I’ve been paying more attention to the little quiet moments of the day.  Does this happen more and more as we go through life?  I hope so.  I’ve noticed that when the tv is off real life emerges.

And even though I CAN’T sleep without the fan whirring on my bedside table, when it’s turned off there is a feeling of peace in the air.

It makes me wonder what I’m afraid of…what am I trying to drown out?  I find a strange comfort in stupid tv shows and mindless chatter.  But setting that comfort aside lately has been oddly cathartic and has me longing for more quiet time.

And speaking of quiet time we have had a lot more of that going on here at Casa 007 these past couple weeks.  Addison is back at school and so far 4th grade is treating her well.

I think she is trying to find her footing and her teacher told me she thinks Addie is “sweet, kind and shy”.  SHY?  really?  Maybe she’ll come out of her shell as she becomes more comfortable with her classmates.  Her teacher also mentioned that Addison “has trouble focusing and staying on task”.  Now that one I know ALL about.

I really wish I could get into her head sometimes.  She’s a little hard for me to figure out.  Which is weird because I fancy myself an amateur psychoanalyst.  Even though I may need to visit one myself.

Alivia has been missing her playmate but it has been nice to be able to get some time spent without the competition…and the screaming.

I bought Alivia some Color Wonder paints and she has been creating some wonderful art without making a beautiful mess.  She told me that she is a “painter girl” and I honestly think she has a creative soul.  She sings songs on pitch, keeps dozens of books in her bed and plays the “pee-NO every chance she gets.

These two girls are such a joy to raise and though they might raise my blood pressure on a daily basis I feel really blessed to be their mom.

Alivia’s creative methods are a little odd but I bet somewhere along the way Van Gogh painted without his pants.

It’s no “Starry Night” but I think she has real talent.

Time passes too fast as it is so I know it’s foolish to wish it away.  My girls are growing up in warp speed and I am starting to feel the urge to have another baby.  AM I CRAZY?  It’s just that Alivia is more toddler than baby and Addison is going to be 9 in April and that is just blowing my mind.

Addison approx 6 months old

Alivia 6 months

I know this is how it works.  I realize that children grow up and we become grown ups we have our own children and then grandchildren and then before you know it we are old men and old women.  Ok  freaking myself out moooving on…

I don’t think Mr.007 is 100% on board with this whole “Ashley’s biological clock is ticking alarmingly loud” thing.  I can understand why…I mean he doesn’t have dreams about nursing babies NOR does he have ovaries that twitch at the very SIGHT of a tiny baby.   And that is probably a good thing because having a husband who dreams about breastfeeding and/or has twitching ovaries would just be ODD and UNCOMFORTABLE…and ODD.

Don’t get me wrong…I am not exactly ready to have another child this very minute.  I need to lose some weight, maybe fit in another DisneyWorld trip and more importantly get Alivia to use the toilet.  But even though I am not quite ready to try for a third child I have been thinking about it quite a bit.

Since we were so young when Addison was born I would like to be finished with the birthin’ more baybies portion of our lives fairly soon.  Not to mention (in my opinion) I am a REALLY cute pregnant lady! See Figures A and B below:

Figure A:

Figure B:

And since I have some fairly significant lady bidness issues that can make it take awhile to conceive I don’t know when to start trying.  The first to do would be to get my husband to say he is willing to risk having another hormonal wonderful girl.   It would probably  be good to talk to him about having another baby rather than to the whole wide internets.

Hmmm but I am sure he won’t mind.  Do y’all know any tricks to try for a boy  baby? Because I really need one!!

Not that I wouldn’t love another girl!  Because we sure do make some beautiful girls!  See Figures C and D below:

Figure C:

Figure D:

Even though another girl would be fine with me, it would be nice to have a little baby boy 007.  You know snakes and snails and puppy dawg tails and all that.  Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go take some Tylenol for this baby fever before it gets out of hand!

: one who manages a household especially as a wife and mother

“One who manages a household especially as a wife and mother”

It sounds so simple.  One little sentence that is a very accurate assessment of what a homemaker does.  We manage our households.

Sure it’s about menu planning and grocery shopping and the basic stuff like cooking, cleaning the house and taking care of the kids.  It is about getting my hands dirty and making sure everyone is fed, bathed and clothed.

But it is also about a feeling I am trying to create.  I think it’s a feeling I had as a child.

It’s a feeling of comfort and contentment and a coziness that is hard to describe.  It’s pancakes on Saturday morning and piling in mom and dad’s bed on Sunday morning.   It’s decorating for Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving and  all the holidays throughout the year.

It’s about reading the same book 11 times in a row, making blanket forts and drinking  sixty cups of delicious imaginary tea.

I really think about how I want my girls to remember their childhood home.  I am sure they will remember me telling them to clean up their rooms or to stop screaming RIGHT THIS MINUTE before I PULL THIS VAN OVER!  But mostly I hope they remember that their home was warm and fun and sometimes really LOUD but they always felt loved there.

Because if home is nothing else at all it’s a place where you should always feel loved.  And pancakes… there should definitely be pancakes.

This post is a part of a blog carnival hosted by my lovely friend Elizabeth.  The idea was to write about home.  You should click here and go read some of the other posts.

]]> http://www.mrs007.com/mommyville/mrs007-on-homemaking/feed/ 1 http://www.mrs007.com/family/shes-not-a-baby-anymore/ http://www.mrs007.com/family/shes-not-a-baby-anymore/#comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:04:15 +0000 mrs007 http://www.mrs007.com/?p=1624

God has blessed Adam and I with these two beautiful girls.  We had Addison by herself for so long that I was afraid I couldn’t feel the same love  for another child.  That fear was squashed when Alivia was born in October 2007.  They whisked her away because she had a few breathing problems at birth so Addison and I got to meet her at the same time later that evening.  When they brought her to me she was crying and I couldn’t get her into my arms fast enough.  Apparently Addison was feeling the same way because she asked if she could hold Alivia before I had even touched her.

I had an intense urgency to hold my new baby and nurse her ASAP so I told Addison that she would get her chance after mommy.  She silently walked over to the other side of the room and started to cry.  She wasn’t doing it for attention or to get her way.  She just genuinely wanted to hold her baby sister.   My heart broke into a million pieces and I told her to come over to my bed.  She perked up and came over timidly.

Addison is anything but timid so I could tell she was having a lot of emotions at that moment.  So was I.  It was incredible.  And in that moment Addison knew what it meant to be a sister.  And  I melted inside.

Alivia just turned 2 last week and her personality is becoming more clear day by day.

She is naturally funny and she laughs all the time.

She is in the typical “into everything” phase but I seem to have endless patience with her.  And that is saying something because being a patient mommy doesn’t come very naturally to me.   I honestly can’t get enough of her.  She makes me a better mom to both of my girls.

She is happy all the time and she says so many funny things.  She is learning learning every minute and she has a love for books which makes me so happy.  She sleeps with books and carries around a few of her favorites that she likes us to read over and over and over.

She is very rarely seen without Addison’s old DW doll, her little taggie blanket and almost always a book.

I just can’t believe how fast these two years have passed.  It was just the three of us for so long and then we became a family of four.

And now it feels like she has always been here.

And now I feel like my baby is growing up and I need a new one!  Who will help me convince Adam that we need to start trying for a boy?  Just kidding…ahem no I’m not.

We have been in our new house for over 4 weeks now.  We are totally unpacked.

Well totally unpacked except for the junk drawer box.  It’s FULL of junk.  Shocking I know.  And we are TOTALLY unpacked except for the boxes in the garage.  We have been extra productive.

Everyone knows how much moving sucks and I don’t plan to do it again for a long time.  Adam and I realized how very very out of shape we are when at the end of each day we felt like we were 99 years old and falling apart.  In the past couple months we have ingested more Aleve than people in their twenties should.

Oh BUT WAIT  my husband is no longer in his twenties!  He turned 30 on the 31st of August!  I just want to point out that I am still 28 for the next 2 1/2 months and then I get to be in my twenties for an ENTIRE YEAR after that.  My husband is robbing the cradle isn’t he?  Scandalous!

Since we moved in I have noticed a lot of things.  We have A LOT of stuff and crap.   As we were unpacking I had a rule that if it didn’t have a place it wasn’t allowed to stay.  We now have a pile of stuff and crap in the garage that we are going to sell in a garage sale.

Which by the way would imply that we actually have a garage!  Which we do!  And that is extra extra exciting to us because a garage was one of the biggest things on our priority list when we were house hunting.

And speaking of house hunting…(how’d you like THAT segue?) if you know me at all you know that I am obsessed with anything to do with looking at houses. I might have mentioned  before that one of my favorite shows is House Hunters on HGTV.  The previous owners of the house we bought are going to be on that show!  Which means that our new house is going to be on House Hunters!!

Of course it will only be at the beginning of the show and we will get to hear about all of the reasons the people wanted to move.  But I don’t care!  We love our new house and I think it’s totally cool that it is going to be on TV!  Even if it is the reject house.  So be on the lookout on HGTV sometime in October or November for a cute family with twin girls and a boy from TN.

Ok enough gushing about the house hunters thing.

Addison started a new school for 3rd grade a couple weeks before the actual move.  She didn’t want me to take her picture the first day of school.  I am apparently  the meanest mom EVER and I totally made her cry and insisted upon taking pictures of her even though she couldn’t pull herself together.

It was a disaster.  Here’s proof.

We actually did hug and kiss and she was able to take one last first day picture under the dogwood tree in the front yard.

Now theeeeere is the Addison we all know and love!

She has done really awesome socially.  She has made  lots of new friends and is even lucky enough to have another 3rd grade girl from her school as a neighbor.  What more could we ask?  They have hit it off and have been spending copious amounts of time riding bikes and doing other things 3rd grade girls do.  Like for example talk in hushed voices about a cute boy who rides a dirtbike near our house.  Um yeah totally NOT ready for the whole boy crazy thing.  NOT READY AT ALL.

Academically speaking it’s been a big change.  I know 3rd grade is a tough year but I also think Addison previous school might have been a little easier than the new one.  I am thankful she is in a tougher school now because she is getting a better education but she is  having to work really hard not to get behind.  We are studying hard and her grades are looking great.

I know she will be fine because we work with her constantly. But  sometimes I feel like I am homeschooling her and let me just tell you I am NOT a teacher.

I didn’t miss my calling there.

However I have been making flashcards, practice tests and study sheets each week and it seems to be paying off.  She is becoming more confident and I am getting into the swing of things better every week.

Alivia is doing awesome as well.  She never really missed a beat and has adjusted very well to the change in surroundings.  She is cute as EVER and she toddles around the house playing in her new playroom and following Addison and her friend Anna around.

She is into everything and I definitely get worried if she gets too quiet because she is more than likely eating baby powder or drawing all over her body with a pen.  Btw those things actually happened.

Other times when she is quiet I will find her in her room in front of her bookshelf…just reading a book.

Whew! that is always a relief.  I then say a silent thank you to God that she is not flushing washcloths down the toilet.

I am such an attentive mother.

All in all I think this has been a great move for us.  The neighborhood is fabulous and I have been taking full advantage of the nice wide streets by putting plenty of mileage on my jogging stroller.  Alivia, Max and I have a new morning routine of walking/jogging/me and Max both panting unattractively because well he is a dog and they pant and me because I am so very out of shape.

We have all been enjoying it and even though I haven’t lost any weight yet I feel better and I actually want to go do it every day. I am just hoping that one of these days I am going to look down and my fat belly is going to be gone and my double chin will have reverted itself back up into my first chin.  Hopefully sooner rather than later because I have a new walk in closet all to myself that I need to fill up with smaller cuter clothing.

I even took Addison with me on a run one Saturday when Adam was out of town.  She was all gung ho and smiles before we left…

and about 15 minutes in my goodness gracious you would have thought I was putting her through some sort of torture.  She refused to actually run with me and I would get way far ahead of her and then have to stop and wait for her to catch up.  All while listening to her whine about how tired she was and how much her legs and stomach hurt.

I mean HELLO she is 8 and I am 28!  Keep up girl!  Next time I am going to let her ride her bike so maybe we can actually enjoy each other’s presence.

I realize this has been one heck of a long post so I’ll wrap it up there and hopefully I can manage to write again before another month passes.

I’m not making any promises though because I will probably be too busy scraping dried yogurt off of the furniture or trying to figure out how to get permanent marker off of some important surface.

These are the days I know will fly by like the landscape passing by a speeding minivan.  I am making many mistakes.  I raise my voice too often, I am too quick to get irritated, I say no more than yes  and I am often filled with mommy guilt at the end of the day.

But then we have moments when it all feels right.

Moments when my heart feels so full it might burst out of my chest.

Moments when no one is snatching a toy out of someone’s hands and no one is screaming because their world is coming to an end.

Well maybe the no screaming thing was taking it a little far.  Let’s be real.  Someone.is.always. screaming.

I guess that just comes with the territory.

And we do have peaceful moments occasionally.

A very special thank you to Elmo, Barney, Nemo and naptime for all the quiet moments.

We married young.  And we did things a little backwards.

Our history is a very complicated story.  A story that is no where NEAR finished.  I know I need to continue to write the “The Truth Is”  series.   I left off on Part 5 and there is much more to write.  But our story is an ongoing saga and it continues to be written every day.

We were married 7 years ago today.  It was STEAMY outside.  August in Tennessee is rarely anything but hot and humid.  And I remember that day being happy.  Surreal and anxious  and HOT but happy.

I am married to my best friend.  We haven’t made it easy on ourselves and we have certainly had many obstacles.

We have hurt each other and neither one of us have been perfect spouses.   But we always know that we love each other.  We always know that we love each other. I meant to repeat that.

Things I love about Mr.007:

When I hear him refer to me as “my wife” it makes my stomach flutter.

I love how passionate he is about music.  It is a part of his soul and it makes him who he is.

His hair is turning gray.  To me he gets more handsome every year.

He wants to be our daughters’ hero.  His love for those girls makes my love for him run even deeper.

He is the grill MASTER.  I have acquired an appreciation for good BBQ  and all sorts of “man food” since he has come into my life. I now understand why he ordered ribs on our first date.

He keeps ALL cards and letters.  He has cards from his mom from before I even met him stashed in a box in the closet.

He sees his family as my family and vice versa.

He doesn’t mind driving the minivan.  He has never said a negative thing about our van “Magic”.

He never makes fun of me for naming our van “Magic”

He unloads the dishwasher.   Enough said.

He has excellent taste in beer.

Over the years he has endured countless hours of House Hunters with very few complaints.

He knows how much I love being pregnant and nursing babies and he hasn’t cut me off…yet.  I think he needs a son!

He is an awesome provider and an extremely hard worker.

And it might be cliche but I love him because he makes me laugh.

Dear Mr.007 ,

I love you “very much a lot” and I feel blessed to share my life with you. Our family is enriched because of you.

Love,

Mrs.007

When someone is gone forever it is a shock to the system.  Reality is warped.  Surrealism sets in almost immediately.  Then it starts to become normal.  But you feel guilty about that.  At least I do.

I want something tangible to remember.  Something I can see everyday.  A subtle reminder.  Not something that will send me to the floor sobbing.  Just something I can touch with my fingertips and admire.  And it should make me smile….not cry.  Well maybe it should make me cry sometimes.  Because once in a while I want to cry.  It makes me feel alive.    But mostly I just want it to help me remember the good things.  The beautiful things.

Butterflies make me think of freedom.  Freedom from fear and anguish.  Freedom from pain and from the unknown.  Freedom to be carefree and happy.  Blissful even.

And Dogwood trees.  My Aunt Missy loved them.

**”There is a Christian legend of unknown origin that proclaims that the cross used to crucify Jesus was constructed of dogwood^.  As the story goes, during the time of Jesus, the dogwood was larger and stronger than it is today and was the largest tree in the area of Jerusalem. After his crucifixion, Jesus changed the plant to its current form: he shortened it and twisted its branches to assure an end to its use for the construction of crosses. He also transformed its inflorescence into a representation of the crucifixion itself, with the four white bracts cross-shaped, which represent the four corners of the cross, each bearing a rusty indentation as of a nail and the red stamens of the flower, represents Jesus’ crown of thorns, and the clustered red fruit represent his blood.

Even though His body was taken from this earth, His spirit remains and every spring we are blessed with a reminder of the events that occurred on that fateful weekend.

I still want to get a tattoo of a dogwood branch and a butterfly in honor and memory of my beautiful Aunt Missy.  But in the meantime the painting above that a very close family friend painted for me will always bring me joy as well.  I feel so blessed to have it hanging in my home.

It makes me happy…joyful…sad…hopeful…wonderful…and most of all it helps to remember her.

Thank you Delores. Thank you Grandma.

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogwood

Mass chaos ensued.  I tried to avoid yelling in Elizabeth’s ear.  We were having a lovely impromptu conversation and I really wanted to proceed uninterrupted. I scolded and threatened.

And then out of desperation I hid in the bathroom.  I grabbed my coffee and closed myself in.  But they were being so loud that I couldn’t concentrate even while hiding in the loo.  UGH  I was getting mad at this point. I don’t have enough patience most days.  It’s one of my greatest weaknesses.

So I walked into the kitchen, grabbed a wooden spoon and silently threatened  the older culprit.  She was the instigator.  She was obviously in need of attention…and she didn’t care if it was the negative type.  That was all it took.  I saw the look of understanding in her eyes.

I motioned with the wooden spoon for her to take her little self upstairs.  She nodded and climbed the stairs.  Behold the power of the wooden spoon!

One day last week she felt the sting of the spoon on her bottom after an episode of incredibly bad behavior.  I don’t spank often. I yell. (another weakness)  I do time out and I take things away. But those things are losing their effect on Addison.  Sometimes  she will do something she knows will get her in trouble and accept the time out. Sometimes it appears she thinks it’s worth it.

So that is why I spanked her with a wooden spoon last week.  Nothing else was working.  I wasn’t mad and I made her go in my room and wait for me.  I calmly walked in there and gave her 3 good swats on the bum.  She sat up on my bed looked me straight in the face and yelled “I HATE YOU!!!”

OUCH.  That one hurt.

I told her to stay in there until I came to get her and not to think about turning on the tv.  I closed the door and another “I hate you” was hurled in my direction.  That one hit the door and didn’t pierce me as deeply.   I called my friend Aimee to talk about it and soothe the mommy guilt that was quickly setting in. She has an 9 year old son and is familiar with this age group and it’s challenges.

Addison needed something to jolt her.  She needed a reminder that I am to be respected and obeyed and I am pretty sure the wooden spoon incident made an impact.

After we had both had some time apart I went in to talk to her about the actions that had caused the spanking in the first place.  I also explained the definition of the word hate.  I don’t think she realized how strong of a word she was using.  She asked me if we could start over and apologized to me.  We hugged and reassured each other that our love is unconditional.

She is a really good girl.  She wants to behave and for the most part she does.  Honestly parenting has been hard for me at every stage.  I have read countless books and tried many  methods.  Which may be the root of the problem.  She is my first child and earlier in her life I probably wasn’t as consistent as I could have been.  But she is loved immeasurably and I know she feels that.

And I know she loves me because she helped me put away towels the next day.  And I have a picture to prove it.  Oh and I left it like this for days until we put the house on the market.

*I think spanking has it’s place in the world of discipline.  And obviously it is a very controversial subject with a lot of parents.  I respectfully disagree with people who believe spanking is wrong and somehow damages a child’s self esteem.  If you are one of those people feel free to comment at will.  But please be nice.

There were goodwill piles, consignment store piles and trash bag piles.  I finally got rid of the last load of things a couple of days ago.  I looked around at the house and it was FILTHY DIRTY!  It looked like a pack of wild dogs lived here. It was a pigsty.  Or a dogsty.  Whatever… I am not kidding.

So I spent the last few days vacuuming, dusting, scrubbing and Clorox wiping.  Mr. 007 and I even washed the windows inside and outside.  Actually he did the outside and I stood inside  scrubbing the  inside of the window yelling” You missed a spot”!

Hey I am nothing if not thorough.

So this morning I woke up to a spotless house and it felt so nice that I decided to make homemade sweet potato muffins for breakfast.  I honestly don’t know what I was thinking dirtying up my beautifully clean kitchen like that but I guess it was just one of those domestic impulses that I later regret and bitch about cleaning up.

While I was mixing up the batter for the muffins Alivia let out an ear piercing scream and Addison called out in a panicky voice “MOMMY IT’S STUCK IN HER HEAD IT’S STUCK IN HER HEAD I AM SO SORRY IT’S STUCK IN HER HEAD!” All the while Livie is crying and crying as Adam and I race into the room.

Then I saw it.  An electronic motorized gerbil was stuck in my baby’s hair.  It was attacking her head.  It had wrapped it’s little wheel feet things around and around her hair and she was freaking out.

It may look innocent enough...but this is the rare, hair eating, toddler attacking gerbil of North America. Approach with extreme caution!

I honestly breathed a sigh of relief.  As I found the off switch I was just so happy it was only her hair and not as bad as I was picturing.  When Addison said something was stuck in Livie’s head I honestly pictured blood and an emergency room visit.  Adam took the gerbil apart and we only had to cut a tiny bit out of her hair to detach it from her head.

just minutes before the attack

They didn't even see it coming...so innocent.

Anyway after the motorized gerbil attack I finished the muffins and waited for them to bake. When they were finished I thought I would sprinkle a little powdered sugar over the tops for a bit of sweetness.  I only did this because Addison had groaned about how GROSS sweet potato muffins are even though she had never even heard of such a thing. I figured powdered sugar would make them a little more appetizing to her.

I have one of these Pampered Chef flour/sugar shaker things so I found the Ziploc bag filled with the sugar, put it in the shaker and sprinkled the tops of the warm muffins.

I got a little sugar on my finger in the process so I licked it off.

Something was wrong.

%&#@!!! ACK!   It wasn’t powdered sugar!  It was cornstarch! $#@$!!!

And let me just tell you I was IRATE.  I was so mad I could have SPIT NAILS!  I might have said an ugly word or two.

Enter Adam who actually saw humor in this situation.  He grabbed the camera and started taking pictures of the muffins despite my EXPLICIT OBJECTIONS! He told me that I needed to laugh at myself.

Yeah that's not powdered sugar.

You know what?  I have no problem finding humor in my stupidity.  I just need a buffer of a little bit longer than um 30 seconds after I do the stupid thing.  I need a buffer!

I was able to get most of the cornstarch off the muffins with a wet paper towel and sprinkle the real powdered sugar on top.  We added a little butter and they actually tasted pretty good.  And now I know that you should label your Ziploc bags when you put unidentifiable white powders inside.  Because cornstarch tastes like you licked the bottom of a shoe.  I am just saying.

So the bottom line is if you haven’t blogged in 12 days all it takes is a baby eating gerbil crisis and a ridiculous baking blunder to kick start your writers block.

Yay me!