The Weekend

I used to be such a fan of weekends. Days off work, time to myself. Enough time to have fun and catch up. Both. Got things accomplished, met Sunday evening with an aire of productivity and the greeted the week with a solid mindset.

Not so much anymore.

Two days, 48 hours is much less time in my world now. I figure when you divide by 6 (5 members of the family and I'm counting the pets collectively as their own) and take out time for sleep (and naps) we are left with about 6 hours each day of usable time. Not nearly what it used to be, with so much more to work on.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not wishing to back to my world as a single girl with a cool apartment downtown. No....I never daydream about that at all......never. :)

I adore my kids, I love my husband and I live in my dream home. But every weekend rolls around and the upkeep on everything in my life becomes more obvious. The actual time needed to make those things work comes to light and I find myself over compensating and trying to make up for my week dominated by children to get it ALL done. All being, a house that is put together and presentable, kids who are happy and loaded down with family bonding time, relaxation seeping from every pore and possibly even some time for mommy and daddy to remember that they are, first and foremost, a couple in love. It's a tall order.

And the reason it never happens comes down to this....

Weekends are jumbled. Not defined. I know why, it's obvious, yet unsolvable in our house. Weekends are a mess because it's everyone's weekend, but that means different things in different roles. My husband, kids and I all have different ideas of what a weekend should be.

My husband works. He works very hard, long hours during the week. To him weekends are supposed to be relaxing. A break between the grind. Time to sleep a little more and take it easy.

For the kids, it's a day off school, everyone is home so we can pummel each other kind of approach. They are still to little for our weekends to be full of soccer games, dance recitals and sleepovers. But we do get an occasional crazy two days of birthday parties and family activities. Although the weekend rush will start soon enough as our 4 year old dives into the world of recreational soccer this spring.

For me, weekends aren't all that different than my normal week. I'm still responsible for the kids and the family schedule and for keeping the house from becoming an uninhabitable pit by Sunday night.

The big difference for me, and this is where our troubles start, is that I am happy to have another grown person around the house for a few days. My poor husband. In his attempt to take respite from his taxing job, I come in with a list of activities and chores that I need done. Not only that, I enjoy his company and probably talk his ear off more on weekends because he understands words that are longer than 3 syllables. It's nice. For me.

So out I trot the Honey-Do list of picture hanging, toy fixing, garage related anything and ultimately the time allotment for him to take the kids so I can get a project or two done. And before I even realize it, I have filled the weekend with tasky things that I normally assume should occupy our Saturday morning, but manage to dominate most of our two day stretch. That is, if we even get to them. Often we abandon our mission early due to boredom, sleep deprivation (that would be me) or the bickering we seem to employ as an obvious end to the work.

So here it is, Saturday morning. And as I try to figure out how to use these two days in a productive manor and he tries to figure out how to use them in a restful one, we sit at an empasse once again.

Review: Baby Food

Not that I think I'm an expert in parenting. Not in the least.

But I do think that my extensive experience in purchasing and using kid/baby items give me plenty of room to rant or rave about merchandise.

So here if my first rave. I'm in love. In awe, if you will.

Baby Food Pouches!

Basically, it's pureed baby food that you are familiar with. But in much better flavor combos and in far better packaging.

So, how do you make baby food more appealling to baby? Simple. Make it taste better and make it easier to eat yourself.

As far as flavor, the brands I like are organic. And while I'm not super gung-ho on having every last little item in my house be organic (and nor can afford it, they call it Whole Paycheck for a reason), I do think there is a lot to be said for organic veggies and be able to taste the freshness. But on top of that, they combine fruits and veggies together.

Now, I've never had much issue getting my kids to eat fruit. Really, who does? But green beans, peas and spinach. Not so much.

But tonight, my son ate an entire pouch of sweet potato, corn and apples. His favorite has spinach and pears. Brilliant!

Then dilema #2 for baby food has always been the mess. In our case, the mess is caused by the interest from the earliest of spoon feeding to want to do himself. I've tried it all, from giving him one spoon to play with while I try to feed him and even letting him do it himself. All attempts have ended up with baby covered in food and getting a bath in the kitchen sink. Don't even get me started on the state of the highchair.

But a pouch, a gloriously easy pouch, lets me feed him so quickly and cleanly, it's astounding. All I have to do is guide it and spot him to make sure he doesn't remove it and squeeze it all over. He thinks he's doing it all himself and I get to feed a baby without massive cleanup after.

I do realize that my kid might be 5 before he figures out how to work a spoon for himself. But as long as it's this easy, I'm just gonna pretend I'm preparing him for the space program and life as an astronaut. He'll figure it all out sooner or later.

And not to forget the helpful part. Favorite brands include Ellas Kitchen, Plum Organics and for bigger kids Revolution Foods.

Big Thumbs up from this house!

The partially clean house

I am not the best housekeeper, not by a longshot. I don't have a lot of time and like any mom will tell you, things don't stay clean long. I'm constantly picking up one mess only to come back and find it recreated for me by the kids. This coupled with spending so much of our time in the main rooms of our house has created The Partially Clean House effect. Basically you can walk in my front door and come upstairs to the main level and all looks somewhat in order. There may be dishes in the sink and some clutter on the counter, but all in all, not bad. I try to keep it company ready or at least 15 minutes from company ready. And that is where it ends.

My bedroom is where all the clutter I clear away when someone is coming over ends up. In piles, boxes, laundry hampers and on the floor. And that is where the laundry ends up before the long journey to actually getting folded and (almost never) put away. The master bath is cluttered, the floor of the closet holds as many clothes and shoes as the racks and shelves and the massive soaking bathtub is full of the maternity clothes I am now done with (hopefully forever). Add in my husbands clutter, computer desk and seemingly untrainable act of throwing laundry on the floor rather in a hamper and you have a disaster. I often say that my bedroom looks like a TV crew is going to show up on my porch, clean it out, host a garage sale and use the money to redecorate. I know it's not quite that bad, especially since we can still walk around and the bed is mostly clear.

Don't get me started on the basement that has become a kids' play area/guest room/storage room/craft room.

Or the garage.

But even with those three allowably messy areas (for now, judgement day is coming), I still try my best to keep the house in visitable shape. I've said in the past that I'd rather spend time with my kids than clean, true. I've said that it's too difficult and even unsafe to clean in those rooms with them underfoot, also true. But the reality is that it's just plain hard and I don't know where to start. I'll get the laundry sorted, but inevitably at the end of the day it's back in piles as we push it off the bed. I'll get some clutter cleaned up, tended too and tossed only to find a new one has grown back in it's place. So for today, this random Tuesday, it's back to sweeping the main room floor, getting the dishes handled and probably some dusting while the rest sits untouched. And someday soon, I will climb the mountain of laundry, albeit clean, and conquer my bedroom. Huzzah!

Barbie!

I have a four year old daughter and she is turning into quite the girly-girl. Part of me could blame the gifts that others give her, but I'm not going to knock anything that generous friends and family want to give. But recently I've come to realize that I haven't helped much in this area. She is my only girl, will be my only girl. And as much as I want her to play sports, climb trees and skin her knees to build character, I also want her to enjoy being a girl. Some of this has already come back to haunt me though. I wanted her to be comfortable wearing a dress and we are currently in a stage where she wants to wear nothing but a dress. I wanted her to have pretty hair (sounds silly but the girl was near bald for the first two years, so hope for hair is well founded) and now she sits patiently for me to fix it only to undo the braid, pull out the rubberband and lose the barrettes mere minutes after leaving my watchful care (aka preschool).

Our latest interest is the world of all that is girly and pink is Barbie. Grandma got her one for Christmas, as well as a horse for her to ride. Here we are only 6 months later and she has about 7 of them, several being Princess barbies. And don't get me started on the movies. If I never have to watch another bad CGI fairy tale with Barbie worked in as the heroine, I will be a happy woman. Unfortunately, I let her watch one this morning and if I want to get anything done this afternoon she may get another one. They have turned into great motivation for her to behave, darn perils of kiddie bribery.

An unexpected side benefit to growing up Girly is watching my husband shudder in horror as his son takes interest in anything that isn't considered to be boyish. I get a lot of amusement out of watching him recoil when our 2 yo asks for a doll, wants to dress up with sissy or picks a Barbie movie to watch. My husband never would claim to be an enlightened male, he likes boys to be boys, mostly out of old-fashioned thinking. I can't help but take a bit of pride in myself and my kids for being flexible in this area and my mind wanders to one key thought: At least they are sharing.

Well, I suppose the fact that it's taken me so long to write a second post is probably a sign that I don't have time for a blog. But I've never been much of one for paying attention to things like that. Taking on too much is a problem most women I know have. I can't think of the last time I talked to a girlfriend only to find that she had nothing going on, was bored or had too much free time on her hands.
At any rate, there is a reason I've been busier since my last post. His name is Keller, my third and last (planned) child. He came into this world rather stubbornly in early April. And being the mom of three kids has been an adjustment. I've gotten very little sleep of late and I'll probably use that as an excuse for grammatical and spelling errors for at least the next year or so. Mostly I'm learning that it's more of a shuffle, more figuring out who needs what, when. And basically coming to realize that I can't give them all as much time as I (or even they) would want. I am already comparing how much my oldest got to do and be involved with to the younger two. She had music class, weekly trips to the Childrens' museum, gymnastics and library time. We are pretty much down to library time, no coincidence that it's the free activity on the list. But if I didn't start with the mommy guilt now, how can I expect to properly pass guilt on to my children. Any good mom knows that a little guilt can go a long way down the road.
So my goal is to post twice a week. I think that is manageable. Especially when you consider that I wrote this one while dinner finished in the oven, the laundry is running, the dogs are barking at kids outside, the toddler pummeled each other with foam hammers and the baby fussed a bit through tummy time. Boy is my husband lucky to come home to all this fun!

First post

I suppose my first post will be fairly anticlimactic. A bit of an intro more than anything. I'm Annie, stay at home mom extraordinaire. I have two gorgeous children and one soon to make his arrival, all under 4 years old. Married to a pretty great guy, who for the most part, is less work than my kids, but has his days. I'll be the first to admit that I am living a very blessed life. My plan for this blog is pretty much just to have a place to share my thoughts about life, a few debatable topics, parenting research and baby/kid gear reviews. Not sure anyone will care much about those things, but I can fool myself into thinking that in all the free time I have.