School has started which has meant transitions for us and many of my friends. More on that later. I do have tons of posts to get caught up on, but just a few pics of the highlights of the last few weeks:

Lego Sumobot Tournament
Watching a lego sumobot competition was SO MUCH FUN! I can’t begin to tell you how much fun I had. We enjoyed renaming robots things like, “Slow Glacier of Death” (and that is him shoving all the robots off the playing field!). Yes, underneath it all I was so meant to be a geek groupie…..

Wine with friends
There is nothing more in this world that I cherish than my friends and the opportunity to spend time with them. Here was a perfectly lovely night to say goodbye to summer as the sun is starting to set earlier and earlier. And my what a sunset! I can’t wait until the timing is right and we start taking our family sunset walks again.

Closing a chapter with good friends
Most of my friends sent their eldest children to Kindergarten this year. It was the end of a chapter for all of us. All the play dates, adventures and support through those early years of childhood. And while these friendships are surely not ending, they will be changing. And so we gathered at our favorite park for some last play dates together.

Reconnecting with my husband
Life has been hard and stress has been high and we had not been getting along lately. We are blessed with both parents in town who love to take the kids, so we sent them off for an overnight and had some much needed “us” time. We had a lovely time doing things together – an amazing dinner at a new South American restaurant near us, playing racing games on the Wii, cycling and a long lazy breakfast. It was good to have some breathing room – we needed it.

I got to wear my new favorite, fancy dress!	I had my date!
And we look cute together!

Who knew? A Tyler creation and I am so in love with it!

And I love Duplo legos. So many of Tyler’s friends have moved on up to the regular legos, but my kids are just not ready. It is so interesting to watch. Their play with the duplos is effortless. They have a good amount to create with and build everything and anything you can imagine. They are happy, content and do not struggle in building their creations.

When Chris brought out his legos, to my chagrin, I saw a different vibe in the kids’ play. Quinn obviously struggled more and of course, likes to put the pieces in her mouth. Tyler started to get very particular – having to use specific pieces and wanting to build the models he saw in Daddy’s stuff.

Suddenly the creations were more labored and it seemed more difficult to make come to life. He would want to play with the big models he and Daddy built, but parts kept falling off every time. They are built to be on a shelf, not flown all over the house as he wants to do at this age. I also found that I was needed more which I have a problem with. And while I don’t mind challenging them, this level of legos caused too much contraction and more frustration for everyone.

And so this mean Momma put the kabash on the little legos. On occasion a model he and Daddy built comes down, but I find that he doesn’t even ask for them very much anymore. A day after our trip Tyler was happily building “spaceships with cameras attached” with his Duplos. When they are both older, the regular ones will come out again. But for now things are once again happy and peaceful and full of numerous creations, like my new friend here, cardinal. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, ya know?

Hi, it’s me! I decided to get in front of the camera for once – not my most comfortable place. I guess when one “bears themselves” it is no make-up, bare bones themselves. I guess I am the opposite – I have been bare bones for like 2 years hiding absolutely nothing.

You see the dark circles, the disheveled clothing, my greasy hair from lack of showers. And really I didn’t have time for appearance and I was still me. It is kind of refreshing to be bare bones and not fear approaching people and just to be you knowing that people will gravitate to what is inside.

But recently something changed. On the inside I am on fire and it just does’t match to me on the outside. I feel like so much is mis-matching / off balance in my life right now and I am on a tear to fix it. The kids and I, my hubby and I, the contribution I make caring for my Dad.

I need to make sure I am connected to my kids, Chris and I need to be better about dedicating time to us, and as my Mom enters 4 years of direct care for my Dad she needs more support and more assistance from my brother and I. She has carried so much of this load, but I can see how heavy it is getting.

And so it is with taking care of myself. I have to carve a place for me and not let me get lost in the weight of life. Lately I have honestly been feeling kind of fugly….kind of like a garden that had been ignored for far too long. So much inside of me, so much fire and yet on the outside…..you don’t see it. I wanted people to see my fire, I wanted people to see me coming. (Of course, now they do and then I wonder why..I keep forgetting about the hair! :-p)

It has felt good to do a few things for me, to make time for myself, and to tell myself I deserve it. And yeah, it is totally superficial, but for all the reality I walk in and carry day after day after day, it provides levity….and we ALL need levity.

FINALLY red!!! And I am loving it!!

I thought something had just changed. The only conclusion I could come to was that Quinn had come into her own and was now asserting herself in new ways and I wasn’t prepared for that. Tyler was regressing – not putting shoes on and wanting help getting dressed. Bedtime was a complete nightmare and we were getting really frustrated with Tyler’s wild ways and his inability to listen to us. I didn’t like my kids. I strive to be a mindful parent and that is not who I was being. I felt like I was constantly yelling and threatening and losing my temper.

So we went and saw a therapist I had seen for a few years pre-kids. She is a parent herself of 3 grown-kids and has a PhD in Child Development. Wow. A one-hour appointment and there were so many “aha!” moments for me. Some things were things I knew, but was so in the thick of our yucky dynamic that I couldn’t see past my own feelings and frustrations.

Assessing what is going on in our family..
First, she looked at our last year which has been a tough one. I quickly realized that I had been giving hubby a lot of my attention with stuff he was dealing with. On top of that, with hubby working many hours and me trying to carve out time for me, we had gotten very “task-master”-like. The days were eat breakfast, have this adventure, get this done, lunch, tasks, dinner and bedtime. And we were railroading through so much of it, that we were forgetting to slow down, let things unfold slowly and connect with the kids. We have been so busy, I can’t even remember the last time all four of us just snuggled together or had a simple family outing where we could be and enjoy each other.

Lack of Attention
Tyler was suffering the most from all this. I think we were putting more expectations on him and not giving him the love he really needed, so he was acting out in every way possible to get attention. Hello, this is textbook stuff. And we lost sight of it.

It made me so sad for Tyler, I started crying. I could look back and I could see it – him wanting some touch, some love by getting help with his shoes and us just standing our ground because we were in bad moods. *sigh* I just didn’t get it, and I imagine that the longer we have all been in this yucky place with the kids, the more we have been pushing them away.

Wiring
I also forgot that Tyler is just like me – he has a very active nervous system and has a very hard time calming down for bed. I have the same problems going to sleep. And we were pushing the bedtime routine such that he didn’t have time to come down and was trying to keep himself amped up. There were some things we had done like taking out our evening walk and removing the music from his room that were actually things he really needed. And when they would come out after being in bed, we made the mistake engaging them by getting angry with them. We gave them a reaction and again, as I have read and heard before, it is better to just calmly walk them back to bed and say nothing. Oh, and I only let them chat for 5 minutes and then they have to be quiet (and can listen to the music). They used to talk for an hour and keep each other up.

Changes
Well, Chris went to Dallas this weekend early Friday morning, so it has been me implementing the changes we decided upon…and wow, I already notice improvements, especially at bedtime. I am hoping they are not flukes.

We have brought back the after dinner walk – both kids, especially Tyler loves it. He asked, “can we put the walk into our nighttime chart right after dinner?” The last two nights he has come in from the walk and gone straight to the bathroom to go potty and brush his teeth with no fuss. I want to find some quiet instrumental music for their room, but right now it is John Coltrane, which I love. Tyler came out once tonight and I quietly walked him back to him room, tucked him in and said goodnight. And that was it, he was out. Especially since I am sick right now, that was nice.

Love
I have been giving him as much affection as possible, a hug here, a rub on the back, a kiss. I have been proactive and asking him if he wants me to help him with his clothes or his shoes before he asks me. What I am noticing is that while sometimes he accepts the help, sometimes he declines and prefers to do it himself. It is like he needed to know that the offer was still there if he wanted it. That even as he gets older and more independent that Mommy and Daddy are still there if he needs us.

Also, I used to tell them a bedtime story in the dark with Quinn sitting on my lap in her bed while Tyler laid in his. I have stopped this. We all cuddle together in one bed and read a few books and then, at lights out, I tuck them both in and sit in the middle of the floor. As my therapist said, “Of course he is regressing, the three year old is getting all the goodies!”

Next Steps
So we are going to go with all these changes for a bit and see where we are at. My therapist (who I would highly recommend) is super cool and said that if this one appt does it, that is great…or if we decide we want to come back some time in the future to just give her a call. I love it!

I still have some challenges I want to address with things that go on during the day, so that may be next on my list. Chris and I may go in for a tune up too. It is kind of nice to have the “drop-in” option – hi, we have a three appointment problem. Duh, therapy doesn’t have to be a big long-term thing that will be costly. Sometimes we just need a quick shove in the right direction.

As my friend says, “you do maintenance on your car because it needs it and is important to keep it running well. You don’t even think about it.” She said it is the same for marriages and relationships. I so agree. Chris and I had no answers – we could not see the forest for the trees and understand what was going on. We needed someone from the outside to look in and point it out for us.

That was the best money I have spent in some time..and the best use of one hour. I am back to a place of love and understanding with my children…and that is the perch from which I prefer to parent.

Could you? Could you put your camera lens on me and pull out everything that is inside? I won’t remember the intensity of these years and the daily ups and downs. All I have is this blog and I am so incredibly clumsy with words. I am a very visual person and it is through images that I relate. And the brutal truth is that I want to look at an image where who I know myself to be on the inside shows on the outside.

There is a fire ready to burst inside of me. I think that is why I so desperately want to color my hair red – I want the fire inside to show on the outside. I want to be seen and all these needs are clashing. My insides and my outsides don’t match up and that is pissing me off. So much potential and I just don’t feel it is going anywhere..I keep telling myself patience.

I want to change my appearance and look totally different – why is that? Something just isn’t matching up. The more I seek clarity about what I should be doing, the cloudier and more confusing it all becomes. I know exactly who I am, but not who I am supposed to be….

I said these words today, “I loathe my children”. I said that and a few stronger things. We are at such an icky point in our relationship. The one word that kept coming to my mind is “understanding” and I clearly have a lack of it right now. I am well aware that this place serves none of us and brings increasing negative energy. I don’t get them and the more I press, the more they rebel. I must be forcing something that just doesn’t meet them where they are at right now. At any rate, I have no answers…and so I am going to go see someone who does.

I am counting down the days until I get to go see the therapist. I have been taking notes trying to craft a description of where I am in a concise way. I want to spend that hour with her doing most of the talking and explaining. I am just missing the boat somehow. Either that and/or I require a deeper understanding of where my two are developmentally and what they are learning in the process of driving me out of my mind.

I have this exasperated pic Chris took one Christmas and I love this shot. There is so much damn truth in that shot. And now I want the one that shows that I am still here inside just trying to sort it all out. {chuckle} I could probably use the same exact shots of both my kids to remind me that the sweet babies I love so much are still in there even when they are pushing me over the edge as they are trying to figure it all out. Maybe that is why none of us are getting along right now…

And I feel like a newborn
Kicking and screaming

This weekend was good and crazy. I think most crazy when Chris and I were focused on getting stuff done and so the kids became mischief makers. Saturday was a craptastic day – I know no other way to describe it. No plan, grumpy Mama and the day tanked from there.

Sunday we went to Inner Space Caverns and wow! That place is amazing. I learned so much and found my sense of wonder and desire to learn awakened! They give lots of history and imagery and you feel like you are back in time watching this earth change and form. Really cool adventure – I highly recommend it! I also have to note that our tour guide sounded just like Garrison Keillor – that made it extra cool!

You would think that alone would wear out our children, but no, we do not have those type of children. So we keep tossing up adventures – bike riding Town Lake, going kayaking. None of it was really sticking. Finally, I told Chris – get everyone in the car and we will figure it out. And in preparing we decided to head down the the new and improved fields at Zilker Park and throw the ball for Chase. It was only 40 minutes – but we took our energy out and released it and had some fun in the process. Sometimes the answer doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated – it can be as simple as “get out” and boom, you get the shift you needed.

I missed a moment last night, and so today I must make up for it. My son noticed the sunset and wanted to take a picture of it. I gave him my camera to go do that, but then when I realized that to do that he would take down the towels and blanket on his windows, well I got cranky. Those things are a bugger to put up and I had already done it twice.

When I sat down later that night and downloaded the images, I finally saw what he saw and felt terrible. I missed a moment to share our love of sunsets and to stop and notice the beauty of it myself. To say goodnight to this summer which has been a terribly hot one and heavy in so many ways.

This morning, I apologized for being so cranky and asked Tyler if he wanted to see his picture. He asked me, “Did you printed it out?” No it was on the computer…and we then showed it to his Daddy. He wanted to know if Daddy wanted to use his picture in his photography show. I think we will print it out, frame it and find a lovely spot for it.

It was a good lesson for me is not letting my impatience ruin opportunities to share beautiful moments with my children.

This day has been amazing – cooler and different. I am not naive enough to declare fall here, but the momentum into the new season has begun. There may be no color at all because of the drought, but we will find every way we can to celebrate this season and add our own color to it.

Tyler wanted me to set up a stool so he could get down an tool apron hanging in the garage.  I come back a while later to see that he has taken everything off the racks.  He and Quinn have some old bike tires and said they were hula hoops.  Later they were enjoying rolling the tires around the garage.  And I just stopped and smiled enjoying the way in which they make their own fun.

I know I want certain things for my kids.  I also realize that part of parenting is knowing when to back up and take my perspective on it all away so that they can apply their own.   So they can look at something and decide what they are drawn to and what meets their needs right now.   As I hear it said often – to meet them where they are at.   Sometimes a challenge, always an adventure.

It was really nice as we all sat around peacefully creating. I also got a change to try out the kids new Lyra pencils. They are beautiful. I agree with what Soulemama espouses about quality art materials for kids – it really heightens the experience.

I also feel that if the materials are treated with reverence, the will be handled with it. Well, for the most part, I do have a two year-old.  I made these pencil cases for their new pencils and we all really like them. The case has room for 26 pencils; right now the kids have 12. It will be fun to fill them slowly over the next few years as they receive a new pencil here and there across the various holidays and festivals. Oh and Mama has a pencil case too…it is almost done.

We placed all of our pictures on the fridge. I drew a place, “where I want to go soon”, Daddy drew a farm with cows in the pasture (and my apologies to him for hanging it upside down…oops), Tyler drew “day and then night” – his recent drawing obsession, and ya know, I don’t know that I asked Quinn what she drew. She was quite pleased with it though, I know that.