Jump Starting My Week.

Yes, even weekends can be crazy.

Sometimes it's impossible to get caught up on things over the weekend, and I rely on a lazy Monday to get things back on track. Yesterday was supposed to be our lazy Monday, but shockingly, things don't always go as planned.

We have been staying busy lately, which might partially explain my lack of blog posts. As school and everything else winds down, we have also found ourselves doing things such as:

Easter.

Learning to ride a bike.

Repairing a deck.

This awesome Mud Run with mom friends.

And on and on...

So yesterday, on our supposed lazy Monday morning, when I chose not to shower and get ready for the day before conquering breakfast with the kids and school, it is no wonder that the engine wouldn't turn when we loaded up at 7:35 in the morning. 

It's no surprise that the battery was dead as a doornail, which by the way—have you ever wondered what that saying means? Look no further. 

And it was unusually chilly yesterday morning; as I unloaded kids (2 of them still in PJ's) from the van and called my husband at work, I kissed lazy Monday goodbye. As I waited for our sweet neighbor to come with jumper cables, I scrambled to dress my little ones more appropriately for the weather and switched myself from PJ pants to jeans.

While we rushed over to school, then on to Goodyear to switch cars with my husband, followed by 3 consecutive shopping errands, I struggled to keep perspective on our Monday turn of events. While I worried over the fact that I might run into a familiar face in public with my ragamuffin kids and my day-in-the-life-of-a-mommy attire, my kids joyfully sang and played in the backseat and played eye-spy in shopping carts.

I am realizing more and more that these trivial upsets in my routine shape me more than any lazy Monday ever could. How can I really rate a dead car battery, a tardy kindergartner and an annoyance in my change of plans in the big scheme of things? I keep thinking back to one year ago when our little guy was hospitalized for viral pneumonia. 

It was scary; it helped pull everything into perspective for us. It reminded us to be thankful for the truly important things and people in our lives.  And you can bet we held them all a little closer and tighter that week.

I think of my friend Sarah who is a passionate advocate for the people of Sudan. I think of those woman and children near the Nuba Mountains who try to avoid bombs and famine while I sit here typing in my house, stressed about surviving until Season 3 of Downton Abbey.

http://www.bareearth.org/

I have to keep my own undesirable situations in perspective, and learn what I can from each tiny trial.  And as our crazy Monday morning finally culminated in a spectacular moment of triumph when Mason used his potty in the front of the Camry in the Post Office parking lot because we were out of other options, I had to laugh.

And even though I'm pretty sure I sent at least one exasperated text yesterday morning using words like “blerg” and “annoyed,” I'm very thankful for these lazy manageable Mondays. And even though Mondays are the potholes in the road of life, it's true, these tiny potholes are molding and preparing me for who knows what. It's not very hard to recover from the inconvenience of a dead battery and a trip to the store in Pajamas and no make-up.  I'm still trying to keep the big picture in check, remembering that these little warm-up stretches are hopefully making me more flexible for future, bigger potholes.

Learning From the Past: Potty Training Re-Visited.

I realize now that although many things become easier and simpler as my kids get older, other things become more complicated, because we are always at the mercy of time.  My first 2 kids were potty-trained before or by age 2, and although I like to think it is in part because of the mature capabilities and genius of my little ones, it probably also had a lot to do with the fact that we spent about 3 weeks mostly at home preventing accidents and learning how everything works.  

With kid #3, everything is different. I don't have 3 weeks to stay home and sit with him and clean up messes, so I keep putting it off.  We have to take Griffin to school and pick him up in the afternoon. We have errands to run and church and there is never a day when we can just sit at home.  Potty training has definitely been on the back-burner, even though I despise diapers and I think he is ready.

Last week we finally found time to make some progress in this area, and I remembered the following blog that I wrote several years ago while potty-training my daughter.  Hopefully nothing like this has happened to you before and we haven't had anything this nasty happen around here since.  Even the neatest housekeeper and most organized mommy has to clean up a BIG mess every now and then. Hopefully you don't ever feel alone! Enjoy :)

When you run poopy pants through the washing machine, none of the clothes get clean.

(From January 14, 2009)

So, if you opened this hoping to find a political metaphor or a symbolic story, then you might want to stop reading now. Unfortunately, the title of this blog is a very literal statement about what just happened to a small load of laundry that is currently enjoying a 3rd soak and rinse in extremely hot water.

As a stay at home mom to two active toddlers, my life is rarely dull. Just when things start slipping into some sort of routine, I like to shake in a dash of something or other to keep us from getting bored. When Christmas ended and we rang in the New Year, I thought it would be the best time to introduce my 22 month old to a lovely diaper-free world. A world of cotton, toilets, rewards and being a “big girl.” It was all very exciting.

I started out using many of the same methods that had worked with my son when he was about her age, and everything was progressing beautifully. New Princess underwear? Yippee! A Pez in my Sleeping Beauty Pez dispenser whenever I go on the Potty? Hooray! Flushing the big potty all by myself? Oh, the joy. With only a few minor setbacks in the first 4 days, I began feeling confident. I could hear the extra cash already coming in from the money we would save from diapers. We would be able to pay for college. We could cut back to only eating 2 meals a week off the dollar menu instead of 3. I might be able to afford a drink from Starbucks. I was free of the bondage of changing tables and diaper rash, and my daughter was walking around with a new diaper-free swagger.

Just when I thought I would be receiving my award for “Best Potty-Trainer 2009,” we began to hit a series of set-backs that involved wet pants, mysterious spots on the floor and couch, and little things that fall on the floor that nobody wants to touch with their bare hands. I did a lot of laundry and used some SPOT SHOT--which I should really advertise for them, because that stuff is amazing—and we were learning from our mistakes.

After several great days in a row, we were on track and moving forward again. Then yesterday she had a tough little accident; we were both disappointed as I dumped the mess in the big potty and threw the dirty underwear in the laundry. Since I had just done two loads earlier in the day, I left them in there, waiting until there was a full load; I have two toddlers and typically need a Sherpa and supplemental oxygen to reach the top of my clean laundry pile.

Now my story gets ugly and confusing. When I passed through the laundry room on my way out with the kids this morning, I noticed the laundry room smelled rather raunchy, but I knew there was messy stuff in there and hoped the Spray-N-Wash was working. When I returned this afternoon, I decided it was time to run the wash, whether or not the load was full, so I put in a few random dirty things and turned it on.

I finally got the kids down for a nap and heard the washing machine beep that it was done, so I went out and opened the lid. Let's just say the lovely “Tide” aroma that I was expecting was not there, and I couldn't believe what was scattered all over the bottom of my washing machine and mixed in with my clean laundry. As I quickly grabbed an old bag and some wipes and did my best to get rid of everything that wasn't an article of clothing from the wet wash, I realized that I had not only kissed my “Best Potty-Trainer” award goodbye, but I must be a horrible housewife and mother. Who runs a load of laundry with poopy pants???

So, as I sit here reflecting on all that has happened this afternoon, wondering how many times I will have to wash the clothes before they are truly clean, if they are in fact ever really clean, I can assure you I will be checking multiple times before casually throwing anything into washing machine from now on, and laughing at myself for thinking that something like Potty-training could ever be simple and sanitary.

Flashing Lights and Winter Woes, Revisited.

**While scurrying around this week, I stumbled across this post from my {old} blog.  It is dated almost exactly one year ago, and it was good for me to revisit these thoughts and be reminded about the many blessings in my life as we approach yet another NEW year!

~~~

On our way home from Ohio this Christmas, my three kids, husband and I were driving through the foothills of Kentucky on 75 when suddenly the check engine light started flashing like crazy. I grew up in a home where cars regularly had flashing check engine lights and we simply covered it with black electrical tape, but to Steve it was new and scary. We slowly and carefully prayed our way through the next three states, hoping that our 1997 Plymouth Voyager would give us one last trip home.

As we sat for six hours in van-related thought and conversation, I kept thinking about how although I had never been “proud” to drive a little white mini-van from the 90's, I had taken for granted the fact that it would be around to get us where we needed to go for at least a few more years. As much as I had kicked and screamed about having to drive a mini-van in the first place, I realized not only had our tiny Voyager made us mini-van fans (with its sticky sliding doors and low gas mileage), it had also found an endearing spot in our hearts.

Cynthia Ozick, one of my favorite essayists, said, “When something does not insist on being noticed, when we aren't grabbed by the collar or struck on the skull by a presence or an event, we take for granted the very things that most deserve our gratitude.” How true is that? How often does it take a flashing “check engine light” to get our attention? I started thinking about all the things I take for granted daily, the endless list of things I fail to appreciate, the lack of gratefulness I show to everyone and everything around me, and I was completely overwhelmed.

The very fact that we made it to our home from the highway was something to be thankful for since 37,261 Americans are killed annually in crashes (U.S. Census Bureau). I am not the kind of person who is afraid to drive my car or fly in a plane, but the fact that we have the luxury of driving in cars and flying in planes and safely returning to our homes in the first place is really pretty remarkable if you stop and think about it.

One week after Christmas vacation we made the decision to cut our cable. Those who know me will sympathize with how much I have grown to love the convenience of cable TV and most of all, the undisputed best modern day invention: the DVR. It was painful to pack up the box to Dish Network and heartbreaking to lose hours of saved material on the DVR. I had more than begun to take advantage of the ability to pause, rewind and fast forward live television and I had forgotten how to sit and actually watch a commercial. I took for granted that my DVR box would always say, “Good morning! What do you want to watch today?” I miss my 140 channels and I hate the black pointed bunny ear antenna above my bookshelves. After a week though, I am honestly realizing I do not miss aimlessly lying in bed watching shows I don't really care about. I am already enjoying going to bed earlier and reading more. But I digress.

If there is one thing that never ceases to amaze me, if there is one thing we all take for granted daily it is the created universe. Just the ability to sit here typing this—I am held down by gravity, I am breathing oxygen in a perfect atmosphere as the perfectly sized Earth perfectly rotates around a Sun that would burn us if we were closer and freeze us if we were any further away. I could go on and on about this. Many more facts here.

In fact, the simple act of breathing is a work of art that leaves me speechless when I really think about it. When I take a breath, there are so many intricacies that go into making my heart and lungs work in perfect unison and it is really almost shocking that more things don't going wrong or that we aren't sick all the time. For those of us who are visual, here is a neat video. 

A few years ago I read Where is God when it hurts? by Philip Yancey and although it's not the kind of feel good book you want to just pass out randomly to your friends, I learned a lot by reading it. He talks repeatedly about working with leprosy patients in India. I never knew that leprosy is actually a disease of the nervous system; basically those with leprosy lose the ability to feel things and therefore hurt themselves routinely because they lack the ability to tell when they are in danger (i.e. touching a burning stove, wearing shoes that don't fit and ruining their feet, etc.) I had never looked at the ability to “feel” as a blessing before. I had never realized that even the ability to hurt is sometimes a good thing. We take for granted the fact that when we hurt, whether by slamming our fingers in the car door or when we are slighted by someone we love, if we lack the ability to feel intense pain, we would also lack the ability to know love or joy. We would be apathetic robots with an “I have it all together” status, but feeling nothing.

All this is nothing new and I write it mostly for myself. I am sarcastic and melancholy and I have the emotional capacity of a grape nut. I know it's impossible to skip around singing praises for every breath we take and every blessing we receive, and frankly I would be tempted to trip you if you skipped past me. However, if we stop daily to appreciate just a fraction of the amazing things happening in our lives, we might all be a little less crabby. If I pretend like the orange check engine light is flashing every time I enter the Voyager, I might savor the times when we reach our destination, instead of fussing and whining when we inevitably break down.

“When it comes to life, the critical thing is whether you take things for granted, or take them with gratitude.” G.K. Chesterton

Fresh Mud Pie Ingredients.

If you are a hard-core follower of The Mud Pie Makers, then by now you know our goal is to take hold of each day, to create memories, to play with our kids—to attempt to see the world through their eyes. 

It is an ambitious goal.

How do we achieve this on a daily basis? How is this lofty objective broken down in the form of hours and minutes while the world blurs by, while our kids go from diapers to graduation gowns in the blink of an eye?

We often make our resolutions in January.  But for me, Fall is a time to start things new. School starts, everything is in a state of fresh schedules and attempted organization; we are already in the midst of transition. What can we do this Fall to take hold of each day? Are there a few small goals I can set? Can I prioritize and manage my time better to achieve these goals?

In my long, long, long list of “mommy improvements,” I have personally selected two areas of concentration for this Fall. I have really noticed  a weakness in these specific areas already since the school year began—perhaps you can relate.  My own mommy improvement goals are to listen better and to be more a more active parent. Over the course of the past few years, in the busy-ness of life, I have picked up a few bad habits! 

Listening.

If you are anything like me, it is easy to tune out the white noise that begins early in the morning when we are scrambling to get food in mouths and clothes on backs. The white noise comes in a variety of little voices; they are usually telling me something that can “wait until later” while I remind them to keep chewing or get their shoes on. Later the white noise returns when I'm unloading the dishwasher or even sitting on the floor playing. I am not ignoring my child, but my mmm-hmm responses quickly let my little one know that her long, detailed story of such-and-such boo-boo or his deep explanation of an elaborate Star Wars Lego battle is not quite worthy of my full attention. In fact, I am giving them a mommy version of the blank stare. It's the familiar blank stare they often give me when I am explaining obedience or protocol or why we have to go to bed even though the sun is still out.

Is it possible to calmly squat down to eye-level in these moments, to take two whole minutes to give them my full attention, to listen to these simple but important (to them) stories, knowing that they may not want to share every detail of their life with me before I know it?

Lackadaisical?

Has anyone else fallen into a chronic daily mommy groove that leaves us justifying our time management and hollering at our kids to “stop yelling at each other!” from two rooms away? Back when I only had one baby, I never imagined it could happen to me. I loved spending hours reading smart baby books and singing educational songs and deep cleaning the bathrooms and scrubbing my grout. Now I am lucky to clear laundry from the living room and I'm pretty sure I have a million dollars worth of stock in the Matchbox cars on the carpet.

It takes a great deal of effort to keep it all together.

At the same time, I find myself saying it's impossible to keep it together, so have I stopped trying? It's funny how our goals change with every month that passes as a mom. With all the zillions of blogs and books on organization, home-efficiency and time management, you'd think we could all get our acts together. But honestly, who has time to read it all? Around here, when everyone is scrubbed and brushed and tucked away for the night, I'm completely exhausted. We have more tools to communicate and simplify than ever before, and all we've done is add more things to our to-do lists.

About 5 months ago my husband decided to drop our cable. I'd be lying if I said I was on board with the decision, but in the end it was something we needed to do. At first I went through TV withdrawals. The first few weeks were painful as we attempted to get our little bunny-ear antenna to tune local stations and watch TV online. Eventually Summer came and nothing was on anyway and the days were longer. We went outside more. We read more. Soon I stopped missing it. Soon it became normal to leave the TV off for an entire day. Soon I started thinking back to when we wasted hours every week staring at the screen in our living room.

I don't want to sound like a mommy martyr—suffering with 3 kids AND no Cable! Trust me, I've already watched enough TV to fill up about ten lifetimes, and I'm not saying we'll never have cable again, and yes, we still have a TV in our house.  I guess, for me, the loss of daily lifeless TV viewing showed me many other areas in my life where minutes and hours are wasted. With all the new things we keep adding to our busy lives, are there other pointless things I can remove? Can I find a better balance of the time wasters and non-essentials and cut them out?

I don't want my kids to see me (and mimic me!) as an apathetic person who passively goes about my day because I'm honestly too lazy to just get moving and do what needs to be done. I'm writing this because I am guilty. I'm a very far from perfect mom. In fact, just last week, in my son's first week of school, I inadvertently crashed a PTA Board Meeting (whoops!), then on Friday I sent him to school wearing a hat for hat day, then found out hat day is this Friday.  I make a mess of things on a regular basis.

A Lofty Goal.

We can't just work toward these self-improvement goals for the sake of simply bettering ourselves--shockingly it's not all about me.  This is a familiar verse that puts my mommy days into perspective: Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. (Philippians 2:3-4)

How does this apply to how I treat my family—specifically my kids. Will I listen to important little stories? Will I become someone who is serving out of the interest of others?  What changes can we make as we head into the Fall, a new year, to make memories with our little ones and take hold of each day?

Ring Ring...Back to School! What is the RIGHT Schooling Choice for my Child?

“It is what we think we know already that often prevents us from learning.”
~ Claude Bernard

As a student, did you ever wake up in a cold sweat—worried that you had forgotten an important assignment or failed to study for, say, a geometry test? <shudder> Nothing compares to the feeling of being ill-prepared. I have never been a good procrastinator. But whether you thrive on procrastination or whether you like to get all your ducks in a row like me, if you have kids, sooner or later you will have to make an important decision about school. And it's daunting.

If you have never been overwhelmed by the parenting choices you face, if you have only just begun, (Huggies or Pampers, Similac or Enfamil, Gerber or Beech Nut...) then your day is coming. Some pivotal decisions we face as parents are: where to school, how to school, why to school, when to school? Some may think it is an obvious choice, but perhaps it isn't so cut and dry.

From a quick bit of google searchy-searching, I discovered that about 11% of kids (6.1 million) are enrolled in private, including parochial, schools as of 2006. I also found that approximately 1.5 million children are home schooled, and that number is growing. In the span of eight years, home schooling has grown nationally by almost 75%. This leaves about 49.4 million students who attended public elementary and secondary schools in the fall of 2010.

As far as I know, these are our 3 options, and I'm going to attempt to explore them with you this week—mostly to keep my thoughts occupied since my baby is heading off to the big school this year! And since Kylee and I are just getting started in the school biz, I have enlisted a few amazing experts who have several kids in a variety of school settings to share their knowledge with us.

Before we really delve into our mommy testimonials, today I'm going to throw out a quick overview of PRE-school thoughts. We would love to get feedback from you, too!

Have answers.

First of all, if you don't know why you are choosing (or leaning toward) your preferred method of schooling for your child, then you should probably think about it now. When someone asks you “Why did you choose to send your child to ___ school?” it should not be followed by an awkward silence with crickets chirping. I understand that you may never be wholly confident that what you are choosing is the absolute best, you may even have doubts, but year by year and child by child you should have a reflective, intelligent answer for your choice.

In my opinion, it is never OK to send your child to any school, or homeschool, simply by default. For example, choosing to do something because your parents did it and because “I turned out OK!” is probably not a valid reason. My mom-expert-friends were all able to give me wonderfully thoughtful and valid reasons for each of their school choices even though they had placed their kids in 3 different school settings! If you have never really thought about it, or if your kids are still too young for school, it's time to think about it because trust me, it will be here before you know it.

Assume Nothing. Get Educated!

Do you think it is valid to send your child to a certain school or home school out of fear or lethargy? Is it wise to homeschool simply because I am frightened of what they might encounter in a large school setting? The answer from my expert panel revealed that this was not their answer. In another way is it fine to send my child off to school so that I can do what I want without having to create lesson plans at home or worry about grading my own child's schoolwork? None of my mom friends made the decision to send their children to school simply because they didn't want to be stuck with their kids all day or because they worried about scarring them for life.

Don't assume that your friends are homeschooling because they are scared, and don't assume your friends are sending their kids off to school because they are lazy. If you get down to it, that is most likely not the case!

I love what my friend Sue (mommy of 5!) told me here: “We decided to home school a few years ago for some of the earlier years of our kids' schooling. But I just want to make it clear that I don't put God in a box and we don't think He calls all Christian families to home school. Just so that my reasoning doesn't come across as judgmental towards those who have chosen a different path I want to make that absolutely clear!”

Listening to my friends passionately express their reasons behind their schooling decisions has been wonderfully eye-opening, but it also makes our decision to choose that much harder!

Rising above stereotypes.

I want to devote this week to appreciating, respecting and learning from each other.

Kylee and her husband have chosen to homeschool her oldest son. My husband and I have chosen to send our oldest son to our local public school. I respect Kylee's decision, I know that it was made purposely, and I know that her son is receiving a great education and amazing experiences through having Kylee as his primary teacher in their home. In the same way, Kylee respects our decision to send our son to public school. We prayerfully and purposely made our decision as well, after many discussions with family members and mentors.  We will dig deeper into our own decision-making process later this week!

In the end, our response should be that each family is making a decision based on prayer and research, and we should respect their decision. We don't know what next week holds, let alone five to ten years from now. Hopefully none of us says, “I'll never choose THAT route for schooling!” because kids change, circumstances change, and I certainly don't hold a crystal ball to predict what the future holds; I'm assuming you don't either.

As Joe Fox said, "The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self." Hopefully in the next few days we will be able to talk through many of the options: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino--to present the 3 choices, perhaps to clarify your decision, or perhaps to open your perspective to the other moms like you!




**Follow up links to posts:
To Skip Straight to our post on Homeschooling, go HERE. 
To learn more about Public Schooling, go HERE.
For our discussion on Private (Christian) Schooling, go HERE.
And for some final conclusions, go HERE.

The Root of the Matter.

There's never a good time for a root canal. I can think of about a billion other places I'd rather be sitting on a Monday afternoon than in the squeaky, plastic covered chair of an oral surgeon, but when pain wins out and teeth are dead, options are limited.

As a mom, it is especially difficult to run around to several dentist appointments in one day, sitting in chairs and receiving numbing shots. Thankfully my husband had the day off work, so while I sat in the last chair for close to an hour with my mouth forced open by plastic and rubber, wearing protective glasses to keep the shards of tooth and powder from spraying down my throat and into my eyes, I couldn't help thinking how silly I looked and how incredibly uncomfortable and awkward the whole thing is. And I honestly kept looking to my side, wondering if there was a tank full of colorful talking fish, offering advice on how the dentist should proceed.

During my hour of conscious “thinking time” while I ignored the chatter about drill sizes and cotton and the ever-present smell of nauseating antiseptics, I eventually found a happy place. I remembered that the previous Monday I had been in a different chair—an expensive cushioned chair, the chair that I visit four times a year.  Come to think of it I occasionally have my roots done there as well. That cushy chair smells like exotic shampoos and soothing oils; a chair where an expert gives me a relaxing scalp massage and nobody tells me I should floss more.

When at last the root canal was over and the last X-rays were taken, I sat up and checked myself out and paid the bill at the sterile counter. Then I fully realized that not only is it much less painful to have my roots done at Wisteria Salon, but it's a lot cheaper as well. In fact, I might be doing haircuts at home with safety scissors for a few years.

At any rate, I drove myself home with a numb, lop-sided face, filled my prescriptions, then came home to find my little guy was sick and my husband had already cleaned up one episode of the sick. I was reminded again that there is never a good time for a root canal.  (For instance, I had my first root canal as a freshman in high school when my tooth was knocked free during a Christmas Eve basketball practice. It was not ideal timing, and I have had a fake front tooth ever since.)

While the kids and I stayed inside for several days and licked our wounds, I realized more than ever how much my life resembles the book, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. I'm sure you know exactly what I'm talking about. It all starts with something simple, like my daughter asking me to draw with her at the easel. In order to get to the easel, I need to pick up 400 matchbox cars, which need to be organized by size and color. This allows me to find that long-lost yellow Uno Moo sheep that we couldn't find! I excitedly put the sheep away in the game box which makes me realize the game shelf is a mess, again. So I organize the games and in the meantime find a piece to the princess puzzle the kids started yesterday. Since we were only missing two pieces, this is great news. I place the piece in the puzzle and head back over to the easel to draw with my daughter, but then I notice the paper is unraveling on the ground, so I need a piece of tape to secure it. When I go to my drawer to find the tape I notice some coupons that are about to expire, and so on and so on.

I eventually ended up back in the toy room, marker in hand, facing the easel, sitting on a tiny yellow kid-craft folding chair with my knees scrunched up into my lap. As moms, we sit in a wide variety of all kinds of chairs throughout the week: perhaps you are currently sitting in the chair feeding a newborn baby and trying to catch a few minutes of precious sleep, or maybe you were just sitting in the chair in your minivan driving the kids to and from the store and piano lessons and school.  

And as much as I love a good recliner or those cushy chairs at Wisteria Salon, I'm pretty sure sometimes it's necessary to spend a few uncomfortable hours at the dentist to eliminate the root of the problem.  Since my tooth already feels 100X better than it did last week, maybe those chairs that cause some discomfort are ultimately what I need to take the root of the pain away. It's a stretch, but in another sense, spending a few minutes sitting in a tiny folding chair near an easel in the toy room while ignoring the mess in the room will be a lot more memorable for my daughter than if I spend the morning getting the house organized.  It's a lesson I seem to revisit daily.

So after a week of reflective recovery from our minor set-backs, I am heading into the weekend ready to plop down on the many chairs of motherhood and sink my mended teeth into some strawberry Laffy Taffy. Just kidding Dr. Swinderman!! Just kidding.  And for those who have never had a root canal, I leave you with a link to this video of what you are missing. Enjoy......

Now, most dentist's chairs go up and down, don't they? The one I was in went back and forwards. I thought 'This is unusual'. And the dentist said to me 'Mr Vine, get out of the filing cabinet. ~Tim Vine

Froggy Days and a Funky Fridge

Last week I spent too much time waiting for the storms. 

Every morning when I woke up it was foggy (or froggy as Maddy says) and when I checked the ever-frustrating and rarely accurate Doppler map it told me emphatically that the rains were coming. They were coming at 9:43 a.m. and again at 1:15 p.m. with varying showers in between.

After several days of green, yellow and red speckled Doppler maps, we stared out through the windows into cloudy skies and waited. We played inside games—puzzles and coloring books and once or twice a few wet drops touched the ground. We heard the distant rumble of storms brewing, but they rarely hit. At the end of each day I found myself feeling silly for planning so much of our day around Doppler predictions when we could have been running through the sprinkler under overcast skies.

Sometimes I am over-zealous in my mommy preparedness, which can be a good thing when someone completely soils an outfit (I have extra) or when I need that additional packet of secret snacks. But sometimes, as over-zealous as I am, crazy things still happen. We run out of toilet paper or hand soap or lunch meat or I manage to burn brownies (yes, brownies!) to a complete crisp. Or even worse.

Last Wednesday I began smelling something funky in the kitchen. It was driving me crazy. Every time I opened the refrigerator door I dove in face-first like a hound dog removing item by item and throwing away anything questionable. I deep-cleaned the fridge recently, so I couldn't figure out what in the world smelled so raunchy. I checked every dairy item, I took out shelves and washed them, I threw out potatoes that were probably fine. I convinced myself something had crawled behind the fridge and died. Something like a gigantic possum with rabies. It was horrible.

Finally, later that night, with help from my hound-dog husband, I pulled out the one and only meat item in the fridge (again) and we both almost fell over. It was a packet of ribs that was well within the labeled expiration date and had looked and seemingly smelled completely fine earlier in the day when I checked it. However when I pulled it out that night it was half green and completely rancid. I immediately ran outside and hurled it into the trash can. As I opened a fresh box of baking soda and cleaned everything (again) we realized that the meat had gone bad several days earlier while said husband had thawed the fridge for a few hours to correct a frozen water line in the freezer. Duh.

How do these things happen? I am reminded once again that I am a mommy, not a Boy Scout. It's impossible for me to be prepared for every single thing, and even when I attempt to plan my day by scouting weather maps or packing perfect lunches or keeping everything in the fridge from ever spoiling, it will still happen occasionally.

At any rate, last week we learned that it's OK to plan a pool day or a park day even when the Doppler is showing inevitable rains. The Doppler might be wrong (gasp!), and even if the showers hit us in the middle of our trip, a nice summer soak in refreshing rain is good for the soul every now and then. 

As for spoiled, stinky meat in the fridge, I learned that if you suspect the meat is stinky, if nothing else in the fridge looks stinky, and even if you have put the meat to your face and inhaled deeply and have convinced yourself the meat is not stinky in any way, it is still the meat.  Even if the expiration date is fine and the color is fine, you may end up going back several hours later to discover green meat and the smell of a dead possum that has burrowed deep into the bottom drawer of your fridge.  

I will leave you with a thought from William Feather--I know nothing of his credentials, but I appreciate this sentiment and I think the name William Feather is incredibly fun and poetic.  He said, "Some people are making such thorough preparation for rainy days that they aren't enjoying today's sunshine." Enjoy your fleeting summer days, whether it's rainy outside, or stinky inside!

How I Let My Preschooler TP the Bathroom.

My 3-year-old always wants to help. We all know Preschooler Help usually means extra work for Mommy...hello, water on the floor. again.

Yet, the trade-off (I keep reminding myself!) is that these opportunities teach her initiative, how to work hard, and to have a servant's heart.

It can be challenging to find manageable tasks for a 2- or 3-year old, especially when they want to do big jobs they see an older sibling trusted with. But it's sweet to see that the simplest little things are very satisfying accomplishments for her! Her Important Job...that she takes Very Seriously...is stacking the toilet paper in the bathroom cabinet.

The average adult could do this in 42 seconds. For a preschooler with limited efficiency skills, this is a good 15-minutes of work. She typically opens the new TP package in the next room and then brings one roll at a time to the bathroom and stacks them meticulously. It's exhausting to watch, and yes, another opportunity for teaching...the subject of Time-Saving Tips!

Some other jobs that she helps with include: emptying the silverware rack from the dishwasher, wiping down baseboards with a damp rag, collecting the trash bags from bathrooms, folding clean washcloths and towels, bringing her laundry hamper to the laundry room, putting away some groceries/toiletries after shopping trip, folding the dinner napkins and setting the table.

As I try to welcome my kids' offers of help and allow them to share in the work, I am sometimes tempted to fix things after they finish and run off to play. A mentor once challenged me to NOT redo a job after my child's not-exactly-perfect-attempt. They will notice! If I re-make their bed or re-fold the towels, I send them the message that their best isn't good enough. I thought that was such great advice.

Someday my linen closet will have flat, neatly stacked towels again. Right now, a little lumpy is just fine!

How about your home...what chores do your little ones like to help with? Any creative jobs that you have given to them??

You Say Potato, I Say Mr. Potato Head.

The toy pick of the week around here goes to Mr. Potato head. He isn't new or fancy, but sometimes the best toys are the ones that wait in the toy box for a month (or year) until that special time when a little one discovers the toy for him or herself. Let's face it, we can't force our kids to immediately love every new toy we throw in front of them.  


My little guy was digging through the toys this week and was suddenly in love with Mr. Potato head. He is a fan of Toy Story, so it makes sense that he would love this nostalgic toy that has already withstood the test of time.  My big kids--ages 4 and 5, also love changing things around on Mr. Potato head.  If you want to read all about the history of this great toy, check this out.  


The great thing about Mr. Potato head is that he can play along as a main character in any Toy Story your kids may create on their own, but he can also be used as a refresher course to identify face and body parts since they are fun, and removable. 


My little guy loved pointing out the hat, shoes, arms, eyes, mouth, teeth, etc.  I also try to double up on learning moments when they arise during playtime by also throwing in some color training (ex. blue shoes, green hat, pink ears.)  Some kids aren't willing to sit and go through 50 flashcards or board books when they have so much toddler energy, but they think it is fun to learn when they are playing with a toy. Mr. Potato head is also another great small-motor skill developer for those little ones, and also the big guys!  Many other toys out there have these same learning capabilities, but for us this week, the award goes to Mr. Potato head!