family life – Page 21 – little thoughts

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – feeding the ducks!

Posted on 2016-03-172016-03-17 by kristinabean

The boys and I went to a new park this week, just a few miles south of our house. To our delight, behind the playground was a lake, complete with ducks!

{pretty}

Limerick absolutely loves birds and was completely captivated by the ducks. It took him a few tries to throw his pieces of bread into the water instead of just dropping them at his feet, but once he got it he didn’t want to stop.

{happy}

We fed the ducks at the end of our time at the park, after a couple hours of running and digging in the sun, and I was a bit worried that the boys would be too worn out to really enjoy it – but they were so excited about seeing all the birds that they got a second wind 🙂 I was amazed at how fast our small supply of bread heels disappeared into those ducks’ tummies.

{funny}

Tuesday was free ice cream cone day at Dairy Queen, and there happens to be a Dairy Queen within a block of our house, so I took the boys for their first ever ice cream cone experience. This little man was a bit overwhelmed by the cone in its pristine form, but he got all silly and happy once we reduced it down to more manageable proportions. Limerick was exactly the opposite: he plunged right into the tower of ice cream on the cone, uncaring of the creamy sticky mess all over his face, and ate quite a bit before deciding he was done, about halfway through the ice cream. The upshot of the adventure was that we had 3 good-sized cones and I ended up eating about 2 of them, between my own and helping the boys with theirs!

{real}

This little guy, while decidedly cute and happy, has also decided that it is ridiculously fun to run away from me and generally play keep-away when I call him. It is hard not to let it turn into a game every time, the way he laughs so mischievously as he scampers away! I’m having to enforce the rules a bit more strictly than I wish I had to – it’s like, if you would stay away from the road you could play anywhere in this whole huge area, but because you keep running towards the road with trouble on your face, thinking it’s a game, you’re going to have to sit with me or in the stroller. I feel like his need to test the boundaries keeps him from having as much fun as he otherwise could, which makes me sad for him.

My primary solution is to let him play, as much as possible, in areas where the boundaries are few and far between, so he doesn’t feel as much need to test: a playground where the road isn’t in sight, or where the road is on the other side of a fence; a child-safe backyard; the inside of our house or my parents’ house. In those settings, he can explore and play independently without the constant need for supervision or the shadow of a potential “no” interrupting his agenda.

Any other tips for what to do in places where I can’t control all those variables, and where the boundaries are simultaneously much tighter and much less clearly defined (for a 1.5yr old, anyway)?

Head on over to Like Mother, Like Daughter for the link-up today!

family life

silly kids being kids

Posted on 2016-03-152016-03-14 by kristinabean

The dishwasher rack made it outside for a day, as the accessory and prop to many different pretend plays:

Shortly thereafter I replaced it into the dishwasher and the boys haven’t pulled it out again yet, so I suppose the novelty has worn off a bit. It was a bit of a large and obtrusive play thing so I don’t mind it being back in it’s rightful home and out of my hallway!

(With regards to these pictures – I found the old kit lens that came with my camera and while it is really sensitive to poor lighting, it is really nice for close-up shots as it can get down to 18mm, as opposed to my main shooting lens which is a fixed-width at 50mm. Unfortunately, unless I’m in bright sunlight it distorts and washes out the colors to a certain extent. I’ve been simultaneously enjoying the flexibility of the wide-angle option in the often small and enclosed places we occupy, and remembering why I had put the lens away in a drawer in the first place…)

Sometimes I can follow what the boys are doing, like when they count stone and grass squares as they hop on them,

or dance around and around in circles until they (pretend to) fall down (with little brother watching and doing his best to follow the leader),

but sometimes I just really have no idea what is going on inside their heads:

At least I know that every day will hold something new or unexpected 🙂 I know that whether the boys have fun playing together or whether they have to work through conflicts, whether they are happy little explorers or clingy sad babies, whether we deal with each other with patience and grace or tightly restrained frustration, each day is an adventure we will have together, a time to learn and love and grow together. And I love them, and they love me – my life is so full of blessings.

family life, phfr

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – in which some oddities of my family are revealed

Posted on 2016-03-102016-03-10 by kristinabean

Let me preface this week’s edition of {p,h,f,r} by telling you that all these pictures come from the same day, and that this day is not really that extraordinary of a day for us – I just happened to have my camera on hand for most of it. I feel like my goal is calm, ordered, semi-normal routines, but the reality of our family life is spontaneous, diverse, and weird. Or maybe it is just the things that fill in the routines that are strange… we still do have normal activities each day like naps and meals and baths 😛

{pretty}

On this particular day we visited the zoo for my nephew’s birthday. I am not a huge fan of large groups of people with small children trying to do the zoo together, but it worked out alright and we were able to go at the kids’ pace. We saw the flamingos and the monkeys and got to go inside the aviary, which are all highlights for my boys. One thing I love about the zoo is getting to see the incredible beauty and diversity of the animal kingdom!

Their eyes are a bit unnerving, but I love the graceful curve of their necks and the soft overlay of their feathers.

{happy}

Another nice aspect of our local zoo is that it has a small splash pad just right for smaller kids – it is a great way to unwind and cool off before heading home, especially when the weather is warmer. Limerick was already past his nap time but the water (and birthday cake) gave us an extra 30-45 minutes with the extended family.

Rondel hung back at first but about 10 minutes later he was down to his diaper, running and dancing and laughing in the water.

Limerick ran right at the camera with his signature goofy grin 🙂

{funny}

After nap we had a pretty relaxed afternoon, reading books, playing at home, etc., and while I was making dinner I left the kids to their own devices.

Maybe that wasn’t the wisest idea.

But it was certainly amusing! And we don’t use the dishwasher, so I didn’t really mind the boys playing with the rack. Later that evening I found a pile of random objects behind the office door and Rondel informed me that they had been recycled by his stuffed monkeys, who carried them there in their dump truck (the dishwasher rack).

Could there be a more random assortment of items?

{real}

This was part of dinner cooking in its early stages – baby gold potatoes cooked in chicken broth. Everything was going well and then I got distracted by the kids’ creativity and hilarity and came running back to the kitchen to discover all the broth evaporated (which was supposed to happen) and the potatoes all sticking to the skillet (which was not supposed to happen). Sigh. They still tasted good though! In my dream house, the kitchen wouldn’t be a little closet of a room disconnected from everything else…

There would also be better lighting for indoor picture-taking, I think. You know, if we’re dreaming here 🙂 One of the drawbacks of a town home is that there aren’t many available walls for windows!

Head on over to the link up at Like Mother, Like Daughter and check out some of the other blogs! It’s always fun to see the craziness that goes on in other people’s families, to know we’re not the only ones 🙂

family life

rondel’s tools

Posted on 2016-03-072016-03-06 by kristinabean

Rondel has discovered the power of tools and is accordingly deeply fascinated with anything that can be described as a tool in some sense or other. He’s unearthed a play tool set his uncle bought for him a couple Christmases ago and has been fixing everything in sight with them:

He also spent the whole afternoon on Monday, while I was at the doctor with Limerick, watching his dad (for whom I still don’t have a good blog name) fix his bike, and doing his best to help in the process with both his own tools and Daddy’s tools 🙂

I think the whole concept of things as tools is a good one for him, because it elevates his play from something trivial to something valuable, practical, and helpful – not that I think any of his play is trivial, or course, but the word “toy” does tend to give a thing or an activity a feeling of lesser importance. In using tools, he’s modeling what he sees in the world around him, and practicing in his own pretend world the skills he wants to copy from the adults around him. It’s just another type of play, like imaginative play, or pretend social play, or physical play, or musical play, and it’s neat to see him diving into different areas like that without prompting, and developing in different ways because of it.

The vocabulary of tools is also helpful for me when I’m teaching him how to use something safely, or having to take something away from him that’s not appropriate for him to use yet – like knives, scissors, markers, tweezers, and so on. Instead of having to just tell him he’s not allowed to use something, I can tell him that it is a tool with a specific purpose and a specific set of safety and use instructions 🙂 So some tools he can use almost anywhere, but others can only be used when Mommy is there, or can only be carried at a walk and held in a certain way. The instructions have a context then (the context of tools), so it’s easier for him to remember them and less likely that he’ll challenge them. It’s always nice to stumble upon little parenting hacks like that… 🙂

I wonder if this interest in tools is just a phase of life-discovery for him or if he’s going to be one of those boys who figures out how to take everything apart and rebuild it – he certainly would come by it naturally, with the mechanical sense that both my mom and my husband have! I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see.

family life

sick baby

Posted on 2016-03-06 by kristinabean

We had a rather frightening virus (most likely) settle in on Limerick earlier this week – his temperature kept going up to around 104 every time his fever reducers started to wear off, for about 4 straight days. The third day was a Monday so I took him in to the doctor’s office, where they measured his fever at 104.4 (so nice to have proof that the fever really is as high as you claim – they never seem to believe me otherwise). Flu and strep tests both came back negative, and fortunately the fever cleared up Wednesday morning so our best guess is a virus (and not a highly contagious one at that, thankfully).

Limerick spent most of his time nursing, sleeping, and wanting to be held, but when his meds were keeping his temperature down his buoyant nature bubbled back up and he did his best to keep up with Rondel like normal.

He pulled a stool up to our piano all on his own and spent a relatively cheerful 15 minutes making music while Rondel sang along 🙂

His little face was still so tired and sad though 😦 It’s quite nice to have him feeling himself again and running around wreaking havoc all over the place!

family life, musings

unplanned babies (the blessing of limerick)

Posted on 2016-02-25 by kristinabean

After Rondel was born, we struggled a lot with the transition from “couple” to “family.” I had PPD for months, my husband was exhausted from being up with a sleepless baby and trying to encourage a miserable wife, and Rondel was becoming anxious and easily overstimulated. We were all on edge and our margins were just about the lowest they’ve ever been. And so, clearly, we thought it was the worst imaginable time to have another baby.

Although at that time I didn’t quite grasp the theology of the body that informs the purpose and ethical applications of sex, I had an instinctual dislike of contraceptives, for various reasons: I didn’t like having to take a pill everyday with hormones that were going to influence far more than just my reproductive system, barrier methods felt awkward and incomplete, like we weren’t actually coming together in the one flesh of marriage, and we obviously weren’t at a point to consider permanent sterilization as a means of contraception. So we were charting and tracking and being really careful – and then we found out we were pregnant, just 7 months after Rondel was born.

It wasn’t our plan at all. Looking back at the charts, it makes no biological sense that we got pregnant when we did.

But you know the beauty of it? Because it wasn’t our plan, because we were walking through the tension of stewarding our resources well while remaining open to God’s plan for new life, we were relieved of the constant fear that we’d made a mistake every time that things were difficult. This baby wasn’t our choice – he was God’s choice, and God is someone we can trust.

And as the months went by, we saw the profound good that Limerick brought to our family: the pregnancy hormones that snapped me out of PPD, the reevaluations of my lifestyle and parenting choices that made me a gentler and less anxious mother, the small and vulnerable baby that showed Rondel how to care for someone weaker and more needy than himself, the bold and mischievous toddler who is helping Rondel learn to share, negotiate, and adapt even as he learns those things himself.

If we had made it about our plan and our wisdom and our choices, Limerick wouldn’t be here, bringing his incredible blessing into our family – and that is a huge reason why, now, I would not choose to contracept or sterilize. Who knows what other unforeseen good God wants to bring into our lives? Why would I want to close myself off to that blessing, just because I cannot picture it clearly in my mind now?

family life

gently night-weaning

Posted on 2016-02-222016-02-21 by kristinabean

For various reasons, the time has come to begin night-weaning Limerick. He still co-sleeps, in a sidecar crib, and has always nursed to sleep. It was the path of least resistance for so long… but now, 15 months later, it has become a sleep crutch that prevents him from resettling when he wakes briefly during the night and thus wakes me about every two hours all night long. And the older he gets, the more difficult it seems to be for him to drift off while nursing, because he wants to engage and interact with me the whole time!

However, while I was convinced of the need for night-weaning, I was also convinced that I didn’t want the process to be one of prolonged or solitary crying. If he was going to cry, I was going to be there with him; if he was inconsolable and clearly not settling on his own, I was going to slow the process down and go at the pace he was able to handle. So I brainstormed some ideas for a new routine, and explained everything to Limerick a few times before implementing them, so that he wouldn’t be taken off guard when we did something new at bedtime.

“First we’ll nurse with the light on,” I told him, “and we’ll snuggle and talk about the day and pray together. Then, after you’ve had some milk, I’ll lie you down with your head on the pillow in your crib, tuck your bunny in next to you, pull the blanket over you, give you your bottle of water, and turn off the light. I will lie here right next to you and sing you a lullaby, and you can go to sleep.”

Why these steps?

First, the time of nursing and talking gives us a chance to connect at the end of the day, without any other people or distractions around, which is particularly important on days that I’m gone at work for hours. I want him to know that his bedtime isn’t just a task for me to accomplish, but a special time of calm and quiet for us to share. Also, he is still young enough that I want him to keep nursing, even though I can’t physically deal with the nursing all night long!

Second, the little details of the bedtime routine help to provide continuity and consistency from one night to the next, without making things too long or complex. The pillow helps keep his head elevated when he’s congested and the bottle of water gives him something to suck if he wants or a drink if he’s thirsty still after nursing (since my supply is getting pretty low, and it’s dry here in Arizona!)

Turning the light off after nursing helps to separate nursing from sleeping, so he doesn’t roll back to me for “kikis” after I try to situate him in the crib. This was a mistake I had been making on previous attempts!

Finally, Limerick loves music, and he seems to be far calmer physically when he has something to do with his mind – like listen to the words and melodies of songs. So the lullabies (whatever I happen to remember or make up) help him to relax, which in turn helps him to fall asleep.

As we were going through the routine, I narrated each thing that we were doing, reminding him of what we’d said earlier, until I ended by singing some old lullabies. His breathing slowed. His body relaxed. His hand holding the half-empty bottle dropped to his side. And I slid off the bed and went downstairs.

This was just the first night of the new routine. We’ve now had four nights of the new pattern, and in addition to falling asleep without the incessant nursing that was driving me crazy, he seems to be sleeping for longer stretches as well! Considering he is also teething right now, I’m quite surprised at how well this is going. Night 3 was a bit rough for him, and we ended up nursing a little bit more after the lights were off to help him calm back down, but he did eventually go to sleep on his own without crying alone or feeling like he was abandoned or unheard (it’s amazing how much calmer he got just from me saying, “You are really upset right now, huh?”). I’ve even been able to put him back down after a night waking in this way, which I didn’t expect to be able to do for a few weeks still! So there is hope, fellow gentle parents with poor sleepers 🙂 We can take care of ourselves and our babies in ways that won’t leave either of us resentful, bitter, or hurt.

family life

turning trucks into boats

Posted on 2016-02-20 by kristinabean

Limerick was having a rough time this morning, between teething and a late night on Friday, so I took some time to try to put him down for an early nap (which didn’t work, unfortunately). When we came back downstairs to see what Rondel had been doing unsupervised for the previous half hour, I found him in the back yard:

He’d taken some parts from his big HotWheels construction set, set all of our Duplo people (including the bear and the puppy) up in it, and was pretending that it was a boat sailing on the water.

He moved all of his trucks out of the way so the boat would have room to sail around, and told me how maybe the boat would tip in the water and the bear would have to help pull the little boy back onto the boat.

I’ve never heard him play anything related to boats before, and I’ve never seen him use the Duplo people with other types of toys before. He was so excited about it 🙂 I was excited too, because it showed me that he could imagine a toy to be something it was not, and use it that way in his pretend play. In other words, he’s not locked in to seeing a truck as a truck, all the time.

It’s so neat to watch him at this age, discovering his imagination and creativity, coming up with situations and stories and keeping himself occupied with his own head and hands for a good 45 minutes without any problem. He’s so different from the baby he once was, not because the core of his self has changed, but because he’s grown and matured so much, and it’s my privilege to watch and guide and love him as he grows.

family life, phfr

{pretty, happy, funny, real} – random pieces of life

Posted on 2016-02-182016-02-18 by kristinabean

The ladies at Like Mother, Like Daughter were encouraging this week’s {phfr} to be about desk space, since an organized and clean desk is such a great jump start for productivity and clear thinking. Unfortunately, my desk is in a very dimly lit room and I didn’t have opportunity during the daylight hours to try to take a picture of it! So in the spirit of the link-up I cleaned and organized the horrible mess that was my desk and then enjoyed getting some HOA work done on the newly-emptied surface. It really does make a difference, having it clean!

{pretty}

We are in the height of citrus season here in the low desert, and my parents have quite a few trees, so on Monday afternoon we took some time to make orange marmalade, candied orange peels, and candied grapefruit peels. The jars in the picture above are of the orange syrup left over from boiling the peels – the flavor is quite strong and sweet and makes a good addition to different types of drinks. I think it would be good with just some sparkling water but my mom has an old-fashioned in mind 🙂 She’s not as much of a lightweight when it comes to alcohol as I am!

{happy}

Our garden has really become a play space. On Tuesday I watched my nephew and niece for a couple hours and they had a great time exploring the dirt and plants in the garden; I’m not sure who slipped this little construction crate under the cilantro, though! It looks like a little elfin summerhouse to me – I can just imagine the little people frolicking in the dappled green light under the leaves, and resting for the night in their hideaway.

{funny}

Because the weather has been so unseasonably warm, our little orange tree has begun budding already. Its branches are beginning to encroach rather significantly into the yard, but it had been trimmed ruthlessly and ignorantly before we bought the house and suffered a lot of sunburn as a result, so we’re giving it a few years to heal before we try to trim it again. So, some of the branches are at just the right height for Limerick to explore, and he’s been quite intrigued by the new flower buds. In fact, he’ll stand at the tree, oblivious to the world, picking all the flower buds off, saying “flower bud!” each time and then dropping them on the ground or into a cup. Some of the fruits (flowers?) of his labor he then put on the edge of the raised bed garden, for no reason known outside of his own small head…

{real}

If I had gotten a “before” picture of my desk, that would have been my {real} picture for the week! I had pre-Christmas decorations, old mail, HOA papers, the remnants of a Christmas craft, some chocolate and essential oils, and some items destined for Goodwill, all piled up on a table no more than 30″ square. Even the “after” picture could be {real}, though, tucked away as the desk is by my husband’s school desk, his weights and bench, the vacuum, and a couple large bookshelves… all of our random things seem to have ended up in the same place, which is also the only way to get into the backyard, so there’s always a bit of chaos going on. But it is cleaner than it was, and that makes me happy 🙂

Go check out the rest of the link-up!

family life

a family valentine’s date

Posted on 2016-02-142016-02-14 by kristinabean

It was warm enough this afternoon for us to take the boys to the splash pad a few miles from our house – and warm enough that half the town seemed to have the same idea! It was crowded, exuberant, and refreshing.

Limerick examined the whole splash pad and all the people playing in it very thoroughly and methodically, while Rondel ran back and forth from the fountains to me with ever-changing expressions and exclamations. We were there for close to two hours, only leaving when it was time for dinner, and it was so nice to be able to spend that special time as a whole family, enjoying our Sunday afternoon together.

Another neat thing about this particular park is how diverse the people are! I would guess that today it was about 50% Hispanic, 30% White, 15% African American, and 15% Native American, give or take 5% on each one. Granted, I’m a horrible estimator, but you get the general idea. I love that my kids get to see and play with kids who don’t look like them, especially since our church (despite having a black lead pastor) is primarily white. If they can grow up with diversity being part of their everyday lives, maybe they’ll be able to escape the undercurrents of white supremacy in our nation that give support to men like Donald Trump. Maybe they’ll be able to be proud of their traditions and culture while also valuing and loving the traditions and cultures of others who are not like them. Will they get that all from playing at a park? Of course not – but principles are absorbed into the heart and will through the daily experiences that confirm them.

How did you all spend your Valentine’s Day?