…but he will sleep with anyone.  Just let him snuggle and he will beg to sleep with you. Only one pillow necessary.

Piper’s and Wesley’s birthdays are a month apart and they are young enough that I was able to throw one party for them this year.  In fact, being the younger kids with winter birthdays, they’ve only had family and playgroup parties.  So this year, I decided to go big and throw them a joint birthday party at Jump Planet with all the kids they actually know and play with, which  means play group, neighbors, and church (many of the kids from friendships Dwayne and I have had before anyone of us were dating each other—so cool our friends’ kids are our kids’ friends!)

So happy birthday, my beloved children.

 

 

And our official non-cake eater!  Isn’t she darling? 

My neighbor gave me the best compliment:  “Wow, the kids exercised for an hour, ate a really healthy dinner, and now don’t want to leave because they are reading books.  That’s a good party!”  I blushed and stammered and beamed.

A few weeks ago, Kyla’s Daisy troop went to our local fire station for a tour.  I loved it!  Okay, the kids did, too, but it was seriously awesome, even when the handsomest of the fire fighters left on a call. 

Isn’t it cool how they leave their boots inside their pants, all ready to put on in mere seconds?  I think I want to do this.

 

 

I wish Wesley would have sat in the engine for a picture, but that boy can be adamant, especially at 2pm and he’s sleepy.

 

 

What a great Girl Scout Experience!

Wesley inherited a nursery that was decorated before we even knew that Kyla was a girl.  For his third birthday, I wanted to give him a big kid room and really clear out all the baby stuff.

I forgot to take pictures but I trolled old posts to find a few glimpses of the baked scone-and-sage-green room with sagier trim.   

 

This was the last room with a popcorn ceiling and it’s days were numbered. After all, I had scrapped, retextured, and repainted 5 (5!!) separate popcorn ceilings in our home and this one was the smallest.

 

I don’t know what went wrong. 

I started on a Thursday night and planned that the ceiling and all the walls, and most of the trim work would be done by end of Sunday. 

 

I was still working on the 3rd ceiling re-do on Tuesday.  Papa Jim had to be called in and his only suggestion was to mud the damn thing and start again.  It was the absolutely worst idea out there, except all the ones I came up with.  I mudded, sanded, mudded, sanded, sanded, primed, textured, touched up, primed, then painted first and second coat.  Was I happy?  Not with myself.  But, for being more work that all the other ceilings combined, it turned out the best.  Which means exactly this:  You will never, never notice the ceiling in that room.  A perfect ceiling (outside of the Sistine Chapel, of course)is a non-entity. 

I had noodled on the new color for a month or so, wavering between the blue or green family.  Wesley wanted all the colors he saw in the paint chip aisle.  But finally he began insisting on a red room and the light bulb lit up.  I love red!  And a bright, cheerful red would be just the right…accent.  I found a brownish linen color that made a good neutral background for dinosaurs and then did floor and ceiling trim in fire engine red.  And the dinosaur lamp and bedding set I found (used, of course) each had the same primary red in them. 

This

 

became this (SIL Julie made the kids each their own growth chart. Isn’t this one cool?)

I have since cleaned up the closet (no more empty paint cans, etc) but his small room really opened up once his dresser was put into the “wardrobe area”.  I’ll keep the doors off for now, but I think I would like to add trim around the closet to make it pop.

 

I searched for weeks for a play rug on craigslist and what found was outrageous—$40 to $200!  Then I found out that Ikea sells them for $14.95.  I sucked it up and bought it new.  It’s been a hit for the kids AND it hides the spot where Wesley emptied out the acid wart medicine last year.

My best find, though, was this bookshelf.  Ikea, again, but off craigslist for $80.  Not exactly a steal, but a fantastic accessory! 

And because there were so many straight lines in the room, I wanted to add some curves.  I took part of an 1/8” plywood board leftover from a flooring project at the cabin and made it into this chalkboard blob.

 

 

There is only one thing hanging on his wall so far—a cut out from the birthday wrapping paper Dwayne drew for him.  Cute, huh?

 

I have just a few things I want to add:  we have a bedframe down in the garage that I’ve been saving for Wesley’s big kid bed since he was born but haven’t dragged it out yet.  The blue blinds that are splattered with oil-based texture and have several permanently bent slats really, really need to go.   And those bare walls are just waiting for some din0 decals or posters or something.  I’ll be looking around…

Thanks for stopping by!

Last week, a few bugs hit our household.  We’ve all been down with something or other for the last eight days.  Our world usually follows  a pattern—Daddy gets the sickest, Mama gets the least, and the kids all get something in between.  It was going like this for the first several days, then Mama Got Sick.

This  is what I looked like by the end of Day 3.  I had lost 10 pounds, which sounds great but not           really a good look on me.  Scrawny and weak, nauseous and green, hair unkempt, frizzy and gray-streaked, wrinkles and zits (genetics gave me a great metabolism but lousy skin), I crawled between bed and couch and bathroom. 

 

 

 

Actually, this is what I really looked like, at least to my children. (That’s a target, not a graphic picture of my insides.)

Here’s my parenting philosophy addendum:  I am my kids’ target. 

I am a busy, active mom.  I flit here and there and do this project and clean that mess and take that out and put this away.  Not intentionally, I have become a perpetual moving target.  When I stop moving—for three days—I am a sitting duck and my children can’t help themselves.  They pile on, elbows in my gut, knees pinning my hair, wanting to read, to play, to talk, to sing, to beg a video (or five).  Or to take their half out of the middle of my pillow, wiping yellow snot on my cheek or bedding. Finally, they had a mama who they could catch at any time with no great effort on their part. 

I could either feel guilty about this (but why bother?  I’m a good mom and they get plenty of attention) or realize that I need to get my strength back so I can start running from them again!  I think we all better for the exercise!

Bucket Head is fully potty-trained!

And he’s trained, not me.  In fact, if I ever ask him if he has to go, it’s more likely to start a power struggle that I am going to lose.  It’s taken me a month,  but now that I’ve stopped asking, he takes care of everything himself.  He’ll be in pull-ups at night for a while yet, probably, but since he sleeps for almost 12 hours a night, I am more than okay with that.

I’ve been diapering kids for over 6 years now, and for a  few months after Wesley was born, I had three kids in diapers.  (The girls pooped trained  on their own, but were very relunctant to give up diapers.  Fine with me—easier to change wet diapers at my convenience than to potty train while nursing a newborn!) So other than still needing to remind all three kids to wash their hands, I am totally done with diapers.  And no, those 6+ years did not fly by.

Time to sell some cloth diapers on Craigslist!

*    *   *   *   *   *   *

And just a few gender-musings.  Wesley talked much earlier than his sisters and potty-trained about a year to a year-and-a-half earlier than Piper or Kyla.  But he will probably be sucking those two fingers when he studying for the SATs. 

By the calendar, Wesley turned 3 yesterday, but it was more convenient have his birthday today.

We began by taking our first trip to the local roller rink.  I’ve always loved roller blading and the kids all have their own skates, thanks to Santa.

Smart phones and disco lights do not produce good snapshots, but here’s proof of our being there.  Towards the end, even Wesley was skating on his own, loving being able to skate towards me on the rink!

 

We went to Gramma and Papa’s new house to have a family party.  Wesley wanted his menu to include dinosaur, but he got salmon instead.

 

But his wish came through on his cake!  I asked Julie if she would make the birthday cake (chocolate!!) if I took her kids as often as I could. She rocked the cake, though she disagrees.  Check it out:  dinosaurs and candy bars.  And it was yummy!

 

 

Dinosaurs aplenty, Dinosaurs galore!  I found this cute hoodie for him.  He loves it.  Happy Birthday, Wesley!  I’ll try not to sell you this year.

My good friend sent me this mom’s blog post which actually sounds like something I might rant about.  The biggest change I would make is that, I am sitting here, 15 feet away from my kids, because I am too lazy to get up and I much prefer talking to my friends or reading than being at the beck-and-call of three kids who’ve I’ve already scheduled my day around.  

Just wanted to take myself out of the running for Mom-of-the-Year early.

(Actually, I don’t mean that, since I parent fairly deliberately even when I appear to be ignoring my children.)

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Please Don’t Help My Kids

Posted on September 14, 2012 at 12:06 am

by Kate Bassford Baker

 

Dear Other Parents At The Park:

Please do not lift my daughters to the top of the ladder, especially after you’ve just heard me tell them I wasn’t going to do it for them and encourage them to try it themselves.

I am not sitting here, 15 whole feet away from my kids, because I am too lazy to get up. I am sitting here because I didn’t bring them to the park so they could learn how to manipulate others into doing the hard work for them. I brought them here so they could learn to do it themselves.

They’re not here to be at the top of the ladder; they are here to learn to climb. If they can’t do it on their own, they will survive the disappointment. What’s more, they will have a goal and the incentive to work to achieve it.

In the meantime, they can use the stairs. I want them to tire of their own limitations and decide to push past them and put in the effort to make that happen without any help from me.

It is not my job — and it is certainly not yours — to prevent my children from feeling frustration, fear, or discomfort. If I do, I have robbed them of the opportunity to learn that those things are not the end of the world, and can be overcome or used to their advantage.

If they get stuck, it is not my job to save them immediately. If I do, I have robbed them of the opportunity to learn to calm themselves, assess their situation, and try to problem solve their own way out of it.

It is not my job to keep them from falling. If I do, I have robbed them of the opportunity to learn that falling is possible but worth the risk, and that they can, in fact, get up again.

I don’t want my daughters to learn that they can’t overcome obstacles without help. I don’t want them to learn that they can reach great heights without effort. I don’t want them to learn that they are entitled to the reward without having to push through whatever it is that’s holding them back and *earn* it.

Because — and this might come as a surprise to you — none of those things are true. And if I let them think for one moment that they are, I have failed them as a mother.

I want my girls to know the exhilaration of overcoming fear and doubt and achieving a hard-won success.

I want them to believe in their own abilities and be confident and determined in their actions.

I want them to accept their limitations until they can figure out a way past them on their own significant power.

I want them to feel capable of making their own decisions, developing their own skills, taking their own risks, and coping with their own feelings.

I want them to climb that ladder without any help, however well-intentioned, from you.

Because they can. I know it. And if I give them a little space, they will soon know it, too.

So I’ll thank you to stand back and let me do my job, here, which consists mostly of resisting the very same impulses you are indulging, and biting my tongue when I want to yell, “BE CAREFUL,” and choosing, deliberately, painfully, repeatedly, to stand back instead of rush forward.

Because, as they grow up, the ladders will only get taller, and scarier, and much more difficult to climb. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather help them learn the skills they’ll need to navigate them now, while a misstep means a bumped head or scraped knee that can be healed with a kiss, while the most difficult of hills can be conquered by chanting, “I think I can, I think I can”, and while those 15 whole feet between us still feels, to them, like I’m much too far away.