I am Supermom!

Sing with me now:  “I am…  I am Supermom.  And I know what’s happening.  I am…  I am Supermom.  And I can do anything.”

I read a blog post today that I had to come share.  It started out saying:

Look, I know the areas in life where I excel.  It unfortunately doesn’t involve me being a size two and wearing the most. stylish. boots. you ever did see.  I will not be doing a triathlon, I’ll be the one over there handing out water and cheering you on while eating a muffin.  My house isn’t ever company ready.  Just move that pile of Legos, I will make dinner.  I can make you laugh, I can make you think.  I am a great friend.  I am amazing in bed.  I like the woman that I have become.  I can also throw a party like you wouldn’t believe.

My name is Michelle and I throw “Pinterest worthy” parties for my children.

I don’t think this makes me a shitty mom, a superior mom, or that I have too much time on my hands.  I assure you, I do not.

I also don’t think it makes you a shitty mom for NOT throwing parties like that for your children’s birthdays, having a spotless house, and working full time.

I encourage you to check it out here:  http://www.sowonderfulsomarvelous.com/2013/06/moms-when-are-you-going-to-learn.html

The whole point of the post was what I’ve always said, that our priorities and skills may be different, but that doesn’t make any one of us better at being a Mom than the rest of us.  That it’s time we supported one another, cut each other some slack, and honestly do the same for ourselves.

The author goes on to say that she is NOT Supermom.  But you know what?  She’s wrong.  She’s totally Supermom.  Just like you and I.

We are ALL Supermoms.  I mean honestly!  Think about it!

Today, I’ve already walked back and forth from my daughter’s school three times, and I’m going to do it one more time before the day is through.  And yes, one of those three times I seriously contemplated stripping down to my skivies and laying on a neighbour’s lawn because the heat was so freakin’ unbelievable (35 degrees, insane).  But taking the time to make my daughter feel safe and valued?  That makes me Supermom.  Does it make those Mom’s who’s kids are in daycare or who have to eat lunch at school less super?  Hell no.  It just means we’ve made different choices about how best to parent our individual families.  And that’s totally okay.  Being a Mom is tough.  It’s not for everyone (and kudos for those of you who recognize this is not the life for you BEFORE you end up in the middle of it).  There’s a whole lot of judgement out there for the things we do or don’t do… but come on.  At the very least we should be able to count on our fellow Supermoms for support and appreciation.  We all rock pretty freakin hard!

Picture Perfect Playdate

The girl had a playdate today with her bestie Parker.  They played with Zhu Zhu Pets, had monster pancakes for lunch, played with the Light Bright, made things with the Fazoodles, played with My Little Ponies, got dressed up as royals, played Skylanders, and had just started to play Littlest Pet Shop when his Mom came by to pick him up.  It was a great afternoon.

Fazoodles

Light Bright

Prince Parker

My Little Pony

Being Silly

Off to slay the dragon!

Oh!  And I can’t forget…  they made some plans for their future too.  You see, they plan to get married, and they have now decided that they should have 100 swimming pools and 100 horses.  Important things for any couple to have.  😉

Starting the bedtime routine at SIX THIRTY?!?!

Tonight we started the girl’s bedtime routine at 6:30…  which seems crazy early.  But it takes us about an hour from start to finish.  Normally we start getting ready for bed at 7:30 with the intent of being in bed for 8:30.  Tonight was a lot better.

I don’t know if that’s really the answer though, starting bedtime at 6:30???  We normally wake up between 8:30 and 9:30, and on occasion sleep as late as 10:00 (though that is really unusual).  On days when we’re all just home hanging out that’s no big deal…  but when her Dad works that means he only gets a couple of hours with her – and that’s just not enough.

I thought kids were supposed to need less sleep as time went on, not more?  Or is there something else going on here that I’m just not aware of.  Oy!  You’d think I’d just be happy to have a temper tantrum free day – sure there were a couple of little mads, but no fall apart, break down, freak out moments…  and THAT is a big deal when you consider the week we’ve had.  LOL

Run down and tired – a parenting rant.

I’ve always looked forward to my evening blog post.  It’s a time to reflect on the day, gather my thoughts, share what’s on my mind – whether it’s something of huge importance or just a little blurb about my life.  Lately though, by the time the girl is asleep in bed beside me, I find I’m too run down and tired to be much in the mood for blogging.

Lily-Ann is a “high need” kid (a term coined by Dr. Sears).  She’s never been easy.  She’s challenging, but oh so worth it.  She’s super bright, creative, head-strong, determined, yet compassionate and full of empathy.  Her emotions are always heightened and many would find them exaggerated – a fact that was nailed home in her report card, which came home right before Easter break.  And all this would be just fine, if she wasn’t such a chip off the old block.

My emotions tend to get so tied up within whatever she’s feeling that I’m just exhausted by the time I’ve laid down with her to read our nightly chapters.  What she feels has always translated directly into what I myself feel.  When she’s happy, I’m happy, when she’s upset, I’m upset.  I honestly can’t see beyond her pain when she’s hurting – and that includes when she’s in the middle of a temper tantrum…  which has been happening on a more and more regular basis in the evenings.

I’m exhausted, and can’t think of anything to write beyond that.

People talk about “the terrible twos”…  Lily-Ann was a BREEZE at two, and good-natured trouble at three.  At four she was everything I could ever have hoped for – and then some.  We’re now at five and a half, and wow!  While I still wouldn’t call her terrible, there are times when she brings out the terrible in all of us.

I’ve got all sorts of parenting skills.  It comes from a lifetime of parenting those around me.  I have multiple siblings who are young enough to be my own children.  I’ve been babysitting since I was ten (which seems crazy in retrospect).  My family ran a daycare when I was a child and a teen.  Parenting just kinda comes naturally.  But even I am left with nothing left after an hour of break-downs over everything including something as trivial as a piece of scrap that missed the wastebasket by 1/2 cm.

Now, I know this will pass.  Every child goes through phases where things are just more than they can handle.  However, while we’re in the middle of this particular tempest?  Blogging isn’t exactly my priority.

And hey!  Advice, ideas, suggestions, and pats on the back are ALL appreciated just now.  I know, as parents, this is something we’ve all faced (or are going to face) at some point.  😛

DIY – Word Blocks

A little while back I came across the idea of using megablocks to help with phonics skills and fluency.  I thought it was a great idea.  I’ll try to find the website where I first saw it, and will share it when I do.  For now though, here’s our take on it:

Seeing how the girl has outgrown her megablocks and generally is using lego for building, I loved the idea of repurposing her old blocks.  So today I pulled out my label maker and her box of blocks and set to work.  This should give new life to all her old sets, that haven’t seen the light in several months.

I decided to put both a capitalized and lowercase version of the same word on each block.  This way, when we start worrying more about proper capitalization her blocks will still be useful for her.  Eventually I’ll be adding a whole lot more words – including many she has requested herself – as well as doubling up some blocks with words like is, was, it, and…  as many of them can be used twice in the same super silly, extra long, sentence.

We also decided to use many of her blocks with stickers on them.  You know how some sets (like Kai Lan and Diego) have themed stickers that get applied to some blocks?  Well, we’ve labeled those too – with Kid kid’s choice of words.  It can be nice for early readers to have visual hints when still working towards reading fluency.

So, here are our blocks.  I ran out of tape in my label maker, so had to stop a little earlier than I’d have liked.  But we still had enough finished to have a bit of fun.  Lily-Ann loved my “Dad was stinky” sentence, and I loved that her very first one was “Lily-Ann is cute”.  😉

The girl’s first four sentances

Kid kid exclaims “Here it is!” when she fines the word she’s looking for.

This is such a fabulously fun learning-filled activity!

Building word towers with a pony friend is even more fun.

A super long, super silly, sentence.

Some blocks have picture helpers.

On the block with the music notes we have both “musical” and “music” as options.

Our words for today (we’ll be adding lots more).

 

Our Little DIY Art Center

The challenge for the 25th was “something you made” and for the 26th it’s “colour”.  Again hitting two birds with one stone, here’s a photograph that covers both topics:

 

For my fellow DIYers out there, I know you’ve seen the “play kitchens” made from old TV cabinets.  Well, we created kid kid’s art center from a corner TV stand.  We pulled out the dvd storage, added storage for her art supplies (they are bamboo kitchen utensil caddies), put up some of her finished art projects, and in a few hours we went from an unused, unwanted, fast-becoming-archaic piece of furniture into a desk/hutch that gets used daily.

Lots of colour, and lots of things we’ve made.  🙂

A sweet story and a building project!

I had three completely unrelated things to share seeing how I needed to post a photo for challenge days 18, 19, and 20…  but then I realized I could very honestly share a project the three of us worked on today and have it fit for all three topics.  Yeah, it may be a bit of a cheat – but it’s not a huge one, especially considering I did grab snapshots on both Friday and Saturday, even if I’ve decided to only share a series of images from today.  LOL

But first?  First I have to share a really quick little story that is super cute and totally warmed my heart.  😀

On Friday I was over at my parents place – watching everyone so Mom could go with Dad to an out of town gig.  When Marie, my sister (whom Lily-Ann is named after), got home she came upstairs as usual then asked for my attention.  I stopped working on supper and looked over at her:  “Yes Marie?”

“Moby.”

“Yes.”

“Moby, look.”

And with that she held up the index finger on her right hand as if to say just one second.  Then she bent WAY down to where little Thor (one of my puppies from the Avenger litter whom is now my Dad’s puppy) was standing, and gave him a little pat.  She then stood back up.  “Moby.”

“Yes Marie?”

My sister, who has never been much of a pet person and who does her best to just ignore the other two dogs in the household, gave me a great big grin and an enthusiastic thumbs up.  To which I replied “Awwww….  Marie!  I’m so glad you like him.  He’s a cute little guy, isn’t he?”  She nodded in approval, which made me feel awfully wonderful.  😀

Okay…  now onto my challenge photos.  😉

So, I need to share for something I bought, sweet, and someone I love.  Well…  here are the girl and her Dad working together to put up the last couple of shelves in her room (which he and I started putting up while she was out with my sister Riki earlier today).  I think this series of pictures covers all three challenge topics pretty darn well.

 

Blessed Be!

Wishing you all a Yule filled with love, hope, and wonder.  May the joy of the season remain with you through the darkest days of Winter and carry you through until the sun returns to warm the Earth.  Merry meet and blessed be!

Preparing for Yule!

Filled with Wonder!

I figure it’s about time that I shared a few pictures from December first, when we decorated our Yule tree.  It’s our first year with a big (six foot) tree.  I’ve posted before about our little half-a-tree that we normally hang on the wall.  Well, in our new house we actually have room for a regular sized tree – so when Grampa offered us his (he was switching to a table top sized one) we gratefully accepted!

All wrapped up!

We really did love our little half-tree-thing…  but this?  Watching the girl’s face light up, getting to pick out and buy new ornaments, as well as hanging some that Grampa and Gramma Joan gifted us?  It was pretty amazing.  Lily-Ann had the most wonderful time and it did my heart some good to be a part of it all.

Trimming the Tree!

After it was all decorated, I put out the bags for her Advent Calendar, and she dug through them looking for bag number one…  thus beginning a wonderful new Yule tradition in our wonderful new home.

Advent, Day One!

With that, here’s wishing you all a Joy-filled Yule!  One packed full with wonderment and delight.  Take time to be childlike!

 

 

Craft Crazy!

This time of year I tend to be on crafting overdrive.  Far too many projects and not nearly the time needed to comfortably complete them all.  I love it anyway though.  🙂

A My Little Pony Artist’s Trading Card for the Trading Post. The theme was “holiday specials”, which is why Frosty is stuck in the corner – clearly I didn’t feel adventurous enough to sketch him myself.

It used to just be me, crafting all by my lonesome… but now that Kid Kid is five, she’s in it right along with me.  It’s awesome to see how well she’s doing to, in so many mediums.  Embroidery, sewing, painting, drawing – and that’s just today.  We still have planting, baking, decorating, packaging, more painting, more embroidery, more drawing, and a buttload of sewing still to go.

Paint covered play clothes. Crafting is a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.

I wish I could share all the projects, but some of the folk who are on the receiving end of our efforts may stop by the blog, so we gotta keep it all under wraps.  I gotta say though, as artsy fartsy as we are, all this creative work is absolutely exhausting.  It is with great relief that we welcome bedtime tonight.

The girl and Sweets (the old man chi) drifting off to sleep as Daddy reads… a bedtime well deserved after a day of working hard.