My Review of Trevco Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Amp Energy Uniform Driver Suit Kids' (4-10)

Originally submitted at NASCAR

Gear up for the races with this officially licensed NASCAR® uniform driver suit from Trevco®. The 100% polyester one-piece uniform boasts a VELCRO® brand back closure as well as elastic cuffs at the wrists and ankles for a proper fit. The costume is roomy enough to be worn over cloth...

Trevco Dale Earnhardt, Jr. Amp Energy Uniform Driver Suit Kids' (4-10)

Great gift

By Home For My Kids from Pennsylvania on 12/26/2010

 

5out of 5

Fit: Feels true to size

Pros: Authentic Look, Shows Off Team Pride, Durable

Best Uses: Anytime

Describe Yourself: Die Hard Race Fan

I got this for my son for Christmas since his sisters both have dress-up clothes and he needed something that wasn't pink. He put it on Christmas morning and hasn't taken it off yet. He wears a size 7/8 and I an see there will still be lots of time to wear this before he grows out of it.The hat is a nice quality-not what you would expect as part of a costume.

(legalese)

Undercover?

I read an article yesterday on Today.com entitled "Undercover working mother: I dress like a SAHM for the doctor." It is about a working mom who feels that she needs to dress like a stay-at-home mom in order to be taken seriously as a caring mother. I feel her pain a little bit, although I don't think this article was well received from some of the comments posted. When stay-at-home moms and working mothers clash it can be compared to a political demonstration between republicans and democrats, a group of second graders on the playground with boys against girls, or a pack of lions going in for the kill on a herd of antelope.....you get the point. I once thought there was a clear cut line down the middle. You either juggled a career (or at least a job) and family life, or you gave your all to the family. But, now that I have crossed that line, I feel as if I don't belong in either group. You see, I went from working mother to stay-at-home mom. If it had been reversed, I would receive sympathy. "Oh, you poor thing....how are you coping after going to work and leaving the kids? Is there anything I can do to help?" Instead, the reaction I received was "You're staying home now? When you already have one in school, and another almost ready for Kindergarten?"  My answer is yes. Yes, I paid for daycare for 6 years. Yes, the last year I was paying for three children in daycare-even having to split them up because my provider was uneasy at the thought of having all three. (In great respect to her, let me explain. She had a private daycare in her home where she raised her son as a single mom. If I were to pull my three kids out, she would instantly lose nearly half her income. I understood and the time my kids had with her was invaluable. She loves them still and we keep in touch) I want to say that I learned to balance work and family life, but I hadn't learned it at all. I was forced to carry on. Using every available moment to learn about my kids and let them get acquainted with me since they were spending 50 hours a week away from me. I gave up my career and decided I wanted to be the person raising my kids and I was willing to sacrifice for that. I am somewhere in limbo between the two groups of moms out there. It has been 17 months and 4 days since I left my job and I still have that panic on Sunday nights when I wonder if I washed my pantyhose. I still have trouble saying that I don't work. Marking homemaker on questionnaires continues to be quite foreign. I feel guilty when I say I have a hectic schedule because I remember what it was like to do all that I do and still work a full-time job. I have a weird feeling each month when I pay my student loan because I am not using my degree, and I am using my husband's paycheck to make the payment. Then, I will be home with two sick kids trying to figure out how to get one of them to the doctor and the third one to school without dragging them all out in the cold. My husband will get called into work suddenly, changing our plans for the next week. I often wonder if I made the right choice.The truth is, that is a question that will never give a definitive answer.
       Today I will bundle up my youngest and pick my kids up at school. With snowflakes in the air, they will take turns telling me about their day while it is fresh in their minds. We will come home together while it is still daylight and I will have time to fix something other than chicken nuggets and french fries for supper. This is who I am right now, and I feel like I am at the peak of responsibilities. I was a working woman, then a working mother. I am now a full-time mom. Later, I will be a working mother again I'm sure, and finally I will be a working woman again. It is all a cycle. Some of us just don't draw perfect circles. We color outside the lines.......with our kids :)

Birthday Cakes

I don't know why I do it. Something inside me just says I have to. My poor husband has to deal with me having tantrums, putting myself down, and finally bursting into tears. What is causing this emotional trauma? Birthday cakes. Seriously. I have this primal need to make my kids birthday cakes every year. "So what," you may think. However, I don't just make a round cake with icing. I have tried to do such things as John Deer tractors, Care Bears, Strawberry Shortcake, Gravedigger (a monster truck), and a giant flower. In fact, the last two years, I have dabbled in candy making to incorporate ideas onto the cakes. I want perfection, but of course I don't get it. I always receive wonderful compliments from the family and friends on the taste and design of the cakes, but I am very self-critical about all of them. My girls' birthdays are 11 days apart. They are 5 years different in age, but right now at ages 3 and 8, they can still share a party and a cake. Thank goodness. Then there is my son, who seems to think he needs to have monster trucks every year, and then I have to talk him out of it and do something else.

        Each year seems to pose new troubles to overcome. One year I had a Care Bear shaped pan. I do have some artistic ability, so I thought "no problem!" Maybe not on paper, but frosting is a whole different ball game. Then there was the year I did the John Deer tractor. Two words haunted me for days: black icing. I figured it out, but let me just say there should be a disclaimer on black icing about what happens to bodily waste after eating cake that has been iced with black icing. I'm sure more than one person had a panic attack in the bathroom the next day. My favorite cake so far has been the butterfly cake I did for my girls' last year. They turned 2 and 7 and it was their first birthday party in our new house. I wanted it to be special. I googled for images and ideas and ended up doing my own thing. It was the first year I worked with candy-I free handed 3-d butterflies. I don't think I can ever top it.


Another problem that always rears it's ugly head is the amount of cake I need to make. My husband and I both have large extended families and they all love our kids and try to come to the parties. So we have anywhere from 40 to 60 people. That's a lot of cake. And since my kids were all born in the fall, we have partied inside. I am grateful we don't live in our single-wide trailer anymore. I used to fear that the house would tip over with everyone in it! I usually make three cakes. I have a big double rectangular pan from Wilton, and sometimes I make the third mix into cupcakes. I also very often make cakes from scratch. This year for the girls, I made a chocolate cake from scratch and used two white mixes and separated and used food coloring to make it look like a rainbow, then added candy ponies around the edge.



I have one more birthday to go this year. My son was born on New Year's Eve six years ago. This year he wants a Toy Story cake. hhhmmmm.....time to Google that idea!

We're not rednecks

My husband wore a NASCAR shirt each time I gave birth. That doesn't make us rednecks, does it? We have all our front teeth, we don't smoke or drink, we both were in the national honor society in high school, we don't live in a trailer with the tires still on it, and we can hold our own in a nice restaurant. Unfortunately anybody interested in NASCAR or any type of auto racing seems to be put into a category by outsiders-and it's not a flattering one. Not to say that there is not some truth to this stereotyping. We have been to two races at Watkins Glen International Raceway, and we have seen the proof. Men and women......no, males and females, with their bodies barely covered, hooting and hollering, stumbling with a beer in their hands, toting kids by leashes. The only clean thing on them is usually the beer cooler-which looks like it is their pride and joy. At one race, there was actually someone so drunk, he vomited all over, then stood up and kept cheering his favorite driver. Yes, it is understandable how a person can be so blinded by that image that they can't see past it to the rest of the crowd: the families, the father and sons, the couples enjoying a day on their own. Yes, I drive a truck and I wear cowboy boots. My husband drives a bigger truck and wears jeans to church, but we consider ourselves to be much more civilized. But, I'm sure to some other breed of race fans, we might as well be rednecks. I'm just not sure if I should be insulted or not.

Don't ask

I haven't slept well in about a month. The reasons are simple-I have three kids and my husband and I have connected much lately. First I was sick with pleurisy and he had a sinus infection, then he had two molars pulled, then I got my period. So let's just say snuggle time is down to a minimum. I thought I would do ok last night, we both fell asleep pretty quickly and I don't think either of us was snoring. Then came the teeny voice over the baby monitor. "Moooooommmmyyyyyyyyy...........................Moooooommmmmmmyyyyy......." It wasn't the usual, but I still knew what it meant. I looked at the clock. 2:40 a.m. I went down the hall and Megan explained very matter-of-factly that she had "tinkled in my bed." Thankfully somehow the way she was curled up, none of the blankets or the dozen stuffed animals got it this time. So, I stripped her bottoms off and carried her to the potty. At this point, I knew I had to go also, but my husband was on his way down the hall and I thought I would just change the sheet on her bed, then I would go use the bathroom and come back. Before I knew it, Mommy had tinkled in her underwear. Seriously. I am 32 years old and I have no bladder control. I guess it happens with having children. Megan was born by cesarean so apparently that just did me in after two vaginal births. So of course, I slip off my panties and throw them in the laundry and sneak back to our room to put clean ones on. Just as I locate a pair in the drawer, my husband walks in and just looks at me. "Don't ask," I tell him.

Hospitality

I have never been very good at entertaining, but I have often thought of inviting different someones over for dinner once a week. I think I have started. I had invited my mother-in-law over for dinner two weeks ago, but she had plans and we had to reschedule for last week. Of course, then I got sick, and was on the couch for a week enduring the pain of pleurisy. She called and offered to bring a pizza and since my plan for supper was to let three kids raid the pantry, I readily accepted the offer. She showed up with my father-in-law ("so what" you may think, but they have been divorced for years), and the 6 of us had pizza. Not a candlelit dinner party, but it was a start. So yesterday I called my dear Aunt Ann and invited her to supper. She agreed and made the 1/2 mile drive from her house to ours. I fixed a lovely pork roast in the slow cooker, boiled potatoes, and green beans. I used my good plates which happened to be the same pattern that Aunt Ann and Uncle Wilbur had at the beginning of their marriage 41 years ago. Each of the kids said a prayer, and we shared family conversation throughout the meal. I made apple cider donuts for desert. I didn't really like the recipe, but the kids gobbled them down. Aunt Ann refused to leave until she helped me do the dishes, so I washed and she dried while the kids played with their dad. It was a poignant moment for me. Aunt Ann is very special to me. Almost like a second mother who isn't critical. I grew up next door to her. She used to do my hair before school. She was the one that took me to get my immunizations for school. I can tell her anything in confidence  and know that she will not share it with anyone.  
The Bible tells us to open our homes to those in need. Aunt Ann isn't exactly in need of anything, but since Uncle Wilbur died, she is alone in her house on the hill. So, I'm sure she appreciated the conversation and a warm meal. I'm sure it's very hard to cook for just one person, and I cannot imagine being alone every night. So, who will I ask to dinner next week, and what will I cook? Good question.

Beads

My Grandma liked to do all sorts of crafts. She made sweatshirts with sequins, sweatshirts with quilted cut-out, she painted the porch, the furniture, hung wallpaper, painted windows to look like stained glass. Her last project was beads. She made angels, pumpkins, baskets, witches, lighthouses, and many other projects. I have now sort of inherited all her leftover bead projects. It's been almost four years since Grandma passed away. I am trying to be crafty (more to keep my sanity and make a few extra bucks than anything else) and somehow ended up with two totes and a box full of supplies. I felt almost like I was stealing, but Grandpa insisted I just take it all. He even helped me carry the totes to my truck. I have followed directions to make 2 projects, and have made several things by "winging it."
     Let me tell you this: bead work is not easy. I am learning all sorts of new terms. Rondell, faceted, star, tri-bead, seed beads......aaaahhhhhh. The beads fall, only half are marked for size, the bags keep falling open and the beads go everywhere, and I lose count a lot. I just wanted a couple quick projects. My original plan was to just make a bunch of things and try to sell them at a local craft show and be done with it. But, I feel a little more connected with Grandma while I work, so we will see how long I continue this adventure. I am bleeding tonight after poking myself with a wire. Is that an omen?