Married, with Children » Random

Just a quick note

Heather — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:26:32 +0000

to say that no I haven’t fallen off the earth. We were sick this week and now that we are all on the mend it is time to start getting ready to go away on Tuesday. And in between all of that we are ripping up carpet in preparation for our annual Christmas party, but I have a whole post planned for that adventure.

Hope everyone is having a great week.

Heather

Lest Ye Be Judged

Heather — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:55:35 +0000

Not exactly sure where that phrase comes from, probably the Bible somewhere. But that has been running through my head all weekend and early this week. I mentioned in my last post that Thursday was a pretty stressful day. The reason is because of judging people.

My oldest son Alex has been taking a karate class at the Little Gym. We love it, he is really learning to focus and is doing much better both in and out of school. The class is a late afternoon class, so there is a mixed age range, and a mixed parent group. Stay at home, working, work at home, etc.. There are these two women who are very snobby and you average “I’m better than you because…” type of women. Well I must have a target on my back that says “FREAK” because man are they judgmental, especially towards me, and especially once they found out that I am a homeschooling stay at home mom, who uses cloth diapers. Immediately they assumed that I must not be as good as them because of all those things say to them that I don’t have as much money as they do. (By the way, I am not assuming this, they have pretty much come right out and said this) Anyway, their boys have been bullying Alex. The first few times I let it go under the premise that boys are boys and they play a little rough. The third time this happened I became upset. I said something to the teacher, and then at the urging of both my awesome husband and the karate teacher I said something to the mother. I got a snotty, irrational response. Basically why should I have to discipline my children because of yours type thing. That may not have been what she was thinking at the time, but that is how it came off to me.

So this happens last Thursday, then today I have been engaging in and following a debate about covering up while breastfeeding in public. And the amount of judging going on over there is outrageous. To think that people assume that you want people to look at you while you are trying to feed your child, or that you are trying to arouse men, is just laughable.

My point is, why does everybody need to judge everybody else. You don’t know their specific situation, and unless you are very close to that person you may never know the whole situation. In the case of the women at the karate class. She had no idea that I grew up in the area that she thinks of as prestigious, and that if I wanted to work or send my kids to school I could, and if I wanted to use disposable diapers I would. Basically instead of assuming the best about the people around us we are so busy assuming the worst. What drives me even more insane is the people who do the most judging get insanely angry when they are judged by others. Has nobody ever heard of “Treat others the way you want to be treated”

Okay, so I guess I didn’t have a specific point to this post, it is more of a rant. I needed to get some things off my chest.

GAG Challenge -

Today I am very thankful that I have a wonderful, awesome husband who is willing to take time from his busy schedule to go to said karate class with me this week to face down the nasty ladies.

I think the leaves won.

Heather — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 19:14:03 +0000

Here we are at the end of October and fall is in the air. When the wind was blowing over everything on my deck last week I realized that it might be time to start gearing up for winter. If the temperatures this summer are anything to go by I have a feeling that we are in for a chilly long winter. Global Warming here we come. I read somewhere that this was the coolest summer in our area on record for something like 20 years. Anyway I digress. In the process of clearing off the deck and taking the table down I realized that a ton of leaves have fallen in the last week. Which also explains why I am finding leaves all over the house. I realized that I would have to get out the trusty rake and actually rake the leaves. I was ready to wage war against the leaves. I am pretty sure that the leaves won. All I did was the pine needles, since that is what we all are allergic to I wanted to get them up and out of the way. The maple leaves have not all fallen yet, so I figured I would wait to do those leaves until they had all fallen. Yesterday Sunday I started. My wonderful husband came out and helped me to rake, as did the kids. Although I am not sure if you can call it helping since all the kids did was spread the needles around rather than rake them into a pile, but they are still learning. By the time we were done yesterday the four of us together had gotten all the needles from the back to the curb, and my husband had collected all the large branches and sticks and put them out by the curb for pick up as well. Not bad for and hour or so of work. So when today rolled around and the kids woke up from their rest I figured how hard can it be to rake up the pine needles in the front yard. There is only one tree and it is in a pretty confined area. Easy right? You would be wrong, as was I. the pine needles kicked my behind. Yes it only took me a half an hour to rake that small area, but by the time I was done I thought I was going to fall over. I was hoping that it might help me to burn some calories before my weigh in tomorrow morning. I did get my heart rate up, and I did work up a good sweat, but it was only a half an hour so I am not too hopeful. The good news is that because I wasn’t in the house when the kids first went out to play they didn’t hover at the back door. Instead they are now playing outside on this beautiful day, giving me the chance to write this. I am also thinking that since it is such a nice day and Jason isn’t going to be home for dinner, I may just take a late walk with the kids this afternoon, and make PB&J for dinner.

Heather

In a Good Place

Heather — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 15:57:45 +0000

I know I haven’t written much the last few weeks. The kids started school last week and Women of Faith was last weekend. Top that all off with a family cold that the kids brought home from school, I didn’t go near the computer as much last week. Other than the cold that kicked my but last weekend, It was a great week.

Alex started school on Monday. He now goes three days a week. I was a little concerned about this, since in the past he has not been able to handle that much activity for that many days during the week. I have always had to make sure that he was not out of the house for more than two days a week. Any more than that and he started to act out and make life generally difficult. I always just figured it was his way of telling me that this was too much. That is one of the many reasons we decided to homeschool next year. He is just one of those kids who does much better at home in the more relaxed environment. So I was very pleased that last week he did great all three days at school. He didn’t have any accidents, and I didn’t get any negative reports from his teachers, in fact when I asked how he was doing, they had all positive things to say. We will see if he continues to do this well as the school year progresses, but I am very hopeful. He has matured a lot over the course of the summer. Here at home we are having much less problems with him then we were a year ago. This is how he always has been. I often say jokingly that he is like a plant or a tree. He grows a lot in the spring and summer months and than doesn’t grow much during the colder fall and winter months. It seems that Lizzie is following in his foot steps in that regard as well.

Lizzie started school last week as well. She goes to her play group two days a week. The first day was a little dicey, the teachers told me that she didn’t listen as well as she should have, but she did much better the second day. She seems to be enjoying school, but she still tells me every day that she doesn’t want to to go back. I think she is more trying to exert some control over the situation. She likes it and does want to go back, but wants me to know that if she chose to, she doesn’t have to go. It is just her strong willed personality showing through. Nobody makes Lizzie do anything that she doesn’t want to do.

I am not doing a daytime Bible Study this year, nor am I doing Mom’s Time Out this year. I decided that with the kids in school so much this year that adding a weekly Bible Study, and Mom’s Time Out would just be too much this year. I miss all the wonderful ladies that I have gotten to know through both those activities, but I am so glad that I am not doing that this year. I have been so relaxed the last few weeks. I am just not feeling the stress that I used to feel about getting everything at the house done and all the outside activities done as well. We seem to have fallen into a great workable schedule, where I don’t feel like I am neglecting any thing that needs to get done. I also think that is why the kids have been so well behaved the last few weeks. I am not nearly as stressed, so they are calmer and more behaved as a result.

Even though I am not doing a day time Bible Study, I am still participating in a Bible Study this fall. I am taking a study with the women’s group at our church. We are going to be reading the book, “Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World” I am really looking forward to this study for a number of reason. This book being the first one. It is all about finding intimacy with God in the chaos of our busy lives. Something I can def. learn more about. I am also looking forward to getting to know the women in the study more. It is such a great bunch of women, and I have always had a heart for Women’s Ministry. I loved organizing Women of Faith this year and I can’t wait to get started on next year. I found out this weekend that I will be going to a group leader seminar for Women of Faith in Texas this January. It is aimed at helping us to be more effective group leaders. I can’t wait to go and hear what they have to say. I already have several ideas floating around my head for next year. I can’t wait to get started.

All in all, I am a really good place right now. I have a great, awesome, husband who is so supportive of everything I do. I am finally losing this weight that has hung on for years now. The kids are doing great, and I am enjoying being their mom. I also really feel like I have found my place at church. I am doing what it is God wants me to be doing, and hopefully doing it well. I am really looking forward to the rest of this year.

Heather

General Update.

Heather — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 19:11:18 +0000

So here we are into the second week of September already. It amazes me how quickly the summer went by. It seems like just yesterday I was at the Preschool end of the year program right before Memorial Day. Now here we are and both Alex and Lizzie start school next week. This is Alex’s last year of preschool and his last year of “Traditional Schooling” Next year he starts kindergarten and we start homeschooling. I am really starting to look forward to teaching both the kids. Especially after this summer. We had such a great and relaxing summer. It wasn’t until the very end of the summer when we had a heat wave here in New Jersey that I started to think I needed a break from the kids. This is a huge improvement over last summer, where two weeks into the summer I was ready to ship the kids off to military school. I think a lot of that had to do with the weather and their ages. Both kids are much more independent this year and I was able to send them outside without me so that I could get some things done around the house. And the fact that I could send them outside at all was a huge improvement over last year as well. We had such a cool summer here. It wasn’t until the last two weeks of August that the temperatures were too high for Alex to play outside the entire day. So they both got a lot of outside time, which anybody who has small children knows is essential to keeping Mommy sane. I was also able to do a lot more with them this year, without feeling like I had to take the whole house with me to go anywhere. We went to places like the Please Touch Museum, Free Movies at our local movie theater, our local farm where there is a huge play area and lots of fresh fruits and veggies to pick, and a couple of trips to the zoo. All in all it was a great summer.

Like I said before, both kids are in preschool this year. Well if you can call Lizzie’s class preschool, it is more like an organized play group where I don’t have to be present. They don’t do very much school work, it is a bunch of two year olds after all. I think it is going to be a great year for both of them. Alex has grown up so much over the course of the summer. We are still having some of the same problems that we were having at the end of last year, but they are much less and he is learning how to cope with things much better, plus he is finally potty trained, which is a huge thing for us. I am doing a little bit of homeschooling this year. I am planning a Bible Study with the kids on Tuesday and Thursday the days that we are home. It is a toddler program, but I am adapting it to work with both my toddler and preschooler. It is actually the same program that we are using with the toddlers at church so I am very excited about that. Another big thing that we have started here at home is chores for the kids. Both the kids have always helped with things like taking their dishes to the sink, putting dirty clothes in the hamper, things like that. I decided that it was time to give them a little more responsibility now that they are older.

Here are their chore lists:

Alex

Brush Teeth in morning and night
Take a bath or shower every day
Get lotion on
Put clothes in hamper
put shoes away
put books away
make bed
put backpack away
Set the table at dinner and lunch
clean up playroom
Help clear table
Help put away clean clothes
Stay clean and dry all day (potty)
Clean up outside toys
Try one new food a day

Lizzie

Brush teeth in morning and night
Take a bath and wash hair everyday
put clothes in hamper
put shoes away
put books away
Make my bed
put backpack away
Set table at lunch and dinner
clean up playroom
take dishes to the sink
clean up outside toys.

Surprisingly they have been so excited to do their chores every day. I know a lot of it is stuff that we were doing anyway, but I wanted to get them started on things that I knew that they could accomplish. As they get older we will add more chores for them to do, so that they learn to help out around the house. If the do all their chores during the week then on Friday they get to go to either Wendy’s or Chick-Fil-A for lunch. This would not have been my first choice of things to do since I am now officially on a diet, but that is what they wanted to do, so I will have to learn to deal.

I am really looking forward to this new school year and all the fun it will bring.

Heather

Welcome

Heather — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 02:00:56 +0000

Hey there, internet world.

I thought that I would give this whole blogging thing a try. I have been looking for a way to get all my random thoughts out of my head. Kinda like a pensive from Harry Potter. I often have too many thoughts for my little brain to hold, so many that I often take up to 1/2 an hour to fall asleep at night because of all my crazy thoughts.

A little bit about me. I am a stay at home mom of two young children. Alex is 3 1/2 and Lizzie is 1 1/2. I love my job of raising two wonderful children in this crazy world. I am not sure how often I will keep you updated. It may be every day, it may only be once a week. it all depends on how crazy my life gets.

Talk to you soon

Heather