A Day In My House

My least favorite thing about back-to-school is… (drum roll) having to pack lunches.

For the past two years, I can count on one hand the number of times Andrew has packed. This year, he’s packed twice, and it is only the 5th day of school. Josh has also packed twice in his 3 days of school. For Josh I am little more lienient due to him being a slow eater. So time not spent in line getting his food is time saved for him to eat.

Nevertheless, I am quickly growing to loathe this entire process:

• Buying extra foods to have on hand for them to pack.
• Negotiating what they can/can’t take. (Peanut butter is obviously out due to Andrew’s allergy. He only likes ham. Not cheese, not turkey. For Josh, I have to steer him away from eating cheese for lunch every single day.) (And I should note, this falls within a couple of hours of having just gone through the dinner routine where most of the time they complain about the food served them, so adding one more stress on that already thread-bare nerve of mine is risky.)
• Making their lunches prior to the bedtime routine (so, cook dinner, clean up, help with homework, have a small break of free time, then pack lunches, give baths, get them in bed – it seems nonstop).
• Assembling their lunches in the morning after breakfast (gathering cold items from fridge, get their ice pack and put everything together and put it by their back pack, then go help them get ready for school)

$2.50 seems a small price to pay to offset this extra work; Where most parents want to save money and only allow them to buy once a week, for example, I may very well fall on the other end of that spectrum, allowing them to pack only once a week.

Either way, though I cannot control what they actually consume of either their bought or packed lunch. Hunger will have to be their guide.

I’m looking forward to a day of fewer errands. (The kids will be appreciative too.) I’ve grown so accustomed to running errands and having lunch out with the boys, that realizing we can’t do that starting next Wednesday, I feel obliged to take them out for lunch today, Monday, and Tuesday. And maybe we will!

I have usual household chores still waiting for me, with laundry topping the list. I have multiple resources online and books staring at me here, to review and study up on before returning to work in September.

I have a grocery list and menu to plan for the next week starting with tonight.

In other news we officially have a baby pumpkin growing, which I helped pollinate (couldn’t take a chance that bees would do it). We had more than this one, but they didn’t make it. And we have more starting to form, so we’ll try to keep an eye on them and help mother-nature along come pollination time.

We also, to our surpise have a baby watermelon. We’d given up hope on this vine, that although has been growing, took a late start in doing so. I’m not holding my breath for it to mature and give us an actual watermelon we can eat. But we’ll enjoy watching it grow for now.

The coffee is done brewing. If you’ll excuse me now…

This week, I’m trying to focus on making changes that will afford the kids more independence in all things school-related.

Like,…

• allocating space for their homework to be “parked” somewhere visible but not on the kitchen table. I cleared the top shelf of their art shelf and made a pile for each of them.
• hanging a strip of hooks at their level to hold their book bags. This way they don’t need my help unzipping, filling, and zipping.

Ok, that’s all I have done so far, but the idea is a pleasing one, and has me seeking out other ways to put them in more control of their school lives. We can still instruct and coach, but don’t have to be as hands on.

This year’s start of school is going to be doubly challening, because not only am I getting both kids up and ready for school, I’m also returning to work, part-time (more about this soon). While my hours will truly be part-time, and while I’ll still be getting them on and off the bus, my planning of meals and other home duties are going to need a little revamping. So any way I can free myself up, turning their responsiblities more and more over to them, the better.

• Twelve more days until school starts!
• I’ve been super busy planning meals and cooking for various church things. So much so that I’m starting to think I need a better way to be organized. Me! The organization queen! I’m just afraid of letting something slip through the cracks. All is going well so far though.
• Since my diet is nearing my goal, I am almost ready to buy buy new clothes and wishing for a fashion consultant. I don’t want to be fad-ish, just contemporary and better dressed.
• I was so surprised at the heat yesterday and it makes me wonder. It makes me feel like hibernating until the heat wave breaks. But would you call it hibernate if you are waiting out the hot weather instead of the cold?
• I love babysitters! I was able to do some errands yesterday for 3 hours while my sitter stayed with the kids. It is so much easier to get things accomplished when I’m not having to referee the boys around the shopping cart at the grocery store. And, when I got home, I was so happy to be with them that I treated them to dinner out (hubby went out with some friends from the office after work.)
• We officially have girl flowers (read more about that here) on our pumpkin vine, two at least. They haven’t blossomed yet. But I have also recently seen bees, so I’m trusting that once they do, they will get pollinated and baby pumpkins we shall have!

Yesterday I witnessed two sides of a coin in reference to my kids’ behavior.

One minute, I’m separating them, declaring in my motherly tone, “THIS is why I don’t let the two of you play together. You don’t know how to get along!”

The next minute, (well after a while of them being separated) they gravitated back to each other, peacefully. Often they like to trade rooms and play with each other’s toys. I walk upstairs to see why they are so quiet and find Josh playing cars in Andrew’s room (on his wood floor which makes them roll so much better as opposed to Josh’s carpet). And I find Andrew playing Legos in Josh’s room (being the Lego-lover that he is, he is happy to accept playing with different Legos in lieu of new Legos.)

This room-trade eventually morphed into playing together, starting with a dance mix cd (Radio Disney Move It!) Josh got for Christmas a couple of years ago. He loves dance-type songs and he loves it loud. So they turned that on and jammed and danced. Loudly.

After that I quit paying attention, not to mention I had the office door closed so I could concentrate on what I was working on. But for the rest of the afternoon, which seemed to be hours, they played nicely – a welcomed change.

• I’m finally getting around to embracing gmail. I’ve had a gmail account for a while, but only used it sparingly. So while I have yet to move to gmail exclusively, I foresee this in the near future.
• Here’s the recipe for making apple cider from apple juice which I referenced in a previous post.
• Enjoying my new cutting board from Sur La Table.
• With VBS this week, and everyone getting in bed later, I’ve fallen into a routine of waking up later, consistently. The boys are not the only ones who have to get back on school schedule, soon!
• I feel I’m in a reality-tv whirlwind with Top Chef, The Next Food Network Star, Design Star and Project Runway ALL currently airing at the same time. Previously, it’s been two at a time that I’ve kept up with. But for some reason, they are all on at the same time. My DVR is keeping busy.
• With school supplies purchased, my next task will be to review their clothes for back-to-school. I know they will need some nicer shorts to wear, but beyond that I have to figure out if their jeans, shoes, etc. are going to fit so that I can buy now why all the school sales are going on. That includes reviewing their shirts to see if they have enough nice ones (read as “without stains”) for a week’s worth of school days. I am not looking forward to the dress-up session (“Here, try these on. Now these. Ok, take that off and try this one”) that this will require.

I have no clear direction on what to share with you today. I’m not foggy or confused. I simply don’t have a predominate thought as a frontrunner to blog about.

Instead, I have thoughts about all the different things on my plate right now (and some mere distracting thoughts). Some I will share with you here:

• What appetizer and/or dessert should I make to take to my small group social tonight?
• Planning, planning, planning for a 70-person lunch three months away.
• Why is my throat sore and is this going to last all day?
• Emailing my niece about her starting college and a list of things she’ll need that family can help her obtain.
• I’m admiring the pumpkin blossoms in the back yard from our first-time-ever planting of pumpkin seeds. We have several blossoms and I’m hoping that something doesn’t eat these as it did the first 2 or 3. I’m also wondering how far across the back yard they will spread by October.
• I really need to consider taking a training class to spiff up my techical skills in case I return to work part-time. Mental Note. MUST dedicate time to researching locally available classes.
• Must clean off this dining room table as it becomes a catch-all and make-shift desk for the laptop. (Mind you, we have a desk upstairs with the “desktop computer” which needs to be cleaned off too.)
• There are three and one-half weeks until school starts.
• It’s pretty clear we won’t be going on a summer vacation. And I’m okay with that. In fact, I have only myself to blame, so it is best to be okay with it so I don’t have to blame myself.
• My refrigerator runs really loudly sometimes, and it begs the question: Is it on its last leg? (wishful thinking)

It’s been too hot to blink lately. Tomorrow brings a promise of rain which I hope is not a lie.

My kids have been settling into a pretty good routine of good behavior. It helped that Uncle L was here over the weekend and played with them nonstop. Literally. Since then, Andrew has been a Legoing and Reading machine. Josh has been around – usually finding something to entertain himself with, inbetween telling me Andrew licked him or stuck his tongue out at him or put his foot in his face, of course. But other than that, they’ve been pretty good.

Josh has an art class in the afternoons next week, and were I on my A-game I would already have planned how Andrew and I can spend this two hours of one-on-one time. But I’ve temporarily misplaced my A-game. I’m hoping to find it after my mild abdominal pain subsides. And my fatigue. (I’m blaming the heat.)

Speaking of the heat, rain is promised for tomorrow. Oh, wait. I covered that already. Well, it is monumental. So it bears repeating.

Purchases I’m on the verge of making… a new coffee maker (No, we still haven’t gotten a new one. Still putting up with the leaky carafe.) and a new laptop that can actually be used in one’s lap (has battery-life). I’m not in a hurry for either, but I am growing tired of shopping for the perfect maker/laptop for the perfect price.

Other things I’m on the verge of doing… making actual vacation plans. Just today we’ve settled on doing a couple of long-weekend trips (think 2 hours away or less)  instead of one week-long trip (3 or 4 hours away). This helps Bob in taking off only a day here and there instead of a full week in the middle of his big work project. And it helps me scale-down my destination searching – which will likely end up being other major Ohio cities, Cleveland and Cincinnati.

I’ve signed up for a knife-skills class at the end of the month. And I’m currently reading, yes, reading a 496-page behemoth of a book on French culinary technique.

Well, the boys are coming in from their outside-play-in-the-humidity-time, so I must get their baths ready.

Leaving the office workplace to stay home and raise kids, one might think the need for conflict resolution skills stays behind as well. Not true.

Summer always brings mixed emotions. Glad to sleep a little later. Glad to have a less structured schedule. Glad to spend more time with my kids.

But it also brings angst – in the parenting department. My oldest does fine for about a week. He soaks up the down time by reading and immersing himself in play. But then, as the days roll on, he gets… bored.

I tried to get ahead of this this year by putting  a notebook and folder together of “school work” they could each do every day. “Build in structure,” I told myself. “Keep a journal, write letters to classmates and mail them, draw, etc.” This conversation with myself sounded so good.

The notebook and folder are tossed aside because I cannot get my oldest interested in this at all. He looks up at me with his sorrowful eyes like I’m trying to make him eat frogs legs and pigs feet. “Mom, I really don’t want this…”

So, I relent. And I dare not try to get my youngest engaged because he’s not going to do it if his big brother doesn’t.

So with my best laid plans laying on the sidelines, my oldest is bored and then feels the need to take it out on little brother. Feet in the face. Elbows. Laying on him. Slapping him?

Enough!

While I wish I could tidy this post up with a nice neat bow, telling you what I did to resolve this and how nicely it ended up – everyone smiling and holding hands -  I cannot.

I’m right in the middle of this and at a loss for how to teach character and treating your family as good as you would treat your classmates. I’m tired of giving the same speech to him and a little uncertain of what to try next.

So with prayer, I try not to loose my temper but to maintain gentleness and patience all the while asking God for wisdom.

8:33 a.m. I’m done with breakfast and dishes. I slept late (for me) until 7:40. Just couldn’t pull myself out of bed on this, the first day without appointments or places to be in the a.m. in a week and a half.

Josh, mind you, is still asleep.

Speaking of Josh and (a few posts ago) his ability to catch me off guard with his questions or statements, yesterday, he did it again.

He was sitting behind me in the office while I was typing away at the computer, no doubt checking facebook, when he, out of the blue, questions my knowledge on this:

“Mom, do fish have parents like we do?”

(Footsteps. I hear footsteps. Josh is up!)

My answer, as un-fish-expert as it was, was something like this. “Yes, they do, but not like we do. They pretty much can take care of themselves after they are born.”

So the question we all are wondering is why was he thinking about this? Is he pondering getting a pet fish and hesitant to take a fish son or daughter away form his/her parents?

As luck would have it, our dinner last night was grilled mahi-mahi. No telling where that conversation in his head went with that.