december so far

i've been really feeling like i can't keep up with life lately. it's been frustrating. and then today it hit me...in the past month i have taken jobot to six doctor appointments (the sixth one was this morning), spent a good part of two days in the ER with him, stayed at the hospital for two days, gone on a six day cross country road trip, and tried to keep up with laundry, housekeeping, parenting, and general tasks of caring for our family in the midst of all of it.

that realization made me feel a little better at least. there's been a lot going on.

but, i have managed to put up some christmas decorations, and even make some new ones, so at least there's that.

the little houses are made of paper. last year, i got a little kit to make them on clearance after christmas. i stashed it with our christmas decorations and forgot all about it. what a fun surprise to find! putting them together and decorating them has been an enjoyable little project. also, i really like having a mantle.

 our tree has been toppled over three times and counting. we started with several unbreakable ornaments on the tree. well...several of the "unbreakable" ornaments have been broken (including charlie brown, who was unfortunately beheaded by our little one year old), and ornaments were being removed by little hands faster than they could be put back on, scattered all over the house, and stepped on...so we are going with a mostly ornamentless tree this year. there are a few (tacky) plastic ornaments up at the top of the tree. the christmas tree is not a battle i am willing to have with the kids...so we make due with our little three-foot artificial one for now and they touch it and play with it all they want.

 we even already had a christmas themed family movie night with pizza in the living room.

and we have been enjoying our christmas present to ourselves - a portable fire pit! we have wanted one for years and found a great black friday sale on one (although we bought it on monday, and i think it's the only thing i have ever bought on a black friday sale...i am not a fan of that shopping day). we tried it out the other night and it was so much fun! a little chaotic with the kiddos, but they enjoyed it, the weather was perfect, and our neighbor even came over and sat around the fire with us for a bit. looking forward to more fun times with the fire!

 oh, and we also put a few christmas lights on our house...how could we not with such a cute little house to decorate?

love had her first french braid. brought me back to the days of braiding my american girl doll's hair...except the doll sat still, love did not.

 there were about ten fun minutes when love and i crafted together post rest time the other day. it didn't last long, but it gave me a glimpse of future times of creating together.

 

 

there has been lots of dress up these days (two little princesses around here)!

and then there was yesterday when we were playing dress up. a few minutes after the fedex delivery guy left i realized that i had answered the door with this antenna hat on my head. ha!

smoothie mornings

we often have smoothies as part of breakfast in the morning. or we have them for an afternoon snack. it seems to be the only way to get green veggies in jobot these days.

(these photos aren't the best quality...our kitchen does not have much natural light, and it was still mostly dark outside anyway. most of the photos are blurry, but that captures how life feels at this stage! a lot of these days, especially ones that involve making something in the kitchen with a one and three year old, seem like a blur!)


the kids each get a little pile of kale (or sometimes spinach) and frozen berries to throw in the blender. sometimes we add a banana or other fruit.

next we pour in the kefir or yogurt and add some milk if we need a little more liquid. sometimes we throw in a few ice cubes, if we feel like it. maybe some honey or stevia.

 then the kids take turns running the blender.

there is usually some fighting.

and someone often ends up crying.

and then we are done!

i was *that mom* in the grocery store and other parenting confessions

when love was nine months old, i asked for and received a parenting book for christmas. the book was parenting with love and logic by cline and fay. i had heard all about love and logic and had seen it in action when i lived with friends in college who used it with their preschooler. jeremy and i had looked over the book in the bookstore, and after receiving it for christmas, we read it aloud together. for the most part we loved the book and the method and were sure that this was the parenting philosophy for us. even though love wasn't even one yet, we were determined to do our research and become the best parents that we could be. after reading that book, we felt like we were set with the tools we would need for the future.

now i look back on those new parents we were and find it all quite humorous. how naive we were to think that one book would be the only tool we would need for our parenting future!

this summer has felt like a mile marker in our life as parents and we have hit some big bumps in our parenting journey.

...there have been evenings where we got the kids in bed and then collapsed on the couch and shed a few tears because the bedtime routine did not go smoothly and we cannot figure out how to make it better because nothing that we try seems to work.

...there was the time i had the kids at the grocery store and i was that mom. the one whose kid was hitting her and pinching her and announcing to all the other shoppers in a sing-song voice that "i'm being rude to mommy!". and there was after that, when i got in the car and quietly cried all the way to pick jeremy up from work because i realized i felt so embarrassed and discouraged.

...there were several different strategies attempted to get love to clean up her toys with us in the evening. it has been very, very frustrating and is still unsuccessful at this point.

...there have been car rides where both kids are screeching and i finally join in and start yelling because i just can't take it anymore (that reaction does not help the situation, by the way).

...days when i have thought that surely my kids would be better off in daycare because at least they wouldn't have to spend all day with their frustrated mom.

...times when i've looked at the stack of parenting books i would like to read and wondered how i'm going to possibly read them because i am so busy parenting that i can't even find time to read books about how to do a better job!

...moments when i have wanted to scream because i just want to meet one of my needs (like going to the bathroom!) before meeting another need of one of my children.

...there has been lots of me saying i am sorry. and even being prompted..."mommy, are you going to say sorry to me because you yelled at me?"

i have learned that parenting is a very humbling adventure. the pre-parent me had lots of ideas about what kind of parent i would or would not be, how my kids would behave, how i would discipline them, and how they would respond to my methods. i would see parents at the grocery store with kids who were misbehaving and know that my kids would not behave that way in public.

i also knew that my kids wouldn't watch tv, would never eat happy meals, would eat whatever was served for dinner rather than having a special meal just for them, and wouldn't care about disney princesses.

well...clearly our kids don't always behave so well at the grocery store. we don't have a tv, but our kids watch a select few shows on netflix (thomas the tank engine, curious george, veggie tales, shawn the sheep, and love sometimes watches one of the disney fairy movies, in case you were wondering). they also eat the occasional happy meal...there is a reason why people stop at fast food restaurants with playgrounds on road trips, especially in the winter! sometimes i do cook a special meal just for them because i know they won't like what we are eating, and love has disney princess underwear because those were the underwear she chose as motivation for potty training.

it is easy to judge and criticize other parents, but the reality is that we are all at our own spot in this adventure, and our kids are all different. that mom in the grocery store with the kid throwing the tantrum? maybe things had been going well and she has suddenly hit a rough patch with her child. maybe she has a huge stack of parenting books from the library sitting on her nightstand that she is desperately trying to read to find help. and after she leaves the grocery store? she might just go to her car, strap her kid in the car seat, put all her groceries in the trunk, and then sit in the driver's seat and cry because she is so discouraged.

it is easy to feel discouraged as parents. especially when we are really trying our very best and nothing seems to be working. the last couple of months have been a huge learning curve for me. some of the things i am learning are new and some are things i started learning on day one as a parent (but am still working on almost three-and-a-half years later).

i am learning...

...that i need to always be seeking wisdom (from more than just one book...although i actually learned that long ago). i checked out a ton of parenting books from the library. they all have their own opinions, and often contradict each other (that is frustrating). i am learning to pull the bits and pieces that work for us and leave the rest. i have also sought wisdom from our parents and friends, as well as prayed for parenting wisdom a. lot.

...that what works for us doesn't necessarily work for other people, and what works for other people doesn't necessarily work for us. parents and kids are all different, so it makes sense that different combinations of each would need different techniques and approaches to be successful together.

...that my frustration with love is actually more because i don't know how to handle the situation than actually being frustrated with her behavior. as i have found practical tools that work, i feel less frustrated because i know how to respond to the behavior.

...how to stay calm. the books all tell me that i need to stay calm and not lose my cool. that is a tough one for me, but i see so clearly that those books are right. having the right tools to deal with the behavior makes a huge difference here as well.

...learning about myself helps me become a better parent. i recently read a book (raising your spirited child by mary kurcinka) which confirmed that love is a spirited child and also that i am a spirited parent. this was helpful information as this explained a lot of the reasons why we seem to clash a lot and also brought my own temperament to my attention. (it was also interesting - and frightening - to see that love and i scored almost the same on the nine temperamental traits she uses to determine how spirited a person is. i guess she takes after her mom!).

...to take time out for myself. this has been a hard one to figure out in the midst of moving to a new place and also jeremy's busy schedule. currently this looks like jeremy getting up with the kids and bringing me coffee in bed (isn't he wonderful?) so i can have half an hour of devotions before starting the day. this has made a big difference in my life and attitude. i will also be taking a day-long retreat in a couple of weeks when jeremy is off of work.

...positive time together between parent and child is very, very important, as is one-on-one time.

...that parenting is the greatest exercise in teamwork that exists. there's nothing quite like raising little wild humans to force jeremy and i to work together.

mostly what i have learned is that parenting shifts and changes based on time and developmental stages. it is a constant learning exercise and a constant recognition of my humanity and dependence on God.

obviously, these thoughts are all just my reflections on where i'm currently at with this whole parenting adventure. but...i hope that this post encourages someone out there who is discouraged or struggling as a parent. you are not alone. (i will probably even have to go back to this post to encourage myself!)

if today was your day in the grocery store? well...we've all been there. just like us, you are doing your best.

if you think that someone else is doing a better job with their kids than you are doing with yours? you and your children are unique and you are the best parent for your kids.

if you lost it and yelled at your child today? apologize and move on. you are a human and sometimes that happens. children are quick to forgive, they know you love them, and they still love you.

above our kitchen sink, i put the following verse (we also sang the song of this verse every evening after supper when i was growing up):
"the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end. they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." (lamentations 3:22 - 23)

when i am making breakfast in the morning, it reminds me that God's mercies are new for me that day. i am given a fresh start. it encourages me to make the day a good one.

when i am cleaning up after the kids are in bed, i reflect on the day. usually, there are moments that i was short with the kids, i lost my cool, or i am disappointed in myself as a parent. that verse reminds me that i am loved despite my failures, that there are endless mercies to my seemingly endless failures, and that tomorrow is a new day with a fresh start.

that fresh start is there for all of us. there is hope for all of us. God will provide us with wisdom, he is present and working in our lives, and he wants us to be successful as parents.

i am so thankful for these two precious little humans who God has entrusted into our care. they are teaching me so much, and even though it is challenging, i am so thankful that i get to be their mama.

{and a special note about love...she is an amazing little girl. yes, challenging to discipline. but that is because she is so bright, energetic, and smart. she is witty, creative, friendly, funny, and very sweet and affectionate. she is a special little girl who is going to become a wonderful adult. i wouldn't trade her for anyone else!}

eight weeks in

two months ago we were deep in the throes of packing up our house in michigan. this saturday will mark eight weeks that we have been living here.

this move has not been easy for me. i was very ready and excited to move, and we were both in agreement that this was the next step for our future...but it has still been hard. at first, i felt completely lost and disoriented. then after we were here for a week, jeremy started his program, and i felt so lonely and so bored all day. i didn't know one person in this entire city...there were no other moms to spend time with, no friends to spend part of the day with, and no community here to help us get through this transition.

i would drop jeremy off at the hospital for the day and watch as all the professionals walked into work chatting with their co-workers. i envied them because they belonged to something and they had a purpose, and i felt like i wasn't part of anything. i felt discontent, moody, irritable, frustrated, exhausted, and not like myself. in all of this, i have certainly thrown more than my share of tantrums and pity parties.

i found myself desperately searching the internet for moms groups and any way that i could possibly find some friends. the kids and i found ourselves at the zoo, children's museum, and library story time. i soaked up any little conversation i had with another mom...anything that made me feel like i connected with another person and like i belonged here. it was pretty sad.

well...eight weeks in and we have made several positive steps towards being a part of this community. the kids and i have had several get togethers with new friends and we have started going to a weekly mom's group. i have several new friends numbers programmed into my phone, we have attended the same church three weeks in a row, and we actually ran into someone we knew from church when we were out and about last week.

it has taken a lot to get here. it's pretty out of my comfort zone to show up to a stranger's house and spend a morning with several other moms i have never met. driving through a completely unfamiliar city to have a playdate with a new friend is not easy. finding a random mom's group online and going to one of their meetings only to feel very uncomfortable and not very welcomed is disappointing and frustrating.

thankfully, my experiences have been more positive than negative. i have been surprised at how easy it has been for me to jump into new friendships and situations. i have also been surprised at how open our new friends have been to welcoming us into their lives and city.

i still don't feel at home here and it is still hard. i think of simple things from our old life and feel twinges of homesickness...the natural light coming in the windows of our old house, our little neighborhood health food store that i loved, driving down our street and pulling into our driveway, driving out to the farm to pick up our milk, mornings with the kids at the botanical gardens, evening walks by the lake, and knowing my way around. even more so, faces of dear friends we left behind.

since we moved, there have been many hard days...times of feeling overwhelmed at the newness and unfamiliarity of this place, tears shed at what was left behind and given up for this. good mornings spent with new friends but then finding myself missing friends who already know me and who are so comfortable to be with. days of feeling like we were on our way to thriving in this place, and then days that felt completely opposite. and the reality is that it is much easier and more fun to be a full time mom when you are surrounded by friends.

the good news is that it seems that the good days (or moments!) now outnumber the bad. i think i am on my way to finding a place here. it is going to take more work, more experiences outside my comfort zone, more energy and time. i know that there will be more tears and more hard days...i am human and this is hard.

but...we are getting there. we are slowly finding our people and our places. we are making memories here.

one day at a time.

the bugs

oh the bugs!

living in the south has given me a whole new perspective on bugs. thanks to the mild winter and the muggy weather conditions, the bugs here are enormous, and they are everywhere! i don't think i have ever seen bugs this big. seriously...bugs in the midwest are like the little puny cousins of the bugs down here.

there isn't a single trip to the outdoors (even walking from the back door to the van) when love does not find some sort of bug. it makes me happy to see her so excited about the them. the world is truly her classroom as she holds and examines bugs. it is fun to watch.

 a (dead) eyed click beetle we found on a walk

there are tons of cicadas here, so we can always find exoskeletons outside. we have also found several live cicadas, and some dead ones too.

 cicada

hardwood stump borer beetle, i think

one afternoon love and i went out to water the plants on the front porch, and there were two HUGE beetles on the porch. thanks to a google search, i believe they were hardwood stump borer beetles. love immediately went over and picked one up and was thrilled to have it crawling on her hand. if i would have looked more closely, i would have seen that it had large pinchers, but i didn't, and it pinched her finger. she shrieked and waved her hand around and it let go. i thought she would be traumatized, but she recovered quickly and it has not dampened her enthusiasm for bugs one bit.

discovering the beetles

and seconds before the pinch... :(

i don't mind most of the bugs very much...the beetles, ladybugs, cicadas, and various insects. i share love's excitement when we find a bug, even if i really find it gross, because that's what mamas do (although i mostly leave it up to love to pick them up and hold them). i also think it's so cool that she loves bugs so much, and i don't want to influence her or dampen her enthusiasm for them. for the most part, she is really gentle in handling bugs, and we talk a lot about how to treat them kindly and respectfully.

...but the cockroaches. oh, those really get me. since living here, i have {unfortunately} learned all kinds of interesting (?) facts about cockroaches. i now know that they can run 3 mph, live without their heads for three weeks, and even survive for a while by only eating the glue off of postage stamps (can you believe someone actually wasted moments of their life figuring that out?). it's more than i ever wanted to know about cockroaches. we have encountered a few of them in our house and now i am paranoid about them. every time i walk into a room i do a quick cockroach scan, i wear shoes in the house at all times because i am terrified i will step on one with bare feet, and i have all our food carefully stored in hopes to deter them from wanting to make our house their home.

i have fears that one will crawl on me while i am sleeping...fears that were only made worse when i found one laying on it's back twitching RIGHT NEXT TO my side of the bed.

i think what really gets me about cockroaches is that they can run so fast, and the sound of their little feet running across the wood floor...ew, just ew!

i think we have had seven(?) cockroach encounters since we moved in. three were right after we moved in, so i figured they probably came in while we were moving in.

then there was the evening we were sitting on the couch watching a movie. jeremy was rubbing my back and we were relaxed. and then jeremy stopped rubbing my back, sat up a bit, and said he had to "take care of something a minute". i immediately knew it was a cockroach. sure enough...just on the other side of the room. jeremy stood up to get a big shoe, and before we knew it, the roach ran right under the couch i was still sitting on. i jumped up immediately, and i will even admit that i ran across the room and jumped on a chair. jeremy moved the couch, the furniture around the couch, and the couch cushions, but we never found the roach (it must have gone in the vent that is right behind the couch). seeing a cockroach and killing it? slightly traumatizing. seeing a cockroach, not killing it, and knowing that it is inside your house somewhere? ten times worse. ew, ew, ew. and then several days later it happened again (maybe the same one?). now we ALWAYS sit with a big shoe just within reach, just in case.

since moving here, i have learned that there is something here even worse than just a plain old cockroach...there is the palmetto bug. it's like a gigantic cockroach that can fly. thankfully, we have not encountered any of these in our house (i don't know if i would survive such an encounter!), but we have seen them flying around our lights outside. the first week we were here, jeremy was doing laundry (which involves going out our back door and walking under the carport to the storage closet) and a huge bug was flying around out there. huge, as in, the size of a small mouse. jeremy walked back and forth with a big piece of cardboard ready to swat the thing if it attacked him (i giggled, but only because i was inside looking out the window!). since then, we have both decided that it is not worth it to do laundry after dark. anyway, once we learned about palmetto bugs, we knew that's what it was.

i don't have any photos of cockroaches, and never will. i also should really stop doing online searches to identify the bugs we find because then i have to look at photos of tons of giant bugs that we haven't even seen yet! eek!

april showers...may flowers

if april showers really do bring may flowers, we will be overtaken with flowers by the time may gets here. for who knows how many days, it rained every. single. day. when i began writing this post (about three days ago), there was a rain/snow mix coming down outside and jeremy and i couldn't remember the last time we saw the sun. it was really exciting when the sun peeked out for a bit yesterday morning, and the sun has been shining all day today. the grass is really green, flowers are starting to pop up, and trees are starting to bud! it has been a cold, wet spring so far, and we were so ready to get outside yesterday.

the kids and i spent over four hours at our local botanical gardens. it was mostly cloudy and there was a cool breeze, but we were outside and we loved every second! we walked around the paths outside and stopped for snack time. we marveled at the flowers peeking through the dirt, chased a canadian goose (love: "goose. what you doing? i want to know what you are doing!"), and befriended a few bugs along the way. i giggled when love saw a large patch of grass and ran around on it joyfully yelling, "grass! grass! grass!" (you know your kids have been stuck inside for too long when that happens!).

i took great joy in watching love play on the playground. it has a shaky bridge that kids can walk across and i saw her approach it and then stop right on the edge. she took one step onto the bridge and then clung to the railing with all her might. she looked terrified. there were a lot of older, rowdy kids running around and she tends to be a bit timid in those situations anyway. kids ran by her and several times they pulled one of her hands free from the railing so they could run by, or they unintentionally shoved her out of the way. the bridge bounced up and down as they ran across and she just stood there, petrified. it was all i could do not to run up there and help her across, but i knew she could figure it out on her own, so i just quietly observed. she eventually looked over at me and i gave her a big smile and some words of encouragement, but otherwise i just watched. that was hard for me. and then...she slowly started across, and made it all the way to the other side! a huge grin spread across her face and i could almost see her self-confidence grow. i was so proud of her!

all of that was fun, but we spent most of our time in the huge sandbox. go figure...a large, beautiful botanical garden complex that i'm sure cost millions upon millions of dollars to create, and the kids could care less about all that...give them a big pile of sand and they are happy. love was happy to play with her little construction vehicles...she made up stories and narrated right along with her play. at one point, i heard her call, "excavator, come over here. i have a very special job for you to do!"

jobot puttered around, running the sand through his fingers and every once in awhile looked up at me with adoring eyes like he was saying, "i can't believe you are letting me play in this. it is amazing! thank you! thank you!"

it was such a good time. i love watching them learn and explore. i'm so glad they enjoy simple things like dirt and bugs. and i'm so happy that they were both covered in dirt by the time we left. i think that the more dirt on their bodies at the end of the day, the better the day was. i am really excited for this summer - they are both going to be at such fun ages. i think we have a lot of bathtub rings in our future.

these days

we've hit the mid-morning lull at our house. well...as much as things ever get to be a lull around here. the kids are deep in play (for the moment, anyway) and i am sitting down and catching my breath. last night's dishes have been put away, the breakfast dishes have been washed, today's batch of formula has been made, both kids are dressed, we've played with playdough, and played several rounds of go fish and hi ho cherry o. i've fixed love's lego "wall of jericho" more times than i can count (apparently it's not quite as strong as the real thing was), and i'm ready to sit down and have a little break. 

jeremy has been working full time plus plowing snow, so we've had some long days around here with him gone. i haven't been having the greatest patience with parenting lately, but i've really been trying. getting asked the same thing over and over and over and over again really starts to wear on me. the constant demands from little people and the lack of time to do things that i want to be doing are hard. it's hard to sacrifice so much. the other morning i woke up in a really crabby mood. jeremy had been out plowing all night and stopped by the house for five minutes before he quickly left for a full day of work (what a wonderful guy, right?!). despite me being crabby, he was very patient, loving, and encouraging (as he almost always is). after he left, i had my first cup of coffee and gave myself an attitude pep talk. things looked up after that. it was more the coffee than my pep talk...amazing how much a little coffee can do. the rest of the day wasn't perfect, but it was ok.

i have found some time to do things that i want to do, and i've been making some really good things lately.

i made a batch of this granola (without the protein powder). in a bowl with greek yogurt and sliced strawberries it was a yummy, healthy, and easy weekday breakfast. we ate the whole batch, so tomorrow i plan to make some more.

we were getting a snowstorm the other day, and that always puts me in a baking mood...so i made a batch of these cupcakes (didn't use the xantham gum, or the protein powder - just added a bit more almond flour and some vanilla extract). they have been on my "things i want to make" list for a while. they are so, so, so good! i think they might actually be the most delicious cupcakes i have ever had in my whole life. 

i also knit a pair of slippers! i can't believe it...i've never been a knitter. i have knit a couple of scarfs, but always with a lot of frustration. i just never found knitting to be enjoyable and had given up on ever knitting anything else. then...i was inspired to try a pair of slippers. i pulled out some yarn i had from some other project that i couldn't do, found a really good tutorial online, and went to work. it was an easy, quick project that i found really enjoyable, relaxing, and satisfying. i was so inspired by the fact that i actually did it. i've already started another pair.

 

love has been playing with trains lately. a lot. we set up the train tracks...and then spend the rest of the day crying, consoling, and fixing when little brother grabs the layout and destroys it. (or sometimes i just say no to setting up the tracks because i don't feel like going through all of that everyday!). 

love turns three in a little over two weeks. three!?!?! how did this happen? she is definitely acting like a three year old...there is lots (and i mean lots!) of drama in our house, demands for things she wants, occasional tantrums, and opinions about things. some days are very, very challenging (and each day certainly has it's challenging moments at the least). at the same time...jeremy and i were talking last night about what a good big sister she is, how smart she is, and how she is really starting to come into her own little person. we love her so much..."terrible" threes or not! 

i recently came across a poem that i wrote down and posted in our house so i see it everyday. it reminded me so much of this stage of life with her and i found it encouraging. it's titled, "our lady of perpetual demand" by emma walton hamilton.

"i want, i want, i want! 

you say,

when can i have it? when?

another day it's

no! i won't! and no, no, NO! again.

i sigh. 

i ask for manners.

counter, "i don't want to hear it!"

but in my heart i celebrate

your dazzling strength of spirit."

a couple of weeks ago i got out our rice bin for love to play with. it was a cold, winter day and we were all feeling a little stir crazy! i gave her strict instructions to keep the rice in the bin...left the room for less than five minutes...and came back to find that the dump truck had removed almost all of the rice from the bin and dumped it in another part of the kitchen. of course, i couldn't get mad...that's just something that a kid would do. anyway, it was easy to clean up.

and then there's this kid...he is 9 months old already!

last week, he started pulling himself up to a stand. this week he is cruising all around the furniture and pulling himself up on everything! he is so proud of himself, and we are so proud of him too! unfortunately, this has resulted in a lot of falls, which is just what happens when someone is learning how to stand up, but still no fun. he is getting his third and fourth tooth this week as well (the top, front teeth). he's been handling these two teeth coming in pretty well...better than the bottom two.

last week, jeremy taught him "so big!" he holds up his hands when we ask him how big he is and we say, "so big!" he is so proud that he can do it. it's so cute. i remember love doing the same thing. this age is so much fun with him.

and one last photo from a recent expedition out into the snow. perhaps jobot is crying because he is wearing pink? or maybe because he is wearing my mittens on his feet because we don't have boots in his size? or maybe because he is so bundled up that he can't sit up? seriously...there could be many reasons. oh, the things we do just to get a little fresh (cold!) air in the winter in michigan. poor kid. good thing he won't remember it.

p.s. that mid-morning lull i wrote about at the beginning of this post? yeah...it lasted less than ten minutes. a naptime initiated, a train track built, and a gazillion interruptions later, and i am ready to publish this post. such is this life.

a day in my life: saturday, feb. 9

{i thought it would be fun to record some days from our life...so here is the first one. the disclaimer is that i am not this productive every day and our kids are not this cooperative or portable every day either. this is really long, but i want to remember it. i always enjoy reading similar things that other people post - maybe you will as well? if not, that's ok}

5:30 am. jobot wakes up. i get up so that Jeremy can keep sleeping until the alarm goes off (at 6:30). he is really tired from snow-plowing for ten hours (!) on thursday night. jobot and i go downstairs. i change his diaper, get him dressed, and nurse him.

love wakes up crying at 6 am. jobot and i go into her room and get her out of bed. apparently she thinks it is still night-time. she is crying and i can't figure out why she is so upset. we go downstairs and she stands in the middle of the living room crying. she refuses when i ask her if she will come snuggle on the couch with me. jeremy comes downstairs and she goes up to snuggle with him in our bed. she comes downstairs in a much happier mood. it seems she wasn't quite ready to get up yet.
i give jobot a bottle. love has her juice (she gets one small cup in the morning and then no more juice for the day, so she really enjoys her juice in the morning).

jeremy makes breakfast (a "stack" of a slice of uncured canadian bacon, a fried egg, and a slice of dubliner cheese). love gets a fried egg and some banana slices. jobot has his usual 2/3 of a banana mashed with some rice cereal, raw milk, and cinnamon. he also gets some egg pieces from my plate.

7:35. jeremy heads out the door for a full day of work. first he has to shovel all the snow that the plow has left at the end of our driveway. i get love dressed and cleanup from breakfast.

the kids are playing really well together, so i do some work in the kitchen. i make the day's batch of raw milk formula, throw a chicken carcass and some veggies in the crock pot to make a batch of chicken stock, sweep the floor, and double check my grocery list. i break up a few squabbles.

jobot starts to get tired. i somehow find motivation and decide that i am going to try to work on a house project while he naps. the kids and i head upstairs. i set love up in her room with a snack and the ipad (she watches veggietales). i nurse jobot, he falls asleep, and i lay him in bed. i check on love, who is doing just fine, and start the project...removing the caulk from the shower. (a project that we knew we had to do soon, but after a big piece broke off on friday, it wasn't something we could put off any longer, so it moved up in the priority list to this weekend. jeremy was planning to work on it when he got home from work, but i figured that it would make the day easier if i could at least get some of it done before he got home).

jobot wakes up after twenty minutes (the usual length of his nap). i have made some good headway on removing the caulk. i bring the exersaucer upstairs and put it in love's room. he is happy to sit in there for a while. when he starts to fuss, i bring the exersaucer into the bathroom and buy myself a few more minutes to work.

i think that jobot must be getting hungry, so we all head back downstairs. love's movie isn't quite finished, so we watch the rest of it while i give jobot a bottle. i make sure the diaper bag is packed with what we need, take love to the bathroom, and get boots, coats, and hats on everyone. we are headed to get groceries and meet jeremy for lunch at costco on his lunch break.

i get the kids out the door and leave love on the porch while i take jobot to the van to put him in. his door is frozen shut. so is love's. what a surprise. this happens almost every time we go out on these cold mornings. so...i put both kids in through the front seat. not easy, but it works.

love chatters the whole way to costco. she wants to listen to her kid's cd, but it won't work because it is too cold. it finally starts working.

we arrive at costco. i am there at just the right time and get a front row parking space. i get a cart. hurray - love's door isn't frozen anymore. it makes things much easier. we walk through the store getting the things we need. love samples a variety of foods (her favorite part!). the kids are very well behaved (which is not always how those trips go...especially since they sit in the cart together and can really annoy each other)!

shortly after noon, jeremy calls and says that he is on his way to meet us for lunch. we buy our groceries, and there he is waiting for us. the kids are both excited to see him, and so am i. my mom often sends love $10 to "take her parents out for a treat", which usually means lunch at costco or a trip to starbucks. jeremy and i both get salads and love gets cheese pizza. jobot eats the applesauce i brought for him. we sit and enjoy time together as a family. love eats almost all of her huge piece of pizza(!), with a potty break halfway through. jeremy has to leave before she is done eating, so we kiss him goodbye and sit for a bit longer.

i debate about just going to the grocery store to get the rest of the groceries i need (not very many). i hadn't planned on stopping at both places, but the kids are doing so well that i decide to just get it over with. and both doors on the van are working, so it's much easier to get the kids in and out of the van! on the short drive to the grocery store, jobot falls asleep.

we get to the grocery store and i try to figure out how to get groceries with a one-seat cart, a sleeping baby, and a two-year-old. i feel like a genius when i put our detachable stroller seat in the back of the cart, transfer a sleeping jobot into it, put love in the seat in the cart, and pull a small cart behind me as i go about my shopping. we stop by the bakery desk and get a free cookie for love. jobot wakes up in the produce section. we are almost done with our shopping trip. he happily sits in his seat in the back of the cart and eats snacks while we finish our shopping. we check out and then i realize i forgot something...so we head back to get it. the kids are fading a bit, it's good we are done.

we drive home. love chatters away. when we pull into the driveway, i realize that she has fallen asleep. i bring all the groceries up to the porch, get jobot and then love out of the car. i bring a sleeping love up to her room, lower her into her bed, and she suddenly wakes up and announces, "i want to play!" knowing that's the end of that nap, we head downstairs so she can do just that.

i bring all the groceries into the kitchen and then sit down to nurse jobot. after he nurses, he has a bottle. when he is done i change his diaper and then i start putting the groceries away. love plays and jobot crawls around on the floor playing with various items he finds in the grocery bags. i clean a few things out of the fridge and wash a few dishes.

i decide to try to get some more done in the bathroom, so i bring the kids upstairs. i set love up with another veggietale movie and leave jobot in her room in the exersaucer. he fusses, so i bring his exersaucer into the bathroom. he plays for about fifteen minutes and starts fussing. i'm almost done and i really want to finish, but his fusses soon turn into screams, so i stop and we all go back downstairs. love finishes her movie and i get jobot's dinner ready - homemade pureed butternut squash mixed with some rice cereal and raw milk, mashed up raspberries, and some wheat-free puffs.

the kids and i play on the floor for a bit. then...jeremy comes home! everyone is excited. after some playtime, jobot is getting tired. jeremy gets his pjs on, i nurse him, and jeremy brings him upstairs to give him his last bottle and put him in bed. i get started on supper. we have homemade pizza. low carb and sugar and gluten free (more on this some other time).

after we eat and have devotions, love has her mug of warm milk before bed while i read to her. (we do this almost every night and we usually read poetry. she loves it.) jeremy washes the dishes during that time. then it's on to love's extensive bedtime routine (it's complicated, but it works for her and us)...

she cleans up the toys and gets a sticker on her chart. she brushes her teeth and gets another sticker. and finally, she gets her pajamas on and gets another sticker. she chooses two books for us to read to her, says goodnight to me (i'm in the kitchen putting my freshly made chicken broth into mason jars) and we sing our song twice ("all praise to you my God this night"). she does two flips (she runs to jeremy and he flips her over his shoulder and around) while i watch and cheer, and then jeremy takes her up to bed.

after i wash the dishes from the chicken broth project, i make some chai tea for us and we collapse on the couch. we drink our tea, eat a brownie (low carb, sugar, and gluten free, of course...and it even had cauliflower in it!), and watch an episode of alias, our show for this winter. we had planned to work on the bathroom, but realize it would make a lot of noise while the kids were sleeping upstairs, and we were both exhausted anyway, so that didn't happen.


we sit on the couch, jeremy gives me a backrub (as he does just about every night), and we relax a bit. we start a second episode of alias, but jeremy starts to fall asleep, so we turn it off. we head up to bed and i read for a few minutes in bed, but start drifting off after a couple of pages so i turn out the light and go to sleep.



whew! what a day.

halloween

our little lamb in a mama-made costume, and our little guy who dressed as his daddy.

she loved the sheep costume. especially her ears and little black nose. i loved that i made it for her.

handsome boys. our friend did an amazing job knitting jobot's little beard.

in the afternoon, we told love that later we were going to walk up to people's houses and say "trick-or-treat". and then...people would give us candy. a look of amazement and disbelief spread across her face followed by a huge grin. oh, the wonder of being a child. we had as much fun watching her trick-or-treat as she had trick-or-treating. oh, the joys of being parents.

sleep and stuff

i'm exhausted and a bit frazzled tonight. whew...it feels good to sit down. the kids are both in bed and my hubby is making me an omelette. he recently busted out his omelette making skills, impressing me, as every time i try to make an omelette it turns into eggs scrambled with whatever i was trying to put in the omelette. ha. turns out he worked in the cafeteria when he was in college and spent saturday mornings making custom omelettes for students. he became a pro. how did i make it through over four years of marriage before learning this about my husband? i'm not sure, but i'm glad that now i know that fact and am able to take advantage of it almost weekly. and also glad to know that we are not finished learning about each other yet.

it is amazing that it is 7 pm and both kids are in bed. and neither one is crying. jobot recently got into a really, really bad sleep pattern. a few weeks ago he was usually going down for the night around 9. he would fall asleep while nursing and then i would carefully creep up the stairs and lay him in bed. sometimes he would keep sleeping and other times his eyes would pop open and we would have to go through the whole thing all over again. once sleeping, though, he would sleep until 4 or 5 when i would get up and grab him and then doze in my chair while he nursed. that was all liveable (though not ideal). enter about ten days ago when he got a cold. he wasn't feeling well and was waking up more during the night. he refuses to take a pacifier and doesn't suck his thumb, so the only way to soothe him is for me to nurse him. we started sleeping together in my chair because he wanted to nurse and i wanted to sleep. then there was last wednesday night when he cried all night. i took him to the walk-in clinic in the morning as soon as it opened. yup, it turned out he had his first ear infection.

antibiotics took care of the ear infection, but unfortunately, they did not take care of the new habit of sleeping all night in the chair with mommy, a routine that quickly became unlivable for me. oh, how i wanted to sleep in my bed without a baby attached to me! (can you tell that i'm not exactly into attachment parenting? my time without kids is necessary, and so is my sleep).

so...jobot has moved into his own room and has been crying it out a bit. i absolutely hate having him cry, but there doesn't seem to be another way at this point. the good news is that he went down tonight (at 6 pm) with no crying at all. so, it seems that he is learning to soothe himself and fall asleep without me. this is one of the aspects of parenting that i strongly dislike, but it must be done, i guess.

i have a lot more to say, and i want to share some photos of the great camping trip we had with my mom a couple of weeks ago, but now i am going to go spend some time with jeremy. goodnight for now.

lately

what have we been up to lately? oh, just the usual. you know...

playing with homemade slime in the sink...

lining up trains in empty egg cartons...

dressing up like a princess...

finding trains "resting" in our slippers...

learning how to use scissors...

looking cute...

riding a pony for the first time and loving it. (she saw another girl riding the pony and looked at me and said sweetly, "mama, pretty please i want to ride the horse". how could we say no?)

being goofy. (the eyes were a birthday gift that love picked out for jeremy at the dollar store. "daddy wants those eyes!" apparently he did. haha. they came in a pack of twelve, so we've had creepy eyes rolling around our house for a week now).

waiting for papa at the airport. he just left yesterday after a fun-filled twelve day visit.

making sure we are prepared for winter...

enjoying lots of time with papa.

 

the kids and i have a cold, so we have been laying low around here. wiping noses, snuggling, waking up more during the night, missing social events, and soothing a frustrated baby who can't eat and breathe at the same time. we also had a short incident of the stomach flu from love. short as in 

(thankfully) only one episode of vomiting. unfortunately, the episode occurred on monday evening during dinner out at a restaurant. she went from happily sitting at the table to walking around hunched over and moaning and crying and saying her tummy hurt. and then all of a sudden we were those people...the ones who were sitting in the middle of the restaurant whose kid vomited all over. and yes, that was my husband who was examining the vomit in his hand and actually asked me what i thought a chunk of it was. seriously, he did that. (sorry, that's probably too much information). we sat there awkwardly while the servers brought towels upon towels, assured us that it wasn't a big deal and that it had actually happened three other times this week. we packed up our food, our just opened bottle of wine, and i took our girl to the bathroom and changed her clothes. it was an unfortunate outing to have forgotten baby wipes and an extra shirt...but we made due and used a baby blanket as a shirt. sometimes you just have to get creative, right?

i'm not such a happy mama when it comes to staying home with sick kids. especially when i'm feeling under the weather myself. i'm ashamed to say i was pretty grouchy this morning before jeremy left for work. i think there may even have been some words out of my mouth that went something like, "i am thankful that i can be the one to care for our kids during the day, but today i really don't like my job."

but...i had a few more swigs of coffee and said a few prayers, and i was "back on the rails" as love would say. the morning went okay and jeremy even got to come home early. he is working...but he is sitting on the couch next to me working instead of being an hour away. i like that better.

less than perfect

i come across blogs of other mamas who homeschool a bunch of kids while they also care for a toddler and a baby, maintain a garden, care for animals, sew and knit clothes for their kids and themselves, cook from scratch, take beautiful photographs of all the fun things they do, and seem to always be patient and loving toward their children. unless they get more hours in the day than i do, i'm just not sure how anyone is able to do all of that.

it is easy to compare myself to those people...when i am holding a screaming jobot and love is grabbing onto my legs and crying because she hurt herself for the fiftieth time today. or when i lose my patience for a moment because i am tired of my child constantly throwing everything onto the floor when she decides she is finished with an activity. or when i wake up at 5:15 am and am still not able to accomplish everything i want to in a day. i feel like i can barely stay on top of the laundry and meal prep, much less take care of a garden, animals, and a bunch more kids!


i sometimes believe my own negative thoughts about myself...that i should be able to accomplish more in a day, that i must not be good at managing a house and caring for two kids or i would be able to do all of these things...


i have to remind myself that no one is perfect. and that i need to be happy with who i am and what i am able to accomplish. currently, that means that my main priority is meeting the needs of the two little people i am caring for all day. there are just some other things that are not possible at this stage of life...and i am learning to be okay with that. like the fact that until 6 am this morning, our dining room floor was covered in rice from an activity i did with love yesterday and i just didn't have a chance to sweep it up until this morning. or the fact that i have been using store-bought tortillas instead of homemade ones these days...because most days just getting a nourishing, healthy meal on the table is a struggle and there is no way i have time to make tortillas. or the fact that jobot is currently wearing a disposable diaper because the cloth ones are all dirty.


i am my hardest critic...jeremy often reminds me of that. i am learning to have grace with myself and i'm trying to be okay with a less than clean house, and with compromising in some areas. it is just what has to happen these days.

maybe i am writing this post mostly for myself, or maybe other people need to hear it as well.

i often reference the verse i have posted on the fridge...

"he tends his flock like a shepherd, he gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young." isaiah 40:11

in the craziness of every day and in this work i have as a full-time mom, i am so thankful that God gently leads me along the way. i pray that i am able to follow each day and that following his lead is more important to me than cleaning the house or doing the dishes.