Post (Mother's Day) Weekend

Can't Mother's Day be on a Saturday? Or could we have the Monday after off, too, please? Jumping back into real life again right away on Monday seems kind of harsh after such a beautiful, pampering, celebratory sort of weekend. An extra day to cushion the blow would be so helpful.

And WHAT a weekend. Can we pause and take a moment to talk about the weather for a sec? This was like actual summer weather. MY ARM GOT SUNBURNED. (No, not plural. only one, because only one arm was in the sun. It's super attractive.) Minnesota, you've been kind of sucking in the spring weather department lately, but I'll give you full credit for this weekend.

A few snippets:

Impromptu zoo trip on Friday afternoon.

Self, in a few years when you start to feel sad that they are all grown, just remember how often you had to push a 90+ pound double stretch-limo of a stroller around. Praise the miracle that is them walking all on their own. Feel better? No? Maybe? Good.

Awww...

Saturday passed, with some fun as some friends and I snuck away to treat ourselves to a pedicure. Which also turned into manicures. Because who wanted to go home already? Also: too busy getting pampered for pics. 

Switch gears. I want you to picture that it is Sunday. Mother's Day. Picture breakfast in bed. Except your husband doesn't cook. And your kids are certainly too young to even successfully pour cereal and milk into a bowl. But they still want to give you the breakfast in bed experience. Your only real request was iced coffee. Oh, and you also don't own any fancy pants breakfast trays. Oh yes, your breakfast in bed might look something like this:

And it was delicious.

Is that a high chair tray, you might ask? YES. Yes it is.

Caden and Brooklyn got to sit with me in bed while I dined, though they may have snuck more than their fair share of hashbrown bites. They were quite helpful, telling me to, "take a bite, mommy!" "now take a sip of your coffee!" every five seconds, not concerned about basic physical functions like chewing what was already in my mouth before pushing me to eat or drink more. The second I was done it was all about the presents. They could hardly contain their excitement and Brooklyn already had her present for me partway open before I even got downstairs.

"Wow Caden, did you pick this out yourself?"

"Yup"

"Why did you pick this out?"

"Because I wanted it."

Fair enough.

Again, the WEATHER. Can we bottle it up and keep it this way? For the next six months or so?

Daughter to a mother and mother to a daughter.

Hello, sunburned arm.

Today was right back into the thick of it. Back to tantrums and kisses, play dates and sibling feuds, crumbs and (not enough) caffeine. 

But I wasn't kidding about needing that three day weekend. 

Full

My mom’s group has their own Facebook page. It’s private, something we use to communicate just between us: come on over for a last-minute playdate, should I be concerned about this rash, what kind of diapers does everyone use, share a favorite recipe. Last Friday someone posted a check-in. How are things going, share a high or low in your week, a picture...anything!

I paused. How had our week gone, anyway? What on earth did we do? Certainly nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Everyone was healthy, we hadn’t taken any trips, there had been no appointments. Seriously, what did we even do? The usual, I guess. Music time and grocery shopping, a park playdate and a morning at school, an errand or two, gymnastics, and an emergency viewing of Moana one afternoon when the babysitter sent a text that she wasn’t feeling well.

So why did I feel so exhausted?

I guess it’s the busyness that is life with three small kids right now. Even without any additional chaos, the day-to-day of keeping three kids under the age of four alive and healthy and happy and occupied with all of their nearly boundless energy is a lot to keep up with.

Busy isn’t even the right word. I don’t actually feel like life is busy right now. I was busy in a previous life. A life that involved a full-time job and appointments, one that also included a part-time job for awhile, demanding my time in the evenings. Meetings and small groups and dinner and lesson plans and always someplace to be. Busy connotes a bustle of activity, a lack of downtime, a need to be at this place at that time.

We actually do have plenty of downtime. Afternoons, the post-nap hours from 2:00-5:00 can seem almost endless in their need to be filled. Mornings bring a few obligations: school on Wednesdays, gymnastics on Fridays, those things we can’t miss. Grocery shopping on Tuesdays is nearly as set in stone for me. The entire week is off if that all-important task doesn't get completed. We have other things on our schedule that are nice, but not necessary: music time on Mondays, maybe a playdate or two. Otherwise, our schedule is pretty much our own.

So maybe not exactly busy, but life is full. We might not have places that we have to be, that we need to be, but it is FULL of activity.

Full of toddler questions and toddler chatter. How are you old? (Translation: how old are you?)

Full of an uncommonly active 14-month old. I’m asking you to stop moving for all of five seconds.

Full of activities. Building choo-choo tracks, coloring pictures, playing at the park, stacking blocks, putting things in containers and taking them out again, and again, and again.

Full of clean-up. Toys. And crumbs. All the toys and all the crumbs. Seriously, how did you guys take out so many toys and create so many crumbs?

Full of battles with three-year olds. Take off your clothes. No, you know how to do it yourself. Okay, now put your underwear on. No don’t run around just PUT THE UNDERWEAR ON ALREADY. Pick out a book. No, you don’t need to pull out all the books just to find ONE book. Pick one book, please. A SINGLE book.

Full of dishes, laundry, sweeping up those aforementioned crumbs, and coffee. #caffeine

Full of hours, or minutes, to fill with activities for two busy toddlers and a baby. My 14-month old is still a baby, okay. He just thinks he’s also a three-year old.

Full of too much to do and not enough time to do it, and also simultaneously too much time to fill and not enough to fill it with. The difficulties of completing any meaningful task with three little people around.

My fellow moms of small children will understand, but it’s hard to explain exactly why life is so full on any given day. Yesterday I spent a solid hour and fifteen minutes just keeping the 14-month old from unrolling the toilet paper, opening the patio door, getting into my jewelry drawer, putting his hands in the toilet, pulling everything off every shelf he could possibly reach in the pantry, and then comforting his hysterical cries when I removed him from each situation. An hour and fifteen minutes. Seriously. That’s all I did. He bounced around from one forbidden activity to the next, a deranged yet kissable bundle of mischief. An hour and fifteen minutes of failed attempts to keep his little hands occupied elsewhere, while also cleaning up the resulting chaos and tears that streamed down his cheeks after each intervention.

+++++

I remember, though, not really enjoying many of those meetings that took up my time in my former, busier, life. Time spent on things that I wasn’t convinced always mattered all that much. I remember having evenings taken over with classes and plans and work, when I really wanted a break. An endless to-do list for the next day’s work that always seemed so urgent. Emails that snuck up on me at 9 pm, demanding to be answered.

But now? Once the kids are in bed? My time is my own. To work if I want to, to clean up if I need to, to sit on the couch with a good book or Netflix streaming in the comfort of my own living room. I’m done with my obligations for the day. There might be three loads of laundry on the docket for tomorrow, appointments or play dates to get to, but even when taken over by the demands of three small children, my time is mostly my own in a way that it never has been before.

I’ll take full. Full is fine. Full is great. Full is wonderful. What is that (admittedly cheesy) saying? If you think my arms are full, you should see my heart. I’m not sure that I want to go back to being busy ever again.

Read, Watched, Listened

I love reading just about everything, watching comedy and documentary-type things, and have wholeheartedly embrace the podcast.  I also enjoy hearing about what other people are reading, watching, and listening.  Here's my two cents worth.

Reading while eating fresh chocolate chip cookies is thisclose to being a religious experience.

Read

Hungry Heart
I love reading memoirs, and ones from other creative people are especially interesting to me as they describe how they go about their own creative process. It's also interesting to get a bit of an "insider's view" of the publishing world. That said, I must confess that I've never read anything else that Jennifer Weiner has written, so it was a bit hard to relate when she described some of her other work. Beyond that, though, she has a fascinating and somewhat tragic personal narrative woven throughout, which she adds both brutal honesty and humor to.

The Mothers
LOVED IT! This is the best novel I have read in awhile. I know I'm slightly behind on giving this book some love, but if you haven't checked it out yet, it needs to be added to your list. The narration is very interesting (you never really meet the narrator) and brings up questions of whose stories are ours to tell. I fell in love with the characters and my only issue is all of the unanswered questions the book left me with. I have a love/hate relationship with books that don't tell me everything by the end.

The Magic of Motherhood
Written by the Coffee + Crumbs ladies, this book is BEAUTIFUL, both literally and emotionally. The essays on motherhood read just like the ones on the site, (and a few are repeats), and they are full of life and humor and emotion. I've already re-read a few of my favorites. This has been sitting on my bedside table for the past couple of weeks and won't be leaving that spot anytime soon. I'm planning to give this as a gift at baby showers from now on.

Watched

Chef's Table (season three)
We're die-hards. Go watch ALL the seasons. (There are actually four, since France has a season all to itself but apparently doesn't count in numerical order.) Each episode is shot so beautiful and they are all so different from one another. If you love food and/or are interested in hearing people's stories, this series is for you.

The Sixties
We really enjoyed this mini-series by CNN. The interviews added such depth and each episode captured an aspect of the '60's in an interesting way. It was a great overview of the time period, though I will add that some documentaries we have watched have done a better job of covering subjects in an in-depth way, such as When We Left Earth (on the space program). It's also like deja-vu in a way, to watch things unfold that seem still so prevalent now. (See: racial tensions, lying politicians, gender inequality, etc., etc., etc...) I don't know if 2016 is exactly going to go down in the books like 1968 did, but...what's that saying about history repeating itself?

Listened

Beautiful Writers Podcast
I'm intermittent on this one, but recently Linda Sivertson not only interviewed Anne Lamott, one of my all-time most favorites, but her co-host was Glennon Doyle Melton, one of my other all-time most favorites. Completely inspiring.

Coffee + Crumbs Podcast
Giving the Coffee + Crumbs girls some more love this time around! Their podcast is back for season two, and it's like having a conversation with my own girlfriends...minus the part where I can't actually join in (boo). Each episode they discuss a different aspect of motherhood, and also check in with each other to share what "little luxuries" they've been enjoying lately. It's one of my favorite parts of the show, and now I'm totally dreaming of getting my eyebrows microbladed...just as soon as I rustle up that kind of $$$ (!).

Post (Easter) Weekend

Easter is made for kids. Most holidays are, I suppose, but the combination of eggs and candy, bunnies and pastels, poofy dresses and bow ties are particularly made for the single-digit set. Add in the springiest of spring weather to celebrate our re-emergence from the chill of winter, and these three lapped up the fun of a full Easter weekend.

Except for maybe the taking pictures part.

(Attempt 1: not bad.)

(Attempt 2: cue weird faces.)

(Attempt 3: not everyone is exactly vertical.)

(Attempt 4: weird faces, part 2.)

(Attempt 5: so close) (Attempts 6-348 not shown.)

(Attempt 349: Nolan: A+. Caden and Brooklyn: need improvement.)

Our church offered services on Friday night, so we took full advantage of attending at a less busy time to help free up our weekend (so many praise hands). And it's so nice to not deal with the rush of Easter baskets/quick breakfast/fancy clothes/church on Sunday morning. Which also meant that we could attend a birthday party on Saturday.

(Where Nolan flirted with all the lady babies.)

("So, does your mom bring you here often?")

(No seriously, so many lady babies. All the lady babies. Nolan, you get your pick.)

(I mean, we might as well cram all the juice boxes and cake into a weekend already filled with candy, right? Let's just get it all out of the way until the next major holiday/birthday party/desperate attempt at bribery.)

Looking out the window now at the rain, cold, and wind that have taken over, it's a little hard to believe that Easter was only two days ago. I've since packed away much (though by no means all) of the Easter paraphernalia. I swear, Easter is second only to Christmas in the amount of stuff we store. I think it's all those darn eggs.

("You guys, I swear there were only empty eggs in here last night!")

(Discovering that the big kids got all of the good candy.)

("Whut? I'm totally not trying to eat a gummy bear right now.")

(They'll all work together to clean up a spill of bunny crackers.)

(And a little bit later, when they somehow got their little hands on an Easter basket: "We havin a picnic!")

(Dying Easter eggs. Except they were way more interested in the stickers that came in the package.)

(So I dyed some Easter eggs.)

(Rocking the bow tie in the Cozy Coupe.)

(Most of my Easter egg hunt photo attempts of Caden turned out like this.)

(Until he paused because he found an egg filled with some cash money.)

(Not quite sure what's going on, but picking things up and putting them in bags is pretty fun.)

(The aftermath.)

(Don't everyone's Easter celebrations involve watching some hockey?)

After a month of birthdays, quickly followed by a week of the stomach flu, then followed by two weeks of Tyson out-of-town, which led up right into a few days of travel for us, and now Easter under out belts, it feels like the first time things are really getting back to normal in quite awhile. Whatever that means anymore. We're ready to settle into a new normal. One that involves a lot more sunshine, flowers, and all things spring.

(Oh, and also, this:)

;

Things Mom Knows

There are so many things I just know about my kids. Little habits and idiosyncrasies that are embedded into the way I parent, because day in and day out this is what I do. I know things that, if done in just the right way, bring success to our day, and if not, LOOK OUT.  I know where things are, what bodily functions have been one by who, and which child will eat what (well, usually). My brain is full. I might not remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday morning (I mean, besides coffee. Always coffee.) but here are some things I do know:

Like how to get a photo where everyone is in focus, even if they're not all looking at the camera. Just hire a professional.

• Don't give grapes to the baby until the end of the meal, otherwise it's all he will eat and you will spend the rest of your life cutting grapes into teeny-tiny pieces.
• Where the secret stash of snacks in the diaper bags is.
• The proper way to serve Frozen cheese cubes. (Rip open one side of the wrapper. Rotate the cheese 90-degrees, placing it back inside the wrapper so it sticks out, but the wrapper remains so they can see their favorite character and use it as a holder for the cheese. Point deduction if you dare to rip any part of Elsa's face or Olaf's carrot nose.)
• The words to every Daniel Tiger jingle.
• Which socks are too difficult for the baby to pull off his own feet.
• Which aisles to avoid at the store with the kids.
• The correct child to give the green, pink, blue, or yellow plate.
• Whose turn it it so pick out a bedtime story, dump the chocolate chips in the mixing bowl, or choose what type of fruit snacks they'll be eating for the week.
• That if you wait to get the free piece of fruit/cookie until RIGHT before you go through the check-out, it will (usually) buy you enough time to do so in peace.
• Which cry needs to be tended to immediately, and which not so much.
• Who's pooped today.
• That the baby wears mostly 12-month clothes, but a lot of the 18-month stuff is starting to fit, and there's a couple pairs of 9-month pants that actually fit pretty great still. The girl toddler is firmly in 3T, except a lot of 2T shirts still fit okay and 3T jeans are usually too big but the 2T ones fit well in the waist so they work if they are long enough, and we're saving some of the 2T leggings that are too short in the drawer to use as capris, come actual warm spring weather. Meanwhile the boy toddler can wear either 2T or 3T shirts, but bottoms remain a mystery since some of the 3T ones fit, though it depends on the brand and whether or not they have an actual functioning drawstring around waist, otherwise 2T fits best so long as the length is okay, but then we get into shorts and I think there are still some 18 month ones from last summer that will work just fine. The moral of the story is that you can never get any of the clothing bins put away in storage for good. Ever. 
• How much milk is left in the fridge.
• Who wants peanut butter on their toast, who prefers "just butter", and who doesn't even want their bread to be toasted.
• The exact location of BOTH pink slippers, where the blue sippy cup with the green handle is, and where the purple block for the shape sorter was last seen.
• That when they request "Coming 'Round the Mountain" in the car, it is track number 19. However, when they request "Coming 'Round the Mountain" they not only want to listen to track 19, but also the instrumental music on track 18, which they view as some sort of intro. Skip past track 18 at your own risk.
• How long everyone napped today, to the minute.
• The locations of the five nearest coffee shops with a drive-thru.
• How many pairs of toddler underwear are left before you need to do laundry again. And even when it seems all hope is lost and the bottom of the underwear drawer stares back at you, there is always a spare in the diaper bag. Just remember to replenish it later.

My parents will be taking over for the next few days while Tyson and I escape on a little getaway to meet our new niece (bonus points for also being in a warmer climate!). Mom and Dad: GOOD FREAKING LUCK.