Tag Archives: kids

Staying Safe

 

Our school sends home worksheets for parents to do with their children to help teach social skills. The exercises cover things like respectfulness, bullying, how to deal with high emotions as well a variety of safety concerns.Clara ice skating

Clara, my tree climbing, bruise sporting, “Watch this mom!” yelling, master of exciting games like slingshot-ing yourself down a staircase with an old therapy band, brought me her homework.Clara ice skating

I read aloud the first question.

“What do you need to do to stay safe?”Clara ice skating

And Clara, in a voice that heard far too many rules at school in the first day alone, answered,

“Be boring.”

Clara ice skating

I’m not worried.

School rules or not, this girl doesn’t do boring!

 

Blogging the Moments

Christmas Day we took a walk down to the unfrozen lake to catch a beautiful, peaceful and serene sunset.Sunset at the lakeAt least, it looks that way after my efforts in Photoshop.

In actuality that moment, like the rest of our Christmas break, was full of kids (our three plus my two year old nephew), numerous dogs and not quite enough tired adults to field all the whining, barking, “Look at me!”‘s ,rolling in dead fish, crying and bouncing off the walls that was going on.

There has been a huge amount of material written about how we skew our internet presence to make our lives look better than they are. And to that I say, of course! I’m not taking a selfie in the clothes I’m wearing. Nobody wants to see the jeans I’ve been wearing for three days, combined with the top I worked out in, while I sport my “hairstyle” created through the subtle use of pony tails, sweat, and winter hats. Including me.

Including me.

I blog because I’m trying hard not to become one of the ferrets that eats it’s own young.

I blog because, if I look at this picture and squint just right, I can see all the fun, giggles, snuggling cousins and laughter that was mixed in the chaos.

I blog because sometimes, in the midst of the snot and the tears and the stinky dogs and the whining, it’s hard to remember that those happy moments are existing right along side. But if I share a moment like the one above, I’m sure to remember that life with kids is more than just accidents on the floor, snot on my shirt and sleepless nights.

I don’t need any help remembering what sort of mess I look like today, all that takes is a mirror.

 

 

Going On Four

Jane: “Mom! Cut this foil and do everything for me that I want you to!”

Me: “Uhhh… No.”

Jane. “Ok, then I’ll do it.”

Jane cutting foil

And that is why three going on four is a pretty fantastic age!

Note: I used this photo with the nicely blurred scissors so no grandma’s would have heart attacks when they saw how pointy they were. Aaaand also because I was so flabbergasted by her response I forgot about things like dark rooms and back-lighting when I went to document the situation.

You’re It

Clara hurt her foot in the car accident last week. X-rays haven’t shown anything to be broken but with all the soft tissue damage, she’s still unwilling to walk on it. She has been getting around with a combination of hopping on one leg (she’s getting excellent balance out of the situation), begrudgingly using a pair of crutches (And by begrudging-I mean they get thrown across the floor and called stupid at least once a day) and her favorite method, scooting.  Clara leads with her bad foot in the air and zooms around on her butt pushing with her good foot and arms.

While all of these are decent options from getting from place to place when you only have one good foot, she hasn’t yet figured out how to carry much with any of these methods. If we were the kind of family who was ready to go places in plenty of time, it would be no big deal that she forgot the absolutely critical item that she must bring with her upstairs when we are headed out, but we aren’t. We are more of the, hurry-up-we-should-have-left-five-minutes-ago family and so Clara has gotten lots of extra help in the last days, even for things that she could technically do for herself.

The extra attention Clara was getting sat well with everyone for the first few days but now, just over a week in, there are a few people (her older sister in particular) who are ready for Clara to be able to carry her own dirty dishes to the dishwasher.

The evenings are particularly difficult. Clara is extra exhausted from a day of hobbling about and Ivy is extra fed up with being the older, helpful sister. Girls that normally get along are feeding off one another’s grumpiness, mountains are being made of mole hills and fights are breaking out.Ivy and Clara

Except for one night.

One night there was no fighting. Just Ivy watching Clara scootch across the floor and then oh so politely asking,

“Hey Clara. Wanna play tag?

New Toothbrush?

I have always struggled with remembering when it is you are supposed to get a new toothbrush. I’m sure there is a rule of thumb, I’m just unclear what it is.

Once a month?

Every six months?

When the bristles squish out?

I’m sure there are “rules” about this, but my squeamishness of all things tooth related makes me unwilling to google it. (Sort of like how someone with arachnophobia would be unwilling to google “Black Widow” no matter how much they love their Marvel universe). I suspect it doesn’t matter.  In our house a toothbrush would never make it that long anyway.

Because a new toothbrush is probably warranted when they fall in the garbage.

Or when you lose it.

Or when you forget to pack one on vacation.

Or when a dog chews on it.

Or when the kids use it to scrub the sink and mirrors.

But one thing I know for certain.

When Jane explains to me that she had to use her toothbrush to push the used toilet paper off the seat into the toilet because otherwise her hand would get dirty. Then it is, for sure, time for a new toothbrush.

This has nothing to do with toothbrushes of any age.

This has nothing to do with toothbrushes of any age. Cassie is just cuter than any toothbrush I’ve encountered.

Afterwards, when the horror had left my face, and I was done explaining why that was a bad idea as well as why she no longer had a toothbrush.  I thought about the matter of fact way she used her toothbrush to do her dirty work while I was watching and wondered what else I hadn’t seen…

New toothbrushes – all around!

 

Three Cheers For Meat!

It wasn’t intentional, raising such a meat lover. It just sort of, happened.

I mean, it’s true, I never ate anything green until I was 12, 24, 30, but vegetables now routinely infiltrate our meals. And, along side those much contested vegetables are the animals. Birds we’ve been out hunting go straight to the table and everyone agreed that Archibald tasted delicious. So while vegetables have often been a sore subject around the dinner table, the girls have grown up knowing where their meat came from and occasionally what it’s name was. Something that turns others’ stomachs has been a fact of life for the girls for so long as to be a non-issue.

Now deer season and the source of most of our red meat for the year has arrived. Personally, I have yet to be convinced that waking up early and sitting in a tree in the cold would be a super fun plan, but one morning John left the house to do just that. When the girls asked where he was, I told them he was out hunting and maybe, if we were lucky, he’d bring a deer home

“Yay!”, Jane cried.

“Yay for meat!”, she cheered as she jumped up and down.

“Meat! Meat! Meat! Meat!”

I guess, thinking back to her involvement last year, I shouldn’t be surprised. Jane helping grind meatThe picture might be a year old but she’s lost none of her enthusiasm for the rewards of deer hunting!