It is amazing. For the past 4 weeks I have been doing a pretty good job of getting the rest I need and working out and it is amazing how good I feel. I didn’t need coffee, had a clear head, more energy and a positive outlook.

Fast forward to a few days of craziness, a kid up for a while last night and some late nights and what a difference it makes. I haven’t gotten to the gym this week, am drinking caffeine trying to get my brain alert, and feel so unmotivated and hopeless.

I read something that said lack of sleep can lead to depression. Um, yeah. I mean if you feel like this all the time how could one not be depressed? I know that this is all lack of sleep though, so today is gently putting one foot in front of the other and conserving energy where possible. Tonight I will have my butt in bed early and will try to get back to that good schedule I had been on.

Yesterday upon telling my kids I loved them, Tyler replied with something like, “I don’t always think you do.” Basically alluding that I am angry all the time. I can’t tell you how shitty I felt hearing that. Of course, he is 5 and a half and so I have to be weary of how much weight I put on that. But still, it made me sad.

I don’t really know what to do about that except to continue to take care of myself so I can be my best self and the best parent I can be. *sigh* One foot in front of the other, right?

This girl, oh this wonderful, mellow, sweet, drive me up the wall insane little one. In our family, Tyler and I are both fire. Because his personality is so much like mine, I feel like I already know him. Lately, things he says and does take me back to specific moments in my childhood where I did the same thing. And I love that familiarity, the many bits of sameness that we share.

But this girl, she is air. And this family needs air. She has this way about her that I can’t explain. She is quite verbal so every thing she does has a reasonable explanation and it makes us smile. “Well of course I need to do that, I am doing this.” It all makes so much sense and is so reasonable – she has no idea why I am in such a tizzy about it. She sings made up songs all the time. She has a wonderful imagination. All trash is treasure and can fit into whatever she might be carrying at the time.

“We should talk to Uncle Dean about going up to his house in the snow, because I like snow.”

Or whenever she is enjoying something, “What fun! What fun!”

When you clean out her play kitchen you will find just about everything that has gone missing in the next month. I found Star Wars’ R2-D2 in there yesterday. Chris said, “she likes R2-D2.” I also found rocks, pipe cleaners, paper, more paper, pens, pencils, toys. Whatever is special in that moment goes there. I also find many things special to other family members in there too!

She is so self-reliant. She is hungry and so this little momma raids my fridge. It is all so matter-of-fact. She will only eat a bit of what she gets though and store the rest of it back in the fridge.

She is so charming. Even when I am angry, she has a way of being that distracts me from my anger. I end up smiling or laughing even. And I am not one to let go of anger easily, but somehow she makes it so easy.

She just has a way about her and if you have spent a lot of time with her you know what I mean. She is so unfamiliar to me, though I do see glimpses of Daddy in there. Still, I love the mystery, I love how light it all is, and I am enjoying seeing what comes of this silly girl who goes about her day enjoying life.

This picture above and one below was taken in November. She got back in her cradle the other day and so I snapped another picture. This cracks me up. This little girl of mine loves to cozy right into her cradle with her dolls because she can. And so she lays there covered up in “blankets” singing songs and chatting with her dolls.

In two weeks she will be 4 years old. I really can’t believe it. I really can’t.

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.

Or at least Quinn thinks so. She put on some clip-ons Grandma got her the other day and then exclaimed, “Now I look like an old lady!” Ha! You bet I told Grandma that one.

Her perception does not surprise me. I only wear jewelry, including my wedding ring, when I am going out with friends or hubby and that isn’t very often. So hence my daughter thinks that jewelry is only something old ladies wear. Cracked me up though….

Today is Michaelmas, the first of our fall festivals! Yesterday the kids and I made dragon bread which we enjoyed eating today. They had a good time decorating the dragon! We also switched the nature table over to autumn. And I must say it looks so awesome next to that newly painted wall!! Much better than the torn wallpaper, don’t you think?

Just Do It!!
Yesterday, I started off the week with a bang keeping the kids quite busy – circle, fall treasure walk around the neighborhood (both kids had their buckets), drilling lesson for Tyler, dragon bread making. I am finding that the kids are happier when I have things planned for us to do.

I needed an art project for today. I had been wanting to make an acorn family. I had all the supplies and we collected the acorn caps yesterday. At first, I worried the caps were too small and that I needed different bases. *sigh* One day I will learn. The kids don’t care and rather than be such a perfectionist about it – it is more important that we actually DO the craft.

This has also happened on the people front. My children need more people to play with. For 6 months now, I wanted to make these floor puppets for them, but I haven’t had the time or energy. The reality is that they just need something simple and they will use their creativity to fill in the rest. And of course by involving them they are way more invested into the creation. Today was such an example of that.

So we sat down and made these acorn people and ya know they came out great! What I didn’t expect was that Tyler would decide his were the Three Kings and Mary and Joseph and that we needed to use these instead of the lovely wooden ones that we have… Um, okay. If that is what he wants.

He also was bumming that we didn’t do more for Michaelmas – ya know, it isn’t like Christmas. Am I the only parent that spends half their child’s life trying to convince them that we shouldn’t live a whole year just for the Christmas holidays? I mean seriously – Noel is a year-round song in this house. Thank goodness, I know LOTS of autumn and Halloween songs, so for a while we can get a reprieve. Of course, this is our fault – we do a lot of fun stuff around the holidays. But I try to be positive – we have dragon bread after all!?!!

Art Their Way
I was proud of myself today because in many ways I let the kids drive and do it their way. I was getting colored pencils out to make faces for the acorn people. Tyler wanted to use a regular pencil and so I let him do his thing. I didn’t’ interfere – even when he was drawing the face on what was the side of the doll, I kept my mouth shut – it didn’t matter. He was happy with it, so let the artist be!

Quinn strayed from the project a bit, requesting a white sheet of paper. She then proceeded to paint glue on it and requested sparkles. We were out of glitter so I got resourceful and brought her sesame seeds and bulgur to sprinkle. She then filled an acorn cap with glue and filled it..and then wanted to hang it. It was fun to let go and just see where their creative urges went….

..and Chaos Still Ensues
And what I must accept with a 3 and 5 year old is that there WILL be chaos no matter what. Tyler got into play with his acorn people and I was thrilled and trying to keep Quinn from distracting him. She dumped some water out of bucket outside and was calling him and I am trying to distract her…”Quinn, do you want to stir the soup?”

And for whatever reason around 5pm we have crazy hour. Perhaps I need to just make dinner earlier so we can go for a walk or play outside? I have a feeling when the temp drops into the 70s that they will be drawn outside and that part won’t be so hard. Sometimes those joint giggles drive me crazy. And why do they always decide they need to make things with toilet paper and water?? I never thought of that stuff as moldable, but they love to mess with it. And when will Quinn not throw? So of course steel cut oats and bulgur on the floor.. *sigh*

Nevertheless, I am enjoying returning to more structure here and there. The kids had been asking me about more woodworking and circle, so they were clearly missing these things. And when it comes to art I am learning to just go for it and not wait for the “perfect moment”.

And with that…we slide into Wednesday and this Mama should be sliding into bed….

Earlier today I went into the bedroom where Quinn was having rest time. She had one of her dollies undressed and had some toilet paper. She told me she was wiping her dolly’s butt…..

Well, this is a better use of toilet paper than other things. Like when she and her brother wet it down and make tortillas…and then send them down the sink drain and clog it.

Imagination and creativity…good times…

More Play
Ah these kids. So now I bring you fun with rocks, jewels and buttons. I need to note that the first two pics were taken by a child – I don’t know which one as they both enjoy confiscating my camera and going on “picture taking” binges. Our house is so fascinating through their eyes!

Kid Hilarity
Quinn loves to rearrange everything and the other day, she did quite a job on the nature table. After a few days, I decided that I would return it to more of its original state, but had to get a photo of her creation first. I told Chris that it looked like the depiction of a trashed beach – right down to the medical waste…great job Quinn! We were cracking up….

Typical Siblings
Yesterday, Quinn put a toy lizard that was special to Tyler in the fireplace. Well, that freaked Tyler out because he thought that was the end of his lizard. He came to me very upset. I rescued lizard, cleaned him and returned him to Tyler. Tyler decided that he wasn’t going to play with Quinn the rest of the evening. She, being a typical 3 year old does not compute this because, you know, 3 year-olds pretty much shadow their older siblings.

A bit later, I told Tyler for the umpteenth time that his jewels needed to get put away or the Jewel Monster might come get them. So before long I hear, “Quinn, if you pick up my jewels, I will play with you again.” Ah, yes…..sibling negotiation – I love it!..