making it up as i go along
A couple of weeks ago, we had the pleasure of visiting my aunt and uncle at their mountain home in the pretty town of Granby, CO. The big feature of Granby, CO is Lake Granby and their house is right on the lake. In the summer we have a wonderful time boating, but in the winter, the lake is frozen solid and covered in snow which makes it perfect for snowmobiling. Continue reading “Winter Fun”
Valentines is almost here and it makes me think about what I love. Love is so much more than sappy cards and candlelight dinners. Love is the little things that go on 24/7. Just a few of the many things I love:
Happy Valentine’s Day to you and the ones you heart!
This morning just after we dropped Ben off, Tabby told me her Valentines needed to be at school today. I was confused. “Today? But Valentine’s Day isn’t until tomorrow!” But in the back of my mind, I remembered reading that on the Valentine’s instruction sheet. We’ve just been so busy, darnit. Ooops!
I contemplated leaving the whole thing until tonight and bringing them tomorrow, but it didn’t seem fair to put an undue burden on her hardworking, amazing teacher – she wants them there early for a reason! I contemplated being tough love mom and telling Tabby that this was her responsibility and she’d just have to do without, but that wasn’t really fair either since she has been busy with swimming all week. Many why does this stuff always happen when I’m playing single mom?? I’ve been trying sooo hard to keep it all together and something had to slip through the cracks, I guess. At least it wasn’t something critical like picking a kid up from school.
We had almost an hour before school started (much less time before I needed to be at work). So we hightailed it home and did a Valentine Fire Drill. Tabby had colored all of her Valentines and cut most of them out. I finished cutting the remaining ones and stuffed them with lollipops as she addressed them, me verbally spelling her classmates’ names for her to speed the process up.
All in all, it went pretty well and pretty fast and I was only about 5 min late for a pretty loosey goosey meeting. But I have a question … when do kids get a sense of urgency??
Friday in the midst of running around, getting ready to go on our trip, Tabby’s hedgies made their big debut at Kindergarten. Tabby has, of course, been talking nonstop about them since BEFORE she got them, so the whole class (possibly the whole school) was very very excited for them to visit.
But before they could visit, Matt had to finish a project … namely a permanent home for the hedgies. The had heretofore been living in a plastic storage tub, modified with little holes to hold their water bottle and heat lamp. But they needed more space and we wanted an environment for them where we can view them while they’re going about their daily business. So Matt and I researched hedgie environments and Matt came up with this. It’s a wood frame with acrylic on the front and bottom and protecting the wood inside, glass on the back (so we can have a heating element back there – acrylic is not compatible) and screens on the top and left and right sides for good airflow. It also opens on the front for easy hedgie retrieval. It is a great looking cage and it is also dog secure since it latches. YAY!
Matt was up late many nights finishing this baby and whereas I usually help at least with finishing, I was inundated with swim lessons and other concerns and he was all on his own for this one. I’d say it definitely merits him Dad of the Year!
We spent the weekend at my Aunt and Uncle’s mountain house. We had a wonderful time. Unfortunately, we had to beat it back to Denver to handle a ton of things and get Matt ready to leave for his business trip.
06:30 – Got up with the kids and stared getting packed up.
07:30 – Made breakfast for the group
08:00 – Consumed breakfast, started cleaning up the kitchen.
08:30 – Clean up, pack up, make beds, load car.
09:30 – Hit the road.
11:30 – Arrive at our lunch destination (yay!), eat lunch.
12:15 – Head to the grocery store for a few items.
13:00 – Arrive home. Naptime for the kids. Matt and I unpack the car.
13:30 – I make brownie truffle pops for a surprise for the kids on Valentine’s day and work on Tabby’s b’day invites. Matt works on cleaning up the house and laundry.
15:00 – We watch an ep of Big Bang Theory and fold laundry. Continue reading “Nonstop”
Almost 8 years ago when we first adopted Loki, the world’s crackiest Lab-mix, I had one hell of a week. Matt was traveling, Loki was chewing everything in sight, and I couldn’t sleep. During the course of that week, I gave myself second degree burns on my hand when I took a plate that had just been in the oven from one counter to another without a potholder. I also lost two credit cards in two entirely separate events – both related to my manic levels of distraction. There were also a handful of more minor events that have now been lost to the annals of time.
The past couple of weeks, I’ve had a reprise. All credit cards (so far as I know) are safely in my wallet and my hands look as well as they ever do, but I have been one hot mess. I have been constantly misplacing everything, particularly my phone and other mobile devices. I have left at least one crucial item out of my gym bag every morning this week, except Tuesday when I forgot to set my alarms and had to skip my workout altogether.
It all comes from being so busy that I can’t think straight. When I am not manically running around, I do things consciously. When I am it’s a completely free-for-all. Who know where my keys ended up? I probably handed them to Ben so I could pick up the swim bag or pour some goldfish into a baggie and that couldn’t have ended well.
To make matters worse, Tantrum Week (it’s a bit like shark week but with slightly less blood) continues at Casa Nichols. My sweet little guy went manic and hit someone with a block at preschool. The other kid bled. He was punished. We are told it’s “really not a big deal” since it’s his first infraction in almost 6 months there. But it sure feels like a big deal and I’m sure Ben’s “friend” would disagree. There was a 20 minute time out when he refused to put his wetsuit on for swim class and another one with Matt this morning. Everyone says I’ll appreciate this iron-clad will when he’s 16, but it’s hard to remember at this moment.
So if you see me this week, forgive the sunken-in-eyes and disheveled clothes. I’m just trying to keep all these plates spinning … and find my car keys.
We are major criminals on the digital entertainment front. Between smartphones, tablets and iPods, there are six portable digital devices at our disposal (!!) and man do we make good use of them. We play games and watch TV and movies. Tabby has reading and math flashcards on them. We have books both for adults and kids on them and of course music! It’s not a bad thing. But it can be a pretty pervasive thing. The kids pick them up on an early Saturday morning to watch Phineas and Ferb and give us some much-needed sleep in time. They are the go-to entertainment while waiting for the other sibling to do his or her lesson. They are essential at restaurants, particularly if it’s a longer meal or if the kids are already out of sorts. But the requests for tablets or phones ALL THE TIME gets to me. I don’t want my kids to become those people. I don’t want Matt and I to become THOSE PEOPLE.
So we limit screen time, not only by how much they’ve earned but also by the virtue of it not belonging in most situations. The (home) dinner table is phone free with the exception of me checking in on and recording their chores at the beginning. It then goes away. Car trips are without the devices unless we’re driving more than 1.5 hours away. It’s far from perfect, but we’re really making an effort to unplug and be with each other.
At the dinner table, we have a box of Table Topics, Family Edition that we pull cards from and discuss. In the car and while grocery shopping and at restaurants, we play a bunch of different verbal games. ISpy is a perennial favorite as is “Guess Which Animal I Am?” I particularly like this one because it’s a good thinking game and really teaches abstraction. It’s still a little hard for Ben yet, but Tabby seems to really be picking up on the idea of asking broader questions to narrow down the field. We also quiz them on numbers and letters (math and spelling for T) and family facts like our address and phone numbers.
Wanting to add to the repertoire, I found a few other games I’m keen to try: Continue reading “Analog Fun”
I can sum up this weekend in just a few words:
I did it! Month one of my 365 Instagram project is complete and y’know what? It was easy. Taking photos comes pretty naturally to me and since I always have my phone with me? Yep. Slam dunk.
Favorite Tabby Photo: love the one of her with Snowball (18), but I also love her expression as she’s headed to her friend’s party (12)
Favorite Ben Photo: his expression in the one with Loki (20) is priceless, but I love what the one of him swimming (29) represents
Favorite non-kid Photo: have to love on my Hedgie Noms canister (19)
Can’t wait to do February!!
Well this has been quite the week. As of bedtime last night, both of the kids were DONE and in level 5 meltdown. Tabby lost it when her toothbrush ran out of batteries. Ben was in full revolt because we wouldn’t let him watch another ep of Phineas and Ferb. They both had solid sleep, but apparently Ben had a very rocky dropoff this am. As for me, I started off the week with a stomach bug and now I seem to have caught a nasty cold that has me foggy and semi-useless. Yay.
But let’s not talk about the bad stuff. Let’s talk about the good. I think we’ve finally made a decision on Tabby’s party. We had talked about doing a swimming party at our local rec center, but the more I thought about it, the less I liked the idea. If we went when it’s not too crowded, lots of people wouldn’t be able to come since that’s when parents are working and there are tons of other commitments. And the weekends at our rec center (one of the biggest and nicest in the state) is a madhouse on the weekends. I hate taking the kids there on the weekends. A party there sounds about 10x worse.
So we gave her a few options: 1) party at My Gym 2) bowling party 3) party at our community clubhouse with the theme of Secret Agent. As jazzed as she’d been about the My Gym idea before, I expected her to pick that. But she surprised me and decided on the Secret Agent Party. This is great because we can do what I think will be a really fun little part with relatively little fuss and expsense. Relatively little.
The plan so far:
It seems all very doable and not too ridiculous from my point of view. Hopefully I’ll still feel that way when all’s said and done.