Out in the World

Posted on by Amy

Sometimes I wish I could just keep my little girls sheltered and safe in our little house, protected from all potentially dangerous or otherwise undesirable things out there.  I mean, do I really have to let them see odd people, walk near swimming pools, and observe annoying behaviors in others that I’d rather they not learn?  Helicopter anyone?  No?

Miss started real swimming lessons this summer.  I know I can’t always keep her perfectly safe, but at least I can make sure that she learns to swim so she can be safer around water.  Last summer we did one short session of a swimming class that I did with her.  She learned waaay more this time.

She didn’t like it at first.  She would cry at the start of her classes, and hated getting her face wet.   

Once she got warmed up in class, she was cool as long as she didn’t have to go under the water.  She got real nervous when she knew they were at the part of class where she had to jump in and go underwater.

But she did it.  Every time.

She did it on her own and she was so proud as she gained confidence and began to realize it really wasn’t a big deal.

I love how confident and strong she looks in the photo below.  She’s about to dive in and she isn’t afraid at all.

She’s learning to swim.

As much as I sometimes wish I could shelter her from everything, I know that I can’t and I shouldn’t.  It’s so special for her to have these experiences of competence and achievement.  She hasn’t graduated to the next class yet, but after six weeks of swimming lessons twice a week, she has improved so much and gained so much confidence.  She doesn’t cry when her class starts anymore.  She barely flinches when she has to go under water.  She’s getting it and I get to watch and smile and feel my momma heart swell (and ache just a tiny bit because she’s growing up).

And speaking of growing up, my big girl and I had a date yesterday to a movie.  It was her first experience in the movie theater.  At first she was bummed that her sisters couldn’t come with us, until I told her that the movie theater is just for big girls.  Then her face lit up and she said, “Like me!”

It was fun to watch her experience something so new and slightly overwhelming.  She held my hand tightly in the lobby where all the people were milling about getting popcorn.  She covered her eyes and cowered toward me when one of the trailers was slightly scary.  Mostly, I think she enjoyed feeling like a special big girl.  I got her popcorn and she shared it with me.  She was awed by the size of the “TV” and how loud it was.

I found myself loving the experience with her and also cringing at some of the content of the movie.  It was Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.  Not an offensive movie in any big way.  It wasn’t scary at all.  But I’m pretty picky when it comes to movies for my kids.  Most of the Disney movies are okay, but even those almost always have some pretty scary parts and sometimes less than desirable content.  I hate it every time I hear Grumpy tell Doc to “Awww, shut up!”  I also don’t love the way most of the princesses are portrayed as pretty helpless.  And I don’t love the drunk scene in Dumbo either. I could go on.  This Chipmunk movie wasn’t too bad, but it had a few parts that bothered me.  I didn’t like all the references to Theodore (and Eleanor of “The Chipettes”) as “The chubby one” and the oddly suggestive dance moves of the female chipmunks.  Perhaps (probably) I’m a big prude.  Maybe I’m overly sensitive.  I just wish there were kids movies that didn’t have objectionable content.

But when I get too uptight thinking about how I exposed my child to such movie content, I just try to remind myself that my girls will see a lot worse in the world around them as they grow.  And the fact is that I do monitor what they are exposed to right now, so when the occasional unpleasant content comes up, I can look at it as an opportunity to teach my girls about being appropriate, kind, strong, etc.  I have to think of it that way, because otherwise we would never get out and experience life in this big world.  I wouldn’t want to miss the opportunity to go to a movie with my girl because of fear that there might be something undesirable in the movie.  I do my best to make good selections for them now, knowing that I can’t protect them from everything.  I just have to do my best to protect them from the big things, prepare them for the unexpected, and teach them to make good choices in all the other stuff.

P.S. How do you like the new blog??  It’s still a bit of a work in progress, but it’s getting there!

Here I Am

Posted on by Amy

Here’s the new site.  I don’t like the style of it at all, and I’m still trying to figure out how to create a post so that it doesn’t take 20 minutes to add three photos and then be told that the upload limit has been reached.  WordPress and I are going to have issues if I can’t upload more than three photos per post!!  Anyway, I’m working on getting everything the way I want it to be.  I had a real post planned for tonight, but it’s not happening the way I had hoped it would.  Thanks for being patient with this process.  Hopefully I’ll be back to doing real posts very soon.

Change is Coming

Posted on by Amy
I have finally decided to take the big step.

Motherhood and Miscellany is moving.  I am working on getting my own domain and switching to WordPress.  I’ve been debating this for a while, and am finally going to do it.

She calls these her “Gobbles” 

What does all of that mean exactly?  Well, not much really.  The blog will still have the same name, but the URL will no longer include “blogspot” because I won’t be using Blogger anymore.  I will still have Motherhood and Miscellany’s Facebook page, where you can follow and get post updates.  I will have a somewhat different, but similar, design for the blog, and hopefully it will be more user friendly.  I should have it set up so that if you come to this site by accident, you’ll automatically get routed to the new page.  I’m transferring all my content.  So, that’s about it.  I think it will be good.

I’m not exactly sure when I will start posting on the new site, but I’ll let you know.

Change is good.

Making Memories

Posted on by Amy
We were in recovery mode today.  Yesterday we partied hard with our friends.  This statement takes on a whole new, yet still quite accurate meaning when you consider that “we” is in reference to four adults with our six children under five getting together for a fun evening of grilling, trampolining, swinging (on the swing set), running, sandbox-ing, exploring, chasing, and s’mores eating, with grown up conversation in between.  The three “little kids” (under 2) went to bed after s’mores and the three “big” kids (3 and 4) got in jammies and stayed up to watch Snow White while the adults visited around the fire pit.  My husband and my friend’s husband had spent what seemed like an hour getting that fire started.  They didn’t use a lighter or any matches.  Just some old-fashioned cave-man fire-starting stuff.  I was literally on my way to get the lighter (because it was way past time for s’mores!!) when I saw smoke finally rising from our fire pit.  The manly men prevailed, and it was good.
We had a wonderful time with friends.  The kids all got sufficiently sweaty and dirty and scraped up to consider it a true summertime playing extravaganza.  They explored our “woods” (treed area around the perimeter of our yard) and jumped themselves silly on our new trampoline.  My husband, hero of the evening, played a new game with them, which involved getting on his hands and feet under the trampoline and chasing the kids by pushing his butt up into the trampoline from the underside while running around bear-crawl style.  I wish I had seen this and gotten a photo.  I heard the laughter and screaming of the kids, but I was putting Sis to bed while this was going on.  So I, like you, have only a (very hilarious) mental image of these antics to go by.  Oh how I love that man. 
Needless to say, we were all feeling a little worn out today.  Incredibly, the girls only slept in a little bit past their usual wake up times, so they were pretty tired and crabby today.  We got lots of good down time in though.  Nothing like being pooped to bring a family together for some serious bonding.  The girls made breakfast with their Daddy.  
They love helping him cook eggs.  They work the pepper mill and really get into pinching and sprinkling the salt from my salt pig.
We read lots of books and just relaxed.

This afternoon we went outside for more backyard fun.  I love watching the big girls run and play in the yard.  They go on “adventures” and make up scenarios involving monsters and giants and castles and rescue missions.  We got them sufficiently tuckered out again this evening.  
This is the stuff of memories.  

Thumb Sucker

Posted on by Amy
Someone discovered something new yesterday.

Oh. my. goodness.  None of my girls have ever been interested in a binkie.  I have heard people say that you really don’t want your baby to be a thumb sucker, because it can be so much harder to get her to stop when she’s older.  But this is so cute, I can’t bring myself to mind one bit.

Pretending

Posted on by Amy
I love to watch my girls pretend.  Their little imaginations are so funny and amazing and beautiful.  They take their favorite parts of their favorite stories and mix them all up to make a whole new story.  They play off of each other and come up with entirely new scenarios.  I can’t get enough of it.  

It helps that recently I scored a few great dress-up bargains for them.  Our at-home dress up was kind of pitiful, so I found one princess dress at an online consignment shop (with a 40% off coupon too!), got a bag full of three other outfits plus jewelry from Craigslist for cheap, pulled out an old flower girl dress, and presto!  We have dress up.

True to their personalities, Miss changes from one outfit to another, depending on what she’s doing.

While Lass finds one outfit and stays with it.  She may change her accessories, but she’s not giving up that green Tinkerbell outfit, which she calls her “fit” (outfit).  She puts it on and beams, “I Wedda!” (I’m Cinderella!)

They try to dress up Sis too so she won’t feel left out.

We have been tea-partying like crazy here.  Miss always insists on putting on the purple dress for the tea parties.

We have lots of “Cheers!” and pinkies out and all that.

Sis is loving her Bumbo, which allows her to be part of the action.

I love to see how the girls interpret the stories they read and see in videos.  At one point Miss was pretending that the Evil Queen had stolen Snow White’s voice (like Ursula does to Ariel).  She has started having lots of fun with trying to get us to read her lips.  Today at lunch she said, “Momma, do you know what I’m saying?” and she kept mouthing the same thing over and over, in a really exaggerated way.  I really tried, but I had no idea what it was.  Finally she sighed and said, “Mom, I was saying ‘Casey Jones’!!” As in the train from the Dumbo book.  Oh.  Duh.

They love to have me be the Evil Queen and act out the poisoned apple scene.  Here they were running away from me as Evil Queen.

I “convinced” Miss to taste the poisoned apple.

She fell dramatically to the floor.

Then she called to her sister, “Come on and kiss me so I can wake up!”

They did this over and over.  They make me laugh.

Of course, we don’t only play Princess.  We play Chef and Mommy and today they were Doctors.

Lass loves to hold the play stethoscope up to my leg (or arm or nose) and say, “Momma you sick!”

I laugh a lot these days.

Never Say Never – Thoughts on Homeschooling

Posted on by Amy
Well.  I never thought I would be writing this post.  Though I suppose I should know by now that I ought not say I will never do something as a parent if I don’t know a whole lot about what that thing is.  That thing in this case is homeschooling.
I have historically had the typical concerns about homeschooling.  “Don’t homeschooled kids miss out so much on school experiences?”  “How can they be socialized?” And so forth.  My husband has at times suggested that we consider homeschooling, but I have resisted for these reasons.  Then recently I had a conversation with one of my brothers in law and his wife.  She is a teacher in 6th grade and he was telling me about what wonderful experiences she has had with homeschooled kids when they come into traditional school.  The conversation went on from there, and I’ll spare you the details, but it started me thinking.  And asking.  And reading.  And it turns out homeschool is way more than I thought it was.
So, what really prompted me to think I might want to homeschool our kids?  This:
 We watched lots of princess movies with Grandma, which sparked some awesome pretending.
And lots of other stuff I have posted about in the past few weeks as we have been traveling.  The photos in this post are from some of the other fun experiences (in addition to those I’ve already written about) my girls had while visiting my parents.  See, we don’t have any family living near us.  The closest family member is about a five and a half hour drive away, which is a little far for frequent weekend trips, and my parents live 10 hours from us.
My girls get so much from visiting with our families.  They get experiences at my parents’ house and at the Farm and in Iowa that could never be matched by the experiences they would get in a conventional school.  Not even close.  My husband is fortunate to have quite a bit of time off from his job, which allows us to visit the people we love.  The people my girls need to know and make memories with.  So, we travel.  But traditional schooling would put an abrupt stop to that as soon as Miss begins kindergarten.  The more I think about it, I’m just not willing to trade in the flexibility to travel and let my girls know their heritage, and all the other things they can and do learn from our trips, for conventional schooling.  I would if I thought that traditional school offered something truly valuable that they couldn’t get through homeschooling.  I used to think that it did.  But I’m learning that that’s not the case.
Don’t get me wrong.  I have absolutely nothing against traditional schools.  I’m not saying that homeschooling is necessarily better than regular schools.  I’m just saying that I have begun to realize that it is better for us.  I contacted another blogging mom, Katrina from They All Call Me Mom, to ask her about her experiences with homeschooling her kids (she has nine).  She was so helpful and gave me some great tips.
In fact, everyone I have contacted with questions about homeschooling has been exceptionally warm and kind and informative.  I have been able to find some local groups that I think will fit with the type of homeschooling I would like to do.  I’m reading some good books (right now I’m really enjoying “The Well-Adjusted Child: The Social Benefits of Homeschooling” by Rachel Gathercole).  Essentially, I have reached the point where I feel confident that when the time comes for Miss to start Kindergarten, she’ll stay home with me instead.  It’s pretty exciting, actually.

I have a lot to learn.  And a lot to teach.  But that’s what moms do all day every day anyway, right?

Memories in a Box

Posted on by Amy
When I was a little girl I loved to go to my Grandma’s house.  She had a jewelry box full of costume jewelry that she let me play with to my heart’s content.  I would go back to her bedroom and put the jewelry box on her big bed.  I’d drape myself in her jewels all afternoon.  She had long necklace strands with funky beads, tons of bangle bracelets, brooches, and clip-on earrings, essential for my very young and at that time un-pierced ears.  I have many memories of these adventures.  And I don’t remember this, but one story goes that, as a tiny tot, I once placed all of my Grandma’s necklaces on at one time and somehow fell over, calling out in my little voice, “Help!  Help!” because I could not get back up.
My Grandma passed away about two and a half years ago.  This past week, my Mom gave me her jewelry box with her costume jewelry in it.  Oh heaven!  Now, I was a little sad because it wasn’t the same box, and much of the jewelry I played with wasn’t there anymore.  I had had visions of opening my Grandma’s white jewelry box to find all the fun beaded strands I had played with in the late 70s and early 80s.  I guess Grandma got some new stuff since then.  The new box is dark-stained wood.  But happily, a few of the pieces I remember playing with were still there and some other items I remember seeing her wear, even if I didn’t play with them.  It was magical to watch my girls’ faces light up as they explored this treasure trove.  

They both loved to see themselves all decked out.  Lass repeatedly said, “I go wook in miweh (look in mirror)” and “Sissy, wook miweh too, huh?  Come on!”

They were princesses in their finery. Then Miss decided they needed to be “scullery maids” (we had been watching Snow White).  So she changed into her “raggy jewelry” for cleaning house and she and Lass went to town.

Oops.

Anybody remember these?

Those old Fisher Price toys were the other thing I used to play with at my Grandma’s house.  The “Mommy” with the blue body and yellow hair was a toy I used to love to carry around with me all the time.  Sort of like how my middle child has to carry around her “Wedda” (Cinderella) doll at all times and always in her left hand (check the photos above, she’s always there).  My girls weren’t into the little people like they were the jewelry.  Miss said, “Oh, cool people!” and then went back to playing with her princesses.  Oh well.

We’re home now, trying to get back into the swing of things after yet another week of travel.  We’ve been on the road a lot the past few weeks to be with family.  I am thinking about my grandmas, and my husband’s grandma, and my girls’ grandmas.  Grandmas are just special.  I have always loved and appreciated my grandmas, but I find myself cherishing them more now that I have children.  I wish my girls would know my grandparents the way I did.  I know I can’t make that happen (though I try with visits as much as possible), but that makes it all the more important to me that they will have wonderful special relationships with their grandparents.  So we travel.  We get sleep deprived from driving late into the night and sleeping in cramped quarters.  We rack up the miles on my vehicle. We get flat tires that my poor husband has to change at 11:00 at night.  But you’d better believe my girls will have amazing memories. Someday they might have a special item that brings those memories flooding back, like the box of my Grandma’s jewelry.  Definitely, they will know the specialness of their grandparents. And that makes it all so worth it.  

54 Photos (And Happy 4th!)

Posted on by Amy
I don’t have many good photos of all three of my girls together yet.  Today I really wanted to get a photo of the three of them in their little 4th of July outfits.  I took 54 photos trying to get a decent one.

Like on Sunday, Lass was being a photo monkey.  At least this time she was a happy and non-screaming monkey.

Well, not screaming in anger anyway…

She totally checked out for a little while, so I got a few photos of Miss holding Sis.

But eventually Lass got back into it.  Sort of.

I finally did get a few good photos.  Happy 4th!

Dressing Up, Kentucky Style

Posted on by Amy
You’ve seen lots of posts showing my girls’ dress up adventures recently.  They’re really into it.  They’re just like their Mama in that way.  I’ve also posted recently about the dearth of dress up items in my Mom’s closet when I was growing up.  She came through with a few fun things for the girls yesterday though.  Check out this hat.
It was made, of course, by my Grandma.
Lass loved it.
The girls loved seeing their Grandma try on this clown costume, also made by my Grandma.  It is actually a full clown costume with a baggy one piece suit that has big buttons down the front.  But I’m not sharing that photo.
When I wrote about my Mom’s dress-up-lacking closet recently in this post, I mentioned the one item she did have that I loved to dress up in – the beautiful silver shoes.  I forgot about the beautiful silver purse that went with those shoes.  My Mom brought it out yesterday and I was so happy to see it.  Seriously.  I gasped and exclaimed, “The silver purse!”  The girls are loving it too.

Miss really got into carrying it around.

Before I gave it to the girls, I opened it up to make sure there wasn’t anything in it that they couldn’t play with.  Turns out I was the last one to use it.  Here’s what I found:

This is what I used to carry in my purse.  My keys, “address book,” and um, FBI identification card?

Miss enjoyed my special purse contents too.  She was very animated in discussing the importance of having her “message” (the FBI card), her “keys to go for a trip in the car,” and her “book to read in the car” in her purse.

I love playing dress up with my girls.