Motherhood

Motherhood is hard.  And not, "OMG trig hmwrk is HARD."  But, bring you to your knees hard.  Panic and second-guess and make your heart stop hard.  I knew things like watching my little ones suffer with a fever or get hurt would be hard.  I anticipated that letting them go to school would be heart-wrenching.  What I didn't anticipate was how hard making decisions for my family would be sometimes.

Before kids, I wouldn't have said that I have a particular difficulty making decisions.  I'm a fairly practical person.  I gather knowledge from so-called experts, compare & contrast ideas.  Then make a decision based on my priority of needs and wants.  Simple, right?

Except, suddenly I'm the expert and it seems like what I decide to feed my kids for lunch will directly impact whether or not they are accepted into Harvard.  Don't even get me started on the big stuff like what school to send them to or how exactly to go about teaching them integrity, altruism and loyalty. 

But, I'm the perfect mother for my children.  They are meant to be mine and their father's and we know them like no one else in the world.  So, we know the right things to do for them, we do.  And I believe that, I really do.  Until sometimes, for a little while, I don't.  And I stumble to my knees.  And I spend a little time there.  When I stand up again, I know it.

Resolutions

Do you set New Year's resolutions?  I don't usually bother.  Really, who needs one more expectation that demands time and attention I don't have and then the guilt that comes with my lack of follow-through.

I made my first real resolution two years ago.  I resolved to declutter.  Original, I know!  But what started as a simple resolution to clear out some closets and the playroom evolved into selling our house and moving cross-country to start a new career.

Two years ago we welcomed the new year in what should have been the perfect life.  We were raising two healthy, gorgeous kids in a huge house.  The hubs had just gone back into what is a very sought-after position in his company.  I was a stay-at-home mom with days full of music classes, soccer, playdates and preschool.

Perfect, right?!  It was really except that...it wasn't.  Life felt cluttered and chaotic.  I spent too many days scrambling to meet expectations from other people and obligations that pulled me away from my family.

As I cleaned closets, I realized that we needed to declutter more than the house.  It wasn't a dramatic lightbulb moment but rather a series of events and conversations.  And through each of these, God began revealing his path for us.  A path that would lead us to a feeling of peace.  Peace in knowing that we are raising our children with the values we intended.  A life focused on family.  A life at a slower pace with plenty of time to stop and play.  A simple life.

So, here we are, two years later.  We sold our huge house and downsized.  We moved cross-country to be closer to family.  But we've changed so much more than that and our family is ever-evolving through this process to reprioritize.  And, it was all worth it.

Hide and Seek Math

Incorporating math lessons in toddler and preschooler activities have been pretty easy.  You know, count stairs when you climb...buttons on a shirt...dividing sandwiches in halves and fourths.  But moving out of basic math principles is so not my thing.  Ask my husband, I still don't have my multiplication tables memorized.

But, my big one likes math and numbers and needed more challenge.  Here's a fun beginning addition and subtraction activity that he loved.

I took a stack of index cards (one of my keep-on-hand tools) and wrote out the numerals 1-10.  On another stack of cards, I wrote out 10 basic math problems whose solutions corresponded with the number cards.  Make sure you have each number covered or it kind of kills the game.  Not that I know from experience or anything...

While I was doing this, my big kid was given the task of drawing out his ten favorite Sesame Street characters (I gave him a size restriction) and writing their names on another piece of paper.  We are huge Sesame Street fans in this house!  This kept him busy while I figured out the math problems.

The buttons are what I had on hand to use as "counters."  We've used pennies, beans & beads too.

After the big kid finished cutting out his pictures and names, I sent him into the other room while I hid the characters under the number cards.  I put the names next the coordinating match problem.  Trying to sneak in a little literacy lesson too.  The big kid was seriously fighting me on the reading thing when we did this activity.  I didn't push him to read the name but just implied that it was a hint to who he would find.

My big kid thought this hide and seek activity was great fun.  I loved that it met my criteria for a successful activity: fun, challenging for developing brains and the energy expended by mom to prep the activity didn't exceed the time and energy spent by little hands enjoying it.

Keepin' it fun...

In an alternate reality, I am an awesome homeschooling mama.  I get up at 5am to lay out our lessons for the day, which I have spent hours researching and planning.  For the rest of the day I engage my brood in activities that promote their creativity, problem solving and higher order thinking skills.  In that reality I don’t have cellulite or an addiction to chocolate.   Hey, it’s my alternate reality I can be hot if I want!

In this reality, I drag my butt out of bed at 6am kicking and screaming to try to squeeze in a workout before my kids jump out of bed 100% ready for their first adventure.  Homeschooling is not the right choice for my family.  I know it and I’m okay with it though I still aspire to that most days.

So, we do a lot of educational activities at home.  The goal is always fun b/c children learn best in the context of play.  And they learn when the lessons are relevant and meaningful.  That means that we do very little drill & practice type activities.  The kids' interests guide our exploration which means that we've done everything from dinosaurs to robots to castles.  I see princesses & babies in our future!

Of course, all our fun activities serve another purpose.  They combat boredom, and not just the kids'.  This is one of the secrets of being a stay-at-home mom that I wish someone had warned me about.  It can be mind-numbingly, want to gouge out your own eyes with a fork for a break from the monotony, boring.  Or maybe it's just me that gets bored.  So, selfishly, I like doing a variety of activities to keep myself entertained as well as feeling a little like that awesome homeschooling mama from time to time.

I'll share some of our ideas for activities so maybe you can keep yourself from getting bored your kids challenged and stimulated!

More fall fun!

The suspense has been killing you I know.  You have been laying awake at night wondering what I put in those hurricanes on my mantle.  I didn’t want the traditional fall leaves, pumpkins or anything natural looking, which is my norm.  I wanted something whimsical & colorful to go along with my new garland.  Remember this?

Yes, I know you can't really see the garland but with a kid this cute who cares?

So we dyed rice..  I’ve dyed pasta in the past and quite frankly wasn’t impressed with the results.  The colors looked a little anemic and the pasta lost it’s shape.  But I thought an experiement was in order so I bought a 10 lb. bag of cheap white rice, gathered up 2 big bowls, a couple of spoons and some food coloring.   Ten minutes later we were on our way outside after I swept up the rice each kid had flung stirred onto the floor!

Take it from me, dying rice is an outside activity.   Especially since the first step is to dump some rubbing alcohol over the rice.  I picked up a bottle at Wal-mart for less than a dollar that had a squeeze bottle type top on it.  Brilliant I tell you.  The big one did the squeezing.  

Though the tutorial I was using said to be sparing with the alcohol, I wasn't.  We added enough so that the rice all looked damp.  Be prepared to add the food coloring right away, several drops at a time directly on top of the rice.  Stir fast too because the alcohol dries fast, especially in the full sun when it's 100+ degrees!  Just keep stirring until all the rice is dyed.

Plastic grocery bags worked great for setting the rice out in the sun to dry.

For the orange, we added the yellow and red directly to the rice.  It ended up being this awesome variegated irregular blend.  That’s kind of like my sanity most days.  For the brown rice, I knew I wanted a more consistent color so we mixed up in a small bowl a lot of red & yellow food coloring added in some green and a little blue until it looked like a deep reddish brown.  We added some alcohol to the bowl in addition to squirting it on top of the rice.

We ended up dying the brown rice twice b/c it wasn’t dark enough the first time.

Surprisingly dying the rice ended up being a blast.  I can totally see doing this in springy colors for Easter and varying shades of green for St. Pat’s.  And for Halloween, I'm going to layer orange, yellow and white undyed rice for a candy corn look.  Can't wait!

Fall Decorations

We finally got all our Fall projects completed.  Yeah, just in time to break out the Halloween decorations but hey I get points for follow-through, right?!  Here are our masterpieces:

And they are all Pinterest inspired!  Clearly I spend too much time pinning but that site is so addicting.  The best part is that the kids had a hand in each and every project.

These little beauties were made almost entirely by the boy!  Daddy cut the wood and I put the tape for the lines.  He did the painting, sanding and glazing by himself.  He's a crafty mama's pride & joy!

The tree may be my favorite though.  I have a feeling that years from now, this will still be proudly displayed every Fall so that I can see just how tiny their fingerprints were.

They were all very easy projects to hand over the reins to the kiddos.  Try looking at all those Pinterest projects from that perspective.  A few years from now they may be treasured masterpieces!

Sewers... Sewists... People who sew...

So, if you have a sewing machine and create things out of fabric what are you?  A sewer?  No, thanks.  A Sewist?  Maybe.  Seamstress doesn't really work well for me.  It's not really craft and creative sounding.  Well, whatever you call yourself, if you have a little girl and she likes dresses check back in soon.  I'm working up a tutorial for a ruffled pillowcase dress that is super easy.  I love sweet little pillowcase dresses.  I've recently discovered another style I love, a peasant dress.  I've been afraid of sleeves but I picked up a pattern from Hobby Lobby for $.99.  Well, it worked! 

And guess what?  Simplicity patterns are on sale at Hobby Lobby again this week.  If you're interested in creating a sweet ruffled dress for a little girl in your life, pick up pattern # 5695 this week!  And don't worry if old style brownish tissue paper patterns aren't your thing.  We're going to toss the directions out the window and have a little fun!