Snow and More Snow

It started snowing last weekend and it kept snowing until last night.  We had A LOT of snow and it was a crazy week. 

Let’s recap the highlights.

1. We had no school on Monday for the holiday and then no school the rest of the week due to snow – awesome.   This puts us in school until about June 22nd this year – not so awesome.

2. We drank a lot of hot chocolate.  How can you not with a week like this, there is that unwritten rule about playing in the snow and then coming in for hot chocolate.

3. The kids played in the snow more times than I can count.  By the end they were both professionals at putting on their snow gear.  Ivy could do the pants, coat, hat, socks and boots by herself and only needed help with her mittens and scarf.  Owen only needed help tucking his gloves in his coat.  This was all so joyous as you will recall they played in the snow more times than I can count. 

4. Other than to go to boot camp on Monday and Wednesday night, I did not leave this house one other time from Monday until Friday night.  There was no question we were going to dinner tonight.

5. I was reminded that I love when it snows for a week and then immediately warms up and starts to melt. 

6.  We are in need of all the snow to melt so that we can hopefully locate a missing spray bottle and a winter glove.

7. Spray bottles with water and food coloring make for a WONDERFUL snow activity, even if they need constant refills and new colors. 

8. I realized that I love to be able to go places when I want to and that homeschooling my children is not something I could ever do. 

9. Steve is the fastest snowman builder I have ever met.  He went outside for 3 minutes and instantly had a snowman.  One minute there was no snowman, I turned to talk to Angie and the next minute there was a snowman. 

10. It is impossible to keep a clean house with a baby, two snow kids and the worst snow storm in years.

11.  As it continues to warm up and rain this weekend, it will be only a memory by Monday, but it was fun while it lasted!

TUESDAY:

 

THURSDAY:

And this has nothing to do with the snow, but I like it (and I don’t have any snow pictures of her).

  

We Call her Muffy

There was a mouse on a show we used to watch, her name was Muffy.  She was a scruffy little thing and for some reason Ivy, in her scruffiness, reminds me of that mouse. 

And so we call her Muffy. 

I am not sure if it is the hair, her teeth, the clothes that she picks out for herself, the funny way she talks, or that she always seems to have a messy mouth that earns her that nickname. 

Maybe it is just the whole package. 

And a little bit about that little Muffy…

She loves her brother and loves teasing him about as much.  She snuggles up to me and says, “my mom” over and over.  She chewed a hole in her binky about 4 weeks ago and I resisted buying a new one.  She doesn’t seem to mind, as long as she can suck on the strap it used to be attached to.  She loves to eat everything, turkey dipped in hummus (as in the picture above, she is watching tv with the whole package of turkey and the entire tub of hummus), broccoli, asparagus, salad, salmon, cheese, cauliflower, carrots, peas, beans, and the list goes on and on, it is nothing short of a dream for Greg. She loves to repeat what just happened, ie.  Ivy: “Hi Baby”, Baby: Laughs.  Ivy: “Mama, Iya “Hi Baby”, Baby Ha Ha Ha.  She loves Evan.  She is the WORST at going to sleep, most nights include a ritual in which she will not stop talking and after threats that last too long, I take her down to Greg sobbing and crying while she says she will be nice.  I hear her crying, Greg talking, the crying stop, the noise of the stairs and then she comes back with Greg.  He lays her down, says she promises to be nice and keep her eyes closed.  She closes them tight and although I am sure she is dying inside, she keeps quiet.  We do this every night.  She likes to read but not the way you would think.  She tells me to read a book, I start to read and then she picks up another book indicating she will read that one.  We both read a separate book.  Whenever I get home from boot camp she always says, “baby cry AAAALLL night.”  When she says ‘what’ she puts her hand on her ear as if to help her hear better.  She has a slew of pants in her drawer that are 12 month pants that she wears all the time.  She told me today that she loves to wear tights under her pants.  She loves to beat Owen in getting dressed for the day and often gets in her pajamas around 4:00 or so to assure she is first.  It is usually accompanied with a little song called, “Iya beat Owie, la la la” and a little hip wiggle.  She loves the word WHY.  She potty trained herself when Owen told her she couldn’t go to school until she wore underwear.  Greg and I resisted and pleaded with her to wear a diaper.  She refused and has been accident free ever since.  She picks out clothes for the baby everyday and even occasionally for Owen.  She told me last night she was Mama’s baby, Daddy’s baby, Noni’s baby and Steve’s baby. 

I love that girl.

As I end, she is helping Owen clean the kitchen.  She is wearing a shirt, that is all, and chewing gum, singing a song with Owen about cleaning all night. 

just as Muffy as ever.

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.

4. That Owen has a girlfriend named Rylee. 

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. 

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.

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. 

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?). 

(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.

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.

I am happy.

I am my plant

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.     

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.

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:

(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.)

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%

Same Age Take Two

Farewell Little Friend

It has been 8 weeks and it is time to admit it…T.J. (my cat) is gone.  16 years together and it didn’t end the way I wanted it to. 

T.J. became an outside cat a year or so ago after living his whole life inside.  There is only so much one person can take and cleaning up after kids all day left nothing for the cat.  I couldn’t do the laundry anymore and have litter stuck to my feet.  He had to go outside.  For a year or more, probably closer to two, he lived in the garage.  He would go out in the morning and would come home at night, until a few days before the baby was born.  She was born on a Thursday.  The last time we saw him was Tuesday.  He left in the morning and never came home that night. 

I always envisioned his death would be sad – after all, until I had Owen, for 10 years he was my baby.  He slept with me EVERY night (not just on the bed, but snuggled up to me as close as he could get).  He was a little more like a dog than a cat.  He would come when I called him, he loved to play, and he let me know when he wanted something.  He was everything to me; but as much as I swore it wouldn’t happen, having kids put him lower on the list.  (well having kids and the fact that he peed on the outside of his box as much as he did on the inside and that is enough to drive a person insane)

He drove me nuts but I still loved him.  He was getting old and especially went downhill after his cat died last year.  He was deaf and his kidneys were starting to fail, in fact, I took him to the vet for a check-up the week before he disappeared.  He would often be found wandering around outside with no destination and no where to go.  I had thought about putting him down to make sure nothing bad happened.

But I didn’t get to say good-bye and I didn’t get to decide to put him down and make sure he was safe.  As much as he drove me crazy, I wanted to make sure he was safe.  Now, I will always wonder.  I dream he comes back all the time and I still look for him when I drive down the street.  I just wanted things to end a little differently.  I miss him and wish I could have said good-bye.  If I could have, it would have been something like this:

Dear T.J.,

When I got you for Christmas 16 years ago, I was so happy.  You were so little and so full of life.  You loved to play and cuddle and I loved you so much.  Everyone that met you loved you and thought you were the cutest cat.  You were always up to something and caused me my fair share of bills, like the eye infections you had for the first year of your life (I really think you were allergic to those other two cats we lived with), or the time you fell into a pot of boiling water, or the time we woke up and you had a puncture wound on your chin (the vet probably still believes you got in a fight with an animal, still not sure how that animal would have broken into the apartment).  I loved taking you places in the car like a dog and I loved that you would meow at me the minute I walked in the door and wait for me to pick you up to say hello. I am still not sure why you always hated little kids (and would bite them any chance you got) or why you hated your back to be pet. 

Before you go, I want to tell you I am sorry.  I am sorry that I had to close you out of the room after Owen was born.  I am sorry that I had to move you to the garage to live.  I am sorry that you probably felt that I didn’t love you anymore.  I did love you.  I still love you.  You will always have a special place in my heart. 

I am sorry that I didn’t get to take care of you at the end.  I hope you didn’t suffer.  I hope you weren’t scared.  I hope you weren’t looking for me and wondering where I was.  I would have come if I could have.  I hope you know that. 

I h0pe you are in a better place and can jump and play again.  You were my little pal I will forever love you.

me.