A Month of Gratitude, Days 5 & 6

Day 5
I live in Portland, so I'm no stranger to rain.  But we had a dry summer and an absolutely gorgeous beginning to fall.  And now it's raining, which I find depressing.  But today, I've decided to be thankful for rain, because without the cold rainy days I wouldn't be able to enjoy the beautiful sunny days as much.

Day 6
We've lived in the same house for eight years - the longest I've lived anywhere since I was 13.  Over the years we've made connections and grown friendships with people in our neighborhood, a group of people who I have come to think of as my village.  I blogged about them two and a half years ago, and I still love them all just as much now, possibly more.  Tonight each of the girls had somewhere different to be, all at the same time, and I relied on friends to help make sure everyone was where they needed to be when they needed to be there.  I love being a part of this village, and I'm so thankful I have them.

What are you thankful for today?

The Joke is on Me

There used to be a commercial, years and years ago, that made me laugh with derision every time I saw it.  I don't remember what it was for (KFC, maybe?) but it started with the phrase, "A home-cooked dinner on a weeknight?" and implied that there was no time for that (but that their food was the next best thing.)  Oh, how I laughed.  Of course there was time for home-cooked meals on weeknights!  It was the weekends that were for takeout.  I felt so superior to the mom in that commercial.  And so self-righteous: I would never be so lazy and irresponsible as her!  Of course I would always make the time to fix a home-cooked meal, regardless of the day of the week!

Let’s think about this for a minute, here.  At that time, I only had two kids, and they were both under the age of five.  I was working part-time (very, VERY part-time) and Chris was a full-time student.  We lived in the married student housing on the university campus and we were surrounded by other young families in the very same boat as us.  All of our family lived within a 20-minute drive from our apartment.

Fast forward eight years: I have three children OVER the age of five, old enough to have their own interests.   Chris works full-time and then some.  I’m still working part time, but with a weird split schedule that was unintentional but unavoidable, and I volunteer with the schools and with Girl Scouts.

Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays I'm at work from 9:00-12:00.  I go home for lunch and then back to work at 2:00 and stay until I pick the girls up at 3:10.  Ellie has soccer practice on Monday and Wednesday evenings and Lexi has practice on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.  Lexi has dance class right after school on Tuesdays.  Wednesday mornings I volunteer for crosswalk duty at the elementary school.  Wednesday is also early release day, and we always have a Girl Scout meeting right after school, with Ellie's dance class immediately following that.  Vicki has church youth group every Wednesday evening and Lexi has hers every other Wednesday evening.  If we're lucky, they meet at the same building.  Thursdays afternoons Vicki has piano lessons.  And every week I thank the Good Lord for Fridays, when no one has extracurricular activities and all I have to do is show up at the school for 15 minutes in the morning to make sure kids are in uniform.

A home-cooked meal on a weeknight sure would be nice.

The Second Time Around

When I was 18 years old and away at college for the first time, I had no other responsibilities.  I lived in a dorm room with five other girls.  My meals were prepared for me.  There was no grocery shopping to do, no family to look after.  I didn't even have a job.  All I needed to do was attend class and study, and yet somehow I still managed embarrassingly low grades.

Apparently 18-year-old me (and, let's be honest, 19- and 20-year-old me) and responsibility did not play well together.

Fast forward 15 years, and I'm the mother of three busy children with a house to maintain, meals to cook, Girl Scout troops to help run, a Sunday School class to teach, and places to go almost constantly.

When I decided to go back to school, I was excited, but I was also scared to death.  I knew what kind of student I had been when I had nothing else on my plate.  What kind of student would I be when I had so much on my plate already?

My first term I enrolled in a computer class that was a piece of cake, and a 5-credit Chemistry class that was not.  I watched the lectures, did the homework, paid attention in lab, and read the material.  But I desperately needed some sort of tangible indicator that I was going to be able to handle it all.

Because it was a hybrid class (half online, half face-to-face), all our scores were posted online.  When I pulled up my score for our first exam the Saturday morning after I took it, I burst into tears.  Not only had I somehow managed to score 103% on the exam, but I'd also achieved the highest grade in the class.

And I realized right then and there that it didn't matter what kind of student I'd been in the past.

What matters is only what kind of student I want to be now.

I can do this school thing.  It doesn't make any difference how busy I am, because I've decided to make it a priority in my life.  My house is showing signs of neglect, true, but so far my grades are not.  My whole family has been incredibly supportive.  Chris now does all the laundry, not because he wants to, and not even because he was afraid it wouldn't get done otherwise, but because he knows it's my least favorite household chore and he wanted to take over something that would be both helpful and meaningful.  He doesn't complain when schoolwork keeps me from spending more time with him in the evenings, or when he comes home to a house that looks like it was hit by a bomb.  The girls have been incredibly understanding when I've had to do schoolwork rather than play with them.  They don't even complain too much about me hogging the computer all the time.

I've managed to maintain a 4.0 GPA, including last term when I was also up to my elbows in Girl Scout cookies.  This term I'm taking two very challenging classes, and I'm worried, but I also know that I've learned some things about myself and my habits, and I know what I need to do in order to be successful.

I'm proud that I'm able to set a good example for my girls.  By watching me work hard, they're learning to work hard, too.  And by sharing in the celebration when I get good grades, they're learning that hard work pays off.

Most importantly, they're learning that while there are second chances in life, it's much easier to not mess up your first chance.  I hope when they grow up and go away to college, they'll be able to learn from my experience and choose to be good students the first time around.

I didn't do that, so I'm grateful I get a second time around to make that choice!

Chicken Hats

Wednesday evenings can be kind of crazy around here. This past Wednesday, I was going with Lexi to her GS awards ceremony and then Chris was taking her and Vicki to an activity night at church. I was trying to communicate to him, simply and efficiently, that he should not expect anything prepared for dinner when he got home from work, but that our old standby, the chicken patty, was an option.

I think I need a chicken hat.

Not By Any Stretch of the Imagination

I'm a stay-at-home-mom.

I don't have a job outside the home - the home is my job.  I do babysit four days a week to bring in a little extra (which really isn't extra, considering there would be no piano lessons, dance classes, or Girl Scouts without it), but I have no other job than being a mom.

So why does it feel like I'm never home?

If my job description is going to include the words "stay", "at", and "home", it would be nice to actually stay at home.

But instead, I'm volunteering at the school, driving from store to store to store to store, leading (or helping to lead) Girl Scout meetings, schlepping kids to dance classes, piano lessons, and church activities, and, lately, standing outside various stores for two hours at a time hawking slightly overpriced (but really tasty) cookies.

No wonder my house looks the way it does.

It will be nice in a few years when I'm actually part of the workforce again, because then I'll feel like I have a truly legitimate excuse for letting things fall apart.

Until then, I would like to remind people who ask what I do that if I answer "I'm a stay-at-home mom!", I'm totally lying through my teeth.

There is no such thing.

IKEA Should Pay Me for the Publicity

All three of my girls share a bedroom that is slightly less than 10’x10’. We have a three-bedroom house, but we decided to use the third bedroom for an office/playroom. It’s even smaller than the girls’ room.

Our biggest problem here is storage space. There isn’t much. At all.

Vicki and Ellie share a bunk bed, and Lexi’s loft bed is perpendicular to that. Underneath the loft bed are their dressers. The only other furniture in the room was a bookshelf, which had books on the bottom three shelves, my old college stereo above that, and then a lot of useless space above that, since the girls can’t reach that high.

A few years ago for Christmas the girls each got a magnet board, shelf, and flower light from Santa. In theory, the shelf was supposed to be a good place to put things they wanted easy access to while on their beds. In reality, it was a good place to put a few things while they dumped everything else on their beds. It got so bad that Lexi didn’t even have room to sleep.

We’ve been mulling this over for a while, and the conclusion was that they needed more storage space, but we hadn’t gotten farther than that.

Until the new IKEA catalog arrived in the mail.

We should know by now that it’s a bad idea for us to even open the thing.

On Monday evening we took a family trip to YoCream for dessert. YoCream happens to be conveniently located right near IKEA. After indulging in the goodness of frozen yogurt mixed with delicacies like Nerds and gummy bears, we somehow found ourselves surrounded by inexpensive furnishings, trying to make sense of Swedish labels.

And we came home with one Expedit bookcase, six Lekman storage bins, three Trofast units, and 18 storage boxes containers to go in the Trofast units. And a garlic press, which was all we really needed when we walked into the store.

So the girls and I have spent the last three days cleaning messes (hoo boy, were there messes to clean!), building furniture, and totally re-designing the look of their bedroom.

Here are some before shots:

Chris moved it before I could get my "before" shot, but the bookcase (also from IKEA, by the way) used to be in the corner where the stereo is now.  The ladder leads to Lexi's bed.

Vicki's bed.  Yes, that is a cracked mirror on her shelf.  She calls it the Mirror of Erised.  Next to it is a Golden Snitch and at least one magic wand.

Lexi's bed.   She wanted her shelf up high, which provides even less storage space.  Also, I realize now I should have taken these pictures pre-deep clean.  You have no idea what this used to look like.  It was a hoarder's dream come true.

Ellie's bed.  Because she's on the bottom bunk, she really only has the one wall there.  Her shelf usually has a lot more than a water bottle on it.  And I have no idea why she's lying facedown, but I like it.

And...drum roll...the afters:

Yay for more storage space!  We have one of these in our living room and we love it.  And I'm sure those empty spaces will be filled soon.

Really all we did here was move the magnet board so we could put the case above her head.  But I think this shot provides an even better view of the shrine to Harry Potter she has going on there.

For Lexi's, I had to move everything.  The magnet board had to move down a little so the shelf could fit over it, and the light had to move to make room for the case.  I like it.

Again, I had to move everything.  Ellie wins the coolness prize, though, because her lamp is now above the bed, instead of on the wall.  The other two think it's no fair, but they have more wall space than her.

So, there we go.  Three days' worth of hard work.  I like playing with power tools, but I'm not very good at it, so there are a few extra holes in the wall. Drywall anchors don't go through studs, FYI.  But we had fun, and hopefully we'll have a little less mess now that they have more places to put things.  Fingers crossed.  Now I just have to clean up the aftermath.

I haven’t even used the garlic press yet.

I'm so busy, my head is spinning

I was going to do this whole post about how my life is so much busier than yours, but it felt too much like something TAMN would write, and I strive very hard to be as un-TAMN-like as I possibly can. So I decided not to write it.

Then I changed my mind, because the subtitle of this blog is "Life with three little girls", and I'm only this busy because of these three cute girls, so now I can feel justified in telling you just how crazy things are around here.

Here's our week:

Monday: field trips for Vicki - to Cannon Beach to look at tide pools - and Lexi - to the zoo. Ellie and I went along with Lexi. After returning from the beach, Vicki had talent show practice. Chris is working late.

Tuesday: Vicki is in the talent show at school, which is being put on in the morning during school. Ellie and I will be attending, along with Violet, one of the little girls I babysit. When that's over we will go to the grocery store. In the evening is the "real" talent show.

Wednesday: there is no school (this doesn't help). Ellie has dance class in the morning. Lexi and I are walking in the Junior Rose Parade (part of the Portland Rose Festival) with her Brownie troop, and Vicki and Ellie may join us if my friend decides not to go and watch. In the evening we have to sign up for summer swimming lessons and Chris needs to be at the church for the youth activity. Vicki's church activity was canceled this week.

Thursday: I babysit two little girls all day. It's M&M Field Day at school, so the girls will run around and do lots of field day-type stuff, and earn M&M's (I'm not entirely sure this is the best way to promote physical fitness, but hey, whatever works.) I will spend the day baking brownies for Vicki's bridging ceremony on Friday. The after school program has ended, so Vicki and Lexi can't stay after school and come home with Violet's mom when she picks her up, meaning I will get to haul three little girls down to the school and bring three more home with me. Lexi has gymnastics in the evening, in Vancouver.

Friday: my only non-babysitting day. I will spend this day getting ready for the bridging ceremony for Vicki's Brownie troop, who will then become Juniors. This will involve driving to the Girl Scout store to buy new uniforms, to the church to pick up the bridge, to the grocery store to buy ice cream and Junior mints (we're so symbolic), and to the school to drop off the bridge and set up chairs and a TV for the DVD slide show we made. The bridging is that evening.

Saturday: collapse.

See? I'm way busier than you. Then there's only one week of school left. Then our summer will be filled with swimming lessons, Girl Scout day camp (for which I have just signed on as a volunteer, meaning even Ellie gets to go), vacation with the in-laws (and no kids - woohoo! Oh, I mean, gosh, I'll miss them, too bad Grandma & Grandpa E. said no kids allowed, poor Grandma Y., having to watch them for a week, what a hardship for her), Girl Scout resident camp for Vicki, more swimming lessons for everyone, a visit from Pam & John (and I'll finally get to meet Keira!), and then school starts again. I have no idea how my mother managed with four kids, especially considering the 12-year span we covered.

But it's fun. It is. I wouldn't trade it. I can do this. I really can. Right?

The all-consuming, consume-them-all cookie

Girl Scout Cookie sales are still going strong. And by that I mean that they have taken up my last three Saturdays and a good part of the days before and between. On Valentine's Day I had to go pick them up from the depot, drop roughly 120 cases off at my co-leader's house (ha, ha!), and unload the remaining 50 at my house. Then I had to wait for parents to come pick them up, which resulted in one of the moms nearly getting towed from in front of my house by the devil of all towing companies, hired for whatever bizarre reason by our HOA to do "patrol towing". But that's another story. Back to cookies.


We delivered as many of the girls' cookies as we could, even spending an afternoon at Chris's office, the same way we did nearly a month before when we took orders. Many of his co-workers love us for supplying them with their version of heroin. We took some to church with us that Wednesday to deliver to Vicki's Activity Days leaders, and it was a good thing I brought some extras with me, because the sight of those colorful boxes produced 18 more sales. My co-leader doesn't understand why we don't just set up a booth after church one Sunday, no matter how many times I try to explain that that just wouldn't go over well. She thinks we're missing out on an abundance of sales. She's probably right.

I have spent a total of eight hours over the last two Saturdays standing in both Fabric Depot and Fred Meyer, encouraging my daughters to hawk their cookies to poor, unsuspecting shoppers who left their houses with the intention of bringing home a couple yards of quilter's cotton or a carton of ice cream and a case of beer, and found themselves unable to resist the unbearable cuteness of little girls in brown vests. Who could possibly resist that? Oh, yeah, we made a killing - an average of 60 boxes in each 2-hour block of time. Plus this experience always helps to renew my faith in mankind. With the economy like it is, we were expecting a decrease in sales, but we haven't really seen that. If anything, we're doing better this year than last. And people seem more apt to make donations to the troop, which, to be perfectly honest, is almost better than actually buying the cookies. See, we as a troop get $0.65 per box, but if you just hand the girls a dollar, it saves you $3 (cookies cost $4/box) and gives us an additional $0.35. Of course, then the girls don't get any closer to their sales goals, so it's kind of a give-and-take thing. But people are generous, that's what I've learned.


I have been terribly proud of the fact that, up until this weekend, I had only eaten three cookies. This, I will grudgingly admit, was due to no particular willpower of my own, but rather to the fact that we hadn't actually bought ourselves any cookies yet. Vicki and Lexi each bought two boxes (well, Vicki bought two and Lexi bought one and had one bought for her by a cute little old man at Fred Meyer who bought them for her), and they shared a little bit, but that's all I'd had. Until yesterday. I finally bought some, and now that the boxes are open there's no turning back. I more than doubled my consumption in less than 10 minutes. It's like those old Pringles commercials (these may have only been on in England): Once you pop, you can't stop! They're sooooo good. Soooooo irresistible. They're calling me as we speak (write? read? you know what I mean.) The only good thing I can say is that I bought two boxes of Tagalongs and then had to give them back to the troop because we were running out and couldn't order more before our sales this weekend. When I get those back, well, let's just say they won't last long, and neither will my figure (such as it is.)

Cookies are available through March 14. Get them while you still can!

Way too fast

Allow me to update you on my ongoing cleaning project: the closets are almost finished! I spent Monday going through the clothes we’ve stored in the girls’ closet, which ranged from size 18 months clear up to 6x. I narrowed those down to a small stack of things that will fit Lexi or Ellie in the near future and put the rest aside to re-sell or take to Goodwill or the DI. Yesterday I tackled the boxes in the playroom closet. Those were full of clothes from birth to 12 months. It made me sad, looking at all those little tiny outfits and remembering when the girls were that little. Ellie came in, and I showed her one of the tiniest sleepers. She thought it was hilarious that it used to fit her, because, “I’m so big now, Mommy!”

Now that I’ve been through all the clothes, here’s what I ended up with: one small box of baby clothes I can’t bear to part with, one big blue Rubbermaid bin to take to the resale shop, one large box for my niece, one medium-sized box for the girl I babysit, four (count ‘em!) apple-crate boxes for Goodwill/DI, and two big black garbage bags for the dump. Why on earth we saved all that stained and falling apart stuff is beyond me, but I doubt Goodwill will want them.

Ellie may have thought all those itty-bitty clothes were funny, but I have to admit I shed a few tears over them. My girls have gotten so big, so fast. So, in honor of my sentimental self, here are baby pictures of all three girls. Time really does fly!

Vicki, 3 months.

(This is the only baby picture of her I have on the computer. We didn't get a digital camera until she was 2 1/2 - I scanned this one in a long time ago, before the scanner broke.)

Lexi, 9 months

Ellie, 5 months

Yeah, I know, they're cute. What can I say? :)

Fun Run and sunshine!

The sun finally managed to break through all the clouds we're so used to here in the Northwest, and boy did it make its presence known! On Friday it nearly hit 100 degrees! We made the most of it with a really busy weekend, which kicked off on Thursday with the annual Fun Run at the girls' school. Ellie and our friends Katie and Violet and I headed over to the high school to watch the big kids run.

Vicki and Lexi both seem to have inherited my, um, love for running. They ran full speed every time they got to the side of the track where all the grown ups were watching, and then walked the rest of the way. But despite that they still managed to do 6 laps in 15 minutes, which they are both quick to tell anyone who will listen is a mile and a half. Yay girls!!!

After school that day we discovered that we had no popsicles or ice cream anywhere in the house, so we turned the sprinkler on the driveway (we love our townhouse but lament the lack of yard in front or back on a regular basis) and let the girls get soaked. Ellie spent pretty much the whole time with her tongue out, trying to catch the water.

Friday was the really hot day, so we just tried to stay inside as much as possible, although we did walk home from school. I had been to the store for popsicles by then, so we were okay.

Saturday Vicki, Lexi, and I walked in a local parade with the Girl Scouts and had a blast. Chris and Ellie sat on the sidelines and waved at us, and Lexi decided that she wants to be a princess when she grows up. This decision came after seeing the Rose Festival Princesses and learning that they each got to ride on the back of their own Corvette for the parade. She's 100% serious about this ambition. Heaven help us all.

The parade was great, but Chris wasn't able to see through the camera past the glare of the sun well enough to get any pictures of us, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

That afternoon we went to our garden, which is definitely benefitting from the sunshine. I got this cute picture of Ellie I just had to share.

That evening we went over to the church for what we thought was going to be a Dutch oven cookoff, but what turned out to be more of a potluck picnic. Only one other family did Dutch oven, so we both won the prize (a soup ladle). We still had a great time, but we're really grateful that next Saturday we have no plans at all, and we intend to keep it that way!