September 12, 2014

Fall is around the corner! Today has been cool and drizzly, and I'm half-way pretending that we're in the Pacific NorthWest, instead of Texas. Texas, the state of half-way seasons and constant teasing. 

We're three weeks into the school year and Lily seems to have really embraced this whole 'learning' experience. She's sounding out words, insisting on doing math, loves to have me spell words for her to try out... much easier than I thought it would be! She's still very resistant and stubborn in other areas but it's quite a relief not to be fighting her every moment of our (short) school day. 

The history curriculum we went with this year is taking a bit of getting used to. It's so involved! So many different resources to use and I'm never quite prepared. I guess it would help if I looked at the lessons the weekend before... haha. I can only blame myself. Maybe I should have a parent-teacher meeting and voice my concerns. 

The girls are looking forward to cooler weather. They're convinced that it means playing outside, right up until Izzy (my little memory bank) recalls every time they've ever played outside in the cold. "Oh, I don't think it'll be so much fun after all. Remember last winter? We went outside for like 5 minutes and our hands started to hurt and we came in. I don't think it'll be fun this time either." So I guess we're really looking forward to the same things: NOT going outside too much, sitting inside in front of the fireplace. :) 

Here's something else from last year: rats. Yep. Our neighbor likes to over-feed the birds and squirrels, so since last winter we have been inundated with... wildlife. Rodent wildlife. The dogs took care of several but since they dislike being out in the yard during summer, the vermin have managed to make themselves at home under our shed and *ugh* in our garage. The garage thing is a recent occurrence and the final straw. I called a pest control company, they came, set out bait stations. and told us to expect rodent corpses. Unfortunately, these #)$)* do not believe in dying conveniently located. One has lodged itself in the wall by our fireplace and is currently off-gassing. Blech. 

November 26, 2012

When a year starts to draw to a close, I look back and wonder what I could have done differently. As a parent, it's probably impossible to avoid this. It's difficult not to second-guess yourself, once a little distance comes into play.

Most projects that we undertake can be learning experiences. You might not repeat the exact same project but when you do similar ones, you can apply the things you've learned and hope for a different outcome. You might be more patient, more attentive to detail, less forceful. Rearing children does NOT work that way. If you do something wrong when they're three, you can't do it better later. You can't un-yell or re-discipline. What's done is done. But you can be better when they're four and hope to rework habits you've ingrained in yourself and them.

In a few (too short) months, I will be 34, Ben will be 12, Lily will be 4, and Izzy will be 6. I'm halfway resigned to being done with baby-ish years but these numbers are a little scary. I can't go back and redo the 2's and 3's. I wish I could, for many reasons.

Next fall, Lily will officially be starting Pre-K. Which seems silly to say... Pre-K with Izzy was learning the alphabet, coloring, and trying to learn to use scissors. Lily has already begun this process because she cannot  seem to leave anything or anyone alone during school hours.

A couple of months ago, Chad was out of town for a week so I painted the living room. I really wanted to paint the girls' room but I couldn't figure out how to do that with them up. So the living room is a beautifully soft grey and the girls' room is still a tacky off white. Chad's out of town again for a few days this week so maybe I'll set the girls up in my room for a couple of hours and get started on their walls. I should be able to knock it out in a day, if I don't lose my mind trying to keep them in check. haha

September 16, 2012

Holy toot, it's been nearly 2 months since I had anything to say. haha. Riiiiiiiiiight...

This school year has started off pretty well. We've had our "I just don't LIKE school" days and our "Yay! I love this!" days. But we're plugging away and I think we're making progress. Math has been a bit of a struggle, as we learn to skip-count by 5s. I find myself to be impatient but I'm realizing that in all the ways that my daughter is like me, struggling with math and learning to read may very well be the biggest. I don't remember really having a hard time with math till Algebra but it's quite possible that I did and just don't remember the early couple of years. However, I remember quite well the frustration involved in learning to read. I must have been 7 or 8 before it truly "clicked" because I can recall trying to read a book to a visiting uncle and being in tears over it. Once it all fell into place, I never took a break and I certainly hope I'm able to help Izzy reach that point with as few tears as possible.

Lily has been a bit of a hellion lately. I know it's the budding independence and desire to be the 'decider' but.. oh. my. goodness. It's been super exhausting keeping up with her shenanigans. I'm humbled by it, quite frankly. I can only imagine how ha Shem feels when we struggle against His plan for us. It must seem as tho we're devoting all our efforts to not growing up. As we celebrated Rosh Hashanah last night and today, I have been reminded that if I want to encourage my children to turn away from their naughty behavior, I have to set the example of making teshuvah myself. In the coming weeks, as I seek to instill better habits in my children, I'm hoping to turn away from impatience, being easily frustrated, and feelings of inadequacy.

We've been incorporating Torah time into our school routine and I feel like that is an important step. This past week's Torah portion was perfectly timed for this:

11. For this commandment which I command you this day, is not concealed from you, nor is it far away.
12. It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?"
13. Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?"
14. Rather,[this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it.

The portion goes on to remind us to choose life, not only for our sake, but for the sake of our children.

March 8, 2012

Ugh. I feel like I have been yelling since the moment I woke up. Lily insists on testing my limits by staring back at me while I'm asking/telling her not to do something... I've considered the possibility that she sees yelling as a bluff but speaking quietly and firmly has even less effect on her. I wish I knew what her buttons were to know what would have the most immediate response. It's not always possible to get 'on her level' or escort her to a corner as soon as she disregards an order. Sometimes the threat of the corner is enough but I hate to use the 'do you need to stand in the corner?' line too often. It's always backed up if she continues to disobey but by then, the damage is often done. Lotion is spilled, towels are strewn across the room, toys are thrown...

I know this is just a phase. I know she won't always test my patience and she won't always be nearly-three. Possibly I should just stop taking it personally.

September 13, 2011

Fall officially starts on the 23rd of this month and I could not be looking forward to it more. We had a week of comfortable weather and suddenly, the heat is back. It's 104 degrees today. There's a breeze but instead of cooling one's brow, it merely feels like the venting air from an oven. My poor plants have mostly died. I had put out hostas under our live oak in the front yard and even though they were not exposed to the full force of the sun, they have fried and shriveled. It's very sad. I'm hoping that they'll recover over the fall and that next year will be easier on them.

School is going well. I feel like our lessons are almost too short but by moving from one subject to another before frustration or boredom sets in, I'm hoping to foster a feeling of excitement and anticipation that will last throughout the year. I'd like to incorporate more nature study that we've done the last two weeks... if the cooler weather will come back, we'll have more opportunity to go to the park and spend time watching birds and squirrels at least.

Izzy asked me earlier what 'cracker jacks' are, because we were listening to a cd of hers with "Take me out to the ballgame" on it. I explained what the ingredients are and she said 'oh... like those nuts we have at hockey games?' It never ceases to amaze and amuse me how she holds on to some very random memories or information. We talked about those roasted nuts a bit and she said 'Well, I think we should go to a hockey game and have more on Monday'. I don't care if we have to bribe her with fun treats... she WILL grow up enjoying hockey. I am starting to doubt that she will play, as she demonstrates more and more that she has a very strong girly side but who knows? :)

Dance class this morning went really well. Lily didn't go running into the studio like she did last week and they left the observation window uncovered for the whole class this time. I'm sure the instructor doesn't really like doing that but it did seem like the girls paid attention and didn't get distracted beyond waving at their mommies once or twice. Izzy is very serious about trying to do everything right... for the most part. They all forget to hold their arms up or out when they start dancing around the room but I know that must be the case for the first year or two. All that said... there is one major irritation for me. During class, Lily tries to play with/hug/talk to the other younger siblings in the waiting area. One of the little girls is just quite shy but her mother encourages her to share books/crayons and we make a community pile of things to entertain the girls. One of the other mothers has two children with her in the lobby - one is Lily's age and the other is only 7 months or so. And she makes a point, not of encouraging her child to interact with Lily, but of the complete opposite. She only tells her "It's ok to say no. Just say 'no thank you'. You don't have to play with her." and things of that nature. Who does that? I thought it was odd the first time but figured maybe her daughter was having a rough day and she just didn't want her to get upset when Lily wanted to hug her so much. But we've now been at 3 classes together and every time it's the same refrain. "You don't have to play with her if you don't want to. It's ok to tell her no. Just walk away." Wtf? Why not encourage your kid to be pleasant or kind or even outgoing? Ugh.

Wet Wednesday

Making more of an effort to spend time outdoors. It's easy to convince myself that I'm acting in their best interest to keep them out of the heat but ultimately, time outside is important. Our house faces east so the majority of the back yard is in shade till at least noon.

 I have to give up on being a control freak mom and just let the other freak flag fly and let the girls do what they do best - make a mess and have fun. There's actually LESS screaming when I don't monitor their every interest. Crazy, huh?

Mundane mundus

When I was pregnant, people would ask me if I was excited or scared or nervous about 'the big day'. I rarely had a genuine response to that because I didn't know what to say. I think I told most of the Curious that I was excited about it or maybe anxious. But I don't think that touches on the truth of it. I looked forward to 'the big day' but not with any real trepidation. Not even the first time. I knew it was coming and nothing would stop it or alter it so I didn't have strong feelings about it. It was simply marching toward me inexorably. Oh, that sounds ominous. But it wasn't that way for me. I just don't get wound up, I guess. I get more nervous about calling someone I don't really know or talking to a person in authority than I did about childbirth. Way to go, huh? Way to embrace the enormity of the moment. 

Change does make me nervous but I think I manage to be more nervous about my lack of excitement than about the actual event. 

On Thursday, my parents are having their mikveh to finalize the conversion process. My father is thrilled beyond words and is likely to jump up and down. No lie. My mother is where I get my oddness, I suppose, as she's simply of the mind of 'Well, of course we're doing this. It's what we've been working towards for the last 18 years.' Why get worked up over reaching the very point of life you've been working towards. 

Thursday evening, I have a meeting with the Rabbi to discuss my own mikveh date. I am a bit anxious about this but I think more because I feel as tho it's happening to someone else. Maybe that's more accurate than just saying I don't feel excited, etc about things. I react as tho it's someone else having the experience. Is this normal?

Lily has started toilet training herself and THAT almost freaks me out. The end of babyhood is upon us. She's speaking more clearly, likes many of the same things Izzy does (books, babies, same movies) and now she's toilet training. And it's all her own idea. Seems to be key with our girls, to getting them to do pretty much anything. 

Life is moving forward in so many ways. 

Skype babies

Daddy is in Vancouver till tomorrow and the girls got to have their first Skype call with him tonight. Lily absolutely loved the whole concept... she kept waving to him, trying to give kisses and loved when he would get up close to the camera and make silly faces. Izzy liked it but was more interested in trying to entertain Daddy with hand stands and general silliness. I think his absence has left her a little wound up so hopefully when he's back, she returns to a more calm normality. Yeah right... heh

Before Chad  left, I thought about painting our room/bathroom. It's hard to do stuff like that when we have to have access to the room every night so when he's out of town, it's a prime time for creativity. Tuesday afternoon, we picked out colors and got the paint. When the girls went to bed, I got started on the cutting in process. Oy. I am NOT a fan of cutting in. It's so time consuming! And having to squoosh all the furniture into the middle of the room to have space for the giant ladder? Yikes. At least I got all the top cutting-in done before Lily started waking up. She's been having these wakeful  nights on and off lately... she wakes up crying and then calms down once I check on her. But for some reason, she struggles to go back to sleep and is sometimes awake for 2-3 hours.

So Tuesday night, I ended up penning the dogs in the hallway and sleeping on the girls' floor with my hand stuck in Lily's crib. She finally passed out sometime after midnight. Wednesday night, she slept fairly normally but Izzy woke up a couple of times. Thursday night, Lily had the same wakefulness. Their floor is SO not comfortable. And waking up at the crack of dawn with Izzy and sneaking downstairs so as not to wake Lily is not terribly fun, either.

The painting is done, tho. I painted Tuesday/Wednesday night and Thursday during what was supposed to be Izzy's nap (she just played on the couch in the living room). Friday, I painted the main part of the bathroom and today I wrapped up with the little WC. I was hoping to paint the girls' bathroom as well but I think I'm gonna hold off on that for a little while. Maybe even do it a different color. Our room and the bathroom is a LOT of yellow. ;-)

I miss my honey. His being away on these trips has gotten easier to handle but I still am not a fan. I find myself to be very short tempered the last couple of days. It stinks he can't take off Monday to hang out with us.

So long, February!

While it seems that New Year's day was ages ago, it still feels strange to already be saying farewell to the second month of the year. Just a little over a month until my birthday and then 6 weeks later it will be Lily's. Ack!!

Ben turns 10 today. TEN! I remember when he was younger than Lily and now he's nearly as tall as me and seems to become more mature every time we see him. He's certainly begun to grasp reality in a way that eluded him just months ago. I hope he stays as positive as he currently is because there's an awful lot of reality to grasp in the next few years.

Today is tax day for us. I'm glad I didn't have to go along for the appointment but I don't like not knowing what's going on or when Chad will be back home. He's planning to check on the other house after the appointment so I'm hoping we only get good news today.

There's a homeschooling book fair in Irving in May and I'm thinking about going. I would love to get some real guidance on how to start homeschooling the girls. With 2 years between them, there's a lot of stuff that I feel Lily wouldn't learn yet but I want to teach Izzy... however, coordinating lessons and playtime for both of them is super challenging to me. Do I let Izzy go without structure a while longer or do I impose more structure on Lily's day? Anyway. If I can get some good info out of the bookfair, I will feel so much more confident about being able to teach them at home, at least through the elementary years.

Winter blues

It's hard to believe that just last week, the weather was decent and we could go OUTSIDE.

Saturday, we wandered down to the park with the kiddos after much begging from Izzy. She doesn't get out much and I know that's my fault but with the dogs and Lily, it feels like it's a hassle to get out for walks on a regular basis. Anyway, she ran and laughed pretty much the whole way to the park. Once we got there, we found our neighbor and his daughter there so Izzy was in heaven. She loves playing with Bailey. Ben walked their dog around the park for a while and the girls tried to rearrange all the shredded bark in the swing/playground area. I don't know what is so fun about it but they couldn't stop throwing it into the air.

Sunday, we went to the park again when our neighbor called to say they were gonna go and would we like to join them? It was considerably chillier but not unbearable with sweaters/jackets.

Monday, we went to lunch with Nicole and that's the last time we've been outside. It wasn't too chilly and it was nice to get out for a couple of hours. The girls love seeing Nicole and talking her ear off. Izzy's always asking if we can go to her house.

Tuesday morning, the ice hit during the wee hours and the way it pelted the windows woke Izzy up. She doesn't like strange noises at all. I laid down with her for close to an hour and we couldn't get back to sleep. Ice hitting glass is probably one of the most annoying sounds in the world! At about 5am, it was just not working to stay in their room so I bundled the kids into our bed. Not a whole lot of sleep going on there. Chad took Lily back to the girls' room and the ice finally stopped long enough for Izzy and I to drop off for about 45 minutes. She woke up and started crawling over me to go to the bathroom so we got up a little while after that.

Today has been fun. The girls woke up at 5:30 and I laid them back down only to be woken up an hour later when the power went out. Rolling blackouts. Yay! It finally came on for good at about 9am so at least the fireplace hasn't been our only source of warmth. I changed my dental appointment... hopefully the roads will look safer in the AM. I'm in such a hurry to get my rootcanal/crown over with, can't you tell? :)

Potato/corn chowder hit the spot for dinner but I think tomorrow might be chicken taco soup day. Thanks to Megan for posting about hers! :)

Where did the year go??

It's already 2011 and I don't think I ever got used to it being 2010.

This year, Izzy turns 4 (FOUR!) and Lily will be 2. I am NOT ready for being baby-free. :( I can't even think about it much longer than it will take to finish this sentence because it WILL make me cry. I am not ready for my girls to grow up.

Yesterday, Lily crawled into Chad's lap and started to snuggle into his chest saying 'hi! hi! Honey! Honey!' This was such a sweet moment I started to tear up. I love that she's hit the age of knowing what an endearment means and using it toward her daddy. She absolutely adores him. :)

The time is coming for Izzy to start a class of some sort. She loves dancing and singing and I think she'd benefit from being around other kids in an environment like that. I don't think she's ready to be around a bunch of kids full time, like school or daycare, but she certainly loves being with a group her own age. And maybe a dance class would be limited enough in exposure that she wouldn't learn too many habits? I dunno. She's not a dream child... it's not like she does everything right and never acts out so I'm not deluded into thinking that she's perfect and everyone else's kid is the Bad Seed. But still... as long as she's only around us, I feel like we have a better handle on the moods and crazies.

Winter is HERE. I do not like this for several reasons. My skin gets super dry. My nose hurts all the time. My fingers crack. I have to wear knee highs/leggings all the time or my legs will ache from my pants rubbing on stubble. This is probably the worst part of winter for me. So very sad.

Classes at temple are going well. I think we have a few weeks left and then we get to find out what the next step in the conversion process is. I'm anxious for this. It's becoming more imperative to have a religious identity.

Time change, schmime change

I am not a fan of moving my clock's time forward and back ever year. It seems unnecessary. And once you have children, it causes all kinds of unnecessary anxiety.

A week ago, I was moderately ok with my girls waking up at 7:30 every morning. That's a normal waking hour and it's pretty reasonable to assume that Mom needs to get her day going at that point. We'd wake to sounds of squeals or shrieks or laughter or talking or a mix of all four and I'd get up and start my day. We'd eat by 8 or 8:30 and by 9:30, we'd be ready to go somewhere or do something before lunch.

Suddenly, the time changes and now the girls are waking me up while the clock insists that it's actually just 6:30 am. I am cranky and disoriented and not at all well rested. I beg them to go back to sleep and they do not and we're up and eating breakfast by 7:30 and ready to DO something by 8:30. Meanwhile, nothing interesting is open and it feels too early to grocery shop but we have to if we want to be back home in time for Lily to take her first nap at 9:30. Yes. 9:30AM. My 18 month old is taking a nap at 9:30 AM like she did when she was 4 months old.

Why does this have to happen? The time they wake hasn't really changed. Internally, they sleep and wake by the same clock no matter the time of year and I should be able to follow along and just enjoy being up and half done with the day's tasks before 10am.

It seems to me that the answer to this problem that I'm sure more that one mom faces is to actually USE the time change properly. It was meant to help farmers, right? So we should return to farmers' hours and just enjoy the extra sleep gained by being in bed at 8pm. If I slept from 8:30 till 6:30, I would wake up happy and ready to go, too.

Lily'isms

About 3 weeks ago, Lily started saying "Bess you" when she'd hear someone sneeze. It's adorable and often prompts a round of 'bless you's from everyone else in the room. While we were in Oregon last week, the girls had a hard time sleeping, even though we all shared a room. On one of our last nights, Lily woke up in the wee hours and after calming her down, we got to listen to her talk to herself for a while. She sneezed and then a few seconds later, we heard her say 'bess you' to herself. Even on very little sleep, it was adorable and funny.

Today during dinner, she was reaching for the bread and starting her fake 'uuuuuhhhhhh!' cry. I asked her if she wanted bread and she started to giggle in anticipation (just like her sister!). When I handed her a little piece, she said 'teh-choo, sum!'.  I don't think she's actually put words together like that before. She must have been taking notes this past week.

This little girl is so huggy, it boggles my mind. I don't think Izzy was this affectionate at the same age. Lily will sit with me and just turn and hug me over and over. She only gets tired of it if I try to hold her too firmly. All on her terms, I guess. That's a good thing. I want my girls to be sure of themselves and strong willed about their personal space.

This IS how I relax

Fighting the urge to go to the store and get next week's shopping done. I fully intend to start relaxing on Saturdays but it's hard to break a habit. I'm not going to pretend that every day has some major project or goal... if they did, I wouldn't have a hard time remembering what I did ALL WEEK. But I'd like to think that I am at least a little productive in every 24 hour period.

Yesterday it was laundry and baking. Today, we went to shul with the 'rents and enjoyed a Bat Mitzvah. I'd forgotten how much fun those can be. I'm a little bothered about not finding more people to chat with but it occurs to me that I could be the more outgoing one and not wait for someone else to do all the work. Izzy will learn that it's ok to go out and get new friends and not always wait for them to come get us.

Lily has figured out that words make sense every time you use them. I think she was under the impression that they only work occasionally but now she's started to use them appropriately and it's exciting to see the comprehension lighting up her face. On the way to lunch, I asked her what she was doing and she said "sit down." She's started using "all done" (but she says it more like 'aaw doh') to let me know she's done eating or done having her diaper changed or done throwing a hissy fit. That's the big one to me... the fact that her little brain can understand that I WANT her to be all done and she CAN be all done and picked up is just astounding.

This brings me to another topic. The baby fever. As full as my hands and head are with taking care of these two girls, I find myself missing being pregnant and caring for a tiny baby. It doesn't really matter that the baby fever is coming back but it's still there. Oh well. Time to re-tackle preschool for Izzy and get some projects started for Hanukkah. Depriving myself of any and all free time is exactly how I will get over wishing for another kid. :)

The boy is looking at a boat on craigslist. I would LOVE to have a boat but I feel like I should be the uber-responsible one that nixes the idea. We don't need to spend the money, we don't need the extra work of taking care of it, yada yada. But... it's a boat. And it's pretty. :)

E I E I O

Lily has discovered the joys of repetitive sounds. Today, she's been bringing me the See and Say and demanding "E AH E AH OO". I guess it's one of the easiest tunes to sing along with when you're a year old. Seems like the only other one she's latched on to has been "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean," because she can say 'be bat, be bat' a lot.

Received an order from LectraLock today. Finally, I can cover outlets that are in use and keep the girls from un/re plugging everything 50 times a day. Of course, as soon as I got started installing one lock, Lily ran off with the screw driver and stuck it through the grill of a box fan and scared herself silly. At least it was through the front side and not the back, into the guts of the fan. I foresee many 'holy crap, what has she done NOW?' moments in our future. It's not enough that she's fearless about trying new things... she has to look for things that no child should attempt.

Yesterday, I started a batch of sourdough bread. Of course, after mixing up the sponge a bit, I forgot to attend to it till nearly 10 hours later. It didn't seem to be any worse for the neglect so I kneaded it a while and left it to rise. The recipe calls for an hour and a half of resting time but it was so late, I figured maybe I'd risk leaving it longer than that. Surely the girls could be trusted to wake me in the wee hours so I could come back down and bake the bread. Right? No. Not last night. Last night, they slept like BABIES. So this morning, I came down to the kitchen at about 8 and the dough had apparently had enough of my shenanigans and decided to make a break for it. Thankfully, dough is not the fastest entity and it only made it a few inches out of the bowl and onto the counter. I don't know if you can ruin sourdough (well, aside from letting the starter grow mold or something)... it currently is in the form of two huge loaves and smells delicious.

We're hearing lots of new words from Lily these days. She says her own name, tho I'm sure she doesn't know that it IS her name. But "YeeYee" is miles ahead of where I thought she'd be at this age. She's also saying "Sorry" and "tiki" (thank you) a lot. It's hard to encourage a kid to say 'thank you'... your only rational response is to say 'you're welcome' and then it just sounds like you're correcting them. Here's your sippy, baby. "Tiki" You're welcome. "But... I thought I was supposed to say thank you. Fine. You're welcome for taking this sippy from you. Whatever, dude."

I need to convince Lily that she does NOT in fact want to sit inside the new china cabinet. Maybe we'll need to baby-lock the doors. She opens them far to easily and then proceeds to cram herself in to the tiniest space. Might work to just encourage her to stuff her bears, etc. in there. Then there's no room for her but she still gets to play.

My mother-in-law will be moving back out soon. I do not like this. But I do like that she'll be moving in with a dear friend who needs the company and comforting. So it's all good, I guess. We'll just have to get better at planning/hosting family dinners or my kids my stage a revolt and also try to move...

Summer needs to hurry up and make way for Autumn. I'm tired of the heat. And I want to wear my comfy sweat pants, which I will insist on wearing rather than actually get around to buying normal, grown-up mommy outfits. It's just too complicated.

List of New

New words for Lily: baby, "doh" (go), dog

New concept for Izzy: telling mama no and actually hoping to mean it.

New skills for Lily: climbing on the back of the couch, putting herself in her booster seat, putting hats on correctly. :) That last one is great because we have SO many little hats and she loves to put them on. Dress-up parties are all the rage.

Sophie is doing well. I think she's still got a few weeks of adjusting to the household but she's sweet and very pliable. Correcting her once or twice seems to get a point across pretty effectively. She's miles ahead of Pullo in that respect, as, two years on, he still is very pig headed about things.

Things I'd rather not be doing right now

The list is NOT a mile long, but it FEELS a mile long.

Dishes.
Laundry.
Putting all 250 4" balls back in the kiddie pool.
Hanging clothes in the closet.
Cleaning up the stove.
Sorting junk on the counter.
Sweeping.
Mopping.
Feeding the dog.
Vacuuming.
Picking up dress-up shoes, hula hoops, dolls, coloring papers, phones, books, purses, play money, the tent, the princess couch, blocks, dishes, stuffed animals, ad infinitum.

Yard sale is imminent. I'm thinking next weekend. Bye-bye baby stuff! Go clutter someone else's house.


Lily is walking everywhere. It only took her 14 months. ;) Unfortunately this means that it's also getting more difficult to keep an eye on her. And she climbs on everything. Chairs, couches, tables, play kitchen hutch, love sac. She has no fear. It's terrifying for me because I've made it 3 years with no hospital visits and she's gonna end up being the one getting stitches or a cast first.

Counting down or counting up?

Do you count down to birthdays or count up to them? Count downs seem like they're normally for things you aren't particularly looking forward to. So maybe you count up to your 25th birthday and count down to all the rest.

Anyway. We're counting the days till Lily turns 1. ONE! I can't believe almost a year has gone by since we had her. Last night, I had a moment of sadness when I realized I couldn't really remember what I'd done all day with the girls just the day before. I finally figured it out but then I had to stop thinking about it because most of the days prior to that were just a blur and I didn't want to actually depress myself. I need to work harder at making note of the little moments, taking pictures and video, writing down all the silly things.

Lily has figured out waving. She waves backwards but it's so precious. And she waves with both hands. :) I think sometimes she's trying to figure out if there's a way to do it to mean 'come here' rather than 'bye-bye'... Adorable, no matter which she means. Chad caught her trying to climb on the couch the other day... she'd turned a little toy upside down and kept pushing it against the couch to stand on it. It won't be long till she masters the furniture. She's so quiet most of the time that I'm sure she's going to be the one getting into everything.

Izzy will be 3 in about 2.5 months. I'm so not ready for that! I don't know how I'll get around to actually sending her to school when the time comes. I absolutely dread it. I don't trust other people with my kids. :( At least I don't have to send her to preschool and all that. I'm convinced that a lot of kids have issues in school simply because our societal structure encourages parents to send them away to classes before they're really ready to adapt to that environment. Maybe I'm just selfish and I don't want to share my child's time.

Bring it on, Spring!

Every year, the time change surprises and annoys me. I'm ready for it to be done with already. Surely we could function just fine without changing our clocks twice a year. Would it really make that big a difference to people to just keep 7am where it is? Cows and such wouldn't know the difference, I'd bet you a dollar. That said, if changing the clocks makes Spring hurry up and get here, I'm willing to give this whole time-change thing another try. I've got the planting itch.

Speaking of trying things... I have some "Oikos" in front of me. Greek yogurt is WAY thicker than the yogurt I'm used to. Very odd. It tastes a little goat-y. Did I buy goat yogurt?? wth... it doesn't SAY it's made with goat milk but there's a distinctive upper-rear palate zest... Oh well. I'll live. At least it has blueberries in it. :)

Lily is 10 months old today. TEN! What happened to my tiny baby?? (Yes, I said it again. I will probably continue to say it, like every other mother, every 6 months for the rest of my natural days.) She's in what I call the perfect baby zone. Still roly-poly and cuddly but also learning how to snatch food, clap her hands and cackle at everything. 2 months till the big 1 and I'm getting excited. Also, starting to miss being pregnant but I'm sure that'll pass. All I need is a good session of both girls crying and maybe a muddy disobedient dog and I'll be SO glad to be done having babies.

Ugh... I have blueberry seed or skin stuck in my teeth and it's not coming out. How are we even aware of something that small being stuck in the crevice of a molar, anyway? It seems impossible... get a tiny seed stuck in your teeth and you'll know it but if your glasses are on your head, you'll continue to scour the house for 'em.