Wordless{ish} Wednesday - Off to School

Two kids off to school = one happy momma.

So what am I doing on my first morning with (gasp) peace and quiet?

- enjoying a leisurely second cup of coffee

- catching up on blog reading

- generally enjoying the quiet and trying not to think about how my two year old is handling her first day at school.

Linking up with The Paper Mama, Sincerely Paula, Three in Three, and Live and Love Out Loud

Desk job for a day

I don't really want a desk job. In fact I don't think I've ever had a desk job, unless you count one week of taking phone surveys during an election year. I've worked as a TA (teachers assistant), videographer, Challenge Course leader, teacher, choir director, accompanist, worship leader and youth leader. Now I find myself with a challenging and demanding full-time position; momma to my two darling pre-schoolers.

Most days I really love being a mom, my kids are full of energy, healthy and growing fast, love cuddles, snuggles and playing with me. They also love each other and I can't keep them apart (try as I might to distract them with different toys). Unfortunately they don't always have the maturity to play together and there are lots of tears at times.

The kids have been home with me all month, as Lucas had a month of holidays from preschool. It has been a challenging month! We've had a different routine and some days have been great! And others have me craving a desk job. Wishing for some peace and quiet. A couple of hours to sit down after frantically running around, trying to get things done and keep the kids from killing themselves. And I began to wonder why that was. I know plenty of moms who stay home with their 2, 3 or more kids and seem to have it all together.

How I imagine a desk job. Clean, white, quiet....

I'm not sure what got me thinking about personality types, but after a particularly stressful day, full of discipline struggles, kids demanding attention and a few too many potty accidents, I facebooked, "some days it's hard to be a full time stay at home mom when you're an introvert..."

Then a blogging friend wrote about her own introverted-ness, and I found myself identifying with so much of what she wrote. Somehow I had never really thought about how being an introverted person would impact my parenting. I find it tiring to be around people all the time, definitely prefer small gatherings to big parties and absolutely need alone time to recharge. So I guess it is perfectly natural to feel tired out after spending the whole day around little people who require a lot of attention.

This photo has been going around, and it's a shame my kids can't understand it.

I was chatting with my hubby about my personality/introversion thoughts and he commented that instead of following these ideas, our kids have the tendency to do the exact opposite...

Examples
1. Respect their need for privacy: Can't remember the last time I went to the bathroom without one or two shadows following me.
2.  Never embarrass them in public: Um, only EVERY time we all go shopping together. Ok, maybe that's a tad exaggerated, but here's a doozy from this week: stopped by the Subway at the mall to pick up lunch and while I was paying, both kids made a beeline for the nearby elevator. While Lucas pushed the buttons, Elena just about stepped inside and I had to drop my wallet, phone, bag, everything and sprint across the food court to drag my two escapees back to the Subway stand. Just a little embarrassing...
4. Give them time to think. Don't demand instant answers: I have a very talkative little boy who asks a lot of questions. We'll just leave it at that, shall we?
5. Don't interrupt them: I have stopped counting the number of adult conversations that have been cut short and interrupted by a question or comment from my talkative toddler.

I'm sure I could think of examples for all of the rules above, but nap time is only so long, and pretty soon my two bundles of energy will need some love and attention.

Any other introvert mommas out there? How do you find time to recharge?

Linking up with Monday Mom Musings

A pretty perfect day

It started off as a perfect day would, enjoying a hot shower in our newly fixed bathroom while my little cherubs slept peacefully in their beds. The sun only just starting to stream through the living room windows as the coffee maker brewed its sweet nectar and the washing machine whirred with the first load of the day.

Soon a sleepy little boy made his appearance in the hallway requesting snuggles and cereal. Since we are in holiday mood an extra backyardigans episode was allowed as we waited for our little sunshine to wake up. After a leisurely breakfast we headed off to the weekly feira* to stock up on fruits and veggies with the promise of a hot pastel* if the kids behaved themselves.

Despite several attempts at escaping the stroller, we managed to fill the bags with fresh tomatoes, carrots, bananas, grapes and more, and savored a hot cheese pastel with strawberry juice.

Enjoying our treat at the feira. 

Then we headed to the mall to take Elena's photos for her school registration. Lucas and Elena enjoyed some time at the play place and I got to pick up lunch from Subway, one of our favorites.

This is the best. idea. ever! So helpful to have a place to put one child while the other is busy. 

The kids were cooperating most of the time, but there was still quite a lot of wrangling to keep Elena close by. The thing about having a pretty perfect day is that somehow the imperfections don't seem to be such a big deal.

After all it's perfectly reasonable to expect two toddlers to take off running for the elevator (and nearly lose one inside it) and for a little girl in the beginning stages of potty training to mess up three pairs of pants in one afternoon, and for said girl to try to eat several small rubber wheels....

So it definitely wasn't a "perfect" day, but it was close enough and I will enjoy being able to tackle all the small problems easily because when it's a bad day, those small problems can seem mountainous.

After a successful dinner (mostly), and a calming(?) bath, both kids seem to be asleep. Now for some down time, oh...and off to clean those dirty pants!

* feira = farmers market
   pastel = a deep fried pastry with a (usually) savory filling. It's very good when eaten hot and is a traditional feira food.

On the move

Since we've been in our new house for two weeks already, this post about moving is way overdue. But here we go anyways...

On May 5th we received a notice from our landlord that he wanted the apartment back. We had signed a 30 month contract and after a year we were finally getting settled. As in there might have still been a box that needed to be unpacked...

After about ten minutes of shocked silence I began to imagine the next few months; looking for a new apartment or house, rearranging and redecorating, packing and moving and unpacking. And I realized that with this forced move, most of it I would love doing! After all, the possibility was there that we would be able to find something better and more suited to our growing family. With two toddlers running around, the apartment was starting to feel very small.

So armed with my trusty iPhone camera, one day after we dropped Lucas off at school, Elena and I went driving around our neighborhood looking for For Rent signs. We were hoping to find something in the same neighborhood so that Lucas could continue going to his preschool. With only one car it would be optimal if it was within walking distance.
Here are a few of the houses we saw that day.



We decided to look for a house because we would probably be able to find more space for the same price as a much smaller apartment. So armed with a page full of numbers, David began to call realtors and set up viewings. Some were out before we even saw them because of the price or because the owner wanted a commercial renter rather than a residential renter. I had such fun seeing all the different houses, but after David and I saw the one, we both had the same reaction - it was perfect.

Then began the usual rigmarole of documents and paperwork and seemingly miles of red tape. At one point it seemed the odds were against us and we had to sit back and just trust that God had the right place out there for us and if this wasn't it, we would have to wait on his timing and guiding.

With that little reminder to keep our focus and faith in God, it all came together. The documents were sorted out, contracts signed, keys received, movers hired.

In our seven years of marriage, David and I have now moved six times, and this was the biggest move, with the shortest distance! In the past year of living in Mogi we had fully furnished our little apartment so we had to move everything. We even took the kitchen cabinets! (see why here)

For those of you who haven't seen the house, it is one of the six pictured above. Take a guess which one we rented and I'll be back in a few days with photos of our new house. (in the empty "before" state, as it's not ready for "after" photos yet!)
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Monkey See, Monkey Do

I've been wanting to make this video for a long time - it's so interesting to me to watch my kids imitating and learning from each other. Because they are so close in age it's not just the younger one copying the older one.

Check it out!

Snapshots of Life

Since I got my new phone I've been taking a lot more photos of the kids. Here is a small glimpse into our daily life and routines...

Ready to go pick up Lucas from school, and can't leave without her purse.

Waiting outside for Lucas at his school.

On the way home, Elena takes Lucas' backpack. Getting ready for school herself?

A very common occurrence at our place, Lucas and his cars, all lined up, just so...

My very eager "helper". We had just come in from playing outside, which is why he still has on a hat and jacket. It's starting to get cooler here in the southern hemisphere.

Getting ready for bed. Lucas has transplanted all his pillows, blankets and bed toys from his bed onto the sofa saying, "I'm sleeping over at Dog's House" (from a Word World episode)

Happy kids!

Sharing a snack on the sofa.

They are growing up way too fast.

(and some days not fast enough!)

How to get your kids to eat spinach

I'm sure I'm not the first parent to admit to not liking spinach. In fact, I'm not really a green veggie kinda girl at all. Unfortunately, it's so healthy it needs to be eaten. Given our recent spell of bad health, I'm determined to get more of those "tastes bad but it's good for you" veggies into myself and my kiddos.

With Elena finally getting her appetite back I decided to try a new recipe - ok, it's not really a recipe but something I just threw together. I'm finding it's more fun to do it this way than to have to follow a recipe. (Also easier with two kiddos running around while I'm trying to cook) Of course, it doesn't always work out but thankfully I have a hubby who is willing to eat just about anything I put on the table. 

So, back to lunch - I had some spaghetti noodles left over from the homemade chicken noodle soup I had made the day before and I scrounged through our fridge and pantry and came up with these ingredients:

- cubed bacon

- cream

- parmesan cheese

- frozen spinach

- minced garlic

I fried up the bacon in a big saucepan.  After removing the bacon, I sauteed the garlic and spinach (which I defrosted in the microwave for 30 seconds or so) in the remaining bacon grease. I turned the heat down and slowly added the cream and parmesan cheese. Seasoned with a little salt and pepper - then returned the bacon to the mix and added the spaghetti noodles into the pan. Warmed it all up a bit - served with more parmesan cheese on top and we had one satisfied customer :)