A yummy glass of wine and crafting with a good friend…

Creating a surprise for tomorrow morning…

I receive inspiration and wisdom from so many places and would like to borrow this idea from Soulemama and post images of things that make me smile and feel blessed.

Kids Playing and Working Together.

Getting organized and even having room for “guest” ingredients!

Getting a head start.

A seasonal table with beautiful treasures.

Feeling a sense of purpose and wanting to take action.

Tyler turned three this past Sunday. I can’t believe it either. More about three later, but I wanted to post his “birthday table”. I had been wanting to follow more traditional Waldorf traditions for Tyler, but got so lost planning the party, that I didn’t get around to doing all the preparations. My favorite part is that on your seasonal table, a little gnome shows up several days before the birthday “preparing” for the big day. The traditions very much focus on the birthday as a celebration of life. Next year I hope to really embrace more of those traditions. So then, what to do for him this year?

I really wanted Tyler to wake up on his birthday and see something special besides the hustle and bustle of party preparations. So I created this “birthday table” scene for him using his toys. Basically, it is many of his toys traveling to his party. Some are flying, some are driving, some are swimming, some are hiking and some are in a boat. The blue silk is water and also signifies that something is coming. There is a little candle that was lit to the right of the scene.

He really liked it when he woke up and studied it carefully and enjoyed looking at it further when we ate breakfast. I loved that we had this up all day and the morning after his birthday it was gone. I just love the idea of seasonal tables and how they represent the seasonal changes we will be experiencing and offering a hint of what festivals are up ahead.  I juse cleared the space where our sesasonal table will live for the coming year and I can’t wait to create it!

Here are a few more photos of the scene and Tyler seeing it for the first time!

I am incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to get a decent amount of sleep every night and if I don’t, 9 times out of 10, that was my choice.  The night before Tyler’s birthday was crazy.  I was already tired, but stayed up late finishing preparations and was up early the next morning.  I haven’t heeded my body’s pleas for rest and today it was readily apparent.  I was running on fumes and had no capacity to handle the varying emotions of toddlers with the exception of “happy” and “calm/quiet”.  I did not have the capacity to meet the kids’ needs today. 

It would be just my luck that both kids slept poorly as well last night and were both cranky. Additionally, my Dad would be spending the whole day with us while my Mom attended a seminar.  How bad was the day?  My meltdown came at a hike.  The place I go for peace, respite and recharge.  Quinn had been fussy and then Tyler was upset because he missed seeing the deer that ran across the road. 

Here is a parenting note for anyone interested:  when you want a child to stop crying, do not tell them to stop crying, because they will cry more.  I know this of course.  Tyler needed me to validate his emotions, to sympathize with him, to hold him for a spell.  Also, Mama needed to tune into the fact that he was really tired.  But I could’t do that.  I wanted silence and I wanted to get on with the hike.  It wasn’t pretty.  I said things that I knew were unkind and would only exacerbate the situation.  I saw the words flying out of my mouth, but had no ability to stop them.  What was worse was to have my father witness my parenting at such a terrible moment.

Finally, we sat down to have a snack and both Tyler and I calmed down.  We talked through it and I owned up to the mistakes I had made that morning.  We tried to continue the hike, but I realized that Tyler really wasn’t wanting to do it, so we went home. 

On the way home, I kept asking myself, “what is the fun way to handle this?  What do I do when everything has gone to hell?”  So we all headed down to P. Terry’s for a hamburger, fries, lemonade/milkshake lunch.  Thankfully, my father and Quinn both took 2+ hour naps and my Mom returned to the house at 4:30pm.

It was a terrible day and really boiled down to the fact that I didn’t get the rest I needed.  It was eye opening to see just how much my game would drop off after a few days of reduced sleep.  I was operating in my primitive, reptilian brain and it wasn’t pretty.  As I write this, we are heading towards 9pm, so I will take my own advice and wrap this up.

The other day Quinn found the sidewalk chalk, picks up the container and heads down the driveway and to the sidwalk where we had been drawing the day before.  Tyler was putzing around in the garage and I was in and out of the house.  She is so independent and when she sees what she wants to do, she just does it.  If she needs you, she will let you know; otherwise, she has is under control.

your conversations sounds like this:

Me:  “I think we lost Tyler’s digger at the park today.”

Chris: “The one you ran over?”

Me: “No the expensive one from Terra Toys..”

Chris:  “Yeah, the one that you ran over with the car.”

Me:  “No….” {big irritated sigh}   That was his excavator!!”

What a strange day.  It was just off.  My body, everything feels off.  Tyler was having an off day too.  The park was overrun with kids today and he seemed like a stranger in a strange land.  A friend was there, than his friend was gone.  Games couldn’t get started.  He is playing a little game with older kids trying to understand his role, trying to keep up with them.  After another hour and a half, another friend shows up and you can see the joy at finding each other.  

Later he runs for the swing and gets there first.  Another child wants it to and is unrelenting in her desire.  After trying to stand up for my son, I finally ask him to swing on another swing.  Later I apologize to him for not standing stronger, for asking him to walk away when it was truly his turn and he wanted to swing next to his friend.  Some baggage that mama does not want to transfer to son – the inability to be assertive when it would inconveinence another.

I talk to my friends at the park about trying to be better when approaching potential altercations with children if I didn’t witness it.  Instead of asking, “did he do it?” (in front of Tyler no less), I ask “what happened?”  I don’t want to give my son the impression that I always assume he is in the wrong.  Then later at home I pretty much blame his screams while on the potty in the bathroom for waking his sister early from her nap.  I realized a few minutes later that she had peed out the side of her diaper (mama didn’t get it on right) and that she didn’t have a pacifier next to her (mama forgot) and that those two things probably had more to do with her waking then the screams, even if they did factor in.  Strike two for Mommy.

This evening it was just Quinn and I.  Tyler was gone at the grandparents since Chris has an all-night launch.  I was lonely.  I was back in college where there is all the possibility of a Friday and I had no plans, no one to connect with.  There was a nervous churning in my stomach that was familiar.  Quinn and I went out for dinner and it was electric.  Then later I get home to make a to-do list and all the possibility slowly evaporates with each task:  put away groceries, start laundry, wash dishes, clean up house.   I couldn’t be a single Mom. 

Chris makes fun of me because I have been telling him lately, “I love you SO much.”   We have a partnership and we cannot make this life work without each other.  And while we are both alive and together – this life works and works well.  There is a balance and I appreciate the very important role he plays in achieving this balance.  On nights like this when he doesn’t come home, I miss the shift in the day, in the house, in all of our moods when Daddy walks through the door.  He renews all of us.  After 11 hours together, all three of us need a change and Daddy brings that.  And while Daddy may be tired from his long day, we all expect him to be ready for us.  Ready to play, ready to hug, ready to listen.   And being such a great Daddy and partner, he leaves his work at the office.  Even if he has to work after the kids go to sleep, he tucks it away so he can focus on us if even for a few hours.  I see that and I love him so much for it. 

An interesting evening this one.  Quinn peed on the TV remote control and she was only naked for 5 minutes.  She was doing the uncomfortable pee dance with her knees together and told me she needed to “poo”.  I took her to the potty, but she said “no” when I took her to the bathroom.  Granted she only saw the little training potty for the first time yesterday. 

It was pretty funny.  I always talk about her imitation, but I am so intrigued by it. I shake one of her legs playing a game.  Then she grabs the same leg and shakes it and then shakes the other one.  I play the “boop” game with her booping her tummy with my finger and then she boops herself with her finger.  She has to try it all on and see how it feels.  You do this, I want to do it.  I want to feel it and experience it too.  Her brother is up on the stool at the counter and she has to be there too.  She despises being left out of anything.  I also love how she is so engaged in her world.  When she spies something interesting, she crouches down to have a look at it.  She is excited, she babbles, she points, she smiles. 

My life has been so easy lately.  The last two days Quinn has been way more feisty and I realize that my challenges with her are just beginning.  My ego has been so inflated lately.  I have made some changes around here and they have had a wonderful impact on the flow of our day.  But the biggest pitfall I can make as a parent is to take too much credit, to think that I have all the answers, to think I have it all figured out. 

Reveling in my successes, I was forgetting to listen.  The wonderful people in my life cannot have an impact if I do not listen for the guidance inherent in my interactions with them.   Boasting about my successes and offering unsolicited advice doesn’t really help anyone.  I need to stay focused on my journey and the lessons I need to learn so that I continue to evolve and be a better person.   Listening is tantamount to that.  Learning not to judge situations and people so quickly is another.

I am nesting right now.  I have been feeling a need to prepare the house.  I guess with winter around the corner and us spending more time in the house, presuming it ever does get cold, I want our space to be ready.  I find that this year more than ever I am so tied to the seasons.  As I spend more time celebrating the seasons and festivals and talking about them, I realize just how important they are.   I am becoming more and more connected to the environment and nature.  I am becoming grounded.  I am planting strong roots and I am growing.  I am such a better Mom than I was a year ago.  I say that with conviction and it feels so good.   I will continue to make mistakes, and I will learn and I will continue to grow.

I love my kids so much and they love each other.  I am so blessed.  I am learning that sibling love at these younger ages isn’t the norm necessarily.  It seems that the transition from one to two can be very difficult on the older siblings and this loss of control, this frustration can manifest itself is many ways.  And think of the pain for the mother seeing her older baby in pain and so upset.  I think my days would be so much more difficult if they were at each other’s throats constantly. 

I am blessed and I am content and am thankful.  I harbor a fear that when things are so good something terrible lingers around the corner.  But I can’t do that.  I must simply enjoy this place in the journey.  I don’t get to control the whole game, but merely play my part.   I am reveling in the jubilation I feel these days enjoying the tingle through my body.  It is little moments like seeing my kids walk side by side as they commence their next adventure, seeing my son hug his sister with pride as she does a “big kid” thing, watching my little girl giggle so hard when her brother plays games with her that give me such big highs.  Our days are filled with ups and downs, but man it is all such good stuff.

With that I sign off.   It is time to send my thoughts away and go snuggle with my little girl.