A couple of days ago, Josh and I were huddled over the iPad. I had just let him download an app or something. I think he was so giddy with happiness that he couldn't help but say:
"Mommy, you may not be the prettiest mommy, but you're the BEST mommy!"
YOUCH! Seriously, kid?! What do I say? How do I respond to that? Clearly, the obvious response is, "Who is prettier than mommy?!"
The verdict is still out. He wouldn't respond. I know he was thinking of someone; I could see it in his eyes and that sly little smile! Darn kid.
Wednesday, April 10, 2013
Monday, April 8, 2013
fp vs. parenting
I have been completely absorbed by work. My project work started ramping up in late November and it hasn't stopped since!
My latest project, fp, has been the biggest challenge I've undertaken in awhile. Take a project that has too much scope, not enough schedule and mismatched resources, and you have a recipe for disaster (I'm sure my project management/engineering/IT professional friends can empathize). Take that and multiply it by 3 years and you have fp.
It has meant many 10 to 12 hour days trying to get on top of the fp pile. I've had to juggle work days with family time and late nights working at home. It's been exhausting. But ironically, I still feel like I have mental capacity. I am not drained by it.
Then, late last week, I had a parent-teacher meeting at Josh's school. It was a 45-minute meeting and I came out feeling like I'd been through the ringer! There's nothing like feeling like you're failing as a parent to completely suck the life out of you.
The p-t meeting was a morning meeting and as I commuted into work and tried to get my head into my impending work day, I came to this realization: as much as fp has been challenging my capacity and boundaries and pushing my limits, it is a walk in the park compared to parenting. I can only wish that parenting is as easy as fp. Ha.
My latest project, fp, has been the biggest challenge I've undertaken in awhile. Take a project that has too much scope, not enough schedule and mismatched resources, and you have a recipe for disaster (I'm sure my project management/engineering/IT professional friends can empathize). Take that and multiply it by 3 years and you have fp.
It has meant many 10 to 12 hour days trying to get on top of the fp pile. I've had to juggle work days with family time and late nights working at home. It's been exhausting. But ironically, I still feel like I have mental capacity. I am not drained by it.
Then, late last week, I had a parent-teacher meeting at Josh's school. It was a 45-minute meeting and I came out feeling like I'd been through the ringer! There's nothing like feeling like you're failing as a parent to completely suck the life out of you.
The p-t meeting was a morning meeting and as I commuted into work and tried to get my head into my impending work day, I came to this realization: as much as fp has been challenging my capacity and boundaries and pushing my limits, it is a walk in the park compared to parenting. I can only wish that parenting is as easy as fp. Ha.
whoopee!
Josh and Aves went to a birthday party in December. Like most kid's birthday parties, they came away with goodie bags. On the car ride home, the kids did the ritual goodie-bag-opening.
From the back, Josh asked me, "Mommy, what's this?". I looked around and Josh was holding up a whoopee cushion. Great. For the record, I've never been able to "get' whoopee cushions. I can't even remember as a child thinking that it was funny for someone to sit on a whoopee cushion. Now, my kids each had a whoopee cushion.
I told Josh what it was and I demonstrated how to use it. The kids howled. They thought it was hilarious. Yay. Josh seemed to figure out how to blow it up but Aves couldn't, so each time she squeezed the cushion and the kids howled, she asked me to blow it up again. Yay. Even greater. Call me the no-fun mommy, but I seriously didn't get it.
Then, a few weeks later, the kids re-found one of the whoopee cushions in the mess that we affectionately call our car. Bri was driving but he had hopped out momentarily at one of our stops. The kids and I waited in the car and they played loudly in the back with the whoopee cushion.
For whatever reason, I decided to put the whoopee cushion to the test. I told the kids, "let's put the whoopee cushion on Daddy's seat and see if he sits on it when he comes back". The kids LOVED the idea and were so excited. I figured that it wouldn't work because the cushion is in plain sight and Bri would be able to see it long before he sat on it.
Well, the next 5 to 10 minutes were the longest 5 to 10 minutes EVER. The non-stop "is Daddy coming yet?!", made me regret I ever came up with the idea! Who would have thought that you'd need a whoopee cushion to hold a child's attention for 5 to 10 minutes?!
FINALLY Daddy emerged from the building. The anticipation was palpable! We watched him hurry around the car and head towards the driver's door. He was rushing because I guess he felt bad making us wait so long. He quickly opened the door and sat down swiftly, with a resounding farty noise! Bwahahaha! It worked. We ALL howled. Including me.
OK, now I get it.
FINALLY Daddy emerged from the building. The anticipation was palpable! We watched him hurry around the car and head towards the driver's door. He was rushing because I guess he felt bad making us wait so long. He quickly opened the door and sat down swiftly, with a resounding farty noise! Bwahahaha! It worked. We ALL howled. Including me.
OK, now I get it.
Friday, March 15, 2013
new do
Wow. It's been awhile since I've posted! It's true I've been swamped at work. Something about a frozen lake in the ninth circle of hell.
I'm pausing long enough to post this. Mostly because she's the cutest thing EVER and I'm not biased!
Aves has never let us put up her hair. She doesn't like hair ties, clips or whatever else in her hair. It was getting long, unmanageable and always in her face. I had a conversation with her about cutting her hair and she said she wanted to go to the barber. I asked her if she wanted a haircut like Josh and she said yes!
To be clear, we did NOT go to a barber to get her haircut. She had no problem seeing it all get chopped off and I think she quite likes it! Either way she looks super cute.
Speaking of cute, here's another pic of my short-haired, rice monster...
I'm pausing long enough to post this. Mostly because she's the cutest thing EVER and I'm not biased!
 |
| Before |
 |
| After |
To be clear, we did NOT go to a barber to get her haircut. She had no problem seeing it all get chopped off and I think she quite likes it! Either way she looks super cute.
Speaking of cute, here's another pic of my short-haired, rice monster...
Saturday, February 2, 2013
12 days
Last weekend, we spent a lot of time in the car going back and forth between home and MR. We were driving on Saturday when Aves asked me, out of the blue, to sing “Last Christmas’. I guessed it was the George Michael song and started singing accordingly. The kids were singing along with me and we had a little chorus going. Then Aves started to sing, “Last Christmas, my true love gave to me…”. OK, apparently I was singing the wrong song!
I started to sing the 12 days of Christmas as I hopped on my iPhone and tried to quickly google what came after the 7th day (I couldn’t remember!). I managed to find it just as I got to day 8 (I strategically slowed down the tempo as I went along) and went through all 12 verses. Aves asked me to sing it again. Over the next week, Aves kept asking me to sing the 12 days. I think I sang it, at most, a dozen times. Aves must have been absorbed because this was the video she wanted to do on Friday for Nana, Grammy and Auntie DD.
I started to sing the 12 days of Christmas as I hopped on my iPhone and tried to quickly google what came after the 7th day (I couldn’t remember!). I managed to find it just as I got to day 8 (I strategically slowed down the tempo as I went along) and went through all 12 verses. Aves asked me to sing it again. Over the next week, Aves kept asking me to sing the 12 days. I think I sang it, at most, a dozen times. Aves must have been absorbed because this was the video she wanted to do on Friday for Nana, Grammy and Auntie DD.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
what a day
Really, though, what a weekend.
The funeral service for Bri's dad was on Friday and though it was was wonderful for the family to see so much support, it was overwhelmingly emotional for all of us.
Before I get to the point of this post, I wanted to mention a couple notes on the passing of Bri's dad and how it affected the kids. Firstly, many have asked me how the kids have been comprehending death. I would say that Avery is still too young and doesn't comprehend much of anything. She seems to be going with the flow.
Josh, on the other hand, is trying to makes sense of everything. He asks LOTS of questions and we are trying to give him the God and heaven version of death. He understands that he won't get to see his Opa anymore. This makes him sad.
But he doesn't quite understand where Opa has gone and how his body and spirit have separated. With all of our explanations of one's spirit and how it goes to heaven, Josh once said that he pictures a heart, like the ones we draw but with lots of lumps, floating up into the sky until it reaches heaven. Ha. And he asked what Opa's body was like without his spirit. Aiyah. He also asked if Opa could run in heaven (he was walking with a cane for the past couple of years). What a sweet kid.
I overhead him a few times last week telling people, out of the blue, that his Opa went to heaven. I think he wanted to hear different people's responses to see if he could make better sense of things.
The 2 times I felt like Josh had made some sense of death in his head (i.e. he gave me an "aha" sort of look) were when I told him that my grandmother (whom he remembers) and Opa would get to see each other in heaven. And then when I said that we don't really know how God takes spirits to heaven. We can't talk to people in heaven and they can't talk to us, so no one really knows how spirits get to heaven. Ironic how uncertainty made him feel more certain.
The second thing I wanted to mention was that the kids fared quite will despite being at a funeral service. Understandably, Adrian's 7 grandkids were the only kids at the funeral service. And Josh and Aves were the youngest. It didn't dawn on me until we sat down in the church that my 6 year old and 3 year old were going to have to sit through something similar to a church service. Uh-oh. Well, they didn't really start getting fidgety until about half way through the 1 hour and 20 minute service. And even then, it was just an exercise for Brian and I in managing movement. They were pretty amazing.
But, and here comes the real reason for this post, I think that all of this finally took it's toll on Josh. As we were gathered with family on Friday evening, Josh started to complain that he wasn't feeling well. He couldn't describe what was wrong, so we just thought he was exhausted from the day's events. He was fine all day Saturday, but by Saturday evening, he started to complain again and this time, he was also feverish. He passed out on the couch at M&C's house and we brought a sick child home and straight to bed.
We had a full Sunday schedule of catching up with family and friends. But when Josh woke up, he was still feverish. I brought him downstairs to the couch, where he lay, looking very lethargic and miserable. I knew at this point that we weren't going to make our breakfast plans.
I was going to go back upstairs to tell a still-sleeping Brian to cancel brekkie plans, but Nikita, who had been experiencing diarrhea the previous day, was subliminally telling me that she needed to go outside. I brought her outside and sure enough, she still had diarrhea. Poor dog. I'm not sure what she ate that is giving her diarrhea.
After Nikita circled and squatted 3 times, she finally came back inside. After surveying my feverish child and my diarrhea dog, I finally went upstairs to tell Brian to cancel brekkie. Just at the time that I was thinking, "I'm surprised Nikita lasted through then night with diarrhea...', I got to the top of the stairs and saw the 2 piles of dog diarrhea on our carpeted den floor. Seriously?!
And just when I thought that waking up to a feverish child and dog diarrhea wasn't enough, as I walked back down the stairs to the family room, Aves greeted me standing on the rug in front of the coffee table saying, "Mommy, I just peed in my pants."
Wow. This was the point that I realized that this family would be spending the entire Sunday at home. Gratefully. What a day.
The funeral service for Bri's dad was on Friday and though it was was wonderful for the family to see so much support, it was overwhelmingly emotional for all of us.
Before I get to the point of this post, I wanted to mention a couple notes on the passing of Bri's dad and how it affected the kids. Firstly, many have asked me how the kids have been comprehending death. I would say that Avery is still too young and doesn't comprehend much of anything. She seems to be going with the flow.
Josh, on the other hand, is trying to makes sense of everything. He asks LOTS of questions and we are trying to give him the God and heaven version of death. He understands that he won't get to see his Opa anymore. This makes him sad.
But he doesn't quite understand where Opa has gone and how his body and spirit have separated. With all of our explanations of one's spirit and how it goes to heaven, Josh once said that he pictures a heart, like the ones we draw but with lots of lumps, floating up into the sky until it reaches heaven. Ha. And he asked what Opa's body was like without his spirit. Aiyah. He also asked if Opa could run in heaven (he was walking with a cane for the past couple of years). What a sweet kid.
I overhead him a few times last week telling people, out of the blue, that his Opa went to heaven. I think he wanted to hear different people's responses to see if he could make better sense of things.
The 2 times I felt like Josh had made some sense of death in his head (i.e. he gave me an "aha" sort of look) were when I told him that my grandmother (whom he remembers) and Opa would get to see each other in heaven. And then when I said that we don't really know how God takes spirits to heaven. We can't talk to people in heaven and they can't talk to us, so no one really knows how spirits get to heaven. Ironic how uncertainty made him feel more certain.
The second thing I wanted to mention was that the kids fared quite will despite being at a funeral service. Understandably, Adrian's 7 grandkids were the only kids at the funeral service. And Josh and Aves were the youngest. It didn't dawn on me until we sat down in the church that my 6 year old and 3 year old were going to have to sit through something similar to a church service. Uh-oh. Well, they didn't really start getting fidgety until about half way through the 1 hour and 20 minute service. And even then, it was just an exercise for Brian and I in managing movement. They were pretty amazing.
But, and here comes the real reason for this post, I think that all of this finally took it's toll on Josh. As we were gathered with family on Friday evening, Josh started to complain that he wasn't feeling well. He couldn't describe what was wrong, so we just thought he was exhausted from the day's events. He was fine all day Saturday, but by Saturday evening, he started to complain again and this time, he was also feverish. He passed out on the couch at M&C's house and we brought a sick child home and straight to bed.
We had a full Sunday schedule of catching up with family and friends. But when Josh woke up, he was still feverish. I brought him downstairs to the couch, where he lay, looking very lethargic and miserable. I knew at this point that we weren't going to make our breakfast plans.
I was going to go back upstairs to tell a still-sleeping Brian to cancel brekkie plans, but Nikita, who had been experiencing diarrhea the previous day, was subliminally telling me that she needed to go outside. I brought her outside and sure enough, she still had diarrhea. Poor dog. I'm not sure what she ate that is giving her diarrhea.
After Nikita circled and squatted 3 times, she finally came back inside. After surveying my feverish child and my diarrhea dog, I finally went upstairs to tell Brian to cancel brekkie. Just at the time that I was thinking, "I'm surprised Nikita lasted through then night with diarrhea...', I got to the top of the stairs and saw the 2 piles of dog diarrhea on our carpeted den floor. Seriously?!
And just when I thought that waking up to a feverish child and dog diarrhea wasn't enough, as I walked back down the stairs to the family room, Aves greeted me standing on the rug in front of the coffee table saying, "Mommy, I just peed in my pants."
Wow. This was the point that I realized that this family would be spending the entire Sunday at home. Gratefully. What a day.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
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