Oh so Wembley.

Hello there blog. It's me. A stranger, I know.

Writing feels forced today. Awkward, rough. It's been too long to feel familiar. I've been so busy. Not nice busy. Hectic busy. Missing my kids, feeling like each one hasn't received enough of me at the end of each day, feeling like things are slipping through the cracks busy.

I jumped into the middle of a wave of doing at work, spectacular enjoyable great for the gallery events. But now it's time to settle into a quiet planning month. There has to be the inhale exhale combination. Especially when the inhale has been so huge.

I'm not sure if I've written about my Fraggle personality theory before.

I think everybody is one of the Fraggles.

In recent years, I would tell you I'm a Mokey. She's everything zen and sees the beauty everywhere, readily embracing each situation, a positive thinker. Googling her name to remember the spelling I came across a site listing the character qualities of each Fraggle. Mokey's list reads motherly, spiritual, and optimistic. The me I like to be. The me I often am. 

But the busy-ness. Agh, the busy-ness. It leaves me feeling so... Wembley.

Wembley's list reads young, nervous, indecisive.

Not the me I want to be.

My catch phrase this month could have been, "What do you think?" I couldn't seem to weigh out an idea and make a plan if my life depended on it. There was simply no time to take a minute to figure it all out. I've been spending empty moments fretting about what might have been forgotten, not present in the moment. I don't work well at full capacity.

So with my calendar turned to a month with so much more white space, I'm onto a planning spree. Brainstorming, thinking, listing, scheduling. Spacing the doing out properly to create quality over quantity. Long term plans, prioritizing, action lists. A plan to work and be able to be present plan, a plan with breathing room. For gallery and renovations and my little people. Before me sits bits of paper, full of numbers, don't forgets, schedules and dates. And lovely blank paper with, more importantly, a blank stretch of time, waiting for the marching orders, to be filled with want-to's, have to's, the what, when, who and where. The don't forgets should turn into won't forgets, the running nowhere into progress, the chaos into a rhythm. Ahh...

Love the exhale.   

Tea break

So tired this morning. So uninspired to do great things in my house. Which so desperately needs great things today.

It's been a long run this week. The last two days were spent traveling for appointments with Seth, dropping Claire off at babysitters and trekking with the rest of the crew. Max has sucked up a lot of my days and nights, between rashes and fevers and general fussiness. Teething perhaps? My feeling is if he's like the rest of my late teethers, it's just round one of a tooth we'll see in a few months.

Mommy's hands being full with Max has left Claire running rampant, slightly bored and ignored, and the boys, STILL off school for Christmas holidays (all the way until January 11th!), without Mommy having the initiative to push, playing too many videogames and having too much indoor time.

I've set the timer though. Max has gone down for a much needed nap, maybe as much needed by Mommy as him. In half an hour, I will be done my tea, and my break. And I will do something. Anything really will be a good start. The kids screen time will be done. Even just back to lego would be good enough for me this morning.

The playroom is a pile of leftover Christmas chaos. A forlorn looking tree stands mostly bare, a handful of decorations hanging in there. The bins and boxes lay everywhere, half full, half barfed onto the shelves throughout the room, in an attempt to keep the breakables out of Miss Invincibles hands. The playroom chaos is spilling into the dining room, where legos, old and new Christmas present additions, are burst open on the dining room table, we've been carving out a space to eat for three evenings now. The garbage is overflowing. The counters are full of dishes, a Christmas angel, a birdhouse Thane made that has yet to be hung. Oh, and there's my sunglasses. I should put those away, I'll be wondering where they are later. And in the back of my mind I know the laundry is climbing slowly up out of their bins, ready to attck me. I know because Max has no clean onesies. There's leftover pre-Christmas sewing chaos taking over the office, somehow in this house I still have no permanent sewing home. Everything needs dusted and vacuumed, but it's tough to do when you can't see the floor. The tv room is full of bins of baby girl clothes that I need to figure out what to do with. I would like to give them away, how is it I can't find anyone to give them too? I need those bins empty to hold the clothes the kids are growing out of now, to get the pile of too small clothes off my dryer. Oh, the laundry room. The cat litter. Gross.

Where do I start on a morning like this?

Uh oh. There's the timer.

Um. The garbage.

As good a place to start as any I guess.

The fog is lifting

The sleepy fog that is.

Mister Mo, Maximillian, Maximilious Oliverious, Chunka Munka butterball (the nicknames are getting out of hand for this poor kid!), our beautiful boy Max is three months old.

And I feel... rested. Calm. Happy.

I feel PRODUCTIVE!

The organizing/ purging/ cleaning/ decorating bug has hit me hard. It's funny how similar my feelings are to this post on Claire hitting the golden baby sleeping age.

I'm excited to post soon on my friend Johanna's blog, Birds on a Wire, as a part of her Seeking Balance guest blogger series. From the many directions I could have gone on the topic of balance - balancing motherhood and career, what you are and what you want to be, food health and kids - to name a few, I'm going to post on my biggest balancing act right now, housework with kids. I'll let you know when it's up, but you should check out her blog anyway, love her!

In lue of my reorganizing, I was searching online for chalkboard tags that I thought I had seen on Pottery Barn. I actually think I can make them, I just wanted to find the picture again. They're little tags you tie to baskets and label them with chalk. Great for our ever-changing toy storage needs, and I thought I could even draw little pictures of the basket contents along with the word for my pre-readers. It really helps with cleanup time for the kids to be able to see where the toys belong, and keeps groups of toys together for easier play. I've done this before with laminated photos. Although the toy photo shoot with the kids was really fun, it was a bit of a process to print, laminate, and affix the labels, so it was a bit daunting to keep up with anytime the storage changed. I highly recommend the end product though if you want to go for it!

I didn't find them, but while I was looking for the tags I found this!

Pottery Barn's Daily System. Isn't it cool? Again, I'm not going to buy it, but it gave me great ideas. I was just thinking this morning that my organizing tools are all over the place. A binder on the counter (and we have very little counter space to begin with), a corkboard in the playroom for the kids to-do's, a calendar and a clip with school notes taking up the fridge, and a whiteboard on one of the kitchen walls. I think with a couple of magazine holders like these ones and everything on one wall though, it would make so much more sense. And if it was in the office, there would be no more papers floating around in the kitchen? That in itself would be impressive.

Does your child's caregiver do it better?

Today was a productive day, but a bit at the expense of attention paid to Seth. Claire puttered along around me while I tidied and cleaned; the kitchen, the living room, I cleaned the bathroom and dealt with renovation mess that has spilled into our living space. Eventually Claire went down for a nap and I even finally cleaned off a shelf and pile of toys that were covered in drywall dust. All the while Seth watched tv, only switching it up for video games at some point along the way. (In my defense, we did have enjoyable pb&j sandwiches on the sunny deck for lunch.) After lunch Claire apparently grabbed her blanket and joined him in front of the telly, I found her asleep in the chair when I realized it was naptime.

Midafternoon, feeling a little guilty about his lack of attention and a bit exhausted from my cleaning, I figured the least I could do would be to join him on the couch for a bit, which he really did appreciate as he showed me that Little Big Planet has levels built to be like Mario world. (Have I ever mentioned just how creatively awesome Little Big Planet is? There are the main game levels, and then trillions of levels built by other players all over the world. Truly amazing, but I digress.) As we chatted, he was enjoying the snuggle and said "You're the best mommy I ever had"... wait for it... "even when you yell at me". To which I felt the need to defend myself, "Well, thank you Seth! I love you too... you know I only yell when you guys aren't listening to me and I want you to do what I'm asking you to do, right?".

'Cause that makes more sense than the yelling for no reason yelling. 

"You know I love you all the time right?" I sounded like a public service ad against abusive boyfriends, the kinds that suck up when not yelling. To which Seth happily said "I know!"

Good, he knows I love him even when I suck.

"Joanne doesn't yell at her kids when they aren't listening."

Really?

Joanne is our babysitter. Seth and Claire go there two days a week. We love her. I can believe that she probably really does never yell. She takes care of children because she just oozes love for them. And it's not a sign of a lack of discipline, somehow, she even gets them to listen too.

I know the tricks. I know how to get down to their level, speak to them from near instead of at them from afar, work on empathy and teach them how to reason how other people feel. I can talk the talk. In public, I'm generally not the one to lose control. I don't panic in stores, I don't lose it when my children are melting down on me.

But I generally don't take the kids in public when I'm tired. If I'm taking the whole crew somewhere alone, I generally try to time it so I, and they, are capable of being patient and well-behaved. I try to make sure we're well fed and I'm also well coffee-d so as to be as reasonable as possible and generally prepared to be 'public-worthy'. I'm pretty good at recognizing when I'm asking too much, at being patient when one of them misbehaves because they need a nap and I've just kept them out too long.

It's those moments at home, more frequently lately in moments like now with this big pregnant belly, when I feel tired or unprepared, when everyone's hungry and tired as well and I haven't planned supper and we need groceries. When I'm trying to get a project done, laundry done, or them off the tv and it's been raining for three days. Or Thane's had a long weekend and I forgot to plan any extra things to get his energy out. When we're late and trying to get out the door and someone has lost one shoe and someone else has no clean socks.

That's when I yell. That's when I forget all the count-to-10, take a deep breath goodness that I am well aware of, and yell instead.

Sometimes, when my house is really messy and disorganized and I feel like a bad role model, or a conversation like this happens and reminds me how frequently I lose my cool, and I'm hit point blank that there really are moms out there who are so much more patient and yell less than I, and I just wish I had that part of the mom gene. I would really like to have the 'quiet mom' gene. I hope the kids will remember someday all my good points, my really great mom points that I know I have, and not just remember the yelling crazy eyed Mom.

Stuff.

I'm not so good at Spring cleaning. I am, however, excellent at The Spring Purge. I go through the kids clothes, their toys, the linen closet, our closet, the front closet, the kitchen, every corner of the house, editing, cutting, and deleting items from our lives. I'm a good three quarters of the way there this year. Those Spring-like days where it's deceptively sunny, but when you actually go outside you realize that wind is still bitter cold, those are the best days to get me motivated to cull through our house. I love simplifying our lives by getting rid of those things, that 'stuff' that I spend so much time sorting, tidying, and taking care of.

My problem lies in the fact that this is an annual thing, especially since I've had kids. I get a huge 'yardsale pile', sometimes actually have a yardsale, sometimes not, and the remainder goes to the charity bin. It's still good stuff, just unused in our house. But will they actually be able to sell it to someone who will use it? Or is it really just unusable garbage created in our consumerist cycle. (Take twenty minutes here and watch Annie Leonard's Story of Stuff. It's useful food for thought.)

This year I've been brewing on some ideas to put an end to this cycle. Where do we get this stuff? A lot of it is clothes. I'd have to swallow my pride to get over this hurdle. The pile consists of clothes that are a little worn from use (or from washing, it's debatable), I only keep the really nice ones to hand down to the next kid, knowing full well that between birthdays and holidays and my finding deals that they will never have a lack of newer, less worn clothes. The pile also consists of clothes that are just not quite my 'style' or 'in style', both terms created in the 50's to create 'the consumer', to keep us buying and support the economy. An ideology that is killing the environment. We buy much more than we could ever possibly need!

A lot of it is also toys. Ones that never seemed to capture the kids attention in the first place, or were annoying so ended up never having the batteries replaced, or ones that they already have eight of. I feel like I can battle this one. I think for the kids birthday parties with their friends I'm going to request no-gifts. And I genuinely think the kids will support me on this one for their birthdays. They get excited for their birthday parties for the chance to have their friends over all at once, do something fun, and eat cake and ice-cream. One of Thane's favorite birthday gifts was a drawing he received from his buddy. They'll still receive a handful of gifts between their grandparents and us, and they'll be more likely to be meaningful gifts that the kids are actually interested in. I know when I shop for another child's birthday that one of mine is attending, I often don't know this birthday child's likes and dislikes at all and buy a generic gift that may or may not even be appreciated. I'm sure I can back off at Christmas, no one needs or can possibly appreciate the copious amount of gifts Christmas often brings. Introducing the concept early to my kids that less is more can't hurt.

And what better way to celebrate Earth Day than to make a few Earth Day resolutions. Any other ideas?

I have more to chat on about the Spring cleaning itself, I'll get back to you!

Thane's To Do List

How cute is this? Thane made a to do list today, to cover all the things he wanted to do for the day. The fact that he is so familiar with what a to do list is in the first place just makes me laugh. As much as I hate to admit it sometimes, he is so his mother's child. His artsy self decided to go the icon route for some reason, so he decoded it for me this afternoon.

His to do's go as follows:

• Play with modeling clay.
• Watch Grampie and Dad. (They were working on renos.)
• Play with toys.
• Snuggle with mom. (Can you see why this list melted my heart?)
• Play with Seth.
• Read to Claire.
• Look at chore list.
• Do a chore. (Thane's new ticket to moola.)
• Look for toys to play with.

More than half of the items are checked off (even his funny lefty checks are cute to me), he did much better with his to do's than his momma usually does!

A catch up...

I've been a little absent (from here) lately. I've been busy Getting Organized. Such a momentous task I feel it needs capitalized. I seem to do this about half way through each babies first year, coming up through what I now kindly refer to as 'the sleepy fog' and deciding I need to have personal expectations for my stay-at-home mom-ness again. I gave up long ago expecting anything in particular from myself while laden with a newborn, let alone having high expectations. I've been getting the itch to attempt supermom again lately; organizing and purging through our stuff, taking a hard look at what I've been attempting to pass off as dinner (sorry Troy!), picking up some projects again. At the library the other day I picked up The Complete Guide to Getting and Staying Organized by Karen Ehman, as a kickstart to my efforts. It was a random pick but a good book!

I like how she writes on organization but keeps in the forefront that every great to-do list we draw up must often concede to the to-do's our littles have in mind. I will not even pretend to be the church-goer this author is, but I really appreciated how she writes of being organized meshing with and aiding her strong family values. How taking care of the must-do's allows time for the want-to's. I like this quote,

"When we just take the day as it comes, without being proactive in planning how we'd like it to stack up, we are left with piles of undone projects and confusion on the part of our kids and dear hubbies."

On that note, I've given myself about 10 more minutes before getting to a couple evening to-do's, but really wanted to post on a couple things.

Thing #1. Having a new little reader in the house is so cute.

Tonight about half an hour after bedtime, a word that sometimes seems to have little meaning in our house, I heard two certain little boys tittering away in Thane's room. I went up the stairs with my growly voice ready. (I digress, but check out Betsy Shaw's recent post on growliness. I loved it, and her, as usual.) So I had the growliness ready. I opened the door... to see Seth cuddled up, thumb in, listening to Thane reading Because a Little Bug Went Ka-Choo!. It was one of those moments where I failed miserably to be a disciplinarian (surprise surprise, I have a lot of those), and instead just shooed Seth into his own room while trying not to laugh at his description of how Thane had changed the character's names. Thane piped up, describing that the hen who kicked a bucket had become Victoria-hen, the bucket hit "Farmer Thane", Troy came speeding to help, and the boat Mary-Seth had sunk.

Later (even later after bedtime, probably only egged on by my prior lack of discipline), Thane came out with The Jungle Book in one hand, Tarzan in the other, and a book-club conversation in mind. "Mom, have you ever noticed how these two stories are alike? They both have people who die in them, and growing up in the jungle in them, and meeting human girls in them, and Tarzan was raised by apes and this boy was raised by... (thinking for a minute) a big cat." I love that kid. While of course I think he's the most creative and pondering soul ever, these moments always bring on the same two conflicting thoughts. Visions of him growing up to pursue art, and the concerned hope that he doesn't go through a 'creatively inspired' teenage emo phase.

Thing #2. Seth is a little ball of happiness.

Seth was recently fit with his new braces (aka AFO's, ankle-braces). The need for these, to say the least, has brought on much motherly anguish. Long story short, while still being the most active boy ever who prides himself on being the fastest runner ever (complete with arms stretched backwards, for aerodynamics I suppose) Seth has mild mild cerebral palsy, spastic diplegia to be specific, and needs the braces mostly to make him put his heels to the ground so his calf muscles don't develop shortened. Since the recommendation for the braces (since the diagnosis?) I have worried about his self-esteem, childhood depression, his ability to get around, to participate, to be included, you name it, while trying to be nonchalant about it with Seth of course.

So on the way to the fitting, we were mentioning that the appointment was for Seth to get his braces. He had had an earlier apointment where he was shown the braces and casted to get a mould of his legs, etc. Thane, I think feeling a bit left out of the activities and probably trying to visualize the braces, said "I think I might need braces on my teeth someday" to which Seth giggled, "They won't fit in your mouth Thane!".

That night we had him testing them out for a half an hour. New braces on, Seth wandered around, mostly not seeming to notice them, sometimes admiring them a bit. Did I mention they have an aliens in the night sky design? Troy had some music on and Seth started to wiggle. Then in his four-year old way, "These good dancin' shoes Mom! These good jumpin' shoes too." And proceeds to demonstrate his jumping ability for 15 minutes. The last couple of days have included him ecstatically showing them off when Uncle Drew popped by and going to preschool with them on without batting an eyelash. I love that kid too.