The Last 4 Days...

This might look like the face of a man annoyed to have his picture taken, or a man tired of holding a paint brush, but it is actually the face of love.  I know this because Smoochy has had a four day weekend and he has done NOTHING but paint in all that time. Because he loves me. A lot. It was our goal to paint the interior of the house this winter. Turns out painting (the Smoochy-Way otherwise known as the RIGHT way) takes a long time. There are a few rooms that we'll save for next winter, but that's OK. The rooms that are done are GLORIOUS. (I could probably have Smoochy paint a few more rooms for me if I didn't need him to shift his focus to building me a couple of bee-boxes before my girls arrive on April 2nd!) 

All over the house are signs of the painting in progress. Brushes drying by the sink, gallons of paint on all the horizontal surfaces out of the reach of the littles, and of course the upheaval that accompanies painting two bedrooms in four days.

This is where we have been camping as the work has progressed.

I am so thrilled to have some color in our house. It makes such a big difference. Although I take issue with all those magazines and on-line decorating sites that tout paint as an inexpensive way to make a big impact. I don't contest that paint can dramatically change the look of a space. But cheap? Um... I don't think so. When we left the store with a gallon of paint to do the bathroom I was wondering if the molten gold in the mix would throw off the color I was hoping for. 

You want more proof that Smoochy loves me with his every fiber? We now have a pink room in the house. You should all know that despite the fact that I am a 32 year-old woman I still have a very unhealthy fondness for pink. If I wasn't completely and in every way adverse to salesmanship I would SO be a Mary-Kay lady just for a shot at one of those pink Cadillacs.  

As for Georgia, she's OK with the pink, but would have course preferred orange.

Less predictable than Punxsutawney Phil

The unseasonably warm temperatures have tricked some of the animals into thinking that Spring is actually here.

Lola doesn't know who this guy is and she's pretty sure she doesn't like him. 

Screen-Free

So, I vacillate between two extremes. I start out with the best intentions to keep my kids 90% screen-free. All goes well for a while until I have a sick kid who needs to rest and to stay calm, or I fell there is some task I MUST COMPLETE that justifies the use of the electronic baby-sitter. Suddenly we are on a slippery slope. Before you know it there are days with back-to-back Disney movies or afternoon marathons of Diego on Netflix. Yikes. Right now we are the midst of a TV crack-down. Smooch and I have agreed that the kids should only watch movies and play video games on the weekend. (Normy is big into a motorbike game on the IPad right now.) We are two weeks in and so far so good. It is amazing to me how much calmer and more able to engage in independent play the littles are when they aren't getting a daily dose of the silver screen. The need for TV seems to be cyclical thing: The kids are going crazy so you plug them in. When you try to turn the TV off they start bouncing off the walls because they have been stationary for too long so you start going crazy and think, "Hey kids! Want to watch Cinderella!?"

Well, I think we've turned a new corner. I think we might have found a sustainable counter-measure to the TV. Enter books-on-CD. I can't tell you how much my kids LOVE them. I'm a little surprised actually. Not only will they chill and listen to a couple of books when I need a moment of peace, but this activity usually acts as a springboard to more independent "reading" on their part. Wow. Had I known I would have pushed harder to get a library card sooner. The real upside, is that they are being exposed to books I might not have the time/patience to read them every day... like the twenty-five minute telling og John Henry... which is a great story which becomes AWESOME when actually told in the deep resonating baritone voice of a man that actually sounds like he could have been John. All I'm saying is: I think this is working!!!

Cleansing Flight

Did you know that honey bees won't poop in the hive? That's right. They leave home to take a shit. Well, except for the queen. She is so busy with her egg laying duties that she doesn't have time to take what bee keepers call a cleansing flight. The worker bees actually take turns with Queen Duky-Duty. What do honey bees do in inclement weather? They hold it. In the winter the bees huddle in a cluster to stay warm... similar to the way emperor penguins do. I can only guess that they take turns being the girl on the outside of the cluster. But as soon as there is a break in temps, they all take potty-break. Here in Nebraska there have been 40+ degree days lately. Today's high was 57. You can bet there were bees out and about pooping all over the city.


And even though the  ten-day forecast doesn't show a daily high less than 39, you can bet your biscuits winter isn't over here. However, everyone in Omaha is soaking up the sun and taking cleansing flights of our own. All the cars in the city have been freshly washed, and people are reveling in newly uncovered street parking. The opportunity to go out without thermal gear is astounding. We have spent hours outside in the drippy, slushy, melty soup that is our yard. Today I was measuring out where my garden is going to go, and which trees would be sacrificed to let enough light through to allow for vegetables to grow. This glimpse of Spring-to-come is delicious.

"Mommy! My gloves are YUCKY"

Where you see snow is destined for tomatoes. 

Normy was so sad there wasn't enough snow for sledding.

Babies Eat

They work so hard to get those fat little fingers working. Then when the banana is successfully delivered to their mouths there is such joy!

I needed to sweep the floor and clean the kitchen yesterday. What to do with Lola? Hmmm... I plunked her in her seat with her very first Cherios in front of her. I reasoned she was probably ready to test out the old pincher grasp on something edible. I figured she might be distracted with the exercise long enough to get my cleaning done. She loved it and ate her weight in cereal. A half hour later my kitchen was sparkling.  


What a difference from the first baby to the the third. When Normy was a baby I was so excited to spoon-feed him that I had him propped in the Bumbo before he could even sit up on his own. Armed with a spoon in one hand and my camera in the other I started shoveling rice cereal into his mouth at 5 and 1/2 months. He lived off of those nasty Gerber purees in the little plastic tubs... But, I would never dream of giving him finger foods! What if he choked?!?!?! I'm sure he was over a year before he sampled bites of banana or a tray full of peas.

With Georgia on the other hand I skipped purees all together. By then I had read Nourishing Traditions and Feeding the Whole Family and the Gerber purees were not on the menu. But, I was also parenting two children very close in age (at least developmentally) and though I loved the idea of making baby food... it just never happened. (Well, maybe once. Pretty sure it was carrots.) So, about the time Georgia was 10 months old she finally starting eating a little bit from my plate that was soft and smooshable. But, before then it was strictly boobie-milk for her. 

I am not saying there is a right way or a wrong way. There are too many variables in personality to make such a claim. But, the fact remains Normy is a horrible picky eater and will only eat about ten different foods all of them either white or a fruit... and only if they are not mixed or combined in any way. Georgia will eat ANYTHING. Sushi, curry, onions, casseroles, burritos. She loves it all. (Though she isn't quite as adventurous as she used to be.)


Lola, now there is a different story. I didn't really plan on doing purees with her but around seven and a half months she made it very clear that she wanted food. With Lola I have found balance. There is a middle way. I buy little jars of organic baby food to have on hand incase there isn't something appropriate for her on our dinner menu. But, most nights she eats an unspiced and pureed version of whatever we are eating. As a result she has had guacamole, hummus, lentils, brown rice, squash, and a whole host of things my big kids didn't try until... well a lot of those things Normy still hasn't tried. 


Feeding babies is fun. I love the process of discovery they go through. The way their eyes light up when they taste something they like for the first time or the way they shudder when experiencing a texture they didn't expect. I think it is hilarious the way they gag a little while try to figure out exactly how to swallow. The whole process is exciting. And, I have found out over the years it is far less complicated then I ever though in the beginning. 

One month later...

from this...

to this

I couldn't be happier

I am especially thrilled with how awesome the kid art looks. These are my favorite watercolors, and now I can enjoy them every day. 

I bet you can guess where I will be enjoying my morning privacy! ;-0

Success!

Snack time begins...

I was wondering if these junior knives would ever get used...

They enjoyed eating as they went, and didn't prefer the finished product to the individual ingredients.

Took a little coaxing to get them seated at the table. Next time we will have to make our snack at our seats so there is no transition.

After cleaning the table we moved on to craft. 

We sprinkled these goodies on contact paper. The aim is to sandwich the glitter and confetti between two pieces of contact paper to make sun-catchers.

This endeavor was abandoned before completion. That's cool. I'm glad it will be a multiple day project. I think it's good to show them how several days worth of little tasks can be strung together to create something worthwhile. Plus, that is less crafts that I have to come up with. 

So we moved on to audio books. Normy was into it... Georgia was not.

However, she enjoyed stacking our recycled crayons and looking at other books by herself.

It was a perfect evening. No fights (big ones), no screen time, dinner was met with rave reviews, and there was a general sense of peace and harmony amongst the Smoochys. Amazing. Now I just have to keep it up. 

Under Construction

Surely, out of the soup of this chaos will come something extraordinary... But, right now it feels like I am living in a tornado. There are stacks of stuff everywhere to be sorted and dealt with. Unfinished projects litter my space. The ideas and plans and to do lists circle my head like a cloud of butterflies looking for a place to land. It's kinda' fun... and kinda' makes me want to pull my hair out. Just look at this mess.

Well, I am putting in to practice several evolving plans to make us all bigger faster stronger better. The most important to me right now is a system to streamline our afternoons to help us avoid the temptation to simply plug the kids in when the evening-crazies hit. As usual, I feel like a little more structure and planing on my part will be the key. So, here's the action-plan.

When the kids wake up form naps we will have a snack time. No linger will I simply hand them oranges to peal and fill up their bowls with nuts. From now on they will have to help set up for the snack, make the snack and clean up from the snack. Today we will make ants on a log.

After snack we will have craft time. Today we will be making valentines sun catchers out of contact paper, glitter, and ribbon. (pictures tomorrow)

On nice (or nice enough) days craft time will be followed by outside play time. Come on above freezing days!!!

The kicker for us is always dinner prep time, when Smoochy is fresh-home from work and in need of a little unwind time, and I am elbow deep in raw chicken. This is USUALLY when we resort to a little Bob the Builder on Netflix. But no more! I FINALLY have a library card (that is a whole blog post for another day) so today I checked out A TON of books on CD. So, my plan is to get the kids settled down with an audio book (with the real picture book in front of the to follow along with) while I am chopping veggies and setting the table.

Wish me luck. I've got to go get ready for the afternoon excitement!

 A random picture of Georgia because she has beautiful eyes. 

(PS: forgive what spelling and grammar errors you have found above. I only gave myself 10 minutes to blog today!)

Indoor Sunbathing

I was sunbathing in the playroom today. The afternoon light is amazing in here on sunny days... And Lola and I were soaking it up as the bigger kids chatted themselves to sleep. Outside it was a frigid 12 degrees, but in here it felt like 80. I was stretched out like a cat in her favorite strip of sun. This winter has been the most plesent we've had in the last few years. Two winters ago in Wheaton, IL and last winter in Omaha it was brutally cold and I perpetually felt snowed in. There is a lot to be said for winter. I love the feeling of liberation that comes over me when I simply cannot leave the house because of piles of snow falling from the sky. It's nice just to camp out by the fireplace and knit when all obligation to go-go-go has been taken off my plate. I love the simplicity of just being able to serve soup and bread for dinner. And I love on the occasions that the children go out to play. In the summer they seem to get bored with twigs and plants, but in the winter they have this amazing shifting snowscape to capture their imaginations... Of course I personally have yet to take them out. I stay in and snuggle Lola.

So it is Febrary. One of the big birthday months. Georgia will be three in just a few weeks. Crazy. I often think of Normy as being three... Not Georgia! It's good though. Two was a hard year for her. I'm hopping some of the bumps she and I keep hitting smooth out of the landscape as we move into Three. Some things are sure to remain constant. Like her love for Nutella on toast. She doesn't call it chock-oh-butt any longer but her delight in it's rich creamy sweetness remains.

I've got a cold coming on. It's pretty much crushing the life out of me this evening. I was doing great until nap time. I thought a couple days of herbal tea and the netti-pot had spared me, but it doesn't seem so now. Smoochy is making us beans and rice and I am going to go knit. I just cast on (again) for THESE FINGERLESS MITTS. They are my first project reading a knitting chart. I only frogged them twice before looking up directions on knitting chart reading. Huh. And people say I am a slow learner. Whatever. I've got it now. ;-)

This Week Wins

What?!?! You mean to tell me it's Thursday already? How can that be? Some weeks the time just flies. This week we've been snowed in. There has been a little bit of crafting, a little bit of painting, and a little bit of puking. As I was the one crafting (not painting or puking) I feel like I drew the long straw.  Smoochy has almost finished painting our bathroom and Georgia did the puking. Luckily it was just a 24 hour thing.

It' 8 o' clock at night and I am brain-dead tired. Lola is sleeping in my lap and Smoochy is finishing up with the baths. So, I only have a second before I take over and read the stories. Again, I feel like the lucky one. I have the fun job. I wish I had some interesting post cooke-up to serve you, but really, all I've got is a few pictures form our week. Whatever, the Grandma's will be happy.

Hello Monday, Hello World

Round and round the Earth spins and plops us all down at the beginning of another week. Hello Monday. Hello world. I greet you with some reluctance. It would be far nicer to wake up to Saturday morning again instead. But, with the speed at which time passes around here, I don't have long to wait for the next weekend.

In the corner of the Blogspere I travel through there is a great deal written about living mindfully and with intention. Those ideas resonate with me. That is something Smooch and I try to do together as parents as well as in our individual lives. At it's most basic; living with intention is awareness of how our words, actions, and attitudes affect one another and the children. We are constantly talking about what we are doing, how it is working, and what we can change. Change for us both comes slowly... for example pretty much daily we both remind each other that screaming at the kids in frustration is fruitless and unnecessarily exhausting.

And yet change does come. This weekend we implemented a little tweak to our routine that I think made a huge difference. We woke up together both Saturday and Sunday.

Normy has always been an extremely early riser. I mean like before 5:00 early. In the last year, Georgia has joined him. Now they both get up at the crack of dawn. And surprise! Lola now gets up that early too. It's just habit. It's as though the first child awake sets off some sort of chain-reaction and telepathically urges the rest of the siblings to rise and join the party. As long as I have the coffee pot set and ready to run the night before, I usually greet the day with minimal bitterness. Usually. 

Well, for years now our operating procedure has been to split the weekend. So, Saturday was Smoochy's day to sleep-in and Sunday was my day. We reasoned that ONE day to sleep to your heart's content was better than none. But, really it seemed to cause all sorts of anxieties. For example, keeping our children quiet in the morning takes an act of God... or a Disney movie. I don't know about your kids, but if mine start the day with TV it's all down hill from there. It's like the rest of the day they are spun-up, distracted, and simply can't play. But, if left to their own devices in the morning they create too much ruckus to sleep through. Whoever was attempting to stay in bed often emerged disgruntled and grumpy long before they wanted.

As for me, even when I knew MY TURN was just around the corner it never stopped me from being resentful on Smoochy's morning. Plus, we never ended up DOING anything on the weekends because by the time we were all finally awake and on the same page half the day was over, it was nearly time fore lunch and naps! It just wasn't working.

This past weekend we did something new and outrageous: We all got up together BOTH days. And it was wonderful. The whole weekend just flowed. No one stumbling out of bed screaming, "WHY IS THERE SO MUCH NOISE!" No morning TV. Someone to drink coffee with. We were able to work together to get the kids fed, dressed, and around. We even left the house. We went out to the paint store and for groceries. There was laughter and playing children... it felt like a real weekend. 

And the extra couple hours of sleep? I didn't miss them. It was far more refreshing to spend GOOD time as a family and feel partnership with my man.

So, what all did we do this weekend? The usual. Pained, Knit, Baked. I'm not ready to show you bathroom progress because... Well, because it isn't done. But there is progress! 

What I can share is a recipe I invented for a solid loaf of zucchini bread. My family survives on sweet bread. Part of my strategy to cope with such an early start to the day is the ability to plop a piece of sweet bread, a cutie, and a cup of milk in front of my voracious early birds. I can make sweet bread in my sleep, and can mix it up according to what I have on hand. I was particularly happy with this loaf, so if you have some lovely Mexican zucchini in your fridge waiting for just the right thing, this might be what you need.

2 cups flour (I used whole wheat)

1 stick of butter

1/3 cup brown sugar

2/3 cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1/4 cup sour cream

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon cardamom

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 1/2 cups finely shredded zucchini

Mix your dry ingredients in a separate bowl. Cream the butter and sugar. Mix in egg and sour cream. Slowly add dry ingredients. Mix until moistened. Fold in zucchini. Bake in a greased and floured bread pan @ 350 for an hour or so until toothpick inserted pulls out clean. (Mine baked for and hour and ten) 

And because I can't go a week without pictures of my kids napping...

This post brought to you courtesy of Nap Time!

*Clearly this is the post I started yesterday. And I have no idea why Georgia chose to nap on the floor. I guess the carpet is pretty soft.