Peace

Do you ever have those days as a mother when you feel like a complete failure and then you make the mistake of reading those perfect mother blogs, the blogs about women who "unschool" their childen and take them camping in the woods and spend time sewing dresses and making cool crafty things and getting a book published and all their children love their siblings and their parents and no one every runs through the house screaming at their children that if they don't stop kicking their brother/throwing the ball/"singing" at the top of their lungs this instant they will go to their room for the rest of their lives?

I totally admire those women who can make their lives work and their children are happy. I would love to be like that. I on the other hand am obsessively reading parenting books waiting for the magic answer so I can stop yelling at my children and they will stop yelling back.

I have been frustrated by this lately. A lot.

Saturday morning, DH got up at 5am to drive down to College Station. He was meeting up with a bunch of college buddies to relive those memorable football Saturdays by drinking & eating brats in the parking lot all day long.

My day began when A, who woke up to DH & his friend getting ready after being promised she would get to sleep in, had a major meltdown. Huge. It was close to the meltdown she had after getting her 4 year old shots. Bad. I calmed her down eventually. However, shortly after the meltdown, I ended up with three children in my bed watching Disney while I occasionally shushed and begged them to lie still so I could get another 5 minutes of sleep. I thought we were in for one of those horrible days.

Instead, after a bribe of donuts and kolaches, they all three played together for several hours. Nicely. No fights, no kicking, no hitting, no bossiness. They just played together. They built a plane out of the waffle blocks and dressed up for a long cold flight, the pilot, the stewardess and the dog.





I guess I should cherish my peaceful morning because it probably won't happen again for a long while.

okay I must be crazy

I have no idea what I was thinking taking a second part time job. Okay, I know what I was thinking. First, my current part time job seems a little iffy, it is good to have a back up. Second, kid activities are darn expensive. The extra money will come in handy.

But I took a job programming in a language I've never taken a class in let alone actually worked with before. I clearly wasn't thinking. I was told I would get an easy peasy copy and paste project and it would be fine. That's not what happened. I got a "we've never done it quite like this before, but we sort of did it here and we sort of did it there, put it together with this 3rd project and you should be able to make it work." I'm having to figure it out on the fly and I'm not too happy about it.

My happy existence of working a an easy flexible schedule and sleeping through the night without work nightmares is gone. I had multiple dream and multiple episode of anxiety induced sleeplessness. Thank god for CNN Headline News. That news scroll always puts me back to sleep.

I called the guy who hired me this morning and told him I was a "little" stressed about what I'm doing. He reassured me that this wasn't the project that I was suppose to do and it would be okay if I was a little late. I felt better.

I kicked DH & the baby out of the house for a good hour or two of heads down programming. And what happened, the other job goes into panic mode and needs assistance immediately. Ugh.

I did fixed 3 of 4 problems for job #1, spent a good hour figuring out the major hurdle in job #2 and I'm finally starting to relax.

I'll see how long this 2 part time jobs will last before I really lose my sanity.

Birthday & Bats

We spent last weekend in Austin visiting my best from since forever and her family. We've been trying to plan a weekend down there for awhile, but as always, life with 3 kids is way too busy. Each weekend in August had something going on, birthday parties that couldn't be skipped, the cousins last weekend in town, my friend's relatives were in town, labor day. The only weekend what was left was last weekend which also my birthday weekend. So we celebrated with friends down in Austin, which is one of the best ways to celebrate.

What I love about visiting my friend is that we don't have to do anything. We can just be lazy and hang out. The husbands took the 6 kids to the pool on Saturday afternoon while we went shopping. We ate good food at Austin restaurants. Kids played MarioKart (birthday present for me, DH says if he gets Wii for Christmas, I can get Wii games for my birthday.) I slept in until 8am on my birthday and my friend made me a birthday cake. It was a nice birthday weekend.

The childrens' highlight of the trip was a quick visit to Zilker Park & watching the bats. My favorite part was taking picture with my camera and my new fancy zoom lens.

sock knitting

Last March the LYS closed shop. I took advantage of the sale and bought a bunch of yarn, including sock yarn. I used one skein to make a hat and booties. I still had 2 skeins left, waiting patiently in by drawer to be made into socks.

I've slowed down on my knitting. I have the lz bag that has been waiting to be sewn up for weeks now. I just haven't felt like finishing it so last week I cast on and knit a sock. I'm glad that I did it, it was fun to try. I still have to make the second one. I think DH has sock envy. I may have to knit another pair just for him.

Here is the sock:





Pattern: Toe-up sock with gusset heel by wendyknits
Yarn: ShibuiKnits Sock in stone

First Day

Well, we had a good morning on the first day of school. There were no tears/yelling/screaming before leaving. There were no tears/yelling/screaming upon drop off. I definitely call that successful.

A took off down the hall, plopped herself next to her friend and waited in line. We didn't wait to walk her into the classroom and she was perfectly fine with that. She did tolerate a good luck kiss goodbye and one picture.

We dropped off J second. He was perfectly fine too. He put his bookbag away, got out his markers and colored his butterfly picture. We gave him a quick kiss goodbye and took off.

Of course, I took a picture before we left for school. Here are their bright & shiny faces.

Goodbye cousins!

The cousins (Sister#2 & family) are moving to Canada. This was their last weekend in town. Its been cousins, cousins, cousins all weekend long. J has been playing with M & A has spent as much time as possible with E.

A & her cousin E are twin cousins. They were born 24 hours apart. E was born Monday afternoon in Thailand and A was born Tuesday afternoon in Dallas. Because of the time difference, they have the same birthday. Despite being as close as sisters, we can't remember them ever having a fight. The past two years that the cousins have lived in Dallas, A&E have spent every possible moment together. They were even in the same class for 2nd grade.

There are benefits to A being alone this year. When E is here, she tends to play with her almost exclusively. She will be able to make new and closer friendships with other girls. I know that won't make a difference to her in the next few days. The last time E moved away from Dallas, A was four. We had a tough transition in school that year. I expect pretty much the same this year.

I guess she'll be needing some extra attention for the next few weeks. Hopefully school & activities starting up again will keep her busy and not missing E too much. At least this time they will be able to email each other and keep in touch on their own.

Now we're counting down the days until the Canadian fall break so we can see the cousins again.

I've thrown in the towel

I've decided it is time for me to take a break from potty training.

B was doing well. Well, he did well as long as he ran around naked. The minute I put a diaper/underpants/shorts on him, he would pee and/or poop. When he was naked, he would run to the potty all on his own and go. No problems.

Something happened last week. I'm not sure what. First he peed in a cereal bowl on the kitchen floor. That was nice to find. Later he peed on the floor and in a chair and didn't tell me. I figured it out because he was missing his shorts. I went back to no clothes and tried not to take him out of the house.

On Tuesday, we had to go to the dentist. I put him in a diaper but bribed him to use the potty. I told him if he was dry when we got home he could have a treat. He asked to use the potty at the dentist office. I didn't help him tuck & he started spraying everywhere. I had the diaper in my hand and trapped the spray and it wasn't a big mess. Since I hadn't brought the diaper bag, I just put his shorts back on him and decided to take the chance.

After the dentist we went to the cousins' house to show off A's mouth minus her butterfly. B was still without a diaper. He asked to go play upstairs. I told him that he had to go potty first. He did. He had already pooped in the potty that morning. I thought for sure we were safe.

I was talking Sister#2 when we heard a noise upstairs. My sister asked B what he was doing and he proudly said, I pooped. Oh the horror. I ran upstairs and sure enough he had pooped. He pooped with his shorts on, it fell out onto the floor and he stepped in it and walked around. He smeared it in a wicker toy basket (luckily it was empty of toys) and then he walked around some more. There were smears of it everywhere. My sister followed me up to see what had happened and promptly ran downstairs because it stank so bad. I told B to stand still and ran down to get cleaning supplies. By the time I got back upstairs, B had decided to play in the it with a plastic T-rex. The T-rex had eaten and smashed the poop and stomped all over the carpet. More poop in even more places. At that point I yelled at DH to forget the television and come up to help. He got B in the shower, cleaned him off, and threw away the toy basket and the dinosaur. I spent what seemed like hours cleaning the carpet and crying.

It has been 2 days now. B has spent the last 2 days back in diapers. At this point, I'm perfectly fine with him entering kindergarten or college in diapers. I just don't want to clean up a mess like that ever again.

Heat, part 2

I haven't been in the backyard in ages. It's been too darn hot.

Tonight, again thanks to T.S. Edouard, it was a mildly pleasant 94 degrees outside. Compared to the 107 degrees over the weekend, it felt good. The whole family went outside to play some basketball. After my miraculous win in a game of around the world and then my pathetic showing in the follow up game (proving that the first game was miraculous), I headed out to check on the plants.

A was first in the flower bed. She asked me if jalapenos turn red. Sure enough some of the jalapenos were ripe. I don't know if red means they are beyond ripe. I guess we'll find out when we eat them.





The tomatoes aren't fairing so well. Last year we had an abundance of rain and an abundance of tomatoes. This year we've had a lot of flowers but very few tomatoes. The creatures are getting to them before they are even close to a homegrown tomato.





There'll be no homemade salsa for us this year. Hopefully we'll have better luck next year.

Heat

Texas has been hot this summer. We've been in the 100's for weeks now. It's not as bad as 1980 but close. A has been in soccer camp all week. I've been a little worried about the heat, but the camp ends at 12:30 before temps go above the mid 90s. She's been handling it okay.

This morning, thanks to t.s. edouard, we have nice weather this morning. It's in the 70s, overcast and slightly breezy. It is beautiful.

I dropped A off at camp this morning. As we walked out to the field, A turns to me and says, "It's cold out this morning, I should have brought a jacket." I guess she is a true Texan.

We Made This Bread

DH is back in town and the family is back to normal. The kids survived the 5 days intact without too many meltdowns by them or by me. Actually it went well. I even managed to take A & J each out to a movie by themselves on Saturday (with the help of Sister #2 & niece who took care of B.)

On Saturday afternoon I realized that if we were going to make bread, we had to do that night. I couldn't let Susan down. After a quick trip to Target for more diapers (potty training isn't close to switching to underwear yet and we were down to what was left in the diaper bag) and to the grocery store for honey & yeast, bread making commenced.


Make this bread!

J & B taking turns measuring


Squishing the ziplocs


A picture of me kneading the dough since Susan specifically asked for a picture with me in it.


Bread ready for the oven


The first slice fresh out of the oven



I got to explain how yeast eats the honey and makes gas which makes the bread rise. B got the potty humor of this and loved it. A not so much.

The kids loved making the bread but none of them would eat it. A said it was too thick, which I interpreted as too dense. I'm not sure if it is how it is suppose to be or if it didn't rise enough or if the boys kneaded too much flour into the dough. They were having lots of fun with that part.

DH & I loved the bread, especially with the homemade butter A made at her American Girl Felicity camp. Yum.