At lunch - full on “cheeeeese”

I am sitting here not knowing if Quinn will wake up or not. Last night, she actually didn’t and slept like a champ. Odd night out? Are we through the woods? I have no idea. Hubby is wanting to get on computer and I have about two hours of thoughts and stories I am dying to get out of my head. Talk about pressure! I will just get the small stuff out now and leave the weightier stuff for another day.

Conversation With Tyler

Me: Tyler, do you need to go poo?

Tyler: No, I am going to hold it..I am going to hold it for a couple of weeks.

{later Tyler starts to head to the bathroom and says…}

Tyler: Momma, I decided to let my poo out.

Recent Observations

Tyler did a killer job of sauteing some onions yesterday. He was using the spatula very well, slowly pushing the onions around. In the Learning Tower he is a safe distance from the fire and I think is now ready to do some cooking over the stove with me. I made a mental note to start giving him more saute jobs which we do a lot around here.

For the first time this morning, he and Quinn played in our house/kitchen area. Tyler told me he was “sauteing some veggies for you, mama” It was pretty cool!

At lunch - full on “cheeeeese”

Quinn Happenings

Her observation and imitation skills allow her to absorb and learn so much. She loves to nurture her babies - hugging them, kissing them and putting them, “night night”. She also loves to run trains with Tyler. She has thankfully moved from the destroying track phase to pushing the trains around and saying, “choo choo”. She is very much in the choo-choo mode the days. Whenever she backs up, walking or crawling, she will start “beeping” saying, “beeeep beeeep”. She wants to be up in the kitchen and will demand a “spoon!” when I am mixing something. If she is at the sink with the dishes, she will “wash” the dishes with the washcloth and rinse them. She still loves HUGE sticks and everyday we are outside can’t help but to collect every stick she locates. If her hands get full, she wants me to hold stuff for her - especially her pacifiers and wants me to put them in my pocket - “hold paci pocket”. Consequently, she thinks that I always have a pacifier in my pocket and when she asks for one, expects me to produce one. She loves to crawl up in her carseat all by herself. She loves being outside and just today was tooting around outside with Chase for about 25 minutes while Tyler and I were in the kitchen. She has SO many words and is working on smalls sentences. The other day it was, “I want sit in lap.” She loves to say “cheeeese” when the camera is out. She loves to play chase and will ask me, “chase em, chase em” when she wants me to chase her. She and Tyler both are amazing at tossing the Aerobe (type of frisbee).

The are both so darn amazing and now that I have ceased trying to stuff them in my preconceived notions of how things *should* be, I can appreciate them for who they are and all their amazing qualities.

So much I want to get out, so much figuring out, learning and simply letting go lately.   Quinn is getting in molars and her sleep has become quite intermittent as a result - pain reliever doesn’t seem to help.   She has been waking up every 30 minutes and often I just have to finally go to bed with her - sometimes this helps, sometimes not.   As a result, the nighttime focus has been on what I MUST accomplish in between her wakings.   The days have been challenging lately, but I am realizing that maybe a change of perspective and a little less expectation are quite helpful.

And before I go - thanks for the phone call Lesa!  It was incredibly sweet and I really appreciated your kind words.

For all my grumping, ranting, and whining last night, there was a sweet moment this morning that made me smile.  The kids went to bed late - Tyler down at 9pm, so of course he was up at 6:30am already on a tear.  Quinn didn’t fair very well last night either.  So seeing as there wasn’t much availble for me to throw together for breakfast and with two cranky kids and a hubby out the door, I decided we would go get breakfast tacos.

We were driving to taco shak right before 8am and the sun was still rising in the sky.  Tyler sees the sunrise and says, “when the sun is doing things like that, you take a picture of it.”   He continued to talk about the beautiful sunrise.  Later that morning, we were on our morning nature walk/playground excursion and Tyler says, “there’s a beautiful tree.”  

Some days in the moments of chaos, there comes a pause.  And I love those pauses - especially those where we go outside ourselves to discover goodness of some sort.   I breathe in that pause and let its peace wash over me.

Oh, and Quinn is here is my lap and Tyler is, {gasp}, playing..for the moment.

This New Years’ I got to live out a fantasy I have had for a while - throwing a plate against a brick wall.   Actually, it is my Mom’s fantasy.  She would say that when she was frustrated, she wished she had a brick wall in the  backyard and a box of plates and could just lob then one after the other at the wall to release her anger.

I had brought this up to the mamas and then the idea of writing all the the things we wanted to let go of this coming year came up and it made for a great event.  We drank mimosas, wrote words, thoughts and doodles on our plates.  I really looked forward to this.   I was one of the last to go.   I have great physical strength, and wasn’t going to be timid about throwing this plate - I was going to launch it.  My plate hit that wall and broke into tons of pieces flying back and almost reaching back to where I was.  It felt good.

Of course then, there is this problem.  The gesture was symbolic, but in reality, one cannot smash a plate to relieve themselves of all problems, wounds, and baggage.  One must actually grow to do that.  And slowly, each of us has discovered that suddenly we are being haunted by the words on our plates.

Chris says that it is the same with going to the trouble to write down goals for the year.  Becaue one has taken the time to clarify goals, write them down and commit to them, one then is more aware of them as decisions and choices are made.  I suppose it is the same.  We are now facing these situations and in the back of our heads are thinking, “wait!  I said I wasn’t going to do that anymore.”   And so it goes with me.  Um, insecurity, damn.  Not being jealous…oops - read previous post.   Awareness is good, but then causes me to hang my head - how quickly I forget.   But I can’t get good at something without a little practice I suppose.

Nevertheless, the plate smashing was fun and I think will be an annual tradition.  We may just be more cautious about what we choose to write on those plates!

Getting ready to hurl this plate at that shed

In Flight

Smashed into oblivion…that felt SO good!  Where is my mimosa?

I had to blog that the other day I heard Tyler talking to my Mom about some hard moments he had the other afternoon.  He said something about, “yeah, my friends took the bus but we didn’t.  That blows..”   That craked me up.  Yes, Tyler it did blow..  :-p

Trying to figure it out, just like mama

Tired, annoyed, tired.  Figuring stuff out just blows.   I think it is harder with two in that regard.  With one you can let the day flow around them.  You don’t have to worry about toy fights, the egging on,  the conflicts of needs - developmental, emotional or otherwise and my CLASSIC favorite - “how to keep Child B content and quiet for at least 20 minutes so that I can get Child A to sleep (without TV)”.   If I could go back to when it was just Tyler, I would have just melted in that rocking chair instead of counting the minutes until he was asleep.  I had all the time in the world to get him to sleep without interruption - I could just rock and relax.

In my case, I can’t get them to take a break from each other.  As soon as I get Quinn engaged in something to give Tyler some space to play and create, he comes over and asks, “what’s she doing?”  Attached at the hip these two.  He wanders around aimelssly looking for something and she follows right behind.  A toy gets thrown or something dropped - they laugh - and continue on aimlessly.  They walk around the yard, Quinn points out the dog’s “poo poo” and they walk on.  These silly kids.

Today, I made a CD that had a read story to which he had the book, music, a listening story and then a lullaby.  Twenty-eight minutes hoping he would remain in his room for the whole thing.  After the first story ends, he opens the door where I am trying to get his very alert sister to sleep to tell me that it is done.   I shake my head and say, “okay, go”.  It took me 40 minutes to get Quinn down today.   Tyler leaves me alone for the most part, except when he opened the door with a playsilk over his head “oooo-ing” like a ghost hoping to spook Quinn and I.  He’s a nut…and a cute ghost.

I want him to rest - he really does need it.  But I can’t stop rocking her to walk him back to his room. So I hear his feet running down the hall back and forth.  Then I hear a sound like blocks falling and scattering everywhere not sure if he is in destructive mode or something he has built merely fell.  Then I exit the room after getting Quinn down to find him messing with the computer which he is no longer allowed to do.

The hard work is figuring it all out - what does he need? What boundaries need to be set?  When do I let it ride?   When do I admit that what I am trying to do isn’t working?  How do I know when it is a general off-day?   When do I decide that I am putting way too much time and effort into this?

Curious One

I want it all to work like a formula.  If I do x and add a little y, I should end up with z.  So I throw my everything into getting x and Y straight.  Then I get tense about it all fearing that if we head a little off course, the whole thing is blown.  I really want to remove all the fear from my day.  I want my day to flow dammit - I want a light, cool envigorating breeze.

I am wanting to understand my son.  He is just like me and I don’t think he is every going to be a heavy play kid.  My Mom said that I played less than my brother who would go for hours.  I am a “do-er”.  It is much easier for me to clean, bake and do things that to sit down and use my brain.  It takes a lot of effort for me to sit down, calm and focus.  My Mom did warn me about projecting too much of myself onto my son, but I do see some likeness there.  I wonder though if there is something I can model or somehow help him find that grounding he needs and that spark to help him focus in for a spell?  Sometimes I watch him wander about and wonder if he just needs a few suggestions and for me to get play started?   Or maybe he just needs more jobs?

He has started dumping his food when done.  Another sibling regression thing as Quinn dumps too.  So today I had him go to the sink and wash his dishes.  He happily did and then handed them to me to put in the strainer to dry.  Perhaps, I just need to give him more interesting jobs that he would look forward to?

Questions, that is all I have right now.  And yes, answers may never appear and more questions will arise.  At any rate, I am tired.  Tired of thinking, tired of analyzing.  Wishing that I could just be like my Mama idols who seem to float through their days.  I get angry sometimes because I am working so hard and hard work should pay off somehwere. 

My husband is switching jobs and this is his last week.  It is glorify hubby week at work.  A dinner this evening where folks toasted how great he is, a card with several people bemoaning his departure, a happy hour tomorrow with more of the same. And hey, I will get the kids to bed because I don’t want you to miss a single minute of “Hubby Week”. 

What.. do I sound envious?  You bet I am.  I would love 5 simple minutes where hubby could detail in a sincere manner how I have made a difference in his and the kids lives that didn’t use phrases he regirgitated from my modeling for him in past arguments.  Not that I don’t receive gratitude, I do.  But I am talking unprompted, romance novel-level stuff - ”You are so amazing…yada, yada”.  Oh, and it isn’t a feeble attempt for nookie - although if we were talking romance novel-level stuff….well, then…the attempt might succeed. 

What Mom wouldn’t love a group of people standing up to say “hey, we noticed all you did, you so rock!”?  Remember, my “ouch” post - the universe is hellbent to deny me that.  Actually, I already know my life lesson is to find confidence on my own and not require the praise of anyone to motivate me, but I prefer to remain in denial of that one. 

Can I tell you how helpful it is having an uber-successful hubby who never fails because it is all about “perspective and how you look at things” and because he just “rolls with what happens.”  It is great for me as it means I can continue to stay at home because he brings in plenty of bacon, it is just that my ego could use some inflating now and then.  Of course, ultimately, my ego shouldn’t even play a part because , ya know, it shouldn’t be about me in the first place.  I am the evergreen grasshopper, aren’t I?  

I have such a blessed life that I really shouldn’t whine.  And it isn’t that.  I want to grow past all this baggage and there are days I feel like I am going in circles making no progress.  I think I will spend my entire life feeling on the edge of failure.   If I ever feel wise for a moment, the universe throws something at me to wisp all that away.  Being a stay at home Mom is an entirely thankless job, so at least I can grow and have some pride in that.  But no, I usually find I have even more to learn.   

Monday went so well!  The best part of the routine was that we had our first rest time and it couldn’t have gone smoother!  I read Tyler a book and then told him he could stay in his room and look at more books and when he was done he could go play quietly.  Then I went into the other room, read Quinn two books, and rocked her to sleep.  And she actually fell asleep!  Tyler would peek in to check on us, but was quiet as a mouse and closed the door if I said, “not yet.”  

His audiobook with some animal tales on it arrived today, so now we will be listening to a 30 minute CD that will have a short story, some music and will end with a lullaby.  I really want him to lay down for at least a half hour now.  After that h can play quietly, but I think his body needs that much of a break.

I am slowly working through the kinks and am seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.   We already have a “time to go” song and it is amazing to see the kids hear “Tingalayo” and Tyler ask, “are we going?”  The kids automatically start to get ready to head home.   They may hem and haw a bit, but they know what that song means, so they hem and haw while heading to the car!  :-p

Today was very reassuring to me.  We will get there!     It was an amazing day today.  The day was hauntingly gray and white with a constant firm breeze.  We have had the windows open and I have loved listening to the music of the wind chimes.  The breeze was cool enough to be envirgorating, but not to cause chills.  With that, we have to take an outdoor adventure.  So we headed to Mayfield Park to see the peacocks…who were all in the trees!  We went out a new gate to check out a hike path on which we had never traveled.  It was lovely.  We made our way across many creek crossings and then happened upon a rock outcropping with two lovely college women with whom Tyler has a small chat.  It was a great day.  Here are some photos from our adventure!

One Stick, Many Ripples

I heart trees!

Our Brave Explorer Crawls Cautiously Along the Precarious Rock Wall!

An inviting path

Little Explorers feelign the pull of that path

“Cheeeeese!”