The Playhouse is complete!!

Kind of cute, don't you think?

The playhouse started as an idea, or most likely

a dream I have had since childhood!

I would have done anything for a playhouse. And it just so happened that I have two little girls who will benefit from my creativity!

First, I spent weeks researching playhouse plans. Did we want to build it ourselves? Come up with our own plans? Buy one that was already made? I got some pointers from another blogger and designer, whose husband had built a playhouse for their daughter.

Finally I found some $15 plans on ebay. But of course I wanted to modify them a bit and make the house more feminine. Matt thought he could build it, but with working so many hours, he thought the best way to go was to hire a carpenter.

That led us to Bob the Builder. Bob has Jesus hair and wears the same clothes every day. I think Bob is homeless. And I think Bob is an alcoholic. He also answers ''whatever'' after I tell him something that I need done. He never writes anything down, so I am unsure how he will remember the adjustments I want made. But Bob is a master carpenter and, let's face it, he is cheap and eager for work.

After a couple of weeks, Bob finishes. And despite a few issues such as nails sticking out or not sanding an area, he did a pretty good job. He made the roof scalloped like I had requested, and did the cute spindles on the porch railing.

Bob also built a bed frame with two rolling drawers underneath for storage. I bought a crib mattress at Target to fit the frame, then added sheets and pillows, including a body pillow from Target. I found the vintage pink chenille bedspread for $30 on ebay. I had my talented, 88-year-old Grandmother, cut it to size to make a cover for the bed. Pretty cute!

She used the rest to make chair cushions for the little chairs and to make a skirt that goes around the kitchen counter that Bob built. I used a stainless steel bowl for the ''sink'' and went to a plumbing supply store to find the faucet and knobs. As luck would have it, an employee told me I could search the discard pile to find a faucet and have it for free! I like free!

Grandma also made the polka dot curtains and tiebacks. And look at the darling tablecloth and napkins on the table? Yep, that is Grandma, too. She also made tea towels and oven mitts.

We hired a high school art teacher to do the painting. He stamped pink hearts all in the inside. He was a bargain, but took so long to paint I was getting quite impatient! He is very talented, though, and built the window boxes and shutters himself.

Inside, I found the chalkboard on the back of the dutch door on clearance at Home Goods. It said ''Ethan'' at the top. I painted over that and wrote ''Cafe.'' The white phone is so the girls can take their cafe orders!

Two of the three windows are working windows. The girls like to take their Little Tikes cars and drive up to the windows and play restaurant.

And yes, it does have wood flooring! Matt had leftover wood from some of his investment houses, so we got that for free, too!

We did add an air conditioner window unit because it gets so hot in the summer here that it is suffocating in this little house.

The cute little pink message board I got for $1.50 at Goodwill. I just replaced the corkboard. I love how it has hearts to match the inside of the house. Notice the broom and dust pan Addie hung there. A homeowner has to be tidy!

Outside, I found the vintage mailbox on ebay for a few bucks. I also found the pink bell on there, too. And I bargained for the pink star at a country gift store in nearby Boulder City. I bought the wooden bench on clearance at JoAnn's and had it painted. We found the porch light at Home Depot and painted that, too. The favorite feature of the house is the battery-powered doorbell we installed. They love ringing it and seeing who answers. They make me ring it if I am invited for tea!

I can't decide who is most excited about this little house _ the girls or me. I find myself going in there alone at night and cleaning up or just sitting on the bed.

My hope is that they will love this little house for years to come.

So if you're ever in the neighborhood, do stop by for some tea! The girls would be delighted.

Driving Skills, or Lack Thereof

Warning: If you see my husband on the road, steer clear. He will hit you.

I happen to think I'm a pretty good driver. My husband? Not so much. A week after he got his new car, he ran into someone at a stoplight. There was major damage and he was without a car for a couple of weeks.

How does that happen? How do you run into someone a week after you get a new car?

Now, up until this point, he did not have the best driving record. He ran into another car in a parking lot while our baby was in the car. I think there were some other run-ins that I did not know about as well.

Oh yeah. And he runs out of gas. All. The. Time. Apparently, he does not believe it when the little gas light comes on on the dashboard or even when his car tells him 5 MILES TO EMPTY. Nope, must be a mistake. So I've had to bring him gas on several occasions. He says he just forgets to fill up the tank. What?

So as you can guess, I do not like for him to drive my car. I do not want my car to be wrecked. But one day he needed it, so I caved. I have a large, gas-guzzling SUV. He drove it for a few days. Then one night when he came home from work, he came to the front door and rang the doorbell. WTH? He normally parks in the garage. So I made a joke about why he didn't use the garage door. It was a bad joke that turned out to be true.

Yep, he wrecked my car. He ran into someone and was part of a four-car pileup. (He was car No. 3) It wasn't just wrecked. It was almost totaled. Extensive damage that would take two months to fix. He got an expensive ticket.

So now is the time when I pour on the advice. How is it that you keep running into people? You are an unsafe driver! What about taking a driving course? This is ridiculous! And it's MY car that is wrecked.

We finally got the car back and he again tells me that this time he's going to keep it for awhile and I can just use his. I don't mind driving his, but it's not mine, you know?

He had the car back two weeks. Guess what happened?

Yep. He ran into someone AGAIN. I feel like I am on one of those bad reality shows where they do something inappropriate to see how you will react.

This time he said he was at a stoplight. The light turned green. Everyone started to go. Then an ambulance came roaring by. Everybody stopped. Not my husband.

The scratch isn't that bad, but it's the point.

So I am warning you. If you see him on the road, steer clear. YOU WILL GET HIT.

He told me he needs one of those new cars that stops for you when you are about to have a wreck. Seriously?

I think I'm getting him driver's ed classes for Christmas.

Gender Disappointment

So I just did this article about gender disappointment as part of my ongoing parenting column for the AP. (I do it once a month as a freelancer.)

I know some people won't get this, but this is a very real disappointment for a lot of women.

Disappointment with a baby's gender is a struggle few moms talk about

By Angie Wagner, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

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LAS VEGAS - My good friend just found out she is pregnant with a boy. It is her first child, and instead of celebrating the good news, she cried during her ultrasound.

That's because she really wanted a girl. Good mothers are supposed to say they are happy with a boy or a girl, as long as the baby is healthy. But gender disappointment is a very real and heartbreaking issue that affects many pregnant women.

Christine Lich of Lindenhurst, Ill., always assumed she would have a girl. Instead, she got three boys. She wanted to appear to be the perfect mother, so she never let anyone except her husband know her disappointment.

"And they tell you it's a boy, it's like, ahhhh. For that short moment, you're kind of bummed in the back of your mind. There's not going to be any pink dresses. There's not going to be any scrapbooking. That's not going to happen," she said.

Lich gets tired of people making comments such as: "Are you going to try for the girl?" or "You need to have the girl."

Even now, four years after her third child, she can't bring herself to buy clothes for a little girl's birthday because she just can't look at the outfits.

Joyce Venis, a psychiatric nurse in Princeton, N.J., who works with women suffering from gender disappointment, said it is not really discussed because other people would perceive the disappointment as being ungrateful. Venis said the problem mainly involves women who wanted a daughter.

Just because a woman has a gender preference does not mean she is a bad mother or that she doesn't want the child, Venis said.

"They have the right to want the certain sex," she said.

Venis suggests women find out during the pregnancy what sex the baby is so they can deal with any disappointment before the birth. She said women should find someone to talk with, and if the woman is depressed, she should talk to a therapist.

Katherine Asbery was so depressed that her third child was a boy, she wouldn't even say the sex. She called him "not a girl," and spent hours crying.

She and her husband had even tried different techniques that promised to yield a girl.

"That dream of what you wanted is gone, and you have to learn to live with that," she said.

Asbery, who has a master's degree in clinical psychology, started sharing her story on mommy message boards, and later decided to write a book called "Altered Dreams: Living with Gender Disappointment."

She turned to her faith and drew strength from talking to others who felt the same way. She said it's important for people to understand that mothers suffering from gender disappointment want their children and are not bad moms. It's just the plan they had for their family has changed.

Her third son is three years old now, and Asbery admits she still has some pangs of sadness. She sometimes looks at her son and wonders, just for a moment, what he would look like as a girl. She and her husband are not going to have more children. Their family is complete, she said, and she doesn't feel like someone is missing anymore.

What she most wants mothers to know is this:

"It's normal. And they shouldn't feel like a freak," she said. "It is a normal process of when a dream has changed. You just have to relearn a different dream."

Kindergarten Tips

Two things I learned today:

1) Don't send a kindergartener to school with shoes with laces. They can't tie them.

2) Don't launch an eraser at the parent volunteer. I will tell on you and you will miss your recess.

So today was my second time volunteering in my daughter's classroom. I helped with math and reading. The kids were very sweet. (Let me give a shout-out to the sweet boy who told me I was pretty. Yes!)

But one kid was pretty much not into math. He sat there and even when I practically told him the answer, had no interest. So to thank me for my help, he launches an eraser across the table and hits me with it.

The teacher did not see, but oh little boy, you messed with the wrong volunteer. I will get you. So I told on the little pain and he missed most of his recess.

Next I tied about 52 pairs of tennis shoes.

I ended the day by cutting out 450 gingerbread men with fancy scissors. I was dizzy after so much cutting. I am sure those gingerbread men will be destroyed in about 2.5 seconds. But they're cute, right?