Working Hard and Hardly Workin’

My son’s most prized possession in the whole world is his very own Power Wheels Jeep.  He really asked for a blue one, but black is what they had when grandma went shopping.  We assumed the fact that it was HIS VERY OWN JEEP should be enough to make him fall in love with it, black color and all.  He did fall in love with it, but…

Silly us.

All summer he’s continued to ask for a BLUE Jeep.  Even though he has a black one.  “But it’s not blue!”

Being the genius, bloggy DIYer I am, I said, “Okay, how about this:  How about we PAINT your Jeep blue?  Do you want it dark blue or sparkly light blue?”

I don’t know why I added “sparkly” to “light blue”.

“I want it sparkly light blue like Elsa’s dress!”  We’ve only ever watched Frozen once in this house, and he didn’t even like it.   Now, I’m on homedepot.com looking for a very masculine sparkly light blue “like Elsa’s dress” paint color that will also adhere to this plastic Jeep.  Folks, I just really DO NOT know how to do this.  I’ve been promising this paint job since May and he won’t let me forget about it.  I’m hoping he’ll at least forget about the “sparkly” part before I take him paint shopping–tomorrow.

So, today, I figured at least we could do some prep work.  Nothing like an adorable miniature car wash to make for a lovely photo op.  Maybe next week I’ll be able to show you guys a sparkly blue Jeep.  In the mean time, I’ll accept prayers and compliments on my adorable little car wash employees.

The Scheduled Life

February was a month of big changes in our schedule.

First of all, I joined a gym.  It was very intimidating at first, but we got a childcare package with our membership, so you can imagine how much easier that makes it to work out!  But, it also means I pack up the kids and take them with me four or five days a week.  I thought it would be good for all of us.

But then, kind of unexpectedly, we were having a meeting about our oldest’s development, and they recommended sending him to a special preschool four days a week.  I was NOT prepared to be facing that kind of milestone!  Sure, he’s been going to preschool two mornings a week already, but that school is affiliated with our church and my husband’s job.  Sending him to school has, so far, been a matter of him “going to work with dadda” twice a week.  This was our first time sending him to a public school, and, four afternoons a week is just a lot longer!  I cried for a few days.

Add to all this the fact that we’re still sending him to our church’s preschool two days, to hopefully preserve those friendships, and what you’ve got is this:  In a matter of a couple weeks, I have gone from the SAHM that leaves her apartment maybe twice a week, to a full fledged car-line mom!

Let me make one thing clear:  I have no idea how to do this.  I mean, I DO know how to cart my kids around and pick up and drop off my kid at a couple different preschools.  I know, I’m not anywhere near as busy as, say, a mom that works outside of the home.  Or even, I don’t know, anyone with children over five years old.  It’s just that I don’t know how to do THIS… new stage of motherhood.  I was getting really good at the toddlerish stuff.  I thought I had more time in this slower (albeit tiring) stage of life with two little bitty kids.  I know plenty of kids that don’t attend ANY preschool until the year before kindergarten, and we have a year and half still.  As a matter of fact, when I was little, I didn’t go to preschool at all!  What happened?!

So, no more roaming around in my pajamas with a laundry basket all day.  No more wondering what day of the week it is.  No more looking at the clock expecting it to be 1:30 and it actually being 10:30.

Things just got a lot more STRUCTURED, and, as hard as I’ve fought to deny it, it’s probably just what our family needed.  For everyone’s sanity.

I say I’ve fought hard to deny it.  I’m noticing a trend.  God tends to convince me I’ve been wrong about something, just before I need to act on the changed beliefs.  In the past month, before joining the gym or sending my kid off to the big school, I’ve felt like God had been teaching me about our need for structure, how my preconceived notions of what motherhood should look like might be a little too narrow, my heart and how it resists any lifestyle changes…  I felt a lot more at peace when I looked back and could see that, even though I didn’t know this whole preschool thing was coming, God did, and even seemed to be preparing my heart for just such a transition.

I don’t really notice God teaching me clear lessons like that very often, but this isn’t the first time it’s happened right before a major (to me) event.  Next time, I’ll be on the look out!

Just to be clear, I realize I’m being MAYBE a little over dramatic about something that, while for me is a symbolic life transition, for everyone else is just my being slightly less spoiled than I’ve been for the last four years.  Sorry about that.  It is what it is.  Hope you enjoyed it anyway!

-Mac-

Keepin’ It Tidy

So, we live in an apartment.

Now, I don’t know the exact square footage of our place off the top of my head, but to me it feels pretty stinkin’ huge for an apartment, but pretty small compared to most of our friends’ houses in this area.  I used to have house fever pretty bad, but after some sage advice from those well versed in the matter, I’ve started to see our rented home as a huge stress reducer, and honestly, a sort of luxury to be embraced during these years with small children.  Sure, long term renting is more expensive, but RIGHT NOW this place really helps us to live more comfortably on one income, and it’s SO much easy to take care of.  We’ve come around from house fever to thinking we won’t worry about buying until the kids are older and I’m employed again.

SOOO… that being said, in just the last month or so I’ve discovered two really simple tricks recently that have helped bring a lot more peace and quiet to our little space!

1.  Storage on the boys’ bedroom door.  We’ve hung a shoe organizer on the OUTSIDE of the boy’s bedroom door.  All their matchbox cars wooden train pieces, Happy Meal toys, etc… Anything that’s small enough to fit in a pocket goes there, and if the pockets are full we declutter some more!

Now, I wouldn’t have thought this was something worth blogging, but HEAR ME OUT:  That dumb little shoe organizer has changed my life.

I’ve been trying to keep all the boys toys in their room, because, I am filled with energy when our living room looks like an uncluttered adult place.  Maybe it’s just me, but when I’m here all day with the boys, the absence of toys on my floor is what separates me from “the workplace”.  It’s easy to have them pick up and at least move the larger items into their room before bedtime.  But then I tuck them in, shut the door behind me, take a deep breath, take three steps and OUCH!  Stepped on a lego.  And because I know that if I open that door again, the baby will start crying and I will have doomed bedtime for another 20 or 30 minutes, I would just pile those stragglers up in the hallway, where, the next morning, the children would swiftly scatter them again to places unknown.  Missing puzzle pieces, train tracks poking us in the couch cushions, you name it.  Enter shoe organizer and I actually have a place to PUT the lego when I’ve stepped on it without disrupting nap time!

The other way it’s changed my life is that there’s no dumping.  They HAVE to take one matchbox car at a time.  And the high pockets hold items that need supervision.  Think playdough.  Watercolors.  Toys with tiny pieces I don’t want our 16 month old to have.

Life.  Changing.

2.  Rearranging our Furniture to Prevent Rough Play.

Actually, we were just trying to figure out a way to keep our 16 month old from climbing and standing on top of our TV stand.  We ended up with an arrangement that kept most of our furniture away from the bordering walls and away from each other by at least a foot and a half.  A few days in, I realized the clomping sound that I was so sorry to our downstairs neighbors for had all but subsided.  Our new furniture arrangement had created a sort of obstacle course, that the boys love!  Lots of places to hide and chase each other and play peekaboo!  But it also decelerates their indoor play.  They can run and jump as much as they like, but my little race cars just can’t pick up as much momentum.  Less noise.  Fewer boo boos.

I had no idea what an improvement this would be, but we are LOVING this side effect!

So that’s where we’re at, right now.  It’s really the little things right?  Tell me what you’ve got going on at your house to reduce the chaos. I am ALWAYS looking for those sort of ideas!

-Mac-

Holiday 2012 in review: What worked? What didn’t?

My family is still young.  Now that we have two kids, we’re just starting to develop some of our own holiday traditions.  Some of the things we tried this year worked great!  Some were flops.  I did a review in a private journal last year (and lost it), but this year I thought my Facebook and blog friends would enjoy a shared review!  Feel free to add suggestions in the comments!

1.  Small tree!  This was a change.  My hubby just doesn’t like our big artificial tree, so we put up the three footer we got as newlyweds 7 years ago.  *awwwww!!!*

Conclusion:  It worked well, especially with our 14 month old.  Next year, as our boys start to make those adorable classroom ornaments, we might even decorate it!  (We settled for a garland this year… on account of said 14 month old!)  KEEPER!

2.  Staggered decorating:  I took the entire first week of December to put up decorations instead of exploding them all over the house the day after Thanksgiving.

Conclusion:  It was good for our souls to rest a little after Turkey Day, and it prolonged what is, honestly, my favorite part of the season!  KEEPER!

3.  Advent Activity Calendar  Every day was assigned a reasonable activity to celebrate the season, most of which were seasonal necessities or scheduled activities like Christmas pageants and classroom parties.

Conclusion:  Might have worked if Captain America had made the connection between taking the little slip of paper out of the calendar and the activity we were to complete that day.  Also might have worked if we hadn’t been shut-ins–sick with the flu for TWO WHOLE WEEKS this December!  Can you even believe it?!  CHANGE IT!  Next year we may put one or two special activities on the calendar, but we’ll also do candy or trinkets.  Just. In. Case.

4. 12 Days of Blessing Marcus  This was great fun!

Conclusion:  I will probably do this again sometime, but not as an every year event!  I don’t think I’m creative enough to keep it fresh without things getting expensive and stressing me out.  CHANGE IT! I’m starting to get an idea of when the more important weekends of December hit for him.  I think I’ll try to channel my creative energy towards those weekends without a set theme or 12 day bracket.

5.  Handmade gifts.  This year, nearly ALL our gifts were handmade by me.  Even for my children.  It seems like I go back and forth every year.  One year everything’s homemade and I get worried that came across a little shabby, the next year everything is store bought and I get worried that it came across a little impersonal.

Conclusion:  For a handmade holiday, things went far smoother than I ever could have hoped, but I still feel a little awkward about how some of my gifts turned out. ADJUST IT! I set and spent my budget based on a handmade holiday, I think next year I’ll “diversify”.    What I mean by this is to try pairing handmade with modestly priced purchased gifts.  A handmade journal with a nice ink pen.  A handmade coffee sleeve with a small gift card to Starbucks.   Christmas is all about strategy.  😉

TRADITIONS I WANT TO START

1.  Sending Holiday Cards  I love receiving them, but for the past few years we haven’t sent them out.  Next year, I think we’ll start sending a few, again.  I already have a great card design in mind!

2.  Fitness Traditions  I guess I SORT of did this this year, but the timing wasn’t exactly what I needed.  Stephanie and I did the Jingle Bell Run on December 7.  It was a great way to start December, but I kind of used the fact I was training for a 5K as an excuse to shirk my other fitness habits, and still gained weight.  Then, it was the holidays!  I’m super inspired by the #MILEADAY crew that runs between Thanksgiving and January 1st every year.  But I think I need something that incorporates nutrition and strength training, too.  Let me know if you know of something out there.  Nobody wants lack of fitness to dull their holiday cheer.

3.  Personal traditions  A friend of mine shared a list recently of her favorite Christmas movies to watch–by herself!  And she makes a good point.  Just because my family is NEVER going to fall in love with White Christmas or Holiday Inn, doesn’t mean that I have to give them up!  Just because my hubby is bored to tears to go out and see the holiday lights doesn’t mean I can’t take the boys on my own, or even just go enjoy a peaceful drive by myself with a peppermint mocha and MY music!  In the words of Tom Haverford, “Treat yo-self!”  On a similar note…

4.  I need to write a letter to Santa  And let my poor husband find it.   When he started to catch on that he was getting 12 days of presents this year, I could see the sweat starting to bead up on his forehead.  Okay, not really… but maybe a little.  (Where’s the line I draw here before he reads this and I get into trouble?)  He already knows I don’t expect him to reciprocate.  He’s at a disadvantage, because he doesn’t read Pinterest or follow a million blogs.  In one day of girly blog surfing my eyes scan more clever ideas on how to give treats on the cheap than I could ever execute in a given holiday season, but in a month of manly tech blog surfing, well, all he sees are smartphones.  I think starting the season with a cleverly penned note would make things nicer for BOTH of us!

 

5.  Christmas Day  I tend to put way more effort into the “season” and make the “Day” itself more of a rest day.  I think I might rearrange my efforts a bit going forward.  I’m realizing that just because I want to nap all day while the kids play with new toys, my over sugared/over tired little ones could use a bit more structure if I want to keep the day “calm and bright”!

What did you discover change or adjust this year?  Seriously!  I’m looking for tips!

And OH YEAH!  Merry CHRISTMAS!!!

Make a Chaos Control Cycle!

Do you meander around your messy house, overwhelmed, not knowing where to start?  Take heart, I’m here to help!

Take Your Home Back with a Chaos Control Cycle!  It’s my latest work over on 4SmartyPants, and frankly, I think it’s my best post yet!  Enjoy!