Proud Mama (and Daddy)

Our big Kindergartener keeps up on our toes, but most of all she makes us PROUD! Bailee just brought home her 2nd Quarter report card. I know it is Kindergarten, but we are proud that our girl all "E"s and "M"s (they stand for Exceeds and Meets expectations)! Attached was a sweet not from her teacher:
"I enjoy having Bailee in class. She always works hard, listens and is kind and helpful to her peers."
I think that those words are more rewarding as a parent than any straight A report card.
Way to go Bailee, we are proud of you! Keep this up and you are going to be an amazing adult one day.

Sometimes I wonder...

If this has taken over or enhanced our lives...

Sometimes we fill our time with time wasters... and sometimes with time fillers... and sometimes with time enhancers. So what is this?
At times I feel like we have filled our time (the time that has been given to us to become more Christlike and to teach and build our family) with something that is good, but maybe there is something better. For some reason this morning I have been weighing the pros and cons to this thing we do. Probably because 5 Saturdays in a row are being used by this thing not to mention the several week nights and lunch/quiet time breaks.
So what has it taken away from me?

• time with my kids


• time with my family


• time that maybe I could have been helping someone in need.

Ok, that is all I've got... But those are BIG things!

What has it given me?

• Something in common with my husband. This is something that we can do together. A common goal.


• One night a month that Matt and I leave the house together to serve others. We have the opportunity to teach and counsel other leaders that are working directly with young men to improve their lives.


• I have overcome my fear of speaking in public!!! This is HUGE considering I used to cry every time I gave a talk in church...or cry just thinking about giving a talk in church or anywhere else for that matter.


• I have learned how to communicate my thoughts and feelings better with my husband, kids, family, friends...everyone.


• I have learned how to manage conflict, this is so helpful as a mother! I'm not perfect at it, but better.


• I ave made some fabulous life long friends. Friends that are compassionate, selfless, have integrity and most of all they are my friends and Matt's friends. I love that we have friends that we both like equally.


• I have learned and gained a testimony of why Scouting is the activity arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.


• I have gained a huge testimony of Callings. I know that our Heavenly Father knows what we need more that we do and how to get us there. I am so thankful to my heavenly Father for planting me in a Calling that has helped me to grow so much.


• I have learned ways to instill values in my children.

I know there is more, but I can't sit here all day...

So I think that I can say with a surety that this thing we do called Scouting definitely has given me more than it has taken away. I have been blessed in so many ways through Scouting and I feel that it has made me a better mother.Thank Goodness the kids love it too.

Poor me....

I should be cleaning up before Matt gets home right now, but I just need to get out all of my feelings with out someone giving me advice.

These past couple of weeks with Bailee have been rough.

She now thinks there is nothing wrong with talking back...screaming at me and being extremely defiant. Along with this she has become very in touch with her creative side and is doing "craft" projects all of the time all over my house!!!! These projects are depleting my printer paper, used all of the staples in the stapler, lots of tape and lots of cutting. In case you don't know, that means lots of lit pieces of paper and string all over the place. Of course she never askes to do any of these projects, she just starts doing them when I am distracted.

My Mom watched the kids last night for us and so very sweetly washed all of the dishes, folded laundry and even vacuumed while we were gone. In the time that it took me to take a shower, the folded laundry became pile on the floor along with several miscellaneous toys, and you guessed it....Paper!!!! Ahhh I just want to scream and cry and hide in my room (which looks like my closet and garage threw up on it and has for weeks because I am constantly after Bailee to pick up her messes or am picking them up myself!). I know that I am not the most organized or the best house keeper, but I try my best. And when I try to be better or do some extra thing to help someone else it always seems to bite me in the butt!

To top it off Owen, our un-cuddly child has decided that he wants to be held about 30% percent of the time he is awake. Of course that includes while making all three meals and any time I stop playing whit them to do something productive. It seems that the only way I can get away from this is to have the TV on, but I don't want them watching TV all of the time!

I want so badly to be the "perfect" house wife and mom, you know the one who's house is clean and picked up other than a couple of toys at any given time no matter when you drop in, dinner is always done on time, FHE treats are made a 10 am, never raises her voice, and never has to complain to her husband about the kids or the house work. I want to be her....

A beautiful Mess

The other day I had a debilitating headache, I finally gave in to it and told Bailee that I was going to have to lay down and rest. she could tell that I was not feeling well and offered so sweetly to help do some of the things on my "To Do" list. One of the things she did for me was fold the load of towels. Isn't it a Beautiful Mess? what a sweet little girl I have. Words can not express how much I love her. She is truly a blessing in my life.

What in the world was I thinking?!!!!

So we are going to SLC in May to see Dave Ramsey Live! While we are there we have arranged to see our friends the Nielsons. I made a HUGE mistake of telling Bailee that she would get to see Bethany. I don't normally even tell her that we are going out of town until the day before or the day of because she just doesn't have any concept of time yet. Since she has been asking if it is time to leave yet since yesterday afternoon I decided that I needed to do something to help her see when we get to go. So here are the 3 calendars that we will be marking off everyday until then. So far she hasn't asked since I made them...an hour ago. What was I thinking?

Confessions of a Menu Planner

One would think that I, the woman with a six month rotating menu, would know what we are having for dinner tonight. I have a confession... I don't know!
While I love my menu system, my distaste for grocery shopping has taken over. I needed to go grocery shopping on Monday and so for the past two days I have been playing the menu by ear and just seeing what we have in the house for dinner. With all of the happenings in our day to day life, the last thing that I want' to do is grocery shop, especially when it is cold, wet, windy or snowy outside. It has been all of those things this week. If only I could hire someone to do the shopping for me...

Obama

The day of the presidential inauguration I decided to turn on the news and watch what I could before I had to go to my meeting. I thought that it would be a good opportunity to talk to Bailee just a little bit about getting a new President. She started hearing "Obama" a lot, as to be expected on the news coverage. She even started to recognize him when they showed him as well. After an hour or so of the news, she came into me and said "Mom, I am done with OBAMA! Can we watch one of my shows?" So I kindly changed the channel to PBS she was able to see about the last ten minutes of a show and a new one should have been coming on. Just then the PBS news broke in with their coverage of the inauguration. Bailee was quite upset and very loudly stated "Mom, I said I was Done with OBAMA!" I just had to laugh and then feel sorry for her, because that sure is a lot of news for one little 3 year old. Good thing it only happens ever 4 years.

Nightmares

Bailee has had night terrors on and off since she was a baby, but last night she had a nightmare about monsters. It broke my heart when my little girl cam running in our room at 2:40 in the morning saying "Mommy, there's monsters!" She has never gotten out of bed because of one before, usually we hear her whimper for a minute or we get to her room and comfort her before she really wakes up.
I had just been in putting Owen back to sleep and had come back in our room. I wasn't even in bed yet when she came through the door. I couldn't believe how scared she was. I put her in our bed and talked to her for a minute, assuring her that there are not any real monsters. I couldn't go to sleep, I was just laying there watching her. I guess I went into protective mode. But that passed quickly. About 20 minutes later I found my self trying to get her to stop moving around and go to sleep. I figured that she would be in our bed for the night, but then some of the most beautiful words for 3 am came out of her mouth. "Mommy, can I go back in my bed?" Oh! I was so over joyed! Since I do not sleep well with children in my bed I was so excited. We made a quick stop in the bathroom and then it was off to her bed. Once we found her stuffed lamb (which is a new found attachment to her as of yesterday) she was nicely settled in her bed and I haven't heard a peep from her room since then. I am guessing that she will sleep in a bit this morning, it is now 8:25 and she is normally up no later than 8 am.
I am so hoping that this was not the first of many of these nightmares, for both our sakes. It is amazing how when you are a parent that when your child is in need that no matter how tired you are that something inside of you overcomes you to give you the energy and attention that you need to fulfill the needs of your child. I am so grateful for the blessing of being a parent. Even though at this point it seems that there are more challenging moments than enjoyable ones, I am thankful that I have been entrusted with two of Heavenly Father's most special spirits.

Potty Training Blues

This is just for me so I can get my feelings out and sort out my thoughts.
So I thought that we were finally almost to the point that Bailee would go potty all on her own and we wouldn't have to remind her very often. Of course that was short lived and the roller coaster ride began again. This week has be horrible, must be a regression from me leaving for a week.
Utter frustration set in a few days ago and today I am feeling at an all time low as a Mom. All day I have been saying that I am going to get her diapers again. It kills me to do that since we haven't bought her diapers in about 9 months. I feel like it might be the only way to let me relax about the whole potty training thing and then let her tell us when she feels comfortable with the potty again. I fear that I have been to hard on her when she has an accident and have caused her to be afraid of the toilet. I think that we were doing so well with the reward system that after a bit we felt like she would be fine with out the rewards, but then she slowly regressed and instead of returning to the reward system we started punishing her.
I am so confused as to what I should be doing as a parent right now. At the moment I just want to climb in bed and cry and not get out until she is potty trained. I know that I need to be gentle and patient, but it is so hard when you know your child knows what to do and when. Or does she? May be a break form potty training is what we all need to let the tension out of the air in our home. So what if we have two kids in diapers, right. It is more important that we are a happy family and that our daughter knows that we love her even if she isn't using the potty.

A week so full

Why is it that time seems to pass by so quickly, especially when you have many things on your calendar? This past week started just like the other ones... on Sunday. With the 1:00 pm time schedule I seem to take my time since it is often the only morning that Matt is home to help with the kids. (A little break for me) I received a phone call at 8:45 from my Primary President to make sure that I remembered out Bishopric meeting that morning at 9:30. Of course I remembered the meeting, I just had the wrong time, I thought that it was at 10:30 and I was still relaxing in bed. The week started with a Sunday rush and things really didn't slow down all week.

Monday: Laundry, laundry, dishes, try to figure out the smell in the bathroom, more laundry ... etc ( everyone has had one of these days, I hope). Then when Matt gets home it is dinner, FHE and Bedtime for the kiddos. For our FHE activity we went to Benchmark and REI to look at packs for me for our July back packing trip, it was a nightmare. Bailee was getting tired and thus getting hyper.

Tuesday: April Fools Day, of course Mom calls with her normal April Fools joke. She is the Queen of the day and got me again. Turns out that my sister isn't pregnant and I am not either for those that she told that one to. I finally figured out the smell in the bathroom, Bailee had used her potty chair that she hadn't used in a couple of weeks, put the lid back down and returned it to its place as a step stool to the toilet. I don't know why it took me so long to think to look in there. Matt didn't come home until 8 or so because he was helping with another Cub Pack's Den meeting. It was a long day.

Wednesday: Another day of Cleaning and laundry. Bailee had a play date with her friend Rylie, so I was able to run to the store without her to pick up a few things that I needed for the house and a baby gift. Wednesday evenings are always a little crazy because Matt has Scouts, but now they are a little more crazy with me in the Primary presidency over Cubs. Matt and I both had to be at the church at 6:30 so Bailee went to my friends while we were at our meetings. Matt had meetings after scouts so he didn't get home until after 9. After I got home from Pack meeting and got the kids to bed then I had to finish up some things for my baby gift, I always find more ways to make a crazy day crazier.

Thursday: I got up early because I had several things to do before I took Grandma to the airport. It is always so hard for me to leave her at the airport, I feel like I need to taker her all the way to California when she goes. She always wants me to leave her curbside because of the kids, it is the hardest thing to do. After the airport we are off to Matt's office to deliver the baby gift to the girl he works with. We stayed to have lunch with Matt. On our way home we stopped to pick up the pictures I had taken of the kids. Then after Matt got home it was a whirlwind. We had to eat fast because it was Round table night. Things couldn't be easy for us now that I need to attend round table too. I have to be there from 6:30-7:30 and Matt from 7:30-9:00, so Mom came to watch the kids during our commuting time. Whew, what a day!

Friday: Things are finally staring to wind down. Thursday was beautiful outside so I had decided that I would take a walk with the kids only to find that it was overcast, cold and breezy. I didn't make it very far and ended up at my friend Debbie's for a visit. After Matt came home we had a nice dinner and then he took Bailee out for a date. I had planned on scrapbooking while they were gone, but ended up catching up on the cleaning that I didn't do while I was at Debbie's. It turned out to be a nice night after all.

Through it all I still snapped a few picture of the cute things Bailee did with Owen.Everyone needs to use a lid for a hat at some point in their life.
Blocks are always fun when you are three months old, but Bailee thinks that Owen needs to do everything with her.

Mean Mom

Ok, so I think that this is pretty normal. Your 2 yr. old has "one of those days" and so you slowly lose your patience (or quickly in my case today). It is pretty easy to lose your patience when your 2 yr. old drops your 2 month old on the floor and then hits him because she is mad at you, right? So after a long time out for both of our sakes we are still butting heads. I made an Executive decision (you get to do that when you are MOM!) that Bailee would have to be buckled in to her booster chair for lunch. At some point over the last six to eight months she decided that it is no longer cool to be buckled in. So of course that didn't go over well. I told her that she had to stay in her seat until she ate ALL of her lunch. Then when she was almost done she called to me to come let her out, I was feeding Owen so I told her she would have to wait. Again, that did not go over well. Shortly after I hear her voice getting closer and I looked up to see this.
The mean mom in me couldn't resist the photo opp. She came out of the kitchen still buckled into her chair. Now I must say... That takes some determination.
She changed her mood just a little because in this day and age you can't take a picture of a child with out them wanting to see how it looks.
Just look at that face! Can you see how hurt and angry she was at mom. " How dare a mom use the buckle and then not let me out when I was ready, I'll show her!" (my interpretation of the look, of course)

The Mommy Signal

So this morning the thought came to me, that moms really are like super heros. Batman has the bat signal that tells him when to come and make the rescue or fight off the vilan. I have learned that I have a "Mommy Signal" to which I know that I need to run to the rescue of Owen and fight of the vilan, Bailee. My "Mommy signal" is three little words..."Come here Buddy". They sound so sweet and inocent coming out of Bailee's two year old mouth, but they mean trouble. I know that when I hear those three little words Bailee is somewhere attempting to pick up Owen and carry him somewhere. That just means that if I don't get there quick, Owen is in for an interesting ride. She seems to think tht he needs to be with her to read books or watch one of her shows on PBS.

It is so interesting how we as mothers spend the entire nine months of pregnancy with the second child worrying that the first will be jealous or resentful of the second, then we come to find out that they love the second more than you would like them to for the first few months.

**Daddy responds well to the "Mommy Signal" too.

Does this make me a bad Mom?

Ok, so Bailee was playing by herself so well this morning. I need to do something in the office so I took Owen with me. Bailee was being so quiet, it was so nice. But then she came in and told me that her hands were cold. I looked down and they were red and she had a hat on. Mind you she was also still in her PJ's because she said that she didn't want to wear clothes today, "just jammas". She had gone out in the back yard to play in the snow, she must have been out there for at least 5 minutes because there were tracks all over the yard. I called my neighbor that we share a yard with and she told me that she had seen Bailee out playing on their play structure. Lucky for me, I have a smart little girl and she did put her snow boots on before she went out. She even took them off at the door before she came and told me her hands were cold.

I guess that even though I have smart little girl, I need to keep a little better eye on her when I "THINK" she is playing in her room.

Showers

I finally got a shower yesterday around 2 pm. That is what happens when I don't get up before Bailee. Unfortunately, this has been a common occurrence since Owen was born. I am one of those people that just need my sleep. I am at my best when I get 9 or so hours of uninterrupted sleep and a nice hot shower to start my day.
I wish that I was better about getting my day started with or with out a shower, but that rarely happens. Hopefully when I get a few more hours of consecutive sleep I will be better about getting going. I am going to have to be better so I can get up work out so I can get in shape for backpacking this coming summer.