Plastic Commercial Christmas Crap

I went out the ToysrUs to day to try to return some stuff the kids got for Christams from well meaning relatives who think that bigger is always better. Toysrus wouldn't take the stuff without a receipt, not even for store credit.
Pissed off, I threw it back in the car and steamed and fumed. What was I going to do with it? Send it to the good will? Or try to stuff more plastic crap into my tiny house that is already filled with toys from well meaning relatives who don't seem to consider that our kids never want to get rid of anything and that more than one kid could use a toy. What's wrong with toy handme downs anyway? I guess they'd just rather clog up my house and evenutally the landfills with new plastic stuff.
Under the guise of being educational, some of it was purchased. Well, flash cards & board games are educational too and they don't take up much space, don't use a battery, they actually involve parents with kids, and they can be recycled eventually or given to someone else.
What am I supposed to do? How can I say my kids can't accept that gift? Do I have the nerve to tell them beforehand that we don't need toys?
What about the fact that what Santa gets them probably looks small and insignificant in comparison to a huge colorful plastic thing? (But I guess Santa's gift is what they wanted and Santa has been down my chimney - he knows the size of my house!)
Is the only thing I can do wait until they are teenagers and then they get smaller plastic--gift cards?

QUIT YELLING

It's the summer of the horrible mommy... I tried to stop drinking coffee because it is not really good for my nursing baby and I'm sure it's leaching the calcium out of my bones, but I can't manage to quit yelling at my oldest son without it. Maybe I just can't keep up with him without it. Yesterday I declared we would have a day of no yelling. Anyone who yelled (including me) would go to their room for a time out. I went twice. I always wonder how we got into this habit as a family of yelling at each other. Maybe my husband started it--I remember when we were at dog training several years ago and they deteremined that he always shouted at his dog so that was what she responded to...he does the same with me and the kids. Now, everyone yells to get their point across. Someone is going to blast an eardrum here soon.
I read a short book called Raising Children Compassionately Parenting the Nonviolent Communication Way, way too advanced for my husband and too frustrating for me at the moment. How do you go back and change to damage you've already done? It seems that even if you one day decide to change, there are so many setbacks and unanticipated bouts of yelling that it doesn't do much good. I've got to keep pursuing it though. We had a really good day yesterday...so I'll declare another day of no yelling today. (What I really know if that, as always, if I wrote regularly, I wouldn't be yelling so much. Because I would have made my point somewhere and it wouldn't seem so urgent to force my point home.) Even dogs can learn new tricks...or maybe they just keep drinking coffee. Which is worse yelling or caffeine?

educated women & kids

Do educated women have fewer children? I guess women like me with a master's degree either don't have kids, or have only one or two, unless of course, they had the kids prior to getting the degree. Those who had the kids prior are assumed to have been in a state of unenglightenment, prior to their education. After their education, the kids are already grown and they can look back to say that had they known better, they would have known that educated women don't have more than two kids.

Where does that leave me and my three small children? I must be at the edge of crazy: I completed a master's degree during which time I had two kids and finished my thesis while pregnant with a third. I wonder what those judging others make of an educated child-bearing woman like me. Childless friends don't realize that email works better than calling with three kids screaming in the background. Other friends with one kid probably wonder why I don't just stick the kid(s) in daycare and get a job. And internet authors write articles about women opting out of the workforce in their commitment to motherhood. We're just opting out of a system that has no options for people who are unwilling to sacrafice their life and their children's formative years for what would only amount to a half-way decent wage, and those who are unwilling to sacrafice their income to have a job that costs money so that they can keep their life priorities straight.

Financially strapped and overeducated, I change diapers, nurse the baby, pickup from school, arrange playdates, clean the toilets, do some freelance editing work, attempt to find a part-time job that will work with my husband's job & school schedule, wash loads of laundry, give up on finding a teaching job that will work with our family schedules, read a few books, feed three kids lunch, drive to baseball games, go to play group, do more laundry, think about finding one class I could teach in between something, and finally know that one day, the children will be grown up enough that I can teach again. Why am I in such a hurry? Will the workforce still want me in three years? The children need me right now.

Getting started writing

The baby's crying--woke up from her nap too early for me to get anything written but what's new? the boys are trying to clean up but aren't really doing it. writing something is better than nothing for a stay/work at home/teacher mom