I spent a good part of the day picking up and organizing around here. Nothing too serious but I got to the bottom of a number of surfaces I haven't seen in weeks. At least. The office/bedroom remodel and swap was a big project and we went into it after a stretch of being sick and craziness so it feels like things have been a crazy mess forever. With a place for most things and a bit of puttering around, we made great strides. We have serious piles to organize, sort, donate, give away, trash in he basement. There is still tremendous effort required down there but it is great to have our living spaces cleared out and picked up. The new office is mostly there and is cozy and pleasant. It is all such and improvement I can hardily believe it took us this long to come up with a plan and change things.

When Henry was born, he slept with us or in a co-sleeper and then a crib, and later a bed, in our room. Then Mia was born and slept in our room, as did Henry until she was about 6 months old. So, we have been sharing our bedroom with a baby or toddler or both for 4.5 years. I have no complaints and wasn't thinking about rushing Mia out of our room but I have to say that I am unexpectedly thrilled to have our room back. I think I am sleeping better even thought they are just cross the hall and I can hear most noises they make. Mia finishing with diapers allowed us to get rid of the changing table and diaper pail, cloth diaper set up, etc. Without the crib and changing table, the room seems so much more spacious and, best of all, it gives me a nice, quiet, tv-free space in the evenings after the kids are asleep to do whatever I please. I'm not sure exactly what that is yet but I expect it includes reading, yoga, meditating, doing cross-word puzzles, finally organizing my closets and drawers, perhaps even talking on the phone. So, now I am off to sleep in my spacious room, resting on a bit of domestic satisfaction.

.

perspective

I'm feeling a little sad at the moment about how very difficult the world is for so may people. There should not be starving babies or kids without mommies. Or daddies for that matter. But there are. I am feeling sad and trying to figure out how I can be more helpful to others. I also have a lot of perspective at the moment on how very small and insignificant my "problems" really are. I know that I will always have difficult moments appreciating what I have in front of me. It's inevitable. But right now I am vowing like I never have before to try. Every day. Really hard. Until I don't have to try so hard anymore.

over achiever

I mentioned briefly some time ago that Mia was potty training herself. I have since thought of cute little related anecdotes and then failed to post them. Who really wants to hear about potty training anyway? A few weeks ago I would have just said that Mia did indeed potty train herself at 21 months and did a bang up job of it. She went from refusing to wear diapers to consistently peeing on the potty within a couple of days. She is a champ at public restrooms and doesn't seem to have any hang-ups. Amazing. Pooping on the potty took another week to get down and that was it for a few weeks. No accidents at nap time and sometimes she is dry all night (but in a diaper). I had to search for small enough underwear for her and a lot of her pants fall down without a diaper.

Then, since last weekend she has been having some random pee accidents. I knew it was too good to be true (trust me, I KNOW how lucky we are) but it's still far from bad. It is odd though to be going through the whole process with a chid who can't yet formulate a sentence. Still, my little girl is strong-willed and determined and a champion of mastering her bodily functions. This I know for sure.

In the first day or two she would sit on the toilet for up to 20 minutes just singing and talking. Here, Henry kept her company with her favorite Old MacDonald song.
Not to worry, she was fully clothed on the chair. She climbed up there herself with the potty on the first day we brought it up from the basement.

futile

I fully realize how silly and pointless it is to get annoyed at the weather but if it really snows again tomorrow I am not going to be a happy camper. It is too cold and too gray. I know to expect it this time of year here but it often gets to me nonetheless. This year it is really doing me in. What I wouldn't give for a little sunshine.

back to work

I was supposed to do a lot of work tonight (at home in front of the computer) but Henry fell asleep in the car this afternoon and, as predicted, took two hours to fall asleep. Much of that time he needed me since it would have been hell to try to put him to sleep with Mia so I put him in our bed. I should have just let him stay up for those 2 hours but I didn't. As I laid there, wishing he would just stop asking questions and go to sleep already, I composed cute little, well-crafted anecdote about each child from the last few days. Now, I am left with no time for that so here are the key pieces, the punch-lines if you will.

Today Henry called a SUV a USB. Ha. Raising kids in a world of technology and acronyms. Crazy.

Yesterday Mia put a bowl full of wooden mouse game pieces in the little toy kitchen oven. She closed the door, turned the dials, looked up at me and said, "cook. mice." and nodded. Genius? Maybe. Evil? Possibly. Adorable? Definitely.

end of the line

After one kid waking up at 5 am and the other waking up later with a fever and stomach ache and not going to school and a long day of working in from of my computer and a hectic bedtime with two kids who didn't want to sleep, I think I am done for the day. I am actually going to bed before 8 pm. I may not be asleep for hours but at least I won't be cleaning or typing of editing PowerPoint presentations or doing the laundry, and right now, that's really all that matters.

normal

The kids came home from my parents' house this morning and the rest of the day was pretty normal. They were both sweet and remarkably sane considering the transition. I can't believe how much we got done this weekend and how much more relaxed I feel. I am almost looking forward to the routine of the week. Henry is back to school after a week off and I have a really busy week at work ahead. It shouldn't be too hard but I am already not looking forward to the volume of things I must get through. I am ready to stop thinking so much and worrying about how things are going to work out. I have got to figure out how to really live in the moment more. I have been working on it for a long time but never seem to hold onto it for very long. Life just moves too fast, which is really all the more reason to just take it as it comes.

peace

The kiddos ended up spending another night at my parents. And while we miss them and spend much time talking about them, it is nice to have a break. The house seems empty and quiet even thought they would be fast asleep here at this time of night. Jason and I cleaned and organized our new office, went out to lunch and did some little errands this afternoon. On the way home I noticed how calm I felt. As sweet and fun and great as our kids are, they are also a lot of work. Doing much of anything with them takes a large amount of energy, attention, and focus. I like having a little time and distance on occasion to enjoy the calm and quiet but also to miss them.

silence

The kids are spending the night with my parents and I am off to bed for a long night's sleep. I expect I will wake up at 6am anyway but I will then go back to sleep. I am giddy just thinking about it. That is all.

just because

crazy

I am feeling totally off and weirded out because an insane neighbor from the street behind us came over and literally started screaming at me on my front porch. Never mind that I was holding Mia and my friend was just leaving and trapped by her on the porch. First she sped around the corner, parked her car and walked down our driveway to the back yard like she owned the place before stomping up to my front door. She ranted and raved about our dog barking and how we have to train her or have her debarked because she sounds like she's from the pit of hell. I am actually laughing a bit now as I put that last bit in writing, which is a welcome relief.

Yes, my dog barks but she is outside for very short periods of the day and if she gets too hyped up we bring her in. She is a beagle and she sniffs and bays. Really though, she sleeps the vast majority of the day and is in bed for the night by 8pm. This neighborhood is full of dogs, many of whom bark much more frequently. I have had my own issues with the constantly yapping little dogs that live 5 feet from the head of our bed but I had a respectful conversation with our neighbor and we worked some things out. I would have been happy to have a civil conversation with the woman but when I asked her to calm down and talk she yelled "NO!"

I am actually quite accommodating and often do more than I should to make other people happy. If she had given me half a chance I would have probably committed to doing more than was reasonable to make her life easier. Instead, she threw out a bunch of lies about how we leave dee dee outside when we leave (never, ever!) and the like and when I calmly tried to explain reality to her she just yelled that I was lying. What. The. Fuck. Seriously, we have good relationships with everyone on our street and the neighbors who were out across the street, with their little kids and Henry who heard all of this, said they almost called the police.

I did call the police, after the fact. I just wanted to see what I should do to document the incident incase it escalates. His first question was "did you close the door?" No, I tried to engage her for far too long. He recommended just closing the door and said "that's the beauty of living in the United States, you don't have to deal with crazy people at your door." Hmmm. I hadn't thought of it like that but, okay. I looked into the animal control (her threat) rules, which I already knew from my own previous research, and there is no way in hell we are in violation. The nut also kept yelling about how she had come to talk to me a year ago, when really, she and her (stinking) drunk boyfriend came over and walked into our back gate (6+ foot fence) and started slurring about all of the dog barking. At the time our next door neighbor's dog did bark a lot when left home alone and we thought they were just mixed up and crazy.

Now I think she is just crazy and crazy and I am a little nervous she is going to do something scary. Someone who goes up to a stranger's house and just yells for 10 minutes straight without even an interest in a discussion is unstable and not someone I ever want to see again. Unfortunately, I can see her house from here. The thing that really pisses me off is how crappy I now feel and that Henry keeps asking me "why that lady came over and yelled at you."

much too much

I'm too sick and tired to write much and I've already stayed up way too late watching unimportant tv shows. Another one of those things you never think about before having kids is the luxury to just be sick and take care of yourself. Sure, work is an issue and I used to have a few other obligations but when I needed a sick day I could take it without having to take care of the health, happiness and minute-by-minute complaints and desires of two little people. I should be used to it by now but I'm not sure I'll ever be any better at feeling crummy and attending to the needs of others to such a degree. Off to bed it is and I will sleep with my fingers crossed that no one needs me in the middle of the night and high hopes for feeling better in the morning.

dragging

Illness has caught up with me once again this winter. I feel like we must get sick more than most but then I look around at everyone else I know with kids in preschool and they are in the same boat. I've heard much worse than my sinus cold is going around so I guess I should feel lucky. I took a sick day and actually slept all morning for the first time in as long as I can remember. It would have been nice minus the pounding headache.

A common interaction I have with Mia:

me: say "hen"
mia: hen
me: say "re"
mia: we
me: say "henry"
mia: hiya

She has been calling Henry "hiya" for months now. Speaking of Henry, I asked him to bring me the phone this morning to call my office and he said he would talk to Heidi for me if I didn't feel like it. I told him I would have to leave a message, which he will never do, and he said, "when I said talk to her I meant I would leaver her a message." Okay. I didn't expect him to follow through as sweet as the offer but I called and after the beep he said, "Sorry, Heidi. Mom is sick and can't come to office to work today." So cute I could have died.

curious

Mia has developed a curious verbal habit ever since I said the word "chippie" when asking if she wanted chips. Henry repeated it and chips became chippies. Baby talk essentially. Yet another reminder that I must watch what I say at all times around both kiddos.The funny thing is that without any other model she does it for most words. Hat is hattie, hot is hottie, drink is drinkie, ball is ballie. Sometimes. That's the thing I find interesting. She says words correctly sometimes and adds the ie for the same words other times. Even for a word she has never heard before, she will repeat it back with the ie tacked on. To make things really interesting she can hardly pronounce s or c sounds. It took us all several minutes tonight to figure out that when she was repeating "ickie" with increasing frustration at dinner that she just wanted more chicken. In an instant I understood why she kept refusing the napkin I was trying to give her. Ickie indeed.

sigh

I am feeling better today. The dam of impediments to progress seems to have given way at least a bit. I just went live with a huge web project I have been working on for months and it feels good. It went up with little trouble and is such a joy to work with compared to our old site. I have been dealing with web store and credit card processing technical glitches for weeks and everything finally came together. It has all really been weighing on me and is such a relief. At home, we are starting to move into the new office and it is going to be quite nice. It is interesting how things are starting to come together on multiple fronts all at the same time. The kids are well-settled in their new room and have fallen asleep together for the past few nights with minimal protest. Hooray for progress! I spotted the card reader in the bathtub today so I will get to posting some photos of it all soon.

unlimited possibilities

I don't really believe that watching tv kills kid's imaginations but I have always found the argument that tv story lines limit the possibilities for imagination. The same can be said for books, really. In any case, here is little Henry anecdote that makes the point but, moreover, is just something cute I want to remember. I'm not sure it will come across in writing but here it is. henry was playing with our neighbor who is 5 and they were playing Star Wars. henry has never see it (or any movie really) and the neighbor kid, J, was telling him that there could only be one Darth Vader. henry was trying to explain that, "if we WANT there to be more than one Darth Vader then there can be. We can both be Darth Vader." J got increasingly agitated and started yelling that, "no! there can only be one Darth Vader. One! one! one! one! one! Henry looked slyly at our nanny and asked, "What is that? Five?" Already a smart ass at 4.5 but also just plain smart.

too much

I am tired, feeling a little sick and overwhelmed with the details of most aspects of my life. I know it's temporary but I can't pull myself out of fatigue for long enough to figure it all out. Too many things have been in progress for too long. It has to get better soon. It has to.

long day

I am tired. It has been a long day since Mia woke everyone up at 5:15 this morning. I am off to bed and simply sticking to my goal of posting everyday. I never said it would all be good. Off I go...

borrowed time

Or borrowed keyboard, rather. I killed mine last night with a glass of kombucha. I never have drinks near my computer but this whole temporary office dislocation led me to a bad choice. I dried it off as best I could and it seemed to work fine (the whole time I had a sinking feeling) for 15 minutes or so until it started making a loud noise non-stop. We searched for fixes and found some crazy instructions about putting a dirty keyboard in the dishwasher. I didn't try it but I did rinse it further, knowing it was probably shot anyway, to remove the sticky. I haven't been willing to pry off all of the low profile keys to dry it but a day later and nothing works at all. I had it plugged just to use the mouse tonight and then I got an alert that the USB device was drawing too much power and would be deactivated. Uh. Well. So, dead then. I guess I will be shelling out $50 tomorrow for one clumsy mistake. Jason just got home and will be headed for his computer so I am off to stir the granola in the oven and then get some sleep in my kid-free bedroom.

milestone

After 4 and a half years, we finally have our bedroom back, free of children that is. We have been moving things back into the new bedroom (former office) this weekend and both kids are sound asleep in their beds in their own room. Considering we have had one or both of them sleeping with us since Henry was born, it is a big change. They took a bit to settle down and Mia was pissed for a few minutes but it was all pretty easy and I think it will only get easier. Of course there will be new sleep challenges I'm sure but we always adapt. I feel a little sad that babyhood really is behind us but we have so much to enjoy at every stage that I am going to ignore the little bit of sadness and focus on the new and exciting.

weekend

On the way home from dinner in the car tonight, out of the blue, Henry said, "Mommy, I am going to name our house George." And then much quieter to himself with a smile on his face, "Yeah, Geroge. Heh." I have no words.

bounce back

I had a really rough day today. I had a really bad night's sleep with a needy Henry and woke up feeling crappy. Work was full of technical setbacks and I just didn't feel good. I drug myself home, took a shower and helped put kids to bed. Then I drove in unpleasant traffic to a dinner with people I hadn't seen in a long time or didn't know. It was a volunteer thing and I wasn't looking forward to it. But, I'll be damned if some forced socialization and non-forced socialization with an old friend in addition to a lot of really good seafood wasn't exactly what I needed. I feel like a new person. I could almost stay up and start a project now but I know better than that. I have alumni volunteer meetings in the morning and the "moooomeeeeeee" wake up call always comes too early.

baby with butter

I am in a mood, no mood to write about much of anything. I figured I would just put up a cute photo of the kids but upon inspection of the photo library I have come to discover how few photos I have taken lately. Also, the most recent aren't even loaded off the camera on account of our remodeling project that has me at a temporary desk in the dining room and no idea where the card reader is. So, that's all less than thrilling. Here is an old photo, 4 months old, of Mia looking so tiny and sweet with her short hair, eating butter. It was frozen that I had just pulled out to make ghee and let her help me unwrap and put in the pot. She had other ideas. And then I took it away and all hell broke loose (the last shot is just a warm up). This is one of my favorite little series (there are actually 10 shots) of her but I hesitated to post it. Because, you know, I am admitting to letting my kid eat straight butter.

aaahhhh

I know that in-law complaints are too easy, ubiquitous, but I am breathing much easier now that mine have departed from this visit. I have been anxious and generally annoyed for days. I was starting to wonder if I was getting really stressed beyond my control again and starting to mull over what to do. Call my naturopath? Get a massage? Take a day off work? I blamed hormones and lack of sleep and the chaos around the house but nothing else has changed besides their departure and I am calm. All it took was a few hours and for the time being I am feeling peaceful and sleepy. I think this is an issue I am going to have to address one way or another but for now I will appreciate what I have and be grateful that I don't need any further intervention.

at my limit

Well, one limit. I have many levels of limits on my sanity depending on the situation, how tired I am, what I have eaten, etc. Life is fine. Really, just fine, even good and some things are great but little things are stacking up to make me nuts. Work deadlines full of technical issues beyond my control, in-laws visiting, house construction, a bat-shit-crazy long-term freelance client who hinges her business success on my availability, in-laws visiting, the echo left bouncing around in my head from earlier kid melt downs, the late hour of the evening...so, I am going to do some deep breathing and visualize a calmer day. This is another pattern that happens when Jason's parents visit- I am a complete jerk the entire trip and then feel bad about it on the last day and try to overcompensate by being really nice and end up feeling like an even bigger jerk for it. Ug. Bed is calling my name and I am responding.

pattern

The same thing seems to happen every time Jason's parents visit. I feel fine about their impending arrival, telling myself they don't have high expectations but then I get a little nuts at the last minute about cleaning and such. By the time they arrive I am a little grumpy and put out. I try to work on it and things seems fine. The kids' schedules get out of whack by an hour or two for meals and bed. I tell my self to be laid back, not to worry about it. It's no big deal. Then, the kids themselves get out of whack and whiny and grumpy. And then I feel self conscious about their crappy behavior and start snapping things like, "well that's what happens when he stays up too late!" And then I feel bad and try to be overly nice to compensate. Every time. I tell myself it will be different but it's not. I'm tired. It's all so silly and minor but we are all so used to certain norms that any variation really does make a big difference. I'm just going to accept it for now, try to have a decent few more days with my in-laws and pray that it gets better as we all grow up.

day one

Here I am again with my self-imposed daily posting. It has been a busy weekend with Jason's parents visiting. Jason and his dad are putting in wood flooring in our old office in the first step toward converting it to the kid's new bedroom. It is looking good but keeping the kids out of their hair and having a sane few days has been a challenge. Our bathroom is packed full of things that used to reside in our old office and every extra corner in the house is occupied with boxes and tools and such. A little crazy making but I am a fan of progress. This is the last floor in the house to be replaced or redone since we moved in 6 years ago so that is satisfying. It's also the first room that we are really creating for the kids. Henry's present room is half guest room (mostly used by Jason's parents every few months) but is a decent room for him to sleep in. Mia is still with us. I am looking forward to moving them both into their own space and actually setting it up in an organized, functional way instead of just cobbling it together. It's sort of like planning the nursery I/they never had because I was too practical. Now, that they can enjoy and appreciate it and I can make my life easier it is much more fun.