Survival

It's been an interesting few days, but I made it!  Well, almost.  Technically I have to get the kids to bed tonight before I can say "I survived!" 

J is on another business trip, exactly a month after the last.  When he is gone I struggle with the day to day scheduling of our life.  You see, J is the primary parent to our older children who are 6 and 8.  He gets them up in the morning, packs lunches, feeds breakfast, takes them to school, picks them up in the afternoon, AND makes dinner. So when he is gone I have to try to get 3 kids up, dressed, fed, and out the door by 7am.

This trip J left early on Sunday morning.  I was scheduled to work 10-6 an hour from home.  The older kids were going to Grandma's house and the baby was going to work with me. The older kids' bodies had other plans though.  They both woke with diarrhea overnight.  Since I didn't think it would be nice to send them to Grandma's house sick I ended up having to stay home from work.  We had a good day and fortunately the kids felt fine other than running to the bathroom often.  They both ended up having diarrhea for 48 hours.

They watched The Hobbit and then Fellowship of the Ring 

and enjoyed warm cinnamon sugar cresents.

  

On Monday I actually took the kids to work with me to make my life easier.  Adam had scouts that night and we had to be there by 6:30, in uniform, fed, and with his bike and helmet.  The day went smoothly and as planned.

It was a gorgeous 65 degree day with warm winds

   

On Tuesday and Wednesday I arranged childcare to pick the kids up in the afternoon from ...childcare.  LOL!  They are off track right now, but they are still at the school in the Intersession program all day.  I work till 5:30 and am 45 minutes minimum from home.  Childcare closes at 6pm.  Doesn't quite compute, does it.  I am very fortunate to have awesome family and friends who jump in and help us out when needed.

On Tuesday the weather messed up our plans.  We had a Blizzard Warning and every school district in the greater Denver metro area was closed.  So the kids got to go to work with me again.  The so called "blizzard" was a total fail, but the kids enjoyed getting to spend a 3rd day with me.  I finally hit my limit on Tuesday.  I was DONE!  Noelle was starting to get pissy and annoying and I really needed a break from the older kids.  (I'm used to having the baby 24/7.  I'm not as good with the older kids.)  I decided for all of our sakes to go to McDonalds for dinner.  That way the kids could run and play getting rid of all the stored up energy, and I could relax a tiny bit.

Colorado Blizzard 4/10/13

   

And that brings us to today, Wednesday!  Finally a day that is going as planned.  The older kids are at Intersession and will be picked up by one of our friends, Loren, who will take them home and entertain and bathe them until I'm home.  I get to have a normal day at work with just the babies.  Also, J will be back after the kids are in bed tonight.  Woo-Hoo!

Sanity time!

I am so thankful  to have the love and support of my Husband.  I CAN do this parenting thing alone, but I don't want to and thankfully I don't have to.

I LOVE YOU JUSTIN!

(Google Hangout with Daddy!)

Kids' Rooms

So we have messed with the kids' rooms once again.  Apparently we don't follow the "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy.  LOL!  One of Adam's good friend's family is moving to Arizona and they offered us their bunk bed set for a really great price.  We knew we were going to need a bed for Adam once Lily is out of the crib, so it worked out perfect.  

The girls now have our original set in their room, which makes for 3 beds and a crib in a teeny tiny room!  I would like to keep Lily in the crib until closer to her second birthday, but we already have a double bed rail in case we move her earlier.  I do think we will ditch the changing table very soon though.  She is AWFUL on it and it is a constant fight to keep her laying down.  Also, Justin taught her to stand to pull up her pants, so any time she is sitting on it she wants to stand up and I'm not okay with that.  Then she throws herself backward in a fit and hits the back of her head on the side of it.  OUCH!  

Adam has the bunk bed from his buddy Zach.  We are only using the loft section so that he has room to play.  This set came with a dresser and a ladder.  The supports are a desk and drawers/bookshelf.  Perfect for a growing boy!  I'm thinking we will have him organize his LEGOs in the smaller drawers of the bed.  We do need to get him some type of stool/chair for the desk.  With his old desk he was using a cube that was a fine height, but this desk sits a little higher.

Hopefully we won't have to do any big rearranging anytime soon since I'm done with moving furniture for now.  

I do need to get rid of a dresser/changing table that we are done with and trash an old desk that actually belonged to Justin's Uncle as a child.  Can't wait to get rid of the old furniture sitting in my upstairs hall!

Life Gets In The Way

I haven't been here much lately.  I have well meaning thoughts to get updates done and post pictures of outings.  But to be honest I have just been so exhausted I haven't wanted to take the time.  I could make the time by playing around less on FB or Twitter, I just don't want to.  All my energy is going towards staying afloat and not drowning in the day to day-ness of life with a husband, 3 kids, a dog, house, and 2 jobs(per adult).  Of all that stuff my jobs are actually what keeps me going.  I often pull into the garage, after being gone for 11 hours at work, and just sit.  Sometimes I really don't WANT to go inside.  I can often hear the fighting, arguing, yelling...from my car. I know that the second I walk in the door it will be nearly 2 hours of battles to get dinner eaten, homework checked/done, baths, snack, brush teeth, and hopefully get the kids into bed.

I love my kids so much, but parenting is not easy.  Add in a child who has severe undiagnosed behavior and possible mental "issues", for lack of a better term, and it is downright exhausting!  I am trying really hard to take care of my own mind and body right now, but since blogging does make me feel good I am going to start making more of an effort at it.  For now, here's a cute picture of my girls from their birthday party in early February.  I made their dresses and am very proud of how they turned out.  Just another thing that makes me happy!

Birthday Girls

Lily(12 months) and Noelle(6 years)

This post was inspired by Raising Cubby: A Father and Son’s Adventures with Asperger’s, Trains, Tractors, and High Explosives by John Elder Robison. Parenting is a challenging job, but what challenges does a parent with Asperger's face? Join From Left to Write on March 12 as we discuss Raising Cubby. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.

The Girls' Room

I've been meaning to post about the girls' room for some time now.  I made several things for Lily and think they turned out great.

This is what is above Lily's changing table.  I made her name before she was born from an idea on Pinterest.  When I originally posted the pic of her name it was the first time I had announced what her name would be.  I altered a pinboard I had made at MOPS a long time ago for her hair clips.  I painted the bottom frames and put polka dots on them.  I love how the arrangement turned out (even though they are crooked in the picture).

We've had Noelle wooden letters up for some time.  I added the picture of her at 6 weeks old since Lily's hospital picture is up on the wall.  The butterfly is wooden and decoupaged with tissue paper.  Adam made it and Noelle likes it so we put it up with her name.

 Their beds  LOL!  The canvas pictures are what we bought when we originally did the room and they are still in the same spot.  The two white frames are Noelle's baseball team pictures.  The girl's beds are pushed all the way together now since Noelle wants to sleep with Lily and I'm not comfortable having her in the crib WITH Lily.  This way she can touch her and Lily can be safe.

What a mess!! We use the fan to air out the room when Lily stinks it up and as white noise.  Plus, Noelle actually likes to have it blow on her at night, nutty girl!  They share the dresser and then there is Lily's changing table.

That's it.  The room is SO TINY!  Hopefully we can move soon and they won't have to share anymore, but for now we are making do.

On Friendship and Similairity

I've always been shy.  I honestly don't know how I managed to make friends growing up since I was not an initiator in any way.  My childhood friends must have tried really hard to befriend me.  In early elementary school I had 2 good friends.  Kristy and Tawnya.  We did everything together.  Kristy's grandparents lived a couple houses up the street from me and we hung out a lot, even after her family moved far away.  Tawnya was being raised by a single Dad in the 80's (not a very common occurrence in that day and age), just like me.  We were best friends all through elementary school and stayed in touch for a long time afterwards, even though my family had moved across town. Even now we are friends on FB and I love hearing about all the great things she is doing for our youth in a neighboring city.

Kristy and Tawnya each had one brother, just like me.  Kristy's brother died in an auto accident while he was in high school.  Tawnya's brother also died due to an auto accident when he was way too young.  At the time I learned Tawnya's brother had died my brother, Merle, was serving in the US Navy in Bahrain.  I was so scared something would happen to him and I would lose him.  I am so thankful that he is here with us still and it is always in the back of my mind that I can't EVER take him for granted.

I love you Merle!  Thank you for being my brother.  I promise to always be thankful for you and never take your presence in my life for granted.

   

This post was inspired by Saturday Night Widows by Becky Aikman. After being kicked out of her widow support group for being too young, Becky creates her own support group with an unusual twist. Join From Left to Write on February 14 as we discuss Saturday Night Widows. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes. 

Author Q&A with Becky Aikman hosted by From Left to Write Editor Thien-Kim Lam.  Check it out, but be careful, there are spoilers towards the end.

17/365

All 5 of them.

16/365

Eating green beans and watching an elephant eat.

This child is at the point of only eating green veggies.  She LOVES green beans, peas, broccoli  and especially avocado.  She eats at least 1/4 of an avocado every day.  Also, I now give her a green veggie at breakfast.  The only fruit she will eat is blueberries and applesauce pouches.  Such an odd 11 month old!

15/365

14/365

My girls.

A Secret vs A Surprise

As a parent I have all the same worries any other parent does.  At the top of that list is always that someone will hurt my children.  We all want to protect our children in any way we can.  One of the tricks I use is that we don't have secrets in our family.  I've taught my 5 and 8 year old that we don't keep secrets, only surprises.  I've explained that a surprise is something that you will eventually tell the person and is NEVER bad.  If someone tells them "Don't tell, it's a secret" they know that they should probably tell us right away.  The hardest part is actually reassuring them, and following through on, the fact that they will never get in trouble for telling a "secret".  I've made it clear to my 8 year old that if he did something wrong he may get in trouble for it, but never for actually telling me something.  I think my 5 year old may still be too young for that concept.

So far I feel we have had great success with our "No Secrets" rule.  We were recently able to see it in action after the kids spent the night and day with a family member.  I was curious why Noelle had diarrhea all morning the day after she came home and was asking her what she had eaten.  Adam fessed up that they had a LOT of soda but were told it was a secret and not to tell.  I used this as a teachable moment and asked Noelle if she thought is was a good decision to drink 3+ sodas, when she rarely gets a partial one and even more rarely with caffeine, even though they were available and she was told she could.  I also used it to talk again with the kids about the rule and reaffirm that Adam did the right thing by telling us.

Fortunately this was an "easy" secret to deal with as a parent.  Adam fessed up, we talked, it got dropped.  I hope to never have anything worse happen that falls under our "No Secrets" rule, but at least I feel secure in that I have taught my children that I will be here for them anytime they need to tell me a "secret".

This post was inspired by the mystery thriller novel The Expats by Chris Pavone. Kate Moore happily sheds her old life to become a stay at home mom when her husband takes a job in Europe. As she attempts to reinvent herself, she ends up chasing her evasive husband's secrets. Join From Left to Write on January 22 as we discuss The Expats. As a member, I received a copy of the book for review purposes.