Home(school) improvement: End of week 4, start of 5

I am just not that on top of things lately. Maybe this week will be a little better. Even though I didn't post a follow-up for week 4 on Friday, I do have photos to prove that I'm working on it!


We left our sandbox open and it rained, and I thought that would be fun (and messy!) to play in. It didn't disappoint. The girls made their own little beach and danced on it. Wet sand does feel nice. This occupied them for about an hour and then it was bath time!


On Saturday we took a church trip up to a camp in the mountains and had a lot of fun. Jordan took Suzi (and a couple of other kids) out in a canoe...


And we ran in circles and generally got dirty and had a good time.


I've been irritable lately and backsliding into yelling. Ugh. I hate it and I am still working on it.

So, this week?

Establish a daily rhythm. Eat together at the table, get up early to fix breakfast, offer alternating opportunities for expansion/contraction. Improve environment so materials are more accessible.

1) Getting up early is going to be tough with Robert. It's like even if I do get up early I might not be able to get much done. Right now I usually sleep as long as I can and Jordan takes the baby after I've been nursing him on and off all night. Maybe this week I'll try to get to bed a little earlier and see if I can be up by 6:30 to make breakfast and get prepared for the day. Maybe if I work on establishing a daily rhythm for myself, it'll be easier to do it for my kids.

2) The dining room table could use a good cleaning.

3) I need to straighten up our toys, as I think some of them are mixed up and out of place. There are some expansion/contraction opportunities there that might be going to waste.

4) One thing holding me back is the difficulty of finding a good balance of having materials readily available to the kids, but also holding back enough so they don't turn the house into a disaster area and waste things. I could put a ream of paper on their table and 20 minutes later each page would be scribbled on and tossed in the floor. Any ideas on how to handle this?

5) I definitely need to add several clean-ups into our daily schedule, and learn how to keep my cool when the kids decide they don't want to help me. I know for a fact that yelling and guilt will not help!

6) Sigh. I guess I should write out a schedule. Actually, I already have one somewhere (that we haven't used) so I'll probably start with that. Maybe I'll post it in a day or two. Writing a schedule is fun, but sticking to one is hard!

We'll see how it goes...

I'm trying to keep the resolutions and stuff to a minimum

First, some pictures.

All the girls at the farm (where my dad's side does Christmas). Next year there will be a little boy propped up in the middle of them!

This is a good time of year for us. Christmas is over. All the hard work of gift-making is done, and now we have a long time to be creative and try things before it's time to start over. I already know what we're going to give a couple of people for next year, because of what they liked this year. Hooray for edible gifts, especially for those pesky people who are so hard to please otherwise. And next year I will be starting early. Making gifts for everyone turned out okay after all!

But other than that, here's what I want to do in 2011:

1) Hypnobabies. I know it may seem strange that we are taking a childbirth class for our third baby (our third class, too), but after hearing Megan's love for this class, and knowing how anxious I can get, I knew it'd be perfect for us. We've already done a few scripts and last night we went to our first class. The hard part for me will be doing the "homeplay" assignments each day. I'm going to have to put it on a calendar or something.

2) Make things. I want to come up with new things, and get better at making the old ones. I am still really into felted wool, and I have quite a stash of sweaters to work with! Lately I am working on birds. Here are two little bird families I recently made. I can't take all the credit for the idea--my cousins asked me to do them as baby gifts for new parents. It's similar to something I made for Christmas, but I love the idea of making a special little set of birds to represent a family.

A set of birds for a family with two mommies, having a little girl

I also do nests

I will have to do a separate post on things I am meaning to make. So many ideas, so little time.

3) Nesting. I have been at the height of my nesting urge and I want to take advantage of that before the baby comes. Jordan and I actually got a lot done over the holidays. We cleaned out our kitchen cabinets (yay!) and stocked up on kitchen staples. And most notably, we cleaned out our bedroom. It still needs a lot of work though, because it's probably going to be Baby Robert's birthplace, and it's the room Jordan, Ivey, Robert and I will share for a while. Yes, Ivey will still be in the room with us. I'm not going to rush her out on account of the baby. We didn't rush Suzi out when Ivey came either. But that brings me to #4.

4) Get Suzi into a bigger bed, and Ivey into the toddler bed. I'd like to get this done before Robert comes. The plan is to do what we did with Suzi, and keep Ivey in our room in the toddler bed until she gets used to that, and then move her in with Suzi when she's ready. This will probably be something we all have to adjust to for the next several months.

She seemed to like the toddler bed at the farm... Or at least she liked playing on it

5) Have Baby Robert! And try my best to tandem nurse, and everything else that goes along with a new baby. It makes me nervous to think what it's going to be like around here, but we will have three wonderful children so it'll be worth it.

This is why I'm not making a bunch of lofty goals and resolutions for the new year. Come April, if I can just get through each day without being a horrible witch of a mother and losing my cool and screeching, I will have accomplished something. Even if the house is a mess, and the kids didn't get bathed and I didn't get a shower. Even if we have to wash a bowl and a spoon every single time we want cereal. Because let's get real. We're going to have three kids and the oldest one will be four. This season of my life is going to be a messy one, but I want to have fun in it. I know I'll miss it when it's gone.

What do you have planned for 2011?

Starting 2010 a little late: Goals

I feel like we're just now starting the new year. After kicking off January with a round of colds for everyone, we are left with a jumbled mess of a house--the result of chores neglected. My mom came over to help one day and we had things halfway caught up, but there is still much to be done. In my memory this little cold will be a distant blip, but while it was going on it felt bad. I let myself get discouraged and lost motivation to do much of anything, even when I had a little time. I didn't even drink coffee for over a week, which is weird for me, but it was the last thing I wanted. Now that I feel like life is rolling again, I am thankful for this messy little house and a fresh start. Things to do. Progress to make. I am reluctant to set a deadline by saying "January to-do list," but here's my list of things I'd like to work on in the near future:

1) Assemble a set of items to treat future basic illnesses at home. Throughout this cold, I kept flip-flopping over whether or not to take the girls to the doctor. If I took them, would they catch a more serious illness in the "sick" waiting room? Get antibiotics prescribed unnecessarily? Would we be lectured about vaccines? Would it be scary and uncomfortable for the girls? For so many reasons I didn't want to take them, but I also didn't want to gloss over something serious that genuinely needed medical attention. The other night I kind of freaked out when, on top of the girls' lingering cold symptoms, Suzi refused to pee and began crying that it hurt. With a two-year-old, that's a problem! So I called Carey, who helped me put things in perspective, gave me advice and loaned me books. It turns out I was already doing a few things right, but I'd like to learn so much more about herbs and natural health. I have a lot more reading and some shopping to do, but hopefully next time my girls get sick I will not be caught unprepared. (Both girls are just fine now, by the way--no doctor's visit required! I am so thankful.)

2) Learn more about the Montessori method. A post about educational philosophies on one of my favorite blogs reminded me I'd been meaning to research this. I already posted my thoughts on education in this post and not a lot has changed since then. The Montessori method is particularly intriguing to me because as a child I had what some would call attentional issues, but perhaps if I'd been educated differently (determining the direction of my own work) I would have been a kid who was marching to the beat of her own drum but learning like crazy. Since Jordan works for a university with a big library, I think I'm going to get him to pick up some books for me on his way home.

3) Do some rearranging to make this small house feel bigger. We got some cool Christmas gifts. Suzi got a sweet, simple wooden table with chairs and a white board/chalkboard easel. We got a beautiful rug which is mostly covered right now. I want to clean up, clean out, and rearrange so we can walk through this place!

4) Make some stuff, especially new stuff. I have many ideas for things to try, but little motivation. It's hard to keep going on a project when I am so constantly interrupted. It's a temporary season of my life--yes. But a frustrating one.

What I want to do right now

This is a list of my short-term goals--things I'd like to accomplish within a few months. They are what I'd like to do with my stay-at-home momhood, which is so new and exciting to me. Later I will do a post about my long-term (life) goals.

1) Learn to cook. Jordan is the cook in this family. For some reason, I never learned how to do much in the kitchen. I'd like to start by getting a few healthy, simple recipes that I can follow without screwing up. I need things I can throw together in a hurry so I won't be tempted to buy convenience food. I'd like to figure out how much of these things to fix so we'll have a couple of rounds of leftovers or a little extra to freeze. Once I have this under control, I can branch out and have more fun with cooking. I hear it's gratifying to cook and see how nice it turns out when you're done, but to tell the truth, this hasn't happened to me a whole lot!

2) Get a schedule going. I'd like to designate one day a week to do certain things. Perhaps one day I could let Suzi have Grandma and Grandpa Day and I could go grocery shopping. (taking her and Ivey to the store alone for a lengthy shopping trip would surely end in an embarrassing tantrum.) Then I could have cooking day, cleaning day, and laundry day. I'd also like to have Suzi day--one day when I can just relax and do something with Suzi that we'll both enjoy. Which leads me to #3...

3) Spend more time with Suzi. I spend all day with her most of the time, but I am not focused on her the whole day. Now that I have Ivey, I need to put more effort into making time for Suzi. To start, I'd like to clear one day a week to do things with her. It wouldn't mean not getting anything else done. Suzi enjoys helping me bake (if I let her stir). Instead of putting on a video and trying to get things done while she watches, I could let her help me. It would take longer, but it would be fun and she would learn. Suzi also needs to get out of the house more. I want to take her to the park and on walks somewhere other than in the neighborhood. I want to schedule playdates. What do you do with your two-year-olds? I need some ideas!

4) Have more patience. I have an infant and a two-year-old and not enough sleep. Patience has never been my strong suit. I need to work on this. Slow to anger... Slow to anger... Slow to anger...

5) Stay on top of things. I am a binge cleaner. I wait around until the house is a total disaster, no one has any clean clothes left to wear, and if the doorbell rang I'd break out in a cold sweat. Then, either when I can't stand it anymore or company is coming, I clean until I nearly collapse. By the time I finish I'm too burned out to keep things maintained, so the cycle repeats. I hate this. I want to do FlyLady's 27 Fling Boogie. I want to do the dishes every day and clean the fridge out regularly so we don't have science projects in there.

6) Find new ways to save. We have pared down our spending and are pleased with ourselves, but we can always improve. I want to learn how to make the most of coupon shopping. I want to figure out even more things we can cut out of our monthly budget--preferably things we won't really miss. We are doing okay already, but Jordan and I both enjoy finding ways to save money and it will help us with our goals of paying off our van early and building up our savings. Another read-through of the Tightwad Gazette books will help, and I'm always reading frugality-focused blogs and articles.

7) Learn to make more things. I enjoy sewing, but in the past I haven't found much time to do it. I want to learn to make gifts, and also clothes and things for the girls. This will help with saving money, too. What I need is to pick a few projects, get the directions and items I need, and find time to do it. Trial and error will help me get where I want to be. I learn by doing--and, frequently, by doing it wrong and finding a better way.

I will let you know how I'm doing on these.