Good Monday morning moms! I hope you had a relaxing weekend and are ready for a productive week. I know I am! I have a To Do List a mile long with a school supply run right on top. The supplies are due at 1pm today. Yikes! I’m such a procrastinator! Early Ballots in the Mail This past week, my husband and I received our Early Ballots in the mail for the Arizona Primary on August 26th. Boy, do I love early ballots. If you are not on the list, you need to get on it. It’s so worth it! Instead of standing in line with your kids waiting to vote, you just rip open the envelope at your own home, mark your ballot and mail it back in. According to the Secretary of State’s office, more than a million early ballots will be mailed statewide. There’s still time to get your early ballot sent to you. You just have to request it by August 15th. To do that, go to https://recorder.maricopa.gov/earlyvoteballotnet/. Then, once you get your ballot, send it in by August 22nd to make sure your vote is counted. If for some reason, you don’t get your ballot in the mail by the deadline, you can drop it off at a polling place near you. Look for the box that say “Early Ballots.” Believe me, they are there. I know from experience. (Did I mention I have a procrastination problem?) Legos’ New Ladies Over the past few weeks, my 4-year-old has been playing with Legos more and more. His infatuation may have come from the movie or the simple fact that he finally has the motor skills and patience to put those tiny pieces together. Whatever the reason, my husband was super excited! He surprised Miles with the Legos that he played with as a little boy (80’s Spaceman included!) My MIL had saved them all these years in an old brown suitcase. Thanks Mom! It was well worth the look on my little boy’s face. He was so excited and now I have two Master Builders in my house and plenty of teeny weeny Lego pieces to pick up. As I look ahead to my Lego future, so is Lego. The company just released a new set that features Lego ladies as a paleontologist, astronomer and chemist. The set was created in response to a 7-year-old girl who complained the female Lego figures were boring. I guess a lot of people agreed with her. The set is currently out of stock.
Beware Baseball’s “Hidden” Message I don’t watch a lot of major league baseball, but this weekend I watched a couple of the Diamondbacks-Pirates games. I’m from a small town south of Pittsburgh and my Dad is an avid Pirates fan so since the home team was here in Arizona, I thought I’d support them. So I donned my bedazzled Pirates shirt and watched some of the third and fourth games. I ended up being so disappointed. Not because Pittsburgh lost (the teams actually split the series) but because of what I would consider unsportsmanlike conduct. At least that was my takeaway. But according to everyone else on television, what transpired was “the unwritten rules of the game.” Here’s what happened… In Game 3, a Pirates pitcher’s wild pitch hit Arizona’s star player in the hand. He was seriously injured and is probably out for the rest of the season. In Game 4, a Diamondbacks pitcher threw a fastball and hit Pittsburgh’s star player right between the shoulder blades knocking him to the ground. Leading up to this second incident, commentators were actually wondering when the “retaliation” would come. Whether the two incidents were on purpose or an accident doesn’t really matter to me. The fact that “retaliation” is part of the game of baseball… I just don’t get it. Maybe I’m naive, but I think this is a terrible message to be sending to kids. Retaliation for wrongs is no way to live whether on the ball field or in life, and I don’t want my little guy to think it’s okay. Of course, he doesn’t care about sports right now, but I know this will come up in the future. So for those of you with older kids… how do you handle these types of situations? What do you tell your kids? I’d love to hear from you.