of all the things

I have been considering many things to blog about but as I was relating to my sister over the phone, i can't even keep my thought together long enough to pick a topic. I want to talk about parenting and how I was encouraged at Christmas when my mother said she notice a  difference (for good) in my children's behavior but now I can't because I had to lock Blake in his room twice for biting me yesterday. Some parent. Some kid. I wanted to write about how excited I was that my sister agreed to read the bible in one year with me so I could call someone with all my "what the?" questions but we began last week and I haven't peppered her with questions yet. I thought I would write on how I am trying to put more time in with my kids in one on one activites, especially drawing with Trinity as it is her favorite thing ever and I "never play with her". Well guess what? can't really blog when I am doing that. ha! So in the end I will blog about this. I survived 24 hours with three kids and no power! Yes that's right. Laugh if you must but have YOU tried it? Snowmageddon officially hit on tuesday. Trinity's Martin Luther King day off turned into an ENTIRE week off school. The first day was fun, super wet and cold but we went sledding and made a snowman and jer made it in and out of work fine. Second day was not as nice. Tried sledding but the wind blew her sled like a kite so that lasted only about 15 minutes. Third day no power. Oh boy. I firmly believe God multipied my children's DS battery like He did the oil in the lamps because that sucker lasted until 5 p.m. We played candyland, chutes and ladders, blocks, hide-and-seek, go fish, coloring, watch the plow (that was my favorite, the city sent a giant CAT to plow our culdesac. Lovely!, too bad it didn't have a power truck behind it fixing whatever is up). Anyway, I called Jeremy at 4:45 hoping he was on his way home. Nope. He had just gotten off the phone with a client he had been busy with the whole day. Well I am a little stressed at this point. The house is cold and baby has slept okay, but he is sick and I have bags packed in case hubby helpfully suggests we go to a hotel. no such luck. He discovers that from eastgate to north bend the power is out and he can't get to us from snoqualmie prkway and has to go through North Bend to 202 just to get home! I was already prepared in my mind  to go it alone that night. My phone had died and I had no way to charge it. I wasn't sure who would be more stressed. Me to be by myself or Jeremy to not be able to reach me if the roads were that bad. Trust me, he was the only one on our street "traipsing" in at 8:00. Sheesh. He made it though and we bundled the kids in their beds and Jer slept ours while I was downstairs on the couch with the little guy in his pack in play in front of the fire that I ran off and on all night. How did I do that you ask? It was easy when Isaac woke up every hour. I either nursed him or rocked him back to sleep. His poor little voice is so scratchy from being sick that I just couldn't make him cry back to sleep. I guess we will have to reset all of that crying out stuff after this next couple of days. The prognosis is still not good for power being on today so we are at Jeremy's office hanging out. We will stay at a hotel tonight and hopefully power will be restored sometime tomorrow. Sanity was maintained and returning to the dark ages wasn't so bad. I mean I finally got to teach Trinity "there was a farmer who had a dog and Bingo was his name-o B-I-N-G-O, etc"  that's a once in a power outage opportunity after all. Oh and guess what? City water still works and toilets still flush. VAST improvement from MY childhood. =)

Getting on with it

The new year is in full swing and there are several resolutions in progress. Sadly, I seem to have lost my copy of Boundaries with Kids on the return trip from my mother's at christmas so boo to that, I was only halfway through. I will have to go buy another one I guess.  I haven't forgotten the desire to put up house rules and get going on some sort of reward system that has more to do with spontaneous praise and observation of good behavior than "yay, you did what you are supposed to do anyway". I hope to have the rules up by end of month but then Jer and I haven't gotten together to agree on them yet (could be interesting). Also, I have begun my reading through the bible in one year and am up to date so far (wahoo! 11 days). In addition to reading it I am writing down every question I can think of while I read. Mostly for curiosity's sake. Call me a doubting Thomas, but the scriptures have always held for me great highs and some lows. It will be nice as I read to give these to God. I began my Beth Moore study on tuesday. The woman is truly anointed and I can't wait for the next session. I can finally mostly hear again and my symptoms are down to a slightly sore throat and occasional sniffing. There are so many friends I haven't been able to get out and visit since I've been sick! Special shout-out to Hannah for watching the boys today so I could get my hair cut and thank you as well to Laura who watched them so the hubs and I could get dinner out. In other parenting news, Isaac is "chair surfing" over the cross-bars of the dining chairs, trinity is joining a friendship group at school, and Blake is stubborn as ever, (earned himself about an hour in his room because he wouldn't do a 2 minute time out for mommy). I've got to get that parenting book again ASAP. I think that brings us full circle for now. Of course there is always loads more on my mind but who could decipher that jumbled mess?

Sick Mommy

Now I understand why you have to give them your license and they keep the sudafed behind the counter at the pharmacy. I mean, it's not like I ever plan to make meth but I'll tell you what, the sudafed alone does it for me! I went to urgent care yesterday because I have been sick for almost a week with no improvement and I felt an ear infection coming on. The doctor confirmed I was on my way to one unless I used Ocean nasal spray every half-hour and took sudafed religiously for the next two days. So I got some on my way home and boy was I wired the WHOLE day. I cleaned the house up and down and even went outside and put christmas boxes away in the garage and swept it out, etc. I then took the kids to gymnastics and back for bath-time and dinner. It was like I was on speed or something, I couldn't sit still the whole day. The only problem with that is I couldn't keep a thought it my head (forgot to call and cancel the doctor appt. I had today so had to call and leave PATHETIC message begging them not to charge me since now I have to pay urgent care visit as well) and I crashed pretty hard last night with more congestion, throat pain from the drainage, and sinus pressure. I always lose my voice with the slightest nasal drainage so I hope that it helps my case on the phone message. ha ha. Being sick and being a mommy is hard. I was really proud of myself the first few days of my cold because I was doing pre-school with blake and keeping up with errands, etc. but now by day 6 I am down to just trying to manage laundry and keep baby entertained. Blake has had cart blanche with the video games today and we plan to watch Gnomeo and Juliet when Trin gets home in about a half an hour. That is about all I can do right now.