Kids Consignor Beginner

I am attempting to sell items in my first kids consignment. Those of you who have never done this, might be surprised at all of the work that is involved!

I've had to invest in saftey pins, wire hangers, and cardstock of a certain weight to get started. Aside from that, you have to organize all the clothing by size and age and enter it into a database to print your own barcodes. There are specifications about how clothes are to be hung on the hangers, how many shoes you can contribute, and the lowest price allowed for an item. All of this is needed to organize for the sale, and I totally get that. The hardest part has been....the laundering, and hanging, and saftey pinning of all of the clothes that I want to sell. Everything that is contributed to the sale has to pass under a blue light inspection for stains, so half of my clothes didn't qualify to begin with and now I guess I'm glad! Those that did passs my inspection took me the entire day to prepare.

I can get a generated profit amount from looking at all of my items in the database. I will only earn a percentage of the profits, let's say it's 70 percent. If this is true, and ALL of my items sell at full price, then I will take away around 190 dollars. If they sell at only half price, well, 80 bucks.

I think it's going to work out to me making about a dollar an hour after I finish tagging, hauling, and volunteering. I hope I get quicker at this, and start at least making minimum wage!

All in all, I'm glad I've taken on this new venture. I'm glad for the experience, and I like that I am being green and hopefully will be able to buy my own kids their next sets of clothes for great prices as well. Volunteering at the sale will allow me to shop early at 1/2 price! :)

Jack And The Beanstalk

Tonight as I read Celeste the story of Jack and the Beanstalk, she made quite a cute comment. We were up to the point where Jack is hiding in different places to get away from the giant. We read that Jack was going to sneak back into the castle yet again and Celeste interrupted and said, "Oh, Mommy, this time is he going to hide in the microwave?" I had to hold in my chuckle. She really enjoyed the story and at the end stated quite matter of factly and with a bit of a sigh- "That was a great story."

Kids Say The Funniest Things III

This morning, and I mean early, early this morning-Celeste came to the entry of our bedroom. She was calling me and wanted to come in and sleep in our room. I almost always say no to her, deal with the crying or whining and send her back to bed. This time though, I caved and let her come in and sleep on a palate on the floor. About ten minutes after we had both settled back into our sleeping spots around 5 am, I am just about to fall asleep and I hear Celeste say, "Mommy, I want roller skates for my birthday." What?? Why in THE world is my 3 year old thinking about her birthday at 5 in the morning? I mumbled something like, "That's nice, honey. Now go to sleep." We were both asleep in the next five minutes. When I woke up and remembered what she had said later that morning it definitely cracked me up.

Oreo Mud Pie Helpers

The other day when I made Oreo Mississippi Mud Pie for a fellowship with some friends from work I had the kids help me. You can see in the first picture that Celeste is smashing up the Oreo cookies using her feet. It was the perfect activitiy for her. She of course equally enjoyed licking the mixer wand clean, and Caed supervised from his booster while enjoying an Oreo himself. We had a nice time!

Onyah stains

Last night as we were getting Celeste ready for bed I was instructing her to change into her pajamas and put her clothes into the dirty clothes hamper. I said, "Celeste, put your clothes in the hamper because you have spaghetti on you" The "on you" came out sounding like one blended word-onyah. She looked back at me and said, "Mommy, I don't have onyah on me-that's milk. See, that's spaghetti, and that's milk-not onyah." Just laughed and laughed over that it was so cute.

Kids Play With The Strangest Things!

My daughter's favorite toys as a toddler ranged from the plastic tupperware in cabinets to the pots and pans and our trash can. She would get obsessed with these things-like ALL toddlers want to do, and play with them over and over. (Except the trash can, I had to break that curiosity!) Now that she is 3, she likes REAL toys. They certainly are a lot more expensive because you can't beat free!

With my daughter exiting the non-toy infatuation stage, my son, has entered it. I wish I had a picture, and maybe I can post one later, but his newest fascination is playing with our broom. He is SUPER attached to this broom! He tries to drag it around everywhere he goes, and throws a tantrum whenever I have to take it away or use it to sweep. It is a source of entertainment watching him attemp to lug around this object that is at least three feet taller than him.

I must end with: the worst toddler toy addiction....toilet paper!

Unnatural Tasks of Motherhood

One of the most innate purposes of motherhood is that of being a "mother hen." Mother's try to protect their children from harm and hurt above nearly all other tasks. One of my most dreaded tasks as Mom is taking my children for thier shots. If they weren't so beneficial, (agree this could be argued and believe me, I do argue it sometimes), I wouldn't take them at all. I guess the chances of my kid getting diptheria, lock jaw, rubella, measels, mumps, hepatitus, meningitis, polio, pertussis, or anything else bears enough weight that putting my child at mild risk and moderate discomfort allows me to fight my mother hen instinct just enough to show up at the doctor to submit my child to be pricked, poked, and prodded. OR, I would feel like too much of a hypocrite to advocate everyone else continue to get the vaccines so that the risk for the diseases remains small and then not take my own child. You know, make everyone else go, so we don't have to!

This brings me to this story: When it was Quincy's appointment time for shots recently, I was going through the usual anxiety that I always have-especially because he was mildly sick and it is often recommended that children not receive their shots if too ill. The pediatrician checked him out and gave him the all clear, so I got myself geared up for resisting getting teary eyed because my child was going to scream out his brains. It also occured to me that nurses must have a hearts that have protective armor because I have never seen a nurse become emotionally bent out of shape by making one baby after another scream! I always reason that they just focus on the greater good. As Quincy was sprawled out on the table, our nurse came in carrying the four different shots that he was going to be administerd that day. Everything was following standard procedure. Quicny was babbling and slightly nervous. I know he could sense something was "off." The nurse prepared for the first stick and told me she would go as quickly as possible. She began to give Quincy his first shot and his eyes got very wide and instead of screaming, he spoke. He said the sweetest, most adorable, "Owwwieeeee" you have ever heard! This of course was followed with the typical crying. The nurse was so shocked that he spoke such a pertinent word at such a small size that she was completely flustered. She had trouble delivering the shots quickly, but mananged to stumble through the rest. She apoplogized for not being able to go quickly as she had tears streaming down HER face. She excused herself from the room to pull it together while muttering that that was the most precious thing she had ever seen. It actually was a refreshing change. It made me smile and feel relief from the stress that I had, to see someone else flustered over the situation. We have a good laugh over it still.

Thanks to all the nurses out there, my mother in law included, who never forget to see us as people. :-)

Advice from a 3 year old

This morning as I woke up, my daughter, very informatively, came into our bedroom and said,
"Daddy, if you put your finger up your nose, it will help you not to sneeze." It was great to start the day with a laugh!!

Bananas: $1.03 Hamburger Buns: $1.78 Daughter sleeping in cart while shopping: Priceless!!

Quincy's Antics

My son is 16 months old. He is obsessed with balls: basketballs, baseballs, tennis balls, candles that look like balls. My husband and I can't walk past a ball without Quincy's mouth forming that word. He continues to repeat it until he has said ball in his grasp. The other day, I had no less then 10 balls strewn about on the floor because everytime he saw one he had to retrieve it. If we ever need to distract him we just say the word "ball" and he is off to fetch it. Sorta like the dogs on the movie Up! They got sidetracked by squirrels, and my son is the same way with balls. Yes, it does look much the same too!

He loves to throw food. I am having the hardest time getting him to quit. I have been sweeping the floor after every meal, but I finally gave up and decided to just leave the food and sweep it up all at the end of the day yesterday. Well, there was enough food on the floor for another, albeit gross, entire meal! With my daughter, we knew she was just bored or finished eating if she began to throw food, but my son will throw one piece of food and eat the next. He is just quite unpredictable. He has embarrassed me several times already! This bad habit has got to stop.

He is the cutest little boy I have ever laid eyes on and he knows it. Trouble!!