Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Daylight through the trees
It was a perfect morning for a run in the woods. I pulled myself out of bed at 5:30 this morning to sneak out for a run before the kids were awake. It was about 70 degrees with little to no humidity - perfect. As I ran along the trail I saw a few deer and the sun was slowly coming up, it eventually peered through the trees shining its light along the trail which made a beautiful picture. I was so happy to be out in the peacefulness. Andre has been struggling since Erich left from his visit at Father's Day, he will not go to sleep without a huge fight. He is continually asking "When we are moving to Kentucky with Daddy"? or "Where is Daddy"? The daylight through the trees in my life is that in about 16 days we will all be together again in one house!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Thawing out
It has been awhile since I last wrote. It seems by the time I get the kids to bed, things straightenedup and put away, tie up loose ends from my work day, it is late, to late to write anything and make sense. Tonight I cannot sleep. I am concerned about my youngest brother, so I sit and type hoping it will help me relieve my worries. I pray he gets through his struggle. I must give it to God.
I updated the kids blog first, which is fun. We are enjoying the warm weather, it may be hot and humid, but I think we are still thawing out from our Michigan winter so it feels good. The days have gone by so fast. This week Grace has had swim lessons every morning, so I get them breakfast, dressed, lubed up and ready to head out the door with Suzanne. I grab one more cup of coffee and head back to work. It is quite the life!
Grace has really been acting out the past few days, as I talked to her last night about it she said
"it is just really hard being apart from daddy". I agree it is hard, yet we have a great set up here, and I am so thankful for Pete and Suzanne's support and help. We are counting down the days until Erich comes over to visit this weekend. Andre is going with the flow, as long as he has his cars and his sister to hang out with he is "good". The humidity and heat wipes him out -- - he takes a few laps on the deck with his tricycle then heads in and says he is ready to go to bed.
The writing has helped me. . I am now ready to fall asleep.
Good night!
I updated the kids blog first, which is fun. We are enjoying the warm weather, it may be hot and humid, but I think we are still thawing out from our Michigan winter so it feels good. The days have gone by so fast. This week Grace has had swim lessons every morning, so I get them breakfast, dressed, lubed up and ready to head out the door with Suzanne. I grab one more cup of coffee and head back to work. It is quite the life!
Grace has really been acting out the past few days, as I talked to her last night about it she said
"it is just really hard being apart from daddy". I agree it is hard, yet we have a great set up here, and I am so thankful for Pete and Suzanne's support and help. We are counting down the days until Erich comes over to visit this weekend. Andre is going with the flow, as long as he has his cars and his sister to hang out with he is "good". The humidity and heat wipes him out -- - he takes a few laps on the deck with his tricycle then heads in and says he is ready to go to bed.The writing has helped me. . I am now ready to fall asleep.
Good night!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
A Promise
Over the weekend I saw the movie “He is Not that into You”. It was a cute movie that for some reason has me pondering a few things. The first one being, the saying that sometime in our life as a girl we have been told when a boy is mean to us, “He is doing that because he likes you”!
That is not true and is such a ridiculous thing to say, isn’t it? I have vivid memories back to Kindergarten of a boy in my neighborhood he would ride his bike by my house while I was outside, he would sing or taunt “Kindergarten baby” (he was in the 1st grade). Then when I was in junior high that same boy would approach me daily or very close to daily, and tell me I was ugly. Guess what I was told, “Oh, he just likes you!”
Each time this boy would come to me and tell me I was ugly, I would hear those words echo, “he just likes you” then some better reasoning came to me and I would think to myself “No, I am pretty sure this guy has not one inkling of like for me”, and in all honestly, I did not like him either! Furthermore, if he did like me – what a way to show it, right? Why would I want to spend time with some Yahoo that was a jerk to me?
What does that teach us as women? It is okay for a man to treat you horribly, that is his way of showing you he likes you? I say figure out another way pal! What does that teach our boys? It is okay to treat a girl badly; she will think you like her.
Today I make two promises for you to witness and hold me accountable, I will never say to my daughter, when a boy is being mean to her that he is doing it because he likes her. If a boy likes my little girl, he had better treat her with respect and do nice things for her or else take a hike! The second promise is to teach my little boy, to treat girls with respect! No pony tail pulling, no mean words, if you like them show them you like them by doing nice things, respecting them, and being honest, if you do not like them treat them with respect, and let them be themselves.
The challenge we all have, is to teach our girls to be strong, stand up for themselves, and demand the respect they deserve and teach our boys to be respectful, and show their feelings good or bad correctly? As I write this, it brings up an entirely new question; shouldn’t both boys and girls demand the respect they deserve in a positive way?
Before having kids, I vowed I would never say "because I said so" and I admit, I have broken that vow. However, now that I am actually a parent, I believe that one might actually apply sometimes but I feel telling my daughter a boy is mean to her because he likes her is more damaging.
Something to ponder. . . . Who is with me?
This blog has become quite lengthy, and I only covered the one topic on my mind. I will save my next pondering for a follow up blog!
Later
That is not true and is such a ridiculous thing to say, isn’t it? I have vivid memories back to Kindergarten of a boy in my neighborhood he would ride his bike by my house while I was outside, he would sing or taunt “Kindergarten baby” (he was in the 1st grade). Then when I was in junior high that same boy would approach me daily or very close to daily, and tell me I was ugly. Guess what I was told, “Oh, he just likes you!”
Each time this boy would come to me and tell me I was ugly, I would hear those words echo, “he just likes you” then some better reasoning came to me and I would think to myself “No, I am pretty sure this guy has not one inkling of like for me”, and in all honestly, I did not like him either! Furthermore, if he did like me – what a way to show it, right? Why would I want to spend time with some Yahoo that was a jerk to me?
What does that teach us as women? It is okay for a man to treat you horribly, that is his way of showing you he likes you? I say figure out another way pal! What does that teach our boys? It is okay to treat a girl badly; she will think you like her.
Today I make two promises for you to witness and hold me accountable, I will never say to my daughter, when a boy is being mean to her that he is doing it because he likes her. If a boy likes my little girl, he had better treat her with respect and do nice things for her or else take a hike! The second promise is to teach my little boy, to treat girls with respect! No pony tail pulling, no mean words, if you like them show them you like them by doing nice things, respecting them, and being honest, if you do not like them treat them with respect, and let them be themselves.
The challenge we all have, is to teach our girls to be strong, stand up for themselves, and demand the respect they deserve and teach our boys to be respectful, and show their feelings good or bad correctly? As I write this, it brings up an entirely new question; shouldn’t both boys and girls demand the respect they deserve in a positive way?
Before having kids, I vowed I would never say "because I said so" and I admit, I have broken that vow. However, now that I am actually a parent, I believe that one might actually apply sometimes but I feel telling my daughter a boy is mean to her because he likes her is more damaging.
Something to ponder. . . . Who is with me?
This blog has become quite lengthy, and I only covered the one topic on my mind. I will save my next pondering for a follow up blog!
Later
Friday, February 13, 2009
A glimpse
Well, here I go the next blog for posting. I thought I would start with a glimpse of how I came up with the name for my blog. Simple with moments of chaos. I strive for simplicity, I do. I love simple. However, in my simplicity chaos always seems to lurk! Does this happen to everyone, or is it just me?
As our schedule currently exists, I take the kids in the morning to childcare. E is up and out the door before I even have a pulse! I let the kids sleep in as long as they can - I figure they have the rest of their lives to wake to a stupid alarm clock - no need to rush! Plus, this simplifies things - we do not have to run frantically out the door to get somewhere by a certain time. The sitter knows we will get there when we get there and if it is going to be too far off our typical arrival time, I call to let her know. We enjoy a slow morning, me with a delicious cup or two of coffee (that E has so graciously made before he left at some insane hour). We might snuggle on the couch and read books, play with cars, or color a picture.
After we have had some hanging out time and we are all awake, everybody gets dressed, brushes their teeth and hair and we head out the door! Simple right? Well, not this week! I have a 2 year old. . . Oh my do I have a two year old!!! You know what I am talking about, "I want to do it", "No I want to walk" - - everything is fine, things are going good we head out the door. . . . NO!!!!!!!!!!! I DON'T WANT TO!!! My favorite this week. . . . everyone heads out to the garage (it is not attached to our house so we walk out of the house up the driveway to the garage), I am grabbing the bags, drinks snacks etc inside before heading out the door. I walk out the side door, turn the corner and there stands my boy in a mud puddle above his ankles - the blue "Chuck Taylor" high tops that he HAD to wear, covered in mud in addition to his jeans! His big sister, just watching him! I start to get mad, then it quickly turns to laughter. How do I get mad at this sweet boy, saying "look mommy, I am splashing in a puddle" even though he is slowly sinking in a puddle of mud, I swoop him out of the puddle, explaining that you should have boots on to splash in puddles. He says so sweet and innocent, "oh". I run back into the house for a change of pants, socks and shoes. That slow and simple morning has now turned to chaos! I have to drive 25 minutes to the sitter and 25 minutes back home to even begin work!!! I have an early meeting . . I don't think I will make it without calling in from the car!
My next brilliant idea this week centered around Valentines. In search of Valentines for the kids to give to there friends - I found Princess for my little princess and Cars for the boy - they included tattoos, 32 of them, there are only 8-12 kids at the sitters! So,I thought well the extra tattoos can be used for potty training AJ or as a special treat for GK. Good plan right, after all what am I going to do with 32 Valentines and tattoos, I could possibly save them until next year. Well the excitement took over as they started to prepare the Valentines for friends. I ran downstairs to check on something - when I returned they had their very own Tattoo parlor going! Each of them had a tattoo on their cheek, 2 or more on their legs and arms a couple on their feet! Once again, how do I get mad "look mom Tow Mater and McQueen", or "Mommy isn't this rose on my check beautiful?", "I know how to do tattoos". Tattoo wrappings are scattered everywhere, water is covering the floor in the bathroom in addition to the trail down the hallway, (traveling tattoo parlor?) a couple washcloths are piled next to the sink soaking wet- what was left for their Valentines but a few half soggy or ripped tattoos! So, that tattoo reward idea for going in the big boy potty, gone!
At first I was upset, then I saw GK go from excited that she had helped Tattoo her brother to sad that she had disappointed me. That broke my heart, so I hugged her and said, you did a good job with the tattoos, next time can we agree to ask mommy first? She said yes then pointed out that she my have needed a little help since a few tattoos were already falling off.
And in reality, does it matter? Is it that big of a deal? No! did they have fun? Yes! Is that what matters? Yes! Did it simplify my life? No, it complicated it with more laundry, and more clean up. Was it chaotic? A little bit. Did it enrich my life - most definitely! I cannot imagine a day seeing those two smiles, as being a failure. I just have to remind myself of that daily and sometimes hourly! :-)
Some moments will be simple - others will be chaotic. They are certain to balance each other out. Right?
As our schedule currently exists, I take the kids in the morning to childcare. E is up and out the door before I even have a pulse! I let the kids sleep in as long as they can - I figure they have the rest of their lives to wake to a stupid alarm clock - no need to rush! Plus, this simplifies things - we do not have to run frantically out the door to get somewhere by a certain time. The sitter knows we will get there when we get there and if it is going to be too far off our typical arrival time, I call to let her know. We enjoy a slow morning, me with a delicious cup or two of coffee (that E has so graciously made before he left at some insane hour). We might snuggle on the couch and read books, play with cars, or color a picture.
After we have had some hanging out time and we are all awake, everybody gets dressed, brushes their teeth and hair and we head out the door! Simple right? Well, not this week! I have a 2 year old. . . Oh my do I have a two year old!!! You know what I am talking about, "I want to do it", "No I want to walk" - - everything is fine, things are going good we head out the door. . . . NO!!!!!!!!!!! I DON'T WANT TO!!! My favorite this week. . . . everyone heads out to the garage (it is not attached to our house so we walk out of the house up the driveway to the garage), I am grabbing the bags, drinks snacks etc inside before heading out the door. I walk out the side door, turn the corner and there stands my boy in a mud puddle above his ankles - the blue "Chuck Taylor" high tops that he HAD to wear, covered in mud in addition to his jeans! His big sister, just watching him! I start to get mad, then it quickly turns to laughter. How do I get mad at this sweet boy, saying "look mommy, I am splashing in a puddle" even though he is slowly sinking in a puddle of mud, I swoop him out of the puddle, explaining that you should have boots on to splash in puddles. He says so sweet and innocent, "oh". I run back into the house for a change of pants, socks and shoes. That slow and simple morning has now turned to chaos! I have to drive 25 minutes to the sitter and 25 minutes back home to even begin work!!! I have an early meeting . . I don't think I will make it without calling in from the car!
My next brilliant idea this week centered around Valentines. In search of Valentines for the kids to give to there friends - I found Princess for my little princess and Cars for the boy - they included tattoos, 32 of them, there are only 8-12 kids at the sitters! So,I thought well the extra tattoos can be used for potty training AJ or as a special treat for GK. Good plan right, after all what am I going to do with 32 Valentines and tattoos, I could possibly save them until next year. Well the excitement took over as they started to prepare the Valentines for friends. I ran downstairs to check on something - when I returned they had their very own Tattoo parlor going! Each of them had a tattoo on their cheek, 2 or more on their legs and arms a couple on their feet! Once again, how do I get mad "look mom Tow Mater and McQueen", or "Mommy isn't this rose on my check beautiful?", "I know how to do tattoos". Tattoo wrappings are scattered everywhere, water is covering the floor in the bathroom in addition to the trail down the hallway, (traveling tattoo parlor?) a couple washcloths are piled next to the sink soaking wet- what was left for their Valentines but a few half soggy or ripped tattoos! So, that tattoo reward idea for going in the big boy potty, gone!
At first I was upset, then I saw GK go from excited that she had helped Tattoo her brother to sad that she had disappointed me. That broke my heart, so I hugged her and said, you did a good job with the tattoos, next time can we agree to ask mommy first? She said yes then pointed out that she my have needed a little help since a few tattoos were already falling off.
And in reality, does it matter? Is it that big of a deal? No! did they have fun? Yes! Is that what matters? Yes! Did it simplify my life? No, it complicated it with more laundry, and more clean up. Was it chaotic? A little bit. Did it enrich my life - most definitely! I cannot imagine a day seeing those two smiles, as being a failure. I just have to remind myself of that daily and sometimes hourly! :-)
Some moments will be simple - others will be chaotic. They are certain to balance each other out. Right?
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Blog attempt
I am going to attempt a blog. I find myself visiting other people's blogs for information, inspiration, motivation, a good laugh and sometimes to catch up with an old friend. I visit monthly, weekly and sometimes daily, the blogs on Runners World encourage me to get out and run, or provide a new approach or exercise, Total Mom.com provides funny stories, great recipes and inspiration (she is a mother of 7 kids). I also know some women that blog as a way to communicate and share with distant friends and family.
The charter for my blog. . . may be a combination of all of those things. (And I reserve the right to change this charter at anytime.) I am not saying I am an inspirational runner or mom by any means! But I may be able to share a funny story or two that may make you laugh or one that says to you on one of those difficult days - if she can do it I can too!
I have found blogs to be therapeutic for those that write them and those that read them. I know I enjoy reading other friend's blogs - I find it as a way to get to know my friends more and it is a way of keeping up on their lives - since we do not see each other as often as we would like due to the distance between us.
I find myself without the close friendships I had in Colorado and this makes me sad and extremely grouchy (ask my husband and kids). This is my way to talk and share - - I hope maybe someone will listen, laugh and share too.
The charter for my blog. . . may be a combination of all of those things. (And I reserve the right to change this charter at anytime.) I am not saying I am an inspirational runner or mom by any means! But I may be able to share a funny story or two that may make you laugh or one that says to you on one of those difficult days - if she can do it I can too!
I have found blogs to be therapeutic for those that write them and those that read them. I know I enjoy reading other friend's blogs - I find it as a way to get to know my friends more and it is a way of keeping up on their lives - since we do not see each other as often as we would like due to the distance between us.
I find myself without the close friendships I had in Colorado and this makes me sad and extremely grouchy (ask my husband and kids). This is my way to talk and share - - I hope maybe someone will listen, laugh and share too.
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