Time to get out of the way

Todd and I talked about how we were going to handle the morning madness before I officially changed my work schedule.  I have to be at work at 7AM and that really means that Todd should handle setting his own alarm, getting the kids up and dressed, feeding the kids, and dropping them off at school.  Morning sucks, the kids never want to get out of bed, they definitely don't want to get dressed, and getting them out the door can easily be the most frustrating part of the day.  Because morning sucks I feel really bad for leaving Todd alone to deal with it all.  So, I started trying to figure out how to pack their lunches, wake Todd up, get the kids out of bed, get them dressed, and at least get them started with breakfast.  The problem with this is that I just don't have time to do it.  So, when I try to get them up and they take an extra few minutes I get grumpy, and when they whine about getting dressed I get stressed, and when they won't just brush their teeth I want to stomp my feet on the ground like a little kid.  By the time we all get downstairs I'm totally worked up and at least one of the kids is usually whining.  I can't deal with whining on a good day so when I'm stressed and just want to get out the door it seriously makes me want to bang my head against the wall -so when I hear the whining I get more stressed and my stress definitely doesn't help with the whining... What is Todd doing during all this time?  He's just trying to stay out of my way.  And that usually makes me edgy too because I know I can't do it all myself.

Starting this week I'm going to stay out of the way in the morning.  There is no reason for me to "help Todd", he's perfectly capable of dealing with things, has the time, and would be much happier if I just got out of the way.  So for the past 2 mornings, I've gotten home from the gym, taken and shower, woken everyone up, and basically went about my own business.  I told the kids when I was going downstairs, but didn't tell them they had to come with me, didn't remind them 5-10 times to get dressed, didn't tell them to brush their teeth, etc... to my surprise, both kids were dressed and ready to come downstairs with me both mornings.  Within 5 minutes of walking downstairs I was out the door with a coffee (made by Todd) in hand.  And guess what? Everyone was fine, better than fine, they were all happy and not at all stressed out.  -And if I'm honest with myself, they were all happy because I stayed out of the way.  I have a pretty fabulous partner in Todd so why am I trying to do it all on my own?

The Week Off

Every weekday my alarm goes off at 4:30AM, I jump out of bed, get dressed, hop in the car and am at the gym by 4:45.  At exactly 6AM I have to leave the gym.  At 6:10AM I have to be in the shower.  At 6:30AM my husband's alarm goes off and the kids have to get up.  At 6:45 we all go downstairs where my husband has to make my coffee and I have to be out the door at 6:52AM.  At 7:00AM I am sitting at my desk at work.  This is where I'll remain until 2:55PM when I have to leave to pick up my son from his school.  He and I run home, he washes his hands, we grab a snack, get in the car, and drive across town to pick up Lena.  Lena  jumps up and down when she sees Jun and I, grabs our hands, and asks why I pick up Jun before her.  Most days we drive back across town to our house.  We all run in the house, wash our hands, fix a snack, unpack backpacks and clean out lunch boxes.  It's usually about 3:30 - 4:00PM at this point and I still need to do log back into my computer and do a little more work, usually I'm logged in and working for about 1- 1 ½ hours.  After that, the kids and I spend about ½ - ¾ of an hour walking/running/biking around the neighborhood.  Then it's time to get back home to make dinner and force the kids to set the table.  Todd comes home at about 6:15PM and we have to eat the moment he walks in if we have any hope of avoiding the evening meltdowns.  We finish dinner by 7:00PM, clear the table and do homework.  This usually takes us until about 7:30PM and now it's time to get the kids ready for bed, read books, and then get the kids into bed as close to 8:00PM as possible.  Once the kids go to bed  it's time to clean up the dishes and get clothes and lunches ready for the next day.  With any luck, this is all finished by 9:00PM and I can keep my eyes open for long enough to chat with my husband for about ½ hour before falling asleep.  That's all the normal stuff, we also have days when we go to art class, meet other kids for play dates, meet our Chinese Friendship student, or run errands.  We have days when we don't have any food in the house and we have to go out to eat, and then there are days when it's just too nice outside, and we cannot possibly sit inside after coming home. 

 

I'm lucky, I live just a few minutes from work, Jun's school is behind the house, and I can do some of my work from home.  Couple this with the fact that we don't have the kids enrolled in a ton of activities and Todd and I are actually among the lucky ones, our lives are pretty calm comparatively speaking.  So, if this is true, then why am I SO stressed out all the time?  I'm always overtired. The kids are usually fighting, I have to either beg or scream in order to the kids up in the morning, get them dressed, get them to the breakfast table, get them to brush their teeth, or pretty much anything else I'd like them to do.  I'm always worried about getting my work done, not being in the office enough, what to pack for lunches, what to make for dinner, paying the bills on time, cleaning the house, getting the kids to do their homework, and just generally keeping it all together.   I am always stressed out.  I am always thinking about what should be done and what isn't being done.  And feeling stressed out all the time makes me more tired, more jumpy, and more grumpy…  So, I've made a decision.  I'm taking the week off.  It started today.  I'm not leaving town, I'm not leaving my house, the kids aren’t  leaving, my husband isn't leaving, and I'll still be at work.  But I'm taking a week off from all the stress. 

 

 

A Letter to Jun

9/21/2013

Dear Jun,                                                                                            

You were so worried about moving to a new town and starting 1^st grade, I was so worried about moving to a new town and having you start 1^st grade.  After your first few weeks of school, I am so proud of you, Jun.  I realize mothers say that all the time to their children and I realize most of the time they probably mean it, but I feel like I hear the phrase often enough that when I write, “I am proud of you”, it probably doesn’t mean all that I want it to mean.  It probably doesn’t mean , “I want nothing more in this world than to hug you and squeeze you when I see your excited smile as you come running out the front door of the school at the end of day”, it probably doesn’t mean, "my heart is bursting when I listen to you chatter about how much you love your art class”, and it probably doesn’t mean,” you’ve come so far in just a few weeks and after all you’ve experienced in your little life I can’t believe I’m looking at such a well-adjusted, bright, happy, joyful, and thoroughly engaged little boy whom I truly love more than life itself”,  all of that is what I mean when I say, “I am proud of you, Jun”.  You have thrived in the first few weeks of school  and I cannot wait to see how you continue to progress as your school career goes on.

Love you!

Mommy

Dinner

I've read that it's important for kids to know where their food comes from. I've also read that should help with dinner preparation as much as possible. I can't really remember why or how , but both things had something to do avoiding childhood obesity. I want my kids to help when I make dinner, but it has nothing to do with health or fighting obesity, I want them to help because some of my fondest memories are of the times I spent in the kitchen with my mom. I always thought I was helping her, but now that I have my own children I can see that my washing the broccoli probably meant my mom had to wipe up the puddle I made on the floor while doing it or that my adding the chopped veggies to the salad probably meant my mom cleaned up the tomatoes and carrots that were thrown on the floor and all around the salad bowl. Sure having help from small kids requires more actual work, but that extra time we get to spend together makes the extra little bit of work so worth the effort. And the other added bonus is that Lena actually eats broccoli when she can say she "made" it! (Maybe that's the part that makes experts say kids preparing dinner helps fight childhood obesity).

Cleanup

Sent from my iPhone"Cleanup, cleanup, cleanup", the kids sang this morning as the actually cleaned the house. Lena is a star cleaner and is almost always willing and wanting to help, but Jun has never felt that way until today. I've gotta figure how to keep this new habit fun for them because it was great for Todd and I!

Kids

Little dolls

For so many reasons, I just love this picture! Lena loves her Djaju and doesn't see a reason in the world why he wouldn't spend all day playing dolls with her.

Haircut

For about 2 minutes she loved it! Then a drop of water went in her eye and before I knew it she tilted her head back, opened her mouth, and very dramatically let it be known that the haircut wasn't as much fun as she had imagined. Jun went to the barber last week to get a haircut. Lena has been asking for one several times a day since then. Her hair is just now starting to grow out, but it's a little mullet-like so after watching her pull little pieces of hair and pretend to cut them as she gave me pouty-cute eyes and said "hah cu" (hair cut) several times this morning I thought we could take a quick trip to the hair dresser.

The Sleeper

Lena wants to be carried up to bed every night, but she's figured out that she has to walk upstairs on her own 2 feet unless she's asleep...so what does she do? Every night as soon as we close the last book and she knows its time to go to bed, she quickly shuts her eyes and pretends to be asleep. You'd believe she's really asleep, right?

Decision to Blog

I went back to work a few weeks ago and I thought that would be the end of the blog, the blog is a great way to let people know what we're up to, but it's also a great alternative to hand-writing a journal.  I had these visions of creating some sort of beautiful scrapbook of each of our trips to China, I had visions of spending the next several years keeping a memory-filled, mushy journal that I could present to Jun on his 18th birthday, and even had visions of keeping a second memory-filled mushy journal which I would present to Lena on her 18th birthday... I was actually thinking I'd also print a fabulous photo-book EACH year for EACH child...  but 3 weeks into my return to work and reality has made it painfully obvious that none of those things will actually happen.  But, I also realize I really do want some way to document our not-so-special events in daily life because they are what create special memories.

I want to remember making tea eggs with Jun and Lena for Chinese New Year a couple weeks ago.

I want to remember how proud they were of the fact that they cracked the eggs and made the broth the eggs cooked in for the next couple hours.  I want to remember that Lena at 3 eggs in one sitting!

I want to remember that Jun matched her egg for egg while holding onto the stuffed penguin.  

  I want to remember creating our Chinese NY banners for the Year of the Snake,

Jun's wish to have a Phoenix

Lena's wish was for... well, we weren't sure, but she had a lot of fun making her banner.

 And I want to remember how happy both kids were when Todd pulled out a pair of snowshoes for each of them when we got our last big snowstorm.  

 Sitting at a computer is something I'll spend a few minutes doing at the end of the day.  Downloading a few cute pictures is something I can spend a few minutes doing.  So, I hope my kids don't mind, but I'll have to figure out how to make books out of the blog and that's what they'll get on their big birthdays years down the road.

Making Eggs

My sister started making her eggs when she was 3 years old.  She got them out of the refrigerator, scrambled them, and then cooked them.  -I never thought much of that until I became a parent and thought about how badly I wanted Jun to stay away from the hot stove AND how much more time it would take to have him "do it himself" than if I (usually Todd) just did myself.  -But Jun is finally starting to want to become more independent so he now makes his own eggs.  He does a good job at 6 yrs, but my sister made her own eggs at age 3?  If I couldn't remember it so clearly I wouldn't believe it was true.

It Snowed

Lena was amazingly excited to come home from daycare yesterday and see fresh snow!  I couldn't get her to put the shovel down and come in the house. (BTW, that's not a giant snot coming out of her nose, it's a snowflake that came out sort of strange in the picture)

Jun on the other hand saw the snow, told me he was cold, and asked if he could go inside.

Can you guess which child is from cold Inner Mongolia and has been home with us for 2 winter seasons and which child came home with us just 6 weeks ago and is from super warm Guangzhou?

Bath Time

Jun loves to take a bath.  He hops in as often as we permit and stays as long as we allow.  He fills the tub with toys, he plays, sings, and floats, and only gets out after he’s thoroughly pruned and all the water has drained after we pull the plug on him. 

  Lena also loves the bathtub, but generally gets in, plays for a few minutes, gets the job done, and then hops out.  Lena is never in the tub long enough for her hands or feet to prune.   But then one day last week she got in the tub and started playing and didn’t want to get out.  So, we let her stay in and stay in and stay in…. and then suddenly she looked down at her hands and they were shriveled up!  And she jumped out of the tub as quickly as possible.  She kept looking at Todd and I and looking at her hands and feet and looking back at Todd and I and then looking at her hands at feet… I’m not sure what she thought had happened to her, but she didn’t see any humor in the situation and she has not stayed in the tub for more than a few minutes at a time since.   When we showed her Jun’s shriveled feet and hands a couple nights ago she was not humored, she was concerned.  And when Jun, Todd, and I all laughed at her concerned reaction to Jun’s feet, she looked at us like we were crazy.  Poor kid, she’s never gonna dare to spend more than 5 minutes at time in the tub again.  

Little Girl Clothes

Todd: "Okay, Lena's dressed and ready to go."
Jun: (Runs in Lena's room to check things out). "Mommy, how come Lena gets to wear pajamas to church?"
Me: "no one wears pjs to church, what are you talking about?"
Jun: "Look at her!" He says in disgust as I walk in the room.
Me: "Todd, you got her dressed alright, but you got her dressed in her pjs!"

Todd's having a tough time figuring out all the little girl clothes we now have in the house.

Happy Birthday Jun!

I'm super happy to dress in sweatpants everyday.  Jun's super happy to dress in sweatpants everyday.  Todd's super happy to wear jeans everyday.  None of have any bit of  fashion sense, we dress for comfort.  When we bought Lena her clothes I sort of assumed she would feel the same way, but as it turns out she's pretty happy to dress in little dresses everyday.  Not always frilly, she also likes little overall dresses and jersey dresses, but on occasion she picks some wildly... well, wildly frilly outfits.  She picked this one out yesterday, but had to take the skirt off later in the day because it was itchy.  (And, she thought nothing of ripping the skirt right off and handing it to me while we were in the middle of the Dr's office)

The other day I left Todd and Lena alone while I went for a run and Jun was at school.  I came home and found them sitting at the table together.  I thought it was too cute to NOT take a picture.

Jun has not stopped burping in 7 weeks.  He doesn't just burp every once in a while, he burps all day long, into the nigh, and first thing in the morning...all day and night long.  I asked our regular Dr. about it, but she didn't seem concerned, blamed it on stress.  I felt like it was more than that, so I called my "witch Dr".  Jun went to see her a couple of days ago.  Turns out he has parasites (quite common in children adopted from China, we should have had him checked for it 2 years ago) and a hiatial hernial.  Very correctable and I'm pretty sure Jun LOVED the attention.  

Of course, Lena cannot be outdone, so she insisted on hopping on the table too.  I think she was disappointed to learn that nothing is wrong with her.

Lena loved day 3 of her daycare career.  I arrived to pick her up after 1 1/2, but all she did was tell me she didn't want to leave.  And who could blame her, she was playing with Mr. Potato Head... so we stayed for an extra hour and then I forced her to leave because I had things to do at home.

Todd's not feeling well today so he tried to lay down on the couch for a little rest.  Lena wanted to help him so she gave him a blanket, took his shoes off, gave him a stuffed animal, and then tried to take his temp.








The other day I let Jun pick out what he wanted for dinner.  He's only 5 so of course I was more than a bit hesitant, but I also thought one meal of junk wouldn't hurt him.  After looking through all his choices he finally put together a plate of greens... and a side of kielbasa.  He loved it, but I'm not sure Lena felt the same way.

On the way to school

Headed out for a long walk

More transitions

Ideally Lena would stay with me for the next 6 months or more, but I have to be back at work by Feb. 4 so we have to start transitioning Lena into daycare immediately.  Today was day 2 of Lena’s new life as a daycare kid.  Yesterday went too well, today… not quite as great.  Jun goes to school in the same building where Lena will go so we’ve been bringing her in each day when we drop Jun off so that she will have a chance to get comfortable with the building, kids, and teachers -and so that she will hopefully understand that we bring Jun to school in the morning and then pick him up at night (no chance of being left there) .  

I think she was shocked yesterday when we dropped her off.  We took off her jacket, hat, mittens, and boots…before she knew it we all said good-bye (including Jun) and pretty much ran away.  Todd and I took Jun back up to his classroom and gave him a big hug and then thanked him for helping Lena feel comfortable.  Then we walked back down to the school office and sat and watched Lena on the video camera for a while.  She sat with one of the teachers and played for close to 45 minutes, she didn’t cry, she didn’t openly laugh or jump or dance, but she sat there and didn’t cry –until about 45 minutes had gone by and Todd and I thought it was time to bring her home for day.  Once we walked in and she saw us, she broke down in tears.  We sort of expected this overly relieved reaction so we gave her lots of hugs before bringing her home. 

This morning Todd had to work early so Jun and I brought Lena to school on our own.  In an effort to keep Jun involved, I asked Jun if he would bring Lena into her classroom with me.  Everything was going great until Lena realized what was about to happen.  As soon as we walked up to the classroom door she turned around and said “no, no, no” in a really sad I-can’t-believe-you’re-doing-this-to-me way.  I knelt down, put on a strong happy face, told her it was just for a little while, gave her a big hug, grabbed her jacket, hat, mittens, and boots, and asked Jun to give her a hug too.  He gave her a quick hug, we passed her off to the teacher, and then I told Jun we had to run and not look back.  It was so hard… I’m pretty sure Jun thought I was horrible and a bit crazy, but once we got upstairs to his room I tried to explain that it was easier for her if we didn’t prolong the good-byes.  Jun was very concerned about his little sister and in an odd way the entire scene made me happy because I felt like it gave Jun an opportunity to be the caring big brother. 

After dropping Jun off I went back downstairs to spy on Lena.  She was sobbing, wailing, and calling for me.  I wanted so badly to walk back in the room to get her, but I thought I’d get a little advice from Todd first.  I stood in the hallway and called him and he told me I couldn’t go back in.  He reminded me that it would make things harder for her tomorrow or the next day when we actually have to leave her there.  It took Todd about 2 ½ minutes to talk me out of barging back in the classroom and by the time our conversation had ended Lena had stopped crying.  I had a bit of time to kill and I knew I couldn’t just hang out in the hallway for too long so I went for a run.  I ran 4 ½ miles in record time for me, but it felt like it took forever because I spent the entire time watching the clock to see if I had passed enough time to justify picking Lena up. 

Apparently she was fine while I was gone, but once again wailed with relief when she saw me.  I figured she had had a rough morning so I took her out for a treat and then we hit the road –me on foot and her in her stroller.  It’s her favorite thing to do.  So today we did my 3.2 mile loop.  That's a long time for little kid to just sit.  I thought for sure she’d cry at some point along the way, but she  spent the entire time sitting up straight looking around (and enjoyed my constant conversation, I'm sure).  The only time she cried was when we arrived back home and I told her she had to get out of the stroller and go back in the house.  If I hadn't bribed her with a piece of kielbasa I'm not sure I would have gotten her in the house.