Family Vacation- Boston

We were fortunate enough to head back to Boston for my sister-in-law's graduation from UMass Boston recently.  

Yay Aunt Megan!

All four of us were able to go and we had a blast!  We made the wicked awesome decision to spend the first night in Massachusetts staying in the city very close to the Public Gardens.  The girls were super travelers and even though we arrived late they rolled with it and even made it through a late night dinner/ dessert and we had a nice night at the hotel.  Waking up in the morning we could simply take a walk through the gardens, see the baby ducklings, take a swan boat ride, and see the iconic statues made famous in Robert McClosky's Make Way for Ducklings, a book we love around here.  It was a wonderful and special family day.  

Counting the ducklings

Happy Emma

Attempt at getting the girls to look at me and smile.

Here's a little video of the girls watching the ducks.  Note Ada's "Quack, Quack" song in the beginning and Emma's excitement towards the end.

Swan boats

Swan boats

Riding the ducklings...obviously

Mrs. Mallard with her ducklings- Jack, Kack, Lack, Mack, Nack, Ouack, Pack, and Quack

It was made more special by the fact it was Memorial Day.  The Massachusetts Military Heroes Fund had planted 33,000 flags on the lawn representing fallen soldiers from Massachusetts from the Civil War onward.  It was impressive and a nice visual for the kids.  I love that Tony was there to talk to Ada about the importance of soldiers and Ada has a pretty good (for a 4 year old) understanding of what Memorial Day means.

Flag garden on Memorial Day

We walked around the Commons too and easily the favorite thing was the huge fountain near the Park Street Church.  They probably could have stayed there for an hour.  There was a guy playing piano and loads of people.  Tony gave them each a coin to throw in and we just basked in the sunshine.  On our walk back to the hotel we treated them (and us) to fresh lemonade, sausage, hot pretzel, arepas, and Italian ice all from street vendors. So much fun!

The rest of the week we spent quality time with our families, notably the members of Tony's extended family that flew in from around the country for a little reunion in honor of the graduation.  Since we so rarely get to see these folks it was truly special.  My folks hosted us the rest of the week so the kids got lots of quality Nana and Grampa time and they even threw a huge party at their house so we could see loads of friends and family all in one place and minimize our driving all over New England.  It was glorious!

Watching "Brave" on the plane.  Notice Jim Bear sitting with the girls.  LOVE!

Nature Center

This is what happens when I ask them to look at me and smile.

I think the heat is starting to get to me already (can't believe we had a foot of snow a couple weeks ago) because I've been very grouchy the past couple of days.  This morning I decided we needed to get out into the woods a little so we went to the awesome nature center near our house and walked around the little pond and up a hill then had a picnic lunch.  A very nice little Saturday morning for the girls and I am feeling more clear headed!

Proud Emma after counting some ducks in the pond. 

The girls found a duck eating some algae and doing headstands in the water.  Just after this we found some basking turtles on a rock. 

Rocking on a little dock and pretending we were on a boat.

Starting out on our walk.

Working hard.

Up up up the hill.

Half Birthdays

I very much enjoy celebrating half birthdays.  Especially since the girls are so young and waiting a whole year to have a birthday can seem like forever it's nice to break it up...and it's an excuse to eat cake!  We haven't hit every one, but for Emma's 2 1/2 birthday Tony happened to be home and it was going to work out that we could celebrate together.  Nothing major, just us, food that Emma likes for dinner and cake for dessert (we almost never have dessert, so that alone is a big treat).

After dinner we sang "Happy half birthday to you..." and she blew out her candle and we enjoyed some cake.  Her face says it all.  Love you Emma!

When sisters are quiet

Now that Emma is older and the girls are starting to play together more interactively I am able to sneak away and put laundry away, or run out to do chicken chores, or cook dinner without needing to worry about their entertainment.  They have been enjoying playing together more especially now that Emma likes to use her imagination and also likes playing the "mommy, daddy, baby pretend-type games" and all the variations.  That said, I am always listening for things like speaking kindly to each other, having patience, bumps and thumps, and most terrifyingly...silence.

All parents will tell you that kids tend to be at their sneakiest when things fall quiet and on this day I was in one of the bedrooms putting laundry away when suddenly I heard no more sounds.  Turns out there were sounds just too faint for me to hear.  When I emerged to take a look at what was going on I found this adorable little scene.  Tony loved Richard Scarry books when he was little and this is his original one that was passed down to us.  It is old and falling apart so we keep it on a high shelf that Ada can reach but Emma cannot since Ada also loves it and will be careful with it, but Emma has a destructive streak in her.

Ada was carefully pointing to each drawing and asking Emma what each thing was, giving her encouragement when she got it right or gently saying things like, "good guess, but actually that's a bubble, etc."  Emma was enthralled   I was able to grab the camera and grab a couple of shots before they realized I was there and it messed everything up.

I know that no matter what the best and greatest thing I could ever give these girls is her sister.  I am so happy they have one another.

Reflections on being a mom (Mother's Day a little late)

Since there are many more articles out there that say what I would say about motherhood in a more eloquent way I am not going to write much.  Perhaps my favorite read recently was by Lea Grover in her Huff Post Parents article, "Dear Less-Than-Perfect Mom".  It's a good quick read and she talks about all the things we do that are not so glamorous and that make us real and human and beautiful.  What I love is that she highlights the things we do that many of us feel guilty about or beat ourselves up about and spins them to show that those are the things that make us better moms.  My favorite quote from the article and something I need to remember on the bad days, "Congratulations, Best Mom in the World.  You're not perfect."  Accepting and even embracing the imperfections is something I struggle with but in the spirit of wanting my kids to embrace the things that make them special and unique and "imperfect" I will try harder.

I had wanted to write something before Mother's Day and post on Sunday, but things got away from me last week and alas, here I am.  Tony was off (which was really the best gift I could ask for) and we had a nice family weekend complete with us each getting to spend some one-on-one time with each girl and have a wonderful Mother's Day BBQ with some friends.

I did want to share the awesome Mother's Day gifts we had made for the grandmother's (and for Mama) by a silhouette artist who came to town a few weeks ago.  The girls have a silhouette of me from when I was 2 hanging on their wall and I've been wanting to get one done of the girls for over a year so this was perfect- I even pinned a DIY silhouette on Pinterest but I doubt I ever would have gotten to it!  I think they came out great- you be the judge.

If you remember Emma's Eric Carle Birthday Party, you will remember that we made a wall collage with clear contact paper.  We saved it and when Ada and I went looking for something to wrap these with she picked this out and it was absolutely perfect!  I wanted you to see also how great her handwriting is getting.  I wrote the message and she wrote her and Emma's names and made a heart.  Just love her.

May 2, 2013

I woke up to the sound of my phone's text alert letting me know that school was cancelled today.  For snow.  I knew the forecast and expected a few inches at most, not the 13+ that we actually got.  It was that super heavy snow that breaks all sorts of branches and knocks out the power.  But it was pretty.

Last night I made sure to mention to the girls that we would probably be waking up to snow today so they wouldn't be surprised.  Ada's reaction when she actually laid eyes on the day were, "No, it's not winter anymore, it's spring!  The robins are here and it's warm, not cold!  I'm moving to Florida forever!"  Did I mention she's 4?

Well, after I went out and knocked some of the snow off the tree branches that hadn't already snapped, Ada and I went out to play and do another hen check/ egg check and took a few pictures of the record breaking snowfall while Emma napped.

Our backyard.

You can see the broken limbs and the depth of the snow in relation to the cozy coupe.

I feel bad for the chickens- they do not like the snow.  They are ready for these Minnesota shenanigans to be over.

Since it had been in the 70s for a few days and we were wearing shorts and flip flops, we put the water barrel back up...apparently a bit too soon!

Ada helped me shovel this pathway to the garage but mostly she enjoyed playing jumping, falling, and eating the snow.

Me and my Ada boo- she wanted to make a silly face.

Trying to find my inner orange rhino

This pregnancy has been unlike the others so far.  The most different thing is that I'm not working.  I didn't have to try to keep it a secret in the beginning and I don't carry guilt about what slack my coworkers will be picking up for me while on leave.  Overall I have felt very peaceful during this pregnancy and lately I've been making an effort to be a better/ less stressed/ less yell-y mom to the girls.

I was inspired by an article that popped up on my Pinterest feed by the Orange Rhino.  The article is "10 Things I learned when I stopped yelling at my kids" and it resonated with me.  I do yell and I hate it.  I loose my temper, get frustrated, forget that they are little people and expect way too much from them.  Then I feel like a total failure afterwords.  I decided to take a good look at my mothering and noticed I sometimes don't "yell" per say but may just give a look or use words of disappointment that really aren't appropriate.  I do want to be a better mom so I'm trying to pay attention to what I do and decide if/how I want to change.

Luckily I have some friends who are in a similar (or in some cases the same) boat as me and were excited when I told them about this so we've all been trying to do things to minimize our yelling.  I went a solid 2 days before I got tired and reverted to my old tactics.  Here's the cold hard truth about parenting- it's just day after day of a gazillion little decisions that turn each day into what it is.  Sometimes you make a good decision...sometimes not so good.  Here's an example:

One night I knew Tony would be getting home "early" so I decided to keep Ada awake enough to see him before she went to bed.  I made this decision even though I knew she was tired from a long day and  would have to be at school early the next day for viola lessons.  To see them hang for a few minutes before bed was totally worth it...until the next morning.  My alarm went off at 6:45 like it always does on Thursdays so we can make it to viola on time (ish) and the girls were still sleeping.  I got up, made breakfast and packed it into car-ready containers because we prioritize getting dressed, etc and if we run out of time we can always eat in the car.  Then I hopped in the shower.  The girls woke up about 7:30 and I made the decision not to rush since no one likes that feeling.  I let them get dressed like normal and by about 8:05 (lesson is from 8:00-8:30) we were ready to go.  Just before we left I told Ada that it was Thursday and that we would be skipping viola today but we may be able to go to the Friday lesson if we ask her teacher.  She fell apart.  I had made  a tactical error despite my thinking I was making good decisions in the best interest of everyone I had misjudged.  Herein lies the difficulty of being the decision maker for many different personalities all at once.  Emma throws fits if you try to rush her.  When I'm rushed I tend to get snippy and stressed.  Ada doesn't like to be surprised and maybe deep down I knew she would put up a fight if I had told her earlier so I omitted it from our morning until it was already too late.  I then gave Ada the choice if she wanted to try to go late to the lesson or just go tomorrow.  She of course chose going today.  We still needed shoes and coats and to open up the chickens for the day so the result was us trying to rush anyhow and not getting there until 8:25.  I decided to go with Ada and ask her teacher if we could come to the Friday lesson, which was of course okay.  She was still a bit bummed when I dropped her at her classroom and I left feeling like a terrible mother.

So if you followed that story you will see (as my very wise husband pointed out to me) that I was beating myself up about my 4 year old being upset that she missed her viola lesson.  Perspective.  I had none.  I get so tied up in our little bubble and try so hard to make people happy or do what I think I should that sometimes I forget the big picture.  And this is a good thing to teach to the little ones I suppose.  Because in the end there will be disappointments in life sometimes big ones and I want these kids to be resilient and able to roll with it.

I brought up that story because I have been paying attention to my triggers lately and being stressed is certainly one of them.  If I am feeling stressed in my life I have more of a tendency to yell or behave in a negative way toward the girls.  This needs to change.  I want to change how I express myself to them so they can mirror what they see/ feel to others.

But, all that said.  At the end of the day I really just wanted a cocktail...but not for a few more months;)