I think I could have saved a lot of money on that dollhouse. I get so caught up in making sure she has the house, the dolls, the furniture. Really all she needs is a plate and 4 bugs.

Little Miss cracking me up as usual. She had collected 4 roly-poly bugs on the evening walk. We had a leaf bug in the bug barn to whom she thought about feeding them. Ultimately they ended up on this plate. She was talking to them and telling them where to go.

Once they started crawling around it was “you go over here little roly” as she created a story for them. She was so quiet and so focused. I loved seeing her face right up to the plate, so a part of whatever they were doing.

I just love the simplicity in kids play. It doesn’t take much for them to create a world. I also think that roly poly were put on this earth for kids.. :-p

Today I expected a big cold front to blow through and bring lots of rain and clouds. It didn’t really go down like that. There wasn’t a strong line of storms – they were few and scattered. This afternoon, we were right on the line of rain and sun and it was just cool. On one side we have the dark, ominous, threatening sky and on the other we have the cheery, shiny, carefree sunny day. Kind of like life – it all about perspective and what you choose to focus on.

This must have been a narrow storm because it was like the weather was on a highway. The two moved alongside each other not crossing lanes. It was quite fascinating to me, but then again, I love weather. I wanted to run under each one and just go back and forth. I liked that they decided to use my house as their divider.

And so as I was in the kitchen cooking I would look out to see what the sky was up to. Then I got the biggest thrill when I saw a rainbow! I called to the kids so they could see it too. It started off pretty bright and within about 5 minutes was gone. I was pretty psyched that I managed to get a picture of it.

I am pretty tired, I have so much to do before our trip, and Tyler seems to have just come down with the flu. So I am going to take that bright, happy, promising rainbow appearing over such a dark, ominous sky as a good omen. Life is all weather anyway.

A Good Omen

Today was a good day – I spent much of it focusing on things that were outside of me. There was a lot of helping today and it felt good to do things for not only friends but strangers. I was parking my car and saw a man having trouble getting a table into his truck. I immediately said to myself “I am going to help him.” I called to him as he was walking to the store to get help and assisted him with the table.

I always have to chuckle when men worry about my strength. “It is heavy”, he says. “I lift weights and have two young kids – I am used to it.” I think to myself…”I am used to all sorts of heavy loads, sir. Trust me, I am totally the girl for the job”. And so we get the table loaded and he thanks me. I bounce off to the store to complete my errand.

It just felt good to get out of my head, to be a part of the life that is happening around me. I am the fixer, that is what I am.

I am tired, but feeling so much better..feeling optimistic. We have a vacation coming up – and I think that will be the welcome break I have been looking for. Things will be the same when we come home, but maybe the peace and quiet of being out in nature for a week will provide me some inspiration, clarity and connection.

After all, I am the fixer. It is what I do. And I am ready to dig in and make some changes around here.

When somethings dark, let me shed a little light on it
When somethings cold, let me put a little fire on it
If somethings old, I wanna put a bit of shine on it
When somethings gone, I wanna fight to get it back again

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fight to get it back again
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

When somethings broke, I wanna put a bit of fixin on it
When somethings bored, I wanna put a little exciting on it
If somethings low, I wanna put a little high on it
When somethings lost, I wanna fight to get it back again

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, fight to get it back again
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

When signals cross, I wanna put a little straight on it
If there’s no love, I wanna try to love again

I’ll say your prayers, I’ll take your side
I’ll find us a way to make light
I’ll dig your grave, we’ll dance and sing
What’s saved could be one last lifetime

Pearl Jam’s, “The Fixer” lyrics

In the midst of so much blahness, sometimes inspiration and ideas come at just the right time and make for lots of fun. And so this was the case Monday night. Chris and I were both pretty worn out and down and having that “how did we get here?” conversation trying to figure out why the house is always a mess, why nothing gets done and why we both feel so overwhelmed. During this time, the kids were naturally up to something and soon enough we found out what.

Before long we had two monsters running into the office roaring their terrible roars and gnashing their terrible teeth. They then headed back out to add more color to themselves. They quite enjoyed themselves and I was simply thrilled that there was no water or grand-scale clean-up involved! :-p

We ate dinner with our two little monsters. I knew that our evening walk would now be a bath and then suddenly inspiration struck! We told the kids that after dinner we would be putting the monsters at the table into the witches’ bubbly cauldron. They were very intrigued and loved this idea!

I left the table and quietly made a very bubbly bath in the bathroom. When I returned, the kids were finishing dinner and getting their dishes to the sink. Chris and I turned off all the lights then we cackled like witches and each of us chased and grabbed a child and took them to the bathroom. The kids of course were giggling and eating it up.

When we turned on the lights in the bathroom for them, there was the bubbly cauldron waiting and they both jumped in with gusto. I brought them each a small colander (which became their cauldrons) with many spoons, baster and other tools from the kitchen. They spent the next half hour happily making spells in their cauldrons in the bath!

It was so cool and we all had such a good time. If only I could have those kind of brilliant ideas more often. At any rate, it was a really nice evening and I enjoyed that for once everything seemed to effortlessly flow.

My hair did a cool flip today and I really liked it. I liked how it covered my eye on one side; I felt so mysterious. I was in the bathroom with Quinn earlier and I asked her what she thought of my hair as it fell over one side of my face. She said, “one eyed pirate”. I laughed, well yes, I guess I do look like that!

I am having fun seeing myself. Finding myself beautiful again. I am not genetically gifted and so my face has never been a natural with the camera, but with the right light and angle, I can take a picture that captures what I see in the mirror. I really like this me – she is feeling good about herself and having fun and that was the purpose behind this whole hair change.

And so on a late night when I should totally be in bed, I am staring at myself in the mirror trying to take a self-portrait. I am having fun with my hair don’t you think? :-p

Mama time and beautiful weather.. I don’t ever want it to end. So I am here enjoying the last moments of peace as the cavalry is chugging home full-steam ahead from Grandma’s with a sick little girl and sick husband in tow. Mama is needed and we will see what the afternoon brings.

I am feeling better today and thinking a lot about self-reliance. My friends are so kind to lend their ears because I have been talking about where I am ad naseum. I process everything outside of me – I have to hear myself talk and read what I write. The more I do that, the more clarity I find. Hi, you are choosing to be my friend and will be required to be my sounding board. On every 5th listen of me talking about my life and what I have figure out up to this point, you get a free coffee. :-p

I realize that really so much is up to me. When I am down it is so easy to say to my hubby, kids, friends, job, whatever, “If only you would {fill in blank}, I would be better.” It is not true. I complain that hubby doesn’t take the reigns when I am down, he doesn’t steer the ship. Two nights ago I was sitting on the couch as he flitted around cleaning the house, doing laundry and loading the dishwasher. I got mad and told him to sit down because his constant movement was annoying me!

What the hell? He was doing what I had indirectly asked him to – “please be me for a few days”. When I am down and tired, I don’t want to find the energy to get myself out of the place I am in. It is so much easier to think someone else has to do it, but they can’t. Community is so important, but they are there to support me, not fix me.

Today I was thinking about what got me here. Everything was going pretty good. I figured out that I, the captain as always, docked my ship and left my boat for a little respite. Inertia screwed me some right there, it takes a lot of energy to get a stopped object into motion. Then I got back on the boat and suddenly couldn’t drive the damn thing. Why? For a while now, I kept thinking – it was me. I am a failure, I can’t do anything, why can’t I get my stuff together, I am useless, etc. That isn’t it.

It is a different frickin’ boat. My kids are older now and coming into their own in ways I am honestly not ready for. It will take me some time to get to know who they are as they grow into themselves and assert more. I work more than I used to. Hubby’s job is still crazy stressful, he works lots of hours, and now has a second hobby/career that is taking up more of his time. I am spending way more time thinking about the future and who I want to be…and that is taking my focus away from lots of other things. Our life has been brutally busy lately, so there hasn’t been much down time. No time to just think, it is all action right now.

This is not a snap my finger, it is all better thing. My kids are frickin’ complicated and very different. I have to work out their needs and how to meet them and match that with what I have capacity for. Some days, I can stop and have a quick uncle fight with Tyler, match his energy, connect with him and then bring him back down. Some days I just want him to calm down. Some days I just want him to go away and I don’t want to have to do anything.

They want to be who they are. I don’t always have the patience for the vacuum cleaner tube to be hooked up to the sink and no child stops to think about where the water coming out the other end is going to go. Seriously people, I have TONS of these examples. My Mom chuckled and thought it was pretty cool – yeah, when it isn’t your house, your kitchen, your wood floors and the 3rd time this week that you will have to wash all the towels because you are cleaning up yet another lake in your house. My kids are mad scientists with a maid, because cleaning up is no fun….where is my inner Mary Poppins? I seems like I have no idea where any activity is going to go and it tires me out to have to constantly be on guard about their next impulse.

And I pause for a caveat:
No thank you, this is not a Nanny 911 intervention. This is an energetic, creative, curious 5 year-old coupled with a curious, fun-seeking, “why not, let’s live in the moment” 3.5 year old. This is normal..it is completely normal. What is not normal is living in a house with kids this age- I think I would be much more relaxed in a teepee…

Yes, Tyler you can take apart the camping coffee percolator….see how it works fine. No Tyler, stop banging that piece on the floor you are going to bend it. It is an ongoing game of red light, green light with lots of caution. Sure, green light kids, wait, um, yellow….I think Yellow light, yes, YELllow light…..RED LIGHT..I said RED LIGHT…as in stop..what part of stop don’t you understand???

This is new. This was not how it was and I gotta figure out how do deal with the above. I have to look at how all these variables (and unpredictable, exploratory play) are impacting me (and exhausting me..and making me an unfun mama). It is going to take some time to adjust and adapt to this new family dynamic (the mad scientists moreso). I can’t run away, I can’t check out and I can’t look to anyone else to make it better.

What I CAN do it take care of myself and do the things I know bring me peace and happiness. And then I can kick my butt into gear and start thinking about and making some of the changes that need to be made in our daily life to support where we are. I need to do it. It seems so big and hard, so I ignore it – write emails, try to kill time on Facebook, stare off into space. I just need to start somewhere and I think I might surprise myself at how it falls into place if I exert a little effort.

I have been going manic on keeping the house clean lately. Reality: If I cleaned and ordered the house perfectly, there would still be chaos in my life because the kids are constantly taking the house apart anyway. A clean house will not solve this. And maybe until I figure out how we can all be at home and have more positive experiences, we should be out more.

I am sure I sound like a broken record because I talk about these things a lot. Why do I always have to remind myself to do this stuff? Why do I always stop doing what is so good for me? I don’t know – I am a mother, life gets intense and what is good for me seems like the first thing to go. Sometimes I have to drop the knitting and just hold on because life is about to get bumpy, or really wet, or dirty, or whatever the case may be.

With that, the cavalry has arrived and off I go…..

And this is Quinn – dressed herself this way. Yes, the girl can put tights on all by herself.. She is such a silly nut this one. One thing that strikes me about her these days is her efficiency with syllables. Really more than two are never necessary. Her pacifer is a pac, lollipops are lols, toiler paper is toilet papes… She shortens everything and it cracks me up – she has her own lingo at 3.5 yrs old.

She is completely obsessed with water. If she can find a container, it will get filled with water. The other day she got two bowls from her play kitchen, filled them with water and returned them to her play kitchen. She will take out 20 ziplock bags our of another kitchen drawer and fill each one with water making “fishies”.

She also on a daily basis empties the towel drawer in my kitchen and then stuffs all the the towels and washcloths into the bottom shelf of her play kitchen. She will take all the clothes from her dresser drawer and then stuff them in her nightstand saying they need to be there in case she needs them. She is a strange mix of hoarder and transporter and re-organizer. It is all at once funny and drives me crazy. She runs around the house full of purpose with a purse stuffed full of who knows what mix of toys, random stuff and toiler paper that is slung across her body like a messenger bag looking like a little old lady headed to Luby’s.

And she is so in the moment – she draws anywhere, on any surface and whenever she has the inclination. There are no boundaries – it is not Tyler’s art or Mommy’s notes – they are a canvas for her to decorate. And even if we claim them as ours well, she offers her help with our art or our notes. She is all about group projects, this one.

She plays with reckless abandon completely in the moment. The perfect example of a child soaking up life. Sometimes I wish I could join her more in her moments. Mine are filled with scenes of large-scale messes or asking her for the 100th time where the toilet paper is. After she goes to the bathroom, she always takes the roll and puts it under the night stand in case she needs it. The night stand is special as is toilet paper.

She is three and a half. I have no answers……merely observations coupled with amusement and bewilderment.