That First Cup {Just Write}

Mornings like this are rare. My alarm began softly buzzing at 7am as it normally does, but the kids hadn’t begun to stir yet. Muted light was apparent from behind the blinds in our room as I started to stretch before finally swinging my legs over the bed to drag myself out of it.

Tip-toeing down the stairs, I watched their images flash on the monitor. Still heavy with sleep, neither seemed to notice that I had risen. Good, I thought. Maybe I could have a cup of coffee in peace this morning.

In the kitchen, I put the monitor down on the center island counter so I could wash out the glass carafe of our Mr. Coffee and make a fresh pot. I would have preferred a cafe latte from the Verismo, but we’re out of pods. I heard the shower turn on upstairs as I dumped out the leftover coffee filter from yesterday into the trash and started sudsing up the sponge with dish soap to scrub out the pot.

My mind wanders as I prep the coffee. Tomorrow we’ll be waking up at the beach. I’m anticipating broken sleep as everyone adjusts to borrowed beds and shared rooms for the kids. Despite the forecast of more than fifty percent chance of rain each day we’re there, I’m still looking forward to it. The shore is the shore, rain or sunshine, we’ll still have fun spending time with our friends making memories.

The coffee pot starts to buzz to life, black liquid dripping into the clear carafe, sputtering and collecting in a puddle at the bottom. I open my email while sitting at the island and simultaneously watching the coffee brew. Light spills into the kitchen from the window over the double sink, but no sun is visible today. Just gauzy clouds covering the sky which makes for a drab start to the day.

I’m only able to enjoy ten minutes of writing and three sips of my coffee before my little miss is calling for her mama. I can see her brother begin to shake off sleep as I stand up to go retrieve my baby girl from her crib. That was all the quiet time I’d get for today.

The Best Summer Camp Counselor. Ever.

The best summer camp counselor. Ever.

"Tomorrow I'm sending my kids to a three-night, four-day all-inclusive summer camp for FREE. It’s called “Sleep-away camp at Grandma and Grandpa’s house” and they are super excited. (The kids, that is. My parents are excited too, but are also just a teeny bit nervous that they’ll survive this little experiment.) I, however, have faith that everyone will have an exceptional time.

Including my husband and I who will be home enjoying the peace and quiet.

Sometimes parents just need to take a break from their offspring."   ....please click over to WhatToExpect.com's Word of Mom blog to read the rest of my article which I wrote last week. It was just posted today.

Thanks so much for reading my work!

Memories Captured

I often have to pinch myself.

I sometimes can't believe that I got my wish.

One boy, one girl. My sweet little munchkins who I often catch playing together in the corner of the family room. Building forts, having picnics on our maroon couch blanket all spread out on the beige carpet, or just running around the house chasing each other in their superhero capes.

He leads her in the mischief they get into when I'm not looking. Such a loving, doting big brother. The way he puts his arm around her protectively, leaning in to kiss her forehead which comes up to right where his lips are as he turns his head, eyes still on me. I love how he loves her, how she looks up to him and follows his every move.

The fun they've been having lately playing dress-up is just so silly and adorable. I've found her tangled up in his jammie shirt, while he's running down the stairs with his underpants on his head exclaiming how he is "The Underpants Man!"

When I think back to the year we spent planning our wedding, and the months when I was trying to pick out our first dance song, I smile and my heart swells with wonder. There were two songs we had narrowed it down to: True Companion and One Boy, One Girl....

We ended up going with True Companion and there couldn't be a better description of my love. He is my perfect compliment, my true companion.

But whenever I hear the song we didn't choose, my eyes tear up and I think of how incredibly lucky I am that my dreams came true.

My 10 Favorite Children's Books

“You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children." ― Madeleine L'Engle

School's out for summer! I know we'll be taking lots of long walks to the library and the pool this summer. Which got me thinking about writing a post on my favorite children's books.

Someday, I will share my story with my kids. When the time is right. For now, we spend the time after bath before we shut the light for the night, snuggling up, lost within the pages of these magical stories.

Many of these have been gifts to our children, but a few were saved from their parents' own collections. There is no greater hand-me-down than a favorite book. I'm thankful to my mother-in-law and my mom for saving our childhood reading materials to pass on to our own kids.

Here are my ten favorite children's books (as of this moment), in no particular order. I'm including my favorite line from each.

• Pete the Cat - I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin ~ "No matter what you step in, keep walking along and singing your song..."

• On the Night You Were Born by Nancy Tillman ~ "Heaven blew every trumpet and played every horn on the wonderful, marvelous night you were born."
• The Two Cars by Ingri & Edgar Parin d'Aulaire ~ "Their motors liked the cool night air and purred like kittens."
• Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson ~ "There was nothing but pie. But there were all nine kinds of pie that Harold liked best."

• My Name is Not Isabella by Jennifer Fosberry ~ "I am Rosa, the greatest, bravest activist who ever was!"
• Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein ~ favorite poem: "The Land of Happy"
• The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein ~ "Come, Boy, sit down. Sit down and rest."
• Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site by Sherri Duskey Rinker & Tom Lichtenheld ~ "Tomorrow is another day, another chance to work and play."

• The Empty Pot by Demi ~ "By and by the whole year passed."
• That Rabbit Belongs to Emily Brown by Cressioa Cowell & Neal Layton ~ "I don't care WHO she is," said Emily Brown. "This rabbit belongs to ME. And his name isn't Bunnywunny. It's STANLEY."

Is yours on the list? If not, please share in the comments! We're always looking for our new favorite.

Been busy living life

It's been a busy week of playdates with neighbor friends, school and a wonderfully positive parent-teacher conference which made me so happy, bubble baths in Mommy's big tub before bed, visits from Grandma and Aunt Hillary, and basically, just LIFE. The weather is getting warmer and we're looking forward to enjoying the end of spring and beginning of summer. I'm working on a long piece for a submission to an online anthology, so that's been taking up the bulk of my writing time once the kiddos are asleep. I just didn't want this week to go by without a post.

Life is good.

Decisions

It's so hard for me to go back to that time. But today I tried because I {ironically} decided to write a post on decisions.

It was early summer - July 2005, I think - and my parents were visiting for the weekend. Not-quite-newlyweds anymore, Ben and I were ready to take the leap from townhome to single-family house. So we toured a new construction neighborhood under development in the area we wanted to move to and were completely sucked in.

Looking back I can't believe how incredibly naive I was.

After touring the exquisite, professionally decorated, top-of-the-line-everything model, we picked out a lot, decided on a floor plan, and signed the contract. All within what felt like less than a week. It all happened so fast. The plan was to start the building process and sell our townhouse the following year before closing on the new home. We qualified for the mortgage easily on account of the salaries our jobs provided in addition to our impeccable credit scores.

When I try to remember what was going through my head at the time, I am dumbfounded. The thought of becoming a mother wasn't even on the periphery of  my vision of our future, other than the fact that this house had four bedrooms. And yet, I knew we wanted to start a family. So I imagine myself screaming at my young self: "Why aren't you thinking about your future, you idiot?! Why??? Don't let yourself get caught up in this idealistic vision of suburban life! You are still going to have to commute into the city - are you NUTS?"

I think about this choice we made early into our marriage often because I now drive past this neighborhood where we almost lived, four times a week. It's on the route to church and our son's preschool. The only answer I have is that I wasn't thinking about my future in that moment of excitement over buying a new house. I wasn't thinking about how someday I would want to have babies with my loving husband. How I envisioned taking long maternity leaves after the births of the two children I wanted to have so that I could ease into the adjustment period of becoming a mother. How maybe I’d even like to be a Stay-at-Home Mom until they were in school full-time. I wasn't thinking about the fact that this house would be a little out of reach for us financially when we started having kids. Our future life as parents just wasn't something playing in my mind at that moment of deciding to build a new home.

So, yeah. Turns out I was a little nuts. Figuratively and then, literally. Succumbing to the {mostly self-inflicted} intense pressure I was putting on myself at work to earn the money I knew we needed for that big, fancy house we were building, I suffered my first manic break five months after making that decision to build. A chemical imbalance in my brain was the other culprit.

It was the mental breakdown which opened my eyes to my true dream of my future: a happy, healthy family. Big house, small house, that wasn't all that important to me anymore. It wasn’t until then that I realized we had made a mistake by deciding to build a money-pit house in a Country Club community. It was too late. The house was under construction. The frame was going up, rooms were taking shape. The nails were being driven into the wood and with each blow of the hammer I crawled deeper into my pit of despair.

Why did I allow myself to make this bad decision? How could I be so stupid and ignorant?

What I didn’t realize back then is that life is one big mess of choices. I know this now. Decisions we make today will impact our future, whether we like it or not. My dad always tried to instill this into my brother and I as we were growing up, but for me, it wasn’t until many years later would I begin to understand what he was so fervently working to teach us.

Today, I marvel at a decision that almost was for us. After coming out of the hospital and focusing on my health, we were able to manage to withdraw from the building contract and only lost our deposit. It was only money. My well-being was far more important to us than the biggest check we had ever written. We ended up staying in our townhouse a little longer and when the time was right we found our 'forever house', as my friend likes to call it, in the same town as that home we were building. I can now look upon the house-decision experience as an invaluable life lesson in learning to really slow down and take my time with big, important choices in life. And the little ones too, for that matter.

Because you never know how a decision may impact your life. That’s the beauty in the choices we make each and every day.

Happy Friday, my friends. Thank you for making the decision to read my blog. I really appreciate you.

WW: Watering

Got out in the sunshine today and watered our veggie plants brought home from Home Depot this weekend that have yet to be planted.

Happy Wordless Wednesday, folks!

Help for Yelling

It happened again. We had another rough morning and I feel horribly guilty for yelling too much, too loud, too mean. Why is it that one awful parenting moment can so easily make me doubt my worth as a mother? Why can’t I stop the cycle of yelling at my kids? I don’t want them to remember their childhood years as a pile full of broken memories of their Mommy screaming at them. Just typing that makes me so sad.

This Sunday at church, one of our priests stood by the baptismal font during communion and offered healing prayer to anyone who wanted to pray with him. I walked over after receiving communion, and asked him to help me pray for patience. Patience with my kids, my family, and myself. I needed to start somewhere and this perfect opportunity gave me hope.

But I’m quickly learning that I need a whole lot more than hope if I’m ever going to fix my yelling problem.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

8:15am this morning. I looked up from the sandwiches and fruit I was tossing into lunch sacks for the kids to check the time. From the other room, I heard her big brother giving a lesson on Lego firemen and how they help people in trouble while she ohhhed and ahhed and asked questions here and there. For the most part, they were playing happily together while I rushed about the kitchen assembling healthy lunches. I was grateful in that moment.

With the lunch task completed, I ushered the kids upstairs so that we could all get dressed and ready and out the door.

The kids couldn’t agree on a show to watch together on the ipad while I got ready. He wanted Lunar Jim and she wanted Calliou. There was no compromising and so I took the privilege away. That’s when it happened.

My little man told me, in the middle of our angry, rotten argument over the fact that I took the ipad away, that he was going to get rid of me. (He also told me that he loved the ipad more than he loved me, but that’s a whole different post altogether.) The kids were still in their jammies, I had no time to take a shower, and it was apparent we weren’t going to get there on time. I should have just given up on trying.

“I’m going to get rid of you, Mommy! he threatened, with all the power and might of his little four-and-a-half-year-old voice.

His words were like a dagger to my heart.

And when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.

“Oh, really? How are you going to do that, bud?” I retorted as I pulled my sweater over my head.

“I’ll put you in the trash can!” he screamed as hot tears spilled down his cheeks.

And with that, he forced the dagger in further and twisted it sharply. I knew in that moment that I was failing him as a parent. I could sense the anguish behind his words. I could feel his anger squeeze my heart and wring it out. I had become so worthless to him that he wanted to throw me away.

Right then and there, in my mind, silently to myself I vowed to make some serious changes.

I finished getting dressed and then got down on my knees and pulled him to me, wrapping him with all that I had left. I cried with him, and we both whispered over and over again our vows to stop fighting and yelling. Baby girl timidly walked over with open arms and joined in on our big hug.

This is where the healing begins.

I dropped them off at school and came home to start writing. A good friend of mine had forwarded me an email about an upcoming program at her church. I couldn’t believe my eyes as I read the description of the free workshop. “The instructor will demonstrate ways to eliminate power struggles and yelling, get kids off video games/screens without a fight and create stress-free mornings.” I immediately signed up, thanked her for inviting me, and breathed a sigh of relief.

I can stop beating myself up. I’m putting a plan in place. Help is on the way and I’m excited about the future.

My fourth post for WhatToExpect.com's Word of Mom Blog went live yesterday. Please check it out if you have a chance.

Thanks so much!

The Little Years

I wish I could freeze time and keep my kids little forever. But, alas, they grow. Mister Man turned 4 & 1/2 last month and his sister is now 2 plus three months. If I lie in bed and close my eyes, breathing slow and steady, I can remember what it was like when they were fresh bundles, smelling of baby powder and spit up. But those first twelve months passed by in the blink of an eye, really. Those were the times when they were so fragile and new and we didn't have any clue what kind of personality they'd have. Now is the fun time, according to my husband. I'd have to agree with him.

Our son has detailed discussions with his sister on what the various rooms in his Lego fire station contain. He says things like, "Vivi, people who are silver and stand still are called statues," while we're driving and my husband and I just look at each other and smile. He's now tall enough to reach the kitchen sink and wash his hands without standing on a step stool.

He writes his first and last name in capital letters and is working hard at learning the lower case ones. A few weeks ago we were playing Restaurant in his kitchen and he wrote out his very first menu, asking me how to spell things like Hamburger, Coffee and Cheese. Several times a day, he'll hear a word he doesn't know and will ask its meaning. I'm amazed and so proud of how inquisitive he is.

My little man makes friends easily, but is stingy with sharing his beloved toys. He has a best buddy at preschool, but sometimes on the drive home when I ask him who he played with that day, he'll say, "Nobody. I just played by myself." Not in a sad way. He is just really good at independent play and can become immersed in his own little imaginary world which I love to watch. There are plenty of years of running around with friends ahead of him, I'm not concerned with his preference for solo playtime right now.

He wakes up every morning precisely at seven o'clock. The soft, baby blue security blanket he was so attached to for the first three years of his life has slowly moved to the bottom of his list of favorite toys. It's now trucks and blocks and {gasp!} Legos that he spends his playtime with. The last exchange of our day used to be me singing "Twinkle, Twinkle" while snuggling him tight, tucking the covers around his little frame all curled up. Now, we simply read three books and give goodnight kisses before shutting off the light and sending him into sleepy dreamland. Just like that. My big boy.

His sister is turning into a big kid too, right before our eyes. Her four word strings must have been taking their vitamins because over the course of a week they grew into five word sentences and now six. Just yesterday the little princess amazed me with, "I want to go to the playground, Mommy!" Said like the true firecracker she has become.

Our daughter literally turns into a fish on Saturday mornings at swim class. Bored of the same old songs and skills which she mastered several months ago, she makes her own fun now, much to her teacher's chagrin. Climbing out to give Daddy a quick kiss, then swan diving back in and flipping underwater before surfacing are her show-off tricks. We've become used to a minimum of two other parents each week asking us how old she is and how long she's been taking lessons.

I love hearing her baby doll voice, her inflections sticky sweet with a cherry on top sometimes, and other times the whine is so sharp I want to pull out some cheese and crackers to go with it. The little miss has a slight obsession with pink lately and when we read her book on colors {which I bought specifically so that I could teach her the rest of the colors of the rainbow} she turns straight to the two pages on pink saying, "I yike pink, Mommy."

Art is a passion of hers, I can already tell. Both our kids are in their element when they're creating, actually. Put a coloring book, some markers and crayons in front of them and I've easily bought an hour of quiet busy time. I can't wait for summer when I'll be able to put them on the deck with art supplies and their easel and small table to see what they crank out for display on the fridge.

I know they won't always be so small that I need to get down on my knees to wrap my arms all the way around them for hugs. I know there will come a time when I'll no longer have to sort through their entire wardrobe twice a year to purge the outgrown stuff and replace it with new clothes the next size up. I know there will come a time when I'll no longer have to prep and serve every single meal and snack.

I know there will come a time when I'll have to let go. 

But for now, I'll grab hold of these moments that fly by so fast and I'll do my best to engrave them on my memory for ever.

Spring Break Snow

“Mommmmmeeeeeeeee!” I heard her wail from her nursery, the room next to ours.

I pulled my weary self out of bed and found my way through the dark to her door, guided by the soft light of morning creeping in through the miniblinds in our bedroom.

5:45am. Fun.

“What, sweetie?” I whispered gently.

“I wost my paci, Mommy,” she whimpered.

I felt around her crib with my palms, not able to locate the missing pacifier until I ran my fingers into the crack in her crib bumper where it had wedged itself so neatly.

“Here, honey.” I said as I put the rubber nipple back into her mouth.

“I want to sleep in your womb,” she mumbled, paci gripped ever so gingerly between her lips.

Ugh. There goes my last hour of sleep this morning.

I carried my baby girl into our bedroom and placed her in the middle of our king bed. I tried to fall back into my sleep, but it wasn’t happening. The snow that had fallen during the night was reflecting what little bit of sunlight that was emerging from the sky and our room was starting to welcome the morning. I spent the next fifteen minutes caressing her soft cheeks and hands, a sweet luxury I don’t always having during the day when she’s rushing about playing so busily.

I savored those minutes.

“I wan to go downstairs, Mommy,” she declared, after tiring of my affection.

And so I pulled on my fluffy yellow fleece bathrobe and picked her up so we could go downstairs and admire the last snow before spring while we ate breakfast.

 

Books for a rainy day

One more hour and the kids will be home for the day. I should be working, but yet I find myself drawn to the pen and my notebook. Needing to write. This morning after dropping them off at daycare in the pouring rain, their little raincoats slick with wetness from the sky, I drove over to volunteer at my son's preschool book fair. I love this church school, feel so at home here.

I quickly learn the cash register and ring up several orders of cute kids books, casually chatting with each parent as they pay for their order.

My half-hour shift is over quickly. The rain is coming down in buckets now, and I can't help but notice as I peek into the classrooms, how cozy and safe it feels. I love that this is my son's home here three days a week in the afternoon. His first school experience is so filled with love and smiles.

And books. Lots and lots of books.

As I pack up to head home, I ring up one last sale. I couldn't leave without buying a few new reads for my little ones. My little book lovers.

Ordinary: Five Minute Friday {1}

I step on a Lego man as I wonder around the kitchen trying to get breakfast on the table for my two kids. There are two massive construction vehicles along with a block-built launching pad for my son’s rocketship. Baby girl’s pacifier and lovie blanket have also joined the collection of toys taking up precious floor space in my kitchen.

A load of freshly washed laundry is piled on the couch from last night. The dishwasher is full of clean dishes and so the dirty ones from last night that didn’t make it in are sitting in the sink.

Most often, this is what my house looks like. I usually wish I could send my husband and kids out for five hours so that I could clean the house from top to bottom. But then, it wouldn’t be an ordinary day at home, would it?