Finger painting

Today Paul found the finger paints so we tried them out.  Paul had a blast, Dolores did not at all like them.  Screamed!  I tried to get handprints of both of them, but she was not happy about it.  I think I did get enough of one.  Have a few pictures to share from the painting and also from the last few days.

Paul’s tower of blocks.  He was so, so proud!  He got the people on there and asked me to take a picture.

 

Paul wanted me to take his picture after taking them of the tower.  

Dolores tonight, almost one year old!  Just 7 days, I can’t believe it.  I finally found a way to get rid of red eye! 

 

Her smiling!  Yes, she’s holding an empty can of daddy’s special camo beer! :)

Coming after the camera, but so cute!

 

Paul wanted in on the picture taking, with his own empty can, they love those things!

 

Below is the pictures of the paintings that Paul did.  The first one is Paul in the green and Dolores in the red/orange, her feet in the middle.  She was so not happy about this!  I didn’t push it more to get good prints.  I would have taken some of Paul after painting, but he took his clothes, so no way to edit that!

Trying to make the best

We have been sick for like 2 weeks.  I just finally started to feel better and the kids got mostly unsnotty and now I’m feeling sick again.  NOT happy, at all.  We don’t go anywhere, so have no idea how in the world I could be sick again.  Hoping it’s nothing at all and goes away with a good nights sleep!

Yesterday was a rough day.  The kids and I are all short of sleep for various things, and so I sent us to bed at 9, which is crazy, crazy early for us!  We were asleep by 10, only for me to be woken again by the dang dog.  Between those dogs and Dolores I am up way more than I’d like to be a night.  Add in one of the dogs having horrible bowel issues that took place three times yesterday and then three times again at night.  I finally gave up cleaning and today banished her outside and scrubbed the crates, carpet and wall. 

So today I decided to take the advice that I so often tell people and also myself, that of today is a new day.  For being as short on sleep as I ended up being, I did well today and didn’t even start to feel tired until just about an hour ago!  It’s been so nice to be keeping up with the basic household chores, it really makes a difference in mood to only have a days worth of work to do, not a weeks.  Makes the small stuff that I’d like to get done easier to get done, and also not as big a deal if it doesn’t because what HAS to be done is done.

Today ended up being a good day.  It was sunny and finally not windy!  The kids played outside most of the day, and I sat there with them for a large part of it, it was nice to not have something pressing that I needed to get done (again, keeping up with the basics helped there!).  Now I’m ready for bed!  Got a few hours before then.

A return

Goodness, it's been longer than I wanted. The day after my last post we went to the zoo. Paul had a blast. Dolores had fun too, but she's probably too young to really understand a zoo, just had fun smiling at people and playing :). I have a few pictures, but not on here yet to post. The next day the cold that won't die, fell upon us, or me mostly, the next day Paul too. It just won't go away! Sunday I lost my voice, or at least a usable voice. I think I may be getting it back today. Paul's still a little drippy, and thankful (thank you breastfeeding!) Dolores only got a few sniffles! Chip has had it for a few days too. I am read to be normal again!

Okay, blogger just told me I can't upload pictures, so I guess I wouldn't be sharing the zoo pictures even if I had them all ready!

Tired!

All this lack of sleep is catching up with me, I am so tired! We mostly had a good day in spite of it. Paul has been really challenging lately, feeling like I don't have the tools to handle him. This is the difficulty of not having many people to talk to who also desire gentle discipline! No one to bounce ideas off of!

Dolores really started to stand on her own the last few days (she's just over 11 months). She would do it before, but not on purpose, now she does it and sees what she can do.

Today we took a very, very long walk, it was probably close to 3 miles, that is a lot for me! Pushing the double. We walked to dollar general, rather than across the highway to the grocery store. There was holiday weekend lake traffic, I don't think I would have gotten across there! Plus I wanted to see how long it would take to go to dg, and if it was doable. It went okay, I didn't even know that it had been so long until I checked the time, 1.5 hours! But that included being in the store and stopping several times on the way home for passing cars and picking up dropped stuff. Not to bad, at least I thought. I used to walk a mile in 15 minutes, but that was a brisk pace and not pushing 100 pounds of kids/stroller, and I'm about 70 pounds heavier too. It is something I'd do again.

We also set up our zoo trip for Tuesday! Paul has never been so it'll be fun I think. I hope he does okay. Dolores is still at the 'whatever,as long as I get to nurse, it's all good' phase, so not worried about her. We'll be going with a friend so that'll be nice for me :).

All over the place

Today has been an up and down day.  Started off not good, in a horrid mood and oh so tired.  Paul got up early and preceded to make it impossible for me to stay in bed after he had waited kindly for about an hour.  Still too early for me!  The day was redeemed with some yummy lunch and a quick trip to town for me (with Dolores, but oh so nice to get out of the house).  Plus talking over some of the things bugging me, like the impossible standards set by cps (not that they have ever come to us, just reading about it online, and it really upset me, knowing that there is NO way I could do that as par for course.  I could for a visit or a guest, but not every single day, so overwhelming).  So silly to worry about things you can’t even control and have no reason to worry. 

The other flip floppy part of the day was a few hours ago.  We have this cat that lives across the street, she’s an outdoor kitty that for some reason really likes us.  Sleeps on our outdoor chairs and steps and always comes when we are outside.  Tonight I hurt her, and she won’t come/stay when she sees us.  I was closing the van door, and didn’t see her, I don’t even know what part of her I closed in the door.  I feel horrible, and keep hoping she’ll be out there.  I know that’s silly too, but Paul LOVES this cat, like if we were needing a pet, we would be asking her people if we could make her our cat, we don’t NEED any pets (we have oh, oh, too many as it is!).  I just hope she’s not injured and comes back.  She is the only thing that got Paul past his not wanting to be outside, now he sits on the steps to eat his lunch with her!

reality

This is me, raw and mostly unedited (curse words are gone, yes, sorry, I do use some foul language, ask Paul, he’ll tell you, don’t use the Lord’s name in vain, but I could hold my own with most sailors).  Me being real and true.  I have to reclaim this space, it is after all, my blog!

Reality always hits when I want to sleep.  I am so tired of not sleeping.  I want to curl up with my babies and sleep.  I want to hear their little noises and be so hot I don’t need a blanket because they are cuddled up next to me, but I am here because laying in bed makes horrid things go through my head.  It’s not as bad as with PPD, where I would literally be scared to close my eyes for fear of the thoughts, but it’s not cool, at all.  So I am here tonight, typing my heart out.

I haven’t been posting to the blog for a while, not regularly anyway, because I don’t like being fake.  I don’t want to put on a happy face when I am falling apart inside my head.  My kids are wonderful, yes, Paul is hard to deal with like most 3 and a half year olds, and Dolores likes mommy to not sleep much, but they aren’t the troubles.  Mostly my children are wonderful.  They are little rays of sunshine.  I will never be told ‘your children behaved so well’, but people will love them because they are real and goofy, they just won’t want us to come over, which is fine, we’ll go home and I won’t have to hover!

When you are so deep into a hole it is so hard to see outside of it and see the good around you.  All you see is the misery.   Another reason for not posting is that I am afraid of offending someone, since I do have a very random (and totally polar opposite readers, AP, liberal, very conservative), I am all of these things in different parts of my life. 

I have tried so long to find a place I fit and I really don’t fit anywhere totally.  I’m AP and gentle parenting (in theory, in reality, I need major work on these things), but also Traditional Catholic.  Finding those two together is nearly impossible, I can’t make both groups happy, so I just keep quiet.  Politically I’m secretly a Libertarian, but morally I support the Constitution party, which are pretty much the same, except the Constitution party brings in Christian morals.  This would upset the liberal people.  I believe in homeschooling, more specifically, unschooling, and really dislike institutional learning.  I don’t like much of what modern society has to say about marriage, raising kids, education or life in general.  So, I think I’m just going to put some disclaimer on my side bar or something, and I guess this is also a warning, sorry if I offend you, it’s not intentional, but this is my blog.  If you think it’s against the Church, please call me on it, but otherwise, we will just have to have different opinions, and really, would life be interesting if we all had the same opinion about everything?

Me and myself haven’t ever really gotten along, or maybe we have, but they don’t really like each other.  Or, to be direct and blunt, I don’t really like myself, at all, much, if ever.  That has to change for anything really big to change.  I really don’t know where to begin with that.  We have no money so counselors or meds can’t be had, trust me, if I had the money I’d so be running for some Zoloft, well right now, actually probably like two months ago, but it’s just not there, it’s a reality that I can’t change.  So I have to find some way to deal with it just the way it is.  This has been my struggle the last several months, but never had I come out and said it, nor truly admitted it to myself, or anyone else. 

So, I am going to try to post more, and if it’s a whiny, miserable post, I’m going to make myself also find something good (like today’s earlier post about the kids).    

I think I may have gotten rid of enough negative emotions that I might be able to sleep without too much trouble, we shall see.

Ending, I’ll just ask for prayers, from those who pray, I could really use them.  Depression is not fun.  Not liking your self and feeling like a total failure at the most important job you have (being a mother) is not okay.  Yes, I realize the first leads to the second, but they are, at this point, separate at least in places.  Thank you, and I hope I haven’t scared too many away.

Was suppose to be my ‘reality’ post

So I was going to post a ‘reality’ post, you know all the stuff that people don’t talk about when trying to paint the rosy picture that happens usually with a blog.  But my reality right this moment is too cute to not share, and totally wipes out the negative of the day!

Paul has this little nerf type football that would be used to play finger football, it’s flat, but football shaped.  He is currently playing football with Dolores.  I tried to get a picture and a video but the camera is not working and my cell phone is full.  So instead of being super frustrated I’m posting here so I’ll remember later about this fun moment.

It is super cute!  Paul is throwing this ball/disc and she is chasing after it (crawling) while giggling up a storm.  She gets distracted and Paul picks her up and puts her back on the sheet (he has a sheet laid out that is their playing field I guess, or just the place he wants to play this game), throws the football, they both giggle like mad and then she crawls after it and he gets there first, she gets distracted, he gets her, repeat.  The laughter is incredible!   They are both having a blast!