Beware the Groooove...

Isn't it crazy how little changes can totally throw off your household groove?

We were doing so well, actually getting things done around the house and having potty-training success. The living room had been vacuumed 3 times in one week (this is half as often as it needs it), and I had found the bottom of the laundry basket!

And then, I decided life was progressing so smoothly that I could add something new. So I started a new blog. I kind of wanted to see if I could make some money at it, and I didn't want to plaster this one up with ads. It's been fun! Too fun. Too "I'll do this instead of the laundry" fun.

So I am getting serious about my time-management and being disciplined around the house. No blogging until morning chores are done. The children will benefit from the less-chaotic house, and Levi will benefit from the caught-up laundry (all though he is really sweet about it..."Hey, hon, where would I look if I wanted some clean underwear?").

Most importantly, we will benefit from my being intentional about putting first things first. "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Whoo boy, have I needed to hear that lately.

Anyway, with a little discipline, the emperor will be getting his groove back. I hope.

If you're interested, the new blog is mindofthemother.blogspot.com and I am really bad at putting ads in places that are not unattractive.

Also, this post has made me want to watch The Emperors New Groove.

Herding Toms and Tabbies (Cats, That Is)

We had a great adventure today in Sunday School.

The morning started innocently enough as we headed off to church 15 minutes early. I was scheduled as the "helper" in children's church and wanted to get the kids settled in their classes well beforehand. A missing carseat (arrgh) and toddler accident (whoops!) set us back a little, and we dashed into church barely on time.

I slipped into the children's church room looking forward to a fun day of observing the elementary schoolers' lesson, supervising bathroom breaks, and helping pass out crayons. Imagine my surprise when I learned that I was actually teaching the preschool class, and the lady who was supposed to bring the materials for the lesson had forgotten them! Um, that lady might have been me. Whoops.

Anyway, lots of chaos followed, including one 4-year-old who screamed bloody murder for 10 minutes straight, lots of fire-breathing dragons being colored on our pictures of Jesus, and a constant chorus of "can we play now?" during the lesson (they have only had actual lessons for the last 3 weeks. Before that they played the whole time).

I was pretty satisfied when a 2-year-old's mom came to pick him up and he proudly told her that they colored "Jesus and the fishies." today. Success!

What to Do When It's -20 (Again!)

As has the rest of the country, we have been experiencing some pretty extreme winter weather the last few weeks. Our winding road, which is typically well-plowed and dry, is now coated in packed snow and ice. The driving conditions don't really matter though, since everything we would normally go to has been cancelled the last 2 weeks!

Anyway, we have been stuck inside the house. A lot. We have been trying to come up with exciting things to do:

• Continued potty training! Hey, when there's nowhere to go, there are no excuses to not work on it! We are now starting to run out of stickers, and Ethan totally knows what to do. Does he always do it? Of course not. Am I getting tired of cleaning up after him like a puppy? Oh yes. By the way, it seems like 13-week-old Samson was 100 times easier to train than 2-year-old Ethan. I guess he didn't have to worry about potties and undies, though.
• Consuming ridiculous amounts of food for the Super Bowl. Ethan is getting to be pretty good at eating dip with a tortilla chip. Emma tries hard. The Super Bowl was particularly enjoyable this year, because Kathy was here, and both kids stuck to her like glue basically the whole time. I actually got to watch the game (I mean, the commercials)!
• Unburying Samson's food bowl, which was covered in snow that he apparently can't find his food through. Then doing it again, 5 or 6 more times. He is convinced we never feed him, but he has layers and layers of petrified food frozen solid in his bowl. I guess he'll find it in the spring.
• Wrapping up in blankets. Ethan's new phrase is "nice, warm, snuggly, " which describes all blankets, pillows, and warm couches. He always says the whole phrase.
• Playing on the bed. Both kids think our bed is the ultimate awesome playground/wrestling mat. It is also, as Ethan pointed out, "nice, warm, snuggly."
• Going "grocery shopping" with the laundry basket, picking up random items from the floor. I LOVED this game! It made cleaning up stray toys really easy! It is also fun to hear Ethan narrate the shopping trip to Emma as she follows behind him. "Gonna get one more thing." "You can't eat it 'til we pay for it!"
• Eating oatmeal. It is sticky enough for Emma to do herself! Awesome!

Slacking

Ethan is very proud of his Thomas Undies. Here he is having a pizza party with his teddy bears.

So much for 3-day potty training. I guess 3 weeks...3 months...3 years old sounds a little more realistic.
Oh well.
In the defense of the lady who wrote the method we used, we might have been able to figure things out in the last 3 days if I had a nanny, a cook, and a maid to take care of everything else in our home while I followed Ethan around waiting for "teachable moments."
This was a good start though, I think. Our formerly bare sticker chart now has 5 stickers on it. Progress!

Relief

Ahhh...Levi is home! His 10-day trip only ended up being 9, because he and David (Pillers...coworker, neighbor, and fellow camp recruiter) drove through the night last night to get home. Hooray! They arrived home at 5 this morning and both went straight to bed. So, really, our day hasn't been a whole lot different than when he was gone, because he's been sleeping most of the time. But isn't it funny how everything just feels right when everybody's home? It's just like a big sigh of relief.

So, to go along with all that relief, we are adding a little chaos to our lives. Potty training. Oh, horror! I have been nervous about it and putting it off for quite a while, but Kara recommended a method that she's been using with Aydin, and it seems like a good time to do it. We'll see. If we all totally fall apart, I will give up and try again when he's...oh, maybe 7 or so. Just kidding.

And with that, here I go to dust off the potty chair.

Losing It

The kids and I are staying with my parents while Levi is on his annual recruiting trip. It is hard to have him gone, and ten days seems like a really long time to us! Neither one of us is really wild about talking on the phone for extended periods of time, but we are good about catching up and saying goodnight every night. Or so I thought.
I put the kids to bed last night and fell asleep with them for a while. Around 11, I woke up, looked at my phone, and realized that I hadn't called Levi. And he hadn't called me! Panicking, thinking that something must be really wrong, I ran upstairs to call him (we sleep in the basement, and I didn't want to wake the kids up).
He sounded a little confused when he answered. After a minute, he said, "You do know that you just called me an hour ago, right? We talked some and even prayed together."
I have no memory of our conversation. After thinking really, really hard, I vaguely remember sitting on the couch with a phone, and saying "Amen" at one point. But I have no idea what we talked about. I don't even remember going back down to bed.
I usually pride myself on being fairly lucid at night when I am up with the kids. Looks like I am not as with-it as I thought.

Teeny Tiny

Emmaline got her first ever pair of snow boots yesterday. They are size 3. Wow. She is so tiny.