Creativity.

Today was one of those days.

You know, one of those days where you feel like banging your head against the wall.

I am one of those moms who rather than patiently sit back and let her kids learn how to do certain tasks......I jump in out of frustration and time and do the tasks myself because, ONE. I am able to get the task  done a LOT faster and, TWO. I like things cleaned and organized a certain way.

I have not helped my kids by doing this.

Instead, I have a thirteen year old who doesn't know how to wash his own clothes. A ten year old who at one time mistook Palmolive soap for Cascade and filled the dishwasher cup full of it.....not once, but twice (in the same wash load) because she thought she didn't add enough soap. A nine year old who would rather go to her room than to help clean.

Thankfully, I now keep Cascade drop-ins for the dishwasher. But this doesn't solve the rest of the problems I have created for myself in not teaching my kids simple household tasks they should be able to do by now.

I have come to a point where I have decided I want change. Not just a little but a lot. I am tired of unrolling dirty socks before putting them in the wash. I am tired of tripping over backpacks by the front door. I am tired of shoes being scattered everywhere (and yes they do have a place to be put) and the morning rush of, "Mom! Where is my other shoe?!"......followed of course by a reply of, "I don't know, probably wherever you left it". I am tired of toothpaste stuck to the sink, towels and laundry in the floor and water left dripping in the bathtub. I am tired of glasses of milk filled to the rim for Oreo dipping and then poured down the sink. I am tired of telling them to clean their room every day and they don't listen to me, that is until they receive a phone call from a friend to go somewhere and then magically their room can be clean in ten minutes. Oh how I could go on and on.

I love my children. I love them dearly. But these are just a few of the things that need to change here in our home. It isn't their fault....that falls on my shoulders for always "wanting to hurry and get it done".

So today I decided things would be different. I decided rather than me cleaning their bathrooms that they are perfectly old enough and capable enough to do it themselves. Spencer did pretty good.....he has cleaned his bathroom before. The girls however.......lets just say it took a lot of patience and a few laughs here and there.

Natalie and Katie share a bathroom. I divided up the cleaning tasks to be even. Believe it or not they were fighting over who got to do certain jobs. Katie wanted to clean the mirror. Natalie wanted to mop the floor. They both shared the rest of the tasks such as, scrubbing the bathtub, the toilet, putting things away, taking laundry to the laundry room and cleaning the sinks.

What would have taken me about 20 minutes to do......it took them over an hour.

That is where the wanting to bang my head against the wall came in.......it was taking FOREVER.

But my good laugh for the day came when Natalie started mopping the floor.

She mopped by the right side of the toilet (which is right next to the tub), then mopped by the door. I told her she needed to mop by the left side of the toilet and that she had missed it and explained to her how to start mopping at a far corner of the room and mop your way out of it.

"OK Mommy" she said.

Then she climbed from the doorway to the tub.....walked along the edge of the tub, all the while holding a dripping mop, and then stepped on top of the toilet (and yes the lid was closed).

"What are you doing?" I laughed and asked her.

"Well Mommy, I didn't want to put feet marks on the floor where I already mopped!".

I had to laugh, it was hilarious. She was standing on top of the toilet mopping the floor. Then I came to my senses after laughing and realized this was Natalie.......Natalie standing on top of the toilet mopping. She is the clumsiest of the three of our kids. The one who is always falling and getting hurt. The one who can trip just walking. So I helped her down and helped her mop her way out of the bathroom.

So for today I feel like I accomplished something. I feel better knowing I stepped back and let our kids do certain tasks rather than taking over so I could hurry and move on to the next one. I learned that there is certainly a creative way to do everything, including mopping a bathroom floor.

To my darlings. I love you.
Love,
Mommy xoxo

Life As We Know It.

We had quite a few plans for the weekend. Jerome has military in Williamsburg and the kids and I stayed busy yesterday. Our girls had their first winter dance and Spencer stayed over at a friend's house last night. Katie ended up staying with Sydney, one of her best friends.....so that left just Natalie and I for the rest of the evening. I was going to surprise her and take her to a movie, Gnomeo and Juliet, but by the time the dance was over we had missed at least the first 30 minutes of the movie. So we went to Target and bought a movie I had been dying to see, and Natalie was wanting to see it too. Then we went to Chili's and met my friend April and her daughter Cheyanne (they made it in time for the Gnomeo and Juliet movie). We had dinner and then Natalie and I went home, took our showers and put our pajamas on and snuggled up and watched a movie together.
It was a great movie, we laughed a lot and cried in a few parts. After the movie we went to bed. Jerome was gone so  she climbed in bed with me. We talked a little bit and then fell asleep.
I don't know if it was Chili's or a wonderful stomach bug but I was up at 3a.m. sick. I finally managed to go back to sleep and slept in this morning.
When I woke up I laid in bed thinking about that movie. I loved the movie but I LOVED the house in the movie. It gave me a few ideas for our kitchen that I have never finished. I only started on it two years ago. It has been at stand still. I still have about 6 cabinets to finish painting, the floor needs caulked and something for the windows. There is nothing on the windows right now and it creeps me out at night, especially last night since Jerome wasn't here. Life is busy all the time and just finding the time to squeeze in painting cabinet doors is last on my list. So I am making it a priority to finish our kitchen this month....well, at least by Jerome's birthday. I plan on having a surprise for him the next time he goes away on military, and I just want to finish this project first. Here are a few scenes from the movie.........

 {you can see the kitchen in the background of this picture}

{Natalie thought he was pretty cute, I had to agree with her}

{We laughed so much on this part and the Wiggles part}

We loved this movie and I am sure we will watch it again.

I loved the movie and the house.

It was just what I needed to get a little inspiration and motivation to finish our kitchen.
{and yes, I am keeping up with the one.frame.a.day project but I just haven't had a chance to post it here}

Tonight Spencer and I are watching a movie, Red....it is suppose to be funny. Nothing like spending a weekend in with the stomach bug and watching movies. I guess Jerome picked a good weekend to be gone on military......he won't have to worry about catching it from me. Natalie is staying at Grammie's house and Katie is staying at Sydney's another night.

Happy Meal.

I went to school and had lunch with Katie and Natalie Thursday. Katie has been asking for over a week for me to come to school and bring McDonald's. "McDonald's?" I'd ask her. She would reply with a firm, "Yes mommy. My friends Mommy and Daddy bring them McDonald's to school and have lunch." So after her reminding me of this all week I went to McDonald's and made it to school with two happy meals in hand. Katie was excited (I had lunch with her first, Natalie's lunch was right after hers)and I can truly say that that day she had a happy meal for lunch.



Natalie was happy too, and wanted to show all of her friends my new phone. Then she called her daddy at work....that is who she is talking to here.



Day 27 12:10

Beauty.

There was such beauty this morning outside our window. The snow was falling down in the heaviest snowflakes I have ever seen. I slipped my husband's boots on and went outside to capture a little bit of winter's beauty.



Molly followed me out and stayed with me. She was covered in snowflakes....



The kids are now home from school, it was released early due to the amount of snow and the roads getting covered quickly. I am getting ready to go into the kitchen and fix them all some tomato soup and grilled cheese. It's our favorite lunch on cold winter days like today.

Our Book.

I finished this book from Blurb over a year ago and always meant to post some pictures of how wonderful it is.  I have since started on our 2008 family book and am almost finished (I'm up to Halloween 2008) and cannot wait to order another. Although 2007 will probably be our largest book printed seeing that is the year Jerome was deployed to Afghanistan and I did a whole LOT of picture taking to keep him feeling a little closer to the kids and to home.













I love this book. I love how it turned out and that I can open it up, look back and read our memories from that year. To me it is a priceless keepsake.

Making brownies with daddy.

Day 21
7:48pm


This evening I watched Natalie and Katie make brownies with their Daddy in the kitchen. He even let them crack the egg, something I'm always hesitant to do. He helped Katie stir to make sure she mixed it all up good.

The brownies were yummy and a nice snack for our relaxing evening at home in our pajamas.

Not Defeated Yet.

Day 19.
Not Defeated Yet.



Tuesday started out as what I thought would be a "normal" day. Everything had gone as planned until around 4:45 when Spencer paged me from practice saying, "Mom, you need to take me to urgent care after practice".
I hurriedly made it to school only to find that he couldn't open even open the door and his right arm was just there, he wasn't using it at all. We then went to urgent care where we spent the rest of the evening in x-rays and sitting rooms. The doctor had said it had been dislocated but he wasn't going to mess with it until after the x-ray results were back. Thankfully a friend of mine came to pick up the girls (I thought they were going to have to put his arm back in place).
As it turned out his arm had been dislocated but was back in place as it should be. Then the doctor gave Spencer the news that there is no possible way he could wrestle in this weeks big tournament. Spencer was very upset and as soon as the doctor left the room he leaned his head over on my shoulder in disappointment and told me how hard he had been working for this and that he really wanted to be able to wrestle in it. He put his arm in a sling and sent us on our way.



Today around three I took him some motrin to school and was surprised by his swollen hand when he came to the office to get his medicine. I called his pediatrician and they had us bring him in. His doctor there took a look at it and said by the looks of it (sunken shoulder, tenderness spots, inability to function with his arm) that it was still dislocated. She then left the room and came back to explain that there was to be a lot of pulling and moving of his arm to put it back the way it should be and she sent us on to the ER where they are better equipped to handle dislocations.
We made it to the ER, and they were PACKED. I was kind of relieved because Jerome was still working and I wanted him there when they were going to be "working" on his arm. I did not want to have to do this alone. We sat in the waiting room a good while until they finally called us back. They took a lot more x-rays and then sent us back to wait in the waiting room. By that time Jerome arrived and we joked and laughed with Spencer trying to keep his mind off of what we thought was coming. They called us back and we waited some more. Then the doc let us know that his arm was not still dislocated but that in the x-ray he believes he has a AC separation in the joint of his arm/shoulder. We have to see a specialist and then go from there.



Day 19
There is still a fighter in him.
Two days, two doctor visits and one ER visit we learned his arm was dislocated, relocated and are now waiting to see a specialist to see if he has an AC separation in his right arm/shoulder.
He is very upset and discouraged of learning he won't wrestle in this weeks big tournament, or next weeks for that matter. He doesn't like wearing the sling.....even though he can barely do anything with his right arm. He is begging to miss school because of such a difficult day today with his injured arm. The teachers are not being very understanding of the fact that he is right handed and it takes quite a while to write with your left hand two whole pages of notes.....and so on. I know he'll get through this, he always has been a fighter. But for now it is disheartening to see him in pain and see him discouraged and know that other than giving him a little encouragement, that is all we can do for him right now. I would take his place in a heartbeat just to see him be himself again and out there participating in a sport he loves while we yell for him from the stands. The doctor has him out of participating until January 27th, he has high hopes that he will still be able to participate in the counties tournament the first weekend in February. He has a lot of healing to do until then......he can't even buckle his seat belt, put on a regular pair of tennis shoes, open a bottle of gatorade, lift his arm above his waist without pain, and so on. He said this evening he is going to work towards the counties tournament and still try to get down to 155 by then. I just hope that he heals.
I hope he heals soon, that possibly this won't be an injury to take a long time to heal. But for now he will be having to sit on the sidelines, watching his teammates participate in the events he has so much been looking forward to participating in, and hope and pray that he heals soon.