lovely chaos

marriage 101. what guys have to put up with!

based on my post this past Friday, you might have the impression that i'm a cynical, bitter wife who is disappointed in my husband. quite the contrary, my friends. i'm a realist who no longer forces unrealistic expectations on my husband and tries to allow him to live his life with a wife who is content with our state of affairs. that doesn't always work out, but that is my goal!

however when you have little ones at home or perhaps have a stressful job (things of this nature often happened when i was teaching pre-kids, for example), sometimes psycho wife rears her ugly head no matter how hard she tries to fight her demon self! and a man may feel like the balance of the universe has once again been shoved off its axis, and he is left reeling with the sensation of being caught in an unexpected storm on a sunny day.

take this instance as an example. the other day, after jay had been away for several days on a business trip, i was about to lose my mind. diesel and lula had been fighting for almost an hour straight. i'm not exaggerating. there was screaming, slamming doors, and sobbing babies (actually just one... diesel). meanwhile i was trying to vacuum before jay arrived home. i tried to intervene several times, but no one was listening, and i must confess i lost my temper and my normally calm, cool head.

in the midst of this stressful chaos, jay sent me the following text before he boarded his final plane home: "looks like we're on time. what have we got for entertainment tonight? love you."

seems like a pretty benign text, right? but here's what went through my mind as i pushed back the tears of frustration: "i can't control my children right now. i'm about ready to lose my mind. i just want to run down the street screaming. and now my husband wants me to find some kind of entertainment for him tonight??? why can't everyone just leave me alone? i don't need one more person needing something from me. it's not my job to provide entertainment for a grown man..."

you get the idea. it was irrational, extremely selfish, and not very pretty. thankfully i took a deep breath before responding to jay when i simply said, "a couch. love you."

how was jay to know what state of mind i was in at that moment? that's what i mean about expectations. our man comes home from work and we're raving lunatics with our claws out looking for someone to sink them into. poor guys! all they did was work all day to provide for us and we're ready to chop their heads off for no reason.

anyway, i've realized how unpleasant i am when jay comes home from work most days. i'm not always mean or crabby, but i'm just not pleasant. i feel like jay has to walk on eggshells until he knows what kind of mood i'm in. how miserable!

so i decided recently to come up with some guidelines for myself to help with this. and i'll tell you what they are tomorrow!

marriage 101. wives are the administrative assistants of the household.

***warning: this post is chock full of gender biases and cliche assumptions about gender roles. carry on!

something occurred to me the other day after hearing some friends complain that their husbands can't ever seem to find time to plan a date night... something i've complained about frequently myself. not only do they choke up on date night planning, but they can't seem to remember details about the family's schedule, remember birthdays and anniversarys, etc.

it can be terribly frustrating to us women who want to still be wooed and dated and pursued. cause after many years of marriage it sure feels like our guys have just given up and thrown in the towel. or that they really don't care enough. that can be painful and really throw a wrench in an otherwise peaceful relationship. (ok... this is obviously not the only issue, but the one we're discussing today!)

anyway, i've heard many times how a man is a hunter and likes to pursue his prey, but once the prey is caught, the hunt is over! so i related this depressing idea to our relationship. now that i've been "caught" i no longer need to be pursued or "hunted."

but something else occurred to me the other day that seems to make a lot more sense than the hunter prey theory. you see, we live in a male-dominated world where men are typically in higher positions of power than women. of course this has changed considerably since women's rights, blah blah blah.  but let's face it, men still hold more manager/ceo/president positions than women. so we assume that men have it all together. that they run the show and don't need women. 

HA! how many times have you heard that if you want anything accomplished, or if you want to know the real scoop in the office, ask the secretary or admin asst! think about it! these executives would absolutely crumble and fail miserably if it weren't for the women holding it all together directly below them. (again... i'm making assumptions that more secretaries and admin assts are women. cliches are created for a reason, people.)

ok... so we assume that a man cannot handle that executive role without serious help. that's not how the job description would read for the helper, but that's the truth of the matter. sure the top professional has so much on his plate. how could he possibly remember everyone's birthday and that appointment coming up at 9am? good excuse. but i think a man simply is not genetically built to handle such information. they are not geared to be relational and crave date night as a woman does. thus a woman is needed to take care of such details.

now all we have to do is relate this work place theory to the home. the fact of the matter is, women run the home in the same way the office secretaries do. we know the real scoop, all the inner details and inner workings of the "office". and we have to act like the guy is really top dog to preserve his dignity and respect as a man, but really we're in charge when it comes to the schedule and daily running of operations.

but guess what that means? that means we also have to take care of the social schedule if we really want it to happen. we have to set up the dates, call the babysitter, invite friends over with plenty of time in advance to plan a decent meal... it's really, really frustrating. but it's simply the truth. i've had to let go of my dreams of being romanced and pursued. yeah, that's sad. boo hoo. it's life, honey. why not face reality and make the best of it instead of crying over unmet, unrealistic expectations.

we are the secretaries and administrative assistants without pay. get to work, ladies!

little four year olds. party time! part 2.

we had a few days to recover from lula's family party before we tackled her friends' party. thankfully all the decorations were done. so it was just a matter of preparing the food.

we decided to have a brunch this year, and therefore decided on a donut cake. jay picked up the donuts early that morning from our favorite local joint: st. george's donuts. they are heavenly!

once everyone arrived, we ate a lovely meal of egg casserole, pretty pink punch served in pink cups with pink straws, yogurt and fresh fruit, strawberry scones with devonshire cream and jam, coffe, and a lovely donut "cake".

after eating, we opened presents. lula received amazing gifts! everything was perfect. but her favorite was her new maclaren baby doll activity set! (from jay and i, of course!) we sold her little maclaren stroller at a garage sale last year, and she's been talking about it ever since. big mistake on our part! so we felt obligated to buy her a new one. the set also comes with a pack n play, a bouncer, and a diaper bag. it's so stinkin' cute!

the kids had fun playing together with the new toys. when everyone left, we sent each kid home with a huge bouncy ball and a little bag of homemade sprinkle sugar cookies.

it was a lovely party.

 

little four year olds. party time! part 1.

last week we celebrated Lula's fourth birthday, and boy did we celebrate! i'm a firm believer in the "birthday week". so the festivities began on lula's actual birthday. when she woke up, we had a present for her to open: a pretty pink dress. she has been wearing that dress any time it's clean! i actually put it in the laundry just so she'll wear something else! so i'd say it was a hit.

once she was dressed, jay took her out for pancakes before dropping her off at school.

jay was also in charge of dropping off the sprinkles' strawberry cupcakes with strawberry buttercream frosting for her little preschool friends. i made the cupcakes and frosting the night before and frosted them early that morning. i've learned my lesson not to wait until the last minute! (i doubled both recipes for two dozen cupcakes.)

i also made the cupcake flower toppers the previous week... again, planning ahead saved me a lot of last minute headache this time!

while lula was at school, i decorated the house. i made fabric tassel garlands to string around the house. and i also created a big four on one of the windows with white balloons that were leftover from another birthday! i was able to leave these decorations up for her friends' party later that week.

i also set up an area for gifts in front of the fireplace in the living room. i really wanted it to stand out. so i covered up the fireplace with a pretty piece of fabric. i used the birthday gift banner from last year's party. and with a little table to place the gifts on and around.. voila!

after school, gramma picked lula up and took her to get her nails done. if you know lula at all, you know that she was in high heaven! gramma kept lula until dinner time.

when they came back, we had a lovely little family birthday dinner. we made homemade pizza with a recipe my mom has had since the 70s. the kids had fun pushing the dough around the pan and then literally piling cheese on the dough! it was a very cheesy pizza!

while we waited for the pizzas to cook, lula opened a few presents. we saved her big one for her friends' party. so she received another pretty dress, some books, paper dolls, and new sidewalk chalk. she loves her paper dolls! and so do i!

once the pizza was ready we ate. the kids were so hyped up! then we had some yummy black magic chocolate cake! it's the same exact cake recipe as barefoot contessa's beatty's chocolate cake, but i used the frosting from the black magic recipe. it was divine! i actually cut the recipe in half and just made a one layer round cake. 

it was a lovely day and i have a feeling we succeeded in making lula feel extra special on her big day.

friends' party coming up next!

little two year olds. spending time with my guy... and chocolate donuts.

i love spending time with my little guy. even though he's two and knows how to throw a tantrum... that can last forever... he's still the sweetest little guy i know. jay and i actually frequently worry that he'll be bullied because he's so sweet. but we'll cross that bridge when we get there and are saving up for karate lessons! (that was a joke, but kind of not.)

anyway, i really enjoy the times when we just get to go run errands and hang out. he's pretty easy. on this particular day i decided we needed a donut when we were finished running around. we have the best little family-owned donut shop here in town. it's amazing. the setting is old school with just a few tables squeezed together where old folks hang out and drink their coffee in the morning. diesel was a big hit. he waved and said bye-bye to everyone who left the shop. they were eating him up! love this little guy! he's my little buddy.

little two year olds. thanks for the gun, daddy!

i think it's funny (in a non-humorous way) how kids get introduced to things. you think you'll protect them from this or that, but it just doesn't happen that way. there are too many outside forces interfering with your pefect ideal of parenting!

i hadn't given it a whole lot of thought, but kind of subconsciously knew i didn't want to introduce diesel to guns, violence, weaponry, etc. until he was a little older. jay and i hadn't really discussed this, and since lula is in preschool which means she sees little boys making guns out of anything they can find, i figured the introduction would just happen naturally at some point.

i just wasn't expecting it to happen NOW and from JAY! so i was slightly annoyed when he casually handed diesel his first toy gun without any thought to the matter. as i said the other day... mothers over-analyze everything!

i don't have a strong opinion about the whole gun issue in our country. there are very good pros and cons to both sides. so i just stay out of it. but did i want my two year old to be introduced to guns? not really! but it's too late now!

of course what he's really attracted to is the ultra annoying sounds and lights the thing produces. he doesn't really understand what it is. so is it a big deal? probably not. i'm just not gonna worry about it because it's exhausting worrying about every little thing!

little two year olds and three year olds. can't get enough of spring.

i can't tell you how thankful i am that my kids can finally play together and that they get along so well. they really love each other and really play well together. i know this isn't always the case between siblings regardless of age difference and gender. so i don't take their bond for granted!

lula definitely fills the role of "little mother" very well. her preschool teacher even commented that she was the little mother at school! she loves to take care of everybody, and that includes her baby brother. baby brother adores lula. so it all works out nicely!

anyway, it sure has made my life a lot easier that they enjoy playing together. i have begun to see the light at the end of the "toddler tunnel" and it's looking pretty bright! they've been playing outside a lot now that the weather has turned towards spring, and we've been enjoying trips to the park as well. i absolutely love this time of year when everything is sprouting and blooming. it's so peaceful and beautiful and sweet.

life. starting traditions. this easter.

as my kiddos are getting a little older, i've started to realize that it's time to begin some traditions for our immediate family. it's so strange how family dynamics change first with marriage, then with kids. it took me years to consider jay my immediate family and my parents and brother my extended family. i still have trouble considering them in that light, but sadly, that's what happens when you get married! that dynamic is further solidified when you have kids.

it's not only a shift in dynamic, but also in identity. i think that's why it took me so long to adjust. so up until just recently i sort of let old traditions from both my and jay's families stay put and just went with the flow. but now that we have kids, it's time to start establishing traditions that we want them to remember when they're older and have kids of their own. it's kind of fun, kind of scary, kind of sad! because implementing new traditions means possibly cutting out old traditions that you grew up with. i think a mix of both is nice! 

so.... long introduction! as i mentioned yesterday, i gave this easter a great deal of thought. in a conversation i was having with my mom, she mentioned how the church my dad used to pastor at always had a sunrise service on easter morning. i love the symbolism of such an event. so i thought we'd have our own sunrise service. i wanted it to be intimate, special, and just the four of us.

so i planned an early morning picnic with cinnamon rolls, hot chocolate, and fruit. we had our little picnic on saturday since jay was involved with worship on sunday and had to leave before the sun rose! since it was the first time, quite a few things went terribly wrong! but we'll learn from our mistakes and make it even better next year!

1. it was way too cold and windy, and we weren't bundled up enough! next year, we'll be in our winter gear! poor little d's fingers were bright red by the time we got back in the car and he was screaming about it! we might even take a tent next time to protect us from the wind!

2. it was cloudy. so we actually never saw the sun rise. ugh! nothing we can do about that.

3. we didn't scout out a good location to watch the sunrise beforehand. so we ended up on a hill overlooking a huge office building! not a very romantic picnic setting. next year i will scout out a place before.

4. jay needed gas and then decided to go ahead and get the free car wash before we arrived at our picnic location. i was freaking out that we would miss the sunrise. which we did anyway because of the clouds! next year we'll be completely prepared!

5. we have two small children who still whine and complain a lot and spill things. not much to do about that except wait for them to grow out of it! it'll be better next year!

with all of the tragedies we experienced (yes, that's overly dramatic), it was still a good first run and i think we'll keep it as our little easter family tradition. i wanted the kids to open their baskets during our picnic and read their books together as the sun rose, but it was just too cold. so we ended up doing the baskets on our kitchen floor when we got home. it worked out just fine. nothing is ever perfect, and i've stopped expecting it to be so. going with the flow typically works out a lot better!

after our little picnic, we headed over to gramma's house for an easter egg hunt. this is a tradition she has established for the kids. they love it of course, and i think gramma does too! perhaps this will be our new format on the saturday before easter... sun rise picnic followed by egg hunt at gramma's. sounds good to me!

life. what's easter all about?

this year i was overly concerned about easter. christmas has been so commercialized i've kind of given up on the true meaning being the main focus... at least for now. but easter? i mean i know easter is actually a pagan holiday, etc etc. but as christians celebrate it, it's the most important "holiday" of our faith. christmas is special, but easter goes beyond special. it is a celebration of the whole reason for our existence as a religion. i did NOT want that to get lost under the faux grass in lula's pink easter basket filled with colorful eggs chock full of candy surrounded by toys and clothes and more candy. where is jesus in that basket? you see why i was kind of panicking?

at the same time i don't want to be one of "those" people who go all psycho and cut out any kind of fun or social/cultural normalcy from my kids' lives to make a point only to find them rebelling against my craziness later! where's the balance?!

so in an attempt to control things to some degree, i requested that the children not receive any toys for easter this year. they get enough toys as it is throughout the rest of the year. therefore only "needs" were allowed in their baskets. they received clothes, books, and candy... because they really "need" all of those things! especially the candy! (don't worry... at some point i realized how ridiculous this all was.)

easter weekend was a lot of fun as we spent time with family and friends. (i'll recap what we did exactly in my next post.) and what i was initially worried about, that jesus's death and resurrection would get lost in the egg hunts, ended up being needless worry. i was pleased that the kids' baskets weren't filled with toys. they were excited about the clothes and candy, but it wasn't the focus.

what they really loved were their new books. i chose only books that told the christian easter story instead of secularized books about the easter bunny, etc. lula has been reading one of the books every day and night. it's called lily's easter party. in the story, the parents set up an egg hunt with twelve eggs each filled with a little symbol of the easter story. lula listens intently even though the story is rather long for her age. she has been having her own easter egg hunts with diesel. i've overheard her trying to tell him the easter story like the book does while hunting for eggs around the backyard.

so in the end, i think we did ok. the kids had fun and received presents, but in the end, the message, the most important message of all, was the focal point and what was remembered. i still like the idea of them not receiving toys, but i don't think i'll be quite so panicky about the rest of it next year!

i'm sure there are those who think i over-analyze everything. and i do to some degree. but we're christians living in a very secular world. if i don't analyze how we're living our lives and how the world is going to affect us, then we'll simply ride the tide and go along with the crowd. i have no desire to do that. so yes, i analyze what traditions, holidays, daily life will look like for my family. and i ask the Lord for guidance too of course. i've learned a lot since having little ones. they definitely make you think hard and reevaluate for your values, etc.i know we won't get everything right. we'll look back and have plenty of regrets and "what ifs". but i guess i'm trying to minimize those regrets as much as possible. is that possible? who knows! hindsight is 20/20. alright... i've preached long enough!

renovations. a new fence.

i did everything i could to find a picture of our backyard when we first moved in almost three years ago. i know i had one on here of the jungle that was overtaking our tiny plot of land surrounded by a shoddy chain link fence, but i couldn't find it. so you'll just have to use your imagination! let's just say we've come a LONG way! 

jay has been working on putting in a new wood fence shadow box style over the last few weekends. he and our neighbor (who split the cost with us) finished it this past saturday. i was afraid it would make our yard look too small, but it actually makes it very cozy... almost like another little room. it's very quaint and i know will become even more so as we add landscaping and put in a real brick patio at some point!

here's some quick pics of the new fence.