When you feel helpless

It's been hard for me to write much the past few days because a few people close to me are walking through some very hard things. The parenting goals and budgeting tips are swirling around in my mind, but they won't come out.
My heart is heavy.
Weighed down by the pain others are experiencing.
Weighed down as I consider the feeling of complete helplessness.

Have you ever felt helpless?
Like, there's a situation you want to help, but you can't. There is nothing to do.
I'm a fixer. Not being able to help goes against every reaction I have in a hard situation.
In those moments when everything is out of your control,
when words aren't much comfort,
there is no solution to fix it,
no task that will really help,
I feel removed, and helpless.

There's been days like that lately. I'll receive news from a friend or a family member, and there is nothing to do or say.
Many days, it seems my prayers end at, "Oh Lord... you know..."
because that's all I can get out.
I have nothing else to offer except the faith to believe that the Holy Spirit is interceding on my behalf, praying for the people I love when I don't even have the words. (Rom 8:26-27)

But the truth is
While I may feel helpless, I am not without help. 
Our help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. (Psalm 121:2)
He is the Helper. "Surely God is my help, the one who sustains me," the psalmist cried out. (Psalm 54:4)

There's a comfort in that. In having a Helper. 

But then, I consider the feeling of complete hopelessness. 

I haven't felt hopeless in a long time, but I remember the feeling well. 

And I empathize with it in others. Hopelessness is blinding and crushing and defeating. It is very hard to see clearly or think straight when you are surrounded by dark, suffocating in despair.

And yet, the darker the night, the brighter even a small flicker of light seems.  

In the midst of the darkness and the helplessness and hopelessness, the God who created you and loves you whispers, "Hope in me. I am your rescuer. Just let go so I can pull you out of your muck and your mire. I am your refuge, I am your strength, I am your help. Do not be afraid. No matter what happens, I love you, I am with you." (Psalm 40, 46)

Though you feel hopeless, you are not without hope. 

There is no place you could be - no past or present too dark - that Jesus would not open the door and run in to rescue from you from the pit of despair you are in. 

And not just rescue, but redeem you, and save you, and hold you. He is the light of the world, radiantly beaming through the cloud of dark despair surrounding you.  

My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness,
I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but wholly trust in Jesus name.  (song here)

That is the hope I cling to.
Most things in life are not certain.
But, Jesus is.
He loves every person and is faithful to every promise.

In the moments following those silent, wordless, heart-crying-out prayers I mentioned earlier, the burden is lifted. I often experience a physical feeling of lightness. He said, "my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Come to me you who are weary and heavy laden. I will give you rest." [I've always thought of this as figurative rest. But, maybe it's literal rest too. I've had some sleepless nights lately, and sometimes I just have to ask him to take the burden. Over and over until I fall asleep.]

No need to carry the burden by yourself, sweet child.
I can handle it, He says.
The weight of the sin of the world on his shoulders wasn't enough to hold him back from willingly enduring the cross.
And not just endure, but defeat and conquer.

And in the truth of the cross, and Jesus' resurrection (how timely to be considering these this week leading up to Easter), though I don't know where any situation will end up this side of heaven, I am sure of this:
Death is crushed to death and life is ours to live
bought with his precious blood.
This the power of the cross, son of God slain for us.
What a life, what a cost,
we stand forgiven at the cross. (song here)

Oh death, where is your victory?
Oh death, where is your sting?

Rainy Day

It rained here the other day.
It was dark and cozy all morning.

Rainy mornings are good for window stickers. (We have these, but I might get her these to change it up.)

And reading. (She's reading this book, which we love because it has real pictures.) 

and cooking

And working on letters. I'm not sure where she heard she was supposed to try to color inside the dots. 

 Apparently coloring in the dots is only fun for so long though. (p.s. this is just washable crayola marker on sheet protectors... fun over and over and over and over. sometimes she uses dry erase markers and erases herself.) 

rainy days are also good for sending notes to friends and drinking extra cups of coffee. oh wait, every day is good for extra coffee.

Reading this book now. VERY interesting. If you're into being a millionaire, that is. 

rainy days are also good for putting puzzles pieces in our sweater.... 

this sweater has elastic around the bottom so the pieces weren't falling out. At first, she thought it was funny that she had a pile of puzzle pieces on her tummy, but she was quickly irritated when they wouldn't come out.  These pictures don't do justice how many pieces she put down there. [insert smile/ crying emoji.]

What do you do on a rainy day? Puzzle pieces in your shirt, extra coffee, read, or all of the above? 

2015 Goal #6 - Career

This is the 7th post in a series about my 2015 goals. [Here are the first 6 posts: goal-making, spiritual, physical, intellectual, social, financial]   
Are you sick of them yet? I'm sure at least my mom is still reading.

Up today: Career

At first I scratched this category out and wrote 'parenting' instead. But, as you'll see tomorrow, I ended up making a separate parenting goal apart from career.

This category is the fuzziest for me. It brings up a whole mix of feelings from:
I'm totally okay with people/ society not valuing the stay-at-home-mom job.
                          to
let me tell you what i really think about it
                          to
Does get my toddler potty trained before 5 count as a career goal?

Sometimes I'll fill out a survey or questionnaire or form for something and I have to check 'unemployed.'

Where is the mom box?  

Do my goals as a mom count for career too? Mostly, yes.
I've decided that mom duties require most of my energy and attention right now, and so,
for me, being a mom is my career. (I know lots of moms work outside the home too, but by choosing it as a career, i mean I'm caring for my children with the majority of my waking hours instead of working outside the home.)

(I had a brief stint as a public school teacher. It feels like a lifetime ago. You can read about that life here or here or here. or here.)

I teach 7 piano lessons a week to bring in a little extra money... do I make goals for that?

I've also thought in the past I should monetize this blog, or perhaps try freelance writing for websites because I love love love writing and enjoy putting time and energy into it. It feels like a challenge. But does that fit into the aforementioned caring for my children the majority of my waking hours?

Do you see why it's a fuzzy one?

All that being said, I have decided for 2015 to focus on one 'career' - related thing aside from mom tasks.
Become a better writer by practicing a lot and investigate ways to monetize a website/ blog. 

Oops, that's 2. But they're VERY related. So let's count them as 1.

For whatever reason, I really feel like the Lord has placed writing on my heart.
I don't really know why.
But it's an urge I often can't suppress. A thought will come to mind, and I have to get it in writing.
Granted, sometimes I go to write it down and it's gone, or I get interrupted with Emma grabbing Addie's yogurt bowl and dumping it on the ground. So there's that.

But, I'm hoping 2015 will be a year of writing.
Of becoming a better writer. Even if it never monetizes (in which case I'm pretty sure it'll have to move from "career" to "hobby"), it's a fun adventure to be on - capturing life with words.

And in the mean time, I'll count 'mom' as a career too.

2015 Goal #5 - Financial

I am blogging my 2015 goals! I wrote about my goal making process.
So far, we've covered spiritual, physical, intellectual, and social.

Up today: Financial

My financial goal is a combined one with Ben. (We treat all the money as one. More on this another time.) Our goal is to pay down 1/3 of our student loan debt.

It's a big number for us relative to our income. It's a stretch & it's higher than we are projected to have "leftover" even after tightening the budget. We've decided to have me be a full-time-stay-at-home-mom anyway, but that means the budget is strict, the spending is minimal, and the amount of extra stuff we both do to bring in side income is as much as possible.

Here are 3 specific things we're doing to this end.

1. We have a budget and stick to it. 
Behind the crafty, semi blogger, music-teacher, go-with-the-flow front I put up, I have a secret love for systems, organization, basic math, and spreadsheets.

I can't deny my love for a good excel spreadsheet. Although my super nerd husband recently informed me google sheets is the new excel.

So, it may or may not surprise you that I love budgeting. I could look at budgets for hours. Fake budgets, real budgets. I've tried a few budgeting softwares and all the built-in budgets with the 3 banks we've used. I like tweaking budgets to see savings. I like plugging all the money saved into various interest rate calculators to see what the investment would look like in 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. It's nerdy.

And also, I like spending money. I'm not a saver by nature, though I'm becoming one.
This is why we have a budget.

You can kinda see it here - I plugged in some fake numbers. I will detail our budgeting system more another time with explanations about what works and hasn't worked for us. But here's a sneak peek:

2. Money "dates" every day twice a week... usually 
For a while now, we've discussed our budget weekly or bi-weekly. But, I was doing the bulk of the work of tracking expenses, paying bills, etc... and then we'd "meet" once a week or so to check over everything. For whatever reason, this process wasn't working. We sometimes used credit card (that we always paid off and racked up points on), and sometimes debit. For a year we lived on loans which came in as one big payment, so it was hard to know how to stretch that out over the course of a year. Some bills were on auto-pay, others weren't. It just felt complicated.
So, we simplified it.
We use a debit card and cash only.  (We have a credit card for ben's travel only which gets reimbursed from work.)
When we kicked off the new year with our new astronomical (to us) debt-paydown goal, we decided we had to be a bit more intense.
So, for the month of January, we sat down every day together for a budget meeting. (Yep, every day. Are you looking at me like we're nuts?)We like to call them 'money dates.' It usually took 5 minutes, and involved cookies, ice cream, and/ or really cheap wine. #livinglarge
We opened our online bank account to see if any transactions had cleared and we categorized them in our budget sheet. (More on this later.) Then I pulled out the receipts from my envelope of cash if we had spent any money that day and we entered that too. Then we'd see how much was left in each category to spend still.
Done.
We knew every day where our budget stood and how much money we'd have left at the end of the month to pay off our debt.
By February, we relaxed this a little. We probably do it 2 or 3 times a week still, and it still takes 5-10 minutes. Honestly, we probably won't do it this way forever, and I know there are other systems that work, but it's saved us a lot of budgeting headaches, and we have an intense goal. When your goals are intense, you have to be intense to get there. 

Ben was pretty glad I took this picture...

3. We have money we're "allowed" to spend on whatever we want, no questions asked.
It may sound crazy to have an amount of money you're allowed to blow every month while you're getting out of debt, but we have this. We each get a small amount of money we're allowed to spend on whatever we want or save for whatever we want. Most everything extra falls under this category - craft stuff & fabric (me), clothes (either of us), extra toys or fun stuff for kids, lunches or coffees out with friends, home decor, books, music, running shoes, whatever! Having this category eliminates the "why did you buy that?" or "i think what YOU want to spend money on is dumb" conversations.
Can I be honest? We NEVER have that conversation.
Granted, we have other spending and saving decisions to work through, and it's not all rainbows and sunshine, but this simple spending money category has saved us a lot of hassle. No guilt, no pressure. This is the amount of money we agree on that we are each 'allowed' to spend freely on whatever each of us wants. :)

I've been working on a budgeting/ practical finance series of posts... mostly things we've learned the hard way (Aka: trial and error) or from people smarter than us. So if you're curious about other aspects of budgeting (which I'm sure you are), look for that to come soon. It'll be thrilling. ;)
In the mean time, if you have any questions, I am certainly not qualified to answer them but I would be happy to give it a go or google the answer for you :)

Frugally yours,
Renee

Too much cuteness!

There has been too much cuteness here the past couple days. I just had to take a break from goals for this.

Yesterday, Addie woke up and the first thing she said "glasses in my jammies."
I didn't know what she was talking about. She grabbed the back of her legs and repeated it: "glasses in my jammies mama. That's silly."

So I felt through her one-piece zip up jammies. And sure enough, I felt sunglasses.
We unzipped and took them out. Ha! I didn't know where these came from!! I assume Grammy's house (she came home yesterday from there with jammies on because I teach piano on Tuesday nights and they help out with childcare). It's even funnier because she's been asking for sunglasses (probably because I wear them) and complaining about the sun being bright in her eyes in the car. I was hoping to find some in Target's dollar section. Anyway, she was pumped to find these in her jammies this morning.

When I told Ben this story last night, he said she was playing with those glasses at Grammy's and Ben took them off and put them away while they were getting ready to go, assuming they weren't hers. Then she was talking about glasses as they left so he thought maybe I had bought her some, so he went back to get them but couldn't find them anywhere. He just told her they'll have to look for them next time. Very sneaky - they were in her jammies the whole time!  

Now that Addie is kinda sorta potty training (but by no means potty trained), I put Emma back in cloth. For some reason it seems easier to cloth diaper one kid than 2. Plus 2 kids in disposables for 10 months has been cramping the budget. More on this later. Anyway, someone on craigslist gave (as in free, even though I offered to pay) me 8 diaper covers. And this denim one is definitely the cutest! 

It has a pocket!!!

And she was 'crawling' like this today. Ha!

Addie's face = "no emma don't take my markers." 

lovely. 

Speaking of potty training... 

Sometimes Addie likes to go play downstairs by herself for a few minutes. She called to me upstairs, "Mama, look what Addie did!" She was so proud of herself.

"look mama, that one and that one and that one and that one."

I scored this old kids rocking chair on craigslist for $10. Spray painted yellow. The original intent was to "flip" for resale, but I couldn't resist it in her room.

she was SO excited.

This child loves to read.

A lot of stay at home mom life is mundane, exhausting, & honestly, gross. These sweet little angels produce a lot of bodily fluid. (On this same day, one of the top 3 grosses moments of motherhood thus far happened. Maybe i'll tell that story tomorrow.) ;) 

But 

much of it is very very precious and at the end of the day, it's a privilege to be the one home with my kids.

A privilege I'm thankful for. 

A privilege not everyone gets.

Catching these normal day to day moments. 

Seeing what they like to play with. 

Watching them interact with each other and figure out new things like how to crawl on your feet and how to line up animals. 

These girls have no idea how much I love them.  

oh, and on that note, i leave you with the world's cutest pony tail 

2015 Goal #4 - Social

A little review in case you've missed the last couple days here...
I am blogging my 2015 goals a couple months behind, in true Renee form. March is as good a month for goals as any.

I have 7 categories for goals and one goal in each category. Keeping it realistic this year.
The ones I've written about so far are spiritual, physical, & intellectual.

Up today - social.

Part of me likes this one and part of me hates it. I have to agree with Zig (see original goals post about Zig Ziglar's wheel of life)... social is a part of life. We interact with others. Friendships are a gift. Getting along with people is a necessary part of life. And I LOVE my friends

Yet somehow, my kids have turned me into an introvert. [cue hysterical laughter. i'm certain i will never be described as an introvert. but after reading Quiet I want to be one. and after having 2 kids in 17 months, i crave the alone time.]
So maybe they haven't really turned me into an introvert.
But as I get older and more of my energy is spent on my kids, I realize when it comes to the social part of life, I mainly care about a few things:

1. maintaining long-time deep friendships that have evolved through various seasons of life
2. having close friends where i am currently
3. blessing and reaching out to others in my circle of influence

I think a lot about people, friendships, relationships, family, etc... so this could get really long, but for now, I'll stick to one goal I have in this area for 2015.

To invest in friendships here in Omaha.

If I'm being honest, it has felt hard to make friends here compared to Cambridge and Lincoln.
Disclaimer: I have this syndrome, perhaps you've heard of it... it's called I-selectively-remember-everything-as-better-than-it-was-syndrome. Like when I blocked out the hard/mildly traumatic birth experience from my first and thought the second would be a breeze. And then when I block out how much I dislike pregnancy. And then when I think having a newborn is fun. And when I think teaching on Chicago's south side for a year was easy. I just forget the hard stuff. Is that normal? I don't know. Maybe.
Anyway.

I want to recall that my friendships in Cambridge and Lincoln came easily, quickly, and naturally.
But the truth is, I was fervent in prayer for friends.
Asking God to provide.
And in the perfect time, He brought wonderful people into my life in each place. People who I talk to often and whose friendships I still cherish today. [I wrote about one of these friendships a while back.]
And so while I'd like to trick myself into thinking those friendships came floating into my life and we all left singing kum-ba-yah, that's not how it went down.
I prayed. A lot. Sometimes in tears, because I was lonely.
God provided.
And then I invested.
And they invested.

Because to make friends, you have to invest time and emotional energy into each other over a long period of time. You have to ask hard questions and be a good listener. Chit chat and mom talk is nice and hunky dory, and it can even provide some much needed comradery - the sense that I'm not in this alone. But true friendship? A kindred spirit? (Anyone else love Anne of Green Gables back in the day?)

In an age of over-connectedness yet complete detachment due to the fake feeling of closeness with everyone a la social media, it's easy to forget what true friendship is.

True friendship walks through life with people.

True friendship celebrates the victories and grieves the loss.
Sees past the surface.
Looks at people's hearts.
Asks questions.
Then listens to the answers.
And remembers.
True friendship gives.
More than it takes.
True friendship says you before me.

I know those friends are here in Omaha because this is where God told us to move.
And so here we are. Waiting, investing, slowly but surely.
Knowing God is providing, even when we can't see it.
I see glimpses of it. I'll meet a new acquaintence for coffee or have a mom over and think - we could be friends. And they're forming. Those life-long friendships.
They take time. And energy.

[edited to add: i realized this might have sounded like i haven't met anyone yet. and that's not true!! I have met SEVERAL women who I really like. And who I consider friends. The beginning/ middle stages of friendship - you know, where you're past the "where are you from and how'd you meet your husband?" but you don't have their birthdays memorized yet. But some of these women have shared their stories & their deep longings with me, been extremely vulnerable, listened, checked back in. and for these beginning friendships, i'm so thankful. and i'm excited to be growing these friendships this year!]

So I'll be investing in 2015. In people. In friends. In Omaha.
Because you and I, we were made for community.
We were made for friendship.
Who are you investing in?

p.s. these pics were taken last May... 10 months ago! love these girls and their sweet budding friendship :) 

2015 Goal #3 - Intellectual

My intellectual goal for 2015 is to read.
Because it has to be measurable, I picked 6 books. That's a book every other month.
I'm not sure if reading books is the first thing that comes to mind when you think of intellectual goals And I even debated making a goal in the intellectual category. But reading is good. It makes you smarter. And you learn stuff. And readers are leaders. The days of having little kids at home, while a huge blessing to our family, and something I wouldn't trade, are filled "mind blowing monotony" as a dear friend put it to me.
So reading would be good for this momma's brain.

Last year, I think I read three books cover to cover. At the most. (Besides Bible study books & Sandra Boynton books.)
I really enjoy reading but I've bumped it down the list behind other things I like doing with my limited free time. We're not big read-before-bedtime people, so I mostly end up reading on vacation.
Addie has started to enjoy reading/ being read to, especially library books. She'll sit for 5 to 10 longer books in a row. We do this most days. Sometimes, we'll read some and then I'll say it's time for mommy to read her book and Addie to read hers and I can squeeze in a chapter or two this way.

It is what it is. 6 books this year would be a win!
I'm almost done with this one:

click here or on image to read more about it!

What should be next on my list?
Do you have 'intellectual goals'?

2015 Goal #2 - Physical

Per the suggestion of a friend, I'm blogging my 2015 goals.
It feels risky. Because if you know my goals and I fail, then you'll know that too.
But that's not such a bad thing.
It keeps me honest and real.
No pretending.

My spiritual goal for 2015 was to listen.

Physical Goal for 2015 - exercise 2 days a week. 

I didn't start regularly exercising until we moved to Boston and I got pregnant with Emma. I had always been kinda healthy-ish (like, tried to eat more vegetables that dessert) and exercised on and off, but not like when we moved. When I became a SAHM with an 8 month old and got pregnant, living in a new place with no friends, the $40/ month gym membership that included childcare was worth my sanity. Plus I was bored. Not to mention, I'd gained too much weight in my first pregnancy and really didn't want to be that big again. (Note to first time preggo mommas... You are not eating for two. It's harder to lose the extra ice cream weight than it is the regular baby weight. I learned this hard way.)  

Last-work-out selfie while preggo with Emma. I quit exercising around 30 weeks. We had an upcoming move and some of my hip/ walking/ symphysis/ pelvic floor pain was getting too intense... not to mention the 3rd floor apartment.

ANYWAY, with 2 littles at home, it's still relatively easy for me to make it to the gym most weeks. (When the gym, the library, and walmart count as "outings" - moms of littles, amiright??)

Sometimes we pass around disease and can't show our green-snot-filled faces in the childcare room, but we often go 2 or 3 mornings a week. It's a break for me, Addie loves playing with other kids, Emma could care less because she is the world's happiest child, and I feel more energetic overall. Not to mention I hear there's long term benefit to regular exercise?

I've tried exercising at home because we are on a TIGHT Dave-Ramsey-gazelle-intense-debt-pay-down budget, but it doesn't work for me right now. So we've decided we can pay for the gym membership. Maybe some day the routine will change. But for now, 2 days a week, while it may not turn me into a body builder, it will balance out the number of girl scout cookies I've eaten. Maybe. Barely.

2015 Goal #1 - Spiritual

The other day, I wrote about some goal-making principles. I am definitely not a goal making (or goal keeping) expert. But I've found that, for me, thinking about goals, writing them down, and tracking them over time seems to lead to more consistency & more productivity. There's probably some sort of scientific proof or psychology expert somewhere that can back that up, but aint nobody got time for that!

Plus I love looking back and remembering - where was I this time last year? 3 years ago? 7 years ago? It's probably why I like blogging and taking pictures too.

I mentioned these categories in the original post (with a little more explanation), but here they are again. Because I'm assuming you didn't memorize them. That'd be weird. [Addie started saying, "that's weird." It made me laugh and I asked Ben where she got that from. He laughed and said, "from you! you say that all the time." HAHAHA! #mini-me]

spiritual
physical
financial
intellectual
social
marriage
parenting
career

I also mentioned that I have 1 goal in each category.
Just 1.
Because less is more.
And because I'm a dreamer and it's easy for me to get carried away and think I can have 100 goals for 2015. But I'm zeroing in, and choosing a few things that are important and letting the rest wait.

And because you don't want to read my blog for the next 2 hours, I'll just do one category/ one goal per day. If you don't care about my goals for 2015, come back in a week :)

My Spiritual Goal for 2015 is... listening prayer.

Have you ever read Jesus Calling? I haven't. But I read the intro. She writes about her practice of listening to God. And how when she started listening, she heard God speaking, and she'd write down what He said. I stopped after the intro because I thought, I want to do that. I felt like God was really challenging me in this - asking me to take a step of faith. To tune into His voice more.

So, I have a notebook and a pen. And I sit down most mornings, read the Bible (currently via this reading plan), and then I listen. I put my phone out of sight, open my notebook, sit with a pen and coffee. And I listen. To hear what the Lord has to say. Sometimes, at first, I can only think of my to-do list so I keep a post it near by to write down things. Once they're on the list, I clear my mind. Sometimes this process takes 5 or 10 minutes or longer.
My mind is so busy.
Our world is so noisy.
I crave the quiet.
Don't you?

At first, I felt silly. But then I remembered how many times God met with people and spoke to them in scripture.

At first I felt strange - how do I know this is God talking to me? But then I remembered faith comes through hearing. I remember that Jesus said "my sheep hear my voice." I remember the Word of God is living and active and that He gave me the Holy Spirit to lead and guide me. And so it would be strange not to hear God's voice if I am truly His child.

And if I'm being honest, I'm a little wary of sharing this on here for people writing it off as some weird super-spiritual thing that goes along with people who attend those 'those weird evangelical churches.'
But here's the thing... it's not.
The more I study the Bible and hear it preached and learn from other Christians, the more I'm convinced of this: all religion is worthless save a relationship with the God who made you. 
It's all about a relationship.
About God, who created you to love Him and to be loved by Him and to love others and make His love known to Him.
And so, weird and super-spiritual as it may sound, that is my goal. And if I'm going to know Him and love Him and experience His love and love others with His love [that's a lot of love in once sentence], then I'm going to need to be a good listener.

Well, there it is. My spiritual goal for 2015 is to listen, and to become a better listener.
What's yours?

this bible, notebook from target, this type of pen, mug from anthro and a gift from my sister (in-law) 

Thoughts on potty training after day 2

I am still learning, and she is not yet potty trained, so this is not a "how to" potty train, but rather a in-the-midst survival guide and thought sharing session.

1. I would take sleep training over potty training any day. In fact, if you prefer potty training, let's trade. You potty train my kids and I'll sleep train yours.

2. We decided that once we decided to day-time potty train, that was it. Potty trained. No more diapers except for when sleeping. (I know there are different opinions on that...) Therefore we waited until we really felt like she was ready... talking about potty all the time, excited to sit on the potty, told us when she went in her diaper and wanted to be changed, stayed dry for longer periods of time during the day, expressed the desire to be a 'big girl' in other areas, was excited to be in big girl undies, etc... And then we picked our readiness based on a time in life when we could set aside a week and tackle it head on.

3. Second to a smushy sleeping newborn, there is almost nothing cuter than diaper clad 2 year old buns. (We tried 'naked' for a day. She hated it and was highly motivated by the undies. Plus she reacted strongly to having wet undies and that seemed to make sense to her.)

4. I was somewhat attempting the "one day" method based on a book from the 70s. Lots of people who potty trained one or two or 7 kids successfully recommended it including my mom who potty trained both us kids around the age of 2 with it. (I've also read intense this-method-failed-me-and-is-the-biggest-lie-ever opinions. #momsareintense. This leads me to believe potty training is different for every kid.) I was all for this method & was using most of the techniques from it. I was optimistic because of Addie's seeming readiness but aware that it might take her longer than a day. I was surprised how disappointed I was at the end of day one when I felt like we'd made zero progress.

5. She can hold it for 4 hours. While I've found a zillion suggestions about poop-holding, I have yet to read anything helpful about pee-holding. Almost everything I can find talks about filling the kid up with snacks and drinks so they have to pee often and can learn the sensation. We did this 2 days in a row. And by fill up, I mean she drank 6 8-oz glasses of water or juice in an hour and then held it for four. While we might be breaking 2 year old bladder control records, we are not potty training in a day at that rate. She peed 4 times yesterday. Thus, I am accepting all advice from people who've had a kid who will hold it for this long. She will sit on the potty happily every 10-15 minutes for several hours before peeing or even having an accident. When she has to go, she'll get extra squirmy and grumpy and ornery until she can't keep it in anymore. If she's standing up when this happens, she'll just let it out (because it's so intense) and say 'pee pee' and try to find the potty. If she's sitting on the potty, she'll let the bare minimum out until she can hold it more. So the 2 times she had a lot of pee in the potty (where it seemed like she really fully eliminated what was in there) today were like 5 minute potty sessions where she kept allowing a little more to come out at a time... almost nervously. AND we could tell this was happening because she had to poop... she managed to hold in the poop but had to release the pee. Is this normal?

6. Potty training will make you want to pull all your hair out.

7. Don't though, because while potty training won't last forever, you'll be glad you still have hair next week or in 5 months or whenever the kid is potty trained.

8. This too shall pass. She won't be peeing on the floor when she's 12 and I probably won't be on the edge of my seat looking for pee cues and exhausted from it by the end of the day for the next 10 years. So, eventually she'll get it.

9. Get some wine and ice cream and a good show to binge because you won't want to do anything else once they're in bed.

It's better if your wine cost $5 and is a potty pun. #iswearthatwasanaccident

10. Except write about the 2 days of failure progress on your blog for everyone to read.

11. Plan to go to the gym with your potty trained toddler, when they're potty trained, because all the ice cream and cookies and wine will not do anything for your two-babies-in-17-months-figure

12. Oh, and when your husband gets home, run out the door with your younger child in a stroller and walk by yourself in silence reminiscing back to the days when you thought one teething child was hard. And then remember that one day you'll barely remember potty training and laugh at yourself for thinking it was hard.

One season at a time, folks.
One at a time.

dreaming and goal making for 2015

I changed the title of this post several times. I didn't know WHAT to call it. Maybe you can re-title it in the comments?

Anyway, remember 2 month ago when it was the beginning of 2015? That was probably a good time to write goals for the year. But, in January, my goal was to make goals. And I've made goals, so that's one thing I can cross off!

Winning.

I sat down to share my goals for 2015 with you. But as I started writing, I realized I had learned some things about goal-making in the process and I wanted to share those too. (I'm an over-sharer....if you know me well, you're recalling a time when my over-sharing has turned a conversation awkward!)

At the beginning of 2015, I was ready for a new year! Emma was 6 months old & we had come out of our drunken newborn stupor and were finally getting the hang of the 2 kids things.
I sat down, excited to make goals - my little notebook and favorite pen and a cup of coffee in hand, ready to dream.
But then got discouraged. I started writing all my dreams down, only to realize most won't happen in 2015. I realized many things I was writing were long-term dreams, so while it's good to dream and write things down, it's unrealistic to set my life-long dreams as goals for 2015. But, baby steps. I can make 1-year goals for this year to those ends.

Goal making principle #1: goals are not life long dreams. make short-term goals that connect to longer-term goals.

Then I got discouraged as a realized even many of those short-terms wouldn't happen this year. Many are on pause. Most of my time is taken up with taking care of little people. But I love my little people, and it is a privilege to stay home with them, and it's even a good idea to make goals as it relates to caring for them.

Goal making principle #2 - know where you are in life and be realistic about what makes sense for right now. Do you want to know a secret? I'd love to open a school some day, if God wants me to. Now is not the time for me to have that goal. It's not really even the time to take beginning steps towards opening a school. And that's okay.

I listen to a lot of Dave Ramsey's podcast (because we're working on paying down student loan debt - more on that goal another time; and because he is hilarious), and he happened to touch on goals back in early January, which as we've already acknowledged is perhaps a more appropriate time to make goals for the year. BUT, better late than never. Anyway, he mentioned Zig Ziglar's "Wheel of Life" as a good starting point for the 7 categories in which to make New Year's Resolutions.

I started by writing those out, and then modified them slightly for what made sense for me.
But, there is goal making principle #3 - categories are helpful if you're not sure where to start.

My categories are:

spiritual
financial
physical
intellectual
social
marriage
parenting
non-mom career

[edited: after writing this post, I wrote an article about each of my categories for this year. I added the links above!]

Within those categories, I started to get carried away again... dreaming.
And dreaming is good.
But at some point you have to focus in, narrow down, and choose something to focus on.

Goal making principle #4 - less is more. keep it simple. i know i have 8 categories, but that's because my brain thinks in categories. i have one goal in each category for this year.
Goal making principle #5 - Goals should be measurable. And then you should measure them. There's no real explanation except I heard this one in a sermon many years ago and it's stuck with me.

A friend asked if I was taking blog post requests & said she wanted me to blog my 2015 goals.
I felt nervous to write them. Because if I share them, then you'll know if I fail. Have you ever felt like that?

They'll be here tomorrow.

side by side & sneak peek

Emma is just over 9 months and it's funny the range of opinions we get on her looks...
Some people are adement about her resemblance to me.
Some people are 100% sure she is Ben's mini-me.
Some people say, oh your girls look so much alike.
Other people think they look nothing alike.

Almost no one has said she looks like Addie as a baby though.

What do you think?

I think they look nothing alike. I'm going to see if I can find any photos where they have similar expressions. 

If you see my posts on IG/ FB, you might have noticed I'm potty training #1 today. 

BORRRRRING. But necessary. I'll let you know how it goes. 

This would fall under the category (along with approximately 9,345 other things I've learned as a mom) of things they forgot to teach you in college. 

I've decided not to show you the adorable pictures of my bare bottomed child but we did most of the morning sans pants and undies. 

But... sneak peek into our day. Trains, a baby that has to go potty sometimes, play dough, a life-size Addie we traced to color, library books and this very cheesy video Addie loves. 

We snuck in a little "work" in the bathroom too. 

She likes to say "i do my work now mommy" and runs to her montessori-ish shelf. It is very cute. More on that another time. 

I think that's her favorite work on the shelf.

I'll leave you with this truth... sometimes you just want to wear your winter hat while you read Pete the Cat on a tiny potty. 

my attempt at a "montessori inspired" shelf

The other day, I wrote about how mind-blowing a toddler's mind is to me. How much she soaks in, and how I've wanted to have more opportunities for her to learn at home.

Let me preface this by saying: we have not done ANYTHING even remotely formal for our children in their learning thus far. nothing. I haven't done holiday crafts or letters of the week or infant sensory bins. none of it. zip. zilch. nada.

I really hesitated about posting this because when I read this type of stuff and my first was an infant, it seemed overwhelming. The last thing I want to do is cause a mom to think, Oh my, I'm behind. I need to have a montessori shelf. My kid is never going to read. we need a letter of the week. 

No, you don't. It's okay.
In fact, if you send your child off to pre-school or kindergarten without ever having done an alphabet worksheet... THEY WILL BE FINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[that may sound like overkill, but there is SO much pressure on moms and that is not what this is intended to be.]

All that being said, this is the place where I share glimpses of our life, where I share my thoughts, successes and failures. So I wanted to share this. TBD whether it falls in the success or failure shelf.

You might already know - my background is in teaching. I love teaching. And I love watching kids who love learning. And one of my primary goals as a parent is for my kids to love learning.

I browsed the world wide web a little bit in light of the desire to maybe try some more learning-ish things at home and decided to set up a "montessori-inspired" shelf. I won't go into all the details about montessori in this post, mostly because I don't know all the details about montessori. But I do want to point out, I used the term montessori inspired because it's different from pure montessori which has very specific guidelines about what 'counts' and what doesn't count. Let's just say, I'm pro-montessori, and I agree with most of the montessori philosophies on education that I've read, but my shelf in the living room doesn't count as real. I'm okay with that. So I'm using the term "montessori-inspired."

Anyway, here's our shelf. I set it up during a nap last week.

 Emma was still sleeping when Addie woke, so she had fun exploring all the activities - some we'd done before, and some were new! 

And here's what's there... 

Picture above the shelf: H - our "letter of the week." She already knows a lot of the letters and seems to have A through G down the best... (without any formal activities. Just coloring pages, puzzles, books and talking about letters really. We identify as many letters w/ people as often as possible... M for mommy, A for Addie and Al, L for Lanie, etc... I'll talk more about letters another day) 

So, I thought it'd be fun to do a letter of the "week." Guessing we'll not quite get a new one every week, we'll see. (This blog has GREAT ideas & resources for a pre-k letter of the week curriculum.) Plus our library program for toddlers has something every day at 10:30 and they do a letter of the week. We just go once a week, but they're on H and I figured we might as well go along with theirs since we're there most weeks anyway. So, she did that H with dot paints at the library. She got bored with putting the dots in the circles within about point-six seconds. So, she used a little creative license. I'll let it slide, since she's, um, 2. 

ANYWAY - I taped that up with some washi tape that I got at walmart that doesn't stick. It's scotch brand but it stinks! I need want to find some better tape. Some of the activities are H-specific and some aren't.

I did not buy anything to put this shelf together. Except the dot activity (see below) and I didn't even buy that for this shelf - that was for our 8 hour car ride. And as it turns out, it's available for free. Whoops. This was all stuff we had around that I put together in ways that made more sense for more learning and more order. Order and independence are two big things in Montessori that I buy into and that I see my toddler crave. We'll see how it evolves over time (it's very possible the H activities stay up for 6 weeks and next september we get to letter I.) 

Top shelf: 

* Zipper pouch with the H puzzle from this puzzle set - a new one we love! 

* Ice cube tray with 1 banana gram tile in each slot, there are 3 H's. we call this game "find the H." 

* Teal tray has a letter dot activity in it. (Pics later in the post.) 

Upper Middle Shelf:
*Small green plastic bowl has our old shower curtain rings that are similar to binder rings - they open and close. Our set was missing a few so I got new ones and saved these. She tried opening them right away. First she opened them all and then I showed her how to link two together. She liked that. She got through 3 or 4 and then wanted to try something else.

*Small wooden tray (dollar section at target) has a dollar store parmesean cheese shaker + a small bowl filled with cut up pieces of pipe cleaner. She likes sticking them in until every hole is filled. At first she got bored after 5 pipe cleaner pieces. But I sat with her and encouraged her to fill them all. She wanted to save it and show dad when he got home. :)

*Small basket I had lying around with some of these tinkertoy-ish building toys.

Lower Middle Shelf:
*Tray with empty cups and a small pitcher for pouring. She LOVES playing with water.
*Mr. Potato Head. I rotate our toys out and this one has been away for a while. H is for Head so I figured it was a good time to bust him out again. Everything old is new again - the first thing she went for was Mr. Potato Head and it was probably a 10-15 minute activity. If you've been around a 2 year old, you know that's a long time.

Bottom shelf
*Some memory matching type cards with H words.
*Our hammer and peg toy. She's liked this since she was 1 and has played with it a ton of different ways! Somehow we've only lost 1 peg.
*Lacing beads. She can't quite get them yet. We work together sometimes and we use them as blocks. She's getting close. I think I'll keep an eye out for lacing cards and start with those for more lacing practice. (I hear they occasionally make it into the dollar spot at target - bam!) Or a smaller bead that still has a big hole. These are GREAT but you have to stick the lace through pretty far to see it come out the other end, and she doesn't get it yet :)

Emma likes lacing beads too.

Here is that dot letter activity from the teal tray on the top shelf. 

I actually paid $5 and bought it from here. It's the whole alphabet + numbers + counting and some other random pages. Dots are a good size for stickers (which we used in the car), mancala stones, push pins,  dot paints, whatever. You just get a file to download so you can print as many times as you want. Easy & fun! The blog I linked to earlier has similar sheets for free... which I found out AFTER I purchased them. Otherwise I would have done the free ones :)   

Here she is with the same sheets in a binder in the car (gotta love our many 8 hour drives) and a $1 pack of 400 dot stickers from walmart. 

It's pretty serious work.

You might think the water pouring idea is crazy. It is a little bit. But it's not grape juice. There's always towels. The girl loves to pour water, so what the heck! She'll only get better with practice, right? Ha! I taught her this process she's allowed to do by herself. It's not fool proof, and there's usually a spill. I'm sure in a 'pure montessori environment' there is a slightly better setup for water pouring, but here this is the best we've got. Plus, she gets good practice cleaning the spills!

Move the tray (all container empty) to her little kitchen table.
Fill the pitcher at the fridge.

Carefully carry it to the tray and pour into a cup.

Refill and repeat.

I wish you could see her face. She takes it very seriously.

I ran downstairs for 1 minute to change the laundry, leaving Emma and Addie in the kitchen... forgot about the tray full of cups full of water at baby height. Emma made a bee-line for the tray and I heard crash - "uh oh."

Addie wanted to keep working when Emma was awake so we set this up. Pretty high tech. She seemed to like the boundary even better. Kids crave boundaries. More on that another time though.

SO, phew. That was long. If you're still reading, you deserve an award.
But that's our little first-time, montessori-inspired, learning shelf.
I call it her "work." That's a montessori thing and I kinda like it. After a couple days she started saying, "I do some work now, mama."
HA! so cute.

It feels like a big responsibility to have a little mind here at home.
And it is.
But montessori shelves are not the only way to teach those little minds. So, mommas if you have littles at home, did I mention, I really hope this doesn't put pressure on you any way.  ;)
This is more an adventure to see what sticks and what doesn't & what works for us.
Something to experiment with some added routine to learning at home since we consider home school an option in the future.
Something to challenge her to try to new things.
Something to provide activities to hold her attention for longer than 2 minutes.
And, new area for me to venture into as a teacher... I love teaching, so this is fun for me, and a challenge for me. Plus, I need a system if something to stick. I am not a see-a-cool-idea-and-just-make-it-happen person. I have to have a system in place to stick with something. Enter: letter of the week + shelf.

And in 3 weeks, I may decide it's not the right time and we ditch the shelf. Or ditch the montessori idea.

It's all part of a journey.
Any ideas or tips or fun things you do at home to learn with your kids?