- Part 3

Fun Photo Saturday

Hoping it would inspire the kids to eat, I gave them toothpicks for their ever-so-tasty Dino Nuggets Dinner the other night. I thought they would have fun eating them off of the stick. Kinda like Chicken Satay only with sub-par frozen chicken and no yummy marinade. Minor details, I told myself.

I turn my back for a bit to clean up some dishes and upon turning around, I find THIS:

I was informed that THIS is a Dino Nugget Tower. Happy that it appears as though she took at least ONE bite before turning it into building material. Nonetheless, I think it’s safe to say…Chicken Satay: Fail.

And the winner goes to…

Ok so here’s a fun fact: Guess what I was voted in high school? Not Best Smile or Most Likely to Succeed…

I was voted Biggest Airhead.

Now, I wasn’t that upset about it at the time BECAUSE it was slightly true. I made myself feel better about the whole thing buy suggesting that, in a fairly large high school like mine, it was a good thing to be voted anything at all. At least people knew my name right?! Also, I told myself that I was “flighty” because I was just busy thinking about bigger, more important and more intellectual things. So the problem really wasn’t at all that I was AIR-headed but that I simply had TOO MUCH going on up there. It’s rough being a genius.

SOO..it would stand to reason that in this season of my life with ALL that I have going on, I am now more of an airhead than ever. I know we all relate to this a little bit. When we were pregnant it was “Pregnancy Brain”…but then when pregnancy was over, and we realized we didn’t recover, we switched to calling it “Mom Brain” or “Momnesia”…and the condition appears to be terminal.

But I think I am one of the worst cases, and it seems to be getting worse. I used to have NO NEED for a calendar…I could always manage days and dates with just a quick moment of concentration. Now, I have THREE calendars and still lose track of where the heck I’m going and when.

I have left my purse in various public places more times than I can count. Just last weekend, my husband received a phone call from my cell phone…while I was standing right next to him. He looked at me and said, “why are you calling me?” Puzzled, I answered the phone to discover a nice man in possession of my purse AND cell phone, trying to track me down. Just a couple of weeks before that I was paged at the Pumpkin Farm to come get my purse after leaving it by a haystack during picture time with the kids.

One word for that: EMBARRASSING.

AND…just the other day I realized all too late that I had succeeded in packing up all of my kids into the van after Bible Study, but had apparently left the stroller in the parking lot. If anyone had seen this mom of three load all of their kids into the car, then drive off with the stroller left sitting there…don’t you imagine them just giggling?

But the real kicker was today. It was my turn to bring food to our MOPS meeting. After the meeting was over, I ran the leftover food out to the car before getting the kids from their classrooms. Later, after picking up my renegade stroller that someone nicely returned to the hallyway, I hustle all three kids out to the car when I realized I had no memory of actually bringing my BAG out to the car…and I began to think I must have left it upstairs. (The funny thing about this too is that I realize this right after sharing with someone about how I had just left the stroller in the parking lot the day before). I was officially beginning to hate myself at this point.

SO…I turn everyone around and wander all the way back inside, down the hall, and up the elevator to find that it is not there. I begin asking around…”Have you seen a black bag?” “Have YOU seen a black bag?” No luck.

I finally wander back OUT to the car (after picking up some left over donut holes, and stopping for a crazy conversation with a friend in the hallway while my youngest whines for the sippy cup he sees in my hand but that I can’t give him 1) because it’s empty and 2) because as soon as I won’t hold it for him he’s going to lose his ever-loving mind AND while my 2 year old sneaks the donut holes out of the bag because he knows I’m too busy talking to do anything about it). When I get to the car after all of that, I discover my bag sitting right there in the seat.

Proud of myself for not forgetting it but oh so disturbed that I FORGOT that I didn’t forget it. Is there no end to the insanity?

So yes, I’ve always been a big of an airhead but motherhood is only making it worse. I am just grateful I have yet to forget any children anywhere.

DUH

Do you guys ever feel that with ALL THE INFO out there…the countless websites, the infinite number of parenting magazines, books, and articles…that it’s a RARE thing to find real, practical advice that you end up applying?? How many hours do we spend soaking this stuff up and how much change does it actually end up delivering? I mean, I think most of the advice out there, like directions on the back of a shampoo bottle, deserves a big, fat “DUH” from those of us with common sense. New moms, save your money and trust your instincts. You know more about your own baby than most of the “experts” out there anyway!

I personally like that last one.

Graham Crackers and Sippy Cups

So we’ve all heard how every child is different and, for mothers with multiple children, it becomes even more clear as you watch your various children take on the world…sometimes in VERY different ways.

My daughter and first-born was my “opinionated” one as a baby…she was VERY difficult the first few months, but she settled down pretty quickly and, to this day, is fairly “easy to tame”. Then my son Grayson came along. He was the easy baby, but then at about 1 year old, we joke about how he “woke up”. Out of nowhere, he became this active, charming, zany kid…who I still have a hard time figuring out.

And then there’s my youngest Garrett. Of all the kids, HE is my wild card. I can NOT put him into any category whatsoever. Watching him through his first year of life has been absolute frustration and absolute entertainment. I remember saying just ONE day after he was born how much he reminded me of the intensity of Mackenna as a baby…but he also possessed some of the easy-going-ness of Grayson…all at the same time. It was a strange combination.

At just over a year old, Garrett is probably the most fascinating to me of all the kids. He cracks me up…both in the “ha ha” way…and in the “driving me insane” way. He can be so pleasant and happy and easy going, but then he gets a bug about something and will become the most stubborn, unshakeable, FRUSTRATING character I’ve ever met.

For example, his new thing now is wanting what anyone else has. He is NOT OK with the food you give him and will continue to “eh eh eh” while whipping his hand furiously toward the thing YOU have that he wants. And all I can say is he is EMPHATIC about what he wants.

Just the other day, I gave the two older kids a half of a graham cracker. I gave Garrett one as well, only I made the mistake of breaking it in two pieces so it would be easier for him to manage. He pitched a FIT. He knew he had gotten smaller pieces than the other two kids, and was not shy about expressing his disdain. He kept pointing to their crackers and muttering what I can only assume were swear words in baby language. Then he had a full blown, roll-around-on-the-floor temper tantrum because of my folly.

I refused to give in and continued to try to hand him the smaller pieces. He would just smack them out of my hand and throw himself on the floor again. I struggled between feeling completely put-off and totally amused. I finally just set the crackers down on the couch where he could see them. After about 5 minutes of his dramatic display, he came over to get them. He picked up one of the crackers with a big smile on his face and said “Dah!”, showing it to me before putting into his mouth, like nothing had ever happened.

What a little weirdo.

This same child also, at almost 15 months old, REFUSES to hold his own bottle or sippy cup. IF he was my first child, and I had the energy to take on a 4 day war over the issue, I would. But he’s not, and I don’t. So I have, for the sake of time and sanity, given in to his ridiculous demands. Because, just putting his sippy cup on his highchair tray results in it FLYING across the room in complete opposition of my trying to teach him how to be a “big boy”.

But this is what shocked me the most…

One day, his sippy was lying on the floor next to him. He didn’t realize my husband and I were watching him, and he grabbed it and began to drink out of it. If you could have SEEN the look on his face when he noticed we were watching him! I didn’t know a 15 month old could look “busted” but he did. His mouth opened in a surprised expression and he quickly dropped the sippy on the floor and started to whine for us to pick it up and feed it to him. My husband and I were SHOCKED! Any doubt that I had of him actually being CAPABLE of holding his own cup, just fell to the floor with his sippy. Now I was certain of what I had suspected…this guy has us wrapped.

He also refuses to walk. He CAN and HAS walked across the entire living room. But whenever we try to get him to, he will turn his legs to rubber and sit…all the while looking at us with an expression that says, “bring it on”.

I have to admit, there are days where I have referred to him as a bit of a jerk. Isn’t that terrible? But honestly, in our grown up world if anyone acted like this it’s what we would call them!!!

We’re hanging on for dear life right now and just praying that these strong personality traits are going to make him the next Bill Gates or something. He is undeniably charming, wonderfully comical, and impossibly cute. I just hope the fact that he’s kind of a jerk will get smothered underneath all of that some day.

I’ve attached some pictures of the Graham Cracker Incident below. All you moms out there with feisty children, HANG IN THERE! I feel your pain

My, how times have changed…

So I’m watching my 4 year old daughter play golf on the Wii, and she’s playing like a typical 4 year old. She has some understanding of how to hit the ball, but no real skill when it comes to putting or chipping (which should be expected I’m sure). But even so, I see her ready to give the game all the perserverence that it may require of her…and that ends up being not very much at all. BECAUSE…after hitting the ball eight times, the game simply aborts, says “give up” and moves her automatically on to the next hole.

WHAT?!!! Do you guys REMEMBER what it was like to play video games when we were younger? HOURS and HOURS I spent trying to get past one stinkin’ level. And if you died, you had to start ALL OVER again. You got 3 or 4 lives and that was IT. No save points, no extra guy games where you could score 50 new tries…just a few lives and some willpower was all that you were equipped with to conquer the gaming world. (And it was SOOOO exhilirating when we finally conquered wasn’t it?)

Not so anymore! I know it could be over-the-top (but not completely unlike me) to analyze the effects of even this small change in our culture. BUT what are we teaching our kids when we say that we can’t expect them to stick around long enough to fight through a difficult level? Heaven forbid our kids have to experience a few moments of frustration! Actually, the GAME was more impatient than my daughter, because I think she was ready to give it a couple more tries. But it’s like it was saying, “good grief, you stink at this – let’s move on already”. AND it’s not even like it’s trying to HIDE that fact…giant words on the TV screen that say “GIVE UP” are not very subtle. Why not another choice that’s a LITTLE less obvious???

OK so I’m not going to lose sleep on this or anything but I thought it was food for thought. Kids these days. Sheesh.

This is getting out of hand…

Ok so does anyone else HATE that time of year when it’s time to switch out the kids’ clothes for the next season??? This process has gotten so unbelievably complicated since having additional kids. Here’s what mine looks like:

For Garrett…I go through and determine which clothes I want to keep for keepsakes (WHY OH WHY do we do this?), and THEN I have to decide which clothes need to be given away and which clothes need to be sold. Three different piles for him.

Then, for my other son Grayson, who is the middle child, I add to the piles of either clothes I want to sell or clothes I want to give away, but then ALSO have to create a pile for which clothes are going to work to hand down to Garrett. I’m also doing this while pulling out ANOTHER pile of clothes that have already been handed down that need to go INTO Garrett’s drawer. I now have four piles going.

THEN for my daughter I have the same two piles of clothes to keep and clothes to sell, but we also give her things away to a friend of ours so within the pile of clothes to give away is a pile of clothes to give to Salvation Army and a pile of clothes to give to our friend. But then ALSO, Mackenna is getting to the age where some of her clothes will still fit her again next season so now there is ANOTHER PILE of clothes to keep for the following year. Now that’s six piles I think?

Then of course, some of the clothes need to be washed and some of them don’t…which I probably should do BEFORE sorting but I don’t and now I have laundry in my laundry room separated into all of these different piles, and then within THOSE piles are piles of whites and piles of colors. This is RIDICULOUS! AND just the tupperware alone to keep all of these things separated and organized could cost a small fortune (which reminds me of a tangent I’d like to go on for a bit…I was watching the Nate Berkus show the other day and a mom was struggling with organizing all of HER hand-me-downs for her six kids…so of course they did this giant organizational overhaul that led her to tears, yada yada yada…but when they showed the big “reveal”, I kid you not, they must have had 100 tupperware tubs stacked and labeled in her attic!”) Well if I could afford $1,000 worth of plastic, I’d be pretty organized too. THe issue isn’t always knowing HOW to organize, it’s knowing how to do it with the resources available to us, am I right?? Oh and he suggested buying a label maker. GOOD GRIEF!)

OK sorry that was a LOOONG tangent. I love the fall, but this part, not-so-much. Thankfully, I think I’m almost done. Wishing you moms all the luck in the world getting your season-switching accomplished, however you do it

Home

We did it! We finally did it! After 3 years of blissful living in a starter home…and then 4 more years of CAMPING, we finally moved out of our condo!!!!

Wait, let me back up. Hello again! I hope everyone had a great summer. I’d love to say I stopped writing because I was SOOOO busy…which is true…but not the real reason. I just took a GIANT break from doing anything worthwhile this summer. Looking back, I know I was busy but I really did NOTHING important at all. And now I can’t remember why I was so busy? Weird.

But like my usual self, I’m now swinging completely in the opposite direction. I’m involved in two Bible Studies, MOPS, writing again…oh yeah, and I joined an Improv Team. Woah nelly.

But ANYWAY – back to the house! It’s crazy how much we’ve been PRAYING for a way out of our tiny home…trying to be grateful…then cursing the place…then praying for rescue…then trying to be grateful…circling right around and and back into insanity again.

Oh my goodness! I just realized what I did all summer…picked up toys! Seriously, I think that’s what I spent 80% of my time doing. I was at the end of my rope this summer with this house…it was wiping me out!!! Everyone who would come over would comment on how organized it was and how it didn’t feel small at all. Now…I know what they are talking about because the house is layed out beautifully and doesfeel nice and open…BUT the major reason why it felt so organized was because I was pouring HOURS into every day trying to keep it that way. Duh. THAT’s what I did all summer.

OK back to my story…So towards the end of the summer, something came up and a friend of ours ended up renting out our home. It’s a perfect fit for her and we were finally free to go find another place. It was really awesome how God worked something out that not only benefited our family, but someone else as well. Isn’t that SOOO like Him??? We were on a tight schedule so I had one day to house hunt and fell in love with a home just 15 minutes away. We moved in August 28 and I AM IN HEAVEN.

Well not literally, of course but getting a new place was every bit as blissful and amazing as I hoped it would be. I was partly nervous that it wouldn’t solve ANY of my problems and I’d discover that I’m just a stressed out, exhausted mom for no good reason. SO I’ve been very relieved to find out that I am now allowed to blame 90% of my problems with parenting on simply living in the wrong house. We’ll see if that lasts.

But, getting ready to move was also extremely emotional. Despite the fact that our house was NOT meant for a family of five, it was a great house. I genuinely liked it. Sometimes even loved it. I loved my front porch. I loved planting my impatiens every spring. I loved the fact that my kids were ALWAYS nearby. I despised it, but I also loved it.

And I experienced SO MANY things in that house. I became a mom there.( Every single one of my babies was born there). I became a grown-up there. I experienced a deep heartbreak…and amazing healing there. And I have so many memories of Ryan and I in that little living room, working through life together. Dreaming, talking, striving, growing, leaning and learning. We became better people in that living room. That house holds a LIFETIME of memories.

I will always miss my first house. But I’m so grateful to be starting a new chapter…I’m sure I’ll still have lots of funny stories to share and I’m looking forward to all of our great adventures in our new home!

Oh and Garrett has his own room!!! NO MORE CLOSET!!!!

Author: Motherhood Confessions