Issues in our house this week

Our washer and dryer in our home are only a few years old. So imagine my surprise when Aaron's sister who was doing laundry at our house, informed me that the dryer stopped working. For the last few months I have noticed that it hasn't been drying as quickly as it was or should be. It wasn't bad enough to where I was really worried about it though. We were debating whether or not to buy a new set, buy a used dryer off of craiglist or try to get it repaired. Well, we didn't really want to invest in a new set (honestly who wants to spend their disposable income on that?) mainly because we are going to be buying a house next year and it may come with a washer and dryer. In this housing market people are frequently including brand new appliances in order to sell their home. Plus, if we did end up needing to purchase a new set, I wanted to get a pair of front loaders and those are typically pretty expensive(for a quality brand and model at least). Right now we just didn't really want to spend that kind of money. So we looked on craigslist and didn't really find a whole lot. The ones we did find were snatched up before we could even get in touch with the seller. So we decided to try and have it fixed and if that didn't work than we would buy a whole new set. Aaron found a really friendly appliance repair store to fix it for $45...so cheap! Apparently the problem was a simple fuse. It probably cost just a few dollars for the part and it took 5 mins. to fix. Plus Aaron watched him fix it so he knows how to do it himself for any future issues I guess. The best part of all is that it works better than it did before it stopped working. Apparently the fuse slowly goes out. I'm so happy we didn't have to spend a ton of money unexpectedly.

The second issue we had this week was with our new T.V.. The picture was looking kind funny to us. I talked to my friend Rachel and after describing what it looked like she said her T.V. had the same problem and that she thought it was just LCD TVs. Aaron and I discussed returning it and buying a different brand or perhaps a plasma vs. an LCD. Well before going through all the work of researching other TVs, and boxing up and returning the old one, Aaron called the Phillips customer help line. The representative walked him through how to change all the settings to get the best quality picture and he fixed it completely. The picture is 100% better. Plus I called my friend Rachel who was complaining about the same problem and she is having her boyfriend fix hers too. Unfortunately for her, she has had had her TV for far longer than we have and didn't know there was a way to fix it up until now.

I know this is nothing to brag about but it's part of what you have to deal with as a parent.
Cecelia said her first naughty word at school. Well, technically it was at kids club. It was bound to happen someday. Kids repeat everything they hear, and up until now we have never heard her say any profanity. In her defense it wasn't the worst word she could say. I was absolutely shocked and mortified when they told me what happened though. They weren't upset at all. Apparently they hear alot worse all the time:( She knew she was in trouble right away. She didn't deny what happened at all and she told me the truth when I asked her about it. She lost her TV privelages for 2 days because of it. I asked her what punishment she thought was fair and she willingly accepted it. We talked at length about how little girls and any child for that matter shouldn't say those types of things and that sometimes she will hear adults or other people saying those words but that she knows right from wrong and that that's wrong. She usually calls her dad when she gets home from school but she didn't want to call him last night after we got home. She knows that her dad is much more strict than I am ( for example she isn't going to be allowed to date EVER apparently). I just find it hard to keep a stable balance of disciplining but yet allowing your children to be kids and also what are acceptable punishments for children at different ages and developmental levels. Plus what works for some kids doesn't work for others. We have pretty much phased out time outs. At this age she enjoys her DS, watching TV, playing learning games on the computer, playing board games with us, staying the night at her cousins' or having her cousins stay the night at our house, shopping and playing Wii. So we have have lots of opportunities to take away privelages. Hopefully we won't have to very often.
Last night as I was reading Oh the places you'll go by Dr. Seauss, we were talking about how it's important to be successful in school and college. We were talking about college and she said "yeah, college is hard but the parties are fun"...seriously? We may just have our hands full with this one. It's not always easy being a mom but I wouldn's change Cecelia for the world. She has the most amazing personality ever. She is constantly making us laugh with her sense of humor. We have always referred to her as an old soul because since she could talk we have always been impressed by how mature she has always been.