Mr. Destructo is now a three year old and for the sake of my sanity, I'm hoping this means that he has left the "terrible two's" far behind.  (please don't burst my happy thought with the truth, thank you) I have to admit to noticing an increase in his "independence", meaning he yells a lot "I can do it BY MYSELF"!!!  One thing this relates to in particular is his wanting to pick out his own clothes.  Funny part about this is that my 6 year old princess still shows no signs of wanting to dress herself unless it is related to the comfort. In other words, if it pinches, hangs too low, rides up, scratches, digs or pulls, it's not going to be worn, ever.  Anyway...Mr. Destructo has decided that the best outfit to wear is a pair of "scratchy pants" and some kind of sports jersey. My job has now become trying to figure out how to keep one of the three jerseys that he has, clean.  This wouldn't be a terribly hard task if he didn't rotate through all of them most days.   This is how it works...we get him dressed in the morning;  OK who am I kidding, he gets dressed at some point during the day, usually after he is done running around naked (or if he is going to hang with his buddies, then he has to try to dress like them...) and then usually every hour or so, he makes a trip into his closet and pulls down 11 things until he finds the new "scratchy pants" and jersey he is going to wear.  I'm sure your all just dying to know what "scratchy pants" are...it's really any kind of sweat pant that feels slick and soft...aparently they even make great jammies...I guess  I should like his decision to sleep in them too, since this does eliminate a pair of jammie pants.???

       Color has no bearing on his choices for the day, and neither does what he has worn most recently; I know this should not matter to me either, but to be honest, I am a little worried about what the other mommies of preschoolers will be thinking this year.  I can picture it now, they will be dropping off their perfectly primped and put together little jean wearing angels and here will march in my oh so handsome but randomly dresses man.  I guess I can only hope he does not decide to wear his "just like Justin Beiber" clothes (thats another story for another day)  OK, I'll just tell  you a little bit about that...my kids love two of his songs, and so with each one, he has to go get the outfit that most closely resembles Justins.  This means a leather jacket for "Never say Never", and a military style shirt and a dog tag for "Baby"...nuff said.

     You know when kids wear batman costumes in public?  I kinda like that because you know for sure that the mom absultly did NOT go to the closet that moring and say "here honey, why don't you be batman today"???  The problem with my dudes clothing choices is that you would look and wonder what "what in the h#%$& was mom thinking when she picked out red and black sweats to go with a green and yellow baseball jersey"???

     Lucky for me, he is so deliciously yummy, with eyes that could stop a runaway train (AKA a raging mother)...and so, I will continue to let him dress himself; as a future football player, or an up and coming rock star because he loves it....hey, at least the tu-tu's are gone!

 Make sure to share your clothing stories under the comments below!  We loooove to laugh at you relate to you!

     Vacations are a glorious thing!  We save for months, plan for what feels like ages, and go on them, with high hopes, big dreams and chaos in tow!  Reality sets in usually within 23 min of a car ride in our world of "vacationing"....



     I'm sorry but I have to quickly detour and go back a few years "pre-child" to get the full pict.  I have so many great memories of places like, Florida, England, Israel, Mexico, ski trips, backpacking trips, Hawaii, and disneyland a 100 times over...Ya, now those are vacations....Now lets fast forward to recent history....vacations in the past few years more resemble a family of ten moving across country, ya know, by the time you pack strollers, porta cribs, back packs, costco size diaper boxes and 8 changes of closes per person per day!  And the term vacation, well lets just say I'm sad to report that staying on a cold, windy beach where the drive is within 3 hours because we can't make it any further, that is now vacation!

   I alway try to look at the positive though, so today I have come up with a list of why "vacations with babies and toddlers really are a great thing".  Please make sure to add to the list that I have started, we would love to know how much you love traveling with littles ones too!



My kids learn new vocabulary words...like "moron, and idiot" (in reference to people who drive white Cadillacs and swerve around cars lined up 13 deep on narrow forest roads!)  Ya, some guy just did that...I thought it was so cool that he was willing to risk all of our lives so that he could get there 3 min faster!  Moron!  Oops...said it again!

Gourmet food for every meal! Oh how I love Red Robin and Applebees for days on end!  Lets get real here, people don't like kids in any other restaurant and to try to enjoy a decent meal, means being in a decent restaurant, and we all know how fun that is with little ones!



Swimming, swimming and more swimming.  Now this in itself is actually a pretty fun event, but honestly paying $163 a night at a hotel so they can swim for countless hours and never want to leave to go do anything else, well that is crazy!  (Unless your a kid who thinks everything is free!)



Countless hours of rest and relaxation!  And by this I mean having to sit in a dark hotel room for two hours mid day trying to force naps, and turning lights out by 8:30 PM because the kids go to bed then.  It's so fun sitting in the dark staring out the window at the other adults out for an evening on the town, while you sit in silence so your kids don't wake up!



Coffee!  Ok so this is a great thing for real...hotel lobbies that have coffee on 24/7, now that is my kind of vacation!



Movies, movies and more movies.  I have to preface this one by saying that when I was young, we didn't  have to wear seat-belts and so mom and dad would throw us kids in the back of the wood paneled station wagon and cruse the 12 hours to Southern Cali with no problem.  Now, my children have to be strapped in car seats like nascar drivers and since they don't have the option of building tents while we drive, they get to watch more T.V. !   Here's the thing, cartoons can get on my nerves, but when I can only hear them? oh this is enough to drive me freakin crazy!  Especially the time they watched a cartoon with Roseanne Barr as the main "cow" character...I think I might have thrown that one out the window!



Money....lets face it, when it comes to vacationing, there is no way to put a "positive spin" on this one!  Does anyone else think that it is totally ludicrous (thank goodness for spell check!) that you have to practically refinance your home to take a family of 4 to a theme park, museum, water park, or zoo?  Seriously, do the people who run these places sit down and think "how can we get people to have to steal from their kids college fund in order to get them here??"  And all of that money just to have to leave within 2 hours because jr. peed his pants, sissy is cold, daddy is grumpy from lack of food and mommy was in charge of packing everything for everyone for the entire week with no freaking help from anyone because she is always in charge of everything no matter if she is at home or half way across the %&^*#@* country!!!!  (insert throat clearing and shirt adjustment here)



ok, so enough about my vacations...

Lets hear about yours!!!  

We will even give a set of 

"travel essential" 

Earth Monkey gear to a random commenter with a great addition to this post! 

Bring it home sisters!  (literally!)

So here is how it works.  Think of your best MOTY moment (please not the one that would make Child Protective Services show up at your doorstep!)  and post it in a comment below.  And don't forget to have your friends join in so we can laugh at them too!  We will pick the winner at the end of the week based on which one makes us pee our pants the most and you will get to pick out a set of your fav. Earth Monkey products!  Cool!

We hope this gives you a good laugh...if it does, please share us with your friends!  And please, leave your best advice (or really embarrassing story) in our comment box below, its not too late to help out a fellow EMM!



We wish you all a very safe and happy new year!!  Thank you all for a first great run...we look forward to a ton more fun!

NVAKATPGPMZE