Friday, January 21, 2011

7 Quick Takes

1. The past 2 months have been so hectic  (filled with Christmas, work, and illness,) that we've been taking a break from any kind of formal homeschooling.  (And by formal, I mean weekly themes, library books, activity sheets, and planned crafts.) But yesterday I decided, spur of the moment, to do a simple craft with Addie (Gabe wasn't interested) that I found over at Catholic Icing.  We had a great time painting with the glue and sticking on tissue paper, and the results were really pretty!  It's gotten me excited to get back in to the rhythm of things again.

2. Someone has replaced my adorable, happy, little baby with an adorable, cranky, little toddler.  I'm pretty sure she's having a molar or two come in, which is never any fun.  She has also started mimicking Gabe's tantrums when she doesn't get her way.  She will sit down on the floor, slooooowly lower herself down on her back, and then proceed to kick and yell. If she weren't so upset it would be really funny.

3. Not all is unhappy with Ana though, she's started repeating words back to us and it couldn't be more adorable. Diaper: Dah-poh.  Ziti: See-tee.  Cracker: Cah-kowh.  Please: Peas. Cake: Chhk.  Cookie: Cooh-kee.  Addie: Ah-tee.  Grandpa: Guh-bawh.  Cheese: Chhsss.  All Done: Ahh Guhh

4. We had our most difficult moment of the week on Wednesday.  It was during the horrible-no-good-very-bad-Walmart-trip.  Aside from getting fingers closed in the sliding car door, dropping food on a carton of eggs, and a meltdown at the checkout line, there was one very memorable moment in the bathroom.  Gabe had a potty accident in an aisle so we rush to the bathroom to clean up and change. But then all the kids went their own way at once: Gabe waddled around the bathroom with wet pants around his ankles, Juliana dumped an entire bag of pea crisps on the floor and then tried to eat them, and Addie opened the door to leave the bathroom all together! There was a brief moment of yelling and pushing back tears on my part before... brainwave.  I started to sing a verse of This Day God Gives Me and everyone calmed down and stopped what they were doing, possibly because it was so unexpected.  But it helped to center me and bring me back.  Definitely worth remembering.

5. I have made some serious decluttering progress in Juliana's room (and my own) to prepare for a massive cleansing on Saturday.  We have several large pieces of busted up or unusable furniture that are finally (finally!) making their way to the dump.  I am so excited for Ana to actually have her own room that all the kids can play in, and space in my room to organize my office, homeschool, and crafting supplies.  Woo Hoo!!

6. I've been trying to do yoga again in the mornings.  It's a nice, calm way to get in some exercising before the kids wake up. The past few mornings though, the kids have made their way downstairs before 7am and have found me in some pretty funny positions.  Gabe asked what I was doing and I told him it was called yoga.  He said, "Yeah.  I do yoga, too!" And proceeded to go into the warrior pose in which he found me.

7. Mom came over and helped me sort through all the kids toys yesterday. After the chaos of Christmas we still had boxes of unsorted gifts and random toys. We ended up filling an entire large garbage bag full of trash, a box for the attic, and a box for goodwill.  I had picked up some plastic bins at the dollar tree so now everything else has its own place!  Ahh... I feel like I can breathe again.

This post linked to 7 Quick Takes.

3 comments:

mellanie said...

I am so proud of u for your productivity and am inspired to get things cleaned up in my house too. Can't wait to see u guys again! We still gonna to get together this weekend?

Margaret said...

Love the votives! Also, the stories about Ana are hilarious -- probably because I don't have to deal with her in her tantrum-y state, and can instead just picture her c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y arranging herself for the meltdown. Hee!

Also, I am so impressed with your quick thinking in Wal-Mart. I probably would have just sat down and cried with the kids. Heh. Hooray for distractions!

Jen said...

Everything Margaret said! The carefully planned tantrum and the approximate words are friggin' adorable.

I also love Gabe's response to your answer about yoga. "Oh yeah -- that thing. Pssh -- I do that all the time! I was just, you know, confused for a second."