Kids say the darndest things!

The other day I was at the grocery store loading my things on the belt while Isaac asked me over and over again for a soda from the little cooler. I realized I had been tuning him out (the bag your own groceries stresses me out and I tune out the world for 5 minutes). Well Isaac pulled me right back to reality when I told him no to the soda and he loudly announced that

“Once Daddy gave me alcohol…” look of disbelief, shock and horror on my face “…MmmHmmm, he did!”

“Buddy, I don’t think Daddy gave you any alcohol.”

“No, Mom, he did. I had alot. I was being crazy, and running on the walls…I was mom. I was silly. I did have alcohol mom.”

WHAT!?!?!?

First of all, I checked with Bryce…and shared my embarrasment with him! He confirmed that he certainly did NOT give Isaac alot of alcohol…or even a little alcohol! But we got the biggest laugh out of his analysis of being drunk! Where did he see or hear that having alot of alcohol “makes him crazy” and causes him to “run on the walls”?  Oh, that is good stuff!

I’m just wonderin’

The past few days I have been questioning domesticated pets…I mean really! Who watched a wild cat stalking through a field one day hunting small rodents and thought…”I want to tame that cute little furry creature and invite it to live in my home with me.” What the heck!?!? I have always been an animal lover, but right now…….as a huge stinky cat poo sits atop a pile of ‘feline pine’ in the litter box in the small enclosed laundry room, where I need to spend a lot of time today, and as the air circulates through my house spreading the aroma…….I am thinking that the idea of an “indoor cat” is the most ridiculous thing EVER!!!!! I feel trapped. Our famously enormous feline, Harley, has been a part of the family for almost 10 years. And he’s been an indoor cat for his entire life. So what do I do now? Toss him outside so he can shred the weather stripping around every door to the house telling us how much he detests the Oregon spring rain!?!? He will cautiously venture outside for short periods of time as long as the sliding glass door is left open wide enough for him to run back in the house when he is spooked. It is so backwards…in the summer when we can leave the windows and door open and create a nice fresh breeze through the house…the cat will wander out the open slider to “do his business” outside. But, in the winter, when the house is closed up air tight to keep the heat in…yep, that’s right…poo in the house!

Then there’s the domestic dog…who is not provided with a small plastic box to poo and pee in the house…but who does require being let outside several times a day to “do his business” and then returns in the house with wet muddy paws that leave prints all over my dark hardwood floors. And most recently on my list of pet frusterations is the domestic dog who is trained to behave fairly well when his people are watching him, but throws all good behavior out the window when the people leave the house, and then steals a 1 pound brick of butter left to thaw on the counter. After the whole brick of butter has fully melted in his warm stomach he proceeds to barf it (and the rest of the things he has devoured over the past few hours) all over the floor! 

Here I am excited that my sinuses are finally clearing from the crud I had last week, and happy to be smelling again (which apparently isn’t the blessing I had once thought it was!). And what do I smell? NOT the flowers that are just starting to open outside. NOT the fabric softener on the freshly folded clothes. NOT the cleaner I sprayed all over the kitchen counters. NOT the spring rain falling outside. NOT my freshly bathed kids. NOT the yummy apple candle I am burning…NOPE, I smell the lingering scent of the contents of Baker’s stomach and Harley’s poo! Wonderful! I think I might just go stir up some dust, get my allergies going and see if I can clog up my nose again

frustrations, annoyances, and things that just plain make me angry!

So, I need a gripe session. One thing I have learned from doing this blog for the last year is that when I get stuff out of my head, it’s alot easier to move on with my day…

Today is one of “those” days! It’s been brewing for  few days, and I just kept thinking that if I made it through a few more hours then tomorrow would be a new day. But one new day after another, I keep waking up to the same problems. The overall problem here is that I have two (sometimes three) kids who think they can do what they want when they want! I have tried so hard to find a good balance in my parenting. I want my kids to be kids…and I know that means they will make messes, and be loud, and break things. I also want them to respect our home and our things. My nature is to freak out about every mess and every spill and every stray crayon mark on the kitchen table. I have fought LOTS of internal battles with myself…trying to reprogram how I look at these kinds of situations. I try to cut them a little slack, be understanding and sensitive to them as individuals. But sometimes enough is enough!!!! Here is how today became one of  “those” days…

It all started yesterday morning…about the time Eliza opened her eyes. She is fully immersed in “terrible-twodom” and is testing me at every turn (and this just occured to me, but I think it is rubbing off on Lexi and Isaac and they are returning to two year old mentality!). We were all ready and hurrying out the door to church (with two extra kids)…and Eliza was no where to be seen. I found her upstairs sitting in front of the bookshelf “reading.” Since my arms were full I could only take the book and tell Lize that it was time to leave. She said, “NO”, grabbed the book and sat back down! So I responded with the “Okay, well, goodbye, we’re all going to leave for church now” line that is supposed scare kids into running for the car. NOT Eliza! She started crying but made no effort to move. I went downstairs, we opened the garage door, loaded up all the other four kids, started the car, backed out of the garage, and still no movement… I came inside fuming! I found her still in the toy room forcing out a pathetic moaning cry…but in the meantime she had moved on to playing with other toys! Like she had accepted her fate…left home alone for a few hours, a little sad, but really okay to play in peace…What the heck!?!?!? I said nothing, picked her up (okay, and yes I might have given her a little extra tight squeeze) and carried her to the car. She continued to sob ALL THE WAY to church. I decided to stay in the car with her while Bryce dropped off all the other kids, hoping that she could calm down and we could start fresh. After another 10 minutes of pathetic moans and sobs I gave up on letting her finish. I felt kinda guilty, but I was dropping this teary, slobbery mess on the sunday school teachers! I gave her a hug and told her I was so sad that she was having such a bad morning…kissed her on the cheek and handed her off to an eager young helper. Not more than 5 minutes into the service the dreaded red box popped up in the corner of the big screen with a child’s code. It’s been years since that code has matched my kids number…but today…it was me! I was the parent who stood up and left to retrieve my inconsolable child! I had gotten just enough time away to let my blood pressure return to near normal…and seeing my red-eyed, pathetically sad little girl across the lobby tugged at my heart and made me want to make her all better. We snuggled for a bit and she seemed to snap out of it finally (ahhh, it really does feel so good when mommy can fix it). The tears and fits continued on and off for the rest of the day though…wouldn’t sit and eat lunch, woke up from a nice long nap screaming, flailing around on the floor tantrums…right up until bed last night! Oh, and the couple hours of peace and quiet we did get while she was napping was spent dealing with Isaac and his side-kick Abby who “accidentally, didn’t know” that the big chunky black and pink color crayons would actually COLOR on the carpet in his bedroom! Strangely enough, after they discovered that the first swipe across the carpet did indeed leave a mark, they continued to move around the room drawing stars, a stick figure, and even their names on carpet, sheets, and a board game. Spankings and groundings were doled out (to our child, not the friend) and he spent the rest of the afternoon in his newly decorated graffitti room picking up the millions of little shreds of crayon wrappers…oh yeah, did I mention that at some point they had torn the paper off of tons of crayons and were throwing the scraps and broken crayons all over his room?

At some point yesterday I crawled onto the couch…bundled up in, not one, but two big cozy blankets…and tried (with not much luck) to sleep off my frustrations. Bedtime came early for everyone. I had wonderful dreams about obedient children. 

Unfortunately, this morning was filled with the same naughty routine. Isaac (and Lexi too this time) got yet another toy taken away for the week before Bryce had even left for work this morning! This time it was the cork rifles. *Judge all you want, our kids play with toy guns…I don’t love it, but their daddy is a hunter and they love to “hunt” their stuffed animals* They got a nice stern talking-to from daddy (his voice always works bettter than mine) about rules, and the fact that we have some, and how they aren’t doing a very good job of following them, and how “not fun” life is going to get for them real quick if they keep this stuff up. 

Shortly after the cork gun arsenal was packed away for the week, I sat down at the computer…I had a few important emails that were nagging at me. As I sat working away…I could smell her before I saw her, and I knew exactly what I was smelling. Melaleuca whitening toothpaste with fluoride. There she was rounding the corner into the office. In her footie jammies, with transparent blue goo all over her face, hands and hair…some of it already drying into a white paste. She confidently handed me a VERY sticky ibuprofen bottle  sweetly asked for a vitamin (no worries, the bottle was empty and she had gotten it out of the garbage in our bathroom). I couldn’t decide if I was more upset about the mess she had made or the fact that she had just wasted a $4 tube of toothpaste! My internal dialogue is going nuts…I’m trying to tell myself that it is just toothpaste, and she’s just a kid, and it’s not worth getting angry about…but after the last 24 hours, I just want a break! I refrain from yelling and say…”Well, I guess it’s time for my shower now, and you’re coming with me!” I scoop up the minty little monster and haul her upstairs where I find that she has locked us out of our bedroom! After fussing with that darn “key” for a few minutes and unlocking a very sticky doorknob I walk into my bathroom where I literally slip on the globs of toothpaste smeared all over the floor! Surveying the damage I notice that she has slimed almost every drawerfront in the bathroom, the edges of the tub, the shower door, the toilet door, and every doorknob in my bathroom and bedroom! AARRRGGGHHHHHHH! I just sat down on the floor of my bathroom…I wanted to cry…I want a pause life button…no I actually just want that easy button from the Staples commercials! But life’s not easy, and life’s not fair, and the world keeps turning! So I suck it up and throw “Miss Melaleuca” in the shower with me. And on with the day…

Here are some other things I need to “unload.” Stuff that makes me crazy lately…

-Babytalk! Lexi brings home these ridiculous baby voices from school and Isaac copies her thinking it’s cool! SO ANNOYING!!!

-My broken camera Bryce laid on it up on the mountain Saturday…the screen is ruined, can’t see a thing!

-Lexi’s clothes issues…”what should I wear?”, “my socks are bugging me”, “this tag is scratchy”, “I don’t like that”, and so on…everyday.

-Pee on every toilet in the house! Actually, just pee in general and poop too! Pee on potty, pee on the floor, pottytraining, bedwetting, accidents, stinky pee laundry, stinky litterbox, pee, pee, and more pee!

-Repeating myself. I make a point of telling my kids and husband what is going on in our lives, the daily schedule, what’s coming up soon, what needs to be done…and then I have to repeat myself over and over and over! If I could get back the hours in my day that I spend repeating things I ‘ve already said…I might have time to clean up all that pee I hate so much!

Okay, those are the big five, and I’ll stop there or else I’ll be the one that’s annoying!  Pray for me. Send encouragement. Give advice. And stayed tuned…it’s bound to get better, isn’t it?

It must be Winter!

I was downloading pictures from my camera today looking for fun stuff to blog about…and I discovered a whole lotta pictures of the kids and Bryce and I in our jammies lounging around the house! Nothing else. Just laying on the couch in jammies watching movies. That’s all! I was pleased and disgusted all at the same time. January is almost over and we have done nothing noteworthy? The more I think about it, that’s not necessarily the case…we just haven’t done much “photoworthy” but we have been busy, busy, busy. Bryce’s workload at the lab has picked up considerably over the past three or four weeks (everyone together now…”AMEN!”) and he has been putting in long hours doing all the work himself since we had to let our employee go in November. This leaves me and the kids home alot, which has been fine since my resolution of 2009 was to continue simplifying things and ridding my house of “stuff.” What I know about myself is that I really like things “just so.” I want my spaces tidy and organized, and keeping them this way greatly increases my sanity level! We have been in our house for six and a half years now, and I have learned that my obsessive organization has turned to more of an “out of sight-out of mind” mentality. I am well aware that I have become that person who’s house looks pretty nice and clean when anyone stops by for a quick visit, but if they stay long enough they are bound to open a closet or cupboard, look behind the couch or under a bed, peer into a dark corner or drawer…and I am busted! So, I have spent the majority of this new year sitting with a garbage bag and recycle bin, sorting through piles and closets and cupboards. I am making a huge dent in the junk stuff and paper piles around here and it feels good!

Another thing we have been working toward this year is putting the girls in the same room for a while. They got matching comforters from my mom this Christmas and Lexi happily proclaimed “We can get bunk beds and I will sleep on the top and Eliza will sleep on the bottom…and we will be SISTERS!!!” It was SO cute, and got me really motivated to put them together while they are excited about it. We are testing it out for the next few weeks while our good friends Justin, Jen and Maisie will be staying with us. The majority of Lexi’s clothes and things have been moved into Eliza’s room to make some space for our houseguests. So far, Eliza is still a little too excited about her “sleepovers” to go to sleep at night, and Lexi has been crashing in our bed until Lize is asleep. It is sweet to watch the subtle changes in their relationship over the past few days, just playing together in their shared space. I hope this is a good thing for them. 

I guess that explains all the pictures of movie nights in our jammies…after our long days going, going, going…we all look forward to a little together time in the evening!

 

There’s a dark in the whites!!!!

Yes, friends, a post about the laundry. Really when I look back over this stage of my life, one thing that will stand out is the laundry. The never ending cycle of washing the dirty and putting away the clean…every day, over and over and over again! It seems that before I ever even think of sitting down for a quick rest in my day I always make a pass through the laundry room to move a load over or fold a warm load or throw a load in the wash. Today was a day just like every other…trying to “catch up” on the laundry (when you go home from the hospital with your brand new baby they should include a paper that informs you “From this day forward you will NEVER be caught up on the laundry EVER again…so don’t even attempt.”). I had a house full  tonight, my mother and father in law, my sister and brother in law and all my rowdy kids (Bryce is working…praise the Lord). At some point, while cleaning up after dinner, I passed by the laundry room door and  noticed that the door was still open on the dryer…a huge pet peeve of mine because the light stays on in there if the door is ajar at all. I headed for the laundry room remembering that I had pulled out the mattress pad and taken it up to make the guest bed, but never made it back to fold the rest of the load. I slammed the door shut and pressed the Touch Up button to warm up the load of whites, making a mental note as I walked out of the room that I needed to be done tucking the kids into bed in 20 minutes so the clothes would still be warm enough to fold. Then…. I paused in the doorway noticing a noise coming from the dryer, and my brain starts processing…”What is that?”……..”Did I put the soap cup in the dryer again?”……..”Gosh, that is a weird noise!”……..”Maybe, a tennis ball got in there again?”……”That is a really loud thumping noise…hmm, weird”…..turning around to look at the dryer…..”WHOA!!!”…..”The entire thing is rocking back and forth!!!”…peering down into the window on the front of the dryer…”Why is my dryer doing this? What is going on? Noooo, it can’t break, not now!” …squinting through the glass trying to figure out what dark thing got put in my load of whites…mildly freaking out at what is going on with my possessed dryer…”WHAAAAAAT  THEEEEEEEEE HEEEEEEECK?“…and then the yelling starts…”OH MY GOSH!!!! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Ohhhhhhhh my gosh!” …as I finally open the dryer door and my very large cat literally flies out and doesn’t hit the ground until he is out the laudry room door and skidding around the corner heading for upstairs. *I will now make the disclaimer that no animals were harmed in the making of this story* I went searching for Harley and found him under the guest bed, wide eyed and completely uninterested in forgiving me at this point in time. He’s got a lot of padding, I think he will be okay. Bryce is done with Harley and probably wonders why I opened the door and let him out. The rest of the family got a really good laugh at his misfortune. The kids and I are still feeling bad for our poor fat kitty who will never, ever, ever take a nap in the warm laundry waiting to be folded in the dryer again. Sorry Harley!

The Joys of the Season

I can’t just write a post about Christmas, because this holiday was about so much more than a day or two of family time, food and gifts. This year I actually FELT the spirit of Christmas. Not to say that every other year I have just gone through the motions, but so much about this Christmas was different. To start off with we are more financially “strapped” than we have ever been in our married life. This alone changed so much about the pressures of budgeting, shopping, spending, etc. I had made peace with the fact that this Christmas might LOOK a little different than years past…but I had also decided it was going to FEEL different too. I had this grand plan in my mind of time spent with my family decorating the house and baking goodies and making personalized gifts for our loved ones…and the only worry I had was “will there be enough time?” And the answer came in the form of 18″ of powdery white snow! YES! There will be plenty of time for a “Homemade Christmas.” So we flipped on the gas fireplace, turned up the Christmas music,  baked cookies, made gifts, and played and played and played in the wintery white wonderland! Everything was festive, relaxed and running smoothly…it was fabulous! My brother ended up with two tickets to The Nutcracker that he gave to me. He chained up his 4-runner and drove Lexi and I downtown the Monday before Christmas and we had a great girl date. She LOVED the ballet and wants to take dance now! We wandered around downtown for a while, got a coffee/hot cocoa, got picked up by Ryan and drove around taking pictures and enjoying the sights of a white Christmas [this was the period of time when my cell phone jumped ship and was forever lost in a Portland snowdrift]. Tuesday night Bryce and I offered to trade “nightwatch” of each other’s kids  with the neighbors so we could go for a walk in the snow. It was so nice to get out of the house, get some fresh air and get the blood movin’ again! Other than the lost phone, I was blissfully in love with Christmas 2008, until the calendar flipped to December 24th…and Bryce and I got in a lovely arguement over a mysterious splash of cat pee on our office windowsill and litterbox duty and household chores and work stress and job security and so on…and then the driving started -> to coffee with some friends -> to Hillsboro for brunch, games and presents with Bryce’s sister’s crew -> to Gladstone for dinner, presents and fun with my mom and my siblings  -> and back home to bed at 10:00. Then the early morning tap-tap-tap on our pillows started shortly after Bryce and I got to bed (okay, not really, but it felt that way!).  The five of us spent a few hours in the morning just us, and it was great. The kids opened some more presents, we played with new toys, and talked to Bryce’s parents on the new video phone they got us (our private family phone that only calls Grandma and Grandpa or Auntie Jen and Uncle Frank). Then we all headed out to my dad’s house to spend the evening with them. I feel so blessed to have so much of our family close by, it is great to see everyone for the holiday…but if money were no object I would rent a huge lodge and invite all our family to come to one place for a long weekend! All the packing up, loading up, and driving makes us crazy!

The Nutcracker Girl’s Date-

     

Late Night Snow Walk-

     

*there is a car under there!*

Christmas Eve favorites: cinnamon rolls, lego guys, pixos, DS games, candy and more candy, boxing with Uncle Pete! 

           

Christmas Day favorites: Lexi and Liza’s matching socks, excited kids, baby dolls, transformers, webkinz, Operation

        

*Then my battery died before we got to my dad’s house But had it been charged, I would have taken pictures of Bailie and Bryce playing Guitar Hero, everyone eating Michelle’s yummy dinner by a cozy fireplace in the new dining room, the kids tearing through their last batch of presents, Kenzie and Lexi playing with a new computer game for hours, Dad and Bryce and Bailie jammin in the music room, me relaxing in Dad’s new chair massager, and all of us going into a post Christmas coma on the couch!

WHEW! What a wonderfully exhausting couple of days! This picture of Isaac pretty much sums up how we all felt driving home Thursday night.

Through the Eyes of My Children

The kids often sneak off with my camera (or “cramma” if you’re Eliza) and snap some of the most random shots. I don’t spend a lot of time scrolling through the pictures on my camera…the screen is small and just frusterates me. But I usually do discover a few little gems among lots of pictures of toys, ceilings, shoes, doorknobs, etc…when I download pictures onto my computer. Today was a computer day (as you might have noticed with this being my 5th post in a row)! I had to smile as I noticed several pictures of Christmas decorations popping up in between the groups of pictures I have been taking. It made me stop and realize that these are the things my kids notice and think are important…this is their world! We can’t give them a “magical” Christmas in the materialistic-present-hog- it’s-all-about-me American way, but in trade I am finding that they are learning about the real meaning of Christmas. It is about the wonderfully amazing gift God gave us all! They are seeing that we can carry on the true spirit of the season without all the stuff. It has been fun to watch them enjoy the decorations we bring out every year, the little traditions we have created, and the simple celebrations that ARE Christmas. I have my days of frustration and despair…but mostly I am thanking God for this crummy recession that has forced my family to stop, regroup, pray, and trust in Him. We have each other and that will get me through alot more than I realized before. And gathered around us, to offer help/love/support when we really need it, is an amazingly faithful family and group of friends. This year I feel that I have truly received THE GIFT of Christmas in the love and support I feel all around me. The absense of fear and worry has been given to me by God in all the wonderful people He had placed in my life. In case I don’t get a chance to tell you in person this week…YOU are my gift, and I am so thankful for YOU being in my life. Merry Christmas!

On that note, here is our home at Christmas through the eyes of my children…and yes there is a picture of the presents, they are 7, 5, and 2 after all!

       

 

** Don’t stop reading…there are 4 more new posts below this one!**

“Arctic Blast 2008″

I will spare everyone the silly minute by minute details of our weather over the past week…the storms that together have been coined Arctic Blast 2008 (thanks so much to every one of the local new stations for giving us the constant updates from a slight layer of frost on the overpasses to the “violent snow and sleet pounding most areas in the Portland metro area”). You’ve gotta love the Northwest! We deal with ridiculous amounts of rainfall year after year, but the second a single drop falls in it’s frozen form…it’s chaos…think Chicken Little “The sky is falling!”  The story goes like this: It started snowing early Sunday morning…we got a few inches, and it was COLD so it stuck around for a couple days and they cancelled school on Monday and Tuesday. Then it warmed up a bit…got slushy…got cold again…threatened to dump 6″-10″ of new snow…but didn’t…froze the slushy roads to crunchy ice…snowed on and off for the rest of the week so they cancelled school day by day until I realized that the two week Christmas vacation had turned into three weeks! The kids are LOVING everything about it. Lots of snow to play in, no school, lazy/cozy days in our jammies watching Christmas movies. It’s been really great!

Sunday Sledding with Brian, Erin, Lydia, and Abby

     

Monday Fun in the Sun

  

Thursday Crafts and Pretty Scenery

  

As I sit here typing this on Saturday afternoon, it has been snowing ALL DAY. The big, quiet, beautiful, puffy, white snowflakes are gone…replaced with teeny-tiny, icy ones that are blowing sideways. I have to agree with the weatherman on this one…Sunday’s snowfall was peaceful and today’s is violent. The kids don’t care. They bundled up a while ago and are out in the front yard sledding down our little hill. I would love to go take pictures and video of them, but that would require me getting all bundled up…so I called them over by the front door and took a couple pictures and tried to get a few out the front room window. That’s gonna have to do for today. Eliza is sick and cuddled up in a halloween costume watching Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer

   

“Lizard”

The nickname from her first few months (with that LONG tongue) that has totally stuck! Eliza is still our crazy, silly, hilarious, naughty monkey! She is talking up a storm…with this adorably deep raspy voice that doesn’t sound like it should come from her precious little face. She pretty much communicates as well as the bigger kids now (except when she gets frusterated and resorts to the loud growling shriek)! It is so great to watch her finally be able to keep up with her sister and brother, they all run in a pack with her a few paces behind all the time. She seems to be growing up so much faster than the other kids did…maybe because she is the third one? It seems like she is in this in-between stage where she still snuggles me alot and lets me rock her to sleep at night, but then she plays like a big girl with Lexi and Isaac too. She keeps me on my toes…as she is still the most creative, sneaky, inventive, and curious of my kiddos! She goes a mile a minute and gives us all a laugh a minute! We honestly couldn’t imagine life without her in our family!!!!

   

I said she is still the naughty monkey! This is what she did this morning while I was helping Lexi with a project. I think I caught her just as she was saying innocently…”wwwwwhhhhhhhat?”

“Cheeeeeeese!” Trying to distract me from the mascara all over her face by showing me the [grey] gum in her mouth and proudly telling me “I chew it! I chew it!” Like I was going to say, “Oh, yay, Lize…you didn’t swallow your gum, AND you painted your face with mascara!” HAHAHA!

The Little Man

 

Still my sweet, silly goofball! It seems like the theme for Isaac this year is “I’m just along for the ride…” We decided to hold him back this year since he is a boy with a summer birthday, and it separates he and Lexi in school a bit rather than having them back to back in kindergarten and first grade. For the most part we are really happy with our decision. The hard part is that we had put him in 4 yr old preschool last year before we decided to hold him back. It was a great experience for him and I considered finding a different program for him this year…but with the economical problems it was an easy expense to cut out. So he is just home…alot! I feel bad because lots of his friends from church, preschool and the neighborhood went to school this year, and he is really missing the social interaction. I had planned on doing swim lessons, open gym, art classes, sport camps, etc…but finances haven’t allowed for those things, so we try to keep him busy with playdates and church activities. It is great that Bryce has the ability to take him to work with him every once in a while too. He is a GREAT big brother to Eliza and they have really started playing well together in the last few months. They spend alot of days in their jammies playing in the toy room, coloring, making things with playdoh, helping with chores around the house. I really have been cherishing this time with the two of them!