The Saturday 7
1. I volunteered to work in VBS this year. It's my first year of being a stay at home mom, and being available to do it every day. I got assigned to the preschool room, where Lucy is, and I knew she would love it. I was, admittedly, worried about Lena - with good reason. The first day, she lasted about 45 minutes, then screamed so psychotically, the nursery workers came and found me. I ended up carrying her in the Bjorn the rest of the day. (Ow.) On Tuesday, Lena did really well! But Lucy was an absolute wreck. She didn't want to do any of the activities or crafts. She literally stood by me crying almost the entire time. At the end of the day, I quit. Haha. I told the head teacher that it was too much for my girls, and that I wasn't coming back. Sigh. Maybe next year.
2. When I went back and read Lucy's 6 month update this week, I realized she was sitting up by this age. I never even give Lena the opportunity to sit by herself, so decided we should start working on that. I was amazed that she could totally do it! The first day, she was a little wobbly, but by the end of this week, she was sitting like a pro!
3. Another milestone for Lena this week was taking a bath in the big tub! I decided to ditch the baby tub, and just pop Lena in the bath with a couple inches of water. She loved it! She even liked being on her belly and splashing around. It'll be so nice to get that baby tub out of the bathroom. It takes up way too much space!
4. Justin and I celebrated our 8th anniversary this week. (Even though our actual anniversary is on Monday, the 29th.) It's ridiculous how much planning and finagling I did to work around Lena's feeding schedule, but it all worked out! On Thursday night, we left Lucy at home with my parents, brought Lena to Libby's apartment (because she lives on Alpine), and went to Olive Garden for dinner (with a gift card!). Something Justin and I struggle with is finding stuff to talk about. He's not much of a conversationalist, and I'm terrible at thinking up conversation topics. You'd think that after 8 years of marriage, we'd have this kind of thing down, but we don't. So I printed off a bunch of questions that I found on Pinterest. (Link here. This is 365 questions, and a lot of them were really dumb. I just picked out 17 that I liked.) It was fun! And dinner was delicious.
After Olive Garden, we ran to Schuler's Bookstore across the street. I found a bookstore date on Pinterest that I wanted to try, but we really didn't have time to do it well. It's basically a scavenger hunt with prompts like, "Go to the cooking section and pick out a recipe you'd like to make for your spouse." or "Go to the travel section and find a picture of a place you'd like to visit with your spouse." Those are the only two we had time for. It was funny that we both had the same idea for the recipes. Justin chose a recipe from this book, and I picked one from this book. His book was particularly hilarious (though totally inappropriate - consider yourself forewarned).
We ran back to Libby's so I could nurse Lena, then we headed off to the Oasis (with a coupon!). I was worried that it'd be way too hot for hot tubbing, but we're actually having an unseasonably cool week, so it was perfect.
Lena did great with Aunt Libby. She played happily, and Libby even got her to sleep (not always an easy feat!)
5. Justin has Fridays off, so we continued our date yesterday. In the past few months, he's suddenly taken an interest in fishing. He goes probably once a week, but it's hard for me to go with him, since I can't leave Lena for extended periods of time. But I was determined to make it work at least once this summer. So we I fed Lena and left her (and Lucy) with Niki, then we zipped off to lake closest to Niki's house. Our amazing friends, Matt and Kelly, lent us their canoe, so we didn't have to pay anything to rent one!
I realized as we started paddling that I am not a big fan of lakes. They really creep me out - all the seaweed, not being able to see the bottom, the smell. And I was super paranoid about flipping the canoe. But I eventually got used to it, and was able to relax and enjoy myself. It was 11:00 in the morning, cloudy and cool, and there was one other old guy on the whole lake, so it was incredibly peaceful.
Justin was nice to me and didn't make me touch the worm. He taught me to cast, and I caught on pretty quickly. Actually, I'm an amazing fisherwoman. I caught 3 huge blue-gills to his 1 bass. He insists that bass are more elusive, but I'm pretty sure it's just evidence of my fishing prowess. ;-)
I told you they were huge blue gills. Lol. I was not a fan of the flopping fish. Again, Justin was nice and took it off the hook for me. We didn't stay out for long because we weren't getting many bites and I had to get back to feed Lena, but we had fun! Even though I'm totally sore from paddling the canoe. Ha!
We went to BC Pizza for the buffet for lunch (mmmm, cinnamon sticks!), stopped back to Niki's to feed Lena, then went and saw Despicable Me 2. It was the only movie playing during the small window of time we had available, but it was cute! (And we had a gift card, so it was free!)
Again, Lena did great with Aunt Niki. I was so glad, considering what a mama's girl she can be.
It was so nice, getting away with Justin for a while, even if it was in little 3 hour increments. Haha.
1. My Top 10 "Oh Now I Get It" Moments
2. How to Be the Star in Your Preschooler's Eyes
It sums up so well something I've been thinking about a lot. The first article is a hilarious blog about how women always say, "Oh I'll never . . ." before having kids, and then totally change their tune after the kids are born. It's so true and so funny, but basically says "When you become a mother, you'll be so desperate for sleep/the ability to pee alone/the chance to talk on the phone without interruptions that you'll do anything to keep your kids occupied." Which is exactly the opposite of the second article that says our children should be our first priority, and everything else is an interruption from them. It goes on to say that the preschool age is such an important, formative time in a child's life, and we should be spending every moment with them, pouring the knowledge and grace of God into their lives.
I love that the first kind of article exists. I love that women are being honest about motherhood being hard work, tiring work, frustrating work. But I feel like sometimes we go a little overboard with declaring our children little monsters who make us want to pull our hair out. I think it needs to be counterbalanced a little bit by the second kind of article. Most of us chose to have kids. Why do we act like they're such nuisances? I realize I sound like a total hypocrite. I'm the first to admit that my kids drive me crazy sometimes (a lot of times), but I also want to be the first to admit that I'm glad I have them, I love spending time with them, and I feel guilty every day that I don't do a good enough job pouring the knowledge of God into them.
That was not articulated as eloquently as I anticipated. You get the point, right? ;-)
*Edited to add: I'm actually feeling kind of bad about that whole last point. I feel like I came across really judge-y/holier than though. I was just noticing the trend of all these "honesty" blogs. I love them, I've shared them, I write my own blog that way a lot. The one I posted just reminded me that I've noticed a lot of those types lately. I'm all for being real and honest and commiserating with other moms, but I've noticed myself focusing on the bad instead of the good too much recently. There are a lot of happy, silly, fun moments amid the puking stories and up-all-night incidents!
2. When I went back and read Lucy's 6 month update this week, I realized she was sitting up by this age. I never even give Lena the opportunity to sit by herself, so decided we should start working on that. I was amazed that she could totally do it! The first day, she was a little wobbly, but by the end of this week, she was sitting like a pro!
3. Another milestone for Lena this week was taking a bath in the big tub! I decided to ditch the baby tub, and just pop Lena in the bath with a couple inches of water. She loved it! She even liked being on her belly and splashing around. It'll be so nice to get that baby tub out of the bathroom. It takes up way too much space!
4. Justin and I celebrated our 8th anniversary this week. (Even though our actual anniversary is on Monday, the 29th.) It's ridiculous how much planning and finagling I did to work around Lena's feeding schedule, but it all worked out! On Thursday night, we left Lucy at home with my parents, brought Lena to Libby's apartment (because she lives on Alpine), and went to Olive Garden for dinner (with a gift card!). Something Justin and I struggle with is finding stuff to talk about. He's not much of a conversationalist, and I'm terrible at thinking up conversation topics. You'd think that after 8 years of marriage, we'd have this kind of thing down, but we don't. So I printed off a bunch of questions that I found on Pinterest. (Link here. This is 365 questions, and a lot of them were really dumb. I just picked out 17 that I liked.) It was fun! And dinner was delicious.
After Olive Garden, we ran to Schuler's Bookstore across the street. I found a bookstore date on Pinterest that I wanted to try, but we really didn't have time to do it well. It's basically a scavenger hunt with prompts like, "Go to the cooking section and pick out a recipe you'd like to make for your spouse." or "Go to the travel section and find a picture of a place you'd like to visit with your spouse." Those are the only two we had time for. It was funny that we both had the same idea for the recipes. Justin chose a recipe from this book, and I picked one from this book. His book was particularly hilarious (though totally inappropriate - consider yourself forewarned).
We ran back to Libby's so I could nurse Lena, then we headed off to the Oasis (with a coupon!). I was worried that it'd be way too hot for hot tubbing, but we're actually having an unseasonably cool week, so it was perfect.
Lena did great with Aunt Libby. She played happily, and Libby even got her to sleep (not always an easy feat!)
5. Justin has Fridays off, so we continued our date yesterday. In the past few months, he's suddenly taken an interest in fishing. He goes probably once a week, but it's hard for me to go with him, since I can't leave Lena for extended periods of time. But I was determined to make it work at least once this summer. So we I fed Lena and left her (and Lucy) with Niki, then we zipped off to lake closest to Niki's house. Our amazing friends, Matt and Kelly, lent us their canoe, so we didn't have to pay anything to rent one!
I realized as we started paddling that I am not a big fan of lakes. They really creep me out - all the seaweed, not being able to see the bottom, the smell. And I was super paranoid about flipping the canoe. But I eventually got used to it, and was able to relax and enjoy myself. It was 11:00 in the morning, cloudy and cool, and there was one other old guy on the whole lake, so it was incredibly peaceful.
Justin was nice to me and didn't make me touch the worm. He taught me to cast, and I caught on pretty quickly. Actually, I'm an amazing fisherwoman. I caught 3 huge blue-gills to his 1 bass. He insists that bass are more elusive, but I'm pretty sure it's just evidence of my fishing prowess. ;-)
We went to BC Pizza for the buffet for lunch (mmmm, cinnamon sticks!), stopped back to Niki's to feed Lena, then went and saw Despicable Me 2. It was the only movie playing during the small window of time we had available, but it was cute! (And we had a gift card, so it was free!)
Again, Lena did great with Aunt Niki. I was so glad, considering what a mama's girl she can be.
It was so nice, getting away with Justin for a while, even if it was in little 3 hour increments. Haha.
1. My Top 10 "Oh Now I Get It" Moments
2. How to Be the Star in Your Preschooler's Eyes
It sums up so well something I've been thinking about a lot. The first article is a hilarious blog about how women always say, "Oh I'll never . . ." before having kids, and then totally change their tune after the kids are born. It's so true and so funny, but basically says "When you become a mother, you'll be so desperate for sleep/the ability to pee alone/the chance to talk on the phone without interruptions that you'll do anything to keep your kids occupied." Which is exactly the opposite of the second article that says our children should be our first priority, and everything else is an interruption from them. It goes on to say that the preschool age is such an important, formative time in a child's life, and we should be spending every moment with them, pouring the knowledge and grace of God into their lives.
I love that the first kind of article exists. I love that women are being honest about motherhood being hard work, tiring work, frustrating work. But I feel like sometimes we go a little overboard with declaring our children little monsters who make us want to pull our hair out. I think it needs to be counterbalanced a little bit by the second kind of article. Most of us chose to have kids. Why do we act like they're such nuisances? I realize I sound like a total hypocrite. I'm the first to admit that my kids drive me crazy sometimes (a lot of times), but I also want to be the first to admit that I'm glad I have them, I love spending time with them, and I feel guilty every day that I don't do a good enough job pouring the knowledge of God into them.
That was not articulated as eloquently as I anticipated. You get the point, right? ;-)
*Edited to add: I'm actually feeling kind of bad about that whole last point. I feel like I came across really judge-y/holier than though. I was just noticing the trend of all these "honesty" blogs. I love them, I've shared them, I write my own blog that way a lot. The one I posted just reminded me that I've noticed a lot of those types lately. I'm all for being real and honest and commiserating with other moms, but I've noticed myself focusing on the bad instead of the good too much recently. There are a lot of happy, silly, fun moments amid the puking stories and up-all-night incidents!
Your anniversary dates sounded so fun! And props for doing it all in 3 hour increments! Haha! Those are tough months.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you; I think we need to have a healthy balance between loving and being thankful for our children and giving them our best, and admitting that motherhood can be hard and my kids can be horrible sometimes. I love my children like crazy, but they can also drive me crazy! I totally agree that it bothers me when people do nothing but complain about their kids- they are so much more than an inconvenience.
Your blog looks great!