A flower from daddy

Ben came home from work the other day with a tiny tulip for Addie. It was bright red and the petals were closed. We put it in the smallest vase I had and she put some water in it. I had received from flowers from a piano student after our recital, so there was already a bouquet of fresh flowers on the table. Addie said "I have a flower just like mommy."

The next day her tulip petals had opened. She noticed this at breakfast and squealed with delight but she didn't have the words to describe it.

"my flower my flower my flower my flower is ummmmmm... yay!!!!!!!!"

Then she looked inside and said "I see inside my flower, mama."

I love to watch her figure stuff out.
I love to see her with her dad... There is something very special about a dad and his daughter.

ways I (try to) engage, connect, and converse with my kids on a day-to-day basis

I recently wrote about engaging my kids throughout the day as a parenting goal for 2015.
In that post, I alluded to practical ways I engage my kids. I do these perfectly every day.
HA! Not. They're goals. Things that I feel like the Lord consistently puts on my heart as simple ways to really be with my kids and plant the seeds that are building our relationship for the long haul. So much of my time is filled with caring for their basic physical needs and honestly, it's tiring. Often the last thing I want to do is build a tower of blocks or read "Green eggs and ham." Again.

But I need to be reminded they have spiritual and emotional needs to meet too.
Right now, part of those needs, I think, are filled by Mom not only attending to their physical needs, but enjoying them in these other ways too. It's hard. I love my kids but I'm not the play-with-them-all-day type. This stuff is not natural for me. I definitely air on the side of wanting them to entertain and attend to themselves. (True confessions.)

So here it is - ways I (try to) engage, connect, and converse with my kids on a day-to-day basis in no particular order.

Really listen. This means, my eyes on you, often I get down on her level, process what she's saying, respond or ask questions. This also means phone down when they're talking to me. Sometimes I say, "Addie, I am sending someone a message. Will you wait a minute while I send this and then I want to hear what you have to say."

Wake up with snuggles. Emma is at a particularly non-snuggly right now. Addie loves to snuggle. We usually sit on the couch while she drinks juice and I drink coffee for a few minutes in the mornings. I ask her about dreams. If I don't, she reminds me to ask her. Since Emma is NOT interested in morning snuggles, I usually try to really interact with her and talk to her while I'm changing her diaper first things.

Read together. I don't remember when we started reading to Addie, but she loves to read. I'm pretty sure she would sit next to me all day on the couch if I would read to her all day. It feels hard to make myself do this, but we've started having extra reading time during Emma's morning nap. Usually she wants to read all the library books along with a couple old favorites, so we started keeping those in a separate basket. We put the basket next to her on the couch, cozy up under a quilt and read several. Some days we don't have time for as many, so I tell her in advance how many we'll read. I hope she always loves to read this much. Also, I have to admit - I'm loving that she'll sit through more riveting books than the peekaboo lego book pictured below. I can't wait until we can read chapter books together. #nerdpower

Side note - clearly this is my husband reading to her, not me. Blog shoutout to Ben because he leaves early in the morning and works hard all day and then comes home in time to get some quality time in with these girls. He's here for dinner most of the time, and he comes home "on" - gives the girls tons of energy all the way to bedtime. I am thankful for a job for him that still gives us this time together and I'm so thankful for how happy he is to come home and be with us. We are an energetic (and at times emotionally chaotic) bunch to come home to! I love this man.

Meals together and without the phone. A lot of times, I'm up and down during meals. I make their meals as they eat kinda. Fruits/ veggies first then other stuff. Everyone needs things cut up and pealed, and I don't know, it feels easier to just feed them as I prep. But I've noticed they both eat better, and we all enjoy the meal more if I prep the meal first and then we all sit down with plates together and eat. (Sometimes I have a little bit of their kid food with them but then enjoy grown up food after they are out of the room or napping.)

Saying I'm sorry. I gotta be honest, it's hard for me to admit I'm wrong to my toddler. I always thought this would be easy, but when no one else is around and she won't know the difference, it's hard to make myself do it. But when I snap or have a harsh reaction, it's wrong. I'll never forget when I was 14 (ish) and my dad said to me in the kitchen "sorry I reacted like that. You're not a kid anymore and I need to stop talking to you like a little kid. I'll talk differently in the future, and it'll be a bit of a learning curve, but we'll figure it out..." It made such an impression on me. I want my kids to remember that everyone makes mistakes. No one is perfect. Definitely not Mom. Mom needs Jesus too. And sometimes Mom has to say "I'm sorry."

Pray together at routine and times and non-routine times. We pray before bed and dinner routinely. Those are natural moments to stop, to remember, to thank God, to acknowledge him with us. But, this year, I am trying to pray more with and in front of the girls throughout the day. For people or situations that come to mind. As we're thankful for things. Whatever. It's more natural for me to have those brief, conversational prayers in my head, but I want them to know and see that God always loves them and is always with them, even in the mundane normal day-to-day life.

Some uninterrupted playtime. Addie is so so so so so social. She seems to crave interaction. I get that. I'm less like that than I used to be, but I do love good friendship. And until Emma is old enough to play with Addie for longer periods of time, or until she's in some sort of pre-school program, I try to really play something with her, even just for 10 or 15 minutes a lot of days. Some days it doesn't happen and it's fine, but I've realized if I give her some undivided attention for a while, she's more likely to go off to play by herself or play near me on her own while I get something done later. Usually we new work-shelf work or puzzles or a special activity like paint, outside play, play-dough, etc... And then after a while I say, "I need to do some other work now. You can keep doing this or you can find something else to do while I do [blank]."

Those are the main things that come to mind for now. Am I overthinking this? I find that if I have "intentional" (to use and overused Christianese word) goals as it relates to interacting with my kids, I'm less likely to fall into thinking they're in my way and more likely to see them like Jesus sees them. What do you do to connect with your little ones? Parents of 2 or more kids, or older kids, how do you connect with your kids differently as they get older?

Montessori Work Shelf Update

This update is long overdue.
6 weeks ago, I wrote about adding a montessori-inspired shelf to our living room.

I've casually changed out some activities over the past 6 weeks. I'm not very systematic about it yet. I haven't fully committed mentally. I like the idea, but it takes time.

These pictures are back from when I first started the shelf. We have these little mini puzzles - the whole alphabet came in a set, per the recommendation of a friend. I was putting out one letter at a time, but now I have 3 or 4 out. She loves puzzles and is learning beginning phonics sounds (H is for hat, I is for ice, etc...) 

Mancala stones on the letter of the "week." (Week meaning however long goes by until I think she knows it and I remember to change the letter.) She likes to get the stones right on the dots, so she was getting frustrated with the mancala stones because they move so easily. I ended up putting them away and we did stickers instead.

 She really liked these stickers for a while. They're $1 for a big pack at walmart. She got bored of them after a couple weeks too so I put them away for now. They'll be "new" again later :)

One day we did play dough on a letter. 

She thought that was okay. 

She likes to color in the dots better. Or use pennies. Or cheerios. Or anything small and round. 

The number one fave is these dot paints though. I'm telling you, these are the bomb. 

I had seen these dot paint marker things around the interwebs and picked some up at Target. They stunk!!!! I thought it was user-error but turns out, brand matters. The library has a huge collection of them, all Do-A-Dot, all awesome. They let the kids use them on a letter of the week sheet at the end of toddler time. Addie loves these things. I ordered some of the original rainbow color ones with an Amazon gift card. It's 16 buckeroos for a pack of six which I think is kinda expensive. But, they are so fun! And I hear they last a loooooong time. 

Addie and I both think they're fun!! At first, she just put dots everywhere. Now she is very careful to fill every dot with a dot of paint. 

This was up for a couple days - pom pom drop. 

I saw this picture online. Obviously mine is way less cool. Maybe we'll make the fancy version together soon. We saw a giant rainbow decoration at a school the other day, and now she likes talking about rainbows. So, maybe we'll do some rainbow themed stuff. 

source

Speaking of rainbows and pom-poms, this is on my to-do list. 

Here is where you can get the printable and where the picture is from :) 

We got a new printer that arrived yesterday - can't wait to print up some fun for the shelf! 

Speaking of which, back to business. A lot of montessori-inspired activities at this age have to do with developing the fine motor skills required for holding a pen or pencil. (Well, that's what I've been reading anyway... I don't really know anything about montessori! haha! I only know what google tells me.) But, it's been interesting to see her get that! Sometimes she likes to do fast coloring and wants to hold it in a fist-type grasp. More often than not now though, she holds it like this.

She likes coloring. Well, she likes coloring in small spaces on every.single.page. of a coloring book and then she considers it done. Ha! Kids are funny.

Lacing cards or beads, putting things through small holes, putting beads on a plastic needle, all of that is developing the pencil-holding motion.

 She REALLY liked that for about a week. Then I took it off the shelf for a couple days, changed up the yarn and bead colors and the container it was in, put it back on and it was fun again. The plastic needle came in a two pack for $1.50 from Hobby Lobby, near the needle point stuff. (The wooden beads were also there - near the kids crafts. A bag with about 50 wooden beads was $2 I think.)

While in the needle point section, I picked up a tiny hoop for 60 cents and put some of that mesh stuff that goes in your kitchen drawers in it. They also sell plastic meant for kids "needlepoint" for these hoops if you don't have extra drawer non-slip mesh laying around, or if you want a fancy shape. She doesn't totally get this yet. Addie likes to put it through the front and then have me put it back through again. But the 4 year old sibling of a piano student I have LOVES this. She comes and plays with it every week during her brother's lesson, so I keep it out for her.

The end. That's what's on our shelf.
The newness and funness (I made that word up) of a particular activity seems to wear off after a week to ten days. For the first few days an activity is new, she'll go get it and do it herself over and over and over. That is so fun to watch.

Parents and teachers of toddlers, all shelf appropriate "work" and play ideas welcome!!

Affiliate Links

This is a little disclaimer post.

I recently decided to try affiliate links on my blog. Along with a couple google ads you may have noticed, this is my first attempt at monetizing my blog. I'm hoping a couple simple things will cover the cost of upgrading hosting and design services. (If that sounds like a foreign language to you, we're in the same boat. I am just now learning a few very surface level things about web design, hosting, etc...)

Anyway, affiliate links. This means that sometimes, I will link to something and if you were to buy it through the link I posted, I would get a teeny tiny payment for the referral. If it's an amazon product, it's probably an affiliate link. All other links are not affiliate links unless otherwise noted.

In case you're unfamiliar with Amazon Affiliates, you can read more here.
Basically, they're paying a very small amount to get the benefits of word-of-mouth type referral advertising even though they're a huge company. It's a win-win.

In the past, I've often linked to Amazon as I've mentioned things we like or use, especially kid and home related stuff. I never received affiliate fees for those before, but decided to try it out hence forth.

Disclaimer over.

Other random cleaning stuff

Yesterday, I posted a few pics of how I get vacuuming done. That post started out as this post actually. I was going to write about how I keep things relatively clean. Key word, relatively.
And then I decided that was boring.
But then I thought - I don't know, I liked reading stuff like that when I had one kid around and was trying to figure out my new normal as a stay at home mom. Plus, there's the whole remembering and recording normal life, not just interesting life. And guess what? My normal involves cleaning these days.

So I decided to go ahead and post it. It's a little more rambley than usual (yikes!). Oh well.

I used to enjoy cleaning. I found it somewhat therapeutic. Plus there's the whole instant gratification thing. You put some work into it, and everything sparkles and looks better immediately.

With kids, well... that's just not the case most of the time. Let's just say, our house looks "lived in" throughout the day. If you look closely at the background of most instagram pictures I post, you will see an appropriately messy house. Toys and laundry and books strewn about. I'm okay with it. We don't have a toy room, my kids are little, they dump everything out. It is what it is.

New game - pillow floor. 

Sometimes you can find my kids playing under the rug in the kitchen... what? 

BUT, tons of mess makes me feel a little nutty. Not when my kids are playing with it so much, but the aftermath. When there is clutter everywhere, it's hard for me to concentrate. I guess I fall in the 'neat freak' category.  

So for the sake of my slight obsession with organizing and neatness, and wanting everything "in its place," I've figured out a few tricks that work for us to keep the house relatively clean (which makes me feel calmer) and yet not spend a bunch of time on it... because ain't nobody got time for that!

Before I list them, here's a disclaimer. I read this article recently, A clean house and a wasted life. 

And I really like a lot of what he says. You should read the whole thing if you haven't, but the author ends with this: 

Like so much else in this life, you cannot have it all. You cannot have perfect order and perfect productivity. You cannot have a home that is warm and full and inviting, you cannot have every child fed and cared for, while also having every dish done and every sock laundered. You just can’t. Of course this isn’t to excuse slovenliness or laziness. But you need to understand what Derek Kidner says, that “Orderliness can reach the point of sterility. This proverb is [a plea for] the readiness to accept upheaval, and a mess to clear up, as the price of growth.” Growth, or productivity, as the case may be. Is a clean house proof of a wasted life? Not at all. But a tidy house isn’t necessarily evidence of a well-lived life. If you do the things God tells you to do, messes will inevitably follow. But take heart: According to the wisest man who ever lived, these messes are not proof of a wasted life, but of a productive one.

“Where there are no oxen, the manger is clean, but abundant crops come by the strength of the ox” (Proverbs 14:4).

Along those lines, please don't read this post and think you should clean your house more or you should clean like me. If you don't care or don't have time, don't do it. 

Here's why I clean:

1. I like a clean house. I blame my mom for this. She used to make us clean a lot and I guess it was contagious. 

2. I also like stuff in its place. There are few things more infuriating to me than not being able to find what you need when you need it. [Especially: keys, wallet, pacifier, or baby wipes.] It's right underneath the "customer service" people at an internet/cable company for me. 

3. And I want my kids to take care of their stuff. I don't want a bunch of extra stuff sitting around that we don't use. I'm admittedly a slight neat-freak. 

Now, don't get me wrong. My house is not always clean. It used to bug me, but 2 kids in, I've just accepted it. It would not be unusual to see some dried yogurt on the floor that I forgot to wipe up 5 days ago. Or tiny little shriveled up peas in the corner of the kitchen. And please don't look closely in places like corners or baseboards or, I don't know, the top of the refrigerator. 

One time I had some mom friends over for dessert (who had been over a few times before with their kiddos) and they said "woah, you're house looks different without toys everywhere!"  

So, these are not tricks for having a magazine-worthy-sparkling home my friends. 

Sorry, for that, you'll have to go elsewhere.

These are tips on what works for me. Maybe they'll work for the average-family-with-littles. Maybe not. 

This is how I spend as little time as possible cleaning only what I deem necessary. 

1. Clean when it looks dirty. It seems like some people have a cleaning day and some people clean a little every day. I used to have a cleaning day, but as my kids have gotten more active, I prefer to just do one thing per day. It tends to make the house feel kinda clean all the time rather than just for 3 hours after I finish a top-to-bottom house cleaning. 

Here are the things I rotate through: 

bathroom (we have 1... small house perks)

wiping surfaces of furniture

vacuum upstairs 

wash floors that aren't carpet (only the kitchen and bathroom) 

vacuum and tidy basement

I don't have a day of the week that I do each of those tasks. I just clean stuff when it looks dirty and I generally don't do more than one of those tasks each day. Each individual task takes 10-15 minutes max. 

2. Toy tidy every night. We don't have a play room - all the toys we own get kept in a storage hutch in the living room and with the exception of a few in Addie's room & a medium-size moving box full of toys kept in hiding that get rotated into the living room hutch. 

3. Dishes after every meal. I prefer to do this rather than letting them pile up all day. Partly because our old house with old windows and weird smells seems to attract bugs when it's warm & old food piled up on dirty dishes doesn't help. Plus Ben often does dinner dishes & it seems unfair to have him do all our dishes from the whole day. Ha! (Actually, now that I think about it.....) 

After dinner, we wipe down all counters, sink, and stove. Dishwasher usually runs overnight and I empty the next morning. 

4. I run a load of laundry start to folded and put away most days except weekends. Every so often I remember it's been a while since I did towels and sheets, so I throw in a load of those. 

5. If something is visually cluttery, I try to deal with the clutter when I notice it. 

6. I try not to have a lot of stuff around that we don't use on a regular basis. I air on the side of throwing things out or donating them, so this might have happened at our house once or twice: 

    ben: "renee have you seen my thingamabob?" 

    me: "oh you mean the green one?" 

    ben: "yeah!" 

    me: "i gave it to goodwill last week, sorry." 

    ben: "oh." 

woops! so, that's the downside of throwing out clutter i guess. but the upside is - less clutter! 

7. We have a few pick-up-after-yourself-systems in place for the kids, well Addie for now and Emma eventually.  

    * Montessori "work shelf" work always gets put away right away after finishing. 

    * Coat on hook and shoes by the door or in her bedroom closet when we get home from an outing. 

    * If she colors at some point, crayons and markers go back in the little containers on the the coloring table. 

    * Dishes to the counter after a meal. 

    * If we get out play-dough, paint, or another special type of activity, we put it all away when we're done. 

    * After brushing teeth, tooth brush and tooth paste go back in "her" drawer in the bathroom and stool gets put away.

I really like the saying "a place for everything and everything in its place." I choose not to spend time and energy stressing over a mess. Instead, we try to pick up after ourselves, minimize the extras, and clean when it looks dirty. And if I skip the yogurt on the floor for a few days in a row, oh well. 

Sometimes you clean and sometimes you just embrace the mess.  

So, do you clean? How often? I can't wait till my kids are old enough for more chores! ;) moms of older kids - bring on the tips and chore charts galore! 

This is how we vacuum

We live in a big-enough-for us-but-not-that-big ranch.
There is a living room, hallway and 3 bedrooms on the first floor that are all carpeted. Plus a kitchen and bathroom that are vinyl and fake wood/ laminate flooring. The basement has indoor/outdoor type carpeting. It doesn't take that long to vacuum the whole thing. Except, kids.
And I don't even mind vacuuming. Except, kids.

Emma loves the vacuum. She would prefer to be touching it while it's on. So she will crawl around following me vacuum trying to get her fingers on/ under it. Little does she know that is not a good plan.

Addie used to love it (when she was Emma's age), then she suddenly became terrified, and now that Emma loves it, she likes it again. She often copies Emma and crawls around while I'm vacuuming.

So, one day, I decided to get way more thorough than usual and put all the things from Addie's floor into her crib so I could actually vacuum the room. Then Addie asked a mind blowing question that has revolutionized how I vacuum.

"Can I go in the bed and play with all the things with Emma?"

YES! Yes you can.

First, we go through each room and pick up everything off the floor... well, almost everything. And by "we" I mean, me. The girls follow me around. Sometimes Addie helps pick up or serves as a little runner and delivers things to their proper place. I do Addie's room last and put everything in her bed. Then she asks to get in there and play with Emma. I vacuum the whole main floor, including the kitchen and bathroom, periodically peeking in on them to make sure they're ok. It takes less than 10 minutes... small house perks. I hit her room with the vacuum last and by then they're ready to get out.

[Side note - my girls play in a crib together most days for a little bit, so I'm not worried about them together. If your kids haven't "practiced" this, and are at the age where the older one might try to, you know, claw out the little one's eyes, obviously don't do this. I wouldn't have done this 6 months ago...] 

Then, Addie likes to put everything back in its spot in her room. The girl likes things in order.
This has turned into an "activity" folks. When Emma sees the vacuum, she flaps her hands excitedly.
Addie talks about how mommy vacuumed and she and Emma played in her bed for the rest of the day. She thinks it's so funny to see all the things in her bed.
"And those things, and those things, and those things too!!!!!" She squeals with excitement.
Hoarder? I don't know.

Anyway, I highly suggest this kid-friendly vacuuming method.
Get er done.

i need a bandaid mom

Last week, we were riding in the car and Addie said, "my pants have an owie momma."

Me: your pants?
Addie: yeah, owie on my pants.
Me: Oh, what kind of owie?
Addie: I need a bandaid momma. (She hasn't asked for this before)
Me: ok, well we have some at home. We can get one when we get home.

At a stop light, I glanced back & noticed a tiny speck of dirt on her pants where she was insisting there was an owie.

Me: is that dirt the owie, Addie?
Addie: Yea, I have an owie on my leg.
Me: you mean your pants?
Addie: on my leg. I need a bandaid
Me: Oh. Who else had an owie on their leg?
Addie: Lanie has an owie leg. And Addie have an owie leg. Lanie and Addie have same bandaids!!!!!! [said really excitedly.]

mystery solved.
So, we got a frozen bandaid for her owie-pants.

Last week in photos

For the past week, we have enjoyed spring to the max. I seriously think everyone in my house is happier once spring hits. Last week (after the rough Monday I wrote about here) the rest of the days were glorious. You know, for the most part. A little bit of nice weather and a lot of grace.
The types of days you want to remember. I've mentioned this before, but Ben's grandma has kept a daily diary for decades. She occasionally sends an email with a sweet story like this:

May 5, 1994 

"Ben and Elsie here for supper. They're staying overnight while Chris and Paul go to a Bar Mitzvah party on the Bellevue Queen.

"Ben got on a roll calling 800 numbers to ask about the cost of their products. He called about a contour pillow, a 'dicshunary,' a cookbook, a sander, some blocks. He was very adult, courteous, confident. It was so interesting to observe. [Editor's note: early entrepreneurship?]

"Yesterday was the last day of Paul's first year of medical school! He had a 4-hour final in the morning."

I love that. I love normal life, remembered and recorded. It's part of the reason I blog.
So here are all the sweet things from last week that I can recall, aided by some cute pictures. (Thank God for digital picture technology. I actually don't really remember anything. Most days blur together.)
Addie is old enough to enjoy 10 minutes outside by herself (where I can see her from my open kitchen window). She likes to say "I can go outside like a big girl. Emma is little. She has to nap." HA!

The view thru the screen. 

Sometimes we go outside together

"The sun is bright in my eyes mommy" 

Stylin' girl picks her own clothes and accessories. These red shoes are her all-time faves. 

I forgot to set an alarm one morning, so we all ended up sleeping in. Then I did my Bible-reading time while they played at my feet, literally. 

 I had a piano recital to do some baking for, so Addie helped me during one of Emma's morning naps. She loved wearing my apron. I scoop & level, and she pours into the bowl. Let's just say, in the past, it was risky but her pouring skills have greatly increased. She also likes to stir and turn the mixer.

She likes to play with all the "scoopers" in the sink afterwards.

We spent some time outside most evenings. Addie's current favorite activities are: kicking ball up and down the hill, scooping and pouring sand into various recycled containers in the sandbox, and bubbles. Emma likes pushing the walker-dog from one end of the patio to the other and playing with the bubbles container. She thinks she's very funny when she knocks it over. Note to self - leave the top on. Tight. 

 

(recycled objects > real toys)

Thursday, we bought a new-to-us (off craigslist) double stroller. We used to have a different one but it wasn't working for us, so we sold it on craigslist and replaced it. We took it on a test run to the park. The park and the new stroller were a hit! 

Emma's excited face! She was pretty proud of herself for climbing the slide. 

Friday felt extra fun. We went to the library for toy time, where they get out a bunch of toys and let kids free play. 

Then we came home and had a picnic lunch. Addie didn't get it at first... "Eat lunch outside? That's so silly mama."

After naps, we had a little video chat with Grandma Cathy (my mom). She read Addie a book on facetime which Addie talked about for days afterwards. 

Then, we met Daddy at the zoo. Someone gifted us a membership last year and we love it! We can pop in for a short amount of time any time, all year, and not feel bad about leaving after an hour because we didn't pay an exorbitant entry fee! Plus it gets friends in free too :) 

All 6 giraffes were inside and up close. Both girls were mesmerized in the aquarium. The penguins were swimming crazy-fast and came very close to where Addie was standing. The construction zone was a hit too! 

After the zoo, we came home for spaghetti. Both of our girls love spaghetti. Who doesn't!?

Emma's "scrunchy face" cracks everyone up! It comes with a funny noise too. 

Forks are for grownups! 

And as if our week wasn't great enough, the girls had extra cousin time over the weekend.

Some weeks are awesome and some aren't.
I'm glad this one was awesome.