I'm so overwhelmed by life that I think if I don't just decide to post blog entries they are not going to happen. I don't want to stop writing this blog, I don't. I need to get past the feeling that I have nothing to say and am anxious and stressed. I will not explain all the ways in which I am failing as a mother and a person and a Christian.
This week marks the, what, the second week of homeschooling S. He's in preschool level stuff, but I'm already noticing that he's so far ahead in terms of numbers and drawing lines etc. and not doing letters well at all. I would like to improve our school time together and do crafts and such, but honestly that is just not going to happen right now so we're doing workbooks.
All I do, every day, is try to keep my head above water. That's all I do. I wake up and I listen to the crazy happening around me and I breathe and I work on feeding people and making sure my children are wearing clothes. I'm always one thing away from losing it.
And I've decided to cut out sugar from my diet.
I think mostly the issue is that I can't catch my breath - we have guests and then they leave and then there's a baptism and that's done and suddenly there's an event and okay now we have a potluck and then guests again and someone's birthday...I know what I'm describing is life, but it's just harder right now.
Some of the time I'm frustrated by things that just Need Doing; a dedicated person and just some time without ANY children would solve these issues - like getting my bangs cut, mending the hole in my sheet, cleaning the oven, buying furniture polish...I can't, of course, because I always have a child with me. Even one child is too much.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Thursday, July 24, 2014
It was not a good day yesterday. The children were wired, the baby cried, the chore list was long and hard. On the way back from a (way too long) trip into the city to buy groceries we had to stop twice to get Lillian out of her car seat and comfort her down - once in a parking lot and once on the side of the highway. She was deeply disappointed in the lack of snuggling happening in the car and I guess this means a third child who detests her car seat.
Today is a busy one as well, but in different ways. Lillian has a well baby appointment and then we have guests arriving for the next few days. In between there I need to figure out an entirely different handwriting program to use for my son (great, yes, just lovely and fantastic that) and get a haircut. There are barely enough bobby pins in the house to pin back this mop. Also there is a day camp running from the library and I thought of putting Samuel in today.
Oh my. And balsamic vinegar. Must remember to buy.
I had such an awful day yesterday that I decided I needed to re-vamp a few things in life. Mainly my bedtime. I'm going to march myself to bed at 10pm every night and Get Up Earlier. I did, too. I got up before dawn with a two year old. But then I got to shower and read some of Galatians and make tea and sit at the table ready to feed my children and do morning prayers with them.
Today is a busy one as well, but in different ways. Lillian has a well baby appointment and then we have guests arriving for the next few days. In between there I need to figure out an entirely different handwriting program to use for my son (great, yes, just lovely and fantastic that) and get a haircut. There are barely enough bobby pins in the house to pin back this mop. Also there is a day camp running from the library and I thought of putting Samuel in today.
Oh my. And balsamic vinegar. Must remember to buy.
I had such an awful day yesterday that I decided I needed to re-vamp a few things in life. Mainly my bedtime. I'm going to march myself to bed at 10pm every night and Get Up Earlier. I did, too. I got up before dawn with a two year old. But then I got to shower and read some of Galatians and make tea and sit at the table ready to feed my children and do morning prayers with them.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Very short time
Must rush if I'm going to actually blog this morning - I have until 8:30 and that's 23 minutes.
This past Sunday was Lillian's shower at the church, complete with delicious home made sausages and a big pink cake and way too many gifts. She wore a new dress and a disgruntled expression for most of the event and was absolutely the belle of the ball.
Then Monday we brought he cat to the vet. The blasted thing who has decided it no longer wants to be an indoor cat - so we can add more inoculations to the list of things the cats need. And to make ourselves feel better we then brought a watermelon over to our friends' house and the children played together while we admired their garden.
Today David is off to the church, and I'm trying to type this out in the last minutes of cartoons. Then I can weed the garden and tackle the laundry. David will come back to give the children snack and I will go help the thrift store sort winter clothes. Then we'll switch again and I'll be home and David will work. Lunch, and stitching group and David will do naps. Supper is fast and we have soccer tonight.
I can't figure out how to get everything to fit.
This past Sunday was Lillian's shower at the church, complete with delicious home made sausages and a big pink cake and way too many gifts. She wore a new dress and a disgruntled expression for most of the event and was absolutely the belle of the ball.
Then Monday we brought he cat to the vet. The blasted thing who has decided it no longer wants to be an indoor cat - so we can add more inoculations to the list of things the cats need. And to make ourselves feel better we then brought a watermelon over to our friends' house and the children played together while we admired their garden.
Today David is off to the church, and I'm trying to type this out in the last minutes of cartoons. Then I can weed the garden and tackle the laundry. David will come back to give the children snack and I will go help the thrift store sort winter clothes. Then we'll switch again and I'll be home and David will work. Lunch, and stitching group and David will do naps. Supper is fast and we have soccer tonight.
I can't figure out how to get everything to fit.
Thursday, July 17, 2014
Problems Solved
The weight of little problems weighing me down...the endless solving and re-solving of what seem to be the exact same concerns - exhausting.
The garden is planted...and the tomatoes don't grow...and so I buy already fruited large plants...and they won't grow in their containers but instead look sad and depressed...and so I find them a new home (with the elderly couple next door)...solution - buy tomatoes from the Mennonites.
The baby seems contented...and then suddenly decides to nurse and cling quite literally 20 hours a day...and so I try all of the usual things, which don't work...solution - hold her all the time.
But surely there is beauty and grace here, too?
The garden is planted...and the tomatoes don't grow...and so I buy already fruited large plants...and they won't grow in their containers but instead look sad and depressed...and so I find them a new home (with the elderly couple next door)...solution - buy tomatoes from the Mennonites.
The baby seems contented...and then suddenly decides to nurse and cling quite literally 20 hours a day...and so I try all of the usual things, which don't work...solution - hold her all the time.
But surely there is beauty and grace here, too?
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
I clean
I mentioned the other day that sometimes I wake in the middle of the night and do chores, and when I thought I had nothing to write about today it occurred to me that I might discuss what I do with my time, both in the dark hours and during the day.
At night, the chores I do are mindless by necessity. I'm too awake to sleep, but too asleep to wake, and so by mindless I mean decision-free and on autopilot. I will put in a load of laundry, wash a few pots, empty a container of leftovers from the fridge. I will not cook, or do anything requiring the movement of furniture (sweeping, etc.). I putter, rather than single mindedly accomplish something. I am always acutely aware of returning to bed.
During the day I try and do one large task. For me this would encompass, for example, the cleaning of a child's room, weeding the garden, taking a steel wool pad to the appliances, or something of that magnitude. I also run a load of laundry a day, and keep up with the dishes. Our meals are very simple, and require little in the way of prep work, and I follow the adage of my mentor who feeds her family of eleven with the concept of a protein and something fresh for every meal. I have the children help me as much as they are able to - usually by tidying.
When I am tired, I do hand work. I crochet or knit or work on cross stitch. I return phone calls, I make lists, I tidy.
I try to have the children leave the house every day. On Tuesdays I make myself go to a stitching group in town. I visit people, sometimes parishioners and sometimes not, as part of my role.
I have a chore list that I will become better at following but for now offers me a chance to get ideas of things to do. Under daily chores I have listed sweep floors, make beds, do dishes, and clean one bedroom.
Weekly chores on the chart:
Monday clean the kitchen
Tuesday floors
Wednesday windows and dusting
Thursday vacuum upholstery, clean table and chairs
Friday mending, decluttering
Saturday laundry
Sunday bathroom, front
The majority of what I do probably falls under child care. I have two children in diapers, one in cloth. I spend a lot of time changing them and rinsing diapers. I feed them and tell them to go play, find things they can do around the house, go to soccer games and doctor's appointments and play groups. I dress them, bathe them, comfort them and nurse them. Two of them nap.
Approximately once a week we travel into the city to buy groceries. On those days I do nothing else. On Sundays we work and I am generally in the kitchen helping to keep things running at church or else keeping the children at home until the service and then wrangling them during.
Our meals:
Roast chicken with vegetables cut up and roasted with it.
A simple curry in the slow cooker
pizza made on pitas or naan with a bean salad
Chili
Pasta with tomatoes and sausage in a cream sauce, or cheese tortellini
soup and bread
beef stroganoff
For lunches:
Kraft dinner
fruit salad or smoothies
cheese and crackers
bread with home made jam, or toast and peanut butter
leftovers
eggs
At night, the chores I do are mindless by necessity. I'm too awake to sleep, but too asleep to wake, and so by mindless I mean decision-free and on autopilot. I will put in a load of laundry, wash a few pots, empty a container of leftovers from the fridge. I will not cook, or do anything requiring the movement of furniture (sweeping, etc.). I putter, rather than single mindedly accomplish something. I am always acutely aware of returning to bed.
During the day I try and do one large task. For me this would encompass, for example, the cleaning of a child's room, weeding the garden, taking a steel wool pad to the appliances, or something of that magnitude. I also run a load of laundry a day, and keep up with the dishes. Our meals are very simple, and require little in the way of prep work, and I follow the adage of my mentor who feeds her family of eleven with the concept of a protein and something fresh for every meal. I have the children help me as much as they are able to - usually by tidying.
When I am tired, I do hand work. I crochet or knit or work on cross stitch. I return phone calls, I make lists, I tidy.
I try to have the children leave the house every day. On Tuesdays I make myself go to a stitching group in town. I visit people, sometimes parishioners and sometimes not, as part of my role.
I have a chore list that I will become better at following but for now offers me a chance to get ideas of things to do. Under daily chores I have listed sweep floors, make beds, do dishes, and clean one bedroom.
Weekly chores on the chart:
Monday clean the kitchen
Tuesday floors
Wednesday windows and dusting
Thursday vacuum upholstery, clean table and chairs
Friday mending, decluttering
Saturday laundry
Sunday bathroom, front
The majority of what I do probably falls under child care. I have two children in diapers, one in cloth. I spend a lot of time changing them and rinsing diapers. I feed them and tell them to go play, find things they can do around the house, go to soccer games and doctor's appointments and play groups. I dress them, bathe them, comfort them and nurse them. Two of them nap.
Approximately once a week we travel into the city to buy groceries. On those days I do nothing else. On Sundays we work and I am generally in the kitchen helping to keep things running at church or else keeping the children at home until the service and then wrangling them during.
Our meals:
Roast chicken with vegetables cut up and roasted with it.
A simple curry in the slow cooker
pizza made on pitas or naan with a bean salad
Chili
Pasta with tomatoes and sausage in a cream sauce, or cheese tortellini
soup and bread
beef stroganoff
For lunches:
Kraft dinner
fruit salad or smoothies
cheese and crackers
bread with home made jam, or toast and peanut butter
leftovers
eggs
Friday, July 11, 2014
The two older children are running around barefoot outside with their friend from church, exerting massive amounts of energy with any luck. They have both gone without naps today so it is my sincere hope that we are looking at quick and easy bedtime. I need that today - Lillian is going through some sort of hellish nurse-all-the-time type thing, which is accompanied by only-wanting-mama. It's probably some kind of survival mechanism.
I'm sitting here watching them go back and forth around the house. Clara just showed up with a shriveled balloon. Samuel goes by with a dump truck. Someone is yelling 'hello'.
My cat got out today - the brown one, not the orange one. The brown cat is annoying the living daylights out of me right now. He's scratched up a wall, cries incessantly, pees on the floor, and is escaping outside. Today I said 'enough' and left him out there.
To comfort myself I vacuumed everything and washed the sofa cushion covers. I feel better just knowing that if someone came into the house they would not hold their breath and step delicately. Beef stroganoff for supper.
I'm sitting here watching them go back and forth around the house. Clara just showed up with a shriveled balloon. Samuel goes by with a dump truck. Someone is yelling 'hello'.
My cat got out today - the brown one, not the orange one. The brown cat is annoying the living daylights out of me right now. He's scratched up a wall, cries incessantly, pees on the floor, and is escaping outside. Today I said 'enough' and left him out there.
To comfort myself I vacuumed everything and washed the sofa cushion covers. I feel better just knowing that if someone came into the house they would not hold their breath and step delicately. Beef stroganoff for supper.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Random Things
Whenever life changes even slightly for me I immediately seem to fall into this abyss of panic - utterly unable to function beyond a basic level. By which I mean that I had a baby, and she is nine (nine!) days old and this is the first time I have been able to blog. It's just past four a.m., and I've given myself exactly 21 minutes to say what I can before forcing myself back to bed.
I can't even begin to tell a birth story or anything that would be remotely interesting to readers, and so I'll tell you the things that have been floating around my head.
1) Writing at night reminds me of a scene in this show that David and I watched recently called If These Walls Could Talk. See, there's a British historian, (who is a marvelous dresser) and she discusses the evolution of different rooms in a house, one being a bedroom. Apparently in Tudor times there is some evidence that they slept in two parts, waking halfway through the night and doing productive things that they didn't have time to do during the day - talking, reading, etc. I don't know if this is true, but it seems as though it could be true because I also do this. I'm very tired in the evening, and so I go to bed, sleep several hours, and then wake up refreshed at some ridiculous time in the morning and spent an hour switching laundry around, etc. before having to go back to bed.
2) It also reminds me of a passage from Douglas Coupland's Microserfs where the main character talks about writing by the light of his laptop.
3) The house is spared from totally falling apart because David's parents are here with us until tomorrow, when they leave to go visit other family and head home. They revel in doing my dishes; I haven't got a dishwasher and their help is invaluable. I have no idea what I'll do when they leave - likely curl up and die.
4) Because I'm an idiot but the alternative was too awful to imagine, I signed my son up for soccer this year. So tonight, instead of eating a lot of Tylenol and lying around on the sofa watching Time Team and moaning about my life, I get to get dressed and pack three children into the car and go watch my four year old clump around a field. I hope it doesn't rain. Otherwise I'll be watching from inside the car, and being stuck with the disagreeable two year old and a nursing baby inside a car for an hour sounds like hell.
5) Baby and David and I have plans to drive into the city today minus the big kids, who will stay with their grandparents. We're going to go shopping, so that I can avoid having to do that with three again for a little while. For some reason I thought grocery shopping was a Totally Possible Activity on Saturday, with a 6 day old, and two tired small people, and me sore and grouchy and without any real list of foods. It was NOT. Also, I'm used to being stared at but strap another baby to me and it's a whole 'nother level. Although one very fine lady smiled at me in the produce aisle.
6) I only have six minutes left on the self-imposed time. I think I need advice. Post partum clothes? What on earth am I supposed to be wearing at this point?
7) Yesterday I came across a whole bunch of little wild strawberries. I love strawberries. I picked them all and brought them home and would like to do it all again today but I know my limits. I cannot possibly go shopping AND pick strawberries and not develop a twitch. Really, that's the sum total of my parenting advice - know the limit you can reach before experiencing facial tics.
8) Speaking of strawberries my inlaws brought me 14 litres of them from a u-pick because, well, let's face it I'm not likely to be going to a strawberry u-pick anytime soon. I made some freezer jam and froze the rest in bags. I am still somehow hopeful that I can go before the season is up...maybe next week?
I can't even begin to tell a birth story or anything that would be remotely interesting to readers, and so I'll tell you the things that have been floating around my head.
1) Writing at night reminds me of a scene in this show that David and I watched recently called If These Walls Could Talk. See, there's a British historian, (who is a marvelous dresser) and she discusses the evolution of different rooms in a house, one being a bedroom. Apparently in Tudor times there is some evidence that they slept in two parts, waking halfway through the night and doing productive things that they didn't have time to do during the day - talking, reading, etc. I don't know if this is true, but it seems as though it could be true because I also do this. I'm very tired in the evening, and so I go to bed, sleep several hours, and then wake up refreshed at some ridiculous time in the morning and spent an hour switching laundry around, etc. before having to go back to bed.
2) It also reminds me of a passage from Douglas Coupland's Microserfs where the main character talks about writing by the light of his laptop.
3) The house is spared from totally falling apart because David's parents are here with us until tomorrow, when they leave to go visit other family and head home. They revel in doing my dishes; I haven't got a dishwasher and their help is invaluable. I have no idea what I'll do when they leave - likely curl up and die.
4) Because I'm an idiot but the alternative was too awful to imagine, I signed my son up for soccer this year. So tonight, instead of eating a lot of Tylenol and lying around on the sofa watching Time Team and moaning about my life, I get to get dressed and pack three children into the car and go watch my four year old clump around a field. I hope it doesn't rain. Otherwise I'll be watching from inside the car, and being stuck with the disagreeable two year old and a nursing baby inside a car for an hour sounds like hell.
5) Baby and David and I have plans to drive into the city today minus the big kids, who will stay with their grandparents. We're going to go shopping, so that I can avoid having to do that with three again for a little while. For some reason I thought grocery shopping was a Totally Possible Activity on Saturday, with a 6 day old, and two tired small people, and me sore and grouchy and without any real list of foods. It was NOT. Also, I'm used to being stared at but strap another baby to me and it's a whole 'nother level. Although one very fine lady smiled at me in the produce aisle.
6) I only have six minutes left on the self-imposed time. I think I need advice. Post partum clothes? What on earth am I supposed to be wearing at this point?
7) Yesterday I came across a whole bunch of little wild strawberries. I love strawberries. I picked them all and brought them home and would like to do it all again today but I know my limits. I cannot possibly go shopping AND pick strawberries and not develop a twitch. Really, that's the sum total of my parenting advice - know the limit you can reach before experiencing facial tics.
8) Speaking of strawberries my inlaws brought me 14 litres of them from a u-pick because, well, let's face it I'm not likely to be going to a strawberry u-pick anytime soon. I made some freezer jam and froze the rest in bags. I am still somehow hopeful that I can go before the season is up...maybe next week?
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