The everyday conversation

Just about everyday on our way home from dropping off Alex at school (the bus driver of the bus Alex is supposed to take is not the cleanest looking person and insists on buckling the kids in their seats) Grant and I have the following conversation:

Grant: Where Alets doe Mom? (where did Alex go mom)

Me: Alex is at school

Grant: Huh?

Me: remember we just dropped him off?

Grant: Huh mom?

Me: Alex went to school?

Grant: Huh?

Me: Alex--school (thinking maybe fewer words will get the point across)

Grant: huh?

Me: I say nothing (sometimes its just easier to say nothing--this however does not work at the beginning of the conversation)

Grant: Alets at paygwoun (playground)?

Me: yes he plays at the playground until the teacher calls the class in.

Grant: oh ... Mom where Daedee (Katie) doe?

The conversation goes on and on. There are a few different variations of this conversation. Sometimes Grant substitutes the word huh? with why? We usually discuss where the whole family is before we make it home.

cleaning

I love Saturday mornings when soccer games don't start until 10. It means we have time for our one hour cleaning (a Smart Mama idea). The idea is that every member of the family cleans for one hour at the same time. We try to stay together to ensure that everyone is in fact cleaning and not putting their legos together before they put them in the box. Its amazing what 5 people can do in one hour. We haven't been counting Grant as a cleaner--he's still pretty good at undoing what we've cleaned in record time, although he is getting pretty good at staying out of the way. Here's what he was up to today while we cleaned.

He found Katie's lip gloss and carefully put it on ... and put it on ... and put it on while nobody was looking. The plan next week is to have him use baby wipes to clean doorknobs, wipe doors and scrub the kitchen floor.

napping

I'm sad to say that Grant is showing stronger resistance to napping. Yesterday after working on getting him down for about 10 minutes I went downstairs to work on the computer. I could hear him running across the wood floor. "Go to sleep," I said. Next thing I knew he was sneaking out of his room. A few minutes later I went searching for him and found him just a few feet away from me on the bottom step. At first glance I thought he was laying there awake, but as I got closer I found that he was completely zonked out. I had to hurry and take a picture before he rolled over and bonked his head on the tile floor.

music to my ears

this is obviously the after picture--so empty, isn't it great!

When Alex can't clean up his room for the 20th day in a row--its time to do some major dejunking and reorganizing. Though I dreaded this task, it turned out to be pretty fun. The music to my ears was when he said, "No I don't want that anymore, lets throw it away." I can't remember what it was--a dollar store airplane? a card? a box which had lost its contents? It doesn't matter whatever it was he got rid of it. Truly a breakthrough.

We had some pretty great conversation which is nice since Alex doesn't talk a whole lot. He commented on the different sound of his congested voice, "My voice is talking funny today." He also said, "Oh mom, these are my imaginary friends. I need to keep these." We made sure we put them in a safe spot. Besides these imaginary friend blank papers he also made sure to keep all the nice notes people have written to him. If you've ever written Alex a nice note, chances are you'll find it in his frog lunchbox.

TEN

Jordan turned 10 yesterday.

pictured here are Jordan, Katie, Alex and Grant anxiously awaiting the opening of presents. The presents were 3 packs of star wars figures (the games ones) star wars legos from grandparents, a star wars book and money from the other grandparents.

His meal choices were:

• breakfast: eggs and bacon
• lunch: Top Ramen-Carl made it into a Top Ramen casserole with cheese and crushed fritos on top. As if Top Ramen weren't unhealthy enough on its own.
• dinner: pizza, one with pepperoni, one with pepperoni and olive and one with pepperoni, olive, mushrooms and spinach.

Katie helped me make a giant cupcake for dessert.

happy birthday to a great soccer player, nice big brother, and all around good kid!

LOVIN THE SHUFFLE

Carl got me a little ipod shuffle for our anniversary. Its been the best thing. There's nothing like turning on the shuffle when:

• I'm out for a jog-I can't even hear myself breath, which I'm pretty sure makes me jog a lot longer.
• I need to make dinner-music makes the things I loathe a lot more enjoyable
• My two-year-old is throwing a fit-I can just watch and don't have to hear a bit of it
• I'm doing projects while Grant is sleeping-podcasts are great at a time like this

The kids also love the shuffle-pictured here is my nephew Titus. It seems he was listening to a very serious podcast.

Swing Therapy

A few days ago I took a last minute trip to the playground with Grant and Alex. The playground is usually a very BORING place to be (for me) but since we were with friends it was doable. After pushing the boys on the swings FOREVER I did some swinging by myself, totally ignoring their requests, "push me mom." I LOVE swinging. I have always loved it. After reading Raising Your Spirited Child and a few pages of Raising a Sensory Smart Child I realize that I need things in my day like swinging. Sometimes I find myself wandering around the house. I'm antsy and can't really focus on one thing. I go from playing the piano to doing a few dishes to sitting down looking at the mail. I never finish anything and can't seem to be satisfied with any particular thing. Its times like these that having a swing, going for a jog, playing soccer with the kids, or jumping on the trampoline can make a huge difference. Its like being recharged. It leaves me feeling happy and ready to focus on one task. Of course the kids need this kind of variety in activities too, especially when they are restless.

Oh Granty Boy

Oh Granty Boy
Your mom, your mom is calling
from room to room and down the hallway
Your brothers gone and all the house is quiet
Tis you tis you must sleep--I'll have a break.
But come ye out when you are nice and pleasant
To see my happy smiling face
And I'll be here in sunshine or in shadow.
Oh Granty Boy Oh Granty Boy I love you so.

And when you come make sure that you are rested
Then I can be my very nicest self
We'll read some books and then we'll cut some paper
Then sit and sing some funny songs with me.
And I will watch you playing without tantrum
And I shall hear you talking nicely too
For now I'll bend and tell you that I love you
Oh Granty sleep Oh Granty sleep until about 3:00

Adapted from one of my favorite songs "Oh Danny Boy"

she's here

My sister Emily moved here a few weeks ago. Three kids out of six in one city--that's pretty good.

nice thought

The world has enough women who are tough,

we need more women who are tender.

There are enough women who are course,

we need women who are kind.

There are enough women who are rude,

we need women who are refined.

We have enough women of fame and fortune,

we need more women of faith.

We have enough women of greed,

we need more goodness.

We have enough vanity,

we need more virtue.

We have enough popularity,

we need more purity.

Margaret D. Nadauld

Hooray Kindergarten

Alex is pictured here in his "I'm a little nervous" look

Alex finally started kindergarten on Friday. While the kids played on the kindergarten playground, waiting for school to start I said, "Alex I'm going to leave now. We'll see you later." I reached out to give him a hug and he turned right around and walked away. No hug, not even a "goodbye." Of course it wasn't too shocking since he very rarely actually responds to anything anyone says. So I left happy knowing he'd be learning things like how to write in lowercase, how to play well with others and how to respond when spoken to.

YAY KINDERGARTEN!

Christmas Inventory

I hate being stuck in December finishing last minute Christmas presents just to find a stash of gifts I bought earlier in the year under my bed and in the closet--I'm such a stuffer. So this year I thought I'd take an inventory of all the great sale items I've bought throughout the year. Hopefully with a little planning I'll be able to finish up most of Christmas by Halloween so I can spend the rest of the holidays baking and doing fun crafts with the kids. We never get to do those fun things because I'm too stressed out.

Our favorite Christmas was a couple of years ago in Massachusetts when we bought one thing for each of the kids--something they really wanted. I spend a whopping $70 total on Christmas for the kids. They were given a few presents each from grandparents. It was such a simple, relaxing Christmas because we weren't loaded with stuff. And best of all the kids were happy with what they got. I was glad they weren't whining for more. We had another, more stressful Christmas a few years before that when I wrapped up tons of stuff, even socks and underwear. It took a lot of time to find a home for all of the presents when the unwrapping was over. It was so stressful as apposed to the more simple Christmas with less presents. So I'm going to try my best to keep it simple and get what people really want.

I was planning on listing the gifts here but can't because sometimes the kids read over my shoulder.

All I'll say is Bristle Blocks will be a hit with Grant.

"good mom" daydreams

Last night at "meet the teacher night" at school the Kindergarten teacher encouraged parents to limit TV and video games and do interactive types of things with our kids instead. Having just sent her daughter off to college she said with emotion, "You've got to have a good friendship with them now because you can't expect them to all of the sudden want to talk to you at age 14 if you haven't been fostering a relationship from earlier ages." She named specific things to do and suddenly I was daydreaming. I saw myself being a really good mom, going on walks to look for new bugs and birds, sitting down and painting with the kids, and reading out loud to all of them as they sat quietly and laughed at the funny parts. In this daydream the kids were all happy and smiling, nobody was fighting. I even dreamed (as I have several times) that Carl walked into a clean house and found us all happily working on something together. This crazy, unrealistic daydream made me want to work a little harder and plan a few more activities during the week to do with the kids, depending less and less on movies to keep my kids occupied. Just this morning I thought maybe it would be fun to finger paint with Alex and Grant. I mentioned it to Alex who said, "that's boring." When I sat down and got myself a piece of paper he said excitedly, "You're going to do it too? Then I want to do it--that'll be fun." I remember feeling the same thing about playing games with my parents. It made it so much better than just with the kids.

So in between all the housework, blogging, reading, meal preparation and errands I'm going to try to spend a little more time on:

nature walks
reading or being read to
painting
going to the playground
playing games

in short, doing things I usually resist because its sometimes time consuming, messy and often physical exhausting. I'm sure it will get easier the more I do it just like reading Bearenstein Bear books have become easier--I used to hate to read them but now its not such a big deal.

Clear Eyes

My eyes tend to get clouded over by worries, frustrations, and just STUFF. The cloudiness causes me to be crabby, snappy with the kids, and though I hate to do it I usually blame Carl for every bad thing that happens--he's not even usually around when bad things happen--of course that's why he gets the blame, because he's not there to bail me out. Anyway, in the last few days my vision has totally cleared up. I'm attributing this change in vision to a clean kitchen (always makes me happy) and the temple. Every time I go there my mind seems to kind of clean itself out (like turning on the dishwasher) and my worries and frustrations go away (at least until I get home). So my mind gets clear and then it gets filled up with great thoughts about treating my kids with more kindness and spending more "fun" time with them, being a more supportive wife and happier around Carl. These thoughts probably don't seem that unusual, if only I could describe how great they were.

Though I love going inside the temple, I've noticed that there is also peace and a mind-clearing power found even outside the temple on the temple grounds. I remember being at the Boston Temple grounds with Jordan and Katie when they were ages 4 and 2 and thinking there couldn't be any other place in the world that felt more like what I imagined heaven to be like. How great to be able to feel that same thing at any temple any time.