Disclaimer

I want to share a video with you all that is making it's way around the internet, but first I have to offer a few disclaimers . . .

1. I am not familiar with the church that published this video. For all I know there could be subliminal messages recorded underneath the song that are making it's way into your subconsciousness.

2. I tried to read up on the church a little bit to find out who/what they are affiliated with. Being a life-long Catholic, I just don't understand how somebody can just up and start their own church. Aren't all the churches out there good enough ? But, as I'm typing this I'm laughing at myself because I'm not sure that St. Peter filed paperwork and followed any official approval process !!!

3. This church has at least 20 people on staff and only one of them is a woman. I'm a little suspicious.

4. The video certainly doesn't take into account the complexities of being a father and it definitely stereotypes and generalizes fatherhood.

All that being said, it is HYSTERICAL and awesomely FUNNY !!!

Dad Life from Church on the Move on Vimeo.

July Grid

I got behind on laundry a couple weeks ago and wound up doing 11 loads in 2.5 days. It was seriously ridiculous, complicated by my slightly obsessive laundry system. So I decided I need to update the grid for the summer. It's almost an exercise in futility because with short mini-vacations here and field trips there, there's barely a week that will actually be predictable. But we can dream, right ?

The two things that we spend the most time on don't even show up in the grid: kitchen clean-up and general house picking up. Mr. Q says that he feels like he spends all his time in front of the sink and I say that I think that I'm constantly picking up around the house.

Even if I don't consult the grid every moment of every day to see what I'm doing next, it's still pretty helpful because it helps frame the domestic duties in a way that make sense.

Conversations with Ramona and beezus: Sweet Things

We had too much yelling at our house today. I was feeling cranky about Mr. Q's impending absence and anxious about the work that needs to be done over the next 2 days to get ready for an out of town trip. Luckily, Mr. Q is out of town only for 28 hours (only 2 solo bedtimes !) and I'm really trying to look at this time with the girls by myself as a blessing instead of a hardship. I LOVE my daytimes alone with them, why should the bedtimes be any different ? (Answer: because it's not just the bedtime, it's the dinner prep, dinner clean-up, bedtime, and prep for the next day that is the challenge !)

Anyhoo . . . a couple sweet things happened today.

Earlier today, Beezus and Ramona were pretending. Beezus got her back-pack, her dress up shoes, her keys and a pretend cell phone and came to me and said, "Okay, I'm going. I'm going to college."
It was the weirdest thing, but I felt my chest constrict for just the briefest of a second and my mind flitted to calculating how long it would be until I heard those words for real.
I responded, "Oh? You're going to college ?"
Beezus said, "Yeah. I'll be back for dinner."
Oh good, she'll be a commuter student. Whew !

******************************************

As I was getting the girls ready for bed, I was feeling very regretful about the unjustifiable yelling earlier in the day. As I was singing Ramona's special song to her tonight, I ended it by saying "I am so happy that God chose me to be your mommy." This is something I tell them on occasion.

She looked at me and said: "And Esther. God chose me to Esther."

QEXA2B2VA2U4

Mis-heard

Beezus has been reading Jack and the Beanstalk recently.

Here's her new favorite thing while stomping around the house:

"Fee, fi, fo fum. I smell the blood of an english muffin."

To preserve and protect

Mr. Quimby and I do a lot to preserve and protect our children's childhood.

The most obvious is that they don't watch non-age-appropriate shows on network tv. Even if it is "cartoons" such as spider man, batman, sponge bob square pants, etc or even if it isn't "that bad" like the Food Network or something, they still don't watch it. Beyond that, they also don't watch Nickelodeon, Disney, etc. because we don't want them to see the commercials. They do watch 20-40 minutes of an age appropriate video in the evenings after dinner. We own some and our library has a great selection, so they've seen a good variety of Dora, Sesame Street, Clifford, and Curious George. They've also watched some Charlie Brown, some Winnie the Pooh and some non-commercialized random kids stuff. Sure enough, any thing they have EVER seen on a DVD they know exactly what it is.

Although I used to NEVER buy character licensed things for them in a regular store (although I would at the thrift store) the dollar aisle at Target always has at least 2-3 options of Hello Kitty, Disney princesses, dora, sesame street, etc. I rarely go to Target and they rarely go with me, so more often than not it's me picking these things out for them, and I do so happily. They LOVE their presents from their aunts that have these characters, and I LOVE that they have aunts that buy these things for them.

Beyond that issue, we also don't talk about adult topics around them. People being ill, car accidents, Iraq/Afganistan, etc. They have very little exposure to the big kids, so they don't pick up on big kid swear words. Somehow Esther has still managed to learn the eye roll and how to cop an attitude though.

What we haven't been able to protect them from is our own swearing. My favorite is "Dammit" usually said in conjunction with me dropping something. Admittedly, I probably only swear in front of them once every couple weeks. Mr. Quimby's favorite is "Jesus Christ" muttered usually just loud enough for me to hear and most often uttered when he is frustrated with them or me !

Funnily enough, a couple weeks ago Ramona was whining and being difficult and Beezus walked away from her muttering "Jesus Christ Ramona." I just ignored her. A week or so later, she did the same thing while Mr. Q was around. He looked at her, she looked at him . . . and after a pause started singing "Jesus Christ is risen today, alleluia . . . "

How she figured that out, I'll never know. And here we are working so hard to protect her and she figures this little bit of trickery out all by herself !

*********************
Edited a few days later to add: I realized after I wrote this that I hadn't been entirely honest. We sit with the girls occasionally and let them watch the weather channel for a few minutes. If somebody is having a tantrum this often helps them calm down afterwards. Also, they have also watched some of the songs on High School Musical II. In fact, Beezus watched those songs every night for about 3 months when she was 2 years old and she knew all the words.

Signs

I absolutely, positively believe in signs from God. There are some things that are just too much of a coincidence to be anything but.

A few weeks ago, Beezus and I went to Alabama to visit my parents. (We left Mr. Q and Ramona at home to spend some special time together.) Obviously, Beezus and I attended church with my parents and I was delighted to have other people entertain her so I could actually pray and be thoughtful during the Mass. While listening to the homily, my dad was holding Beezus and whispering to her, looking at the missal, etc. I was struck by a thought while watching them:

Not only do our parents teach us how to parent, but they also teach us how to be grandparents. Wow, TSM was getting deep !

My maternal grandparents died when I was a young child, so I didn’t get the chance to know them well, but my paternal grandparents lived until after I was married. Simply put, they adored my sisters and me. They still did their own thing when we visited – bridge club, some part-time work, parties, dinners, so it wasn’t as if they smothered us. But oh my Lord, we were so loved. I have wonderful memories of the time my sisters and I spent at their house. When I’m at the dentist or bored or trying to fall asleep I take my mind back to their house and try to walk through it room by room, remembering all the details. I’m very, very glad that before they died I took a lot of pictures of the inside of their house so that I have great reminders.

So, it’s only natural that as I was watching my dad with Esther I was flooded, and I mean FLOODED with a feeling of warmth and strong memories of my grandfather. At the same time, I was sad. So, very, very sad that my grandfather couldn’t meet Beezus or Ramona – and we chose Ramona’s middle name to honor him. I was sad that my grandfather didn’t get to see HIS son as a grandfather.

Now, my grandfather was not a person to dwell in sadness. If he had been there, he would have said something to the effect of “Well, I’m dead and that’s the way life is, and there’s nothing you can do about it so there’s no sense crying about it.” Suddenly, at that very moment, the priest started talking about people who have died and how their last breath is something often anticipated and in some ways welcomed. My grandfather had lived a long time. He converted to Catholicism as a young man and I’m not sure he ever missed attending mass until he was older and had more difficult moving around. Even then, they would watch mass on tv.

So, there was no doubt in my mind that it was my grandfather telling me to stop being sad and to remember that he is always with us in spirit.

I was comforted and felt almost . . . happy.

But he wasn’t done.

A minute or so later, we sung a hymn referring to the Breath of the Holy Spirit. It felt like a distantly familiar song, and as I often do, I looked down at the hymnal to see the author . . . St. Columba.

St. Columba ?!?!?!

St. Columba was the name of the church where my grandparents attend for over 50 years. The church where we often went to mass with them when we visited. My dad, uncle, and aunt attended elementary school there. St. Columba has some pretty strong and significant connections to my grandparents and their lives.

Then I laughed. Grandpa was just double checking to make sure I got his message. He was with me, no doubt.

I got it Grandpa – loud and clear. Thank you.

Room by Room de-Cluttering

A few months ago, I wrote about some on-going de-cluttering using a new (to me) technique. I de-clutter on a fairly regular basis, but there are always those areas that, when neglected for a while, need some special attention.

Over the past 7 weeks, I haven't been attentive to the house as I normally am. Between trying to exercise regularly, attending community/civic meetings, the co-op sale, the yard sale, some travel and some camping, I was left with less time to tend to my domestic duties and things were piling up in various areas. The cleaning lady was scheduled to come this past Friday and I feel very strongly that everything needs to be in it's place for my house to look it's best after she comes.

So, I started last weekend by doing a laundry marathon. I did 11 loads of laundry in 3 days. Yep, 11. Because we are thrift store shoppers and because Mr. Quimby and I have not gained or lost a lot of weight in the past few years, we all have a lot of clothes. With the exception of the girls underwear, we can easily go two weeks without doing laundry after I finish a laundry marathon. I was fortunate that one of the days of my laundry marathon was a day I had at home without kids. It was a random occurence because I had to change my work schedule to attend a conference, but Mr. Q. stayed home one day to mind the girls which left me with an extra free day.

In-between and after I finished the laundry marathon, I started in our multi-purpose room (guest room/home office/play room). I sorted through toys and papers, re-arranged a couple minor things, and placed anything that didn't belong in that room into a basket. I forced myself to stay in the room and not leave while I was doing this. Then I took the basket throughout the house, putting away those things. This wasn't a "deep" de-cluttering, meaning I didn't clean out drawers and closets, it was more of what I call a "surface" de-cluttering. But I was careful to not just clear off the tops and shove things in drawers. I already have a pre-established place for everything, so it wasn't too difficult. In retrospect, using the basket was key for me. If I had left the room mid-clean to put away things, there's a very good likelihood that I would have gotten distracted.

Throughout the week, I didn't exercise at night, Mr. Q. took on even more of the child rearing than usual, and we were careful to pick up and keep organized those spaces that I had already been through. I worked my way through every room in the house.

I found that there were things that had just blended into the woodwork - some Christmas cards on a shelf in the china cabinet, handmade hats (FROM LAST SUMMER) on display on top of the entertainment center, some tiny "catch-all" baskets in our "reception area*" that were overflowing with, um, tiny bits of detrius.

By late (late) Thursday night, the house was looking great. Then it looked even better on Friday afternoon after the cleaning lady left. It made me feel proud when she commented that the house was even more picked up than it usually is.

My sister borrowed my copy of Unclutter Your Life in One Week and while she has also found that it's hard to actually do it in only a single week, she's made some good progress as well. The girls and I went to visit her this evening and her place is looking great. I was commenting to her about the things I had found in my de-cluttering that had just blended into the woodwork. We thought that it might be helpful if, once we each get most of our de-cluttering done, we could help each other by pointing out things in the other's space that had been missed.

So, there's my new-ish plan for room by room decluttering.

Home is where the heart is

When I was in Alabama several weeks ago I had composed the beginning of the perfect mental blog post in my head.

My children were napping and so I borrowed my parent’s car to go and do something fun. I was driving out of their development and down the mountain when Sweet Home Alabama came on the radio. I looked ahead and to the right and the left and saw the beautiful foothills of the Appalachian mountains. The vista was gorgeous. Almost breathtaking, for Alabama (or the southland for that matter*) in the springtime is just amazing. It won’t stay that way for long – development, er, over-development is rampant in their area and within the next mile of my drive my reverie would be broken by traffic that during rush hour rivals most big cities. But in that moment and for that time, I felt like I could breathe. Like I could see more than just the road in front of me and the buildings on either side.

I composed my post as I was driving – yet another monologue on where to raise our family, which is the best location, should Mr. Quimby and I look harder for jobs that are . . . that are . . . well, not here. Just someplace that isn’t quite as crowded. The trade-offs are hard. I would be scared to live some-place with people who aren’t open-minded. But even as I write that, I grimace. It’s been my experience that well-educated Washingtonians are only open-minded about the things that they believe are right. But that is truly a post for another day. I’ll just summarize that based on the things that Mr. Quimby and I value, there are trade-offs but there are very desirable reasons to move away from this major metropolitan area.

Some day. That's as far as I got in the mental blog post because then I started thinking too much. How could I write a post with so much indecision in it ? It would just be left kind of hanging. But here I am, using this blog as just one big brain dump.

I'm left with this: the longer we stay, the harder it is to think about leaving. It's further complicated by the fact that, for the most part, life has become somewhat simpler, easier even as the girls get older.

The girls and I have had a couple great days recently. Yesterday we ran some errands, had great playtime outside, and capped it off with a family dinner of hamburgers, potatoes, and peas. Last week we spent a lovely morning on the metro and at the National Gallery of Art. Today was cutting some flowers, taking a dog to the vet, a walk to the library, a picnic on the front porch and some playtime with the hose outside. This evening I’m having dinner with some friends from college. They’ve known me for 18 years, although we lost touch for several years in the middle.

18 years people. 18 years I’ve lived here.

I lived in Alabama from the time I was 2 until a week before my 18th birthday when I came to college. I’ll be 37 at the end of August, which means that on or about August 24th, I will have lived here for 19 years.

I will have lived HERE for longer than I lived THERE.

Wow.

Today, I was struck by the feelings of how good life is and I wanted so desperately to capture them. Even more than usual, and partly because Beezus is turning 5 in a couple months, I feel anxious, panicked almost, to try and capture and remember these moments. So I grabbed my camera and tried to take some of those arty looking photographs that appear so often on blogs – the ones where the foreground is in focus but not the background. All I can say is, they must photoshop them because I can’t make it work with just the camera.

I love the life that Mr. Quimby and I have created here. When we talk about moving, it is with some trepadation, because it’s hard to imagine life being better when it is so good now. Yet I know that it would be better in some ways and other ways would be challenging. With the occasional exception, I love my life. There’s a couple things I would like to change at some point, but by and large . . .

Life. Is. Good.

*Major, major bonus points if you caught the reference to a fabulous song by a fantastic folk duo. I first saw them in concert in 1989 at the University of Alabama at a small ampitheater. Beat that.

Awww Clutter

We all have our issues, right ? My issue is children's clothing. I'm still working on it, and I've definitely won several battles with myself, but I have to stay diligent. My IRL friend Susan really, really likes women's shoes. She's a woman, so that's awfully convenient.

She started a blog some time ago focused on de-cluttering. It fell by the wayside for a while while she had a 3 year old and a newborn, but now she's back up in full effect. She's focusing on de-cluttering her shoes. I can't remember if she's posted a specific number, but I believe she has alluded to having app. 200 ? Susan, feel free to leave a comment and tell me if I'm wrong.

Anyhoo, it's fun to look at her shoes and it's even MORE fun to leave mildly snarky comments !

Check it out: http://awwwclutter.blogspot.com/

Birthday Season

We're coming up on the Quimby Family birthday season. Within the space of 2 months all four of us have our birthdays. As these things go, I prefer to make my kids' cakes from scratch*, although the cupcakes for the class snack are definitely from the grocery store. My friend June gave me "permission" to do that after she told me that all most of the kids do is lick off the icing. I'm not baking a cake from scratch for some kids who aren't going to appreciate it.

We talk a good bit about birthday cakes. They each want to make DARN sure that they will receive the first slice of cake. They like knowing about the birthday cakes that David and I had as children. And of course, they love talking about the sort of cake they want to have.

To keep tradition going, I like to steer them in the direction of the sorts of cakes that I had as a child and I seem to recall that my 3rd birthday was Cookie Monster. (Actually, I don’t recall it – it’s either written in my baby book or I saw a picture of it.) However, Ramona has her own opinions and Cookie Monster is not her favorite. Big Bird is a favorite, along with the “newer” monsters Elmo and Zoe.

When I ask Ramona what she wants on her cake, her answer is often whatever is on her mind or within her line of sight at the moment. But then she gets excited and starts stuttering, so it takes a looooong time to get the answer out of her. If she’s been to the grocery store recently, she also describes a cake for sale there which is nothing more than a ¼ sheet cake with green frosting and sesame street toys on top of it.

BORING !

Today took the cake, though. I asked her about her preferred cake in the car and here was her answer:

"A cake with the park and the trees and the swings and trucks and cars and a house with a crib and a bathtub."

Um, yeah, let me get cracking on that design. Better yet, let me look up the phone number for Ace of Cakes !

* by scratch, I mean using a boxed cake mix but doctoring it up and making frosting from scratch.

"T-t-t-t-t-tan I ?"

Ramona has started stuttering. It is so sweet and sometimes so sad.

About half the time she repeats the entire word at the beginning of a question or sentence. The other half of the time she repeats the first sound of the first word at the beginning. Unless she gets distracted by something in the middle of a sentence, in which case she stutters in the middle.

Beezus did this exact same thing too although she was older than Ramona is now when Beezus started. It petered out after a few months. Everything I've read and everyone I've consulted with says that this is not "real" stuttering. This is just normal stuttering that is part of the language acquisition process. So, for a three year old who speaks all the time in complete sentences and most of the time with proper grammar and pronoun usage, it's not concerning to us. Except of course that it is a little bit because how could it not be ?

But sometimes it's sad - because it happens a little more often when she is excited or when she is using an unfamiliar word or a sentence with two parts in it (i.e., Can we go outside on the front porch after we finish dinner ?) If she's excited she may stutter on the "can" and on the "after."

We are supposed to stop what we are doing and look at her when she is talking so that she knows that we hear her and she doesn't have to repeat herself. This is a good challenge for me, since I often don't accurately hear people if they are talking while I'm thinking of something else. I'm making myself process what I hear before automatically saying, "Pardon me ? Would you say it again ?" Sometimes if I miss what she said I can stop and think for a second and can pull what she said out of my secondary hearing and move it to my primary hearing and process it so she doesn't have to repeat it. She's kind of a soft talker when we're in public, so I spend a lot of time leaning over to catch what she is saying.

She's stuttering several times a day at home and has been for about a month or so (maybe more, maybe less, I'm actually not sure). I haven't mentioned it to her teachers because I'm interested to see when/if they mention it to me. They haven't yet, and it makes me wonder if perhaps she's not stuttering at school.

Beezus interrupts Ramona ALL.THE.TIME and I really have to work with Beezus on that. "Beezus, let your sister finish what she is saying before you start talking" is the new mantra around here.

What's the new mantra at your house ?

Legitimately Helpful

You know, I think these two kids are starting to earn their keep around here. Beezus is a pro at folding small blankets, pillowcases and washcloths, Ramona can hold open doors for me when my arms are full, and they will both wash endless piles of dishes. They will load or unload the dishwasher when cajoled and they are willing to sort laundry by colors when they feel so inclined. Ramona is in heaven when permitted to sweep the floor !

Today, though, Ramona won the usefulness contest. Mr. Quimby and I were getting ready to go out for date night (woo hoo !) and I absent mindedly remarked that I couldn't find my make-up bag. Well, evidently Ramona had been keeping her eye on the "forbidden-to-touch" make-up bag because she piped up right away "It's on the desk, Mommy !"

Now if only they could go down to the basement and get me a diet coke without me having to get up and turn the light on for them !

It's Trance Inducing !

Man, DCMM has been giving me some good fodder for blog posts recently.

Not only is ElaineMM my friend, but she's also a great writer. Her recent post on DCMM really gave me pause. In case you don't want to click over, the brief summary is about the influence of technology in her life and the negative impact it can have. Ironically, while I was reading it, I could hear a voice in my peripheral hearing but I couldn't focus on it since I was reading on the Internet. Imagine my surprise when I looked away and saw my almost three year old standing RIGHT.NEXT.TO.ME. trying to get my attention.

As my friends Laurie and Marya say, "Put another quarter in the therapy jar !"

Like Elaine, I work part-time and need to be somewhat available on my "days off" in return for the privelege of being able to work part-time. However, I rarely get called by my office. My demon with technology is purely personal.

For the most part, Mr. Quimby and I make a conscious effort to reduce the negative influence of technology in our lives. Our kids watch 20-40 minutes of an age appropriate DVD each evening, they play no games on the computer but are occasionally permitted to watch a video of one of their friends on a blog or YouTube. I pride myself on my old, outdated cell phone and often refuse to reply to people's text messages, instead I call them (but I'm coming around on that one. Texting is awfully handy !) We have the basic-est cable you can have, which unfortunately is a lot more than we need since this HD switch (but Lordy I love all those episodes of 19 Kids and Counting !)

But, oh my lord, this darned computer ! When I have a lot to get done around the house, I turn my computer all the way off. I have to - otherwise I get sucked in. I quickly check my personal e-mail (which is also the e-mail I use for all my community "work" too) and before I know it, 25 minutes has passed, dinner isn't ready, the dogs need to go out, and some mess has been made somewhere because the children were not being supervised properly. There are times I feel that the computer is my arch-nemesis and I literally have to hold myself back to keep from walking into the back bedroom where we keep the computer.

E-mail, blogs, facebook, and yes, message boards about Gymboree clothing - they all get ahold of me.

Being aware of your behavior is the first step, right ? A few months ago I drew up a contract that outlined when I would let myself get on the computer. It was still daily use, but it put the computer in the right priority level for my family. Over the last 2 months, I fell away from it, but with summer upon us and my kids getting older EVERY.DARN.DAY it's time to re-commit to the kind of life I want to lead. A life where I am fully present when my kids are around and awake and NOT one where some square screen draws me into a trance-like state.

Adult Development

I think it's really neat when you see your child develop independence skills, self-help skills, coping skills, etc. It's amazing to see the little wheels in their brains turning.

It doesn't have to end there.

As a child and even as a young adult, I thought I'd have it all figured out by the time I was 36. I used to think that I would no longer get irrationally irritated, I wouldn't let annoying people bother me, and for sure, I would save my tears for when I was sad instead of crying when I was mad or frustrated.

Woo hoo, was I short-sighted or what ?!?!

One of the coolest things I've found about being an adult is that we still have the opportunity to develop these. Improved mental health, a thicker skin, increased "arsenal" of self-help and coping skills still have lots of opportunity to expand more fully - at least with me !

Stimey had a great post on DCMM today on this issue. Looks like I'm not the only one !

Theology Payback Time

As you know, I like to introduce some religious and theological concepts to Beezus and Ramona. What is equally as important is that I also teach them to think critically about these issues. Admittedly, the thinking critically part will come into play moreso when they are older; and for now, I'm tickled when they parrot things back to me and proud when they say things that seem to indicate some sort of understanding.

For example, Ramona is very quick to tell Beezus if she does something unkind to her that it "hurts God's feelings." Of course, they lump in lots of things under that category, including those things that I'm pretty sure don't concern God at all !

This morning, I got the girls started on their breakfast and putzed around the kitchen for a few minutes. By the time I came out to join them, they were just about finished. They finished eating, got up from the table and started to play yet another game that they've made up. In an effort to entice them back for just a few more bites to fortify them for the day ahead, I said "But I'm lonely over here. Come and sit with me and keep me company."

Beezus' reply ?

"Mommy, God is sitting next to you and keeping you company. God is always with you."

She is a clever one !