Photos After a Fire

My brother-in-law came to visit during Christmas. We both are interested in photography, so we took the opportunity to go to Black Forest and shoot photos in the fire area. Even though my husband has been there often for work, this was my first visit since the fire in June. We even had some friends stay at our house while they were evacuated. Their house was fine, but I've never had time to venture into the burn area. My heart goes out to all the people who lost their homes. This was so amazingly tragic.

However, for me it was also a good time to get away from the ordinary, be creative and collaborate. Here are few of my photos.

Playing with my little girl

Mia: "You are a monster. I will kill you."
After being hacked to pieces by her sword, and some moaning dying sounds from me...there is a moment of silence.
Mia: "You aren't a monster anymore. You are a giraffe.
But you are nice."
She turns around and flounces out of the room in her Tinkerbell costume.

I'm left stunned. I just went through a whole range of monster/animal makeovers and suffered a hideous death. Now I'm nice?? It's so confusing.

Cleaning

The microwave was disgusting. For a long time. I finally got around to cleaning it after a bowl of chili exploded. It was so bad I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I know, I know…I’m supposed to have a system of cleaning that helps me stay on top of things. And over all I think I’m better at keeping my house clean than I used to be. *scary* But there are still some things that I just don’t do well.

This morning I got a piece of bread stuck in the toaster. As I moved it, I saw the huge mess under, around, and in the toaster. Umm, I guess I should move it out a little more often.

My dresser is a dumping ground for many things without a home or in-transit. But somehow they get stuck there and stay for months on end until I get motivated to clean it off and find homes, or the trash, for those things. And it usually only takes a few minutes. Why don’t I just take care of it sooner? *sigh*

I think part of the problem is that I get dirty-spot blindness. Once an item has been set where it doesn’t belong, and it stays there for 24 hours, I no longer see it. It melts into the décor and I don’t notice it anymore. Until I deliberately stop to take stock and see how awful everything has become. But I’m not beating myself up about it; that is just the way I roll.

My husband and I joke that it’s a good thing when we have guests come over because it requires us to clean up. So if you get invited to our house, it might be for my selfish need to clean.

Emotional Wrecks

The kids were very emotional yesterday. I’m not sure why. I *think* it was because of a busy weekend. But we often have busy weekends. And on Sunday night we made sure to get them home and to bed on-time and with a normal routine. Yet yesterday, they were very sensitive. It might have just been a case of being a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old. Who knows.

One minute they would be playing nicely, then…tears and blood-curdling screams. Because “he won’t use the right color marker”, or “she is playing with her babydoll and I don’t want her to”. Seriously. There was no blood, everyone had their appendages. Just two kids who were feeling strong emotions and didn’t know what to do with them.

To see a funny blog about kids crying: Reasons My Son is Crying

A friend of mine gave me a book about the emotional life of a toddler, but I haven’t read it yet. Mostly I just roll my eyes (when they can’t see me) and let them work it out. That usually results in hitting, possible blood-shed, time outs, and more tears. Sigh. Maybe I should read that book. 

Just a little more sleep

I know it was my fault.

I was laying in bed thinking about my friend who recently had a baby. I told myself that I needed to journal about what it was like to have a newborn because I am starting to forget.

Now that we have a 4-year-old and a 2-year-old, things are different than they were, well, 2 years ago. They eat solid food, they can tell me what they want or need (although they don’t make the distinction), they are not wearing diapers (except at night), and they play together without my supervision without killing each other (most of the time). And, my children now usually sleep through the night.

Usually.

Well, sure enough, about 20 minutes after I said those fateful words, my daughter started crying. So, I went in to soothe her and get her tucked back in. I was back in my bed for about 20 minutes – you know, long enough to just be starting to fall back to sleep – when she started crying again. And coughing. Ugg. My husband fled the room in hopes of getting some sleep in a quieter part of the house. So I brought M&M into bed with me. I thought that if she could sleep with me that she would be so comfortable that she would sleep soundly. That didn’t happen. I was constantly being kicked, rolled on, nudged over, and then there was the coughing and snoring. She is only 2 years old, how can she make so much noise?!? So I don’t think I really got any decent sleep all night. I now totally remember what it was like to have a newborn. Thank you very much; I’d rather forget.

With babies back-to-back, it was about 3 years of little to no sleep. That is something the books don’t tell you. They like to lure you in with the promise/hope that your baby will sleep through the night by 6-8 weeks old. I read that even if you have a ‘needy’ child he should be sleeping through the night by 10 weeks. Well, I either did something wrong (I tried everything), or the books are wrong (I have met more families with similar scenarios to ours than those with good sleepers), or my expectations were wrong (8 weeks, really???) because my children didn’t sleep through the night until over 14 months old. That is MONTHS not weeks. And it is still not a guarantee that they will sleep all night. Every night we talk (plead, beg, lay-down-the-law) to our daughter about staying asleep all night. We even got a clock, which changes color in the morning when they can get out of bed. It helps. I can often hear her wake up, but she doesn’t usually cry anymore, she just stays in bed until the clock turns green.

I’m glad for this new phase of life. A life with a little more sleep. I didn’t say a lot more sleep, I know that is not likely to happen. Just a little more...

Kids Food

Today I’m playing with the new toys I got for Christmas. I received some fun bento cutters to make cute shapes out of veggies, etc to add to my kids’ lunches (or bananas to my husband’s breakfast, like this morning). Previously I had tried to make my own shapes with just a knife, but these cutters are so much easier to use.

It will be fun to see all the things I can come up with. I have some inspiration on my Pinterest board to keep me going. 

The Day After...

There is a conspiracy to keep me from writing. As soon as I find a few minutes to sit down there is some new tragedy to attend to. Today it happened toward the end of lunch…I was done eating but my children (especially the male child) were still picking around on their plates using their best stall tactics. So I thought I would do some writing while they finished up. But as soon as I got my computer out, one of them spilled his milk. 

All over his chair. 

And the wall. 

After I got that cleaned up then there were requests for more food. Then one had to go to the bathroom – with assistance, of course. But finally all settled down so I could pound out a few words.

This morning was quiet… as far as there was very little talking and very little fighting (yay!), but it was filled with lots of new noises from the new toys and frequent asking if they could have more special treats (aka Chocolate). They have had so many sweets in the last few days that they now think it is normal and complain when I don’t give into their incessant pleas to keep the sugar high going. But even with the greatly reduced amount of sugar (or perhaps because of it), It was such a good day for them to be at home just exploring their new treasures. The last few days were a bit overwhelming for them as they spent so much time with family and opening the presents. Even though they enjoy it, it is a bit stressful. They are in their dress-up clothes, everyone is watching them, there are sooo many gifts, there are too many sweets, and they have to pose for too many pictures. Today they get to stay in their PJs and really take the time to play with everything.

And I get to linger over my cup of tea and catch up on Facebook and email.

But because of all their playing there are now toys EVERYWHERE. They will play with something for awhile, then walk into another room or just turn around and suddenly they see something else new. So the last hot item is discarded and traded for the new widget. This is not a recipe for a clean house. But since they are having so much fun I will not make them clean up until naptime. Then the challenge will be to find space for everything. I will have to purge their old toys soon.

I’m also loving listening to the Blue Plate Special today. I’m ready to pack away the Christmas music for this year. I’m also packing away a note of things to remember next year. Like how many cards to order, things that went well this year, and things to not do again.