Struggling

Man. Seems like I am struggling here. Struggling to update the blog. Struggling to find time to focus on the family. Struggling to get all my work for school completed. Just struggling....

It is so hard to be a working mama at times...with your attention divided between the kiddos, husband, house and job. Plus,throw in the mix being a pair of teachers. Yeah...so you can pretty much ensure our evenings are lost to papers and lessons and emails.  It is hard to find a balance.

Today I went with a few neighbors to a wake. Yeah. Sounds uplifting, right?  Well, it was. I love our neighbors. They are such a great group of people. Whenever something happens, these neighbors are on it. With Owen's surgery they were the most supportive people around.  When a baby is born sick, the neighbors rally around the family. When a neighbor's mother dies, they rally.  We are so blessed to have picked this neighborhood 5 years ago.  It is almost more like the neighborhood picked us--as this was the first house we looked at but it was a few thousand out of our price range. Then, a month later, we came back for our third viewing and the realtor announced it went down in price...to our limit!  How perfect.   The good thing about these folks is that we can support someone who is going through a hard time...and in the end it turned out be pretty therapeutic for all of us.  After the wake we took a long way home with a stop at Traders Joes (my first time ever...probably not my last!) and with an last-minute trip to the Cheesecake Factory! Yum!  And now I feel refreshed. These next 8 school days (I mean...who is counting) don't look so daunting now that I've had actual "Jo Ann Time". 

I gotta remember to take time out for myself between papers, dance practice, doctor appointments,  meetings and baking cakes.   Oh. Yeah. Baking Cakes...I forgot to show you how Owen's cake turned out. I have to admit. It rocked. Poor lil' booger loved it. Even though he had to wait until after dance practice to eat it!

The Dog.

Blowing out the candle.

Eating the Frog...after not realizing for a good 2 minutes that it was indeed edible.

He absolutely loved that Word World Cake.  Especially that Frog, "Ribbit" as he says. It was a great lil' day for him.   He is such a sweet lil' guy!  And even though I felt guilty leaving them this evening...I now feel like I have way more energy to keep up with their ever-lasting supply!

Parenting Perks

If we are gonna be honest here (and I don't see why not) there has been the occasional time with the two bambinos where I feel like I am going to pull out my hair.  I don't know, there is something about two kids fighting, yellow and squealing over a single toy amongst an avalanche of a gazillion toys that drive me batty. 

But I've gotta admit, the parenting perks far out weight the parenting frustrations. 
Here are six perks in random order:

(1)  Watching your son's vocabulary expand before your very eyes. He loves point out characters, body parts, animals and a even a few letters in his books.  Today his lil' sense of humor emerged when puts a *clean* diaper on his head and says, "hat".  Then, In his super soft and sweet voice he goes, "Noooooo." 
Man, I love this boy!

 

(2)  When your daughter does something she isn't supposed to do (while encouraging the lil' bro to follow suit) before you get a chance to correct her, she goes and says something like, "But Momma, aren't we cute."

(3) A perplexing parenting perk is trying to figure out why your son loves to cram himself in tiny boxes. This was the third box/container he tried to sit in just in an hour span!

(4) One of my favorite perks is while I am chilling, minding my own business one or both of my babies comes up just to cuddle. Oh how I love cuddling those lil' goobers!

(5)  Getting to eat dinner with your three favorite people in the world, one of which who demanded to wear an Elmo towel to help really simulate a fine-dining experience at our very own house.

(6)  While this isn't the final parenting perk there is...it is the final one for the night. How awesome is it to go downstairs and see a random piece of paper donning your daughter's name on it taped to the wall. If that wouldn't plant a giant smile on your face...what would?



Simple Parenting Mistake Solved

Parenting Mistake # 2,423,424.667:

 We put up all the Christmas decorations, the Christmas tree and sat on Santa's lap all on the same day with the 1 year old and the 3 year old (who still struggles w/ the concept of time...as indicated by the fact that every day in the past is considered yesterday).  The result of these activities: Bethany thought the next day was Christmas & when it turned out NOT to be Christmas, she thought the next day was Christmas. This went on for a few days until.....

Solution to Mistake #  2,423,424.667:

 Along with the wooden nativity scene advent calendar, I made a large and colorful paper-chain to count down the days until Christmas.  We started with 24 days left & after bath time Bethany gets to tear one piece off at a time.  She knows once she gets to rip the last one, the next day will be Jesus's birthday.  She loves getting to rip one off each day & counting the remaining links.

And sometimes, while she does that, Owen "gets" to eat some non-edible candle decorations, sigh.

Accepting Help

My two kids:

While they tend to often do the same exact things....especially at the exact same time. Whether it is to sit in the same chair, read books on the time-out step (voluntarily, mind you) or climb up the stairs taking "bites" out of the steps along the way (gross!)...they are certainly two-of-a-kind.

So, even though they are so similar at sometimes...there are times where these two goobers couldn't be any more different than night and day themselves. 

Bethany never had and rarely ever does question us when we suggest what is the best choice or what is the best situtation for her.  She typically always allows us to help her to get through her every-day-run-of-the-mill life happenings.  I think, she knows we have her best interests in heart and that we will not lead her astray.  Owen, however, that is a different story.

Couple of days ago, I took the two kiddos to the swimming pool by myself.  All is good. Bethany and Owen love playing in the kiddie section and they just eat up all the interactive spraying & dumping things.   After an hour in this section, we decided to venture off into the big, deep part of the pool.  Owen was donning his "backpack" (the rest of us call it a life jacket) which helps me feel 100% better in regards to his safety.  I carry them both into the deep section and lead them to this underwater bench-like-ledge where they can easily walk and still be above water.  Bethany is a master when it comes to this pool & knows to watch the blue lines on the edge of the ledge. She can see where the ledge ends and the water drops a good 3 more feet. 

Owen...well, he hasn't quite figured out how to navigate that treturous terrain.  I, being the great mother than I am, decided to just guide my son with a nice, loving hand gently holding on to the back of his life vest.  Owen hates this.  He hates the fact that I am ever-so-lightly holding on to him while he is navigating this foreign-to-him territory.  I am a good 3 feet taller than this lil' man. From my perspective, I can see the big picture.  I know where the ledge drops and where he will, for sure, lose his footing and drop into the deep end.  I understand the consequences of not having your head above water.   Owen, though, he doesn't.  He just knows that he is a big boy.  He sees his 3-year-old sister walking on the ledge unassisted and thinks he should be able to do that too.  Regardless of what is ultimately good for him, he squeals and fusses and swats away any of my attempts of assisting him.  He, after all, is a good 19 months old now.  He is a big boy and doesn't need any help from his ol' mama.

I can't help but see some parallels w/ Owen and the pool and Life in general.  Sometimes {all the time, actually} I ask God for help--help to get through something, help to decide something, help to comfort someone.  While I was helping my own son through a watery situation, I wondered to myself, "how often do I squawk and swat away the helping hand of God?"  Sure, I think I know what is best for me.  I, after all, have been here a good 30 years and I've seen a lot.  Perhaps, I do know what is best for me. Why would I need to stop and listen to what God is saying...

Silly isn't it?

Why do people do that? Why do we, being creatures of limited mind, swat away the help of someone all-knowing and all-loving.  Who only what is the best for us?  Who would give the world for us? Does that even make sense?  So while Owen is screaming, at this point, because I insisted on picking him up after he took those last two steps off the ledge and into the deep end; I quietly talked to God and made him a deal...

Not only will I continue to ask for his help...but now...now I will actually start listening and accepting what he has to say...

Parenting Games

{Happy 500th Blog Post}

I am at the point now where I am coming to terms with the fact that parenting is balancing act.  Sometimes we are playing the game of taking two steps forward while the lil' ones push you two steps back.

For instance, sometimes I clean up one room at the same exact time they are destroying another room.  The kiddos aren't too bad when it comes to helping out. But really...it feels like we are always cleaning up a 1,000 toys, a ka-billion puzzle pieces or a plethora of cookie crumbs.

 

Or you are walking a fine line to keep the little temper-tantrums at bay...whether it is by letting them wear what they wanna, monitoring their toy-snatching and minimize the antagonizing.  This isn't too hard of a line to walk.  By giving the kids choices between two parent-approved options, it really helps reduce many tantrums.  Either they can wear this jacket or this.  They can have this toy or that.  They can do this or go to time out.  It is all about choices & giving the bity babies some power.

The game I find the hardest to play is the balancing game.  Being that it is still in the middle of the school year...we are struggling to balance time between school work, housework and the babies. I feel the worst that Cory always gets cheated when it comes to spending time together.  I do believe our last date was sometime this summer {as I don't count conference nights as dates}.  We really aught to work on that.   We've talked about actually using a real babysitter sometime, to help us escape.  You know...the kind you have to pay for.   

But as some of our friends posted in their blog recently, it is all about being a parenting trade-off.  These kiddos are such blessing and a true gift from God.  It is amazing we have been chosen to take care and raise these two.   While we have less sleep, less time together and a just a few less dollars...these kids are worth every bit of it. It is, by far, the best trade I could ever think of making.

Sprinkles Galore!

Bethany and I baked cupcakes today.  From Scratch. We made these cakes here from this site.  They Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes.  They required 6.5 sticks of butters, 2 1/4 c of brown sugar, 3 c of powder sugar and tons of other gooey goodness.  Seriously, these suckers took me several hours to make and I am sure they will take several days to work off.  But man they are delicious!

Well, while we were in between steps, I took a break from stirring, licking and adding calories to check something online (no, actually I wasn't on Facebook).  Anyway.  When I turned around. This is what I found.




Seriously. How fast can that kid move? I wasn't zoned out that long. But remember this has happened to use before. Remember the Goldfish incident or the Pudding disaster?  But at least she had the sprinkles in the neat lil' cupcake holders.  Too bad that didn't last too long.  What you missed was the dumping of two containers of said sprinkles on the floor. Then she proceeded to nibble away!  That girl! I tell you what, it is great I bear only 1 child at a time. I don't know what I'd do if I had twins! :O)

barefoot, pregnant & blessed

Seems like there is always so many things that we can complain & whine about...especially as a nine-month pregnant woman, I think I am entitled to a few extra complaints than the ordinary person. However, Cory and I have been trying to focus on our blessings and not-so-much what could go better!



So what if being 38 weeks pregnant causes me to have aches and pains in multiple places at a time; & that I am uncomfortable if I sit/stand/lay down, whatever; and if Baby2's feet push against my ribs so hard that I've actually wondered if it is possible for my ribs to rip my uterus open under the pressure. We are blessed that I've had a complication-free pregnancy and that as far as we know the baby is as healthy as can be. I just keep reminding myself that the longer that he/she cooks the healthier (s)he'll be. And...it is a blessing itself that God is willing to place two of His children in our care here on Earth! What an honor!

So What if Bethany has had a slight fever and congestion and a cough the pass few days. We are blessed that she is an overall healthy baby, who is jumping leaps and bounds on all of the developmental milestone charts. We are blessed that I was relieved from my work this week and we didn't have to do that dreaded last-minute-get-stuff-ready-for-a-substitute scramble that we've become all too familiar with this year. Plus, it was nice to have some Mommy-Daughter time before Baby2 arrives!

So What if we just learned that our playyard was placed under a total recall. We are blessed that Cory saw the sign at the store before Baby2 started using the playyard on a daily basis. I am glad that Bethany was able to use it without any incidents of it collapsing on her. Now Baby2 has a brand-new playyard to act as a safe-haven from his/her "helpful," yet curious big sister.

So What Cory noticed our only car is leaking inconspicuous fluids this weekend. So what it is the water pump, transmission something-or-another AND a striped oil plug-thingy. We are blessed that we have the money available to fix the car. We are blessed that this is all happening before Baby2 has arrived, before I've gone into labor and before things could've gotten worse for any of those 3 car-troubles could've gotten worse! So what that the dealer is taking 2 days to get the car fixed-up for us; we are blessed that we have family and friends to rely on while the ole' Grand Am gets better!

It seems that lots of things tend to pile up at one time....Bethany's lil' cold, the car leaking stuff, my impending D-date, etc. But we are blessed that these are our only issues right now. We realize that we are blessed in many ways & that there are so many other people out there with far greater issues and needs; but we all need to look beyond our issues in life and find the blessings!

2:48 a.m.!

Look who has all the control in the family!
I can get them up at anytime of the day I wish...Suckers!

Hidden Perk of Parenthood...