Can I really do it all?

A lot of days, I feel like I am just barely staying afloat. Some days, things just fall into place.

Take Monday. I had a full day of work, picked up the kids, and went home. Matt was working an evening shift, so we were on our own, but I still managed to make dinner, even without my trusty crockpot, complete with protein, veggies and starch. But that's not all. We made cookies and cut them out, even with Thomas "helping." We did the dishes, with Thomas emptying the dishwasher and handing me utensils and dishes one at a time. The flour-covered children were bathed and bedded by 8:30 p.m. It was a holiday miracle.

I love the days when you can actually do it all.


 

National Premature Awareness Day

Did you know that one in eight babies is born too soon? Today is National Premature Awareness Day, and I just wanted to publicly thank all of the nicu nurses who cared for my baby late at night when she couldn't be home with me for her first 18 days of life. The nicu nurses who cared for Anne Marie are incredibly competent health care providers, but they are much more. They sit with crying parents, and compassionately deal with women who are emotional from the roller coaster of pregnancy combined with uncertainty about their children. They take 1 a.m. calls from mothers who are up pumping, wishing they could be up feeding their baby instead — I never called, but they always offered, and it made a difference just knowing that I could.

They always made sure that all the little girls, even the tiniest ones, had bows in their hair and that all babies had specially decorated nameplates on their isolettes. I don't know if they understand how much that touched me and relieved my anxiety. I felt like it was a sign that they cared for her, not just as a patient, but as a little girl. In my mind, I thought, "If a nurse is going to take the time to comb my baby's hair and put bows in it, she sees her as a person, and really cares."

I credit the nicu nurses for bringing my little girl from here:

From Anne Marie hospital

To here:

From Anne Marie hospital

To here:

From Redfish 2007

It's because of them that I have this cute little girl today:

From Teton Park and fair

So, nicu nurses, know that we are forever grateful, and that you and those you care for are always in my prayers. 

Mean Girls

I came across this blog posting this morning. Not only was it wonderfully written, but it had a great point about how to create a kinder world.

For anyone who doesn't read it, the blogger talked about how as parents, when we let our kids to say no to playdates or birthday parties, simply because they would rather not play with a particular child, it can sometimes send a bad message. It talks about how it is our job to teach our children kindness towards others, and by helping them to socialize with other types of children, we are teaching them to live well in the world. She mentioned her daughter, who was shunned by her once-friends at school in a pretty classic girl-bullying situation. In the comments, there were many stories from adults who remembered inviting the entire class to a birthday party and had no one show up. To me, it's heartbreaking.

We want to give our children choices and freedom, and for the most part, that's a good thing. I give Anne Marie clothing choices. I let her pick the vegetable we have for dinner each night. She can choose who she wants to invite to her birthday party, but she can't choose not to be compassionate. To quote one my favorite parts of the blog:

... don't make it seem like rejecting another child's friendly overtures is some sort of noble or enlightened choice. It's not. It's mean and selfish. Unless there are safety issues, it's a way to send a message to your child that you don't have to care about anyone unless it's an easy thing for you to do.

My kids don't have to like everyone, but I hope they always know to be compassionate and respectful to everyone.
Children can be cruel to each other, and many times, it can be for no reason other than the wrong hair color or a strange shirt. Even at 3, Anne Marie was completely devastated when another little girl at daycare told her, "I'm not your friend anymore." She talked about it for days. According to her teacher, she was heartbroken, and sobbed when it happened.

Luckily, at 3, these things blow over — the girl said she was sorry and gave Anne Marie a hug, and things were better, at least a little bit. And I've heard Anne Marie turn a girl down who asked, "Will you be my best friend today?" The girl, unfazed, said, "Well, then will you be my best friend when we go outside?" Anne Marie said, "Sure."

But as my children grow, I know there will be other times, and probably some times when they are the ones who choose to be unkind. We all have moments like that, and most of us regret them.

There are plenty of things I want to teach my children, but the most important is empathy. It's not necessarily innate for a child to think of how another child feels before acting. It's something we have to teach them. And if everyone took a moment to consider others before opening their mouths, I think our whole society might be a bit kinder.

Gift Guide, Week 1

Mama M at "Five Crooked Halos" had a nice idea for a gift guide — a blog hop where people share gift ideas. Week one is children's books. Here are two of our current favorites:
First, Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor


This series of books is perfect for Anne Marie, who definitely fancies herself as "fancy." They are all about a little girl who does everything a bit more fancy than the rest of the world, including using fancy words, dressing fancy and more. Adorable!


And, for my heart strings, I love "On the Night You Were Born," by Nancy Tillman.



The illustrations in this one are beautiful, and the message is beautiful as well. "On the night you were born, the moon smiled with such wonder that the stars peeked in to see you and the night wind whispered, 'Life will never be the same.' Because there had never been anyone like you ... ever in the world."

So sweet.

Confessions of Motherhood

Working Mommy Wednesday is all about the true confessions of motherhood.




So, here goes, starting with the easy:

* I really miss cooking. We have dinner at home most nights, and I have solved the problem of trying to cook while being at home alone in the evenings with tired and angry children by using my crockpot every Monday and Wednesday without fail. But, with my full-time work schedule, I don't really ever get to COOK anything that takes effort. It's sad planning my meals for the week and skipping over anything that takes more than 20 minutes to prep. Anything that takes more than 20 minutes to cook has to be something that comes together easily and goes in the oven so I can forget about it until it's done. I actually like to chop vegetables. Cooking was once my stress release.

* I want to spend more time with my kids, of course. I am really happy that my husband and I have been able to make it work so that my kids are home many more days than at daycare, but I still get jealous on the days when I'm at work and he's at home. I wonder if he gets jealous when I'm at home on the weekends and he is at work.

* This is the biggest confession. People think that working moms get their adult time when they are at work. Yes, my co-workers are adults, but going to work is certainly not the same break as a movie with a friend or a bubble bath alone with a cup of tea. And what's more difficult is that working mothers (at least me) feel horribly guilty doing those sorts of things because we are already missing so much. I don't want to leave my kids for an hour in the evening because I've already left them the whole day. So those occasions are pretty rare, but sometimes I daydream about them.

* Most importantly, and all whining aside, it's all totally worth it.

A Happy Halloween Week

From Halloween 2010

So, Halloween was on a Sunday this year, which creates an interesting issue in Southeast Idaho -- trick-or-treat on Saturday or Sunday? We opted for going out on the actual holiday, since we were only going for a block or so anyway, and it turned out perfectly. We had trick-or-treaters on Saturday, so the kids got to hand out candy, and we went to a few awesomely decorated houses on Sunday. It was a nice, low-key ending to a LONG week of spooktacular fun.

We did it all (almost). We started the week before with Pocatello's Boo at the Zoo. It was fun to get out, and really nice to see the zoo full. Then, on Wednesday, we went to preschool pumpkin carving night at the library. Thursday was trick-or-treat at the Idaho Falls Zoo, which was my personal favorite. The zoo was lit up, the weather was nice, and the kids had a good time. Friday was trick-or-treat day at school (daycare) and Sunday was a party at Unca's house and trick-or-treating.

It was all fun, but I'm totally done.

Anne Marie was very happy to show off her costume — a purple butterfly.

From Halloween 2010

From Halloween 2010

Thomas the duck doesn't sit still for any kind of posing. I swear I have half as many photos of him as Anne Marie. Most look like this:

From Halloween 2010

Sometimes I can catch him on the other side:

From Halloween 2010

Sometimes I get Anne Marie to catch him for me.

From Halloween 2010

Yellowstone

Some photos from the 2nd annual Frandsen family October Yellowstone trip.

From Yellowstone 2010

From Yellowstone 2010

From Yellowstone 2010

From Yellowstone 2010

Spooky face in the mudpot

From Yellowstone 2010

From Yellowstone 2010

From Yellowstone 2010

From Yellowstone 2010

From Yellowstone 2010

From Yellowstone 2010

From Yellowstone 2010

Loving the Warm Fall

We had no summer here, basically. It was cold and rainy and icky for a lot of the time. Now, we are having a super-warm summer. So we've finally been able to do this:

From Darby Canyon September 2010

You can't predict our weather. This was Yellowstone, first week in October last year:

From yellowstone

And, this year (note the t-shirts):

From Yellowstone 2010

When I'm overwhelmed at work

Julia at Working Mommy Wednesday asked two questions: What do you do when work overwhelms you, and little things I love.
I'm happy to say that I have a job that doesn't overwhelm me too often. I went from a job with constant, tight, hard deadlines to one with deadlines with much more warning. It was one of the best work-life choices I could have made.

But, when I haven't had enough sleep, things feel awfully overwhelming. So, I close my office door, lay down on the floor and stretch my arms as far as I can. Then I lay there for 5 minutes. Ahhh....

Here are two of the little things I love:

The boy who runs everywhere:

From Darby Canyon September 2010

And the girl who takes her princess purse hiking.

From Yellowstone 2010

It takes a village

I had an epiphany recently as I was dropping my kids off at daycare.

First, I dropped off Anne Marie. We walked in the door, I helped her out of her coat, and she ran over to the area with the play kitchen. I waved goodbye, she waved goodbye and smiled.

Then Thomas and I went down to his room. As I was putting him down, his little legs were going a mile a minute. As soon as he hit the floor, he was off. He smiled, ran around the table three or four times like he always does, then chose a chair to sit in next to his friends, who were waiting for the teacher to serve breakfast. I waved and said goodbye, but I'm not sure he even noticed. Another little boy was being dropped off as well, and his dad struggled as he set him down and the little guy put his head on the floor and cried.

I feel incredibly lucky to have kids who feel comfortable in different places, but I feel even more lucky that my children have many different people who they trust and love.

It really does take a village to raise a child. No one replaces a mother and a father, but my kids are lucky enough to learn from their grandparents, their caregivers, their uncles and aunts and a myriad of other people who have already influenced their lives. We are really blessed.

Cheese Ravioli with Three Pepper Topping

I found this recipe on www.allrecipes.com, and I thought I would share. On the pepper front, mine isn't usually three peppers. I usually just use whatever peppers I have. It's less pretty, but it's cheaper.


1 pound frozen or refrigerated cheese ravioli
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 small onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 red bell pepper, thinly sliced
1/2 yellow bell pepper, thinly sliced
2 cups chicken broth, divided
1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes

Cook cheese ravioli according to package instructions. Set aside.

Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium heat. Saute onion and bell peppers until tender. Add one cup of the broth, season with pepper flakes, and simmer 5 minutes. Stir in remaining broth, and cook until most of broth has evaporated. Spoon pepper mixture over ravioli.

Things I Have Hit With the Van This Month

Hopefully, this won't become an ongoing series:

From Teton Park and fair

No, I didn't hit Thomas. I hit that wonderful backpack he is sitting in — ran it right over. I thought that backpack would make it through two, possibly three children.

RIP Kelty backpack, July 2009- September 2010 - Here is a photo from when the backpack first came to our family.

From Anne Marie 5 months

I did find another one on Craigslist, not quite as nice as mine was pre-hitting, but still pretty good.

Another casualty:

From baseball and kitties

No, I didn't hit Anne Marie. I ran over my glasses. Matt found them in the driveway. It's just another reason I should wear glasses when I drive.

RIP: Emily's first pair of glasses - August 2010-September 2010

Bravery

Anyone who knows my daughter knows that she really isn't the "Jump off of a cliff" type. She has a long list of fears, and it always makes me worried that she will miss life because she is afraid.

But this summer, she's been tough about a lot of stuff. Here's some of the recent fears checked off the list:

1. Amusement park rides: She used to only go on the horses "that don't go up and down," and did not want to go near any others. I don't have a good picture of the carousel she totally rode by herself at the fair, but I did get her in the boat.

From Teton Park and fair

2. Caving: I don't think this was an active fear of hers, but she was awfully timid going into the Indian Tunnel cave, but she said she would try it. Here she is going in. Sorry about the devil eyes.

From craters 2010

Here she is coming out. After she climbed those rocks out of the cave, she was on cloud nine, saying, "No 3-year old has ever done that! I'm so big!" and chattering the whole way back to the trail.

From craters 2010

Last, but not least, the cliff. Anne Marie climbed this:

From Teton Park and fair

It was impressive to me. We hiked about a mile to the overlook, much of it straight up. She had some trouble on the way down, but was a total champion on the way up.

From Teton Park and fair

Here she is on top with Grandma:

From Teton Park and fair

Thomas made it too.

From Teton Park and fair

And afterwards, she got the sweet satisfaction that comes from putting your feet in the water after a good hike.

From Teton Park and fair

Raw(e) unbridled laughter

The theme at Sailor and Company's photo challenge is smiles and joy. Does it get any more joyful than ALL THE ICE CREAM YOU CAN EAT?

From August fun

Working Before Kids

I know it’s only been three years, but even within six or seven months of being a mother, the “before kids” part of my life seemed like a hazy memory. Perhaps it’s the lack of sleep.
Julia at Working Mommy Wednesday asked how working life was different before kids. I can say it was totally, completely different.
Up until a year ago, I worked in the newspaper industry. I started out as a reporter, working whatever hours I needed, but always plenty of them. For three Christmases in a row, I worked until the evening Christmas eve, and was back at work by Christmas afternoon. Like my fellow reporters, I went out late every weekend, and sometimes a few weeknights as well.
When I became a features editor, my hours were more stable, but even longer. I thought nothing of the fact that I worked a 13-hour day every Wednesday to make sure that my arts magazine left the building OK, and even on the other days rarely only worked 8 hours. It was fun. I loved it.
Then came two weeks of bedrest (worked through it, from home), and the early birth of my daughter. I knew I wanted 12 weeks maternity leave AFTER she came home from the nicu, so I started working from home two days after I got home from the hospital, still recovering from the c-section and visiting Anne Marie several times a day.
When those 12 weeks were up, I knew I couldn’t (and didn’t want to) go back to what I was doing. I told my boss that I wanted to work 30 hours a week, mostly from home. He agreed to it, and I settled into a schedule of playing with Anne Marie during parts of the day, then working feverishly in the late evenings, naptimes and any down-time I could find to get it done.
Now I work a standard, 8-5 work week. Working late is out of the question. I get off work at 5, and the kids’ daycare closes at 5:30. Even if I could work later, though, I wouldn’t. Having kids has made me much more adament about my work-life balance. I work hard at work, but when I’m done, I’m done. I don’t think about it, I don’t worry about it. At 5 p.m., work shuts off, and fun with the kids begins.
I wouldn’t really have it any other way.

My ode to McDonalds

For a long time, my husband and I went out to brunch after church on Sunday. It was a nice tradition, and we had friends we often went with.

Now, things are a bit crazier. Matt and I don't go to church together because he is working every Sunday so he can have a weekday off and save on childcare. So now, it's just me, Anne Marie and Thomas. Call me a pushover parent, but I can't think of any better way to make my children behave in church except bribery. If the kids are good, they get a "church treat."

I'm not about to take a 3-year old and a 1-year old to Sunday brunch by myself, so for awhile I was letting them pick their treat. One day, Anne Marie said she wanted, "McDonalds inside, not drive-through."

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not too proud to admit we have a new tradition, and it's one that involves going to a place often maligned for killing our kids with their french fries.

For the past few Sundays, we've been heading to the Golden Arches for a hamburger and some playtime after church. Sometimes I let Anne Marie get the Happy Meal, sometimes just the burger, depending on if I think the toy is something she would really like. We skipped out on the Last Airbender figurines, but went for the Madame Alexander dolls, for example. At least in that particular McDonald's, I'm completely impressed by how they cater to families.

Anne Marie normally doesn't care about playlands. She is scared to do just about anything in them. But this playland has a toddler-specific area, with small things to climb on, low-to-the-ground entrances and a little house where she can play pretend. On the regular playland, the entrance is wide enough and the floor sturdy enough that I can go in and grab Thomas when he does something particularly daring for an 18-month old. The play area has a big family bathroom, and the music playing overhead is different than in the main part of the restaurant— it's kid-friendly music without being annoying.

I'm not a McDonald's spokesman- I haven't even told them how much I appreciate that play area. And I know why they offer family-friendly stuff. Kids, even (or perhaps especially) 3-year olds, have tremendous buying power. That play land makes them money.

While they are making money, however, they are giving my kids a fun environment for an hour on a Sunday afternoon, something that will be especially nice when the snow flies and we won't be able to picnic anymore.

I think that fast-food restaurants, McDonald's included, share a bit too much of the responsibility for the obesity epidemic in children. Yes, we've been eating at McDonald's for a Sunday treat, but is it really any worse than the pancakes, etc. we were consuming at sit-down restaurants? We don't eat at McDonald's every day, and I try to make healthy meals most of the time. My kids eat lots of fresh fruits and vegetables. Thomas and Anne Marie both love broccoli and green peppers, along with just about every fruit imaginable. They eat candy on occasion, and they are not strangers to fast food, but we try for a healthy diet.

As a mom, I feel like it's my responsibility to make sure they aren't eating fast food (or boxed mac and cheese or chicken nuggets) every day, and that those types of foods are flanked by fruits, vegetables and other healthy choices. It's me, not McDonald's, deciding whether the kids get fries or apple slices in their Happy Meals, and whether they drink milk or apple juice. I appreciate that, while not completely healthy, restaurants are responding to families' needs and giving those options. Incidentally, I usually let Anne Marie pick- sometimes she goes fries, and sometimes she goes with apple slices.

So we'll keep going - not every time we drive by and Anne Marie immediately says, "I'm hungryyyy," but on occasion for a special treat.

How I would spend a day

Julia at Working Mommy Wednesday asked how I would spend a day to myself. All I need is one word - sleep.

Of course, after sleeping as much as I want, definitely all through the night, and possible until 9 a.m. or so, I might go for a hike, take a nice hot bath and read something. But most importantly, I would sleep.

My day really isn't complete without Matt and the kids, so I would definitely want them to join me, AFTER I SLEEP. :)

I cried

The other day, watching my kids play in the park, I had tears in my eyes.

Was it because I was sad to see how grown up they are getting? No.
Was it because of how sweetly they play together? No
Was it because one of them fell and broke their neck? No.

It was because Anne Marie went down the slide.

This picture, taken more than a year ago, was the last time I saw her go down the slide. See the look of fear in her eyes? Last week, she went, not once, but several times, and not just on the little slide, but the big, twisty tube slide as well. I was in tears.

From Zoo and Thomas 7 weeks

It seems ridiculous that I would be in tears. Kids go down slides all the time. But not my daughter — slides are one of her very long list of fears. Her fears include the skull toy at Costco, the dinosaur toy at the library, any stuffed animal that talks, swings, dust bunnies, walking into a pool by herself (even down the stairs), playlands in fast-food restaurants, jumpy castles, those Shrek watches that were recently in McDonald's happy meals and more.

My biggest fear is that she will be so afraid of things that she won't get to experience life. I know she's 3, and I'm probably being silly, but I think about it a lot. So, when one day out of the blue, I saw one fear crossed off her list, I was beyond ecstatic. I was also relieved. So I cried.

A few days later, she tried the small, little kids' waterslide at the pool, again without any prodding on my part. I asked her if she wanted to do it again, and she said, "no," but when I asked her if it was fun, she said, "yes."

I couldn't be more proud. :)