My daughter, the hypochondriac

I know I have seriously been slacking on the blog posts already. Things have been crazy on my end. And I also know that the next post was supposed to be a letter to my 16 year-old-self, but I'm not just prepared to write that one yet, so I'm taking this opportunity to tell you about my daughter's little secret. She's 3, going on 4, so I feel pretty comfortable about "outing her," as she can't read yet. Are you ready?

She's a hypochondriac.

She reminds me of this Shel Silverstein poem called Band Aids. It goes like this:

"I have a Band-Aid on my finger,One on my knee, and one on my nose,
One on my heel, and two on my shoulder,
Three on my elbow, and nine on my toes.
Two on my wrist, and one on my ankle,
One on my chin, and one on my thigh,
Four on my belly, and five on my bottom,
One on my forehead, and one on my eye.
One on my neck, and in case I might need em
I have a box of thirty-five more.
But oh! I do think it's sort of a pity
I don't have a cut or a sore!"

Let's count the ways Katelyn loses her cool about, well, everything. If you ask her if she is sick, she is. She wears slippers around the house because she doesn't want to get a "boo boo" on her feet. She saw a scrape on Jameson's finger and was totally convinced that she would get one too. If she even comes close to falling down outside, she wants to go back in. She saw a girl tonight with a cast on her leg when we went out for pizza, and the whole car ride home she was asking questions about it. "How did the girl break her leg?" "Will she be okay?" "What if I break my leg?" "I don't want to break my leg." "Why did she break her leg?" These questions were interrupted by long periods of silence, but you could still hear her brain ticking away, filling up with worries about this random girl's broken leg. She once thought there was something wrong with her finger because she discovered she could pull her cuticle back from her nail. She then went around asking everyone if their fingers "opened." If she has one of these horrible, debilitating booboos, she will refuse to wash it and will hold both her arms and legs out of the water when she's in the bathtub. Even as I type this she is sitting beside me with a doll that she says is at the doctor because he broke his leg and needs a band-aid.

My daughter is 3 years old and she already needs a placebo.

5 "hashtags" you should stop using

1.) #longhairdontcare - We don't care either.

2.) #hashtagssolongandspecificthatnoonewillevertaganythingelsewiththatsamehashtagagain - No one wants to give themselves a headache trying to figure out what the hell you're talking about. I applaud you if you read all of my example.

3.) Any hashtag on Facebook. Unless your Facebook is linked to your Twitter or the hashtag is on an Instagram picture, don't. It doesn't link to anything and it really has absolutely no meaning in the Facebook world..

4.) 75 hashtags on your selfie on Instagram. Example? #cute #gorgeous #browneyes #selfie #nofilter #bored #blueshirt #jeans #flipflops #summer #single #girl #picture #monday #2013 #instagram #followme #brownhair #nolife #impathetic #desperate #ihavenofriends ... Okay, so I got a little carried way.

5.) Hashtags with uncomfortable undertones and demeaning names - that you're calling yourself. - #fashionwhore #nailwhore #cloudporn #foodporn Food porn? That's disgusting.

Stop using these hashtags, people. The world will be a better place.

My 3 biggest fears

Three biggest fears. I could come up with a million. My head is like a constant reel of worries forever playing in my head, so how do I narrow them down to just three?! Well, I really tried and this is what I came up with..

1.) Like you had to ask? If you know me at all, you know I see those disgusting winged creatures who flutter around and stalk you outside as the little demons of the insect world. Yes, I'm talking about butterflies. Just thinking about them gives me the creeps. I was going to post pictures, but I changed my mind as soon as I started typing this post. No thank you. Anyway, I should also include moths in this category because they are equally disgusting. You never know where they are going. They're flipping crazy. Yuck.

2.) Fire. I am so terrified of it. I hate even using a lighter to light a candle. I have this irrational fear of my house catching on fire even though my house has never actually caught on fire. My whole fear of fire is actually pretty irrational.

3.) My third biggest fear is probably a toss up between heights and small spaces. These are pretty common, so I don't feel so weird about them. 

This list is pretty boring and predictable other than the first one, but aren't we all kind of afraid of the same things? Spiders, heights, death, etc... One fear that didn't make the list: people dressed up in full-bodied animal costumes (think Spongebob at King's Island, mascots at sporting events, and so on). Who are they trying to fool? That's creepy and every kid knows it.

Coming up next on the blog: A letter to my 16-year-old self.

QOTD: "We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." - Oscar Wilde

Family introductions

Now for some family introductions..

This is my husband, Christopher. We've been married for a little over 4 years. We met back in 2005 and have been together ever since. He's messy, I'm clean. He's carefree, I'm a worrying control freak. We balance each other out. But in the end, we're both old souls who like to stay home and watch Goosebumps on Friday nights.

We have 2 kids, Katelyn and Jameson.

Katelyn will be 4 next month. It's so hard to believe. She is growing up so fast. She has always been independent, but in the fall she will be going off to preschool and it makes me a little sad. Where does the time go? She's big on princesses, but I think she's a tomboy at heart. She climbs everything and is the most curious kid I have ever seen. (I'm told this means she will basically be a genius when she's older.)

Jameson is our little drama king of the family. He just turned 2 last month. He's your typical boy; his world revolves around cars, balls, and trains. Don't tell Christopher I told you this, but he can occasionally be found playing with one of his sister's Barbies. ;)

And we also have a dog, who Christopher refers to as the chupacabra. Her name is Peanut and we took her in about 5 years ago. Believe it or not, this is the best picture I could find of her. Isn't she charming?

So that's a little about our family. We're a hot mess most of the time, but we get by. Everyone's family is a little crazy, right?

As for the kids' challenge, today was Time to Read Tuesday, so we took a trip to the library. Have you ever taken your kids to the library? What a disaster. Quiet places are not meant for toddlers. That section for kids should have soundproof walls. Anyway, we got a pretty large stack of books thinking that they would last the week. No such luck. We read them all before bedtime - twice.

And here is some nail art I promised.

I learned how to do the flower mani from YoungWildNPolished. Go find her on Instagram and YouTube! White is Sinful Colors - Snow Me White, black is Sally Hansen - Black Heart, light pink is Essie - Fiji, and dark pink is Nina - Mariachi.

Coming up: tomorrow is What's Cooking Wednesday for the kids and 3 biggest fears for the blog.

QOTD: "I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we'll never know most of them. But even if we don't have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there." - Perks of Being a Wallflower

I'm back :)

Hey, everyone! As some of you might know, this isn't my first rodeo in the blogging world, but sometimes life takes over and things get put on the back burner. But I'm back! At first I didn't really know what I would write about, but I found a blog challenge that I decided to use to kick start this thing back up. The first post is just a little autobiography, so bear with me. I don't like reading paragraph after paragraph of someone's "about me" section, so I did a bulleted list instead. I'm also posting a few pictures of another challenge my kids and I have started. So here we go... :)

• My name is Emily and I'm 24 years old.
• I've been married to my husband, Christopher, for a little over 4 years.
• We have a (soon to be) 4-year-old daughter, Katelyn, and a 2-year-old son, Jameson.
• We also have an Australian cattle/Jack Russell terrier mix, Peanut.
• I am a stay-at-home mom and full-time student majoring in legal office administration.
• A few months ago I became a vegetarian and hope to one day make the jump to a vegan diet.
• I'm really passionate (or maybe it's opinionated?) about several topics.
• Two of those topics are politics and science.
• I'm addicted to nail polish and love learning new nail art (I'm sure there will be a few pictures of this randomly posted throughout the blog).
• I love coffee. A little too much maybe.
• I have 2 older brothers, Ryan and Kevin.

There is really a lot more I could write, but I feel like most of it will come up in my blog, so I'll hold off on the rest.

Now that we got that over with, my kids and I have been doing a weekly schedule to keep them busy through the summer and to give them something to look forward to. We just started Wednesday, but I didn't take pictures of all of them. I'll have to make a point to do that from here on out. :)

Wednesday was What's Cooking Wednesday and we made brownies.

Thursday was Thoughtful Thursday and Katelyn wrote letters and drew pictures for 2 people that she chose.

Friday was Somewhere Fun Friday. We went to the park and had a picnic.

Today was Make Something Monday. I already had the canvases painted, but I had never done anything with them, so we finished them up. Katelyn did the caterpillar handprints and butterfly footprint and Jameson did the bee footprints. He cried the whole time and thought the paint on his foot was "yuck."

Coming up: Tomorrow is Time to Read Tuesday and for the blog, I'll be doing family introductions. :)

Quote of the day: "Go into the world and do well. But more importantly, go into the world and do good." - Minor Myers, Jr.