The Trivial Pursuit of Happiness

I overthink everything.

Gardening is proving to be the opposite of relaxing and blood pressure reducing, and we haven’t even gotten anything in the ground yet. Remind me that it’s okay if this year is a big fail because I don’t understand crop rotation and succession planting yet, okay? It does’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be perfect. I need to stop trying to plan and just do it already, especially since we have 5 cubic yards of dirt sitting in my neighbor’s driveway.

September 2009

May 2010

Thoughts on our school experience later, after I find a way to make them stop growing up.

The swing.

Since we’ve spent every nice day (and most crummy ones) outside turning our backyard into a chicken roaming garden plot, I splurged and bought a patio swing off craigslist for my birthday. I wouldn’t say it was the best $40 I’ve ever spent, but in the few weeks we’ve had it, I think it has proven it’s worth. There is not a lot of yard work I can do with Becky in arms yet (once she has better head control we’ll do a back carry and I’ll be able to lift things/lean over) so if we want to be a part of the action for now, it’s from the sidelines.

So while Tom is doing this,

and the girls are doing this,

Becky and I are sitting under the lilac tree, snuggling and enjoying the view.

And I am soaking in every minute of it, for I am her Kanga, and she is my Roo, lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo.

Chickens!

I wrote a few months ago about our plans for chickens, and despite the fact that up until last month we had done very little research or legwork on preparing a coop, during our last DITL day we bit the bullet and bought six tiny chicks.

Our original plan was to buy three Road Island Red’s, but instead we came home with two Araucanas, two Red Stars, and two Road Island Reds. The sales woman at Big R walked me through the breeds, set us up with the correct feed, talked to the girls about the importance of taking care of their new chickens, and encouraged me to come back and ask any questions. I was really pleasantly surprised with how enthusiastic and knowledgeable the staff was, and they have earned our future chicken business.

We kept the chicks in a 25 gallon aquarium for the first week or so, with two heat lamps above and newspaper and screen below.

Within a few days Tom realized that would outgrow the tank soon, and dug out some scrap plywood to make a large wooden brooder. It’s big enough for the girls to climb into for fun, and we think we’ll be able to repurpose it in the permanent coop.

It’s just a wooden box, without a solid top or bottom. The bottom has wire mesh and a removable nonslip mat for easy cleaning, and the top is plastic netting, to keep kids/cats out, and chicks in. We kept this in the basement for another week before the smell started to creep upstairs, despite daily cleanings. The weather had also improved by then, so we moved the brooder out to the garage, and have been monitoring the temperature to make sure they are not getting too cold at night.

The chicks are now a month old, and they are not so cute and fuzzy anymore. In fact, they are kind of awkward and goofy looking.

(Red, Araucanas, and Star)

We’re planning on starting the coop next weekend, though we built three raised garden beds today, and planting should probably take priority since we’re already late in getting things in the dirt. Thankfully the brooder is large enough that we are not rushing to build anything.

The girls love the chickens, and help Tom clean their cage every night after dinner (they get to help catch the chickens, and spray down the mat once Tom pulls it out). We haven’t named them yet, though I’m leaning towards calling this one Lucy.

You just know she’s going to be trouble.

Edited to add:
Now that the chickens are feathered and can maintain their own body heat, we’re putting them out each day in the brooder, which we’ve turned into a simple chicken-tractor by adding a few wheels, a door and a clip-on run. Since the tractor isn’t critter-proof we’re still wheeling them into the garage each night, but until we can get started on our permanent coop, this works.

It’s also a handy place to put naughty children.

Cleaning.

Okay, not really.  I can’t lie to the internets and say I like cleaning, because my friends are laughing their heads off right now. They’ve been to my house and know I kind of hate cleaning, and avoid it most of the time. Problem #1 is that I love living in a clean house, but am not wealthy enough to have someone follow me around and clean up after me, so my house is usually pretty messy. Not gross (I hope), but decidedly not tidy. I joke that I am a “stay-at-home mom”, not a “homemaker”, because my kids are my focus, not my home. Problem #2 is that I live with a man who is a tidy person, so it drives him a little crazy to come home from work and spend two hours cleaning (and he WILL, which is reason #973636 why I married that man). For his sake I’ve been making an effort to add “clean house” on my priority list (behind husband, kids, friends and coffee).

A good friend who IS a happy homemaker recently pointed me towards this post by Jessica at Balancing Everything, because she thought it may work for us. Instead of having an open ended list of 30 things I should be doing right this minute (but which I instead avoid because OMG the list is so long; run, run away!), the day is broken up into three parts, and each has its own short list. I didn’t include every tiny thing that needs to be done, and nothing that is life sustaining is on the list. Meals will be made, diapers will be changed, baby will be nursed 972525 times a day, regardless of whether they are on the schedule. The things on this schedule are all the things I space out because they just are not as important to me as reading another chapter, or pushing Alice on the swing. It is a nice mix of flexibility (nothing is assigned to 10am) and having a deadline (try to have the morning chores done before noon) that motivates me without discouraging me.

I’ve edited Jessica’s original form, deleting the the daily schedule portion because honestly I am never going to use it, and replacing it with our weekly chores. And since now it is a weekly planner, I changed the daily meal planning box to a bare bones menu box (because someday I am going to tackle meal planning, but probably not today this week this year).

I have this up on the fridge, in a plastic cover so I can use the dry erase marker to check off things once they are done and to fill in the blanks. Some days I have lots of little checkmarks, but other days I don’t. Maybe gold stars would be more motivating. Or scratch and sniff stickers.

Jessica was kind enough to include a PDF and editable .Doc file in her post, so I thought I would do the same, just in case you are as cleaning challenged as I am.

PDF

.Doc

Good luck, and when you win the lottery, hire me a cleaning lady.

I’m not joking when I say we stalk the mailman. I rarely get anything other than bills and fliers, but there is something about checking the mail that I love. My sister even bought me a Blue’s Clues mailbox when we were teens, and would put silly notes in it (one of which I have tacked up on my inspiration board right now). I really, really love the mail.

I love it even more when it brings me a new stash of diapers.

Compare with our old size small stash. I sold/gave away most of our diapers after Alice outgrew them, so we were really scraping the bottom of the barrel once we had to weed out the smallest newborn diapers.  Bonus that all the fitted diapers in this picture are one sized, so we should be set other than knitting some larger wool.

I love it the most though when it brings me things that were used with love by someone I love, and which will now help  nurture my babies.

Jenna also sold me this beautiful butterfly carrier when Alice was tiny, and included her Peekaru vest with this Mai Tai, so all the way from Ohio Jenna’s been carrying my babies for years.

I’m spending my day:

Filling out baby books

(which prompted me to finally document my own)

Marveling at tiny fingerprints

(made with this tutorial)

And wishing for it all just to slow down, slow down, slow down.

Happy Mother’s Day.

* “Wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving.” -Kahlil Gibran

Tom went back to work full time last week, and honestly, it wasn’t until this weekend when he was home again that I realized how tired I was.  My days are already a blur of diapers and snacks and trying to keep the house semi clean; by the end of the day I really don’t know how we got to bedtime. I fall into bed with Becky, nurse her all night long, and then wake up unsure how we got to morning.  I decided to do a DITL last week, and chose Monday, thinking it would be the most laid back day, since we’d be coming right off a weekend. I was wrong. It’s taken me a full week to get this posted, if that tells you anything.

The rest of the DITL’s are here. (Also, I just realized I did a DITL almost exactly two years ago as well. 4/28/08. Oh how life has changed…)

DITL 4/27/10

Don’t let her fool you into thinking she sleeps. She’ll lure you in with a few nights of 4 hour stretches of sleep, and then hit you with a night of waking up every 15 minutes. *yawn* The big girls are awake when I roll out of bed, and I catch Tom as he walks out the door for work.

I make the girls breakfast, and then start in on the dishes from yesterday. I’m trying to see beauty in the mundane. I’m trying to wake up without coffee. I’m trying to keep from “Shhhhh”ing the girls for singing loudly with their mouths full. I’m trying to ignore the fact that Becky is fussing in other room. I’m pouring coffee and looking for my phone to check the time. We have school today, but I need to call the girls’ pediatrician first, to see if he can see us today.

Good news: he can see us, but only at 11, which means Ella won’t be going to school today. I dig through a basket of their clean clothes to get them ready, and promise myself that I will fold these later. Until then, they will stay piled up on my bed.

Alice digs out her new Diego shirt, and insists on putting on Diego undies and sitting with her “Big Diego”. Childhood branding, successful. I can’t deny her Diego though – she drags that doll everywhere, she sleeps with him every night, and if she happens across something random with Diego on it (shampoo, shoes, backpack) she is SHOCKED to see Diego there. I only buy things we already needed, so she gets told “No” a lot more often than yes about these things, but Grandma is a different story.

I assess the state of the belly. One month out, and I’m trying to be okay with my little pooch. I am fully aware how ridiculous I am for being selfconscious about my belly when I JUST had a baby (and it’s the third in 4 years) but I can’t help it. It squishes like Jello when you poke it. Do.Not.Want. (Also, note Alice crying because she doesn’t have Diego pants. She got over it.)

My van is quickly filling up with kids. There’s barely room for a drum kit now.

Since Alice won’t keep hair things in and prefers Diego to princesses, people assume she’s a boy. Three people in the doctor’s waiting room heard “Alice” as “Alex” and told her she was a very nice little boy. She could care less, but Ella always corrects them.

Becky doesn’t care where we are, as long as she is able to sleep on my chest. I am happy to oblige.

The doctor’s appointment is a little traumatic for Ella, so I promise her lunch at the restaurant of her choice, and another special surprise, which involves Big R.

I see this accident happen on the way home. I was in tears, even though everyone seemed okay. It’s all a matter of luck, being 10 seconds behind schedule, and it never ceases to amaze/scare me.

The girls sleep right through it.

Ella chooses “Old McDonalds” for lunch, and we are all a bit concerned about the murals. (Yes, they gave Alice the car toy instead of the mermaid Barbie. I’m not complaining.)

When we get home, we get out Ella’s surprise… chickens!

She’s been asking for them for months, and I even let her pick out the pretty pink plastic chick feeders. She is thrilled. Sure, we still don’t anywhere for them to live, but now we’re motivated. A post detailing our plans soon.

A friend drops off dinner for tonight (the best part The second best part of having a baby is the dropoff meals. Love it) and then i put everyone down for a nap.

I spend the quiet time doing laundry, sweeping and cleaning up the playroom. Ugh.

Tom is home, so he takes the big girls outside to work on the Winchester mansion (aka the plaything we found on Craigslist, but which Tom keeps “modifying”).

Right now he’s adding a staircase, which is great for Alice, since she can’t climb up any of the toys. He’s also moved beams so we could fit more swings, replaced all the railings, added a playhouse underneath, and started painting it. We’ve had it 5 days.

Becky and I stay inside and catch up on some reading.

The rest of the night goes quickly.
Dinner

Bath

And bedtime. Tom does stories and songs with the big girls, and I handle fussy/pukey time with Becky. It requires multiple wardrobe changes.

Finally the big girls are asleep, so I can work on a crafty project while nursing Beckers.

I also finally fold that darn laundry.

Tom fixes a temporary home for the chickens in an aquarium downstairs, and makes plans for an indoor coop, until we get the big coop built.

Eventually Becky falls asleep, and I quickly follow.

Today I told the girls to “go get dressed, it’s cold and rainy outside” and they came back wearing this:

which is a pretty good visual for how things have been going lately. I try to prepare for rain, but instead I am given sunshine. I’m not complaining.

Today is Becky’s one month birthday, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how it was around the month mark after Alice’s birth that I stumbled into the hole of depression, and didn’t crawl out for good until after her first birthday. I keep making lists of how it is different this time – Tom was home for nearly three weeks instead of three days; Ella is old enough to be a huge help, and Alice has her older sister to play with when I am busy with the baby; I have a group of friends who won’t let me fall apart (and who will at least help me find all the pieces (even the ones that got pushed under the couch) if I do) – but that doesn’t mean I’m not scared that tomorrow these things won’t be enough. Today I’m doing okay. Maybe more than okay. I’m tired, but I’m still laughing every day, I’m still able to keep from turning into screamy mama (looking back on that blog post I see my PPD in shades of red, though I didn’t recognize it then. What wasn’t written, but that I remember, is what really scared me.), I’m still taking care of myself physically and spiritually. I’m trying to be optimistic that the other shoe isn’t going to drop tomorrow, but it won’t be until tomorrow (and tomorrow’s tomorrow) is over that I’ll believe it.

Until then though, I am going to keep soaking up this sunshine.