Monday, December 19, 2011

Things that Make me Happy

1. That little baby no longer poops during the night.   I don’t mind feeding her at night and with her sleeping in the bed it is really easy, but changing babies at night – not a fan.  This is a very happy time in my life. 

2. That we are on Christmas break from school.  No getting me and three others out the door at 8:30 every day.  Enough said.

3. Pomegranates.  I love them.  The other day I prepared two at one time because they take so long, I figured this would last awhile.  I took my delicious bowl of seeds to my desk to work and I looked down and they were gone.  I ate two giant Costco pomegranates in one sitting.  Oh well, I love them.

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4. That Owen has a girlfriend named Rylee. 

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5.  That Ivy wore not one but two skirts the other day.   She hasn’t worn a skirt for months.  This was a good day and made me realize that there is hope for her current scruffy style to change. 

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6. That at Toys R Us yesterday, a big black plastic snake and Owen made the baby laugh.  Not just a little laugh, but hysterical laughing.  Not giggling but screaming with laughter.  It was the highlight of my day, possibly even my week and maybe even the month.

7. That I am doing yoga at a class I love and that I am back to boot camp 2 days a week. 

8. That I have these three pictures of the baby.

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9. That Owen’s front teeth all fell out and somehow that made him able to say his “s” sound and we were able to graduate from speech therapy. 

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10.  That Ivy made a special box for her binky to go in during the day. (It doesn’t always make it there and there was that time when I said she couldn’t take the binky out of the special box during the day so she turned it around and held the box up to her mouth and sucked on the binky in the box.  What can you say to that?). 

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(aren’t the clothes awesome, see why I was so happy she wore the skirts)

11. That Ben cooked our turkey on 0 degrees for 2 hours this year.  He accidently turned his oven off and didn’t know.  It was almost as good as the year he told Greg to hold open the cooking bag while he put the turkey in it.  Greg held the bag open, Ben took the prepared turkey and dropped it in the bag.  The 30 pound turkey sailed straight through the bag without even slowing down and plopped on my floor, spilling oranges and seasoning all over.  We are not sure why we thought that bag was super strength, but it was a classic moment. 

12.  That Ivy zooms around the kitchen on her bike.

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13. That Angie and I both separately made list blogs tonight without knowing the other one did.

and

14. That I have a picture of both my kids in the same predicament.

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I am happy.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

I am my plant

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This poor plant of mine.  I glanced over to it a few days ago and found it in the sad state above.  This is not a plant that sits in a dark corner somewhere in a room I don’t go in, but rather it sits next to the front door.  I see it everyday and somehow managed to forget to water it for who knows how long.  Actually, I didn’t forget to water it, I just couldn’t find the time to water it.  That sounded ridiculous in my head and even more so in print.  How could I not find time to water a plant, it takes all of 30 seconds. 

I couldn’t find the time because every now and then I feel like my plant looks.  A baby who is always happy as long as she is being held or looked at, a son who is always busy, a little girl who is always nearby, work that cannot wait, cleaning to be done, groceries to be bought, lessons to go to, and so on and so on leave me feeling like that plant. 

The last few weeks I have only been good at one thing, if the house is clean, I am behind on my work and the kids are orphans; if my work is caught up, the house is the aftermath of a tornado and the kids have fed themselves all day; if I have stocked shelves full of healthy delicious food with planned meals for the day, all my clients are mad and the house is just plain awful; if I decide to get rid of it all and work on Christmas ornaments to fill my advent calendar, we eat take-out and get dressed in the laundry room from the clothes in the dryer. 

It doesn’t take long after those 30 seconds I took to water the poor guy and he starts to look like this.  There is a little more life, it has picked itself off the ground and has probably come to the realization that some days you are watered and some days you are not.     

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Today the house is clean, the laundry is done, my work is done, there is a chocolate peanut butter banana snack waiting for us in the fridge, there is a tent to play in that I made, we ate healthy all day and all the kids are happy.  

Tomorrow may be one of those days when all the water is gone and I drag myself on the ground.  We may eat terribly, barely get dressed, go late to school, watch the house fall to pieces and struggle just to get through to the end. 

Either way is ok because I am coming to the realization that some days you are watered and some days you are not and it is not good or bad, it is just the kind of day it is.

Friday, December 9, 2011

2 Months & How Could this Be?

My son did something the other day that I NEVER thought he would do.  It was terrible.  The story goes like this:
About a month ago or so, someone from the church that we would go to if we went to church brought by a baby blanket for us.  We started talking and she mentioned that she had three boys, ages 8 ,6, and 4.  I explained how Owen only had girl friends and that it may be fun to get together sometime for them to play. 
Then a few weeks later or so, she stopped by one night with cookies and brought her boys and her husband.  The boys and Ivy played great together and Greg and I had a nice time visiting.
Then on Tuesday we went over to their house for an afternoon play date.  We had fun.  The kids played great again and I had a nice time visiting again. 
Then on that same Tuesday it most likely became our last play date there.  After a few hours it was time to go.  I asked Owen to please clean up all the cars that they had been playing with and take them back upstairs.  He agreed fairly easily and loaded up his hands with cars.  After taking them upstairs, he came down with his hands in his coat pockets and said he was done and we could go.  After taking one look at him, I asked without question what he was doing.  He not so calmly replied nothing and said he was done helping.  Knowing my son so well, I responded with a statement sort of like, ok, well make good choices so we can come back and left it at that.  He marched outside and one of the boys followed. I continued to get ready to leave and help Ivy put on her coat and it was then that Owen came back inside and said to my dismay: “At least I gave it back.”  Shocked, I replied, “WHAT!”, to which he again said, “at least I gave it back.”.  And it was then that the little boy showed me his sheriff car from Cars the Movie (which he informed me he loved earlier in the play date).  I looked at the mom unable to really know what to say or do and then she said, “at least he was honest” and I said, “except that he still tried to steal your toy and it still made its way into his pocket” and then I just said, “well goodbye” (cause what else can you say in that situation to some people that come from your church that you have seen twice in your life). 
Then we discussed the incident.  I let him know that this could perhaps be our last time to play with his new friends, we discussed how he would feel if people came to his house and stole his toys, we talked about what happens when you steal when you are older, we discussed his feelings after someone stole my ipod, and we discussed that he probably doesn’t want to be known as the kid who steals other people’s toys or he will have a short list of invites over to their houses. 
So, to focus on the “at least giving it back” part rather than the making it into his pocket part, I told him that we could try to be friends with them, but that he had to write a sorry letter to them and deliver it to them himself.  And he did:
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(Dear Sam Tyler and Caleb, I am really really sorry for almost stealing your toy.  From Owen Leigh. I won’t do it again.  I hope we can play again soon.)
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He came back to the car and was happy to report that they forgave him and they said they would still be his friend. 
Before we left we had a big discussion about leaving.  I asked him to please get ready to leave when I asked him to.  He said he would, and surprisingly he did.  I had no idea that we had to have a discussion about not stealing our friend’s toys. 
He seemed to understand this was bad, he swears he will never do it again, but just in case, if you invite us over, beware.

And yet again, here is the post-edit of this post.  I could not find any stats on my blog for Autumn at 1 month (they are now added to the end of a post) and for her at 2 months.  So, as I said before, for the future:

Height: 22.3 inches: 45%
Weight: 10 lbs 5 oz: 34%
Head: 39 cm: 55%