Move In Video

I never got around to uploading this video from the afternoon that the kids got to come in the house for the first time.  I forgot how excited they were!

3 Kid Photos = Disaster

Katie - these are mostly for you!  Trying to get a photo of all 3 of my kids is a debacle waiting to happen.  There is probably only one that is usable and still not one I love.  Sigh.  Typical kids.

Oh Caroline...this one was ALMOST it!!!

Squeeze her too tight....

get hit by the butterfly net!!!!

And it has degraded to tears....

Piper, Pee & Pull Up Problems

Piper will be 5 in mid-July and she's still wearing a pull-up to bed at night.  I was starting to get concerned a few months ago since she was still waking up with a full pull-up (of pee) almost every morning, but then all of a sudden, she started having lots of mornings where she'd wake up dry.  Knowing that Caroline took a full year past potty training to manage to stay dry at night, I haven't been totally worried about Piper.  I know kids get things in their own time and I also know that Piper can be lazy - if she's wearing a pull-up sometimes before even going to sleep, she'll just go ahead and pee in it!  So it does make me wonder if sometimes she would wake up in the night and just pee instead of getting up.  Apparently, my MIL had some real issues as a little girl too that she grew out of so it could be in the genes as well.

Piper had so many dry nights in a row when we were still living with my mom that I wanted to try underwear but because all of my water proof pads were in storage, we waited.  However, we did try it once or twice (to no success) because the pull-ups had been irritating her little bum so much.  Sigh.

So here we are again and last night her butt was SO irritated (she has such sensitive skin) and she really didn't want to put a pull up on.  (I think she is less sensitive to Easy Ups but they didn't have any Pull Ups in her size the last time and Jason just went ahead and bought them which I normally wouldn't do.)  I put the pad on her bed (we have a waterproof mattress cover too) and had her go to the bathroom right before bed (which usually does the trick) but she woke up wet this morning.  At least I only had to take the top sheet/blanket off instead of the bottom sheet!  I'm getting to the point where I'm frustrated.  I think some of this is just her needing to learn her body's signals but I also think she sleeps deeply.  She doesn't seem to have a bladder the size of a dime like Bryce (who NEVER had an issue with night potty training, strangely enough).  Piper can just be so difficult.  She is soooooo dramatic and cries over the least thing.  She tries your temper, that one.  For example, the other night Jason caught her guzzling water down when she was brushing her teeth!  She had been outside running around and I hate the idea of restricting water when she's truly thirsty (I drink a lot of water too so being thirsty and not being able to drink sounds tortuous.)  I can't watch her every second before bed and what I think did it last night was without my knowledge, one of her friends gave out Capri Suns to everyone when they were playing (the girl's dad didn't know she was doing it either - ha!) so it's very hard to control your kids' liquid intake, especially in the summer when they are naturally thirstier.

I'm not at the point where I want to employ one of those bed alarms though or anything like that.  I just want it to magically happen like it did for Caroline.  It just seems like Piper needs a lot more vigilance than Caroline did.  Typical.  I want to stop having sheets to wash and put back on constantly.  Especially since pull-ups aren't fool proof either and will often not be on right and leak.  I just want to be done.  Perhaps she needs more of an incentive....she has mentioned wanting her ears pierced and while Caroline didn't get hers pierced until she was approaching 6, I might be able to be persuaded to make it a reward for Piper since she's almost 5 and wants to have pierced ears like her friend, Bella.  Hmmmm, something to think about.

House Love

I hate leaving our house.  Hate it.  I just want to be there all the time.  It pains me that we've been so busy this week and had something going on every night.  I just want to be at home in the house or out hanging out in the neighborhood with the kids.

Mind you, the house is not organizing itself.  This weekend my goal is to get the rec room unpacked and organized and to get Caroline and Bryce's rooms together.  Jason has to fix the leg on the desk in the rec room first though before I can start putting stuff into the desk/file.  And then we need to get the new Ikea Expedit 2x2 book cases I got for the older kids together. I told both of them that once we do this, their rooms will be organized and everything will have a place - there will be NO excuses for stuff to be laying out.  Caroline's room is a borderline disaster zone right now.  That child can sleep with any amount of crap in her bed - it's amazing.  Books, hairbrushes, clothes, accessories, little dolls (not soft ones).....I don't get it.  Plus, I haven't ever gotten on their cases about making their beds but that is about to change.

I'm kind of late to the party on this one.  Growing up I never saw the point in making my bed unless my mom made me and as I became an adult, I rarely did either.  Apparently, Jason liked the bed made but since I got up last, I never bothered.  But then something changed and now I make the bed the second I get out of it.  It's habit now and bugs me when it's not made.  (Although I have been known to let him make it on the weekends.....we do have 10 pillows on the bed now with my new set!!! Ha!!)  So I am going to mandate that bed making (at least attempting it) become a new chore for the kids once summer gets here.  I do not expect perfection, but they have to try, even Piper.  Actually, she's shown me she can do it fairly well so I know she'll be fine.

I love being in the house, it still feels like we're playing house though.  I am eager to start making the "big" decisions though.  Ordering furniture/rugs, getting a shed, painting.....but it will all happen in time - it's only been 3 weeks.  I have to remind myself of that and it's been busy aside from all this moving stuff.

The kitchen, except for paint, tiled back splash and an eventual cornice box over the window, is done.  The builder is replacing the bent pendant light, but otherwise I am pretty happy with it.  I'm still getting used to where we keep things but that has gotten better too.  I just love it.  I love having space for all of our stuff and not having to randomly shove things in where they fit.  I even have some extra space (that I'm sure I will eventually fill with real stuff) that kind of just houses the random stuff now to keep it off the counters.

The most frustrating part right now (other than not having enough hours in the day) is that I want to hang all kinds of things on the walls but since I'm not 100% sure about furniture arrangement in some rooms, I am hesitant to do so.  I already mistakenly hung a framed piece above each girls' bed and then remembered that once we paint (soon!) we are going to hang their fairy drapes above the heads of their beds which would totally block what I just hung.  Duh!

I really need to take some more photos.  I took a bunch on Sunday of the kids and still haven't made it downstairs to download them.  Part of the problem is that room is still such a wreck I have no desire to go down there.  But I will remedy that this weekend!  Even if it means staying up late.....that's when I get the most done but I also love my weekend mornings to just putz around too.  Like I said, I need a few more hours in my day.  This work thing is cramping my style.

Don't Make Fun of Boosters

Last night when Bryce was getting into the car after his baseball game, Jason said he was messing around with one of his teammates when CG spotted Bryce's backless booster seat in the car.  Jason said he started making fun of Bryce about it.  (I wasn't there so I'm not sure what was said - if it was a comment or what.)  When they got into the car, Jason talked to Bryce about parenting choices and that the reason Bryce and Caroline still use booster seats is because they make riding in the car much safer.  Quite honestly though, I wasn't really sure how long they needed to be in a booster until just last week when I saw this posted on Facebook:

Boosters are for Big Kids

I was so glad to have read this.  Not only does it make it very clear about the importance of boosters, but it helps you see each of the different reasons they are so important.  (Piper is still in a 5 point car seat.)  This is a quick read, so I highly recommend you taking a few minutes to look over it.  I know neither of my kids is 4'9" (and won't be for some time) so we'll keep using the boosters until they are truly ready.

It kind of sucks that this kid made a comment considering his dad is the co-coach of the team (and we really like him) but a good opportunity to talk to our kids about it and tell them that they might hear other kids say similar things.  I do not consider myself some kind of car seat expert and I know there are other parents who choose to keep their kids in 5 point harness seats as long as possible too and may judge me for having older kids in boosters. However, I do believe "to each his own" in many cases with parenting but it seems that there's a lot of misinformation about car seats out there, especially boosters so maybe this other parent doesn't realize the safety issues with not having a kid in a booster for longer.  Regardless, I'll use this incident to pass this information onto my readers.

Besides after years with 5 point harnesses, boosters really are kind of awesome.  I wonder if at 5'4" I might still need one.  :)

Mother's Day Delusion

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day!  Mine was just fine.  Was it glamorous and a highlight reel like you might see on some lame Hallmark commercial (or certain people's Facebook posts)?  No.  No way!  Did that bother me?  Nope.

You see, I gave up the Mother's Day Delusion years ago.  You know what I'm talking about.  The thought that a mother will wake up on Mother's Day and everything will be perfect and she won't have to lift a finger.  Her children will be well behaved, her husband will have thought of everything, she'll have a delightful breakfast/brunch and everything will be cleaned up, and the day will go on like that until bedtime when her sweet little angels go peacefully to sleep and she can close her eyes knowing that she was honored on Mother's Day.

Yeah, right.

Now, that's not to say that I didn't have a nice day.  I actually did.  I got to sleep in/lay in bed until almost 8am without anyone bothering me.  I got up and started sorting our laundry and put a load in before going downstairs. (Can I tell you how much I am LOVING a second floor laundry room!?!?)  The kids were all three in Bryce's room and making a lot of noise so I figured they were making cards.....they were.

I made it downstairs to get coffee and they found me and quickly gave me cards.  Piper just gave me a hug and Bryce's card was kind of weird and didn't say much, but it was cute.  Caroline's card though, oh my, it made me laugh and cry.  Like tears falling down my face, cry.  It was so eloquent and personal.  I don't even want to post it because it was so personal.  I hugged her and thanked her - that was a nice way to start the day.  So I made my coffee and three servings of hot chocolate with extra marshmallows for the kids and got to skim the paper in between getting things the kids needed.  I then set on cleaning up the kitchen and then went downstairs to get on the computer to make the grocery list and menu for this week.  The kids were playing - still no problems: a normal Sunday morning.

But when I was finishing up getting ready to go to the grocery store (and Jason was in the shower) things quickly deteriorated.  Piper had one of Caroline's stuffed animals and threw it on the plant shelf in the foyer.  The plant shelf is almost 10 feet high.  Caroline was pretty angry and I realized quickly that randomly throwing stuff there might continue to be tempting for Piper (especially considering she kind of has a balcony overlooking the foyer and it's easy to toss things there).  Without missing a beat, I went into her room, grabbed Penny, her favorite stuffed animal, and tossed it onto the plant shelf with Caroline's bear.

Instant screams!!!!!!!!

Caroline looked satisfied and I told her I'd get her bear down later with Jason's special ladder.  I told Piper that I hoped that this would teach her not to throw things there because if she did it again, I would leave Penny up there for a week.  She was still screaming and I knew she'd get over it so I just chose to ignore it like I usually do.  That's Piper's M.O.

Here you can see two perspectives on the plant shelf...doesn't look that high in a photo, but trust me, it is!

You can see Penny's white tail sticking up.

From the steps, you can see the poor stuffies.  It's too far to be reached from the balcony even with a broom.  Thank goodness for Jason's long ladder.

However, Bryce did NOT like her screaming and decided to go over and try to throw her down to the floor.  Obviously, I saw the whole scene and he went to his room.  But that didn't go over so well with him and by the time Jason was out of the shower, Bryce had lost his privilege of playing outside with friends.   That also went over like a lead brick and he continued yelling.  I was done with him at this point and Jason made him keep his door closed until he stopped yelling.

I finished up my list and got ready to go - I was actually quite pleased to be going to the store by myself since someone usually always tags along.  When I went to leave, Jason looked defeated and said he was sorry that I'd had to deal with all that.  I told him I had no crazy expectations and not to worry about it at all. I was quite proud of my plant shelf solution and now I was headed out by myself.

So with that, I went to the store and when I came back they were all gone.  Peace!!  (But just for a little while.)  They had gone out and gotten me 2 hydrangeas to replace the ones we left at our old house and a new shower head for the master bath since cleaning the shower without one is murderous!  Nice and thoughtful - I liked it.

The other exciting thing Jason got at the store was something called Monkey Hooks.  I've been wanting to start hanging stuff up around the house but am very afraid of damaging walls.  I really need to have formal instruction on that because I hate being a woman that doesn't know how to do something like put in drywall screw anchors and hang something. On Saturday, Jason's dad showed him these things and Jason knew I'd love them.  They are nearly fool proof and I can do them myself!!  So I started attacking the kids' rooms!  (Well, I started to and then got distracted by a visit from our neighbors and ended up having two glasses of wine with them while sitting on the front porch.)  But after THAT, I went to town.  I got so many things hung up but I am running low on hooks now I need to get some tonight.  Things already look better and more settled.

By the time I was done with that, Jason had made us a delicious dinner (spinach stuffed chicken breasts and tomato-basil risotto) which the kids all complained equally about.  I thought it was great and was so happy that I didn't have to do any prep at all.  Jay is a decent cook and follows recipes well but even this was more advanced for him and he did perfectly.  The risotto was a new recipe and I would definitely make it again.  After that, he cleaned up and I hung a few more pictures and then we sat outside on a COLD May evening and had some hot tea.

I tried to get some photos of the kids in front of the house for our moving cards but that turned into a disaster where they took turns not smiling and when I said I'd had enough, they all threw a fit.  Nice.  So bathtime started rough but they all calmed down and went to sleep.  Whew.

A normal Sunday at our house but a nice day, nonetheless.  My only real complaint was that it was so chilly for mid-May.  Now if I could just get myself over the delusion for other holidays, I'm sure I'd enjoy them a lot more too.

One of THOSE Days?

Do you ever have one of those days where you fear that your children are horribly behaved and that you are a terrible parent and have royally screwed up?   And that fixing things is going to be an exhaustive task that you're not sure you're capable of?

Yeah, just that.  I feel like I need the Super Nanny.

I don't feel like going into details, just suffice it to say that we are not pleased right now about certain things.  It's not one particular child or a specific behavior - just the overall feeling we're having right now.  And you add it to my high levels of stress right now when it comes to getting settled in the house, some projects at work, and managing all the other things at home that we have to do and I just feel completely overwhelmed and like a failure.  I don't even know where to begin.  Heck, I barely know which end is up right now.  Feelings of resentment toward your children don't exactly feel very good. (Of course these feelings of resentment toward them make you feel even worse because you know that you are the reason they are the way they are to begin with....double fail.)