Snapshots
My last "real" post was called "Back on the Wagon" and was over six weeks ago. Oops. I was feeling optimistic at the beginning of November, but my feeling didn't last. It turned out to be a crazy month, with a lot of different things going on for me, topped off by a visit from a nasty stomach virus for all three of the kids. I did manage to get my final paper written for my class; it took longer than I expected it to and turned out to be somewhat difficult to write. Part of that is my fault for not choosing a better research question and part of it is the fault of my instructor for giving vague directions for the final paper. Oh well--the semester is over and turned out well. Now I have a nice long break until mid-January and I want to make the most of it.
*******
As much as I'd like to relax and enjoy my break, however, nothing is going to be calm until after Christmas. Even when I try to keep things simple, they still are hard. This year I decided to send out a Christmas letter. First I had to send the pictures to Costco to get developed. I did that online about 10 days ago; I picked them up last Saturday, and I also stopped by the post office to get stamps. Then on Monday night I wrote the letter. Tuesday night I spent about an hour trying to print it because my printer didn't like the paper I was using. Last night I managed to print all the envelopes and stuff them, but didn't get time to put the stamps on. Thankfully this morning Little Dude had extra time before school and was excited to put stamps on all my letters for me. Otherwise, I would have been doing that myself tonight. This is one of the things I hate about my life right now--things that used to just take a relatively small portion of my time now feel like epic quests. I have to squeeze things into the few random free hours of my day or week. Tonight I was going to wrap presents, but we are out of scotch tape. I can't just run to the store to grab some; thankfully I was going to go tomorrow night, but if I weren't, it could take a few days of juggling just to fit in a trip to the store for some stupid tape. And this is me keeping things pretty simple--we've hardly done anything festive yet. We almost never do stuff in the evenings anymore--by the time I get home from work, all we have time for is cooking dinner, cleaning up dinner, and bedtime. By not trying to do other things in the evening we do have a relaxed few hours together, but things just aren't like they used to be and I miss it.
*******
I totally got off-track with my exercise goal and I haven't gotten back on-track yet. I know I just need to start again, but I keep making excuses and doing dumb things like drinking large cups of hot chocolate while reading articles on the internet at night instead. Hopefully I'll feel more like it next week when I am off work for a while and can get back in the habit.
*******
I already had next Tuesday and Wednesday off from work, so I took the rest of the week off too. It will be fun to spend time with the kids, and while they want to go out and do stuff, I'm mostly looking forward to lazier mornings with real food for breakfast (instead of cold cereal) and a chance to get caught up on housework and errands. Don't worry--we'll do some fun things too (going to see Frozen is on the list).
*******
P. Bibby has mostly been potty trained. However (and this is probably gross, but I'm a veteran parent and I don't care), she doesn't like to poop in the potty. She mostly waits and poops in her pull-up after she goes to bed. I have no idea how voluntary this is (like if she's really holding it in waiting for that moment or not). We've also had some issues with her bowel habits because they are really inconsistent--I've been trying to figure out if she has a food sensitivity or if it is just related to the fact that she loves fruit and sometimes doesn't feel like eating other foods. Trying to figure out and regulate her eating is difficult because she eats like a preschooler (i.e. completely inconsistently) and eats at three different houses on a regular basis. I'm not sure what to do--I just know I'm tired of changing a nasty poopy diaper on a half-awake child every single night.
*******
This post ended up feeling like a downer; life the last few weeks has been hard for many reasons (see above: not enough exercise, too much research paper, and cold/snowy weather). I really need to get back on track. Truthfully, things are good in many ways. The kids are doing fine in school and everyone is happy and healthy (knock on wood). For a few months I've been stepping up my efforts to get the kids to do more chores and take on more responsibility, and they're doing a good job with it. Little Dude loves to cook and is getting pretty good at simple things like scrambled eggs. P. Bibby can actually unload the dishwasher mostly on her own (she just needs help with heavy things and with putting some things away), and S-Boogie is great at helping out her younger sister with things when I ask her to. Even though they sometimes have squabbles, most of the time the three kids all get along really well together and have a fun time with creative games and other weird things they come up with. The kids are happy and really looking forward to Christmas; I'm grateful that this year I don't feel a lot of financial stress about the holidays and that I can take the week off work to be with the kids. Now I just need to get more sleep so I can relax a little and enjoy the good things.
*******
As much as I'd like to relax and enjoy my break, however, nothing is going to be calm until after Christmas. Even when I try to keep things simple, they still are hard. This year I decided to send out a Christmas letter. First I had to send the pictures to Costco to get developed. I did that online about 10 days ago; I picked them up last Saturday, and I also stopped by the post office to get stamps. Then on Monday night I wrote the letter. Tuesday night I spent about an hour trying to print it because my printer didn't like the paper I was using. Last night I managed to print all the envelopes and stuff them, but didn't get time to put the stamps on. Thankfully this morning Little Dude had extra time before school and was excited to put stamps on all my letters for me. Otherwise, I would have been doing that myself tonight. This is one of the things I hate about my life right now--things that used to just take a relatively small portion of my time now feel like epic quests. I have to squeeze things into the few random free hours of my day or week. Tonight I was going to wrap presents, but we are out of scotch tape. I can't just run to the store to grab some; thankfully I was going to go tomorrow night, but if I weren't, it could take a few days of juggling just to fit in a trip to the store for some stupid tape. And this is me keeping things pretty simple--we've hardly done anything festive yet. We almost never do stuff in the evenings anymore--by the time I get home from work, all we have time for is cooking dinner, cleaning up dinner, and bedtime. By not trying to do other things in the evening we do have a relaxed few hours together, but things just aren't like they used to be and I miss it.
*******
I totally got off-track with my exercise goal and I haven't gotten back on-track yet. I know I just need to start again, but I keep making excuses and doing dumb things like drinking large cups of hot chocolate while reading articles on the internet at night instead. Hopefully I'll feel more like it next week when I am off work for a while and can get back in the habit.
*******
I already had next Tuesday and Wednesday off from work, so I took the rest of the week off too. It will be fun to spend time with the kids, and while they want to go out and do stuff, I'm mostly looking forward to lazier mornings with real food for breakfast (instead of cold cereal) and a chance to get caught up on housework and errands. Don't worry--we'll do some fun things too (going to see Frozen is on the list).
*******
P. Bibby has mostly been potty trained. However (and this is probably gross, but I'm a veteran parent and I don't care), she doesn't like to poop in the potty. She mostly waits and poops in her pull-up after she goes to bed. I have no idea how voluntary this is (like if she's really holding it in waiting for that moment or not). We've also had some issues with her bowel habits because they are really inconsistent--I've been trying to figure out if she has a food sensitivity or if it is just related to the fact that she loves fruit and sometimes doesn't feel like eating other foods. Trying to figure out and regulate her eating is difficult because she eats like a preschooler (i.e. completely inconsistently) and eats at three different houses on a regular basis. I'm not sure what to do--I just know I'm tired of changing a nasty poopy diaper on a half-awake child every single night.
*******
This post ended up feeling like a downer; life the last few weeks has been hard for many reasons (see above: not enough exercise, too much research paper, and cold/snowy weather). I really need to get back on track. Truthfully, things are good in many ways. The kids are doing fine in school and everyone is happy and healthy (knock on wood). For a few months I've been stepping up my efforts to get the kids to do more chores and take on more responsibility, and they're doing a good job with it. Little Dude loves to cook and is getting pretty good at simple things like scrambled eggs. P. Bibby can actually unload the dishwasher mostly on her own (she just needs help with heavy things and with putting some things away), and S-Boogie is great at helping out her younger sister with things when I ask her to. Even though they sometimes have squabbles, most of the time the three kids all get along really well together and have a fun time with creative games and other weird things they come up with. The kids are happy and really looking forward to Christmas; I'm grateful that this year I don't feel a lot of financial stress about the holidays and that I can take the week off work to be with the kids. Now I just need to get more sleep so I can relax a little and enjoy the good things.
Comments