift ideas for friends and family on the site too.  Luna B. Tee is offering Somebody’s Parents readers a 10% discount with the Coupon Code #Some10.

Disclaimer:  Luna B. Tee sent me a totally cute t-shirt.  My opinions, however, are totally free and totally honest.

#@&*!  I have the worst #$&^*#$ head cold I have ever had in my entire %&#$*&@ life.  Ahh!

Why all the cursing?  Well, one for thing I feel terrible and I can’t breathe through my nose.  But, really I’m cussing up a storm because it’s Fat Tuesday.  I need to get it out of my system.  For Lent I’m giving up cuss words.  Yep, our darling girl is getting into the repeating phase.  Greyson and I mean well, but we let the foul language fly on many an occasion.  In his mind, what else is he supposed to say when a running back fumbles the ball?

I give you a football watching quote from my better half: “You #$&^*#$,  %*&&^, hold on to the God #@*&#$ ball!

Pretty bad, huh?  Yeah, I’m not much better when my Internet connection is slow or I drop an armload of something I should have taken in two trips. You get the idea.

It’s not just the repeating.  Charlotte is also saying “Was dat?” to everything she sees and “Was dat?” whenever we say a new word she doesn’t recognize.  I imagine phrases like the ones above would be repeated eagerly followed by a “Was dat?”

I thought about a swear jar where we have to put in money every time we say a cuss word, but that $%*# is expensive.  So, I figure a good start would be this solemn six week observance.  We’re not Catholic, but I figure the Holy Father would approve.

$%*&!  That’s right!  The Pope quit!  ::sigh::  I guess we’ll do it anyway.  That way maybe our kid won’t have a mouth so foul it needs to be stuffed with King Cake.

This was the year that I fell in love with Valentine’s Day.  That’s me circa 1989 in my 3rd grade yearbook.  Well, I guess it would have been 1990 by February.  Don’t hate on my awesomeness.  I couldn’t help it that I was so cool.  I mean, I  just had my ears pierced.  Thankfully I grew into those teeth.

My classmates and I stapled together two paper plates and taped them to the front of our desks to make little mailboxes.  I thought mine turned out pretty good with my name in marker and pink and red hearts.  To the envy of my girlfriends I added an extra flair with polka-dots.

The rule was you had to bring a valentine for everyone in the class.  We counted up our little cards.  Many had the smiling faces of Scooby Doo or Ghostbusters.  The kid with the lollipops attached to his cards got extra kudos from the 3rd grade crowd.  My friend Erica brought the house down with New Kids On The Block valentines.  I mean, they had a song called “Valentine Girl.”  It was only fitting.

I found an extra card between my paper plates.  I was delighted to open a Garfield valentine.  When I turned it over my stomach did this flutter thing I hadn’t felt before.  The card wasn’t signed.  It had nothing but a heart drawn in pencil with an arrow through it.  There were a few eraser marks, as if someone had taken great care drawing it.  I double checked the name on the envelope.  Yep, it was my name.

I looked around before asking my teacher, Miss Crabtree, to find out who was the admirer with the Garfield valentines.  When Miss Crabree held up my card and asked who gave them out, Josh looked sheepish and said, “I did.”  He caught my eye and we smiled.  I looked away and my stomach did that thing again.

Josh was the cutest boy in the class and he sent ME a secret admirer valentine.  My little life at that moment was complete.  Little did I know, that card would start an on and off again elementary school love affair that would continue for the rest of third grade.

I got that same flutter when my husband gave me a Godiva satin heart on Valentine’s Day 2004 when we were dating.  He promised to fill it up with truffles every year for the rest of our lives.

I made these valentines for Charlotte’s class celebration this week.  This is the first Valentine’s exchange she has ever done.  I hope the start of this little tradition in her childhood one day leads to paper plate mailboxes and pencil-drawn hearts from admirers.