To Dream....

We've spent our weekend having some good family fun, being very productive and dreaming, a bit. It snowed here over the weekend, somewhat unexpectedly, so we definitely had some fun snow play time. After all the snow in December, I got myself new snow pants, a new coat, and new snow boots (thanks Mom and Dad for the early birthday gift), and then I was convinced our winter snow season was over. Fortunately, I was wrong. And I got a chance to test out all my new gear before our upcoming snow tubing trip - and it was great! I was dry and warm and happy in my new gear. Happy Mommy, for sure!

Most of the rest of the weekend was spent working indoors on tearing apart and repairing Kara's closet in preparation for her new closet system, which the kids and I are going to pick up on Monday morning. Kara got to take naps in our bed and even slept on our floor one night - which she delighted in and John was very jealous of.

The other event of the weekend was our first meeting with a contractor to talk about the kitchen remodeling project. A close friend of mine gave us a referral for her contractor and we met with him this morning. The meeting went very well and he shared some ideas with us and we are looking forward to seeing the proposal he works up for us. But for now, it is still dreaming. We have some other research-type work to do before we decide exactly which path we're going to take on this HUGE project, so there's still a lot of steps before the dreaming becomes a bit of reality. I'm hoping we can make it happen in the early part of the summer when our schedule is light and we can have lots of picnics and pool-side meals. Time will tell, but there's a lot of dreaming and a lot of optimism.

Tuesdays are supposed to be easier!

On a normal week, my Tuesdays and Thursdays appear to be my easier days - Kara's got school in the mornings and then naptime in the afternoon - lots of Mommy time! John has swimming after school and then it's a pretty quick routine of dinner, bath, and bed after we get home. On paper it looks so easy. Today will NOT be easy.

Coming off a 3-day weekend is never easy, to start with. We spent a good deal of time this weekend looking at kitchen stores and doing a lot of window shopping for our upcoming kitchen renovation, which was not particularly interesting for the kids. They did well with it, but it was a lot for them. So technically today feels like a Monday, a transition day...not easy. Add to that the fact that I agreed to host our playgroup tomorrow morning and the preschool board meeting tomorrow night. This leads to me basically spending the bulk of today cleaning my house and making it presentable for the morning fun and the evening adults. On top of making sure I have enough food and drink to keep all guests happy (for me, this is the easier part). To make the day a little more challenging we also have a doctor's appointment for John in the afternoon, after school, but before swimming. I just hope I can remember that I need to go pick him up a bit early, rather than waiting for the bus later. Also, at the beginning of the school year, I signed up to provide snack this week (of all weeks!!) for John's class. I've got food for 3 of the 4 days already, but am hoping that I don't forget about Friday.

There are a few other wrinkles in the schedule during the rest of the week and then....ta-daaaa - Matt's out of town working this weekend! The light at the end of this tunnel is pretty far away right now. It's all good stuff, and I honestly wouldn't change any of it (well, except the part about Matt being out of town). I truly do work better under pressure. I just am still a bit overwhelmed with the magnitude of it all.

I just hope I'll still manage to squeeze in some time to play with the kids and enjoy my life. Because through all the madness, I really do enjoy it and everyone in it.

I did it

So, after posting the other day about trying to make more "in the moment" time with my kids, I managed to actually do it this morning. Kara's now in a swim class that is smack in the middle of the morning. For good and bad, it prevents running bigger errands, but also gives us some time after John's left for school before we have to be heading out to swimming. So this morning, I showered before anyone else was awake so I wouldn't lose my "Kara time" to my basic hygiene needs. Anyway, after we got back from the bus stop, Kara and I picked a project that she's been begging to do - a doll-fairy making kit she got for Christmas from her Aunt Caroline - and sat down to work. It was a bit advanced for her skill level, but I think she enjoyed doing it. I know I loved seeing her face at the completed item. The glue is still drying and we'll have to improvise some different wings for her as the kit's wings had some glue complications. Anyway, she's pleased as punch that we found the time to make the doll and my guess is even if we never get back to finishing the wings part, she'll get some play value out of the doll as it is.

It felt so good to take the time this morning to really be here with her and do the doll project. I'm hopeful it will make me inspired to be better about this with both kids. This afternoon's after school plans involve a bit of homework with John and then breaking into his new crayon maker that he's been begging to do!

Back to the Blog

Alright, so it's been months since I posted here and, to be honest, I've missed it. I think about postings in my head and haven't gotten them down on the computer. I can say we've been busy, which is true, but I also think I just needed to let go of one commitment for a little bit for my sanity and, well, the blog was it. Thus, the message in this post...read on.

Every day every parent doubts their ability to be a good parent. You spend so much energy and thought making parenting your primary focus and yet you still worry that you're not doing enough or not doing it right. It's totally overwhelming and stressful and makes your head spin on a daily basis.

I grapple with this regularly - load up on activities vs. spending quality time at home with my kids. Letting them play independently vs. engaging them in constant play. I love my kids more than anything and they astound me each and every day with their humor, charm, intelligence, sincerity, generosity, and so much more. Many days I feel like I didn't do enough - maybe I didn't do enough arts and crafts with them, or I didn't do enough reading, or I didn't limit their time in front of the tv, or hundreds of other "I didn't"s.

But deep down, I do know that I did. I do spend a lot of time doing all of those things with my kids. I just wish, so hard, that I could wipe away all of the extraneous things in our days - grocery shopping, cleaning, laundry - all the stuff that must get done, but that takes away from my time to "just be" with my kids. If only those things could fade into the background and I could spend all the quality time I want with my kids, for just a day, or two, or three.

But life isn't about "if only"s, any more than it should be about all the "I didn't"s. I am struggling with remembering to appreciate each moment and making the most of the time we do have. I am cleaning through a lot of the clutter, emotional and physical clutter, in our lives to allow me more energy and time to enjoy our life and enjoy the moments as they come.

Wish me luck.

Life Never Slows Down

For a long time, I kept saying,"when things slow down, I'll get back on track" (or get organized, or get to one of those many projects on my to-do list, etc.). But it's slowly dawning on me that that day never comes. Life with my active young kids and our busy schedule just never seems to slow down. Summer wasn't slow. The school year has been nothing close to slow, well, except for all our many sick days, which just don't count as "slow days" when anything productive can get done. Maybe instead of waiting for a slow time, I'll figure out how to squeeze in more project time, or just be better able to accept that this is not a time in my life when I'll be able to do the "fun" things I want to do!

So, let's recap what the fall has brought us so far:
- sickness...lots and lots of sickness
- a speedy trip to Maine with lots of family fun
- more sickness
- swimming lessons for both kids, which has led to major progress for John and his willingness to go underwater! Yeah!!!
- Kara's birthday and a variety of small, but fun, celebrations for her
- fall soccer for John and a lot of fun times with friends playing soccer
- progress on upgrading Kara's bedroom from a nursery to a big girl room, which also included selling off our crib and dresser set. Very hard for me to part with, but it was definitely time to do it and I'm glad to have the space for new things.
- starting to think about a major renovation of our kitchen. While this is totally scary, it is also totally necessary and I'm excited about all the possibilities.
- the start of life with homework for John. He's been excited to work on it, so there's been a smooth transition on that front...thank goodness!
- Halloween! It was my first year without pre-decided costumes for either child, and boy was that hard! John decided early on that he wanted to be Scooby Doo, and thanks to a very generous neighbor, that was easily achieved. Kara, after MANY MANY switcheroos on costume choices, finally settled on being a "scary, bad, black cat." Boy, was she scary...well, more cute than scary, but it was an easy costume, for which I was very thankful! ;-)

And I'm sure there's much more, but it's been such a whirlwind lately that it's hard to remember all of the things that have taken place in between our various illnesses. I'm always hopeful that I'll get back to posting more often here, but it's so hard to tell if I'm going to meet that goal or be busy taking care of sick children instead. Any guesses as to which one I'd rather be doing???

October = Illness

Around here it seems that October cannot get by without bringing the first of the season's many cold bugs into our home. Kara's third birthday was October 3rd and she had a slight cold then. By the next week, it had passed on to John...and then turned into croup. Fortunately the croup part only lasted about two days, but the cold lingered on for him. After missing most of the week of school, we packed up and headed north to Maine for a long weekend, visiting my extended family and enjoying some fall color. During the whirlwind trip, I came down with the cold. I felt okay the day we drove back, thankfully, but have spent the last 3 days being pretty miserable. And finally, not to be left out of anything, Matt woke up this morning declaring his body's submission to the cold as well. I'm truly wondering what it would be like for our family to stay healthy through October. The last few years have consistently resulted in a thorough spread of illness through our household. It's unfortunate, for many reasons, but mostly because we all truly enjoy fall and all the many fun activities there are to do during this season. At this point it looks like we may need to scale down our fall activities we had planned for this weekend so we can just get some rest and recuperate. So tough.

At least we were able to enjoy Kara's birthday and our trip to Maine was great. A lot of good family togetherness and seeing my grandmother for the first time in two years was also good. Her older sister (just turned 90!!) was able to come out from California and that was great too. My grandmother has severe dementia, so may not have known who anyone was specifically, but definitely had some recognition of those around her and certainly was happy to see her sister after many years. It was a very special visit. The kids enjoyed playing with their cousins and I got to visit with my brother and sister-in-law, which I always enjoy. It was kind of a crazy trip to make for a weekend, but it was well worth it.

Now we're on to finishing off October with a potential camping trip next weekend, soccer games, starting swimming lessons, and of course, Halloween. Kara seems to be changing her mind on her costume choice by the day. She clearly doesn't understand yet that her options might be more limited than she thinks! Working on that....

I'm optimisitic that my blogging will become more frequent again soon. Once my head cold diminishes and I have a clearer brain, I'll get back on top of things...or maybe I'll get better about accepting that I'm always behind and figure out a way to enjoy it all more instead. Hmm, I think I might like that idea better!

So I'm officially crazy!

Well, at least I'm thinking it must be, otherwise I would not manage to totally over-commit myself like I do. One look at the calendar in our kitchen makes it clear to any rational person that we have a few too many things going on. I don't know how to make any of it "go away" and I'm scared to think about how much behind the scenes work has to happen to make it through it all.

I am volunteering my behind off, because I believe in supporting the schools, and of course, also so that when I do eventually go back to work I can show that I was not totally resting on my laurels and eating my yummy bon-bons (which is clearly what all of us stay-at-home moms do, right?). So I managed to get into the position of serving as VP for my daughter's preschool board. This one shouldn't be too big of a deal - not too much work for this position, mostly just meeting attendance and a project or two. Then at the Back-to-School Night for John's kindergarten class I managed to sign myself up to be the class parent. Not entirely sure what I was thinking, I guess mostly that I wanted to enthusiastically support the teacher and the class. yikes.

Yeah...so those are two biggies for me for this year. Add to that swimming, soccer, and ballet. Add to that bus stop runs twice a day, trying to squeeze in some walks for me and Kara's playgroup. Before long I'll also be trying to get some more time for doing my website work with my old employer too.

Did I mention that Kara's birthday is in a week, John's follows in December, on top of all the holiday fun. And my mom had major knee surgery this week, so I'll be trying to get in some visits and be helpful to my parents as they work through the recovery/rehab process for her (which is going extremely well so far, so that's great).

Like I said, CRAZY!!! No doubt about it...just crazy....