Bedtime

As one of my friends would write; sigh, sigh, sigh.

I type as I wait for the babes to transition from getting in their beds to actually going to sleep. I may renounce them as my muses for the moment. Speed-bumps are more the metaphor I'm looking for right now.

Bedtime tonight started out with me being grumpy and feeling really lazy, so letting bedtime get started later than I like to start, never a sign of a smooth bedtime to come. In the midst of feeling hurried to get to my post-bedtime me time, feeling grumpy that me time tonight is going to consist cleaning and laundry because I didn't fit it in today, Troy heading off for another night shift, and Claire fussing for me to sit down to nurse her before bed, I discovered a spill that had been a full cup of tea, one I meant to sit and enjoy this afternoon and in the midst of demands was forgotten. Already annoyed at the mess in this house, and being the sole one to clean (for Troy's sake I will put 'most of the time' here, he does help when he can), this tipped me over the edge. Not to mention the irritable idea that I shouldn't have left the tea there anyway, mixed with the frightful idea that it could have been spilled when it was hot, and topped with the thought of the annoying ants we've been fighting having a field day in this lake of sugar. At this I didn't think to take a deep breath and decide to have a pleasant bedtime anyway, an idea that I realize now would have been my best plan. Nope, I proceeded to nurse Claire while shouting directions at the boys to get their teeth brushed. Directions that were in no way, shape, or form followed. I'm sure this was a peaceful way for poor Claire to eat and get to sleep. Thane had been grumpy also, since getting a bump in the head this afternoon. With a shovel. I wasn't there for that one, Troy assures me it was a one-man accident and sounds worse than it was. Anyway, being yelled at for claiming 'he didn't notice' the whole cup of tea crashing to the floor and spilling (did I mention this was all over my wicker basket of knitting and new knitting book?) and then not even attempting a clean up or getting someone to help him with the mess, did not help his mood or his desire to be obedient getting ready for bed.

So now I sit, fielding this boy's room exits (thankfully Seth just went to sleep tonight) and waiting until I know he is actually sleeping so I can feel free to go downstairs, start laundry and cleaning, without him wandering all the way down there to me with his bedtime questions and issues. This involves a conversation something like this..

Thane comes into the hall and looks over the railing into the living room where I sit here: "Mom, I need to get something."

Me: "No you don't. Go to bed."

"But I need this part to this toy."

"No you don't, it's time for bed. You can find that part in the morning."

Thane goes back into his room. Maybe five minutes later, he re-emerges.

"Can I go into Seth's room to get it? I think it's in there."

"No! He's trying to go to sleep! You coming out into the hall making noise is not making his bedtime any easier either, go to bed!"

"But I really need it!"

"GO TO SLEEP!"

Thane goes back into his room.

Then he's back.

"I need some water."

"THANE!"

"I'll get it myself." And he scurries to the kitchen.

At this point I herd him back upstairs, full of endless lecturing and admonitions. I tuck him in, again, and come back downstairs.

Then I hear, "Mom?"

Sigh, "Go to sleep Thane".

Ignoring that completely, "I lost ten Pokemon cards at school today to Aidan".

Wondering why the child had his treasured cards at school at all, wondering when and why the six-year olds were allowed to gamble them away at school, wondering about the supervision at school and adding this to the list of why homeschooling would be a good idea, thinking we should have an in-depth talk with him about taking care of his things and standing up for himself (I'm pretty sure he doesn't know the 'rules' to the game), but that now is not the time, I stutter out, "Thane, don't take your cards to school."

Then, annoyed at falling for his distraction techniques again, I get back to my guns. "Close your eyes and your mouth and GO TO SLEEP!"

I think he's asleep now.

Onwards and upwards to scrubbing tea from the floor, couch, books and wicker. Sigh, sigh, sigh.

Yummy summer.

Seth and I have a weakness. He can bend my rubber arm any day when we drive by MacDonald's, asking for "a fruit and yogurt thing", aka the McD's parfait. So in the spirit of saving money and trying to combat the idea that MacDonald's is ever a good idea, we've made our own homemade fruit and yogurt parfaits!


One part yogurt, add berries of choice (blueberries are great, this day it was strawberries and bananas), a sprinkle of Kashi and voila! Instant fruit and yogurt parfait, perfect for interesting conversations on the deck in the sun with Seth. The most use these Bailey's cups have got in ages.

Making, making, making

I've been making!! As opposed to obscene amounts of daydreaming and planning, this is some actual doing! Check it out:

This little number on cute rolly-poly baby legs out for a crawl are reversible shoes!

Much ado about nothing.

I'm sick. And so tired of being sick. I'm not talking of serious sickness. I have a cough.

And I'm being a big baby about it.

But I am sooo tired. This cough is the energizer bunny cough, only competing with the cough I had once when I had broncitis in university. At night it rears it's ferocious head, just in time to keep me up coughing until 4, and then when it seems I can cough no more, I fall asleep until Claire wakes up at 5 to eat. And then her and I sleep until 7:30, when the house must wake up. This is how I spent the first two weeks of this cough. Did I mention Claire was sick through this also? And that she was getting up several times a night herself?

It's making me crazy.

Luckily the last few days Troy has been home, not doing night shifts while I alternate between coughing and Claire-care, and I've been getting some sleep-in's come morning. And when I was beating myself up over my messy house and my failed attempts at meal-planning today, he reminded me I'm on week three of being sick and shouldn't be analyzing my quality of stay-at-home-mom-ness. Although I still can't help but notice that finding a spot to place Claire on the floor has been difficult lately, and that poor little Thane had quite a lot of trouble locating enough clean clothes for an outfit this morning. I'm trying to get on that. Maybe tonight I won't cough?

Let me think of a few things I appreciated today to leave this on a more interesting, less self-pitying note...

- I think we've found a good deal on a van. 4 years old (aka affordable!), pretty red, room for the babes with no picking at each other, and the best part? 30,000 kilometres on it. I'm pretty happy about the thought of these new wheels. No more squeezing the three into the car backseat, or worrying about whether our poor old van will make it to the destination.

- My husband, who doesn't mind that I'm blogging in the middle of our living room that looks as though a bomb went off in the middle of it. I'm actually snacking on the wonderful banana muffins he made with Seth today, and he is making us nachos to snack on while we veg.

- Rhubarb. I want to grow some. It would be a nod to my Besma, and the raw rhubarb she would cut for us off her plant and let us dip in sugar. Everything was dipped in sugar at Besma's house, I believe that's the Dane in her. And to my other Grammie, who cooked rhubarb to spread on homemade bread. The world needs more rhubarb.

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.

Inspiration.

I have recently read The Creative Life: How to Encourage Imagination and Nurture Family Connections, by Amanda Blake Soule (aka SouleMama to the blogging community).

I cannot begin to describe just how INSPIRED this book and this woman have made me. For any of you who would have once described yourself as an artist, and then have found yourself with children and 'no time' for your art, you need to read this book. It's a light read, it took me about a day and a half of picking away at it. It includes cute and fun little project how-to's (I instantly made my Claire some pants from one of Troy's old shirts), but it was the words surrounding the projects that hooked me.

Amanda seems to hold many of the same convictions and values as I; an appreciation for the earth and the gifts it offers us, a sense that gratitude, kind thoughts and positive thinking will take us far, a desire to live in the moment, to let her children 'get messy', be creative, and catch these values from us. I love how she describes that the items she creates carry her 'intentions and thoughts of love' for the person to receive the item. I've read a lot of her blog posts out loud to my husband, laughing that she also has a chronic falling down the stairs problem (I thought only I managed to do this so frequently) and an affinity for rearranging furniture. I particularily loved/identified with a line in this post, when she writes "It was just a little rearranging - not one of my "let's put the living room in the dining room and the dining room in the kitchen! Today!" rearranging moments." Ahh, Troy loved it too, I could tell.

But what struck so near and dear, and inspired me SO MUCH? She describes how the act of creating sustains her inner calm, centers her, fulfills her, and in helping her to be this better person, helps her to be a better mother.

The 7 years since the arrival of our first baby boy I have lamented that motherhood has taken away my time to be the artist that I am. My sketchbooks, once drawn in daily, dwindled and finally stopped. When I do create, it's usually in some house form (sewing, gardening, decorating) or for work (I'm a graphic designer). Not that the form art takes is what's important, but more importantly it's the feeling that I've applied to doing any of it. Since having the kids I've designated art/creating as a guilty pleasure, a frivilous activity that when I do, I am neglecting my family. My creativity has been placed well below all of our other family priorities.

I have caught a creative fever since reading this book and beginning to follow SouleMama's blog. It's like I've finally given myself permission to do what I love.

I've starting sewing some clothing for the kids that I've been wanting to try, I went to the library and picked up a How to Upholster book to tackle that chair I've been meaning to, I made myself some knitting needles, picked up some pretty yarn, and have found that knitting away on a little hat for Claire. I've discovered knitting is a great way to sit and be with the boys as they play. I have found the materials to make our own montessori sandpaper letter cards. The kids and I have been infusing more creativity into our days every day. We've searched out and planted more in our gardens, we've made a little veggie garden, and yesterday, Thane asked me to teach him to knit. My mom is currently packaging up some of her unused embroidery materials, because I think the clothes I'm making could use some nicely stitched animals on them. And the best part, I haven't spent evenings exhausted and collapsed on the couch to veg and watch shows in weeks. I am doing more but feel more energetic. It's amazing and I am so greatful for this inspiration I've stumbled on.

Crazy boys.

The boys were 'entertaining' Claire today.

Poor Claire.

I must remember to quiz my sister-in-law on her survival tactics for growing up with two older brothers.