Just A Random Wednesday – A Post Only A Mother Could Love

May 31, 2017

Today I documented everything that happened on a random day.. everything we did, everywhere we went, what we had for breakfast, what I felt at 8am and what I felt at 1:30 pm., all the monotony and all the joy…

This post is for future me. I want something real and tedious to look back on, a way to re-live the details, the minutia, the beautiful (and not so beautiful) everything that makes up our lives today.

So future Sarah: Have fun remembering. It really was this good, their soft sweet kisses and their little laughs, the way their energy made me breathe in new life every day in a new way. Their conversations that have little to no logic and that make me laugh continuously. It really was this good.

And it really was this hard. The constant ON(ness) of being responsible for the well-being and safety and growth of two human beings. The constant effort and love and work. The constant thought and worry and sacrifice. The questions, the whining, the non-stop requests and complaints. It really was this hard.

Wednesday, May 31, 2017 – Our day in pictures:

6:30 am: “Mommy I’m donnne! I wanna Bottle milk rub your tummy!”


Cat’s out of the bag, he still gets a bottle of milk in the morning. I hold him and he rubs my tummy and I drink my coffee and look in his eyes and tell him all the things I love about him and why he’s special and how much God loves him.

I love this time of connecting and building him up and soon I think we’ll graduate to doing it over tea or something other than a bottle. Maybe??

And yes, he’s still in a crib, and that might last forever because he hasn’t climbed out yet and we all lovvvvve it. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.

As soon as the kids are awake it’s the signal to the animals to start demanding things too. Eustace wants to come in and have his breakfast – I wish I had a pic of his mouth open and yelling at me. That’s his signature “good morning” face.


Eustace after breakfast – retirement must be nice!

Bacon and eggs in the morning for Brenden Michael and I – cheerios for Brielle.
I crack them in the pan and then scramble them. I want chickens so bad!
We bake our bacon! 3-15 minutes on 385 until crispy. So much easier and less mess than on the stove-top!

It’s 8am and he’s already saying “I want to cook!” I told him we were going to make Chili and he won’t be happy until we start. I try to make our dinners super easy on Wednesdays because we have community group at 6:30 and there’s no time for anything else in the evening.

He loves to help me make this Chili. He rinses the beans and adds the corn and spices. The only part he doesn’t like is when I add the chopped onion. “It hurts my eyyyyes!”

Then when I went to shower I saw this…. And I laughed out loud. Just thinking about documenting my life in detail today makes everything stand out so much more. So many bumps in the road!!! Nothing is smooth and easy!

I’ll let this newly wrecked blush compact stand in for all the pictures I won’t be able to take during the chaos and spills and falls and arguments and confusion and mess and everything else that happens today.

Poor blush.

After we got dressed I set the kids up with their on-going project this week: A book report! It was Brielle’s idea to write a book, and I got so excited thinking about going to the library to “research” our topics.

Brielle chose insects, Michael chose instruments, and then Brielle said “mommy what will your book be?” Umm.. what a novel idea. (Pardon the pun.) I was giddy at the thought.
I chose wildflowers and we went to the library and picked out the most beautiful vibrant books we could find on our topics.

Already we learned about Pasture Roses and Morpho moths and listened to tons of different instruments on youtube.

After we had about twenty minutes of book writing (our max attention span with Michael around) I told them to go play while I cleaned the kitchen. Making chili with a 3 year old isn’t pretty.

Then I heard Michael say “I want some gum, B-ell.” Apparently she’s his dealer? “I know where some is, let’s go outside.” She led the way down the front stairs but neither of them could get the door open.

Then I heard, “Let’s try the back door!!” They came back upstairs and opened the back sliding door and ran around the side of the house to the car. I met them outside:

They had no idea how to open the car doors! I couldn’t stop laughing.

I let them in so they could play “Driving to Rhode Island” while we waited for the appliance repair guy.

(Brielle asked me specifically for this side pony-tail.) *Heart-eyes.*

His new thing is picking the rubber spikey things off the tires whenever he gets a chance. Is that bad for the tires I wonder? It sure does make his hands gross.

I sat on the front steps while they played, simultaneously making sure they didn’t get killed by the appliance repair man’s truck when he drove up, and painting my nails.

Literally I had just sat down to paint my nails (which is a bad idea if you are a mom and anywhere other than in a salon or the kids are asleep) and Michael said “mommy my feet are wet can you wipe off my shoes?” And Brielle said “mommy I’m thirsty can you get me some water?”

And then horror of horrors they noticed I was painting my nails… so of course they had to join in. Michael pointed to his right hand – “I want three nails!!” But he wouldn’t let me paint them, he wanted to do it himself.

 
Nail painting party.

As soon as he blew his fingernails dry he said: “Boys don’t like nail polish.” Brielle agreed with a “yeah daddy hates to wear nail polish.” And he promptly picked off all his polish.

Brielle asked if she could pick the neighbors flowers. How can I refuse that face? Somehow I did.
Still no appliance repair guy… It should be illegal to make moms wait more than an hour. Ridic.
Then we went into the back yard to check out our tomato plant and found a few more little green ones!
 
I have green peppers, zucchini and tomatoes growing in three pots side by side and I think they are all kind of one big plant now.

Finnnnally the repair guy came, fixed what he needed to fix and left and we were able to get in the car and head to the Discovery Museum. But first a stop at the dry cleaners to get Brielle’s purple princess dress mended. A seam was coming apart and she wanted to wear it (specifically) to a friend’s Princess party this weekend.

Then to the drive-thru library window (which we love) and then we were on our way to the Discovery Museum. For real this time. We love the Discovery museum, and it’s freeee when you either have a membership (which we don’t this year) or have a very handy pass that you can check out at the library for free!

Five minutes before we arrived at the parking garage (and only after a 12 minute drive) this guy was passed out.

Now whatttt. Brielle was insistent that the DM could not wait for another day, so we let him sleep for another 10 minutes and then woke him up.

It was like waking a bear. And I realized it was 11:30 and he was hungry. Total mom fail.

We always get french fries on Friday, usually from Chick Fil A because that’s everyone’s favorite, but today I was desperate and we pulled through the drive through at McDonald’s. Whateves.

I love that I do this on the day that I am trying to be as detailed as possible about my day!

Michael went from angry bear to happy puppy and we went to the downtown mall to get our Discovery on!

They love elevators and I love that the elevator has a glass wall so I can see out of it!

The Discovery museum was a hit as usual. Seriously, we could have stayed all day if it wasn’t for gymnastics.


On the way out we rode on the carousel. I remember when they were too afraid to ride this. It was only last year. 😀

It’s amazing how fast a mood can change when you’re with kids. I feel like I have emotional whiplash half the time. This morning we woke up so excited about the day and by 1:30 I was like, “It it too early to send them off to college? And can the dog go too?”

By gymnastics time we were all a little worn out. Into the car we go, back home to get Brielle’s leotard and then down the road to the gymnastics center.

I find it fascinating how as moms we are at the mercy of their little moods and developing emotions and attitudes. It requires so much resilience and strength to not be sucked down whatever path they happen to be on, and some days I just don’t have that resilience!

Michael had a hard time at gymnastics because he was exhausted… He didn’t want to nap but he also didn’t want to be awake. Cue hell. So I drove around trying to get him to nap while Brielle did her class.

“Mommy how are your arms rully rully long to reach?”

He didn’t nap.

We got home and the house smelled of delicious Chili. Thank goodness. Can I just say how nice it is to have dinner ready with nothing needed by me?? I love my crockpot.

I resisted the urge to have a bowl of half-done chili and I had leftover red beans and rice and coleslaw for lunch. This is how I roll when I’m eating alone, whatever is in the fridge goes on my plate. It was delicious.

I made the kids dinner. Wow, this is a reallllly bad day to be talking about what we ate, but such is life. I made Brielle a peanut butter and honey sandwich and Michael had some chili.

Peanut butter and honey sandwiches, rice, and cheerios are her staple foods right now. She’ll eat raw veggies too, and some chicken, etc., but those are her three go-to favorites. We are working on it.

Neither of them ate much of it, they just sat and played restaurant with their food, which means they will be hungry in about an hour. Joy.

They just brought me this “special” dish from their restaurant. 🙂

I sat next to them as they played restaurant (aka ate dinner) and sipped tea and tried to type this post, or at least part of it, and all I heard was loud LOUUUUD voices singing: “First I was a pea and I grew and I GREW and I grew so big that the pea pod POPPED!!” Over and over. I love it, right? Right. So much so that I considered buying noise canceling headphones the other day. Lol.

Shoes were found and clothes put on, troops were rallied and we left to go to our community group meeting. I am so grateful to be doing life with other Christian families and individuals that I LOVE and love Christ! It makes life so rich and so beautiful.

Today we talked about sharing our story, what God has brought us through and brought us out of. I want to be more proficient in sharing my testimony with people that I know and that I meet. I want to be challenged in this area and I’m so grateful for a group of people who are doing that in my life. Sharing our story is powerful!

And speaking of stories:
Every Wednesday this beautiful girl is here to play with us. We love our Aunt Genevieve! She is such an amazing young woman, has the most beautifully unique and inspiring story, and is just over the moon amazing with the kids. And I hear her right now practicing her harp downstairs. It is beautiful!! Yes, she is too good to be true.

Tonight Brielle asked her to make her a “crown braid” and she did this. So sweet.

We got to church a few minutes early, just in time to have Brielle almost smash her head hanging from the stair banister on the concrete steps. I reminded her we weren’t in gymnastics class… and she did it again. I’m trying to be more firm and have absolute consequences when she disobeys, like taking away her toys or a show for a bit, the verdict is out on the success of this.

Of course we had to walk down the sidewalk to Sweethaus while we waited for the doors to open. We looked in the windows and saw all the deliciousness but didn’t get anything… “because we didn’t have dinner, remember guys??” They are so silly.

I feel like in mom life you can experience the entire spectrum of emotions in one day. If the morning is all glittery rainbows and smiley faces the afternoon or evening is bound to be some level of crazy. I can’t remember a day when we’ve been like yes… it’s been amazing all. day. long. No. It isn’t possible.

But it is possible for me to try to keep my sanity and be the happiest I can be no matter what is going on around me. And that will allow the kids to come back to my level whenever they can/want/are able to. It makes it easier for them to get back to “normal” if I am at that normal level on the regular.

I’m reading Triggers again, (for the second time) and love it so much. It’s teaching me so much about parenting and my own sin, and how my kid’s actions usually make me react out of my own shortcomings and sin, not theirs. It is so humbling and I love it!

The kids are in bed now, see how I skipped the ‘get home at 8PM and get them to sleep’ part? No thanks, even I don’t want to see pictures of that. There’s nothing like two over-tired kids who didn’t eat their dinner and didn’t nap. That’s when life gets cray and everyone needs their pillows flipped because “my pillow’s  too hotttt” and “I don’t want to take a bath, my legs itch.” And I just asked Brenden for some more bedtime complaint examples, because they are adorable and I don’t ever want to forget them, and he said, “oh sweetheart… I’m off the clock.” Good enough.

Okay, that was a long post. Loooooong. And I know I’ll be glad I wrote it one day. That’s just how I am.

Happy Normal Wednesday from my crazy family to yours!

XOXO

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